The Bulwark Podcast - Bill Kristol: End the War

Episode Date: March 16, 2026

As the Iran war enters its third week, the Trump administration looks like it doesn’t know what it’s doing: It did not bother to consult U.S. allies before the military operation began but it now wants their help to reopen the Strait of Hormuz; POTUS keeps talking about his great victory even with Marine Expeditionary Forces en route; and the disruption in the oil markets is likely to last for months. In the face of the neutered Republican leaders in Congress, the Dems must be a hard “No” on additional funding—unless it’s about helping our people to exit safely. Plus, FCC Chair Brendan Carr is threatening broadcasters for reporting the truth about the war, JD is hiding in the hedge, our enemies are less afraid of us, the "Donroe Doctrine" looks like a joke, and a major intra-right fight has broken out online. Bill Kristol joins Tim Miller.show notes Monday's "Morning Shots" Bill's "Bulwark on Sunday" with Bob Kagan Tickets for our LIVE show in Austin on March 19: TheBulwark.com/Events. Get $35 off your first box of wild-caught, sustainable seafood—delivered right to your door. Go to: https://www.wildalaskan.com/BULWARK.

Hello and welcome to the Bullwark Podcast. I'm your host Tim Miller. It is Monday, so he's back, editor at large of the Bullwork Bill Crystal. Hey, Bill. Hey, Tim. How are you? I'm doing pretty good. I'm disappointed on behalf of all the Timothy Shalema stands out there.

It's three straight snubs for him at the Oscars. He should have three already. And yet zero. I think it's potentially discrimination against Twinks that's at play here. It could be something to that. But I don't know. We're hoping for more representation. in the future.

You should have them on, have them on the podcast tomorrow to discuss that. I've been trying. I've been trying. You want me to place a call? I can help. I can help with that, you know. Okay.

Thank you. Yeah, I'm sure you have some New Yorkians. He's in New York. I'm sure you guys have some, you know, same temple or something. We want to talk about Iran to start.

And you had Bob Kagan on yesterday, your Sunday conversations with Bill. And as we've come to expect from Bob, not exactly optimistic about the state of affairs. but super insightful, knows the region understand. So why don't you just kind of summarize what he described as the fork in the road facing Trump and where we're at right now with this war? Yeah, sure.

You had a mod about six weeks ago after his big piece in the Atlantic, which was sort of pre-war, obviously, on kind of what Trump was doing to our alliances and making the world much more dangerous. And I would say he views this war very much in that context. People should go back and look at your discussion with him and then look at mine if they want, that I kept to the highlights in warning shots this morning. No, what he's so good at, I think, well, he puts it in the bigger context. And it is striking.

I mean, this war has damaged our relationship with all of our allies, basically. Europe, not consulted. Can't believe we've got into this. Now we're calling on them for help after rejecting their help early on or mocking that the idea that they could help. They care about Ukraine. They care about Russia. And this war is helping Russia with the oil sales, the oil waving of the same.

So from the European point of view... And prices going higher. Right, right. Exactly. Yeah, which helps Putin in a time. What it seems like is things would kind of rickety there. So from their point of view, it's like he didn't consult us. He's gone to war without a plan.

It's helping Russia, which is really the existential threat, we are having to deal with without Trump's help because he's not helping Ukraine these days. And so now he wants us to help in the strait. And the German defense minister this morning, Pretoria, who I know I'd met once, but I mean, I gather from people who know this stuff, is a very pro-American hawkish that kind of we've been hoping for a German defense minister like this building up Germans defense Germany's defenses and working with the other European nations helping Ukraine just basically said forget it I mean pretty a stunning rebuke from a very close ally

so the German defense minister not the French yeah right it's not like those pansy French start cutting and running right that's notable it deepens the rift that was already there that you and he just you and mom discussed six weeks ago and just makes it even harder to fix it I mean it's Iraq, the Germans and the French, I remember well, did not agree with our decision. We tried very hard to get them outboard. We had endless meetings to UN Security Council votes. We got a lot of other European nations on board. And we respected, in a sense, the German and French decision.

I mean, there were members of Congress who made fun of the French with, you know, the French fry was. The Freedom Prize. But, you know, the Bush was polite. We continued to meet with them. They didn't go out of their way to cause trouble for the other European nations that were helping us. So that preserved the alliance, despite that pretty. important rift, right? We're in the opposite situation now where we're really deepening the rift in the alliance, almost making it irreparable. Asia, the Trump people sold themselves. They're going to be

tough on China. Now Trump's asking for help from China actually to open the straight and pulling troops out of the China theater to, I don't know what, maybe do a land, ground operation in Iran. And if the Chinese are watching this, it's like we can't keep the straight open. You know, the straight between Taiwan and China is It's a lot of tougher to deal there with the Chinese military than the Iranian military. So I don't think they're getting very intimidated by what we're doing here in Iran. We talked about a little bit in a couple of the shows last week, too. And the Japanese, South Koreans, like, we were moving troops. We're also moving weapons systems now to the Middle East.

And also, you know, they are going to feel the energy cost spike even more acutely than we will. Because, like, that's where they're getting their energy from. Right. They get almost all their energy. Japan certainly from abroad anyway and a lot of it from the Gulf. So yeah, totally. No, so they're losers on this. And again, we're concerned. Japan's kind of an important ally. We're not going to make a decision on the Gulf based on Japan. And they wouldn't expect us to. Would they expect to get a phone call at some point? Say, hey, heads up. So again, just treating them as if we don't care what they say, which Trump doesn't, I suppose. One point Bob makes that I hadn't really thought about it is the Gulf states themselves. I mean, they've sort of cast in with us. They've cast it. with the Trump family. There's a lot of deals. Let's just go on there, which have tried to cement that relationship in ways that are not entirely, you know, legal or maybe or appropriate. But still, whatever you think of it, it was a way of buying, I guess, getting them to invest with us. They have a huge stake now in American investment there, tourism and all. Owning our TV networks, you know, or golf lanes. Yeah, I know. It's like, yeah. I mean,

