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- [00:00]
Tim Miller
Foreign. Hello and welcome to the board podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. It's Monday, January 27th. Trump's been President again for about a week now. Feels longer and I'm here today with Bill Kristol. How you doing, Bill?
- [00:21]
Bill Kristol
It does feel longer than a week.
- [00:23]
Tim Miller
It does.
- [00:24]
Bill Kristol
I don't know if it feels like a month, six months or a year, but it's. We're not even talking like a little longer than a week. Right.
- [00:31]
Tim Miller
Yeah. We are gathering today, as you note in the morning newsletter on Holocaust Remembrance Day. So I think it's probably worth starting there. Shadow President Elon Musk zoomed in to a conference of the AfD, which is the German far right party at that gathering. He said he thinks that there's too much focused on past guilt and we need to move beyond that. You had a little meditation on this for Holocaust Remembrance Day today. I'd like for you to share your thoughts on that.
- [01:02]
Bill Kristol
Well, Musk, of course, had done the salute, which wasn't really, of course, a fascist or Nazi salute on Monday. He joked about it during the week. I actually wrote about that in Friday's morning shots. Then Saturday, he decided to video into an AfD rally in Germany. And okay, he's endorsed them, he likes them. It's indefensible in any case. But I suppose if you wanted to defend him, you could say he likes them for other reasons. They don't like tax cuts, the EU bureaucracy, tax cuts, Gorsuch, whatever. They're for judicial appointments. And instead he actually focused would be.
- [01:36]
Tim Miller
The German Gorsuch name.
- [01:38]
Bill Kristol
Yeah, I know, I don't know it and I feel bad from Gorsuch, that wasn't quite fair. But anyway. And yeah, instead he focuses on what is at the heart of their appeal, one of their major appeals, which is a kind of we've got to get beyond the successive cult of guilt. Musk actually used that phrase, I believe, and that's a phrase they use over there about, you know, remembering the Holocaust, basically. And so I quote in the morning shots this tweet stream I came across, I don't know the man at all. Professor Martin Sourbray, based on Google, he seems to be a 45 year old or so German historian.
- [02:12]
Tim Miller
I love that he's at the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Research on the Consequences of War. That's a great, great title.
- [02:20]
Bill Kristol
Yeah, he makes some obvious points. I mean, for one point, Musk wants to say, you know, Germany's been crippled by this guilt. You know, Germany's had a pretty good run since 1945. West Germany first and then all of Germany. We've helped them. They're a good part of the West. I mean, really, are they being crippled? Is that a country that hasn't done better than we might have expected over the last 70 years? Because they did come to grips with the Holocaust more than others, more than Austria, in any case. Sarah Bray makes this point and then makes a personal point about his own. What he. He is not crippled by a cult of guilt, but he also thinks that not to be serious about one's nation's past and to take that seriously is denial. It is avoidance of moral responsibility and avoidance of political responsibility in terms of how to prevent this from happening again. I didn't draw this, make this point in morning shots, but you read it and you think a little bit about our own issues with slavery and with, you know, our past and coming to grips with it over the last 60, 70 years, but last 10, 22 as well, and how, I think, how healthy that has been. It could go a little too far, sure. But anyway, the idea that Musk calls in on Saturday to encourage them to basically minimize the Holocaust, two days before Holocaust Remembrance Day, pretty appalling. And then this morning they're having these moving ceremonies at Auschwitz in Poland, and it's the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz by the Red army, by Soviet troops coming from the East. And interestingly, they stopped inviting Putin to these, any Russian government representative to these celebrations after the invasion of Ukraine because they correctly understood this is what Putin is doing does not entitle him to be on the side of the liberationists. You know, so they have a kind of sense of the current relevance of what they are commemorating. King Charles is there. I can't quite get used to saying King Charles, but King Charles III of Great Britain is there and Macron from France and Trudeau from Canada. We have a, I could say, honestly, a slightly second tier delegation of some.
- [04:14]
Tim Miller
Cabinet, I think lower than second tier. Charles Kushner, straight out of jail. That's who we.
- [04:18]
Bill Kristol
Charles Kushner is going to be our ambassador to France, someone who's going to be our commerce Secretary and a representative for the Middle East. All Jews, which I guesses, which actually isn't appropriate. I'm Jewish. Jews have a special connection to all this. And no question, though, it was not only Jews who were killed at Auschwitz, obviously, predominantly. But, you know, Macron came, he's not Jewish. King Charles came, he's not Jewish. The German chancellor, President and the chancellor who's outgoing and his likely replacement all came. Germany has a special standing. Trudeau is not Jewish. It's something that should be of concern to everyone. Trump sends kind of three semi high ranking Jews from his administration who have been nominated to be in his administration. And meanwhile Musk, who's much more powerful than any of those three, is busy giving speeches to the, to the alternative for Germany, the kind of success the anti anti Nazi party at the very least. So it got me a little bit upset.
- [05:14]
Tim Miller
Yeah. And it is a good parallel, as you're saying, to what is kind of happening in America. Right. With the woke lash about the Elon message about, you know, not remembering so deeply all this stuff we had over the weekend that the as part of the DEI initiatives, the Air Force said that they're going to stop teaching about the Tuskegee Airmen. There's mass outrage about that. And they might be, you know, reinstating that that lesson. But like the idea is there the principle of let's try to bury, you know, some of the, some of the more unpleasant. I guess Tuskegee Airmen isn't, isn't an unpleasant story. It's only an unpleasant story in the sense that at the time they're being discriminated against back home, they didn't have equal rights.
