The Bulwark Podcast - Sarah Longwell, JVL, and Martha Raddatz: Trump Is Looting Us in Broad Daylight

Episode Date: May 19, 2026

Donald Trump—as a private citizen—sued our government, which he runs, and then settled the lawsuit with $1.8 billion that he stole from the U.S. Treasury. See, he needs a secret fund of taxpayer money so he can pay not only reparations to his band of Jan 6 rioters, but also to incentivize future (election) criming on his behalf. In a special emergency TNL, Tim, Sarah, and JVL break it all down. Plus, Martha explains how Iran’s demands for money may be why Trump won’t officially end the war. And she discusses Zelensky's resiliency, along with her new book about the 9/11 generation that fought our wars. Martha Raddatz, Jonathan V. Last, and Sarah Longwell join Tim Miller.show notes Pre-order Martha's book, "The Hero Next Door: Stories of Patriotism and Purpose"  Monday's "Morning Shots"  Sarah's ‘Illegal News’ podcast; interview with Andrew Weissmann out Thursday  San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria and our own MAGA culture expert, Will Sommer, will join the gang on stage at Bulwark Live: San Diego this Wednesday. And on Thursday at Bulwark Live: LA our friends Jane Coaston, Jon Favreau, Erin Ryan from Crooked Media, The Ringer’s Van Lathan and progressive commentator Brian Tyler Cohen will join Sarah, Tim and Sam on stage. Grab your seats today at TheBulwark.com/EventsOne thing to pack, five ways to power! Get up to 40% off @Ridge during their Father’s Day Sale at ridge.com/THEBULWARK #Ridgepod

Hello and welcome to the Bullard podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. We have a double header for you today in segment two, Martha Radditz of ABC News will be with us. She's got a new book out. We're going to talk some foreign policy stuff. But I had too much rage to just have Martha on today. So we have an emergency segment A with the TNL gang because we don't have TNL this week. And we already did one emergency TNL, but we're doing a second one because we love each other.

And we have too much anger in our hearts to just, you know, go a full week. I finally feel like you see me. Yeah. So anyway, it's Sarah Longlaw and JVL. I wanted to talk in particular about the slush fund. Because I feel like each day I get more mad about it. And it's one of the things that it was so preposterous and ridiculous that I think that at some level I was blocking my heart and my blood pressure

from achieving the levels that they should have achieved. And I started thinking about it today. reading Andrew Eggers morning shots, which is very good. And I want to posit this. What he's done, basically, is a $1.8 billion package that is reparations for MAGA insurrectionists. That's what this is, our money, that they're taking. What are your reactions to that? Okay, so it's not just reparations.

This is the thing that I am really hung up on about this, but I agree with you. I get angrier about this by the minute. And I was angry. I was furious about it to start. This is the most corrupt thing we've ever seen a president to do. and all these people on the right right now, especially at the NRO, right, who are trying to tell us that somehow this is normal

or this, like we've seen other presidents do this, this isn't unprecedented. That is ridiculous. This is like the settlement with the Native Americans. It's ridiculous. How is this any different than the settlement with the Indians? The Deepwater Horizon stuff, you know. No.

And look, if you want to go deep on this, Andrew Weissman and I do it on illegal news and he has like a tremendous breakdown of this, so go listen to that. But here's the thing that's got me really torqued. One is to say that it's reparations is to say that it's backward looking, okay? But it's not just backward looking.

This is about not only paying people off, right? It's about incentivizing them for future payoffs as long as they do what Trump wants them to, right? Like, Trump is concocted by pardoning the January 6th insurrectionists and then giving them remuneration. He's also creating an incentive that says, you do bad things for me, you break the law for me. You know what I'll do for you? I'll pardon you and I'll pay you. pardon and payment. That's what he gives to people who break the law.

So that's what I'm freaked out about. So back in 2020, you guys may remember this. The president of the United States called up the Wayne County Board of Canvassers in Michigan. The board of canvassers are anonymous people who nobody has any idea who these people are. But he was like, you know, can you just don't certify the results in your county. That's all. You don't have to change anything. You just have to not sign your name.

Now, they, they sign their names and God blossom for that. Imagine how that phone call goes if he says, don't sign your name and you get a million dollars because I've got this secret fund. And by the way, its decisions are all in secret. Nobody can ever see that. So you don't even have to know. No accountability. This is the thing in anger's thing that I hadn't sunk in with me this morning.

It's like the money's out the door now. It's gone. Right. So there is no like legal opportunity for. clawing it back. It's like now this fund has the money and they get to disperses whoever they want and we don't know. There's no FOIA. There's no oversight. The single best

part of this is that the fund sunsets at the end of Trump's term. Like that's amazing to me. Right? So Comey can't use it. Letitia James can't use it for Trump weaponizing his administration against people.

It is only for people who say they were weaponized against Biden. I don't know if you saw this, but someone like Molly Hemingway, right, is out there like now, there's also all these people who are out there being like, yeah, I was done dirty by the Biden administration, right? They were all going to apply for money. And it's just a way to hand this stuff out to people they like, and particularly people who will carry their water and do their crimes. And, and it's a point of leverage over people once they have applied. Because once you have asked the Trump people to give you.

money, they can then say, well, let's see. Right? Let's see what you can do for me. You know, we're considering your application. Let's see what you can do for us for us, right? I mean, the levels of corruption here are off the fucking charts. Here, I'll give you another one. So also as part of this deal is that the IRS is never allowed to go after Donald Trump or his family members. Again, they are buying themselves. immunity going forward, which by the way, can we just say how much that doesn't track? Like, if the problem is that you had a contractor who leaked your tax returns, the idea that what you get as remuneration for that, first of all, the idea that it was 10 billion, the idea that it's

this $1.7 billion slash fund, none of that. But the idea that then also you get immunity from prosecution in business matters for the IRS in perpetuity, for the IRS, in perpetuity, for you and your family doesn't follow. Like, that's not a thing that you get. The level of corruption here is staggering and in plain sight. And I think that the silence on the part of Republicans and, like, go ask every Republican in Congress. Media, if you're listening, Manu, if you're listening, every member of Congress should be asked about this. And if they do, like, the John Thune, it's not my favorite. Don't love it. These guys should not be able to get away from this. This should be the kind of thing that makes people go berserk.

