The Bulwark Podcast - Bill Kristol: They're F*cking Thieves

Episode Date: September 28, 2026

The Trump administration stole our tax dollars to run a campaign ad during NFL games on Sunday. They're also breaking the law on congressional funding appropriations—and enjoying rubbing the public's face in all the illegality they're getting away with. In Dayton, The Bulwark had its largest live show ever, and the community came through in a huge way with donations for Haitian immigrants in Springfield. For a taste of the event, we're sharing Tim's interview with Democratic strategist Patrick Gaspard. Plus: Tim and Bill launch a new segment on longshot picks to back in the midterms, Trump is being unbelievably irresponsible on AI, the media is still not talking about the Iranian green card-holding family being held at the Dilley detention center, and Americans need a reminder of the Parable of the Good Samaritan.  Bill Kristol and Patrick Gaspard join Tim Miller.show notes: Monday's "Morning Shots," with Bill on Cardinal Robert McElroy, archbishop of Washington Bill’s longshot in Idaho, Todd Achilles Tim’s longshot in Colorado, Jessica Killin The Trio on Victor Marx, running for governor in Colorado A sampling of Jim’s newsletters on Springfield Ohio’s Don Leonard for Congress campaign site Dan Scavino’s AI image Tim referenced Closing Song: MJ Lenderman - She’s Leaving You The Bulwark’s campaign to help the Haitian community of Springfield The Bulwark store

Welcome to the Bullwark Daily. I'm your host, Tim Miller. It is Monday. I'm delighted to get to see my man, Bill Crystal. Again, we were just together in Ohio on Friday and Saturday. We're going to have a bunch for you on that at the end of the show. And then in segment two, we're going to play a little bit from our live show in Dayton. My conversation with Patrick Gaspar, longtime Democratic operative, his family is from Haiti and was really grateful he was able to come to Ohio to be part of it. So, hey, Bill, how you doing? I'm fine, Tim. How are you? I'm doing pretty good, all things considered. We saw some sad stuff in Ohio. We also saw some sad stuff on our televisions this weekend if you're watching sports. The government is now doing just fully kind of taxpayer-funded 1984 propaganda paid for by the U.S. government. We played one of the clips on the show last week, and this was airing on Fox News. And for some reason, that was like a little less offensive to me, and it did hurt my feelings that my tax dollars were being paid for this ad.

but it's like, well, Fox News is just propaganda anyway. But this weekend, they had a new ad out, which we can not play for you because it's Trump's voice. And I don't want to give them any more attention. But it's Trump walking down a hallway, kind of like the shining, looking very creepy, where a voiceover of him saying, we will demolish the deep state, expel the warmongers from our government. We will route the fake news media. And it had a disclaimer paid for by the U.S. government, which means paid for by you and me. That was airing during football this weekend.

Yeah, and it was literally a 2024 campaign ad, right? Did they tinker with it even a tiny bit, I think maybe, or maybe not at all. But, you know, there used to all these constraints. I remember when I was in the White House. You remember this for campaigns. I mean, you know, government money, tech, as opposed to campaign or political money and strict segregating and the travel for obviously TV ads. You could not use a political ad as a government, you know, public service and ask,

but that's supposed to be sort of, hey, you know, if you're over 65. Yeah, right. Well, no, I mean, what government's supposed to put. on the air is, hey, if you're over 65, you should remember get your flu shot, you know, not, not Trump, not propaganda. It is, someone commented on Twitter that it was like, Orban did this a lot. He controlled government, two-thirds in the media, I think, in Hungary. And there were massive amounts of Orban ads, you know, masquerading as government service announcements and paid for it by the taxpayers of Hungary. And it didn't help them in this last

election. So maybe that's encouraging. It is outrageous on its face. Like, it is a total a front and Ted Cruz's entire body would have combust it. You know, he would have spontaneously combust it had Barack Obama done something like this. It's like, love you in the background and one of them and the other one talking about, you know, how great he is. So it's totally outrageous insane to spend our money on this. But your point, I just think it is a political matter on this being an old ad. In some ways, it kind of reveals how much he's failed his promises and betrayed his voters. And going back to those lines, we will demolish the deep state. Really? I mean, I guess maybe some people will feel that way if they, of all they meant by

the deep state was like the liberals that were going after Trump and the DOJ. But certainly, I don't think anyone, even Trump people think that they've cleaned up D.C. corruption or the swamp will expel the warmongers from our government. They couldn't have changed that line? I don't know. We're in a war right now. On that level, it wasn't to me a particularly compelling. like piece of persuasion. No, it's kind of bizarre, actually. I had the same, when I skim the text, I can't. You don't show the Trump's voice.

I can't even watch it privately, you know, so I didn't watch it, but I read it. They have enough money in Trump world to do a fresh 30-second ad, touting whatever they think they can tout, right? It's kind of crazy to have an ad saying, we're expelling the war mongers, and the next voice he's saying, I don't accept this bad proposal from Iran.

I may start the bombing again the day after election day, really? Yeah, so. The other thing, just about the skill of corruption, This would have been hard to fund either. And there are plenty of people they're shaking down. And they could have just put this up through a super pack. They have plenty of money in their super pack. There are plenty of rich people.

They're trying to get in Trump's good favor. It's almost like rubbing it in our face that we can do this with your money. You know, it's pretty sick. I mean, you mentioned that Ted Cruz would be exploding a football. In previous administrations, people would not have done it. I mean, that is to say, there would have been many staffers. Let's just begin with the White House counsel. But, I mean, everyone knew you can't do this.

And people would have, I would have said you can't, if you're insisting on doing this, I'm gone. I mean, you can't. There's an actual law that specifies no use of appropriations. In every year's appropriations bill, no use of government funds for personal political propaganda. But it's so beyond the pale of what anyone has done that there's another thing about the Trump administration, right? Trump didn't personally produce the ad. Trump didn't personally place the buy from the White House. Trump didn't personally add the disclaimer or paid for by the U.S. government.

