Trump Officials May Start Fleeing After the Midterms

This is Matt Rogers from Lost Culture East, that's with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang. This is Bowen Yang from Lost Culture East, that's with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang. We've been talking about Kewpie mayo for a minute now, and wow, so many of you already love this stuff. And if you're thinking, wait, what is Kewpie? Do you not have the internet? It's the OG Japanese mayonnaise, the one with the red cap. What makes it different? Egg yolks. Kewpie is made with egg yolks only, giving it this rich umami flavor that elevates everything. Chefs use it. Restaurants use it. Where chefs work, of course. Food and flavor lovers use it. You haven't tried it yet? Well, find the red cap and see what everyone's talking about, why don't ya? Kewpie. The original Japanese mayonnaise. Kewpie. Hi, and welcome back to Bulwark Takes. I'm Michael Weiss, editor of The Insider, a Russian independent investigative news outlet. And joining me, as ever, Mark Polymeropoulos, a 26-year CIA veteran. And Vienna Inn aficionado wearing his swag tonight, as always. I think we need to change up the branding of his T-shirt, but that's a conversation for another day. We have a kind of tour de horizon of what's coming after the midterm elections, which are due to take place several days from now. A lot riding on them, or maybe not. That's what we're here to discuss. We have to discuss Iran escalation, the future of the Ukraine war, U.S.-Russian rapprochement. Iran, corruption, and how it's affecting our relationships with everybody from Greece to Saudi Arabia to the UAE. Mark, good to see you. Let's get into it. So we have the midterms coming up. There are a few races that look like they're going to be squeakers. Michigan, Maine, at least in the Senate. I get asked a lot by people, like, well, what is going to change? Is there any way to stop the Trump juggernaut of corruption and, you know, alliance-making with every autocrat? Or is there any way to stop the Trump juggernaut of corruption and, you know, alliance-making with every autocrat? Trump's friends and family, or the friends of his family. Gentry Beach, I think his name is, is kind of involved in a lot of these deals, from Nord Stream 2 to the Alaska LNG caper. I mean, my guess is maybe this kind of gums up the works and ties Witkoff-Kushner et al. into hearings and through the power of subpoena makes it difficult for them to try and foist, you know, these kind of kleptocratic side action policies on Ukraine and Russia. But I don't know. I kind of think that's optimistic. I think Trump is just full steam ahead no matter what. So, I mean, a lot going on. And, you know, one of the things that I think we've done quite successfully over the last several weeks with the podcast is go over all these, you know, pretty much scandalous items. U.S. tilt towards Moscow, all the corruption, which, and we've covered it. And, you know, you kind of went through the list of different administrations. You know, corruption officials or family members who are involved in corrupt practices. And so all of this is on the table for what? It's on the table for finally someone looking into it. And so that means that either one or both of the House of Commerce have to flip. And I think that, you know, putting aside the warning and we're not really talking about it in great detail now because it's still uncertain, but the Israeli elections and the polling perhaps being wrong. I think those of us should kind of sit back and understand that. While we think that the Democrats are going to win the House and have a chance at the Senate, you got to wait until Tuesday night and perhaps into Wednesday on these things. But let's assume that one or both of the Houses of Congress flips. And so, you know, what happens now? Don't forget, we had Jim Hines on. Jim Hines is the Democratic congressman from Connecticut who probably will be the ranking. Well, he's the ranking Democratic member. He'll probably be the chair of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. And, you know, I think that in the House, you know, and we always kind of, you know, joke around, winter is coming, a little Game of Thrones analogy. But, you know, there is going to be a massive list on the agenda. And so what do you do that is, number one, going to uncover some of these outrageous pieces of corruption and malfeasance, but also is politically smart? You know, let's say the Democrats have a massive brain fart and try to impeach Trump again, for example, or just, you know, things like that, which are probably a waste of time. Or they're going to take oversight seriously. And by doing so, they also can't just have these hearings, which we see all the time, of just pontificating and screaming and shouting. I mean, is there, I guess the big question is, is there going to be real oversight? And that means Congress has the power of subpoena and really can try to get to the bottom of things. Of course, the Trump administration may ignore subpoenas and then you get into a whole kind of legal back and forth. But, you know, I do think it is important for the country because this is such an unusual time period. The corruption is so rampant that we get to