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- [00:00]
Tom Nichols
Foreign.
- [00:13]
Tim Miller
Hello, and welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. It is Friday. He is back. He's a staff writer at the Atlantic. Used to be a professor of the Naval War College. He's grumpy. It's Tom Nichols. What's up?
- [00:26]
Tom Nichols
Hey, Tim. Grumpier than usual, but that's just my natural condition.
- [00:32]
Tim Miller
All right, well, much to be grumpy about. I don't know. I maybe have a couple of unusual silver linings at the end of the show. We'll see if we get to them. And there's some actual breaking news I want to get to about things that are happening with ice and things that are happening with the militarization of our cities. But I feel remiss if I would not start by asking you with a few days to marinate on it, your impressions of our Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, and his promise to liberate the war fighters. He told them all that they kill people and break things for a living. That's what, that's what he thinks of our soldiers.
- [01:11]
Tom Nichols
That's an old Rush Limbaugh line, actually, going back to the 90s. Limbaugh used to do that job in the military is to kill people and break things.
- [01:18]
Tim Miller
Is that right?
- [01:19]
Tom Nichols
Yeah, yeah. Limbaugh used to say that all the time.
- [01:22]
Tim Miller
Yeah. I was never a ditto head, you know, even back in. Even back in my Republican days, I was never a ditto head. So I'm not familiar.
- [01:30]
Tom Nichols
I was almost 30 by the time he came on the national scene. And I was living mostly in small town Vermont because I was teaching up at Dartmouth in those days. And so I would tune in talk radio now and then because it was either that or the one local station we had. You know, my impression, what can I say? I mean, he thought this was going to be his opportunity to talk tough to the generals and the admirals. And, you know, the way it turned out was he looked like a. He looked foolish.
- [02:01]
Tim Miller
I mean, he did have a lot of makeup on. He did have more makeup on than the admirals and generals, it seems like.
- [02:06]
Tom Nichols
Well, the best thing I've read about it so far has been by Elliot Cohen, who said, first of all, here was this passed over major addressing a room that had the equivalent of something like 25,000 years of accumulated military experience in it. Know, and he was going to give them what for about, you know, staying, staying in shape and losing those pounds and doing PT and, you know, which is, look, there's nothing wrong with that if you're a company commander. If you're a captain in charge of 150 guys, you know, and you get up and say, now remember, fellas, you know, PT Chin up before you go.
- [02:44]
Tim Miller
Into the mess hall.
- [02:46]
Tom Nichols
But it's completely inappropriate in a Secretary of Defense who you would expect would be thinking about big things like, I don't know, strategy acquisition, the future of weapon systems, the future size and shape of the force, things that secretaries of defense are supposed to be working on. But, you know, Hegseth being in dramatically over his head, you know, wants to talk about fat guys in the hallways, you know, and as a fat guy, I take a little extra exception of that, you know.
- [03:18]
Tim Miller
Okay, you're getting. You're getting defensive. Yeah, a little bit.
- [03:21]
Tom Nichols
A little bit. They sudden go, you know, insulted him maybe a little bit. But also, I thought it was just inane and trivial and not what, you know. And I think on a more serious point, I suspect he. He pulled all those people in to say, I'm the boss and you will respect my authority. And I think that backfired. I think 800 of those people looked and said, wow, this guy really is a clown. You know, they. They may not have wanted to think that about the commander in chief, the President of the United States, but I don't think any of them felt any special allegiance to, you know, getting chewed out again by, you know, a guy that was a major some years ago. And I. I think it was an error, a strategic error on Hegseth's part in. In several ways, including that it probably undermined his authority rather than cemented it.
- [04:14]
Tim Miller
The aforementioned Elliot Cohen, co host of the Shields of the Republic podcast right here at the Bulwark. People can listen to that. Mark Kirtling is in the Bulwark this morning. General Hertling, and he says this about. Hag says remarks, then I want to get to Trump. He points out that, sure, at some level, it might have just been this stupid show that he is putting on. I mean, this is my words, not Hurtling. I guess it's your words I'm stealing from you. That he's doing his Cartman impersonation to try to look like a big boy. But Hurtling talks about what the kind of ripple effects are. He writes this for the generals, admirals, and senior enlisted who left the auditorium, started their long flights home to the Pacific, Europe, and Middle East. Those speeches were just the beginning. Because when Washington speaks with bluster, ambiguity, or hostility, it's the commanders who must translate to their troops, steady their units, and Respond to the challenge of new orders. I think that his point was, okay, so if you are a gay or lesbian soldier, if you are a Sikh with a beard, if you are whatever like, and you're.
- [05:09]
Tom Nichols
Now if you're a black man with.
- [05:10]
Tim Miller
A skin condition, yeah, where's your head at? And the people that are running these units are now gonna have to, have to go manage all that as a result. What do you make of that?
- [05:20]
Tom Nichols
I've taught a lot of officers, as you know. Oh, there's my, there's Lily making her appearance.
- [05:26]
Tim Miller
Second animal appearance of the week on the podcast Ken Burns dog was Mosi.
- [05:30]
Tom Nichols
Oh yeah, yeah. Well, people have been asking for more Lilly content. So there she is. She's in the big chair. Look, I've taught a lot of these officers. I've met a lot of admirals and generals in my 30 years of being around the military. They worry about two things. Obviously they worry about defending the country, but they worry a lot about the people, the well being of the people under their command. You know, here's Hegseth basically putting on a show that reveals just how out of his depth he is, just how unqualified for his job he is. And I think they had to be thinking on top of everything else, they had to be thinking, does this person really understand, you know, the, the responsibility that we carry? These are the people, both the secretary and the President, who can order me to order my young men and women into harm's way. And you know, am I comfortable, you know, that these people know what they're doing? And I think again, Exeth made it very clear he doesn't know what he's doing.
- [06:28]
Tim Miller
The more ominous speech, I think we all could agree, was from the President, ominous in part because I mean, at times he looked barely with it and he was really looked Ambien esque up there for a while. And so, you know, just didn't, just didn't gender a lot of confidence. But then obviously there's the rhetoric about the enemy within more dangerous than the enemy outside the country. And you don't know who they are. They're not wearing uniforms. And so we're going to need to go knock some heads and find them. We have troops going to Memphis. We've news out this morning that my city, we've got some National Guard troops coming to, to in New Orleans. Amusingly, the governor of Louisiana, who could just deploy the National Guard troops himself, went on Fox to ostentatiously talk about how he's requested that the President send the Guard Troops that are in his command to our city, which is like.
- [07:19]
Tom Nichols
I wondered about that.
- [07:21]
Tim Miller
Not an all time low, but a decades long low in violent crime. So if you're wondering what that's happening.
- [07:25]
Tom Nichols
I wondered about that seeing him and I remember that. And I thought, you know, you're the governor, right?
- [07:31]
Tim Miller
I mean, they're your troops.
- [07:32]
Tom Nichols
You actually have this power. You don't need to ask anybody.
