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Transcript8 lines
- [00:00]
A
Hey, everybody, Tim Miller from the Bulwark here. I just got off deadline White House with my friend Nicole Wallace. We discussed at length the world laughing at Donald Trump both over his World cup face plant and his bizarre performance in NATO comics are laughing at him. The Belgian soccer team is making fun of his dance. People are just pointing and mocking our embarrassment of a president the world over. I'm trying to coin. Just shut up in President. I don't know if that's actually going to hit or not, but we talk about that a little bit. So we get into that. We also get back into this interview I had. It was on the 3rd of July, 4th of July, I observed with Clint Smith. And so I do think some of you missed it. So I'd encourage you to go back and check it out. He's awesome. He's a poet, historian. And we covered his interview with Lonnie Bunch, who runs the Smithsonian, and Trump's attacks on our history and on the Smithsonian. We also get into just kind of what it means to be an American and how to think about a country that you love that is also really letting us down. Clint's awesome on that, so go back and check that out. So before we get to Nicole hit many laughs there, I do just want to talk about the breaking news out of Iran. You'll be surprised to hear that Treaty of Versailles 2 Electric Boogaloo is not going so well. We have talked today on the pods about how Iran fired two missiles at commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz, including one apparently at a cuttery tanker. Iran's denying that they shot a missile at the cutter tanker, but. But it doesn't seem like denying that they were going after these ships that were taking the Omani route through the Strait of Hormuz. As a result, the US Revoked the license that authorized the sale of Iranian oil under the MoU. So no more free Ayatollah oil for the Americans, at least for the time being. And then we engaged in another round of powerful quote, quote, unquote. Everything's gotta be strong. The Department of War, even though we've lost the only war we started powerful airstrikes in response to the Iranian attacks on the Strait. We have, according to ABC US Official saying that the strikes are expected to be more intense than last month's. Well, you'd hope so since last month's didn't work out. Or you'd hope not, or you'd hope you just stopped doing it. Spending our money on these fucking missiles for no purpose. It's Truly amazing how just cockamamy and stupid this war is. Like we're spending my tax money. I mean, I get, I pay my tax money for blabbing to you guys. So maybe that's not the most sympathetic for taking your tax money. Y' all grinding away out there, tiring yourself, trying to make sure your family's got enough money for vacation. This year we're taking a cut out of that and using it for missile and drone strikes into Iran. For what? For what? To try to get the Strait of Hormuz back to the pre war status quo. Just cut and run. You've got nothing more airstrikes, that's the plan. It is an embarrassment that like we're still embroiled in this and that you had this dramatic signing at Versailles. What'd that get you? That didn't, that barely lasted a day. So we'll see how these things go. I mean, the, the war, the thing, the only thing keeping this war, this from escalating more is that the Iranians don't really want full scale war. They just want money and control over the strait and Trump doesn't. So he does these little, you know, attacks from the sky. He doesn't, he'd rather just get out of us. So this feels like the best of the bad options. Mark Hertling and I talked about this. He's getting presented with various options and, you know, kind of this half in, half out, nothing is where he's landed for now. It is a bit of a rebuke. You do have to say to the vice president, J.D. vance, who's the point person on Treaty of Versailles to Electric Boogaloo and who is going around doing a massive media tour talking about how cool it was he made friends with the Iranians.
- [04:20]
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The coolest thing about the progress we've made over the last few weeks is that you see people within the Iranian system, senior leadership, even IRGC officials say, you know what, we may have some animosity, we may have some mistrust, but we recognize the way that we've done business with the United States for 47 years is a mistake. Let's try something else. We're going to verify that, of course, but we're certainly, certainly willing to try something else if they comply.
- [04:44]
A
This, like, you guys don't understand how cool it is when you actually talk to these people. Like, they're fine, they're chill, chill vibes from the Iranians. That's what Vance was saying. You know, Vance, he's in this condescending matter. He's like all these stupid leaders of the past got us stuck in these stupid wars. Not us. We did this smart thing where we started a war that doesn't have a point, and then we declared victory and then we decided to end it. And then I went around and was like, hey, I'm the smart one. I can end this easily. All these stupid leaders couldn't get us out of wars, but I can get us out of wars. Because what's really cool is that the Iranians are actually great. Really. Well, here we are still bombing each other. I guess that cool friends we made along the way. Results from the negotiations didn't turn out quite like JD Vance had thought it would. Who could have seen that coming? Everybody, actually. All right, we got some giggles with Nicole coming up, so stick around for that. Subscribe to this feed right here on the Bulwark on YouTube on substack. We appreciate you guys very much.
