The Bulwark Podcast - Susan Glasser: Trump Has a Man Problem

Episode Date: October 8, 2026

The king of the birther conspiracy knows he needs to round up the white male vote, so he's serving up one of his old faves—straight-up anti-Muslim bigotry. And he's added a new one: Making Americans pay for another political ad, this time about what a tough guy he is. But Trump also has another corruption problem, courtesy of Trump Jr.'s ex-fiancée, Amb. Kimberly Guilfoyle, who seems to have a habit of calling in very expensive favors. Plus: Rubio is laying the groundwork for 2028, Hegseth is lobbying to keep his job after the midterms, the Democratic establishment is coming together for El-Sayed, Bibi has been very bad for Israel, and Trump has created a long-term security crisis for the West as a result of his Iran war.Susan Glasser joins Tim Miller.show notes: Susan on Hegseth declaring victory in the wrong war The NYT on Iran forcing Trump and Hegseth to retreat Sam's interview with the guy who snitched on Guilfoyle Susan's 'Political Scene' podcast Trump falling asleep during the Susan Dell photo-op Will Sommer on the Andrew Tate eel-sex problem October Surprise: The Bulwark is 30% off Closing song: MJ Lenderman's "She's Leaving You" Upcoming Bulwark LIVE show in Atlanta on Oct. 20 The Bulwark’s campaign to help the Haitian community of Springfield The Bulwark storeJoin at functionhealth.com/THEBULWARK and use code THEBULWARK25 for a $25 credit.

Hello and welcome to the Bullwark Daily. I'm your host, Tim Miller. Delighted to welcome back to the show. 20th time, a gold jacket guest, staff writer at the New Yorker, co-hosts of its political scene podcast. Her most recent book is The Divider. It's Susan Glasser.

What's up? Wow, I want a gold watch or something. That's amazing. We're working on it. I need a 25 guest appearance present. I'm on it. I can hardly wait. 2027.

It'll happen in 2020, We'll come up with something. I've got some great news for you. I do think an article this morning from the Wall Street Journal is a little bit of a preview that the best is yet to come when it comes to hilarious stories of Trump friends shiving each other in the news. And this one is Kimberly Gilfoyle, former partner to Don Trump Jr., former romantic partner. She was preparing for a congressional hearing to become U.S. ambassador to Greece, was going through her finances, realized she had some problems.

So she texted a Trump donor saying she needed 100 grand sent to her American Express in a way that wouldn't leave a paper trail. Honey, please, I need you to get this done for me today. Prayer Hands emoji. She sent to Eric Dieter's, former congressional candidate and Trump donor. She asked him to draft a letter saying he owed her $250,000 back payments for consulting services. Not sure what those services are, but very flirty texts. And past tax included things like, Eric, I wish you would stop papering all these things. What a nightmare.

You'll literally cause me my ambassadorship, stop writing as they were exchanging about their financial relationship. That seems bad. You know, I'm still recovering from the Don Jr. wedding scandal, which I guess Kimberly Guilfoyle is also still recovering from. But, you know, look, Tim, this is. the classic genre of in any other administration, dot, dot, dot, this would be a gigantic, huge, enormous scandal, right? But, I mean, come on, you know, Chair of Kushner's father, the convict is the U.S. ambassador

to France, you know, our most prestigious ambassadorship, aside from the position in Great Britain. That's a man who literally hired a prostitute, according to prosecutors, to entrap his own family members in a business dispute. So, you know, I mean, $100,000 amex bell, not good, I'll admit. I have to say that I woke up this morning. And what I was wondering was, how do you spend $100,000 in an amex bill? Is that like, is that all makeup? Yeah, closed makeup. I assume that private jet. companies taking MX, probably that, you know, you don't want to be with the riff-ref. The private jets, I mean, isn't she like getting rides from people for that?

I think that we're going to learn that she's getting a lot of things. Okay, so I would, first of all, like an itemized bill. Second of all, in the category of the jeopardy, you know, category of, you know, Trump family and associates, corruption, you know, where is this one going to rank? I will say this. Prosecutors and investigative journalists know one thing once they, They've been doing it for a while, and that is that a story like this doesn't just land out of the blue. There's no way that was the first time.

She asked somebody for a favor like that. I think ask any editor when they see someone who's been caught for plagiarism, for example. It's not the first time that it happened, the time that the person got caught. Yeah, I mean, I've never asked anybody for 100 Gs. So, you know, I don't have any expertise here. But yeah, my understanding and feeling is probably, once you get comfortable, just send in signal chats, honey, baby, send me six figures. You're probably doing that. She couldn't even call.

