Bill Kristol: Call the Pool Police

Summary

The Bulwark Podcast

Episode: Bill Kristol: Call the Pool Police

Date: June 22, 2026
Host: Tim Miller
Guest: Bill Kristol

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Episode Overview

This episode of The Bulwark Podcast, hosted by Tim Miller with recurring guest and Bulwark editor-at-large Bill Kristol, blends satire and sharp political analysis while dissecting the latest in Trump-era absurdity, U.S. foreign policy, the state of the American right, and global political trends. The episode opens with the comically authoritarian response to the reflecting pool fiasco in Washington, before moving to the ongoing Iran crisis, negotiations involving Jared Kushner, the foreign policy worldview of Trump and his allies, the state of the American right (including a deep critique of J.D. Vance), and finishes with a whistle-stop tour of recent international developments—from UK politics to Latin America and the social implications of the World Cup.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Reflecting Pool Fiasco: Satire Meets Authoritarian Drift

• Chipping Paint, Arrests, and Manufactured Vandalism
  • The episode opens with the saga surrounding the reflecting pool in D.C.—specifically, the farcical drama of chipping blue paint and police action toward those observing the botched maintenance work, portrayed as "vandalism."
  • Satire abounds as Miller and Kristol highlight the administration's push to prosecute minor "offenses," likening it to authoritarian regimes where even observing government blunders invites state retaliation.
  • Quote [02:20] – Tim Miller:
    "There are the North Korean elements. You know, people cannot observe our government's incompetence and waste and, and buffoonery, you know, without fear that the state will come after them."
  • Trump is mocked for escalating claims, first to a "250-foot" gash, then "300-foot," embodying the "big lie" strategy in microcosm.
  • Kristol reflects [03:53]:
    "It is farcical. ... Trump has invented this vandalism, capital V."
  • The legal process and historic preservation lawsuits are mentioned, with Kristol arguing that more attention on the reflecting pool is positive for accountability.
• Satirical comparisons are drawn to school-principal movies and authoritarian overreach, captured through Fox News' comical but menacing coverage.

2. Iran Crisis and ‘Art of the Desperate Deal’

• The Strait of Hormuz & Trump’s ‘Negotiations’
  • The Strait of Hormuz closures due to continued conflict in the region and the ensuing global economic tremors are discussed in detail.
  • The administration's desperation is laid bare—negotiating with Iran, conceding sanctions, and using Jared Kushner (with Qatari involvement) as a foreign-policy fixer.
  • Quote [09:07] – Tim Miller:
    "Jared Kushner, according to Van Scan, with interesting ideas idea, which is that when we unfreeze the money for Iran, that will then actually go to buy American soy, American corn, and American wheat for the benefit of the Iranian people ... classic Trump deal. Maybe true, but not in the way that the vice president means."
  • Both hosts note how the negotiations seem chaotic, with U.S. representatives using others’ ID cards, and foreigners like Jared Kushner—dubbed "agent of the Saudi government"—with no current U.S. security clearance, handling sensitive diplomatic work.
  • Quote [13:20] – Bill Kristol:
    "This is Trump's foreign policy. Right. We're in great terms with Qatar, the Pakistanis. We're getting on great terms with Iran ... Traditional democratic allies ... we don't care that much about them."
  • Miller and Kristol critique Fox News for spinning Trump’s diplomatic failures as secret strategy, while concluding the reality is both "farcical and disastrous."
  • Quote [16:50] – Bill Kristol:
    "The real world effects are bad. It’s one of these things... more disastrous than farcical, whereas the pool is more farcical than disastrous. This is the way we balance things in the Trump era."

3. The J.D. Vance Phenomenon: Cynicism, Contradictions, and Contempt

• JD Vance’s Public Persona and Real Motives
  • Tim Miller and Bill Kristol devote substantial time to analyzing JD Vance’s rise, his "chameleon" character, opportunism, and the broader MAGA movement's contempt for their base.
  • They dissect Vance’s evasive answers in a friendly interview with Ross Douthat regarding the administration’s tone and use of uncharitable rhetoric toward opponents.
  • Quote [21:05] – J.D. Vance (via clip):
    "Tonal arguments are ways of frankly policing working class ways of communication and covering them in elite preferences."
  • Miller rebuts [22:38]:
    "[JD’s] response to that is, well, that's just kind of how working class people are. They're all fucking assholes like me. They're all dicks. And that is an unbelievably revealing admission in addition to it not being true."
  • Kristol emphasizes how the MAGA movement’s leaders "have such contempt for their followers," often hiding their own nastiness behind a fake solidarity with "working class" style.
  • Miller also denounces Vance's pseudo-intellectual justifications, highlighting the phoniness of his supposed conversion from liberal to conservative and from agnostic to religious, referencing his constant shifting of identity for political gain.
  • Quote [27:03] – Tim Miller:
    "Trump is a liar, but he is authentically himself ... JD—the whole thing is fake. ... George Packer wrote about this ... He’s talented Mr. Ripley. Like, he's a talented con man."
• The conversation expands to critique the right’s contradictory stances: simultaneously attacking meritocracy for being "elitist" and longing for an older, WASPier, more hierarchical America.

4. Cultists in High Office: Tulsi Gabbard’s Guru

• Tulsi Gabbard’s Links to a Cult Leader
  • Miller recaps a Washington Post exposé detailing how Tulsi Gabbard allegedly took direction from a cult leader while serving as Director of National Intelligence, with direct influence over her foreign policy talking points.
  • The story is used to highlight the dysfunction and oddities pervasive in Trump-world: “You either have a cult leader ... or we have a totally more standard corrupt henchmen.” [35:23]

5. World in Transition: UK, Italy, Latin America

• UK Political Mess and Parallels to U.S.
  • Kristol and Miller discuss the endless churn of British prime ministers, Brexit’s lasting impact, and the faint parallels with American politics, including exhausted publics and leaders’ low approval ratings.
  • Miller notes the paradox: managing tough austerity is unpopular, yet perhaps necessary, highlighting the difficulty of governing amid populist backlash.
• Italy’s Giorgia Meloni: Right-Wing but Not Autocratic?
  • Both hosts are intrigued by Italian PM Meloni’s surprising moderation on foreign policy and her pushback against Trump, suggesting a path for Western right-wing parties that avoid full authoritarianism.
  • Kristol [43:42]:
    "Maybe this is the sort of the good story ... not. But a decent agenda in terms of Ukraine and in terms of fighting Trump. And also not really authoritarian...maybe this is ridiculous on my part."
  • Miller reflects on "Maloney’s model" for potentially rehabilitating conservative parties—a more European, less American style of right-wing politics, leaning toward populism but with limits.
• Latin America: The Politics of Polarization & Conspiracism
  • Miller flags recent elections in Peru and Colombia, the rise of hard-right and hard-left candidates, and the troubling emergence of antisemitic conspiracies, like Colombia’s president accusing Israel of rigging the election.
  • The episode concludes: globally, various democracies are wrestling with their own versions of MAGA-style populist, anti-institutional forces.