we're kind of like the junior partner to cutter in a lot of ways. It's like we're borrowing their used planes. And now they're getting pummeled, some of them, UAE especially, and we're not protecting them much, apparently. And they've got to be thinking, I don't know, the whole point of this was to make sure that big bad U.S. was kind of behind us as we cut all these corrupt deals and do our business dealings. And they've got to be thinking, was that really worth it? I see all that reporting that NBS has been for this warrant behind it, which I guess must be true. But I don't think he speaks for the other Gulf states, honestly. And I wonder, he's, I don't know what his foreign policy judgment is either. Anyway, so basically, it's weakening us around the world. I think this is Bob's

core insight that people, you know, we look at these things so much in regional terms. It's understandable, obviously, and that is the primary effect, presumably, but the degree to which right now, two weeks in, we look like we don't know what we're doing, we went to war without a plan, it's not going well. We keep saying it's going better than it is. We keep saying it's going over soon, but also we could be doubling down and sending in ground troops. And people look at this is the U.S. This is a superpower. If you're an ally, you're supposed to depend on. And if you're an enemy, you're supposed to be scared of. And in both cases, we've eroded that. Just really quick in the Saudis. I don't want to pretend to be an expert on this stuff. I did do some work a couple

years ago for some Saudi Arabian dissidents who were being targeted by the regime. So, you know, I have a decent amount of familiarity with the politics there. I don't think it's crazy that there could end up being a little bit of inconsistency or incongruity between what they want and what like UAE and others want, right? Because, you know, the big article in the Times over the weekend about how Dubai might ever recover from this, you know, the types of people that move to Dubai are not really keen. Like, they have plenty of money and resources and it's not really worth the risk that a missile's going to hit their high-rise condo, you know, to live there. There are other fancy places in the world they can live. And so the Saudi and Iran, you know,

political kind of competition is at play here. So I, you know, I don't think it's impossible that MBS is, you know, kind of working back chatting with the president's son-in-law, supportive of this, and that maybe the other Gulf states were like initially kind of supportive and are starting to get what we need that. I don't think that's a crazy development, potentially. Just one other thing on the Kagan conversation, in addition to one of the strategic problems that Trump has created throughout the rest of the world. is just like he now is kind of at a decision point a little bit about what to do. I mean, I think that many of us thought just based on Trump's past behavior that he was going

to do what he's done before, which is kind of like declare victory. There's a guy I fell online who said one of Trump's great political superpowers is he can always just say, hey, we did it, you know, and he'll have a base of supporters that will believe him and go along with him. That's the advantage of having a cult of personality. And so kind of a lot of folks, I think, assume that was going to happen here. I think Bob points out that that is like getting a little tougher to do now, certainly than in the 12-day war, you know, for various reasons. And, you know, potentially, you know, at some point they're going to have to have kind of a shit or get off the pot decision here that they both carry different types of consequences and ramifications.

I just talk about that a little bit. Yeah, no, that was the second big point, Bob made. And it's actually the New York Times is making this point this morning too. It is, yeah, we're getting to a decision for it. I guess Trump can delay it, but you pay a price for that too. I mean, do we go in in a serious way and try to secure the straight? I mean, the original goal, remember, the grand, the big goal was regime change. You don't hear much by that anymore.

Now the real big goal would be securing the straight, which is kind of pathetic because the straight was open until two weeks ago. And getting rid of their, like, missile capabilities. I think that's the other thing that they keep saying now. Right, but that we probably have done. So I've assumed he would cut and run. I assume taco and was the more logical thing for him to do from his own personal point of view, which is always his main point of view.

I kind of still think it's slightly more. more likely, I guess, than really going all in with marine expeditionary forces landing on the Iranian side of the strait and all the risks that entails. And then basically, once you go that far, you can't really just get out without caring about what happens in Iran. You get out the insured regime change. I mean, you have troops there on Iranian soil when the IRGC is still running the country. I mean, there's so many risks.

And that's such an escalation. So I still am 6040 that he doesn't do that. Bob is more to 60-40 the other way, I would say. He just thinks Trump has gone so far down the road of bellowing about how this is so important and fundamental and it's going to be such a great victory that a little harder from to back down, I don't know. You can't make a judgment about the war until we know which of those decisions he makes and then what the effects of each of those decisions is. Both are bad. Both are bad. He could have bugged out honestly after the first 48, 72 hours, and I think taking credit, and I don't think it would have been more like June. and he could have done a huge amount of damage to the missiles and all this,

and he could have just said, you know, we have made the world safer, where the area safer, we weaken this horrible machine. We killed a huge number of their top leaders. Thank you, goodbye. A little harder to bug out two weeks in, but I still think he could. And the damage, though, making us look weak would be real. The damage are getting involved, obviously, with ground troops, that everything of that implies is a higher risk and more fundamental.

What I said to Bob, I guess I did push him a little on, do you really think he's going to stick with it? It's so risky. And Bob then sort of played the final card on that side, which is nothing, which is, are we sure that Trump doesn't see the advantages of having a war go on for a while in terms of his domestic authoritarian agenda? Presidents have used wars to crack down on free speech and crack down on dissent. And clearly, they were interested in doing that. And they got elections coming up and the national security sort of excuse can be used to do all kinds of things. And that was the slightly dark note that the conversation closed on. Yeah. I definitely think that you can't rule anything out on this front.

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For 35 bucks off your first order, thanks to Wild Alaskan Company for sponsoring this episode. Back to the straight real quick in the coalition of the unwilling that we're creating. You mentioned the Germans who. Rebuff Trump. Just kind of pulling this up here. Italy rejected Trump, Spain, rejected Japan. France is hesitant. Norway, no.

