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The sun's shining, birds are singing, and all feels right in the world.
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Until the season changes and suddenly you lose your motivation to get out of bed. In fact, one in five people experience some form of depression, no matter the season or time of year.
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At the American Psychiatric association foundation, our vision is to build a mentally healthy nation for all. Because we want you to live your best life and be your best you all year round.
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Please visit mentallyhealthynation.org to learn more. Hello and welcome to the Bull Work Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. Reminder, I'm live streaming tonight. You know I'm coming for Hasan and Destiny. We'll see how it goes. 8:30 in the east. Come hang. One thing I've been wanting to do on the podcast, I told you guys this after the election, is I've been trying to get a wider breadth of views on the show. But. But I have some policies which is like no bullshitters. Sometimes people can slip through the cracks on this and it's a little challenging on the MAGA side getting no bullshitters because, like, Trump by his nature forces advocates to bullshit because he's like all over the place in the issues and he himself is a bullshitter and he rug pulls people like all the time on things by changing his views in two seconds. And so I've been begging today's guest to come on the show for like months. Literally begging. Our DMs are embarrassing. It's like the lover that you have sent nine straight DMs to for this reason. He's an unapologetic right wing populist and there's a bunch of stuff we don't agree on, but he's not full of shit. And that's been evident recently as he's lobbed consistent criticism of Trump as he has betrayed the popular base on Epstein and Iran in particular. So. So with that glazing intro, it's the coast of Breaking Points. Sagar and Jetty. How you doing, brother?
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A
Hey, thank you for having me, Tim. I'm not sure how I feel about it, but I'll take it. I'll take it.
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B
Okay. Well, obviously you feel a little nervous because it's been months.
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A
I wouldn't say I was nervous. I won't be honest. I mean, I was conflicted about coming on your show.
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B
Why?
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A
Well, I think Bulwark style politics has been kind of the antithesis of everything. I believe this is not really a shot at you personally, but Weekly Standard and Bill Kristol, Jonathan last a lot of the people who you work with, Sarah Lanwell. I mean, a lot of these people I would consider like my ideological enemies. And also at a policy level, these are the very people who architected some of the types of politics which I have basically dedicated my career to try to smash down. So I was like, well, you know, what's the appropriate level? But at the end of the day, I think some discussion across these lines is probably important. And I finally decided to do it because I thought I want to expose hopefully your audience to, let's say, a Trump criticism which they may not have heard previously, and to potentially get them to change some of their ideas or at the very least engage with some ideas which they may think that they disagree with. So that's why I decided to do it.
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B
I love that we are kind of on opposite sides of the horseshoe. You know, Ian Graham talked about this a little bit as well, who's more of a left populist. Sure, we'll get into it. There may be more areas of agreement than disagreement than we think. And growth is good. You know, there's been growth and you know, events have affected people's views on things. So maybe events. Events have certainly affected some of our views on things, some of the weekly standard types. And maybe increasingly events will start to affect your views on things. We'll see as we go over the course of the podcast, I also want to congratulations you for being the first person to do the Tucker Carlson podcast and the Bulwark podcast. So kudos to you on that.
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A
I know, I saw that. I was like, wow, you told me I should get a New York Times profile. And I was like, I really. That's like the last. I was like, that's. No, absolutely not. That's the last thing that I want. At the end of the day, I'm pretty much the same person. I wouldn't say anything differently on Tucker than I would say on your show.
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B
Explain your worldview to people. For people who don't know, you kind of just did it by contrasting against Weekly Standard World. But what is the proactive Sega worldview?
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A
Yeah, so I mean, I think the way that I really see the world and this is why a lot of the stuff that originally. Well, let's talk about so called MAGA or Trump. For me, really, it's about ideas. And so my own personal worldview is I started in politics around 2014, 2015. I actually was much more originally aligned with people like Bill Kristol et al. And I started working at the daily caller in 2016, I believe, and really, the election of Donald Trump in 2016 kind of like shook me viscerally. And I said, I really don't understand my own country. I really don't understand the world. And that clearly I'm so out of touch. And it's because I've been listening to a lot of the wrong people. And so I started doing a lot of reading and thinking really about how I think America fundamentally should be and where it should go. And really it came down to a principle of sovereignty. And a lot of that comes back to some of the original ideas, let's say behind the original America first movement, whether it's a cult or not now, which you can talk about in a little bit. And unfortunately, I do think that has been the case. But that doesn't stop me from believing in a lot of the ideas. And so the ideas fundamentally are about declaration of sovereignty, independence, lack of adherence, or, you know, giving sovereignty away to, let's say, multinational institutions, things like NATO, worshiping of the old order, trying to rethink what it means to have an American social contract. Some of that involves immigration, dramatically lessening or lowering immigration to the United States. A lot of it comes back to our foreign policy about intervention tax policy as well. That's an element of MAGA and. Or America first, which doesn't get talked about enough because it's mostly dead. But it was a very live discussion, Tim, as I know that you are aware, about dramatically rethinking our policy whenever it comes to economics and challenging some of the Chamber of Commerce status quo, which was again pushed by a lot of people who you currently work with.
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B
So it's a two of three time Trump voter for you or three of three for me?
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A
I guess it would have been two out of three.
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B
Two out of three. Were you an Evan McMullen man in 2016?
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A
I was very conflicted. I actually didn't vote. So in 2016, I tried to vote and then I requested my ballot, but I was still in Texas. It was complicated, technically. Voter fraud, actually, because of where I was from.
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B
You committed voter fraud?
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A
Technically, I tried. I think I tried to commit voter fraud because I didn't live in Texas anymore. And then something about my signature got challenged in the primary, and then I was like, screw it, I'm sorry, I'm gonna vote.
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B
Okay. So if you ever decide to run as the authentic America first, that's the first piece of oppo that we're looking for.
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A
Yeah, you've got me. You've got. I'm never running for anything. So don't worry about it.
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B
Let's start with Iran. People are gonna honestly think again, as mentioned in that long windup that I wanted to have you on, it's like, finally, I get to use you to be a vassal to attack Trump on the Iran issue. But I've been trying to do this for a while and Iran has just happened to come to the forefront. You have been almost, I would say, apocalyptically opposed to what has been happening the last week. Just give us a little summary of your view about what the administration's decided to do.
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A
I think it's a strategic catastrophe and I'll say from a variety of different levels. So obviously we've basically given up our sovereign ability to act to the state of Israel, with the Secretary of State uttering, which I think is the most remarkable statement, literally like in modern history, saying that we had to do it because Israel was going to do it, which apparently never entered in their minds. They couldn't say no. I mean, I'm not sure if you saw this. Former Secretary of State Anthony Blinken even came out and said that they tried to pull the same nonsense on Biden, they tried to pull it on Obama, they tried to pull it on, I mean, multiple different presidents. So it's shocking to actually see our sovereignty be sacrificed in this regard, specifically whenever it comes to Israeli interests. But then let's look at our own strategic interests. I've been hammering home recently the munitions problem. We have a very finite amount of resources. Our defense industrial base is catastrophic. A lot of our munitions have been sacrificed on the battles fields of Ukraine and now Israel. And now we are finding ourselves in a catastrophic shortage. We're already pulling out bad interceptors from South Korea, which is insane considering the amount of bilateral trade we do with South Korea. Some 240 billion compared to Israel, which is 50 billion. We have three carrier strike groups now on the way to the Middle East. We have oil prices. The largest release now this morning that you and I are talking of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve ever from the iea and then also the closure of the Straits of Hormuz. It was a war of choice. It's something that I think is pretty explicitly, explicitly violative of a lot of the original principles of the America first movement. And I also think I should clarify when I talk about the America first movement because the natural liberal will say, you're an idiot, because MAGA voters support the war. And you're right. I'm not claiming in any way that there is some popular front anti war movement. But I also think that would be a huge mistake, which all of you found out in the 2024 election with how Michigan went, with how a lot of AOC Trump voters, a lot of young men. So for individual constituencies within the new Maga Coalition of 20, what did you find? You found that the anti war position was very significant. Again, it's not the only thing, but it was certainly something which was important for them. And so watching, you know, this quagmire, these billions of dollars, $5.6 billion munitions spent in the first two days, the streets of Hormuz, oil sacrificing our sovereignty, the deaths of some seven confirmed kia, dozens, dozens of people who were horrifically wounded already that we know of on the very first day of the war. God only knows what's being hidden. I think it's a catastrophe and the best thing he could do is just end the war today. Even that would be a nightmare.
