The Bulwark Podcast - Bill Kristol: This Is Accelerationist Authoritarianism

Episode Date: January 12, 2026

Grandpa Trump looked like he was losing the pep in his step at the end of the year. But with him threatening the independence of the Fed, justifying the killing of an American in cold blood for teasing a federal agent, and toying with the idea of taking an ownership stake in oil companies, he's now dramatically ratcheting up his authoritarian tendencies. At the same time, he's losing sight of America First through his Venezuela distraction—and opening the door to challenges from MAGA true believers like Steve Bannon. Plus, Dems are playing a good hand in Alaska with Mary Peltola, Bill is a resist lib, and the heartwarming desire for freedom from the Iranian people.Bill Kristol joins Tim Miller.show notes Monday's "Morning Shots," including Mark Hertling's contribution Mary Peltola's Senate campaign launch

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Hello and welcome to the Bullwark podcast. I'm your host Tim Miller. It is Monday, January the 12th. And so we have our editor at large, Bill Crystal. Bill, something has been in the water the last nine days. I don't, you know, it kind of felt like the beginning of the administration was like this, you know, where Trump was doing all kinds of crazy shit, you know, in quick succession. And it's not as if it was not crazy, you know, towards the end of the year.

But it did feel like he was losing a little steam, you know, maybe grandpa was, was losing, you know, the verve for some of this. But, man, between what we've seen in Minnesota and Venezuela and then the big news from last night, which is that the administration is investigating Jerome Powell now, the Department of Justice has been in Jerome Powell. It's, we've ratched things up. Yeah, I was thinking about that. I guess the last two, three months of the year, Trump seemed a little bit on the defensive,

and he was some with Epstein and other things. They didn't do well in the government shutdown. The Democrats did pretty well, very well in the November elections. And then the stuff he was doing was bad, the Kennedy Center kind of thing and all that, the East Wing. But it was more performative, you might say, than serious. I do feel like the last 10 days we've seen real accelerationist authoritarianism in foreign policy, obviously, with ICE, and now with Powell.

And I'll just add to that list, the Epstein file. I mean, they were pretending at the end. of last year they were going to release them they were they were they were redacting a lot of stuff it was a little very slow but yeah now they've just I don't know I guess they've just decided they don't even have to pretend to be a being a law that Trump himself signed a couple of months ago accelerating is a key word I got to Texas from my friend saying the accelerationists are winning within the MAGA side of things and like and that is yeah I think that's correct and ominous well let's start

with Powell and then we'll kind of go through all these things individually So what we learned last night is that federal prosecutors are investigating Federal Reserve Chair over the central banks, multi-billion dollar project to renovate its headquarters. You might remember that they had that press conference a couple months ago where Trump went there and then Powell was in the hard hat and Trump was giving him shit over this. And so this has been kind of in the ether for a while now. Among those behind the case to investigate Powell are Janine Piero, Judge Box of Wine, the U.S. Attorney, and then Bill Pulte, this house. official that has been going after other enemies of the president over their, you know, supposed mortgage issues, including Tish James and others.

I think obviously this is horrendous and sort of keystone authoritarianism. But I think the most striking home of the story was how quickly Jerome Powell responded. I just want to play a clip from a two-minute video he put out last night that gets to the heart of the matter. Let's listen to that. The threat of criminal charges is a consequence. of the Federal Reserve setting interest rates based on our best assessment of what will serve the public, rather than following the preferences of the president.

This is about whether the Fed will be able to continue to set interest rates based on evidence and economic conditions, or whether instead monetary policy will be directed by political pressure or intimidation. So you can see there that he didn't mince words. I mean, John Paul is saying that this threat of prosecution is directly related to the Fed not responding to Trump's pressure campaign for them to push down interest rates. I think that's the important part here because obviously it's bad if he's going after enemies, but if it's specifically tied to undermining the independence of the Fed, there are,

a ton of other potential consequences of that. And you saw, you know, last night, I was saying on social media, even some Trump supporters who are kind of in finance were sort of shaken by that element of it. Yeah, that's the good news. I think that the business community, which has been so pathetic, honestly, in its response to Trump, maybe they'll finally decide this is really a problem, though. I don't know. They have such ability to rationalize that a couple of calls from your friend, Scott Bessent, and, you know, a couple of reassurances that, you know, don't worry, Kevin Warsh will be a responsible Fed chair. I don't have a lot of community, a lot of confidence

necessarily that the business community will really go into the kind of resistance mode they should, but he's a prominent guy. They're going after him on a kind of ridiculous thing. thing this, you know, rather rehabbing or rebuilding or of the Fed headquarters. I'm sure exactly what they're building and so forth. Cost overruns, that kind of thing. That's a criminal offense. I mean, so it is part of the broader intimidation effort, obviously. But you're right.

It also raises the specter, which as we've seen coming for quite a while, which is Trump does not want an independent Fed. And just to complete that thought, the reason he doesn't want an independent Fed is not basically as deep, I mean, it's probably like slow interest rates and that's just as prejudice, But it's not because he has deep thoughts about monetary policy. It's because he wants a Fed that will do what he wants and goose the economy in 2028 to help Republicans hold the White House. Yeah, look, there's no doubt about that.

It's about power manipulation. If the independence of the Fed is threatened or altogether eliminated, I mean, the economic consequences are extremely severe. You go through the countries that have had this issue. You know, it's like Argentina, Venezuela. Trump's starting to Venezuela, the whole country. We're going to get into that a little bit. I mean, it's very serious.

Yeah, this is, as you mentioned, there have been, you know, some business guys finally showing some backbone of this. Also, just a little bit on the hill we should mention. Tom Tillis spoke out about this quite quickly last night. And he wrote this in a statement. If there are any remaining doubt whether advisors within the Trump administration are actively pushing to end the independence of the Fed, there should now be none. It is now the independence and credibility.

of the Department of Justice that are in question. I don't know if it's in question at this point, but we'll give them something. It's better than nothing. TILUS goes on, I will oppose the confirmation of any nominee for the Fed, including the upcoming Fed chair vacancy, until this legal matter is fully resolved.

