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- [00:00]
Tim Miller
Hey, guys, we got a double header today that is focused on foreign policy. So if you want to go deep and all the insane stuff that's happening in politics, like Donald Trump's interview with ABC last night where he got tricked by a Photoshop image of Kilmar Abrego Garcia's knuckles, or we're going to talk about the absurd spin coming from the Republicans. We got all your politics over on the next level comes out on Wednesday evenings, so make sure to subscribe to that feed and check it out. This pod, as I mentioned, foreign policy only. We've got Joe Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken have so much to go over with him. And then in segment two, my friend Alex Wagner is just back from Hungary, where she was covering the protests there. And I got to tell you, it's just so inspiring. It's something that I just haven't been following closely. And so I'm happy that she went over there to see it firsthand to give us a report. So do stick around for that. So there you go. Big show. Hope you enjoy it. Up next, Tony Blinken. Hello and welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. Could not be more delighted to welcome former Secretary of State during the Biden administration, Tony Blinken. How you doing? Are we in the post Secretary of State world? Are we going by Secretary Tony? Do you have another preferred name?
- [01:25]
Tony Blinken
We're going by Tony. Tim's great to see you.
- [01:27]
Tim Miller
Back to Tony. All right, it's good to see you, too. I. I don't know if you know this. I was Jon Huntsman spokesman for a while.
- [01:32]
Tony Blinken
Yes, I do.
- [01:33]
Tim Miller
Yes. I'm used to that Diplo speak. So I'm going to use that experience to try to break you down over the course of the interview. You know, break you into normal.
- [01:41]
Tony Blinken
John's one of the best, so he is good.
- [01:43]
Tim Miller
But he, you know, he had a little bit of Diplo talk. We had to try to retrain his brain to get from. From Diplo diplomat to candidate. And we're going to try that for Diplomat to podcast. You know, it's a little different.
- [01:53]
Tony Blinken
Good.
- [01:54]
Tim Miller
The world is so fucking crazy that.
- [01:56]
Tony Blinken
Well, there you go. There's the first word. That's probably something that wouldn't be part of Diplospeak.
- [02:02]
Tim Miller
So I was looking at all the different topics, deciding where I wanted to start with you, and I figured it'd be best just to let you pick. You look at what's happening the three months since you left Foggy Bottom. And I'M wondering what is worrying you the most right now.
- [02:15]
Tony Blinken
Well, the big picture is this, Tim. I think what's really frustrating is we put the country in a position of strength both at home and around the world at home, by investing in ourselves in really historic ways so that our competitiveness would be as strong as possible. You know, everything from the Chips and Science act to the Inflation Reduction act to the Infrastructure act, all of these investments, but designed to make sure we could compete around the world and that our workers, our companies, had what they needed to compete effectively. But what I was working on around the world with others in the administration, led by the President, was to make sure that our alliances and partnerships were as strong as possible. Because when we're dealing with all of the problems that we're likely to talk about around the world, whether it's Russia and Ukraine, whether it's China, whether it's Iran, whether it's anything else, we're so much better off when we're doing it with allies and partners than when we're doing it alone. And where we're headed now is a world not where it's America first, but where it's America alone. And that's not good for us. It's not good for getting stuff done that matters to the American people.
- [03:14]
Tim Miller
Yeah. All right, well, so let's just do a Cameron San Diego trip around the world there and figure out where America alone is the most problematic. I mean, I guess the trade war is probably where you start. And maybe let's look at it through the context of China first, since that's the most acute. I was talking earlier, somebody, and we're discussing kind of how the tariff pressure on China could potentially have worked if it was in concert with all of our allies, if we had Japan and Australia and Europe and Vietnam, et cetera, on board. But that's not exactly what's happening. So talk about kind of this tariff battle with China and how maybe it differs from what you guys were doing because you guys had some tariffs in China as well.
- [03:55]
Tony Blinken
Look, I think we got to start with this. Back in his first term, I think President Trump was right to put more focus on China and to put more focus on some of the egregious practices they were engaged in that were doing real damage to American workers, to American companies, to American communities, including, for example, you know, this notion of overcapacity where they flood the market with certain products that have been subsidized and otherwise given an unfair advantage, pushing American companies, American products, American workers out of that. That sector. And it was important to focus on that. But the way you do it really matters. And here's the thing. If we're dealing with something that China's doing that we don't like, and we're doing it alone, we're what, about 20, 25% of world GDP? When we're doing it with our European allies, our Asian allies, suddenly we're 50 or 60% of world GDP. That's something that China can't ignore. But instead of focusing intensely on those areas and on those products where China was trying to get an unfair advantage and lining up allies and partners to join with us, we've gone at this with a machine gun, spraying everything in China, but also our allies and partners, the very people that we need with us to deal effectively with what China is doing. So I think there's clearly a role for focused, targeted tariffs, for example, on certain Chinese products, especially in areas where they're trying to dominate the sectors of the future in ways that are unfair. Solar panels, electric vehicles, batteries for those vehicles. That's where you want to put the focus. That's what Biden was doing. But now, in broadening this out and basically having what amounts almost to a. A trade embargo with China and doing it in a way that's alienating our allies and partners who are not with us, we're pushing them toward each other, away from the United States, and maybe even toward China. And that's simply going to undermine everything that we're trying to do to protect our workers, to protect our companies, to protect our people.
- [05:49]
Tim Miller
Give me a psychological analysis of what you think is happening in China right now. And you've had to deal with counterparties over there for a few years. You've got the Kool Aid man coming through the door here, and he's just like, it's 45%, it's 80%, it's 145%. And you got to call up us. And Scott Besant's on the shows over the weekend saying they're going to fold their business model, doesn't work without the US and they're claiming they're having negotiations that don't seem to be actually happening. How do you think the Chinese are processing all this? What do you think their strategy is?
- [06:19]
Tony Blinken
I think they have the ability in many ways to wait us out. They can take more pain by the nature of their system than we can take, and partly that's what they're counting on. So they match the tariffs in a dramatic way, and it's now a Little bit of a game of chicken to see who's going to pull their punch first. I hope we can find a way to navigate this in a smart way. Look, Tim, here's the thing. We spent a lot of time talking about de risking, not decoupling from China. Now, that sounds like Diplo speak, but basically it means let's focus on the specific areas where either China is taking unfair advantage of us economically or. Or where we've got a national security issue or question. Like, for example, we don't want to be selling them the highest end microchips because that's going to go into their military and pose a threat to us or throw a threat to our allies and partners. But it doesn't mean cutting off trade. It doesn't mean cutting off investment that's beneficial to both of our countries. We both need it. Now, what we're seeing is instead of de risking from China, we have the rest of the world that's looking at de risking from us because we've lost the most important thing that undergirds any trade relationship, political relationship, military relationship, and that's trust. People don't know that they can trust the United States. They don't know what we're doing. They don't know where we're going. They don't know if what we say today is going to be reversed tomorrow and then reversed again the day after. So I think China's looking at this too, and thinking on the one hand, look, this isn't great. It does hurt us, but we have some ability to endure and to take more pain by the nature of our system than the United States does. So I'm afraid they're going to try to outweigh us.
