The Bulwark Podcast - Michael Weiss and Karine Jean-Pierre: Low Energy Trump

Episode Date: October 21, 2025

Putin’s friend in the White House may be back in his safe space with his kindred spirit in Moscow, but Trump is finding that he has limited leverage on Ukraine to end the war on Putin’s terms. He wants so badly to be crowned the ‘Prince of Peace,’ but he has no vim and vigor to get there—and Zelensky actually said “No” to Trump. Meanwhile, the Gaza ceasefire looks precarious. Plus, former press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on stepping away from the two-party system, the lingering anger over how Trump was allowed to win, and the fallout from emphasizing Biden’s legacy at the expense of Kamala’s ‘24 campaign. Karine Jean-Pierre and Michael Weiss join Tim Miller. show notes Michael’s Substack “Foreign Office” Story from “The Insider,” “Our people poisoned Navalny” WSJ article on Havana Syndrome Karine Jean-Pierre's book Start your new morning ritual & get up to 43% off your @MUDWTR with code THEBULWARK at mudwtr.com/THEBULWARK! #mudwtrpod Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to www.joindeleteme.com/BULWARK and use promo code BULWARK at checkout.

Hello and welcome to the Bullwark podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. We have a double-header today. In segment two, I'm going to play the interview I did yesterday on a substack live with Karene Jean-Pierre. She's got a new bookout called Independent. It gets a little spicy, so stick around for that. But first, one of our faves is back.

He's a contributing editor at New Lines Magazine and a reporter for The Insider, a Russia-focused media outlet. He's got a substack called Foreign Office. He's written some books. It's Michael Ice. What's up, man? Hey, man. Good to see you. Good to see you, too.

Are the birds? Happy government shutdown. The birds are silenced. The birds are silenced. I told Katie, don't worry. It sounds menacing when I say it like that. The birds have been silenced. The birds have been silenced.

Murder on the dance floor. Okay. Yeah. Happy government shut down. The TSA situation is getting bleaker and bleaker in New Orleans. I don't know. I don't know about everywhere else. So we'll see how long it lasts. But not as bleak as the east wing of the White House. Jeez. What did you think about that? Just a little. Bit on the nose for symbolism. Yeah. Bit on the nose for symbolism, I'd say. I don't have more on that. He said he wasn't going to destroy anything. But there you go. I can't wait to see this ballroom. Christ. It's going to be like the Overlook Hotel. Well, what is the view from abroad? What do you think the diplomats are thinking about the wrecking ball going through the White House? It's a little ominous. Yeah, I think they probably would have reckoned it'd be the Russians or the Chinese to do something like that at this stage. The Brits are kind of like probably feeling a slight twinge of jealousy that they don't get to do it again because they were the last ones to do it. And, you know, I mean, apparently now we're just giving away real estate to people who speak the language of the metropole. So I guess we can all rejoin the United Kingdom if Donbos is going to Russia, right? Like, them's the rules. I don't make them. I just repeat them.

maybe it's time to rejoin the United Kingdom. Nice transition. Speaking of the rules, the state of play in Russia. Trump is so schizophrenic on this. Well, in some ways, he's schizophrenic. In other ways, he always lands back his cozy initial position of beating a Putin file. But I want to read to you yourself, the Michael Weiss summary of the state of play, so to get people up to speed in an efficient manner. It was, I guess, earlier last week, Trump dangled tomahawks to Ukraine, Tomahawk missiles, which would have been an escalation of our support for Ukraine. Putin then called him, muttered something about Herrsson and Zupresia to Witkoff. Putin also called to Trump said he would meet in Budapest.

The Tomahawks have been undangled. Putin and Wickhoff told Trump that the Donbos should be given up, as you just mentioned. Trump adds Zelensky about that. Zelensky said no. Trump backed down. The U.S. EU, UK, and Ukraine all maintain the need for an immediate ceasefire. Russia said no. Rubio and Lavros preliminary discussions went nowhere.

Their meeting was canceled. Budapest is now a maybe. So there you go. And that's since Thursday, right? Like this carousel of kind of hyped and also kind of terrifying nonsense now seems to be sort of slowing down. And we're going back to the initial position, which is nothing has changed policy-wise. False expectations of some dramatic Trump pivot to Ukraine also turned out. to be dashed and overly optimistic.

And those expectations were kind of sincere in Europe, though. Is that your sense? Like, they thought that Trump was having a temper tantrum and it was going to work out in their favor, I think. Yeah, I mean, the Europeans never miss an opportunity to feel dejected and disillusioned by a man who, in the past, has told them that he hates them, thinks they're a bunch of freeloaders and that America is not going to come to their support militarily, should they be invaded. I don't know what it would take for the Europeans to kind of get out of this perpetual courtier mode or spiritual guru mode they find themselves in. But, you know, they seem to think he was sincere. The Ukrainians absolutely thought he was sincere. I was talking to a senior Ukrainian intelligence official who said, you know, weeks of preparation went into the Zelensky meeting to come to D.C.

It was all about Tomahawks. And nobody saw this Putin phone call coming. Nobody except, of course, Steve Whitkoff, who I think had every interest in trying to. bait Trump with another you know possible magnificent immediate peace deal so to put things in perspective right we've seen this movie before this is exactly what happened before the anchorage summit uh whitkoff went to moscow he talked to the russians he completely misread the russian position which was they absolutely want donboss but that's kind of a starting point for them. Give us the territory that we have been unable over the course of 10 years off and on to

capture militarily. Let's get it diplomatically. And then let's have some serious discussions about the root causes of the war, NATO expansion, demilitarizing Ukraine, regime change. And we want the whole country, but let's not put it quite like that. And in exchange for that, there was some confusion as to what Whitkoff believed the Russians were prepared to do with respect to these two other oblast, Heron and Zaporizia, which Russia does not fully control, controls less of Hearson than it did in the latter part of 2022. And was it a question of Russia withdrawing from places they have occupied in those regions? Or, as it seems more likely now, based on the readout we're getting, were they offering to simply not occupy the parts that

they have not occupied and basically give Ukraine territory that Ukraine already controls? right? Like this is basically what the Russians have dangled. So Whitkoff came back and told Trump, they just have to give up Donbass, meaning the Ukrainians, and Putin's prepared to swap some territory. Again, territory that Putin does not control. Wittkoff, according to Zelenskyy said, and this is by way of pressuring the Ukrainians, well, you know, in Donbos, they all speak Russian anyway. And by the way, they speak Russian in Kiev too. So I guess there you go. I mean, this is a slippery slope to what the Russians are really up to. And therefore, also Russia has incorporated Donbos into its constitution. So you can invade a country, take it over

militarily, kidnap its children, throw everybody into prison, torture, rape them. And then as long as you write in your constitution, this is ours now, I guess legally. And certainly in the mind of an outer borough real estate developer who's clearly making a fortune doing diplomacy in the Middle East. And no doubt, I would love to see the reporting that is going to come out. on what the Russians have offered Steve Whitkoff and his crypto kid, right, in exchange for some kind of grand bargain. This is apparently statecraft 101 in the United States now. So the Ukrainian said, absolutely not. You have to understand, Donbass is one of the most militarized places in the world. They have spent a decade turning this into kind of a citadel region, right? Slaviansk and Kramatorsk,

if you go back to 2014, 2015, there were pitched battles for the Ukrainians to capture these territories back from the Russian so-called separatists. They're not. giving it up. And one of the reasons they're not giving it up is if the Russians take these areas, they become that much closer to taking other areas and basically launching what will be an inevitable attack on Kiev at some date in the future. So, you know, Zelensky gets into apparently a shouting match with Trump and the White House. Trump says, I don't care, give up Donbass. I'm tired of looking at maps, which have places I've never been to and I can't find on maps that I'm tired of looking at. He just kind of gets exasperated. And the Ukrainians say, we're not going to do

this. And then Trump backs down, right? Like, the fact that Zelensky told Trump no and Trump accepted it, I feel like is sort of a lead that's been buried in all of this. Like the Ukrainians who were famously, why do you say that? Well, because it shows that there's, there's actually limited amounts of pressure and limited leverage that the United States with this president can wield here. He cannot basically put his finger on a button. And all of a sudden, a region in Europe, you know, home to upwards of 300,000 people on the Ukrainian side, the areas that have not been taken by Russia, will be transferred to somewhere, magical place, internally displaced within Ukraine, or better yet, externally displaced.

