Bulwark Takes - The Bulwark is on Trump’s Naughty List

Episode Date: December 14, 2025

Bill Kristol is joined by Managing Editor Sam Stein to discuss the latest news, and a variety of Bulwarkian developments including Andrew Egger’s scoop causing chaos with the RNC chair, Adrian Carrasquillo making The White House’s “naughty list”, and Sam updates on the efforts on the pediatric cancer funding.

The O&OG is Orange, and the Marathon, the Orchicle, and the original, are back at Booster Juice. It's the juiciest comeback of the year, but only for a limited time. Go Orange at Booster Juice, Canadian-born, blending since 1999. Hey, Ontario, come on down to BetMGM Casino and check out our newest exclusive. The Price is Right Fortune Pick. Don't miss out. Play exciting casino games based on the iconic game show. Only at BetMGM.

Access to the Price is right Fortune Pick is only available at BetMGM Casino. BetMGM and GameSense remind you to play responsibly. 19 plus to wager, Ontario only, please play responsibly. If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connix Ontario at 1866-531-2,600, to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario. Hi, Bill Crystal here. Welcome to Sunday Bullwork. Very pleased to be joined by my colleague, managing editor and general big shot at the

Bullwork, Sam Stein. Thank you, Bill. and we sort of planned a kind of upbeat end of season show with some amusing things that were happening with the bulwark and then this last 24 hours have been pretty grim I mean geez yeah I was I was you know talking to my wife about this and sort of observing it I went to bed trying to get research and data and reporting on one terrible mass shooting and then woke up to an even more horrific mass shooting across the globe.

And it's just, it's endless, it's horrible. I will say with the Bondi Beach shooting in Australia, the thing that's really, like, shook me is just how ubiquitous the footage of it is. I don't know if you've been online, but if you scroll through Twitter right now, there's 10-minute-long videos basically documenting the dead, and then the police showing up and taking out the perpetrators. And you're just watching it as if it's almost a video game. It's very, I don't know, it's unsettling, obviously.

And that one very brave person who seems to have charged the armed terrorist, I mean, that was impressive. Yeah, the low and the low and bright spot, I suppose, is this one man who comes in and just takes the gun from this guy and points it on. Apparently this man didn't know how to operate a gun. So when he pointed out of me, I guess he didn't know how to shoot. But the idea, the bravery to do something like that is, yeah, that makes me, you know, proud for humanity in one respect amid, you know, incredible sorrow for humanity in every other respect. Well, we obviously, I mean, it sounds so insufficient even to say it, but condolences to all those, you know, affected and terrible events in both places.

for me, you know, for me personally, obviously, every death is a terrible and one shouldn't weigh them in any kind of way, but, you know, Brown's a place I've been many times, and I taught a couple of colleges and universities, so, you know, it sort of has a certain idea of someone barging into a review session of a class and killing students, and then I'm Jewish, and you are too, and we were looking forward to be lighting the Haudica candles tonight, and that's what they were doing at BADDB. It was a Khabad event, I think 2000, Sid Jews for Australia from Sydney for Solowley, assembles with the beach.

That's why there's so much footage, they were all, you know, they were all there to record a happy event, right? The beginning of Hanukkah, then it turns to a terrible event. I guess there's something like, yeah, I don't want to come across as, you know,

being detached from real realities. You know, there's shootings every day, obviously, that we don't notice that take place in not elite or, you know, very public places, right? So every death is a tragedy, and that stays obviously true, even in cases like this.

I think one of the reasons these are shocking is precisely because of the places in the circumstances where they took place. We don't expect a economics class at an Ivy League institution to be a place where a shooting happens. We anticipate that the celebration of Hanukkah is a joyous event, and we don't expect. the most popular beach in Australia to be the site of something like this. And then I guess kind of we should at this point because the ubiquity of mass shootings is obviously a fatal, disgusting flaw of our society. And I'll read this from the time. I mean, of all the things I've read, I think this one probably stood out the most.