Now, Tillis by himself does not really have the power to hold up a Fed chair vacancy, but yet in a couple of others. Murkowski, who knows, potentially others, and they really could have a standoff of them. them on this? No, it's striking to Tillis did this. Now, Tillis is retiring, and it will be very interesting today to see if other people weigh in. This is, I mean, you think of all the issues, I personally am even more outraged about ICE than the Fed, though both are outrageous and dangerous,

but this is the issue that Republicans presumably are most susceptible to breaking with Trump on, as tariffs was, and on tariffs, Trump did back down. So let's see if there's support for Tillis. It was striking, though I've got to say, I just can't resist, even Tillis who's doing the right thing here, and I hope he succeeds, I hope everyone wants to support him, all the Republicans on the Hill. He can't quite say Trump, right? The advisors, how does it agree? The advisors to Trump are prevailing and attacking Fed independence. It's like, God forbid, you actually say that Donald Trump himself is doing something terrible. And also that the independence of the Department of Justice is in question. It's like, I don't think it is, actually. I think it's pretty clear that

there is no independence of the department. I don't even think that Trump is pretending like is an independence of the Department of Justice right now. So I don't know what the question is. You know, I think all sides pretty much agree. The Department of Justice is now, you know, completely just in service to Donald Trump's wishes. Just for one second, we should do it because why not? We do the Crystal Fantasy politics. It's just because as we get more and more into a crisis scenario where we are now,

people do have agency on the Hill. And you wrote this on X. Tillas McConnell Murkowski-Collins could announce a caucus for, now with the Dems to give them control of the Senate to check Trump. Like, that could happen. Like, they could just, they could just do that. It's not crazy. It has happened before in state legislatures, Texas, some others, and Alaska, I think.

I should get into some Alaska politics later. And Collins probably would not be part of that being up for re-election this year, but others potentially that are retiring. Like, it's not that fantastical. A new year, colder days, this is the moment your winter wardrobe really's got to deliver. If you're craving a winter reset, start with pieces truly made to last season after season. Quince brings together premium materials, thoughtful design, and enduring quality. So you stay warm, look sharp and feel your best all season long.

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The balls in the Republicans court, most of these. And since you say they have agencies, same in the House. And suddenly it would take, what, two Republicans now, I think, given how narrow the margin is to say they're going to temporarily vote for Jeffries for Speaker. And again, they could cut deals. They could get some committee chairman. All the ones I mentioned could get committee chairmanships. One of them could become a speaker, majority leader, conceivably. And if you get really...

In this kind of emergency, I think it is worth at least trying to get people to think a little more broadly. And it has been so infuriating for the last year to have all these, you know, everyone's, well, I guess it's 53, 47. There's just nothing that can be done as if people can't, you know, can't act to change the status quo. And there's enough on happiness I should think about terrorists, war powers, the Fed now, some about ice, I would think, I hope. Maybe this is a moment where it all comes together. Maybe I'm, it is kind of fantasy. But I put it in morning shots to try to. give people something to think about, you know?

No, it's fantasy. I don't want people to think that we think it might happen, but it could happen. So it should be stated, right? Like, this is like the pre-surrender. Like, why is it impossible? And there are two retiring senators who know, who have stated objections to Trump on various things. There's a libertarian senator who has stated objections. There's Murkowski, who's run as an independent before.

And this is not. It shouldn't be outside the realm of possibility, even though it probably is. I want to talk about Renee Good. and her murder last week, since we've not spoken about it. So we got together. You talked about it with Sam on your Sunday live conversation. But your column this morning and morning shots is about being opposed to ICE, has been galvanizing of the resistance.

So obviously some references to the French resistance since it is Bill Crystal. So I just wanted to kind of just let you cook on both what we've seen from ICE, Minnesota, of the situation with Renee Good and kind of how you think it's appropriate to react to it. I mean, well, the killing of Renee Good and everything else we've seen. And then the administration's lying about it, God, to say at least lying immediately about it and continuing to lie about it and lying in the face of all the evidence about it makes it all the more horrible. And also all the more laying the groundwork for this continuing.

And it's not just laying the groundwork for this continuing. They've doubled down. They're sending more people into Minneapolis. They seem to have intensified their brute force. intimidation tactics and other lesser forms of violence so far. Someone asked me earlier this morning on a different call about Kent State and how it compared, and I'd got back and looked at that a bit over the weekend. But, I mean, that was terrible, but actually less purposeful than the ICE violence.

It was young kids in the National Guard. And I think afterwards, and Dixon did defend it for a while, and there was a lot of stupid stuff said. But at the end of the day, they kind of withdrew, I don't believe the guard got deployed much after that. And they set up a commission to look into all this. You know, there's none of that with Trump. I won't say they wanted this to happen, but they are purposely trying to exploit it to further intimidate people, not to correct the obvious things that have been shown to be wrong about the way ISIS is behaving. The purpose is trying to escalate to. Yeah.

I just want to get into it. I got a bunch of stuff to get into it. I want to just talk about Trump's response last night really quick before I rant. And as is our policy, I won't play it. I'm going to read it for you. So Trump's on the plane. This is a gaggle on Air Force One. He's asked by a reporter, do you believe that deadly force was necessary in the case of

Renee Good? Trump replies, it was highly disrespectful of law enforcement. The woman and her friend were highly disrespectful of law enforcement. Then he goes on to kind of talk about how they had been following them around. Law enforcement should not be in a position where they have to put up with this stuff. So he says law enforcement should not be in a position where I had to put up with this stuff. A truly appalling statement by the president of the United States. Like when asked about whether it was necessary to kill the protester, he says essentially yes,

because law enforcement shouldn't have to be hassled. Unbelievable, really. And it's really that comes on top of J.D. Vance saying Thursday, ICE agents will have absolute immunity, I guess from state prosecution, which isn't correct, I gather from my lawyer friends, but they have quite a lot of immunity. probably more than they should have with qualified immunity the way that doctrine is developed. But what does that say? That says, Van Swentl-Yel-Yal Law School, but knows a little bit about this.

