The Bulwark Podcast - Bill Kristol: The Tough Guy Really, Really Means It This Time

Episode Date: April 20, 2026

Just hang tight: Trump is super close to a deal with an enemy that he handed all the leverage to. Absolutely do not read his steady supply of hollow threats as him begging Iran for a face-saving off-ramp. Meanwhile, back in reality, Iran too can see how desperate Trump is, the war is helping China feel emboldened, and some of our closest post-WWII allies think Beijing is more dependable than the U.S. under Trump. Plus, Hegseth has chosen an ideal time to pick a fight with the secretary of the Army, numerous officials at the FBI are alarmed by Kash's alleged alcohol-induced absences, kudos to Ossoff for the way he talked about corruption and kleptocracy, and more Vance-splaining from the newbie Catholic Veep.Bill Kristol joins Tim Miller.show notes Tim’s livestream Monday at 8ET on YouTube or Substack JVL on the "Trump Madman Theory' of the stock market Lauren on the Dems preparing for a potential midterm-year SCOTUS vacancy Tim's 2020 piece on Joe DiGenova  Images of the Poodle Room, Kash's alleged hangout in Vegas Tickets for our Bulwark Live shows in San Diego and LA in May: TheBulwark.com/Events Upgrade your wallet today! Get 10% Off @Ridge with code THEBULWARK at https://www.Ridge.com/THEBULWARK #Ridgepod

Hello and welcome to the Bullwark podcast. I'm your host Tim Miller. It is Monday. So we have editor-at-large Bill Crystal. I want to wish a happy 4-20 to those who celebrate it for, you know, marijuana reasons. A cursed 4-20 to those who celebrate it because it's Hitler's birthday. Yeah. Many of the rest of you don't notice it at all. Bill, what about you? Do you have a 4-20 tradition that you like to? I'm sort of in the don't notice it at all category. Don't notice it at all. Okay, well, something to think about. All right, well, I'll be celebrating tonight on the live stream. I'm streaming again, taking your questions at 8 p.m. Eastern on YouTube or substack. And to celebrate the day, I'll be having a Louis-Louis, THC beverage.

And we'll have a good time. So come hang out with us 8 o'clock tonight. On more responsible notes, tomorrow, the people of Virginia, which includes you, Bill Crystal, need to get out and vote on the redistricting referendum. I have a couple of thoughts on that, but you're a Virginia resident. Have you voted yet? Have you decided how to vote? I voted early.

It was late last week. They said at the polling place that, you know, given that it was a week before the election and turnout was high. And I think that's generally people have the sense that it turn out's comparable to the governor election last November. I voted for the referendum. And I wasn't that close to call for me. In 2020, we all voted for a constitution.

Amendment, passed by two to one in the state, to have nonpartisan sort of professional, unbiased redistricting. And in fact, it worked well here. And they came up with districts that were, it was six to five Democratic, which is kind of what the state is, right? Six to five Democratic and Republican. They had continuous districts. They tried to keep communities together. All the kind of things the political scientists want you to do, they did here. But you also have to adapt to circumstances. And if Texas and these other states are going to go ahead and tilt it in one way, you've got to tilt it back. The other. And interestingly, at one last point, it's only for four years.

I mean, I give the drafters of this credit. It's not a permanent redistricting. It lasts until 2030, and it takes care of the problem of Trump and Texas, so to speak. You know, this is where I'm at on. Some of the discourse around this, I feel, makes me want to roll my eyes, particularly among the kind of high-minded, nonpartisan types. I'm just like, yeah, it's unfair. The map that you're voting on in Virginia tomorrow is unfair, and that's the fucking point for it to be unfair, right? Like the only way to get back to a place where we have, you know, fair districts and a democracy that is representative of everybody is for, you know, both sides to play hardball on this.

You know, like there's a national anti-germandering bill in the House. Only Democrats are for it. There are no Republicans that are for that. There, you know, there were a couple of Republicans. We should shout them out in Indiana and a couple other states where they said, hey, we're not going to go along with this system. we're not going to go rig the system anymore and good on them. But in a bunch of other states, they tried to rig the system, to keep Donald Trump in power, to prevent Donald Trump from having accountability.

And so good on Abigail Spanberger and Louise Lucas. And like you said, in 2030, it will revert, as my understanding, to the constitutional amendment system where there will be a nonpartisan redistrict. And, you know, God willing, that will be in a place in 2030, where that can happen in Virginia and elsewhere. Is there a bunch of red states that need that, too? And there are a couple of blue states, Illinois. It's a dumb system.

We should fix it. But it doesn't do any good to live in disreality and let one side try to rig the system while the other side doesn't. So go out and vote for the Louise Lucas bill tomorrow. Everybody, if you're in Virginia. Let's do an update on the Iran War. So since we last got together with Ben Rhodes on Friday, things are looking a little diceier than maybe the president. had portrayed. I don't know if you'll be surprised by that. President Trump, you know, trying to sell a deal that wasn't actually done. We've seen that movie a million times before.

And I think that Ben and I put it out on Friday even, like in the early moments of this, like, there's a bunch of reasons why this deal might be unstable, not the least of which, you know, what the interests are of our partner in this war in Israel and they're misaligned from the U.S. and who knows in Iran if like the negotiators actually are in charge and, you know, can negotiate. And who knows if Donald Trump's telling the truth like for a million reasons. You know, there are reasons to be skeptical. Those reasons were right since we last talked. Iran was unhappy with the United States blockade and with the ways in which Donald Trump was misrepresenting the deal that was coming together.

