The Bulwark Podcast - Bill Kristol: Tuberville's Policy Is the Same as Trump's

Episode Date: June 10, 2024

Tommy Tuberville's know-nothing appeasement of Putin lines up exactly with where the ex-POTUS is—Biden should be making Trumpworld squirm over that fact. Plus, the antisemitic white nationalists who could be back at the White House next year, the far-right's momentum in Europe, and the curious case of why Trump would be reluctant to release the Epstein file. Bill Kristol joins Tim Miller.

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It's Portugal Day, actually, and I'm coming at you live from Portugal. We have a lot of European news to discuss, so I'm glad to have Bill Kristol with me to do it. Hey, Bill, what's up? Everything's fine. Looking forward to your detailed analysis of the breakdown of the Portuguese vote, red Portugal, blue Portugal, this important EU elections. We can spend 20, 30 minutes on that, I think, don't you think? About all I have for you is a billboard count. I can break down, you know, whether the far right party or the socialists or the, you know, main party is doing better on their billboards. But

besides that, I don't have a lot of detailed analysis yet. Biden was over here as well. We talked about this a bunch last week. I have to mention, since you mentioned last week that you wanted Biden to, you know, use the D-Day anniversary to contrast with Trump. He didn't really do it explicitly. And yet, implicitly, everyone picked up on the fact that he was contrasting with Trump. And Eric Erickson still like threw himself on the ground and said, Oh, this is norm breaking. So anyway, I'm wondering what you thought about the framing of Biden's events at D-Day and then he went to Pointe du Hoc and elsewhere. No, I thought it was a good trip and an appropriate trip for an American president.

And he left it to others, as I guess he had to, to make the contrast explicitly. I hope others have made and continue to make that contrast. As always with the Biden campaign, there's a little bit of a sense that they do one pretty good ad and, you know, get a few people to say a couple of things on a Sunday show, and then it goes away. And maybe that's just the way it is. You know, it's one trip. The contrast with Trump is something he did, what, five, six years ago. And maybe people aren't going to dwell on it too long over the next few days, but I'd like it to have some lasting effect. And the most striking thing, as you say, was the react, all the Trump people, not even Trump people, Republicans, quote, conservatives,

reacting. Biden says we need to defend democracy. They died and fought and died for democracy and freedom. We need to live up to their standard and honor their, not just honor them, but take, recommit ourselves to their cause. And all the Trump people took that as an attack on Trump, which is very revealing, right? Yes. It's like, anytime you dictate an ode to American values or to human values or into morals, people are like, wait a minute, is that an attack on Trump? You remember the funeral? It was the John McCain funeral, where it was like, only Meghan actually talked about Trump. But everyone else was like, talked about John McCain's heroism and his patriotism and, you know, the way he cared about democracy.

And people are like, why is Trump getting attacked at a funeral? And it's like, what are you talking about? Let's actually listen to Biden when he's asked about Trump while he's over there. The idea that I come to Normandy and not make the short trip here to pay tribute. And it's the same story. Think about it. America showed up. America showed up to stop the Germans. America showed up to make sure that they did not prevail. And America shows up when we need it, just like our allies show for us. You've criticized President Trump for not coming here on his trip. What message are you hoping to send to voters by being here right now? Any other questions?

Mr. President, what's been the most memorable part of it? Did you not get the message, Jack? That's what I was saying. But anyway, any additional thoughts on the Biden contrast there? If I were President Biden, I might have had one sentence there, but I think any American president should come pay respects here. And that incidentally was at Ayn Marr and Harvey pronounced that near Belleau Wood, which was the 1918 American cemetery, which Trump did not go to because it was too much trouble, even though many other world leaders went

in 1918 to the World War I commemoration, the 100th anniversary then. And even though that's the occasional, so it was famous remarks to John Kelly reported. So again, I could, the Biden campaign have persuaded John Kelly to give an interview to someone on over the weekend. Maybe not, maybe he's just sitting it out, but I don't get the impression they tried. You know, I think there's just a little more

they could do to bring home how bad Trump is on this as out of the things. Yeah, that was the one where it was raining. He was worried about his hair. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, well, you know, only a sucker or a loser would, you know, go out in the rain to celebrate people that gave their lives for freedom. Lots else happening over here in Europe. With the EU elections over the weekend, the far right did very well, particularly in France. As a result, Macron called for snap elections. I'm not a French political expert, but it seems like he wants to, you know, solidify the fact that his coalition has a majority in the French Assembly. These were the EU elections and, you know, rather than succumb to whatever this perceived momentum, real momentum really in some elections on the far right. Kind of a risky decision based on some of the analysis, people smarter than me on this. We also have the UK elections coming up

just about a week from that, those French elections, and we have the Trump Biden debate a week prior to that. So, a lively end of June, early July, not going to be the sleepy summer months here on politics. Any kind of grand thoughts on that run that we're going to have? I think it's going to be important in various ways. The UK elections, Labour will crush the Tories. I wonder if they do it so badly that the Conservatives almost fall into third place and you get a new party on the right from more right-wing Farage-type party. But anyway, that's a pretty astonishing lead they have after the Conservatives deserve it after more than a decade of terrible governance.

So maybe that's a heartening thing. Macron's taking a gamble. I mean, he thinks that when people, I think, face up to the choice and they have that runoff situation, so it gets to be a Macron-type candidate versus a Le Pen-type candidate, they win. He could end up with a very right-wing prime minister, that 28-year-old, for two or three years. Luckily, the president in France has most of the power, but I don't know if that'll be a bit of a wake-up call or the opposite.

