The Bulwark Podcast - S2 Ep1033: Tom Nichols: The Hollow Opportunists

Episode Date: May 1, 2025

Marco Rubio was supposed to be one of the only adults in the room, and now he's become a shell of himself executing Trump's unwinding of the US role in the world. Meanwhile, Pam Bondi just can't keep her blubbering sycophancy under wraps. Plus, Mike Waltz's ouster at NSA, our shakedown of Ukraine with a minerals deal, Trump's pettiness is getting lost in the firehose of his revenge, and even the president of El Salvador doubts the criminality of the people ICE is sending to CECOT.  Tom Nichols join Tim Miller. show notes Tim's interview with Rep. Chris Van Hollen NYT's recent story on the deportations to El Salvador (gift)  The link for tonight's AMA at 8pm ET

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on your Android or iOS device or play on PC through Facebook games. Hello and welcome to the Bulldog podcast. I'm your host Tim Miller. A few quick housekeeping items. The Chicago event with Adam Kinzinger sold out. Sorry, you can stand outside and throw underwear at Kinsinger if you want, but the tickets are no longer available. Nashville is available May 29th.

Thebullwork.com slash tickets. Yesterday, I interviewed Chris Van Hollen, Senator Chris Van Hollen. So make sure you're not missing those bonus interviews and instant reaction hot takes I'm doing on YouTube. We're putting them in the Bullwork Takes podcast feed for you audio folks. So go check that feed out if you haven't.

And lastly, tonight, me, JBL and Sarah are doing a live AMA, stands for ask me anything for Bulwark plus members only on YouTube and Substack. So go grab a beverage. Join us at 8 PM Eastern. I'll be pre-gaming an LCD sound system concert, so I'll have a beverage and you'll find links for this live AMA on thebork.com or on the YouTube page. See you all tonight. Here's the guest. You know who he is. Professor Emeritus at the Naval War College. He's a staff writer at the Atlantic. He wrote The Death of Expertise.

It's Tom Nichols. What's up, man? Hey, Tim. Good to be back with you. Is it good to be back with me? It's been a little long. It's been a little too long. I need my Tom Nichols like, you know, every, every 27 days or so, you know? I know, yeah, it's, it's been about a month.

I think we're in the lunar cycle of, uh, you know, hanging together. Okay, good. Bill Kristol did me the displeasure of listing how many days left we have of this Trump term yesterday and it was like 1,300 and something. So, you know, we have a lot more podcasts ahead of us. I'm curious what, um, the very long list of topics to get to, but just at the

biggest picture, a hundred days was yesterday. What has alarmed you the most surprised you, if anything? You know, I, I guess it's become fashionable to say, you know, that you're completely surprised by the speed with which Trump moved. But I actually look at it from the other side. First, let me be optimistic. I actually think Trump and his people, once again, while they are aggressive and cruel, they are not competent, which is still working, you know, to the benefit of the United States and its people.

Well, it's TBT. Okay, fair enough. But in terms of kind of- Maybe not on the economic side, but we'll get to that. Yeah, in terms of what he's up to between he and Elon Musk, you know, this is not going so great. With that said, what's really dispirited me has been the kind of passivity of millions of Americans, including at least some of the institutional Democratic Party, but also a lot of other folks who are feeling helpless. Now, I know there have been big protests and people have been marching, but I guess I am always stunned when Trump does something staggeringly illegal.

I mean, Doge, let's just Doge itself for the past three months. There is no such thing as Doge. They made it up. It's not a thing. You know, and, and yet, you know, news reports of, well, you know, the new Doge, a new department of government efficiency, it's not stop talking about it as if it were, you know, passed with legislation and that it's a real thing with offices and letterhead and, you

know, a cabinet department. It's not. I think that's been kind of a pebble in my shoe for the, for the past three months. I suppose I focus on that stuff because I don't want to focus on really what is probably the most important story, which is how quickly Trump has unwound America's position in the world. I mean, the stuff about tariffs and dollies and all that stuff, that's bad, and that will mostly affect us. But to see 80 years of post-World War II 80 years of post-World War II construction of a world order that was created by the Americans,

led by the United States to the advantage of the United States of its allies, just come apart in a matter of three months is really astonishing. Yeah, let's go ahead and start there then, because I had Tony Blinken on yesterday. And, you know, on the one hand, let's go ahead and start there then because I, um, I Tony Blinken on yesterday and, you know, on the one hand, it's nice to hear from somebody that just sounds basically normal and competent. She might be able to disagree with him on this issue or that issue or exactly, you know, how aggressive they were with Ukraine. I had plenty of nitpicks. We went over some of those and, and maybe this was just kind of his diplomatic nature. But I did not feel like the level of alarm from him matched kind of where I see things are, particularly like we're talking about Marco Rubio, for example. You're looking at Rubio, which we discussed yesterday a little bit, you know, and I think he was trying to give him the benefit of the doubt or whatever, but it's like, I mean, Rubio was ostensibly going to be the, the adult in the

room or whatever, the normal appointee and he is overseeing, you know, this unwinding of the U S role in the world. And who knows if this is true. We have a new story out today from Russian state TV. So, uh, we should obviously take that with, you know, a whole, a whole barrel of salt. But they say that Marco may attend the Moscow May 9th parade. Zvezda quoted an unnamed diplomatic source suggesting Rubio could represent the US at the parade commemorating the 80th anniversary of Soviet victory in World War II. Russian Defense Minister Andrei Belusov said invitations to the parade were extended to guests from 19 friendly countries. We made the cut.

