Bill Kristol: Kleptocrats and Plutocrats

Hello and welcome to the Borg podcast. I'm your host Tim Miller.
Congrats to Enora. A great film on a win last night.
Lots of wins at the Oscars and happy LundyGraw. Much has happened since we last taped.
Had it not been my husband's 40th birthday and Mardi Gras weekend, I might have come back on to do an emergency pod. But, you know, sometimes you guys just got to wait for the good stuff.
And so I got Bill Kristol back here and it's Monday. How are you doing, Bill? I'm doing fine.
Sam and I did a pod yesterday. You'll be glad to know, which covers some of this.
But we can get into much more depth here. Sam, you know, you kind of skate across the surface.
But Tim Miller, you're talking about the deep dives, you know. That is great to know.
No, I was nursing a hangover yesterday, so I did not tune in for you and Sam, but people can get our little Sunday bonus conversations on Substack. So, you know, go to the Bullwark, sign up for Bullwark Plus.
You don't have to wait for me till Monday afternoon that way. All right, where should we start? I think we got to start with the sneer heard around the world from J.D.
Vance. I'm going to play a series of clips from the White House summit, so to speak, between Vladimir Zelensky, Putin.
That was unintentional. Between Vladimir Zelensky, Trump, and Vance.
Things were going okay. I mean, okay for Trump on the Trump scale until J.
until JD decided to interject into a question from the press about whether Trump had been too nice to Putin. Let's listen.
All right, one more question. I want to respond to this.
So look, for four years in the United States of America, we had a president who stood up at press conferences and talked tough about Vladimir Putin, and then Putin invaded Ukraine and destroyed a significant

chunk of the country. The path to peace and the path to prosperity is maybe engaging in diplomacy.
We tried the pathway of Joe Biden, of thumping our chest and pretending that the president of the United States' words mattered more than the president of the United States' actions. I signed with him, Macron and Merkel, we signed ceasefire.

ceasefire ceasefire all of them told me that he will never go we signed him with gas contract gas contract yes but after that he broken this his fire he killed our people and he didn't exchange prisoners. We signed the exchange of prisoners, but he didn't do it.
What kind of diplomacy, J.D., you are speaking about? What do you mean? I'm talking about the kind of diplomacy that's going to end the destruction of your country. Mr.
President, with respect, I think it's disrespectful for you to come into the Oval Office and try to litigate this in front of the American media. Right now, you guys are going around and forcing conscripts to the front lines because you have manpower problems.
You should be thanking the President for trying to bring it into this conflict. I have been to Ukraine that you say what problems we have.
I have been to... Come once.
I have actually watched and seen the stories, and I know what happens is you bring people, you bring them on a propaganda tour, Mr. President.
Do you disagree that you've had problems bringing people into your military? And do you think that it's respectful to come to the Oval Office of the United States of America and attack the administration that is trying to prevent the destruction of your country? A lot of questions. Let's start from the beginning.
Sure. First of all, during the war, everybody has problems, even you.
All right. We're going to get to then President Trump intervening there.
But I want to start with J.D. since he kicked off the kerfuffle.
Kind of a mixed message there. He begins by condescendingly lecturing Zelensky about diplomacy and how we need diplomacy now.
And then he proceeds to berate and chastise Zelensky, which isn't maybe the best form of diplomacy I've ever seen. But I'm curious what you thought about that, Bill.
I mean, it was a setup, obviously, by Trump and J.D. I don't know if it was semi-bad cop and really bad cop or what, or maybe that J.D.
knew what he was doing. He had his little talking points prepared.
They wanted to do what Trump later says in the tweet, portray Zelensky as an enemy of peace, to damage support for Zelensky here at home, especially among those Republicans, half of them on the Hill, right, who a year ago voted for aid to Ukraine. To carry out Trump's pro-Putin policy, he needs to move the entire Republican Party in his direction, or at least it would be helpful for him to do so, not just the half of it that's with him already.
And that's what the purpose of this meeting was. Zelensky came here to sign a deal.
I mean, he made big concessions because he wanted to honor Trump's somewhat ridiculous, I believe, request and somewhat extortionate request for the deal on minerals. But he came here for that reason.
And then they changed the deal and sandbag Zelensky and JD was kind of the heavier of the two sandbaggers, but Trump went pretty far too. And I guess it was definitely set up, but this all happens like 38 minutes in about to the press conference.
And you're into the Q&A. And a and at some level trump you know i think wants the show you know kind of like oh i'm gonna make him come here and we're gonna sign his way as minerals to us and say we got a great deal and so like do you think trump and jd thought that there was potentially a clean version of this or that it was a certain that jd was gonna go at him because i'm not sure well i think the way jd went at him left zelensky no choice a b if you think about the alleged deal they wanted a week ago it included zelensky holding elections in ukraine that's become a huge talking point on the pro-trump right which he said he can't do and won't do and the constitution doesn't permit him to do in ukraine this deal is going nowhere anyway so they weren't going to get a deal with slansky they're not going to get a deal with putin i suspect unless it's a total and utter just capitulation to let him keep fighting and devastating ukraine and so i i think this was for trump's domestic politics here more than anything else all right so after jd intervenes why aren't thanking us? Why aren't you thanking us after he thanked us a hundred million times? He literally thanked Trump and repeatedly went out of his way having been treated pretty badly by Trump, I've got to say.
He has tried to be respectful and thank him. But anyway, yeah.
Yeah. Here's then Trump kind of changing his tune.
But you have nice ocean and don't feel now, but you will feel it in the future. God bless.
You don't know that. God bless.
God bless. You will not have a war.
Don't tell us what we're going to feel. We're trying to solve a problem.
Don't tell us what we're going to feel. I'm not telling you.
Because you're in no position to dictate that. Remember this.
You're in no position to dictate what we're going to feel.

