The Bulwark Podcast - S2 Ep1015: Bill Kristol: The High Cost of Stupidity

Episode Date: April 7, 2025

Part of the reason for the market bloodbath is because the finance wizzes didn't factor in that Trump would actually do the truly moronic thing he kept saying he would. Their shock over his recklessness is intensifying the crash. Meanwhile, a trio of administration fools trying to defend the tariffs—Lutnick, Bessent, and Hassett—showed there is no grand design to the trade war, White House infighting is getting hot enough that even Elon is subtweeting Trump, and the folks we elected over on the Hill could actually do something to try to stop the market carnage. Plus, new reporting on our government's kidnapping of migrants, Republicans in North Carolina are trying to steal a supreme court seat, and where is JD Vance? Bill Kristol joins Tim Miller for the weekend pod. show notes JVL on the end of the American Age  Lauren on the backlash against Dems in major law firms who are bending the knee  60 Minutes segment on migrants sent to the Salvadoran penal colony  Tim's 'Bulwark Take' responding to the 60 Minutes report  Tim talking with AEI's Stan Veuger about Trump's terrible tariff math The book, "The Captive Mind" by Polish poet Czeslaw Milosz 

Hello and welcome to the Bullard Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. Trouble inside the Trump administration. Big trouble in the markets, trouble in the world. It's a bloodbath, in particular in the SMP, which is now at its worst three-day performance since 1987 as Trump refuses to back off his moronic tariff regime. Here to discuss that and much more, it's Monday, so it's Bulwark editor-at-large, Bill Kristol.

Hey, Bill, what's up? Hang in there, Tim. How are you? I was just talking to your pal, Stan Voiger. He's an economist over at AEI, who's been one of the ones who's been stalwart in opposition to Trump's excesses, particularly on the economic side of things and his stupid trade wars. I want you to check out over on YouTube when the Bullwork takes a feed about his paper about how stupid these tariffs are.

They didn't even do their own math, right? We were joking at the end that the shot in Florida of watching all of the terrible people be wrong and lose money is nice. It's not exactly going to pay for kids college fund or the retirement home, you know, so it's mixed feelings. It would be nice if Trump could discredit himself without ruining the country. This is the kind of problem we have with having elected Trump. A point you've been making, I believe, online and on the various podcasts and on the bulwark as well over the last several days, all these people who are like, gee, this is really,

how could this be happening? I don't know. Why is this happening? It's so mysterious. Maybe if you didn't elect Trump, it wouldn't be happening. I mean, Voragy's thing is amazing because, as he said, he's anti-tariff anyway. He's a free trader. But if you're going to do it, they seem to have done amazing because, as he said, he's anti-tariff anyway, he's a free trader. But if you're going to do it, they seem to have done it in about the stupidest, most

damaging possible way, including the math errors and the kind of insanity of how they calculate this country by country tariff. So it's really, it is like, let's have a bad policy and then execute it horribly. You know, I hate to hand it to Elon Musk, but it's not just the AEI, it's not just us at the bulwark, you know, it's just the Democrats, even the shadow president is starting to have some concerns about the policy. Are you ready to side with Elon Musk for a second here, Bill? He was subtweeting the president this morning.

Some issues on the home front with the shadow president subtweeting the president and he just posted the video of this classic free market fundamentalist text, The Pencil, and I want to get your former Republican muscles pumping this morning so I want to play a little bit from The Pencil. There's not a single person in the world who could make this pencil. Remarkable statement? Not at all. The wood from which it's made, for all I know, comes from a tree that was cut down in the state of Washington. To cut down that tree, it took a saw. To make the saw, it took steel. To make the steel, it took iron ore.

This black center, we call it lead, but it's really graphite, compressed graphite. I'm not sure where it comes from, but I think it comes from some mines in South America. This red top up here, the eraser, bitter rubber, probably comes from Malaya, where the rubber tree isn't even native. It was imported from South America by some businessman with the help of the British government. It was a magic of the price system,

the impersonal operation of prices that brought them together and got them to cooperate to make this pencil so that you could have it for a trifling sum. Beautiful. Milton Friedman, the simplicity. Are you feeling good? Are you feeling like a Strausian again, Bill? How does that make you feel? That was such a fundamentalist kind of free market thing. Before Friedman, I think Friedman How does that make you feel? That was such a fundamentalist kind of free market thing. Before Friedman, I think Friedman narrated it, but I think it was around like in the

50s or 60s. There was some organization whose name was escaping me that sort of promoted really like popular education in free markets. This was going to correct all the errors of the due deal and of democratic socialism and stuff and they had pamphlets. Hey, hey, hey, don't get our listeners mad about the pamphlets. Well, there was interesting about free trade incidentally. and stuff and they had pamphlets. Don't get our listeners mad about the pencil. No, I'm just out there. Well, there was interesting about free trade, incidentally.

Someone made this point in an article over the last few days, John Gans, I think, free trade was an important part of the New Deal. People forget that. I mean, what's the most famous tariff in recent times? Smoot Hawley, 1930, Republican tariff. What did Roosevelt do? He reduced tariffs in 1934.

Labor wasn't crazy about some of the free trade stuff, so he didn't publicize it as much, but it was very much part of the intellectual sort of organization, so to speak, of the New Deal. Yeah, Iglesias made this point too about how actually it's weird it's flipped that the populists are pro-tariffs now on both sides. Back then it was like tariffs raised prices on working people, and so a lot of the intellectuals in that era were against it, as you said. And tariffs historically could be gamed by the big corporations the big businesses So whereas you can't do that if you're just a working guy and you have to go to the store and buy stuff and so forth So and invest in you know, modest mess in the stock market

No, I know anyway the freedom of thing it is a what it is a kind of nice simple explanation if we trade I mean, that's why the terror these terrors are so particularly stupid. They seem to be premised. Voyager might have explained this better than I would. And the idea that our bilateral trade balance with every country should be zero, should be even, right? That I mean, not that we trade, we import more stuff from this country so we can export more to that country

and it's a giant thing and it evens out and benefits everyone over the long term. That's comparative advantage and everyone has their specialized international resources. So dumb. I mean, it's so stupid. I mean, they're whatever the fancy arguments for some targeted terrorists on national security or other reasons, sheltering, you know, what are those called baby industries, young industries and stuff.