- [07:37]
Tim Miller
Yeah, well, this guy, all you need to know about Jeff Landry is he put a satellite kind of TV studio in his office as Attorney General in Louisiana that was just used to beam himself into Fox. So the guy is focused.
- [07:51]
Tom Nichols
Smart move, though.
- [07:52]
Tim Miller
He's the governor now, and he's the governor who's cucked himself. And he doesn't have any actual power as governor because he has to pretend like Mr. Trump did it all. But anyway, then you've got troops potentially going to Chicago and Portland. There's a lawsuit that honestly, by the time this podcast out, we might learn more from a judge about, you know, the ruling. There's been pushback from folks in Portland about Trump going over the objections of the governor and local officials. And then the same will be true in Chicago, I guess, just biggest picture, like, what is your take on Trump's speech about all this and kind of now what we're going to see as a follow through?
- [08:24]
Tom Nichols
Well, a couple of things. First, you know, when you say to senior military officers, the enemy from within, I think again, these are folks who say, wait, you're talking about fellow American citizens. You're not talking about, you know, Russian paratroopers or Chinese tank drivers. You're talking about the people that we're supposed to protect and defend, you know, from the bad guys in the world. The military doesn't want to be dragged into these domestic missions. They don't like it. It's not what they train for. I can't say I can read their minds. But I think everyone has had enough time with Donald Trump to know that when Donald Trump says the enemy and enemies of America, what he means is enemies of Donald Trump. And I think that that probably is what they were thinking of. Who among our fellow citizens are you really pointing to here? And why do you need us to do this when you have cops and state police and, you know, national guards that can be called out by their own governors. I think the other thing that's interesting about that meeting is that this is the first time, I think, for a lot of these officers where they've had to sit and actually get a full helping of undiluted Donald Trump. You know, three, three and four star admirals don't spend all day watching tv. They, they don't go to political rallies. They don't watch, you know, hours of Trump speeches. They don't do what you and I do, right, where we sit there and we have to watch it and write about it, you know, where we're like Malcolm McDowell in A Clockwork Orange, you.
- [10:01]
Tim Miller
Know, and it's a different experience in clips than suffering through the whole 70 minute experience, right.
- [10:10]
Tom Nichols
And having to sit there and be attentive because, you know, even at rallies, when you watch people at rallies, when Trump starts to go off into shark land or my uncle at MIT or whatever it is, you know, people pull out their phones and they laugh and they take selfies and, you know, do all that stuff. These people had to sit kind of not quite at attention, but being obviously focused and attentive. And I think for a lot of them, this was the first time they were really strapped down and forced to drink, you know, to smoke the whole carton of cigarettes. You know, in that sense, you were talking about bright spots when we got started. You know, my friend Steve Fish out at Berkeley, he made a point to me the other day, and I think it was a good point now, and I want to make sure I footnote him rather than me, because it was his. He said it was actually a good day for democracy, that these guys all kind of sat there stone faced, didn't applaud, didn't turn it into a rally, did what they were supposed to do, you know, and also now can no longer use the kind of the Mike Johnson excuse of why didn't see the speech. One other thing occurred to me about this, Tim. This whole business about sending, when you were talking about the list of cities, Portland and Chicago and New Orleans. Can we finally just accept that all of the stuff about in the 24 election about inflation and prices and eggs, nobody cares about that anymore. Trump's not doing anything. If anything, all those prices gotten worse.
- [11:39]
Tim Miller
Yeah.
- [11:40]
Tom Nichols
And I think it puts the lie, you know, I mean, when every time I hear somebody go through the kind of litany you just did, I think, boy, these are real kitchen table issues that are going to bring down the price of eggs, aren't they? And I think it's just proof that, you know, when people like me and you and others were, were saying in 2024, you know, this is a bad faith argument, you don't really care about inflation, do you? You, you just want the Trump show back. And I think we're seeing that now because if people really did care about this stuff, even Republicans would be saying, what the hell are you doing? Everything's more expensive, inflation's going up, the tariffs are starting to bite, cost of living, all those things. And instead it's like, no, no, no, go ahead, send troops to Memphis. That's good, too.
- [12:27]
Tim Miller
All right, everybody. We are sold out of tickets to all of our shows on the fall Tour except for October 8th in Washington, D.C. and was on a call yesterday planning out what we've got in store for you. It's going to be fun. Obviously, JVL will be there, so there'll be elements of darkness. But we're also bringing in Sarah McBride for a conversation with Sarah Longwell that I'm super excited for. Maybe we might get Will Summer up to talk about some of the crazy shit that's happening on the MAGA ride. I've got some other plans in store for you, so it's not too late. Get your tickets now. Washington, D.C. october 8th. Go to the bulwark.com events. The bulwark.com events. I hope to see you all there. It's at the Lincoln Theater. Awesome venue. Appreciate them for hosting us. And so I hope to see you all in Washington October 8th. The one counter to your point about how it's good for democracy, that the folks had to see that, that they sat there stone faced is we have seen a difference between now and the first term about people's willingness to push back against him. I mean, obviously he has Pete Hegseth there instead of Jim Mattis or whoever in these cabinet offices. And I was struck. I was on with Nicole yesterday and she played this statement that I'd forgotten that Mattis had put out after Lafayette Square. And I think this is just worth reading really quick in the context of him, of Trump sending these troops into the cities. Mattis said this. We must reject any thinking of our cities as a battle space that our uniformed military is called upon to dominate at home. We should use our military only when requested to do so on very rare occasions by state governors. Militarizing our response, as we witnessed in D.C. sets up a conflict, a false conflict, between the military and civilian society. It erodes the moral ground that ensures a trusted bond between men and women in uniform and the society they're sworn to protect and of which they themselves are a part. Just how blunt that was of a rebuke of Trump. It's noteworthy that we're not getting that. I mean, sure, we'll get it from Mark Hertling and other retired folks who are kind of out there commenting on this. And that is appropriate and great. I'm grateful to Hertling, but I mean, from people that are like in the Trump orbit, however you'd want to define that. Nothing of that nature anymore.
- [14:40]
Tom Nichols
Well, First, I think 99.9% of the people in that room would have agreed with that, with what Matt has said. Yes, there's going to be a couple of guys. I saw at one point there were a couple of guys, oh, you know, trying to clap. And that didn't go very well, but.
- [14:54]
Tim Miller
Maybe it did go well for them. Maybe all they were trying to do is make sure Hegseth saw that they were clapping so that when the next.
- [15:00]
Tom Nichols
Remember the North Korean rule, never be the first comrade to stand, stop clapping.
- [15:03]
Tim Miller
Yeah, we'll, we'll see how the next round of advancements, you know, up the rank, go and see if the clappers do better than the non clappers.
