Bill Kristol: Trump Is Not the Right Man for a Crisis

Summary

The Bulwark Podcast: Bill Kristol - Trump Is Not the Right Man for a Crisis

Release Date: June 23, 2025

In this episode of The Bulwark Podcast, host Tim Miller engages in a comprehensive dialogue with Bill Kristol, Editor-at-Large at The Bulwark. The conversation traverses critical political landscapes, including the complexities surrounding former President Donald Trump, the ramifications of U.S. actions in Iran, domestic militarization, immigration enforcement, the transgender military ban, and the upcoming New York mayoral election. Below is a detailed summary of their discussion, enriched with notable quotes and timestamps for reference.

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1. JD Vance's Political Predicament

Discussion Overview: Tim Miller and Bill Kristol kick off their conversation by dissecting the current political tightrope JD Vance finds himself walking. As Vice President, Vance is under intense scrutiny, especially after former President Trump's recent comments that have seemingly undermined him publicly.

Notable Quotes:

• Tim Miller [02:28]: "JD just, you know, I think he's struggling to find where, you know, where the water table line is for him on this."
• Bill Kristol [06:29]: "I actually don't think it's that much of a bind... What he needs in 2028 is Donald Trump to support him, period."

Key Points:

• Trump's Impact on Vance: Trump's ambiguous stance on regime change in Iran has left Vance in a vulnerable position, trying to balance loyalty to Trump with his own policy stances.
• MAGA Base Influence: The vast majority of the MAGA base, characterized as almost cult-like, remains steadfastly loyal to Trump, complicating Vance's potential leadership trajectory.
• Internal Struggles: Vance's attempts to align with both Trump’s aggressive foreign policy desires and the isolationist tendencies of his supporters have created internal conflicts, making his political future uncertain.

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2. U.S. Military Action in Iran: Justifications and Consequences

Discussion Overview: The crux of the episode revolves around the U.S. military's recent actions in Iran, specifically the bombing of nuclear sites. Kristol elaborates on the "bold case" for such interventions, while Miller presents counterarguments emphasizing potential pitfalls.

Notable Quotes:

• Bill Kristol [11:35]: "It's not as if it's their turn and we just have to sit back."
• Tim Miller [15:10]: "I think Trump taps into that, actually. And we could all say Trump was more isolationist, more restrained type..."
• Bill Kristol [27:08]: "It would have been preferable."

Key Points:

• Strategic Rationale: The bombing aims to diminish Iran's nuclear capabilities, supporting Israel and signaling U.S. commitment to countering nuclear proliferation.
• Effectiveness of Action: Kristol argues that such strikes can have a lasting deterrent effect, potentially delaying or destabilizing Iran's nuclear ambitions.
• Risks and Downsides: Miller raises concerns about increased terrorism threats to U.S. bases and questioned the necessity of Trump leading during such crises, fearing escalatory actions driven by Trump's ego.
• Domestic and International Implications: The discussion touches upon how military actions influence U.S. standing globally and domestically, with Kristol noting that such moves send a clear message to other authoritarian regimes about the U.S.'s willingness to use force when necessary.

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3. Domestic Militarization and Immigration Enforcement

Discussion Overview: The podcast shifts focus to the alarming increase in domestic militarization, particularly the deployment of the National Guard in Los Angeles, and aggressive immigration enforcement tactics.

Notable Quotes:

• Bill Kristol [28:46]: "I am very alarmed about the fact that we've now normalized the use of the Guard and the Marines in LA."
• Tim Miller [30:59]: "It's a preposterous, authoritarian, offensive way for people to live."

Key Points:

• Use of National Guard: The President's decision to deploy the National Guard in LA without the state's governor's consent marks a significant overreach, reminiscent of authoritarian tactics.
• Immigration Enforcement: Kristol and Miller express deep concern over aggressive ICE operations, such as the incident involving Kiso Barranco being violently deported from an IHOP in Southern California.
• Humanitarian Impact: They highlight the human cost of these policies, emphasizing the fear and instability it instills within communities, especially among undocumented immigrants who contribute positively to society.
• Legislative Support: The reconciliation bill advancing substantial funding for ICE and border patrol, coupled with increased militarization, is critiqued as a step towards a more authoritarian state apparatus.

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4. Transgender Military Ban

Discussion Overview: Miller brings up the newly enforced transgender military ban, prompting a discussion on its implications and the broader assault on transgender rights.

Notable Quotes:

• Tim Miller [40:11]: "It's really sick."
• Bill Kristol [42:07]: "The animus against transgender people is disgusting."

Key Points:

• Policy Critique: The ban is condemned as discriminatory and harmful, punishing individuals for their gender identity with no valid rationale.
• Constitutional Concerns: Miller and Kristol argue that such policies violate fundamental American principles of freedom and equality, contributing to a hostile environment for transgender individuals in the military.
• Social Implications: They examine how these bans not only degrade the military's effectiveness by excluding capable individuals but also perpetuate societal transphobia.

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5. New York Mayoral Election

Discussion Overview: The conversation transitions to the upcoming New York mayoral primary, critiquing the Democratic Party's candidate selection and the potential impact on the city's political landscape.

Notable Quotes:

• Bill Kristol [44:17]: "It's depressing... really pathetic."
• Tim Miller [46:43]: "Couldn't they have circled the wagons around one of the other candidates that's in the field?"

Key Points:

• Candidate Selection Issues: Kristol criticizes the Democratic Party for failing to nominate strong, moderate candidates, leading to a fragmented and ideologically extreme primary field.
• Impact on Democracy: The episode underscores concerns that such internal party struggles undermine electoral competitiveness and representation.
• Potential Outcomes: They speculate that the election might not resolve the division, potentially leaving the city with a mayoral race dominated by candidates perceived as too extreme or unqualified.

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6. Conclusion and Reflections

Discussion Overview: As the podcast wraps up, Miller and Kristol reflect on the broader state of American politics, emphasizing the need for stronger political representation and cautioning against authoritarian trends.

Notable Quotes:

• Bill Kristol [48:38]: "Are really struggling... very pathetic."
• Tim Miller [49:04]: "Everyone else, we'll see you back here tomorrow for another edition of The Bulwark Podcast. Peace."

