S2 Ep1015: Bill Kristol: The High Cost of Stupidity

Summary

The Bulwark Podcast: S2 Ep1015 Summary Episode Title: Bill Kristol: The High Cost of Stupidity
Release Date: April 7, 2025
Hosts/Guests: Tim Miller and Bill Kristol

---

Introduction and Economic Turmoil

The episode opens with host Tim Miller highlighting significant turmoil within the Trump administration, the struggling markets, and escalating global tensions. Miller notes that the S&P 500 has experienced its worst three-day performance since 1987, attributing much of the market's instability to President Trump's relentless tariff policies.

Notable Quote:
Tim Miller (00:07):
"It's a bloodbath in particular in the S and P which is now at its worst three day performance since 1987 as Trump refuses to back off his moronic tariff regiment."

---

The Impact of Trump's Tariffs

Bill Kristol delves into the detrimental effects of Trump's tariff policies, emphasizing their ill-conceived nature and poor execution. Kristol criticizes the administration for implementing tariffs without proper economic justification, leading to significant market and economic repercussions.

Notable Quotes:
Bill Kristol (02:01):
"These tariffs are so particularly stupid. They seem to be premised, Voiga might have explained this better. And the idea that our bilateral trade balance with every country should be zero, should be even."

Tim Miller (05:24):
"That's comparative advantage. And everyone has their specialized natural resources."

---

Market Reaction and Critique from Economists

Kristol discusses the severe market reactions not only due to the economic damage caused by the tariffs but also because of the perceived recklessness of Trump's team. He points out that the market is factoring in the administration's incompetence, which has been a consistent underestimation by economists.

Notable Quote:
Bill Kristol (05:24):
"It is partly that the actual tariffs are going to damage the actual economy, prices, imports and so forth, but it's also the incredible stupidity and recklessness and willfulness that Trump and his team have shown the market is pricing that in now."

---

Media and Public Figures' Responses

The podcast touches on various public figures, including Elon Musk and Dave Chappelle, who have voiced concerns about the administration's policies. Musk's subtweets against Trump and Chappelle's comedic rebuttals serve as examples of influential voices opposing the administration's actions.

Notable Quotes:
Dave Chappelle (11:59 - 12:55):
"iPhones can be $9,000. Leave that job in China where it belongs."
"Fuck is he thinking?"
"I want to wear Nikes. I don't want to make them [shits]."

Tim Miller (09:35):
"Howard Lutnick, he was not knocking it out of the park over the Weekend as well. I want to play a clip for you of possibly one of the worst talking points I've ever heard on a Sunday show."

---

Internal Tensions within the Trump Administration

Bill Kristol highlights growing dissent within the administration and among Republican lawmakers. With key figures like Kevin Hassett shifting their stance on tariffs, there is an emerging rift that threatens to undermine Trump's policies from within.

Notable Quote:
Bill Kristol (07:20):
"The Republicans on the Hill have been pretty bad too. I'm certainly within the administration, there's been just contempt."

---

Human Rights Abuses and Immigration Policy

A significant portion of the discussion focuses on the administration's harsh immigration policies, including the forced deportation of individuals to El Salvador and the treatment of immigrants. Kristol and Miller express deep concern over the lack of due process and the inhumane conditions being inflicted upon immigrants.

Notable Quotes:
Bill Kristol (35:48):
"It's fundamentally changed now."
Tim Miller (29:15):
"They've kidnapped these people and sent them to a torture dungeon. They also show a lot of video from this prison. It's just horrifying."

---

Potential Political Responses and Party Strategy

Kristol and Miller explore possible strategies for Democrats and moderate Republicans to counteract the administration's policies. They suggest leveraging the economic fallout and public dissent to push for legislative actions that could curb Trump's power, although they acknowledge the significant challenges involved.

Notable Quotes:
Bill Kristol (16:39):
"Democrats need to hammer home... if there were Democrats out there that were saying, yeah, if they want to stop these tariffs, I would work with Don Bacon on finding a compromise solution."

Tim Miller (21:04):
"Maybe there is something there, you know, but again, like this stuff gets very complicated, right?"

---

Election Integrity and Judicial Manipulation

The conversation shifts to the Republican efforts to manipulate election outcomes, particularly focusing on the North Carolina State Supreme Court race. Kristol warns of a troubling trend where Republicans use judicial processes to undermine election integrity, setting a dangerous precedent for future elections.

Notable Quotes:
Bill Kristol (45:53):
"This is an April and they're going after particular ballots that they think would be more Democratic. But I think it is a harbinger of what will happen in states where Republicans have control of the state legislature."

Tim Miller (44:19):
"Can imagine the expat vote would be more sympathetic to the Democrats. Even conservative lawyers."

---

Human Rights Abuses and Immigration Policy (Continued)

Further discussion centers on the ongoing human rights abuses, including the extradition of immigrants to El Salvador without due process. Miller gives a detailed account of the unjust treatment and lack of accountability within the administration, highlighting the broader implications for civil liberties and America's international standing.

Notable Quotes:
Tim Miller (32:49):
"They've kidnapped these people and sent them to a torture dungeon. They also show a lot of video from this prison. It's just horrifying."

Bill Kristol (33:40):
"They have jurisdiction over the president of El Salvador."

---

Potential Political Responses and Party Strategy (Continued)

Kristol emphasizes the importance of proactive strategies from Democrats and moderate Republicans to mitigate the damage caused by Trump's policies. He calls for a united front to challenge reckless administration actions, suggesting that even a small number of Republicans could play a pivotal role in reversing harmful measures.

Notable Quotes:
Bill Kristol (22:08):
"There's a decent chance that we're in the middle of something that people haven't really wrapped their heads around yet."

---

Humorous Interlude and Coping Mechanisms

In an attempt to lighten the mood, Tim Miller shares a comedic clip featuring Dave Chappelle, providing a brief respite from the heavy topics discussed. This segment underscores the importance of humor as a coping mechanism amid political and economic chaos.

Notable Quotes:
Dave Chappelle (11:59 - 12:56):
"Fuck is he thinking?"
"I want to wear Nikes. I don't want to make them shits."

---

Conclusion and Future Outlook

As the podcast wraps up, Kristol and Miller reflect on the profound changes in America's political and economic landscape under Trump's leadership. They express pessimism about reversing the current trajectory but remain hopeful that strategic political actions could mitigate some of the damage. The episode concludes on a somber note, acknowledging the deep uncertainties facing the nation.

Notable Quotes:
Bill Kristol (51:55):
"The combination of all that... the odds are unfortunately decent that this is a real end of an 80-year period."

Tim Miller (53:26):
"Yeah, well that's where I'm at too... it's like the constitution we gave the Germans."

---

Final Remarks

The episode underscores the high stakes of Trump's administration policies, highlighting both internal dysfunction and external backlash. Bill Kristol provides a critical analysis of the economic and human costs of current strategies, while Tim Miller emphasizes the urgent need for political unity and action to address the multifaceted crises facing the United States.

Notable Closing Quote:
Tim Miller (55:27):
"Thanks to Bill, Kristol, everybody else, we're back here tomorrow for another edition of the Bulwark Podcast. We'll see you all then. Peace."