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B
I wanna get into the politics of it in a second because I do think it's interesting to talk about kind of how MAGA voters versus other parts of the Trump coalition are reacting to this, but just on the policy itself. So your explanation, it sounds like, is the reason he got into this is because he was hoodwinked by Bibi. Because I'm still really trying to kind of process why he's doing it, because it is, to me it just seems like such an obvious quagmire and political mistake and for no clear purpose that would benefit Trump himself personally.
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A
The explanation I have is unfortunately very simple, is that Midnight Hammer was a, quote, unquote, great success. Midnight Hammer, for everybody who is not as versed in this was the 12 day war, the bombing, the B2 bombers that took, took out allegedly the nuclear sites, although now they say they're going to obliterate them. And I thought we already obliterated them, according to the White House. So let's leave that to the side. So it was a one day bombing run where we came in and we bombed it. And Trump was amazed by his success. The second thing, and you cannot underestimate this, is Venezuela. Venezuela was the red pill of all red pills for Trump because so many people told him it would be a quagmire, it would be a disaster, is that, oh, who knows what could happen? All of these troops could get killed. And he was like, no, we're going to do it anyway. Even though he had some praise and he had a lot of back up from the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a lot of people warned about some of the bigger Problems that could erupt in Latin America and Venezuela, you know, in the interim. By the way, I hate when people say it's been a success. I've even seen some liberal pundits say this, guys. I mean, does anybody remember how long it took Benghazi and, and Libya to completely fall apart? Or Syria? I mean, the. The whole idea is you don't get involved because on a long enough timeline, pretty much every single US Intervention turns out to be a disaster. So in the interim, it turned out to be a quote, unquote success because we didn't have state collapse and we had some sort of deal with the oil. And he really believed, I think, that Bibi and Lindsey Graham, you've seen this in some of the Wall Street Journal reporting, convinced him that it would be that easy. All we have to do is take out the Ayatollah. They'll cry uncle. But, you know, they didn't listen. And the military told them not to do this. Determined Joint Chiefs. The Vice Admiral, Fred Cocker, he was literally fired by the Joint Chief Staff, I think, because he probably leaked a lot of that meeting where he gave a great warning, I think, to the American people. And he's like, guys, this is not the same thing. We're going to have to deal with Hormuz, we're going to have to deal with Interceptors, munitions. Every warning that they said ended up coming true. But I'll give an analogy I'm sure your viewers will love. For anybody who has ever read a history of the Second World War, Hitler's dynamic with his generals was very similar. He was told that the phony war, that the invasion of France and Belgium, it was going to be a disaster. It could be very difficult, sir. We can do this, but, you know, not on this timeline. And of course, what, what ended up happening, it was smashing success in the surrender of France in a couple of weeks and the takeover. And so what happens is you have Norway, you have all of these great wins and wins. I mean, it looked unstoppable in 1940. And so when Barbarossa comes around, they're like, no, man. Like, you really shouldn't do this. He doesn't listen. And so that's the same mindset. I mean, I'm giving that one because I know your viewers will love it.
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B
This is great. I need a cigarette right now. Saga's complaining to Hitler. It's the Vice President and Sager.
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A
I knew it. I knew you would all love it, too. But there are many other analogies, military analogies of this throughout the years where people have smashing success and that's what makes, you know, great men, supposedly great, is that they, you know, they gamble. They gamble. I think the analogy I've heard, I mean, which is very apt, is if you've ever been playing craps, it's like sometimes you'll see people who are on a hot roll and it's, it's awesome. But seven's gonna come up eventually, right? Statistically, you should, what is it? You should seven out after X amount of rolls. But sometimes I've seen a guy roll for an hour and a half, right? It doesn't really happen, but sometimes it does. And you go on a hot one and then, you know, at the very end, people are like, oh, he can't miss. He's got magic hands. And then they put it all on six or eight or whatever, and then boom, everybody goes bust on the table. So there are multiple analogies that we can all use here.
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B
I want to give you just some of the pushback I've seen online about defending him. Not the Lindsey Graham pushback, but from some other folks. There's a guy named Ruben Rodriguez who I follow, who I like. He wrote this.
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A
I know Ruben. Ruben. Ruben and I are friends.
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B
I'm not surprised by that. He wrote this. Gulf War, the first Gulf War. 292 killed, 776 wounded, 75 aircraft lost. But it's still considered a smashing success. You can be against war if you want, if you're a pacifist, but at present we only have six kia. This was a couple of days ago. And an adversary who boasted of a thousand missiles a day is now launching like 10. We've utterly ruined a regional power in 10 days. What's your pushback to that?
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A
Well, Gulf War had a very specific purpose. It was for the removal of Saddam Hussein from Kuwait. It had nothing to do with regime collapse like the eventual Iraq war, which, by the way, the Gulf War led to. It had extremely defined characteristics. Also, this is where I hate to be a liberal, but the process does kind of matter. You had, you know, the so called coalition which came into place where it was sold to the American people. The SPR was actually released. The Strategic Petroleum Reserve was released on the very day of the invasion specifically to mitigate problems on the home front and then, you know, to bring it into politics. It was dramatically popular. It had some 90% approval rating. Not that that even matters, by the way, because as you and I both know, Bush went on to lose the election. So the point is, is about the strategic ends of, you know, we can blow shit up anywhere across the entire country. And the point about this is that there was no actual plan for what was going to happen if the Iranians did not immediately capitulate, which they haven't even. Right now, everyone's like, oh, Trump is going to taco. And it's like, is it really up to him? The enemy gets a vote. They have an ayatollah now who is. Look, the new ayatollah. What? I can't even list the number of relatives that he has lost in this conflict. His father, his wife, his son, I mean, niece, or what. I mean, the number of relatives who are all killed. He's a hardliner who was pushed by the irgc. You have the entire IRGC that remains intact. The President of the United States has demanded unconditional surrender. And, yeah, if we want. There's been this hilarious scandal where Ted Cruz and others have been attacking an interview that I just gave with Tucker Carlson where Tucker Carlson said, unconditional surrender means foreign troops get to rape your wife and daughter. And they're like, oh, you're disgusting. You're saying American troops are going to say no, that's not what he saying. He's saying in history, as we saw during the battle of Berlin and the eventual mass rape that took place at the hands of the Soviet Union from Genghis Khan or any other unconditional surrender which has taken place throughout our history that we have been involved in, not saying our troops engaged it, nor would they ever, but that. That is the implication, especially that is taken to heart by the foreign populace. We've already seen a huge amount of reports of Iranian nationalism rising in the country directly actually supporting the regime. I mean, there's videos I can even send them, if you want, of people who are literally in the square being bombed, who are cheering as it has happened. And while the announcer says we will never relent and we will continue to fight pretty much the opposite of what was supposedly intended.
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B
The 40 chess China people, some of that happening on Maga, that, like, this is really not even about Iran because Iran sells their gas to China and Trump is just on a different level as everybody else.
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A
What do you think that is a beyond. I mean, I don't know how. I don't know how profane I can get here.
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B
You can be as profane as possible.
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A
That's beyond retarded. Look, I gave you the example. Thaad batteries are being taken out of South Korea. Now, little history lesson. When those thaad batteries were Placed in South Korea. In 2016, China put a full on economic boycott on South Korea, almost tanked their economy, closed down multiple of their stores, boycotted BTS concert Chinese tourism for years, almost two years. I mean they took billions in losses. But they decided ultimately our alliance with the United States is very important and we need this battery. What these are these missile interceptors in order to deter North Korea.
