The Bulwark Podcast - Tom Nichols: America's Problem Child

Episode Date: August 29, 2025

Trump is like a dysfunctional 8-year-old whose parents are always in the principal's office arguing that their son is a good boy. The media, CEOs, and Wall Street keep giving him a pass for his behavior while his supporters and apologists explain why he just had to set the school on fire. At the same time, he's empowering ideologues behind the scenes who are dismantling the government and executing their policy wet dreams. Plus, Joni Ernst's Senate tenure has been a sham, Vance tries Mickey Mouse Stalinism on for size, and what's going on with the bruising on Trump's right hand? The public has the right to know about the health of a president. Tom Nichols joins Tim Miller for the weekend pod. Tom Nichols joins Tim Miller for the weekend pod. show notes Tom's newsletter installment, "President Homelander" JVL's Thursday 'Triad' Tom calling Trump 'unmanly' and Vance an 'ass****' The film, "The Death of Stalin" Felicia Schwartz's piece on Steve Witkoff Tim's playlist Bulwark Live in DC and NYC at https://www.thebulwark.com/p/bulwark-events. Toronto is SOLD OUT

Hello and welcome to the Bullwark podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller, and boy, do we need this guest today, because I just, I'm so, I was so mad for Oasis that I felt like I needed to see him one more time. And so I flew to Chicago for the night. And so I'm not at 100% today. I'm just going to be honest with everybody. I'm not at 100. But luckily, we've recruited somebody who hopefully will carry me and who is a skilled

podcaster who you enjoy. He's Professor Emeritus of the Naval War College, staff writer at the Atlantic. His books include The Death of Expertise. It's Tom Nichols. How do you say Tom Nichols in Russian? Well, you know, they would say Tom Nichols, but actually what they would call me is because my father's name was Nick, the respectful way to address me is Foma Nikolaevich. Fomo Nikolayevich.

Well, Fomo Nikolajevich, so nice to see you. So nice to see you. We're all, we'll all be going to be Russian eventually. Are you an oasis man, Tom? You like, you like a radio rock? You like a little radio rock. Dude, I'm 64 years old. Too old for Oasis?

They came around when I was already starting to have to take, like, statins and stuff. Okay, well, you can still find new joys in old age, Tom. You don't, you don't only have to listen to music from your, this, that came out when you were 17, you know? You can expand. I've heard that. I know, I've heard Wonder. and all the greats. And I know who they are.

I just find them to be a little on the light and fizzy side. They're fizzy. And I was busy last night. So here we are. Oh, were you? Oh, I think we have a new topic. I was a little fizzy. There were two newsletters yesterday that came out that were both pretty bleak.

One by my colleague JVL, which we'll get to in a second. But you wrote comparing Donald Trump to Homelander. Yeah. Tell people who Homelander is. Well, first, I will never try to compete with JVL in bleakness. I mean, he is as negative as I can be. He is the Prince of Darkness and he is my spirit. And yesterday's was about as dark as it can.

So we'll get to that in a second. I mean, it was, you know, if I were more of a drinking man, I'd have been right there with you. Okay. So, Homelander, for those of you that haven't watched the Amazon Prime series, The Boys. Which includes me. Which is based on a series of graphic novels that are graphic. And it's basically an alternate universe in which there are all kinds of these super meta-humans who, it turns out, and I'll just ruin part of the show for you, we're all created by, you know, the Nazis and whose formula is now in the hands of a corporation that literally creates superheroes. And they created this guy. So Stephen Miller is, Stephen Miller is one of the meta-humans that was created by the Nazis then?

No, I think, you know, in that show, he's, he works at the Vout Corporation. He's not a meta. He's just one of the guys that gives the shots to other people. But the pride and joy of the Vout Corporation and its superhumans is this guy named Homelander. And he's obviously in the comics and in the show, he is obviously evil Superman. Like, what if Superman were a stupid vain psychopath? He can shoot lasers from his eyes. He's invulnerable.

He can fly all that stuff. And the backstory is he's basically created in a lab. He's raised without love. He is constantly hurting about the fact that he's never really known who his father was or had love. And he's this neurotic parallels now. Yeah, he's this neurotic big baby who also happens to be extremely powerful. And everybody around him always has to kind of kiss his ass and make sure that he doesn't, like, laser them into a pile of ashes. But one of Homelander's catchphrases, the thing he says repeatedly during the show is, I can do.

whatever I want. And when I was watching this just shit show of a cabinet meeting the other day, and Trump finally said, I can do whatever. I have the right to do whatever I want in the president of the United States. If I think I have to do it, I get, and I said, man, this guy just is going full homelander. And so I was stepping into my old neighborhood at the Daily. And I suggested, look, you know, why don't, why don't we do a piece that I'll call

President Homelander? And he is. He's homelander. I mean, he's the parallels are there. He's a big man baby. He's constantly, people around him are simpering flunkies. Donald Trump is not a metahuman, but he does carry a little card in his pocket that could launch 1,700 strategic nuclear weapons in the next 30 minutes anytime he wants. Do we know how does Homeland, spoiler alert, but how does Homelander get defeated?

Do you have any, do we have any lessons? We don't know that yet. The next season of the boys is until about a year from now. You know, this is totally orthogonal to our discussion, Tim. I am tired of great series making me wait two years. When I was a boy, you kids, when I was a boy, the season ended in the spring. You had to watch reruns during the summer and then in the fall you got new episodes. And we liked it that way.