What that says going forward is, you guys are fine. You guys are free. Go for it. You follow the example of what happened there in Minneapolis, leaving even aside the pardon power, which obviously could kick in and take care of these guys. So the degree of the just, you know, we've seen where this is going and they embrace where this is going. That's why it is accelerationism, don't you think? Yeah. Yes.

You know, you just look at the videos from this weekend. And it's, there's just so much happening. I couldn't really pull it together in time for this podcast. I'll probably do a separate video in this for folks to watch, check out later. But like, just the way that ICE is acting in Minnesota is since this killing is a category difference from how they've been acting. You see certain skirmishes and misbehavior from ICE since this started, right? like there are a bunch of examples, but just like the intensity of it. You know, you see the ice agent saying the woman in the car.

You saw what happened to that other woman that did this. You know, you see that. You see them storming into a house of, you know, there was a DoorDash driver who goes to deliver food and he goes into a house. And the woman that's house is that is protecting, you know, it's protecting the driver. And it's like these guys like storming Fallujah, you know, the amount of, you know, weaponry and masks like going into some like modest. some person from citizens house in the country and just you could go on and on it's there's more they want that like they want to escalate it i thought there's a smart post i saw from david austin walsh's a professor and he said he can't overemphasize how much we're seeing what we're seeing is this

libidinal desire on the right to reenact the george floyd uprisings and and i do think that's right i think that there's a lot of like regret on the right that there wasn't more shooting from the the cops during the George Floyd riots. And they want, there is like a fantasizing about that. And they want that. And they want it so that they can take more power. They can want it. They want it for the purpose of accelerationism on their authoritarian mission.

And they want it because they hate the, you just hear it in their voice. They hate the woman. Like they hate the, you know, so a lesbian protesting woman who, you know, whose attitude they don't like, I don't think it's too far to say that. Like that there is like a cycle, there's both the authoritarian desire, but also the psychological element that they want to accelerate this and they want to have more skirmishes and violence. And Kristine Ohm, I think on TV yesterday, wouldn't even deplore the fact that Anaisei, and I think maybe it was the one who shot every day good, maybe it was one of the others, right? And that little cluster called her,

said a terrible thing. Called her a fucking bitch. I'll say it. Yeah, you should say it. Yeah. And Christian Omm didn't say, well, that's, that's a fucking bitch. After they shot her in the face three times. Yeah. And Kristiannum didn't say, well, that's very tense moments and people shouldn't, of course, shouldn't say things like that. She couldn't even say that. But she doesn't want to say that because I guess they don't believe that, right? They believe that that's what people are getting what they deserve, as you sort of, as Trump kind of said, right? Yeah. Yeah. Law enforcement shouldn't have to put up with these uppity women. Yeah, like, honestly. Like, that's really what it is. Tapper in that same interview, Tepper was really good

with Noam. And also, like, gives her the obvious question to this, which is, okay, well, if the response to being highly disrespected with the law enforcement is that people get killed. Like, what about January 6th? Like, those people are very disrespectful to the law enforcement and you pardon them. They didn't even have an answer to that, right? Like, some of the maga media types when you see engaging on that

point on social media, like they will do like the, what are you even talking about? Like, they let them in through the gates and they didn't do it. You know, like, there's a lot of that, like, just fantasy, like Earth 2. Like, there wasn't even violence against cops. Like, the administration is not that quite that shameless. I guess I shouldn't overstate it.

Maybe somebody administration is that shameless. But, you know, so they want to do that. So they just sort of like just dance around all of that, that. Like they don't have an answer to like, because the true answer is that they think that the state and police and ICE agents can do violence against their political foes, but not against their allies. That's just really the truth. And they think their, their allies can do violence against the, against the Capitol police where the Capitol police are defending the elections and their allies are storming the Capitol, right? I mean, it's really, it is kind of remarkable. All right, everybody.

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So I do want to just touch on that one more time because it's the most telling of all of the videos. And when I first reacted to it, I said it was body cam footage because this is all like happening so quickly. We found out after I taped was that it was his own cell phone. You can see him switch the phone from his. left from his right hand to his left hand so he can have his shooting hand ready at some point during the during this kind of 45 second video um and why they decided to leak this video i don't i i think betrays a like a deep darkness and what they think is defensible honestly i got the to me the most alarming thing of all maybe is that they decided to leak this video because to me it's like it showed just very clearly that Jonathan Ross was in no danger.

Like, he really just wasn't. And it's preposterous to think that he was in danger. I mean, people feel more are like more at risk from being run over at a car in a Walmart parking lot every day than this. I mean, he walks around the car. He talks to her.

She's, she's smirking. So it's maybe a little teasing. But she says, I'm not mad. You know, she says, don't worry,

dude, I'm not mad. 20 seconds later, he kills her. Three shots. Like, he goes around the car. her partner or whatever,

girlfriend was teasing him. Okay, you gotta take that. And then he comes around to the front and you can see her turning the car. It's just so like the video. And then he shoots her three times and says fucking bitch. We think it's him.

The video itself reveals that like to me, that there is no in between. Like that video of his cell phone reveals that he either intentionally wanted to kill her because he was upset. that the lesbians were mocking him or whatever, the reason. Like, he had a, he intentionally wanted to do it. Or that he's just, that it's like so cowardly. Like, you have, maybe as PTSD or whatever, but like, this person should not be in the street.

They're not trained. Like, it's crazy. Like, to think that you were in danger, to, like, genuinely think you were in danger in that, at that moment when you watch that video is crazy. It's crazy. Like, like, the only other explanation besides intentional murder is that these guys are, like cowards and that they're trigger-happy cowards. And I think that that maybe as a political purpose might actually resonate better

with some of the people who are ostensibly on their side than, you know, kind of doing the hair-on-fire stuff. I don't know. What do you make of that? He wasn't in danger objectively. And that is one of the legal standards, I believe, that, you know, people have to use before they kill people, before they discharge. They have to be in, it has to really be in self-defense, not just in some fantasy self-defense or

defense of others and whom they were not threatening. He didn't even, but he didn't believe he was in danger. You don't, by moving the cell phone to the other, continuing to video. That's why we have this. That's why this is such a telling cell phone video, because he kept it on. He wouldn't, he wasn't, we know how people behave in their danger or what they, you know, and B, none of his colleagues thought he or they were in danger. They're strolling around and then they stroll away.