- [15:11]
Tom Nichols
So you're always going to have a couple of guys in the force that are like, yeah, you know, it's what he said, you know, break things. Yeah, I remember years ago, there was a guy came to the war college I was at, and we'd asked him to talk about strategy, and he kind of shook his head and he said, strategy. Strategy is ordinance on target, which, you know, isn't strategy. So you'll get a few of those guys. But I think most of the people in that room agreed. But here's the thing. They have no top cover now. Like those three and four stars could, you know, under Mattis could say, hey, what the secretary said, you know, and I know Jim and I worked with him and, you know, we were cadets together, whatever it was, you know, you know, we ate the same mud and all that. They, there's nobody to provide that kind of COVID for them now. So they just have to kind of be, you know, stand at attention and kind of take it until they finally get to the point where they're ordered to do something that they might not be comfortable doing. And so that's the bad part, that's the bad day for democracy is that even though they would probably all agree with Mattis, there isn't a Mattis to give them the COVID that they need to have that approach to their work.
- [16:21]
Tim Miller
Speaking of that scary order, you in your article for the Atlantic after the speeches, referenced something that maybe I knew once and had forgotten. But it's a story of the Air Force nuclear missile officer named Harold Herring I guess during a training session, had asked, how could I know that an order I received to launch my missiles came from a sane president? This was during the Watergate fallout with Nixon. It's pretty relevant historical item, I guess, about Harold Herring.
- [16:50]
Tom Nichols
For folks who don't know this story. In 1973, a nuclear missile officer, Air Force major, you know, I was in a training session at. I believe he was at Vandenberg in California. And he raises and he says, you know, not. Not for nothing, but, you know, and then he asked the question that you. You pointed out, how do I know that the order to launch my missiles came from a sane president? And they said, that's an excellent question. You are fired. And the reason they fired him. And in those days, this, you know, especially, it made a lot of sense. The American nuclear deterrent and the ability to deter the then Soviet Union from attacking us relied on the Soviets knowing that if the President said go, that the time between his order and missiles landing on Moscow wasn't going to be more than 30 minutes, that you couldn't count on disorder and second guessing and, oh, I got to call Congress and a doctor's got to certify me as sane. No, the system. And by the way, Tim, you know, I've written about this for the magazine. That system is still in place today. The system is there to make sure the President can act alone and instantaneously, which should scare everybody. Not just because of Trump, just because we don't need that kind of system anymore.
- [18:09]
Tim Miller
Well, that's a little Happy Friday for everybody. Just kind of something to chew over this evening.
- [18:14]
Tom Nichols
Hey, everybody, just remember the President Richard Nixon put it best. He was having a meeting, I think, with two members of Congress, and he said, I could walk out of this room and 20 minutes later, 100, 100 million people would be it. And this, that system is still in place. It's there to enable the President not to slow him down. And so Herring asked this question, now, you know, you need to be able to tell the Soviet Union, listen, if the President issues the order, the guys remember the movie War Games at the beginning, when there's a drill and one officer turns the other and points a gun at him because the other guy won't turn his key. Can't do it, right? He can't, you know, turn your key, sir, you know, and he's pointing a pistol at him. So the other thing is that the Air Force wanted officers like Herring to understand that, listen, if the order gets through all of your superiors, if it gets through the colonel, who's your wing commander, you know, the general, who's your base commander. The guy at, back in those days at Strategic Air Command. The four star who runs that. By the time that order gets to you, Major, you can be sure that it's a legitimate order. The problem is that system, all those kind of internal circuit breakers that the military counts on. I think the constitutional system of circuit breakers and advisors and the bureaucracy around a president, that's all gone. I mean, we don't even have a functioning National Security Council anymore. I was thinking about this yesterday. Who is the head of the National Security Council? It's still, it's still Marco Rubio.
- [19:48]
Tim Miller
Trubio?
- [19:48]
Tom Nichols
I mean, why not? That's his fourth job.
- [19:51]
Tim Miller
Well, speaking of Rubio, among his four jobs is he's agitating for a regime change war in Venezuela.
- [19:57]
Tom Nichols
Why not? It's Friday.
- [19:58]
Tim Miller
As to neocons or former neocons, how we're going to talk about ourselves or, you know, strong on defense conservatives, I've, I've been intrigued by a regime change war too, in my day, you know, if we're going to be advancing democratic.
- [20:13]
Tom Nichols
Ideals known to imbibe from that bottle, I've been interested.
- [20:18]
Tim Miller
You know, I'm not exactly. I'm not hostile. I'm not Mr. Isolationist over here. I say that because it's an important context to the following point, which is it is absolutely insane to suggest that we should do a regime change war in Venezuela like that is madness. I still have not seen a coherent argument for it. It's just kind of like blah, blah, blah, drug trafficking. It's like most of the drugs in this country come from Mexico, Colombia, China. There's drugs from Bolivia. Like some of the Colombian drugs go through Venezuela. But Venezuela is not the tip of the spear in the war on drugs. Not that we should do regime change wars in the war on drugs anyway. But even if taking that at face value, Marco has a bugaboo for this guy. And so I guess now we're going to try to topple Maduro while we start taking out boats in the Caribbean. It's lunacy, maybe.
- [21:08]
Tom Nichols
And I'm just, you know, spitball. I have no idea what, what Rubio is thinking. Maybe he thinks liberating Venezuela will be a great calling card for him in 2028 in Florida or something. Who's for?
- [21:22]
Tim Miller
Who wants this? Who's it for? And even the MAGA base. A lot of MAGA voters are kind of like they, they like the bluster of patriot jingoism. But A lot of them were anti war. Like, they were. They were, like, going against the Rubio.
- [21:33]
Tom Nichols
And I'm chafing a bit when you say as a couple of neocons, because people always say, well, you neocons never met a war you didn't like. Well, so far I've met two I don't like Iran and Venezuela. I didn't think Iran was a good idea either.
- [21:45]
Tim Miller
You had. Bill Kristol parted ways on that one. But that's okay. You know, we can have disagreement within the coalition.
- [21:50]
Tom Nichols
How's that going in Iran? Is the regime still there and is it still trying to build nuclear weapons? Check and check. So, you know, we. We played a really important card in Iran, and we played it poorly because I don't think anything's changed. If anything, you've convinced the regime sprinting for a nuclear weapon is now the smart. You know, I mean, they're probably getting mail from North Korea saying, we told you, we warned you. You know, build it fast. But leaving that aside, the other thing about Venezuela, there is a military rationale for attacking Venezuela, and that is, it is the only front on which you can possibly stop another round of talking about the Epstein files.
- [22:29]
Tim Miller
Okay. Yeah. I mean, that's as. That's as logical of a rationale as the stated one that they've put out into.
- [22:36]
Tom Nichols
I think it's the real one. Yeah, I think it's just, you know, it's also just. And then we don't have to talk about Epstein or inflation or, you know, markets or tariffs or any of the other stuff that's just going wrong in every possible direction here.