But yeah, so the president is just, you know, sounds just like him. I appreciate the parallel because Trump definitely, I see where you're going with us. I'm wondering on kind of the alarm scale, you know, and this is related to what I've been calling kind of the dictator soft launch that he's been doing this week, you know, I have the right to do anything I want, and the president, and then he does the thing where he's like, people say they want a dictator, and I don't want to be a dictator, but people are saying, really, you're hearing a lot of people saying they want to be a dictator. Like, what do you think is happening there?

Do you think this is, well, I don't want to prejudice you. What do you think's happening with that? He wants to be a dictator. I mean, how many times does he have to say it? he's kind of the weeniest dictator there is because he never says look I want to be a dictator he says oh you know some people are saying they might like one as authoritarian's go that is pretty weird you know they usually say I'm in charge I speak for the nation I am powerful I'm the mighty and powerful Oz you know the wizard doesn't you know come out and say some people say

that I am a powerful wizard I have been called by some people they think I'm mighty and and powerful. He just, he wants to do it, but he doesn't, as usually, he doesn't want responsibility for it. This is, you saw that this week when, um, tried to fire Susan Monara's, you know, the doctor at CDC. And he had somebody else that just couldn't pick up the phone and say, you're fired. For all that bullshit on the apprentice, he doesn't actually like doing that. He doesn't, he's, he's not good with that kind of confrontation. So yes, I think he wants to be a dictator, but I think he wants someone else. He's not Napoleon seizing his own crown off the pillow. He's Napoleon saying, some people say I should pick up this crown and become

emperor. It's insightful because I see it two ways, right? Like, on the one hand, we are sort of saved by his cowardice at times and the tacoing and the fact that Fred didn't love him and that he doesn't like really want to be seen as the worst person ever. He has a desire to be loved and he doesn't like, you know, have the total sociopathy that you see from other dictators, his megalomania in a different way. But on the other hand, it worries me a little bit because it gives people, it's part of the reason why people from within his tent and other, and CEOs and whatever, don't challenge him directly.

Like, it's part of the reason why he kind of muddles along with this because it gives people an out, right? to be like, oh, you know, he's just joking about it. He's not serious. He's not real. This isn't really Napoleon, right? And so in some ways, it kind of allows him to kind of keep gradually doing authoritarian things without the backlash you might expect. I don't know. What do you think about that? Well, I think one of the things that saves us continually, and I, and I'm saying this analytically rather than as a, as a partisan or, you know, just a hauling off a random insult, is that he really is kind of a case of arrested development. I mean, Donald Trump and some ways is his instincts, his language, his reactions are like those of kind of an eight-year-old.

And I think on the one hand, that stops him from doing things because, you know, he is, if you think about children, right, they can be incredibly bold and cruel at one point and then completely insecure and, you know, kind of lost the next point at the next point. So that actually works in favor of democracy and stopping authoritarianism. But it also, as you just pointed out, Tim, it stops people from taking him too seriously. You know, look, Charlie Sykes and I are always using the expression, clowns with flamethrowers. Well, you know, an eight-year-old with an oozy still has an Uzi. Right. You know, I mean, he still can, you know, doesn't know how to shoot it, doesn't know what he's doing, but can still, you know, spray lead all over a room and hurt a lot of people.

years ago, when I wrote that piece that I know he must have read because he reacted to it, when I called him the least manly president and why do his supporters like someone who is so unmanly? And the answer I came up with is because he's America's problem child. You know, his supporters are like the parents at the principal's office, saying, I know he lit the school mascot on fire, but he's a good boy. You know, he doesn't, and that gets, he gets away with a lot because of that because people don't hold him personally responsible because how responsible can you hold an eight-year-old for anything. But he wants to do it. He wants to be in charge of the club. He wants to tell people what to do and, you know, play with his toy soldiers and put them in the

streets. And, you know, whether he's a kind of dysfunctional eight-year-old or not, he is the president of the United States with all of the powers that pertain to that office. Hey, y'all. I warned you. I warned you. Our Toronto show has sold out. The Canadians love Sam Stein so much that, you know, there are lines around the block to get tickets to it. But the good news is we still have tickets left for our live shows in Washington, D.C. and in New York, coming up in early October. So go get those tickets now at the bulwark.com slash events. I'm missing LSU versus South Carolina for you guys. I'm going to be in New York for that. And so assuming that's an afternoon game, I might have a couple of bourbons in. me by the time we get on stage on Saturday night. So that one could be a rowdy one. So if you're looking for an excuse to get to the Big Apple, go see a show Friday night, come see us Saturday

night. Could be a fun little weekend. Go get tickets. Like I said, thebork.com slash events. Thebork.com slash events. See you all soon. All right. So, yeah, so let's take us down the ominous pipeline to where JVL was yesterday from this. Which is, I think. Time to embrace the suck. Yeah.

I think his his threat assessment is a little greater than eight-year-old with Uzi, let's just say. The subhead of the piece was Trump is waging war against the American government. When he's done, he'll use the government to wage war against Americans. I just want to list a couple of points. And he gets into the purges. I want to talk to you about the purges in specific, but just at a macro. These are just some of the examples he gives because there's more.

Trump pushed out the sitting FBI director and then purged the Bureau's career leadership. He fired the Joint Chiefs and purged the ranks of senior generals. He's attempting to fire one of the Federal Reserve governors right now. And he's directing state national guards to create special rapid deployment units that he can use against civil unrest. And he pulls on this together to say, this is all the same project, attacking the government and reengineering it to serve as a weapon against the American people. And that there's a part of me that doesn't want to give Trump the credit because that makes it seem like it's a plan. But it's sort of hard to argue that that's what's happening. I agree. And, you know, I don't think Jonathan's wrong.

