Bill Kristol: No Kings

Summary

The Bulwark Podcast

Episode: Bill Kristol: No Kings
Date: March 30, 2026
Host: Tim Miller
Guest: Bill Kristol (Bulwark Editor at Large)

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Episode Overview

Tim Miller is joined by Bill Kristol to dig into the latest “No Kings” rallies—grassroots protests against Trump-era authoritarianism and erosion of democratic norms. They explore the shifting political landscape around these rallies, the expanding Iran war and congressional abdication, the economic fallout, Republican fractures, what Democrats could do differently, and end with lessons in dealing with disappointment drawn from college basketball heartbreaks. The conversation is both urgent and wry, suffused with the Bulwark’s signature mix of sober analysis and irreverence.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. No Kings Rallies: Atmosphere & Impact

[01:27–07:20]

Events Across America

• Tim describes New Orleans rally: diverse crowd—from communists to ex-Republicans, people in Statue of Liberty garb, local activist groups, and a “superhero” podcast fan.
• Bill discusses Waltham, MA: “A chillier, more lefty crowd, but all sensible… There were a lot of American flags and the signs were 90% homemade… very diverse for that reason.” (Bill Kristol, [02:35])
• Noted positive theme: Community building, registering dissent, organizing for future activism.
• Both agree the in-person, eclectic mix contrasts the narrower way online activism is sometimes portrayed.

Critiques & Threats

• Republican pushback much weaker than in previous protest rounds—a failed “these are antifa radicals” messaging effort fizzled.
• Ominous, Orwellian social media post by Rep. Clay Higgins threatens AI-based surveillance of rally attendees (Tim Miller, [08:13]):

  “We were carefully observing. It was pretty much a flawless operation. We have millions of digital images, billions of identifying data points. Height, weight, shoe size, tattoos, gait, all of it. AI eats that stuff. Success.”

• Bill finds this “genuinely creepy… It shows how unabashedly authoritarian the spirit of the Trump Republican Party is.” ([09:23])

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2. Authoritarianism & Executive War Power

[13:34–19:31]

Historical Parallel: Lincoln’s No Kings Letter

• Bill reads from Lincoln’s 1848 letter, denouncing Polk’s unilateral war powers—a direct resonance with today’s executive overreach ([14:44]):

  “Kings had always been involving and impoverishing their people in wars… The Constitutional Convention… resolved to so frame the Constitution that no one man should hold the power of bringing this oppression upon us. But your view destroys the whole matter and places our president where kings have always stood.”

• Bill: “It is weirdly apt for the no kings framing.”

Congressional Abdication

• Nearly a month into the Iran war, still no public hearings or meaningful congressional oversight.

  “Nothing to educate the public… It’s like we’re going to war because one man has decided so… no one has explained for even a minute why we’re doing it or justified it.” (Bill Kristol, [17:21])

• Criticism isn’t only for Republicans; Democrats could do more, both in “stunts” and substantive resistance (Tim Miller, [19:31]).

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3. Iran War: Latest Developments & Risks

[19:31–43:10]

White House Messaging and Escalation

• Trump’s contradictory social media posts—oscillating between threats (“obliterating all their electric generating plants”) and claims of “serious negotiations” ([21:56]).
• Sec. of State Rubio hints at secret counterparty in negotiations, but sparseness of info belies real progress.

On-the-Ground Updates

• Expectation of ground operations (per reporting and troop movement)—even Marine reservists warned to be ready ([22:47]).
• Both hosts are alarmed: All available evidence “cuts in the way of at least wanting to show that ground troops are in the area. Maybe it’s all a giant bluff—but some troops are probably going to get used.” (Bill Kristol, [22:54])

Elite (Ex-Official) Skepticism

• Kristol, after chatting with former generals/NSC types, notes:

  “They did not think there was any good case for ground troops and again, none has been made… We are literally going to put hundreds, thousands of soldiers and Marines on the ground in Iran perhaps, and no one has explained for even a minute why.” ([24:49])

Collateral Military & Economic Impacts

• US loses $700 million AWACS plane to Iranian missile ([25:26])
• Questions raised about White House downplaying losses (“Vietnam’s stew…”).
• Global economic ripples: Oil, treasuries up; supply chains constrained; farm bankruptcies rising ([27:30–29:40])
• DeSantis publicly snipes at Trump’s handling of the economy—a potential sign of 2028 GOP maneuvering ([27:50])
• Tim: “I think that the economic consequences are spiraling out of control and people are way too cavalier about it right now.” ([29:40])

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4. The Case for War: Rubio’s Best Argument—And Its Holes

[36:40–43:10]

• Rubio’s “best” case: “Now is the time to go after [Iran’s] missiles, take away their navy… so that they can never have a nuclear weapon. That’s why the President made this decision.” ([36:40])
• Israeli commentator: “Our generation’s task is to get this job done. It’s a test of resolve. If you have the resolve, you change the course of history.”
• Tim:

  “I think that like, to actually achieve this, you really would need regime change… That’s the case if we’re going to steal man their best case. But I don’t think it’s going to work.” ([38:15])

• Bill:

  “Finishing the job means regime change. Unless you are occupying the country or have a Venezuela-style chokehold… that’s not going to be the case for a country of 90 million people in the Middle East…” ([39:04])

• No clear plan on post-bombing outcomes or reopening the vital Strait of Hormuz—Rubio’s case “ultimately nuclear-focused… which probably does mean going into… those caves and stuff.” ([42:21])

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5. Democratic Leadership: Where Are They?

[43:41–47:36]

• DHS shutdown drama: Senate bipartisan deal rejected by House (and presumably Trump); airports under strain; Democrats urged to do more visible stunts, apply pressure, and hang shutdown solely on Republicans ([43:41]–[47:36]).

• Bill: “When you have that deal in the Senate… for Johnson to do that, that feels like Trump pulling that string and Johnson being the puppet and people should blame Trump for it.” ([45:26])

• Tim vents that Democrats “need more Marjorie Taylor Greene’s and Matt Gaetz’s”—i.e., more aggressive, media-savvy agitators—in order to break through public apathy and congressional lethargy.

  “We are in a crisis right now across multiple vectors… What excuse do you have to not be front and center yelling about this? You don’t have one.” ([47:36])

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6. Notable Quotes & Moments

On Civic Joy—and Creepy Threats

• “There were a lot of American flags, upbeat bands… Battle Hymn of the Republic… I came away pretty inspired.” – Bill Kristol ([02:35])
• Rep. Clay Higgins: “We have millions of digital images… AI eats that stuff. Success.” ([08:13])

On Congress Failing Its Duty

• “It’s like we’re going to war because one man has decided so… [with] no congressional nothing.” – Bill Kristol ([17:21])

On Executive Power & Lincoln’s Warning

• “No one man should hold the power of bringing [war] oppression upon us. But your view… places our president where kings have always stood.” – Abraham Lincoln, read by Kristol ([14:44])

On Democratic Messaging

• “Put on a clown costume. I don’t know what you want to do… 24 hours straight of streaming. Give me something. The degree to which the Democrats should feel like they’re politically on offense… should be taken advantage of.” – Tim Miller ([46:50])

On Lessons from Disappointment (March Madness Edition)

• “Life is about disappointment… had my sports heroes at 13 disappointed me… maybe I’d have been…better prepared for adulthood.” – Tim Miller ([58:10])

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [01:27–03:12] – No Kings rally reports from Waltham, MA and New Orleans
• [07:20–09:23] – Rep. Clay Higgins’ surveillance threat and reactions
• [13:34–16:05] – Lincoln’s “no kings” letter and executive authority
• [17:21–19:31] – Congress missing in action on Iran war
• [25:01–28:45] – Iran war military & economic fallout, criticism from within the GOP
• [36:40–41:11] – Rubio’s case for escalation, Israeli perspective, critique of “finish the job” logic
• [43:41–47:36] – DHS shutdown, Republican infighting, Democratic passivity
• [55:26–60:10] – Disappointment lessons for kids (Duke basketball loss)

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Final Thoughts

The episode brims with a sense of urgent exasperation at the Trump administration’s escalating Iran conflict and Congress’s abdication of its constitutional role—matched with concrete suggestions for how Democrats must confront these unprecedented times. The No Kings rallies are both symbol and substance—a cross-ideological, bottom-up movement to reassert democratic limits and communal civic spirit in an era where those values face extraordinary pressure. The closing segment on sports heartbreak mirrors the political moment: pain teaches resilience, but only if you stand up and fight harder the next time.