---

Additional Resources:

• Bulwark+ Membership: Access an ad-free version of the podcast.
• Smalls Cat Food Promotion: smalls.com with promo code thebulwark for discounts.

---

This summary captures the key discussions and insights from the episode, providing an overview for those who have not listened to the entire podcast.

Transcript

[Bill Kristol]

Foreign.

[Tim Miller]

Hello and welcome to the Bulwark podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. Trouble inside the Trump administration. Big trouble in the markets, trouble in the world. It's a bloodbath in particular in the S and P which is now at its worst three day performance since 1987 as Trump refuses to back off his moronic tariff regiment. Here to discuss that and much more. It's Monday, so it's Bulwark editor at large Bill Kristol. Hey Bill, what's up?

[Bill Kristol]

Hanging in there, Tim, how are you?

[Tim Miller]

I was just talking to your pal Stan Boiger. He's an economist over at AEI who's been one of the ones who's been stalwart in opposition to Trump's excesses, particularly on the economic side of things and his stupid trade wars. People can check out over on YouTube on the Bulwark takes feed about his paper about how stupid these tariffs are. They didn't even do their own math right. And we were joking at the end that the schadenfreude of watching all of the terrible people be wrong and lose money is nice. It's not exactly gonna pay for kids college fund or the retirement home. So it's mixed feelings.

[Bill Kristol]

It would be nice if Trump could discredit himself without ruining the country. I mean this is the kind of problem we have with having elected Trump. A point you've been making, I believe online and on the bull war on various podcasts and on the Bulwark as well over the last several days. All these people who were like, gee, this is really. How could this be happening? I don't know. Why is this happening? It's so mysterious. Maybe if you didn't elect Trump, it wouldn't, it wouldn't be happening. I mean Vorgas thing is amazing because as he said, he's anti tariff anyways, a free trader. But if you're going to do it, they seem to have done it in about the stupidest, most damaging possible way, including the math errors and the kind of insanity of how they calculate this country by country tariffs. So it's really, it is like let's have a bad policy and then execute it horribly, you know.

[Tim Miller]

You know, you hate to hand it to Elon Musk, but it's not just, it's not just the aei, it's not just us at the Bulwark, you know, just the Democrats. Even the shadow president is starting to have some concerns about the policy. Are you ready to side with Elon Musk for a second here, Bill? He was Subtweeting the President this morning. So some issues on the home front with the shadow president. Subtweeting the president and he just posted the video of this classic free market fundamentalist text, the pencil. And I want to get your former Republican muscles pumping this morning, so I want to play a little bit from the pencil.

[Bill Kristol]

There's not a single person in the world who could make this pencil remarkable statement. Not at all. The wood from which it's made, for all I know, comes from a tree that was cut down in the state of Washington. To cut down that tree, it took a saw to make the saw. It took steel to make the steel. It took iron ore. This black center, we call it lead, but it's really graphite, compressed graphite. I'm not sure where it comes from, but I think it comes from some mines in South America. This red top up here, the eraser bit of rubber probably comes from Malaya where the rubber tree isn't even native. It was imported from South America by some businessmen with the help of the British government. It was a magic of the price system, the impersonal operation of prices that brought them together and got them to cooperate to make this pencil so that you could have it for a trifling sum.

[Tim Miller]

Beautiful. Filton Friedman, the simplicity. Are you feeling good? Are you feeling like a Straussian again, Bill, how does that make you feel?

[Bill Kristol]

That was such a fundamentalist kind of free market thing before Friedman. I think Friedman narrated it, but you know, I think it was around like in the 50s or 60s is kind of a. There was some organization whose name was escaping me that sort of promoted really like popular education and free markets. This was going to correct all the errors of the New Deal and of democratic socialism and stuff. And they had pamphlets.

[Tim Miller]

Hey, don't get our listeners mad about the pencil.

[Bill Kristol]

Well, there was interesting about free trade, incidentally, someone made this point in an article over the last few days, John Ganz. I think free trade was an important part of the New Deal. People forget that. I mean, what's the most famous tariff in recent times? Smoot Hawley, 1930 Republican Tariff. What did Roosevelt do? He reduced tariffs in 1934. Labor wasn't crazy about some of the free trade stuff, so he didn't publicize it as much. But it was very much part of the intellectual organization, so to speak, of the uti.

[Tim Miller]

Iglesias made this point too, about how actually it's weird, it's flipped that the populists are pro tariffs now on both sides. Back then it was like tariffs raise Prices on working people. And so a lot of the intellectual in that era were against it, as you said.

[Bill Kristol]

And tariffs historically could be gamed by the big corporations, the big businesses. So whereas you can't do that if you're just a working guy and you have to go to the store and buy stuff and so forth and invest in modest amounts in the stock market. No, I know. Anyway, the Freedman thing. But it is a kind of nice, simple explanation of free trade. I mean, that's why these tariffs are so particularly stupid. They seem to be premised. Voiga might have explained this better, I'm sure explained this better than I would. And the idea that our bilateral trade balance with every country should be zero, should be even. Right. That, I mean, not that we trade, you know, we, we import more stuff from this country so we can export more to that country and it's a giant thing and it evens out and benefits everyone over the long term.

[Tim Miller]

That's comparative advantage. And everyone has their specialized natural resources.

[Bill Kristol]

So dumb. I mean, it's so stupid. I mean, there, whatever the fancy arguments for some targeted terrorists on national security or other reasons sheltering, you know, what are this called? Baby industries, young industries and stuff. I mean, this is so damaging and the markets correctly see it. Right. I was talking with another economist this weekend, not Stan in this case. I said, well, are you surprised by the severity of the market reaction? What really accounts for that? And he said it is partly that the actual tariffs are going to damage the actual economy, prices, imports and so forth, but it's also the incredible stupidity and recklessness and willfulness that Trump and his team have shown the market is pricing that in now, which as you and I have discussed, they were sort of denying for the last three, five months since the election. Right. It's not really going to happen.

[Tim Miller]

You kept dancing around at moron stupidity. They said we can say the R word again, Bill. They said we can say it again. And this is. I don't even know if it would be the R word. S. I think this is the subtarted economic policy that has put this collapse in place. It has no rationale at all across any, any level. The funny thing is Besant was on all these things are darkly funny. When I say funny, it's not really funny to see what's happening to our 401ks. But Besant was on NBC this weekend and he's like, this is these finance guys underestimating Trump again. And I'm going, no, Scott, opposite. This is a reflection of the fact that they overestimated him, that they did not recognize how reckless and stupid you guys were gonna be. They didn't listen to. They been listening to me and Bill. They would have been pricing this stuff in between November and now because we've been telling people this is going to come, you know, but it's this large shock and crash, essentially, because investors refuse to believe that they could be this stupid.