It's like even if Marco doesn't go, it's just like, that is the situation we put ourselves in, where Russian state TV is positioning us as one of the 19 friendly countries. And meanwhile, he's single-handedly unraveling all of the alliances that have made us strong. Well, as a lifelong Russia expert, let me say that to have the Secretary of State of the United States clapping and respectfully reviewing a parade of Russian military might while they are pounding the living daylights out of civilians in Ukraine and trying to territorially overrun a friend of the United States would be, as we experts would say, bad. Okay?

That's bad. And you shouldn't do it. And you shouldn't be there for that. Now it could be that I believe Sveta is the it's the military paper Yeah, they may be just trolling, you know Belousov and and she's down maybe just trolling the United States to see if they can rattle our cage which they do know then on the other hand with the

You know staggering incompetence and pro-Russian tilt of this administration. I have to say, I wouldn't be surprised if I saw Rubio show up in Moscow. That wouldn't even make the list of the worst things they've done lately. And like the Marco Rubio we knew, or the Secretary of State under any Republican president before this. Yeah, yeah, we thought we knew. Or the Republican Secretary of State under any president before this, read like, this suggestion would be mocked. Right? And like, I think this is like the noteworthy element of this. Like the way that this administration is even speaking about Russia is

they reserve their mockery and derision for our friends, like the people of Denmark, Greenland, Canadians. So that in itself, even if Marco doesn't end up in Moscow giving a golf clap to the parade, it's still noteworthy. I mean, you and I have both written speeches. What a perfect opportunity for the United States and its chief diplomat to step forward and say, thank you, Minister Belousov. the only parade I'm interested in attending is the one where your forces leave Ukraine. Right. That's it.

And just put it out there and then radio silence and no, you're not going to the May Day parade. You know, you're talking about the kind of the change in Marco Rubio who goes from, you know, Reaganite to Trump-er. But it seems like that's just a kind of a more watery version of what happened to, say, Lindsey Graham. And the reason that all of this is happening is because the Republican Party is now full of people. How many times can you and I say it?

It's opportunism. These are the hollow men. They don't really care what they're doing as long as they're not, I mean, what's Elise Stefanik up to next? You know, the one thing we know she doesn't wanna do, and I think this was a really funny, you know, she was supposed to join the diplomatic

and foreign policy team, but the one thing it's clear she doesn't wanna do is have to go back to upstate New York and actually represent her constituents. You can almost hear, you know, no. As she was almost could touch the midtown east and was almost there. That's what powers Trump is that nobody cares as long as everybody's interested in taking care of what happens to the country and its alliances.

It's really just collateral damage. There's a Minerals deal, I guess, that was released. New York Times saying it could bring untold money to a joint investment fund between the US and Ukraine that could help rebuild Ukraine whenever the war with Russia ends. That said, there was no mention of a security guarantee in the deal, which Ukraine has long sought

to prevent Russia from regrouping after any ceasefire. You wrote about a week ago that the Trump proposal to end the war isn't a peace plan, it's a reward for aggression. I don't know. To me, it's like, I want to at least have an open mind that they are starting to change their tune on this, and this is a good sign. You've seen the tiny number of pro-Ukraine Republicans that were out there, you know, Crenshaw and all them praising this deal yesterday. But it's hard for me to see this as anything other than like us absconding with some of

their resources as we turn and run. But I don't know, what do you make of it? The country is fighting for its existence and we're wrapped around the axle about mineral deals because of course with this president, if you don't get something tangible to put existence and we're wrapped around the axle about, you know, mineral deals. Because of course, with this president, if you don't get something tangible to put in your pocket, then you're the sucker somehow. You don't support Ukraine because it's the right thing to do. You support Ukraine because it puts some coin in your pocket.

The other thing to realize with these deals, and I hate that I think it bothers me because these remind me of the joint stock companies that the Soviet Union used to set up with its Eastern European ally. I'm making Dr. Evil quotes here, allies. But the other thing is even if Putin continues to attack Ukraine and somehow in the coming years destroys the Ukrainian government and takes over Kiev, the worst of all worlds. Agreements like this are just set up to transfer.

They're like warranties that will transfer with the car. It's not like the deal's going to go through. It's like, great. Now we've got people that are going to just even hand over more of Ukraine's national wealth to us. I think for the largest economy, the wealthiest, most powerful country in the world, you know, shaking down 36 million people who are fighting for their lives, I think it's embarrassing.

It's one of the many embarrassing things that we're living through right now. You haven't even seen embarrassing yet, Tom. I've got audio from yesterday's cabinet meeting. Did you catch any of that? I want to start with our attorney general, Pam Bondi. Why you do this to me, Demi? Oh yeah, I'm doing it. Let's listen to Pam. President, your first 100 days has far exceeded that of any other presidency in this country ever, ever. Never seen anything like it. Thank you. Your DOJ agencies have seized more than 22 million fentanyl pills, 3,400 kilos of fentanyl since you've been your last 100 days, which saved, are you ready for this media, 258 million lives.

