The Bulwark Podcast - S2 Ep1035: Bill Kristol: A Reckless, Tin-Pot President

Episode Date: May 5, 2025

Trump 2.0 is showing so little concern for his political standing that even Fox made primetime room for Karl Rove to vent about how he's failing at the fundamentals. Our aspiring Gaddafi doesn't care that tariffs aren't popular or that he sounds like Mr. Scrooge when he says kids should have fewer toys. And while belt-tightening is good enough for average Americans, he's throwing himself a giant, ostentatious military parade that will cost tens of millions of dollars. Plus, conservatives in the Anglosphere take another hit, this time down under—and thumbs-up for Maine Gov. Janet Mills, thumbs-down for Gretchen Whitmer.  Bill Kristol joins Tim Miller. show notes Today's "Morning Shots" Jonathan's recent newsletter on Gretchen Whitmer The Atlantic's recent interview with Trump (gifted)

Hello and welcome to the Bulwark podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. It is Monday, so we are back with editor-at-large of the Bulwark, Bulwark God King, Bill Kristol. What is that, Bill? I don't get the god king deference and tributes often enough frankly, so thank you for that. Pete I agree with that. Bill Makes you Sarah, you know, JVL, Sam, they're not really into that stuff. I don't know why. Pete I can be the one that throws roses at your feet, getting prostrate down in front of you. All right, well, let's just get into it. Jazz Fest is over, so all my revelry is done. I

ended with Remy Wolf last night. And so now I'm just back to the dire reality of trying to read Trump's bleats and determine how seriously to take them. You are out with a newsletter this morning that is sort of on this front about Trump's increasing megalomania, about how he wants to be the department store god king of America and the world. Why don't you just kind of summarize the argument that you're making. You know, I first was gonna write about the staff

and I do write about that some, I'm very struck, if I could just begin with that, that, you know, in the first term, who was bumped in the first month? Mike Flynn, who was bumped in the first year, Steve Vanden. The crazies were for a while Marginalized to some degree to some degree I don't overstate this and the normies kind of ran the show for the next two or three years more or less or at least we're able to curb Trump the Kelly's and the Mattis's and and

So forth right so John Bolton McMaster in the second term was the opposite It said I mean, I don't make too much of, but some of it was just personality and idiocy and so forth. But it is interesting, I think, the more I've thought about it, that Waltz was the first one to go. The most normal, probably, least sycophantic, least MAGA-dedicated of the national security team. I've talked to someone who says, I said, come on, it can't be Steve Miller as national security

advisor. This person who's sort of in touch with MAGA adjacent world said, oh, absolutely, it could be. He's already in effect on the National Security Council. You can see that from that Signalgate chat, right? Where Miller weighs in and says, I think what the president meant was this and corrects Vance incidentally corrects the vice president. Miller is national security vice.

So that's one half of it. Things are worse this second term than the first term because he's surrounded by sycophants and authoritarians, not at least half surrounded by semi normie accommodators. And things are also worse because he's crazier. I sort of resisted that because I don't like the psychologizing of Trump much. I don't think I'm very good at it and I feel like it's better just to analyze what he's doing and how he's destroying our democracy and not get into his head too much. But he's clearly more megalomaniacal.

It's all gone to his head. Don't you think? I mean, first term he says in the interview, I think it was with the Atlantic, first term I ran the country, but this term I'm running the country and the world. And I don't think there's any irony when he says that, you know? I'm with you. We leave the Trump armchair psychologizing on the bulwark network to George Conway. I don't know whether or not he's crazier.

Here's what I do. I think we can judge objectively though. He definitely seems, doesn't seem, he definitely is more reckless about things, right? And that could be because he's gotten more megalomaniacal? Certainly. I mean, he was already like the top 0.00001% of megalomaniacs in the entire world the first time around. So could you up that level a little bit? Sure, I guess. Maybe it's because he's more megalomaniacal. I took the same about this a little bit over the weekend. I think though part of it is he has a lack of care about his political standing. Like he feels like he already has won.

He was worried about being in jail for a minute. Now he won again. Nobody believed him that he could win the first time. Nobody believed he'd win the second time. Nobody was at his second announcement except for brick wall suit. Gates didn't even show up. His kids didn't even show up. And so he's like, fuck it.

I do think that there's like a recklessness about him. Like when Ashley Parker and Michael Shearer were asking him about, you know, his political standing and whether he's worried about the terrorists and the economy, he definitely just feel like he doesn't really care that much about the normal political ramifications. And I think that does make him much, much more dangerous to the country. Maybe the one silver lining of that is it kind of means that he isn't really thinking about, you know, doing a coup at the end because, because if he was,

maybe he'd be more concerned about his political standing. I don't know. Now we're maybe getting a little too deep into the brain, but, um, I think that is objectively true that he is less concerned about normal political considerations than he was last time and so less willing to be reined in by people around him if even if there were people around him to rein him in which there aren't as you pointed out. Yeah I mean coming back in January 6th look he was counted out after that and he probably thought that deep down Jesus maybe I you know I botched this and I am not going to make it back. And then Kevin McCarthy showed up in Mar-a-Lago and everything fell into place.

