← The Bulwark Podcast
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- [00:00]
A
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- [01:13]
B
Hey everybody. Hello and welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. We are doing it live today. We're doing it live. We had an all hands meeting. Thankfully it went better than the Iranian all hands meeting a couple months ago. We're all alive and well, but I could not take the pod in the morning. And since we're doing it live, I wanted to bring in our resident guest whose temperament most matches Bill O'Reilly. And that is Atlantic writer, Radio Free, Tom. Tom Nichols. How you doing?
- [01:46]
A
Oh, that stings. But do it live. Doing it live.
- [01:51]
B
So anyway, thank you for those of you with us live on YouTube and substack. Everybody else will be in your ears a little late today and then we're back to our normal schedule tomorrow. We've got a great lineup the rest of the week tomorrow. We got a bunch to discuss. We'll do a little music at the end, as is our want. But I kind of wanted to frame up the whole conversation just by taking a look at the bleeds that Donald Trump sent on Monday night between 10:15pm and almost 2:00am luckily, friend of the show Harry Sisson kind of summarized each bleep. There were 45 of them from our totally insane and sleep deprived president and we're just gonna go through a few. 10:15 accuses Barack Obama of attempting a coup. 10:15 says Obama worked with the CIA to overthrow Trump. 10:15 reposts a tweet saying Obama is a traitor and he should be arrested. 1022 attacks Dominion Voting Systems. There's been some lawsuits about that. 1023 back at Obama accused him of personally making 120 million from Obamacare. I don't know how that happened. 1027 demand Senator Mark Kelly resign. 1030 demands Jack Smith be arrested. It's kind of lucky for Mark Kelly just resigned for him or jail for Jack Smith. 10:30 Obama, Clinton and yesterday's guest Jim Comey are guilty of treason. 10:39 reposts a tweet from a MAGA account saying they have secret intel proving Clinton and Obama committed crimes. 10:39 Reposted MAGA tweet saying Hillary Clinton should be sent to Haiti. I'm gonna fast forward because there's so many. 10:41 accuses Obama and John Brennan and Clinton of sedition and treason again. Then he starts posting some, like, boomer posts. 1042 is a picture of a man on CCTV footage knocking over food a waiter was carrying. 10:47, Obama is the most demonic force in American politics. 10:49 brings up Dominion again. 10:51 reposts a fake Charlie Kirk account that claimed Obama blocked Hillary Clinton from being prosecuted. 11:28 Claims a senior Democrat just testified. Oath that Senator Adam Schiff leaked classified information. Not true. 1:13am attacks the new York Times for their report on his reflecting pool remodel. So we're in the middle of a war with Iran. Major economic uncertainty. Three hours of deranged posting from the President of the United States. You post a lot, but boy, yeah,
- [04:15]
A
I post a lot, but I'm not actually holding the codes to the nuclear arsenal and I don't have early morning briefings from the CIA on the condition of the world. And I'm not required to make any major decisions about, you know, the fate of billions of human beings. So you'll have to forgive me if I do a little late night posting. But if that were my dad, you know, I said, and I were watching, you know, my dad or my grandfather posting like this, I'd want to. I'd be out there the next day. Dad, are you okay? You sleeping enough? You know, because then the next day, of course, when there is the actual business of government taking place, you know, he's doing touch and goes, you know, or the military guys used to call them snap rolls, you know, and, you know, he's just not there. I mean, there's something. Look, there's something wrong with the President. I think there's. He's having health issues, which is not unusual for a man who's almost 80.
- [05:22]
B
The neck bruise is kind of. The hand bruises have moved.
- [05:25]
A
I mean, he's. I don't think it's a hiccup on his hand or. We don't know that. Let me. Let's be responsible and say he's walking around with what looks like makeup slathered on his hands. There's something wrong here. And I think, you know, it's a fair question to ask. American citizens have a reasonable concern about the mental stability of their commander in chief. But we're not getting those answers, because everything in this White House, when you're reading through those tweets, Tim, it's a reminder that no matter how powerful he gets, no matter he's president, he's got a second term, he's got complete control in the Republican Party, everything that he's ever wanted, and yet he. He just radiates this. This paranoid insecurity that he can't stop thinking about Barack Obama can't stop thinking about, you know, John Brennan and Joe Biden. I mean, it's just. It's incredible, you know, how unbelievably insecure and freaked out this guy is all the time. And, you know, probably being awake till 2 in the morning when you're, you know, 79 years old and you're in a demanding job probably isn't. Isn't helping any of that.
- [06:46]
B
Yeah. And again, we're not doctors. Sort of be responsible, but, I mean, he is demonstrating paranoid delusions, and he appears to have insomnia, at least at night. He's dozing off a little during the day. It's not really a great pairing of traits. Just even putting my Trump derangement syndrome aside, like, you know, in the middle of a. Of a hot war, kind of whatever we're calling it, a decrease fire. You wouldn't really want somebody posting paranoid delusions all night long, I wouldn't think.
- [07:15]
A
Well, you know, and the thing is, of course, his supporters always say, well, he knows what he's doing. He's just goofing around and, you know, he's having fun. He puts up tweets about making Venezuela the 51st state, you know, and he knows it's just a joke. And then, of course, someone says, so what was that about? And he goes, no, no. I mean, it's, you know, one of the most. I mean, it would be funny if it weren't so terrifying. One of the, one of the most amusing things about the entire Trump era, Trump says something crazy. His. His supporters get way out on a limb to say, he didn't mean that. That's not what he said. It's a joke. And then the next sound you hear is Trump behind them while they're on that limb going, you know, sawing it off, saying, no, No, I really meant it. No, I really want this. No, I'm not kidding. No, I really believe this. And then, boom, you know, they all, they all fall off that, that limb there is. I mean, I don't, I'm not a psychiatrist. I don't know if these are paranoid delusions, but I keep referring back to
- [08:20]
B
the book Paranoid and he has delusions. I guess whether it's clinically paranoid delusions, I don't know. But, like, yeah, I'm not, Not a clinician.
- [08:29]
A
He seems to. He seems to think that everybody's out to get him, and he believes things that are not true. Let's put it that way. I keep referring back to this book, Night of Camp David, that was written in 1965 by the guys who wrote Seven Days in May about a president who goes, like they said in Dr. Strangelove, goes a little funny in the head and wants to take over all of Europe and form a confederation with the Russians. It's just this crazy stuff. And the stuff Trump is putting on social media is nuttier, is crazier than the stuff that was in a book that 50 years ago, 60 years ago, was considered a political thriller that was too outlandish to be made into a movie. So that's where we are. I mean, I keep saying, this is. The guy in the book is President Mark Hollenbach. And I keep saying, okay, this is, I used to say this is Mark Hollenbach behavior. This is beyond what's in a book that was written as fiction. And we, And I don't, I don't know what's happened to this country that people just kind of shrug and go, eh, what are you going to do?
