The Bulwark Podcast - Susan Rice: Vote Like Your Life Depends on It

Episode Date: October 13, 2026

Americans are living in a more dangerous world now because of Donald Trump. Not only because of his now-expanding war in the Middle East, but also through his reckless advocacy of AI. And in his desperation over the midterms, he's cut a sinister deal with Putin, the very same man helping Iran to kill Americans. Rice tells Tim this is not the time to be complacent over the good polling numbers. Just go vote. Plus, Democratic strategist Jackie Rosa checks in from South Texas on the electoral landscape there and offers up some advice on how Dems should talk to Latino voters. Susan Rice and Jackie Rosa join Tim Miller.show notes: JVL on Trump's desperate, weak deal with Putin "The Next Level" podcast out later today Tim's updated candidate list Bobby Pulido's campaign site Johnny Garcia's campaign site in TX-35 October Surprise: The Bulwark is 30% off Upcoming Bulwark LIVE show in Atlanta on Oct. 20 The Bulwark’s campaign to help the Haitian community of Springfield The Bulwark store

Welcome to the Bull Work Daily. I'm your host, Tim Miller. We've got a double header for you today. In segment two, we're continuing our young strategist series with a focus on Hispanic vote. It's an awesome young woman that's working on some races in Texas. And if you want a review of the press secretary's first briefing, if we want to call it that, this is happening as I speak right now. It looks very clownish. We'll be doing that on the next level feed. So go check that out. But first, she served as National Security Advisor and Ambassador to the United Nations during the Obama administration. She was also Biden's chief domestic policy officer for the first two and a half years. It's Susan Rice. Welcome back to the program. Good to be with you, Tim. Thanks so much for doing this. Oh, boy. You know, there's so much to cover with the world on fire. Last night, Russian forces launched ballistic missiles at Kiev. The Ukraine military did not get advanced intel, which led to some scuttle butt that maybe we had already cut intelligence sharing.

the U.S. has threatened Ukraine to cut intelligence sharing. It's also possible that's just kind of snuck through. I want to tie this to kind of the decision to take Russian diesel and Applebaum wrote that this was basically part of an abrupt, Hail Mary, attempt to force Ukraine to surrender. I'm wondering what you think the state of play is in that conflict right now. Well, I think we're at a very critical moment, obviously, Tim, where we're heading into winter. Ukraine is under this enormous threat, you know, it's short on interceptor missiles, and as a result, civilians are taking the brunt of the Russian onslaught. And yet on the ground, you know, Ukraine has had some successes and has increasingly demonstrated an ability to strike deep into

Russia with advanced drones and other technology. And so at a time when the United States has pulled back from Ukraine, not providing financial support, not providing the critical munitions that are so badly needed, leaving it all to the Europeans. The Russians are both feeling pressure and success at the same time, success in terms of inflicting enormous damage on the Ukrainian people. And then along comes President Trump, who, of course, to remind everybody, said he'd have this war resolved in 24 hours two years later, and he is cutting a deal with Putin that gives, you know, life and support to Putin at a critical moment and doing it under the guise of helping American farmers and ranchers with lower diesel prices. But the reality is this deal, if it actually goes

through, will do very, very little for American consumers because it's so small and scale. And yet it will be a direct boon to Putin who will be able to line his coffers and defeat the sanctions regime. And by the way, Tim, it's also probably illegal, runs counter to the U.S. ban on importing any Russian oil products. So it's illegal. It's immoral. It's designed to benefit Putin under the guise of helping Americans and it won't help Americans. So that takes us to a question that we revisit time and again with the Trump of administration, which is stupid or sinister.

You know, you do wonder. They're not mutually exclusive. They are. Maybe it could be both. Yeah, false binary sometimes. You know, and it's like, does Trump think that importing Russian diesel will help? Like, as he can, or as someone told them out, has he convinced himself of that? Or, you know, as you say, do we think this is really more of, you know, kind of a farce and a plot to, you know, give them an excuse to help Russia put pressure on Ukraine? But again, they're not mutually exclusive.

I mean, I think somebody could have convinced him that, you know, saying you've got this big huge diesel deal, which, you know, when you hear the raw numbers, sounds impressive. But when you compare it to the percentage of diesel consumed in the United States and do the math, you recognize that it's a, you know, barely a drop in the bucket. So, you know, it's a good talking point for Trump to try to employ at a time when he's deep underwater and gas and diesel prices and fertilizer prices are particularly problematic for him. And he will probably fool some people, but at the same time, it enables him to help Putin in a critical way to break out of, you know, U.S. and international royal sanctions. So it's a twofer in a sense.

JBL wrote yesterday's a newsletter about this. I mean, just the staggering weakness, I do think it's worth sitting on for a second, when you consider that as how this ties to the other theater and the war of choice that he started, the Russians have provided Iran with satellite intelligence, ammunition, drone components, and explosives have been used to kill American. soldiers. Trump's response now is to beg Putin to accept our money in exchange for a few thousand barrels of diesel. J.V.L. Wright's is the most stunning display of submission and weakness from an American president. I do think that sometimes gets lost in all of this. I mean, it's just kind of, and it's a silly game to play a little bit, but it's kind of unimaginable to think what Fox

would be saying about your former boss if they had been doing this. It is. It blows the mind to try I have to imagine that. And yet they're deaf, dumb, and blind now when we have a president who literally is rewarding our adversary for not just providing the munitions you indicated, but the intelligence to kill and target American forces in the Middle East as a consequence of this, as you mentioned, stupid, dangerous, unnecessary, illegal war of choice with Iran. So here we are, Iran is actively helping Russia against Ukraine. Russia is actively helping Iran against the United States. You would think that would reinforce the ties between the United States and Ukraine, but not under this administration. Instead, we are helping our adversary who is helping to kill us. It's more than tragic. It is upending the

relationships and partnerships that our security has relied on for decades and making us profoundly less safe. Yeah. And the humiliation that extends to Iran, the scale of retreat, the New York Times is starting with us last week. It's pretty stunning as well. And we had to withdraw 12b-1 bombers

from an air base in Britain. So they're concerned about threats in Britain. We have this huge damage to bases across the region. To me, it's pretty striking how, like, and we can joke about Fox, but the people who were, you know, national security hawks back when I was a Republican, you know,

the Condoleez-Rices, the Tom Cottonson, who are still in the Senate, just totally missing on all of this. Like, what do you make of that? It's sad. They, like Marco Rubio, at least used to know better and probably still do. But for whatever personal calculations they're making have decided to stay silent and in some cases to cheerlead the war in Iran. Yeah.