[Bill Kristol]

You know, I watched the clip of Besant. Yeah, he's such a bad defender. I do feel like, I think I tweeted this. The Democrats should just stay off all TV for the next two weeks and let Besant and Kevin Hassett and Letnick go on, because every time they go on, they make it worse for Trump. But Bessant's super clever thing was we should be glad the markets worked. You know, like the actual computers were able to process the trades as the markets dropped 2,000 points. That was. Thank God for that. And secondly, he had this fake argument that, well, the markets dropped on election night in 2016, which is true. I think they went down several hundred points. They literally rebounded, like in three days, if I'm not mistaken. Right. And the market's priced in correctly. That Trump, I mean, whatever you think of Trump, obviously, but that he was going to be kind of a pro business president. And mostly they priced in the fact that we were at a strong recovery finally after the Great Recession and was going to continue. And Trump didn't mess it up, actually, because his tariffs were very limited in the first term. This is such a good case study, too, in what we've been arguing for quite a while. The second term isn't the first term. The first term was some stupidity, some Trumpiness, some willfulness, but hemmed in by the guardrails. Not here. Reinforced by all these guys. Incidentally, can I say that one friend of mine, acquaintance of mine on Wall street, was reassuring me that Scott Besant is going to be fine. He's going to be the adult in the room, and it's really important that he got the Treasury Secretary job. And how's that working out?

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, that person might not have looked closely at Scott Bessant's returns because one of our super listeners was texting me a chart of how much money Scott Bessant had in his hedge fund over the years. And the chart kind of looks similar to the S&P 500 right now. Actually, I wanted just zero in on the Commerce Secretary, Howard Nutlik, for a second because he was not exactly knocking it out of the park over the Weekend as well. I want to play a clip for you of possibly one of the worst talking points I've ever heard on a Sunday show. Let's listen.

[Bill Kristol]

Remember the army of millions and millions of human beings screwing in little, little screws to make iPhones. That kind of thing is gonna come to America.

[Tim Miller]

Just what everybody wants. The screw in the screws. We'll just have all the engineers overseeing the screw screwing.

[Bill Kristol]

It is going to be automated, of course, once it comes back here. But what is that then? I thought all these manufacturing businesses supposed to produce jobs. So he's giving away the truth, which is automation is what's killed the jobs, not free trade. But anyway, yeah, he's terrible. I mean, he really is awful. Some other defender of Trump that Bill Ackman guy in New York attacked. This was good when they all start fighting each other. Well, the reason Lutnick is defending the tariffs is that his firm is a bond firm. Cantor, I think, in New York. And he's long bonds. And if you're long bonds, you don't mind a little economic slowdown because bonds do fine as opposed to stocks, as I understand it. And therefore he's like, you know, it's his book. He's defending his self interest. So to get these, these, these billionaires sniping at each other and claiming they're just doing this for the sake of their own. Their own book. That's a good, That's a good development. I think, again, it's too bad we have to suffer for it. It would be entertaining to watch all this, you know, and the penguins. The penguins have been excellent memes, I've got to say. Do you not agree with that? This really.

[Tim Miller]

The Fangu memes have been good. The Ackman thing is also just like. Because Ackman supported Trump. For people who don't know this guy, he's a clown. A rich clown who made money shorting the market during COVID actually. So he knows a little bit about this and he has to come up with this convoluted theory for why these people that he put into the White House are ruining everything. I just want to be like, Bill, Bill, you supported the stupidest person in America who bankrupted everything he ever did before he created a TV show that made him seem like a good businessman. Like, that's what happen era. There's no 40 chess. They're not trying to lower interest rates for a long mar a lago accord. And Lutnick isn't secretly helping his bonds. He's just a suck up. He's just a clown who wants attention, sucking up to the idiots that we made president. Hopefully that clears things up for Ackman. I wanted to play for you. My father sent me a little comedy bit. I think dark comedy. He's trying to process how things with the mutual funds are going as much as me. I think that Dave Chappelle, who went pretty anti woke and was celebrated on the right for his kind of anti trans comedy, seems like he's also had a turn already in the first. Whatever. It's been 10, 11 weeks of this administration. And I think his little comedy routine from last week does a nice job of rebutting Howard Lutnick screws theory. So let's listen to Chappelle.

[Bill Kristol]

So iPhones can be $9,000. Leave that job in China where it belongs.

[Tim Miller]

None of us want to work that hard.

[Bill Kristol]

Fuck is he thinking?

[Tim Miller]

I want to wear Nikes.

[Bill Kristol]

I don't want to make them shits. What the fuck are you doing? Stop trying to give us Chinese jobs. That's a good line. I want to wear Nikes. I don't want to make them. I mean, it's a deep kind of understanding of free markets and comparative advantage. He should go to AEI Chappelle. That was good.

[Tim Miller]

He should. And Voyer could do a. Could do a co. Bill. I don't know. My life is so crazy right now. I was out somewhere and I can't remember where it was. And nice woman came up to me and she was like, I just want to hear the latest with the cat. Just want to hear the latest with the neighborhood cat. So I'm glad people are out there following the saga. It was nice to share the neighborhood cat, Aretha. Boy named Aretha was actually in the house this morning. He's now our cat. Took to the vet, did all the things you all told me to do. I still like to spend a lot of time outside, but was inside today because we had a very minor cold front in New Orleans. It got down to 55 Burr and the Kitty doesn't like that his inside snuggling up. And over the weekend, my daughter was trying to make a little maze for the cat and was using the bag of small snacks to lure him into the play area. So how about that? This podcast is sponsored by Smalls. If you're a listener of the show, you know that Aretha cannot live without smalls. To get 35% off plus an additional 50% off your first order, head to smalls.com and use our promo code thebullwork. For a limited time only. Smalls Cat Food is protein packed recipes made with preservative free ingredients you'd find in your fridge and it's delivered right to your door. That's why cats.com named Smalls their best overall cat food. Smalls also has a bunch of amazing treats and snacks you can add to your order. That's what Aretha really likes so would make sure to look into the options for snacks. And if you have a particularly picky cat, Smalls has a sampler so your cat can try everything to see what he or she or they like. What are you waiting for? Give your cat the food they deserve for a limited time only because you are the Bulwark listener. You can get 35% off smalls plus an additional 50% off your first order by using my code the Bulwark. That's an additional 50% off when you head to smalls.com and use promo code the Bulwark. Again, that's promo code the Bulwark for an additional 50% off the first order plus free [e-mail] Two and a half months in it's pretty noteworthy that we have Joe Rogan and Dave Chappelle already pretty harshly coming out against the administration across different items. It was Rogan I played last week on the Venezuelan Deepwater Quotations and now Chappelle on this. I guess it's just worth sitting for a second on the fact that it was only a month ago that everybody was like, there's been a real vibe shift. People are coming around to Trump. That's changing the way it's changing people's behavior. Who knows what positive results could come if you're a conservative. And I do wonder if there's some ripple effects on stiffening the spines of people in Big Law. Lauren Egan has a great newsletter this weekend for the Bulwark on how Democrats are pissed that Democrats who are executives at these law firms that are folding in corporate America, are these guys going to start to be like, okay, wait a minute, this little moment here where we all were like, oh, we need to suck up to Trump and then everything will be okay. Maybe we might be sensing that that dark period in our history has already passed. I don't know. Is that too hopeful?

