The Bulwark Podcast - Bill Kristol: A Weekend of Tragedy

Episode Date: December 15, 2025

From the shooting at Brown University, to the Oct. 7-style slaughter in Australia, and the shocking murder of Rob Reiner and his wife—it’s been one blow after another. But leave it to Trump to seize the moment to remind Americans what a disgusting human being he is. Meanwhile, social media algorithms keep pushing people to antisemitic content, and Kash is going to have quit with the live-tweeting during FBI investigations. Plus, the MAGA crackup continues, Trump sounds like he’s losing his fight fight fight spirit, DOGE cuts hit red America, Dems should invest in campaigns in Iowa and Kansas, and Tim reads from the mailbag. Bill Kristol joins Tim Miller. show notes Sonny's tribute to Reiner's remarkable work as a director Monday's "Morning Shots," including a contribution from Hannah in Providence Trump defending his grotesque comment  Politico on the DOGE cuts in Trump country Axios on how Kamala may run again Get $35 off your first box of wild-caught, sustainable seafood—delivered right to your door. Go to: https://www.wildalaskan.com/BULWARK. Go to https://zbiotics.com/THEBULWARK and use THEBULWARK at checkout for 15% off any first time orders of ZBiotics probiotics.

It's going to take a long time to rebuild the shining city on the hill, the beacon to the rest of the world. You go to outside of our country, and I've been out in the UK and other places, they don't know what the hell's happening in America. They don't understand what's happening. This used to be the place that welcomed immigrants, that welcome people, and it was our strength. The diversity was our strength. And now it's looked upon as, you know, if people are being thrown out of the country without due process, it's nightmarish what's happening in America. And hopefully people will be able to see that. Yeah, but Archie, you're forgetting one thing.

You didn't have to hustle with a black skin. No, I didn't have to hustle with a black skin. one arm and one leg neither, so what? So you're admitting that the black man is handicapped? Oh, no, no more than me. He's just as good as me. Wait, now I suppose you're gonna tell me that the black man has had the same opportunity

in this country as you? More, he's had more. I didn't have no million people out there marching and protesting to get me my job. No, his uncle got it for. If you can see, yeah, the numbers all go to 11. Look, right across the board. Eleven, 11, 11.

And most of this, ams go up to 10. Exactly. Does that mean it's louder? Is that any louder? Well, it's one louder, isn't it? Yes! Yes! Yes! Oh!

Oh! Oh! Oh, God. Oh. I'll have what she's having. Hello and welcome to the Bullard podcast. I'm your host Tim Miller. It was a little slice from the life of Rob Reiner,

who was murdered alongside his wife, Michelle, and his home last. night. It was first him advocating against Trump last year on the Spinal Tap 2 tour to Meathead series debut and all in the family, to Spinal Tap 1, of course, to his mother's star turn in when Harry met Sally. He also directed our guest today, editor-at-large Bill Crystal in a Bill Crystal, Billy Crystal TV ad during the 2020 campaign. Bill, so much tragedy over the weekend, but I wouldn't have started with Reiner. I got to know a little bit in anti-Trump world, a couple of conferences. I was on a panel with him back in 2017

or 18, and we were in a vague, you know, a slight friendly email conversation. And then in 2020, some people came up with the idea of this ad, Billy Crystal and Bill Crystal would be very funny, a little mistaken identity, and we both may say, we've disagreed on a lot, but we were both for Joe Biden.

The Billy Crystal part of the ad was very good. My part was clunky. I'll come back to that in a second. And they aired it, Southern Florida, and Biden lost Florida. So, but what was interesting to me was this. I mean, I, of course, I knew of Rob Reiner. I'm not a big movie person. Everyone should read Sunday Bunch's piece

about how extraordinary that stretch of movies he had directing in the 80s was. I knew him from all in the family, which I remember watching in college. That show was such a big deal. And that clip you played is excellent. I mean, Edith, the mother, is really a very important character. She often gets the best line,

you know, like putting them both in their place in a way, you know? Anyway, I remember that show was such a big deal. And when Harry met Sally, of course, Katz's Deliccateson. That is an amazing scene, I've got to say. sticks in my mind. Anyway, we did this ad. And what struck me was, I know nothing about it. I'm not a good actor. I've never tried to be an actor. I'm bad at it. You know, I just, it's not my thing. I don't understand drama, really, and stuff. So I worked a little bit on the, you know, the script. We both edited a little bit. And then we got on. It was on Zoom. It was during the pandemic. And I thought I'd sort of worked out my lines, you know, and had a little bit of emotion or punch or whatever you're supposed to have, you know, in your 30 seconds. And I said them. And I, I mean, of course they were it was pathetic but he was directing the ad and he was very deft it was very kind bill that's good you know i might just pause a little bit before this line here and then the

second line maybe emphasize this word to kind of establish the contrast which you knew and billy that you were a republican and and it was it was deft and gently done it improved the ad and my performance in the ad you know a thousand percent it was still pretty bad don't get me wrong i mean so i don't i don't want you to watch that and think that's the judgment of rob rider's abilities. But I mean, I was just touched by his kind of humanity in doing that. And he did it, of course, it was a volunteer thing. And he was very pleasant. I mean, it wasn't one of these prima don'tadadas. And we were chatting and about family and so forth. I didn't know very well, but I was very fond of him. But of course, very saddened by the horrible murder of him and his wife.

Yeah, and the details are horrible and we're still learning and they were stabbed in their home. I guess their son had drug problems. There was a movie they did a movie about and with him a few years ago. it's just kind of unimaginable, the details. I wanted to mention also about him and Michelle, his wife. Michelle, actually, the end of when Harry met Sally, where they get back together, was a change in the script, because over the course of the shooting, Rob fell in love with Michelle, and they stayed together, had three kids, and he was like, at the end, they got to get together now. So the whole, like, final New Year's scene changed, inspired by Michelle. So she had that impact. She also is an activist.