People are going along and enabling this very, very, very. very few people seem to be deciding this is beyond the pale, right? You mentioned the budget. I do think this is just another thing from the weekend worth mentioning. So if you remember, I was not to say from Trump One, it feels like it's from Trump One, from the first few months of this second administration, which feels like 100 years ago, you know, the big story was Doge, but, you know, that was kind of the clownish version of what Elon was doing, what Russ Vote was doing, were these rescissions that was like a big part

of Project 2025 and like what that they had been planning for. We just got learned at the end of the week, always Friday, like the scale of the recisions they plan. What rescissions are is like it means that, you know, Congress appropriated funds for X in, you know, X, Y, and Z in the budget. And the federal government just decides, eh, we're not going to do X, right? Like, basically, the agencies decide on themselves. We're going to, we're not going to appropriate those funds.

So we learned it was about $810 million in the latest round of, pocket recisions. Our friend Susan Collins, who, you know, I mean, we learned last week from ProPublica, it only takes a couple million bucks to get her to. Let's get you a very big government contract. So she was unhappy about this. Without warning her consultation, the OMB has, you know, cut these, this $810 million. This undermines Congress's constitutional power of the purse, et cetera, et cetera. And obviously she's the head of the Appropriations Committee, voted to confirm Russ vote and now is just left to limply criticize this does kind of undermine her core argument for re-election. But it's pretty crazy if this stuff is happening and given all of the

more public outrage, it slides under the radar a little bit. Now, I really stick, as Sarah said, and you said, really sticking it in our face. I mean, $800 billion is on the one head, a lot of money. On the other hand, it's not much money compared to massive deficit. So they could have gone ahead and spent it. They didn't have to, you know, I mean, maybe they don't, it's not there, they don't like the programs, fine. But so they're really just sticking it in people's face. You know what? We're not following the law.

We're not obeying all these practices that have been in for a law. Decisions were ruled unconstitutional, I think, in a legal 40, 50 years ago, Nixon tried to do it in a broad scale. Way, way, way back when, if the education department, where I was chief of staff, if someone appropriated money for, I don't even know what, so, you know, some certain set of funding programs for schools. It turned out we didn't need that much money that year, because there were fewer people who were eligible, whatever.

right, you know, then you would call, you would get in touch with the Senate Appropriations people and say, you know what, we're going to reprogram this money here or you can have this money back in a sense. So rescission wasn't a crazy thing in the sense that a budget appropriation at the beginning of the year may not be exactly what you end up needing. But it's supposed to be a cooperative thing with Congress to save a little bit of money and instead they're just doing it to programs they don't like to show that they can do it. But I think that's the key. This isn't like a, you know, right? Well, and also to feel powerful. Like it gives a little Russ vote who is a

you know, creep, you know, who was stuffed in a locker in high school, like a chance to, you know, have power. He's like a mall cop, you know, kind of creating problems for our kids who are just hanging out outside the mall, you know, drunk on his own power. Well, hopefully Susan Collins is one of the centers that goes down. There were many, many shocking things that we saw and learned in our trip to Ohio. But it's possible that the craziest thing that I heard was JVL surprising me on stage with the fact that he thinks that the Democrats could get 56. senators at the end of this. I was like, what happened to dark JVL? What happened to Mr. pessimism that, you know, everything's over, the world order is over, the democracy's over.

He thinks the Democrats can get 56 senators. So obviously that would require Susan Collins losing and a much expanded map. I want to just talk a little bit at the big picture about, I mean, are you as high on their own supply as JV Ellis right now? You know, if you're as dark as JVL, when you veered to the sunny, you overdo it, right? Isn't that JVL sort of, that's a sort of psychological phenomenon? It's like he thought Biden was in great shape in early 2024. I love JVL, don't get me wrong.

He's a very super shrewd and smart an analyst of so many things about our politics. But anyway, I've always been, as you know, bullish on the wave and think the wave would be thought the wave would be bigger than people expected, and I think it is proving to be. And you just see every week it moves up a point or two in the generic and Trump's approval. So far it hasn't reversed at all, right? Usually there's a little bit of a bare market rally is the way I used to think of it. You've been through these campaigns where you get, you know, you're doing well, you're gating.

There's a little reversal for a week. Everyone panics. And then it turns out the reversal was kind of a fake reversal. I keep expecting that to happen this time, honestly. It often happens late September. Kind of there's a little bit of a reversion to the mean, which then gets overtaken by the actual wave and undertow. But there's been no reversion to the mean. And so I do think it's a big wave.

And a lot of states are in play. If they all broke in the right way, you could get. to that kind of, get to that kind of number in the Senate, I think. I want to talk about what that would look like in a second, but just a few news items for the weekend about kind of, I think, why we're not seeing that, you know, a little false rally for Republicans. The economic news just does not get any better. I'm particularly on the cost side.

We have this morning the 10-year bond yield. It's the highest. It's been in two decades. It keeps going up and up and up. And I would say this during the Biden administration. Like, it really does make people feel like the, economy is bad when interest rates are this high. In addition to how it slows investment and all the other macro stuff, that's for Catherine Rappell. I'm more about kind of people's vibes. On the

vibes side, it's like you feel stuck. It's like if you want to down size your house because you're retiring, you can't do it. If you want your kids to get a house, they can't do it. If you want to move to another town or get a better job, you're like, God, I'll be making 20 grand more if I get this job in a different place. But I'm going to lose all that in the interest on the mortgage that's going to cost to get help. All of this stuff matters. So you have that ramping up, and this obviously integrates with what's happening with the war. But, you know, we learned over the weekend that there were eight U.S. Marines injured in a previously unreported September 14th Iranian anti-ship cruise missile attack on a vessel in the Strait of Formuz. And so it's like this whole time where they're talking

out, oh, the strait is open. Like, oh, the blockade, you know, is working. We even have Bessent today. It might be two weeks. It's always two weeks. It's always two weeks. until the Iranian economy collapses. And it's like, no, during all this time, we had a ship attacked and U.S. soldiers injured, trying to keep the straight open. And so, like, obviously that has impacts both on people's assessment of what's happening with the war, but, you know, on the economy back up. No, I was really shocked by that story. I mean, I need to look to more detail, but that's recent, right?