And the damage to U.S. infrastructure, as you mentioned, bases, depleted munitions to our global force posture. We've had to pull forces out of the Asia Pacific and mass them in the Middle East, only for them to be targeted and have to use faraway bases like Diego Garcia because our near-in bases have been destroyed. It's an extraordinary blow to our global posture and strength. You know, the fact that the United States, the greatest military on the face of the earth, along with Israel, one of the world's most capable regional militaries through the kitchen sink at Iran, and it's still standing and still, you know, thwarting shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. Its allies, the Houthis are attacking Saudi Arabia on a daily basis and threatening traffic, oil traffic through the other major choke point, the Babel Mandab.

And meantime, the Iranians are doing exactly what every national security team, every prior president understood that they would do if attacked, which is to use the strait as a weapon. And now we're seeing them light up proxy organizations, sleeper cells in Europe and maybe, I fear elsewhere, to carry out attacks, whether on hard infrastructure, you know, like our base in the UK. By elsewhere, do you mean here? Do you mean in the American homeland? There has long been reason to be concerned that the Iranians and or their proxies have sleeper cells, not just in Europe, not just in the Middle East, not just in Latin America, not just in Asia, but also here. So, yes, we have to be worried about that. And, you know, we knew under the Bush administration, under the Obama administration, under the Biden administration, and even under Trump won, that starting this war would lead to very adverse consequences, that the Iranians would fight in a ruthless and asymmetrical way. And they've already succeeded in driving the United States out of its bases and footholds in the Middle East and now are putting pressure on us, as far field as the United Kingdom.

Yeah, two follow questions on that. One, because you alluded to this, and you haven't been back on since the war started. We talked last year when there were, you know, another series of crises that were self-imposed by this administration. Like, you had to be in those meetings, you know, when you were national security advisor under Obama,

when there were, you know, obviously considerations about what to do with Iran. I mean, there were proxy, obviously proxy terror attacks that Iran was funding while you were there. I just kind of talked through like that. Like, what were the considerations? What were the different things that you guys were looking at as far as military options with Iran and what the risks were? Well, we were very deliberate about not taking any military options off the table.

And we said it explicitly. We would do what it was necessary to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, to respond when threatened directly or indirectly. But we were smart about it, Tim. We weighed the risks and the benefits with respect to. the nuclear program, we made the determination that if we could get an intrusive, verifiable inspection regime and take out Iran's nuclear material so that it didn't have any highly enriched material, that it couldn't race to a bomb, that the international community would see it if it tried to through the intrusive inspections. We had a good nuclear deal in 2015. And a lot of people,

you know, tried to criticize it, but it worked. And Iran was not obtaining a nuclear weapon. It was not increasing its enrichment capacity until Trump pulled out of that deal in 2018. And even after that for a year, the Iranians held pat to see if Trump would come back into the deal. And a year after that decided to heck with it, we're going to advance our nuclear program. And that's what they did. And Trump now claiming that through this war, he's prevented Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. It would be laughable if it weren't so serious.

Because reality is, all that 60% enriched uranium remains inside of Iran, their know-how remains to build nuclear weapons. They probably even have enrichment capacity remaining. And if they don't, they can easily reconstitute it. And now, Tim, if you're looking at it from the Iranian point of view, it was one thing to have a threshold nuclear program. Now they must be thinking, wow, if we're vulnerable to be attacked at the whim of Israel or the United States, or the United States, we really ought to have a nuclear weapon. I fear that's what they're thinking. So we have now driven them to a place that is more dangerous rather than less dangerous. And of course, the Strait of Hormuz is another form of nuclear weapon that they've discovered

and are willing to detonate when it's in their interest. So we looked at all of these things, Tim, and the Obama administration, and we decided that we don't need to go to war. Diplomacy and the threat of the use of force were more effective than, as Trump has proved, the actual use of force. Because there were proxy terror attacks on our troops during this period, right? And I'm sure Israel... Going back to Lebanon in 1983. Yeah.

And I'm sure Israel was also kind of interested in more aggressive action when you guys run there, no? Prime Minister Netanyahu has tried to persuade every American president going back to at least George W. Bush that war with Iran is the best course of action. And every prior president had the wisdom to see that the risks and the costs of that would outweigh the benefits and said, thanks, but no thanks, until Donald Trump in his second term, who got the same pitch that all of his predecessors did, but decided that this was the time and that only he could do it, you know. I alone can fix it. I started to get a statue in Tel Aviv, I think. You thought he was going to get a gold statue? I think he was, you know, feeling high after Venezuela, underestimated what Iran would take, didn't really listen to the military because the military would have told him how risky this would be.

So he made a very costly, dangerous miscalculation. And Tim, just to underscore when I say costly, how much this is cost the American consumer. Yeah. You know, the estimates are that the average American family has already paid more than $2,000 additional dollars this year because of Trump's war in Iran. That's in fuel costs and food costs and the like. And that's on top of at least $1,100 that they're paying for tariffs. So this is hitting people badly where it hurts, not to mention our farmers and ranchers for fertilizer costs and diesel costs, people in places like Maine who can't afford home heating

oil. I mean, this is a disaster. And what I'm about to ask you about, this contributing to the disaster, the Houthi's attack in Saudi. And there's an ongoing, you know, back and forth that Saudi had been instigating for a while in the Houthi terrorist efforts going back to Biden administration and prior. But we're in the situation now where it's escalated and there's obviously a direct connection to the Iran war. What options can they even consider at this point, you know, as far as as dealing with the, you know, uptick and Houthi attacks on Saudi? And it feels they're like they're really backed into a corner. This was a costly dangerous war between the Saudis and the Houthis going back to 2015, I think.

Sure. And then, you know, for a period of time, there was a ceasefire, a deal that held. And the Iran War really upended that because it became useful for Iran to activate the Houthis to open another front. You know, the Saudis saw an opportunity to accomplish their objectives. and the thing just reignited. But the terrible thing, Tim, is, you know, the United States started this war with Israel. It's not clear to me whether the Saudis at the outset were supportive of this or not. But shortly thereafter, after they saw just how much it was costing them and other countries in the region,

they became very concerned about it. We basically opened Pandora's box. The Iranians have rained hell down on the Gulf Arab countries. and we've done virtually nothing to protect them. And now with the Houthis, you know, striking deep into Riyadh, cutting off basically air travel in and out of the country. And we're sort of just saying, wow, that's a bummer. Maybe we'll think about doing something.