They kind of led the charge on the Supreme Court challenge to Proposition 8 in California on gay marriage. They recruited Ted Olson, who recruited David Boyes, just kind of this sort of Bush, the two people argued both sides of Bush Gore to argue on the same side in favor of gay marriage. And they worked with HRC on that and some other folks. And that's not something you have to spend your time on. And there are a lot of celebrities who are like for gay marriage who like posted about it source would say something about it, but like they were actually doing real meaningful organizing work. You know, I had dinner with them when they were taping spinal tap two about a year ago

here in New Orleans. And he did a podcast on the Kennedy assassination. Rob and Rob was convinced that the Kennedy assassination was CIA related. And about half the dinner was spent with him trying to convince me of that. He was surprised that I was skeptical. But Michelle distruck me as so, like, you know, she's so charming and wonderful. And it was really quite a pleasure to get to meet her. And, and she was working with him together on a lot of that, on the political stuff. And I interviewed him for this show. That's kind of what got us to have dinner. What we interviewed him about the movie on Christian nationalism that she was, you know, producing. And anyway, it's a nightmare. And the whole story is a nightmare. On top of that, the president of the United States is

weighed in on it, which I regret that I'm going to have to read. He says, a very sad thing happened last night in Hollywood. Rob Reiner, a tortured and struggling, but once very talented director, has passed away, together with his wife, Michelle, reportedly due to the anger he caused others through his massive unyielding and incurable affliction with a mind-cripling disease known as Trump derangement syndrome. He goes on to shit on Reiner and Michelle. And I guess the only thing I can say about that is that you do want to live your life in a way that Donald Trump sends a despicable tweet about you when you die probably it's probably a sign of a life well lived but it's still pretty grotesque so repulsive i mean you get i don't know every time he does this you think oh

this is a new low and then there's another low but this is a pretty low low right yeah they got stabbed to death last night yeah yeah it's not even worth getting into but it's all about trump you know yeah really disgusting what a disgusting human being trump is i just want to say that This is an inside I've got here, you know, maybe. That's probably all that needs to be said. For over 40 years, select quote has been one of the most trusted brokers in insurance, helping more than 2 million Americans to secure over $700 billion in coverage. Our mission is simple to find you the right insurance policy for your unique needs.

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We've got a new segment that we're going to do on Monday's mailbag Monday at the end of the Bill Crystal episode for Bullwork Plus members. It's a way if you'd engage in the community for me to hear from you guys. One of the benefits of BoerC plus is you get to comment on substack, not just on this podcast, but on all our newsletters and stories. So, you know, this holiday, maybe get a Buller Plus subscription for one of your pals or whatever or get one for yourself. Treat yourself this holiday season. All right, Bill, let's get back into it.

More tragedy over the weekend. It wasn't just that. You know, it's one of these things. This is kind of the dark part about living in America right now that there's like, I don't know if you feel this way. You have like an internal clock where I swear it was last week. At some point last week, I forget that I was thinking to myself. I was like, you know, we haven't really had like, I wonder what it says about the fact that like we haven't really had. had, you know, like, we were worried, I think, about, like, this huge spate of political violence, you know, coming out of, you know, the election and, you know, the other tragedies we had earlier this year. And it did feel like we'd had the respite from it a little bit, you know, for a few months. And I was thinking about that. And, you know, wondering if maybe, you know, not that there wouldn't be tragedy or violence or whatever, like, shifting to like a little bit of a less intense period on that front, I guess it had been since Charlie Kirk really. And I think that's.

really the point I was trying to make was that after Kirk, you wondered if there was going to be, like, counter, you know what I mean, like a reaction to the action. And there wasn't really, at least from a violent standpoint, there was plenty of rhetorical reaction. And then, you know, you have over the weekend in Australia, this shooting at Bondi Beach at the Hanukkah celebration, which I want to get to, but then at Brown University, you have a shooting on campus there. We're taping this right now, you know, in the morning on Monday, so things could change by the time this publishes the time you'd listen to it. but they initially had detained a suspect for that shooting of the university two died. Cash Patel, the FBI director, posted saying that they had a person of interest. He was bragging about that on X. Now appears that they've got the wrong guys. It's the second time at least that he's done that, maybe third recently. You know, the other thing that kind of jumped out to me about this is, this is not the first thing this has happened with, like, there were multiple students of Brown,

you know, who had already been part of other school shootings, schooling the one girl who'd been shot at a high school school shooting, and now she's at Brown. You have had a little time there, and we're talking to Hannah Yost, who's our creative director, who is also at RISD. I don't know when she sleeps, actually, but that's like where they share a campus with Brown. I'm just wondering what your thoughts are. No, I mean, it's also awful. And, you know, as you say, you think occasionally maybe there's a bit of a lull in the violence,

and then something like this happens. And then you look back at all the other instance there, and some of them less, high profile and now and then the fact that kids in high school now what are there two at least who were there at Brown at least I don't know if they were there in the room

yeah now they weren't there the one girl was going to be in the building that's right she had said that you know something came up she decided not to go she was going to live in the course and there was a review session for the finals and she decided not to go to it yeah so anyway yeah the idea that you're good if this happens in high school

then it happens to your college and you know the police stuff I'm always so hesitant to criticize on this because you know these are hard and you they make mistakes. And now in the age of social media and internet, you sort of have to announce everything, every press comments every four hours.

I mean, Patel, on the boasting part of it, that Patel excels in is really kind of repulsive. If you're, you know, if you make an earnest statement and it's wrong and you withdraw it,

12 hours later, okay, it's an investigation that happens. But of course, with Patel, it's all, we're on top of it. We're doing great.

