Jonathan V. Last and Robert Kagan: Marco and Miller Go Full Fascist

Summary

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The Bulwark Podcast

Episode: Jonathan V. Last and Robert Kagan: Marco and Miller Go Full Fascist

Date: July 29, 2026

Host: Jonathan V. Last (JVL), sitting in for Tim Miller
Guest: Robert Kagan (The Atlantic)

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Overview

In this episode, Jonathan V. Last is joined by historian and author Robert Kagan for a sweeping and sobering discussion of current events, US foreign policy, and the alarming fascistic rhetoric emerging from within Trump’s administration. The conversation touches on the strategic failures with Iran, shifting global alliances, the fallout of Lindsey Graham’s career, and, most notably, the Trump administration’s narrative about left-wing violence—drawing chilling parallels to totalitarian regimes of the past. With a dark wit and a frank assessment of America’s place in the world, Last and Kagan offer both warning and deep analysis for listeners concerned about democracy’s future.

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Major Segments and Key Insights

1. Asymmetrical Political Standards & Fauci Discourse

[02:06 – 04:44]

• JVL discusses the double standards applied to public figures like Anthony Fauci, noting that elites are judged by their worst moments while figures like Trump and RFK Jr. are credited for anything true they say, regardless of broader context.
  • Quote:
    "A figure like Anthony Fauci is judged by the least true thing he ever said once... The other side is treated so that if anything they ever said was true, then you have to treat seriously every other claim they make." — JVL [02:06]

2. Iran's Strategy and Trump's Policy Failures

[05:00 – 14:13]

• Kagan argues that Iran’s actions are consistent and rational: they want control of the Strait of Hormuz as a deterrent and strategic asset. Trump’s deal-making has not only failed but actively granted Iran substantial leverage.

  • Key points:
    • Iran is not divided or bumbling; its policy is coherent.
    • The MOU (Memorandum of Understanding) inadvertently gave Iran administrative control of maritime chokepoints; attempts to claw it back are viewed as provocations by Iran.
    • The global consequences: Elevating Iran means China, and others, might now need to cut their own strategic deals—prompting an arms race and potential nuclear proliferation.
  • Quote:
    "They want to control the Strait of Hormuz... That has been the number one goal. ...The MOU gave them control of the strait. Trump was so desperate for a deal that he accepted this bad deal." — Kagan [07:15]

• JVL highlights the dilemma: Why does Trump persist when the outcome is clear defeat? Kagan suggests Trump is motivated by ego and optics—not strategic realities.

  • Quote:
    "What does Trump think? Who knows what Trump thinks? For him, I believe it's all about his image and his ego." — Kagan [09:31]

3. Shifting Global Order & US Unreliability

[14:13 – 18:35]

• Consequences of American unreliability include a global move toward self-interest, new alliances, and a worldwide arms race, especially at sea.
• The US’s failed commitments (e.g. Budapest Memorandum with Ukraine) are eroding trust; allies like Saudi Arabia and Israel now hedge their bets with China and Russia.

4. Oil, Negotiations, and American Endgame

[19:13 – 24:35]

• Trump manipulates the perception of “progress” on Iran, delaying consequences and hoping to limp through the election.
  • Oil futures and price stability rely on these political games.
  • Allies must now approach Iran directly for energy needs.
  • The lack of criticism from the traditional natsec Republican elite marks a sea change: the party is all-in with Trump.
  • Quote:
    "So the only people are going to be yelling and screaming are Democrats and randos like us. And I'm not sure that from Trump's point of view, any of that matters." — Kagan [24:29]

5. Israel’s Precarious Position & Netanyahu’s Future

[27:20 – 29:06]

• Netanyahu faces potential electoral defeat and is losing US support. Israel’s response, Kagan predicts, will be to diversify allies, including more overt ties with China and Russia—illustrating the global strategic shift.

6. Lindsey Graham: Legacy and the Cost of Complicity

[30:52 – 36:46]

• The hosts reflect on Graham’s rationalization for supporting Trump—claiming he did so to influence policy for the better.
  • Kagan acknowledges Graham’s argument is stronger than others in Trump’s orbit, but ultimately self-preserving and emblematic of the way personal ambition trumps principle in American political life.
  • Quote:
    "His motive was not...try to do the right thing. No, this was about getting right with the new movement and making sure that he... died as a senator." — Kagan [32:41]

7. The Rise of Fascist, Totalitarian Rhetoric

[38:01 – 45:13]

• The most chilling segment: JVL plays audio of Marco Rubio (as Secretary of State) and Stephen Miller denouncing “left-wing violence” at an official Trump administration event, using language that dehumanizes political opponents.
  • Miller:
    "Not one of the people that has demonstrated looks like a normal person. Not one looks normal. They're all deformed... you know what normal is, you know what beautiful is, you know what good is." [38:34]
• Kagan:

  • Draws direct, historical parallels to Stalinist and Nazi rhetoric:

    • The portrayal of dissidents as deformed, mentally ill, or biologically inferior has deep roots in fascist regimes.
    • The administration’s language is an intentional predicate for coming repression.

  • Quote:
    "The only people that I've ever heard talk quite that way about the ugliness of these people are Nazis. ...It's beyond saying we disagree with their ideas. It's basically saying... they are deformed human beings." — Kagan [40:09]

  • JVL underlines that the rhetoric is not accidental or incidental, reading direct Nazi parallels:

    • "Bolshevism is not the doctrine of the working class. It is the revolt of the envious, the embittered, and the failed against everything healthy... I mean, Rubio could have said that." — JVL [44:01]

8. The Normalization and Instrumentalization of Political Violence

[45:53 – 53:33]

• JVL: Trump has made political violence the “special sauce” in American politics—not a bug but a feature for a critical mass of his followers.

