Bill Kristol: The Administration’s Stupid Ethnonationalism

Summary

The Bulwark Podcast: Bill Kristol — The Administration’s Stupid Ethnonationalism

Date: February 16, 2026
Host: Tim Miller
Guest: Bill Kristol

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Tim Miller and Bill Kristol dissect the latest political controversies surrounding the Trump administration and its allies, focusing especially on what Kristol calls “stupid ethnonationalism” emanating from Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s recent speeches in Europe. They critique the administration’s foreign and domestic policy directions—with particular attention to the rise of right-wing nationalism, America’s shifting alliances, and the state of liberal democracy. Notable moments include sharp rebuke of Rubio’s historical rhetoric, discussion of Democratic responses, and broader worries about institutional decay.

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Main Theme and Purpose

The episode centers on the Trump administration’s embrace of ethnonationalist rhetoric, as exemplified by Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s recent remarks in Munich and Budapest. Miller and Kristol analyze the philosophical underpinnings and political consequences of this shift, highlighting its contrast with traditional American ideals and its impact on U.S. foreign policy, especially regarding Hungary and the transatlantic alliance. They also explore Democrats’ responses and ongoing debates about ICE, the Department of Homeland Security, and the administration's authoritarian tendencies.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Presidents’ Day, American Mediocrity, and Presidential Idolatry

• [03:09] Bill Kristol: Reflects on the shift from celebrating Washington and Lincoln to “Presidents’ Day,” arguing the move is acceptable if it reminds us “we’ve had a lot of bad presidents, a lot of mediocre ones, and we shouldn’t idolize them.”
• [04:05] Tim Miller: “Doesn’t really seem like something to take a day off of work for… just being reminded that our presidents are mediocre. They’re men. Men only so far.”

2. Media Spin on Trump’s Record and Public Mood

• [05:00] Tim Miller: Critiques Politico Playbook for shallow positive spin: tariffs “haven’t created unbearable levels of pain,” foreign adventures “haven’t backfired,” while the administration’s actual achievements are meager.
• [06:22] Bill Kristol: Notes Trump’s approval ratings have fallen despite economic stability, suggesting the public is dissatisfied “for maybe deeper reasons having to do with rights and liberties and dignity and democracy.”
• [07:23] Tim Miller: Senses “the mood of the average resister is better now… like it might be over for [Trump],” but cautions against complacency.

3. Rubio’s Munich Speech and Ethnonationalist Rhetoric

a. “Armies Fight for a People”

• [08:57] Marco Rubio (clip): “Armies do not fight for abstractions. Armies fight for a people. Armies fight for a nation. Armies fight for a way of life.”
• [09:30] Bill Kristol: Rebuts Rubio, pointing to the Civil War and World War II as fights over principles and abstractions like “all men are created equal,” not just for ethnic or tribal reasons.
  • “We fought because of principle… It was based on an abstract view of human equality or human inequality. So it’s just silly.”
• [11:17] Tim Miller: “The motivation for war … have been about abstractions, not about … tribe … He’s doing it in service of creating a new idea of what America is … a dangerous view.”

b. Rubio’s “Common Heritage” and Western Civilization

• [15:22] Rubio (clip): Waxing about the glories of continental European culture, urging Americans to be “unapologetic in our heritage and proud of this common inheritance.”
• [15:57] Tim Miller: “I do feel like I have to point out that Marco is from fucking Cuba, not Europe… He is trying to sand down the edges of the various cultural differences and create … an Anglo Saxon supremacist view.”
  • [16:45] “It is white nationalist agitprop. And he’s Cuban. I don’t really know any other way to describe what he’s doing.”
• [17:49] Bill Kristol: Rebukes Rubio’s betrayal of his parents’ immigrant legacy and the universal appeal of Western culture: “The whole point about Mozart and Michelangelo… is they have universal appeal… it's the globalism of these great works … that makes them so important."
• [20:02] Tim Miller: Notes musical and artistic hybridity—“the Rolling Stones in particular, like, stole their music from black American culture… This whole notion … that there is something special about this culture that needs to be preserved and we need to protect it … is a straight attack on all [liberal values].”

c. The Danger of Unapologetic Nationalism

• [22:02] Bill Kristol: “The unapologetic thing is appalling. What did he say? We have to be unapologetic in our heritage. No serious person thinks there’s nothing to apologize about in our heritage… Every serious European thinker, including the ones he mentioned, has understood that.”
• [23:24] Tim Miller: Connects this rhetoric to Orban and Trump: “A direct affront onto our traditional allies while he kind of pays lip service to this cultural connection.”

4. Rubio’s Support for Viktor Orban in Hungary

• [25:04] Bill Kristol: Decries Rubio’s open political support for Orban, contextualized as direct interference: “Rubio goes there and steps on those people … doing their best to restore Hungary to a free country.”
• [27:23] Bill Kristol: Criticizes Orban’s demagoguery against brus­sel­s and the EU; Rubio tacitly aligns with anti-liberal, anti-EU rhetoric.
• [28:04] Tim Miller: Emphasizes Orban's framing of “the east” (Russia) as less of a threat than the EU, directly contradicting democratic principles and U.S. security interests.

5. Democratic Responses to the Administration’s Foreign Policy

• [30:22] Bill Kristol: Praises Mark Kelly for directly connecting the breakdown of alliance trust and America’s declining global standing to Trump’s administration.
  • “This order didn’t just blow itself up. … It’s been blown up by Trump. And Rubio’s there justifying it.”
• [31:57] Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) clip: Calls for “working class centered politics” as defense against authoritarianism; insists most Americans do not want to walk away from a rules-based world order.
• [32:05] Tim Miller: Observes: “AOC … just does both [economic justice and democratic norms] … the DSA candidates are basically more committed to maintaining the … alliances we have with Europe than the former neocons are.”
• [33:46] Bill Kristol: Reflects on social democrats’ role as anti-authoritarian allies during the Cold War, noting: “If AOC’s wing moves toward liberal internationalism, that’s good for them and good for the country.”

6. Nativism’s Electoral Power & Democratic Counter-Strategy

• [40:00] Tim Miller: Raises warning delivered by Bulwark colleague: “Rubio and Vance want this fight” between unapologetic Americanism and internationalist values.
• [40:58] Bill Kristol: Concedes the appeal of “never apologize” nativism, but notes Democrats can successfully counter with patriotism rooted in alliance, support for Ukraine, and a liberal international order.

7. ICE, DHS, and Institutional Dishonesty

• [46:53] Tim Miller: Cites recent case of ICE officers lying about an assault to justify shooting, reflecting broader “menace” and dishonesty of the agency.
• [48:18] Bill Kristol: “The lies are not like slight shading of the truth … They just made up a story … I am all out of patience with ICE and the Border Patrol in every respect.”