That's like 12 days ago. Yeah, two weeks ago. Yeah, I mean, it's one thing. We knew that they hadn't reported stuff. back in the early days of the war, and we had sort of internalized the notion that they weren't candid then. I guess I've stupidly thought that,

okay, maybe they feel now they can't keep covering stuff up, but they continue to lie routinely, right? At the Defense Department, that's not good. All right, everybody, with the humidity in Louisiana, you know, you're always looking for some clothes that are going to help make it as comfy as possible. You want to look sharp, but also be comfy. You don't want to have the armpit stains.

You know, you're looking for something, something wicking, something that's going to feel good and look good. One item I'd recommend for you on that front is the Air NITX fabric from Mac Weldon. You can browse the full Air NITX collection at Mac Weldon.com and you get 20% off your first order of $125 or more with code the bulwark. I'm loving the Air NITX fabric. It's nice to just kind of wear around the neighborhood when I'm walking around. Sometimes what I do to prepare for the podcast is, you know, I'll listen to other podcasts. podcast for prep, not like other Pontics podcasts, but I try to get smart. I like learn about the world, learn about things outside of my area.

So I'll just walk around the neighborhood with my headphones in, listening, jotting down little notes. And, you know, my heavy cotton clothes, it does get sweaty. It gets uncomfy. And the AirNet X fabric, it's looking good and feeling good. And I also have a bunch of other stuff from Mac Weldon that I have been liking as well. Mac Weldon's clothes are designed to fit your style and the demands of modern life. they look like Raygoa clothes but feel like the latest in modern comfort. For 10 years, Mac Weldon has been designing time with innovative menswear

to help you move through the day with confidence, even if you're just kind of hanging out in your underwear. I've got some great MacBeldon underwear, by the way, as an aside. I don't know if you guys want to hear about my underwear choices. Let me know in the comments if you do, if you want to hear kind of where I fall on the boxers and brief thing, and I'll let you know on the next ad read. Don't sweat the heat, feel as effortlessly cool as you look with Mac Weldon. Go to Macwellden.

dot com and get 20% off your first order of 125 bucks are more with promo code the bulwark that's macek w-e-l-d-on-com code the bulwark so because of that i think because of the continued bad news on the economical war front i think this is what is really underpinning you know additional dem gains and hope of dem gains it's an interesting chart um over the weekend that looked at the house races and because of the way jerry bandrae worked this is you know that word dummymander that was being thrown around part of the reason why this was thrown around is that, you know, like, you can only do so much with gerrymandering. Like, the people have to go somewhere. And so what a lot of the smarts, so-called smarts on the Republican side, whatever few they have left, you know, that the people who are able to count and look at maps, like what they did was they would try to take districts that were, let's say, you know, that Trump won by 20 or 25, for example.

And then you would look at a district that may be Trump won by three. And so that's a total of 28. Well, now we'll make it, you know, Trump 15 and 13, right? Like, this is, I'm just doing this off the top of my head. And so because of that, you have this huge swath of races that is like somewhere between like Trump plus nine and Trump plus 16, right? And right now the Democrat generic ballot is like Democrats plus eight, you know? And so like they're right on the cusp of this thing where if they can kind of get through

this gerrymandering valley. and win these races that are Trump 9, 10, 11, like a lot could fall. And this is where you go from kind of a nice night from the Democrats to like, oh my God, like wave night. And we really are on the cusp of that right now. And so we thought it would be fun. You thought it would be fun. This was your idea to kind of look at a couple of races, either in the House or the Senate,

but I'm focusing on the House where each week for the next few weeks, you know, they could use a little extra attention where we predict good things could happen for the Democrats. But maybe, you know, listeners could help give a little nudge. So what are your thoughts on just that general overall kind of map analysis and then go ahead and give us which race you're looking at? I very much agree on the map analysis. We all look at the generic and it's plus eight. It doesn't really occur to us necessarily that, of course, in 2024, the generic was plus two Republican, right? And the Republicans won all the House races by net netted out at about two points.

Nationally, Trump won by a point and a half. So plus eight is really a 10 point shift from the last election they had. So if it's in the same district, you should probably be deducting 10 points, not eight from the margin, that the candidate had. And then the redistricting thing is a little more complicated. It's hard you have to construct what the district would have been back then. But you're right. And also trends are different in different states. You know, like it is.

You know, like we're seeing just so far, we'll see how it turns out. And the polls, for some reason, you know, in the Northeast in particular and some of kind of like these upper Midwest states, the numbers don't look quite as stark as they do. in a lot of the sunbelt states and, you know, Mountain West. The wave is stronger in red states. I think that makes, the blue wave. And I think that makes sense. We think about it for two seconds. You know, in a way, a Republican, I mean, Democrats are already maxed out in a lot of

these other states, right? You know, and so I think it's good if that's the case, of course. The Democrats want the wave to happen in the states that are competitive. They don't need a wave to increase their margin in Massachusetts, right? Well, but this is, I think also just speaks to that average. Like, this is, if we're talking about R plus 10, it's the median. But to get to R. Plus 10, like, let's say if in New York, if in some big states, like New York and California and then, you know, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, you know, Vermont, Maine, Republicans are only plus six. That means, or, excuse me, Democrats are only plus six.

You and I have that old, you and I still have occasionally, I do this too. I slip into the, assuming that it's the Republican or the plus side. Yeah, sorry. Dems are only plus six. Then that means in other states, they're plus 12, 13, right? You know what I mean? Right. Right. Totally.

Yeah. That's really. Okay. Why don't you give it your state? You want to go first? Why don't you go first? You go first. So I have a Senate race actually and this is totally crazy. It's a great place to start. Totally crazy. Yeah, I'm going out of a limb. You know, it's easy to say, okay, Iowa, Alaska, Texas. You can even go to the Kansases of the world. You can go one step further. The Mississippi is James Carville's big on Mississippi. A couple of other states like that. Nebraska, the strong independent candidate. I'm going all the way to Idaho. Trump plus 36 in 2024. for Jim Rish, the incumbent one by 30 in 2020. Okay. Are you eligible? Okay. Jim Rish is running for re-election.

He's done no events to speak of as a candidate. He almost never shows up in Idaho, it seems. He's chairman of foreign relations, so he has duties allegedly and that does a fair about international travel. Jim Rish is 83 years old. He's a career politician. He's 83 years. He's Mitch McConnell's age. And he's asking the voters of Idaho to send him back for another six years.

