Susan Glasser: Trump Has a Man Problem

(upbeat music) - Hello and welcome to the Bollock Daily. I'm your host Tim Miller. Do I need to welcome back to the show? 20th time, a gold jacket guest, staff writer at the New Yorker, co-host of its political scene podcast, our most recent book is The Divider. It's Susan Glasser, what's up? - Wow, I want a gold watch or something. - Yeah. - Come on, that's amazing. - We're working on it. I need a 25 guest appearance present. I'm on it. - I can hardly wait. - 2027, it'll happen in 2027. We'll come up with something. I've got some great news for you. I do think an article this morning from the Wall Street Journal is a little bit of a preview that the best is yet to come when it comes to hilarious stories of Trump friends shivering each other in the news. And this one is Kimberly Gilfoyle, former partner to Don Trump Jr., former romantic partner. She was preparing for her congressional hearing to become your most ambassador to Greece, was going through her finances, realized she had some problems. So she texted a Trump donor, saying she needed a hundred grand sent to her American Express in a way that wouldn't leave a paper trail. Honey, please, I need you to get this done for me today. Prayer hands emoji. She sent to Eric Dieter's former congressional candidate and Trump donor. She asked him to draft a letter, saying he owed her $250,000 back payments for consulting services. Not sure what those services are, but very flirty texts. And past texts included things like Eric, I wish you would stop papering all these things. What a nightmare. You'll literally cost me my ambassador ship stop writing as they were exchanging about their financial relationship. That seems bad. - You know, I'm still recovering from the Don Jr. wedding scandal, which I guess Kimberly Guilfoyle is also still recovering from. But, you know, look Tim, this is the classic genre of, in any other administration, dot, dot, dot, this would be a gigantic huge enormous scandal, right? But, I mean, come on, you know, Jared Kushner's father, the convict, is the US ambassador to France, you know, are most prestigious ambassadors ship, aside from the position in Great Britain. That's a man who literally hired a prostitute according to prosecutors to entrap his own family members in a business dispute. So, you know, I mean, $100,000 AMX bill, not good, I'll admit. I have to say that I woke up this morning and what I was wondering was, how do you spend $100,000 in an AMX bill? Is that like, is that all makeup? I mean, I assume that private jet companies taking AMX, probably that, you know, you don't want to be with the riffraff. - The private jet, I mean, isn't she like getting rides from people for that? - I think that we're going to learn that she's getting a lot of things. - Okay, so I would first of all like an itemized bill. Second of all, in the category of the Jeopardy, you know, category of, you know, Trump family and associates corruption, you know, where is this one going to rank? I will say this, prosecutors and investigative journalists know one thing once they've been doing it for a while and that is that a story like this doesn't just land out of the blue. There's no way that was the first time she asked somebody for a favor like that. I think ask any editor when they see someone who's been caught for plagiarism, for example. It's not the first time that it happened, the time that the person got caught. - Yeah, I mean, I've never asked anybody for 100 G's. So, you know, I don't have any expertise here, but yeah, my understanding and feeling is probably, you want you to get comfortable, just send in signal chats, honey, baby, send me six figures. You're probably, you're probably doing that. They couldn't even call, like, I mean, I feel like for $100,000 it's a huge amount of money at least in the world, like maybe worth a phone call. - Yeah, maybe worth a phone call. He told her later that over the years, we should say she did not get this 100,000 from him. He said it would cost him his marriage. Another interesting thing to say, 300,000 though, he said that he'd given her in the past for various favors that he wanted. He wanted to go and talk to Carlson show. He had a tax dispute. He wanted to talk to the IRS said. And so he'd paid her 300,000 in the past 'cause he didn't get anything for it. But I don't know. We will see. He's kind of an interesting character himself. This whole world is insane. And he was a snappy tomato pizza. Have you ever had a snappy tomato pizza? It's a, it's a chain. It's an apple action pizza chain. Pizza looks pretty gross. I googled it this morning. And they do have the stuffed crust. When he ran for Congress, he did a video on a graveyard talking about the imagined death of his future foes. Still seems to be a Trump fan as long as Twitter feeds this morning. So I mean, like this is what we're dealing with here. It seems like old Kim was for sale. And Don Jr., we should also mention. I was like, a lot of this was happening. The 300,000, they were together. He paid Don Jr. and Eric also to give a speech. But you know, the point of the story is, the point of trying to make Susan as, as you're saying, there are more examples of this when it comes to Kimberly. There are also just going to be so many more examples when it comes to the kids. I mean, the kid, the, it's just unimaginable. The amount of money the kids have been taking. Well, I mean, look, if you invite a Kremlin connected, Oleg Harc, who doesn't really speak English, so you're writing on a private island so that he can pay for the lavish parties related. And then think you're going to be-- Gangster, kind of, too. And we were talking to Ann Alvin on that. It's like, Gangster, really, more like Gangster turned Oleg Harc. Right, yes. Well, the whole, you know, origins in the night walls is kind of a tip off there. But, you know, if you think you're get out of jail, free card is, as Don Jr.'s new wife, the woman who supplanted Kimberly Gilfoyle, you know, thought she could just post her way on Instagram out of it by claiming that he was a very dear friend. But it's very interesting to me because, you know, probably you don't have a lot of friends with whom you don't share a common language as in an actual language. It's