the bottom of it. It all depends. It all depends on the maturity and the political smarts of the Democrats not to overreach, to do things in kind of a smart and methodical fashion. And there is no telling that they will do that. Yeah, I mean, and at the Senate level, you know, if Pete Hegseth is fired or people resign, they get the power to confirm new appointees. And unlike in the first two years of this administration, where a lot of people who probably should not have been confirmed were confirmed and are now in positions of authority, the Democrats. We'll have some put their finger on the scale to try and stop that. But one thing I will say, I mean, Jim Hines, as you mentioned, was on the show. He was also, I think, two weeks ago at the Warsaw Security Forum. And he said something very interesting, which was shared in various group chats on Signal that I'm in. He said he was asked, you know, will things change? You guys kicked me out of those chats, by the way, just to let you know. No, no, you self-exile because you get very freak and you get tempestuous. And angry and, you know, and you just take your ball and go home. I took my toys and went home. You do. But then you asked to be let back in. And then I quit again. Because you want to know what's going on. And I quit again. And then you quit again. Or I was kicked out. I don't know. Anyway, go ahead. Well, anyway, so Hines was asked, will things change if you take over? And his answer was, superficially, things will change. In other words, we're not going to beat up on our allies verbally or on CNN hits. But there are certain tectonics. There are certain tectonic shifts that are not going to be unshifted, including getting NATO allies to spend more on their defense. That's probably a good thing, albeit one that was forced on Europe through thuggery and this kind of shakedown artistry. Colby, Bridge Colby's NATO 3.0 scheme, which is very controversial about Europe taking control of its own conventional defense, but the United States still being there is kind of like the final line, the nuclear deal. The nuclear umbrella and all of that. Probably they're not going to be able to do much to stop that. And with respect to Ukraine, I mean, again, a bad deal that is forced down the throats of the Ukrainians and also the Europeans. You know, Trump is bartering right now with things he does not own or control. It's a very Trumpian kind of way of doing business or negotiating. I mean, he's suggesting, or people in his circle, the Witkoff-Kushner faction, are dangling prospects of restarting Nordstrom. I mean, it's a very Trumpian kind of way of doing business or negotiating. The European Commission came out today very forcefully and said, absolutely not, we're not doing this, right? By the way, it's through Europe. It's through Europe, exactly. It's kind of important that they have a say. Yes, and, you know, apparently, according to Italian media, Witkoff was telling Kirill Budanov, the former head of Ukraine's military intelligence service, now chief of staff to Zelensky, he was saying, you know, we'd love to see pipelines running through Ukraine to make Ukraine energy independent. I'm sorry, energy dependent on Russia, to which Budanov was like, guys, we're aiming to be Poland, not Belarus. This is insane. You don't understand what's going to happen at the end of this thing, if this is what you're negotiating with. So I could see how Democrats might try to kind of stop that from happening. Then you have, you know, things like Senator Blumenthal, who said that the Russian tanker that's in route to these shores as we speak, carrying the first consignment of diesel, better turn around mid-ocean because it's illegal for them to dock in American ports by acts of Congress. This is the tanker that's carrying the diesel per the very bizarre deal that Trump cut. Right, and this tanker of diesel will only supply us for hours, right? Because the entire deal, I think, is about 10 days worth of diesel. So there are things that Congress can do. There are checks and balances that still exist and that can be bolstered by a Democratic majority in one or both houses. My concern, though, is that, you know, as you mentioned, Democrats start chasing the dragon. Like, let's do impeachment. Let's do things to kind of satisfy the resistance and the base, but aren't actually, yeah, you know, the theater is what bothers me. I mean, I was joking with some friends in Europe today. I'm like, because they're all very excited. I said, guys, we're going to do this. Guys, I've seen this movie before. You know, Democrats love to campaign in Cold War 2.0, but they govern in resets, right? And I'm not saying they're going to try to do a reset with Russia. They don't have the executive branch to do that. But I can see how they would, once elected, and, you know, know, not having to worry about this for another couple of years, try to negotiate with the administration to kind of roll back some things that they had said that they would never abide by on the on the campaign trail. So I'm with you on all this, but there is one issue that is going to be front and center per press reports. We saw the Wall Street Journal noting that there is a strong possibility that there are options on the table for a resumed