8. DHS Government Shutdown & Democratic Tactics

• [50:17] Tim Miller: DHS is partially shut down; debate on whether withholding funding is the right Democratic strategy.
• [51:32] Bill Kristol: Funding is “extremely important … lays the predicate for making the broader case against ICE and the Border Patrol… I’m uncomfortable to … give them a whole lot of money with pretty limited modifications in how they’re doing business and no change in their leadership.”

9. AI, the Military, and the Hegseth Doctrine

• [42:34] Tim Miller: Raises alarm over DoD and Pete Hegseth’s threats against ethically-minded AI company Anthropic, as well as attempts to bar military officers from attending “woke” law schools.
• [45:55] Bill Kristol: Finds proposed constraints “insulting … to these serious people,” worries about lost expertise and intellectual diversity in branches of government.

10. Odds and Ends (Alien Life & Institutional Decay)

• [53:18] Tim Miller: Asks Kristol about Obama’s musings on the possibility of alien life.
• [53:44] Bill Kristol: Admits skepticism, “maybe kind of like the idea that we’re the only actual human beings who have this ability to quite think and feel the way that we do.”

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Notable Quotes & Timestamps

• Bill Kristol [09:30]: “We fought because of principle, because of an abstraction, because all men are created equal… So it’s just silly [to say] armies do not fight for abstractions.”
• Tim Miller [16:45]: “It is white nationalist agitprop. And he’s Cuban. I don’t really know any other way to describe what he’s doing.”
• Bill Kristol [22:02]: “No serious person thinks there’s nothing to apologize about in our heritage… The greatest American presidents understood there are things that we very much did wrong and things we have to apologize for.”
• Bill Kristol [27:15]: “Orban says we should fear the EU … more than Putin, who has launched this brutal war in Ukraine … Rubio shows up one or two days later and says, we’re with you. It’s terrible. And that’s our Secretary of State, and that’s the one … supposed to be quietly gonna save us from some of the worst aspects of Trumpism. He’s legitimating the worst aspects.”
• Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez [31:57]: “We have to have a working class centered politics if we are going to succeed and also if we are going to stave off the scourges of authoritarianism … Does not mean that the majority of Americans are ready to walk away from a rules-based order.”
• Tim Miller [32:05]: “DSA candidates are basically more committed to maintaining … the alliances… than the former neocons are.”
• Tim Miller [46:53]: “It is a pretty notable state of affairs. Like, we literally just cannot trust anything that the Department of Homeland Security says.”
• Bill Kristol [48:18]: “The lies are just so… They're not like slight shading of the truth… They just made up a story, right?”
• Bill Kristol [53:44]: “Maybe kind of like the idea that we’re the only actual human beings who have this ability to quite think and feel the way that we do.”

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Important Timestamps for Key Segments

• Presidents’ Day commentary: 02:50 – 04:39
• Politico Playbook & Trump’s record: 05:00 – 07:23
• Rubio’s Munich speech (armies, abstractions): 08:57 – 11:58
• “Common heritage” Western civilization riff: 15:22 – 22:02
• Rubio/Orban/Hungary section: 23:24 – 28:04
• Democratic response (Mark Kelly/AOC): 30:22 – 37:28
• Ethnonationalism v. patriotism in U.S. politics: 40:00 – 42:34
• ICE misconduct & DHS shutdown strategy: 46:53 – 53:12
• AI, military, and woke law schools: 42:34 – 46:53
• Existential musing (aliens): 53:18 – 54:47

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Concluding Notes

This episode of The Bulwark Podcast dives deeply into the intellectual and practical consequences of the Trump administration’s drift toward ethnonationalism—contrasting it sharply with the abstract, inclusive ideals of American democracy. Miller and Kristol balance historical critique, contemporary news analysis, and reflections on the current direction of both Republican and Democratic foreign policy stances. The discussion is animated, sometimes exasperated, and always rooted in a commitment to liberal democratic norms.

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For listeners seeking:

• A breakdown of the administration’s nationalist rhetoric,
• Insight on foreign policy shifts and alliances,
• Democratic intra-party debates and responses,
• Real-world implications for DHS, ICE, and the military.

This episode offers rich, pointed, and timely analysis with plenty of “righteous venting”—as Kristol says ([22:02])—but always in the service of defending core democratic values.

Transcript

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[Tim Miller]

Hello and welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I'm your host Tim Miller. A little update on the week we are in Minneapolis. Four live shows Wednesday and Thursday. Excited to get out there. There's maybe about a dozen tickets left for Wednesday, so if you have a last second fancy to get up to Minneapolis, buy those asap. As far as the POD schedule is concerned, we'll have normal bullock pod like four out of the five days this week. I think Thursday we will give you guys the Wednesday night show on this feed and then Friday we'll give you the tnl, the next level show from the Thursday night Live show if that makes sense. So no next level this week until Friday. And besides that, you're on your normal schedule. Speaking of normal schedule, it's Monday. So we got Bill Kristol. Apparently it's President's Day. I did not realize it was President's Day until I started reading your newsletter this morning. Down here it's just Lundy Gras, but happy President's Day to those who celebrate. You had a little meditation on it this morning. Bill, do you have, you know, any deep thoughts on honoring our presidents?

[Bill Kristol]

Happy Lundy Gras. I guess I just had a simple minded view that there was Mardi Gras, which I was intelligent enough to know I guess is a Tuesday. That's why it's Marty. But I didn't really. You guys in New Orleans good at extending these holidays into many days, months.

[Tim Miller]

You know, it's a whole carnival season actually.

[Bill Kristol]

But yeah, yeah, that's good, that's good. My meditation was very simple. I. When I was young and conservative it was sort of fashionable to lament the decline of Washington's birthday and the out of Lincoln's into this generic President's Day. Kind of a side of, you know, like all presidents are equal, all presidents are worth it.

[Tim Miller]

Everyone gets a trophy.

[Bill Kristol]

Yeah, yeah. That was a very staple staple of conservative talking points. I may have even published an article to like this said it, I can't remember. So I'm just being contrary and saying, well maybe it's okay that it's become President's Day. I don't think that criticism is totally wrong. It's a little ridiculous. On the other hand, to the degree it reminds us that we've had a lot of bad presidents, a lot of mediocre ones, some bad ones and one or two very bad ones like our current one, and we shouldn't idolize them. We shouldn't go out of our way to put them on pedestals. We should just be matter of fact about them and sort of hard headed citizens of a republic somewhat skeptical of our leaders. That's a good thing. So that's my contrarian defense of Presidents Day.

[Tim Miller]

All right. Doesn't really seem like something to take a day off of work for. But just being reminded that our presidents are mediocre. They're men. Men only so far.

[Bill Kristol]

Yeah. Congress passed this bill in 68 that turned a lot of the holidays into the Monday holidays we're now familiar with. I guess before then, I guess we celebrated all these days on the day, you know what I mean?

[Tim Miller]

So you might have like a Thursday or whatever. Yeah, yeah.