very hard. I don't. Yeah. I have a couple of friends who married people for whom English is their second language. And we do our best. But-- It's one of their languages. That's usually the prerequisite for either marriage or even friendship. But look, you know, I was in in Greece not that long ago after Gilfoyle became the US ambassador there. And let's just say that, you know, the people with whom I spoke when I was there were struggling to imagine that this was the behavior of a US envoy, the US still, of course, is the most important country in the world when it comes to our European partners, Greece, is a member of NATO in a key strategic position, you know, look at the role that it played in the immigration crisis in the wake of Syria, for example. It's not the kind of place that you send somebody who's got the background of Kimberly Gilfoyle. And I know it doesn't rank that high in the hierarchy of Trump administration's scandals and crises. But, you know, I would say pay close attention to whatever her other business dealings are in the Balkans, for example, and, you know, who's funding her lifestyle while she's been over there. There's a pretty long list if somebody wants to take up the Gilfoyle beat. - Yeah, for sure. And I was using probably the first heightura to be ambassador to Greece. I just Googled that so everyone can search it if they want. Rubio is in Greece as well. He snapped at reporters this morning and he's asked about this, "Torcal, this is just a game you guys play, I'm not gonna answer that." Give a speech, a little strange, I think, for a state department speech that you would do this. There were four different video cameras, including one mounted on a crane, kind of cinematic shots of the secretary on the Hellside where ancient Athenians gathered to debate. He, in the speech, talked about how Europe needs to awaken from its slumber. The reference crimes committed against the ancient Greeks by the Persian army that ransacked Athens, 2500 years ago, not really subtle there. I mean, it's pretty wild to have Rubio, like have a corrupt ambassador and have administration is doing corrupt deals with Russia and have him go to the Europeans and lecture you that they've got to get their game together. - Yeah, well, maybe his definition of Western civilization is not your, am I definition of Western civilization? That's one explanation. I don't think we need to overinterpret to come up with a rationale for the backdrop that Rubio saw it. This obviously has heavy, I'm running again for President Someday vibes and of course, it's in echo very explicitly, I would say, of the speech that Barack Obama gave the final, on the final foreign trip of his presidency and the immediate aftermath of Donald Trump's upset victory in 2016. I know we're 10 years into this that we've gotten a bit enured, but at the time it was still very shocking. And, you know, Obama really changed plans for how he wanted to approach the last couple month of his presidency given the shock that Trump's election had caused both inside the United States and around the world with our allies and partners and went to Athens and gave this speech with the same backdrop in effect that Rubio has used. And, you know, Obama's was a full-throated defense of Western democracy and the ideas of liberal internationalism that the United States had stood for really throughout the last 50 years, you know, regardless of party in many respects. And so, in a way, I find these two speeches to be bookends. Marco Rubio, who formerly was a believer in what you might call the American consensus, now speaking as if he is JD Vance's kindler, gentler, less snarling twin when it comes to ideology. Because there is no depth to it besides xenophobia, honestly. It's just like, what are you talking about? When you talk about Western civilization, there's no commitment to the rule of law, there's no commitment to liberal democracy, as you mentioned, or just democracy itself. It's funny, you're at the birthplace of democracy. It's like you're working for a guy that did an assault on the world's current longest-running democracy. And even if it's just from an immigration standpoint, it's like, you know, the Europeans need to stand up for themselves. It's like the decisions that this administration has been making, whether it be cut USAID, whether we start this idiotic war in Iran, that is now expanding throughout the region, if we're going to talk about it in a minute. That's all going to exacerbate the micro-crisis. There's just no depth to this argument at all except for finger-wagon Europe and saying brown people are bad. And that's basically the, yeah, I mean, it's really interesting to me that it's taken a while, but Trump has lit the fuse of anti-Europeanism with his sort of mega-alcalates like Rubio and Vance. I don't find any real compelling evidence that the American people are wildly anti-European. In the same way that there's certainly no evidence that they're wildly anti-Canadian. So to me, it falls in the category of, you know, Donald Trump sort of leading his party's future leaders, you know, often this sort of weird cul-de-sac direction because they're so afraid to break with him. You know, it's a anti-Europeanism, you know, there's been a strand of it in the Republican Party for decades, but it's never been a majority strand. And it certainly was never part of the identification of Marco Rubio as a politician, especially as a Latino politician having this kind of blood and soil nationalism evoked in the shadow of the Acropolis seems a very odd fit for him in terms of who he's been in American public life. So that's one thing. But also I do think that it's like a lot of things with Trumpism. It feels increasingly dated. Donald Trump's sort of founding template are the, you know, the crises of the late Obama era that he's in reactions. Rather than the crises, he himself is generated into the extent that Rubio in the speech is speaking about the present day moment. Again, demonizing the Persians, you know, it's not great politics at the moment to be talking about this war, periodful stop because it's as or more unpopular in Europe than it is in the United States, where arguably it's one of the main drivers of the political crisis in which Rubio and Trump's Republican Party finds itself in less than a month away from the election day, which is that Americans across our political spectrum. They're not demonizing the Persians, they're demonizing Donald Trump for having chosen to go to war against the post and failed in that effort. I don't know about you when it comes to mattresses. I have very strong mattress views. I like firm mattress. I would rather sleep on the ground than sleep on one of those like fluffy pillow top nonsense mattresses. I don't know what it is. Maybe it's, you know, kind of me, my Lebanese, like the origins at the founding of society. You know, like the caveman side of me wants to sleep on a cave floor. 