← The Bulwark Podcast
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- [00:00]
James Carville
Foreign.
- [00:08]
Tim Miller
Hello and welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. It is becoming a Mardi Gras tradition. I'm here today on this Mardi Gras morning with the raging Cajun himself, James Carville, former veteran, Democratic strategist, co host of the Politics War Room podcast. He's also a competitor in the YouTube space. You've had some YouTube videos going mega viral lately, man. How you doing? Happy Carnival.
- [00:32]
James Carville
Well, thank you. Of course. You know, we love carnival down here. One of the things that cracks me up is people think it's a tourist event where Tim Miller and James Carville go to carnival. This is 98% of the people are within a three hour radius of New Orleans. You know, it's the most organic, local thing that exists.
- [00:51]
Tim Miller
I gotta tell you, there were things I didn't even know about till I moved here as a transplant. And you know, like there are whole parades and you know, some of my favorite events are things that nobody even knows about. So you can DM me if you want to know the stuff secret for next year. But you know, there's politics in the way of, you know, kind of good fun, good spirited teasing of politicians that you have. And during carnival season, there's not a ton of politics, which is nice. It's a nice reason to be down here. One thing that accidentally overlapped into politics last night, the Orpheus parade, one of my favorites. I was there with my daughter till way too late last night. Beautiful floats. Harry Connick Jr. Started it. Bianca Del Rio, drag from Drag Race, was the queen of the parade. But they, they also had cyber trucks. And every time one of those things came by, those guys were getting pelted with beads. So bad for the cybertruck guys. They were getting booed and pelted with beads. So I don't, I don't know that Elon's popularity was too high down at Carter.
- [01:51]
James Carville
I didn't, I didn't realize that. I saw, I just love Harry Connor Jr. And that parade is so good and to have, I'm so naive. I thought RuPaul's Drag Race was actually about drag racing. You know, two guys like in a car and my kids, my two daughters love drag. I mean, they go, they know I went on some big drag person at a podcast. I could have been on, I don't know, Taylor Swift's podcast and there would not be any more prowess. But it was fun, it was great. And that's what you love about Mardi Gras.
- [02:30]
Tim Miller
It was wonderful. We had a Good time. All right, we gotta do a little politicking. You've been pushing in some of your interviews recently the idea that Trump will collapse. And for some people it's like, okay, this is resistance nonsense, this is spin, this is bullshit. But here we are just a few days after you're saying it this morning. As we tape, the market is down, looks like another 600 points. The Dow is down right now, and we'll see what happens the rest of the day. It was down about 1 1/2% yesterday as well. Very negative response to the tariffs. It's a shit show in Europe. And I don't know, things look pretty collapse adjacent, I guess. Maybe we're not there yet, but how do you assess things?
- [03:14]
James Carville
I think it's happening, if anything is happening somewhat quicker than I anticipated. But let me tell you a real faulty line of thinking, and this is more true of Democrats and people on the left. Something must be done. This is something. Ergo, let's do it. Okay? You just can't. James, are you sitting here? We just got to see it and tell you we got to do nothing. All right, so we're going to do something. Remember when you studied the Bolshevik Revolution? It was what is to be done? Okay, yeah, ruin the whole goddamn world. But what I'm trying to do is the impulse against just charging ahead with a party brand that's frankly in decline. I would say it's in crisis. You have a chance to build it up. And by the way, this is a war that's not going to be culminated in the short. The first major battle is going to be the first Tuesday of November of 2026. So let's leave the Light Brigade in reserve right now. I'm not saying we shouldn't use it. Okay? That's my rationale is I just want to tell people, yeah, we gotta do something, but we gotta do something smart that has a long term plan and that's the behind this.
- [04:32]
Tim Miller
All right, let's talk about this. I hate leading off the politics, the podcast with a little, maybe a slight disagreement. We can hash it out. So you wrote the column and you wrote basically this. With no clear leader to voice our opposition and no control in any branch of government, it's time for Democrats to embark on the most daring political maneuver in the history of our party. Roll over and play dead. Obviously you're being a little cheeky there. A little with that phrase. You don't literally mean that, but I mean, I guess my view is that isn't what Mitch McConnell did that isn't what Trump did. Like, when Obama got in, Mitch McConnell immediately tried to make him a failed president. When Biden got in, Trump immediately started calling him Dementia Joe and saying he was illegitimate and all that. So I don't know why we couldn't learn a little bit from those guys.
- [05:18]
James Carville
So this is a very different time. This is time like literally no other, because we have a guy in the Oval Office that, at best, the best interpretation of him. He's anti American. I'm beginning to come to the conclusion that he actually hates the country. It's the only thing in my mind that can explain what he's doing. So March 14, I think, is the debt limit deadline. I'm certainly not advocating playing possum then, but what I'm saying is let them, you know, like the Japanese did to us in Okinawa. They let us come in. We eventually beat them, but God damn, what a hell of a price we paid. You know, what the czar or General Kuchnov did in 1812. Come on in, Napoleon. You'll enjoy yourself, and then you won't enjoy yourself very much. I mean, there's a. A long history of what I referred to in the piece, and I got this from General Ty Sevgel, who's a former chairman of the History Department at the United States Military Academy at West Point. That is called tactical pause. It's actually a smart move. I understand inclination. They didn't give Obama any quarter. They didn't give Clinton any votes. They didn't give anything. That's just like Democrats, you being pussies, you know, you're retreating. What I'm calling for in the last paragraph, I embraced Muhammad Ali's rope. A dope strategy. Now, no one ever thought Muhammad Ali was a retreater, but he would just bounce around for the first five or six rounds, all right, and then he'd come in and, frankly, knock you out. All right? He didn't come out the first round just blasting away. I understand that the impulse for right now. Did you see the event with Senator Schuman and Senator Warren in front of the Treasury Building? Oh, that doesn't scare you to death? I don't know. It will. And the time frame I'm talking about is very limited. But the only way you can start this discussion is to say, let's do nothing. Let's play. Dad, you know what? I was just watching Morning Joe and, like, my different Molly Jones fast is, like, criticized. Me, too. I don't give a shit. I like. I threw it out.
- [07:45]
Tim Miller
You know what I Hear you. Well, let's talk. Let's talk about a process. I mean, I do think that there's a practical, like, the main practical opposition I have to it, I think, is that the Democratic voters are going to fucking revolt if they don't see something. You know, and, like, you do have to. You do have to be responsive to your own voters.
- [08:03]
James Carville
They're going to see something by the middle of March.
- [08:05]
Tim Miller
Yeah, that's true.
- [08:06]
James Carville
They're not going to vote until. They're not going to vote until March.
