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- [00:00]
Tim Miller
Foreign. Hello and welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. Delighted to welcome back with his gold jacket. Professor emeritus at the Naval War College. He's a staff writer at the Atlantic. His books include the Death of Expertise. He is the ageless enigma. Tom Nichols, how you doing?
- [00:29]
Tom Nichols
You know, we share many things in common, Tim.
- [00:32]
Tim Miller
We do, we do. We do have a lot in common and we're going to explore all those. So the Wall Street Journal had an article last night that I assume anyone listening to this podcast has already seen. It included what they described as a body card. It felt like they really dialed in on that word body. I felt like there was like a little group chat at the Wall Street Journaled like, why? What word can we use here in the, you know, in the newspaper? They settled on body. The letter was for a 50th birthday card to Jeff Epstein. It was in 2003, so three years before he was indicted for sex crimes. Ghislaine Maxwell naturally organized. This included letters from such eminence gree like Alan Dershowitz and the Victoria's Secret man, and also Donald Trump. And Donald Trump apparently drew a picture of a woman, naked woman with breasts. And his signature was the pubic hair.
- [01:35]
Tom Nichols
This is where we need to say allegedly, as reported by the Wall Street Journal.
- [01:40]
Tim Miller
Allegedly, as reported by the Wall Street Journal. And according to the Wall Street Journal, as provided to the Department of Justice in 2006 as part of their investigation into Jeffrey Epstein. And he wrote, I guess you'd call it a script or a little mini screenplay. The typewriter on a typewriter was inside the naked woman drawing. And yeah, as we've mentioned, it says we have certain things in common. Jeffrey. Donald. Enigmas never age. Have you noticed that? It ends with Donald Trump wishing his pal a happy birthday and saying, may every day be another wonderful secret. Yes, secret. A wonderful secret. What did you make of all that, Tom Nichols?
- [02:22]
Tom Nichols
I don't know what to make of anybody who has a close friendship with Jeffrey Epstein and writes little. I don't even know how to describe it. What little fake screenplays. Of course, we do have to say, this is all, you know, reporting from the Wall Street Journal. It seems to have panicked.
- [02:42]
Tim Miller
Trump panicked, I think is very fair to say.
- [02:44]
Tom Nichols
I mean, you know, I don't have a good synonym for panic like body is for trashy, but I mean, it's just sweaty panic. And you've been seeing it for the past few days. So to me, that says he wrote it or signed it or something.
- [03:04]
Tim Miller
He Certainly drew it. One thing I didn't actually know, I thought I knew everything about this fucking guy. Way too much of my brain is composed with random facts about one of the stupidest Americans who we've elected president twice. But one of the facts I did not know, or I'd lost was that he, he did like to do little sharpie sketches. Apparently there's a whole catalog of them and he would sell them for charity.
- [03:25]
Tom Nichols
And so when he said, I've never drawn anything in my life, well, except for the, what was it, the Empire State Building that sold for $16,000.
- [03:33]
Tim Miller
I've never wrote a picture in my life.
- [03:35]
Tom Nichols
Never wrote a picture.
- [03:37]
Tim Miller
That was the one. Yeah, there's several. Someone else sent me a couple of his other ones this morning. A money tree, naturally tree with dollars on it. Some other skylines. He did like the skyline move. I haven't seen any other naked pictures.
- [03:50]
Tom Nichols
I don't know what the note means, but it's written in such a way that if, if, I mean, it's almost written like to trigger conspiracy theorists. You know, back before this whole thing was this thing, this, you know, waving my arms around thing. So, I mean, if, you know, say, let, let's hope every day is a wonderful secret. Well, there's a good argument for not releasing any more information. I mean, it's just, it' like, you know, there's nothing incriminating in it, right? I mean, he doesn't say, hey, remember when we went criming, you know, in our stolen Cadillac?
- [04:31]
Tim Miller
Doesn't say, and may every day be a wonderful secret like that 17 year old we flew to your island in the US you know, in the USVI.
- [04:40]
Tom Nichols
Well, the problem is it's written in such a way that your brain is going to start filling in all those blanks in a way, the Trump world is already going to start claiming that in a way, right? This is a nothing burger. This is a little Diddy sent, you know, years and years ago. I don't remember it. And I suppose if Trump were better at crisis control, he would say, hey, the guy and I were friends. I didn't know what he was up to. I wrote him a funny little ditty because he's kind of a weird guy, you know, and instead it's like, I didn't do it, I don't draw, it wasn't me, everything's fake. Which of course for most people applying Occam's razor are going to say, well, that sure looks like you actually, you actually wrote it. And so now the debate will become. What did it, what did it mean? And I just don't see this going away. It's. It's not an. It's in itself. You could argue they could. I suppose some of Trump's allies could say it's kind of a nothing burger, but not in this context. Not with Trump's reaction to it, not with everything going on around it. So this is, this is going to keep this alive and it's going to drive people crazy because now he's going to, I mean, he's at war with everybody. Now he's at war with the Wall Street Journal. He's going to, he says he's going to sue them, but I don't know. Tim, what's the over. Under on that?
- [05:53]
Tim Miller
I, you know, I want to get to the lawsuit, but just, just a little bit more on the letter. If we could just, you know, sit on this for a second. I assume Little Diddy was not a pun. Was that an intended, Was that pun intended?
- [06:04]
Tom Nichols
Okay, Tim.
- [06:06]
Tim Miller
Well, you know, we got Diddy out there also doing sex crimes.
- [06:08]
Tom Nichols
Oh, no, no. Oh, that didn't even. Come on. I'm a 64 year old, you know, New Englander. That Diddy P. Diddy was not the first thing that occurred to me. God, okay.
- [06:18]
Tim Miller
I don't know. You said it twice. And I was like, it's a little did again. Just looking at the letter one more time. We have certain things, you're correct, that there's nothing in the letter that's like, hey, you know, remember when, you know, we took Janie? You know, remember that family we kidnapped in Saskatchewan? I go, heather, you know that we had locked up in your sex dungeon? Like, it doesn't say that, but we have certain things in common. Jeffrey is like, I mean, what else could that be? Maybe they have other things in common. I assume they both have a few restaurants they like Trump says, then a year later. It's important to do the full context here. Like I mentioned, like I said, it's only three years till Epstein gets indicted. Doesn't mean that Trump knew about that. But it's like we're in the heat of Epstein's child sex trafficking.
- [07:08]
Tom Nichols
This isn't 25 or 30 or 50 years ago. This isn't like, you know, something they wrote in high school.
- [07:14]
Tim Miller
Yeah, right. So it's three years before.
- [07:16]
Tom Nichols
This is three years before he goes to.
- [07:17]
Tim Miller
And then the next year is when Trump gives that New York magazine quote that everybody had been talking about before this, where he is like, you know, Jeffrey likes him. Young and they're friends. And we know that Trump also likes him young. We know that he dated Gabriella Sabatini when she was age 19 in between 1 of his marriages. So, I mean, I think there's pretty good context clues to say that the certain things they have in common is an appetite for younger women. But it could be something else.
