Bill Kristol: Diaper Tantrum

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Speaker 4 Hello and welcome to the Board Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller.
It is Monday. So of course, we've got our editor-at-large, Bill Crystal.
Hey, Bill, what's happening?

Speaker 21 Tough weekend for LSU, Tim. I was thinking, I was thinking, yeah, we're not talking about it.
You know, we can talk 20-30 minutes about it if you want to give your analysis, the coaching situation.

Speaker 21 I think

Speaker 4 that,

Speaker 4 yeah, things are going much better with our trade policy than in Baton Rouge. So, let's just go straight into that.

Speaker 4 The president has decided to put an additional 10% tax on American consumers buying maple syrup and such from the Canadians because he was very unhappy about an ad.

Speaker 4 You wrote about that this morning, reflected, harkened back to the good old days where we could tease Canada lovingly, as you would do in the Weekly Standard from time to time.

Speaker 4 What do you make of this, if anything?

Speaker 21 I mean, it's funny, the piece, now that you just sort of said it, I realized I didn't even mention in the piece, but of course I just take it for granted the utterly rampant illegality of everything Trump is doing.

Speaker 21 He's just, I don't like that ad. 10% uprise and hike in tariffs for you.

Speaker 21 What law is governing that? An emergency exception that he can use for national security reasons?

Speaker 21 I mean, it's beyond anything that he's just doing this.

Speaker 21 And people, as I say, even I like didn't scream and yell about that too much because I was moving on to make other points about how crazy his and destructive his tariff policies were.

Speaker 21 And in my case, since I published Matt Labash's excellent piece about how Canada was kind of the great white wasteland of the North or whatever the heck we called it on the cover in 2005, it was prompted by, remember all those people after Bush, George W.

Speaker 21 Bush won re-election, they were going to Canada there for like a few weeks. And so that was the, Labash bush went up there and determined some of them.
Very amusing piece.

Speaker 4 Anyway, I feel like in addition to not the illegality, just the craziness of the hill. Right.

Speaker 4 I was thinking about an interview I got coming up later this week, and I was kind of mentally prepping for it. And I was like, you can't, part of the reason I can't have,

Speaker 4 I want to try to have more

Speaker 4 people that are at least, you know, whatever, I have a different perspective on Trump on the pod, just to kind of like hash it out. Because he did win the popular vote last time.

Speaker 4 Like, you can't have Republicans on a show to talk about the tariff issue because none of them are for it, right? None of them are for a random 10% tariff on Canada.

Speaker 4 I mean, like, what I, you know, Peter Navarro, like a handful of cranks are actually for it.

Speaker 4 But, like, even like the protectionists, I don't, I don't think that this is how they imagined, you know, their protectionist tariff policy being put in place to help reinvigorate manufacturing.

Speaker 4 And everyone else is against it. Everyone that's on TV talking about Trump on Fox or, you know, et cetera, is against it.
But no,

Speaker 4 none of them say or do anything, even though though this is ostensibly Jon Thune and Mike Johnson's job to govern this, and there's zero coming from them.

Speaker 21 Aaron Ross Powell, especially on tariffs, who is literally in the Constitution. I mean, the idea, yes.

Speaker 21 It's funny. I had the same

Speaker 21 analogous experience this week, some conference, a lot of learned political science, con law types for a while, and talking about what went wrong,

Speaker 21 why it checks the balance is working. And at the end of the day, you know, the system does not work if Congress does not exercise any authority or take any responsibility for anything.

Speaker 21 I mean, it doesn't check the president in particular.

Speaker 21 But then, you know, we'll, of course,

Speaker 21 Congress isn't working as kind of a euphemism or a mask for saying the Republican Party is preventing Congress from doing its job as the Democrats would presumably, you know, or say they would fix a lot of the, check the president on a lot of these things or try to.

Speaker 21 The degree to which we've just slid in nine months. And so the first term had its problems in this respect, but really people in Congress still vaguely thought they should push back on things, right?

Speaker 21 I mean, that's my vague memory at least and did sometimes somewhat successfully, including some Republicans. It's really the capitulation is complete and Trump is just a little dictator raising.

Speaker 21 Now, is this the most important thing in the world, 10% additional tariffs on Canada? No, I mean, but it's not nothing, and it's the predicate for anything else he wants to do anywhere.

Speaker 21 And he's, yeah. But Argentina, Argentina's doing great.
Argentina's great. You know, Argentina's doing great in Canada.

Speaker 4 Okay, let's get to that because here we go. You know, look, I should say that the Treasury Secretary was out this weekend doing the rounds and all the Sunday shows.

Speaker 4 And you'd think that the Treasury Secretary would have a sensible argument for this tariff, right? Let's listen to what he had to say about it.

Speaker 22 This week, President Trump abruptly broke off trade talks with Canada and put another 10% tariff on Canada in response to an ad that the government of Ontario ran.

Speaker 22 It features former President Ronald Reagan. Why is the president setting trade policy based on a television ad he doesn't like?

Speaker 4 Good question.

Speaker 4 Well, Kristen, let's think about this. This is a kind of propaganda against U.S.
citizens. You know,

Speaker 21 it's psyops.

Speaker 4 Let's think about this. It's psyops.
The Canadians are running psyops on us. So we have to punish who? The American people?

Speaker 4 We got to punish people by, we got to put a tax on Americans buying Canadian goods because the Canadian, the sneaky Canadians are running psyops on us. What the fuck are you talking about?

Speaker 21 The sneaky Canadians are showing correct and accurate video of Ronald Reagan criticizing Tara.

Speaker 4 That's terrible.

Speaker 21 That's terrible. Psyops.
I give you a lot of credit for being early on the real loathing of Scott Besant. I want to say that our fine treasury secretary.
He is terrible.

Speaker 21 I mean, there's something about him. He's not as insane, obviously, as some of them, but he's not, I guess, as unqualified as, you know, Bondi or Hagseth.
But that

Speaker 21 mock earnestness and condescension with which he explains these things, he's, you know, I don't know. I think he's in the top three or four of the worst.

Speaker 4 It's like from a different era. It's just like this.
He's like a stuffed shirt elite, like condescending to the people. It's like, this is MAGA.
This is the Forgotten Man's representative.

Speaker 4 You know, I just, he is just so phony. Anyway, let's just keep doing it.
There's one other clip I had to play of Scott Besson, speaking of his phoniness.

Speaker 4 It wasn't just asked, obviously, about the tariff, the random tariff we're putting on Canada because Trump had a diaper tantrum, but also about the fact that we're like really,

Speaker 4 really harming farmers in the country.

Speaker 4 I saw some economic stats on Iowa that are like decently alarming compared to the rest of the country that came out over the weekend, harming farmers a bunch of places, particularly obviously the soybean crop since China is no longer buying our soybeans.

Speaker 4 Stuffed shirt Scott was asked about this on ABC. Let's listen to that.