- [07:56]
Tim Miller
The other thing that isn't like a direct China issue because we aren't doing a ton of USAID with China, but relates to our competition with China. The great power competition is just the fact that we've completely gutted a lot of the soft power that we use throughout the world. Talk about that and the impact of cutting US Aid not just on, you know, the people are being harmed, which is important, but also on the competition with China.
- [08:24]
Tony Blinken
Look, I get that people are not necessarily enthusiastic about foreign aid or diplomatic programs.
- [08:31]
Tim Miller
We're in a safe space for people being enthusiastic about foreign aid here. The remaining, the handful of renegade former Republicans, the McCain Republicans and the liberals that listen, we're good here. We don't need.
- [08:45]
Tony Blinken
Well, for those who may still be in a different place. Look, you know, it's interesting. In survey after Survey. You ask people, how much money are we spending on foreign assistance? And they say, oh, 25%. How much should we be spending? 10%. How much are we spending? 1%. One penny on every dollar covers basically everything the State Department and USAID do, or in the case of USAID were doing in the past. And the bang for the buck is incredible because not only are we helping countries solve problems that if not solved, are going to come back to bite us, because in the absence of solving them, people are going to go to war. You're going to have mass migrations, you're going to have disease that spreads across the planet and hits us. You're also building incredible goodwill through what we've often called soft power. If we're in retreat, if we're pulling out of that, if we're ending this very in the context of our own budget, modest support to helping to feed people, to helping provide basic health security, to making sure that they can deal with some of the challenges posed by climate change. You name it. Go down the list. We're going to see problems get a lot bigger and come and bite us, and we're going to lose that goodwill. And who fills in? Who takes advantage of the vacuum? China. We see it now with China getting into the position we were in with so many of these programs. And that means that China will get the benefit of whatever successes they have, and their influence is going to go up, not down. That's an America that's in retreat. Look, we were working hard to get ambassadors to all of our embassies around the world. We had confirmation problem after confirmation problem because people would hold up our ambassadors for one unrelated reason or another. Meanwhile, China was putting in place more embassies than the United States has around the world. What does that mean? That means that when an American company is trying to win a contract in a given country, we can't send our ambassador in to see the president, to see the prime minister, to see the finance minister. The Chinese can. And guess who wins the contract. It plays out in so many different ways to the detriment of our own people and our own interests.
- [10:46]
Tim Miller
I wonder what folks are saying in those countries. You think about it. I mean, obviously you began by talking about America alone. And we can just discuss the degree to which this administration has been, I guess, doing everything possible to hamper the relationship with our traditional allies, both with their public talk about acquiring Greenland, but also leaked private signal messages talking about how much they resent the Europeans and Canada's 51st state. What are you Hearing from the folks that you talk to in those countries over the course of the past couple months.
- [11:21]
Tony Blinken
Well, I've got a lot of friends around the world that I've made over the years. Most of them now are no longer in positions of responsibility. Those are the folks I talk to. I tend not to talk to people who are in government now, and the last thing I would do is to give them advice about what they should do. But I'm hearing from a lot of people I know. And again, it comes back to this question of Trust. You spend 80 years building up this trust by building strong economic partnerships, by building up military alliances, by building up political alliances. If that is then taken down in a matter of 100 days, the trust is gone. And that makes it incredibly hard to rebuild. If you look at the idea of, can we put this genie back in the bottle? Not so easy. So what does that mean? What does that mean in terms of what they're doing? It means that countries are now looking for ways to work around us, to work more closely together, but without the United States. And that, I think, is the trend that we're seeing, because the unpredictability, the possibility that what's said today will be reversed tomorrow and then reversed again means that they simply can't count on us. You know, President Biden used to like to say, it's never a good bet to bet against America. The problem we now have is that people will not be betting on America. And that will play itself out for many, many months and many, many years.
- [12:41]
Tim Miller
All right, well, I talk to a lot of political operatives. You know, that's my world. I don't. I don't talk to a lot of diplomats, so I hear you. That was nice. It was a little diplo. Speak. It's like two retired guys. I don't know. You're in Z or something. You're having a bottle of wine. Give me a little bit of a picture. What are these guys really saying? I don't think they're saying, tony, the trust deficit has increased. I think they're probably a little bit more alarmed than that.
- [13:03]
Tony Blinken
Well, I think the sort of diplomatic language that I typically hear is, tony, what the f is going on? That tends to be how the question is posed. Because, look, there really is confusion. Here's the thing. We were talking to Tim about tariffs a little while ago, but we don't even know what the administration is trying to accomplish because we keep hearing different things. Is this about raising revenues? Maybe. Except at some point, that doesn't work because the tariffs go so high that trade stops and you don't get the revenues. Is this somehow about bringing manufacturing back to the United States? Maybe, except that that takes years and it takes massive investment, and people are loath to make those investments in an environment of unpredictability. Is it about dealing with the trade deficits that we have with some countries? And it seems that this is something that has motivated President Trump for a long time. Maybe that's what's going on. Except that the link between tariffs and trade deficits is not so obvious. You know, we have 27 countries in the European Union, right? They all basically have the same tariffs. They basically have the same trade policies. We've got surpluses with some, deficits with others. So that whole link is not clear. And by the way, trade deficits are not necessarily a bad thing. It basically means we import a lot of stuff so people have cheaper prices, they've got greater choice. And then our manufacturers can take the inputs for their products that they bought more cheaply and produce a product that they can sell at a better price. So there's just general confusion about what is the President trying to accomplish. And I'd say really quickly two things as I'm trying to decipher this myself and trying to have these conversations and at least try to explain what I see going on. One is this notion of what the economists call otarky, or economic self sufficiency. Basically, let's make everything and build everything and do everything in the United States. Sounds good, right? Except that many, many years ago, we figured out that this thing called comparative advantage was actually a pretty good thing for us, where some countries would make some stuff, we'd make other things, and everyone would be better off because again, lower prices, more variety, an ability to make our own products less expensively. And then the countries that have tried over the years to do self sufficiency did not work out so well. The Soviet Union tried that. It went off the cliff. North Korea's tried that, it's gone off the cliff. But that seems to be one thing. The other thing is this. My sense is, as the President's looked at history, he's attracted, and we've heard him talk about it. So it's not a surprise to something that was characteristic of the 19th century. And that was this notion of having a sphere of influence. And it basically means this. The big countries, the big guys, the strong guys, get to carve up the world, and we get our part and the other big guys, and in this case, it would be Russia And China get theirs. We get to do what we want in our sphere, they get to do what they want in theirs. The Chinese get to do what they want in theirs. And that's kind of the way the world looked in Europe in much of the 19th century, except it didn't work out so well, because inevitably what happens is one country that has one sphere decides, it wants to get bigger, it wants more, so it tries to take some more territory. And then these circles rub against each other and you get conflict. Or within one area, one country tries to keep its people down and then the people rebel and they get pushed down again and then it eventually blows up. And in this case, now you've got Russia and China that may have a sphere of influence. These are autocratic countries. We're democracy. They also, in a world of instant communication, can't afford to let their people see a successful democracy. So they're going to meddle in ours to try to make sure that ours is not succeeding. And they can say to their own people, see, they're no better than we are. All of these things lead to conflict, they lead to destruction, they lead to economic chaos, they lead to a bad place for America and for Americans.