Canada, no. Australia, no. Germany, no, you mentioned. UK is out this morning. Kier Starrmer. I'm saying we're still looking at it. We're going to give it another look. We'll see in two weeks.

Netherlands, no response. South Korea, no confirmation. That's a pretty big rebuke for the United States on this one. And I think speaks to kind of what you and Bob. We're talking about about how there's no. work at all done on the front end to get these folks involved and now Trump just thinks he can boss them around. I assume maybe some of them might look at Trump and say, hey, instead of us, maybe you should be calling your friends at the Board of Peace to keep the straight open.

You know, what about Kazakhstan? Can they help? You know, Belarus. Maybe those folks are in. And it's pretty noteworthy. Like, who knows how things go in a week or two, but just that even the Trump administration is kind of hedging on now what the ask is kind of saying, well, maybe it'll just be after hostilities end that we're asking for this help. And then meanwhile, Trump was on the phone last night with the FT called him. And he's like back to making threats at NATO. And it's just, it's not a lot of evidence that he's in control of the situation. No, absolutely.

And they've mocked the allies, including especially the UK, which that was. And I mean, he has gotten away with mistreating them, if I can put it that way for an awful long time because they look, they still depend on us. they still want the U.S. to be involved. They all sucked up to Trump in different ways. Many of them have in different ways and pull their punches, let's say. You get the sense here that this is maybe the moment of, look, I'm sorry. When, A, they don't want to do it. They don't, as the German defense would have said, we wouldn't even want us for.

I mean, you got the U.S. Navy. If you can't open this, we can't help you open this. And so again, but specifically with Trump and Hexas rhetoric, this is the mightiest military force, the world's obviously. We're overwhelming. We're intimidating. We're crushing. We only fight tip squeaks that we can crush.

But hey, could you guys all help? And it's the number one country on that list when he had that tweet or whatever was, five or six countries he was asking for was China. How pathetic does that look? And if you're Japan, you think, really? Wait a second. Are we supposed to be like, he's inviting China to come into the straight of four moves? I mean, I don't know.

It's just the degree to which this has a sort of spiraling, out of control, fiasco effect, I think is what strikes me. It's also in a pretty big contrast to the whole, how long ago was it that there was like a lot of high-minded foreign policy analysts talking about how Trump was changing the world order and we're going to do the Don Roe doctrine and spheres of influence are all the rage now and we're focused on Greenland because of its strategic importance on our side of the globe and it's like, well, okay, well, how did the spheres of influence Don Roe doctrine turn out? Because now we're an equestined. Magmire in the Middle East and Trump wants help from people in Asia and Europe and they're not going to give it to them. I mean, the JD vans is the world, if they would say what they really think, would say, I guess. I mean, truthfully, I guess, look, hey, that all depended on us bossing around little countries in the Western Hemisphere or maybe Greenland sort of in the Western Hemisphere, I guess. And, you know, and that's kind of what that whole Donne Road doctrine was. This is why Vance, in a way, it's more consistent if you're America first.

You shouldn't get involved in these things in the Middle East, but you can't really pull this off, you know, in the same. way. But Vance has been kind of quiet, hasn't he been? You've been following it closely there. J.D. has been quiet. Greenland is in the Western Hemisphere, right? You have me for a second. Just like just because of the time. I don't know. I'm a little confused about those maps are very misleading. That's curving thing that they do. I was pretty good at the geography B in third grade. I was like, I think that that's right. But you know, your memory starts to fade. Yeah, JD's been pretty quiet. Let's talk about the MAGOT response to this a little bit. I want to come back to the economic stuff too. J.D. gave one kind of speech where he was doing like the condescending JD

thing where he was talking about how you guys want me to tell you what I really said to the president in our private repartee in the skiff and I would not do that because it would be illegal and, you know, he needs to get good guidance and we're not the same as the liberals that, you know, that tell everything to the New York Times. So I know what he tried to do. He hasn't been fighting on social media. I mean, I think all you have to do is point to the gap between this and what happened after the Alex Freddie and Renee Good murders. I mean, Renee Good got killed by a government agent.

And J.D. Vance was at the White House briefing room the next day, insulting the victim, insulting the people that were concerned about it, insulting local law enforcement and talking about how good and right it was that we had mass people in the streets. like cracking down on free citizens. So JV saw that as a political victory that he was in line with. Like, and he was arguing with people on social media about it, like a random troll. Not now. You know, simultaneously to that in this intro right feud,

have you been following Megan Kelly versus Mark Levin? Just the, just so what are two tweets? It's not the most elevated discourse, I would say, on the internet. And that's saying that it's saying something. Well, you've got Mark Levine saying that Megan Kelly is a shill and doesn't know anything. and is stupid. Megan Kelly said that Mark Levin has a micro penis and is wrong. Marjorie Taylor Green this morning said this. I wholeheartedly support Megan Kelly telling the world that Mark Levine has a micro penis. It's the most deserved insults and I don't care if it's

vulgar. And Trump's gigantic defense of Levin only enrages the base more. People are done, all caps, MAGA, destroyed by micro penis Mark. So that was MTG. She's a little bit sharper on the nicknames. Trump's nicknames are starting to taper off, but I think there's something there from MTG. You know, how much do these people matter, how much influence they have? And we see in the polls, the Trump does have a cult of personality. There's a big group of people who go along with him with whatever. But it's pretty telling that Trump is out there complimenting Mark Levin, who was the never-trumper, who was all in for Rond DeSantis. Was that a never-tumper in the sense of, like, voting for the Democrats, but within the Republican fighting, he was always anti-Trump. Now, Trump is

complimenting on how great Levin is. The more MAGA folks, traditional MAGA folks, are a attacking Levin and at least with MTG Trump himself. J.D. is kind of hiding in the bushes a little bit. And I think that just all tells you what you need to know about the weak political position, he said. And one dark reason why I think the back is split could be more serious this time is that the America first stuff dovetails with anti-Israel stuff, which dovetails with some anti-Semitic stuff. And, gee, Mark Levin, what a coincidence that they're going after him.