I think, you know, after I've just said all this about, you know, an eight-year-old with an Uzi, the people around him are adults who know what they're doing. Some of them. I would say most of them. I mean, is Bobby Kennedy an adult? I mean, is Pete Hexsett an adult. Well, Pete Hexeth is, you know, an absentee landlord at this point. But Bobby Kennedy, he knows what he's doing.

I mean, go ahead and try and get a COVID shot in three months. Or today in Georgia. Yeah. I mean, just try Bobby out and see what happens in three or four months. they are marching toward doing things and there are people behind the scenes that probably whose names you don't even know that are one layer down in the Trump bureaucracy and they know what they're doing the interesting thing is is how many of them are probably lawyers I mean you know but now email Beauvais is a federal judge right my colleague David from you know in the

first Trump term we're talking eight years ago said watch for what they're going to do they're going to try and stock the judiciary to basically make sure that nobody can say no to their plans. I argued back then and in the interim when I said this is what he'll do if he comes back to office, he's going to seize the Justice Department, the Defense Department, and the intelligence community. And the purges that you're seeing, I mean, I'm sorry about what's happening at CDC and HHS, but you can get those doctors back. I mean, you can snap back on that pretty fast. It's going to take a while to dig these, you know, seditionists and authoritarians out of the Justice Department, the Defense Department. The FBI. The FBI, you know, the CIA is going through

a purge now. You know, they fired the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, a three-star general because he didn't come up with the right answers. So somebody in there, you know, I mean, it's not Laura Loomer. I mean, that's, but it's somebody in there. You also don't actually have to be that smart to purge people. I mean, like, you know, this is not exactly like 5D chess. Like, you know, like, Rickett Ralph could go in there and knock out people that have just donated, you know. You have to be moderately aware and intelligent if you're doing it surgically and identifying, saying, you know, here are the people that could stand in the way and we need to just move them out of their eyes.

I mean, so that's going on. And this is incredibly dangerous right now. And again, one of the things that slows it down is that Donald Trump has the attention span of a net. And so that's good, but it's not, it's just slowing this down and making it more chaotic, but it's not stopping it. It's hard to rank worries these days, but this is close to my top worry because I think it's hard for people to wrap their heads around. There is a kind of a lack of understanding about what a lot of these people do what their jobs are and it's hard to keep track of everything i mean i just was looking at the story this morning i think the story was from four days ago and i just i didn't missed it the head of a pentagon unit responsible for accelerating the military's adoption of new

technology resigned on monday the resources said it was because he had donated to democrats in the past and uh he was getting hassled by d o'd leadership it's just one example but it's like i think it's a telling one because this stuff is happening all across government They're people that have serious jobs. I mean, I think that you would think that everybody would want to have an experienced person looking at adoption of new technologies for the military and that that their past political donations wouldn't matter. But you're seeing this to the FBI, right? Mike Feinberg, I interviewed him a couple weeks ago. And he's like, he was the one that came out and talked about it.

And he was a China expert. But he said, and others have said there are other people that have left the FBI you don't even know about, right? Because they don't want the attention. But, Tim, the one place here, I think you're really wrong about this is you say, well, you would think. One would think, right? One would be wrong. Because the object, by the way, when I was an academic, I used to tell my students at a conference when a professor said, one could argue he means himself. That's not true in this case, actually. One could argue, meaning me. And that if he says, some have argued, he means other people and they're wrong. But anyway, you know, if you say one would think, you'd be wrong because, look, what if the object is simply to move people out of offices and give your friends jobs that pay on average $175,000 plus federal benefits? You don't care if the job gets done. You don't give a shit about any of that.

All you want to know is are friends of mine getting their chance to plunder the treasury? Because the only reason, and we have to keep coming back to this, you know, yes, Stephen Miller and some of these other weirdos, yeah, they wanted Trump to get elected because they have, you know, deep-seated issues and they want to work them out through national policy and torment other human beings. Donald Trump ran to stay out of jail and get rich and replenish his personal fortune and get revenge on his enemies. And the way you do that is you fire everybody that could ever say no to you, who could possibly oppose you, and then you give jobs. Good jobs. I mean, although, again, and I know we've talked about this, but, you know, some of these people are like, Bongino, I think, figured out. It's like, hey, being a federal employee sucks. Right. This sucks. Podcasting sounding great all the sudden. Podcasting, you know, it's like that

conversation and ghostbusters, right? You've never been in the private sector. They expect results. So, you know, I think that when you look at these jobs and say, why would Trump fire the guy, who's at the office of, you know, transformational wichetry or something, he doesn't care what the office is. I mean, this is becoming death of Stalin shit, right? Where somebody in the Pentagon pointed and said, that guy donated to Democrats, give his job to a friend of mine. If you got a call today, we've ruminated about this in the podcast a couple times.

I think it's, we're kind of at a different place now. We're nine months in. We know more than kind of during Doge when Elon just kind of, you know, was flame throwing at everything you could find in the government. But now, like, we're seeing more clearly what they're doing. Well, if you got a call from somebody at state or at the FBI or CIA or whatever, and they're like, I don't know what to do, man. Like, I'm thinking about leaving.

Should I stay? Should I go? What do you think people should do right now in those positions? Stay. Stay? Absolutely. What about the CDC people who are like, I can't, I'm a scientist. This quack is coming in.

