Nicholas Kristof: What a Mess Trump Created

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Bulwark Podcast

Episode: Nicholas Kristof: What a Mess Trump Created
Date: April 24, 2026
Host: Tim Miller
Guest: Nicholas Kristof (New York Times columnist, author, activist, and former Oregon governor candidate)

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Overview

This episode features an in-depth conversation between Tim Miller and Nicholas Kristof about the aftermath and ongoing consequences of President Trump’s war with Iran, U.S. foreign policy and its ripple effects, the state of the Middle East (including Israel's actions in Lebanon and the West Bank), domestic political ramifications, and the broader challenge liberal democracy faces amid rising authoritarianism and global instability. Kristof also shares on-the-ground insights from his recent reporting trips.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The State of the Iran War: Unintended Consequences and Strategic Failures

[00:34–02:04]

• Kristof characterizes the Iran war as an unnecessary conflict that has left the U.S. in a worse strategic position:

  “What a mess. … We got into this war unnecessarily… Now we’re trying to get the Strait of Hormuz reopened… more likely that Iran will end up with nuclear weapons, say, three or five years from now than at the start of the war.” — Nicholas Kristof [00:50]

• Lost opportunities: The resources spent on the war could have funded free college and universal daycare in the U.S.
• The new Iranian regime is harder-line, more aligned with the IRGC, and less willing to negotiate.

2. "Success" Narratives and Tactical Realities

[02:04–05:16]

• Tim Miller presents Mark Dubowitz's pro-war talking points (FDD), asserting military successes (crippling Iran's missile program, regime decapitation, etc.).
• Kristof acknowledges material degradation of Iranian capabilities but warns that the cost to U.S. defense (loss of interceptor missiles, readiness for Taiwan crisis, etc.) outweighs the short-term gains.

  “We may be turning Iran into a North Korea… the new leaders feel that the previous leadership was too easy. … That is not the right kind of regime change.” — Nicholas Kristof [04:28]

3. U.S. Readiness and “Opportunity Cost”

[05:16–07:31]

• The U.S. has expended large portions of critical munitions (Patriot, THAAD, Tomahawk missiles), risking an inability to defend strategic allies such as Taiwan.

  “[We’ve] used up 80% of our Patriots, 80% of our THAAD interceptors … that will incrementally increase the risk of an attack on Taiwan…” — Nicholas Kristof [06:15]

4. Executive Power and Congressional Oversight

[07:31–09:14]

• War Powers Act deadline looms; will Trump heed the law or seek extension?
• Kristof and Miller agree: historically, presidents (Obama included) have sidestepped the War Powers Act; Trump likely to ignore constraints as well.
• The legal impasse could provide a political inflection point for Democratic opposition to the war.

5. Humanitarian and Moral Costs for Iranian People

[09:14–11:36]

• The war failed to benefit Iranian protesters — instead worsening their plight:

  “My heart just totally goes out to them. We’ve totally screwed them over. … We've saddled them with a more oppressive, harder line regime.” — Nicholas Kristof [10:12]

• Original war rationales (helping protesters, regime change) have evaporated; rationalizations now post-hoc.

6. Economic Shockwaves: Oil, Fertilizer, Food Prices, and Global Fallout

[14:56–18:17]

• The war’s impact on global supply chains and commodities is beginning to hit consumers worldwide:

  “Half of the people in the world today are alive because of artificial fertilizer … without urea, the world could only support about 4 billion lives.” — Nicholas Kristof [14:56]

• Poorest nations (e.g. Malawi, Zimbabwe) will suffer most as food and fertilizer prices rise; wealthy countries shielded only temporarily.
• Kristof notes that while China is affected by oil blockades, it may benefit from renewed demand for green energy products, in which it dominates.

7. Israel, Lebanon, and Press Freedom

[18:56–24:26]

• The tenuous ceasefire (“slow fire”) between Israel and Hezbollah is unraveling, with the killing of journalist Amal Khalil as an example of targeted violence:

  “The journalist community should stand up for our colleagues worldwide when they are targeted.” — Nicholas Kristof [19:56]

• Approximately two-thirds of journalists killed worldwide last year were killed by Israel, often with U.S.-supplied arms.

8. West Bank Deterioration: Settler Violence and U.S. Complicity

[24:26–29:27]

• Kristof describes a sharp escalation in settler attacks on Palestinians, including threats and ethnic cleansing tactics, with Israeli defense backing:

  “There is a violence to settler activity … We are complicit in what sure looks like an attempted ethnic cleansing in the West Bank.” — Nicholas Kristof [24:26]

• Violence is driven by a far-right incentive structure within Israel, and is mutually reinforced by Hamas and the Israeli right.

9. Authoritarian Parallels, Corruption, and Political Lessons

[31:22–34:38]

• Kristof draws lessons from autocratic regimes: dumb economic policies and endemic corruption follow when dissent is stifled.
• Rural Americans are less attuned to corruption stories but notice pocketbook impacts and local governance failures:

  “The arguments about authoritarianism don't really resonate with them. But beef prices totally do.” — Nicholas Kristof [34:07]

10. Democratic Political Opportunities and Obligations

[35:06–40:40]

• Kristof advises Democrats: focus on economic issues, war weariness, and—critically—govern effectively in “blue” cities/states, which are currently used as negative examples to dissuade swing voters in rural states.

  “We can't just have a conversation about how awful Republicans are. We also have to fix our very real problems in blue places.” — Nicholas Kristof [36:21]

• Discussion of the need for practical and visible policy improvements, and distance from “self-parody” initiatives that can be easily caricatured in opposition media.