I mean, this is so damaging and the markets correctly see it, right? I was talking with another economist this weekend, not saying in this case, I said, well, are you surprised by the severity of the market reaction or what really accounts for that? And he said, it is partly that the actual tariffs are going to damage the actual economy, prices, imports and so forth. But it's also the incredible stupidity and recklessness and willfulness that Trump and his team have shown. You know, the market is pricing that in now, which as you and I have discussed, they were sort of just denying for the last three, five months since the election, right? It's not really going to happen.

You kept dancing around at moron, stupidity. They said we can say the R word again bill They said we can say it again. And this is I don't even know if would be the R word at s I think this is the sub tarted Economic policy that is put that has put this collapse in place. It has no rationale at all across any any level The funny thing is best it was on all these things are darkly funny when I say funny It's not really funny to see what's happening to our 401ks, but Besant was on NBC this weekend and he's like, you know, this is these finance guys underestimating Trump again. And I'm going, no, Scott, opposite.

This is a reflection of the fact that they overestimated him, right? That they were, that they did not recognize how reckless and stupid you guys were going to be. They didn't listen to, they've been listening to me and Bill. They would have been pricing this stuff in between November and now because we've been telling people this is gonna come, you know, but it's this large shock and crash essentially because investors refuse to believe that they could be this stupid. You know, I watched the clip of Besant, yeah, he he's such a bad defender I do feel like I think I tweeted this

Democrats should just stay off all TV for the next two weeks and let Besson's and Kevin has it my like Nick go on Because every time they go on they make it worse for Trump But Besson's super clever thing was well, you know, we should be glad the markets worked well You know like the actual computers were able to process the trades As the markets dropped 2000 points. That was great. Thank God for that. And secondly, he had this fake argument that, well, the markets dropped on election night

in 2016, which is true. I think they went down several hundred points. They literally rebounded like in three days, if I'm not mistaken, right? And the markets priced incorrectly. The Trump, I mean, whatever you think of Trump, obviously, but that he was going to be kind of a pro-business president. And mostly they priced in the fact that we were at a strong recovery finally after the Great Recession and it was going to continue and Trump didn't mess it up actually because his tariffs were very limited in the first term.

This is such a good case study too, in what we've been arguing for quite a while. The second term isn't the first term, right? The first term was some stupidity, some trumpiness, some willfulness, but hemmed in by the guardrails. Not here reinforced by all these guys. And so, can I say that one friend of mine, acquaintance of mine on Wall Street, was reassuring me that Scott Besant is going to be fine. He's going to be the adult in the room, you know, and it's really important that he got the Treasury Secretary job. And how's that working out? Yeah. That person might not have looked at closely at Scott Besson's returns. Cause one of our super listeners was texting me a chart of how much money

Scott Besson had in his hedge fund over the years. And the chart kind of looks similar to the S&P 500 right now. Actually, I wanted just zero in on the commerce secretary, Howard Nutlick for a second, because he was not exactly knocking it out of the park over Lincoln as well. I'm going to play a clip for you of possibly one of the worst talking points I've ever heard on a Sunday show. Let's listen. Remember the army of millions and millions of human beings screwing in little, little screws to make iPhones. That kind of thing is going to come to America. Just what everybody wants. The screw and the screws. We'll just have all the engineers overseeing the screw screwing. It's going to be automated of course once it comes back here.

But what is that then that I thought all these manufacturing businesses are supposed to produce jobs. So he's giving away the truth, which is automation is what's killed the jobs, not free trade. But anyway, yeah, he's terrible. I mean, he really is awful. Some other defender of Trump, like Bill Ackman guy in New York attacks. This was good when they all start fighting each other. Well, the reason Lutnick is defending the terrorists is that his firm is a bond firm, Cantor, I think in New York, and he's long bonds.

And if you're long bonds, you don't mind a little economic slowdown because bonds do fine as opposed to stocks, as I understand it. And therefore he's like, you know, it's his book, he's defending his self-interest. So to get these billionaires sniping at each other and claiming they're just doing this for the sake of their own book, that's a good development, I think. Again, it's too bad we have to suffer for it. You'll be entertaining to watch all this. And the penguins, the penguins are excellent memes, I've got to say. Do you not agree with that? The penguin memes have been good. The Ackman thing is also just like, because Ackman supported

Trump, people don't know this guy. He's a clown, a rich clown who made money shorting the market during COVID actually, so he knows a little bit about this. And he has to come up with this convoluted theory for why these people that he put into the White House are ruining everything. I just wanna be like, Bill, Bill, you supported the stupidest person in America who bankrupted everything he ever did

before he created a TV show that made him seem like a good businessman. That's what happened here. There's no 40 chess. They're not trying to lower interest rates for a long Marilago Accord and Lutnik isn't secretly helping his bonds. He's just a suck up. He's just a clown who wants attention sucking up to the idiots that we made president.

So hopefully that clears things up for Ackman. I want to play for you. My father sent me a little comedy bit. I think dark comedy. He's trying to process how things with the mutual funds are going as much as me. I think that Dave Chappelle went pretty anti-woke and was was celebrated on the right for his kind of anti-trans comedy. Seems like he's also had a turn already in the first, whatever it's been, 10, 11 weeks of this administration. And I think his little comedy routine from last week does a nice job of rebutting Howard Lotnick's

Screws theory. So let's listen to Chappelle. So iPhones can be $9,000. Leave that job in China where it belongs. None of us want to work that hard. What the fuck is he thinking? I want to wear Nikes. I don't want to make them shit.

What the fuck are you doing? Stop trying to give us Chinese jobs. That's a good line. I want to wear Nikes. I don't want to make them. Stop trying to give us Chinese jobs. That's a good line. I want to wear Nikes. I don't want to make them. I mean, it's a deep kind of understanding of free markets and comparative advantage. He should go to AEI, Chappelle.