We've got this and that. It's such a jackass. You don't have to actually do live tweeting. Investigations. I hear you. Yes, I mean, you know, at this day and age, a little bit more than in the past, there's more of an expectation that you're communicating with the media, communicating with the press. But, like, I mean, this is extremely haphazard.

And Chris Ray wasn't doing this. Well, no, and I would say, I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, my impression in the past, I just thinking about it as you're talking is, the FBI director didn't actually say anything about you. I mean, the FBI agent in charge of the region or the city, whatever, however, they divided it up, you know, you'd see some guy you'd never seen before who was on, you know, on TV, who looks like an FBI guy who would say, this is the special agent in charge of Boston and he's going to give a briefing on what's happening, you know, here. The fact that Patel has to intrude himself, I mean, he doesn't know anything about what's going on. Yeah. This was actually a criticism, I'm happy to take, you know, up to corrections on this from any of our listeners who are kind of following this more closely, including I know some folks who are like at the FBI at this time. who listened to show, but this was like one of the criticisms of Comey where he was like out a little bit more than past directors had been, right? Like speaking, you know, a little bit more publicly. And I think that having talked to Comey several times, I think it came from a place of like

good intention of like wanting to, you know, have accountability, et cetera. But, you know, that was like kind of out there. There was like, you know, people who were critics of him were like you're a little bit of a prima donna or whatever because you're putting yourself out there a little bit more than you have for past directors. And so just, just, to kind of like imagine that like imagine kind of how judicious Comey was for the most part and then compare it to now with Cash who's like literally live tweeting he's putting on costumes you know like there's the reporting thing that he wouldn't get off the plane until somebody found him like the child size large FBI jacket that he wears or whatever and it's horrific and the and the criticism of him

are coming from inside the house too and like there are a lot of like right leaning or MAGA even law enforcement commentators Will Summers been writing about this. I've been critical of Patel. I just want to say about the Brown and the kids at the school, experienced multiple school shootings. When I did the Jubilee thing, when I was debating the 20 young conservatives, and you get to kind of go back and forth with them and what the topics are going to be. And like, I wanted to do

guns is one of the topics because it's probably it's probably the issue that I've changed, that I've moved left most on besides maybe taxation of the top 0.1% of people the country, or the taxation of inheritance tax, like, you know, the more, the more rich people you meet, the more inheritors you meet, the less sympathetic you are to low, low inheritance tax rates. Anyway, besides the point, it's the issue that I've moved most on. And it's frustrating, I think.

We have come to like this, I think that Hannah in the newsletter this morning called it learned helplessness place on all this, or even people on the left are just like, let's not talk about this anymore. Let's not argue about it. And I think that's wrong. It's crazy, the situation that we're in in this country. And a lot of other fights such as this, you know, had, you know, moments where it felt like there was momentum towards action and then backsliding and then starting up again.

And to me, it's just like the gun issue is one that to just give up on it, you know, and just accept or going to live in a world where someone's going to experience two school shootings in their life. I just think it's madness. No, I moved on that issue too. I was probably never quite as I don't know, I was so slightly uncomfortable with the Republican orthodoxy. The Republican orthodoxy wasn't as extreme at then

as it is now. It was... Yeah, I mean, Rick Scott passed red flag laws. You don't even have to go that far back. Right, right. After Parkland, yeah. And I remember after Parkland, that was like, okay, finally people going to come to their senses. Generally, I mean, this is a different discussion. I feel there's a certain

passivity on a lot of things, you know? don't you think this? I mean, we're probably too much the other way. That's probably why people like us became Republicans. Everyone thought you could stop every problem in the world by having a government program. And so we read some interesting and important critiques of why that doesn't work and why some of them have unintended consequences.

And so, but now the whole, it's not just a matter of like social sciences or academics. The whole world has become past. I mean, the internet, AI, social media, nothing could be done. It's just we're going to sit and watch this stuff happen and hope it kind of works that okay. and Elon's, the algorithms are going to do their thing, and Elon's going to shape his, and we're all going to be, and God forbid, that there should be any kind of attempt to sort of even regulate the algorithms. Then you're on some slippery slope for having free speech.

And this is not an issue. I know much, I have a considered opinion on because it's complicated and all that. But the fact that we don't even debate gun control, we don't even debate AI, we don't even debate the algorithms, these are kind of important things for the future of the country. I hope it's changing. I feel like we're just coming out of a period where a lot of people have been beaten down, like Trump winning twice you know that's not really

Biden's fault but like Biden not really being a figure of like change you know and I think it's created kind of this this mindset I do wonder if we're coming out of it I should just just because it's so blatant should say we should get to Bondi Beach I want to get to the anti-Semitism element of it but on the gun

side of it you do see this debate out here it's like I was kind of silly to talk about gun control when you have Australia which has much stricter gun laws you have this horrible gun crime but it's like Australia I think in 2020 I had these stats for the Jubilee thing I don't have them in front of me right now

like 31 or 39 gun deaths or something like this so this event is going to like double that and obviously they have some issues because these they were legally accessed firearms and I think one of the people is on the ISIS watch list all the stuff is still developing but like that's the same so that's so maybe they have some more cracking down that could be done there in Australia on their gun rules

of somebody that's on the ISIS watch list was able to purchase a gun legally But just the gap between, you know, how often this happens here and the scale of it per capita versus what's happening in Australia is just extremely striking. You wrote about Bandai a little bit today. And there was a Ukrainian Holocaust survivor who died celebrating Hanukkah and was shielding his wife from the bullets. I mean, I don't even know what you say about that. Okay, he's an 87-year-old man, Alex Clayton, yeah, he and his wife for both Holocaust survivors, obviously, as young as children, came to Australia. Australia, I think it has the second largest number of Holocaust survivors after Israel.