  • Quote:
    "What brought this about was Donald Trump. So Donald Trump was the guy who brought political violence back by sanctioning it." — JVL [45:53]

• Kagan agrees, narrowing his interpretation:

  • The Trump movement is fundamentally about asserting racial and (for some, also male) supremacy and opposing the principles of universal equality enshrined in the Declaration of Independence.
  • The Democratic Party misreads this as an economic populist movement rather than a submerged reactionary bigotry.
  • Quote:
    "What Trump's voters are in it for is what he's going to do to the people they hate." — Kagan [51:56]

• JVL and Kagan warn that political violence, once sanctioned and loosed, invariably outruns the control of its author—Europe in the 1930s being the parallel.

9. Final Thoughts: An Assault on the Declaration of Independence

[53:33 – End]

• Kagan: The Trump movement is not simply an assault on constitutional process, but on the founding principles of the American republic—the Declaration’s universal equality.

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Memorable Quotes & Moments

• On the shifting global order:
  "It's every man for himself now, which means a global arms race among great powers at the very least." — Kagan [14:13]
• On the GOP elite:
  "Since all these people are in the business of ingratiating themselves with Trump and the Trump movement, you're not going to hear that. So the only people are going to be yelling and screaming are Democrats and randos like us." — Kagan [24:29]
• On totalitarian rhetoric:
  "The rhetoric of totalitarianism... This is what Soviets said about their dissidents... The only people I've ever heard talk quite that way about the ugliness of these people are Nazis." — Kagan [40:09]
• On Lindsey Graham:
  "His whole identity was wrapped up with being a senator, and he would do anything that he needed to do to hold onto that job, which is true, I think, of most Republicans." — Kagan [32:41]
• On the essence of Trumpism:
  "They came for the white supremacy, I would say, and in many cases, the male supremacy... To put a technical term on it, bigotry that he was selling and they were liking." — Kagan [49:51]

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• Fauci, Asymmetry Discussion: [02:06 – 04:44]
• Iran, Trump Foreign Policy: [05:00 – 14:13]
• US Global Trust Erosion: [14:13 – 18:35]
• Oil Markets & Allies' Response: [19:13 – 24:35]
• Netanyahu & Israel's Challenges: [27:20 – 29:06]
• Lindsey Graham’s Choices: [30:52 – 36:46]
• Fascistic Rhetoric (Rubio & Miller clips, Kagan historical context): [38:01 – 45:13]
• Political Violence as Identity: [45:53 – 53:33]

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Tone and Takeaway

The episode is both analytical and deeply concerned, weaving dark humor with serious historical warnings. JVL and Kagan challenge listeners not to dismiss the current rhetoric and policy as mere excess or posturing; instead, they urge recognition of genuine authoritarian danger as America drifts away from its founding ideals. The parallels drawn with the darkest moments in world history are presented not for effect, but to demand vigilance.

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In short:
This conversation underscores that the fascist, totalitarian threat is not just rhetorical excess; it is policy—and it is happening in full view. The guests warn that America’s commitment to liberal democracy is under siege both at home and abroad, and only clear-eyed attention and action will offer any hope of reversal.

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Transcript

[A]

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[B]

Refreshers contain caffeine foreign. Hello, and welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I'm your host, jvl, sitting in for Tim Miller who'll be back next week. I am joined today by a very, very good and old friend of mine, Bob Kagan from the Atlantic. Bob, it is good to see your face again, my friend.

[A]

Same here. Although I see it every day.

[B]

JV oh, that's very kind of you. So we have a lot of big think stuff to do today because that's what Bob Kagan is here for. We are going to talk about fascism coming to America and an amazing, amazing event that happened last week where members of the administration gave a talk about the dangers of political violence.

[C]

Wow.

[B]

But first we gotta do some news of the day. Bob, you and I were talking in the green room a moment ago today. Anthony Fauci was up on Capitol Hill testifying before the Senate. And this was something that you have basically zero opinion on, correct?

[A]

That's probably strong. I mean, my general sympathy is with people who said that you needed to take vaccines to deal with COVID and not with people who said that you didn't need to. So in the big picture, I'm on the Fauci side, but I can't speak to all the details of what he said or what he didn't say or et cetera.

[B]

So I wanted to bring up Fauci only to recapitulate something that my colleague Andrew Egger wrote some years ago, which struck me as exactly correct, that part of the problem with where we live, live today is that we live in this place with these intense asymmetries. And one of the asymmetries is that a figure like Anthony Fauci is judged by the least true thing he ever said once, regardless of the circumstances around it. And so if Anthony Fauci said in the, you know, day 10 of the pandemic, we're not sure if this was airborne or not, it turns out that Covid is in fact airborne, then it's can you believe this guy? Right? And the thing people harp on with Fauci is the very lawyerly claim he made early on when he told people that respirators and masks were not necessary right now. And this was a piece of highly lawyered misdirection meant to try to preserve the stocks of masks early in the pandemic to use them for healthcare workers when it was highly localized in. In the Northeast. And the. The fact that this was a lawyerly thing and not a full week transparent and true statement has led people to say, well, see, you can't trust anything he says. So that is how one side is treated, the other side is treated so that if anything they ever said was true, then you have to treat seriously every other claim they make. And so if Bobby Kennedy, in the course of all of his quackery, says, I feel like it's good for people to eat vegetables, well, see, you agree that it's good to eat vegetables. And so how can you just dismiss his claims about autism and stuff? And this is how all of political life functions in the age of Trump. It is. You know, it doesn't. Don't pay attention to the fact that Trump said that, you know, if we try hydroxychloroquine or inject yourself with bleach or shine a UV light inside the body, don't pay attention to any of that crazy stuff. Because in this other case, he did say this one thing that turned out to be true. So, see, but then the elites are judged by a totally different standard. Even though President Trump is the definition of elite, he's the President of the United States and the leader of the free world. Free air quotes. I don't know.