11. U.S. Foreign Policy Cynicism: The UAE “Bailout” & Corruption

[42:44–44:51]

• The Trump family stands to profit hugely from questionable international deals amid humanitarian crises:

  “We’re talking about providing aid to the UAE, one of the wealthier countries in the world … [and] the UAE signed this deal to enrich the Trump family by half a billion dollars...” — Nicholas Kristof [42:44]

12. Afghan Allies: Depraved Choices

[46:21–50:36]

• U.S.-aligned Afghan refugees, stranded at a Qatar base, face an impossible choice between return to Taliban rule and exile to war-torn Congo:

  “Depraved is exactly the right word. … The idea that we're sending these Afghans to a place like [Congo].... Absolutely not.” — Nicholas Kristof [47:07, 50:36]

13. Optimism, Civic Engagement, and Solutions Journalism

[31:22–53:54]

• Kristof offers hope that corruption and failed economic policy can ultimately doom autocrats and animates the importance of local organizing, practical policy, and constructive engagement.
• Promotes his “solutions journalism” approach, inviting listeners to support organizations fighting famine, malnutrition, and educational inequality.

  “If we in journalism … give our audiences a way to step up and help, I’m just awed by how willing they are to step up.” — Nicholas Kristof [53:54]

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• “We may be turning Iran into a North Korea.” — Kristof [04:19]
• “We’ve totally screwed [the Iranian people] over.” — Kristof [10:12]
• “If you’re a journalist in Gaza, you are probably not very sympathetic to Israel… But should they be targeted and killed? Absolutely not.” — Kristof [22:00]
• “One of the basic rules of journalism is you never lie. When you're being held by a warlord who's busy massacring people, you lie.” — Kristof (on Congo experience) [48:19]

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Important Timestamps

• 00:50 — Kristof’s bleak summary of U.S. strategic regression in Iran.
• 04:19 — Fears of turning Iran into “another North Korea.”
• 06:15 — U.S. munitions shortages and the risk to Taiwan.
• 09:14 — On the war’s human cost for Iranian reformers.
• 14:56 — Global shortages: Fertilizer, food, and fuel.
• 19:56 — Death of journalist Amal Khalil and Israeli strikes on journalists.
• 24:26 — First-hand account of settler violence in the West Bank.
• 34:07 — On what really motivates rural voters: cost of living, local governance.
• 36:21/40:10 — Tough love for Democratic local governance and policy priorities.
• 42:44 — Trump family profiteering via the UAE.
• 47:07 — U.S. abandonment of Afghan allies; haunting summary: “Depraved is exactly the right word.”
• 53:54 — Kristof’s “solutions journalism” and shoutout to organizations making a difference.

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Organizations Mentioned for Support

• Emergency Response Rooms (Sudan): Grassroots famine relief.
• Helen Keller International: Work against malnutrition and hunger.
• Vision to Learn: Provides glasses to low-income U.S. children.

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Overall Tone & Conclusion

Blunt, reality-based, at times bleak, but also laced with urgency and pragmatic hope. The conversation weaves from hard strategic analysis to on-the-ground human stories, exposing the messiness of U.S. foreign policy as well as the deep need for practical, values-driven political action at home. Kristof’s reporting undergirds a consistent call for empathy and realism—urging listeners to channel outrage into thoughtful, evidence-based civic engagement.

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For links to organizations highlighted by Nicholas Kristof, refer to the episode show notes.

Transcript

[Nick Kristof]

Foreign.

[Tim Miller]

Hello and welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. Delighted to welcome back to the show. A columnist for the New York Times, two time winner of the Pulitzer Prize. His latest book, Chasing Hope, is a memoir. He's also the general manager of Christoph Farms in Oregon. He briefly ran for governor of Oregon also in 2022 with a bunch of other stuff. It's Nick Kristof. How you doing, man?

[Nick Kristof]

Hey, good. Good to be with you, Tim.

[Tim Miller]

I'm pumped to talk to you. You were just back from the west bank, so we're gonna get into that and maybe some politics. But obviously I wanna start with the Iran war stuff. I guess I kind of just wanna begin by letting you cook on what you think is the state of play in the Iran war and how you assess where we are today.

[Nick Kristof]

Boy, I mean, well, what a mess. You know, we got into this war unnecessarily and now we' than when we started. You know, we're now trying to get the Strait of Hormuz reopened. And I think it's actually more likely that Iran will end up with nuclear weapons, say, you know, three or five years from now than at the start of the war. Right before the war, Iran was actually offering a pretty good nuclear deal and we turned it down. We're not going to get as good a deal now, I believe. I think Iran is going to try to really hold on to some kind of control over the Strait. And meanwhile, we have spent as much on this war, Tim, enough that we could have provided a free college education to everybody or every family earning $125,000 or less in the country and provided daycare to every three and four year old in the country. And so it is maddening when we do these things that cost lives, have a huge opportunity cost and leave us in a worse strategic position, all because we haven't thought through the consequences.

[Tim Miller]

That's pretty compelling to me. It's kind of like an other than that Mrs. Lincoln Assessment of the Iran war. I want to read this counterpoint. Mark Dubowitz over at FDD has been one of the biggest agitators for the war and supporters of it. And he posted a thread last night that made the case for why things are going so well. I want to go through a little bit of that with you so we can sure hear the other perspective. Number one, nuke programs set back years, enrichment and reprocessing, gutted weaponization sites destroyed. That's number one. Number two, ballistic missile program crippled. Number three, air defense is devastated. Number four, full economic warfare, not just sanctions anymore, but military pressure laid on top with the blockade. Number five, regime decapitation. Number six, the region turning on Iran. Number seven, proxy network shattered. He goes on from there, but that's basically the gist. What would be your counterpoint to what Mark offered there?