Some friends of mine here think the elections weren't quite as bad as the media's making it. I mean, the actual movement of vote was a few percentage point in a lot of places, not massive. I think France and Germany were among the worst places. But having said that, it was in that direction. And, you know, about a quarter of the vote, basically, in these EU parliamentary elections is to far-right parties, which is kind of not that different from the U.S., probably, if we had a parliamentary system, right? MAGA is about a quarter of the country. So, maybe a third. A quarter, a third is a lot. It's too much, but it's manageable, but not so manageable in our political system. Yeah, I think maybe some of the media, self included here, concern and dramatization of

what happened in those elections is just the nature of the parties that are doing better, right? I mean, it's not as if, you know, it's not your daddy's center right parties. It's not Cameron and Merkel that are doing well here across the board in Europe. And in Germany, you mentioned AFD improves. Then you've got Elon Musk, who runs the biggest, maybe not the biggest, but one of the biggest media platforms in the world, putting out as a result, like, I don't see what's so bad about AFD. I look at their platform, and they might be the inheritors of the far-right Nazis,

but I see them as kind of a centrist, reasonable, common-sense party. There's concerns just about this growing momentum globally on the populist right. I think another alternate way to look at this is inflation caused. We're kind of in an anti-incumbent moment, right? You see the liberals doing well in the UK. it's Olaf Schultz and Macron that are being pushed back against by the far right in Europe. Both of those things could be true, right? We're at an anti-incumbent moment and there's a worrying amount of power growing on the far right. One place where the incumbent did not struggle was Hungary, for example, Orban's party did well. So, I don't know. How do you kind of assess all that?

Yeah, I think both are true. It is amazing how many incumbent parties, some of them right wing, have lost elections in the last three, four years. That's not maybe a great sign for Biden. But the degree to which the authoritarian right is an international movement with serious money behind it, serious institutions behind it, like Twitter, I mean, major media platforms behind it, business people either behind it, like Twitter. I mean, major media platforms behind it, business people either behind it or accommodating to it. I think this is a good reminder of that. There's just always that tendency to treat it as this fringe weirdo thing that popped up in the last few years, and it's going to fade away, and the old establishment is going to hold on,

as you pointed out, what's now what, three years ago, that very important piece. There's a MAGA establishment, there's an international MAGA establishment and it's big and strong and it's not yes entirely stupid either unfortunately you know they have some pretty capable operatives exploiting issues and being demagogic and so forth so in that respect I think it is a it continues the worrisome trend that we've seen. Yeah, we talked about last week about that New Republic piece on the WhatsApp chain of the international MAGA establishment. And, you know, it's Eric Prince and it's Tucker Carlson and it's these, you know, operatives in Eastern Europe and they're organizing.

This is not just a bunch of clowns, all right? Like this is, they're organizing and they're trying to win and they are winning in certain places. And, you know, they have won in Slovakia and Hungary and you know now in western countries are getting a foothold those are western countries too but in western Europe they're getting a foothold Elon Musk embracing a if I hadn't really paid that much attention to is so revealing I mean there are no guardrails there are no barriers on the right there's no I mean Buckley and the Birch Society is maybe overdone and he wasn't maybe quite as good as people say, but whatever. There were actual guardrails. We all were against

Buchanan and worked hard against him in the 90s, against Ron Paul in the 2000s, et cetera. No guardrails. The AFD is a neo-Nazi party. I mean, let's not kid ourselves that Elon Musk is okay with it, and others are okay with him being okay with it. And then the regular business types are okay with Elon Musk, and they're all having fundraisers together as Anfrasisco, some of them. I mean, yeah, that part of it is, it's not just that everyone's moved to the right. Okay, you could live with them in a way, but it might be unfortunate. But it's the utter failure to rule anything out of bounds. You know, there was an interesting insight.

My man, Pablo Torre, who had on when i was doing the next level sunday interviews he's a sports kind of commentator but sports and culture and it's smart sometimes you need like it helps to have a little bit of distance and he was on um stephanie rule's show last week talking about the elon musk thing and you know there's just this i think for a lot of us sometimes like this you know over need to over analyze like what is the culture what is happening what's with young men and the cultural trends here and Pablo's just kind of like look these guys see that these far-right guys are for sale I was like Trump is for sale like Trump is going to do business with them and just look at the way that he flipped on

TikTok look at the way that he you know has, has been willing to, you know, flip on, you know, various international issues as well. Pablo mentioned Miriam Adelson. I mean, there's just over and over again, like his messaging is malleable if his big supporters are willing to make it so. Saudi Arabia is another good example. Sometimes that does get lost. I felt a little chastened by Pablo's point as a professional analyst, because I do think sometimes we're like, we go after the corrupt side of all of it and the very dangerous rhetorical side of it. But like, there's an old school level of corruption with Trump that he does kind of get away with on this stuff. And I think that it's true about a lot of these guys. Yeah, that's interesting. And on TikTok, of course, he's paid no price that I don't know a single China hawk who said, gee, I may not be able to support Trump, but maybe Biden's tough friend China, which shows that these movements do have a certain momentum of their own.

