← The Bulwark Podcast
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- [00:00]
A
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- [00:43]
B
Hello and welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I'm your host Tim Miller. A couple of announcements. We have some new merch here. I'm kind of standing up so you can see it a little bit for the YouTube and some might say that the new merch is a little more Tim coated than the past offerings. You can go to the Bulwark.com store to see what we got cooking up. I am also I've been back from a week on the road and so you know, I had a lot of takes bubbling up that I did last night after Toulouse went to bed. So you can already see my talk with Will Sommer on Candace Owens going even insaner. Can you say insaner? Whatever. Candace Owens way off the deep end. I saved that for Will Sommer. So that's already up. You can check that out in the Bullork Takes feed. I also grabbed my guy Pablo Torre, who's been just really on a heater. He had the big Riley Gaines story and he does sports politics overlap. And that should be up later today. Also in the Bulwark Takes feed. And we got a new mailbag segment coming soon for Bulwark members. Get to the end of the year. We want to encourage more Bulwark plus members. Black Friday is coming up so you can sign up either on YouTube or substack. I'm going to be taking mailbag questions, so are some of my colleagues. Fun and goofy would be great, but we'll also take your politics questions too. You can email us@Bulwark podcasthebollork.com and sign up for Bulwark plus now so you get access to that for today's show. There's some big threats to Trump's power out there. There's unrest within the MAGA base. He's losing control over the party. He's losing the fear factor. And to talk about all that, it's Monday, so it's the editor at large, Bill Kristol. What's up Bill?
- [02:13]
C
I just pondering that you get all these fun Bulwark Takes with Will on Candace Owens and on Riley Gaines. And I'm having sober discussions on Sunday. Bulwark on Sunday with Katherine Rampel on economic data and is the real economy a little better or a little wor. And you know, it's. But everyone does his own thing. Everyone does his own thing, right? I mean, you know, that was a.
- [02:36]
B
Great Bulwark on Sunday and people should check that out. I mean, if you want to get even more serious. Shield of the Republic had an excellent guest this week whose name I'm blanking on former general who is really good. So, you know, we give people Jonathan Cohn's newsletter is deep diving on healthcare fraud this week. It was really good.
- [02:56]
C
Excellent. No excellent stuff. I will say you have had. I mean you and Will, particularly since this is his beat. The amount of material he's had and that you've been happy to help him develop in Maga world is pretty astonishing the last couple of weeks, right?
- [03:09]
B
Just as a teaser, I guess I'll just tell people Candace Owens thinks that the French president has issued a hit on her and is trying to assassinate her. And there is a female French Huguenot, whatever legionnaire teaming up with naturally Bill, you'll be surprised to hear an Israeli hitman and the two of them are currently in the country, maybe even working with the Americans, thinking about snuffing out Candace Owens because of her takes. And so there's much more there. So that's just a little tease. Go check it out on Borg take.
- [03:42]
C
I went to Tucker Cohen. Tucker Cohen. My mind is going with all the chewing. He's an anti Semite. I can't give him Tucker Carlson's X account because someone told me he had tweeted something about Ukraine. I don't really follow him, but it turns out he has pinned. Maybe everyone else knew this. He has pinned a kind of insane 911 denier thing to his ex. So he's gone full. I mean he's got everything, right? Full Neo, full Neo Nazi adjacent, but also full 911 truth or adjacent.
- [04:09]
B
Yeah.
- [04:10]
C
Did we know that? Okay, you knew that. I didn't know that.
- [04:12]
B
Oh yeah. I'm consuming a lot of material over there. That's the one nice thing about traveling and a lot of train and airplane time for me to just really kind of marinate in the crazy. We've got too much news to get to. Everything happened since we taped Friday with Adam Kinziger mtg Marjorie Taylor Greene, the new apple of JVL's eye. She resigned from Congress or is resigning Coming up in January after her pension kicks in, which I should just say I'm fine with, by the way. That's a normal behavior, okay? People waiting till after their pension kicks in to resign. But it is noteworthy she put out a very lengthy video and four page note on this. I think trying to divine what are the real intentions and motivations of Marjorie Taylor Greene is kind of a fool's errand. It's a little bit of a silly parlor game. We can do it if you want, we can play it if you want. But to me the more interesting thing is the actual substance of why she claims she's resigning. And I'm just going to read a little bit from it. No matter which way the political pendulum swings, Republican or Democrat, nothing ever gets better for the common American man or woman. If I'm cast aside by MAGA Inc. And replaced by neocons, big pharma, big tech, military industrial war complex, foreign leaders, the elite donor class that can't relate to real Americans, that many common Americans have been cast aside and excuse me, then many common Americans have been cast aside and replaced as well. There is no plan to save the world or insane 4D chess game being played with Trump. Taking that at face value, Marjorie Greene is basically saying Trump has been co opted by the swamp and the quote unquote unit party that they all campaigned against. That he's abandoned their voters. And again, regardless what you think about her motivations, that is objectively true that he has abandoned his own voters and doesn't care about them and cares more about the elites. And I think that that is objectively a real threat to him. It's unfortunate, I think that Marjorie Taylor Greene has decided not to continue that fight from inside Congress because I think that that's a salient attack on Trump. But it's pretty noteworthy that that is like what her stated reason was. What'd you make of the whole Marjorie Taylor Greene departure?
- [06:12]
C
Yeah, and I think she'll keep this up even if she's not in Congress, don't you think? I somehow don't think she's gonna go quietly into the good night and all that.
- [06:18]
B
So I don't think she's gonna and move to Midland and kind of mind your own business.