- [08:08]
Tim Miller
Because that really is. There were two things I wanted to ask you about, just, like, tactically, like, where the rubber meets the road on this strategy. So you're not saying that the Democrats should bail them out in the March budget. What do you.
- [08:24]
James Carville
What are you saying? All right, first of all, I am convinced that the Democratic House leadership actually has a unified plan to deal with this, particularly on the debt ceiling. And I'm trying to give these guys some cover. I'm trying to say, hey, Hakeem, take your time. I got your back. You know, I know you got a plan, because any number of people have, like, called and said, you know, I think we got a pretty good thing. I think the caucus is pretty unified on it, and a plan is a time to execute it. And I'm just trying to give them cover that when they come out. But the reason that Democratic. The Democratic image is so low is, well, Republicans don't like it, but they never have. I don't like my own party at loss. Why does a political party exist? It exists to win a fucking election. Well, when you lose it, I'm mad at you. Yeah, okay. And we can't pacify them, you know. You know, they called me, and people work for me or close friends. I'll tell you. How can you say this? This is waving a white flag in front of treason. And how can you do this to us? And I don't know. I'm not saying go, I'm saying. But might be mid March before we really break, you know, just get our artillery in peace and then start fired. Okay, go ahead.
- [09:43]
Tim Miller
Yeah, no, the Hakeem thing, I do think it's interesting.
- [09:46]
Michael Weiss
I don't.
- [09:47]
Tim Miller
They might have a plan. Now. I do think that there was some. That they were thinking about negotiating and, like, there was discussions of a negotiation and a deal. And then I think the Elon stuff happened with Doge and, like, all the insanity of the last two months. And I do think something's congealing. I mean, there's just news this morning that there was a private meeting where they were hacking, was asking members if they were willing to, you know, stick with opposing Doge and opposing this, any Republican budget, all the way to a shutdown.
- [10:17]
James Carville
I want to interrupt you. This is ambiguous. Never say Doge. Say Elon Musk, Doge. Okay, if you, if you do a favorability, do you feel favorable toward people you know, but once you put Musk, his name on it drops 15, 20.
- [10:33]
Tim Miller
Points, hence the beads getting tossed at, this getting chucked at the cybertruck. Elon Musk, Doge, he was asking members, right, Like I had Moskowitz on to discuss this. And basically the point is, even if they wanted to negotiate on a budget, you can't do it as long as Elon Musk is illegally firing people and shutting down the Veterans Affairs Department. As we were reporting on this morning in the Bulwark and all the. So you can't even, you know, negotiate with them until they agree that they would abide by whatever came out of the negotiation as such. I think the question is, will the caucus hold together and not vote on anything? And it seems like the answer is yes, which is encouraging, actually.
- [11:10]
James Carville
Look, I don't think anybody has to be convinced of the moment to end. Where they might end up is just really short term status quo. Okay, we'll give you 30 days. Status quo. And it come back after 30 days. That's a real possibility to say, hey, given the perilous nature of the economy right now, I'll tell you a story. Roger Altman is a close friend of mine, Evercore, big corporate consulting firm, probably in the world. He was deputy treasury secretary and he was talking about growth. And I said, actually, the Atlanta Fed says we're going to have negative growth in the first quarter. He said, well, I don't believe that. He texted me back and said, mark Zandy says it's going to come in at 1.2%. I said, I'll take the under one for a steak dinner in Manhattan. And he said, I'm not taking that bet. But when you have, which seems to be a real possibility, that by the middle of March we'll have a real crisis in this country, certainly crisis in the markets. And if you said, well, we can have this, we can give them 30 days. I'd rather make a bad deal for a month than a pretty good deal for six months.
- [12:28]
Tim Miller
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- [14:46]
James Carville
First of all, I think she's smart. I've been going out of my way to say she has really good staff work, she's very well prepared and committee. She's a very good communicator. I think that she's a savvy operator. She has a. She has her Own base. She has her own thing. But as opposed to some of these people, I respect her talent, I respect her abilities. I think she's right. This moment, I'm speaking to the House Democratic Caucus a week from Thursday, and I said, if you view this like I do, this is not. I don't like the Iraq war, so I'm going to be against it, okay? This is a moment where the whole country could go under, really. We had an infection point. So what I'm going to suggest is treat it like that. No speeches and cadence, no groups of threes, no contrast in pairs. No. If not us, who? If not now, when we stand on the precipice, you know, depth of the abyss faces us. Act very, very determined and very serious. Rise to the moment. And of course, rising to the moment means that you fight effectively and cleverly. I'm not in the hoo, Hawk. Oh, God damn it. Let's go. We're doing. We're charging. We're going to walk out. You know, we're going to come in with whoopee cushions and whatever else you can think of. No, don't do that.
- [16:06]
Tim Miller
All right. I want to go back to. The whole country could collapse. Which is something you said, which is. You feel crazy sometimes. You feel like an alarmist when you're saying stuff like this. But I just look across all of the variables of what you're seeing with the tariffs and the trade wars, what you're seeing with the corruption and the grift, what you're seeing with the austerity, the inflation. Trump maybe gonna bully the Fed. Scott Besant's out this morning talking about how they need to lower rates, which is also inflation. And on top of that, we'll get to, in segment two, all the Ukraine stuff. It does feel unbelievably tenuous. Right. Like we're at the beginning stages of something that could go very, very bad.
- [16:47]
James Carville
Yes, right. Of course it is. And you have these tariffs of which even if you just think about them, how could they be a good idea? Some people say, well, we had a tariff in the early 80s to save the American car industry. It was pretty limited. You have the tariffs against Mexico. Well, Mexico, if you want to send. Ford assembles a plant in Mexico and they send wheels from the Dallas area plant. Do they have to pay 20% for the steering wheel to cross the. I don't know. And then when it comes back, I have no idea, the head explodes. Then when you put on top of this, the possibility of a default, it's real Dangerous. Now, what I tell the say about interest rates, actually the yield on a 10 year treasury is going down, but don't understand why that's happening. Investors have no confidence that the economy is going to grow in the next 10 years because of this. In one sense, yeah, you might. You know what easiest way to kill inflation and to get low interest rates is start a goddamn depression. Okay? That'll handle the problem pretty quickly, in effect.
- [17:59]
Tim Miller
Oh, my God.
- [18:00]
James Carville
I mean, think about it.
- [18:01]
Tim Miller
It's ugly.
- [18:02]
James Carville
It's really ugly.
- [18:03]
Tim Miller
It's hard being right, James. Well, in case you're wondering if we've got the best and brightest at the tiller here as we face these problems, nobody talks about Ag Secretary Brooke Rollins. So it's like maybe you wonder, oh, I know that Hagseth's a clown. I know that some of these other people are clowns. Maybe some of the other people I don't know are better. Well, here's the agriculture Secretary talking about how she thinks people should deal with high egg prices on Fox Business.
