The Bulwark Podcast - Bill Kristol: Voters Are Realizing Trump Doesn’t Care About Them

Episode Date: May 18, 2026

Sadly, it’s taken some time, but voters seem to be figuring out that Trump only cares about himself, his ballroom, his blatant corruption, and his unquenchable desire for revenge. 2026, so far, has been bad for his approval ratings. And his continued weakness on the world stage, especially when it comes to Iran and China, will only drive his numbers down more. At the same time, Trump has done permanent damage to our standing among our allies. Plus, Dems need to get serious about AI as well as a stock-trading ban for public officials—including presidents—Trump has far too many unexplained medical conditions, and Tim explains his support for commuting Tina Peters’ prison sentence.Bill Kristol joins Tim Miller.show notes Monday's "Morning Shots" Lauren on how the Dems should respond to an aging Trump's health issues Bill's "Bulwark on Sunday" with Rob Flaherty, Kamala's deputy campaign manager San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria and our own MAGA culture expert, Will Sommer, will join the gang on stage at Bulwark Live: San Diego this Wednesday. And on Thursday at Bulwark Live: LA our friends Jane Coaston, Jon Favreau, Erin Ryan from Crooked Media, The Ringer’s Van Lathan and progressive commentator Brian Tyler Cohen will join Sarah, Tim and Sam on stage. Grab your seats today at TheBulwark.com/EventsStart your new morning ritual & get up to 43% off your @MUDWTR with code THEBULWARK at mudwtr.com/THEBULWARK! #mudwtrpod

Hello and welcome to the Bullard podcast. I'm your host Tim Miller. It is Monday. So, of course, we have editor-at-large, author of the Morning Shots newsletter, Bill, Crystal. Bill, you had some almost optimistic notes in the newsletter this morning, I guess. If bad news for Trump is good news for America and the pro-democracy movement, you were focused on the polls.

But you framed Trump's bad poll numbers up first by talking about what's happened out here in Louisiana. So let's start there. Bill Cassidy finished third in the Senate primary gear. I should know quick aside for the Louisiana people. Jeff Landry put five ballot initiatives on the ballot. All went down. No, no, no, no, no. So I think that's another good sign about where things are politically in the country. But Lindsey Graham said over the weekend about Cassidy's loss, if you try to destroy President Trump, you're going to lose because this is the party of Donald Trump. And that, and it's a thing. itself may be the problem. Talk about what you, your little meditation on the newsletter on that. It's just kind of amazing. Isn't it that a Republican senator, been in a set of quite a long time, the House before it. There's no way we have some attachment to the broader party, its principles, ran against Trump, obviously in 2015, 2016, just says it's the party of Trump. And it's not, he's not saying it regretfully or so sadly or, you know, in a melancholy way. That's just a fact. And you know what politics is about him? Politics is about is adjusting to whoever's

in power and just sucking up to him shamelessly no matter what he does. So Bill Cassidy, I don't know if Lindsay is close to Bill Cassidy. They've served together quite a long time. But no regrets. He goes down because he voted five years ago to impeach Trump for what he clearly deserved to be impeached for the January 6th insurrection. Cassidy, unfortunately, then spent the next five years basically sucking up to Trump. So I have limited sympathy for him, honestly, including, of course, the key vote to confirm

Robert of Kennedy Jr. before the committee, which I guess Cassidy's chairs, right, the health committee. Anyway, so yes, so it is the party of Trump. Talk about Louisiana for a minute, too. Yeah, but it is kind of interesting, right? Yeah, look, I mean, Cassidy goes down, basically only wins some districts around New Orleans, which is basically, I don't know, our people probably, hauling their nose and voting for him, essentially.

I had a gathering on Saturday where a couple of people said that, you know, they were in there. We have the best I-voted stickers here in Louisiana. That's a little crawfish, you know. looking at all of us with his little snappers talking about voting and a couple of them had it on and I was like, what did you decide to do? And several of them just said that they, I hate Bill Cassidy, but they're like, well, at the end of the day, you know, we know that whoever Trump endorses will just do literally whatever he wants and maybe Cassidy will go back to being independent after he wins again. Not excited about that, but there's no other good option. But not much sympathy

for that view and the rest of the state. But I don't know. I thought that the ballot initiatives were telling. You know, I mean, They weren't particularly close. And if you look at the turnout, in the deep south, it's sometimes a little hard to look at turnout based on voter registration because there's still some like basically elderly Republicans who were Democrats, you know, back in the civil, you know, back in the 90s racist Democrats, Southern Democrats who just never changed their party identification, actually registration. But now that they've closed primaries, you assume most people would, like choose the party that they're actually in and re-register. and it was only like 8% more Republicans than Democrats voted, which is about a 12% swing. If you kind of mapped that onto the election in the fall,

it wouldn't mean that Louisiana would have a Democratic senator, but it would be maybe Texas or Iowa would if there's a 12-point move towards the Democrats. So I thought it was pretty, in that sense, pretty telling, a lot to not be happy about here in Louisiana. I mean, they canceled the House elections because they're trying to steal a House seat. but like the broader dynamics, I think, are pretty quickly at play. And this is like what you get into. If you look at the numbers, CNN approval out this morning, CNN New York Times,

Trump approved 37, disapprove 59. CBS, Trump approved 37, disapprove 63. I thought interestingly in the CBS poll, they asked Trump's favorability on the economy even lower than his overall favorability, 30% favorability on the economy. Now we're getting down towards that tricky dick line at 30%. So I don't know. What did you make of all that?

No, I think the polls are really striking. They're both good polls, and you always want to compare apples to apples, so what should compare them to previous polls by the same outfits, the same organizations? The CBS poll has the approvals ticked down a point and the disapproval's ticked up a point each month. And appoints not much. It's frustratingly slow. It has, but the last half of 2025, Trump was very stable, basically at around 4159, within a point literally either way, kind of just up and down.

Then in January this year, he was 4159, then 4060, 3961, 3862, and by May 3763. Kind of a trend line, I think. And again, confirmed by other trend lines, including this morning's New York Times, which, if I, let's see, that had Trump. Trump was within two points, I think, in the time last September, an approval disapprove gap. Then it moved, it opened up some in January or February, I think was the next one. And now it's 3759. So Trump has gone down in the New York Times poll as well. So the trends are similar in almost every poll.