It was this piece that went up late last night. I'll just read it. It says at least two of the. the Brown University students who were on campus when a deadly shooting unfolded there on Saturday have survived school shootings before. One is Mia Tretta, a junior who was shot in the abdomen during a 2019 shooting at Saugas High School in Santa Clara, California. Ms. Tretta, 21 was studying for a final exam in her Brown dormitory on Saturday when she learned of the attack. She had been planning to study at the Barris and Holly Engineering and Physics Building

where the shooting took place but changed her mind because she felt tired. She said in an interview. Quote, people always think, well, never be me, said Ms. Treda, one of five students shot in Santa Clara Rita, two of them failed by a 16-year-old classmate. And until I was shot in my school, I also thought the same thing. And, yeah, that really stuck me. The idea that this person has to go through this twice is awful. Yeah, I mean, I think the one lesson, the one thing one might take from these high-profile,

if I can call this, you know, shooting is. murders, horrible events, is hopefully it galvanizes people to do more to fight them, whether it's the gun issue here at home and other issues, mental health and so forth, and also anti-semitism and abroad and here too, of course. Do you believe that, though, that it's going to galvanize folks? I don't know. No, I mean, it's been a rough, right? In both cases, I'd say there's been plenty of times for people to do more and I wouldn't say all of us. Well, especially on the, Especially on the anti-Semitism stuff, right?

It's like, it's such a complicated issue. It's like even hard to discuss. But I remember after the Tree of Life shooting, and it was just sort of, you know, that one really, that hit because it was at a, you know, it was at a synagogue. There had been a bris happening nearby or at there, I guess, at the time. And it was just a horrible, horrible thing. And I just, you know, you're like, of course this will galvanize folks.

and we will, you know, people recognize the scourge of anti-Semitism and will, you know, take really concrete steps to, you know, ramp it out. But no, I mean, I, if anything, it's gotten worse. I don't want to, I don't want to broaden it too much, but obviously everything is kind of colored to a degree by what's happening in Gaza and the politics around that. And, you know, it's bad. I mean, I have not been paying attention to Australian politics. up until this morning so i don't want to pretend to be an expert but reading up this morning apparently it's been a huge issue there as i imagine it is everywhere so i don't know i don't have much confidence now and on both right and left if you can call it right and left even if it's even dignify these

bigots on either side and these you know apologists for murder on either side with those those words because there's a respectable right or respectable left obviously but it's not like anti-semitism unfortunately it's not receding here in the u.s either but I'm afraid so and gun it's not like gun violence is is being acted against in any serious way so oh okay well it's grim and uh hopefully maybe maybe people will take uh some some some lessons from this this terrible this terrible event hopefully we can have a hopefully we can have a good Hanukkah celebration yes that would be it'll be it'll be there'll be a shadow over it obviously especially this for sure no question but uh and there should be in a way and uh i mean honestly it's a good

It's a reminder that these things that one keeps hoping one gets beyond history, but one doesn't, you know, so. Exactly. Meanwhile, it's been a busy week at the bulwark. It's been a busy week in American politics. Let's just kind of go over some issues. It was Friday morning shots, which Andrew Eager and I do, and you are very active participants in and editor on each morning early in the morning. Andrew had an item on the Republican National Committee and quoting. the new RNC chair, sort of expressing despair about the 2026 midterm elections.

Talk a little bit about what happened then. It was kind of amazing. It was this weird situation where, you know, the chair, this guy is like going around nonstop on these conservative radio programs. And he's saying, I'm trying to pull up the actual quotes here because I think it's worth this. And the chair, Joe Gruders is the chair. He's Trump's handpick guy. He's the chair now because the old chair, Michael Watley, is now running for Senate in North Carolina. And so they put in Gruders.

And here's some of the quotes. And like, we're just quoting from him. He's on these conservative radio programs says, you hit the nail on the head. This is an absolute disaster. He's speaking of the midterms. No matter what parties in power, they usually get crushed in the midterms. Elsewhere, he says, the chances are Republicans will go down and go. down hard quote it's not a secret there's no sugar coding it it's a pending looming disaster

heading our way so like and just to be just to be and this is in the wake of obviously the november fourth elections that the tennessee special which was where they lost about 1012 points and then tuesday's elections and from mayor of miami and there was a one uh state legislative seat in georgia where there was a with democrats one i mean yeah anyway so that's the context he's just trying to you can name you can point to any special election this year And it's been pretty bad for Republicans. And honestly, if those trends were to continue, it would be really bad for Republicans. And he's, I mean, if we're going to be honest about it, he's historically right.