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B
I've seen some mixed reports on this that they're like, they just have the entire like system that is being taken, just some elements of it. But even I'm not claiming that we
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A
took the entire system out. I just said the interceptors, the radar is still there, which is what the Chinese are really concerned about. But then why is it a political crisis right now in Korea? The front page of the Korea Herald literally today is saying can America defend us? And the Prime Minister said I, or the President, I apologize, said I oppose this decision. You are already watching munitions from the entire Indo Pacific, not just South Korea, because that was the second part of that report is that Patriot missile batteries from all across the Indo Pacific are being taken back to the Middle east, which shows you the exact shortage that people like me were warning about. This is why I advocate for a policy of restraint. I don't think that, you know, the vast swaths of the American empire are doing us any good. That's why I'm never supported funding the war in Ukraine. We did not have the munition stockpile or capacity and it's not that important to the United. In fact, it's less important than Israel. And I'm here sitting at this entire case around Israel and Iran. So it's shocking actually to watch this entire stockpile get depleted which was so foreseeable. For people who don't know, the situation is dire. So in the 12 day war, just in the 12 day war, the United States spent 25% of its THAAD interceptor stockpile in just 12 days. God only knows what that number is right now. God only knows, but that 25% was 150 interceptors. Do you want to know how many we acquired in 20, 25, 15, 12 the year before? It's a crisis. It's a crisis that money can't even solve. We have an entire downstream production problem. There's chemicals that are involved, munitions. Our entire industrial base, not only defense, but like broadly is catastrophic. And this is why I just said we need to acknowledge the problems of the Iraq war, which you know, foundational really to my worldview, which I think really destroyed this country. And we need to acknowledge that we're no longer in living in some unipolar fantasy moment. And, you know, personally thought that that's what a lot of the people who are working the Trump administration thought too. And so that's why it's especially galling. Shocking betrayal. We can use all the different adjectives.
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B
This episode of the Borg podcast is brought to you by the Freedom From Religion Foundation. The founders understood something simple. When church and state merge, liberty loses. Today's Christian nationalist movement isn't about faith, it's about power. And it's deeply un American. The Freedom From Religion foundation defends the First Amendment. So no ideological movement gets to weaponize religion against the rest of us. Separation of church and state is about protecting pluralism. It's about restraint. It's about keeping America a place where people of different beliefs or no religious beliefs can coexist peacefully. Visit FFRF US TIM or text the word RELIGION to 511-511 to learn more and join. Help protect a country that belongs to us all. Go to FFRF US TIM. Or text RELIGION to 5, 11, 511. Text RELIGION to 5,11, 511. Message and data rates may apply. We're gonna put a pin in Ukraine. I have a TDS Never Trumper section at the end of the show. So we'll come back to Ukraine. During all that, we'll hit all the hot button Never Trumper issues. What's happening inside the administration? I mean, I'm so far gone, like in Trump 1.0, some of these people are calling me. I assume you have friends in the administration and people that share your worldview. Speaking of New York Times profiles, are all the profiles about Bridge Colby and how he is in there, you know, influencing the administration and, and restraint and pivot to Asia. I assume that there are some junior Bridge Colbys in the administration that I don't know who've come up through kind of the America first pipeline. Like, what. What do they think? Like, what is happening?
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A
I can't speak for them. Yeah, I can't speak for them. I can only really speak for myself. I could guess really at what a
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B
lot of you're not getting emails from inside the like, like, please, Sagar, get me out of here. Do you need a producer at Breaking Points? I need none of that is underground tunnel out of the Department of Defense right now.
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A
None of that is happening at all to the. By the way, people should leak to me more. I'd love to have it. Also, Tim, I'm sure that you know this, it's actually the people you least expect who will end up leaking to you, which is always kind of fast for anybody guessing about who the people who are leakers, you'd be amazed who they actually are. And I do protect my sources.
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B
Do you have thoughts on jd, like what's happening right now? He's been a little more quiet. He's given speeches there in some reports that said he didn't want to do it. But then he also said if we do do it, we should go maximalist. Which is like a pretty incoherent view if it's true. I don't know. Like, what's your political sense of what's happening?
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A
I have no idea. I can only give you my guess. My guess is, is that we're living in Versailles and that the ear of the King is the only thing that matters. And to protect the ear of the King, you have to tell the King what he wants. Who's enamored with, with his victory in Venezuela, everyone, I told you so tour right now. And that's fair. I think we deserve it. I think people like me deserve it. And I think. Let's talk about why did we think that this would not happen? And the first Trump administration, really, all administrations personnel is policy. We often say that. Right. And so our belief of the first Trump administration is that the staffing of neocons, of John Bolton, of Jared Kushner, of people like this, their worldview, especially with the departure of Steve Bannon, became the default policy of the United States under Donald Trump. There were of course, various different things were happening. Trump can say all things to all people and he really is that. If anything, that's his superpower. Okay. So that was the framework with which we're operating. So There is a four year project after Trump is gone, after the 2020.
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B
It's kind of funny, like a lot of us were telling people like me and Nicole Wallace right there, telling people that Trump 2.0 will be worse. It's going to have all these other people worse. From your perspective, the true belief. From our perspective. Right, that's what I'm saying. For the true believers, the MAGA types will all be in there. Like that was our FR of it as well. It's just like you thought it was a good thing, we thought it was bad.
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A
Well, it depends because here's how it ended up manifesting. So our belief over that four year period. And again, my belief at least was that this professional elite project, so called America first professional elite project, which is very indifferent Organizations, personnel, people we've all met, conferences over the years, that those people would be able to transpose their ideas into the policy of the United States. Some of them became the Vice President of the United States, the Pentagon number three, like you're talking about, and then a myriad different other people who are all across the administration. And the belief was that those ideas would be professionalized into policy. But what I've ended up seeing actually is an inversion, and this is something that I dramatically underestimated, is that what it actually has translated into is that the so called lesson of Trump, one was that people were not loyal enough to him personally. And that means that whatever he thinks is the policy, the idea or whatever, that will then be set through in terms of policy, and that there will actually be very little pushback whatsoever if he disagrees or undermining, et cetera, because they don't want to be seen as disloyal to the President, even though there were a lot of people who were disloyal, let's say to the president in the first term. But on a policy level, this time, it's inverted. A lot of it is personal. And that's why I gave the Versailles analogy. And so, look, I have no idea what's going on with JD I have no idea what's going on with any of these people. But I can only speculate that for a lot of them, they have to maintain their access to the president. And you can look at what happened with Tulsi Gabbard. Tulsi Gabbard did what we thought people like her would do in the 12 Day War. And she's like, I really don't think you should do this. I think this is a bad idea. And then she got dnied, as in do not invite to the Venezuela meeting. And she got humiliated right on national stage. She got struck on by Trump around that Hiroshima video, which I didn't even think was that big of a deal, but it caused some sort of problems for her. And now she's got to go gallivanting around Fulton county, you know, searching for bamboo ballots or whatever, just to try and prove some, like, you know, some loyalty or whatever to Donald Trump. So that is the unfortunate story. The thing that we really got wrong is we really believed, you know, that, that this project, which again, let's be honest, and that you can even go pull the tape from. I never said Trump was the anti war candidate. I was super honest. I was like, look, if you're pro Palestinian, I literally did a monologue where I was like, if you're pro Palestine, you should vote for Kamala. I was like, you're not getting what you want out of this administration. We knew that there would be trades whenever it came to the west bank or Gaza. I don't think any of us or. And again, maybe I can only speak for myself when the Vice President, United States, in October of 2024, goes on a podcast and says, I don't think that it's within our interest to go to war with Iran, I believed it. You know, and it's one of those where you could say, we told you so. Trump is a charlatan. Yeah, we know. Okay. It's not that we had any faith in Trump, okay? Anybody who had faith in Trump is an idiot. We had a faith in Trump. We had faith in the personnel who were around Trump. And I think, you know, when I say it's the greatest professional disappointment of my life, really what it is, it's like it's been a hit on a multitude of areas because, look, Israel, we knew it was going to happen, that was pretty much baked in. Even though, by the way, they still took that way farther than even I ever thought that they would. But then let's say we thought we'd end the war in Ukraine. Well, that hasn't happened either. We've whipsawed through this insane policy. We're like berating Zelensky, then he's our best friend selling him weapons. And then we're not. Then we're doing summits with Putin. They end up being totally fake. Basically nothing has really happened on that front. And then let's say on the Iran situation, for me, I knew it was basically lost in the 12 day war. And really, I mean, you have to give it to the neocons. What they have understood is that Trump is just enamored with the show of military force and that that alone is the easiest way to sway him. And, you know, there were some bad signs in the initial days of the admin. The appointment of Mike Waltz, Marco Rubio as Secretary of State. So I knew things were already not trending in the right direction, I guess, if you will. But let's say, you know, people like Pete Hegseth. What did he say? He's a reformed neocon. You remember that? He said that on the Sean Ryan podcast again. Look, call me an idiot. You're right to do so. I actually believed it. And it's not because I believed in Hegseth. I believed in the people who were around Hegseth. I knew a Lot of people knew him. They said, no, dude, he really believes it. I trust a lot of these people. And the joke is on me. The joke is absolutely on me.