Key Points:

• Call for Better Representation: They advocate for more competent and moderate candidates within the Democratic Party to counteract the current tumultuous political environment.
• Authoritarian Vigilance: Emphasizing the dangers of normalized militarization and aggressive policies, they urge listeners to remain vigilant against authoritarian overreach.
• Future Outlook: The duo expresses skepticism about immediate political improvements but underscores the importance of continuous engagement and critique to foster a healthier democratic society.

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Conclusion

In this episode, Tim Miller and Bill Kristol provide a nuanced analysis of pressing political issues, blending strategic assessments with critical perspectives on current policies and leadership. Their dialogue underscores the intricate balance between national security interests and the preservation of democratic and humanitarian values, urging listeners to engage thoughtfully with the evolving political landscape.

Transcript

[Bill Kristol]

Foreign.

[Tim Miller]

Hello and welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. Much to discuss today. Since we got together with Mark Cuban last week, you know, we've bombed Iran. A lot is happening on the weekends these days. So if you are, you know, need your fix and you're in the need for Bulwark Takes, reminder that we do have a Bulwark Takes podcast feed that you can log on for where we put in breaking news and other kind of random ephemera. And on YouTube and Subsec, we go live from time to time. We did so Sarah JVL and I did so after Trump's comments on Saturday about the bombing. So FYI on that. But it's Monday, so we are here today with editor at large Bill Kristol. How you doing, Bill?

[Bill Kristol]

Fine. And while we're promoting Bulwark content over the weekend, Sam Stein had an excellent interview with Jim Himes, the what is he, ranking Democrat on House Intelligence, who's upset about the lack of congressional notice or authorization. And then I had a conversation with Eric Edelman yesterday on the foreign policy side of this. So, yeah, there's a lot of content on the Bulwark. I have trouble keeping up with it. I keep up with all your stuff, Tim. You know, you got to go.

[Tim Miller]

Thank you, Bill. The best stuff first, you know, and that's fine. People don't have to watch every single thing, you know, do what serves you. That's the purpose of this effort. I watched your Eric Edelman conversation, and I'm delighted to announce that we might have a little bit of a disagreement on this podcast. And I was thinking back, we've been doing this every Monday. We've been agreeing a little too much. It's concerning. And I was thinking about the last major disagreement I remembered, and it turned out you were right on that one. So maybe we'll even Steven it or maybe we'll be two and oh, for you, we'll see how things shake out. But that was with regards to Joe Biden, where we were totally aligned on Joe Biden not running, being opposed to him running in 2022 and early 2023. But eventually I came around to the idea that, okay, maybe we should just circle the wagons around old man, like it's too late to do anything about it, were resilient, and arguably it was not too late. We should not circle the wagons. And then I came back around to your position after the debate. So anyway, one point for you on that one, and we'll see how today's Disagreement shakes out maybe only a half.

[Bill Kristol]

Point since after all that, Biden got out. And who's the President of the United States now?

[Tim Miller]

Fair enough.

[Bill Kristol]

I don't want to take too much credit for that.

[Tim Miller]

Fair enough. So before we get into the merits of our disagreement, one delicious item I think of Schadenfreude together is just we look at the Iran situation, and that is that the vice President of the United States is really squirming. There is nobody in a tougher political position right now than JD Vance. You wrote about this morning for the newsletter how Trump just dunked on him and emasculated him essentially with one bleat where he talked about, or he countered JD's comment on the morning shows where JD had said that, of course we're not for regime change and we're not dumb like all the other presidents and journalists. I'm, you know, his sort of haughty, condescending rebuttal to the questioner who's asking about regime change. And Trump a couple hours later bleeds out, well, you know, regime change might be all right, actually. We'll see how it goes. And JD just, you know, I think he's struggling to find where, you know, where the water table line is for him on this.

[Bill Kristol]

I mean, I sort of made up in morning shots what I thought Trump's mental process might have been. Watching JD say we don't, we don't want the regime change. Hexath and Rubio had previously said, perfectly reasonably inconsistent with the actual intention of the operation. The point of it isn't regime change, or that's not why we're doing this. And I think that's actually true. But it was very revealing. I thought about JD's worldview that he didn't say, you know, the point of this isn't regime change. We're not intervening for the sake of regime change, but we don't want a regime change. I do. I'm giving Trump maybe a little more credit than I should here, but I think he had kind of a normal reaction to that American reaction, which is really, I mean, they'd be better off if the ayatollahs left. Not going to put boots on the ground. We're not going to do A, B or C. You know, we're not going to maybe even do other things that we could do diplomatically and that a more internationalist minded administration might do. But saying we don't want it, that's a little weird. Maybe Trump didn't have any of that mind, any of that mental process. Maybe that's just me thinking that. And maybe Trump just finds JD Annoying, which is quite possible. But he certainly went out of. I agree he went out of his way with that late afternoon tweet or Truth Social or whatever those things are to let it look like he was slapping him down. And certainly no one from the White House, to my knowledge, came out in the next four or five hours and said, oh, you guys are all misinterpreting. That tweet had nothing to do with what J.D. right. Don't you think there was kind of. You've been in these spokesman positions, to say the least. Don't you think it was kind of noticeable that no one from the White House was like, saying, oh, no, Trump and J.D. they're totally on the same page?

[Tim Miller]

Well, yeah, because they're all lap dogs for Trump and they can't. To do that would be to undermine Trump, which nobody can do. And just to put a finer point on the political pickle the JD Is in. Right. There's this conversation that's going around about, oh, will MAGA split over this? And I don't know where you are on that, but I discussed that with Sarah and JVL over the weekend, and I'm just. We're all pretty bearish on the notion that MAGA will split. The biggest percentage of MAGA are people that are essentially in a cult and just are going to go along with whatever Trump wants. And they don't want anybody to undermine Mr. Trump, and they want the left to feel like they're losing and Trump to feel like they're winning. Like that's the. That's the median Trump voter. Are there some people with. Underneath that who have strongly held views about foreign policy? Yeah. On both sides of Trump, certainly. You saw the Nikki Haley vote was, what, 15% of the primary? I'm sure a Tucker vote would get about 15%, but, you know, that still leaves 70% that are just going to go along with Trump. The split becomes very real, though, for JD because if we do get to a point where there's an open primary and Trump's out of the picture, then the things get scrambled. And JD Knows that to become the heir, his top priority is to make sure Mr. Trump is happy. Right. Because he needs that 70% to see him as the heir. But then the next obligation is to kind of align himself more with what he sees as the whatever Tucker Bannon ish isolationist wing. And those two things are in tension right now. And he is, like, really in a Bind. And you can just see it in every comment that he makes that he's really straining to try to navigate it.