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That's helixleap.com/thebolwork for 27% off, site wide, exclusive for our listeners, helixleap.com/thebolwork. I have more for you on Iran and the midterms. But we have a couple more corruption things because it's the term administration, just for kicks. Ken Vogel over the near times had the story. James Blair and Chris Lasavita, a speed of former colleague of mine. They're leading a big money midterm advertising campaign for the Trump political operation. But they spent some of the last few days in a small self-governing territory in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Republic of Serbska, and helping the pro-Russian party naturally keep their grip on power out of the elections there on Sunday, according to people who are not authors to discuss their Balkan work. I mean, you know, this could be like a 90s spoof video. You know, the president's henchman go to like a small Balkan outpost to help the pro-Russian government. But that is what's happening. I mean, look, I have to say I've been enjoying, you know, political, uh, play, when feasting on this, you know, featuring blind quotes from their colleagues, you know, in the Trump White House connected to the Trump White House, uh, you know, you have the sense of the Trump world cats fighting in a bag, uh, who knows who's on what side to it. But, you know, there is a long tradition, we should say, Democratic and Republican of consultants, political consultants going overseas to collect large and largely, uh, not transparent paychecks, uh, from political parties around the world. Um, and by the way, there are others in, in Trump's orbit who have been doing this throughout Trump's time. The Balkans have seen to be a particularly ripe spot for the Trumpists, including we mentioned Kimberly Gilfoyle. You have the Romanian, the married Kushner, uh, and, uh, Ivanko working on the Albanian project that's caused a huge uproar. Um, you know, there's Rick Cornell who has had, uh, many dealings, uh, in Serbia and throughout the region. So, you know, we've definitely got a full Trump world and the Balkans, um, kind of corruption plot line going here. And it's interesting. But the timing, I think, is what's really made, uh, Washington take notice of this one. It's one thing to do that. It's another thing to do that when your party is literally panicking about losing a Kansas Senate seat, right? Okay. Kansas hasn't gone democratic in a Senate seat since 1932. Yeah, no, it's kind of the whole picture, right? You know, it's one thing to go take a big check on behalf, you know, which every, as you mentioned, presidential consultant has done in the past, like on behalf of the central left or central right party and some other country, um, during an off year. It's like a month before the midterms doing it in a tiny Balkan outpost on behalf of the pro-Russian government. I thought that is the part that's the uniquely Trumpist element. Um, speaking of the pro-Russia pro-communist elements of the Trump party, there's still he said that he was going to stop running taxpayer funded propaganda ads, um, but they have not done that actually. Um, there's been six figures, um, since Trump said that his super PAC would start paying for this, um, that of this ad, um, bragging about their work in Venezuela, um, that is still funded by the US government. I want to play that for you. Last night on the order of the president of the United States, an in support of a request from the Department of Justice, United States military conducted an apprehension mission in Caracas, Venezuela, to bring to justice to indicted persons, Nicholas and Cecil Maduro. Nicholas Maduro had his chance until he didn't. He after round, he found out. Like, I don't understand yet how they haven't figured this out. And now if you don't know, now you know, because this is the way it's going to play out, and I think people need to understand that this is not a present that just talks and just letters and press conferences and, you know, if he says he's serious about something, he means it. Don't play games. Don't play games with this president's in office because it's not going to turn out well. Okay, Marco Rubio quoting Biggie there in that ad funded by us. I think the silver lining I have on this is I just don't see how this works for anybody right now. I don't, you know, I don't think how excited people are about this tough guy stuff when given what's happening in the rest of the world. But I don't know, what do you recommend? Yeah, I mean, look, you know, the truth is that the the self-styled macho men of this administration seem to have a a man problem you know in terms of voting they're looking around pretty desperately to kind of scare up those male white male voters who won the election for them in 2024 and I think the fact that they're running out like this oh my god can they turn down the volume please a little bit you know but that they have Donald Trump traveling around to the reddest of red states that they're spending literally hundreds of millions of dollars to shore up Republican candidates who would have been a lock you know considered a lock even you know six months ago this is I think part of the the political crisis that they find themselves in but look you know there was I think not one but two lawsuits filed just yesterday we're talking on Thursday you know we'll see one was by the the National Democratic Party one was by a common cause the good government organization I don't know if they'll even be determined to have standing for those lawsuits but you know