Bill Kristol: The Weak Bully Keeps Flailing

[MUSIC] >> Hello and welcome to the Bullwork Daily. I'm your host Tim Miller. It is Monday so we'll get to Bill Christo on just one second. A couple of updates on the favors I asked you for last week. There was some mixed reports on Freddy's and Gariani who are stuck in a daily internment camp. Thanks in large part, probably entirely, frankly, to your phone calls and tweets and emails. Katie Britt was forced to respond to their pleas. She gave a very Susan Collins statement, but we at least now have the story on the radar of the powers that be, which is something. The result of that was that a Gariani did get a sonogram and got to see that her baby was healthy and so that is a small positive step. On the other side of the ledger though, they just heard this morning that they are not going to be able to get on a flight back to Venezuela this week. So they're stuck in the camp for at least another week. And so if you feel like following up on an email that you sent last week, I guess it probably couldn't hurt at this point. So I appreciate everybody's advocacy on this and just the other thing. It does make a difference when you send a podcast you like to your friends. I did see an uptick over the weekend, pretty significant and downloads and views for the Julia Curly interview. And I just, I really appreciate that because I was so moved by that conversation. And I think it's a good opportunity to try and engage people and the work that we're trying to do here. So I appreciate you guys for sharing that around. All right, it is Monday. He's editor at large at the bulwark. He was on a brief vacation. Well deserves Bill Crystal and he's going to keep traveling because he's going to be with us at the Bork Live event in Atlanta coming up in October. You go to the bork.com/events to get tickets for Columbia. Charlotte and Atlanta. We have a good surprise guest in Charlotte too coming. But Bill is going to be there in Atlanta. Come hang out. Bill, are you excited to get down to what's the famous strip club in Atlanta? What's that called? And I believe that to you and JVL, to really, you know, that's true. JVL? Yeah, JVL's never been to a strip club. I, you know, we could discuss that on the stage there in Atlanta, you know. You can, you know, magic city is what it's called. That was my quiz for you and magic city. I'm looking forward to it. I think it'll be fun. I guess the last one we did was Minneapolis, right? It was there's, maybe the, I guess I didn't get you in California. You weren't in California. I wasn't there. Yeah. Minneapolis was so unbelievable. I'd have to have obviously the killings and the kind of incredible civic mobilization there in response to ice. Can I say I'm glad you got people mobilized on the ice thing. I was at the beach last week and it was didn't do morning shots and didn't do your, your broadcast, but did follow things somewhat. The ice thing is just horrible and people are not upset enough about it. If I could just reach for 20 seconds here and I'm really glad that you have been so on top of it since the beginning and the audience here seems to be very moved by it. I think politicians are wrong to think that it's not, couldn't be a huge issue. I mean, I don't know. I obviously agree and at minimum, at least in democratic primaries. It's like one of my ongoing like beefs, like with the two sides fighting with each other. And it's like, I think that you'd win plaudits with every faction in the democratic primary. If you just were maximalist in your attack on ice, which is the right thing to be doing incidentally, both politically and morally and policy wise, this horror story is keep coming out. I mean, I keep getting sent down and we're trying to vet them as we do more coverage. So there'll be more this week, but I know there's just one story. I was just reading NBC this morning about a guy who's on the USS Lincoln, whose dad gets detained. And this is combining all the horrors of the Trump administration into one story. So more on that stuff as the week goes on. I want to start with you on the news out of Canada, our friends in Canada, another great live show up in Canada a couple months ago. Mark Carney, now the leader of the free world, the leader of the resistance standing up to Donald Trump, trade talks Friday, after we taped this was laid on Friday, fell apart between the US and Canada, which means that steep tariffs are now going to go into effect from our sides, putting tariffs on Canada, 50% tariffs on a bunch of stuff. Carney now says that retaliatory of tariffs will go into effect on September 8th. It's going to target dairy appliances, agricultural equipment, pulp and paper and electronics. I think they're already terrifting the hell out of Jim Beam. Many pointed to tensions between Howard Nuttlick and James and Greer, seems like Nuttlick came in late and kind of scuttled the deal. Trump put out an insane statement about Canada and it's a pretty dicey situation. It is. I mean, Carney's speech Saturday was really impressive as the speech at Davos, what six months ago had been. I like that, Dave Carney. We now have several leaders of the free world. We have Zelensky, obviously, really fantastic over five years. We have Carney. We have the Pope, Pope Leo XIV, who again did give it excellent set of remarks last week. And we have Magyar in Hungary, so it's kind of bad that we're not part of that and we're indeed on the opposite side. If you think literally in each of these cases, right, Trump is against those people, basically. Right. Carney was interesting. I mean, he didn't just talk about the trade issue narrowly and let Nick schooling it up. He did say you can't trust America. Basically, you can't trust what he say. The things are now signed to pencil, not in pen, something like that. He really understands the moment we're in. And I think he's doing a service to the country, not to the Trump administration, but to the country, and clarifying it for us, this is where Trump has taken us. A friend, dude, from, I think, pointed this out very succinctly, just looking at it from our perspective, the domestic side, but just how stupid this is. Trump is fighting a trade war that very few Americans support under leadership that most Americans reject to achieve results that virtually all Americans would dismiss as pointless if not crazy. In some ways, it's similar to what's happening in Iran in that sense. It's just like, what is this even about? Trump is wrapped up in ego. He doesn't have a clear strategic objective, and it's net harmful to Americans, particularly Americans in places and industries that rely on free trade with Canada and Susan