I know Sarah doesn't love doing fast math. So I'm going to do this for. 1.8 billion is 1,800 million. Yeah. So like you can find, they basically can go out and find 2,000 people and bribe them with a million dollars for 18,000 people and bribe them with $100,000. And like the type of leverage for bribes, like the scale of this is like really, really. kind of challenging to wrap your heads around. Like how much raw money it is.

So I think some people would say, it's no different because, you know, if Trump was going to bribe people, he could have done it out of his own pocket, right? That's not true because when you're bribing people out of your own pocket, that is illegal. That is fraud.

This is legalized fraud. So in the same way that his defamation suits against ABC and CBS were basically legalized bribery, right? It would have been illegal for him to come to them outside of a court of law and say, I demand that you pay me because otherwise I'll be mean to you. That's extortion. But if you do it under the cover of a lawsuit and then two of you sign a private contract, which says we will pay you, please be nice to us, that's perfectly legal.

And so that's what this fund does. it takes what otherwise might be illegal behavior and it blesses it under the law. He's an innovator. I keep saying this. The guy is an absolute innovator. These are things which nobody ever contemplated. No, and it's like, I was talking with Kathy Young about this. Like, we were tweeting at each other about it.

It's like, think about the outrage that there was at Kamala Harris when she posted the link on her social media feed to the bail fund for protesters. And I think it was Kenosha. I'm going from memory. I think it was Minneapolis, actually. And there was some outrage because, like, some of those protesters who access the bail fund had done, you know, some petty crime, right? Or, like, or maybe had broken into a building or something, which is not appropriate, right?

Well, what she had done was, like, just post, like, cases that go fund me, basically. So other people can go contribute to this. And, like, you know, a leader, a political leader shouldn't do that, you know, shouldn't be incentivizing, like, this type of behavior. Like, the other side of there's a lot of that money went to actual protesters who were, like, wrongly gone after. her by the government, but anyway, that's neither here or another. That's what she did. Like, this is as if Joe Biden had decided to take $1.8 billion of tax money and giving it to the Kenosha

rioters. And like, that's what that is what they're doing now. Like, they were outraged that there was just even a notion that other people could privately, like, raise GoFundMe for people who had been put in jail so they could have a defense fund. Like, this is a handout to riot. I want to emphasize the corrupt nature of the process by which we got to this. Because, again, it would be one thing for there to be a piece of legislation, for Congress to say, we need to have this fund. People in Congress vote on it. The president signs the bill into law. It would be another thing for the president to sign an executive order on this.

What happened here is that Donald Trump, as a private citizen, filed a lawsuit against. the government that he heads, and then while sitting on either side of the table, does a totally unaccountable settlement with himself in which he abrogates $1.8 billion of the government's money for his own purposes. Which is why it's completely unprecedented. And somebody should go tell the good folks over at NRO and some of these other places that in these other settlements, they were done. They were at least adjudicated by courts.

Like, whatever you think about them, there was like a process that was not the person sitting on both sides of the table. I mean, the grossest, I did mention this in the Friday pod, it's like, you know, there is the bad incentives for doing things in service of Trump and an attack on a democracy, which is really concerning. But there's also just a lot of these people are criminals. And it's just, this is like a classic conservative argument. Like thinking about NRA or Benjapiro or Benjapiro, like that you don't want to have

government policies that incentivizes bad behavior. And this is just a, you know, traditional conservative argument. We literally have evidence that they've done that. Like one of the rioters who was pardoned who thought this money was coming tried to bribe the kids that he was raping to shut up. Yeah, that's right. Like this is the thing. A whole bunch of these people that he pardoned went on to commit new terrible crimes, many of them sex crimes. And some of them sex crimes against children.

These are people who are going to get money from us. We are paying them off. The level of outrage, and this is why I do think as Republicans, it starts to sink in. we should make it sink in what is happening. And because this is just like the ballroom, this is our money. While people can't pay for gas, while people can't pay for groceries, they had doged away our ability to, what, immunize sick kids and continue to do NIH research. But we're going to pay out $1.8 billion to the January 6th rioters.

They tried to overturn an election. I have a question for you guys. I worry that this is hard to make a salient issue because, A, you have to explain it. It is slightly complicated. But B, after the initial hit on this is over, the whole thing is submerged in darkness. And nobody can ever see anything here. I hear your critique about the reparations branding, but this is why I like $1.8 billion for white reparations. For reparations for mega-insurrectionists, we can keep noodling on it.

I think that there's a way to explain it that is somewhat simple. But I hear you. I do think that Democrats are going to have to figure. out how to start telling a much bigger story. And this is one of those days where I just want Democrats to go grab a microphone. I want them to be in their Republican colleagues' faces saying, how can you let this happen? Because this is a story to know who's on the board. Who are the five judges on the board? Sure. But there's a story to tell here about corruption overall. Like the ballroom isn't hard for people to understand. And what you do is you create a big case. Navalny did this in Russia.

It was all about, and it's a contrast conversation. It is about all of the ways in which your tax dollars of being stolen by this administration, and then all of the ways in which Trump is not helping you, right? All the ways he's using taxpayer dollars for his own petty purposes, including helping the insurrectionists and not helping you, the person who is suffering under high gas prices for his war of choice and everything else. The ballroom is the other thing I wanted to talk to you guys about it. So why don't we go to that?

This is a real sentence from Jake Sherman at Punchbowl and like, nothing against Jake. He's just reporting the news. Like, this is just a deadpan sentence that is true. as far as how Republicans in the Senate are acting this year in this moment. The $1 billion for U.S. Secret Service for the ballroom is one of the most important things Republicans are dealing with right now. It's the single provision that's standing in the way of ICBP funding. Trump wants this on his desk by June 1, but it's been complicated by the $1 billion. I mean, this is like this is their top priority right now.

