Ben Rhodes: Is Trump Stumbling into a Wider War?

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We say the battle for American identity was released earlier this year. It's been roads. Hey, Jim, good to see you. It's good to see you as well yesterday at the beginning in this little intro. I said the Trump of the kind of quiet this week, so I'd see him on.

We did a lot of silly stuff. By the time the show aired, he was already renaming lakes again. I don't even know that it's worth talking about it.

He's such a loser and it's so embarrassing.

“But that did happen between the taping and the airing yesterday.”

The Canadians have the former head of the Bank of England and Bank of Canada who's like methodically and rigorously in his own hand. Probably going through the terrorist that he's going to reimpose on us and Trump with his own hand is just drawing on lakes and renaming things as usual. Yeah, expanding the area of the hurricane. Yeah, I liked how Carnegie really mocked us with the use of the word hydronyms in his statement. Trump is obsessed with hydronyms.

And I was like, all right, well, Trump certainly doesn't know that word. I had to Google it. It's good. It's good usage.

You get to go to the source.

Yeah. Mark Carney is like a walk in the source, man. We're not in fighting some of our weight class in the trade war here. We've a bunch of domestic politics talk about at the end on your sub-stack notes on the stories we tell. You've had two good ones in the last two weeks that touch on things that affect me, resistance one discourse, and hatred of anus canter.

So we will get more of those things to be extra. But I got to start with foreign policy, you know, your expertise. I guess we'll tie this end of skater. I want to do the Brian win horse thing about connecting dots on a couple of stories I've been reading in the news. And since you actually have sources, you talk to him wondering what you think about all this.

So see, I direct your visits Moscow. The Wall Street Journal report said depletion of our weapon stocks in the Iran war could be motivating Putin to consider making a move on NATO. The NATO Secretary General has a meeting with U.S. Under Secretary Elbridge Colby, just a little unusual. U.S. intel, we've seen these reports for a while now.

We're warning Eastern European countries about Russia plans to test NATO. There was a leak of a letter that three Baltic commissioners sent to the EU president about a deteriorating security environment. And increased frequency of airspace violations in the Baltics. And the Sun, tabloid, has Kremlin insider sharing Putin. It was prepared to drop a tactical nuke.

So, you know, I'm tying like Albridge and Ratcliffe in the warnings. And it feels kind of like the lead up to the Ukraine war. When a lot of people are not taking that seriously and are intel people are like no really. Like this is happening. I don't know. What do you think about all that?

Yeah, and I've been talking to people in Europe and some of the people kind of worked on these types of things over the last decade.

“And I think there is a feeling that there's rising concern in the Russia could do something in Europe.”

That could take different forms. One is like a direct attack on European soil targeting places where they manufacture, you know, some of the drones and rockets that are going deep into Russia. The, you know, the Russian idea being, okay, if you're giving them the weapons that are hitting, you know, places like Moscow and, you know, St. Petersburg, then we have a right to attack the factory and Germany that is producing that. There's lesser things they could do that they've been doing sabotage operations like there've been fires said in Europe.

There've been things blowing up in Europe with drones with the German air base. Yeah, drones just showing up. They could also just begin a more aggressive version of what they did in Ukraine in one of the Baltic states of Moldova.

I'll senseably for Moldova.

“You had NATO undertaking kind of military exercises to kind of show, you know, some deterrence, but yeah, I think it is a tenuous time.”

And there is a feeling that is Russia's kind of on the back foot here because of the Ukrainian drone capability. That one way they might lash out is by, you know, trying to impose a cost on Europe and test whether their NATO lines can respond to it.

I'm going to flashbacks of how we got here and there's a really embarrassing, actually a story from March about the Trump's administration's last lack of preparations.

I want to talk about, but like, even though I'm back to Biden, as you sit here now, like, does it feel like we were outlaying, you know, World War III concerns and underway, how much we could have been helping Ukraine, you know, kind of given where we are now. And it seems like we might be walking in the, I mean, now World War III, and like the nuclear sense, but like, you know, an increasingly globalized conflict anyway. Yeah, I worry about two things, the increasing globalized conflict, right? The way in which this comes together with the warne Iran, the closer collaboration between Russia, China and North Korea, Iran, as against, you know, the United States and Europe.

I also get more about something that doesn't, like, look like World War III, but there's just this kind of creeping violence into Europe, you know, like more and more of these sabotage things, drone strikes, cyber attacks, the reprisals on Russia, and it's not right to tactical nukes, but we're just learning to live with more and more violence and conflict. So on this one, as someone has been willing, no to second guess the Biden administration on things, they had a tough, fucking problem here. I think in retrospect, and again, I say this, like with empathy that this is not easy to deal with at the time.

The kind of two paths that might have been able to have been taken, like, one is kind of kind of prime minister question, hey, we're not that concerned that Putin's actually will use nuclear weapons and we're really going to start pouring more and more weapons in as fast as possible to give the Ukraine's in the bench. There is frankly, if you look at the contours of the front line, it's not that dissimilar from where it was pretty early on in the war, like after the Ukrainian counter offensive in 2023, and so the other road not taken might have been like what would it have looked like, and it might not have worked.