He's going to put my name on some paper that talks about how autism is what, you know, vaccines cause autism. Different matter, I think when you ask me about people in the security, law enforcement, intelligence, defense bureaucracy, my answer is it will probably be worse without you than with you. I think for people in, you know, health, education, human services, to do mass walkouts and gain that attention, I think is really important. I think in health, human services, social security, you know, people resigning on mass actually has, first of all, a lot of folks are doctors and have, you know, the ability to keep practicing their trade. I mean, I think if you're a, you know,

if you're a GS-13 at the CIA, you're not going to hang out a shingle afterwards. But also, So I think for those folks in those jobs, they have to assume it would be worse, unless so many people walk out. Like, remember in Trump's first term when they were going to make Jeffrey, what's his name? Clark. Jeffrey Clark, thank you. The guy, they were going to make him attorney general. And basically the people run Trump said everyone in the top layer of the Justice Department are going to walk out at the same time, including all the people in this room. Yeah.

Now that, you know, if that's where you're going to. going to go with that, then that could work. But I think for most of those people, I think I kind of agree with Susan Menares and the way she approached it. Make them fire you. Yeah. You know, don't just, don't, what is Timothy Snyder's comment? Don't, don't obey in advance. If they're going to fire you, then make them have to fire you and put it in writing and then you have, then fight. Better than me, working for Cash Patel for three more years. But I agree. I think Susan

Mnara's has handled this very well. Just while you're mentioning, the fact that he does have a layer of adults and of seasoned, people keep yelling at me that I'm saying this word wrong. So since you're the expert, you can tell me how to say it. Apparachic. Apparachic. Yeah, apparatchik. Apparachic.

Someone who works in the apporat. Apparachic. Russ Vote was just appointed to do the final last rights on USAID. Russ Vaud is what when we were talking about people who know what they're doing who are behind the scenes. I've been saying this since day one. Russ Vowd is the guy, you know, he's one of the guys who want to watch. He's a true believer. You know, he is not there to just, you know, unlike Dan Bongino, he's not there to just, you know, get driven to work every day. He believes in what he's doing and he's smart. And, you know, that's, those are the

people that are going to do this while Trump is, you know, holding three-hour cabinet meetings about how awesome he is. When you said some stuff can get fixed and can snap back, USAID is like dead forever, right? I don't know. I'm not forever. But could a Democrat that comes back in possibly prioritize that? Maybe. I don't know. A Democratic president. Good. Would they? Yeah, sure. I mean, I mean, Trump did all this stuff. First of all, I think one of the things that's really unfortunate is that Trump did things that I'm not sure are. legal in the sense of disbanding stuff that was created by statute. Presidents can reverse their own executive orders. They can mess with executive agencies like USAID and state. But if Congress establishes something, the president can't just make it go away. That would be something we would

be talking about, of course, if Republicans controlled the House, but a Democrat controlled the White House, because then they would say, well, you can't run roughshod over a co-equal branch of government, blah, da, da, but Democrats need to say the same thing. So could it come back because you could make the argument that it was never legally disestablished in the first place? Probably, maybe that could happen. Or you could simply put back a lot of those programs through the State Department under a functioning Secretary of State and an actual, you know, president who cared about this stuff. But is it coming back, you know, in the next three years? No.

And three years is a long time to go without it. Yeah. And obviously, exactly come back in three years. I don't know. I've got a suspect about how it can be reanimated at all. But that's a problem for another day. I want to just really quick get you on the security clearance of stuff. This is related to the purges.

Two news items on this this week. Tulsi provoked the security clearance of like 31 CIA agents. including, and they were named, including one was an undercover senior officer who was a long-time Russia. They call it Russia Hand. I guess that means Russian spy. Or a Russia analyst. I mean, it could just be somebody who, you know, does a lot of work on Russia. And then just this morning, they revoked Kamala Harris's security detail, which just seems like an FU before her book tour. Traditionally, actually, Vice President's only got six months, but she was given protection for a year and a half. I don't know why.

Oh, yeah. No, I mean, Trump wants to put these, he either wants them to have to spend a shitload of money on private security. Hold up one thing. Tim, you're going to hunk a glitter stuck to your eye on the other side. I do. Yeah. Your left eye, see it? No, I can't say. No, no, no, your eyelid on your lid. See it? Other eye, other eye. That's my left eye. That's my left eye. There it is. I get it? All right. Yeah, there you go. All right. Include that in the video. I mean, I know you're, you know, I know you're a sparkly guy, but I am. I didn't. Okay. Thank you.

I think Trump just wants these people to have to spend, you know, a shitload of money on security the way Mitt Romney's had to do. Yeah. Or, you know, he's trying to expose them to personal risk. I mean, I wrote a piece months ago where I said, if John Bolton gets whacked, you know, if some Iranians get managed to get over here and they managed to scrag John Bolton, that blood's on Trump's hands. you know, these people served their country, whether you like them or not. They served their country. There was an expectation that their country would look out for them. And, you know, Trump is saying, no, you know, if you crossed me, well, it'd be a shame if something happened to you while you were walking down Connecticut Avenue. I've got a couple of J.D. Vance items I want to get your take on. This first J.D. Vance item is really a Steve Whitkoff item, actually. Well, I need to give a big lead into this. You understand. So people can.

understand what's happening. So Politico writes the story about Witkoff, the Outerboro real estate magnate who's trying to end the Russia-Ukraine war. The headline is his inexperience shines through. Steve Wickoff struggles to manage Russia as Trump-Pice envoy. It includes this fact, which I guess I should have known, but hadn't realized how many times. Wikov has met Putin five times over the last six months, and obviously that is not translated into anything. This feels more like a just obvious fact than, you know, any opinion that anyone has given. You don't need to go to blind sources to see this. Russia was bombing Kiev yesterday.

