The Bulwark Podcast - Neera Tanden: Absolute Power Corrupts

Episode Date: March 6, 2026

Republicans and the Supreme Court have put basically no guardrails on Trump, so he started a global war that is costing taxpayers $1 billion a day. He shrugs about soldiers dying, and he lies about the school full of children that Americans likely killed. And he's downright giddy that because he signed off on all the bombing of Iran, he may get to choose the country's new leader. At the same time, one of the few occasions when Republicans stood up to him resulted in the firing of his first Cabinet member, the scandalous Kristi Noem. Plus, new job loss numbers show how Trump continues to hurt the working class, fuel prices are rising, the administration is again helping Russia in its war on Ukraine, Rand Paul may have an issue with Noem's chosen successor, and have the Dems' chances of retaking the Senate improved?Neera Tanden, with the Center for American Progress, joins Tim Miller for the weekend pod.show notes The Center for American Progress web site Catherine on Trump's warflation NPR on Neera's OMB nomination being pulled because of her tweets about GOP senators Follow "Bulwark Takes" for breaking news coverage over the weekend Tim's playlist Tickets for our LIVE show in Austin on March 19: TheBulwark.com/Events.

Hello and welcome to the Bullwark podcast. I'm your host Tim Miller. Delight to welcome back to the show, the president and CEO of the Center for American Progress. She was domestic policy advisor to Joe Biden. Has worked for a lot of other Democrats. She is not at all polarizing on the Internet. You might have heard of her. It's Nira.

It's Nira. It's Nira Tandon. How you doing, Nira? I just want to say polarizing means people like you, too. Yeah, right. Polarizing. Yeah. I always said that I was a polarizing child with teachers.

I always made this case to my mother because she'd be upset because she'd go to people, parent teacher conference, there'd be like two teachers that really hate me. And I'd be like, yeah, but there are five that really, that I'm their favorite. You know, I'm a polarizing figure. I'm hoping for that same ratio. Yeah, I think that feels about right to me. Good news. Good news for you. Good news for listeners. Because we've had some downer podcasts recently. There's a lot of shot in Freud out there today for the Trump administration. Things aren't going great for the Trump administration, which also means things aren't going great for the American people. So that part sucks. Yeah, that part's bad. We're trying to focus on the,

political side of it and the problems for Trump. And we want to start with, I think, the most joyful element of Schaudev, and that is Christy, Noem, and her lover, Chloe Lewandowski, have been expelled from the government. Donald Trump posted yesterday that he is pleased to announce that Mark Wayne Mullen will become the U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security, effective March 31st. That's not actually how things work. You've got to be confirmed in the Senate of it. Anyway, he says that's Christy Noem, who served us well and had numerous inspectors. tackle results, especially in the better, I'm sorry, on the border, we'll be moving to special envoy for Shield of the Americas.

This is a made-up thing that's being announced at Trump's golf club on Saturday. So she gets a made-up job for at Trump's Adderall. Totally made up. I mean, I have to say, like, you can almost tell how made-up something it is by, like, just the title, right? So, like, the crazier the title, the more made-up. it is. And I mean, I have to say, like, I have been an administration where you want to move someone

out of a job and, like, they're basically being fired and then you give them something else, but usually it's an actual job. And if you're smart enough, you negotiate for an actual job. And the fact that they've just, like, totally made up shield of the Americas, which is, like, I don't even know what that would possibly mean. I guess it's, like, defending Latin America from Russian attack. Who knows? Anyway, just a fascinating, just like Linda.

I'm open to the possibility that Christy wanted that job, you know, gets her away from her family, you know. I assume it'll be in a tropical locale. Yeah, maybe. Who knows? That's one theory. But she's gone. We can enjoy that.

We have finally justice for cricket, her dog. I want to talk about the negative part of this, which is Mark Wayne Mullen. But do you have any other Christy gnome grave dancing? you want to do before we do that? Well, I mean, look, there's a lot. Whenever something like this happens, and, you know, we should acknowledge, this is the first time a cabinet secretary,

and this is a cabinet made of, you know, multiple people competing for the worst people in their jobs ever. So, but I do think it's the first time he's fired someone. And we should note, like, firing someone for this administration, why has he resisted it? Because he believes no one should make him do anything. and everyone has had carte blanche to be as incompetent or as horrifyingly cool as possible. So I do think it's important to acknowledge that the political system in some way, shape, or form is impacting Republicans who then have become much more critical of her.

So we should, you know, a lot of people are like, oh, my God, he's so much worse than she is. It doesn't matter because of Stephen Miller. But I do think we should all acknowledge there is a victory. in her going. ICE has not changed. The policies did not really come from her. But it is an important thing that the Trump regime needed to act politically in response to political pressure.

Yeah. And the Republicans did. I mean, this was John Kennedy, my senator from Louisiana, who's a buffoon and a clown, like the fact that he felt like he had to be the one to really go at her and to put pressure on her. And he had publicly said in other settings recently that they'd gone overboard on some of their tactics. And if the Louisiana Republican senator is saying that, like, that is a sign that they at least have felt some political pressure and realize they need to recalibrate. We'll see how much

they actually recalibrate. Yeah, absolutely. I agree that. Let's talk about Mark Wayne Mullen. Here's the things to not be excited about, about this trade. And he's kind of the male Christy. Yeah. Like, I mean, they're pretty similar, I think, and they're just makeup, SAT scores, like the level of... I mean, they also compete on psychofancy. Like, I mean, he's just like... Yeah. And also, the fact that he's named after he has this episode where he comes to the reporters and says, like, you know, the war is going well. And 30, literally 30 seconds later, he's like, there's no war. It's just like, you know, I mean, you know, like, we're not talking about, like, a Mensa leader here.

No, it's not a Mensa leader. And he is, and he has not been critical. of any of the policies, Chris, you know, and put forth. I just want to read a couple of things that he said. Mark Wayne Mullen, after Alex Pready died, he called him an deranged individual who wanted to cause massive damage with a loaded pistol with an extra mag that was completely loaded. Obviously, this is ridiculous. He did not want to cause massive damage on Renee Good.

