Bulwark Takes - Bannon Can’t Spin This! Calls For Lindsey Graham To Be Arrested!

Episode Date: June 3, 2025

As Russian bombs rained down on Ukraine, Senator Lindsey Graham was on the ground, delivering tough talk and photo ops. His visit, timed with one of the war’s heaviest bombardments, raised eyebrows for Bannon, who wants him to stay out of the US. Is THIS the man behind world’s most daring military op? Ex-DJ ‘secret agent’ to go down in history for $7bn ‘web’ blitz https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/35234286/ukraine-drones-russia-planes-spy/

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This free virtual event brings together leaders like Senator Heidi Heitkamp, Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Governor Andy Beshear and others for real talk and real solutions. Together we'll tackle the most urgent issues facing rural America. Register today or learn more at ruralprogress.com. Hey everybody, Tim Miller from the Bulwark here

with my buddy, Andrew Egger, who writes our Morning Shots newsletter, which you should definitely subscribe to at the bulwark.com. And Andrew, I want to talk about a series of developments in Ukraine and give them this a little bit with Bill Kristol yesterday. We've learned some more and there's been some backlash from the mega right. But there's this awesome offensive the Ukrainians undertake over the weekend called Operation Spider Web that has kind of a Trojan horse element to it. This is really cool story from the sun that apparently one of the point people for

this operation was a DJ, a tattoo DJ who has a wife or girlfriend that writes erotic thrillers. Let's put their pictures up right here so people can just really visualize this awesome story. Good news. You're usually a bearer of bad news. How are you processing this positive development in Ukraine? It's been very cool. It's I was like tactically useful, you know, knocked out a bunch of a bunch of, you know, nuclear capable airplanes and things like that, but also just really a fun story, like just on the merits of it, and really embarrassing like, like OpSec wise for Russia because of how just, I mean, like, do you want to talk a little bit about like

what actually happened is the most bizarre story ever. This, this DJ guy, like essentially tricked a bunch of like Russian truck drivers into driving these, these trucks that had drones concealed inside of them to a bunch of different locations all over Russia. First of all, we should say the guy, the DJ, he's alleged to be involved. It's like Russian military bloggers who have surfaced his name. All of these guys who were driving the trucks are like, Artem told us to go here. Supposedly, he's the Artem. But they all drive all over the place.

I want it to be true. I want to say there's the bias of how bad they I want it to be true it's a good it's a good caveat yeah even he's just the icing on the cake though because like the thing itself just driving these trucks to these places supposedly they're there to like build homes and then like the secret compartment on the roof of the trucks opens up at the same time like all over the country as far as Siberia like these roofs open at the same time, like all over the country, as far as Siberia, like these roofs open at the same time and then the drones just, and they just take out the Russian planes. And again, it's also a little bit of a sweet revenge element because

it's the planes that have been dropping a lot of like really deadly material onto Ukraine, right? So it's like they went at, like they went at the source of the Russian strength. And also the other sweet element to this is Russia is particularly exposed because they can't make these planes anymore. They're like Soviet airplanes. And so now it's like they're boned. Right. Yeah.

And it's totally like an Ocean's 11 type thing where like, you know, everyone who was involved in the planning and execution of it gets away scot-free and it's these like hapless truck drivers who didn't know anything about it who are like, you know, it went about as well as as well as Ukraine could have could have hoped it would go cool story, fun story, exciting story, grim war, but a good story in that war. Little icing on the cake for us from a domestic perspective is that the Ukrainians executed this campaign without our help at all and without our knowledge, apparently. I mean, which is a little bit alarming, I guess, about the US's visibility inside of Ukrainian services from an intel standpoint, but asked, this was kind of reported over the weekend, we talked about it a little bit yesterday about how we didn't know

