Bulwark Takes - Trump Pardoned J6 Rioters. Now He’s Open to Paying Them Too.

Episode Date: March 26, 2025

Sam Stein and Will Sommer talk about Trump's appearance on Newsmax. Trump floats compensation for January 6 rioters, plus new fallout from the leaked Signal group chat with national security officials—and how Jeffrey Goldberg ended up in it.

Hey guys, what's up? It's me Sam Stein, Managing Editor at The Bulwark. I'm here with Will Sommer, who is much better dressed than me. I feel bad about this. Well, let's not overstep here, Will. Today. We're recording. We're coming to you late Tuesday night because Trump is doing an interview and then we have some other stuff happening today based on the great signal gate, whatever you want to call it. So we're going to talk about all that. But I want to talk about the Trump interview first. Before we're going to get into that, as usual, subscribe to the feed. We love it. We need it. We live off of it.

Just click that button. It's so helpful. All right. Well, we are watching Trump tonight. He was on Newsmax. You know, much of the interview was sort of like standard stuff. I guess standard is a weird way to put it because all of it's kind of off the wall. But then he got asked about, out of the blue, at least to me, whether he was looking into some sort of government compensation fund

for the J6 rioters whom he pardoned early on in his administration. Here's what he said. Let's listen to it and then get your reaction on the back. Is there any talk of, because they lost opportunity, they lost income, any kind of compensation fund? Well, there's talk about that. We have a lot of people talk about it. A lot of the people that are in government now talk about it because a lot of the people in government

really like that group of people. They were patriots as far as I was concerned. I talked about them a lot. They were treated very unfairly. All right. So there you have it. He's kind of in a Trumpian way, like open-minded to the idea of doing some sort of compensation fund for these people. Look, I admit I'm not like totally down the rabbit hole like you are in this stuff. I didn't know that a compensation fund was considered a thing for these people. I thought the pardons was enough, but maybe not.

Can you talk to me a little bit about where this idea has originated from and why it's gaining steam? Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, this is something I've been working on. Not the reparations fund, but we're working on. Are we calling it reparations or compensation? Well, a lot of people are calling it reparations. I mean, so so so the there's this idea that kind of more broadly that like you might think if you did a riot at the Capitol, you'd be pretty grateful that you got pardoned at all and sort of say, count yourself lucky. But actually, there's a lot of discontent among J6ers who feel that like they haven't really been like fetid enough. And a big aspect of this is the idea of a reparations fund.

Just this week, I don't know how quite how long all this talk's been going on. I just heard of it this week. I mean, I think Greg Kelly, who's interviewing Trump there, seems like very plugged in with J6 world. And so on the Gateway Pundit, which is like a very big pro-Trump blog, they had an announcement that two attorneys are seeking to get a J6 reparations fund from the government. Those attorneys being a guy named Peter Tickton, whose kind of claim to fame is that he went to high school with Trump. They don't seem particularly close. The military academy or somewhere else yeah the military academy yeah and i think because their names are supposed to start with t they're like next to each other in the yearbook and that's it it's sort of like the connection um but he's kind of made like a kind of a late in life career off of that and then the other lawyer on it is mark mccloskey who folks may remember with his wife

you know in 2020 people probably don't have long enough memories to remember that guy but he was a cause for republicans because he was in this posh this like two block posh gated community yeah this community and he just drew his gun on was it black life matter protesters yeah exactly they were just like walking by his neighborhood and he went out like like and he went for office it didn't work out but he's been like a c-pack attendee i'm pretty sure don't want to get sued over that but i'm pretty sure he's been at c-pack he's been on the conservative circuit um so wow so this is his new dig yeah i mean so this is the new thing is trying to like this this reparations fund it's

kind of attracting a lot of characters kind of like a lot of people as you said that i've seen on the circuit as well um and so that's the this is it is relatively new though i mean this is the power of like is there like a lawmaker in congress because i assume that this would require well i shouldn't assume this stuff because who knows well Well, they just take the USAID money or whatever. Yeah, I was going to say, who knows if you need any appropriations anymore? You could just shuffle it around and get some doge savings devoted there. But are there people in Congress who are latched onto this idea? You know, I haven't really heard about this getting any traction in Congress.