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Transcript

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[Tim Miller]

Hello and welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. It is Monday, so we are back with editor at large Bill Kristol. Bill's grandchildren suffered a devastating defeat over the weekend and we're going to save that for the end. We'll do some life lessons. It's important, you know, if you have children or grandchildren who've been disappointed recently. There are things that can be learned from that and we'll save that from the end. But we'll start with some positives. The no Kings rallies were happening over the weekend. I was in attendance at the New Orleans event. It looks like you were somewhere much chillier in the Northeast. What were your takeaways?

[Bill Kristol]

It was cold in Waltham, Massachusetts. I should come to New Orleans the next one. I was in Boston for various other reasons and went to the event with a couple of friends, their families actually in Waltham. Younger friends. It was good. It was great. I mean, it's a little different from McLean. McLean, Virginia is ex Republican ish types, many of whom I know I've lived here so long. And also, you know, hey, I remember you from, you know, this McCain event or from the Bush administration administration or our Weekly Standard subscribers. Waltham, which is a western suburb of Massachusetts, franchises there. It's a little past Cambridge and Belmont,

[Tim Miller]

all those places like I used to Hate you.

[Bill Kristol]

Yeah, that was more that. I can't believe we're on the same side here. 20 years ago, I was in this very place protesting against you. It's a little different vibe, but everyone was friendly. And I was struck by just the. I mean, so this is a more lefty, if you will, group. But they were all sensible, so far as I could tell. There were a lot of American flags. There was an attempt to keep on the basic message, but there was not no speeches. This was a thousand people or whatever, honking, but very upbeat bands kind of marching around playing Woody Guthrie, but also the Battle Hymn of the Republic. And so I came away pretty inspired, actually pretty impressed. What about you in New Orleans?

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, we had speeches which were good, and a lot of local activist groups. It's funny, on the Internet, this even actually ekes out into real life. I did the PBS show in Austin that Evan Smith interviews after our live event a couple weeks ago. And there's a Q and A period afterwards. And it's a lot of kind of old, earnest kind of npr. I mean, literally npr tote bag boomer liberals. In this case, since it was pbs. One or two of them asked me. They're like, my granddaughter, my son doesn't think this is cool to go to the no Kings protest. They're not engaging. They think it's only for corporate liberals and it's. Nothing is going to actually get done. And I was kind of saying to them, I don't. I don't think you should worry about that. And I think there's value to doing it. And it's funny, like, when you get out there in the real world, the no Kings, really, New Orleans was like, everybody, you know, there is the Communists at a booth and, you know, then there are the people dressed as the Statue of Liberty and you, the, you know, former Republicans. And I had a guy come up to me and say, you're my second favorite podcaster besides Hassan Piker. I was like, okay, well, that's an interesting pairing, but people are more complicated in the real world, you know, And I think that people have a lot of varying different views. And I think everybody I talked to felt good to be out there. It was a good crowd, registering dissent, organizing, planning, other stuff. And I think it's valuable for that, for local organizing as well, you know, getting people more engaged, particularly somewhere like Louisiana. To me, I think that the biggest element of success, sometimes you like to figure skate judge this stuff. And it's like, was it big enough? And was there an exact result the next day. And to me, like my big takeaway from a glass half full standpoint is there was a widespread, diverse but clear message coming from the opposition, which is that we don't like the lawless rule from this president. And some of us are really focused on Iran and others, on Epstein and others, on the economy and others on other stuff. Some of us are mad about everything. But there is a united opposition opposed to the lawlessness of this administration. And coming from the other side, there wasn't a message at all before the second no Kings. They tried a message which is that these people are all extremists and antifa and they're radicals and if you really love America, you should be on our side. That was the message they kicked around before no Kings 1 and 2. And they didn't even really do that this time. I mean, there was nothing coming out of the White House. The Republican National Committee did a homophobic joke about Tim Walls and I'm just like, okay, this is the best you got. Whatever.

[Bill Kristol]

I mean, it's a tribute to the no Kings, to the rallies and to the organizers of the rallies, I would say indivisible and others who really did a. I think again, a terrific job that that message flopped so badly in October about these are anti American terrorists and you know, communists and so forth that they've just decided to hope, I suppose, that the Trump people and that, you know, this just passes by quickly and they don't and they can. Physically ignoring it was better. But that's a tribute to the no Kings people, I would say. The only thing I. The point I'd make is I'm struck by people like you, Jim. So if we're in Cincinnati, people who were in real cities and there were speeches, it was a little more organized. People had booths. What's striking in Waltham, where it was on the town common, you know, they all have these commons up there in New England or McLean here. When I was there in October and Susan was there this time is. It really is just people getting together. And that's impressive. You know, there's no entertainment, really. I mean, there are people, you know, six person put together, impromptu band kind of thing. But they just came out and they wanted to show, you know, show the flag, so to speak, literally in some cases. And the signs were 90%, I'm going to say homemade, I mean, and very diverse for that reason, because people had their own things. And some were funny and some tried to be funny, weren't quite as funny and some were, some were Big and some were small. And it was really. I found that part kind of moving. I mean, one thing that always put me off, I'm not a big protest person anyway. And of course it's on the conservative side, so. But one thing that always put me off at these protests is the kind of the mass chance that has a slightly creepy overtone sometimes of, you know, but there was almost none of that here. It was genuine civic activism. I've got to say.

[Tim Miller]

I should say the gentleman that said that I was a second favorite podcaster was dressed up as a superhero I couldn't identify. So, you know, you get them in all. You get them in all flavors out there. I'm with you. It's not my most comfortable space, the protest. Just a candor, you know, it's just not where I. What I was built for. But I feel like for. There are other folks for whom it's very important and it's valuable and it's community building. And I think that that's good. And I think that it's good to demonstrate that folks aren't going to be intimidated or scared. And the fact that even if it does lose a little bit of its urgency for no Kings 4, which I assume there will be one, that is a good sign, right. That I think if you look at what happened in Minneapolis, for example, where the protesting was very urgent because people in their community were being menaced, the fact that folks stood out there and demonstrated strength and demonstrate that they can't be bullied mattered. And then that kind of opens the door for having these that are a little bit more in a festival spirit or whatever. There was one ominous thing tweeted by one congressperson I just, I do want to mention, because I don't want to let him get away with it. A Louisiana congressman, Clay Higgins, he posted this. This is a very strange post. It had four pictures of people from various no Kings rallies. And he tweets. We were carefully observing. It was pretty much a flawless operation. We have millions of digital images, billions of identifying data points. Height, weight, shoe size, tattoos, gait, all of it. AI eats that stuff. Success. So essentially a Republican congressman saying that whatever, ice cbp, Palantir was gathering pictures of people who showed up to those rallies and was going to use that for future attempts to crack down on a free population. I'm not really too scared that that's going to be successful, but it's pretty alarming that that's where an elected official in a free country is trying to take things.

[Bill Kristol]

Yeah, I mean, if they are doing that Palantir and DHS and all, they're kind of trying to cover it up. Right. They always deny they're doing it, which at least shows they kind of recognize they shouldn't be doing it. To have an actual elected member of Congress sort of championing it and celebrating it is genuinely creepy. It shows how authoritarian. I mean, he's not maybe typical, but he's not atypical. Exactly. And how unabashedly authoritarian. The spirit. I'm not saying anything new, but the spirit of the Trump Republican Party is I like the shoe size. That's kind of a Rubio. That was kind of, I thought, Florsheim's Marco Rubio kind of thing. I don't know what it is. It's like, well, there's kind of maybe shoe size was like, you know, subconsciously in his mind because of the ludicrousness of the, of Trump giving the oversized shoes to Rubio.

