S2 Ep1036: Jonathan V. Last: An Economic Tsunami Is Coming

Summary

The Bulwark Podcast: S2 Ep1036 Summary – "Jonathan V. Last: An Economic Tsunami Is Coming"

Release Date: May 6, 2025

In Season 2, Episode 1036 of The Bulwark Podcast, host Tim Miller engages in a profound discussion with Jonathan V. Last, editor of The Bulwark and co-host on the Next Level podcast. Titled "An Economic Tsunami Is Coming," the episode delves into the intricate web of political corruption, economic instability, and the looming threats to liberal democracy under the influence of the Trump administration. This summary encapsulates their comprehensive analysis, notable insights, and critical perspectives shared throughout the episode.

---

1. Introduction: From Sports to Serious Politics (00:15 – 01:20)

The podcast kicks off with Tim Miller sharing a moment of triumph from a Denver Nuggets game, symbolizing a brief respite before delving into the grim realities facing America. He introduces Jonathan V. Last, affectionately dubbed the "Prince of Darkness," setting the stage for an in-depth political discourse.

2. Trump’s Cryptocurrency and Corporate Corruption (02:16 – 05:29)

Miller highlights a striking instance of corporate corruption involving Trump’s cryptocurrency, Trump Coin. An international trucking firm, Freight Technologies, publicly announced purchasing $20 million worth of Trump Coin via bond issuance, effectively worth five times their entire market cap of $4 million.

Jonathan V. Last criticizes this move:

"Freight Technologies... Spending 20 million on the Trump meme coin, that is five times the value of their entire company." (03:58)

This blatant act of financial imprudence underscores the deep-rooted corruption and the lengths businesses are willing to go to curry favor with the Trump administration.

3. Trump’s Economic Policies and Trade Wars (05:29 – 32:07)

a. Trade War with China and Mexico

The conversation transitions to Trump's aggressive trade policies, particularly tariffs imposed on China and Mexico. Last emphasizes the detrimental impact of these tariffs on the American economy, predicting a stagflation scenario characterized by scarcity, rising prices, and increasing unemployment:

"What this is going to mean is we're headed towards stagflation." (27:23)

b. Impact on US Economy and Chinese Influence

Miller and Last discuss the catastrophic potential of these policies, wherein Chinese corporations could increasingly dominate American brands by taking over bankrupt businesses. This shift would not only erode the value chain but also empower China to ascend as the principal global leader.

Jonathan V. Last warns:

"China is going to wind up buying American companies out of bankruptcy and that entire scheme is going to end up with China leading the world order." (31:38)

They argue that the Trump administration's approach is short-sighted and economically self-destructive, favoring oligarchical capitalism over sustainable growth.

4. US Debt and International Relations (38:00 – 40:29)

The episode addresses the precarious position of U.S. national debt, particularly with Japan, the largest holder of U.S. Treasury bonds, threatening to sell off its holdings amidst escalating trade tensions. Last elucidates the potential fallout:

"If these countries begin to weaponize that debt by selling off, which would drive the prices down on T bills, that would create enormous pressure on the American budget." (38:31)

This scenario could plunge the U.S. into a financial crisis, exacerbating economic instability and diminishing America's fiscal credibility on the global stage.

5. Military Cuts and Appointments (40:29 – 43:58)

The discussion shifts to Trump's recent orders to cut 20% of the highest-ranking military officers and 10% of the National Guard. Last interprets this as a strategic purge to ensure loyalty within the military hierarchy:

"This is a purge... ensuring that the senior most levels of the military will be personally loyal." (43:07)

Miller and Last express concern over the long-term implications of such drastic reductions, questioning the administration's commitment to maintaining a robust and reliable military force.

6. Department of Justice Controversies (43:58 – 48:09)

Miller brings attention to the controversial appointment of Ed Martin as the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia. Martin's past associations with neo-Nazi groups and frequent appearances on Russia Today raise alarms about his suitability for the role.

Jonathan V. Last critiques:

"People like Ed Martin have no individual standing. The only thing he has to offer is total loyalty." (46:12)

They argue that such appointments reflect a broader strategy to embed loyalists within key governmental positions, undermining the integrity of institutions meant to uphold justice and accountability.

7. Authoritarian Tendencies and Use of Force (49:23 – 52:22)

The podcast delves into the disturbing parallels between the administration's actions and authoritarian regimes, particularly regarding the selective use of force and the manipulation of legal institutions. They discuss the contrasting public perceptions of events like the deaths of Ashley Babbitt and George Floyd, framing them within a fascist worldview where power and force are monopolized to suppress dissent and maintain control.

Jonathan V. Last explains:

"This is fascism. And what fascism does is it sees the use of force as properly only belonging to them." (51:24)

8. Critique of Local Trump Supporters (53:48 – 68:21)

Miller and Last express frustration with local Trump supporters like Frank Davis and John Beck, who exhibit a narrow focus on Trump’s policies affecting their immediate interests—such as the National Fire Academy—while ignoring broader national and global repercussions.

Jonathan V. Last condemns:

"You can't look around and tell that... The world is bigger and more important than you, sir." (66:18)

This segment underscores the danger of insular thinking and how it contributes to the systemic self-destruction of American societal structures.

9. Brief Discussion on Democrats (54:32 – 60:40)

In a brief aside, Tim Miller critiques the Democratic National Committee's portrayal of Kamala Harris at the Met Gala, suggesting it serves to undermine Republican integrity by showcasing superficial victories for the opposing side. He also praises Republican figures who maintain their integrity, such as Brian Kemp and Mike Pence, contrasting them with others who have capitulated to Trump’s influence.

10. Conclusion: Path to Self-Destruction (68:21 – 70:03)

Wrapping up, Miller and Last reflect on the overwhelming array of policies and actions spearheaded by the Trump administration that collectively point toward an impending economic and political crisis. They emphasize the necessity for the liberal resistance to remain vigilant and informed to combat these destructive trends.

Jonathan V. Last concludes:

"We are indeed on a very long, slow path to self-destruction." (62:29)

Miller echoes this sentiment, underscoring the urgency for a strategic opposition to preserve liberal democracy.

---

Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• Jonathan V. Last (03:58): "Freight Technologies... Spending 20 million on the Trump meme coin, that is five times the value of their entire company."

• Jonathan V. Last (27:23): "What this is going to mean is we're headed towards stagflation."

• Jonathan V. Last (31:38): "China is going to wind up buying American companies out of bankruptcy and that entire scheme is going to end up with China leading the world order."

• Jonathan V. Last (38:31): "If these countries begin to weaponize that debt by selling off, which would drive the prices down on T bills, that would create enormous pressure on the American budget."

• Jonathan V. Last (43:07): "This is a purge... ensuring that the senior most levels of the military will be personally loyal."

• Jonathan V. Last (46:12): "People like Ed Martin have no individual standing. The only thing he has to offer is total loyalty."

• Jonathan V. Last (51:24): "This is fascism. And what fascism does is it sees the use of force as properly only belonging to them."

• Jonathan V. Last (66:18): "You can't look around and tell that... The world is bigger and more important than you, sir."

---

Key Takeaways

1. Corporate Corruption: Companies like Freight Technologies are engaging in reckless financial maneuvers by heavily investing in Trump-backed ventures, exemplifying systemic corruption.

2. Economic Instability: Trump's aggressive trade policies are projected to lead the U.S. into stagflation, weakening economic structures and empowering foreign adversaries like China.

3. National Debt Risks: International holders of U.S. debt, particularly Japan, may destabilize the U.S. economy by selling off Treasury bonds amidst trade tensions.

4. Authoritarian Shifts: Administrative actions, including military cuts and controversial DOJ appointments, signal a drift towards authoritarian governance, undermining democratic institutions.

5. Local Insularity: Trump supporters at the local level exhibit a myopic focus, neglecting broader societal and global implications of their political allegiance.

6. Democratic Counterparts: While critiquing Republican corruption, the discussion also briefly touches upon Democratic tactics that aim to undermine Republican figures through media portrayal.

7. Call to Action: The episode underscores the urgency for the liberal resistance to strategically counteract the Trump administration’s policies to prevent national and economic decline.

---

This summary provides a comprehensive overview of the critical discussions in The Bulwark Podcast episode "Jonathan V. Last: An Economic Tsunami Is Coming." Listeners are encouraged to tune in for a deeper exploration of these pressing political and economic issues.