[Bill Kristol]

I think he thinks he's in a bind for exactly the reason you said. I actually don't think it's that much of a bind. Like I don't think it's a close call. What he needs in 2028 is Donald Trump to support him, period. That means he should be slavishly loyal to Donald Trump and people like us should make fun of him for three years as they made fun of Bush in 85, 86, 87, the original Bush to H.W. bush for being slavishly supportive of Reagan. And he was a lap dog. I think George Will called him on.

[Tim Miller]

Some famous pie exactly the same thing. And Reagan wasn't going out of his way to just send flares to humiliate hq.

[Bill Kristol]

No, fair enough. Well, fair enough though there was a little bit of tiny bit of that anyway. It's not a good comparison in some ways. I agree. But anyway, I think Vance's call politically, not that I'm advising him on this and don't want to, but would be to just be for Trump. Just define the mission as not a regime change mission. Fine. Just as Rubio and Hexa did and then emphasize that look, advance did this a little actually. This is getting rid of a very dangerous nuclear situation. It's a one off, you know, it's a one. There aren't many regimes. It's not like we're intervening anywhere else. There aren't many regimes. There are no other regimes in the world literally that have this kind of nuclear program and these kinds of missiles that aren't already nuclear powers. Vance is probably overthinking a. He may believe, he really believes in the Tucker, you know, isolationist ban and worldview. No question about that. He's probably closer to them personally and moved by them and he's probably overestimates I think their power. A lot of the Trump support. I guess I would just slightly modify what you said. Maybe I'm wrong. It's just they like America bombing countries that are far away that are, you know, that they don't like any way that has killed American troops and have and held Americans hostages. I don't think there's a heck of a lot of. I'm very curious to see what the polls show this week. I think there was some polling last week that showed, oh, people are very resistant to this. Maybe I'm underestimating the Iraq effect. Maybe I'm overestimating a kind of just American belligerence. But I think Trump taps into that, actually. And we could all say Trump was more isolationist, more restrained type, which he was than Hillary or than Biden. But he also does tap into a certain kind of just, you know, but when we act, we're just going to kick the shit out of them. And I think JD Cannot walk away from that side of Trumpism.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, I don't know. I think that if Trump decided to bomb Iran, that 70% of the MAGA base would be with him. And if he decided to bomb Israel, 70%. And if he decided to do nothing, 70% would be with him.

[Bill Kristol]

And if it's a success. Yeah, no, I don't disagree with it. Kind of quite a grand issue. But I totally agree.

[Tim Miller]

I mean, I'm exaggerating.

[Bill Kristol]

I agree with your point. No, I wasn't trying to make it Iran specific point though. I think Iran has a slightly special place in the hearts or the opposite of hearts, whatever that is of Americans. But I don't. Anyway, I don't disagree. But anyway, I think you're making my point in a way. Right. That doesn't he just want to be with Trump? J.D.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah. Right. For sure. He should feel that way, but he, I don't know, he's wrapped around the axle, I guess.

[Bill Kristol]

Yeah.

[Tim Miller]

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[Bill Kristol]

I think Eric tried to lay out, I tried to kind of the moderate bold case, which is whatever one might have thought in the past about diplomacy, about bombing, about other moments when we could have acted more aggressively, this is a very unusual moment. I mean, we have had Israel destroyed Hezbollah, the Syrian regime fell, so Israel was able to do a week of bombing that no one would have anticipated and seems to have done it pretty effectively. And then leaving us in the position of finishing the job is too strong. But going some steps towards coming closer to finishing the job, however you want to put it. You know, we don't know that yet, obviously with Fordo and stuff, but doing a lot more damage and the cost of doing it, the risk of doing it at this moment, I think much, much less than it would have been three or four years ago. I think a lot of the analysis is mired in a world where Hezbollah was really strong and Iran was really able to control them and of attacks on US troops was very real and stuff. I think that's just so much. I hope at least that's so much reduced now and that we retain huge deterrent effect. I mean it's not as if it's their turn and we just have to sit back. And I think Trump actually was quite good in that way, warning them that, hey, incidentally, if you think of doing anything more, you're going to get it again. So I feel like the risks are manageable. The upside is real. Leaving it undone and not helping Israel at this point, it's not like we get any credit from anti Israel regimes around the world. The final point Eric makes, which I hadn't really thought of, and it's not a bad message to send other dictators that at some point the use of force remains in our toolkit, so to speak. We've been so reluctant with Obama and then Trump, even Biden, he helped Ukraine, but no offensive weapons. So reluctant to cross that line. We're not talking about boots on the ground. Not a bad message to send that we do remain a superpower willing to use force if necessary, but in a very precise and targeted way. So I think that's the basic case for it.

[Tim Miller]

I'll just add on to that because as I've said last week, I've been kind of really mixed and torn on it. I think I kind of end up falling on the other side, which we'll get to in a second. But on the case for it was in a the Soleimani experience. It's just worth mentioning if this does end up such as that, like that was a net positive and there were a lot of folks that were hair on fire after Soleimani was killed saying this is going to lead to a wider regional war. And it didn't. And so that is just like an important data point to not brush over when looking at this. And just to kind of expand on what you said about how weakened the Iranian regime is. I mean they're just getting dunked on by Mossad like left and right. And it's kind of crazy just how, how effective Israel has been and taking out their leaders. And I saw some Mossad social media post where it was like there was a leader of a garrison, he got shot like by somebody with inside Iran and then survived. Then an ambulance went to pick him up and then a drone hit the ambulance. And it's like they've just, they've just been like all up in the kitchen here to the point that it's like how much of the IRGC are Israeli operatives at this point? They're not only weakened, but I think internally they're in a very tough position as far as responding from the regime. And it is a regime that the last thing I'll say that has over the past two decades caused a lot of death and destruction via proxies, you direct to act via cyber, etc. So anything else on the bull case before I offer the other side of.