So they fired on at least two, maybe three ships in the straight merchant ships, which caused a bunch of other ships to turn around. They reclosed the Strait of Hormuz, despite Donald Trump saying on Friday that the Strait of Formos was open forever. And that Iran had agreed to keep it open forever. They would never use it again. That lasted less than 24 hours. The U.S. responded by seizing an Iranian ship.

It was trying to bypass the U.S. naval blockade in the Gulf of Oman. So we boarded and seized that ship. Iran right now is saying that they don't trust Trump. We're getting kind of mixed reports on whether they'll even participate in the talks. I think the most recent report is that they are going to participate in the talks. And Trump is escalating his threats. Once again, he posted this yesterday. If Iran doesn't accept a deal, the United States is going to knock out every single power plant and every single bridge in Iran.

No more Mr. Nice Guy. So there you go. No more Mr. Nice guy is the new position from Trump. Trump. I mean, Andrew has a good piece in one of his last this morning. I sort of thought of this when Andrew was writing. I think literary critics call this an unreliable narrator. You know, it's like the, you know what I mean?

The narrator of the story is not telling the truth. And, of course, there are times when you shade the truth in diplomacy, but that's not what Trump's doing. He's just making up things. I think the Iranians wanted to make the point that you think over the weekend that they have the ability to close the straight when they want to. And they want people to remember that going forward. I assume they're going to ultimately agree to something and we're going to agree to something

since we're in full-fledged desperation for an agreement mode, or Trump is, that, you know, that will basically open the straits with both sides. But I think Iran wants everyone to remember that if Israel attacks again, or if we do something they don't like, or if the UAE does something they don't like, or if they just don't like, you know, they want to make a point in general, they're there and they can do it. I mean, that was sort of interesting. I thought that was what's behind probably what they were trying to do. Otherwise, they're getting a ton out of this deal. Looks like they're getting total sanctions relief. I mean, I'm old enough to remember when people hawks on Iran, including me, screamed and yelled about Obama giving some sanctioned relief and a little bit of money that they had over here back.

you know, Trump's like trumping that manyfold. And of course, they're not going to get, it looks like the nuclear material is going to sit over there and allegedly be inspected by us. So, and it turns out there's a very good, this very interesting report from our own defense intelligence agency, the report to Congress, or at least the Congress has a copy of saying that Iran has a ton of ballistic missiles and drones left. We haven't degraded them as much as Trump has been claiming. So it's not a good outcome for the United States. Yeah. To your point on these Trump threats and how kind of hollow they are. And it's such a, I guess it's not boy who cried wolf because the boy who cried wolf,

the wolf is kind of, it's like, boy, who's pretending to be the wolf, you know, over and over again. It's like, I'm going to end your civilization and then you did nothing. It's like, you know, we're going to obliterate you, then you do nothing. And, you know, we're going to take out all the leadership and then you do nothing. And now it's like, no more Mr. Nice guy, for real this time. It's like, okay, buddy, Dan Shapiro, the former ambassador at Israel from Biden, and it's like, I think, a real middle-the-road guy on all of this and no fan of the Iranian regime. I was interested in his take on this over the weekend.

He wrote, Trump spent all day posting untruth social things that had not been agreed to, trying to will them to be true by saying them. This is a crazy way to do diplomacy on something that's consequential, and it has to be telling the Iranians that he's desperate for an off-ramp, which only increases their leverage. And that goes, I think, to what you're saying. Iran is trying to continue to increase their leverage, and they want more money out of this deal.

Like you're going to give us full sanctions relief. Okay, maybe we also want a toll on the straight or maybe we also want, you know, this, that, or the other thing. And I think that is what's happening in the moment. And the argument for a deal coming together is that both sides kind of want it to, right? Like both sides do want an off ramp. But just from the outside analysis perspective, it looks like our side wants it more. You know, it looks like our side wants it more. And the Iranians obviously can sense that as well.

So, I mean, you get us into a situation where you started this war of choice, making all of these grand pronouncements about complete surrender. And then you get into it five weeks and you're kind of like begging for a face saving off ramp. It's pretty humiliating, really. Seven weeks now, I think. Trump said four to six weeks, but now it's running a little long. He wants to get on to other things, I guess. Maybe I can just mention here that I went a little thing for morning shots to just. noticing what was in the Wall Street Journal piece over the weekend that other people have commented

on too, that they purposely excluded Trump on the Friday that the airmen were shot down, the plane was shot down, and they were, you know, scrambling and devising and thankfully devising a successful plan to extricate them and this was, you know, major military effort and meeting in the White House. They managed to keep Trump out of the meeting, basically. Occasionally they gave updates because senior officials, it doesn't say who, but I assume these senior military officials, maybe a couple of his own, maybe the civilian ones are intelligent enough to know this too, thought that Trump's presence there would make it impossible to have reasonable and sound decision-making because he's so impatient and impetuous and reckless and so forth.