He said she was interfering with police activity. There's no question about that. They had the right to defend themselves on the masks. He says that Democrats want reforms because they want to doxy- agents. What do you want to do, expose their faces so you can intimidate their families? So, you know, he threatened to fight a union head. He once said that he thinks that there'd be less fake news if there would be duels between reporters and Congress people like in the old days. So, you know, we're not pivoting back to Tom Ridge at the Department of Homeland Security.

I mean, look, we're talking about the Trump administration. So I don't think we should expect rationality. I think what's actually a little interesting about this is that the governor of Oklahoma is actually a rational, seemingly more rational Republican. And he will get to a point. He's offered substantive critiques on the immigration issue in particular, which is interesting since he'll be able to put in a temporary senator. We'll see if he puts his money where his mouth is on that. But it's a little bit of a risk for the Republicans that in theory he could put in a senator for like, five or six months, that is. Less crazy. Yeah, he's not going to be Tim Miller, but maybe,

maybe that he is sympathetic to some DHS reforms or something. We'll see. I think the thing about this, that's interesting, and, you know, who knows what will happen. You know, it's not like I like to like bet my house on the ethics and morals of the Republican Party these days. But I do think that it's possible. Governor Stitt puts in a, you know, just a more rational Republican who could create some breaks, not just on immigration, but a whole host of policies. And I mean, I think if you're like thinking of the array of buffoonery that's just on the field, it might be we have one less around us in this situation. So, you know, I try to be optimistic in these very dark times. Here's another optimistic thing. I'll give you another element of optimism. So his confirmation,

which still has to happen, Donald Trump thinks he can decree the date that he comes in. But as you, And as you know, there's a confirmation process. I am familiar with the fact that you need confirmation. Yeah. And a bunch of Republicans and even a couple Democrats did not want to confirm you because you had said mean things about them. Yes. And so there's an interesting subplot to this, which is that the chair of the committee

that he'll have to be confirmed through is Rand Paul. And here's something that Mark Wayne Mullen has said about Rand Paul in the past. I respect Bernie Sanders because he's a socialist. and you know that he's a communist so you know what you're getting. Rand Paul is a freaking snake, and I understand completely why his neighbor did what he did. The neighbor beat up Rand Paul for people who don't remember. I would like to note this is much meaner than anything I've ever said about a senator.

I was going to say, did you ever cheer a senator getting their ass kicked physically? I don't think so. I don't think so. I think I called, I mean, I think I called Ted Cruz Voldemort. But I don't think I think this is worse, actually. That holds up. I think it's, I mean, he's, again, he cheered an assault on Rand Paul. Exactly.

So, yeah. We'll see how Rand Paul heroes it. But I think that there's at least some possibility that it's not quite as friendly of a confirmation as it could have been, had, you know, it been one of the other Republicans for whom Mark Wayne Mullen has not supported physical violence against him. I mean, it also, he could just slow everything down. That's like, it's a favorite tactic of senators. Rand is not like super excited about the DHS funding bill. This is all happening in that context as well, in part because of just his libertarianness.

He's like against most spending bills. It's a little bit less about the principle of the behavior of the agents and all that. But like it complicates things. It kind of credit to Senator Paul in the aftermath of the shooting or killing murder of Alex Freddie. You know, he said, and I think this is basically, you know, animated. by his concern about a federal government almost unlimited power against citizens. He basically said, like, he had concerns that

the lies of DHS, the lies of Christina, the lies of, you know, the entire White House really, you know, should make people concerned. I mean, he was one of the senators in the days after that that, and like Tom tell us yesterday or two days ago in the hearings, who said, we could see this video and then we heard you lie about what happened.

And, you know, I mean, again, don't want to like, actually, we've had a lot of disappointments from senators, Republican senators over the last year. But, you know, my own view, actually, is we are beginning to see more and more cracks in the Republican coalition. And the true libertarians recognize that Donald, I mean, who should be most concerned about an authoritarian federal government, it is the libertarians.

Right. Unless you are a complete hypocrite, you should be very worried about a incredibly armed DHS that is shooting citizens on the streets of American cities. And I hope Rand Paul asked, you know, Senator Mullen, like some questions about this whole situation. And I'd also just gives people more opportunity. I mean, just having this confirmation hearing will give people more opportunity to air all the problems, Democrats, to air all the problems that have happened at DHS. So I think, you know, I mean, again, I don't want to overstate, but you do see some Republicans who within the blithering attacks are actually standing up. And Rand has gone on, like, I can't remember if he's gone on Fox or Criticized Noam. I believe so.

He definitely did on the Venezuela strikes. and he has since the Iran war started. Anyway, we'll watch Rand on this one in particular. All right, everybody, just recently got a package from our friends at Mizan and Maine. Misson and Maine is offering some comfy dress shirts. And as a podcaster, it was getting criticized sometimes by people in the comments yelling at me. It makes me understand at like the tiniest level, the burden of women. You know, it just makes me empathize with women just like 1% more,

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We have another news item this morning, which is the jobs numbers came out, and it was a big miss for the economy. 92,000 jobs lost. Just I want to read a couple of items for you. Here's Nate Silver. On top of the 92,000 jobs lost, also 69,000 in downward revision.

from December and January. Not nice. Manufacturing jobs minus 12,000. Transportation warehouse minus 11,000. Construction minus 11,000. So this was going to be a renaissance for the forgotten man, the blue collar man, doesn't seem like it.

Ronis Ensan over at CNBC said since Liberation Day, since the tariffs, workers have been liberated from the yoke of work. Net 19,000 jobs lost since last April. The Labor Force participation rate has erased all the gains of the last four years, while inflation advances. It's that.

Yeah. I think the last point is really crucial. Donald Trump became president in January. And since April, we have not had job gains. And I just want to just to remind everybody that in the previous four years, we were averaging about 200,000 jobs created a month. So it is a radical break from what we've been experiencing. In the first Trump administration, it was basically 100, $150,000 on average until we got to COVID.

Of course, with COVID, big job shock. But then as we came out of COVID, and, you know, not just in the immediate aftermath, but, you know, through last year, we were seeing significant job creation across the country. And not just in health care, but in manufacturing and jobs. kind of throughout various sectors. And the most important thing is, there aren't like other forces in the universe. I mean, we have to see what AI is doing.