We're going to feel very good.

We're going to feel very good and very strong.

You're right now not in a very good position.

You've allowed yourself to be in a very bad position,

and he happens to be right about it.

From the very beginning of the war.

You're not in a good position.

You don't have the cards right now.

The Trump thing kind of reminds me of a couple that is that when they have had a couple too many to drink, Trump's just like, don't tell me how to feel. Like they're not, the fight isn't about anything, right? Like Trump just lashes out at him and, you know, again, starts berating him, then gets into this metaphor about the cards and like it's not i don't think

even understands what zlinski's trying to say like zlinski's point is that like i didn't have the cards for day one everybody thought we were going to lose this war in three days and like we fought and we fought and i guess trump just doesn't think about it from anybody's perspective besides his own feelings i guess right and the feelings of a bully so when zlinski refuses to, that sets Trump off. And there he was lecturing Zelensky.
I mean, almost really unimaginable, I would say, that this was happening in the Oval Office. And I was struck, I'm sure you were by, I didn't see it, I was at a conference, I saw it shortly after.
But the number of texts and emails I had from people, including people who aren't that political, people I haven't been in touch with that much, people who were slightly more Trump-adjacent than I. I guess that's a very low bar, but who were somewhat Trump-adjacent and acquiescent.
People were just sickened, as one person said to me, by the spectacle of an American president and vice president lecturing Zelensky, who we've all supported and correctly supported for two and a half, well, three years, exactly three years, right?

All right, guys, we are coming to the end of hoodie season here in New Orleans,

but the rest of you suckers, you've got a few months ahead of you,

and it's important to find a good hoodie.

Really, it's essential to be comfy and cozy when you're sitting around on a chilly day

or you've got to run to the store.

And so I'm happy to recommend what Slate Magazine called the greatest hoodie ever made. It's from American Giant.
My husband had an American Giant hoodie that he just always bummed around in. It was his favorite classic.
It was one of the more heavyweight ones that they make. And he's always talked about how much he liked it, but I never got to give it a try for myself.
Even though one nice thing about a gay marriage is you do get to share clothes. So oftentimes I am stealing clothes from him.
But when I got the American Giant hoodie of my own, I understood what it was that he'd been bragging about. The classic full zip hoodie is the jacket that started it all for American Giant.
It's a heavyweight fleece, has side panels for mobility,

made to make it the best hoodie ever.

It also has a body skimming fit with a double-lined hood

and reinforced elbow patches,

meaning that this is a hoodie that will last.

This season, snag the hoodie

that will bring comfort to your life.

The American Giant Classic Full Zip

and save 20% off your first order

at American-Giant.com

when you use code BULWARK at checkout.