[Tim Miller]

I don't know where the Gates analysis came from, but, you know, this, this was a big thing at the Glenn Beck outlet that they decided that the pipe bomber.

[Bill Kristol]

That's right. That's where it was. They misidentified, they slandered that, that one person. They smeared that person.

[Tim Miller]

They slandered a woman, you know, who was a January 6 police officer, saying that she was the pipe bomber based on gait analysis. And then like a couple days later, the FBI arrested like one of the only people Cash has successfully arrested, somebody that, that, that admitted to being the January 6th pipe bomber. And now the blazo is not backing down. There just, there's just another post just last week about how this man that they arrested, his gait does not match the gate of the person on the video. The only time I'd ever heard gate was like at Churchill Downs, like in the horse context, like, does the horse have a good gait anyway? Or what was it that Mrs. Romney participated in dressage? They very clearly cared about the gate and Ann Romney cared about the gate in dressage. Longevity is all the rage these days because who wouldn't want to spend years and years in the Trump family empire? You want to make sure you can live as long as possible to see Barron's third term. And there's a lot of supplements out there making all kinds of promises on how you can do that. It's hard to know who to trust. So I'd recommend you start with the product that sold over 2 million bottles, has over 5,000 five star reviews, and is powered by Nobel Prize winning science Juvenon's Blood Flow 7 helps boost nitric oxide levels by up to 230% and open arteries by 62%, improving blood flow and circulation. You'll feel the effects in as little as 30 minutes, including support for healthy blood pressure, steady energy throughout the day, sharper mental clarity. That's important for me. Warmer hands and feet. It's also important for me. There's something about my extremities get a little chilly. My extremities get chilly. When I was in was I in high school, I don't think it was appropriate for me to be doing this, but I worked in the freezer of a liquor store stocking the shelves and that was not great for my fingies and my toes. I've always had weak extremity warmth. Juvedon is going to help with that. And, boy, I'm just reading this ad live right now for the first time. And the next thing that it says it'll help you with is even improved bedroom performance. So if that's a problem for you, something to look into. And for longevity, it can't be beat. Powerful blood flow is the river of life. And blood flow 7 helps transport oxygen and nutrients that heal and renew to all parts of the body. All it takes is two easy to swallow capsules every morning. Every Juvedin product is made in the USA. Thank God. Head to Bloodflow7.com the Bulwark and use code the Bulwark for 30 off your order. Once again, that's Bloodflow7.com the Bulwark for 30% off. And make sure you use my promo code the Bulwarks so they know I sent you anyway. Okay. I want to go to the latest from Iran. Just kind of set the table. Your newsletter was very good this morning and it kind of tied the no Kings message with what was happening in Iran and the lack of action from Congress. And you referenced a letter, as is your wont, from Lincoln to his friend regarding Polk entering a war with Mexico.

[Bill Kristol]

Yeah.

[Tim Miller]

And Lincoln was upset or in opposition to the unilateral engagement of war with Mexico. And this letter, it was another winner. It was Yates last week, Lincoln this week. Every once in a while you have some misses in the newsletter with your historical references, but I thought this one was also right on the nose. So why don't we start there?

[Bill Kristol]

Yeah. So Lincoln was against the Mexican War. I think Portland Graham said it was slavery, expansion and other grounds as well of just unjust war. And also that Polk had sort of unilaterally decided to both do it and then made a fake justification for it. Anyway, so he gave a speech in Congress, as I understand it, and he was a member of the House for one term, 1847-49. In January of 1848, he gives a speech denouncing Polk for taking the country to war on his own. Say so. A false say so. Lincoln claimed his law partner, Herndon, or I guess is back in Illinois, writes him a letter sort of defending, saying, oh, but the executive's got to have this discretion. And so we don't have Herndon's letter. We have, I'll just read maybe a couple sentences. We have Lincoln's letter, which is, you can see in the complete Lincoln works here. And incidentally, I did not like remember this or find this myself. Other people have cited this online in the last few weeks.

[Tim Miller]

Okay, Bill, come on.

[Bill Kristol]

We don't need falsehoods sometimes. Like Yates, I actually like remembered that this is. Other people had cited it. So I looked it up. However, I mean, Lincoln's fantastic, you know, so he says, first of all, your position, as I understand it, is that the president can invade the territory of another country. And whether there's a necessity to do so, in any case, the president is to be the sole judge. So it's very apt to the current moment. And he says, you know, allow the president to invade a nation whenever he shall deem it necessary, and you allow him to do so whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such purpose. You allow him to make war at pleasure. The provision of the Constitution giving the war making power to Congress was dictated, as I understand it. Lincoln continues by the following reasons. Kings had always been involving and impoverishing their people in wars, pretending generally, if not always, that the good of the people was the object. This our convention, the Constitutional Convention, understood to be the most oppressive of all kingly oppressions. And they resolved to so frame the Constitution that no one man should hold the power of bringing this oppression upon us. But your view destroys the whole matter and places our president where kings have always stood. It is weirdly apt for the no kings framing. And so that's why other people, I think cited it and why I took their citation and cited it myself.

[Tim Miller]

Where is Congress right now? It is not just about the vote for the war making power, which obviously is the prime issue in controversy. There have been very few hearings. I think Roger Wicker is the chairman of the Armed Services Committee in the Senate. He's one of these guys who kind of pretends to be an old school Reagan Republican. Still, the last time Roger Wicker came to my attention, I forget he's in the Senate still a lot of times. The last time he came to my attention, he was wearing a Ukraine and America joint pin on his lapel. I forget if it was during the State of the Union or during some prominent hearing. And I found myself, like, screaming at my screen, like, you could do something about this. It was like, right in this moment where Trump was taking away funds from Ukraine. So this is another moment. Right? And they run these committees. They could have Pete Hegseth over, they could have General Kane over. There's plenty of things to ask about, and obviously a vote, authorization of the war is more important. But just the scale of their abdication, I think, is also highlighted by the fact that they're not even doing other elements of kind of basic congressional responsibility.

[Bill Kristol]

Yeah, we're a month into the war. No public hearings, some confidential, classified hearings. Not many, incidentally, and brief ones. And people have walked out, dissatisfied, including Wicker himself. But what they're being told, the lack of clarity or even just information that's being provided. And that's it, so far as I know. Nothing to educate the public. The Trump administration does nothing to try to lay out a case for the war or now a case for ground troops, the prospect of which seems imminent or likely or at least very possible. Nothing. And they feel no obligation. It's like we're going to war because one man has decided, so we're conducting it in a way that one man wishes he has. He, you know, puts out different messages every day or conflicting messages or threats and promises and claims his administration is not much more responsible than he is. Honestly. I guess the chairman of the Joint Chiefs is a little more. Is more responsible, but he's very careful and very limited in what he says. And that, in a way, is the one place where you're entitled to be careful and limited because it's actual military operations. I mean, it's very bad for the point of view of Democratic governance, the constitutional congressional authority. And so the Republicans, obviously, are to blame for this. The Republicans who control Congress, on the other hand, I also say, and I say this, I guess, in the morning shots a little bit, that Democrats could do more to complain about this and to make more of a fuss and, you know, scream and yell about what are we doing here now we're gonna have ground troops, and there's still no hearings, no authorization, no nothing. Can we at least have a vote on the ground troops? Fine. You had Bombing for a month. They shouldn't give that away. But still, they can't do anything about that at this point. Massive bombing campaign for a month and now substantial numbers of ground troops to the region and maybe engaged in combat on Iranian soil. No congressional nothing. I mean, it really. I think they could be much more indignant, upset and outraged about it. And incidentally, where Congress literally is, is on recess for two weeks. Two weeks, fine. I'm Passover Wednesday and Thursday night, Good Friday and then Easter. I give them Wednesday to Sunday off. But maybe they could come back, like on next Monday and not have a whole nother week off. And when we're in the middle of a war and Trump's escalating it in very serious and, you know, potentially fateful