37% approval in those two polls, 38, 39%. If you look at the big averages now, which includes some lagging polls, I would say, the New York Times average and the state silver average. I mean, that's very bad for the midterms. There's a lot of political science data on this. Ron Brownstein spends all this time comb writing about it in a very intelligent way. Republicans running for Congress will win some Trump. disapprovers. There's no question. There are some people who say I disapproved Trump,

but I'm still one of a Republican member of Congress. But when you're having a midterm election, when the president's party has controlled both houses of Congress. So it becomes a referendum on, do you want a Congress to continue to go along with the president or to check the president? You don't win that many, usually, if you're disapprovers. Ron says it's about 10% normally, if you look at the polls on election day. And especially, and this is what gets to the Lindsey Graham comment, if the party is just tied at the hip with Trump. It's one thing if you have a whole lot of independent members of Congress and they have their own identity, their own brand, you know, and voters can tell themselves, sort of what you said about Cassidy,

but that was more wishful thinking, right? But even so, Cassidy was one of the four or five most dissidents, I suppose, Republican members of the Senate, the others. You know, Marshall and Kansas and either Paxton or coronet for that matter at this point are not, I've not shown much dissidents at all. And that would be true in other states as well. So I really do think in the House races, obviously. So I think the degree to which Trump, but 37 means a good democratic year this November. That can't be overstated. And this trend remains down, incidentally.

Trump could bounce back some of 37. I expect these trends never go entirely in one direction for 10 months. There'll be some uptick one month of a point. But it just as likely he'll be lower than 37 than higher, especially if you think about the real world, are things going to get better in the economy in the next five, six, five months? I'm kind of doubtful, right? So is the corruption going to get less obvious?

So one last point just on the CBS poll, which is the one I looked at more closely. The Times poll came out very early this morning and I was already writing about CBS. But does Trump care about people like you? Was terrible for Trump. This is pretty interesting. How much do you think Donald Trump cares about the needs and problems of people like you? A lot, 18 percent, some 17 percent. So 35 percent cares about you.

Not much. 14 percent. Not at all 51 percent. 35, 65, 65. That's been a Trump's strength. caring about people like you, right? I mean, that's, yeah. So, man, 51% doesn't care about you at all. 52% strongly disapprove. That's a very big hill to climb for the Republicans. It is indeed. The only countervailing point to that, maybe we'll do a little bit more on this at

the end, but I just, I just want to flag this is that time Siena poll asked people for views of the Democratic Party, and it was worse than Trump, 2670, 26 satisfied 70, dissatisfied. Now, a big part of that is Democrats being doing. satisfied by that the Democrats aren't fighting hard enough. You know, so it's a little bit overstated. Like, I don't have in front of me, but like among Kamala Harris voters, it was like 46% disapprove of the Democratic Party or something like that. Like, just a massive number.

It's a little worse than it actually is, I think. I think it's people who are perfectly satisfied to actually vote for Democrats, but are satisfied with the capital D Democratic Party, or are unsatisfied with the capital D Democratic Party for that matter. But even still, I think that's the one cautionary. note. It probably won't play out this fall, but I just think the Democrats really need to grapple with seriously that 70% of the country is dissatisfied with them. Now, that's a huge 2027, 2028 issue for the Democrats when you're actually talking about

choosing a president and choosing a Congress to govern as opposed to putting some people in there to check Trump. The move that it can be overcome in 26 is that in that actual time, the Senate poll, the generic ballot is plus 11 Democrat. I don't know. It's kind of comical, right? Right. You know, we hate the Democratic Party. Oh, no. plus 11 Democrats this fall. But it's perfectly reasonable, incidentally. It's perfectly rational, right?

You've got all kinds of issues to the Democrats that are progressive that are progressive enough. I don't like this guy or that one. You know, they need to take to more on this issue, that issue. It doesn't matter. They're not going to be able to pass stuff

almost anything in the next two years. They can check Trump. And so it really is about Trump. So the one piece of advice for the Democrats, therefore, is keep the focus on Trump, make the 2026 midterm about Trump, force the Republican members of Congress

to vote, to defend the most unpopular things Trump is doing over and over and over. And I think those unpopular things can range from serious unpopular things, the war and the like to the ballroom and all the symbolic things that show Trump doesn't care about, about you, and he's just obsessed with himself. So that is my strategic advice to Democrats. Forget about yourself. Make it all about Trump. One other thing related to Trump's political power with his own party is Thomas Massey's primary in Kentucky 4 is

tomorrow. I've been discussing this a lot. I just wanted to flag it again. His poll number is looking better than Cassidy's, I think, in part because he has his own political brand, and he's like always been a bit of a gadfly, a really extreme libertarian. And the polls have been pretty interesting in that race. Like, basically they show that everybody under 55 is for Massey, but that his, you know, MAGA AI bot opponent is winning Basher Assad level numbers among like 65 plus. Maga-Kentuckians who are spending all day watching Fox News and reading Facebook, that's not a great place to be in a Republican primary. You probably want to be doing better among the 65 pluses. So Massey might go the way of Cassidy. But I do think the race is interesting because it's the first

time that somebody has really bucked Trump held the line. Didn't do what Cassidy did. I mean, Massey continues to be conservative and vote with Trump and where they agree. But he's not sucking up to him. He's not doing apologia. You know, he, Buck Trump on a couple of issues, has not strayed, and then has ran a vigorous campaign to win against him, which Liz Cheney would qualify for that up to the last point. Liz Cheney kind of gave up on her re-election campaign, if we can be real honest about it. Like Massey really is trying to win this race. They've put huge money is going in against him, APEC and MAGA Inc money, most expensive

primary in history, trying to kill Thomas Massey. And somehow he's still close. I think probably what happens is he loses close. But, you know, even a close loss, it's kind of a Pyrrhic victory. There's the horseshoes and hand grenades element to that. But I don't know. It would be something to be said for the fact that somebody bucks Trump stands up to him and still gets 40% in a primary.

It would mark at least some shift from where we've been, where everybody who bucked him and got just absolutely annihilated in Republican primaries before this. Yeah, I agree. And the issue in which you bucked him most conspicuously at first, I guess, really, was Epstein. And so I think it would show a little bit also because he's not voted to impeach Trump. He's not voted against, you know,

whatever some of the other obvious places you could split with Trump. Now he's more unhappy with Trump and Mike Johnson generally. So there are some other issues he's bucking the monies. War Powers is the other one that war in our office. He has been a libertarian, Rand Paul type on that. So Epstein in the war, those are pretty big, if Massey were to win or even come very, very close, suggests there's real potency among Republican voters.

