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- [00:00]
Tim Miller
Hey, everybody, it's Tim. During this podcast, me and Tom Nichols discuss speculation that Congressman Jared Moskowitz, a Democrat from Florida, was going to be named the FEMA director in the Trump administration. Since we taped, Moskowitz tweeted that he is not going to be interested in that job and that he'll be running for reelection as a Democrat in Florida, something that I commend him for. I want to leave that exchange, though, in the podcast because I do think it speaks to some real fundamental questions about how Democrats and how the handful of anti Trump Republicans that exist, how they should deal with this administration and kind of the ethics of that and the strategic thinking around, you know, how to engage with the Trump administration. So, so we're going to keep that in there because I think the conversation is informative around that question. But the good news is Moskowitz is not going anywhere. The Democrats are not going to lose a seat in the House of Representatives. All right, up next, our friend Tom Nichols. Hello, and welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. I've been having fun in the green room, but before we get to the guest, we're in the final stretch between Christmas or Hanukkah or new whatever you're celebrating this year. It's Trump is going to be president again. So we're saying Merry Christmas again. So if you want to be a Bulwark member and you haven't yet, you can go to the bulwark.com subscribe. That can be a Christmas present to yourself or to a loved one. Come on, join. We need to be together because out there in the rest of the world, it's scary and dark and bad. And so, you know, we might as well all be dealing with that, processing it, you know, my favorite word processing, all that together over this holiday season. Go to the bulwark.com subscribe today. Of course, my guest is professor emeritus of the Naval War College. He's a staff writer at the Atlantic. He's the author of the Atlantic Daily Newsletter. His books include the Death of Expertise Dropping On Christmas Eve is an audiobook rendition read by Tom himself. It is Tom Nichols. He just blew his nose in the green room. I don't know if that's happening on the audiobook, too. If people are just getting old man sounds. And what do you do? Do you freelance? Do you do the Trump thing where, like, you read the words on the page and then you vamp a little bit or, or what?
- [02:15]
Tom Nichols
Yeah, I stop. I stop every other paragraph and I go, so True. So true.
- [02:20]
Tim Miller
So true. Great point, Tom. That is a good point, Tom. All right, Tom Nichols, I hear you were in Europe. You're in Europe. Prague, Brussels. What's the view from our European allies?
- [02:36]
Tom Nichols
I purposely went there with. Intending to avoid the news, which I did. I just tuned into the Beeb to keep up on the serious stuff, and it was a very nice break. It was a reminder of how self absorbed American politics has become. That turn on BBC World and you find out a lot about, basically that the entire geopolitical order of the Middle east is being reorganized rather than, you know, what Pete Hegseth's tattoos mean.
- [03:07]
Tim Miller
You know, there's news in Romania, you know, there's. There's coups in South Korea. There's just. There's stuff happening out there.
- [03:13]
Tom Nichols
There's stuff happening out there, exactly. But I. I went to Europe because my wife and I decided that after the election, win, lose or draw, no matter how it came out, we planned, like, six months ago, you know, just living through all this politics that we were going to pull chocks. And so we started in London and we went through Paris and Brussels and ended up in walking the cobblestone streets of Prague. And it was very nice. But it was interesting because I went in 2017 after the election, and, you know, people would say, oh, you're, you know, you're an American. What's going on with that new president this time? People were like, yeah, whatever. I ran into a few, like, British tourists or like, well, you know, interesting, mate. Yeah, you know, and I'm like, yeah, whatever. The few times that politics came up when I was with groups, I ran into some Americans and run into other people overseas, and, you know, I just found myself and them with that sort of same vibe we all have over here of like, I don't know, you can't even sum it up in a word. It's more like, you know, this sort of. This kind of sigh of exhaustion of like, Jesus Christ, here we go again.
- [04:23]
Tim Miller
You know, this is defeat kind of, right? It's like this acceptance. Like, this is. I guess this is just who you Yankees are, right?
- [04:29]
Tom Nichols
The first time you could write it off and say, you know, most of us aren't like this. Most of us wouldn't want this guy, you know, in our house talking to our kids. But, you know, look, he. He won 49.8% of the vote or whatever it was. He won. As I said in 2016, he won fair and square. Doesn't matter whether you like him or not. He's the duly elected president, you know, 47th president. And you can't write that off as an accident anymore. You have to say, this is, you know, this is what American voters wanted. And before I get angry mail from Democrats who say, well, it's not what we wanted, well, you know, you didn't show up. So by default, you were either okay with it or it didn't bother you enough to show up in the numbers that you did in 2020. So, you know, it is kind of who we are, that either we actively wanted this, or it didn't really bother us enough to be, you know, arsed enough to kind of go vote. So, yeah, there was that sense, I think. I don't think it's defeat, though, Tim. I think it's exhaust. I think you got it right with. It's just like, acceptance, like, whatever.
- [05:30]
Tim Miller
You know, the last time we talked, it was two days after the election, and I went and I was re. Listening to it in the shower this morning. I like to have Tom Nichols in my ear in the shower. And that's evocative. Thank you. And we were pretty defeated in that conversation and resigned. And I'm just curious, like, you've now had a vacation since then? Since then, we've had Matt Gaetz nominated and then withdrawn as Attorney General. Pete Agseth, Tulsi, rfk, All this has happened. The folding of the oligarchs, you know, to Donald Trump, the acquiescence. I'm just wondering how you assess the state of affairs right now versus how you did on election night.
- [06:15]
Tom Nichols
I am both more. And I'm going to give you one of those weaselly answers.
- [06:20]
Tim Miller
Yeah, great. I love weasel.
- [06:21]
Tom Nichols
I'm more optimistic, Tim, but I'm less optimistic, too.
- [06:23]
Tim Miller
Okay. In what ways?