[Tim Miller]

ways, it is crazy. They're off. And I mean, the Democrats also could do. And they could do stunts. Yeah, stunts are available. You could go back to the Hill. You could go back on Monday and stand on the steps and have a no war with Iran rally. You must vote. We must vote on this war. And there are plenty of things you could do. We'll come back to the political in a second. I just want to give people just an update on where we're at. We're doing little updates over the blorg takes feed over the weekend so you guys can tune into those if you're a real sicko, but for everyone else. So over the weekend, Trump was kind of signaling increased escalation and troops based on his bleats on his social media media feed. And he posted a Mark Thiessen article from Washington Post where Thiessen was arguing for Trump not losing his nerve and escalating and kind of babies Trump by giving him a Rudyard Kipling poem where, you know, he's like, he's like, the great man doesn't get bored like this kind of thing. Trump also told people to tune in to Mark Levin, Life Liberty and Levin, where Levin was talking about sending in ground troops. Actual troops have been moved to the Middle East. Lots of discussion and smoke around this idea that we might go in to actually seize the nuclear material. A lot of signaling towards actual ground troops. Then this morning, he posts a bleat right before the markets open again, saying that the US Is in serious negotiations with a new and more reasonable regime to end our military operations in Iran. Great progress has been made. That's the beginning of the bleat second half of the bleach. If they don't do that, we will conclude our lovely stay in Iran by blowing up and completely obliterating all their electric generating plants, oil wells and Kharg island, and possibly all desalination plants, which we have purposely not yet touched. So that's the message this morning from Trump. We have a more reasonable regime that we're negotiating with. If we don't do it, we'll do war crimes. I should note that simultaneously to that bleach, Secretary of State Rubio is on Good Morning America. He's been doing a ton of interviews and he said that there is someone that we're negotiating with but won't say who because it could get those people in trouble. And there are some fractures going on internally in Iran, which it doesn't seem that optimistic to me. If we can't even say who we're negotiating with, we have to have a secret counterparty because everyone in Iran is so mad at us that that counterparty might get, who knows, I don't know, overthrown if they seem to be too nice to us. I guess my point is that doesn't really seem to be the thing that you say if you're on the brink of a breakthrough, which is we're negotiating with someone who we have to keep in secret because there are other people who really hate us internally.

[Bill Kristol]

And just to finish up sort of what happened over the weekend, Dan Lamoth, who's a very good defense reporter in the Washington Post, reported Saturday night that a lot of troops are en route and sort of suggested a lot of people in the Pentagon expect there to be ground operations, combat operations on Iranian soil. Maybe not a mass massive invasion, but more than just occasional special Forces, on the other hand. And then it could be Carg island, it could be the nuclear stuff, it could be the strait, some combination of all these, could be some other things. And then there's a journal report last night about the nuclear side. So there's plenty of reporting, like Marines

[Tim Miller]

received a letter from the Marine leadership,

[Bill Kristol]

Marine reservists, I think. Yeah, like you should be ready, too. Which suggests maybe they're going to call up Marine reserves.

[Tim Miller]

I don't know.

[Bill Kristol]

I think, I think I'm right there. Service. So, yeah, so there's a lot of evidence as well as trumpy vibes that cut in the way of at least wanting to show that ground troops are in the area. Maybe it's all a giant bluff and so forth. They ran into randomly some people who know quite a lot about this sort of ex general, ex national security types. They're pretty convinced that Trump, when you do all these preparations, this one Puts me, you should probably bet on the fact that some of these troops are going to get used. Some of them are more trumpy than you and I are. Some of them are sort of, you know, ambivalent about the war could work out okay. They had a whole theory of it which was very consistent with that Israeli leak the other day about massive bombing efforts that might bring Iran to the table and reopen the strait and let us get out with sort out adequate outcome, you might say. Mostly it's just reopening the strait that was already closed, but you know, doing a lot of damage to their military capacities and stuff. They were all against any of the use of ground troops that had been in the media. They think the Carg island thing is crazy. They think the strait is pretty crazy. We could get some ships through the strait if we want to really deploy a lot of naval assets and some air assets over them and maybe some special forces on selected parts of the bank of the strait. But I mean, even there it's not clear it's worth it anyway. That's a very targeted operation. But the idea of actually going to seize land, they are all against it. And these are people, as I say, who are not exactly, some of whom were ambivalent about the war, some of whom have been involved in the military against Iran for a long time and in other agencies. So I was very struck by that. Now, maybe, look, maybe they don't know. They would always be cautious. They don't want to second guess Admiral Cooper or Chairman Kane. Maybe the military has better plans than they realize. But these are people who know a lot more than I do. And I was just struck by, as I say, not the unanimity. They didn't quite have my position, which is basically we should just cut our losses at this point. But they did not think there was any good case for ground troops and again, none has been made. I mean, that's what's most striking. We are literally going to put hundreds, thousands of soldiers and Marines on the ground in Iran perhaps, and no one has explained for even a minute why we're doing it or justified it.

[Tim Miller]

Kind of have a little bit of a justification from Rubio over the weekend, but I want to save that for a second. So it's been the most clear thing that we've heard. But I just want to run through a couple of the other news items. First, another thing that we should have mentioned was that a plane sitting on the Runway and Saudi was absolutely obliterated by an Iranian missile. This is type plane I'm sure you know more about this than me that we don't have that many of.

[Bill Kristol]

It's an awacs. It's the ones that fly around with all the radar. I think we have 16 of them operational right now and this is one of them. And I think it costs $600 million or something like that.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, I read 700 million, but whatever. Umpteen hundred million.

[Bill Kristol]

And it was demolished, right?

[Tim Miller]

Totally demolished.

[Bill Kristol]

And the original reporting, if I could just say, I think the original indications from both CENTCOM and certainly from the administration, from the White House, you know, it's been damaged. So I think one now has to worry a little bit about Vietnam's stu. Are we being totally honest about every aspect of how it's going?

[Tim Miller]

I feel that way about the Gerald Ford and I don't really know, but like they said about the Gerald Ford, the big ship, that there was a laundry fire and that's why it was out of commission. But yet then when Trump was on stage one time recently, he was talking about how the ship was under fire from Iran from a bunch of different directions. That makes me wonder. Anyways, the Gerald Florida thing, I think, I think that you have to at least question whether they're telling us the truth about the kind of attacks that we're suffering. So another report that happened after that is that we're now, I guess, searching for more underground facilities to protect our military, our material, our planes and other tanks, etc. Does seem like the kind of thing that you probably should have thought of before the war. A lot of people have been paying very close attention to the Ukraine, Russia war. So this was like a big takeaway that because of the new drone warfare, now you have to. The manner in which you have to protect your own equipment is different than it would have been 10, 20 years ago. Apparently we didn't do that. And then moving on to the economic impact, oil prices are up again this morning. 30 year treasuries are up to about 5%. We're getting close to Great Recession territory in the bond markets. This is not necessarily exactly related, but farm bankruptcies. There's a new report out this morning, doubled last year. Certainly that's gonna be exacerbated by the increase in fertilizer prices that we're seeing now. We had meatball Ron DeSantis, governor of Florida. I thought this was a notable signal. He posted this yesterday. Market seems to be pricing in further inflation. Mortgage rates up in recent weeks. And he shows a link to a picture with like stocks going down and bond prices going up, you know, doesn't say Trump by name. Not exactly a profile in courage, but pretty notable, I think, for DeSantis to be weighing in on the economic consequences of this.