- [18:29]
Michael Weiss
I think the silver lining in all.
- [18:31]
James Carville
Of this is how do we in our backyards.
- [18:33]
Michael Weiss
We've got chickens too in our backyard.
- [18:34]
James Carville
How do we solve for something like this?
- [18:36]
Tim Miller
And.
- [18:36]
Michael Weiss
And people are sort of looking around.
- [18:38]
James Carville
Thinking, wow, well, maybe I could get.
- [18:39]
Michael Weiss
A chicken in my backyard.
- [18:41]
James Carville
And it's awesome.
- [18:42]
Michael Weiss
I agree.
- [18:43]
James Carville
Yeah. I think everyone who isn't a farmer right now wants to be.
- [18:46]
Michael Weiss
So you're in the right department, Brooke.
- [18:48]
Tim Miller
Maybe everybody could just start growing a little farm in their backyard. Little chicken.
- [18:53]
James Carville
Oh, of course. Let me tell you how you can expand that program, okay? You get you some chickens and you can't afford health care, Bring it as barter to see your doctor says, hey, I'll give you 10 chickens if you take my blood pressure. Okay. The possibilities of backyard chicken farming, they're boundless. They're unbelievable. They actually said that. I'm so glad you picked that up. I didn't hear the Secretary of agro just say, well, you could grow chickens in your backyard. The actor said it.
- [19:28]
Tim Miller
I mean, yeah, everybody should get them. Yeah, we cut the Medicaid. You're right. Maybe some bartering. I don't know if it helps short term for people on the egg prices right now and it's going to take a little while. You think the agriculture secretary would have some thoughts about like, you know, the chickens just don't start producing eggs immediately. There are a lot of problems with it. Other people have jobs, working people have.
- [19:51]
James Carville
The problem too is if everybody went out and bought a Chicken. At the same time, the chicken become more expensive than the egg, okay? And that's something that we need to mull over, okay? Because if you got to pay a lot for a chicken, then the egg becomes more expensive. Because I don't think you can have an egg without a chicken, okay? People have been thinking about this since time immemorial. What is it, the chicken or the egg? So if you want to have started, if everybody want to put chickens in the backyard, there'd be a tremendous demand for chickens, which would cause the price of chickens to go up now. You would have more eggs, which maybe would cause the price of eggs to go down.
- [20:30]
Tim Miller
There you go.
- [20:30]
James Carville
If I was an economics teacher, I could give an exam on this.
- [20:34]
Tim Miller
The supply. These guys don't seem to really adhere to the supply and demand ethos. It's not your old school Republicans. This isn't Adam Smith here. This is Donald Trump picking winners and losers. I mean, have you been following the crypto thing? They're going to buy a strategic reserve of Bitcoin and Ethereum with our money.
- [20:54]
James Carville
And what it's going to do, it's going to make the crypto go up for a short period of time in which they all going to cash in. And one of the reasons I would always ask people, look, I don't know what this shit is. I ain't buying it. But could it be like what the housing market did in 2008? Could this thing bring the whole fucking thing down? And people said, no, not really. The risk is now we are assuming the risk, okay? So if you want to go buy something ain't worth the shit, or you think it's worth the shit, and I don't. I don't have a problem with that so much. But now you want me. No. And people have to understand that. And if they're throwing fucking beads at cybertruck, you can imagine where they're gonna be in too much.
- [21:39]
Tim Miller
Maybe we need a strategic reserve of Mardi Gras beads. Maybe that's what we need a strategic reserve of. We should be investing in kind of the rare. The glass beads. You know, the rare beads. The value might go up in the.
- [21:51]
James Carville
I did a chart on the value of a Cornwall bead. Starts in your hand, you're on the float. It reaches its peak value as it reaches the top of a curve, right? The apex. And once it gets in your hand, it's not worth the shit, but.
- [22:09]
Tim Miller
And once it's on the ground, trash.
- [22:12]
James Carville
Okay, but at one period when that carnival bead is I think, you know, it's Apex. I don't know what the right word is, but it's right there. It's values infinitely more. It is when it's your hand or when it falls on the ground because no one goes stoop down and pick one up.
- [22:28]
Tim Miller
I think there's something and then maybe there's a parallel there to the crypto situation. Your point about the systemic risk. It was like one thing when this was all happening on the blockchain and people are putting money in it, that's one thing. Once the big institutional banks start, you know, start including it in their system and then, and then once the fucking federal government starts investing in it, I get becomes a massive structural risk. It's a really, it's a really good.
- [22:57]
James Carville
Point, if not my problem, that they're loaning money to somebody makes $9 an hour and has six mortgages. Well, if you want to do that, you lose your money. I don't give a shit. But wait a minute, I didn't realize that you had all of these CDOs and you had these tranches and oh my God, then you brought the whole shit and caboodle down with you. That's what they do now. They're putting this at a point of infection. Now to be an economist, to see how this could end up.
- [23:25]
Tim Miller
All right, I've got two more things for you. One serious and one may be serious. We'll see. Okay, when you got a podcast where you're bringing in a Russian GRU expert to talk about fears of Russian cyber attacks and the collapse of the Western order and the United States turning around to Russia, well, it makes you start to think about things at a different level. Think about whether you're making the right choices in your life, whether you're preparing for any possible outcome. And today's sponsor is a company that might be able to help you with that. Selectquote is one of America's leading insurance brokers with nearly 40 years of experience helping over 2 million customers find over $700 billion in coverage since 1985. Other life insurance brokers offer impersonal, one size fits all policies that may cost you more and cover you less. Well, Selectquote's licensed insurance agents work for you to tailor a life insurance policy for your individual needs. In as little as 15 minutes. Head to selectquote.com and a licensed insurance agent will call you right away with the right policy for your life and your budget. Selectquote they shop, you, save, get the right insurance for you for less@SelectQuote.com Bulwark Go to SelectQuote.com Bulwark today to get started. That's SelectQuote.com Bulwark the Virginia Govs race is coming up. It's not really. It's coming up in November. We got a few months ahead. But I did notice in your New York Times piece, you called it one of the most important inflection points coming up. And so this is kind of your wheelhouse. Right. So I just wanted to let you roll on it.
- [25:04]
James Carville
There's a site called Predicted where you can actually bet on the outcome of an election, I think, limited in size, whatever the odds are. Take the Democrats in the Virginia governor's race, all right? And if you can get over five or even over seven, take it. So, James, what do you say? Well, first of all, history argues that the Virginia governor's race follows the presidential race, with the exception of Terry in 2013. It always goes to the outputting. Secondly, let's try to estimate the turnout among federal employees, their dependents, okay? The dry cleaner in Arlington. All right. The landscaper. All right. In Loudoun County. Multiply all of that and try to figure out what that's going to mean. I'll tell you what it's going to mean. High Democratic turnout, particularly in Northern Virginia. Like, not high. Astronomically high. We're not gonna lose that. We're not gonna lose that.
