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- [00:00]
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- [01:13]
Tim Miller
Hello and welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. Delighted to be with you from Minneapolis this morning. We are going to get to our guest here in a minute, but just wanted to talk to you a bit about our last couple days. We had two amazing live shows. We had a bunch of special guests. Governor Tim Walls, Tina Smith, you heard her yesterday. Minnesota Angry man came out on the Thursday night show and Sam interviewed Superintendent Zena Stenvic and that one was gutting hearing what these goons have been doing at schools around Minnesota. We're going to be releasing that and the Next Level podcast that we did a big super siiz Next Level with Sam Stein last night did some audience Q and A. You're going to be able to see all that. Just make sure you're subscribed us over on YouTube. Subscribe to the Borg Takes feed, the Next Level feed. You know, over the weekend we'll be kind of rolling out elements from the shows. It was truly inspiring to be there with everybody from Minnesota and appreciated so much, just their energy and enthusiasm and love and their stories, like hearing what they've been doing in their communities. Volunteering. Before the shows, we had the opportunity to go out to the Whipple Building and talk to protesters out there and then to the pretty and good memorials. And my biggest takeaway about kind of what's happening on the ground here that's different than maybe what I Expected talking to folks at the Whipple Building, where, which is basically ICE headquarters building up here, is that there's still a ton of activity, like a ton of cars coming in and out of there, a ton of ICE and CBP agents, a lot of people getting released who had been detained either inside Whipple or at Whipple and then sent to Texas and then brought back. And like one protester, I thought this was a relevant anecdote. She lived about 40 minutes away in Wisconsin in kind of a whatever ex urban ish community that's more spread out, more sparse. And so they had, you know, 10 ICBP agents in her community in the last week. And we're hearing that from a lot of people up here that, you know, maybe what Homan is doing and what the strategy is is to move some of these agents outside of, you know, the areas where, you know, there's organized resistance already in Minneapolis, St. Paul, and instead push it out into areas that are less dense, where, you know, maybe there's less groups already together of constitutional watchers. And so that's something I think we should keep monitoring. They have funding for all these guys. They're not just going to sit around eating donuts, put their thumb up their ass, all right? They're going to be out there doing something. And signs now are pointing to these agents using kind of different tactics, maybe not quite as aggressive tactics against the protesters, but different types of tactics to go abduct immigrants and that they're doing it more outside of the main cities. So we'll keep monitoring that. I thought that was a somewhat dispiriting update, but, you know, it was on the other hand, like, pretty inspiring to see these people out there. Like the woman I was talking to from Wisconsin's like, I'm out here every day, three hours, driving in 45 minutes. It's cold as balls, let me tell you. My feet were freezing. You know, I didn't really pack for the weather. I forgot my coat. Luckily I got a $9 one thanks to JVL at the department store. But it's amazing what folks are out there doing. We went then to the Preddy Memorial and the good and Pretty memorial, and it was really tough. I had a tough time with it. And, you know, the Preddy one in particular, I think maybe just because I've seen the video so many times, it was just very easy to visualize, like, standing there, like my subconscious knew all the sign posts, having watched the video so much. And so I was like, visualizing them executing him in the street walking through and just getting very mad and emotional and had to walk away for a little bit. When I walked back, I took to this guy Jeff, who was there, who's been going there most days, help protect and clean up the memorial and just be a watcher, be a helper out there. And he said to me that he was doing it in the spirit of what Lincoln said in the Gettysburg Address. And because I'm not Bill Kristol or Sarah, Sarah demonstrated yesterday to me that she has the Gettysburg Address memorized, so shout out to them. But I was like, I don't have it memorized, and I know the first sentence, but I wasn't exactly sure what he's talking about. But we kept. Kept chatting and, you know, just like I was chatting with a bunch of people there and just about their experiences, what they're seeing. And I went back to the hotel room and pulled it up, and I saw the section that he's talking about in the Gettysburg Address, and I just. I do want to read it because I think that it kind of summarizes what we are trying to do here in Minnesota. It goes like this. We cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hollow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here have consecrated far above our poor, power to add or detract. It is for us, the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. And that unfinished work is what Jeff was talking about. You know, there's only so much you can do to memorialize and consecrate the ground where these guys assassinated our fellow citizen for doing nothing, for trying to help someone, for exercising the rights of the first and Second Amendment that are enshrined in our Constitution. You know, we can remember and honor, but what it's really our job to do is to continue the unfinished work. And I struggle with that. You know, it's just like we're not actually in the Civil War, right? A lot of elements of it. And JVL was talking about how some of the parallels to the Underground Railroad that we see with the people that we were talking to, like Haven Watch, for example, this group that waits outside the Whipple Building and then helps people, clothes them, feeds them, and helps find them shelter, get them back to their family after they've been detained, it's those types of things is what we're able to do, right? I'm not suiting up to go into battle, but we are in a battle against a Authoritarian government that is. That is, you know, trying to entrench power and trying to assault people's rights. And if what we can do at the Bulwark is just shine a light on it, draw attention to it, help people not get beaten down completely by it, help do so in a way that maybe persuades people or draws people in. You know, I joked last night, I was like, I guess if my role is to make fingering jokes on YouTube, I guess I will do that. I wish I could do more than that, but that is what we got to do here. You know, I think that it would be an affront to the memory of Alex and Rene and the other people if we just kind of turned the page on this thing. And I think that is like, the main change in my perspective having been here, is I was very much looking at this through a political perspective where I do think that the resistance, so to speak, won in Minnesota. And I still feel that way from, like, a political standpoint. But the broader battle is still here in Minnesota, and it's still most acutely, but it's still everywhere around the country. And, you know, we need to make sure that we are vigilant in that because the national news is going to move on to whatever the next story is, and the battle is still ongoing here. All right, everybody, that's all I got for you from Minnesota. Want to go now to our guest, one of our faves. He's a reporter at the Insider. He's also on Substack at the Foreign Office. It's Michael Weiss and his birdies. How you doing, Michael?
- [09:28]
Michael Weiss
No birdies today, my friend. They're all quiet. Not dead, just. There's the blankets over them, so they go to sleep, which I wish I could do that with my child, but doesn't work.