But as you say, it wasn't obvious he was going to crush DeSantis in late 22, early 23. So then the assassination attempt, maybe even psychologically, I've always discounted all the nonsense. You know, I was saved by God, but who knows what he thinks, right? I mean, I don't think he believes in God in a conventional way, but he could believe in his own Face your faded dominance and destruction of the American political system. So his own God like yeah Yeah, you know whatever traits the way I said it in the piece

I'm not sure it's an accurate use of the terms It probably isn't that he'd gone from being a narcissist in the first term to a megalomaniac Now I don't know that's quite right that distinction But it's just trying to capture somehow the notion that it's gone to another level And I I do think that's true. It does make it more reckless It also makes them interested in things in Canada Panama and Greenland right the the territorial expansion stuff He didn't have any we don't think about that the first term He wanted to get reelected and do a lot of you know corrupt stuff and and get well even wealthier and so forth

Now he still wants to do that all that of course But the we get on that the scale of it is so much more ambitious and so much crazier that it is more reckless Also, I suppose but on the territorial expansion It's as if he does happen to said gee if you want to be like a world historical figure You need to increase the size of your empire. That's kind of what it means to be, you know So I yeah, I think it really leads to recklessness I think it's bad on the whole. Very bad, honestly. And I don't even think, I think even in terms of the coup at the end, it could just lead him to really prepare for the coup instead

of doing it somewhat, thank God, haphazard and slapdash way in those last three months. So, in that respect, I don't know that he really believes there should be an election in 2028, which he or his anointed successor should lose power. He's not behaving like a guy who thinks that, fine, if I lose power, I lose power. You know? All right. Seven minutes in on a Monday. We're really doing the bulwark thing today, Bill.

Look, Ken, how about we go back to the military parade? On Friday, after we taped, the army confirmed there will be a military parade on Trump's birthday as part of the celebrations around the army's 250th birthday. Plans for the parade call for about 6,000 soldiers, 150 vehicles and 50 helicopters to follow a route from Arlington to the National Mall. Officials say it will cost tens of millions of dollars. Trump was asked about this directly with, meet the press over the weekend and he's, yeah, he's in as we're doing it. We're gonna do the Kim Jong-un thing. Obviously this is in line with your megalomaniac thesis.

Peter T. Lenny The Army had planned for, I think, a rather modest sort of demonstration of some equipment and some tributes to soldiers and veterans and so forth on the mall on June 14th, which is the 250th anniversary of the US Army. It also happens to be Trump's birthday and Trump seeing, I think for him more importantly, that it was his birthday as well, decided to go for the huge parade with him up there in the reviewing stand. I don't know. I don't know the history of this entirely. I have the impression certainly, military periods are pretty rare in the US and they

tend to happen after a military victory. The only one I've seen is the one after the first Gulf War in 1991. That was even a fairly modest thing. There was even then at the time, should we be doing this? But I think for the first President Bush thought, we got to, this is so long ago, we've got to shake the Vietnam syndrome so we can be proud that we won this one in early 1991. And so there was a modest parade down Pennsylvania Avenue. Yeah, this is not something that normally, and there've been parades obviously after

World War II and so forth, but this is not the kind of thing that normally happens. And from Arlington, for people who don't know Washington geography, all the way over to the White House, that's much longer than the inaugural parade or anything like that. And the tanks, it's going to be grotesque. And Trump will be there. And I bet the rhetoric by June 14th will be more about Trump's birthday and less about the US Army's birthday. We also haven't won any wars.

I mean, he's actually currently surrendering in a war. I mean, I was a little child, so I do not remember the national victory celebration in 1991 that you referenced. It was modern. That's the point. It wasn't even if you hadn't been a little child, it was forgettable. And to Butcher's credit, he sort of wanted to do it because he sort of wanted to show we were suffering from the Vietnam syndrome anywhere, but it was not a big thing.

Yeah. Previously to that, it looks like 1946 New York City victory parade. I don't know. Trump was impressionable since he's 100 years old. He might have remembered that one. The point I think, the whole, the whole thing is kind of grotesque and is not, I definitely feels more authoritarian than American, but, but to this point, just about how it is not like an, and a result of some celebration of military success, it's centrally about him, right?

Like even if they try to position it as an army celebration, like it is centrally about him, right? Like even if they try to position it as an army celebration, like it is centrally about like him overseeing, you know, the power and the might and, you know, trying to, you know, menace foes and maybe menace, who knows, maybe menace Greenland to he volunteered over the weekend that he does not want to rule out military conquest over. And like that element of it. And, you know, I mean, like the branding side of it, like that is, I mean like the branding side, like that is how the Trump brain works, right?

That that is what this is. It's about a Trump USA branding exercise. It's a good point. I hadn't thought of it until we were just talking this part, this point I'm about to make, which follows on your point. They're just, if one wanted to do this, and when we're a somewhat devious politician with a big ego, which God knows there are plenty of, and you sort of like to have a parade that you got to preside over and kind of coincides with your birthday, that's kind of nice.

You would arrange for the Army or for Pete Hagseth, you know, when the Secretary of the Army works on Hagseth, to recommend this parade for the 250th anniversary. And then you would sign off on it because, you know, the Army wants it and the Defense Department wants it, right? Trump isn't disguising the fact that it's his idea. I think in fact he it and the Defense Department wants it, right? Trump isn't disguising the fact that it's his idea. I think in fact he's sort of boasting about it, right? And this is sort of, I'm the guy who's responsible for this parade, that's the way he talks about it,

which again, just emphasizes your point. There's not even a pretense that this is a kind of genuine thing that the Army would be doing. It's all about Trump. Yeah, no subtext, no pretense with Trump ever. We also had the discussion about rebuilding and opening Alcatraz last night, which is also clearly a branding exercise. We have some foreign listeners to the podcast.

