← The Bulwark Podcast
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- [00:00]
Unknown Speaker 1
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- [00:03]
Bill Kristol
Easy call, right?
- [00:04]
Unknown Speaker 1
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- [00:29]
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- [01:30]
Unknown Speaker 3
Foreign.
- [01:38]
Tim Miller
Hello and welcome to the Bullock Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. Happy Washington's Birthday 2025. While we're changing the names of things, we're no longer observing President's Day here. We're going back to the original the traditional Washington's birthday observed. It's not actually Washington's birthday, but, you know, details and because it's a Monday, I'm here with Bill Kristol. How you doing, Bill?
- [02:03]
Bill Kristol
I'm hanging in there. How are you?
- [02:05]
Tim Miller
I'm doing well. Do you have any other kind of name changes you're thinking about?
- [02:10]
Bill Kristol
I remember there's like a little bit of a conservative thing in the 70s and 80s to object to the change from Washington's birthday to President's Day. I guess they were sort of mushing together, Lincoln and Washington, and then of Course, they had to be on a Monday. But, yes, insofar as it's sort of implies that we equally respect all presidents, it's very bad. And I'm glad you're decided. I'm glad you declared the bulwark policy of not, not recognizing President's Day. Right. I mean, if we're, if we can all just adopt whatever names we want. Right. Yeah.
- [02:37]
Tim Miller
We're not recognizing President's Day. We're gonna. We're dead. Naming the Gulf of Mexico. That's just kind of how things are going here. Much to discuss. I guess it seems like your newsletter this morning was focused on all of the trouble that has been being created from Elon Musk's quasi governmental Department of Government Efficiency. Many different specifics, I think worth getting into, but I'm just at the highest level interested in what you are trying to get across.
- [03:12]
Bill Kristol
I just want a wrecking ball. It is. And as Don Moynihan, the professor of political science at Michigan, says in a very good newsletter that I recommend, and he's a sober guy, serious student of public administration. The point isn't government efficiency. The point is to wreck the government and make it more susceptible. Wreck the structures, you might say, of the government of which the civil service is such an important part, and make it susceptible to Trump's personalized leadership and really to autocracy. And so all the idiotic things they're doing, if you sort of individually, it's hard to understand why do they want to make air travel less safe? Why do they want to damage our nuclear safety inspection regime? But. But if you think of it more as just taking a wrecking ball to the government, you, I think, have a pretty good sense of what's going on. And then I was provoked this morning to write about this, particularly I was going to write actually more about the foreign policy stuff from the weekend, which was the last four or five days, which was so terrible. The IRS headline, I guess, broke last night in the Washington Post and in the New York Times. Doge is insisting on getting into the IRS and into the very, very sensitive part of the IRS that even IRS commissioners don't have access to, which has your tax returns and my tax returns and 180 million or something other Americans.
- [04:22]
Tim Miller
And Trump's tax returns, presumably.
- [04:24]
Bill Kristol
Yeah, And Elon Musk's tax returns. And Doge needs to get in there, I don't know why. And look at them, I guess, and have access to them. And they're sort of resisting a little bit at treasury, and it's up in the air. So it seems like that would be a good moment for everyone to weigh in and say this is, it's a clarifying moment perhaps of what their ambitions are and why it's worth resisting.
- [04:45]
Tim Miller
It is clarifying. And the irs, I mean, that situation is a little bit murky I guess, still. But some of the more clarifying elements or some of the other things you referenced, I think it's worth talking about a few of them in particular with regards to the National Nuclear Security Administration. So there were up to 350 employees that were laid off late Thursday. They showed up to the office Friday and were locked out. One of the hardest hit offices was the Pantex plant near Amarillo, Texas. The employees there work on reassembling warheads, one of the most sensitive jobs across the nuclear weapons enterprise with the highest levels of clearance. As of this morning, the administration has decided that was an oopsy doops and they're going to try to bring back all but 28. But there's some kind of HR and legal questions about how to do that. Just to your original point, this is not about efficiency. I'm sympathetic to the idea that there's some bureaucrats that maybe are cashing a government paycheck and aren't providing value at the level of their, their compensation. I do not think that is the case for the people that are reassembling the nuclear warheads. And I don't think anybody would would consider that. But I don't know, maybe Elon thinks big balls or, you know, one of his 19 year olds could reassemble nuclear warheads better. I'm not sure.