[Nick Kristof]

Well, I mean, some of the things he says are true. The ballistic missile program, you know, has been set back. Now that's partly because they fired ballistic missiles that caused real damage to, you know, the US Embassy in Saudi Arabia, for example, to US Bases that know, killed some Americans. So. But do they have fewer ballistic missiles now? Do they have fewer drones? Yeah, I mean, on balance, maybe half of their missile and drone capacity was used up. Now at least that much of our interceptor capacity was also used up. So we're, you know, less able to defend Taiwan, for example. But have we badly degraded their missile capacity? Absolutely. Have we badly degraded their air force, their navy? Completely. And have we set back their nuclear program? We did with last year's war. Not so much with this year's war, but maybe more importantly is whether they actually intend to build a nuclear warhead. And in the past, since 2003, the US intelligence community and the Israeli intelligence community have assessed that Iran, they wanted the capability of building when they did not actually want to build a nuclear warhead. Now, you know, I think that may well have changed and it would kind of make sense for Iran to see that, you know, nobody messes with North Korea, they do mess with Iran, and that it maybe it should make a rush for a weapon. So I fear that we may be turning Iran into a North Korea. It's also Mark makes the point that we decapitated their leadership. And you know, that is absolutely true. We, in a sense, do have regime change. We have a harder line regime. We have one that is more controlled by the irgc, one that may be more inclined to take over the strait to build nuclear weapons, and one that I think the Trump administration is finding it harder to negotiate with because they're just harder aligned. And I think Iran's new leaders feel that the previous leadership was too easy, did not establish deterrence after the Kassamani killing, after the war last year. And so they feel they have to reestablish deterrence. They have to make the US And Israel really suffer. And that is not the right kind of regime change.

[Tim Miller]

Indeed not. Speaking of missile capabilities set back and crippled, there's an interesting New York Times story. Wall Street Journal has a similar story out yesterday. This is from Eric Schmidt and John Swan, your colleagues. The US has burned through around 1100 of its long range stealth cruise missiles built for war with China. We fired off a thousand Tomahawk Cruise missiles, roughly 10 times the number we currently buy each year. The Pentagon used more than 1200 Patriot interceptor missiles in this war. At $4 million a pop, this is all leaving inventories worrisomely low, according to internal Defense Department estimates and congressional officials. The Journal story adds onto that that we basically couldn't fully execute our contingency plans to defend Taiwan at this point, based on the stockpile loss, in addition to all the costs that you laid out earlier and just how this money could have been spent otherwise, even from a defense perspective, seems like a risky, risky bet here.

[Nick Kristof]

Absolutely. I mean, maybe the worst nightmare for international strategists him, I think, is a war in the Taiwan Strait. I think most people think that's less likely than otherwise, but possible. And Xi Jinping, when he calculates whether or not to encircle Taiwan, whether or not to make a move on Taiwan, is surely calculating what the American response will be. And if we've used up 80% of our Patriots, 80% of our THAAD interceptors, as we appear to have done, you know, that will incrementally increase the risk of an attack on Taiwan, which would be devastating to Western alliance, devastating to the supply of chips worldwide, would cause a global economic depression because Taiwan is the source of more than 90% of advanced ships worldwide. So, you know, the idea that we would undermine our capacity to defend Taiwan, undermine our capacity to defend Europe, you know, we told Estonia that we cannot supply some weapons that it has purchased because they've been used in, in the Iran war. You know, this is undermining our defense, not enhancing it.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah. So given all of the problems and concerns, the War Powers Resolution gives the President the ability to fight this war even without congressional approval for a 60 day period that takes us to May 1, when that expires, which is now next week. The law does provide for a single 30 day extension of the campaign. Without congressional approval. Certain conditions are met. Does Donald Trump even care about the law will even follow? What does it matter whether he follows those conditions? I think that there's a legal question that is coming up in the next seven, eight days, but also like a prudential one about whether Congress is going to have to weigh in on this. I think that the beginning of the war, there were some Democrats that were indicating that they might even be supportive of a resolution. It's harder and Harder to see that every day. And so then the question is, can the Republicans jam it through on a party line basis? Pretty, I think, important political moment coming up in the next week.

[Nick Kristof]

You know, I would push back a little bit because I think President Trump will just ignore it.

[Tim Miller]

We'll just do whatever the fuck he wants.

[Nick Kristof]

Exactly. And you know, in fairness, President Obama ignored it in the case of the Libya war. I think presidents, you know, whatever their political complexion, are willing to sail ahead. Presidents have always been a little skeptical about the constitutionality of that measure. And so I don't think Trump will view that as a constraint. You know, it's not, as I agree with that.

[Tim Miller]

It might be an inflection point. It could be, if the Democrats choose to make it one inflection point for them to further solidify the position and being opposed to this war. And there's been some Democrats have been very clear and strong on this, but there's been a little bit of mixed messaging, I would say, and it's maybe an opportunity for them to get aligned.

[Nick Kristof]

Yeah, I mean, I think it's absolutely true that politically it can have impact. And this is a very unpopular war. I think it'll grow more unpopular as supplies of oil that are actually on ships stop reaching their destinations. And so I think this can be a point to, to make this very public. Can I also just say one other thing, please, Tim, that we haven't talked about? You know, this started because of the massacre of Iranian protesters in January. And supposedly this was somehow going to help them. And, you know, I've, I've reported in Iran and I've seen the incredible courage of some of these Iranian, some of these Iranian women lawyers. I just, I'm in awe of them, of their courage, their willingness to go to prison and suffer brutally because they want change. And then President Trump said that help is on the way in January, then no help was. And now we bomb them, we bomb a girls school, we bomb a volleyball team. And now we've saddled them with a more oppressive, harder line regime that is more likely to be around in five years than it would have been otherwise. And they are the people who are suffering the most in this. And you, they've been kind of lost, I think, in our national, international conversation. And my, you know, my heart just totally goes out to them. We've totally screwed them over.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, it's an important point, both from the humanitarian and human rights perspective for, you know, from, for those of us who did want hope and freedom for the Iranian people and just are opposed to this strategically. It's also important, just about the framing and the discussion of the war. The administration has really, you know, tried to create new post hoc rationalizations for the war that are much more limited than. Than what they were at the start. Like, the initial. Like, this is why we. We had regime change. I forget where that was on. On Dibowitz's list of. Of good things that have happened. Like, originally, the point was. Sorry, like the administration said this was that we were going to decapitate the regime and that the regime was cracking down on protesters and that there was. Bibi at least had pitched that the whole regime could collapse and be replaced by something that's more amenable to us. Trump was obvious more of a Delsey Rodriguez type situation, and that has been an utter failure.