clearly it it strikes many observers and I I've certainly watched political ads for many years I've never seen the US government pay for ads like this it does strike me that once again Donald Trump says the quiet part out loud by admitting you know by saying that he's going to in the future pay for these ads as political ads isn't he admitting that they're political ads and therefore suggesting that the US government funds have been misused once again you have to ask where the hell is Congress you know it is Congress who's responsible for not only appropriating funds that to be are to be spent by the executive branch but for overseeing that spending and I would say that if Democrats do win control of one or both houses you will certainly see them not inquiring as to how it is that the Department of Homeland Security came to take money the Congress had appropriated for one purpose and misuse it on this very nakedly political purpose when the other problems with the message that they're offering is I don't think it's gotten through to the IRGC if you don't know now you know and fuck around and find out because you know the war that they started in Iran that the ads are not about is continuing to spiral and get worse this was the times yesterday the closing of bases the Middle East and limiting the use of the one in Britain have complicated the logistics of projecting power American bombers can still reach their targets in Iran but only flying from the US requiring more time and refueling American carrier groups can still patrol the Arabian Sea outside the Persian Gulf but now they must be resupplied from Diego Garcia and Island in the Indian Ocean 2200 miles away requiring additional weeks in huge costs the rapid withdrawals have taught a lesson to the Iranians of potentially other adversaries that they hold the power to chase out a superpower I just the degree of the retreat from these tough guys running ads about how tough they are with our money is pretty noticeable I think for everyone I mean look even our closest friends around the world are really questioning America's both commitment but now under Trump America's ability as well as commitment to provide the security that its partnerships and alliances are built upon and you know just speaking yesterday with a very senior official from one of our close allies who you know said what does it mean to go talk to the Pentagon whose entire premise was we're not gonna fight new wars of choice and we you know hold this dominant security position except that now we don't that's a big that's a big long-term security crisis not just here in the United States but for you know basically all of the countries of the west first of all second of all the damage that was specific damage that's been done there been very good reporting in the times supposed and elsewhere about the depletion of critical stockpiles of munitions air defenses but I think I'm glad that the Times report also highlighted the physical destruction and damage to American bases across the Middle East because that is one of the under-appreciated costs of the war both in actual costs right we're talking about billions of dollars worth of damage in critical military facilities that we had all over the region in Bahrain and Qatar and Jordan Kuwait and many of those I'm told will not be reoccupied you know basically our entire security footprint across the Middle East will end up being reexamined will end up entirely abandoning a certain number of bases that won't be rebuilt at all as a consequence of this conflict that Donald Trump said was gonna last a couple days or maybe two weeks at the longest it's now seven months into it with no end in sight and a long-term consequence that's already baked in at this point too we're going to have to retreat from many of these bases and I think what Donald Trump has done is hastened the creation of a very different security picture in the Middle East for the U.S. Yes and if anyone is after around and found out during this Trump 2 it might be Mohammed bin Salman at the top of the list as you talk about kind of how it's expanded this was yesterday the sound of multiple explosions rattled Saudi Arabia's capital as the war between the Iran-backed Houthi militia and Yemen and the Saudi-led military escalated amid fears of widening regional conflict the multiple deaths reports are that was an airport and Riyadh got hit this is just a disastrous consequences for Saudi right now over the past months yeah well and also for other American partners in the region Kuwait is another great example Jordan first of all they've all spent billions of dollars both to how is the American military installations and to buy American military equipment and you know I saw quote recently they're really resonated from a senior Arab security official saying you know we purchased all this stuff and we allowed these bases because it was supposed to make us safer now it's actually become a security crisis for us to have the Americans here and I think it's accelerating again the creation of a post-American world in in the region at a time when we see that the Middle East retains a certain chokehold over the global economy ask America's truckers whether the Middle East is irrelevant to our politics anymore because we're so energy independent as Donald Trump loves to brag obviously not and you know I just think it is the war that is eating up what remains of Donald Trump's presidency this episode is sponsored by Better Health if you thought about trying therapy with our long term partner Better Help insurance options may now be available nationwide with an average copay for eligible members of just 23 bucks per session check it out your mental health probably doesn't know that world mental health day here October 10th but it should stress does not politely wait until that burn out doesn't RSVP I don't think that we knew here at the Volwork that it was mental health day on October 10th but I keep having conversations with people that feel like they need to go to therapy I mean that might be more about the midterm so than anything or maybe it's just you know our circadian rhythms therapy isn't just for the big life choices it can be a place to talk through smaller things the work situation taking up too much