- [07:42]
Tom Nichols
What is the inference that a reasonable person would draw from all this is going to be Trump's problem, that there is no smoking gun. But people, you know, this isn't a court of law. People are going to draw conclusions. I mean, you don't. You could argue that it's just bad luck that you find out later that your, that your pal is, you know, a convicted sex trafficker and that three years earlier you probably shouldn't have said, we have a lot of things in common. Let's have every day be a wonderful secret.
- [08:13]
Tim Miller
The wonderful secret is the other thing that it's like Jeffrey Epstein does have a lot of secrets at this time, all related to the child sex trafficking. And so, I mean, I guess maybe some other secrets. Jeffrey was also, you know, trafficking adult women and, you know, having affairs and all that kind of stuff. But again, if you have somebody who's known for a specific secret and your wish to them is that every day is a wonderful secret, again, it's just.
- [08:39]
Tom Nichols
Such an odd, I mean, it's an odd thing to say. I mean, I, look, I'll pull age rank here and say, I have turned 40, I have turn. I have turned 60. No one has ever said to me, let every day be a wonderful secret. I've had people say, let every day be a new adventure. You're only as old as you feel. It's a new phase in your life. You know, all the things that you say as the approaching fear of death starts to tap you on the shoulder when you get to middle age. But so it's just, I mean, the whole thing is just weird. And I can also say that in all the things I've ever signed, I have never used my signature as a.
- [09:19]
Tim Miller
As female pubic hair.
- [09:22]
Tom Nichols
I was trying to be more delicate and say, you know, the mons veneris or something. But, yes, I have never, I have never done that. And I think it's just, you know, it's. You could argue that it's bad.
- [09:34]
Tim Miller
I will say the female pubic hair drawing like is the best fact that Trump has here because, you know, at least he was drawing a picture of a woman who is old enough to have pubic hair.
- [09:44]
Tom Nichols
Oh, Damn. Yes. Okay. Well, what I was going to say.
- [09:47]
Tim Miller
I don't know if that's inculpatory or not.
- [09:49]
Tom Nichols
I was going. Not going to. What I was going to say is, you could argue this is all just the worst luck in the world. The problem is that Donald Trump here. Let me draw this to a totally different situation. Why did everybody in the world think that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction? Because Saddam Hussein was acting like he had weapons of mass destruction. You know, he was like Bugs Bunny. Right. You can come in anywhere, but you can't look here in. The problem is that Trump is acting like a man who's afraid and guilty and scared, and that's driving this story. Because if you're. If you're so panicked that you're literally turning on your most faithful followers, I mean, calling them weaklings and, you know, stupid and idiots and all, I mean, that, that, you know, again, what is the inference a reasonable person draws here is that Trump has something to hide, that he's scared, that he's. That he's panicked.
- [10:45]
Tim Miller
You could also add to that inference not only that he's acting panicked, but that he has a track record of. Dozens of women have accused him of sexual harassment or assault. Well, there's also problems. Women by the pussy, against their will on audiotape and said that they let him do it. Right. So, like. So there's a lot of.
- [11:03]
Tom Nichols
He has been found liable for sexual assault and then defaming the victim and then defaming the woman who accused him. So, you know, there's a lot of bad context clues. There is a lot of context here. Exactly. Also, has no one sat him down and explained the Streisand effect?
- [11:20]
Tim Miller
I don't think so. I think Trump is like a human counter to the Streisand effect. He feels like if you can just go even bigger, more Streisand helps, I think, is his strategy.
- [11:34]
Tom Nichols
See, that's why I had that Bugs Bunny cartoon. People out there, if they know, they know. If my friend Rocky was in this stove, would I turn on the gas? You might rabbit. You might. You know, it's just like, oh, my God, this is like a. This is like a Chuck Jones cartoon of, you know, he's not in here. Don't look in here. Well, anyway, as we say, you know, it does sort of a normal person looks at this and says, I wasn't really interested in this, but now I kind of am.
- [11:58]
Tim Miller
Exactly. That happened to Sarah Longwell this week. You said earlier that.
- [12:02]
Tom Nichols
I'm sorry to interrupt Was that a focus group?
- [12:04]
Tim Miller
No, no, no. It was just that Sarah Longwell, she said we were on the other podcast, she was like, I didn't care about this Epstein thing and obviously she cared about the victims. And it was just like it wasn't a story that she was following that she couldn't follow all the various threads of the conspiracies and it's like, who knows what the what? And then all of a sudden as, as Trump, Trump's behavior this week has made her say, well, actually seems like there might be some there there, right? Like if anybody's acting this, like, you know, this pan, this crazy about it, like there, there is a reason.
- [12:32]
Tom Nichols
That's why I asked because I never thought much. I mean, I, you know, I, I understood Epstein is what he is. But you know, there's a difference between somebody like, you could argue like somebody who's got Trump's record of boorish, you know, toxic and all that stuff, and somebody like, like Epstein who's wrote like a whole other, you know, pedophiles and.
- [12:55]
Tim Miller
Sex traffickers and all like 14 year.
- [12:57]
Tom Nichols
Old girls class by themselves. Right. And so I was like, ah, there's no client list, there's no flight logs, there's none of that. I never, I didn't think of much of that stuff when the Republicans were trying to gin it up years ago and think, but, but watching Trump over the past week, it's like, well, now you have my attention. I admit it. I'm curious too now.
- [13:16]
Tim Miller
Yeah, I mean, I've been following the story for a while and have a lot of curiosities about it. My interest in the missing minutes from the prison cell, I think has definitely increased in the last week. And just like I'm starting to get increasingly interested in the conspiracies. You mentioned earlier that the letter Ken almost begs people to have more conspiracies. And I do wanna say to some listeners, I've received a series of messages about how the word enigmas is an anagram for gameines and game is also a word for young women. And I do just wanna say to those listeners, it's good to have a hobby, all right? But maybe diversify the hobby. I hear pickleball is good. I don't think Donald Trump knows the word gamines. His vocabulary is pretty limited or an. So I think there's a lot of incriminating stuff here. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe him and Epstein had a secret anagram hobby. Maybe that's what they had in common. I don't know. Hey y', all, I'm always looking for some new just basics, some essentials for you to look at when I'm sitting here on my YouTube talking to you or for my child or husband. And I keep coming back to one of our sponsors, Quince. They're lightweight layers and high quality staples have become my everyday essentials. Quint has the kind of stuff you'll actually wear on repeat, like breathable polos, crisp cotton shirts and comfortable lightweight pants that somehow work for both weekend hangs and dressed up dinners. The best part, everything with Quince is half the cost of similar brands. By working directly with top artisans and cutting out the middlemen, Quince gives you luxury pieces without the markup. Just did another Quince order myself. Got a couple things for Toulouse, you know, got some little swimwear. We're gonna do a little family short little family trip to California here in a couple weeks. So you know, we need some pool gear for her. And I got a couple new of these shirts. Cam Caskey is making fun of me for being in so many denim shirts recently. So I'm trying to mix up my wardrobe and you know, Quince is, Quince is helping me out. So join me. Stick to the staples. At last with elevated essentials from Quince, go to quince.com thebullwork for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. That's Q U I N to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quints.com the Bulwark I want to go to his response because you've mentioned panic a couple times and I think that it's the apt word. I just want to read a couple of the things he sent. He's speaking in third person on his social media here. President Trump has already beaten George Stephanopoulos. ABC, 60 Minutes, CBS and others look forward to suing and holding accountable the once great Wall Street Journal. It has truly turned out to be a disgusting and filthy ra and writing defamatory lines like this shows their desperation to remain relevant. If there are any truth at all to the Epstein hoax as it pertains to President Trump again in the third person, this information would have been revealed by Comey Brennan, Crooked Hillary and other radical left lunatics. A year ago. He then did another tweet about how he looks forward to getting Rupert Murdoch in court. He did another bleat about how now he has he's changed his mind. He's asked Attorney General Pam Bondi to produce any and all pertinent grand jury testimony subject to court approval. This scam should end right now. This is a guy that's flailing. He's like, I'm gonna sue people. We are gonna release stuff. We don't know what we're gonna release. It's gonna be some stuff in the future. And like, you guys are idiots. It's James Comey's fault.