Trump was out there talking about it again today. They're going to have a drone launching pad on the ceiling of it they've added. now. There's a little press conference. He wants to fire the parliamentarian because the parliamentarian said that they can include this in reconciliation. It's also holding up the ICE and border patrol funding that they're trying to do, like amidst all the problems in the country, they're not hiding. This isn't in darkness. They're just like, no, this is what matters to Trump. This is his priority, the ballroom. I want them to do it. Oh, I want them to do it. So you can knock it down. Are you, yes. You want them to build it.

with our money so we can knock it down with our money. And I think it is important that they do use taxpayer money. I want them to use taxpayer money. Right. Forget hiding because, hey, it means there was more corruption with the $400 million in donations that joints, where are they, you know, but also then to knock it down. Are you guys with me on knocking down the ballroom? Yeah, you can knock down any of the stuff that he knows. Or we can rename it. Like, I'm open to a panoply of options. Got to destroy it. Can't rename it.

If you rename it, then Vice President J.D. Van RENERNANZ. What if you rename it, the George Floyd Honorary Ballroom? Now, anything you do short of destruction can be undone by a future administration. Okay. Well, do I have to fight about this right now? Talk about end of Rome stuff. We're to keep building and knocking down the ballroom over and over again. You know what?

Tell them we can do this all day. Pack a lunch. This is what I did with my three-year-old with Block. all the time. You build it up just so they could knock it down. So the prioritization parts does feel off. You know, feels a little. That's why I want them to do it.

But it's more important. I want Democrats to be able to run around the country saying they're spending all their time trying to pass a billion dollars to build his ballroom. And they are. That's right. But this is, but this is the story. The story is Donald Trump is looting us in broad daylight. You know what?

He's not shooting someone on Fifth Avenue. He's mugging the American people on Fifth Avenue. A thousand X. I mean, 10,000 X, the amount of looting that they're doing. I want to throw this. This is the last thing before I get to Martha. And just just felt like Chris Hayes is kind of a stand-in for JVL right now. And Chris Hayes is playing the JVL role on the next level. And so I just want to kind of insert him via absentia. Welcome, Chris.

He sent this tweet that I just, I was like, wow. Very rarely do you see a tweet that makes you go, hmm, maybe that maybe this is right. Chris, I'm starting to become convinced that Trump's monomaniacal obsession with the ballroom bunker is because he plans on barricading himself inside there when his term is up. Boom. I mean, is that the craziest thing that you ever say? I don't know. No.

I love this idea. If you want a nice bunker. Somebody else is now president and Trump just lives next door in the ballroom. And he like haunts it. He's over there ranting and throwing. catch up against the walls and blaring Fox News. And we all have to just tolerate him until he dies being over there. Well, Don Jr. is president.

And his dad doesn't leave. Jayville, it's kind of like how Benedict moved to the private quarters. That's right. He moved to the, the, the papal apartments maybe. Somebody. Trump did not like, it is important to remember. It's an important thing to say that I don't think I've mentioned in the ballroom discussion. Trump did not like.

the accommodations in the bunker when he was hiding from the George Freud protesters. He complained about that. He's been in a bunker. He's been in a bunker. He hid in the bunker. Yeah, he hid. He hid during the Black Lives Matter protests like a little bitch. And when he was down there, he was like,

you know, not enough gold for him. The marble is all wrong. You know, it smelled a little dank. And so I do think he's looking for a better place to hide, maybe. I don't think that's crazy. I mean, I think it's a contingency plan. As a contingency plan, he wants to make sure if he's got to hide again because he has experience

hiding. He knows that hiding is possible that he wants it to be nice. No? I know the other people who listen to this and say like, oh, you're crazy. Here's my question. If Trump was planning on staying beyond the conclusion of a second term, what would he be doing differently? The answer is not much.

Right? He basically would be doing the same sort of stuff he's doing that. He might be trying to be more popular. He might be trying to govern in such a way that he wasn't at, you know, 35%. I got to try it about that today. I'll let you guys go hunt and what a team. I do love this theory, though, because it's sort of like the way all my friends right now, right? We're of a certain age where many of our parents are aging and everybody's building ADUs for their parents are like little houses behind their houses. Trump's building himself in ADU.

I love the idea of somebody. There's building Trump a little anti-house to go to go live in. All right. Thanks, guys. Bonus next level. At the top of the Bullwark podcast on Tuesday, we'll be back next Tuesday for the next level podcast that is out every Tuesday evening. So if you haven't subscribed to that feed, go do it.

This is about average, what you just got there. That's just generally the gist, but it's usually like 5x longer. Same type of material, but 5x longer. You know, just since we just did this whole riff and we were joking around, every time somebody clips us to try to make us, to try to criticize in some way, they did it the other, when somebody was doing it to you the other day with your bit about how people over 65 shouldn't vote, it is almost always when we're joking. It's always a joke. It's like when I was ranking Ted Cruz or whatever, that one gets around now.

And it's like, guys, we are screwing around with each other sometimes. And can we just have fun without everybody being like, this is what they Legalize comedy. Legalize comedy. What else is there? Everything is so fucked right now. The least we can do is have a little bit of fun when we're in our little podcast together.

That's right. Come hang out with us. Up next. Martha Addits. Thanks, guys. Bye. Hey, y'all. I'm in the middle of packing right now.

We're heading out to our California shows, the bulwark.com slash events, if you haven't already got your tickets. And, yeah, I'm not really the best packer. you should see the inside of my bag. I'm just dumping shit in there. I got microphones. I got cords.

I got bricks. Everything's all tangled up. And it gets a little bit aggravating. But I've been making some progress streamlining all this, thanks to our friends, at Ridge. Just like Ridge revolutionized the wallet, they've now changed the game for portable charging. They've got a five-and-one travel power bank with built-in cables to let you charge all your devices at the same time with just one power bank and no extra cables. This is critical for everyone who like me lives by the simple rule, ABC, always be charging. And this is your reminder. Father's Day is

coming up. My dad's more of a practical gift kind of guy himself, you know. I like to get a little whimsical for me. So if you're trying to think of a gift, your dad could actually use, let's turn to Ridge, that 5-1 charger or Ridge wallet. Went back to the office last week, and one of the gals of the office said that her husband on the recommendation of this podcast got himself a Ridge wallet and he's loving it. So go get one of those to your dad. One thing to pack five ways to power. For a limited time, get up to 40% off during Ridge's huge Father's Day sale at ridge.com slash the bulwark.