People, it was very, I think, receptive and friendly to them. And there was already a pretty strong Jewish community there, and a lot of people probably wanted to get as far away as possible, honestly, from the memories in some sense of the history. And so they have a very thriving Jewish community. There's been a fair amount of, unfortunately, a rise of anti-Semitism as elsewhere. People have debated whether the government had done enough. But this is not normal, I can put it this way, anti-Semitism of someone, you know, going too far and being prejudiced or something like that. Or this seems like a real ISIS operation.

So maybe not a coordinated from some sense of place, but still ISIS loyalists. But horrible. I mean, Hanukkah, you know, is it's not, you know, it's funny it became so important in America because it's the same time as Christmas. You see, minor holiday, that's a term of literally kind of a minor holiday in Jewish, which doesn't mean it's nothing. It just means it's not one of the really big ones pass over, you know, Kippa and stuff. And you don't have to stop working and all this.

But the light, always a holiday of freedom, a holiday of light in the winter, and a joyous holiday. You know, Jewish holidays, maybe you're not aware of those Jews, a little bit, you know, melancholy people. You know, a lot of stuff in the history that isn't so happy. Yeah, you've got one of your holidays where you just talk about all the bad things that you've done. But yeah, that's the typical holidays. I'm actually worn them a little bit. Yeah, the destruction of the temple. So this has always been considered a sort of a happy holiday,

a very kid-friendly holiday. I mean, kids are kind of at the center of it. You like the menorah and celebrate the victory, the upset victory over the oppressors. And so anyway, 2,000 people ago, this famous beach, Bondi Beach, I think it was there quite a lot of time ago. And not a Jew, I mean, it's a famous just general beach, obviously, and the Khabad got permission to do this somehow, you know, whatever.

And 2,000 people assemble for a joyous occasion. And this is what, I mean, it's just horrible. To wake up here, not to make it about us, but, you know, so it was last time it was the first night of Hanukkah, so families are, you know, getting together and looking forward to the little party, you know, lighting the candles, the lotcas and so forth. And then you wake up and this is the first thing you hear about onica is this slaughter. So really horrifying.

I want to talk a little bit more about the anti-Semitism. Part, I do take your point that this is, there's some ways which this is different from your run-of-the-mill anti-Semitism, but simultaneously, you know, there's video from the Hanukkah festival in Amsterdam where there's just like horrible protests outside of it, made potentially violent, you know, it's like, how is this acceptable? You know, you would know what to call this in any other situation, like massive protests outside of a religious holiday ceremony. And then the social media reaction of this, I just, I feel like I need to keep bringing

this up because I sense that I'm. more in touch with it than some folks who aren't, you know, on left and right and far right political social media to the degree that I am. And these conspiracies sprout up immediately that this is an inside job, that Israel, you know, Israel is a false flag. You know, Israel is doing this to get more sympathy for themselves and that they did it. Tucker Carlson's brother is sharing this. I had a friend show me just when we're hanging out over the weekend their friend. had shared it on Instagram, just kind of a random person, but, you know, just to demonstrate the degree to which this is like infiltrating regular people's social media feeds, you know,

there's like some stupid theory about how this guy, the killer's name, was searched in Israel on Google in the hours before, but the person that posted this is just too stupid to understand how time zones work, right? Like, you know, all of the stuff is proliferating. And I think that there is a little bit of a, of an imbalance out there in the world. about the seriousness of this. And I think that there's a group of folks who are, like, particularly attuned to this and maybe even at times,

sometimes calling out things or anti-semitism that aren't going a little bit overboard. But then I think that there's a lot of people that are not taking this seriously enough to the degree to which this is proliferating and causing additional issues. I'm pretty sensitive to that issue, I think. But I've underestimated it

and how much of, this is, I think, it's partly a social media thing and it's partly just a lot of other things, a lot of bad people purposely pushing horrible conspiracy theories and just being anti-Semitic, I mean, but the degree to which someone wrote a good piece on this the other day, you're curious about something, you click on something, and then the algorithm leads you to the next thing and the next thing and the next thing, so to speak, and it gets more and more radical. And, you know, one minute you're

worried maybe Israel did go too far in Gaza and, you know, and five steps later, you're reading Holocaust denial stuff. And I, people do get sucked into it. Tucker Carlson, who I don't even like to talk about him since, you know, I worked for me at the week this standard there many years ago, but that's so painful, really, what's happened. But I underestimated how much damage he could do, having someone who's deeply anti-Semitic and really invested in it, spending a lot of time and effort to promote this and to legitimize it and to normalize it. And that's terrible on the, yeah.

Yeah, just one example of this on the algorithm thing is, I just think people should think about it this way. Like, it is kind of titillating to see, like, oh, maybe there's a conspiracy behind it. You know, it's why the National Enquirer was sold next to the, you know, a checkout line when we were younger at the grocery store, not the economist, right? Like, it grabs you. But at the store, if you, like, kind of picked up the inquire and, like, looked at whatever they were saying about the aliens, then you didn't start getting delivered

a bunch of other aliens stuff in the future, right? That was a private experience where you were interested if, you know, maybe there was, you know, something happening in Roswell. Here, like, if you're on Instagram and some other person, and post this thing about how people in Israel were searching the name of the killer the day before the attack. That's interesting. I mean, you know what I mean? Like, if you're not, like, in the debate, in the matter of it, you're just a person in the world.