- [16:43]
Tom Nichols
But again, what is the inference a reasonable person draws here? That if you're that scared and you're gonna sue and you're gonna. Here, let me bend over backwards to be fair to Donald Trump, which doesn't feel natural.
- [16:55]
Tim Miller
It's not usual in the blog podcast, but it's always, I'm always hoping to try something new.
- [16:59]
Tom Nichols
But, you know, this is also steel Manning the case, right? Which is that Donald Trump threatens to sue every. So what all you're seeing here is sort of standard Trump playbook, right? That Trump always says, I'm going to sue, and then he does it. Because I, I, that's why I said to you, what do you figure the over under is? There's, I mean, Donald Trump may not understand the concept of discovery, but his lawyers do. And, you know, nobody's going to want to, certainly nobody on his side is going to want to go through that. So I, I still argue that the odds of an actual lawsuit producing anything are going to be pretty small. But, you know, that's just standard Trump. Now the problem is to go back. Why do you steal man a case? Because then it, then the, the differences are more obvious when you go back to it, which is, yeah, but this, he's clearly acting differently this time. Like, yeah, he's threatening to sue. But the thing that's different is how many times he's changed his story. You know, it's all fake. It was created by the Democrats. Well, it's a list that Pam Bondi has and she can release it. I don't have any control over what the DOJ has. I've never seen it. I don't know it's, but I know it's fake and I know Obamacare and it's, you know, it wasn't me. And if it was me, you know, I didn't use a gun. And if I did use a gun, it wasn't that gun. And if it was that gun, it didn't have bullets in it. I mean, at some point, again, you know, people that weren't going to pay attention to this, people like me and Sarah maybe, you know, are looking and saying, even by Trump standards, that, you know, I, I, again, I Sort of washed out or priced in. That's the word I was. I priced in a certain amount of Trumpian outrage of, oh, there's a story and it's about me and I hate it, and Murdoch's a traitor and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Okay, now, Now I'm thinking, no, the, this is a bigger bombshell than it. Look, when the, when the story first dropped. I don't know about you, Tim, but when I first saw it, I said, birthday. A body. We're going to love that word. This is a bawdy podcast today.
- [18:56]
Tim Miller
It is.
- [18:57]
Tom Nichols
But, you know, I thought a body. Birthday card, that's not much of a bombshell. Watching Trump's reaction to it now, I'm saying, huh, that seems like a bombshell.
- [19:08]
Tim Miller
Well, he called the Journal and tried to shut it down. I will say one thing about his response is it made me. It reignited my anger at ABC and CBS over capitulating Paramount. You know, I'm good on the Wall Street Journal. Yeah. Good on Emma Tucker for Push for publishing this. But, you know, it's just like this. It creates the environment for this, right, where, like, he feels like he can do this, where, you know, people are probably more cautious. This Journal story, the gossip that was coming, was going around town for, like, three days. Like, I had so many texts about it, and it's. Because, you know, why did it take so long? Well, you got to figure they had lawyers, you know, they were lawyered to the hilt before publishing it.
- [19:49]
Tom Nichols
That's the other reason. I don't think there's going to be much of a lawsuit.
- [19:52]
Tim Miller
Yeah.
- [19:52]
Tom Nichols
Honestly, I mean, if the Journal's lawyers, I mean, you say. I happen to think very highly of the Wall Street Journal as a newspaper. The opinion page is what it is, you know, but the, the actual news organization, you couldn't see them saying, I don't know, it's a little shaky. We could get sued. Let's take a flyer. No, that's not. I don't think anybody at the Wall Street Journal was gonna, you know, argue for, for taking like, let's, let's get out on a limb and see what happens. And I think Trump knows that as well. And so I suspect, you know, that, that the story of the card itself will probably fade out, but that this is not going to calm the waters for MAGA World, and they care about it. I mean, this is just to go back to your point about the press, by the way, about the capitulation. I, I think the reason Trump also thinks he can get Away with stuff. I was watching a White House briefing yesterday, and someone I think quite reasonably brought up, you know, Donald Trump claims that his uncle knew the Unabomber. And when, you know, that whole Unabomber story. Right.
- [20:55]
Tim Miller
I was saving that one for dessert. Okay, all right.
- [20:58]
Tom Nichols
I was going to say we can talk about the story itself, but what really bothered me was Levitt said, I'm so surprised you're asking this. It's a known fact that his uncle taught at mit. Next question. And I'm like, I'm sorry, that's not actually an answer. And then nobody followed it. Nobody said, wait, wait, you know, that's a non sequitur. You know, if I said, hey, I was, you know, I was walking down the street in Rhode island and I ran into Charles Manson, who apparently is still alive. And the only answer that you got from my family was, tom lives in Rhode Island. What's wrong with you people? That's not really an answer. And I think, you know, I, I think the people around him are thinking if we could just get him to that point, this would go away. But it's not going to go away. And I'm really surprised at the degree to which this is. I mean, I, of all the things I would have predicted would have blown up the MAGA alliance, I don't know that I would have picked this. And it shows you that, you know, I have a hard time. I still, after years of studying and writing about these folks, I guess I'm a little, I'm, I'm still capable of being surprised that, like, of all the things he's ever lied to you about, this is the one that's going to do it. This is the one that really makes you angry. Has Bongino showed up for work yet? Because I was a federal.
- [22:10]
Tim Miller
I think Bongino's back. It's unclear what he's doing.
- [22:13]
Tom Nichols
I was a federal employee. I don't remember the Anger Day exception to going to work.