Now, elaborating a tiny bit on what the journal said, but that's the point of what they're saying. Kind of unbelievable. Yeah, I mean, two journal stories. Two journal stories over the weekend about all the drama happening here. You know, and there's the one story where he's, you know, screaming at people and becoming very impatient. you know, during this period where there are, you know, two airmen in Iran. It was interesting. The other interesting part of that story is the Trump is an unfrozen caveman from the tabloid era of

the 80s like thing. You keep being reminded about that. Like in this case, I guess he was just really remembering, you know, Carter and the hostage crisis and how bad that was for him politically. It's like, you know, they're like these, these, the, in the pop culture references and the history, lessons of political lessons. Trump is always like recalling how things were in the 1980s. So you have that kind of drama behind the scenes. Commander Chief basically kicked out, you know, because he's agitating people too much during this recovery. And then we have the other

Wall Street Journal story on Hague Seth and Driscoll feuding, Secretary of Army and Secretary of War in a pretty kind of a hot feud right now in the middle of this conflict. Driscoll went out of his way when he was testifying on the Hill Thursday to praise. former Army Chief of Staff, General George, whom Hexeth had unceremoniously fired. You know, you drove up with his family to see him and they hugged and there's no finer man. I think Driscoll may be quite well being sincere here. Everything else I've heard about General George is very flattering. And Driscoll seems like a reasonably sane person by Trump administration standards.

But, I mean, to go out of your way to praise the person that you're sort of your boss, I mean, your superior of the Secretary of Defense just fired two weeks before. It's pretty striking. So there's just out and out war between Hexeth and Driscoll. Skull is a very close friend of Vance, was put there by Vance, basically. One presumes sex, a little bit on thin ice, Trump must be self-aware enough to know that this whole around thing was a mistake and that Hague Seth was one of those who sold him on it and pumped it up in those early days and weeks.

And I don't know. Is Trump self-aware enough to realize that he should want to get rid of HX-Seth? I don't know. Maybe you're right. Maybe I'm wrong about that. It depends who he's talking to, right? And it depends how many people are telling us. telling him that Hegseth is a boob because he is very susceptible to peer pressure.

The other types of reporting that you're getting out of this is that Trump is really doing a kind of classic politician, world leader mistake throughout all of history, which is like only listening to Yes, Men. And like the one thing that has always been true about Trump is he kind of likes the drama. Like he comes from reality TV show world where he like wants the two sides to be feuding and wants to hear from both sides. and in the most unhealthy way imaginable, he's at least getting different perspectives

through that process. And it's hard to tell if that's still happening. And like there was some, so the one report of somebody who's like, you would be shocked at how much time he's spending, like watching the AI videos of himself onto social. I don't know. I mean, you know, so I just don't know exactly

if he's getting enough negative information about Hague, Seth. And Hakeshub has been the biggest yes, man of all, it sounds like, with the cause to the war. So I don't know, maybe if things start going worse, that blows back on him. The other thing that he is seeing, that is creating some hedge

on his decision making is what's happened with the economy. It did get a big boost Friday when people thought the thing that this thing might be over. We're back down a little bit this morning. Let me just pull this up. All this stuff is very fluid. You know, I mean, the Dow and S&P are only down

a little bit. I think that there's a, well, was JVL call it the madman theory of the economy. JVIL had a great newsletter over the weekend. People should go read just about how the investors are just basically like any sign of normalcy means we should buy. And so there's that, but oil prices are up another 5% this morning. They went down slightly below the landman line that I like to say where Billy Baum Thornton's character says we want to keep it between 60 and 90. It went slightly down below 90 over the weekend. and now it's back up. So I think the economic impact of this is real.

We also have the UAE over the week and asking us for a bailout. They want the Argentinian deal, you know, on the dollar swap. All of that stuff is pretty shaky right now. And I think that like if it kind of tips a little bit worse than this, that will even create less leverage for us in these negotiations seems like to me. And that is, I mean, the Iranians know that's the pressure they have on Trump. The law, and this is just mathematics.

in a way. It's not, you know, psychology. I mean, the longer this trade's closed, the more, the less oil there is available to use and the less for other products. And there are now shortages in some countries of what's used to make plastic bags and a million other things, drugs, I guess, pharmaceuticals. So, no, I think it's getting real. I mean, everyone said ahead of, we've discussed this once or twice. I mean, everyone said beforehand, you know, 10-day closure of the straight, not great, but you survive. 30 days, getting a little problematic. You get into 45-day range, and I guess we're getting pretty close to there. I can't remember how quickly Iran closed the strape,

but it was a couple weeks into the war. You're getting serious supply chain issues. And now that should pressure Trump to come to a deal this week or maybe next. Maybe it pressures him, though, does he tie one more spasmodic use of force, kind of go out with a Nixon kind of 72 Christmas bombing, showing he's a tough guy. I wouldn't put it past him.

But then if he does that, you know, then, of course, you're into a situation where you can't, you don't know how Iran reacts, et cetera. So I don't know. I don't know. The one last spasm feels Trumpy to me. Yeah. I think there's something to it.

A lot of people, I think everybody feels like they're a little bit better at predicting him than people are. You know, like there's some trends that you do see. Like, you can kind of predict him pretty good in the medium term, but like what crazy stuff he'll do in the short term to get there. I was pretty struck when I had Alster Campbell on from the rest of politics last week, his co-host, Rory. I was listening to their shows to kind of prep for it. And Roy had gone on a vacation, Rory Stewart. And he was like, I just wanted to test myself where I didn't, I forget where he went, where he went somewhere where he didn't have good Wi-Fi. And it's like for a week, he just didn't read the news.

And then he came back and read the newspaper one day at a time to see if he could predict what was coming. He's like I was kind of surprised by how bad I was at it. You know, I felt like it was better than I would be. And it is like Trump's, you can notice trends. Like in the short, he's just so erratic, right, that it is a little bit in the short term, hard to say. But that said, the one more spasm kind of feels Trumpy. Yeah, just at one point on that, I mean, he's erratic, but it's erratic in the two extremes. The one thing he doesn't do is really go down in the middle of the road, you know.