So another refugee crisis, bleeding into Poland, Romania, Hungary, which is supposed to be hosting this summit. I mean, it's just, it's magical thinking, right? And the Ukrainians are quite right to say, we cannot do this. So he just kind of, he wilted like assaulted snail, and then publicly, and this was interesting, right? if you look at what happened in February, that famous two minutes of hate that he and Vance unleashed on Zelensky. It was a public. Have you said thank you once? Exactly. It was a public humiliation, public abasement. All of this is transpiring last week privately, as reported by

CNN, the FT, and others. Publicly, the press conference was a little bit awkward because Tomahawks, he essentially ruled out. But at no point did he say publicly, they have to give up Donbos. And then we posted on Truth Social, he did not say they should give up Donbos. Now, this is a man who's not very good at restraining his id or, you know, keeping that which he is privately seething about from public viewership. And yet in this case, he didn't really make a big deal about this is what the Ukrainians have to seat. So I'm reading this as yet again, Donald Trump, in spite of his desperation to be crowned, you know, Prince of Peace, King of America. America, shit-dropper extraordinaire on the No King's protesters, he actually is, he's getting

kind of tired, you know, he's getting, he's sort of a no-energy Trump, to be honest. He's, he's trying to bully the Ukrainians, but he's not doing it with the Vim and Vigour that he did eight months ago. And then, you know, the Europeans just completely closed ranks, as is their want. So they're courtier to Washington and they're kind of triage surgeons or specialists to Ukraine. They always tell Zelensky, don't worry, we got this. We'll take care of it. We've got your best. back. And lo and behold, today, it was reported by CNN, Lavrov and Rubio. It's also very interesting that Marco Rubio was running point on this thing instead of Whitkoff. The Ukrainians were quite happy to see that as the case. Lavrov and Rubio had a really bad discussion. They were supposed to meet.

That meeting is off. And now it is expected that Rubio, again, this is CNN's reporting, will tell Trump not to go to Budapest. So this whole summit may never come to pass. And yet here we are, you know, again, kind of like completely frazzled, stepping out of the halfway house of American insanity, saying, well, wait a minute, we were all expecting Trump to, you know, unleash the tomahawks and now we're going back to this, he's a Russian asset kind of thing. Well, actually, no, it's just he's trying desperately to force the Ukrainians to do that, which they will not and cannot do. And then he just, he climbs down. And the Russian position, as of today, as of always, is a maximalist one. No ceasefire along the contact line.

line, right? This is the U.S., U.S., U.K., EU, and Ukrainian position, and it has been for months. The Russians continually say, niet. They want to litigate root causes. Putin wants to talk about Ivan the Terrible's land reforms for three and a half hours before they get into it over a bowl of goulash. I mean, it's all kind of just come to nothing. I keep telling people that the greatest kind of asset that Ukraine has, and I'm sorry to put it like this, but the greatest asset they have is that the Russians always shit the bet. Even when they have momentum, even when all Putin has to do is pick up the phone and get Trump on the line and whisper sweet nothings into his ear. And suddenly he is completely, you know, awestruck and infatuated with the Russian claim. Apparently he was calling it not even a war, but a special operation, which is a straight-up

Kremlin propaganda. Even when they've got that going for them, they still can't get what they want fundamentally. Yeah. We don't hear that much from that Putin call, though. You know, It's like the Zelensky meeting, you have all this readout. I guess it's because Ukrainians are leaking to the FT, I would assume, people on the Ukrainian side are trying to pressure them. And it's in their interest to do that because the more they can say, this is a five-alarm fire, Trump is ready to, you know, do a fire sale of our country, immediately you get media scandal and push back and the White House has us to walk back.

And Trump on Air Force One said, I never said that I'm all about a ceasefire. Great. You've locked him into this position publicly now, right? So that's clever by the Ukrainians to do that. But we don't exactly know what's happening on the Putin calls, which is always a mystery. And I guess we only know in the sense that Trump gets off the calls and starts sounding like Putin all the sudden. Exactly. The generous gloss that I can make of that, it's not very generous, but it's the best case.

Well, it's like he's always like this about every situation, right? The last person that called him, he starts talking like them? Well, not quite, but it's he has long had a deep abiding affinity for Putin. Putin is the kind of authoritarian and strong man that Donald Trump would like to be. You know, Donald Trump is sort of the Timu Putin. Putin has over the last 20 years... Timu like the Chinese clothing, down-market clothing braids, knock off. Yeah, good, nice.

Putin can deal with his enemies by harassing them, imprisoning them, or poisoning or assassinating them. He has no political opposition left of which to speak, no viable one anyway. legislative and judicial checks on his power. Give me a break. I mean, those have long been gone, right? I mean, Trump sees in Putin, much as he sees in she and to some extent Orban, too, a kindred spirit. And Putin is able to somehow have this mesmeric hold over him and tell him, even when Trump has lately been saying both publicly and privately, the opposite of what Putin tells him, whatever Putin tells him, he regurgitates. So I'll just give you like a little piece of report.

which I think is of note. I had a meeting in D.C. with the U.S. official who I was saying, look, how bad is it? And the line I got was actually, it's not that bad. It's the war you don't see is the U.S. is still very much involved in Ukraine. This was coming off the back of other F.T. reporting suggesting that U.S. Intel was being shared with the Ukrainians for the purposes of their deep strikes on Russian energy, which has chipped away at the Russian economy, which is a good thing and which is something that Donald Trump avows to want. You know, this is why he said... I heard Doug Bergam kind of mentioned this and brag about this the other day. Like, there are just these, you know, like little pockets within the administration of still kind of fancy Russian. Yes. And there's a covert side to things that, for understandable reasons, doesn't get out there. But also I had heard that Ratcliffe, in route to Alaska, was sharing credible, realistic intelligence on the battlefield with Trump, showing him that for every square kilometer of terrain the Russians take, they lose X number of hundreds of soldiers. And Trump was getting kind of like almost erect

listening to this. Because, you know, he likes even countries he's not fond of like Ukraine. He likes to see these sort of upended expectations. He likes raw demonstrations of power. He likes spectacular acts. I said recently he's not fond of war, but he likes acts of war. This is his schick, right? I'll bomb Iran and then call it quits, right? I'll kill Qasem Soleimani and call it quits. when the Ukrainians do spiderweb and take out Russian strategic bombers or when they blow up oil refineries and export terminals, he likes it. He thinks it's cool. So that's how they've been playing him. But again, Putin just literally phones it in, has to pick up the phone and we go back to this sort of starting position. Just really quick, you mentioned something that peaked

to my interest earlier about the Wikoff. And obviously, Wikov is destroying this huge crypto scam and is involved with the Trump kids and the Wikov kid. They're all in business together in the Middle East. But you said it was in his interests to, you know, kind of whatever, push Trump towards the Russian line here. Like, did you mean that in an economic sense or just in a, you know, he wants to get a deal done sense? If we want to be polite to Trump, I think he's aware that there's not much money to be made from Russia, right? Economic relations between the United States and Russia. And Whitkoff could still make a pretty good bag for himself and his family if you wanted to. Whitkoff's family and Trump's family could make a lot of money themselves.

either through overt deals or things under the table. I mean, this is how the Russians go around, bribing their way in as a form of political warfare. But beyond that, I think it's more. It's this sort of saintly penumbra of peacemaker that he seems to be completely obsessed with, right? He'll tell you he's the most deserving of a Nobel Peace Prize. Why did they give it to this Venezuelan dissident he's never heard of? But, oh, by the way, she was very nice about me. Oh, and I don't want the Nobel.