I kind of really drive towards a negotiated settlement earlier, like beginning in like 2023. Now the Ukrainians didn't necessarily want that, but the reality is, but concerns me, is it where this thing ends up is probably not going to be that dissimilar from where it could have ended up if somehow you've been able to do that then and meanwhile a lot of people have died.

I'm interested in a negotiated settlement path while I'm intrigued by the weapons.

I hear you on the weapons path. The national security people, I've been in all these meetings, you tend to take the middle option. That's like anything else, like back when I was in PR, and you had a client, you're like, we're going to give you a crazy option or like a very conservative option. So we've been kind of living with the middle option for years now, and the Ukrainians, by the way, have broken out of that, because their drone manufacturing basically is the more like aggressive weapons option, and they're actually having some success with that to your point.

“So I think that that does bear some scrutiny, but you know, we'll see where it goes.”

So I've passed on taking, this is the aforementioned March story about drones. This is my guy Mark Caputo that broke this Ukrainian officials tried to sell the U.S. their battle prove in technology for downing Iranian-made drones. They made a PowerPoint presentation showing how it could protect American forces in their allies in the Middle East war, Trump administration dismissed the Ukrainians only to eventually reverse course a little while ago. Like that, that is a mist that has like some like a ton of implications, actually.

It has a ton of implications, because the first point is, and you know, and I've been talking about this endlessly, but like everybody you talk to in the Middle East is like the damage to these U.S. bases and facilities far worse, and you know, or being told, right? I mean, we took some hits, we might not have taken, have we moved more aggressively to adapt this Ukrainian technology.

“I think the other important lesson going forward there is like you innovate on the battlefield. The Ukrainians have been in it for years, and they've made breakthroughs in both offensive drone technology and defenses.”

And my sense to him is that at the same time that the Pentagon is shuffling massive contracts at the door to like Don Jr's drone company. And we're building like the world's most expensive drones. What the Ukrainians and the Iranians have shown is that like you can make pretty cheap Jones in your garage that are like more effective.

And so I do think that there's a, you know, the hippie in me, but who also realizes natural skirties necessary is like, hey, we could probably say some money on the defense budget by, you know, embracing some of the technologies that the Ukrainians have innovated on the battlefield rather than, you know, giving Don Jr a blunt check. A lot of talk from the Silicon Valley guys, you know, it's like Palmer lucky that Andrewl guy talking how great that they're going to do to help us militarily. I'd bunch with him once he picked his nose and ate it and so maybe that should have been a warning.

Maybe these guys weren't as good as as they seem.

“But yeah, what is clear is Ukrainians are the best in the world at this right now. And like this gets the future of Ukraine's defense spot. They need this like on the back end of the war as they're part of their deterrence, right?”

And we'd be dumb, not. I mean, I assume that Trump, like, but you know, he just doesn't like Ukraine. So he's probably like, oh, good. I'm going to get out of here with this kind of technology, you know, and that that's a big miss. Yeah, and now this is impacting kind of the nexus of all this, right? I mean, you know, who knows Russia. The Iranian president and Putin are being next week at the Shanghai cooperation organization Summit in Kurdistan. They're talking about nuclear energy production and sharing. But who the hell knows when else they're talking about. And I do think that like the depletion of our patriots is kind of informing like, you know, different tactical options for both Russia and Iran and both, you know, in both wars.

That were entangled in. Yeah. And, you know, I mean, on the far end of risk potentially Taiwan, right? I mean, because, you know, the window that people who worry about Taiwan worry about is the second half of the Trump administration, right, when the US is probably a low point in terms of global standing. Yeah, distracted by nearly, yeah, God willing, seriously, allies are divided in terms of your administration at 29. You know, but we maybe we haven't even been able to see the bottom for a hair really.

“Yeah, that's a good point. So yeah, I mean, it's never good at a time of heightened global conflict in the act of wars to be running out of munitions, particularly defensive ones that you need to protect your allies.”

We talked about this a couple of times ago, you're on and you're your previous book after the fall. And, you know, a lot of that is like reflective of us and, you know, kind of the mistakes of the American-led world order and things we could have done differently.

But another part of it is like fears of what a different-led world order would look like and why it's so important that we do better.

And as we're sitting here now, and you wrote that what eight years ago, it's been a long time, seven or eight years ago, and we're sitting here now and they're like prospect of a China-led world order is feeling even more likely than it did when you wrote that book. And I'm just kind of curious kind of how you see sort of the China enterprise that stands today.

“I think it is more likely because their strategy for Trump has been to kind of punch him back in the face when he picks on then, but meanwhile, like kind of quietly go about building their own parallel world order.”

And so as Trump is, you know, pissing everybody off with his tariffs, the Chinese are there to say, hey look, you know, you may not like the terms of your deals with us, but at least you know what the terms are and they don't change. You know, Mark Carney had this line that the US now makes deals in pencil not pen. The Chinese make deals in pen and guess where Mark Carney's going, he's going to go to China. That's one thing, the AI of it all, like the US is building the most expensive AI in the world, we've got clawed, we've got, you know, chat GPT.

But what most countries want is like cheaper open source models that can create efficiencies, robots to do shit, you know, industrial efficiencies, and I think if we're going to look up in a couple years and there might be these giant IPOs for. You know, anthropic and open-eye, but meanwhile, most of the world could be running on Chinese AI. And in meanwhile, they're kind of parallel institutions, they're kind of belt road initiative institutions are just kind of spreading out.