Right. But it's the policies of this administration that are creating headwinds for the economy. I mean, people, a big reason why we're seeing these job losses is because Donald Trump decided himself to create a tariff regime that just made everything a lot more expensive and made imports into the country to make things more expensive.

That's why it's so, you know, that is why we're having a manufacturing problem in the country. It's like the whole idea of his tariffs were to make, you know, to help us compete. And actually they are like a lot of things this guy does, boomeranging into hurting the very people he said he would help, which is working class people. Yeah. And it's like, what's going to get better? Like, that's the big question. And it's like, what are we doing? I mean, maybe we'll spend hundreds of billions of dollars on this war

and we'll get some people to work in like defense contractors. But what is on the table here to actually improve the economic conditions? This is the key point. Yeah. It was self-inflicted. 100% self-inflicted. The job losses. And there's no plan.

It's not as if that there's this bill going through Congress, like the Jobs Act, where they have a plan. they're going to, you know, support certain industries or cut, right? There's no idea. I mean, that's like, just to step back what I thought was so amazing about the State of the Union, which I know feels like it was seven years ago, but it was really like last week. Was it really last week? I don't remember it was two weeks ago, but it wasn't, I mean, but now, you know, where the problem with time is like none of us can remember what happened last week because it's like last month.

But the thing that I thought was fascinating about the State of the Union is, I mean, I've worked on a couple of these. And the idea of the State of the Union is that you're supposed to put out ideas about solving problems that compete with the other side. And there was nothing the president wanted to do in Congress because, you know, basically I don't think he cares where Congress does. He just wants to do executive actions. And it really wasn't, weren't ideas there on like, how are you solving the jobs problem? Because he can't admit there is a jobs problem. I mean, his whole problem is he kind of adopted one of the strategies of the Biden administration. which I'm here to tell you, do not work so well,

is to say, actually tell people the economy is really awesome. And what is horrifying is right after they say the economy is awesome, like the next jobs report is pretty devastating. And he can't even blame some woke BLS administrator because he got rid of that person. So anyway, it's really- And back to the AI thing, just like looking at a couple of the sectors, right? So maybe AI is having an effect on this. Derek Thompson now, we're talking about this yesterday.

but, you know, in like the sectors that you would think, you know, kind of information services, that's a, you know, thing, it's like minus 11,000 jobs. So it seems like maybe there's an effect in these kind of white collar jobs. But, like, that's just a small piece of this. I mean, like, huge losses in hospitality, health care, manufacturing, warehouse. Like, this is not, this is not AI causing this.

This is a really important point. I mean, what is really terrible about this jobs report is, that the jobs we're losing, our jobs, again, disproportionately working class people are in. Manufacturing jobs, hospitality jobs, service jobs. And you're absolutely right. There are areas that we know are most impacted, our computer programming, financial services, and we're not seeing that. So you can't even blame. Financial services was the best sector, plus 10,000. I know, exactly. I assume that's because of crypto. I don't know. They don't break town, but there's a lot of crypto crime jobs out there. We've got a couple of booming sectors,

crypto crime, private prisons. Briborries. You know, just anything involved in bribery is, you know, out of up trajectory these days. So, I mean, I don't even know who's a rational actor in the White House, but the whole thing about serving in government is you look at data like this and you have to think about what to do about it and the fact that we have this, from an economic perspective, the fact that we've launched a middle of East War that is spreading throughout the region and is as like basically shut down the Strait of Hormuz, while increasing gas prices. You're also, like basically creating a choke point on global trade, not particularly

helpful to economic growth either. Well, let's talk about the economics of the war. They don't get to the rest of it. But just as you mentioned, so we have from this week since the war started, gas prices up 11 percent, oil prices up 20 percent. So seems like gas prices are more. room to grow there. Catherine Rampal wrote about this,

if you want to get economic dorky for us, called Warflation. So we've got some warflation coming. And then a subtext of this story is Susie Wiles, there's a leak that Susie Wiles got mad. It's so interesting. We've never heard that Susie Wiles got mad.

I mean, we killed American citizens. I don't think she was mad. We were sending people to foreign gulags, not mad, but like mad about gas prices. She's mad. She was yelling at them to find ways to lower prices. Apparently, idea number one, because this is the only thing they've done was the U.S. Treasury eased sanctions on Russia and Putin.

And they can now sell oil to India and other countries in Asia without the same level of sanctions that we'd put on them. So that was the idea one. Were you not shocked that their go-to was helping Russia in the war? I found it personally just like, I read it. And I was like, oh, my God, this is so radically different than everything else they do is helping out Vladimir Putin in some form of shape or form. I mean, just to note that they are basically easing the sanctions on Russia while Russia is helping Iran target U.S. forces in the war. Why? Because they're allies with Iran. So I just want to, you know, for all the America first people, we are making it easier for Russia to have economic wealth.

You know, this is like a whole issue for their economy, whether they're. the sanctions exist on their oil and resources and while they are actively working against our military operation. So, you know, it's very odd. But I guess, you know, one thing that I also want to say about just the utter incompetence of this White House is, I don't know about you, but to me, it was kind of predictable that when you started a war with Iran, it might have some pressure on gas prices. I mean, I'm not, I don't have, I don't have enthron. clad systems like gaming out order to me. But for me, it occurred to me that that could happen.

And, you know, one thing you might do, if you were thinking of having a war with Iran, was to ensure your strategic petroleum petroleum reserve was actually full. So if gas prices went off, you would actually have some escape valve to, you know, increase production into the market to ensure that, you know, people were insulated. Not this group of cracker jack thinkers that did not fill the strategic petroleum reserve. So they can't do what governments have done like Republican and Democratic governments, which is when you see an oil shock, you could actually tap the reserve to mediate the price.

Nope, don't have that option because these geniuses didn't think to actually increase the reserve. So, I mean, this is the problem with having a war in like a weekend. You know, I mean, generally speaking, you know, you know, You plan these things out. You look at various contingencies, and you decide to ameliorate kind of the harms. But this group is perfectly fine with all of us paying more for gas, other than Susie Wells. They seem perfectly fine with all of us paying more for gas. We're all paying for this because it's a billion dollars a debt.