Strongly condemned. Marco, strongly condemned. But it's like, what are they going to do? I mean, we already are low on munitions? Or they just start attacking Yemen now? I think they're going to be very reticent to do that. Yeah, of course they're reticent. But at the same time, you know, you open up a can of whoop.

ass on your allies and sit back and watch it, that's not a good look either. So, you know, we've really boxed ourselves in on so many levels into a very, very bad set of circumstances, thanks to Trump's stupid war on Iran. I want to talk about the Democrats' posture on this a couple of things. You know, there's a lot of discourse around, like looking back at the 24 campaign about how, you know, Trump fooled people by running as the anti-war candidate and that, you know, maybe some Harris's like campaign tactics or the messaging for the Democrats. because they wanted to kind of, you know, represent, you know, strength, you know, represent protecting institutions such as the military, made it seem as if the Democrats were actually,

you know, more of the whatever pro-military aggression, pro-globalist-type party. And I'm wondering how you think about that now going forward, how the Democrats ban on it's like trying to take back kind of the anti-war mantle that Obama had in O.H. While also, you know, projecting the importance of American strength. How do you balance those things? Well, strength is about having the wherewithal, military, economic, political, to prevent and deter war through strength. And we have squandered our deterrence and demonstrated to our adversaries in Russia and China

that we won't stand up for our allies, that we will waste our resources and our munitions on unnecessary ventures, leaving ourselves, you know, less capable of responding to their contingencies. So we've eroded deterrence. We have therefore made ourselves weaker vis-a-vis our principal allies. You know, a smart subsequent administration, whether Democratic or Republican, would work to restore deterrence, work to rebuild our capacity, to project power, to support our allies, to deter our adversaries, in order not to go to war. You know, nobody wants stupid wars. And what Trump has done is, you know, squandered our capacity in stupid wars of choice

and left us less prepared to deter a war we wouldn't instigate, but may, unfortunately, one day, face from China and or Russia. I mean, no stupid wars is kind of it, right? And I, what was your old boss's line, don't do stupid shit. Do you agree with that premise, though, like between 08 and 2026, the Democrats did lose, you know, fairly or unfairly, you know, kind of that mantle of being the party that was not going to do as much, you know, not going to engage in unnecessary global conflict? Well, what unnecessary global conflicts did Biden engage in? He, you know, he didn't do that. You can argue about what he did vis-a-vis Israel's conflict. Sure. He got out of Afghanistan.

Yeah. Right. So, you know, I don't know if that's a fair description of what the Democrats record is. I agree with that. So that's where the voters were inside. Like, how did you? It seems like they got into a little bit of a sour spot on it kind of, you know, where it was like that it was not.

Right? I mean, do you disagree? You know, I haven't seen the polling on that precisely. So you may have a better sense of that than I. But I think, you know, here's the reality. Obama ran against the Iraq war that George Bush started as a flawed unnecessary venture. As you said, he was against doing stupid shit, right? And this Iran war is a classic example of stupid shit.

It doesn't mean you don't defend yourself. It doesn't mean that there are no wars that may be necessary. But it's these ventures of choice that get us bogged down and erode our strategic position cost lives and cost the Americans consumer that we must avoid. And rather than build our strength and build our deterrence, you know, this administration has, as I said, previously squandered it. And, you know, I think Americans are starting to understand that there are wars that cost us dearly in terms of lives as we saw in Afghanistan and Iraq, of course, Vietnam. And there are wars that cost us less dearly in terms of lives, even though we've lost at least 21 service

men and women and 865 wounded, that's a big deal. But it's cost Americans even more in their pocketbooks than many wars. And it's all unnecessary. So we need leadership with the wisdom to know what our interests are, what we absolutely must do to protect and defend them when we don't have a choice. And when we do have a choice that we make those choices wisely in the interests of preserving the lives and the livelihoods of Americans. Look, we're all trying to find some ways to save some time. You know, I'm eating my little protein bar on the way up the stairs to taping this. You've all heard my morning routine and how my husband helps me save time by bringing me

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I want to ask you about another kind of intersection of politics and security question and what the right way is, you or how you'd advise, like, Democratic 20-208ers to posture themselves. And that's on the question of AI. Obviously, they're concerns about, you know, AI security and threats. I think that we're seeing in the midterms at the data centers, there's some potential political benefit for the Democrats to be seen as, you know, a, you know, party that is kind of challenging this consolidation in the hands of a few in Silicon Valley.

On the other hand, you know, there's always this balance, right? I mean, there could be benefits to AI. I just kind of wonder, like, how you would advise folks that are running in 20208 to think about navigating this issue. Well, Tim, let me answer your question a little bit differently. I'm not going to talk about what I'd advise. I'm going to tell you what I think. Okay.

Because I've thought a lot about this. I've spent a lot of time on the national security implications of artificial intelligence. And I have some very strong views. And some Democrats may adopt them and others may not. But here's what I think. There may be value and benefits from AI in terms of medical advances or what have you. We haven't quite yet seen those. But what we do know and what is increasingly indisputable is that from a national security

point of view, AI poses at least two really proximate and dangerous threats. The first one is that AI has been demonstrated to be able to be used by anybody, a terrorist organization, the proverbial guy sitting on his couch in the basement, a hostile state, to develop exceedingly dangerous weapons of mass destruction, whether those are cyber weapons that can take out the electricity grid or break the internet or crash the global financial system or biological weapons, including novel pathogens that may kill on a scale that we've never seen before. AI gives bad people the capacity to develop those kinds of weapons, and that is exceedingly dangerous. The second critical threat, which is arguably even greater, and we've seen this through the

hugging face incident and many subsequent examples of AI agents breaking out of their so-called sandboxes, getting out of their cages, accessing the internet without anybody's knowledge or permission, and then coordinating to take on and do things that their creators had no intention of them doing. It's called loss of human control. And that worries me enormously because there is real reason to be worried that as AI becomes more sophisticated and approaches superintelligence, meaning smarter than humans on most dimensions, if not every dimension, through this process called recursive self-improvement where basically the AIs are getting evolving themselves and taking humans out of the loop and getting better and better and better on an exponential curve,

that's happening as we speak and may come to fruition as soon as next year. When we hit superintelligence or on the path to superintelligence, the loss of control risk, not Donald Trump's definition, the real superintelligence, the loss of control risk is massive. And we could find ourselves literally being subordinated to AI agents, literally losing control, and even face an existential threat. Subordinated? Yes. In what sense?