[A]

Just.

[B]

Have you noticed this? Does it bother you? Is it just me? Am I a crazy person for caring about these things?

[A]

Bob, the list of things that bother me is so long that I don't know where this one would exactly fit, but I'm not sure. It's at the very, very tippy top today. But I agree with what you were saying. Absolutely. Okay.

[B]

Well, thank you for indulging in my little rant. It just drives me crazy. The other big piece of news today is that last night the Iranians fired missiles at a number of US Bases in the Middle East. And I am curious as to what you make of this. What is the strategic point of what Iran is doing? Or maybe there is no strategic point that these decisions are being made because, you know, command and control has been dispersed to the mosaic level. You tell me. What should we think about this?

[A]

No, we've got to stop talking about the Iranians like they don't know what they're doing or they're too confused and they're so divided amongst themselves. Their policy has been incredibly consistent and understandable. Nothing they've done is irrational, including this. I think there's one of two explanations and they may both be right in some way. One, the most obvious, and I think the one that they would point to is that the Saudis and the Americans went after the Iranian backed militias in Iraq because, because those militias were attacking Saudi. And it's sort of like when the Iranians attacked in response to the breakdown of the Lebanon ceasefire or, you know, because Israel was not biting or whatever by the, by the MOU agreement. So to some extent this is like, well, if you hit our guys, we're going to hit you. Now that by itself demonstrates in some ways the biggest point, which is they sure aren't afraid of firing ballistic missiles at American forces, forces, despite Trump's, you know, bloviating about what he's going to do to them. So that's interesting. And the second thing, which I think may be part of it, is that Trump has been spending the last few days saying the Iranian, they, they're talking to the Iranians and they're having negotiations and the Iranians are desperate for a deal. And this is a pretty simple way of putting your thumb in that notion by, by making it clear that not only are you not talking, but actually we are now striking you again in response to this Iraqi stuff. So I think it carries an overall message. None of which I would say is good from the American point of view.

[B]

What do you think Iran's end game is here? Do they have one? I mean, are they just sort of maneuvering within the, you know, what, what context appears to them day to day, or do they have an actual. Like this is how we think this ends.

[A]

They've been very clear all along, which is that they want to control the Strait of Hormuz. And we treat this like it's a power grab and it's like a luxury and wouldn't it be cool for them and you know, to some ext. And obviously it is a power grab. But I think much more importantly, I think we need to understand from the Iranian point of view, I think they have every reason to assume that some point down in the future either Israel or Trump are going to attack them again. Even if they made a deal. Trump has demonstrated that his deals are completely unreliable. He breaks them at the first opportunity and Israel will never abide by the deal. So from Iran's point of view, they have to anticipate that they're going to get hit again. And the best deterrent they have is control of the strait. So I think from the very beginning, that has been the number one goal. And by the way, the MOU gave them control of the strait. And the. And the thing about this is, like, the media treats this like. Well, it's a misinterpretation. We don't really agree on the interpretations. What happened was Trump was so desperate for a deal that he accepted this bad deal which gave Iran administrative control, the strait. It says in the memorandum of understanding. Then, because he didn't really want to give it away, or maybe Witkoff never told him that he had given it away. Who knows? He tries to claw it back by opening up and having the American forces defend the route along the Oman coast. From the Iranian point of view, that was a violation of the agreement. And everything they've been doing since then has been to make sure that the end of the day, they control the strait. And it makes perfect sense.

[B]

So I have a couple questions going forward from this. The first is, why is Trump doing this? Why not just take the loss, give up control of the strait, pull up stakes, and get out? I wrote about this a day or two ago, and it would be very bad for America and the world for Trump to do that. But he does things that are very bad for America and the world all the time. So it's not like this would be the first time he's done going to war. This war was very bad for America and the world. Does he think that he is going to exit this with Iran not controlling the strait? Because I have to be honest, I don't see how that happens.

[A]

Well, I don't see how it happens either, unless we're willing to do things, which he is clearly not willing to do, and which I think any president would be reluctant about, which is a ground invasion of Iran. That's the only way of being sure. If you replace the regime with a regime that you have some control over, or at least is definitely sympathetic to you, what does Trump think? Who knows what Trump thinks? For him, I believe it's all about his image and his ego. And I think that if he could wave a wand and make Americans forget that Iran ever happened, even though Iran now controls the strait, I think he would be fine with that. The problem is Iranian policy. Now, I don't know whether this is Iranian intent, but certainly Iranian policy has had the effect of humiliating him at every step. He just wanted a deal where the Iranians would say, yes, we're not going to go for a nuclear weapon. And yes, the oil is going to flow through the strait. And the Iranians have refused to give him any of this. And it may be that they are intending to humiliate him. Putin also humiliated him. You know, we've forgotten because he also said we're going to have a deal on Ukraine, you know, 55 times. And Putin never budged an inch and also made it very clear. So the let's humiliate Donald Trump camp grows every day. But what does he want? I think he wants it to go away, but it won't go away. And just setting the whole Trump of it aside, it is a terrible loss. It is a fundamental strategic defeat with huge ramifications that I honestly believe people have not even begun to understand, which is we're going to have what I would call now Iran 2.0 once this is all over, which is an Iran that is no longer feeling endangered by the United States, an Iran which controls one of the most important waterways of the world and has some control over the world's energy supply. Do we think that at that point they're going to become sort of meek and, like, try to figure out how to get along with everybody, or do we think that they're going to exploit that incredible advantage to make sure that the world is configured in a way that is more conducive to their interests?