I mean, he's the easiest mark from a psychological perspective. If you're, you know, you don't have to be a KGB case officer, which Putin was to know which pressure points to play here, right? And indeed, on the call, I would imagine, and Trump even said to some extent that Putin was just flattering the shit out of him, saying, you know, you have brought peace to the Middle East, you have done that which we have all aspired to do for centuries. And meanwhile, the subsequent tweet or true social post to that to Trump's readout of his call with Putin, was what, telling Hamas to knock it off with the execution of Palestinians, because otherwise, you know, the cavalry roll in. So it looks like peace in our time has been deferred somewhat. And, you know, Whitkoff, last I checked, is on a plane with Kushner and Vans to try and put out fires in Israel because this whole deal seems to be deteriorating, if not unraveling.

So he's high on his own supply, and he genuinely thinks he can, with the stroke of a pen, just make this all go away. But it's a lot more complicated than that. And he should know that by now, but he's a child. He doesn't, you know, he has an infinite capacity for forgetting what he learned only a week ago. All right, everybody, y'all know I'm grinding out a lot of content here. And I was looking for a product to help give me a little bit of energy in that late afternoon, early evening arena. I don't know about you guys. We eat dinner very early at our house.

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Please show your support and let them know we sent you. You mentioned an interview with Alexander Fedatoff, a former officer of the FSB, who confirmed the FSB poison Navalny, among some other things? I mean, just we'll link to the stories so people can read it. But any, what was it that struck you the most from that article? Well, admitting that, you know, they tried to liquidate the leader of the Russian opposition. That's kind of a top line of marquee disclosure coming from a, he's from the FSB Second Service, which is kind of, you know, engaged in domestic surveillance, among other things, or the chivying of dissident.

as they did in the former Soviet Union and did the KGB. But another interesting disclosure that he made was the referendum in Crimea. Remember, you know, like one of Whitkoff's other Kremlin concocted talking points is, well, they had votes and they all wanted to join Russia. Fedetov was saying, actually, no, I mean, the FSB was taking people at gunpoint around, telling them to vote to separate from Ukraine and also telling them, you're going to join Russia one way or another. If you vote yes, great.

If you vote no or don't vote at all, your name is going to go out a list. That's not a nice thing. Right. So here you have, I mean, from the horse's mouth, an FSB operative admitting that there has been no exercise of popular will. There has been no democratic plebiscite anywhere in the occupied territories of Ukraine. It's all being done with Russian coercion. I also liked this.

You shared a tweet from one of my favorite congresspeople. Anna Paulina Luna, it was a Maga Luna, if you will. As she posted this, my office just received word from the Russian embassy that the ambassador from Russia to the U.S. will be hand delivering the Russian government's findings on who assassinated JFK to my office. I mean, what a way to give Florida strippers a bad name, man, you know? It's like Russian active measures are not, you know, I'm sitting at my computer. I've got a bunch of translated KGB training manuals, which I'm going to bring out on my substack

and with essays by people who have been studying the Soviet Secret Services for years. And, you know, you read about all the intricacies and all the kind of elaborate schemes that the Soviets cooked up to snare people, to dupe people, to inveigle and influence people. And now all of this stuff is literally being tweeted in real time. I mean, these are the Russian active measures of a subreddit. it's so naked, it's so farcical, it's so absurd. I mean, so what happened here? She was earlier talking about how she's going to have a meeting with Kiril Demitriev,

who's the head of the Russian sovereign wealth fund, and one of the most kind of outspokenly kind of cartoonishly dancing Russian operatives when it comes to the war in Ukraine. I mean, he's just, he cannot stop tweeting. And what is he tweeting? He's QAnon posting, right? He's telling Elon Musk we should build a tunnel. between Russia and Alaska, you know, he's tagging companies that he's kind of scheming with on

the slide, no doubt, not even on the sly anymore. I mean, just out and playing side. And so he's found this MAGA Congresswoman who apparently Donald Trump is quite taken with. I mean, no doubt the former stripping bit on the CV played a role in that, but he's quite taken with her. And, you know, Demetrio says, let's have a meeting. And so she tweets out, I'm going to have a meeting with Dmitriev. She gets pushback. She doesn't understand the pushback, and she's telling everybody, you're all children and the adults are in the room here. Like, she is literally being led by the nose by a Russian influence operation. And then it culminates with, I love this, the Russian ambassador to the United States giving to her an otherwise anonymous Congresswoman from Florida

essentially the KGB file on the JFK assassination. Right. It's like, what's next? You know, like, here's what the Russians thought about Roswell, New Mexico. Like, you know, let's all look over here and not talk about the war in Ukraine. It's this kind of subliterate, you know, bargain basement, low IQ. And we're all kind of just falling for it. I mean, to me, it says more, way more about America and how Russia holds us in such low regard that they're doing these things in plain sight now. They just don't care, right?

It's like whatever we can do to kind of get the base all sort of jazzed up and, you know, it's almost Steve Bannon's line flood the zone with shit, right? The Russians are flooding the zone with shit and talking, oh, this is all about peace. No, it's not about peace. It's about getting a war of conquest accomplished without the use of tanks and soldiers and bombs because you've tried that and it's failed, right? You want the American president to certify your occupation, your enchalus in Europe, right? And they're telling us this. I mean, that's the thing. They're telling us this and we're going to, oh, okay, well, that sounds fine. Well, I mean, Anna Pauline was just interested. She's just asking questions. She just wants to know a little bit more information. Just asking questions.