[Bill Kristol]

But we're May 30th. Whatever day it was you head off, you know, February 22nd, Washington's birthday, you head. You know, the Monday thing is obviously convenience in many ways. And it's fine. I'm not objecting to it.

[Tim Miller]

Well, I do appreciate it.

[Bill Kristol]

I would have objected to it 30 years ago. I would have had a big moralistic rant, a patriotic rant about it. And I'm surprised Rubio didn't go out about it actually at the conference in Munich. It's another sign of American decline. But now I'm okay with having three day weekends.

[Tim Miller]

The whole episode might basically be on Marco. So we're going to get to him in a second. He's in Munich over the weekend. But beforehand, as you mentioned, we do like to extend the holidays here in New Orleans. So I was out and about this weekend and I wasn't as in tune to the news as I usually am. And so this morning as I was prepping, I was like, let me read the morning newsletters to make sure I didn't miss anything. And I opened Playbook, Politico Playbook, which I rarely do because it has deteriorated and inside to a great degree, I mean, it's horrible and hackish, as you're about to find out. But I was reading it and it sparked a thought. They were going through kind of the Trump's laments at the top, like the fact that this latest, you know, spat for him has not been as good based on their figure skating judging as the first two segments of the presidency. But then they give kind of the counter view, you know, like the view from the other side. And that is framed as Chin up, Don. And I want to read that for you. Chin up, Don. Beyond the noisy and erratic policy swings, there's plenty out there for the White House to feel good about ahead of the midterms. Tariffs largely haven't created unbearable levels of pain. Trump spectately. The Federal Reserve has been well received. The border clamped down, its producing results. Crime rates appear to be down. The high risk strikes on Iran and Venezuela haven't backfired. So in summation, the Iran and Venezuela adventures haven't backfired and the tariffs have not been totally catastrophic. And that is the morning newsletter from POLITICO's Spin for how great things are going for Trump. What do you make of that?

[Bill Kristol]

Did they put in that the Dow Jones is at 50,000? That's a major Trumpist. No, it is a major Trumpist talking point. I believe it's why we're not supposed to care about any violations of civil liberties or killing protesters and so forth. I don't know. Doesn't it cut the other way, Tim. I mean, things look okay in the economy. We're not in a disastrous foreign war. And even so, Trump's approval is down from what, 50 to 41. Isn't that kind of a bad sign? What if things get a little worse in the economy? Or what if one of the foreign policy misadventures has more immediate real world consequences? So I would say, say it's actually a tribute to the American public and cuts against Democratic consultant orthodoxy, that people are just focused, you know, bail on the kitchen table. You know, it's just the price of everything. And in fact, it turns out public is dissatisfied with Trump for maybe deeper reasons having to do with rights and liberties and dignity and democracy. And that's to the public's credit. But anyway, I don't see why, if I were in the Trump White House, I'd be like, geez, you know, things aren't so terrible as Politico is claiming, and we're still down from 50 to 41.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah. I also just think in general, like, if one of your proof points of how things are going well is that something that you did did not cause, quote, unbearable levels of pain. It's only caused some modest pain, you know, some light pain. You know, nothing's been achieved from the tariffs. It hasn't caused any successes. There's no evidence that we're reshoring manufacturing. The opposite, as a matter of fact. But, you know, the good news is it didn't cause unbearable levels of pain. I will say one of my notes from walking around, you know, being among the Volk with Mardi Gras and like, hearing from people, which I like, like to hear from people who come up to me, the mood of the average resister is better now, which I think speaks to his political pain. And I think that a lot of folks that came out to me, you know, maybe last Mardi Gras would have been like, dire. I mean, depressed, should I move? You know, was a popular question that I was getting this time last year, like, should I flee the country now on the streets, I was getting a lot of it feels like it might be over for him. I had to tamp a couple people down. It's like, a lot of work ahead. But I do think that the sense of his political standing is pretty rough at the moment. All right, to Marko, I don't even know how to frame this up. He was in Munich giving some grand remarks at a security conference and hopped over to our only European friend in Budapest and did a little joint press conference. With Viktor Orban. I want to play some clips from all of that for us to react to. This is the first one that caught my eye. It was Marco on how to think about the nature of war and how America thinks about the nature of war. Now let's listen to that.

[Bill Kristol]

Because armies do not fight for abstractions. Armies fight for a people. Armies fight for a nation. Armies fight for a way of life. And that is what we are defending.

[Tim Miller]

This is Marco's pivot from neoconservative into nationalist blood and soil diplomat who just only cares about the material interests of our people. The problem is that I don't believe that anything that he said there was actually right when it comes to the nature of war. But why don't you go on that and then I'll kind of expand on my thoughts.

[Bill Kristol]

I was appalled by it on many levels. And I mean, first of all, there was this thing called the Civil War, kind of a big war in America, I believe. Did we have more casualties in Civil War than maybe World War II? But anyway, certainly as a percentage of the population, many, many more. Hell of a lot of people fought in the Civil War. They weren't fighting for one nation. We were. There was no question we were a nation. We had a common culture, if that's what you care about, as Lincoln famously said. Didn't he say this in the second Anarcho? We read the same Bible and prayed to the same God. So very common culture.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Ish.

[Bill Kristol]

And we fought because of principle, because of an abstraction, because all men are created equal, as Lincoln explained and as the Southerners, to be fair, understood perfectly well as well. They were also fighting for their way of life. I guess slavery was a key part of that. It was based on an abstract view of human equality or human inequality. So it's just silly. And incidentally, World War II, which I think that's still an okay war by Marco's standards, though, I don't know. Not by the Trumpists, I guess. We were attacked in Pearl harbor, so we fought, of course, Japan. But the war again in Europe, I mean, Hitler declared war on us, which gave Roosevelt an excuse, frankly, to go to war against him. But that war in Europe, we weren't attacked by Nazi Germany much. I mean, some shipping was attacked, and we could have stayed out of that. And we did stay out of it, incidentally, for two years. And what was the justification for the many, many people who died helping liberate Europe? Because it was freedom, you know, what did Eisenhower called it? The Great Crusade? I mean, anyway, it's not even worth going on. It's so obvious. But, yeah. So it's just not true what Marco's saying, and it just diminishes American history, any sense of actual American greatness, of what America means. And final point, I just. Since this is more like back to my political theory days, what is America? What are we based on? We're based on an abstraction. All men are created equal. Does Mark have re read any of those sentences in the Declaration of Independence?

[Tim Miller]

Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

[Bill Kristol]

They're kind of abstract, you know, and they are literally at the foundation of our nation. Lincoln famously praised Jefferson in 1859 for inserting in what he called a merely revolutionary document the abstract truth that would be a stumbling block to tyrants at all times. Something like that. A beautiful letter he wrote in 1859 in praise of Jefferson. And so, I mean, again, Rubio, in his slightly gentler than J.D. vance Way, in his somewhat clever way, I guess you'd say, is still is just dressing up the same nationalist nonsense.