6. World Cup and the Myth of Social Fragmentation

• Sports as Counterpoint to Nativism
  • The UEFA World Cup (held in the U.S.) is praised for demonstrating social cohesion and cosmopolitan patriotism—refuting claims (espoused by J.D. Vance and others) that immigration and diversity undermine national unity.
  • Quote [50:44] – Tim Miller:
    "Seems like we've had a ton of social cohesion, actually, with all the visitors from around the world ... Seems like maybe the vice President of the United States smearing people and making up lies about people based on their nation of origin and their race is maybe what is harming the social cohesion."

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the Reflecting Pool Scandal:
  "[Trump] puts on it the vandalism of 250ft. Then I think it became 300ft. I noticed in some later tweet someone went in and gashed the pool for 300ft. That's kind of a big gash. You know, I feel stupid even taking it like quasi seriously."
  — Bill Kristol [03:53]

• On Jared Kushner’s Iran Negotiations:
  "We have an agent of the Saudi government who doesn't work for our government, who the vice president is crediting with being the point person on this negotiation."
  — Tim Miller [10:12]

• On MAGA Cynicism:
  "JD's amazing, right? ... He does have deep contempt. They all have such contempt ... The MAGA world leaders have such contempt for their followers."
  — Bill Kristol [21:20]

• On Social Cohesion and Immigration:
  "Seems like we've had a ton of social cohesion, actually, with all the visitors from around the world ... Seems like maybe the vice President of the United States smearing people and making up lies about people based on their nation of origin and their race is maybe what is harming the social cohesion."
  — Tim Miller [50:44]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Reflecting Pool Fiasco & Media Response: 01:13–07:15
• Iran Crisis, Strait of Hormuz, Kushner’s Negotiations: 07:15–16:50
• Fox News ‘Cope’ and MAGA Foreign Policy: 13:34–17:11
• JD Vance: Opportunism & MAGA’s Cynical Rhetoric: 19:19–27:03
• America’s Right: Contradictions and ‘Working Class’ Myths: 27:03–31:22
• Tulsi Gabbard's Guru and Trumpworld Dysfunction: 33:02–36:19
• World News (UK, Italy, Latin America): 36:21–49:01
• World Cup & The Case for Cosmopolitan Patriotism: 49:10–End

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Episode Tone & Style

The episode combines sharp, biting satire with policy realism, openly mocking Trump-era absurdities while deconstructing deeper trends in U.S. and global politics. Both Tim Miller and Bill Kristol maintain a conversational and unvarnished tone, interjecting humor and personal anecdotes while delivering substantive critiques.

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Perfect for listeners who want:

• To understand the through-line connecting D.C. follies to global shifts,
• A critical, skeptical take on MAGA and its media enablers,
• Insights into the contradictions and future of the American right,
• A primer on international political turmoil from populism to polarization,
• And a reminder of the everyday joys (and lessons) to be found in major cultural events like the World Cup.

Transcript

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[Tim Miller]

Hello and welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I'm your host Tim Miller. It is Monday, so of course we are here with editor at large Bill Kristol, who is free. We're all walking free, though we are watching very closely one of our colleagues who is the first person down there doing intrepid reporting at the reflecting pool, noticing, or maybe not noticing, but documenting that the blue paint was coming off chipping would be the most generous thing you could say to Donald Trump's reflecting pool paint man. Huge portions of it were coming off. And in the intervening period, we've heard that there are arrests happening for any troublemakers who are observing the President's failures.

[Bill Kristol]

As Andrew pointed out this morning. It's funny, but maybe not so funny because people actually have arrested the 67 year old bicyclist who showed up and seems to have simply reached into the pool to see like what it feels like with all the algae and the part of the bottom coming off there. And I think he has been arrested and presumably has to, I don't know, get bail and get a lawyer and

[Tim Miller]

all this, like everything, you know, it is one part indiocracy, one part menace, you know, and there are elements of it that are concerning. There are the North Korean elements. You know, people cannot observe our government's incompetence and waste and, and buffoonery, you know, without fear that the state will come after them. Two example of this Judge Box of Wine was on Fox News over the weekend Speaking to Peter Doocy and they talked about how seriously they're taking the investigation regarding any so called vandals of the Reflecting Pool. And that includes those in the, in the press. Let's listen to that. Trump's got a Crime Stoppers tip for you. He says lightweight ABC reporter Jonathan Karl was seen sticking his hand into the pool and trying to rip the rubber off the surface. Judge, is Jonathan Karl from ABC in trouble? Well, you know, it depends.

[Bill Kristol]

You know, anyone who is in a position of vandalizing or attempting to vandalize the Reflecting Pool will face the criminal justice system in D.C. look, the president

[Tim Miller]

has made it a priority to make

[Bill Kristol]

D.C. not only safe, but beautiful. And there are several citations that have been handed out to individuals and these are cases that will be prosecuted to the full extent.

[Tim Miller]

Prosecuted. Both of those people have a face and voice for print. I'm not sure what Fox is doing there with their lineup, but prosecuted to the fullest extent. This is the world we're in.

[Bill Kristol]

It is farcical. Anyone doesn't want to, mostly it's farcical and it's actually doing Trump damage, which is good, I think was everyone's just laughing at him, both at what's happened, of course, with the pool itself and the algae and the paint chips, as you say, to be charitable, if you can call them that. Huge chunks of the whole bottom of the pool, basically. And then this attempt to intimidate people from going and looking at it or maybe even feeling what it's like or pulling up one of these loose pieces of stuff. Trump has invented this vandalism capital V. He puts on it the vandalism of 250ft. Then I think it became 300ft. I noticed in some later tweet someone went in and gashed the pool for 300ft. That's kind of a big gash. You know, I feel stupid even taking it like quasi seriously. I think this thing is on camera 24 7. No one went into the PO and gash the bottom. But this is, I mean the big lie thing. But here we have Fox sort of treating it like a real thing. And I don't know, as I said, there could be some people who are being harassed.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, I mean, Peter Doocy there basically agitating for John Carl to be arrested. And he doesn't like this fake laughing voice. But honestly, I mean, you're interviewing the person that arrested the sandwich man.