They're getting pretty almost near dominance on certain critical minerals.

Trump despite all is talk about that is not really done anything about it. So, yeah, I think we're beginning to see the outlines of not a Chinese dominated one, but let's just say in a fractured world order a place where the Chinese are potentially in a stronger way. Potentially in a stronger position than the United States and everything Trump is doing. It's literally just driving countries into the arms of the Chinese. And in the long run, Tim, like, and the dollars reserve currency is one of the ultimate targets of the Chinese.

And they don't want to get there tomorrow because it'd be too disruptive, but, you know, the moment in which the world starts moving away from the dollar, our standard of living becomes impossible. And it's kind of funny, it's funny to go back to think six months ago in the Iran War started, some of the right wing hawks that you're seeing this like galaxy brain, Twitter threads.

That doesn't look very good.

Let's say thought of this kind of board game where we were going to like take the Iranian oil somehow and take it away from the Chinese. And we were like bombing like railroads that the Chinese uses part of the belt road initiative, but losing sight of the fact that that's not the world works. You don't just like bomb a country and then get all of its oil, you know. And the underlying fear caused by the United States being this bull on a Chinese shop and doing something like they run more confirms exactly what the Chinese have been saying about us for a very long time.

Look at Kuwait, for example, like this is just one example of this week I was reading a story about how Kuwait has had very good feelings about the United States, given the way that we came to their defense when Saddam invaded them Gulf War one. But like how are things looking right now around targeting their civilian infrastructure, they're targeting their water to salination plants, energy installations, and they're looking around and like these US bases here helping us are making us less safe.

“So two things at point two, because you kind of want to look at the world's kind of swing states, right?”

And the Gulf states are the old ones who shot count because of the Gulf.

Yeah, they literally are the, you know, because they've got, they're in a cash port world, they have tons of cash, they obviously have tons of natural resources. And they've kind of been on our side, but like the UAE, the Saudis, like they've played with the Chinese and a bunch of stuff. And look, you're right, it's not just that the bases, you know, don't make them safer, the bases are endangering them. They're being attacked because they host US bases. And that could lead them on the back end of this war to make some pretty fundamental choices about who they want to be aligned with.

And at least wanting to hedge against reliance news. Let's, what about South Korea? Like in the middle of a war, which the United States yanked away the sad missile defense system.

It's like the most important missile defense system for the South Koreans in a potential conflict.

He then just decides to reignite his love of unrequited love affair with Kim Jong-un, who no longer even writes love letters. He just sends troops to Ukraine to fight with Putin. And he's canceling militar exercises. What does South Korea is like, you know what? We're just going to have to kind of deal with the Chinese, like we don't like it, but we got to know the choice.

Europe. Same thing like on the tech issues, right? There's a lot of concern in Europe about being overly reliant on American tech because what if Trump comes along and just switches it off. We can invade Greenland. And so you're hearing about digital sovereignty, but also that could lead to the Europeans being like, "Well, let's just buy the cheap Chinese AI." And a few years ago, the U.S. would have said, "Don't do that," you know, just like, we said, "Don't use Huawei."

I don't know that those are given carry a lot of water anymore. What worries do you have? Some of your lefty pals sometimes I see on TikTok are like, "Well, who can? Let's Chinese world orders fine."

“Like maybe we should just maybe it's better even, you know?”

Like what fears would you have about like a continuing on this trajectory? Well, obviously their political system is one in which, you know, you want to talk about a master rail in state. Yeah, I want to be clear when I say lefty, sometimes the listeners get confused about all the way and go these days because liberal, you know, we're changing up the words, I know liberal now, you know? I'm talking about like the far edge, the anti-America, like a little corner of the left. I mean, I guess to be fair, like, you know, in some regards, like the Chinese have not gone around starting wars, right?

But at the same time, like their political model is one of, you know, complete total control, complete mass surveillance, that's already built there. And, you know, essentially, the places that have become kind of under Chinese dominance have not benefited from it. They get into debt traps, like they become kind of basal states of like a different empire, you know? And, you know, like, you need somebody to help create collective action to solve problems.

“And even from a left standpoint, like that includes climate change, right, and among other things, where the Chinese are kind of just trying to coordinate and dominate clean energy sectors, right?”

Um, my argument to the left as someone who's like, very sympathetic to a lot of their critics, American Bar policy, makes a lot of those critiques myself, is it would still be better. There's this presumption that the United States can do nothing right in the world, and therefore we should just kind of close up shop. I'm sympathetic to some of that. There's a lot we should just stop doing, like, dumb wars, and I think we're, we don't need a truly enough dollar, you know, defense budget and all the rest of it.

But I would still rather than the United States tried to do good things in the world, it would be better. And, and where I think we are Tim is like, we're not going back to something we run. We need to negotiate the new terms of the world order, like the United States, China, a whole bunch of other countries. We should be entering an era of negotiation about what comes next, because if it's a competition for who's going to dominate, either the US or China or Reckonball Russia, that's kind of a recipe for more conflict, and let's just say, "Let's go there."