- [16:48]
Tim Miller
Can I offer a third potential option for your pals who ask you, Tony, what the f is going on? I like the Brookings options of they're interested in autarky or sphere of influence. I think the third option is that we elected a megalomaniac criminal who doesn't actually care about the country and only cares about himself and his feelings. And everybody should just batten down the hatches and buckle up because there's no sense trying to put a fancy explanation on what's happening. What do you think about that?
- [17:19]
Tony Blinken
One thing is this, and maybe it's a little bit related. I think one of the things that President Trump understands, knows and has a tremendous instinct for is the so called attention economy and dominating it every single day. And in a sense, it doesn't matter what you do or what you say, as long as you're dominating the attention economy, which he does. I mean, if you look at a newspaper, to the extent people still look at that, whether it's online or a hard copy, and you see 10 headlines, probably seven of them are going to have his name in them. So if that's how you gauge your success, and that's not totally crazy, then it almost doesn't matter what the substance is, as long as you're in the headline.
- [18:01]
Tim Miller
And that's tough for the counterparties. The Allies to predict because it's like, well, who the hell knows he's going to say something to get them attention.
- [18:08]
Tony Blinken
This gets back to this basic predictability. When Biden left office, we had, and sorry again for the wonk speak, but it actually is meaningful to people. We had the highest level of foreign direct investment ever. That means that countries, companies were pouring money into the United States because they saw this as the best place to invest. And part of the reason for that was predictability. Whereas other countries might be chaotic, you pretty much knew what you were getting with the United States. Things like the rule of law, things like no political retribution, things like transparency. All of these things were what attracted other countries to us and had them making massive investments here in ways that created growth, that produced more jobs, helped us produce better products to sell around the world. When you lose that, and that's what I'm afraid we're at risk of losing, then you're heading again to a bad place.
- [19:01]
Tim Miller
Hey, did you guys know that 60% of the clothes we buy end up in a landfill within a year of being made? Well, I guess that was the stat before the Trump tariffs. Who knows, the clothes might have a little bit more sticking power once we can no longer get any T shirts from China anymore. But outside of the context of the tariffs, there's another way to ensure your clothes don't end up at Goodwill or in the dumpster. It's by supporting our sponsor, American Giant. American Giant's about durable, not disposable products. They make clothes built to last. So buying for American Giant is an investment not just in the clothes, but a community trying to do things the right way. I've been digging my American Giant clothes. I got that long sleeve kind of, we call it maroon red tee that matches my nuggets hat. Been digging that and telling you about the American Giant hoodies. Like those have some comfy pants I got from American Giant that I'm wearing underneath, you know, the, the desk here. You don't, you don't know that, but you know, I got a collared shirt on up here, but down below, no need. No need for dress pants for Tony Blinken. Okay, you can, you can stay cozy. I love it. Great clothes. They are durable. Couldn't recommend more. Choosing American Giant means taking a stand for hard working people, local communities, and quality clothes through American ingenuity and innovation. They went against the current to do better. It all started with the greatest hoodie ever made. Then came jeans, T shirts, and more. So get 20% off your first order. When you use promo code bulwark@american-giant.com, that's 20% off. When you use the code bulwark@american-Giant.com this takes us to a question. I asked one of my friends who would have been on Earth 3 if we had elected a normal Republican president at some point in the last 10 years, would have been in the inner circle of the national security advice world. And I was like, what do you think I should ask Tony? And he said I'd be curious what he thinks about this. What dimensions of US Foreign relations will be hard to unravel? In other words, where will the changes that have happened over the next four years have hardened to such a degree that it will be challenging for any new administration to fix it? What do you assess as a potentially permanent change here?
- [21:20]
Tony Blinken
So, Tim, I think there are a lot of things that are on the chopping block and we'll see how it plays out. But for example, for 80 years we've had allies and partners that could sort of count on us as necessary because of these alliances that we built to protect them if they got into hot water. And now they don't know. And that means they're going to have to make their own bets for the future if they can't bet on us. So, for example, countries like Japan, like Korea, like even Poland, we heard this the other day, that have forsworn nuclear weapons may decide that, you know what, we have to go down that road because we can't count on America. And once you go down that road, it's very hard to go in reverse. They will get together amongst themselves and away and around from us. Now, maybe, for example, you'll have countries coming together to figure out different kinds of supply chains to make sure that they have access to the stuff that they need and can trade with each other without making themselves reliant on the United States. Because then based on the whims of whoever's in office, something could go off, go bad, and that relationship, that dependency, could be used as leverage against them. All of these kinds of things take a lot of time, a lot of investment, but once they're unleashed, they're really hard to pull back again. So, you know, now we see, look, we've seen just in the last hundred days after Europeans and the Northeast Asians moved away from creating dependencies on China de risking, as we urged them to do for the last four years, now all of a sudden the Europeans are talking again to China about a big free trade agreement. Japan and Korea come together and talk to their Chinese counterparts about the same thing at the same time. The European Union and Latin America, they've just finished a big free trade agreement. All of this around the United States, not with the United States. Once you do that, hard to put back in the bottle.
- [23:17]
Tim Miller
Yeah. Think about how bad you got to mess up to drive China and Japan together in 100 days. It takes some effort, you can say. It's actually quite impressive, incompetence to do that in such a short time period. I want to ask you about your success a little bit. I was listening to your interview with David Remnick from three months ago, and he asked you about Marco Rubio. I'm going to replay that for you, and we'll see if you need to. If you need to revise and extend your remarks after. After three months. Let's take a listen.
- [23:41]
Tony Blinken
I've had a number of conversations with Marco Rubio, Senator Rubio, who I've known for years, in part because of his service on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. And at the risk of damning him with praise that he might not want. We've had really good conversations. And Tulsi Gabbard, I don't know her, have not talked to her, but I do know Senator Rubio, and I think he's extremely well prepared for the job by his service on the Foreign Relations Committee, on the Intelligence Committee, and he's deeply thoughtful about most of the things we have to confront.