Transcript

[Tim Miller]

Seven seconds left. Westbrook. Five seconds. They're down by one. Gordon got it. Aaron Gordon with a deep shot.

[Jonathan V. Last]

Williams. Three quarter court, no good. The Nuggets steal game one.

[Tim Miller]

Hello and welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. Needed to start with that little bit of joy. A remarkable, unfathomable Nuggets comeback last night because we're going to the Bad Place today, and America is going to need an unfathomable rebound as well. Our guest is editor of the Bulwark, author of the Triad newsletter, my co host on the Next Level podcast. It's the Prince of Darkness, Jonathan V. Last. You might know him as jvl. What's up?

[Jonathan V. Last]

Hey, buddy. Glad to be on the big show.

[Tim Miller]

Jonathan. Victory Last. We had a victory last night. Oof. I was alone. I scared the cat. I woke up Tyler with my shrieking after that three. You know, you need childlike joy sometimes in life. You know, even as a grown man living through, you know, the horrors and the pain of. Of adulthood.

[Jonathan V. Last]

I guess. I guess I found it.

[Tim Miller]

Do you get any childlike joy?

[Jonathan V. Last]

I found it hard. Honestly, I have found it hard to take joy in normal things because in the back of my mind is like, oh, things might not be okay.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, I hear that. And I think that this is probably cope and maybe it's time for me to get back into therapy, but I feel like I'm tripling down on compartmentalization right now.

[Jonathan V. Last]

I mean, what else are you going to do?

[Tim Miller]

And like, when I'm in a nugget space or a jazz fest space, I'm just like. I'm refusing to let my brain even think about it, you know, until. And God love you, until this, you know, stranger comes up to me and wants to talk to me about the tariffs. Which is fine. It's fine. We love you. I appreciate you. But I just want you to know, in my mind. Mind, I am, like, not even on the planet. Also, I might do some self medication that helps me in a way that. Something you might want to look into. Jbl. Let's. Let's go to the Trump family corruption. There's so many things to talk about.

[Jonathan V. Last]

Wow.

[Tim Miller]

But I had to start here because this story just really jumped out at me yesterday. Long New York Times story about the kids. But there was this one anecdote that was really, I think, you know, like the gold standard, so to speak. The bitcoin standard. An international trucking logistics firm is buying as much as $20 million worth of Trump's crypto The freight technologies. Freight technologies. And the company is issuing bonds and directing the proceeds directly to the shitcoin. Their CEO, Javier Selga said in a news release that buying Trump Coin would be an effective way to advocate for fair, balanced and free trade between the Mexico and the US at the heart of their mission.

[Jonathan V. Last]

Free trade. The capitalism, baby. That's what it is. It's free.

[Tim Miller]

At the heart of their mission is promotion of productive and active commerce between the United States and Mexico. Boy, I mean that is just like they basically just put out a news release that said we are bribing the President in order to hopefully get a carve out in the trade war. I mean like it wasn't even really subtle.

[Jonathan V. Last]

So let's talk about this. This company is called Freight Technologies. It is a very small logistics company. Total market cap for this publicly traded company is about 4 million. Not, not billion, $4 million. So I want you to think about that. When they say they're going to spend 20 million on the Trump meme coin, that is five times the value of their entire company.

[Tim Miller]

My buddy who went to Wharton was staying with me this weekend. I need to call him up here to see if there are any business school lessons on this.

[Jonathan V. Last]

Okay, so this is, this is why they had to take out a bond to do the purchasing, right? Because they don't have the cash. Because again, they're going to take a 5 exposition of their entire company on this. Now how they're going to sell this bond is beyond me because who would buy it? Right? You, You're a bondholder. You're secured, sort of. But what are you really secured? You're secured by the, the cost of the Trump coin. And if you wanted to exposure to that, you would just buy the Trump coin yourself. You wouldn't buy a bond in a company where the bond is going to be secured by the coin. But, but here's what's interesting. So the Trump coin itself has been on a downward spiral since day two. I don't know if people remember. I do, because I made a lot of money on it.

[Tim Miller]

A lot of money.

[Jonathan V. Last]

I mean for me, a lot of money. I made enough money to buy one tenth of a nice watch.

[Tim Miller]

Okay, how about how many dinners for your family of 11?

[Jonathan V. Last]

Like two, maybe three. Maybe three.

[Tim Miller]

Depending on whether you're going out for the fancy steak or whether it's a chili's night.

[Jonathan V. Last]

Okay. No, I mean the no fancy steak. It's like half of a fancy steak dinner for all 12 of us. But anyway, point is, point is we've had one spike in the price of Trump coin. Would you care to guess when it was?

[Tim Miller]

I'd like to guess. I'd like to guess. It was when he issued the offer to come have a dinner at his golf club and get a tour of the White House. If you're one of the top 20 investors in the coin, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.

[Jonathan V. Last]

Because what happened was a bunch of people went out to purchase this coin, and it became obvious to people who wanted to influence the president. Oh, right, we could just buy this thing and that will funnel money to him. He's asking us to do that. And so we say no jump. But since then, the coin has floated back down. So Freight Technologies, they publicly announced that they were going to float this bond. And simultaneously, they said that we've already put a million dollars into the Trump coin. When they did that, their stock, which has been tanking since Trump took office, spiked. So the marketplace jumped on this and said, oh, yeah, okay, well, these guys have figured it out. They know that they need to bribe the president. And the. Merely. The fact that they said they were going to try to bribe the president was enough to push their stock price up. Because, again, remember, they haven't succeeded in doing yet. All they've said is, we're gonna put together a bond offering and maybe people will give us the money to bribe him. But here's. Here's what I'm gonna say. They've already lost money, so they put a million dollars. They say they've put a million dollars into the coin, But. But the coin has lost. It's gone from like $13 to 10. So they're. They're already. Already down 30%.

[Tim Miller]

That's nothing compared to the 140% tariffs. I guess the Mexico tariffs aren't. Aren't as high as 1.

[Jonathan V. Last]

So. But the point in all of this is that the markets are reacting to all of this stuff as though the only thing that is real is the corruption.

[Tim Miller]

Right?

[Jonathan V. Last]

And the actual reality of whether companies have lost money in the bribes or whether the Trump coin is down or up, or whether they'll be able to get securitized debt or bonds or anything, that stuff is immaterial. The market is simply reacting to. Oh, yeah, finally somebody understands that they have to bribe the president if they want to stay in business. Therefore, this company we can reward with a slightly higher stock price because they now understand the new American economy.

[Tim Miller]

This is a very important point. The new American economy is basically a combination of a corrupt oligarchy. Like oligarchical capitalism with a little bit of central planning, with some Middle Ages indulgences to the pontiff thrown on top of it. Now, that is how Trump wants to reorient the economy. That's how he's describing the economy. When he talks about how he is the owner of the department store and he gets to set the prices, he's describing our economy as one that's centrally planned. The market is reacting to people paying the indulgences and saying, well, okay, they're going to be a favored company. Then they're truly turning back the clock, not to the 1950s, the 1550s and the type of economy they're trying to put together here. Have we heard from Paul Ryan about it? Have we heard from John Thune, was once a free market capitalist. There's Rand Paul, God love them, is the only one that seems to.

[Jonathan V. Last]

Mike Pence. Mike Pence is talking about it.

[Tim Miller]

We'll get back to Mike Pence, but I mean, of the current members of the party, they're all just going along with this and it's a little bit hyperbole because we have some kind of vestigial capitalism still going, but that's what they're trying to reorient it towards.

[Jonathan V. Last]

What's funny is there's one outlier in all of this, and that's crypto. Right. And on crypto, this administration wants to be way out into the future.

[Tim Miller]

Total deregulation.

[Jonathan V. Last]

Total deregulation. Really unleash the animal energies, the right of the animal spirits of the crypto, which, of course is perfect because crypto is nothing. Right? It is. Of course, Trump would be into crypto because crypto is just air, like there is nothing there.

[Tim Miller]

That's what he's good at.

[Jonathan V. Last]

Right? Right. And there's no underlying value. And here's the thing, Tim, we're going to talk about corruption at some point. It's easy to understand it through the lens of just naked corruption. It's harder to understand at the level of just mass destruction of the American economy, because that's coming.