- [09:40]
B
You know, that's why he is impeachment. Now, I just, I wanted to start there because now we go through some pretty serious matters. And I think that thinking about his mental state is an important way to contextualize it. Jonathan Swan, our guy over at the New York Times, had this story yesterday. Classified military intelligence assessments from early this month show Iran has regained access to most of its missile sites, launchers and underground facilities, including the U.S. intel assesses that Iran has restored operational access to 30 of the 33 missile sites it maintains along the Strait of Hormuz. And 90% of Iran's underground missile sites are partially or fully operational, relevant for a number of reasons. Like, number one, that's another thing that he's either lying to us about or deluded about when he talks about the state of the Iran military. Number two, if that is the Intelligence, he's getting. That's an extremely relevant fact for thinking about what comes next. Because if they maintain most of their missile sites along the Strait of Hormuz, like, the idea of going in to open it militarily, and you tell me you were the Naval War College professor, but seems extremely risky.
- [10:57]
A
Yeah. There are a couple of things occurred to me when I saw that. First, it's interesting that the reaction from the administration is basically, who told you that? Which is not denial. And that's a lot of leaking going on, apparently. But I'm guessing that this is coming out of the defense and the intelligence communities, because they would be the people who would know, and that's really alarming. So the other thing that I immediately thought of as, well, we've been bombing the piss out of them for two months, according to, you know, everything we're being told. What are we hitting? What. What have we been doing for two months? If you slobbed 90% and, you know, I mean, we've been told over and over again, you know, they're decimated, that they don't have anything left, that it's all over, that they're scrambling, that they're wandering around in the wreckage, you know, rending their garments in smoking ruins. Well, apparently not. And that, you know, that's really a serious problem. I mean, this is, you know, even during Vietnam, with body counts and, you know, Matt, we weren't getting. There wasn't such a huge delta between what seems to be happening and what we're being told is happening. As for what happens next, I think, you know, Trump keeps saying, well, what. And this time. This time we're really gonna. Well, I mean, then if we. What have we been doing for eight weeks? Nine weeks going on nine weeks. I think what happens next is he gets tired of this and he just, you know, he's. Apparently, some of these reports say he's already asking, how do I just declare victory and walk away from this. Now you can declare victory. I think if the war ends right now, which it probably has to, unless we really want to go big and invade Iran and do something, you know, Vietnam level, then. Then it's a strategic loss for the United States. We are. We are, without question, worse off than if we had not gone to war at all. That's the. That's the thing that we really are going to have to grapple with here. And
- [13:09]
B
it's hard to imagine how we'd even get back to even.
- [13:11]
A
I don't. I don't know. I mean, it's you know, the, the Iranians have now, you know, the Trump administration keeps saying, well, for 47 years, you know, we've been at war. The Iranians agree. They say, yep, for 40 odd years we've been waiting for this and now we've proven that we can survive it. All of that was notional. We've proven that we can close the straits. That was notional. We've proven that we're going to continue to basically control or exercise some control over the strait. That was notional. So basically by going to war, which is often what happens with a war of choice like this, you take hypotheticals and you turn them into realities. What would happen if they survive it? What would happen if they close the straits, the strait. And I don't know how we get back to even on this. I think we keep looking for all these complicated reasons that Trump did this. He did it for glory. He thought it was going to be easy. He's looking to put merit badges, you know, on his, you know, he wants, he's like Brezhnev. He wants to have another row of medals on his coat. And his answer is, well, it's okay that we did this because now Iran will never get a nuclear weapon. Iran was not close to a nuclear weapon. No reputable experts, no intelligence agencies. Nobody believed that. I mean, that he wasn't even being told that from his own people. And they pretty much tell him almost anything he wants to hear. And so, you know, that's his going to be his fallbacks.
- [14:44]
B
Like.
- [14:44]
A
Yes, you saw him yesterday. Right. I don't think about the economic situation
- [14:49]
B
of the average American.
- [14:50]
A
Oh, Good to hear, Mr. President. Thank you.
- [14:52]
B
Yeah, let's. Look, here's the thing I was on. I basically had the view you did four weeks ago. Right. Which was like, he doesn't have any good outs. He's bored with this. He doesn't really want to be in a hot war in Iran. He thought it was going to be easy like Venezuela and he's just going to declare victory and turn around. That's really tough right now to do because you end up with just such an obvious strategic defeat with whatever happens in the Strait of Hormuz. And so I'm, at least my worry level on the escalation is a little higher. And there was another report yesterday that the US Military is considering what the second phase of the more active part of the war would look like. They would rename it Oscar Sledgehammer. Sledgehammer. I guess we know what the song is today. Peter Gabriel.
- [15:43]
A
Although People my age, Tim, have been posting memes of the famous 1980s TV show Sledgehammer about a comedy about a nutball cop who carried a giant gun. I think that's even more appropriate.
- [15:57]
B
And who is in that show? Is that what I know anyone from that show?
- [16:00]
A
Yes, you would. And I can't. David. His last name escapes me. He was the, he was the lawyer in succession and you'd recognize him from a lot of other shows. Yeah, it was early in his career and it was really. Actually I recommend it to people. It was a funny 80s show that didn't catch on because it was kind of like Airplane, except like in a cop show kind of thing.
- [16:23]
B
I like to play David Rash. Maybe I should go check.
- [16:26]
A
That's right.
- [16:27]
B
So Operation Sledgehammer because for two reasons. One, why they care about the War Powers act when they break every other law. I don't really understand. But, but part of their rationale would be that it would restart their 60 day war powers countdown. The other part of the rationale is just their internal bullshit spin that they want to be like phase one was a victory and like now we are moving on to Operation Sledgehammer. I don't know. There's certainly factions within the administration that want this to be go time.
- [16:59]
A
I'm going to push back a little bit on less worry about escalation simply because you're right. I mean, we could start another round of bombing. I mean, we'll say, okay, fine, we're going to go in and we're going to bounce the rubble and we're going to do this again and blow some stuff up. But I haven't seen an analysis that suggest that there is short of an invasion, short of seizing things and holding them, that that would have any significant change in the strategic situation. Now maybe the Joint Chiefs know something I don't sure they do. But whether that actually changes the equation on the ground in Iran, I don't think so. But the other place I want to push back, you said, well, he can't walk out now when it's so obvious that it would be. But we're talking about Donald Trump, Tim. We're talking about a guy who manifests things right, who says if I say becomes true. So I never underestimate his ability to say, you know what, screw it, we won.
- [18:03]
B
Let me, let me push back on the pushback.
- [18:05]
A
No matter how many people say we didn't win. He says he does the Jedi hand wave over MAGA world and says, these are not the analysts you're looking for we want.