- [06:23]
C
Yeah, I think, I'm thinking laying the groundwork for presidential run in 28. I don't know whether she'll primary Trump in the Republic, if he's running again or if Trump's designee or maybe there'll be a new MAGA party or whatever. But I'M really, I think anything's possible at this point. Look, you and I discussed this a few weeks ago. Splits within the MAGA coalition can do a lot of damage even if you pry off 3, 5, 7, 8%. Right. I mean, it's a real, you know, who maybe don't vote in 2026 or who write their members of Congress or communicate with the members of Congress and say you don't need to vote with Trump every time. I feel like we're hitting a critical mass where all these hopes have been put, I think not by you and me in these moderate Republicans. When will they split? You know, the Don Bacons of the world, when are they going to do the right thing? It turns out I think we'll see more of what happened on Epstein, which is the MAGA Republicans splitting from Trump and in a very narrowly divided House, that has real consequences. I noticed that the House members have realized, hey, that discharge petition worked on Epstein. Now it's worked on this union bill and they seem to be filing more of them on Ukraine. I think one was filed last week and I don't know that one would get the moderate Republicans, not the MAGA ones. But I really wonder whether Johnson's control in the House, which is to say Trump's control of the House, is now in risk in a way that we haven't seen in this entire Congress.
- [07:33]
B
There's some evidence of this. Again, not to do too much happy talk and bill into Monday the second week in a row, but I was reading my Punchbowl news this morning, which is, and I don't usually do on this show, kind of like insidery DC on background comments by congressmen to reporters because it's just a lot of that stuff is generally hot air and we don't need to follow the minute by minute. We're not lobbyists. Joe Perdicone's got that for folks that are really interested in that. Read his newsletter. But this one caught my eye today because of exactly what you said, how there's some signs of cracks and what we are seeing in Congress is that fear of Trump is starting to turn into loathing of him because he's weakening. Here was what Punchbowl reported. Marjorie Tara Green's four page note was stinging for House Republicans. Why? Because the message rang so true to so many in the House gop. And then here's one anonymous Republican being quoted. The entire White House team has treated all members like garbage. All that is the sentiment of nearly all appropriators, authorizers, hawks, doves, Rank and file. The arrogance of this White House team is off putting to members who are run roughshod and threatened. They don't even allow little wins like announcing small grants or even responding from agencies. Members know they're going into the minority after the midterms. More explosive early resignations are coming. It's a tinderbox. Morale has never been lower. Mike Johnson will be stripped of his gavel and they will lose the majority before this term is out. Now, again, for 10 years, we've had anonymous Republicans complaining about Trump. So there's some element of, like, taking this with a grain of salt. But to me, you look at that, and the fact that it's coming out now speaks to this broader trend, which is there's a sense that Donald Trump is losing power. Right? Like, there's no sense to even make that point anonymously when the golden age is here again. Right. Like, if things are going well politically for Trump, if Trump seems very powerful, if he's making the richest people in the world and universities and law firms cow to him, then the people in the House, they don't need to announce their small grants, right? Because things are fine, right? Like, everybody's happy. The voters are happy right now. The voters are not happy. They are not happy. They think Trump's treating them like shit. They're happy to be treated like shit if it meant that they were going to be winning. But now that they're losing, they're starting to push back against it. And they saw with the Epstein files that that pushback can work. I think that's pretty significant.
- [09:56]
C
This happening post Epstein files is totally different than if it had been some background quotes before. There's been an instance where Trump was thwarted and ended up capitulating. We'll see what happens, obviously, in a month, what they release and all that. But so that's big. And I think the November 4th election. So you put those. Those two have both happened in the last. In this month. Right. And that's. Those are both real things. It's not, gee, the polls went from 44% to 30. That's not unimportant. But on the other hand, they'll go back up. No one's voted for a year. You're a member of Congress. Your own district isn't 39. Your own district is 58 or something, because they're, you know. So it just has much less effect. I think our. A lot of our friends have overestimated the importance of these movements in the public opinion polls. But this is now affecting actual votes in Virginia, New Jersey and elsewhere on November 4, and then an actual vote in Congress on Epstein and an actual signing by Trump of the Epstein files. And I just feel like we're in a somewhat different world here as we get close to enter December than we were certainly just when we entered November just a month ago.
- [10:57]
B
I agree with you on the polls. I've been very reluctant to even talk about them on the show because it's just kind of, it's so early. But it is worth noting as of today, I pulled up Nate Silver this morning. Trump's at 41% approved, 56 disapprove. And you said, maybe they'll go back up. Maybe they will. But if you look at it right now, the trend, you're looking at me on the, on the screen, you know, it's a ski slope right now down, and it's, you know, it's a, it's a green or a blue, you know, it's not a steep, double black diamond ski slope, but it's going, it's consistently going down. And there's a slight pop up after, you know, there's a big dip on Liberation Day with the tariffs and a slight pop up after that. But besides that, it's been mostly going down the whole, the whole time. I think that this is particularly important, especially in the bulwark context. And what we care about and are so focused on, which is the broader protection of liberal democracy, is that his authoritarian ambitions are weakened by him seeming to be weakened politically. Right. Like there actually is a connection between political popularity and the authoritarian ambitions. And, you know, the degree to which people fight him, the degree to which people, you know, are scared of him, accept the inevitability. Right. Like he, that's what he wants. Like he wants an error. That this is, you know, that there was a shock wave and the American people called for him. They rejected the woke. And we just, we need to, everyone needs to just accept that this is inevitable. And as a con man, he's pretty good at that. And it seems like his ability to con his way into more authoritarian power is limited significantly by the series of events that you just laid out. I don't know to the extent. Do you agree with that?