[B]

I don't know. Let's pull on the string a little bit. Let's talk about some of the consequences of this and what the world begins to change shape into over the coming years. I mean, the first thing I think about is China and how the relationship between Iran and China changes. I mean, if Iran controls the Strait, then it means that China really controls the strait and that the Chinese, maybe not that far, but they have a great deal of influence over the flows of oil from there. Which means that within the Indo Pacific, everybody there who's getting their oil from the Middle east needs to start making side deals with China as well, right? I mean, doesn't this change the entire strategic calculus of the Pacific theater?

[A]

Well, I mean, on the one hand, we already see that even the Houthis, when the Chinese ask to let their Saudi tankers get through for their oil, that the Houthis let it go? So before we even get to your big question, I do think that everybody needs to understand that there is going to be a double standard in how the straight is managed by Iran. And those who are considered friends of Iran are going to get the better deal and the easier passage and the reliable supplies and those who are regarded as unfriendly, which is not just the United States, but I would say every country in the world, in for instance, Europe, that, that still maintains sanctions on Iran, they're going to find that the passage is, is more complicated and that the paperwork got lost. And it's, and it's a very crowded day and we're not sure things are going to get through. And you know, when that happens, countries are going to have to figure out a way to make sure that they get the oil. I mean, let's face it, it's not like Japan has a choice here. They can draw down on their reserves for a while, but ultimately they need access to the Strait. And it used to be that the United States provided access to the strait. Now they know that China can get access to the Strait. I don't think that means Japan's going to cut a deal with China. I think that Japan is going to have to figure out a way to make sure that they can get their oil through, which means either paying off Iran or. And I think this is going to happen in the long term, not just for Japan, but for other powers. Building your own naval force so that you can actually have some say in a world where the only thing that ultimately matters, which is always true, but it'll be much more true now, is how much power you can wield, how much military power and maybe also economic power you can wield in any given situation. It's sort of every man for himself now, which means a global arms race among great powers at the very least.

[B]

And nuclear proliferation and nuclear proliferation, which

[A]

is already in the process of happening, especially if Donald Trump is going to help the Saudis get an enrichment capability.

[B]

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[A]

Including Trump's ask, by the way.

[B]

Right, including Trump's ask. And the Saudis are basically saying, I don't know what you're talking about, bro. We have it on paper.

[A]

Well, again, does Trump know what he's doing when he does these things? Surely there was an advisor in there somewhere who might have said, Mr. President, what about the whole normalization thing? So I don't know whether he ignored it and then was embarrassed or he didn't think about it. But then the question is, with him always, is he really going to hold Saudi to that? Right? I mean, at some, I suppose at some point we either begin sharing our what we're going to share with them or we're not. That point is somewhere down the road. Will anybody remember that we were doing it without. You know what I mean? Trump has a way of sort of saying he's going to do something and then it kind of fritters away. So we don't, we don't even know what the nature of the deal is going to be unless Congress steps in in some way, which it hasn't much been in the habit of doing.

[B]

Would it matter if we had a written deal and we then just decided not to abide by the piece of paper we wrote down? I mean, this is a thing that happens all the time Right. We didn't abide by our promise to the Ukrainians to protect them because they gave up the nukes that they were holding at the end of the Cold War. But I don't know, it does seem like in the long term your ability to impact the world around you lessens if everybody understands that nothing you say can be trusted for even two minutes.

[A]

Well, we're already there, obviously, and we're there. We're there with Saudi too. Let's not pretend that the Saudis haven't been watching what's been going on for the last five months, which from their point of view is pretty much a complete repudiation of the American supposed security protection that they, that they're supposed to be provided. I mean, not only we start a war without really consulting with them, but also we were unable to protect them in the event. So. And I think the whole world knows that the United States is no longer a reliable partner. But this certainly, this certainly adds, adds to that perception.

[B]

What do you think America winds up doing here? So this is Trump Today was on Fox News and he said, I'm not going to let the audio because I know Tim doesn't like people having audio. We're going to beat the fucking shit out of them. Will be hitting them hard. They're going to be getting a beating. Okay, great, that's worked well so far, I guess. What is the American, I mean, I want to say endgame here, but it just seems to me like everybody knows maybe except for Trump, what the broad contours of the end of this story looks like. And it's just a question of how much longer are we going to dick around before we get there.

[A]

Does everybody know it? I mean, it is patently obvious and maybe people are starting to know it. But I mean, I got to say the American media, which I give great props to, especially the New York Times and the Washington Post etc, who are breaking stories left and right, but they have been totally out to lunch through up for the last two or three months on this policy. I once looked it up on Google. Apparently Charlie Brown kicked at the football 36 times and one time Lucy actually held it down and he missed. But I think the media felt kicked at the football more than 36 times. Every time Trump said we've got a deal, they said, great, we've got a deal. The New York Times wrote an incredibly lengthy article about the nature of the deal that they'd already gotten through, you know, which included opening the strait and the nuclear deal, et cetera, et cetera. It all turned out to be baloney. And so Trump has successfully avoided facing the consequences of his failure, including in the oil market, which is obviously his obsession. Oil futures are jumping up and down depending on whatever he says or doesn't say on any given day. So he has successfully played this game for months. Why shouldn't he believe that he can continue to play this game for as long as it takes? I don't know. I mean, eventually, what does he do now when Iran is firing ballistic missiles at us and we are clearly, as we have now leaked, the government has now leaked that we are, you know, perilously low in our interceptor supply, which means that every time we want to respond to something that Iran has done, we drive those stocks even lower. Presumably Iran understands that, too. So I guess at some point reality does have to hit. But I have been shocked because I've said that to myself pretty much every month for the last four months, that surely reality is going to hit, including the reality that the strait is never going to be open in the way that it was before and that the world's oil supply is going to be limited based on what Iran wants to do.

