The Bulwark Podcast - Sam Stein: This Is the Country They Want

Episode Date: July 3, 2025

Republicans are creating, and celebrating, an immigration police state financed by their megabill. Our cities will be militarized, we'll have prison camps, more masked agents, and more dehumanization���like their sicko alligator hats. And the motivation all seems to be so Trump has a win and the Dems don't. But this is Stephen Miller's administration now. Expect net zero migration, less tourism, less international business, and a lower GDP. As we head into Independence Day, it's hard to see the Jeffersonian aspirational promise of America right now. Plus, the administration's freeze on some air defense weapons to Ukraine, how a younger Sam used to think about Bill Kristol, and Candace Owens's potential influence on geopolitical affairs.  Sam Stein joins Tim Miller for the holiday weekend pod. show notes This week's TNL Adrian on how deportations are impacting the Latin music industry Will Sommer's new piece that Sam referenced Thomas Jefferson's letter to Roger Weightman Tim's playlist Tim's July 4th playlist Food relief organizations to support, mentioned in the Nick Kristof interview Helen Keller International Edesia Nutrition in Rhode Island Mana Nutrition in Georgia

Kingston Buskers Rendezvous is back! Starting July 10th, come to Downtown Kingston for this crowd-wowing festival and enjoy four days of jugglers, musicians, acrobats, comedians and more. Talented performers from all over the world can't wait to entertain you all weekend long. It all starts on Thursday July 10th with performances right in the heart of Downtown Kingston. And don't miss Buskers After Dark, the Friday Night Fire Show. For more information, go to downtownkingston.ca. Hello and welcome to the Bulldog Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. By the time you all hear this, I will be flying over the Atlantic with a wine and a novel.

So if you need one more hour with my dulcet tones in your ears before a one-week reprieve, head on over to the Next Level feed on your podcast. Have a choice because yesterday's show was an absolute banger, I do have to say. So make sure you catch the next level every Wednesday. One other programming note that's very sweet, I received a very grateful message from the folks at MANA, which is a food relief organization Nick Kristof recommended our listeners donate to on last Friday's episode. Apparently there was an outpouring of financial support following the show. So,

thanks so much to all of you. I really appreciate this community and we'll re-up. There were a couple of other organizations. Nick shouted out as well and we'll put those in the show notes of this podcast. You know what else we're going to put in the show notes of this podcast? A couple of playlists for you for the week. The Bullwork podcast playlist of all the outro songs that I play. It's like coming up on 10,000 followers, which is kind of crazy. And I also, speaking of bangers, my 4th of July playlist is really the best thing out there. So we'll give you those two things for you as well. As for this show, it's my favorite guest.

Pete Slauson Oh, stop. Pete Slauson But he had some summer vacation tech difficulties. Pete Slauson So, it's Sam Stein as an emergency substitute. It's my favorite guest. Oh, stop. But he had some summer vacation tech difficulties. So it's Sam Stein as an emergency substitute. What a treat. Managing editor of this year's Bullwork, how are you doing Sam Stein? I'm actually regretting doing this. It sounds like you are podcasting while also editing the Morning Shots newsletter by Bill

Crystal. And you said something interesting to me the other day about how younger Sam would have thought about being Bill Kristol's newsletter editor. And I just kind of wanted to explore that a little bit more. How are you processing that these days? How's that experience for you? Well, I didn't realize I was going on the couch at 7.30 AM. Oh, yeah. You are. It's interesting. Do you want the honest assessment or the, I want the, I want just full of this is the ethos of this podcast is radical candor.

It's been kind of out of body at times. Um, I literally, I do remember like 2006, 2007, Huffpost saying Bill Kristol is the devil. Bill Kristol is the devil. Like I cannot believe he did this to our country, got us into Iraq. And so things change, obviously. There's some overriding principles that have brought us together. And also it is, I will say this, God, I don't want to get in trouble for this, but he's a lovely man. He's just genuine. What'd you get in trouble for with that? The lefties online who still hold grudges.

Bill's a great guy. The truth about this stuff is also, and I discovered this a long time ago, but evermore so now, so much of what we do nowadays in communication is just online and bomb throwing and you never actually talk to the person. When you do actually talk to the person and get to know the person, realize they're a human being, it radically changes your perceptions of them for obvious reasons. And I used to do this thing and I'll shut up after this, but I used to

this thing, I don't do it anymore. Where someone on Twitter would like be harassing me and saying like horrible nasty things. And I would try to find their actual, these are like not, not like total bots, but like real people. Not like John pod Horowitz, but like actual people, like normal people. Uh, I would find their phone number and I would call them up and I would say, Hey, I just want to talk about like, why you think I'm the scum of the earth.

Like, can we, can we, can we like, Oh yeah, I would do it once a month. And I would just be like, you know, on this, in this tweet, I saw of yours, you like, call me like the dumbest human being since, you know, whatever. Like, can you explain why you feel that way? I just like do that. And like almost every single time with except few exceptions, person be like, ah, shit, man, I didn't mean that. I didn't realize you would see that.