Kind of astounding. I've seen some polling. now it's admittedly polling from a democratic firm, but has him underwater in terms of favorability at Idaho personally. He just hasn't been in touch there, kind of an absentee old guy, senator, you know, and Trump is underwater in Idaho. That was really astounding, if that's true, but anyway, in this one poll he was. And it seems like a reputable poll. It may be a little bit tilted in a democratic direction. His opponent is Tata Killies, who is an independent. So this is one of the states, Nebraska, South Dakota, and Idaho are the three, where the Democratic Party

got it together. Montana. They didn't quite pull it off. There, the independent candidate could end up de facto being the Democrat, so the Democrat might collapse. And those other three, the Democratic candidate, having one nomination literally pulled out so he or she's, there's no Democrat on the ballot, which means it's really just a Republican, against an incumbent.

There are a couple of small, you know, third, fourth party, libertarian types and so forth. And Todd of Killies is running, and I looked at his website, he's running as an independent veteran for the United States Senate. He's a veteran. Very impressive guy. young, mid-40s, genuine independence says he won't caucus with either party. So he's got as far as you can go to give Idahoans a chance to vote for an independent,

you know, who don't want to vote for a Democrat, which they don't seem to have wanted to do for a few decades, to vote for an independent, running as a moderate, voice for change. And there's polling that shows the race basically even. I mean, it's hard to believe. And again, maybe, you know, at the end of the day, the Republicans come home, et cetera, et cetera. It's also an attractive Democratic candidate for governor there, which might make that race. a little bit competitive, a Mormon woman who's pro-choice, and there's an abortion rights referendum on the ballot. And Idaho is one of those states up in that area, which are more libertarian than you would think on some of these social issues.

Yeah, and Boisey's growing. Huge growth in Boisey, like a ton of people from California and stuff of mood there. So the person I talked to at Idaho said, he thought that would help that they, he thinks this abortion rights referendum could pass. Idaho voted 61% to increase Medicaid eligibility to, you know, when that was always. was being voted. Remember, that was a big issue in the late, in the Trump first term. When the Republican legislature had said, no, we don't want any part of that Medicaid expansion. And the Idaho voters said, yeah, you know what, we'd like to have that federal money. You know, that was a member of a big ideological fight. So I don't know, put all that together. Maybe Idaho would be in play. Wouldn't that be something?

Are you sure Jim Riech is alive? I don't know. Do we have a proof of life? Well, you know, someone's seen it? I have not personally looked into this. But we can do this before next Monday. I'll double check on this. this segment that we have now i know why you suggested this bill this were you ever on the mclaughlin group i was not but my colleague fred barnes was a regular for many years right i thought maybe you're

a guest one time or something maybe once or something to substitute this kind of feels like the last segment of the mclaughlin group you know jac i was like all right fred barns freddie barns what do you think that is harsh that is harsh tim but okay then he's like i think the republicans can take vermont jim like there is a little bit of that to that pitch which i like that's a compliment Not a criticism. Every once in a while, just for a good laugh, I look at the, there's this clip from the golfing group

where people are predicting who, I think it was who the VP would be in 92. And it's like a little later in the first, so Chris Matthews is in for somebody, and he's like, Harris Wofford, you know, and it's like you're going through all the names and Gore doesn't even get names.

Like they all mentioned, like random people. This is kind of fun to hear all the random names. Okay. I am turning us to my home state of Colorado, which I think is separate from, The concept we were talking about earlier of some blue states being maxed out. I don't think Colorado and Virginia are quite maxed out yet.

And I think Virginia is another place that we could go to. And I should say sometime this week, I'm going to have my kind of final batch of like house stretch races that I'm going to put out in a newsletter. So I'll make sure to flag that for people that comes out. You can see race, if there are any races in your state, you want to support. But Colorado being that I'm from there, we'll start there. I'm intrigued by the 5th District in Colorado Springs. And you have Jessica Killen, who's running. She is kind of in the Mikey Cheryl vein, veteran.

She's from Colorado Springs. Huge military, obviously, Air Force Academy is there. Colorado Springs has never really been on the swing map because, A, so many military folks there, and then also folks on the family is there, and there's a lot of kind of big evangelical community there. But as Denver has, you know, surge and gotten so big, there's been like a pretty decent amount of like trickle-down growth down to Colorado Springs. And a ton of new people there that are, you know, in some ways it's sort of like a mini Salt Lake City. You know, like Salt Lake City is very blue. This is just Mormons, but versus evangelicals.

Colorado Springs has gotten pretty blue. The district kind of goes out into the rural around there, which is a little more red. But she's running as Jeff Crank has been in there since I. I was working in racist in Colorado, which is starting to be a while now. I mean, I think 20 years. So, Crank isn't as old as Jim Rish, but he's old. And he's like in the out-of-date, out-of-mold, like original Tea Party mold. Like, the MAGA people never really loved him.

He was never really authentic MAGA. You know, he was one of those guys that, I don't know, it was in his heart, but acted like he really believed the tea party was about spending and, like, cutting spending. And never, like, really made the adjustment to being like, no, actually the Trump MAGA. actually doesn't care. We like to give money to people. We like to give away free money to people. And we're mostly about hating immigrants. He tried to make the pivot, but not that deftly. So he's kind of like not very appealing to moderates, not a huge good person to excite. Trump's not going to do anything for turnout. Top of the ticket in Colorado is this insane guy, Victor Marks, we talked about on the trio.

People should go watch him. And he like bragged about killing a person. He's like a totally mad. He's a madman who's the governor candidate in Colorado. He's going to get his ass kicked. where is the turnout coming from in Colorado? And, I mean, the craziest prediction I've seen, and Governor Polis mentioned this to me when I spoke to him a couple months ago, and I've had now some analysts I've seen do this as Colorado could go 8-0. And I think that would be really crazy. I think Bobert's district's pretty red. I don't really think Boehbert's going to lose.

But I've seen some of those out there. So rather than making the bold 8-0 prediction, I'm just going to say Colorado 5, Jessica Killen, over Jeff Crank. And I think that that would be kind of a pretty good summation of what happened to the wave that the Colorado Springs District where focus on the family is, you know, finally makes the flip. So good. All right. A couple other things. I want to fly through some AI stuff and what we saw in Ohio.