Speaker 23 China has been boycotting American soybeans and American farmers have really suffered. Do you see a real light at the end of the tunnel there that may allow soybeans again?

Speaker 4 Well, Martha, in case you don't know it, I'm actually a soybean farmer, so

Speaker 4 I have felt this pain too.

Speaker 4 For the audio listeners, you almost have to watch the video of that on YouTube because

Speaker 4 he's so proud of himself with this talking when he kind of smiles. He says, I am a soybean farmer as well.
Really, Scott? Those hands, those little dainty hands have been in the dirt?

Speaker 4 Like, just because you purchased some land that other people farm does not mean you felt the pain. Like, what pain have you felt?

Speaker 4 Like, he lives in an unbelievable Barbie, or he actually, I think he sold the Barbie mansion house. I've been corrected.

Speaker 4 He lives in a different, unbelievable house, no longer in the Barbie mansion, extremely rich. He's a soybean.
He wants us to think he's a soybean farmer feeling pain.

Speaker 21 I mean, I haven't looked at the fact-checking. What is it? His hedge fund bought some share of some farmland, you know, is probably waking, right?

Speaker 21 He's probably mistreating farmers on some farmland they bought or something like that. But

Speaker 21 the nice touch about that fitting into your stuffed shirt, cloying, Smarmy, Scott Besson thing is the Martha, in case you don't know it, I mean, what is it?

Speaker 4 In case you don't know it.

Speaker 21 He's relishing. They prepped for that.

Speaker 21 He had that in his back pocket, the kind of

Speaker 21 Trump card he was going to play on Martha,

Speaker 21 that I am a soybean farmer, Martha.

Speaker 4 Yeah, have you been out in the fields?

Speaker 21 He's suffering a lot, just like the actual farmers who are watching their crops and their livelihood go down the twos in Iowa.

Speaker 21 Scott Bessett is really paying a big personal price.

Speaker 4 Yeah, he's got $25 million in farmland in North Dakota.

Speaker 4 And it's generating good news.

Speaker 4 According to a quick search on this, we can correct this, but it appears to be that he's generating about a million in rental income for him on that soybean.

Speaker 4 I wonder if that rental income is affected by the fact that the actual people farming can't sell the crop. I kind of find that hard to believe.

Speaker 4 Do you think he's letting them off the hook?

Speaker 4 He's not charging a deal.

Speaker 21 No charge this year. That would be a good thing.
We We should start that campaign. Yeah, we should ask him.

Speaker 4 Is he giving the people renting this land for him, you know, a couple months off since for no reason we started a trade war with China and they can't sell the crops on the land? I wonder.

Speaker 4 Something worth looking into.

Speaker 4 He also, I'm not going to do any more audio. We can only take so much, but he also obviously defended the Argentina bailout.

Speaker 4 I mean, you do wonder when this stuff or if this stuff like ever begins to add up to create like real unrest in farm country, you know, the fact that we're bailing out Argentina while they're allowed to sell their soybeans and we aren't.

Speaker 21 Yeah, and aren't they selling the soybeans to China, maybe? I think so. Yeah.

Speaker 21 So it's like, I mean, it's like actually the worst of all worlds.

Speaker 21 Agentina is an ally, he explains. So I thought, how crazy is that? I mean, is Argentina an ally?

Speaker 21 But they are one of the 20 non-NATO major allies designated over the last 20, 30 years, sporadically by various U.S. presidents, which is fine.

Speaker 21 We do a little more military cooperation with them than we would do with a non-NATO major ally. There are a lot lot of countries that are non-NATO allies.

Speaker 21 I think Tunisia and Kenya, it's not like a huge thing necessarily. But Canada, if I can just come back to close the loop on that, Canada is an actual NATO ally.
Canada is a founding member of NATO.

Speaker 21 Canada fought with us in World War II. They fought with us in Afghanistan.
It's the longest undefended border.

Speaker 21 I think it's the longest land border in the world, but it's the longest undefended land border in the world. It's kind of, it's wealthy.
It's four times wealthier, I think, per capita than Argentina.

Speaker 21 It's had a very good run, actually, the last century, which Argentina hasn't. And we're bending over backwards to help Argentina and Canada.
We're just sticking it to Canada.

Speaker 21 I mean, I feel like there's a little bit of, I thought Trump was at least a hard-headed realpolitik type guy. It's kind of more important to have good relations with Canada than with Argentina.

Speaker 21 And leaving aside all the other things we have in common with them, as I say, we owe them in some ways for fighting with us. I mean, it's really.

Speaker 4 I can build this one for you. An ally now means somebody that is an ally with the Donald Trump family and Trump court.
Totally.

Speaker 21 Totally correct. It is Trump first, not America first.
And you're absolutely right. It's a personal ally of the Trump family in some corrupt scheme they're engaged in.

Speaker 4 Right. That's what it means to be an ally.
That's why El Salvador is an ally. Argentina is an ally.
And Qatar is an ally. Canada, no.
No, we're not Canada anymore. We might even invade Canada.

Speaker 4 Who knows?

Speaker 4 But Cutter. They have Sharia law over there, but they gave Trump a plane.
NBS, Saudi Arabia is an ally, beheaded and behanding American, like journalists writing for American outlets.

Speaker 4 And they're an ally. El Salvador is prisoning people, imprisoning people on our behalf in Argentina.

Speaker 4 So it's a good

Speaker 4 coalition of the,

Speaker 4 there's something here, the coalition of the Trump willing.

Speaker 4 We'll work on this.

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Speaker 4 on the corruption stuff. You guys read about this in morning shots, Andrew did, but I think it's worth mentioning.
There are two items: one is on this drone company.

Speaker 4 The Pentagon awarded a significant contract to Unusual Machines, a company that retains Donald Trump Jr. as an advisor.

Speaker 4 I'm sure, based on his expertise in drone warfare, know, and his work as somebody that can provide a lot of guidance and wisdom to the CEO

Speaker 4 when it comes to development of this type of weaponry. Shares in the company jumped 13% on the news that they got this contract.
It's worth reminding Judd Legum pointed this out that Trump Jr.

Speaker 4 in one of the many podcasts that he does talked about how he helped screen candidates for top Pentagon jobs and explicitly discuss looking for candidates interested in moving more defense spending into drones.

Speaker 4 So that's

Speaker 4 convenient. You know, I'm like, among Hunter Biden's biggest haters that

Speaker 4 were not involved in like actually trying to uncover his laptop. I'm not a fan of Hunter Biden.
It was ridiculous that he was on the board of Ukrainian natural gas companies. But

Speaker 4 this is just totally on another level from anything that was happening that was complained about endlessly on Fox.

Speaker 21 Yeah, and essentially what's really kind of chilling about this is the Pentagon is now wired enough to be giving contracts to this firm.

Speaker 21 So it's not just the White House thing, putting an individual on a board. That doesn't require the bureaucracy to be colluding.