- [12:39]
C
Yeah, very much so. And one defeat on the Hill can lead to a second. We've seen this in past years, especially years that were the prelude to big midterm defeats. 94 in particular, that was more about healthcare, that midterm, but it was the crime bill going down in August, I think, of 94 that was like, oh, my God. Clinton's kind of lost control of what was a very predominantly Democratic Congress. So I do think more instances where he suffers actual defeats can really make a difference. The polls matter. But the combination of steady polling decline and actual defeats, setbacks, failure to ram things through Congress, a little bit more objections from Congress, another discharge petition or two, maybe the Senate even starts to perk up a little. Bill Cassidy yesterday was still in the same mode he's been in for eight, nine months, pathetically refusing to kind of criticize, well, sort of criticizing Kennedy. But Trump doesn't agree with Kennedy and really Kennedy, there's a footnote on the CDC website that means that Kennedy hasn't betrayed his total, his promise to. I mean, so Cassidy is still in pathetic accommodation mode, which maybe. And he's got a primary in Louisiana than where you are next year. So maybe that shows the limits of what we're saying so far. But I feel like people shouldn't underestimate it. What's important, I think, is to think of instances, if you're in the anti Trump side of things, where actual defeats can be imposed on Trump. I do think the headline of losing a vote, failing to get a rule through, failing to get a nominee confirmed on the Senate side is really worth a lot in the next month or two.
- [14:07]
B
Kathy's so pathetic. One of the things he's even using, I want to make America healthy again. He's doing the talking points for what seems to be an inevitable primary loss. And I heard some scuttlebutt around town that he was calling folks to give names to be appointed to some of these to replace the people that have been kicked out of, run out by RFK at hhs, because I guess they're doing some behind the scenes. He's trying to get some wins, trying to figure out how to do some stuff that he agrees with while accommodating the RFK madness. But in the calls to people, he's saying, you know, I need you to give me somebody that's a Republican or I need you to give me somebody that won't, you know, that won't rock the boat on this sort of stuff. And it's like, these are for scientist positions, right? Like, this is not like, oh, I need you to throw me a Republican name to be the political attache to the Commerce Department or whatever. Like, you know, it's like, these are boards. They're supposed to be scientific experts. And like, anyway, it's just so pathetic what Cassidy's been doing. But it's possible he's an outlier, though he also has to overcompensate for his impeachment vote if he wants to try to stay in.
- [15:15]
C
Right. I think he'll be the. They'll be the last ones to move. I'll take. So you and I were at the Dick Chandi funeral on Thursday, and you wrote an excellent piece for Friday morning. Friday's morning shots on the passing of the old order. So there are a ton of people that I've known over the years, and I was slightly dreading it because, anyway, a lot of them have accommodated Trump in ways they shouldn't have, but I was sure.
- [15:36]
B
And they're the hardest socially, actually to deal with, you know, because there's just the tension.
- [15:41]
C
Yeah, nice guy. You used to be friendly, served in the, maybe the old Bush administration with or knew when he worked for W. And, you know, kind of cordial and haven't seen him in 15 years because he's off making money as a vice president for government relations for a major bank. God knows what he's had to do or has chosen to do with the Trump administration over the last year in terms of getting along, going along. And of course, these people are professional types, so they're cordial. But my punch is two months ago would have been pleasant, but pretty distant. And suddenly it was a kind of. They were a lot of them wanting to say, hey, kind of. I see the bulwark. You. I don't. I can't really. I work. I can't really do that kind of stuff. But it's good that you guys are doing what you're doing. And I think they're not just making it up as they mentioned you or they mentioned, you know, someone else.
- [16:25]
B
I had several of those, too, people who are like, you're a daily. I'm a daily listener. And I was like, didn't you endorse Trump? I was like, if you're a daily listener.
- [16:33]
C
Exactly. So I was struck by that. And then I was struck also, they went kind of one step further. Some of the ones who are in touch with Trump world sort of wanting to, I don't know, over to analyze this, you know, but wanting to be friendly and sort of helpful. You know, Bill, they're kind of in real disarray. I mean, Vance and Rubio not even speaking to each other. Hegseth more paranoid than ever. One of them pointed out to me something that I then tweeted that Driscoll, the Army secretary, who's a heseth roommate from Yale, was In some call, I guess Vance and Rubio were on. Driscoll was on representing dod, not Hegseth. Now Hexseth was probably traveling or something. Still, it's kind of striking. Secretary of army is not even the number two or three person. And Hecseth's paranoid that Driscoll's gonna rep. Were kind of wanting, I don't know if you had this experience a little bit to share a little gossip, to show they were kind of with us in spirit. It cheered me. I mean, I gotta say, it encouraged me a little bit about the state of play.
- [17:26]
B
Do you think the Rubio Vance thing is true? I mean, or is that wish casting? What was your sense?
- [17:32]
C
I think it's partly true. At least I think Vance is. They think they're rivals for 2028. I don't think they like each other much. Also, Vance has really thrown his weight around as vp. He has people in the Defense Department, Jiskel just mentioned, and the undersecretary of defense for Colby. Rubio's got the lead on Venezuela. Vance doesn't want to do that. So there Vance is trying to undercut him, apparently. I don't know. I think that could all be true. Also, these things that seem to me so insane, these rifts, this gets back to marcher Shelley Green in MAGA world. I think they're putting more pressure on all these people, which means they might make some mistakes. So Vance, I was told, can't afford to antagonize Tucker, which means he can't criticize the neo Nazi stuff. Vance has consistently not said that. On the other hand, he's got to get along with, you know, donor world and semi sane Republican world. So we can't actually embrace the neo Nazi stuff too much. And so apparently there's just endless maneuvering and talking and trying to keep this guy on board and that one on board. And my experience in politics is when you get into that kind of effort, it's very hard. You know what I mean? Things go awry.