- [26:10]
Tim Miller
The last one you keep mentioning that you think Donald Trump has syphilis.
- [26:15]
James Carville
Okay.
- [26:15]
Tim Miller
And we talked about it once, and I just. I gotta ask. Do you really think he has syphilis or do you think. Is this a bit.
- [26:23]
James Carville
It's still 70% a bit. Okay. 30% of the possibility. But there's something. I intentionally held this off in the hopes that you had asked me about. On January 17, 2017, Keith Schiller and two other goons broke into the office of Dr. Borenstein, who was the GI specialist, who was Trump's internist. I mean, I don't know what that means. And confiscated Trump's health records. We have never seen those health records. Now, maybe there's something in there a little more significant than an enlarged prostate. All right? I'm saying that causes me great suspicion. Why would you send people in to confiscate your own health records? And Barnstein said, I felt violated. I mean, he actually, he's deceased now. So if it's 30%, which I think we know, he has unprotected sex with people who had other partners, that's pretty clear. Okay.
- [27:32]
Tim Miller
Gross. To think about that. People would want to do that with him.
- [27:35]
James Carville
But, yeah, we do know that he had red splotches on his head. I've had 2.2 million hits in probably 26,000 comments. It must be 50 of them from doctors.
- [27:47]
Tim Miller
I mean, you're getting out there. Do you ever have any splotches on your hands? You ever getting any weird splotches?
- [27:52]
James Carville
Well, they say if you masturbate too much, you can get hairs between your fingers. I think I need a shot. I need a haircut. I'm still clear.
- [28:04]
Tim Miller
I'm still clear. That's good news. All right, well, something's happening is what you're saying. You think something's happening, and some of it's a bit.
- [28:13]
James Carville
Something has to explain what happened, you know, and what I said in the piece, you know, you say, well, so and so dropped dead of a heart attack. No one hit. No he ever had any symptoms. Generally that's not the case. Generally, you're disregarding something. What happened? There was such a meltdown. It was like a much more serious equivalent than what happened to President Biden on June 27, 2024. This was a significant deterioration, even by Trump and standards. So we ask ourselves why? The fact that given everything about him, that there's some mental issue, some mental physical issue that's driving this behavior. I don't think you can discount it. I really don't.
- [29:01]
Tim Miller
I don't either.
- [29:01]
James Carville
James, he's always been crazy, but this was like this was on the other side, even if it always been crazy.
- [29:07]
Tim Miller
I mean, he was shouting about shit in the White House like he was a deranged comment section monster. It was very strange behavior for President James Carville. You know, it's not a Mardi Gras unless you're talking to James Carville about masturbation and relative. Relative bead value after the toss. And so I hope everybody enjoyed it. Appreciate you very much, James.
- [29:30]
James Carville
Thank you, man. I'll see you next Mardi Gras. Go Tigers.
- [29:34]
Tim Miller
Go Tigers. We'll see you soon. Up next, Michael Weiss. All right, we are back. Kind of a sharp turn from our carnival Segment one with James Carville to Michael Weiss, editor of the Insider, a Russia focused independent media outlet. And he's a contributing editor at New Lines magazine. He is back. You've got a new piece out in New Lines magazine. Can Europe Back? Ukraine's Fight Alone. That's a pretty ominous headline for a. For a piece. I don't know that. And it's something we were all worried about maybe when you were last on here, but things have changed dramatically, and it's kind of. I don't really know where to start with you. We've got, I guess Trump has paused military aid to Ukraine. They want Zelensky to apologize. If they're going to do the rare earth minerals deal. The rare earth minerals deal might not even bring arms delivery back. They might do sanctions relief on Russia. Lec Valessa is thrashing Trump. Vance is on Hannity shitting on our European allies for doing what he asked them to do. Like, how do you even begin with the state of play?
- [30:59]
Michael Weiss
Well, as. As they said in the movie Quiz Show, I'd like to take the last question first, please.
- [31:04]
Tim Miller
Okay.
- [31:05]
Michael Weiss
Okay, let's start with J.D. vance.
- [31:08]
Tim Miller
All right.
- [31:08]
Michael Weiss
Who went on Hannity?
- [31:10]
Tim Miller
We actually have the audio if you want to start there, since you're running the show. Let's listen to Danny Vance.
- [31:15]
Michael Weiss
If you want real security guarantees, if you want to actually ensure that Vladimir Putin does not invade Ukraine again, the very best security guarantee is to give Americans economic upside in the future of Ukraine. That is a way better security guarantee than 20,000 troops from some random country that hasn't fought a war in 30 or 40 years. Okay, so let's start with 20 to 30,000 troops from, quote, some random country that hasn't fought a war in 20 to 30 years. The idea of sending European peacekeepers to Ukraine has come from two not so random countries, the United Kingdom and France, both of which, up until quite recently were engaged in active combat in Afghanistan on behalf of the United States. Because the only time in the history of NATO that Article 5 was invoked was after 9, 11. So what's happened is now the UK press and UK parliamentarians and policymakers are seething. They think JD Fance, as one pundit put it, is a vice president as aggressive as he is dumb. It's one thing to have disagreements in foreign policy, to have a cordial dispute with our cousins abroad. It's another thing to piss on the graves of dead British soldiers. And that's what Vance is doing now. He's trying furiously to wind this back, saying, oh, I didn't mean the UK I didn't mean France. I meant other countries.
- [32:41]
Tim Miller
Well, he followed up on Twitter. He's our first poster vice president. Exactly. It really hurts me as a poster for it to be JD Vance as the first representing us. But he wrote this. But let's be direct. There are many countries who are volunteering support, who have neither battlefield experience nor the military equipment to do anything meaningful. So it's him Trying to back off, saying he was talking about the UK and France. Then he says, let's be direct, but it's unclear who he's talking about, so he's not being that direct.