- [05:52]
Bill Kristol
Well, and a reminder that the military was segregated at that time, which again, I don't think that takes away from what the US did in World War II and certainly not what the black members of the military in segregated units did. But yes, that's why they don't like it. The whites. It's a reminder that they want to yearn for the 40s. But all was not well in the US in the 40s and 50s. Hegseth this morning I just saw this before coming on with you referred in passing. I guess it was in passing. I don't know how much intentional it was to Fort Bragg, which was renamed Fort Liberty, I think two, three, four years ago. Bragg was a particularly noxious Confederate general. So that's part of Hegseth's kind of, you know what that is. I mean it's one thing if you didn't think about it in 1990. You talk about Fort Bragg, we all did that obviously. But it became an issue. The military recommended changes. Biden administration put them in place. That really is like going out of your way to praise some quasi in the German context, some not Hitler obviously, but some quasi fascist figure from the twenties or something. Right. I mean it's deeply creepy.
- [06:55]
Tim Miller
They're not naming military Bases in Germany after Nazi generals. Is that not happening over there? We're bringing it back. We're bringing back the Confederate general naming. We needed to make sure that all of the great confederates are honored in this country. That is what America first patriots do is honor the traitors. All right, I gave you the floor to rant about the mistreatment of the Jewish people by Elon Musk. I've got some Catholic complaints. J.D. vance was on Face the Nation over the weekend. I wanted to hear him talking about the Catholic Church.
- [07:27]
J.D. Vance
U.S. conference of Catholic Bishops this week condemned some of the executive orders signed by President Trump, specifically those allowing Immigration and Customs Enforcement to enter churches and to enter schools. Do you personally support the idea of conducting a raid or enforcement action in a church service at a school?
- [07:47]
Margaret Brennan
Well, let me, let me address this. Of course, if you have a person who is convicted of a violent crime, whether they're an illegal immigrant or a non illegal immigrant, you have to go and get that person to protect the public safety. That's not unique to immigration. But let me just address this particular issue, Margaret, because as a practicing Catholic, I was actually heartbroken by that statement. And I think that the U.S. conference of Catholic Bishops needs to actually look in the mirror a little bit and recognize that when they receive over $100 million to help resettle illegal immigrants, are they worried about humanitarian concerns or are they actually worried about their bottom line?
- [08:25]
Tim Miller
This fucking guy has been a Catholic for like two seconds and he converts to the church. He's like, you know, I've got, I've got some complaints, all right? You're caring a little bit too much about the indigent and the poor. We need to focus on, on the real reasons why I became a Catholic, the real Catholic stuff, making people feel anti trans sentiment. What, what? He didn't even have to do it. He had answered the question, which is, frankly, maybe we'll see how these guys execute their, their immigration raids. I'm not so confident they're going to be very judicious, but maybe they just have changed the rule to be able to go into a church because there's some violent criminal they want and that's the only way they know how to get the person who knows if that's going to happen. But that is a fair dodge as a politician. And then on top of that, he's got to be like, I'm just, as somebody who's been a Catholic since last Tuesday, I am just heartbroken that these bishops that gave their life to the church care at all about the poor immigrants that we're planning on putting on planes and shackles back to their country. Any other thoughts on that, Bill?
- [09:32]
Bill Kristol
Well, I leave the Catholics to you and you leave the Jews to me. We have a good ecumenical division of labor on this.
- [09:37]
Tim Miller
We've got a joke coming here. We got a rabbi and a priest.
- [09:41]
Bill Kristol
Well, we need it. We need it.
- [09:42]
Tim Miller
Right?
- [09:42]
Bill Kristol
We need Sarah to come on and take care of the Protestants, I suppose, you know. But no, I just would make one other point that struck me from the outside, so to speak. Yes, you say he made his point. He can defend the detentions and the raids and all that. He could have even said a normal, if I might say, vice president in this circumstance might have said, you know, I respect the Catholics. They spend a lot of money on. They do try hard to help immigrants. I think some of these policies, though, could be misguided because they could be an inducement for them to come in. I mean, whatever you want to say, right? I mean, you can have a sort of, you know, a critique of their understanding of public policy. He doesn't do that. He says they're in it for the money. It's, I mean, sadly, I, I, that is actual bigotry. I mean, unless he has evidence that the lot of people are getting very rich over there at the, you know, working in Catholic relief missions and, and food shelters and so forth, helping immigrants. I mean, it's really disgusting. You were too nice to him.
- [10:35]
Tim Miller
Yeah. Thank you, Drill. It can't be anti Catholic bigotry because he became a Catholic. It's kind of like in Seinfeld where the guy becomes a dentist for the jokes. Does he become a dentist for the jokes or become a Jew for the jokes? I forget the story. You are an anti dentite. It's one of those situations, right. I've become a Catholic so that I can slander the Catholics and do so with impunity without people calling me a bigot. So there's our vice president, unfortunately. I have one more clip from him I'd like to play. He was asked about the pardons. You might remember. It was only like two weeks ago. It was like one week after he became a Catholic. He was on TV and he said that obviously, obviously was sort of used, that they would not be pardoning people that violently attacked the police. Obviously that was wrong. And his daddy made a different decision a couple days later. Here's JD Addressing that with CBS Vaccination.
- [11:29]
J.D. Vance
Daniel Rodriguez used an electroshock weapon against a policeman who was dragged out of the defensive line by plunging it into the officer's neck. He was in prison, sentenced to 12 years, seven months. He got a pardon. Ronald McAbee hit a cop while wearing reinforced brass knuckle gloves, and he held one down on the ground as other rioters assailed the officer for over 20 seconds, causing a concussion. If you stand with law enforcement, how can you call these people unjustly imprisoned?
- [11:57]
Margaret Brennan
Margaret, you're separating. There's an important issue here. There's what the people actually did on January 6th, and we're not saying that everybody did everything perfectly. And then what did Merrick Garland's Department of Justice do in unjustly Prosecuting well over 1,000Americans in a way that was politically meaningful?
- [12:16]
J.D. Vance
Was violence like that against a police officer ever justified?