[Bill Kristol]

A little bit, yeah. I mean, I think the darkest period has passed or is passing. The question is, and you've remarked on this also over the weekend and late last week, these nice Republican congressmen and senators who were so upset about this, maybe they could actually do something about It So we're at the being concerned stage. Same with the donors, same with the Wall street guys, same with everyone, you know. So those people could have a lot of effect. The donors, obviously, within the administration to some degree, but also on members of Congress. So they should be pushing members of Congress to stop this. This is a little con grant of power. The emergency powers that Trump is using. It can be overturned, as I understand it, by 51 votes in the Senate and 218 in the House. And I don't know that it's even veto could be vetoed if they pass that resolution withdrawing that grant of power.

[Tim Miller]

Is that true?

[Bill Kristol]

I think so, yeah.

[Tim Miller]

It's the veto part that I'm not sure about. I think it was Jake Sherman who said this. And again, we're in unprecedented times. So Jake is very good. He's over at Punchbowl of analyzing the Hill. His point was that Trump could veto it. Could you imagine getting whatever you'd need, however many Republicans you'd need to get to 67 in the Senate.

[Bill Kristol]

Democrats need to hammer home. I think they're not doing quite enough of this, in my opinion. The fact that four Republican members of Congress could stop this or at least reverse it for now and let Trump then veto it and let's have an override vote and put everyone on the record. I mean, I was on a conference call recently, some Democrats explaining why they really couldn't do much. Maybe they should get a little out of the why we can't do anything is the minority mindset. And a little more into the let's try to do everything and make the Republicans explain why they're the Trumpy Republicans explain why they're stopping it and the wishy washy Republicans explaining why they're not actually just joining the Democrats to change these disastrous policies. What do you think? You've been pushing this for a while. Another few days of the markets like this and one or two other events that might not be good for Trump. And I don't know, you could have realized 2005 level Republican, you know, frantic panic, I should think, as he did over Iraq and Katrina in 2005. No, I don't know.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, I was going to point to a little later than that, which would have been late 2008 during that financial crisis. Right. I mean, the bank bailout at first, remember, was not like there was not a sense that it was going to pass on the Hill.

[Bill Kristol]

Right. They got defeated in the House the first time.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, they got defeated in the House. And I remember kind of Just watching that as an observer at that point, I was not, I guess I was out of products. That was after McCain loss. Oh, that was back in my first job for Sarah Longwell. Actually I was working in an office right next door to Sarah Longwell back when we were in our PR days in our youth. Anyway, I remember watching that. And it fails, right? And the markets just tank again and eventually it's kind of essentially this outside pressure that forces the issue on the Hill. That's certainly very possible here. And if we're at the worst three day drop since 1987 in the S&P 500, you know, how much lower could it go to force that? So there's already some chatter with regards to Don Bacon, who is the Republican representing the Omaha swingy kind of Omaha district in Nebraska. He has a resolution to take this power back if you make it a privilege. But Mike Johnson is going to bring it up. If you, if you bring a privileged resolution, then there's a way to force the vote. So he was asked about that over the weekend and kind of basically said, well, you know, maybe there'll be a time for that. Like didn't say no, didn't say it's. Yeah, yes, he was wishy washy as usual. So maybe there is something there, you know, but again, like this stuff gets very complicated, right? Like then you have to get it to the Senate and you have Thune and Johnson both, you know, there's enough Republican senators that would go along with that. But would they go along with it in a hostile, you know, environment where Mike Johnson was overruled? Then you get real chaos in the Republican order. The idea that I've put forth, which is a Bill Kristol pleaser, which is fantasy world idea, but again, I don't understand why it should be fantasy world. Is that Brian Fitzpatrick, maybe a couple of the New York Republicans, Lawler, somebody like that, who knows, and somebody that's retiring, they could just leave the Republican conference and work with the Democrats on a new speaker and they could get a compromise speaker put forth that could then really take the power of the purse back from Trump if he's going to be so reckless that he tanks the economy. And we're obviously not there yet. But I think it's worth just putting that on the table and reminding people that that's possible. Right. Because that to your point, Bill is like a Democratic job that I think could help nudge things along. If there were Democrats out there that were saying, yeah, if they want to stop these tariffs, I would work with Don Bacon on finding a compromise solution that wouldn't obviously give the Democrats everything they want, but would get a fucking Trump sycophant out of the Speaker's office anyway. We're in crazy times. It's not, like, realistic. But I don't think it's unimaginable that you get to a point where that happens if the mad King won't do anything.

[Bill Kristol]

Right. I mean, Mike Turner, who is the House Intelligence Committee chairman, a Republican from Dayton deposed by Trump's orders. I don't know if he's going to run again or not. He could be Speaker, I guess. I don't say acting speaker, but I guess he'd have to be the real speaker for three months, six months. You could always explicitly say this is for the rest of this fiscal year or something. Get aid for Ukraine, which he cares a lot about. Get rid of the tariffs, maybe one or two other things. Just fix the most egregious things Trump has done. Obviously, tell everyone on most issues, you vote however you wish. And, you know, if the Democrats want to pass stuff, they can pass stuff, you know? Yeah, I wonder how it doesn't happen. Well, it never happened, but it rarely happens in American history.

[Tim Miller]

But people do change parties in American.

[Bill Kristol]

History and occasionally at the state level. Right. You've had these kind of compromise situations, state legislatures. So anyway, yeah, I agree. It's worth getting out there. The Democrats need to think a little more imaginatively about this moment, too. They can't simply sit around saying, we're in the minority by four votes, so we just can't do anything, you know, And I think those people who turned out on Saturday to demonstrate, they want to see a little more activity on the Democrats part.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, shout out to the people that turned out at the hands off protest on Saturday. But, yeah, I mean, there's two ways to look at this, right? It's like, well, do you want to stop the bad stuff from happening or do you want to help your. You know what I mean? Like, because I think if things don't get any better, the Democrats literally could do nothing. And the James Carville thing is true. Like, they could probably play dead and win the House back and who knows how, depending on how bad it gets, maybe even the Senate back in two years. But it's like, okay, well, how much damage is going to be done before then? Right. And so I do think if you want, if you want to stop it and if you want to signal to people that you are fighting for something. Right? And rally people to, you know, like, there are opportunities, I think, to do this sort of thing and that the.

[Bill Kristol]

Congressional Republicans are part of the problem, not just Trump, because Trump himself isn't on the ballot in 26. I think it's kind of cost free to try to do the stuff. If you don't, if they stop you, then you say, well, they stopped us from trying to do this stuff. It's like the Democrats try to cut off funding for Iraq. They didn't do it. They knew they weren't gonna succeed with Bush's president, but it got them on the, from their point of view, the right side of that issue.

