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A
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B
Hello and welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. It is Monday and so I am back. Our editor at large, Bill Kristol, beaming in from an undisclosed beach adjacent location. How are you doing, Bill?
- [01:05]
C
I'm doing fine. Nice to be with some of our family, younger parts of our family, and having a pleasant Easter extended Easter weekend.
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B
And you're welcome for giving you a little break from the younger parts of the family. We're going to start here over the weekend. Our president gave a time, an exact time, we're going to call it War Crime o' clock for when he plans to go after Iran's power plants and bridges. That'd be tomorrow night, Tuesday at 8pm in the east. He was kind enough to offer the time zones people know when the war crimes will begin. This is what he posted on Truth Social. Tuesday will be power plant day and bridge day all wrapped up in one. In Iran, there'll be nothing like it. Open the fucking straight, you crazy bastards, or you'll be living in hell. Just watch. Praise be to Allah, President Donald Trump. And then he followed up by saying 8 o' clock Eastern will be the time lot there. Bill, where do you want to start?
- [02:06]
C
You know what's amazing about it is it's not out of the question. It's not necessarily a war crime to bomb a bridge or to bomb a power plant if they're key to the prosecution of the war by the enemy that you're fighting. Now. Leave aside the fact that this is an unauthorized war and Congress never voted for us to be to go out to attack Iran and then to continue to be fighting. Five weeks, five weeks, six weeks. I lost track later in the sixth week. Right. And about possibly deploying ground troops. Leaving all that aside, you know, if he hadn't done that and if he just attacked individual plants, he could say, well, this was key to some energy for missiles that might be hitting our planes, you know, so it would not be, it would still be arguable, I would say, from, as I understand it from an international law point of view and a US law point of view, but it would be, you know, plausible. The way he did it, of course, which is I'm just going to destroy the whole. I mean, not just in the tweet in the Post, but also in what he said in reporters. I like his new mode of communications, incidentally. You were once in the communications business. I mean, what's that all about? You call up random reporters like you do your crazy truth social post, and then you call off three different reporters to sort of just chat with them each for three minutes. It's kind of an interesting strategy, I guess.
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B
Yeah. Repeat the truth social post, make sure people know that it was a real person that sent it. It wasn't the golf cart, I guess so it was the actual president and
- [03:21]
C
then say, but I'm going to destroy the whole country, virtually the whole country. How did he put it? I can't remember. Something like that. It's really terrible. And I think it rattled people. I don't know. I keep thinking things will rattle people. It does rattle some people. That's why its numbers are going down. On the other hand, doesn't rattle a lot of people. That's why some of its numbers are sticky. But I'd say just judging from friends, some of whom are kind of more open to the merits of this war than I am and more militantly pro Israel these days and also just because they wish to see the Iranian regime fall and think maybe all this could lead to its tottering, even if it's
- [03:56]
B
not explicit word, maybe a little less clear eyed assessment of our current president, maybe.
- [04:01]
C
Well, and that's right, a little wishful thinking. Well, the military doing it, Tim, and the military is wonderful and it's not really Hegseth at all anyway, for all these reasons they're sort of willing to give them more of a break, I'd say. This thing really did, I think rattled some of them though. This is like this is not defensible and this is crazy and he's running it. I mean it's the idea that, you know, General Kaine or others are right now that Hexass purging the Pentagon as well anyway, so I feel like Trump's losing even some support. Do you have this sense from sort of the, you know, Trump adjacent Kind of wanting to anti. Anti. Wanting to go along with his types. Or maybe I'm just fantasizing.
- [04:38]
B
I wish I had that sense. I mean, I'm open to it. I think that he's losing a lot of ground Trinity get to in a lot of different categories. I think that's probably the stickiest category. And you know, and I think that there's a lot of folks that'll kind of. And we'll see what happens mode. I mean, I think it's worth mentioning I'm going to go through the war crime negotiation timetable. It was March 22, which is what, two weeks ago? Over two weeks ago now was when he first said he must open Hormuz in 48 hours or else we're going to bomb you back to the Stone Age. 26th we ended that to five days. And the 27th, 10 days. Serious this time, though. Stone age. If you don't do it in 10 days, we've passed that. April 4, he said 48 hours. So that would have been right now. It was Saturday. He said he's doing another 48 hour warning. And then on Sunday, Easter Sunday was when he said that he's going to make sure the people of Iran are living in hell if he doesn't do it before Tuesday. So there has been quite a few red lines that have been crossed that he has not followed through on at this point. And so I think that that affects the way people assess all this stuff. It is hard to kind of judge the serious versus literal part of this. Just in general, though. I mean, it's just a crazy thing for people to wake up to on Easter morning. And it's like. And it also is in conflict with the original argument for the war. I know that the administration and their apologists are trying really hard to redefine what this war is about, about lessening the ballistic missile capabilities. There are some critics on social media of our my conversation with Bob Kagan on Friday where they're like, these guys don't accept the objectives of the war, just preventing them from having an umbrella where they exerted power using the missiles and using their proxies. And we're going to stop them from that so they can't build a nuclear weapon underneath that umbrella. And it's like, well, that okay, but that wasn't actually what the original case for the war was. They wanted regime change. They started the war by decapitating the ayatollah. And Trump talking about how the protesters in the streets should keep on protesting because he was going to have their back. So, like, that now has been thrown to the wayside. He's explicitly saying that the Iranian people can live in hell for all he's concerned. And now he's going back and forth a bunch of times on whether he even cares about the strait being open. Now, the strait being open is a key objective.