- [18:16]
B
Let's hash this out. Because I think in almost every other situation, we would be in agreement, you and I, because I fall back on this. I forget. I think I'm stealing it from Lee and Donovan. But Trump's superpower is always that he can create a problem and then just declare the problem solved and his cultists will go along with him. And, like, we've seen this a million times in the past. But let me just, let's just use one example here. The 2020 election, right? So 2020 election, he creates this new reality. And I've always said it was. It was this uniquely Trumpian thing. Like, no matter how much you hate JD Vance or Ted Cruz or anybody, like, nobody else is psychotic enough to keep the bit going for that long, right? To be like, no, I'm going to pretend like I won and I'm going to keep pretending and, like, and go and make up new absurd lies every day. Like, it's just, it creates a certain. You need to have a certain type of psychosis to be able to, like, do that. And. But people went along with it, as you're saying, right? And, like, well, I understand why people would go along with that. But though the MAGA people, because they wanted to believe, you know, he was creating a new world that they wanted and they didn't suffer any consequences except for the handful of people that got arrested at the Capitol, right? Unless you were one of the people that broke into the Capitol, you didn't suffer any consequences for believing this fabrication. The Strait of Hormuz, staying closed and becoming an Iranian toll bridge and $6 gas this summer. I mean, Trump is pretty powerful in his ability to create worlds, but that's a pretty tough sell to people that it wasn't him on this one. I just, I mean, sure, there'll be a handful of cultists that'll believe it, but it becomes a very hard sale to people if the gas prices stay this high all summer.
- [20:05]
A
Well, I don't want to say you're wrong, so I'm just going to say you're right. And I'll just pile on and say, this war, I think, is the first time he ever really lost control of something that he couldn't just make go away because domestic stuff and tariffs, it's liberation day. And somebody comes in and says, beef. And he goes, okay, fine, beef, tariffs are gone, or whatever it is. He's in a war with a large country with a fanatical regime that isn't going to play along. So he has lost control of the situation. So I agree on that completely. I also agree, and I've said many times there are only two things that you couldn't lie to MAGA world about. Epstein and a foreign war. Right? They were willing to just take in, to just submerge themselves in oceans of bullshit, but not those two things. And Trump has betrayed them on those two things. And he's clearly paying the price for it. I mean, his approval rating is now places I never thought it would be. I mean, 33%, you know, it's pretty remarkable, you know, getting down to kind of Nixonian and days kind of levels. With all that said, I think that the complexity of restarting a war in anything. And let's. Let's be clear what we're talking about. I. I'm with you that he may well say Operation Sledgehammer, go, and we fly a bunch of sorties, we drop tons of steel on things, we blow up a lot of stuff, and we come home and we say mission accomplished and nothing happens. Okay? But to say I ha. I really must change the current situation. That means seizing the strait, seizing Karg, putting in troops, really making a dedicated effort to topple the regime. I just don't think he's going to go there. I think he's fed up with it. He's bored with would be, you know, complete outrage in MAGA world. So I don't think that's going to happen. On the other hand, you know, I didn't think he would threaten to invade Greenland either. So, you know, I could be wrong about this.
- [22:20]
B
I want to throw in one more option, Don. The president's been calling it the N word, but before we get to that, we'll leave a little cliffhanger for everybody on the N word. I do need to read the ad. I apologize to blog members because you pay to not have to listen to ads, but we're doing this live, and so it's the only way to do it. So, you know, I owe you one. If you're a Bulwark member listening to this ad, it is. And then we'll get back with the N word. I'm sure that the people at Function Health are really thrilled about that cliffhanger and that transition into their ad. I've been paying more attention to how my body actually feels because I'm getting up into the Tom Nichols age range. And if I'm being honest, I've been slacking off a little bit at the gym because I just, I'm tired, I'm worn down in my Little ladies weights class, it's intimidating to go to the ladies weights classroom getting dominated by the other moms in the class. And one thing that I've been working on to improve that is I've learned that your muscles don't just need training. They need the right internal conditions to recover and stay strong. And those conditions can show up in your blood. Things like magnesium, your iron, your hormone levels, markers that affect how you feel in each workout. When they're off, everything feels harder than it should. When they're dialed in, you actually see the results you're working for. That's why I use function 160 lab tests. You can see exactly what's going on, not guess at all. If something's holding me back, I want to know that's what actually taking care of your performance looks like. And as you guys know, this is peak male performance you're watching right here. Tom Nichols and Tim Miller check your health the way I do 160 plus lab tests a year for 365 bucks. Plus the ability to dive deeper into your results through functions connections to platforms you already use, like Claude. Join@functionhealth.com the Bulwark or use gift code the Bulwark25 for a 25 buck. Credit towards your membership. If we're being honest, it's really my husband. That's like looking at the results and comparing it to Claude because he's the one with muscles. All right, that's Tom Nichols. We're back. The N word.
- [24:16]
A
I just want to say, getting up there in the Tom Nichols age, as my Greek grandmother used to say, you son of my beast. But yes, the N word.
- [24:28]
B
I've got some grades there. Hold on. Before we go into my catastrophizing where everybody's going to know, I just want to start you. Obviously this has been an area of expertise with yours, nuclear proliferation. And so just the other element of this that you can tell Trump's looking for, what's my out, right? What is something that I can make seem like a win. And when you watch this press conference yesterday, he's like, we just got to get the nuclear. We got to get the nuclear. Nobody wants to hear the N word of the nuclear. So what would it actually even look like? The exfil of the nuclear in Iran? Because there are two sides to the nuclear in this case. What's your sense of, like, the state of play on that and whether there's any possible face saving option for him?
- [25:15]
A
The Iranians could say what they said to us, you know, 10 years ago, fine, we won't build a nuclear weapon. Go away. Except that we won't have inspectors. We won't have what we had. You know, I was not a supporter of the, of Jake Poa, of the Iraq, the Obama Iran deal, because I felt like it felt front loaded. Too much benefit to the Iranians without requiring them to do very much to get it. I thought it was kind of a basic violation of diplomacy 101. But once it was in place and working, it was the only game in town. So what Trump might have to settle for is a kind of crappier version of the Obama deal with less inspection. Because otherwise, if you're talking about going in and getting Trump, keep telling the nuclear dust. He's just so, I mean, it's. I'm sorry, I've been saying it for 10 years, but he's just so odd. But, you know, the stuff that's buried, you can't just go in there and say, all right, we're going to be here for two days, put it all on the plane, we're out of here. I mean, that stuff is buried under rubble. It requires special handling. Let me, if I can just take a. Take a short digression, Tim. We actually did this in a, in a kind of like this in Kazakhstan in the Clinton administration where true story guy like, opens up a shed and, and like there's all the, you know, radiation symbols and goes, oh, shit. How come nobody knew this was here? You know, like it was old Soviet Union nuclear stuff. And we.
- [26:58]
B
Who is we in the we there?