[Bill Kristol]

Yeah, I hadn't seen the desantis thing. That is interesting. So you think he runs in 2028 as the kind of real America first candidate and Vance is stuck with Trump's war? Is that the theory? I guess, yeah.

[Tim Miller]

I don't know if he's quite savvy enough for that. I don't know if he demonstrated a lot of savvy. I think probably what he's eyeing is competence. Can I run, like, I think in his head, you think Florida did great under me and this under Trump, and maybe I can run under that rubric. But the fact that somebody like that, like not a Tom Massey, not a libertarian, not somebody who's retired, you know, not whatever, like a active Republican in good standing who ostensibly maybe cares about his political future, and obviously he's term limited out as governor, but he could run for Senate, could run for president again. For him to even be kind of dipping the toe in the water of criticizing the administration's handling the economy is pretty noteworthy.

[Bill Kristol]

No, I think your interpretation is better than mine in the sense that I'm overthinking it with the America first time. It's more like if you are a Trump administration member and participant in this war, which is Nancy Rubio, maybe that's not the right place to be, and maybe the combination of whatever military mishaps there are and not turning out well itself, and then the economic side of it, maybe it's just better to be the tough right winger who wasn't part of this administration. But it's very revealing that DeSantis is taking this moment. I guess doing it on the economy is a little safer for him maybe, than doing it on the foreign policy and military side. But it is striking. Some people he's talking to are probably pretty good economists. This thing goes much longer. The economic consequences get very real and very hard to correct in the near term. One week, everyone understands, okay, hiccup. It's done some damage, but you come back after a month, two months, now you're talking real. I think you are talking then recession and stuff like that.

[Tim Miller]

Predictions are hard in politics. I was doing this thing, I was saying this when I was asked about this last weekend, and I was like, look, we can mark this down and come back to it in Labor Day, and you can clip it and be like, tim, you are Overly catastrophizing. It's possible, I think that the economic consequences are spiraling out of control. And I think that people are way too cavalier about it right now and imagining that Trump is just going to can just stop the war and that everything basically goes back to normal and there's some disruptions and that by the fall or whatever, like we're back to some pre war kind of baseline. I just don't think so. If you just, you know, kind of look around the world and just this morning, like I'm, you know, poking around the Internet for the podcast and it's like a politician in Italy is talking about how they're having trouble sleeping at night thinking about the consequences. And I forget somewhere in the United Kingdom they're already having like on one of the Isle of Wight or something. Like they're already having oil shortages. Like Sam sent the story in India where some ingredient, the butter chicken, they can't make butter chicken chicken now. And they're little things but right. Like if you shut down this major thorough way where there's aluminum, where there's fertilizer, where there are the ingredients going to fertilizer or there is helium in addition to oil, like all the products that are made out of it, plastics, etc, it's been 30 days already. It's been 30 days. Even if it goes on just another month, 60 days. That is a long time to kind of reintegrate the supply chains in the global economy. And the economy is already shaky. Before the startup, the economy was already unshaky. We hadn't created any jobs this year. According to General Powell, we had a net zero job creation in 2026 in our country. So I think it's a disaster. And I think that right now people are looking at it like gas prices are going to be up a little bit. That's not great. I think we're looking at 2022 style inflation and disaster coming forward. And I'm not an economist, so, you know, if you're listening to this and you think I'm wrong, you can clip it and play it back to me at Labor Day and we'll see how things look. Megyn Kelly also agrees with me, which is concerning. That's an anti signal. She's just posted, just posted. I just said to me right now this is a five alarm fire. And she posted a poll with Trump at 33% approval. One poll. But you know, he seems less responsive to all that stuff than before. Whether it, you know, there's the dark version of the theory The JVL version of the theory is he's not ever planning on leaving, so he doesn't care about this. Or maybe there's more of like the optimistic version of the theory, which is he's thinking about his legacy and he wants, you know, and he cares about that more than his political standing. He doesn't give a fuck about the House and Senate Republicans, so whatever. Or maybe it's just he has dementia or ADHD and he's just like living minute to minute and he doesn't have object permanence and can't think long term. There's some combination of all those things that he seems less responsive to the political implications than he would have been in the first term.

[Bill Kristol]

If he sort of agrees with us on the economy deep down and sort of thinks that stuff's already bad, so I got to at least win the war. But that can be very dangerous because then it really leads to escalation and risk taking on the military and geopolitical side and sort of discounting all the economic stuff is already done. I just think 60 days is very different from 30 days. It seems like a lot of companies have 30, 45 days of reserves. Some of Taiwan has 12 more days of what they need for the chips. Supposedly something like that. So 12 plus the 30, it's been cut off. But it seems like this, you hit a point and it isn't sort of incremental at some point. Right. It's just, you're out, it's expensive. Yeah. They just can't make any more chips, you know, and so that's kind of bad. And who knows where and what supply chains is all hitting. But it has a feeling of getting close to a tipping point.

[Tim Miller]

There's a big Atlantic article today about the. Whatever you think about the AI boom, it's been partially carrying the economy where there isn't a lot of other growth industries right now. Private prisons, crypto and data centers. As the Trump economy and home health care workers deported all the immigrants that were doing that. Those are the four places where you see job growth. And it's like it could be a major crisis in that, in the AI industry. Right. Just because they need more and more of all those things. Steel, helium, oil. One thing that you start to learn about as you get older in life is the importance of consistency, dependability. The Bill Kristol Monday podcast. Consistent, dependable. You know you're getting it from us reflects the numbers. I can see it. You guys know, you come, you know you're going to be here On Monday, you know it's going to be Bill. You're unsure about my other guest choices. You shouldn't be. Because I'm, I'm. It's like all bangers, bangers. Only on my guests. But you're not always sure. And you know that Bill's going to be good and he's going to be dependable. And the same is true for American Giant. The American Giant full zip hoodie is styled for everyday comfort and crafted for a lifetime of durability. So it's ready for anything from a casual stroll to a hard day at work. From cotton to zipper, this legendary hoodie is made right here in the usa. Slate magazine and my husband called the greatest hoodie ever made. We're loving American Giant in the household. I need a new batch. To be honest, I need a summer batch of American Giant because my last batch was this winter batch, which some of you guys still need. Because I was watching you in your no Kings rallies and I was like caught me off guard a couple times looking at the social media pictures that we were posting of my colleagues at the no Kings rallies. They were in scarves. I was wondering if this was accidentally the last no Kings rally. But I understand that it's still scarf weather in other parts of the country. And if it is, you should just steal my American Giant wardrobe because I've got a long sleeve tee. It's kind of maroonish. That's I really like. I've got a plaid shirt. It's nice and warm. Plaid is nice for spring and fall. Then there's the hoodie. We've mentioned the hoodie. It's wonderful. The iconic classic full zip hoodie is the jacket that started it all for America. Giant custom heavyweight fleece and side panels for mobility make it the best hoodie ever. It's also body skimming. I can vouch for that. With the double lined hood and reinforced elbow patches, that means this hoodie will last. It's the kind of difference you'll feel and appreciate for years to come. Stay ready for anything with the American Giant Classic Full zip and save 20% off your first [e-mail] when you use code bulwark at checkout, that's 20% off your first order at american-giant.com code bulwark. Okay, I wanted to give the counterpoint, but it is important, I think, especially when I'm apoplectic. My level of catastrophizing is beyond where I've been in a while, at least about the state of the country. And how things are going to turn out in Trump 2.0. I'm not an economist or a military expert, so it's important to listen to others, hear what the case is for the fact that this is going to be okay. I think that Rubio gave the clearest case for what they're doing over the weekend. Let's listen to it.