And like, let me take that down. And I'll be like, no, no, keep it up. It's important. Like just keep it up. But like, let's talk about it. Did anybody say, fuck you, K-word? Oh, yeah, I got a lot. Well, I would try to avoid the anti-Semitic ones because those people are lost. But I would definitely have some people who'd be like, how the fuck did

you get my number? Like, don't ever call me again. But more often than not, it was people who realized that you're a human. Yeah. And Bill's kind of more than human though. He's kind of superhuman. Oh, Bill's amazing. Bill's the best. And, you know, would I like him to stick on topic for the newsletter every now and then? Yeah, of course. But you don't like his newsletters where he does imaginary voice of Donald Trump and he

writes a screenplay? Well, I may not appreciate the artistry of them. Our subscribers do because metric-wise, they're great. Do you see the same trajectory for you with like JD Vance? Do you think you'll be editing his newsletter in eight years or do you think there's kind of a red line on this? I'm happy to edit JD Vance if he wants the summits of the bulwark. I think it'd be an interesting thought experience. I am not. You'd addicted to this. Okay so you do this morning newsletter talks with the news so we'll start with the most important news of the day. Okay. So you're, you do this. This is the morning news when he talks about the news. So we'll start with the most important news of the day.

Did he was acquitted on racketeering and sex trafficking charges. People were smothering themselves with baby oil outside the courthouse. Yeah. Bill's actually writing on this one. He was there with the baby oil. Yeah. It's a first person. Is it doing a freak off?

Yeah. He said, what was the, what was the thing they're saying? It's not a, what was it? It was not Rico. It's freeco. freak off? Yeah. He said, what was the, what was the thing they're saying? It's not a, it's not Rico. It's freeco. Freeco. Yeah. It's not Rico.

It's Rico. So it's you, Andrew, Edgar and Bill kind of just rubbing each other's baby oil. Yeah. We haven't a, we're actually doing a YouTube component for this as well. So stay tuned. All right. I always said to miss that one in Madrid. Um, the actual news, uh, the big, whatever, uh, bill, it was late last night.

So that's why Sam was punchy. He was staying up to watch it. There were some Republican House members that were showing some spine. They were like, Mike Johnson, you cannot bully us. We are going to hold out on this vote for the rule to proceed. Very principled matter. Several of them didn't. One actually ended up doing it. I'll talk about him in a second. In the end, they did the same thing they always do. All of them ended up folding. That vote was like to pass it so they could vote on it.

And so the actual vote will be today on the substance of the bill, but it's done. It's a fait accompli at this point. So talk about what you make about that whole story. What's your top takeaway? I never thought they were going to hold out. I don't think you did either. I mean, it just seemed performative. It is kind of funny that the, the contortions that they make.

It was like right beforehand. They're like, we're going to vote for this, but not today. We just not, we need a day. We're not going to do it today. And then the speaker would be wise. My friend, Chip Roy, the goldfish was like, he had, he had narrowed his complaints to one thing and it was like, I had, he had narrowed his complaints to one thing. And it was like, I just don't think I can do it unless the green energy

subsidy program has a one year moratorium. It's like, that's really where you're going to hold the line on this bill of the chip. It seems like, it seems like you should just shut up and just vote for it at this point. What's funny to me is that they just continue to draw lines in the sand that they know they're just going to flagrantly violate like Don Bacon, 500 billion Medicaid cuts is my red line.

I know it wasn't you voted for a trillion. Oh, the one that killed me was, uh, it was David Valadeo, uh, in California who like three days ago was a tough one for me because he was one of the impeachers. I know. There are only two left. I know. Well, I mean, sorry, but like you can't put out a statement three days ago being like, I will never vote for the Senate version.

I'm a no. And then like three days later, be like, all right, I'm ready to ride. Yeah. It's like, I guess if I had a piece of advice, I would tell them or whoever's doing comms to them, like don't do red lines. You're going to cross them. You should know this by now. I was waiting for Victoria.

My favorite is Victoria Sparks. She's just the best. Ukrainian immigrant. People should Google her. Her voice is interesting if you don't know her. You're always going into the superficial and I want to stay elevated. I apologize. She always has like the most hilarious twists.

And, and, and last night it was like, I will not vote for the rule, but I will vote for final passage, which made no sense whatsoever. And then of course she ended up voting for the rule. These people are spineless, obviously, and they don't really have any principles other than we need to like get something done for Trump. I actually thought the most interesting tweet about this came from the Trump rapid response account when right before they were voting and they were like trying to get everyone ginned up about it.

And I think that I don't have in front of me, but the Twitter kin was like, let's go Republicans beat the like crooked Democrats. And it's like that sort of encapsulated everything for me, which is like nothing about the bill was like worth pitching in that moment for them. It wasn't like, hey, let's like extend the tax cuts or let's fund ICE. It's like we need to shove it in the face of crooked Democrats who have nothing to do with this at all. Like they're not involved.

You don't need their votes. But it's all about scoring victories and making Democrats look bad. And it's a horrible way to legislate. We can get into the more substantive matters because I was intrigued by this idea, the JD Vance stuff about minutiae and the fact that he seems to not be on board all the bill but loves the immigration stuff. Then of course, Elon Musk stuff where he hates the bill. I'm stealing chate here, but that is really interesting that the two tent poles

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promo code bulwark at checkout. The only way to get 20% off is to go to joindeleteMe.com slash Bullwork and enter code Bullwork at checkout. That's JoinDeleteMe.com slash Bullwork code Bullwork. I do want to get into substance too, but it was why we have people on the couch for a second. The insight in that Trump-Everestante's tweet was right. The other exchange on social media that I thought was very telling was a little tiff, it was more of a one-way tiff, because I don't know if Don cares, but between retiring Republican Congressman Don Bacon

and fellow podcast host John Favreau over the Medicaid situation. I miss this. Yeah, okay. So Don is like, also Brian Tyler Cohen, BTC of YouTube fame is also involved in this. BTC sends an initial tweet that basically just says, hey, this is Don Bacon. If he votes for the bill, X number of his constituents will lose access to healthcare. And then it's a picture of Don Bacon looking smug. So kind of an aggressive tweet, but not so bad. I mean, not so bad. I mean, it was substantive.