The other thing impacting the swing states that you mentioned in the Middle East is the Israel relationship. Obviously, that is impacting the swing states here in America too.

“I want to talk to you a bunch about the Democratic side of this, but there's just this one story that Kabai is kind of, I think, reflective of the political situation that Israel is facing here on the Republican side as well.”

Responsible statecraft had this. The Israeli government is running advertisements on the Ted Cruz podcast, a competitor of yours in mind, behind both of ours in the rankings, I think, but he does have another job. And, Cruz's podcast, we don't have a FEC really anymore, and so I don't know who would look into this, but Cruz podcast has a strange licensing deal with I-Hart, where revenue associated with the advertising sales goes to Cruz's Truth and Courage Pack,

which supports his political endeavors. The company is given at least 1.7 million in digital revenue to Truth and Courage Pack since 2023, so the Israeli government is running advertisements.

It does feel like a foreign government is giving money to the pack. Yeah, well, first of all, Truth and Courage, those words you normally associate with Ted Cruz. Well, he did have the courage to go on to talk to Carlson's podcast. Yeah, that's true. I don't know about truth. It's the last time he exhibited some courage.

He had the courage, probably not either, you know, fleeing for Mexico.

Yeah, I don't know. Look, there's a lot of ways to think about Israel, obviously, today.

“Like one simple thing I would suggest to people is just remember it is a foreign country, like it's not like an appendage of us.”

And so foreign countries generally should not be putting money into the packs of American politicians. When they are doing that, they are usually going to want something in return for that kind of investment. You know, I mean, part of what my argument is on Israel has just been, is like, if we just treated Israel like another country, a lot would change. Like, you know, in terms of our militaries, is in terms of stuff like this. And at the same time, like part of what's in front of me about this kind of stuff, Tim, is it's like, if you point out,

I mean, I remember I wrote a piece of the times, and I took some shots at a pack for how they try to use money to influence politics. And they're like, well, you can't say that. That's a trope. Like, you're raising money and spending in campaigns to get an outcome. I'm not suggesting that that's- I'll say, well, it's Americans. It's not really foreign. And so you're advancing this kind of conspiracy. And it's like, well, but when I've been starting talking about this way, I've been like, well, I'm left part Lebanese.

My mother's sandwich Lebanese. I'm like, if there's a Lebanese American pack, like spending $30 million in a primary race to support a candidate that was on the opposite side of the Israel Lebanon conflict, I think people would be like, this is pretty strange. Like, even if it was American Lebanese, that we're spending like that much money, right there. Absolutely, it's an American pack, but in the same- there are a lot- like, I don't like money in politics generally. Like, I don't like how fossil fuel companies spend money in American politics. Like it's not just a pack, but like, it's also like not the best strategy for them.

Like, I don't think they have a problem with like the Ted Cruz podcast listenership. Like, I keep hearing about this bonded Israeli PR campaign, and if the PR campaign involves like buying ad space on, you know, Ted Cruz podcasts, I'm not sure that's where they have a problem, you know.

“No, I think this has been a backfire, obviously, like a big backfire from people that would not really have cared one way or the other.”

Again, I think that they're particularly on the left, people who are super engaged, you know, who maybe just have generally good feelings about Israel and feel like obviously the Jewish state, I think there should be a Jewish state, and all that. And then they're like, wait a minute, but I live in Michigan, like, why is there so much money coming into this race? Especially after, you know, how we've seen Israel conduct themselves in Gaza and the West Bank is just like, it feels out of whack. It's having the effect of having people, you know, have it like a negative backlash effect rather than a persuasive effect.

I think it is because people notice when you spend $30 million on ads, you know, and and so the first thing is it's just feeding the backlash, like because it's get money out of politics and we're uncomfortable with this and like, you know. But the other thing I'd say, Tim, is that, you know, people sometimes who are more pro-Israel will say, why is that dual talk and so much about Israel?

Like, at those running on Medicare for all, if someone comes in with $30 million, they're the ones that are making the race about, you know, like a witness test on Israel. It's not a dual, right?

You can't simultaneously say, like, we don't like how much American politics and Democratic politics in particular is becoming about this one issue. At the same time that you're then getting into all these Democratic primaries and pouring all this money in to, you know, and they're not obviously advertising my Israel because they know that Democratic voters don't agree with them, but it's not like we don't know where the money's coming from, right?

Like, even a Michigan, like, it's kind of strange, like Hillary Schulton's Congresswoman, you know, talking about how she would rather not be a Democrat if Democrats are not going to support fully the state of Israel and they're in everything they do.

“I'm going to say this weird, misive to Politico earlier this week after she lost, where she was like, my critics came at me in very personal and anti Zionist levels.”

They're talking about this. It's like a fundamental critique of Abdul and on an issue, like, whether it's a disconnect between where they are in one of the bases, like maybe you think maybe some of our listeners think that's bad, or, you know, maybe they're on, you know, Schulton and Steven's a side of that dispute, but like, just if you just look at the numbers, like the, they're like,

they're like way more democratic politicians who are in the Steven Schulton camp and way more democratic voters who are in the Abdul Okay. That's just a reality.