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What's the state of play in Israel? I believe it would be called sort of precarious at the moment or, you know, there are signs of alarm and SS gravely concerned has set sail. I mean, you know, as I mentioned, Hamas kind of crawl back out of its tunnels when the IDF pulled back and are reasserting control over the parts of Gaza that they're meant not to have control over, executing people they see as collaborators or people who have opposed them, which has certainly earned the attention and ire of Donald Trump. There was some kind of skirmish yesterday. Hamas opened fire in the IDF. The IDF bombed, killed, I think, upwards of 40 people, including, I'm sure, Hamas. It certainly

seems like it's fraying at the edges there, if not falling apart. And I think the main imperative of the U.S. now is to try and get Netanyahu from going all in again, right? That's basically what they're out there's. In fact, Steve Whitkoff's son, Alex Whitkoff, was tweeting this just today in opposition or to contradict somebody who had said the opposite, right? And he's talking about how precarious or, you know, sort of tenuous this whole thing is. I mean, look, you know, I didn't think this was going to hold. I kept completely quiet when it was announced, even though obviously we're all very happy the hostages were released. That was something that Israelis were demanding for a long, long time. And, you know, I will say this. And I do think it's true. And Anselfeffer, who's a biographer of Netanyahu, a very good Israeli reporter, also pointed this out. Donald Trump was able to do something that I think other presidents have not been able to do. Just by sheer force of will and the fact, frankly, that he has kind of got a finger in every pie here, right? He has been bribed by every Gulf regime. And his people, his envoy certainly has. If you read the reporting on, you know,

the Emirates and the Qatari's paying off basically the Whitkoff clan and the Trump clan. So they're kind of on the hook. He's very close to Erdogan, the Turkish president, and was able to wield some leverage there to get him to put pressure on Hamas. And, of course, I think, you know, nobody can claim that he hasn't had Israel's back. I mean, bombing Iran was the first time in American history that the United States joined Israel in an active military campaign in the Middle East, right? So he's basically done what Netanyahu is wanted. So he was able to use that to his advantage to say, now you have to do this, right? So, okay, I can give him credit for that.

But then when he comes home and says, peace in our time. Besides the corruption part. Yeah. Besides the corruption part. But peace in our time, you know, sort of ticker tape parade, I deserve a Nobel. Not only is it too soon to tell, but there are a lot of indicators that that was never, ever going to be the case, that this was not going to hold. Now he's saying he's got a list of Arab regimes that are ready to send troops into Gaza to go after Hamas. I would love to see this list, and I would love to see these Arab countries basically say that they're about to do this, right?

Yeah. Because time was it was going to be a coalition of European Western countries that were going to go in and, you know, turn Gaza into beachfront property. It was going to be the next Miami Beach, right? Color me skeptical that peace is going to break out in the Middle East. I spent a long time dealing with this region and studying it, you know. But unfortunately, unfortunately, and here I have to be critical of my own so-called profession. I think the way the media frame this, this kind of unprecedented historic thing, only put with. wind in his sails and gave him this kind of inspiration to think, I can just wave my magic wand

on Ukraine, Russia, and make that go away too. And we are where we are now as a result of this. Speaking about hand in pies, there's one other pie over there. He's got his hand in. You didn't mention. And that is Saudi Arabia. MBS will be coming to America. No word on whether Candace is going to undertake what I've been hoping that she would, the transvestigation into him. I want her to expand into the Middle East. You know, she's looking into European leaders and whether they might be trans. I'm kind of intrigued. Is MBS said to be trans? I will, I mean, I just sort of, there've been some scuttlebutt about intersex with MBS, but I don't know anything. And I wouldn't want to say that publicly, but I'm just, I'm hoping that encouraging Candace to look into the possibility of

intersex versus micropinus. I could see Louis C.K.'s next stand-up act right now in Riyadh here. This is true. I mean, come on. Ah, that's same. So anyway, he'll be at the White House November 18th, which, is, I don't even know really what more to say about this. I mean, we've all known this, but it's, I mean, at this point, I mean, he's just completely welcomed into the community of nations and Western nations and the murdering of journalists and other things don't matter anymore. Well, no, he's, he's got Kushner on WhatsApp. I mean, this is how deals are getting done in the region, right? And I don't think it's a coincidence, you know, Kushner and Whitkoff were on 60 minutes last weekend. They're the one. that kind of orchestrate this. And what kind of financial schemes are happening in the background? I mean, Kushner in bed with the Saudis for what's the video game company that I think they're acquiring or purchase. I, you know, it's just, again, it's all Bakshish, which leads to some

kind of diplomatic breakthrough. But if it's leveraged on corruption, you can be sure that the longevity of these things is only as good as the corruption is maintained, right? like we don't have we're not having treaties signed we're not having actual facts on the ground change necessarily i mean yes the release of hostages i'm not trying to diminish that that's an extraordinary thing and it should have happened a long time ago but you know who who is going to keep gaza from descending back into chaos who is going to keep tony blair and mbs yeah tony blare and mbs I also get an F1 track, and Tony Blair will have a fiefdom of some kind. Yeah.

And I mean, look, you know, I will say this, one of the things that I think the achievement of the Abraham Accords allied it. And, you know, it's a good thing when countries normalize with a country they have been at states of war with or don't recognize has a right to exist, right? And generally, I think that's a good thing. However, the forfeiture of the importance of a Palestinian state, which was kind of eclipsed by the Abraham Accords, I always thought this is going to be a problem in the future. And it will continue to be a problem.

You know, you can't sort of bribe and blackmail and sort of, you know, engage in acts of corruption to get out of stateless people in the region, a cause for which, I mean, has been a galvanizing one for innumerable countries for, and now a cause that has galvanized the American population to such a degree that support for Israel has not collapsed, but certainly been lowered to a degree that, you know, is unprecedented, that's going to have to be addressed at some point. And it's not about building hotels, you know, along the Gaza seashore, right? It's, it's, there's going to have to be an actual state in place.

And, you know, the Israelis don't want to do that now for reasons that I think everybody can understand, which is the trauma of October 7, right? This is going to be multi-generational, the idea foreclosing on the idea that we can ever trust the Palestinian to have a state because it will happen to us again. So these are very thorny questions I don't see many answers for, but I do see a lot of pageantry and a lot of, you know, headlines being written as though everything is okay now. It's not. The bird sees fire is over as well.

They're back at war. We appreciate their, uh, yeah, we appreciate their, sure. I've got my earbuds. Yeah, no, they sound great. We love it. We need it. We need kind of some uplifting, you know, sort of sweet tweets and sounds in our background in this moment.

Uh, really quick, uh, in our hemisphere. Before I let you go, I'm just curious your thoughts in the state of play with regards to potentially our regime change war in Venezuela and the fact that we're just like randomly eating boats out of the Caribbean. The Colombian president has said that we killed a fisherman, Colombian fishermen. There's been some conversations about whether some of these people on the boats are from Trinidad. Two of them survived.

Unlike, you know, how you would treat an enemy combatant or the deadliest drug traffickers in the world, as the administration has claimed that these people are, we've just, we're turned them, repatriated them to Venezuela. I had an email this morning for somebody who's had some experience in this world, you know, saying like, the drivers of these boats, like, it's not, it's not like all, the gang all gets on the boat together. It's like, it's usually like there may be a cartel member on the boat, but there's also, you know, some local person that they hired paid a couple hundred bucks, local fishermen, local boat, right? And so, you know, that what we're doing is pretty, it's pretty crazy just in the micro with the bombing of the boats.