[Bill Kristol]

The argument Just one footnote to what you're saying. Often we don't act in certain situations because we want to be able to be a broker or we want to stay out. We don't want to be the object of hatred or resentment. I don't think much of that holds in this case either. It's not like the Iranian regime, if wounded, but if it's wounded as it is and stays in place, which it may, isn't going to hate us as much as it hates Israel. You know what I mean? It's like the neighbors aren't going to blow up. Was there in the first bush White House 30 years ago. And, yeah, there were real concerns that first Gulf War about what would happen with all the other Arab nations and stuff. I mean, the Arab nations, whatever they're saying publicly, clearly had no big problem with this. You don't see a heck of a lot of rallying to Iran, incidentally. Putin and Xi have been awfully restrained. So I just feel the cards kind of. You hate to say this because God knows things could go wrong, and I stipulate that right now, but the cards seem to have been lined up at a pretty opportune way for this action.

[Tim Miller]

All right, so now here's what we talked about. Let's go to the possibility of things going wrong, because I was reading a lot about it, and as I said, a lot of what I've read affirmed what Eric was talking about, just about the weakness of the Iranian regime and the opportunity that was presented. That said, it's kind of a touchy subject to frame it this way. So I want to be clear about my words, because I'm all for supporting Israel's an important ally to us in the region. I'm all for supporting them and ways that make sense strategically. I just look at this action of us actually doing the bombing, like the US Taking the lead and doing the bombing of Fordo and other sites, and I come to the conclusion that I think that this action, just looking at the short term, made Israel safer. Not totally safe. Obviously, Israel has a ton of risks, but what they've done with Iran and Hezbollah, obviously Israel is safer now than they were six months ago. And it's made us, like, marginally less safe because the bases, the US Bases are more at risk now of what? An Iraqi proxy, etc. Terror threat, I think is higher, both from proxies and lone wolves. Possibly a state violence against us, we don't know, but we will see. Now, Trump's ego is kind of in play as far as potential escalation. Like, something happens and we end up getting down an escalatory pipeline. We didn't have to. And all of it for a threat that was like, not really acute to us. We don't want Iran to have a nuclear weapon. But they were getting closer. But they weren't particularly close. It wasn't imminent. And it's not like if they got one, Miami is at risk of being nuked by Tehran anytime soon. I'm not a foreign policy expert, so I grant that this is kind of like a basic way to look at it, but sometimes there's some value in just kind of looking at it from a more simplistic standpoint. And I think that you can get kind of wrapped up into the geopolitics of it. I just look at it and think with Trump as president and like the, the way that the status quo was with Iran felt like a more stable status quo for us America than it is today. What would you say to that?

[Bill Kristol]

No, I think that's well said. And I don't. I mean, it's the right, those are the right qualifications or reservations to raise. And sadly, if we could have, and I don't know if we could have given Israel the B2s and to drop the big bombs on Ford, that would be. Would have been preferable. So I agree with your sense that if we didn't have to get involved, we shouldn't have now the way, I guess I don't think our air Force is sort of willing to trade Israeli pilots for two weeks, give them the keys and you can't do it.

[Tim Miller]

B2 Uber situation.

[Bill Kristol]

Look, we've sold them and to some degree given them a lot of the other material they're using. It wouldn't be totally crazy to say to have said quietly two weeks ago, why don't we just give Israel 12 bombs that they can use? I mean, we've done that in other wars, right? We've given Israel material, we've given other allies material, we've given the Ukrainians material. Sometimes we were a little nervous about how they would use it. We still gave them material. So I don't disagree with that. For whatever reason, we weren't going to do that. And maybe we were right not to. And so that, I think meant it was a little more of a stark choice. I don't disagree with your worries. I think the biggest one, you slightly maybe buried the lead. Maybe you intended to. I mean, I think Trump being president and Trump's team being in charge is legitimate concern. That is I hesitated at the. A fair amount and, you know, as this strike became pretty likely and I thought it was by the middle of last week about, you know, and it's not, it wasn't like I was going to, quote, endorse it or not endorse it. I was just going to say what I thought as it happened, but. And try to be sober about it. But, you know, I do not trust Trump to be a good wartime president, even if it's not really a war, a good even military operation president. I don't trust xf. I don't trust a lot of the others. The ego gets involved, as you say, the, the grandiosity. So that was the single thing. My friend Bob Kagan wrote a piece Saturday.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, let's just talk about that because I had three other little sub bullets that are less my core arguments against. But yeah, so there are three other arguments against that are kind of out there. Kagan's, I think in the Atlantic, and we can put that in the show notes folks can go read it. His was really more focused on domestic concerns that, like essentially that Trump becoming a wartime president would empower him potentially, if there is a response, would allow him to take more wartime powers, emergency power, stuff he already wants to do, and that he was against it for that reason. What'd you make of Kagan's argument?

[Bill Kristol]

So, yeah, I think you put that well. So Trump, maybe there's a 1A and a 1B on the Trump question. The 1A is wars make countries more authoritarian to the degree that we are now at a war or possible occasion that might lead to a war or lead to renewed military activities, Trump might use that as an excuse or in any case, just the momentum of it might make it easier for him to do all kinds of authoritarian things, including politicizing the military and all that. So that's the, let's say, the domestic consequences of this in terms of Trump's authoritarianism. Bob was very focused on that, and I think it's a fair thing to worry about. I'm not, I don't think it's that big. You know, again, if it is a couple, even if it's one, or even if it's three or four military strikes against Iran, I don't really think it changes the dynamics much here at home, so I'm less worried about that. But it's a fair point. The other is a point that Bob also mentions was the one I was mentioning more this time, which is, well, will he in fact be a good war president or let's just say a good crisis president and it's not crazy to take the position. You know what would be good, given that Donald Trump is President Pete Xs there, all these characters, Tulsi Gabbard. The best thing we could hope for in the next four years is no crises. And to the degree that we have some optionality, some choice in whether a crisis becomes a real crisis or just a slightly faraway crisis between two other countries, we should err on the side of not making it our crisis. And I take that point.

