Bulwark Takes - Epstein Survivors and the Blanche Hearing | Morning Shots

Episode Date: July 14, 2026

Join Bill Kristol and Ben Parker (filling in for Andrew Egger) as they cover the week's biggest stories.Make your summer wardrobe easier. Go to https://Quince.com/bulwarktakes for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada, too.

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We do, Ben. Fair amount of news. Congress is back and Trump is being Trump, and none of that is terribly encouraging, honestly. Yeah, Trump is being Trump, so lots of things are going to happen. Congress is back, so nothing is going to happen. But that's actually not true. We have to start, of course, with the Todd Blanche confirmation hearings, which are scheduled to begin tomorrow. And you wrote earlier this week that the Democrats actually have an opportunity to do something here. They're constantly complaining that, you know, in the minority, you don't really get that much opportunity. If the majority says you don't get to make a fuss, you don't get to make a fuss. But here, that's not actually true. And you have some more details about what that hearing is going to look like, right? Yeah, the hearing itself, just so people know.

So it's a two-day hearing. That's sort of traditional for a major cabinet appointment. Usually the cabinet nominee takes the first day and answers questions from all the senators, and then the second day is witnesses, as they're called, people who can testify for or against them. Often it's a previous, you know, big shots who've held the office on his side or big shots on the other side. So what we have tomorrow is a little different. Blanche will go at begin at 9 a.m. tomorrow. Interestingly, the Republican majority, which runs these hearings, the majority of committees, much more powerful than the minority, has limited questioning to 10 minutes per senator, one round, I gather, 10 minutes per senator, which is less than the usual

for a major confirmation. People who watch them would know that. Sometimes it's more like a 15-minute, one round, or two of eight or 10-minute rounds. It doesn't matter that much. Honestly, the questions senators will say what they say, and Blanche will filibuster as he chooses. Still, it's interesting that the Republicans want to confine it as much as possible as the way I'd put it, they don't want the least wildcards, the better. So that'll go, I don't know if you do the math. 10 minutes times 21 senators and a little extra time for Blanche's opening statements, some, you know, some stoppage time, you know. Yeah, exactly.

Chair and Rangy, a member of long-opening. Yeah, and also breaks, for Bradbathes for, you know, bathrooms and bathroom breaks and maybe a little lunch break. I'm thinking five, six hours tomorrow. So that goes, let's just say 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. probably. Thursday, that could be, so that could be interesting. The Republican senators will give Blanche questions he's well-prepared for. for layups, really, and we'll challenge him. Maybe one of the two exceptions, Corridan and tell us.

The Democratic senators will try to challenge him. He'll try to evade and filibuster. I think the one most interesting wild card for me, the two, the lesser of the two, but still interesting is ICE. I mean, with the recent developments and with what's that developments, recent killings in Houston and in Maine, Corridan from Houston is on the committee, from Texas is on the committee.

You know, I should, DOJ has refused to really have any, take any oversight, any responsibility for the behavior of ICE agents, even if they're breaking the law. That's not traditionally the case. The Justice Department has often investigated possible crimes by federal officials. In fact, if they don't do it, who's going to do it? Well, you say they're an agency. Well, DHS says the inspector general is going to investigate DHS. Certainly not local law enforcement.

They've been stonewall. And they've been stonewall. And DOJ is mostly cooperated with that stonewall. So I think it's a chance to make some news on ICE. And I think even though Collins is on the committee, Collins for May, obviously one of the most more gettable Republican votes for Zulbi would be, I think, influence if Blanche isn't forthcoming and doesn't promise at least to change his ways, the ways of the Justice Department under his leadership,

on holding ICE accountable for killing innocent people. So I think ICE is an interesting issue. Maybe the more consequential one that would be Epstein, where Blanche has been, obviously, as we all know, at the center, the very center, really, of the cover up from the beginning, the cover center of the original stone wall, the center of the cover-up, which that famous Situation Room meeting on July 17th, that was exactly a year ago, actually, which he participated in, a political spin meeting that the Deputy Attorney General came to the White House to be part

of. He then went to see Maxwell a week later, a week after that, he put her in a cushy prison camp, so there's a lot to ask about. I think there will be some Epstein survivors at the meeting, I'm told. It'd be interesting to see if they, if they, if Lance recognizes their presence, if he acknowledges them, if he apologized to them for the way they've been treated over the years. Maybe Democratic senators will introduce them. I don't know. But I think that adds a bit of a wildcard.