about this, but Carolyn Levitt, the press secretary, was asked about this today. Did Trump know about this and said no? So this is just, I mean, on the one hand, embarrassing kind of egg on your face situation for Trump, but like more importantly, it is the Ukrainians like decoupling from this and saying we got this, we don't need your little small orange fingers. Yeah, and I honestly, I've been I've been kind of going around and around in my head for how to process that exact piece of information because you could probably couldn't you make the argument that like, if this had happened under Biden, it would have been messaged the same way, just because it is like such an aggressive attack into Russian territory beyond what the US has kind of consented to as a

matter of policy. You could, you could imagine a world where Ukraine, probably not under this administration, under a friendlier administration to Ukraine, where Ukraine either leaves us in the dark or probably more likely just says they left us in the dark and we say they left us in the dark. Obviously, I mean, I would not bet a lot of money that's what happened here under these particular group of jokers. But it's been hard for me to find the exact right hole to put that peg of information into. You know what I mean? Yeah, same. It's not that I've been noodling on but they it's

hard to imagine that in this situation, right? Like the Wink and nod and in the Biden time of saying like, yeah, we didn't know anything about this. Like we don't want to have if this escalates, we don't want to be responsible. That is, you can imagine, you can't imagine here. I mean, I think the reality is that if you're Ukraine, and you're doing a sensitive operation like this, you can't tell us. Yeah. I think you're right. I mean, it would be an opposite like vulnerability, right?

Yeah, right. What if Tulsi? I mean, you want Tulsi knowing about this? So, I don't know, that will be interesting as this stuff develops. Like, did the Brits know? You know, did their European allies know? I don't know. That will be a subplot to watch. The other element to this, which is really delicious. This is an all delicious podcast. So enjoy it while you can, people. Steve Bannon was on with, what was the other Cuomo's name? Chris Cuomo? Yeah. On his program. What a long, strange trip's name? Chris Cuomo? Yeah. What a... On his program.

What a long, strange trip he's been on, right? And Chris is looking tan and so Brandon's on the program and he's pissed because Lindsey Graham was in Ukraine while this was happening. He's on a code of some sort. I think it was Richard Blumenthal, maybe some other senators, and was expressing a lot of positivity about the operation and is also at the same time back here, you know, working on a bill that would add sanctions to Russia that ideally would get enough votes that it could, that even if Trump vetoed it, they could override the veto. So like these are two things that Lindsay's working on, you know, not, I could use a little bit more from Lindsay. But that being said, they are, those are two items that he was working

on in support of Ukraine. And just those two modest items really have pissed off Steve Bannon. And now let's watch him on, on Chris Cuomo's program. Whether it's true that Ukraine didn't give us a heads up and that the United States wasn't involved in the planning or execution. I don't know that. I know what the white house has it's true that Ukraine didn't give us a heads up and that the United States wasn't involved in the planning or execution. I don't know that. I know what the White House has said. I don't necessarily believe it.

I don't know that it's not true either. But I don't understand how you could want to jail a US Senator because he's saying something you don't like. Because he sounds like the worst of the deep state. No, it's absolutely what he's doing. What he's doing over there right now is stirring it up. He's giving the Ukrainians, but it's not illegal. He's giving the Ukrainians false hope. He's giving Ukrainians false hope that we're there to support them on engaging Russia in a kinetic conflict. And we are not president Trump. So maybe he's wrong.

President Trump. Hey, so maybe he's wrong. What do you say? Two things, two things ought to happen. Either cancel his passport and don't lay back in the country or put him in jail. If he comes back, Lindsey Graham is stirring it up right now. So he wants to jail Lindsey Graham, I guess. And the whole, uh, like, you know, there, there's a period of time where they did the whole, oh, we're not really fascists and these liberals, like, how crazy are they that they call us fascists? And we're going to call ourselves fascist kind of as a joke because the liberals call us that. And it's

like one big, it's a big laugh to make fun of how crazy they've gotten. And now they just have kind of embraced it pretty much full-throatedly. They're like, no, if you disagree with the president on a foreign policy matter, you should be jailed. Yeah. It's kind of fun to watch Chris Cuomo kind of bump into that in real time where he's like, well, I mean, come on, you're not actually saying that he should be imprisoned, what for speech? For supporting the notion that we should continue to back our allies in Ukraine and Bannon's like, no, jail or deny him reentry to the country. I mean, it's funny. It's grim and it's funny, right? I mean, it's both of these