[Tim Miller]

Like the Berlusconi system would be understandable. I could tell Italy didn't thrive under it. But it's like, okay, we're going to give fav companies some kickbacks. It's what Spiro Agnew got in trouble for. We're going to direct a friendly company, give them the construction project. I'm going to get a kickback. This is old school corruption. But the old school corruption of, okay, I'm going to give a carve out to this trucking company because they put money into my shitcoin is being combined with the reorienting of the global economy.

[Jonathan V. Last]

Yeah. The mass destruction driving the dollar down. The dollar is down against every major world currency. It's down against some of them. The Asian currencies are getting stronger. There are some guys in logistics, like Ryan Peterson from Flexport who've been sounding the alarm on this, saying that the end result of this is that China is going to wind up buying American companies out of bankruptcy and that this entire scheme is going to end up with China leading the world order.

[Tim Miller]

Well, that's exciting.

[Jonathan V. Last]

Great.

[Tim Miller]

Hold on now. I can't decide. I'm so tempted. Do we want to do China first or crypto first? Let's just put a pin in China. We'll come right back to it. The crypto corruption is still going. This is also part of the New York Times story. It was hard to pick which my favorite anecdote was, I went with the trucking company, but this is pretty good too. Our Buddy Donald Trump Jr. Was in Romania, Serbia and Bulgaria, you know, I mean, our real allies. On a speech tour he called the Trump business vision for 2025. He knows which countries to go to for the business vision. Who's going to want to grease the skids? Eric was in the Middle east at the same time saw over the past couple of weeks, we talked about Eric's shitcoin deal on a previous pod with the United Arab Emirates where they were doing a $2 billion deal and not instead of using dollars or whatever or euro or their own. Their own currency. They decided to use the Trump coin. But the Bulgarian one was new to me. Don Jr. Was on stage along with a guy named Anthony Trenchev. He's the co founder of a cryptocurrency firm called Nexo. Was fined 45 million by the SEC in 2023 and they agreed to leave the Europe place. Mr. Trenchev announced with Don Jr on stage that Nexo had already talked to the US regulators. You'll be surprised to learn it's re entering the market.

[Jonathan V. Last]

Wow.

[Tim Miller]

America is back and so is Nexo and the companies and Don Jr talking about ways that they can do business together. I mean, like this is from like an 80s movie. The kid, the idiot kid of the president goes to a fucking Eastern European country to meet a criminal. Criminal is like just gonna give them a bag of cat. Like the whole thing is just so on the nose.

[Jonathan V. Last]

It makes Jared's stuff look respectable.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, high class, right?

[Jonathan V. Last]

High class. And it makes Jared look smart. Like, you know, Jared Kushner is only looks smart standing next to the Trump boys. So here's one of the things that I find interesting. Trump's first administration had massive corruption, but it was on a very bespoke scale. It was like handcrafted, artisanal construction. So, for instance, Donald Trump owned an office building in San Francisco, 555 California street, and one of the tenants there was the Qatari government, which rented an entire floor of office space and just left it empty. Right. Qatar knew that they had to get him a cut, and they wanted to get Donald Trump a taste that he would listen to them and be amenable to them. So they would rent an office space in a floor of a building he owned. People who were coming to visit D.C. and were going to conduct business. Federal government knew that they needed to stay at the Trump Hotel across the street. But, I mean, how much money are you really getting there? I mean, the rack rate on a hotel room there is like, what, 850, maybe 1300 bucks for a nice room, office space. And plus, there's all these other middlemen taking cuts out of it, right? You got to pay tax. Trump 2.0 realized that you could industrialize and take to scale corruption if you owned platforms and currencies. Because then people don't need to physically currency currencies. People don't need to actually show up at a physical location to deliver you the bags of money. Right. And they can do it at the scale of billions of dollars at a time. Right. They could say, yeah, we're going to conduct a business over, you know, using $2 billion of your currency, and you'll get whatever the blockchain percentage says of it. And I wonder, Tim, if there's any going back, right? Like, if the future of corruption in America, if everybody will aspire to that level, then. Right. And it'll no longer be enough to be Hunter Biden painting, you know, doing a Jackson Pollock and then charging somebody $100,000 for it. Right.

[Tim Miller]

Or does it get bad enough that, I mean, the optimistic vision is that you have like, a post Watergate backlash type where it's focused more on the financial side of it. There's a period of reforms. Some Democrat, maybe even some Republican, runs as, like, a reformer. And that's like, how they get kind of outsider cred. I'm not optimistic about this scenario, but it is possible, right? I don't know. Jonathan Rauch, when he was on a couple weeks ago, felt like that the opposition should really dial in on corruption and learn from Navalny. Learn from these opposition parties and other places where they're authoritarian leaders. That has been a strategy that has worked. And if you take all this together, we've talked about all the Trump stuff, but the Times article also gets into all the people around him are making bank unimaginable bank. Just this douchebag Jeff Miller, who I used to know in another life was just a Kevin McCarthy Republican, went full in with Trump has 39 new corporate clients this year, including crypto firm Tether. This guy is going to be buying a mountain and an island home. Jason Miller, you might know him, he doesn't have a chin and he's not paying his child support. Or maybe he started recently. I guess for a while he wasn't paying his child support. At least he registered.

[Jonathan V. Last]

What was his monthly retainer? Go ahead, read his monthly retainer for that.

[Tim Miller]

I know the Indian government is paying him 150k a month.

[Jonathan V. Last]

A month?

[Tim Miller]

A month. The Indian government is just like, you can't even pay the bags of cash at that level. And it's briefcases, it's like suitcases of cash that are going to this fucking piece of work. There's an argument, right, that all of these guys feel like this is the moment to get their beak wet. It spirals out of control, the economy tanks. They get even more shameless about it. They realize this is our last chance, right? And that there is some kind of backlash to this that where corruption is kind of the at the heart of it. How do you, how do you like that optimistic mission? Your face doesn't seem like you're sold on the Jonathan Roush playing back look.

[Jonathan V. Last]

Anything is possible. I could be wrong.

[Tim Miller]

The Nuggets won last night. They were down 14. They only have 4 players.

[Jonathan V. Last]

This is not a JVL is always right money back guarantee. But on the other hand, I look at this and I think these things are all hard to explain to people. I think the average person does not even understand crypto or finance or any of this stuff. And Trump has pretty successfully convinced everyone that everybody's corrupt. And so what does it matter if he does it too? And also we're so polarized that any meaningful change requires super majorities. And so I just don't think you get anything meaningful done. I could be wrong. Here's a really interesting question though. As our tech overlords would say, Trump's coins have really disintermediated the classical lobbyist, right? Because if the way this worked was in the Olden times. You had Senator X, who was the head of, you know, whatever committee. Right. Whatever committee you needed to get into to get them to mark up a bill on behalf of your industry. So you hired his ex chief of staff because you knew his ex chief of staff could call in a favor and say, Senator, could you, could you just cut that paragraph for us?

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, we got a red line in the energy and commerce bill.

[Jonathan V. Last]

Well, I don't know how much loyalty Donald Trump has to Jason Miller. Right. I mean, does Donald Trump really think that he owes Jason Miller? I, I actually think the opposite. I suspect that Donald Trump chafes at the idea that Jason Miller is getting $150,000 making money off of him and his name getting, getting paid by those Indian guys. Why shouldn't those Indian guys pay Trump and not Jason Miller?

[Tim Miller]

That's a great point. We should post this video on Truth Social to make sure that Trump has a chance to see it, because he should not. He cannot be okay with this. That like, fat fuck. And he was getting laid off of Trump and he's getting money and he was a total zero if it wasn't for Trump. That's a great point.

[Jonathan V. Last]

But I mean, I think this extends throughout the whole world and there are going to be a couple places where maybe if Stephen Miller decides he wants to cash in, Trump would be willing to grant a favorite. But for some of these lesser hangers.

[Tim Miller]

On, or if you're just trying to get them to send a tweet, you can pay off Jason Miller to get him to send a bleat out that's like, to promote your book or something. Like some of these lower level stuff.