Thursday, that is the court witnesses, also beginning, I think, nine in the morning probably. There, I think the Republicans, the majority get three witnesses, the Democrats, too. The Republicans are going to have former Attorney General Ashcroft. They're going to have a law enforcement union type spokesman who will say Blanche is tough on crime. and they'll have a mom of someone who's killed by an undocumented immigrant. So that plays to that. That's their issue. And Blanche is tough on that presumably. There are Democrats, I think, planned to have two witnesses, Liz Oyer,

who was the pardon attorney at Justice, whom Blanche fired pretty early on, and who's very trenchant critic of Blanche's custody of the Justice Department. I did a work on Sunday with her about two or three weeks ago. And then an Epstein survivor, Dandy Bensky, whom I've seen actually on another, you know, she's spoken out before a little bit, very eloquent, very moving, totally mistreated by Blanche's handling of the Epstein files, the redactions and the non-redactions. So she has a powerful story to tell. And I do think that could be the most interesting moment, actually, of the two days,

not anything Blanche does, but what Danny Benson says. but what Dandy Bensky says and how senators react to that, I assume Republicans will just try to kind of close their eyes and wish that that part ends as quickly as possible. I don't think they'll have the stupidity to actually attack an Epstein survivor, though, who knows, you know? So that's the two days of hearings. And we'll be covering it on the bulwark throughout. And I think it'll be pretty more interesting than a typical confirmation hearing,

a little less predictable, a little more of a wildcard because of the Epstein issue. And I do think there's a chance they could lose a Republican or two on the committee. There's a chance he could answer in a way that lets him get through the committee but then loses enough Republicans on the floor.

And I think even if he gets confirmed, I think the hearing does, can help really convey, remind voters that the Trump administration and the Justice Department under Blanche's leadership and close coordination with Donald Trump has covered up the Epstein files, the Epstein and Ms. Hanfield, refused to prosecute anyone, sort of wraps

Epstein a little bit around their neck, I think, honestly. As it was. And there are a bunch of people running for re-election in somewhat tough Senate races, bunch of Republicans, who will presumably be voting to confirm Blanche of Florida and Ohio, maybe Susan Collins in Maine. And so I think brings Epstein back as an issue in 26. Yeah, you know, I'd want to comment with that a couple of these things. One is, I think it's worth pausing for a moment on the fact that they are limiting.

You're talking about this offline. Maybe like the least amount of overall questioning for a major cabinet, or at least for an attorney general nominee that like anyone can remember. I don't want to say of all time because I'm sure there was a time where they didn't question them at all or whatever. But really, they're cracking down. You know, each senator gets 10 minutes, which means that they ask one question and Blanche, owns on and generalities and platitudes for 10 minutes and then he gets off Scott free, right? So that is really depressing and it shows you

that the Republicans know they're doing something unpopular and their solution isn't to do something more popular. The solution is, let's just try to hide it. It's really shameful and cowardly. I mean, it's just the only word that comes to mind is it's just, it's embarrassing, it's

it's awful. And they deserve to be really, I mean, criticized for that. It's just, it's, there's no redeeming argument for why there shouldn't be more questioning of Todd Blanche. It's not like, you know, if this were a, even if this were Bill Barr, right, from Trump's first term, I could sort of understand them saying, you know, I can sort of imagine, you know, the senators in the back rooms, the Republicans saying to the Democrats in private,

look, you know, this is kind of an adult, you know, you might not like him, you might not agree with his policies, but like, let's just kind of wave him through because that's kind of the best compromise for everyone. This is not that. This is trying to get a guy through who is like the worst, you know, it's still not Matt Gates, but like in some ways comparable in terms of the things he's responsible for, just, you know, an awful