- [24:16]
Tim Miller
Would you like to dam him with some criticism now or do you. What do you think?
- [24:20]
Tony Blinken
Well, look, Tim, I'll say two things. First, those words, when spoken, were accurate, and I wouldn't take them back. Second, I haven't. I haven't spoken to Secretary Rubio at all since he's taken on the job. So I don't really benefit from, you know, hearing directly from him how he's seeing this, how he's thinking about it. All I can go.
- [24:36]
Tim Miller
Is that unusual? Did you call your past Republican?
- [24:39]
Tony Blinken
Look, I think everyone does this differently. In my case, I benefited tremendously from talking to my predecessors. Many, many conversations with Henry Kissinger before he passed away, very frequently with Condi Rice, Jim Baker, and obviously Madeline Albright when she was alive, John Kerry. So in my case, I wanted the benefit of their extraordinary wisdom. But again, people do this differently. And actually, I talked to Mike Pompeo a couple of times back in the day, Rex Tillerson. The challenge that anyone in an administration has is they're following the guidance of the president, or what they believe to be the guidance of the president, because in this case, it seems to shift a bit on a daily basis, and you're always trying to divine what that might be. I had a tremendous advantage on the job because I'd worked for Senator Biden when he was Senator. Vice President Biden, President Biden for 22 years. So I always pretty much knew in advance what he was thinking. And when people around the world heard me speak, they knew that I was speaking with authority on behalf of the president. Because of that relationship, I think it's maybe more challenging now for the secretary to again make sure that he's seen as speaking clearly for the president. So he has to figure out what it is the president wants him to do and wants him to say that's, you know, part of the challenge of the job.
- [26:00]
Tim Miller
That was pretty kind. That's very generous to Marco. I mean, I hear you. You got to do what your boss says. We also have agency. I mean, everybody has agency. You know, I don't know if President Biden had decided that after 50 years in public office, he had taken a strong turn and wanted you to use your power to take away the green card, take away the student visas from people because they wrote op eds criticizing him. I don't suspect that's something that you would do. I don't know, because that was on Marco's call. He did that himself. Right.
- [26:32]
Tony Blinken
You know, one of the things I've learned from doing this for 32 years and being in government for much of that time is, look, there are always going to be compromises you're asked to make, and everyone has to decide for themselves, and it's different for every individual. What is a compromise on my beliefs, my principles, my values that I can't make? What is something that tells me that the ends don't justify the means? That's a different decision for everyone. And look, what we don't know is it's possible that the Secretary is managing to do and protect some things by being seen somewhat differently.
- [27:13]
Tim Miller
Come on. I mean, let's go through the list. Come on. Come on. He's not like he killed Radio Marty. I think he killed usaid, something he was a big advocate for. Just yesterday they got rid of the Women Peace and Security Initiative, something Marco was a co sponsor on. He cut temporary protected status for Latin American citizens that are fleeing communism. He is complicit in sending people to an El Salvador gulag. He is the person that pulled the student visa from people based on using their free speech rights, like Oztark at Tufts. I mean, what could be worse than what he's doing that he could be stopping behind the scenes? And all of that is totally anathema. And let's not even talk about Russia, which is up next. All of that is totally anathema to what Marco ran for president on in 2016.
- [27:56]
Tony Blinken
No, there would seem to be something of a contradiction between some of the things that he did and stood for when he was in the United States Senate and what he seems to be doing and standing for for now. And that's obviously a good question to ask him.
- [28:09]
Tim Miller
I don't think Marco's going to come on goes back to Jeb days. He didn't like us more than I didn't like. I had no issues with Marco. Marco would have been, I thought, a good president. But I've been just utterly astounded by. And to me, I think he's been like worse than a lot of the MAGA people that have been chosen because of the degree to which he's gone, along with some of those things I discussed. Let's go to the Russia side of it, though. What do you make about the state of affairs? I mean, both Marco, Steve Wyckoff, the lavish praise for Vladimir Putin we've seen from the lead negotiator there. What do you make of the state of affairs right now?
- [28:46]
Tony Blinken
Well, I seem to remember during the campaign that President Trump said he would end the war in Ukraine in 24 hours. So now we're at 100 days, hasn't happened, and I guess there's not much accountability for those kind of promises. But leaving that aside, look, when we were talking about tariffs, one of the effects of tariffs is all of these companies that are trying to plan for Christmas now can't do it. They can't make the contracts buy the stuff they need because prices are going to be too high and they won't be able to make ends meet. So people are talking about Trump has really taken a real whack at Christmas. Here's someone who's getting Christmas early. Vladimir Putin just go down the list of things that he's gotten that he's wanted and he's gotten for free. And it's like the best Christmas ever. Somehow the person and country that committed this horrific aggression against Ukraine, against its people and against the entire international system, all the rules that we had put in place to try to prevent war somehow absolved from that up front unilaterally. We're talking about basically giving him the territory that he seized by force, recognizing the seizure of Crimea back in 2014, lifting the sanctions, even lifting the sanctions on the Nord Stream 2 pipeline that we managed to get the Germans to stop that sent Russian gas to Germany and to Europe. Now they're talking about lifting that and recreating Europe's energy dependence on Russia and so on down the list, blocking Ukraine from ever getting into NATO. Somehow we're punishing the victim, we're rewarding the aggressor. So it really is an early Christmas for Vladimir Putin.
- [30:31]
Tim Miller
Do you look back and feel like, was there anything more you guys could have done when you were in there as far as weapons being more aggressive early with Ukraine, so they could have been in a stronger position?
- [30:41]
Tony Blinken
Now, look, first, Tim, you go back and we tried to make sure that the Ukrainians had what they needed when they needed it, to fend off the Russian aggression. If you look at it well before the aggression, when we were trying to build this extraordinary coalition of countries to help defend Ukraine, to help strengthen NATO, to help punish the Russians if they went in, we were sending weapons to the Ukrainians. September before the aggression, Christmas before the aggression. So when it actually happened, they had a lot of Javelins and a lot of Stingers in their hands, and they were able to repel the aggression. People thought that Russia was going to roll over the country in a matter of a few days. They pushed them back and they pushed them back. 50% of the territory that Russia originally grabbed, they're pushed back from then. At every step along the way, we tried to make sure that they had what they needed and the nature of the war changed, where it was being fought, how it was being fought, what was needed. And each and every time, you know, there'd be some kind of public dispute about, oh, did we give them a certain weapon system fast enough? A lot goes into those decisions. It's not just the weapon system. It's, do they know how to use it? Which means you got to train them on it. Can they maintain it? Which means you've got to put that in place. Is it part of a coherent battle plan? All of those things, you know, the Pentagon was looking at, we were looking at try to make sure that when we were doing something, it would actually work and make sense. Are there things that, you know, I would have liked to have seen done sooner or faster? Sure, there's always something. But by and large, this was done in a very deliberate, very systematic way. And the result is a country that shouldn't be around, given the totally disproportionate force that Russia could bring to bear versus Ukraine is still standing.