Like, this is absolutely true. These things happen often in midterms. In fact, the only time it's, you know, there's been a couple times where it's not happened. One was post 9-11. The other, ironically, was the last midterms with Sleepy Joe at the helm. So like, you know, Andrew's just quoting the guy. But what's notable, I suppose, about this is that you're not supposed to, you're not supposed to, what is it, Kinsey Gaffer?

You know, you're not supposed to say the truth, right? Yeah, yeah. And so. I used to say that, yeah. Yeah. The worst thing. The truth gap in Washington is inadvertently telling the truth about something. Right.

And so I was reminded, I don't know if you remember this. I told Andrew about this in our video, but back in 2009, Robert Gibbs gave some briefing, or no, he was on Meet the Press. And he says something like, you know, it's possible that we could lose the house, you know. And people were like apoplectic. Like, you know, Democrats lost their minds. They were like, how could you even concede or even entertain the notion? Of course, Robert was right.

So anyways, we published this piece, but it's a much deeper piece than just quoting the chair. It's talking a bunch of strategies about why they are in this position. And a lot of it is because of Trump, right? And they want their candidates to be able to break with Trump. Trump doesn't want that. And then the RNC sees this piece and they go absolutely apoplectic in ways that I loved, honestly. I thought it was delicious. And the more attention to our piece, the better they were, you know, their Twitter account was calling anyone who quoted it a scumbag and an offense to journalism and, you know, a loser.

And I, you know, I live for that shit. So, you know, it was delicious to me. And, you know, they drove more attention to our piece. I mean, they accused Andrew, of course, was, you know, terrible journalism or something. He literally, every quote is totally correct. It's radio quotes. Yeah, yeah, there's radio and there's transcripts. Then they try to, I guess, get rid of.

They had links to them on their website boasting about how the RNC chair is doing. All this outreach, all this were conservative talk radio. Then they got rid of the links, right? They still exist on the radio shows, obviously, and so forth. but that was good when they were right when they got there's nothing to see here but we're just we're getting rid of these links just in case you know this stuff you're totally this stuff is totally great but let's just take it off the way of them uh no it's fantastic and then they had a bunch of conservative you know reporters they they clearly worked with them to try to malign

andrews reporters reporters outlets i should say conservative outlets to malign our dear andrews reputation which is unimpeachable you can't do it So, you know, it was a fun Friday. You know, I think people need to just sort of like, I always encourage my reporters to, you know, get into it online, but everyone deserves to, like, be in the, you know, the thick of it and have all that incoming at least once a month. It's good for the soul to have people piling on you, I feel like. Yeah, I don't know how you feel about that.

I speak good for me over the years, really. That's why I'm such as, you know, look at you. You look, I think it's good. I'm 20 years younger than you should be because I'm a little more of it. ignore all the critics guy than they respond to all the critics guy but both are reasonable strategies and different circumstances you become an annoy you become that because you've been through this and so it's like yeah at certain point it's like oh you're calling me a scumbag okay yeah yeah been there before try harder you know meanwhile agent cariskeo are another one of our colleagues who's

written such a terrific newsletter on immigration yeah uh really made such a impact and but it's been with that six, eight, well, something like that. Almost a year, Bill. Is it, God, time flies. I always think,

all you guys who just joined us and then it turns out, you know, time is zipping by the, what did the white has put him on some list? I couldn't hear of terror. Yeah, another dubious honor that I'm embracing.

He was on their naughty list. I think they have this new list where they try to shame reporters who they think are, you know, terrible journalists or whatever. And Adrian made it. So congrats to Adrian.

His offense was, that he reported that Christy Noem is on thin ice. Oh, God, that's an inadvertent pun there. But that, you know, they're looking to, they're upset with mostly, honestly, Corey Lewinsky, who happens to be her senior advisor over at DHS and that they're thinking of potential replacements, among them Glenn Yonkin, who is soon to be the ex-governor Virginia. Ironically, you know, or not ironically, I mean, people have now substantial.

Adrian's reporting. It's fairly well known. And it's like one of these things, it's like, you know, what's the phrase is her dog or hollers or whatever? I know, TikTok hollers, whatever it is. I mean, when these people complain about these stories, it's like very evident that it's because they care about these stories and these stories are getting at something they don't like out there.