Once the operatives, but also the think tank types and the others, the journalists sort of semi sign on, they sort of have signed on and they don't, some of them break at certain moments. We've seen it obviously over the last two, three, but generally it's the opposite right they give up whatever reservations they once had and they whitewash whatever things they don't like about trump's policies because they like the transactionalist nature of them and also they think that they might get them back in the end and i remember one time you were talking about this with i think it was maybe it was charlie back in the day and it was like Trump is malleable besides a couple of few core things, right? So if you believe that you can work with him and you're like, okay, well, I care about the serious elements of the China hawkery, right? Like the behind the scenes stuff about IP reform and stuff.

I'm like, I can win him over on IP reform because he doesn't give a fuck as long as I just look the other way when he says, it's okay if the chinese you know have concentration camps i think that is part of their calculus like the the way that trump is malleable on this stuff based on influence they see it kind of as a good thing in that respect the fact that he's a demagogue and not really as much of an ideologue if you want to put it that way helps him probably right? I mean, that's why he's better. He's stronger than DeSantis and the true believers as an actual political leader in some ways. Yeah, Mastriano, and you go down the list, this North Carolina guy, Mark Robinson. There are some idiots, though, in the movement. I do think it's important to remember. We would be remiss if we didn't listen to Tommy Tuberville analyze what is happening in Russia. How many TV clips have you seen of a

battle in Ukraine? Zero in the last six, seven, eight months. It's one-sided. Putin just kind of sitting back watching what's going on, wondering, hey, when y'all going to come over and we'll draw a line here. He doesn't want Ukraine. He doesn't want Europe. He's got enough land of his own. He just wants to make sure that he does not have United States weapons in Ukraine pointing at Moscow. Yeah. I'm sorry, Alabama. This is why you're stereotyped. Okay. I mean, this person, what is he talking about he hasn't seen video of the war in ukraine i can maybe watch some news besides newsmax then senator um if you'd like to see some video of what's happening in ukraine i do think it's relevant here to what all the things we've been discussing in europe because it's true about these european far-right parties too

they are all ranging from put's sympathetic to Putin tools. And he's bought a lot of them, right? And just what you were saying earlier about the transactional, you know, these authoritarian movements can combine fanaticism and transactional, you know, corruption, right? If that's the right term for it, you know what I mean by that, you know, buying people, but also, and then having some true believers and some points, their tensions between them, I guess. And, you know, there are little fights within these authoritarian movements. But at the end of the day, especially if they're winning, that's that,

I guess I'm struck by that recently thinking about it, you know, that just gives it a momentum. The thing holds together, if it looks like a winning enterprise, everyone, people sign on for different reasons, but then they stick with it. I think everyone listening to the podcast is aware of Putin's intentions, but would you like to just share what Putin's actual plans are contra Falkhorn and Leghorn there? You mean to conquer all of Ukraine and then to destroy NATO, but also to something close to genocide in terms of the Ukrainian people, the Ukrainian nation. And he's made it all clear. And he's, I mean, it's, Biden was good on this. I think he and

others said this at D-Day. But just on that, on the politics of that, I've always thought Ukraine is more of a vulnerability for Trump than people conventionally think here in the US. Foreign policy doesn't matter. It's the pocketbook, it's inflation fine. But at the end of the day, that's an issue that some Republicans still remember what they're supposed to be for. And as we saw in the vote in the House, even Speaker Johnson, can't quite stomach giving over Ukraine to Putin. Aren't really where Tuberville is. He's where half the Republican Party on the Hill is, but not only half.

That's an issue that splits the Republicans. I feel like politically that should be, people should make clear that putting Trump in there is the Tuberville policy. Let Trump distance himself from Tuberville. They should have ads up tomorrow saying, this is what Trump believes, this ludicrous, know-nothing appeasement of Putin. And let them spend a week arguing among themselves whether Trump believes this or whether he actually does. He does. But let him.

Trump does believe it. But let Mike Johnson say, well, I don't quite believe this. You've got to get these things into play to disrupt their coalition more. Yeah, I feel like a little work can be done with that. McKay Commons last week was so good. If you missed it, just on the Estonia gambit and the worries there about what Putin's next move could be. If they do listen to the tubervelts of the world world if Trump does get in there. There are just so many options for Putin to just cause a little bit of trouble, going a short way into NATO territory and trying to cause a bluff.

And with all these things we've been discussing together, you have these parties rise in Europe and you have Trump in America. I mean, the potential for catastrophe is, I think, a lot higher than has really sunk in among average people. We have one more idiot, but a dangerous idiot, Johnny McIntyre, who we've been talking about. Bill, you know our new segment, The Right Stuff. I think it's important that people know about Johnny. We were discussing The Green Room, one of the past Right Stuff clips, where he talked about how white people deserve their own state like the Palestinians.

But on theme today, I wanted to play something about his thoughts about Ukraine. When you're doing your taxes this year, don't forget to list all of your dependents, your son, your daughter, Ukraine, Israel. Yeah, news over the weekend was confirmed, what we've known here for a while, is that Johnny is in a position to have a high-ranking personnel role in the next administration. So that's the types of people

that we're going to have in there. Yeah, absolutely. And both true believers and demagogues doesn't even begin to describe it. But anyway, maybe some of my pro-Israel friends who've been beating me up for some deficiencies, I would say, in the Biden administration's policies, perhaps towards Israel, should explain to me how that's going to work out well when McEntee staffs the entire administration. The degree to which Trump's pro-Israel policy

depended entirely on Jared and David Friedman, his ambassador to Israel, and some personal relationships and sort of leftover views from 30 years ago that he had from New York and the degree to which that could all go south. That's maybe a point people should start to make. This sort of never gets mentioned that these people will be in there. And this is happening all over the MAGA internet. It's not as in people's face, right, as the protest. And there's this disgusting protest outside the White House. Now, again, they're protesting Biden.