Collins is concerned. We heard from her. She urges both sides to return to the negotiating table, not using the actual power to do anything, but that's because there's a lot of, obviously, cross-border travel between Maine and Canada, and there's a small thing, but tourists, Canadians aren't going to America, and then there's obviously trade that is being impacted by it on goods as well. I mean, Canada is a small, small-ish country in population, 40 million, I think, so I think a little bit of that. It's our second largest trading partner, and not much behind Mexico and ahead of China, but it's our largest export market in number one. People think Canada, well, it's a nice place. You go there for the visit, you go back, or there's some Canadian beer and lumber, everyone's heard of? Ocky. Lumber, hockey. Yeah. It's a big, big, especially export market for us. We don't have much of a negative balance with trade there if people care about that also. It's all insane. It's stupid. The terrorists is also, like I still feel like an issue. It really does hurt Trump because whatever inflation there is, and there is, wouldn't there should be, and whatever economic slowdown there is, and there is some of that, too. Terrorists are contributing to it, and that's something Trump is doing, and the Republican Congress is permitting them to do. Democrats, when they get back, they should introduce, in addition to defunding ICE, they should really go after the terrorist stuff and maybe do just these particular terrorists. These are really insane. It's like, these are Trump's invoking, I don't know, in the number of 3.30 age or something, or in some particular part of the code. It's literally part of the 1930's terror fact has never been invoked by American presidents. The 1930's terror fact, I looked at the office, I thought, 1930 was, it was the Smooth Hallie Act. The notorious act that turned a recession probably into the Great Depression. That is what Trump is literally invoking in this terror. So Ben Stein was criticizing and Ferris Bueller's day off. I forgot that. Yes. Smooth Hallie. That was a big thing in the 80s for us, Reaganized free traders, you know, anyway. So yeah, that's what Trump is using. And the terrorist stuff is, is, is really insane. I mean, and, and of course, with the beef terrorists, if now he's taking off the beef terrorists, I've got that right. We get to import more beef. Yeah. I want to get to the beef in a second. I just, I've come out of Canada, thanks, just because I think this is worth all worth well to note. No, well, Karne, like, this is real. He does have the country behind him politically, but like, there's real economic alarm that is going to be caused by this. I just want to say this in the context. Obviously, there's someone that's to this parallel, but you know, we talk a lot how we want, you know, more fight from central left kind of Democrats here. And a lot of times, you know, it's like, well, you're, they're making a pragmatic decision or pragmatic choice. For Karne, like, you can imagine him kind of a centrist, like, you know, technocrat type guy, you think, well, okay, a bad deal's better, no deal. And he's not doing that. And, and I think that's showing real political courage. It's easy for me to say sitting here to podcast studio, right? Like, I do think that part of its note of notable. And the potential for escalation here is real, and some of this feels silly, but I want to play for you what Sean Deffey said and then, and then some of the rhetoric coming from Canada. Obviously, they're a major partner for us back and forth across the borders, planes, trains and automobiles. Do T has a lot to do with that? Is there anything in your position as secretary of transportation that you're thinking about with respect to a tool in the in this sort of, no, we're back and forth. We're great trading partners, right? But, but, but Canada gets the benefit of trading with the US more way more than the US gets the benefit of trading with Canada. It's a country that doesn't have a military. It has a country that has a single pair of healthcare systems. That's failing. They have record high euthanasia rates. And so to think that they're going to go to war with Donald Trump and actually win that war with the U.S., I think it's foolish on their part. >> Wow. I mean, he doesn't know anything, and he just plays the, what he thinks of as the cultural war cards. He has the fake, you know, macho military card that's called at the Hexath card, and then he has the fake social conservatism, euthanasia card. I mean, just the euthanasia, they have more liberals, just suicide laws in Canada. You can like the word dislike them. The fact is, if you look this up, about this this morning and morning shots, the actual suicide rate, including those, I believe, is lower in Canada than in the U.S. So I mean, not something for us to boast about, I don't think, and incidentally, longevity is longer, is higher in Canada than in the U.S. So that social conservative thing is just, you know, the cheap kind of thing that Duffy vaguely remembered hearing lines from JD Vance somewhere, I suppose, and on the macho military stuff, it's an unbelievable insult, obviously, to the Canadians who were extremely prominent in D day. If you've ever heard of Juno Beach and fought with us in other wars, obviously, including in Afghanistan, where they took considerable casualties and per capita, not that much below the American casualties, actually. So it's unbelievably just insulting, I don't know, it sort of says a lot, right? You remember the cabinet. It's not your area. So normally in the old days, if you were opining us, I think it's not in your field, you'd be pretty cautious. And instead, you just try to outhex death, and outvance Vance, and say nothing about the actual substance, right? There's no actual defense of Trump's terror policy. No, it's pathetic. And obviously, Canada does have military, and I, that hasn't, again, to the point, hasn't needed our defense, nobody's attacked them, and they've come to our defense when we've been attacked. So that's the reality. I have to 9/11. That's really, absolutely. They led the effort to invoke Article 5, and as you recall, I mean, I remember this well in 9/11, a lot of American planes we closed our airspace, a lot of our planes got diverted to Canada. And people were stuck there, but we had to stay there for a few days, and we treated with great hospitality, and Canadians didn't ask for reimbursement, or anything like that. They put up these people and gander, and so yeah, Canada's been a good ally. Really? You know what? Think of all the nations you could have bordered you all over the