I mean, the whole thing. And of course, they don't let the physician approach as well. I mean, it's, it is grotesque. Great point. None of them pull a weapon. I said this to go people who haven't argued about this. If it was so obviously a dangerous situation, why didn't any of the other ICE agents pull their weapon in order to protect their colleague? The only possible way that you could justify that he actually thought he was scared

is because he was too focused on trying to get his videotape of them. And so he got distracted. But even then, it's like, okay, well, then why do you shoot her execution style through the side window after the car is already pulling away? So, and there's just no possible rationale for this that makes any sense. The administration thinks that they're on the right foot here. Like, they want to be fighting over this. They do.

And I just, I'm not sure that's right. Sometimes people think that they're on the right foot and politically and they're wrong. And I think that it's important to continue to push on this because I do think they're big parts of their coalition that are actually not okay with execution-style murders of women and Honda pilots with a dog in the back seat. and their kids' toys in the passenger seat. And so I want to play this next clip. It's just, it's a little tongue-in-cheek.

Obviously, this is a tragic scenario, and it's just horrible what happened for a good. And I fucking, like, it's just my heartbreaks for her and her family, the kid, especially. But I do wonder if this kind of thing resonates with people in a different way. This is like a right-wing comedian who is pushing back on the narrative, the Trump administration,

narrative on this. I don't believe the cop was justified in shooting her three times in the face. By the way, I've always believed this. And this is something that I've caught heat for, but I've literally believed it since I'm a kid. I don't believe you should ever shoot someone in the face more than once. I've, no, seriously, I think, I just think it's ridiculous. So that they did that and they you know the guy these are these are not well trained law enforcement people in ICE right now

we're taking people they did backyard wrestling I mean okay so we're being silly well he's being silly obviously but I think that could I think that could resonate with people just like people who are not ideologically disposed to this right

who are just like watching this video who are not you know Fox News zombies who are like, wait a minute, I don't want to live in a country where a bunch of ill-trained thugs are running around with masks on, firing through the side window of a lady's Honda pilot. Like, that is not a society that I want to live in. It's not okay. I have a wife. I have a mother.

I actually believe in the real definition of don't tread on me. And I don't know. I just think that that's an important argument to make and to not lose sight of. I totally agree. And I think it's an important argument. for Democrats to sort of come to believe that at least it's a reasonable chance that this could become or is the majority view. I think it is actually. And there's some poll even to suggest this, but they need to, in my view, I'm curious whether you agree. I mean, to act to follow up, really,

and they are Congress. They do authorize and appropriate funds for ICE. And they should say if the funding, which is unfortunately already baked in, it's going to increase so much, though they could change that too, of course. But even if they leave the funding that's, that's, that's, planned that it can't go ahead unless ICE takes off the mass unless they don't use guns or that you know use them very there are all kinds of regulations for when to use guns etc etc right I mean you can get the require the approval of local authorities Senator Murphy has I think a well no let's go into the Senator Murphy thing okay um just so really I mean people again is sort of of your point earlier the agency is people have agency and Congress has agency and ICE is not an

autonomous thing that just descends from the skies and shows up in cities. And part of that is therefore, Kristy Knoem Donald Trump's responsibility, totally, in my view, as well as the individual agents, obviously. And part of it is Congress's responsibility to not let this continue. Yeah, we have another budget round coming up. This is Chris Murphy said. It's like, we can't, Democrats can't vote for any budget that funds us. He said specifically, he wants to plan legislation that would require agents to have warrants for arrest. Oh, my God. That's, well, how. How radical is that in a free country? The people should have warrants if they're going to arrest someone.

I want to ban them from wearing masks. He wants to limit the use of guns by ice and restrict the border patrol to the border. Yeah. I think those are all going to be very popular. I don't know about limit guns, but I said I don't exactly. I would be interested to see what the polling is. The rest of that is very obvious and popular. I had somebody who's very well read watches the news in my life just on one of my text

change. I think it was over the weekend saying like, why is it? See, why is border patrol there in Minnesota? It's not the border. You know, because unless you're like really following this, you don't realize what they're doing. And it does just feel wrong to people. Are we redeploying people from the border to Minnesota and Chicago to go into the streets? And I just think that there are compelling arguments that could be made.

I think the Democrats get wrapped around the axle sometimes around like the slogan abolish ICE wasn't popular. and you get into this like left wing fight over like should we do abolish ice or should we not say abolish ice and should we and it's like stop like stop it stop pearl clutching over whatever your fucking slogan is like and just being so obsessed with the specific word it's like no just go out there make the argument against what ice is doing and and you know you can also simultaneously say that yeah i i support doing what trump said he was going to do they can even say that like go out of after the violent criminals, deport them from the country. We're all for that. Like, we can think about all the money we could be using to go after actual criminals that were wasting, you know, chasing people down the street, chasing DoorDash drivers. Like, this is crazy what they're doing.

So, I don't know. I was encouraged by what Murphy said. I think that Democrats should really do that. Mark Hurtling's in the newsletter with you this morning arguing they need to take the masks off. He talks very compellingly about his experience in Iraq. I encourage people to read that. And I think that those are all areas where the Democrats can be an offense on this. And on the funding, I mean, just to be clear, I said this, I was having similar conversation

over the weekend. So it's a well, but isn't that funding all baked in? It is for now. Congress does not have to accept prior Congress's decision about funding and they can change it. And if they want to make it conditional on these reforms, if they want to reduce the growth of ice, ICE has gone from 10,000 to 22,000, I believe, officers in the last year. God knows what the quality of those new 12,000 is. I'm not sure that the shooter was one of the new ones.