So for those who are not familiar with Alcatraz, I do want to offer briefly this audio from the great Phil Hartman as Alcatraz tour guide Vicky This is the main cell block area Home to such famous criminals as Al Capone, Mickey Cohen Joseph Dutch Pritzer and Robert Stroud the famous bird man about the dress I Saved some of our listeners from the the section where he discusses what happened to people's ocular cavities in Alcatraz. So we'll just leave that for the people that know.

But what do you think? Is it a sign of a great society in the golden age where like most of the focus of the government is on the expansion of prisons domestically and foreign? No, it's ridiculous. It's been a museum for like, I've never been, but did you ever go when you were out there? You lived out in the BFA area. I never went. I looked at it.

It was chilly. You can sort of see it from there. Yeah. Some of those nice buildings in the Presidio, right? I mean, I- I'm not a prison man. I've never been on any prison tours. I know, I'm not either.

I'm not excited about prisons. I don't, you know, it's just not my vibe. But I mean, all I'm saying is, I don't know how long it's been a museum, but it's like forever in my whole lifetime. I don't believe it's been, I think all I'm saying is, I don't know how long it's been a museum, but it's like forever in my lifetime. I don't believe it's been, I think it was closed in the 60s or 70s or something as a prison.

So just the, I mean, it's all insane. Let's spend a fortune to rehab this thing into a prison so we can, what do we, helicopter the people out there, take them out there on a boat for what? Our prisons aren't secure enough elsewhere. I mean, it's all crazy, obviously, but he loves, he saw movies about Alcatraz when he was a kid, very Trump-like, right? And it was a big, it was a thing kind of in the 50s and 60s, Alcatraz, you know, the stories about it,

the impregnable place you couldn't escape from. And he just likes that idea. Like more prisons, bigger prisons, bigger walls. That's what Trump's all about. Close 1963. It is, I mean, not, it's like, how seriously do you take this stuff? Like, it is noteworthy, right? Like, this is where the focus is.

Like, we are, we're building this massive prison outside of San Salvador. He wants them to expand it. We want to rebuild our most famous prison here and like reopen it, right? Meanwhile, you know, there might be a little pain for small businesses, and kids might have to have fewer dolls and pencils. They will. I mean, like the whole thing put together, and we're gonna have a military parade. Like, I mean, you tie it all together. And it is the picture of, I keep coming back to Libya, because I feel like Gaddafi is my most, I think,

acute comparison right now to Trump, because Gaddafi is my most, I think, acute comparison right now to Trump, because Gaddafi was also very interested in the costuming and the branding. It feels like a tin pot dictatorship, where we're focusing on expanding our prisons. Possibly, we're going to have to tighten the belt a little bit on the economy, but we are all going to have big ostentatious parades to celebrate the leader. Yeah, totally. And even the terror stuff, I mean, it is a kind of autarky.

If you want to know, we're going to not depend on these other countries. All the movies are going to be made here. That's sort of a piece with it too, don't you think? It's not quite the brutal side of it, but it's the kind of self-obsessed and insanely nativist side of it. Yeah. He also wants to terror foreign movies. It's unintelligible. Sonny Bunch wrote about it in the newsletter this morning.

People want to read about it. I've gotten a couple of texts from Hollywood folks. Well, obviously, Hollywood folks are panicked because it's like, what does this cover? Does it cover movies that have multi-shoots? But he doesn't know or care or think about it. It's just, again, it's about branding. It's about Hollywood should tape in Hollywood.

That's the reason goods are terror, if not, you know, intellectual property usually, I mean, you know, how would you even do the tariff and all that? It's silly if anyone cares and it's like worth getting into it, you say, was it so idiotic? It's a huge net plus for us, needless to say, films and movies and associated TV, TV shows. It's like we export them to the rest of the world as one knows if one ever travels and finds all these people who've watched all these American things.

And everyone else is offering incentives to film stuff elsewhere to catch up with us. But even there, those incentives end up helping, American actors and American camera, camera man and so forth. I mean, it's not worth getting into as I said, but it's utterly insane. Yeah, I said, but it's, it is, it's utterly insane. Yeah.

Yeah. I do like how it's like the other countries are offering incentives. And so we're going to tear up. We're not for tariffs. It's like, I don't know if you understand really how incentives work, but you did bankrupt a casino, so that makes sense. Y'all parents know the hustle is real with work, kids, errands, and everything in between, there's rarely time to slow down, let alone figure out a 10-step skincare routine.

But no matter how busy life gets, your skin still deserves more than just the basics. That's why I've been using today's sponsor, OneSkin. Their products are true multitaskers. They hydrate, protect, and support your skin's long-term health. And it's all thanks to their OS-1 peptide at target cells that accelerate the visible signs of aging like wrinkles thinning skin and a dry dull complexion. OneSkin supports the skin at a deeper level so even if you run it on fumes your skin can get what it needs. You can try their cleanser, moisturizer, sunscreens or their new peptide scalp serum and get 15% off with

code BULLWORK Oneskin.co. For parents who do it all now, there's a skincare routine that does it all. More mentioned in parents because we're coming up on Mother's Day and Father's Day. And you know, Mother's Day is first, Mother's Day is right around the corner. My mom's birthday and Mother's Day are like always like a couple of days for each other, which feels like a burden for me. I know, I know everybody feels really bad about me, but having to do two gifts at once, you know, it's a challenge. And my mother is pretty well suited when it comes to moisturizing creams, as you might