world. Think what other headaches other nations have from their neighbors, you know, we should be extremely happy to have Canada out there. Right in the North. I'm into that. And the rhetoric, I'm just using the word war, I can go into war with Donald Trump. These guys are playing childish games, and you don't know what results from all that. And this is why you speak diplomatically. This is why diplomacy is a thing that matters. Yavantaria is dug forward, saying this morning. He said that Carnie should be ready to cut electricity and critical minerals to the U.S. War continues. That seems outlandish, but that is where they're at. They have to have conversations about that, which is nuts. And I should note, this was flagged for me this morning by a Canadian friend. It was 212 years ago today, August 24th, 1814, that forces from President Day Canada serving the British Empire burned the White House in retaliation for the American attack on York, trying to war of 1812, so only 212 years ago that Canada showed some muscle. It was kind of uncanny, but Mark Cardi was probably wise, not to mention that. Look, Americans are carrying over a trillion dollars in credit card debt at rates north of 23%. That number keeps going up. That is more than $200 billion a year in interest, paid mostly by households who are sitting on the largest pool of untapped home equity in U.S. history. Think about that for a second, you own a home, you've built real equity in it, and yet when you need capital for a remodel for a debt reconsolidation for something your household budget didn't plan for for an emergency, the financial system rats you to a 23% unsecured card instead of letting you borrow against the asset you already own. 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You mentioned earlier on the beef trade news and the tariffs and the other kind of damages is causing Trump said on Friday he was going to temporarily increase beef imports free of tariffs. Funny thing is he's like, and he's got a commitment to sell the meat at 25% below market prices, but the tariff was 26% so I yeah, this guy doesn't understand 101 basics of what his tariffs are doing to consumers. The notable part of this thing is the pushback from foreign country is ties to kind of politics a lot of the big Senate races this year, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, other places, Ohio, you know, have, you know, big farm communities. And there's been a bunch of videos of ranchers upset about this over the weekend going viral on TikTok, including mega ranchers and I just want to play it one of them. They're going to import a bunch more box beef ground beef scrap cuts, what I call them. And hopefully bring down the price of ground beef in the store for you all. We've seen a market crash for live cattle, live cattle that people like myself grow and take to the, to the, you know, processing plants or go down through the system. That's dropped 40 cents a pound already just from that plant closure. Now this morning, the markets are crashing, but will your price change? So far we have not seen that and you're going to lose more ranchers and in the long run, you're going to lose everything because where they're cattle, there is freedom. And when these disappear, so does your freedom. I don't think this is going to work out like they hope. Mega ranchers are pissed. I mean, it's kind of real political effects going into Nebraska, for example, in Kansas, I mean, the sad thing about tariffs, they do real damage. And once you start the business from posing them and taking them off, you get, you offend people both ways, right? And especially if the prices don't come down, when you take them off really, then you're just not offended. You've injured the ranchers. What is that commitment about keeping the prices being what, who's made that commitment? I mean, the supermarkets, the importers, I don't know what he's talking about. I mean, it's just some made up thing, obviously. And it's a made-up Soviet thing too. He's like, okay. It's very much so, yeah. He's like, the SAR will cap to the price of beef at the market for you. It's really amazing. And it's not always been that tariffs are not inflationary, but then why is he getting rid of this particular set of tariffs to bring down prices? I know that's literally the definition of deflation, just lowering prices. So presumably those tariffs were inflationary. So yeah, I think the tariffs thing, you know what I say, I think it's the more he does into it. In a way, if you put some on, people like economists complain, we point a call attention to it. But then it's on, and people get used to it, and the system adjusts, and economic growth slows, point under 2.2 percent, and inflation goes up, and extra point 2 percent, and that's not nothing in the big picture, but people get used to it, you know what I mean? This in a way is the worst of all worlds, but politically, isn't it? The kind of jerking around of the tariffs up and down, I feel like it just reminds everyone, like, what the hell are we doing here, you know? And even get some pushback light, but like notable from Tom Cotton, for example, over in the Senate, I put out a tweet saying, beef prices are too high for simple reason. Our cattle hurts too small and poor to beef below market prices will only put more pressure in our cattle. And he's going to echoing that cattleman's message there of note, and this is one poll, and I don't really expect the Democrats to win Arkansas, but there was a poll showing Farmer, Halley Schofner is running against Cotton, beating him in a recent poll. So to me, regardless of what actually happens in November, it's like, it seems like Cotton feels enough heat on this, that he has to put out that statement. I think that says a lot about where, you know, kind of the midterm stand right now. Yeah, I also saw that poll. I had no idea how legit it is, or maybe, or just an outlier, or whatever, but it is pretty striking. The statement does say something as putting out the statement to me, it's in some ways, kind of buttresses the poll, even if it's not right, the fact that he feels like he's in a race, right? And he feels like he's got a distance himself from Trump, which he has not done on anything. I mean, he's a supposed China, not never distances from Trump on all of the ways that he goes. He's up to China and he does never distance from Hague Seth. I'm always fucked up the war, but here he is. Yeah. I mean, those things they've had to vote for, or prevent voting, voting on. Let's put it that way. Democrats need to really bring that home. This is not just Trump's war and Trump's tariffs. It's the Republicans in Congress war and the