- [12:18]
Margaret Brennan
Violence against a police officer is not justified. But that doesn't mean that you should have Merrick Garland's weaponized Department of justice expose you to incredibly unfair process, to denial of constitutional rights, and, frankly, to a double standard that was not applied to many people, including, of course, the Black Lives Matter rioters who killed over two dozen people and never had the weight of a weaponized Department of Justice come against them. The pardon power is not just for people who are angels or people who are perfect.
- [12:49]
Tim Miller
I keep waiting for the evidence of the Black Lives Matter protesters that attacked cops and killed people and weren't prosecuted for that. This keeps coming up in these interviews, but I never actually. They never actually say the name of a person who got off. So I'm still waiting to hear that. But, you know, Bill, the pardon power isn't for people that's perfect. You know, so beating a cop, whatever. Merrick Garland was too mean.
- [13:11]
Bill Kristol
I mean, I assume one hopes, and I believe that's the case, since I think, as you say, we would know the names of those who had gotten off or the people who hadn't been. The murders for which there were prosecutions, they were prosecuted, obviously, in the states in which these crimes happened, as most murder cases are, or assault cases. And this was a unique situation because it was in D.C. so. And it was an attack on the U.S. capitol. And so it made sense for the Department of Justice to take the lead, and it did. But again, they were convicted by juries. I mean, the degree of dishonesty in Vance. There are like eight levels of dishonesty in Vance's answer. Right.
- [13:44]
Tim Miller
Speaking of which, on this topic, I've got a segment. We don't have theme music for it yet. I don't know if it's going to be A permanent segment. But over the weekend, I was struck by something. It was in addition to JD I was talking about how I forget who I was talking to about this. I was like, I don't understand why I knew that Trump was going to pardon the violent cop beaters, but his own vice president didn't. These guys have to kind of suspend disbelief about the nature of Donald Trump in order to continue to exist. It's something we saw the first time around, but we're really seeing it in spades this time. And so I've got three examples of gullible Republicans who seem to have been fooled by the nature of the man that they've made, the president. And the first one is also on this topic of January 6th, Thom Tillis, Senator from North Carolina. You can just hear the indignation in his voice when we play this. He is indignant that people are asking Pam Bondi to respond to a hypothetical about the possibility that Donald Trump might pardon a violent protester. This was just a few days before Donald Trump did pardon the violent protesters. Let's listen to indignant Thom Tillis on January 6.
- [14:47]
Thom Tillis
A lot of people are going to say you're going to have a rubber stamp for letting people have pardons or recommending a pardon for people who did violence to law enforcement. I'm not going to ask you a hypothetical because I want you to be consistent in not answering them. But I have to believe as a member, I was the last member out of the Senate on January 6th. I walked past a lot of law enforcement officers, excuse me, who were injured. I find it hard to believe that the president of the United States or you would look at facts that were used to convict the violent people on January 6th and say it was just an intemperate moment. I don't even expect you to respond to that. But I think it's an absurd and unfair hypothetical here, and you probably haven't heard the last of it.
- [15:37]
Tim Miller
An absurd and unfair hypothetical. Never would Donald Trump pardon somebody that attacked a cop. Thom Tillis says two days before Donald Trump, he pardons the cop eaters, exactly what Tillis said he wouldn't do. What do you think, Bill? What's happening in this man's brain?
- [15:54]
Bill Kristol
And never would he appoint to be director of the FBI. The FBI, which kind of a reporting agency in this respect, Kash Patel, or nominated to be head of the FBI, Cash Patel, who was a total defender of the most violent criminals from January 6, never accepted the distinction that Tillis wants to make between the kind of innocent ones, the harmless ones and the violent ones, was proud of his association with various violent criminals. And it was having a hearing, I believe, Thursday before that same committee. So let's see if Senator Tillis says, you know, Pam Bondi. She wasn't answering hypotheticals. I was wrong, Senator Tillis, about what President Trump would do. But to be fair, Pam Bondi wasn't presumably clued in either way, so she should still be attorney General. But you, Mr. Patel, have been an explicit associate with, promoter of and defender of these violent January 6th criminals. So I can't vote for you. Will Tillis say that?
- [16:44]
Tim Miller
That's a great question. We've invited Tom Tillis to come on the podcast. He's scared, so we'll see. Maybe Joe Perdicombe can shake him down on the Hill. I don't expect him to say that because he's worried about a primary. I don't know, maybe in North Carolina, maybe the guy that was eating pizza in the back of the porn shop might primary him. And that's probably more, you know, kind of up the alley of Republican primary voters. We'll see. So Thom Tillis, indignant. Thom Tillis, an absurd hypothetical. You can't make it. We got Susan Collins, his colleague in the Senate. In another story over the weekend, Trump fired 12, I believe, the inspectors general, and he did not provide the 30 day notice that you are required to by law. I'd like to talk about that story more broadly, but here in the Republican gullibility section, here's Susan Collins's quote on this. I don't understand why one would fire individuals whose mission is to root out waste, fraud and abuse. So this leaves a gap in what I know is a priority for President Trump. Could you help Susan understand that?