- [32:18]
Tim Miller
All right, I'm going to give you a DeLorean, though. You get to. This is magic. You get to go back. You get to go back five years. You have all this knowledge now. You're a little grayer, but not much. You're looking good. And you get to go back to 2020 and talk to yourself. Is there anything you think you would say? We should have done this thing differently?
- [32:35]
Tony Blinken
On one level, you say to yourself, there's pretty much everything you'd wanted. There's something about everything you've done. Oh, we could have done something a little bit different here, a little bit better there. There's no question about that. And I think the thing. The thing that will, you know, eat at me for a long time is obviously the Middle east and Gaza and the horrific human suffering that we saw on all sides. And, you know, could we've gotten to a better place faster than we did, which ultimately we did when we left office. But unfortunately, that's also something that seems to have been dropped. But as I'm looking at the really big picture, what I'm seeing is this. President Biden came to office with probably the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, the worst global health crisis in at least 100 years, relationships with our allies and partners that had been badly frayed, if not torn apart, and, of course, profound divisions at home. And what he handed off, at least when he left office, was an economy that the economists called the envy of the world, even if people were not feeling some of the benefits as much as they needed to be, obviously gotten through Covid in ways that everyone's now forgotten. And we had the strongest relationships and partnerships with allies in Europe and Asia and well beyond than we've had in as long as I can remember. And that put us in a position of extraordinary strength to deal with all of these challenges that we see around the world. Unfortunately, that's all been torn up in the space of 100 days.
- [34:03]
Tim Miller
On the Middle east thing. We could do a whole podcast on this. I don't know. It's worth the time to kind of just dig into it on a surface level. And you're also omniscient. You probably couldn't change the Hamas leadership or Bibi going back. But I do look back at it and just think about the domestic side of it. You kind of ended up really in a sour spot where we had this spike in antisemitism in the country. On campus, you have these protests, and you end up in a place where the protestors Hated you calling you Genocide Joe and Genocide Tony. And then you had Jewish voters and conservative voters and other people around the country who were like, they're on the side of the protesters. Actually, they're not doing enough to speak out against the most extreme. Obviously, you want people to have free speech on campus, but not doing anything about these most extreme examples about Jewish students being targeted, et cetera. Do you look back on that and think, on the domestic side, we could have managed this better?
- [34:55]
Tony Blinken
That's exactly what I worked for. President Obama for eight years. He called that the sweet spot.
- [34:58]
Tim Miller
The sweet spot, yeah.
- [35:00]
Tony Blinken
He managed to alienate everyone.
- [35:01]
Tim Miller
Yeah. Not the bulwark, only the bulwark was on your side on this one. So I'm sympathetic to it, but also I'm like, ugh.
- [35:10]
Tony Blinken
For which I thank you, Tim. There's so much that goes into that, into this, even into the domestic side that we could probably talk about for a long time. But I think it comes down to something very fundamental that we see both at home and we see around the world, and that is this notion of dehumanization, this notion that someone you disagree with or have a profound difference with is somehow not only your enemy, but basically isn't human. And we saw that in the dehumanization in the Middle east in all directions. We see that in our own country in terms of dehumanization of one's political adversaries. And for me, that is the most potent poison in our commonwealth, because once dehumanization sets in, everything bad becomes so much easier and everything good becomes so much harder. And I think we saw that in the debates are the wrong word, you know, the horrific things that people were hurling at each other in the context of this tragedy in the Middle East. But we also see it poisoning our politics in profound ways. If we can't find a way to pull back from that, we have a massive, massive problem that I think will be maybe the biggest challenge we face. Never mind China, never mind Russia, never mind Iran. That really is at the heart of what ails us, and that's what we've got to figure out.
- [36:35]
Tim Miller
So now I got to take you to the place where you were in the sour spot with the bulwark, and that is with the president's ability to. Well, I'll get your take on the president's ability to do the job. From my perspective, the president's ability to prosecute the case for himself as he started to be less able to do that. Right. Like, as he aged. I just think that regardless of what you think about his ability to do the job. You know, he wasn't Barack Obama or frankly, George Bush or Donald Trump and wasn't able to go out and be an effective communicator. And, you know, to me, if I go back in the DeLorean, I got to say to him, you can't do this again. Maybe you're able to up here, like maybe you're able to from a policy standpoint, but part of being president is being out there, being visible, communicating, dominating the information economy, as you mentioned earlier, the attention economy. The idea that he was going to be able to do that till he was 86 was, I just think, preposterous on its face. So I'm wondering, looking back, what you think about all that.
- [37:36]
Tony Blinken
Yeah, well, Tim, I think you put your finger on something that's very important and probably right. There's a big difference between the ability to do the job effectively and the ability to sell the job you're doing. And yeah, I think, you know, he might be one of the first to acknowledge that we were not as effective and he was not as effective arguably, as he should have been, could have been in actually conveying to the American people everything that we were doing for them and very, very successfully. And it was a big, big frustration. So much so that I think, you know, to some extent, people couldn't somehow connect all of the good things that were happening with what the administration was doing. And if you don't have that connection, it's obviously not going to redound to you in a positive way politically. And yeah, it is part of the job. And I think it's also the reason why ultimately he decided not to run again. It wasn't about doing the job in the moment. It was the ability or foreseeing the ability to be able to do the job for another four years, including this notion of, you know, communicating effectively with people.
- [38:40]
Tim Miller
But here's the thing, because of the nature of the threat, and you guys were talking all the time about the threat to democracy and we were, and the nature of the opposition, like the responsibility on him to make the decision in a way that best put the party in the country in a position to put forth somebody that could beat Donald Trump, a required him to acknowledge this earlier. Like I said, it's ridiculous to think that he could have done this at age 86. It's just ridiculous. And, and then you have the debate, and then there's another month or six weeks or something after that until he decides to drop out. And then after that there is a lot of the reporting coming out about how he was really not giving the vice president the space to kind of get the distance that would be necessary from him. And to me, I just think that I say this with respect because I know you have a deal with respect for him, and I do, too. But I think that he showed a great deal of selfishness over the last year in how it was handled. And I wonder if you look back on that and think, man, I wish I could have encouraged him to do it a little differently.