[Jonathan V. Last]

For sure, but for meaningful stuff. It seems to me that if you want to get something out of the Trump administration, you're going to have to pay Trump. And so what do you. I think a lot of these companies are caught fighting the last war thinking that, like, oh, if we just hire some Republican lobbyists, they'll help us out. When the answer is they ought to be pushing that money directly into Trump's pockets. And they can do it now because he owns the coins.

[Tim Miller]

So Shine just don't pay Jeff Miller Corporate. If you're in a corporate lobbying office right now, do not give a damn cent to Jeff Miller, please.

[Jonathan V. Last]

I wouldn't do that. Honestly, I would go buy Trump coin. Right. And make a big deal of it and talk about how great it is, you know, so Shine Wired is a big piece about Shine, the fast fashion company which decided they were going to get in heavy on this.

[Tim Miller]

They're like a Chinese Amazon for cheap clothes, basically, for people who don't know.

[Jonathan V. Last]

Right, Temu. Right. Basically. And they have gotten nothing. They've got nothing to show for all the money they've spent on Republican lobbyists.

[Tim Miller]

They got fucked, actually. I mean, because they got rid of the diminished exemption. They didn't even get kind of an even Steven, like, level. They got totally screwed. Yeah.

[Jonathan V. Last]

I have to think that might have been different if they had pushed that money directly into Trump's pockets.

[Tim Miller]

Although TikTok. Look at the TikTok.

[Jonathan V. Last]

Yeah, look at TikTok. Although maybe there are going to be places where Trump doesn't care. Like, maybe if you're. You're Chinese, he's going to screw you no matter what, but maybe not. Again, TikTok. Right. Suggests that if you're willing to make him rich. Because here's the thing, Trump is going to walk away from this. Okay, I'm sorry, That's me being optimistic. If Trump were to walk away from the presidency at some point, for whatever reason, that would be. He's going to do it being wealthier by tens of billions of dollars. Tens of billions of dollars. And that is a level of wealth transfer and corruption that normally you don't see except in authoritarian regimes.

[Tim Miller]

And this takes us just back one more time to the Rasch question. Okay, so you're not optimistic that we are going to go through a period of. Of comity and reform and institution building. I could be wrong. I'm also not really seeing. It could, though, there just be more of a narrow political backlash against it. Is it possible for Trump to get just too many gold coins or is he insulated from this? Because I actually am not sure. I think he might be insulated from it. I think it's regular people's economic pain that's more likely to be his downfall than people caring about this. I think people look at him like Scrooge McDuck. They're like, like, who cares how many more coins he gets?

[Jonathan V. Last]

Yeah. And they like that about him. Right. I think it's more likely that he's vulnerable on, like, the $2 instead of $30 than he is on the, well, he just got $2 billion in world liberty Financial coin transactions.

[Tim Miller]

I agree with that. I'm not going to stop fucking talking about it because it's insane and because it's hard for people to really real, like, process just how much money he's making. And so it's important for us to be translating it to folks But I just. I potency is more on the other side. Ready to win Mother's Day and cement your reputation as the best gift giver in the family? Give the moms in your life an Aura digital picture frame preloaded with decades of family photos. Aura Frames was named the best digital photo frame by Wirecutter and it's easy to see why. There's an unlimited storage so you can add as many photos, videos and funny memes as you can find. It is so simple to set up up. Just plug it in and share away the aura people. You know, I like to be a good host. Here they are hooking this on Mother's Day and I'm sure that a lot of you are looking for a Mother's Day gift and this is a great idea. I'd recommend it. A couple years ago I sent it to a grandmother. It crushed. Everyone loved it. But I just want to throw out another creative idea for you. I was with all my college friends at Jazz Fest over the weekend and you know, I was looking at this little note here. The decades of family photos. I'm getting old. I've got decades of friend photos. You know, we get decades of friend photos and I think a funny gag gift for you to consider also. It's an earnest gag gift. It's not like a silly gag gift. It's an earnest gag gift. But it's funny. Would be to send the carver mat frame filled with photos from the past decades of your friends looking ridiculous or drunk or silly or in costume. It's just an idea because you know, it's always nice to just receive a gift for no reason. Mother's Day is nice, but it's also nice to receive a gift for no reason. Aura has a great deal for Mother's Day. For a limited time, listeners can save on the perfect gift by visiting auraframes.com to get 35 bucks off plus free shipping on their best selling Carver mat frame. That's a U R A frames.com promo code. Bulwark. Support the show by mentioning us at checkout. Terms and conditions apply on the trade war stuff with China, even reading the shipping trades, which I like. So I want to bring in your expertise as somebody that is now a reader of trade publications. But before we do that, I want to listen to our marble mouthed ponce Secretary of the Treasury Scott Besant who was on CNBC yesterday. For some reason this person is calming the markets and I can't fucking fathom it for any. I just, I cannot wrap my head around why people find this comforting, but.

[Scott Besant]

Let'S look, listen, I think we could see substantial progress in the coming weeks. We'll see that as I think it's Stein's law, that which is not sustainable doesn't continue. So 145%, 125% tariff levels are the equivalent of an embargo. And we're reading every day what's happening with a few factories in China. And from an academic point of view, I can tell you that the history of trade battles, we are the deficit country, the surplus country always has the most to lose.

[Tim Miller]

So they need, they need to make more gestures.

[Jonathan V. Last]

What is it that you're looking for and is that happening?

[Tim Miller]

Is there a negotiation about the negotiation?

[Scott Besant]

Yeah, we'll see over, over the coming weeks and we'll see what President Trump wants to accept.

[Tim Miller]

We don't know what our goal is. We don't know what the status of the negotiation is. Stein's law does tell us, though, that something that is unsustainable won't sustain. And so I just figure that eventually it'll all work out. That's the adult in the room and.

[Jonathan V. Last]

He'S the one that we were all happy about. I, you know, Tim, really, you gotta understand, that's all art of the deal.

[Tim Miller]

You think so?

[Jonathan V. Last]

Of course. It sounds like he's an idiot. He wants to sound like he's an idiot because that's good negotiation. It's all unfalsifiable.

[Tim Miller]

Okay.

[Jonathan V. Last]

All right, here's what we know. 40% of container ship capacity between Asia and the United States has been canceled.

[Tim Miller]

That's good news for some small business owners who are like, hoping that their material doesn't come in because they can't pay for it or else their business will go under.

[Jonathan V. Last]

Well, their business is going to go under anyway. We're creeping up on a 50% level of cancellations because it's accelerating. What this is going to mean is we're headed towards stagflation. That's what this is. So you get a scarcity in consumer goods that will push prices higher because they are scarce. But it also means economic disruption. It's going to mean unemployment going up. And when unemployment goes up, you're going to have wages falling. Who's going to lose their drop? Dock workers are going to go first, truckers, people in logistics than the small business owners.

[Tim Miller]

I'm sorry, not the truckers that paid off the president and $20 million, but the rest of the truckers. So you better get in while the getting's good. If you're in the trucking business.

[Jonathan V. Last]

Yeah, maybe. So I want to read you a little bit from Ryan Peterson. So Ryan Peterson runs a logistics startup called Flexport. So what it is is it's a software company that helps track freight globally. And so they help people move their stuff from the factories in China to all the way to the shelves in Sheboygan. And he has for the last week been on a media blitz. You should actually, he might even go on this show. He's been going on everything.

[Tim Miller]

He might even actually, he might consider this show, right?

[Jonathan V. Last]

No, no, I think like he would even consider. The only thing he might not is he might, he might be worried about being perceived as anti Trump. But I mean, he's been running around saying that Donald Trump is creating a tsunami that is going to destroy the American economy. So maybe he would be okay with it. So here's what he told the Wall Street Journal. If they don't change the tariffs, it's going to be an extinction level asteroid, wiping out the dinosaurs kind of events. Only these aren't dinosaurs. These are dynamic, healthy businesses. So Flexport has visibility into about 1% of all U.S. trade, which is a tremendous number. You hear like 1%, you're like, well. But his software touches like 1% of everything. So he really is getting a global picture of what looks like. And here I want to read a little thread that he did here, a couple of them that are worth. So the US imports $600 billion worth of goods from China every year, 95% of that at Ocean Freight. Those goods sell at retail for $2 trillion. Right. Which tells you about where the value chain is, what they talk about at B school, where is the most value accruing and the most value actually accrues to the end stage retailer. That's why they mark up their goods typically about 3x. If the tariffs on China continue at this level, we will see a $2 trillion hit to economic activity in our country, the failure of tens of thousands of American businesses and the laying off of millions of employees. But that's not the worst part. That's not the worst part, Right. So when the brands fail, these are American brands. This is again, I'm just reading from Peterson. They'll be purchased out of bankruptcy by their Chinese factories who thus far have built everything except a customer facing brand, which is where most of the value capture happens. Consumer goods companies typically markup goods 3x or more to support their fixed costs. Now the factories will get to vertically integrate and capture the one part of the chain they haven't yet dominated because.