My point about this is that like, if any poll you look at, you're up to kind of 70% or more of Democrats who want to fundamentally, they don't want to provide assistance to these really government. They believe it more crimes are committed in Gaza, and, like, you're not going to just kind of make that go away and stamp that out. Like, because there's another piece of this that I think is important for Democrats, as every now and then they try some new whack-a-mole strategy to make just make this go away.

And so recently it's been the kind of coordinated statements against the Sun Piker and, you know, Jared Mosquitz, the most pro is real member of the Democratic caucus being put in charge of a subcommittee responsible for Middle East policy, you know, not a subtle move by the Democratic leadership there. Another problem with this team, and again, listeners who, you know, don't agree with my views on Israel, the one thing I would ask them is it, this isn't just like over because Gaza, you had Gaza, then you had to warn Iran that, again, if you have your eyes open, you know that BB Netanyahu was part of, not entirely responsible for a part of persuading Donald Trump to do that.

But that's what I was going to get at. This isn't going to get better. Like, look at the West Bank, look at what's happening. Like, that's going to continue to happen. Like, everything that the Israeli government says and is doing suggests, they're just going to continue to take more and more of the West Bank. There's going to continue to be these violent attacks by Israeli settlers on Palestinians. Like, that's going to keep coming. Let's just think in terms of election cycles. The next two years, it's not like Israel is going to swing back to get Zach Rabin here and we can all just get it on with things. And so the people who look like they don't understand what's happening are the Democratic establishment politicians who are just trying to kind of keep this at arms length and make it go away.

“And I think there's a lot of it will from 2024 when Democrats are told to shut up and fall in line because how many times are we going to be told to do that?”

Yeah, I've said this before, but it's just a really big bone and I especially had it this week. I get especially frustrated with the idea that like, you know, the Piker discourse, whatever.

Obviously, he says a lot of things that I found gross the extreme 10 hours a day and we disagree with a bunch of stuff. I mean, old tweet of his where he is talking about how much he loved Bashar Assad. It's like me and boss on disagree with a lot, but it's good again. Yeah, he's a supporter of of of a doly's out of dual and like and if your concerns are about antisemitism and you like bring back Nazi illusions. So you're okay. Well, like the current government is like was running a foreign Gulag, like a literal Gulag based on that they sent people there based on the call of their skin and dead tattoos.

“Like that's I wasn't a concentration camp, but like, you know, it was on the way where we were sending people there, you know, just based on there.”

And we have these detention centers running out like the Iranian professor I've been talking about that we have and and did lead didn't do anything is a green card holder. We're holding an internment camp. And like, does Mike Rogers not have to answer for it's crazy. Okay, I don't even have Mike Rogers even talked about that. It's like if you're concerned about this and like, you know, creeping fascism and racism and putting people on camp space on their race, like this, like Mike Rogers doesn't have to talk about the al Salvador Gulag is anyone asked about it.

I've doels been asked about it on piker like a thousand times. It's like, okay, ask about that. But like why that frustrates me when people say that they're like concerned about the human right side of this and and like my Rogers gets this free pass from media or commentators act.

Yeah, let me add another one, which is like I remember being in Munich right in 2025 and JD Vance comes to the Munich security conference and gives us speech, you know, basically endorsing the AFD.

I am suggesting like the discordance between a twitch streamer saying things at times trigger people and the vice president of the United States flying to Germany and telling them they need to be nicer to their Nazis.

“Yeah, where is my Rogers on that? Like what is my Rogers the pro AFD Nazi party? I think yes.”

Because he doesn't criticize and I think part of this is like, okay, well, we're not even going to ask the Republicans because like the Democrats are having this.

I think in some way, well, counterproductive politically, but healthy is part of an ordinance on a minimum counterproductive. Yeah, like extremely counterproductive politically, but I kind of healthy is like an organism to like have people say what they really think. Like there is no disagreement. Like Trump says fascist mass thugs in the streets and we have camps and we're supporting the fascist governments in other countries. And I think my Rogers, everybody is on board. Like there's no critique being offered from within their coalition.

There's no critique.

I guess actually that's actually there's one critique. There's like the Tucker side of the party don't seem to be more anti-Semitic.

Actually, it's the only critique. But the scale of the outrage about his son, Piker, is so much greater than JD Vance and AFD, you know, that we have people saying, we're saying people, the good logs. Let me put this way. Even if you don't agree, like I've been on his son, Hassan stream. I don't agree with a lot of stuff. He says actually, and I, but I don't think he's any sunlight. But let's put that aside. Let's say you disagree with me about that.

There's not even a crack open of the door from people who have these views that we need to kind of pay attention to young people here. Like the Democrats need young voters to win elections, to knock on doors. Young voters have been telling you for years that this is a very important issue to them.

“And it's a gateway to them trusting you. It's not just about Israel. It's like, if I'm feeling gas lit on this issue, well how am I going to trust that you actually are going to fight to lower prices?”

Like this is what mum Donnie figured out that if he showed that he would stand up to the party establishment on Israel, like that guy seems like he's got some balls. Like maybe he actually will try to bring free child care in like lower prices, right? And so the way these statements are put out, the way that this issue is treated, it's not even like they're just trying to disaggregate and say, like hey can we just like isolate some of this more extreme rhetoric that we don't like it's more just like shut up, right?