- [22:51]
Tim Miller
Yeah. The legal rationale that they've put out finally, and they first started bombing boats, essentially over the objections, or maybe not objections, or over the abstentions of the fact that there aren't really any Jags left in there who have any who are giving legal advice about military operations. But they didn't provide a legal rationale initially, and now they have, and it's basically drug dealers in the Caribbean are enemy combatants and the President can kill them.
- [23:15]
Tom Nichols
It's a ridiculous rationalization, you know, that they're harming Americans. You know, I have to. Again, I'm going to steal a line from someone else. But Ken White, the lawyer, said, you know, we are Americans are threatened by drugs the way I'm threatened by a cookie dough factory, you know, which is that I want to, you know, eat cookie dough. And to say that, you know, there are some speedboats with drugs, therefore, they are the equivalent of People at war with the United States is something so far off the planet in terms of how you can make this determination. The other thing that's interesting about the President's determination, he decided to blow up four boats before getting to that rationalization. Normally you come up with this first and then you blow up the boats. You don't blow them up and then say, oh, well, I remember after the LA riots, there was that old joke about an LA traffic stop. Bang, bang, bang, freeze. You know, this is all ad hoc after the fact. I don't think it's gonna stand up. But I don't know, you know, maybe he'll get away with it because I'm still old enough to remember, as I'm sure you are, when there was a Congress.
- [24:26]
Tim Miller
Yeah, Congress. Oh, that's interesting.
- [24:28]
Tom Nichols
That would have said, excuse us. Hello.
- [24:30]
Tim Miller
That's an interesting idea. Congress. Speaking of Congress and the Democrats over.
- [24:33]
Tom Nichols
There, I think it's still in the Constitution, I'm pretty sure.
- [24:35]
Tim Miller
Is that right? You don't hear much from that. I saw John Thune the other day and I was like, oh, shit, there's a Senate Majority leader.
- [24:42]
Tom Nichols
Actually, it's funny you say that. I had the same reaction. He was out. It was when he was out in front of the White House, right? And I went, that guy, I remember that guy.
- [24:53]
Tim Miller
We still have a legislative branch and the Democrats over there, and maybe this is wrong, but I just want to throw this out there. And I think that it's out of character for me, which is, you know, hopefully lends some credibility to the advice. I think they should really be going crazy on the Venezuela thing. I mean, I know that there'll be some people say that, like, you know, that if, if he's doing this as a distraction for the Epstein files, as a distraction of. From other things, then, then why play into his hands, you know, or other people might say that, you know, Democrats don't want to seem weak, you know, and being the ones that are pro drug dealers or whatever, I think most people don't want war with Venezuela. I don't think it's popular. I think that Trump had a big base of people that were anti war. He brought in the Tulsi Glenn Greenwald RFK crowd. A lot of the manosphere bros don't want war. When I went to TPUSA event last December, I was pretty shocked. And I was asking the kids, like, why? Why do you like Trump? And like many of them brought up anti war America first. We care about ourselves, not these other countries. I think it divides his coalition and I don't think anyone's for it except Marco Rubio, really. And so I think that the Democrats should, should try to take back that mantle from him a little bit. What do you think about that?
- [26:01]
Tom Nichols
I think they've made a fundamental miscalculation about this and I think you're right that, I mean, I think they assume having watched too many Tom Clancy movies that, you know, they can turn this into a fight with these steely eyed killers, you know, and if they had video, if, for example, if the Navy had approached one of these boats, you know, and a bunch of cigar chomping Fidel look alikes got up on pirates.
- [26:29]
Tim Miller
Or pirates tattoos, you know, shooting or, you know, training weapons, I'm the captain now.
- [26:37]
Tom Nichols
Or if they had signed their own death warrants by saying, okay, we are, we are going to fight on the high SEAS with a U.S. navy vessel. Okay. Then you say, well, you know, hey, we just, we were interdicting you because there is a tradition that you can interdict contraband and dangerous things on the high seas and you have to stop them and you have to give them warning. You have to put. And instead we just, you know, we took the might of the US Navy, brought it up on a bunch of guys on a speedboat and just vaporized them. And I think most Americans, despite our, you know, Americans love to fight. Americans do love watching their military do stuff. I think that's uncomfortable for a lot of people and it should be.
- [27:21]
Tim Miller
And also, there's no reason to trust these guys or even drug dealers. I mean, you know, they put a makeup artist in a gulag and like, just so they're just saying, trust us as drug dealers. Maybe it is, but like, why should we trust this administration?
- [27:32]
Tom Nichols
And you'd have to say that everybody on that boat who you just have summarily executed was guilty of a, you know, of whatever you think they were guilty of.
- [27:43]
Tim Miller
Capital crime. Yeah, maybe it was a couple drug dealers and human traffickers and there were innocent people on the boats. Like, who the hell knows?
- [27:49]
Tom Nichols
I think a lot of people have been worried about that. Or you know, people that had. Or fishermen.
- [27:54]
Tim Miller
Right. Who knows? All right, Libertarian Tim is about to come out. So you can maybe hit me on the nose with a newspaper if you want. But the other news item from today that has me my hackles up is Apple. Have you seen this? So there is an app, a couple of apps. The most notable one was called Ice Block that had popped up and people were using the app to say, hey, There are ICE agents in my neighborhood in Neighborhood X. And so, you know, folks wanted to look and see where the masked ICE agents were. You know, they could go on the app and there'd be a little map of where the ICE agents were. The Trump administration said that that was endangering the federal officers and went to Apple. One of the claims that they made was that the shooter at the Dallas ICE facility use this app. Maybe that's true. If so, that's still the stupidest rationale I've ever heard. He was. I mean, obviously we condemn everything that person did, but it was at an ICE facility. Like the building was ice, so it's not.
- [28:53]
Tom Nichols
You could probably be pretty sure there were ICE agents at an ICE facility.
- [28:57]
Tim Miller
Agents there. I mean, I don't think you needed the app to figure it out. Anyway, they've used that as rationale. Tim Cook has folded and they've shut it down. Those apps now are not on people's phones. People can't do it. I think in a free country, we should be able to post onto the Internet, hey, there are masked agents on Broadway and Vine. And not have the government or the tech oligarchs tell us, prevent us from doing that. But I don't know where you're at on that.
- [29:23]
Tom Nichols
You thought I was going to swat you in the snout with a rolled up newspaper and say, bad, Tim?
- [29:28]
Tim Miller
I don't know. You're an old school law and order.
- [29:30]
Tom Nichols
Republican, Tom, but I'm an old school civil libertarian, too. I don't think it should be against the law or some kind of. Of violation to say, to call your neighbor, either through an app or on a thing. Remember telephones? We all used to have one on the wall of our house, you know, and call your neighbor and say, hey, I think there are masked, you know, federal agents coming down the street. You're allowed to notice the movement of the law enforcement officers of your own city, state and country. This isn't. Danny, this isn't Russia. Is this Russia? You know, it's not Russia. It's not North Korea. You are. I mean, people do this, by the way, and this is a problem for law enforcement during disasters or mass casualty events. People do it with scanners.