[Tim Miller]

The Chinese could then afford the tariffs.

[Jonathan V. Last]

Well, no, I mean the tariffs are.

[Tim Miller]

Lasting the Chinese country. Right. Because their products are getting marked up 3x. So unless it's a 300% tariff. Right. Like they've got a.

[Jonathan V. Last]

What they're going to do is they're going to own the most valuable part of the brands. Right. Right. Now, the Chinese owned the least valuable part, which is the manufacturing. Which is why the manufacturing is based over there is because it's the cheapest, because it's the least value add. Right. And we're going to hand them vertical integration, which once it's gone, then you've got nothing. And this is, again, this is Donald Trump's. I just assume it's idiocy.

[Tim Miller]

We won't actually hand them vertical integration because then we'll tariff them even more. We'll just keep tariffing higher and higher. 280%, 400%, a million percent.

[Jonathan V. Last]

It's a very strong number. It's a very powerful number. A million percent tariffs.

[Tim Miller]

Unless they have Jeff Tass or whatever his name is, the billionaire TikTok investor. So unless they have an American investor, then we might let them have vertical integration, but the rest of them will just tariff.

[Jonathan V. Last]

We've often said that if Trump were an actual Russian asset, would he be doing anything differently? I think we can say if he was a Chinese asset, would he be doing anything differently? Like, China is going to wind up in a much, much stronger place at the end of this than they were at the beginning. And there will be pain. They'll have a lot of pain. But they are actually going to get something for their pain. We're not.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, they got a lot. I mean, they're, they're, they've got protests and stuff in their factories. Like they're gonna have to deal with all that. Like, they've got, they've got, they're gonna have worker issues over there. We're already seeing some protests.

[Jonathan V. Last]

Yeah, I think that's true. But, but again, I mean, the Chinese are able to manage and weather those sorts of things in ways that a liberal society is not, as we saw during COVID where they basically shut the country down. Right.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah. And there are a lot of anti China people, myself included, who were thinking that the way they shut the country down versus Covid could end up being like the butterfly wing flapping that caused problems for Xi. Right. Because that people are not going to accept it and that eventually there would be. That didn't happen.

[Jonathan V. Last]

Turns out that's not how it Worked out.

[Tim Miller]

Why is the market so sanguine about all this? We have experts like this issuing these sorts of warnings. Do you have a theory on that?

[Jonathan V. Last]

Is it sanguine? I mean, it's trending down. It keeps trending down. The bond market looks bad. The dollar is weakening.

[Tim Miller]

There's a lot of volatility that's kind of within a certain band of.

[Jonathan V. Last]

Yeah, well, that's because the market is really taking the temperature of right now. And so the market will, you know, like if, if the market says, you know, the stock market looks and says like, oh look, these truckers have figured out how to bribe the president. I can make that trade today because today we can make money on that trade. That's really all it's about. And it trends down over time, but it's not really long term thinking. The, the bond market is the one that's looking at seeing all the risk right now. The bond market is freaking out and the dollar's weakening. We got a Fed report yesterday, I think the Dallas Fed looking at anticipated orders and mergers and acquisitions and the whole American economy is grinding to a halt. It's because nobody can make any plans. And this is the insanity of the Trump even. I hate to take it seriously because none of it deserves to being taken seriously. But the serious version of the tariffs is. Well, it is important to American national security to get some certain types of manufacturing bases back in America. This is like the Gretchen Whitmer trying to steel man the thing, right? But to do that you need stable, consistent, predictable business environments so that people can make investments. And none of any of this has been stable or predictable. So you can't even steel man this to the degree to make it look rational on any level.

[Tim Miller]

I love your emergency acquisitions coming. I was sitting at a. I felt like I was an American psycho or like Wall street or something. I was sitting in a fancy New York hotel bar a couple weeks ago and a guy comes up to me and knows me from TV or podcast or something. He's like, I'm in mergers and M and A. And he's like, it's totally stopping. It's totally stopping, stopped until everybody figures out what the hell's going on. I know that some mothers are hard to buy for, for Mother's Day, you know, you're going to get that classic don't get me anything. But then, you know, they really do want something and you want to give them something to feel special. Quints might be able to totally solve the problem for you. All the clothes are high quality. They feel super thoughtful and it's actually affordable. So don't overthink it. Go straight to Quint. They got a cashmere sweaters from 50 bucks, 14k gold jewelry, Italian leather bags, fragrances and more. The best part? All Quint's Items are priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands. By partnering directly with top factories, Quince cuts out the cost of the middleman and passes the savings on to you. I was wearing a Quint shirt yesterday. If you doubt that the Quint's clothes will make you look younger, cool or hip, I'm suffering through this Gen Z podcast fypod which I'm doing because I think it's important for us to reach out to the youth and hear from their perspective, their smooth brained perspective. And I was wearing my Quint's button up with the piping yesterday. Got compliments. Got compliments from the zoomers. You know I didn't beg, I wasn't fishing for compliments, I just gave them. So if you have a Gen Z in your life, you know how challenging that is. So I don't know what better endorsement for Quince I could give than that. Thoughtful and timeless. Totally her Shop Mother's Day at quince. Go to quince.com thebullwork for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. That's Q U I N C E dot com thebullwork to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com thebullwerk Sad Sarah's not here. Our other co host on the next level because she would really like this better than you. Probably. But can we sound like 1990s Republicans for one second?

[Jonathan V. Last]

Sure.

[Tim Miller]

We do have some concerns about the national debt that is related to all this. I had missed this. One of America's closest allies, Japan, was threatening to fire off the ultimate financial weapon against DC in trade talks, dumping the US Debt. Japanese Finance Minister Katsunobu Katana, whose country is the biggest holder of U.S. treasury, said on Friday that selling the assets is a card on the table in tariff negotiations while we're doing worst case scenario outcomes and spiraling. The fact that we are carrying all this debt, if we have interest rates rising and other countries that are holding our debt pissed at us doesn't put us in the strongest situation.

[Jonathan V. Last]

Tim, do you know the five largest holders of American debt are obviously, I.

[Tim Miller]

Don'T know the answer to that.

[Jonathan V. Last]

Japan with 1.1 trillion.

[Tim Miller]

Do you know this off the top of your head or did you prepare for the Podcast.

[Jonathan V. Last]

I prepared for the podcast, Timothy. Japan at 1.1 trillion, China at just under 800 billion, the United Kingdom right behind them at about 720 billion. Then Luxembourg just around 400 billion and then Canada at about 380 billion.

[Tim Miller]

Mark Carney coming to the White House.

[Jonathan V. Last]

We have actively worked to piss off and go to war against four of the five biggest. Well, I guess three more. More than who?

[Tim Miller]

Are you? Not including Luxembourg and the uk you don't think Luxembourg feels any affinity for their friends in Denmark who are being. Who are being.

[Jonathan V. Last]

I'm just saying not active. Not active, but we have, you know, we have actively gone after Canada by threatening to annex them militarily, China by starting a trade war with them, and Japan by doing all of the trade war stuff that we've done against them. If these countries begin to weaponize that debt by selling off, which would drive the prices down on T bills, that would create enormous pressure on the American budget because then we would need to sell even more debt because the debt's worth less to finance things. And if that happens, here's me catastrophizing. I will.

[Tim Miller]

You haven't been catastrophizing so far with your predictions of stagflation and Chinese buying up the companies that are going bankrupt.

[Jonathan V. Last]

Those aren't predictions. I'm just telling you what's going to happen, Tim. Donald Trump, what is his move? Right, because we understand now that he runs the economy the way he runs.

[Tim Miller]

His businesses, basically declare bankruptcy.