- [07:08]
C
Yeah. And the nuclear thing, I mean, which is a serious problem for unguard nuclear weapons. And it's been considered a serious problem by both parties now. Obama administration had a more diplomatic solution to it. Others, including me, thought the use of force shouldn't be ruled out. What he's now threatening has nothing to do with nukes. I mean, literally nothing. Destroying these bridges. Nukes are not crossing these bridges. I mean, the bridges have nothing to do with moving nuclear materials around. Most of them seem to be, you know, buried in that, in that mountain or even moving the things you need to start your nuclear program going, getting going again around, so far as we know. And the same with the electric grid, which is providing electricity for the entire country. I mean, so, I mean, I think that people have to really suspend their own critical judgment. I'm going to really say, I don't want to be too harsh, but to sort of defend this at this point and pretend it has anything to do with the core objectives either of regime change, which I'm very much in favor of. I still hope it happens. So the Iranian people could do it and we should help them probably in some ways more than we have. And secondly, preventing this regime from getting nuclear weapon or even ballistic missiles to deliver the nuclear weapon. I take that point, but those are core goals. What he's now threatening has nothing to do with it. It has to do with the strait, which is closed because of a war he started and which, incidentally, there's not much evidence that more carpet bombing of Iran is going to persuade them to open the strait.
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B
No, the opposite. I was looking at, you know that guy, Andrew Neal? Yeah, a little bit. He's a conservative commentator over in the United Kingdom, prominent guy over there. And I saw a clip this morning where he's talking just bluntly, like from a real politic term, about how Iran should not be rushing to the peace table now, and they are not. And he said that Trump is floundering and Iran has now realized that the Strait of Hormuz is maybe more powerful for the regime than a nuclear bomb as far as giving them bargaining power and influence in geopolitics. And so the longer they can keep it closed and demonstrate that they can keep it closed. The more power and influence the. Whatever remains of the regime will have when you get to the next phase of this, it's far beyond for me to get inside the head of the mullahs, really. But I just thought that was pretty interesting coming from a more conservative European standpoint, somebody who's, I think, a little bit more rational about what the different kind of perspectives are on the power struggle with regards to the war.
- [09:41]
C
Yeah, I mean, I guess Trump is, to the degree it's not pure vengeance, hatred and frustration, which is mostly what it is, probably, and a desire to look like a tough guy. So the motives are horrible here. For an American, for a president in a serious moment of war, even if you give him the best interpretation, which he just thinks that increasing the pressure will bring them to the table on the straight again. There are ways to do that and more gradual. I don't know what you do. We're going to take out these things or whatever, and maybe that's happening behind the scenes and maybe we're all going to wake up tomorrow and discover it's not impossible that Iran, Iran has had enough and decides, you know, they can't keep the straight. They don't want to keep the straight closed forever either. So, you know, why not open it at some point? But again, it's not clear these kinds of threats are doing any good. I mean, that's not. The. The Iranian leadership is not the audience for that tweet. I would just put it this way, simply, right. For all my friends who want to defend it, you know, I don't know who is the audience? People at home, I guess, who love the performative, you know, Curtis LeMay sort of. I'm going to use nukes kind of thing. I don't know.
- [10:42]
B
You know, I think it's two things. It's a machismo thing for the bass. Like, oh, we're so tough. We're really powerful. And I do believe that he thinks, and this has worked a couple of times for him, you should say that he can bully these other countries with these insane threats and it's madman theory. Why I brought up the Andrew Neil commentary was that he's misjudging the counterparty in this one. Right. Because I think that for some countries, it would not be worth the threat of some crazy person to come in and bomb them. But, like, Iran's considerations might be different. I mentioned a couple times, I just want to dial in on the fact that this threat was made on Easter Sunday because, you know, he does Pretend to be an evangelical and, you know, he has faith leaders praying over him and such. He did not attend Easter mass yesterday, I should note. And there's been a little bit of a revolt among the America Firsters over this. You're starting to see this. Marjorie Taylor Greene. Yesterday, on Easter of all days, we as Christians should be reminded that the son of God died and rose from the grave so we can be forgiven for all of our sins. Jesus commanded us to love one another and forgive one another, even our enemies. Our president is not a Christian, and his words and actions should not be supported by Christians. Christians in this administration should be pursuing peace, not escalating war. That is hurting people. This is not what we promised the American people when they overwhelmingly voted 2024. I know. I was there more than most. This is not making America great again. This is evil. I mean, that's. That's pretty blunt stuff.
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C
Yeah, give her credit. You know, she's. She's willing to just say what she thinks, and everyone else is busy dancing around, pulling their punches. A little inappropriate on Easter Sunday, I think. You know, I love the kind of mainstream commentary. Right. Or, you know, a little surprising on Easter Sunday morning.
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B
Yeah, well, a lot of the mainstream media outlets didn't even quote him fully.
- [12:33]
C
Right.