Now, how many Massey voters are going to vote Democratic in Kentucky for? Probably not a huge number. But elsewhere and statewide in some places, I think that's the, you know, the Massey vote becomes sort of interesting. All right, y'all, it's the Monday morning podcast when the term brain fog is the most resident with me. I'm making the editors do a little extra work on Mondays as I, you know, get about 10% of the facts wrong when I'm talking on the podcast. And that's where Mudwater comes in. The original blend is a coffee alternative made with cacao, chai, turmeric, and functional mushrooms like Lions Main and Rishi. You get a warm, focus, boost without the wired buzz or the midday crash that usually tags along with a cup of coffee.

And if you're not ready to let go of coffee entirely like me, they actually launched a low-calf coffee as well, made with organic beans and the same functional mushrooms you get in the other blend. It's rich, smooth, and only 45 milligrams of caffeine. So you get the flavor you love without the jitters or the crash. And now you can grab it at targets or sprouts nationwide, making better mornings for afternoons easier than ever. Ready to make the switch to cleaner energy, head to mudwater.com and grab your starter kit today. Right now, our listeners get an exclusive deal.

Up to 43% off starter kits plus free shipping and a free rechargeable frother when you use code the bulwark. That's right, up to 43% off with code the bulwark at MUD, WTR.com. After you purchase, they'll ask you how you found them. Please support our show and let know we sent you. All right, to the war. Here's the latest. Trump did a bleat yesterday. We're in Groundhog Day here. For Iran, the clock is ticking and they better get moving fast, all caps, or there won't be anything left of them. I talk about the boy who cried wolf. Trump has been bleeding about ending Iranian civilization for like six weeks now without doing anything, extremely

humiliating and weak. The general Jack Keene was on Fox this morning. He said that he thinks we're on the cusp of returning to full throttle combat operations. I take that as an interesting note. I mean, he obviously hears from people in the Trump military establishment, and he's doing it on Fox. This is not idle speculation. So that's something to keep an eye on. What's your sense on where we're at? Just what you say. I mean, I think Jack Keene is in touch with people in the administration, including up to the very top. And I think he also wishes, you know, he has this sort of, I don't know what even to call it,

the view at this point. I was going to say more traditional hawkish view, but I don't want to give away the hawkish thing to that. So he has a certain not crazy view that once you start this kind of thing, you sort of have to finish it and leaving the straight at Iran's mercy, the straight reform moves at Iran's mercy,

is even worse than whatever the downsides of starting the war again are. I don't agree with that. I mean, I think leaving the straight at Iran's mercy is bad, but Trump's already sort of made. that bet for himself and for us, unfortunately. And the idea of starting up the war with Iran then retaliating against the entire neighborhood and God knows what happens then to energy capacity, I just think that's even worse. But yeah, Keene is not someone to just pop off. So there must be

serious people within the administration and serious people who are talking to Trump saying you can't let this just, you do need to go back in. I assume it would be big bombing, you know, not ground troops, but what if the big bombing doesn't work after a week? Or what if the big bombings? bombing starts, and then Iran takes out some Qatari and UAE, you know, energy places and probably hits maybe a U.S. base or two, I hope not. And then what does Trump do, right? I mean, it's unbelievable he's got himself in this place. You know what I mean? I mean, the fact that we're having this discussion is such an unbelievable dereliction of duty by the President of the United States to get them. People make foreign policy mistakes, and they get into

things they shouldn't have, and they go down past they shouldn't have, and they have tough choices then about getting out or staying in. But did he has? gotten into this through idiocy and bluster and letting, I guess, Heng Seth persuade him that it was all going great. And, of course, no one wants to help us at this point. Why should they? We haven't helped anyone else, you know, or let anyone else even know what we're doing. Also, to go with, Jack King can say he should come, he's going to come back in.

I don't know, doing it with this level of public support. I'm not quite a constitutional crisis, but a real crisis of governance. I do think he, I mean, well, I ask you, do you think he would hold? Republicans on a war powers vote if we go back in it a huge way? I think probably once more. I think they'd probably give him one more go to try to get out of the messy made. That's my feeling. But I don't know how much longer it could hold because, like you said, and it's just mind-bogglingly stupid that he's gotten himself into the situation. And there's the old line about don't throw good money after bad. That would be my mind to the Republicans. But I think that they would probably feel

like they're in it with him now and maybe one more push could make the situation better than the status quo. So I think they probably would stick with them once more. But I can't imagine much longer because the unrest is real around the war. I want to ask you, I don't do this very often, to put on your neocon weekly standard hat again for one second. Because imagine what Republicans, what Fox, what the standard, what the entire media apparatus of the right would be saying if this was Barack Obama. And Barack Obama had, you know, made a threat to a nation such as Iran. It was like, we are going to obliterate you if you don't fold. And then they don't fold.

And then he does nothing. And then he makes a threat again. And they don't fold. And he does nothing. And he makes a threat again. And they don't fold. And he does nothing. I just, Obama would be mercilessly mocked as humiliating and weak by the right-wing media infrastructure. And that hasn't really been happening on the left. And I guess I'm wondering if you, do you agree with that assessment that's what would happen? And how do you square that? I certainly agree that it would happen. It did have, I mean, Obama said we have a red line in Syria after Assad used chemical weapons in 2013. He then backed off pretty ignominiously. We thought that was terrible. I think we were right, incidentally. I think it led to all kinds of signals to Putin for 2014. They could go into Ukraine

without us doing anything. The Syrian Civil War led to the migration crisis of 2015, which had all kinds of horrible effects for the humans involved, obviously, but also politically in Europe and back here. Again, if he'd never said red line on Syria, maybe one thing. Saying it, repeating it even, I think, once or twice, saying he might even go to the hill for authorization,

and then just backing off very bad. And so I think we had a real-time example of that we all would have to go crazy, and I think in that case correctly so. You think the left hasn't gone as crazy about, I don't know. Well, they're more just anti-war, right? So then they are saying, he never should have done this in the first place. It's unconstitutional. It's unauthorized. It's foolish. It's another endless Middle East war. But also he's weak. He's weak. He's soft-handed and weak and a coward. I think that this would have already set in if this was Carter or Obama or Biden, like this idea that this is a display of American weakness. I've said this before on the pod. So just briefly, like part of it is I think that some Democrats and responsible commentator, are afraid to egg him on. And like by calling him weak, he might do something crazy. But I don't know.