It killed like 18 people. J.D. Vance was upset about this story. And the vice president posted this. This story from Politico is journalistic malpractice, but it's more than that. It's a foreign influence operation meant to hurt the administration and one of our most effective members. The person who wrote this garbage is Felicia Swartz. there are two possible explanations. Felicia is just not very smart

and allowed herself to be used by deep state con men or she's in on it and used her position willingly and used her position to willingly participate in a literal foreign influence op. That's got to be the most insane thing of vice president of the United States I mean there's plenty of competition

but but I guess. I mean Mike Branson never posted anything that crazy and that is what that is unbelievable thing um i was i was joking uh you know joking around with noah rothman the other day because somebody at tulsi gabbard's comm's shop said you know noa rothman is part of the deep state operation now i mean you know it's like and then they said newsmax now newsmax they said is now in on it i mean we're through the looking glass here people you know reverse vampires are working with the randcore I mean, this is nuts, but they, Vance doesn't believe any of that. I mean, Vance is,

Vance gets briefings and he knows better. But, you know, there are people, I'm sure, who genuinely believe this, but more to the point, they know that it will inflame the 20% of the 40% who are even more bonkers than everybody else. And they will flood the zone and start, you know, sending hate mail and death threats and all the things that happen when the Trump administration identifies you as, you know, part of the deep state or a foreign influence operation or, you know, whatever it is they do. I mean, this is just, this is authoritarian bullying in its purest form. And Vance, Vance, I think in some ways, is the worst of the bunch because Vance more than anybody knows better. He's not a stupid person. He knows what he's doing. I'm trying to

understand what the foreign influence op is. Do you think he's saying that Ukraine? Is trying to undermine Whitkoff? Probably. I think that's right, right. That probably this is, you know, those, that there's a Ukrainian James Bond on the loose, you know, who is, you know, convincing reporters to write, you know, terrible stories about Steve Whitkoff. The terrible story you could write about Steve Whitkoff is he has met with Putin this many times and nothing has happened. You could stop. That's a one paragraph story.

presidential envoy, Steve Whitkoff, met with Putin this many times. And every time Putin, you know, the next day, Putin, or within a week, Putin, you know, blasts the crap out of Ukraine. That's not a foreign operation enough. That's like two facts that you can just place next to each other that look terrible. This is kind of the hysteria, Tim. You know, it's like, I mean, political, you're going to the barricades, not even against the Wall Street Journal or the New York Times, right? Or some, you know, you're saying this one report. at Politico, who wrote this one critical story about Steve Whitkoff, she's one of the reverse

vampires. She's, you know, I mean, it's nuts. It's like, it also is a totally anodyne story that I never would have read if J.D. Vance hadn't tweeted it. It's like, what are you doing? One thing this administration doesn't understand, and Trump definitely doesn't understand it, these people do not understand the stric and effect. They just don't, because I haven't read that story yet and I'm going to the minute we're done with this five he goes on this statement I only read you part of it it goes on there's just more crazy shit in here so I have to read it the fruits of wickoff's negotiations are that we've narrowed the list of open issues in the russia ukraine war to a set of clearly defined issues specifically security guarantees

and territorial concessions well no fucking shit Sherlock that's what we've narrowed it to the you that Russia wants territory and Ukraine wants to be protected what we're the other issues? What were the other? Like, that's what the war is about. Yeah, really. And Steve Wickhoff's done nothing. Russia's killing civilians right now. So, like, it's lunacy. Everybody I don't like is a deep state operative or, you know, working for foreign agents. I mean, this is really, you know, kind of, this is just sort of Mickey Mouse Stalinism. Yeah. The next thing, you know, they're going to be arresting people. I mean, then it becomes a lot more seriously. Admit that you are in league with imperialists in Japan and Germany,

Comrade, I mean, it's balkers, but again, maybe instead of asking deep state operatives, we should ask the families of the dead Ukrainian children, whether they think Steve Wickoff is killing it or not. Like, the whole thing is just preposterous. It's insulting. But it's meant to put people in danger. It's meant to

generate death threats and harassment and emails. Yeah, you're right. You know, all that stuff. I mean, that's basically it's saying, shut up, or I release the flying monkeys on you. Our noble vice president had another interesting statement that I want to share with you. This was to, he was going to be interviewed by the USA Today about the Fed, the purge of Lisa Cook. Quote, I don't think we allow bureaucrats to make decisions about monetary policy and interest rates without any input from the people that were elected to serve the American people.

No, that's exactly how we do it, Mr. Vice President. That is exactly our system specifically so that we will insulate the people. making decisions about these policies from politically, from elected officials. That's why we created this. Maybe we should just poll the public. Maybe we should just be asking people at the, you know, at the pigly wiggly, whether they think that interest rates should be lower or higher. Like, what the fuck are you talking about? And this is, this is a prime death of expertise moment for you. And it's, it's the death of expertise because the death of expertise is always, particularly in government, is almost always related to populism.

right who are those pinheads smarty pants with their Nobel economics prizes trying to set interest rates you know Bob Bob and I here we got this you know and and we got it I think you know if it wouldn't be so ruinous to all of us there's a part of me that says you know what have at it and when inflation is back up there's a big part of me that wants them to have at it right I mean you know there's about like when inflation is you know 15 per percent and your credit cards are 40 percent and your car loans are 19 percent, you know, good luck with that. But the problem is that you can't, you know, that's a kind of a shoot-the-hostage situation. I mean, you can't do it without hurting a lot of people. But again, Vance went to college, went to a decent college, then went to Yale. Went to Yale. Wrote a book about it. You know, went to law school at Yale and went undergrad, I believe, to Ohio State. I mean, he knows exactly why we insulate these kinds of – he knows why the Fed was created, for God's sakes.