mental real estate that could be something that's happening around here a relationship dynamic you can't quite name or simply the sense that something feels a little off you've been wanting to start therapy better help works with more than 125 health plan networks and eligible members have an average copay of just 23 bucks per session with insurance don't have insurance will have outside the US you can still get 10% off your first month visit betterhelp.com/thebolwork to explore your payment options that's better help.com/thebolwork also on the find out list is ptegseth your last column was ptegseth just good victory in the wrong war I'm wondering where you're at iDngNixon on yesterday and asked her about impeachment she was for it she ends up interesting thing I meant to mention yesterday on the pod um was about that Florida center race is because since that is a special election like a seat that have been vacated the winner of that Florida center race for its worth would would be seated during the lame duck which could be potentially important because it's going to be I think a lot of stuff happening the lame duck who knows maybe maybe a Supreme Court seat they might even try to jam through the lame duck I don't we don't know i don't know there's a zero percent chance of that but ptegseth impeachment stuff is potentially happening other you know kind of investigations looking into i'm just curious kind of from your reporting on on ptegseth like what you think might be coming there i mean rumsfeld famously got fired i believe the day after bush is disastrous in terminus six so wondering what you think is coming for a peat uh you know look Donald Trump uh is no George w push so the interesting thing right about bush or obama after they had bad midterm elections is that they both felt a need to go to the public and say we hear your anger we hear you know what you're telling us it's a thumping it's a chasinging we're gonna adjust our policies we get it right Donald Trump i think we can say with great confidence is not going to come out the morning after the midterm elections and say america i hear your pain i'm so sorry you know like i'll do better okay he's not gonna be doing that um that being said Donald Trump has you know loyalty is a one way construct for him uh and certainly if he's looking for escape code ptegseth is a very convenient one for Donald Trump in particular because Because he doesn't have the support even in this current Senate, you had Tom Tillis, who provided a key vote for Hexeth's confirmation coming out in his new book this week and saying it was the greatest regret of his time in office that he voted for Hexeth now. You and I can have a whole separate show on why it is that knowing everything he knew, he voted for Hexeth. I mean, anybody who's surprised by this outcome obviously lost the plot somewhere because it wasn't a surprise in any respect. Pete Hexeth was clearly unqualified for the job and Tom Tillis knew it at the time that he voted for his confirmation. But, you know, putting that aside, what it means is that if it were to come up for a vote, it's not at all clear that Pete Hexeth would have the votes to stop a Senate impeachment trial. And my guess is there's already the votes in the House to each Pete Hexeth. Now, again, it's an empty gesture. That's part of the crisis of our politics these days is that impeachment is this one remedy that the Constitution offers for outrageous misconduct by the president or senior officials in the executive branch and yet the prospect of a two-thirds conviction majority in the Senate basically doesn't exist in the framework of our polarized American politics. So what is it not up to? I think Democrats are very reluctant still to head down the impeachment road, look at least initially for robust efforts at accountability and hearings, people under oath, subpoenas. I want to see, you know, general pain in uniform, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, he's required by law to testify to Congress about military advice he gave the president that differed where he disagreed with the president. I'd like to hear that testimony. I'm sure you would. I would. Yeah, the Hexeth thing as far as the Trump blame game, I do just keep coming back to, if Trump was going to throw Hexeth overboard, he would need a Todd Blanche. Like, does he have a Todd Blanche to replace him with? Somebody that could get confirmed hastily in a lame duck session with a narrow majority with some Republican senators, it would be not a slam dunk confirmation, you know, I think there are people that would be not hard to confirm. And so it's like, can Trump find somebody that would be as loyal as Pete, that also is confirmable? I don't know who that is, and I think that's a challenge, and that's why I think Pete's days. Yeah. And look, Hexeth is doing going out of his way to also press all of Trump's buttons. I think a lot of what he's doing right now is aimed very directly at that audience of one, including that sort of absurdist speech that I wrote about this week, you know, that to me, the message was all about, you know, Trump, I'm your guy. Now, I don't think Trump will do it, but he could get the current deputy secretary of the Pentagon, Steven Feinberg, who is essentially a managerial type and executive who comes from the defense contractor world and is more or less well regarded across the political spectrum. He's not a raging ideologue, as far as people can tell, he's certainly not going to be strutting around on stage in a two tight suit, you know, yelling about weirdos and beardos and shranies. You know, he's confirmable, but is he reliable, right? So it's confirmable and reliable for whatever Trump's whims are. He doesn't want an expert. He lived through Esper at the end of 2020, you know, where Esper wasn't doing what he wanted. Yeah. I agree. I think that he's not going to do that for that reason. Yeah. Interesting. Everybody's tracking everything these days. They're asleep. They're heart rate. They got agent stacks. New York and everything. But sometimes you're not looking at the markers linked with aging. 