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B
You know, it's like they wouldn't even include him saying open the fucking straight or Praise be da la or all this, like, nonsense troll shit that he was doing. Candace also was pretty blunt. I would point this out. Candace said, this is a satanic administration. I should point out that this next sentence includes some anti Semitism. It's not very subtle, but this is. Candace. We all realize that satanic Zionists occupy the White House and Congress needs to move to have the mad King Trump removed. All of our lives may depend upon other countries realizing that Trump is deeply unwell and surrounded by religious fanatics who have convinced him that he is a messiah. Like, again, okay, some bad stuff from Candace. There always. There's some anti Semitism, but just it's just something you notice regardless on whether it's the crazy right fringe of the MAGA coalition or whether it's our moderate friends. Anytime somebody says I'm off the ship and just is officially off the ship and is not trying to think about how they might get back on sometime. And they start talking bluntly about Trump, they start sounding like this. I start saying things that are like, he's surrounded by religious fanatics who have convinced him that he is a messiah. I mean, that's a legit criticism that you do not hear in the public sphere because lefties saying that you roll your eyes at them, nobody on the right will do it. That part of the critique is not wrong. Trump has a God complex and that is part of the reason that we're in this situation.
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C
Yeah, it's a good point. I mean people somehow have really gotten off the ship and have no desire to get back on or no belief they could get back on if they wanted to. Or the ship being not just Trump administration but MAGA world, let's say. Yeah. Are more candid. General Kelly, when he left the administration in 2019 in that interview, I think in Atlantic in 2020 just said, look, he's a fascist. And Kelly went at some length. People forget this. I've studied this, read up a little bit on fascism and stuff and I've dealt with this guy every day for 18 months as chief of staff and he's a fascist. And everyone's like, oh well then of course it was still not respectable at that point, except for among a few of us to say, well you know what, he is pretty much a fascist. So you're right. I think the people who've left are often the clearest eyed people who leave
- [14:50]
B
sounding like us saying like John Kelly all of a sudden starts sounding like the bulwark as soon as you leave. And that's because we're not fucking pulling our punches. We're just seeing, you know what I mean? This is how extreme Trump is. Just to say what is in front of your eyes at times makes you sound hysterical. But everybody that leaves ends up making arguments against him that in another context would sound hysterical. And it's always coming from people who had served his administration or supported him. When it comes to dog food, it seems like you have to make a choice. You can either have fresh and healthy or you can have easy to store and serve, but never both. You don't have to choose anymore. Thanks to Sundaes Sundaes Food for Dogs was founded by a veterinarian and mom, Dr. Tori Waxman, who got tired of seeing so called premium dog food full of fillers and synthetics. So she designed Sunday's air dried real food made in a human grade kitchen using the same ingredients and care you'd use to cook for yourself and your family. Every bite of Sundays is clean and made from real meat, fruits and veggies with no kibble. That means no weird ingredients you can't pronounce. And the best part, you just scoop and serve. No freezer, no thawing or Prep no mess. Just nutrient rich, clean food that fuels their happiest, healthiest days so you can get more of them to share together. Everybody who's listening to this knows that I've had a cat thrust upon me and that we're feeding the cat the premium cat food. Okay, Very important. And so I have surveyed my colleagues, we've sent the Sundays to my colleagues who are dog people. And we're getting rave reviews. We're getting rave reviews from dog world. I'm not going to let this advertiser bully me into getting another animal and to have a menagerie in my house. And so I'm just proud to support something that's keeping my dog in laws happy. You know what? Actually, as a direct dog in law, my brother's dog Reggie could probably use Sundays. I'm going to get on that. You should get on it too. Make the switch to Sundays. Go right now to sundaysfordogs.com bulwark50 and get 50% off your first order. Or you can use code bulwark50 at checkout. That's 50% off your first order at sundaysfordogs.com bulwarK50 sundaysfordogs.com bulWarK50 or use code bulwarK50 at checkout. Should we do it now? No, we'll save it. We're going to save. Bill Kristol's newsletter this morning is about the impeachment question. And I do notice that Bill Kristol, Candace Owens, manosphere reactionary Sneako are the three people I've been seeing this weekend calling for impeachment. Is Sneako a good so it's a motley crew. Sneako's not somebody you generally want to be on the same side side of.
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C
This is not a great trio or not a great trio.
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B
Not the trio you usually want to be in.
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C
Candace, Nico and me.
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B
But sometimes, you know, it is the crazy people that are, that are enunciated that have a clarity, a vision. You know, what do the, what do the alcoholics call, call it, you know, alcoholics. A moment of clarity. I think there may be a little bit of that happening out there. We'll come back to the, to the impeachment question. Since Candace floated it. I want to just do one more thing on the war crimes and then move on to a couple other war Updates. This is 2022. I just think this is important to mention not quite four years ago now, the Pentagon, Mark Milley in particular, he's chairman of the Joint Chiefs, slammed Russia's barrage of missile strikes across Ukrainian cities and said that Moscow's deliberate targeting of energy infrastructure is a war crime. The European Council President Antonio Costa this morning explicitly compared what Trump is threatening to what Russia did in Ukraine. And so I just think that it's important to be blunt about that. Our own government, our own non political chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said that this type of military campaign, he called it a war crime when Russia was doing it three and a half years ago and now we're proposing to do it tomorrow.
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C
I mean, it's horrible to say or even, honestly hard to even get myself to think this way. And if Putin were saying and doing these things, we would say see? Or other dictatorships, we would say, see, that's what it means to be a bloodthirsty dictatorship who has no respect for human life or human decency, saying things like we're going to destroy the people of this nation or whatever.