- [06:25]
Tom Nichols
I knew it was going to be bad, but I didn't expect his Cabinet nominations to sound like the setup for a cold open at Saturday Night Live. Like, you can see them sitting around the writer's room. It's like, okay, okay. All right. So Pete Hegseth comes in, right? Because he's the Secretary of Defense now. Right. And Tulsi Gabbard is the dni. Okay. And, you know. And you're, like, saying, okay, nobody, even Donald Trump, you know, nobody would do this. So in that sense, you know, I'm like, just astonished that how quickly we've normalized saying things like defense Secretary nominee Pete Hegseth, as if that's like, a thing you would say outside of a parody. On the other hand, I really want to caution people against this Preemptive despair and nihilism. You know, I mean it seems like a lot of the folks who once, you know, were running around being resistance liberals and Trump opponents and you know, even I suppose I think our never Trump OGs are, you know, always held firm eight years ago and now. But look, the guy is not a supernatural being. I mean the fact that Matt Gaetz got turfed so fast should tell you something. And that the thing going on in the Senate right now, I keep hearing these stories about, oh, Joni Ernst is getting to. Yes. And you know, they're gonn warm to these nominees. Look, I worked in the Senate right now these senators realize there is nothing in it for them right now to keep going out there and slamming their head into a brick wall and getting hate mail and death threats from Maga world. That doesn't mean anything for what could happen in the next month or after confirmation hearings. You know, I guess what I'm saying, Tim, is in a way I thought it would be bad in a very dark way like there would be all these nominees like okay, I'll give an example. One nominee that I think flew right under the radar who is really dangerous because I think he does know what he's doing. He's thought about stuff is Ross Vout.
- [08:26]
Tim Miller
Russ Vought. Yep.
- [08:28]
Tom Nichols
You know what I mean? Like we're all sitting here saying, oh, you know, you know, again, what a p. What does it mean when Pete Hegseth, you know, took his shirt off? No, Russ Vought is the guy. If I'm going to worry about anybody, I worry about the guys who know what they're doing, who have made plain their intentions, you know, in numerous writing and speeches. So I expected more guys like that. Not this kind of, you know, clown bus of, you know, stuff that is just. But that's bad too. And I'll get off my soapbox.
- [09:00]
Tim Miller
Sure.
- [09:00]
Tom Nichols
But I don't want to minimize that because one thing that occurred to me, I was trying not to think about politics in Europe. I was going to Christmas markets and I was trying. I had mulled wine for the first time in my life and it's bad. So I'm just going to say that, yeah, I think it didn't taste, it didn't taste good. But I kept watching this news from Syria and saying this is a momentous earth moving geostrategic change. And I'm trying to imagine if this had happened and somebody walks into brief Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Dni Tulsi Gabbard and Attorney General Pam Bondi.
- [09:38]
Tim Miller
Well, the DNI is on the side of the deposed.
- [09:41]
Tom Nichols
Well, exactly. I kept thinking that it's like O, how do you go in and tell, how do you walk into ODNI and there's Tulsi Gabbard saying, madam Director, you're not going to like this. I got good news and I got bad news. No, I'm lying. There's no good news. So I'm worried. But I think there were a lot of strategic mistakes in this tranche of nominees. And one last thing. These are the nominees right? Now. Remember that everybody that Trump appoints, even after they're confirmed, is gone. Fired by Tweed at some point down the line.
- [10:18]
Tim Miller
Yeah, they're on a one day contract. I've been listening to that answer. I want to get a little heavier with you for a second because there's this micro to despair, not to despair question of should we hope that Trump can be stopped and that his nominees can be stopped, and are there things that we can do to minimize the damage and to win in the midterms and can Democrats win again in the future? And I think both of us are on the side of, yes, things can be done. This is bad, but we must not descend into nihilism. We must maintain the knowledge that we can fight, that we can recover. So I agree with you on that. I do wonder about this though, is that some of the people who are despairing is related to your Europe trip and that the thing that they're despairing is that even if he does fail, even if he does bumble, which we all expect, and even if the Democrats do win in the midterms, and even if the Democrats do win in 2028, like something fundamentally has now been broken that is unfixable and that is what is underlying people's nihilism, right? That like the things that they cared about, the things that they thought that America was, that has been revealed, that it is not those things and that it's not worth caring about these, you know, whatever it is, the traditions, the norms, the, you know, the majesty of, of American democracy like that we've gone behind the curtain and the wizard is not there and it's Donald Trump, you know, that's beneath all of these things that we have venerated and that is what is leading people to despair, actually. And that, and that, you know, well, maybe we can win some battles in the micro, in the macro. This thing is permanently fucked.
- [12:05]
Tom Nichols
It is hard to feel the same way about the country these days, at least for me. You know, Patriotism is an act of will. I still love this country. I love what it stands for. I love, you know, the values on which it's based. And I think most. I still believe that most of the people in this nation believe in the. In the founding principles of America, at least in some core gut way of constitutional, not the legal sense, but that constitutional guarantee of freedom, freedom of speech, freedom of religion. So before I descend too far into the darkness, I'll just say that. But with that said, yeah, there's something. There is a. When Jimmy Carter loses to Ronald Reagan, I mean, that was my first election. Right. You know, you had gripey college kids, and I was living in Boston at the time, you know, liberals walking around Boston. This is terrible. And it was America's screwed. But, you know, you didn't have this sense of, like, existential doom, even among the far left. I mean, Nixon wins a landslide in 72, and you don't get this existential doom. And in fact, he's gone two years later this time. I think the problem is, and, you know, you can tell that we both spend some time talking to Jonathan Last, who is the king of this kind of gloom. JBL is just the. He's the prince of darkness when it comes to this. To say that if Donald Trump were impeached or removed from office three days after he gets in, you still have to live with the fact that in many settings, you can look around the room and say, at least if you live in a blue state, at least three or four people, and if you live in a red state, seven or eight people think that everything Donald Trump said was basically okay. And that's hard. That's a hard thing to grasp. I was with some friends here, where I live, and one of them said, well, you're not. You don't judge people based on how they voted, do you? And I said, I don't. I said, I don't want to, but it's. It's hard. And I know you. And I brought this here. I use the David Duke analogy. I said, replace Donald Trump with, you know, David Duke. Say, hey, I, you know, I'm a. I'm a good family man and I love my country, but I voted for David Duke. And, you know, I'm sorry, but you reach moral conclusions about people when they do stuff like that.