That's 20% off your first order at American-Giant.com when you use code BULWARK at checkout. That's 20% off your first order at American-Giant.com, code BULWARK.
So a couple more clips, and I want to get into what the ramifications are now, but here is the next little bit where JD gets back in and things really, really derail. You have to be thankful.
You don't have the cards. You're buried there, your people are dying.
You're running low on soldiers. Listen, you're running low on soldiers.
It would be a damn good thing. Then you tell us, I don't want a ceasefire.
I don't want a ceasefire. I want to go, and I want this.
Look, if you could get a ceasefire right now, I tell you, you take it. So the bullets stop flying and your men stop getting killed.
Of course we want to stop the war. But you're saying you don't want a ceasefire.
But I said to you, I want a ceasefire. With guarantees.
For just the audio listeners, for people who have not suffered through watching the videotape of this, when Trump is doing the, he like does a Zelensky imitation there, where he's going, I don't want a cease i don't want to cease fire and he's like he's making a moron face and it is about the most childish scene that you could possibly imagine inside the oval office in that little bit horrible okay i got one more bill i'm sorry we got you're really putting me through making me suffer here. I am making you suffer.
I'm making the listeners. It must be listened to.
It is outrageous. I re-watched the whole 48 minutes this morning because in the clips, it is appalling and shocking.
But just watching the contour of the conversation just completely derail. And let's be honest, just J.D.
and Trump losing their cool. This is why I just, I guess, I object a little bit to the fact that it was a setup because I think that clearly they had prepared how JD was going to go at him.
But the degree to which these two just lost their cool and start shouting about their you know, needing to be thanked. And then it closes here with something that it that could have been, and it would almost be too rude to Newsmax to explain what is next here as being a segment on Newsmax.
And it is on the it is a rant from the furthest most idiotic realms of the fever swamps. And it's the president of the United States.
Let's listen to the last bit. She's asking what if Russia breaks the ceasefire? What if anything? What if a bomb drops on your head right now? Okay? What if they broke it? I don't know.
They broke it with Biden because Biden, they didn't respect him. They didn't respect Obama.
They respect me. Let me tell you, Putin went through a hell of a lot with me.
He went through a phony witch hunt where they used him and Russia. Russia, Russia, Russia.
You ever hear of that deal? That was a phony Hunter Biden, Joe Biden scam. Hillary Clinton, Shifty Adam Schiff.
It was a Democrat scam. And he had to go through that.
And he did go through it. We didn't end up in a war.
And he went through it. He was accused of all that stuff.
He had nothing to do with it. It came out of Hunter Biden's bathroom.
It came out of Hunter Biden's bedroom. It was disgusting.
What is he even talking about? Like what came out of Hunter Biden's bedroom? I guess the laptop, he's conflating the Biden laptop, I suppose, with the alleged Russia hoax. But I think it's very revealing.
I think he does lose it there. I don't think that's part of the intention, I suspect.
Very revealing that he thinks Putin went through it with him. He and Putin are buddies.
They are allies. They were unfairly besmirched.
They are together in this fight. I mean, he just explicitly says that there's no more of the pretense of, I'm a hardheaded guy negotiating with Putin, and there are some problems with what Russia's been doing at some point in the world, or maybe at some point in the 2016 election, after all.
Nope. I mean, one forgets in 2016, he asked Russia to intervene.
I mean, this has been, but this is the full flowering, I'd say, of not just the abandonment of Zelensky, but the embrace of Putin. Yes, that is the correct insight.
It is a tantrum by somebody that feels emotionally connected at some level to Putin, I guess maybe in his imagination, right? Like this notion that Putin somehow went through the Russia hoax. Putin was laughing through the whole thing.
Putin's gotten everything that he wanted the whole time. He got a kick out of the Russia hoax.
It achieved its ends. I'm saying Russia hoax in scare quotes here.
His interference in the election, it achieved his ends of dividing the country. It created a quasi-legitimacy in Trump or the the challenging of his legitimacy he got the person in there that he preferred who you know allowed him free reign to you know continue to expand his power like putin has got everything that he wanted out of all this up to and until when ukraine started fighting back after he invaded kiev like trump has like constructed this imaginary other world where putin was like him besieged by shifty adam schiff and the media and a shadowy cabal you don't think putin was really wounded you know suffering you know psychologically had a tough time when Schiff criticized him.
Yeah, it is funny. Trump is a thin-skinned bully, and he sort of wants to believe Putin is too.
He must know at some level that Putin is infinitely tougher than he is and couldn't care less what Adam Schiff says and cares about results, not about feelings. But, you know, that is interesting, the psychology of that, right? Trump wants to put himself on the same level as Putin.
He knows that he's not. It also just kind of ties into the whole manliness, masculinity conversation that they're all having, right? That it's like there is some notion that that kind of performative temper tantrum, the bullying, the talking down, the condescending to Zelensky is going to reveal themselves to be the tough ones rather than the ones like beset by their emotional distress and you know trying to intimidate somebody who's actually shown real courage it is but i guess it seems to be like landing with at least their own voters i think that's such an important point that i mean trump and jd vance would not have stayed in kiev on february 25th 2022 they would have been on the first plane out and they and their families and whatever, you know, buddies they have in various schemes and grifts and so forth.
They would have been leaving from wherever there was danger. At some level, there's a deep resentment of Zelensky for actually being courageous and manly and in his, you know, slightly understated way, you might say.
I think the not wearing the suit is a comical MAGA complaint too,

which normally they like informality, authenticity, right?

But in this case, Trump's the guy who wears the suit,

and Vance in this case.