- [19:06]
B
And that's what other countries are saying about us right now. Okay, a few other updates on the Iran stuff. I don't want to gloss over the really heroic extraction efforts of the airmen that had gotten shot down, interestingly enough, not too far from Ishvahan where the nuclear material is. But just a quick summary for anybody who didn't follow this that closely over the weekend. It's one of these things that probably will be an action movie at some point. We think that it was Russia that had smuggled in anti air systems to Iran because Iran was unable to shoot down planes for the first month of the war. And then all of a sudden they were. And so you have Iran working with Russia, who Trump is still not condemning by the way, and who we're actually really helping, frankly with this war because they have this huge windfall oil profit happening. So Russia is smuggling in anti air systems to Iran to shoot at us. One plane goes down, we retrieve one pilot, another pilot is missing. We build an airstrip inside Iran, somewhere near that, the pilot that is missing evades capture and travels like five miles, climbs up to a mountain, activates his homing beacon. We fire on a bunch of Iranian soldiers that are moving towards him, kill all of them, land a plane, pick them up. Plane can't take off for some reason. A new set of planes fly in, scoop out the pilot and the XFIL team and then once they're all airborne, they drop 20 bombs on our own plane. So they can't be re engineered. That's going to cost us probably a couple hundred million dollars. So just a really crazy story and shows the skill on the military side of this campaign, which is maybe being undermined by the strategic side.
- [20:48]
C
Our military is very impressive. And I guess the only point I'll make, if I can be a little political about how impressive they are, is I'm going to guess that everyone involved in this rescue has been in the military for longer than 15 months, which means they were trained, equipped, planned, taught, practice doing this kind of thing, showed the kind of precision and courage and daring that they showed in what Pete Hexseth derides as that woke weak military that he took over. I mean, he fired the chief of staff of the Army. He fired General Brown, who was chairman of the Joint Chiefs and had before that been chief of the Air Force, which is a rather important player in this operation, I would say. So the people he's derided and mocked and really, in a disgraceful way, attacked, they're the people who trained this. This is not a military that was trained by under the guidance of Pete Hegseth or Donald Trump. This is the military we've developed over the last 20 years and which these guys have seemed to have contempt for. That's the people who did this operation. So if you're impressed by this operation, you know what you should be impressed by the military that Trump inherited. And they're doing a lot I'm worried about. I mean, for now, thank God it's working well, it seems. But I'm worried about these firings and how much they could degrade it over the next. Further over the next three years.
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B
Also, when it comes to how Hexa is managing the war, this is something I did not realize until I saw it this morning. The Pentagon has only conducted one press briefing in the last 18 days. I guess it was so bad that it felt like there were more of them. The one that happened. So I saw this report this morning. I was like, man, that is insane. We started a war. And then they kicked out the journalists out of the Pentagon and now they're not briefing. Now, we weren't really learning anything from the briefing. I guess, in fairness, General Kaine, in the one or two times he's spoken, I was giving operational updates. Pete Hegseth was just doing bluster. But Trump has a presser today that will probably have happened by the time you hear this. It's supposed to be in this afternoon. So he's talked somewhat, though he hasn't been in public for almost a week now. It's a small thing on the authoritarian creep, but it's real. In all the past administrations of our lifetime. Something like this. You have a Pentagon spokesperson, they're going out there, they're briefing about what is happening and that just. We've just stopped that.
- [23:10]
C
Yeah, it's typically what a spokesperson almost every day, I would say. And then the actual. Either commanding general or other generals chairman with or without the sec def. You know, some combination of those people two, three, four times a week. Yeah. In a serious conflict. If I recall correctly in the little tweet or whatever it was this post that announced this 1:00pm press conference or something today. It's in the Oval Office and Trump said it'll be with the military or something. And I wouldn't be surprised if he's surrounding himself by at least one, maybe a couple of uniforms and trying to get some of this glory of the military rubbing off on him. People who way preceded Trump obviously in office. If they're the senior people and people, as I say, who actually have shaped the military that is doing these extraordinary rescues and shaped it way before Donald Trump became president and Pete Hegseth became Defense Secretary.
- [24:02]
B
Yeah, I assume it's like it's going to be some sort of jingoistic behind enemy lines type thing with. I don't know. Is Gene Hackman still alive even?
- [24:10]
C
I don't know.
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B
This is going to be rude if he's. Yeah, no, he died. He just died just last year. 95 years old. Gene Hackman. That's a life well lived. Anyway, I think he's going to do probably something like that. And again, they deserve honor, the soldiers and airmen and everybody that was involved in this exfil operation. But Iker doesn't change the broader contour of this war, which has obviously been executed extremely poorly with very little planning on the strategic side. Thanks to HomeServe for sponsoring this episode. Owning a home is amazing until it's not. One minute you're sipping coffee, the next extra ankle deep in water from a burst pipe. Especially if you live in Louisiana. Repairs don't care about timing and they definitely don't care about your budget. Regular homeowners insurance usually doesn't cover a lot of the day to day wear and tear, plumbing failures, H VAC breakdowns, electrical issues, you're often on your own for those. That's where HomeServe comes in. It's like a subscription for your home. For as little as 499amonth, they've got your back. It's super simple. Choose a plan for your needs and budget and when something on your plan goes wrong, just call their 247 hotline to start the repair process. You know, you're living down here in the bayou. The land is moving, the earth is moving. I don't know if you've seen that we're losing some land. The sea is gaining and the land is being defeated. And you know, that's part of the human struggle across the sands of time. But one of the problems in the short term is that it creates some, not the most stable foundation on a home. And so little shit emerges. Little shit emerges all the time. You look up, you're like, where did that crack come from? And so it's nice to know that there's something out there that's actually useful when you're not handy like me, you can turn to it when you're in a time of need. And that's our friends at HomeServe help protect your home systems and your wallet with HomeServe against covered repairs plans start at just 499amonth. Go to HomeServe.com to find the plan that's right for you. That's HomeServe.com not available everywhere. Most plans range from between $499 to $11.99 a month. Your first year terms apply on covered repairs. One of the story I want to mention, because I haven't yet, and I suspect there'll be more on this to come once the Democrats take control of the House next year and down the line. And so I just want to put a pin in this. There's a drone maker backed by Don Jr. And Eric that is selling Gulf countries their drones right now while they're under attack by Iran. There's multiple companies that are contracting with the military that Don Jr. And Eric are involved in. Even if there is no corruption or no actual influence happening, which I find very hard to believe, this would be an insane scandal in past administrations. It's just crazy, the idea. Not just that they're doing business still, not just that they're running their hotel and casinos and other countries that we have geopolitical relationships with, because that's happening. And they're not just cutting deals with countries. And while we're deciding what their tariff rate is going to be, that's happening, that's bad enough, but they're actually involved in military contracting and profiteering this president's family in the midst of a war of choice. I think that's pretty noteworthy.