I mean, if he doesn't, shouldn't be a senator or a vice president. But he knows, and he's just saying, look, if it were up to me, J.D. Vance, who you should vote for in three years, your interest rates would be negative five. We'd be – every time you charge something, we'd send you money. But I can't help it because these guys – and he's – guys who take showers in the morning and wear ties, you know, and socks, and, and, you know, shoes with laces, you know, they're, they're making these interest rates because they want you to suffer. And he knows, he knows what he's doing. If it weren't so destructive, it would be

embarrassing because the amount of pandering that's going on, I mean, politicians always pander. Every politician, right, left, center. There's a certain amount of pandering because you have to people who don't understand complex issues to trust you that you basically will go in the right direction for them on their behalf but what what people like vans are doing i mean it's it's it's it's in it's like my god you know have a have an ounce of dignity here but use your this is this is where i think the betrayal you know people have often asked me after i wrote that piece calling him a bad name in the island what was the bad name i don't i don't know what asshole. I called him an asshole. That's the fucking nicest thing I've said about J.D. Vance.

I know, but we're not usually a word we use in the magazine. What is it that particularly annoys me about him? I come, like him, I come from the working class. And I know that he had the opportunity to educate and lead and talk to people in the working class about these issues and help them. And I guess I feel like if there's any such thing as a politician who has betrayed my people, people I feel like are my folks. Vance is the guy who really got way out ahead on this and said, no, no, you can trust me. I'm a hillbilly. I come from your background. And the minute he had, you know, a microgram of power, he just betrayed them and played them for fools. And he still does. Nobody has the kind of contempt for his own people and his own voters as J.D. Vance. I mean,

it's just remarkable the level of just outright contempt that he manages to show for his own people every day. I don't have much more to add to that. I should just say, though, he, he, and I am further. I am of the opinion that Carthage ought to be destroyed. He ended this statement with POTUS is much better able to make these determinations. I just stealing from that. He knows that's not true. I mean, he knows it. He knows. He's like, what he's saying is the president should make these decisions. And that way, I know you'll vote for me, and I'll get to make some of them, too. Stealing from Madaglacius, it does seem like we're speed-running a century of Argentina's economic decline here with this stuff.

I mean, if they actually go through with it, if they actually go through with it, that's what we're really looking at. Yeah, this is, this is hype. This is, you know, Peronism played at 78 RPM. Ooh, I just dated myself with that reference, didn't I? No, that's good. People understand that records. I know about RPM saying, I got a record player with their back now.

It's like hipsters doing that. Oh, right, right, right. Okay, no. So that reference marks me as cool now. Yeah, exactly. You've come right around. It's sort of like if you don't change your jeans, you know, eventually, you know, the style will come back around you. Well, it is. You're right. It's speed running peronism. I mean, can you imagine what the Republican right would be saying if Joe Biden said or Kamala Harris said, listen, we loan some money to Intel. We want 10% of that company. Well, yeah. We don't even have to do it.

Wow. They'd be like burning pictures of car. Marks on Pennsylvania Avenue. And again, you know, they know it. But I also wonder how many of them are profiting from this. When you're trying to explain this, you can't explain it via some, like, what is their theory of macroeconomic policy here? Instead, you have to ask, like, is somebody getting rich from this? Again, who's plundering the Treasury here by doing this? I think in a lot of cases it's corruption and plundering. I think that there are a handful of things that Donald Trump has weird obsessions with and all and all of the team just wants to appease, you know, the eight-year-old with the Uji.

And I think that that is the case here. Like, he was a real estate guy. He likes low interest. I think that this is kind of like, you know, Japan is screwing us. Like, I think that he has a couple of core beliefs. And that's, that's my take on. He has, I think you're right. He has some core fixations.

They're not even blames. They're like tariffs work. Japan is always bad and screwing us. There was one other, you know, that interest rates should be low unless someone's borrowing money from me, you know, I mean, these are not even well-formed. Again, they're kind of the way an eight-year-old thinks of the world. The rules should be rules, except when I don't want them to be. Yeah, kind of Archie Bunker-level racism is sort of his thing, too.

It's not like a deep level, but sort of, you know, he believes all the cliches, you know, about every category, you know, you can imagine him. And except for the ones he knows. Right. Yeah, right. My dad, I have to tell you, my dad was that kind of a racist. He'd say, you know, black people and Hispanic, you know, he used all the words, you know, and then he'd say, but dad, you work. He saw, oh, Joe, no, he's okay.

Joe's all right. He's a good guy. Yeah, he's a good guy. I was going to end with fun. Well, we will still end with a fun topic, but I've won more. Is fun the right word for the end topic? Oh, boy. We're ending with a topic that people seem to enjoy, I guess let's put it that way.