imagine. But maybe your mother isn't. Moms are different. And I guarantee you, your dad's different. So if you've got a father out there, Father's Day in the future, you can check that off while you figure out your Mother's Day Day in the future, you can check that off while you figure out your Mother's Day plans. Either way, send them a little bit of moisturizing cream. The straight dads, they need it. Some of the moms, they're going to enjoy trying something different. Even if they do already have moisturizers, who doesn't like a bunch of different ones

to try? Try it out. Try out the one with the OS1 peptide. You should do it. OneSkin was founded in 2016 by an all-woman team of scientists with PhDs in skin regeneration, stem cell biology, immunology, and bioinformatics. OneSkin's entire R&D process is run in-house, strictly adhering to the rigor of the scientific process from start to finish. We still do science in this country. OneSkin is the world's first skin longevity company by focusing on cellular

aspects of aging. OneSkin keeps your skin looking and acting younger for longer. For a limited time, you can try Oneskin with 15% off using code BULLWORK at Oneskin.co. That's 15% off Oneskin.co with code BULLWORK. After you purchase, they'll ask you where you heard about them. Please support our show and tell them we sent you. Give your skin the scientifically proven gentle care it deserves with one skin. Our old friend Carl Rove was on Fox last night. And I got to tell you, Turd Blossom was cooking.

He was cooking on Fox News last night so much that I need to play a highlight reel. Let's listen. Tweeting out a picture of you as the pope is deeply offensive to a great many people. Going out there and saying, for example, this guy from Maryland, I don't know whether he's a good guy or a bad guy. I don't know if he's a gang member or not. But the fact is, is bring him back to the United States, lay out the facts in a court of law and get it done. I thought it was really problematic when he said, well, you know what? The kids, those little girls at Christmas, they don't need $30. They can do it too. And if they have to pay a couple more bucks for them, you know, okay, well, it sounds

like Mr. Scrooge. And the ordinary American is like, wait a minute, I thought you were on my side. The president is saying gas is $1.90. I just filled up my tank. It ain't $1.90. And we do not have it have inflation tap down to 2%. And we're going to and we were on the risk of having to jump up at least in a one time way if these tariffs are put in place. Welcome to the resistance, Karl Rove. I've tried to get him on the board podcast.

He's welcome anytime. Doors open, Karl. You're sounding familiar. I don't know, Bill. What do you think? I mean, Karl's pretty careful to try to stay in the center of the party and well plugged in with everyone he wants to be plugged in with. So I'd say, what do you think is, where would we characterize it with being most of the Trump years?

Trump adjacent, acquiescent, excusing of Trump in the normie camp that's willing to vote for Trump and defend Trump, the John Thune camp, let's call it. Yeah, I actually don't know if he voted for Trump. Yeah, well maybe he didn't. Maybe even a little closer to the Paul Ryan version. Okay, he certainly never said he didn't. I don't believe he ever said he didn't though,

and he certainly didn't, wasn't there at those Republicans for Harris events, you know. But anyway, I'll just pay Karl the respect of saying, so we say what he believes here and he's thought about it. But I also believe it must show the people he's talking to, the Karl Rove circles are edging away from some aspects of Trump. Yeah, no, the Tom Tillis's of the world, I mean, like, because this is like when Karl

and I were on a panel together a couple months ago, we were kind of arguing, the Tom Tillis's of the world. Because this is like when Carl and I were on a panel together a couple months ago, we were kind of arguing about the Tom Tillis's, right? You could tell like that is really where he's trying to, like where he is positioning himself. It's the senators he still talks to and it's the ones that I think he genuinely thinks like, want what he thinks ideologically for the country would be the best, you know, policies, et cetera. he thinks ideologically for the country would be the best, you know, policies, etc. But it's just like, these guys have to act way more Trumpy than they really are, right? And so I do think that like him speaking out is maybe, maybe a signal that that is where

that all those guys heads are at, and we're trying to nudge. Maybe Carl's just fucking annoyed and done with it. I don't know, who knows who needs to psychoanalyze, but it's not really a great sign that you know you're three months in and you're at Fox primetime you got that's Trey Gowdy with with Carl. And they're just like running down the list of all of you know Trump's obvious mistakes. And it's pretty blunt, you know, and it doesn't sound hair on fire. It's not like besides the Pope situation, it's not really obsessing over like random tweets. Like it's like here are the fundamentals of the politics and policy that you're screwing up right now. So anyway, Carl, we'll keep an eye on it. We'll see it. I'll show you.

He should come on your bike. I can't believe he hasn't been on the podcast. Come on, Carl. Water's warm. It can't be. I'm not, I don't buy it. I'll email him and tell him not to come out. Then I'll come on. Okay. Mostly don't mean either. Come on, Carl. Water's warm. It can't be. I don't bite. I'll email him and tell him not to come out.

Then okay. I mostly don't bite. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. I'm a therapy man. I was just doing a little therapy talk, a little midlife crisis therapy talk with one of my buddies over the weekend who was in town for Jazz Fest. And I've been on a break for my therapist, but he was considering whether it's something he should look into.

And I was just discussing all of the value that I got out of it and the way in which, you know, as a patient, you want to ensure that you're getting therapy that serves you and getting therapy that serves you and you know getting therapy that serves your needs is something that is useful for you and you know there are ways to do that it can be a little intimidating but there are ways to do that and one of the ways is by using our new sponsor BetterHelp. Mental health awareness is growing but there's still progress to be made. 26% of Americans who participated in a recent survey say they've avoided seeking mental health

support due to fear of judgment. When people hesitate to get help, it doesn't just affect them. It impacts families, workplaces, and entire communities. BetterHelp has over 10 years of experience matching people with the right therapists from their diverse network of more than 30,000 licensed therapists with a wide range of specialties. BetterHelp is fully online, making therapy affordable and convenient. Convenient is important. Serving over 5 million people worldwide. We are all better with help.