That was good. He should. Emin Voiger could do a co-bill. I don't know. My life is so crazy right now. I was out somewhere and I can't remember where it was and a nice woman came up to me and she was like, I just want to hear the latest with the cat. Just want to hear the latest with the neighborhood cat. So I'm glad people were out there following the saga. It was nice to share the neighborhood cat, Aretha,

boy named Aretha was actually in the house this morning. He's now our cat. Took to the vet, did all the things y'all told me to do. I still like spending a lot of time outside, but was inside today because we had a very minor cold front in New Orleans. It got down to 55, brr. And the kitty doesn't like that. He was inside snuggling up. And over the weekend, my daughter was trying to make a little maze for the cat and was using the bag of small snacks

to lure him Into the play area. So how about that? This podcast is sponsored by smalls If you're a listener of the show, you know that aretha cannot live without smalls to get 35% off What's an additional 50% off your first order head to smalls calm and use our promo code the bulwark for a limited time only Smalls cat food is protein packed recipes made with preservative free ingredients you'd find in your fridge and is delivered right to your door. That's why cats.com named Smalls their best overall cat food. Smalls also has a bunch of amazing treats and snacks you can add to your order. That's what Aretha really likes.

So I would make sure to look into the options for snacks. And if you have a particularly picky cat, Smalls has a sampler. So your cat can try everything to see what he or she or they like. What are you waiting for? Give your cat the food they deserve for a limited time only. Because you're a, the bulwark listener, you can get 35% off Smalls plus an additional 50% off your first order by using my code, thebullwork. That's an additional 50% off when you head to Smalls.com and use promo code, thebullwork.

Again, that's promo code, thebullwork for an additional 50% off the first order plus free shipping at Smalls.com. Two and a half months in, it's pretty noteworthy that we have Joe Rogan and Dave Chappelle already, you know, like pretty harshly coming out against the administration on different, you know, across different items. It was Rogan I played last week on the Venezuelan deportations and now Chappelle on this. I guess it's just worth sitting for a second on the fact that like, it was only a month ago that everybody was like, there's been a real vibe shift.

You know, people are coming around to Trump, you know, that's changing the way it's changing people's behavior. Who knows, you know, what positive results could come if you're a conservative. Right. And I do wonder if there's some ripple effects on stiffening the spines of people in big law. Lauren Egan has a great newsletter this weekend for the Bulwark on how Democrats are pissed at Democrats who are executives of these law firms that are folding.

In corporate America, are these guys going to start to be like, okay, wait a minute. This little moment here where we all were like, oh, we need to suck up to Trump and then everything will be okay. Maybe we might be sensing that that dark period in our history is already passed. I don't know. Is that too helpful? A little bit. Yeah.

I mean, I think the darkest period has passed or is passing. The question is, and you've worked on this also over the weekend and late last week, these nice Republican congressmen and senators who were so upset about this, maybe they could actually do something about it. So we're at the being concerned stage, same with the donors, same with the Wall Street guys, same with everyone. So those people could have a lot of effect, the donors obviously within the administration to some degree, but also on members of Congress. So they should be pushing members of Congress to stop this. This is a little congressional grant of power, the emergency powers that Trump is using.

It can be overturned, as I understand it, by 51 votes in the Senate and 218 in the House. And I don't know that it's even vetoed, could be vetoed if they pass that resolution withdrawing that grant of power. Is that true? I think so. Yeah, it's the veto part that I'm not sure about. I think it was Jake Sherman who said this and again We're an unprecedented time. So, you know, Jake is very good

He's over at a punch bowl of analyzing the hill His point was that Trump could veto it could you imagine getting that whatever you'd need? However many Republicans you'd need to get to 67 in the Senate Democrats need to hammer home I think they're not doing quite enough of this in my opinion the fact that four Republican members of Congress could stop this, or at least reverse it for now and let Trump then veto it and let's have an override vote and put everyone on the record. I mean, I was on a conference call recently, some Democrats explained why they really couldn't do much. Maybe they should get a little out of the why we can't do anything as the

minority mindset and a little more into the let's try to do everything and then make the Republicans explain why they're, the Trumpy Republicans explain why they're stopping it and the wishy washy Republicans explaining why they're not actually just joining the Democrats to change these disastrous policies. What do you think? You've been pushing this for a while. Another few days of the markets like this and what are two other events that might not be good for Trump. And I don't know, you could have real 2005 level Republican frantic panic, I should think,

as he did over Iraq and Katrina in 2005. No, I don't know. Yeah, I was going to point to a little later than that, which would have been late 2008 during that financial crisis. Right. I mean, the bank bailout at first, remember was not like, there was not a sense that it was going to pass on the hill. Right.

They got defeated in the house the first time. Yeah. Yeah. I got defeated in the house. And I, I remember kind of just watching that as an observer at that point. I was, I guess I was out of products. So it's after McCain loss. Oh, that was back in my first job for Sarah Longwell, actually.

I was working in an office right next door to Sarah Longwell back when we were in our PR days and our youth. Anyway, I remember watching that and it fails, right? And the markets just tank again. And eventually it's kind of essentially this outside pressure that forces the issue on the Hill. That's certainly very possible here. And if we're at the worst three day drop since 1987 in the S&P 500, how much lower could it go to force that? So there's already some

chatter with regards to Don Bacon, who is the Republican representing the Omaha, swingy Omaha district in Nebraska. He has a resolution to take this power back. If you make it a privilege, but Mike Johnson isn't going to bring it back. If you make it a privilege, but Mike Johnson isn't going to bring it up. If you bring a privilege resolution, then there's a way to force the vote. So he was asked about that over the weekend and kind of basically said, well, you know, maybe there'll be a time for that. Like, he didn't say no, didn't say yes, he was wishy washy as usual. So maybe there is something there. but again, this stuff gets very complicated. Then you have to get it to the Senate, and you have Thune and Johnson, both.

There's enough Republican senators that would go along with that, but would they go along with it in a hostile environment where Mike Johnson was overruled? Then you get real chaos in the Republican order. The idea that I've put forth, which is a Bill Kristol pleaser, which is fantasy world idea. But again, I don't understand why it should be fantasy world is that Brian Fitzpatrick, maybe a couple of the New York Republicans, Lawler, somebody like that, who knows, and somebody that's retiring. They could just leave the Republican conference and work with the Democrats on a new speaker. And they could get a compromise speaker put forth that could then really take the power of the purse back from Trump if he's going to be so reckless that he tanks the economy.