Republicans in Congress tariffs. Let's talk about that midterm wise. There's been a lot of scuttle on social media this weekend. So I've been saying for a minute is that there's like some feelings that this is like 2006. I've talked about 2006 a couple of times because I was working that year in Iowa on a Republican congressional race. It was a challenger going against Leonard Boswell, RIP, who was a Democrat representing the Des Moines area back then. And we ended up being the second closest challenger in the country. The Republicans did not pick up any seats that year. We did not want a single one, and you had the war. You had Harriet Myers, Katrina, Mark Foley, and this thing after thing was happening. The Republicans didn't pick up a single seat in the house that year. And I brought it up in the context of like, the Democrats also won weird places. Like there was, I was working on this hotly contested supposedly, like swing seat around Des Moines. And then the Democrat goes and picks up this seat in eastern Iowa that the Republican Jim Leach had held forever. And like, the guy didn't even campaign. He was like a professor and he just won because the, you know, the wave was so big. And to me, I think that is kind of an instructive way to think about how this year could go. A lot of work between now and then, but I don't know, where do you think things stand right now? I've always been on the sort of wave-ish side of what could happen this year, just because of Trump's approval rating and the very consistent, gradual but consistent decline. And I just think history suggests history could be wrong or could be, this could be a year where history gets counter-mandated, so to speak. But history suggests that just if Trump's at 35 or 38 or even 40 among those who actually show up to vote, which would be a bit of a tick back up for him, that's rough on these candidates. Senate candidates and certainly House candidates. I mean, I'm just by definition right, if he's at 40, then if the state's plus 10 Trump or a district's plus 10 Trump, he's probably at 50 there, but he's not above 50. And our elections are so nationalized now that if Trump's below 50, is Ron Brownstein likes to point out over and over. But correctly, your trouble if you're a Republican candidate, I'd say incumbent or challenger. So I think a lot of these states and some districts, I mean, everything's more polarized and there are fewer competitive House districts and all that, but fewer competitive states and these to be in a way, but I do wonder about some of these. I think the foreign economy in particular, those Midwestern and upper Midwestern states, I mean, they have had Democratic members of the Senate and Democratic governors in like our memory. It's not like no one's ever voted for a Democrat, Kansas has a Democratic governor, Montana had a Democratic center. I mean, these, you know, these are not states where it's like-- Iowa, like that, because people, I think, always talk about the, you know, when they think about the way that Trump changed up the coalitions. You know, the famous thing to talk about that every time is like Scranton or Toledo, right? Like he did well and he's kind of hollowed out industrial towns in the Midwest. But like that, the same type of shift happened in the farm country, like along the Mississippi. Like that Eastern Iowa was very Democratic, Dubuque, the Quad Cities. They had a Democratic congressman for a long time and Tom Harkin was a senator from Iowa. He's ran up big numbers in Eastern Iowa, so I have the people that live there. There's not a huge turnover. A lot of these folks remember voting for Democrats from the not too recent past. And you know, Trump, you end up having this big flip there, it's not like a huge influx of population there. It's a pretty stagnant population, like all these older people have like voted for Democrats. They do feel out of touch with the National Democratic Party. But like might they vote for their local Democrat this time when all of these things are going bad? I think so. And a couple of states, they're independent candidates where the Democrats have actually intelligently stepped aside. So sure. If you can pick up 10% of the vote in a Senate race, leave a Senate of the House, if the rural vote is 25% of the vote in the state, going from 25 to 35 is worth as much as going from 65 to 75 more or less in this, if the same number of people obviously live there in an urban area or something like that. So it really matters to reduce those margins, leave aside whether they could actually be Democratic again. And I think that could happen in a lot of these areas. And I think the Democrats have a pretty good cast of characters running for both the Senate and the House. I know everyone panics about one or two who are somewhat problematic. And I wouldn't have voted for in primaries like in Michigan. But honestly, if you step back, I tried to do this a little when I got the magnification and said, just look at the whole map. If you had told us a year ago, this was going to be the cast of characters in the competitive 10 or so if there are Senate races in the competitive House districts. It's pretty good really. And it's certainly it's a big coalition. They're always going to be one or two on the left and one or two aren't on the left. And then a lot sort of who are centrist, centrist left. And that's kind of what's happened. But I think the variety is pretty good. A lot of them are younger. Some of the ones who are older are well-established. Not liked like Roy Cooper and North Carolina, our colleague Lauren Egan had a good piece about his race this weekend. So no, I feel like it's the pieces are falling into place pretty well. I've got to say for for the Democrats, I mean, knock on wood and with all the obvious caveats, but I do feel like it could be a pretty big wave and waves can surprise. They tend to kind of have another surge if that's the right continue that metaphor often in September. That's certainly happened in 94, which I remember very well. I mean, long time ago, but I was sort of more or much more involved in that one. But I think I was 2 and 06, certainly in Virginia was where I live, George Allen was still ahead in polling. I'm pretty certain at this time. And I would say into mid-September, even George Allen was staffing up for 2000. Right. For presidential campaign. No. Yeah, I had some goals. I was looking for jobs for 2008. He was popular. You did a governor as a team. Even though I think I'm in the first time in 95, I don't think it ever left lost an election of Virginia. He was then elected to set it, obviously, running for reelection, likely presidential candidate. It