I'm drooning on now, but an awful nominee they're trying to wave through with this little accountability as possible. It's shameful. You know, just on that, I'll let you get to the next point better just to add one footnote. I mean, he's been Deputy General, then Acting General, for pretty much 18 months. He's got a

big record. And so just in terms of responsibly letting him defend if he, you know, what he's done, asking him questions, raising things he's said, raising things from court cases where he's been rebuked by judges and so forth, let him respond. That takes more than the amount of time they're allocating. So even if he doesn't drone on, even if the senators succeed in interrupting him and making him answer a little bit, it's just not enough time. No one would do this for any normal position, right, in the private sector or in life. You know, if you had a major appointment to make, one of the most important parts of the federal government

in charge of tens of thousands of employees, very, very sensitive matters, a controversial figure who's been sort of running the place for 18 months, so a real record to examine. No one would hire such a person to run your organization or any other organization, you know, with a bunch of rapid fire 10-minute questioning period. So it's really, I agree with you.

It's a little more of a disgrace than it seems at first, almost, you know? Yeah, it seems procedural in minder, but it's really, I mean, we've just now been talking for about 10 minutes. It's like, that's it. Imagine if that's the whole job interview, for like Attorney General. Obviously, you know, it's multiple senators, whatever, but it's really not a lot of time to dig into something that's this important.

I am intrigued by what the Republicans are going to ask the Epstein Survivor. Witness. I'm sorry, I forgot her name. But that is a good move by the Democrats because that really does put the Republicans in an awkward position. Do they just ignore? Do they say, you know, no questions, pass. Or express sympathy. I don't know.

I'm so sorry this happened to you, but also I don't care because I'm going to vote to confirm this guy. I mean, there's sort of no. good thing for them to say and you know they can't deny Epstein's crimes that's not going to fly what do they say you don't think though they they probably shouldn't take Donald Trump's line that it's all a hoax the whole things a hoax democratic hoax and kind of hard to say that to one of these women it's it's yeah Danny Benzky and who I think has been very effective and a few times I see I mean she's not someone who came forward early and she's someone who wanted to keep her privacy

our life as many of them do. The courage it takes, I've gotten to know a little bit more about them, you know, in the last year and a half as many of us have. And the courage it takes to come forward is really impressive. Yeah. And on, you know, not just to come forward, we were talking

earlier about the, the PSA video that they're released, which, you know, takes an amount of courage too, right? You're putting yourself out there in public, but specifically to come forward in front of a Senate committee and expose yourself to, I don't know, what'll happen, some ridicule, some grilling, some

pats on the head that are very, you know, could be very sort of dismissive. It does take courage to come forward and say, like, I'm going to put myself out there for this. Even though it's likely, you're likely to lose. I mean, you're not likely to actually do real dissemination. We should be clear.

I think Chris and Connor may have got, our colleagues may have gotten the little complicated technologically, got in the PSA video that we get to show it here. Let's see if I'm looking at the, at the, at the at the Slack. It's released.

My phone number was released. Where I went to school. Where I live. My students can now search me and read about my abuse. I am an Epstein survivor. I am an Epstein survivor. I am an Epstein survivor. We were exposed.

Nude pictures of victims were released. Our family's safety was put at risk. Now Todd Blanche wants to be the Attorney General of the United States. Todd Blanche had a duty to protect us. Instead, he protected the people. people who committed crimes against us. 30 years. 1,200 victims and 6 million files.

A mountain of evidence. But Todd Blanche says there are no investigative leads. Todd Blanche failed us. He failed victims everywhere. We deserve better. Our country deserves better. Vote no on Todd Blanche for Attorney General. Vote no.