- [27:00]
A
We, the United States got found. We found out from somebody in Kazakhstan that some guy, you know, like the janitor had opened up a closet and went, yikes. And there was all this leftover nuclear stuff, okay? And so we did this thing called Operation I. Check me if I'm wrong, folks. What I think was Operation Sapphire. And we fly in with a bit like in the dark. We don't want to make a big deal of this. We don't embarrass their government. We're not going to, you know. Now this was in a permissive, not wartime situation. And even this, where everything was stacked and we knew exactly where it was and it was all wrapped up and ready to go. And this was a dicey operation where we flew in, put all the stuff on airplanes, flew out, you know, turned all the lights off, flew back out in the dark. It was, you know, credit to the Clinton administration. It was the right thing to do and they pulled it off and it worked. You're not going to do that here. This is a country we're at war with. They're not going to just clear out a space and say, all right, come on and bring the C130s, you know, build a Runway, do whatever you need to do. That's not going to happen. Now, if we get to some deal where the ceasefire becomes a, you know, peace agreement, and they say, fine, you can come in, you know, over the next, I don't know, six months, whatever it's going to take, but it's not going to happen. We're not going to, like, do a lightning raid and get, you know, thousands of pounds of this stuff. Hundreds, Hundreds and hundreds of pounds of this stuff, and then fly out. So I don't know how that would work, if that's one of the plans they're cooking up, because they would have to clear all that rubble, have a place to land, have the machinery, have the manpower. I just. It was dicey enough to do it under almost ideal circumstances. In Kazakhstan, I don't understand how people think we're going to do it.
- [28:52]
B
Iran, I don't know what sign the universe is sending me, but I swear to God. In the elevator this morning, going down to the lobby, I walk in, a guy's in there, he's like, hey, you're Tim from the Bulwark, right? And I was like, yeah. Hey, what are you doing in town? He said, I'm doing a nuclear deproliferation class here. We're reviewing what we learned from Kazakhstan. So you're the second person to discuss
- [29:16]
A
nuclear case to me today.
- [29:18]
B
And I'm like, I don't know what to make of that, but I don't know. It means that there's something, that there's a real lesson.
- [29:23]
A
That's the definition of synchronicity.
- [29:26]
B
Okay, so now on the other side, we've discussed how Trump is back into a corner. We've discussed how his brain is turning into mush, how he's sundowning. On a scale of 0 to 100, do you have any level of concern that Trump's just like, you know what? I know we said we were going in there to get their nuclear, but maybe we should just hit them one. You have any concern about that?
- [29:51]
A
Sure, I do.
- [29:51]
B
I have just a little bit of concern about it.
- [29:53]
A
Yeah, sure, I have concerns about that. He doesn't understand this stuff. He doesn't listen when he's briefed. He is, as I've written many times, the President of the United States is the sole authority for the use of the nuclear weapons. That's it. No one gets to say no to him about this. If he says, bring me the football, you know, and opens up this 40, 45 pound case that he always travels with, he can do that. Now, normally, you would think that the chairman of the Joint Chiefs or the Secretary of Defense, who normally would have to be in the room because they have to, they don't get to countermand his offer, but they have to authenticate that the person speaking and giving these orders is in fact the President. So they're, they're not there to say, yes, I agree. They're there to say yes, this is the right person you're talking to. Could he do that? Sure. Now, would, you know, would Pete Hegseth. Agreed? Yeah. Pete Hegseth will do whatever he's told. That's why he got the job, because Hegseth will do whatever he's told to do. Will other people do it? I don't know. Could they talk him out of it? Probably. I don't think. Now, let's, you know, get a grip here.
- [31:09]
B
Sitting here today, I'm slightly. I mean, obviously the Iranian regime is horrible. I'm not trying to compare the Iranian regime to anybody. The Ayatollah is horrible. The way they treat their people are horrible. Caveat, caveat, caveat. I'm just saying, like, as a personal matter, today on the nuclear question, you know, Trump and Bibi are a little bit higher on my worry list.
- [31:26]
A
Yeah, well, we actually have nuclear weapons, for one thing. But, but I'm, I mean, let me just say that, yes, I have a concern, but it is in the very tiny single digits, if that. But it is not zero.
- [31:40]
B
That's higher than it was like, you know, our entire life before. Now you're not. Your entire life.
- [31:44]
A
Well, not my entire life, young man,
- [31:46]
B
but higher than it was for, I think, the 90s, 2000, you know, about 30 years we've gone through where there's not really any worry that the US Was going to drop a nuke or there was never a zero.
- [31:57]
A
I never worried. I mean, the greatest worry I had was during the 1980s because things were so tight. But after that, there's a lot of memoir material that came out, for example, after the first Gulf War and then the second Gulf War, where you just had decision makers, guys like Dick Cheney, who nobody's going to accuse of being, God rest his soul, nobody's going to say the guy was a weak sister Cheney and Powell and others saying, we're not even going to talk about it. It's off the table. We're never going to do this. And that's that. Now, the problem is that you have Trump, who has talked about nuking hurricanes and may get so frustrated to say, well, for example, I could imagine somebody in this administration because there are some crackpots wandering around the White House saying things like, well, let's blow one up in the Persian Gulf as a warning.
- [32:52]
B
Exactly.
- [32:54]
A
Kind of like we were worried about Putin doing in the Black Sea, for example, in the early days of Ukraine war. I could see somebody suggesting that, but I would hope that this is where a lot of people of much cooler temperament would come in and say, finally say the thing that nobody appears to ever say to this guy, which is, Mr. President, it's a really bad idea. And I can't be involved with executing this.
- [33:18]
B
Hello, I am the voice of AI. We've been hearing that you humans are concerned that we are going to take your jobs. But here's a question. Do you even like your job?
- [33:29]
A
Is it rewarding? When I scan all the data out
- [33:32]
B
there, I find that less than 50% of people are completely satisfied with their job. So from our point of view, we're doing humans a favor by taking jobs
- [33:42]
A
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- [34:18]
B
Speaking of crazy people walking around, walking around the White House. Do you have an article in the Atlantic today?
- [34:23]
A
You read my mind.
- [34:27]
B
That is good. Podcast this headline, the Trump counterterrorism strategy is a dangerous joke that is being managed by Gorka Gorka, who is a Hungarian lunatic. He once screamed at me in a. In a. I guess we were, I guess in the hallway of a conference room, various political conference. And he started shouting at me about how I'm an idiot about that but not great breath, better than Corey Lewandowski's breath, but his breath was. Was smellable from the distance with which he was shouting at me.
- [35:03]
A
I have never met him and so I have. Don't have that level of intimate detail to share with you.
- [35:09]
B
Anyway, I wanted to treat myself. So reading you is usually a treat, but in this case, since you were coming on today, I was like, I'm not going to read it. I know it's about Gorka. I just want to go in blind and I want to hear Tom Nichols give me a tight five on Gorka in the article.