So they have to turn it against Zelensky,

like Churchill when he came to the White House in 1941, 42, 43,

wore his kind of battle, you might say, battle out, battle fatigues in effect. The follow-up from this, the minerals deal is not signed.
What happens is after the temper tantrum that is thrown by the president and vice president, they retreat to their separate quarters. Trump and his team stays in the Oval Office, Zelensky and his goes to, I forget what other room they went to hold in.
And then rather than go talk to Zelensky himself, Trump sends Walz and Rubio in. We saw the continued shrinking of little Marco Rubio, who had to go and tell Zelensky to leave.
Later that day, high-level administration sources said that military aid is now in question, and the quote is, they're fortunate it is not off already so that's kind of where things stand on the deal and then uh yesterday on sunday uh european leaders met without us was in london was uh france germany canada uk they met their signal that they're doubling down on supporting ukraine and maybe boosting military aid but obviously there's a lot of frustration and hard feelings at the White House so let's say you about the current state of mind no it's a big moment it's the continuation of what we saw already two weeks ago obviously with the Trump Putin phone call the Hegseth and J.D. Vance speeches the Rubio visit to Riyadh this is kind of the culmination it, I would say, the betrayal of Ukraine.
There was no fresh military aid coming from Trump anyway. The idea that he's cutting it off because Zelensky was disrespectful is, in a way, I think, ridiculous.
Maybe he'll stop some of the aid that's already in the pipeline, I suppose. The degree to which the Europeans saw right away what was happening is striking.
A friend sent me some headlines from German newspapers on Saturdayurday and they saw this was not just about ukraine it was about fundamental pivot of american foreign policy forget about nato forget about europe forget about defending democracy he's with putin he'll be cutting deals with putin to in accord with their with what he sees to be their interests german foreign minister had a terrific speech where she you know, how terrifying and terrible it was that America joined the side of the perpetrators, not the victims of aggression and of crimes. And so Europe understood right away.
Russia understood. There's a good article in the Washington Post this morning, quoting the various Putin spokespeople and allies about how happy they are.
It was a gift. The whole thing is why everything's wonderful.
These are basically, we don't even have to. Yeah, we've got this here.
This is Peskov. Yeah, Peskov says the new administration is rapidly changing all foreign policy configurations.
This largely aligns with our vision. Right.
It's a Russian spokesperson. And that's the truth.
And they're happy. You know, it's interesting.
They want to rub it in, right? They don't want to give Trump a lot of dignity. They don't mind humiliating him a little bit.
Maybe they think that makes me even more susceptible to being pushed around further. And I'm not so sure they're going to make a deal.
So they may want to also sort of get ready to really just try to conquer all of Ukraine and dare Trump to do anything, which they seem pretty convinced he won't. So the Europeans are in a state correctly.
We'll see if they can help Ukraine defend itself. I'm worried about six months or 18 to 24 months from now that they decide, if we're over here, the U.S.
has walked away, we better cut our own deals with Russia, start the energy going again. And you can imagine a very bad cascade of appeasement.
But I've got to say to their credit, that has not been happening yet. And their reaction has been the opposite.
They do not want to betray Ukraine. And Zelensky is not going to give up.
And Ukraine is not going to give up. But sustaining the world order without the U.S.
on side, asking the Europeans to do it and our Asian friends to do it, that's a tall task. I would have been very skeptical it could happen a year ago.
Now I think maybe they can do it for a while at least until we come back on side.

The other point I'll make is that Congress could act to mitigate some of the damage,

but that would require a few Republicans. a while at least until we come back on side.
The other point I'll make just is that Congress could act to mitigate some of the damage,

but that would require a few Republicans having some courage.

And we haven't seen a lot of that, did we, this weekend?

We saw a couple, right?

Yeah, I mean, Don Bacon was on 60 Minutes, I guess.

But I mean, the next time that he does something actually substantive rather than just with his words will be the first time.

So we'll believe it when I see it. I mean, just kind of gaming this out as you sort of talked about the potential ways that it could develop as far as Europe is concerned.
Just think about the position Trump is in now. like the sticking point that really undergirded this disagreement,

like beyond. Think of the position Trump is in now.
The sticking point that really undergirded this disagreement beyond J.D. Vance just wanting to be a condescending douche.
The actual substantive sticking point was that Zelensky is trying to say, I need security guarantees. That we can't trustin if you make a deal right like we might make

a deal and then you know who knows few months later he you know props up another reason to

make an incursion somewhere or whatever test the test the deal i need security guarantees

and trump didn't want to do that didn't want to give those and from our position now it's like even if,