Are you ready for this media? Are you ready for this? 258 million lives. Are you ready for this media? Are you ready for this 258 million lives saved? So here's the good news, Tom. You know, it's been kind of a rocky start for Trump that had come live in president. There's a 75% chance you would have died from fentanyl overdose. 258 million lives. I mean, you know, and the rest of us living here is if we weren't raptured or something or, you know, like, you know, the post nuclear wasteland where, you know, only 30 million of us are left, you know. How many people do you think live in America? Wow, you know, well, that's like making 200 deals with, you know, 190 countries.

They're sub good. You know, it was in the category of broken clocks every five years. Even Ann Coulter, I guess, yesterday was like, hey, can we kind of chill with the North Korean tributes? You know, again, it tells you something about how insecure Trump is, but how insecure the people around him are as well, that it's just this amazing, you know, let us not be the last one to stop clapping, comrades. These are real cabinet meetings, real cabinet meetings. You close the door. President says, okay, you know, tell me this stuff I got to hear. What are we doing this week? How are we going to get our message and our program for instead, everybody goes around the table taking turns talking about the amazing three holes in one that the dear leader shot at Mar-a-Lago yesterday. I mean, it's everything the American system of government, first of all, isn't supposed

to be, but also was designed to prevent. I mean, it really tells you that our that our entire constitutional system of government is hanging by a thread here and thank God for other parts of our Constitution and let me give a shout out here for federalism where you know, you have states around the country saying the president can say anything he wants, you know states have rights and there are still courts and people can still organize but at that level within the White House, I mean, George Washington and John Adams and I imagine FDR and Jack Kennedy and Ronald Reagan, a lot of other presidents are spinning

in their graves saying, you know, what the hell are you doing? I have two favorite things I just want to just call attention to in that clip. Well, one of them you didn't get to see because it was on what I sent to Katie when I said we've got to pull this clip up this morning. It's the Fox News tweet of that little bit from the press conference. Just totally straight. They just wrote it as, AGM Bondi highlights key accomplishments of the DOJ, including saving 258 million lives

I mean even the you know, was the Russian military magazine zev's roves like even they're blushing a little much No, oh and Pyongyang they're sitting there going dudes Fox whoever's on the Twitter feed at Fox, let's dial it back one notch. Unless, unless, and you know, let's play four dimensional chess. Unless somebody at Fox smiled to themselves and said, you know what, she said 258 million. I'm not going to be the one to save her. You know, she said 258, we're going to 58. Let's just put it out there. So liberal sleeper cell on the Twitter feed at Fox. Maybe I'm open to 58. Let's just put it out there. It's a liberal sleeper cell on the Twitter feed. It's like, maybe I'm open to either.

She's the attorney general. I mean, you know, of all of the offices that are supposed to have, you know, you expect CIA director, DOD, state, AG, you know, I mean, you expect this kind of I mean, you expect this kind of blubbering sycophancy from, you know, fine, if like the Ag Department wants to say, you know, Mr. President, the harvest this year. And she will. And I mean, Brooke will. I mean, there's no amount of spoofing of our new Ag Secretary that you could offer that might not meet reality. But to have the people that you count on to defend the country, to administer

the law, to protect the constitution, you know, talking about, you know, as I mean, these every one of these cabinet meetings is like, like a cut scene from Death of Stalin or something. And I think that's really disturbing. You can expect especially in the press shop. I mean, you know, this, you've seen it with so many administrations that you know, the spokespeople and the press shops and the, but you don't expect the nation's top attorney to step forward. The attorney general, right. I noticed a little bit, I mean there's nothing like this, but you know there was some kind of credulous spin coming

from Corrine Jean-Pierre from the White House podium. It wasn't coming from Merrick Garland. Right, right, exactly. My other favorite thing about the club is Pam going, are you ready for this media? Before dropping the 258, which was exactly what Trump did the day before, which is like, this is why people don't trust you in the fake news media because you won't admit that he's got MS-13 and MS Paint drawn onto his knuckles. In Calibri font, I was told by one of our commentators, not Ariel, sorry, it's important we get our facts right here.

That's the best crowdsource font story since the George Bush National Guard letter. Good Paul. But, well, I'm old. I was there. I mean, I was kind of hitting the bong in college during that time, but I remember it. I was watching Judy Woodruff talk about it. Now we have to explain it to people that when you know, when Dan Rather got taken in by a letter, supposedly written in 1972 that used a font that hadn't been invented until

Microsoft Word was around. But they start to talk like him because you're right, he does it. Are you ready for this? Can I say, are you ready? Okay. Are you ready? I got it. Are you ready?

And this isn't government. This isn't actually governing the country. This is the thing that always amazes me when I watch these cabinet meetings and I, you know, watch them all do the, the member of the old Saturday Night Live. Oh, sir. You know, the court of y'all. You're very powerful. So very, very handy.