So, again, I appreciate the recognition. And Adrian's reporting on immigration has been so good. And it is an issue which just politically they thought they could just ride forever because Borden was, but Biden was bad on the border and all that. And now there, there is a real reaction against what ICE and the Border Patrol had been doing. And Adrian's documented that and told some of the stories. It's, it's, yeah, I would just say, yeah, on Adrian's reporting, that known piece was sort of atypical because while he does do a lot of, he has a lot of politics infused in the reporting,

his works really stood out because he's gone out and talked to people in the community in a way that I don't really know of many other national immigration reporters. frankly, who've done that. And so he's got all these incredible connections across the country about these communities. And his latest one was that. The latest one, actually, I almost like more than the known one because it was talking about all these people who have been compelled to run for office because of ICE and what's happening in their communities.

And the backlash is quite real, actually. Now, the latest piece, which people should look at on our website, I subscribe to the newsletter, obviously, is striking. It reminded me a lot. One thing I've been sort of thinking about and talking to some people about is, you know, Democratic candidate recruitment or recruitment is not even the right word. Who's volunteering, who's showing up to be a Democratic candidate in 26? 2018 was one reason it was so strong was there were all kinds of people who were not

traditional politicians who were so offended by what Trump was doing. A lot of them in the national security space, Slotkin, Spanberger, Mikey Cheryl, to take three who've gone on to hire office now. But all of whom ran with no electoral background in 2017. 2018. You know, it's funny, afterwards, the Democratic, the Democratic House Congressional Committee was taking credit. We've did a great recruiting job. All three of those just decided, I want to run. Now, to their credit, Pelosi and the committee sort of welcomed them and help them and all this way. Anyway, I feel like one thing is struck me about Adrian's piece. It's true in some

other areas, too, people who have been affected by the NIH cuts, by the other things that even Doge stuff, the other things the administration has done, some national security people. I do feel like it feels a little like 2018 in that respect. Do you think that there are people showing up to run who were not simply the traditional candidates? Oh, yeah. And Amanda Lippman at Run for something whose job is to encourage people to do these types of things.

I mean, they've been documenting this, and there's a ton of energy on the Democratic side. And really, it is sort of a really interesting barometer of enthusiasm, right? I mean, that's an enthusiasm matters for obvious reasons politically. But there's a, you know, you could donate money. That's an easier entry into politics, but proactively running for office is the sort of biggest extent of a show of enthusiasm for your party. In a weird way, kind of that piece in Andrew's morning shots do have some overlap.

So enthusiasm is sort of the currency of politics. And if you're having all these people on one side who are running for office, because they're so disgusted or repelled by what's happening. And on the other side, you have the chair of the department. saying we're going to get clobbered. That's a like sapping of enthusiasm. And that's why those quotes matter. We were joking, well, he's just telling the truth. But the reason you don't have those quotes out in public is because it's a signal to everyone else. Don't run for office. Like, this is a terrible climate. Don't run for office. You're going to get killed.

It's just signal to donors. You know, either, you know, you might not want to give or, you know, I guess theory you could say give more. But it's just a bad signal and it's saps enthusiasm. And so that's that. Hey, Bill, I like it when your lights on, as opposed to coming out and on. It's better when you're on. You're brighter, I just want to say. I don't know what, oh, okay, I don't know what that. You look better when you're bright.

Okay, that's the, I'm getting a little vertigo with all the shadows. Really? I didn't know that. Okay. I can't tell, you know. Our viewers are much worse. Our viewers are less, you know, into the detailed mechanics of these things than you. They're interested in the substance, you know.

I don't know. Our producer's not, and it's very into the detail mechanics. The, the, I'll work on that. The, you know, I just, I mean, on the enthusiasm, I think it's both, you could imagine a lot of, you know, fierce partisans being enthusiastic, and that's fine. And that's part of what helps. But I was striking about some of these candidates, again, is that they're not that, they haven't been that political. They haven't been parts of, you know, different organizations. They're just, they are citizens and who are so repulsive of some achievement.

in other areas who are so repulsed by what's happening. I think that's particularly attractive in a year where clearly people don't want traditional politics. Well, what's your take now? So we're like, what? Ten months out before the elections? 11 months? Okay.

If you had to put your finger to the wind, like, how do you feel? I've thought, I mean, the single best predictor of all your elections is the approval when the president and his party control of Congress. So it's unified control of government, which it is in this case. the best predictors of the president's approval. It's gone steadily down. It's, what, it is 41-ish, 41%-ish now. That's enough for a pretty big Democratic year.