[Tim Miller]

So one more thing, just on the party switching, because I know people are rolling their eyes at Bill and Tim talking about this, but people have switched parties a decent amount in my life. I mean, to me, it's actually one of the most insane things about the Trump era, that it hasn't happened from Republican to Democrat. And you've seen Liz and Adam blow up their careers over it. And Jeff Flake, I guess quasi ends up being appointed to a Democratic administration, but staying in Congress and switching parties. Jeff Van Drew did this the other way during the Trump era, which is crazy. Trump has picked up a plus one on a person switching parties, and no one has gone the other way. When I was growing up in Denton, Colorado, Ben Nighthorse Campbell switched parties. Jim Jeffords switched parties. Vermont, Arlen Specter switched parties. And those are just off the top of my head. I wasn't planning on this rant right now. So I'm sure that there were others, like, I don't know, at a time of extreme emergency, which maybe we're not quite at, but we're on the cusp of, might be worth at least stirring the pot with that a little bit, raising it as a possibility, y'all. Could there be a time with more uncertainty in the world than right now? I don't know why I sound like Chandler Bing and friends, but that's just how it came out. There's uncertainty out there, lots of uncertainty, and at times of uncertainty, maybe it makes sense to think about things you can control. One such thing you control is your life insurance. Selectquote is one of America's leading insurance brokers with nearly 40 years of experience helping over 2 million customers find over $700 billion in coverage since 1985. Other life insurance brokers offer impersonal one size fits all policies that may cost you more and cover you less. While select quotes licensed insurance agents work for you to tailor a life insurance policy for your individual needs in as little as 15 minutes. And if you've ever worried about getting coverage of the pre existing health condition, selectquote partners with carriers that provide policies for a variety of conditions, high blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease, etc. Head to selectquote.com and a licensed insurance agent will call you right away with the right policy for your life and your budget. Selectquote they shop, you save, get the right life insurance for you for [e-mail] Bulwark Go to SelectQuote.com Bulwark today to get started. That's SelectQuote.com Bulwark One more tariff thing because this relates to the other crisis. It's a major crisis if you're living in Kyiv right now and a crisis for Europe that has now been subordinated to our more acute crises here in America, which is what's happening in Ukraine. Kevin Hassett, your buddy, longtime Republican economist in good standing, was on asked to defend these tariffs that obviously he was against his entire career until two minutes ago when he decided he's a big tariff fan and he's the administration chairman of the National Economic Council. And he was asked why Russia was not put on the tariff list by George Stephanopoulos. And I thought his response was pretty interesting. I want to play it why did.

[Bill Kristol]

The president not include Russia on the list of countries who are facing tariffs? There's obviously an ongoing negotiation with Russia and Ukraine, and I think the president made the decision not to conflate the two issues.

[Tim Miller]

It doesn't mean that Russia, in the.

[Bill Kristol]

Fullness of time, is going to be treated wildly different than every other country. But Russia is one of the only countries, one of the few countries that is not subject to these news tariffs, aren't they? They're in the middle of a negotiation, George, aren't they? Well, I'm asking a different question.

[Tim Miller]

Why?

[Bill Kristol]

And I just want to know why.

[Tim Miller]

Would you literally advise that you go.

[Bill Kristol]

In and put a whole bunch of new things on the table in the middle of a negotiation that affects so many American, Ukrainian and Russian lives?

[Tim Miller]

We're tariffing Ukraine. Ukraine's on the list. Ukraine got a 10% tariff. Are they not part of the negotiations? I really don't think so. It's just another accidental reveal here that they don't want to make Putin mad. They're scared of Putin. They're either scared of him, slash, they kind of are sympathetic with him in the negotiations. And whereas Ukraine, we can just bully around and whatever. And so Ukraine gets a 10% tariff, Russia zero. Great job. Kevin Hassett, you and I have been.

[Bill Kristol]

Around a bit and seen people go on Sunday shows and defend policies they weren't really in favor of internally and do their best defending bad policies honestly, and ones that weren't working well. And I've never, I mean, it's pathetic. Those three this weekend, they were all on Sunday, I think, right. But Besant, Hassett and Lutnick and what a crew.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, it was across the network. So cbs, abc, NBC. I don't know what they got out of it because Trump, you know, gets to see them humiliate themselves to stay in his good graces, I guess.

[Bill Kristol]

J.D. vance, isn't he normally eager to get on these Sunday shows? Where was he, where was he this weekend?

[Tim Miller]

Couple people have been noting this, our poster vice president who tweets almost as much as me and Bill. Not, not a ton of posting here. Some retweets, couple retweets. You know, he's retweeting Walter Kern for some reason. But last actual Tweet from him April 2, it looks like. So it does seem like there is some tension on the inside. I mean, the Elon Musk thing is not nothing like he's subtweeting with the Milton Friedman video and then also he's going at it with Navarro and he tweeted about how Navarro thinks he's smart because he went to Harvard or something like made fun of him as like, you know, being a Harvard educated economist actually is a negative, not a positive. So I don't exactly know what to make of all of that. But like there was a moment where I think some in the media were trying to manufacture this dissent between Musk and there really was a Musk Bannon feud. But Bannon's not in the White House. This is the first time where it really feels like inside things are dicey.

[Bill Kristol]

And it has a little effect outside too. Because if Musk is now legitimizing his buddies, his supporters to kind of go down this path, right. Musk having done this will lead to more people on the outside being willing to be critical of Trump. If Trump and Musk and everyone were united front, the people who like Musk, it's amazing anyone does, but at least his or the fellow Silicon Valley bros and all these characters would be hesitant to be criticizing perhaps the policy. So you asked me earlier, can I praise Musk? I really can't praise Mosque. I just can't do it. But I'm glad, I'm glad he, he is saying what he thinks about these tariffs, I guess.

[Tim Miller]

I want to go to 60 Minutes. Another thing I did a full video on last night because I was just so. I was so mad and sad about the whole thing. I just kind of wanted to get off my feelings immediately. The 60 minute segment doesn't really tell us anything that we don't know, but it just provided a lot of additional details to the stuff that we did already know about the horrible treatment of the Venezuelans. Just a couple of quick things. They looked at all the names of the people who, you know, were on the list. Like, we think that is a verified list. We are not 100% sure because the administration has declared state secrets, so they get to keep it as a secret. Who they disappeared to this concentration camp. And based on that list, they said they 75% of the people had no criminal record at all. I think it was like 22% of the people did have a criminal record, but some percentage of that, it was like shoplifting or whatever. There was also some percentage of that where there were serious crimes. And then 3%, they couldn't verify the names. So the number of people that could be totally wrongly sent there based on their tattoos might even be greater than we thought. We don't know. They went deeper in the story of Andre, which we've talked about a lot on this podcast. He's a gay stylist, makeup artist. They found additional pictures of him from that Time magazine photographer who happened to be in El Salvador taking photos. When the guys came off the plane, they showed these horrible new pictures of him being stripped naked and, like, treated rough. You know, there's more details was provided by his lawyer at Immigrant Defenders. If you want to support that group, they're doing great work. You know, just about his background. 60 Minutes looked back at, you know, Tricia McLaughlin, the spokesperson for DHS had said that it wasn't just the tattoos in this case, she had posted a tweet saying that that his social media post indicated sympathy to trend. 60 Minutes looked at 10 years of his social media accounts and didn't find anything. They found mostly pictures of him doing makeup and looking very gay. And it's not as if there was a situation where he could have like deleted old stuff because it was a surprise he wasn't expected to be disappeared to El Salvador that day. They told two other stories of other people that I haven't talked about on this podcast. Their situation seemed very similar, frankly. So the whole thing is just unimaginable, like how bad it is. It's enraging we'll get to the Democrats in a second. But like, unlike the tariffs, the Republicans are just okay with this. And the administration, there's nothing. They're unapologetically going out there, just smearing these people. They've kidnapped these people and sent them to a torture dungeon. They also show a lot of video from this prison. It's just horrifying. And there's nothing. There's nothing. There's no pushback at all. Civil liberties types, Rand Paul, nothing.