[Tim Miller]

We kind of glossed over the regime change side of this. The miga bill seems mega curious, which we'll just let that for a second. The other thing, I think the other concern that people have that is kind of relates to what I was talking about earlier about Israel is that obviously it's in Israel's security interests for there to be regime change, or they at least perceive it to be. I mean, they assume that a regime that would replace the Ayatollah would be less hostile. It's hard to be more hostile. One that has a clock counting down towards your elimination. Right. Yeah. We have the Israeli Defense Minister this morning. Katz says the IDF is currently striking regime targets and symbols of government oppression in Tehran, you know, including a prison for political prisoners, you know, their internal security hq, et cetera. Trump might be in the position of, oh, wouldn't regime change be great? But we're not trying to effectuate it. It seems like our partners in Israel might be in a position of trying to effectuate it and we get kind of tied into that. What do you make of that concern?

[Bill Kristol]

I think that's a fair point. And maybe he shouldn't have tweeted it at all, but given that he did, I thought it's sort of worth interpreting it. And as I say, it's both to his. Maybe prudence would have said to keep quiet, but since he was going to keep quiet either way, nice that he vaguely expresses the old fashioned principle that we are kind of on the side of liberty for people around the world, if it's possible. I mean, Israel, I think is inclined to hope more for regime.

[Tim Miller]

Well, not in North Korea or Russia, by the way.

[Bill Kristol]

Well, that's the thing. Well, but I think from the. Okay, that's terrible and we should make that point, though it feels to me like that's a bit of a vulnerability now for Trump to say, hey, what about, what about other dictators? It's not going to affect him, obviously. Could it affect a little bit some other, you know of his supporters, some Republicans in Congress? I don't know, maybe not, but maybe they just treat Israel and Iran as a special case. I'm against treating Israel as a special case in this respect that. I mean, I'm for helping Ukraine, I'm helping Israel. Right. I mean, I think it's a mistake. It does probably hurts Israel ultimately to treat it entirely as its own unique, distinctive, the only country we're supposed to, we're allowed to help or to like around the world. So some of the more things one could say about all this, but a lot of it is obviously we don't know. I mean, these things will always have some anticipated consequences. I think, you know, moving the needle a little bit to make it easier for the Iranian people to effect trade regime change is a little different from invading a country and bringing about regime change. I mean, Iraq is way over on one side of the spectrum. Israel seems to be moving from here to here, but within a sort of pretty limited boundary. And I don't object to that particularly, but I agree we get a little bit implicated. We are now implicated. We used force on behalf of Israel. We're a little more implicated than we were. Wouldn't we have been pretty implicated anyway, though?

[Tim Miller]

All right, I had one more thing on this, like kind of a news item is out this morning that's worth monitoring related to the situation. There was a lot of chest thumping yesterday from the administration. You know, total elimination of the, you know, nuclear ambitions of Iran. Looking a little murkier this morning. Like whether, you know, Fordeau was actually eliminated. Seems like maybe partially. Obviously this is not to say that there was not great damage done, but that maybe partially, not completely eliminated, but more strikingly, the question of where is the Iranian uranium is now floating out there. The New York Times is a report that says that the actual state of the nuclear program seems far more murky, with senior officials conceding they did not know the fate of Iran's stockpile of near bomb grade uranium. There was evidence, according to two Israeli officials with knowledge of the intelligence, that Iran had moved equipment and uranium from the site in recent days, maybe due in part to Trump's crazy bleats, which circles us back to whether we want Trump in charge during a crisis. So I don't know. And you're talking to more folks than I am kind of in the national security space. What's the feeling of the effectiveness at this point?

[Bill Kristol]

We don't know. Pretty effective. But whether very effective or they move some stuff now you can move the stuff if you don't have the ability to do much with it, don't have.

[Tim Miller]

Scientific limits or whatever.

[Bill Kristol]

In fact, just one final point on the whole thing, I guess, one question, and this is I think a tough thing to answer, is the more we do the job now, the less likely it's likely to pop up as something that seems to require further action six months or 18 months from now. Right. And I think that's important if you think it's an unstable area, if you don't really trust Netanyahu government, if you don't trust the Trump administration. I mean, the happy story here, in a funny way, would be this is kind of one and done. They're set back pretty far. It's going to take them quite a while. Even if the regime doesn't fall and would be replaced by something better, which would be nice, they're going to be set back. They're not going to be able to do much. Going to take them a heck of a long time to reconstitute things. We've bought time, not just bought time in the nuclear program, bought time where we're not going to have another crisis in a year. Because one of the problems with Trump doing nothing is the Israeli government sitting there thinking, okay, now we've got to have a fordo plan which we're going to execute in six months, which is going to be an extremely dramatic. I'm making this up, obviously, but whatever, your paratroopers landing and all this. So I think you could argue that this action makes sense. Stability. I even use that word, relative stability. More likely six or 12 or 18 months out, but who knows?

[Tim Miller]

We'll report back on that in two weeks. I'm going to clip and save that one. Just so you have me on the Biden points relative stability and report back on that at Labor Day. There's video out, it's really horrifying. Video out of Southern California, one of these immigration cases. There's so many of these. It's sort of, when you use this one as an example, to kind of talk about the state of affairs, Kiso Barranco is the man. He is, I guess, doing landscaping outside an ihop. He's a worker doing landscaping in Southern California. He's from Santa Ana. He's got three sons. They're all Marines. At least one of them had served in Afghanistan. And he, I presume, is undocumented, though I haven't seen that confirmed by the news. An unmarked SUV drives up to the IHOP and another unmarked car and six guys in masks and like glasses, you can't even see their faces, with no identification jump out. And according to his son, Baranka, starts running, which seems kind of reasonable thing to do if six dudes in masks jump out of an unmarked SUV and start chasing at you. Then he ends up getting thrown to the ground after he's clearly subdued, he's getting maced. They're hitting him in his head. Another, an onlooker is posting this on social media and he's thrown into the car. And this is just a crazy way to treat people. It's completely authoritarian and fascistic. It feels like everybody's moved on from this fact. Important fact. We're still militarized to the National Guard. We still have military in the streets of LA for no apparent reason right now. Thoughts on kind of those two data points together?

[Bill Kristol]

Well, on that latter point, we've increased the number of National Guard, doubled it Right in the streets of la, even as the protests have died down. And there's been almost no violence, I gather, for the last several days. And ICE is doing its thing, as you just mentioned, in LA and other places, and doing it in a very bad way, in my opinion. But that gets me very worried there. I'm sort of. I'm not too alarmed about what Trump's done. In fact, I was somewhat supportive of it in Iran. I am very alarmed about the fact that we've now normalized the use of the Guard and the Marines in la. And if LA had some disturbances, why won't it be somewhere else two weeks from now and four weeks? And he's clear. The principle of it for him and the courts haven't struck this down, is he can use them wherever the state and local authorities are. In his judgment. In his judgment, not doing enough.