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C
Certainly when the Democrats take over the House and the Senate, which they may also, they need to see the contracts that were bid and the competition the fair competition that was between these Trump related companies and other companies for these massive military contracts, I'm going to bet that there wasn't a free and open bidding competition here.
- [27:55]
B
Totally crazy. All right, back to impeachment. Sarah and I kind of hashed this out a little bit on the next level. I don't know, a month or two ago now, I kind of forget what spurred it. I think it was after the killings in Minneapolis and George Conway was posting about how he thinks Trump should be impeached. And impeachment is a process by which there are clear, clear definition for what constitutes impeachment. And if the president violates that, they should be impeached. And the political considerations of whether it helps the party or doesn't should be put to the side. That was George's argument, basically. And I was of the view that we should not be impeaching Trump again if the Democrats get back in power because it's just like, why, maybe it's caricaturable. He's been impeached twice. The Senate's definitely not going to convict him. They should focus on other things like direct oversight on Epstein, crypto corruption, the Sun's business dealings, all that. That would be a more use, better use of time. That was my original thinking. And when we were talking about that and Sarah's like, I think they should impeach Gnome. This was time. Gnome is still in there and that should be kind of the focus. And at some point over the last couple months, I've started to change my view on it into thinking that maybe we should, just maybe that we, we, the opposition, the Democrats, should try to impeach McGahn because fuck him. It's really the short of my, of my logic on that. I don't think it's not a deep 4D chess political logic. Just like he deserves it. He's done many things worse than what he did from the first impeachment. And so they should impeach him again. And they can use the impeachment as a vehicle for doing oversight and finding more, getting subpoenas and finding more information about the scale of the corruption. You seem to have come down maybe there skittishly or cautiously there this morning in the newsletter. So talk that through with us.
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C
No, I've had pretty much the same progress as you. I would even go further than you were. Not quite as far. I've accepted the conventional view among Democratic strategists. You shouldn't even talk about, they shouldn't even talk about impeachment now. It's just going to get voters remind them it's all partisanship and they want Democrats to focus on what they're going to do if they take over Congress, including some oversight. But they don't want to think about having a two month long impeachment. And I, I haven't really thought about it that deeply. I just figured, yeah, that's reasonable. Anyway, it's not going to happen. There's not going to be impeached while the Republicans control Congress, that's for sure. So why even talk about it? They can revisit things in January. That's been my attitude. I bet if you looked in warning shots for the last two plus years that Andrew and I have been doing it. I don't know that impeachment's mentioned once in the well at all really or certainly in anything I wrote. Again, not because I have some aversion to it just is off the table. And I kind of accepted this notion that it just makes it look like they're itching to get back into impeachment. And that's probably a slightly good talking point for the Republicans. But I just got this weekend I kind of snapped in the sense that, I mean, what are we doing here? He's doing things that require almost that the Democrats be serious about at least the possibility of impeachment and going to the impeaching of the cabinet officers. I mean, I'm not against that either, but that's a little ridiculous. They're all doing exactly what Trump wants. If Stephen Miller is giving his deputy chief of staff at his Trump's top aide and he's giving orders to Christine Ohm and it's a little weird to him. I mean it's okay because she's the one in legal authority, it's okay to impeach Kristi Noem if she were still there. A little weird to leave Trump out of it. But then with the war, it's him. The war brings it home to me. These other things are a little more complicated. They're domestic agencies, I mean that have their own structures and guidelines, I suppose and so forth. He's running the war. It's a disgrace in so many ways. He's insisting on doing it with no congressional authorization. Now he's insisting on doing it by boasting about war crimes or at least promising war crimes and boasting about the possibility of the US Military doing them. And you add that to everything else. Minneapolis probably a little influenced by our trip to Minneapolis honestly too, and just sort of seeing that up Close. And thinking hard about what happened there. Anyway, he deserves to be impeached. There's something crazy about a politics where you can't say the word when it's so obviously deserved, as you say, so much more obviously deserved than certainly the first impeachment, maybe January 6th.
- [32:05]
B
You.