- [06:03]
Bill Kristol
Yeah, and God forbid they should actually like study it for 30 days and see whether they can cut 10% or maybe increase 10% in some parts or reorganize the place. There's none of that. Of course. They show up, they give I guess each supervisor 200, if I read this correctly, 200 characters, not 200 words, 200 characters like out of tweet to explain what each of these employees are doing. These are the probationary employees, which mean people who've been hired in the last year or two or people who've assumed new jobs in the last year, as I understand it. So they could be quite senior, some of them. They don't have civil service protections. They're easier to fire. They just went in and fired them. I mean, it's such a wrecking ball. It's so unserious about any of the things government does. This one, I guess was even this was a bridge too far. There was a public outcry and some congressional outcry and experts saying, what are you doing? And they did retreat, which incidentally is a good sign, which suggests to me that if there was a little more of an outcry in all these areas, including by the Democratic Party, maybe they would retreat a little more.
- [06:59]
Tim Miller
Part of the problem though is it's happening so quickly. It's hard to get enough of an outcry to focus on a particular thing. So just a couple of other examples. The faa, we've had like six plane crashes recently. I don't know. We didn't have a plane crash for 16 years. We had obviously the horrific one outside of Reagan national in D.C. but then a couple of other smaller incidents. Recently, Trump administration has started firing several hundred FAA probationary employees who maintain the air traffic control infrastructure. We've been discussing the CDC and NIH cuts, which are just seem draconian. This one caught my eye over the weekend. Veterans Crisis Hotline employees. This is an individual person, you know, posting on, on their social media. I'm devastated. Last night, myself and many others at the Veterans Crisis line were terminated without warning. I mean, that again, seems like some a valuable service. So when all of this stuff is happening so fast, it is a little challenging to like create the dust that necessary to get them to, you know, backtrack, I guess. And I think that's probably their point, right? Like, I don't think they mind backtracking in a couple of cases because a bunch of other stuff ends up flying under the radar.
- [08:06]
Bill Kristol
Right. I do think though that, I mean, the Congress, of course the Congress is controlled by Republicans, which is a huge problem. And the media can do its bit. The civil service themselves can do a lot and probably should be encouraged to do as much as they can safely do, really, to publicize what's happening and to explain how dangerous it is. But there is this thing called Congress. They do have oversight of the executive branch. They're even organized into committees that kind of by departments that oversee the different departments. There's a subcommittee of the Finance Committee in the Senate and the Ways and Means Committee in the House that oversees the irs. And I don't know, it seems to me just, you know, that maybe the ranking Democrat on that committee should be just screaming and yelling on every platform he can get onto, he or she can get onto and screaming and yelling at the Republican members for failing to do any oversight. And that should be the equivalent on all these places, whether it's the FAA or the CDC and FDA and all that. I said this to some Democrat over the weekend. Well, they're doing town halls, you know, and they're really laying the predicate for fighting on the budget, which is coming out and all. It's really all about winning back the house in November 2026, which I don't disagree with in a way. But, you know, that's why these town halls are so important, Tim, because if you, if you, you know, do a town hall on February 17th of 2025, it's really going to help you win back the house in 2026. I think you get a little more punch actually out of making this a huge national story of how they're destroying these important government agencies that help us, you know, fly safely and take drugs with confidence, that they work and check epidemics and make sure our tax returns are treated professionally. But what do I know? Maybe this town hall where they have some happy talk with 80 people is really better. I don't know.
- [09:48]
Tim Miller
Yeah, I mean, I think that you're right about. Or this Democrat you talked to is right about. They do seem to be thinking a lot about the budget fight that is coming up. And I had Brendan Boyle over on the YouTube feed at the end of last week who's the ranking member on the Budget Committee. And I think he's sharp on this and their, you know, I think that their strategies are making sense. And later in the week we're going to have other folks from, from the Hill on to talk about what the Democrats are doing. People that I think are doing a good job. That said, there was a big Politico story over the weekend on this about how far the Democrats are behind on messaging and platforms, particularly in the online media world. And I was quoted in there and what I said was, basically anything that you tell me they're doing well, like they should be doing 700x with that much more intensity, Right? It's just the amount that Trump and Musk are in people's faces. I mentioned this the other day, but I was scrolling through one of my sports podcasts I listened to and it was a non political comment. It was just like the guy on this barstool podcast was saying, he's like, I'm so fucking sick of Elon Musk. He's like, I just don't want to hear about him anymore. He's like, I feel like the only people I ever hear about are Taylor and Travis and Elon Musk. And it's like on somebody that is not political, the show doesn't talk about politics. And I think that that's just a telling anecdote, though, about, like, volume and just like, how much of the messaging from Trump and Elon is just seeping in to casual Americans and Democrats, like, are doing some stuff like on the Hill and in these town halls. But like, these examples, the Veterans crisis hotline, the faa, nuclear, like, these are all things that if you're really banging the drum, I do think, you know, just regular people are like, why are we firing the veterans crisis line? Like, is that really what's going to resolve our trillion dol budget gap? Like, it doesn't feel like it.