- [09:39]
Tim Miller
Yeah, I wish we could do that with Trump, but unfortunately, you can't just put a blanket over him. We got a bunch to get to. We scheduled this. This is the fourth anniversary of the Russia war in Ukraine. And so we will get to that eventually. But we've got a bunch of news just like literally right now as we're taping, we have breaking news out of the Supreme Court. It's a six to three ruling. They have said that the Trump emergency tariffs are unconstitutional. The three dissents are Thomas Alito and Kavanaugh. And just a massive blow to him at the Supreme Court. The biggest blow of this second term, potentially. They're doing him a favor on the economic side of things because, you know, the tariffs weren't weren't doing this economy any good. But it'll be interesting to see, like, how he reacts, his temper tantrum. But I also think there's some geopolitical potential positive fallout here. As you know, his favorite tool for punishing foreign prime ministers who are mean to him at a meeting now seems to be out of his toolbox.
- [10:42]
Michael Weiss
Yeah. Although he was also using the tariff tool to punish enemies or perceived enemies of the United States. I mean, one of the things that was interesting about the Graham Blumenthal bill, which is basically dead in Congress to know, impose secondary sanctions for countries that import Russian oil and gas, petroleum products, and so on, a lot of Democrats didn't like it because it was. It was basically tariffs. Right. Instead of actually just sanctioning institutions and. And entities in the Russian Federation. So it kind of cuts both ways. I mean, for some reason, Trump alighted upon tariffs as his preferred lever for, you know, economically battering friends and foes. And now, I guess he can't do it or he can't do it as much. I don't know.
- [11:31]
Tim Miller
So we'll have much more on this over the weekend and on Monday. I don't know my initial reaction, I have, like, you know, I have my good wolf and my bad wolf inside of me, and the bad wolf kind of like, wants to let him fuck everything up. I don't know. I feel like in the first term, there were a lot of bumpers around Donald Trump's worst impulses. And we're kind of here right now because people didn't feel the requisite pain from his chaos and his misguided ideology. And I kind of feel like we're doing that again. On the other hand, I mean, there were Americans who didn't do anything wrong who were being punished by this, particularly people in industries. I was talking to some small business owners, like, for example, who the tariffs crushed their business, and so it's nice for them that they're no longer victims of Donald Trump. So I don't know. That's where my Fifi's are right now.
- [12:24]
Michael Weiss
Yeah, I mean, first they came for the soybean farmers, and I wasn't a soybean farmer, but I still voted for Trump. And then they came for the Epstein files, and now I'm very angry about that. And now, I mean, his coalition is splintering and fracturing over a myriad of issues, including now possible war with Iran, which, you remember, this guy campaigned and they were chanting at his rallies, no more wars. And he just seems to be starting wars. All the livelong day. And, you know, I mean, declassifying things to distract us from real problems in this country. Like, you know, this season is the X Files in America. Like we're doing aliens and UFOs because Barack Obama made some stray remarks that's going to be the new bright, shiny object, so to speak, to be chasing in the night sky. I mean, yeah, he's kind of all over the place and his approval rating is what, in the 30s? Which, you know, that's, that's not how you make America great again, Tim.
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Tim Miller
No, it isn't, Michael.
- [13:31]
Michael Weiss
Those are some George W. Bush numbers right there.
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Tim Miller
Okay. All right. You know, you don't have to, you don't have to twist the knife,
- [13:39]
Michael Weiss
but
- [13:40]
Tim Miller
everybody wanted to talk to you about function Health. You can't manage your heart health if you're missing half the info. Standard tests check the basics, but they skip over key markers that could change everything. It's National Heart Month and I've been thinking more about my heart health since I got some issues in my family history. And what surprised me was how much I might not actually know. So we've turned to function to get the tests and learn a bunch more. Make sure I'm doing good. Make sure that heart's beaten. I got an eight year old, you know. Function Health is designed by world class physicians and trusted by hundreds of thousands of members. It's something that I was super excited when they came to sponsor us and looking forward to, to seeing the test results. Fingers crossed. Own your own health and start with your heart function. Gives you access to 160 plus lab tests each year including advanced markers for heart health, inflammation, stress, hormones and toxins for 365 bucks a year. That's just $1 a day. Learn more and join using my link www.functionhealth.com the Bulwark and use gift code the Bulwark25 for a 25 buck. Credit towards your membership. Let's talk about Iran for a second. And there's just a bunch of stuff I want to talk to you about. We have the Board of Peace and Ukraine, but I would like to hear your assessment, you know, of we're bringing a lot of firepower into the region, what the strategy is, what you know, all of kind of the insider side of this. But before we get to that, I'm just, I don't understand why we're doing this. Like the people who are for the, the US getting more entrenched in Israel's war with Iran. Why? What is their rationale? Because it Makes no sense politically. It's not a severe national security threat to the country. So why are we doing it?
- [15:17]
Michael Weiss
I wouldn't overthink it. I think it's sort of bound up with Donald Trump's own psychology and his own sense of his importance on the world stage. Right. I mean, the economy is doing poorly probably. This is his last term. We haven't heard much about him being president for life in quite a while. So for him, what's his legacy? He didn't get the Nobel Peace Prize, which he wanted badly because Barack Obama got it. He solved 8, 9, 10, 12 wars, except Ukraine, but that's, that's imminent any day now. That's going to be resolved if he can claim that he delivered the hammer blow to the Islamic Republic of Iran, whether by assassinating the Supreme Leader or taking out the upper echelon of the irgc or we already obliterated the nuclear program, so I guess he could re obliterate it. Or, you know, more significantly than that actually would be destroying the missile capabilities of Iran. One of the reasons it's taken weeks and months to assemble the assets in place in the Gulf is to withstand the retaliation that would come in the form of short and mid range ballistic missiles, which the Iranians have in excess. Right. But for him, remember, Tim, this is not a guy who, who likes war, properly speaking. He likes acts of war. He likes the spectacle of war, saying that he's dropped massive bombs and ordinance on something and then declaring victory. So why is he doing this? I think for the sake of doing it and saying that he's resolved a crisis, he's resolved a regional and international security threat that no president since Jimmy Carter has been able to resolve. And even though that won't be true, unlike Venezuela, you don't do regime decapitation in Iran and expect to make all kinds of fun deals with whoever remains. The IRGC in many respects is the more hard line entity in the government. But he seems to think that there's something in place that he can do and God knows what the intelligence community is feeding him on this. Who is the Delsey Rodriguez? Everyone.
