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 son of a gram 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 the editor at large at the bulwark. He was on a brief vacation. Well deserved 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? I believe that to you and JVL to really, you know, that's what JVL. JVL's never been to a strip club. I, you know, we can discuss that on the stage there in Atlanta, 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? Was there, maybe the, I guess you weren't California. You weren't 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 didn't do any shots and didn't do your, your podcast 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 not 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 plotts 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's keep coming out. I mean, I keep getting sent down and we're trying to vet them as we do more coverage. They'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 of Canada, another great live show up in Canada a couple of 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. He pointed to tensions between Howard Nuttlick and Jameson 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 an 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 you're now signed to pencil, not in pen, something like that. And 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? Like, 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. That's because there's a lot of obviously cross-border travel between Maine and Canada, and it'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. It's our largest export market in number one. People think Canada, well, it's a nice place. You go there for the visit, Montreal, Quebec, or this, there's some Canadian beer and lumber everyone's heard of. Ockie. Lumber, hockey. Yeah, 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 ice, though, I 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 remember the number, 3.30, or something, and in some particular part of the code, it's literally part of the 1930 terror fact has never been invoked by American presidents. The 1930 terror fact, I looked at the office, I thought, 1930 was, it was the Smooth Halle 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. Yes, Smooth Halle. 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 terror stuff is really insane, I mean, and of course, the beef terrorists, if now he's taking off the beef terrorists, have I got that right? I think it's important more beef. Yeah. I want to get to the beef in a second. I've come out of Canada, things, just because I think this is worth all worthwhile to note. Well, Karne, this is real. He does have the country behind him politically, but there's real economic harm that is going to be caused by this. I just want to say this in the context, obviously, there's some limits to this parallel, but 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, 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 would think, well, okay, a bad deal's better, no deal. And he's not doing that. And I think that's showing real political courage. It's easy for me to say. In here to podcast studio, right, but 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 Defty said, and then some of the rhetoric coming from Canada. Obviously, they're a major partner for us back and forth across the borders, playing strains and automobiles. Do you, 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 sort of trade more back and forth? We're great trading partners, right? 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. some 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 US, 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 just like them. The fact is, if you had looked this up, about this this morning and morning shots, the actual suicide rate, including those, I believe, is lower in Canada than in the US. 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 US. 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 on something, it's not in your field, you'd be pretty cautious. And instead, you just try to out-hex death, and out-fance-fance, and say nothing about the actual substance, right? There's no actual defense of Trump's terror policy, you know? No, it's pathetic. And obviously, Canada does have military, and that doesn'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, like, 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. 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, and we should be extremely happy to have Canada out there. Right on 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 that you don't know what results from all that. And this is why you speak diplomatically, like this is why diplomacy is a thing that matters. Yavantaria's dug forward, saying this morning, he said that Carnie should be ready to cut electricity and critical minerals to the U.S. if trade war continues. And like that seems outlandish, but like 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 present-day Canada serving the British Empire burned the White House in retaliation for the American attack on York, trying the war of 1812. So only 212 years ago, that Canada showed some muscle, something to think about. They're kind of uncanny, but Mark Cardi was probably wise not to mention that, right? You mentioned this earlier on the beef trade news and the tariffs and the other kind of damages it's causing. Trump said on Friday he was going to temporarily increase beef imports, free of tariffs. And he's got a commitment to sell the meat at 25% below market prices, but the tariff was 26%. So, yeah, this guy doesn't understand 101 basics of what his tariffs are doing to consumers. The notable part of this doing is the pushback from foreign country. It's 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 foreign communities. And there's been a bunch of videos of ranchers upset about this over the weekend going viral on TikTok, including MAGA ranchers, and I just want to play it wonderful. 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 y'all. You've seen a market crash for live cattle, live cattle that people like myself grow and take 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's freedom. And when these disappear, so does your freedom. I don't think this is going to work out like they hoped. MAGA ranchers are pissed. I mean, this kind of real political effects couldn't it in Nebraska, for example, in Kansas? I mean, sad thing about terrorists, they do real damage. And once you start the business of imposing them and taking them off, 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, 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 to make up Soviet thing too, he's like, it's very much so, yeah, he's like, oh, the saw our world after the price of beef at the market for you. It's really amazing. And it's not always been that terrorists 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 terrorist thing, you know, I say, I think it's the more he does into, in a way, if you put some on people like economists complain, we point a call attention to it. And it's odd if people get used to it in the system