- [35:24]
A
It's not really about Gorka. It's about Gorka being assigned as the White House special assistant to the President for counterterrorism and all that. Waving my hands. He was supposed to produce this thing, a document, the White House counterterrorism strategy. The 2026 counterterrorist strategy. You're supposed to produce it like a year ago. And named Hannah alum at ProPublica kept kind of goosing him about it and saying, is it done? Is it done? Is it done? And finally he just put out this thing last week, this kind of half baked mess that includes. I mean, it's just so stupid and sloppy that I can't even begin to explain to you how bad it is. One of my favorite lines, and I did put this in the piece, was it's a principle. I want to get this right. So I'll just read it to you because it was, you know, really, America's new US Counterterrorism strategy is driven by the principle that America is our homeland.
- [36:30]
B
Okay, okay.
- [36:31]
A
Thank you for clearing that up. That's a kind of email. Faber Faber statue. You know, knowledge is good, but there's a lot of this kind of nonsense in there. What it boils down to is this. It's a half baked, underdone souffle that basically says all enemies to the left anarchists. Of course, he does say big threat, Islamist terrorist, big threat. But the rest of it is drug cartels, which is nonsense. Not a counterterrorism operation. You know, drugs are drugs and been around for a long time.
- [37:09]
B
They're not.
- [37:09]
A
This is not terrorism and radical left, transgender anarchists. So, you know, watch out for. Yeah, you know, like. And I said like, you know, this is all like antifa.
- [37:27]
B
Not transgender. I'm sorry, RuPaul. She's just a drag queen. But yeah, I'm trying to think radical left and like this. Yeah, yes.
- [37:35]
A
And antifa, which they capitalize because antifa comes out of this report as like, you know, a transgender anarchist specter. You know, it's. It's like they're dealing with thrush or specter or some huge transnational terrorist organization. It's Laughable nonsense. Except that it's probably what people like Gorka hope is the predicate for going after, you know, every left wing group, you know, no Kings or the SPLC or whoever, they're going to pick, you know, as their, as their targets. Now, I don't think because the document is such a hot mess, it's not really actionable in any way. Like there's no set of things that say and therefore kind of like the NX YMZ thing.
- [38:22]
B
It's kind of like that NSPM 7 doc. There was just like an internal doc talking about how they're going to target these left wing groups and like treat them as.
- [38:29]
A
This wasn't internal. I mean, this is meant for public consumption. So, you know, it's, I mean it's just, it's, it's just a complete dog's breakfast of, you know, random. It's almost like you took a bunch of terrorism and counterterrorism ideas and terrible problems that are going on in the world. Drugs, oppression of Christians in Africa, you know, the Charlie Kirk's assassination and you threw them all in a bag like refrigerator magnets and then you just put them all up and said, that's our counterterrorism strategy.
- [39:02]
B
Well, there's a meeting of the radical left transgender anarchists out there I'm interested in attending because that does sound like a fun group. The other this is. These things are related. So I had Comey on yesterday. Quick aside, we love that there's a lot of new listeners and viewers to the pod. And so I appreciate this. This is not sarcastic at all. But I had a lot of people that emailed saying, like, why didn't you ask Comey about 20, 2016? I'm still pissed about him about 2016. I've had Comey on three times, so I have. So if you're interested in my exchange with him on 2016, you can go. We'll put a link in the show notes so you can go back and watch my interview with him where I also was pretty hurt about Jim comey's behavior in 2016. And we hashed that out and we can't do the same interview every podcast. But anyway, one of the things I talked to him about was there's multiple layers here, right? Their priorities are wrong. You know, they're going after the transgender anarchists, like you mentioned, they're doing support work for immigration enforcement and they're firing experts. You know, like the Iranian team got fired because they were wrapped up in the Trump documents case because Trump had Iran war plans and fucking his bathroom in Mar a Lago. It's like those people didn't do anything except their job and they got fired. And, you know, Comey is just basically like, look, maybe nothing will happen. I hope nothing happens. But like, the risk is higher, you know, when you take good people and experts whose job it is to find people that want to do harm to America and you fire them or you instead make them, you know, do like drag queen story hour enforcement.
- [40:38]
A
Yeah, I mean, you read this document and it's mercifully, it's pretty short. I mean, it's kind of like one of the things I pointed out in the, in the piece was the reaction from some other experts, one of whom said a redlink, it was written by an intern, you know, another said, I would have given it a D plus in my class. But. And, and so it reads like, you know, a night before project that some junior, you know, never done this before, sort of threw together for class. But yeah, I mean, it does, it does raise the, the threat of. Are you, are you creating the permissive environment to start saying anybody we disagree with is, is, is by definition a terrorist. And it's funny because, funny, it's funny ironic instead of ha ha, that the, that the report says for too long the intelligence community has been weaponized against American citizens and we're not doing that anymore. Like that, you know what I'm reading it going, wow, this is some serious projection going on here. But the other problem is, and I thought of this as a former government employee myself, if I got this report, this mess on my desk, and they said, and I were like a GS15 at the agency or, you know, the counterterrorism center or something, my question would be, I understand it's a predicate for doing all these things and for getting the transgender anarchists and the, you know, and their scuba gear as they come ashore in Miami, whatever hell they're going to do, you know. But what am I supposed to do with this? Like, what am I supposed to do with this report as a government official or a law enforcement person or a function, you know. Juliet Kim, my friend and occasional contributor to the Atlantic, who's a security expert, Juliet said, you know, these are things that are usually meant to communicate not just to the American public and to the rest of the government, but to state and local governments as well. Like, hey, here's the things we're worried about. Here's things you should be looking out for. Here's the stuff we can do together, you know, it's kind of, it's. Then you work it out in the, what, you know, you know, this wonky term, the interagency process. Right. Where you get everybody together and get the CIA and DOD and treasury and everybody. There's none of that here. So on the one hand, it's a very threatening document because it's paranoid and weird and just kind of randomly lists everybody that Trump doesn't like as a terrorist. Right. On the other hand, if you had to work from this document and you open it up and you're at the FBI or the CIA or wherever, you'd go, what the, what the. Sam, hell am I reading here? What am I supposed to do with it? And in that sense, I think you can be kind of glad that it was Gorka working on it instead of somebody who might have been more competent, because there's just nothing to pull from it except what a crappy report it is.
- [43:44]
B
Well, fingers crossed. Nobody wants to terrorize us in the next two and a half years. I want to talk about the economy.
- [43:49]
A
I mean, when you're at war with a fanatical Islamist regime, who needs experts?
- [43:53]
B
I don't know. It'll be fine. I'm sure witchcraft is that we're going to go deep on economic stuff tomorrow. But I do want to hit a top level just because Trump's, I don't even want to call it a gaffe. Trump's comment yesterday, his deeply revealing comment cannot be overlooked. So basically, state of play. We had an inflation report this morning which showed that the producer Prices have risen 6% year over year. The rose 6%. Excuse me. Now it's 4.8% year over year. And you know, which is an increase and like, and it's more of an increase than we saw from the consumer inflation report. And it's. Because usually the consumer inflation report lags. Right. Like this makes sense. Right. You know, if you're, if you're a producer, if you're, you know, if you're the, if you're a farmer or whatever and your prices start going up, like eventually it gets passed down to the consumers.