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[Bill Kristol]

It was this continent that produced the genius of Mozart and Beethoven, of Dante and Shakespeare, of Michelangelo and da Vinci, of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. And this is the place where the vaulted ceilings of the Sistine Chapel and the towering spires of the great cathedral and Cologne, they testify not just to the greatness of our past or to a faith in God that inspired these marvels. They foreshadow the wonders that await us in our future, but only if we are unapologetic in our heritage and proud of this common inheritance, can we together begin the work of envisioning and shaping our economic and our political future.

[Tim Miller]

Unapologetic about our common heritage. I do feel like I have to point out that Marco is from fucking Cuba, not Europe, not Europe. And that the music and art of Cuba and of Latin America is different than that of Europe. And obviously there is a common ancestry in a lot of cases, because Portuguese and Spanish came over and colonized Central and South America. But do people in Malaga wax poetic about how they have a common cultural heritage with the people of Copenhagen? He is trying to sand down the edges of the various cultural differences and create a, I hate to finally use this phrase, but like an Anglo Saxon supremacist view of what our cultural heritage is and that the only thing that unites us to Europe is not commitment to a rule of law, not common defense and economic trade, but what it is. The fact that we all like the Beatles and the Rolling Stones and Mozart and it's like. It's crazy. I'm like, anybody who's been to fucking Miami where he grows up understands that it's crazy. There is a lot of cultural difference in Miami. There is some similarity, there's some ways in which we overlap, which we're different from. Eastern cultures, that's fine, all to explore. But this notion that we have to be unapologetic about this and we have to use that to prevent the bad people and the bad cultures from coming to our country or from being a part of it. And that we have to unite in some right wing nationalist's historic view of our architecture and our music. It is white nationalist agitprop. And he's Cuban. I don't really know any other way to describe what he's doing. He's doing it in Germany too.

[Bill Kristol]

Just why did Marco's parents come here? I mean, I believe they came here because they wanted liberty and they came to the land of the free because they wanted freedom. And so not because they thought, you know, I want to become more Anglo Saxon. I don't believe that was, you know, so you're absolutely right about that.

[Tim Miller]

Their son did decide he likes American football better than, you know, world's football. Maybe to their shame, but besides that. Yeah, I don't think that that was it either.

[Bill Kristol]

Yeah. So there's that side of it, if you will, that. I mean, it's really particularly appalling for him to be saying this. And he knew better. He used to give very inspiring speeches about his parents being immigrants and America being the land of opportunity and so forth. And that's why I kind of liked Marco, I guess I was suckered a bit in 2010 and all. What, he ran for the Senate. But that didn't turn out to go very deep, did it? The other point I'd make is sort of the flip side of the point you're making. But they're both equally true, I think, which is the whole point about Mozart and Michelangelo and all these names he's dropping and all this is they have universal appeal. They are great. They're not great because they're, you know, Mozart came from Salzburg and then ended up in Vienna. And in fact, if you look at people who enjoy great art and great music and great literature, it's enjoyed the world over. And some of the greatest performers are from Asia and from anywhere. I'm not even going to go out at such an obvious point, but. So it's precisely the universalism, one might call it, the globalism of these great works of art and literature that makes them so important. And it's. It's great that we host a lot of them now. A lot of them are not from America, as Marco sort of suggests. They're from Europe. And it's great that we, we feel that they're also part of America. Now, of course, we also have our distinctive American stuff, which in fact is very popular in Europe, jazz and so forth. So that's why globalism is better than stupid ethno nationalism. Right? I mean, honestly, with Marco, he's not quite vulgar enough, or maybe because he's Marco Rubio, he can't quite go in the J.D. vance Hillbilly Elegy direction of just flat out Scots Irish bullshit ethnonationalism. So he has this sort of fancier version of it. If you're just a straight up ethno nationalist, just. Okay, just go be a straight up ethno nationalist. But with Marco, it's such a fake thing and it's put on in this fancy way with so much lipstick on that pig in Marco's speech.

[Tim Miller]

You know, I should also just note that the Rolex Jones in particular, like, stole their music, music from black American culture, people that we had enslaved and brought over from Africa. So I don't know that there's like a great connection between Mozart and The Rolling Stones or like a direct line on that front, if you're trying to make it that it was all that. This could only have been created because of the Western European culture, like the Rolling Stones. Music was created because of the way in which we enslaved and oppressed other people. And that yielded some great art. And like this whole notion, again, it's like that there is something special about this culture that needs to be preserved and we need to protect it. And we need to be thoughtful about how to assimilate people that come from different cultures that don't have the same respect for these classically liberal theories. For starters, they don't believe in the classical liberal theories. Trump is a straight affront to them. And there have been plenty of people from all these cultures. To your point from earlier, there's the socialism of Central America mean that Central Americans can't come to America. Like, Marco has to rise to be Secretary of State. He's again, I should say it one more time. He was in Germany. So, I mean, there's some limits to our culture and its commitment to these principles and values. And so the whole, like, oh, you don't have to apologize from them. You can't acknowledge what the reality is that all of this takes work. A respect for the rule of law and respect for the beautiful and great things that have been created in Western culture. It requires continued work and effort and commitment to those values. And these guys are a straight attack on all of them. They want to do the, again, the agit prop about the good elements of the culture without actually contributing to any of the sacrifice that is required to maintain it. That's my final rant about this.

[Bill Kristol]

That's really well said at the point about sacrifice. But also the unapologetic thing also. Well, we're just being rankled and venting, but we're venting just righteously. Righteously, I believe. Yes, right. This is righteous venting. The unapologetic thing is appalling. What did he say? We have to be unapologetic in our heritage. No serious person thinks there's nothing to apologize about in our heritage, in the American heritage. I mean, let's not just be too obvious here and talk about slavery and talk about the treatment of Native Americans. Let's talk about. And other things. We made a lot of mistakes. And every serious European thinker, including the ones he mentioned, has understood that. If you're. I say if you're a great civilization, if you're any civilization, if you're any culture, if you're any nation, if you're any people, to use these terms, there are things to apologize for. That's part of what being a serious person is. So the unapologetic thing is so appallingly childish. It really is at the level of a five year old. I'm not going to say I'm sorry, I didn't do anything wrong. Really. That is that now our principle, the greatest American presidents, the greatest American authors understood Lincoln, second inaugural. I mean, there are things that we very much did wrong and things we have to apologize for. And that's what makes us, to the degree we are great, honestly, makes us great. The nations that don't think they have anything to apologize for are the worst nations or the worst governments of nations, if you want to put it that way.