- [39:45]
Tony Blinken
As you say, you go back in the DeLorean machine, hindsight's always 20 20, and on just about anything or everything you do, you always think, there's something I could have done a little bit differently, or maybe more than a little bit differently. But here's the thing. First, every decision that we made, every judgment that we made, every policy we pursued, that was him, that wasn't someone else, that wasn't me, that wasn't any of the other advisors. Everything that we did was the product of a decision that he made and an informed decision through discussion, debate, argument that he was more than fully engaged in. So you can say, I don't like the results of those policies, that's fine. But you can't say that he was not the person responsible for them, who decided them, who made those decisions, made those judgments and got those results. And that's fundamentally the bottom line. I think that's the bottom line that he saw. Now, again, coming back to your point about, well, did we communicate that effectively? I think the answer is no. Does that mean he could be confident about being able to do that same job, making those decisions, making those judgments for another four years with advanced age, that's something different. But you know, these decisions about what he should have done, when he should have done it, what difference might that have made in political outcomes? Yeah, it's easy to prognosticate about that, but no one knows.
- [41:09]
Tim Miller
So you don't wish you would have had a little talk with him about it earlier.
- [41:13]
Tony Blinken
One of the things that I've learned too, over working for three presidents over the course of the Clinton, Obama and Biden administrations is keep whatever counsel you gave to the president to yourself, rapid fire.
- [41:27]
Tim Miller
Do you think that Putin wants peace?
- [41:29]
Tony Blinken
No.
- [41:31]
Tim Miller
Do you think that all of the people that we have sent to the El Salvador sukkot are actually Ms. 13?
- [41:39]
Tony Blinken
I haven't seen the evidence. So that suggests.
- [41:41]
Tim Miller
Excuse me. Or Trentaragua.
- [41:42]
Tony Blinken
Trentara. I haven't haven't seen the evidence. It sure Would be good to see it. And again, I know this is rapid fire, but this is not about, you know, immigration. It's about the Constitution and it's about due process and it's about the rights that everyone need to be afforded. Because when you short circuit those rights for one person, you're going to wind up short circuiting for lots of other people, including people who may be listening to this podcast.
- [42:07]
Tim Miller
Can I see your knuckles? We want to make sure you don't have MS.13. Do you have MS.13 tattooed on your knuckles? OK. Watch out.
- [42:13]
Tony Blinken
No.
- [42:13]
Tim Miller
Stephen Miller might put something on there and you might trick the president. Did you see the president last night? He was tricked into thinking that. I missed that. Photoshop.
- [42:23]
Tony Blinken
I missed that.
- [42:23]
Tim Miller
Yeah. A Photoshop of Abrego Garcia's knuckles. It said Ms. 13 in, like, aerial font. It was a Photoshop. And the current president thought it was real and started yelling at Terry Moran about how he needs to look at the knuckles. We're in a pretty bad place, Tony.
- [42:38]
Tony Blinken
Well, that and all of my Chicago Bulls memorabilia. And, you know, I'm obviously giving those to Goodwill.
- [42:45]
Tim Miller
Do you have a favorite bull on the current team?
- [42:48]
Tony Blinken
I have to say I'm originally from New York, so I'm really a Knicks fan, but.
- [42:51]
Tim Miller
Oh, you're back to the Knicks. Oh, okay. Got it. All right. Jalen Brunson. That was a tough game last night.
- [42:56]
Tony Blinken
Yeah, tough. I know, I know. But keep the faith.
- [43:00]
Tim Miller
Big win for the Nuggets. Okay. Last thing. You're a music man. I was looking at your feed. You were given a JJ Kale wreck. We always have an outro song today. Do you got any. Do you have a J.J. kale song or something else that's speaking to you in the moment that we can use as our outro today?
- [43:13]
Tony Blinken
I mean, look, I'm stuck in the 70s and a lot of classic rock. There are a lot of people that I. That I love today. Let's see Maggie Rogers. Love Maggie Rogers.
- [43:23]
Tim Miller
Check that out. We'll find a Maggie Rogers or a J.J. kale song to take us out with. Tony Bungan, thank you so much. Please come back and do it again. Slowly but surely by your third time, you're going to be cussing. You're going to be cussing, you know, be using slang. We'll see. You know, you might even. You might even have a high fastball for Marco Rubio. And it's going to happen. It's going to happen by the next time, Tim.
- [43:45]
Tony Blinken
I'm going to get together with Jon Huntsman and try to figure out how to resist that and make sure we uphold the dignity of the offices that we once held.
- [43:53]
Tim Miller
He would be the exact right person to talk to because he also totally rebuffed all of my advances on this front. I appreciate your service. Thank you very much.
- [44:01]
Tony Blinken
Thanks, Tim.
- [44:02]
Tim Miller
Up next, we've got Alex Weich. All right, we are back. She's the senior political analyst at msnbc. She's been hosting a limited MSNBC podcast series called Trumpland with Alex Wagner. That's Alex Wagner. What's up, girl?
- [44:30]
Alex Wagner
What's up, guy? Thanks for having me on the pod again.
- [44:33]
Tim Miller
What's up, guy? Yeah, so this is what happened. Basically. You're in Hungary. We had some. You're doing the camera folks of the circus crew.
- [44:41]
Alex Wagner
I don't go anywhere without them. They're the best in the biz. We call this Dark Circus. Dark Circus.
- [44:46]
Tim Miller
Well, I love the Dark Circus crew. Obviously, I follow them on social media and so I see them behind the scenes and I'm like, you know, I have a daily podcast. I think I should probably know what's happening in Hungary. I didn't really even realize these protests were happening, and I didn't. And then I Googled it and, like, there hasn't been a bunch of news. There was a month ago, there was a little spate of news about this, but there just hasn't been a lot of discussion about it in the international news. And so. So you're back. You have the last episode coming out.
- [45:14]
Alex Wagner
I went to one of the protests. That's where we. So we got, literally got off the plane and went to these Tuesday protests they've been having every week to protest Orban's crackdown on pride. But really, it's. It's sort of framed in the broader context of his attack on democracy, civil liberties, the freedom of assembly. And it's really amazing, I gotta say. Like, I think in the US We're a little bit like, we have kind of a high bar for what protests sort of like, stop us in our tracks. But Hungary does not have a culture of civil unrest. It is a very big deal that people are coming out and amassing and, you know, under threat of government crackdown. Orban said he will use facial recognition technology to prosecute people who are seen at these protests. And it was, like, absolutely exhilarating. But, sorry, you probably had a question in there.
- [46:01]
Tim Miller
No, no, no, that's a good start. That's where my question is going to be, because, you know, there was this kind of crackdown, I guess. On around Hungary banning the Pride events. And that was maybe, like, a month ago. And so I was like, are these protests still the same? Is it a spinoff? But it is related to. To the Pride crackdown.
- [46:18]
Tony Blinken
It is.