- [11:42]
Bill Kristol
Right. And you could show up with veterans, obviously, who benefited from this crisis hotline in your district or not in your district. But I agree, it's partly the volume. It's probably, you've got to fight. I mean, the media likes to cover fights. People like to watch fights. They don't like to watch, you know, press conferences. And I love the Democrats, all this, you know. Well, we can't swing at every pitch, you know, I mean, they're so busy not swinging at every pitch they're taking. Called third strikes, if I can torture this metaphor here. I mean, it's really ridiculous. So swing at every pitch. You'll miss a few. But they've talked themselves into a kind of bizarre form of overthinking where they don't take them on and they've got to preface everything they say. Well, of course, there's probably waste there. I mean, I wouldn't question that. They don't know that there's weights there. For all we know, the FAA is understaffed. You know, the IRS is understaffed. That was pretty convincingly shown in the debates over the last two, three, four years when Biden tried to increase it. It was a pretty engaged issue and experts weighed in. Not much question that more IRS agents, properly governed and controlled not by doge creeps, would help generate more revenue and a fairer auditing of taxes and so forth, and especially wealthy people who are getting away with some stuff. But anyway, Democrats are so defensive, so hesitant, so overthinking. Okay, this is the problem. I talked to actually a few Democrats this weekend and kind of my head's exploding, but I've got to calm down.
- [13:02]
Tim Miller
Swing at every pitch. I might do the meme where it's like, don't make me tap the sign again, which is that, like, actually, yes, swing at every pitch right now. I mean, maybe don't swing at every pitch. On Labor Day of 20, 26. But, like, right now, start. Well, we're really going to beat this metaphor to death, but do anything and see what sticks. We don't know. We can't predict what is going to stick.
- [13:23]
Bill Kristol
Right. Put the ball in play. Right. They could be errors. They could turn out to have done something very stupid like they apparently did with the nuclear safety officials. So you don't know until you challenge it. Right.
- [13:33]
Tim Miller
Nobody last week would have, like, you know, the real thing to focus on is the National Nuclear Security Administration. Right. Like, you know, you just don't. You just don't know. Especially with how quickly things are moving. While we're complaining about people on the Hill, we should also focus a little bit on the Republicans because Bill Cassidy is just going to be my cause celeb, I think. Unfortunately, I don't, you know, because I just can't. I can't take it with him in particular. So somebody's got to talk about it. Here is a tweet he sent over the weekend. This was on Saturday. I am all for efficiency and ultimately downsizing the federal government, but firing large numbers of new FBI agents is not the way to achieve this. Louisiana specifically benefits from newly hired FBI agents. We need to add to our law enforcement, not take away. So every sentence. And that I agree with. Every single word on, that I agree with. But here's the thing. The Cash Patel vote is tomorrow. So Cash is not mentioned in this tweet. Like, the only action that he can take is to vote against and maybe convince some of his colleagues to vote against or to delay the confirmation of the person who reportedly, according to whistleblowers, was behind the downsizing at the FBI that he's so upset about. So, Bill Cassidy, if you're pissed about this, if you think it hurts Louisiana, then vote against Cash Patel or go out and do interviews about how about how Cash Patel needs to come clean about whether he was involved in this and that we need to have another round of hearings to ask Cash Patel what his plans are for the staffing of the FBI. I mean, like, this is your moment. Like, you have a moment now for 24 hours. Now, obviously he's not going to do anything, so I don't want to pretend like we might think that he could, but, like, this is the window for him to do something about this. And instead it's just this limp tweet that doesn't even actually address the person who's responsible.