I'm kind of the view that we should not self-censor out of fear that, like, the irrational president that got elected might get his feelings hurt and do something crazy. I don't know. And I just, I think that on the face of it, he is weak and he's displayed astonishing weakness. I mean, this makes the Obama redline thing look like child's play by comparison. Right. I want to run through just two other foreign policy things real quick. Ukraine successfully attacked inside Moscow this weekend. Very interesting. Attacked a oil refinery in Moscow, big crackdown in Russia on people sharing video of what's happening there. It's, I think, a notable change in the prosecution of the war there and kind of shows, once again, Ukraine being more on the front foot.

It's interesting to me, I wanted to bring it up, because there are two kind of ancillary effects. One, it's Russia's oil capacity being limited also impacts this kind of global oil market that's being stifled by the Strait of Hormuz being closed and could contribute even more to an energy spike. And simultaneously it does in some way feel like Ukraine like Trump's backing away from this just backing away from being involved and being now preoccupied in Iran and doing the China summit which I want to get you next does seem to have given Ukraine

a little bit of a sense of, okay, well, we don't have to not do something because we're worried that the Americans are going to give us a tisk, or not provide weapons that we need or whatever. And I think that that's a meaningful chance. change and the state of play. I very much agree. I mean, the Europeans are now providing the aid. And so that's one point, I don't know if we discussed this last week briefly, but Phil O'Brien made this point in the conversation I had with him. Orabon's defeat was very important in this practical

way. He was blocking 90 billion dollars of EU aid to Ukraine, which is now there, which probably is what they need for the next year. So they'd be much better off with more American aid, too. And there's some American weapons that can't be replaced. And they've adjusted so impressively, I mean, what Ukraine's done, pretty amazing, honestly. So, yeah, now they're liberated from sort of having to be nice to worry about Trump. I never would have thought. I've got to say, I've been in Washington a long time, you know. The EU is fine with Ukraine being aggressive.

The Europeans, the wimpy, pacifists, welfare state, living in, you know, their own little Disneyland there. Europeans, you know, can't spend any money on defense. They're giving a lot of money to Ukraine and are not limiting what Ukraine can do. do very much, if at all. And we are sitting here not helping them at all and blustering against Iran without being able to reopen the trade of Hormuz. I mean, it is a pretty, it springs home in a way how massive the transformation of the world has been for the worst, mostly, because they still worry a lot without the U.S. is the core of the alliance. It's going to be tough for the Europeans

to keep it going in this way with Ukraine. But so far, I give them a lot of credit. But again, it shows how much things have changed, doesn't it? Hey, everybody. You guys are all asking me, so you're aware that I'm juggling a extremely intense work life with the fact that I'm a social bee. I'm a social butterfly. And so I have an active social life as well. And one way to balance those things is on school nights, you know, to not go out and have alcohol because that might lead to not my best bowlwork podcast performance. So one thing I've been turning to when I've got friends in town, like I had Kam Kasky in town this weekend. is to have a few out-of-office beverages from our friends at Seoul. Soul is a wellness brand that makes delicious. Hemp-derived, CBD, and THC products designed to make feeling good simple. Soul's new mood gummies have precise dosing, clean ingredients, and formulations designed for predictable effects, so you can choose how you want to feel while staying in control.

If you're looking for a bright social energizing buzz, go with the uplift gummies. When it's time to wind down, the mellow gummies. Deliver an ideal cozy night. let you fully unplug or even fully doze off. Whatever the moment, there's a soul mood gummy to match. And, you know, if you're more of a Bev guy, you can turn to those soul out of office beverages, which I find delicious.

Make today a good day and get yourself some soul gummies. Right now, Soul is offering my audience 30% off your entire order. Go to getsole.com and use the code the bulwark. That's getsole.com promo code the bulwark for 30% off. To that point, about how much things have changed, in the power dynamics and expanding on the feeling that Trump is just demonstrating real weakness on the world stage. The China summit last week ended with a whimper, basically. Trump is there trying to save space this morning with some minor announcements about trade cooperation changes.

But for all intents and purposes, Trump goes to China, brings all the American CEOs, doesn't really have an agenda or goals that they want to achieve, doesn't really get anything out of it, gives just over-the-top praise to Xi, just like obsequious treatment of Chairman Shee by Trump. You know, talking about what an honor it is to see him, what a strong leader he is, and how handsome he is, and he's straight out of central casting, or he's tall. It's like 5'9 or something. It's not that tall.

I don't know. And anyway, so Trump's just really over-the-top praise of him. And on the other hand, it was not really reciprocated that much. And China held very firm on Taiwan and was very clear that they did not want the Americans interfering with Taiwan. Trump waffled on that. No progress was made on Iran. And to me, you go have this summit amidst this Iran where you started. And China has as dealings with Iran. Iran economically and otherwise. And so you might think that the president would want to put pressure on China to put pressure on Iran in order to gain concessions. None of that. It was basically nothing. And I don't know. I just don't see how you look at the summit any other way than China demonstrating kind of upward mobility and strength on the world stage vis-a-vis America. Yeah, totally. I mean, everyone's taking it that way around the world from what I've been what I can make out what I've been reading and reading accounts of what other people are reading in Europe and Asia, too. I mean, really very bad for the U.S. China wanted it to be a meeting of two

equals, two partners, two peers. Trump was fine with that, except not, which is already terrible, honestly, except China is also the much more forceful and stronger peer, because on these two key issues on Iran, China made clear they're not going to stop buying oil from Iran. And if I'm not mistaken, the few tankers came out from Iran to headings or China out of the Gulf. We don't seem to have stopped them right when Trump was there, just as he was arriving in China. So they kind of signaled that, you know what, we're not bending to you. And then on Taiwan, Xi was very tough, and Trump himself said that Xi talked to out of an awful lot. And Trump's public messaging on that was appalling. It wasn't even a moderately tough response of a kind of, well, we think

the status quo is fine, but, you know, we will. No one needs to do anything risky or anything like that. It was a kind of, well, I'm rethinking this arms deal is waiting for Trump's sign off. You know, Congress is fine with it. The Taiwanese have agreed to purchase $14 billion of weapons. Trump is now publicly saying he's going to reverse that. That is a huge signal. I mean, I don't know.

I don't know enough about the military stuff to know how important those $14 billion of arms are actually to the defense of Taiwan, which would be tough against China anyway. but as a signal to Taiwan, but also Japan, South Korea, everyone else, it's a real sign. Xi bullied Trump and seems to have gotten away with it. And what is Trump's response? Nothing. So I agree. I'm thinking more about your point about the weakness and the bluster, but not backed up by anything.