- [33:10]
Michael Weiss
Well, let's be direct. Which country does he refer to? Because every country that has even in principle considered being part of this Anglo French peacekeeping force is either a NATO country or has also fought and, or has also fought in Afghanistan. And as far as military equipment, let's for instance take the Estonians where I just was last week. They have emptied their stocks of a certain kind of howitzer and given them all to Ukraine, which Ukraine is deeply grateful for. And they also suffered, I think, the highest per capita rate of casualties in Afghanistan. It's a small country, 1.3 million people, but when they joined NATO in 2004, they were serious about it and they fought and bled and died on behalf of Americans. So, I mean, this is a guy who is within the space of a few weeks, essentially trying to destroy the transatlantic relationship. He goes to Munich and gives this speech, in effect endorsing alternative for Germany, the far right party that didn't do as well as people were fearing it might in the last German election, which is also considered under suspicion as being an extremist group by German's own domestic security service, pissing off the Germans, including the now incoming Chancellor Merz, who has basically said America's intervention in German politics, meaning Vance and also Musk, who explicitly endorsed AfD, is tantamount to what the Russians do. This is no small thing for Germany's foremost Atlanticist to be saying that America is now engaged in hostile action against his country. And now this deeply insulting, shambolic claim that the UK is Madagascar at the level of geopolitics and hasn't fought in active combat.
- [34:47]
Tim Miller
It's just, well, and then on top of obviously the West Wing meeting, that he blows up and insults Zelenskyy and says they don't, they're not cap, they're losing, they don't have the cards.
- [34:59]
Michael Weiss
And you know, I mean, dripping with contempt for Ukraine, telling Zelenskyy, you take journalists and policymakers on propaganda tours. By that I think he's referring to the going to Bucha and Irpin, the site of Russian massacres, Right, which has a deeply galvanizing effect on anybody who's been to these places, including European leaders. And one of the reasons that Europeans are so pro Ukraine is they've seen the horrors of occupation. And I do not believe this line that's being peddled by maga, and by including pro Ukraine elements of maga, that, oh, this was just a misunderstanding and it was actually Zelenskyy's fault for fact checking the President. I think this was an ambush. I think Vance's presence there was designed to provoke this kind of reaction from Zelenskyy and also essentially act as a spoiler for this rather weak tea minerals deal, which, by the way, the Ukrainians first proposed to the United States as a way of getting security guarantees that are now absent from this memorandum of understanding that Trump is so desperate, apparently, to have him sign. So all Zelenskyy did was say, quite rightly, look, you know, we're for peace. We're for ending this war. We've suffered the most, but we can't do it unless we know that there's something that's going to stop the Russians from coming back and doing it again. And, you know, Vance does not want to commit to anything concrete in that regard. And keep in mind, Tim, U.S. intelligence as of mid February assessed Putin himself is not serious about a meaningful peace. So when Zelenskyy says in an interview, this war is going to go on for a very long time, he's not saying that as an endorsement of that assessment. He's just saying that that's just the state of play as per America's own spies, right? And Donald Trump goes ballistic and says that's the worst kind of thing you could say at this moment. So I think that the real premise here is, and this is now being tacitly acknowled by maga, our president is an emotional toddler. He is so sensitive, his fifis are so important in any matter of statecraft that the slightest miscue, you don't wear a suit and tie, you kind of sit there with a scowl, you dare to contradict or correct him, and he's basically willing to license genocide on European soil. So you better watch your step, everybody. What are we talking about here?
- [37:20]
James Carville
Here?
- [37:21]
Michael Weiss
The problem is the man, not the fucking protocol and the engagement with him. Right, Totally. And Europeans, I think, understand this now.
- [37:30]
Tim Miller
And this other thing that I think transitions also into what Europeans are having to be forced to understand is even if you take the minerals deal at face value, even if you take Vance's argument to Hannity at the beginning of that clip before he shits on the Brits, where he's like, actually, it's better for Ukraine if we do a minerals deal because we'll have economic skin in the game. And that is more of a security guarantee than Europe. I, after watching these guys blow up the entire Western alliance over, I guess like getting mad at Zelinsky for a personal slight, who could possibly trust that they would actually put American troops in harm's way? American troops in place to defend this country that they have such contempt for and to defend some, you know, whatever mine of minerals that they decided that they're going to get. Like, who would look at these guys and say these guys would go to the mat for the minerals? I just find it very like, it's kind of silly on its face, really.
- [38:39]
Michael Weiss
Well. And there's also a very recent historical precedent for being deeply suspicious about America's resolve and commitment to saving Ukraine. Let me read you a headline from the New York Times, dated July 25, 2017. Headline, Trump finds reason for the US to remain in Afghanistan. Colon minerals. Okay. By the way, you know who's profiting from Afghan's sizable rare earths and mineral deposits now? The Russians. The gru, Russian military intelligence specifically, which is using it, or was using it as a front for money laundering to pay the Taliban money to go after American and British and coalition soldiers. That was one of the recent investigations the insider did, naming names of the entire Afghan Taliban network. But leave that to one side. Absolutely. Let's say the United States signs some deal with the government of Ukraine to have the government of Ukraine allow access or revenue generation to the United States based on its mineral deposits. What happens if the Russians decide to take more territory, including the land where these deposits are located? Right. What's to stop the United States, Trump in particular, and especially from going to Putin and saying, well, you control this terrain now, so I guess I have to do business with you. Where is the guarantee?
- [40:01]
Tim Miller
Way more likely than he's going to go to war with Putin over the minerals. No, he would just cut the deal with Putin.
- [40:08]
Michael Weiss
Exactly. I mean, there are American lives in Ukraine, volunteers, diplomats, people who do go pretty close to the front line. It hasn't stopped the Russians from dropping bombs. I was in Kyiv actually just before the war and then immediately after the liberation of the city. And diplomats there were saying what a near run thing it was, those who actually remained. In fact, one of the diplomats I met in the weeks before the full scale invasion, I had to meet him in a cafe because there were bomb scares being called into all the major embassies of NATO at that time. And guess where the bomb scares were coming from. So security guarantees mean you have soldiers on the ground with kit, or you are prepared to protect the skies of Ukraine. You are prepared to do X, Y and Z. You are going to essentially go to war on behalf of this country if it's invaded again. That's what the Ukrainians are looking for. Not. Well, we send some hedge fund guys to a mine in Odessa and there you go, we're safe and secure. Now.
- [41:16]
Tim Miller
Speaking of that, the fact that the bombs are still dropping, it's another kind of point of the JD quote with Hannity, which is again, in the most generous interpretation, he's trying to say that, that Putin wouldn't invade Ukraine again. I guess you'd mean invade new territory from whatever we give them. But like they're actively invading Ukraine now still. Right. Bombs are dropping in Kharkiv on Sunday, I'm sure other places, but that was just what I was reading about. What is your sense for the state of play in the ongoing war? War, not the war of words.