Incidentally, he may have been someone who was more at other problems. But anyway, it can't be good. And it just increases the chances of all this happening. And they can put a pause on the expansion of ICE. They can put a pause on the expansion of funding. They don't have to totally defund it. I myself not being a member of Congress feel I can maybe slightly irresponsibly say abolish ICE just to get people to think about it and reorganize DHS and so forth.

But yes, there are many things they can push for. And if they have to compromise to get some Republican votes and, you know, let a little more funding go ahead than they want, but return, get some of these restrictions. You can't just sit there and say, well, we have to keep the government open and it's a big appropriations bill and it's got a lot of some other stuff in it that we like. And we're just going to go ahead and fund this agency that's doing these kinds of things. I don't think that's, I don't think personally it's acceptable. I wouldn't vote for such a thing.

And I really think they could get a lot of support by insisting that this, that this not go ahead the way it is. I started in what, 2003, something like that? It's like the country existed. We were able to successfully, you know, handle immigration before having, you know, this organization. So, like, defunding it is not insane. I just pulled up here. This is civics.

If you look at the, they're polling, they're tracking on the question of abolishing ice. I had very low support, I will say, in 2024. Right now it's at 50 opposed 42 support. So 42 support for abolishing ice. You've seen that number move. Democrats have the jitters because of defund the police, which was an extremely stupid slogan. And, and like the people, even the people that argued to defund the police didn't offer, like, what their alternative was going to be. It was going to be like community engagement and hugs and

stuff. And it's just like, this is crazy. Like, this is not, not realistic. Like, that's not what we're talking about. Like, this is different than that. Like, you can go out there and say, like, this agency has been corrupted. Like, we can do immigration enforcement. We have a ton of other federal law enforcement. I'm not, I'm not talking about defunding federal law enforcement. I want to fund good law enforcement. I want to fund the local police in Minneapolis, who are actually doing good work right now, as we talked with Mayor Frye about.

And this fucking organization is like Donald Trump's paramilitary, and it's going after U.S. citizens and going after rule that here legally, and we should defund it and replace it with something else. Like, you know, I don't think that everybody needs to get all panicked about that that's defund the police 2.0 as long as, you know, they're making clear arguments. Totally. And I would just add that, I mean, in a way, Chris Murphy, maybe he's done this even, could present his proposals. As we are trying to hold ice to the standards, we routinely hold

all police forces to, right? I mean, the things he's proposing are things that are, in fact, the procedures of police force. That's what's so appalling about this. And, I mean, and again, the Christy-known reaction, no sense of, okay, we've, you know, we're going to take a look, we're not going to comment until the investigation's underway. It'll be independent. We'll provide counseling to this person who, killed someone, like any police force does if a police officer unfortunately gets in this kind of situation. They don't even have a scintilla of that kind of attitude. And so I think they can be pro-FBI. I mean, if they want, and pro, as you say, local police within reason and say,

this is just totally different. This is a paramilitary force deployed in our cities. Before it's a little speculative about how bad it could be. We've seen how bad it could be. So we have to act. And your point, I just think just worth emphasize one more time. It's like they're not even trying to argue that this should be reformed. And again, like, I look at this video and I see somebody that was just like either an unbelievable coward who was like scared and was shitting his pants and decided to kill a woman who had just told me she wasn't mad at him 20 seconds earlier or somebody who intentionally was, uh, was out for revenge.

Those are the two options. If you, if you, if you're on the other side of that and taking the view that like, no, this guy really got scared in the moment. And like, he's somebody who just can't really. even make it through a grocery store parking lot without grabbing for his weapon because he's like so afraid of moving vehicles. Like if you're on that point of view, then even then, the thing to say is like, this is a tragedy we need to talk about our procedures.

Like we're going to talk with our agents, you know, we're going to make sure people don't, we're to make sure we're to focus on de-escalating, you know, you don't hear them saying that. You don't hear them saying, we're going to try to focus on, we want to de-escalate. We're not at war with U.S. citizens. We're not at war with people that are peacefully protesting. saying, you know, like we're going after people that are here illegally. Like, you can imagine how they could define what they're doing in a different way.

They're not doing that. They're escalating. They're escalating. And basically saying he did nothing wrong, shooting execution style of a 37-year-old lady through the side window for coming. I'm talking about Venezuela. The trouble at this roundtable with oil executives last week to, I guess, gain some excitement for our imperialist effort to steal the oil. from Venezuela. One CEO at Exxon dissented, let's listen. We have a very long history in Venezuela. In fact, we first got into Venezuela back in

1940s. We've had our assets seized there twice. And so you can imagine to reenter a third time would require some pretty significant changes from what we've historically seen here and what is currently the state. If we look at the legal and commercial constructs and frameworks in place today in Venezuela. Today, it's uninvestable. Okay. So pretty clearly, clear there from that. That's the guy is just like, why would I go into Venezuela, basically? Like, what changes? They've seized my oil twice down there already since we went in there for the first time in the 1940s. And now you're just like, trust me, we should go,

we should go into Venezuela. That doesn't make a lot of sense for me. Trump lashed out at him on that same plane gaggle and said he's inclined. to keep ExxonMobil out of Venezuela after the CEO's skeptical response. So I just, is that the president's job? Like, does the president of the United States get to decide what companies invest in other countries? Apparently, this is the new free market conservatism. Donald Trump, if you're a gas, oil and gas CEO, you've got to suck up to Trump. Yeah, the president does just get to decide in this and in other areas, it turns out, all such things.