And Ben Shapiro for that night. And Van Shapiro, yeah, and those are the guys who, on the one hand, and on the other hand, it's MTG, I guess, and Tucker Carlson, and they're true, I mean, they are truer America first-ish people. They also are pretty vitriolically against Israel and against pretty into sort of conspiracy theories about Israel and the U.S. and the Jews and the Jewish lobby. And so this could go into a very dark place. But I think, unfortunately, there is support for that and some chunk of mega world. Well, particularly among younger folks. little bit of a young, old split. And I think you see also this is the strategic thing that what Megan and Tucker are doing. I don't, you know, I can't get inside Megan's heart, but this doesn't

all seem authentic to me. And, you know, you just look at the polls. I don't have it in front of me, but somebody did a Gen Z poll of MAGA the day. And it's like a shocking number. I believe in Holocaust denialism, believe that Jews are bad for the country. Like, they also think that Muslims are bad for the country, by the way, but some other groups too. But I think that for people who don't follow this closely, they might assume that, like, It's the older MAGA Republicans who are more bigoted, right? Just because that's kind of like the stereotype, like older generations. And, you know, but that's like not true, actually.

It's the inverse. I feel like the numbers. Our friend Nick Fuentes there, that guy, you follow. You keep an eye at him, right? He's probably part of. I do keep an eye on Nick Fuentes. But Nick Fuentes is fallen on the, again, like he's anti-Semitic, and he's followed on the Megan MTG side of this.

Right. So it makes sense. I mean, you can have a really nasty stab in the back by BB. kind of ruining MAGA, ruining America first, dragging us into this war. It's the Jews. We're one step from that, I mean, that narrative is out there already, obviously, in Fuentes world. The question is could it permeate into sort of more political, elected official world? I think we're a bit away from that, but I don't know how far. Yeah, I agree. Speaking of Tucker, see what he, his little monologue this weekend?

No, I guess that it's good that you keep an eye on this. You and Will Summer, you and Will Summer are really indispensable for this. It seems to me that Tucker is at the highest level of doing geopolitical negotiations with our foes. So it is kind of important to check in on him. Unfortunately, it's not just, you know, he's not just ranting from his main basement or whatever. Again, it's important. I just want to say, anytime I say something that Tucker said, I like to caveat, Tucker has demonstrated himself to be just a liar and a fabulous. Like, not just a conspiracy theorist.

Like, he just lies and makes up stories, exaggerate stories to suit himself. And so I assume the story is exaggerated, I guess is what I'm starting up. But he does a big monologue about how he says that he got a call from DOJ. They're looking into his conversations he was happening with Iranian nationals before the war started. And the CIA, you know, Tucker says that the CIA has hacked his phone and is looking through his text messages and they had information about his text messages. That led to like serious people on the right saying that like maybe Trump was like using him as a useful issue. it and like back channeling bad information to the Iranians. Our old friend Mark Caputo reported that that is not what happened, like that, you know,

Trump was not doing 40 chess with Tucker when Tucker came to visit him and tried to convince him not to do the war. But I don't know. I guess it's noteworthy if it's a lie that that you have Tucker like now doing a full frontal attack against the Trump deep state because that could set up something down the line in 2008 for Tucker or some other, you know, vassal. candidate for Tucker. And it's also noteworthy, it's true. I don't want to wait, like, totally eliminate the possibility that there is some, and I guess, I think it would make sense that

the intelligence agencies would be spying on Tucker. I mean, he's talking to Putin. He's talking to the Iranians, apparently. He said that he's talking to the Iranians. World War, I don't know. Do you think that's crazy? Well, especially given, I mean, who knows which intelligence is given that Tulsi and Patel are running them, you know, all the normal constraints on spying on American citizens or whatever metadata, all those stuff we once knew, I once knew better because they were actually legal constraints and one had to think about those things. One assumes they're all gone. So who knows? I agree. I've really thought about this to you brought it up. The degree to which you have a Tucker, MTG, younger, Groyper, anti-Israel, anti-Semitic

America first thing that could build up on the right. I don't know. Is that trivial in Republican primaries in 28? Is it, right now, it's, there's only 10 or 15% against, you know, a J.D. Vance, Marker Rubio, you know, field. But I don't know. It could be 25, 30%. It's trivial as long as Trump is around because of the cult of personality element. Just like, I just, you know, I don't want to overstate, like, the degree of the splintering. I think that it's at an elite level and at a younger activist level more than among the electorate. Like, I forget who was talking to about this. But if you look at the internals of the polls about Iran, it's kind of strange. Like, people who say I'm a MAGA Republican are more supportive than people who just say I'm a Republican,

right? Because if you say you're a MAGA Republican, like that's basically like saying, like, I'm part of a lifestyle brand and I support anything Donald Trump does. So like it'll be interesting to see like assuming Trump leaves and, you know, and there's a lot of potential ifsans or buts. But like in theory, I think that if there was a vacuum on the right, I think it would be a very significant force, the Tucker MTG wing. And I think that the idea that, he's laying the groundwork that the Trump government went after him. I'm not saying I think Tucker's going to run for president. It would be a favorite or anything.

But to me, that is laying the groundwork for like an actual, whatever, pincer attack on the Trump part of MAGA at some level. So anyway, we'll keep monitoring that. Just really quick while we're talking about crazy right wing stuff. I do think it's important for our listeners also to just be a little vigilant about, I don't even know if I would call this crazy left-wing stuff, but crazy conspiracy stuff that gets into the left pipeline, including, for example, this weekend, the idea that Beebe was dead. I had several people, regular people, normals in my life, not, you know, not randoms on the internet, like texting me, asking me, is Beebe really dead? They had been following influencers that were like doing Zepruder film style like looks at these videos that BB put out that didn't look kind of weird, I would say. but like, you know, kind of saying it a sixth finger when it was just a shadow or, you know, doing

deep analysis about his coffee, like why it didn't spill. It's just like, I just want everybody like, if you're following an influencer that's doing a frame by frame on why BB's coffee didn't spill, like, I think you should just be a little bit skeptical about the material that they're providing. And I know I know we have some legitimate complaints about the MSM these days, but like, there's a reason why there's, you know, editors out there and some of those outlets. So I don't, B.B's alive. Do you want to talk about the Hill first or the economic stuff?