- [32:06]
C
To argue equally deserved. And there's a kind of just clarity about, I think saying that he deserves it. Doesn't mean it will happen. Doesn't mean that. If I were actually, you know, Hakeem Jeffries, would I, I don't know, take the first two months of 2027 to do it? That's another question. But. But no reason not to say that he deserves it, in my opinion.
- [32:25]
B
Yeah.
- [32:26]
C
And also I. I just think the gravity, and I guess this also came home to me because of the tweet. Both the gravity of the situation, we've known that for quite a while, and the urgency of it. He's getting worse. He's always been irresponsible, reckless, corrupt beyond belief, demagogic beyond belief, all that stuff. But now the unhinged part of it, don't you think, is just more evident than it was before. So you really shouldn't have a president who's fighting wars and who's not just demagogic and irresponsible and reckless, but is unhinged. It's kind of bad for the country. This country would be safer right now if JD Vance repress it. United States. I really loathe JP Mance, I've got to say. And probably from a political point of view, it's bad to let him become president because he could be doing a decent job and he'll be an incumbent, blah, blah, blah. It's just unquestionably the case.
- [33:12]
B
I think I agree with that. That is really where things kind of rack around in my old brain, where you run the fact that it's unquestionably the case that he deserves impeachment and the country would be better if he was impeached against the political questions of would this help, would this hurt him or strengthen him? And those are more complicated. And sometimes it's better to fall back on the easy moral clarity and just leave it at that and let the chips fall where they may. And I think there's something to be said for that. That's kind of where I fall on it too, though. I'm persuadable about the best way for the Democrats to wield their congressional power next year. And I think it'll depend on how the midterms go I mean, Lauren Egan had an article yesterday that I thought was really good about how Hopium is back among Democratic consultants. And I've been hearing this Democratic consultants, this is not a prediction or don't want to let the chips count. The chips for they've fallen. But David Jolly in that article talks about what if this is a wave after the Nixon resignation level where a bunch of people won that nobody had expected. And what if the Democrats win Iowa, Ohio, Alaska, Florida and Texas, or four of those five and they win North Carolina and Maine. I'm speaking about the Senate and an independent wins in Nebraska and all of a sudden their caucus is at like 54. Let's not everybody get start getting too excited quite yet. But that's not a zero percent chance. It's not a high chance at this point. But I don't know who depends on how bad the economy gets and how much more he botches everything. And the calculus does change in that case if there's an overwhelming rebuke of him even in a bunch of states where he won by 10 plus points. So I think the politics there get a little bit. Get a little murky.
- [35:01]
C
I just add one point on this. I just want to make clear just it's impeachment. Evans could probably get a little bit. Getting I nowhere say in the piece, and I'm not saying here, and I wouldn't say that any particular Democratic candidate should talk about impeachment, should make that key to his or her campaign over the next six months for the House or the Senate. I don't know if they should or should. I mean, they should do what they want. But I mean, I'm not recommending. I know we're recommended. I'm not sure I even mentioned Democrats much. I'm just saying that I personally think he deserves to be impeached. And I'm putting that on the table within the limits of my modest powers. And if other people want to talk about it, they should. And if elected officials want to say, well, this is all fanciful and theoretical. I don't do theoretical things. I'm running on issues A, B and C, that's fine with me. I'm not going to criticize them for not talking about it. I'm not saying Hakeem Jeffries has to make this the centerpiece of his little press availabilities. And I feel like this is consistent with the bulwark. We say what we think and politicians can or cannot choose to pick it up.
- [35:57]
B
I agree with that. We've been talking about Our friends at Select Quote for a while now and every time I always talk about the uncertainty that's out there, you don't know what is going to happen next when you're in the Trump 2.0 era. And who the hell would have known that we would have had this level of uncertainty? We might have $6 gas this summer now. And so even the catastrophizers are starting to become surprised by the uncertainty that's out there. And that's why you should turn to things that can provide you some certainty, like life insurance policy with select quote. For over 40 years, Selectquote has been one of the most trusted brokers in insurance, helping 2 million Americans secure over $700 billion in coverage. Their mission is simple, to find you the right insurance policy for your unique needs. They shop, you save. Unlike other one size fits all life insurance companies, select quotes license agents work for you. In as little as 15 minutes, we'll compare policies from top rated carriers to find you the best fit for your health and your budget. And they work for you for free. Get the right life insurance for you for less and save more than 50%@SelectQuote.com Bulwark save more than 50% on term life insurance@SelectQuote.com Bulwark today to get started. That's SelectQuote.com Bulwark the one thing I was a little more skeptical of in your newsletter was the other option, which is resistance from within the executive branch. And I'm just like, who honestly, the potential resistance from within the executive branch looks like? Joe Kent. And I was maybe the most, what would even be the word, supportive of Joe Kent's resignation on principle in the Iran war, knowing that he is like a total conspiracy theorist nut. And like there he was this weekend, like posting about how we're going to kill our own troops that are lost in Iran. And so he's a total nutcase. But like he did have a principal view on the war. And so there's something to be said for that. Maybe not that much, but something to be said for it. And so that's what resistance from the executive branch looks like, right? Somebody like him. Who else would it be?