- [15:27]
Bill Kristol
I'll totally agree. Obviously, Patel will be really. And to confirm Patel, after what we've seen now of course makes it even worse because you can't pretend I didn't know what he was going to do. They've done what he wanted them to do and he probably lied about whether he knew about what they were doing. They are senators, on the other hand, they do have appropriations authority power.
- [15:48]
Tim Miller
That's true.
- [15:48]
Bill Kristol
And he also could say, and incidentally, when the budget comes up and it could be or the first reconciliation bill, which I guess could be pretty soon. Right. And then there's the CR for the government shutdown a month from now, a little less than a month from now, you can put things in riders and bills that say no money should be spent to get rid of XVI ages or we need to have this minimum number of vihs. It's not like Congress doesn't have quite a lot of say to say on this. They don't even seem to think of that. It's like they're so pathetic in terms of exercising. When I was at the Education Department, granted a long time ago, I mean if we had, you know, moved one person in Louisiana where she didn't want to go, he or she didn't want to go from one research institute to another, you know, like phone calls from the members of Congress, the senators, chief of staff, you reverse that, right? Well, sir, we did it according to the book. I don't care. Sometimes we would resist them, sometimes we wouldn't. But I mean they've sort of totally forgotten that they have quite a lot of clout if they would exercise it. But of course the Republicans are just won't take on Trump or any of Trump's agents apparently. And the Democrats don't have much power to be fair, but they also not screaming enough to put the Republicans on the spot. I mean it seems to me Ezra.
- [16:54]
Tim Miller
Klein did a had a column over the weekend about how the Republicans on the Hill have become non player characters which are like the characters in the video game that don't do anything. Like they just exist. And like that is. That is correct. Right. It's just, it is a kind of a marvel that they have just decided that they have no role at all. And it's interesting to get. It is interesting to see the McConnell, you know, play on this. I mean obviously I have no sympathy for him or I'm not at all moved or inspired by his 11th hour effort to be the one person that votes against these various Trump nominees. But when he was majority leader, you know, he at least tried to exercise some power oftentimes in ways I disagreed with sometimes in ways that was good during Trump 1.0. That is gone. I mean, John Thune might as well not exist, right?
- [17:47]
Bill Kristol
I mean, these people do have agency. They're pretty important people, actually. They have more agency than most of us, but everyone has some agency, actually. Renee Diresta, in this conversation that's online conversations with Bill Kristal about the Internet, makes this point too, about regular people. When talks about something going viral. Well, people choose to hit the button that allows it to go viral and they can choose not to and they can choose to tweet and retweet things and so forth. Now Musk is weighing the is putting a thumb in the scale of the algorithm. So people don't have that much agency in some of these cases. Yeah, but agencies. Isn't that been one of our. That's one of your favorite themes and JVLs and stuff. And I think it's a good one. We should remind people of that. I don't know. Everyone's a commentator, right? No one, including elected officials who were like elected to govern, not to commentate.
- [18:30]
Tim Miller
Yeah, everybody's a podcaster. You know, Ted Cruz and Matt Gates are competing with me, you know, in the marketplace. It's not as great of a job as it looks. I don't think they're all aspiring to be podcasters instead of doers. Speaking of people with agency, an update on the story we talked about with Andrew Wiseman on Friday. So we had these resignations of the DOJ over the effort to kind of, I guess, let Eric Adams off the hook in exchange for promises that he would follow the administration's immigration guidelines. The character Emil Bove has been one of the central villains of the first month of the administration. Who was the person at DOJ that was pushing this? He's also the one that was pushing people out of the FBI and is mobbed up in the aforementioned Kash Patel story. Anyway, since we talked last week, we had another person resign over this Hagan Scott, and I'm going to read a little bit from his statement because it is blistering. Any assistant U.S. attorney would know that our laws and traditions do not allow using the prosecution executorial power to influence other citizens, much less elected officials in this way. If no lawyer within earshot of the president is willing to give him that advice, then I expect you will eventually find someone who is enough of a fool or enough of a coward to file your motion. But it was never going to be me. That was his resignation letter to Emil Bove. This guy Hagen Scott. And two Bronze Stars, Special Forces. In this letter, he expresses that he shares some perspective of the Trump administration. He clerked for Kavanaugh and Roberts. Times calls him a conservative Republican. I mean, that is pretty blistering statement for somebody with that background.