And they're adding the 15% tariff back on. That's today, I think. Yes, we're going to pay more in tariffs and we're paying higher. price is. So, so far, a lot of costs. It's interesting you say that about the timing, because there's kind of mixed reporting out there. And we've seen some reporting that, like, you know, they've been thinking about, they've been planning this for six months. And it is true that we moved resources after, I mean, over there. On the other hand, there's been some reporting that, like, Bibi and Trump had a call, I guess it would have been a week and a half ago now,

where they were like, hey, we've got the intelligence on that all these guys, the Iatola and all of them are going to be in the same place. Like, this is our opportunity to go, this was not something that was urgent, right? It is not as if there's any reporting that's like, hey, they're about to shoot a ballistic missile at Maine, right? Like, that was not on the table, right? So, you know, if they felt like this was an important strategic comparative, which they haven't really made the case for. But if they felt that way, they could have done it whenever. Like, the only timing constraint here was allegedly, like, that there was intelligence provided that they had this opportunity to get these guys on Saturday.

And so they went in. But it's like, okay, well, if it's that critical, you know, that you go on the BB time table here, then like they're going to be these other externalities. Like people stuck over in the Middle East, like gas prices going up. And it doesn't feel like they gave a fuck about that. Look, I think the Iraq War was just a generational disaster. But there was a buildup over a long period of time. And just think of the differences.

Okay. Number one, look at the harms people are having. You know, it seems like some of these soldiers were killed that should have had warnings about the war so that they could, you know, basically be protected. Number two, we have, you know, thousands of people in the Middle East stranded. The embassies haven't pulled people out. Usually when we go to war, we pull people out of embassies, you know, that happened before. and the strategic proletrialian reserve was unfilled.

We didn't engage with our allies really at all in Europe. I mean, I still consider them allies. I know this administration doesn't. But now those allies are basically on their own choosing to help various sides in this war. I know there's like a lot of kind of important talk about how the military is doing great job degrading Iran. And sure. And that is true.

And it is important to acknowledge. But the things around. this in my lifetime, the height of support for a military engagement, a war is the days after the first bombing start going off. The fact that the president has never been able to make the case as to why we have to do this. And, you know, I'm being a little glip. But at least the Bush administration had the dignity of lying to us. It was a mass destruction. These people are like, one day it's Khomeini the other day. Now they're like they were about to bomb us in two weeks.

And, you know, that would have been maybe compelling if you said it before the war, but you did. So I just, is just like- We have an updated missive on what the plan is. Are you ready? Donald Trump has bleated about this morning. Here it is. There will be no deal with Iran except unconditional surrender. After that and the selection of a great and acceptable leader, we and many of our wonderful

and allies will retire. to bring Iran back. Iran will have a great future, make Iran great again, mega. I mean, we're doing regime change and democracy promotion. And Donald Trump said to Axios, who are his favorite sources for his war planning, so we have to take this at face value, that he gets to pick. Yeah. So that's the plan. We're going to bomb the fuck out of them. We're going to bomb a school. We'll get to that next. And we're going to bomb all the leaders. We're going to bomb the second and third tier leaders that we thought we were going to put in. They're all dead. and now we're just going to say, hey, you guys surrender.

I mean, I would say, what's like, you know, obviously somewhat terrifying about this whole situation is it does feel like they thought Iran would be another Venezuela. And Iran has been engaged in essentially, you know, its own version of hot slash Cold Wars in the Middle East for decades. and, you know, it's not like the, I think, when Trump came in, they thought their future was so safe. So, you know, they've done a range of planning. So they have leaders. I mean, you can take out a bunch of leaders and there still will be another leader. Like, the regime is operational. And, you know, I guess I, on top of all of this, the fact that we are relying for the, you know, this war operation on Pete Hegseth and his department.

I mean, I know that there are generals there who are thinking rationally about all this. And that's probably why they were leaking last week that they didn't really want to do this war and definitely leaking earlier this week that it was like essentially the White House who wanted to do all of this. But I mean, I think we should just be genuinely panicked that they don't seem to have any kind of plan. I mean, I worked in an administration. Bush did not. I mean, excuse me, Joe Biden did not actually. I actually start.

Oh, okay. The blob. Oh, my God. Yeah, now we know what the leftists we're going to say about you. No difference. I was against zero record from the get-garer. Just want to get my steward of that. It's a protest, et cetera.

I was against in 2006. I got a fight over Thanksgiving with my mother about that over 2006. So three years too late. But, okay, better than some of the other Republicans. Yes, that's true. But anyway, I just think the fact that, you know, usually you need discipline talking points on your goal, strategy, et cetera, that the fact that there have been seven different aims and goals of this operation since Saturday, so just, you know, one more

than the days of the week is, you know, I think we should be, you know, hyper-stressed. And I think that's reflected in the fact that the public does not support what's happening. You know, I mean, essentially, this is the lowest support of any military engagement that the country has experienced in this early in the process. I mentioned the school. There's some good reporting. There's New York Times, a couple other outlets that are still doing reporting, unlike the Washington Post.

And all the evidence appears to be that it was us. There's a lot of smoke around the fact that maybe this was related to the AI, you know, because AI was doing the packaging for us. I don't want to make any accusations there, but there's, you know, there's among the reporting, there's like some evidence pointing to that. You know, look, like on the one level, this, this is what war is right like innocent people accidentally get killed during war innocent people got accidentally killed when we're leaving afghanistan because like the

Biden administration thought that they were that there was a terrorist in a car you remember the story and they droned people that were innocents like this happens like in war but in this particular case I think it is it is especially galling because of all we've been talking about which is like we don't even know why we're doing this we don't have a plan for the war and now it is our like American material that resulted in the death of hundreds of innocent young girls and now we want to go in and tell them that we want a mega. You know, like the whole thing, it is, it's a farce. It's like really, and it's wrong and it's a war crime.

It's also a farce. I mean, I think this will be an action that, you know, the military will be living with the consequences of for a long time. And I personally think it will have the kind of impact of Al-Agrave. And I was thinking about that too. You know, just let's say, we were attacked on 9-11. And we, the American military went in with soldiers. They didn't nuclear bomb the mountains of Afghanistan. They went in with soldiers to try to capture places. There were incidents of civilians. deaths in Afghanistan. You know, a wedding party hit.