- [38:00]
C
No, I was thinking a little more of the career senior career jags who are being pressured to go along with stuff and real pressure. I don't want to minimize that. They could lose their jobs. They can lose a lot of other. They can be demoted, they can lose a lot of things. Fake prosecutions even, as we've seen with Senator Kelly and Others. But I just think this is the moment for everyone in the Justice Department, DHS, DoD intel, to sort of put every obstacle they can that they think are legit and important and right in the way of Trump and his political appointees. And I think if they get fired, they get fired. And I think then those of us on the outside who would support them has an obligation to try to help them if we can, and defend. There are lawyers available to defend them if they come after them and so forth. But that's kind of what I was thinking. War.
- [38:48]
B
Totally concur on that. One more thing on impeachment that would have to go through Congress. And I do think it bears mentioning that Congress is still on vacation. This is not the Democrats fault, but it is insane right now. The DHS is still shut down, the war is still ongoing. Trump is threatening a massive escalation tomorrow, and Congress is on vacation right now. It's truly crazy.
- [39:14]
C
It is kind of amazing, isn't it?
- [39:16]
B
Yeah.
- [39:16]
C
This is one case where I will say what I hope the Democrats do is I hope they insist on a vote. I think they can get these resolutions in a way that they're privileged and so forth. Like next week when they come back on the war. Is other Republicans happy with everything that's going on and the threat at least to ground troops? I do think Trump seems to have gone for the mass bombing, massive bombing as opposed to ground troops. So, you know, he could think this fantastic showing by the special forces and X filling extricating this airman, you know, gives him a. Maybe he could do some of that elsewhere. So, yeah, I agree. It's ridiculous that they're not in, they're not here.
- [39:53]
B
The poly market odds for ground troops are going up. And the only reason that catches my eye is because there's a lot of insider trading happening over there. So who knows, Maybe somebody knows something.
- [40:04]
D
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- [41:06]
E
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- [42:07]
B
Just running through quickly a couple of other things, all depressing in the news. Well, I guess this one is not that depressing. The birthright citizenship case. I mentioned this last week. Trump went there to try to intimidate the justices, I guess, who knows? Or maybe just had nothing else to do that day. Unclear why he attended still, but he posted on his social media account he bleeded this. It's too bad that the Supreme Court can't watch and study the Mark Levin show tonight. One of the reasons I wanted to bring this up is that I love that he's going to his comfort food. It's like his little binky. It's like there's one show on TV that's like, you're really doing a great job with Iran, sir. And he's like, I'm gonna make sure I've DVR'd that. I'm gonna watch it, you know, at the end of the night and you get on my PJs, I'm gonna watch the show that's telling me that I'm doing, doing good. Anyway, apparently, in addition to cheering him on on Iran, Mark Levin was also cheering him on on the birthright citizenship scam. Then he goes on to, you know, talk about how the Supreme Court failed on tariffs and how the country can only withstand so many bad decisions from a court that just doesn't seem to care. A lot of pearl clutching. People like it when I talk about pearl clutching since I wear pearls. A lot of pearl clutching among the responsible right. Anytime a Democrat talks about, you know, criticizes the court, you know, there's this. You're trying to delegitimize the court, says Charlie Koch of the National Review. Here's the president of the United States, I mean, often now, bleeding, delegitimizing the court, talking about how the country can't stand as long as the court continues to not follow his wishes. Pretty interesting. Does feel like he knows an owl is coming on birthright citizenship though, so that's good.
- [43:52]
C
I've heard more and who knows? This is just rumors, but 15th and rumors that could well be a retirement, I think at the end of term or maybe before the end of term actually to give Trump and Thune more time. There could even be two, obviously. Alito seems to be the leading candidate to retire Thomas, some people think also make sure they give Trump the chance to appoint a younger person. While there's a Republican majority in the Senate, we can have a huge Supreme Court fight this summer, which conventional wisdom has thought in the past helps Republicans and probably did in 2018. But I'm not so sure that's the case now with, you know, do you think.
- [44:26]
B
I don't think it is either. After post Roe with the Democratic voters, I think really understand the stakes of the court now more than they had your average Democratic voter. I think it's more of a motivating issue than it would have been in the past. I agree and I think they have to do it. I mean, who knows? I guess the 15th hand rumors, the scuttlebutt that's out there, because I hear the same stuff, is that Thomas wants to be the longest running, longest serving justice ever, which is in sight. I don't have it in front of me, but it's not too far off. And so the idea is that Alito, who's a total hack, gets pressured to leave because he wants Trump to replace him instead of whoever might come after Trump instead of the unknown. But if the Democrats take control of the Senate, I mean now we're getting into real fantasy, counterfactual stuff. But if like the Democrats, they would have to do it now because I think that if you're the Democrats, you take control of the Senate. I don't see how you don't use the Merrick Garland standard. Even if Alito retires one day after whoever Chuck Schumer or whoever Brian Schatz becomes the Senate majority leader. I don't see how you have confirmation hearings.
- [45:36]
C
And the other piece of rumor floating around is Trump certainly is going to go for one of the most radical federal society or federalist society. Plus, if you want to think of it this way, justices, we're not going with whatever one thinks of Kavanaugh and Gorsuch and actually Amy Coney Barrett. They were sort of traditional picks, at least on paper. Right. D.C. circuit or in Gorsuch's case, circuit on Colorado and obviously Amy go to Barrett, a law professor. She did turn out actually to be
- [46:07]
B
a little very classical kind of originalist views.
- [46:10]
C
Yeah, they weren't that out there. From what a Bush or, you know, et cetera, thinks might have been zero chance that we're getting anyone like that is what I've been told it's going to be. You know, Don Ho, if you know, or some of these. I don't remember the names of all these totally wacky district circuit court judges, the D.C. circuit guys, Rao Katz, who've always found for Trump in every case that's come up, it seems before them, or someone who's not a judge or a justice. Emile Beauvais, who's now of course a circuit court judge who was Trump's.