I thought you were going to say Dika. Dika could take on a hundred gorillas. Dika versus a hundred gorillas. Trump. Then I wonder, okay, who's actually running anything and what, at least at state, some of the rumors that I've heard are that it's the same people that have been there forever. It's the deep state.

Why? Because no one else knows what they're doing and because they fired so many people and so you have second and third tier, you know, appointees and career folks. And I suppose again, that's a reason for optimism is that, you know, the lights stay on and things still keep happening in government basically because nobody got to them fast enough and fired them and, you know, emptied out these offices and made it impossible for the government to function. The search for truth never ends. Introducing June's Journey, a hidden object mobile game

with a captivating story. Connect with friends, explore the roaring 20s, and enjoy thrilling activities and challenges while supporting environmental causes. After seven years, the adventure continues with our immersive travels feature. Explore distant cultures and engage in exciting experiences. There's always something new to discover.

Are you ready? Download June's Journey now on Android or iOS. I want to talk about a friend of the show, Chris Krebs. We had another news item about him yesterday. Trump's former cybersecurity and infrastructure security agency head. His global entry has been revoked. He received an email yesterday from the trusted traveler program saying his status had changed, no longer a trusted traveler.

These fucking like, these low rent bullies. It's just so funny. It's like, Trump is like, I am ordering my attorney general to go after this man for embarrassing me for speaking the truth. And it's like, what have ordering my attorney general to go after this man for embarrassing me for speaking the truth. And it's like, what have we come up with so far? You've got to wait in the longer line. And when you go through customs now, and it is like simultaneously like pathetic and embarrassing

bullying and just an unprecedented attack by the federal government on a single person over political concerns. Not unprecedented, unprecedented in the post Water a single person over political concerns. Not unprecedented in the post-Watergate era, let's say. Right. That's the scary part is that, I mean, the immediate issue of, well, we're going to kick you off global entry. It's juvenile. You can't be in our club anymore.

Like you say, you have to go stand in the longer line. But mobilizing the machinery of government against one person because he pissed you off by telling the truth years ago, he's not even in government. It's one thing to say, look, I don't want people around me. This is a completely legitimate thing to do in government to say, I don't want appointees who have criticized me remaining

in this administration. OK, all presidents do that, right? I come in, you're either a previous pointy of mine or you're appointed by my successor. You obviously don't like me. We're not going to work well together. You're fired. To go from that to we're going to pull your security clearances, we're going to kick you out of global entry, we're going to look at your taxes. We're going to just harass you.

This is what I meant at the beginning, Tim, about why aren't people more astonished by this? And I think that firehosing means that we just accept these stories because there are so many of them every day. Trump is going after so many people in this petty, inane, but in the end, extremely dangerous way that we just sort of shrug and say, well, just another day of, you know, Trump seeking revenge.

Well, I'm sorry, we're talking about the president of the United States. And I don't know where the red line is where people finally people on his side finally react to this. I mean, you know, blue America, blue MAGA, you know, which has its own set of conspiracy theories, but also, you know, centrists and independents and liberals of good conscience, they've all reacted to this,

but it's become nonetheless a kind of just part of the wallpaper of our life politically that Trump does this stuff. And that's the part I find really concerning. And I feel about the media too. I mean, on this, like this one, I hate, you know, I try to limit the media criticism on here because like media is big and, you know, it's a hobby horse for enough people on the internet. But Jake Tapper wrote the story. So credit to Jake about Krebs and the thing. But there's no coverage of it across the other. Like,

I went to the Times in the Post this morning, kind does I do before the pod just to see what everybody's writing about see if there's something I missed and Nothing and I just like I think back to something like Valerie Plame or you know what I mean? Like like what other sort of things where the government was going after somebody not even in his directive away, you know, but Just because of the nature of those times, it's like it stands out as a scandal, right? And so it's, it's like wall to wall coverage. And I've said this about Krebs. I was like, if this had been Obama or Bush or Biden

sickening his DOJ on a single person and, and Miles Taylor, for that matter, like every press conference would be about it. You couldn't talk about anything else until it was over, right? Like it would have completely consumed the media landscape and this, you know, be above the fold every day. Yeah.

And this is, um, this is just a one-off, um, from the fact that you still remember who Valerie Plame is, right. Tells you what a big deal that was because that's a long time ago now. But also, uh, when you're talking about weaponizing, you know, and going after one person, here's a blast from the past, Lois Lerner. Yeah, sure. Right? And the, you know, is the IRS dragging its feet on here.

Here's a quaint scandal. Was the IRS dragging its feet on certifying the nonprofit status of conservative organizations? To this day, I think someone in the IRS was, yes, in fact, dragging their feet on this to this day. I think someone in the IRS was yes In fact dragging their feet on this to be difficult how high up in order to do that came from I don't think it went very high I suspect that it was you know, somebody making decisions saying I'm just not gonna I'm not gonna really hustle to help some conservative group get their Their status here. There was weeks and weeks and weeks. I mean, it was a huge story. We learned the names of minor IRS officials like Lois Lerner, you know, who deleted all her stuff.