- [17:54]
Bill Kristol
Bill, someone told people like Susan Collins years ago that the way you can persuade Trump is by making it seem that Trump cares about these things that you care about and then you ascribe to him those views and then he kind of realizes, yeah, it's kind of in his interest to pretend to care about these things. He's ignored all this for years. He's done fine ignoring Susan Collins, of course, the idea that, geez, Trump really doesn't want abuse in any of these departments. He wants people there who are going to blow the whistle on contracts, going to his buddies and political appointees, manhandling career civil servants in ways that are not legal and so forth. I mean, it's of course, beyond farcical. Just this is a sidebar, but I think it's related In a way, what's interesting also is Trump's doing all these things. They're being done by nominal acting appointees. There's always an acting secretary in every department. There's always a chain of command. But there are people who are not even close to the top, top level. They've been put in temporarily. And of course, most of almost all the nominees haven't been confirmed. I mean, in a normal world, you would at least let the pretend to have asked the cabinet secretary to review the performance of these IGs, let the PAM Bondies and the whoever at all these different departments, Doug Burgum and all these guys, you know, quote, review, fine. They'll of course end up firing them in accord with the White House's wishes, but at least there's a certain patina of respectability, orderliness. You know, here it's. So they had their list. They were going to go after all. They didn't even have a list in this case. They just basically, literally went after all of them. And if people should understand, I mean, I was in a department and dealt with the Inspector General quite a lot when I was chief of Staff at the Education Department. I mean, not quite. Not too much, thank God. We didn't do many things wrong, but they had issues and would come up and we'd talk about, you know, we'd try to resolve them in an appropriate way. They are the watchdogs. Some are more effective than others. I'm sure they can't watchdog everything, but they are a check. They are a check. As Susan Collins said on fraud and abuse. And again, there wasn't even a pretense that, well, this guy here in the Interior Department, I think it's time for a change there. Doug Burgum recommended that to me that we're going to do that. Not even a pretense. It's just. They're all gone.
- [19:55]
Tim Miller
Yeah. I have two thoughts on this. One, on the Susan Collins point, just briefly, the idea that it is a priority for President Trump to root out fraud. It's just, you call it beyond farcical. It flies in the face of everything that we know about Donald Trump. Donald Trump's whole career has been for eminence, on leveraging fraud successfully. He lied about how much money he was worth and businesses, the apprentices of Forest, all of it. Trump water, Trump Airport. Like, Trump's whole life has been a fraud. Like Trump loves fraud. What are you talking about? It's a priority for Donald Trump to root out fraud. That is like, that shows, you know, Nothing about Donald Trump. It's like you were a baby who was just born yesterday and played it played straight into the United States Senate. The whole thing is just ridiculous.
- [20:38]
Bill Kristol
Next you're going to tell me that Trump University, those degrees weren't important and weren't worth the thousands of dollars Trump milked out of people for those tens of thousands of dollars for those.
- [20:48]
Tim Miller
The guy ran a fake university. You think it's a priority for him to root out fraud? What are you talking about, Susan Collins? Anyway, but as far as the inspectors general, there's a longer line of perniciousness here for me also that, you know, I guess everybody's decided not to care about because we're just going to not care think about any long term damage that Donald Trump could potentially do if you're a Trump enabler. But what exactly is the rationale, if a Democrat ever gets back in the White House, what exactly is the rationale for them to bring back inspector general? Right. I mean, no president wants an inspector's general. To your point, was the Secretary of education ever excited to have a meeting with their inspector general? Nobody wants the inspector general are there to represent the people and the interests of the people to make sure that our money is not being wasted or that there's not other illegality happening that any other cover ups that help, you know, the administration, you know, not be accountable for, you know, actions that are harmful to the citizenry. Like that is the whole point of the inspector general. So if they just blanket fire everybody, that to me it's like, well, okay, our inspector general over now forever. Because who is going to be the president? That's like, you know what? I really want to bring these guys back.
- [22:10]
Bill Kristol
I mean, is Trump going to even put in nominal inspectors general? I don't know. I mean, inspector general, if I'm not mistaken, the intelligence community was the person to whom people went in the summer of 2019 to report on the Ukraine and what Trump was trying to do in withholding funds from Ukraine and sort of pressuring them to do a fake report on Biden.
- [22:30]
Tim Miller
Right.
- [22:30]
Bill Kristol
So they were actually. And it worked. And incidentally, the inspector general's inspectors general have relationship with Congress. So if you don't, if they don't get satisfaction within the executive branch, there's a kind of threat that they'll go to the Congressional Oversight Committee. So this is also Congress's. We'll see if Congress responds at all. But Congress is, I don't, I'm not holding my breath for the Republican senators. So there they are running the Congress. They have inspectors general in these ranchers to help them, as Susan Collins might know, to root out fraud and abuse. And are they going to do anything serious about what Trump has done?
- [23:00]
Tim Miller
I do find that hard to imagine. But if they were, you pointed this out like they have opportunities to do things here. You wrote on social media over the weekend. Grassley also claims to be upset about this. Collins the most straightforward pushback to these firings would be the Senate reasserting their power and McConnell, Grassley, Ernst Collins and Murkowski saying they won't vote to confirm nominees until they're satisfied there'll be oversight in the agencies. They could do that. They could, but are you holding your breath? I'm not on the gullible Republicans list. So we have Thom Tillis, Susan Collins. I also need to shout out Congresswoman Maria Salazar down in Miami. She put out a very stern statement this morning I'd like to read to you. She is urging Homeland Security to protect all caps Cubans awaiting legal status adjustment through the Cuban Adjustment Act. And we must also protect the Venezuelans and Nicaraguans without a criminal record going through the asylum process. Don't penalize them for Biden's screw ups do. I've got some bad news for you, Maria Salazar. These people don't. It wasn't even that they weren't taking Trump literally or seriously. They weren't listening to Donald Trump at all apparently. Like the idea that Stephen Miller is planning an immigration regime that has very lenient asylum processes for nonviolent Venezuelans or Nicaraguans is ridiculous. They've completely shut down the CBB1 app. They're trying to get asylum down to zero. That is what they're trying to do. There was a whole kerfuffle during the campaign. Maria might not have heard about the Haitians and those that were here on temporary protected status. This administration doesn't plan on taking care of those people. So I just don't know what they thought that they were getting.
- [24:48]
Bill Kristol
I mean how gullible are they? How much are they pretending to be gullible because the alternative's more dishonorable? That they knew it was all a lie and they just went along because they were scared to take on Trump? I don't know.