No. No. No. Vote no on Todd Blanche for Attorney General. It's a striking video. Yeah. Yeah. And honest, and we'll see if it has some effect. I mean, as you said, you know, these senators can't go and say like the whole

Epstein thing is a hoax, the Democrats and ended it. They can't tell their constituents that, right? And as you hinted, the only ones who are likely to not care where their constituents think, John Cornyn, Tom Tillis, Bill Cassidy, I don't know how, I think, I think two of them are on the Judiciary Committee. That's right. So Cornetilla certainly. Okay, yeah.

I'm not sure. But they're, I mean, they can't lose that many Republicans voting no in the Senate, in the full Senate. I imagine John Federman's going to vote. Yes, who knows? I don't know. So, you know, the math gets a little tricky. But, yeah, they can't go home and say, you know, it didn't happen, especially when there were videos like this out there. That's just, that's just electoral suicide.

Because this is the thing that Republican voters also care about, as we know from our colleagues, Sarah Longwell's focus groups. So I'm very depressed in summary about day one of the hearing. And I think it's going to be a real shame on the country. But day two, day two could be spicy. This is brought to you by Quince. So one thing I love about the summers, how easy everything feels. The days, they're a little bit more relaxed. And I find myself reaching for the same, comfortable, go anywhere pieces again and again and again.

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So make your summer wardrobe easier. Go to quince.com slash bulwark takes for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. It's now available in Canada, too. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E dot com slash bulwark takes for free shipping and 365-day returns. Quince.com slash bulwark takes. And I do think you're right. I think they have to talk about ICE as well. Because that is another thing that we really saw change the whole arc of the second Trump administration is when I started just shooting people in the streets, just committing sort of extrajudicial executions for essentially no reason.

And now we've seen more of that, two more this week, one in Houston and one in Maine. Yeah, I think, I think absolutely. Todd Blanche should face questions not only about, like, why is, he can't really face questions directly about why is ICE doing this because ICE isn't part of the Justice Department, but he should certainly face questions about is it a violation of federal law? Are there going to be investigations? Are, has the Justice Department cooperated with the investigations or is it Stonewalled? What else have you stonewalled?

You know, that kind of thing. because I mean, the federal government is just shooting innocent people in the streets. I don't know how else to say it. Like, it is remarkable. It is remarkable, and it really is, and it's utterly unnecessary. There is no one, these people have no, you know, well, in both cases, they actually misidentified the person who was in the car, it sounds like, and they were going after someone else.

But the people they're going after are not violent criminals in any case. I mean, leaving aside, these people aren't criminals at all, so far as one can tell the two who were killed. And it's been utterly unnecessary. There are police shootings that are controversial and sometimes unjust and wrong. Sometimes you look at them more closely and it's complicated and people with someone else had a weapon or they thought they had a weapon or it was a real, a real violent confrontation. Maybe they could have not used a gun.

They could have. But, you know, those are important things to look at. And police departments and law enforcement spent a fair amount of time trying to figure out how to de-escalade and how to subdue people without killing them. That's kind of an important thing. ICE doesn't seem to spend a lot of time on that, I would say. But here, we're not even in that world. And we're not in the world of someone by accident getting hurt in a shootout, you know, because he or she's nearby, whether there really is someone violent or some criminal with a gun, right? Which, again, is something that happens and one understands a little bit. This is totally

unprovoked, unnecessary. ICE trying to meet its numerical quotas by rounding up as many dark-skinned people basically as possible, it seems like, because that's how they made the mistake both times, and thinking that these are the people they were targeting, leaving even aside whether the people that were targeting who deserved to be, quote, targeted, because they were, I don't believe, violent criminals. But, and I guess, two totally innocent people in Maine,

it seems that maybe he got spooked by this car without identification and without plates and tried to drive away. But he wasn't driving fast, and he wasn't, even if he was driving, driving away. There are plenty of ways to handle a car driving away, including just let it drive away and come back the next day, you know, where he lives. Yeah, find it later, you know, like police work. Yeah, yeah, not shoot the, you know, find a way to stop him, we'll pull up next to him and shoot him in the face.

