Bulwark Takes - Trump Gets Qatari Jet, While We Pay More!

Episode Date: May 14, 2025

Tim Miller joins MSNBC’s Katy Tur Reports to discuss Trump accepting a luxury jet from Qatar, his administration’s reckless immigration policies, and massive tariff hikes that amount to a tax on working families.

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slash clinical. These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Hey guys, I just got off of MSNBC and boy, we had a lot of meaty stuff to talk about today. We talked about the Qatari plane with an awesome flashback to a 2002 story where the US got caught putting spyware audio devices into a plane that was gifted to China. So it's interesting. Maybe the shoe is on the other foot this time. We talked about just the horrific story of us taking away the temporary protected status from the Afghan refugees and the fact that maybe there'll be a carve-out just for the

Christians. So we get into that. And we also get into the tariff madness. What could they possibly be trying to get at? What could the administration be doing with these tariffs? Do they have any actual coherent plan? We hash that out as well. So a bunch of stuff.

Enjoy the clips. Make sure to subscribe to us right here on this feed. Got a mega day of videos for you tomorrow. The good guests on the podcast on the next level. So make sure you don't miss any of that. And we'll be seeing you soon. A report that we have been following this morning that the Chinese government is somewhat upset with the Bush administration, and the reason or the point of contention

is a plane that was sold to them, and when the Chinese received this plane, it had a bunch of bugging instruments on it, detection devices. What can you tell us about this, John? Right, that's Zhang Zemin's plane. They call that their Chinese Air Force One. The Chinese government, we're told here, has not officially protested that yet, but that is expected. There are reports from

their aviation ministry and foreign officials that a total of 27 bugs or sophisticated listening devices were found aboard that aircraft. The plane this summer was in San Antonio, Texas, where a number of companies were refitting it and so forth, giving it luxurious leather seats. According to the Chinese, American agents planted those 27 listening devices, one of them in the bathroom. There's a bathroom and shower on board the plane,

as there is on the President Bush's Air Force One. And then in the bedroom, one was planted in the headboard, this according to Chinese officials. All this connected to satellites. Very sophisticated, according to the Chinese. Joining us now, Kevin Barron, founder and president of Elevation Global Strategies. Writer-at-large for The Bulwark and MSNBC political analyst Tim Miller. Tim is a former communications director for Jeb Bush's 2016 campaign and host of Independent Americans podcast

Paul Rykoff. Let me read this from the National Review today. This is Jeffrey Blair. This is a transparent attempt at an international bribe, a personal gift to the president to curry future favor, so much so that I don't see the point in pretending it to be anything but one. Even if you personally believe Trump to be as incorruptible as Robespierre, even if you were that willfully ignorant of his entire history of business dealings, the terrible optics and moral hazards of a president accepting his own personal Air Force One from a nation of shady oil billionaires are beyond obvious. That's the National Review talking about Qatar. I know Qatar is an ally, but a lot of Republicans, Tim,

have been talking about Qatar's funding of terror groups, funding of Hamas, supportive of others out there. And Donald Trump himself has said that in the past. Let me play Donald Trump talking about Qatari terror funding back in 2017. The nation of Qatar, unfortunately, has historically been a funder of terrorism at a very high level. And in the wake of that conference, nations came together and spoke to me about confronting Qatar over its behavior. So we had a decision to make. Do we take the easy road or do we finally take a hard but necessary action?

We have to stop the funding of terrorism. I decided, along with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, our great generals and military people, the time had come to call on Qatar to end its funding. They have to end that funding and its extremist ideology in terms of funding. Donald Trump talking slower than we're used to him there. That was when he instituted a blockade on Qatar back during his first presidency. Boy, how have times have changed. Do you think that this is just an international political moment for Trump while he's changed his mind about Qatar, that he needs Qatar to help try to negotiate peace between Israel and Hamas?