I'd say if it gets into the high 30s, God knows, it becomes a very, very big Democratic year. And I don't think that's at all impossible. I mean, it might be that she stabilizes it 41, 42. It might be ticks back up to 43, 44. It might be that it keeps going down. No, you got to think it ticks back up as the election years, right? sort of have the rallying around the flag.

Well, that's happened at times, but sometimes these years, the snowball picks up a little bit. I've seen that in various, you know, 2006 and 94. And so it's sort of 2010, actually, where people did not expect, you know, 50-seat loss. So I think the Senate could be in play. I don't, I think people are being too fatalistic. And so, who knows? I mean, where will the country be? No, 11 months are now.

Where will the economy be? Where will the world feel like? But I feel this, I don't know. I'm a little, we should, we'll have, we'll buy each. Well, let me ask you one. I'm saying Trump is under 40 on election day in 2020. One more question for you. I'm reversing the position.

You don't like the lighting. Now you're not like that. Well, see, now it's, now it's a little bit shadowy on. Now you're taking over the show. I don't know. The sun's going on in and out. I can't control that. Called nature.

The lights back. You look more angelic. We haven't talked about this, but what did you make of the Senate, Indiana Senate rebuke? You and I have not talked about this. No, it's kind of striking. Again, I do think, I think people should be careful not to overdo it. We've seen so many times where it looks like Trump's a little rebuff from a couple of Republicans

or Republicans in one state. This didn't feel little, though. But no, it isn't so little. And again, we want to think if we're happening with no context, but in the context of the elections, in the context of other people beginning to break, in the context of him losing control of Epstein, in the context of a couple of other discharge petitions passing the House. And then to have it in a very red state with him putting real pressure on the, members and a speaker of Mike Johnson calling them individually. They just say, forget it. We like our

current, we did our redistricting in the way we wanted. They may have their own private political interests, honestly, in the kind of the current redistricting situation. They're looking at their own futures. But even so, a majority, this is, it wasn't just, you know, so the, the Epstein saying it's four Republicans to serve out of 218 or something. I know. I know. This was a majority of the Republicans in the Indiana State Senate voting against Trump. It's 21 to 19. It's a slight majority, and with all the Democrats, of course. And that's really striking. And again, Indiana, just to bring it home,

not just the red state. I haven't had an oaths of people who teach at IU and stuff. It's a bit of pretty aggressively Trumpy red state. It's not Mitch Daniels Republican Party anymore, you know? And so the fact that they deserted, I do think it's a pretty big moment. Yeah.

What do you think? No, precisely. If it had been like five Republicans, well, it would have had to have been, so there's 10 Democrats, they had to get to 25. So it'd have to have been 15 or 16 Republicans. I don't know, whatever. If it had been less Republicans, I would have been like, okay, like they, you know, not a, they got lucky or Democrats got lucky here.

But considering all the pressure that was put on them and to me, this is why I mattered, this was a maximalist pressure campaign on those Republicans. I mean, they were threat to primary, threats of holding federal funds. I know that they say they didn't do it. It's very clear. The lieutenant governor told Adam ran a political they did. Threats of violence. You know, people like, you know, sending pizzas to like lawmakers' houses, you know, really screwed up stuff.

To me, if they had then turned around and passed these maps, these gerrymander maps, it would have been potentially not cataclysmic, but like not so far away because it would have said a template of, of mafioso politics will work, right? We're going to threaten everything and you bend the knee and people bend the knee. So now the question really is what happens next? I mean, I actually think in a weird way, the post vote period almost matters more than the vote. Because if Trump moves on, then if Vance moves on, then, you know, great, like they're full of shit.

You called their bluff and, you know, we can breathe aside of it really. If they don't, then that's troubling. So I think it's actually quite a big moment. I think it's probably the single biggest Republican rebuke of Trump in this term. And the irony of these like random state senators that the White House couldn't bully while there's actual United States senators who have no spine whatsoever on any of this stuff should not be lost. That's a really good point, especially that last formulation. I would also, yeah, I do think. you're right, we're only halfway through the story.

If they, now they're saying Trump is, you know, claiming they're going to get primary challenges against all these people. A, will they really be able to? I don't know. It's a little easier, weirdly, to do it at the congressional or Senate level than a state legislature. I think people just think that's a little crazy. And these, one of these people are pretty entrenched in their seats. And if they do get challengers, do they win or lose?