[Bill Kristol]

No, it's, I mean, it's all horrifying. And the Republicans on the Hill have been pretty bad too. I'm certainly within the administration, there's been just contempt. So the federal judge in this case, there are several cases. But Judge Boasberg in one of these cases has been very careful and cautious. I would even say in what he can can't order, is there justification? Can he review what the administration has done? He's really tiptoed up to the line of saying, I mean, he has said you guys have to try to get this guy back. They're not saying, well, okay or okay, but not trying that hard. That might be what a normal administration would do. But to go through the motions, they're just showing contempt for him. I mean, that'll be little contempt in court. That might be the case too. But just making contemptuous statements about, oh, good, you go get him back from El Salvador. You have jurisdiction over the president of El Salvador.

[Tim Miller]

Well, just to your point on this, on the judges real quick that today the deadline is tonight. The judge has issued an order for not. Andre. This is the Maryland ad. And this is the case where the DOJ admitted fault that they wrongly sent him there. They admitted that they didn't intend to, but they still aren't gonna do anything about it because they say he's a member of a gang. So whatever. But they admitted that he was here. He had a no deportation order. The judge said you have to bring him back by Monday night. I don't think there's any reason to believe that they are gonna to do that tonight. So they're just going to fully divide.

[Bill Kristol]

We'll go through the form of requesting that he got back. Indeed, Pam Bondi fired the or put on leave or something administrative leave. The career attorney at justice who had argued this case Friday, who I happened to be talking with someone, Aaron Reichland Melnick, who's our friend who's been on a couple of bulwark things, who knows everything about immigration law and policy. This guy has been arguing for Administrations in a tough way, in a way that immigrant rights advocates regard as effective, but very much on the other side. For 15 years. This is not some liberal law. This guy is sort of and has been defending. He was put in this job because he was one of the career people they thought was tougher on immigration from a sort of policy point of view. And he said, but he can't defend this. And he said, I can't understand what's happened here. We can't defend having made an error. I'm gonna, I think he asked the judge for 24 hours to try to figure out what was happening and so forth. Bondi has put him on administrative leave. So the administration's all doubled down, as you say, on this really horrendous thing they've done. They also seem to be doubling down on other crackdowns internally on immigrants who have in no way fall into the category of violent criminals or even criminals and in fact fall into the category often of, so far as one can tell, law abiding citizens who have American relatives who are undocumented in many cases, but are living the kinds of lives we would want immigrants to live. The Republicans on the Hill, I haven't really seen much one way or the other. They seem to be, you think, are they rah rah or are they just keeping their head down?

[Tim Miller]

I mean, rah rah or nothing. I mean, like there's definitely some of them that are rah rah tweeting about how, oh, these Democrats are defending the gang members. Like they're trying, they're trying to make this into an issue.

[Bill Kristol]

Right.

[Tim Miller]

It's like we're focused on the El Salvador thing because it is just again, unprecedented and unimaginable that we disappear people to this, to the. And people should watch the 60 Minutes thing because it's just so shocking. Yeah. As you mentioned, like, there are other stories popping up of people that are being detained. There's the 73 year old grandfather in Lafayette here in Louisiana was a Cuban refugee here for 45 years. You mentioned we're offline. The bakery near the border in Texas, where they were law abiding citizens, but they'd hired some undocumented workers to work at the bakery. There's some third graders up in New York, I guess, that have been detained. That principal put out a statement recently. We included that in the morning shots this morning. So what they're doing is just, it is not like rounding up the worst criminals. To me, it seems like they don't have the numbers that they wanted and so now they're going about and doing anything to grab any other people to get like the deportation or detention numbers up and to scare people. Really on the scaring part, it's going to work. I don't know about you. I was talking to people this weekend I know, who are maybe citizens now here, but are from another country, talking about friends and family they have. It's just like, why would somebody come here if they are on a visa or on a green card from another country, you know, if. If the risk is going to be you might be sent to Natchez in Louisiana or El Salvador, we're stashed at.

[Bill Kristol]

The airport for nothing or for unbelievably trivial failure to fill out some form correctly. You're. You've been here a zillion times. You're a science research scientist, you're a professor, a teacher, a tourist, whatever. Did you see that chart? I saw this online that international travel into the United States by Americans over the last three, four months is pretty stable, I guess, or whatever. It normally goes up and down a little bit more on spring break week or something, but I mean, basically it's not. By foreign nationals is now down something like 12%.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah. And the Canadians, it's down like 40%.

[Bill Kristol]

Yeah. And then this chart was done by someone who's anti tariff, so it shows you the tariff dates. But I think as someone on Twitter pointed out, or Blue sky pointed out, I think that it's probably more the immigration stuff that's actually right now leading people not to come here. The terrorist thing is not affecting them quite so. Yeah, the cruelty is the point and all that. And now that, I guess hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans are losing their temporary protected status today. I think now they're not going to deport 350,000 people at once, but suddenly they're all undocumented. They could be picked up walking down the street or picking up their kids at school. I mean, imagine how scary. What problem are we addressing? The border is closed. Okay? I mean, whatever one thinks about how severe one should have been at the border, it is literally closed. No one can get over it. No one is getting asylum if they do get over, even if they honestly should be given the least consideration for asylum. But they're just turning everyone away. The country is shut down in that respect. What are they going after people who are living here peacefully for? What's the crisis? What's the emergency? What's the policy goal?

[Tim Miller]

Even to scare people.

[Bill Kristol]

Yeah.

[Tim Miller]

So people don't come and that's what it is and it will work.