you know,

Zelensky comes back,

he's,

he's,

he's,

he's,

he's,

he's,

he's,

he's,

he's,

he's,

he's,

he's,

he's,

he's,

he's,

he's,

he's,

he's,

he's,

he's,

he's,

he's,

he's,

he's,

he's,

he's,

he's,

he's,

he's,

he's,

he's,

he's,

he's,

he's,

he's,

he's,

he's,

he's,

he's,

he's,

he's,

he's,

he's,

he's,

he's,

he's,

he's,

he's,

he's,

he's,

he's,

he's,

he's,

he's,

he's,

he's, he's, he's, he's, even if, you know, Zelensky comes back, tail between his legs, you know, Mark Thiessen is writing in the Washington Post opinion page today. It's unclear today whether this, whether sucking up to Trump fits under free markets or personal liberties in the new rubric on the Washington Post opinion page.
But he wrote that Zelensky must suck up to trump for the good of his country and must come back and must get on trump's good side and blah blah like even if that happened there's not really a situation where you could trust either side of a security guarantee right if you're zelinski right like maybe you have to do such a deal anyway and it's just pragmatic hope for the best you know you know cross the next bridge when you get there type situation but like you know it's hard to really conceive that donald trump is going to offer any real security even if we have some skin in the game with rare earth minerals or whatever i mean totally that's really a key point i mean would trust trump let's say there's a fake peace agreement and even Russia gets some additional territory or something and they're doing horrible things in the territory they have and then they have a fake excuse for an occurring or an incursion. What is Trump going to do? I mean, but this is where the Europeans saw this too and saw that, just to take that to the next step, what is NATO anymore? NATO depends on Article 5 and on the assumption that we're all in if someone's attacked.
Will Trump act if the Russians do a little green men thing in Estonia? Will Trump act if the Russians try to subvert governments of NATO members, as they have been trying in Romania and elsewhere? I mean, the degree to which the whole post-war structure is at risk, not just Ukraine. I mean, that, that I think is what the Europeans saw right away.
And that's where they're really talking pretty seriously. Again, I can't quite believe they can sustain a security arrangement without the U.S.
being the anchor. That's been the case.
We have been for 80 years. Maybe they will.
The incoming chancellor, Meritz, is talking that way. They are increasing defense spending.
It looks like they're going to. We'll see.
I'm very worried that that's hard to sustain. They'll have their own domestic politics.
Parties in Europe are going to say, what are we doing here? America's gone in the other direction. We need to go that way too.
So I'm very worried about that. And as you were saying, how much is Congress going to do? In theory, Europe and Congress could sort of make up for a US president, maybe.
But we haven't had to run this experiment for 80 years right we haven't had a situation where an american president fundamentally wants to just destroy the post-world war ii order yeah and we talked about this with susan glasser on the show you know a couple of episodes ago and she makes the same point about estonia and it's like i mean it's impossible to fathom right like at this point that trump would come to the defense of one of these other nato countries i mean maybe you know who the hell knows right you know the last person in his ear at the right moment ends up being somebody that flatters him in the right kind of way but there's certainly no reason to have any belief that we would and that does call into question like the whole nat NATO agreement at this point. Meanwhile, it is worth mentioning the war is ongoing.
Russia launched an attack on Kharkiv yesterday that injured eight, including a seven-year-old child. And I think that that is important to point out because the Trump and Vance side of this argument is kind it's kind of it's premised on this notion that like russia's behaving like we're not even asking anything from russia russia is not the problem child here right like it's it's ukraine that's the problem and if we just decide to come to the table then it'll all be good putin will do will do what we ask and that is like in total conflict with what has actually happened.
And I think it was a Friday or Saturday that the Washington Post reported that under Pete Hegseth, but presumably with Trump's sign-off, the Defense Department has stopped a program that was trying to both deal with Russian cyber offenses and other kinds of sort of, well, you know, those kinds of offenses, let's say non-kinetic offenses here in the US. And also we had some counter offenses presumably going on to disrupt their stuff.
And they seem to have called that off. So basically, we're not considering Russia an enemy anymore.
I mean, how long can the sanctions last once you have this attitude? I mean, why should Trump even keep them on at this point? He has no, what's the reason? What's he asking for? What's he punishing Putin for? One thing that really alarmed me about the article in the Post, it's a little murky, and I'd be curious to see follow-up reporting. It feels like we're also letting down all our defenses against Russian intervention in the 2026 or 2028 elections.
I mean, why do we have, let's go back, why do we have this concern with Russian cyber and social media type activities i think we have good reasons to have that those concerns well as trump said in 2016 he wanted russia to intervene right please what did he say please release the emails i guess that was about the stolen emails with wikileaks but trump he likes putin because he likes putin he likes authoritarians he also likes putin because he himself wants to be an authoritarian here. And he thinks Putin might well be a useful ally to have in that effort.
What it said was that Hegseth ordered the US Cyber Command to stand down all planning against Russia, including offensive digital actions, according to three people familiar with the matter. So we'll see.
But I think your point is well taken like if you just accept the trump framework presented at the press conference and since and frankly at the speech jd vance gave in europe etc if you accept their framework there is no rationale for sanctions on russia right like the sanctions on russia are there because of their invasion into ukraine and because their actions, you know, targeting our elections, right?

Like Trump thinks that those were a hoax and that Ukraine was asking for it because, you

know, they were wearing their skirt too short.

So like they've put themselves in a box.

Maybe they want to be in this box, but they've put themselves in a position where it makes

it very challenging for them to even like make the case in a way that is coherent for

changing course beyond the course, the very Russia favorable course that they're on so we have tariffs also happening tonight maybe we'll see trump insisted that uh the tariffs on goods important from canada and mexico will go into effect tuesday because of fentanyl i guess and he also doubled the tariffs on China to 20%. The question is whether he will once again do the, I'm giving you a reprieve because you're sending Mounties to the border thing with Canada or Mexico.
Howard Lutnick floated yesterday on Fox, the Commerce Secretary, that Trump is considering reducing the tariffs down from 25%. TBD i you know you don't want to keep going around and around here with their little kabuki theater act but i do think that they're in a tenuous spot economically i think that's actually really the more relevant point here like the market has not been doing well market's been coming back down a lot concerns.
The Atlanta Fed projections for GDP growth last week, way down from where they were after Trump was elected. And, you know, so this kind of stuff is going to have real impact.
And eventually, again, it's similar to this box that I'm talking about with Russia. He's like rhetorically put himself in a box where he's going to have to do these things at some point, you would think, or else he would feel weak and humiliated.
But I don't know. We'll see.
Yeah, I don't know. I mean, the tariffs thing is the most bewildering.
I mean, in the sense that it's, that just seems genuinely to be his obsession. And I don't even think it's really a bit of big MAGA obsession, particularly.
And if you combine it with slightly rising inflation, which looks to be the case, and slightly rising unemployment, which could be the case, that could really hurt the economy. It's such a question.
What do you think, Demi? If the economy is weaker six months from now, does that make Trump revert to more normie republicanism, or does it increase his temptation and tendency to go in a sort of real authoritarian direction? That's a great question. And the one that I've been thinking about, and I, my gut says that it would lead to panic, right? And lashing out and moving more towards the authoritarian direction.
I don't, I don't know. I mean, I guess it kind of depends on how bad it is.
right? But if it's just kind of somewhat bad and things are, you know, muddling along and things are not great on the margins and, you know, he's got rich guys in his ear saying, okay, this is hurting us too much. You got to back off it.
We got to get the tax cut through. I could see that as a possible outcome here.
but if things get really hairy, right, like you can get to a point of harriness where like getting rid of the tariffs and passing a tax cut or whatever doesn't really remediate the problem. Right.
And so I think that, you know, the worse things get, the more unhinged he would get and the more he would move towards even further down the authoritarian path, I guess is my instinct. But I don't know.
And this is the thing about the first Trump term is pre-COVID, he got pretty lucky, right? There weren't a lot of forces outside of his control that created crises, really. In COVID, we saw just a massive panic and foul up.
And so I kind of think that COVID, what we saw during COVID is kind of what we would see here. But I don't know.
Who knows? What do you make of that? And maybe what we saw after November 3rd to January 6th. I think we just, again, have to come back to how the first Trump term featured James Madison, Secretary of Defense, and Tillerson, whatever one thought of him, but then Pompeo, Secretary of State, and Bolton, and there in the White McMaster, then Bolton.
I mean, such a different cast of characters, a Republican Party that still had some memory that they were supposed to act as members of Congress and not simply as Trump lackeys. I mean, they were pretty bad, don't get me wrong, but it's so different.
That's, I guess, what strikes one the most.