- [30:14]
Tim Miller
Yeah, right.
- [30:15]
Tom Nichols
I mean, what's next? You're going to ban police scanners so that people can't listen to where the cops are?
- [30:19]
Tim Miller
Maybe.
- [30:20]
Tom Nichols
So I'm, I'm, I'm with you on this. I mean, I mean, the thing with the masks is really getting to me. Seeing masked federal agents, I mean, this is the United States. These are my fellow citizens, and we are their fellow citizens. I mean, there used to be, you know, a time. I'm going to go for another cultural illusion here. There was a time when cops, you know, wore their name. Remember the Untouchables? When Connery, when Kevin Costner says, what's your name? And he kind of taps his badge with his night sticks right here, you know? You know, and now this. This thing with, you know, these agents wearing masks as if they're in, you know, like, fighting cartels in Mexico City or, you know, disappearing people in Belarus or something. I mean, it's really. It's really ridiculous. And it's meant to be intimidating. It's meant to take these guys and make them into kind of mythical, faceless agents of order and the law. And I'm sure that, you know, again, in Belarus or St. Petersburg, that's just fine, but not. Not in the United States of America.
- [31:24]
Tim Miller
One more thing on this. I mean, for starters, shame on you, Tim Cook. It's just. It's truly embarrassing the way that this. This person has groveled to Trump. I remember he brought him this little statue to the Oval Office. It's like Apple has more cash on hand than any. Any organization in the history of the world. Like, there's no.
- [31:42]
Tom Nichols
I don't understand this.
- [31:43]
Tim Miller
There's no reason for him to do this. It's pathetic.
- [31:45]
Tom Nichols
I don't understand it. I don't understand it with Tim Cook. I definitely don't understand it with somebody like Jeff Bezos. Every time I think of Bezos, I wonder, you know, and again, maybe it's because I'm old school and an older guy, but I would think that Jeff Bezos, you know, every time Trump growls, you'd pick up the phone and say, listen, I have more money than God, certainly more money than you, and I own a newspaper. You should be afraid of me, not the other way around. Because that's how it would have been in the old days, you know, well, I'm William Randolph Hearst. Don't fuck with me. And yet I don't understand this serial caving. And I'll just add one more thing, I think, I mean, I get it, that people say, well, you know, Trump will come and go. I have business interests that are enduring. I also think, and I said this at the start, I know you and I talked about this at one point, I suspect that a lot of these guys are saying, just give him some money and he'll go away.
- [32:41]
Tim Miller
Yeah, protection.
- [32:42]
Tom Nichols
Like, just give him shiny things you know, give him a statue, give him some cash and just, just get him, he'll, he'll move on to something else. But as, as you know, as people should have learned by now, give a mouse a cookie when a bully takes your lunch money. Many other folk sayings we could apply here, but they're going to come back. So one more.
- [33:02]
Tim Miller
And another thing on this, actually, as I've been sitting there getting mad listening to you talk about it, the libertarian guys, the supposedly libertarian guys, the free speech guys, I mean, beginning with Zuckerberg all the way down, I mean this, this is like one of the radicalization origin stories that they tell the Zuckerberg Rogan crowd that the Biden administration told tech companies that they should take down Covid misinformation at Taibi Barry Weiss. That's a big radicalization point for them. And I think they really overstated what actually happened in that case. Like it was like some mid level Biden people talking to and the tech companies could have told Biden to, to pound sand. So I kind of agree with them in principle, but like the degree to which they got obsessed over it was extremely exaggerated in my opinion. This is literally the federal government telling like directly from the top, the top of the government talking to the top of a tech company and saying, you must delete any information that citizens posted that they felt like they wanted to post to protect their safety or to at least inform their neighbors about what the federal government's activities were in their neighborhood. That is absolutely allowable in a free country. And anybody that got pissed about the Biden administration when it came to Covid misinformation, who's not shouting from the rooftops today is a fucking hypocrite and should be embarrassed about themselves. I mean, it's crazy.
- [34:28]
Tom Nichols
I mean, we live in a time of, you know, just almost painful cognitive dissonance. Now the people who pioneered, I mean the Trump supporters who pioneered the what about ism arguments, right? You know, when I brought up how out to lunch Trump seemed at this Admiral General jamboree that Hegseth called right away, there were people both in person and online saying, well, you didn't seem concerned. What about Joe Biden? And I'm like, okay, first of all, Joe Biden on his worst day was not this. But all that says is we are just as bad as we've always accused you of being, right? And it's the same problem here. It's like, if you're not upset, I think you're right. If you're not Upset about this. You know, were you full of shit then or are you full of shit now? Because you can't hold both of those positions. And let's add one more thing, because the government, I'm sure the government answer would be something like, look, it's a matter of security. This endangers law enforcement, blah, blah, blah. Look, we're not talking about moving, you know, like somebody posting, you know, the train carrying nuclear warheads is about to go through, you know, Sandusky, right. This is saying, listen, I live in this neighborhood. There seem to be cops moving around here and federal agents over there. I'm sorry. In an open society, you are allowed to notice where the police are.
- [35:51]
Tim Miller
Yes. Amen. Here's some more things that are happening in our supposedly open society. The purges. Should we start with DOJ or FBI? I guess we'll start with doj. The four top prosecutors have been forced out in that eastern district of Virginia, which is the district where they're charging Comey. There's one in particular, though, that I want to share with you, Michael P. Benari. I don't know anything about this person, but I think you're going to be pretty interested in what happened to him. He was fired shortly after MAGA shill Julie Kelly. You might know her. She's a big social media presence, a Trump shill. She posted on X. One can only assume Ben Ari was a big part of the internal resistance to the Comey indictment. In fact, Ben Ari had no role in the Comey investigation, according to two people familiar. This is a Washington Post story. He was, though, the lead prosecutor in the case of Mohammed Sharafullah, the plotter of the Abbey Gate attack that killed 13 U.S. service members and dozens of others who were being evacuated from Afghanistan. So the guy prosecuting the man that plotted the Aby Gate attack in Afghanistan, he's been fired because a MAGA shitposter thought that maybe he was a woke lib that was sympathetic to Jim Comey.
- [37:06]
Tom Nichols
If we're going to make national security appointments based on who Laura Loomer likes, why would we be surprised that some stray voltage from somebody like Julie Kelly took out somebody at doj? I mean, this is. This is all about loyalty checks now and about, you know, doing the performative stuff and about not talking about the Epstein files. Oh, I'm sorry, did that come up again? Because, you know, this is. This is meant to keep people. It's meant to churn and to have people like you and me talking about it.
- [37:40]
Tim Miller
I mean, it's also Meant to just make sure that only loyalists are inside the Justice Department. And the fact that, like, they don't actually give a fuck if these prosecutors are skilled at prosecuting bad, bad guys. They just care about whether they'll prosecute the people Donald Trump wants.