People should make that point more, honestly. I mean, it is, it's very bad for the country, for the U.S., for one thing. It's very bad for the world. And it also is revealing about Trump. He is ultimately a weak person. I mean, that is actually a true statement, right? I mean, he is like most bullies, right? The Taiwan thing, I kind of feel about Taiwan kind of how I feel when we discuss, like,

what would happen if Putin would try to invade Estonia. Like, at this point, I just, you know, obviously there's a lot of ins and outs and what have you, so if you're a China expert about what exactly that means and about navigation of the seas and about what we're doing about the chips and how it looks and whether, you know, China militarily conquers Taiwan or whether they buy off a bunch of Taiwanese there are just there are a lot of like details but how it looks but it's you know some of these things it's hard to go back to the way things were before and to me I just I'd look at the Taiwan situation it seems like this is a permanent damage that Trump has done now to

the world and it's hard to imagine even if China doesn't make any moves up to 2028 like in 2029 or 2030 or 2031 a president of either party going back to a place where they're like, we're going to send military, maybe aid weapons. Like if the Taiwanese step up in the way Ukrainians have, like a support that looks like that I could see in the future, but it's kind of hard to imagine anything more than that at this point,

given how much turf we've given up over the past few years. I don't know. Do you disagree with that? I mean, I hope that's not entirely the case. And the Taiwanese are pretty resilient. I have a little bit of Ukraine in them probably. And they, yeah, I don't know. And this, again, is the damage that's been done by Trump. You can't just go back to the way it was once you make clear that the fundamental guarantees

or the fundamental commitments aren't there anymore. And incidentally, on that one, that's a case where aren't there supposed to be all these China hawks in the administration? And didn't they all lecture us in 2024 about how tough Trump was going to be on China and in think tanks and in the conservative journalism world and all those, you know, the kind of respectable normie types who we've got to go along. with Trump better than Harris. Harris and Biden, very weak. Biden on Taiwan is like 20 times stronger than Trump at this point. And are any of them saying anything? We did criticize Republican administrations when we didn't agree with what they were doing. Obviously, we were, you know, we criticized Bush on Iraq

at the beginning of not enough troops, the kind of insurgency. You need to get rid of Rumsfeld. And so far, that was a big weekly stand in talking with, but also on China, but also on other things, right? It's a free court nominee, the Harriet Myers thing and all this. I mean, does, does no one who sort of conditionally supported Trump or swallowed hard and supported Trump maybe could speak up now. I think I'm looking around for people at think tanks that are Trump adjacent and Trump acquiescent and all that, do have had longstanding relations to Taiwan. I mean, Taiwan has been close to a lot of these conservative think tanks, as you know, right, and conservative, you know, influencers.

John Bolton has been tough. John Bolton, who's worked for Trump and obviously now is, you know, broke with Trump and is now being prosecuted by Trump. but he has been he's the one who's been forthright this is terrible this is a disgrace all the other people who are getting along with trump i don't know i am i'm kind of listening am i wrong maybe they're saying stuff manhattan institute look tom cotton what i you know the mike waltz and who has been more debased than these people the china hawks honestly i mean he is done actually the opposite of everything that they have called for and every trump rhetorical move is even more soft and forgiving towards china then even the policy moves, right? And he is trying to expand our relationship with China.

And the trick I have about Platner. That's Platner's stated policy view. Like you thinks that we should de-escalate with China. But, okay, so if that's your position, then, no, fine. But that's, but Trump was running with the support of the people that wanted us to decouple from China as much as possible. And he's like simultaneously pushing a coupling and strengthening China with his moves elsewhere around the world. And the China Hawks are totally silent. And Tom Cotton will have

you believe that Mr. Trump was the toughest man on the stage in Beijing, and it's preposterous. Or do you do a little candy for people, because I'm not sure if you're going to like the very end of the podcast. I do want to talk about Trump's age and corruption real quick. There's this story about Trump's investments, which is pretty astonishing. And it seems like his kids are running it or whatever. I don't think Trump's sitting there on his Robin Hood account, like making these bets himself. But I just want to read about this. President Trump reported thousands of financial transactions totaling hundreds of millions of dollars, including large purchases and sales of tech giants, Navidia, and others in the first three months of 2020.

The transactions are valued between 220 and 750 million cumulatively. Trump's account bought shares of companies like Dell and Intel in February and March just weeks, before he touted both companies on Truth Social. He similarly bought Navidia shares a week before the Commerce Department approved chip sales to China and prior to a major Navidia meta partnership. You know, totally beyond the pale. And it's insane. Why is he even doing it?

Of course, he's making so many zillions off the truly corrupt payoffs that in a way, even insider trading in the stock market, at and gating, what, 20, 30, 40 percent on some of these trades, because he really, I suppose, is that really worth it? It's like he almost just wants to, he just wants to flaunt it, right? And he wants to just, which I guess is what authoritarian's like to do, you know, and sort of rub your face in it, that he can do whatever he wants. And don't, you just try to stop him, Congress or the courts. I don't know if the courts can get at this. Yeah. As always, Congress could do more, but they don't seem very interested.

Well, this should be illegal. The president shouldn't be trading stocks at all. Yeah, for some reason they think the ethics rules don't apply to the president, but of course, and maybe they could be because of, I don't know, separation of powers or something like that. But it is really crazy. It is really crazy. I think they could sign a lot. That would be constitutional. This is your point about the ethics rule. I got an email from a listener and I don't want to get them into trouble. So anonymize this. But they basically had to divest a few grand, like a few thousand bucks from a tech company because they had a job in the government that like dealt with contractors. And, you know, conceivably it could have, you know, over. overlapped with that tech company getting a contract with the government. It is just a total outrage that, like, simultaneously, you're making, you know, middle manager, government servants, you know, divests from their small little nest egg stock investments, while the president is doing, you know, $500 million in what looks like insider trading deals with big tech giants. And by the way, the Republicans last day, do control Congress.

And they made a big deal by Nancy Pelosi doing stock trading or her husband doing stock trading while she was a speaker. And they don't seem to a fascinating legislation that I'm aware of banning this kind of trading by members of Congress. In fact, that seems to be going on on both sides. The Democrats really, they should make a huge deal of this. I agree. They should make a huge deal of Trump doing it. And they should propose legislation to ban it and let the administration go to court and say that there's some kind of, you know, unitary executive, separation of powers reason why Congress can't enforce an ethics rule on the president.

I'm not even sure it's why it would be true. They can enforce the disclosure rules, presumably they can enforce some ethics rules on the president. But anyway, and then they should also do it for members of Congress, including themselves. The Democrats, in general, the corruption thing, don't you feel, I feel like the Democrat, I mean, I don't blame the Democrats for everything. A, the issue is having some salience. That's why Trump supporters are going down.