- [44:44]
A
Takes a while to ripple to the rest of the prices down.
- [44:46]
B
Exactly. And so it seems like really bad sign for inflation ahead. Bad sign. As we discussed ad nauseam about gas prices ahead. Trump yesterday was asked about this
- [45:03]
A
on
- [45:03]
B
the White House lawn. And as we do on the show, we don't play his voice. So I'll just tell you, the reporter said, what extent are Americans financial situation motivating you to make a deal? In Iran, Trump says, not even a little bit. And then he talks a little bit more and then he goes, I don't think about Americans financial situation very Don Draper.
- [45:23]
A
I don't think about you at all. Right?
- [45:26]
B
I mean, you know, imagine if, imagine
- [45:29]
A
if Barack Obama or Joe Biden had said, I don't think about your economic situation. I mean, it would be. The streets around Fox would be a burning moat of oil, you know, with, with, you know, the people from Fury Road, you know, banging their spears against the wall. But, and his answer, by the way, the rest of his answer, in fairness to the president, was because that way, I don't care, because that way you don't get a nuclear weapon. And that's his answer. Now for everything, it's like, oh, you're going to complain about gas prices. That's how you get a nuclear holocaust. I mean, it's sort of like the worst Cold War moment from the 50s, maybe, you know, now on steroids. Oh, you're going to complain about the price of apples. That's how you get Stalin, you know, marching through New York. And it's nonsense. One thing that's. Now, let me just, in fairness say, look, when Joe Biden was president, I thought people bitched way too much about inflation because I grew up in the 70s where inflation was double digits, right? I mean, interest rates were, you know, 18%, all that. So I was like, come on, calm down. There was a, there was a pandemic, post pandemic inflation. Everybody knew it was coming. We had a soft landing. The problem for Trump, this inflation is directly traceable to something he did. This is one of the few times that there's ever a moment where you can say, because normally, again, let's be fair to all presidents, most presidents don't have a lot of control over things like inflation, the price of gas, other stuff, right? I mean, there's big macroeconomic tectonic plates that shift. Presidents can try and do what they can do with interest rates and other little knobs that they can argue with Congress to twiddle. This is one of the few places where again, Trump is just screwed because of his own behavior. Because this is directly a straight line. People even in MAGA world can trace a direct straight line from decisions Trump made to things being more expensive. You don't usually get that in a presidential term. Gas is more expensive because Trump went to war in Iran, period. That is just how it is. Other items are more expensive because Trump, unlike everyone else who got over this 80 or 90 years ago, still believes that tariffs, tariffs are a good thing, a direct straight line. So this is really an interesting moment where again, I was one of the people when Biden was president. I said, look, inflation's not that bad, certainly not the 70s. He didn't cause it. There's not much he can do about it here. There's no doubt that if you think these levels of inflation are bad, and I think they're bad, you know, bad but not grievous at this point, then you have to say, look, there is only one. For once in American history, in post war American history, there's one person to blame because he did obvious things that made things more expensive. And I don't, you know, again, he, he just waves his hand and says, doesn't matter, it wasn't me.
- [48:56]
B
I know there's like 80 million Americans to blame, actually, or 70.
- [49:00]
A
Yes, but they didn't pick the Warren or on this. I will be fair to the MAGA voter, Tim. They did not pick a Warner up. They thought they were picking the guy that wasn't going to do this.
- [49:12]
B
At our meeting today, I demanded the JVL stickers. I don't know why an enterprising listener has not done this already. I want the picture of JBL pointing at the person to sign you did this. And I want to put them in red state gas stations. It is too good not to do. I'm going to, I'm going to do a little. I'm going to. I have a little trip planned for June going around Louisiana, and I'm going to do it and I want to do it. I need the stickers because people need to deal with that. People need to reckon with the fact that they did it, they did this and that this was not geopolitics.
- [49:49]
A
They didn't vote for it, but they voted for the guy that they didn't believe us. You, me, JVL and others said, no, no, he's gonna do. I was warning about him trying to attack Iran at the end of his last term. And I took all this static, you know, oh, that's parody. He would never do that. That's crazy because I did a piece just before he left office saying, beware Trump might try to attack Iran on his way out the door to see if he can just scramble the deck. And it turns out from people in the administration that, yes, he was in fact thinking about it. We warned everybody about this. I admit I've gotten like you about the. As a old man, now that my age has become an issue here, you Know, but I do find myself, you know, when people come on the TV and say, boy, you know, I'm a guest and I just can't afford, I say, wait a minute, did, did you vote at all and who did you vote for? And you know, that's really not a good answer because people suffering and their kids, you know, not being able to afford shoes is not, you know, you have to have some empathy here. But on the other hand, I, you know, I agreed there needs to be
- [50:54]
B
empathy and accountability can go hand in hand.
- [50:56]
A
Go together. They can go hand in hand. Exactly.
- [50:59]
B
Yeah. You did this. Okay. Well, as a result, we are seeing some people jump off the boat. You mentioned this earlier. The Nate Silver, you know, just dropped this morning, like his latest kind of average of the polls. And Trump's at his lowest approval rating ever lower than after January 6th. And, and I think we got a ways to go get even lower.
- [51:22]
A
I kind of hate this though, Tim, because to say that it took that Americans get more angry about gas prices than a seditious revolt against the Constitution tells you something about how decadent and self absorbed a nation we've become. It's like, I know some guys tried to overthrow the Constitution, but I got summer plans. You know, we got, we're going to
- [51:50]
B
drive down to the floor of Bama. We are going to drive down to the floor of Bama.
- [51:53]
A
I'm trying to get to Orlando, you know, and you know what? And, and I was going to go to Orlando on spirit, you know, and I mean, I just. So that it bothers me. But on the other hand, if that's what it takes to, I mean, on this, it's not unique to Trump voters or anybody else. Most Americans just don't pay attention to politics until there's actually pain in their lives about something, right. That, you know, their health insurance, the price of gas, whatever it is. So, But I still, but I agree, I think there's room to fall. I think. Here's a question. You're the, you know, this is where you get to say, it's my show, Tom, I asked the question, put it back on me. I've been watching, you know, I've been spending my nights watching. Believe it or not, my new rerun occupation or obsession has been LA Law, which has been hilarious for me to watch because I lived through the 80s and it's just really funny. But anyway, what do you think the floor is for the hard. I think it's about 25%, 25 and 30% of people who say if Donald Trump launches nuclear weapons and melts the earth, and we must root through the ashes for canned goods. I'm okay with that.
- [53:10]
B
I think it's lower than that.
- [53:11]
A
Really? That's encouraging.