- [14:23]
Tim Miller
I definitely have some neighbors that voted for David Duke to think that I'm in Louisiana. So that's an embarrassing.
- [14:28]
Tom Nichols
Absolutely, bro. Yeah. And I'm hopeful that there were millions of people who voted this way, who Just weren't paying attention. As amazing as that seems that they just really didn't tune in or pay attention to any of this stuff or they tuned out years ago. But yeah, I share that kind of existential dread that can the country when I was a kid, and now I'm going to do the old man thing. When I was a kid, every classroom in the 60s, you know, we had a calendar and the calendar always had a picture of all the presidents, right? And you just felt like that was like this. I mean, at the time you didn't know that Warren Harding, you know, was a womanizing doofus. You know, you didn't realize, you didn't know Andrew Jackson was a, you know, genocidal maniac, right?
- [15:13]
Tim Miller
You know, now Trump's on that picture twice. Oh my God, twice.
- [15:17]
Tom Nichols
And I can remember when Nixon, when Nixon resigned and I, you know, I was just coming out of that kind of grade school and I was like, wow, there's a guy on here who got like forced from office, you know, and now it's like, yeah, you know, maybe just don't put up those calendars anymore. Just, you know, just let that go, okay?
- [15:34]
Tim Miller
We're going down a rabbit hole. I didn't mean to go. We're gonna get to the news, I promise. People who turn into this daily podcast for the news, we'll get there. This is what, you know, woke Tim would say. This is what the woke folks would say about this, which is that poster was always bullshit and Chris rocked it kind of a bit on Saturday Night Live this weekend about how like, oh, Donald Trump is going to, you know, the dignity of the office will be sullied. An office held by multiple rapists and people who, people who put their hand on the Bible while their slaves, like, was pregnant with their baby, you know, and it's like there's something to be said for that, right? Is it like, is actually, is it just like our naivete here's woke Tim. Is it our white privilege naivete that has just been, that has just been cracked and like we believed some stupid myths and it's time for us just to be a little more hard headed. Is that possible?
- [16:22]
Tom Nichols
Look, part of what helps society keep its guardrails is the old expression. Hypocrisy is the tribute vice pays to virtue, right? To say yes. You know, look, when people talk about somebody was doing a piece and they said the same office held by, you know, Lincoln or Reagan or I can't remember who it was, and Jack Kennedy, and I'm like, jack Kennedy did things in the White House that are really.
- [16:48]
Tim Miller
Bad, would make you blush, would make some of our listeners bless.
- [16:52]
Tom Nichols
Exactly. But there was at least a sense that the President had to say things and behave in a way that preserved a certain amount of the social order in public. And what Trump does, I mean, in a way, I imagine the Trump White House is probably far less creepy than a lot of things that happen in the Kennedy White House, but far more destructive to the country because there is no inspiration there to be better. There is no ask not what your country can do for you. You know, there is none of that. It's. It's Trump. It's, it's crudeness and vulgarity, and it's all kind of put out there as a virtue in itself.
- [17:33]
Tim Miller
Yeah, some myth making is good. So you're saying. Yes, I guess something is good.
- [17:37]
Tom Nichols
Of course it is.
- [17:37]
Tim Miller
Calling, calling us to our higher selves and building up the best parts of the country, rather than obsessing over all the flaws, like, you know, rather than reveling in the flaws and saying that the flaws are the good parts, like, that is a. That is a negative change.
- [17:52]
Tom Nichols
You know, I was joking. I was joking about Andrew Jackson a minute ago, you know, being the kind of Northeast elitist that I am, you know, I'm not a big fan of Jackson, but on the other hand, I'm like, I look at him on a $20. I kind of get it, you know, that we create a myth around Andrew Jackson of, you know, the populace, the Democrat, the Old Hickory old.
- [18:09]
Tim Miller
Yeah, you know, man of the people.
- [18:11]
Tom Nichols
But because it does inspire us to at least try to be the better people that we are when we are in public and dealing with each other in the civic space. And, you know, when you look back at presidential debates, for example, you know, where you said these are reasonable human beings, we Disagree. Like John McCain said, he's a good family man with whom I have very profound disagreements. Right. And now it's all become this reality show kind of, you know, what's that Squid Game kind of nonsense. And I think it just makes us into worse people. And I think now we have to wrap up the darkness. Tim. But going back to your point about how do you kind of process how many people voted this way? I think eight years of the age of Trump has made a lot of Americans into worse people. I mean, genuinely corroded their characters. Look, you and I even, I see.
- [19:10]
Tim Miller
It on the Internet.
- [19:11]
Tom Nichols
I mean, I find myself writing about politics in a way that when I was, I mean, remember I came to writing out of 30, 30, 35 years of academia.
- [19:20]
Tim Miller
Right.
- [19:21]
Tom Nichols
You know, I tried to do these very measured things about foreign policy and national security. And now I find myself saying, you know, I'm writing about all this lunacy going on and it, it affects all of us. It has brought all of us down closer to Trump's level. And I'm sorry to see that. And I wish there were a little more hypocrisy in American public life to be hon.