It's either I'm doubling down, then I'm backing off. Yes, right. I'm doing one, two hours after the other. I mean, exactly. Right, everybody, I've told you my origin story with the old Ridge wallet. They're going to come sponsor the podcast. They're going to send me a sample wallet. I was a little concerned it was too butch for me.

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Please support our show and tell them we sent you. I want to talk about a couple of the geopolitics impacts and kind of how things are changing already. The result of the last seven weeks, literally as we're talking, Trump posted this, which is a little bit of a she doth protest too much possibly. But here's a bleat this morning. Israel never talked to me into the war with Iran. The results of October 7th added to my lifelong opinion that Iran can never have a nuclear weapon did.

It's not a great sentence structure. But I watched the read the fake news. Then he goes down to this. Just like the results in Venezuela, which the media doesn't like talking about, the results in Iran will be amazing. And if Iran's new leader, parentheses, regime change, exclamation point,

are smart Iran can have a great and prosperous future. Trump obviously feeling the heat on this question, following the news that BB was in the situation room, and feeling like he has to come up with a post-talkerationalization for why he wanted to do this, even if it wasn't for Israel's coaxing. And it's just like, he was already president once. Like this idea that like, he's had this lifelong opinion.

It's just really, it's hard to buy. And I do think it's interesting that he's still contra what, you know, Rubio will say or even Heggseth or anybody else in the administration when you ask them what the goals and objectives are. Like, he's still kind of on the Venezuela beat. He's totally on the Venezuela beat. The degree to which I think historians will decide that Venezuela gave him this insane megalomaniacal sense of what he could do and something with the U.S. military could do. And he sort of forgot the difference between Venezuela and Iran, which is kind of a big difference in so many ways like Venezuela is right near us. and it's a reasonably small country and other big powers don't have a huge interest

and Israel's not involved and a million other things, right? And even China, Russia will vaguely like Venezuela and weren't going to do anything over here. Whereas, you know, Iran is a little different kettle of fish. But he desperately wants a world in which he can do Venezuela every six months and that's it. And no one asks too many questions after. And it's not real regime change,

but it's not nothing exactly because he got rid of a guy who's particularly dissafeel and it makes him beat his chest. It makes me think he really wants, don't you think he will want to do do Cuba and Greenland after this? I mean, this is a big question getting into our maximalist thing. Is this lesson from Iran?

Gotta stay away from that stuff. Back to, you know, back to ice and domestic stuff. Or is this lesson for Iran? Got to do Cuba or Greenland. Yeah, drug addict needs another hit. Yeah. You know, I need another hit. Or a gambling addict that, you know, it was like, I was on the hot craps table.

I was almost there. And then the table went cold. Like, now I've got to go back to the ATM and pull out a couple hundred more dollars to get that high back. It's not something. never happened to me. I can't relate to that at all. Yeah, no, I think that's what's coming. The China element of this is also kind of interesting. For the first time today, China said, publicly, like, the straight needs to be opened and I kind of engaged in this in a formal way.

They were talking to their pal and BS about that. Who knows how that shakes out, like with the Gulf states that had tried to bribe us, and now it seems like they're starting to reassess some of their investments, you know, at least Saudi is and UAE asking for a bailout. they're looking back to China and wondering, you know, who they should make a deal with, maybe both sides, maybe not pick a side. And then I saw this poll as a Politico poll, which is pretty remarkable asking the citizens of these four countries are, what you would maybe say is our four biggest allies, at least in the post-World War II era, China, Germany, France, and the UK. I don't maybe throw Aussie in there. I don't want to hurt anybody's feelings or Mexico, but like, you know, four pretty of our top allies asking them, whether it's better to depend on China or the U.S. under Donald Trump. This is specifically about Trump, not necessarily about the broader U.S. Canada, 57 to 23 in favor of China. Germany, 40 to 24 in favor of China.

France, 34 to 25 in favor of China. Britain, 42, 34 in favor of China. I just think that there are some, who knows about how long lasting, but some calculations are being made in the Gulf states and among our allies. that feels like it's emboldening China. And ostensibly, some in the administration were like China Hawks and talking about how that was the real threat

when Trump went in. Yeah, totally. And Pakistan, incidentally, which is getting all the statures, they're the middleman, the host of these talks. They're very close to China. So, I mean, they're not doing this

without consulting with China. They said that, I think, at times. And now China, I think, wants to say publicly, they want the straight reopen is they think it will be reopened and they want to position themselves. We weighed in when it was all kind of a bit of a chaos,

and we're the big guy. and we're not irrational and erratic like Trump. We wait in, we said we want it opened. And you know what? A week later, when it opens, China's going to say, see, we can be helpful in these crises. You know, I want you to listen to us. This episode is sponsored by Better Help. Financial stress can affect us more than we know.

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You know, I think I mentioned this last time. We've been there. I was like in a mid-period. We're trying to move. Selling one house, buying another house. Saw the house we liked. We bought it. Figuring the other house was going to sell.

Didn't sell for one week. Didn't sell for two weeks. It's kind of like the Iran War. and starts to drag out and you're looking at your bank account, you're like, oh, fuck. And, you know, there were some, there was some tension in the household around this. It was definitely leading to mental health problems and stress. And I think probably rather than making passive aggressive comments, seeking professional help would have benefited us at this time.

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Sign up and get 10% off at betterhelp.com slash the bulwark. That's better, help.com slash the bulwark. Let's move on to drunk Cash Patel. In the middle of all this, our FBI director is not just somebody that enjoys a few libations. I think in the past, we've had FBI directors at the end of the day, had a couple of bourbons to take the edge off. It's understandable, high pressure job. It doesn't seem to be what we're talking about with this guy. Before I read through the reporting here from the Atlantic, we should say that Cash Patel is challenging it.