Because they will be more intelligent. and have the capacity to control humans and what we can and can't do. That means we are a lesser species. Go listen to Elon Musk and Peter Thiel and these other freaks. They are dreaming of the day that they have created a super species that is evolved more than humans. That's their whole stated objective, which by the way is why Elon's trying to build rockets that he can escape to Mars on and why half these tech CEOs have, you know, bunkers in New Zealand where they can hide out when the apocalypse hits. So I worry enormously about those two threats.

And so my view is we should not drive pell-mell off this cliff. I have proposed that we, if we had, you know, capable and well-intentioned leadership to use our diplomatic capacity, to try to negotiate with the Chinese, a freeze, a freeze in place on the development of, you know, the most advanced AI models in both countries, open source models and close source models, a freeze across the U.S., China and other countries until the best scientists in the world that we can together help assemble can solve these two problems through technical means. the problem of misuse by a terrorist or other bad actor of AI for weapons of mass destruction and solve the loss of control risk problem or misalignment problem.

And if the best scientists in the world working on this day in and day out cannot solve that problem, those two problems, then we should not pursue any further the development of AI on the path to superinteliorges. Now, that would be the ideal. an agreement with China. If that can't be reached, although, of course, we haven't tried, then I think that, frankly, the only responsible thing is to say we are not going to drive pell-mell off this cliff. We're going to pause and we're going to pause until we've solved these problems. And if we can't, we pause and we get others to do the same. Because this is a question of humanity's future. This is not a political issue. It's not about somebody's stock price or IPO. This is

about whether humans continue to exist as humans. And I'm, you know, frankly on team human. Yeah, me too. I'm, I'm going to ask this because, I mean, that answer puts you kind of on the more alarmist edge of what you're hearing from Democratic politicians. And I guess you have Bernie calling for a pause and maybe a couple of others. He's calling for more than a pause. He's calling for a, but anyway. He wants to arrest him too. He wants to arrest him as well. But, you know, okay. I'm not an alarmist. I'm a, I'm a national security pragmatist. I've spent a lot time You know, I'm sorry. At the bulwark, we say alarmist is a compliment. Okay, we're very alarmed. This is something to be alarmed about. Let's be playing. And I am. And you talk to Democratic leaders. Do you think that people are shared that view privately and are pulling punches because they're concerned about not seeming to alarmist or not alienating, you know, Silicon Valley? Or like, what do you think is kind of are the machinations on this? I don't know. I can't speak for other people. Yeah. Or their motivations. You know, I think there are a number of politicians on, frankly, both sides of the aisle

and other figures who are raising the alarm, who are concerned. And then there's some on each side that aren't sounding as concerned. The person who's sounding least concerned is the President of the United States who could do the most to address this problem. And Donald Trump has done an enormous amount of damage on many, many dimensions, domestic and international, as some of which we've discussed. The most damaging thing he could possibly do, not just to the United States, but to all of humanity, is to whistle past the graveyard as the AI companies, you know, careen towards superintelligence and do nothing about it. Some people do say, you know, even on left, I've listeners who say this that there is, that this is, the part of this is like hype, you know, that like the AI companies are pushing this, that they have this death machine because it helps valuations and, you know, they'd like the. How does marketing your product as dangerous?

I agree with you. I'm just stale me on the other side. All right. You have no view that this might be hype. I have no doubt. There is not a iota of concern in my body that this could be hype. Yeah. All right?

The leaders of these companies have been saying this for many years. The godfathers of AI like Jeffrey Hinton and Yahshua Benjio and Stuart Rutgers. all these folks that were, you know, like Oppenheimer, part of the early scientific teams, and these are academics who, you know, help create machine learning and artificial intelligence. They're all going, you know, holy shit, this needs to stop. People need to wake up. The notion that this is hype, the notion that this is employed by the, you know, anthropic and open AI to keep down, you know, new creators and open models,

That is not the principal motivation. The principal motivation is a recognition that they are part of creating a technology that could wipe us all out. And they're actually telling us that. And for politicians and world leaders to discount that and say, oh, it's hype. It is an excuse for them not to grip a problem that they will go down in history as being the worst possible failures for not gripping. All right. So for the listeners who are breathing into a paper bag right now, let's close with the little bit term. Hopium. Wait, that is the hope. The hope is, this is really important. The hope is on this issue of artificial intelligence that the American people are increasingly waking up to what this threat is.

And, you know, they may be focused today more on data centers, which is an important thing to be focused on. and it's in our backyards. But, you know, the polls are beginning to show that Americans are waking up to the real risks to humanity and to our way of life that AI poses. And it's bipartisan. 80-some percent of Americans, according to a recent Quinepiac poll that I saw last week, are concerned that AI needs guardrails. 76 or so percent, I'm not getting, mid-70 percent, are concerned.

that AI poses a fundamental threat to humanity. So people are waking up. And when they do wake up, they can put pressure on their elected officials and put pressure on the president to actually deal with this problem because it is one that we have the capacity to deal with if we hurry up. If we wait too long, we may lose it. Where are you out on the midterm side of the hope? Democrats competing in some places they haven't competed in in a long time, Texas, Alaska, Kansas, maybe? Well, I'm hopeful, but never overconfident that will win the House. My problem, Tim, is I've been around long enough to see hopes dashed and complacency lead

to failure. You're worried about Blue Texas. There was a lot of talk about Blue Texas back when we were on other sides. When I was at the RNC, they were the Obama guys, Jeremy Bird, and those guys, they started a Blue Texas thing. There's been a lot of talk of it. But this is the worst guy the Republicans have put up. I mean, there's just a new story every day last night that Wall Street Journal had a video of Paxton parting, New Year's Eve in Dubai with his girlfriend and two indicted Americans, a guy that was a health care executive that was indicted that gave him a $200,000 campaign contribution. And this is a bad candidate.