I think that's a very big, you know, it's a good thing to really follow over the next few months in Indiana. Oh, yeah. Because it will make a big difference. I mean, the Liz Cheney, the 2000. to defeat of Liz Janie in Wyoming and Kinsinger leaving the house and stuff was indicative of the fact that Trump had not lost control with the Republican Party,

and that turned out to be true in spades over the subsequent two years. And I do think in that respect, what happens over the next few months, yeah, it's almost as important is what happened. What happened this week? That's a good point. Say a word, I was so struck by your reporting

on the pediatric cancer legislation. You've been really carrying the torch on that and explaining what has happened, what hasn't happened, say a word about that. Well, just to reveal behind the curtain here a little bit more for the audience, Bill and I were talking about things to talk about. I told him this is a 10-year story of my reporting,

and Bill said he would cut me off at year nine if I had to recount the entirety of it. So I'll go fast. Basically, it does start in the Obama administration, just FYI. So back in the Obama administration, they cut a deal with Republicans around, sequestration, which for people who are watching, just basically, it's like a hard cap on discretionary spending. And one of the programs that took a real hit because of sequestration was

NIH funding. And looking back now, it's like I felt like that was cataclysmic, but this is so much worse what's happening, putting that aside. So there was a real question about whether during the Obama years they were going to be able to actually find more money to fund things like pediatric cancer research. And there was this one bill that came up, the Gabriela Manor Act, which was to spend some of the $100 million peanuts on pediatric cancer research. And it got a lot of attention because Eric Cantor happened to be a personal champion of it. And so they somehow managed to get around sequestration and find the pay for and they passed this bill. And I covered it in a long way because I had been following the sequestration to debate around NH running.

All right. Putting that in one bucket. Fast forward to 2024, this bill has expired or it's coming around to expiring, so they have to reauthorize it. And the way they reauthorize it is by putting it in this government funding bill, right, as Biden's about to leave office and Trump's about to take over. And who comes in to torpedo the entire enterprise, Elon Freakin' Musk? And he's just like, you know what? There's too much extraneous stuff in this bill.

We got to rip everything out and just go bare bones. And one of the things that suffered was this bill for pediatric cancer research, but also a host of other bills related to pediatric cancer research. And at the time I'm like, this is insane. Like, what are you doing? You're going to save

$100, $200 million and shut down the government for that? What is the point? Long story short, they actually saved the reauthorization money at the end, but they asked a couple of other important pediatric cancer provisions, including

including the Give Kids a Chance Act, which was provision to allow the FDA to authorize multi-use drug treatments for kids suffering cancer. Okay. I'm going to speed up now. That's very interesting, actually. It's also an interesting story about how legislation gets passed. Yeah. And so the logic that Musk and the people were saying was, well, you know, if it's so important,

they would just pass it on a standalone anyway. And everyone who's in the business is like, that's not how this is going to work. that's never how this works you have no clue how government works of course it didn't work that way 10 months have gone by no one's touching this thing the give kids a chance act and it's just languishing even though it has well than enough co-sponsors in the house to pass and enough support in the senate to pass they just don't have the time to get up to the floor and so on and so forth then out of the blue randomly i get an email from one of the chief advocates a couple weeks ago being like it just passed the house.

What? Like out of nowhere, like completely out of nowhere. It turns out, and this is a really tragic story, in September, the kids who are suffering from rare cancer diseases go to the hill and they advocate. They take on effectively the role of lobbyists. And there was one girl who went around the hill. She had two weeks to live, she was told. She decided that she wanted to fly from Colorado and advocate.

gave for this bill instead of staying at home and dying. And so she goes on the hill and she starts talking to lawmakers with all her fellow advocates. And they moved a lot of people. They renamed the bill after her. And then they, you know, continue to Zoom with her. Senator Hickenlooper calls her. She can. She's so weak.

She cannot speak at that point. So her family does all the communication. And then three hours later after Hickenlooper calls her, she dies. And, you know, it's incredibly tragic. But shortly after that, they passed this thing through the House, unanimous consent. So no debate. Now it's at the Senate. And I'm told they need to get some sort of UC, which is just to get it through without any objections so that they don't have to spend 60 hours debating on this one bill, which they won't do.