- [22:20]
Tim Miller
Government work was kind of optional. I do think there'll be a rally around the Trump effect now a little bit against the media on this from some in the Trump base. But there's a huge group of people out there, a, in the manosphere who don't care about, who aren't, who aren't rally around the flag type people. You know, they were. Shane Gillis, who's this comedian, was making fun of Trump over this at the ESPYs, the ESPN Oscars or whatever, the awards for athletes of the year. You know, that demonstrates that it's breaking through outside of the bubble, you know what I mean?
- [22:52]
Tom Nichols
It's escaped the MAGA containment field. And that matters because there are things that I keep trying to kind of figure out why this issue. There are a lot of things that MAGA will accept being humiliated on in public. Like Trump lied to you about tariffs. I mean, I talked to MAGA voters just before they oh, tariffs. He's not going to tariffs. Nobody does terror. Okay, they can say, all right, fine, he's got to do tariffs. I trust the president. He knows what he's doing. This publicly humiliating MAGA world over. He lied to you about a conspiracy that is very dear to your heart. We know you don't care about tariffs. We know you don't care about abortion or China or Iran or any of that. We know that in the end you really don't care about that stuff. But lying, but lying to you about this is bad. And then letting everybody in the world humiliate you like at the SPS about this, that, that's, I think that one, that's a punch that lands with a lot of these folks and it makes.
- [23:52]
Tim Miller
It feel like they're losing. Like a big part of the Trump is, oh, if he's lying, but the libs are mad and you know what I mean? And he's embarrassing them. Like, that's okay, I'll allow it. Whatever. We're just, it's all. But, but it's like, no, it's like we're being mocked now and the libs.
- [24:05]
Tom Nichols
And the libs are going, you know, they're kind of thrown up there and say, we're on your side. Hey, release the. I mean, you know, you got Hakeem Jeffries out there going, release the Epstein tapes. It's like, wow, that's gotta be a very strange feeling.
- [24:20]
Tim Miller
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- [26:25]
Tom Nichols
He doesn't know what's in there, Right? I mean, that's part of the part. You can't know what's in there without a systematic and disciplined examination of these files. And this is not a White House that does anything in that way. I always thought, Tim, that one of the reasons he stole all that stuff, that he just hijacked all these files from the White House, is that he didn't know what was in him. And he said, I better take all this stuff with me.
- [26:50]
Tim Miller
Just in case. Yeah, just in case. Order, order, style. Vance's reply. I think it's worth just mulling for one second. JD the tweeter and the Vice tweeter. He writes, forgive my language. I'm not going to actually forgive my language, but this story is complete and utter bullshit. The WSJ should be ashamed for publishing it. Where is the letter? Would you be shocked to learn they never showed it to us before publishing it? But does anyone honestly believe this sounds like Donald Trump? Doesn't it violate some rule of journalistic ethics to publish a letter like this without showing it to the victim of this hit piece? He loves rhetorical questions. I love that the victim in this case where there were 14 year old girls who were raped and young women that were trafficked is Donald Trump because somebody was mean to him. That's the victim that J.D. vance is worried about, not the actual victims of Jeffrey Epstein. But do you have any thoughts on, on the series of rhetorical questions posed by the Vice President?
- [27:47]
Tom Nichols
Does it sound like Donald Trump to sign his name across a woman's genitalia, you know, on a cartoon? Yeah, sure. Okay, I'll take that one. Yes, it does sound like Donald Trump. Vance is walking into the same trap that they're all walking to. If this was all a big nothing burger, then, you know, why did you guys all pump it up and demand the release of these files and all of this stuff and claim that there were all these bombshells in it before you were elected? And now, you know, the Times had an interesting little kind of Venn diagram. Vance is way over in the nothing to see here, you know, approach. But there's these overlapping like nothing to see here but Trump should release and you know, big story. And I mean, Vance is kind of an outlier here because he has to be. And I, I don't think Vance can carry that in the same way that other MAGA figures do. It's all, it's really important to remember that Vance was going to be a, has been, almost ran Senate candidate until Trump and he was going to lose to a guy that was a real, you know, screwball until Trump saved him. So it's not like Vance has this big organic level of cred with MAGA world. So I don't know that it really, that these questions that he's posing matter very much, but it's still a Streisand effect. Does this sound like Donald Trump to you?
- [29:04]
Tim Miller
Hmm. Hanging out with a perv.
- [29:07]
Tom Nichols
Since you're asking if you're gonna ask.
- [29:09]
Tim Miller
Sending a pervy message to a perv for their 50th birthday in Manhattan kind of does sound like Donald Trump to me a little bit. But we'll see, we'll see how it turns out. As Donald Trump said, we're going to.
- [29:18]
Tom Nichols
Look at it very strongly and I think you should have objected to J.D. vance's body language.
- [29:25]
Tim Miller
There'S been another. Well, I guess I was about to say victim. I don't want to undermine the real victims here, but there's been another person who's had to suffer because of all this, and it is. James Comey's daughter was fired from the DOJ yesterday.
- [29:38]
Tom Nichols
Prosecutor, there's another move that says, don't worry, nothing to see here.
- [29:43]
Tim Miller
Yeah, it's wild. And so for folks who listened to the Comey interview a couple weeks ago, that I did, we talked about his daughter because she was prosecuting the Diddy case, which Tom Nichols was following very closely. She also prosecuted Maxwell and Epstein for the doj. She had a specialty in sex crimes. Tough job. And she was fired yesterday, two days ago by the doj. No reason given. It sucks. You know, it's unclear whether it's because Cash Patel and Pam Bondi can't have anybody working for them who has any relationship with anyone who's ever said anything critical about Donald Trump. And it's a last name thing. It might be related to the Maxwell and Epstein investigations. It's pretty curious timing on that front, but what do you think?
- [30:31]
Tom Nichols
Well, once again, leave aside the resistance, libs and MAGA world, right? Take the average person saying he's been accused of being jungled up with Jeffrey Epstein and now this stuff comes out and he doesn't want to release these files. And, oh, by the way, he's going to fire the prosecutor who went after Epstein again. What part of the Streisand effect isn't he understanding? You know, even I again, I said, okay, it's probably the last name thing, but boy, she's been there for years. So why, why now? You know, it's like, let me try and tamp down some of this conspiracy theorizing by firing the sex crimes prosecutor. Yeah, okay.
- [31:14]
Tim Miller
Okay. Here's the other thing about this. Just taking it outside of the politics. I do want to talk about her name for. For a second too. But taking the politics outside of it, it's like people in the MAGA base for accurate. Maybe they're wrong about this. Maybe it was a conspiracy, but maybe it was not genuine in certain cases. But many of them expressed that they were very concerned about elite pedophilia, child sex trafficking, sex crimes among elites. They're being protected. Here you have a Prosecutor@ the DOJ who specializes in getting convictions of sex criminals and has. Has successfully targeted elites with, with indictments and prosecutions and won convictions of sex criminals. And so now you're Telling me that the Trump DOJ wants to scuttle somebody that has demonstrated that they know how to go after sex criminals. You know, just on the merits of that part, outside of everything else, it's like it underscores the fact that these guys don't care about that at all.