I mean, it's really beyond belief, honestly, the ice thing. I'm sort of upset that people aren't more upset, maybe they are. Yeah. Maybe they are upset. We just don't see it yet. But, uh, and just as, but the Minneapolis shootings did change the dynamic for a while. And incidentally, ICE's funding got held up a little bit, at least their future funding, they did pull back some. As soon as the funding went through, which is what a couple months ago, they revved everything right back up to beat Stephen Miller's quotas. ICE in general just used to be more of a focus. I mean, it is a focus in the activist world, but the politicians were a little nervous about it.

The Democrats don't want to look anti-law enforcement. They don't want to look soft on immigration enforcement. But it's really such an outrage that I think. And it would be interesting to see how much it comes up at the hearing. And to more broadly, just what the rip. effects of these two shootings are politically. Yeah, I think there's a couple of points to make there. One is it doesn't, there's actually, thanks in part to the Trump administration, there's a lot

of room for Democrats now to be tough on immigration, but to the left of the Trump administration, right? And if you're James Thalierke are running in Texas, you know, I've seen some clips where he's been pretty good about this, very strong, you know, got to have our laws respected, we've got to have an immigration system that works for the country, you know, we've got to, we've got to out of control of our border, we don't have to be shooting people in the streets, right? Like, there's a lot of room there to work with. And so I don't know why Democrats are having trouble.

Just, you know, be tough on immigration, but be anti-shooting people in the streets. It's not that hard. And, you know, tough on immigration can be different things in different places and it's fine. And, you know, whatever, let a thousand flowers bloom. The other thing is the Trump administration has been really schizophrenic about the mass deportations. At first, it was, oh, shock and awe, mass deportations. They printed signs at the Republican. convention last year, sorry, not two years ago, that said mass deportations now. And then they said,

I think it was after Minneapolis, after Renee Good and Alex Prady were shot. They said, actually, to Republicans of Congress, don't say mass deportations anymore. Just don't talk about it. But then Tom Homer said, oh, but we're still going to do it. And, you know, they still love the quotas. And the whole theory has been, we're going to do it, but quietly. And I don't think that's going to work. Because, you know, our colleague Adrian Carasquillo has written about this really well. they are essentially, I don't want to say drafting. They are injecting huge numbers of frankly raw recruits into ICE with inevitably lower training standards, lower even than the people who had already been in ICE. So you've got a bunch of new people with lower training standards.

These are the kind of people who right now wants to join ICE. So we're already selecting for a certain type of person who looks at what's been going on and says, yeah, I want to be on that team. They can be as quiet about it as they want. They're still going to be more violence because you've created the machine that causes violence. You've created a violence machine. You've sent all the signals that, like, if you start shooting people in the streets, we will be behind you. The FBI will block any investigation, and that is something they should ask Todd Blanche about.

The DHS Inspector General will, you know, sort of help paper it over. there will be no local investigation because they'll block all the federal records. It's going to keep happening. Like I put money on it now. I mean, don't bet on American citizens in their lives to answer their own government. But like, it's going to keep happening.

And there's nothing. I don't think the Trump administration can keep it quiet because it's just going to keep happening again and again and again. It's going to end up being like every week we don't have a school shooting. We're going to have an ice shooting. And even if there are shootings, I mean, there's certainly many instances that we've seen on video. and read about of people being unjustly detained, cruelly detained, having injuries were totally

unnecessary. It looks like, yeah, I agree. It's all out of control. We know law enforcement in this country has become pretty sophisticated in many ways over 20, 30, 40 years. It's got flaws. But still, and again, how to subdue people without violence, how to find people without, you know, doing massive sweeps and so forth. I don't know.