[Tim Miller]

Can I just chime in on this point, really, because it's just important to think about this. Like, he's still doing this over the objection of the state's governor. So it's totally unprecedented, something. This hasn't happened since the civil rights era. Right. That the President of the United States has nationalized the California Guard over the objection of the governor. And so you would. I think that that would only be acceptable in the most extreme circumstances. Right. And so even. Even in the most generous interpretation for the administration, the idea that this was necessary during that first weekend when the Waymos were on fire or whatever, and they're like, there was a couple of blocks where there was some rioting and you needed military to come in and help tamp that down, even in that generous interpretation, which obviously I was opposed to and found absurd at the time, there is no rationale for it now. Now there's nothing. It's crazy. Like these are the National Guard troops are people with lives. Like they also, they all have other jobs, they're being taken away from their families. The people on the streets of LA are like living in a militarized zone where there has to be fear. A friend of mine lives in LA said a 60 year old that he works with didn't have her birthday party because she's friends and family that have mixed status and she was afraid that it was going to get raided. And this is a preposterous, authoritarian, offensive way for people to live. And there's no stated rationale for it. Like what is the rationale?

[Bill Kristol]

Well, the real rationale of course is the unstated one. And I do think this is true. And one sounds like one of these alarmist authoritarianisms around the corner, but it is. I mean this, the rationale is he wants the ability to use the military domestically and he wants it to be done at his whimsical and on his say so and over the objections of state and local authorities because he sees disturbances or maybe they have information and you know, intelligence that would suggest planned disturbances. And so I do not think it's at all paranoid to be extremely concerned about this. The courts have sort of intervened, but then there were issues with why the courts didn't fully intervene. Congress is being its usual pathetic self. And I would say honestly on this one, the popular backlash is less than it should. There's so many, I don't blame people. There's so many outrageous, so many individual cases of outrage in the detention and mass deportation world. But just the general fact of these troops being on the streets, it really is cause for alarm. And then on the particular case you cited, it's really horrifying. And again, what are we doing? The guy showed up for work as a gardener, I think, and a landscaper. They know his name, they know, they probably know where he lives. They probably can find him if he runs away. Leave aside, why are they deporting this guy? I mean, he's as far as we know, showing up for a peaceful job. Now it turns out this is America First.

[Tim Miller]

Like there's people clamoring for the jobs, mowing the lawn outside ihop, even like the America first nationalist rubric. This is crazy.

[Bill Kristol]

I mean, I understand they're not gonna do computer searches and discover his three sons are Marines, though I guess they're Doing computer searches on everything else. Why can't they do this? Actually, it'd be better than searching people's, you know, people who are coming in to be researchers at Harvard Medical School, searching their social media accounts, you know, but they relish the use of force. Again, I guess they hope it's going to lead to self deportation for a lot of other people. So again, that's a bit of the hidden agenda here. It's not just literally that they're going to catch all these people and detain them and deport them. It's also they hope other people will deport themselves. But for what? I mean, what are we talking about here again, guys? Maybe they'll now discover some driving violation eight years ago and try to make him into, quote, a criminal. But I, I haven't followed it as closely as I might have, so I don't, I don't think there's anything for.

[Tim Miller]

What, yeah, somebody that raised three kids and went on to serve the country and his mowing lawns outside ihop. We're gonna deport them in the name of what, Safety of American. The American sovereignty being violated or jobs like the. The forgotten man in fucking Ohio wants to work mowing lawns at IHOP in Southern California. Like, it's, the whole thing is just preposterous. And to, and to do it masked, no identification guys getting thrown into the back of this suv. I mean, you think about it, and he assumes that this is the real ice, but you don't, you can't be sure this is happening now where people are imitating ice in other places he might be getting kidnapped by some dudes who knows what's happening.

[Bill Kristol]

No, totally. And a final point just on how grotesque this whole is. And there's not maybe quite as much reaction as there should be. One part of this bill, reconciliation bill that's moving through Congress, I guess through the Senate this week, is massive amounts of money for ICE and for Border patrol and for detention facilities and for deportation efforts. You know, there's so much else in the bill. The taxes, obviously, the Medicaid cuts, Medicare cuts, and all kinds of other things. But this is bad. I mean, so if we don't like what ISIS doing now, what Trump is doing, very much a key part of the bill. He and Stephen Miller have emphasized it. There's no talk about taking this out. There was a little like, there was talk for 10 seconds about maybe there's a little more money in there than we need. I think someone like Ron Johnson, and he suggested that they immediately Slapped him down. So let's have four or five times as much, I mean literally of what we're doing now of detention and deportation. Our friend Reiklund Melnick says we could have something like 100,000 people detained in the United States two or three years from now at one time by ICE. What does that start to look like? So the combination of that kind of militarization or beefing up of that whole side of the law enforcement slash militarization combined with the ability to use the troops, very bad. But I wish people would scream and yell a little more about this provision in that reconciliation bill.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, I agree. So really that's the future of America. That's ordering to make America great again. More private prisons and detention centers. Those are our growth industries. I appreciate you mentioning that. Just one other thing, because I was, I forget who I was having a disagreement with somebody. It was kind of just a real good faith argument where they were talking about how, you know, is this kind of the media overplaying these stories? Because like, isn't it true that Biden and Obama also deported a lot of folks? And we didn't see these stories like this. And there were certainly cases of inappropriate actions by ICE during the Obama and Biden years. I don't want to say that there wasn't, but that those stats that go around about how Biden, Obama was a deporter in chief and Biden was, a lot of that was like we were letting people in at the border and then they're getting, they're are being turned around. And so when you think about the counting numbers and how stats can deceive, it's like, oh, you don't have in front of me, but oh, Biden deported a million people. Well, a lot of those people are people that came across the border, encountered an agent, got sent back right across the border. Right. And so the amount of time that goes into that is little the appropriateness of it. So people aren't coming to the border now, which Trump people take as a win. Very, very few. And so to get to those same numbers, you're having to do things like these IHOP landscaping rates. Right. I thought that might just be kind of some useful context for people because there are folks who are confused with that.