We did not bomb entire schools of children during Afghanistan or Iraq. And if you talk to Iraq and Afghanistan soldiers, just to put a word in for that, like, Will Selber, he's right for us and others. Like, they went out of their way to not. Like, it doesn't mean that there weren't cases of civilian deaths. Like, of course they were. Yes, but the plan was they knew actually killing civilians made the public. population, much more oppositional. I mean, just think about this week. Trump is basically telling

the Iranians, you know, rise up against Khomeini, or the Khomeini regime. Comini was a horrifying figure, but it's a little hard for people to be like super sympathetic to the Americans when they just killed a school full of children. So this is why you do it. I mean, the military goal of avoiding civilian deaths is to ensure that the population does not work. against you. And it took America months to pacify Mosul. Why? Because we didn't just bomb the whole area or kill, like basically we had to do strategic, hard work with people, you know, our soldiers going like basically block by block in order to not kill so many civilians. And I mean, you know, and just let's remind Pete Hegset with all of his rhetoric, we're not going to like limit the military

anymore and we're i mean just think about what that means it means things like this are more likely to happen and the fact is that the whole world can see that the united states chose to have a war it was not it was a war of choice there's no imminent threat to the united states and we weren't attacked we weren't attacked there's no attack their post-talk rationalization for all this is like well we've we've been we've always been at war with east asia you know it's like what i this i you know but also it's like And also, you know, I mean, just to say, those kids are killed in our name. I mean, that's the horrifying aspect of all this. It's like, I don't sign up for any of this.

And what's even worse is, okay, if he even said he was going to have wars and he got elected, sure. But he told everybody he wasn't going to do things like this and got elected. What is the island of people who are justifying this at this point? Because, you know, again, mass deportations, you could say the guy campaigned on it. But he said he was going to be the peace president. more like on war number 27 in the first year. Yeah, I have a guess I'm going to talk about this with the next week who's on the maggock side of this.

But he's like, the people that are for this are kind of like the never Trumpers that stayed Republicans. That's like the opposite side of the corner for me, right? You know, it's like the hawks. It's like the right way of hawks that hated Trump. Like, and all of a sudden, like the Mark Levins and the Ben Shapiro's and now they're back filling this. And like, they're the only ones for it.

Like, well, it isn't the core Trump voter that was for them. John Bolton is like peace out on this. I mean, even he's like, you know, I mean, I think he's been fantasizing about Warren Iran for his entire adult life. And when he's like, I'm not sure this is like well planned. I mean, I think the problem, honestly, is absolute power corrupts. Like, there have been no guardrails on this president because the Republican Party in the Supreme Court also made up of Republicans who refused to give him guardrails.

He had success in Venezuela. So he kind of decided to just like start a global war. And this is at bottom the reason why you try to find a rational adult to be president of the United States. Because when you do not, they have a lot of toys that could really hurt not just America, but like global peace. Yeah. And I do not sleep easily at night knowing these people are in charge of an ever expanding war in the Middle East. You're getting me madder and matters as we talk about this. But it's also just to speaks to the lack of-

I'm not trying to get you less mad about this work. But it is a culture. Like you talked about how absolute power corrupts, right? But that's really where we are. It's a culture of corruption and no accountability. Like, this is a thing. There are no limits. Like, nobody is telling this guy no.

Like, nobody, and when nobody tells you no. And honestly, like, you fire anybody who's not psychophantic. And you spend all your power trying to just discipline any institution, whether it's Netflix and losing out. or any other group, then, you know, then, like, the problem is you, you don't think I can make mistakes. I mean, I really was genuinely, you know, a little surprised that he decided to do this because in the past, he has seemed to be constrained by the idea of American soldiers dying overseas.

No, he said it again today. More people will die. Whatever. Some like that. At a time. Some people will die. Some people will die. If there's no constraints, if everyone in there has already been so corrupted, right?

but they decided that like, I've signed up for this. This guy, we know this guy is bad, but I'm going in there because I think on balance, I prefer him or because I'm mad or because I'm also, whatever. Like, everybody that has gone in there made the determination that if you sign up for this, like you're signing up for it all. And so that has created like a culture that we haven't had in government for a long time. Like you mentioned Abu Ghraib, which is horrible and horrifying. But like, there were whistleblowers, right?

I mean, there were whistleblowers within the military. that were speaking out against Rumsfeld and felt like they had to and the policies. And then there were political people. Whistleblowers and quit. Scott McClellan quit. And it would be like Carolyn Levitt, quit. He was a White House spokesperson.

He quit over it, right? And so it doesn't make what happened and I agree better or right, but it's a system in a process. Yeah, it's a system in a process that works. That's not happening here. They're lying still. They're not even admitting they killed the girls at the school. Yeah.

Like, they're still lying about it. Like, forget having whistleblowers or constraints or internal investigations. They fired all the Jags. We don't even have military lawyers anymore. Like, it's fucking sick. Look what happened in the first couple of months of this administration. I think the administration, which has been incompetent in every possible way,

has demonstrated policy, creativity, and two arenas. One, how do they come to power and basically eliminate all possible oppositional voices? So that's why they fired a bunch of admirals and generals in the first couple of days. and they've fired a bunch of people, some of whom are now running for office, but they fired, basically hatcheted a bunch of military leaders who I think they thought would offer some opposition and not just go align. And that sends a message to everyone else in the military, which is that if you say anything, you will be fired from your job.