Marco Rubio pathetically trying to climb into Trump's, stay in, I guess, Trump's not even good graces, but enough graces that he doesn't get fired tomorrow by the most pathetic statement he put out afterwards. And then Lindsey Graham, too.
And what was striking about those two statements is they really were Stalinist or Stalinoid, I guess is the word, in the sense that it wasn't just, look, it's, you know, Trump did the right thing and Zelensky has to come. It wasn't Mark Teeson.
Zelensky has to come around. We still have a chance to make this all work, but Zelensky has to be a nicer guy.
That would be bad, but that would be a kind of coherent statement by someone who is pro-Trump, but does actually want to help Ukraine. They did not go that way, right? They really were all in to show Trump that Trump had said Zelensky was a threat to peace or couldn't be a partner for peace.
And we're saying the exact same thing. And then Lindsay says something about we just may have to, in effect, get rid of Zelensky.
So we are, I mean, the degree to which they felt they had to abase themselves is, I think, very sadly, very revealing. But yeah, in terms of the authoritarianism, I don't know.
Yeah, he really triples down on the deportations, more of them to Guantanamo, more horrible treatment of them, more raids. I mean, you can imagine very ugly scenarios in that area in immigration, as well as in others.
And what if it does come out in some of these Doge efforts? I don't know, God forbid. What if a real public health, real current, quick public health effect? I think the indirect effects are terrible for what our biomedical research capability will be five years from now.
And what kinds of people will go into those things and keeping decent people in government. There are a million problems.
But what if Ebola gets loose in Africa or something? I mean, the degree to which Trump is not the type to say, gee, I guess we made a mistake. We need to restore this stuff.
Maybe he would. He's done that a couple of cases, I guess, in the last two, three weeks.
I don't know. What do you think? Yeah.
I mean, he doesn't like bad news. The thing that has always protected us the most from disaster with Trump is like he does have a hole in his heart where he wants to be loved.
You know, he plays the role of tough guy who doesn't care, but he really does.

And so there have been several occasions where, you know, he got bad news and then,

you know, you kind of back off, do some face saving things.

So I'm not saying that he wouldn't do that.

But I guess my point is sometimes problems get out of your control, right? It doesn't matter whether he backs off at that point. Right, exactly.
One more thing on the Doge. Sam Stein is reporting this in the Morning Shots newsletter this morning people should sign up for.
Nick Enrich, who is the Acting Assistant Administrator for Global Health at USAID, he was placed on administrative leave for disseminating memos

outlining the failure of the Trump administration to follow through on its pledge to allow waivers for certain types of lifesaving foreign aid. He sent another memo that the Bulwark received.
And I mean, it's pretty alarming just talking about like the degree to which these cuts are going to have massive ramifications for children malnourished children pregnant women obviously people with hiv and aids in africa and you know again this is a situation where trump allowed musk to go do the cuts rubio had said said that he wanted to reinstate certain types of aid, and it's not happening. It's not getting reinstated.
The damage is happening. And the guy that's blowing the whistle on it, instead of them backing off more and trying to put in place the waivers that Rubio wanted, the guy's getting put on administrative lead.
I mean, I think that's a pretty alarming example of what we'd expect to see. I've been thinking a little about how sort of what the domestic policy and foreign policy sides have in common.
And it does seem to be a similar kind of just utter recklessness and cavalier attitude towards existing structures. Again, one could imagine some of these areas of the ID and NIH and so forth saying, look, we really want to save money.
We want to weed out a third, a half, two thirds of some of what's being spent in some of these programs. We're going to do it in a systematic way.
And a year from now, you'll see progress. Two years from now, usually presidents have a four-year horizon, right? Four years from now, we'll be down 60%.
You guys will be really pleased. And you won't notice anything because you know what?