- [17:24]
Tim Miller
What's the state of play? What do we think that the.
- [17:28]
Michael Weiss
Yeah, everything I'm hearing is that he is going to do it. I mean, assembling all your sort of pieces in place, that has its own momentum. And after a while, I mean, it's costing taxpayer money to keep now two aircraft carrier strike groups in the region to put all of these assets in place. I mean, people I know in the air force have been deployed and told you may be gone for as long as three to six months. Is this going to be a one and done kind of bombardment campaign or is it going to be a weeks long campaign? I don't know. But you know, you mentioned the Israelis. They're very gung ho for Trump to get involved in this because for them it is a much more immediate security threat. For them to have the current Iranian regime in place October 7th has changed their calculation across the board, which is why they not only went after Hamas and Gaza, but eviscerated Hezbollah in Lebanon, accidentally toppled Bashar Al Assad, even though there's some buyer's remorse there. So for them, this is just taking care of all family business. And the way they see it is they're never going to get a better guy in the White House than Donald Trump to go along with it.
- [18:36]
Tim Miller
So that's for sure.
- [18:37]
Michael Weiss
I think it's coming, that's for sure.
- [18:39]
Tim Miller
It's hard to even imagine anyone on the horizon who would be willing to go along with this. So it's coming, right?
- [18:44]
Michael Weiss
Just as one little final point there, I think the one thing that has dragged this out, you know, members of the Trump family, including Trump himself, I guess it all devolves to the king at some point. But Kushner and Witkoff, his two plenipotentiaries, special advisors or envoys, they've got a lot of money tied up in the region. I mean, they've made a fortune going around resolving these regional crises, assembling the peace board. Kushner with the largest leverage buyout in history done with the Saudis to purchase video game giant the Wit coughs getting money, $2 billion for World Liberty Financial, whatever it's called, which Trump also is involved in from the Emiratis. So they don't want war in Iran because all of the Gulf paymasters that have financed their operations don't want war in Iran. But I think the contradiction here is the Iranians are not willing to do what Donald Trump says. Forfeiture nuclear program, give up your missile program and then eliminate all of the proxy groups or your patronage of all of the proxies you spent the better part of 30 years assembling throughout the region. So hence a kinetic conclusion to this.
- [19:57]
Tim Miller
Well, and if the Iranian regime is toppled and replaced by a freedom loving democracy in the Middle east, then the Trump Witkoff Hotel casino and resort and Gaza will be a lot safer and potentially, who knows, they could maybe build
- [20:12]
Michael Weiss
one in Tehran, the one in Gaza. I mean, if you look at the deck or the slideshow that Jared put together, I mean, this goes beyond, like, Dubai and Palm Jumeirah. This is like Coruscant, the imperial capital of Star Wars. Most volatile piece of real estate in the Middle east, which is saying a lot because it's the Middle east. And this dude is going to build, like, gleaming Sci Fi skyscrapers, beachfront property, and it all looks beautiful and peaceful. Everybody's out getting a nice tan, getting
- [20:42]
Tim Miller
their shawarma on, Halal trucks, Speedos.
- [20:45]
Michael Weiss
I mean, it's great. You know, it's. Hey, they played November Rain at the opening of the Board of Peace. What could possibly go wrong? Tim? A Guns N Roses ballad about loss and heartache where in the music video, the bride dies at her own fucking wedding. That's their Board of Peace anthem. I mean, this is just. Everything's coming up rose this year. Come on, don't be such a Debbie Downer.
- [21:07]
Tim Miller
Yeah. I have a few more questions for you about Iran before we dive into the Board of Peace. Does anyone actually think it's possible for the regime to be toppled without boots on the ground? Is that even a plausible outcome here? That's, I think, what they're trying to do. Right?
- [21:26]
Michael Weiss
Well, but, no, I don't think that's what they're trying to do. I think the only thing that's on offer is find assets inside the regime that they can work with that they find amenable. So it's the Venezuela playbook all over again. Who is the Delsey Rodriguez in Iran? And I don't have an answer for you, because every Iran expert I talked to says, again, the irgc, these are the ultras, these are the hardliners. So if you eliminate the clerics, these are the guys who stand to inherit the throne, and they don't want to play nicely with the United States. For them, the proxies and all of the things that are now being litigated, that was their power projection project for a quarter century. So I don't have an answer for you because I don't see how you do this. I don't see how you do it in the utopian sense of topple the regime and then a democratic transition that's not in the offing. And I also don't see how you do it with regime preservation plus decapitation. Assassinate key leadership, and then, you know, it's. Look, everything that this guy does, it's. It's like the south park episode with the underwear gnomes. You know, steal the underwear is step one. Step three is profits, but step two is a question mark. Like nobody has step two for anything, Anything. I mean, so I. Your guess is as good as mine. Maybe the Israelis have something, a card up their sleeve. Maybe they've recruited someone.
- [22:48]
Tim Miller
That's what I was just going to say. The Israelis aren't stupid.
- [22:51]
Michael Weiss
No.
- [22:51]
Tim Miller
What do they want then? What are they just trying to get? You know, try to eliminate that, decapitate the missiles and make some progress on weakening them.
- [22:58]
Michael Weiss
They're not interested in democracy and human rights in Iran. I mean, they're, you know, Moshe Dayan put it best. I think he said, Israel doesn't have a foreign policy, it has a defense policy. Right. And that. That's pretty much persisted, I think, for many decades. For them, all that would matter would be Iran no longer poses a threat to Israel's existence or to its security, whether through missiles, a nuclear weapon in the future, or again, these proxies and militias that have been assembled. This is the sort of the long tail of the post October 7th era in the region. For them, this is still, you know, this is perhaps the last and final conflict to settle all accounts. And for them, the window of opportunity is again, it's narrowing. Donald Trump is the only guy who would go to war alongside Israel in Iran, full stop. So by hook or by crook, they need to get this done. That's how they see it,
- [23:54]
Tim Miller
y'.