- [24:59]
Tim Miller
I don't think that they're pretending. I don't know. I think that this is cope and how you survive in a rising authoritarian world. Because there was an off the record briefing. I discussed this with Sam on the pod last week that he attended with a Republican senator I believe with the terms of that conversation. And the person seemed to not think Trump was going to do any of the bad things. You know, you keep adding, it's like, anytime. It's like, well, wait, well, what about the mass deportations? Wait, what about the violent pardons? What about this? It's like, well, no, all of that stuff. No, you know, we're just going to. We're just going to get the tax cuts and Doge and, you know, no wars. I do think that they have convinced themselves, but we'll continue to monitor Global Republican Hour. Lead some other news this morning I want to talk about. There's an executive order Trump signed banning trans service members. I do think that there is something particularly gross about a draft dodger banning people who had volunteered for service. The executive order, I don't know if it's the same one or a separate one, also reinstates service members that were kicked out for nothing, not taking vaccines that were required by the military. So we're just doing straight political effort to kick people out of the military if they're trans, bring people back who, you know, whatever, disobeyed orders. I'm open to that being something that is smart. I never served in the military. I kind of will defer to Hertling and others on whether it is smart to reinstate those folks. It's possible, but it is pretty galling to do so at the same time that you're kicking people out who haven't done anything wrong and that you're doing so to appease, like, racist Twitter users and Reddit posters. Like, we're going to take keyboard warriors and appease them, and we're going to kick out people that volunteered to serve in the country because they're transgender. It's pretty gross.
- [26:49]
Bill Kristol
Yeah. Terrible. And it's not even an issue of, I don't know, should the government pay for certain things, you know, treatments and procedures people want going forward? I mean, maybe you can. I think it's kind of hard to distinguish, but, you know, maybe people could make some kind of colorable, plausible argument on that. These are just people. I mean, they're just people who we don't know. Some of them have transitioned 10 years ago, some two years ago. Some are in the midst of it, conceivably. But anyway, you're just kicking out people for who they are. Right. You're not, like, denying it's a little more plausibly legitimate, though. Not really to deny a service, as it were, a special service.
- [27:24]
Tim Miller
Right.
- [27:24]
Bill Kristol
To someone. I mean, this is just discrimination.
- [27:27]
Tim Miller
Flat out, you know, flat out discrimination.
- [27:29]
Bill Kristol
Well, I don't know. What about the Defense Department? Are they going to go out to the civilians there too? If any of them are transgender people? I don't know.
- [27:36]
Tim Miller
Yeah, a lot of this stuff is pretty hackney, so I think it remains to be seen, but it's pretty depressing, I will say. Have you ever wanted to learn more about wine but can't figure out where to start? Or when you do start, it just feels like too much. Our next partner, Naked Wines, has changed the game for learning about wine without having to take a whole class about it. This podcast is sponsored by naked wines. It's 2025. Getting naked and drinking wine seems about as good an idea as anything else. Naked Wines is a service that directly connects you with the world's finest independent winemakers so you can get award winning wine delivered straight to your door. Use the bulwark for the code and password@nakedwines.com and get their incredible deal of six bottles for just $39.99. I got a round of Naked Wines sent to the house the other day. The fun part for me was you're getting to try out, you know, some different grapes, different varietals, things. I'm making some pasta for dinner, try a little red, have one glass, see how you like it. It's a little something to do. We all need little joys in our life, you know, little lame. Yep. And the Naked Wines has been one for me. I've got four more bottles sitting down there, excited to try them all out. How do they do it? Naked Wines connects winemakers and wine drinkers directly, allowing for vineyard to your door delivery at up to 60% off what you'd pay in the store. By cutting out the traditional retail middlemen, costs and markups, winemakers can pass those savings on to you without skimping on quality. Now is the time to join the Naked Wines community. Head to nakedwines.com thebullwerk Click Enter Voucher and put in my code thebullwerk for both the code and password for six bottles of wine for just $39.99 with shipping included. That's $100 off your first six bottles at nakedwines.com thebullwerk and use the code and password the bulwark for six bottles of wine for 39.99. I'm trying to ban. I'm not gonna be able to ban it. I'm trying to limit from the podcast the whole but what about the price of eggs going up because it's already a little cliche and all this, but it is telling. Here we are in week two, and the tangible actions that they have really been focused on are all of the culture war actions, right? Like within, for the first two weeks, they have betrayed the notion of the Wall Street Journal types, you know, who are like, well, you know, we're really, we're really going to focus on economic issues and economic growth. Maybe all that stuff's coming. I guess they did do the announcement about the investment in AI, which then Elon Musk, Shadow president said was fake immediately afterwards. But they're really dialing in on this. And I think the contract is particularly sharp this morning because, you know, as we're taping this, it looks like stocks are down significantly. We had this Chinese AI application, DeepSeek, that launched, and it appears to be a strong competitor, if not superior to ChatGPT and the American AI apps. You know, you can't trust anything that the Chinese government says. But, you know, apparently it was created in about a year more cheaply than the amount of money that we're investing in these apps. So it has had a negative impact across kind of all the big tech stocks that have been pumping up the market. We're about to enter into some very serious times. And I think that the trans service member ban this morning, just in addition to being straight bigotry, just like the lack of focus on the serious matters before us, is in pretty stark relief this morning.
- [31:13]
Bill Kristol
Well, on the economic, the one thing he does seem to want to do is put tariffs on everyone. That one, which the Wall Street Journal was desperately hoping wasn't serious, he'd be talked out of that by his serious advisors. So there's a dispute with Colombia about whether they'll take people being repatriated if they're treated in some ways or flown on a military plane. That's just Trump showing off when military is involved. Biden, I believe every two or three days in the Biden administration, a plane full of people being repatriated went to Colombia. The Biden administration deported a lot of people who were there who were criminals and who had been apprehended. And there was no issue with Colombia. I think it was the same president then. Now this guy, the president maybe caused more of a ruckus than he should have because Trump chose to use military planes. Does it really matter? I don't know. Maybe she just take them in and I guess they now worked out something. But Trump's first response was tariffs, right? I mean, it's the one thing he believes in, in economics, actually. And I do think there's an article, I think yesterday that February 1st, people are now increasingly thinking he is going to slap just across the board, 25% tariff on Canada and Mexico. Kind of incentive to get them, I.