- [18:36]
B
Yeah. You're already in the barrel. Yeah. And Vance has Tucker's kid working for him. There's a lot of arrows coming for because apparently he's been leaked. He's been one of the ones that has been leaking, you know, trying to nudge the administration towards abandoning Ukraine, which we'll get to in some of these areas. Some of the more hawkish people have been. Have been tagging for leaking. And then you get all of this. JD is like. Gets on X and is like defending the honor of Tucker's. Son and be like, you can't to attack a young person like this. It's like Tucker's kid's like a 28 year old, like influential senior official. Sorry, he's not like a child. It wasn't like a 13 year old was tweeting and we were like criticizing their tweets. It's like, sorry, you take a job for the vice president as a spokesperson for the vice president, then you can be criticized. Okay, we don't need to infantilize them anyway. One last thing on the MTG thing before we get too high on our supply here. The one argument in Trump's favor of him still having a lot of control and power and fear is that there has been a 10 year trend now of any time someone really steps out to criticize Trump, they end up resigning. And the list, you know, corker flake, to Liz Cheney's credit, she actually did put herself up for election. But kind of we can just say half heartedly, I mean, I love Liz. I was happy that she stayed in that race, but I think she knew it, saw the writing on the wall. There hasn't really been anybody that's like, I'm challenging Trump and I'm staying and I'm bearing down for a fight and let's see if he can actually beat me. And I think that that shows that, you know, we're not, we're not at the end state yet. Right. Like, I think that if Trump was not proceed to have survived and I think that she had some concerns about her safety and like that's part of Trump's power. Right. That he weaponizes his crazy supporters against people. So, you know, there's some reasons to understand that, but I just wanted, I think that is noteworthy that they continued that trend.
- [20:29]
C
Well said.
- [20:32]
B
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- [23:25]
C
All kinds of parts of the US Government, obviously some of the biomedical research, nih, and obviously aid and the spirit of Doge, the rampage through the Justice Department, through the intelligence community, firing senior officers, the DoD, they have done a huge amount of damage. But as you say, with no compensating good things, really. I mean, no savings of money, no efficiencies that one can see. Quite the contrary. They still seem to be in total in disarray and having to reverse themselves every two minutes and stuff. So, yeah, big failure. So shock and awe in this case, as in other cases of shock at all, didn't maybe work out so well, but did real damage to real human beings. So that's bad.
- [24:04]
B
Yeah. And it's one thing to be like, okay, hey, we're bloodless accountants. And it's like, sorry, there's going to have to be some suffering, but the budget is just out of control and we got to bring things back in balance. Obviously, there would have been outrage and everybody would have different opinions on how exactly they went about it. But then at the end of the day, I could at least say, look, we took the deficit from 4 trillion to 1 trillion this year, whatever it is something much more manageable, and the interest that we're paying on the debt in the future will be smaller. So we'll use that money to offset these services and give people more. There would be a way to make that case an utter failure on that front. They did nothing except for cause suffering. One more item, though, related to Doge, this is different from outrage within the MAGA world because it's, it's a little bit of like the backlash of the old Tea Party types more than the traditional MAGA types, if we're kind of bifurcating the coalition. But again, when it comes to people now being willing to speak out against Trump after this news this morning, I saw on social media, Desantis says this Doge fought the swamp and the swamp won. And Tim Burchett, a congressman from Tennessee, a Tea Party type, is one of the ones that pushed out McCarthy. He talks about how Musk had been pushed out of Washington because he was getting too close to exposing the corrupt officials enriching themselves and essentially implying that Trump is siding with them. So again, on both of these cases, neither of them are stating Trump by name, but they are giving support to that building narrative that Trump went in there and was like, we're going to take on these entrenched interests. And Doge was part of that on behalf of the forgotten man on behalf of maga. And now he gets in there and it's like, no, actually I like to hang out with the rich people at Saudi estate dinners instead.
- [25:51]
C
Yeah. But I think the flip side, which you just touched on there, just to elaborate for a second, I mean, is very important too, that it's both. Trump is not fixing the government. He's not making it work for you as he promised. But you know what he is doing? He's enriching himself, his family, and they're all enriching themselves. I mean, the degree of grift and corruption, not just in tiny little part of. Not tiny, but a small part of Trump family world, but across all of them is so astonishing. And I do, I've wondered about that. People have said corruption will not break through. Won't it break through? But I kind of feel also there too, I guess Sarah's finding this in some of the focus groups. Trump said he was going to be for you. He's not really doing anything for you. So that's what, A, that's not good. And B, the only thing he's really accomplishing is grifting money for himself and all of his buddies are. It's a giant corruption scheme up there at the top and second, even third tiers of the US government. Quite remarkable, actually. And I kind of feel like people are getting a sense of that.
- [26:51]
B
Yeah. To play the pronoun game like the ad was what Kamala's for. They them. Trump is for you. But it turns out that the Democrats are for they, them. Trump is for him. He himself, you know, himself and his friends and JBL's been so good on this. And so I guess I'll just leave it to him. But the darkness of Elon going into the government, starving the global poor, leaving the government getting a trillion dollar payout. It's enough to make Tim and Bill's internal social Democrats. It's going to come back out again. Looking at that story.
- [27:24]
C
What about the Saudi state dinner? I know you've discussed this on other podcasts, but you and I haven't discussed it. It was nauseating, right?
- [27:31]
B
Ugh. Horrific.
- [27:33]
C
Beyond horrific.
- [27:34]
B
For all those guys to go and for what? Like why? You know, and this is kind of similar to some of the people we were talking about, the Cheney funeral. Like, at some level, I can't get my ire up over people that quietly acquiesced. Like I can. But you know what I mean, you only have so much room for hate in your heart. There's no Reason for these people to go to that right. It's not as if Tim Cook and Marc Benioff, if they did not attend the Bonesaw Dictators State dinner, that Trump would have come for them. I would like to go back to 2017 when they're putting out statements saying, this is disgusting and nauseating and f you okay, they're not gonna do that. That's fine. They could quietly just not go and just hang out. Be like, sorry, I'm a very important businessman and I have a meeting in Switzerland that day. But to actively choose to go do Sel smile, to me, that is the part that gets me the most pissed.