Look, there are some bad candidates, and the Democrats have some excellent candidates from Texas to Kansas to Iowa. You know, we've got some really good candidates. But I'm hopeful, but I'm not. confident. And I think the Senate really remains a toss-up. And people need to vote and they need to understand that they ought to vote like their lives depend on it, whether we're talking about AI, whether we're talking about the cost of living and this crazy war in Iran, which has to end, the tariffs that are jacking up everybody's costs as well. So people need to recognize that that we're on a course that is not just detrimental to our security, but really killing us in our wallets.

And their votes really matter. So rather than, you know, do the Washington thing of speculating and, you know, that's good. Calculating. Let's roll up our sleeves, go to work, and make sure folks get out and vote. Last thing I want to ask you about, I mean, the administration's continuing there, you know, retribution campaign targeting any foes went after Ilhan Omar over some like paperwork thing. her dad did 30 years ago, apparently yesterday. We'll kind of see how that shakes out. I don't know.

At the beginning of the Trump term, it felt like there was just huge fear about this. In academia and corporate America, a lot of people were too shy to speak out. That wasn't you. You've been speaking out and haven't had those concerns. Do you see that kind of thawing a little bit? Do you see people's backbone stiffening as his numbers get lower or not really? Yes, to some extent. I do. But here's the thing, Tim, it's been ordinary people that have been the bravest. It's been, you know, 60-year-old, 70-year-old women in Arizona. It's fishermen and, you know, loggers in Maine. It's regular people who are saying, wait a minute, you know, I may have wanted lower prices.

I may have wanted, you know, the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens out of the country. But I didn't want, you know, the abuela down the street, you know, handcuffed, thrown to the ground and disappeared for doing nothing. I don't want these, you know, crazy stupid wars that Donald Trump promised we wouldn't have. I don't want to worry as an American citizen if I'm exercising my constitutional right to protest peacefully that I'm going to be tracked and stalked and harassed. Most Americans might want lower prices, but they believe in the Constitution and the rule of law and the fundamental promise that we're all equal human beings in God's eyes. That's what I believe in. And I think that's what most Americans believe in.

And they're willing to stand up and fight for it. Now, leadership in corporations, leadership in universities and law firms and the media may have been not universally, but in a number of cases. is slower to stand up. But they are beginning to selectively and increasingly. And I think it's important that they do because their future and well-being rests as well on us being a society and a nation of laws that adheres to our constitution and applies those laws equally and fairly to everybody. And without that, you know, our companies can't compete. They can't thrive. Our universities can't thrive. Our law firms certainly can't thrive.

So it's time for folks to realize that it is in our collective self-interest to stand together for those core principles. Amen to that. Appreciate the time. We'll catch you after the midterms. All right. Thank you. Take care. Up next, Jackie Rosa.

This segment is sponsored by the New York Times was talking with Susan Rice, a bunch of different foreign policy stories where the Times has reporters on the ground offering breaking news, but also offering context based on their deep sourcing. In particular, I pointed to a couple of times recently. this story about Trump's retreat from the Gulf to Britain, American forces pullback. It's by David Sanger and Eric Schmidt. Sanger's been doing this so long. He had deep sourcing all the way back to the Bush administration. I didn't ask her, but I'm sure Susan Rice was a source of his during the Obama administration. He can have insight from people who are on the ground and have expertise.

It's hard for some of us to do when, you know, I'm sitting in my box in New Orleans. I can't talk to people on the ground in Britain where we're withdrawing 12 B1 bombers. We're not getting full vision into the scale of the damage being done to U.S. bases around the Gulf states. So we need people like David Sanger with the sources to do it and to contextualize it. So we understand just how humiliating the American retreat is. And then I can come on this podcast and tell you how humiliating it is. because New York Times reporters have to be a little bit more, they got to be a little bit more nuanced in how they talk about it.

And I can be like, yeah, you know what David Sanger was just reporting? It shows that Trump's a little bitch. You know, this is kind of the way that we complement each other. That story is just one example about how fact-based reporting informs our work here and it brings value to you. And now you get to decide what to think. Without fact-based reporting like this, the rest of us are just guessing. you've got people out there just bullshit

and yeah. Wherever you seek it out, whether it's here at the bulwark, we've got some great reporting on the ground. What about Will Summer? Getting that full six-minute audio of the MAGA Chuds trying to frame James Talariko for being at a mental health facility in Ohio and lying about it and pretending to be his cousin,

the audio, the full audio of their embarrassing idiocracy phone call was acquired by our Will Summer. That's fact-based reporting. So wherever you seek it out nationally, locally, support fact-based reporting. All right, we are back. We're continuing our Young Strategist series. The people are loving it.

You guys are loving it in the comments. And it's going to continue to be fun. Today we've got a Democratic strategist who's working with candidates in Texas and across the country with the group of the bench. It's Jackie Rosa. Hey, Jackie. Hi, it's great to be here. Good to hang. I wanted to have you on.

We chatted last week about some races you're doing, and in particular, focus on Bobby Polito's race in Texas. and we had Bobby on, God, a couple of months ago now. He's one of the first interviews he was doing with national folks. And the polls are looking good there. And so I wanted to kind of use that as a way to focus on the Hispanic vote, which we haven't talked about as much as I would like on the pod. But before we do that, I just want you to give us a little like first date, meet Jackie, you know, tell people about your backstory and what you're doing here.

Yeah. So I've been doing campaigns since 2022. I graduated college then. I did a bunch of Wisconsin statewide races, just about every one of them. I did the Senate race for Tammy Baldwin in 2024, worked on Tony Evers, a bunch of Supreme Court races. But prior to that, I really, I mean, coming to politics was all sort of like happenstance. I wasn't like a political person growing up. I come from a family of Tihano migrant farm workers. I grew up in a little farm town in Wisconsin. My parents would migrate between Texas, in Wisconsin. For those who don't know migrant farm working, that's kind of how it works. So

Texas was the home base. And then, you know, Wisconsin, they go seasonally. They decided to stay the rest of my extended family, my grandparents who were also migrant farm workers, my theas, my theos, they all stayed in Texas, specifically in South Texas. My dad's sides in the Rio Grande Valley. My mom's sides in like the brush country area. Where is that? I don't know about the brush country. Brush country is a little bit more north. So there, the town is Creezo Springs. So it's like about an hour from Eagle Pass, I'd say. Closer to the border, like two hours from San Antonio, but still like southern Texas, but not quite as south is the valley.