[Tim Miller]

And you think Putin thinks he has anything to apologize for? Mark Caputo said that they want this fight. And so I want to come back to that in a second. But first I just want to listen to what some of the Democrats have said about this. Just kind of wrapping up Rubio first. He then went to Budapest, as mentioned, on the same day. So Orban gives a political speech. He has an election in two months. Right? So Orban has an election in two months. It's maybe the most vulnerable he's been in a decade or more. I just want to pull out a couple of things. I'm not going to put the audio of this because it's in Hungarian, so that wouldn't really do us any good. But translated, Orban said this in a political speech over the weekend. We must get used to the idea that those who love freedom should not fear the east, but Brussels, and people should turn their anxious eyes to Brussels. So simultaneously, Rubio is waxing poetic about the great Western European culture. Our best friends in Europe are talking about the threat from Brussels of liberal democratic countries. Here's what Rubio then says after he lands and they have a joint press conference together. I'm going to be very blunt with you. The prime minister, Orban and the president have a very, very close personal relationship and working relationship. I can say to you with confidence that President Trump is deeply committed to your success. So two months before the election, Rubio lands there and says Trump wants you to win, basically and is very committed to your victory politically. This is obviously a right wing autocrat. I don't know how to translate that anyway, other than a direct affront onto our traditional allies while he kind of pays lip service to this cultural connection.

[Bill Kristol]

Well, a direct attempt to prop up Orban, who is in trouble, has been in trouble. I think there also were financial commitments made that will help him spend more, go further into debt, even though the EU has been trying to check that. So Trump will in effect backstop him. Because your success is our success. He said to Orban. So there are actually brave people in Hungary fighting Orban. There's a candidate running against them. There are liberals, I've met some of them. Liberals in the old fashioned sense of people who believe in a free country, who have been fighting the good fight there with many disadvantages. Because Orban controls. Because everything that's been happening here has been happening in spades in Hungary. And Orban controls the media and he controls access to capital and to resources. But there are people trying to fight back and Rubio goes there and steps on those people. I mean, it's much worse even than just saying something nice about Orban in some outer context. Two months before the electors, you point out, he goes and weighs in against the dissidents in Hungary who are doing their best to restore Hungary to a free country, really, and then to an ally of other free countries.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah. Peter Magyar is the main opposition candidate.

[Bill Kristol]

But there's a big sorobat, hasn't succeeded in stamping out all opposition. So there are sort of opposition structures, although they're weaker in Budapest. And so it's just disgusting what Rubio's doing in that respect. Rubio is worse than the ones who just say it up front that that's, you know what I mean? He pretends to be the spokesman for Western and even sort of liberal values, you might say. And then he goes and helps Orban and hurts those trying to fight back against him. Really terrible.

[Tim Miller]

Magyar is the president of the Respect and Freedom Party. Like if Rubio was not being a shill for Donald Trump, it's a very Rubio esque party. It's not some liberal lefty socialist right.

[Bill Kristol]

No, no. The reason he's a strong opponent, as I understand it, to Orban is that he's sort of a center right, ish, pro freedom person. Right.

[Tim Miller]

I mean, it's somebody that would have been in the tradition of what Marco argued for up until two minutes ago, is trying to help a country that is being. Or a lot of freedom and rights are being stamped out by the current quasi authoritarian government.

[Bill Kristol]

One more word on this. You had that thing. I hadn't heard the thing about the E. We have that you said over the weekend that Brussels is the threat. The threat comes from the west, not from the east.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, the Thresh. We should not fear the East. Russia.

[Bill Kristol]

The east is Putin. I mean, that's both literally to the east, but also that's how Putin describes himself so often and his theorists describe himself. So Orban says we should fear the EU because they have a few too many regulations on something or other, I suppose more than Putin, who has launched this brutal war in Ukraine, among many, many, many other things. And Rubio shows up one or two days later and says, we're with you. It's terrible. It's just terrible. And that's our Secretary of State, and that's the one in the administration who's supposed to be kind of the better one. Yeah, the one who's kind of quietly gonna save us from some of the worst aspects of Trumpism. He's legitimating the worst aspects of Trumpism.

[Tim Miller]

He is in the same speech, in case the east was not clear enough. I'm basing these translations on Euro news and European news wire outlets, but in the same section of the speech, he calls it Putining. Putining is primitive and frivolous. And so for me, I was like, okay, well, maybe he's also criticizing Putin. But no, that's a critique of the Western practice of framing Russia and Putin as this scary threat that is frivolous to be overly concerned about Putin because the tangible and direct threat is Brussels. Total madness and insanity. And that's what Marco has said, that that's who we sidled up to. It's very important to Donald Trump that that person succeeds. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Sometimes it can feel like everyone else has it all together in their love lives. Whether married, dating, or single. The truth is, we're all figuring it out. We're all doing this thing one day at a time. And so no matter where you are in your romantic journey, therapy can help you find your way. Help you determine what you want, what feels heavy, and how you can take some pressure off yourself. With BetterHelp, you can get quality therapists that work according to a strict code of conduct that are fully licensed in the US they do the initial matching work for you so you can focus on your therapy goals. A short questionnaire helps identify your needs and preferences and their 12 years of experience. An industry leading match fulfillment rate means they typically get it right the first time. But if you aren't happy with your match, you can switch to a different therapist at any time. From their tailored Rex. Sign up and get 10% [e-mail] TheBullWerk that's betterhelp.com TheBullWerk let's go to what some of the Democrats said about all this. I'm just gonna read from Mark Kelly and then play some aoc. Mark Kelly wrote this when Secretary Rubio said the old World Order was dead, he was right. It's dead because Donald Trump blew it up. He thinks this somehow benefits us. He is wrong. Our allies no longer trust us. It was obvious in the more than a dozen meetings I had with presidents, prime ministers, defense and foreign ministers. If you're Denmark and Greenland, a loss of trust is generous. China is now more popular in Denmark than the United States. This means these countries are looking elsewhere for trade and security. That's making us poorer and less safe. I want to play Mark Kelly and aoc. Kind of give you a sense of how the various factions of the Democrats are talking about this, but do you have anything on Kelly?

[Bill Kristol]

I thought Kelly was very good, actually. Yeah, he's been very impressive the last few months. I mean, maybe he's been impressive for longer than that. I wasn't following him as closely, but ever since the Hexseth attack on him, I've been following him more closely. And I mean, he said it well and he's absolutely right about this thing didn't just blow itself up. This order that we've had for the last 80 years, it's been blown up by Trump. And Rubio's there justifying it.

[Tim Miller]

AOC was over there. This caused a lot of stir. I think it's interesting to listen to her, to actually listen to her. And I'll have some thoughts on the back.

[Podcast Announcer]

We have to have a working class centered politics if we are going to succeed and also if we are going to stave off the scourges of authoritarianism. This is a moment where we are seeing our presidential administration tear apart the transatlantic partnership, rip up every democratic norm and, you know, really calling into question, as was mentioned by, by David Carney at the World Economic Forum, the rules based order that we have, or question mark, do we have. And we are in a new era, domestically and globally. There have been many leaders who said we will go back. And I think we have to recognize that we are in a new day and in a new time. But that does not mean that the majority of Americans are ready to walk away from a rules based order.