And B, at some point, I'm sick of, oh, the Democrats should do this, this, don't know, should do that. We can all do a lot, and the Democrats could just kind of follow along, I suppose, and benefit in the media. years. But I do feel like this is an issue of government. They know a lot about this. If you work on the Hill or if you're a member of Congress, you do have ethics rules. So it's a very appropriate thing for them to understand and to get indignant about. I should think maybe they could do a little more on this. You've seen some dames have been good on this. But they've got to push it more.

And Assoff, I believe, is the sponsor of the Senate version of the banning the Stock Act. And he's talked about this in his speeches. There's some others don't want to give people a short trip. But yeah, I mean, they haven't passed it. I think it would be an interesting thing. I got a question, I gave a little talk yesterday here in New Orleans to a pro-constitution group, shout out to them. One of the questions asked is like, what can Democrats do in 27? And in addition to the oversight and the investigations, which is really important. And what I said was, assuming they'd take the house, or ideally both houses, they should push things like this and pressure Trump to veto them, right? Like pass a bill that is just, you know, executive branch members

are banned from stock trading with these caveats. And if Trump wants to veto it, he can veto it. But I think that is like a vehicle for the Democrats to like raise the salience on this stuff in 27 conceivably, you know, if they take care of business this year. And at 26, they can't get, I suppose they can't quite, well, they can introduce legislation. They can't get it forced to the floor perhaps. So they could try more than they have. But also every challenger should just go crazy about this.

Every Democratic challenger, once they win the nomination or before they win the nomination, I am today putting my assets in, I don't know, with a blank trust or an index funds, or something that's clearly not manipulable, you know what I mean? But mostly index funds and furthermore, they'll be run by my broker. I'm not going to talk to him. And that's going to be my practice as long as I'm in public office. And meanwhile, my opponent here has traded stocks or my opponent here doesn't care when Trump trade stocks or my opponent here doesn't care what his colleagues, whatever you want.

I just feel like that could be a pretty kind of fun issue with the local people will get kind of interested in. Yeah, Pedro Nettie, who we had on the pod. She's a mayor in Scranton running for Congress there. It's been a good issue for her, too. But, yeah, I agree. I think more is more on this one. And it relates to the other corruption issue, which is just a slush fund where conceivably

Trump's going to give $107 billion out to his friends who were allegedly targeted by the Biden administration. You know, there aren't even words to describe the insanity of them stealing money for us and handing it out to insurrectionists. Yeah, was it $1.7 billion or something? But it's sort of fake kind of, you know, he drops the lawsuit that was already a fake. What did I say, 107? Excuse me, it's a Monday morning. It's $1.7 billion.

December's get a little out of control here, right? Of course, his budget deficit is so high. Yeah. No, it's unbelievable. It's unbelievable. I want to talk about the Trump's old article that Lauren Egan said. I'm softening everybody up for the harsh topic at the end. We're going to do some intra-co coalition recriminations.

Lauren Egan last night in her newsletter, which you absolutely should be reading, sign up at theblerc.com. I talked about Trump's age. And this paragraph just really tickled me. Here we are. Trump's been to see a dentist three times so far this year without explanation. Last fall, he told reporters he received an MRI but didn't say or at times even seemed to know what it was for. He repeatedly bragged about acing cognitive tests, raising questions about why he's taking so many in the first place, His ankles have been visibly swollen.

He keeps a fairly light public schedule, especially compared to his first term. There have been multiple occasions where he's appeared to fall asleep during televised White House events. Episodes, Aids, and CIS are just prolonged blinks. That is in addition to obviously the bruises on his hands, which have now seemed to expand it to his neck that he's covering up with makeup. It is important on the merits. I feel like every time people talk about this, they want to do a meta conversation about Biden and the media criticism. but like, you know, separate from the media criticism, it's pretty alarming that we're, you know, in a hot war and we have a visibly deteriorating president. Yeah, I agree. I mean, Democrats need to get beyond Biden. They just need to forget about it. Yes, that was an effective issue against Biden. That doesn't mean they don't get to talk about it. And if someone wants to say, hey, you should have talk more about that about Biden. Fine. It doesn't matter. You know what I mean? They're not going to lose because of that if you're a Democrat. And the Republicans will pay a price for refusing to have any trans. I mean, Trump has been.

utterly unforthcoming and untransparent, obviously, my medical records. You know, the thing with the dentist, I haven't really seen this look at it. I guess he's said he's gone to Walter Reed and he said three times it's for dental care. There's a very good dental office in the basement of the old executive office building, I believe it is.

And I think that's where presidents have had their dental care. Maybe it's a root canal. You can't do it there, but I think he probably can actually. So what is he actually going to Walter Reed for? I really don't like that whole conspiracy road thing and we've shied away from it. I think it's fair to say in a kind of sensible way, I think, here and elsewhere at the bulwark.

But, yeah, there's enough going on now that you really do wonder, right? And we were, since I was early and saying Biden shouldn't run again, I'd be nice of some Republican might say that maybe there should be a little more visibility into what Trump's problems are. And, you know, presidents can step down if they're getting too old for the job and getting ill. And J.D. Vance, their favorite guy is there. It's number two. It's not as if, you know, the Democrats get to take over if Trump

steps down, but of course he will never will. So as Lindsey Graham said, you can't get on the wrong side of Trump, you know. No one can say a word. And that's not just true for members of Congress. That's true for everyone, right? You know, big shot Republican donors, doctors, all the people who did lean on Biden, right? Or the actors, I can't remember anymore. Remember the law?

Fox. Yeah. Yeah. You know, he also went to the dentist in Palm Beach, too, in addition to Walter Reed. You know, he had an emergency appointment of his dentist in Palm Beach. I don't know. He doesn't seem like he's in ship shape, to say the least. So maybe weakening as a leader and also physically, our president. All right, here it is. Okay, everybody, you get to the fun part.

You talk to Rob Flaherty about the 2024 campaign on Sunday conversations with Bill Crystal. I want to kind of end with that and any kind of thoughts you had. I know everybody really loves reliving the 2024 campaign. So, you know, just a little trigger warning for that. But beforehand, the other big news of Friday, which many of you have emailed and tweeted me about, was Jared Polis, governor of Colorado, commuting the sentence of Tina Peters. I understand that many of my. colleagues of the Bullwork and many of our listeners

are very upset about this commutation. Before I give my thoughts, Bill, why don't you tee off on it? It sounds like a duck, and it is a duck. I really haven't followed it that closely. I mean, I'm sort of ambivalent. I don't, she was bad. She was real, she tried to corrupt the election.