Don't miss one of their biggest discounts all year. Just head to ridge.com slash the bulwark, and you're all set. after you purchase, they'll ask where you heard about them. Please support our show and tell them we sent you. Delighted to welcome to the show, Chief Global Affairs Correspondent for ABC News. She's been covering America's wars since 9-11. Also, co-anchor of the Sunday show this week, her new book, The Hero Next Door, Stories of Patriotism and Purpose, will be published next week,

and it's available for pre-order now. Go get it. It's Martha Radditz. What's up, Martha? Hey, how are you? I have the good set behind me. I just want you to know that I've had that all along, not just for the book about patriotism and purpose. You've been flagged. You've had the flag. You've been patriotic. Yeah, it was, it was from, it's pretty cool that, see that little fighter jet behind me? It was in that fighter jet over Afghanistan. So I thought it was kind of, I have to admit, though I copied David Muir, who has a flag in his office and thought it looked pretty great. He's stylish. He is, he is. We all want to copy David Muir.

So, but mine was pretty cool. His ratings are up, I noticed, compared to some others. I'm happy to have you on the show. We've never done this. It's so good. And I want to do a little bit of foreign policy talk. Obviously, you've been covering that and been abroad a bunch covering the wars, then we'll do the book as well.

This one can get your taking the latest with the Iran war. This was Trump yesterday. I've been asked by the Emir of Qatar, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, the president of the UAE to hold off on our place. attack of Iran, which was scheduled for today, Tuesday, and that serious negotiations are now taking place. And in their opinion, a deal will be made, which will be acceptable to the U.S. soon. The deal will include no nuclear weapons for Iran. He's been saying this for quite some time now. I thought, interestingly, this morning, the Wall Street Journal reported that several Gulf

officials from some of the countries Trump mentioned said they were not aware of the imminent plan to attack Iran he described. What's happening? What do you make of the state of play? Well, just as you say, Tim, we've heard that before, and we've heard that they're close to a deal before. Maybe they will bomb today. I don't know. It's very confusing to all of us to follow this. And I'm sure it's confusing to Iran. And maybe that's the point. I don't know. It's one of those things that's impossible to predict. I mean, if people say to you, what do you think Trump will do? I have absolutely no idea. I mean, it's chaotic. in so many ways that it's hard to follow, and maybe that is the plan. But we have heard those predictions before. I think, you know, I've had numerous officials on from the administration over the past

couple of months talking about, I think Chris Wright said several weeks in that it would be over in a couple of weeks. We've heard the president say that it's clearly far more complicated at this point than any of us thought it would be. And I have no idea what is going to come next. I think if there's a plan, if something's imminent, we'll see it, but we've heard that before. So it's impossible to predict what's going on. Seems like a bluster boy who cries wolf situation.

The interesting thing to me about it is just the siting of, you know, the president being influenced by Qatar and Saudi and the UAE. What's your sense of that and the relationship and the influence of the Gulf states on what we're doing at this point? I mean, clearly the Gulf states, whether they wanted it or not, were very involved in this because many of them were attacked in the initial rounds by Iran. So they clearly have a stake in it. And I think they have all tried very hard to help mediate this in some way or another, just as Pakistan is doing now. Again, it's one of those things behind the curtain. This is the most opaque curtain I've seen in many decades. It's because maybe they're saying things to sort of fool Iran. Maybe Trump's making it up, right? If there's a plan, we don't know.

If there's a plan, we certainly don't know. And you hear different things. I mean, the crazy thing about the reporting on this is it's accurate at the time, and maybe two hours later, it's not accurate. It changes that fast. You covered the Pakistan negotiations over there. I had a couple of interesting questions about that. Like, on the one hand, like why Pakistan?

Pakistan was so central to the negotiations. In the original ceasefire, it seemed as if, you know, Trump kind of did a similar thing to how he's doing now with Qatar, which is like he posted this. I've been requested. You know, Pakistan has asked me, you know, to consider a ceasefire for two weeks so they can help negotiate a solution. But it kind of seemed like Trump asked Pakistan to do that, not the other way around. Like, what's your sense of what's happening with that? That's some of the reporting that I have gotten is that he asked. Those were pretty serious negotiations.

They really were. The Pakistanis were very involved in this. They were held at this place, the Serena Hotel. Iranian delegation on one side, J.D. Vanson, his group of negotiators on the other side. But I flew there. It took about 24 hours because when you fly to Pakistan now and you have to go way down and avoid the Middle East because we're at war. and was there for about 24 hours and came all the way back for 24 hours. I think clearly they wanted to get something done.

J.D. Vance was serious about that. The Iranians seemed serious about that, but nothing happened. I think one of the biggest differences, and there are so many differences in foreign policy these days, but for decades, if somebody went over to negotiate, or particularly if somebody very high-ranking went over to negotiate, they had something already agreed to where they thought they would walk out of there. That didn't happen this time. You know, whether the president's statement now, something's imminent, we're going to have, we're going to have this deal.

I think because we've heard that before, we just don't know what's happening. It was interesting that he didn't send J.D. Vance again and didn't, you know, didn't want him to go over there. So maybe that was sort of a lesson learned. but the state of these negotiations, clearly they've got huge gaps at this point, unless, of course, in two hours, they agree to something, Tim. Yeah, I don't think, who knows, what's happening inside Iran, it's kind of just as, let me read the Iranian proposal and then I've related question.