A lot of this money was wasted and was spent on DEI

and on woke stuff and all this.

That's the normal thing you do,

leaving aside whether they would have been right

that the money is wasted.

The recklessness, the pleasure they take

in the slashing and leaving pregnant women

without care in Africa or in firing civil servants

who've worked hard for X number of years with no notice. I mean, which again is utterly unnecessary.
The amount of money at stake is minute compared to giving them, you know, not renewing their contracts for people a year from now or treating people in a decent way. They like the cruelty of Doge.
They like the cruelty in a way of bullying Zelensky.

But the recklessness in both cases, assuming that things won't just really go bad in the

world or at home, is what the foreign domestic policies have.

Elon's Doge and Trump's treatment of Zelensky are sort of parallel in some ways.

And I don't know.

We're a big, strong country.

We could survive a lot of bad things and maybe six months from now it won't feel that different in people's lives but i'm not so sure about that really i'm very structured to the number of people i've talked to i don't know if you found this not political people i'm here in dc so i hear more of them you know the brain drain and the character drain we're going to have for the u.s government two people in the military friends of friends i don wanted to come see me privately, thought maybe I could give them some advice. I don't know if I really have much good advice.
They're, you know, mid-career rising stars in the military, young people, a little younger, even than you. And they were going to stay in, they assumed, and make that their profession for, they hoped, I think, to become, you know, general officers, very high up.
And now they don't. Do they they want to be there with this stuff going on do they want to have to wait whether they have to obey orders that they think might be unlawful but they won't have a jag to help tell them that because they fired the jags and they're putting in compliant people presumably the number of people this is the military then there's public health and there's a million other things right i mean the justice department the the Department, the degree to which whatever one thinks of the civil service, the military, the civilians, the DOD, the public health establishment, they all are not perfect.
God knows. But the degree to which we're putting it all at risk.
And again, for what? For what? I mean, because they have some. For what? That's what I don't understand, really.
Honestly, though. I mean, you know.
Enjoyment of other people's suffering, I guess.

Right.

I mean, for, you know, to be able to say that they are going after these shadowy elites that people hate, I guess, as part of their, like, imaginary internet war, like, really, I think is the answer.

Like, that they are on the other side of this kind of, like, imaginary culture battle that they think that they're fighting through tweets.

And, like, I don't know. I don't know because it's not about balancing the budget.
We know that based on the budget. They're not earnest libertarians who have convinced themselves excessively that the private sector will do this better.
And we've got some studies here from, you know, Cato and somebody at AEI. That's not the spirit in which it's being which that might be dangerous in its own way but that's not the spirit of which that was reagan to some degree that's not the spirit in which this is being done you know in addition to recklessness the one also hallmark of trumpism uh is the corruption so i should we should uh close by talking about the crypto scam which i think might end up being the biggest scam in the history of American politics.
To show you my sense for things this morning, like where I was at, I was going back to the Teapot Dome scandal. And I was like, how much money was involved in the Teapot Dome scandal? It turns out it was $400,000 at the time was the bribe which is about six million in current dollars so not nothing i mean that's a big that is a big scandal that was uh certainly you know something worth creating controversy and firings over and ignominy but um what is happening in crypto is going to be unbelievable compared to that like 10,, 20, a hundred X.
Here's the announcement Trump put up. A U S crypto reserve will elevate this critical industry after years of corrupt attacks by the Biden administration.
Every accusation is a confession, which is why my executive order on digital assets directed the presidential working group to move forward on a crypto strategic reserve that includes these three particular currencies. Then he adds to the thread later, because I guess probably somebody who had money in Bitcoin or Ethereum was mad that they were not specifically singled out.
Maybe his son, Eric. So he adds that obviously Bitcoin and Ethereum is other valuable cryptocurrencies will be the heart of the reserve.
I also love Bitcoin and Ethereum! How is this the fucking President of the United States that is sending this? This is like a late-night television scam-level rhetoric here about his support for Bitcoin and Ethereum. Eric Trump had tweeted last week about crypto, buy the dip! exclamation point, which seems a little bit like some insider trading knowledge to me.
I don't know. I guess we would leave that up to the totally toothless SEC to look into.
But just to like sum this up in the way that is the most simple, the theory of the case here is that cryptocurrencies are so valuable.