And if you listen to a soundpiker, like your bad person, you know? Well like millions of people listen to a soundpiker. We have to be doing addition here, not subtraction. Like I'm a big ten guy like Jared Mosquitz has a place in the Democratic Party. I don't agree with them. But so should a soundpiker's listeners like what are we doing here like when you when we've been losing like we've been losing we shouldn't be like trying to like kick people off the island. Here's the person. When they represent, when they represent, the majority of you have Democrats. We're telling what 70% of Democrats think war crimes are committed. Does that mean we went 70% of Democrats to stay home in November?

No, I, I obviously agree with you. But here's the push fact that I thought was reasonable, it's from that of glaciers.

“Here at this, I think people who want pro Israel Democrats to get to yes with a dual-sad should consider chilling out about this.”

When he blinks to a bunch of your tweets that you've been sending about Moscow ads and the piker and about all this stuff. His case is basically, okay, heard that like Democrats need to get to these young voters, but Democrats also need to get to pro Israel, moderate voters who who who who were important and I was a slot in winning in 2024 and like a bill else I had in his friends like don't seem to be like caring that much about that.

It's a fair point except we're always the ones who were told to chill out about like like again 2024 happened.

The uncommitted movement people were frozen out that there was no Palestinian American speaker at the DNC, like we were told hey be quiet, you know, this is a problem. And everybody could say that though, I mean that like a moderate Joe Manchin damn or John Bell Edwards, then we could say we're never represented, you know, I think everybody could also say that like we're always told to chill out and be the good sport. My point would be that like people really do care about this issue because they don't want to provide weapons they're going to use to commit war crimes or to annex a West Bank and it's politics.

What is the strategy for actually changing the party's position and at a certain point like you can't change the party's position. That's fine, so that's a critique of you and that's a fair defense of you. I've told those running a campaign to be like, yes, it does still feel to me, I don't know, just as an observer, I'm not living in Michigan, so it's possible as ads on that saying, but just as an observer of this and earned media and social media. My graduate really seems like he's working very hard to get to the moderate elicis lock and voters that he needs to win.

And I've told like that and seemed like he's working that hard to get to those voters right now.

One of the things I'm trying to do in the world is to shift the party on this issue, right?

Adulas to win a Michigan, look, it's a human enterprise.

“The guy had $30 million dumped on him, he's pissed about it, you know, but you know, he's got to get past that and like run the campaign that I think he wanted to run.”

He's not DSA and he's not a single issue is real at all, like he's actually, he used to run single issue Medicare for all, you know. He's got a trade board to talk about now that's going to hurt people in Michigan. Like he's got prices that are up he can talk about. He's obviously should talk a lot about healthcare because that's his expertise, so I do agree with that piece of the advice. It's like, everybody knows where he is on, on Israel, right?

Like he doesn't need to talk about that, the people that are excited to support him on that will do that. His job, again, addition, his job in the next several weeks is to close the deal with these list of soccer motors. That I 100% agree with. I still a little more domestic politics stuff. Your books about speeches for people who didn't listen to our past episodes, they can go listen to what we talked a lot about past speeches.

The speech of flying feels a little back, maybe not. Yes, I don't know. It feels like, I don't know, there's a moment where it's kind of like, you know, after his over on one, it's all short form video these days. You know, it's all two minute clips and there's some of that is related to speeches. I guess you can talk about that.

But the us off strategy of like owning new cycles by giving some like Obama-ish. We should say speeches on Friday evening. You know, so that people were talking about it all through the weekend. It seems to be working for him politically. I'm just kind of wondering, as you watch this, how that kind of intersects with what you're writing about.

“I think it's really interesting because, you know, part of what I noticed in writing this book is how the delivery vehicles for speeches change how people speak, right?”

Radio, plain spoken explanation FDR, TV, Kennedy, Reagan, King, like Kirk charisma, social media, Trump, right? You speak for an hour and the algorithm just triggers everybody with it. And then everybody's like, everybody's started skipping the speeches and going to the social media video. Like, my argument is too full.

Like, the first thing is that a speech is where you figure out what your argument is.

It's figure out the story you're telling. Like, I remember writing for Obama in '07, and it's actually a feedback loop too. Trump is pretty good about this. Like, what are people responding to? Maybe I should talk more about what's working out there. It's where you road test your material.

And it becomes the trunk of the tree for all of your communications. So, if you know the story you're telling, the coherent story and awesome, has a coherent story. It's about corruption and state capture and the reason that your prices are high. The reason everything sucks for you is because these guys are enriching themselves and their friends and they don't care about you. And he ties it all together, right?

And therefore, all your social media videos and your interviews and everything else, well, they flow from the story you're telling. Now, the other thing Tim, which you and I as, you know, I'm like the last of the general.

Daniel, you're millennial. Yeah, what he's doing is such a familiar strategy.

He gives a speech a whole speech. They tweak it each week to have like a topper. Yeah, we call it the topper. Yeah, the topper, right? He has something that's in the news that he adds to that speech. They clip it in every fucking Monday morning or Sunday morning.

Everybody's talking about like this John Osso speech that that when viral, you know, it's usually like the topper and I knew that speeches were back. Tim, when I saw Pete Buttigieg, give a speech from with the exact camera angle. Like, you know, I'll stuff like the hero shot camera points up at him the hero shot. Like he's at the podium like and and Pete did the same thing.