It's going to challenge it in court. I'll be interested to see that discovery, if he goes through with it, count me on the side of believing the many, many sources the Atlantic has, but we should acknowledge the cash is disputing it. And you would imagine that he would dispute it, given the details. Let me read from the piece. This is from Sarah Fitzpatrick. Several officials told me that Patel's drinking has been a recurring source of concern

across the government. They said that he's known to drink to the point of obvious intoxication at the private club Ned's in Washington, D.C., He's also known to drink to excess at the poodle room in Las Vegas, where he frequently spends part of his weekends. Just the fact that the FBI director is spending his weekends at the poodle room in Las Vegas is itself somewhat concerning, even if he wasn't drinking to excess. Early in his tenure, meetings and briefings had to be rescheduled for later in the day

as a result of his alcohol-fueled nights. Six current or former officials and others familiar with Patel's schedule told me, on multiple occasions in the past year, members of a security detail had difficulty waking Patel because he was intoxicated. A request for, quote, breaching equipment normally used by SWAT and hostage rescue teams was made last year because Patel had been unreachable behind locked doors. They had to send the SWAT team in because dude hadn't taken his Z biotics and was so hungover that he was not listening to his phone vibrate. Like, that is insane. I mean, I enjoy a good time. Okay.

I've never had to have producer Katie's send in the cops to make sure I was okay for our 9 a.m. Tapeings, always made it every time I've been here. That is wild. The FBI director needed the SWAT team to wake him up. Are you concerned? What's your level of concern about that? I mean, combined with we're firing the Iranian experts, there's nobody in charge. And it's kind of similar.

I guess what you're saying about Trump about how that we, there are still responsible people in the bureau, and maybe they're just not including the director in meetings, and we'll see how long that lasts. Well, except we know that he's actually getting the FBI to do things that it shouldn't be doing at Fulton County and Georgia and elsewhere, now Michigan with 2026-related stuff. And obviously, he's saying we're going to charge people criminally

for the great conspiracy of 2020. He said that on Sunday on TV. I'm alarmed that, on the one hand, they're so alarmed by him, all the people who talk to the Atlantic. And on the other hand, it seems, like he should be weaker than he is as director. I'm worried that they're going along and their culture is to go along or maybe there's some people who like having him there. I don't know. Maybe I'm being unfair. Maybe they are curbing him more than I realize. I hope they are. This is something

serious though people in the government, some of them will have quit and some should quit. Obviously, if they can't do things they can't do in good conscience. Others really need to do what they can to mitigate the damage that's being done from Trump on down through Patel and Hegseth and others. I assume people are, they're intelligent, they're acting this way and, you know, within the bounds of the law, but there are plenty of things you can do to make things less bad, not tell him certain things and have some meetings that he's not, you know, whatever invited to and slow walk some things and fast walk some other things and so forth. But I'm pretty worried. The DOJ, FBI, DOD situation, yeah, totally irresponsible and reckless leaders, getting some pushback, but also doing a lot. I mean, and they can do it in a ham-handed and heavy.

heavy-handed way, can still do an unbelievable amount of damage. Yeah, I mean, I'd love to hear from folks inside the bureau and how they're navigating all of it because I do think it's tough. And I know for a fact there are some responsible people in there, you know, still via mutuals. But like, it's really tough. On the one hand, I'm kind of, I'm of two minds about it. Like, in the one hand, is somebody who's like pretty far down the enemy's list, but on it somewhere, you know, on page 40 or whatever. It's nice to have a drunkard trying to go after the enemies, right? He's been totally ineffective. certainly does not seem like a coincidence that after this Atlantic story came out,

he was out there this weekend saying they're going to be arrest soon in the 2020 election fraud theft. It's like, okay, buddy, we'll see. Good luck with that. On the other hand, for the broader public safety, you know, given where potentially you would think a time of heightened terror risk on the homeland, you'd rather have somebody like actually who knows what they're doing, running the FBI. Yeah, on the third hand, I mean, Todd Blanche replaced Pam Bondi, and Blanche is more, let's just say, I'd probably more qualified for the job than Bondi and stuff. And he's ruthlessly going about DOJ's, you know, business of persecuting Trump's enemies and politicizing everything. And they just, the career person who was trying to actually be responsible in Miami has now quit or been fired.

It's I don't quite know which, I guess, or at least removed from the case, right? and they brought in Joe de Genova, an 81-year-old guy who's gotten kind of crazy in my Oh my God, is that right? Is that who they brought in? I miss this. Joe DeGeneva is now the special assistant to Blanche for the Miami prosecution of Clapper, of former D&I, James Clapper. So on the one hand, it's like idiocy and kind of comedy Joe DeGenerva. On the other hand, Blanche is pretty resolute and he kind of knows what he's doing. And now they're going to go after Clapper and they're going to intimidate a lot of other people.

run up his legal bills. And Patel says he's going to sue the Atlantic for defamation. I was in some quarrel with some of my liberal lawyer friends. Oh, that lawsuit's going nowhere. Well, is it going to have an intimidating effect on others? Is it going to force the Atlantic to spend a lot of money? Are anonymous sources in the future going to worry that if they talk to a reporter and then the magazine that the reporter works for gets sued, that they might have to reveal

the names as part of their defense? I mean, I just think the whole intimidation stuff that's going on with the FBI and DOJ remains very, obviously very bad. But I remember having this argument when Bondi was still around, maybe it's better to have Bondi there. You know, she's unpopular and doesn't seem terribly competent. On the other hand, I don't know, as you say, it's a tough, it's on the one head on the other hand. Either way is bad. Either way is bad, because Trump is very bad.