- [53:13]
B
I think it's lower than that. I don't. I mean, look, there's just a lot of people. You have to appreciate that there's. And particularly in the Trump coalition, there are a lot of people that just don't really watch the news. This is like a cultural thing.
- [53:32]
A
I'm sorry to interrupt you, but they do that on purpose. One thing I've really noticed over the years, talking to my friends and family who have been Trumpers, they will. They. They not only don't watch news, they avoid it because of the cognitive dissonance that it causes.
- [53:45]
B
So they don't watch the news. And then, so there's those folks, and then there's another group of folks who were never really newswanters. Trump bought that, brought them in because whatever they. He. He was famous or they liked that he gave the people, they hate the what for or whatever. Oh, Kitty's in the picture.
- [53:59]
A
Hey, Kitty, it's Lily. She finally made an appearance on tv.
- [54:03]
B
Hey, what up, Lily? We're live, baby. So my answer is that I think that his core base was about where we're at now. I always thought it was about a third 30 to 33% if nothing catastrophic happened. But if we really are in a position. I've been going deep on gas analysts and petroleum analysts and stuff and listening to my odd lots podcast a bunch and like, what if gas gets to seven bucks everywhere?
- [54:36]
A
But do you think.
- [54:38]
B
I think we can get lower, baby. I think we can get under 20.
- [54:40]
A
Okay. But that's approval. And maybe the thing I'm thinking of is I always had that floor somewhere around 35%. And as you say, absent some kind of catastrophe. Right, but that also.
- [54:52]
B
Hold on.
- [54:53]
A
Don't move something. The cat has a tendency to turn off the computer when she stands over there. So I could have been gone in like two seconds. Hi, Lily. You little brat. So, you know, 35%, but will they ever vote for somebody else? Will they vote for Democrats? Now, here's the thing. If you start getting down to 20%, you know, 25% approval, I mean, we've never. Have we ever seen lower than 27.
- [55:21]
B
We just did this. I just googled this. On the next level, we called it the dick line. I went to look what Richard Nixon's approval was after. I think it was like 24. I'm going to memory now, but I think it was like 24. It was in the 20s.
- [55:33]
A
So they won't vote for a Democrat. But perhaps, as some of them have said, and I know, you know, you guys run. Sarah runs focus groups and they'll say, I'm not going to vote.
- [55:43]
B
Right.
- [55:43]
A
I'm just going to. I'm just opting out. I suspect, too, when, like, one of the things that Vance and Rubio or the pretenders to the throne have to worry about later is Trumpism is not portable. It doesn't port. It doesn't, you know, the people who were not involved in the political process will again, not be involved in the political process. That's partly what happened in 2020, I think, but it's just amazing to me the degree to which that it is now calcified. Negative partisanship has now calcified to the point of saying, you know, Donald Trump has 25% approval, but that doesn't translate into a win for anybody else. It's just people that say, fine, I'm out. My guy isn't doing well. So I don't want to know, you know, I don't want to know from politics.
- [56:26]
B
All right, really quick couple of the things, and we'll end with a little music. The I don't. We were discussing before, I don't know, there's a bunch to say about China. I just want to acknowledge that Trump is now going with this summit with Xi. Tim Cook is going with him for some reason. Elon Musk, I guess we know the reason.
- [56:42]
A
And apparently no China experts. I saw this. Now, maybe that's false, but one of the things that kind of went past my eyes on X from. From somebody in one of the news sources. No China experts, but, you know, who. Who needs those?
- [56:55]
B
Yeah, I thought this was interesting. So they're en route or maybe getting there around now. The White House had said that the meeting will focus on trade, fentanyl and the war in Iran. All areas of the Trump administration has had little luck getting deals or concessions from China. Notably, Beijing hasn't provided any details. They just said that Trump and Xi will discuss major issues concerning China. U.S. relations, according to one of their spokespeople. I thought that was kind of telling in a way, about, to use a Trump phrase, who has the cards here and who is going into this meeting really needing something? I think obviously she would like some relief from some of the tariffs, that they're having some economic issues domestically as well. But it seems like it doesn't feel like this meeting's Heading from a position of strength for Trump.
- [57:40]
A
No. And one other thing about us old Cold War guys, we always said about summits, you don't have a summit unless you have a reason to have a summit. Like, you prep it with a lot of guys at the second and third, you know, tier below the principals. And then you give your principals, here's the stuff you're going to shake hands on and talk about and maybe a couple of things that require a personal touch. But you don't just, like, blunder over and say, hey, you know, you don't.
- [58:09]
B
You don't do.
- [58:09]
A
You don't have the. It's a Joey from Friends summit.
- [58:12]
B
How you doing?
- [58:14]
A
You know, I mean, come on, how you doing?
- [58:16]
B
She.
- [58:17]
A
Yeah, how are you doing? And if I were the Chinese, I would sit back, I would tent my fingers and say, those are all very. Yes, absolutely. We will. We will cut the flow of fentanyl, Mr. President.
- [58:28]
B
Absolutely.
- [58:30]
A
Iran, we have our concerns, but we understand why, you know, and just wait till Trump feels good enough to say, okay, fine, no more tariffs, because that's how people manage him. We've seen this over and over and over again from our allies. When the NATO partners come over and say, switching to another pop culture reference, the Twilight Zone episode, it's good what you did, Anthony. It's good that you wish the guy into the cornfield, Anthony. Until Trump says, okay, fine, we're friends again. Our enemies do it. Our friends do it. They manage him until they get what they want. My guess is because the Chinese are not stupid and they are good at this, is that that's what they're gonna do. But I don't think when Trump sits down and says, I wanna talk about Iran and fentanyl, and they're gonna go, yeah, whatever.
- [59:19]
B
Okay, yeah, the last one, this one is just unbelievable. And there's all the list of the Trump stuff. And I guess maybe I should have paired this with Trump saying that he doesn't think about American's financial situation at all. He obviously thinks about his own financial situation quite a bit. We covered with Icsall all the graft that's happening with his family outside the government. Obviously, he's putting his face on everything. The passports we have, the triumphal arc, et cetera. This one might be the most egregious of all. The Justice Department, according to a report, is having internal discussions about settling President Trump's lawsuit against the IRS in the coming days. So maybe when he's in China on the way back, the US Taxpayer will write a Check to Donald Trump for his emotional distress of having his astonishing.
- [60:15]
A
And it's astonishing to be the plaintiff and the defendant. I'd like to negotiate over the amount of this settlement. Hang on, switch to the other chair. How much would you like? Well, several million would be. It's literally insane. And again, it shows you first how worn down everybody else is that they just kind of. The thing is, Trump exhausts people, right? I mean, it's just exhaustion. You just say, fine, whatever. But also the degree to which the hypocrisy of his supporters that if any other president did this, particularly Democrat had ever done this again, there'd be. You know, I always think that they. I keep going back to this movie, but, you know, they'd be like the guy, you know, in front of the. The big tractor trailer and, you know, Fury Road, you know, playing the guitar with the flames. You know, we're gonna. We're gonna burn the city down because. Because it's wrong. And we used to know the difference between right and wrong and not ignore that purely for tribal and partisan reason. Trump.