- [32:25]
Tom Nichols
Shows you what their priorities are.
- [32:27]
Tim Miller
Yeah.
- [32:27]
Tom Nichols
Then if you're talking about petty stories, I think we should. This was a Shane Harris story yesterday in the Atlantic. This thing about Clapper and his dog. Did you see this?
- [32:37]
Tim Miller
I miss this.
- [32:38]
Tom Nichols
You know, Clapper takes this dog, a rescue dog. And, you know, Clapper's like 80 years old now, right. And the dog, Susan, becomes a working dog for the CIA. And they're going to do this kind of dog retirement of, you know, Susan that. This. That Clappard rescued and given to the agency and all that stuff. And, you know, it's very. It's a heartwarming story. You know, old guy is going to go see his. This working dog, the dogs, you know, Susan, the dog served her country. No, Clapper couldn't attend. No, no. Can't let you be at the ceremony because you're, you know, because the President doesn't like. I mean, this is the depth. It's both comical and terrifying. The depth of the pettiness that a lot of these folks have about, you know, their perceived political enemies. And so, you know, I think it dovetails into the Maureen Comey story to say, yeah, no, we. We could be losing the super bowl, but we will bench our best player because he pissed off the coach just. Because we just hate him, you know, and we would rather lose the game and be miserable. Look at me using a sports ball analogy, by the way. That's a big moment.
- [33:50]
Tim Miller
Okay. It was kind of a week. It was kind of a. It was kind of a stress, strange sports fall down.
- [33:53]
Tom Nichols
Let me go. Let me go to a military analogy.
- [33:55]
Tim Miller
Okay, great.
- [33:55]
Tom Nichols
We're on the eve of D Day, and I'm gonna. And, you know, Eisenhower pissed me off. I think I'm just gonna replace him. Guy. I don't care if he's good at fighting Nazis. That's not what this is about. It's about owning the lips and.
- [34:07]
Tim Miller
Yeah.
- [34:07]
Tom Nichols
You know, getting even with people. And it's. And it's crazy. I mean, it just, you know, it makes you wonder while they're firing prosecutors and making sure that old men don't go to dog ceremonies, who's running the government? Who's actually, you know, keeping the lights on around here? What the hell?
- [34:24]
Tim Miller
That's a deep concern. And this is what we were talking about with Mike Feinberg earlier this week, because FBI and I actually want to get to the Feinberg thing next. Just one more thing on come. It just sucks on a personal level. Like, so when I had Jim on, he was talking about how he couldn't go to the Diddy trial to watch, you know, Maureen because she was worried it'd become a thing, right, for, you know, her dad to be there. And he was talking about how he was worried when she went to take that job that like, whatever, some of his baggage would become an issue for her. And at the time, when we talked not that long ago, he was like, so proud that it hadn't. And he was talking about how the opposite has been true and how she's outshined him actually with the success of these high profile prosecutions. And, you know, it just sucks. It's like these guys are like gonna, you know, do that. Like you're saying, it's just so. They're so petty and weak and cowardly that they're going to target somebody doing good work in service of the country, going after bad guys just because of their jealousies. It's so sick.
- [35:22]
Tom Nichols
It's resentment all the way down. Even since the first time you ran. It really is the how come I couldn't get into your club and so therefore I'll burn down the building. And this is something I think is worth pointing out, especially in light of the Maureen Comey story. It's not we want to be in our own great club. We want to replace your club with our club because, you know what I mean? Like, because your club is corrupt and bad or you need to tear the building down because it's full of rats. No, no, that's not the problem with them. The problem is they want to be, they, they want to be in the club they claim to hate. These are people who are aspiring elites who are angry about being denied what they think. You know, the same people that talk about the New York Times and the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal and the Atlantic or whatever, you know, the, these national publications, we hate them. Why? Because, you know, because we don't work at the New York Times and we want to and we weren't invited. And I think it's, it's, you know, it's, it really is. It sounds like a very simplistic explanation, but it explains the pettiness and the resentment. It's not people trying to build. I mean, there are, there are serious guys that are And I always bring up Russ Valt when we talk about this. Right. You don't ever hear from him. He's busy doing, burrowing in and doing the things that he wants to do. The rest of them really are, are spending their time saying, how come I never got an invitation to this club? How come I didn't end up at, you know, the Wall Street Journal or the New York Times or wherever? And that, that is a really. People shouldn't underestimate the degree to which that is a very powerful political force that creates some very warped decisions about government because it means you can't put your personal feelings aside. You are so consumed with envy and resentment, by the way. I'm just going to go off subject and say one of the things I loved about the new Superman movie was how they made sure to let you know that Lex Luthor was driven by it more than anything else, by envy, which I thought was a great little sort of touchstone to our times. So there now, sorry, let you get back on track.
- [37:33]
Tim Miller
That's interesting. My mother always said that she's got a lot of sins, that she was happy she never had the Green Monster. I agree with that. I got that from her. I don't have envy. I've got a lot of. I've got plenty of flaws, but not that one.
- [37:43]
Tom Nichols
Professional resentment and envy. Me can, you know, I mean, I have watched it consume. I mean there. But I will not lie. There have been points in my life, you know, I've had a 40 year career where I've like been like, wow, hey, how come. How did that guy get that job? You know, academia, you know, how did that guy snag the Stanford job or the court, whatever it was, you know, but then you, that feeling is supposed to pass, right? You're a normal human being. You're not supposed to live your life based on that feeling. You know, it's. Everybody feels it at some point. You know, your best friend comes in and says, wow, I just, you know, I just got a huge bonus at work. And you're like, oh, take me out to dinner. Then, you know, and you get over it and then you celebrate and you're happy for your friend. You know, these people have. They live their lives, you know, sort of with that anger needle just stuck into their necks every day. And I'm. When people are trying to figure out why are they doing these illogical things, why are they doing these counterproductive things, why are they doing these irrational things, Things go to a simpler explanation than big conspiracies go to, you know, that they feel like they were denied their rightful place. And that's why they're, you know, that's why Dan Bongino wanted to be deputy director of the FBI because, dammit, I should have been, you know. And now they're finding out that it's hard.
- [39:07]
Tim Miller
Yeah. This is a good transition to the story that you wrote this week about how Tulsi and Cash are turning their agencies against their own staff. And this is, I think, a real, a scary problem. A real problem. We talked to Mike Feinberg about it on Wednesday where it's like, why don't they want more in comey around? Why don't they want Mike Feinberg around? Right? Because they don't want qualified China experts around. They want people that are loyal. They're happy to have other clowns around. They don't have people that will respect them or at least pretend to respect them and say, oh, yes, Mr. Director, sir, you're so great, Mr. Director, sir.
- [39:36]
Tom Nichols
Because they have a very handsome man.