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I think Mike Rogers is appealing to a very narrow group of high-income Republicans that are in the social group of the commentariat, and so they think he's more appealing than he really is to regular people. That's just my opinion. I think it's interesting more about the way that that race is reflective of what's happening within the parties, within our politics. They have their first debate tonight. And ahead of that, Mike Rogers has a new ad out. It's a whole new, Mike Rogers, let's watch. Drinking a libat and watching the Red Wings, Manit just doesn't get any more Michigan than that. And here in Michigan, we know that Canada is not our enemy. We need to end this terra for now. As Michigan Senator, I'll bring both parties together to lower your prices. That's job number one. Now. We're going to do it right now. We're going to bring both parties together. I don't think he needs to bring both parties together, actually. He just needs to get his president that he supports to change his mind. I got to tell you, it just does not ooze authenticity this ad, it just doesn't like, I recognize I'm not the target demographic for this ad, but even I can tell that this is not a man who seems very comfortable on that bar stool and in that environment. He's slightly more comfortable. I don't know if you saw the ad of him in a grocery store where he is kind of looking at tomatoes. He felt very, he felt extremely uncomfortable there. Yeah. I mean, you know, if you're exuding George HW Bush, you know, how does this supermarket check out counter work vibes, you know, it's not, it's not great. I do think it is so telling about where we are in 2026 that, you know, Canada is not our enemy is probably like a Republican panic line in the centuries, you know, come up, Canada is not our enemy. I mean, look, I do think that's something that the vast majority of Americans can agree upon. They also have a party they could support if they agree that like the Canada is not our enemy crowd has a party, I don't, I don't know that that person would be turning the mic Rogers. Right. No, it's not, that's not our, that's not the right party. Look, he's got a lot of problems, only a candidate who felt that he was in big trouble would be running and add like that. It strikes me. Yeah. So it's probably not going to do the job that, that his consultants are hoping for. That being said, I actually do continue to wonder about the race. The polls here have been closer than in many of the other, the public polls that we're seeing have been closer than in many of the other contested center races. I mean, you know, if you want to lean into those polls, recent surveys have had James Taleriko in Texas leading by a much more consistent and reliable margin in Texas than Elsaid in Michigan. Yeah. For me, the question mark I have is I've seen some reporting that the crucial African American vote in Detroit and Wayne County, Michigan is not necessarily super excited about their democratic nominee. Yeah. And that is a warning sign, you know, going all the way back to when I was a young reporter on Capitol Hill, Michigan was one of the states I covered for roll call newspaper back in the 1990s. And I remember this warning sign, right, when you have a democratic Senate nominee who is just not wildly appreciated or liked by the black leadership in Wayne County, you know, that's for a democratic Senate candidate. That's the whole deal. So again, just I have taken note of that and I Trump won the state a couple years ago. I keep hearing it referred to on some of the programs I've been on as like, well, it's a democratic state. Well, actually, no, you know, it's actually the state that helped to give Donald Trump the presidency not once but twice. Yeah, that's right. And I think it's interesting, Trump's message, I want to come back to the Democrats in a second. But the Trump message here is I think a little bit more straightforward than what Mike Rogers is trying to do. You sent it. a bleak yesterday that said this. Mohammed al-Sahid is a terrible candidate for the Dumbo crats. Well, his opponent, Mike Rogers, is an extremely good one. Mohammed goes back to the days of Jihad. He is a radical extremist terrorist sympathizer. No different from his best friend, AmeriCorps, House of France doing. So that's Trump's message there, which is not really very policy heavy. I think he's dispensed with all of the policy disputes and it's just like, "Hey, Michigan, do you want to vote for a Jihadist, just straight anti-Muslim bigotry from the president?" You know, I mean, the guy who cut his political teeth on Barack Hussein Obama and the Berthor lies. - That's what I get. My point is, look, this is horrible. It's disgusting, but that's more of a clear message than what Mike Rogers is trying to do. Like Mike Rogers is trying to do like, "Damn, a nice guy that likes Canada." It's like, no, like Trump is like no, we're gonna win, we're gonna go with my playbook. Which is straight bigotry into your veins. - Yeah, yeah, I mean, I look, the question for a lot of America in this election is, do you hate the Democrats? Do you hate brown people? Do you, whatever, whoever it is that Donald Trump says, you're supposed to hate. Do you hate them so much that you're willing to, you know, get off your couch and, you know, spend the enormous amount of money that it costs to drive to the polls and vote for Republicans once again, even though they haven't done any of the things that you wanted when you voted for them the last time. - Going back to your point about the Democrats and concerns about a duel. I've been intrigued. It's funny, there's like this discourse in kind of like lefty media circles. Like the Democrats don't like a duel and they'd corporate Democrats and they don't really want them to win. And I don't know, I mean, I guess people have different views on them personally. So maybe there's something to the first part of that but on the ladder, like the Democratic establishment is rallying around Elsaid more than any other candidate in the country right now. Barack Obama is going there to campaign with him in Lean County, presumably focused on that black vote that you mentioned earlier. And Grisha Whitmer is going to campaign with a duel today, or some, I don't know anything to be true about this, or some scuttle that was hiding the scenes that didn't really love each other, but