[Bill Kristol]

Right.

[Tim Miller]

So I mean, you know, Judge Jeanine is going to do investigations and it's kind of reminiscent of it's like a 90s movie with a school principal. You know, it's kind of reminiscent of like a Simpsons or a Ferris Bueller stay off type situation where you have a grumpy principal. It's like, anything you do to embarrass me, you'll get detention. You know, there's that, like, element to this, which is, you know, not how things should be going in a free country.

[Bill Kristol]

I think we're enough of a free country still, that it is more farcical than menacing.

[Tim Miller]

I agree.

[Bill Kristol]

Unlike some of the other things he's doing, which really are probably more menacing than farcical. But. But look, it is very important, I think, to. I was on a call earlier this morning. Lawyers were debating. There's actually some lawsuit that's. That's pending from some historic preservation group that this was filed four weeks ago. But you shouldn't be messing around with the reflective pool this way. There are processes you should go through before you change a historic site like that. And I think they're thinking the lawyers are revitalizing this suit in light of subsequent developments by. Not a bad idea. And there was a little bit of an argument. Well, isn't it taking it too seriously and all that? But I think the more news, the more attention the reflecting pool gets, the better. We're only. What? He's giving a speech there Wednesday. Trump is near the beginning of this great American fair, whatever the heck it is, you know, that all the artists pulled out of and that he decided he would give this opening speech at. And I'm hopeful that, A, no one will pay any attention to it, but B, to the degree people pay attention, it's entirely to take a look at the reflecting pool. Not to, of course, listen to Trump's interpretation of our 250th birthday. So.

[Tim Miller]

Well, there was a dead duckling in the reflecting pool over the weekend.

[Bill Kristol]

That's bad. Don't you think that's bad, Thea? I mean, I think you did this stuff for a living once 10, 15 years ago. And I think a dead duckling is not good. Not good.

[Tim Miller]

It's not good imagery. It's kind of the opposite of Bernie's bird. Remember the bird landed on Bernie's podium and all the Bernie people made a big deal. But that's sort of like the opposite to that. It's the dead bird. The taxpayers will pay. They'll be paying more to fix that. He posted. Work will begin immediately on fixing the reflecting pool. So the bill will go up for that, just like for the ballroom and the bun.

[Bill Kristol]

Another no bid. Another no bid contract to a guy

[Tim Miller]

that looks like he's a bad guy from the 1980s movie who was part of the Jim traffic can't scandal guy. Part of the gym trafficking.

[Bill Kristol]

Yeah, I know it.

[Tim Miller]

So you can't make it up, right? Fucking ridiculous. Okay, well, justice for the bicycling man. And we will continue to keep an eye on the story. Let's move on to Iran. The Strait of Hormuz was closed again over the weekend in response to Israel and Hezbollah continuing fighting in southern Lebanon and attacks back and forth there. If you look at the analysis of kind of just monitoring the ships going through the strait and it does seem like that there's maybe ghost ships going through ET but just the ones, you know, that, that you can monitor. Before the war started, you know, I was looking at a chart, looks like about, you know, depending on the day, 6070, 80 ships were going through that went down to basically zero. We had a peak after Treaty of Versailles to electric boogaloo of 15 ships making it through. That number went back down to three yesterday as Iran closed the strait again. Meanwhile, the Vice President and the President's son in law are in Switzerland negotiating.

[Bill Kristol]

Yeah, quote, negotiating. They seem to be giving, they're giving Iran even more to try to get that straight open again. And since, as Trump correctly said it, this is going to cause the longer it stays closed, the more problems for the global economy. But this thing is ridiculous to follow every twist and turn. I feel like part of me felt writing morning shots this morning. I don't have to write about Iran. It's kind of important. But I thought, oh my God, another fake toughness from Trump. Fake negotiations with vans, fake concessions here, fake achievements there. The IAEA might get back in. I believe they were in there. That was the whole point of the Obama deal. You know, they were in, in a very complicated and serious way, actually. And now Iran's vaguely promised, yeah, we'll let some of these inspectors in, maybe. Vance says they promise. You don't even know if they promised, honestly. Meanwhile, we're giving up sanctions, we're giving money right and left to them. They're doing fine. And that's going to continue to be the case.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah. So that was the big kind of new quote unquote news this morning. The inspectors are coming in and they also, the Vice President said this at a press conference this morning. Jared Kushner came up with a very interesting idea during the negotiations. Kushner and the Qataris figured this out together. Vance Said it is kind of interesting. I mean, we had the big signing on Wednesday, so it feels like the ideas about the sanctions relief and the inspectors kind of should have been previously to the mou. But anyway, nitpicking. Jared Kushner, according to Van Scan, with interesting ideas idea, which is that when we unfreeze the money for Iran, that will then actually go to buy American soy, American corn, and American wheat for the benefit of the Iranian people. What Jared and the Qataris and the entire team here at Bergenstock accomplished to me is a classic Trump deal. Maybe true, but not in the way that the vice president means a classic Trump deal. But all of this is absurd and it's desperate. And it's just like, oh, okay, well, now we took some heat that we're giving the Iranians so much money, so it's like it's going to go to the American farmers now. It's like, does anybody believe this? Did the Iranians even care? Why is Jared there? We have an agent of the Saudi government who doesn't work for our government, who the vice president is crediting with being the point person on this negotiation.

[Bill Kristol]

Yeah, I think one interesting side, sort of minor aspect of it, was Vance dragging Jared. I mean, mentioning Jared so prominently. Right. That Jared negotiated this very well. So this is. Don't you think this is Vance trying to make say this is Trump's deal? This is Trump's. The Trump family's involved. This isn't just. They try to put me out there as the kind of, you know, sacrifice me as the sacrificial lamb on this. But I. I'm working closely with Jared. It's. It's also pathetic on eight different levels.

[Tim Miller]

Or maybe Jared is in charge that it's pathetic. I mean, he's not trying to do anything. Maybe he's. He is just totally cucked by Jared and the Trump family and he's like, whatever you say, sir. I don't know. It's hard to say. And they posted. The Qataris posted a picture of Jared, JD And Qatari representative. Looks like kind of like a hotel conference room. There's a Keurig machine in the back, and they're, like, hunched over a single laptop, and JD has, like, a woman's ID card put into the computer. So I don't know, maybe he forgot his passcode for, you know, Jared doesn't have a security clearance. He's in there. We have a foreign agent, and then we have the vice president, who I guess didn't have his. His password. So it's Some other woman's card is in there. And like, that's the picture that they're putting out. And it's like the Iranians are kind of just chilling.