- [37:53]
Tom Nichols
That's the bottom line for the American public, is that these people are not just being replaced with loyalists. They're being replaced with people who are incompetent opportunists, who are not going to do the business of the American people, who are not going to make sure that the country's safe. I mean, all of this, all of these people spend their day protecting their own positions and consolidating the president's power. And, you know, every time I see stories like this, I think, so who's actually prosecuting crimes? Anybody?
- [38:22]
Tim Miller
That's a rhetorical question, but I think the answer is basically nobody. I mean, unless the crimes are immigration related, I think that's pretty much what's. What's happening as far as the federal prosecutions are concerned. Cash Patel also did a firing this week. Fired an agent in training. Any guesses? Have you seen that? With their.
- [38:40]
Tom Nichols
You know, that'll. That'll teach you to put a gay pride flag on your.
- [38:44]
Tim Miller
A gay pride flag on the desk. This is what Cash said after reviewing the facts and circumstances. This is while we're doing a movie reference. This is like, remind me of Lebowski. You know, the cops are coming over. It's like, yeah, we've been working in shifts to try to figure out what happened to your credence tapes. It's like, we had to review the facts. And how many people were involved in this review. It was a guy that had a pride flag on his desk. After reviewing the facts and circumstances, I've determined that you exercise poor judgment with an inappropriate display of political signage. And in your work area during your previous assignment, you're summarily dismissed. So that's where we're at. Just a rainbow flag is now as political signage. That's unacceptable. Like, we've got to run that person out.
- [39:27]
Tom Nichols
This from an administration that. Whose Hatch act violations are going off in every direction like a match thrown into a box of Roman candles. You know, putting things on federal websites that say the Democrats have shut down the government. When I was working for the government, as days, you remember, Tim, when I was back a federal employee, people were trying to get me fired every week for violating the Hatch act because, you know, it's an inappropriate expression of political, you know, partisanship. Because I would Write articles and so on. It's astonishing that, you know, a pride flag on a guy's desk is inappropriate signage, but, like, having the Republican Convention at the White House, you know, is. I mean, it's just incredible.
- [40:18]
Tim Miller
I wonder if there are any thin blue line flags on those desks. Or an Appeal to heaven flag, maybe, or, you know, one of the. One of Martha Analito's favorite flags or.
- [40:28]
Tom Nichols
An upside down American flag or. Yes. Pine trees or something.
- [40:32]
Tim Miller
Oathkeeper's. A skull. I bet there's a Punisher skull on one of those desks.
- [40:37]
Tom Nichols
But I think it's meant to have a chilling effect. It's meant to say, you know, that to work at the FBI, you have to be a loyalist. And again, it raises the question, well, who's doing FBI work while these guys are running around figuring out who's got a flag on their desk that you know about sexual orientation?
- [40:56]
Tim Miller
You can't be proud at this FBI. You can't be proud of being gay. You can be gay for now at the FBI. You just got to be quiet about it. It's like we're going back to the. To the 90s, all right? We just. We don't want you gays flouncing around talking to us about who did well on Drag Race last night. You know, we don't need any of that. See, that's a FBI.
- [41:17]
Tom Nichols
I've never seen Drag Race. It's a whole subculture that's a mystery.
- [41:20]
Tim Miller
Cash Patel is very butch. I said, you see the challenge coins of the skull coins that he's handing out? It's the most embarrassing thing that I think I've ever seen. The FBI director is handing out these challenge coins, and it's like, cash, K, money, sign H, and a skull.
- [41:35]
Tom Nichols
Oh, Jesus.
- [41:36]
Tim Miller
And it's like a child. Yeah.
- [41:38]
Tom Nichols
This is this whole administration operating on this cable news theory that our law enforcement and the military and all the other institutions have been somehow wussified that the Defense Department just sits around like your commanding general comes in and says, are you okay? Do you feel included and valued today? I mean, this isn't.
- [42:04]
Tim Miller
Did I make space for you at training?
- [42:07]
Tom Nichols
Right. Do you feel that you have space to speak pure truth? You know, I just. It doesn't. But that's not happening. And, you know, I. I mean, I. Every now and then, I just sit down and I watch Fox and I watch Newsmax, and I watch, you know, when I can find RSBN and all these other crazy. And it's like. It's like satellite signals that have Made it across the galaxy from some Earth too. You know, that's like orbiting, you know, at the other end of the Milky Way or something, because it's. It's just bonkers. But people believe it. And so I don't know if Patel or Hegseth or any of these guys really believe. It's so hard to tell what political opportunists really believe about anything.
- [42:50]
Tim Miller
I mean, I think Cash Patel is legitimately a little weenie with a micro phallus and he's trying to overcompensate and he's handing out skull coins to feel tough. I think that's authentic. I don't think there's anything he show about that.
- [43:04]
Tom Nichols
I can go with you on the skull coins to feel tough.
- [43:07]
Tim Miller
No comment on his dick size. Okay, that's fine. One more serious item. I guess they're all serious. One more bad news, then we'll see if we can find a silver lining at the end of the show. There was a. I guess it was yesterday on Yom Kippur. A British man of Syrian descent drove a car into pedestrians and then began stabbing people outside of Manchester's Hebrew Congregation Synagogue. Two men died. One of them was possibly killed by errant police fire. This anti Semitic violence that we're now seeing a bunch of places. I was kind of interested in some of the reactions to this, but do you have any thoughts on that broadly, before I get to the politics?
- [43:41]
Tom Nichols
I kind of chewed over a British citizen of Syrian descent. And I kept trying to figure out, because it does matter in terms of terrorist plots or trying to deal with where this threat came from, did that mean. And maybe, you know, because I couldn't divine it from.
- [44:00]
Tim Miller
I know what you're about to ask him. I don't know.
- [44:02]
Tom Nichols
Right. Was he a native born British citizen who, who's like, you know, like me being an American Irish descent, but I was born, I grew up here, you know, or was this a Syrian immigrant who was a nationalized British citizen because it makes a difference?
- [44:17]
Tim Miller
I think the former, but I don't know.
- [44:18]
Tom Nichols
Yeah, I don't either. And I thought it was just interesting the way it was reported that I couldn't figure it out. And my point is, if they're looking into was this a kind of planned terror attack, you know, with links back to the old country, it would make a difference about how this person was radicalized. And that was the only question I had. Was this lone wolf, you know, guy having an off day who, you know, decided to take out a synagogue or was this somebody who was radicalized somewhere else and then sent in like a cruise missile. And because I don't know the answer to that, to where the guy came from, I don't know the answer to that question. And just leaves me saying it's a tragic terrorist. Terroristic incident. But I don't really know how it came about.