And we're obviously not there yet, but I think it's worth just like putting that on the table and like reminding people that that's possible, right? Because that, to your point, Bill, is like a democratic job that I think could help nudge things along. You know, if there were Democrats out there that were saying, yeah, if they want to stop these tariffs, I would work with Don Bacon on finding a compromise solution, you know, that, you know, wouldn't obviously give the Democrats everything they want, I would work with Don Bacon on finding a compromise solution, you know, that, you know, wouldn't obviously give the Democrats everything they want, but would, you know,

get the fucking, you know, Trump sycophant out of the speaker's office. Anyway, we're in crazy times. It's not like realistic, but I don't think it's unimaginable that you get to a point where that happens if the mad king won't do anything. Right. I mean, Mike Turner, who is the House Intelligence Committee Chairman and Republican from Dayton, deposed by Trump's orders. I don't know if he's gonna run again or not.

He could be speaker, I guess I don't say acting speaker, but I guess he'd have to be the real speaker, for three months, six months, he could almost explicitly say, this is for the rest of this fiscal year or something, get aid for Ukraine, which he cares a lot about, get rid of the tariffs. Maybe one or two other things.

Just fix the most egregious things Trump has done. Obviously, tell everyone, on most issues, you vote however you wish, and if the Democrats want to pass stuff, they can pass stuff. Yeah, I wonder how it doesn't happen. Like, it never happened, but it's rarely happened in American history. But people do change parties in American history.

And occasionally at the state level, right? You've had these kind of compromise situations in state legislatures. So anyway, I agree. It's worth getting out there. It's the Democrats need to think a little more imaginatively about this moment too. They can't simply sit around saying, we're in the minority by four votes, so we just can't do anything. And I think those people who turned out on Saturday to demonstrate, they want to see

a little more activity on the Democrats' part. Yeah. Shout out to the people that turned out at the hands-off protest on Saturday. But yeah, I mean, there's two ways to look at this, right? It's like, well, do you want to stop the bad stuff from happening or do you want to help your... You know, like, because I think if things don't get any better, the Democrats literally could do nothing.

The James Carvel thing is true. Like they could probably play dead and win the house back and who knows how, depending on how bad it gets, maybe in the Senate back in two years, but it's like, okay, well how much damage is going to be done before then? Right. And so I do think if you want, if you want to stop it, and if you want to signal to people that you are fighting for something, right. And rally people to,

you know, like there are opportunities, I think, to do this sort of thing. And that the congressional Republicans are part of the problem, not just Trump, because Trump himself isn't on the ballot in 26. I think it's kind of cost free to try to do this stuff. If you don't get, if they stop you, then you say, well, they stopped us from trying to do this stuff. It's like the Democrats try to cut off funding for Iraq. They, you know, they, they didn't do it. They knew they work as exceeding Bush as president, but it got them on the, from their point of view, the right side of that issue. So one more thing, just on the party switching, because I know people are rolling their eyes at Bill and Tim talking about this, but like,

people have switched parties a decent amount in my life. I mean, to me, it's actually one of the most insane things about the Trump era that it hasn't happened, like from Republican to Democrat. And you've seen Liz and Adam blow up their careers over it. And Jeff Flake, I guess quasi, you know, ends up being appointed to a democratic administration. But like staying in Congress and switching parties, Jeff Andrew did this the other way during the Trump era, which is crazy. Trump has picked up a plus one on a person switching parties and no one did this the other way during the Trump era, which is crazy. Trump has picked up a plus one on a person switching parties and no one has gone the other way.

When I was growing up in Colorado, Ben Nighthorse Campbell switched parties, Jim Jeffords switched parties, Vermont, Arlen Specter switched parties. So like, and those are just off the top of my head. I wasn't planning on this rant right now, so I'm sure that there were others. Like, I don't know at a time of extreme emergency, which maybe we're not quite at, but we're on the cusp of might be worth at least stirring the pot with that a little bit raising it as a possibility. Y'all could there be a time with more uncertainty in the world than right now? I don't know why I sound like Chandler Bing and friends, but that's just how it came out. There's uncertainty out there.

Lots of uncertainty, and at times of uncertainty, maybe it makes sense to think about things you can control. One such thing you control is your life insurance. Select Quote is one of America's leading insurance brokers with nearly 40 years of experience helping over 2 million customers find over $700 billion in coverage since 1985. Other life insurance brokers offer impersonal one-size-fits-all policies that may cost you more and cover you less, while Select Quote's licensed insurance agents work for you to tailor a life insurance policy for your individual needs

in as little as 15 minutes. And if you've ever worried about getting coverage of the preexisting health condition, SelectQuote partners with carriers that provide policies for a variety of conditions, high blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease, et cetera. Head to selectquote.com and a licensed insurance agent will call you right away with the right policy for your life and your budget. Select quote, they shop, you save. Get the

right life insurance for you for less at selectquote.com slash bulwark. Go to selectquote.com slash bulwark today to get started. That's selectquote.com slash board. One more tariff thing, because this relates to the other crisis. It's a major crisis if you're living in Kiev right now and a crisis for Europe that has now been subordinated to our more acute crises here in America, which is what's happening in Ukraine. Kevin Hassett, your buddy, long time Republican economist in good standing, was on, asked to defend these tariffs that obviously he was against his entire career

until two minutes ago when he decided he's a big tariff fan. And he's the administration chairman of the National Economic Council. And he was asked why Russia was not put on the tariff list by George Stephanopoulos. And I thought his response was pretty interesting on the plate Why did the president not include Russia on the list of countries are facing tariffs? There's obviously an ongoing negotiation with Russia and Ukraine and I think the president made the decision not to conflate the two issues

It doesn't mean that Russia the fullest of time is going to be treated Wildly different than every other country. But Russia is one of the only countries, one of the few countries that is not subject to these new tariffs, aren't they? They're in the middle of a negotiation, George, aren't they? Well I'm asking a different question. And I just want to know why Russia is having to... Would you literally advise that you go in and put a whole bunch of new things on the

table in the middle of a negotiation that affects so many Americans and Ukrainian and Russian lives. We're tariffing Ukraine. Ukraine's on the list. Ukraine got a 10% tariff. Are they not part of the negotiations? I really don't think so. It's just another accidental reveal here that they don't want to make Putin mad. They're scared of Putin.