And the whole, I think, executive order he issued, I think, quietly on Friday also that doesn't, I couldn't quite understand it at first. I think I got this. It doesn't allow the oil companies to go to court, basically, I think, and try to recoup the funds that were taken from them somewhat illegitimately, maybe they say, at least, by the previous Venezuela government in 2000, you know, under Chavez or whatever. But Trump doesn't want that. But Trump doesn't want that. Because he said he wanted to get back all the money that was stolen. He doesn't want that. But that would just let Exxon and everyone else, whoever's about, go to court and get whatever they.

they can get. No, he wants to control that money and he wants to give it to the people. He favors them. The whole thing is the fantasy is, of course, the oil thing, how much oil they're going to get, how easy it's going to get, how much difference it will make on the oil market, which is in any case, we're not short of oil right now. Prices have come to are not high. But anyway, leaving aside the whole Trump fantasy about oil stuff, it's, it is revealing that yes, he wants to control it. This is about him being, yeah, more authoritarianism in this case. abroad, but also back at home, right? Because it does end up, he controls what the oil companies do here.

And he wants to control the more. Energy Secretary Chris Wright said the U.S. is thinking about taking ownership stakes in oil companies, like they did in Intel. This is like beyond Bernie Sanders level fantasies. Like the whole thing is about controlling and manipulating these CEOs. And I know that I'm a broken record on this and that good on the Exxon guy for speaking out and for a couple that we've seen on the Fed thing. I just don't understand why these guys are going along with this.

The hair would be so on fire. Kamla Harris was president and had the oil and gas CEOs in and was like, no, you have to, you got to say these magic woke words for me to allow you to drill. And if you don't do it, I'm going to ban you from drilling and insult you publicly. Joe Kernan would have had a heart attack on Squawk Box by now. Like he would be so red in the face screaming about the socialism. And they have been screaming about the social god, if mom donnie sets up five tiny little grocery stores in New York or gets a little tougher on some of the real estate guys. If California passes probably or tries to enforce probably ill-advised whatever tax on the wealth of billionaires,

probably would just be counterproductive, they'll leave, but whatever. That's the end of, that's it. That's the end of capitalism. This is so beyond the pale. We can't even have a discussion about it or pretend that it's anything but an assault on everything we hold dear in this. capitalist country of ours. But Trump who's gone so far beyond Mamdani, even what Mondani wants, you know, even if he weren't constrained by all these other characters, Trump's not constrained. But even if so far behind Mamaddi, so far beyond Gavin Newsom, that's all, is anyone complaining?

I don't know. I mean, they did finally get alarmed about Powell, as we were saying, but I don't know, are they all screaming about this? Maybe I miss that. I give the Exxon guy, I give the Exxon guy credit for just saying it. I guess maybe X-Tine is so big he could just, he doesn't care or he just, he just he couldn't, he just felt he had to be honest. I don't know. It was unusual. He's just being blunt. What happened to that?

Those were the kind of old guys I liked. There was like kind of a type of old guy that was just very, you know, I've seen a lot of things, you know, and I'm just like, I'm just going to be blunt about what I think about this and not engaged in your pipe dreams. More of that would be welcomed among the CEO class. You know, you say that sounds so big. It's just like, whatever. Apple's so big.

Yeah, fair enough. Amazon's so big. what is Jeff Bays? I, you know, but they're scared about that he's worried he's not going to get his little, I guess, penis rocket to get into space approved. And that's what matters to him now.

I don't know. Trump posts a meme of himself as acting president of Venezuela also. I just want to say that. Post a meme. It was a picture of him in Wikipedia, acting president of Venezuela. That seems like a mistake to me. Actually,

it seems like a legitimate mistake. And I want to get into Y here, as we look into 2020. in America first stuff. But this Venezuela thing can end up as a disaster. And who knows? Like right now, they've made the decisions to do everything they can to guard against their being instability.

You know, it's like, we'll leave the vice president in there. We'll leave the kill squads in there. You know, we'll buy people off. But, you don't, you know, you don't control everything. It's a big country, Venezuela is. You know, and there's other groups and interests. And I don't know. I just think that little picture of Trump is acting president of Venezuela,

if this turns into a total shit show, might be something that could stick with people. Yeah, no, I think said the mission accomplished sort of thing, right? And I don't know, did they elect them to be acting president of Venezuela? There's a little bit of still, I think, fragmenting of the MAGA base to be done here if people aggressively push on this, that you think. Yeah, that takes us to 2028 and other stuff. my notes say America First 2028 here.

Steve Bannon. My friend of me. I don't know if that's right. But me and Bannon have gone around the bend quite a few times together. And he leaked to Axis, not to the bulwark, looking at a 2028 run. He said that he doesn't actually think that he could win. But it's about advancing the agenda potentially. I guess I'd just throw out that.

that Donald Trump didn't think he could win when he got in either. So I don't think that Bannon doesn't have that in the back of his mind. I think that he's just trying to say what feels like he needs to say at the moment. But it's notable that you have Bannon out there compelling speaker, you know, would actually have an argument for it being genuine in America First. And if you imagine a potential 2028 primary where J.D. Vance is trying to kind of straddle, you know, more traditional republicanism with the America First Tucker crowd, and you've got ban in there basically,

you know, kind of as the jockey on the horse, kind of whipping him anytime that he, you know, sort of gets off track. I could have real impacts on that, on how a race turns out. And I just,

I also think that like, if it's banned or somebody else, like Trump is leaving an opening for this right now. Just across the West, especially if the economy doesn't get better. So it gets to get worse. It is not hard to come up with an America first argument against the Trump-Bantz administration from the right or from the populist right or whatever that just basically says, these guys ended up caring more about Kennedy Center and East Wing and Venezuela and the Peace Prize

and you guys got left behind and we're not, we'll keep up the immigration fascism. And then besides that, focus on you. And Ben can say truthfully, he was for Trump. From the beginning, which J.D. Vance certainly wasn't, and Marco Rubio certainly wasn't. He was willing to, he went to the White House. He was willing to criticize others, and he warned about what was going to happen in the first term, which from their point of view is correct. He warned that McMaster and all these characters and vaulted and Gary Cohen and all these people were not really on board what Trump wanted to do. And that's why he would say he got shoved out. And he warned about that for the next three years.