So that's an area where they've had some policy creativity and the other isn't rank corruption. But, you know, the truth is in government, in every administration, you know, when you serve the public, you are supposed to serve the public. And all of us have served in jobs in the White House or in the administration or in the executive agencies, you have to ask yourself every day, you know, are you truly serving the public? And, you know, I mean, I didn't feel like I had that many conflicts on that. But, you know, like when I was serving, but in the first term, there were of the Trump administration. as you mentioned in the Bush administration,

there are people in government who think I am a Republican appointee and I am an American who is supposed to serve the country. And when there were conflicts, they chose to be Americans who serve the country. You know, John Kelly,

others who were trying to constrain this president. And he has systematically eliminated everyone. But, you know, you mentioned Susie Wiles earlier and it is her job. as White House Chief of Staff to tell the president he should not or cannot do something for the country. His White House counsel is supposed to not just tell him how he gets to do things, but when he's doing something unconstitutional or illegal, that he should not do it. It is your job not to just service the president's ego, but actually to serve the country.

and when people are doing it, when you're, the president is doing something gravely crazy. I mean, how is Marker Rubio escaping any accountability here? He could have gone to the president and told him, this is like, you know, kind of nuts what you're doing. And, you know, what I've heard is that he was sort of like, eh. And so, you know, I mean, I think they all just tell themselves he's a president. He's someone who's elected. But, you know, they are there in those jobs not to just do his bidding. But like previous administrations serve as some kind of constraint.

right now, the scariest thing in the world is Donald Trump is in charge of, like, you know, essentially whether this war spirals out of control or not. And the first week does not seem to be any kind of, you know, reassurance. Like, if you can't protect American citizens in the Middle East to get out of there, how do we think we're going to handle this war in three weeks, four weeks, five weeks or six months. I would move on to Politican, the Senate map. I've been saying for a while that the Democrats could not consider this to be a good midterm or a blue wave unless they also take the Senate.

Like taking the House is not sufficient. They're going to take the House just because of structural forces, almost certainly. The Senate is where the fight is. I've been pretty skeptical of the Senate map for a while. But now you're believing. Now you're believing. One war in the economy has me starting to believe a little bit. So I want to talk about it a little bit.

I want to put the main Senate race over here into a side bucket. And we're going to come back to that at the end. Oh, great. I'm so excited to talk about the main Senate race. Oh, my God. I'm so. I can't wait for that. Let's focus on the rest of the ballbuster as long as possible now.

We're going to make it to the main Senate race. We can have an extra long podcast if you want. The film bustering won't save you. You can do the thing where you pretend the audio went out if you want. The Democrats need to win four seats. Three would be, okay. The Republicans would still be in control, but it would kind of put Murkowski in an interesting pickle. But they really need to win four, not four seats.

North Carolina is a race we don't talk about that much because the Democrats have been acting competently. They've nominated a popular governor, former governor that fits the state, and he's winning in the polls, and we'll see how that shakes out. There are also some states that Democrats need to hold. Michigan. Yeah, Michigan, Georgia. But in this theory, like, we're going to assume that they've held them or else this conversation's moot. So now you start to look into the expanded states. Where do you get some other states out of?

In Texas, you had the primary this week. Telarico wins over Crockett. I want your take on that. You look at Alaska is one that I'm looking at. Mary Paltolla is a great recruit. Fantastic recruit. Fish family freedom. Yeah, fish family and freedom.

Now you start to get into, okay, Ohio. Sherrod Brown's, a little bit of a retread, Iowa. Candidates are okay. Montana then comes on to the map this week, which is exciting. Steve Danes drops out three minutes before the filing, which is an attack on democracy and embarrassing and sick. And they just, they squeak in some guy, though. But he's a prosecutor, he's never run for office.

He hasn't been tested, Kurt Almaty. The Democrats, it seems like are going to do the thing that they did in Utah with Evan McMullen and kind of a line behind it. independent candidate. John Tester's been pushing this guy. He's a former college president. I like the independent candidate thing in theory. I know nothing about this guy.

I worry a little bit. You know, colleges aren't really that popular. These things among the swing voters. I mean, he's a veteran. So, yeah, hopefully he's got some other parts of his bio. We'll see how that works out. Then you have Nebraska also with an independent and Dan Osborne has been on this show, interesting candidate.

So the map is getting a little bit more interesting. I'm wondering, I just going to want you to take me through what you got your eye on and your thoughts on Texas. Well, I, you know, I think the truth is you, as you said, you have to win four of Maine, North Carolina, Ohio, Iowa, Texas, Alaska. So, you know, Montana, Nebraska. So basically, you know, you have to win four of those multitudes. And they're all hard. You know, I'm not, I'm not arguing they're not hard. I guess I would say, you know, we, you and I have been in a few cycles in our time. And a sign of a wave is that where the map goes in the cycle itself.

Is it expanding or contracting? And the fact that you have, I mean, I just think it's amazing. Steve Daines was like, I'm not running again. And it's not just he decided not to run. Ryan Zinke, the House member, decided not to run. So that's a lot of Republican incumbents in a state choosing not to run. to run for re-election in a time where Trump has a 37% approval rating or 38% in the country. Obviously, it's higher in Montana.

But I think at a very high level, what we're seeing is the reflection of an incumbent president with a below 40, probably approval rating. And that means Republicans are, you know, understanding that it's going to be a really tough election cycle. The reason why the Senate matters the most, or not the most, these both matter, the House and Senate matters. He needs the Senate to approve any nominees. Supreme Court.

If you take the Senate. If you want to replace Alita. Yeah. And if you take the Supreme, if you take the Senate, you can, you're a check on the courts. He won't get radically crazy nominees through. And you can just say no to nominees, right? So, so I think it is really important to aim for both. And you know what I say about the race in Texas is Tallarico is an incredibly talented person.

Jasmine Crocker also very talented. And I thought what was great about this is it was a primary. Did you think that race demonstrated a lot of talent? You know, I think like she came into this race laid and she didn't, like wasn't able to create the kind of campaign that he'd been building for a long time. But, you know, I mean, I would say Jasmine Crocker lost Tuesday night. She goes the next day to DHS and has amongst the most effective questioning to the DHS hearing, with Christy Noam.

And like, you know, that's a woman who was rolling with the punches. That was very, she was really effective and that's a real strength. You could have salt, could have pouted. And by the way, she's also really good at that. Yeah, she's really good. People can be good at different other, at different things. And honestly, the fact that I've been through primaries where it's a rough primary and it makes a candidate better.

And James Teller, it goes a better candidate today because he had to go up against Jasmine Crockett. And I personally think this race is in within reach and John Cornyn and Greg Abbott. Greg Abbott is going for his third term in Texas, okay? And Cornyn is going for six term. So it's Cornyn, Six-term, Cornyn or Paxton. I think both of them have flaws against a candidate with just, you know, a fresh way of speaking. He's like not been there forever who actually is really trying to build a big tent.

has a lot of messaging that doesn't just start like yesterday, but over years of trying to create, you know, a pathway for Trump voters, Harris voters, Democrats, Independence, and Republicans. I worry just about a little bit of the incentives there because there's so much attention on it. And you mentioned Fish Family Freedom. I always bring this up. Like Mary Peltola has no pressure to, like, appeal to any constituency except for Alaskans, like left-rider center. I'm not even really making an ideological point.