Like, I mean, I feel like for $100,000, that's a huge amount of money, at least in the world. Like, maybe worth a phone call. Yeah, maybe worth a phone call. He told her later that over the years, we should say she did not get this $100,000 from him. He said it would cost him his marriage. another interesting thing to say 300,000 though he said that he'd given her in the past

for various favors that he wanted he wanted to go on Tucker Carlson show he had a tax dispute he wanted to talk to the IRS had and so he'd paid her 300,000 in the past. Clas says he didn't get anything for it but I don't know, we will see

he's kind of an interesting character himself this whole world is insane and he was a snappy tomato pizza have you ever had a snappy tomato pizza it's a chain it's an Appalachian pizza chain pizza looks pretty gross I googled it this morning

and they do have the stuffed crust when he ran for Congress he did a video in a graveyard talking about the imagined death of his future foes still seems to be a Trump fan I was on his Twitter feed this morning so I mean like this is this is what we're dealing with here

it seems like old Kim was for sale and Don Jr., we should also mention a lot of this was happening like 300,000 they were together you know he paid Don Jr. and Eric also to give a speech. But, you know, the point of the story is, the point I'm trying to make, Susan, as you're saying, there are more examples of this when it comes to Kimberly. They're also just going to be so many more examples when it comes to the kids. It's just unimaginable the amount of money the kids have been taking.

Well, I mean, look, if you invite a Kremlin-connected Oleghark, who doesn't really speak English to your wedding on a private island so that he can pay for the lavish parties related and then think you're going to be... Gangster kind of too. We were talking to Ann Apple about this. Gangster really more than kind of gangster turned oligarch. Right, yes.

Well, the whole origins in the night wolves thing is kind of a tip-off there. But, you know, if you think you're get out of jail, Free Card is as Don Jr.'s new wife, the woman who supplanted Kimberly Guilfoyle, thought she could just post her way on Instagram out of it by claiming that he was a very dear friend. It's very interesting to me because, you know, probably you don't have a lot of friends with whom you don't share a common language as in an actual language. It's very hard.

I don't. Yeah. I have a couple of friends who married people for whom English is their second language, and we do our best. At least it's one of their languages. That's usually the prerequisite for either marriage or even friendship. But look, you know, I was in Greece not that long ago after Gilfoyle became the U.S. ambassador there. And let's just say that, you know, the people with whom I spoke when I was there were struggling to imagine that this was the behavior of a U.S. envoy. The U.S. still, of course, is the most important country in the world when it comes to our European partners. Greece is a member of NATO in a key strategic position, you know, look at the role that it.

played in the immigration crisis in the wake of Syria, for example. It's not the kind of place that you send somebody who's got the background of Kimberly Gilfoyle. And I know it doesn't rank that high in the hierarchy of Trump administration scandals and crises. But, you know, I would say pay close attention to what her other business dealings are in the Balkans, for example. And, you know, who's fudder. her lifestyle while she's been over there. There's a pretty long list if somebody wants to take up the gilfoil beat.

Yeah, for sure. And I was using probably the first Hiterra to be ambassador to Greece. I just Googled that. So everyone can search it if they want. Rubio is in Greece as well. He snapped at reporters this morning and he's asked about this. Oh, this is just a game you guys play. I'm not going to answer that.

He gave a speech a little strange, I think, for a state department's that you would do this. There were four different video cameras, including one mounted on a crane, kind of cinematic shots of the secretary on the hillside where ancient Athenians gathered to debate. He in the speech talked about how Europe needs to awaken from its slumber. He referenced crimes committed against the ancient Greeks by the Persian army that ransacked Athens, 2,500 years ago. Not really subtle there.

I mean, it's pretty wild to have Rubio, like have a corrupt ambassador and have an administration that's doing corrupt deals with Russia and have him go to the Europeans and lecture you that they've got to get their game together. Yeah, well, maybe his definition of Western civilization is not your and my definition of Western civilization. That's one explanation. I don't think we need to overinterpret to come up with a rationale for the backdrop that Rubio saw it. You know, this obviously has heavy, I'm running again for president someday vibes to it. And of course, it's an echo very explicitly, I would say, of the speech that Barack Obama gave the final on the final foreign trip of his presidency in the immediate aftermath of Donald Trump's upset victory in 2016.

I know, you know, we're 10 years into this, and we've gotten a bit inured, but at the time, it was still very shocking. And, you know, Obama really changed plans for how he wanted to approach the last couple months of his presidency, given the shock that Trump's election had caused both inside the United States and around the world with our allies and partners and went to Athens and gave this speech with the same backdrop in a fact that Rubio has used. And, you know, Obama's was a full-throoted defense of Western democracy and the ideas of liberal internationalism that the United States had stood for really throughout the last 50 years, you know, regardless of party in many respects. And so in a way, I find these two speeches

to be bookouts, Marco Rubio, who formerly was a believer in what you might call the American consensus now speaking as if he is J.D. Vance's, you know, kindler, gentler, less snarling twin when it comes to ideology. Yeah, because there is no depth to it besides xenophobia, honestly. It's just like, what are you talking about? When you talk about Western civilization, there's no commitment to the rule of law, there's no commitment to liberal democracy, as you mentioned,

or just democracy itself. It's funny, you're at the birthplace of democracy. It's like you're working for a guy that did an assault on the world's current longest-running democracy. And even if it's just from an immigration standpoint, it's like, you know, the Europeans need to stand up for themselves. It's like the decisions that this administration has been making, whether it be cut USAID, whether we start this idiotic war in Iran that is now expanding