- [41:50]
Michael Weiss
Well, I would say this one of the, and this is unfortunately being eclipsed by the, the sort of inanity of the current news cycle, but one of the tragic ironies of giving the Russians this lifeline. Right. I mean, right now, let's be clear, the United States is negotiating with one party, Ukraine, not with Russia. We are not really having an argument with Russia at all. We are offering them concessions preemptively. Right. So, you know, to say that, you know, that this is the proper time to do it, it unfortunately neglects the fact that at the front, on the level of the battlefield now, Ukraine is actually doing a lot better than it was several weeks, certainly several months ago in Toretsk. They are practically encircling Russian columns who have overextended themselves. The former head of Estonia's foreign intelligence service does a daily brief and the other day noted that about a third of Russia's glide bombs, so these are dumb bombs that become smart because of guidance systems that are in place, very devastating to Ukrainian defenders. A third of the glide bombs are now being dropped in Kursk, which is Russia bombing Russia to expel the Ukrainians from the enclave that they took back in August. Right. That's relieved some of the pressure. And also the nature of this war has changed rather dramatically from 2022, 2023. So I'm going to upset some artillery specialists, including a good friend of mine, when I say this, but artillery is not necessarily king any longer. What the Ukrainians are relying on increasingly are drones. This is a proper revolution in modern technologically savvy warfare. So they have manufactured at scale these first person view drones which are making up for their lack of air superiority and also their manpower shortages. And you don't have to take my word for it. Look at what the Russians themselves are saying on telegram. The drones are absolutely wreaking havoc on Russian positions and forcing the Russians now to slow down in their advances in Donbas. So at moment like this, where it's actually not that bad, much less catastrophic, as it seemed it was going to be several months ago, we are saying, well, whatever we can do to help the Russians and grant them all the terrain that they've taken and possibly even more in some negotiation, seems to me ludicrous. Right. You apply more pressure now. You don't relieve it on the adversary. But, of course, we don't treat the Russians as adversaries. We treat them as the best friend. We just haven't made yet.
- [44:20]
James Carville
Yet.
- [44:20]
Michael Weiss
Ukraine is our adversary.
- [44:22]
Tim Miller
Yeah. Zelensky is the adversary. Yeah. Right. Of course, the Russians, in those kind of telegram conversations and just kind of monitoring the reporting that you do, it's hard for me to tell based on the public comments. Right. You have Peskov kind of rubbing our face in shit, being like, the Americans just totally agree with our worldview now. Right. And so it's hard to tell for me how much of that is. Is bragging, is trying to humiliate Trump, how much of it is just like they can't believe their luck. What do you kind of sense as kind of the point of view from GRU types, Russian types, people around Putin?
- [45:01]
Michael Weiss
Well, if you look at the immediate reaction to Trump's election in November, it wasn't nearly as ecstatic and celebratory as it had been in 2016. And that's because the Russians understood that, well, wait a minute. We didn't get everything we wanted out of the first Trump administration, as he himself is fond of boasting. I provided javelins to the Ukrainians. I sanctioned Nord stream. His administration expelled more Russian spies from embassies and missions in the United States than at any point since the Cold War over the Skripal poisoning. So they were very cautious. Now, I think they are hugging themselves with glee because not only is there a strategic realignment in favor of Russia happening by the United States, but it is happening so precipitously and to their minds, and I think to the minds of a lot of Europeans, unexpectedly, that they almost can't keep up. They don't even know what to do to be the proper beneficiary of all this largesse and good graces coming from Washington.
- [45:59]
Tim Miller
And honestly, I mean, if I'm Sorry to put myself in their shoes, but you're kind of like, do nothing and just kind of see how it happens. Everything keeps coming up Milhouse for Putin. And so why try to. Why do something that might screw it up?
- [46:15]
Michael Weiss
Exactly. I think that if I'm sitting in the Kremlin or the aquarium, which is the GRU headquarters, my main concern right now would be, and I don't mean to be giving the enemy advice, but I'm a journalist.
- [46:29]
Tim Miller
I don't know that we're a ton of Russian listeners to the pod.
- [46:31]
Michael Weiss
Yeah. My main concern would be trying to stop Europe from playing the spoiler role that it has already begun to play and has in its capacity to play in a major key. So my argument has been to the Europeans and especially to the Ukrainians. Listen, don't assume that Trump has all the cards, always casino metaphors, right? He doesn't. What he needs right now is, you know, Ukraine exists for him as one of two things. Either it is an opportunity to advance his pivot toward Russia, his embrace of Russia, his bringing Russia in from the cold, or it's an obstacle to that. Right now, he sees it as an obstacle. And that's a good thing, because if Ukraine and Europe, by which I really mean the European Union plus Britain, plus Norway, plus Canada also plus Australia and to some extent Japan, I mean, the west in the collective imagination, as it were, if they are a united front, if they form a real coalition at the diplomatic and rhetorical level even, and they say to the United States, you try to impose some fugazi deal on this war, were we're going to say no, and we will keep it going, we will sustain it, we will finance it, we will send weapons. And by the way, you have an economic incentive not to punish Europe. I mean, everyone's like, what is he going to do? Is it tariffs on Europe? Is he going to tell the US Military industrial complex and the defense contractors that their biggest marketplace is now off limits because the French and the Brits might turn around and take ATACMs and Patriot batteries and just donate them to the Ukrainians. Good luck, babe. I mean, look at the lobbying effort that is going to be put in this country to stop him from doing that. Right? So Trump needs to deliver something. He cannot give the Russians something. And if not everything in exchange for nothing. Because as much as he's okay with appearing a lick spittle to Putin, he doesn't want to look like a chump. Right? This is the art of the deal, guy.
- [48:28]
Tim Miller
Maybe too late for that, but yeah.
- [48:30]
Michael Weiss
But you know, he needs to sell some something right now he's desperately trying to sell his base on I can bring peace. Everyone else has brought war and destruction. There was peace when I was president, only I can bring peace again if he does not bring peace because the terms of his peace are terms of conditional surrender by Ukraine unnecessarily. So then he's got nothing to show for it.
- [48:52]
Tim Miller
Yeah. So this takes us back to your column. Can Europe do it? And by Europe you mean? I guess the west, broadly, including Canada, Australia, et cetera. Do they have the equipment, manpower, resources to do it?
- [49:07]
Michael Weiss
They have the GDP to do it very easily. The question is it's one of will. Right? So the equipment shortages, the shortfall in manufacturing, all of these things can be made up for if they do what now they are beginning to make noises about having to do increase their percent of GDP on defense spending. This is another thing that we should discuss for now. Going back almost a decade, MAGA has been banging on about Europe as the welfare queen of NATO. Bunch of freeloaders. They don't spend their fair share. We have to do everything for them. Suddenly faced with this sort of existential crisis, this upending of 80 years of the post war American led security architecture, they say we're all going to spend more. Maybe they're not spending enough more, but they're moving in the right direction. And what happens? Rick Renell takes to Twitter. They're a bunch of anti American warmongers. No, they're doing exactly what you've been saying as ambassador to Germany, among other things that they ought to be doing. Right. They're just doing it in contravention of the broader policy that you have, which is again, make nice with Moscow.