[B]

There are only so many pathways to get to that final outcome. Right. I mean, he could try to keep managing Iran like it's a chronic condition where we keep being on the verge of negotiation breakthroughs and we keep firing missiles. And as long as oil doesn't make gas go over 450 a gallon, he's able to bully the markets around and keep things basically so that, well, inflation's hotter than it should be and the markets aren't really happy. But nobody's hair on fire about this and he limps through the election, which we're now a little more than a dozen weeks away from anyway, and then it becomes somebody else's problem eventually. Part of me wonders if he's going to dare the Democrats to try to defund the war, make them vote to cut off funding for it, so that he can then leave and blame Democrats. Maybe that's an end game for him. I don't know.

[A]

I was thinking about one way that he might be able to use what's happening now as his exit strategy, which is the press seems to be treating the negotiations between Iran and Oman, which is such a joke. Can you only imagine how those negotiations are taking place? The country that has all the power and is firing all the missiles and the little oh my. But that these negotiations are somehow going to solve the strait problem, and at the end of the day, Oil. With Iran in control of the strait, oil will be flowing through the strait

[B]

and the baseline price will be higher, but the current price will be lower.

[A]

I assume that's why oil futures never really stay up that high, because they can. Maybe they are foreseeing that an Iranian control the strait is going to be, as you say, a little more expensive. By the way, I think they're overestimating the stability of that situation. As if Iran is never going to shoot anybody ever again. As if Israel is just going to sit there and take it. But in any case, that is his out. Iran and Oman reach a deal. The deal is Iran is in control. And by the way, while we're going through this tit for tat between Trump and the Iranians, the rest of the world is going to have to make its deals. I mean, the rest of the world's going to have to go to Iran and say, okay, what is it going to cost me to be able to get? The British are going to have to come to the Iranians and say, what's it going to cost me? Or the French or whoever. And that'll all be going on while Trump is, you know, sort of treading water with this pseudo war that we're fighting. That is the way it could break out. And then eventually the world has adjusted to the fact that Iran is controlling the strait. Who is going to point out what a disaster this is? That's also an interesting question. Normally we would have an entire Republican national security community, even if this were a Republican president, a lot of people went after Reagan because they thought he was selling out to the Soviets, if you can remember that. So normally we would have Republican national security officials, and particularly hawks saying this is a catastrophe for America. But since all these people are in the business of ingratiating themselves with Trump and the Trump movement, you're not going to hear that. So the only people are going to be yelling and screaming are Democrats and randos like us. And I'm not sure that from Trump's point of view, any of that matters.

[B]

That's great. Super great.

[A]

Oh, did I. Did I just outdark you?

[B]

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[A]

I really don't have a strong instinct one way or the other. I mean, the opposition party that has emerged, it looks like it's at least within striking range of him. But I. The Israeli electorate is hard for me to predict in this case. I mean, after all, you know, let's not pretend that Bibi has been doing this all by himself. Okay, let's not pretend that the Iran policy is just Bibi's wild idea. I mean, the Israeli public has been behind this. October 7th had an understandably huge effect on their willingness to undertake these kinds of activities. What Bibi is most worried about, I think maybe is the obvious fact that he has, in fact, lost the United States. And I don't know what, I don't know what the Israeli response to that is. I get a feeling that to some extent, it's a little defiant, which is understandable also, like, we'll take care of ourselves. Israel's in an interesting situation now, and I would predict, and this, it's not as if they haven't already done this to some extent, but I predict they're going to cast some lines out for other supporters to try to, you know, diversify their support beyond the United States. And that will mean working with China and Russia, which they have, which they have done in the past. You know, when Bibi Netanyahu ran for office in 2019, he had posters of him with Vladimir Putin under the title Another League, as in, I'm in the league with the big boys. Like, like Vladimir Putin when the, the sanctions on Ukraine went on. Israel did not participate in those sanctions against Russia. And Israel once attempted to sell a major part of the Haifa port to a Chinese company, much to the displeasure of the American Navy. So Israel will do what everybody else is going to do, which is to start working on their other relationships.

[B]

One of my continuing quandaries, one of my wonderments, is why hasn't Trump cut Netanyahu in Israel loose? Why not just blame them for everything bad, say that they're the ones who screwed this all up. It was a great idea, and he was just about to bring Iran to heel and have the best deal. And then Netanyahu, who's crazy, did something, and I don't know why not. If you're Donald Trump, why not even just switch sides and be on Iran's side? Be like, you know what? These are great guys. We can deal with them and we're going to do a joint tolling operation. They're going to take half the money. We're going to take half. I mean, he's so amoral and totally transactional. Do you know what I'm saying? Like, it would be wrong because the mullahs are very bad people and evil people.

[A]

That's not even on the table. They wouldn't even accept that deal at this point.

[B]

Maybe that's the problem.

[A]

But in the case of Israel, he doesn't have to because, you know, Vance is already doing it. If anybody wants to take the the Republican Party is not owned by Israel position, they can certainly find plenty of people about whom that's true. And Trump has certainly blasted Bibi over and over again, including just recently saying, well, he's raising the pickaxe mountain thing because he wants me to stay involved, etc. Etc. So I think he's distanced himself enough from Israel, and why lose the people who will be upset if he. If he overtly turns on Israel when the message is being delivered anyway?

[B]

I think he can have it both ways.

[A]

In other words, which, I mean, which is an interesting question. I'm waiting to see whether sort of conservative Jews ever decide that Trump has proved to be an extremely unreliable supporter of Israel. But, you know, each individual is different, as we know.