Really quick, though, before we do that, the AI stuff. Do you have any final thoughts on the China summit? No, I mean, even his defenders aren't claiming anything much was accomplished. And they're sort of ignoring all the unbelievable sucking up and coutowing that Trump did, right? I mean, it really is kind of, why are we even saying, can you imagine if Obama did this? But can you imagine if Obama did this, right? You know, was someone who made a good for a Twitter? You notice how Trump, he sort of touches Xi a lot, like he's putting his hand on his back.

And partly it's like the host, I guess, showing him around. But Xi doesn't need to be, I mean, she knows where he's going. And he's walking next to him. There's 5,000 staff who marked out every step, obviously. And it's, and as someone commented some psychologist type that this is a classic thing you do if you're deferential to your, it's the person with you. You're the, you know, helping, you know, almost like a helping the older, more senior. Yeah, cordier. Right.

Sir, let me show you. And, but sort of nervous that he's not, the G isn't liking it a lot. So there's a lot of the sort of back touching. I thought that was a clever, that was a clever observation. That is clever. I mean, the other thing that you see when people are doing a lot of touching is flirting. So it could be cordier. Or it could be a little bit of flirting.

You do sometimes, you know, you'll notice that in a friend setting in my 20s. You know, you're at a party. Totally. So-and-so is really touching so-and-so a little bit more than I would have expected. It seems like this. Anyway, so there's maybe some of that in the China Summit. No, it was, I mean, just thoroughly, like, unbelievably humiliating. And I mean, this takes it to the AI thing.

It's their AI arguments are nonsensical also. You know, we talked about this a little bit, but it's just, you know, we, Trump is like, full speed I had on S-I-A-I, because we have to win the race, but also we should help China win the race by selling them as many chips as possible. It does make any sense. And to the extent of how little sense it made, Jake Tapper was talking to Mike Waltz, who got, what a glutton for punishment this guy is. He gets fired by Laura Lumer as NSA and then kind of demoted to another position in the government. And now here he is on CNN still doing whatever this is. Let's watch. Is anything else agreed to regarding artificial intelligence?

Well, it's not just, we're going with super intelligence now, Jake, but not just a hotline, you know, this kind of Cold War hotline in case of catastrophe, Secretary Bessent also announced and as a result of the summit, an SI dialogue. An SI dialogue. I'm old enough to remember when we used to make fun of liberals who were always, you know, but they had nothing to announce after a meeting with. some foreign, you know, costal power is sort of, well, we're having a dialogue with them, you know.

I thought you're going to say we make fun of liberals for, like, making up new PC words. Well, that's true. You know, like, this is the other thing that we're doing. It's just like, we have a word already. Do you think superintelligence is a better word for them, incidentally, for the, for the extreme, you know, let it all go, guys. It feels like the scary, artificial intelligence, artificial is a neutral word, right? We have artificial sweetener, artificial turf on football fields or whatever.

I don't think it turns people off particularly. super intelligence is a little scary, isn't it? I mean, don't we associate that with kind of like out of control? I don't know, you know. I do. It's funny that Trump thinks that's a better word. I just feel like that's a weird. And this is part of the way that these, they've just been so co-opted by tech world.

And part of this is just like the tech language where like, I do think that they're out of touch with how like people are processing all of this. I mean, I don't think that most regular people are necessarily doomers on AI or like, you know, super fans, but, you know, people are, like, learning about it and kind of, like, open and seeing how it's going. And, and the pro, like, AI boosters,

boomers are boosters. The boosters, like, they talk in these weird ways. There's this Facebook pitch from their head of AI over the weekend. And it's so creepy. I think it's, like, a very long post, and there's a, it's combined with an image of,

like an anime, utopia kind of image, you know, with the picture. And the guy is pushing the new kind of Facebook AI product, which is going to be this like, I guess, like a robot that is with you and knows everything that you want. And so, like you write says, most people never say what they want. It's not because we don't want. We want fiercely and constantly. We can't name our dreams. We mostly can't reach them. and every unrealized want is a quiet tragedy of human potential. The new meta product will fix that.

Because here's to wanting. Here's to everyone. I'm just like, I know, I know. I was just like, has these people never watched a dystopia movie? Like,

or isn't this the plot of every dystopia movie? Which is like the technology offers you everything that you could possibly want in the world and you'll never have any needs or desires. anymore and then the people the characters in the movie learn that that's actually not a good way the healthy way to live isn't this also like a fundamental message of most of the world's religions and it's like they haven't reflected on any of the on their current products like if you're met like facebook's initial promise was it was going to connect the world and bring everybody together and now it's like an algorithmic slot feed it's just like i just feel like they're all in this place where where people are excited about it's

all this stuff and they're not yeah every unrealized dream is a tragedy is that what you're right that's kind of crazy yeah many dreams are unrealized that's not a tragedy is a tragedy right when something terrible happens to you not not you I dreamed of being a center fielder for the mass but it's not a tragedy that's that's living actually it's the opposite of tragedy living is like having dreams and wants and desires and and you know failing and trying harder and and maybe failing again and then trying and then succeeding or or you know it makes the dreams that are realized feel sweeter because you have all the other you know what I mean like yeah it's like what all the world's literature is about like if you watched a movie like their pitch is so inhuman right we also had anthropic warnings

over the weekend some more staffers are talking about their net things are never going to be chill again I'm concerned that I'm moving too far into dumber territory but I feel like you're in my bone on this like what's your no I am. partly by some Trump's being so unbelievably irresponsible. If we had a normal government that had set up a very high quality commission and was doing some pausing some stuff and working with the companies to pause the most dangerous stuff and to check a few things for now, holding open what we do six months from now, it's the normal thing that a government would do, a little clunk of lee, whatever,

a little bit too many bipartisan commissions. But nonetheless, I would be kind of, okay, you know what, let's slow it down and take a look. And I'm not, ultimately, there are obviously a lot of great things I can do. But yeah, well, if you have this degree of irresponsibility. Excuse me. Oh, good point. I'm sorry. I apologize.