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B
I'm trying to reclaim both the words liberal and neocon. These guys are hawks. This is a war. Hawk war. They're not even claiming that they're trying to get democracy. They didn't try to get. You might have been able to sell me on Venezuela if we were putting Machado in there, not with Trump as president, but if Marco was president and he came to me and said, hey, we'll do this Venezuela gambit and we'll put Machado in there, and maybe that the democracy will flourish in our hemisphere. I'd have been like. Some of my old muscles would have started flaring with that.
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A
See, that's not what they're doing.
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B
That's not what he's doing.
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A
Well, that's not.
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B
Okay. Well, that's not what he's doing. It's corruption. It's just like a straight. Like it's a. Like it's a shakedown.
- [28:15]
A
Yeah, I mean, that's what it turned into.
- [28:17]
B
Things go boom.
- [28:18]
A
Well, don't forget it, actually, that. Let's not discount the role that Machado and her entire cohort played in this entire operation. Yeah, she is.
- [28:26]
B
We're upset about. Better Now.
- [28:27]
A
You should be. She's a joke. She wanted to bomb her own people. So congratulations, Maria, you didn't even get what you wanted. But let's put that to the side now. You're not wrong, but let's parse, you know, some of the language. Remember, the original impetus for this whole thing goes back to the protests. It had nothing to do with the nuclear program that became the casus belli. Right. Originally, this was around which you're. Again, you're. I don't know, boss. Co founder Bill Crystal supported. He's like, oh, we must go. What did he say? This is January 2026. He's like, oh, we have to go and free and liberate, you know, the great Iranian people, which, again, I think is a disastrous idea and as we have all seen, isn't even going to work. What are they going to thank you as you rain down acid rain on their children? Yeah, that's definitely a very natural impulse. So that element of it was genuinely neoconservative. Now, let's get to what you're talking about. And this is fair, you know, terms matter. There is a robust, hawkish nationalist. I would call it John Bolton. So John Bolton is not a neocon he is somebody who is robustly hawkish. Now, this is a hawk, neocon, whatever you want to call it, hawkish. This is a hot jingoist. Yeah, actually, jingoist is probably the best term really for it because, I mean, I'm watching these Pentagon press conferences and it's like Military Assistance Command Tehran. Like, which is a joke about the Vietnam War. Because in the Vietnam War, it was called Military Assistance command Vietnam. And General Westmoreland would be like, Today we have killed 252 Vietnamese. And everyone's like, oh, my God. And Operation Rolling Thunder has dropped more munitions than all of World War II. And America was like, rah, rah, rah, look at us, we're beating the out of the North Vietnamese. Yeah, how did that work out? Right? And I mean, I'm, I'm literally feel like I'm taking crazy pills watching General Kane be like, we've dropped double the amount of munitions as shock and awe. And I was like, oh, yeah, because that was a smashing success. That was awesome. And if you're too young to know, even get the reference, shock and awe was the invasion of Iraq. It was the bombing campaign. On the invasion of Iraq, you said
- [30:28]
B
something in the middle of the rant there about how if anybody trusts Trump or doesn't understand that he's a charlatan, they're stupid. I'm a little concerned that you impugned most of the people that show up at the rallies right there. Because if you look at the polls right now.
- [30:40]
A
What do you mean, look at the polls?
- [30:41]
B
I think parsing the kind of cross tabs, which is, there's some limits to that. But if you look at when people ask, hey, do you identify as a MAGA Republican? Do you identify just as a Republican? Are you independent Trump voter, like the independent Trump voters hate this. Like the newest people into the coalition hate. A lot of people you talk to at breaking points, they hate this. Okay. Interesting part of the parsing, though, is when you look at people who say I'm a MAGA Republican, they're like, hell yeah, 94%, whatever you want, Mr. Trump. And people who just say, I'm a Republican, but I'm not maga, they're a little more skeptical. I was interested in that because what that tells me is that the MAGA movement is actually like a lifestyle brand and that the people are in a cult and that they're not taking into the facts into consideration. It's just whatever Trump wants. It's rah, rah, Trump. And I wonder if that's how you kind of assess the coalition at this point.
- [31:33]
A
Yes, in a sense. And by the way, I'm not impugning them particularly. I think that a lot of voters are like that. And I should also be clear. A core part of my philosophy is I don't blame voters. Notice all of my critique right here is not about voters. It's about individual parts of an elite network who should know better. Okay. And even, you know, my entire critique is really specifically about an elite project that has gone completely wrong. But let's talk about the voters. You and I do this show.
- [31:58]
B
Like me talking about my people eight years ago. Welcome to the. This is why I felt like we would, you know, get along so well. I gave that same speech on multiple podcasts in 2017.
- [32:07]
A
Oh, really? Okay, good. Look, it is important. People should know, like, I don't blame voters. A lot of people are very busy. They go about their lives. If you're listening to this show, you're probably in the. The top, what, 2% of news consumers in the United States? I always say that on my own show. I go, guys, you need to check your bias. If you're listening to this, you are literally in the top 1%. And it's not a compliment either. It means you're a news junkie. You're paying attention. You're, like, super locked in. And that's great for you. Obviously, it's great for us. We're happy to have you. But, you know, the vast majority of people are not paying attention to this stuff. They also believe politicians whenever they say things, and that's okay. I mean, kind of think you should know better at this point, but. But look, I mean, who really is taking the time to read platforms and assess internal dynamics of White Houses? This is not a game that you have to play.
- [32:52]
B
That's fair. I guess my question for you, just to make it more precise, though, is it seems to me like the America first movement is actually like vaporware. And the actual MAGA voters, like, the core Trump voters, are part of a lifestyle, brand, and a cult, and they'll do whatever Trump wants.
- [33:08]
A
I'm agreeing with you.
- [33:08]
B
Yeah, okay. Yeah, got it. I saw just.
- [33:10]
A
I am agreeing with you 100%. No, Maga is about Trump specifically. I've actually, actually always believe that. That's why I notice I'm not one of these people on Epstein or Iran who goes, he betrayed the base. I'm like, the base doesn't give a shit about anything. They just care about Trump. There is a term called Thermostatic public opinion, where public opinion shifts depending on whoever's in power. There's reams of data on this for Democrats and for Republicans. When a Republican's in power, Democratic outlook on the economy is low. When a Democratic is in power, Democratic output is high. Same for Republicans. Like a lot of voters are in cults if we're all being honest.
- [33:45]
B
So the latest trend in hiring is skills based hiring, which emphasizes capabilities over education and direct experience. According to experts, this leads to faster hiring and better job performance. So if you're an employer who's looking to adapt to skills based hiring, the best way to ensure your applicants have the right skills is our friends at ZipRecruiter. ZipRecruiter's powerful matching technology finds qualified candidates fast. You can easily add ZipRecruiter screening questions to your job post so you get the highest quality applicants. Want to see who's recently active? ZipRecruiter's filters can show you that too. Let ZipRecruiter help you find amazing candidates with the skills you seek. Four out of five employers who post on ZipRecruiter get a quality candidate within the first day. And now you can try it for free@ziprecruiter.com bulwark that ziprecruiter.com bulwark meet your match on a ZipRecruiter. Let's talk about Epstein because you've done a lot of, you've been covering this, you're covering it before we were, just to be fair.
- [34:43]
A
Seven years.
- [34:44]
B
Yeah. You've done deep dives on this stuff. I'm wondering, I just kind of open ended, like what you think some of the listeners or viewers of this show might not know about the Epstein files that you guys are following? What are you guys covering that hasn't been covered in other places in the media?