[B]

Boy, is that true. Last thing before we move on to the big stuff. Lindsey Graham. His funeral was yesterday. I don't want to speak ill of the dead, so I will just try to keep this at a very high level. What are we supposed to make of him and his choices in the end? So I have this New Yorker cartoon that I keep on my wall, and it's a giant squid, and he's working as a sushi chef, and he's like, you know, chopping up stuff and whatnot. And there's a guy at the counter who remarks to somebody else he feels he can do more good working within the system. And there's a world in which Lindsey Graham would say the same thing, right? Like, he'd say, I saved the Kurds, right? Trump was going to abandon the Kurds, and I saved the Kurds for an extra five months or whatever, or I kept Trump from ever really going south on Ukraine. Or I'm the reason that even when Trump was making fun of Zelensky at the White House, the intel community was still sharing intelligence with the Ukrainians, right? And these are real, in the real world, important things which happened because I went MAGA and did all the stuff that you think is crazy and despicable. And I don't know, like, I would like to take that claim semi seriously for a minute and tease it out. I mean, Tim, in Tim's book, he writes about this a lot, right? That there are a lot of people in Republican world and conservative world who came up with these imagined stories in which if they didn't take the job and somebody truly horrible would. And so they were indispensable. But I don't know, like, Graham is a senior United States Senator. He had some real power. Maybe there's some truth to all that. What do you think on all this?

[A]

No, I would say of all the people who have ever claimed that it was better for me to be in than to be out, I would say he has the better argument of it. I mean, I know that all those people who went into the Trump administration who made that claim, it was nonsense. They may have turned him away from doing something at one moment that he was then going to do again later. And most people think that they're so valuable that they're irreplaceable, and that's just not true. In the case of Lindsey Graham, I think it's. It's closer to being true. But, of course, that was not his primary motive here. Right? I mean, that's the. That's the thing. I mean, his motive was not. I'm gonna. I'm gonna debase myself. I'm gonna take a guy that I said was a horror and decide that he's our great leader, and I'm gonna follow him everywhere. All because I'm looking to do the, you know, try to do the right thing. No, this was about getting right with the new movement and making sure that he, you know, he died as a senator. He never wanted to have a life in which he was no longer senator. To him, I almost feel like that was a fate worse than death. And I think that that's true of many of these people. Apparently, having been a senator, having made millions, having become famous, is not sufficient. It is impossible for you to imagine living when you're no longer in the Senate. So I think that was. That was Lindsey Graham. I think his. His, as is often true with people, his whole identity was wrapped up with being a senator, and. And he would do anything that he needed to do to hold onto that job, which is true, I think, of most Republicans. And by the way, this is not that unique. The historian me wants to point out that Henry Cabot Lodge did exactly the same thing when he came out against the League of Nations in 1919, which he had supported for a decade before for that. So welcome to American politics. To some extent, it's just the problem that in this case, it's not just switching policies and switching parties, it's also deciding to support a dictator. That puts a special flavor on it.

[B]

When I look at this, my personal calculus on all this is that actually Lindsey probably did more harm than good.

[A]

Yeah, probably.

[B]

Is this like my Trump derangement syndrome talking? Because, I mean, I look at Lindsay, and I just think there were moments along the way when maybe this movement could have been stopped, and it maybe could have been stopped if guys like Lindsey Graham hadn't switched sides, but maybe not. Maybe that's wishful thinking. I don't like. I don't know. I feel like there is real harm done by every single person who switched sides and threw in with Trump at, you know, especially at the elite level. But is that unfair?

[C]

No.

[A]

I 100% agree. I'm not trying to let him off the hook. You were just asking whether it's possible that he did any good in this.

[B]

Yeah, no, no, I'm just. I'm just asking the other side of my own.

[A]

But weighted against the good he did is the is. Is what you're saying, which is everybody who gave him legitimacy. And then, by the way, that goes to HR McMaster in the first term, too. I mean, it isn't just the Lindsey Grahams of this world. There's all kinds of people, you know, Condi Rice, who, you know, can't be seen saying a negative word about Donald Trump, even as the world order that she claimed to stand for, he is actively destroying. So, you know, I'm afraid Lindsey is in some ways the most colorful, extreme version of something that has just become absolutely normal for every Republican official and former official in the country today.

[B]

Yeah, I think that that's about right. Rest in peace, Lindsey Graham. May your memory be a blessing to all of your friends and family.

[A]

I knew Lindsay pretty well. I mean, I used to, you know, I used to work close pretty closely unofficially with McCain and Lieberman and the whole three amigos thing. And I remember the other Lindsey who was, you know, McCain's buddy. To have known him then and to see him as he was under the Trump administration was really quite a striking, striking thing.

[B]

Okay, so I don't know him. Never met him. Did he change, or was he always that guy? It's just that he was that guy in a different role. This is a real question. I asked this about all of these

[A]

people in our world, and I asked this about all these people, too, because we all had the people that we were running along with in the 80s and 90s, and some of them, I knew, were the wrong kind of people. I mean, I knew Pat Buchanan, even though he was working for the Reagan administration, was not a good guy, but there was a lot of people that I would not have predicted that. That they would go in the direction that they went. And I. You know, one of the great sciences is somehow figuring out why some people did and why some people didn't.

[B]

Let's move on to the big one. Then. Last Thursday, the Trump administration convened an international conference on. I'm going to make sure I get this right, the resurgence of political terrorism, which. Bob, I don't want to spoil my thesis for you, but the Trump administration is responsible for the legitimization of political violence in America and now they are going to fight it. But of course, only left wing political violence. And we have some sound from Secretary of State Little Marco Rubio and then Stephen Miller, who, which I want to play and then just let you cook on.