[Nick Kristof]

Yeah, and one of the paradoxes is that there actually was kind of a Delsey Rodriguez model back with the jcpoa, you know, that initially empowered some of the more moderate folks in Iran, Mohammed Khatami, people like that. It would have been plausible that when the Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei died, that somebody, you know, a little bit more moderate might have taken over. Somebody like Hassan Khomeini, for example. And instead, we ended up with the worst scenario where he was succeeded, you know, by his son, who has these IRGC connections, who's just harder aligned than ever. And so, yeah. Was there a dilsey scenario? Absolutely. And President Trump killed it.

[Tim Miller]

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[Nick Kristof]

rest of the world and it's going to be the poorest and most vulnerable people worldwide who are going to suffer. Tim, half of the people in the world today are alive because of artificial fertilizer, things like urea. And without urea, the world could only support about 4 billion lives. And in fact, you know, we have about 8 billion people worldwide. And so you're already seeing and country I've, you know, had sort of reports here and there about Malawi, Zimbabwe, other countries where food prices are rising partly because of transportation that to truck food around the country now requires, you know, more diesel and, and to when farmers produce things and truck it to the marketplace cost more as well. And as urea grows more expensive then farmers are going to be less able in poor countries to use It. And so yields will decline and more kids will go hungry at just the time that the US Followed by France and Germany and England have been cutting aid. So there'll be more kids suffering severe acute malnutrition and less aid to try to ease that. That hunger.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, I just think that the global impact economically is underappreciated right now because you're now talking about these are the poorest people in the world that were already suffering because of the cuts. And last time you were on, we talked about your reporting in Africa on that. And now they're going to face higher prices, but then just working class people in a lot of countries in Europe and Asia are really going to be hit hard by this. And I just think that the potential ripples and unintended consequences of there's going to be political disruption in those countries. People are going to be unhappy. And some of them are going to blame the United States, but they're going to blame their own governments. And we've already seen a lot of this around the world. And it's kind of unpredictable who it could empower. But, I mean, we have really kicked a massive economic hornet's nest that I don't know that people have really kind of processed the degree of disruption that's coming down the pike.

[Nick Kristof]

You know, I think that's right. And I think that there has been a misperception that China is hurt by this. And it's true that China depends on oil passing through the Strait of Hormuz, so there's something to that. But it's also true that countries around the world are looking for how they can use more green power, more solar, for example. And, you know, China totally dominates the solar industry, dominates the battery industry. And so it is already getting more orders for, you know, those kinds of products. And also I think worldwide, you know, people look at the US and just see us as this unstable, crazy country that causes problems worldwide. And they look at China and they see a more sober, mature power. And, you know, as somebody who lived five years in China and has had so many friends arrested who saw the Tiananmen massacre, I find that just really painful. When Mark Carney in Canada, when kids, Canadians, reasonable, lovable Canadians, you know, hedged by building ties with China to balance their dependence on the US What a mess we've created.

[Tim Miller]

What a mess you're talking about. Yeah. From like a human rights perspective. Also, the craziest thing about this is that Trump has a lot of China hawks around him.

[Nick Kristof]

Yep.

[Tim Miller]

Even if you're thinking about it from a great power, like military perspective as well, this is just a disaster.

[Nick Kristof]

Total disaster. Yeah. I mean, and they always talk about the importance of defending Taiwan and, you know, meanwhile, they've undercut the defense of Taiwan and I think raise the risk of this catastrophe. A war in the Taiwan Strait that could draw on the US and theoretically could become a nuclear war. I mean, this is just catastrophic miscalculation.

[Tim Miller]

All right, so as mentioned, you're just back from the west back. I want to hear about that. But first, just as it relates to this war, we also have Israel's ongoing attacks in Lebanon. That was part of the ceasefire, this whatever. Is it even an agreement anymore? Iranians are attacking a couple of boats. The US Is blockading. We have a quasi. Whatever you want to call this. I feel like ceasefire is too, you know, too extreme of a word. Something short of ceasefire, but something between. Ceasefire, yeah, slow fire. Something between ceasefire and act of war. Slow fire. That's good. And as part of that, Israel started bombing Hezbollah again in southern Lebanon, including, there was a journalist that died in that attack. And Hezbollah now saying that they're back to attacking Israel. And so that theater of this war and this slow fire also seems to be starting to unravel.

[Nick Kristof]

So we do have this three week extension of the Israel, Lebanon slow fire. And it is. I mean, I'm glad that President Trump seems to be willing to put pressure on Netanyahu to just slow the fire. But you know that killing of that journalist you mentioned, Amal Khalil, she worked for a newspaper in Beirut called Al Akbar, and it sure seems that she was targeted. You know, the car in front of her was hit. Then she took refuge under a little shelter. Her car was then hit. She was injured. She was taken into a house, frantically made calls, and then that house was hit. She was buried under rubble. She was still alive. They tried frantically to rescue her, and then Israeli strikes made it impossible to rescue her. By the time they were later able to go, she was dead. I do think the journalist community should stand up for our colleagues worldwide when they are targeted. Last year, 129 journalists were killed worldwide, a record as far as we've been keeping records. And about two thirds of them were killed by Israel, often with weapons provided by us in the US with no accountability. And, you know, I hope that journalists will stand up for colleagues like Hamal and create some accountability for that kind of killing.

[Tim Miller]

And I think that what Israel advocates would say about that is that like some percentage of those journalists were kind of like quasi Journalists, and they were, you know, laundering Hamas arguments into the public sphere. This is not my position at all to defend that, but I guess, you know, how do you kind of sort through that argument?