just gets made one sort of mistake on the trail, didn't handle it well. But mostly it was just the national wave, and it was an early indicator of Virginia moving purple, and then blue, that would be a fair point to make also. But again, we don't know whether some of these other things happening in the Midwest couldn't be early indicators of things that could happen two, four, six, eight years. Now, people are a little too convinced that what's happened in the last one, two, three cycles necessarily is going to hold forever, right? Maybe our Labor Day podcast should just be a 1994 and 2006 retrospective. I think people might like that. Take people back from before Trump. At the end of the summer, we'll talk about it. Give us some feedback if that's what you want. If you want one Monday off, we'll do a little, you know, this is political history with Bill and Tim. Eating well can be difficult when life gets busy, finding time for meal planning and prepping isn't happening for me. I just honor all the moms and dads with like a meal plan and meal prep for the week. They do that on Sunday. My friends do that. God love you. That's not my life. And if that's not your life, you might need something that's a little easier, easy clean up, easy cooking. That's where our friends at Forkful come in. They have meals that prioritize flavor, function, and health. Ready to eat meals made with high-quality premium proteins, grass-fed, bison, wild-caught salmon and fresh veggies. Your delicious menus that fit your lifestyle and meal preferences, including gluten-free dairy free keto plant-based GLP1 and low-carb meals, no meal prep cooking or clean up just clean flavors and ready in just three minuteos delivered right to your door within 24 to 48 hours. Boom, you can do it right now and you got dinner for Thursday already. This week, we did the chimichurri filet mignon with spinach and asparagus. My daughter likes spinach and asparagus, can you believe that? Hmm. Not all kids do that. I feel blessed about that. It was very flavorful. The steak was tender, the chimichurri was fresh and citrusy, could have been in Buenos Aires. Restaurant quality stuff and the comfort of your own home without all the hassle of cooking. Explore our plans and menu of fresh ready-to-eat meals at ForkfulMeals.com and use code TheBullwork to get 50% off your first order that's ForkfulMeals.com/TheBullwork and use promo code TheBullwork for 50% off, thanks to Forkful for sponsoring this episode. The other news kind of related to I think the political dynamics they're happening right now was The New York Times reported over the weekend that Akeen Jeffries and Jared Kushner had a private one-on-one meeting that was brokered by a mutual friend. A couple ways to look at that. The generous way, which I don't share, but I will state is that Maga is already basically conceding the house, the Trump already is, and so they're trying to think about what to do going forward and maybe it's a good political sign that Kushner wanted to talk to Jeffries. The less generous way to see that is that Akeen Jeffries is already standing down from the battle stations and is planning on being more accommodating than we would wish you would be during the 27-28 end of Trump years, where as far as I'm concerned, the only conversation you should be having with Jared Kushner is across the table during an oversight hearing after he's been subpoenaed. But Bill, where were you at on the report of that meeting? I'm on the ungenerous side and one thing, but it's also a lot as we did, it's not even about 27-28. I think some of them have talked the assessment to the notion that, you know, we have to look up, we're ready for governing in 27-28, we can't just be running against Trump and against the Trump administration and against the ice and against tariffs, against corruption and against the war. I mean, God forbid that would be like, this is a pretty good platform to run on to me. But for them, you know, we've got to show that we're willing to govern and affordability and that means working with them. And so, meeting of this kind might signal that we're not just saying no. Just saying no, just saying no for the next three months. You end up really happy to say no for the next two years, honestly, and that's good too because you know what, saving us from autocracy, from a stupid war, from failed tariffs, from ISIS horrors, that would be a very, very good thing to do. But no, they have to be working with Jared Kushner on affordability. Kushner of all people, he's at the center of all the corruption, right? Why are they meeting with him? He hasn't testified in like eight years or something. I pulled this up the other day. But it's crazy. crazy. I need some. the point person on negotiating the Iran more deal, the Ukraine deal, both that have failed, while he's taking money from Saudi, while he's also sparked an uprising in Albania. Kushner, Kushner should be under oath, talking to Hawking and Jeffries, and like the idea that, oh, we can find some common ground, why would you want to find common ground? What would you find on what, like, good Donald Trump's going to sign some bill and that you're going to go to the White House, you know, for a bill signing next to the rebuilt East Wing, like, what are you, what are you even talking about? Like, what are you imagining? The whole thing is crazy. And there were some people, they were defending him, talking about like, well, people complimented Zoran when he went to meet Trump, and it's like, these are different jobs. Like, Zoran is the mayor of a city, okay? He went there, I think in the hopes of talking Trump down from sending ice thugs and invading a city, and, you know, he sat there and, and Trump complimented him, it was kind of an alpha dog move, really, like, that is different from the speaker of the house that is supposedly allegedly incoming speaker of the house, who is going to have to be the point man and holding Trump accountable over the next two years, that that's going to be his main job doing like a behind the scenes meeting with his son and, like, these are not comparable. So I had a bit of elected mayor, so obviously if you're the mayor of New York and you have a whole bunch of issues, maybe you need to go meet with the president of the United States if he asks to meet with you or is willing to meet with you, I did probably put off the ice attack on New York. I think it's beginning to happen now, probably, but maybe that was worth it, and anyway, he didn't give away much. But yeah, the private, the secret meeting arranged by an intermediary was someone who's not the president of the United States, but the son of law, the president of