- [46:18]
Alex Wagner
I mean, I will say you talk to. I talked to one of the leaders of the opposition movement. His name is Martin Tomposh, and he was like, you know, this is about pride. This is, of course, about the LGBTQ+ community, but it's also, you know, this is about standing up against Orban, and it's happening at a time when Orban is weak. I think people haven't really focused. I mean, we've been focusing on our own little autocracy here in the United States. Right. But there's so many similar parallels between Trump and Orban, just not just in terms of policy, the focus on, you know, marginalized communities, immigrants, the media, the courts, but in terms of posture, the obsession on the far part of the far right wing with Orban. He's a regular at CPAC conferences. Trump very much fashions himself in terms of Orban and, you know, being a strong man, but the similarity.
- [47:07]
Tim Miller
So he's getting weak. He's politically getting weak.
- [47:08]
Alex Wagner
Yeah, he's politically weak.
- [47:10]
Tim Miller
Why?
- [47:11]
Alex Wagner
Because he's steered Hungary's economy into the dumpster.
- [47:14]
Tim Miller
Ah, another parallel.
- [47:15]
Alex Wagner
Yeah, exactly. And there's a challenger in the wings. His name is Peter Magyar, and he's a wild man. He's not a progressive, but he has been really speaking out about corruption. He's been putting in a lot of time speaking across Hungary.
- [47:29]
Tim Miller
He's kind of a traditionally handsome man.
- [47:31]
Alex Wagner
He is a traditionally handsome man. He is very. A traditionally handsome man. I think that that's. That's not hurt his case, but the. The. I think part of the reason people feel emboldened enough to do what they're doing to come out every Tuesday is because they think this could be the turning point. They think the 2026 elections could be where Orban is ousted finally. I mean, he's been in power for 15 years, Tim, and he has transformed that country. He has consolidated the media. He has attacked civil liberties. I mean, it is stunning what he has done. And I think part of the reason. I mean, I know part of the reason we wanted to go over there is because I think America can learn a lot about its near future by looking at Hungary and its recent past.
- [48:11]
Tim Miller
Yeah. And here's the thing that struck me. You know, kind of just watching the social media clips. I look forward to the full pod later this week. But, like, they're doing this every Tuesday. You know, to me, there's a parallel with the kind of immigration question here where it's like, you know, gay pride is probably not the issue that is going to galvanize the broadest swath of people in Hungary, of Hungarians. Right. Like, and there's nobody over there that's like, oh, well, is this a politically potent. Or shouldn't we be focused on kitchen table issues? Or are they focused or what's that? A little bit of that.
- [48:43]
Alex Wagner
I mean, I actually think that's the thing. I was talking to Marta Pardavi, who, like, is an amazing civil rights, civil liberties lawyer, and she said, actually, in 2015, Orban was really successfully able to scapegoat the migrant population, the European refugee crisis. You know, she said, we thought because Hungary has this history of being a place for refugees and immigrants, that there would be more pushback, but there wasn't. He was really successfully able, I mean, in similar ways to Donald Trump. Right. But the pride thing, because I think the opposition movement has learned something in the interim. They framed it not just as an attack on that community, but as this bigger question of, like, can we have protests? Can we speak out? We are under threat of prosecution for just being. Because Orban has been so punitive in his attack here. They see this as a much bigger affront to basic tenets of democracy that Hungary purportedly stands for. And so, in a way, surprising, I think, both of us, you know, pride has become more of a galvanizing issue, in part because they don't think of it just as pride. They think of it as like, the sort of seminal attack on basic tenets of freedom. So, I mean, there's something to learn there, I think, in the US as well. Right. How do we frame these issues so that it doesn't feel like, you know, the libs are too woke? But it's like, no, no, this. An attack on one is an attack on all.
- [50:04]
Tim Miller
And I guess that's what I was kind of getting at. You can kind of see that in the immigration thing. I think you could imagine a way here that the attacks on the sending people to El Salvador is less about, oh, we want open borders. It's more about, oh, do you really want Donald Trump disappearing people off the streets? Yes.
- [50:21]
Alex Wagner
Over and over again. That has to be the line. It has to be a broader context. And Martin Tomposh, that opposition player that I spoke to, was like, the Democrats have made this stuff too narrow and too siloed. It needs to be bigger. It needs to be something that people feel brought into, even if they have no particular stake in the fight.
- [50:40]
Tim Miller
What about any other lessons from them about not getting beaten down? I mean, to your point, it's been 15 years and it was such a. And Hungary is really like a boiling frog, like even more so than we are, kind of, because Trump was like Kool Aid man coming through the wall. Whereas Orban initially positioned himself kind of as like a Bush style, like center, a center Right. European, kind of typical leader initially. Right.
- [51:06]
Alex Wagner
I gotta say, and I'm, I'm, obviously, I'm a little bit biased in terms of my interests, but the way Orban consolidated the media and cracked down on the fourth Estate is stag. First of all, he was so successful, Right. He basically had his friends and allies buy up all the newspapers, all the media outlets, all the editorial outlets that were once, you know, real robust journalistic endeavors, like the New York Times of Hungary was purchased and then shut down within a several week period. But there is a real robust independent media landscape in Hungary. And these guys are reporting on real shit. They're reporting about corruption, they're doing exposes on the son in law, Orban's son in law. Who. Oh, the son in law thing is a thing that's universal, I guess, owns.
- [51:51]
Tim Miller
Some hotels, is that right?
- [51:52]
Alex Wagner
Exactly. Hotel and tourism industry. And they're doing it, and they're so tenacious. And I said, you know, just like, do you ever wonder why you're still doing this? Given how much money the state funnels into state propaganda in the form of these news outlets? The just the steel, what is the metaphor, the iron fist with which Orban and his allies sort of censor and rule the national media. And they said, you know, we're doing this because this is. They believe in democracy, they believe in the fight. And it was so inspiring, I think, for like a jaded, you know, forth the state or from the U.S. it's like, what the fuck are we complaining about? First of all, our institutions still remain strong. There's so much of an appetite for information. Donald Trump has not shut down the White House briefings as yet. Even if one American news network is getting at a front row seat. You know, there's still, just before we.
- [52:42]
Tim Miller
Got on, there was a weird briefing video of like a Draco Malfoy type character asking Carolyn Levitt about how she's such a good mother. And I was, I did have a moment. I was like, is this a real video or am I getting AI'd? Am I getting spoof? But that was real. So, you know, totally. There's some baby steps, but we got a ways to go.
- [52:58]
Alex Wagner
We do. And it's all the more reason. I mean, it's like, go through the looking glass. Go to Hungary and see the people who've been doing it and continue to do it at, you know, at a great peril.
- [53:07]
Tim Miller
Oh, yeah.