bombing campaign against Iran. And so I think when you talk about, you know, the after the midterms and assuming the Democrats win somewhere in one of the two houses or both, don't forget they don't get seated until January. And so you have this lame duck period and there is a chance that we resume military operations in Iran. And I think there's, you know, that is interesting because is that the question is, is that Trump unencumbered by politics? Will he be able to do things that he didn't think he would be able to do? And having, you know, talked. To a great many U.S. military officers, both retired and serving over the last several weeks. You know, there's I actually I came to a conclusion and you actually we haven't even talked about this. Nobody likes the Iranians. But the question is, resuming just air power alone. You have a question on why, like, you know, what effects can we actually do in which the Iranians come to the table? And one of the things that I've started thinking about is, is this just going to be a political move? He's talking. About a 48 hour bombing campaign in which you then say we're done. And so this is kind of the last spasmodic thing of violence, but with no effects that are useful whatsoever to then call it quits and go home. And that to me, you know, using the military to achieve that, you know, in essence of its own domestic political objective, not related to an elections, but we're just related to Trump being able to finally say, I quit. That's a problem because the men and women of the U.S. military will be in peril and we do risk escalation. Because they assume to do this as if the Iranians don't have a vote. And you talk then about asymmetric warfare, terrorism. We also see reporting that the Iranians have increased their their their threats against U.S. officials. There are U.S. embassies that have had drawdowns because of this. And then, of course, do the Iranians hit targets in the Gulf again? So this this idea midterms are over. That's what we're talking about now. What happens before the Democrats come in in January, assuming they win in some fashion? There could be a really dangerous period. If instability in the region, and I think that's some of the things we should we're talking about it now. But I think a lot more people should start worrying about this because this is a this is a Trump that is looking probably at his legacy. And when you see U.S. military officers say, you know, there is no desired effect. We can't do this now. Sometimes they say they do this without airpower with with only airpower alone, meaning that we could do more with introduction of ground troops. And they might be right. That's politically unfeasible. So we're going to do something. We're going to do something big. It's going to be very dramatic. Probably a lot of Iranians are going to die. Infrastructure targets could be hit. We might drop this enormous thing, the mother of all bombs on Pickaxe Mountain. But is it going to have any effect? So I was actually talking to a bunch of people trying to get an over and under on what happens. All seem to be in agreement. There's going to be escalation, whether before the midterms or more likely after the midterms. But, you know, to your point, a three to five day blitz, including dropping a Moab on Pickaxe Mountain, because, you know, Trump's big banner objective here is to say he he put paid to the Iranian nuclear program. Right. Which, of course, he won't have done, but he'll he'll claim that. But then there's other considerations. Number one, the Saudis are fucking pissed at us because they've been taking a hammering from the Houthis, which are backed by Iran, including seeing their airports go up in flames thanks to drone strikes, begging us to intervene in Yemen again. We don't want to do it. Trump's told them, no, you're on your own. But this is a. This is a crisis that I mean, this is an epiphenomena of the war in Iran. And what else happened? He pulls all remaining troops out of Iraq and the Kuwaitis are absolutely beside themselves because they said, look, JSOC strike force was the only thing keeping the Shia militias, the popular mobilization forces in Iraq in a box. And you know what the Kuwaitis are saying? We're worried the PMF is going to invade Kuwait if shit hits the fan. So we could be looking at horizontal escalation if this thing. Actually happens. And, you know, the negotiations with the Iranians, too, are not going very well. The Qataris apparently are saying going around saying the Pakistanis are fucking this thing up, telling the Iranians, don't worry, we got your back, bide your time. The civilian Iranian leadership, such as it is, never had it so good in terms of a deal that Trump is willing to offer them. But the IRGC is saying, no, we can just we can wait it out. And obviously the Israeli factor, right? What happens after the election? If Bibi remains. Prime Minister. Right. He's got a new lease on political life. And there was press reports in the Israeli press. He was trying to get a bombing campaign going right now before the election. So here's the question. Why not? Why not then? So I'm going to I'm going to give an acknowledgment to the administration. The economic strangulation campaign seems to be working. And so why