But first, we have a little breaking news here. Iowa sender, Joni Ernst, is telling people that she's not going to be seeking re-election next year. It's kind of relevant because the Democrats are desperate to figure out how to expand their map to other states that could win. Conceivably, Republicans put up a total nut in Iowa. Ernst, for all the reasons why our listeners don't like her, all the good reasons. It's like a decently replacement level, maybe slightly above replacement level Republican for Iowa as far as political capability. So that's interesting. And Iowa, you know, you saw that thing where the woman who,

who broke the supermajority in the state Senate, flipped that seat by 20 points. Special election. You're talking about the special election. Yeah, the special election. I'm sorry, yes. And, you know, but I just want to say how sad I am to see Ernst go because she's been such a consistent voice defending the independence and civil control of the military and standing up again. Oh, no, no, no, I'm just, none of that actually happens. Yeah, right. No, and this is the thing that pisses me off. And it's just like, why I'm going to be the old man and the old folks So I'm pointing my bony finger at people and doing like they were for Trump. And I will never, these are the things I'll never be able to get over.

Like, she does this whole thing about how, because of her experience, the one thing she really cares about is sexual assault in the military and protecting sexual assaults. And therefore I'm going to confirm Pnex. Yeah. And so they bring in a guy who's been incredibly accused of sexual assault. And like, while, you know, he had one wife he's been divorced from, his other baby mama was pregnant. I forget the exact timeline. but, you know. And has fired all the senior women in the military.

Exactly. And she claimed that she got some concession from him, right? That there was going to be a czar of sexual assault. I forget what the exact word was or something like that. There would be a special appointee that would focus on sexual assault, the military. How's that fucking going? Where's that? Have we seen that?

Or have we actually just seen women get purged from the military? All these people are such cowards. Just like, do stand up for something? You don't have to be Tim. You don't have to be time. and have TDS and whatever. You don't have to become a Democrat, but, like, have some spine on something. And, like, none of them do.

You would think that, that especially on Pete Heggseth, I mean, I still can't form the words, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth without kind of, you know, sad JVL-type, hopeful luster, you know, but you would have thought that at least a handful of Republicans would have gone and said, look, Mr. President, we're going to do all kinds of crazy stuff on your behalf. You're going to get a lot of stuff you want. But you're going to have to take Bobby Kennedy and Pete Hegseth out behind the barn and just leave them there. You know, let them send them to a farm upstate where they can run free. You know, that's how senators do it. Especially if you're not going to run for re-election, by the way. Not that it would have been more defensive, but like, you don't even

have a political reason to do it anymore. You thrust this on us for nothing. I wonder how many of, I wonder if Ernst really thought in 2024 that she wasn't going to run for re-election or whether after, you know, another, a year and a half of this, or what, how long's it been? It's only been seven months. Seven months? Shit. But, you know, after seven months of this, she's looking ahead and saying, you know what, I'm just, I need to be on some corporate boards and do some really nice home redecoration.

And, you know, just get the hell out of Dodge. But it's, you know, on the, I suppose that it's a small comfort to say that people, someone like Ernst has finally said I've had enough and I'm leaving. Is it? It's not a comfort to me. If you're finding comfort, that's fine. I encourage other people to find comfort anywhere. My blood pressure is through the riff right now because I just want to strangle.

I just like, I don't, not literally strangler, but like I don't, fuck you, Johnny Ernst is basically good, I think. It's just a total fart. Like the whole thing is a sham. You got nothing out of this. You could argue, right? Well, the person who's going to replace her who could be worse. But based on her voting. record, how would you know? How?

That's the problem. I mean, you know, like when you say, well, you know, Senator Cassidy is now very disappointed and, you know, Susan Collins is very concerned. But their voting record and their behavior in terms of constraining this march of, you know, peronism, authoritarianism, creeping Stalinism, whatever you want to call it, their record is indistinguishable from, you know, Ted Cruz or, you know, the other. Tuberville. Tommy Tuberville. Right. There's no. They've stopped legislating. We don't even have a legislature in any meaningful way. If you took 50 Republican senators, you know, blanked out their faces and put up their records, you couldn't distinguish among them. No. Murkowski could figure out.

Yeah, I mean, that's like. You might, right. You might say, oh, wait. Oh, did that person, that person voted no on cloture. That must have been Murkowski. But, you know, that otherwise, there's no way to tell them apart. Yeah. I got into a fight with Carl Rove about this on a panel. a couple months ago when he was talking about the importance of having people like Tom Tillis in there. And I was just doing that same ranch you just did. I was like, why? What would be the difference? Put the fucking pizza guy. Put the guy on the porn, jerking off in the back of the porn shop in there instead. He's the same as Tom Tillis. At least I wouldn't have to deal with the condescending lectures from Tom Tillis about how serious it is. Well, and at the end of the year, at the end

of the year, you could take the, well, I'm not going where you're going, but you could take, you know, the guy in the MAGA hat who's always yelling at the Costco, right? and Tom Tillis, put them both in the Senate, again, blank out their names, look at their voting records. You can't tell them apart. What is the difference? Right. So give me the Magahat guy. I want to know what I'm dealing with. I don't want somebody to be smugly, you know, talking about how they're the serious one while they're acting indistinguishables from Tommy Tauberville. Well, you know, Tim, that as you remember eight years ago, God, it's that long already. But when I finally took my trial separation from the Republicans became a divorce, it wasn't Trump

or Tuberville or any of those guys. It was Susan Collins. Because when Collins got out there and sounded like just every other MAGA senator voting for, you know, Kavanaugh, I said, that's it. There is no fallback position within the Republican Party. There is no moderate center in the party. There is no cadre of resistance. They are all indistinguishable from one another. People always, oh, yeah, what, you quit?