- [23:55]
Michael Weiss
All.
- [23:55]
Tim Miller
I am in Minnesota and my skin is chapped. My lips are chapped. I'm feeling dry and clammy. It's uninhabitable. But what makes it a little bit better is my friends at One Skin with One Skin. You know, when I'm up here in this cold winter, I was using all of it, all right, the face, the lip, the body moisturizer. I was double coating, and hopefully I'm looking better because of it. My skin's definitely feeling better. At the core of all their products is their patented OS1 peptide, the first ingredient proven to target senescent cells, a key driver of wrinkles, fine lines, and loss of elasticity, all signs of aging. And these results have been validated in four different peer reviewed clinical studies. All of Oneskin's products are designed to layer seamlessly and replace multiple steps in your routine, making skin health easier and smarter at every age. Born from over a decade of longevity research, OneSkin's OS1 peptide is proven to target the visible signs of aging, helping you unlock your healthiest skin now and as you age, for a limited time, try OneSkin with 15% off using code bulwark at OneSkin co. Bulwark, that's 15% off. OneSkin co with Code Bulwark. After you purchase, they'll ask you where you heard about them. Please support our show and tell them we sent you. The FT had an interesting piece this morning that was talking about the Iranian perspective. And their assessment was that people inside the regime now think that war is actually better than a deal because they think that they can exhaust the US to the point that it totally abandons any pursuit of future aggression. And that the last time it was Donald Trump that wanted the ceasefire after the bombing and that maybe the unrest in the country feels like a bank shot to me, but this is just what. I'm not saying this is logical, but this is what they're thinking. Maybe the unrest in the country would be tamped down because there would be a new enemy, the great American devil to focus on, rather than the ways in which they're fucking up their own citizens. That's apparently what the FT was reporting. What do you think about that? Is that possible that that's what they're thinking?
- [26:09]
Michael Weiss
I mean, that sounds like the sort of hubris of a sclerotic regime that realizes that it's not long for this world, come what may. I mean, the protest movement that was suppressed rather brutally by this regime really demonstrated the extent to which there is just utter contempt for the mullahs, there is utter contempt for the irgc, for the Basij at the popular level in Iran. So there's a lot of human capital. And, you know, it's true, we have done things like we smuggled in Starlink communication devices so that the protesters could record what was happening. Again, there's a war and a COVID side of things that we simply don't know because it is covert. Right, and will only come to light later on. Maybe people have been recruited, maybe people, you know, inside the regime are making discreet, you know, outreach to the west and to the Israelis or whomever. You know, the other thing I would just caution is I just read a very long deep dive bit of reporting in the Guardian by Shawn Walker about the lead up to the full scale invasion of Ukraine. How the US and the UK knew that the war was coming and got that absolutely right, but then completely cocked up how the war was going to go. And why did they cock it up? Because they took the Russian military's estimation of itself at face value. We are a bright, shiny army that has been completely rehabilitated and reformed and there is not a chance in health that this little country called Ukraine can put up a fight. Kyiv in three, and then we're at the border with Poland in two weeks. And that just proved to be utterly, catastrophically wrong. Right. So I'm very, very leery of taking what a regime, a dictatorship, totalitarian dictatorship, says at face value. Right. Like they might believe their own propaganda, but we shouldn't. So is it the case that a confrontation with them would be kind of, you know, the. The death knell of American military? No, it probably isn't. We would probably wipe the floor with them. But again, it's not about how much fire and fury can be rained down on Iran. It's about what happens next. How do you stop the regime from doing the sorts of things that brought you to this point in the first place? And I do not have an answer for that, because I have been given no answer for that. I have not seen anything credible. And maybe it's out there. That's not to say that there aren't these elaborate plans being cooked up, but I don't know what they are. I'd be remiss to try and guess.
- [28:32]
Tim Miller
Speaking of totalitarian regimes, I want to take us back to the Board of Peace, which met Yesterday, was basically Dr. Evil's inner circle of henchmen with Donald Trump and Jared and Susie. I don't really understand what they're doing with that either. Sarah Longwell thinks that it's Donald Trump's gold jacket, it's his exit plan, like that he doesn't want to be president for life, and he can go be chairman of the Board of Peace and feel like he's the head of the world. It is, and I think too obvious probably to say that it's a bit ironic that, you know, we. The war drums are banging for Iran while the Board of Peace is meeting, and the members of the Board of Peace are like, you know, dictator Bonesaw in Saudi Arabia and the head of Belarus and Uzbekistan, like it's. It's the worst totalitarian leaders in the world besides Iran. Like Iran and North Korea are the only ones that weren't invited to the table. It seems like everyone is giving a billion. The US said that they're giving 10 billion to this board. Maybe the idea is that they're going to try to bribe everybody. Maybe they're bribing the Iranians. Maybe that's the plan for the Board of Peace that, you know, if everybody throws in a Billy, just corrupt crypto deals for everybody, and we're going to keep the world safe by paying people off like kind of a gang racket or is there something else happening?
- [29:56]
Michael Weiss
No, I think, you know, it's, it's the ornamentalism of saying we've assembled this collection of nations that are all committed to ensuring that Gaza doesn't devolve into some, you know, Islamist hellhole and that, you know, IDF soldiers don't go in there and start shooting people up again. I mean, the problem with this is it's contingent upon other Middle Eastern countries deploying troops to secure Gaza. And guess what? Other Middle Eastern countries do not want to do that because the last thing the Arabs or the Turks want to do is get into a shooting war with Palestinians.
- [30:33]
Tim Miller
Right, I've been wondering that. So they also talked about there's going to be a military base. That's one of the things the Board of Peace is doing, is putting this military base in Gaza. And I'm like, who is in the base? Who are the humans? Is it just an AI robot base? Because I don't know who's going to want to be there.