- [05:53]
C
The idea that we are considering blowing up our relationship with allies that have kept not just us safe, but have kept peace since World War II is one of these insane things that makes me feel like we're watching the Republican zombies, right? Sort of just watching him march the country off the cliff. And other than, I think one senator, one of the people that got primaried or someone retiring, got mad when he took troops out of Europe. But that's like a state and it barely gets any coverage. But I think he threatened to do that again today.
- [06:25]
A
Yeah, he did threaten to do it again today, particularly on the grounds of Greenland. And his arguments around Greenland start to not make sense. I think you did everybody a favor by cutting up that very long ramble that he's doing today. But there's some nonsensical stuff in the middle there as he was trying to explain why we need Greenland because of the Chinese ships, et cetera, when Greenland has said we can do militarily what we want, what we need to do. As far as putting military resources there, to your point about him not being able to actually build things, there is something that he was pretty good at, we should just say, which is just putting his name on other people's stuff. And to me, I think that is the summary of what is happening in Greenland. Donald Trump wants to put his name on new things. He's got this new airport in Palm beach he's happy about. He wants to put his name on a new country. He wants that to be in the history books. That's it. Like, doing things is hard. Like putting your name on other people's things is Easy. He's made a career for it out of it. Kudos to him. But, and I think that's part of what's happening. And then the other thing, I guess I would just throw out here why to your question to Rick about why he hasn't got out of NATO. I think a lot of it is the fact that Margarita, the head of NATO has been sucking up to him. I mean, Trump is a child and like that's where we're at. Why was he in Ankara, Ankara today? Did he say? Well, because Erdogan's been so nice to him and there have been some reporting, you know, that we haven't really found out the truth actually from the first term about some suspicious financial transfers from Turkey to Trump. And maybe that will come out. But also we know that Erdogan sucks up to him. Mark Rude has been the head of NATO really sucks up to him and called him daddy. And I think that it's like that kind of like he's a child, that kind of base suck uppery is why we're in NATO. And the fact that a lot of the other European countries won't do that to him is why he's mad at them. I mean, I think it's as simple as that.
- [08:16]
C
Well, Tim, speaking of being mad, I mean, do we think he's seen people laughing at him? I mean, if he's gonna be mad at anyone, he's gonna be mad at the mockery. I wanna, I think I have some more of the sort of celebrations in the locker room and you know, sports. We've had a lot of sports content to chew on just as fans of the Knicks. But I can't imagine there's anything more psychologically motivating than to try to defeat a team where the American President has involved himself in a way that I don't think FIFA has overturned a call like that since the 1950s. Here's the team that won. What do you think about the Trump curse?
- [09:00]
A
Yeah, small country, Belgium there kind of dunking on Trump. This is fun. It's funny when you take back the clock on this. As Trump came into our lives in 2015, a big complaint on the right was like this idea that, you know, sports leagues have gone too liberal or whatever, gone too woke and people should, you know, politics should stay out of it. Like this was the big critique over on Fox for a long time. And you probably remember Laura Ingraham, you know, talking about how LeBron James should shut up and dribble. And I don't know, in some ways, I feel like that Belgium dance as the Belgians telling Trump to, like, shut up in president, you know, like, shut up and do your job. Because it's like, he keeps getting involved in this stuff. Like, he got himself involved in the only game the Knicks lost was the one he showed up to, like, Belgium just like, absolutely shames us last night in soccer after Trump gets involved in it, like, he wants to be involved in everything. He has to try to get himself involved in our lives and in every corner of society. And a lot of what he's touching is doing the opposite. It's the opposite of the Midas touch.
- [10:07]
C
I guess this has been on my brain since, I think, before the State of the Union, where it's clear to me that the quality of. And it came from some of the folks who went and saw him that day, and he wanted to show everyone the renovations of his bathroom. Like, the obsession, like, true. I mean, I. I'm. I'm not really good at these things, but even when I have been involved in minority.