[Tim Miller]

What'd you make about AOC?

[Bill Kristol]

She's impressive. You know, what do you think, Kelly, AOC in 2028? I mean, maybe you aren't AOC. Kelly, let's be honest. You know.

[Tim Miller]

No, don't try to put, don't try to put me in a box. Thanks, Bill. Crystal, here's what I thought was interesting about it. Well, I wanted to play it because she expands both of the points that she makes several times. But on the one hand she's talking about the working class politics. It's more of a domestic speaking to her domestic base really, but also sort of framing that as also a way to fight authoritarianism. Whereas if working people feel like the left party, liberal party is more on their side, then they might be less susceptible to the authoritarian advances. And I think there's something be said for it. And she also though talked several times with the democratic norbs. And I think it's funny because if you just consume the kind of internecine lefty debate online, a lot of times it gets framed up as like the Bernie left care about working people in economics and the squishy centrists care too much about democracy and norms. Right. That that hurt Kamala that she cared too much about that. And so it's interesting to see here AOC like just do both. Right. And do both, you know, off the cuff. Right. And she seemed very comfortable talking about both talking about democratic norms. And it's the type of thing I think that a lot of like the lefty fans would like sometimes roll their eyes when, when other folks do it. And so, so I thought that was interesting. I also thought it was interesting that like at this point the DSA candidates are basically more committed to maintaining the, the rules based order, the alliances, the economic and political alliances we have with Europe than the former neocons are. I think that's a pretty interesting contrast as well.

[Bill Kristol]

Yeah, no, it's pretty amazing. I mean, has there been any pushback against AOC from the left?

[Tim Miller]

I mean, I haven't seen it, but maybe, I don't know.

[Bill Kristol]

She's so invulnerable, maybe, right. That she gets to say what maybe lesser social democrats or democratic socialists couldn't quite get away with saying. But yeah, defending NATO. I mean that's. But I would say, you know, it's interesting as I listen to her. So in the early part of the Cold War, there were many Social democrats or democratic socialists and people who literally were from the socialist parties of their countries who were great allies in the fight against Soviet communism and who had been allies in the fight against fascism. And then there were the more, let's call them, centrist, free market ish types who we were more comfortable usually having as allies in Europe. But There were big coalitions too often to fight against dictatorship and tyranny and oppression. I don't know if AOC is consciously sort of harkening back to that or whether she just because Trump is destroying the rules based order and because she does have a sense that this is really bad for the country and for the world, the effect of what she's saying is to begin to put together a genuine alliance, I would say of a kind of working class oriented politics with a kind of liberal internationalism, which is good and you don't have to buy every aspect of the working class oriented politics in terms of domestic economic policy to think that for the point of view of the country and the world, you need to have that broad alliance. We needed it in the 50s and 60s, we needed it through the Cold War and we need it today, I think. Don't you think?

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, I do. She called it class based internationalism in a different clip, which I don't really know if that's real or what that is exactly. That's a little thin. But that notion I don't think is wrong. If somebody could merge or fuse a idea that the party is going to harken back to its roots and focusing on helping working people, all of the policies underneath that I probably won't agree with, but just at least aesthetically and if the focus is put on that, I think that's probably right and I think that probably would help in some ways or at least it would be worth trying and offsetting authoritarianism. The one thing that is true if you're just analyzing the world comparative politics style is like the left wing parties everywhere have gotten to a siloed among college educated urban elites and there needs to be some type of effort to change that. There are ways to go about that. AOC is offering one possible way that I think it's worth trying. So to me it's like, okay, well if you're going to try that and continue to have an internationalist commitment to allied countries into countries that have commitments to fundamental small l liberal values, we could do worse than that. We're doing significantly worse than that right now. So anyway, my last thing I would just say about AOC, just as doing my version of POLITICO's figure skating judging as people start to buzz about her 2028, watching the whole speech, she seems a little less sure footed talking about all this stuff. And so I think it was good that she went there. She would not be the first candidate to enter a campaign for president and feel less comfortable Talking about international issues, George W. Bush comes to mind as one. Many others, even Mitt, I think, got a lot better on that in his second campaign than his first campaign. Just thinking about people that I was following more closely. I think that if she does have her sights on that, it would probably be valuable to get more reps in on that sort of stuff. I couldn't tell. I listened to it very closely several times. I think she might have got Mark Carney's name wrong. I'm not 100% sure because she kind of mumbles it, which is sort of what I do. I see a parent from school and I forget their name. I can mumble it really fast. So it might have just been that. I don't know. Maybe. Maybe I'm overstated.

[Bill Kristol]

Just not an AOC A. I think it's impressive that she went there and look, I've been there. I mean, there's quite a lot of pressure. I mean, everyone else, Friedrich Merz has spoken, and the Vice and Rubio, and she's on a panel. And it's not as if she's reading a text, incidentally, I believe. Right. So I give her credit for doing it and probably going to have people like us say, oh, she wasn't perfect on this or that. But. But if you're running for president or even. Well, if you're running for president or want to be a major figure, even if you don't quite run for president, this is the kind of thing you do. But it's only February 26th. It's impressive that she's doing it this early. I kind of think she maybe is thinking seriously about running for president, though, don't you think?

[Tim Miller]

I think so. I have no inside knowledge.

[Bill Kristol]

No, no, nor I. I'm just, you know.

[Tim Miller]

But I mean, if there was somebody in age between her and Bernie in her lane, I would think that maybe she would think the right thing to do is primary Schumer. Right. Because I think that Schumer is extremely vulnerable. And, you know, she's in New York and there isn't really. So I have to mention she's thinking about it.

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[Ryan Seacrest]

Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons and Safeway. Are you feeling those winter blues? Well, do not worry, they've got you covered with ways to boost your mood. Add a little sweetness to your day with big savings on all your favorite sweets. Shop in store or online and save on items like Gummy Savers Five Flavors, Reese's Peanut Butter Cup Sour Patch, Watermelon, M M's Party Size Stand Up Bags and Ferrero Rocher Mixed Variety squares. Offer ends February 24th. Restrictions apply. Offers may vary. Visit albertsons or safeway.com for more details.

[Tim Miller]

Lastly, Caputo, our four colleagues said that he he basically said that in response. I forget who it was too, but in response to some of the pushback to Rubio on the left, he said basically Rubio and Vance want this fight. They want the contrast that was just laid out of aoc talking about internationalism and there are areas where we need to improve our commitment to human rights versus a Western culture. Unapologetic tough guy Americanism. I don't know that that's the kind of thing that actually defines an election. It really matters. And it's hard to kind of to look out to 2028 and think how salient that may or may not be. But I do wonder if you think that the Democrats just should be a little bit worried about that, that just because the Rubio framing is obviously ridiculous, that doesn't mean that it's not necessarily effective. What do you think? What would you say to that?