but also what the plan is for Venezuela remains a little unclear to me. I'm wondering what your thoughts are. Little Marco gets his bay of pigs and baby he's earned it. Look, I read in the Wall Street Journal today that there had been some debate about his ongoing rivalry with Rick Grinnell, he of the Kennedy Center and its anti-woke arts programming, who was running point with Maduro trying to come up with a diplomatic solution for this Freudier with Venezuela, which has been longstanding. But it seems like Rubio has won that debate, and he's running point on all Western hem stuff, right? Maduro is a dictator. He stole the last

election. I think he is illegitimate. I am also extremely, extremely skeptical and wary of the use of American covert action, particularly in this hemisphere, because, well, you can open a history book and read all about it, but it doesn't usually go well. And the indicators are that we're sort of creeping up to this point, right? B-52 bombers is a show of force and also, you know, collection. CIA has been sort of activated to do things that we'll probably read about in the New York Times in six months or a year. I don't know what the end game here is. Well, obviously, it's regime change or getting Maduro out and allowing, you know, an actual democratic state to emerge. But how is the United States aiming to do this? And how many ways can

this go sideways? I'm not sure. I don't have much clarity on that. But the fact that Rubio, that his currency has gone up is interesting. I mean, this was sort of the neocon candidate in the primary in 2016. Well, he did not get, this is worth reminding people, he did not get the VP slot. Maybe there are other reasons, but one of the reasons he did not get the VP slot. is because Tucker Carlson told Trump that if he picked Rubio's VP, the deep state would kill him because Rubio was a deep state neocon operative. That's what Tucker told Trump and Tucker told Donald Trump Jr. And I mean, you know, I can't get in Donald Trump's addled brain, but apparently, based on

reporting that word of caution is part of the reason why it's J.D. Vance and not Marco. And so it's pretty notable that he now is like controlling big parts of the form. policy. So I don't know, maybe there is something to this deep state conspiracy. I mean, you know, like Rick Grinnell is sort of like failed theater kid, angry Fox News pundit. Rick Grinnell is just incompetent. And the Rick Grinnell thing is not about. Yeah. And he's also really unpleasant to be around. So I think that's probably less about ideology and just more like, I don't want this person in my meetings. But, but you know, I think what's interesting is Rubio gets to sort of assert his worldview without pissing on the corn flakes of people like

J.D. Vance or other sort of invested ideologues in this administration who come from an isolationist background, right? Or at least not yet. We don't know what the sort of happening behind closed doors, but the reporting suggests that he and Vance are kind of okay with each other, for now, until there's a power struggle post-Trump. I will say the Ukrainians are much, much happier, and I am much, much happier to have Rubio run point on the war than Whitkoff or certainly J.D. Vance. Low bar. It's a low bar. But, you know, like, remember, Rubio in the U.S. Senate for 14 years was a Russia Hawk, right? When we did our investigation into Havana syndrome, that's not a segue, by the way. I'm just mentioning it as a data point. He wrote a letter, co-signed a letter with a handful of

other U.S. senators, basically saying this shows that there is credible evidence and the ICA. has been obfuscating about this anomalous health incidents, and we should get to the bottom of it. And wink, wink, we know that Russia's behind it. So Rubio is not a babe in the woods when it comes to Putin or, you know, Kremlin designs on Europe, NATO, and the rest of it. And indeed, I mean, if he's having these kind of tete-a-tets with Lavrov, and they're going, you know, sideways very quickly, that suggests that he's sticking to his metal. Publicly, of course, he espouses the Trumpian view that we all want peace and all the rest of it. But privately, who knows what he's doing. But that said, you know, the Western Hem thing is kind of fascinating.

I mean, we have at least outwardly said that we are now kind of, it's this sort of grand American recessional, right? We're pulling out of the world. We're kind of, we're not pulling out of Europe entirely, but more or less telling them they're on their own and we might not be there to have their back should they find themselves at war with, you know who. And it's all about kind of, you know, consolidating our turf in a 19th century kind of way. And I think for him, this is a great opportunity. I mean, he's a, you know, the son of Cuban exiles makes no mystery about what he'd like to see happen in Cuba and some of these other left-wing autocratic regimes in South America. So I think he's sinking his teeth into it as best he can. And Trump is,

is all for it because going after narco-terrorist is part of the MAGA mission, right? Keep the drugs out, keep migrants out. So I think Rubio's managed to kind of thread that needle. A foreign policy that is grounded in a kind of domestic urgency, right? No doubt. Michael I went long. There have been more dips and drabs on the Havana syndrome in your reporting. We'll do it next time that you're with us. And I'll put a link to like that latest Wall Street journal piece on it. And folks can go back. It's your last time here. We kind of talked about that. But before I lose you, I must ask you, you took your daughter to her first concert as Chaparone. and I want to know what Michael, not your daughter,

I want to know what Michael Weiss's favorite Chappel-Rone song was. My Kink is Karma with By a Mile. By a mile. And that was the best, but that was the best performance she did all night, that song. My Kink is karma. Yeah, it's a great song. It's very hooky. That's appropriate for you.

Well, I mean, it's about Schadenfreude. I mean, it's romantic Schadenfreude, but believe you me, I experience Schadenfreude on a daily basis. I just opened my Twitter. So my kink is karma too, I guess you could say. No, she was a great, it's a great show. But I have to emphasize this, it was not the show where she denounced ice. It was the day afterward.

So before I get the trolls coming after me for, you know, certifying this. We do ICE denunciations here, so it's okay. Okay, yeah. But no, but Julia, my kid, it was her first concert ever, and she loved it. So it was well worth it. I love that. All right. I appreciate you, my man.

We'll be talking to you again soon, all right? Yep, you got it. All right. Up next, Karin Jean-Pierre. All right. Hey, everybody. We are live on Substack for the bulwark here. I'm excited to welcome somebody that you saw on your TV a bunch in 23 and 24. Her name is Karin John Pierre. She was a press. secretary for Joe Biden. She's got a new book out tomorrow called Independent, A Look Inside a Broken White House. What's going on? Girl, good to see you. Yeah, good to see you, Tim. Thanks for having me. It's been a while. I think, I don't know, maybe even pre-COVID.

I'm trying to figure out. It has been a minute. Probably an MSNBC green room somewhere, I think. It would have been it. So it's good to see you. Yeah, you were always busy. I swung back a couple times the White House, but never, you know, you had briefings to get to. A lot going on. I want to get end of the book, obviously, much to discuss. But, you know, we're just coming off this weekend of public action and protests with the No King's rallies. And I think it's interesting backdrop to you kind of doing this tour and talking about the book and talking about the importance of fighting Trump's assault on our democracy. So I was wondering what you made of it. I'm sure you're busy. I don't know if you got out to one of them, but I just wonder what you think.

I thought it was fantastic. I think it's exactly what we need in this moment where our democracy is under attack every single day. It's walking into an authority. authoritarian regime because of Donald Trump. And the fact that it was the third one and it only grew by millions or more than millions or what, you know, it grew. People are even more engaged, even more getting involved. It's pretty amazing to see just across the country and seven million people saying, no, this is not who we want to be or who we are. There are no kings here. We got to fight for our democracy. We have to fight for vulnerable people. We don't want this anymore. This is not what this country should be is all about. It is really gives me some comfort in this time of fear.

And one of the things that people need to know and understand is when it comes to authoritarianism, when it comes to fascism, dictatorship, chaos is connected to that. And chaos also brings fear. And where we are in this moment, we cannot be fearful. We need to be fearless. We need to show up because they want us to be silent. They want us to be quiet. And so what I saw this Saturday, this past weekend, was really wonderful to see because it means that people are not staying quiet and they are going to stand up and speak very loudly

about this moment. What have you thought about the first 10 months of the Trump administration? Is anything surprised you? Is there a particular action they've done that you think is the most acute rallying point? Well, Tim, they were pretty clear. Project 2025, as you know, right? I mean, you've talked about it. They were not ashamed of it last year in 2024.