Does he need Qatar to help an Iranian nuclear deal that Donald Trump may want to set out for? Is that what's prompting this change of heart, Tim? Well, I think he might just like to get sucked up to and might just like fancy palaces in the sky. I think it could be that. You know, it could be related to some of the geopolitics. But look, I mean, it's not just Republicans. It's former Republicans like me. It's Democrats that are concerned about the way Qatar has harbored terrorists. The leaders of Hamas were staying in Qatar after October 7th.

They have a relationship with Iran, as you mentioned. So to the extent that they're an ally, they're a tenuous one. And the fact that we're taking a 13-year-old plane from them as a gift, I don't know, like old neocon Tim, my soul was stirring during that 2002 segment you played at the top, you know, where it was us bugging the Chinese plane rather than us taking a plane from some Islamist petro-state. And meanwhile, Donald Trump's in Saudi Arabia today talking about how our most reliable ally is the guy that killed a Washington Post reporter. I mean, this is not like a sign of American greatness.

I would think that the Make America Great Again crowd would want us to be able to build our own plane. But so to me, Katie, I just I think this is about Trump. The person more than about geopolitics is not a sign of geopolitics strength. I think that this plane was at the Palm Beach FBO in February and he looked at it and he liked the vibe of it and he thinks it's fancier than his plane. And I kind of think it's as simple as that. The 9,000 Afghans currently living in the U.S. under temporary protected status could be forced to leave

as Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem says conditions in Taliban-run Afghanistan are now good enough to send them home. Afghanistan, according to Human Rights Watch, is a place where more than half of the population is in urgent need of humanitarian aid. Women aren't allowed to travel or use public transport or even speak in public without a male guardian. Officials are under threat of arbitrary arrest and torture, and criticism of the government is banned. What is the motivation to revoke this status, Tim? Look, they're trying to intimidate people. They don't want people

coming into this country, I guess, except for the white Afrikaners. And so doing this in situations that create segments like this, frankly, is part of their objective. Like, they want people to self-deport. They don't want people coming to this country. Um, it is as frankly, just directly the ethos of Stephen Miller and of the MAGA nationalists, uh, in the Trump administration. And, um, you know, look, I think this one in particular is just so shameful. I think it's horrible. Our treatment of Venezuelans, people fleeing communism in Venezuela I like the idea that Republicans would want to punish people who are fleeing communism is crazy to me. But in this case, as Lieutenant Colonel brought up, a lot of these folks put their lives on

the line for us already. You know, like these interpreters, I've had the pleasure of meeting a couple of them. It's my colleague, Will Selber is a big advocate for this community. And look, they're doing their best to assimilate here, to live lives, to bring their families, go to church, support the community, drive an Uber. The idea that we're going to send these folks back to Afghanistan, it makes no sense. And so the only way to make it make sense from a policy standpoint is the fact that this administration is ideologically rigid about the

fact that they don't want people coming into the country. They want the borders closed. And secondly, that they want to intimidate people who are here, either on visas or legally, and try to encourage them to self-deport. Why would the administration, Tim, exempt, potentially, they're thinking about it exempt christians among this group are christians facing a higher rate of persecution if they're going back well i mean certainly christians are facing persecution if they're going back so there's no doubt about that um i would think though again to what the others have been saying on here african afghan interpreters who fought with us certainly also are going to face some real serious potential persecution and targeting. If they go back, people that helped

us in any way are going to face that persecution. There has always been an advocacy for Christian refugees, and there are Republican, you know, sort of interest groups, evangelical groups, pro-life groups that fight on behalf of Christian refugees in particular in the Middle East. And there's nothing wrong with that in a vacuum, right? I mean, there are a lot of Christians in the Middle East and across Asia that are persecuted in some of these countries, and we should welcome them. But it's like, if we're just going to give an exception for them, and we're just going

to bring in the white Afrikaners, I mean, it's not hard to read between the lines here about what the message is being sent. I mean, this isn't about safety and security. It's one thing, again, I agree with Lieutenant Colonel, if we're going to vet individually people and we're going to vet the Christians and vet the Muslim refugees, and there's some of them for whatever reason, there's some security concern, okay. But to give a blanket to one group, like, I mean, I don't even know what their post facto rationalization for that would be other than, you know, religious and racial bias. Yeah. And listen, the Taliban's not looking at a, at a

little girl going over and asking, are you Christian? Are you Muslim? Because if you're one or the other, you're going to be allowed to do things differently. No, girls are not allowed to leave the house without a man by their side. They're not allowed to speak in public. They need permission to do all these things. They can't go to school after a certain age. I mean, it is draconian. And that's a nice way of putting it if you are a woman in that society. Quote, Mr. Trump will not want to admit it, but he started a trade war with Adam Smith and lost. He's not the first president to learn that lesson. That right there from the Wall Street