Here's what they put out about an hour ago. Their terms include five demands. U.S. troops leaving areas close to Iran, U.S. playing war reparations, lifting sanctions on Iran, releasing Iran's frozen assets, and ending the U.S. us blockade, I'd say we're pretty far apart based on those negotiations. And I just think it's like one interesting part of this, and I think as a reporter who has been doing this for a long time, I'm just wondering how you navigate this, is it's like, it's hard to trust what is true coming out of either party in this situation, right? And Trump is obviously using-

- And most definitely Iran. Yeah, right, yeah. I have been in Iran numerous times, and it is a House of Mirrors. And same thing. You can sit down. And, you know, obviously the senior leadership is a little disrupted right now, but you can sit down with anybody and you can, they can just, frankly, just lie to your face about what's going on. But what is clear than ever is they need money. They really want those sanctions lifted. They really want reparations plagued. Their money that's been frozen, released. And that is exactly what the Trump administration does not want to do. I mean, they, not only don't want to give the Iranians that money, they don't want that storyline that they gave the Iranians money because that's been one of the storylines that the Trump administration has put

out about the Obama administration that they released those frozen assets. So I think they're very careful about that. I mean, will they decide that maybe the Qataris will somehow come in and help them out on that or the Saudis or whoever they can get to kind of bridge that gap between, between what Iran wants and what's the U.S. wants, but I think the money is absolutely a sticking point for the Iranians. I think they'd give up something, but they need something in return. And I think that's where the truth lies in all of this. But they are, as you said, Tim, I mean, they seem to be very far apart. I mean, Trump has got himself into a situation where I think it's going to be hard to get out of it without giving them money, honestly, I mean, based on the control of the straight,

etc. And you obviously covering this closely, covering the State Department, were you surprised by just like the lack of a pitch to the public about this, the lack of preparation for contingencies. I mean, it did like seemingly come out of nowhere and now we're in a situation where it feels like they might have to pay off Iran to get out of it. Well, we'll see about that. But yes, I guess the lack of engagement about Iran before we go to war was surprising in, In a lot of ways, I will say without question, I agree, and this will not surprise you, that the U.S. military has tactically done a remarkable job. They had perhaps because they still have not said whether or not that school was hit by U.S. forces. Bill McRaven, I had on our show recently and said he thought it was taking longer than it usually would to investigate something like that, the bombing of.

Well, that's because they're lying about it, right? I mean, it was a tomahawk missile at the school. We can just say that, right? I mean, who else's tomahawk was it? Yeah, there are certainly tomahawks in that region. I have not done any sort of investigation, but we are waiting. They're obviously lying. And they absolutely should come out and say who was responsible for that, because that's an important thing to do.

It's an important thing not only for us to know, but for U.S. service members to know as well. I mean, obviously, they aren't being forthcoming about this. And it's pretty easy to know. Like, they know whether or not we hit the school. And I will assert that we did. We can see. But, like, they know. It's not like this takes a deep investigation.

It's not like they're searching, you know, for a, it's like a CSI Miami challenge. It has been months. It has been months. So they know. And they can do battle damage assessment. Speaking of battle damage assessment, and I guess I'm curious about this. And look, your book, which we'll get to is a lot of talking about people that you've met reporting over the years in Ukraine. in Afghanistan, other places, more zones.

It doesn't feel like they're giving you guys a lot of access to this. And there's a lot of mystery around how much damage has been done to our military installations in the region. They've been forthcoming, I guess, about the people who've died in action, but about the injuries, like what the nature of the injuries are. Doesn't it feel like they're hiding the ball more than in past conflicts? We certainly have not had access at this point to anything other than the occasional

press conference at the Pentagon. We haven't seen other than targeting, other than successful targeting, we have not seen anything or been able to go talk to our troops, to be on a ship, or to be at a base somewhere that has not happened. I, for one, would love to be there. I think it's not only important to report that. It's important for Americans to know what it is exactly we are doing. And I understand there are places that it's difficult for. for us to get to, it's difficult for us to get out to a ship and we don't want to interrupt ongoing operations, but I think it's vitally important that Americans see what is going on, especially in those bases. As far as the injuries are, I will say that is not unusual. That's a privacy

concern for individuals as well. They don't often tell you what kind of injuries happen. They'll say life-threatening or not life-threatening, but very generally do not tell you exactly what happened. But I want to know what happened at those bases. I want to know what the protection was. I want to see it myself. And that is something that I've tried to do forever. It's like in Iraq and Afghanistan, wait a minute, you told us this, but can we actually see that? And when you can see it, then you can accurately report it until you can see it.

You're at a loss. And when it comes to not giving access, the Washington Post exclusive Evan Hill about a week and a half ago now, saying Iranian airstrikes have damage or destroyed at least 228 structures or pieces of equipment at U.S. military sites across the Middle East since the war began, hangers, barracks, field depots, etc. Like, this came from satellite images, though, like, not from reporting. And I do think that shows, like, the extent of just how much you all are not being given access to what's actually happening on the ground. That was pretty extraordinary reporting. And that is exactly what we want to know more about.

I mean, what is the cost of this? And I always believe that people deserve to know those details about what we're doing and why. I want to pop into a couple of the other places that you've been reporting from overseas. Obviously, kind of related to what's happening in Iran is what's been happening in Israel. We have Netanyahu has said that Israel's expanding its control of Gaza to 60% of Gaza, despite the U.S. brokerage ceasefire. The EU last week agreed on sanctions, targeting. violent Israeli settlers in the West Bank. I think, obviously, Bibi is a player in these negotiations

in a way that there's some possibility that Israel still want to continue the war, even if Trump doesn't. What's your sense of kind of how the situation in Israel is interplaying with what's going on with Iran? Yeah, everything seems tied together. There's no question about that. I've been covering the Middle East for many, many, many decades. And it is, always amazed. It is always difficult to figure out exactly what's going on, but right now, especially so. And I think one of the hardest parts again is there's not a lot of focus on what's happening in Israel right now because of what's happening in Iran. And they are certainly interconnected. I mean, we certainly know that Israel was involved in the war in Iran. And how does that tie in to

where they go or whether they go back into Gaza? I'm really not being much helped him. feel like I'm saying, we don't know. And I think that is true. And I've been, I'm usually optimistic about everything, and I'm always sort of pessimistic about peace there and whether or not it is a lasting peace of any kind. But clearly, Netanyahu has a say in what we're doing in Iran. Everybody is getting frustrated by the Strait of Formos. Certainly Americans are and our Gulf allies and everybody overseas as well. So. Right. Obviously, you can't predict, we can predict what exactly how BB's calculations are going to impact what's happening with Iran. In Israel itself, though, I mean, this is something you've been covering a long time. I think where you were first over

there during the first Intifada, right? And haven't you been, isn't that right? I was. I was. I was a young reporter in 1988. It actually wasn't even the first time I was over there, but covered the first Intifada. One of the things I did over those years, which is incredible in which might might reveal my pessimism is because the people I met in 1988 on every side, on the Palestinians, on the IDF and settlers and Americans who had moved over there, they were all, you know, sort of kumbaya at the time we can all get together. We can all love each other. And over the decades, it's only gotten worse. And they've only hardened their own lines on every side. And I think that, I mean, I was a pretty naive young reporter then and sort of figured I'd go back and

see these same people. And I remember the Jewish family that I had stayed in touch with from Boston. And she was the mother who went over there saying, all peace, and it'll be great, and had little kids. Obviously, like 20 years later, they were teenagers in college and everything. And she started really just absolutely trashing the Palestinians. And I said, do you and I'd talk like that in front of your kids, and she said, oh, they're way more hardcore than I am. So it is sort of seeing the generations over there and the conflicts that continued and what's happening that they have completely hardened. And then October 7th and that horrible, horrible thing, which I was over there within days to see that as well. You know, here we are again.