So it's unclear why Biden has to be responsible for this. But you have these disgusting far left, you know, pro-Hamas, literally, like there was a guy with a fags for Hamas sign, literally pro-Hamas protesters outside the White House. That's concerning. I'd take fair concern that, you know, the Biden White House maybe is staffed by some people who are to his left on israel but that is also true of trump like and to a greater degree and there will be people that are to his isolationist right that are more explicitly anti-semitic than he is that are all over his administration like this guy and that's that doesn't ever sink in that doesn't ever get talked about in these worlds can you send a mass email to your old friends about that?

Can you just send a memo? I could. Are you not concerned about the white nationalists staffing the next administration? The Jew-hating white nationalists that are going to staff the next administration? Has anybody got concerned about that? I will send more memos to my friends, but they are very good at selective, I don't know what even to call it, selective interpretation of reality, you know. Yeah. I forgot to put the Biden hostages thing on my outline this morning.

As I said, I'm in Portugal. So, you know, I'm not maybe 100% in my podcast hosting right now. But I do want to talk about this. It was great news for hostages or at least there's some very moving images. If you want to talk about the merits of that, I'm happy to hear your thoughts on it. But I think it was absolutely a positive and wonderful news. The problem is for Biden politically, and just, you know, how much of a briar patch this is for him. The US helped with the intelligence gathering on this, the pro-Israel side, absolutely no credit. All I saw on the

internet this weekend from people on the pro-Israel side was that they were angry that Biden wasn't madder about the people protesting him, I guess, outside the White House. And that they're mad, I guess, about one of the statements that was talked about now wanting a full ceasefire after this that was put out by Jake Sullivan. So, he gets no credit for the U.S. intelligence helping this. No credit for his Holocaust speech a couple weeks ago, Holocaust Remembrance Day speech from the pro-Israel crowd, from the anti-Israel crowd, you know, crushed. You know, the media is like basically reading talking points put out by the Hamas PR team about the number of people that died in this effort to exfil the hostages,

despite the fact that they're hiding among civilians, obviously. So is there anything that can be done about this? I don't know. How do you assess the whole situation? They're not going to get any credit, so they need to go out and take credit. And I do think he needs at some point, it's better to lose a few voters, I would say on his left or on the, let's say the pro-Palestinian side, and look strong than to look like, I mean, it's unfair maybe that they keep portraying him as zigging and zagging. And every time one of the – Jake Sullivan is obviously an important figure, but other spokespeople and Democratic Party spokespeople, not even Biden people and people at the state level say something like, gee, it's really unfortunate that they killed so many people getting those hostages out. And then that gets blamed on the Biden administration. They can't spend all their time distancing themselves from every comment by every liberal Democrat and so forth out there. I understand that. But again, I mean, he could personally

have said something, for example, and not let Jake Sullivan go on a Sunday show. But again, you've done this as a living, and I have a little bit. I mean, I don't know, you got a very successful, pretty successful trip abroad. You can do a nice visit to the American cemetery at Belleau Wood and contrast it with Trump. Jake Sullivan goes and does a Sunday show where he's going to get asked about this, and he's going to have to navigate between they want to cease fire, but of course, they're glad the hostages are out, but that doesn't mean that we can just count on military action to get all the hostages out. And that becomes as big a story as Biden. I don't mean

to be like one of these insiders who's always quarreling with, how could you put this guy on TV? Why did you make this decision? And all this, at some point, that gets tedious and it's unfair also. Having said that, I do feel like on a Sunday of a successful trip to France, the president should be the news, not his national security advisor, you know, answering questions which aren't going to always be easy and which he tried to straddle. Did he say anything wrong? The national security advisor does have to be out there at times. We do want him to have more surrogates out there i get it i'm with you more is more on biden he did do david muir interview that nobody talks about because it was totally it was perfectly fine and uneventful which is kind of why you do david muir interviews

just as a as a little uh tip from somebody who was in the game not so long ago booking interviews like this you're not exactly known for for news breaking penetrating questions but anyway he did it so the national security advisors out there other people are out there the message is basically yeah we're happy these hostages are out we're happy to be you know to play a supportive role of this we're also still actively trying to get a ceasefire to bring an end to this and what else do you want these people to say well like what do you want them to say yeah fair enough i had to come to their defense in this one because i'm about to criticize them on the next one our friend jonathan martin sent out a tweet about transcribing a message from illinois governor jb pritzker he was speaking at some

democratic confab over the weekend his message about his opponent was this pritzker donald trump is a convicted felon an adjudicated rapist and a congenital liar he's a racist sexist misogynist narcissist who wants to use the levers of power to enrich himself and punish anyone who dares speak a word against him he has stolen state secrets compromised our national security betrayed our constitution and sacrificed the truth to further his own naked ambition bam okay yes that's good more of that i don't know if we need to do the racist sexist misogynist thing sometimes giving specific examples of what he did is better than than using the terms if i was just nitpicking the speech writer there but otherwise a minus very strong we need more of that we're happy that he's out there and yet

should kamala be saying that right should biden be saying that maybe we're going to be getting that at the convention that i think that is some of the some of the antsiness in democratic circles and i i actually can't really adjudicate myself i'm curious your view is do we need to hear this for like emotional satisfaction? Like we just need to feel better that someone's out there saying it? Or would it be helpful to have more people delivering that message more loudly from Team Biden? I think more people more loudly, but also, as you said, more effectively if possible. I think Frisco was very good.