Speaker 21 It just requires Trump and himself, or Biden, if you want, to be doing unseemly or maybe illegal things in the case of various Trump White House payoffs and so forth.

Speaker 21 It's not just one person, right, to make this contract happen. There are a whole bunch of people, I guess, going along with this, pretending it's a legit competition, signing off on various documents.

Speaker 21 You know, the Pentagon has a pretty big bureaucratic structure for these grants, or maybe they just went around it. I don't know.

Speaker 21 But again, it sort of gets to the question of how much can Trump ruin the U.S. government in four years as opposed to simply personally kind of drifting from it, right?

Speaker 21 That's happened before in a way, right? And certainly at the municipal level, right? People make money off, you know, get payoffs for deals.

Speaker 21 But I mean, how much you can get the whole government operating this way, or at least good chunks of it? And that's bad.

Speaker 4 It also goes to like the JVL, favorite JVL topic.

Speaker 4 Even in our best case scenario where a Democrat gets in in 2029 and they're a reform, whatever, you're going to have to weed out these corrupt actors throughout the entire government,

Speaker 4 which is a very different challenge than what happened in 2021. Anyway, on the corruption side, our colleague JVL is really fired up about the White House ballroom.

Speaker 4 wants to raise it from the ground if the Democrats ever get back in charge. And I appreciate his vim and vigor on that front.
I've had less passion there.

Speaker 4 The donors, the corrupt side of it, though, I do feel like needs an even greater microscope because it is, and it's truly insane what they're doing.

Speaker 4 Like they are, they are privately funding this, the Donald J. Trump ballroom.

Speaker 4 And the people that are funding it, Egger pointed out in the newsletter this morning, many of them are these companies trying to get back in his good graces because they had stopped donating to Republicans after January 6th.

Speaker 4 So all these companies took a principled stand after January 6th are just like Bill Cassidy and Mitch McConnell. Corporate America is no different than Bill Cassidy Cassidy and Mitch McConnell.

Speaker 4 I will be principled for a week and then, oh, oh, oh, things have changed. And now I'm going to give you a million dollars to your big dance hall.
And so that's one element of it.

Speaker 4 But the other element that I just, I think is worth just

Speaker 4 really being explicit about is

Speaker 4 these are the most entrenched interests in Washington. Like this is the traditional swamp, right? There is this MAGA swamp that we're talking about, right?

Speaker 4 Where it's like Trump and all these kind of weird characters from the Star Wars bar that are like, you know, getting favors and stuff. That's happening.

Speaker 4 But also the traditional swamp has just totally co-opted him. And it's all the big defense contractors, tech companies are all now giving him money.

Speaker 4 And there's no even, like the White House isn't even pretending to do the,

Speaker 4 you know, we're going after the corrupt money interests element anymore. Like that part of the mega populism is just gone and they're, they're happy to be co-opted.

Speaker 4 And I think there's some interesting

Speaker 21 and obviously the the policy or the potential actual corruption there is interesting but also politically uh potentially a vulnerability for him i think a vulnerability but also a strength because obviously if it were just the mega swamp and corporate america were uncomfortable with it or even rebelling against it or saying we've got to stop this it's it's too crazy that would be better politically than corporate America and oligarchic America and billionaire America saying, okay, we've all figured out how to kind of co-opt it ourselves or go along with it.

Speaker 21 I mean, then it's unclear who's co-opting whom, I guess you could say here, right? I think it's mutual backscatchering. But these are powerful people.
If the U.S.

Speaker 21 government and the most powerful corporations in America are engaged in mutual backscatching with no oversight, no checks within the executive branch, no congressional checks, not much in the way of judicial checks, because that part's pretty hard, I guess.

Speaker 21 That's kind of a bad situation. And I do think, incidentally, that's sort of the pattern of other authoritarian regimes.
They come in with populist rhetoric.

Speaker 21 They maybe go after one or two people to make an example, one or two oligarchs or something.

Speaker 21 But at the end of the day, they become powerful by the intermeshing of the huge corporations and the corrupt administration.

Speaker 4 For sure. And

Speaker 4 I hear what you're saying on the

Speaker 4 mutual back scratching versus somebody getting co-rupted by the other, because that's true, right? They're both co-rupting each other in a sense.

Speaker 4 I mean, just looking at the one direction, though, I think is important, just in the sense of like, if you are

Speaker 4 one of the big government contractors or one of the big tech companies, right? It's not hard to imagine a different type of Trump administration that goes directly at you because they started that.

Speaker 4 Like that, like Doge, like initially Doge, that was what Elon was going to do, right? Like, we're getting ripped off by these military contractors. You're going to go in and go after them.

Speaker 4 The big tech companies are all woke and are censoring Republicans.

Speaker 4 And we're going to use our anti, you know, we're going to use the tools that they've used to go after media companies and law firms to go after the tech companies. And that isn't happening, right?

Speaker 4 Like this administration is not going to go after any of them anymore. And they've totally managed to buy off Trump just by buttering him up and now getting him this fancy theater.

Speaker 21 But also by, like in the media case, don't you think, by actually changing their media properties coverage and now buying more.

Speaker 21 It sounds like with CNN, I haven't really followed that in detail, but I don't fully understand it, Paramount and CNN and all this.

Speaker 21 Buying more so they can have more pro-Trump or at least Trump acquiescent coverage. In that respect, it's scarier in that way, I think.
Yeah.

Speaker 4 Just because

Speaker 4 we've seen the change of behavior. I guess that's definitely true on the media side.
Probably not from the big military contractors.

Speaker 4 I mean, I guess maybe they probably changed their, their hiring a little bit. Like you got to be worried if you're a woman or a person of color that is, you know, being hired for a contract.

Speaker 4 But besides that, not really changing that much and now getting a

Speaker 4 a White House that is just completely aligned with your interests. Noteworthy.
We'll be trying to speak to some of the populist Magaraitis about that.

Speaker 4 See if any of them are upset.

Speaker 21 I mean, is this going to strengthen the pop and shouldn't it strengthen really the populist side of the opposition and of liberalism?

Speaker 4 No doubt. No doubt.
And to that point, I guess we should say, I was going to get to it later, but

Speaker 4 I was pretty struck last night. And there's a big rally in New York for Mondani that mayor's race is up here eight days.
A lot of energy.

Speaker 4 You know, again, it's New York. A lot of people in New York.
You know, you can fill a rally, but it's for a mayor's race.

Speaker 4 I don't really recall Eric Adams or Bill de Blasio like filling stadiums, really, or Mike Bloomberg. So noteworthy in that sense.
Noteworthy also in the speakers, you had Bernie AOC.

Speaker 4 Kathy Hochl did speak, and the crowd started like shouting her down, tax the rich.

Speaker 4 So, okay.

Speaker 4 But you can kind of see how a merger of the populist and

Speaker 4 more traditional left might emerge that way.