Why don't we talk about the Hill? Then we'll go to the economy. I saw this from Punch Bowl this morning. This jumped out to me. And I think it does kind of relate to the conversation we're having about MAGA and the, and the factioning on this. Punchville's the Capitol Hill kind of insider newsletter rag. There it does.

The White House Pentagon and congressional leaders have begun talks about a supplemental funding bill for the Iran war. We've had several sources suggest the package may carry a price tag of $100 billion or more. Lawmakers see this as potentially the last must-pass bill of the year. It's March 16th. Isn't it March? Aren't we in March? And they may try to attach their own costly proposals to it as well. Wow. I just think that there's a lot to unpack there about, you know, it kind of relates to what Kagan was talking about, about how they're like planning for a more extended conflict, that they would have, I think, I don't know, it'll create questions for the Democrats on what to do about this. I think

you know, talks about just how neutered Capitol Hill is. I mean, have there been less powerful same party leaders in the history of Congress than Thune and Johnson that they're like, this is the only thing we might do all year. Anyway, so go ahead and riff on any of those elements. Two obvious points.

Hey, what is, as Trump launched the war, some of us thought, well, before the war, some of us thought Trump should get approval if he's going to do this as he was threatening to do it. He did it. We thought, hey, Trump should get approval now that he's begun to do it, or at least there should be a war.

War Powers Act-type vote, 30-day, 60-day kind of deadline. Now we're talking, the Marine Expeditionary Force, I think the 31st review is heading towards the Gulf, the serious talk about, the war's not letting up. Hagseth boasts, that it's more intense each day, you know? Literally, we're now going to fight, what, weeks, months, with no congressional authorization or no even fresh appropriations, just nothing. I mean, no testimony, incidentally from them to the hell on the hill either, except in, you know, a couple of secret sessions with some committee leaders.

It's a new level in just cutting them out entirely. And the Republican leadership is obviously totally pathetic. And at some point is one of these people who's allegedly privately very concerned, you know, the Roger Wickers of the world and all these characters, are they going to say something, but they're going to conceivably vote for a war, parish resolution type thing? I mean, probably not for a while, but it is pretty astonishing. How did the Democrats handle this?

Traditionally, like there have been, you know, the Democrats have even when they opposed wars, I was like, let's see this in Iraq. Like, there would be Democratic senators who opposed the war, but they would vote for the funding because you didn't want to see them anti-trups. You don't want to make sure the troops had the resource, if we're going to be in the war. I don't, like, I don't feel like this is that situation, particularly on this first vote, right? Especially if you're not going to have a war powers vote. I feel like the Democrats have to be aligned just a hard no on this. Yeah, hard know with a caveat that the hard no should be obviously will appropriate funds for.

for 30 days to make sure our people can exit this area safely. Or we will consider appropriating funds if, if, A, there's a 60-day deadline, B, there's a plan submitted, C, you know, there are things they can do that make it, they have to be better for backwards a little bit, probably not to undercut the troops who are actually in harm's way. But I think, you know, you can easily, pretty easily say 30 days, 60 days to get them out of arms way, or let Trump come back in 30 days and say he really needs the money. is this case for keeping them in harm's way. But yeah, I think a pretty hard no on extending the war.

I mean, he's fought for 16, 17 days now already. I mean, I think Democrats just have to say no blank check for ground troops in the Middle East. That's what I think. I mean, I don't disagree with those caveats you offered for the behind-the-scenes negotiations. I just think that the Democrats need to be a little bit better at having the top line message be absolutely not. And I think you see some Democrats who are good on this. Ruben's guy who's been good. he was on recently like Chris Murphy, there have been some others.

But I just, I feel like every time I see Chuck Schumer talk, he's like starting with the caveats. And it's just like, give me the top line, which is that this was war. They didn't come to us to support. It's illegal. Like they did not come to Congress for approval at the beginning. And they haven't offered a rationale. And it's been a total shit show.

And we're against. The details can come after that. I totally agree with you about the top line and indeed to be very firm on that and sharp on that. And I think the phrase that maybe does that is end the war. End the war is not the same as undercutting the troops or a backward looking. You should have come to us, which is Schumer spends too much time talking about, you know, just end the war. It's not working. We're risking more. The more we digger we deep, the diger, the diger, the deeper, we dig this whole. We dig. Yeah. Stop digging this hole. The dirt digler we deep. Exactly.

Whatever is. So I think end the war is a good thing that they need just to say over and over. And I think that's, and suddenly that's honestly their view, I take it. It's honestly my view. You know, so just say it. On economic consequences, you do hear, especially from the more rah-rah folks about the war and about the way that we've annihilated the Iranian capabilities. You know, when it comes to the economic part, there's a lot of, oh, this is a short-term thing. You know, like this is a shock. It's going to take a few months. Like, it'll be, you know, we'll be back down to normal by the end of the year. I kind of wonder, any of those people were awake during the COVID inflation situation, which, you know, spiraled out of

control and ended the Biden presidency, basically. And, you know, it happened years after we already had the jab. And like, you know, supply chains, like this stuff just doesn't remedy itself overnight. You shared this, it was on CNBC, I believe, Jeff Curry from Goldman Sachs, who's a commodities analyst. And I thought it was pretty compelling. I just want to play it for everybody. This is not just a disruption oil. It's gas, it's fertilizers, it's metals, it's petrochemicals. The list goes on and on. And then you've disrupted supply chains in countries all over the world. The ships are in the wrong places. The insurances have been canceled. You've taken the pressure out of the fields that you've shut in in places like Saudi Arabia or Iraq or even in the UAE. I can just the list goes on and on. The damage is going to take months to unwind. But I want to bring it to. to the immediate, there is no policy response that can stop this assent and crude. None. And yes, you've heard this 400 million barrel headline.