[Jonathan V. Last]

His move is to clear clearing bankruptcy and to renegotiate his debts. Yeah, and he's already said like, ah, maybe we'd have to renegotiate our debts. Maybe the people who are foreign holders of our debt are only entitled to 80 cents on the dollar for their treasury bills. I mean if that happens, anything like that, even talking about that in a serious way, I mean, Katie, bar the door because that would be the absolute, absolute end of the American financial order. And that is the stuff of like Great Depression.

[Tim Miller]

Okay, well, let's check in on how things are going over in the military. Made an announcement yesterday that he, he's ordered the military to cut the number of the highest ranking officers by 20%, cut the National Guardsmen by 10%.

[Jonathan V. Last]

Because, because GI over generals. That's what. It's a resource allocation thing, Tim.

[Tim Miller]

Okay, well we're also cutting 10% across a similar reduction in the National Guard. Are those kind of the elites, I guess, of the military as well? I don't know. We'll see. Meanwhile, he also Got into a little bit of trouble because I guess he went rogue early in the administration, canceling weapons shipments to Ukraine, even though Donald Trump hadn't like asked for that per se in a meeting. And the other members of the, what was it called? Houthi PC small group that were not read in on it. I guess he didn't send these signal messages and then they had to, you know, I guess backtrack on that. But you know, he's, he's still around. So what do you make about what's, what's happened over at the Pentagon?

[Jonathan V. Last]

So I mean it's pretty clear that this is a purge. And here's what I want people to understand. So Hegseth, when he made this announcement said that this, this he positioned as doge right efficiency. We, we are going to be a military that relies on the grunts and more. We need more grunts and fewer generals. All these generals are chest puffed out. Don't know what it's like to get their boots dirty. Like me, Mr. TV Host. And so he as a resource thing. So there are 38, four star generals. Just 38 of them. That's it. If he wants to cut 20%, that means he'll fire eight of them. Yeah, that means if those resources could support maybe 70 grunts.

[Tim Miller]

Oh come on, even that feels high.

[Jonathan V. Last]

Right. But the point is like, you know, in a million man military, we have a guy who's claiming that this is about, you know, whoa, it's gotta, gotta mind our P's and Q's here on the budget. Budget. This is about one of two things. Either he is looking for an excuse to purge DEI generals or he's looking to purge people who he believes are going to be a problem in the future because they are unreliable. On the question of Donald Trump, I suspect it's the latter of those two.

[Tim Miller]

Might be some overlap in those categories.

[Jonathan V. Last]

There could be some overlap in those categories, but it is utterly arbitrary. Again, the idea like we need to cut our, our forces of four star generals by 20 again, there are only 38 of them. This just means there are eight people he wants to fire. This is not a like you know, well, we're going to sit you down with the Bobs and have you interview for your own jobs because we really got to be efficient here. And this is a persistent feature of all authoritarian attempts throughout history. Right. The guy who wants to be the maximum leader, the very first thing he has to do is make sure that the senior most levels of the military will be personally loyal to Him. That's what this looks like for all the world.

[Tim Miller]

Okay, things are going good there. Let's check in on the Department of Justice. We've got a U.S. attorney fight. We've mentioned several times, Eagle Ed Martin. But I do, I want to draw a little bit closer attention to this because something really caught my eye yesterday. Usually These confirmations of U.S. attorneys are not controversial deals. I mean, Trump has put Alina Haba the garbage. Not the garbage, she's garbage. But also the garage, like the parking garage lawyer as an Attorney General up by you up in New Jersey there, North New Jersey, almost New York City. And she doesn't seem to be having any problems. But Ed Martin's having some problems, partly because he went on Russia Today, like, 82 times to discuss with Tom Nichols. He had some associations with neo Nazis he called extraordinary. He forgot to include the fact that he was on the V Dare, which is a white nationalist site. He was on their podcast a couple years ago. Anyway, Trump puts out a bleat saying that Ed Martin's going through the approval process for U.S. attorney. According to many, but in particular Robert F. Kennedy Jr. His approval is imperative in terms of doing all that has to be done to save lives and make America healthy again. Why would the U.S. attorney for District of Columbia, who has, like, real law and order responsibilities and has, like, massive, like, responsibilities, you know, assuming that they cared about corruption and public corruption and all that, which they don't, why would RFK Jr. Care about this? And the best theory I could come up with, jvl, is that Ed Martin had sent a letter to a medical journal editor probing whether or not their journal is too partisan when it comes to various scientific debates. So I guess they want this guy in essentially so he can bully, like, universities, medical journals, anybody that does not go along with, like, whatever the anti vax anti dei, anti woke any members of their agenda. Like, they want this man as U.S. attorney to bully people. His association with white nationalists. January 6th, Wyatt ers, et cetera be damned.

[Jonathan V. Last]

I mean, not be damned, but because of it.

[Tim Miller]

Because of it.

[Jonathan V. Last]

Right? And this is one of the things we see, and this is not a new observation for me, is that the most reliable and pliant people are often the most compromised. And so a guy like Ed Martin has no individual standing, right? The only thing he has to offer is total loyalty. And so people like that are useful. Every authoritarian regime has people like this, right? And I, I think that RFK sees that and understands it, and it's not good. It's not good. I mean, you know, the, the administration is digging in on going after Harvard.

[Tim Miller]

Like a high class. Like Harvard. Like a Ted Cruz type, right? Like a Harvard graduating lawyer that didn't go into politics but is in, you know, was a fed sock person. You put them in a U.S. attorney slot, they're not going to put their name. Maybe they might do some ridiculous stuff, but they won't put their name on some letter bullying a random medical journal because RFK wants to. And if they're like, if they need to leave the job, it's fine. Perkins Coey or somebody will hire them on the way out. You know, like, they'll be fine. Like, Ed Martin has no other, like, you know, potential options. Like this is it. Like he is a MAGA loyalist, a mega hatchet man.

[Jonathan V. Last]

This and a speaking slot at cpac. Like, that's, that's all this guy has. But guys like that, again, are useful. And guys like the, the Ted Cruz type are dangerous to a regime because they can't be counted on 100%, maybe 98%, maybe even 99%. But you do have to worry that they wind up like that lady lawyer at Justice Department who resigned instead of pulling the Eric Adams charges. And they do not want people like.

[Tim Miller]

That to this point. You also wrote your triad yesterday just about the use of violence in authoritarian regimes and who gets to use it and who doesn't. And this is all obviously part of the, the system. Like, you want US Attorneys who are going to look the other way when it comes to if there is a, you know, police officer, an FBI agent or something, somebody in D.C. that roughs somebody up on behalf of the administration or the other way. And you wrote kind of about the importance of this to aspiring autocrats in the context of the Ashley Babbitt and the George Floyd situation, where we have now, the government is now coming to a, a settlement with Ashley Babbitt's family. And Ashley Babbitt, for people who don't know, was the woman that was charging into the Capitol through the broken glass, was warned and then was shot by Capitol police and eventually died. On the other side of this, there's push for parting Derek Chauvin, who killed George Floyd, kneeling on his neck. Just talk about kind of like that whole sort of universe and why all of these cogs are necessary for maintaining power.

[Jonathan V. Last]

So this, I mean, I think often people like us look at this and they just think, oh, it's hypocrisy. But that's not quite it. Right? Hypocrisy. Is actually, in a way, good hypocrisy is the. What's the saying? The tribute that vice pays to virtue. Right. And that's not this. Right. The. The same people who want to see Derek Chauvin pardoned because they believe that A, he didn't kill George Floyd, and B, even if he did kill George Floyd, he didn't do anything wrong. And there are a lot of them. You should go over to the Free Press where Barry Weiss publishes them all the time. And then at the same time, that's. Those same groups of people see Ashley Babbitt as a martyr who was killed by a terrible, bloodthirsty bad cop. Right. And you think, oh, that's hypocrisy, but it's not it. Right. This is fascism. And what fascism does is it sees the use of force as properly only belonging to them. And once they get to control government, then they want to use the government to apply force to others. But until that point, until they get the takeover, what they want to do is try to prevent the government, government from using force to stop them. And this is, this is just a worldview, like, you know, like the, the liberal worldview, and I don't mean like democratic liberal, I mean like big L liberal worldview is that the government has to have in a society basically a near monopoly on the use of force. And because that power is so awesome, it must be scaffolded in by a bunch of transparent and clearly applied laws that don't change around. And the rules of which are pretty rigid. Right. You have to have due process. Everybody has to understand what the structure of the rule of law is. Rule of law has to apply basically the same to everybody. And the fascists just don't agree with that. That's not their worldview.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, this is to me. And you're using force here in the most literal sense, since it's the force of violence and death of George Floyd and Ashley Babbitt. But it's the same principle as what we were just talking about with Hank, Seth and Martin. Right? Like, they want to have a U.S. attorney that will use force in the way that they can to bully universities, medical journals, whoever, like, try to bully them and stop them from speaking out against the administration. Like Hegseth, like, you want to have people that you can rely upon in the military command when orders are made, et cetera. Right. This is, this is happening like across. Across the whole federal government.