I'm told they're one vote short. One. It's been a week where they've been. one vote short. And it is December 14th. And yeah, I'm not saying they can't do it when they come back from the new year. They could. But they want to get this thing done before the holidays. And that's where we're at. That's a very moving story and a revealing story about government in certain ways, I suppose. It's so ridiculous. The thing that's unobjectionable, it doesn't even cost money. It's like, got to pay for. We spent 11 months. Think about how many kids could have,

gotten some sort of combo therapy treatment in 11 months. Not saying they would have saved live necessarily, but maybe, and they couldn't get their fucking act together, sorry, I'm going to swear. But it's just so, it's so frustrating. Well, you'll keep

a close eye on it and continue to report on it. It's been excellent reporting, and it's that kind of thing that falls beneath the radar, obviously in light of these massive stories, but it matters, and a lot of legislation like that that matters that is where the collapse of people make fun of, you know, old-fashioned people that talk about normal order and the ability of Congress just to pass legislation. It does sort of matter,

you know, some of the legislation's ill-advised, some of the money's wasted, God knows. But, you know, it's sort of, you do want a Congress that can actually act to pass legislation where there's support for it and where there's evidence, as I believe there is in this case, that some of the therapies are promising and that it's a good investment by the U.S. government, so to speak, right? Oh, no, that's a really important point. It's like the Damage is done not in like the broad strokes. Of course, that is true. But in the subtle ways, right?

It's like the little things, you know, how many kids are not going to get food or the treatments they need? How many roads aren't going to be built? How many, you know, electrical, you know, how our electrical prices are going to go because we're not doing these energy things. So it's like the subtle things that really do matter. And it's impossible to keep track of. And of course, it's very difficult to report on because it's not, there's not a broader audience

for those types of stories. but it really doesn't matter. You know, Doge, you mentioned, I hadn't thought about that in a little while, and Musk, thank God, it's been out of the news, sort of. The degree, we can we close on this, actually, just was, I feel like that's something where

it did hurt ultimately, well, hurt all these programs, obviously. Hurt a lot of people around the world. It hurt Trump, I guess, and he ended up shoving Musk out, basically. But the degree of damage, Doge did, and it was totally unnecessary and pointless, right? I mean, it wasn't as if we were facing a massive budget crisis

and had to cut spending over an I, the bond market wasn't telling the government they weren't going to stop. They were going to stop buying treasuries. And it was totally gratuitous. I feel like that's something that the administration hasn't been held accountable for as much. There are other issues where, God knows, I disagree with them, but you can say,

okay, they have like a theory of why their policy is going to be better for the country, sort of. There was no theory behind Doge. It was a bunch of jackass techno, you know, you know, arrogant, arrogant tech pros coming in and destroying things, just destroying things.

I mean, that was the theory. The theory is us technocrats are gods and we can come in and fix anything. And you idiot government officials don't know what you're doing. And there's like a couple very revealing stories. Like I forget it was the Social Security. One of the agencies where one of the guys went in and he's like, actually, they're really efficient. It's like, yeah, you know, they've been doing this for a while. You know, it's not the caricature you think.

I have so many thoughts. And Dojuna, I talked endlessly about it. I keep coming back to this. We did this, no one, I mean, some people watched it at the time, but we did this interview on Bullwark Takes with the consultant who was part of a team who was doing Doge in Canada like 15 or 20 years ago. And I keep coming back to that because the way they did it was so different than the way Must did it.

I mean, they got buying from the stakeholders. It was a very sort of like gradual incremental process. They were looking 10 years down the road, 15 years down the road, not tomorrow. You know, they made actual, you know, operational reforms. They made institutional reforms. They were thinking big picture. And that's how you would use savings. It's not like you cut right away and then you're done.

It's over time. So I keep coming back to that one as sort of evidence that Doge could have worked in theory, but they just didn't really want to try. But, you know, I think the damage from Doge is quite profound. We talked about the small stuff, but I think sort of the larger point that I keep coming back to on this is just the attacks on academia and science and how few people are going to want to study here, are coming, bring their brilliance here, or are proactively looking to leave here, you know, people who do incredible research. the Jonathan Cohn piece that I come back to is the guy who was the Mozart of Math who got his funding cut for and like, why would we do that? You know, what was the point of that?

This genius who's doing these incredible mathematical formulas and stuff I could never even comprehend. We're talking like goodwill hunting type shit. And we're just like, yeah, you know what? We'll take your money. Why would we do that? It's just baddening. I think that stuff is going to live with us for a generation.