- [20:02]
Bill Kristol
No, it's a terrific statement. And Danielle Sassoon's letter, she clerked for Scalia is really excellent. And it's excellent partly because it goes on for eight pages. Some of it's a little dense for non lawyer like me, but it really explains just how terrible what's happening is. And so this statement in a shorter and punchier way maybe does as well. So all credit to them, all honor to them. Meanwhile, Chris Wray, who served as FBI director for what, seven, eight years, he's just decided to check out. I mean, he's not willing to weigh in on the fate of the agency that he led. He personally appoints what, five, six people, the people who really run the FBI, and they're all fired. And maybe you should say a word about these were good public servants, you know, and they shouldn't be fired. And this is very bad for the future of the FBI. And maybe we need to have some oversight of all this. But no, Chris Wray is busy being a gentleman, I suppose, and gentleman just. I don't even know what he's doing. I mean, what are they all doing? I guess I'm just, you know, now maybe it wouldn't matter. No one likes Chris Wray, but he was appointed by Trump. Again, he's not exactly a. We're not talking about a Biden apparatchik here, so.
- [21:05]
Tim Miller
Well, Chris Rey is welcome on the podcast if he's looking for something to do. But just to your point about agency, I just, it is worth just sitting on that for a second that him and Sassoon, like, they could have not done this. Like they could have just gone along with this particular, you know, kind of extra legal, you know, quid pro quo sham that the administration was trying to do. It could have rationalized it's better to be in there. And so, I mean, it is a big credit to them for not just resigning, but doing so in a way that is crystal clear about the rationale and the fact that they are adult grownups with, with agency and can make choices about what is right and wrong, which is apparently something that the Congressional Republicans haven't, haven't come around to on Ray. I mean, it is wild, right? Like his whole rationale for resigning for the preemptive surrender was that he didn't want to draw additional attention to the FBI. And so that strategy totally backfires, right? I mean, like he resigns and he just like lets them walk in and fire all of his deputies and he basically just rolls out the red carpet for the people to do the thing that he didn't want. And then it happened and nothing. You know, I mean, it just as a total abdication of responsibility. Like, I'm sorry, like he could have forced them to fire him. He could have made a stink about it. You know, he could have testified. He still could testify. Again, the Cash Patel vote is until tomorrow now.
- [22:29]
Bill Kristol
And I keep getting assured by people who are on the other, a lot of some of the Republican senators not very comfortable with the Cash Patel vote. They're talking privately to some FBI veterans. Some of them, you know, no people in the FBI obviously over the years, especially if they're on the relevant committees, they're not happy. But, you know, no one is speaking out. The one guy who spoke out, William Webster, the FBI and CIA director from Reagan and Bush way, way long ago, who's 100 years old, and he went to the trouble of writing a quite a good letter explaining how damaging it is to have the politicization that we're seeing of the FBI, CIA and total people totally unqualified for the job in those two positions. I think he's the only person to have held both positions. But again, there are other former FBI and CIA directors, there are other national security officials, and they mostly just decided to let the new administration have a chance to destroy the US Government. You know.
- [23:22]
Tim Miller
Well, we should also shout out the drizz. Brian Driscoll, who is the acting FBI director, who's who's been really holding the line here so far. And I think he's about. He'll probably be getting fired later this week. We'll see how that shakes out. So there'll be much more to discuss about that. You know, when you buy a new house, everything's a hassle. But the thing that was maybe the most annoying when we bought ours a couple years ago was the window treatments. And the blinds was a lot more work and a lot more expensive than I anticipated. And so I'm happy we have a new sponsor that's trying to make sure there's a better way to buy blinds, shades, shutters and drapery. It's called Three Day Blinds. They're the leading manufacturer of high quality custom window treatments in the US and right now, if you use my URL 3dayblinds.com thebullwork they are running a buy one, get one 50% off deal. We can shop for almost anything at home. Why not shop for blinds at home too? Three Day Blinds has local, professionally trained design consultants that provide expert guidance on the right blinds for you in the comfort of your home. Just set up an appointment and you'll get a free no obligation quote the same day. With three day blinds, you choose from thousands of options that fit any budget or style. And with actual samples, you won't be guessing about what your blinds will look like. 3 Day Blinds has been in business for over 45 years and they've helped over 2 million people get the window treatments of their dreams. So they are a brand you can trust right now. Get quality window treatments that fit your budget with three day blinds. Head to 3dayblinds.com thebullwork for their buy one get one 50% off deal on custom blinds, shades, shutters and drapery for a free no charge, no obligation consultation. Just head to 3dayblinds.com thebullwork one last time. That's a buy one get one 50% off when you head to the number 3D a Y blinds.com the bulwark I want to do the aforementioned foreign policy stuff. A lot happening. There are going to be talks between the United States and Russia and Saudi Arabia decided to do this on, I was going to say on Putin's home turf, but I guess since Kushner is the, you know, the sugar baby of the Saudis, I guess maybe it's on Kushner's home turf. They will hold talks on, quote, improving their ties and negotiating an end to the war in Ukraine. Not involved in those talks is Ukraine. Zelensky was not invited. He's showing up to Saudi on Wednesday. Unclear why. We'll see what happens. Maybe for a PR effort on that front. Meanwhile, European leaders are meeting in Paris to discuss thoughts.