Partly maybe because some of their recruits, partly because it's part of the DHS. that's not part of DOJ, partly because no one cares to discipline it. Quite the contrary, they've been on leash. That guy, Bovino is finally gone, but, you know, it's not much, but Miller is now running it through Mullen, and it's not, unfortunately, much better. So the whole mood is, you know, go get them. And I've got to say the mood of, of course, of Trump, from Trump on down, and within the administration is go get them.

And the mood among a certain amount of the concern a lot, too much of the conservative, you know, echo, media ecosystem, is to cheer them on, or at least to attack anyone who criticizes them. I mean, any normal conservative, you would think, would say, this is really unfortunate what's happened. Probably we could do this better. I'm a tough guy. I'm even for a lot of deportation.

I'm with Trump on the goals, if they want to be, of, you know, whatever, getting rid of some of the, a lot of people have come here and really being super tough. And even if they want to be, which they shouldn't be, you know, a certain kind of white, almost white nationalist kind of point of view. you could still not go killing people, right? I mean, the degree to which, and they could still have some, you know, more, you know, less, more decent methods, but they don't want the decent methods, honestly. It was part of it is the intimidation.

They want a lot of self-deportation. They can only get to their numbers of mass deportation through self-deportation, which means people leaving, which means people being scared, not just that they're going to get arrested, but that they're going to get hurt. And you know what? You look at what's happening there, and I don't know if you're a responsible person with a family, like this 26-year-old who was killed in Maine, you think, I don't know, maybe, you know, we love it here and we're living here and his three-year-old daughters going to preschool and so

forth, but it's a job, but maybe it's too risky. So I think it's all part of a one package, and it's a really terrible package, and I hope the government, I hope people can stop it or slow it down or limit it in Congress, maybe over the next few months, certainly if control of one or both houses changes hands in November. And then I hope the public really, rises up against it as well. Yeah, no, I totally agree. There is one point at which I think I disagree, which is I don't know how you can look at a plan

to physically move millions of people and not that quickly and not come to the conclusion that some of them will die. Yeah, no, no, I think that, especially when you're driving around the streets. But again, I would just, yeah, do I agree that. I've argued that myself, so I probably overstated that a little.

But I would say, look, for example, They like finding people in cars. They claim that it's safer for them because at home people can have weapons. People can run away. People can't have weapons in cars. You can't search a house. But you ask yourself, why are we suddenly, why are all these instances happening in cars? It allows them to say that the car has been turned into weaponized, right?

So that's one reason, I suppose. But they like going after people and they kind of think the guys, you're at a disadvantage. I think if you think of it in your own, just you're driving a car. It's a little hard to react. People show up four people, six people, eight people show up on both. sides of your car, it's not like someone knocking on your door where you say, well, wait, do you have a warrant or you maybe if you want to run out the back door? You know, there are many, right? I mean, you can see why from their point of view of, as you were sort of say, purely seizing people,

they go with a car route. But it's extremely dangerous, of course. People get killed, people are driving cars. That's happened yesterday in May. You get shot and you're driving a car and the car itself can get out of control. I mean, it's incredibly irresponsible. No police department in America does this. Think about all the arrests we've seen, read about and all this. Police departments don't try to get people when they're driving cars. Quite the contrary. They try to get people when they, like, when they're walking down the street or when they're at home or when they can sort of manage the situation. Yeah, or they go warrant and they arrest them at their house or whatever. Yeah. No, it's really a disgrace. And I think you're right to emphasize that side of it.

All right. Well, let's move on to some more bad news. Okay. Just a few minutes here. I've got to get into something. So yeah, five minutes. You want to talk about it, We had an excellent piece by Mark Hurtling today and morning shots. Say a few words about that. We did. No, it is a really good point. It's a point that we make now all the time on command post, which is you can't just destroy your way to victory. I mean, military forces, including the United States military, exist primarily to destroy things and kill people.