They leaned into Project 2025, anti-DI, going after federal workers government, the institutions that hold us together, throwing out the rule of law, everything that they were very clear about doing, they're doing. And in rapid speed, that's probably the only thing, is like the rapidness of the speed that it's happening in. But we saw the first Trump administration, and that was a more of a culture war. And then what we see now is more, okay, we know exactly what we want to do. We've been watching the Biden Harris administration. Now we want to turn everything around, undue items that are really, or policies that were really pertinent and important to people

who are vulnerable, who need certain help and policies that we were putting forth. And they're just undoing that. And it is incredibly frightening. But that's the point. That is the point of what they've been doing this past 10 months. All right. So let's get to the book. Why write this?

You don't have to. You have a lot of things you could do, you know? I could have gone. I don't know, Jake Carney went to do a PR for Amazon, you know. You could have an MSNBC show, maybe. You know, like there are things you could have done. You don't even have to write a book doing. I appreciate that.

Why'd you do it? I could be a mom, right? And I am being a mom. So I think everything that I just laid out, Tim, it's scary. These are unprecedented times. And I know we've said that before, but we just talked about the last 10 months of this administration what's been happening. And I will add, when I came out.

out of the administration after January 20th with Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, I was hearing from people. People were coming up to me. And some of them were crying. They were fearful. They were scared. And they were saying to me and asking questions, what are we going to do? What's happening with the Democratic Party? Why is no one fighting back? Why weren't they prepared? And that was the part of the catalyst of me wanting to write a book now as a private citizen, trying to give voice and saying the quiet stuff out loud and give a roadmap for Americans out there who are trying to figure out how do we get our politicians, this political party, to actually wake up and be held accountable as well.

And this two-party system isn't working. It's not working. And we need it to work in order to have a functioning democracy. Look, I'm with you on the need to fight and people need to fight. harder. Doing it with outside the construct of the Democratic Party, I'm curious about why you felt you need to do that. And obviously, I left a party once, so I know a little bit about this. I left a party, though, you know, based on substance, based on the person that took over the party, did not represent my values, thought he was a danger to the country. I've got my complaints

about Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer and the Democratic leadership, of course. I got some complaints about Joe Biden, which we'll talk to it about in a minute. But like, you know, I mean, none of them are existential complaints. And so I'm I'm wondering why you felt the need to shed the party libel. So here's the thing. Unprecedented moments need unprecedented actions. I truly believe that. And as a black woman who was obviously part of the Democratic Party, and I'm speaking for

myself here, and again, I'm trying to start a conversation, which is kind of the whole point of the book, but black women have been the backbone of the Democratic Party. Black women have been on the front lines of the Democratic Party. And what I have seen over and over again is that for the most part, in large part, we are left out of the process or we are forgotten. And I have my queerness too, which is very important to me. And I feel like the groups who have stood by the party leadership get forgotten and are not included. And so I think it's important to speak loudly about that. And, but not just that, I want them to work for my vote.

I want them to know, no, I'm not just going to sit here and be part of the base or whatever you think, whatever it is that, you know, however they see black women, I want to actually stand outside of the two party lines and speak up and push and push from where I am. And I think I have an opportunity to do that coming from my background, coming from working in the Democratic Party for 20 years. and the system should not be about parties. It should be about people, people power. And that's what I'm trying to push. And at the end of day, a conversation is starting, a conversation is having. People are asking me, and I'm doing the interviews with you, about why am I doing this? And I get to lay that out in my own way.

And, again, say the things that people are saying privately out loud. A couple of things I want to get to. But let's just talk about, you know, being a black. woman and feeling like, you know, maybe black women the base of the party aren't being heard. And obviously, Kamala Harris was, ended up being the nominee for the Democratic Party, a black woman last time. She also has a book out, two books happening right now, under and seven days. In that book, she talks about how she felt like she was sidelined by your big boss, really, by Joe Biden. And a lot of times wasn't set up to succeed in her role as vice president

and point some fingers that others in the Biden administration about that. I wonder what you made of what Kamala's book within her book and what she's said about that in particular. So I want to first say that I admire Vice President Kamala Harris. I think she is a force. Her leadership, certainly in that 107 days, was so impressive.

And she did something historic. And I will always admire that and appreciate that. And I think it's important that she wrote this book. It's important that we hear her side of the story and her truth. I will say, as you just stated in your question, As a black woman myself, I know, I understand what it could feel like when you are undermined. I think I talk about my own experience in the book.

I don't think I do. I talk about my own. Yeah, we're getting to that. Don't worry. In the book. So I understand how she feels and how she felt. I could only speak for my portion of what I did for the president, which is, and there, you know, you can just watch my briefings at moments where I really.

felt it was important to defend her to really talk about her record and to lay out why she was an important partner of the president. And that was something the president wanted me to do. And that is something that I believed was critical in doing. And so I'm glad that we're hearing from her. And I'm glad that she wrote this book. Well, let me just say, though, like, objectively speaking, she was given a pretty shit for for portfolio. Let's solve the underlying problems of the migrant crisis. Okay. You know, I mean, that's not exactly setting her up to succeed. And, you know, she says in the book, but I've heard about this before. I interviewed Elena Plot who covered you guys over at the Atlantic a lot. And she was, she did a profile about the vice president before she'd taken over at top of the ticket, just in her role as vice president was talking about a lot of the things that she was doing. It was pretty favorable profile. And she said she went to the Biden administration and the Biden team and asked them, like some examples of where the vice president had been stepping up, doing great work. and said that she got basically crickets. And she just felt, I think there's a lot of reporting out there that the White House was not

really setting up to succeed. And given the president's age, I think that's like a huge failure in retrospect. What do you think about that? I can't speak to that experience. I was not part of that particular moment when the reporter asked for more insight and more specific example. I just can't. I think what I can speak to is my role. and what I did and what I did every day at the podium,

especially during the 107 days when I was getting incoming on the vice president, then obviously running up on the top of the ticket. And my job, and this is something that the president wanted me to do, was to speak for her, speak, you know, make sure we were defending her and do everything that we can to support her. And that is what I can speak to. That is what we did under my time as White House. press secretary. Again, I think it's important that she wrote this book. I admire that she was able

to tell her truth. We need her voice and we need to hear what her experience is like. I think many people want to hear that. And that's really all I can speak to. So I guess just one other element on this that I think you couldn't speak to since you were in there. Right. Like another thing that, you know, she talks about is essentially that like when it comes to the question of the president's age, you know, there was like a lot of pressure to not speak out. I think I don't have right in front of me, she said we were in a trance or something to that effect and that there was a lot of pressure from the president and the first lady to not say anything about this, to just put one foot in front of the other, to be loyal to the president.

You expressed some concern in the book about this loyalty to the president. I look back at that and think, man, wasn't there a little too much over-emphasis on loyalty to Joe Biden and Biden's legacy, you know, and not enough on setting the party up to succeed, setting Kamala Harris have to succeed. So a couple of things. The loyalty piece, I don't know which part you're saying that I was loyalty to the president. What I have said more broadly, more broadly speaking, in this effort to talk about the broken system and what needs to be fixed, I think the power needs to come out of the White House

and more back to the people, like this people power that we're seeing. I think that that type, our democracy should not be just only in the hands of any president. So that's number one. Number two, I was White House Press Secretary and I was honored and privileged to have been White House Press Secretary. It is a job that I think is critical and important to speak on behalf of this president. It is important to be able to share with the American people what we're thinking, what the president thinking is how we move forward.

When it came, if you're asking me about him deciding to run again, is that where? Yeah. Well, I mean, look, these things are all connected, right? Him deciding to run again. I mean, him decided running in, but also just this idea that Jill Biden and Joe Biden were deeply concerned about protecting his legacy more than fighting Donald Trump, more than preparing the vice president to be able to fight Donald Trump. And then after he dropped out, I like there was just, there's a lot of conversation. You were prescary. I'm sure you hear about this about protecting President Biden's legacy.