she's out there on the campaign trail with him today. And then Elissa Sluckin, who is again kind of a boogie person and like lefty progressive media circles is doing maybe the most for a duel. And as out there, they're doing a joint interview on MS now earlier this week. I'm just going to play a little bit for that. But I think, frankly, for the state of Michigan, we want to, like people want to see a Jewish woman and a Muslim man being able to get along, debate, push and pull on each other, and move the state forward. Frankly, I think it's good for Michigan. I think it's good for the country to see that. - Pretty striking, Elissa is out there doing that. And a pretty striking contrast between what Trump's bleed. - Yes, a striking contrast. Look, you listed up, who were the power surrogates in the Democratic Party, right? That people who have star power are still people like Barack Obama, who have been reviled by people like Abdul Al-Sahid. And he's still campaigning for him. I find that to be really notable. It's a big departure from Donald Trump and how he approaches politics, which is the sort of, it's all about me and either you suck up to me or I will destroy your political career. I have very little patience for this kind of proxy fighting over 2028 and positioning for 2028. I mean, in my experience, whatever it is we're seeing about 2028, it's going to be completely totally wrong. The world will have moved on. The discussions, the issues, the debates. - We might be in a war with the robots. - Yeah, I mean, our robot overlords are sort of maybe dictating the terms of that a lot, whether it even occurs. And I do just find that like at a time when we're overwhelmed with content and news coverage to him, I feel like it's totally fine to opt out of a lot of, what did you call it, the lefty Democratic discourse? - Yeah. - You were like, "Hey, if you just don't read into that." - You're telling me I shouldn't do discourse? No, there's no more discourse. - No, I'm saying like. - And it's pretty good. I made it 40 minutes into the podcast without doing any discourse. - You know, I'm just saying that if you went to sleep and woke up in 18 months, then you could more realistically tune into the 2028, to me. - Yeah, okay, that's fair. And do you have any other deep midterm thoughts on any of the other races? - I don't know. - I think that counts as a deep thought, I apologize. - Oh no, no, no, I was moving on. Do you have any shallow midterm thoughts? I don't know. Do you have any like Marco Rubio level depth midterm thoughts? - Wow, you know, I'm feeling a little stressed out by this prompt. Look, I'm hearing a lot of exuberance that is veering on the irrational exuberant, or maybe call it rational exuberance by Democrats, by people who want the Republicans to lose, who want a message to be sent to Donald Trump in just a few weeks. Then numbers, the fundamentals are notable and striking the structural impediments remain. And the Democrats have a very hard time turning those fundamentals into the kind of huge tsunami that you would expect on Democrats' behalf. When you look at Trump being the most unpopular incumbent president at this point before midterm, since modern polling began in 2018, Trump was better off in his opinion polls than he is right now. Republican still lost 41 seats on the House majority. And yet today, there are only 21 seats that are listed as toss-up seats by the political report. It just, you know, there are structural impediments to this Democratic wave. I also think, you know, the indicators are remarkable in the Senate. We're talking about the Michigan Senate race, but across the board, you're seeing a whole swath of polls that suggest Democrats are leading in Senate races where six months ago, you and I would have laughed, you know, have we said that? They have apparently succeeded in expanding them out, but I would point out that while Democrats are leading, in most of these days, they're leading within the margin of error. And I've been-- - And not at 50 in a lot. - You know, psychologically, I get it. It's very hard for people. They see, well, they're leading in everything. So they think, of course, it's practically a lot that they're gonna win the Senate. I just don't know that it's a lock that Democrats are going to win the Senate. - I agree with that. We're gonna do a deep dive tomorrow with one, we got a double-heter tomorrow, one of the guests were gonna do polling, deep dive, and talk about this because I was speaking to a Democratic strategist just last night, and they're telling me about the polls, they're the internal polls, so they're looking at in one of these red state Senate races. And he's like, Trump voters are not answering the phone's period, and that could be good or bad. You know what I mean? That could mean that Democrats actually do better. And we'll explore how that's possible on tomorrow's show, but the point is there is just a lot of what they call waiting in the polling business happening right now because like the enthusiasm gap as far as answering the phone is so wide, and there are reasons to think that that augures welfare Democrats, and there are also reasons to think maybe that means that the polls are overstating their margins a little bit, so we'll explore more on that tomorrow. - I do just feel compelled to ask you open-ended for thoughts about yesterday's cover seventh anniversary. And there's a vigil in New York that, all the leading politicians, including the mayors or on Amdani went to, it was disrupted by protestors, including protestors that we're saying, Zora, and you can't hide, we charge you with genocide, which I like would be funny if it wasn't such a serious matter. I guess I was frustrated yesterday with kind of all of the conversation around it, because it just felt so loaded. For everybody to try the, you know, even people are trying to just genuinely weigh in with their sympathies about the anniversary of the attack. So just kind of open-ended, I was wondering if you had any thoughts. - Yeah, I mean, it's such a toxic issue in our politics, in Israel's politics. It, look, it's become the defining issue in Israel's general election, which they're having a few weeks even before our midterms. The whole question is whether maybe Netanyahu, three