- [46:41]
B
Oh my God.
- [46:42]
C
Yeah, well, I don't know. One of the people who's now at the Justice Department or maybe a state AG who's a total right wing hack. Anyway, Trump wants loyalists to him on the court as he does everywhere in the administration. I'm very struck by this. People haven't quite processed this. We're not in. Trump is part of MAGA world. And Trump wants MAGA oriented appointees or justices. I think we're beyond that. Trump wants justices, especially on the courts. I mean, justices on the courts, but also appointees and key agencies who are personally loyal to him. Why? Because he personally is going to be at risk in some of these cases either as president over the last two years. Certainly if he's trying to steal the election, some of the corruption stuff could even come up while he's president for his family or certainly if he leaves office. Right. He does not want justices who are going to be okay. So he wants a degree of personal loyalty from these justices that I think might make his nominee vulnerable. I don't know if Tillis, McConnell, Murkowski, Collins. Again, this is fantasy football, but whatever could defect on something like this. But I'd say the nominee is going to be could well be a type that makes it at least conceivable that people like that defect as opposed to a Gorsuch Amy Coney Barrett type.
- [47:54]
B
Yeah. I guess the only thing I would just say on that is replacing Lito with loyalists doesn't really do him much. You know what I mean? It would have helped if it was Gorsuch, but anyway. But no, I agree that that's what's coming really quick in the Trump racism and deportation category he posted this morning. One other thing, I just think it doesn't deserve to be ignored. A video, I guess, of somebody walking through the Mall of America. There are a bunch of what appear to be Somali immigrants there. And Trump posted that with this is literally the mall of America. 85% of these people are on welfare. Talking about how it's bad that we have Somalis at the Mall of America. So I just like totally overt George Wallace racism from the president on his social media feed this morning. I don't know if there's anything else to say. And then just tying it because it ties back to the war. I want to end with this just really sad story. New York Times reported on this over the weekend. US Army Staff Sergeant Matthew Blank and his wife, Annie Blank NE Ramos arrived at a base in Louisiana last week expecting to begin their life together as newlyweds. Within hours, that plan had unraveled. ICE agents entered the base and detained his wife, who had been an undocumented Honduran immigrant who was brought to the US As a toddler. By nightfall, she was in a detention facility with other women facing deportation. The detention came just days after Andy and Matt celebrated their marriage with family and friends. Neither have a criminal record. Truly insane, like somebody who is in the military volunteering to the military after he started a war, who got married to a woman that was brought here as a kid. And we're sending ICE agents into the base to rip her away from him to detain her and deport her back to Honduras.
- [49:50]
C
Yeah. And this guy's a staff sergeant. I think he's been in three, four or five years maybe already. And yeah, it's unbelievable. And I don't know, there is a chain of command in the military. And you know what? This could go quickly up the chain of command and it could go to the secretary of defense, who could place a call to the secretary of Homeland Security and say, what the hell are you doing? Would you leave my people along? Would you stop seizing and threatening to deport and putting in some terrible detention facility, someone who's been here for 15 to 20 years and who's married to a young guy who's serving our country honorably. I mean, we should not accept that this is like, oh, well, gee, this is too bad that I did it. I'm not saying, you know, you're doing this or any of us doing this, but for me, this is also. Okay, Mr. P. Tech. Seth, you're Mr. We're tough. We're supporting. We stand behind our fighting men. They're warriors. That guy's a warrior. And incidentally, he is a warrior so far as what can tell. And he's training, I think, to deploy. He's a staff sergeant. They're serious people, staff sergeants. You know, he's I would guess moved up from maybe entering as a private or whatever. And, and there he is, an enlisted guy, staff sergeant. And is he, is anyone in the military standing behind him? I know. I found this story just sickening.
- [50:57]
B
Deplorable. Totally deplorable. All right, Bill, that's another Monday. Is there anything else? You got anything else? Anything I forgot?
- [51:06]
C
No, I think we covered. I mean, it'll be an interesting week, don't you think? I mean, what, you know, we got the.
- [51:11]
B
It's going to be a very interesting week. I'm going to take a little de detour depending on what happens the next 24 hours from the war with tomorrow's guest, discuss another pretty pressing matter facing us in the coming months and years. But who knows? I think after Tuesday. Yeah, I mean, he said it, all hell could break loose in Iran, but I think all hell could break loose here in the country and for him. And I think it's a real big inflection point for his standing here and from the war. And so there'll be much to discuss. I appreciate it. So. All right. Thanks to Bill Kristol. Everybody else will see you back here tomorrow. Looking forward to it. Peace. The Bork podcast is brought to you thanks to the work of lead producer Katie Cooper, associate producer Ansley Skipper, and with video editing by Katie Lutz and audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.
- [52:19]
F
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- [52:50]
E
It's tax season, and by now we're all a bit tired of numbers. But here's an important one you need to hear $16 billion. That's how much money in refunds the IRS flagged for possible identity fraud. But it's not all grim news. LifeLock monitors millions of data points per second and alerts you to threats you could easily miss on your own. If your identity is stolen, they'll fix it, guaranteed. Save up to 40% your first year. Visit lifelock.com iheart Terms apply.
- [53:20]
G
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