[Bill Kristol]

And to get them to self deport so that we have a white. So that we have what? A wider country with fewer of these people with Mexican names, I guess. Latino, Hispanic names. I don't know.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, yeah. The white replacement theory. I mean, Tom Holman advanced it. He's like, the immigrations are now. But no, Pam Bondi was on this weekend and she said if you're a Venezuelan gang member, you should self deport. But if you see what they're doing, that's kind of like saying if you're Venezuelan, you should self deport. Right? Because it's like, I don't know, are you going to call me? Are you going to accuse me a gang member? Because I have a fucking tattoo with a crown on it that says mom? Like, I don't know, you know, are they going to look in my phone and see that I posted some meme that seems sympathetic to a foreign group? Like, and then I might get sent to El Salvador, you know, so they're intentionally trying to scare people and they, and it's going to work. They should be scared. It's fucking horrible. Which takes me briefly again to the Democrats. I was talking to some of the immigration attorneys and I was like, what is your ask for them? You know, because I was like, maybe I'm missing something, right? Like maybe there's a behind the scenes thing that they can be doing that's useful. There's nothing. And their ask is draw attention to this. We got like, we, there's a lot happening out there. You know, this could go away. Like these people in the 60 Minutes piece to Philip Holsinger said it seemed like they were ghosts. Like the people that were being disappeared into this, the depths of this prison. And you can become a ghost, actually, if there's only random people that are immigration advocates talking about this. And so they're like, our ask when we're meeting with Democrats is to talk about this. And I was like, well, has that happened? And they were like, not really. You know, there are a couple of examples, but I don't get it. And we talked about this a little bit. On the next level, I think that there is a combination of a fear about the past election that immigration is a losing issue and we just don't want to talk about it. It's better to talk about the economy. That's part of it. I think that there's a fear that they're going to come out and defend this makeup artist and it's going to Turn out he was really smuggling fentanyl in his makeup kit or whatever I got, you know, and they don't know. They don't want to put their names on the line, but this is too bad of a situation for that fear pressure has to be brought to bear on this. And I know JD Vance wants this fight and. But I just, I reject this notion of like, oh, you shouldn't play into their hands like these are humans, that what we're doing is unconscionable and attention needs to be drawn to it. And I just refuse to believe, you know, maybe if you're a frontline Democrat in Arizona, this isn't the thing to talk about, but there are a lot of other Democrats for whom they're politically protected for this, and frankly, a lot of Democrats who might get political value out of being seen as a fighter on this.

[Bill Kristol]

Totally. It's such a good case study, I think, of fighting the last war and misunderstanding what the last war was, you know, and what the battles of that were. So, yes, you shouldn't have been. It was probably politically costly to defend Biden's border policy in early 2024 before he fixed it. Actually, this is different. This is like I was on another call with some Democrats and one of the people, kind of a pro labor type. What you'd expect, well, we shouldn't just be against tariffs. Some tariffs are good. The free trade regime has had problems. And actually, in this case, a couple of sensible Democrats said, we don't have to even get into this. I mean, you don't need to articulate your careful tariff policy as opposed to their stupid. Just say he's ruining the US Economy with these tariffs. They are crazy. They are stupid. They look at the markets, look at everything. We're gonna have a recession because of Donald. Republicans who won't stand up to him, period. It's the same here. The fact that people might have not wanted you to defend Biden's border policy a year ago doesn't mean that you can't criticize this grotesque stuff that's happening here. And you just have to say, this is Trump being crazy and do you want your neighbors being deported? And on this other call, I think these calls are probably off the records. I shouldn't be saying all this, but it doesn't matter since they're just generic zoom calls. I mean, not generic, they're just zoom calls that no one will know who is on it. Doesn't really matter anyway. Someone said, you know, they're so good at this. The Republicans they're so clever. That Haitian immigrant thing. They, they said, and I actually interrupted what you're not supposed to do and said, we don't have zero evidence the Haitian immigrant issue helped the Republicans. I looked at two seconds at the polls. There's no evidence that in the week it was a big issue, Republican numbers went up or anything like that. And actually some pollster intervened, it was good of him and said, yeah, in fact, there's some evidence that they overplayed that issue. They backed off it, they got back to the border, you know, anyway, all I'm saying is that there's kind of such simple minded. We can't discuss, say the word immigration. We can't speak up for any people from any country in Central America or Latin America. I guess I think it's both wrong. It's just wrong. A B, Even if people don't agree with you entirely on it, they'll respect you for standing up for your principles. People forget that part of politics too, where people are capable of saying, I'm not sure I agree with that person. But you know what? I'm impressed that he said what he thought. And no one likes a cowering political party or members of a party that are scared to say what they think or they don't know what to think because they haven't gotten current updated polling. And as I say, furthermore, it's not the same. Just as Trump's tariffs are, not like being for some complicated Biden tariff in 2022 that was going to help a little bit of buy American stuff. So being Trump's anti immigrant policy is nothing like, you know, tightening up on the border when it was getting a little out of hand. It's anti immigration and anti immigrant. It needs to be called out for what it is. It's not an attempt to toughen up on the BO or restore a little bit of law and order. It's a hatred of immigrants and of immigration.

[Tim Miller]

All right, sound like Bill Kristol people you think you might want to run in 2028 and you have some passionate feelings about the fact that we are disappearing people to a torture dungeon in El Salvador with no due process. I'll put you at the front of the line. You're welcome on the pod anytime. I think it's probably something that will get you some attention. I think that my friends in California would probably have you on their show, Chris Hayes, other people that are fucking mad about this too. So might be a way to get you some attention. All right, there's North Carolina State Supreme Court race. Allison riggs won by 700ish votes over Jefferson Griffin, the Republican. There was this three judge panel this weekend in North Carolina that ruled in favor of a recount on 65,000 votes. They've got a what they call cure them to make sure that the people that made the votes are real people. The judge said that you have 15 days to find these people. It's mostly expats. I think you can see what the strategy is here. Can imagine the expat vote would be more sympathetic to the Democrats. Even conservative lawyers. I think the former state party lawyer has spoken out on this. The Republican state party lawyer in the state. This is crazy. They're really trying just to steal the Supreme Court seat in North Carolina and do it through the judicial process. The Supreme Court In North Carolina is 5:2 so it might raise to that. So it's something we're monitoring. We'll see how it all shakes out. But it is pretty despicable what the Republicans are doing here and I think a sign of obviously what they would have done had Trump had lost in 2024 and what might be to come again. I don't think we're over the stop to steal stuff just because Trump won this time.

[Bill Kristol]

I think that's one of the. I mean obviously what's happening is important in its own right. And the lawyers I know and trust who are not that partisan think this is way beyond the normal jousting that happens for a few weeks after an election or even a legitimate question or two. This is April and they're going after particular ballots that they think would be more Democratic. But I think it is a harbinger of what will happen in states where Republicans have control of the state legislature. Conceivably in 2026, certainly almost not certainly, but more likely even in 2028. I mean it is not a good sign that they have after all this, they win the presidency, they win both houses of Congress and they want to steal elections. I mean we also saw this in Wisconsin incidentally. I guess we haven't done this since Wisconsin where really lunatic theories about how that race was rigged though a 10 point victory for the Democratic backed candidate obviously started in the very far fringes of the Internet. I discussed this with Tom Joslin a little on my on the podcast yesterday, the Bulbourg Sunday podcast. It started the way out fringes and has now migrated fairly close to into Trump world. You know, I mean it's now a semi legitimate position to claim that there was and Elon Musk, I Think retweeted a couple of people saying this. It's a semi legitimate position in Republican and Trump circles to say that maybe there was something fishy in Wisconsin and there wasn't anything. And that probably goes nowhere. But again, it all helps corrupt, you know, lay the predicate for the further challenges. Right.