throughout the region, if we're going to talk about it a minute. That's all going to exacerbate the migrant crisis. You know, and there's just no depth to this argument at all except for finger-wagging Europe and saying brown people are bad. And that's basically the... Yeah, I mean, it's really interesting to me that, you know, it's taken a while, but, you know, Trump has lit the fuse of anti-Europeanism with his sort of magazine. alkylates like Rubio and Vance. I don't find any real compelling evidence that the American people are wildly anti-European in the same way that there's certainly no evidence that they're wildly anti-Canadian. So to me, it falls in the category of, you know, Donald Trump sort of leading

his party's future leaders, you know, often this sort of weird cul-de-sac direction because they're so afraid to break with him. You know, it's anti-Europeanism. You know, there's been a strand of it in the Republican Party for decades, but it's never been a majority strand. And it certainly was never part of the identification of Marco Rubio as a politician, especially as a Latino politician, having this kind of blood and soil nationalism evoked in the shadow of the Acropolis seems a very odd fit for him in terms of who he.

He's been an American public life. So that's one thing. But also, I just, I do think that it, it's like a lot of things with Trumpism. It feels increasingly dated. Donald Trump's sort of founding template are the, you know, the crises of the late Obama era that he's in reaction. Yes. Rather than the crises he himself has generated. And to the extent that Rubio in the speech is speaking about the present day moment, again, demonizing the Persians.

You know, it's not great politics at the moment to be talking about this war, period, full stop, because it's as or more unpopular in Europe than it is in the United States, where arguably it's one of the main drivers of the political crisis in which Rubio and Trump's Republican Party finds itself in less than a month away from the election day, which is that Americans across our political spectrum, They're not demonizing the Persians. They're demonizing Donald Trump for having chosen to go to war against the person and failed in that effort. I don't know about you when it comes to mattresses.

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for 27% off sitewide, exclusive for our listeners. Hewaxleep.com slash the bulwark. I have more for you on Iran and the midterms, but we have a couple more corruption, thanks, because it's the Trump administration, just for kicks. Ken Vogel, over the New York Times had this story. James Blair and Chris Lasse Vita, Las Vita former colleague of mine.

They're leading a big money midterm advertising campaign for the Trump political operation, but they spent some of the last few days in a small self-governing territory in Bosnia and Herzegovine. Republica Serbska and helping the pro-Russian party naturally keep their grip on power ahead of the elections there on Sunday, according to people who are not authors to discuss their Balkan work. I mean, you know, this could be like a 90-spoof video. You know, the president's henchmen go to like a small Balkan outpost to help the pro-Russian government.

But that is what's happening. I mean, look, I have to say, I've been enjoying, you know, Politico playboy. has been feasting on this, you know, featuring blind quotes from their colleagues, you know, in the Trump White House, connected to the Trump White House. You know, you have the sense of the Trump world cats fighting in a bag. Who knows who's on what side to it. But, you know, there is a long tradition, we should say, Democratic and Republican of consultants, political consultants going overseas to collect large and largely not.

transparent paychecks from political parties around the world. And by the way, there are others in Trump's orbit who have been doing this throughout Trump's time. The Balkans have seen to be a particularly ripe spot for the Trumpists, including we mentioned Kimberly Guilfoyle. You have Jared Kushner and Ivanka working on an Albanian project that's caused a huge uproar. You know, there's Rick Cornell, who has had many.

dealings in Serbia and throughout the region. So, you know, we've definitely got a full Trump world and the Balkans kind of corruption plot line going here. And it's interesting. But the timing, I think, is what's really made Washington take notice of this one. It's one thing to do that. It's another thing to do that when your party is literally panicking about losing a Kansas Senate seat, right? Okay, Kansas hasn't gone Democratic in a Senate seat since 1932. Yeah, no, it's kind of the whole picture, right? You know, it's one thing to go take a big check on behalf, you know, which every, as you mentioned, presidential consultant has done in the past, like on behalf of the center-left or central right party in some other country during an off-year.

It's like, oh, a month before the midterms doing it in a tiny balkan. outpost on behalf of the pro-Russian government. That is the part that's the uniquely Trumpist element. Speaking of the pro-Russia, pro-communist elements of the Trump Party, he said that he was going to stop running taxpayer-funded propaganda ads, but they have not done that, actually.

There's been six figures since Trump said that his Super PAC would start paying for this, that of this ad, bragging about their work in Venezuela, that is still funded by the U.S. government. I want to play that for you. Last night on the order of the President of the United States, and in support of a request from the Department of Justice,

the United States military conducted an apprehension mission in Caracas, Venezuela, to bring to justice two indicted persons, Nicholas and Sassia Maduro. Nicholas Maduro had his chance until he did. And he heft around and he found out. Like, I don't understand yet how they haven't figured this out. And now if you don't know, now you know. Because this is the way it's going to play out. And I think people need to understand that this is not a president that just talks and just letters and press conferences.