Speaker 4 Like, regardless of what the actual views are, like where the Democratic Party ends up on like more traditional ideological lines as far as views on taxing and spending and views on social issues, like the idea that there will be kind of an anti-establishment, we need to go after the existing power structures and rip them apart root and branch.

Speaker 4 Like that element of the left, I think, is certainly empowered by what we're seeing.

Speaker 21 Someone like me would prefer if that became a sort of, I don't know how to put it, free market populism where we go after these corrupt big businesses in order to have real competition and smaller.

Speaker 21 But I mean, who knows whether that will be strong enough to, as opposed to a more traditional, just kind of.

Speaker 4 Somebody should try that, though. Someone should try that.

Speaker 4 And it's hard to think about who would hold the mantle of this.

Speaker 4 David Serata, fellow Denver Nuggets fan, a lefty Bernie staffer who like, I think he won't even be mad at me for saying can get pretty, can get pretty off the chain on the internet sometimes.

Speaker 4 All right. So, David is maybe one of those that probably do better off of Twitter than on.

Speaker 4 But he wrote for us a thing about how, like, there needs to be kind of a Democrat McCain, where if you go back to that McCain, what would have been 2000 race, primaring Bush, which obviously you know a lot about, where he was, he really was kind of foregrounding more of like these reform type issues, like, you know, campaign finance, cleaning stuff up.

Speaker 4 I mean, that could work for the, and it certainly would be better than

Speaker 4 some of the more,

Speaker 4 you know, how shall we say, vanilla type of Democratic campaigns that we've seen, you know, trying to do a, okay, you know, we need to actually clean up the system, like a populist left thing that goes after some of the billionaires, some of the corrupt big corporations, goes after the Trump corruption, right?

Speaker 4 And have that be an alternative to the whatever, the more DSA socialist left type populism. Maybe that would not work.
Who the hell knows? But like, that would certainly be worth a try.

Speaker 4 And there's not really anybody carrying that mantle. And Murphy is trying to do it a little bit, but Murphy's also sort of flirting with the Bernie wing a little bit.

Speaker 4 So there's not anybody that's like really sticking that out at this point. I do think that there's an opportunity for someone to at least give that a try.

Speaker 21 Yeah, I agree.

Speaker 21 The centrists are so, I mean, you know, defending the establishment, sometimes correctly against really irresponsible assaults, but that they are going to be timid about doing this.

Speaker 21 And then the moment someone says you sound one bit like AOC or Bernie, they'll all freak out and go back into centrist

Speaker 21 crouch. So that's a bit of a problem.
And then the left has, you know, creates some problems itself with some of their stuff. So it would be interesting.
Yeah, we need a McCain Democrat, right?

Speaker 21 I mean, I think if you want to think of it this way, maybe there's Romney, and this is kind of a stupid way of putting it, maybe an analogy, but there's Romney Democrats, totally down the middle.

Speaker 21 honest, decent, centrist, whatever. Then there are like, that's what do we call them, Santorum Democrat, you know, true believing, believer, populist radicals.

Speaker 21 We sort of, McCain is kind of neither Romney nor Santorum. I don't know if that's for our Republican.

Speaker 4 Those of us who remember Republican races, this is a maybe yeah, and I don't mean McCain Democrat necessarily, just if we're going to play out this out for people who are listening who are maybe not following the nuances, I don't really even mean it in the sense of like a hawkish

Speaker 21 hawk policy.

Speaker 4 Yeah, talking about his branding as kind of like a reforming Maverick type person who could like a merch, because McCain was basically

Speaker 4 policy-wise, like in the establishment oof of the Republican Party, and he went against the Bush tax cuts. So he was a little bit, you know, of a Maverick in that sense.

Speaker 4 So like somebody that would be in the just sort of main body of the Democratic Party, but who prioritizes like these sorts of reforms and, you know, kind of more populist type issues of, you know, kind of going after the big, big special interests, right?

Speaker 4 Which is what McCain did like on the right. Anyway, might be something interesting there.

Speaker 11 Get Ready for Malice, a twisted new drama starring Jack Whitehall, David DeCovney, and Carice Van Houten.

Speaker 13 Jack Whitehall plays Adam, a charming charming manny infiltrates the wealthy Tanner family with a hidden motive to destroy them.

Speaker 16 This edge-of-your-seat revenge thriller unravels a deliciously dark mystery in a world full of wealth, secrets, and betrayal.

Speaker 18 Malice will constantly keep you on your toes.

Speaker 12 Why is Adam after the Tanner family?

Speaker 15 What lengths will he go to?

Speaker 19 One thing's for sure: the past never stays buried, so keep your enemies close.

Speaker 12 Watch Malice, all episodes now now streaming exclusively on Prime Video.

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Speaker 26 And when you have a membership that's as unique as you are, there's no telling how your story will unfold or where that journey will take you next.

Speaker 26 SkyMiles is the membership that will be here for all your big and small moments.

Speaker 32 The membership that's there for every solo adventure or family trip.

Speaker 30 The membership that comes with the power of partnership from brands you love.

Speaker 26 The membership that moves with you.

Speaker 25 Learn more at delta.com/slash sky miles.

Speaker 4 While we're talking about what's happening,

Speaker 4 these cell types, we have a shutdown. Potentially,

Speaker 4 an end to this is

Speaker 4 kind of emerging, but in a very hazy way. And I've been saying for a while, it's like hard to see how anybody's incentivized to stop at this point.

Speaker 4 Like, both sides are being served by this in various ways. But, you know, the American Federation of Government Employees is out this morning urging Dems to stand down.

Speaker 4 SNAP is going to go away next week. You've got some states, Terry Polis, Colorado, some others are coming up with creative ways to make sure SNAP can keep going.

Speaker 4 But in other states, SNAP will not be available, food stamps for people. And so that's like real harm being done to folks.

Speaker 4 What's your sense for the state of play and how the Democrats can handle it from here?

Speaker 21 I've always thought the Democrats might lose this in the sense of not get the policies they are fighting for, but win it well enough politically in the sense of highlighting for everyone that these are, that the cuts are Republican cuts in health care and some of these other areas too.

Speaker 21 And they just didn't have the ability to stop them because they weren't willing to make government workers pay even more in the way of lost wages and stuff.

Speaker 21 And that's what the American Federation of Government Employees is saying. And that is a fissure or a break in the pretty

Speaker 21 solid wall of support for the Democrats among the liberal interest groups. And I don't blame them.
I mean, they're representing hundreds of thousands of employees who aren't getting paid.

Speaker 21 And some of them are not all, you know, well-off people.

Speaker 21 So, and maybe it's better for the Dems to figure out a way to, I don't know, I hate to be the council of slight retreat here, but maybe figure out a way to lose on the policy while blaming the Republicans.

Speaker 21 And then just scream and yell over and over and then just say, okay, you've been back a day. Where are the you said you might fix some of these cuts in Obamacare and in Medicaid? Where are the fix?