of just and economic growth slows point one or two point two percent and inflation goes up and extra point two 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 for 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 cattle men's message there of note, this is one poll, and I don't really expect the Democrats to win our can saw, but there was a poll showing a 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. Yeah, I agree. The statement does say something else. He's not putting out the statement to me. In some ways, kind of buttresses the poll, even if it's not right, the fact that he feels like he's going to race, right? And he feels like he's got a distance himself from Trump, which he has not done on anything. And he's supposed to China, uh, 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 when he's fucked up the war, but here he is. Yeah. The war, the terrorists. I mean, those things they've had to vote for or vote for vent 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 terrorists. It's the Republicans in Congress war and the Republicans in Congress, terrorists. Let's talk about that midterm lies. 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 challenge or going against lettered Boswell, RIP, who is 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. Republicans didn't pick up a single seat in the house that year. And I've run 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 the 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 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 said 35 or 38 or even 40 a month. among those who actually show up to vote, which would be a bit of a tick back up for him. That's Ralph on these candidates, Senate candidates, and certainly House candidates. I mean, I'm just by definition right, if he's at 40, then if a 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, as 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. - Well, I 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. 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 to 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 pretty stagnant population. Like all of these older people have like voted for Democrats. They do feel out of touch with the natural 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 in a couple of states, they're independent candidates where the Democrats have actually intelligently stepped aside. So if you can pick up 10% of the vote in a Senate race, leave a side 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 the same number of people, obviously, that they're in an urban area or something like that. So it really matters to reduce those margins, leave a side 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, I 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 definitely-- it's a big coalition. There's 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. Well-liked, like Roy Cooper and North Carolina, our colleague Lauren Hagan had a good piece about his race this weekend. So now I feel like the pieces are falling into place pretty well, I've got to say, 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 certainly happened in '94, which I remember very well. I mean, a long time ago, but I was sort of more 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. But 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 and he did a governor's team. Even though I think I'm in the first time in '94, I think it ever left lost an election of Virginia. He was then elected to the Senate, obviously, running for reelection, likely presidential candidate, and 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-indicated 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 in 1994 in 2006 retrospective. I think people might like that. Take people back from before Trump. 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, and we'll do a little, this is political history with Bill and Tim. 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 Akeem 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 Akeem Jeffries is already standing down from the battle stations. And it's planning on being more accommodating than we would wish he would be during the 27, 28 end of Trump years, where as far as I'm concerned, the only conversation he 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 we're-- but it's also a lot as we did. It's not even about 27, 28. I think some of them have talked on the saucepan to the notion that, you know, we have to look at-- 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-- that's just like a pretty good platform to run onto 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 say no for the next three months. You end up really having 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 is 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 put this up the other day. It's crazy. And he's a 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. I, I, Kushner, I, I, I, 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 a common ground? What would you find? Well, 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, what are you, what are you even talking about? Like what are you imagining? The whole thing is crazy. And, and there were some people that 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 a, 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-in-law. 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 secret meeting arranged by an intermediary was someone who's not the president of the United States. But the son-in-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 hasn't 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've 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 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 or now would discover what Iran unleashed looks like. You know, 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 the one time making an attack on them and then Iran attacked oil fields in the Gulf states and the Gulf states are like, holy fuck. This is a huge threat to us. and so now every time Trump threatens that the gold states are called. Trump is saying, 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 US, it has all kinds of ramifications, people haven't focused on yet, and we're not sure these things are the world, these things are contingent, they may not happen, all of them that could be where Iran could screw up and overreach, and there could 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 it's not catastrophic. 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 kind of what Trump looked like in the first year, that's the Nixon thing. Okay, 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, you know, bullies do kind of carry a 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 US 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. And, of course, they haven't told the truth about how much the bases were damaged. And so decades of building up this base 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. Why couldn't the 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. Maybe she couldn't use our base in Varena, the whole point of the base in Varena. 