- [30:47]
Michael Weiss
The only one who seems to credit this in journalistic circles is Barack Ravid, because he's just spoon fed heaping piles of horseshit by Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner. I have to credit Steve Witkoff in one respect. I mean, Barack Ravid was a. He worked in signals intelligence in Israel. And usually you think Israeli spies are good at recruiting Americans, but here's a case of an American and real estate developer from the Bronx who seems to have recruited an Israeli spy. Nobody I know thinks this has a chance of working like nobody I know. Mark Palmeiropoulos, who worked the Middle east for decades in CIA, just thinks this thing is a joke, right? It's all pageantry. It's declaring victory. Mission accomplished. Here's the Board of Peace. Gaza's all sorted. No, don't worry about it. It'll take care of itself. There aren't going to be Islamic jihadists, there aren't going to be Hamas snakes. There's not going to be another October 7th style attack. And it's true that the Israelis, I'm sure, are now putting in place better security protocols and have a much more capable intelligence apparatus to ensure that that's not going to happen. But the idea that this strip of territory is going to be built into something approaching what the UAE is or what Saudi Arabia is, I just think is utter fantasy. And it's true that there is some Palestinian enfranchisement baked into this proposal, this peace plan, but that presupposes that the Israelis are going to be on board for that. And when has Benjamin Netanyahu ever been on board with Palestinian statehood? And again, I've said this before on your show, we like to pretend that the Israeli government led by Netanyahu is the one that's completely against the idea of living side by side and coexistence. No, but I think since October 7, the Israeli electorate as a whole has been very coarsened and turned against the idea of sharing the neighborhood with Palestinians because they think October 7th would just happen again. So there are so many questions and coefficients here that nobody has answers to, but on paper it all looks very nice, doesn't it? You got Aliyah from Azerbaijan, you've got Lukashenko from Belarus in there. Putin was invited, although he's otherwise indisposed. Got other things to do, couldn't make it to the border. Peace, like, yeah, it's this great assemblage of world leaders. And yet I come back to the underwear knows profits. But what step two? I don't know.
- [33:23]
Tim Miller
I don't know. I don't know if anyone has caught a harder stray on this podcast ever than Barack Ravid did during that rant. That was glorious.
- [33:31]
Michael Weiss
Well, he's done this on Ukraine too. The Khadil Dmitry of 28 Point Plan. We had a copy of it at the Insider six months ago. I mean, a rough draft, but basically the same thing. And then it's leaked to Axios as this co authored thing by Witkoff and Kushner in Miami. I mean, no, no. I mean, this was a Russian info op and it was laundered through a guy who seems to really take a shine to Steve Witkoff and is one of the only few people I know in either media or policy circles who does. I mean, everyone else thinks Witkoff is a bumbling moron, but no, Barack Reid. I mean, that's his guy. So, I mean, look, more power to him. He's got a source, you know, it's just a source. I think that's leading him wildly astray on many, many things.
- [34:22]
Tim Miller
All right, raise your hand if you've been putting off a dental cleaning, an annual checkup, or any kind of doctor's appointment. Yeah, that's me. I'm not going to. Not going to out some of my family members who are really struggling on this front. And it's time to get those teeth checked. That's all I'm going to say. One way to fix this and just make this as easy and painless as possible is with our friends at zocdoc. Zocdoc is a free app and website that helps you find a book high quality in network doctors so you can find someone you love. We're talking about booking in network appointments with more than 150,000 providers across all 50 states. Whether you're looking for dermatology, dentistry, primary care, eye care, one of the other 200 plus specialties offered on Zocdoc, you can easily search by specialty or symptom to build the care team that's right for you. If you want to see your doctor in person, great. But if you want a video visit, you can do that too. Appointments made through Zocdoc happen fast, typically within just 24 to 72 hours of booking. You can even score some same day appointments. You know, look, if you're a procrastinator like me, this is something that I'm going to need and I'm excited to turn to Zocdoc also because it's just such a great name and I like saying it. Zocdoc. Zocdoc. Stop putting off those doctor's appointments. Go to ZOC to find and instantly book a doctor you love today. That's z o cdoc.com the Bulwark zocdoc.com the Bulwark thanks to Zocdoc for sponsoring this message. Not present at the Board of Peace meeting was most of our democratic allies and our friends in Europe. So this comes on the heels of Marco's Munich trip. And just I want to get into the kind of Marco's trip to Hungary and Slovakia because I haven't talked about that as much as this speech. But if you're in the European, somewhere in the EU security state and you're watching Marco's performance in Munich and you're watching this Board of Peace meeting and you're watching the, you know, the, the gathering of military equipment around Iran. Like, what are they thinking right now? Like, and they can't totally decouple from the United States right now. Like, how are they navigating all this?
- [36:26]
Michael Weiss
I mean, look, you know, our allies exist to be bullied and hectored and wrangled into submission. This has been the kind of the guiding force of Trump's term too. Our enemies exist to be courted and cultivated and perhaps incentivized to becoming our new friends. Right? So, you know, there's this whole thing with the UK which refuses to allow its air bases to be used for any kind of war in Iran, Donald Trump tweets or truth socials wildly about that. And he was in favor of the handover of Chagos. Now, he's not. I think everyone is quite aware that they carry no weight with Trump in terms of trying to persuade him to do something that he has otherwise set his mind on doing. And everyone treads very, very lightly. Right? There's a lot of hatred, and understandable in one sense, but I think also a little unfair in another toward the Secretary General of NATO, Marc Rutte. You have to understand, Mark, Ruth's background is in hr. My wife's background is in hr. And from an HR perspective, which is a line I hear very often in my household, what Margaret is trying to do. What Margaret is trying to do, his job is to keep NATO alive together. Right? And he's, he's bending the knee. He's talking about daddy. He's, he's flattering and cajoling Trump as best he can because in the next three years, there is a credible risk with Donald Trump as president that NATO would cease to exist. In all but name Article 5 could be tested by the Russians or by other actors. And if collective defense doesn't work because the United States refuses to, to send troops, that's the end of NATO. Right. And I think this is a perspective that for the last year has obtained among a lot of European leadership. It's beginning to change now because Donald Trump has already essentially torn up, you know, the NATO charter by threatening to go to war with a NATO ally over sovereign NATO and European territory. Right. He wants Greenland. He wants title. He wants, as he says, and he wants the Danes to either sell it, and if they don't sell it, he wants to send the troops in. Now, he seems to have been talked off that ledge a little bit, but he keeps mentioning Greenland. So it's, we're not quite done with that, that portfolio yet. That issue, I think, more than even Ukraine or anything else, has persuaded quite a lot of Europeans that the party's over.