Flow rate is what matters. You know, the maximum sustainable flow rate is 2 million barrels per day. So 400, that'll take them 200 days to get that out. And you put that in the context of a disruption of, you know, let's net it out of, you know, it's got to be somewhere around 18 million barrels per day right now. you're just minuscule in terms of offsetting it. So again, there's not many options here. So I'm talking about the Strategic Oil Reserve offset choice there.

I think you should listen to those guys. It's like even if he did, you know, take the fork in the road out now, I mean, that's months and months and months and 200 days, you know, to get it back to where it was. Right. And I mean, even that fork in the road, he presumably has to have some face-saving, you know, ceasefire or negotiations. So we're probably a week or two from that.

But yeah, I guess the other point I'd make is just two weeks is a pretty long time. Four weeks is twice as long as two weeks. Eight weeks is four times as long as two weeks in terms of the disruption, right? I mean, it is in a COVID-type situation where, yes, you can manage these things as a short-term spike. But I think that's what the markets are telling us. They're looking at it and thinking, this could be much longer. God knows, I can't really judge it. I've talked to a couple of economists, and they're a little cautious because these things are pretty hard to judge in real time.

but the economy was slowing anyway. And I've got to wonder, six months or now, when people look back at this first quarter of 2026, they say economy was slowing big oil shock recession. Just to put a finer point about it, because sometimes you're following this and it's like, oh, there's the one day it goes up, it goes down. And, you know, like you can be overly responsive to just, you know, sort of a movement to the market. I just pulled this up, like the Brent oil barrel price on February 17th, so one month ago, it was 66 bucks. Right now it's 101. And like that's like not quite double, but a very significant increase that is, you know, it has like just tons of ramifications through an economy that as you mentioned was already kind of shaky.

Like, you know, all of the jobs numbers, there was a, you know, they've been doing the corrections, you know, looking back at the last few months, it turns out there are fewer jobs created than we thought. It's a dicey situation. And I guess that's why Carolyn Levitt just posted that Ben Shapiro praised Trump's strike is the single bravest foreign policy move of my lifetime because it is pretty brave to just absolutely hammer your own domestic economy and the rationale for your presidency on behalf of a project internationally that it doesn't have like a clear outcome.

It does take some courage to do that, I guess, in some ways. Reckless is one step over from brave. Half step, I think. half step. So Brendan Carr was out talking about threatening the network TV licenses for supposed misinformation about the Iran war. Trump posted that media companies wrongly reporting on the war should be charged with treason. There's some death penalty threats for journalists wrongly reporting on the war. I'm not shaking in my boots personally on that one, but it is something that the president said. We talked last week that the secretary of war, you know, was talking about

out how excited he was for CNN to be taken over by his friend. I mean, the degree to which they're trying to manipulate the media, crack down on free speech, you know, is pretty stark. Try is the key word there. I mean, like they've had some success, obviously, in the private sector, with the purchases and the takeovers from the Ellisons. Using the force of government power has been not that effective so far. Well, actually, I have a caveat in that, but why don't you go first?

Well, just, I mean, the next though, King's protest, is in just under two weeks now. They tried to discredit the one in October, remember, very, you know, that was between the government shutdown. So that was the militants, the rabid militants. I think I used the word terrorists who will be out there demonstrating anti-American and stuff. I take it part of the No King's protest will be an anti-war protest.

And in any case, there will be other anti-war protests. I think there you will have real, you know, Joe McCarthyite or 1919, depending on what historical, this has happened before where people, you know, presidents who are fighting wars label everyone who's opposing them, but certainly anyone who's protesting them as, you know, on the side of the your enemy and kind of on the side of terrorism, I suppose, since Iran is a sponsor of terrorism on the side of, and as treasonous and stuff. It's been pretty ineffectual so far. It's only was for the first No King's protest, the attempts to either sell that or to weaponize it mostly. There's been, you know, they've been executive orders and attempts to begin

to lay the groundwork for really going after people, but I don't know. We're in a real war now. on the one hand, not quaking my boots, but on the other hand, taking it a little more seriously than I would have just a month ago. Like, there's a ton of evidence out there that Trump and this administration has had success intimidating people in the private sector. I was having a conversation over the weekend about this, about somebody who's working on projects that two years ago would have been approved for, you know, that are in the politics space, news documentary type stuff. That's just like, they don't want to do it. Like, it's just not worth the risk of, you know, backlash from Trump in these Hollywood studios. So, like, there's been a chilling effect. Like, there's been success in that.

Like, the most robust effort that they had to try to silence people directly was over Jimmy Kimmel, when Brendan Carr was basically going to the local stations and saying, like, I'm going to threaten your licenses. And you would think that those, they would be less able or willing to handle this kind of economic. assault from our government than, you know, Disney or whatever, some big multinational corporation. And that didn't work, right? Like, where I didn't work for a couple days.

Like, he was off there for a couple days. And then, and then, you know, everybody pushed back. So we'll see. I guess I just think it's important to note that, like, while he's making these threats, they've been pretty empty threats in the past. But, you know, I think also just looking at it more globally, and this was the hungry playbook. And it took time, you know, for Orban to kind of take over these various companies.

Trump made a post on truth social that's like simultaneously like intimidating and mockable, you know, which is it's a meme talking about how he's reshaped the media. And at the top, it's like gone. You know, and there's some things that are really like serious. PBS defunded, you know, but then it's like Joy Reed and Terry Moran fires. It's like, okay, I don't know. Poor Terry Marin, he's been on the show. He's doing great on Substack.