[D]

They can call themselves anti capitalists or anti imperialists or communists or anarchists or Marxists, but the fundamental character is always the same. It's always the same. It is a poisonous resentment cloaked in the language of equality and justice, liberation, an overwhelming need to tear down what greater men have built to wreck what is beautiful and what is right on behalf of people who are only filled with ugliness and have nothing else to offer the world through violence and through terror.

[C]

Left wing violence as a form of political terrorism that is a direct threat to our national security and the survival of our republican form of government. It's very important to understand that left wing political terrorism seeks as its ultimate end the overthrow of our system and form of government. Left wing terrorism always ends in bloodshed, misery and suffering. Inevitably, left to run its course, it always becomes a gulag. It always becomes the mass imprisonment of political enemies, the stripping of the rights and and freedoms, inflicting immense pain, humiliation, suffering, in order to establish complete and total control, control through psychological and physical and actual terror. It's not a coincidence that when you look at these violent antifa demonstrations, you see any photograph of those who were assembled. To be blunt, not one of the people that has demonstrated looks like a normal person. Not one looks normal. They're all deformed in some way, in their appearance, in their dress, in their mannerism. Every one of them through the course of their life and their decisions has scarred their body and their appearance. You know what normal is, you know what beautiful is, you know what good is.

[B]

Wow. Bob Kagan Historian, STUDENT of the world Talk to me.

[A]

Well, there's a number of things to say. The first is that is the rhetoric of totalitarianism and I've never seen an American utter such talk in that way before. This is what Soviets said about their dissidents, that they're unstable. They sent them to psychiatric wards because just the very fact of being a dissident demonstrated that you were mentally unsound, unfortunately for Marco Rubio and less unfortunately for Stephen Miller. The only people that I've ever heard talk quite that way about the ugliness of these people are Nazis. I mean, a quick search of Goebbels and Hitler will find strikingly similar phrases to these because it's beyond saying we disagree with their ideas. It's basically saying, well, openly Stephen Miller is saying they are deformed human beings. We're now getting to the biological level. And in the case of Hitler, he used this as a way of describing Jews. But they also use this rhetoric to talk about communists and how basically they were sub human or inadequately human and they're not normal. I would just say the fact that the media has barely paid any attention to this rhetoric, I think has something to do with the fact that it seems so outlandish that you can't take it seriously. But we need to take it seriously. This is rhetoric with a purpose. There is intent here, and there are actually actions that are currently being carried out very much consistent with this. I look particularly at two recent cases that have been in the news. One is the man who was asked for his phone at Atlanta airport by, by customs and border patrol. And then he gave them a phone and he gave them a password which wiped his phone. And now he's being charged with a felony. The question is why were they looking for him at all? The fact is CPB was tipped off that he was going to be on this flight, presumably by the airlines, and they, they were after him. Why? He never committed a crime and was never accused of a crime. He simply belonged to the environmental group that protested the cop city development in Georgia. The fact that he was a member of this group, they felt that they could ask for his phone which would open up all, you know, giving somebody your phone is giving them your entire private life. And so they are going after the left. And we had those judges in that case in Texas where there was a demonstration where a policeman got shot, but other people who had nothing to do with the shooting been given 30 and 60 years simply in one case for moving some left wing magazines out of the house. And as we look forward to the election, if it is going to be the case that protests can be characterized as left wing protests and therefore bordering, if not actually in matters of terrorism, will that not be the pretext that the administration will use to go after legitimate protesters who would be protesting against the stealing of our or the, or the nullification of our elections? I mean, these are all the predicates necessary to begin an assault. We're not even talking about immigrants anymore. We're talking about the left, by which they mean, by the way, the Democratic Party, they might say that they mean dsa, but of course DSA from their point of view is the Democratic Party. So this really is an assault on any opposition. And as I say it is. The totalitarian nature of this language is what people should be focusing on.

[B]

Couple quotes, so people don't think you're exaggerating. Here is the original Goebbels. Bolshevism is not the doctrine of the working class. It is the revolt of the envious, the embittered, and the failed against everything healthy. I mean, Rubio could have said that.

[A]

Rubio did say that. By the way. Did you notice that Rubio was reading from a script? Somebody wrote that for him. Whereas Stephen Miller was just being his usual.

[B]

He was just laying, just flowing. Here's the original Hitler. The uglier the outward appearance of these people, the more clever they become at hiding their thoughts. I mean, I'm sorry, like, not all that far from Stephen Miller. I mean, I don't know, like Trump has talked about people poisoning the blood, people with bad genes, the way the Kennedys talk about, like the dysgenic types and the people with autism who are hard to look at. I'm sorry, but the parallels are really terrifying and you gotta willfully look away from them to not see what's going on here.

[A]

By the way, this is our Secretary of State using this totalitarian rhetoric.

[B]

Okay, what's he dealing with domestic politics for what indeed?

[A]

And I think that people have been sort of treating Marco Rubio like he is the sane person and maybe we could even support him kind of because he's more of an establishment type. Marco Rubio has done and said some of the most terrible things that this administration has done, including his authorization of deportations of undesirables very early on in his term. And so I think people ought to pay attention to when the Secretary of State is basically saying that we faced left wing terrorism from people who are ugly and not normal and not beautiful, et cetera.