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? I'm just a 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 Hexas Kroni, who replaced the very, very well respected Chief of Staff, whom Hexas fired South Leiter in 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 Hexas' privatization and favoritism and firing of somebody well-qualified people. We haven't seen it, unfortunately, all of that yet, either. From our night in South Carolina, we've run off 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 in debt. And I received some feedback from that, from some boomers who I love, who are talking about 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 bus 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. But like, 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, but it 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 sycophancy, but like a little too weak on immigration for Darlene's taste. So Ben asked her if she thought that the DACA, the dreamers, should be deported 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 pretty much summarizes 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 it seems like Trump went down to campaign for it, 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 in immigration since we began to that. That is one issue with the Republicans, some of the other tariffs that's clear distancing the war, then we'll talk about it, 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 software Republicans and some swing voters against ICE and NST 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 he actually on that one issue probably remembered that he had been 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 think so. >> No, it was the campaign, I kept quiet, I guess, I can't remember. >> Yeah, I'm sure he said something gross about it, something. >> But obviously some political consultant said here, we've got data here, the one thing, he had once been with McCain on immigration, so you've 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 Folly were wrong, so I mean, I don't know, if I could get good odds, I would bet on Norman in the sense that she's been so ridiculous as a candidate and is just like the sister of Lindsey 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 possible that we would just think of Norman made her close or beat her, I'd say. >> It would be. Yeah, the Norman situation is weird, because he was one of the point people in the instruction as I mentioned, one of the people plotting along with Mo Brooks and Alabama, and the Republican nominee for Governor in Arizona, Andy Biggs, I did a big video and you can go check out in Bortex, he's a lunatic, but Danny endorsed Haley, so he doesn't map very easily on the kind of MAGA interness in war, but we'll see what happens to 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 Yokech, in 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's C-Force, they were posting about it, America first, Policy Institute, it seems like he's on the take now 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 for getting kicked out of the game. Before this, it all happened. It was before bedtime. I was watching some of this with my daughter, and just a great game, really fun game. The fever just drain and stuff, curry threes all over the court. It's unfortunate situation because NS was actually, I think we both had kind of worked with him a little bit, a while back, because he was a big advocate for political prisoners in his homeland of Turkey, in particular, his dad was political prisoner, but they extended items to 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 in good graces with Trump, and that would 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. I think I met him a couple of times, but yeah, he's very tall, that was probably a memory. But now, he was a brave, I mean, opponent of the Turkish-Chicatorship, and a good spokes for human rights that seemed like around the world, and then he got sucked into Trump world, and now he's all in. I guess that issue to the transgender issue and the immigration issue struck 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 but 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 WN? I'm declaring myself transgender woman so I could be drafted in the WNBA. It's really funny. I mean it's just so gross really and disgusting as with the attacks on the immigrants and it is dangerous. They are demonizing people. They're going to get people hurt. They are getting people hurt. People are going to beat up because of the cause of the you know at a time when there's this unabashed demonization of people who have done nothing. Whatever the controversy is about very minor. I might say on transgender women and sports or maybe some of the stuff how you handle children and parental consent and all that. These are adults. I mean who have done nothing to anyone 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 this is dark side of the soul and unfortunately that's what 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 controversy just my final thing this is to your point like whatever you think about youth sports and 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 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 been 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 like it's so so you've totally inserted yourself into this and and created 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? Were you wanting to monitor? I did not. I've never really been to one of those with big car races. But at least if you do it in D500 there's like an actual race track that'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 making sure the streets support these cars and all this and so so 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 that 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 here 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. I think 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. It appeared to be fighting I guess. I think I know what a couple spat looks like and maybe they just have both have RBF but they seemed like they're quite upset at each other for a few you know for about a minute there and then 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 have a lot of credit for going 45 minutes or whatever it is in this podcast without mentioning Natalie. I feel like I missed it. I think I went on to the beach on the weekend of Saturday and I think that's kind of when the whole thing flew 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 Harper. Do you have any final thanks about it? You want to know? I don't. I mean I just well you got you and JVL and everyone have done an excellent job discussing it and I mean 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 Harper. I mean given what we know about her qualifications or lack of qualifications for any senior job in the White House and any kind to 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 her 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 Harper. 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 Anzaly Skipper, and with video editing by Dante DeCicco [BLANK_AUDIO]