- [32:18]
Tim Miller
Don'T know, close the border.
- [32:19]
Bill Kristol
But, you know, is Canada being very mean to us? I don't know.
- [32:23]
Tim Miller
You know, yeah, The Columbia Trade war thing is also telling just kind of about, you know, how they plan to do propaganda in the second Trump term, you know, and like, what, this all happens in 24 hours? You know, Pedro sends back the deportation flight because it was a military plane with people in shackles. He had accepted deportation flights under Biden. Trump then threatens the tariffs. Pedro threatens them back. His statement, people should go read it is so bizarre and it's so interesting. So un American. Just like the tone of it. He like name checks. Walt Whitman and Paul Simon. And it's a journey, the reciprocal tariff statement. I'll put it in the show notes for people. But then behind the scenes, there's essentially an agreement, you know, she said that, like, we're back to the status quo. Like, they'll accept the deportation flights, just not, you know, in the way that the Trump regime had wanted to do it. And Trump, like, declares victory. Right. Like, oh, look, the tariff threat really worked and all the MAGA media accounts are pushing that this was a victory. Like, that is a thing that's going to be kind of hard to combat. Right. Like, he is going to be very good at creating for his people, like, the sense that these victories have been achieved when, like, nothing actually happened and he really just put us at risk, honestly. And he's created additional risk and additional tension with an ally. So. And like. And got nothing out of it. But they're going to spin these things as propaganda victories.
- [33:49]
Bill Kristol
Yes. But some of these things won't work out quite as nicely as bullying Colombia a little bit with and their president may have worked out. We don't know yet, obviously. Quite. So I think he could get us into trade wars and genuine price hikes because of tariffs. The propaganda side of it is underrated. I myself, I feel like I've underrated that. I just. You don't want to believe that it works and so you sort of discount it. But do you think Dr. Phil has been embedded with ICE for the border Patrol or, you know, in Chicago for these raids? It's so, like, ludicrous and jaw dropping and inappropriate. I mean, these are very serious things, Tim. You know, we have undocumented immigrants who are criminals. It's very sensitive. We are having precise raids to go snatch them. And it's the professionalism of ICE and the Border Patrol and how dare these cities try not to cooperate and stand in the way. And Incidentally, we have Dr. Phil in there as part of the show. I mean, how can you take. Seriously. Biden did deport plenty of people. There are people who should be deported. How do you take it seriously, though? And the propaganda swamps everything else you.
- [34:50]
Tim Miller
Wrote about the Columbia thing, that there's a pretty clear pattern that Trump's picking fights with allies and signaling weakness to dictatorial adversaries right out of the box. And I guess that we did see this in the first term with him picking fights with Merkel and all that. The difference to me seems like I think they're ready to commit capricious attacks, economically or otherwise, on our allies and almost have an itchy trigger finger to do so this time, which is a little different than the mean tweets.
- [35:21]
Bill Kristol
No, I think it's an interesting point. I mean, I myself couldn't take the Greenland thing seriously, and it came up in the first term, but the degree to which he's been prosecuting it, so to speak, this first 10 days of his week of his administration, as opposed to 2019, where it kind of came up and then it disappeared. You know, it was people like Pompeo and others just put it on a back burner. I mean, that's where you have. Pete Hegseth is gonna. I mean, he's thrilled, right? He's. I mean, since his idea of being SecDef is, you know, writing something and DEI, DoD does not equal DEI. And that's his first act, really. Become Secretary of Defense of the United States of America, in charge of a million and a half people in the military, a lot of civilians, a dod, huge responsibilities around the world. And his act is this performative childishness. And that's how he thinks of his job. I mean, the propaganda stuff's infuriating or annoying, but this is ser. This is bad. This is really bad.
- [36:13]
Tim Miller
And I also think, just like thinking about. From an incentive structure standpoint, I was reading the Patro statement, and to me, it's just about going forward. Trump is not popular anywhere except for here and a handful of other countries, mostly with autocratic leaders. He's not popular in the countries with our democratic allies, either to the south of us or in Europe. And so if you're one of these leaders, I know that there'll be one side of the coin that says, well, Trump can bully them because they need America and they need American products, and it helps their economy. And that's all true, but just if you just have a couple of these leaders that are themselves just looking at the pure political side of it, the optics, it helps them. Unless there's actual pain up until the point that there's actual economic pain in the country, it helps them politically to be seen as a person standing up to Trump. It butchers them up a little bit. Domestically, he's not popular, makes you seem strong. And so Pedro's statement was pretty strident. And shine bounce has been in Mexico as well. It's a bit of a powder keg. I think that this idea that all these guys are going to just bend over like the Republican senators have, I think is incorrect. And again, it misunderstands the incentive structure of some of these leaders.
- [37:34]
Bill Kristol
And it also misunderstands that China and others can step in. And I guess China already has said that about Colombia. Now we're much closer in. Presumably China can't quite might do what we might do in terms of trade with Columbia, but they can do some things to help out if we're, you know, raising tariffs and stuff and stuff. And so, again, it's. If you care about fighting China, the balance of power with China, other adversaries. This is crazy, right? I mean, there are times when you have to, in a tough situation, be a little rude to allies, perhaps, if they're not being, you know, this happened in the Cold War a lot, and we paid some price domestically in some of these other countries. This is totally and utterly gratuitous. This is entirely for Trump's vanity. I mean, really. And as you say, propaganda. And especially if you beat up a country like Colombia, which has, you know, a fair number of undocumented people here, and it's a country that's had troubles in the past. It seems to have done pretty well the last 15, 20 years with our help, incidentally, bipartisan basis. Bush and Obama signed a free trade agreement with Columbia, which has helped the economy there a lot. Nonetheless, if you know, for Trump's base, it's good to be fighting with those people down there in Central Latin America. Right?