- [50:12]
Tim Miller
Same as the J.D. vance thing. It's like do more, pay more, pay more, put more money into defense. And then they say they're gonna do it. Then it's like, oh wait, no, you guys can't do it, you're weak.
- [50:21]
Michael Weiss
Absolutely. And so here's an interesting statistic. I'm actually gonna give two versions of it because it's a little bit ambiguous. But the one version that was cited in the Wall Street Journal recently is even more optimistic for the argument I'm making. But let me use a version that came from a Ukrainian security official that we quoted in our piece. According to him, what Ukraine relies on militarily is 40% manufactured domestically in Ukraine. Right. 30% comes from the United States, another 30% comes from Europe. And according to him, even if the United States Cuts us off completely. It'll be bad and there'll be things that we can't source so easily. But it ain't the end of the world. Right. The Russians might take more territory, a little more quickly, but we're not looking at a collapse of Kyiv in two weeks or a month or even necessarily six months. Right. Which would buy time for the Europeans to try and source these things. The most important thing would be, of course, air defense systems, including Patriot missile batteries. That's what they need to shoot the missiles down that are raining down on the capitals and cities that the Russians don't already occupy. But as I mentioned earlier, there's a drone revolution in Ukraine. Ukraine, which is keeping the Russians at bay at the front line. That's just raw materials. That's stuff that can be bought on commercial markets or just vesting in Ukraine's own manufacturing capability, which is growing exponentially all the time. Right. So that's the first set of statistics. The Wall Street Journal had a piece which cited, and they didn't give a source for it, but they said actually it's 55% is coming from inside Ukraine already. And then the remainder comes from the Europeans and the Americans. So just to put things in perspective, and this is another lie that MAGA likes to tell, that we have given more than the European. No, we haven't. Not only have we not given more than the Europeans, they have outspent us, especially in the last year when we had our supplemental freeze for six to eight months. But the Ukrainians themselves are standing up on their own two feet. I mean, remember in the Soviet period, this was the industrial hub, hub of the Soviet Union, where all the components for their ICBMs and their tanks and everything came from Ukraine. So this is not a country that lacks for engineers or technical know how. They need money and they need, of course, the security to continue to build. And in fact, one of the more interesting quotes in our piece comes from the CEO of Rheinmetall, which by the way, if you look at the stocks of European defense companies, they have gone straight through the roof in the last few weeks because again, American betrayal is good for business abroad. The CEO of Rhein Mattel said, our problem isn't manufacturing more stuff here in Germany. Ironically, it's Ukrainian bureaucracy has kept us from opening new plants and factories on sovereign Ukrainian soil. So everybody's kind of in Europe rubbing their hands, seeing opportunities. It's about lifting some of these breaks and these obstacles in place, which are all political and bureaucratic and allowing this Production to commence. So the short answer to your question is I do think that Europe has a lot more capability than perhaps it itself would like to claim it does.
- [53:24]
Tim Miller
How tempting is it to Zelenskyy at this point to just try to make that pivot? You know, I mean, at some level it seems like the conventional wisdom is that he's gonna have to, whatever, apologize and like, rub Trump's belly and say, I'm sorry, sir, but like, is he going to have to. I mean, I guess. I don't know.
- [53:44]
Michael Weiss
I think his instinct is correct, which is he kind of sees the writing on the wall. I mean, I spoke to a high level source in Ukrainian intelligence just this morning to get a sense. He's like, look, you guys are, you're pivoting to Russia full stop. They're very clear eyed about this.
- [54:00]
Tim Miller
It's still such a wild sentence. Just, it's like fucking, I can't even.
- [54:06]
Michael Weiss
Yeah, I mean, they can't afford to rationalize and have sort of, of on air, you know, back and forths and Trump is playing, you know, four dimensional chess and he's doing business deal. No, no, you're moving to Russia. And I think Zelenskyy's instinct is to say, we have lost the United States. We have to consolidate our friends who are in Europe, and they have it more, more of a vested interest because this is happening on their doorstep. The problem is, you know, the, the old order is disappearing and vanishing. But we quote, quote Alexander Herzen, the greatest Russian philosopher, who says, when the old order dies, it leaves not an heir, but a pregnant widow. And I think Europe now finds itself in this state of both being severely traumatized in the last weeks and also accidentally knocked up. And what is it about to give birth to here? Its own security autonomy or strategic autonomy, as Macron puts it. I think Zelensky is inclined to say that's the direction we need to go. But Starmer, Macron, Meloni, these people are saying, no, you have to make nice with Trump, if only just to kind of buy some breathing space and time. And so what does he do? He tweets just now. And read this carefully. He does not apologize. He says it is regrettable what happened in the Oval Office, emphasizing the importance of the Ukrainian American relationship. And then he says, what we are prepared to do is a truce in the sky and at sea as a preliminary for a ceasefire, a proper ceasefire at the front, meaning guns go down on land. This idea comes from the Brits and the French. So I read this as Zelenskyy's counteroffer to Trump rather than his capitulation to Trump. Which is interesting because I think what Trump and MAGA want is this guy to get down on all fours and just bow down and say, yes, master, whatever you want. Because then he's cowed and the Russians will see he's cowed and the Russians will just simply do a deal with Washington. He's not prepared to do that. And I think he's being smart.
- [56:05]
Tim Miller
I just roll around Zelenskyy really quick. I guess I feel obligated to mention this since he is maybe the most influential person in the world. Elon Musk tweeted. As distasteful as it is, Zelenskyy should be offered some kind of amnesty in a neutral country in exchange for a peaceful transition back to democracy in Ukraine. So that's an interesting negotiating position.
- [56:28]
Michael Weiss
This is what you say about a dictator whose regime you've just toppled, Right. We're prepared to offer you amnesty or safe haven in some. I mean, it's insane. Musk, again. And it's hard to say these words and it's much harder for people to fathom the implications of it, but our partners, our friends, our allies are now to be treated as adversaries and enemies. Right. And it didn't just start with Ukraine. You know, we were prepared, we were flirting with going to war with Denmark over Greenland. You know, Canada. We're going to annex Canada. We're going to diminish the Prime Minister right now.
- [57:03]
Tim Miller
Yeah, yeah.
- [57:04]
Michael Weiss
Of a NATO ally and a five eyes member and refer to him as Governor. You know, it's like locker room abasement humiliation for nothing, actually, for harm for nothing.
- [57:13]
Tim Miller
It's not even like we're getting a good deal out of it.