[Bill Kristol]

No, it's very useful. And it looks some number in addition to the border, people who were being sort of deported just after crossing of the deportations and the pre2025 cases where people who were undocumented, who had committed crimes, had been convicted, had served time Some of them fairly small crimes, some of them the very serious crimes. And then basically I showed up at the prison. They were, they got notification that this guy who was undocumented was about to be released. They released him to ice. ICE took him to the airport, they flew him to Mexico or to Guatemala or something like that, which no one I was raising great objections to. I don't have great objections to it. And this was being done. And that's what incidentally, why the whole sanctuary city thing, why did that become important? Think about that. For the reason was that the cops was where the cops going to cooperate with ice if they just arrested someone but before he'd been charged, were they going to let ICE deport him or were they going to wait till going through the formal proceedings and so forth? People can differ on that. But again, at least those people were lawbreakers or plausibly lawbreakers. We're way beyond that. And that is what's, I think, the key point. We are in a different world. Biden. I mean this is a great point of bitterness for Stephen Miller and Trump. Biden's DHS secretary did not order ICE to go arrest people like the landscaper at IHOP if he was not otherwise committing crimes. Basically they let him alone and let him pay taxes if he registered, which Mehdi did.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, this guy was paying taxes. Barrango. One more immigration thing. Mahmoud Khalil was released. He immediately goes to Colombia to start protesting. I saw a lot of chatter about this over the weekend from the right about like, oh, the communist left is cheering this horrible person that got released and upset that we're bombing Iranian nuclear strikes. And they're, they are totally backwards in their priorities. And it's like the whole thing, the Khalil thing is just such a clear cut case of just like you believe in free speech for people that you disagree with or you don't. And like they never gave a rationale for him being held for 100 days besides the fact that he said anti Semitic things or was involved in protests that they didn't like that he passed out the Hezbollah game, cards, whatever it was, bingo game. There was never any actual crime offered. It was just, the Secretary of State can do this. So now he's out and AOC walked him out. And as far as I'm concerned that's totally fine that AOC did that and it's okay. And me and Mahmoud Khalil probably disagree about a variety of things. But like that's just, that's what it's like living in a Messy country with a constitution and a declaration of Independence that gives people free speech. So I don't know if you have anything to. On the. Khalil.

[Bill Kristol]

No, I agree with that. Yeah.

[Tim Miller]

On the kind of un American actions of this administration. I do just want to do a quick word on the transgender military ban which has gone into effect. There's another. I'll put this link in the notes, too. There's a good Washington Post story about 10 people that were 10 transgender people that were now kicked out of the military and what they were doing and what their hopes were. And, like, the whole thing is really just so grotesque. And it's like this idea that we have fucking a guy that ducked service that's now engaging in military activity overseas and sending troops into LA in America with no regard for what the norms are and what the laws are of this country, like, wants to, like, degrade and punish people who are serving in good standing solely because they're transgender. It's just. It's really sick. Yeah.

[Bill Kristol]

Disgusting. I mean, the assault on transgender people in general, we're so far beyond any reasonable concerns about some of the sports issues, and maybe those could be worked out case by case or by local leagues and stuff. Health care, beyond the concerns on children, basically, and surgery and puberty blockers and stuff. Though I will say, even on that, I've become sort of radicalized in the sense that reading a little bit of the Supreme Court decision late last week, the argument for the Tennessee law is that they get to override everyone. The family, the doctor, the kid, other people who maybe the state could insist on some counselors coming in who, you know, sort of to take a look, who. Not just hired by the family or by the hospital if they're concerned that there's a kind of collusion going on, I wouldn't necessarily object to that. But everyone wants to go ahead with a certain treatment, and the state of Tennessee has decided to prohibit it. You have to have a pretty high bar, in my opinion. And it's important treatment, and there's a lot of evidence. If you don't have that treatment, you have real harm to these kids. You know, suicide and suicide attempts and terrible things. And the state of Tennessee just gets to block that. I don't know. It seems to me like the bar and the Supreme Court was like, hey, it's not really a gender discrimination. So we're just going to apply, I think, what they call rational basis scrutiny, which is very low level, not the heightened scrutiny that you should have in sex or race. And Sexual stuff. And so it seems like maybe they had a reasonable reason to be worried about all this. So we're just going to defer to them. Really embarrassingly bad reasoning. And, and really they want to stay out of this. They think that's a way they can, you know, do what they believe, which I suppose is to stop the stuff without really engaging on the merits or in the details. But I would just point out that, like all the conservatives who've all, you know, it's the family, the parents. What's wrong with these books in the school, elementary school libraries? How could a book be there that parents didn't approve of? How can you let teachers say something in class about the. If they're male about their husband or if they're female about their wife, you know, and have a picture of that person on the teacher's desk?

[Tim Miller]

Parents rights.

[Bill Kristol]

Parents rights. Parents rights. Totally out the window. Totally 100% out the window in this case. So the animus against transgender people is disgusting. And I do worry that it's a little more pervasive than some of the other things Trump is trying to exploit. But of course, as he exploits it, it becomes harsher. Were people really worried about these people in the military, incidentally? I don't know. I know a fair number of people in the military. They weren't really telling me a lot this in the conversations I've had in the last few years, you know.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah. And also the military does so much stuff now, right? Like in your, in their head, they immediately try to go to like, oh, in the barracks. It might create issues with unit cohesion, which is, which is eye rolly to begin with. But if you, like, you actually read this Post story, it's like a lot of the folks are like, back in an office working on intel gathering, you know, doing like, what possible impact could being transgender have on your ability to be on a computer and do intel gathering for the military or, you know, other, you know, JAG services, et cetera. The whole thing is just fucking preposterous. All right, Last thing is, we have this New York mayor's election coming tomorrow. We were discussing about it in Slack. It's a primary. There's some people on the Internet that are acting like this primary is the end of the world. The state of American democracy. And the left rests on whether sex pest Andrew Cuomo or leftist Zoran Mamdani wins, when actually both Mandani and Cuomo are on other ballot lines in this weird New York ballot system. And the incumbent Mayor Eric Adams, is on another weird ballot line. So it's very possible that tomorrow's election ends, which is also kind of the ranked choice voting thing is a little strange. And we end up on Wednesday waking up, and it's still Cuomo vs. Mondani vs. Adams vs. Silwa or whatever the vigilante Republican candidate is. So a very weird race. There are a couple of normal candidates. If it's too late. If you're looking for somebody to vote to put number one. I really do like Zellner Myre. Brad Lander seems totally fine. Scott Singer seems totally fine. Adrian Adams seems totally fine. But here we are. Bill, do you have any takes on your swale hometown?