- [39:02]
Tim Miller
I got to tell you, I'm happy that nobody brings up anything from an HR perspective in my household. I think I'd be in a lot of trouble. But the interesting thing I'd like your take on the, relates to, you know, these conversations. And NATO is like Rubio. You would think that a lot of these guys would have thought Rubio would have been the one they could deal with, you know, in the, in the administration. And, you know, there was a lot of focus, as mentioned on his Munich speech. To me, the more interesting thing was he immediately goes to Hungary and Slovakia afterward, and we talked a little bit about Hungary. But why don't you just tell us a little bit about the significance of that and of both those stops.
- [39:39]
Michael Weiss
I think that Rubio doesn't believe half or even most of the shit that he says. I mean, I think a lot of it is just performative. It's catering to an audience of one. The word I heard from a source close to him is virtue signaling, which I didn't realize Maga Republicans do now, but apparently they do. That was his whole performance.
- [40:01]
Tim Miller
Trump signaling.
- [40:02]
Michael Weiss
Trump signaling. Right after his speech in Budapest in which he endorsed Trump's endorsement of Viktor Orban, a sclerotic toad of a man who has overseen the complete ruin of Hungary's economy, made it completely reliant on Russian oil and gas at a time when the eu, with American encouragement and American insistence, by the way, is trying to cut off all ties with to Russian energy, which is used as a weapon of Russian foreign policy. A man whose entire campaign platform is declaring Ukraine an enemy of Hungary and putting out all manner of AI slop about his opponent, who's a fellow conservative, Peter Magyar, including now apparently sexual compromise, which is coming down the pike. I mean, Orban is a busted flush of a prime minister, but Trump loves him. Does Marco Rubio like or love Viktor Orban? No, I don't think he does. And we know that he doesn't because in 2019, Rubio as senator co signed a letter in which he decried the erosion of democracy and media rights and an independent judiciary in Viktor Orban's Hungary and called out Hungary, a NATO ally, for being, what, too close to Moscow? So the problem you have with Rubio is he's sort of this Vizier type in the court of the tyrannical king. I'm not saying that he hasn't changed his stripes or that his political thinking hasn't evolved and probably evolved or devolved to a point that's a little bit closer to Trump. When it comes to things like Russia, Rubio's under no illusions about who and what Putin is. Right. And he makes these little encoded gestures. He did it in his Munich speech where he said the only mention of Ukraine was once in the substance of the speech. That came later in the Q and A. But with respect to Ukraine, he brought it up in the context of the UN has failed, and only Donald Trump is trying to bring these two parties to the table. But it's a quote. Still elusive peace, still elusive peace from the word the lips of Marco Rubio means don't pay much attention to this bullshit process that Witkoff, Kushner are engaged in with the Russians and which now the Ukrainians are engaged in directly with the Russians. The US Intelligence assessment of Russia is that Putin maintains maximalist ambitions. He wants the entirety of the country, and he's basically using the peace process as a way to just kind of prolong this, this. This whole thing to keep sanctions at bay, to keep Trump from doing something provocative or untoward that would do more damage to Russia. It's a pantomime. It's not serious diplomacy. Rubio gets this. The problem is he sold his soul to Donald Trump. He gets up and he. He is such the courtier. He so flatters Trump. He's in almost indistinguishable from Vance in. In the effusive praise. He literally puts Donald Trump to sleep. Right. Why is he doing this? Like, what is the grand design here? And if I had to make a guess, and some of this is a little bit educated from reporting I've done, the guess is these are, in his mind, necessary compromises, necessary compromises of his principles and his beliefs in order to get the things that he most wants done. What does he most want done? Marco Rubio, the son of two Cuban emigres, one a bartender, the other housemaid, growing up in Miami, Florida, most wants the crowning achievement of his life in government would be toppling the Castro regime in Cuba. And it looks very, very likely that that is going to happen while Donald Trump is still president, because Axios News reports that Rubio is in direct conversation with Raul Castro's grandson, probably about some kind of transition. So Venezuela was first. That was the first domino to fall. Now we control the oil. Now there's an oil embargo on Cuba, which is descending faster and more comprehensively into failed statehood. They can't keep the lights on, the hospitals can't treat patients, there's no food. It's a disaster. For Rubio, Cuba would be everything. And then when it comes to Ukraine and Russia, you know, recall I brought up that 28 point Dmitriev plan from November. It was Marco Rubio who basically intervened and stopped that thing from becoming codified U.S. policy. And how did he do that? He called up his friends from the Senate, who were then gathered at Halifax Security Conference in Nova Scotia and said, don't worry about this. This is a, quote, Russian wish list. Knowing that they would come out and say that they came out and said that. He denied he made that call. He 100% absolutely made that call. I have that on very, very good authority. He made that call. But he basically used some of his capital and currency to stop a very, very bad pro Russian deal from happening. So if you talk to the Ukrainians, you talk to the Europeans, one European foreign minister of an EU NATO country. I asked him, what do you think response? Rubio is a closet Reaganite, but he's doing what he has to do to stay in the game and to try and influence the system from within. Now, this is a very dangerous wager, right? Because at some point you don't become sort of the quiet dissident voice of opposition inside the system. You become an accomplice to the system. You become a functionary of the worst MAGA instincts. And we're seeing that now. I mean, it was. For me, Budapest was worse than Munich. Munich. I could at least see some attempt to walk a knife edge between the traditional internationalist Republican line, the neocon line of the old Marco Rubio of the Senate, and a sort of maga nativist, chauvinistic, civilizationalist concept of the world. It's nothing to do with values and virtues and democracy and the rule of law and peaceful transitions of power. It's to do with what hemisphere you grew up in and indeed what ethnicity or race you might come from. And he doesn't believe that shit. He's singing from that hymn sheet for a reason. And it may backfire on him, right? He may not be the heir apparent in 2028. He may not be able to revert to his former self. This is my understanding of where things are now. Is it better that Rubio is in the game than not? I have to say I think it still is. Because as I mentioned, without him, at least the Ukrainian position is Kyiv would be fucked already. Because everyone else, I mean, Vance, the isolationist wing in the White House, would have forced Ukraine to give up Donbas by now simply by cutting all security assistance and all intelligence, which is still ongoing. So Rubio is sort of holding the line, or seemed to be holding the line there. And I don't know how it's going to work out, but it's utterly, utterly abominable and humiliating to watch him, you know, inhabit this sort of Renfield mode to Trump's Dracula, because he doesn't really believe much most of this stuff.