- [38:39]
Tim Miller
Yeah. No, Fromm made this point about Colombia, I think is worth sharing because there's always so much negativity about, oh, things are so terrible. This is why we tend to. The American people had to turn to Trump because of all of the crises in this country over the past two decades. But as fromm points out rescuing Colombia from civil war, redirecting its economy from drugs to lawful commerce was a supreme achievement of the Bush and Obama administrations. The U.S. columbia Free Trade Agreement was negotiated by Bush, signed by Obama, and has served both countries well. Now what? And it's like, right, like we're blowing this up for what? Over nothing. Because like Donald Trump wants to play tough guy in some reality TV show. It's preposterous. But it does feel like there's also a lack of, particularly this time around Trump 2.0, a lack of desire for people to say things like Trump is saying this blatantly, like, no, actually we have done some good things, right? Like everybody has to just accept as basis that, well, you know, our institutions are so broken and that's why we turned to Trump. You know what I mean? It does feel like there is a dearth of people making the case for the rules based order that got us here.
- [39:48]
Bill Kristol
Yeah, and I totally know, I tried to make this point a couple times. JVL made this point too, that, I mean, especially on the international side, I mean, can we just, you know, could people take a minute and think about the first half of the 20th century and then the 75 year, three quarters of a century since the first half of the 20th century. I mean, there's a pretty simple test case. It's not too complicated. It divides up kind of neatly and I think the arguments are pretty strongly. And I made this point about Germany. I mean, Elon, the principle of the AFD in Germany is that Germany is a nightmare and it's been a disaster to have gone basically to have come to grips with their past and then by coming to grips with it, move beyond it and to be proud to be a Democrat, liberal Democratic state, proud to be part of the EU and of human rights treaties and so forth. That's the AfD's claim, its agenda. And we have Elon Musk, very close confidant to the President of the United States, just endorsing it.
- [40:41]
Tim Miller
I want to finish with the latest from Ukraine and Russia. We don't have T shirts on the website, Bill, that say Bill and Tim are always right because I have humility. And we've had some misses, some of our colleagues do have those T shirts if people want to invest in that. But one thing that, that you were early on we've been talking about almost every week is that there was almost a unified feeling, I think on the right and the left that if Trump won that there was some backroom deal happening with Putin and that there would be a cessation of violence and that they'd cut some sort of deal and there'd be a friendly to Putin deal. And then, you know, who knows, some things might change in a couple years, but like that would come to pass. And you were skeptical of that? A couple of other people I've had on the pod, Michael Weiss, was skeptical of that. And we had the head of the Council for Foreign and Defense Policy for Russia, Sergei Karaganov over the weekend, a prominent advisor to Lavrov and Putin, a serious advisor to them, saying this Russia must escalate in 2025 to force our American enemy to crawl away so Russia can finish off the Europeans. That's a pretty alarming and B, kind of in line with what we have been expecting. Right.
- [42:03]
Bill Kristol
I mean, the Trump people seem to believe they can get at least a face saving deal for them so that, you know, there's not an immediate disaster. Putin, I'm not sure that Putin wants to give him a face saving deal. Putin might benefit more around the world by just humiliating the US And Trump is the president of the US So he could. And he's happy enough to humiliate Trump. For all of Trump's affinity for Putin, Putin is never quite reciprocated. Right. Wouldn't you say he treats Trump with a certain amount of contempt, like at Helsinki in 2018 and stuff, kind of.
- [42:32]
Tim Miller
Subtle Russian mockery at times that maybe goes over Trump's head? Yeah, that could be instead of the boorish mockery that Trump likes to give.
- [42:40]
Bill Kristol
And then some of my friends who are adjacent to Trump world think, well, Trump, if he sees that, it's really a disaster political, doesn't care about anyone dying or hundreds of thousands of people, millions of refugees or a nation being crushed. But if he sees it could be a political problem for him, maybe he'll do something. So they're busy writing articles which I don't criticize them for because it's the right thing to do. I think in this case to try to appeal to them somehow. It'd be politically be bad for you if Ukraine is crushed and is it just nightmarish situation and millions of refugees and deaths, et cetera? I don't know. I mean, maybe that could make Trump get a little tougher. There's just no evidence though. I mean, that's what's. Maybe he will. I hope he will for the sake of Ukraine and of the world. But is there any area when the range of possibilities was Trump will do the extreme things he said he's going to do or he's going to be more cautious and moderate. Really. I'd say the bulk of areas he's going in, it's only a week in the extreme and radical direction, wouldn't you say?
- [43:41]
Tim Miller
Yeah, and I think that there's some TBD's. I don't think that there are any cases where he has clearly gone the moderating direction. Right. We haven't seen it yet on tariffs. We haven't really seen it yet on immigration. We're a little bit in the fog of war side on that right now. So I think that is to be determined. A lot of this damaging stuff. I don't have longer conversations this week about what's happening with NIH and funding, you know, kind of health studies. You know, all that stuff's temporary. So, you know, it's kind of like, well, let's see what happens in April. So there are opportunities, I guess, for him to moderate in various ways still, but we haven't seen it.
- [44:26]
Bill Kristol
And in the case of the immigration executive orders and the nih, you know, funding stops, I mean, there was a way to do it that would have been tough and we wouldn't have liked it. I don't think where he would have said, okay, you have 90 days to justify every single one of these study groups in NIH review processes. Obviously they're going to go on for now because people are in the middle literally, of doing these studies and reviewing proposals. But the secretary of HHS in 90 days is going to tell me which ones we should cancel, how we should change the thing. That would be pretty tough, actually, but that would be a sort of more reasonable way to do it. The willingness to just cut the stuff off, to take a little bit of a PR hit, presumably, when the implications of stopping everything at NIH hit through. When you see the executive order, the executive orders in immigration, I would say, are very much in this direction, that they're on the radical side of what he could have done. That still would have been very tough and still pretty negative. So now the hope is, well, the executive orders and the rhetoric and the pauses and those are on the radical side. But maybe 60 or 90 days from now he walks back from that a little, and I hope he does for the sake of the country in some ways, and maybe he will in some of these cases if there's enough political pressure. But it's not heartening.