[Bill Kristol]

I mean, a certain kind of nativism and unapologeticism. Never apologize for anything that your country's ever done. I suppose that of course there's some appeal, demagogic appeal there and the Democrats need to think about how to respond. Kelly is effective, as he says, it's making us less safe. The actual truth of Rubio's talk is that his administration is portraying Ukraine. There's not popular support for that in the United States. Right. So I think the Democrats need to frame it in a way to say this talk may sound vaguely nice to you, but we're for our allies because that's kept us safe and it's made the world more prosperous. We're for Ukraine because they're fighting bravely against Putin. And here's a little bit about how horrible Putin is. And here's a little bit about how Ukraine is fighting our fight for us and not asking for troops, just for aid. I mean, I think there are ways to do it that would be effective and not fall into some trap. Yeah. If you sound like some super goopy internationalist, if only let the UN Govern us, that would be good, I guess. But I don't think Democrats are pretty far from that these days. And look, I think the AOC thing I really focused on until you brought it up today, it's very interesting if that really begins a move by even the AOC wing of the party into a more liberal internationalist foreign policy, as opposed to where democratic socialists really had been going the last 10, 20, 30 years, which was a repudiation even of that because it led to. First to Vietnam and then to Iraq and so forth. They can still repudiate Vietnam and Iraq, obviously.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, sure. But more of an isolationist. Yeah.

[Bill Kristol]

But if it leads them away from a kind of isolationism or just. Just wishfulness and into a healthier version of a liberal internationalist foreign policy, that's good for them and it's good for the country, I think.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah. Also, this is. I'll be Bill Kristalisch. Events are going to matter depending on how big of a shit show things are by the end of 2027. I think there can be a compelling argument about how much weaker America is right now. And it's a little bit of an academic argument right now that China is strengthening and we are weakening in the world stage. And there's not a lot of tangible evidence for that, unless you're the type of person that's like, really paying attention to trade agreements and such. But if some tangible evidence of that develops, I think that there might be a way to thread that needle. One other foreign policy thing that just caught my eye. I just kind of want to mention this because could end up becoming pretty important as we go forward on the AI beat. The anthropic products are used in the Venezuela raid, which I thought was interesting. More interesting, though, was this story I saw this morning, which is that Pete Hagseth is saying that he's close to cutting all ties with Anthropic and designating the AI company a supply chain risk, meaning that anyone who wants to do business with the US has to cut ties with the company. The reason why is that the CEO of Anthropic, Dario Amadei, says he wants to ensure that tools aren't used to spy on Americans en masse or develop weapons that fire with no human involvement. Pentagon officials are insisting that any relationship with AI companies allows the military to do whatever they want. Basically Anthropic of the AI companies, they're the ones that are trying to focus on safety and ethical considerations and they are paying lip service to that, at least much more than their competitors. We'll see. The proof will be in the pudding on all that. But I think it's pretty concerning until that our government is about to is considering at least declaring full out war on the one AI company that is at least pretending like they care about safeguards and we'll see how it all plays out. But I definitely think this is something to keep monitoring.

[Bill Kristol]

And how much is this just a way of channeling more business to Musk since he's one of the other three AI players? It might all be just. But no, it's terrible and of course the same week, isn't it, that Hegseth's sort of making it harder, I guess, for members of the military to be who are going to law school to become Jags, to go to, you know, the 30 top law schools in the US basically because they're so woke.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah. The military might not cover it if you go to a woke, right?

[Bill Kristol]

No, apparently. And they're telling people to reapply to other places and so forth. And I think they've also cut back on some of the big career programs that I very much enjoyed when I taught a little bit at the Kennedy school in the 2000s and had wonderful, you know, majors and lieutenant colonels there for their year instead of going to the war colleges had a very good influence on the other students incidentally. But Hexath, they want to throw all that away. But these poor guys, these 35 year old majors or these 25 year old, I suppose JAG law students, in Hegseth's view, they're so pathetically vulnerable, they have so little idea of what they believe, why they're joining the military, that they're going to go to Harvard or Princeton, which is where Hegseth went incidentally, and get brainwashed by a bunch of professors? I don't think so, really. That was not my experience.

[Tim Miller]

MIT was also on the list. It feels like we should have members of the military who have certain technical expertise should be able to go to mit. I think.

[Bill Kristol]

Think about what Texas selling people in the military. You are not a serious enough person to go to a place where the predominant culture is presumably liberal, I guess though in fact the military's thank God last 20 years been treated so much better at these schools than obviously post Vietnam and stuff. So there's been very few real problems for them. But anyway, you can't go there because you're gonna. I don't know what you know, you're just gonna get. The wokeness is gonna permeate into your brain in some mysterious way and you're suddenly going to not be a good member of the military. It's so insulting. It's so insulting to these serious people who are trying to become lawyers and JAGs or who are getting their mid career year of education so they can then move up and become full bird colonels or ultimately general officers. You do wonder how much damage it's all going to do. It's so stupid, you almost can't take it seriously. But I don't know, I mean, it's going to lead to more people leaving the military, I suppose, who thought, I'd like to go to a good law school if I'm going to go the JAG route.

[Tim Miller]

I guess the best case for that policy is that Pete Hegseth is himself a graduate of Princeton and Harvard. So maybe they're not doing as good of a job as we think on a few ICE things. I never even covered this case, but it's worth mentioning it just because it's so striking. So the district court judge Paul Magnuson dismissed felony assault charges against two Venezuelans, Alfredo Aljorna and Julio Cesar Sosacelas. This was in Minneapolis. They're accused of beating an ICE officer with a broom handle and a Snow shovel. On January 14, the officer fired a shot from his handgun, striking Sosa Sellis in his right thigh. So that was the whole story they told basically that he shot him because they were beaten. They announced over the weekend that newly discovered evidence was materially inconsistent with the allegations. You don't say. Both officers have been immediately placed on administrative leave pending the completion of a thorough internal investigation. We'll see if those investigations actually occur. But I just think it's so notable that we have these prime cases that everybody's debating. It's all in all of our faces, where we watch them lie to us. With their own eyes. But then there have been a lot of other instances of these guys menacing people, injuring them, in this case, shooting them, and then lying about them and smearing them. So it's good, I guess, that these things are being adjudicated. But it is a pretty notable state of affairs. Like, we literally just cannot trust anything that the Department of Homeland Security says.

[Bill Kristol]

Yeah, totally. I mean, the lies are just so they're not like slight shading of the truth. They're exaggerating, you know, how much of trouble they were in or the person hit them. But it really wasn't a shovel. It was just a broomstick. So she wasn't as serious. It's not like that kind of thing. They just made up a story, right?