Don replies, some liberals hate work. What? Yeah. Then he kind of goes on, some liberals don't value work. He's like, this bill is gonna create work requirements for healthy adults. And like, Favreau kind of replies with some actual substance here about how, well, like,

that's about 3% of the people that are on Medicaid that who can work but aren't, you know, this bill is going to result in healthcare being lost for people that are not able-bodied, childless adults, which is who Don was trying to focus on. And less interesting than the kind of boring back and forth on the details for me was just that like, Don is a retiring congressman. He could do what everyone's. And you could imagine him being mad at the Senate for jamming him when he said he had a red line.

Like, you could imagine being mad, right? Like, he said he had a red line. He could be mad at his Senate colleagues. You could imagine him, you know, being mad at Trump that he has to retire because of how stupid politics has gotten. You can imagine him being mad at himself. Instead, he's going to lash out at liberals on Twitter. You're suggesting it's self-soothing, right?

It's self-soothing, right? Yeah. He needs to find a way to tell himself that what he did was right when he knows what he did was wrong. And yeah, I think that's the case for a lot of these people. But I also think like, I don't know, is our politics attracting these people who just don't give a shit about the actual principles of the legislation? And maybe I think that's a problem.

And I just found this whole process to be dumbfounding. I mean, it's so arbitrary, like what are we doing? Like why did we have to do this by July 4th? Yeah, they keep saying we have to do it because taxes are going to go up on people, like not until next year. No, that's not- We have half the year to figure something out.

It's crazy. I mean, if there was a deadline, it was about the debt ceiling, but that's in August and maybe September. They could have figured it out and they just decided, well, no, we have to do this. I don't think if you put like truth serum in them, I don't think that they would say this bill is good. I don't even think they would say this bill is better than the status quo.

I think a lot of them would say this bill like kind of screws things up in a way that is really obviously problematic. The best policy anecdote about how stupid this whole bill is, is what they did to SNAP. The food relief program, they created this insane incentive just to win over Murkowski's vote. They created this insane incentive where if you're a state who has a horrible error rate in administering this program, you actually get financial relief. You get the feds to cover the full SNAP benefits.

States are now going to say, okay, we're kind of at the cusp. Should we make our administration more efficient or should we just worsen it and hand out benefits to more people erroneously? They're incentivized to do the wrong thing. I just find that like, in what world would you want legislation passed that way? But it goes back to your point, which is they need to self-soothe and they need to say, well, it's great for Trump, it's great for Republicans, and I think mainly it's bad for Democrats that we get a win.

Like literally the only substantive, like I said, Dan Crenshaw, I make this point, others, argument about the merits of the bill being better than the status quo is that the tax cuts will expire. There'll be a massive tax increase. But again, like that is not like, so in their view, that's better than the status quo, but you could have just done that. You could have just stopped it. Right? Like there are plenty of other options.

There was one Republican, I mentioned this earlier, that did oppose this and did something that I've been asking Republicans to do for a while. So I want to at least mention it. It's Brian Fitzpatrick out of Pennsylvania. He wrote a letter earlier in the day that said he wanted to express his concerns with the letters to Trump with reporting that the US is withholding defense material already pledged to Ukraine. Among those bills was the Pack 3 Patriots that is protecting Ukraine from the missiles that they're getting bombarded with right now. And essentially says we need to resolve this if I'm going to vote for this bill. And me and Bill have been asking for this for a while. It's just like there are a lot of Republicans that wear

the Ukraine pin, but it's like, okay, well, why don't you use this for leverage the way that conservatives do for spending or whatever. Brian Fitzpatrick actually does it. And then he runs away and they can't find him. If that's like a video of him running through the basement, running through the tunnels of Congress. So I don't know, I would, I would have walked out with my chest puffed after doing that if I was Brian Fitzpatrick, but that's okay.

That's more of a style. No, no, I like it. Come find me, bitch. I'm in the coat closet. Turn's more of a style. No, no, I like it. I'm fine. Be bitch. I'm in the coat closet. Turn in my phone on silent DND. So anyway, that's good. But you know, it's just again, it's one guy and he only had two other guys to do it. They would have they could have killed it. It's crazy because there's so many things that these guys claim they want to like, you know, effectuate and that they need leverage for. And this is the one opportunity really that they have.

I don't really know what else they're going to do legislatively. And like they could have done, you know, who used leverage pretty well, Lisa Murkowski, she did. And like, it's hilarious to me that, I mean, I didn't like how she did it. And I thought it was kind of ridiculous the end sum, but like, it's kind of surprising that more people weren't like, you know what, let's band together. Five Ukraine supporters could have banded together and been like, we will not vote for this bill unless you put like those weapons back.

And Brian Fitzpatrick was the only one. You know, plenty of people with universities who are getting like stiffed by the federal government of research funds could have been like, we are not going to vote for this bill unless you turn the spigots back on. And they just basically handed all their leverage to Trump because what? They were, they're fearful of a primary or something. You probably risked a primary on this bill if you were like the one person that was the final. It's a collective action problem, right?