Speaker 21 And just kind of keep insisting on it over and over again. But maybe you have to yield on keeping the government open.

Speaker 4 This was the thing from the start, was my

Speaker 4 issue with the shutdown strategy. Was I just like, what is your end game if you're the Democrats? Like, there isn't one, really.
Like, they never had one.

Speaker 4 And so it's not really great to get into a battle where you don't really know how you're going to get out of it.

Speaker 4 That said, I think it's been effective so far, at least at rate.

Speaker 21 Don't you think if they if they give in tomorrow and I mean, it'll be annoying for 48 hours because Michael Johnson and Trump and everyone will take their victory laps.

Speaker 21 But after that, I kind of think the dems will have have come out of it okay, actually.

Speaker 4 Yeah, I think so. And I probably wouldn't give in tomorrow.
But yeah, and I think that the... No, I don't.
Yeah, I look, I think that

Speaker 4 there's probably some more work to be done on just making sure Republicans hold the bag on

Speaker 4 the premium increases on the insurance because that's just

Speaker 4 really starting to hit with people. And it's really next month that the preponderance of people are going to see that.
And so

Speaker 4 probably,

Speaker 4 and this is where, this is the other weakness of the Democratic strategy from the start is that the shutdown is a PR game, and so I'm trying to think about like who is the point people on carrying this, Hakeem and Chuck.

Speaker 4 Not ideal point people for carrying this from a PR standpoint, but you know, figuring out a way to raise the salience on this and put pressure on the Republicans.

Speaker 4 As you said, they said that there can be a vote on this. Okay, is there going to be a vote on this? How are we going to do it? When is it going to happen? Is the House going to pass it?

Speaker 4 You know, so putting the pressure on them on that front, maybe even doing a quote-unquote unquote deal where it's like, okay, we're going to have a vote on this. Let's make that.
Let's see them do it.

Speaker 4 Can the House pass that? I don't know if they can. Maybe.
They can. Will Mike Johnson really bring it up? As far as extending the Obamacare subsidies, I find that kind of hard to imagine.

Speaker 4 Maybe he would. So I think that there are some things that they'd have to do to execute an endgame here.
But the pressure from people that are being materially harmed by this will increase.

Speaker 4 And you can't totally ignore that if you're the Democrats based on the types of constituencies that you have, I don't think.

Speaker 21 Speaking of votes, how about a vote on the Epstein files?

Speaker 21 I think the process of

Speaker 21 giving it, I didn't mean tomorrow, but over the next maybe couple of weeks in ways that make both maybe cut a deal or try to get promises, or if you don't get the promises, berate Republicans for not accepting things that they said they before they would accept, whether it's a vote on Epstein or the actual fixing of the Obamacare premiums and stuff.

Speaker 21 I think there's a way to manage this, but yeah, it's not maybe these.

Speaker 4 And you do have to then seat the Arizona Congressman,

Speaker 4 which is insane that Adelita Grijalva,

Speaker 4 her father had passed away, and then she won the seat in the special election. The fact that she hasn't been seated, it's been almost a month.

Speaker 4 I don't even like, I don't know, time's a flat circle, so I don't have it in front of me, but it's been a while.

Speaker 21 A little more, I think a little more than a month, maybe.

Speaker 4 And the fact that Mike Johnson is holding that up, a big part of why is that that would give the Democrats the votes to release the Epstein files and doing that as a cover-up effort and just as part of the general way in which the Republicans bully

Speaker 4 don't have any care for the rules or responsibilities of governance. I think it's pretty, this shows the asymmetry of things where we expect this type of behavior from Republicans.

Speaker 4 Like you can imagine the inverse

Speaker 4 of Nancy Pelosi or whatever not seeding like some Republican that won a special election and like how Fox would act around that, how it would be treated. Total hair on fire outrage.

Speaker 4 And this is a total hair on fire outrage moment that she hasn't been seated. And then you add on top of that, a big part of the reason she hasn't been seated is because of the Epstein cover-up.

Speaker 21 Yeah, I agree. I mean, maybe the broader, I mean, do you agree with this? This is like slightly extension of this point.

Speaker 21 I mean, in a way, the conventional wisdom among political types is, you know, kitchen table issues. So the healthcare issues are the strongest.
That's why the shutdown is strong.

Speaker 21 And it's nice to have these no Kings rallies on the side. Maybe the opposite is the truth.
And I've sort of, I think I want the opposite to be the truth, so I don't trust my judgment on this.

Speaker 21 But maybe no kings is the strongest message. And the other stuff's fine.
It's good. And it gets to real constituencies.
And it's a real issue. Don't get me wrong.

Speaker 21 But maybe at the end of the day, we kind of, with Epstein and with the seating of someone who's been unjustly denied her seat for over a month and with all the other, you know, belated just scorn of law and ethics and corruption.

Speaker 21 Maybe the, let's call it the no kings message is it's good if the no kings message re-emerger emerges as the key message, maybe.

Speaker 4 Well, and I also think that it's like the timing of all this matters, right? Because, you know, sometimes there's a fighting the last battle element.

Speaker 4 I guess I would just say pretty obviously that the no-king's message is probably not the right message for reaching the marginal voter, the working class voter the Democrats struggled to reach in the 2024 election.

Speaker 4 Sure.

Speaker 4 But that's not really who they're talking to right now, right? Like the, and A, off, off year midterm elections in New Jersey and Virginia, pretty high education states.

Speaker 4 Virginia, obviously, with a ton of government workers. You know, New Jersey with the sprawling New York suburbs that JVL lives in, et cetera, right?

Speaker 4 Like the type of person you're talking to is a little bit different. It's the type of person that is more animated by this thing.
You wrote about this this morning, or Andrew did.

Speaker 4 You know, you're also trying to engage highly engaged people who do things like the boycotts and going after companies that are yielding to Trump.

Speaker 4 Like you want all of that to demonstrate you have momentum, right? Like there is this

Speaker 4 element of there's political advantage right now to demonstrating opposition strength rather than opposition weakness. And people, I think, are going to be more animated by,

Speaker 4 just broadly speaking, a no-King's message than your healthcare premiums are going up.

Speaker 4 Now, again, I think that the marginal voter, you know, some of you want to turn out next fall and the midterms, 2028, like that's a different calculus, probably.

Speaker 4 But given what the political environment is right now, I don't think that's a crazy observation.

Speaker 11 Get Get ready for Malice, a twisted new drama starring Jack Whitehall, David DeCovney, and Carice Van Houten.

Speaker 13 Jack Whitehall plays Adam, a charming manny infiltrates the wealthy Tanner family with a hidden motive to destroy them.

Speaker 16 This edge-of-your-seat revenge thriller unravels a deliciously dark mystery in a world full of wealth, secrets, and betrayal.

Speaker 18 Malice will constantly keep you on your toes.

Speaker 12 Why is Adam after the Tanner family?