But it's like, okay, you know, Chuck Todd out at NBC. It's like there's some of these things. and then the reforms, it's like Trump is doing that interviews, you know, news bias, ombudsman at CBS. So, you know, Disney ends key DEI practices.

It's like, it's this mix of like things that have happened that have changed in ways that the media has accommodated itself to the Trump regime that's chilling. And then it's tied with other kind of silly stuff in Trump's like personal beefs with people on the stories that he watches on TV.

But like, that took time. It took time and hungry. I don't know. I'm of too much. minds about it. On the one hand, it's like it took time in Hungary, and there is a lot of power and danger in government censorship and control of media. On the other hand, in this brave new world, like reality kind of does end up finding a way, not in the way that we want. It's like the old

Jurassic Park about how life finds away. Like, I don't know. I mean, their efforts to intimidate the media into silence over the Iran more don't seem to be working based on the polls. So I don't know, which side of that do you kind of fall on? I tend to come down on the optimistic side. of it with a caveat that people need to fight. And I do think, you know, the merger with para, I mean, this is where people have to have a, if I can use a stupid term that I don't like normally, a holistic view of what's happening. You need to fight on many, many, many fronts. The merger stuff, which is a business story and not one that I personally pay much attention to and the people in the media sphere, that are thing, you know, unlike direct intimidation of

Jimmy Kimmel or whatever. But it's kind of important if they're only allowing mergers to Trump-friendly people. Oh, that part is super, yeah, it's really important. They're so chaotic and so mockable. such jackasses. But they are pulling a lot of levers at once, I guess, is the way I would say it. And we need, if I can say we, the Democratic opposition small D, democracy needs to be alert to that and pulling whatever counter levers at once it can, too. I mean, it can't just be sort of, well, the courts weren't going to really like that one. And it needs to be an aggressive response on all fronts. I agree. And I want to caveat my caveats just also, which is, with technology, the degree to which reality can find a way might change. You know,

know, I think that in some ways, you know, this stuff is all, like, progressing and changing. It's like a river. And, you know, in the 80s crackdowns by fascist governments on media, we're, like, very effective because there were so few media outlets, right? I feel like it was happening in, you know, kind of the Soviet sphere of influence, right? You know, right now, like, and obviously the disinformation was effective enough to get Donald Trump elected twice. It's not like nothing. But, like, right now there also is other information is getting out. It's just like a question of whether it's getting to people, right? it's different than the type of censorship we've seen in the past from fascist regimes. And, you know, eventually, again, like Trump lost his second election.

And right now he's losing politically. So I just think that's important to deal with that reality. But as the technology changes with AI and, you know, these guys controlling TikTok, controlling the big tech companies, you know, I think the threats get much, much greater. And like to that point, I'll talk about some immigration stuff too. And there's federal case in Oregon where ICE officers set under, oh, it's something we've kind of, We've known already, but number one is that they had the daily arrest quotas. But second is that they're using the Palantir app elite for like mass surveillance and targeting.

And again, those of those who are watching this have known this because like fucking little Greg Bevino was like taking his phone up and putting in people's faces and telling them that he was putting their face to a facial recognition app. But that technology is advancing very quickly. And the government now using this with impunity targeting citizens, not that it would be okay for them to do it targeting undocumented people, but they're doing a targeting. citizens, protesters, people that are here legally, people that are suspected of being here legally, is pretty chilling. I mean, libertarians have been upset for a long time. I've thought excessively, but not crazily, about the 702 program. I don't even, you know, the NSA.

It's, I don't even understand all that stuff. But pretty carefully monitored and restricted, actually, uses where the federal government thought they wanted to understand some conversations with foreign nationals, like Tucker Carlson with Iranians and North Putin, but be careful in how they're getting Pfizer warrants, all that stuff. We are now totally blown by any of that kind of stuff. We're blown by the notion that we should have a debate about whether, well, maybe I shouldn't be allowed to do this. The Congress, the United States could actually pass a law saying they can't have such a register of terrorism. I want to ask you a question on the Republicans in Congress. We'll discuss it for a minute,

but I mean, do they just endlessly go on? It does no point to enough of them say, wait a second, that you really begin to get a crumbling. We've seen sort of hints of it. And of course, It's all been ultimately disappointing, I think, so far. But a little bit of crumbling in the ability for him to hold 50 Republican senators and 218 Republican House members. And again, it was so infuriating, of course, is it would take a handful of them, right, to say no on a whole bunch of areas. You know, look at the midterms, who knows how do people act when they're in the minority? How might they act in the Senate if it's really a one vote situation rather than three? Right.

Maybe you see some difference. I don't know. I just think it comes back to the short-term incentives. Like, this is why the Massey primary is interesting. And Sam talked about this last week, right? It's like, we still now, 10 years in, no one has really challenged Trump directly and won and survived. The caveat to that would be the Georgia guys, Kempden-Raffensberger. And so I'll credit to them, honestly. But like the state elections are a little bit different. At the federal level, House or Senate, you know, there hasn't really been anybody. You know, everyone in those challenges either retired or one run quixotic primaries like

Lish Cheney did. You know, nobody is really like dug in. And so the Massey primary in Kentucky, I think is very important inflection point on that. But I just think it's like they decide it's not worth it. They said it's not worth it. And look at the primary in Louisiana, for example, so I get the TV ads for Bill Cassidy and Julia Letlow. And you would think that Bill Cassidy was the biggest Trump fan.

in the universe if all you're doing is just watching basketball and seeing the ads and not getting any news otherwise and that julia letlow the trump endorsed maga candidate is you know spill crystal some woke never trump's squish like if you're just watching the tv ads that's what you'd get the sense of as long as that's the case that they feel like they need to have the trump halo to survive i don't i don't expect that we're going to see a lot of courage my question back to you on the hill stuff you're out early on the Democrats needing to offer a middle ground on the DHS shutdown and just saying, hey, we'll order in a fully fund FEMA, TSA, these other elements, anything else that's related to domestic terror threats, et cetera. They've done that, but I don't, I haven't really like done a big pressure campaign on it. I wouldn't say. Where do you think this stands? I mean, it's pretty crazy that DHS is still.

not funded, given the state of affairs. I actually got a call from a member of Congress. My staff showed me your tweets. And I want you to know, we do agree with you that we're for no additional funding for ICE and Border Patrol. We're fine with funding the rest of it. So you need to make that point a little more emphatically in my humble judgment. And this person said, yes, well, we're beginning to. Rosa DeLora did have actual legislation.