[Bill Kristol]

Yeah.

[Tim Miller]

It's like all of the optics of this about who has the power in the negotiation. And there's a video from the initial meeting and in Switzerland, and the Iranians didn't show up to the open press part of the meeting. It was just kind of Jared Milling about talking to a couple of Gulf State leaders. I mean, he is just clearly, you know, the Beta Party and the negotiation right now, as we are, like, begging them to get the strait back open and also giving them money and I

[Bill Kristol]

guess, was that picture put out, photo put out by the Qataris? I think so, probably.

[Host/Announcer]

Right.

[Tim Miller]

And so, yeah, by the Qataris.

[Bill Kristol]

Yeah. So they're relishing their status here. They're a country that we have, we have had in the past some real issues with, I believe, tolerant, you know, Hamas is headquartered there and stuff. But, you know, they're great, and we're happy to use their pass, their card for the computer. No issues there. No security problems.

[Tim Miller]

They're giving us the plane after all. The plane on us.

[Bill Kristol]

That was a great gift. It only cost the taxpayers a billion dollars to retrofit it to make it

[Tim Miller]

both secure so we could look for all the little bugs that they put in there. Yeah. Also the thing, JD's walking around where he's milling about, the Pakistanis are also there. And JD's like, we love the Pakistanis. Thank you. It's like, weren't they hiding Osama bin Laden? Actually, didn't we have to ascend CLT6 in there in secret at night? If we liked the Pakistanis so much, couldn't we have negotiated the arrest of Osama bin Laden? Would we have needed to fly in under cover of darkness and kill him? The whole thing is absurd.

[Bill Kristol]

This is Trump's foreign policy. Right. We're in great terms with Qatar, the Pakistanis. We're getting on great terms with Iran, traditional democratic allies, people, Ukraine, who are fighting for their survival and for liberal democracy. We're not. We don't. We don't care that much about them.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah. Reuters also said, I just, I should note that even once the strait gets back open, you are going to have to fill out a TPS report before you can get through. It's got to be submitted through three Mullabobs, and you got to do it 48 hours in advance. Cover sheets got to be right. And so we'll See how that shakes out. I wanted to play a little cope from Fox about how they're feeling about things. It's really interesting to watch. You know, there are kind of two factions. Fox, right there is kind of like the America First. We shouldn't be involved there at all. Like, whatever. Who cares? We should be humiliated and just let the Iranians have whatever they want and get out of their crowd and go back to focusing on things that really matter, like mass deportations and menacing people at quinceaneras. So there's that crowd at Fox, and then that kind of overlaps with just the cultists type. So I'll just say everything's great no matter what happens. And then there are the Hawks, who are still kind of trying to backfill and spin this idea that's like, well, you know, Trump might be. There might be some 40 chess at play here. You know, Trump might be waiting till after the election. Trump might be, you know, leading Iranians into a trap. And in that category, we had Trey Gowdy last night interviewing the former Vice President, Mike Pence. And I was kind of tickled with the end of the exchange in that interview. I'd like to play for you. I've seen his patients run with me on the golf course. I don't know if you've ever seen his patients run out, but that is not something the Iranians, I think, want to see. So many layers there. On the one hand, it's like, oh, the Iranians better watch out. Like, Donald Trump's getting impatient now. It's like, oh, wait, he just signed a surrender in Versailles in France, like, last week. And then number two, it's Gowdy looking at Pence being like, have you ever seen Trump run out of patience with you? Yeah, he sent the mob to kill me.

[Bill Kristol]

I think Pence had a little grin on his face when Gaudi said that. Didn't you think Pence was aware of the irony of the situation?

[Tim Miller]

Oh, my God. He's like, yeah, Trey. Yeah, he's run out of patience with me. It's the kind of material you're getting on weekend Fox. So it's all kind of postdoc backfilled spin from the MAGA folks. The one thing I will say is, if it were true that Trump cared about the actual results in Iran, which it isn't, chilling out now and avoiding the energy crisis and then handling it during the lame duck two years would actually be the smart thing to do, but I just don't think that that's real.

[Bill Kristol]

Yeah, no, I don't think he's going back there. And also, what would that even mean? I mean, handling it right. We tried to handle it for 37 days. Didn't work out. So another 37 days of bombing, it's possible to the ground troops options really on the table.

[Tim Miller]

Great point. This goes back to the whole, like, the premise of the war was wrong. It's not just Trump being. It is true that Trump is humiliated and he's walking away and he's embarrassed and he's weak. It's also true that the whole premise of the war was flawed, as Bob Kagan laid out from the start, you know, and that, like, going back to doing it again next year would not have any better of a result.

[Bill Kristol]

Yeah, I think that's right. The real world effects are bad. It's one of these things. This one is on the farcical plus disastrous side. This one's farcical also, of course, watching the negotiations and watching Trey Gowdy stuff. But it is more disastrous than farcical, whereas the fucking pool is more farcical than disastrous. This is the way we balance things in the Trump era. You know, there is.

[Tim Miller]

All right, y', all, I've got some more travel coming up this week. It's summer, and when I start to hit the road, you know, I follow one rule. Abc. Always be charging. All my devices have charging cords. There are a lot of them. They're different now. It can get annoying, and I'm a loser of things. And so having cords, like, all tangled up everywhere in my bag, not being able to access them, getting onto the plane, forgetting that I have it, it's been a problem for me. And that's why I've turned to our friends at Ridge. They have a solution that makes my travel easier, and it should make yours easier as well. Just like Ridge revolutionized the wallet, Ridge has now changed the game for portable charging. Their 5 in 1 travel power bank has built in cables, let you charge all your devices at the same time with just one power bank and no extra cables. And if you didn't get your act together for Father's Day yesterday, I got a question for you guys. Now that I become a father, do I still have to get Father's Day presents, or shouldn't I just be a recipient? It's been something I've been thinking about, and I guess I do have to give them still, but I fell down on that. This year. We did the retirement part. I felt like that was a box check. Sorry, dad. Happy Father's Day. Belated. Ridge is still having their Father's Day sale though, so if you like me kind of fell down on that one. You can get a good deal on a late gift. You can get up to 40% off during Ridge's huge Father Day sale. Ridge.comthebullwerk so here it is one more time. One thing to pack five ways to power For a limited time, get up to 40% off during Ridge's huge Father's Day sale at ridge.com the Bulwark or don't miss one of their biggest discounts all year. Just head to ridge.com the bulwark and you're all set. After you purchase, they'll ask you where you heard about them. Please support our show and tell them we sent you so JD has been on his media tour about the war and about his book Communion. For people that missed it over on the Bork takes feed on YouTube, JVL and I did a dramatic reading of some sections of his book of Communion and spoiler alert. We weren't impressed. We weren't impressed. But people can go check that out.