things because it's not like this... Steve Bannon has been kind of sidelined in a lot of ways by this administration. A lot of things he doesn't want happening policy-wise have been happening with this administration. But also this- Though it seems like he won the little Elon battle maybe by no doing of his own, but he was the most aggressive anti-Elon person, at least publicly. Probably has more to do with Suzy Wiles and Elon's own instability than Bannon himself,

but it's worth mentioning. Yeah, no, 100%. But I just think, regardless of his own personal sway or whatever, this ideology that he is kind of channeling here where it's like the president channels the will of the Volk and any impediment to that or anybody who gets in his way or anybody who even like talks on behalf of the United States, even if they are also officers of the United States, the thing that Bannon keeps bringing up is like he's stirring things up. He's giving the Ukrainians false hope. He's making them think that there's

still a coalition of important people in America who support them. But that's not true. The only important person in America is Donald J. Trump, and he doesn't support—I mean, that's kind of the actual kind of like philosophical argument that Bannon's making. And it's insane. I mean, it's fascist and evil and terrifying because it's the idea that literally anybody who is getting even crosswise of the president's messaging is

essentially committing this act of like treason against the popular will that exists in the person of the president. So that's cool. It's a really exciting, exciting times all around. And you saw some of this, just with a little less of Bannon's flair from some of these other guys like cat turd was talking about how Lindsey Graham and Zelensky don't want peace and you know, you see this from the other MAGA kind of commentariat and the interesting thing is like it to advance their perspective like there there's sort of two sides of MAGA like they're the ones that just embrace the fact that maybe Putin has to take over all of Europe and doesn't not really our problem this This is the Kurdish Yarvin side. We were talking about this yesterday with Will Summer. But then there's the

other other folks like the more in touch with real political reality side of MAGA, which I guess cat turd is included in which will tell you something. They have to like, like, continue to do the suspension of disbelief that there is a peace program happening. It's like, this is bad. This attack on Russia is bad because it's undermining the peace. I mean, we can't do something that's undermining this important peace process. I'm not 100% sure you can ascribe thoughts that complex to cat turd 2. That guy is a single celled organism. You know, I mean, he just...

Okay, there were some others that said that. I don't want to name a name because I don't have it in front of me, but there were some more high-fledged Magus who are making this argument. Yes, which is just, I mean, it's so amazing. It's complete, you know, like monopoly money discourse, right? I mean, Russia is also currently in the process of launching its most aggressive attacks yet against Ukraine, like all weekend. You know how like the biggest drone attack they've done so far hitting all kinds of like residential centers and just like

you know doing the the kind of like evil empire stuff they've been doing in this war all along and yet the the discourse is supposed to be that because Ukraine blew up a bunch of Russian warplanes and also made a separate attack on a bridge with nobody on it just this morning that like there the like, oh man, there's isn't it isn't it terrible how in war in war there are no clean hands, you know, that kind of nonsense. And they're not even saying that they're not even saying Ukraine's as bad as Russia. They're just saying Ukraine's bad for doing this stuff. I mean, it's completely it's completely insane. And just, I don't know, I guess it's not beneath comment because we're commenting on it. But but it, but it makes you dumber reading it.

Nothing's beneath comment anymore, Andrew. All right. Well, it's a positive development. We have a few of those these days, so it's important for us to jump on and provide that for you all. We'll be keeping an eye on it. Make sure to subscribe to the feed. Go read Andrew's newsletter. What you're right about today? I'm behind. Today this morning? Federalist Society, man. I'm behind. Today? This morning? Federalist society, man. I'm doing one cheer for conservative institutions, which every time I do that, I get completely owned by reality.

Oh boy, never mind guys. Start tomorrow. Start on tomorrow's newsletter. You're gonna like that one better. We'll see you all back here soon.