[B]

So here's where I'm going to try to go to the dark place. Come to the bad place with me, Bob. It is true that we have seen a resurgence in political violence in America over the last 10 years. Some of it has come from the left. I look at the United Healthcare shooting. That's the sort of thing where when you see that guy, just a guy getting guns down on the street for vaguely political reasons or killing him. Charlie Kirk, Things are going off the rails now. This is not new in American history. We had a lot of political violence in the 60s and 70s, go back through the Jim Crow era. That's all political violence. Basically. We had a civil war. The buildup to civil war was incredible, of political violence, bloody Kansas, et cetera, et cetera. But it's new for us, right? Like it's, it's new for the modern political world that most of us have lived our entire lives in. And what brought this about was Donald Trump. So Donald Trump was the guy who brought political violence back by sanctioning it. And here's what I want to run past you. So my, my, my colleague Sarah Longwell and I have this long running debate over Republican voters and what it was about Trump that attracted them. And my thesis is that for them, the violence that Trump promised was the special sauce. It wasn't the thing they overlooked, it was the thing that they liked about him. And the reason I say this is because Rick Santorum runs as a populist conservative insurgent in 2012, gets reasonably close to beating Mitt Romney. Not like super close, but he finishes second in the primaries. Trump is so enamored with Santorum that he summons him to Trump Tower, talks about him, talks about his book with him, really thinks that Santorum is onto something. What is the difference between Donald Trump and Rick Santorum in their initial presidential campaigns? I mean, there are a lot of them, but one of them is that at many of his political rallies, Donald Trump is expressly condoning political violence. I mean, there are. You just look at the super cuts on YouTube of this with him saying, knock that guy out, beat the crap out of them. You know, we gotta rough him up. Don't worry, I'll pay for your legal bills. This was new in American political life to have a guy who is a mainstream presidential candidate for one of the two major parties out there, not in a one time thing, but over and over, egging people on and celebrating political violence and calling for it. Then once he's elected president, talking and trying to alibi the people at the Charlottesville rally where Heather Heyer was killed. And then when he loses the election, he summons a Mob to Washington, D.C. we know from all the testimony from the January 6th committee, he's giving his speech and he knows before the speech that there are armed people because the Secret Service tells him, like, there are people out there with weapons. And he's like, don't worry about it. They're not here for me. And he then directs these people to march on the Capitol to take their country back with strength, et cetera, et cetera. Like, this is the secret sauce, isn't it? Donald Trump offered Republican voters something that no politician had ever offered before. And what he offered them was political violence. And my thesis is that that is what a critical mass of them responded to. Not all Republicans, not all Republican voters. But for some significant percentage, the political violence, the sanctioning of it, became the thing that excited them, inactivated them, and not the thing that they had to look past because they wanted a tax cut.

[A]

I mean, the only thing I would say is it's a little bit of a more narrow interpretation I would make. Where I am in fundamental agreement with you is that whatever the Trump movement is about, it's not about economics. I understand that people get upset when their inflation is higher, when inflation is not high. But that is not why people have come to Trump. And of course, Trump hasn't even attempted to try to solve their problem anyway, and they don't care. They came for the white supremacy, I would say, and in many cases, the male supremacy, because I think that also was why Trump picked up more black and Hispanic votes. I think they were overwhelmingly male, and it was the whole response to MeToo, et cetera, et cetera. But it is basically, to put a technical term on it, bigotry that he was selling and that they were liking. And. And as. And as you've said a hundred times, which is true, it was really because his enemies were their enemies. They knew that he would go after their enemies and do whatever. One part of which I agree with you was, in some cases, people who were enthusiastic about the idea of political violence. But the big picture is the one that I think that the Democratic Party has been missing. Now, I don't like to tell parties what works politically, because usually politicians know better than I do. But since the Democratic Party is not doing very well anyway, they've been operating on the assumption that this is. That this is bread and butter, kitchen table issues, when in fact, it is actually about race, religion, et cetera. Now, there is a problem in that, which is that you can't triangulate that. You know what I mean? Well, you shouldn't triangulate it. And I sometimes fear that a Democratic Party does triangulate that a little bit, that they are trying to not offend the white supremacists out there so that they have a chance at getting their vote. So if what I'm saying is true, and what you believe is true, there's no easy answer for the Democratic Party. They have represented the rights of minorities. They are the party that represents the rights of minorities. Are they going to change that? You know, so I agree with you fundamentally, that what Trump's voters are in it for is what he's going to do to the people they hate.

[B]

Yeah. And one of the less appreciated aspects of political violence, I think, is in history shows this. God, you just look at Europe in the 30s, right. Once. Once it starts, you can't control it. Right. It becomes a wildfire. And, you know, you get Luigi Mangiones, Right. You. I mean, you know, once. Once political violence is in the water, it. It just breaks containment, and that's how you wind up in a really bad place.

[A]

I mean, the historian in me does want to say we've had plenty of political violence in our time. What the Palmer Raids were in response to after war was a series of. Of actual bombings. You know, so I. I don't want to. I don't want to go too far with political violence being new in the United States. I mean, in some respects, there may be more political violence in the United States than in your average democracy for all kinds of reasons. But that's why I think the bigger picture is, what is this dispute all about? And what it is ultimately about is a Declaration of Independence. And I think, again, I just feel like the big picture of this is being missed, which is this is an assault not so much on the Constitution, but on the Declaration. The Trump movement is an assault on the Declaration of Independence and its principles, and they have gone back to what many conservatives have felt since the dawn of the Republic, which is the Declaration of Independence, was wrong and it was a mistake. And if you look at that, and you know this perfectly well, if you look at the intellectual sort of leaders of the Trump movement, whether it's Patrick Deneen or Adrian Vermele or Russell Vaught and Stephen Miller, it is very much an assault on the principle of universal equality.

[B]

Yeah, that's pretty clear. All right, Bob, thank you for joining me. I'm so grateful, and thanks to you guys out there for listening to me. Sit in for Tim Woke. Bill Kristol will be back in the big chair tomorrow. Good luck, America. You fascist found to lose.

[A]

All you fascists bound to lose. All you fascists bound to lose. The Bork podcast is brought to you thanks to the work of lead producer Katie Cooper, associate producer Ansley Skipper, and with video editing by Katie Lutz and audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.