Yeah. But like David Valadeo in a top, who he mentioned earlier, the guy who's, he's in California. So it's a jungle primary. It's a top two. They tried to primary him for the right ever since he voted to impeach Trump. He could have survived voting against his bill. There are other people that could have survived. Well, he might still, as we record this, it's eight o'clock. We haven't really seen the final vote. He voted for the rule. You're generous.

You're generous. I'm sorry. Once you voted for the rule, it's over for me. You can't, you can't sell me on, well, I voted for the rule, but I voted against final passage, John Kerry. Okay. Whatever. We're not going to do that.

He was for it before he was against it. That doesn't count. All right. So you mentioned earlier the JD stuff. We talked about this early in the week, but it is worth just, just reminiscing on a little bit more since he's like double and triple down on it. He sends his tweet where it's like, everything else in this bill is immaterial. Did he say minutia or immaterial? Immaterial.

Okay. Yeah. Immaterial was one of the words. It might have been immaterial, minutia or immaterial? Immaterial. Okay. Yeah. Immaterial was one of the words. It might have been immaterial minutia. I don't have it in front of me. Immaterial except for the ICE funds. And the interesting thing here is he continued digging in on that and got into a Twitter war with Matt Iglesias on this topic.

Yeah, that was amazing. And this number comes out here from Ian Bremmer today, when you just kind of put in context how much the immigration funding is. Once this bill passes, the funding for ICE, our domestic police force now, immigration police force, is greater than the amount of funding for all, but like the top 10 militaries in the world. The ICE funding, the ICE budget at $37.5 billion is greater than Israel's defense budget at $30.5 billion.

Really? That's what's needed? And we did this on the next level a little bit as far as the, there's no judges, you know, we're not funding any judges, immigration judges. Right. So we're just going to fund these massive detention centers and more contractors to like wear masks and hassle people. Like that's, that's what we're doing. Yes, that's what we're doing. I mean, it's very obvious. It's, you know, it's very obvious that that's this, this is the country that they want. Right. I mean, That's the, this is the country that they want.

Right. I mean, I think in addition to JD Vance's tweet and TIF with the glaciers, which is just like, I don't know, maybe if I were vice president, I probably would not spend my time that way. But I thought the other thing was like Trump deciding like, you know what? All the shit's going down with this bill. I'm going to just hop on a plane and go to alligator Alcatraz and like check out this Everglades prison that we set up. And there's like, you know, they were like taking photo shoots and they brought

along Benny Johnson for some, you know, sizzle reel footage. And it was just like the celebration of the creation of a immigration police state is really remarkable. They get off on this stuff, they really do. And we're gonna have militarized huge portions of our, you know, cities I suspect, we're gonna have people in cages, we're gonna have mass deportation ramped up

from even where it is right now. And I take JD Vance very seriously, literally, not just figuratively or whatever the fuck the phrase is, when he says that this is the main thing in the bill for him. I really do think this is Stephen Miller's administration. I think they're totally focused on this stuff. They believe it. They think that throwing immigrants out of the country is going to unlock jobs. It's going to unlock the welfare state to make sure it's more stable.

It's going to give people more benefits because immigrants are draining our benefits, all this bullshit. I think they really do believe it. Yeah. It was a wild press conference. I'm not going to punish people with it, but Trump gave like a rambling three minute long, did you watch this, like answer to how long people are going to stay in these detention centers? And it's like, I mean, A, his mental acuity doesn't seem quite there.

But he's also just like kind of going on about how there's going to be a connection of camps. And I, to me, it seemed less, some people were sharing it as like how ominous this is that he like he wants to be able to stay indefinitely in internment camps. And that's, that is ominous. I like interpreted it as, as like, a like you said, he gets off on this stuff and he wasn't all there and he was like losing this train of thought and kept kind of rambling about it. But so he does that. And then Ron Desenctimonious, his spokesperson, you know, was kind of responding to the backlash to this, I noticed. And she was like, essentially, this is misinformation. We're not going to keep people here indefinitely an alligator,

Alcatraz. We're going to be sending them back to their home country immediately. And I just don't think that people who are not deeply involved in the immigration system can really process what that means and what that looks like, because they keep going back to this whole like, well, Obama deported a lot of people, Biden deported a lot of people. It is such a misnomer because those numbers are all people coming across the border and then going right back around. A, people aren't coming to the border right now. But if they were, they weren't being sent then to the Everglades to then be deported, right?

Like they're being kept on the border. So the people that are going to the fucking Everglades camp and all these other prison camps that they're going to start to build are people from the interior of the US. And their plan, I guess, is then to take the Cuban guy that died in their custody and instead of leaving him in alligator alcatraz, I guess their stated plan is that they're just going to send him without a judge or with some fake judge, fake militarized police just straight to some country as in Bennett for half a century. That is literally their plan.

Yeah, 100%. And I think you made a really important point, which is yes, deportations into Obama were high. They did it because one, I think Obama actually did believe in enforcement more than people recognize, but also two, they're trying to get by and for immigration reform from Republicans. And they thought that would get it to them. But also to your point, a lot of people cross the border, they're sent back, they turn around, they try to cross the border again, they get sent back.

That kind of juices the numbers. In this case. That's two. Yeah, that's two right there. Right? It's like repeat offenders. In this case, this is a lot of this isn't well, almost all of it now because we have no border crossings, it's interior enforcement.