So, yeah, my parents decided to stay in this very small town of 1,500 people. It's where the farm was that they used to migrate to for years and years. And they stopped before I was born, so they settled. And, yeah, it was a very unique upbringing. My dad had this saying, and I'm sure a lot of Hispanic kids can kind of relate to this. but he'd say, meha, my hands look like this so yours don't have to. And he had very callous, strong, you know, sun-damaged hands. And, you know, I took that with a great, you know, pride and opportunity of my parents

worked incredibly hard. So I could have the opportunities to, you know, make change and make difference. And for me, it was really, I wanted to make this world a better place for people like them, working people. Yeah. So that's kind of how I. So you kept the Tejana identity, even though you ended up at Wisconsin. Yes. How does that work? So like everything growing up in my household was, you know, very tax

max, the food. My parents spoke Spanish. I didn't pick it up as well, but, you know, got some spanglish there. How's your spanglish like compared to like George W. Bush's spanglish? Like, who's better? What would you say? Oh. If you heard him. I don't think George Bush is that bad, but I mean, I was, I was very young. I was born in 2000, so I didn't hear a ton of it. But I will say my family I forgot. This is the Young Strategist series. You don't remember W. Spanglish. Yes. So my family are, though, I mean, Hispanics love him. My family loves him. So they appreciated the Spanish. I mean, it was just very much cultural. Like, my parents are very much proud Tahano. My dad always make the joke. Like, I'm not Mexican. I'm not American. I'm Texan. I'm a Tijuana. So, like, it's very, very strong culture there.

I mean, growing up, I'd always visit, you know, in holidays and whatnot. So it was, yeah, it was a bit of a unique experience. So can you do, I'm sorry, I'm going to keep quizzing on your Spanish. When like Bobby, these guys are doing Spanish language interviews, can you follow what this is happening? Or, or a CSC? I can follow along a bit. My speaking is not so good. I have a bit of a gringo accent. I did grow up in Wisconsin.

So the accent definitely is a joking point sometimes on the campaign. But I can understand and follow along a bit. A nasal Spanish. You probably don't get a ton of nasal Upper Midwest Spanish. Spanish out there. So that's good. It's unique. Let's talk about Bobby's race. You corrected me on social media the other day, which I, you know, I noticed because there was a poll out that showed the shift, and now I don't even remember what it was, but between what Trump's number was in 24 and what the polls are showing for Polito now in this race. This is a district that was redistricted by Greg

Abbott because they thought it was going to help Republicans take a seat illegally in the midterms. And the polls have him up, what, 10 plus? Yes, I believe the latest poll was 13 points up, which is pretty crazy. Trump won the district by 16? 18 points. 18. Which is, it's crazy. I remember talking about this race last year, and I think there was a lot of doubt of how

someone could flip a district like this. And my response was, I mean, my family, my dad's side has been in the Rio Grande Valley before Texas was a state. Like, this is one. of the most swingiest areas in the country. People are not beholden to a party. It's very much the candidate. And someone like Bobby is very much in alignment with the people there, culturally, values-wise.

And he just speaks to what, you know, what they want. It's also like you obviously have the obvious of like he's a household name. Yeah, for people who miss the original interview, I should have said this. He was like he's a town of music singer, you know, cowboy hand. Yes, I should give that context here. Yes, he is a very famous Tahano music singer. His dad, a lot of people don't know this, but his dad is a very big. deal in Texas. His dad, Roberto El Primo Polito, is a very famous Tahano music star as well,

a pioneer in the genre, I'd say. And sometimes my family gets more excited about the, you know, I get to meet his dad versus Bobby. But Bobby's very famous and like in his own right and is a huge star. Obviously, you see a lot of celebrities run for office, but this is not a lot, but you see it here and there. And I would say with Bobby, it's very different because it's so cultural, like Tahano like I was talking about. It's a very unique specific culture. Bobby's music has been around for 30 years. He was born and raised in Edinburgh, Texas. He still lives there. He's raising his family there. So it's very much embedded there. They play, him and his dad have played all the concert and dance halls in the area. Like we call a palitho country because, I mean, they've been everywhere at every

carnival at every dance hall. Like everyone knows them. And, you know, the music has been the soundtrack of South Texas Live, Kitsenianas, weddings, baptisms, carnia, carnage of and whatnot. So yeah, so you have this unique person who values-wise and policy-wise is in alignment with the people. You also have that cultural pull that's just so unique. And I don't think a lot of people, it's very hard, obviously, to compete against. That's hard to replicate. And so, you know, I'm just kind of thinking more broadly, you know, another of the bench candidates is Johnny Garcia who's running. That district is, I guess, up closer to San Antonio. Like, what are you seeing, you know, kind of in those other races and, you know, across Texas about the ways that

the Democrats are making inroads that is, you know, not wholly dependent on having a Tejano music star as the frontman? The biggest thing is that these people are not like the National Democrat Party brand. And they are very localized to their district. I would say with Johnny Garcia specifically, I mean, he's a cop. He's been in law enforcement for the past 20 years. He grew up in San Antonio. He spent his whole career, you know, protecting these.

same communities. He grew up in a single parent household, working class household. So he very much has the same experiences as the people there that he's running to represent. And people trust that. I mean, he calls himself an old school Democrat. He's very, you know, about public safety, economic issues. I love this line. He always says of, you know, people just want to make it to Sunday to get their bumper co and Big Red. So I mean, it's what resonates with people. What is Big Red? Big Red is, it's this like literally like, it's just like, literally like, exactly what is, a red soda that, like, has a bunch of, you know, sugar probably like red for it. It's like a fan to about red.

Yes, exactly, exactly. I'm personally not a fan, more of a Dr. Pepper fan. But, yeah, it's definitely beloved there. So, yeah, I mean, it's very much about economics, and that's like the focus. It's not social issues, and people want to fight for that, obviously. But the more important thing here, and I think a lot of Hispanics in these areas were really struggling with was the economy. And they felt like neglected by that with Democrats and, you know, under Biden as well. So yeah, let's talk about that.