Then out of power, he was for Trump, I think pretty much all the way. He was in the way. For sure. And he went to jail for Trump. Right. Unlike. He went to jail for Trump. Unlike the others. What did J.D. Vance give up? Yeah, who toured with DeSantis or maybe Vance to, but anyway, who had their own

whatever agendas. And then coming back in, he wanted to help Trump and he helped him on some stuff. But unfortunately, Trump got captured again by some bad people. I think it's in a way, I mean, I have to overthink this. And I don't know that you were, our endorsement of that would help him really in the Republican primary. But, but I mean, he has a pretty good way of being both the Trumpy candidate and the candidate who warned against the betrayal of Trump at the same time, you know what I mean? And essentially, I was thinking with this, would Trump personally, who would he prefer? Let's assume he's not running, which may well be, but let's assume there's no John Jr. He's got to be worried about what, he would want someone in there who would not want to cause any trouble for him.

And I think in a way he probably would judge that Bannon would be more loyal than Vance or Rubio. I think that could well be true, incidentally. No, maybe. I mean, again, Bannon went to jail for him. Banner went to jail for him. So that probably tells Trump they, he could be, he could live with Bannon in there. So that's not testify. So Bannon, Bannon, we worked that out.

Bannon, 28. Yeah, I don't know. Not for it. Not for it. Let's stipulate that. I just think that objectively, analytically, I agree. Like, there is space that Trump has created the space. Right.

For someone to run, whether it has Banner or someone else is an authentic America first person. And if J.D. Vance decides to go down with the Trump ship and apologize for everything he's doing and pretend like there's an America First rationale for Venezuela and for all this other nonsense that Trump is doing with the fact that he was a never-trumper. And I was going back looking some of J.D.'s old blog post over the weekend. There's one where he's talking about, how can conservatives who distrust the government on the government's able to efficiently run all these other things like the post office, et cetera, how can conservatives, how can you? can we then turn around and say that the government can efficiently run a deportation campaign of 12 million people? That was J.D. Vance 10 years ago. I just, he's phony. He's phony. And no matter how much he sucks up to Trump now, the vulnerability of being phony will always be there. I don't know. I think it's interesting. Tucker, speaking of the America First Wing, Tucker was at the White House, had lunch with Trump. Trump gave him a

is a gift, a pair of brown wing tips, not a brown shirt. I was thinking a brown shirt would have been more appropriate, but he gave him a tip of a pair of brown wing tips. I don't know what to make of that exactly. But it's certainly, there was this whole controversy on the right where people were trying to define MAGA in their own ways and like these more establishment types for like the Heritage Foundation is being too nice to Tucker and TPA USA is being too nice to Tucker and that's wrong.

And the real, if you look at Trump, he's not actually listening to Tucker. And there he is. Trump at Tucker having lunch with Trump after advancing a bunch of Nazi shit and conspiracies, et cetera, et cetera. Half the Heritage Board and half the Heritage staff, I think, quit because of the fact that their president at Heritage wouldn't repudiate Tucker enough. And now Trump, the president, is having a cheerful lunch with the guy after he's indulged with all these anti-Semites and all this other horrible stuff. does tell you a lot. It tells you a lot where the MAGA coalition is and how, again, the radicalization of everything. So now, you know, being, you can't quite probably have what's that guy's named Fuentes to lunch at the White House, but you can be Fuentes adjacent and be Trump and the MAGA. And that's MAGA today, you know.

So the accelerationism is both in the policy side and in the kind of coalitional side, right? I mean, of MAGA, I think. Yeah. I mean, Tucker gave Nick Fuentes like a soft, like to a softball interview. it would be an understatement. It was more of like a blowjob of an interview that Tucker gave Nick Flantis and then complimented him after. And he didn't say they disagree on things.

Just like that would be Tucker's defensive at, but like he gives him this massive platform and puffs him up and glazes him and then he's at the White House a couple weeks later having lunch. Speaking of other vulnerabilities on the America first side, I've been thinking this for a while and and it's touchy about how to handle it. But I do think that the Democrats, potentially have an angle here too. And I've been interested in particular in seeing the launch ad from Mary Paltola.

She's Alaska Congresswoman, tragically lost her husband on playing crash recently, was a Democrat who was heavily being recruited to run for Senate, decided to give in the race today. In my opinion, I think it's the most important recruitment that the Democrats have had because it legitimately adds another state to the potential mid-examination. It's a stretch. It's Alaska. There's no doubt it's a stretch. But she assiduously maintained like an independent brand in Alaska. And she has kind of a funny slogan. It's like fish family freedom.

She's like really focuses on parochial Alaska issues and being independent. And she did a whole launch video, which we'll put in the show notes for people. You can watch like three minutes. But I started to play the last 10 seconds. of it because it's interesting the argument she's trying to make. Let's listen to it. Ted Stevens often said, to hell with politics, put Alaska first. It's about time Alaskans teach the rest of the country what Alaska first and really America first looks like. You know, the whole ad is about Alaska first and about focusing on Alaska and these lower 48

assholes don't know anything and, you know, the cost of living is higher here than anywhere. people don't even believe us when we tell them how high the cost of living here is. And then the ad ends with we should be Alaska first and also America first, a real kind of America first. And I know both you and I blanch at that because it has a lot of baggage, the phrase. But it also resonates with people who don't understand that historical baggage. And so I don't begrudge her trying to co-opt it. And I think that Trump is leaving himself very vulnerable here.

And I'm going to be super interested to watch Mary Baltola. I've been on this show, I've several times said I'm not super impressed with the Democrats recruiting in these red states right now. And I think that there's stuff that's in play and they have to jump on it right now. And this is the first one I've, you know, I'm not predicting she's going to win. But I think that I'm interested in the campaign and how she's positioning yourself. Very much agree. And, you know, she won, I guess she won the congressional seat in 2022.

Is that right? I've got the chronology, I think, right, which was the last off-year election. And that's a statewide race in Alaska. So, you know, she won the same electorate. The presumably will vote in 2026. She beat a Republican. And Dan Sullivan's an incumbent, maybe a little tougher. But Dan Sullivan is still in the Senate.