the United States, who's engaged in all kinds of corruption and, as you say, all kinds of failed policies to the degrees doing policies, and has never testified to Congress. I mean, yeah, it's utterly ridiculous. To the war, your friend Bob Kagan wrote about this in the Atlantic, and as I ever, Bob is the only person outflanking me on how bad the war is, like, every time I think I'm at the outer edge of my rhetoric and opinion on how bad this war is, Bob writes something and I was like, oh, it's actually a little bit worse than I thought. His take was that Iran has now reconfigured the power structure of the Middle East, and it will be the dominant power of the region going forward, rather than Israel or us along with our allies. And the Gulf States, he writes, for years, the world has been dealing with an Iran constrained and will now discover what Iran unleashed looks like. Obviously Trump has been making these threats and then backing down, but an interesting thing he pointed out is that Trump was specifically ordering attacks on Iranian infrastructure, oil and energy infrastructure, and did one time make an attack on them, and then Iran attacked oil fields in the Gulf States, and the Gulf States are like, holy fuck, like, this is a huge threat to us. And so now, every time Trump threatens that the Gulf States are calling Trump, it's like, don't do that. Again, don't do the energy infrastructure again. And Kagan's point is like, the particulars of that just shows why a kind of Iran has gained more leverage in all of this. Yeah, I think it's a very good piece, people should read it. And I think it's consistent with what he's been saying, what we've been saying honestly for six months, it's not just a embarrassing loss, it's not just tragic obviously in terms of the fatalities and the casualties. It's an actual strategic loss in the Middle East, and I would say in the world for the U.S. And it has all kinds of ramifications. People haven't focused on yet, and we're not sure these things are, the world is, these things are contingent. They may not happen. All of them that could be where Iran could screw up and overreach, and that other nations could rally against Iran and so forth, but the degree to which all kinds of things are being unleashed now, including Iran in control of the strait, but also in nuclear proliferation, the scenario in the Middle East and then elsewhere incidentally. I do think this will turn out to have been a very, unfortunately, a very big deal this war. The best hope for it, and this is something we were urging, I think, and talking about a month into the war was ended, ended quickly. You take the loss, but not cataclysmic. The longer it goes on, the longer Iran gets to show how strong they are and how weak we are. We look both erratic and weak if you want to think of it this way. It's one thing to be erratic and strong. That's where Trump looked like in the first year, that's the Nixon thing. People are a little intimidated. They don't like you. You're a bully. Ultimately, that's not good for the US to be a bully, but bullies do carry certain power with them and people don't quite want to take them on. If you look like a weak bully, not good. Not good. And the real world results have been, I think worse than also, people realize Washington Post reported over the weekend that the number of U.S. service members reported wounded or killed in the Iran war has jumped to 774. The previous estimates were much lower than that because the Pentagon was hiding the ball on this. And I guess the true numbers have now trickled out. That's significant. Obviously. Yeah. And of course, they haven't told the truth about how much the bases were damaged. And so decades of building up this space infrastructure in the Middle East, maybe it was getting out of date, maybe we should have rethought it at some point, but now it's just to be deprived of it. We can't use it. I couldn't do USS Lincoln, why couldn't the sailors get decent food because they couldn't decide to be shipped over 2,000 miles. I think from Diego Garcia, so you couldn't use our base in Varene, the whole point of the base in Varene. I mean, literally the reason we have these giant bases that are quite expensive and important if you're a global power is to support for deployed troops. I mean, what else are they doing there? You know, I'm just some diplomatic stuff and other stuff too. And if they can't support the forward deployed troops, it's a very big defeat for us. And then the Army Chief of Staff announces for the new Army Chief of Staff, who's Hexess Kroni, who replaced the very, very well-respected Chief of Staff, whom Hexess fired south-lead during the war. And so I'm closing that down, that drone thing we were working on, you know, that experimental drone unit seems kind of important to get a little bit up to speed here on drones. Maybe they're doing it elsewhere in the Army. I hope they are in the military. But again, the degree of damage has been done to the military kind of across the board because of Hexess' privatization and favoritism and firing of somebody who will qualify people. We haven't seen it, unfortunately, all of that yet, either. August is the perfect time to hit reset before the Autumn Rush begins, and a wardrobe refresh is a good place to start. And that's why I love shopping with our friends at Quince. 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Sweating in it, and it still felt nice and comfy cozy. So, upgrade your everyday. Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers. If you go to Quince.com/theballwork, get free shipping on your order in 365-day returns now available in Canada, sub-Canada in the UK as well that's q-u-i-n-c-e.com/theballwork. Tomorrow night in South Carolina, we have a runoff in the Republican Senate race between two geriatric candidates, including a NEPO sister. Just really quick aside, on that George Conway and I. There is some rhetoric on Friday's podcast picking on the selfish boomers for our $40 trillion dollar and debt. And I received some feedback from that from some boomers who I love who are talking about the things that they did in their personal lives that are good and the no kings and boomers to that. And I agree with that. You're always painting with a broad bush in this situation, but like objectively speaking, we have increased the debt $40 trillion while the boomers have been in charge. So like that, that happened, is every single person accountable for that? No. I don't know, Chuck Grassley, I guess, is probably the silent generation, but he was posting over the weekend about how we need to take this seriously. I saw somebody posted, he was like, "You've been