I forget who I was talking to, maybe it was Edgar, but just the way the Overton window has shifted on this stuff. I mean, Trump 1.0 is famous for, you know, public recoiling at images of kids in cages, like that was the defining moment of when people turned on his immigration policy. Trump 2.0 is they are going down with paparazzi political paparazzi to show you the cages they've built with branded hats and shirts with branded hats and fun alligators and you know the dehumanization of it all is is it's sad honestly it's we've gotten to a really

dark place where we treat people like we're treating people now and I'm sure Trisha McLaughlin will say well they all have these every single one of them has a horrible record that we can't see yes I'm sure was like the Cuban guy that died. You know he had a drug arrest in 1984 in Miami Drugs in Miami in 1984 oh really breaking news. That's a shock to the system We should have been deported back then. No, it's crazy. They come up with, you didn't see his social media posts where he threw up a peace sign that looked like an MS-13 symbols. Come on, man.

Speaking of social media posts, I just got a text this morning from one of my friends who's I'm meeting on my holiday. And he said he's already talking to foreigners and about why they aren't coming to America. I could guess yeah right right but like the social media thing I don't know if it's really like sunk in with people like the degree to which like people that are coming in on travel visas now like they're being asked to look through their phones oh yeah like they're good I again it is it is like you're going to an authoritarian

state you know like when I land in Spain you know after the red is like you're going to an authoritarian state, you know, like when I land in Spain, you know, after the red eye, like, they're not going to be like, Hey, Tim, have you said anything mean about the Catalonian party? Like, you know, before you come in, are you a Basque separatist? Is there any memes about that? Like where you make Basque separatist leaders look like they have a fat face? It's like, no, that's not what's happening. But that is, it's a small thing.

Like when you combine it with the interior enforcement and with the fear, like it paints a picture that I just think things are going to look worse than a lot of people realize by next year. Oh, yeah. Also, I don't think it's that small thing. I think we'll see what the numbers end up showing, but just think about the downstream ripple effects even economically from this.

Less tourism, less international business. I mean, Adrian had a piece for us about the Latino music industry. The concert venues are just getting absolutely shredded because no one wants to show up at a Latino music industry, the concert venues are just getting absolutely shredded because no one wants to show up at a Latino music festival because they think ICE will come down and rate them. Right.

Legit. They don't want to do it. Artists aren't coming here because they can't get their visas satisfied. You might say, well, is that profoundly impactful? Yes. I would say, yeah. It's a profoundly... We are coming up, I'm going to end with some, you know, patriotic pains to the American spirit, to the American declaration.

Yeah. Like, even if it's not that big of a deal to you practically, whether or not you're going to have a big Bad Bunny concert here in the country, it like is extremely impactful about the spirit of the country and what the country is supposed to be about and whether you want to be able to live in a free country if there are people that decide they can't sing their songs here because they're race. Yeah. And then you think about, well, every music venue has vendors who need customers.

They have surrounding restaurants and shops that need clientele. I mean, just the ripple effects of it all. And then you get to like, well, the farming industry, the hotel industry, and I know he's trying to create carve-outs for them, but they're not showing up. They might not believe there's carve-outs yet. And that's just like the surface level stuff. I mean, think about it under the surface. And then you get into a place where the country is closed off, the economy kind of slows down,

and culturally we're so homogenous that we become less and less recognizable. I want to talk about the econ stuff because you mentioned it. Our man, friend of the pod, Stan Voiger, over at AEI was posting that the US will fall to net zero immigration or below this year as a result of everything we're talking about. And so what that means practically is that the country only needs to create 10 to 40,000 jobs per month to keep unemployment at 4.2%. So in one level, you're like, okay, well, unemployment won't be spiking like it was in the Great Recession.

That's good. On the other hand, this is a picture of a country that is stagnant. On one level, you're like, okay, well, unemployment won't be spiking like it was in the Great Recession. That's good. On the other hand, this is a picture of a country that is stagnant. You're slashing public sector jobs across the board, and we're not bringing any new people into the country, as is the great stagnation. I thought that's what Peter Thiel and Marc Andreessen were fighting against, but that's what we're doing. When you get to a place where you just don't have people coming to the country to do more

work, to pay into our social insurance programs, to pay taxes, even if they're not citizens, and they do this, they don't get the benefits, they pay into it, but also to be customers, to buy things, to generate economic growth. Sure, our unemployment rate is going to be fine because we're going to have a lot of open jobs and very few people, or fewer people I should say, able to fill them. So yeah, we'll have a fairly low unemployment rate. But you know, Joe Biden had a fairly low unemployment rate, right?

And inflation really sucked. And you know, I'm not saying we're going to have inflation here. But my point is, unemployment rate does not always mean, you know, good economic vibes. And I think we're going to be in a place where, you know, economic growth seems like it's going to be real close to stagnant. We'll see. Maybe these tax extending the tax cuts will help us. Hey, and it is true that they're doing the tax cuts.

Like I got a text yesterday from somebody who's on Medicaid that are like, how screwed am I? And it's like, well, these fuckers are extending the tax cuts and funding the private prisons immediately. Right. And they're cutting healthcare in a year and a half. So it takes time for all of this stuff to sort of seep through the entire economy.

Yeah, I wish I had the data in front of me. I think Cohen told me some stuff is going to get triggered earlier than that. But I think mostly the pain is coming down the pike past the midterms. The 2027 side of things. Yeah. And that's the Josh Hawley argument that this will never of our have happened. We'll fix it for 2027. We'll just give you your tax cuts, which I'm sure Ron Johnson is very excited about. We covered the Ukraine weapons thing. I just have one other thing on it. Like the story is kind of weird. I know you've been kind of deep in

BBB world, but have you been following this? Yeah. So what happened? The Cole, what's his name? Colby. Bridge Colby. Who is the guy? What a name.