And then you're like, okay, I'm going to click. Let me click on that and see. And then you click on it and you're on some, you know, professional anti-Israel feed. And you're reading it and looking at it. And you pause on it, actually, for a minute because you're, like, trying to decipher whether it's real or not. you've now sent the signal to the computer that you want more stuff like that and you can just it's not hard to understand how then over time you keep getting other things and some of them are true Israel's done some terrible shit and others there's conspiracies right and then how you can kind of get sucked up and all that anyway I don't I don't exactly know what the solution is with this and the algorithm but like just accepting that it's real and it's a problem is a good first step and that I think we're still not quite there Anything else on any of the tragedies before we get to the MAGA stuff, politics? No, just I do feel like, I don't know how you, if you felt this way,

just the one, two, three character, and we haven't even mentioned the killing of the National Guardsman in Palmyra and Syria. I mean, just it felt like just one blow after another. And it did have that sense somehow, as you say, maybe we've saw all the, despite all the things to worry about in the world, maybe actual murders and assassinations and slaughters of almost of an October 7th kind on a beach in Australia. These are not, things that didn't seem to be happening any more than they always do,

you know what I mean? And suddenly to have the wall. I had more of an effect on me, I guess, it's kind of, than I might have expected. Yeah, no, it's real. And I guess I should say you said the National Guard thing, and that, like, prompted a thought in my mind. It's just like I was just talking about how we had kind of had a little bit of a gap in political violence between Charlie Kirk and now. And it's like, that's not really true, actually.

And even as I was saying it out loud, I kind of knew it wasn't true. But Sarah Bextrum, you know, the National Guard soldier, D.C. that gets killed, right? It's happening over the holidays. And anyway, I guess that just sort of speaks to my point, which is the point I was trying to make, which is like, we do have this kind of internal clock of like, and that's, that's a crazy way to live, right? Where it's like, you know, it's been three weeks since there's been a political shooting.

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Thanks to Wild Alaskan Company for sponsoring this episode. This is maybe slightly more encouraging material, which is an ongoing MAGA crackup and Donald Trump's weakening political power. Two poll items that jumped out at me. The first one, Sarah Longwell and Dan Fife were kind of going back on how significant this was with Dan's on the more significant Sarah on the less side. But it's interesting, at least, which is a poll that was showing that when you ask people, do you consider yourself more of like a traditional Republican or more of a MAGA Republican? for a while, that MAGA Republican number had become a huge majority, and now it's back to 50-50. You know, maybe that's because people don't even understand the distinction anymore. I think which is Sarah's argument, like, what are even talking?

Isn't a MAGA Republican a traditional Republican? And so, you know, more study, more research could be done there. But it's a data point that I think is interesting. It's related to this more interesting data point, which is the head pollster for Rasmussen, which is a MAGA outfit, went to the White House. This is reporting from Natalie Allison at Washington Post, so I kind of shake Trump out of his stupor a little bit. I want to read a little bit from this. He said, this is the pollster net of Trump. You said, fight, fight, fight, fight after your shot.

And right now, you're fight, fight, fight, fighting, Marjorie Taylor Green and not actually fight, fight, fighting for Americans. He said that he warned Trump that many of his supporters believe he hasn't drained the swamp in Washington and suggested that the president refocused with a plan to embrace pragmatic economic populism. to the extent to which we were talking about the economic populism message, Trump wasn't as interested as I would have hoped, what the pollster said to the reporter. And apparently, at some point, he got drunk up bored with him and pivoted the conversation to golf. So, I don't know this guy. Maybe he's just annoying and boring. You don't want to overinterpret everything. But it is an interesting anecdote that basically Trump is just kind of rejecting

people that are that are on his side that are telling him that he's losing grasp of his own coalition. Yeah, it's an interesting anecdote and interesting poll, as you mentioned. And I do think they matter more because there's like real things happening that confirm the one sense of some crack up and some weakness, right? I mean, there are actual elections. And right now they've been quite a few for an odd number of off year, right? And so some state legislators, one seat in Georgia, you don't want to do too much of that, I suppose, the mayor of Miami. There's a particular, But it's very consistent, I mean, the degree to which, you know, the Republicans are losing 10 points or so, which is it from a year ago, which is a lot to lose, you know, in one year. Maybe they'll continue losing some.

Maybe they'll stabilize. Maybe they'll have a little rebound. But if there's any continued loss, they are in a real bad shape, I think, for 26. That's real elections, not just, you know, a poll or a question. And then the, I thought what happened in Indiana was very interesting, didn't you think? I mean, that's like, what did the economists call that? Don't believe stated preferences Believe revealed preferences

Believe what people do Know what they say And so we're so tired after a year Everyone's saying Well, privately, I'm problems with Trump I'm considering probably Disserting at some point I'm Bill Cassidy

I've got real RFK if he goes there And I'm so and so But I you know I voted for Heggseth and for And for Gabbard and Bondi But I've got some limits And one just discounts all that And we were right

One is right to discount all that But then a bunch of state senators in Indiana with a lot of pressure on them in a very red state. And those are conservative state senators. Those are not Don Bacon, with all due respect to Don Bacon. It was a good guy and all this. Or without all due respect to him. Yeah, exactly.

I'm all sick of all the. Anyway, he's not a moderate. These are conservative. If you look at what they're doing at IU, it's stuff that I don't like. I mean, they're very much into a lot of the MAGA agenda, I would say, even. And they just didn't want to be bullied. Maybe they have their own reasons for liking the current congressional districting. I don't know, it's eight to two.

Maybe they make some easier for them down the road. Maybe a couple of these of them are thinking. But anyway, but what's amazing is in the cases we've touted in the past that are important, Epstein, they get four defections right in the House. This was a majority of the Republican state senate. I think it was like 21 out of 30 years. There's 2119, I think. And it's, I think, Indiana, just to get it, right? It's seven to two is the breakdown of the congressional delegation.