there for 50 years. What are you talking about?" So, anyway, it's with love. We love the no kings, protesters, and I love the boomers in my life that is what it is. Two boomers, primary each other in South Carolina, Darlene Graham and Ralph Norman. Ralph Norman was big on the insurrection and he seems like he's losing a step actually himself. Friend of the show Ben Jacobs was in South Carolina reporting on this and was at a little gaggle that Darlene Graham had and he find a couple of things. She's been trying to differentiate with her brother on something. I love what it is. Do you want to guess? Do you know what it is? What she's trying to differentiate from him on? I think I saw. It was an immigration. Yeah, he's all too weak on immigration. Of all the things he just did from mine, not the Iran War, not the truck's Trump security, but a little too weak on immigration for Darlene's taste. So Ben asked her if she thought that the DACA, the dreamers, should be to port it because Lindsey had supported status for DACA kids and she didn't answer the question and then he followed up and she said that she has no thoughts on that right now, which is pretty much summarized. This is her whole campaign and I guess most of the Republican Senate. She also was asked about the certification of the 2020 election and before she could answer Tim Scott intervened and said it'd be helpful for us to talk about the issues of tomorrow and not yesterday as if that's the job of the reporters there to be helpful to Tim Scott and Darlene Graham. So I don't know what I it seems like Trump went down to campaign for it seems like she's going to win and in some ways I think it's what the Republicans in the country deserve is having somebody who's just totally an empty vessel for whatever Donald Trump wants It is unbelievable on immigration since we began with that That is one issue with Republicans on some of the others tariffs that's clear distancing the war then we'll talk about it And that's their way of distancing an immigration. I feel like the Republican base I mean there's some evidence for this even in the polling is not moved that much. There's been some movement among Soft Republicans and some swing voters against ice and nasty Portation, but certainly Republican primaries She's not wrong to think that she should be more fervently anti-immigrant than even than Lindsey had become I mean Lindsey actually never quite could convincingly do if is he actually on that one issue probably remembered that he had But a co-sponsor of the bipartisan immigration bill in 2013 and stuff So Lindsey didn't really go down the most demagogic rabbit holes did he on immigration? I don't I don't think so. Not in his campaign. I kept quiet I guess yeah, I can't anyway, but I'm sure he said something gross about it Obviously some political consultant said here. We've got data here. The one thing you know He had once been with McCain on immigration. So you got to go right wing lunatic Norman is kind of a right wing lunatic was in the head of the Freedom Caucus. I think in the house I have this hunch totally based on no evidence that probably wrong So I mean that I don't know if I could get good odds How would that on Norman in the sense that she's been so ridiculous as a candidate and is just If I can the sister of Lindy Graham and said that he died But I mean that's not really a qualification and Trump coming in maybe Trump's cloud isn't quite what it was I don't know. I wonder if it's as possible that it would be interesting if Norman made her close or or beat her I'd say it would be Yeah, the Norman situation is weird like because he was one of the point people in the instructions I mentioned like one of people plotting along with Mo Brooks and Alabama and The Republican nominee for governor in Arizona Andy Biggs Well, I did a big video and you can go check out in ball or takes. He's a lunatic. But then he endorsed Haley Right, you know, so he's kind of You know, he doesn't map very easily on the kind of mega Internation war, but what we'll see. We'll see what happens from our night When it comes to culture wars there is Something that's ongoing that both of us have monitored somewhat which is the WNBA nonsense Last night NS canter Who was a traffic cone of a center in the NBA played for a bunch of teams including the Portland Trailblazers where he got Absolutely dominated by Nicole Yochichino in a one playoff series He went to the fever versus sky game in Chicago last night sat court side in some anti-trans shirts. It seems to me Just kind of based on my reading of social media that this is funded by one of trump c4ce They were posting about an america first Policy institute. It seems like he's on the take now from from a trump affiliated group to do this He gets in a verbal dispute with one of the women on the court She starts to go towards him. He walks out onto the baseline He gets kicked out of the game and he cries like a little bitch in the lobby Forget and kicked out of the game before this. It all happened. It was before bedtime. I was watching some of this my daughter And slippery game really fun game. I mean the the fever like just drain and stuff curry threes all over the court And it's unfortunate situation because NS was actually I think we both had kind of worked with him a little bit A while back as he was a big advocate for Political prisoners in his homeland of turkey in particular his dad was a local prisoner But they extended I did some work with him on political prisoners in Saudi Arabia I don't know his dad's out of prison. There'd be one thing if he was like putting on this show to help his dad And figuring it would help him get good graces with trump I know it'd be horrible, but you can understand that but now I guess this is Something very much darker than that. It is dark and I knew a little You know, it's like a DM level relationship on twitter or something at the time And I think I met him a couple times, but yeah, yeah, he's very tall That was my main memory, but now he was a brave I mean opponent of the Turkish dictatorship and a good spokesperson for human rights It seemed like around the world and then he got sucked into trouble for old and and now he's all in I guess that issue to the transgender issue and the immigration issue strike me as the two where people get sucked in and they don't Stop I mean they go all the way and they it's really terrible. I mean sad Really terrible for the country obviously and for them if I could say for their character in my opinion They just become haters. They hate and what is this whole idiotic WM I'm declaring myself transgender woman so I could be drafted in the WMBA. Oh It's really