[Bill Kristol]

You guys are good dramatic readers, though. I want to say that I didn't realize that was in your toolkit. That was good.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, you know, I've got a lot of weaknesses, Bill, but I have a few surprising strengths as well. You know, another person that had that did something surprising was Ross Douthat in the interview with J.D. vance, because Ross doesn't want to really go at him hard. You know, you can tell it's a friendly space. But Ross has not completely given himself into the devil in the way that JD has. And he still has. I think he's still trying to process how to balance sympathies with MAGA with genuine Catholic faith, which at times creates tension between him and jd. Because for jd, the whole thing is a farce. The whole thing. I mean, who the hell knows? He might be a Baptist in two years if that helps him out politically. And the whole thing is ridiculous. And so that creates tension at times. And during JD's interview with Ross, Ross was asking him how he manages to align the rhetoric of this administration with Christian teaching. And I want to play a little bit of that exchange. Let's be honest, the tone of the administration is not consistently a Christian tone. There is a tone of aggressive uncharity to people who aren't on board with the administration's policies.

[Bill Kristol]

I'm not saying we're perfect, because we're not. My point is that the tone argument is in some ways I think people see what they want to see. And I also think that tonal arguments are ways of frankly policing working class ways of communication and covering them in elite preferences.

[Tim Miller]

Ross's face there, it's worth viewing on the video version. He's just like, he can't even fake it on this one. JD with one of his tells, there's frankly, frankly, this is just a way of policing the way that the working class talk. What do you make of that, Bill?

[Bill Kristol]

JD's amazing, right? I mean, he's read some of this, he's not stupid and he's read some sort of high tone bullshit about In Defense of MAGA World and Working Class Prejudice world, if we can be honest about it over the years. And one of them is something about, yeah, elite policing of working class, you know, real man, real, real manly talk there in middle America or something. And so JD throws out this one or two sentences, total gibberish, right? I mean, what is the relevance to what he's, what he's saying here? And incidentally, it shows what JD really thinks about the working class. He has. He thinks they can't be asked to do better than be aggressively uncharitable. I guess that was Ross's term. Right. As if. My experience with working class people is many of them are quite charitable. They have somewhat fewer resources than some upper middle class and wealthy people. And often they're better, they're more charitable. You know, I think there's a lot we've all had that experience in life. The person who is a nurse or a school teacher or works in the cafeteria and is a very generous and warm person, much nicer than the wealthy guy down the street who's a jackass, you know, but that would be the kind of obvious answer to make here. But JD doesn't go there. But he does have deep contempt. They all have such contempt. I guess you've made this point and maybe this is a JBL point too. I mean, the MAGA world leaders have such contempt for the actual, for their followers.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, of course. And JD moved his family to dc. These are not JD Vance's people. He went to Yale. The whole thing is preposterous, but it is, it is extremely revealing. Like this idea that it's like, oh, well, it's the working class people who are uncharitable. Ross's question was not, oh, about how you're crass. It might be one thing to say, oh, in these Frou Frou elite circles, people want us to use fancy hundred dollar words or whatever and Donald Trump talks in more of a reality TV way and he'll curse and he'll be a little crass. That wasn't the question. The question was about the administration's tone of aggressive uncharity to their opponents. Right. And so he's referring to. There is obviously a million examples of all the ways that Donald Trump insults, dehumanizes his opponents. But JD himself, just the other day, I believe it was on, I think he was on Greg Gutfeld's show on Fox where he's talking about how Democrats are just bad people because they don't like America. That is the aggressive uncharity we're talking about. It's talking about how somebody that you disagree with politically, that means that they're a bad person. And that means that you can insult them and be mean to them and be an asshole and be cruel and not consider their humanity. Or maybe the example of talking about a group of people that are migrants into a community and you create a lie about how they eat their dogs and they eat their pets because you want to use them as a cudgel, that is aggressive on charity to people. That is something that is distinct to MAGA leaders. And it is something that is in JD Vance and Donald Trump's character that they are so nasty and cruel to people that either oppose them politically or that they can use to advance their political interests. And JD's response to that is, well, that's just kind of how working class people are. They're all fucking assholes like me. They're all dicks. And that is an unbelievably revealing admission in addition to it not being true. And the whole thing shows how much of a put on it all is too. It's like, oh, yeah, okay, whatever. Like, oh, that's how the regular folks are. They are really nasty to people. And it's just like, that's not how America is. That's not true, actually. Like, you don't go to, like, you know, if you're at a church function, if you're at a YMCA event, if you're at the Scotcher team, like, people are not. That's aggressively uncharitable to the fellow people in their community. That's just not true.

[Bill Kristol]

That's a good point. I really thought jd, somewhat cleverly, you might say, takes a question of Ross's straightforward question about the administration. Aggressive uncharity doesn't defend the administration. Makes it seem as if Ross is asking about or almost attacking working class people who are not in the question. To my knowledge, for not living up to liberal elite culture standards and then gives a fake defense of working class people, which is itself a, you know, a terrible concession that somehow they're not behaving well. But that's just an elite cultural judgment of them. So it's really a, like a two or three or four step, I don't know, evasion. Plus, I mean, shows he's unwilling to defend the administration, I guess what that's worth. But his boss, maybe if Trump's reading it carefully or listening to this, he will turn, he will get even more annoyed at JD but it is very much their deflection. Right. If you criticize anything, if you criticize ice for, you know, what they've been doing. Yeah, you just don't understand working class America, Tim. You know, that's, that's, that's really some elite for inside the Beltway coastal.

[Tim Miller]

Because the people working in the kitchen, that ICE is menacing. They're not working, they're not the working class Americans we're talking about, actually. We're just talking about a specific type of white working class people that, that support us. Like, that's what we're talking about. They also have support, though, so they're

[Bill Kristol]

not really talking about anyone. That's what's actually.

[Tim Miller]

Right.