[Jonathan V. Last]

Yeah, everywhere. And this is, again, I just don't know that there's any reason to Tiptoe around the F word anymore. We're not there yet, but that's. That is the purpose and direction of all of the things.

[Tim Miller]

Whew. Everybody been having fun yet? All right, we gotta do a little politics at the end. Do you have anything else on the crashing of the economy? Incipient fascism?

[Jonathan V. Last]

I got a couple other things. One of the other things that we have been seeing just as an indicator of what's to come is big corporations pulling their earnings forecasts for the year. Last week, we had a couple airlines pulling theirs. A bunch of airlines now, not great. This is due to both immigration and the economic situation. And yesterday, Ford pulled its earnings projections. Let me. Let me just tell people who aren't familiar with this. When publicly traded companies pull their earnings forecasts, it's not because they're not sure exactly how much money they're going to make because things are so good. It's not because they're like, boy, you know what? We might make so much money next year that we can't even begin to guess. It's the opposite. It's that things are in free fall. We're going to get there. And I.

[Tim Miller]

That's like Jason Miller's earnings projections. He's like, I can't even forecast. Hell knows, right? Palau might next year decide to pay me a million dollars a month.

[Jonathan V. Last]

Yeah. And I am. I mean, the thing I am more curious about than anything in the world is whether we get to regret from the people who did this to America. And I sent you a little thing right before we got on air. I don't know if you want to talk about it or not.

[Tim Miller]

Okay. I was going to save it for dessert. We're going to keep it. We're going to save it for dessert. We got to do a real quick politics. It's a politics podcast. I mean, it's turned into a fascism podcast, but it's also a politics podcast. It's very fast. Tomato, tomato on the Republicans. Should we do the Republicans versus the Democrats? I just have one little thing on the Democrats. We'll move past it fast. But I would hope that maybe the person that runs the DNC's Twitter feed might possibly listen to this or might have a friend who does. So just as a friend, this is not anything on the scale of incipient fascism. It's not that big of a deal. But you gotta be smarter in our opposition. We just have to be smarter. The Democrats posted this last night. Night Kamala Harris stuns at the Met gala. And it's A picture of her standing in this dress. If Kamala wants to go to the Met Gala, she can go to the fucking Met Gala. Kamala did the best she could, did everything she could, didn't work out. I do not begrudge her. She should live a fulfilling life. If she wants to go to the Met Gala, fine. She wants to do other things, fine with me. The dnc, though, is in service of, like, electing Democrats and opposing Trump and doing a, like, page six. Kamala Harris stuns at this fancy gala post. It's a no, don't do that bad.

[Jonathan V. Last]

So in the writer's room at wrestling. So if you're in the WWE writers room and you are mapping out storylines, the question that is always asked, the fundamental question is, is who does this put over? Right? Putting over, in wrestling parlance is, you know, helping make them more popular with the crowd. And so whether it is like, you know, and then Bruiser Brody hits another guy with. Hits George the Animal Steel with a chair. Well, the question, well, why does he hit him with a chair? Who does that put over? Right? And that is always the question. If you run the Twitter feed at the dnc, before you hit send on every one of your tweets, you should be asking yourself, who does this put over? Because a tweet like that is absolutely useless.

[Tim Miller]

Well, it puts over the other side. Like, what do you think the response is going to be to that? There'll be a handful of common superfans that are like, yeah, it's Queen, but mostly it'll be people dunking on you. So you're putting over the other side. You're giving them something to dunk on.

[Jonathan V. Last]

You terrible. Don't do that.

[Tim Miller]

Don't do it.

[Jonathan V. Last]

Be best.

[Tim Miller]

Jeez. I'm just like, what? A little bit better to some silver linings. Brian Kemp and Mike Pence. You've been the biggest Mike Pence advocate in the world. I want to say something about Brian Kemp. He's too conservative for me. New listeners. Sometimes people lump us all together, us Republicans, like former Republicans. I was a squish. My friend Amanda, we always had this joke. Former colleague of ours, Amanda Carpenter, she was always on the Tea Party side, and I was on the squishy side of primaries. We were never friends. We didn't really know each other until we both were like, donald Trump is fucking awful and came together to do the bulwark, et cetera. That was always a squish. Brian Kemp is not my kind of guy. Like, his policies on a range of social issues in particular, are just not my cup of tea. But that said, he maintained his integrity throughout this whole process. You might not like some of the policy views he signed in Georgia. The Georgia's doing pretty well as a state, but he maintained his integrity the whole time he ran for reelection. 2022, Trump tried to primary him. You know, he did go to a Trump event. Like, he had a couple of things I wouldn't have done. But overall, he was never out doing Lindsey Graham, like, post hoc apology for Donald Trump. He never wavered on the 2020 election being won by Joe Biden. He confirmed the. Etc. He did essentially what you would want a conservative Republican to do. And all these guys that did suck up to Trump, that did trade in their integrity went back to him like, Brian, we could use you now. Like, you're a little independent streak might help us in 2026, because it's probably gonna be an ugly year for the Republicans. John Ossoff. I bet we could win enough of those suburban Atlanta Republicans who have been disgusted by Trump to vote for you that we can get the Senate seat. And yesterday, Brian Kemp said, no, thanks. And I can't get inside Brian Kemp's head. But what I assume, based on talking to folks around him and Andre also talked to some folks. It's just like, A, being in the Senate right now sucks. They don't actually do anything. They haven't passed any laws. But B, you can't run for Senate without Trump as president and maintain your integrity. Integrity. You would have to go along with some. You would have to alibi Trump on at least some element of all this crazy shit we've been talking about. There's just no path to doing it otherwise, as a Republican. And so he's not doing it. And so I want to say good on you, Brian Kemp. And in the same category, I'll give you the floor for Mike Pence. He received the JFK Profile and Courage Award last night. Dreamy Jack Schlossberg combed his hair. He issued sex jokes. He presented Mike Pence the award. You're not ready to do it. You're not ready to add a boy, either of them.

[Jonathan V. Last]

I wanna. Can we talk about that for a second? I mean, I don't want to belabor it if it's. If it's not interesting, but.

[Tim Miller]

No, let's do it.

[Jonathan V. Last]

I agree with, like, 95% of that.

[Tim Miller]

Okay.

[Jonathan V. Last]

And yet he didn't go far enough for what the moment demanded.

[Tim Miller]

I agree.

[Jonathan V. Last]

I think the moment demanded more. I have sympathy for him. In a way, I don't for, like, Chris Sanu, because I think Kemp is weirdly more principled than Sununu.

[Tim Miller]

Oh, yeah. I mean, Kemp, again, he maintained his. All I said was he maintained his integrity. I didn't say he did everything right. He didn't lose Cheney. I'm not ready to build him a statue.

[Jonathan V. Last]

Sure.

[Tim Miller]

But, like, he was like, Kristen Noon is, like, going on cnn, like, doing the panels, spinning for Trump. Like, you never saw Brian Kemp doing that shit.

[Jonathan V. Last]

No, And I, I, I wish the Kemp. Kemp would have done more. I, I think I wrote this piece, like, four years ago. In a rational world, Kemp would have been the future of the Republican Party. And the fact that he's not tells you what the Republican Party is.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah. Not only is he not the future, he doesn't have a future. Really?

[Jonathan V. Last]

He doesn't have a future. Mike Pence, I think, has only gotten, like, better and, like, doubled down.