It was at the Wisconsin Democratic Convention, I think. So it's an important state. I very much agree with you. This is a point I think some of our friends miss, and we probably do, I do at least occasionally, which is the examples make a big difference. And Trump, for all that he's a totally out of control demagogue and all this, is pretty, somewhere at this point, somewhere I read it, that Trump is pretty good at that. He actually does give you examples, half of them are false and made up but he doesn't say this judge is is a biased he gives you like four instances of alleged bias by judge merchant in new york there as i say they're not true but sure it makes it seem like yeah it really was it really was a rigged trial you know he didn't let me introduce witnesses and he didn't and the jury instructions were bad

and the you know whatever and i do think we some of our people, some of the people on the liberal side, forget that. The other thing I would say is the messenger matters. And here, I do think there's been a wild underutilization of Democratic governors who won by big margins in states that Biden has to win only two years later. And they're pretty popular in those states, it looks to me, from the polling, Shapiro, Whitmer, Evers in Wisconsin, for that matter, or governors in sort of adjacent states like Prescott, Polis in Colorado could probably help in Arizona. And there's not much use of them really in a sustained way and in a way that's coordinated more with the messaging

of the campaign. Maybe we'll see more of that. You and I were in Pennsylvania, you spoke with Shapiro on this podcast, and he's obviously a loyal soldier and I think he's, he's doing his best, but I didn't get the impression that there's intimate coordination between Shapiro world and Biden world on how to win Pennsylvania. And if I were running the Biden campaign, I'd give a hundred million dollars to Shapiro and say, go win Pennsylvania again. You went by 15 points last time, just went up by two for me, you know, now. I'm with that. I'm with that. And JB, this is useful.

Maybe this can be a useful thing for him. Kind of a base JB Pritzker. There's always, it seems like there's room in our politics for kind of a little bit overweight guy who says what he thinks, you know, Mitt put Chris Christie in that role in 2012. I guess that didn't, that didn't yield success, but I don't know. Maybe Pritzker can get out there a little bit more and feels a little bit more free to, to let loose. I don't know. Maybe Pritzker can get out there a little bit more and feels a little bit more free to let loose. I don't know. There's something about Pritzker, even though he's a rich guy, that codes a little bit more regular person than Gavin for me. Totally. And incidentally, Chris Christie could get out there more, but maybe the Biden people

should reach out to him. Chris Christie should get out there more. More on that coming, I think, on this podcast over the next few weeks. What else do I have for you, Bill Kristol? Oh, yeah. You wrote in Morning Shots this week. You tried to get inside Donald Trump's head. It's a dark place to be. So I don't know why you do this exercise. I'm still recovering. So talk to us about what you think the view is from Trump world at this point. This is the second of these, you know, reading Trump's mind things I've done and Bill Safar used to do all the time. My implicit message, not that implicit, pretty obvious, is taking Trump a little more seriously and not just dismissing him as a buffoon, which a lot of our people still want to do, is whether he personally thinks all these things or the team thinks these things for

him. So my message is he thinks he's winning. He is winning by a little. He's running pretty far ahead of where he ran in 2020. The last few months were pretty risky for him, I think, in the sense that it was the State of the Union, which Biden did well at. There was the trial in New York, which may still pay a little more price for it. But he's through both of those things. And he's lost maybe a point, if that, in the national polls. Not even clear that he's lost that in the state

level polls. So he's still ahead. And what's coming up? I mean, it's hard to see that Biden has many cards to play over the next two, three months. The biggest thing coming up is the debate, which you mentioned earlier, scheduled for June 27th. So in my, putting myself in Trump's mind, I think he skips that. I think he finds an excuse not to do the debate. He says, I'll take a drug test. Biden won't. That's a ridiculous thing. Of course, the media makes fun of it. Meanwhile, it sort of percolates out there that maybe Biden is taking some drugs to make himself more alert. And why won't he do it? And Trump finds an excuse not to do it. He might do it because he thinks he can beat Biden. He might do it just because he thinks he'd pay a price for not doing it. But I

got to think if he thinks he's ahead, you it's risky to debate let's just pause on this point for a second because i like it i like contrarian bill because you make me think sometimes and i think you know everyone's you know maybe maybe a little more than everyone's a while from time to time contrarian bill is wrong you know because it's a thought exercise you're trying to get us to think which is an important part of this process, important part of gaming out our opponent. My instinct has been from the start that both of them have to do it. You could be. I've spent less mindshare on the possibility that they might not, because I just feel like both of them have to divide because of age and, you know, Trump,

just to demonstrate some level of seriousness to the double haters, the people in the middle, even the soft Haley people. But maybe not. I don't know. Is that right? What makes you think that Trump might reconsider? Like, what would be the argument if you were sitting around with Chris LaCivita? Now, I'm going to get you out of Trump's brain and into Chris LaCivita's brain. What is the argument for not doing it? The argument that he might consider it is that he didn't do any of the debates against the Republicans, and he's not incapable of understanding that if it's in his interest, he should skip debates. Incidentally, one thing people haven't focused on, maybe you know the answer to this, it's the CNN debate, right, on June 27th. I take it that means it's only on CNN.