- [35:00]
A
Well, Epstein was an Israeli asset, almost certainly he was an intelligence asset for multiple different intelligence agencies. He was primarily a money mover and potentially even an arms dealer. He was a very important node in a global intelligence network for moving money around for very, very powerful people. And the reason why I always start with that is that his usefulness to this global intelligence network is what enabled him to get away with his behavior for decades. And really I think the reason people lied the first part of that story is it's politically uncomfortable for a lot of people and constituencies in various different elite networks. Are you sure?
- [35:38]
B
Just, can we just use the word asset really quick like asset versus? I read the emails, the Epstein emails and What I see is a guy who loves being around power, who's like trying to set up dinners with people that he thinks is rich and famous. And some of that is whatever ego, Some of that's because they give him cover for his gross activities, criminal activities, Some of it is whatever. But like there are non pedophiles that do that, right? Like they're like, this is, we know, I know this type. Like I read his email and I'm like, oh, I know this type. It's like the hangers on of dinner parties and D.C. and you know, he just expanded it out to globally. I don't really know the type for multinational arms dealing. But it's, it's the same archetype. So how is that like I look at it, that's what I see. Like that is different than being very technical with asset of the, of the government.
- [36:27]
A
See, I actually think you're confusing the term asset is exactly. We're talking about. It's somebody who's like a fly by the night person who works and is convenient. Whereas agent and. Or directly employed is kind of what I think you're, you're assuming. Yeah, that's not the correct use of the term. He was a hatchet man, a bag man really for a variety of these different elite networks. And what Epine did is. And I mean, allow me, I'm sorry, this is. We're gonna have to go back because I literally spent hours on this topic. But the US and the CIA, the way that they would operate before the Church Committee is they would never need an Epstein or a Adnan Khashoggi or a Douglas Lease to do Iran Contra. They would just do it. Right. So after the Church Committee, what ended up happening in events to try and have transparency and oversight of the US intelligence community is that the CIA had to start using all of these unsavory people. And that's specifically the story of Iran Contra. Iran Contra was a scandal because it broke the law. Right. They were like, you cannot do this. Now the way that they were able to move money and funds and all this to illegally fund these wars was specifically to use these outside, you know, hatchet men, bagmen, arms traffickers, and then what Epstein's node was that he was an expert in moving money around. This is where he primarily got a lot of his expertise at Bear Stearns, where he's eventually fired and all in the early 1980s. So at that time period, what he does is he specializes in moving and opening illicit bank accounts and moving money across the globe. That really was his, like, reason for being important to a lot of these intelligence agencies. And that's why his name, you know, starts to pop up. I would also note, you know, in the Epstein files, one of the craziest things that come out that nobody talks about is his false Austrian passport from when he was like 29 years old in the 1980s. Austria was literally known as the bed of spies. If you've ever visited Austria, or Vienna specifically, Vienna was the nexus of east and west because of the treaty and it had to remain neutral. And it was one of the highest concentration of spies in the globe. And so this is long before he became a billionaire or any of this. So he was very useful to this. And also he had his, you know, disgusting kind of sexual proclivities that were going on. And there has been a long, long history of intelligence agencies who have these types of assets, like Jeffrey Epstein, who remember FOIA, his name in 1999, to the CIA long before anybody even knew who he was, asking them to acknowledge his work with the agency or any of the name in the agency that's come up in his files. But the reason why this is important and why I think this had some impact on his sweetheart deal in 2007, is there's a long history of intelligence agencies that when their assets or their agents or anybody gets involved in a criminal case, particularly involving underage children, is that they want to brush this under the rug. And the reason why is they never want this to go into open court. Court. So we have multiple confirmed instances of actual agents, CIA personnel, who were actually caught, let's say with child pornography, where they will pressure the FBI and they're like, hey, this cannot go to trial. Sources and methods cannot come out in open court. We need a plea deal, we gotta cut a deal. This has happened multiple different times and there's a long, unfortunate, long history of a lot of this going on. So I do think people can get a little conspiracy brain saying that the government itself was running this or any of that. No, I don't think any of that is the case case.
- [39:34]
B
Just conspiracy brain, really quick. On the Israel side of it, you see this, I'm sure, in your comments and from people like legitimate criticism of Israel, which there's a lot to criticize right now, can tip over into either conspiracy brain or straight anti Semitism or, you know, using Zionist as a slur, like all that kind of stuff. I'm wondering how you try to like think about that, navigate it.
- [39:58]
A
That's very woke of you, Tim. See, I, I think it's the opposite. I, it is not my responsibility what other people do. And that's what I mean by that. This implication that we have to be very careful or critical of, or let's say lessen our criticism of a foreign state because we're worried about anti Semitism is ridiculous. Anti Semitism is stupid, wrong, immoral, etc. I don't really even know why I have to say that. But obviously, you know, for anybody who tries to smear me otherwise. However, however, it is often weaponized specifically, you know, the term anti Semitism to shut down a lot of this legitimate criticism.
- [40:32]
B
Sure, but I mean, you would. I'm not that woke. And you'd police your comments if people were dropping the N word all the time in the comments. Absolutely. That's on policing. And so if people in your comments are doing a lot of Jewish conspiracy theorying or you know, you know, Jewish slurs, like at least as the, as the. I can't control it, but it would make me as the person communicating like one, at least say to them, hey guys, fuck you. They're the doors. Get out of here. Sorry. Sure.
- [40:57]
A
I mean, if we have to say it, I guess I will. But like, the idea, you know, this idea that we're fostering it or any of that is, is frankly preposterous. We follow the facts where they lead. And on the Israel side, I mean, how much more do we need? His relationship with the Prime Minister, Eid Barak, the amount of funding between the two back and forth, the amount of time that they spent together, his own long history of. I mean, by the way, I mean, a lot of people now don't even know this. Whenever he was negotiating his little sweetheart deal back in 07, he fled to Israel for a while and where there was some speculation that he might have to actually stay there and take advantage of their extradition treaty. That's not anti Semitic. Disaster. Say, I got to be honest, something you said there, it bothered me a little bit that this Zionist is a slur. It's not. I mean, it's a literal term. Right.
- [41:40]
B
People use Zionist as a slur.
- [41:42]
A
Okay, but it is a term. No, like it is. It's quite literally a definitional term about somebody who believes in expansion of the Israeli state in the Middle East. Like, I don't think that that's a slur. I mean, maybe you could use it as a slur, but I don't think
- [41:54]
B
that's a particularly people doing that.
- [41:55]
A
Sure I do.
- [41:56]
B
I see. If somebody out there going, willy Nilly, like, I hate that actor. Like, fucking Zionist. So and so I'm like, why are you. Like, that's just you trying to say the K word without saying it honestly. Like that, like that is happening out there.
- [42:08]
A
I disagree with that. I mean, there might be some cases, but I completely disagree.
- [42:13]
B
What's your Trump theory on Epstein? Why is he covering it up?
- [42:16]
A
I have no clue. This is. See, this one's interesting. Than Iran. I think Trump is now caught in a basket of lies of his own making. And I think that his obvious look, his obvious social relationship ship with Epstein that goes back decades, all the way back to the 1990s. The infamous 2002. What is it? New York Magazine quote where he's like, Jeffrey, he likes him young, he enjoys his social. Something like that. I think that was the quote. I mean, they were obviously very close. And then what he said afterwards is he lied about it, basically. He's like, no, I threw him out of my club. Not really true. Or is true, but not in the circumstances which he wants it to be true. It was over like Virginia Giuffre being stolen from the Mar? A Laco spa. And not about whether he was concerned about. About his own creepy behavior. I think really they buried him. He buried himself with a lot of the denials for the White House. The birthday book, remember he said it was totally false, Sued murder number of
- [43:09]
B
times on the plane, all over the place. Yeah.
- [43:10]
A
Ridiculous. It's ridiculous. It's obvious that their social relationship was deep. And that's a bad look. I think, for the President. He also knew these people socially. Ghislaine Maxwell. What did he say to Jonathan Swan? He was like, I wish her well or something in that infamous interview. And that was crazy.