Visit betterhelp.com slash The Bullwork to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash The Bullwork. I want to go back to your comment earlier because I didn't want to get lost on Stephen Miller as national security advisor. Let's think about that in the context of I'm breaking a rule, trigger warning, Trump's voice is coming.

Very briefly, I want to play Trump talking to Kristen Welker about the situation the Russia-Ukraine war. Are you any closer to reaching a peace agreement between Ukraine and Russia? I hope so. How would you pair closer to reaching a peace agreement between Ukraine and Russia? I hope so How would you believe we're? closer with one party and maybe not as close with the other but We'll have to say I'd like to not say which one we're closer to but we did do a deal for the American people That was good. We were able to get rare earth, you know, the Europeans are getting paid back They have a loan we didn't Biden just gave him $350 billion, he has no idea where the money is, what happened.

And at least we'll, in one form or another, get our, I don't feel so foolish. Boy, let's just dissect that a little bit. So we do have a deal with Ukraine where we are taking a ransom back for helping them. So we've got that done, the rare earth. We've got our bounty. But we're trying to do a peace deal. This is one of the parties, it's a secret, which is not playing ball as much. It sure seems like he's talking about Russia there, right? Because he just did the deal with Ukraine, but he can't criticize Putin, never, never can criticize

Putin as the junior partner in the relationship. And it doesn't seem like there's really any evidence there that like, because Putin isn't going along with the PCO, that's going to change his attitude towards Ukraine. Cause he goes on to continue insulting Ukraine and talking about how we wasted money there. So I tie that into the Stephen Miller as national security advisor and Mike Waltz, whatever you think of him as a quasi traditional Republican being pushed out over to the UN and it's like, I don't see much hope here. Like, right.

I like, I basically analyze that Trump is pivoting more towards the nationalists and that he's annoyed that, you know, his buddy Putin isn't doing what he wished, but like, that's not going to actually change the policy towards being tougher against Russia. Do you interpret it any differently than that? No, I very much agree with that. This deal he's done with Ukraine, I don't really understand it. I mean, there's no money right now.

We have rights for the future. That may be okay or not. It's obviously done under huge pressure of the Ukrainians. It's also not clear that we'll exercise those rights or we won't forgive them later on or they will you know And the next president may not want to the president of a country that's taking advantage of Ukraine when it most needed help No, but I am NOT optimistic about Trump helping Ukraine, which I think is the key. The key is is there gonna be aid for Ukraine this fiscal year? That's the question. And secondly, will we continue what we're doing a little bit behind the scenes, some of the intelligence sharing and other stuff? The second, I can't

judge. Maybe Trump doesn't focus on it and there are decent people in the intelligence community and the defense department keep on doing it and Hexeth doesn't stop it. Maybe, maybe. But really, is there going to be aid? And that's something where the Republicans in Congress, all of whom still, some of whom still sound pro them still sound pro Ukraine need to actually act. There's going to be actually appropriation actual appropriations bills or an omnibus or a CR something. Congress is going to appropriate money at some point in the next four or five months and they're going to be a bunch of items in this appropriations bill for everything from

border security to obviously to Medicaid and everything else. And one of those items could be military support for Ukraine, or it could not be. I don't believe Trump would veto the bill over that. And if he did, you might be able to override it. So will the Tom Tillis's of the world and the Wickers of the world and the McCalls of the world and the Mike Turners, there's certainly plenty to get it done. Half the Republicans on the Hill voted for aid for Ukraine a year ago. If half of those half go for it, almost all the Democrats will be for it. It'll easily pass as an amendment to whatever appropriations bill is up.

So that's for me, that's the question. And will Trump really fight against it? Or maybe he will take kind of a hands off attitude. But I don't know. I think that with Vance and those people, unfortunately, I'm pessimistic. I'm pessimistic too. Maybe the intelligence sharing. It does seem like there's maybe some momentum for Trump's face save here is, you know, you put on some whatever, some more sanctions on Russia. Like how much more can we really do? We're already close to maxing that out, but there's some sort of Russia sanction element to it that makes it feel like we aren't abandoning Ukraine as we do, essentially.

It kind of feels like a most likely outcome to me. To the whole point, this was last week. I don't think we got a chance to talk about it. James Langford was on the Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer, you see this? And he was asked if he needs to reconsider the lockstep support for Trump's agenda. Langford, the senator from Oklahoma that had worked with Democrats on that immigration deal, has shown some openness to working with Democrats on deals, said, there's two ways to do checks and balances.

One is to do press conferences, and the other one is to go privately to people. You'll find a lot of Republicans go to administration officials behind the scenes. When nobody's looking, we're doing the right thing. I mean, that's a pretty discouraging posture from the type of person that you would need to do this. And I do think that Democrats, like a useful thing that Democratic senators could do that they felt a little bit shy about for whatever reason, interpersonal, other deals, is actually pressuring these guys to join them.

Or even you could do it cheekily and nicely, but just like, I would love to work with James Langford on this, right? But like do it in a way that forces them out of their bunker a little bit, to the extent that's possible. I don't know what you make of any of that. No, totally, totally agree.