[Marco Rubio]

Let me explain to you guys this in simple English, okay? Iran is run by lunatics, religious fanatic lunatics. They have an ambition to have nuclear weapons. They intend to develop those nuclear weapons behind a program of missiles and drones and terrorism that the world will not be able to touch them for fear of those things. And this is the weakest they've ever been. Now is the time to go after them. The President made the decision to go after take away their missiles, take away their navy, take away their drones, take away their ability to make those things so that they can never have a nuclear weapon. That's why the President made this decision. It was the right decision. And the world will be a safer place when these radical clerics no longer have access to these weapons. You see how they're using them now. Imagine how they would use them a year from now if they had more of these.

[Tim Miller]

So that I think, is at least honest, which is unlike what they've been saying otherwise, which is that Iran was weak, which is why they went into this. Not that Iran was an imminent threat, but that they saw them as so weak that this was the opportunity to eviscerate the regime. Javier Grevig is an Israeli analyst. Quote, tweeted that video and said this perfectly. Said Marco, my kids just spent a month in shelters so they won't have to spend years of their lives afraid or far worse. Our generation's task is to get this job done. It's a test of resolve. If you have the resolve, you change the course of history. So that is the case, I think, for the people who are like, don't turn this around, that Iran is so weak that they really can finish the job in a few weeks. If you're Israeli, obviously that is a potentially existential opportunity or a very serious opportunity given the scale of the threats from Iran and their proxies. If you're us, maybe that is an opportunity because your role is world leader and who knows, prevent future destabilization. Iran is so weak. I don't think that there's a ton of evidence for this, particularly the way that warfare is going to China and, or Russia and. Or other countries could rearm Iran, particularly With the, you know, drone capabilities and other capabilities, I don't know how long that's going to take. So I think that like, to actually achieve this, you really would need regime change. Right. Like the idea that the Ayatollah junior is going to not continue to go after, you know, weapons and that this is going to be something that is, you know, going to resonate for years and years to come. I find that a little hard to believe. But anyway, that's the case if we're going to steal, man, their best case, that is it.

[Bill Kristol]

Yeah, no, no, I agree with that. But finishing the job means regime change because otherwise I know Haviv Gore, he's a wonderful guy. I mean, I'm afraid if you leave that regime in place, unless you are occupying the country or unless you have a kind of Venezuela style chokehold on it, which is not going to be the case for a country of 90 million people in the Middle east with relations with China and Russia, that regime will threaten to rebuild weapons. And maybe you can go in and mold grass, as they like to say, you know, every six or 12 months and stop it. But it really is a case for innovation. It's the case for Iraq. I mean, that's what sounded like. And you know, it wasn't a crazy case. It turned out to be not to go well. But though, incidentally, Iraq is not a threat to anyone right now because whatever. Even though the war was a mistake and didn't go well, at the end of the day it was a. We did change the regime.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah. Seven year commitment.

[Bill Kristol]

Yeah. But I mean, that's not what Trump envisions. It's not what they prepared for. And there's all kinds of stuff you would have had to have done militarily to make that plausible. Now the massive bombing to just so degrade the place that they can't come back for years, not just for months, that the regime is in shambles, even if it's controlling it. Sort of. Maybe there's massive state failure. I think that's kind of what Israel is now hoping for. Kind of just chaos. And this country of 90 million people is a horrible mess.

[Tim Miller]

You know, for a refugee crisis in Iran would be amazing for stability in the Middle East.

[Bill Kristol]

No, that's got its own horrible spill effects, obviously. Having said all that, the Strait of Hormuz is closed. Rubio did not say anything about that. And look, that would be essentially the argument for Iraq. Whatever you think of Iraq, God knows if we paid a terrible price in human price and Iraqi paid a Human price and Iraqi deaths and then some economic price. But we didn't have the equivalent of the Strait of Hormuz closing and a possible global slowdown that was not really related to Iraq. What happened in 2007, 2008? I don't think so again, you've got to also be. So build that into your equation there of costs and benefits. So, I mean, if they wanted to do what Rubio said, they needed to have had a plan ahead of time to prevent the most obvious thing the enemy was going to do, which is close the strait. Right.

[Tim Miller]

They also are increasing the number of missiles and drones they're shooting every single day. Like if you look at the chart, like, right, this was the chart that the Trump side was showing at the beginning to show how successful it's been, which was like they shot 100 missiles. I'm just making this up. I don't have in front of me, you know, day one and then by day six they were shooting 15. But now we're at day 30 and it's back up to like 30. Right. You know, again, just, just using those as kind of ballpark figures. You've seen the increase now again, so like there isn't a ton of evidence of that. One of the other military guys I follow was saying that, you know, like, the one third of Iran's capabilities were very easy to get rid of, was low hanging fruit. Another third we can maybe get rid of is possible, but like last third is very challenging, you know, because of how they built it out, because of the mountains, because, you know, a variety of, variety of reasons. And on top of that, you know, the drone capability allows for asymmetric war. And we've seen this in Ukraine and here we are like Ukraine is now doing deals with the UAE and Qatar so they can learn the Ukrainian technology of how to deal with this. So I listen to the Rubio case and it's like, okay, that at least is a straightforward argument for what they're trying to do that is not based on obvious lies. I'm not sure it's going to work, but I don't think it's going to work. Let me be clear.

[Bill Kristol]

No. And it seems to be nuclear focused ultimately, which probably does mean going into or getting a regime that's willing to get rid of of what they have locked up there in those caves and stuff.

[Tim Miller]

What are they going to get out of that deal?

[Bill Kristol]

Well, also, just how are we going to do it and how are we going to know we've done it again, the way we knew that we didn't Saddam turn out not to have the weapons of mass destruction program moving back ahead as we thought. But nonetheless, the reason we would know that we had gotten rid of Saddam's Iraq's weapons of mass destruction threat and arrest threats to his neighbors and they had invaded neighbors consistently for the preceding 40 years is that we both got rid of the regime and we took over the country and so there were no weapons of mass destruction to speak of left there. We're not willing to do either in this case and are able to do either in this case. So I don't quite know how we get to what Rubio thinks we're going to get to

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[Tim Miller]

the DHS when we last spoke on Friday, it seemed like there was a deal because senators, Republican senators, were sick of the shutdown. I don't know if they're just annoyed with waiting in long lines. Delta said they no longer got priority access. And so the Republican senators like okay, that's enough for me. I've felt enough pain. There was essentially a unanimous bipartisan effort in the Senate to say, hey, we're going to fund all of DHS except ICE and some parts of cbp and then we'll move forward and debate the rest of the it went to the House. Mike Johnson said no. The House Republicans said no, we're not going to do this. They funded an eight week extension of all dhs, including ice. Obviously that is not going to land anywhere in the Senate. So we're still at an impasse. TSA agents still not getting paid. Who knows what other parts of DHS are not being funded adequately given the domestic security threats we have right now. They're on vacation for a week and a half, as you mentioned, two weeks. Again, this is another thing that I'm back to the Democrats on with. It's just I feel like the Democrats have won this fight now because they got the Republicans in the Senate to agree to their proposal and now it's Mike Johnson and Donald Trump that are holding it up. And I don't know, I mean, shouldn't they be standing outside of airports with signs being like, Republicans did this. Flying back to Washington themselves to have stunts outside the White House? Outside the House. Go to Mike Johnson's district and be like, fund the tsa. I don't know. And there are a million things you could do. I do think that on both the WAR and dhs, I could use a little more pedal to the metal.

[Bill Kristol]

Yeah, I agree. Incidentally, does Mike Johnson do that without consulting with Trump? Did Trump tell him kill this deal? I mean, I haven't seen much reporting on this. I mean, I feel like it's being treated as if, I don't know. These House Republicans, they're just kind of ornery and they just decided not to go along with this deal. But it's not that. I mean, when you have that deal in the Senate and Thune and everyone sign off on it, including all the Trump loyalists in the Senate and then for Johnson to do that, that feels like Trump pulling that string and Johnson being the puppet and people should blame Trump for it. I agree.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, it is Trump's fault. It's their fault now.

[Bill Kristol]

Yeah.