Yeah. Who is the kind of JD Van't stand in, in the Pentagon. Kind of more of the nationalist America first, doesn't want to do stuff. I guess my theory of the case is like, was Rubio not like looped in on this? That's kind of what I want to know about. Cause I don't really understand how they could just, it seems like it just came out of nowhere. And the second thing is if you're Zelinsky, right?

Like you just cut this minerals deal with Trump. You've, you've literally conspicuously said, thank you. Every single time you meet with him, you tweet, thank you every time. Cause you know that that's what they demand. You had a fairly smashing success with the drones, but the Russians are still pounding you. There's not much more you can do to win over the favor of the administration. For a bureaucrat at the Pentagon to then suddenly decide, you know what, we're going to hold

these weapons, that's got to be incredibly deflating. Obviously, it's frightening too for the country. You know, I don't know. It's like the, it just seems like Trump just doesn't care for Ukraine. He just wants to get the Russians to a point of yes so that he can end the war. Yeah. So Keith Kellogg, this guy, the, uh, he was, uh, you know, at the, uh, NSC in the first Trump term.

He's Pence's old guy, right? Yeah. There's an advisor and, uh, he, and he currently serves as Trump's envoy for Ukraine. And he is pretty maga as far as the generals are concerned, but on the right side, from my perspective of the Ukraine, well, from just the accurate perspective, from the moral perspective, since they were since the moral perspective, uh, you know, since they were invaded, he's been good on the Ukraine issue. So he's Trump's special envoy to Ukraine.

So the stories out there, like you were mentioning about how the weapons aren't going there. Bridge, people are saying bridge Colby, you know, put a stop on, on these weapons being sent there, Kellogg's daughter, Megan mobs, who is at, you know, one of these foundations is like tweeting about how like this isn't true. This is fake news. Like this is people leaking stuff to try to advance an agenda. And there are other people out there saying that Trump didn't even know about this. That's what I was getting at. Like did they not the Ruby on a no, but strong, I know, but are they just like allowing this dude to just decide on a whim? Hey, we're not going to

do this anymore. Like, is there not a process here? Also, it is true. It's been confirmed by about 15 outlets. Yeah. It kind of seems like no is the answer and they're happy to have the, you know, fog of war element out there because it, I don't know, Trump seems totally schizophrenic on this. I know the popular thing on the resistance YouTube is to be like, Trump is Krasnoff and he's been a Russian asset since 1983 by the time when a Russian hooker peed on his face.

And I don't know, I don't, I would say there's not a zero percent chance of that, maybe 1%, that's possible. But to me, it seems more just like Trump is just like, Trump likes Putin because Putin sucks up to him, Putin helped him win, Putin's been on his side, but then he gets annoyed with Putin sometimes because he doesn't do exactly what he wants. And you know what I mean? He's like, he's a little bit, he has an instinctive tendency towards the strong man.

First of all, like he's been kind of schizophrenic on it. The rumor was that the hooker peed on the bed, not on his face. Let's not exaggerate. Okay. I thought the rumor was the hooker peed on the other hooker that has two hookers. They're peeing on each other. He was watching. I think they just peed on the bed this week. We got a pause. Why would they just pee on the bed? Clearly you've never been to a freak off, Sam. What would be the, what would be the sexual? I've been to my interest there. Just like she just pee on the bed. Clearly you've never been to a freak off Sam. What would be the, what would be the sexual interest there?

And just like, she just pee on the bed. Like it was a toilet, like just pop a squat on top of the pillow. I've been to my share of ditty parties. Do not question my credential. Some of it's okay. No, I think I, we're going to have to go back to the top CA. I'm pretty sure it would be one hooker peeing on another hooker. That would be the turn on.

I would think. See, this is why you should have had from on cause he could have, I don't think from would have gone down this path. What were we talking about? Oh, Trump is he, he's not, is he Russian asset? I don't know. He's not, I don't think so, but I think he does. I think he does.

I think he does like, uh, I think he's partial to Putin though. I mean, is that, isn't that very evident that he kind of appreciates it? I guess my point is like this part of the reason I guess I'm trying to say that like, he doesn't want to make the final decision that I'm abandoning Ukraine. He doesn't want to make any tough decisions. Right. Yeah. He wants it to be like, uh, you know, all of these little cuts and like slowly but surely the Ukrainian lose access to our weapons. But then he can like kind of say to people that he wants to like, oh, he was the first one to do it. What's the end game then for him? I don't like, I think he hopes that they that the Ukrainians just give Russia some land and we get our minerals and he

gets the Nobel Peace Prize. I think that's, I think that's the end game for him. I don't doubt that. He's obsessed with the Nobel Peace Prize. Like he's's I think that's the end gate for it. I don't doubt that he's obsessed with the Nobel Peace Prize Like he's totally weird. I thought he didn't like the elites. Well, no, he's the most obvious He so wants to be considered among the elites that I mean, it's such a driver of him He just feels like totally disrespected by that class that he needs to join it Speaking of Russian assets, I've got one piece of audio I do want to play for you. Okay. An interesting story.