not just do that? And so, you know, the whole crowd who's been arguing for this and, you know, everyone has fights on social media with them. That's the freedom of defense democracies crowd. Well, one thing that that I think they're not off on is that the economic strangulation is working. And so, you know what? Why not just do that? And then that's it. And you have to look at we're going to then have a policy of containment of Iran because there's no actual military solution to this with the constraints we have on only using air power. So why does he care about high prices of gas now? He's not running again. The midterms are over. And from a foreign policy, national security perspective, it seems that more people are kind of coalescing around that idea of, well, wait a second, there's no real need to do anything. Because this is sort of working right now. You know, when this thing kicked off, when Epic Fury went down, I said, you're in for a penny, you're in for a pound. Very easy to start a war in the region. Yeah. Right. Extremely hard to get out of one. And I said something which at the time I wasn't exactly confident in my position, but I grow increasingly more confident, which is, you know, a democratic administration may well find itself, even if it campaigns against the folly and stupidity of this war, basically inheriting a naval blockade in the Strait of Hormuz. Right. The only thing keeping that Strait, quote unquote, open, and even though, I mean, the IRGC is still shooting at tankers, still shooting at our ships, is American military power. So we're there in perpetuity unless and until the Iranian regime collapses. And I think that the big problem people have is everybody likes to make these assessments and predictions. We got 40 days left and that's it. They're going to run out of money and it's all going to implode. You know, I don't think anybody can state with absolute confidence. They know. And this thing is going to be over. You know, one thing I remember when I went to see Bill Burns after I retired, the former CIA director, and he asked me, hey, you know, what have I gotten into here? And, you know, I said, look, we are not good at some things. And on our analysis, we've gotten things wrong, such as the Arab Spring. That was the kind of the revolutionary movements throughout the Middle East, which none of them, they all kind of fizzled. There was no democratic movements really anywhere. And, you know, I said, we're great at killing people. You know, that's what I did for the agency, you know, kinetic operations. In the counterterrorism world. But, you know, regime stability and stuff like that, it's extremely hard. And I think I think that's that's probably the case here. But again, as we're as we're discussing kind of the various kind of crises that we dove into over the last several weeks, when I think of really the near term issue is going to be Iran. And then you've got to, of course, jump into the corruption, especially when corruption is the number one issue on voters minds. And it's really a layup for the Democrats. I mean, in some ways, I, you know, you hope they don't screw this up because, by the way, this is bad for the country, period. And it should be exposed. And then the voters can decide in 2028 what that means. But at the end of the day, the Democrats, I think, have an obligation to the country to do, you know, really smart, effective oversight and not get bogged down. You know, if they want to, you know, I think impeaching Secretary Warhead is probably a possibility. But I would go for that, that kind of I mean, but that's that's a bit theatrical as well. And by the way, I think some of the administration officials are going to leave if the Democrats win one or two houses of Congress because of the oversight. But really, it's those it's those pieces on corruption that are that are absolutely critical. And but executive branch controls so much of foreign policy. So we'll see where that goes. I wanted to end on a slightly optimistic or positive note, which is rare for the show and rare for the state of the country and the world. Rare for us in our conversations. Do we ever have positive conversations when I call you 45 times a day and you never pick up and you finally do and you're like, shit. Yeah, no, because you Red Sox don't do so well these days. And you're always in a funk. Anyway, the one positive. Takeaway, you know, I think we discussed a couple of shows ago. I was in panic crisis mode because of everything happening with this administration in Ukraine, throttling Starshield, Starlink. There were questions about intelligence sharing being severed, even though they weren't severed. And just the general realignment of the United States in Russia's favor. Now, The New York Times reports that Trump is mulling, lifting sanctions on the Russian sovereign wealth fund, which is designated as Putin slush fund. And of course, he's headed by Kirill Dmitriev, who himself is sanctioned by the U.S. and the EU, but travels to Miami all the time to liaise with Jared and Steve and dangle all these little incentives with economic side deals and whatnot. But here's my optimistic takeaway. There's two things. One, Zelensky stood up to Trump and said, look, you know, you do an energy truce like