He's a bad man. Either way is very bad. Maybe you should make that point. Maybe you should make that point, some force. Okay. So Joe DeGeneva, who got brought in, you try your vest to see everything these days, but sometimes things squeeze by you. I'm happy you mentioned it because I have some history with him.

There's a little lore. Really? I did an article in the period between Biden beating Trump and January 6th. So January 6th hasn't happened yet. Right. And they are the Stop the Steel campaign is, you know, gaining momentum and, you know, et cetera. And Newsmax was like the main home of this because remember Fox was losing ratings ground to Newsmax. And I was like, I need to watch Newsmax.

Max. And so I sat in my bed. This was during COVID, so I didn't have to leave anyway, and watched 24 hours of Newsmax with sleep in the middle. So whatever, 16 hours of newsmax. But from, I wanted to watch every hour of the day. And at four, I'm going to just read this. I pulled up the article at 434 PM, Joe to Geneva comes on. The host says that he was brought on to talk about Obamagate. But this week that they're going to change things up and talk about Trump's attempt to overturn the election. Stick with me because I wrote this whole thing, dead. pan because everything was so crazy. It was the only way to do it. But it goes like this. DeGeneva says that the Durham report should come out to help give state legislators more incentive to stop Biden since he was involved in Obamagate. So they started talking about that. And then he gets asked about Chris Krebs and DeGeneva calls for the execution of Chris Krebs, which then we clipped and published since I was watching it. And then eventually DeGeneva after that had to like apologize and back off. So, like, that's the kind of mind you're dealing with, like, somebody who is on the cable news show between the 2020 election and invites inauguration, saying that the person in charge of SISA, who was protecting our elections, needs to be executed for treason because they're involved in some imaginary scheme.

So now he's still on the beat, 81 years old, five years later. Now it's still trying to put somebody into jail for this imaginary crime. Totally insane. Yeah. So the lawyers, I know, are all like, he can't prosecute. the case and they don't have a case and it's not going to go anywhere. It's not going to work. But I mean, you never know. You get some jury the wrong judge or jury in Florida, but probably won't work. But yeah, the legal defense, the cost and the intimidation factor. I think, again,

they're just all in. It's not an accident. I've forgotten your piece. That was an excellent piece from November or December of 2020, actually. Yeah, I felt bad for you watching newsmax for 16 hours. Well, that was good. It helped me. It helped clarify because there was a period of time where you and you were on this. And like a lot of other, even anti-Trump people are like, you guys are being a little too alarmist and whatever. And it was like, no, actually, if you watch the types of stuff that they're talking about, you could feel the bloodlust. Like, you could feel it grow. And so it was kind of just even for my analysis. Like, it was important to not watch the, you know, sane washed, watered down depictions, but to like watch what the audience was getting. And it's not surprising

people watching a show like that would then turn up to the Capitol, right? It was much easier to predict anyway. And that Trump was really going to try to do. And I think now, again, let's just apply this to today. People need to be, you know, you have Michigan and Fulton County, Georgia, and you have to January. And people need to be Syria. Yeah, we need to worry about 2026 and 2028.

Speaking of things we worried about, you had Ryan Goodman on the Sunday interview yesterday, just talking about this fight that's happening on the Hill over Section 702 and the spy powers of the government have. as for people who want the full sermon, they can go check that out, but do you want to just give a little bit of a TLDR? 702 is the authority that allows our intelligence agencies

to listen in on and read communications among foreign nationals, but also from foreign nationals to American nationals. Now Americans are protected, Fourth Amendment, First Amendment. So it's a complicated way in which they can or can't look at what Americans have been doing. It was abused a little bit, honestly, but not too much.

They did there, and they, be fair, the FBI kind of correct. it's abuse, it seems like, with an internal report. But Ryan and I were both basically, I don't want to speak to you in, but I think this is true. National Security professionals think this is an important part of our anti-terrorism, counterterrorism efforts. And so we've mostly been defending it. Some civil libertarians don't like it. And it has to reauthorize every two years.

It was past F to 9-11. And the Congress, to its credit, said you've got to take a fresh look every two years. We're not going to give this a permanent kind of authority. So it's, you know, it's a tricky authority. And Ryan and I are both against a clean reauthorization. they say they should be now make them get a warrant if Americans are involved and put in a few other safeguards perhaps. Some people on the hill have been leading this fight. But it's very much similar to weirdly, I think, analogous to the Virginia thing we were talking about, which is

people say, well, you were for clean reauthorization in the past. Why aren't you now? Well, because Cash Patel is the head of the FBI now. And whatever you think of Chris Wright and Jim Comey and all these other characters, I'm sure they weren't perfect, God knows. They were not going to use the FBI the way Cash Patel could try to use the FBI. use this authority. The same with the Justice Department and same with the intelligence community under Tennessee Gabbard. So it's now bottled up on the Hill. The House had a kind of meltdown Thursday night. Johnson couldn't get it through. The Freedom Congress people actually did the right thing and voted against it, some of them. And people like Massey, the kind of libertarian

types. We'll see what happens. It's got a 10-day extension. So it's actually a live issue this week on the Hill. There's a totally obvious compromise to be done if you care about national security and want to add some reasonable civil liberties provisions. Trump right now is for, of course, the clean extension. He doesn't want the civil liberties provisions. We'll see if they end up with a reasonable agreement or not. All right. I want to move on to a couple of politics items for I lose you.