And I seem to remember she did something about they took the hard drive out of her computer or she retired and then the whole thing went away. But I mean, here you have the president practically holding press conferences to get out there and say, here's a list of people I'm gonna screw using the government in the United States. And everybody goes, is that Krebs with a K or is that? Yeah, right.

That is crazy. The search for truth never ends. Introducing June's Journey, a hidden object mobile game with a captivating story. Connect with friends, explore the roaring 20s, and enjoy thrilling activities and challenges while supporting environmental causes.

After seven years, the adventure continues with our immersive travels feature. Explore distant cultures and engage in exciting experiences. There's always something new to discover. Are you ready? Download June's Journey now on Android or iOS. To credit some of these other media outlets, the big story from The Times this morning, they are covering, is my hobby horse about the folks we've been sending to Sikot. This is just so unbelievable. But The Times has three sources inside the administration

that say that Bukele, that fucking tin pot crypto dictator at El Salvador, was concerned that the people that were being sent were not criminals. And he wanted assurances from the US that each of those locked up in the prison was members of Trenda Aragwa. And so they like tried to, you know, rush around to get all of the kind of information they could to provide it to Bukele to make him feel good. It's like, this is crazy. Like this man who is known for being, let's say a little haphazard in determining who to jail in his country. And he's jailed a lot of real criminals, no doubt. Casual. Yeah, casual. He's jailed a lot of real criminals, no doubt, but like kind of his schtick is that

there, you know, some people are getting swept up in the drag down there because, you know, he wants to be tough on crime. This man's schtick is that like, you know, we're a little loose with who we're saying to the jail. Bukele is saying to us, did you guys cross your T's on this? And the entire Republican party. I shouldn't be laughing. I'm sorry. Yeah, I should be laughing. The entire Republican party and the entire Trump administration, there's no Krebs. There's no whistleblower. There's not one person that's like, shouldn't we just bring these guys back and just like, and make sure we didn't mess up on any of

them? And we can keep them in detention. We're not saying to let them loose on Disneyland. Like, let's bring them back, go through the files and make sure we didn't wrongly send someone to a fucking concentration camp. And if Bukele's worried about it, shouldn't at least one Republican in Congress be worried about it? The reason I'm laughing is because the whole setup, and this is so often the case now, the whole setup with most of these stories sounds like the pitch for for, you know, said this before, it sounds like the pitch for the SNL cold open, you got Trump at the desk and a guy, you know, the the host for the week comes in dressed like Bukele and says, you know, Donald, not for

nothing, but you sure on some of these guys, you know, I mean, I'm not I'm not quite I'm just guys, you know, I mean, I'm not, I'm not quite, I'm just saying, you know, the makeup artist, you know, with the balloons and the stuffed animal, the stuffy that he's hugging. I mean, there's some paperwork, it's gone missing. I'm not sure. I think the reason this happens is that this administration, especially now on its revenge

tour, guys like Miller and, you know and Bondi and all of these folks that have all been elevated, Hegseth especially, and Gabbard, all these people that have been elevated to positions, they had not a prayer in hell of ever attaining in a kind of just and merit-based society. It's ironic how obsessed they are with merit when Pete Hegseth is the Secretary of Defense. They've developed a kind of oppositional defiance disorder that whatever they hear coming at them from the media or from the broad mass of Americans or from institutional opponents within justice or defense or wherever, they immediately say we have to do the opposite.

Hey, you know, we might've taken some people that don't belong there and put them into this kind of ghastly prison. And then someone out there says, well, maybe you should bring them back. Their immediate answer is say, no, you're not the boss of us. You can't tell us what to do.

We're done taking orders from the liberal media and the libtards and the, you know, I don't know what are the other names, you cucks and losers have been geeking out on Star Trek references. They always remind me of the Klingon commander played by Christopher Lloyd in the third movie. Christopher Lloyd, the Klingon commander, Admiral Kirk, Reverend Jim becoming the Klingon commander. Kirk says they're trying to get off this planet

That's about to be destroyed and Spock's unconscious and he says to the Klingon You should beam up the Vulcan to get him off here and he says no And Kirk says why not and the commander says because you wish it You know and they're like you're probably gonna have to get rid of Pete Hegseth No Why because you in the media because somebody out there that I perceive as my enemy You know, and they're like, you're probably going to have to get rid of Pete Hegseth. No. Why? Because you in the media, because somebody out there that I perceive as my enemy told

me to do it. And therefore, like an eight year old who hates his first grade teacher, my answer is going to be, no, I'm not going to put my scissors away. No, I'm not going to stop eating the paste or whatever the hell it is that they're doing. Now, apparently, some of the damn broke as we've been sitting here talking to I'm excited to get to that. To stick with it. I just I'm about to go there. I don't even know what I was going to say. In this hand, I had a news item and in this hand, I got nothing and I don't even remember

what I got a news item. We have a We have an exciting breaking news item about the staffing of our government. I do just want to close the lib really quick on the time story because I give so much attention to Andre, the makeup artist, but there are some of these other cases and this same story goes pretty deep on this young man, Neri Alvarado, who is the guy that has the autism awareness tattoo. And the time story is just so good on this where it's like, he came here in April and he just was working at a bakery and he's like sending money to help his brother with autism. And like he has the bakery owner is like, I'm going to go to fucking El Salvador and get him myself.