- [46:43]
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- [47:44]
Tim Miller
I want to close with Russia a bit while we're just doing the Munich stuff. I have to ask you, I heard some feedback that maybe me and Bill Kristol were grading AOC a little too much on a curve with her performance in Munich. And look, when you're parched in the desert and there's someone out there saying, offering, you know, demonstrating that they have like the tiniest little bit of water for you, you know, you drink it. And I was just wondering what your, what your thoughts were on, on AOC in Munich.
- [48:15]
Michael Weiss
You know, she's not a foreign policy politician. She's trying to be, presumably because she also wants to run for president. I was unimpressed to say the least, especially because from media reports she had prepared for months under the tutelage of Matt Duss, somebody I don't agree with, but I don't think he's a blithering idiot. And you know, there's other things that happened while she was in Europe that weren't so well reported. You know, I mean she, she said the right things about Ukraine and about Russian imperialism. But then she meets with Dylinka, which is a German far left political party, which is basically the left wing version of AfD when it comes to Moscow. I mean there Putinist German party. Now is she aware of that? Probably not, but she's like, oh, they're socialists like me. I mean, what's not to like, you know, so there's a lot of, you know, a lot of education I think necessary if she wants to really break out onto the international scene in that way. Hillary Clinton's comments at Munich, much more to my liking because she has ample foreign policy experience. She got burnt by Russia and is needs no education on, on what it represents both to the security of Europe and to the security of the United. But that ship has sailed, I guess.
- [49:29]
Tim Miller
Yeah. Well, and to Matt Iglesias point, I think traditionally in presidential politics, the American people have not looked to somebody who has really in depth white paper thoughts on foreign policy. If you just look at our successful winners from Bush to Obama to Trump with maybe a Biden interregnum. So maybe there's something to be said for some populist, you know, McDonald's mid level foreign policy takes on Ukraine. Just really quick, and I lied, I'm going to end with a tribute to Alyssa Liu. But on the fourth anniversary of the war, it's pretty depressing that we're here. It's also inspiring that the Ukrainians have fought it off for this long. But it's pretty depressing that that's still the state of play.
- [50:12]
Michael Weiss
It is. But again, the adversary that they face doesn't want to stop the war for a variety of reasons. Putin, his economy is now wholly dependent on keeping this going. There's some very good analysis that's been produced by Russian economic experts that say the Russian economy is not going to collapse, but it is going to contract considerably and has begun to do so already. And all of the money that's going into the defense sector is money that's not going into basic civil services and things that would otherwise keep the economy growing. Added to which, he is a belligerent revanchist who wants to reconstitute as much of the former Soviet Union as possible. And Ukraine is the biggest prize in that objective. There's sort of double bookkeeping on the Russian side here. On the one hand, he sees a mug and a dupe and an imbecile in Donald Trump, somebody who can be easily manipulated and flattered and persuaded to do at least to say the right things about Putin. On the other hand, and this is important because it gets lost in the noise of how we talk about Trump and Russia. On the other hand, there is an element within the Russian government, particularly what's known as the siloviki, the security apparatuses, the strong men that will never, ever believe that the United States will be anything other than hostile to Russia. The US Remains the main adversary of Russia. That's not going to change with it could be Hillary or Bush or Trump in the White House, the same thing. And the evidence that they would produce to justify that is US Intelligence is, as one active intelligence officer told me, balls deep in Ukraine to the point that how did we know within minutes that Putin was telling a Lie when he said the Ukrainians tried to drone my house in Valdai. The CIA provides targeting packages to the Ukrainians not just to target Russian positions in occupied Ukraine, but also to target Russian positions inside Russian territory, including and especially the energy infrastructure. So one thing Donald Trump is okay with, and this goes also to his psychology, he wants to make a deal with Putin. He wants rapprochement, if not strategic realignment, but not at the expense, not at the expense of America being top dog. He likes to see the Russians bleeding financially. So that's why we're going after the shadow fleet, right? Seizing these ships that are transporting oil in violation of international sanctions. That's okay. Zelensky doesn't matter in Putin and Trump's eyes, he's this disposable entity. Ukraine itself is just, it's part of a chessboard that, that is going to be decided between the great powers, the US And Russia. But this puts the Ukrainians in a very difficult position, which is they are reliant on the United States for the intelligence and for certain bits of hardware, such as Patriot long range air defense, defense systems, rocket artillery, such as ATACMs and GMLers that are shot by the Himars. We don't give that stuff to them anymore, as Donald Trump is very keen to point out, we sell it to third parties, particularly NATO countries, but also now Australia, New Zealand and others. Japan, I think, is buying it too, through this mechanism known as pearl. So for Trump, he's okay with, even though he says he wants to wrap this thing up and the war has to come to an end, people are dying, he's not so keen on peace that he doesn't want to make a profit off of the war. Right. And he always mentions, you notice this whenever he beats up on Zelensky or he hates on Ukraine, he always brings up Pearl, his baby. So, you know, he's like, oh, the Europeans, they pay for everything. And they pay in full. They pay in full for everything. The US has reduced its support, security support for Ukraine and financial and humanitarian support by 99% since Trump came to office. According to the Kiel Institute of World Economy, a German think tank, the Europeans have stepped up upwards of 50% for the humanitarian financial and upwards of 60% on the military hardware. In spite of that, how come the Europeans aren't leading the diplomatic process? Why does Steve Witkoff and Jaron. Why do these two imbeciles get to, to decide the fate of millions when there's no skin in the game there, apart from what the CIA is doing? Which they don't have any awareness of. This is the, this is the kind of paradox here. Trump wants, or he pretends to want to see Europe spend more on defense, stand on its own two feet, inherit the mantle of its own security architecture, and no more Pax Americana. But he doesn't want them to do so to the degree that they say to the United States, we don't want to buy your weapons anymore. And, oh, by the way, your seat as chairman of the board, the peace board for Ukraine, that's now forfeit. We're taking it over for. So he's trying to have it every which way. And I think the Europeans are getting. They're getting religion on the fact that he shouldn't. Maybe that's being too optimistic because the Europeans have let me down before, but I'm trying to keep them very much on that page.