[Bill Kristol]

I mean, it's depressing. And for those of us who've been saying both to ourselves, you know, and now, of course, publicly as well, you know, hey, Abigail Spanberger, Democratic nominee for governor of Virginia. Mike Sherrill, Democratic nominee for the governor of Jersey. That's a Democratic Party. That's fine with me. And I thought the radicals are taking over everything New York City could be. Could undercut that argument quite a bit. But again, maybe they could have put up a decent candidate, you know, are there not enough people that quote Democratic establishment? Don't they kind of live in New York? A lot of them.

[Tim Miller]

Couldn't they have circled the wagons around someone besides fucking Cuomo?

[Bill Kristol]

Isn't the minority leader of the Senate and the minority leader of the House, Aren't they both from New York City? Kind of unusual, actually in American history that that's the case. Maybe unique. I don't know. Maybe they could have spent a little effort getting like the equivalent of Spanberger or Cheryl. Maybe that's too high a bar, but okay, could they get some sane human, you know, someone who's not a sex pest and who was demonstrated some competence, a mini Bloomberg type, you know, to run and put 50 million bucks up, saying this is the guy and you got to list him somewhere on your ballot and don't list. It's fine for me to say don't list, Zoran and stuff. And then you get a moderate who would be. Be reasonable. So they've got. I mean, this is a case where I've got to say the moderate Democrats are okay. I think they're fine, actually, mostly around the country. Some of these office holders, like Spanberger and Sheryl, who both launched their own political careers in 2018, they didn't wait for some establishment to select them, are fine, more than fine. They're admirable. Jason Crow, many other people we know Seth Moulton, the moderate Democratic establishment is really pathetic. What are these guys doing all the time? They got tons of money. They've got tons of allegedly powerful organizations. I don't know. They're having a lot of zoom calls. I even get to go on a few of them and listen to them, you know, and I don't know, but like, God forbid, in an actual mayoral race in the largest city in the country, I don't understand. They're not going to worry about a Dayton primary and spend a lot of time making sure Dayton nominates the right kind of Democrat. But maybe New York City, they could have spent a little time. And it's unbelievable. You talk to these guys as I did some of the New York Times. It's just they lament this as if this were a hurricane that they couldn't do anything about. Force of nature. Could you believe that we're stuck with this. I was in New York giving a talk about the. I go, can you believe we're stuck with this choice? Now I. Look, I. No individual can change the whole dynamics of a city's politics. And I don't mean to berate some hardworking person who is, you know, doesn't have the time to spend 12 hours a day trying to figure out how to fix this. But I don't know. I feel like there should have been a little. Some people should have stepped up a little more. In this case, what do you. What do you think's going to happen?

[Tim Miller]

They could have looked at the field and circled the wagons around one of the other candidates that's in the field or found another candidate to run. Like, that's not that.

[Bill Kristol]

Right. A couple of. A couple of the other moderate candidates seem perfectly fine, incidentally. Right. I don't.

[Tim Miller]

Adrian Adams is fine. She's on the. On the city council or whatever. Zellner is maybe too young. He's a state senator. But, like, if these are. I don't know, you could find. You could have found somebody. I agree with that. And they are pathetic. And the DNC is so bad. There's so much news I haven't been able to kind of get to. I have like, a little side file of all the dumb stuff that the DNC's been doing lately. I've been trying to find a little an excuse to do a segment on it, but we'll get to it. But, you know, Ken Martin, like, wants to quit already because he's so, so weak and frustrated and. Yeah, I know it is. I was watching TV this weekend and they Had a pretty. And it was all lies, obviously. What was I watching? It was either during the. Must have been during the LSU College World Series, which they won. Go Tigers. And I was only half watching because I don't care that much about baseball. But like the ad came on which drew my attention and I looked over and it was an ad by some Trump super PAC talking about this bill that's going through Congress. Those all lies. But it's pretty compelling. It's like, oh, it's a working class tax cut and we're going to do this for you. Right. And. And it's like, okay, well where do the Democrats not have any, any counter messaging they want to put out on this where it's a very unpopular bill. So to your point, I think that a lot of the individual moderate Democratic candidates are good, but the Institutional Democrats.

[Bill Kristol]

Are really struggling and 5 million people show up at no Kings rallies. Was that just one week ago? It's hard to. Yeah, it was literally right. Yeah. And you know, they're a mixture of obviously lefties and moderates and all kinds of old and young and so forth, but still they're there to oppose Trump. They do deserve better political representation, if I can put it that way. There are individuals who AOC represents some of them and Spamberger represents some of them and so forth. But yeah, maybe we just need to start, I don't know the real dnc, you know, the ex Republican dnc. You and I can co chair it and we'll do a better job.

[Tim Miller]

Pass. I will take a pass.

[Bill Kristol]

I think you'd be excellent. I don't know.

[Tim Miller]

I think that the first 20 minutes of this podcast eliminated you from being able to lead that and I choose not to lead it. So maybe Sarah, I'm going to lead.

[Bill Kristol]

Them back to their Hubert, Harry Truman, Hubert Humphreys, Koop Jackson Boots. It's going to be a wonderful, it's going to be a dramatic moment. Tim, in American politics.

[Tim Miller]

Couldn't be worse than the status quo. Bill Kristol, thank you so much. We'll see you back here Monday. And we might be together next Monday actually. We'll see. I got go to go head to D.C. so.

[Bill Kristol]

Oh great.

[Tim Miller]

Everybody else, we'll see you back here tomorrow for another edition of the Bulwark Podcast. Peace. The Borg Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.

[Bill Kristol]

If you're alignment in charge of keeping the lights on, Grainger understands that you go to great lengths and sometimes heights to ensure the power is always flowing, which is why you can count on Grainger for professional grade products and next day delivery so you have everything you need to get the job done. Call one Granger click granger.com or just stop by Granger for the ones who get it done.