[Tim Miller]

I mean the Republicans at least had an argument when the Democrats were shutting it down over ICE and they had the, you saw this argument basically when Greg Kazar in Austin and John Cornyn had a confrontation where Greg Gazar was like, you aren't paying these people. And he's like, no, you guys aren't paying these. And you went back and forth and there was kind of like each side had a point. There's no point anymore. And the Republicans passed a funding bill in the Senate and it's just now House Republicans and Trump that are the ones that are holding it up. And so, I don't know, put on a clown costume. I don't know what you want to do. Whatever. 24 hours straight of streaming, do anything. Give me something. I would just. I think that the degree to which the Democrats should feel like they're politically on offense because of the multi front disaster that Donald Trump is overseeing should be taken advantage of.

[Bill Kristol]

Totally agree. And look, there are 47 whatever Democratic senators and 212 or something like that, 213, I can't remember Democratic members of the House. Now they can all do their own thing. It doesn't have to be. I mean people, Jeffries and Schumer, I mean, fine, they should do more too, honestly. But I'm not sure they're the best spokespeople either. But let everyone do it in their own district, go to their airports locally and Say this place is closed because of Donald Trump and Mike Johnson. I mean, how can a House Democrat

[Tim Miller]

not do that, make a scene?

[Bill Kristol]

Well, half of them can't do it because they're out Codell's, you know, in some nice European capital or something like that. You know, examining our diplomatic, you know, how we're doing in diplomacy in Paris or something. I don't know what they're doing or they're just enjoying. And I don't mean to be. You know, they get to spend Passover Easter with their families and all, but still, yeah, they need to really hammer them on both. Both the war and ice.

[Tim Miller]

You know, I'm becoming basically a Tea Party Democrat now. I'm becoming one of the insane people I made fun of in the. In the focus groups. Five years ago, I wrote, there's this focus group that I remember that really stuck with me, I've mentioned a couple times, but it's like, I forget why Sarah had convened like a group of. It was Alabama, Georgia, and Florida Maga Republicans. I forget why it was those three states. But anyway, I just have this very clear memory of one person in the focus group saying, the only members of Congress that are doing anything are Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene. And everybody going around being like, yeah, we need more people like that. And, you know, I was sitting there watching it being like, these guys are stupid and they don't know anything and they don't realize Congress does serious work. It's like Congress doesn't actually do work anymore. And so those people are kind of right. The Democrats need more Marjorie Taylor Greene's and Matt Gaetz that draw attention and get people to understand what's going on. I looked at a list of the California Democratic delegation for some other project I'm working on over the weekend, and it's like, I haven't even heard of half the people. What are you doing? What are you doing? We are in a crisis right now across multiple vectors. We are in a Democratic crisis, but we also are in this stupid war. Department of Homeland Security is shut down. Like, what excuse do you have to not be front and center yelling about this? You don't have one. And they should find congresspeople who are capable of getting attention for this if the others aren't able.

[Josh Spiegel]

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[Bill Kristol]

You.

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[Alex Kantrowitz]

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[Tim Miller]

All right, there's my rant. I did want to mention the pardons. We're going to just skip over it today, but I just want to leave this with people. There's a pro public article that's truly insane about a Trump. Trump pardoned a nursing home owner, Joseph Schwartz. Schwartz had a $39 million fraud scheme. The families who won the wrongful death suits against Schwartz haven't received a cent. This guy got a pardon and there's like a whole list of Medicare fraudsters to other healthcare fraudsters that this guy's pardoned, which I think is pretty notable in the context of all the Somali bullshit in Minnesota. In addition to that, Trump was on Air Force One. We talked about how the Democrats aren't maybe doing enough to focus on all the various outrages. Here's what the President of the United States was focusing on. He was on the plane coming home from one of his clubs this weekend. He takes out a huge like cardboard picture of the new ballroom and he starts going through to the reporters. I don't know if they were all from Newsmax or something because none of them were objecting to this. They were all asking him follow up questions about it. But he was showing them the pictures of the new ballroom, saying things like it's going to have an open porch on the top level. Underneath there'll be a closed porch under the columns. It's hand carved. The columns are Corinthian columns that it's the top, top of the line marble. He's like going through all of the details of the construction that is happening. And you know, I mean, like the country is unraveling right now while he's talking about the marble armrests at the Kennedy center and, like, what the portico is going to look like. The Corinthian Portico.

[Bill Kristol]

Morning shots at the end, we have the, you know, the cheap shots. Cheap shots. Yeah. Cricket, cheap shots. Trying to keep Australia. We have the cheap shots. And it was a very witty tweet by someone saying that Trump. This says it all right. Trump is personally reviewing the plans for the board in quite a lot of detail, apparently. I mean, who knows, insisting on his chintzy gold everywhere and on fake columns, as you say, and all the right kind of columns that he likes better, the Corinthian ones, and all this so that he's really engaged in the actual war. He seems to be depending on, you know, what he sees on Fox or even less reputable outlets and then things he vaguely remembers from some briefing he got somewhere about this island might be worth getting.

[Tim Miller]

Or they're showing in the videos, the highlight reels, the bombs hitting things. It's really bleak.

[Bill Kristol]

I mean, I suppose the slight defense one could give the Democrats. It gets back to DeSantis point, too, is maybe he's digging himself pretty big hole. And honestly, given the Democrats issues some of them with being very good at messaging, maybe they should. They could just, they're probably telling themselves, you know what, we'll just stay out of the way. He's going down in the polls. There's this new one you mentioned, though, apparently of him at 33%. I guess that would be the slightly generous, more than slightly generous account of why some of the Democrats don't need to be screaming and yelling all the time. Except I do think on the war in particular, but also dhs, they actually have a constitutional obligation to be serious about this and to try to stop. You know what, if they scream enough about the ground troops, they might stop Trump from doing the ground troops either. I don't think legally stop him, but they might deter him from going down that path. He thinks, oh, my God, this really could be even more of a disaster. And that would be a service to the country. I mean, it really would be a service to the country. So I don't think it excuses them, but I can see that they're. Don't you think they might be telling themselves quietly, when they're rationalizing taking the week off on some nice place, that Trump's doing plenty of damage to himself? We don't have to do too much.

[Tim Miller]

Sure. Okay. That's fine. I know that part of this is about fulfilling my Emotional needs.

[Bill Kristol]

Well, but some of it's real too.

[Tim Miller]

So this hierarchy of needs. But you would think that there would be, I mean, Jason Crow Shout out goes on FOX from time to time. R. Kelly has been doing this a little bit. But I don't know, let me put it this perspective. The stupid Piers Morgan show on the Internet. People are like, why do you go on Tim And I sometimes. And I say no to them a lot. And I usually go on whenever Trump has done something so outrageous that I feel compelled to yell. But also I know that my counterparty can't even offer up a bullshit defense right like that. I wait until the moment where I'm on the strongest footing to eviscerate any MAGA apologist. Okay, this is that moment for going on FOX if you're a Democratic politician. I mean, the country is in shambles. The economic situation is a disaster. The war is going way worse than they said it was going to go. Like people can't even fly anywhere because the House Republicans and Trump are shutting down the airports and not paying TSA agents and sending ICE agents to the airports apparently. Like this is the moment to go on FOX and say to people like people, you signed up for this for no new wars and for lower costs and we're in the stupidest war I could possibly think of and everything is costing more and it's about to get worse. If you don't want to do a stunt, Fox will have you. There are people on Fox that'll have you. There have to be at least four Democrats who are capable of going on Fox. That's my request for any staffers that are listening to this.

[Bill Kristol]

Maybe they are going on their local news to be fair and maybe they are doing their standups outside the airport in their community and flaming the incumbent. I mean, in Texas, Houston seems to be one of the worst. The big Houston airport, not hobby, but George H.W. bush and I assume Talarico is making hay with that.