[Tim Miller]

You also wrote this morning in the newsletter that I would point people to, which is very briefly kind of about the hubris of Trump, what we're saying. And there's one little item in that newsletter I wanted to chew over with you really quick. According to a D.C. source with knowledge of the plan that's still being developed, Trump has commandeered. Saturday, June 14, the 250th anniversary of the U.S. army. And as it happens, Trump's 79th birthday for a military parade would stretch almost four miles from Pentagon in Arlington to the White House, according to the source. Hmm. I mean, that's ominous, I guess.

[Bill Kristol]

Totally. I mean, he tried to do this in 2018. They got stopped. The Defense Department didn't want to do it, the army didn't want to do it. The D.C. government didn't want to do it. Republican members of Congress were like, what do we we doing? We can't. We don't have military parades here all the time in the US Just because you're president. I mean, there was no not commemorating some victory or something in a war. And now the army was going to do some normal celebrations of its 250th birthday on bases and in communities and cemeteries and that kind of thing. And now Trump's turning it into this, wants to turn it, and we'll see what happens into this giant military parade four miles from Arlington up through to the White House. I suppose it happens to, quote, happens to be his birthday. Andrew Eggert. I both wrote about this in warning shots. Andrew wrote a very good lead item on Trump's hubris, the Trump administration's hubris in a whole bunch of areas. Maybe this will be the culmination of the hubris. Maybe this is the breaking point. Maybe people look at this and think, this is not America and this is Trump just using troops, using people serving in the military as props for him. If it happens. It also happens to be the 85th anniversary of the German Germans entering Paris. Those famous videos of Germans marching into Paris. Very depressing day. It happens to be the 85th anniversary of that. Maybe that somehow apt.

[Tim Miller]

Maybe not, though. Maybe that won't be the culmination of the hubris. Maybe things will get darker than that. And that's where I want to end. JBL wrote about the end of the American age last week. That really kind of settled into my gut because it's kind of in where my mind is going on this podcast a month or two ago, Ann Applebaum mentioned the book the Captive Mind. It's a Polish poet not going to try to pronounce his first name. His last name is Milos. I don't know if it was Pulitzer once. It won some literary award in the mid 20th century. And it just kind of talks about how the authoritarian mindset took over and this combination of that kind of history have been mulling over and just kind of watching what is happening in Europe and Canada and Australia as people already start to adjust themselves around us. I don't know. And I think that there's a decent chance that we're in the middle of something that people haven't really wrapped their heads around yet, that many people haven't, which is that we're not going to be able to put Humpty Dumpty back together again here. There is something that has fundamentally changed about our role in the world. It's kind of a heavy topic for the very end of the podcast. But you, I'm sure, read JVL's newsletter. I wanted to get your two cents on it.

[Bill Kristol]

I devoted my own little newsletter Friday morning entirely to quoting from and praising JVL's newsletter and elaborating on it a bit. I've been very struck by this since February, since the Vance speech in Munich, the Hegseth speech, the degree to which Europeans saw, whoa, this is really not just the normal zig and zag of policy. It's not even the normal Trumpy kind of pseudo, a bit of a break from previous policy that we're going to have to manage more carefully. It really could be the end of 80 years. And I think the one, two punch of Putin and Ukraine, the threats to NATO, Vance's opinions about Europe fully expressed in that Signal chat. And then Trump's, what he's been willing to just stick it to all of our European allies. And then the trade war, which is as much against Europe as against anyone else. I mean, the combination of all that. I had dinner at Pure Chance by with a Central European businessman, a small group last week here in D.C. and he's pro American, totally pro American. His businesses that do stuff in America and so forth, mine says kind of involved a think tank that's kind of pro Atlantic, pro American. And he says it's fundamentally changed now. JBL Says it couldn't be put back together again. I resist that because I want to resist it, I suppose. And so I don't know, these things can be pretty bad and still be reversed somewhat. But this is a problem with he's President Trump's president. I mean if we had a parliamentary system, I think it could be sort of reversed. I've noticed in the terrorists there's been a little talk about Liz Truss that I think she was the last, she.

[Tim Miller]

Didn'T last as long as it had a lettuce.

[Bill Kristol]

Right. And she was like a terrible, you know, total disaster. It kind of, kind of put the exclamation point on the utter failure of the British Conservative government since Brexit, including Brexit, I guess. And then led the way to the labor victory finally over her successor. But that's a parliamentary system and we have no mechanism to remove Trump. And whereas in the first term if one had removed him, one would have gotten Mike Pence, which you and I would have some problems with, but would have been acceptable. Now we get Vance, which really is worse, I suppose. I don't know as bad. So this is where I think JBL could well be right and where the Europeans who are thinking this through in a pretty sober way are kind of, it's not, as I say, it's not like we could all suddenly, three months from now, the policies are failing, new government, you know, old Republican Don Bacon's President of the United States or, or you know, some coalition government comes in. So four years of Trump and Vance with. And even if they lose then no guarantee that this doesn't come back yet again. I, I think the odds are unfortunately decent that this is a real 8 end of an 80 year period. Not a big zig in a succession of zigs and zags.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, well that's where I'm at too. Just like your inter social Democrats been popping out like mine are like the parliamentary system. Man, I'm ready to junk our constitution. My little pocket constitution I put into one of those little library boxes in the neighborhood. It's like, okay, I'm gonna talk to me about the constitution we gave the Germans.

[Bill Kristol]

No, I've had that thought too and it's not a foolish thought of course, but I just wanna come back to one thing that you stressed so well, really, honestly, over the last, not just the last, we've discussed it for several years, honestly, the first term we stressed it, but now, really, really, we do have a strong legislature. We don't have a French style president who can just ignore the Congress on foreign policy and on all these issues, aid to Ukraine, NATO to. I mean, we have a strong presence. So it's a little harder if you just have the legislature. But four Republican senators, four Republican members of Congress could really slow down the damage. Could really conceivably the predicate for reversing some of it could tell foreign nations that, hey, there really is a majority in this country against Trump. It's unfortunate he's president. We're have to work, work this through for the next three and a half years. It could make a big difference. And the fact that they're. I come back always to this. I'm just so infuriated at the Republicans on the Hill who know better. Privately, I run into journalists all the time. I Privately, they're very upset, very upset to really, you know, they're just really in a state about this. I've heard they've had a strong conversation with Howard Lutnick. I mean, these are elected members of Congress, you know, and they're totally failing in their responsibility.

[Tim Miller]

Brian Fitzpatrick, do your job. Do your job, sir. I agree with that, Bill. Thank you so much. It's just a really uplifting Monday podcast. As usual, everybody, more good stuff to come. That's why I tried to get Dave Chappelle in there this way. You know, I'm trying to give you guys some gifts, little, just little presents for me. I don't play Trump's voice almost ever. I'm playing some comedy. You know, we gotta, we gotta cope as, as best we can. So thanks to Bill, Kristol, everybody else, we're back here tomorrow for another edition of the Bulwark Podcast. We'll see you all then. Peace.

[Bill Kristol]

Let's go. All that skin against the bless all that skin against the glass all this time we can get back all of us on the idiot. Call me out when you see the.

[Tim Miller]

Signs disconnect and recognize that.

[Bill Kristol]

All these things we think we lack all this time we can't get back.

[Tim Miller]

The Bulwark Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.