A tragedy. Yeah, and to me, the West Bank right now is a little bit kind of under. covered underfocused on and you're over there and the difference just between you know you're you're talking about kind of how people whether be on the Israeli side or the Palestinian side kind of like thought about their role and and you know their community and their neighbors and how different that is from 1988 but like just how aggressive like the Israeli settlement actions have been in the West Bank and like the ability traveling back and forth to the West Bank like it's pretty kind of shocking what's been happening there and I think because of the intensity of what

but in Gaza and Iran, it gets a little bit lost. I would love to cover everything, every minute, every day. I go back there as often as I can to tell those stories, but we seem to move from one conflict to another right now and one headline to another, and we're kind of doing the best we can of keeping track of all that. But it is certainly a place that I'd like to go back and see that. Just really quick thoughts on what's happening in Ukraine.

We've seen some particular changes, I think, the last couple of weeks with regards to the Ukraine war, as far as Ukraine's now hitting deeper into Russia, they had a massive weekend aerial attack in the Moscow suburbs that killed three people in Moscow and that hit the oil refinery there. The defeat of Orban, like, released EU funds. You know, he had been blocking EU funds for Ukraine. So, you know, more resources. It feels like the Ukrainians feel less curbed by, you know, the Americans or whatever concern about, you know, aggravating the Americans or Europeans if they become more aggressive. And it does feel like potentially some momentum is changing in the war there. I know you've been over there as well a

bunch over the last few years. Just wondering what your thoughts are on the state of play in that conflict. I think you are right. I think they have become more aggressive in the last few weeks. I think, you know, I've interviewed Zelensky numerous times. And I think even probably the last time I interviewed him, which I think was last September, and it was kind of the first time he talked to Coast, Alaska, post the office visit. I think he was a little less hesitant to talk about his feelings about the U.S. And I think in the months that have followed, his posture towards the war has as well. Look, I can't even, maybe I'm not. going to get the help I need from the U.S., maybe I'm not going to help get the help I need

from Europe, I just need to move forward. But at the same time, they've been more aggressive. I mean, they had that unbelievable, the Russians sending all those drones in the other night. And it is so heartbreaking, particularly there in Kiev. That has come under attack, but most of the time you can drive around Kiva and not worry about it. And I think that has changed. I mean, the Russians are just sending everything they got.

into Kiev because they know that that will make a difference. On the front lines, I think, by the way, we haven't seen so much from the front lines. The other point is it's unbelievably dangerous to do that right now. I know some people have done it, but they just have to get more aggressive at this point. I mean, Zelensky wakes up every single day and is dedicated to winning that war and hopes people understand it. I mean, his resilience in that and in that goal seems unwavering. and Ukrainians as well. But at some point, it's, you know, particularly if you start really taking down

a major city like Kiev, if you start really causing damage that scares people every day, look, they're used to it. And when I go, you're used to like going to the shelter, you know, three times a night or something. They get very used to that. They end up sleeping in those shelters, which is kind of what we eventually did. But it's just unbelievable to me how long it's lasted. It shouldn't be, but it is. And the night it started, and I got a text from a very senior military officer who said, you're there in the last few hours of peace on the European continent for a long time to come. And I thought, yeah, I'll probably take at least a year.

And, of course, that night we thought the Russians would move in completely, and that didn't happen. But it is just a horrible grind. And, you know, we talked a little bit about what I want to talk about, too. I think all these wars, and I think the thing that struck me the last time I was there was that one of the physical therapists there who's working with amputees in Ukraine said he thought at the end of this war there would be 100,000 amputees in Ukraine. Oh, my God. You can sit in an outdoor cafe in Leviv or Kiev, and within a period of 30 minutes, you'll see

three or four guys walking by with amputations. There were multiple three limb amputations of multiple people I saw. And the other thing people forget is they don't have the ADA. They don't have wheelchair ramps over there. They don't have anything to help people. So that is a generation of young men who are going to have a disability for the rest of their lives. And it is going to change that country, it already has. And just the loss over there is incredible. I mean, there are so many people who have died that the scope of that is something we don't even understand that we haven't suffered in decades and decades and decades. 100,000 is hard to get your head around. That struck me about, there's this video going

around from, like, there's like a 5K or something in Gaza, too. And if like you really looked at it, and Gaza as well. Yeah, the number of amputees in that 5K,000. I was just watching it. I was like, Holy shit. And the children there. I mean, there's been the loss of limbs and how you end up. And it's like, you know, we see largely the stories of hope. And I certainly try to do that as well when I go to Ukraine. And you said 5K, there's a guy who just got a prosthetic leg and ran the 5K. And then I went to another facility that wasn't as well equipped as the one I came to first. And that's when I thought, I don't know what's going to happen to these guys with zero arms and one leg. I mean, they're just, just not is the infrastructure there and certainly, certainly not in Gaza as well. All right. Some media stuff. Then we get to the book and get you out of here. This might seem offensive, but I don't mean it.

So stick with me. Okay. This isn't about you. It's about them. It's about them. I genuinely don't understand why the Trump administration officials are doing your shows anymore. And like that's not a commentary on the declining media.

It's just a commentary on like they've broken so many other norms. they, it's very challenging. The interviews are very challenging when they go on. Like, Trump could just be in his own bubble, which is something that he's done. There's plenty of right-wing media outlets to go to. Like, what is your sense for what they're trying to get out of coming on your shows? I think probably what everybody does.