[Nick Kristof]

Yeah, I mean, so there is something to that. I mean, you know, if you are a journalist in Gaza, you are probably not very sympathetic to Israel. You're not neutral between, you know, Israel and. And Gaza. You're sympathetic to Gazans around you, to your family. Likewise, if you're in Lebanon, and especially if you were a Shiite in Lebanon, then you may well have lost family members. You were not very neutral as Israel tries to seize southern Lebanon. But it's, I think, a deeply unfair to portray somebody like Amal Khalil as just a. A Hezbollah stooge. You know, her newspaper, Al Akbar, it's not a. Hezbollah is a religious organization. Hezbollah in Arabic means the party of God. Well, Al Akbar is a secular newspaper. It was founded by these. These secular leftists. Not by. Not by these, you know, radical Muslims. And was she at times, has it been sympathetic to Hezbollah and to the Shia community in general and. Absolutely. But, you know, is she a Hezbollah stooge? No. And, you know, likewise in Israel, there are very conservative newspapers and people who support Netanyahu's, you know, carpet bombing of Gaza. But should they be targeted and killed? Absolutely not.

[Tim Miller]

Neutrality, I don't think is required to not be assassinated.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Absolutely.

[Nick Kristof]

That's a good way of putting it.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah. Full neutrality is not, I don't think, the basis for.

[Nick Kristof]

As an opinion journalist, I totally endorse that.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, same as a podcaster, I don't think you can kill me and then be like, well, he was pretty mean to the regime. He did critique the regime a lot, so you can understand it. No, it's a horrible story of Hamal is horrible. And I'm glad you can provide additional details about that, because I haven't gotten into that this week. Talk about the West Bank. Obviously this is something that is ongoing amidst the broader conversation of Israel's conduct in Gaza. Israel, our partner in this war in Iran, what you're talking about in Hezbollah. But it seems like a huge uptick in aggressive action into the West Bank. I'm wondering what you saw there and your perspective.

[Nick Kristof]

Settlers are completely out of control. And look, I mean, I've been traveling to the West bank since 1982, and I mean, there's been long time repression, but it has pretty steadily gotten worse over the last 25 or 30 years, and it's certainly gotten way worse since October 2020. Three, and now settler. You know, I visited some rural areas where settlers are brutally attacking these Bedouin villagers, stealing their sheep, threatening to rape and kill the children unless they flee, is really part of an ethnic cleansing movement. And it's scary. I mean, you know, we were. When I was visiting one village, settlers stopped us and blocked our car as we were leaving. And I, you know, I spoke up in English and tried to interview them. And I think that, you know, maybe that was why they. They made some phone calls and sort of got nervous and then let us go on. But there is a violence to settler activity and an increase in the way it is now backed by the Israeli defense in a way that, again, I think makes us, as Americans, supplying that weaponry, complicit in what sure looks like an attempted ethnic cleansing in the West Bank. And even one of the communities that I visited, the school. It's not exactly a school bus. It's kind of a school car taking these little kids, these elementary school kids to school. And now the settlers are attacking it, this little school vehicle, in ways that just have these parents just desperate. I mean, they've been on this land for, you know, thousands of years. They have deep, deep ties to it, and they're terrified that their kids are going to be killed, that their daughters are going to be raped, and they're just frantically trying to figure out what to do. And again, you know, this is partly because of our American policy.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah. My former POD colleague Cam Caskey was also there and told a similar story about threats that he faced. And it just is a sense that the violence is really spiraling out of control. Neutral people can't even visit without fear. I'm wondering what is underpinning. Why now? Is there a sense, because of what happened in Gaza, that. That settlers and folks within the Israeli government feel like this is just an opportunity to kind of rip the band aid off and try to get as much as they can while Trump is still in charge and while they're already being criticized anyway for the behavior in Gaza. Or is there something else that is kind of underneath why this is growing right now?

[Nick Kristof]

So, I mean, I think the fundamental truth is that since the late 1990s, Hamas and the Israeli right have mutually supported each other. You know, that was when Hamas started bus bombings and car bombings in Israel, and that kind of led to Netanyahu's election in 1996. That kind of destroyed the Israeli left. And then as the Israeli right in Netanyahu took more extreme and more brutal policies toward Palestinians, that boosted the fortunes of Hamas. And so you have these two extremists just mutually reinforcing each other and destroying moderation on each side. And then that became more apparent after October 7, 2023, and, you know, the terrorist attack on southern Israel that led to, I think, this sense among a lot of Israelis that we just have to be much more forceful. We can't ever let this happen. And we have to round up every Palestinian in the west bank and cut off Red Cross visits, enable torture, which is, I talk to detainees, including children, and the torture that is now routine for detainees is just so widespread. And Netanyahu then, I think by bringing in Smotrich and Ben GVIR into his cabinet, again, send a signal that there is complete impunity. You can do whatever you want. And so you get these bored prison guards who are low sadists themselves, and they delight in torturing these Palestinian detainees, including kids.

[Tim Miller]

It's horrible not to compare the torture to these corrupt economic crimes in the US but your point about Ben gvir, the incentive structure is similar to the, you know, free reign to do white collar criming here in America right now, right? Where it's just like, if you know that the President and the DOJ aren't going to investigate you and, you know, if you're a supporter of the administration that you're going to get pardoned, then, like, there's just huge incentive to, you know, go ahead and get while the getting's good. And I do think that there's some, like, bad incentive parallels there. Delete me makes it easy, quick and safe to remove your personal data online At a time when surveillance and data breaches are common enough to make everybody vulnerable. Easier than ever to find personal information about people online. Having your address, phone number and family members names hanging out on the Internet can have actual consequences in the real world and make everyone vulnerable. With Deleteme, you can protect your personal privacy or the privacy of your business from doxing attacks before sensitive information can be exploited. As somebody with an active online presence who can, you know, ruffle people's feathers, who has some trolls out there who have people that don't like my takes and want to annoy me or hack me, Privacy is important online. Privacy and security is something that is absolutely needed. And I gotta tell you, Deleteme makes it super easy. You can keep updating it. They're always monitoring for you. Not a hassle, not that challenging to log on and get it done. It's working for me. Recommend it for you. Take control of your data and keep your private life. Private by signing up for Deleteme now at a special discount for our listeners, get 20% off your delete me plan. And when you go to joindeleteme.com bulwark and use promo code Bulwark at checkout, the only way to get 20% off is to go to JoinDeleteMe.com bulwark and enter code bulwark at checkout. That's JoinDeleteMe.com bulwark code bulwark.