One thing on the administration, certainly, like it's two months ago, three months ago when the German elections were happening, Elon Musk was wildly pro-AFD, the neo-Nazi party, or at least anti-anti-Nazi party, if you want to be nicer to them, but certainly elements of neo-Nazi types in there, and very right-wing, obviously, pro-Russian, pro-Putin party, and Vance was also explicitly. The others stayed out of it, as far as I can recall, pro-Putin party, and Vance was also explicitly. The others stayed out of it, as far as I can recall, in terms of they endorsed, I'm totally with the US Vice President endorsing the neo-Nazi party following Musk.

But I sort of thought, maybe that's Musk. Vance has his own hobby horse. We know that from the Signalgate text also. He hates the democratic European states, nations. But I was very struck this week that Vance reiterated his support of the AFD and Rubio Jumped on board. Did you see that? We'll be couldn't resist tweeting So I so he's now both Secretary of State and National Security Advisor and just to show that he's fully on board that he doesn't have a shred of decency or dignity left he

Retweets this praise it was Musk. guess, who originally praised it as centrist. A centrist party, you can't believe that they're, I think the German government had done something to investigate some terror links and foreign, I think, Putin links in the AFD and this being denounced as an attack on freedom in Germany. So Rubio joined in the attack. Your man Rubio has not really been a really a pillar of strength, I'm just going to say, you know. My man? I don't know. We'll have to go back to the 2015 archives to see who was on the

advisory committee. That was, what's that called when Trump does that all the time? Projection. Projection. Me projecting onto you. I'm happy you brought this up because the Rubio attack on Germany, on the German government was about how they're targeting the political foes here, AFD, with this investigation and how that is just totally unacceptable, authoritarianism, statism, European. And it's just like, meanwhile, it is Rubio, who is the point person on going after people in this country on fear on visas, you

know, and taking away their visas and deporting them and jailing them. I mean, some of them have been now detained, even though they're no danger for months. And there's the Mahmood Khalil, who they wouldn't even let out for the birth of his child, you know, which is like crazy. It's like this person is a murderer. I like whatever you think about his political views. That's insane. He's in a detention center and he can't go be with his wife and child when they're

born. That's Rubio doing that. Like that is our government directly targeting people for being opposed, I guess, politically to their to their position with regards to Israel. And so I like the whole thing is just like preposterous. Yeah. Rubio was doing that chest beating, right? I'm personally going after these lunatics who are coming to our country. And, but then, and what, and right.

It's co-signing an op-ed that was critical of Israel's policy in Gaza. That was the case, I think with that one woman and, uh, it toughs, you know, Oz Turk. Yeah. Just a few other items out here in the news worth mentioning. Enrique Tarja, former leader of the Proud Boys, got a chance to personally thank Trump on Saturday night for issuing the pardon that cut short his 22-year prison term that he was serving in connection with his organizational efforts around January 6th.

Tarja came with his mother, I guess. They got invited to Mar-a-Lago and got to go up to Trump and congratulate him, thank him. I'm just, again, I'm trying to think about like parallels where you have like basically, you know, kind of a rogue militia outfit that was acting in support of a political leader. The leader of that militia gets jailed for their violent efforts. The political leader then pardons him and then has a meeting with

him where they can congratulate each other. Again, it's like, it is something that would be happening in a Turkey or a Libya, right? Like this is not, what would even be a parallel to this in our country? I mean, probably in 1882, some southern governor pardoned, you know, a KKK leader who had killed, you know, newly freed black men in the South and then met with him, right? I mean, it's such an instance, but it's like that. It's horrifying. Sure.

I was talking about the radicalization, self-radicalization of Trump. You see it so clearly on the January 6th thing, where at least he knows on January 7th, he sort of has to pretend I didn't want the violence. Two, three years later, he's defending them, promising to pardon them. And then I come back that first day, we all screamed and yelled about it, but it sort of disappeared, obviously, with all these other things that have been happening. The pardon of all of them, the blanket pardon of all of the gender-6 people, and no, no ifs, ands, or buts, very indicative of where Trump's head was for this second term. And I do

think that was a case where some of the council, White House Council's office were saying, let's go through them. Maybe there's some of them, we should just have a little more limited clemency and stuff. And it was basically, I think Trump was quoted at the time as saying, let's go through them. Maybe there's some of them we should just have a little more limited clemency and stuff. And it was basically, I think Trump was quoted at the time as saying, let's just pull the bandaid off and let's do all of them. And you know what he probably thinks? I didn't pay any price for that. That hasn't come up a heck of a lot. And now let's see if he pays the price.

He won't pay any price for this meeting, I suppose, down at Morillago with this Pratt Boys guy who was one of the main organizers. And the other point going forward, though, that is more serious is again, the signal this is sending for the possibilities of vigilanteism on behalf of Trump, on behalf of his policies, on behalf of those against those he hates and helping those he is the KKK analogy, helping those he wouldn't mind having intimidate some of his enemies. And again, in the run up to 2026, but especially the 2028 election, I think that part Trump has a certain lizard brain cunning about why he,

some people might say you shouldn't be seen with this guy. And Trump in the back of his mind kind of knows, you know what, I may need these guys at different moments if they really is a serious opposition to some of the stuff I'm trying to do. Yeah, and we're also on that point, because the government has reached a settlement with Ashley Babbitt, who was killed that day, who's trying to storm through the windows in the Capitol.

So there's not even just a pardon, but we're now paying out the people that were targeting the Capitol. I wonder if that will continue as well with other folks as they have lawsuits against the government, et cetera. I wanted to go to the other side of the aisle real quick. Jonathan Cohn has a piece out. He's our newest policy man who's living in Michigan.