- [39:39]
Tim Miller
Yeah, they have imposter syndrome because. For good reason, because they're imposters. And the results, as you wrote, has been, you know, Tulsi is using AI to I guess comb through the emails of, of our spies to see if any of them are, are saying bad stuff, said any wrong thing about Donald Trump. And, and, and Cash is trying to do lie detectors to make, make guys like Feinberg go up to, you know, HQ and you know, get to meet the parents treatment. Be like, oh, sir, you know, did you ever have a bad thought about Donald Trump on a polygraph? Anyway, I know we talk about that.
- [40:14]
Tom Nichols
And this is why I brought up the issue about envy and resentment and these very petty emotions. FBI personnel are being hooked up to polygraphs to ascertain whether or not they've been snickering about Cash Patel around the water cooler. Think about that. Think about, I mean, I was never polygraphed because of the nature. I had a top secret at the dod, they didn't do it. But I've had friends at NSA and CIA and other places have been polygraphed. You know, it's a routine thing, right? Every few years you got to go in and get your polygraph if you, you know, are you communist, drug dealing, whatever, you know. But if you're called in, say, hey, there's an issue and we need to polygraph you. That's as Joe Biden would have said, it's a big fucking deal. And he's doing it to ascertain if people are Basically telling Kash Patel jokes. It's an abuse of power that I think is eventually going to backfire throughout the FBI. One of the ironies is there were probably plenty of people at the FBI who thought Donald Trump coming back was okay. I mean, never in law enforcement and intelligence community. I mean, you can find Trump voters everywhere. But when you start strapping people to chairs and saying, you know, did you say something funny about Cash Patel? Then I think, you know, the real professionals understand that you're living in a different, that this is KGB level stuff. It's not even McCarthyism. I mean, you could argue, I suppose, that what Tulsi is Gabbard is doing is McCarthyism. Right. As you say, we're, we're rooting out wrong think, and we're finding crypto communists and, you know, right deviationists and left social revolutionaries, you know, hiding among us. But when, when you're saying, have you spoken ill of the leader? And, you know, we're going to watch the needle jump while you answer that. That's really, you know, repressive third world regime stuff. And, and it's, it's embarrassing to even think that it's happened here in, in the 21st century of America, given your background.
- [42:19]
Tim Miller
Also, do we want an AI that I assume is some private company's AI going through the emails and files of our spies? That feels risky. This feels like a pretty unnecessary.
- [42:33]
Tom Nichols
Even if, as I said in the piece, what Gabbard is doing is what the system is designed to prevent someone from doing. The reason that all these boards and systems are all compartmentalized is so that nobody can just dump them into a big hopper and go looking through them. And for what? To, as you say, to find wrong. Think about MAGA policies to, you know, as if you're gonna root out somebody saying, hey, I'm not sure bombing Iran was a good idea. Oh, well, wait a minute, you know.
- [43:08]
Tim Miller
Whoa, you know, let's find the wokes. We got to root out the wokes.
- [43:12]
Tom Nichols
Yeah, that's gonna backfire. I mean, it's, I don't think that they're going to create the kind of compliant intelligence and lot. Because, because they're not. And saying, you know, as some leaders did after Watergate in the 70s and all the, you know, all the, the craziness of that say, okay, we've got to get back to being a professional service. You know, we've got to be a. They're not doing that. This is, this is a clown show with very delicate egos and people that are Let us just remind, you know, everyone, people who have no business being in these jobs, people who are there purely because of the cowardice of the Republican Senate. Tulsi Gabbard has no business being Director of National Intelligence. And had she tried to learn the job or you know, become at all competent at it, you know, there might have been a grace period. But when you say, when you bring in somebody who's like, I have no idea what I'm doing, this is purely to, you know, own the libs and troll everybody into to just kind of. Because we all thought it would be a gas to make Tulsi Gabbard the dni. And then she starts trying to hunt down people in her own organization. Then I think you don't get that grace period. And it means that the United States is being poorly served by its intelligence and law enforcement communities because of the leadership at the top.
- [44:34]
Tim Miller
Well, good thing that won't have any repercussions having bad intelligence and law enforcement. You know, there's nothing could no risks there.
- [44:40]
Tom Nichols
Look, it's not like we're about to send B2s into a big country and start dropping bombs or anything.
- [44:47]
Tim Miller
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- [47:03]
Tom Nichols
My colleague Ross Anderson has written about AI and also about proliferation in East Asia. He has a great piece in the, in this month's edition about proliferation. And I think one bright spot for now is that all of the nuclear powers of the world have kind of seemed to agree that keeping AI far away from nuclear stuff is a good idea. I mean, do we never learn? How many times, how many Terminators do we have to be before we don't build Skynet? I worry about AI being just kind of creeping into other kind of warning systems, you know, that, that they try to say, well, you know, we can use AI to kind of learn to distinguish between a missile launch and clouds reflecting sunlight. Okay, fine. In the end, you still have to have a human being in that loop. And I, I really worry that people think AI is a solution to everything thing. What I think people need to focus on is that the system that exists now here in the United States of nuclear command and control was built during the Cold War. It relies on one man, President of the United States. And the assumption always was that we would elect sane and reasonable people as presidents of the United States, much like the rest of our government. I mean, you know, James Madison said it, right? I mean, the whole American experiment, the whole constitutional system is predicated on electing virtuous people. And if we don't do that, then we're just screwed. I mean, Madison didn't say we were screwed. But I believe he said, we are in a wretched condition. If there is no virtue among us, we are in a wretched condition.
- [48:42]
Tim Miller
Okay, that resonates. Wretched condition.
- [48:44]
Tom Nichols
When people talk about trying to change the architecture of these things. There's a bill in Congress to prevent the first use of nuclear weapons without congressional approval. I actually think that's a great idea. Idea. But the retaliatory power, you know, if there are incoming missiles, it's still going to have to rest on one person. And I think it bothers me and it bothered me when I was writing the piece that Americans just don't seem to care anymore about an issue that was always a presidential election issue, which is whose fingers on the button, who's going to get the 3am phone call. And changing the system isn't going to matter very much if we keep, keep, you know, if you keep electing people like Donald Trump. I mean, he just doesn't understand any of this. He has wavered back and forth between nuclear is bad. He calls it nuclear. I'm always worried about nuclear, but also has said things like, if we have them, why can't we use them? I think too many people vote now based on vibes and fun and TV and image and, you know, all of that stuff and, and, you know, it's all fun and games until there's a nuclear crisis. And then you can't really, you can't swap these guys out and bring in this. You can't like halt the taping of the reality show and then bring in the real guys. This is who you're stuck with. And so I think that's a really worrisome thing. This system was designed, the command and control system in the United States was designed to empower the President. There is a bias, and this is not my phrase, and I can't remember who says a bias toward action in the system because it was created to defend us from an attack. So the system is actually there to enable the president to use nuclear weapons, not to stop him.