[Nick Kristof]

After we've covered all this miserable, terrible ground, can I offer a little ray of hope?

[Tim Miller]

I love that. I'm looking at the list of the rest of topics I have to talk about, and there's no hope. So please, anything you want to inject in there, I'll take. Yeah.

[Nick Kristof]

So I've spent much of my career covering authoritarian, nasty regimes. And there are two things that are so characteristic of them, and they're also characteristic of Trump. And one is that the authoritarians, they surround themselves with yes men. And so as a result, they tend to have dumb economic policies. Singapore is a rare exception. But in general, because they don't have intelligent critiques, they don't have corrective mechanisms. And so they have dumb economic policies that lead people to be upset with where things are. And the other thing they do for the same reason, and as you just alluded to it, is they become corrupt. If there is a big pot of honey right here and you know you're not going to get in trouble, then you reach in and grab some and you enrich yourself and your family. And, you know, fundamentally, that was why Orban was pushed out in Hungary, because bad economic policies and corruption, you know, I think that is, that is going to be a real toll on Republicans and the Trump administration. I wish the corruption were getting more attention in the U.S. i think that is a potential weakness for Trump because, you know, as you say, it's just endemic. They can do whatever they want. They feel they can. Anyway.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, I think the attention will hopefully increase when the Democrats get in charge next year, because I do think that focusing on corruption and the investigations is going to be absolutely their top responsibility, at least assuming they take the House, maybe the Senate next year, because it's not like any bipartisan policies are getting done. So they might as well focus on corruption investigations. And I do think that there's a lot there. And while the administration is going to be, I think, stonewall more than any administration in history when it comes to testimony and providing documents, a lot of these outside business deals that this administration is doing. I think the calculus is going to be different if you are, you know, hired Don Jr. To be on your board or put money into the Trump coin or are involved in the deal. I want to talk about the UAE deal that we're getting to. I do think for people involved in that, you know, they have other considerations. You know, they have to. They realize that there'll be a future where Trump is not in charge, and I think we'll feel forced to actually participate, and who knows what that's going to lead to, but we just know that everybody's getting their beak wet.

[Nick Kristof]

Yeah, I think that's right. You know, as you know, I live in rural Oregon and, you know, a place that is about two thirds of people voted for Trump in each election. And the arguments about authoritarianism don't really resonate with them. But. But beef prices totally do. The Social Security system not working. That does. And I think while they're not focused on news, I think the corruption issue also resonates.

[Tim Miller]

What do you mean they're not focused on news? They're just not getting as much information.

[Nick Kristof]

Yeah, they're just paying less attention to news, and I think they're less aware of the corruption. I mean, in general also, I think they're suspicious of. Of what they hear. They don't know quite what to believe when they hear things. And often the news they get is from Fox News, which doesn't exactly highlight the corruption issues, but some of it does get through.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah. I mean, you've thought about this. Having explored a run as a Democrat and as you mentioned, living in a more rural area, I have been of the belief that what is happening in the Middle east and the economic wreckage that's coming is. Is tragedy, and it's just horrible for the country and the world. But that also, I think, presents a political opportunity for the Democrats to kind of reintroduce themselves to folks who really did sign up for this because they thought Trump was going to care about them first and not get involved in stupid foreign wars and not do things that made their prices come up. And I think that a lot of them feel betrayed right now. And I don't think that a lot of those folks are ready to just go sign up for Gavin Newsom or whoever are like, super. They're not exactly huge, big fans of the Democrats. But. But I just think this is an opportunity for Democrats to be very clear about their values, particularly about war, particularly about caring about the economic concerns of working class Americans. I think they're Doing okay on that front right now. But to me, I just feel like this is a pedal to the metal moment on trying to reshape the brand. And I'm wondering what your thoughts on that would be if you had a Democratic politician calling you for your two cents.

[Nick Kristof]

So, you know, I think that's right. I certainly see that in my friends. And you know, Democrats in Oregon, you know, always ask me what they can do to overthrow this authoritarian leadership. And I think they tend to think in terms of no kings protests, things like that. And you know, that that certainly plays a role. But I think the what Democrats have to do, what the country needs is to win the Senate. And that means how do we help Sherrod Brown win this fall? How do we create a possibility for a Democrat to win the Senate race in Montana? And one thing that is maybe more important than any other, I think, is to fix blue places. Because in truth, we have not done a great job in governance in some of our blue places. And my neighbors and friends, they don't really know what to believe in some of these larger issues, but they do know that when they drive into Portland, they see a mess. And in one of the last cycles of voting in Montana, there was a billboard of showing a scene in Portland, a chaotic scene in Portland. And the message was something like, vote for Democrats and this will come to Montana. And that just pains me. And we can't just have a conversation about how awful Republicans are. We also have to fix our very real problems in blue places. San Francisco was doing a better job of that than most under the mayor, Daniel Lurie. But governance, you look at Chicago as well, we have a real problem and we've got to do a better job addressing that to show voters we can govern.