So you kind of did a deep dive on Whitmer, kind of the context around, you know, her meeting with Trump and the event that they had in Michigan, or they got the news, or the squadron was not canceled that existed in the state. And, you know, I don't know. We got to talk about this quite a bit on the next level. So I don't really need to belabor the point. But I guess I'm curious what you made of, you know, sort of the context around what happened with Whitmer and what you think a good posture should be for Dem governors right now. Yeah, I discussed it with Jonathan a little on the podcast I did yesterday,

the Sunday Will Work, and it was mostly about RFK Jr. who's very bad. And I actually learned a lot about how dangerous and damaging Trump administration health policies are. But Jonathan knows a ton about that, but he did write the 16 piece about Whitmer. He was being fair and balanced as we used to say in Fox days. I'm a little unsympathetic to Whitmer. I mean,

You're unfair and unbalanced. Yeah. I've always been more in the unfair and unbalanced side. And, uh, I don't know. I admire Janet Mills telling Trump's Augusta that they'll see, you know, he'll see her in court if he tries to pull Maine's federal money, federal education money, because they don't like Maine state laws on transgender youth. And I think maybe if I read that the administration sort of gave into Maine a little bit on that.

So maybe the maybe confrontation doesn't always fail. Again, look, they're governors. I'm too fair. They have real citizens, real constituents. They can't simply pick fights. Well, they could, but they probably don't think it's wise. I don't begrudge them that. It's a little different from the law firms.

They're watching out for their own profits, frankly, right? Or maybe if you want to be nice, their clients. But they're not watching out for the public interest. You know, she is watching out for the public interest in Michigan, at least in part. But I still think, I don't know, I'm still more on the Janet Mills side. What about you? Yeah, no, it's a massive thumbs down for me. I don't, and I don't even really actually buy the argument that she needed to do this to protect the squad or not. Who knows? I guess there's this all counterfactual, but like you couldn't send the

Lieutenant governor, you know, like you couldn't, you could sell me on the fact that in the midst of this kind of inflection point, it did not make sense for her to go full JB Pritzker and start like poking her finger in his eye. And maybe it made sense to not do that for six weeks or two months or whatever. And nobody would have noticed frankly, so nobody would have talked about it. And, but to go welcome him on the tarmac, have a hug, like the whole thing is just sick to me. And I go back to JBL wrote a pretty provocative piece as he is meant to, as he's known to sometimes. I think it was right after the election, I believe.

And he wrote that the Dems needed their own DeSantis. Like the Dems need a governor that will like really just be an aggressive opponent to the president and do things to troll them and kind of reject, you know, the policies that are put in place and really go to the mat at every possible opportunity to argue and counterbalance towards what was happening out of Washington since Demps had no power in Washington. I had thought that that was basically right. I think that the courts are going to be protecting the states. this is one area where the Supreme Court is going to probably, would probably be pretty sympathetic, you know, despite their lean to kind of a federalist style argument

since that's where all of the, you know, six, you know, majority Republican judges come out of that, you know, sort of background, that schooling. So I don't know. I think that's the right thing to do. Pritzker's kind of doing it. I don't really see anybody doing it with with as great effect as DeSantis did. Now it didn't pay off for DeSantis in the end, obviously, but I do think there is something to be said for more aggressive confrontation from the states.

I think a lot of the concerns about the Trump targeting the states has been a lot of empty threats and we'll see what actually happens. Yeah, it's mixed up with the whole question of should the Democrats be more centrist? Should they be more outspoken? And they can't get melded together, right? Nice being nice to Trump sort of equals reaching out to Trump voters, which sort of equals not being too lefty on a bunch of issues. And I think there's a lot of these are not really it's a false conflation of all these things, but I get the impression that that's paralyzing some of these are not really, it's a false conflation of all these things, but I get the impression that that's paralyzing some of these governments.

I mean, I was thinking about just as you said, so Westmore, whom you've had on the show and whom I think you and I both respect and like. Yeah. I mean, Van Hollen went to, I guess maybe it was appropriate. He's the federal officer, the senator. He's the one who flew to El Salvador. But of course, Westmore is actually the governor of that state, right? I mean, in which Mr. Garcia was resident.

So maybe he could have done a little more. But there's a lot of triangulation going on. And mostly, the main thing is he said, A, I'm sort of against it anyway, and B, it doesn't matter. It's not going to work. No one's going to remember you three years from now when you're running for president in 2028 for what you said in 2025. And honestly, just as a matter of real civic duty, Trump has to be taken on with all these

things. And I do think it sends a bad signal to people who aren't certain whether, and I don't want to blame Gretchen Whitmer for this exactly, but if you're a business type who's wondering should I risk a little bit with my shareholders or employees by taking on Trump if you're a law firm, if the political leadership of the opposition party won't do it. It's bad when the political leadership of his own party won't do it. We're already paying a huge price.