Candice Ellwins, one of my competitors in the podcast space, she, we've talked about this, have you and I talked about this, her obsession with the fact that Brigitte Macron is a man? Oh my God. Yes, I'm obsessed with this, but you're also going to be stepping on Will Summer, who's got original reporting coming down the pike on this one. I'm not stepping on. I'm excited to hear the original reporting.

I don't want to give away too much. Candace, for listeners who are not, who have not really fully engaged or glazed over when I bring this up, Candace Owens isn't obsessed obsessed with the question of Brigitte McCrone being a man at the level of me being obsessed with the nuggets or something. She has done a full documentary on it. If you go to the YouTube page, it's about as likely that it's about this as any other issue. She has just totally embraced it as her cause celeb. And so she got, according to her, got a phone call from the president about this. I want to play the audio. President Donald J. Trump, he is calling me.

He tells me that Emmanuel Macron is requesting to his face, I stopped speaking about his wife. I said to him, you know, respectfully, Mr. President, it's not my fault that he married someone with a penis. Could that be real? I think it's real. I think it's real. I think Donald Trump called Candace Owens and was like, I need you to do me a solid

with Emmanuel Macron and stop talking about whether his wife is secretly trans. Again, I don't want to get ahead of our colleague. How can you not get out of the reporting? It's our show. When is it going to come out? When's the newsletter coming out? It's supposed to come out today. Great.

This podcast comes out at three o'clock. You're keeping a secret? No, no, no, no, no, no. Subscribe to the Bulwark, people. This is where you get the truth. Well, yeah, there's two things. So, Will has a newsletter today that's not the Candice Ho thing. He has a newsletter today that's not the Candace Owen thing. He has a newsletter today that is so ridiculous.

This one I'm fine teasing because it will be out, I think, by the time this podcast is out. His newsletter today is about this report that Cash Patel sent to Chuck Grassley about Chinese election interference in 2020. It's supposed to be this groundbreaking report and it turns out that the source of the stuff that the FBI was investigating back in 2020 also may have pushed the rumor that the Chinese had built a bunch of underground tunnels in America to spread the COVID virus and that the issue of passing around fake IDs was also an internet hoax that this person found.

So clearly not the bombshell, but Chuck Grassley ran with it anyway. That's his news. I say he, in addition to that has a story come out of this kin's own stuff. I will say this. It's, it's, I think based on what will has told me that it is likely true. That Trump called it. Do you think Trump thinks it's true?

I don't know what Trump thinks about her allegations. I do know that McCrone, according to what McCrone has publicly talked about this, where it's like this woman, this commenter needs to stop. And it's just so ridiculous. If ever there was a symbol of how far we've fallen, the fact that Candace Owens is fucking around with geopolitical affairs and like has the president, two presidents, two heads of state, like kind of needing to respond to her absurd anti-trans commentary is, I don't know, man, we're in trouble.

It's hard for me to also disentangle. So maybe this is what we'll look forward to in Will Summer's newsletter, which I won't read till July 14th, because I'm going on blackout. But like, her claim is that the peace in Ukraine was hinging on this in some way and that, and that Macron needed her to stop as part of, I don't know, maybe a negotiation with Putin. I like that you try to make some sense. That's what you're here for. Yeah. It's strange.

The white nationalist affinity for Candace is another thing that, I don't know, it's hard for me to wrap my head around. That one's easy to wrap around for me, but I won't. Oh yeah. The husband? No, I think that she's black. They like the fact that she kind of echoes what they say. Hmm.

Interesting. A, um, a friend once asked me if I'd rather my daughter grow up to be Candace Owens or a stripper. Oh my God. What would you, how would you, how would you feel that one? Would you rather your child grow up to be a conspiracy theorist, maga commentator, or a stripper. Uh, kind of a sex worker.

I can't believe someone asked you this. Um, it's weird. How drunk were you guys? Or how's it going? I don't know, probably both. Yeah. What are we supposed to chat about? It's a fucking, it's tough world out there.

Which one would you go with? I have a very serious close. What are the, what are the options? Your man. I'm a very serious close. What are the options here? Your child, your child. It's a stripper or a white nationalist podcast? Yeah, go to a white nationalist podcaster or like a stripper, like a Chippendales person. Yeah, because I have boys. Yeah, Chippendales.

I'm definitely Chippendale, obviously. Yeah, not even a close call. This person was outraged at me actually when they, and I made that suggestion. I didn't, it took me, it didn't even take me as long as you. I was like, are you f*****g kidding me? A stripper. Amazing. Great.

Great life. Whatever. I don't know. Maybe it's on your body. Have you seen a Nora? She seems awesome. Yeah. I'd way rather be a Nora's mom than Candace.

Um, well she really struck gold there. Nora went through some, some issues, but she, I don't want to spoil it for people. Great movie. Okay, we're going to close this in seriousness. Are you ready? This would have been better with David from but we're going to do it with you. The whole pod would have been better. That's okay. You pod with the guests that you have. It is the fourth. Whoa. Okay. Deep cut. This is the Fourth of July podcast. I have, as a former Republican, well, I guess, let me ask you this first.