- [45:11]
Tim Miller
I want to just talk for a second about Zoram Ondani's response to it. That was pretty interesting to me, and I kind of want to talk about it in sort of broader context of where we're at in our dialogue. He wrote this. On the holiest day in the Jewish year, an anti Semitic attack at a synagogue in England has taken the lives of two and gravely injured others. My thoughts are with the victims and their families while this terrible violence occurred an ocean away. A very real fear casts a shadow here, too. I appreciate Governor Hochul's calls to increase state police presence at synagogues. As mayor, I will do everything in my power to protect Jewish New Yorkers, as I will every faith community. The right to worship in peace is sacred. A totally appropriate and empathetic and correct statement to put out on the merits. The reaction to that. So I saw that, and I was like, oh, that's good. That's good. Like, just good. We don't need to throw flowers at somebody's feet for saying the right thing, but, like, that is good. I was happy to see that. And then I clicked on it and I looked at the responses, and it was mostly from pro Israel right wingers who were saying, fuck you. You did this. You were the one who, you know, who wouldn't condemn globalized Intifada, which was on my podcast. And I'm walking around all this and I'm saying, wait a minute, don't we want to model good? I just think this is what is wrong with where we are, right, in this discourse. People modeling good behavior, even if they're on the other side of you on an issue. You should just say, this is good. Great. I absolutely want Zoran Mandani to be promising to protect Jewish New Yorkers, to be saying the right things, to be trying to calm down tensions, you know, to be exercising human empathy, like, that's what you want. And yet, like, we get. We're in this situation where, like, you fucking can't win, right? And, you know, because, like, you do this and, like, you. You're. Who knows? I don't know. It's in Zoran's heart. Maybe you're. You're growing, or maybe he would have said this before that whole controversy, I don't know. But, like, but this is what people should want. And yet, like, every, every reaction to him was nasty, was condemning it. And I think that's just kind of telling because, like, that's where we're at right now, like, where the, you know, Trump and these guys will never, never try to model good behavior in these instances. And in some ways I worry they get rewarded for it. And like, Zoran does the right thing, gets no credit.
- [47:35]
Tom Nichols
You know, first of all, this is. Let me just go back to. This is why I was curious about who the attacker was and where he was from, because we have a tendency right away in all these attacks that, you know, the guy that shot at the guy that tried to kill President Trump, you know, the guy that shot up, I mean, we had, over the weekend, a week ago, we had like three mass shootings with, you know, weirdo, lone wolf guys, you know, just. Yeah, like, we still don't know how to categorize the guy who burned down the Mormon Church. You know, like, he was, like, he was a MAGA guy, but he hated Mormons and he had issues. And I can agree with people who say, well, you're a little late to the party after globalize, the Intifada kind of crap. I mean, a stupid thing to say to begin with. On the other hand, if now, as an emerging political leader, he puts out a statement that, as you point out, is absolutely the right thing to say, then it's the right thing to say. And the bind we're in an American politics is you can't ever change your mind. You can't ever try to correct or model good behavior, because then if you've ever engaged in bad behavior, it's, as you say, it's, it's unwinnable. Hey, the other day I actually said something nice about President Trump and people were like, fan, I said, we're doing intelligence sharing now with Ukraine again.
- [49:01]
Tim Miller
Yeah.
- [49:02]
Tom Nichols
And I said, good, okay. You know, I doubted his commitment to this. When he said he, you know, he's washing his hands of it. I said, one of the things I would look for is, is he going to allow intelligence sharing? He did. I'm not going to say anything bad about a good thing happening.
- [49:19]
Tim Miller
Great.
- [49:19]
Tom Nichols
You know, more of this, please.
- [49:21]
Tim Miller
Sure. Wish it was nine months ago.
- [49:22]
Tom Nichols
Wish it was nine months ago, but.
- [49:24]
Tim Miller
Like, great, let's do it.
- [49:25]
Tom Nichols
By the way, speaking of mom, Donnie, I was in a day and a half social media kerfuffle because of the other thing. Mom, Donnie said, which was that I would definitely arrest Netanyahu, you know, if he came to New York. And I had to. In my intern, I used to teach international relations. I was a professor all those years. And I said, ladies and gentlemen, Zoran Mumdani cannot arrest anybody on an ICC warrant and remand them to behave. He doesn't have that power. I know you all liked it when he said it. It's a dumb thing to say. He can't do it. Please move on. I think that's where a lot of politicians get themselves in trouble. They put out a good statement, then they say something down, then they go back and forth. But as you say, look, if. If you want to send signals to your political leaders, whether they're Zoran Mumdani or President Trump, you know, you should be as critical as you can be of the bad stuff. But when there's good stuff, it's okay to say it's good stuff. You don't. You don't lose your. I don't think anybody's gonna think that I'm now, like, you know, on the Trump 2028 train because I said one good thing about something he's doing.
- [50:30]
Tim Miller
Yeah. Also, if it's not performative, it's not fake. If, like, because I hear from people about this, like, there are folks that have legit concern about Mandani, that is, like, there is a spike in anti Semitic violence. Right. There's also maybe related to Zoran, not to his fault, but just like his prominence, there's been. There's a story I just saw this morning about some spikes in anti Islam violence as well. But there has just undoubtedly been a spike in anti Semitic violence and people that I've heard from who are like, my legit concern is for the safety of Jewish people in New York. Right. Like, as somebody who's in New York or has family there, and I just want to make sure that, like, the next administration is going to take that seriously and, like, that that's going to be a priority. Right. And that. And like, he says it right there, yes, that will be a priority. I will do that. And so if you're concerned, if you have a legitimate concern about that as policy, and he says, I'm addressing your legitimate concern, I'm telling you, I'm going to do this. You can hold him accountable if it doesn't happen in three years, but that is good. And so if you don't accept that, then what you're saying is, well, no, actually, this is just performative bullshit. And I just actually don't like his politics. And I'm just using the specter of violence against Jews as a cudgel to attack somebody I don't like.
- [51:46]
Tom Nichols
Yeah, and that's where I was going to go with this, Tim, which is, for example, again, in a bipartisan mode here. I think there are people who almost would rather that Ukrainians would suffer than say Trump did the right thing, because they want their political allegiances and partisanship to be neat and clean and black and white and a morality play. And the way I feel about Donald Trump is not a secret, certainly not to you or anybody who listens to this podcast. That shouldn't inhibit me from saying, okay, this is one thing that's happening that I like and I'd like to see more of it. And it's the same with Mamdani. Look, I, you know, I'm a New Englander. I care so little about who the mayor of New York is.
- [52:34]
Tim Miller
I mean, you didn't have deeply held views about Mayor Lindsay growing up, or. No, no.
- [52:41]
Tom Nichols
You know, I, I mean, really, when I, I'm down, you know, getting a lobster roll at the beach, I don't look across the water and say, hey, what's going on in New York City? Who are they going to? Who's going to be the mayor of that place? You know, it's just across the Long Island Sound here. I'm a little worried.
- [52:57]
Tim Miller
We've got some concerns about some of the municipal policies being put in place. I mean, is the trash going to.