Speaker 15 What lengths will he go to?

Speaker 19 One thing's for sure, the past never stays buried, so keep your enemies close.

Speaker 12 Watch Malice, all episodes now streaming exclusively on Prime Video.

Speaker 24 We know no one's journey is the same.

Speaker 25 That's why Delta Sky Miles lets you do it your way.

Speaker 26 From earning miles on reloads for coffee runs, shopping, and things you do every day, to connecting you to new places and experiences, a Sky Miles membership fits into your lifestyle, letting you do more of what makes you, you.

Speaker 30 It's more than travel.

Speaker 31 It's the membership that flies, dines, streams, rides, and arrives with you.

Speaker 32 Every great journey deserves a great story.

Speaker 26 And when you have a membership that's as unique as you are, there's no telling how your story will unfold or where that journey will take you next.

Speaker 32 SkyMiles is the membership that will be here for all your big and small moments. The membership that's there for every solo adventure or family trip.

Speaker 30 The membership that comes with the power of partnership from brands you love.

Speaker 32 The membership that moves with you.

Speaker 25 Learn more at delta.com slash skymiles.

Speaker 4 Speaking of no kings, Trump did something.

Speaker 4 Are we allowed to say when Trump does something kind of encouraging? Yeah. Trump does something kind of encouraging this morning.
There's a lot of catastrophizing here at the bulwark.

Speaker 4 I'm because things are bad because we're in a catastrophe. So it's good.

Speaker 4 it's it's it's apt it's appropriate to catastrophize when you're in the middle of a royal and catastrophe that said uh trump was asked about bannon's 2028 musings this morning i did a little monologue on friday where i talked about the right thing to do towards the bannon musings is make fun of him and point and laugh and just talk about how how embarrassing this is that he wants an 83-year-old slathering on orange makeup to you know be like a king leer like meets weekend at bernies in 2029 but still people are nervous about this for good reason.

Speaker 4 And Trump was asked about this in the plane this morning with Marco Rubio standing behind him with like a Cheshire cat grin on his face, which is just repulsive. And the headline is kind of

Speaker 4 you can look at it two ways, right? Like, I'm sure we'll see a lot of headlines in left media outlets in particular, which is Trump saying something to the effect of, I'd love to run in 2028.

Speaker 4 He says something to that effect, right? But like, he does so in this manner where he's being cheeky.

Speaker 4 And when he's asked specifically about the one constitutional area that's like the grayest as far as him being able to run again, which would be him running as a VP and somebody else running as president and then that person resigning or, you know, just being, you know, kind of a, you know, whatever, acting president that or Trump has all the power.

Speaker 4 Trump specifically rules that out and he says it's too cute. I don't think the people would like it.
Could he change his mind in the future? Sure. Are there other fucking things that he could do?

Speaker 4 Sure. Are there plenty, millions of things to be worried about with regards to Trump trying to hold on to power illegally? Absolutely.

Speaker 4 But I thought that was noteworthy that he specifically ruled it out.

Speaker 21 Well, he rules out that VP gimmick because he says correctly, I think it's too much of a gimmick. I guess I'm slightly more with the lefty media outlets and the catastrophizing than you.

Speaker 4 But, you know, I'm kind of to your left these days.

Speaker 21 And what can I say? Yeah, you are. I kind of think like he's signaling that I just think he...
could well do it. I mean, who knows what his health will be and stuff like that.

Speaker 21 Bannon saying over and over that he's going to do it. Bannon's pretty plugged in, I think.
So I don't know.

Speaker 21 I think they're laying the groundwork for the option of him doing it A and B, very much laying the groundwork for it not to be simply a clean handoff to Vance or to Vance and or Rubio.

Speaker 21 I mean, all the grift, I was thinking about the

Speaker 21 corruption we were talking about, the grift. It's risky for him to let anyone but the family almost take over.

Speaker 21 This is why the authoritarians don't give up power, why they do dodder on until they're 93 years old or whatever.

Speaker 21 They are nervous deep down that whoever takes over might have once been with them, but maybe he he or she will decide I can get good press by kind of, you know, getting rid of some of the denouncing the corruption of my predecessors.

Speaker 21 That's another thing that happens in authoritarian transitions, right? So I wonder, I took it a little bit more as him signaling that, as he said, I would like to do it and that he might do it.

Speaker 21 I'm not sure how different we really are.

Speaker 21 I'm slightly

Speaker 4 trying to look for a little ray of light. No, it's good.
It's good. You should do that occasionally.

Speaker 4 Tough out there.

Speaker 21 You can do that on Tuesday, on Tuesday through Friday.

Speaker 4 That's not acceptable.

Speaker 21 That's not acceptable on the Monday.

Speaker 4 That's not acceptable on the Monday, you know, on the Monday pie. I know who's on tomorrow, so

Speaker 4 I'm not expecting much optimism. The most compelling counter-argument is the fact that he has acted brazenly illegally in a lot of these corrupt ways.
And why leave power?

Speaker 4 you know why give up power when if you assume that whoever replaces you will target you and while donald trump might have immunity broad immunity, Donald Trump Jr. doesn't.
Eric Trump doesn't.

Speaker 4 And it seems to me like they're involved in some illegal schemes, some illegal corrupt schemes. And I don't know that Donald Trump actually cares about his kids.
So maybe he doesn't care about that.

Speaker 4 But something worth noting. Just trying to say the VP scheme, everybody brings it up.
And I think it's just worth noting. He said he thinks it's too cute.

Speaker 4 I had one other Trump item, but I kind of wanted to end with a laugh. But it's too late.
It's too late. We're here now.
I just, I want to let we're going to do it. We're on Trump on the plane.

Speaker 4 I know people don't like the Trump audio, so you can hit the fast forward 30 seconds, 30 seconds, but I got to do it because

Speaker 4 he was discussing the Democrats. Well, let's just listen to it.

Speaker 34 They have Jasmine Crockett, a low IQ person. They have

Speaker 34 AOC's low IQ. You give her an IQ test.
Have her pass

Speaker 34 the exams that I decided to take when I was at Walter Reed. I took those are very hard uh

Speaker 34 they're really aptitude tests I guess in a certain way, but they're cognitive tests. Uh let AOZ go against Trump.

Speaker 34 Let Jasmine go against Trump. I don't think Jasmine the first couple of questions are easy, a tiger, an elephant, a giraffe, you know.

Speaker 34 When you get up to about five or six, and then when you get up to ten and twenty and twenty-five,

Speaker 34 they couldn't come close to answering any of those questions.

Speaker 4 It's interesting that the Wright wanted to bring back the word retarded when this guy got into the office again, because it's just like, what? The first questions are easy. It's a tiger.

Speaker 4 It's like a three-year-old. Those are three-year-old questions.
Identifying this animal? That's

Speaker 4 one and a half years. That's like your first words.
It's like mama, papa, tiger. Like, what, like, what are you talking about?