Okay. But yeah. So, but it was a slight majority of the state senate, the Republicans in the state senate, obviously, all the, Democrats were with them, rejecting this attempt to go to a 9-0 or 10-0, whatever it is, reapportionment in the middle of the decade. And again, they were getting a lot of pressure. There's no particular reward the other way that I can see. It's not, I mean, whatever you think of the margin jail of green stuff and stuff,

she was getting some reward for breaking from Mago World, presumably, you know, I mean, at least psychic reward. That's what she had run on. These guys hadn't run on anything like this. I don't know enough. Maybe there's some just peculiar details in Indiana. Maybe Mike Pence, I think, wait a. and quietly and privately.

Yeah, Mike Pence, I've shouted him out. And I should say Mitch Daniels, I think, too, was where, you know, some of these folks had been there for a while, like one of the women, I mentioned on the list of a podcast on Friday was she was a 76-year-old state senator had been around since the Mitch Daniels days and I didn't want to be bullied. Yeah, but that's right. But, I mean, Chuck Grassley is 91 years old and he's perfectly happy to be bullied. I mean, mostly he'd be bullied and all the other 78-year-olds.

I mean, that's, I guess, I think this sort of makes the point, right? That the fact that they were willing to be responsive to Mike Pence and Mitch Daniels is itself interesting. And maybe it does suggest something about a possible willingness to be a pretty conservative Republican and not simply, simply do whatever Trump wants, no matter how unreasonable and how purely political and opportunistic. Can I offer one thing that might just be a little too polly and hopeful, but it's been a dark podcast? It's just a thought that I'm having in my head. And it's not really predicting this so much as monitoring it. But I always come back. back to this Trump term. And there was just always such like a wide range of potential outcomes.

And a lot of it depended on his own psychosis and like what he decided to want to do with it. And like I always did think that our best hope for minimizing pain was that Trump would feel like he already had one kind of. Right. Like he got back in twice. He's not going to jail. He doesn't need to do what he did last time at the end of the term because, you know, they're going to name buildings after him in every red state in the country. and maybe Christ, you know, maybe he'll be on Mount Rushmore or whatever, you know, like, and so that will, he won't be incentivized to be, like, his most destructive self for that reason. I think that's possible. I'm not, like, there's some evidence cutting the other way, I should say. But in particular lately, as he starts to take defeats, you do wonder if an 81-year-old man, like, has the heart to actually fight.

Like, I was like, reading the Rasmussen thing where he's like, why aren't you fight, fight, fighting? And I do wonder, maybe he just runs out a fight about all this, where he's just like, what is, a point, you know, you hear this, you see this a little bit in his reaction to, like, the impending defeat in the midterms. It's like, we're a year out from the midterms. And you already see Trump kind of being like, well, you know, this happens. You know, sometimes people lose in midterms. Like, somebody who really had the fight in him to be a fascist dictator would be, you know, wouldn't just like take the first setback on their plan to rig the redistricting system, you know, would try the things. Other things might be coming in the next 11 months.

But I do think it's a thing worth monitoring that maybe the old man decides he doesn't have the fight in him to go the whole hawk. There's still be a lot of other damaging things done. But anyway, that's my very caveated polyana hopefulness right now. I have a Pollyanna Hope, which is sort of a cousin of yours,

I'd say. I think that's a reasonable one, incidentally, though. The one thing he does seem willing to fight for is himself. I'm just his name. He's willing to be pretty rash and destroying the East Wing and trying to do all that kind of stuff, right?

The more personal... Well, that's related to his name. He wants his name on there, probably. Yeah. So it's all about him. I do think it's hurting him politically with swing voters. I think Sarah's stuff shows that,

but also the character from Rasmussen sort of said a version of that, right? You said fight, fight, fight, but you're not fighting for them. You're fighting for yourself. And it was always the strongest cell that he would fight for you. So he's not, I think. But I wonder if that's hurting him even a...

That's the kind of thing in Indiana. If you're an Indiana state senator, it's like, okay, you know what? I don't quite know whether he's right or not on this policy, but this is the Republican policy. We're with him on Doge. We're with him on immigration. They can go pretty far down that path.

Foolishly, those boats probably deserve to be blown up. But what it's purely about him, but so often it's purely about him. And so often, it's so petty and mean-spirited. I come back to the Reiner tweet this morning. I mean, it's just so, does any of the Republican State Senator to think, yeah, you know what?

I don't like Rob Reiner because he was anti-Trump and he and he and his wife were just, murdered and we're just going to trash him the day after he's right i don't think that that's not normal i guess i do wonder whether his what we've always regarded as his abnormality is finally gone so i don't know i'm not saying this very well so abnormal as to offend his own supporters somewhat do you think i don't know or maybe it's like i guess the other way to put that is maybe not that they're offended but that like they're willing to go along with it as long as it feels like there's this political gain you know as long as either it's like they're

are suffering or they're seeing something, whether it's, whatever, getting invited to Mara Lago or on Air Force One, or as it starts to look like this thing is coming apart, right? As it looks like the midterms are going the other direction, as it's looking like he's a lame duck, the more it looks like that, the more people are kind of willing to be like, okay, well, that thing that I saw as abnormal before that I didn't say anything about, maybe now I feel differently. I'm not exactly counting my chickens on that happening, but I don't think that's crazy. easy assessment of kind of human nature.

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to head to Zbaatics.com slash the bulwark and use the code the bulwark at checkout for 15% off. Two other just kind of more like actual policy elements of this, getting out of meta thing that's hurting them. I thought there's an interesting story in Politico about how Doge cuts continue to reverberate in strange places out in America. One was public lands funding cut and they're focused on Montana. See, Democrats had one and not too long ago. John Tester had one there and things like wildlife biologists being cut and other things being cut that is, you know, hurting the ability to manage the land and, you know, how that is causing some constant nation in parts of Red America.