Terrible here. But, yeah, if you have this irresponsible administration, you need to err more on the other side because this is sort of like saying, you know, nuclear weapons aren't a problem in the early 50s. And we're just ahead of everyone. So we're just going to, we're going to gun it. And everyone else can try to gun it, but we're going to beat them. Nuclear, you know, the idea that there's any problem with it getting all over the place and getting out of control and losing coordination of certain aspects of what we want.

to stop things from going. Anyway, and the hostility, the international side is also just so self-phorotically, you know, it's America first, so we're not going to coordinate with anyone. Really? Is that sensible for something like this? Like maybe on, like, didn't we learn something for the pandemic that it's kind of good to have be able to stop some of these things from spreading, you know, beyond our control? I don't know. Yeah.

Well, here's one good part. Trump and the people around him are using SI to kind of speed run, like the Murray-Antoinette, life story. Dan Skavino, his golf caddy turned deputy chief of staff, posted a meme over the weekend where he is riding on a luggage cart, what appears to be at Mar-a-Lago. I think Eric, two blondes are with them that don't really look like Eric's wife. Maybe one of them's supposed to be, the AI did a much more accurate rendition of Dan and Eric. The song is playing is Don't Stop the Party. they're in tuxedos and formal wear, and then they see Trump, and they're kind of spraying champagne everywhere.

I don't know. It feels like that kind of thing would have been frowned upon when you were working at the Department of Education. Yeah, or the White House. I think that's correct. And plus, is that really wise politically five weeks before an election when people are extremely upset about affordability and stuff? It's like, we're living it up here.

Don't stop the party. Yeah. It has a real Marie Antoinette. feel to it, right? It does. All right. Well, hopefully they place themselves in their own pitard with the AI stuff. All right.

Let's talk about Springfield. The good news first. The world community is unbelievable and it's just so grateful. And I mean, it was crazy. Like 1,100 people came to Dayton. Not the easiest place in the world to get to for a Friday night event. It was really wonderful to see everybody. We've raised, the number just keeps going up.

But we've raised over $300,000 now. for the Haitian community, help and support center, which is awesome. And that's very meaningful. And I don't know, what were kind of your reactions on that positive side? No, it's great to support. And the volunteers we met, we were together there in Springfield Friday afternoon before we did the event Friday night and Dayton. I met this guy my age.

We met once before years and years ago, apparently, who drives in from, you know, a little distance in Ohio. I didn't get clear exactly how many days a week, but he does it several days a week to bring food, you know, boxes of canned goods and packaged foods and stuff to Haitian families who can't go out. I mean, they don't want to get obviously harassed or, well, not just harassed, but arrested by eyes. They can't work anymore because they had TPS and they were working and they were checking in every month and all that's gone. I mean, the degree of the irrational cruelty and sort of just pointless injustice of the whole thing, I guess was brought home to me by the two, three hours we spent in Springfield itself.

So it was inspiring the reaction and the strength of the community itself. The people we had, didn't not that that many people we got to meet there. People were not really out much, honestly. But in the restaurant we went to and stuff, it was inspiring to see the people, the Haitians, and many people in the community. But depressing how much damage the Trump administration has been able to do this pointless cruelty. Yeah, a couple of the community leaders in the Haitian community. who came and talked to the event, Sam interviewed them.

It was just, it is inspiring what they're doing, but also just so painful to hear their stories and talk about what kids went through at schools and all this. And the thing that happened to me that was really, really made be sad, going to Springfield is, so we're doing this, as I mentioned, the funders for this Haitian community help and support center, which is this grassroots up from the bootstraps.

You know, it's like in the back of a church, you know, people just trying to pitch in, and Halpun Jim's been writing with us in the newsletter. I'd have to go back and read his old newsletters if they haven't. So it was closed on Friday when we were there because there was a talk that the advice was about. And so I just wanted to go by anyway, just to kind of shout them out, like do a little selfie video or something. Like, you're like, hey, here's the volunteers working. And we pull up and, you know, so I was in a black SUV because there were a bunch of us driving around.

and there were like four Asians like sitting on the stoop of the thing and like I dropped popped out I don't look like ice you know I'm dressed like I'm stir doofus or whatever and I'm like saying that I'm like no worries I just I just want to come say hi and like they were scared like you can just tell they were scared and um just like the seeing of the black car and you know like white guy jump out and um I just felt horrible about like you know I didn't intend to do that and and it just was and then talking to some of the other volunteers like you said about how people are scared to go out and it it just it feels like east germany like it feels like east germany for these people and it's not necessary like it's just totally like why are we

doing this like in arc in america why do people feel like they are behind the iron curtain you know um or some other kind of fascist regime where they have to fear for the themselves to go around. I just, I feel like I'm a broken record on this, but it's like, even if you wanted to NTPS, which I would not be for, like, there's a way to do that that does not, like, you know, try to inflict terror on an entire community that did nothing, except try to do what so many other people have done throughout the country's history, which is like, come here for an opportunity for better life, go to work, raise their family. Like, that's all that they were doing. None of them have broken any laws. This is not about,

immigration law breaking. It is just solely because of a campaign tactic, like one community, the administration decided to target and menace, I don't know. And again, like the woman who came to our event and she's talking about her kids,

getting meowed at in school. I think the whole thing is just like truly, truly appalling. And that was part of it that was really sad. Yeah, people not going to the hospital when they should for checkups. Yes. We talked to one of the chaplains at the hospital who came to the event was

awesome to meet him. He sent me some emails about specific examples that we might talk about, but like, yeah, is it right? It's like pregnant mothers don't want to come in for maternal care. I mean, like, why? For nothing, like for nothing, just to just to support J.D. Vance of Smears. Well, to support the spires, obviously, that's very important. And that was terrible. When he and Trump said that, I thought, okay, they can't win the presidency. I mean, that's so out, you know, beyond the pill. I was wrong. But, of course, that's part of what they really want, which is they,

Kathy Young had that good piece on the, what's it called? The remigration is the term they want. That's the term that the fascists use in Europe. We want to get rid of the people who've come. It's not just we want to crack down on the border or get a little stricter on TPS policies or anything like that. We want to get rid of all these people, dark-skinned people, basically. who have come, and whether, including ones who've been active, who become citizens,

and certainly that's the next step. And this is their remigration policy. And they are happy to terrify people because that might cause more people to self-deport or try to go to Canada. Some Haitians are trying to get into Canada or elsewhere. I mean, Haiti itself is horribly dangerous, of course. So, no, it's terribly, in that respect, it really brings home the horror of this policy, I think. Well, it's devastating.