- [50:29]
Tim Miller
You mean like the approval system? That's interesting. I don't know.
- [50:31]
Tom Nichols
The whole thing. Yeah, the whole thing is designed so that when the President says, I want to use nuclear weapons, it's not stalled.
- [50:36]
Tim Miller
By a bunch of stuff.
- [50:37]
Tom Nichols
It happens. It just happens. There's nobody that can countermand it. There's supposedly somebody in the room who will verify that, yes, this is the president that you just spoke to.
- [50:47]
Tim Miller
Sure.
- [50:47]
Tom Nichols
That guy can say, I'm not going to do it. And the president can say, okay, you're fired. Next guy, you know, he can turn to that officer and say, bring me the nuclear football guy. Said, no, Mr. President, I'm not going to do that. He's okay, you're fired. You. You're the new football guy. I mean, he has complete control over that branch of the government. There's a. There's a movie coming out that looks really interesting, by the way, by Katherine Bigelow. Comes out in October, which is.
- [51:09]
Tim Miller
She did the Hurt Locker.
- [51:11]
Tom Nichols
She did the Hurt Locker, Right. First woman to win the best director Oscar. It's about a missile strike on the United States and the kind of TikTok of what happens there. So looking forward to seeing that in the fall.
- [51:21]
Tim Miller
Well, Donald Trump being a coward is something that gives me a little bit of comfort listening to that scary story.
- [51:26]
Tom Nichols
I don't mean to interrupt him, but. Except that, you know, problem with guys like Trump is that they suddenly decide that they have to look tough. Yeah, that's the part I don't. If he says, look, you know, we're not going to do the nuclear whatever, fine. But it's. I mean, you know, why is he at least temporarily changed his tune on Ukraine now? I'll believe it when I see it when all the weapons finally show up. But okay, right now the President's doing the right thing and saying, Putin's not going to listen. I'm going to have to release these weapons. Okay, fine. But not because he made a strategic assessment, because he's pissed off.
- [52:04]
Tim Miller
Right.
- [52:04]
Tom Nichols
Because Putin made him look stupid. So I don't know. You know, that's not. I'm glad he's doing it, but that's not really the reason you do stuff like that.
- [52:15]
Tim Miller
It's not a sign of great judgment.
- [52:16]
Tom Nichols
It's not a sign of prudence, strategy or nothing.
- [52:19]
Tim Miller
Yeah. What else? Ukraine is what I was gonna go to next. I mean, Hertling has a column in the board today about how Putin belongs before a court, not a peace table. You know, we have this sanctions package that was gonna go through now is on pause. Trump gave Putin another 50 days, but he's also giving Ukraine the weapons.
- [52:34]
Tom Nichols
And why 50 days? That's about as many days of campaigning weather as there are left.
- [52:38]
Tim Miller
That's about as many days of what is there are left.
- [52:40]
Tom Nichols
Campaigning weather, military campaigning weather. 50 days, in other words. Basically, I'm gonna give you till the fall when you would have been ramping down military operations anyway.
- [52:49]
Tim Miller
And so. Yeah. So game it out for me. I don't. It's hard for me to read what's happening in this situation? Like, you think that Putin is just gon to get as much land as possible the next 50 days and then get them to the negotiating table.
- [53:00]
Tom Nichols
Or I think Putin hasn't given up at all on conquering all of Ukraine. And what he's going to do is basically murder and terrorize Ukrainians every day until I suppose the path, if I were sitting there in the Kremlin with him, to say, grab as much, yes, grab as much territory, hold as much of it as you can. But the real issue here is to make life in Ukraine so miserable, so, so ghastly, that somehow you can get rid of Zelenskyy and get him replaced, maybe during a peace process, maybe, maybe going to the table as a, as a kind of faint and a respite for a moment and then hope that you can somehow manipulate things in Kyiv to get some kind of government of national salvation, right, to say, okay, President Zelensky stepping down or he's, you know, dead or been removed or whatever, and we need to have a collective leadership that remarkably all believes that we should be in some kind union with Russia. And I think that's in the end. I don't think, and I don't, you know, I've been wrong before, so I could be wrong about this. I think Putin understands that, you know, driving tank columns through Kyiv probably is not going to be the triumphal thing he was hoping for. But there is a political route to victory for him, which is collapsing the government through terrorism and then getting through state terrorism through war crimes, I shouldn't even call it terrorism, straight up war crimes, and then getting some kind of puppet government or pro Russian government to say, you know, we should have been in a union with you and let's work this out.
- [54:42]
Tim Miller
Well, hopefully, I guess, hopefully in this one case, Trump's resentments work out in our favor. I guess that's the best we can hope for in these situations if he can maintain it.
- [54:51]
Tom Nichols
I mean, Putin's played him pretty well all. And the fact that he got a 50 day, you know, kitchen pass here tells you that, you know, I mean, I, I was reluctant to join the yay, Trump's changed his mind chorus, because this is exactly what I was worried about. The sanctions are held up. Putin's got 50 days, you know, of a free pass to create all the mayhem he wants. Trump, I'm sure, is hoping that after 50 days, nobody, I mean, 50 days, hey, the Trump standard is two weeks, which in Trump world is forever.
- [55:25]
Tim Miller
It's noteworthy. The 50 days was noteworthy. It's long. A lot can happen in 50 days. So I don't know. I'm glad the weapons are going, but particularly the defensive weapons. But we'll see. Just really quick on in your death of expertise hat the Fed chair and Powell. There's a lot of chatter about this. The stupidest members of Congress and the Republican side are all agitating Trump to fire Pal. Based around mostly concerned about interest rates, which is legit, but they just passed a massive debt bomb to the House. I don't think that they really realize how interest rates work. There's a fun stat, not fun bad for everybody who is suffering with higher interest rates, but this morning that the mortgage rates bottomed at 6.1 in 2024, a week before the Fed began cutting. Today they're at 6.8. So they've gone up since the Fed's cuts because there are a lot of other issues in the economy.
- [56:20]
Tom Nichols
Well, and inflation. Inflation has gone up and I am not usually an inflation bear. I suppose as a child of the 70s, when someone says we're up at 2.7% inflation, I'm like, I'm the kid who came of age when inflation was 10% and was, was pretty much a 10 year. I mean, people forget this. That big run of inflation started under Nixon, it toppled Ford, it ate away a Carter. You know, I mean, it was a big thing. So nonetheless, if, if inflation, if the target for The Fed is 2% and Trump's bizarre tariff theory is helped to push it back to 2.7, as you point out, do, do people not understand how interest rates work and how that interacts with the economy? If inflation is starting to pick up, you don't, you don't actually cut interest rates because then you get, you know, more inflation. So I, I don't know whether he's actually going to fire Powell. I think it's interesting the adults in the room problem, those people are gone with regard to everything, right? The justice department, you know, J6ers, Ukraine, you name it. Every adult in the room has been vanquished except on this, except on economic stuff where there are still enough really wealthy guys who can pick up the phone to him and say, you know, for example, don't fire Powell or I need an exception on this big immigration thing because I have a lot of maids who work in my hotel. You know what I mean? Or on this tariff, right. You need to get, cut me a break on my thing. So I, you know, I, Is he going to do it? I don't know. I think he's, in a way, your colleague Jonathan, you know, JVL has pointed out, you know, it's almost like the markets now just price in the lunacy and they, unless something really concrete happens, they don't pay attention to this. And so when he holds up a letter saying, I'm going to fire Powell, everybody goes, yeah, whatever. You've written a lot of letters, sir.