I just think that's another interesting data point when you combine out the farming stuff. You can't bail those people out. Like, you're bailing out the farmers. And also today is the last day to enroll in Obamacare. The spikes for certain people is going to kick in in January, another round. And Republicans are now kind of looking around for some last second deal to stall that, but they don't, you know, they can't agree. They don't agree on anything.

And so who knows what that would actually look like. Anyway, just on the actual, like, governing part. There seem to be some issues as well. Maybe, again, this is fanciful and just Folly Anish, but I talked with someone from Kansas a few days ago. He said the rural hospitals, the Obamacare thing is important. There are people individually who are now facing much higher premiums, but also whole communities are looking at the possibility

of not having a hospital within 50 miles. I mean, you know, it's kind of bad if you have to go to an emergency room and stuff. And so that's partly Doge and partly the consequence of cutting back some of the subsidies. So there are a few, there's less money for them. But he says more of that. happening. And I think the other thing is the tariffs, the farm stuff. I mean, you know, it affects all of us. Something's cost more than it did, 10% more. That's bad and so forth. I think out in the farm states, I mean, it really hits. It's not like this is an inconvenience

or the prices aren't going up a little faster than they should be. I thought they would come down a bit and they're still going up some, which is kind of the standard, I'd say, you know, consumer view of it all, which is not good for Trump either. But if you're a farmer or if you're in the farm economy, which includes a lot more people than farmers. And they have been selling, you know, whatever 300, zillion tons of soybeans, however those things are measured. And now, you know, a year ago to China, and it's now 50 billion, which is, the numbers are pretty big, the differences. I've got these, I made up the numbers, obviously, but something like it. And they know that. That's real. That's like literally, I mean, a massive hit in this year,

due entirely to a Trump policy. It's not due to the weather. It's not due to the weather. It's not due to complicated-ish built-in inflation left over from Joe Biden. They were selling X amount last year. Trump put on these tariffs and got a war with China. They're paying more for certain things because of the tariffs. And they're also not selling certain things because of the trade wars. I wonder if Democrats should pay more attention to states like Kansas and Iowa in 2026. I mean, shit can't hurt to give it a try.

But look, the math, the economic math is also, it is just noticeably worse in those states. like you just look at the data in Iowa and you kind of compare it to states that have more diverse economies and it's just like the numbers just aren't as good and so that is going to have an impact and I mentioned this listen but also there is just this kind of viral image going around of like the lines outside the food bank in Kentucky like how long it is you know and how it was kind of unprecedented it's just one thing it's an anecdote but it is a lot of stuff adding up in places that are, you know, Trump strongholds that maybe Democrats aren't going to win anytime soon, like a statewide Senate race in Kansas, but lowering margins, you know, doing things like this.

And Iowa, it shouldn't be crazy for the Democrats to be thinking about winning in Iowa. There'll be a lot of talk about Texas on this podcast because it's like sexier and the people are more famous and all that. But, like, Democrats won Iowa not that long ago. And, you know, the idea that some local person like Rob Sand is demonstrated he can win statewide. or somebody, the idea that somebody like that can win in the state shouldn't be crazy. And if things get as bad for Trump as they might and the Democrats don't win Iowa, that's actually a bigger wake-up call from my perspective.

Right. No, I agree that. Look, Kansas has a Democratic governor. Kentucky has a Democratic governor. It's not like no Democrats ever won anything statewide there. Now, governor's easier than the federal office. I understand all that, Senator, you're going to vote for a majority leader and all. But, yeah, I think they should not come up on those states.

And there's cheaper, honest, a tactical matter. You can fight a lot in Iowa and Kansas for about one-fifth the cost of fighting, you know, together, one-fifth of cost of fighting Texas, right? So if I were actually running with the Democratic Senatorial Committee, I guess I would probably have the conventional view. We can't spread ourselves too thin and all. But I really wonder if that would be a mistake to be too conventional this year, I think. And it might turn out that Kansas is more doable than Ohio or something, you know. Well, I talk about potential Democratic future and strategies and thoughts. I didn't want to mention one of the thing.

Alyssa Farah said on Friday that her prediction was that the Democrats were going to run it back with Kamala Harris as the nominee in 2028. I received some skeptical feedback to that from some Democratic listeners. And I also compared it, I think, I believe I said on the podcast, or at least I did in my brain, that I was like, that's a rather Bill Crystal-esque prediction from Alyssa, not that you predict that same thing. But you like a, you like a kind of sexy, kind of fanciful, cutting against the grain prediction. You do. You like kind of gets a great prediction. Yeah, that's all I met. And so anyway, there's some skepticism about what she said, about it.

And literally the next day, Alex Thompson at Axis is like, she's planning this. Like, she's planning it. And who knows what actually happened? She expanded the book tour into some pretty noticeable, like, places that I don't think that you can go if you're just trying to maximize the book sales. So I don't have any insight info, but it's like, he's coming here to New Orleans. She's going to me in Jackson, Mississippi. He's going to South Carolina. It's like, you know, is South Carolina really the price?

prime place for selling 2024 campaign bugs? I don't think so. Anyway, Kamala, 2008. Just wanted to see if you had any thoughts on that. No way. No way. Shouldn't happen. And I can't believe it will happen. And I say this is someone who thinks she's been

unfairly blamed in some ways for 24. I think she's inherited a very difficult situation. Ran a reasonable campaign, made a few mistakes. And, you know, unfortunately, it said certain things in 2019. Whatever. I mean, but I'm not one of those who've piled on her at all, really. I don't think that's right. but she should not be a candidate in 20 people who want someone they want to turn the page you know well her line was we're not going back last time so you couldn't you couldn't really use no i mean right

exactly you just can't no it's got to be someone new someone different uh i think someone who's not run for president well maybe there's a question i've actually wondered whether even buddha judge just for having run for president and been in the Biden cabinet will get unfairly in a way hurt by the sense if we just need a new face pete's young enough that maybe he is a new face still i don't know But no, it's not going to be comal, I don't think. What about Al Gore? Is that younger than the current president? He hasn't run for anything in 20 years.