- [57:15]
Michael Weiss
Right.
- [57:15]
Tim Miller
We're in a market crash.
- [57:17]
Michael Weiss
Musk has now, I think he agreed or retweeted somebody who said we should get out of NATO. You begin to see the writing on the wall here. The transatlantic relationship is dead. And whatever Trump says tonight, I don't think there's a country in this alliance which is the greatest defensive alliance ever constructed in the history of mankind. There's not a country in this alliance who believes that if they were invaded tomorrow, American troops would come to the rescue under this president. I think Article 5 is dead, at least for the time being.
- [57:49]
Tim Miller
To that point. I mentioned at the top, like Walesa just cook on this. It was just an unbelievable letter from the Polish dissident who became the first elected president of Poland after the fall of communism. He Said he reacted with horror and disgust at Trump's Oval Office meeting. Said gratitude is due to the heroic Ukrainian soldiers who shed their blood in defense of the values of the free world. We do not understand how the leader of a country that is the symbol of the free world cannot see this. He also has some pretty dark comparisons for Trump. What did you make of it?
- [58:24]
Michael Weiss
I spoke also to my friend Dan Fried, ambassador to Poland institution at the State Department, architect of sanctions knows on a first name basis every signatory of that letter. And I said, you know, the most impressive thing about that letter was for Valesa to draw moral equivalence between the President of the United States and the Polish secret police under Communism. He said, yeah, that struck me as kind of arresting as. Well, that's not something that's glibly or lightly done by the leader of Solidarity. Yeah. In fact, I don't like it when Americans say, you know, well, this is like Stalinism, man. No, but when a Pole who basically led his country out from under the yoke of Soviet totalitarianism or domination says this, you have to sit back and wonder. And I see this as a double blasted shotgun firing to the face of any remaining Reaganites in the Republican Party. Whether or not they're in Perta or they're living in some underground, I don't know. But, but they can't have missed this.
- [59:31]
Tim Miller
You would think that the Lech Vallesa letter would make Marco Rubio look in the mirror and ask if he's the baddies, but I don't know. We haven't seen a lot of evidence of it.
- [59:40]
Michael Weiss
Lil, Marco needs to find his big boy pants at some point or resign. If he's just going to go along with this, he doesn't believe a word of what he's saying. I mean, the look of him, he was sinking so far into that couch. It was like that episode of Always Sunny in Philadelphia where Danny DeVito literally pops out of the couch couch fabric. I mean, it was humiliating for him and now he has to get up on cable news and say the same nonsense.
- [60:06]
Tim Miller
Me and Bill Kristo were talking about this yesterday. The CNN story about how we are going to stop whatever offensive cyber operations against Russia was pretty vague and we were trying to parse through what it actually meant. And I was wondering if you had anything to enlighten us on that.
- [60:26]
Michael Weiss
Well, I mean, I'm not, not read into exactly what we're doing at the, the offensive cyber level against Russia. I, I would hope it'd be quite a lot given what they're doing to us. But you know, one of the key components of this program is, as I said, espionage, which is very important. I mean, you do that even when you are in a mode of detente or you're trying to make nice because you want to know what the other side's thinking. Right. It worries me, assuming this reporting is accurate, that we're basically choosing to become blind and deaf to what our adversary is thinking. I'm also hearing very alarming things from CIA, FBI, that whilst we might still collect on Russia, we're not necessarily going to do analysis on that collection. Just recently the FBI sack in the New York field office was forced to retire. Now this guy is a counter intelligence specialist, which if you're based in New York, means you focus mostly on Russia. The Russians have a huge outsized presence here in New York because of the United nations and because of the consulate and Riverdale is, you know, they do their own signals intelligence collections from, you know, that, that part of the Bronx and they have spies running around going to fancy restaurants and meeting with their agents and all that. So suddenly it seems like, like we don't want to know what the Russians are doing to us. Which is highly suspicious to say the least.
- [61:54]
Tim Miller
Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned that FBI, that FBI forced retirement, the firing.
- [62:00]
Michael Weiss
Right. And that is gratuitous, if you know what I mean. Like if you want to have some kind of deal or some kind of grand bargain with the Russians, you still don't do that. I mean, we didn't stop spying on the Iranians when we entered into the, the nuclear deal. Right. In fact, we probably escalated our espionage to figure out what it is that they were thinking so we could better negotiate with them. This is bizarre and very, very scary. And I can't emphasize that point enough. I mean, it's one thing if you're not particularly concerned about what's happening in Europe, although I would suggest you should be. It's another to not care what's happening on your own home turf with a hostile intelligence act. I mean, the largest cyber attack in history was perpetrated by the gru. Russian military intelligence. It was called Notpetya. It was a piece of malware first uploaded to computer servers in Ukraine. But it spread like wildfire around the world, cost billions of dollars in damages to global commerce, and also affected hospital computers in Pennsylvania where patients awaiting life saving surgeries had their records deleted or frozen. So this is what the Russians do to us all the time. And suddenly we're like, nah, it'll be all right. Don't worry. We don't need to check in on this.
- [63:12]
Tim Miller
Well, that's a nice place to leave it. I'm sad we didn't have your birds this time to at least give us some cheery chirping in the background.
- [63:21]
Michael Weiss
I told my wife I was coming on and she put the curtain over the birds. She's had to put the curtain over my head just so I'll go to sleep in the last few days. I'm sure she's got a lot of practice keeping things quiet.
- [63:35]
Tim Miller
Thank you for coming on, Michael. I really appreciate your insight, and unfortunately, I feel like you. Your expertise will be much needed in the months ahead. So we'll be talking to you soon.
- [63:45]
Michael Weiss
Anytime.
- [63:46]
Tim Miller
All right, thanks again also to James Carvel. Happy Mardi Gras, everybody. We'll see you back here tomorrow for another edition of the Borg Podcast. Peace.
- [64:06]
Michael Weiss
You ought to go see the mighty girl?
- [64:12]
Tim Miller
When you see the mighty girl?
- [64:15]
James Carville
Somebody will tell you what's gonna fall?
- [64:20]
Michael Weiss
Get your ticket in your hand, you wanna go to New Orle? Get your ticket in your hand, you wanna.
- [64:37]
James Carville
You know, when you get to New.
- [64:38]
Michael Weiss
Orleans, somebody will show you the Zulu king. You will see the Zulu king down.
- [64:49]
Tim Miller
On St. Claude and New man, you.
- [64:54]
Michael Weiss
Know, you see the Zulu king down.
- [64:57]
Tim Miller
On St Clair and do man.
- [65:02]
Michael Weiss
And if you stay right there, I'm sure you'll see the Zulu queen.
- [65:37]
Tim Miller
The Bulwark Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.