Speaker 4 And, and, so that he still thinks that that test that was like tested whether you have serious dementia or not demonstrates that he's smarter than you should note black women, women of color.

Speaker 21 Yeah. Well, I mean, the low IQ thing has just become a term for black or black and Hispanic, you know, minorities.
And

Speaker 21 women, maybe a little more often than men, but I think he maybe uses it about men too. The racism, can I just make this point?

Speaker 21 Not to now that I'm going to, you know, becoming just a left-wing woman to take it. I mean, the racism and misogyny in Trump world is increasingly just the mask is off.

Speaker 21 Don't you find this when you look around at some of the, I mean, it used to be the really fringe types who would just say it.

Speaker 21 Now it's the, then it was the sort of fringy mega types, but they would still sort of hint. Now it's just, at least online, it's not quite with most elected officials yet, but it's pretty astounding.

Speaker 21 And Trump, of course, is not is not hiding anything. AOC is an intelligent woman.
I mean, I think there's very little doubt about that.

Speaker 21 And I say this as someone who would, you know, prefer that she not be the presidential nominee in 2028 of the Democratic Party. So, I mean, it's, well, it's just fake.

Speaker 4 He did it. Elephant.

Speaker 21 Does that appeal? What do you think about it, though?

Speaker 21 Why does he want to do it? I mean, this is an interesting question. Like, is there some part of it? Well, I think the base likes it, I guess, right?

Speaker 4 He likes doing dog bullhorn racism, dog with, you know, it's like not really dog whistle, but he likes doing it because he thinks people like it. He thinks it is a little, makes you a little rascally.

Speaker 4 He likes a little bit of a troublemaker. He likes to do that kind of stuff.
He likes to see

Speaker 4 liberals do outrage, you know, about it and, you know, say, oh, you want, you guys coach your frost. Like, they like doing that.
so I think that's part of it. It's also a power thing

Speaker 4 right it's like how he puffs himself up Yeah, right suffers himself up like these women are stupid, you know this black and brown women are stupid.

Speaker 4 So I think it's that if I was him I would probably try to find some like some other points.

Speaker 4 There are other arguments that he could make and he made a lot of money in his life and there are other things you could turn to besides the test where he was correctly able to identify the outline of an elephant.

Speaker 21 That is kind of amazing.

Speaker 4 He's really, really proud of himself for that. It's like, you can see it.

Speaker 4 It is childlike in a sense of not most children are not evil and mean and cruel like him, but like you sense that like pride of a child who does something for the first time very well.

Speaker 4 It's like, Papa, Papa, look at what I did. Anyway.

Speaker 11 Get ready for Malice, a twisted new drama starring Jack Whitehall, David DeCovney, and Carice Van Houghton.

Speaker 13 Jack Whitehall plays Adam, a charming manny infiltrates the wealthy Tanner family with a hidden motive to destroy them.

Speaker 16 This edge-of-your-seat revenge thriller unravels a deliciously dark mystery in a world full of wealth, secrets, and betrayal.

Speaker 18 Malice will constantly keep you on your toes.

Speaker 8 Why is Adam after the Tanner family?

Speaker 15 What lengths will he go to?

Speaker 19 One thing's for sure: the past never stays buried, so keep your enemies close.

Speaker 12 Watch Malice, all episodes episodes now streaming exclusively on Prime Video.

Speaker 24 We know no one's journey is the same.

Speaker 25 That's why Delta Sky Miles lets you do it your way.

Speaker 26 From earning miles on reloads for coffee runs, shopping, and things you do every day, to connecting you to new places and experiences, a Sky Miles membership fits into your lifestyle, letting you do more of what makes you, you.

Speaker 30 It's more than travel.

Speaker 31 It's the membership that flies, dines, streams, rides, and arrives with you.

Speaker 32 Every great journey deserves a great story.

Speaker 26 And when you have a membership that's as unique as you are, there's no telling how your story will unfold or where that journey will take you next.

Speaker 32 Skymiles is the membership that will be here for all your big and small moments. The membership that's there for every solo adventure or family trip.

Speaker 30 The membership that comes with the power of partnership from brands you love.

Speaker 32 The membership that moves with you.

Speaker 26 you.

Speaker 25 Learn more at delta.com/slash skymiles.

Speaker 4 Mark Kirtling, I want one more thing from you, and then we'll let you go. Is in the bulwark this morning on

Speaker 4 what's happened in the Caribbean.

Speaker 4 And he writes, Why are we moving one of America's rarest and most capable instruments of military power from a theater of genuine danger to one of political ambiguity?

Speaker 4 Because we've talked about Howie the Gerald Ford aircraft carrier, super carrier now coming to the Caribbean to like chase these allegedly drug boats. It's pretty striking.
And

Speaker 4 it all comes in

Speaker 4 around

Speaker 4 these other moves to make it seem like they're pretty serious potentially about some sort of effort in Venezuela.

Speaker 4 In addition to the fact that Trump, last week, I guess it was, just talk when he was asked by Phil Wegman at a press conference about what this, and he's just like, I just want to kill him.

Speaker 4 We're just going to kill him. How about that? If they were trying to bring drugs, we're going to kill them.

Speaker 21 I mean, I think Mark Eritlinger's piece is very good. It really shows how kind of crazy, if you're a serious military leader, as he is, you know, how this just seems ridiculous posturing.

Speaker 21 And he explains why that's the case and why it's not the right, it's not what you need to have in that area.

Speaker 21 And it is taking real assets away from great power competition areas or Middle East type areas where you might want to have a giant aircraft carrier that can, you know, which 80 sorties, I think, I believe it is, can be flown kind of quickly and at one time against Iran or whatever.

Speaker 21 But, you know, he doesn't, honestly, Mark doesn't consider, well, maybe we really are going to go to war with Venezuela.

Speaker 21 I mean, I just, reading the piece, I kind of thought to myself, Mark is such a sane person that even he thinks this is foolish posturing. And I'm not going to put words in Mark's mouth.

Speaker 21 He's perfectly capable of imagining the other alternative too, but that he doesn't quite dwell on the fact that maybe he's planning a massive bombing or large bombing campaign against Venezuela.

Speaker 21 And maybe he thinks that's the predicates of getting rid of Maduro and stuff.

Speaker 21 I discounted that. I just think Trump isn't, he does know the wars are tough to pull off if you're a president, and they often hurt presidents who get involved in them.

Speaker 21 And he's been pretty cautious in that direction.

Speaker 21 He loves bowing up innocent, you know, little boats that can't fight back with people on them, some of whom may be connected to drugs, some of whom are innocent fishermen. But

Speaker 21 I don't know. What do you think? Is it possible? I think I've underrated the possibility that he's actually going to launch major

Speaker 4 airstrikes against Venezuela.

Speaker 21 Yeah,

Speaker 21 what is the Maya Angelou quote? If they do this, if they show that they're going to do this, just believe they're going to do it.