Is that right? Yeah, you've noticed how he's courteously. I think so. Yeah, you notice he's been a real profile in courage. I mean, he's surprised. I've seen his statement this morning supporting Tom Tillis on the Fed. I've seen him condemn the brutality of the ICE agents. I mean, I know you, Dan Sullivan back in the day when he first got elected.

I think that would be right. He elected in 14 and then reelected in 20, so it would be 26. And I know Dan Sullivan a bit, and I think he's an ice man and impressive service and the military, but he's been a profile in non-courage. Disappearance, in absence. Honestly, it's just like, if you would have said to me, I knew this now, like, I've this this year because I've been I've been locked in on on looking at potential stretch seats for the Democrats 2026 map but if in September of 2024 you'd said you'd said to me you know is Dan

Sullivan still the U.S. Senator from Alaska I think I would have been like I think so I just I wasn't I'm not sure I he's been that he's been a ghost this and so I don't know and I think that could potentially harm up with that i don't think the maga people are like super excited about dan solomon or feel like he's been a huge advocate for them so i don't know alaska is so weird and um you know i don't want to pretend like i'm an expert on the eccentricities of alaska politics but like you said she won the statewide thing already and um will be interesting to monitor that race mary paul told i want to close with i want to get there's some crazy corruption stories Do you want to talk about Ron louder?

Or should we just, I'll do that later this week. I'll tease people. I do that later. Maybe. Yeah. The cosmetics air, the 81 year old cosmetics air, he's expanding. Okay, it's good. He's doing perfume.

He's also doing rare earths now in Ukraine and Greenland. That's something we're going to talk about later this week. But I want to close with Iran. The protests, bigger than we've seen in years in Iran over the weekend, major crackdown by the regime, thousands killed. at this point of the protesters. And Trump kind of played a little footsie with the idea that we might get involved in the press conference yesterday. He did kind of one of those wait and see things that he does.

What do you make of what we're seeing and what could be useful at this point? I mean, people who know a lot more about this than I do, do think the regime is in real trouble. It'd be good to have some of the instruments of soft power and, sort of public diplomacy and ability to help them get their message. The internet, they've shut down the internet there. I think we could do a lot to help them with that. And I'm not sure we are. I think we're not.

And I think, in fact, we've disabled parts of the U.S. government that could be pretty good at that. Now, maybe he and Musk could get together and really decide to help people who are genuinely fighting for freedom against a horrible regime there. So that would be nice. But we'll see if he does anything more than bluster. Look, you know better than everybody. like just like it's complex and our role is complex right because like simultaneously it's like the more the U.S. is publicly seen as being on the side of the protesters the worst it is for them right uh internally

not only but but just like it can backfire I guess maybe it would be a more accurate way to put it but also too like unarmed protesters aren't going to overthrow the regime right and if you like look at Syria like what did it take to overthrow Assad it was like basically Turkish backed militia groups you know, in short, that ended up getting rid of Assad. And so, like, if this is actually going to work in overthrowing the regime, you know, you need either internal defection from the military, you know, or the U.S. or some other combination of outside, you know, maybe Arab, you know, countries, like, providing weapons and resources to the folks that are, you know, on the ground.

That's just, right? I mean, it's not, the thing doesn't just collapse just because a lot of people are in the streets. And like, that's kind of a complicated factor here. And the Assad regime collapsed when Joe Biden was president. And I would, you know, point out to all my chest beating Trump, you know, defending friends. Oh, you see, he's really doing much more to get rid of Maduro. And Biden, I believe, I really don't, I think this is correct, quietly, was willing to let others help the people who did end up deposing Assad, really, the Turkish-based forces there. And we're not in great terms of Turkey.

We've got all kinds of issues with Iran. But you know what? That's part of what you do is you do that stuff quietly and behind the scenes. And you ended up with a real victory for freedom there. We'll see how that works out in Turk, Syria. But so far better than it was, certainly. And I don't know, is Trump administration even have the wit to do anything resembling that in terms of getting others to help behind the scenes to get real support to these people who deserve it?

I wish they did, but there's no evidence of it. It'd be nice. Something good happened in the world. You know, we've had a lot of, the forces of autocracy and authoritarianism have advanced quite a bit in the last decade. So it would be nice to have an advance for people that want freedom and opportunity. And just to go all for 30 seconds of us of neocon kind of, you know, people want freedom. I mean, are we allowed to say that anymore? I mean, it's sort of encouraging that they do.

And it's at all honor to them. And they're being unbelievably courageous. and there's something heartening about that, right? We are allowed to say it on the Bullwark podcast, at least. It is heartening, and I'm hoping for continued positive progress there. So we'll keep monitoring it, and if it reaches a boiling point, we'll bring on somebody with more expertise on what's happening in Iran. So any final thoughts from you, Bill?

We go over here? A little to resistance. Do you want us to give us a French? have a French poem that you want to share? No, no, I just struck that, I'll just take 30 seconds on this. I mean, it became sort of fashion. I noticed this on the last few couple of weeks. People were saying, well, I'm not a resist lib, but, you know,

and they were about to make a perfectly sensible point that I agreed with. I thought, I don't know, why can we just say we're all resist libs now? You know, let's just get beyond that. Maybe we were right not to be incidentally six months ago or certainly two or three years ago. There were more complicated aspects of building of broad opposition, but we should be resist lives. And that gets to what you said about Mary Patelta. I mean, if she's going to have to say America first to win, go for it. People need to stop messing around. We need to, the Senate is

really important actually in 26. We're more than just winning the House. And if it takes Mary Patelta saying one thing and someone else saying something else, I am as long as they're going to stop what Trump is doing, I'm for it. Amen. We're all resist libs now. Thanks so much to Bill, as always. Finally, I went also a fairly well to the great Bob Weir, who died over the weekend. He meant a lot to so many of my friends and I know so many of you I've heard from you with emails over the weekend. The Grateful Dad was essential to much of the music that changed my life. And I think there are others who are much better suited to offer credible tributes to Bobby. So I'll just leave you all with a little bit of his music.

And may the four winds blow him safely home. We'll see you back here tomorrow for another edition of the Bullwark podcast. Peace. Thank you.