- [53:01]
Tom Nichols
Get picked up and, you know, on Park Slope? But, you know, again, whatever your feelings about Mumtani, if he says, look, I'm going to, if I am elected, I will use the power of the New York City Police to. Because you go to New York, I go to New York. I'd like to feel safe there, you know, to protect all faith communities in New York. There is no bad part of that, and it's okay to say it even if you don't want free grocery stores and, I don't know, socialism and, you know, Marxist Leninist subway tokens.
- [53:30]
Tim Miller
Also socialist grocery stores. Not my favorite policy. But a 5 grocery store pilot in New York City does seem a little bit less pernicious than and a little bit, a little bit less scary and socialistic than, I don't know, like paying soybean farmers to not sell their soybeans with my tax dollars or taking a 10% stake in a tech chip company or any of the other fucking MAGA communist shit he's doing.
- [53:58]
Tom Nichols
Let us just point it out again. It may be that it's a bad idea to have five socialist, you know, grocery co op exchanges.
- [54:07]
Tim Miller
Who cares?
- [54:08]
Tom Nichols
Let me just speak to all of the Americans who don't live in New York City. You are not going to be paying for it. It's not your city.
- [54:15]
Tim Miller
Right. You know, you are paying for the.
- [54:16]
Tom Nichols
Farmer bailout, but we are paying and. Which is where we should go next, because, yes, you are going to pay for the farmer bailout. We predicted it, we said it. I'm going to go back to my infamous conversation with some Trump voters and one in particular back in Pennsylvania just before the election. I said, there's going to be tariffs. You're going to have to bail out the farmers again. And this voter said to me, I don't know what you're talking about. And I said, you live in Western Pennsylvania. You don't remember that Trump had to bail out farmers? Oh, that, that's, you know, fake news stuff. And I'm like, okay, and here we are. I wish, I kind of almost wish I could go back and just start looking around for some of those folks, say, hey, remember that conversation we had about the thing that didn't happen? And here it's like it was as predictable as the sunrise. Here we are again. Although apparently, did you see, I think it was percent who went on television and said, well, you know why they're not selling soybeans?
- [55:10]
Tim Miller
Joe Biden, like, what, they sold soybeans last year.
- [55:13]
Tom Nichols
But, but they know their audience. Yeah, they know their audience, Tim. All they have to do is say Joe Biden. And millions of, you know, FOX viewers.
- [55:22]
Tim Miller
Go, ah, we're also bailing out Argentina. And that's where China's getting their soybeans from now. So it's like because of our stupid fucking trade war, like, we are simultaneously bailing out farmers in South Dakota and the Argentine president.
- [55:36]
Tom Nichols
And wasn't Argentina supposed to be the role model we were going to emulate six months ago?
- [55:40]
Tim Miller
I don't know, Tom Nichols. I was going to bring up Ukraine as my silver lining at the end. So do you have anything in your personal life you want to share? Give people a happy note to leave. You know, any cat updates or anything happening in Rono?
- [55:52]
Tom Nichols
Oh, well, she, she's gone. She, she visited for a while. My cat is now a teenager and she is hilarious.
- [56:00]
Tim Miller
Any television shows, anything bringing you joy, Anything sparking joy in your life right now?
- [56:03]
Tom Nichols
There is a new season of slow horses, which I am enjoying because Jackson Lamb is my spirit Animal. A whole bunch of new stuff arrived all at the same time. So I'm making my way through Tulsa King and slow horses. But I have an old man gripe that we can finish with.
- [56:20]
Tim Miller
Okay, great. Love this.
- [56:21]
Tom Nichols
Are you guys ready for this? This is an Andy Rooney moment.
- [56:23]
Tim Miller
I love old man gripe.
- [56:24]
Tom Nichols
Am I the only person that occasionally has to to turn on closed captioning? Because the new thing in television is to mumble.
- [56:30]
Tim Miller
Not only is this not an old man. Right. Tom Nichols. This is something I've learned from my work on the FY Pod. People should check that out. Our Gen Z focus pod. The Gen Zs do closed captioning on everything.
- [56:43]
Tom Nichols
Really?
- [56:43]
Tim Miller
Yeah. They're closed captioning all the shows. Maybe it's because they're multi screening and I don't quite get it, but maybe you're young, actually. Maybe you're young at heart. Young in spirit.
- [56:55]
Tom Nichols
Because I just find on occasion now, like this method acting or something, Right?
- [57:00]
Tim Miller
Yeah.
- [57:00]
Tom Nichols
Where it's, you know, two characters and they started. I'm like, oh. Because the other thing I'm watching where this happens to me all the time is Task.
- [57:08]
Tim Miller
This show, great show.
- [57:10]
Tom Nichols
Dark, dark show. And I mean dark. Like, literally, like, it's always at night and there's no sunshine and it's not exactly a postcard for rural Pennsylvania, I can tell you that. But again, I find myself. I keep turning to my wife and saying what? Like. Like, you know, like I'm the old guy, you know, I do have to.
- [57:28]
Tim Miller
Break it to you. I am watching Task without the closed captioning. So maybe. Maybe it is your ears. Yeah.
- [57:34]
Tom Nichols
Well, except my wife has very good hearing. And I turn to her and I say, what did you say? And she goes. She nods and she says, no idea. And so we back up, and if it's a major plot point or seems to be, we have to back up and say, ah, okay, that's what he said. And I. So there you go. I'm sorry to end on this cranky old man note, but come on.
- [57:55]
Tim Miller
But you doing cranky old man things sparks joy in me, Tom. So it is a positive for me.
- [58:01]
Tom Nichols
This is what you have to look forward to in about 20 years, Tim.
- [58:04]
Tim Miller
I can't wait. We'll see if we still have a liberal democracy then, everybody. Thank you. It's been another great week at the Bulwark podcast. Hope you enjoyed it. We'll be back on Monday with Bill Christopher. Oh, we got a little double header coming on Monday. It's not just Bill Crystal. We've got a bonus guest that I hope you all enjoy as much as I will. We'll see you all then. Thanks to Tom Nichols.
- [58:23]
Tom Nichols
Thank you.
- [58:24]
Tim Miller
Bye, everybody. Peace.
- [58:26]
Katie Cooper
Your etiquette, your rules of interaction.
- [58:35]
Tim Miller
What.
- [58:36]
Katie Cooper
Are you waiting Nobody's home We're all out trying to find one what are we waiting for? The recipe a clear connection the time the dime, the dime, the dime the d the direction we just want we.
- [59:05]
Tim Miller
Don'T know Sam.
- [59:46]
Katie Cooper
This one's the odd this one wants the politic Everybody wants their own damn station if we're so fine maybe you can tell me why I'm no one counts until they're dead I just wanna I don't know.
- [60:16]
Tom Nichols
The.
- [60:17]
Katie Cooper
Imperfections are here to find if your position is so unkind Everything is not all right and since we live in the present tense the only hope of making sense all depends on the source of life deliverance in us.
- [61:01]
Tim Miller
The Borg podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.