They're either scared of him slash they're kind of sympathetic with him in the negotiations and whereas Ukraine, we can just bully around and whatever. And so Ukraine gets a 10% tariff, Russia zero. Great job, Kevin Hassett. You and I have been around a bit and seen people go on Sunday shows and defend policies they weren't really in favor of internally and do their best defending bad policies honestly and ones that weren't working well. I've've never, I mean, it's pathetic. Those three this weekend, they were all on Sunday, I think, right? But that's, but that's, and has it and let Nick and what a crew.

Yeah. It was across the network. So it was CBS, ABC, NBC. I don't know what they got out of it. Um, I guess Trump, you know, gets to see them humiliate themselves to stay in his good graces. I guess JD Vance, isn't he normally eager to get on these Sunday shows? Where was he this weekend?

A couple of people have been noting this. Our poster vice president, who tweets almost as much as me and Bill. Not a ton of posting here. Some retweets, a couple retweets, you know, he's retweeting Walter Kern for some reason. But last actual tweet from him, April's two it looks like. So it does seem like there is some tension on the inside. I mean, the Elon Musk thing is not nothing. Like he's subtweeting with the Milton Friedman video and then also he's going at it with Navarro and he tweeted it with Navarro. And he tweeted about how Navarro thinks he's smart because he went to Harvard or something

like made fun of him as like, you know, being a Harvard educated economist actually is a negative not a positive. So I don't exactly know what to make of all of that. But like, there was a moment where I think some in the media were trying to manufacture like this dissent between Musk and there really was like a Musk-Bannon feud, but Bannon's not in the White House. Like this is the first time where it really feels like inside things are dicey. And it has a little effect outside too, because if Musk is now legitimizing his buddies, his

supporters to kind of go down this path, right? Musk having done this will lead to more people on the outside being willing to be critical. If Trump and Musk and everyone were united front, the people who like Musk, it's amazing anyone does, but at least his fellow Silicon Valley bros and all these characters would be hesitant to be criticizing perhaps the policy. So you asked me earlier, can I praise Musk? I really can't praise Musk. I really can't praise Musk. I just can't do it.

But I'm glad he is saying what he thinks about these tariffs, I guess. I wanna go to 60 minutes. Another thing, I did a full video on last night because I was just so, I was so mad and sad about the whole thing. I just kind of wanted to get off my feelings immediately. The 60 minutes

segment doesn't really tell us anything that we don't know, but it just provided a lot of additional details to the stuff that we did already know about the horrible treatment of the Venezuelans. Just a couple of quick things. They looked at all the names of the people who were on the list. We think that is a verified list. We are not 100% sure because the administration has declared state secrets. So they get to keep it as a secret who they disappeared to this concentration camp. And based on that list, they said 75% of the people had no criminal record at all. I think it was like 22% of the people did have a criminal record. But some percentage of that, it was like shoplifting or whatever. There was also some percentage

of that where there were serious crimes and then 3% they couldn't verify the names. So like the number of people that could be totally wrongly sent there based on their tattoos might even be greater than we thought. We don't know. They went deeper in the story of André, which we've talked about a lot on this podcast. He's a gay stylist, makeup artist. They found additional pictures of him from that Time Magazine photographer who happened to be in El Salvador taking photos.

When the guys came off the plane, they showed these horrible new pictures of him being stripped naked and treated rough. There's more details was provided by his lawyer at Immigrant Defenders, if you want to support that group. They're doing great work. Just about his background, 60 Minutes looked back. Trisha McLaughlin, the spokesperson for DHS, had said that it wasn't just the tattoos in this case. She had posted a tweet saying that his social media post indicated sympathy to Trento Aragua. 60 Minutes looked at 10 years of his social media accounts and didn't find anything.

They found mostly pictures of him doing makeup and looking very gay. And it's not as if there was a situation where he could have deleted old stuff because it was a surprise. He wasn't expected to be disappeared to El Salvador that day. They told two other stories of other people that I haven't talked about on this podcast. Their situation seemed very similar, frankly. So the whole thing is just unimaginable, like how bad it is. It's enraging. We'll get to the Democrats in a second. Unlike the tariffs, the Republicans are okay with this. And the administration, there's nothing. They're unapologetically going out there

just smearing these people. They've kidnapped these people and sent them to a torture dungeon. They also show a lot of video from this prison. It's just horrifying. And there's nothing. There's nothing. There's no pushback at all. Civil liberties types, Rand Paul, nothing. No, it's all horrifying. And the Republicans on the Hill have been pretty bad too. Certainly within the administration, there's been just contempt. So the federal judge in this case, and there are several cases, but Judge Boasberg in one of these cases has been very careful and cautious, I would even say, in what he can, can't order. Is there justification? Can he review what the administration has done? He's really tiptoed up to the line of saying, I mean, he has said,

you guys have to try to get this guy back. They're not saying, well, okay, or okay, but not trying that hard. That might be what a normal administration would do, but to go through the motions. They're just showing contempt for him. I mean, that would be little contempt in court, though that might be the case too, but just, you know, making contemptuous statements about, oh, good, you go get him back from El Salvador. You have jurisdiction over the president of El Salvador. Pete Slauson Well, just to your point on this on the judges real quick, that today, the deadline is tonight. Pete Slauson Right.

Pete Slauson The judge has issued an order for not Andrea, this is the Maryland ad. And this is the case where the DOJ admitted false that they wrongly sent him there. They admitted that they didn't intend to, but they still aren't going to do anything about it because they say he's a member of a gang, so whatever. But they admitted that he was here, he had a no deportation order. The judge said, you have to bring them back by Monday night. I don't think there's any reason to believe that they're going to do that tonight. So they're just going to fully divide.

We'll go through the form of requesting that he got back. Indeed, Pam Bondi fired the, or put on leave or something, administrative leave. Yeah. The career attorney at justice who had argued this case Friday, who I happened to be talking with someone who Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, our friend who's been on a couple of Will Work things, who knows everything about immigration law and policy. This guy has been arguing for administrations in a tough way, in a way that immigrant rights advocates regard as effective, but very much on the other side for 15 years.

This is not some liberal law. This guy has been defending. He was put in this job because he was one of the career people they thought was tougher on immigration from a policy point of view. He said, but he can't defend this. He said, I can't understand what's happened here. We can't defend having made an error. I think he asked the judge for 24 hours to try to figure out what was happening and so forth.