I guess we should do the SCOTUS reports first. Alito and Thomas, there's some reporting from Jan Crawford over at CBS. It was very well sourced in the conservative side of the court, no doubt, and saying that neither of them want to retire. This has been kind of the assumption about Thomas because he's not so far away from being the longest ever serving member of the Supreme Court. And I think that he wants that distinction because I'm sure that, you know, the folks at Holy Cross and we'll be excited to honor him for that when he achieves that,

you know, the three most famous Holy Cross grads, John Favreau, Bill Simmons, and Clarence Thomas. But people have been thinking that Alito is going to do it because he wanted to make sure that he could be replaced by a fellow hack. And, you know, there's concerns of Democrats, take the Senate next year, et cetera, that who knows what might happen. But the Crawford report is saying that he's going to stay. Lauren Egan is a good newsletter for us last night, talking about how the Democrats aren't really buying this and are still really preparing for a big Supreme Court showdown this year.

Who knows? Maybe it'll come next year. It's one of your thoughts on that, and it's pretty interesting. Again, kind of similar to the redistricting question. I think that the Democrats, if Alito waits till after the midterms and the Democrats take the Senate, you know, for all of people's complaints about Chuck Schumer, I'd have it happy to beg on my face when we're wrong about this. I think that the Democratic senators are going to, you know, create a new Merrick Garland rule. Say, sorry, we'll wait to the next election, like not bringing up a new justice for nominations.

So you guys did and we'll, you know, we'll hold it as long as we need to hold it. And we'll see what happens to the 2028 election. I think that's what would happen. So it'd be pretty significant if Alito decides to stay on. past this midterm. Yeah, it's much more fraud now that it looks like Democrats could either win the Senate or get very close and then he just said he'd want affection perhaps to stop someone. No. So I think it's a Jan Gawford's an excellent reporter. I've known her a long time. I'm sure she's accurately reporting what Alito and Thomas are saying to people.

What I think Lauren has captured well, though, is that they've been saying it now just to keep their whatever, not look like a lame doc. I guess you could call it that or just to look like they're making their own decision, but they could change their mind. And also Trump could pressure them. I mean, this is not, I think this is pretty important to Trump and to Trumpists. And especially in the case of Alito, I don't know, Alito may sort of think, I'd like to say, I'm having a good time, you know, ripping out people's rights and so forth. But what if Trump calls him? Says, you got to go, Sam. Well, the other thing is that they could, you know, look at what happens in the midterms, and there could be the lame duck period. And this is what they did with Scarlet, right? So you look at,

let's say the Democrats take the Senate in November, this shows the state. And, you know, takes. Totally. Really, the whole election, as far as I'm concerned about the midterms, is Iowa, Texas, Ohio, maybe Kansas, maybe Nebraska, maybe Montana, May, Florida, whatever. These red states for the Democrats need, like, it's the whole ballgame. It's like, can the Democrats get to 51 in the Senate for the Supreme Court reason, but for others for other nominations for replacing Todd Blanche after his, you know, if he's no longer

the acting AG, if they try to keep him in his acting to next year, who knows, other confirmations. Like, that's the ballgame. And so if the Democrats succeed in winning in enough of those red states, two of those red states to get to 51, then it's like, okay, well, could Alito retire really quick in November and have John Thune jam it through before the new Senate sits? I mean, it would be tight, but it's possible, I think. That would be tough, I think. Or certainly in September, if it does become obvious, that it really is a massive wave and they have better than 50-50 chance of losing the Senate. Yeah, no, I agree.

And certainly, if Alito does retire, in the other hand, we have a huge confirmation fight, presumed. presumably the Republicans are in good shape for that fight, but Trump will nominate a right-wing justice. Everyone I know who's plugged into that world at all, whether on the opposition side or a few people who talk to people who are on the, you know, Republican side, think that this is not going to be a kind of respectable-ish, Amy Cody.

We're talking, right, all the way. One of those Judge Hoag types down in Texas or Eileen Cannon or what's his name, the guy they put on the court, Bovet or Blanche himself or God knows what, right? Trump wants loyalists on this court. So if he has a chance to put people on. So that's become a huge fight. Even they can't stop that person, the politics of that fight are very important,

but it highlights how important the Senate is, right? And no one's guaranteeing even if people don't choose to retire, people get sick and so forth. So there could be another opening in their other district court and circuit court openings in 27, 28, which means Democrats have to do a better job than they've done in the past and explaining why the courts should be important to voters who might want to vote Democratic.

Republicans have done a very good job on the courts as a motivating issue for their voters. Now, maybe post-Roe, post-Dobs, that's different. It's easier for the Democrats. And I know Democrats, Lauren, reports on this or who are sort of ginning up on this, but the Republicans have had an advantage, don't you think, on the politics of court fights?

I think that's changing, though. But I think that they have for the last generation, but I think that's changing. So important for the Democrats, you know, politically, to, you know, identify messages that allow them to succeed in red states. So I'd like to point out good examples of that when I can. John Ossoff had a big speech in Georgia over the weekend. I don't play for folks.