- [58:28]
Tim Miller
I'm interested to listen to friends of the pod. Derek Thompson and Justin Wolfers did a pod. This one I haven't listened to yet about what the theories are for the kind of persisting economic positive news, at least relatively speaking, modest positive news in the face of all these threats. And I don't know, this could be the bad stuff's around the corner, but it might just be the irrational, the JVL irrational markets that.
- [58:54]
Tom Nichols
But they're also hoping, I think, that a lot of the worst stuff comes, that the White House is hoping a lot of the worst stuff comes after the midterms and then they don't care.
- [59:02]
Tim Miller
All right, we'll close it here. We need a laugh. You mentioned it earlier. The President told a very strange story about the Unabomber and we're going to break our rule just because it's so funny. It's funny on several levels. Like funny point and laugh funny, not him being funny. Let's. Let's take a listen to Donald Trump talking about his uncle.
- [59:27]
C
When I first heard about AI, you know, it's not my thing, although my uncle was at MIT. One of the great professors, 51 years, whatever. He was longest serving professor in the history of MIT. 3 degrees in nuclear, chemical and math. That's a smart man. And Kaczynski was one of his students. Do you know who Kaczynski was? There's very little difference between a madman and a genius. But Kaczynski, I said, what kind of a student was he? Uncle John, Dr. John Trump? He said, what kind of a student, man? He said, seriously good. He said he'd correct. He'd go around correcting everybody. But it didn't work out too well for him.
- [60:08]
Tim Miller
Turns out it's a totally fabricated story.
- [60:10]
Tom Nichols
Because it's physically impossible. It's not even like a slight misremembering of something. I mean, it is, you know, whole clock. Kaczynski didn't go to MIT. His uncle died before anybody knew that Kaczynski, 11 years before Kaczynski was even identified as the Unabomber. There is absolutely, you know, there are very few Times.
- [60:33]
Tim Miller
Maybe Trump had a medium. Maybe Trump spoke to Uncle Dr. Dr. John through an altercation, alternate, you know, universe.
- [60:41]
Tom Nichols
And. And, you know, I know it. We're. We're yucking it up about it, but, you know, this is really one of the few times where you want to say, now imagine if Joe. Imagine the books that would be written if Joe Biden had said this. I mean, Joe Biden talks about one guy named Corn Pop, who turns out.
- [60:59]
Tim Miller
Existed real Corn Pop on the pod.
- [61:03]
Tom Nichols
The. The. You know, the Biden told. Told this story, and everybody just assumed that it was fake, and then it turned out to be true. Here, Trump, it shows you how much we've lowered the bar where Donald Trump is. Is. And I think that's, you know, that's really part of the tragedy here. And I know we were trying to have end on a funny note, but, you know, to say, hey, old man, Donald Trump's 79. You know, Biden was 81. Yeah, old. Guys, listen, I'm 64, and I. I cycle through names when I'm trying to talk to people, you know, and my wife is used to these long pauses where I say, hey, you know, we need to pick up some. And she'll say, you know, chicken. Yes, chicken. That's the word I couldn't mind, you know, but that's different than say again, say, you know, so, honey, I was picking up the chicken, and there I was talking to George Harrison, you know, about Eric Clapton. I mean, it's. It's like people would, like, be worried about your mental capacity at that point. And Trump says this stuff, and we all go, what are you gonna do? It's Trump. Biden goes through this. And we're, you know, there are hearings about whether or not there was criminal intent involved in the Biden administration. And Trump says things that are. Are that if your dad said them. And I know we've. We've said this before, Tim, but if your dad started talking this way, you'd.
- [62:32]
Tim Miller
Have some texts with the siblings, and she's like, yeah, we got to talk about. We're gonna have to start playing sometimes.
- [62:37]
Tom Nichols
We gotta have a talk. You know, my father lived to be 94 and didn't get things, you know, this. This wrong. And so I. I guess it's kind of the thing that's always strikes me on Trump stories, that he does it almost in a way to be ingratiating and to show that he's got a command of interesting story. You know, Kaczynski was, you know, you know, the guy, and you know, and my Uncle John, you know, with this 3 degrees nuclear chemical, you know, and he's, he's. There's this whole thing that is just.
- [63:10]
Tim Miller
Nuclear, chemical and math. The traditional three. Three degrees.
- [63:13]
Tom Nichols
Yeah, yeah. And. And he says it with this kind of. Of aw shucks, folksy approach that says this really happened. And you know, if he's, if he's just making up stories as a politician, okay, that's bad. But if he actually believes this and I think the level of detail he goes into says that he thinks it happened, then. Yeah. Where are the phone calls that say we gotta, you know, we gotta have a talk about that? Ronald Reagan's cabinet met and thought about, had a discussion about Reagan's mental acuity based on a tiny fraction of this kind of behavior, let's put it that way.
- [63:53]
Tim Miller
What a world. Good thing he has his finger on the button. His tiny little finger. Tom Nichols, it's always a pleasure. Everybody Go check out that August Atlantic edition. A lot of good stuff on nuclear. On nuclear, which after John Trump is an excellent issue.
- [64:07]
Tom Nichols
On nuclear.
- [64:07]
Tim Miller
On nuclear and tall. Have you got, guys. May this weekend be filled with wonderful secrets. You never know what could happen. I'll see you back here Monday with Bill Crystal. See you, Tom.
- [64:17]
Tom Nichols
See you, Tim. Thanks.
- [64:18]
D
Open minded I'm so blinded Mystery man woman Phantom pilot light smears the atmosphere I'm so scared but I'm standing here Is what I'm seeing real or is it just a. Is it all just virtual? We could be lovers Even just tonight we could be we could be Jo the daylight we could break all of can't stop staring I'm so naked Wrapped in the shadow My heart races Dragon's eyes watch God is breathing Give me something to believe in this what I am seeing real or is it just a sign? Is it all just virtue? Wow. We could be lovers Even just to love tonight we could be anything you want we could be your best right to the daylight we could break all of us I'll be your head I'll be your head I'll be your head Feel anymore Did you hear what I said? Did you hear what I said? Is it all in my head?
- [66:28]
Tim Miller
Is it all in my head?
- [66:31]
D
Is it all in my head? We could be lovers Even just tonight we could be how to think you are we could be your daylight we could break all of us I'll be your even Just through the night Be your any.
- [67:09]
Tim Miller
The Bulwark podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.