- [19:43]
Tim Miller
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- [23:41]
Tom Nichols
That question when you sent me the email this morning, because I had missed this piece of news and you said all it said in your email was, hey, Tom Topics, Jared Moskowitz and fema. And I'm like, what does Trump said? He's going to use FEMA to arrest Jared Moskowitz. What does that mean? Of course, being the conscientious podcast guest that I am, I went and looked it up and I went again. Is this happening? First of all, the first thing I thought of is, what Democrat who cares about his party? What member of either party? Let's not make it about Democrats. What member of either party would leave when their party is close to pretty much a tie in the House and endanger that? But also then I thought, what do you gain from this? And again, there's no comment from Moskowitz. Right. At this point, this is all speculation. But assuming that you take a job like this and you say, well, look, rather, to quote Mr. Burns, rather than allowing them to wallow in their own crapulence, you decide to say, look, I'm going to pitch in and help out because it's a really important thing. And if there's a disaster, somebody respond. I mean, but that was what every establishment Republican who went to work for Trump in 2016 thought. Yeah, it did not work. And the other thing is that, you know, if you've never worked for a politician, dear listeners, you can't just work part of the street. You can't just say, well, I'm going to be the appointed FEMA head, but I'm going to totally dissent from the president on all these other important issues. No, once you're an appointee, you are on the team. You defend the. You are part of the administration, you're part of the team. You defend the president's positions. And if you don't, if you can't, then you have to get out. I mean, I worked for a senator. I didn't call it my, you know, write stuff and give interviews and say, you know, I think the senator's great senator, but, boy, his position on this farm bill is just nuts. You know, if you work for the guy, you work for the guy. I understood that idea in 2016 or 2017. I don't understand it in 2024. How anybody can think that they are going to do that and somehow, you know, end up unscathed. Doesn't make any sense to me.
- [25:55]
Tim Miller
To me, this is the fundamental truism of Trump, right? Which is that the people who get involved because they think that they are going to be able to clean him up are only made dirty by him, Right? Like he doesn't get clean, they just get dirty. Like that's what happened. Like that is. That's it. Like that's happened every single time. There's like no counter exception.
- [26:16]
Tom Nichols
And that I'll be allowed to do my job and do good things for America and my, you know, innate merit and talent will see me through and I won't get caught up and all of this other horrible shit that goes on in Washington. No, to join this administration and really to join almost any administration, but especially this one, you are going to get caught up in it. And especially in an organization that is at the center of so many crazy pants, bonkers conspiracy theories.
- [26:47]
Tim Miller
Right. Climate. Yeah.
- [26:48]
Tom Nichols
You know, I mean, it's not like.
- [26:49]
Tim Miller
You become Debra Birx.
- [26:51]
Tom Nichols
Yes.
- [26:51]
Tim Miller
You become Debra Burks. You go in, you become Debra Burks, who by all accounts is a serious person that just got totally sullied and her reputation ruined while she tried to nudge Donald Trump to do better.
- [27:04]
Tom Nichols
I think that's a really good analogy, Tim. I think she's a good example of I tried to defend Berks during the pandemic by saying, look, she's an appointee, she's an ambassador, she's a career military officer. That telling the commander in chief that he's all hosed up doesn't come naturally to a lot of, you know, former military folks. It's not, not part of that culture. You know, what do you expect her to do? Just walk out and resign in the middle of pandemic and all that stuff? But with all that said, you know, hey, she's a big girl, grown woman, a colonel in the army, I mean, you know, an ambassador, a doctor. At some point you say, yeah, maybe I do walk out there and say, this is too host up. But as you say, the lesson is out there this time. There cannot be any doubt about what happens to you if you become part of the Trump administration.
- [27:54]
Tim Miller
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- [29:52]
Tom Nichols
Yeah.
- [29:55]
Tim Miller
That'S where we're at. That's where we're at. Zuck, who in 2017 did, like, was doing this apology tour where he went around the country listening to people and trying to understand, you know, where he had gone wrong and how Trump had taken over the country. And I'm trying to be an earnest, you know, I'm this earnest business leader who cares about you. No, no, no, no, no. This time I'm gonna fly down to Mar a Lago, I'm gonna suckle on Trump's toes, and I'm gonna put my hand over my heart as people that stormed the Capitol sing a rendition of the National Anthem.
- [30:30]
Tom Nichols
Really didn't need to think about the toes, Tim, but sorry. I mean, I have a lot of theories about the kind of tech oligarchs that came up in the 90s, which I think were a very dark time in American history. I shouldn't plug other people's books, I guess, because you gotta get out there and get my audiobook. But I've been reading the John Gantz book about the 80s which I think has been the 90s.
- [30:54]
Tim Miller
It's been on my list.
- [30:55]
Tom Nichols
It's actually. It's actually very good. And I think, you know, even where I disagree with. It's easy to have reasonable but interesting disagreements with it. But the 90s, to me were this time where, you know, guys that were not, shall we say, the most socially adept human beings nonetheless kind of walked into this Internet casino and came out gazillionaires. They invented something, and, you know, God bless them, right? If you invent a browser or an app or whatever it is, and you get rich off it, that's the American dream. I think that's wonderful. Somehow, though, as those guys progressed into middle age, two things were true. One is that they became convinced, as rich people often do become convinced, that great wealth means that they have great insights about everything. And also that they still carried those kind of weird insecurities and resentments, you know, from being nerds or whatever they were back then. I mean, you look at Zuckerberg, you look at Musk, you look at, you know, who else do you want to pick? There's this kind of strange, almost outsider status that they can't seem to get over. I mean, Musk and Trump, such a net natural pairing to me, of two guys that, no matter how successful they get, are always trying to, like, figure out where the cool kids are.
- [32:07]
Tim Miller
Yeah. Have you seen Zuck's new outfit? He's got. He's had a little makeover. Yeah. Good, actually. But, you know, I mean, it speaks to the insecurities you're talking about.
- [32:17]
Tom Nichols
There was a lot of stuff in the Social Network that was fictionalized, but, you know, there were. I mean, there was an essential truth that, you know, this was kind of like, how did this guy become famous? Well, sort of hanging out and feeling sort of socially excluded and creating this thing, and it makes you super rich. It doesn't make you super smart. When I have interacted with some of these guys, David Sacks comes to mind. Nothing makes them angrier than telling them, look, this is not something you know about. No, you don't really understand the Ukraine war. I'm sure you invented a very good app that does a thing on my phone, and I'm glad you got rich from it, but that doesn't mean you have a clue about go politics in Central Europe. They just get furious about that, because, again, it's that sense of, like, no, I matter. I'm important. I have big things to say about important stuff. So it's not surprising that when finally Trump Says, hey, all the gates are down. Experts don't matter. All that matters is that you come and kiss my ring and you can talk to me about any kind of important stuff. That's catnip that weds this notion of that great wealth should imply great influence, as opposed to people saying, hey, you know, I'm a really rich guy, but this isn't my bailiwick.