- [53:08]
Alex Wagner
And the audience that still wants it. The information is essential. And I came back exhilarated by, you know, first of all, the privilege that we have in the US and the opportunity we have to still fight, you know, the encroachment of autocracy in a real, real way.
- [53:22]
Tim Miller
Yeah, I love that. What about the actual protesters? Because, again, and this is something everybody's kind of thinking about here, right? And you're seeing people like, I don't know, is it dangerous to go out to these things, to travel, to speak out? Right. And, like, so talk about what you heard from the people there.
- [53:36]
Alex Wagner
If we're scared, then everyone else is fucked. Right? Like, so these guys were supposed to have. They've been marching across this bridge, the Elizabeth Bridge, and the Orban government was like, oh, it's Tuesday. You're going to try and do this again? We're not going to give you the permit. So instead of marching across the bridge, they start jaywalking across the street. And then the cops are like, yeah, we're going to. There's like tons, hundreds of riot police there with helmets and tear gas, and they're like, you can't jaywalk across the street. So they have this purple smoke bomb. It's like a smoke candle that the leader of the opposition uses to signal to everybody it's time to move. So they walk, literally hundreds, if not thousands of people across town to a different bridge, and they cross that bridge and they sit on the bridge and they're there and the police come up and eventually they have to be moved, but they. They get it done, you know, like, the sense of tenacity. And I don't want to say this the wrong way, but there is a joy in their resistance that seems real absent in ours. Right. And I think part of the way you win is by bringing back a zeal and an optimism, maybe even some humor. You know, like, there's a sort of very Central European, like, dark humor in all of this. Right. That they're fighting. It's almost Sisyphean sometimes, it feels like, but they continue to do it. And I think. I'm not saying that we have to categorize or think of our work as Sisyphean. But, like, the joy of it, the joy of trying to fight for a better thing is, like, we need to bring that back, I think, to the American sort of protest movement and the opposition.
- [55:13]
Tim Miller
I love that so much. That's true. And it just gives you such perspective because, like I said, There's a 2026 election, but still a way out. Like doing this every week and happening for a decade and a half. I mean, it's a grind. So it better be joyful. It's gonna be such a fucking grind.
- [55:27]
Alex Wagner
And you know this, Tim, the thing that people miss about Trump and those Trump rallies, it's a dark joy, but there's a joy there. It's a church revival. And, like, the left needs to find its own sort of spiritual belonging in all of this. Some sort of catharsis and joy. And. And I think that that's got to power it as much as the anger and the discontent and the rage.
- [55:49]
Tim Miller
All right, last thing, you've been popping out to other places as well. You know, just in Hungary. You're here in America, you're down here in Louisiana.
- [55:55]
Alex Wagner
Yeah.
- [55:55]
Tim Miller
Is there anything that you've heard from people that you've covered that you think people are not, like, appreciating, like, what the impact of it is or something that's a little undercovered or maybe something that just moved you in particular? And there's just so much happening. There's been such a. I don't even want to give them credit for shock and awe, but chaos and shock of the last hundred days. I just wonder if there's any other thing that really jumps out at you.
- [56:18]
Alex Wagner
Well, I'm, like, sad that this is the end of my 100 day experiment in the sense that, God, there's so much more work to be done. I think we as media have really failed the American people by being so focused on the eastern corridor of the United States. We don't tell the stories of the human beings who are directly affected by this stuff. And really, on both sides of the aisle, like, I was super moved by the story of the cancer survivors and the cancer deaths in Louisiana, your state, and what it means to dismantle environmental justice programs at the EPA and the human cost of that. Likewise, I was fascinated talking to January sixers who had just gone out of jail and the sense of renewal and belief and the sort of, like, waiting army that exists for Trump should he choose to mobilize it. And on the same note, talking to farmers in the center of this whole tariff war who are still, you know, they're still standing with Trump. And I'm not saying that they converted me to like, oh, yeah, Trump's really got. He knows what he's doing. But I think in order for anybody to sort of move this country forward in a real way, that you have to talk to people, you have to listen to what they're saying. You don't have to agree with them, but we as journalists need to do a better job of covering that. I'm, like, so grateful in a way. This has been so exhausting. My kids are so angry at me. But it's been eye opening and I hope to do. You'll be hearing more about my projects in the next coming months. Tim, Deep tease.
- [57:51]
Tim Miller
All right, good. I hope so. I just listened to you talking about we could do a whole Louisiana thing. I've just been thinking about the Lisa and we have the migrant detention center here. You talked about the EPA issues in the cancer alley, the Hondurans that were citizens, Honduran children that are citizens. They were here. Yeah. I mean, in every state. You could do the tariff thing. But I've talked a couple times about a woman I met recently who's got like a tchotchke shop of like, tourist stuff.
- [58:15]
Alex Wagner
Yeah, totally.
- [58:15]
Tim Miller
They're like, she's.
- [58:16]
Alex Wagner
Wait, you're saying it's not made in that state, Tim?
- [58:18]
Tim Miller
Yeah, yeah, no, it's not. It's not being made in Louisiana. On the other hand, the shrimpers are thrilled and the crawfish people. So, you know, it's a mixed story.
- [58:24]
Alex Wagner
The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.
- [58:26]
Tim Miller
You can just look at it. You can see how that all kind of gets lost amid the, you know, sort of whatever, D.C. rancor.
- [58:33]
Alex Wagner
Yeah. I mean, I just think there's a time and a place for the analysis and the rancor and the, you know, that sort of steam valve opening, but that shouldn't be it. And like, we have to better understand what's actually happening in the country because otherwise you keep getting hit with a tidal wave every four years, you know, well, if.
- [58:51]
Tim Miller
Alex Wagner, you're the best girl. That is awesome stuff in Hungary.
- [58:54]
Alex Wagner
I'm excited talking to you.
- [58:55]
Tim Miller
I'm excited to listen to the full pod and, you know, know, I don't know, we'll put up. We'll put up some little pictures from the. From the protest for people to look at on the YouTubes and we'll be seeing you soon.
- [59:07]
Alex Wagner
Thanks, Tim.
- [59:08]
Tim Miller
All right. Thank you so much to Tony Blinken for coming and dealing with my bullshit. Thanks to my friend Alex Wagner for her report from Hungary. To all of you. We'll be back here tomorrow with one of your favorites. It's been a little too long since we had them, so it's going to be a good show. We'll see you all then. Peace.
- [59:50]
Alex Wagner
You my, where have you gone? Since I saw you last July? The sun so now you think of me when you're alone? If you got my name I'll run to wherever? Love me on my way? Tomorrow can wait I don't think no, nothing last forever But I'm not too far, not too far not too far out there anyway if you need me, I'll be there A little now.
- [60:59]
Tim Miller
The Bulwark Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.