a legitimate one where they stop bombing our infrastructure, we'll stop bombing theirs. Fine. What happened? The Russians continued to bomb. Zelensky paused for a day, maybe a little bit more, started bombing Russian energy infrastructure again right oil refinery is ablaze intel sharing still not cut notice star shield starlink a throttling that had a direct impact on russia's ability to kill ukrainian civilians including a one-year-old in her stroller in harkiv in a park and the mother of that child elon musk is now melting down he lied he said nothing to do with me then he said oh well we had to cut the speed of starlink because ukraine violated the terms of service i think technically that's even impossible for ukrainians to do given how things are structured but anyway all of this is now going everything elon tweets on his own platform is evidence for congressional investigations yeah it's right and he's threatening people who want to look into his own control over a u.s aerospace defense system saying you live by the sword you die by the sword every word he says is another indictment such that republicans are now suggesting that we nationalize spacex because elon is such a security breach anyway the top line of this is ukraine has suffered ukraine has been hurt and tortured by this country by this government but it's also realized what the weak spots are and even what donald trump can do the things he threatened to do he hasn't done the thing that he did that was deeply unpopular and that cost ukrainians their lives he reversed right so he's he's attempting this rapprochement he's attempting this realignment of power and he's attempting to do it and he's attempting to do it but you know it's very interesting yuri ushakov the presidential the aid to vladimir putin and a long time russian diplomat i mean he's in the cockpit of power in the in the presidential administration he gave an interview the other day and he said you know at alaska two summers ago we were promised the moon we were you know donald trump was going to do all of these things and he couldn't deliver on any of them so we now realize that we have to we have to factor europe into the equation we can't do any kind of long-term peace deal with ukraine we certainly can't do a relitigation of the post-cold war security architecture of europe without the europeans because they're rearming at breakneck speed they're spending all the money on ukraine you know and they're essentially slowly you know de-linking from the united states this is a very important point coming from a very senior official in the russian government who's saying donald trump is a busted flush you know or as they say in in texas he's all hat no cattle he talks a big deal he talks a big game but he can't give us what we want and i want more people to appreciate that right because it's easy to get into this doom and gloom mode but you also have to realize this guy is an octogenarian grifter up to his eyeballs in in scams and corruptions his family his friends his wretched son killing endangered species in mongolia with a russian oligarch all of these things and he's a lame duck and he's going to lose probably the house and if not the senate in the next two years it's going to be difficult for him to strategically strategically realign this country with russia upending 80 years of american geo-strategic policy you know that that would be something hard for a young ambitious president in his first term with a mandate to do much less much less this guy you know so i want to have like some perspective here ukraine ain't going to stop fighting because trump tells them well you you know it's all over you got to do this they're just not in fact they continue to do pretty well at the front against the russians in donbass so michael you're ending on an optimistic note this is a good and unusual thing for us and we're going to do something at the end of the show now which also is going to be fun and optimistic because i'm going to read some viewers comments and you're going to love this this is from at newcastle archer field if only there were another 250 million like you two utterly brilliant i think that means 250 million americans i think maybe this is a again a canadian viewer hoping for for the best i think that means 250 million americans i think maybe this is a again a canadian viewer hoping for for the best then there's at from left field zero one this is an easy one the best show on the bulwark that's pretty good nice little debut for us again as our as our uh pod debuts on november 22nd when we got a roll solo after bulwark takes and then finally this is from at san bellastrini excellent analysis no notes it's pretty good right that is thank you for doing this no notes the one thing we always have to say and uh uh is a is you know a lot with a lot of humility great thanks to everyone who's listening and uh and watching this has been a a tremendous kind of uh couple weeks of great fun and our pod debuts in less than one month you've been listening to bulwark takes uh i'm michael weiss you my as with me as always my uh my confrere and comrade mark palomaropoulos and we officially launch the reporter and the spy november 22nd we're very excited we'll see you next time thanks for listening