- [33:33]
Tim Miller
You know, the other example of this is this Marc Andreessen, and I'm kind of obsessed with him right now because everybody's focused on Musk because he's so public about everything, and Zuckerberg because he's so famous, and Bezos and, you know, Zuckerberg and Bezos have bent the knee. And Musk is, you know, like the most powerful oligarch in the history of the country. I mean, like, certainly in the. In the Post World War II era, maybe you go back to the robber baron era. There's a good analogy of somebody.
- [34:03]
Tom Nichols
I'm going to take issue with that, but I'll.
- [34:05]
Tim Miller
Okay, no, go ahead. Let's take issue with that. I'm not sure I want to wait to get to Anderson. Let's take. Go ahead. Let's talk about Musk.
- [34:09]
Tom Nichols
He is certainly the most visible. He has a lot of influence over a president elect at the moment. But of course, as is always the case, whoever the last guy in the room is always has a lot of influence. Influence with Trump. He certainly seems to spend more time with Trump than. Who's the guy I'm trying to think of? He's supposed to be really close to Trump.
- [34:30]
Tim Miller
Vance.
- [34:31]
Tom Nichols
J.D. vance.
- [34:32]
Tim Miller
Oh, the vice president.
- [34:35]
Tom Nichols
The invisible man. Right. I mean, if you were from Mars, you would think that Elon Musk was Trump's vice president at this point. But all kidding aside, when I think of really influential oligarchs, I think of the guys we never talk about. Right. The guys that for years, I mean, you know, if you talked about, like, the guys from these Wall street firms, a guy like, you know, Dulles, you know, or somebody like that, who these people were part of this permanent elite that even when they were in their law offices in New York, they were running things in Washington. So I don't want us to fall too far down that hole about how powerful Musk is.
- [35:13]
Tim Miller
That's a fair caveat. Maybe powerful is the wrong word. I guess I'd say this. He's the country's biggest government contractor, and he also lives in the president elect's bedroom, apparently, like at his house. And so maybe powerful, but his influence, at least in this very moment, in this moment, is not akin to anything that we've seen in a long time. And so I think that he deserves a lot of attention. And Sachs, as you mentioned, because of his podcast, gets a lot of attention now. He's like the crypto czar or whatever.
- [35:40]
Tom Nichols
You know, while we're on the subject, I mean, and Joe Rogan, who has a huge, huge amount of influence, you know, for a guy that used to eat bugs, I mean, it was. I mean, it's just.
- [35:51]
Tim Miller
It.
- [35:51]
Tom Nichols
Yeah. I mean, I'm kind of interested in where Tucker is. He's been. That's one of those things where, you know, while Musk is capering and cavorting, I'm kind of wondering where Tucker is.
- [36:00]
Tim Miller
Yeah, we'll learn more once the foreign policy starts to come into focus in the next administration. But, I mean, he's. He was very influential in choosing the vp.
- [36:07]
Tom Nichols
Absolutely.
- [36:08]
Tim Miller
So here's the thing about Andreessen, though, is he's almost as rich as all these other guys, right? He. He runs the most powerful. I think I keep throwing that around, but one of the most influential, one of the top VC firms in the Valley. He's on the board of Facebook. He's. And he's very interested in AI and crypto. And I look at these two issues and, like, what do these guys want? Right. As I think you point out, a lot of them want attention. A lot of them are boys who were not popular in high school and now got all this power and think they know everything and want attention. That's definitely part of it. But they also are businessmen. They also want something financially. And Musk has a ton of interests. But the two main issues are AI and crypto and TikTok, which we've seen now Trump start to back off of, right? Like, they were not happy with the regulatory regime around these products and these verticals. And Andreessen, who has been going down to Mar a Lago, has apparently been interviewing people that are going to be regulating companies that he invests in. He explained to Barry Wein, nice. Why he ended up going all in for Trump. And it was around AI and I want to listen to this in D.C.
- [37:18]
C
In May, where we. We talked to them about this, and the meetings were absolutely horrifying. And we came out basically deciding we had to endorse Trump.
- [37:25]
D
What.
- [37:25]
Tom Nichols
What did you hear in those meetings?
- [37:27]
C
AI is a technology, basically, that the government is going to completely control. This is not going to be a startup thing. They actually said flat out to Us. Don't start. Don't do AI startups. Like, don't. Don't fund AI startups. It's not something that we're going to allow to happen. They're not going to be allowed to exist. There's no point. Point. They basically said, AI is going to be a game of two or three big companies working closely with the government, and we're going to basically wrap them in a. You know, I'm paraphrasing, but we're going to basically wrap them in a government cocoon. We're going to protect them from competition, we're going to control them, and we're going to dictate what they do. And then I said, well, I said, I don't understand how you're going to lock this down so much because, like, the math for, you know, AI is, like, out there and it's being taught everywhere. And, you know, they literally said, well, you know, during the Cold War, we classified entire areas of fitness physics and took them out of the research community and entire branches of physics basically went dark and didn't proceed. And that if we decide we need to, we're going to do the same thing to the math underneath AI.
- [38:17]
Tom Nichols
Wow.
- [38:18]
Tim Miller
Wow.
- [38:18]
C
And I said, I've just learned two very important things.