And, you know, if he says he's serious about something, he means it. Don't play games. Don't play games with his president's in office because it's not going to turn out. Okay. Marco Rubio quoting Biggie there in that ad funded by us. I think the silver lining I have on this is I just don't see how this works for anybody right now. I don't think how excited people are about this tough guy stuff given what's happening in the rest of the world. But I don't know.

What do you make of it? Yeah. I mean, look, you know, the truth is that the self-styled macho men of this administration seem to have a man problem, you know, in terms of voting. They're looking around pretty desperately to kind of scare up those. male, white male voters who won the election for them in 2024. And I think the fact that they're running ads like this, my God, can they turn down the volume, please a little bit? You know, but that they have Donald Trump traveling around to the reddest of red states that they're spending literally hundreds of millions of dollars to shore up Republican candidates who would have been a lock,

you know, considered a lock even, you know, six months ago. This is, I think, part of the political crisis that they find themselves in. But look, you know, there was, I think not one but two lawsuits filed just yesterday. We're talking on Thursday. You know, we'll see one was by the National Democratic Party. One was by a common cause, the good government organization. I don't know if they'll even be determined to have standing for those lawsuits. But, you know, clearly it strikes many observances. rivers, and I've certainly watched political ads for many years. I've never seen the U.S. government pay for ads like this. It does strike me that once again, Donald Trump says the quiet part out loud by admitting, you know, by saying that he's going to, in the future, pay for these

ads as political ads, isn't he admitting that they're political ads and therefore suggesting that the U.S. government funds have been misused? Once again, you have to ask, where the hell is Congress? You know, it is Congress who's responsible for not only appropriating funds that are to be spent by the executive branch, but for overseeing that spending. And I would say that if Democrats do win control of one or both houses, you will certainly see them inquiring as to how it is that the Department of Homeland Security came to take money that Congress had appropriated for one purpose and misuse it on this very nakedly political purpose.

And the other problems with the message that they're offering is, I don't think it's gotten through to the IRGC. If you don't know, now you know. And fuck around and find out. Because, you know, the war that they started in Iran, that the ads are not about, is continuing to spiral and get worse. This was the Times yesterday. The closing of bases in the Middle East and limiting the use of the one in Britain have

complicated the logistics of projecting power. American bombers can still reach their targets in Iran, but only for the future. from the U.S. requiring more time and refueling. American carrier groups can still patrol the Arabian Sea outside the Persian Gulf, but now they must be resupplied from Diego Garcia, an island in the Indian Ocean, 2,200 miles away, requiring additional weeks and huge costs. The rapid withdrawals have taught a lesson to the Iranians and potentially other adversaries that they hold the power to chase out a superpower. I just think the degree of the retreat from these tough guys running ads about how tough they are with our money is pretty noticeable, I think,

everyone. I mean, look, even our closest friends around the world are really questioning America's both commitment, but now under Trump, America's ability as well as commitment to provide the security that its partnerships and alliances are built upon. And, you know, just speaking yesterday with a very senior official from one of our close allies who, you know, said, what does it mean to go talk to the Pentagon, whose entire premise was we're not going to fight new wars of choice and we, you know, hold this dominant security position, except that now we don't. That's a big, that's a big long-term security crisis, not just here in the United States, but for, you know, basically all of the countries of the West, first of all. Second of all, the damage that was

specific damage that's been done. There have been very good reporting in the Times, supposed and elsewhere about the depletion of critical stockpiles of munitions, air defenses. But I think I'm glad that the Times report also highlighted the physical destruction and damage to American bases across the Middle East, because that is one of the underappreciated costs of the war, both in actual costs, right? We're talking about billions of dollars worth of damage in critical military facilities that we had all over the region in Bahrain, in Qatar, in Jordan, Kuwait. And many of those, I'm told, will not be reoccupied. You know, basically our entire security footprint across the Middle East will end up being

reexamined, will end up entirely abandoning a certain number of bases that won't be rebuilt at all. As a consequence of this conflict that Donald Trump said was going to last a couple days or maybe two weeks at the longest. It's now seven months into it with no end in sight and a long-term consequence that's already baked in at this point, Tim, that we're going to have to retreat for many of these bases. And I think what Donald Trump has done is hastened the creation of a very different security picture in the Middle East for the U.S. Yes. And if anyone is after and found out during the Trump two, it might be Muhammad bin Salman at the top of the list, as you talk about kind of how it's expanded.

This was yesterday, the sound of multiple explosions rattled Saudi Arabia's capital as the war between the Iran-backed Houthi militia and Yemen and the Saudi-led military escalated amid fears of widening regional conflict. There were multiple deaths. Reports are there was an airport in Riyadh got hit. This is just a disastrous consequences for Saudi right now over the past month. Yeah, well, and also for other American partners in the region, Kuwait is another great example. Jordan, first of all, they've all spent billions of dollars both to house American military installations and to buy American military equipment. And, you know, I saw a quote recently that really resonated from a senior Arab security official saying, you know, we purchased all this stuff and we allowed

these bases because it was supposed to make us safer. Now it's a lot of, it's a lot of, actually become a security crisis for us to have the Americans here. And I think it's accelerating, again, the creation of a post-American world in the region at a time when we see that the Middle East retains a certain chokehold over the global economy. Ask America's truckers whether the Middle East is irrelevant to our politics anymore because we're so energy independent as Donald Trump loves to brag. Obviously not. And, you know, I just think it is the war that is eating up what remains of Donald Trump's presidency. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp.