- [43:25]
B
Melania maybe would be mad.
- [43:27]
A
Yeah. I've seen the Melania theory floated by what's his Name by Michael Walsh Wolf. I haven't seen enough evidence.
- [43:33]
B
I hate giving him any credit. Yeah, I'm just. I was more talking about her being mad than like, oh, Melania could be Melania Epstein.
- [43:41]
A
Right? Yeah, yeah, right. That was very important on the Stormy Daniels front. So I really have no idea. I do think it is important to say, and you know, in retrospect, it was really the people around Trump who were obsessed with Epstein. It really wasn't Trump himself.
- [43:54]
B
Right.
- [43:55]
A
Obvious. He never really. He never really was into. He's like, yeah, sure, release it kind of the way, like, I'm a big UFO guy guy. Same thing. He obviously was just using it for clout clicks or whatever. He Knows people are very interested in the subject, but he never had any real enthusiasm for it. So that's my guess for why they've handled it this way.
- [44:12]
B
He has very little empathy, but one of the groups he has empathy for is men who are accused of sexually harassing people. That's another reason I think he's. He's doing it. You've been pretty mean to Donald Trump, the President of the United States. We're 43 minutes in, two votes for him.
- [44:25]
A
Him.
- [44:26]
B
So let's talk about the good stuff. Look at the last six, 14 months. And you're like, man, he's really killed it on that. What would be, what would be the list?
- [44:33]
A
You shut the border down.
- [44:34]
B
Okay.
- [44:34]
A
Shut the border down. Yeah, I would, I would say that's probably number one. I mean, for a lot of people, that's essential, right? For a lot of the people who are. If you even look at some of the most die hard, like America First MAGA or whatever, they're like, look, I don't care about anything else. That's number one. So you could say that. I would say that's probably his biggest win. There's been literally no more incoming, you know, fake asylum coming across. Let's think. So, let me think chronologically. So we have the board. Then there was Doge, which I would say was a failure. I don't know. I haven't got much else for you.
- [45:05]
B
One win for Donald Trump.
- [45:06]
A
Yeah, well, it depends. I mean, it really depends on.
- [45:09]
B
Let's argue with border for a second, personally. Let's talk about border for a second, then we'll go back to grading the Trump presidency. I give credit just on the narrow question of it's important that we secure our border. And I do agree with that. And I think that this has been a failure among a lot of past presidents. And some of that's out of their control a little bit, but, like, but they've done a good job in the securing of the border. If you bring that into kind of the whole, you know, kind of immigration policy, though, like, the fact that we have probably fewer people in the country now than we did when he was elected president is insane to me. Like, that is not the sign. That's not a sign of a successful company when you have negative net migration, when there are more people leaving than coming.
- [45:48]
A
But that was a declared goal of the campaign.
- [45:50]
B
Well, sure, so. But yeah, so obviously it was a policy success. But I'm saying, saying is okay. It's bad for the country. He did it. That's True. Yeah. But I'm saying that as I don't understand why anyone would think that is a good policy and it's going to contribute to inflation. It's going to contribute to. There's a lot of needs we have for a growing country. Growth in a country is important. I don't think we want to be Japan in the 1980s. I don't think we want to be a country that people are fleeing. I think that it's good to bring people into the country, maybe not the same way that they were brought in between 2000 and 2024, but we have to have some way to add people to the country. Right.
- [46:27]
A
Well, I think it's kind of a neoliberal view. Right. Kind of looking at as immigrants, as utils, like economic utils and their plug and play.
- [46:33]
B
I also consider that too, but I think that, I think that they're utilizing human rights. I think both of those things are true.
- [46:41]
A
Right. But I, by the way, you would find a lot more agreement between you and me on ice than you might even think. And there's also a political problem with all of this. I talked about thermostatic public opinion. The way that the Trump administration has carried out a lot of their immigration agenda has actually flipped support for mass migration more than I think ever before in history, including amnesty, which I think would be a catastrophe for the United States. But let's just think philosophically. So first of all, I reject the idea that human beings are utils and we should care about that, but secondary. And I think that there are much bigger arguments now when let's talk about the border and really about the historical trend. So Trump, you can look at Trump as a singular force or as a historical force. I like both theories. But I also think that historically, if you're going to take a look at our own history, that under the BIDEN ADMINISTRATION About 10 million people illegally entered the country. Ten million, the most I think ever in American history. You also had the largest foreign born population of the United States ever since the early 1900s, which was met at the time by a organic democratic pushback and shutdown of US Immigration specifically because they were having chaos in their internal society from unmitigated mass migration over the last, what, for 50, 60 years? I think at that time period, also to your economic point, at that time we had much more industrial plug and play style labor where any individual human being could be reasonably expected to perform well in that economy. You cannot say that at this time, except we have the same level of mass migration We're a service based economy. A lot of this idea about, about basically turning people from Guatemala or whatever into home health aides, I think is deeply, actually almost racist, honestly. And what it does is basically import some sort of slave class in order to serve all of us to keep our goods.
- [48:23]
B
I think that there's a gap between importing a slave class and having negative net migration and having a title.
- [48:29]
A
There certainly is. But in the same way that you gave the maximalist argument, I'm giving you the same one here, is that we don't need, need maximal number of home health aides. And I mean, the biggest growing sector of our economy right now is health care, and specifically home health care aid for old people. I mean, look, I'm not saying that it's not a noble job or any of that, but if you want to drive the price down on that, it's a big argument for basically like low skilled immigration, which I don't think that we need. We're a service based economy. We have industrial based problems of our own. Wage growth obviously has been stagnant now for decades. Couple blips up in there over the years, but at a bigger, more important level. And this is really why, you know, Trump really shifted me the immigration question. And really, just thinking about it bigger is really like, we need a cohesive social understanding of America.
- [49:15]
B
And finally you said something that made me mad. Great. 50 minutes in. Awesome.
- [49:20]
A
That's fine, we can go.
- [49:21]
B
I mean, I just think we look at Minneapolis, for example, and we've seen a very socially cohesive society that's had a lot of immigration into it. We had the society coming together, volunteering, helping their neighbors. I don't think there was any sense and like there was some fraud. Right? Like that's true and that should have been dealt with. But like, as a society, I don't think you asked people of Minneapolis, like, do you feel incohesive in your community? It's. I would, I think you would hear right now exactly the opposite. And you saw that these masked agents coming into the community to bully and harass people were the ones that caused social discohesion.
- [49:57]
A
I wouldn't even disagree in terms of the way that the operation went down. What I would fundamentally disagree with though, is that there is not a chaotic element to tens of millions of people living in your country illegally. And specifically having people and their children have to be educated at the price of the state. While a lot of these people barely speak any English, 25% of the people that Biden let in, literally didn't even have a high school diploma. Very not even literate in English, let alone Spanish. Significant portion of the population is not even literate in Spanish. I mean, whenever their lawyers and other have to dis are having discourse with them, they're speaking like, you know, like native languages. That person is not going to succeed in the United States. This, you know, to your economic point, if we want to reduce people to
- [50:34]
B
utils, maybe volunteering for people in the mom community in Guatemala, there were kids in high school.
- [50:40]
A
They were learning against these people. Personally, what I'm saying is that, let's say again, to reduce people to utils, what would you say for an American citizen who doesn't have a high school diploma, statistically that person's not going to do very well. Now, it would be madness to allow that person to come to the United States, legalize them, give them citizenship, and then just expect them to like, like flourish. Like, we know that it's not going to work based on the data and really what it comes down to, again, and this is kind of your point around, like social cohesion and like an understanding is we get to decide democratically. And I will say there was a, I think again, I think immigration was probably, number one, maybe number two reason why Donald Trump got elected is that people want to feel some sort of control over the border. And it was a popular vote, I think mandate really on the immigration question. Like, I really think there's a lot of like Felford award stuff whenever it comes to Trump. He stood in front of a sign at the RNC and it said mass deportation.
- [51:35]
B
I know.
- [51:36]
A
And he won the popular vote. And I think people like you have to reckon then that your idea of Minneapolis then of some, you know, utopian vision is just not true.