- [38:22]
Tim Miller
Wow. Okay, so there are two points here to tell me what your reaction to. One is. He reveals that this is what he cares about. He doesn't want AI to be regulated in any way, and I think that is important intelligence. Two, this conversation is obviously a lie, though I'm sure he's unhappy with the Biden administration's policies towards AI. But the notion that somebody in the Biden administration told them not to do AI startups and that they were going to classify big portions of AI like it was nukes, like it was the Cold War. This doesn't feel like a real conversation, but what are your thoughts?
- [38:56]
Tom Nichols
Two thoughts. One is that I thought, when he said, I'm paraphrasing, I thought that word was doing a lot of work.
- [39:01]
Tim Miller
Yeah, like I'm making this up.
- [39:02]
Tom Nichols
Actually, I'm paraphrasing. Oh, okay. I'd like to know. I mean, I can't say that his account is accurate or not, but I'll just say that when he said, I'm paraphrasing, I said, sure. Sounds like a lot of paraphrasing going on there.
- [39:15]
Tim Miller
Usually as an interviewer, I'm learning how to be an interviewer. I'm relatively new to this. But if somebody tells you a story and your reaction to that is. Wow.
- [39:23]
Tom Nichols
Wow.
- [39:24]
Tim Miller
That seems crazy generally. Like, maybe, I don't know, you follow up and try to get a little more like, who was this person that told you that? Was it Joe Biden himself? Was it. Was it Tony Blinken who was like, we're going to classify? And is that how Cold War classification worked? That was.
- [39:39]
Tom Nichols
That was my second reaction as a bona fide Cold War expert. That is not what happened during the Cold War. I'm sure he thinks that that's what happened. No. Entire parts of physics did not go dark during the Cold War. Work that was done with physics on things related to nuclear weapons became classified. One of the funniest moments. Funniest. One of the coolest moments of the Cold War was when a doctoral student, I want to say, at Princeton, basically wrote his thesis on how to make a nuclear bomb, and the FBI showed up. And the guy was like, listen, these things have been around for, like, 35 years. They're not hard to figure out. You know, by the time I was finishing my teaching career, I would tell students, remember, this is a technology that came out when, you know, like, before people had TVs and airplanes still had propellers. So this notion that. Oh, yes, well, they just. Classified. I don't think he knew what he was talking about there. My gut sense of that you and I kind of talked about this a little this morning, is that I can't believe that anybody's entire position on who should be president rested on one conversation about AI but maybe that's how he does things. But it also struck me that that sounded very much, again, like somebody went down and said, I have many smart things to say about AI. And some government people said, well, we don't agree with all that. And he said, okay, screw you.
- [40:59]
Tim Miller
Yeah, screw you. And you know who will listen to me? The other moron, right?
- [41:03]
Tom Nichols
The guy who doesn't understand a word and doesn't care. He'll treat me. Because when you said they're looking for attention, the word I replaced in my head was respect.
- [41:13]
Tim Miller
Yeah. The respect that he deserves. The president should call me and should ask me about my expertise on anything that is all related to the technology sphere because I'm so.
- [41:23]
Tom Nichols
Or even unrelated. Or even unrelated, you know, or even unrelated. But I mean, I think again, you know, all these guys have this sense that I am fantastically wealthy, and somehow that hasn't bought me the respect that I crave in all of these areas. And the one place where I can really get it is in the place where expertise and knowledge Just don't matter. Which is going to be the Trump administration.
- [41:48]
Tim Miller
We're going to have much more where this came from. These are the guys to be monitoring right now.
- [41:52]
Tom Nichols
I can't believe I'm going to quote Bernie Sanders there, but wasn't it Sanders who said something this weekend about. About never have so few people had so much money and so much influence concentrated in such a small circle. You know, I am not a big fan of Bernie Sanders and he said a few things lately that I think are kind of kooky. But that was pretty good summation. I mean that is a really.
- [42:12]
Tim Miller
He's right about that. And it's important for the impact on all of our lives, for impact on policy and for the Democrats political layout, I think.
- [42:21]
Tom Nichols
And for a movement that thinks of itself as populist, which is always, you know, that's never gonna be. Not funn to say. Well, we're the populist movement, which is why we're guided by a handful of oligarchs and billionaires, you know, doing things behind closed doors.
- [42:37]
Tim Miller
Yeah, it goes against the ethos of what the contrarian Rogan bro is like. And eventually these nerds are going to bite off more than they can chew. I think if there's somebody you haven't bought a Christmas gift for here on December 17, it might be because you're a procrastinator or it might be because they're kind of hard to shop for for. Luckily, there's one gift that everyone on your list is sure to enjoy. An Aura digital picture frame. Named number one by Wirecutter. Aura frames make it incredibly easy to share unlimited photos and videos directly from your phone to the frame. When you give the Aura frame as a gift, you can personalize and pre load it with a thoughtful message and photos using the Aura app, making it an ideal present for long distance loved ones. It's a gift so special they'll use it every day. The good people at Aura have been giving me, you know, some extra aura carver matte digital frames. So we've been handing them out. And the fun part is you can give the same gift to your friend and to your aunt, but have it be totally different. Have it be totally personalized. The aunt is going to get pictures of my daughter and the family seeing what's happening out there. You know, now they can have a view into our life here in New Orleans. The friend can send them old, funny, drunk pictures from college. And it's like a whole different type of experience. It's a gift that works for everybody. So save on the perfect gift by visiting Oraframes.com to get 35 bucks off or as best selling carver matte frames by using promo code Bulwark at checkout. That's a U R A frames.com promo code bulwark. This deal is exclusive to listeners, so get yours now in time for the holidays. Terms and conditions apply. You mentioned the Assad defenestration, the overthrow of Assad and how you saw that from Europe. I do need to mention, and I had referenced, I forget if it was with Bill or with Ann, the video of Clarissa Ward. And there's a man who was released by rebels from a Damascus jail. And we talked about that and just how amazing that scene was. It turns out that that was a whiff and that the person that was imprisoned was not actually imprisoned. He was a intelligence officer for Assad. That was. That had tricked cnn. So Clyster Ward's an amazing journalist, but CNN had to correct this kind of embarrassingly since I mentioned it on the pod the other day. I wanted to also mention that. But regardless of that specific incident, these images of people being released from these prisons are moving the real ones. And so I'm curious if you have just any other big picture thoughts on what's happening then.