[Bill Kristol]

I mean, they're talking about themselves. They're finding a way to deflect, collect criticism of themselves. And they have contempt for the working class people they don't like, especially if they're people of color. And they have contempt for the working class people who mostly have voted for them, many of whom have voted for them. So they're losing some of them now, I point out, because they have contempt for them too. Vance is almost as much of a phony as Trump. I mean, it's really kind of confusing, isn't it? More, more.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah. Trump is, Trump is a liar, but he is authentically himself.

[Bill Kristol]

Yes.

[Tim Miller]

Like, Trump lies in his own self interests, Right? Like he's a megalomaniac. He loves himself and he will do and say anything to support his own interests. Which in a way is like, it's like the old billboard they're going on. Like, at least I knew he was a wolf. Like, I'd rather have a wolf than a wolf in sheep's clothing. Like, Trump is just kind of authentically wolf. Like the JD the whole thing is fake. The whole thing. He's trying to like the book. The degree to which his conversion story is just so obviously phony. It's like hard to really put into words the rationales that he comes up for it. Don't even make any sense. He's like, oh, Peter Thiel taught me that religious people could also be smart. It's like you didn't know that before you met Peter Thiel, of all people. The whole thing is just. He's so transparent. He's changed his name three times, he's changed his religion several times. He's changed his, changed his political ideology. Like the whole thing is fake. And he, but he's, he's, he's talent and he's. What was the George Packer wrote about this? He's talented, Mr. Ripley. Like, he's a talented con man. Like, he's deft at trying to find cute sounding rationalizations for all this. Just like in this, in this interview, right? It's like you can see what he's trying to do. Like he's trying to, you know, avert accountability for his own behavior and, you know, immediately pivot it back to an attack on some elite culture. But he also, in the book. I'm sorry, now you've got me on one about JD he fucking pisses me off so much.

[Bill Kristol]

This is interesting, though. Most of us haven't read. But you've read this book, so most of us don't have to, Tim. So that's.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, well, actually shout out to Ansley, who read it on my list and then just gave me key sections because I can only take so much. The listeners don't want me to have stroked out last week. You know, I do stuff, stay out of the hospital. You know, the blood pressure gets high just talking about it. But he also reflects on like, how WASP culture was superior to our meritocracy. This is another kind of aldicanard of the right wing, how just like it wasn't actually that bad when before DEI and before the left wing meritocrats and technocrats took over, when we just had white Protestant running everything and, you know, handing things down to their children. It was better because they had this like noblesse oblige, right? Like there was this. They believed in certain mores and they cared about service. And it's like there's something to that. The whole premise isn't crazy, but he's citing George H.W. bush, this type of person as an example of this. And I do think that kind of era, there was more of a cultural norm and a cultural sentiment that you should, should be respectful and you should give back and that because you didn't really earn this, you had an obligation to give back to the community. But then there's no following of any of that. And the idea that George H.W. bush would in any way defend this type of behavior towards fellow Americans, it would be totally anathema. And so he's trying to have these things together. A defense of, you know, white Christian supremacy and also a defense of like whatever crass MAGA nastiness, Donald Trump's nastiness. And he's trying to unite those ideas. And it's just like it doesn't work. They're fundamentally at odds with each other.

[Bill Kristol]

I'm glad I got you to go on this rant on the book. That's actually a very important point. I mean, Hexath Attack blocks the promotion of, to general officers of various women and minorities because of meritocracy. But they also, the MAGA types and Vance themselves vaguely remember, they don't like that kind of technocratic meritocracy because that was also very bad because that's globalist, that it's elitist. And this. So there they want to go back further to sort of white America of 1927 or 1935 or something like that. But then I thought they were now. So they're for meritocracy, but they're not really for meritocracy.

[Host/Announcer]

Yeah.

[Bill Kristol]

What it comes down to is there for white America. Run by them.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, run by them. Run by them. And that they can, you know, hand out, you know, kind of like a spoil system. I can't throw where they want to take things back to.

[Bill Kristol]

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[Bill Kristol]

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[Bill Kristol]

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[Tim Miller]

[e-mail] it's a segregated America with a spoil system. I don't even know how to transition to this. So we're just going to do it. There's this Washington Post article about Tulsi Gabbard's guru. The gentleman's name is Chris Butler. He goes by Guru Siddhaswarupananda Paramahamsa. I'm just going to call him Guru Chris. He's a white guy from Hawaii. It's insane. Tulsi's whole career he was writing memos and giving dictates to her about what she should say and do. Her parents run this cult. She was part of it. It's kind of a spin off of Hinduism. It's sort of rude to the Hindus, I think, to say that, but that's what they claim it is. This report of the Washington Post John Swain showed to him. There was a member of the group who, you know, became estranged from the cult because she was trying to protect a kid that was a runaway from, you know, some one of the families. It was abuse or whatever. And then the cult came after her. And so she found in her archives, like all of these memos and these emails between Guru Kris himself isn't on the emails, but like he has an intermediary that is sending stuff to Tulsi. Among the things being said to her. Syria is the subject of many of the memos, including one from August 16th that documented tactical advice on preventing the United States from ousting Bashar al Assad. So he was a big pusher of Tulsi's pro Assad stance. He would send through talking points for TV hits. They looked through the talking points that were sent and then Tulsi's remarks in 32 TV interviews. And on 24 occasions, she used the language in the memos basically verbatim. The other eight instances, she used different words but promoted basically the same ideas. There are a million other examples. You really should read the whole story. It's insane. But I just bring it up in the context of this person was the Director of National Intelligence and she was apparently under the sway of a cult leader the whole time. So I don't know if that makes you feel good about how you sleep at night. Maybe Bill Pulte's looking good by comparison all of a sudden.

[Bill Kristol]

That's what I say. Maybe it's why our intelligence wasn't that great, actually, about Iran and its capabilities and what would happen and so forth. Yeah. Bill Pulte. So it's like you go out of the frying pan into the fire. We either have a cult leader, you know, someone who's taking orders from a cult leader, or we have a totally more standard corrupt henchmen. You know, it's really, again, that's. That is sort of Trump world too, right. Where it's like the. You know, either they're crazy or they're just corrupt henchmen.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's sort of like you're either genuinely crazy, which maybe seems like the case here, or corrupt and then on the take. Or just a total phony striver who saw the opportunity to get close to power and this is your chance to get on the train.

[Bill Kristol]

Or just have the personality and character of a really creepy authoritarian bully who likes making people's lives miserable. There are quite a lot of them around, I would say, too.

[Tim Miller]

That's a great point.