I mean, it's a way to try to get your points across. I think it's great that they have not exited shows like ours. I do. It's, I mean, it certainly gives us a chance to try to get, questions answered like anybody. You don't always get them answered the way you want. But to even face that challenge, I mean, it's surprising in some ways, but seriously, I'm pretty happy they keep doing that. And, you know, it doesn't mean we have to have that person on or we, it's up to us in the end, whether we want those Trump administration officials on, and we always do. I mean,

it is somebody we can challenge. It is someone, you can get a clear view of the Trump administration, and what their goals are. So I'm grateful that they keep offering people. I don't know what anyone wants to get out of this, except to try to get your points across and whatever policy. How do you prep for those interviews with the administration? Is it different from other types of interviews? It's not.

I mean, you know, it's like you. You're trying to get answers from people and try to predict how they'll answer and try to have a comeback for that. But do you do that? You predict, like you go through and have like a little document or do you just do it in your head?

Yes. I try to do my homework as much as possible about what I think they might say. It's hard to predict, honestly, with anybody. But there's so, I mean, you know, it's pretty easy when, you know, Chris Wright, a month into the war, said it's going to end to two weeks

and you have them on, you know, two months later or an administration official that you're going to come back with that. And I also think, you know, we talk about no access to seeing what's happening with the war. I also think just anything and any way you can give people more information that I trust the viewers to know, like, I always have this thing in my head. I'm not going to ask somebody the same question eight times, or then it becomes about me. I'm going to ask them and trusted the viewers understand whether that question

has been answered or not. And it's, okay, this person has not answered the question. I think it's very clear they're pivoting or they're pivoting this way or that way. So you heard it, I heard it. They didn't answer the question. Let's move on. It is that fine line of trying to make sure you you stay on point or get where you can, whether you get it or not. I think the information is out there. Do you worry about being used on that front, though? Like if you're not following up enough that they're like taking advantage of you or whatever? Well, hopefully I'm following up enough. So look, that is, that crosses party lines. I mean, the same thing when you say, well, they want to get their points across, are you being used?

I mean, are they being used? I just don't think about it that way. I just, I think about it in terms of I do my best to try to get the information I want to get for the viewers. And that sounds a little Pollyanna-ish. But it's true. I mean, I will get as much as I can. I know that nobody's going to come on and make some great reverend. And, you know, I'm going to come on and thank goodness you asked me that question.

I've always been waiting to have that question kind of thing on any interviews like that. But, you know, there is, there are times and that you get information. You get information that's important. Well, if you have any tips for how to get them on the show or any secrets, you just let me low offline. Because, you know, Mike Waltz doesn't want to come on the Bullard podcast. I know you can't. I know that's hard to believe. But he doesn't.

Mike Waltz, you're welcome. Any time. Chris Wright. You're welcome. He answers questions. You get information from him. But yeah, yeah. Keep trying to him. Good luck to you. Okay. We'll work on it. Last thing on this is the listeners we have satisfied and ask you about like, how do you think about the question of like talking about Trump's age and covering Trump's age? Obviously, this has been an issue with the last two presidents now. You know, Trump is, you know, in some ways kind of acted unusually for his whole career. Right. So sometimes maybe it's hard to disaggregate. you know what it's happening but I was watching it was actually a clip of you I was gonna it ended up being kind of dumb Trump was like making fun of the media and he mentioned you and I was like going back to watch it to see if that would be

worth talking about it and it wasn't but what struck me about it was it was from 2016 and he looks like a lot younger actually like I felt like you looked old in 2016 but if you watch it now you know and rewatch those clips and he obviously has aged significantly and I'm just kind of wondering how you think about

his age and his capacity for these type of decisions. As a person who's also aging, and probably if you look back to 2016, you see a difference as well. But, I mean, one of the things we try very hard to do is, like, just report what we see, what the facts are. You get to say whatever you want, Tim. You get to do commentary.

You get to have an opinion. I don't think that's my job. But the facts are like the bruises. I mean, they're facts. We cover it. Do we cover it? Yes. I mean, I look back at during the Biden administration, a debate that I did with Paul Ryan and Joe Biden from 2012.

He was a different guy. He was without question, a different guy from 2012 to when he served. I was literally just talking about that this weekend with somebody. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, if you went back and watched that debate, it was vintage Joe Biden and covering him in later years. I think that's another thing that people can. People can see what they see.

And people are going to make up their minds. And we are just going to report, the president said this today. The president, you know, I'm not going to go back and take old video and look at him here and looking in there. People can make up their minds on that. You go ahead and do those things, Tim. No, we'll stick to. I mean, honestly, I feel like it was, it probably should have been talked more about both

presidents. And I think that there were objective ways to do it. That's my opinion. It's not about like offering commentary. it's just about like watching what happened. And he's been to the dentist three times this year for emergencies. Watch what happened. You can see it.

You can let people make their own commentary. The book is The Hero Next Door. Talk to me about why you did it. You kind of alluded to it a little bit, but give us the elevator pitch. The elevator pitch. Okay. These are 10 people who I've met in my career covering war. And some of them are service members.

Some of them are family members. I feel like this 9-11 generation that was, thrown in to these kind of endless war, certainly in Afghanistan, until a very disorganized and chaotic and tragic ending there, deserve to be looked at without the burden of politics, without the burden of how these wars ended up, why we got into those wars. The thing that I really also felt strongly about is these are people who, lots of them I met two decades, ago. And they were maybe wounded in battle. They maybe weren't, but there was sort of some life-changing event. And I wanted to see what happened to them 20 years later, five years later.

And in many cases, they're what they did on the day that they'll never forget. They've done even more courageous things since. And it is that I like that word patriotism. I like that word purpose, and I want people to remember that that is who they are and who our American military is. They, for those 20 years, have kept trying to find purpose, and it's really hard for people in the military. It is. Or there's a story of a mother who's cared for her son, who I've known since shortly

after he had a terrible brain injury. She was 49 years old at the time when her 20-something son was disabled. She's 70 now, and he is still at home with her, and she has taken care of him every day. I've presented these people to a lot of these heroes, which they hate that word, hate, hate it. And it is always emotionally moving. It's not just story of the mother. It's a fighter pilot who people just think, oh, a fighter pilot, it's Tom Cruise, and just sort of the sensitivity they have in their missions, or why they joined. I asked a couple of them the other day just to talk about service and why they do, why they serve it.