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Senate race is because since that is a special election, like a seat that have been vacated, the winner of that Florida Senate race for what it's worth would be seated during the lame duck, which could be potentially important because it's going to be, I think a lot of stuff happening in the lane duck. Who knows? Maybe a Supreme Court seat. They might even try to jam through it. The lane duck.

I don't know. I don't think there's a zero percent chance of that. but Hague-Seth impeachment stuff is potentially happening. Other, you know, kind of investigations are looking into. I'm just curious kind of from your reporting on Hague-Seth, like what you think might be coming there. I mean, Rumsfeld famously got fired, I believe the day after Bush is disastrous in Termino-6.

So wondering what you think is coming for Pete. You know, look, Donald Trump is no George W. Bush. So the interesting thing, right, about, Bush or Obama after they had bad midterm elections is that they both felt a need to go to the public and say, we hear your anger, we hear, you know, what you're telling us. It's a thumping. It's a chastening. We're going to adjust our policies. We get it, right? Donald Trump, I think we can say with great confidence is not going to come out the morning after the midterm elections and say, America, I hear your pain. I'm so sorry, you know, like I'll do better. Okay. He's not going to be doing that.

That being said, Donald Trump has, you know, loyalty is a one-way construct for him. And certainly if he's looking for a scapegoat, Pete Hegeseth is a very convenient one for Donald Trump in particular because he doesn't have the support even in this current Senate. You had Tom Tillis who provided a key vote for Hegss confirmation coming out in his new book this week and saying it was the greatest regret of his time in office that he voted for Hegset. Now you and I can have a whole separate show on why it is that knowing everything he knew, he voted for Heggseth. I mean, anybody who's surprised by this outcome obviously lost the plot somewhere because it wasn't a surprise in any respect.

Pete Hegeseth was clearly unqualified for the job and Tompills knew it at the time that he voted for his confirmation. But putting that aside, what it means is that if it were to come up for a vote, it's not at all clear that Pete Hegseth would have the votes to stop a Senate impeachment trial. My guess is there's already the votes in the House to impeach Pete Hegseth. Now, again, it's an empty gesture. That's part of the crisis of our politics these days, is that impeachment is this one remedy that the Constitution offers for outrageous misconduct

by the president or senior officials in the executive branch. And yet the prospect of a two-thirds conviction majority in the Senate basically doesn't exist in the framework of our polarized American politics. So what is it not up to? I think Democrats are very reluctant still to head down the impeachment road, look at least initially for robust efforts at accountability and hearings, people under oath, subpoenas. I want to see, you know, General Payne in uniform, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, he's required by law to testify to Congress about military advice he gave the president that differed where he disagreed with the president. I'd like to hear that testimony.

I'm sure you would do. I would. Yeah, the Higgs-Seth thing as far as the Trump blame game, I do just keep coming back to if Trump was going to throw Hegseth overboard, he would not. need a Todd Blanche. Like, does he have a Todd Blanche to replace him with somebody that could get confirmed hastily in a lame duck session with a narrow majority with some Republican senators? It would be not a slam dunk confirmation.

You know, I think there are people that would be not hard to confirm. And so it's like, can Trump find somebody that would be as loyal as Pete that also is confirmable? I don't know who that is. And I think that's a challenge. That's why I think Pete stays. Yeah. And look, Heggseth is going out of his way to also press all of Trump's buttons.

I think a lot of what he's doing right now is aimed very directly at that audience of one, including that sort of absurdist speech that I wrote about last week. You know, that, to me, the message was all about, you know, Trump, I'm your guy. Now, I don't think Trump will do it, but he could get the current deputy. Secretary of the Pentagon, Stephen Feinberg, who is essentially a managerial type and executive who comes from the defense contractor world and is more or less well regarded across the political spectrum. He's not a raging ideologue, as far as people can tell. He's certainly not going to be strutting around on stage in a too tight suit, you know, yelling about weirdos and beardos and

trainees. You know, he's confirmable. But is he reliable, right? So it's confirmable and reliable for whatever Trump's whims are. He doesn't want an Esper. He lived through Esper at the end of 2020, where Esper wasn't doing what he wanted. Yeah, I agree. I think that he's not going to do that for that reason. Yeah, interesting.

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I've been wrong before. I don't expect the Michigan Senate race to be particularly close. I've said this many times. I think that Beltway misunderstands what swing voters want right now. And I think Mike Rogers is appealing to a very narrow group of high-income Republicans that are in the social group of the Commentariat. And so they think he's more appealing than he really is to regular people. That's just my opinion.