[Bill Kristol]

Shouldn't forget them.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, we should do a full character sketch. A lot of interesting stuff happening around the world with world leaders. We'll just do a little Carmen San Diego or what's happening around the world with you, Bill. You wrote about what was happening in the UK for morning shots. Keir Starmer is out today. What are your takeaways?

[Bill Kristol]

Fifth British prime minister to leave in 10 years. Now leaving. I guess he's going to stay a month or two for transition. That Brexit thing didn't work out so well. And I don't know, I am struck. I mean, I remember this in 2016. I don't know if you felt this, that when Brexit. Brexit won, it was right at this time of year. It's 10 years ago tomorrow, I think by three or four points was close. But still, I kind of had this moment of premonition of, oh, my God, it's going to happen. It happened there, it's going to happen here. And part of this was driven by my memory of the late 70s. Thatcher won in 79. She was such an outsider. People have sort of forgotten this. I mean, she was the first British. First female British prime minister ever. But also she'd been a minor figure in the Conservative Party. He had sort of toppled the established leadership. Then she had to beat labor. She did that in a big upset after they had a very miserable winter in 79. And so she won. And I remember sort of thinking as a young, kind of Reaganite Republican type by then, you know, if she could do it there, we could do it here. And there was. I mean, Thatcher's victory kind of was both a harbinger of Reagan, but also a bit of a encouragement, I'd say, to those of us who wanted a change from Carter. And I kind of feel like Brexit helped Trump, you know that. Don't you think it sort of.

[Tim Miller]

In retrospect, yes. I wish I could say that I also had that premonition. I probably would be smart for me to lie and pretend like I did,

[Bill Kristol]

but I did not.

[Tim Miller]

I was just like, oh, the fucking Europeans, like, stepping on their own dicks again. I don't know. That's where I was at on it. So I guess little egg on my face on that one since it did come our way afterwards. But yeah, I don't know, I saw it more in the vein of our friend Stan Voiger, who likes to tweet the British experiment and self government continues. And I kind of feel more. Felt more that way about it. But I agree with all that. I think that, you know, taking the lens back, the degree of dysfunction since Brexit and like, the problems that have come are really telling. And, and I think that honestly, they're particularly in Europe here, like, they're like anything else, like you can have access in anything. So they're like legitimate critiques of some of the immigration rules and policies. There's like the idea that it's a skeleton key to fixing everything. I think continues to bear out that it's not the case. But I was, was more struck about a different element of Starmer being pushed out, which was kind of the Biden parallels a little bit. Just like, I'm not going to pretend to be an expert in everything that's happening domestically in the uk, but directionally he's kind of fine. I don't know. I mean, the cost of living issues in the UK are really, really bad, particularly in London, and I've got friends over there and it's like tough even for middle, upper middle class people. It's like the cost of living issues are really bad if you're in London in particular. But Starmer did some basic reforms. They're in a really shitty financial situation and people are like, well, he did too much austerity. On the other hand, it's like, well, they hadn't done austerity. This is an unfalsifiable thing. But who knows what the bond markets would have done? And that could have. They could have ended up in a hyperinflation place where costs were even worse than they are anyway. They've got problems over there, there. But like, the idea that Keir Starmer has, like the popularity of lower popularity than Trump here is, is a little bit kind of hard for me to process. And I get he's a little bit of a. What's a British word? Like a little bit of a milksop or something. You know, America become a little bit of a wet noodle. I don't know, like the degree of unhappiness. My guess is that they'll probably end up with six prime ministers in 12 years, I guess is where I'm coming from.

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[Tim Miller]

N Proud to this. I don't think that the replacement's gonna solve their problems. They've got some big issues over the there. Why don't we just keep pomping around Europe? I'm fascinated by what's happening with Maloney and I wish that there wasn't so much craziness in our country because one of my visions for the podcast had Kamala. One was going to be like one or two days a week. We'll learn about something together. And I was like, I'd love to do a deep dive on Maloney and just understand what's happening because it's hard to tell and the things that I like overlap with my interests. Trump, she's been like, surprisingly good. She's been surprisingly good on Ukraine. She stood up to him on the Iran war. Now we have this recent kerfuffle where Trump I guess, said that she was begging to be in a picture with him and it created an international incident and now the Italians are no longer coming for a visit to America and she's popping off on him about how Italy's strong and she's going to protect Italy's internal Chris. So she keeps doing some surprising things for somebody that when she came in was kind of pitched as like an Italian Orban. And I think domestically not good for gays. And there are other things that are not great. And so anyway, I still might do this anyway in this case because I've become so obsessed with Melanie. People might have to deal with having one Melanie episode at some point over the course of the next few months. But it's pretty interesting what we've seen from her.

[Bill Kristol]

You should do an episode because I need to learn a lot more. I'd like to say this, but this is based on very little knowledge that, that this. You could start off as a populist nationalist with some pretty creepy associates. Maybe you yourself aren't quite as bad and maybe this is the sort of the good story, you know, the happy way it can be. You can work out, you know, you can end up okay. Some things that one doesn't like in policy terms and stuff, but not. But a decent agenda in terms of Ukraine and in terms of fighting Trump. And also not really authoritarian, I don't think at home in the sense. Sense of. Or corrupt. Just conservative in a sort of old fashioned way, maybe with touches of intolerance, maybe to some groups, but not real authoritarianism. I don't know. Maybe this is ridiculous on my part. This would be the combination of Magyar, who was after all part of Orban's party, Meloni. Maybe there's a way back for parts of Europe and maybe for people here in the US we need a Maloney here. So who's the Republican? Maloney? Yeah.

[Tim Miller]

And again, without overstaying the Maloney part of this, when people had asked me this would be like years ago when I was doing my book tour, because at this point this is kind of a ridiculous question, but I get the question a lot, which is like, do you think the Republican Party can come back to something that you could support or something that you think would be healthy? And my answer was always that the classical liberal elements of the Republican Party are gone. It will look more like a European right party, like in the European continent than like we've had these kind of outlier parties in the Anglosphere in the uk, Canada, here, Australia, where you have more kind of parties that are more of the free markets, free people, less of the blood and soil nationalism of that, that sort of stripe. And I was like, I think that that's. And so I think that the best case scenario I said that you could hope for would be a Boris Johnson type, one of the Brexit type. Right. From the Conservative Party folks, who is a little populist and a little rough around the edges, but not fundamentally wanting to turn the country into a dictatorship. And maybe now that we've gone a little bit further down the path that is even a little optimistic. Maybe the Milani model is more optimistic. I don't know. Like what I do think is not the good outcome in the sense that like I'm going to vote for Republicans again anytime in the foreseeable future, but the outcome that like we're not an existential threat to the country anymore. If, you know, you have some kind of right populist that also is at least in touch with basic like reality and you know, wants to be a positive influence on the world. Maybe not aggressively, but you know, like, maybe not an active influence on the world, but like, you know, it is not trying to be actively harmed, harmful. I don't know. And to that extent, maybe that's how the Maloney story is relevant here.