Journal opinion page. Joining us now, co-host of the Prof G Markets podcast with Scott Galloway and Elson, senior writer of The Dispatch, David Drucker joins us and back with us Tim Miller all right gentlemen let's talk about this I know that Donald Trump is arguing that he's for the working class and the party has definitely moved in that direction but at the same time you have this congressional budget bill which might cut into Medicaid and hurt the working class more hurt red states more there's also the fact that these tariffs, you can argue it, you know, six ways to Sunday, but ultimately these tariffs will fall on working people more than they fall on the very wealthy. It is a tax on working families much more so than it is a tax on wealthy families. How does that help them politically? Well, because they're trying to spin this into being about manufacturing.

And look, I got into a little tiff with Stephen Miller on social media yesterday over this, and he's just non-responsive to that criticism, Katie. That was basically the criticism I was laying out, that this is a tax increase. You know, old conservative Tim coming back out again here. This is a sales tax increase, and it's the largest tax increase in anybody on the panel's lifetime that we've seen in this country from the federal government, assuming all of these things continue to go through. And that's even if it's just at the 10% rate across the world and then 30% from China. That's a massive tax increase. that I got from Miller was essentially that, you know, anybody that's critical of this, you know, does not support manufacturing jobs in America and supports outsourcing of everything

to Asia. And I don't think there's a lot of evidence at this point that their argument is going to bear out, that it's going to bring a bunch of working class jobs, or as Howard Lutnick said, generations of families working in the same factory. I don't know if working class people in America want, I don't think working class people in America want their grandchildren working in the same factory as them. But even if they did, I don't know if that is going to be the result or they are demonstrating that that's going to be the result because in the first quarter, manufacturing jobs went down a little bit in this country because of the uncertainty. So that's their

argument. And I think that they're doing it to paper over the fact that this is just essentially a massive sales tax that is regressive and it's going to hit working people harder. But why not, if you really want to rehome manufacturing, why not subsidize some of it? Why not incentivize individual companies, large and small, medium, to bring those companies home? Say you're a toilet paper company and you want to make toilet paper here in the United States. Why not say, hey, we're going to build you a toilet paper plant in Louisiana? Whatever. Why are you not saying we are going to help you build here when the real cost of rehoming this manufacturing is building the factories, is the logistical issues and the

long time it takes to get things rehomed. Well, in part because Joe Biden was trying to do that and the Trump administration refuses to do anything that Joe Biden was trying to do. They need to do the opposite. And in part, I mean, you know, we're building, Trump administration is focused a lot on the private prison expansion in Louisiana. So, you know, I don't know if there's enough room for the toilet paper factories down here. So I don't, I mean, I guess that's a question for them. They think that they either think this is going to work or I think equally possible. Nobody thinks that this is going to work except Trump and Peter Navarro and everybody else around them is just trying to come up with a rationalization that sounds good. And frankly, I think that's really the most likely thing that's happening.

Drucker might know a little better than me on that. Yeah. I use toilet paper because I've got a friend that's got a toilet paper company. It's bamboo toilet paper. And the only place that they can manufacture it right now is in China because that's the place where the factory exists. The bamboo can get pulverized even here at home, but the factory to actually make the toilet paper right now only exists in China, maybe in Vietnam. And it's one of those things where if you subsidize the company to come back here, it's a small company, you could do it, but it costs half a billion dollars to build a factory to do it. Who's going to pay for that? It's just not feasible for a small company.