Bondi has put him on administrative leave. So the administration has all doubled down, as you say, on this really horrendous thing they've done. They also seem to be doubling down on other crackdowns internally on immigrants who have in no way fallen into the category of violent criminals or even criminals and in fact fall into the category often of, so far as one can tell, law-abiding citizens who have American relatives who are undocumented in many cases, but are living the kinds of lives we would want immigrants to live. The Republicans on the Hill, I haven't really seen much one way or the other.

They seem to be, you think are they rah-rah or are they just keeping their head down? I mean, rah-rah or nothing. I mean, there's definitely some of them that are rah-rah, tweeting about how, oh, these Democrats are defending the gang members. Like they're trying to make this into an issue. Right. It's like we're focusing on the El Salvador thing because it is just, again, unprecedented and unimaginable that we disappear people to this threat and people should watch the

60 Minutes thing because it's just so shocking. But yeah, as you mentioned, like there are other stories popping up of people that are being detained. There's the 73-year-old grandfather in Lafayette here in Louisiana. There's a Cuban refugee here for 45 years. You mentioned we were offline the bakery near the border in Texas where they were law abiding citizens but they'd hired some undocumented workers to work at the bakery. There's some third graders up in New York, I guess, that have been detained. Their principal put out a statement recently.

We included that in the morning shots this morning. So what they're doing is just, it is not like rounding up the worst criminals. Like to me, it seems like they don't have the numbers that they wanted. And so now they're going about and doing anything to grab any other people to get like the deportation or detention numbers up and to, and to scare people really. On the scary part, it's going to work. Like, I don't know about you, I was talking to people this weekend I know who are maybe citizens now here but are from another country, talking about friends and family they have. It's just like, why would somebody come here if they are on a visa or on a green card from another country? You know, if the risk is gonna be,

you might be sent to Natchez in Louisiana or El Salvador. We're snatched at the airport for nothing or for unbelievably trivial failure to fill out some form correctly. You've been here a zillion times, you're a research scientist, you're a professor, a teacher, a tourist, whatever. So did you see that chart?

I saw this online that international travel into the United States by Americans over the last three, four months is pretty stable, I guess, or whatever it normally goes up and down a little bit more, you know, spring break week or something. But I mean, basically it's not, by far, our nationals is now down something like 12%. Yeah, and the Canadians, it's down like 40%. Yeah, and then this chart was done by someone who's anti-tariff, so it shows you the tariff

dates, but I think, as someone on Twitter pointed out, or Blue Sky pointed out, I think it's probably more the immigration stuff that's actually right now leading people not to come here, the tariffs thing is not affecting them quite. So, yeah, the cruelty is the point and all that, and now there are, I guess, hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans are losing their temporary protected status today I think. Now they're not going to deport 350,000 people at once but suddenly they're all undocumented. They could be picked up walking down the street or picking up their kids at school. I mean it's a difficult task.

What problem are we addressing? The border is closed. Okay, I mean whatever one thinks about how severe one should have been at the border, it is literally closed. No one can get over it. No one is getting asylum. If they do get over, even if they honestly should be given the least consideration for asylum, but they are just turning everyone away.

The country is shut down in that respect. What are they going after people who are living here peacefully for? What's the crisis? What's the emergency? What's the policy goal even? To scare people. Yeah. So people don't come in.

That's what it is. And it will work. And to try to get them to self-deport so that we have a wider country with fewer of these people with Mexican names, I guess, Latino, Hispanic names. I don't know. Yeah. Yeah.

The white replacement theory. I mean, Tom Holman advanced it. He's like the immigration czar now. But no, I look, Pam Bondi was on this weekend and she said, if you're a Venezuelan gang member, you should self-deport. But if you see what they're doing, that's kind of like saying if you're Venezuelan, you should self-deport, right? Because it's like, I don't know, are you going to call me, are you going to accuse me a gang member because I have a fucking tattoo with a crown on it that says mom?

Like I don't know, you know, or they're gonna look in my phone and see that I posted some meme that seems sympathetic to a foreign group. And then I might get sent to El Salvador, you know. So they're intentionally trying to scare people and it's gonna work. They should be scared. It's fucking horrible. Which takes me briefly again to the Democrats. I was talking to some of the immigration attorneys and I was like,

what is your ask for them? You know, because I was like, maybe I'm missing something, right? Like maybe there's a behind the scenes thing that they can be doing that's useful. There's nothing. And their ask is, draw attention to this. We got like, we can't, there's a lot happening out there. You know, this could go away. Like these people in the 60 minutes piece that Philip Hulsinger said, it seemed like they were ghosts, like the people that were being disappeared into the depths of this prison. And you can become a ghost, actually, if there's only random people that are immigration advocates talking about this. And so they're like, our ask when we're meeting with Democrats is to talk about this. And I was like, well, has

that happened? And they were like, not really. I, you know, there are a couple of examples, but I don't get it. And we talked to this a little bit on the next level. I think that there is a combination of a fear about the past election, that immigration is a losing issue. We just don't want to talk about it. It's better to talk about the economy. That's part of it. I think that there's a fear that they're going to come out and defend this makeup artist and it's going to turn out he was really smuggling fentanyl in his makeup kit or whatever I got, you know, and they don't know they don't want to put their names on the line. But this is

too bad of a situation for that fear. Pressure has to be brought to bear on this. And I know JD Vance wants this fight, but I just I reject this notion of like, oh, you shouldn't play into their hands. Like these are humans that we what we're doing is unconscionable and attention needs to be drawn to it. And I just refuse to believe, you know, maybe if you're a frontline Democrat in Arizona, this isn't the thing to talk about. But there are a lot of other Democrats for whom they're politically protected for this. And frankly, a lot of Democrats who might get political value out of being seen as a fighter on this.

Totally. It's such a good case study. I think of fighting the last war and misunderstanding what the last war was, you know, what the battles of that war. So yes, you shouldn't have been, it was probably politically costly to defend Biden's border policy in early 2024 before he fixed it actually.

This is different. This is like I was on another call with some Democrats and one of the people, kind of a pro-labor type, where you're expecting it. Well, we shouldn't just be against terrorists. Some terrorists are good. The free trade regime has had problems. And everyone actually in this case, a couple of sensible Democrats said, we don't have to even get into this.