She has served several years in jail, and I don't know, there's some plausible people who say the term is kind of longer than it would normally be for this kind of offense. I don't know. I respect Polis. I don't know why, I assume he thinks he's doing the right On the other hand, I don't like the signal it might send that it's okay to kind of tamper with elections.

It's not the serious a crime as the judge thought it should be in terms of the sentencing. But on the third hand, since Trump is busy pardoning every single January and paying off every single January 6th is insurrectionists and all the other people who tries to tamper with the election of senior positions in the Trump administration at this point, I feel like polis commuting the sentence or I guess giving clemency for the rest of the sentence. is at our works, is pretty low on the totem pole of, you know, things that are good or encourage bad behavior. Well, if you were looking for more outrage than that, I'd turn to Sarah Longwell's Twitter feed because she is fucking pissed at Polis.

My view is informed somewhat by the least popular article I've ever written on the bulwark.com. It was in 2021 regarding my feelings about the sentence of the Q&N shaman released. You might remember him as the fellow with the horns and the paint on the face that stormed the Capitol. Here's what I wrote in 2021. It's kind of crazy that I've been writing for the bulwark this long. It's very weird to go back and read something I read five years ago.

I don't know. It's all time flies. Here's what I said. The present industrial complex is a menace. Conditions in our penitentiaries are horrific and sentencing guidelines that require minimum stays for nonviolent criminals are imprudent and inhumane. None of this stops being true when the guilty party is of the other

political tribe and it feels good to see them locked up. If we want real justice, for January 6, the government should be cutting the shaman slack and turning its energies to those who are orchestrating the overthrow of our democracy. I feel the same way about Tina Peters. Tina Peters was sent to prison for nine years. Nine years? I just call me the lib now in this one. You guys, all the lip listeners who want to are bloodthirsty about Tina Peters and want her punished, I guess maybe I'm the softy because I don't think that anybody should go to prison for nine years, except for violent criminals and people that engaged in, like, massive fraud, like, you know, SBF or something.

People that, like, ruined lives via fraud and theft. Like, that's it. I just, I don't, I don't think that we should send people to prison for nine years if they did not physically harm or grievously harm someone. And there's concerns about wanting to keep that person away from society. Like, that's just my view. I've always been, even when I was a Republican, a criminal justice softy. So it was what me and Rand Paul, it's like me and Rand Paul and Tom Massey now are like all back on the same side. I always was on the Rand Paul side of that debate when it was happening inside in the Republican Party.

And I think that a lot of people saw what Polis did. And I think that this is a rational human reaction, an emotional reaction, which is this sucks. Like our guys don't fight hard enough. You know, like the Trump side, they're pardoning all their people. They're trying to jail Jim Comey. Like, they're doing all these bad things. Like, we should get one too. You know, like, what's good for the goose is good for the gander kind of thing.

And I understand that, like reaction. I truly do. And I don't obviously think Tina Peters, she was in jail for four years. I think that's an appropriate punishment for her crime. I don't think that she should ever be allowed to have a position of public office again. She's a felon. She shouldn't be able to vote again. If there are other penalties,

non-prison-related that she should continue to have. I'm totally fine with that. But I don't know. I don't think she's a danger to society, and I understand people's frustrations, but I think it's a very weird thing to be very upset about, and I think that Polis looked at just the facts and, like, made a judgment based on the facts of what was happening

with Tina Peters, not on the broader political dynamic. I will say, Jared Polis is disappointing me in one other way, though. So this is not about Jared Polis, stand them. There is a ballot initiative in Colorado right now to redistrict. The Colorado rules are such that you have to take it to the voters. We have to do it in regular election, so they couldn't have jammed it through like Virginia did, which backfired anyway. But they have a redistricting ballot initiative that would redistrict the state in 2028 and 2030 that would likely make it a 7-1

state rather than 4-4, which it is right now. The Republicans have not won a state-light election in Colorado since Corey Gardner in 2014. So, been a long time now. And so it's a Democratic state now. And I think that they should do that. And pollless is wishy-washy on that. And I think this is a case where this is a forward-looking fight about our ongoing fight for democracy. And I think that obviously Colorado should pay maximum hardball on redistricting.

And I hope that Jared reconsideres that and comes out more strongly in support of that ballot initiative, which is on in November. and I encourage all my family and high school friends and listeners to go vote yes on that redistricting bill in November. And I think that is a much more prudent and useful way to fight the bad guys than making sure an old lady stays in jail for four more years. That's my opinion. I'm sure I'll have overwhelming, overwhelming love and support for it in the comments. They still love. They love you when they disagree with you, Tim. You know, I feel like our community understands that we have different views.

I was a hardliner on criminal justice when you. you were a softie, but I've moved some, honestly, just because I think I've learned more about it, but I'm sort of in between probably real squishes like you and the real. Sonny Bunch is ready to throw away the key. Sunny Bunch is the hardliner. Diversity of you. You know, that's funny, can I just mention one thing that you said your most unpopular piece ever. I tweeted, this is that couple of two or a few days ago, I haven't to read something about

Mom Donnie, the budget. I guess he's now, you have to submit a balanced budget as Mayor of New York, and he is doing so. He got some little help from the governor. He found some tax, little minor tax hikes and some spending savings. And so he submitted a budget. As I understand it, well, it is balanced. I think it's going to become law, basically.

I think it's like an increase of 1% maybe in real dollars over the budget he inherited. So I just tweeted something about, you know, Mom Dani is more fiscally responsible than Trump. I mean, I'm just looking at the data here. I mean, he's basically kept spending level and is a balanced budget. Trump has increased spending and increased the deficit hugely. And we're now running at $2 trillion. the deficit and actually, I think, causing real dangers down the road for the economy here. That debt is now above 100% of GDP and stuff.

And people did not like that. I was a little surprised by that. Oh, really? Yeah. I don't know. Yeah. It's interesting that they have to be able to be mad at you because they can't be mad at Trump. And so it's frustrating.

It's easy to lash out of Bill Crystal. If you are, you know, a commentary magazine or National Review author who like spent your whole career talking about the dangers of the debt and then for some reason, never talk about it when Donald Trump, the person the Republicans have nominated three times for. president who's won twice as the worst president in American history when it comes to debt and deficit. You would think that there would be, I don't know, you know, some outrage about that from people who have spent their whole lives and careers, talking about how important the debt is,

but not really. You know, Jessica Reedle, there are a few couples that you'll hear from from time to time. But not too many. I haven't seen a lot from Charlie Cook or Richelowry on that. All right. Finally, I guess we can just go quick on the rehash and people can watch the whole interview with Rob, if you want. But he had a great piece.