- [26:01]
Bill Kristol
Bill I mean, Zelensky and the Europeans are doing their best, scrambling to try to mitigate the damage that was done by Trump and the phone call with Putin and then the subsequent announcements of these that imply incidentally that sanctions will be lifted. I mean, the Lavrov who's the Russian foreign minister Rubio conversation Saturday and Eric Edelman interpreted this for me yesterday on our little Sunday podcast.
- [26:25]
Tim Miller
We'll put a link into that. It was really good on our subject.
- [26:28]
Bill Kristol
Thanks to Eric. I mean, you know, there they're sort of implying at least the Russian readout of the call that, you know, we have to get rid of these sanctions. We have to have close ties again. And of course, Putin and Trump himself said he wants to get together with Putin and so forth. So we're, you know, just the whole resistance to Putin, which had been held pretty well for three years, incidentally, with a lot of European nations who started off, everyone assumed they're have a tough time doing this. They've held pretty firm, the international resistance, including Asian allies of ours. Totally. I mean, without the US There, it's hard to believe it can hold that much longer. One worries a lot about what happens on the ground in Ukraine. So, I mean, it's very bad what's happened. And the collapse of confidence in the US the excess speech. We're no longer really too focused on Europe. I mean, what's Europe after all? It's only the place where two world wars started in the first half of the 20th century that has been kept at peace for the last 80 years, basically, until Putin invaded Ukraine. The largest ground war in 80 years, which Vance couldn't bring himself to criticize Putin on his speech in Munich on whatever that was. Friday or Saturday. Friday, I guess. It's all so bad. I mean, it was all going in that direction. And that's why some of us were against Trump and thought it was very, very dangerous to elect him for a second term. But I've got to say, with Musk on the domestic front and the full America first onslaught on the international front, it's kind of on the. What's the way to say this? The worst end of what I thought might happen both domestically and internationally.
- [27:55]
Tim Miller
Yeah. In the international reverberations. I do think that people just underestimate how it will change our role in the world view of us, our ability to have influence. And there's just this one quote that jumped out to me in one of the articles I was reading over the weekend. It's by Anna Murlikina. She's a journalist who fled to keep from Morpol in 2022. She wrote the Trump statements is a chain of humiliation for people like me, people who believe that there was law and justice in the world. When you live in a world that is crumbling under your feet, the only thing that helps you survive is to believe in guidelines and civilized, democratic countries that uphold values. When countries like the United States cease to be pillars, there is nothing to hope for.
- [28:37]
Bill Kristol
Wow.
- [28:37]
Tim Miller
Yikes.
- [28:38]
Bill Kristol
I didn't see that. That's really powerful. Yeah.
- [28:41]
Tim Miller
Yeah. And I think that there's just something to that. You know, I just. I was interviewing Mark salter, who is McCain's speechwriter, God must have been three years ago. I was living in Oakland at the time. And he was just talking about how when he would travel with McCain, you'd go to random places like small villages and stuff, where there are people around the world that, like where we had helped them when they were pushing back against a tyrant. And it was something they remembered and it gave them pride and how excited they were and how grateful they were. All of those little nodes, like, had to add up to something. Right. It doesn't mean that the world wanted to be perfect or it would get a great result, but it had to add up to something. And I feel like this is just undoing. We've essentially undone all of that in a month.