And I just like, why did we care about that so much? I have to tell you, Tim. I look, the vice president will speak to her experience. and I think she should, and I'm glad that she's doing that. I would disagree that this president was only concerned about his legacy. I think every president cares about their legacy. They want to make sure that it is captured in the best way possible. That's not unusual, whether you have a D or R behind your name.

I think that's just not unusual. Sure, but I mean, what about the story? He called her before the debate to say that people said they were being mean to him. Like, what is happening? What is happening? That is insane. That's an insane thing to do. Hold on a second.

to him. You're talking about her experience. I can't speak to her experience. I can't. But you're around. Wait a minute. You're asking me a broader question, right, about his legacy. And I'm telling you that that is not, first of all, not unusual. That is not, that was not the focus that I was given. The focus that I was given as a person that spoke to him on a daily, spoke for him on a daily basis, was to try to communicate what we were doing on behalf of the American people. And you heard that. You heard that from me when I was at the podium. It was always trying to lay out here, the policies whether on the economy, whether on health care, how we're trying to move the country forward. That was my opening, if you think about my my opening, like kind of part of my briefing was always that how we're trying,

it always had the American people in it. It always had how we're moving this forward. It wasn't legacy, legacy, legacy. That's not what we focused on. We wanted to protect, let me be, we wanted to wanted to protect what Biden had been able to do because we knew that it would affect Americans for generations. And if it was undone, it would have an effect. So that was our focus. Again, what the vice president has said, that's something she can speak to. I can't speak to it. Sure. Okay. But that is not, was not my experience when we talk about specifically legacy. And what we were asked to do on behalf of this president, it is trying to sell and push forward policies that helped the American people. And I would argue, too, in almost every speech that he gave

in 2024, 2023, even during the midterm election, was about democracy, was about protecting our democracy. January 6th, an anniversary of January 6th, he would make a speech around there to talk about how our country is an experiment. And if we do not fight for our democracy every day, we will lose our democracy. He talked about that often. Well, one more thing on the Biden, and then I don't want to get to the rest of the book, but I guess I wonder if you feel this. Like, some of us feel let down because I don't think that he was able to live up to his rhetoric on that. He wasn't capable at his age of making the case from a communication standpoint. There's a lot of the good things he did, people didn't know

about because he did not, wasn't capable of making a vigorous case. Obviously, I wasn't capable of making a vigorous case on the debate stage. And now, you know, God love him. We send him our best, but he, you know, has cancer. Like the notion that this person was up for being president to 2028 was up for the communications responsibility of this job and fighting. Do you think he could have been president in 20208? I can't speak to that. Here's what I. But so was he up for it, though? I guess. I could just big, like, he didn't, he didn't have the vigor for this fight. Let me, we have to rewind the tape a little bit and not be revisionist historians here. Because in 2023, the winter and spring. spring of 2023, we were coming out a successful midterm elections for Democrats in the sense that we didn't have a red wave. And it was, it was seen as one of the most successful first term. You lost the house. No, but it, remember, it was supposed to be a red. I'm not saying we know, but no, but historically, if you look at other first term presidency, midterm election, he, right,

okay, just follow me for a second. I'm just saying it wasn't that great. a midterm. That's not what I said. I said it wasn't a red wave. That's what I said. It was predicted to be an awful, awful first term midterms. And it wasn't that. It just wasn't. And the reason why was because Democrats in their districts, in their state, were able to tout what we had been able to do as as an administration. And that is also really important. We cannot forget that. Arguably, not even arguably, objectively, this president had a pretty successful couple of years as president. And he got that done because of his experience. And now we're still in the spring, the winter spring of 2023.

He was the only person to have beaten Donald Trump still is. And people in the Democratic Party leadership in the Democratic Party were actually saying that he should run for re-election. So we have to look at the time when he made this decision. That was the time that he made the decision in 2023, early 2023. And so that is one of the reasons what came to his mind, I believe, I never even talked to him about it, that, but those were the facts that were happening in that time. Those were just what was happening. The oldest president in history and having to run against Donald Trump who tried an insurrection.

You never talked about his age. I was not part of his political decision. That was not something I did. I remember I've always talked about a hatch act. That was not something I did. I never asked him about it was his decision to make. He made it. And there were factors.

There were factors in the spring of 2023. That made sense for him to make a decision in this way. So that's number one. My job, my job was to speak to what the decision he made in the sense of, in the sense of continuing, trying to lift up, trying to lift up the policies and the legislative wins that we did have. We did have legislative win. But he didn't talk about them that well, though. He couldn't talk about them. He wasn't campaigning that bigger.

No, no. Wait, first of all, first of all, he did talk about them. Whether it broke through or not, he did. Tim, he did talk about. He talked way less to the press than Donald Trump does, way less. And he wasn't out there at all. He wasn't good off the cuff. He wasn't doing press conferences.

Let's just be real. Like, he didn't do night events. But Tim, that's not true. Tim, you're conflating all of that. That's what you're doing. No, first you're telling me he didn't talk well about it. Then you're telling me he didn't talk at all. He didn't do either.

He didn't talk very often. And when he did, it wasn't very good. He sounded very old. Maybe you weren't paying attention to what we were doing at the White House. I'm with you on the policy. I'm talking about his performance. The president spoke to the American people a couple times a week. He traveled and did domestic travel and talked directly to the American people.

We are talking about a time politically that is. incredibly partisan. It is hard. It's hard to break through any messaging. And it was an incumbency as well. Many G and all G7G10 countries had a really difficult time if they were an incumbent getting reelected because of COVID, because of the economy. There are many factors that will play a part in this in what happened in 2024. That is just true. That is just fact. The reason he made the decision at the time in 2023, there were factors there that led him to make a decision to run for re-election. It was a different, different time in what he was able to get accomplished and the midterms, which matter, and him being the only person to have

been beaten Donald Trump, there were factors in that decision as well. So, you know, this is a president that used and used his platform to try to do good. He used his platform to make change and created legislation to do just that. On the other side, you have a Republican, Republican leadership, Donald Trump, who only puts forth hatred, divisiveness, Project 2025, which is hurting and hurting vulnerable people, I mean, that's what we have right now. That's the person who is in office right now. I think that's why people are mad.

So here's what I think we can agree, Karina. It's a question of just how to process this. Like, people are pissed that Donald Trump is back in office again. People are pissed. Like, the threat was great. Like, that's what you're talking about. The threat was great. We needed an opposition that was up to the threat.

And I think some people are upset at the president. I would include myself among those. Some people are upset about the vice president. some people are like you are saying that like we needed a broad the whole party and we needed a broader fight but you know i just think that is like what is underlying this it's not like some personal vendetta it's like people are rightly mad because all this horrible shit is happening and it's like well what can we do better now to prevent this from happening exactly and so you're so talk to me about what you're the point right that is the point of what i'm trying to talk about you're not wrong things people are upset people are angry millions of people people who came out in 2020 to vote for Joe Biden didn't come out in 2024. They stayed home. They were either disillusioned, didn't feel like their vote matter, whatever it is. They stayed home. And I think this is the moment now where Democrats in particular here, because I see them as

the opposition party, they should be the opposition party. This is a moment to be the opposition party, especially in the moments where you feel like there's an unprecedented time here, and it is. And so they need to do more, and this is what I'm talking about. When you look at, we just started this conversation talking about the No King's protest, seven million people came out, millions more than the last one. But it's only organizations, outside organizations that are putting them together. Why do Democrats not do protests like that and really help infuse and engage and do peaceful protests and show the American public that they're fighting?