- [45:02]
Tom Nichols
Well, first let me say about the Claris Ward thing. I think people are just too hard on journalists on the ground in places like that, in the middle of a total shitstorm. You're going to make a mistake now then, but you know, you should instead of saying, aha, gotcha, as I think, you know, too many people wanted to do, because that's the new game with journalists for new, you know, for 10 years or so should say, wow, it's really great that somebody had the stones to actually be there in places that you would be, you'd be standing outside the embassy screaming to get you out in the middle of that. So, you know, I give all the credit in the world to those folks. And if they have the occasional stubbing of their toe, that's just the way it happens. And good for them for being there. But people should understand how epical this is. I mean, the Assad family has been in charge of Syria since I was a boy.
- [45:54]
Tim Miller
A long time indeed.
- [45:56]
Tom Nichols
Well, you know, this is. We've had our own man jokes. Yes. Back when dinosaurs roamed the earth and.
- [46:03]
Tim Miller
I think there were onions on my belt. As was the style at the time.
- [46:07]
Tom Nichols
As was the style at the time, exactly. The idea now that this regime has collapsed, the Iranians are in a tough spot. The Russians have been flushed out of their one major geopolitical toehold outside of Eurasia, which is amazing, by the way, for the Russians. One thing that I think some of the better reports have focused on, but that has been glossed over in all of the jubilation. Putin for years made his name by saying, if you're a friend of mine, you don't go down. I don't let that happen. My friends don't get pushed out of power. And this time, this happens like in 72 hours. And Putin's like, well, what are you going to do? I'm busy. That stings. That's a big black market, unfortunately. And I'm going to bring this back to American politics, unfortunately. Instead of being able to really hold on the pressure and keep pushing back the Russian position in Ukraine and other parts of the world, he's going to get a respite now, which is really unfortunate, but I'm glad it happened before Trump came into office.
- [47:14]
Tim Miller
It is really unfortunate. All right. I feel an obligation to mention because we have all these school shootings happen so often that it's like, what do you even say anymore? There's not much to say, there's not much to talk about it, but there was a student and a teacher killed at Abundant Life Christian School of Madison, Wisconsin yesterday by a 15 year old girl. A second grader called in the shooting, which tells you something about American life. The one thing I do want to mention about this, we don't need to go round and round on all my views around guns and just how irresponsible everyone has been on this issue over the course of decades now. But this young girl wrote about some Turkish Neo Nazis that she was reading online and she included a meditation about these various Turkish Neo Nazis that she was reading before she did this. That does want me to pull the plug out of the Internet. I'm sorry to be a flip about this because it is just another horrific tragedy and these people have died, but I don't know, man. I mean, that is really dystopian. So I don't know if you have any thoughts on that before we can end people on a higher note, but I thought it was worth mentioning.
- [48:26]
Tom Nichols
Well, here is my darkest thought. It is my Christmas wish that something alleviates it. When I wrote books about expertise and the decline of democracy in America, I focused pretty heavily on narcissism. What I regret is that I didn't talk more about something that I'm coming to realize is really destroying the Country. And that is the epidemic of loneliness. And the problem where that intersects with the Internet is when you are lonely and isolated. The Internet is this wonderland, this carnival, this theme park that you can just wander through, you know, the days where a kid got radicalized by reading, you know, Catcher of the Rye or, you know, I don't know, you know, pick your, you know, the Anarchist Cookbook or whatever it was least, had to go to a bookstore, had to walk through a library, had to do something, as opposed to just sitting in the dark, alone, isolated in your room and saying, I'm a teenager, I'm troubled, I have issues. Oh, look, Turkish Nazis. Something that you probably, you know, 30 years ago, if you lived in Wisconsin, you were not going to be really.
- [49:34]
Tim Miller
You know, aware of, able to encounter.
- [49:37]
Tom Nichols
And so that one thing that we know from research about extremist groups is that they are reaching out across boundaries to feel like they're bigger than they are. To say. I mean, the way I always put it is every town has one guy who thinks that aliens are stealing our water.
- [49:53]
Tim Miller
Right.
- [49:54]
Tom Nichols
Right. Problem is, if you have a thousand towns and the one guy in each town reaches out as well. There's a thousand of us now. We're, we're a union, we're a movement. No, you're just the one guy in every town who is, you know, committed to these kind of bonkers ideas. And the Internet has really. I was such an Internet optimist. I mean, I was the guy when I was in my late 20s and I was a young professor at Dartmouth, I was the guy that showed other people how to use like Netscape. Speaking of Andreessen, you know, I was.
- [50:23]
Tim Miller
Like, I was this person on social media.
- [50:25]
Tom Nichols
Yeah.
- [50:25]
Tim Miller
Like, you know, in my 20s, like teaching people how to get on to fucking MySpace and Twitter and stuff, showing.
- [50:30]
Tom Nichols
These 50, 60 year old professors that were my senior colleagues saying, hey, you know, there's this thing and it's called a browser and it's cool. But I've come to realize that it's, you know, it's basically the Internet is a giant bad neighborhood that you can wander around in if you don't. If you just have too much time on your hands and it'll just lead you into trouble.
- [50:48]
Tim Miller
Well, love your kids.
- [50:50]
Tom Nichols
What's the answer to anybody listening? It's going to be a counterintuitive, say, stop listening to podcasts and go outside and, you know, go to a movie with a friend.