- [29:29]
Bill Kristol
No, it's depressing, really is depressing and terrible. I mean, another way of putting it, maybe I think Eric might have said this yesterday, is the us which is basically been on the right side, I would say, for 80 years in terms of freedom and democracy and a decent, peaceful world order, also a prosperous one, incidentally. That's not a trivial consideration. All of which has benefited us. But we've, you know, we've made mistakes and we've. There are times we've been too cozy with dictators and maybe some of these war is real advice and so forth, but on the whole, we've been directionally, you might say, on the right side. You really have to ask the question, is the U.S. now part of the solution or part of the problem? That's where I think it's so demoralizing for people in Ukraine and people in Europe and that's. And soon people in the Indo Pacific. I mean, they're thinking about a world in which the US is not basically with them. Sometimes, as I say, hesitantly, too hesitantly from the point of view of some of us Hawk, sometimes from the point of view of the more dovish parts of the internationalist coalition. Too aggressively, but not on the right side. And you hate to even say that. I mean, I really honestly don't like saying. I don't want to say it.
- [30:36]
Tim Miller
I mean, we're meeting with the bad guys and not inviting the good guys to the table. I don't know what else other way there is to describe it. Keir Stormer in UK over the weekend expressed that, if necessary, the openness to sending peacekeeping troops in. I just mentioned that because just the gap between that and what you're saying from us is so wide. I guess it's not a gap, it's opposite. Right. Like they are actually saying that we will Put boots on the line if necessary to help protect Ukraine. And meanwhile, I guess Marco, little Marco and Lavrov are meeting about what Russia can get out of this deal. It's really, really something. One other foreign policy thing I just had to mention to you because it connects to the domestic that you mentioned with Elon. Did you see the meeting between Elon and Modi?
- [31:31]
Bill Kristol
Just saw a photo of it, yeah.
- [31:33]
Tim Miller
Okay. All you kind of need to do is see a photo. Modi LEADER of India, of course, they're meeting at the Blair House and it's like the flags are up. It's like the formal setting for a meeting between either state leaders or our Secretary of State and their lead diplomat. On the Modi side of the table, there's all of his advisors. And on the Musk side, it's like a couple of his children and that's it. And Trump is then asked about this meeting and he's like, I didn't know about it. And he says, maybe they're meeting about business. I mean, like, you know, it's hard to even think about what to say about something like that. Like, you know, all of these, like the whole conspiracy about the Biden administration about Burisma, that Hunter was doing a deal in Ukraine and that Joe Biden like took a phone call at some point with one of the Burism people and like that was the big controversy. And here we have like the shadow president meeting with a counterparty in the Blair House in like a formal setting and the president is saying, well, that's fine because maybe they're just doing some deals. Like the scale of corruption is just, is really mind boggling. And I do think it connects to the foreign policy side of this. When you talk about us being on the wrong side because it's the type of behavior of an autocratic nation. Right? Like that's what it is.
- [32:54]
Bill Kristol
Yeah, that's very well said. Absolutely.
- [32:57]
Tim Miller
All right, you've been kind of a downer, so I'm going to, I'm gonna keep kind of leaning into that. You never know how much attention to give to stupid shit like this. But Trump bleeded over the weekend. He who saves his country does not violate any law. This was, I guess from a 1970 movie, Waterloo, where the Napoleon character says this in the movie. It feels, it's, I think, apocryphal. Not a real Napoleon quote, it's a movie quote. Republicans on the Hill, very excited about this. One Republican congressman wrote the President, is Napoleon posting? I don't know. What's your State of alarm on Donald Trump posting as if he's an autocrat.