[Bill Kristol]

Yeah, the one thing that, again, if I knew where being more intelligent on this, I mean one thing that I think has happened though that does happen in Europe is the EU constrained, someone like Melody. That's true. Constrained Orban, but not so much, but in a way it did ultimately constrain him, I would say, and it probably helped defeat him. And the guardrails here have to be internal on Trump, they could be a little bit external. Someone like Maloney pushing back doesn't hurt actually. And there are people in the U.S. not that most people know she is, but you know, kind of vague sense of, well, he, he's even alienating the more right wing types in Europe, you know, or the more sane, the sane version of the right wing types in Europe. So anyway, I think the EU turns out to be a positive force there that we don't have here. But the degree to which Trump just pick up on our earlier conversation for one second. I mean really, who are his allies now? His allies are literally the worst dictators, period. And the, you know, most corrupt Gulf states, basically. And he doesn't have Melody, he doesn't have the conservative prime Minister of Japan, he doesn't have anyone who's a vaguely recognizable normal conservative leader in a democracy. He has only autocrats or aspiring autocrats or corrupt sheikhs.

[Tim Miller]

And he's about to get some more new allies. That's the other place I just wanted to go. And around the world things are not great in Latin America. America fed a series of elections in south and Central America where it's like there's a funny meme going around where it's like all Latin American elections are on the one hand. It's like socialist school teacher who wants to redistribute money. It's like right wing uber fascist caudillo. And then it's like. And it's like socialist schoolteacher 49.999%. Like right wing cadillo 50.0001%. And that's like every election. And it's in Peru. Even though that actually I don't think it's called. They're doing California style counting down in Peru and then in Colombia over the weekend. And the other alarming thing I did just want to flag is Colombia President Gustavo Petro says that Israel stole the election. He was not running. It was his successor as kind of more the socialist side. The software was compromised. He says the only entity in the world capable of doing that is the state of Israel. And I do think it's important to bring this up because we're simultaneously processing through a world where there's some legitimate complaints about Israel and their actions on the world stage. Whether they were encouraging Trump to get into this stupid war. There also is a serious amount of Israel derangement syndrome out there. And like the fact that the Colombia. Does he believe this? I don't know. Does he just. He just wants to. To incite their supporters against Israel. Believes that it's something to gain social media clout. Has something he posted on social media. I don't know. But not great sign about what's going on down there in Columbia. The guy who wins is like a no political experience. Did AI ads with him as a tiger and you know, I mean it was like Hector Mountain Dew Camacho of Colombia is now going to be the president of Colombia. And the losing socialist president. President said it was rigged by Israel. So not a lot to get excited about there.

[Bill Kristol]

I agree with that.

[Tim Miller]

Do you want to close with some World Cup? You said you were feeling the spirit of Scotland.

[Bill Kristol]

But the World Cup's been impressive and I think a good counterpoint to Trump and to Trumpism and to Trump's attempt to hijack the 250th anniversary. I feel like the World cup captures the spirit of American liberal, liberal American patriots, patriotism, liberal in the broad sense. Just say American patriotism. That complicated of a kind of healthy patriotism where you root for your country, but you're also enjoying it and you're, you're friendly with the fans from the other. Mostly the fans from the other countries. And you're, you know, you're learning about the host country at the same time. It's a kind of globalist liberal patriotism, which is what American patriotism is and should be and has been and indeed still is. Because look at the reception they're getting here. People really are being very. Are enjoying it, I think. Enjoy the city is enjoying hosting it. They're enjoying hosting the practice sites for the teams people are getting. I myself am not a big World cup fan. I haven't been that interested in soccer in the last few decades. And I kind of got into it. I was in Boston last week and the Scots were there, and that was really something. I mean, everyone was talking about them and you could see them everywhere. And they were drinking out every bar. You know, they were emptying out the bars and so forth. And they lost, unfortunately, Friday night at Foxboro. But. But they could make it for the first time. And I think they've never made the knockout round. They've never gotten past the elimination round, which we're now in the group round. And so maybe everyone's rooting for them. Right? Are we rooting for the little countries? Curacao? It's kind of. I find it kind of. I've kind of gotten into it. It's kind of watching the games is sometimes a little boring. But the idea of the World cup has been sort of invigorating and I think somewhat heartening.

[Tim Miller]

I'm struggling to get into it, but I don't have a lot of free time on my hands. And so there's a lot of passing. And I support everybody who is very excited about it. I will tie it back to my obsessive hatred of J.D. vance, though, to close, which is. I do think that what we've seen from the World cup is a direct attack on his claim that in order to support American social cohesion, we need to stop immigration. So this is the argument that he's making as far that's when he tries to make the, oh, I'm a benevolent, you know, anti immigrant leader. Like, I'm not one of these bad racists that everybody's making me out to be like one of the arguments that he makes is one of these high minded, sniffing his own farts arguments. It's like, you know, it's just you have so much immigration in a country so quickly, it harms the cohesion. You know, we can only be socially cohesive with people that look like us and sound like us and, you know, go to the same church that I just started going to two minutes ago. Right. That's the only way to have social cohesion. And it seems like we've had a ton of social cohesion, actually, with all the visitors from around the world and the Japanese and the from the Netherlands that match we talked about last week. And people from everywhere, Cape Verde and Scotland, and everyone's coming and they're going into our cities or some of the small towns, I forget which country went to Chattanooga, but one of the teams was based in Chattanooga and everyone. And again, Lawrence, Kansas was hosting another team. Small towns, big cities, they're welcoming in people from around the world, getting along, enjoying each other's company, having camaraderie. Seems like the social cohesion is just fine. Seems like maybe the vice President of the United States smearing people and making up lies about people based on their nation of origin and their race is maybe what is harming the social cohesion. Just one man's opinion. That's the podcast for today. Thank you to Bill Kristol. We'll have more JD Vance Derangement Syndrome next Monday. On next Monday's show. Who knows what kind of offenses he wants will inflict on the human spirit between now and then. In the meantime, I think we got a new guest coming tomorrow. Looking forward to it. See you all then. Bye, Bill. 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.