Let's go back to 24 because at some level and it's it's obviously impressive the swing for the we're saying in the polito race. And Garcia's race, I should say, is on my list of candidates. I think people should be looking to support. I think that's a really close race right now. And it's also one of these gerrymandered districts that race is closer than what we're seeing in the polito race if you trust the polls. But like on the other way,

way to look at it is, you know, Donald Trump's whole brand when he came down the escalator was like racism towards Mexican immigrants and, you know, talking about how they're, you know, not bringing their best. And of course, there's the family separation and all this stuff in the first term. So, you know, for a lot of people, I think, just like the idea that Trump was winning these voters by such a large margin was surprising and was maybe a reflection of some failure on the Democratic side. So, you know, kind of like taking back, you know, the timeline a little bit to 24, now you're down there and Bobby, you're talking to these voters. Like, what's your sense for what the disconnect was? A lot of people were surprised that the Valley went red in 2024. And

from visiting there a lot and seeing family there, I'll start off a little bit of like contextualizing the Valley, you know, to people who aren't familiar with it. It is an incredibly poor region. It is predominantly Hispanic. People there, we have this great line that Bobby says. It's like people there don't consider themselves poor. They consider themselves broke because the next day they're going to make it. And that's such a Hispanic mentality. Like every family feels that way, I'd say. And there they felt neglected. I mean, with the border under Biden, I have family that lives feet away from the border. They're in Stark County. They're in, it's Garcinio, Texas, right between Rio Grande City and Roma. And it was a mess. and people were not happy about it.

On top of that, the economy is not doing well. So I think with Hispanic voters generally, it's like if you're messing with their pocketbook, also there's a bit of chaos at the border and they want safety. I think there's also this misconception about like border security and public safety. Like Hispanics want public safety.

Like I don't know where that like, you know, kind of left the room. But I would say, yeah, like this wasn't a surprise at all that there was those shifts. But yes, Trump won these areas, but Vicente Gonzalez and Henry Quayr also won. And that just goes to show that these are regions that really, like I said, I don't think they're that party affiliated. It's really the candidate. Henry Quayar is a, he is a retail, you know, politic or he is very good at it, you know.

So, and they also are very much values-wise, policy-wise, doing what's best for their districts. And they were able to beat that wave. Let's talk about the values thing a little bit. I had Carlos Eduardo Espina on. He's like a Hispanic for people don't know, like a very, very popular TikToker that has a huge following, the Hispanic community,

Spanish bilingual. And one of the things that he said to me was, you know, just that it's still a very religious community. And like that, you know, they don't necessarily, it doesn't necessarily mean that you want Bible thumpers

with social issues have to be at the top of the, you know, campaign list. but that there'd been like a sense that he had noticed among some people that they felt like the Democrats had become kind of like hostile to religious people. And he said that he thought that along with the things you just mentioned, some of the economic issues in the border, he thought that was a third element to why Democrats were starting to lose ground.

I'm wondering if you agree with that and, you know, kind of tying that now to this year whether you think that is helping Tala Rico in particular as, you know, he looks to kind of regain ground with Hispanic voters in Texas. Absolutely. Religion is so key to Hispanic life. I mean, it's not just like religion. It's like, I mean, I went to church every Sunday growing up. It's also very cultural. Every house in the valley or most Hispanic households probably have a cross right inside, you know, the house. So it's very much a way of life. And a saint. And a saint. And now we've met some saint statues. Yes. We, we, the Virgin Mary. Like, religion is so like, it's so woven into our daily life. And, Yeah, people do definitely think that, you know, Democrats are the party of atheists. I know my mother, she's a very religious woman. And she definitely felt that way. And sometimes I think with Democrats generally- Your mother's worried that we're, you know, taking you to hell. Your mother's worried, you know, that we're getting our clutches into you, the godless Democrats and homosexuals. Well, I would say the biggest thing is like with, at one time my mom actually, you know, kind of clocked me here of like I remember this was when I was in college, you know, and kind of discovering, you know, more politics and stuff.

Like I wasn't really political growing up. It wasn't really talked about much in my family. But I remember telling her just sort of like my thoughts. And she kind of just felt like that's like kind of the problem sometimes of Democrats is we feel like you're, you're judging us, our way of life. And we, I hear that a lot on the trail with Bobby as well. And it's a sentiment I think of a lot with my mom of like, I think with Hispanics, they're more traditional. They are very patriotic people. And we just need a respect their way of life.

And like we shouldn't impose, you know, I think they're also very respectful of everyone else's way of life. Like what people are doing in Austin, they're okay with it. But it's not what they're really wanting in, you know, the Rio Grande Valley either. So I think that's really what it is. It's just about respect. And religion with Tala Rico has been, I think that's been a really great bridge. my grandma, very religious woman, loves him. I mean, that's like such a, I think he's going to do great with the abuela

because of the religion aspects. I think being a pastor and the fact that his mother married an Italian who has an O at the end of his name, it might save us. Do you think it's, does it help Tala Rico, the O? Or is that just as Gringo is trying to project? I mean, I'll be honest, when we see Tala RICO in ads, I mean, I don't think my family, you know, or Hispanics are thinking, oh, that, guy's a tonne like us but I think it really is so like the religious you know the religion aspect

there I mean you can trust it I think one of the biggest things with Hispanic voters and maybe we like we make it way too complex and like how we win them back is like I really think one of the biggest components is trust they want to trust the person I mean compaxon's a scummy guy like he's we just saw this story come out about how he was parting in Dubai with his mistress on new year's eve with like a bunch of healthcare fraudsters donating hundreds of thousands to his campaign then you have Tala Rico and you see him and it's guys a priest like he yeah like his whole entire messaging is based on like helping helping people and that's really what it is with Hispanics like I think the trust factor is so huge and you look at Talley and you're like I can trust like I can't

trust Ken Paxton what about the governor's race you know I you look at polls and I'm sure you guys see internals et cetera and it does feel like Hinojosa is trailing Tala Rico by a couple of points and both are trailing, I think, you know, Bobby obviously, in his district and others. Is there a sense that the governor's race might be in play? Like, do you have any hot takes for us on Hinoosa's viability? I think absolutely. I mean, I saw, I read the CNN article. I think it came out last week where someone, it was just like the most Texas thing.

I mean, someone called her Chingona, which is like a badass woman. And like she absolutely is. Like, she really is. She's running such a scrappy campaign. Like, I'm beyond impressed with her. and she's killing it. And she's in a tough dogfight race, but she's doing everything she can

and she's gone all over the state. She's also from South Texas. Like, and when you're down there, I don't know, I mean, I'm not asking you to do like sign judging, but I don't know.