Like, she's just like, I'm going to run this race focused on Alaskans. I do feel like Tala Rico and Crockett, because the race has had so much focus on it and there's, you know, like there was this pressure to like appeal to various factions and interest groups within the Democratic side. Like when you list all those states, like the Montana, Nebraska, Iowa, I like James Tala Rico. And I hope to talk to him on this and have him refute this worry. There was a lot of woke posting in 2020 from him with some weird stuff, you know, about white skin and having a virus. And, you know, it's just like... And he was talking about it. I know.

It's just the way he was talking about it is like not really the way that they're talking about it in Midland as all. And I'm just trying to win a Texas Senate race. And I just, I do worry a little bit like these races get caught up in the discourse. It's like candidates are really on the left, are really trying to appeal to the people tweeting. at them. And like, rather than trying to appeal to the 58-year-old that didn't go to college that is the swing voter in these red states. I don't think that they're part of the discourse. Well, first of all, I would say, I think it is really important for people to remember that working class people care a lot about higher costs. So I guess to just pull back,

I think a real opportunity in these Senate races and for Democrats, writ large is we have never had a president who has just screwed over working class people as much as Donald Trump. I mean, like, there's Ronald Reagan, George Bush, none of them took health care away from 20 million working people. Okay. None of them added basically a tax increase, basically a version of a national sales tax on everybody. And who pays the tariffs disproportionately working class people? So I think at a very high level, there is an area. of opportunity to kind of realign voters. And you're seeing who are the groups

that have fallen away from Trump? I mean, people have talked a lot about Latinos. They've also talked a lot about young people, young men, but like really struggling working class people and people making less than 30,000 are moving away from him as well. And I think that's an area of opportunity. What's important for people to remember

is that working class people actually care a lot about security. They care about reducing crime because working class people experience it at a higher rate than college educated people. They care about, they still care about the border. I'm with you on all this. Is this part of the filibuster to get away from talking about the main center race? It's actually a CAP promotion, which is that is why the Center for American Progress has put forward ideas that I hope, you know, James Telerico and people in candidates all across the country will look at because we also have to offer ideas on how do we secure the border? and secure the border while not having a DHS.

You can basically secure the border without threatening everyone's rights. That's an area of opportunity for him to talk about. We can reduce crime without mass incarceration. So I think it's important for them to have ideas in those spaces. And I think James Fowlerica, look, we've seen candidates recently, you know, in various places who are charismatic, who can, you know, kind of shy away from past positions. And I think he needs to explain his views. and then, you know, early and often.

And I have a lot of confidence in his ability to communicate. Americanprogress.org. People can go look at those policies. And you have a great corruption tracker as well. Yes, terms take. That's a little suck up before we get to the main. We have to talk about Maine because we find ourselves in a very strange position, which was me as the former Republican being like,

I think some of these nitpicks of Platner's visits to these podcasts. and Reddit posts. Like, they just, they feel a little, they feel like nitpicky to me. And I have people on the internet yelling at me. They're like, he's a Nazi. He has a Nazi. I'm like, does anybody actually think Grand Platner is a Nazi? Does anybody think that Grand Platner wants to put people on that?

I'm just going to make my point. No. Does anybody think that they want to put people in concentration camps? No. Like, does anybody think if he gets in the Senate, he would want to advance policies that hurt Jews or that do to Jews what this administration's doing to Palestinian activists or Venezuelans or Somalis? Like, of course not.

Like, of course not. No. So now, does that? excuse. So his past comments, like, no, like, we should talk about that. But I just, I get a little bit frustrated with that. Like, there's a little bit of, well, you're kind of straw manning the, the, the, the significant. I'm not really. Here, let me, I just want to say at the beginning of this, any discussion of this, I will love whoever the people have made pick. Okay. It's really important to take this race. And whoever people pick, I am like a

thousand percent supportive of. So, don't really want to say much here to like, that could be used against anybody in the future by anybody. But I guess I'd say at a very high level, you know, I take seriously the idea that the Democratic Party is very focused on racism, sexism, and homophobia. And I think we should be sensitive to any concerns about anti-Semitism. That doesn't mean that anything that's happened here is Hitler or Nazi-esque or anything like that. But I think you could have like a safe, like it's a safe thing to say,

that was really not great, okay? And not say this person is a Nazi, okay? Like, I think there's a reasonable place to say, I have some concerns. And maybe you could say, like, sometimes we sort of go on the, off, on the, like we're too nitpicky. But I guess from my perspective,

I think it's reasonable to say, hey, that stuff was not so great. I would also say, you know, I think it's fascinating about this race, which I will, like, really, I like to avoid talking about. but if you actually look at the coalitions behind Janet Mills and Graham Plattener, the funniest irony to me, not funny, but like the people who are supporting, like at a very high

levels, Graham Platner are people who are making like over $100,000 in Maine. She's doing better with working class people. He's doing better with the college educated people who think that he, that working class people like him. So, you know, I mean, I just think this is like a funny aspect of all this. Hopefully it all worked out at the end. Because I'm just like, you know, I do think there is. I want to go through the cross tabs.

I have 20 more minutes worth of talk about this race before I let you go. It isn't this deep irony, right? That Grand Platner is appealing to like Colby College graduate, liberal arts graduates. 100% the people are like, this is what working class people want. Right? And meanwhile, me as the former Republican is defending the leftist and you are defending this, the 79-year-old centrist that you'd think I'd before. I just wish that we had another choice.

I wish that we would have had somebody that was not either 79. But yeah, and so this is the problem with politics. Unfortunately, we don't. The choices are Susan Collins, who is supporting and funding the terrorizing of brown people in her state. And I guess this is what I just keep coming back to on Platner and why I just want to keep picking this fight with people. It's like, if you show me, to know, to my point, it's like, if you show me that

he wants to do something like that, then I'm against him as I'll be, I'll be at the front of the line being like, fuck you. But I just, you know, but your choice right now isn't between Grand Pletner and,

and Susan Collins. The fact that you're like, well, your choice is, well, your choice is between Grandpenter and a 79 year old that might, like Susan Collins win. Honestly.