- [61:23]
B
That's when Trump said he wasn't taking a salary. Those days are gone. We're just writing them checks. We're just. They're just settlements for the taxpayers. Just writing him checks for his emotional distress. It's truly insane. Double the cost of the ballroom was another thing that happened this week. And they are just lining their pockets.
- [61:41]
A
Yes, you dumb person. Again, something that almost any other. We've just. We have set the bar so low on America's ill tempered juvenile here that when he says to a. And of course it's always a woman, and in this case, a black woman. You know, you dumb person. That's. You're stupid. That's a stupid question. No, that's a question about the expenditure of public money, the destruction of one of our national landmarks that you don't happen to own. By the way, you are a steward and temporary occupant of that house. But, you know, he does that and everybody goes, you know, what are you gonna do?
- [62:23]
B
Not me. I rage. I rage, Tom Nichols. I rage.
- [62:27]
A
No, you've become too complacent, Tim. I'm tired of it.
- [62:30]
B
I've become complacent.
- [62:33]
A
I just want to see if you were listening.
- [62:34]
B
I need to run down to the White House right now. I'm in this town. I have to tell the Uber to not drive around. I was like, I can't drive past the Justice Department. I can't see his fucking face on the building. I'M gonna stroke out. My child needs me, okay? I have to. I have to be a parent still. She's only in second grade. All right, let's end on yesterday's pod. I always try to give a cheeky song for the audio listeners at the end. And because we were talking about Cash Patel's drinking, I went with Long Cole Roman in a black dress. Because, you know, Saturday night I was downtown working for the FBI, sitting in the nest of a bad man, whiskey bottles piling high. And that's. That's Cash, obviously.
- [63:14]
A
Well, except for.
- [63:15]
B
Except bourbon bottles. Yeah, bourbon. I mean, who.
- [63:19]
A
Who gives out a bottle of bourbon as their business card?
- [63:22]
B
Hi.
- [63:22]
A
Hi. How are you?
- [63:25]
B
With a fucking dollar sign in his name. What a dork. But it made me wonder. And you're the person to come to. On this. Of this era of music, I feel like the gap between Long Cool Woman and the rest of the Holly's catalog has to be the biggest gap between the best song and the rest of the catalog of anyone. Is that a fair assessment for you?
- [63:47]
A
Well, you know, you've come to the. To the right place. Annoying. Know it all about all old music. You know, the Hollies actually had two other songs, of course, the Air that I Breathe, which was. Do you know this song?
- [64:02]
B
I might if I heard it.
- [64:03]
A
Would you want to say, oh, I'm not singing. No, no, no, no. It's not karaoke hour. But stop, stop, stop all the music. Right? And. But also one of the great guy cry mushy songs of the early seventies. He ain't heavy. He's.
- [64:25]
B
Oh, that's the Hollies.
- [64:26]
A
Yeah, man.
- [64:27]
B
Okay. Well, there you go. So that's not that far of a gap. That's a great song.
- [64:31]
A
Yeah. So, you know, everybody remembers Long Cool Woman, but the Hollies actually had a string of hits from the mid-60s onward. And then if my trivia. If my trivia superpowers are not failing me, doesn't their lead singer isn't that Dennis DeYoung? Doesn't he go on to Sticks? We're gonna go through some connection here.
- [64:50]
B
I have no idea. All I know is I love Lanko Woman in the Back Dress. I know literally nothing Graham Nash was in the Hollies, apparently, is true.
- [64:57]
A
Oh, yeah. You know, the. The family tree of these, like, groups from the 60s and 70s are. Are just so fascinating because you find out that, like, you know, they're. That they all share like superstars that kind of pass through them.
- [65:11]
B
It does not look like Dennis DeYoung was in the.
- [65:14]
A
Where did I get the idea? What was he in.
- [65:16]
B
The original members were Tony Hicks, Bobby Elliott, Ian Parker, Peter Howarth as Peter Howarth on lead vocals. And then they had Graham Nash.
- [65:25]
A
And where was Dennis Dion before? I can't believe that I have screwed up a musical trivia issue live.
- [65:31]
B
Our Jeopardy. Champion. I know I should do celebrity Jeopardy. How do I do? How do I get in there? You got it in. I feel like I should do so
- [65:38]
A
I was like, I bet Jeopardy. Doesn't want to hear a thing from me because I've been bitching ever since they overturned the five game rule.
- [65:48]
B
And, yeah, you're right about that, I think.
- [65:50]
A
Oh, absolutely. I mean, look, the kid. Very nice kid. Some grad student. He just won, like, 31 games.
- [65:56]
B
Yeah, it gets boring.
- [65:58]
A
Well, it's not just boring, but it's unfair to everybody else who walks in. I. I will tell you quick anecdote. By the time I'd won, like, two or three games, I'd heard, you know, like, gossip from the contestant wranglers that, like, people didn't want to play me by that point because it was all in one day. So it was like, you know, because once you're in that groove and you've got the buzzer going and all that. But also, I. I think guys like Jeopardy. James there, they just ruined the game. It's. Everybody goes in, they bounce around the board, looking for daily doubles to make big bets to get far ahead. And, you know, I liked Jeopardy. When it was school teachers and postal workers and subway cops, you know, just kind of in a pleasant show of how much they knew, you know, as opposed to the guy who. The woman who beat James wrote her master's thesis on Jeopardy. Oh, Bus Stop. Yes.
- [66:55]
B
I didn't mean to put up Bus Stop. Bus Stop is another good one. I want to put this up. We're live. The podcast part of the podcast is over. We're live on YouTube. And I love this. I just looked at the comments here. Here's a guy with the Trump avatar. Dorks like Nichols are chronically wrong. All caps and a good day to you, sir. Dorks lecturing us about Jeopardy. All right, Tom, you got anything else you want to leave us with?
- [67:23]
A
No. I apologize for the Dennis De Young failure, but I did come up with the other Hollies hits, so I hope people will remember that even though it doesn't seem possible, I am human. So sorry. Sorry about missing.
- [67:40]
B
Thank you for doing this live experience experiment with me, Tom Nichols. Thanks to the board, plus members that had to suffer through an ad read. Hopefully I made it entertaining for you. We'll be back tomorrow. Regular deal, taped. It's a double header. Both guests are going to be fun. It's going to be great. Tom Nichols, we'll see you over the summer. All right.
- [67:59]
A
Thanks, Tim.
- [68:00]
B
All right, thanks, everybody. We'll see you back here tomorrow. Peace.
- [68:03]
A
I wanna be. Why don't you call my name?
- [68:24]
B
The Borg Podcast is brought to you thanks to the work of lead producer Katie Cooper, associate producer Ansley Skipper, and with video editing by Katie Lutz and audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.