Why are we not seeing more lawsuits for Democrats? Why aren't we not seeing, I think Democrats should go into a red district and talk to them about the economy. There are things that I think that they can do and really show, hey, we're trying to make a change and do it differently. And right now, what people are seeing, and I know you're saying people are angry, but what I'm also hearing from people that they're angry about is they feel like Democratic leadership is letting go and is giving up on their power. They're acting as if they're powerless when they are not powerless. And so this is the conversation that I'm trying to have. This is what we're trying to figure out to take that power out of the White House and give it to the people power because our democracy is at stake.

That takes me back to this question about becoming an independent. Again, I understand the critiques of the Democratic Party, wanting to encourage them to do better, but isn't the only vehicle really politically for stopping down Trump right now, aspirationally sure, like maybe in the future we need more parties. But like right now, the Democratic Party is the only vehicle for doing it. Isn't it better to work within the system to model behavior for how to fight harder to give advice to Democrats that will listen, right? Like, why leave the party when that is the, sorry to use a pun, but the bulwark,

are the only political bulwark right now against this regime? Well, I talked early on about being a black woman, being part of the LGBTQ community and how it feels as if we are forgotten and we are not. included in certain major decisions and not respected as being at the front lines. And so I talked about that a little bit. And I think if you look at what's happening with independence right now, it's growing. People do not see themselves in any of the party. Millions of people are saying they don't feel like their voices are being heard.

Millions of people do not want to affiliate themselves as a D or an R. And that, to me, shows that the system is broken. And it's not about what is, you know, easy to do. It is about having those difficult conversations. It is certainly being able to say to the Democratic Party, hey, you know what? You have millions of people here who don't feel seen by either or two of the party. And so when the process begins to vote, some of them can't even vote in a primary, right? The primary process is closed.

I think they should see that as this is a problem. This is a problem. So how do we engage? How do we bring people in so that it feels like a big tent party again? And it doesn't. You cannot throw vulnerable communities under the bus and say you're a big tent party. You can't do that. You can't grow the party if you're not willing to protect vulnerable communities.

And so that is what I'm seeing from this current iteration of the Democratic Party. Who are they not representing particular? Well, I told you, like black women. feel like they get left out of the process. I'm a black woman. I can speak to that. Obviously, I'm speaking to myself. LGBTQ community feel like they're being left out of the process. I mean, and I don't think they're doing enough for migrants and immigrants.

We cannot be throwing vulnerable communities under the bus. There needs to be more that has to happen. The political system isn't working for us. That's what millions of people are saying. And so I believe using my platform, having these conversations that we're having, having a voice, I can shed light to this. Because at the end of the day, when you think about the system, it shouldn't be about politics. It should be about people. People should be at the center of this.

You write in the book? I have to ask this. I just have no choice. You write in the book, but out there was a person in your team. I do. I don't really. No, I have no choice. It's like, it's not like someone else is making me.

I mean, like, it's my nature. It is my nature. I have a, I have a nature. I mean, it's within my own nature that if you write something this provocative, I got to ask about it because I'm a curious, I'm a curious kitty. You wrote about how there's a person on a team, a senior person, a mentor that you felt like was undermining you. You mentioned it earlier in the interview. You wrote about it. Who are we talking about?

What happened? I'm not going beyond the book. But the reason why I wrote that is, as a first, it is sometimes even the people who are the closest to you really put roadblocks in front of you. And I wrote it to tell my story, to tell my side, you have to know, and I think you know this, Tim. When I was the White House press secretary, I kept my mouth shut. I didn't leak. Yeah.

I didn't defend myself. That's true. And I really just focused on the work and focused on being White House press secretary for this president. And what ended up happening when I was writing the book as I was telling the story, I also wanted to tell the story what it's like to be a first, because I wanted to connect with women who are first, with black women, with others who have gone through this process. And so I wanted to be honest about what was going on. It was being written about. And I wanted people to hear it from my voice. But I'm not going to go beyond that story. But I think I believe that many people who read that piece of that part of the book will understand and it will resonate. And I think they probably feel as if I'm speaking to them. And I want to feel that I touched people in personal ways and obviously help them get re-engage in this process or continue to be engaged in this process as well. Let's have a little fun at the end.

You watched this Brown show of the Trump Press conference's your old job, what's happening now. it's truly unbelievable. They've filled the briefing room with hacks, and, you know, it would be like as if you would have, I don't know, put a couple of the TikTokers from the K-Hive in the briefing room and have them ask you questions instead of actual reporters. It's worse than that, actually, because at least those people would have been good, you know, honest people with well-intensions. These guys have, like, these horrible far-right hacks and apologists for the fascist regime

are in there asking them questions. a lot of times really stupid questions, really obsequious questions. Like, do you have the, do you have it in you to watch this? Or can you not, can you not? I have to tell you, Tim, I have not. I've not watched it. I basically. I don't blame you.

I, uh, there are better people than me that can speak to this. I will say this, though. And this is something that I truly believe. And I hope that I exemplified that when I was the White House press secretary standing at the, at that podium behind the lectern. And this is something that President Biden, wanted, which is to respect the freedom of the press, which is really one of the things that's incredibly important when you think about democracy, when you think about the fourth of state,

right? And taking on the hard questions and making sure that the press, you know, was able to have a healthy back and forth with us. And I think the freedom of the press, what's so important about that is they're supposed to hold powerful people accountable. And when you remove that, when that no longer exist, it's no longer free. It's no longer part of our democracy, right? You're talking about a regime, an authoritarian regime. You're talking about fascism. You're talking about dictatorship.

And so that is something that I think is really sad and unfortunate that is happening. But the freedom of the press needs to be respected regardless if you agree with them or not. You're kind of missing out, I guess. I'm going to tell you. You should maybe just watch. Someone pull a highlight real. You do watch for me. It is such a clown show.

Okay. Anything, can we close something fun? Do you have any fun little anecdotes in the book? Something to hit the cutting room floor that you wanted to mention. Maybe something about my friend Ben LaBolt, some trash talk. Oh, I love me some Ben. Ben LeBold is the best. He's a good egg, as my mom would say.

Yeah. Okay. Well, we'll leave it with that. A little compliment for Ben LaBolt. Good luck on the book tour. I've been out there, girl. You know, it's a grind. So I wish you the best.

Thanks, Tim. Come back and talk to us soon, all right? I appreciate it. Thank you so much. Green, John Pierre. Everybody else will see you soon. Bye. Bye.

We broke up on a Tuesday kicked me out. With the rent paid ruin my credit. So my cute aesthetic. Who knew that we'd let it get this bad when it ended. It's comic. Bridges you burn Comas Real Hope is your turn

I heard from Katie You're losing it lately Move back with your parents And date girls who are 18 It's hard When you have a meltdown In the front of your house And you're getting kicked out

It's hot When you're drinking downtown And you're getting called out Because you're running your your mouth oh god and it's coming around yeah it's coming around yeah it's coming around oh god people say i'm jealous but my king is watching you run it's your life you close it your mind you take your hair people say i'm jealous from my king is watching you The bullwark is your core.

You break it's your heart. You're singing I care. People say I'm jealous, but that geek is for more. The Bullwark podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.