When did you quit? You know, because of January 6th or because of Trump or because of that. I'm like, well, it was actually Susan Collins who talked me out of being a Republican, which seems kind of crazy, but that, it makes a lot of sense in the, in the sense. It makes a little sense. I officially did it after, during the Stop the Steel stuff before January 6th, because I was like, nobody's standing up to them. So what's the point?

Like, how could I be for any of these people again? Good riddons, Joni Ernst. Okay, final topic, real quick. Donald Trump's ankles. Yeah, the bruises, the hand bruises. We've done the cancels. But what about the bruises? I mean, you know a lot of elderly people.

What's happening with the bruises? On the one hand, I keep thinking Donald Trump's the kind of guy that's going to live forever, you know? He just people like lizard, people like that don't ever die. But on the other hand, I don't know, the bruises do look kind of like the Queen of England's bruises. Look, I am not, let's not have a death of expertise moment. You and I are not medical doctors. Okay. Well, can't we shoot this shit?

Okay. I'm not trying to tell people I'm a medical doctor, but we're just, you know, we're a couple of guys at the bow. I was going to say, okay, we're in Pop, talking about the bruises. If we're sitting there and cheers, Nami. You know, it's a known fact, Diane, that It's a known fact, Diane, that bruises on the back of the hand are where the aliens put the invader mark. No, I'm not a doctor. But what I was going to say is I do know doctors, and I have been asking them.

And, you know, I feel like I'm doing that scene from a streetcar named bizarre. You know, I have a doctor friend downtown. Okay. But the doctors, I know, say, well, this is. this is somebody who's having a lot like a daily IV like this is the bruising you get from like regular IVs that have to be you know that are that are doing a lot of damage and maybe and one guy said to me they're doing a lot of damage because they don't want to do it to both hands because then you'd have to cover up you can get bruises on both hands so he's got that one hand that they're just using and covering up over and over again I mean the the ankles um I guess those doctors said something about you know venous insufficiency and I feel like I feel like I'm being Greg House. That's a diagnosis of exclusion, you idiots, you know, but, you know, I mean, the couple of guys that I reached out to just as friends and they said, well, it looks like heart failure.

You know, that's what happens when you're starting to get, you know, real circulatory problems and heart issues and your ankles, you know, really swell up. But we're not doctors, but I think we're both safe and saying the man is not in good health. And whatever my personal feelings about Donald Trump, he's the president. of the United States. I'm a citizen in this country. I want to know about the health of my president. Maybe I don't really want to know, though.

What about that? Maybe I just want to speculate. We'll see. Well, I, you know, I think, you know, I'm a citizen. I want to know. We're going to monitor. We're going to be monitoring the ankles. That's why we have, look, that's why we have a White House doctor.

The man, he works for us. He is a federal employee. The president and the White House physician are federal employees who work for the people of the United States. If the president of the United States is an ill health, you know, the Republicans are, oh, this is a story and it's deep state, you know, yetti, yitty, yada. Hey, you're the guys that complained about it when Jack Kennedy had Addison's disease and nobody was telling anybody. You're the guys that, you know, claim that Joe Biden was a, you know, was basically a mummified replica of himself, you know, being held together with

wax and chewing gum, you know, all of a sudden, you can't just say now, well, the president's health is none of your business. No, the commander in chief, the man who controls the nuclear arsenal, the man who, you know, is the most powerful man in the world. If he's having health troubles, then we deserve to know about it. Okay. Yeah, sounds right. Tom Nichols, we survived it. You had some internet issues. Oh, man. My brain is not at 100 percent. And yet we still we still managed to do podcast magic today and I appreciate you for that. You're hungover, I'm pissed off and my cable company

is stuttering, you know, like, what was that? What's that great Billy Crystal line? I pee, you know, with his prostate. I pee like a guy with a stutter. My my computer, I don't know where I was going with that joke, but my computer company has just been shutting off the internet every five minutes.

Well, I appreciate you. This podcast episode somewhere and the internet will live forever. We're not sure about our president. And I'll be back Monday for people want to know we are doing me and bill are going to do uh are going to do a short one it's labor day but we're going to be here serving you the people you know if you need a little audio joy for your beach walk or whatever you're doing your barbecue before after your barbecue after you're after you're tired of all your friends so we'll be seeing you all

on monday thanks tom nichols we'll see you soon thanks for having me tim bye bye peace maybe i don't really want to know are you got and grows because i just want fly lately. Did you ever feel the pain in the morning rain? I just owe you to the bone. Maybe I just want to fly, want to live or don't want to die. Maybe I just want to breathe. Maybe I just don't believe. Maybe you're the same as me. We see things I'll never see. I don't know if we're over. I said maybe I don't really want to know

and you're blinding worlds because I just want to fly lately feels you ever feel a pain in the morning rain I've the soul to the boat Maybe I will never be All the things that I want to be

Now it's not the time to cry Now's the time to find out why I think you're the same as me We see things I'll never see You and I'm gonna miss my own now And so, you know, Oh, Oh!

Oh! We're going to be able to be. Maybe I don't really want to know Have you got it grows Because I just want to fly Maybe Bearing you want to feel the pain In the morning rain

I'm so cheap to the bone Maybe I just want to fly Wanna live or don't want to die Maybe I just want to breathe Maybe I just don't believe Maybe you're the same as me We see things I'll never see We're not going to go

Don't before The Bullwark podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brough.