[Tim Miller]

Okay, here's where I'm gonna be able to only give you 95%, because I did read his Wall Street Journal op ed criticizing Trump the other day, and I was excited. I was ready to be excited. I was ready to get hard. And it was like, it was limp, and it was like I had five paragraphs of throat clearing before you got to it. But anyway, go ahead.

[Jonathan V. Last]

But the guy. I mean, the guy did almost everything we could ask for, with the exception of endorsing Kamala Harris. Although it's pretty obvious he voted for Mother Did.

[Tim Miller]

At least for sure.

[Jonathan V. Last]

Mother Did.

[Tim Miller]

I'm pretty sure Mike Pence wrote in and whatever, at Jack Kemp or something.

[Jonathan V. Last]

Can I ask a question about. So, what is RFK's wife, Cheryl Hines? Is that her name?

[Tim Miller]

Yeah.

[Jonathan V. Last]

Did you catch her trying to shape Trump's hand at ufc? And Trump bypassed her.

[Tim Miller]

I saw this on Twitter. I didn't do a Zapruder film analysis of it.

[Jonathan V. Last]

So it was very clear that he snubbed her. She wanted to shake his hand. And I just thought to myself, woman, what are you doing? Why are you eagerly trying to shake the hand of this guy who you say you hate? And, you know, you go look at Mother, you go look at Karen Pence. Go look at Karen Pence. Why is Karen Pence the Republican with the most moral clarity in this moment?

[Tim Miller]

I don't know. Maybe it should. Maybe it's making me reconsider evangelism, though. I guess she'd be alone on that one. I don't know. Something in the water in India. Indiana. It's something I'll take Theories. All right, we're going to give people dessert. It's been rough. You've made it a full hour. You know, it's been a good show, a long show, and we have a little bit of dessert. If you're into schadenfreude, which I think some of you are, I have a sense that some of you might be. And I'll just set it up here. In March, Trump administration canceled in person classes at the National Fire Academy. That must have been a woke academy Academy. It trains the United States firefighters. The academy is a big part of Emmitsburg's identity. Where's Emmitsburg, Maryland?

[Jonathan V. Last]

Emmetsburg, Maryland, just over the line from Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

[Tim Miller]

So real Maryland. It's not like we're not training black firefighters. We're in Emmitsburg. Frank Davis, what does Frank do there? Talk to us about Frank Davis.

[Jonathan V. Last]

Frank is the mayor of Emmett, of this town of 300, as well as the captain of the emergency medical services at the local firehouse, the Vigilant Hose Company.

[Tim Miller]

Got it. He says that the administration, NPR reached out to him, is still reviewing the academy's operations and he's hopeful it will restore classes. But Frank, who had been a big advocate for Doge and a big advocate for Trump, Trump said now if the administration doesn't re up the fire academy's funding, he's going to see Trump somewhat differently. It will change my outlook to say that they're not being fair. Frank doesn't think they're being fair. Jvl, do you have any thoughts about this story?

[Jonathan V. Last]

This story in NPR is filled with people in Emmitsburg who voted for Trump and love him and wanted him to cut. And who. And Frank. Frank says I'm probably gonna get shot for this. But he's doing what what he said he was going to do.

[Tim Miller]

I thought he said Frank was from the Pennsylvania, Maryland border.

[Jonathan V. Last]

I mean, bloom hour. I don't know.

[Tim Miller]

It sounded more like he was from like Greensboro, Alabama.

[Jonathan V. Last]

It will change my outlook to say that they're not being fair, said Davis. They're just going to come in not caring what they. Here's what I these people and I My level of contempt for the Frank Davises of the world is boundless because his view of whether or not the Trump approach to cutting government is good or not is determined entirely by what happens to his pet project. Project. You, Frank, you. You can't look around and tell that, like if your fire school doesn't get to do in person classes, then you will say that it's bad. You can't, you can't look at the National Institutes of Health and see the destruction of vaccine research and say that, oh yeah, that's bad. It has to happen to you, you provincial fucking Burgundy burger, you mouth breathing serf. My God. You know what? And this is why, this is why this country is because idiots like this, who of course is that, you've got to see this guy, the picture of this guy in his polo shirt, in his quaffed silver hair and he, of course, he's the mayor of a town of 3,000 people in real America. And he, he will determine whether or not. It is good that Trump is doing things like making it so that firefighters can't be taught how to fight emergencies. Because this is, this place is, as they say, it's like the, the Army War College for firefighters. And you know, another Trump voter in it who looks at this and says, we are, this is Another guy, Dennis O'Neill, another Trump voter who says that the National Fire Academy takes men and women out of their comfort zone and exp them to real serious tragedies and forces them to work through what kind of decisions they're going to make. We are on a very long, slow path to self destruction. He says. Every day that this training is unavailable to the locals is one day closer to a disaster they can't handle or won't know how to handle. But if Trump decides that they get an exception, then everything will be fine. Well, because the world doesn't exist outside of their field of vision. And here's, here's what bothers me the most.

[Tim Miller]

Tell me, girl.

[Jonathan V. Last]

So the, the populist view is that it is the elites who are cloistered and who can't see beyond their own borders. And it's the old New Yorker cover, right, where it's like, you know, the, the Hudson river and then New Jersey and then like a little bit of blank space, then California, right? It's like, oh, these people can't see outside their bubbles. No, you know, it's the biggest bubbles in the world. World. The people of Emmitsburg, these are the people who are so provincial and so cloistered that they have no idea what is happening outside of their field of vision. And yet they are the ones who determine the future course of the American empire. Great. Great. Good job, guys. Let me read one more. John Beck, who serves as fire chief of the Waynesboro Volunteer Fire Department nearby in Pennsylvania, has applied for a weekend leadership and at the academy in July, it would be his first one, but he doesn't expect it'll happen now. He also says that online courses don't cut it. Beck, who runs a landscaping company, works for free as fire chief. He voted for Trump and supports cutting waste and making government smaller. But Beck doesn't see how training first responders is wasteful. We're only 100 days plus in, Beck said of Trump's current term. I wish things were going different. Beck doesn't regret his vote yet. I'm not 100% there yet, he says. But it may not take much more. Mr. Beck, look around you. Look around what is happening to America. Look at usaid. Look at the kids in Africa who are dying because they can't get medication. Look at what is happening to soybean farmers who don't have places to sell their crops. Whether or not you get there should not be dependent upon what happens in your tiny, insignificant slice of America. The world is bigger and more important than you, sir.

[Tim Miller]

Well, people, now you know why we cloister JVL to the Next Level podcast for the Real Sickos and the Secret podcast. Or if you're liking this, you can get if you're a Bulwark plus member, go to the Bulwark.com subscribe. You know, here I take a little bit of different view. Welcome to the warm embrace of the resistance. I want to welcome you to the warm embrace of the resistance. Frank Davis. You know you are welcome here. We honor your experience at the National Fire Academy and everything that you do to protect us from the threat of fires. And Mr. O'Neill, I thought you were very insightful and wonderful point. We are indeed on a long slow path to self destruction. It's just, it's a much bigger self destruction than you realize. JVL thank you for coming and doing this with me today.

[Jonathan V. Last]

Was it too much?

[Tim Miller]

I thought it was just enough. I thought the Goldilocks thought the porridge was just right. And coming off that Nuggets win last night, man I needed a cigarette. This okay see this coach Mark Dagnot they did this thing shout out to Scott Conroy that is thing that NBA coaches do which is when you're up three you foul the other team so they can't shoot a three to tie. And that goes against the spirit of the game of basketball. It goes against the spirit of the sport. The basketball gods rained down vengeance upon Mark Dagnault for trying that strategy. And so I needed a post game cigarette and I needed a post game a podcast that was a kind of a cigarette and spirit and you were that for me, so thank you so much.

[Jonathan V. Last]

You got to, brother.

[Tim Miller]

Everybody else will be back here tomorrow for another edition of the Bull Work podcast. We'll see you all then. Peace.

[Katie Cooper]

How do you get your sleep at night? How did you get your knees so tight? Like you and i10 4 that's so much fun? Going to be dead before you're kind? There's all the things I've gotten And I'll be happy till I walk the day? And I'll be telling that you're going down And I'll be nothing? I'll be laughing? How many feelings can you still gotta be part of your reveal? If I can stick to you? Cause you're wearing light you and I once again love? And that's when the shepherd's gone down? I'll go out and make the d?

[Tim Miller]

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