You know, he's this guy who just had met him. He's like, he's that good and that sweet and nice of a person. So anyway, there's additional reporting like demonstrating that we sent people wrongly there. So it's not surprising that even Mr. Brace is Bukele. And maybe we should get them out. Yeah, no. No. Why? Because you wish it.

Yeah, because you wish it. No, we can't bring him out. Here's the breaking news you referenced. It's my job, I'm the host, Tom. All right. All right, man. I'm sorry. I'm trying to be helpful. Oh boy. We're all getting texts. We're all getting texts. Mike Waltz, the national security advisor and deputy security advisor, Alex Wong, a guy I know a little bit who worked for Mitt Romney. His days were numbered from the start. As soon as he got that job, my eyebrow raised and I was like, this guy is not long for that world. He's way too normal, way too just competent and regular as far as just

his policy views are concerned to survive. And he's kind of a passive guy. Like this guy is going to get pulled over by these mega freaks. These guys have been fired. The claim is that it is because Trump is not happy about the efficiency and the competence. Excuse me if I'm a little suspect of that rationale that like the NSA isn't being run as efficiently as Donald Trump wants.

I mean, I think if he's concerned about efficiency, we've got problems all across the government. To me, the problem is that these guys were not one of them. And this is where the opposition defiance disorder doesn't come in. It's like, it's like he doesn't, if he's getting criticized by the New York times, it's like, you got to fire Hagseth. It's like, no, I'm not going to fire Hagseth. But if Laura Loomer and MAGA world and these freaks are like, I don't know

if you can trust this guy, he had Jeffrey Goldberg's number in his phone. And you know, that other guy worked for Romney, right? To me, that's the, that's always going to be the greatest sin. And that's why the Rubios of the world have to perform so ostentatiously in support of MAGA in order to overcompensate for that original sin, quote unquote. So anyway, that's my hot take, not having gone deep on it yet, but Michael Waltz is out as national security advisor. There's some other things to consider here. One is the guy who obviously should go and who's been screwing up magnificently for three months is Pete Hegseth. I mean, I think if you went and

asked Republican senators, what vote do you regret the most, Hegseth be right at the top there. As you say that, I just got texts from Mark Kelly Spock, Mark Kelly saying, they're holding the wrong guy accountable. They fired the wrong guy. It should be Hegseth. That's the whole thing. You can't fire the guy that Mark Kelly and Tom Nichols want you to fire, right? But more to the point, you can fire Mike Waltz, replace him, and not have to go through another Senate confirmation hearing. That's a good point. Look, the National Security Advisor, as Trump learned in his first term, NSA, that's an

easy kill, right? You can just push that guy out of the plane and yell next. And you get another guy there the next day because it is not totally under control of office of the president. It is not a Senate confirmable position. It only has as much power and influence as the president ever lets it have. In theory, it has well-defined roles

in the National Security Council and so on, but the reality is the National Security Advisor is whatever the president wants it to be. If he fires Hegseth, he opens up this whole shit show about who's gonna come in, who's gonna get past the Senate. Now, somebody made a, I can't remember who it was, I apologize to whoever's idea I'm stealing here. But it was

something to the effect of there was a way to do this quick do-si-do with Dan Cain and, you know, another nominee and that you get basically a chairman and a new sec def all at once. That would have been really uncontroversial. But of course, that would be the simple and scandal smothering approach and Trump didn't take it so he's gonna hang out Mike waltz and Alex Wong and and some other people Because that's the easy thing to do and because as you say not our people not our guys I mean he really by all reports present really likes Hague Seth

Because Hague Seth knows how to play to that gallery. And Hegseth knows how to suck up to the boss. And that, as we now know, going back to what we were talking about earlier, you know, cabinet meetings, sucking up to the boss is a core skill set here. It's how you survive. Pete It's crazy if you're looking at, imagine the humiliation of Mike Waltz. Let's just walk through this for a second. He gives up his seat in Congress, which is a very safe seat.

He could have been in that seat for his entire life if he wanted to, to go and work and suck up to Donald Trump, somebody who like really is based on Waltz's past. He's not aligned with on foreign policy issues, specifically, but he goes to do it because he wants the job, wants the access, wants to be on Air Force One, wants to be hanging out next to the power center. He lasts in the job.

Ten scaramuchis. For barely a hundred days. Ten scaramuchis. That's it. Loses his congressional seat, gone, he's humiliated. Maga World isn't going to like him now. They are going to, you know, do everything to protect Pete and to protect all the other mega people.

He's about to be trashed in mega media. His brother-in-law is the lead singer of Creed. It's not really his fault, but it just kind of adds to the humiliation a little bit. Is that true? Yeah, that's true. That's true. And then you look around the government and it's like, you know who outlasted you? The fucking radio host that's the deputy FBI director. I mean, Cash for Time, it is a rogue's gallery of clowns that are in this administration. And Mike Waltz, the quasi, I don't have any love for Mike Waltz, but

the quasi serious, at least like plausible person is the first one out. It is pretty humiliating. They're floating Putin's pal, Steve Witkoff as the replacement. Oh, come on. This is where I do the Jim Carrey water meme. You know, come on. I mean, when you say they're floating with cough to be national security advisor. It's been floated.