That is a fact. But the Trump administration thinks that, you know, maybe the next bomb will be the one that, delivers all of our hopes and dreams. And there is, it's just, you know, if you look at the, now that we're bombing around again for several days in a row, if you look at what Central Command tweets out about these, about these operations, it's clear they have no idea with the purposes. They say, you know, we conducted a reprisal attack, I'm very phrasing, we're conducted a reprisal attack to make the Iranians pay a price for their violation of the MOU or whatever.

And it's like to make them pay a price, like that's, I mean, that's it. That's not a goal. Like, you know, what, we're slapping them on the wrist. We're using our military to say like, hey, behave better. There's no goal here. There's no, there's no theory of victory. This is just as bad as LBJ, you know, picking targets in North Vietnam to try to, you know, titrate just the right amount of violence to get them to negotiate or whatever.

It's, it is infuriatingly stupid. Oh, and now also apparently we're going to be tolling the Strait of Hormuz and the Iranians aren't or whatever. I just, it is hard to keep up with how stupid this is. Yeah, it's stupid. I mean, Trump is in a box, but the way to get out of the box is probably just to end all this and take the loss, cover it over, paper it over.

He's pretty good at that. And I think people would actually move on after a while. Gas prices would come back down, and it was an endeavor that didn't work. But, you know, some of his supporters will say the regime change idea wasn't crazy. It just didn't happen to happen. But the continuation of it is both inhumane in the sense that people are getting killed and foolish because we're using a lot of resources and our troops remain at risk, obviously. And then Trump says things like, well, yeah, we're going to actually just take over the straight and tolls.

And suddenly the whole argument of freedom of navigation, it's unacceptable to have tolls for this kind of straight. It goes away. and our allies look at this and think, well, geez, I don't know. I mean, we'll just pay Iran under the table. What do we do? Even if Trump would have worked magically, he's going to take our money, he's going to take more our money than the Iranian regime. What's the point of that? And sadly, we've been asking them, and they've been trying a little bit to help the Europeans. If the strait gets reopened, would they help sends a few ships? They don't actually have much capability to do that much. But symbolically, it wouldn't hurt to have some European ships going through

to escort tankers or something if we ever, if the deal of the MOU, withheld. That was one of the main, not main, but a part of it, right? Now they're going to look at it and think, well, we're not going to go escort someone to pay tolls to Trump. I mean, that's not, they don't even believe in. They're not for that. So the whole thing is, I agree. He's, he's digging himself in deeper. We didn't, I guess, put this on the morning shot this morning. We thought of it as we were chatting about what, on Slack about what headlines to give the pieces. But yeah, when you're in a holes, stop digging. And Trump should understand that. But his pride, And I think it's his vanity that doesn't let him do that.

And the Iranians want to rub it in. They want to tell the world, no, no, no. At the end of this, we control the straight one way or the other, maybe not 100%, not absolutely. We understand there's constraints on us, including from neighbors and stuff. But we are, it's not, we end up controlling the straight to at least in good measure as a result of this way. They want to be, they want to win and they want to be seen to be winners. Trump can't stomach that. And as a result, he's getting us in deeper.

he's spending a ton of money. He's depleting our munitions. I don't think the military is being entirely candid about some of that. Incidentally, both in terms of... I'm not sure they're allowed to be entirely... Well, that's fair enough. But I mean, in terms of the damage done to U.S. bases, but also the munitions and all that. So I think it's, yeah, he's getting us, he's taking a bad situation and making it worse. Yeah, I think it's entirely right. And it is the kind of bad situation that even if you were to walk away now, some future president and Congress, some of the future America is going to have to deal with later because, you know, there's a reason we don't want Iran in charge of the state of her moves. It would, it is bad. It is a bad outcome.

Right. Very much so. Yeah. All right. I know you have to go do other things and prepare for this very momentous week. So Bill, thank you so much for joining me on Morningshots Live. Our colleague, Andrew Eager, will be back next week for the normal lineup of the show. And in the meantime, make sure to watch plenty more bulwark takes right here. Thanks, Ben.