- [51:44]
B
My reckoning is. I'm sorry, my reckoning is that I was right. And there was a big portion of people that Donald Trump, that voted for Donald Trump that didn't know what mass deportation looked like. And I did know what mass deportation looked like. And I knew it was going to be an assault on American citizens rights and an assault on the human rights of people that tried to come here legally through the Asyle process. Even if you don't like that process, they weren't criminals that snuck across the border. They tried to go through the legal process. And now they're being assaulted, they're being sent to foreign countries. And I think that people look at that and that's why ice, like the only thing less popular than ICE in the polls right now is AI and Iran and the Democratic Party. Well, look, I think that people are now seeing that. What, mass deportation? Really?
- [52:22]
A
Maybe. I totally disagree. I don't think mass deportation had to look like this at all. And in fact, my criticism on the immigration agenda of the Trump is that a lot of it is for show and it's not actually for affect. Don't forget that the White House itself just put out a memo or something yesterday saying don't talk about mass deportation, talk about removal of what is it, violent, violent criminals or any of that. I mean, the real story of the immigration agenda under Donald Trump is he didn't live up to the fundamental promise, which is that to tackle immigration you have to tackle big business. And, and there has been a absolute courting of big business and allowance really of like farm labor or reduction in work raids, any of this. And this is where the economic question is. So how would I deal with mass deportation? I don't think it's very difficult at all. Pass mandatory. You verify for the entire country, make it so that you have to verify citizenship whenever you're employed, and then put a massive tax on remittances to any foreign country. Everyone will go home tomorrow. You don't have to lock anybody up or very, very few people. However, it will dramatically affect a lot of, you know, the House building, I don't know, like the weed industry in California, banking. It's not going to create the show, you know, necessarily. I guess some people in the Trump administration want. But I think that would be a much easier way to do act, frankly, a lot more effective too.
- [53:34]
B
So you said he's done one good thing since he's been in there. 14. Shut the boy. Any. Any regrets? Any. Any feeling like maybe you were a little too pro Trump in retrospect?
- [53:43]
A
Of course, I. How could I know?
- [53:44]
B
Should have been for Kamala.
- [53:46]
A
No, definitely not. Especially. Well, I mean, this is.
- [53:48]
B
We'd be better off though, if Kamala was president. We'd be better off right now. The country would be better off o it. But we wouldn't be in the Iran war. We wouldn't have, we wouldn't have like the tariffs.
- [53:57]
A
Do you, do you remember?
- [53:58]
B
We wouldn't have masked agents in the streets. Those are three things.
- [54:00]
A
We remember a segment on your show where I think it was Jonathan last said that the neocons are now in control of the Democratic Party. Do you remember?
- [54:08]
B
I hate this. You all took that so far out of context.
- [54:12]
A
Why did we take it out?
- [54:12]
B
Because he was joking. Because we have a, we have a We have a clubhouse joke. We were joking. He was laughing about the nature of, of how she talked about lethality at the, at the. Go back and watch it. I've went back and rewatched.
- [54:24]
A
I will.
- [54:25]
B
The 17 seconds goes around and then we keep talking about it later and have a longer conversation.
- [54:29]
A
Fair point. Because I hate when people clip me out of context too. By the way, please don't do that for this episode.
- [54:34]
B
We won't do it.
- [54:34]
A
So, okay, let's put that clip aside. Let's talk about the DNC platform from 2024 where they attacked Donald Trump from the right on Iran.
- [54:40]
B
I don't want to relay 2024. I mean, we're here in 2026. Do you think we're war right now? Do you think we'd be in the Iran war right now in this way?
- [54:48]
A
No, no, obviously you're right and I'll give you that. Will we have some of the Israel policy? Yeah, I do think so. Actually. I was at the dnc. I remember how they treated a lot of those Palestinian protesters. I interviewed a lot of them actually, with my colleague Ryan Grimm.
- [55:00]
B
Yeah, that was bad politics.
- [55:01]
A
No, but it was policy too. Politics.
- [55:02]
B
It was policy.
- [55:03]
A
I mean, these are people like, again. But see, this is where I get frustrated is like we could only evaluate candidates at the time. And the time was Liz Chamber. It was a DNC platform that attacked Trump from the right on Iran. It was somebody who had just come through this disastrous policy in the war in Ukraine. Incredibly neoconservative. We're gonna kill Putin. I mean, we had real reasons.
- [55:25]
B
This is a critique of the campaign, which is a legitimate critique.
- [55:28]
A
It's a policy.
- [55:28]
B
I'm not asking you if you would vote for Kamala based on the information that you had in November 2024. Obviously. No, you voted for Trump. It's March 2026. I'm asking you, based on the information you have now, having learned about what Trump was going to do the first 14 years, months, do you think Kamala
- [55:42]
A
would have been better if I could have gone back? I probably just wouldn't vote, to be honest, because immigration is also a very salient question for me too. And like, if anything, what I've seen revealed in a lot of the current Democratic, like, legislative base is like, they really still believe in the same numbers in the asylum, so called asylum process that you just said. I think mass amnesty is the plan, was the plan will be the plan whenever people come back into power. And like, that's a red line for a lot of Us on the immigration question.
- [56:12]
B
Rapid fire TDS and then rapid fire. Fun stuff we disagree with. Really. We'll just, you know, it's like, it's like a chess match. Well, 45 seconds back and forth. Why was January 6th not the end for you?
- [56:23]
A
What do you mean?
- [56:24]
B
Some people in the Trump administration walked away. Mike Pence walked away. They said, look, anybody that, anybody that would sit there and watch on TV while a mob of his fans stormed the Capitol and attacked police officers, it was a judgment call that was so horrible that like based on a lie that he made up. Like the judgment call is so horrible you could never trust somebody that has that judgment to do anything again. To run a fucking corner store, to coach your kids basketball team. And there's no way you could ever make a president again. Why was that not your view?
- [56:50]
A
Well, there was lesser of two evils. Easy logic. Watch Democratic leaders and kente cloth get on their knees and encourage one of the worst riots.
- [56:57]
B
Kente cloth.
- [56:58]
A
That's actually the January 6th. The easiest answer is why January 6th was not. The breaking point was literally why watching the entire Democratic party and media encourage the mass looting and rioting and burning. I mean, I lived in D.C. literally where I used to live, there were riots that were going on. People were. The crime rate exploded. It was a disaster. So no, that's. That's the easiest one. Did I think it was bad. Yeah, I said so too at the time on my show. People don't. Not some Jan6apologist or any of that. Like, you know, I'm not sitting here.
- [57:27]
B
Are you playing the choir like Bannon was on his podcast for you guys?
- [57:30]
A
I wasn't playing the choir. I wasn't, you know, it didn't say Qanon Shaman or whatever was a hero. I said, well, whenever you have to choose between this and the people who encourage, I still think would encourage mass rioting and looting. Yeah, that was not. That's honestly the easiest TDS question.
- [57:45]
B
My least favorite Bullercom I've ever written was that I thought that the, the punishment for the shaman was too much. So there you go. There's my consistency.
- [57:52]
A
He actually was, by the way. That was true. That was true.
- [57:55]
B
I know, and I.
- [57:56]
A
Way too long.
- [57:56]
B
I stand by it. I don't think we can actually do Ukraine rapid fire style. So why don't we just take Ukraine, we'll do it another day. How about that? We can fight about Ukraine another day. Let's go to the fun stuff. You are apparently against daylight savings time, which is a total Affront on the human spirit. You have 30 seconds to explain why
- [58:15]
A
it's bad for your circadian biology. It is bad for the productive class who actually does anything in this country. It's only good for boomers who want to go golf later on in the day. And it is massively disruptive.
- [58:27]
B
You're a parent now.
- [58:28]
A
How old are your kids? Yes, my, my daughter is 10 months old.
- [58:32]
B
10 months. Okay, we're going to redo this one in three years. When you have a three year old,
- [58:36]
A
nothing's going to change.
- [58:37]
B
When you're going to the park after school, when school ends and it's already fucking dark and you've got to have your child running around the house with all that energy, you're like, we don't
- [58:45]
A
have 30 seconds to get into this. I've battled all of these bullshit arguments for years and years and years. Okay, I'll redo it if you want. By the way, for anybody who wants. I put out an entire essay where I destroyed Nate Silver on the DST question.