It's not like the presidential debates we're used to, which are roadblocked across all the networks. Yeah, people's stories are going to be on whatever NCIS or CSI, Oshkosh, or whatever people are watching these days on network TV. That's just going to be on still. Yeah, so all of it. Now, we all know, and we've said this for years, I suppose, it's the clips that matter that go out. So maybe it still has a very big...

How much do you think that reduces the effect of it, though, that it's going to be watched by 10 million people on CNN, not 15 million people on every network? I think the ratings are still going to be very, very high. Part of it is just like looking at a train wreck. Yeah. You know, I think the ratings would be very high if you said, hey, exclusive on CNN tonight, we have video from a senior citizen's home and a food fight broke out in the cafeteria. And these old geezers are just like throwing, you know, throwing pineapples at each other.

Like, I bet that would do very well in the ratings i think people are interested in just the freak show of this i know that that's not great about the american democracy but i do think there's a lot of interest in that how crazy will trump get can biden withstand that i think there are a lot of questions that make it more interesting than like a dull Clinton debate. That said, you do get more casuals, right? Like if the key demographic here are the people that aren't paying as close of attention, we keep saying that over and over again, but it's true and it's important. You probably do lose some of those people. And a lot of those people will learn what they learn then from clips on social media. And I really don't know the answer to this question. Is the Biden campaign ready to be at a level

of the Trump campaign, which is in its own insane way, pretty aggressive and pretty good at this, I would say, getting the right things out very, very fast and suitably distorted and so forth. Yeah. I mean, I'm worried about that.

It's important. There's a clip of Biden sitting down and he kind of pauses because he wasn't sure. It was like me when I go back to Catholic church now. I don't go to church as much, sorry, mom, as I used used to and so i kind of forget when you're supposed to kneel and sit so sometimes i'll start to sit and i'll be like oh wait nope this is the kneeling part and so like he paused for like two seconds because he wasn't sure if it was time to sit yet and then and then he sits down the rnc puts out a video that's a five second video of him just

sitting there and then is like is biden shitting his pants during the d-day thing you know and andrew egger your morning shots colleague like literally was like no if it was a six second video instead of five you would see that he sits down and it looks totally normal and a lot of people sharing andrew's reply on social media but i didn't see this everywhere like this was in like relatively mainstream outlets like Like the Biden didn't know whether to sit down. The right is sometimes the disinformation stuff gets a little overplayed. That is real. Like,

and they know how to do that. I think they probably can't do that on the actual, like under debate thing. It's a little different than a random event they're taking, but you know, we have 90 minutes of a debate on CNN, which is watched by, I don't know,

15, 20 million people. There'll still be tens of millions more who will watch clips. There'll be some 40 seconds where Biden looks slightly incoherent. And there'll be some 40 seconds where Trump looks strong and decisive. And if the Trump world gets those clips out massively on social media, and not just to their own base, but maybe to swing voters, I don't know how prepared I hope the Biden campaign is spending the next two weeks with a very, very aggressive campaign on that. But anyway, if the debate happens, June 27th is pretty important. I very much agree with you on that. Then there's the sentencing of Trump on

July 11th in the Republican convention, which probably isn't that important, except his VP pick is kind of interesting. So to get back to your earlier point, the June 20th, 27th window, I guess, through the French elections, British elections, Trump VP debate, possibly, and then VP pick. Yeah, that's a pretty interesting three weeks of politics. Yeah, the 11th will be the sentencing. I didn't even mention that when I went through my period. I figure he gets sentenced. I say this in the morning, maybe Trump's mind, should I get sentenced and then just go right to Trump Tower and ask my VP pick? Does that step on it? Or just maybe I just, but I think the sentencing is also, I have wonderful lawyer friends who are all kind of,

I think that sentencing could be a big moment. A, I'm sort of doubtful. B, in Trump's mind, I say, if I get a slap on the wrist, anything short of prison sentence, it just shows everyone it was a trivial case. I get a prison sentence, outrage, unbelievable, you know, persecution by the deep state. And he gets another 40 million dollars of contributions and goes into the republican convention with huge momentum at least among the base well maybe doesn't go though the convention is only four days after right do you have time to appeal how does that he appeals right away and the sentence is is held off is is postponed so he's free there can't be travel limits?

There could be, but they won't stop him from going to the convention. And I think normally someone like that, white collar, you know, they let him travel around in the US. Fucking white collar criminals. I just get away with everything. It's unbelievable. That would be something if they tried to stop him

going to the convention. I don't know that that would play that well politically. You know, people probably think he should be able to speak to the convention. I did an interview with Julie Brown a while back. It was the Epstein case, you know, who broke a lot of these stories. In Epstein's first prison sentence, they like let him do whatever he wanted. He was like walking around South Florida, like hanging.