- [45:37]
Tim Miller
Yeah. One last thing on just what you said on the Ukraine side to close the loop on that, I agree with you. Sure. If There are Republican security types who are in Trump's orbit who want to make. Try to appeal to him and make the argument that it'd be politically beneficial for him to be supportive of Ukraine. I'll, I'll take it. Whatever. That's fine. I do think it is also just wrong. I get it's gullible and incorrect. If you're doing it knowing that, you know, kind of knowing this and hoping that you can get a good result, that's a noble effort. You should do that. They should continue to do that. But just objectively spending time with, you know, going at that TPUSA event at America Fest, like, like watching and consuming, you know, kind of MAGA media, like, they're not supporting Ukraine is just like the ante among that base right now. Like, among things that they care about. Like, that is about at the top of the list. And, and it gets tied into everything. Right. Like in the fires. It's like, oh, we're only spending X on the fires, but we're giving Y to Ukraine. I like, they are just trashing the support from Ukraine just across the board on any MAGA platform. It's even like one inch to the MAGA side of Fox. I mean, I think that he is going to feel very handcuffed by that and obligated to follow through on his plans to further abandon the Ukrainians. I mean, maybe the Senate can do things. Maybe there are other ways to kind of delay all that. But. But I just think that's the state of affairs, sadly.
- [47:11]
Bill Kristol
I think so. I've been told you've heard this, that the two questions that are asked almost of all the political appointees, certainly in the foreign policy, national security areas, but maybe beyond, they have to be okay on January 6th, they have to be okay on Ukraine, which means willing to sell out, eager, sometimes sell Ukraine. So it's not as if he's going to be getting that much pushback from the second and third ranks of his own administration, at least from the political appointees. And they're weakening the career civil service. So in the first term, there was a lot of pushback. We know that from the 2019 impeachment. There was Fiona Hill, there was Alexander Vindman, There were people in there who were saying. And so that did have an effect, ultimately stop some of the worst things from happening. There's not going to be that. So, as you say, MAGA on the outside is fervently for the betrayal of Ukraine, as they were for the pardon of all the rioters. I come back to the pardon where we began. I think, I fear that that was indicative. Right. That was a place where he had a clear choice. And you could argue that even if he thought of it in his own self interest, the better choice was the J.D. vance way, you know, much easier to defend. And instead he went all the way, so to speak. Went all in. And you'd have to explain why he's not going to do that in some of these other areas, I'm afraid.
- [48:24]
Tim Miller
I agree. Well, pretty disheartening day across the board there. Maybe by. I don't know, who knows? One of these Mondays cheered up, at.
- [48:31]
Bill Kristol
Least by the, by the, by the football results.
- [48:33]
Tim Miller
I'm not cheered up by the football at all. It's horrible. It's like, you know, I mean, it's like Trump versus DeSantis in the Super Bowl.
- [48:40]
Bill Kristol
Why. Why are people so excited this way? I haven't followed it that closely, but I. Why are people anti Kansas City? He's a great, He's a great coach. He's a great coach and he's. And Mahomes is a great quarterback, so what's not to like?
- [48:49]
Tim Miller
I hated Kansas City growing up. They were, they were division rivals of the Broncos.
- [48:53]
Bill Kristol
Oh, okay. Well, you have a legit. But why are people.
- [48:55]
Tim Miller
I just think they're sick of it. People are sick of it. And also just all the, and the intent and Taylor and Travis getting thrown into people's faces. I was watching some bad sports podcast and there was like a. Not. It was a non political sports podcast. And the guy's like, I don't want to hear about Elon Musk or Travis Kelsey or Taylor Swift again. Like, they're the only three people anybody talks about. And so I think that there's a little bit of that. And well, for anybody who's worried about all of these topics we went over and all the negative affairs that are plaguing our nation, the minority leader, the Democratic leader in the House had these words of solace. Presidents come and presidents go through it all. God is still on the throne. So there's that. Maybe that'll make some folks feel better. I've got this. I do have one other thing, Bill. I do have one good thing that I can leave people with. Timmy Chalamet's Bob Dylan covers on Saturday Night Live. He does three deep cuts. That was amazing. That is what brings me solace. And so I'll take people out with one of. One of Timmy's favorite Bob Dylan tracks and hope you all enjoy that. Bill's gone next Monday on a little holiday. We'll see him in two weeks. Everybody else will be back here tomorrow. We'll see you all then. Peace.
- [50:07]
Timothée Chalamet
Three angels up above the street.
- [50:12]
Tim Miller
Each.
- [50:13]
Timothée Chalamet
One playing a horn Dressed in green robes with wings that stick out They've been there since Christmas morning the wildest cat from Montana passes by in a flash Then a lady in a bright orange dress 1U haul trailer a truck with no wheels a 10th Avenue bus going west the dogs and pigeons fly up and they flutter around A man with a badge skips by Three fellas crawling on the way back to work Nobody stops to ask why the bakery truck stops outside of that fence.
- [51:22]
Bill Kristol
Where.
- [51:23]
Timothée Chalamet
The angels stand high on the pole the driver peeks out trying to find one face in this concrete world full of souls the angels play on their horns all day the whole earth in progression seems to pass by.
- [51:52]
Tim Miller
But does.
- [51:53]
Timothée Chalamet
Anyone hear the noise music they play? Does anyone even try?
- [52:07]
Tim Miller
The Bullork podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.