Does the patriotism of the bulwark make you uncomfortable as part of your transition here? Why would that make me uncomfortable? The jingoism. The jingoism. We're not jingoistic. No. We're patriotic. I think we're-

We have some traits. I don't know. No, of course not jingoistic. No, we're patriotic. I think we're- We have some traits. I don't know. No, of course not. I love this country. Okay, I do too. So unfortunately during campaigns, I would read to the staffers from the letter from Thomas Jefferson to Roger Waitman

on the 50th anniversary of the declaration. You familiar with that letter? Fucking loser, no. It's fucking, it's really something. It's truly a banger. If you want, I mean, obviously, when you read it, you start to, you know, think about maybe the, the elements in which Thomas Jefferson did not live up to this message of the letter,

even still, it says a lot about what we're trying to be. So I'm going to read, read a part to you right now. And I would like to get your reaction. Are you ready? Okay. Do I need to get some tissues ready? If you want to, it's up to you. I mean, I've made several people cry on this podcast recently, so it could happen to you. He's talking about what the 4th of July should mean. I think he dies the next 4th of July. He says to Waittman, may it be to the world what I believe it will be, to some part sooner, to others later, but finally to all, the signal of arousing men to burst the chains under which monkish

ignorance and superstition had persuaded them to bind themselves and to assume the blessings and security of self-government. The mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred ready to ride them legitimately. These are the grounds of hope for others. For ourselves, let the annual return of this day forever refresh our recollection of these rights and an undiminished devotion to them." Do you feel like this 4th of July, we are going to forever refresh our recollection of the rights of the declaration? Do you see that spirit in the country right now, Samuel?

No. No, I don't. It's a difficult time to be in here. I don't want to be too negative about things, but I think you have to be realistic that we're in a bad spot. I guess the thing that really gets me is what we're doing to migrant communities.

And I just find that to be like not in the spirit of what that Jefferson letter represented. I don't want to be too like, I don't know what the word is, but I find the discourse in the way that we're conducting the like political conversations that we're having with each other to be really depressing too. I don't know if like that's historically if that's historically different than any other time. I'm sure we're not beating each other with canes.

I know that's always the thing that they say. But I do find people are just nasty to each other in a way that I find really unfortunate. And I think we basically have forgotten how to learn to talk to each other. It's pretty bad. Yeah. I just looked at this and I did a separate thing. People should go check out the blog, Takes Feed, if you want to really cry. I did a separate thing on the Kilmar-Bregard Garcia lawsuit where he makes a lot of allegations

about what happened in Sukkot to him. And who knows exactly what the truth is of it, but he paints an extremely bleak picture. And to me, when I think about the letter and the most distressing thing to me about all of it is no matter, like, there was something to be said for the fact that we were flawed, we fucked up, we did Abu Ghraib, we didn't let Jews in after World War II, Thomas Jefferson fathered a slave's kid. Like, right? Like, it was not that we were a perfect country, but like there was an aspiration that was like, we are going to try to do this, not just for us, but for people who want to come here and Jefferson's telling for people around the world, like that these are grounds for hope for others, that they can also be blessed with these rights.

blessed with these rights. And now, like the thing to me that is the most disheartening is that I, with Trump, they have dispensed even with the notion that we should aim for this, right? That it's like, actually, who gives a fuck if others have saddles on their back? And- It's a virtue to, it's a virtue to go after those people with Trump. Yeah. And it's a virtue and you're mocked actually. In his speech in the Middle East, you're mocked if you say that we want these rights for others. Not just like, oh, we don't want regime Jane Wars or whatever, but to even express the

view that the US should want and encourage people to have the rights and the blessings of the declaration is now something that is derided. To me, that is the sad part about this Fourth of July. That's a really interesting point. It's a really interesting point. To even think that way makes you either, you know, unrealistic or naive. Yeah.

And it's, you know, that is it kind of saps you of any sort of sense of idealism and, and it just reduces you to their level of cynicism. And that is actually pretty, pretty sad. I won't be reduced. I will be half a world away though. Um, on this 4th of July. Congrats. Um, thank you so much.

You guys survived the week without me. Do you think you can do it? Think you'll be okay? Will I be replaced when I come back? I think I'll live. Do you think you'll live? No. Will your life be better or worse without me next week, do you think, Sam?

I'll probably have to do more takes, but I think that's going to be okay. I'll be all right. I'm going to make it. All right. Do you have any vacations planned? No. August. God, I got to get out of town. I'm... You got to do it. All right. Do you have any vacations planned? No. August. God, I gotta get out of town. You gotta do it. All right. And I owe your wife one. So, you know, we'll cover for you. Thank you

for coming in this morning for an early call. I appreciate you very much. Everybody else, we'll be back here July 14th with Sam's favorite neoconservative, Bill Crystal, neoconservative Bill Kristol for Bill Kristol Mondays. And we'll see y'all then. Enjoy the break. Bye. I would like to leave this city. This old town don't smell too pretty. And I can feel the warning signs running around my mind.

And when I leave this island I book myself into a solo asylum Cause I can feel the warning signs running around my mind So here I go Still scratching around in the same old home My body feels young but my mind is very old So what do you say? You can't give me the dreams that are mine anyway

You're half the world away Half the world away Half the world away I've been lost, I've been found, but I don't feel bound And when I leave this planet You know I'd stay But I just can't stand it And I can feel the warning signs Running around my mind And if I could leave this spirit I'll find me a goal and I I live in an end I can feel the warning signs Running around my mind

Here I go I'm still scratching around in the same old hole My body feels young but my mind Is very old So what do you say? You can't give me the dreams of the man anyway Half the world away Half the world away

Half the world away, half the world away I've been lost, I've been found but I don't feel down No, I don't feel down, no, I don't feel down Don't feel down Don't feel down Don't feel down Don't feel down, don't feel down The The Bulldog Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.