funny. I mean, it's just so gross really and disgusting As with the attacks on the immigrants they they and it is dangerous They are demonizing people. They're gonna get people hurt. They are getting people hurt And people getting beat off, right? It's because of the Cause of the you know in at a time when there's this Onabashed demonization of people who have done nothing who were in whatever the controversy is about Very minor if I might say on you know transgender women and sports or about maybe some of the stuff How you handle children and parental consent or and all that these are adults I mean who have done nothing to anyone like like Julia Curly who you interview so well and and they're just Going after them because out of hatred. It's just hatred. I mean, there's nothing there's no rationale There's no argument. There's no nothing and I think the same is very much true obviously of the immigrants Especially the ones who've been here a long time and are doing no harm to anyone and we're welcomed in their communities What's happening in Springfield with the Haitians is terrible. I mean, so I those two issues really I feel like it's a dark side of the soul And unfortunately that sort of exposed and unfortunately a lot of Americans Fair number of Americans are Okay with that Yeah, and he's in the stadium shouting at people like in the fans like what are you doing? Also the this country she just my final thing like this is to your point like Whatever you think about youth sports and I do it I think it's overblown, but I think it's complicated There's certain sports where there should be different rules and other sports like I that's like the I just think the reasonable view on all this but like None of it has anything to do with the WMBA There's never ban a transgender person in the WMBA There's no transgender person trying to get into the WMBA Like the only person trying to get in the WN is NS Cantor He's made it up himself. He's pretending like he's being like there's no problem here It's I guess so so you've totally inserted yourself into this and and create it and stirred up all this hate and animus Over nothing and it's really it's really shameful final thing on the intersection of Trump and sports Did the dumb car race? Whatever if you're into car racing That's fine everybody has to have their own interest. That's what makes our country beautiful I can't think of anything less appealing to me than attending a car race meant to be a tribute to Donald Trump And to me like that like combines two of my least favorite You know endeavors and I could not imagine anywhere. I would want to be less than that. I went to a single car race in my life I'm a fragile gay boy. It was very loud my ears hurt. I didn't understand what was happening I didn't know what I was watching. It was not not a fun experience for me They had up to the streets of DC that it was an eyesore on DC. It created all this traffic Did you have any interest in going where you wanted to monitor? I did not I've never really been to one of those with a big car race But at least if you do it in D 500 there's like an actual racetrack It's set up for this here. They had to you know do a lot of Closed national airport and close all much of avenues in DC and You know spread a lot of money Make sure the streets support these cars and all this and so so I don't I don't know the impression was that big a deal I don't have the impression that I talked to someone who's in DC yesterday There were DC was wildly crowded or the hotels were full or anything like that So I think it was all kind of a much ado about not too much I do think that I mean it's the last I guess of those freedom 250 events the 250th anniversary events that Trump Comment dear and got Got the federal government to spend money on I feel like the whole thing. This is good news. I think it was a bust Trump's attempt to hijack the 250th anniversary. This is the end of it presumably and It kind of ended up going nowhere and that's good for the country totally failed the other good thing the other kind of silver lining of all This is that malania attended with him and so we got video of them fighting during the car race which I enjoy and appeared to be fighting I guess I think I know what a couple spat looks like and Maybe they just have both have rbf that they seemed like they're quite upset at each other for a few You know for about a minute there and then you know Natalie was kind of over malania's left shoulder standing 10 yards away So is that element to it? So yeah, if the result of this was a little a little marital tiff I can take Just a modicum of joy out of that no and we just we just serve a lot of credit for going 45 minutes or whatever it is in this podcast Without mentioning Natalie I feel like I'm missed and I think I went on to the beach on but we can go Saturday And I think that's kind of when the whole thing blew up wasn't it because us off made his remarks and then they all hit back at him So I spent the week at the beach reading about Natalie Harpley Do you have any final thanks about it? You want to know? I don't I mean, I just you got you and JBL and I've one of done an excellent job discussing it And I mean it's all it's all ridiculous. It's all ridiculous except It tells you a lot about the Trump administration not something we didn't already know but still about the Trump White House That one of the five or six people apparently closest to Trump and most influential on Trump I think it's fair to say one of the three took with him on that ridiculous food cart thing in Ankara Right? A woman who's making $150,000 a year as Trump's special assistant Is Natalie Harp. I mean given what we know about her qualifications or lack of qualifications for any senior job in the White House and any of any kind right? I mean, you know, I mean, it tells you something about the Trump White House and about Trump's psychology that he likes that. I mean, it's terror. I mean, I don't know, I don't know where at all, obviously, and I don't want to pop psychology and all that stuff, but I don't feel like it's doing her any favor for here to be treated in this way. I know enough having read the letters and that's all that I need to know about what's happening with Natalie Harp. I think that's true for everybody. Bill Crystal, appreciate you very much. We'll be back tomorrow with another edition of the show. We'll see you next Monday. All right. Great. That will see everybody. Peace. The Bullwork Daily is brought to you thanks to the work of lead producer Katie Cooper, associate producer Anzali Skipper, and with video editing by Dante DeCicco and audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.