I guess we should also shout out Don Leonard, who came to the event. He's running for Congress from the district. I liked the cut of this guy's jib. I mean, he was not, he does not at all sound like a regular politician. He kind of jumped into the fray in this district that is in kind of that group that I was talking about earlier. You know, that was like, would in an other year be very, or quite a red safe district? But this year is maybe in play. And I thought it was cool of him to come out.

Nothing against the other Democrats running statewide, but we did invite everybody to come. And I think that there are a bunch of Democrats that are, maybe they just feel like Iran and the economy and corruption or more fruitful thing, Medicare, healthcare, more fruitful things to talk about than this or more politically advantageous things to talk about. And so I thought it was cool that he came. If people are looking for just a regular guy, it's an outsider. He definitely fits that bill. So I thought it was nice to come. The other thing that happened related to all the stuff, which we've been talking about over the weekend I just wanted to share, because it has me mad this morning, is I got another email from Merriam Thomas Sebi who's the Iranian family. And just let me know that her son, you know, when she was the first emailing, one of the things she talked about it was like, one of her hopes was that her son would be able to celebrate his birthday outside of the fucking camp that we put them in.

Unfortunately, that was not a realized hope. his birthday was over the weekend. And they've been actually losing access to email and phone and other stuff. She has a few last time than she had before. And I just like this story, I don't, it continues to baffle me. I understand that there's so many outrages out there in the world. But I know we have Democratic politicians to listen to this show. She wrote about this thing in the nation.

I wrote about it. I've talked about it on TV. Nobody else talks about it. Are people afraid that they're going to be called pro-Iran terrorists or something? Because, you know, if they come out to defend the grandchild of someone that was part of the Iranian hostage crisis, like we've held the grandson for six months in a camp. Like, this is Saudi Arabia shit. Like, this is like what MBS does.

Like, I'm going to hold the kids of my political foes. Like, we're going to hold the grandkids of the Iranians in a fucking camp in Texas and America. Like, why? Like there's no, there is no threat at all. And that this kid had to like get arrested in front of his friends at school drop off and now sent to a camp for six months. It's sickening. I do hope that people with platforms and people with power and access to power will speak out about this case in particular. So anyway, that was one of the rant I wanted to do on the immigration front.

Do you have anything else, Bill, you want to leave people with before I transition to Patrick Gassard? You had a nice meditation on the Archbishop of the Cardinal this weekend. Cardinal here in D.C., yeah, he gave a great speech yesterday at St. Matthews Church right near our old office at the weekend of Santa, where J.V.L. and Shannon and Lass were married 25 years ago, maybe. Yeah, I remember that one. And really a wonderful speech about, I guess it was the migrants recognition day or something like that for the Catholic Church. They have an annual day. Recognition is at the right word or whatever they call it. And he gave a really wonderful speech. you can read about it in the newsletter, but you can read about it.

I mean, I got it from someone else. Obviously, I wasn't. I'm not following every Catholic Archbishop's speech, but. Sermon. We're calling them sermon. Sermin. Homily. I apologize.

Yes, I'm not up on my lingo here for this. And it would really a terrific, just, I mean, making the basic point that this is not right. And this is not Christian and it's not American. It's not Deuteronomy and it's not the Statue of Liberty. But we can't turn away. I mean, it's not just condemning the people who are doing this. it's not condemning, but suggesting that we as a country are not, we're not being good Samaritans. We're not maybe crossing the street to avoid it, but we're not exactly engaging this injustice as much as we should.

So the point you just made, really, he's echoing. Yeah, no. And this was when JD did his Oro-O-O-O-Moros nonsense with the Pope pushback about, which is like the, and the literal story of the Good Samaritan is the opposite of this, that the Samaritan helped the person. that was not of his family or his friend, or his tribe. After the people in his priest of his tribe, crosses the street. It doesn't help him.

Yeah, ignored. Yeah. Right. So give that a read in morning shots. I appreciate. I very much, I'm sorry to end up negative note because our listeners, our community really did show up.

Fantastic. And I can an overwhelming way. And it's funny. I was with some friends this weekend. I was at a little time between, you know, the fundraiser and some other stuff we're doing in DC this week. And, you know, who, like, know what we're up to and know what we're doing, but aren't, you know, politics is in the top of their list.

And I, like, told them when we did this week. And then they're like, how big is your audience? Did you just one guy write that check? And I was like, no, like, they're barely any big check. So it was like, we just, we have an awesome community that really did step up. And hopefully it can temper, you know, some of the fascist bullshit that these guys are having to suffer in Springfield. So anyway, stick around for a little bit more on that. Patrick Gaspard. Bill, appreciate you. Good to see you this weekend. And we'll catch you next week.

Great, too. All right. I invited Patrick here for, we invited Patrick here for two reasons. One, he is a Haitian family. And so we're going to talk about that for a bit. The other one, I thought this, we could role model something here. Because it was about a month ago that one of these right-wing losers wrote a hip piece about me. And he was like, Tim has betrayed his principles. And I was like, ooh, I'm interested to see what principle I betrayed. I gave that a little click and started reading the article. And basically the principle was that Patrick on my podcast a couple months ago on our podcast. Maybe you heard it.

And he was pissed about that because he was like, Tim and Patrick used to fight. Patrick is a lefty activist. You run the DNC. And I was at the RNC. Exactly. And they were just, you know, and they said mean things about each other. And they're just on this podcast chumming it up. And it's so fake and all this.

And I was just like, no, this is what, this is growth. This is not a betrayal of principles. This is what you call growth. That's what you call being a grown-up. So anyway, what, like, talk, let's talk about that. It doesn't have to be a little weird for you. You know, you flew in for New York, a bunch of former Republicans. Like, how do you think about that?