- [28:32]
C
I mean, they're either. They're greedy and maybe there's more money to be made with from Saudis. The Saudis, they have a lot of money, but also they're so terrified of Trump. This is the flip side of our hopefulness of the MAGA coalition being displayed. The elites, so far there's been very little sign of them backing off. And I would say, as the state dinner suggests, continued just aggressive, willing and eager capitulation. Now, if that ever stops or there's some signs of cracks in that, that would really be a sign of him losing clout. But that has not happened yet. And it's going to turn out that, you know, lunatics, if I could say, like Tim Burchard, whatever his name is, and Marshall Taylor Greene are going to have much more courage and integrity than the leaders of major American corporations. It's a little unfortunate.
- [29:18]
B
In a weird way, I'm just spitballing this theory live, so I haven't really thought about it that deeply, so people can tell me I'm wrong in the comments if they want. But like, like, in some ways, the weaker Trump looks, the more the business elites will probably say, maybe I should just capitulate, because whatever, I just got to survive three years and this thing is done right. Where it's like, I think they probably wouldn't show any courage either if they were scared of him becoming an authoritarian. But there's something soothing about that where they can soothe themselves and be like, this grandpa is not going to be a dictator in three years. And so why not just, you know, make as much money as I can from the Saudi grift? I guess that's a clever on the.
- [29:57]
C
Run, impromptu insight, I think, to think about that a little more. But no, that could well be. That could well be. Yeah.
- [30:03]
B
Okay, we'll sit on it. All right. I've been traveling a bunch this week and boy, I don't know about you, but the luggage deterioration is real. You know, you got these little suitcases, your carry ons, they get thrown around, they get knocked around, the zipper starts to break. So I was happy to turn to our new sponsor for a solution. And that is Noble. Noble is a suitcase that completely removes the zipper. It's zipperless, latch lock suitcase that closes like a safe. The two halves meet with a tight seal so you hear and feel the click when it locks. No more stressing when your bag is out of sight. Noble isn't just the safest luggage out there. They've actually fixed everything that used to drive you crazy about travel. They got a built in charging port to keep your phone alive at the gate. That sold me the rest of the suitcase. Could be shit. And if you give me a built in charging port, I would be for it. It's not shit in this case, but this is important, the built in charging port. No more crouching next to a random outlet to get a couple percent. If you live by my code of abc, always be charging. The suitcase can charge with you. It has a front laptop pocket as well, that makes TSA a breeze. And they even got a cup holder you put your little water bottle into. Noble's all in one Carry on is the durable, safe, advanced luggage you've always dreamed about. Gives you real travel, peace of mind, security, design and convenience all in one. Every suitcase comes with a 100 day money back guarantee and free 3 day express shipping, which is great for gifts if you're a late gift giver like me. And also it's got a lifetime warranty. It's the last suitcase you'll ever need to buy. Noble gives you real travel, peace of mind, security, design and convenience all in one. For a limited time, Noble is having the biggest sale ever. Head to nobletravel.com for up to 58% off your entire order. That's n o b l travel.com for up to 58% Off. After you purchase, they'll ask where you heard about them. Please support our show and tell them we sent you other thing we haven't talked about since Friday or since it happened. Friday rather is the Trump Zoron meeting in the Oval. I've got some thoughts, but I just kind of want any observations you have before I spout off.
- [32:12]
C
Zorand is very, he's very adept, I mean, I gotta say, both at the meeting itself and on TV Sunday and sort of not actually backing off on things, but nonetheless getting what I suppose he wanted to get. From Trump, which was some at least backing off, some halt, some delay at least in his going after New York City, which is important for him as he takes over for mayor. As mayor, he'll be better off. He can buy, if he's bought a month or two, maybe we'll see what happens over. He doesn't take over as mayor for another month plus. So we'll see what happens. But I think that's striking. You know what's struck me, this is so trivial. But then I'll hear your deeper, more considered thought. When I was in the White House and when everyone's been every White House till Trump, people came into the Oval Office for a photo or something, the president would stand up and greet them. And often the photo would be in front of the desk, right, With a group of eight, a group of three or a group of 15, you know, spread out appropriately, you know, the half semicircle and so forth. Trump loves sitting at his desk. I noticed that in the first term and I remember commenting a bit on it. He loves sitting at his desk and having everyone else standing surrounding him because he's the, you know, it's the monarch. The monarch doesn't get up from the throne. He sits on the throne and everyone else stands, you know, dutifully at attention or semi at attention, waiting his commands. And that was the case here. Trump sits kind of rudely. If we could just be like in a normal world, right? Sits at his desk while Zorah is standing to his side. And people get a little bit intimidated by that, I've noticed. And rattled. I think it's a weird dynamic almost. It's like you're looking sort of down at him. But Mamdani handled it totally smoothly, it seemed to me that was. I just thought it was an actual matter of stage presence, maybe is the word. It was impressive on Mamdani's part. But tell me your deep thoughts.