- [55:14]
Tim Miller
I do feel like it's Groundhog Day, Palm Springs when we talk about this topic, but that remains a state of play. Did you watch the figure skating? Did you watch Alyssa Lou? Did you see. Have you seen her. Her skate? Are you a figure skating?
- [55:28]
Michael Weiss
I have not watched any of the Olympics. No.
- [55:31]
Tim Miller
It's because you're not a patriot or.
- [55:33]
Michael Weiss
What's patriot? Oh, okay. Because it's an American team. Yeah, okay, that's nice. No, but there was a figure skater in the Olympics called Michael Weiss who fell on his ass. So I think that's.
- [55:43]
Tim Miller
How'd he do?
- [55:44]
Michael Weiss
Well, he Very badly, apparently, fall on your ass. You know, you don't win the Olympics or get a gold medal. So I think subconsciously I've treated that as a reason not to watch these sports competitions.
- [55:55]
Tim Miller
Hope that doesn't foreshadow something for you in your life. Maybe I'll persuade you. Let me try to persuade you on this. I didn't get to watch it live, unfortunately, because we were live at the theater here in Minnesota for our live show. But when I came back, I watched it in bed and got very moved. The young woman's from the Bay Area, Alyssa Live. She won Olympic gold in figure skating free skate. She joins Sarah Huge, Sarah Lipinski, Kristi Yamaguchi, Dorothy Hamill. You know, just. It's a very elite list. Her father, Arthur Liu, was born in a small mountain village in Sichuan province in China. He fled China after becoming a wanted man because of his involvement in the Tiananmen Square pro democracy protests in 1989. He comes here, has a daughter, ends up having to single parent her, becomes a citizen. That daughter, Alyssa, as a woke California lib She's repping Mac Dre. She's got dyed hair, her father is a refugee, and she's achieving glory with the American flag. Like, that's fucking America. That is America. I was a little perturbed when, after I watched it, to go on to social media and see a lot of Magas celebrating her online. And I was thinking to myself, these people are trying to deport, detain, and deny the next Alyssa Liu right now. And I feel like we should be highlighting this and pointing it out and honoring her and reminding people. I feel like a lot of Americans have forgotten why we liked the Reaganite, shining city on the hill version of people wanting to come here to flee communism. And these fuckers have been taking the people fleeing communism in Venezuela and putting them in detention centers and sending them to El Salvador. And maybe one of those. Maybe the child of one of those Venezuelans is our next figure skating great or whatever, baseball or soccer or anything. Engineering tech. And, you know, this is the American story. And she is charming, and I loved it. And you should embrace it.
- [57:54]
Michael Weiss
I do embrace it. And, you know, to bring it full circle. You know, this is one element of the Rubio speech that kind of resonated. You know, he talked about we're children of Europe, and he mentioned his Spanish ancestry going back 250 years, and. And the Scots Irish who built the Midwest and the Germans and so on and so forth. But, yes, it extends beyond Europe now, doesn't it? I mean, there are plenty of people from Latin America. There are plenty of people from Asia Pacific who come to the United States and raise families who. Their children go on to get university degrees and to become civil servants and politicians and doctors and so on. And, yes, that should be celebrated. And it's interesting that Maga chooses to celebrate that. Probably only in sort of contrast to other countries of the world, doing well, again, this comes to this sort of Trumpian notion of we like to work with our enemies and berate our friends, but always, always, always, we are number one. Never at our own expense. So I guess we can celebrate immigrants when they make America great again, but not when they actually live here and try to make a life for themselves. Then they get thrown into sea salt or whatever it's called in El Salvador.
- [59:11]
Tim Miller
Yeah, I mean, I do think you hear about it, it's stereotyped. You know, the dyed hair, California lib girl with the nose ring. You know, this is what Maga was fighting against. Or there she was right. That is America, baby. This is America. It's Alyssa Liu. It's also Michael Weiss. You can be an American and not watch the Olympics.
- [59:30]
Michael Weiss
How do I stay abreast of all of the pressing topics of geopolitics and foreign affairs so I can be on the bulwark if I'm busy watching the fucking Olympics? Tim. I mean, it doesn't. I'm only one person, you know, I don't have the time in the day. But by the way, I wanted to say dyed hair, nose rings. I see a lot of like right wing maga types who dress like, you know, Janine Garofalo and Gen Xers did in the 90s. I mean, you know, Mar a Lago face. There ain't nothing like wholesome Norman Rockwell about that. So I don't know, man, your physical sort of stereotypes need to shift a little bit here.
- [60:08]
Tim Miller
They gotta update their stereotypes, right? It's all part of the patchwork. Beautiful country. Alyssa Lou Gold, what a win. Thank you all for being here with us on this show. And man, just once again, it was such a joy to see everybody in Minneapolis. It was good for the soul. Everybody, have a wonderful weekend. I'm going to be on Sunday Live with Bill Kristol on Substack. He has a Sunday deal, so we're gonna flip it where he gets to interview me and. And we might have a sub for him on Monday. So I'll see you all Sunday or Monday. Have a great weekend. Peace.
- [60:53]
Michael Weiss
Believe in drive.
- [61:00]
Tim Miller
The Board podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.