[Tim Miller]

I mean, it sounds like it. Yeah.

[Bill Kristol]

To justify shooting someone. I am all out of patience with ICE and the Border Patrol in every respect.

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[Ryan Seacrest]

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[Tim Miller]

The DHS is Currently shut down. There's kind of this partial government shutdown happening. We discussed this last week. Which part of the communists are you in? Which. Which wing are you in? You're in the Trotskyite wing, Len. You're in the TR and somebody else's and you're in the Trotskyite wing saying, no, not a single penny for dhs. Shut it down. Negotiations are ongoing about whether maybe Republicans might change some of the various policies because we take good faith criticism here. We're not perfect. We're not unapologetic. There was a column that was unhappy with your hardline point of view. It's from Marcy Wheeler, who has been monitoring the Trump administration successes for a long time now. So we'll take it. Basically her argument, this not funding DHS in this fight doesn't really do anything to change ICE and CBP's behavior because they have so much money. And so she says to have that be the only ask is to basically throw up your hands in the hopes that in 11 months Democrats will have the tools to do something more, all while letting ICE continue to spend billions unmolested. So the idea is basically, why not get some concessions now because they have enough funding anyway and then refight the fight next year, essentially. What would you say to that dissent?

[Bill Kristol]

I'm forgetting some concessions, too. I didn't really think I was advocating totally dropping those. I do think the money is extremely important. 16 billion isn't that much given how much they got in the reconciliation bill last year. But it's not nothing. And people, Aaron Reichman, Melnick and others say they'd let them draw down some of that other money. It means there's less available for the next couple of years. And also I just think it lays the predicate for making the broader case against ICE and the Border Patrol. If Democrats win the House and or the Senate and to really. And then they really do need to get serious about the funding. So I think you need to get people used to the fact that the funding is as important as some of these concessions or adjustments in how they do business. I'm for going after all of them. I'm uncomfortable with. Just not uncomfortable more than uncomfortable. I don't think it's a good idea to just swear off doing anything about funding. I mean, I respect Marcy Wheeler and maybe, look, this is a matter of tactics. Are Democrats going to vote vote. Let's say they get a couple of concessions on masks or on, you know, I don't know what body cam they're not going to get masks, incidentally. But anyway, body cameras or something. Are they then going to vote to add funding again? Not a small add $16 billion to ICE and to border Patrol. I don't know. I would have a tough time after everything we've just talked about, the way they behaved in giving them a whole lot of money with pretty limited modifications in how they're doing business and no change in their leadership to speak of.

[Tim Miller]

Right. I don't see how you can without very real changes. And so this is kind of a devil's in the details thing for me. But I don't know how you can give them another penny while they're masked for starters. It's just no one else gets to be masked. We've seen the problems that it's caused already. It's a non starter for me. I'm never going to be in the United States Senate, but that's where I would be. That'd be my message for them.

[Bill Kristol]

You haven't changed your mind about running? You haven't changed your mind about the Senate race?

[Tim Miller]

I've not changed my mind since we.

[Bill Kristol]

Discussed it a week ago. You know, I have not.

[Tim Miller]

I think what probably worse, the more I reflect on it, the less competitive I seem. So I appreciate the feedback. Lastly, I would feel remiss if I didn't ask you. Former President Barack Obama was in an interview this weekend where he said he believes that aliens exist. He said he didn't have any evidence of that. He hasn't seen any evidence. And so I'm just curious where Bill Kristal is on aliens.

[Bill Kristol]

This shows my limited imagination, I'm sure, but I've never given it that much thought.

[Tim Miller]

Not a lot of thought on aliens. Aliens. What did Dan Quayle think about aliens, do you think?

[Bill Kristol]

Don't you think in Republican circles we were sort of. We were vaguely doubtful about aliens, I think.

[Tim Miller]

Doubtful.

[Bill Kristol]

I think the people who were pro alien. Yeah.

[Tim Miller]

It's a little bit of a front to religion, I think, if you're devout.

[Bill Kristol]

Yeah. So that's true. It is an affront at least to get the biblical religion as we understand it. And also I think people who are pro seeing aliens, I guess there were elements. Was that a horseshoe thing? There were elements on the right and the left too.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah. Probably horseshoe. Yeah. I don't know.

[Bill Kristol]

I'm still a little skeptical. I'm interested that Barack Obama is just, I mean, I only saw the sentences. So he said it's a very big universe, so why couldn't there be alien forms of alien life. I guess that's if you define it broadly enough, that could be true. I don't know. I guess I'm old fashioned enough in that respect to think. Maybe kind of like the idea that we're the only actual human beings who have this ability to quite think and feel the way that we do. I don't know, maybe that's just a prejudice.

[Tim Miller]

I've kind of backtracked. I'm not even sure if we exist. I'm not like, you know, this might all be fake.

[Bill Kristol]

That's a good position.

[Tim Miller]

All I can know is that I exist. All right, Bill Kristol, thank you so much. I'll be seeing you in Minnesota. You're coming?

[Bill Kristol]

I am coming.

[Tim Miller]

I'm looking forward to it. Sam Stein is with us. JBL and Sarah. We're going to have some special guests from the community. Very much looking forward to it. I'll be back for Marty Grobstad tomorrow. Well, I'm just going to tell you now, it won't be with James Carville. We've done two James Carville Mardi Gras episodes in a row. And I had dinner with him about a week or two ago and I was like, we're going to continue the tradition, right? And I'm not going to try to do his voice, but he was like, I'm 81. I'm going on a cruise by myself. I was like, what? You're going on a cruise by yourself? He said, yes. Mary didn't want to go. I'd never been and I want to go. And so I was like, God bless. Awesome. That's great. I think good on him. Just think about like what a gift that is to whoever is sitting next to him at dinner.

[Bill Kristol]

I was thinking about that. You look up, you're on the cruise, they give you your tip. Does they get like table assignments? There you are. That would be something.

[Tim Miller]

James Carville. It's like people pay $25,000 a pop for this and you're going to get a full weekend of just unmolested James Carville material. So anyway, we'll have another good one. It'll be good. We'll have a Mardi Gras episode for you tomorrow and then we'll see everybody in Minneapolis. Appreciate to you, Bill. See everybody else tomorrow. Peace. The board podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Hey, it's Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons and Safeway. Are you feeling those winter blues? Well, do not worry. They've got you covered with ways to boost your mood. Add a little sweetness to your day with big savings on all your favorite sweets. Shop in store or online and save on items like Gummy Savers. Five flavors Reese's Peanut Butter Cup Sour Patch Watermelon, M M's Party Size Stand Up Bags and Ferrero Rocher Mixed Variety squares. Offer ends February 24th. Fourth restrictions apply. Offers may vary. Visit albertsons or safeway.com for more details. Are you a fraud paying American?

[Bill Kristol]

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[Ryan Seacrest]

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[Bill Kristol]

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