I mean, you don't need to articulate your careful terror policy as opposed to their stupid. Just say he's ruining the US economy with these tariffs. They are crazy. They are stupid. They look at the markets, look at everything where I can have a recession because of Donald Trump and the Republicans who won't stand up to him. Period. It's the same here. The fact that people might have not wanted you to defend Biden's border policy a year ago doesn't mean that you can't criticize this grotesque stuff that's happening here. And you just have to say this is wanted you to defend Biden's border policy a year ago, doesn't mean that you can't criticize this grotesque stuff that's happening here.

And you just have to say, this is Trump being crazy and do you want your neighbors being deported? And on this other call, I think these calls are probably off the record, I shouldn't be saying all this, but it doesn't matter since they're just generic Zoom calls. I mean, not generic, they're just Zoom calls that no one will know who is on and it doesn't really matter. Anyway, someone said, you know, they're so good at this the Republicans. They're so clever that Haitian immigrant thing They stay said and I actually interrupted what you're not supposed to do and said we don't zero evidence

The Haitian immigrant issue helped the Republicans. I looked two seconds at the polls There's no evidence that in the week It was a big issue Republican numbers went up or anything like that. And actually some pollster intervened, I was good with him, and said, yeah, in fact, there's some evidence that they overplayed that issue, they backed off it, they got back to the border. Anyway, all I'm saying is that there's such a simple minded, we can't discuss, say the word immigration, we can't speak up for any people from any country in Central America or Latin America, I guess.

I think it's both wrong. It's just wrong. A. B. Even if people don't agree with you entirely on it, they respect you for standing up for your principles. People forget that part of politics too, where people are capable of saying, I'm not sure I agree with that person, but you know what, I'm impressed that he said what he thought. And no one likes a cowering political party or members of a party that are scared to say what they think, or they don't know what to think because they haven't gotten current updated polling. And as I say, furthermore, it's not the same, just as Trump's tariffs are not

like being for some complicated Biden tariff in 2022 that was going to help a little bit of buy American stuff. So being Trump's anti-immigrant policy is nothing like, you know, tightening up on the border when it was getting a little out of hand. It's anti-immigration and anti-immigrant policy is nothing like, you know, tightening up on the border when it was getting a little out of hand. It's anti-immigration and anti-immigrant. It needs to be called out for what it is. It's not an attempt to toughen up on the border or restore a little bit of law and order.

It's a hatred of immigrants and of immigration. All right. Sound like Bill Kristol, people. You think you might want to run in 2028 and you have some passionate feelings about the fact that we are disappearing people to a torture dungeon in El Salvador with no due process, I'll put you at the front of the line. You're welcome on the pod anytime. I think it's probably something that will get you some attention.

I think that my friends in California would probably have you on their show, Chris Hayes, other people that are fucking mad about this too. So it might be a way to get you some attention. All right. other people that are fucking mad about this too. So it might be a way to get you some attention. All right. There's North Carolina State Supreme Court race. Allison Riggs won by 700-ish votes over Jefferson Griffin, the Republican. There was this three-judge panel this weekend in North Carolina that ruled in favor of a recount on 65,000 votes. They've got what they call cure them to make sure that the people that made the votes are real people. The judge said they have 15 days to find these people. It's

mostly expats. I think you can see what the strategy is here. I can imagine the expat vote would be more sympathetic to the Democrats. Even conservative lawyers, the former state party lawyer has spoken out on this, the Republican state party lawyer in the state. This is crazy. They're really trying just to steal the Supreme Court seat in North Carolina and do it through the judicial process. The Supreme Court in North Carolina is 5-2, so it might raise to that. So it's something we're monitoring.

We'll see how it all shakes out, but it is pretty despicable what the Republicans are doing here. And I think a sign of obviously what they would have done had Trump had lost in 2024 and what might be to come again. I don't think we're over the stop to steal stuff just because Trump won this time. I think that's one of the, I mean, obviously what's happening is important in its own right. And the lawyers I know and trust who are not that partisan think this is way beyond the normal jousting that happens for a few weeks after an election or even a legitimate question or two.

This is April and they're going after particular ballots that they think would be more democratic. But I think it is an arbinger of what will happen in states where Republicans have control of the state legislature conceivably in 2026, certainly almost, well, certainly, but more likely even in 2028. I mean, it is not a good sign that they have, after all this, they win the presidency, they win the both houses of Congress, and they want to steal elections. I mean, we also saw this in Wisconsin, incidentally,

because we haven't done this since Wisconsin, where really lunatic theories about how that race was rigged, though a 10-point victory for the Democratic-backed candidate, obviously, started in the very far fringes of the internet I discussed with Tom Joslin a little on the podcast yesterday, the Bullwork Sunday podcast. It started way out fringes and has now migrated fairly close into Trump world. It's now a semi-legitimate position to claim that there was... Elon Musk, I think, retweeted a couple of people saying this.

It's a semi-legitimate position in Republican and Trump circles to say that maybe there was something fishy in Wisconsin. There wasn't anything and that probably goes nowhere. But again, it all helps corrupt, you know, lay the predicate for the further challenges, right? You also wrote this morning in the newsletter that I'd point people to, which is very briefly kind of about the hubris of Trump, what we're saying. And there's one little item in that newsletter I I wanted to chew over with you really quick.

According to a DC source with knowledge of the plan that's still being developed, Trump has commandeered Saturday, June 14th, the 250th anniversary of the US Army, and as it happens, Trump's 79th birthday. For a military parade, parade would stretch almost four miles from Pentagon and Arlington to the White House according to the stores. Hmm. I mean that's ominous I guess. Totally. I mean he tried to do this in 2018. They got stopped. The Defense Department didn't want to do it. The Army didn't want to do it. The DC government didn't want to do it. Republican members of Congress were like what are we doing? We can't we don't have military parades here all the time in the US, just

because you're a president. I mean, there was no commemorating some victory or something in a war. And now the army was going to do some normal celebrations of his 250th birthday on bases and in communities and at cemeteries and that kind of thing. And now Trump's turning it into this, wants to turn it, and we'll see what happens into this giant military parade, four miles from Arlington up to the White House, I suppose. It happens to, quote, happens to be his birthday. Andrew Edgar and I both wrote about this in warning shots. Andrew had a very good lead item on Trump's hubris, the Trump administration's hubris in a whole bunch of areas. Maybe this will be the culmination of the hubris. Maybe this is the breaking point. Maybe people look at this andation of the hubris. Maybe this is the breaking point.