Why they serve. And this young female fighter pilot just said, the Constitution. I took an oath to the Constitution. That's why I served. It's as simple as that. So they're incredibly inspiring people. And I just think it's important for Americans to connect. I really do.

And I've always felt a kind of a bridge between that world, the military and civilian world. I didn't grow up with any military in my family, and knew really nothing about it. But I feel like it's so important for civilians to be connected to our military, our volunteer military, and for them to be connected to us. Only 1% serve. They have done some extraordinary things,

and they deserve to be heralded in ways that Americans normally don't do. And when I think back of Iraq and Afghanistan, thank you for your service, thank you for your service. They're still serving in so many ways. A couple of these guys are still active duty, but they're still finding purpose. I mean, Marine who is paralyzed, is still invented some life-saving techniques. A neurosurgeon who helped save my friend Bob Woodruff's life when he got blown up in 2006 is now going to Ukraine two or three times a year and doing brain surgery on the Ukrainian. and wounded. That is purpose. That is I'm still going to serve. It's still going to find a way to do

good things. And I think when I look at them, it makes me never feel sorry for myself, first of all, about anything. But it also gives me motivation and I hope others to just want to do better and to continue to serve in our own ways, to continue to contribute in our own ways. And they're just really inspiring people. And it's not like, you know, the title is kind of the hero next door. It's these are profoundly serious and hopeful stories. And what they overcame to do what they do now is pretty remarkable. And I just think it's lessons we can all learn from. I was struck by that story of the Ukrainian brain surgeons.

I was going to ask you about that. But since you mentioned him, I want to ask you about one other one person you profiled is Derek Herrera. I always am moved by stories of people who get a second or third act in life, like where something happens. and they kind of summon the energy to go out and do something new. I don't know. Being in middle age, I guess I see how hard it is, you know, for people to do that

who are facing far less challenging circumstances than Derek, but, you know, who just whatever, hit a rough patch for whatever reason that happens in life. And, you know, you write about how his wife remembers that, you know, she just married this intensely driven guy who just didn't know where to direct his ambitions after he got injured at war. And I thought maybe you could just share a little bit of his story. Derek was a Marine who got shot but helped evacuate the rest of the Marines while they were evacuating him. He was paralyzed.

He is still paralyzed. It's one of those things that I think people don't realize that Derek, you know, he's probably even paralyzed almost as long as he wasn't paralyzed. I think he probably had two or three months of saying, why me? and then got to work. He's actually who I was talking about, inventing things that help others. I love the fact that Derek, again, you know, was proud of his leadership as a Marine

and trying to figure out the next step said, I want to do something that uniquely I can do or I'm familiar with. He's now very familiar with being paralyzed. He is in a wheelchair, and he invented something that helps people get tests for urinary problems. Because he will tell you in a minute that the biggest problem is not that he can't walk, but it's that it's very difficult and painful, not painful, to urinate.

And that catheters are horrible, and it's humiliating and everything about that. And he has helped find a way to improve that not only for paralyzed people, disabled people, men and women, but everybody who has urinary tract problems. Now, that may be like, whoa, you're talking about that from some service member. He will proudly sit down and show you a little model of male genitalia and how this will all work. And it's captivating. I mean, he's just done amazing things. And that's what, I mean, no one would have any idea.

Derek did that. And that's what's heroic to me, that they've gone on and done something. particularly like in middle age. It's like, and not only are you in middle age guys, this guy is paralyzed and doing it. They also went on to have kids. I mean, it's just an incredible story and he is an incredible human being. It really was an incredible story. I reckon people go read it.

And by the way, helping people get their male genitalia to work is a pretty important service. Okay, as well. It's a pretty important part of the whole. Yeah. Yeah. Human experience. I got a little mad. I'm going to get finally, for my final question,

I'm getting into the commentary space again, so you can speak about this as much you want. But I'm a little mad today having you on thinking about these people in the book. I was reading it this morning, and it really is inspiring. And it's like simultaneously to be reading this book, our government has created a settlement fund where they've taken $1.8 billion of our tax money, of some of the people in your book's tax money, and they're going to just give it to Donald Trump's,

friends and people that stormed the Capitol in January 6th, and we don't actually know who they're going to give it to, they can give it to whoever they want. That's a pretty stark contrast when you think about the types of people who maybe deserve reparations from our government and who's getting them. And I'm just wondering if you have any thoughts on how we're treating our veterans. I am not going to go in the space you want me to go, but you keep talking about it, But I'm going to tell you what these people who I write about deserve. They deserve help in every way. It is incredible to me that there have to be fundraisers every year to help people who should just be taken care of for the last 20 years.

I'm on the board of the Bob Wooder Fund. We've, foundation, we've raised millions and millions and millions of dollars to help people who I wish could have money to help themselves. without having to depend on those private fundraisers. They deserve everything that anybody could give them. They have earned it. They don't ask for anything, and the country should take care of them, or at the very least, respect them.

And we'll see what happens to that fund. I agree with that. That's Martha Radis. The book is called The Hero Next Door. We had a little tech glitch in the middle of this, so she had a little different background. But we fought through it. We did good.

We persevered. thought through it. We changed the angle a little bit. It's okay. We, you know, who would think that at a network television station, we'd have trouble with the internet. But we get on the air every night. It's amazing. We just don't do this. Yeah, you do get on the air every night. And it made it into China even. All right, we appreciate it. Martha Raditz, thank you so much for all of your time and hope to have you back another time. All right. Thanks, Tim. Appreciate it. All right. Thanks so much for the emergency assist from JBL and Sarah and also to Martha Raditz

for a debut appearance on the pod. We will be back tomorrow with maybe an abbreviated edition. I'm traveling out to California. We're going to do our best. So we'll see you all then. If it is abbreviated, it'll be a banger and abbreviated.

So see you all tomorrow. Peace. The Borg podcast is brought to you. Thanks to the work of lead producer Katie Cooper, Associate producer Ansley Skipper, and with video editing by Katie Lutz, and audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.