[Tim Miller]

That's happening and they should keep doing that. That's good. Doing stuff in community is there. But it's Also the year 2026 and a lot of people are getting their information right here and not on, not on their local news. All right. Lessons for children and grandchildren. Was it your daughter that went to Duke or was it your son in law?

[Bill Kristol]

Our oldest daughter Rebecca went to Duke and met her now husband there. And so they're both Duke grads. They waited like in the insane thing where they sleep out there at Duke, you know, on the lawn and get tickets for the games at Cameron, but It's only seats 9,000 people or something. And their freshman year, I think it was Duke was a national champion. 2001. You were probably in college, right? Yep.

[Tim Miller]

Duke one, it was over Maryland. That was great. A great year.

[Bill Kristol]

Carlos Boozer was a classmate, I believe, of Rebecca and Elliot's. You know, so.

[Tim Miller]

Okay, there you go. And his two kids are on the

[Bill Kristol]

stage and now his two kids, there's Cameron Boozer. Their three kids are who are young, obviously are Duke fans, big Duke fans. And they. And the games Friday and night and Sunday were here in D.C. and they were able to get tickets. I little was worried about them. They seem to be recovered. Rebecca's texting this morning about normal things. So I think the families pulled themselves together after last night. That was a rough game. If you were a Duke fan, that would be a rough game.

[Tim Miller]

I know 95% that's like a 2016

[Bill Kristol]

are not Duke fans. But that's a rough game to go to and see that ending.

[Tim Miller]

Right. If you're like an 8 year old who is or 9 year old who's really getting into sports right now and this is your team and you get to go see them live and Duke is winning by 20 and they're winning the whole game and they're about to go to the final four and your parents are getting you cotton candy and you have the finger and you know, you have all your Duke stuff on and then they suffer unimaginable collapse. I was kind of annoyed that Sam stein, as a UConn man was going to be happy and so, you know, cut both ways for me a little bit. But I let out a yawp, like a guttural yawp when they threw the ball away. And then he makes the shot from 40ft away to win the game. And thinking about those grandkids, I mean that's like for a nine year old, that is like a 2016 election level loss for them. I mean that is a catastrophe. I would imagine that they would be catatonic.

[Bill Kristol]

The older two are just turned 13 and they're boys and their little sister probably is a little less into it. So I don't know.

[Tim Miller]

13 year old. I think for a 13 year old.

[Bill Kristol]

Is it better or worse for a 13? You think it's a healthy life lesson for a 13 year old?

[Tim Miller]

I think it is a very.

[Bill Kristol]

Texting me this morning, you were trying to cheer me up about this. You think it's a healthy life lesson?

[Tim Miller]

I think it's important.

[Bill Kristol]

Rebecca's a fan of this podcast. You will watch this.

[Tim Miller]

Okay. Hey, Rebecca. Life is about to disappointment. And unfortunately, I did not have to experience just a devastating level of disappointment until adulthood, when everyone that I had admired and looked up to, all of my heroes, not only allowed for Donald Trump to take over the party, but signed up for it affirmatively, and then he won the election. I was sent into despondency, like, months and months of despondency. And I feel like had I suffered a loss like this at 13, you know, had my sports heroes at 13 disappointed me, it's at such an extreme level, like, maybe I would have been slightly more prepared, maybe like that my skin would have toughened in teen years, and I would have prepared myself a little bit more for adulthood. And then on top of that, the joy of being surprised, of victory. Now think about how great the joy of victory will be. Your children are Duke fans, okay? Your children are Duke fans. They never have to work for anything. It's like being born with the silver spoon in your mouth of fandom. They were born as Duke fans, and now they get to when Duke eventually wins again, which we know that they will, they'll have gone through the valley of suffering before experiencing victory, and that's. That's what life's about. So I hope that they cried. I think that it was important for them to cry and wake up this morning and feel down and not want to show their face in front of their classmates at school. I think that's all an important part of life's journey for your grandchildren, Bill. So that's where I'm at.

[Bill Kristol]

I'm sure that'll be helpful. I'm not sure how much of that I'll say at the Seder Wednesday night when I'm chatting about the Valley of September.

[Tim Miller]

Make sure you get valley.

[Bill Kristol]

That's good.

[Tim Miller]

It's kind of like walking through the desert.

[Bill Kristol]

Yeah, I take. I take your point, though. I take your point. I've been a big just rationalizer of many disappointments over the years on those grounds.

[Tim Miller]

The Egyptians, they had to walk through the desert, and your grandchildren had to walk through Chinatown after suffering that defeat last night. So it's kind of similar. All right, that's Bill Kristol. We don't know who we have on the show tomorrow, but it'll be good, I promise. We're working on it. We are working on it. There'll be somebody good. And, you know, next Monday, Bill Kristol will be back. I appreciate everybody. Actually, before I lose you, did you have Any Al Gore thoughts? Did you listen to Al Gore?

[Bill Kristol]

I saw clips. I haven't listened to the whole thing. So give me your. Well, you're the one who would have

[Tim Miller]

thought it was just. So.

[Bill Kristol]

Did he let you call him Al or not? I couldn't quite follow him.

[Tim Miller]

He did let me call him Al.

[Bill Kristol]

Good.

[Tim Miller]

I kind of set him up for a gay joke right off the top because I asked if I could call him Al. And the song and the Paul Simon song, you know, the chorus goes, I can call you Betty. And Betty, when you call me, you can call me Al. And so, you know, I set him up to be like, you can call me Al if I can call you Betty. But he didn't take that opportunity. We were just kind of building a rapport. So maybe it was a little early off from that opportunity. And he took the rest of my jokes. Well, I thought he was in good spirits. He was funny. Deadpan humor. He obviously is following the news a lot. Very sharp. 77, really sharp. Sounded much sharper than our president. He's like dropping references to Montesquieu and, you know, he's doing the Bill Kristol thing. He's all over the place on dropping historical and philosophical references. I don't know. I mean, I was 18, so what did I know? 17 when he beat Bush, but. Or when Bush beat him, rather. So I can be forgiven for my childhood thoughts on that election. But in retrospect, the counter narrative, you just start to think about a different world where Al Gore was saddled with the Great Recession and then John McCain gets elected anyway. Different world, possibly. It was wonderful. Everybody should go listen to it. If they haven't. I was pleasantly surprised. It's a strange world for me and Al Gore to be there. Bill, thank you very much. I'm going to leave people with an Oath King themed song a friend of mine listened to. So go check that out. We'll put a link to the song in the show notes if you want to go listen to it on Spotify. Give them the.001 pennies that you get for every stream on Spotify. We appreciate everybody and we'll see you back here tomorrow. Bye, Bill.

[Bill Kristol]

Bye, Tim.

[The Bulwark Theme Singer]

Some people, they want fancy names they're building pretty faces open brains, circles they want more shenanig they want to own every building and a daughter but that name oh, he thinks he's a big, big man he tries to get rid of everything he can Uses all his power to pull all the strings but in the land of the free we have no gains no, no, we have no gains no circles need us to stay in line when we stop pushing back they call it a crime Take all our money and use up all our time Never concerned with his left behind oh, they'll try to sell our public lands they came to power with his teeny tiny hats when we ask him what he wants, he wants.

[Tim Miller]

The Borg Podcast is brought to you thanks to the work of lead producer Katie Cooper, associate producer Ansley Skipper, and with video editing by Katie Luke and audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.

[Josh Spiegel]

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[Alex Kantrowitz]

Hi, this is Alex Canceroitz. I'm the host of Big Technology Podcast, a longtime reporter and an on air contributor to cnbc. And if you're like me, you're trying to figure out how artificial intelligence is changing the business business world and our lives. So each week on Big Technology, I bring on key actors from companies building AI tech and outsiders trying to influence it, asking where this is all going. They come from places like Nvidia, Microsoft, Amazon, and plenty more. So if you want to be smart with your wallet, your career choices, in meetings with your colleagues and at dinner parties, listen to Big Technology Podcast wherever you get your podcasts.