If you're anyone in the research or academic world, why would you come here? The instability, the possibility that even if a Democrat were to win back the White House that in four years' time, you could just be back with a party who does not care for this stuff, is that's too uncertain. And I think that's really problematic. And the degree to which, just to close on this, to which our progress, I was struck by this at a party, actually, a few couple of months ago. A lot of people my age, a lot of physicians, just because that was.

the one of the hosts of the party that was in that world of science scientific research and medicine and there were people and it didn't even occur to me until after as I was chatting with them and one of them had a slight accent and I said where are you from I came 30 years ago from the Netherlands and but you know I had a good offer here and I'm now a citizen and I've and someone else told me he's very distinguished and has made real advances in his particular field and there was someone else from another country obviously many sons and daughters of immigrants the idea that we're just throwing all that away for the future. I mean, we don't know, we don't, you know,

does Stephen Miller really think that every, all progress that we made in America in the last 30 years was, it was from third generation, fourth and fifth generation Americans? I don't think that's empirically correct, you know. And, and, but there's such, that's where the nativism is both so mean-spirited, obviously you see that more on the side of, you know,

denying help and legal status to people seeking asylum and refugees and those types of people. all of whom, many of whom also will help the country, most of whom I would say, in the pretty short term, and I think of the medium and long term. But you see the cruelty side of it, the idiocy of it, the self, just hurting our own country side of it

is what strikes me almost as much. Nativeism is a very unusual combination in that respect of maybe it's not that unusual. I know of cruelty and idiocy, I feel like. Oh, no, it's not that unusual. It's been around forever, but... Good point. Yeah, but it's, but yeah, it's just profoundly,

self-defeating. And, you know, that's the thing, though. It's that, yes, Stephen Miller may, you know, be this odious figure, and we might want to think that he's just sort of like a blip on the historical radar. But I don't think so. And certainly J.D. Vance, who has got to be the frontrunner for Trump's successor, believes this stuff. And so not great.

That's where this election year is pretty important and interesting, I think. And we'll see how many of these issues get confronted in a way in some of these races. I think people have the conventional view that, oh, it's all just about the economy and, you know, price of goods. And obviously, that's very important, maybe the most important thing. But I'm sort of struck in some of these races. Adrian makes this point that issues that are a little beyond the immediate price of this good or that good have emerged in terms of, you know, what kind of country do we want to be? And I think the immigration issue really brings that one front and center. Yeah, I don't know if there's one broad brook here for Democrats.

I mean, obviously, affordability and incompetence of Trump is going to be the big picture one. But I think each race is going to have some sort of kind of defining feature. I don't say it's like, hold on one's a second. It's like this like meat plant in Nebraska, right? Like it's this huge Trump district. It's closing. I mean, that's going to matter to that local race, right? You know, the ice raids in Chicago and elsewhere are now in New Orleans and North Carolina.

Those are going to matter to those races. So, you know, I do get the need for one large narrative, but I do think there's a lot of individuality in these contests. Now, that's really, that's a good point. And I'd also just say Trump has gone down from 50%, let's just say, to 41% or so. Sure. The economy's been okay. The stock market hasn't gone down. Unemployment's tidy bit up.

Inflation isn't great from his point of view. But again, it can't be explained simply by 9% of the American public didn't suddenly decide the economy is much worse than it was nine, 10 months ago. They've decided there are other things about the Trump administration they don't like. Some of it is the failure to come through on reducing prices, obviously. But some of that I think is these other policies. And I think Democrats have been a little too invested in the notion that it's because of the Biden experience. Obviously, it's only about affordability.

But obviously, that's also an important issue. Anyway, this is a long conversation, which we will continue to have over the next 11 months. But we will cut it off for today. That was excellent. You told the pediatric cancer story, which is both tragic and moving, but also hopeful in a way. In less than 40 minutes, that was good. I tried, yeah. I practiced it in a mural, discipline on your part.

and we'll obviously follow these terrible stories from Brown. Can I just say one last thing? Please. My mom texted me. She's watching live. She says, Bill's lighting is fine from our perspective. Yeah, thank you,

thank you, Mrs. Stein. That was really, that was a good review. I think we should close on that note, you know, you being rebuked by your mom. My own mom. That's excellent. Good. Sam, thanks for joining me today.

Thank you all for joining us on Bullwark on Sunday. And we'll see you soon.