She's in leadership in the House. Patty Smith, is I don't name the, Smith? No, Perry. Barry. Patty Morris. Patty Murray. Patty Smith as a singer. Yeah, I know. Thanks. That's confusing. A lot of touch there. Patty Murray, the appropriations, I think, ranking member in the Senate, asked for United States consent to do that, actually last week. The Republicans blocked it. And this member of Congress said, look, we've had some internal debates. Some people thought we had more leverage if we kept the whole DHS closed. I said, come on, really? That's not, it's negative leverage at this point with TSA. And this person said, yes. You'll see this week, we will make clear. Our position is, We will not give additional funds to ICE and Border Patrol absent the kinds of reforms they've demanded. We want to give these other funds, and it's the Republicans who are preventing you. And I think it's a pretty easy argument to make. It's a true argument.

And they just need to really hammer at home this week, and they say they're going to. We'll keep an eye on that. All right. Final topic, there's a candidate that I want to highlight out in America. I sometimes have said some pretty negative things about Alabama on this podcast, and our Alabama listeners who I appreciate have not always appreciated by, you know, stereotyping of Alabama by use of the word Alabama as a slur. We have a candidate here that I think is interesting. His name is Jamel J. Brown.

He's a pastor and an influencer who is running for governor of Alabama. Now Tommy Tuberville is running on the other side. I think that's an uphill battle. And so you've got to have some creative thinking. And on the podcast, I've been discussing how in red states we need how. heterodox Democrats. You know, they don't need to be squishy moderates, but they've got to stake out some different points of view. And here's Jemelle Brown's list of 20 executive orders that he is going to sign on day one to put the people of Alabama first. Legalize and tax marijuana for personal use. Pardon, nonviolent offenders in state prisons. Eliminate state tax on groceries. That's good.

Legalize and tax the lottery. Okay. $3,000 stimulus checks for those making under $100K. It's a little Keynesian for me, but okay. Restore law and order in crime-ridden cities. All right, we're pivoting a little bit to the right here on law and order issues. Put parents back in charge of education, people like that. Number eight, legalized sex stores. Number nine, bring prayer back into school. It's an interesting pairing, but I like it.

I don't, you know, and separation in church of state and all that, but I do think that the Democrats reaching out to religious people is important, legalized sex stores, and bring prayer back into school. schools. Number 10 of us in Alabama businesses for the Chamber of Commerce class. 11 pay raise for all state employees. The public sector. That's nice. Number 12, make Montgomery a strip club city. I don't know what that entails exactly, but I'm interested. Is that a thing you can be like in some cities, sanctuary cities and other cities or club cities. A sanctuary.

No sanctuary cities. We should call his camp, him. He seems very accessible, I think, online. I think we can just direct DM him and ask him what exactly. I've never been to Montgomery, for example, and I might consider it. Now, I'm not a strip club guy myself, but just as a cultural thing, just as a curiosity, make Montgomery a strip club city. Three-month grace period for utility bills, that's good, support our veterans.

Anyway, there goes more. I like it. I should say that Doug Jones is also in the governor's race. I think is the more prominent candidate for the nomination, and I don't want to disendorse Doug or say anything negative about him. But I just, I think that what Jamel is offering is something different. He's trying something, and I want to make sure I'm highlighting that. So that's all.

Do you have any thoughts on the Jamel Brown candidacy? It'll be great when Doug, I know Doug, some as you do, when Doug, who's a serious and kind of earnest guy, when Doug gets asked today, you know, after people watch that, maybe they saw the original tweet by his rival, but maybe after they, honestly, after they watch the show, and Doug gets to ask, where are you on making Montgomery a strip club city?

You know, and then it becomes the big issue in the Democratic gubernatorial primary in Alabama. A lot of times particularly presidential races, the niche candidates, like, bring an issue to the four, you know, and the more mainstream candidates co-opt it, you know, because they see the popularity. And maybe that could be making Montgomery a stroke club city. Okay.

Bill Crystal, thank you. I don't even know. what to expect for tomorrow's show. So we're going to see. It's going to be fun, I think. But it's going to be a little surprise for folks. So stick around for that. We have the next level podcast also comes out on Tuesday.

So a lot of a lot of material. And then we're in Austin later. So Dallas and Austin, on Dallas Wednesday night, Austin Thursday. We got a surprise guest in Dallas Wednesday. That'll be your Thursday podcast. Then Friday, it will be me with a hangover after a night out in Austin with somebody. So that's the schedule for the week.

It's going to be pretty good, Bill. Thank you so much for doing it. And tickets are still available in Austin, the bullwork.com slash tickets. It's the biggest venue we've ever played. We've already sold over a thousand tickets, so it's awesome. How many people are coming?

But if you want to pop in, go check us out. Anything else, Bill? If Montgomery becomes a strip club city, we need to do a bulwark event there, obviously. I agree. Don't you think? Not that I would go.

I make that clear. That's a kind of gesture of rewarding, you know, freshly outside the box thinking, you know? Totally agree. Montgomery. in 2027. Everybody else, Bill Crystal, see you back here Monday. Everybody else will see you tomorrow. Bye. And if it's all right with you before I get back on the train, I just want to see my

Montgomery in the rain. The Bullwark podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.