- [50:59]
Tim Miller
No, it's not. That's not counterintuitive. That's fine. I agree with that. And people should go do that. And, you know, you should get involved with other young people. You know, like, one of the most fulfilling things that I had done was done various mentorship programs. And frankly, I fell down on that a little bit during 2024. But. But, you know, going to work with kids, doing homework with them, it's fulfilling for you. It's good for them. Teens need to, like, have encounters with other humans that are constructive and that are, you know, filled with demonstrations that people care about them. And I do think that makes a difference, and people should look into that. That'd be a good New Year's resolution for everybody in 2025. Let's end with I have to dunk on you. You're so proud of yourself. You posted on the Blue sky, you skied a Chris Christmas playlist. And I gotta tell you, I have put together over two decades, I've curated the ultimate Christmas playlist, the best playlist that exists on planet Earth. We'll put it in the show notes. We'll compare it to your sad, limp playlist. I have gone through all of the renditions of Joy to the World and just pulled out the best ones of everything. Of oh Come All Ye Faithful. We have everything from Napkin Coal all the way up to Saffian Stevens. We have random songs that just mention Christmas in the middle that aren't Christmas songs. It's everything. It includes no crap. No. No Paul McCartney. Wonderful Christmas time. All right. It's only bangers. All right? And so I put that together. I want you to be able to do things that are fulfilling for you in your life. So I'm happy that you're kind of just starting one of your own, but I just. I want to kind of set a higher bar for you.
- [52:40]
Tom Nichols
My Christmas Spotify list. Okay, first of all, I'm going to apologize for Wonderful Christmas Time. Somebody asked me why it's in there, and I said, I don't know. I had fond memories of my freshman year in college when it came out. And so I put it there because even though I put it in my list, I turn it off when it's on the radio because I can't help. Okay. I think somebody had a great line about that, which was, Paul set out to write a Christmas song, and instead he decided to experiment with every sound a synthesizer could make, which I think is true. On the other hand, I tried specifically to make it a combination of kind of 70s and 80s pop linked to schlock. So, of course, Andy Williams is in there. Of course he is. You don't have a Christmas list without Andy Williams. And if you and I are going to disagree about this, I'm not sure we can be friends.
- [53:26]
Tim Miller
I don't have any Andy Williams, so this will be a challenge. Oh, my God, look at mine. I will peruse your Andy Williams and we'll take it from there.
- [53:34]
Tom Nichols
Familiar with a recording artist named Andy Williams? Right. You know, he existed and was the voice of Christmas for most of the 1960s and 70s.
- [53:42]
Tim Miller
I mean, the fact that that person exists. Yes. Like, what does he look like? Any fun facts about him? I don't have.
- [53:51]
Tom Nichols
This is just a. This is why generational conflict exists at all. But I also had stuff in there I tried to put in, things that were not people that didn't think of, you know, as cheery Christmas stuff. Like Circle of Steel by Gord Lightfoot, which is a wonderful song. Yes. I included. Do they Know It's Christmas? Because actually, I kind of like that song in part because Sir Bob hated it when he. After he wrote it. And I've always enjoyed. I'm. I'm East, I'm Greek Orthodox. And one of the things that always makes me laugh about that song is he wrote it about Ethiopia and the famine in Ethiopia. Apparently Sir Bob didn't realize the major religion in Ethiopia is Orthodox Christianity. So, yes, in fact, they did know it was Christmas, you know, but I have this cool 12 inch and you and I fooled around with it in the green room. I have this cool 12 inch that I bought, which again, why do. Why do I like it? Because I have, you know, fond memories of buying this in a Boston record store. And the other side is this long outro where they finally finish. And then Bob Geldof says it's now like, you know, 6:00am on November 25, 1984, and everybody on the record comes in to say Merry Christmas. You know. Hi, I'm Sarah from Bananarama. Happy Christmas. The guys from Big country, they're all Scottish. And one of them says, you know, here we're here to wish a Merry Christmas was. Feed the people, stay alive. You know, I just. It's just this great 80s kind of time. And then, of course, at the end of it all, Paul McCartney calls in because, of course, he wouldn't be on the record. But David Bowie shows up in this very quiet recording and he's like, you know, this scary David Bowie voice about how people are starving. It's just this great kind of 80s times capsule. So give me my nostalgic moments. But other than that. There's stuff on there that I will absolutely defend, including if you don't like the Waitress's Christmas wrapping.
- [55:38]
Tim Miller
Oh, a great song. Okay, why don't we end in an agreement?
- [55:41]
Tom Nichols
All right. There we go.
- [55:43]
Tim Miller
So wonderful. That will wrap up the show. We'll take it out with the waitresses Christmas wrapping. And Jason, if you can throw in just David Bowie wishing everyone a Christmas 1984, that would be nice as well. And Tom Nichols, we can say Merry Christmas again. So Merry Christmas to you. Thank God I will see you in the New year.
- [56:03]
Tom Nichols
As Freddie Mercury would say, thank God it's Christmas.
- [56:05]
Tim Miller
Thank God it's Christmas. That's Tom Nichols. We'll see him in 2025. We'll be back here tomorrow with a serious discussion and a serious guest as is needed in these serious times. We'll see y'all then. Peace. This is David bowie. It's Christmas 1984 and there are more starving folk on our planet than ever before. Please give a thought for this season and do whatever you can, however small, to help them live. Have a peaceful new year.
- [56:34]
D
Bah humbug. That's too strong Cause it is my favorite holiday but all this year's been a busy blur don't think I have the energy thread Am I already mad rush just cause it's Disney season? The perfect gift for me would be completions and connections left from last year Skis, shop and cow Most interesting add his number but never the time Most of anyone pass along those lines so deck those halls trim those trees Raise up cups of Christmas here I just need to catch my breath Christmas by myself this year Hail the picture frozen landscape Chill this room for 24 days evergreen sparkling snow get this winter over with Flashback to spring time Song Em again Would have been good to go for lunch Couldn't agree and we were both free we tried we said we'd keep in touch didn't of course till summertime out to the beach to his boat Could I join him? No, this time it was me. Sunburn in the third degree. Now the calendar's just one page. Of course I am excited to night tonight. I've set my mind not to do too much about it.
- [57:59]
Tim Miller
The Bulwark Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.