[Tim Miller]

I'm happy you said that. A lot of times Democrats don't like to hear that. And I mean, there are of course, good things about California and there are nice places in Chicago and you can over critique it, right? And the parody of California that you see on Fox News primetime isn't real. But just the reality of folks that live in a lot of deep blue places is that they've been priced out, that affordability is a massive problem, that their needs aren't being met. I know John Levitt on the other week and he was bitching about they're planning a new public transportation program in Los Angeles where he lives. And he's like, we're going to break ground in 2041. It's like, will we even have a society in 2041, will Donald Trump have gotten us into a nuclear war? Will the AI robots have taken us over by then? It's like, this is crazy. And I think that as you look ahead to 2028, two of the candidates, Gavin Newsom and J.B. pritzker, who I think seem like good people and well intentioned, there are things I like about both of them, critiques I have about both of them. But it's like, do the Democrats want to carry the baggage of Chicago and California and the fact that they are losing residents and try to make the case to the American people that the whole country wants this? I think it's a hard case to make right now. I just think that's a harsh reality for Democrats to assess.

[Nick Kristof]

I boy, I totally agree. And again, this is sort of seen through the filter of my neighbors. But it's genuinely true that we overreached, particularly on the West Coast. You know, in Oregon we have some of the worst educational outcomes in the country. Adjusted for demographics, we ranked number 50 in 4th and 8th grade NAEP scores for English and math.

[Tim Miller]

Now, don't be adjusting for demographics because I need Jeff Landry to stay at 50th. Okay. Because in raw numbers, Jeff Landry here in Louisiana is still 50th. It's important to say, sure, sure, yes, I agree with you that Oregon has done some silly stuff and overreached in places, but I don't want to take Landry's trophy away from him.

[Nick Kristof]

Well, okay, well, Oregon, you know, I would argue the demographic, it is important to adjust for poverty level and this kind of thing. But in any case, you know, in 2020, the state legislature allocated $6 million to put tampons in every bathroom, including kindergarten boys bathrooms. This very well meant inclusive gesture to support trans kids. Absolutely. But when you put tampons in kindergarten boys bathrooms, this is self parody.

[Tim Miller]

Well, they're dirty, they get dirty. You can use it to kind of clean off the dirt on the face after you get off the playground. I'm sure that maybe it leads to ingenuity among the five years old boys. What could you do with this tampon?

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[Tim Miller]

And I just think that it's an urgent issue for Democrats so like they both need to use this moment to offer a clear message about how if they do get back in power, they're going to care more about working everyday Americans and less about the this adventurism overseas and recapture that. It was very successful message for Barack Obama in 2008 that the Democrats have lost and they need to simultaneously do that with kind of fixing some of the business in blue cities. I want to go back to just a couple other issues that we glazed out before I lose you. The UAE bailout is in the news today and that's kind of related with the corruption and underpinnings of what's happening in the Middle East. And I guess it also could be related to Democratic messaging that could be useful. But it's pretty wild what they're discussing with the uae. I was just wondering what your thoughts were on that.

[Nick Kristof]

Oh, I mean, it's unbelievable. I mean, the UAE is one of the richer countries worldwide. It's where billionaires who don't want to pay taxes somewhere else, where they go to, you know, to flee and then, you know, we're unable. Sudan is the world's worst humanitarian crisis right now. Kids are starving every day in Sudan, Yemen, brutal situation. We don't provide enough aid to save kids in those places. We, you know, current humanitarian aid situation. And Lancet said this year that 9 million people will die unnecessarily because of aid cuts worldwide. And meanwhile, we're talking about providing aid to the uae, one of the wealthier countries in the world. And, and magnifying that is this corruption issue, as you say, the UAE signed this deal to enrich the Trump family by half a billion dollars, which sure looked like a retainer for just this kind of situation. It's just mind boggling. It's so frustrating when we have these kids dying unnecessarily worldwide for lack of such simple interventions. And then we're talking about bailing out. The UAE is maddening yeah, the geopolitics

[Tim Miller]

of the Arab states, too, with us is going to be super interesting over the next few years as well, because we're already seeing they're suffering economically for this. Saudi has talked about pulling out of some of their American investments, including the golf tour. I think they were propping up some nonprofits here as well, theaters. They had their hands in everything in order to try to get, to kind of get in our good graces. And it worked to a certain degree. But I think now kind of similar to Canada in a weird way, might start looking at this and saying, oh, man, we need to hedge a little bit more as well with China. And it's a complicated geopolitical scene right now where they're simultaneously paying off the Trump family and also feeling the pinch of what's happening in Iran.

[Nick Kristof]

I hope that the message goes out that when you think you are buying friendship and support from the Trump family, you know that you're not necessarily getting loyalty back, partly because of the competence issue and partly because that loyalty doesn't run very deep. And, you know, I hope those who were trying to ingratiate themselves with Trump understand that.

[Janet Freeman Daly]

When I first heard the words you have lung cancer, I was in shock. This week on a special episode of Health discovered we're taking a closer look at a common form of lung cancer that accounts for 85% of all cases. I'm Janet Freeman Daly and I've been living with non small cell lung cancer since 2011. Non small cell lung cancer, it's a diagnosis that changes everything and yet the conversation around it too often stops at the biology and misses what patients are actually living through every single day. There are some things you used to be able to do that you can't do anymore. It's easy to become depressed when you're dealing with all those losses. So mental health plays a really big role. So what does it really mean to advocate for yourself when you're living with non small cell lung cancer? Listen to Health discovered on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Tim Miller]

One other story I wanted to talk about that I just hadn't been able to get to this week and it's something you've reported on and care about is the way that we're treating the Afghan allies and those that were trying to flee Afghanistan after we pulled out. And since then, Afghan refugees who had been helping U.S. forces, interpreters, things of this nature. They've been stranded at a military base in Qatar. And now the Trump administration is Making them choose between either returning to Taliban ruled Afghanistan or sending them to war torn Congo. It's like 1100 people. It's totally insane and offensive and depraved that this is what we're doing. To folks that tried to help us in prosecuting that war.