Speaker 4 I'm kind of getting there on this you know look i have no prediction i'm like you i think it's crazy and he he has shown an unwillingness to do this you mentioned before in other areas that he doesn't doesn't want to be the war president which is one of the great gifts that we have frankly that he doesn't it could be the inverse where we have a 12-year-old that thinks that's like the best way to demonstrate how tough he is is to invade lots of people.

Speaker 4 So there's that. And just the part that like Venezuela is such an absurd choice.
It's just not a threat in any way to us. There's oil there.

Speaker 4 So, but he hasn't really blurted out the, I want to take their oil thing, which that could be a Trump thing. You remember that he had talked about that during Iraq? So I don't know.

Speaker 4 All I know is that they're doing the things that you would do if you were going to start a major campaign in Venezuela. So we'll see.
One last thing. I forgot to mention.

Speaker 4 When we were talking about Bannon, last week I said that his interview where Bannon was talking about 2028 was in The Guardian. It was in The Economist.

Speaker 4 I should shout out the Economist folks that were doing that interview. And the other thing I did in that monologue that has turned out to not be wrong, but the lay of the land has changed.

Speaker 4 I was being, I was talking about there was some optimistic clearance on redistricting. Virginia acting, Colorado looking to act in 2028.

Speaker 4 That doesn't help that much for 2026, but Virginia potentially ready. You can get three more seats out of Virginia, I think, really pretty easily if you look at those maps.

Speaker 4 And then there were two other, you know, smaller issues, but if this thing ends up being on the margins, the stuff matters, where Indiana was originally looking to redistrict, they're going to squeeze out block a seat, a Democratic seat, just one seat.

Speaker 4 Like Mike Pence talked people off the ledge behind the scenes. It seems like now Mike Braun, the governor, is going back at it.
So Indiana's back on the table.

Speaker 4 And then Illinois, this was from Lauren Egan's reporting. Over the weekend for us, I just need to read this because it's so crazy.

Speaker 4 This is the state senator Willie Preston, the Senate chair of the Illinois Black Legislative Caucus.

Speaker 4 There's no world where I could accept a loss of black representation, certainly not a voluntary gift of black representation, so that the Democratic Party could win.

Speaker 4 This is crazy talk, like letting identity politics get in the way of this here. When I had Pritzker on, I was trying to understand what he was talking about.

Speaker 4 There's some worry that some of these districts that are majority black in Illinois go from being like Democratic plus 20 to Democratic plus 10.

Speaker 4 So conceivably at some point, one of those black black legislators might be in more of a swing district than they had previously been in. And so conceivably they could lose that seat at some point.

Speaker 4 The times are too serious for this type of stuff. And if Illinois, which has already gerrymandered quite a lot, so they can probably only squeeze out one seat, unlike Virginia.

Speaker 4 If Illinois can do something that would likely gain the Democrats a seat in November of next year, they need to do it. Like the difference between

Speaker 21 Hakeem Jeffrey, so I should notice a black guy, being Speaker of the House next year and Mike Johnson is is pretty dramatic when it comes to the future of the country so anyway i don't know if you have any final thoughts on that no i agree i mean i guess on the slightly optimistic side this thing is hard to game out i saw some study quote study but i'm genuinely sort of pretty serious attempt to game this out if dems could win the generic by eight then all these republican redistricting issues become what do they call it dummy uh dummy manders dummy manders because you've suddenly created a lot of instead of wasting quote wasting votes in an r plus 20 seat you've created a lot of R plus eight seats.

Speaker 21 And if the whole country goes D plus eight, you've suddenly created a lot of Democratic narrow victory.

Speaker 4 Eight is a lot, though.

Speaker 21 It is a lot, yeah.

Speaker 4 It's a lot.

Speaker 21 It's a big midterm wave. It's 2018, I think, was eight.

Speaker 4 Yeah, look at that. Bill Crystal nailed it.

Speaker 21 It was eight. Got to air that, air that's eight.
2018 was eight.

Speaker 4 We're going to air that.

Speaker 4 2018 was eight.

Speaker 4 I don't know. I'm not feeling 2018-y quite yet, but we'll see.
We'll see how that's going to be.

Speaker 4 I think people were pretty surprised by Trump Trump last time. And so I think we're in a little bit of a different moment.
But okay, good. So a little mix for us.

Speaker 4 Bill Crystal, negative about Trump running as a third turn and becoming a dictator, optimistic about how the gerrymandering might backfire on

Speaker 4 the Republicans in the midterms. That's what we like here, okay? We don't, you know, you can't be predictable.
You got to just, you know, tell people where you're at. And on some things, optimistic.

Speaker 4 On the end of American democracy, kind of negative. Bill Crystal, I appreciate you very much.

Speaker 21 Thank you, Chip.

Speaker 4 Everybody else, we'll be back here tomorrow for another edition of the podcast. See y'all then.
Peace.

Speaker 4 Welcome, this is a farmhouse. We have cluster flies alas,

Speaker 4 and this time of year

Speaker 4 is bad.

Speaker 4 We are so very sorry.

Speaker 4 There is little we can do

Speaker 4 but swap them.

Speaker 4 She didn't beg, oh not enough.

Speaker 34 She didn't stand when things got tough.

Speaker 34 I told the lie, she got mad.

Speaker 34 She wasn't there when things got bad.

Speaker 34 I never ever saw the northern lights.

Speaker 34 I never really heard of cluster flies.

Speaker 34 Never ever saw the stars so bright.

Speaker 34 In the promise, things will be alright.

Speaker 34 I never ever saw the northern lights.

Speaker 34 I never really heard of cluster flies.

Speaker 34 Never ever saw the stars so bright.

Speaker 34 In the promise, things will be alright, alright.

Speaker 34 Woke this morning to the stinging lash.

Speaker 34 Every man rise from the ash.

Speaker 34 Each betrayal begins with trust.

Speaker 34 Every man returns to dust. I never ever saw the dawn lights.

Speaker 34 I never really heard a cluster flies.

Speaker 34 Never ever saw the stars so bright.

Speaker 34 In the front, I stays will be alright.

Speaker 34 I never ever saw the doors and lights.

Speaker 34 I never really heard a cluster flies.

Speaker 34 Never ever saw the stars so bright.

Speaker 34 In the farm, I stays will be alright.

Speaker 4 The Bullard Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.

Speaker 35 Gun violence isn't just a policy issue. It's personal.
Every day in America, 125 people are shot and killed. For too many, it's left a mark.
And for all of us, it's a crisis we can do something about.

Speaker 35 Every Town for Gun Safety Action Fund is the largest gun violence prevention organization in the U.S. We've helped pass life-saving laws and built a nationwide grassroots movement.

Speaker 13 You believe in progress.

Speaker 35 So do we. This is your moment to act.
Go to everytown.org and donate today. Together, let's build a future free from gun violence.
Everytown.org.

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