So I know, I know younger than Biden. They're all younger than Biden and Trump, actually. Something to think about it. I don't know. No, I think to get back to you, and I was not another conversation about what kind of candidate they should have. The decreed which people will want someone

who runs against Trump, obviously, but also against the past Democratic establishment, fairly or unfairly in some ways. some of the attacks on the whole Clinton agenda, Clinton and Obama and all that's a little overdone, honestly. But having said that, people don't, I think they do want what Rokana calls the, you know, they want someone who run against the whole Epstein class or run against the billionaires that you just like so much and that I just like so much. And that if you and I are moving to become quasi-social Democrats, surely 70, 80 million Americans are, you know, we speak,

we speak for the, for the silent center. Surely, maybe not, but possibly. I'll, I'll, I'll down grid you to possibly all right bill crystal we do have i'm just coming across right now the sad news that um they have booked the reiner's kid nick rider in jail um for this crime just is absolutely unimaginable and horrible so hard thoughts go out to all the rest of the rhiner family bill crystal we'll see you back here will we see you back next monday yes we will it won't be quite the holiday break yet i'll see you back here next monday and we'll be back tomorrow Now we are going to the new Monday mailbag segment that we're trying out for Bullock Plus members. Appreciate you guys who are supporting us.

One of the big benefits of Bullock Plus, actually, is you get to comment and be part of the community over on our substack or here on YouTube as well. There's kind of a separate board plus comment section. So I get to see what you say. I get to see your negative feedback more often. Pay to criticize me. Okay? That's great. That's worthwhile.

So I want to try this as the first time. We'll take your feedback afterwards on how it's going, but it's going to run through some questions, some serious, some little silly, and we'll start with. It's actually, before we turn the questions, if you don't like the questions that come up, you think you've a better one, more entertaining one, interesting, insightful. Email us, Bullwark Podcast at the Bullwark.com. First question I grabbed is from Ann at three immigration. She writes, immigration policy is a third rail for Dems.

It seems to have been conflated with the opioid crisis, a crime, without an opposition offering another perspective. When Dems are in office, they're a weak and incremental about the issue. Who's trying to solve the problem? Who has good messaging to explain to American people how much we rely on immigrants, the actual number of criminals where drugs come from, how ignoring climate change makes a problem worse. It's tough. I mean, it's always easier to be the side that is just demagoguing than to be the side offering nuanced policy solutions. I think we had one good example I saw from over the weekend of somebody that's handling this pretty well. And that's James Tala Rico running for Senate in Texas. He was on Jubilee doing that thing I did where he sat in

the circle and our U.S. people. And he was asked throughout immigration. Let's take a listen to his answer. The metaphor I've used is that our southern borders should be like our front porch. There should be a giant welcome mat out front and a lock on the door. We can both welcome the stranger, welcome immigrants who want to contribute to this economy, who want to live the American dream, who want to make us stronger and richer. And we can keep people out who mean to do us harm. I will say what I think not enough Democrats have been willing to say. Joe Biden failed us on our southern border. I remember talking to my colleagues in the Texas legislature who represent border communities.

They told me about the utter chaos on the border. And that failure by Joe Biden paved the way for Donald Trump to come in with masked men in unmarked vehicles, secret police, tearing parents from their children, kidnapping people off the street. I think both parties have failed us on this issue. I think we all should come together and finally pass comprehensive immigration reform, more immigration judges, more Border Patrol, modernize our ports of entry where most of the fentanyl gets in, reform our asylum system, relieve the visa backlog. We should finally fix this problem instead of grandstanding on it. I like how clear he is in separating from Biden.

It's not subtle, you know, it's not caveat. It's just Biden administration handled this poor, like, we need to do something different. So I thought that part was good. I do both Tarrico and Crockett have kind of relied on this like trope about how like Americans won't do these jobs

which is one of those things that's true but not a particularly helpful political argument. I don't think. That'd be my one note for Telarico. I think that focusing the messaging on opposing what Trump has done. There's been a thermostat negative reaction

to what Trump has done. You just look at the polling. People are more. more positive on immigration now than they've been in a while. Kind of about sort of these broad pains to American tradition, also talking very clearly about security and border security and keeping out drug traffickers and criminals and doing the things Trump's side he was going to do but didn't do. I think that's the right place for Democrats to be.

And I think being passionate about going against how Trump has acted with the mass thugs, being passionate about opposing Trump and all these areas where he's advanced things that are unpopular is good, while also just being very clear about the ways of the Biden administration failed on this issue. Pretty good job there by James Telerico, B-plus, A-minus. All right, everybody, the questions get more fun after this, okay? But you've got to be a Bullwark Plus member to get it. Join the community. Love to have you.

Sign up at the Bullwark.com, and I got some doozies for you. Appreciate you guys all very much. We'll be back tomorrow for another edition of the show. See you all then. Upon Sunday, I've got a lot of things to learn. Said I wouldn't I believe in one day before my heart starts to burn. So what's the matter with you? Sing me something new.

The cold and wind and rain don't know The only seems to come and go away Time's a heart when things have got no meaning I found a key upon the floor Maybe you and I will not believe in Yeah, things we find behind the thought So what's the matter with you? Sing me something near

Don't you know Cold and winter, and rains on know We only seem to come and go away Stand by me. Nobody knows the way it's going to be. Stand by me. Nobody knows. Yeah, I can only know the way it's going to be. The Bollard podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.