Maybe people look at this and think this is not America. This is Trump just using troops, using people serving in the military as props for him. If it happens, it also happens to be the 85th anniversary of the Germans entering Paris. Those famous videos of Germans marching into Paris, very depressing day. It happens to be the 85th anniversary of that. Maybe that's somehow apt. Maybe not though. Maybe that won't be the culmination of the hubris. Maybe things will get darker than that and that's where I want to end. JVL wrote about the end of the American

age last week. That really kind of settled into my gut because it's kind of in where my mind is going on this podcast. Maybe A month or two ago, Ann Applebaum mentioned the book, The Captive Mind. It's a Polish poet. I'm not going to try to pronounce his first name. His last name is Milosz. I don't know if it was Polt or once it won some literary award in the mid 20th century. And it just kind of talks about, you know, how the authoritarian mindset took over. And this combination of that kind of history, I've been mulling over and just kind of watching what is happening in Europe, in Canada, in Australia, as people already start to adjust themselves around us.

I don't know. And I think that there's a decent chance that like we're in the middle of something that people haven't really wrapped their heads around yet, that many people haven't, which is that we're not going to be able to put Humpty Dumpty back together again here. There is something that has fundamentally changed about our role in the world. It's kind of a heavy topic for the very end of the podcast, but you, I'm sure, read JVL's newsletter. I wanted to get your two cents on it. I devoted my own little newsletter Friday morning entirely to quoting from and praising JVL's newsletter and elaborating on it a bit. I've been very

struck by this since February, since the advanced speech in Munich, the Hexest speech, the degree to which Europeans saw, whoa, this is really not just a normal zig and zag of policy, it's not even the normal Trumpy kind of Pseudo, you know a bit of a break from previous policy that we're gonna have to manage more carefully It really could be the end of 80 years and I think I think the one-two punch of Putin and Ukraine the threats to NATO advances opinions about Europe fully expressed in that signal chat and then Trump's What he's been willing to just stick it

to all of our European allies and then the trade war, which is as much against Europe as against anyone else. I mean, the combination of all that, I had dinner as pure chance with a central European businessman, small group last week here in DC. He's pro-American, totally pro-American. There's businesses that do stuff in America and so forth.

Wentz has this kind of think tank that's kind of pro-Atlantic, pro-American, there's businesses that do stuff in America and so forth, Wednesdays has this kind of involved a think tank that's kind of pro-Atlantic, pro-American, and he says it's fundamentally changed. Now, JVL says it couldn't be put back together again. I resist that because I want to resist it, I suppose, and so I don't know. These things can be pretty bad and still be reversed, but this is a problem with Trump's president. If we had a parliamentary system, I think it could be reversed. I noticed in the terrace there's been a little talk about

Liz Trust that I think she was the last. She didn't last as long as the head of lettuce. Right. She was like a total disaster. Put the exclamation point on the utter failure of the British conservative governments since Brexit, including Brexit, I guess, and then led the way to the labor victory finally over her successor. But that's a parliamentary system, and we have no mechanism to remove Trump. And whereas in the first term, if one had removed him, one would have gotten Mike Pence,

which you and I would have some problems with, but would have been acceptable. Now we get Vance, which really is worse, I suppose. I don't know, it's bad. This is where I think JBL could well be right and where the Europeans who are thinking this through in a pretty sober way are kind of, it's not, as I say, it's not like we could all suddenly, three months from now, the policies are failing. New government, old Republican Don Bacon's President of the United States or something, or some coalition government comes in. So four years of Trump and Vance, even if they lose, there's no guarantee that this doesn't come back yet again.

I think the odds are unfortunately decent that this is a real end of an 80 year period, not a big zig in a succession of zigs and zags. Yeah, well, that's where I'm at too. Just like your inner social Democrats have been popping up, out a big zig in a succession of zigs and zags. Yeah. Well, that's where I'm at too. Just like your inner social Democrats been popping out like mine are like the parliamentary system. Man, I'm ready to junk our constitution.

My little pocket constitution I put into one of those little, you know, library boxes in the neighborhood. It's like, okay, I'm, I'm, I'm going to talk to me about the constitution we gave the Germans. No, I've had that thought too and it's not a foolish thought of course, but I just want to come back to one thing that you stressed so well really honestly over the last, not just the last, we've discussed it for several years honestly the first term we stressed it, but now really really we do have a strong legislature. We don't have a French style

president who can just ignore the Congress on foreign policy. And on all these issues, aid to Ukraine, NATO to... I mean, we have a strong presence. It's a little harder if you just have the legislature. But four Republican senators, four Republican members of Congress could really slow down the damage, could really conceivably have the predicate for reversing some of it, could tell foreign nations that, hey, there really is a majority in this country against Trump, it's unfortunate he's president, we're gonna have to work this through for the next three and a half years.

It could make a big difference. And the fact that they're, I come back always to this, I'm just so infuriated that the Republicans on the Hill who know better privately, I run into journalists all the time, I privately, they're very upset, very upset, really. You know, they're just really in a state about this. I've heard they've had a strong conversation with Howard Lutnick.

I mean, these are elected members of Congress, you know, and they're totally failing in their responsibility. Brian Fitzpatrick, do your job. Do your job, sir. I agree with that, Bill. Thank you so much. It's just a really uplifting Monday podcast as usual. More good stuff to come. Thank you so much. It's just a really uplifting Monday podcast as usual. Sorry. Everybody.

More good stuff to come. That's why I tried to get Dave Chappelle in there. I'm trying to give you guys some gifts. Just little presents from me. I don't play Trump's voice almost ever. I'm playing some comedy. We gotta cope as best we can. So thanks to Bill Kristol, everybody else.

We'll be back here tomorrow for another edition of the Bullwork Podcast. We'll see y'all then, peace. Everyone on the idiot box, come on out, sell, let me hear those thoughts. Call me out with the blue light as, nervous, tired, desensitized, let it go Let's go!

All that skin against the glass All that skin against the glass All these things we think we'll end All this time we can't get back All of us on the idiot box Come on outside, let me hear those thoughts Call me out when you see the signs Disconnect, unrecognize, let me know Let's go! Let's go! All that skin against the glass All that skin against the glass All these things we think we lack

All this time we can't get back The Bullork Podcast is produced by Katy Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.