[Nick Kristof]

Depraved is exactly the right word. I mean, these, these folks, they saved American lives in Afghanistan. And because they worked with Americans and because they did save those American lives, they and their families are at risk in Afghanistan if they are returned. They will suffer brutally, some will be killed. And then sending them to Congo, you may remember that as one of the wars that Trump solved for which he deserves the Nobel Peace Prize. It hasn't been. And Rwanda is laying waste to in eastern Congo. It's a place that is close to my heart, partly because we held it by one of the militias in eastern Congo, because I happened to come across the massacres and then chase through the jungle for the next five days in eastern Congo. And it is a mess. The idea that we would send.

[Tim Miller]

Can I hear a little bit more of that? Actually, you can't just throw out. This was close to my heart because I spent five days being chased through Congo. I just, I like the kind of Reader's Digest version of what happened there.

[Nick Kristof]

So the quick version is. So I was reporting on the beginning of the Congo Civil War in 1997, and in trying to fly into Kisangani, our plane crashed. And everybody, the plane was destroyed. Everybody in the plane survived, but one person was killed on the ground. And so after that experience getting into Congo, I thought, well, maybe I'll. Well, instead of flying out, I'll drive out. So I, I was in Kisangane. I looked at, in theory, there was this kind of road going through eastern Congo. So I hired a vehicle that had probably been stolen in the civil war from somebody or other and we drove out. And the first day we ran into this Rwanda backed militia that was massacring Hutu. And you know, I asked these child soldiers, what are you doing? And they said, oh, we're killing all the Hutu. I mean, they were unapologetic about it. So I asked them, can I interview your chief, your boss, your warlord? And that was a dumb thing to do because they took me to the warlord. And he understood it was a bad idea to be giving interviews about this. One of the basic rules of journalism is you never lie. When you're being held by a warlord who's busy massacring people, you lie. So I told him that I had the. The approval of his Uber warlord. He tried to reach that guy on the. On the radio. He could not. So after an hour or so, he. He let us go. Later that evening, he did reach the Uber warlord, who had never heard of me. And so we sent a truckload of soldiers after me. And so that unfolded over the next five days.

[Tim Miller]

Holy shit. How'd you end up getting out?

[Nick Kristof]

So we were ahead of them. We. We got stuck for hours at a time because the road was so bad, but so did the truck. We had a. Somewh vehicle and we got to the Uganda border and then the vehicle turned around and immediately ran into the soldiers. But the only people in it were my interpreter and the driver at that point, and they did not bother the interpreter and the driver.

[Tim Miller]

Wow, that's a happy.

[Nick Kristof]

And the idea that we're sending these Afghans to a place like this.

[Tim Miller]

So given that story, it doesn't seem like the place to send 1100 Afghans. So tried to. That helped us in the war.

[Nick Kristof]

Absolutely not.

[Tim Miller]

Fucking crazy. Okay, well, I wanted to end like we did last time with a little convo on Christoph Impact, but is there anything that I didn't ask you about, any reporting you've been doing, anything that's on your mind you want to leave people with?

[Nick Kristof]

You know, I do just hope that Democrats make a real push for winning back working class voters, both those of color and the white working class. I think that, that one of the real mistakes in the first Trump administration was that we were so outraged that Trump pushed us to the left in ways that made it harder to win those working class voters, we seem less sensitive to them. And in particular, too often, I think, concluded that every Trump voter is a racist and a bigot. And it is really hard to win votes from people whom you're accusing of being racist and bigots. So, so much is at stake right now in terms of the future of the country. And, you know, I just hope we will do better and be so focused on winning Senate races in, you know, Ohio and Arizona and Georgia and Maine and Alaska. Iowa. Yeah. Iowa is now in play, it looks like. You know.

[Tim Miller]

Well, we could not be more aligned on that. The next time you're on, I'm going to find something that we can fight about.

[Nick Kristof]

Oh, right. Well, Pinot Noir.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah. Oh, yeah, that's right. Last time. I fucking hate Pinot Noir. Still. Pinot Noir is disgusting, okay? If I wanted a juice box, I'd have one. I'm drinking Pet Nats and oranges. Do you make Any orange wine? You doing any orange wine out there?

[Nick Kristof]

No, we don't. We make hard cider, though. Really good hard cider. Some of the best hard cider.

[Tim Miller]

We're misaligned on our wine taste. That's okay. We're gonna find another issue, though, besides Pinot Noir and hard cider to disagree on. I do want to close the this you posted Yesterday that your 2025 Kristof Impact Drive raised 52 million for three nonprofits, which is really unbelievable. We try to do this as well from time to time with the Bulwark support certain advocacy groups or people that are in need. Our listeners, like yours, really love to do that, want to feel like they are having an impact and helping. So if you have a organization you want to shout out now, I would love to put that in the show notes and direct people to.

[Nick Kristof]

To it. Yeah. And, you know, maybe there's a way to partner in some form, you know, with the next drive. You know, I believe in something called solutions journalism, where you not just point out problems, but also point out solutions and give our audiences a way to try to address the problems. And so that's how this evolved. The three organizations that I supported this year were. One is the emergency response rooms in Sudan, which are this grassroots approach to deal with the famine there. Another is Helen Keller International, which does God's work in fighting malnutrition and hunger. And then the third works in the US Vision to Learn, which gets glasses in the hands of low income kids, especially in the early grades, who can't see the blackboard. And how can you learn to read if you can't see the blackboard? Just three great organizations. And if we in journalism, if we give our audiences a way to step up and help. I'm just awed by my, my audience and how willing they are to step up.

[Tim Miller]

We will put the link to the Helen Keller charity in the show notes because I made a Helen Keller joke this week, so I feel like that you owe them needed for karmic balance. We need to bring some karmic balance to the world. So we'll do that. Nick Kristof, I really appreciate you. Thanks for coming back on the show and we'll do it again soon. All right.

[Nick Kristof]

I look forward to that with a glass of Pinot noir next time.

[Tim Miller]

Okay. And I'll bring my own pet nap. Everybody else, we'll see you back here Monday. It's a Monday, so it's Bill Kristol have day. A great weekend. Take my hand now, love down the stairs your father walks, I will lead the way. His hair is falling gray.

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