It's a trial. I don't, I don't, I, again, I don't have any insight into what's happening in Donald Trump's brain, but that's their trial balloon. Wicuff. I don't know if you caught this. Was it on Tuesday's pod? But it was a story that Wicuff's kid who's in business partners with Trump on his shitcoin and his cryptocurrency was in Pakistan meeting with the prime minister about investing into the Trump business. So

Wittkopf, his family is in business with Trump's scam cryptocurrency. He has really been quite enamored with Putin and he's the first name out as far as the flow and he's a real estate man. He doesn't have plausible national security experience and he's the first name out there. And I'm sure that selling real estate sets you up to convene National Security Council meetings. Why not? Sure, why not? Ever since I've had to practice saying Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth out loud, nothing surprises me. But what I was going to say a minute ago was that the Republicans who have been going along

with all of this and praying for some kind of miracle, this has to give them the willies. Because Waltz, as you say, no love for Mike Waltz, but somebody you could look at and say, I disagree with him, but he seems to take these issues seriously. Not on the same side of the issues as he is, but a man who at least seems to take seriously these ideas when he was a member of Congress,

and even as national security advisor and He and Rubio were gonna be the adults in the room, right? okay, so Rubio has become a shell of himself and waltz is out and You would think that Trump would be looking around to say who can I appoint that I can ignore? But who will calm all of you people down? No, I don't know that he cares about our calm anymore. Well, I mean, even within his own, you know, among his own people, you know, one of the things we're seeing for all the talk

about Trump 2028, he doesn't care about any of that stuff. I think he's just trolling us with 2028. He knows it's not going to happen. But once again, as Republicans learned in the first term, Trump doesn't care about them. He doesn't care if they get slaughtered in the midterms. He doesn't care who loses a seat. I mean, when you were talking about Waltz, again,

I was thinking back to Stefanik. And the other people said, OK, I'm going to give up this safe seat. I don't love having to go back to upstate New York and listen to people complain about cows or whatever they're complaining about. But I get to live in Washington and I have an aide who brings me coffee every morning. That's really cool.

And right now, where are you? You're not even in the leadership anymore. Waltz is out. Stefanik's been sent to the back benches. Don't people understand that getting involved with Donald Trump means that eventually, Rick Wilson's right that everything Trump touches dies because it's going to happen to other people as well. Pete Hegseth, I don't even know the over under on Pete Hegseth, a couple more months, one more scandal, who knows what it is.

Once Trump starts firing people, he gets over the fear of firing people. I think that Pete Hegseth will look at this time as the high watermark of his life and then everything's going to be downhill from here. They don't seem to understand that they serve Trump for this very short period of time. He burns them out, you know, uses them up and then sends them off to the trash heap. I don't know. Are you sure that the high mark of Pete Hegs's wife wasn't the time that he was aggressively pursuing a married woman and drunkenly shouting at a mater

D at a hotel while his baby mama was at home with his baby and his wife was going through a divorce with him. I mean, that's a huge, I mean, I'm thinking about that. You're juggling three women at once. You're so hammered that you're shouting at the hotel staff. I'm going to say being secretary of defense is better than that. I'm just going to take a guess. We'll see.

We'll ask Pete in 10 years. Cause I think the secretary of defense thing is going to be pretty ugly for him. You wrote about Ed Martin, Eagle Ed recently, the acting U S attorney. Interesting item this morning. Senate majority leader Thune has churned through all of this array of clowns. Trump has nominated for various jobs across our government. But Martin is still on hold. Martin has been a little mean to Tom Tillis. Tom Tillis might finally find his courage because Eagle Ed Martin was mean to him on a podcast. So I don't know.

because Eagle Ed Martin was mean to him on a podcast. So I don't know, he might, Ed Martin might have done the one thing that you cannot do to get confirmed by this Republican Senate, which is be mean personally to the Republican senators. Nothing to do about your qualifications, your Russofile history, et cetera. But tell us a little bit more about what you'd wrote about Ed Martin.

Well, Ed Martin, who has been on Russian television 150 times, you know, we've all been there, right? You've done it. Zero for me, always refused, every time. Well, I am proud to say that I too have always refused and would never go on RT. I have been on Newsmax several times, though, so that's a thin line. Okay. But I'm saying, we all, I mean, I was on Bill O'Reilly's show once,

you know, it's, it happens, but it's like the old, um, Joan Rivers joke where she says, you know, man, God rest her soul. She says, you know, a man sleeps around and he's successful. A woman makes 70, 80 mistakes. She's a, she's a slut. You know, it's one thing to do, you know do one or two hits and say, that wasn't comfortable. I really shouldn't do that again. When you become a regular guest and a friend of the show, I mean, that's like Cash Patel

and Stu Peters. I don't know who he was. I only did a show eight times. Being like me, say, Tim Miller? Don't know the guy. He's a face on the screen. So that tells you something. And I watched a lot of those.