years later, is ever going to face any accountability for the failures that led up to October 7th. That has become the prime issue in that race. As you know, Netanyahu is refused even to have blocked an independent commission of the sort that Israel has had previously in its history. I think that's one question. Is it accountability for his government's record? Another very huge question is the incredible damage that he has done, it seems to me to the viability of Israel as a long-term project in internationally. There's never been a lower regard for Israel. It's, as you just mentioned in New York City, ripping, you know, America's Democratic Party apart, it's a huge source of conflicts, political conflict across Europe, rising anti-semitism is clearly being fueled. people's views of the horrors that have been inflicted upon to many innocent Palestinians as a result of this awful terrorist attack and Netanyahu's over-the-top response to it. And, you know, it's just, it's a horror. I remember so clearly, Tim, that was a Saturday morning, and I, for some reason, woke up early, I'd not an early riser, definitely, and I just happened to like wake up at like, you know, five o'clock that morning and look at my phone, and I couldn't even tell it first from just glancing at Twitter what it was, but I knew it was something truly just apocalypticly horrible, and I just then figured out after a few minutes what it was and realized, you know, this is the moment where everything is going to change. As a result, this is the scale of this is so big, and of course, unfortunately Netanyahu's forced Earth response was, I think, predictable. It's just awful. You know, I will say this thinking of another anniversary, yesterday that got almost no attention, which is that October 7th was also the 25th anniversary of the beginning of the war in Afghanistan. October 7th was the day that the U.S. began its response to 9/11 and went to war against the Taliban, to house the Taliban in Afghanistan, it's a really painful bittersweet moment for a lot of people who remember the U.S. 20-year conflict that resulted in that country, look at how the Taliban are back in power today, what's happened to Afghanistan's women and girls as a result of that, and so I do think of that as well. I was in Central Asia on that day, my husband, Peter Baker was actually in Afghanistan with the Northern Alliance on the Shemali plane listening to the sound of the war beginning, and I thought it was amazing that nobody really even mentioned that yesterday. Oh, man. I don't know if Peter, do you have any other memories from that? You know, it's funny, because then I was in Uzbekistan on that day and had actually- Uzbekistan? Uzbekistan? I was, I was, which is where the U.S. had gotten Uzbekistan's then dictator to agree to let the U.S. forces use bases in Uzbekistan to launch the invasion, so it was a critical place in Central Asia for the war, very unlikely kind of spot for the U.S. to be operating in. And I ended up in Afghanistan just a few weeks later covering the Battle of Toribora, which was again, talk about an unlikely place for the U.S. to be at war and also for me personally to be. But, you know, I just, I do think about the women and the girls in Afghanistan and, you know, just the heartbreaking, you know, brokenness of our promise there because whatever you hear about that place, I will tell you that, you know, watching freedom come to a place where people had literally been banned from even listening to music, you know, I spent, um, probably among the most memorable few hours of my life speaking with a young woman in Kandahar, the spiritual capital of Taliban, just a few weeks after the Taliban had been ousted from there and her telling me about what it was like to run an underground school for the girls of Kandahar. You know, and it's kind of like become a punchline at this point because it's been so long that happens with history and, you know, you see comedians and people like making a joke about it. So, like, we really went to this war over the women and girls, but like, their lives, like the stories of their lives is just so heartbreaking. And to think that we're back now. People welcomed freedom, they did, they welcomed it. Okay. We're going to have to do just a final palate cleanser from that because I don't want to end on a tear. Um, I've got two final topic options for you. Will Summer just dropped as late as a false flag newsletter? The headline is Republicans have an Andrews, take eelsex problem. Okay. I'm not ready into this. Okay. The first one is if you have any thoughts on Susan Dell. Okay. That was a photo op for the, it's no question, but, you know, look, Tim, what I will say is, pay attention to the man in the mirror. The guy knotted in that photo op was this snoring president who was mulling him once again on camera. We should forget that, you know, the president is 80 years old, uh, and he's losing his audiences in these rallies and he's, you know, catching up on his sleep in the middle of photo ops. Okay. Um, if this was any other leader, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, you know, but we began with that, but let's end with that. You know, Donald Trump is an oxygenarian who has a hard time staying awake, who can't complete a sentence, who is historically unpopular, who has led the country into a disastrous war in the Middle East with no way out. And yet he's the guy going around the country saying that the Democrats can't be elected to office because they will turn your children into communist transvestites. Okay. Yes. There you go. He also is one in that picture who has an unnatural face. So, um, we'll leave it at that. That's Susan Glasser of the New Yorker, um, close to getting her bulwark gold watch. Um, we'll have you back again soon. All right. Thank you. Oh, springs, it's hernal. I can't wait. Thank you. See you all then. Peace. You can put your clothes back on. She's leaving you. No time to apologize for the things you do. Lower interferarity and sing my voice. We'll leave that clapped and was the second comment. Far so far, we all got work to do. It gets dark, we all got work to do. The bulwark 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, and audio engineering and editing by Jason Brock.