I mean, as you say, you think you would have to have a bill or something. But also, I mean, these days, yeah, perhaps not. You know, obviously these people have like some connection to Trump, the people seeking it. And, you know, the other thing that struck me about that interview was how like really like January 6th heavy it was. That feels so long ago. But Trump was really he said, oh, Ashley Babbitt, like I'm a big fan of Ashley Babbitt. And I think actually she was trying to hold back the crowd, which famously is what you're doing when you end up at the front of a mob. It's like, whoa, whoa, whoa. No, yeah. It's interesting. I forget what the context was, but Babbitt came up with him

a couple of days ago. And I'm trying to recall what it was. I think it was some other rioting that had happened that he was condemning and he was comparing it to j6 um but you're right there is something that uh has drawn trump uh to the cause that he continues to bring it up uh and i wonder if this is just him sort of like viewing this as like um i don't know kind of like an extension a proxy of his own political fate like you have to give these people some sort of retribution because he too got retribution or maybe he in a way i would never suggest i am about to suggest but i i'm couching this with some skepticism i wonder if trump feels bad uh that he put these people into this type of

situation although he would never ever admit to feeling any empathy or sympathy for this but i do kind of get the sense that he is occupied with it. I think that's a very sympathetic read on your part. I mean, I, I, I think what's, what's most likely here is that, you know, he's convinced the election was stolen. And so, I mean, he's saying, you know, yeah, they, they, you know, they, they were trying to, of course they were trying to stop the stolen election. And the other thing is he, he gave kind of the classic take that he has on all these people where there's QAnon or whatever. And he says, well, Ashley Babbitt was just a big fan of mine. And so, you know, that's all I need And the other thing is he gave kind of the classic take that he has on all these people where there's QAnon or whatever. And he says, well, Ashley Babbitt was just a big fan of mine.

And so, you know, that's all I need to know. Everything is through the prism of they like me and therefore they're good. All right. I want to ask you about another thing that happened tonight, which is sort of related to the second part of your amazing newsletter today. Your newsletter looked at kind of the conspiracies that have bubbled up about this Atlantic story, about the Signal group chat that basically every high-ranking national security figure was in, along with Jeffrey Goldberg. So obviously this is a huge deal. And we were kind of waiting today to see how the Trump administration itself would try to explain this away. And they had various explanations throughout the course of the day. And then Mike Walz, the national security advisor,

went on Laura Ingraham Tonight on Fox, and he was asked about it. And he had this kind of weird sort of explanation where he's like, I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but I just don't know how this guy got into this, you know, signal group. I didn't put him there. And like, you know, we need to like get Elon Musk on this. And well, watch the clip. And then I kind of want to get your take on how this fits into the conspiracy theories around this story. The president expressed complete confidence in you today and his entire cabinet. But how did a Trump hatinghating editor of The Atlantic

end up on your signal chat? You know, Laura, I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but of all the people out there, somehow this guy who has lied about the president, who has lied to Gold Star families, lied to their attorneys, and gone to Russia hoax, gone to just all kinds of lengths to lie and smear the president of the United States. And he's the one that somehow gets on somebody's contact and then gets sucked into this group. Is someone in your intel team trying to cause trouble here? Because that's the scuttlebutt out there. We have people have people, we have people, no. Look, this was, this is a great group. The president has a great team. This is not first term. No, your team. I'm not talking about the other principals. No, no, no. These were principals and a couple of staff that were coordinating, as you saw,

having a policy discussion as we went forward. And then just in the days before what was an incredible strike. Not only did we take out people that the Biden team never could, that we took out headquarters, missile caches, and actually one of the leaders of the Houthi organization, we've since taken out several since. And, you know, that's what they don't want to talk about. They don't want to talk about the success here. They don't want to talk about the hostages getting released. They don't want to talk about the Black here. They don't want to talk about the hostages getting released. They don't want to talk about the Black Sea ceasefire that we just put in place today as the president ends the largest land war in Europe or the border or the fact that Panama just kicked China out of the canal and success after success after success.

So they want to focus on this. It's embarrassing. Yes. We're going to get to the bottom of it. We've have I just talked to Elon on the way here. We've got the best technical minds looking at how this happened. But I can tell you, I can tell you for 100%, I don't know this guy. I know him by his horrible reputation, and he really is a bottom scum of journalists. And I know him in the sense that he hates the president, but I don't text him. He wasn't on my phone. And we're going to figure out how this happened. Here's the national security by saying my defenses, the secret group that I was trying

to put together somehow got infiltrated by Jeffrey Goldberg. And that's his excuse, which I find very troubling if that's the fallback. But talk about what you're seeing online in terms of conspiracies here i mean from my point of view i mean this is like when this stuff is just the most fun when you have such a sort of narrative scrambling moment uh you know like i literally cannot believe that the excuse again is that our we are our defenses were not good enough to stop jeffrey goldberg yes jeffrey goldberg who who inadvertently bumbled it, you know, was invited. So they've been cycling through these excuses and kind of Trump supporters as well. I mean, in the aftermath on Monday, we initially saw, well, maybe my favorite was that this was deliberate.