And like cops would seem like, wait, didn't I arrest that guy? Like, isn't that guy supposed to be in jail? It's really annoying. Another thing that wasn't on my outline, which I should mention that since Epstein came up, did you see this? So Trump goes on fox and friends they ask him if he will declassify the 9-11 documents the epstein documents and one other conspiracy theory i don't know firstly it's very strange this is where fox is right now but like fox has gone like fully down the 9-11 truth or

is a rabbit hole but trump says he will he will do that uh he'll declassify and that's the clip they put on the show but a longer clip that then got put out on radio was Trump actually backs off the Epstein one he said actually on the Epstein thing I mean I'll declassify why he died but you know we don't want to ruin everybody's life that was involved maybe there's some false accusations in there we don't want to ruin everybody's life I'm like where again this is where I don't want the whole show to be like why aren't the libs doing things more but like if Joe Biden was like or Bill Clinton said that like oh yeah I don't want to declassify the Epstein thing I don't want to accidentally ruin anybody's life who might have

been on the plane it's like wait a minute could we not maybe seed some conspiracies of our own here or maybe some educated guesses about why Donald Trump wouldn't want to declassify the documents that maybe reveal him or his friends or his donors are hanging out with Epstein? Yeah, certainly there's an incentive for his donors to give him even more money, right? So I think there's a kind of classic mob reason for holding back on that. But no, I agree. And essentially in the same week, I think basically Joe Biden has said nothing critical of what's happening in the Hunter Biden trial. And he said he would not pardon Hunter Biden.

Would not pardon. Which is actually, I actually think is almost like too far, but whatever. I mean, I'm glad he said it from a political point of view. Again, I mean, maybe someone should emphasize a little more. We're trying to actually here at the Bulwark. We had several pieces on this, the rule of law side of things. I mean, Trump is a mob leader and Biden is a conventional politician with some flaws, but basically a rule of law guy.

And maybe that's kind of important for the future of the country. I don't know. Yeah, a very important distinction. Yeah. Once again, we're out here just like, yeah, maybe let's give Joe Biden some credit. he's not even going to pardon his own his son is on let's just be real like a pretty ridiculous charge like it's a pretty absurd trial that hunter bides in and this hunter has done plenty of things so he deserves that he got caught up in something he obviously is always going to get caught up in something but like the merits of this trial are pretty preposterous and you know cnn's covering it like

it's the oj trial for some reason and some of our friends at national review and other places got mad at me because i was like several outlets were attacking hunter's daughter for they fact-checked her testimony where what she testified about what hunter said to her at that time was different from what her text messages said from that time. It's all like, okay, that's, look, you should tell the truth if you don't understand, but is it really news? Like, is fact-checking the president's granddaughter's testimony in a trial that has nothing to do with the president that's about her father's drug use? Like, is that really, if the Post was doing it, okay, but like, is that really news? Like, was doing it okay but like is that really news

like no it's not okay i'm sorry that wasn't a question bill i just that just you you were the one that brought up that but i was happy that you brought up joe biden you're gonna need to chill out there in portugal here for a few days i'm gonna have to have a cigarette after this it just pisses me off so much it's like we're going after naomi biden like what what how like can you imagine just the way that these guys would flop on the ground if you or i ever sent out one tweet criticizing like one of javanka's kids you know anyway this is fucking the whole thing is ridiculous all right i admire you for the effort that you put in to try to honor bill sapphire to try to get inside donald trump's head and there were some things that you

write where I'm like, yeah, that sounds like Trump. Bill's on to something there. And then you hear what's inside real Donald Trump's head. And I wonder if it's possible to get inside a mind that deformed. Here's Donald Trump at a rally talking about sharks. So I said, let me ask you a question. And he said, nobody ever asked this question. And it must be because of MIT, my relationship to MIT. Very smart. He goes, I say, what would happen if the boat sank from its weight and you're in the boat and you have this tremendously powerful battery and the battery is now underwater and there's a shark that's approximately 10 yards over there. By the way, a lot of shark attacks lately. Do you notice that? A lot of sharks. I watched some guys justifying it today. Well, they weren't really that angry. They bit off the young lady's leg because of the fact that they were not hungry, but they misunderstood who she was. These people are crazy. He said, there's no problem with sharks. They just didn't really understand a A young woman swimming now really got decimated and other people too.

A lot of shark attacks. So I said, so there's a shark 10 yards away from the boat, 10 yards or here. Do I get electrocuted? If the boat is sinking, water goes over the battery, the boat is sinking. Do I stay on top of the boat and get electrocuted? Or do I jump over by the shark and not get electrocuted? Because I will tell you, he didn't know the answer.

He said, you know, nobody's ever asked me that question. I said, I think it's a good question. I think there's a lot of electric current coming through that water. But you know what I'd do if there was a shark or you get electrocuted? I'll take electrocution every single time. I'm not getting near the shark. OK, Bill, did you consider any of that? Any like long asides in your article this morning about whether you'd rather be electrocuted or

eaten by a shark? And, you know, when you talk to smart MIT people, do you ever ask them about that choice? Yeah, often I have a lot of interesting discussions with MIT types. I know. Well, I only give you part of Donald Trump's mind. I guess we're fair enough to look at the rest of it as well. It's a warped man. You also didn't talk about, you know, ogling young women either. This is just some brainstorming

for the next time you do something about this. I can do more of these. That's good. Yeah, yeah. Mine's a family-friendly version of Donald Trump's mind. I wanted to close with a brief discussion. I wrote about it late Friday. Mutual friend David Bowes of the Cato Institute died after a battle with cancer on Friday.