I'm like, we're back. Like, but I really truly believe this because what you can do in the speeches. You can tell a coherent story. You can tie the whole thing together. You can figure out what your message is.

And then loan behold, it makes your other communications better. Yeah. You can it turns out still control the narrative with a really good speech, with a really clever topper that you can clip and send out. You do have to be good, though.

Yeah. And there's a reason.

“I think that's some of the candidates that I worked for.”

McCain and Jeff in particular. I don't know that it was the era or the medium that prevented us from doing this and giving speeches. It was the fact that neither of them were very good at giving speeches. And it's not like we're good. Well, there was social media, whether it's the local news.

You know, like the one minute clip, like, wasn't that good. And so, you know, you work with that. You can work with McCain, start doing more the town hall style thing. And then that was like, really. Yeah.

He's going to watch. Yeah. He's going to get that. He's very invoked for a while for bad speech givers. So like, oh, wait, we can do this instead.

The other thing that, you know, kind of it allows you to do, besides, like, print up the story that you're telling. Like in the social media era, like, just give people something to talk about that you control. Yeah.

You know, narrative, narrative control. And I do think that, like, Democrats really kind of lost,

Yeah.

They've completely lost it.

Because again, what, what a speech allows you to do again,

“you have to communicate outside the speech, too.”

What is the story you're telling? Trump's been telling one story for 10 years, right? And we didn't have to, we've lived it. The Democrats have been on all over the place. Like, they lurch, right?

Like, we're just going to talk about abortion. Or we're just going to talk about health care subsidies. And we sound like talking. Don't mind what he's. And, you know, to quote our friend Dan Fiverr,

like, they read the stage directions. Like, we are here now to talk about kitchen tables. You understand that you don't care as much about democracy. You know, and that's a crazy way to do politics. Because the democracy is fundamentally intertwined with the kitchen table.

It's one thing. You know, emotional feeling in it.

This is the connection of the good speech.

This is what Obama was good at. And this would trump a good at. It's different emotions. But like, you know, and like, Asaf, this is where both Asaf and Pete,

I have a little work to do on that front on my, but you can kind of set it in a way that it's like triggers an emotional reaction. You know, even if that's not their natural state. I think what Asaf needs,

like Gavin gone back through all these speeches. Like, the next step is, what is his personal motivation? Like why, why him? If he runs for president, like the next,

that's where you make the emotional connection. Like you have to understand, like, not only this person's words are right. They're stories good.

“But like why, why are they telling the story instead of anybody else?”

And I think that's, that's the next step that he can, and he can still get there.

Speaking of amazing speechifying,

we do have one other kind of rising star on that front on our political scene. Somebody just with pure charisma, and I want to play a little bit of a recent speech by him. And I want you to have the real freedom that comes along with knowing

that you are the Lord of your own manor. You're the great Southern. [applause] The great Southern populist, probably most of you in the room, don't know what I'm talking about,

but he's an interesting guy, kind of a crazy guy. His name was Huey Long, and he once said, every man a king was the goal of his political program. But no man is a king if their castle is under siege by criminals. No man is a king if it can't take their family out to dinner

without being mugged or having their car checked. And of course, ending the Biden border invasion was a big part of why we have changed that over the last 18 months. Well, not appealing. One thing short about the book, though, is the way

that the American stories told and retold and updated. And so I wanted to get your take on JD Vance's update of the Huey Long. The Lord of the Manor there. I mean, like, JD Vance is constantly trying to kind of speak himself into being something that he's not.

You know, like Huey Long, you know, it probably is a higher name record on the Board of Podcasts and some other places. But I mean, this is a guy that just exuded authenticity, right? Like, you know, you may not have liked Huey Long. But like, you know, you believe that he came from the places

that he was talking about, to believe that things he was saying. Like, JD Vance constantly looks like he practiced in front of the mirror trying to be this weird combination of like a populist and a troll, like wrapped in, like a, like Peter Teele constructed, you know, suit. Nothing about it suggests often.

I feel as to venture capital as stroll. Yeah. The emotional connection you talked about comes from knowing something about what, you know, John McCain, like I didn't agree with about a bunch of stuff. I agree with him some stuff.

But like, kind of knew that guy's story and like what motivated him and all made sense. It made sense. Like, even if I didn't agree with some of his positions, like where they came from, made a lot of sense to me.

Yeah. The JD was wife part of it. People are uncomfortable to talk about this because you get it. It gets into, you know, personal territory. Yeah.

And this, this also popped up in the Michigan center races, a little thing recently. But like, it also hurts the authenticity of the story. Like if JD's story is like, and we talked to this last time you're on, like this populist, like America's blood and soil nationalism.

America is an ideal. America is a people and a place. You know, and also to be the Lord of your own manner, we can't have any foreigners in the country. And the most best thing the Trump did was make sure we have negative migration.

And also my son's name is Vivek. Yeah, yeah. Just like what? Like it doesn't make sense. Like the story doesn't make sense.

“No, he's own life is more in line with the other story.”

We'll let him. Like, you know, we talked about this last time. But essentially, if he gives this kind of blood and soil nationalism, you know, speech and all this talk about that, America can't be about the Declaration of Independence.