If the political leadership of the opposition party won't do it, then I think if you're a CEO in the Midwest, if you're a CEO in Michigan, auto company, auto parts, you think, God, I mean, Whitmer's not taking them out. I'm not going to. So I do think it does some damage. Don't you think? I totally agree going to. So I do think that it does some damage. Don't you think? I totally agree with that. And I couldn't agree more also with the hubris

of like thinking that the exact wording of your op-ed is gonna resonate three years from now. And this is just like total political consultant brain. People that are not listening to podcasts like this do not even know what was in Gretchen Whitmer's speech. Like frankly, the hugging of Trump is much riskier than like going, you know, fighting for Kilmer, Abrego Garcia. I, you know, like sure there is there something you could do in 2025 that

could harm you in 2028, like, you know, saying that you're for, you know, the abolishment of the prison state or whatever, like that you want to replace all the police officers with nice people with batons that do, you know, mental health services. Like, yeah, sure, you can take like positions that are so insane that like somebody could remember it, but like anything within the 30s, you know, people just are not paying that close of attention to you right now, except for insiders. And so do the right thing and argue passionately for the right thing and see what influence you can have. I think that that's obvious and

there's way too much overthinking of it. But in close with a little bit of good news, I don't want to pretend to be an expert on this, but it happened. Australia's Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, is from the Labour Party down there, the centre-left party, secured a second term. It was a very kind of similar path to Canada. They have blessedly short elections there. It was a five-week election, but so it happened kind of right in the shadow of the Liberation Day. And in Australia, they thought that the Conservative Party was going to potentially win or do much better. It ended up going the other direction. The conservative party is called the liberal party down there. So the liberal party leader Dutton lost his seat. Just like Pierre Poliov lost his seat, the conservative party leader in Canada.

So it is pretty noteworthy and not doing us a lot of good, but intriguing that Donald Trump is tanking the political prospects of conservative leaders across the Anglosphere. God knows I don't know extra in Australia. I've been a couple of times. I do their TV and radio stuff occasionally. I know some of them when we're not going to weekly standard, I was like, it's a vague connection to Australia. So I'm still on their list or something.

And I am always struck how much they know about how closely they follow American politics. I mean, that's generally the case around the world. We are, you know, we don't follow's politics, and I don't much either. I'm embarrassed to say I should, but we are a very big country, big player in their world. And so people will say, well, they're kidding. Canada is one thing. It's right across the border with Australia. Were they paying attention?

They were. But when Trump launches the tariffs and does other things that call into question his commitment to our traditional alliances, and Australia is a close ally and Australia has paid a price for sticking with us and being anti-China because they are much closer to China and they've, their trade with China has suffered some and they're always being bullied and badgered by China, et cetera. They follow this and I do think therefore it is sort of interesting and it's encouraging that Australia wants to do the right thing

and that other Australian people want to stand up for, you know, against countries like China and stand up against authoritarianism. It's, I don't know if it's encouraging for us and it's encouraging for the world if these other allies can sort of fend for a while without us being on side, on their side. I still worry that that's an awful lot to ask

of the Australians and Canada's of the world for them to hang tough when we're going in the right direction. It is a lot to ask, but it is encouraging that they're doing it. It's interesting. I forget, I was like, there's a Dem economist, it might've been on one of your conversations, it might've been Furman or Summers,

but I forget where I heard it, but one of the prominent Dem economists was saying, there's a way that you could in theory do a trade war with China, right? That I could be more, more effective, but like the ante of that is getting the Australians on board and the Canadians on board and the jet, right. And, and like, yeah, and Europe, right. And super close.

That's what the TPP was supposed to be, which they all walked away from in 2015, but 16, you tighten the alliance and then they are willing to say, okay, we're all really tight. We're all trading. We're all defending each other. We can afford to join you in standing up a little more to China. We've done the opposite, of course. Yeah. Yeah, we've done the opposite. And that is noteworthy that this trade war is happening in the context with these other countries, our close allies feel so alienated, you know, that they are, our close allies feel so alienated, you know, that they are, that there is real political action in their country in negative response to what we're doing. I've been saying this about the Dallas Mavericks GM, Nico Harrison.

You got to fuck up really badly to have, you know, to do something, which in his case was trade, Luka Donchich, and then have people come to your office the next day with signs, like calling for your head. Like you've had a bad day at the office if you make a decision and the next day people come and call you head. And that's like really Trump. Like you've got to do a really bad job of

presidenting and of working with our allies to have two countries, like their political dynamics totally shift and reject the party that would be your ostensible ally. Like just because of how negative and aggressive your actions have been. Like it can't just be like a little bad. It's good. You got to really fuck it up for that to happen.

So anyway, kudos to the Aussies. A little less good news in the UK when we're looking at our Anglophile allies, Farage, we've been seeing the reform. The Brexit guys have been doing better in the local elections there. So I don't know. We'll monitor that. Bill, do you have any other final topics for us? Anything else that struck you over the weekend?

Connors from Australia to Stephen Miller, to all over the waterfront. But now, absolutely. Why would Trump be doing this foolish stuff? I mean, either he wants to do it because he wants to be on Putin's side and G's side and not on the democratic allies in Europe and the democratic allies in Asia's side, I think that's partly true. And, or it's all gone to his head so much, as we were saying at the beginning of our conversation today, that he thinks he can do anything and kind of not pay attention to normal rules of geopolitics or other countries

interests and so forth. And I guess those two would go together, I guess, in a way, right? I do think we have a little bit from column A and a little bit from column B. All right, Bill Kristol, we'll see you back here next week. And everybody else, check us out tomorrow. Peace. next week and everybody else check us out tomorrow peace It comes on the same again with the same old bag of beans Throw the cheese on the radio, we got some hungry mouths to feed Going back to Alcatraz Stand back down on the highway,

Four hundred and one ways to go. Solid ten is so confined, To the legend of Geronimo I know how to bring the rain, I used to dance for ABC All the breakdowns in the road are preventing the stupid train Back home on Alcatraz The Bulldog Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with Audio Engineering and Editing by Jason Brown.