But I think it's interesting more about the way that that race is reflective of what's happening within the parties, within our politics. They have their first debate tonight. And ahead of that, Mike Rogers has a new ad out. It's a whole new Mike Rogers. Let's watch. Drinking a Labath and watching the Red Wings, man, it just doesn't get any more Michigan than that.

And here in Michigan, we know that Canada is not our enemy. We need to end this tariff war. Now, as Michigan Senator, I'll bring both parties together to lower your prices. That's job number one. Now. We're going to do it right now. bring both parties together.

I don't think he needs to bring both parties together, actually. He just needs to get his president that he supports to do it to change his mind. I got to tell you. It just, it does not ooze authenticity this ad. It just doesn't like, you know, I recognize I'm not the target demographic for this ad, but, you know, even I can tell that this is not a man who seems very comfortable on that bar stool and in that environment. He's slightly more comfortable. I don't know if you saw the ad of him in a grocery.

store where he is kind of looking at tomatoes. He felt very, he felt extremely uncomfortable there. Yeah, I mean, you know, if you're exuding George H.W. Bush, you know, how does this supermarket checkout counter work vibes? You know, it's not, it's not great. I do think it is so telling about where we are in 26 that, you know, Canada is not our enemy is got to be like a Republican panic line in a century. You know, come on. Canada is not our enemy. I mean, look, I do think that's something that the vast majority of Americans can agree upon.

They also have a party they could support if they agree. Like, the Canada is not our enemy crowd has a party. I don't know that that person would be turning to Mike Rogers. Right. No, it's not, that's not our, that's not the right party. Look, he's got a lot of problems. Only a candidate who felt that he was in big trouble would be running an ad like that, it strikes me. So it's probably not going to do the job that his consultants are hoping for.

That being said, I actually do continue to wonder about the race. The polls here have been closer than in many of the other, the public polls that we're seeing, have been closer than in many of the other contested Senate races. I mean, you know, if you want to lean into those. polls. Recent surveys have had James Tala Rico in Texas leading by a much more consistent and reliable margin in Texas than El Cahid in Michigan. For me, the question mark I have is I've seen some reporting that the crucial African-American vote in Detroit and Wayne County, Michigan is not necessarily super excited about their Democratic nominee.

And that is a warning sign. You know, going all the way back to when I was a young reporter on Capitol Hill, Michigan was one of the states I covered for roll call newspaper back in the 1990s. And I remember this warning sign, right, when you have a Democratic Senate nominee who is just not wildly appreciated or liked by the Black, leadership in Wayne County. You know, that's for a Democratic Senate candidate, that's the whole deal. So, again, just I have taken note of that. And I Trump won the state a couple years ago. I keep hearing it referred to on some of the programs I've been on as like, well, it's a Democratic state. Well,

actually, no, you know, it's actually the state that helped give Donald Trump the presidency, not once but twice. Yeah, that's right. And I think it's interesting, Trump's message, I'm going to come back to the Democrats in a second, but the Trump message here, is, I think, a little bit more straightforward than what Mike Rogers is trying to do. He sent a bleat yesterday that said this. Muhammad El-Said is a terrible candidate for the Demosocrats. While his opponent, Mike Rogers, is an extremely good one.

Mohammed goes back to the days of jihad. He is a radical extremist terrorist sympathizer, no different from his best friend, America-Hadenaed-Pykeye. How's France doing? So that's Trump's message. there, which is not really very policy-heavy. I think he's dispensed with all of the policy disputes, and it's just like, hey, Michigan, do you want to vote for a jihadist? Just straight anti-Muslim bigotry from the president. You know, I mean, the guy who cut his political teeth on Barack Hussein

Obama and the birther lies. That's what I was, I get my point is, look, this is horrible. It's disgusting. but that's more of a clear message than what Mike Rogers is trying to do. Like, Mike Rang is trying to do like, I'm a nice guy that likes Canada. It's like, no, like, Trump is like, no, if we're going to win, we're going to go with my playbook, which is straight bigotry into your veins. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, look, the question for a lot of America in this election is, do you hate the Democrats?

Do you hate brown people? Do you, whatever, whoever it is that Donald Trump says you're supposed to hate, do you hate them so much that you're willing to, you know, get off your couch, and, you know, spend the enormous amount of money that it cost to drive to the polls and vote for Republicans once again, even though they haven't done any of the things that you wanted when you voted for them the last time. Going back to your point about the Democrats and concerns about Abdul,

I've been intrigued. There's, like, this discourse in kind of like lefty media circles. Like the Democrats don't like Abdul, and they corporate Democrats, and they don't really want them to win. and I don't know. I mean, I guess people have different views on him personally. So maybe there's something to the first part of that. But on the latter, the Democratic establishment is rallying around El Saeed more than any other candidate in the country right now.