I mean, when I wrote that piece, I actually went and I watched those clips. And he's having the time of his life. I mean, he's yucking it up with George Galloway and, you know, shooting the breeze with the hosts and trashing America at will. And normally Republicans back in the day, back when they were still a party, would have said, you know, trashing your own country on Russian television

and going on there 150 times, probably not a, you know, that's probably disqualifying to become a senior justice department appointee. So it may be not just that he pissed off Tom Tillis, but that first his record on this is so egregious. But the other thing is, does Ed Martin have the kind of institutional and White House juice that say, you know, Pete Hegseth had, right?

I mean, Trump went and twisted arms. Hegseth gets through by a single vote. Does Martin really have anybody who's saying, oh yeah, Martin, I'll go to bat for that guy. Pete Slauson Maybe just because it's like, who else are they going to find to put in as the DC US attorney who's just going to fire off insane letters to Georgetown about how they can't teach DEI and to Robert Garcia saying that he is like, you know, possibly going to be charged for death threats because he used

a metaphor to describe, you know, his feelings. But you would think, now again, I'm making a big assumption, you would think they'd say, you know, we do want somebody in the DC, you know, as the DC AUSA to be effective and really, you know, put the fear of God into some of these people. That's not Ed Martin. I mean, this, what Ed Martin is doing is clownish and won't stand up and it's just for public consumption. So, I don't know, if you were a hardcore MAGA person, wouldn't you say, I don't really want a guy who's doing the kind of carnival barker stuff. I want somebody who's actually going to make

people's lives miserable, really with using the law. Don't give them any ideas, Tom. I know, I know. That's the problem, right? There's a part of me that says, no, no, everything, you're doing fine. Keep everybody right where they are. Because as you say, what happens if they get someone who combines that kind of politics

with a minimal level of competence? And then I think we're actually worrying about something even worse. Final topic, hair Steven Miller did a press conference right before we started taping this morning. I just want to play one clip for you for fun. Children will be taught to love America. Children will be taught to be patriots. Children will be taught civic values for schools that want federal taxpayer funding. So as we close the Department of Education, and we provide funding to states, we are going to make sure that these funds are not being used to promote communist ideology.

Free speech, patriotic speech, need them on demand. Wow. The Hitler Youth, excuse me, the Trump Youth will be taught how great a country is. I mean, that's crazy. Every time I hear these guys, I think how many of them have somewhere have some kind of villain origin story about some terrible thing, you know, and I always look at Steve Miller and a high school cafeteria.

Yeah. Yeah. And I think what was high school like that you're still carrying this level of anger with you, but you know, children will be taught to love them. Look, when I was a boy, we said that... I don't know if they still do this in schools, we did the Pledge of Allegiance, we had a flag hanging up, we had a calendar with the pictures of all the presidents. It's okay to say, look, our schools, American schools should reflect our patriotic...

They should instill patriotism about our system of government. It's another thing to say this in this kind of, you know, Soviet commissar. You shall love and honor America. You will love Big Brother, you know, you will honor America. And I think, I think one of the things

that always comes out of these folks is there is a, aside from these, these kind of psychic scars that seem to comes out of these folks is there is a, aside from these, these kind of psychic scars that seem to pop out of them when they talk, where you just want to say, wow, who hurt you? There's this huge insecurity. You will love America. No one told me as a kid in the 60s that I will love America. I loved America because everybody loved America and everybody around me was an example of

patriotism of loving America of You know standing when the national anthem is played putting your hand over your heart saying the Pledge of Allegiance The idea that you say you will you must it shall and then worrying about whether you're getting communist Propaganda, I mean I went to school ins, man. If there was a time that you were going to get communist propaganda, that was it. I don't even know what the hell these people are talking about when they talk about... You're so anti-communist that Trump will do state control of our government and decide which industries get tariffs and which ones don't.

I mean, there are second graders that are coming home and saying, you know, mommy, today, you know, I did a cutout of a horsey and a duck. And also, I drew this picture for you of the worker seizing the means of production. Yeah, the hammer and sickle. I mean, what the f- where is this coming from? What kind of fever dream, you know, these people have it too in the morning where they wake up and they think that, you know, children are reading Das Kapital in third grade. It's crazy. Delusional fascist Tom Nichols. Thank you very much. Everybody go

subscribe to The Atlantic to read Tom Nichols. He'll be back in the next lunar cycle. We had so much to cover. I didn't even get to all that economy stuff but luckily we've got a great guest for that tomorrow. So come back then. We'll see you then. Tom, we'll see you soon. Peace. Alright, take care, Tim. Looked in the mirror Watched the beer crawl around on your face Oh, the revolution was here That would set you free from those bourgeoisie From those bushwild sea In the morning everything's clearer When the sunlight exposes your page

But that's okay Grab your clothes and head to the doorway If you dance out your own complaints Find a place where you can be boring Where you won't need to explain That you're sick in the head and you wish you were dead Or at least instead of sleeping here you'd prefer your own bed Come on, you just suck at self-pensilation

Versus someone else's pain So you feel great And then say The Bullork podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.