I put it in the article. I want folks to listen to his comments in his final remarks, public remarks before he died. He was at a convention about liberalism. He was a libertarian, an avowed, prominent, lifelong libertarian who thought deeply about libertarian philosophy and was extremely disenchanted by the libertarian movement towards MAGA and authoritarianism towards the end of his life. And here were his thoughts about that at an event in San Francisco a couple of months ago. We, we libertarians, most of us Americans are liberals. Liberalism is a universal creed. We believe that all people are endowed with inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, not just some people. And that idea is incompatible with

political ideas based on blood and soil or treating people differently because of race or religion. And so when you see self-proclaimed freedom advocates talking about blood and soil or helping a would-be autocrat overturn an election, or talking about LGBT equality as degeneracy, or saying we shouldn't care about government racism against black people, or defending the Confederacy and the cause of the South, or joining right-wing culture wars and supporting politicians who want to use the state to fight their enemies or posting Holocaust jokes and death threats on Twitter. Recognize that for what it is. Speak up. Fight back. Tell people that's not America and it's certainly not libertarianism.

Man, Bill, really powerful stuff. And just I'm glad that somebody was out there saying it. And I was glad that he was out there saying it. And I was glad that he was able to have the opportunity to say it before he died. No, I was too. And I didn't know David well, but I respected him. I was not a libertarian. And if anything, he disapproved of my hawkishness on foreign policy, I believe. And I don't think I ever debated him, but he was a formidable debater and really a principled person. And some of the tributes to him including yours but others aaron ross powell have been really moving and it's nice to see that someone who stood with

principle and really was a slightly lonely figure on the libertarian side in the last few years and holding that principle some other friends of ours have shakedown and others but some haven't it's nice to see the tributes that have been paid to him yeah i remember he was on that national review issue in 2016, right? With you. Yeah, no, so I was just pulling this up. Okay, so there's this National Review cover for people that remember. We're going to navel gaze inside the conservative movement here for a minute.

Against Trump was the cover. The editors were against Trump. So I guess we'd have to go look at who counted among the National Review editors. But among the guests that they had, there were 22 guest writers who were against trump at this time including david beck or excuse me including david bows but also glenn beck thomas soul a lot of people ben dominich the federalist a lot of people who ended up being for trump not too long after that. I look at this list, David, Mona, you, Michael Medved, maybe gets some half credit, Russell Moore, a very small group of people that stayed stalwart throughout all of this. And so, you know, it's interesting that you guys do

kind of come from the opposite ideological ends, maybe of that spectrum. But definitely credit were due to the small but merry band of people that stayed stalwart against donald trump throughout this whole this whole ordeal despite all of the all the incentives the other direction well it's an honor to be with honestly really to have been with david and so sorry that he died so much younger than he should have but um and russell mo, really a principled person, has paid a huge price in the evangelical world. Mona and I, we paid the price of being here at the Bulwark with you. So that's no price at all.

Yeah, it's kind of an award for you. That's been an up, that's been a, what am I trying to say? Upgrade? Upgrade. Upgrade. I couldn't remember the word. We've upgraded you, as Beyonce would say. Yeah.

The Russell and David thing are interesting. And just as a final thought on it, like libertarians i wrote in the piece that he was an outcast among outcasts right it's kind of fun it's kind of telling about human nature that even the fucking libertarians couldn't resist trump you know i mean you would have thought that these people that were always outcasts that never had political power that weren't motivated by access. They didn't have any influence in the Bush presidency. And yet, something about that Trump, you know, just the appeal of being contrarian, being anti the left, attacking the progressives, attacking the enemies, getting access you didn't have before, because Trump didn't have people around him. I think

there are a lot of people in libertarian world who got access. And in a lot of ways, there's that parallel between David and Russell more. You know, like you would think that among Christians, that would be a place where somebody like Trump would not appeal. It's a lot easier to understand why our people, you know, the political hacks, why they succumb to Trump. Like that logic makes sense to me. But in libertarian world, in evangelical world, I don't know, extra credit, I guess, is what I'm saying is given to Russell Moore and David Bowes for being stalwart throughout all this. And he will be missed. Russell's still with us. We got to get him back on this podcast. So any other final thoughts from

you, Bill? No, I just echo the phrase of Russell and David. And yeah, it is human nature is a funny thing. People, people want to be on the winning side too. I think, I think the fact that Trump, you know, went in 2016 and is back again. I don't know people, but you're right. Libertarians of all people should have resisted that, but whatever. Fucking libertarians, man. Thank God for David Bowes. Thank you all for being with us here today on the Borg podcast.

I will be back tomorrow. Then we'll have some guests in the host chair later this week. We'll see you all then. Peace. I won't let you down, so please don't give me up Cause I would really, really love to stick around, oh yeah Heaven knows I was just a young boy Didn't know what I wanted to be Didn't know what I wanted to be I was every little hungry Schoolgirl's pride and joy

And I guess it wasn't enough for me and joy And I guess it was enough for me I said I guess it was enough for me To win the race, a pretty face Brand new clothes and a big fat place On your rock and roll TV But today the way I play the game is nuts and no way And I wanna get me so happy I think there's something you should know

I think it's time I told you so There's something deep inside of me There's someone else I've got to be Take back your picture and frame Take back your singing in the rain I just hope you understand Sometimes the cold does not make the man All we have to see Is that I don't belong to you

And you don't belong to me Freedom, freedom My freedom You got to give what you take Freedom, hold on to my freedom. My freedom. You got to give what you take. The Bulldog Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper

with audio engineering and editing by Jason Breth.