Barack Obama is going there to campaign with him in Wayne County, presumably focused on that black vote that you mentioned earlier. And Gretchen Whitmer is going to campaign with Abdul today. I don't know anything to be true about this or some scuttle that was on the scenes. really love each other, but she's out there on the campaign trail with him today. And then Alyssa Slokkin, who is, again, kind of a boogie person in, like, lefty, progressive media circles, is doing maybe the most for Abdul and is out there. They're doing a joint interview on MS now earlier this week. I'm going to play a little bit for that.

But I think, frankly, for the state of Michigan, we want to, like, people want to see a Jewish woman and a Muslim man being able to get along, debate, push and pull on each other, and move the state forward. Frankly, I think it's good for Michigan. I think it's good for the country to see that. Pretty striking. Alyssa is out there doing that and a pretty striking contrast with Trump's bleat. Yes, striking contrast. Look, you know, you listed up who are the power surrogates in the Democratic Party, right?

You know, that people who have star power are still people like Barack Obama who have been reviled by people like Abdul al-Said, and he's still campaigning for him. I find that to be really notable. It's a big departure from Donald Trump and how he approaches politics, which is the sort of, it's all about me,

and either you suck up to me or, you know, I will destroy your political career. I have very little patience for this kind of like proxy fighting over 2028 and positioning for 2028. I mean, in my experience, whatever it is we're saying about 2028, it's going to be completely totally wrong. The world will have moved on the discussions, the issues, the debates.

We might be in a war with the robots in 2020. No, our robot overlords are sort of maybe dictating the terms of that election or whether it even occurs. And I do just find that, like, at a time when we're overwhelmed with content and news coverage, Tim, I feel like it's totally fine to opt out of a lot of, what did you call it, the lefty democratic discourse? You might not have a night for day if you just don't, like, you know, read into that. You're telling me I shouldn't do discourse?

No more discourse? And it's pretty good. I made it 40 minutes into the podcast without doing any discourse. You know, I'm just saying that if you went to sleep and woke up in 18 months, then you could more realistically tune in to the 2028 debate. Okay. That's fair. And do you have any other deep midterm thoughts on any of the other races?

Anything else catching? Exactly else is a deep thought. I apologize. Oh, no, no, no. I was moving on. Do you have any shallow midterm thoughts? I don't know. Do you have any like Marco Rubio level depth midterm thoughts? Wow. You know, I'm feeling a little stressed out by this prompt. Look, I'm hearing a lot of exuberance that is veering on the irrational exuberance, or maybe call it rational exuberance by Democrats, by people who want the Republican to lose who want a message to be sent to Donald Trump in just a few weeks.

Then numbers, the fundamentals are notable and striking. The structural impediments remain. And the Democrats have a very hard time turning those fundamentals into the kind of huge tsunami that you would expect on Democrats' behalf. When you look at, you know, Trump being the most unpopular incumbent president at this point before midterm, since modern polling began. In 2018, Trump was better off in his opinion polls than he is right now. Republicans still lost 41 seats on the House majority. And yet today, there are only 21 seats that are listed as toss-up seats by the Cook political report.

There are structural impediments to this democratic wave. I also think, you know, the indicators are remarkable in the Senate. We're talking about the Michigan Senate race. But across the board, you're seeing a whole swath of polls that suggest Democrats are leading in Senate races where six months ago, you and I would have laughed, you know, had we said that. They have apparently succeeded in expanding the map. But I would point out that while Democrats are leading, in most of these states, they're leading within the margin of error. And not at 50 in a lot. You know, psychologically, I get it.

It's very hard for people. They see, well, they're leading and everything. So they think, of course, it's practically a lock that they're going to win the Senate. I just don't know that it's a lock that Democrats are going to win the Senate. I agree with that. We're going to do a deep dive tomorrow with one. We have to doubleheader tomorrow. One of the guests we're going to do polling deep dive and talk about this because I was speaking to a Democratic strategist just last night.

And they're telling me about kind of the polls that. the internal polls are looking at in one of these red state center races. And he's like, Trump voters are not answering the phones, period. And that could be good or bad. You know what I mean? It's like that could mean that the Democrats actually do better. And we'll explore how that is possible on tomorrow's show. But the point is, it's like, there is just a lot of what they call waiting in the polling

business happening right now because like the enthusiasm gap as far as answering the phone is so wide. And there are reasons to think that that augurs well. for Democrats, and there are also reasons to think maybe that means that the polls are overstating their margins a little bit. So we'll explore more on that tomorrow. I do just feel compelled to ask you open-ended for thoughts about yesterday's October 7th anniversary. There's a vigil in New York that all the leading politicians, including the mayors or on Amdani, went to. it was disrupted by protesters, including protesters that were saying,

Zoran, you can't hide, we charge you with genocide, which would be funny if it wasn't such a serious matter. I guess I was frustrated yesterday with kind of all the conversation around it because it just felt everybody, it felt so loaded for everybody to try to, you know, even people who are trying to genuinely weigh in with their sympathies about. the anniversary of the attack. So I just kind of open-ended, was wondering if you had any thoughts. Yeah, I mean, it's such a toxic issue in our politics, in Israel's politics. Look, it's become the defining issue in Israel's general election, which they're having a few weeks even before our midterms.