Like, you know, being a partisan, Democrat and trying to, and figuring out when's the right time to partner with people. I'm always excited to be in the country of Amy Acton and Sherrod Brown, right? care about that. There you go. You know? So it wasn't because of me at all you came here. I love you, Tim. But, you know, my first presidential campaign was 1988 with Jesse Jackson. And every four years since I had the habit of coming here to Ohio,

this is where America happens. And it's where, you know, I just spent the last week at the UN General Assembly. And it's really important that we don't just have diplomats and heads of state having conversations across differences and borders and divides. It's really important for us to do it at the grassroots. So Tim and I having the opportunity to model that kind of behavior on the podcast and here tonight is essential to me. You know, Tim, my greatest hero in life is Muhammad Ali.

And Ali said that the man who views the world at 50 in the same way that he did at 20 years old has wasted 30 years of his life. Amen to that. You're not the only one who's changed in the course of the existential thread that we are facing at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue now. I've changed as well. There are things that I may have said or done to you're listening to my show and you're like, Tim, that's a couple more points than I thought. It's my favorite show. You want to cut some more red tape? My favorite show. Bullwork is my favorite show. How about that? Hey, come on. You know,

look, there are ways that we've leaned in towards one another. I am an unapologetic progressive. That's abundantly clear. But I think this is a moment where we have to extend grace to one another and make it clear that there's more that unites us than divides us in this country at year 250. Well, let's just do it on politics. We'll talk about the Haitian stuff at the end. You mentioned the UN to further credential you on your lefty, progressive, socialist street cred. You also advise a guy named Zoraamamani a little bit, mayor of New York. Just a bit. Man, I thought it was pretty strange for BB Netanyahu to come and be in America.

in New York talking about how Zoron's anti-Semitic and should be in jail and all this stuff. That's not modeling, talking across differences, I guess. I don't think so. And I'm just, I'm wondering just kind of your general thoughts on that and what you've seen from the mayor. Because for me, and frankly, I was expecting a little worse, to be honest. I mean, you promised me it would be better, so I should have listened to you. But, I mean, I think he's been really good at dealing with the challenges about threats, about anti-Semitism, et cetera. but like what are your thoughts on BB and kind of what's the perspective from inside or

and Zoran. I'll start with my friend, the mayor, first. I'm proud to be his volunteer chair of his commission on government efficiency. We're trying to demonstrate that progressives can own. You're the coach. You're the noge. Very good. We're trying to demonstrate that progressives can govern efficiently as well and deliver

for people in their real needs. I think the mayor has been exceedingly thoughtful on this question of anti-semitism in New York. He's made it abundantly clear that he has, intends to extend protections to all New Yorkers of faith, of cross communities, because that's the first job of any mayor. Look, I'm not surprised that Netanyahu took their cheap shot in the rostrum at the United Nations. What are you going to do when your corruption, your personal corruption has been exposed, you're losing a campaign at home, the entire world has turned you personally into pariah, and it's not abundantly clear that your friend Donald Trump is

going to stay the course on this utterly reprehensible war that you have dragged him into. So you're going to make any kind of distraction that you can. So I wasn't surprised that he went after Netanyahu. You'll recognize, of course, that the mayor ignored him and focused on meetings with civil society, mayor's governors, and with Donald Trump. What did you think about that? What did you think about that? Look, you know, we're here.

It was a little chummy for me. Just a hair. No, actually, Tim, Tim, actually he wasn't. The mayor and the president of the United States, because he is the president. This is not like meeting with, I don't know, Jared Kushner. But this was a meeting with... I didn't like that one either. This was a transparent meeting with the President of the United States

where Zahamandhi talked about affordable housing and building it in New York and spent a good deal of time talking about Haitian TPS and what the impact of what it looks like to deport TPS holders who are leading the way in providing care in home health agencies and nursing homes and hospitals and who are essential in construction. in New York and Miami. The president heard him out on that. That's hugely important. All right, I guess.

That's fine. We're modeling, talking across differences. And this is a president who wants to be part of the Cool Kids Club. That's true. He does have a little crush. He does have a little crush. There's no doubt about that. All right, let's talk about the Haitian community and your background and why you're here.

Well, there isn't any other place in America that I would be tonight. It was important to be in solidarity, not just with the Haitian community, but for those of you in Dayton and Springfield who are assuring real solidarity with that community. Irrespective of how you feel about the issue of TPS and migration. There are folks who are working across differences to provide real relief right now to folks who have given their best to community and who need that support. My family came to the United States during the first wave of meaningful migration from Haiti, was in the late 1960s, early 1960s, early 19th. There was a dictator you may have heard of named Papadoc Juvallier who really threatened the professional

classes, the intellectuals in Haiti because they dared to ask for free and fair elections. My father was a lawyer and then a professor and he had to leave at gunpoint to go to another country. We ended up eventually in New York and the U.S. And I have always worked as a proud Haitian American citizen who's in my diaspora and doing everything that I can to close the bounds between our communities. So you know Papa Doc from 8 Mile? Is that what? From the movie 8 Mile.

That's why we know Papa Doc? No, from the history books. Stop, man. All right. I want to introduce one of the guests. I can't believe you went 8 Mile. He's coming on virtual. Sorry.

But having been at the DNC, just want to give a real quick, you know, a little hopium or a little annette. What do you think the state of play is in these two Ohio races on the map? I think we're in great shape. It's more likely than not that we're going to win the House of Representatives. And if someone had told you six months ago, eight months ago, that Democrats had a better than even shot of taking the U.S. Senate as well,

you would have taken that bet, right? So we're an extraordinary position. And here in the governor's race and in the Senate race, I think we're going to get over the top. You know, there's a part of my cursing, but there's a shit ton of money, especially crypto money that's about to be dropped on our candidates, especially on Sherrod Brown.

And I know that you're organizing, your door knocking, your boots on the ground is going to make the difference that gets them over the top. Vivek's helping us out a little bit just by existing and being Vivek. All right. We invited another guest, another local

who's unable to come, but Patrick knows him was a little bit of help. And so he did send in a video for everybody. And you flew out here, so I'll let you do the honors. Would you like to introduce the guest? I'm happy to. This guest is known globally.

He's an activist. He's a performer. And he grew up in Springfield, Ohio. I became a friend of his during the Obama administration. And I was proud that when we reached out and asked him to participate in this, John Legend said yes right away. So here's a message from our friend John and your homeboy from Springfield. The Bullwark Daily is brought to you thanks for the work of lead producer Katie Cooper,

associate producer Ansley Skipper and with video editing by Dante DeChico and audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.