- [58:57]
B
You can go and you can find it on Vice. On Vices. Yes, I've said that. I'm not accepting Kalshee or prediction whatever advertising on the Bulwark. I refuse to, I refuse to endorse it. I think it's deeply pernicious. I do accept weed gummy advertising, though.
- [59:15]
A
That's worse.
- [59:16]
B
You're harshly against weed and gambling, though it seemed like you did play craps earlier. So what's your weed and gambling and alcohol give me just kind of a run of devices?
- [59:26]
A
Well, first of all, I don't drink. On the gambling question, I'm very against online gambling. I'm fine with in person gambling. You need to introduce friction into the system. This is another reason why I'm against prediction markets. My modest proposal on gambling is just make it casino gambling. You have to be able to go to a casino to place your bets. And when you go to a casino, you see all the other degenerates inside of a casino. Number one, you're like, God, I don't ever want to be like these people. But also, you have to get into your car and drive. You can't just do it sitting in your underwear in your home, which leads to runaway addiction problems. Also the sports books. I don't have enough time to go into this. They are robbing you blind. The types of bets that Kalshee, Polymarket and DraftKings and FanDuel have would make a 80s Vegas guy. He would blush red at the idea of stealing that much Money from you. And that's what's normalized now inside of the system. Okay.
- [60:16]
B
All of that is even worse than that.
- [60:18]
A
Years of, oh, weed gum is 10 times worse because it's used by more of the population. Yeah, we have mass parts of our population, I think. What's the latest number? 20 million. I think it is 20 million. I'm pretty sure we're using high potency THC on a daily basis. It's destroying your. For you, it's destroying your testosterone.
- [60:36]
B
My testosterone is destroying. No problems there.
- [60:39]
A
Are you on trt?
- [60:40]
B
I'm not.
- [60:41]
A
Oh, okay. All right. Some of your blood work. All right, all right. So it's destroying your testosterone, destroying your sleep. It's bad for pregnant women. It smells like whenever people smoke it everywhere.
- [60:51]
B
But most better than cigars.
- [60:54]
A
Well, we don't smoke cigars in public, do we? When you go down to a park, are you going to smell a cigar? Are you going to smell weed? Sometimes when you get on a plane and a guy these days, he's going to reek of. Is he going to reek of cigars? Whenever I drop walk down the streets of New York City, am I going to smell cigarettes or am I going to smell weed? Same in DC where I can see cannabis dispensaries everywhere. What am I going to smell? You know, it's weed. It's going to be weed and it's everywhere. It encourages you. Legalization, encourages teen use. It dramatically lowers IQ in the developing brain, also in the adult brain. Makes you slow, makes you lazy. It's just bad for you. It's a horrible product. It's the high potency thc, which you're probably encouraging people to use with weed. Gummies is, I mean, psychoactive to the point where we have a mass explosion across the globe in schizophrenia and the alcohol outbreak of mental illness. So the social costs of marijuana are so much higher than any of these stoners led us to believe. And in fact, big weed is. Big weed, I would say is one of the like the preeminent threats to the country right now.
- [61:50]
B
Oh my God. Okay, what are the preeminent threats to the country? What about crypto? How about, how would you compare it to crypto? We have a president running a crypto scam and people are doing gambling in their wallets with shit coins. It isn't even gambling. It's actually stealing. It's theft. The president and his family are stealing from, from regular people with their coins.
- [62:07]
A
An abomination. Yeah, we didn't even get into corruption, unfortunately. We can do that at another time. No crypto has gone completely out of control. I was a bitcoin guy very originally. I really, I like some of the hype and some of the use case specifically around bitcoin, the, the bitcoin manifesto and some of the original theory. But the way that the industry has now become where it's basically, I mean just run away ridiculousness and, and really gain gambling whenever it comes to meme coins, shit coins. Prediction markets, remember prediction markets started with crypto. It's not an accident actually that it did. And so I think it's gone completely run amok and I think all of this needs to be shut down.
- [62:40]
B
I did this yesterday. I already made my case on why it would be fine for a basketball team to have a strip club night. You disagree with that? People can go listen to yesterday's show if they want to hear me in favor give now sager on Congress.
- [62:54]
A
I mean this how. I mean, right? We still live in a. I cannot even conceive of. Of a sports league which is watched by children trying to normalize celebrating a fucking strip club.
- [63:08]
B
You realize they're in Atlanta, right? It's just the logo. Their tits aren't out at the game, right? It just says Magic City.
- [63:15]
A
Regardless, it's like this is a horrible. It's just like gambling, like weed or any of these other things. These are industries which should be resigned to the gutter of American society. Just like gambling. You need to go find some fat guy to go and place your ridiculous bet on the Cowboys for 3.5. You should not be able to do it on your phone with billions of dollars of advertising normalizing it into your life. So I'll make the exact same case on the strip club. I mean, I can't even believe this is up for discussion. Just absolutely not.
- [63:43]
B
All right, so this sets up for my final question, which is listening to your case, you're against gambling, gummies, alcohol hall, strip clubs. Are you kind of low key for Sharia law? Are you a low key pro Sharia law?
- [63:55]
A
Yeah, people have asked me that before. People have asked me for that. Look, I still believe in individuality and freedom and you know, to a certain extent there, but in the way. In the way.
- [64:05]
B
So low key though. I'm not saying like you really want America to be a Sharia country, but like you, low key Sharia. Curious though.
- [64:11]
A
I live my life more consistent with Sharia law than the American Degeneres. Minus praying five times a day and some of the other stuff that would come with it. But listen, you know, those laws and those traditions, they come from good practice, I think.
- [64:28]
B
Liberalitarian, right wing, populist. We found a lot of common ground today. You never know. Things are shaking. You have another podcast called the Realignment that you do. Let's listen to that episode this morning. Walk on. Walk. And I was super with you on that. Like, I wrote an article. You were before me maybe like six months. I wrote an article for the Bullock. One of my first articles was called the Trade. And I was like, we've had a full shift called Red Dog. Democrats are now Democrats and these working class folks are now Republicans. It's already happened. People are pretending like it hasn't. I do wonder if what's been happening the last month is rejiggling that a little bit. And I guess that's my final question for you. And I'm wondering, kind of looking into your crystal ball, what you're seeing as far as the restructuring of the coalitions right now.
- [65:09]
A
I absolutely think that that is happening. I especially think with the newly activated parts of politics. So like young men, right. That's. We're going to see a dramatic reduction, I think, in that. I think that group is really going to be either up for grabs or maybe they'd be apathetic. They may just not vote. But there are also, you know, the Latino swings that have been wild all over the place from 2020 up until 2024. Either reverting back to normal or changing in a different way. Coalition. I think one of the favorite things and one of the reasons I love about covering politics is that nothing is static. Do you remember the book? I have it behind me somewhere. The 40 More Years book by James Carpenter. I keep it as a reminder. As a reminder that you are owed nothing. Is that people change their mind.
- [65:51]
B
I'm seeing James on Saturday. I'm going to order it and refresh myself. I will tell them that you said
- [65:55]
A
that I still have it. Tell them to sign it. Because I use it as an example of how wrong you can be is that demographics are not destiny. There is no such thing as a static coalition in American politics. And my faith in America is that they change their mind all the time. Go and look at the 96 electoral map to 2000. Look at 2000. 2004. 08 to 2016. 16 to 24. The. And these are elections that I've just lived through. Okay. I'm only 33. So think about that. How many times America's changed their mind over the years. And I love that. I think America's always up for grabs. Things are always changing. We're a highly dynamic country. States change. I love it. And I think it's, I think I would say it's the coolest part of our republic is watching, you know, for all of the black pill doom, like, oh, people are in cults and all of that, enough people on the margins actually do change their mind literally all the time. And they respond to incentives, to politics, the news. And that's kind of what keeps me excited in doing this every day.
- [66:50]
B
Sagar and Jetty, thanks for all the time, man. Go check them out on Breaking Points. Everybody else will be back here tomorrow for another edition of the show. See you all then. Peace.
- [66:57]
A
Thanks for having me, Tim. We don't get fooled again.
- [67:16]
B
The Bullard Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.