- [33:52]
B
Okay, I'll just give you rapid fire thoughts, just a few of them. On the Mamdani being adept, two things that jumped out to me, One, from the meeting, the COVID Trump gave him on the question of one of the MAGA freaks that they're pretending to be journalists they have in there. Asked him if Trump would feel comfortable keeping his business or living in New York when Donnie was mayor. And Trump said absolutely, yes. That was the only thing from the meeting that was meaningfully significant in the micro as far as what impact it could have. Because I think that that was a real threat for Zorat. Not really that people had Actually all moved to Florida, but that they would dangle that over him and they'd use it to bully him, and that some people would say they might be going to. Either they're scared because of policing stuff or because of the text environment. I mean, like, Dave Portnoy is the guy that runs Barstool. He was out there saying he's thinking, Barstool has an office there. Maybe we'll move it with having that socialists in charge. You sound insane when you say that. If Donald Trump is saying no, it'd be fine. I'd stay there. Right. And so I do think he gave Zorin a lot of COVID on that. And just Zorin's choice to go there and navigate all that, I think that was an important win for him, his adeptness. Also, the next day, when Kristen Welker was asking him about Hakeem Jeffries and just kind of being. He was so blunt. Welker's like, do you think he should be speaker of the House? Someone's like, yes. She said, that's a short answer. And he's like, it's yes or no question. Hakeem spent months, including on this podcast, hemming and hawing about whether or not to endorse Zoran and what to do. And you can imagine any other politician getting that question, and either one wanting to do petty political backbiting stuff, or two, giving the generic I'm not really a human answer of, well, this is up to the members of Congress to decide. And Zauna is just answering it like a human. Just like, yeah, he should be the speaker of the House. Them should take over, and he should be Speaker. That was just a very small thing, but I think it just showed where he is politically skillful in contrast to some other Democrats in particular. Okay, additional takes I have. I'll do the funniest one first and then maybe the serious one next, so we can argue, so we can talk about it. I did see a Persian influencer online try to explain why Trump likes both Zoran and mbs. He wrote this. Trump is spiritually Arab. Loyalty politics, no particular ideology, gold, everything. Big money, many wives. I don't agree with it 100%. I did kind of enjoy the idea that Trump's real. Everybody's trying to like, what is Trumpism? What is maga? Is it Buchananite? Is it Huey Long? And it's like, no, it's kind of. It's kind of in the spirit of the Libyan dictator. Spiritually Arab. The thing that bugged me. Well, there are two things that Bugged me. But on the one of them, I already ranted about it on the blog. Takes people can go listen to. The fascism thing annoyed me just like that Trump would say, sure, go ahead and call me a fascist. That everybody would laugh about that. That makes everything seem fake and not serious, I think, to real people. And that bugs me. Another thing that annoyed me is after it ended, I saw this group on the left, and I hate to pick on Ryan Grim because I do kind of like him, but he said it most succinctly, arguing about how this is a sign about how Democrats can do populist coalition building. Grim wrote this Trump and Mamdani giving the country a vision of what bottom versus top, rather than left versus right politics could look like is, if not historic, a genuinely novel development. And I just need to rant, no, that did not happen. There was no novel development. They didn't agree on anything. Think the only specific policy they said that they both kind of agreed on was sort of a yimbyish Ezra Klein policy of we both think we should build a little more. Like, there was no actual substantive policy agreement, okay? Because Donald Trump is not substantively in any way a bottom versus top economic populist. He's not. He's a populist in the culture war sense. The economic stuff is all fake with him. And it's always been fake. It's been fake for 10 years for people on the left. So we've watched people get snowed by him from our old friends. I refuse to let people on the left get snowed by him. It's like, it was crazy to me that Marjorie Taylor like, the same within 24 hours. Marjorie Taylor Greene is like, trump is not a populist. Trump is not a MAGA populist. I am leaving Congress because he's betraying our people. And at that same time, now you have, like, lefty DSA people out there saying, like, look, the populists are getting together now. It's like, no, you do not have to hand it to Trump, okay? If you want to glaze your guy Zoran for managing him well, fine, do that. Like, you do not have to hand it to him. He's not a populist. The only way out of this is to actually strip him of that. Like, strip MAGA of that, you know, of having that, you know, reputation. And in order to successfully do that, we need. This is where we need the lefties. Like, we need you DSA people to be with us on this, which is attacking him and undermining him and calling him a phony on that front. So there's my rant.
- [39:00]
C
No, that's a good rant. I mean, my only thought is I haven't followed this as closely as you on the DSA side of things, but doesn't that show that they're a little weak or desperate maybe, and that they got Sauron one? That was pretty good for them, pretty unexpected several months ago and pretty striking. But somehow then of course Spanberger and Cheryl won even bigger. And the Democrats go then and seemed like they're pulling their act together a little bit with Epstein and so forth, and suddenly it was like all that they needed to reach out to kind of Trump to get that DSA momentum back. I wonder how much of it is kind of a sign that they don't. They're not quite as strong as they expected they would be the night after Mamdani's victory or something like that.
- [39:39]
B
Yeah, maybe. We'll see how the primary there's some developing in primaries, but anyway, it'll be interesting to monitor over the next year. Running a business on a clunky old phone system is like competing with one hand tied behind your back and every time you miss a call, that's money left on the table. Quo, formerly OpenPhone, is the modern alternative built to help you work smarter, build stronger relationships, and never miss an opportunity because that's what your business and your customers deserve. Quo is the number one business phone system that streamlines customer communications. No more juggling two phones or being tied to a landline. That's crazy. Quo works through an app on your phone or computer so you can run your business from anywhere. Your team can share one number and collaborate on calls and texts like a shared inbox, keeping response times fast and customers happy. Quo makes your phone system smarter with built in AI logging calls, creating summaries and automating next steps. Whether you're a solo operator or leading a growing team, Quo keeps you connected and helps you deliver standout customer experiences. Quo is offering my listeners 20% off your first six months@quo.com theboard that's Q U O.com the bulwark. You can even keep your existing number for free. Quo no missed calls, no missed customers. Speaking of primaries, we do have to close with some primary talk, but first, just a little foreign policy. Tomorrow we're going to go deep on the Russia, Ukraine debacle. Shit show, whatever you want to call it. For me to even try to explain the sequence of events about the various leaks on the plans between the Russia Plan, the European plan, the American plan, is a waste of time because we'll do all that tomorrow. But just at the biggest picture, Bill, I'm wondering what you think of the state of play with kind of this new interest in negotiation from the American and Russian and maybe even European side, unclear about whether the Ukrainians are interested.