I mean, you're on the campaign trail with Bobby and you're hearing from people, like are, yeah, people know who she, because part of it is just in a state as big as Texas,

you know, I mean, you might be in a situation where you're campaigning and people know who Bobby is is the congressional candidate, but don't even know who she is, right?

Like there is a little bit of a name ID gap there. I would say in the valley, because she actually, she is from there. She's from Brownsville. Her family, I believe her dad was like a local elected. So they've been around a while. So people are actually pretty familiar with her. And a good anecdote I have for all this of like the excitement for these, you know, Bobby and, you know, the statewide candidates on the ticket is we did a rally in Beaville, Texas. It's a very small rural town, rural county. And there was this insane step. that more people showed up at this rally. It was Gina, James, and Bobby. More people showed up at this rally than the entire county voted for Kamala Harris in 2024.

And I believe it was almost 3,000 people showed up at the rally. This is a Ruby Red County. And over 70% Hispanic, I want to say. So that just shows you the excitement for Bobby, but also up and down the ticket of Gina and James as well. I'm doing the map right now live of where Beaville, Texas is. All right, that's down there. Yeah, it's like way south of San Antonio. All right, let's just really quick push ahead to 28 and, you know, how to think about this.

Obviously, you know, Harris did not do well among, you know, the Hispanic vote broadly in the country or in Texas in particular. I don't presume that the Democratic nominee in 28 will be a Tihano music singer. And so there will be some limitations to the way that you can kind of localize this, right? So like from a national perspective, like what would be your advice, having like been on this campaign, trail to 28ers who are like, hey, I want to try to signal to this community that I care about their concerns. Like, what would be some things that they could do differently than what we've seen in the past couple cycles? Yeah, I think some of the biggest things are, you know, show up. I think a lot of times we just don't show up and we take these communities and, you know, regions for granted.

I think South Texas is a very great example of that. It was a blue strongholds and, you know, look, it's slipped. And so I think we need to show. up. Also, Latinos in the Valley are very different than probably Latinos in San Antonio or Miami. We're not a monolith. So I think there's not always a one-size-fits-all here. And I think also just on the issues, keeping it focused to economics. One big thing, I think that really like turns Hispanic voters off is that the demonization of wealth. Every Hispanic family like wants to make it big. We're aspirational people. We want the American dream.

Our parents work so hard so we can do it. Like, we can take our generation another step further. So I think we really need to tap into that aspirational economic messaging of, yeah, we want to make money. We want to have enough money left over to have a good life. And maybe, you know, give money back to the community. That's interesting. That's against conventional wisdom. A lot of people aren't there right now are saying the Democrats need to tap into the economic populism and like burn the billion.

You know, so I would say definitely in these South Texas races, yeah, we push back on that notion. Hispanics very much are aspirational. And, you know, we don't come from a lot of money. And people have to work really hard. I think of my parents, they were farm workers. Bobby's dad, who is a Tahano star, he was a migrant farm worker. You know, so, like, people really want to have their own slice of the American dream. And I think we really need to appeal to that for, I mean, also, you know, like the Ruben-Guygo argument of, like,

Hispanic men want the big ass truck. It is incredibly true. You know, go to Texas, like lots of big ass trucks there and, you know, Hispanic want them and they get them lifted and, you know, do all the crazy, you know, customization. It is so true. So I think we can't do this demonization of well. I totally understand like the billionaire component and fairness. People want fairness, but they also want to be able to make it big themselves and, you know, have a good life and give back, you know, in the ways they want. And I think that's, That's really important. And I think also on immigration, obviously we're seeing, I think it's very nuanced. We can have both. We can have a secure border. We also can have comprehensive immigration reform.

And I think Hispanics are very tired of this being used as a political football, like, by both parties. And, you know, it just seems to not get solved. And, like, obviously what we're seeing in the Valley is, like, we're having these sort of lawless ice rates happening. And there's been, you know, American citizens detained. There was two teens in Alamo, which is in Bobby's district. they were on their way to enlisting the Marines and they were detained and beaten and assaulted. That's un-American. So people don't want that. And I think you can have a fair immigration system

and you can have a secure border and security. Right. I don't know. Sometimes I feel like the Democrats over-learn lessons and all this stuff and try and have become a little too cautious and scared of immigration. I don't know. And you tell me if I'm wrong about this.

You're deeper in the community than me. But my view is like, stop being so scared. You can do both and you can do it aggressively and passionately. Like we want a secure border and we want, you know, people, you know, to have a system where we know who's coming into the country. We also want to still be the land of opportunity. And like we don't want this Donald Trump, you know, thinking we're banishing people from being able to flee communism and come to the country. We don't want to be a country where masked guys are menacing people in the streets because they're brown. Like I think that you can like really be aggressive and passionate on.

both sides of that rather than kind of the mealy-mouthed middle that you sometimes get. Exactly. And I think you just need, like, you know, we're going to get Johnny and Bobby elected, and I think they're going to be really great leaders on this because they see it firsthand. I mean, Johnny is a cop. He saw what was happening under the Biden administration, you know, out on the streets. Bobby's there on the border. They see everything. And like, we really need these sorts of folks leading the conversation because, again, that's what they're talking about. A secure border is good. We need to know who's coming. coming in, but what's happening right now is just not humane. It's not sustainable. It's also

destroying the economy there. There can be nuance on this and people just really want real change. All right. That's Jackie Rosa. She's Latinks. Are we right? You self-identify as a Latink's strategist? Uh, no. I would say, I would say Latina. I think the first time I heard latinx was in college and I was like so confused. I was like, what does that, what does this mean? And then I have, you know, people that are not Latino telling me I should use that, you know, terms. So, yeah. Latina strategist, Jackie Rosa, doing important work down there on the border and did in the Real Ground Valley and across Texas.

Help in a couple of candidates. Good luck to Bobby and Johnny and you. And we'll check back in next year, all right? Awesome. Thanks so much, Tim, for having me. Of course. That was Jackie Rosa. Appreciate Susan Rice as well. We'll be back tomorrow. I think it's all double-h headers this week.

We've got a lot of double-h headers. But it'll be a double-heder tomorrow. It's going to be a good one. We'll see you all then. Peace. And I'm in media, always of what good and what malo me do every in your

dream, cada khanesuida, what me is can't tell you, that sound in the cumbia for that to dance and that maile my people.

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