She'll be 85 at the end of her term. It's crazy. It's a crazy run. As Susan Collins is 76 and Janet Mills is 79. Well, it's crazy for her to run, too. That's why I want the beer guy to get. get back in? Why can't the beer guy get back in? I just want a normal 45-year-old Democrats.

Can I just tell? Why can't I have that? Unfortunately, I can't. These are the options, I guess. I think the thing to think about is what is the case Susan Collins is going to prosecute against Janet Mills and what is she going to prosecute against Greenbladder? And is she going to prosecute a case that Janet Mills is too old when she's three years older. Maybe she will. I don't know. That's like a great, she could. Like, you know, she's a wily. I mean, the only thing I'd say to people. She'll probably prosecute against a race will be she's pro-trans. Yes, but they're both very pro-trans, just to say. It's one of his claims to fame. And it is like a very decent thing that he was defending. And what's kind of weird he was talking about how he was wrestling against girls in high school 20 years ago.

Now you're just, you're definitely like way more into this race than I am. But if you know what's going on with that. I don't think that's true. But my, I guess my take, that's the thing for everyone to think about. And, you know, like, again, I will love and campaign or whatever or not campaign, whatever is helpful for whoever wins. Sometimes keeping Nira out is better. Yeah. Bush has learned that.

You know, like maybe in Florida. But anyway, I'm a, you know, I think that's the thing to think about that race. And I just don't know. I don't either. This is why it's interesting to talk about. It's frustrating to talk about and people don't like it. The one thing I would say about this race is like, I know the Democratic Party is definitely like, and I like, I get it 100%. Like definitely not down with the olds.

Okay. But I have no problem with old people. She's going to be 85 at the end of her term. But Maine is pretty old. Yeah. Pretty old. And that's again, I'd say like the great irony of this. My issue about the Democratic Party is just like the DSCC.

Like, why are we? Anyway, whatever. We are where we are. Yeah. We are where we are. I mean, shouldn't we talk more about... Trump being terrible. It's fun to talk about it.

It's not really fun to talk about it because everybody gets very mad no matter what your opinion is about it. It's a lot of high emotions about a state that almost nobody lives in or there has been to. The commenters are very passionate about it. There are people who I greatly respect who are in Maine who are like, this is the candidate, Green Plattner. And I like, I'm like, maybe they're right. Sadly, it's a very important race. And that is, I guess, why I just so much. Sadly, that's just the thing.

Like, we wouldn't even talk about this if this was a primary in Florida or whatever. Like, who cares? They're probably not going to win. Neither is probably to win the race. But like, the Democrats have to win. So figuring out who's stronger is pretty important. But just also, you know, like in 2020, that was a very tough race. She won by, Collins won by 10 points against a very well-funded opponent.

So this is, like, important to think about every aspect of that race. We're way over. But I have a final thing. I want to leave you away. not about Grand Platner. There was an investigation. The administration keeps looking into new people. They're trying to jail people.

They wanted to jail Obama. They wanted to jail Tim Walz and Jacob Fry. They wanted to jail Jim Comey. They wanted to jail Tish James. They wanted to jail the sandwich guy. They're struggling to jail their political foes. Another person-people thing that they wanted to jail was Joe Biden and the Autopin and anyone who worked alongside the Autopin.

Yeah. And that investigation seems to be, fizzling. And I'm just wondering if you can talk about this, if you're concerned at all, if you're concerned being in the administration, do you think that are you shaking in your boots thinking about Pam Bondi and Judge Box of Wine coming for potentially you and other auto pen related staffers? Yeah. So I should say to everyone, I was staff secretary and I oversaw the auto pen. And the most important aspect of this, which I told the House Oversight Committee that asked me about it last summer is

Every time I authorized the use of the auto pen and any kind of decision, I had a memo signed off by the president for that. Now, my suspicion, since the only president I'm familiar with who has denied he knew anything about a decision that an auto pen was just used for was Donald Trump himself last spring. there was a tariff action that was taken, and it was taken at Friday at 5, Autopen used, I assume it was on Autopen and not a signature would be more worrying if it was his actual signature. And he couldn't remember he did it.

And he said he didn't know anything. Didn't he also do this with the pardon, with the pardon of the Crypto? Yeah, yes, he did do that. But there was an actual Autopen use for this or signature for this. And so my suspicion is that it occurred to the people at the actual prosecutors, that the only person that we know in America has had

auto pen use without their awareness as president was Donald J. Trump. So I have not been quaking in my boots because I would feel perfectly happy to make that case to anyone in America. And there's no aspect of what I did as staff secretary or anything in which I acted at any way without the president's full knowledge. And we actually talked to the president about things we do and stuff like that. So I never, you know, I feel I've never quaked in my boots on this. So you think that you and the pen will continue to walk free. Yeah. I mean, it's funny. I feel like, I feel like it's almost good, honestly, because there's all these crazy, wacky conspiracy theories. And I kind of think, honestly, it's actually better

when they're DOJ. Now I'm going to, like, induce them to prosecute me. But, like, when their DOJ is, like, we can't find evidence. You know, like that, it's like, it's a pretty good for the likes of Scott Jennings. Near a tanned free woman, they can't get you, baby. They can't get you. They're struggling on their effort for political revenge. I appreciate you very much. Thanks for being on the show.

That was a blast. On a Friday. That was a blast. We're going to take people out. We had a little vote in our internal production team, whether or not to do this. And we're going to take people out with just a little bit of my favorite line from Corey Lewandowski, no longer a member of the administration. We'll see everybody on Monday.

Bye. Hey, this message is from Mickey. Mickey, your daddy, Papa Dickie, reached out to me and told me that you're toilet training. You must be a very special little boy. But I hear that you're starting to use the big boy toilet. So congratulations, and you're doing a great job with your poopies. Congratulations.

I know your mom is going to be so happy for you. And I want to thank you in advance for being a Donald Trump supporter when you get older. All the best from your daddy, Papa Dickie. The Bullwark podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brow.