Rob Flaherty did. He was the deputy campaign manager, really overseeing digital for the Biden-Harris campaign and then the Harris campaign. And since the DNC wasn't doing an autopsy, he did a, here was my autopsy, basically.

He kind of said what he told the autopsy committee that they didn't release and expanded on his thoughts a little bit. For us, if you're into like the campaign nerdery, a very important piece. I thought my biggest takeaway from that and from your conversation with him, that I think he was right about.

There's a lot of little details about who's mad at who on the Super Pacts and what kind of spending mix should be and all that. But I thought his most insightful point was that like in politics now, even always, but more than ever, you have to have a brand that people can connect with, that you're advertising, that your speeches,

that your social media, you know, all supports that people can understand and grab on to. And partly because of the nature of the short campaign 107 days, partly because of failings of the campaign, that Kamala Harris just really didn't have it, you know, and, like, my version of that, as I asked James Carville on this pod, to give me the three, you know, what was on Kamala's whiteboard, you know, harkering back to his Clinton whiteboard, and he couldn't answer it.

And, you know, he tried to, but it was just a very long question, a very long rambling answer. And it's not James' fault. It's campaign's fault. Like, they didn't have one, you know. And to me, that was the most interesting takeaway, which, you know, is less. and like the insider DC circles, like less fun to talk about them, the various recriminations about who did what wrong and who betrayed who and who handled what thing badly. But that was my biggest takeaway from the piece,

but I was wondering what your thoughts were from your conversation with him. That's an excellent piece. I really enjoyed talking with him on the Bullhorn yesterday and Sunday. I think he has a lot of interesting stuff on the details of digital advertising and this kind of thing

that had organized campaigns in the modern era. We talked quite a bit about the brand issue, though. And I think that is an interesting way. I think the Republican version of that, which when you and our Republicans, was values matter more than issues. We've all used, heard and used that formulation, which I think was correct. And I think Republicans have always had a better sense of that than Democrats actually who have their issue papers and think that, you know, if only we've got to really emphasize people, you know, this part of the lunch table issues or whatever it is, dinner table issues and all this stuff. So, yeah, the other thing, the most interesting part of the conversation, honestly, was we kind of went through a lot of the stuff that you covered in the piece. And I can't remember how it came up.

but AI came up. I guess it came up in the context of using it for digital, you know, for the campaigns. But then it came, but then I said, well, isn't it, are you one of those who thinks it's a huge issue? I hadn't realized it actually had written something about this of sort of giving it my... It sounded like, I suppose people think I was like

serving him up this softball on purpose. I was just genuinely curious what he felt because he's a smart young guy, and he's totally obsessed with AI and thinks it's the issue, the issue of 2028, couldn't be a huge issue in 26. huge resistance to it, both had economic grounds, but also kind of social and cultural. And resistance is too strong.

It's a huge sense you can't just let it go wherever the private sector wants to take it and wherever the most irresponsible parts of the private sector want to take it. And I thought that was an interesting 10 minutes or so of the conversation. And I think you and I have, and Andrew, actually, Edgar have also been all that this sense that AI is just exploding as an issue. And I need to really educate myself more on what the right way to handle this. But for now, at least having a great way. conversation about the right way to handle it and a serious policy conversation is key and

Democrats need to make clear they are very much intended to do that and make clear that the Trump administration has been totally and utterly irresponsible and in the sold out to people who want it totally unregulated and many Republican candidates I gather he made this point in Connecticut I guess there was some bill to stop prevent the sexualization of minors or you know having chat chat pots talk of sexual conversations with minors a cousin issue is the undressing of minors and by AI and so forth. And 21, all Democrats who are afford it in Connecticut, Republicans split. 21, who I take it, were on board with either the tech pros and probably getting huge amounts

of money from the AI world, which is unbelievable a lot of money pouring into campaigns from them, voted against this. Can't the Democrats just pulverize? I mean, unfortunately, Connecticut, it doesn't matter. They already control everything. But still, pulverized Republicans who are willing to not willing to regulate AI at all. I feel like this is not a hard issue. I agree.

I thought that was interesting. I'd point people to it because Rob's really smart on this stuff. And it was sort of of a piece with your conversation about, you know, how important it is for Democrats to run kind of against the entrenched interests next time. And you did a little, you know, kind of, it was funny. That was his opinion. And then Bill Crystal did his history lesson about how, you know, Jimmy Carter also was like that. And Bill Clinton was like that in ways. And so was Obama.

Like the successful Democrats have been future-oriented and, right? running against the status quo. And I think that, you know, that means you can't be like a Luddite about AI and like, and wish it away. You know, you have to be talking about like what, how can we build a future, you know, that is better for people that is not a total sellout to the existing interests. I thought he was good on that. And I think that's another area that if you just kind of look at the last three presidential

elections, that Democrats did not do a good job really. of branding the ways in which they were different from the status quo, any of the three last presidential elections, frankly, Biden a little bit on kind of soul of the country type stuff and because making the pitch that Trump was the status quo at that time. And so they'll have that opportunity again and they should take it. So I think that's good. Be it. I should listen to the whole conversation with Rob Flaherty if you want more.

Appreciate it, Bill. Everybody else. We'll see you tomorrow on the podcast. Podcast might have a little bit of a wonky schedule on timing this week because we're heading to California. There are still some tickets available in San Diego and L.A. Go to the borgue.com slash events. And I'm not going to be there, but go to those events and yell at Tim about, about Jared Pola. Sarah, are we with you?

Please. You know, it'll be a, you can disrupt. The whole event could become a huge, you know, intra-bowork food fight. You guys can take it out. Yeah, heckle me. Please, but do come to the events. You know, if you come to the events, you get to heckle. You get to heckle.

If you come to the event, you get to heckle. Otherwise, you know, otherwise, you just. Keep that old lady in prison, Miller. Anyway, I appreciate it. I hope to see some of you guys out there. And we'll be back tomorrow with another edition of the podcast. We'll see you all then. Peace.

Stay down, run it up, and then you flex on it. I can make it rain now and then you flex on it. Here's not one of us put an X on. Pour my back. The Borg podcast is brought to you thanks to the work of lead producer Katie Cooper, Associate producer Anseley Skipper And with video editing by Katie Lutz and audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.