The whole question is whether B.B. Netanyahu, three years later, is ever going to face any accountability for the failures that led up to October 7th. That has become the prime issue in that race. As you know, Netanyahu has refused even to have blocked an independent commission of the sort that Israel has had previously in its history. I think that's one question, is accountability for his government's record. Another very huge question is the incredible damage that he has done, it seems to me, to the viability of Israel as a long-term project internationally.

there's never been lower regard for Israel. It's, as you just mentioned in New York City, ripping America's Democratic Party apart. It's a huge source of conflicts, political conflict across Europe. Rising anti-Semitism is clearly being fueled by people's views of the horrors that have been inflicted upon so many innocent Palestinians as a result of this awful terrorist attack on Netanyahu's overreux. the top response to it. And, you know, it's just, it's a horror. I remember so clearly, Tim,

that was a Saturday morning. And I, for some reason, woke up early. Not an early riser, definitely. And I just happened to, like, wake up at like, you know, 5 o'clock that morning and look at my phone. And I couldn't even tell it first from just glancing at Twitter what it was, but I knew it was something truly just apocalyptic horrible. And I just then figured out after a few minutes, what it was and realized, you know, this is the moment where everything is going to change as a result. This is the scale of this is so big. And of course, unfortunately Netanyahu's scorched earth response was, I think, predictable. It's just awful.

You know, I will say I was thinking of another anniversary yesterday that got almost no attention, which is that October 7th was also the 25th anniversary of the beginning of the war in Afghanistan. November 7th was the day that the U.S. began its response to 9-11 and went to war against the Taliban to oust the Taliban in Afghanistan. It's a really painful, bittersweet moment for a lot of people who remember the U.S. 20-year conflict that resulted in that country. Look at how the Taliban are back in power today, what's happened to Afghanistan's women and girls as a result of that. And so I do think of that as well. I was in Central Asia on that day. My husband, Peter Baker, was actually in Afghanistan with the Northern Alliance on the Shemali plane, listening to the sound of the war beginning.

And I thought it was amazing that nobody really even mentioned that yesterday. Oh, man. I don't know, Peter is there. Do you have any other memories from that? You know, it's funny because then I was in Uzbekistan. on that day. Was Becky, Becky, Beckistan? I was, I was, which is where the U.S. had gotten Uzbekistan's then dictator to agree to let the

U.S. forces use bases in Uzbekistan to launch the invasion. So it was a critical place in Central Asia for the war, very unlikely kind of spot for the U.S. to be operating in. And I ended up in Afghanistan just a few weeks later covering the battle. of Torabora, which was, again, talk about an unlikely place for the U.S. to be at war and also for me personally to be. But, you know, I just, I do think about the women and the girls in Afghanistan and, you know, just the heartbreaking, you know, brokenness of our promise there. Because whatever you hear about that place, I will tell you that, you know, watching freedom come to a place

where people had literally been banned from even listening to music. You know, I spent probably among the most memorable few hours of my life speaking with a young woman in Kandahar, the spiritual capital of Taliban, just a few weeks after the Taliban had been ousted from there and her telling me about what it was like to run an underground school for the girls of Kandahar. And, you know.

I know. And it's kind of like the kind of like the country. a punchline at this point because it's been so long and that happens with history and you know you see comedians and people like making a joke about it still like oh we really went to this war over the women and girls but like their lives like the stories of their lives is just so fucking heartbreaking and and to think that we're back now people welcomed freedom uh they did they welcomed it Okay. We're going to have to do just a final pallet cleanser from that because I don't want to end on a tear. I have two final topic options for you. Will Sumner just dropped his latest false flagged newsletter.

The headline is Republicans have an Andrew Tate Eel-Sex problem. Okay. I'm not right into this. Okay. The other one is if you have any thoughts on Susan Dell. Okay, that was a photo off for the news. No question. But, you know, Look, Tim, what I will say is pay attention to the man in the mirror. The guy who mattered in that photo op was this snoring president. Once again on camera, we shouldn't forget that. You know, the president is 80 years old and he's losing his audiences in these rallies. And he's, you know, catching up on his sleep in the middle of photo ops, okay?

If this was any other leader, dot, dot, dot, dot. But we began with that. But let's end with that. You know, Donald Trump is an octogenarian who has a hard time staying awake, who can't complete a sentence, who is historically unpopular, who has led the country into a disastrous war in the Middle East with no way out. And yet he's the guy going around the country saying that the Democrats can't be elected to office because they will turn your children into communist transvestites. Okay. Yes, there you go. He also is one in that picture who has an unnatural face. So we'll leave it at that.

That's Susan Glasser of the New Yorker, close to getting her Bullwark Gold Watch. We'll have you back again soon, all right? Thank you. Hope Springs Eternal. I can't wait. Thank you. Everybody else will be back tomorrow for a double header. See you all then.

Peace. The Bullwark Daily is brought to you thanks for the work of lead producer Katie Cooper, Associate producer Ansley Skipper, and with video editing by Dante DeChico, and audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.