- [41:28]
C
Yeah, the European view of what we want to get to is very different from the Russian American view. I mean, the worst, sure. The bad news is half the American administration is just totally pro Putin, pro Russia, and is accepting Russian peace plans as their own. The other half, the American administration is a little bit. Is not pro Ukrainian. God forbid they should actually help with democracy fighting a savage invasion by a brutal dictator. But they are, like, a little more hesitant to simply sign on to Russia. That would be the Rubio side of it, I suppose. So I guess we'll see. The Europeans have stepped up. I've got to say. They seem to be pretty. They resisted it. Ukraine resisted it. And hopefully the better case will be that nothing comes of all this. It's still not the best case because Ukraine deserves a lot more help and they're not getting it for now. That's where I wonder if the.
- [42:11]
B
The loss.
- [42:12]
C
A bit of loss of control over Congress could lead finally Congress to just do something about helping Ukraine and putting tougher sanctions on Russia. We're still a step or two away from that, but maybe this could play out in that direction.
- [42:24]
B
Boy, I have no idea, actually. We'll let the expert discuss it tomorrow. I just want to give you a chance to weigh in. I'm just reading it all. I'm like, I don't have any fucking clue what's happening, and it doesn't seem good.
- [42:34]
C
I'm pretty confident that Vance wants to sell out Ukraine and they cut Rubio out of this whole discussion. Trump himself is a little more ambivalent, maybe. And so the degree to which Vance really is. And Wyckoff. Yeah. And really wants to make this happen. Wyckoff's such an idiot. He's just snowed, I suppose, by Putin. Vance is more malevolent in a certain way. But Wyckoff is, incidentally beyond belief that this guy's actually having negotiations with important world leaders. I mean, anyway, it's not good, but hopefully it's not as bad as it seemed at first blush.
- [43:04]
B
Your newsletter this morning is on the situation in Venezuela. Like this kind of slowly developing regime change war notion in Venezuela that we're at least obviously preparing for. The one thing that caught my eye in your Newsletter is that obviously everybody we've been covering us just sniping these drug boats, alleged drug boats, but now we have military ships in places that are not even near where the corridors where drug trafficking goes. And so that's noteworthy. So what do you make of the state affairs in Venezuela and talk to you all you wrote about this morning.
- [43:40]
C
Yeah, I mean General Kaine is in Puerto Rico meeting with the commanders of southcom but also pre Thanksgiving visit to the troops. It's a nice thing to do for the troops, but it's being framed as if this is sort of before the real military action begins. But of course Congress has not authorized military action against Venezuela and there is no grounds for it. There's not even a of tendentious grounds the way they've been in some past cases of real self defense or an emergency ticking time bomb situation or an extension of an earlier authorization of the use of military force a little more broadly than it was intended. He does not have the right to attack Venezuela. Congress needs to step up and say and debate it. And look, if they want to vote to authorize a war of choice against Venezuela, we'll have that. That's an interesting debate. Maduro's a terrible dictator and it's not 100%, you know, it's not maybe entirely black and white that that would be a horrible idea though. I think it would be a very bad idea, honestly. But. And it's very, very bad to let him just to sit there and have a few members of Congress complain. And they forced one or two votes. The Democrats. This again. Could some Republicans say, look, we cannot, I mean, what is it? You know, this is too much. I don't know. So far they haven't. Right. There have been two votes in the Senate. Johnson's managed to prevent it from even coming to a vote in the House. I'm not sure they could win a vote in the House incidentally, because I do think Democrats think Congress has to have a say. And there are Marjorie Taylor Greene type Republicans who are not in favor of this. I really think this is a case where we'll see how fast this moves. Maybe it's too quick for the House to do something, but I wonder whether there could be finally possibly some congressional resistance. The polling's pretty stunning. 70%, 30% against war with Venezuela. A majority of Republicans say that Congress should have to authorize it. A third of MAGA Republicans are against Trump's idea of going to war with Venezuela. This could be one of those issues that everyone said, well, you can't defend the drug boats. You can't defend Maduro. He's horrible. Drug boats are bad. Maduro is terrible. But I wonder if this is one of these issues in a contrary way, sort of like immigration was six months ago. That ends up looking. It was going to be a great strength of Trump, but maybe not so much.
- [45:42]
B
You know, the one polling I should say, that's like, it's a little depressing that the sniping of the drug boats still has majority, which is like, crazy to me. And come on, people pulled together. This is crazy. It would be interesting to see a poll about what your view would be of droning a drug dealer on American soil. Would people be for that? I don't know. That's what we're doing. We're just killing people for suspecting them of drug dealing. That seems crazy to me. The thing, though, about the popularity and the polling on every other element of this being low, you mentioned this last week about the cliche of the wag, the dog and all this. There's some, I think, conventional wisdom that when a president gets in trouble, they turn to these military actions as a way to rally people around them, et cetera. Whether that's true or not, it's pretty clearly not true in this case. To me. To me, I think that him doing it, which I am totally against. The only thing that I could look at and say, well, I. That'll be interesting to watch, is I think it could lead to even further unraveling of the MAGA coalition in a very meaningful way. I think it would be a massive political mistake. How big the mistake is depends on how big the, you know, the involvement is. But to me, I just think it would be a crazy thing to do substantively, but also politically.
- [47:07]
C
I agree with that. I think. I agree with that. A lot depends on is it just a few bombing strikes and then people think. But I don't know. I mean, I totally agree with you, believe me, on the drug boats, but people have in their minds, for maybe not very good reasons, a distinction between little boats on the high seas, which somehow it's like kind of law enforcement on steroids to blow them up as opposed to attacking bases and institutions within another country. And that is an act of war, unambiguously. The other is also an act of war, but it doesn't look quite as much like one. And I think people, I mean, they're not always against it when we go to war, but they've gotten more nervous, cautious about it over the last 25 years, obviously. And again without congressional authorization. I mean, that's what strikes me here. And as you said, and these words do not tend to get more popular over time, they tend to get less popular.