This was kind of 4D chess because they wanted J.D. Vance's statement saying that Europe needs to step up to get to Europe. And so they wanted – they were duping Jeffrey Goldberg. That one didn't make any sense to me because J.D. Vance literally went to Europe and said that. Right. You don't need – right. I mean, how else would – We need it to be this way. So you have that and then it seems as though

as we're talking here in the evening on sort of like 36 hours later that we're looking at like just kind of throwing up their hands and saying well I don't know how he got in there but maybe someone nefarious did it I think, unfortunately,

it seems to be headed to Jeffrey Goldberg did something like kind of schemed his way in here, which, you know, doesn't seem to be true at all, but that somehow I think they just really want to blame him. And, and obviously,

because the other defense, which was nothing classified was in here could easily be disproven by Jeffrey Goldberg. Although he seems like pretty reluctant thus far to show the actual classified information. Yeah, I mean, that one is tricky because, and they're not addressing it, but it seems pretty obvious that talking about war plans two hours before they happen would be classified as classified. But, but you know what do i know right like maybe they were just trying to open source the war plans uh this one though

uh seems directly uh refuted by goldberg's own write-up which is that he just got randomly added to the signal group and he he in his story he's he didn't say like oh you know i finally stumbled across the signal group that was like open and I just jumped in. No, he got invited. And I guess I just can't get over the fact that they don't have a readier explanation for this stuff. Well, and the other challenge for Mike Waltz personally is that like why does he have Jeffrey Goldberg in his phone? He didn't explain that. That's the thing.

And so, I mean, it's kind of like your girlfriend sees you've downloaded Tinder or something, and it's like, whoa, oh, my friend took my phone and, you know. Yeah. Tinder. I thought it was Tinder. It's the sound of the wrong app. No, this is – he was asked about it. He was asked about this by Ingram, and he was like, I don't know. I never talked to the guy.

And then he had some – I can't even – I'm probably not going to do this justice, but he said something like, you know, sometimes you download someone's name, and then he had some i can't even i'm probably not gonna do this justice but he said something like you know sometimes you download someone's name and then their number gets put someone else's number gets put attached it just slides in there yeah it just goes in there but the best part is they're like you know what we got elon on this like elon just you know sitting around balancing utensils on his fingers just like aha i know i know how to handle this like no the obvious explanation is you accidentally added jeffrey goldberg when you meant to add jameson greer because they have the same the same initials like just just say that i don't really understand what this is all about this is something we see over and over with doge is this idea that you know we can just have elon and the gang solve it for us. You know, I have seen a lot of like, it's such boomer energy.

It's such boomer energy. We're going to get my grandson in here and he'll fix the computer, you know, and he'll figure out how I got this contact. Well, this is enough. I find this all hilarious, but maddening. Stay on the QAnon stuff and the J6 stuff. Sorry, J6 stuff, not the QAnon stuff um although they're kind of intertwined uh because i am kind of curious if uh any lawmaker ends up putting together a bill for uh reparations that would be i mean now that it's now that it's in the ether i

mean it's gotta i think it's a matter of time yeah okay let's put a we'll leave this with uh with a bet who's your money on uh for the legislation to introduce it first i'm gonna go with a classic marjorie taylor green oh come on oh that's like that's like taking tiger woods in his tournament that's just not it's just not no i'm going i got brendan gill i'm going brendan gill that guy's been throwing out legislation like you know just, just totally sucking up to Trump legislation. I think he'll go with this one too. He's the one who did articles of impeachment against the judge who blocked Trump's

mass deportations as soon as Trump was like, we need to impeach this guy. So I think he's got his finger on the pulse here. He's an up-and-comer. Yeah, we have the bet. You go with MTG. I'm going with Gil. We'll have Rupert, the editor here. He'll take the house. So anyone else, he wins.

All right. Well, good talking to you, buddy. Thank you for this. Thank you for your service. Thank you for the newsletter. And thank you guys for watching. Subscribe to the feed. We will be in touch. Bye.