This digital gold, so to speak, is going to be so valuable in the future that the United States needs to, United States government needs to purchase and hold massive quantities of several different types of Bitcoin to hold in some kind of digital Fort Knox that we need to have for who knows, God knows what in the future to ensure that the United States has enough of these of these supposed currencies, you know, in order to, I don't know, deal with some future crypto related crisis. It is an absurd proposition.
Bitcoin and Ethereum have like some value. Some of these other ones have no value.
It is literally like buying, the US government buying pet rocks or beanie babies or something and being like, we're going to hold these in a strategic reserve somewhere to make sure that in the future we have enough babies for the beanie market. And it is a preposterous scheme.
It is going to trump family the secretary of commerce howard lutnik and his family are very deeply invested in this david sacks who's the cryptozar says that he divested from crypto but it's unclear exactly what all that what that leads to i mean there's like no words for the preposterousness of this proposed plan so i don't know do you Do you have any words for me? No, you've described it very well. Someone said this would be illegal in every country in the world.
This is not like, oh, the US has very strict rules. We have SEC.
This is just slightly more relaxed attitude. This is just stealing money from the taxpayer or from Marx or from, I suppose, the Marx who didn't know when they were supposed to buy and when they were supposed to sell on these exchanges.
Yeah, the Trump coin, you're stealing from the marks, okay, which is bad enough in itself, right? The fact that our president is like running a massive pump and dump operation to steal money from regular people in order to enrich himself and also to create a fund where other people can bribe him, including possibly Chinese nationals like Justin Sun, who put in tens of millions of dollars into Trump's various digital grifts. And now the SEC is no longer prosecuting him.
Convenient. I had this guy, Jason Calacanis, on the podcast a while back, and some of the listeners, you know, maybe might not have been their favorite episode for some of them because Jason was Trump curious, I guess I would call him.
Not really pro-Trump, but certainly, you know, not anti-Trump to the degree that we are. He's a tech guy.
He has a podcast, including he's on a podcast with the Trump crypto czar, David Sachs. So I think this is interesting because, because you know him and david have a relationship and like he wrote this it's a terrible idea to spend taxpayer money buying the crypto bags of the people who donated many millions to him it's even worse idea to pick winners like pick random cryptocurrencies to invest in he puts it like this why not a u.s strategic tech reserve where we buy Apple, Google, and Microsoft shares? Why not a real estate strategic reserve where we buy real estate assets from huge companies? When you put it in these kind of contexts, you just see how ridiculous this is.
And the people that are going to benefit from this are the people that have invested their money in these currencies made big these not they're not currencies but like made big bets into these crypto assets and like now thanks to the taxpayers like they're going to see a huge return we've already seen it this morning like all these currencies that trump named are up 10 so if you like listen to eric trump last week when he said buy the dip you've made% just on the speculation side of it. Like imagine the amount of money these guys would make if we really put US taxpayer dollars into their like worthless cryptocurrencies.
It's like truly, I mean, at least in Teapot Dome, they were selling land that existed to drill oil in for cash. I mean, it was just a good old-fashioned corruption.
You know, I'm going to give you something in exchange for cash. In this case, we're just giving people's taxpayer dollars away in exchange for essentially nothing so that a bunch of people can make a lot of money.
It's truly astonishing. Do you think the kleptocratic and plutocratic side of this Trump, second Trump administration, it was always there, obviously, in the first one, but so much more visible and shameless and massive? Just think about his whole career.
But they could pay some political price for that? Yeah, I think potentially. No, of course I think they could pay a political price for this.
I mean, some crypto people are going to like it, so we'll get some political benefit from some corners. But of course I think that they could end up paying a political price.
A lot of people didn't sign up for this.

And again, Trump somehow was able to maintain the reputation of being the apprentice business guy Trump rather than being the guy that went bankrupt in casinos and had a fake university and had all these other pyramid schemes and other things that he was involved in. So I do think that the second Trump term could end up looking, you know, being the Trump university of terms where all of his scams crumble around us.
Unfortunately, you know, he would suffer a political prize for that,

but a lot of us are going to suffer too.

So there you go.

Bill, any other final thoughts?

No, that was well said.

All right.

Everybody else, it's Mardi Gras tomorrow. Are you ready to celebrate?

Are you ready to celebrate?

Am I going to do an uplifting episode tomorrow?

I don't know.

Probably not, but we'll have some fun Mardi Gras music to go with the episode.

We'll see you all back here then.

Have a good one.

Peace.

You can thank me now.

Go ahead.

Thank me later.

Yeah, I know what I said.

But later doesn't always come,

so instead.

It's okay.

You can thank me now.

Yeah.

Well, all right. You can thank me now Mahalo from the hardest act to follow Lately I've been drinking like there's a message in a bottle Alohas to women with no ties To men that I know well That way there are no lies You can thank me now for all the info I give to you niggas I'm on the brink of influential I'm here for you niggas I guess a hit doesn't add up to a career for you niggas I must have been hard to watch What a year for you niggas It's December 31st and we in Miami just meditating You got your resolutions We just got reservations Living out a dream It feels like I stayed up And we just wanna party Pat Ron straight up Fuck that old shit I'm on new things OVO click Red Wing boot gang Yeah we want it all Half was never the agreement Who'da thought the route we chosen Would ever end up the scenic I can relate to kids going straight to the league When they recognize that you got what it takes to succeed And that's around the time that your idols become your rivals You make friends with Mike, I gotta AI him for your survival Damn, I swear sports and music are so synonymous Cause we wanna be them, and they wanna be us So on behalf of the demanded and the entertainment that you take for granted You could thank me now, and oh my goodness you're welcome, you're welcome At this point me is who I am trying to save myself from Rappers hit me up and I never know what to tell them Cause they think that I can help them get back to where they fell from But drink up, cause everyone here is good tonight Except the niggas that I came with, they good for life Yeah, that's how you know it's going down In case another chance never comes around You can thank me now Uh, go ahead Thank me later, yeah, I know what I said But later doesn't always come so instead.
It's a, okay, you can thank me now.

The Bulldog Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper

with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.