And I keep coming back to this, the Kamala conundrum question, which is, in part, was not her fault. But I think that she got into the sour spot where, like, moderate voters, you know, thought that she was a California progressive and some progressive voters, like, who cared a lot about Gaza. I thought she was a corporate chill and independent voters didn't really trust her. The challenge is, how do you come up with a mess? message and a messenger where progressive voters look at them. We're like, ah, that guy works enough. I'll be excited for that person. And the moderate and independent voters look at them and say, yeah, okay, this is, this person could appeal. John also has demonstrated an interesting model for

that potentially in Georgia. And I thought it was interesting to hear how he was talking about, you know, the Iran war and the corruption issues and the economy at his campaign stop over the weekend. Let's listen to that. While he and his family raking billions from foreign princes, While he plunders our health care to cut taxes for the rich. Meanwhile, rent, power, groceries, and health care have all hit all-time highs this year. This year. Ground beefs up 20% since Trump took office. Coffee, 40%.

Health premiums through the roof. And remember, while you pay more for everything, the first family. family's wealth is growing by billions of dollars because they're crooks and everybody knows it. I mean, that feels right. You know, it's a way to speak to the anti-Trump side of this and do a lot of never-Trumper friendly messaging, you know, but also tie it into kind of the populist economic case. Totally. I mean, it indicates the point you've made over and over and I've been occasionally, which is

you can be, you know, somewhat moderate or cent. or big tent-ish in your issues and in your policies, but vehemently against Trump, and especially in the corruption, it's the sweet spot here, right, and the kleptocracy. And incidentally, the Hungarian election, that's what Magyar, who is two right-winged for a lot of lefties, not lefties, even just normal progressives, honestly, in Hungary,

but he was so strong on, and he has been in the weeks since he won, too, and I'm going to rip up this, rip out the corruption, the kleptocracy, the whole system. It's all, they're all crux. That line is excellent of Assas, incidentally. I don't know why. I guess maybe others have said it, but somehow the way. And he's sort of a mob.

Aesau's not actually a natural, you know, stem winder type, I wouldn't say, you know. And so it's impressive to see him do it. I mean, no, I very much think that. And tying the kleptocracy and corruption of Trump and his family and the oligarchs, pairing that with the bad economic facts facing the middle class, I mean, seems to be the way to go. Absolutely. All right. I want to close with Jim.

JD and the Pope. You commented on social media, something about the Pope Leo posted that you liked. I liked that you self-identify as elderly because Leo posted this. Let us remember that the elderly first and foremost need to be listened to because they preserve the wisdom of a people. It's nice. A lot of humility and you're thinking that I should be listening to you more based on the Pope's advice. And I'll take that note. JD doesn't like really share that humility about listening to the wisdom of other people. He likes to listen to the wisdom of himself. And I just want to play one more time, J.D. talking about this at his event with Erica Kirk late last week. When the Pope says that God is never on the side of those who wield the sword, there is a thousand year, more than a thousand year tradition of just war theory. Okay. Now, we can, of course, have disagreements about whether this or that conflict is just. But I think that it's important in the same way that it's important for the vice president of United States to be careful when I talk about matters of public policy.

I think it's very, very important for the Pope to be careful when he talks about matters of theology. And I think that one of these issues here is that there has been, again, hey, random dude screaming. I told you I'd respond to your point. I just want to respond to this question first. So there you go, Vance Splaining, some Vance spaining there. I just like, I love that he's being condescending to the Pope, that like it's the Pope that she needs to be careful with his rhetoric. Has he ever talked about Donald Trump and he didn't be careful with his rhetoric? No, it's just the Pope.

J.D. Vance becomes a Catholic two minutes ago. And then he's like, you know what? The Pope needs to be a little bit more cautious with how he talks about the just war theory. Okay. Do you know about the just war theory? Because we just started a war choice and started bombing a girl school. And that might be just war. So shut up, Pope.

And then he tells the kid asking the question, and you shut up to. And it's like, J.D. and Zelensky, you shut up to. He just likes telling people to shut up. Trump should nonetheless be removed from office. I guess we'll have to put up with J.D. in 2027, 28 because he's less crazy. and less likely to get us into some total reckless insane debacle than Trump. But Vance is really bad too, I've got to say. What a pair.

Trump advanced, good. Really bad. Okay. I love that you're just going to take the Capitol I impeachment ground. You're there. You're just like, fuck. Like, J.D. Vance is awful and Trump is so bad that we need to be lectured and patronized to for two years in exchange for getting rid of Trump. I like that.

That is what you would call the wisdom of the elder. Yes, thank you. Well, you know, the reason I did that cute little, if I could say, thing on the X, because Susan right away said, Tim calls you're, every week. So that's just, you're just trying, I'm embracing. I'm embracing my inner elderly. I don't think I call you elderly. Susan's abused by our exchanges where you pretend that, Bill, you remember this from 48 years ago before everyone else in the Bullwhip was born. And then, of course, I play along. By playing along, by remembering that when I was in grad school, Nixon was, you know, impeached for war to get or something. So I embrace my inner elderliness, and I'm glad the Pope respects it. And he's the

bullwork pope and he's I thought he was thinking it'd be frankly he presumably watches us he watches this right he's got some extra time there and you know he thinks that you know tim's being a little unfair to bill sometimes i think he's a committed watcher that's my understanding uh from from reports inside the vatican all right that's bill crystal we'll be back tomorrow on tuesday's got the next level so if you just need to be politics junkie you can tune into the next level tomorrow i'm gonna go a little bit off news on this podcast bringing one of my one of my buddies's got a new book out so i'm looking forward to that and i'm before the Nuggets game, 8 o'clock in the east. Come hang out with me. I'll take your questions. I've got a lot of fun stuff to talk about. We'll see Bill Crystal next Monday. See you all tomorrow. Peace.

The Borg podcast is brought to you thanks to the work of lead producer Katie Cooper, Associate producer Anzley Skipper, and with video editing by Katie Lutz, and audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.