- [33:35]
Bill Kristol
Napoleon, yeah, Napoleon would be the best case. It also has a certain resemblance to even worse, I suppose, 20th century autocrats. But I don't know, Napoleon was pretty bad. He did cause 20 years of war in Europe. I mean, I do think to the degree it's true, and I don't know much about this, Napoleon said something like that when he took over in the 1790s after the chaos of the French Revolution. Not excusing Napoleon, but even think of it at that level. What Trump is sort of saying is that the Republic's finished, democracy's finished, and I've got to step in and be Napoleon for the next 20 years. I guess he's a little old for the next 20 years. But those were not a great 20 years that didn't end up working out great France or for Europe. But again, the idea that an American president would, even if he's just, quote, just, you know, taunting us and, you know, shitposting and all that sort of stuff, it's still awful, of course. And then, of course, everyone rushes to defend him. And Musk loves it. And these Republican members of Congress love it. They are just against liberal democracy, they're against the liberties of liberal democracy and they're against the democratic processes of liberal democracy and therefore autocracy, dictatorship, different levels probably among each other, about how far they want to go in suppressing freedoms and then just having one guy, one man or coterie of plutocrats and oligarchs around the country. But that's what they're for and they're not even hiding it anymore. It would be nice if some Republican somewhere criticized it apart from us ex Republicans. And I know the Democrats don't want to react to every tweet. They don't want to swing at every pitch. God, you know, I don't know, some former president, I mean, not to get too earnest, but I don't know if a current president tweets something like that. I would think former presidents, maybe Presidents Obama and Bush could do it together, might say something about that. This, you know, I mean, again, oh, they wouldn't help. Why should I do it? But of course, if none of them does it, then ordinary people think, well, I don't know, maybe it's not such a big deal, or maybe this, you know, we'd be sort of right. Or anyway, we shouldn't get too alarmed. But of course, it's consistent with everything they're doing at home and abroad. Right?
- [35:39]
Tim Miller
It is and to your point about, you know, kind of their opposition to liberal democracy in the different degrees, Musk was posting over the weekend about how he thinks 60 Minutes should be jailed. People from 60 Minutes should be jailed because of it doesn't even matter really what the rationale was for that, but it shows you where their head's at. So you kind of are alluding there to your request from others to speak out. You addressed this directly over the weekend. You wrote without going all Martin Niemoller. I do think it's bad not to speak up for immigrants, transgender Americans, civil servants, women, Ukraine and everyone that the MAGA bullies are going after. We're beyond picking and choosing who to defend. It's time to stand up and speak out. Do you want to expand on that a little bit? I guess. Should we leave people with a little bit of a stiffened spine? A lesson from Nimoller?
- [36:26]
Bill Kristol
I don't think it's so hopeless. I guess I'll come back to this again. It's not as if Musk got 73% of the vote or 55% of the vote. Right? He got Musk. Trump shows up. Well, that's his 40 and slip. But Trump got slightly under 50% of the vote. They have 53 members in the Senate out of 100200 and whatever it is, 1819 in the House out of 400 and 35, a tiny margin, half the governorships and so forth. It's not as if there isn't plenty of Americans who aren't on board this. And there are some Americans who voted foolishly in my view for Trump who probably aren't on board what he's doing at home or abroad. Incidentally, half the Republicans in Congress voted fray to Ukraine less than a year ago. So I don't think the opposition's impossible. I don't think we're in a kind of horrible situation of every person who dissents has to be a genuine hero or martyr or something like that. But people do need to take the threat seriously and be serious about their opposition. And they will have endless debates about the right way to oppose. And I'm not sure I know, I really am somewhat bewildered in some ways. But I got to think just opposing a lot is better than not opposing a lot. Like so simple minded view of this, you know, and opposing across the board actually is better than being really cute and selective. That I think is the part that a lot of the professional Democrats don't agree with. But you cannot just sit there and look at people bullying and just doing things that are obviously not complicated policy issues, but just contrary to people's basic freedoms and contrary to basic decency. Once you accept that, you are at a very slippery slope.
- [38:00]
Tim Miller
I think we'll leave it there. Bill Kristel will be back next Monday. I'm sure there'll be another parade of horrors to discuss then. Everybody else will be back tomorrow for another edition of the Bulwark Podcast. We'll see you all then. Peace.
- [38:11]
Unknown Speaker 3
If you're waiting for your waves but you just got legs and you're beating all your chickens but they won't lay eggs when you open up your jaw see your tank get close Just remember life's in love with you but live suppose we got ain't gonna drop you no hundred dollar bill you got to question your intentions Cause the baby wants kill Everybody wants the same thing Everybody wants the same thing Trading places on the chain gang it doesn't matter how you swing it Everybody wants the same thing when you're rich sun is coming around and the now did you live your life right? But did you just pretend that you knew what you was talking about? What side was your fence? Cause when the hammer comes down it never makes no sense Chaos is not a virtue Paranoia loves the faces Just imagine giant rivers overflow with our places Everybody wants the same things Everybody wants the same things.
- [39:54]
Tim Miller
The Bulwark Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.