- [47:56]
B
Right.
- [47:57]
C
As things don't happen, don't work out quite as much as one had hoped. So makes me wonder. Trump has always understood this, though. The one thing he's learned over 50 years of following American politics is wars don't work out very well for the incumbent presidents who start them. Even George H.W. bush was successful in the first Gulf War. Didn't end up helping him a year later when he was running for reelection. So I sort of think Trump might still pull the plug on it. But you're sending General Kaine. I mean, there's so much stuff now going on that it's going to look would look humiliating to just back off. I don't know. I don't know.
- [48:28]
B
And in some ways I was just thinking about, like, there's kind of more of a substantive case for getting rid of Maduro than a political case. Like, I really think it's that bad. I don't understand what even the point political case says. Last topic, There's a congressional seat open In New York, New York 12 Jerry Nadler is resigning. There is one Bulwark podcast contributor who has already declared for the race. My FYPOD colleague Cam Caskey, who was, I believe I have this right, either like one week or one month older than the floor for running for Congress. And he would be the youngest Democrat ever if he was to win. So something to be said for that. It's a massive field. There's already and other people in there. Among the people that seems interested in getting in is another Bulwark podcast contributor, George Conway of George Conway explains it all. We saw him at the funeral and I don't know, I don't want to speak for him, but he seems, seems like that is not a social media gag. I guess I'll just say it seems like he's kind of serious about getting in to me. Hasn't announced yet. And so my question for you, Bill, is I believe that is your family district in New York. And if we are going to have a Bulwark podcast primary for a congressional Senate seat, I don't know why you wouldn't also consider throwing your hat into the ring. And I'm wondering whether you've been mulling that at all over the weekend.
- [49:48]
C
Yeah, I mentioned that to George at the, at the Cheney funeral and he turned which this makes me think he is Running. He turned slightly, like, pale for a second. And I don't. And I said, I'm kidding, George, Obviously. Yeah, well, I'll throw the fundraiser for you here in McLean, Virginia. I guess I grew up in that district. I mean, I grew up in that district. It's a different district than what I grew up, obviously, in terms of its shape. But where I grew up in the Upper west side is in that district. Solidly in that district. And went to high school there and went to Zabar's. You know, everything important for that district I have some connection to. So. But I think I'll pass.
- [50:22]
B
Why are you thinking about passing? Why not? Why not? Bill Kristol?
- [50:27]
C
You know what? Because it's more important to be on this podcast every Monday than to be a member of Congress. That's right.
- [50:32]
B
That's right.
- [50:33]
C
I guess you could politely answer. Well, you could do both, Bill.
- [50:36]
B
No way to argue with that.
- [50:37]
C
I noticed you didn't. I noticed you didn't answer that way.
- [50:40]
B
I didn't. No. We have to keep a strong. We have to keep a clear policy here at the Bulwark. I don't know, if somebody wins, one of them wins, maybe we might be able to have them as a congressperson. I mean, half of Congress has a podcast now. I'd have to think about that. What the. What rules we would have to put around that. But, yeah, it sure is interesting. I don't know. My only concern about the whole thing because I kind of. Kind of find it kind of funny, frankly, and I love Cameron and George so good on them, is that, like, you know, if they finish 9th and 13th, respectively, that could maybe be not good for our juice. And so I do feel like I have to co endorse them. And if you are listening and In New York 12, I think, for, like, the honor of the Bulwark, I feel like you do have to kind of go with one of our candidates. So it doesn't, you know, so it doesn't diminish us by extension. Do you think that's a fair fear?
- [51:30]
C
You know, I hadn't thought of that fear, but that's. You're always. You're shrewdly thinking about the brand as a whole. That's why you're wearing the Bulwark T shirt. I'm just thinking naively about. I don't know. George especially. You know, Cam much better than I do, but George especially would be good to have in Congress. If I can just say this, there's going to be. If they control the House, there will be a ton of investigations. The whole question of what they've been doing at the Justice Department and elsewhere will be front and center. And having George Conway there, along with, you know, Jamie Raskin and Dan Goldman and people who actually understand sort of some of these legal issues would not be a bad thing. He'd be a good interrogator of Trump administration. Can you imagine George as a congressman interrogating questioning Pam Bondi at a hearing in early 2027? It would be fun. You got.
- [52:11]
B
That's a great visual. It's a great visual and I would like it. The only thing I'm disappointed in is that there's not that neither of the New York senators are up at this time because I was trying to pitch George on primary one of them as well because a George Chuck Schumer primary would be really fun to watch just as if we're talking entertainment value. And in the Senate, fewer senators, more opportunity for him to come question people. But alas, it will be the house for George or Cam or one of the other who I'm sure very great contenders that just have never been on one of our podcast platforms. Bill Crystal, thank you so much. Anything else? Any other, any other wisdom?
- [52:50]
C
I think we've covered everything More. We've covered more.
- [52:53]
B
You touched all the bases, I think. All right, everybody else, we'll be back tomorrow with some Russia talk and who knows what the hell else will happen between now and then. So look forward to seeing you all. Peace.
- [53:25]
D
Say that we should never be. All the time Some might say we will find a brighter day Some might say we will find a bright day yeah cuz I'll be starting replication need of education in the land you made no preparations call my reputation Once again the snake is full of issues she's got many dishes on the planet.
- [54:25]
B
If.
- [54:25]
D
It'S over flowing gently it's all.
- [54:50]
B
The board Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.