Because lots of people like that. And they all have to become American and all the rest of it. But meanwhile, you know, he's own house. It looks more like the kind of Composite Nation.

And they can intermarry. And they can-- there's just just discordance here. And, you know, Abdul, like, raised that. You mentioned Michigan. I don't know if this is right or wrong.

Like Abdul's testing out this kind of alpha Democrat. Yeah. And every now and then, like, oh, I don't know why he went there. But I'm also like, well, it's an interesting experiment. And it's a very contrasting experiment to what Rob Singh and his doing in Iowa.

It's just kind of interesting. Yes. It's the opposite. It's the opposite. And you know what?

They both might work. You know, that's fine. And politics, different things work. But like Trump is married to an immigrant. Like this is absurd.

Like the people running their English. The biggest mass deportation campaign, since, you know, Well, bigger. The biggest American history. You know, sweeping people up off the street.

You know, just like for, for no reason, in some cases. Like, you know, Trump's married to an immigrant. And, you know, JD van's marriage is in a biracial relationship. That, which is great. But like, it doesn't, it's not exactly the Lord of the Manor White Nationals and stuff.

Yeah. And to JD's credit, his wife can speak English.

“So, I do think that's a, that's important.”

I contrast. All right. Let's go back to your newsletter. Resistance one mistakes, reflections. You know, as a, as a, as a resistor, like you, we both resisted.

I know. I know. I know. My feelings still got a little bit harsh. Yeah. It sounds get a little bit hurt. You know, I understand the pushback of feeling like Trump won again. So obviously resistance won failed in a way.

Like it's sort of like, you know, that's just what happened. And so there's like almost no sense in kind of arguing about that. But there was clearly a failure. It's like you lost the game. You had to do something wrong.

I do get a little bit annoyed at you. But like other people who weren't really on the field. Not really. No, I, I, I, a little bit, know you one thing.

We get to that in a second.

And then the broader question, people who weren't really on the field that much, or who are complaining a lot the whole time, you know, being like, you guys suck, you lost. And I was like, what are you doing? Yeah.

Do you win? Do you beat Trump? Do you have any wins? Show me. Yeah.

Where do you, what do you, so I, that does frustrate me a little bit. But anyway, I'm going to try to let my personal issues set them aside and look at this objectively, what were the, what were the lessons that you took away from, kind of this resistance one, you know, the, the page being turned, with Vinden and Conway and Goldman Losing, those were kind of the examples she used.

Yeah. I used them as kind of archetypes. And again, I, I acknowledge in peace. I'm in a glass house. I was a resistor.

I was tweeting like crazy at a podcast. And you still do. I supported the first impeachment of Trump.

“But like, first them as architects that lead into lessons, right?”

Because, you know, Conways to kind of hyper online, never Trump or, right?

Then Vinden is the kind of like noble civil servant, you know, who did a noble thing and whistle blowing. But, you know, then we kind of, the idea that the resistance is from within the federal government, you know, you kind of represented that line of thought. And then Dan Goldman, the kind of, the prosecutor at the first impeachment and, you know,

the kind of hero holding Trump to account. The problem is, there's a limitation to all this. Like the first one is that I think the hyper online aspects of the resistance, like clearly had a very low ceiling on what they could accomplish. And I did, I single that the Lincoln Project.

But as something where I remember even at the time, people like the most online people I knew would always be sending me these like Lincoln Project clips. And you're like, they really got them here, you know? Like comfort foods. Exactly.

It was less about persuasion and more about comfort food, right? And so one thing is like the hyper online stuff made us all feel like hurt heroes. But, but was it really out there persuading people? So that's one thing. The second thing is that the kind of deification of Inman, right?

Kind of tip, let's face it. It tiped into sanctum money, you know? I mean, and I wrote about all the letters I signed, you know, and defense of the, you know, this norm or this,

“I think the federal bureaucracy is great, you know, because I'm a big government guy, you know?”

But we lean so hard into it that it played writing the idea that, of these are these establishing people. Democrats are these establishing. They're defending the government. They're defending the institutions.

I have a cringe Instagram post with Inman. I think the caption is called saved America from 2021. Not quite.

Yeah, and then the Trump impeachment, the first one,

the second one was obviously necessary. But like it played into this idea that all these people care about and the resistance is Trump. Do they care about what I'm focused on in my lives, right? But the core problem too is that the whole premise of the resistance,

and this is the kind of feature not the bug, was Trump is an aberration. And we represent like America, and he doesn't. And therefore inevitably, like gravity's going to catch up to this guy, Mueller's going to nab and he'll get impeached because of Inman,

or inevitably he'll lose the election, right? And I don't think he would have lost that election without COVID. This isn't me saying now we have to go back on time and examine the white working class grievances people in West Virginia. This is me saying like, hey, wait a second.

Like Trump represents like deeper, you know,

But there's also xenophobia, an anti-migrant feeling, and a kind of deification of celebrity and rich guys like Trump and even con men like Trump. Like, and he captured something real and all this populism that was pissed off at everything.

And by casting as an aberration, we didn't take seriously like the enough, the deeper currents that were behind Trumpism. Now look, sure we some of us did at the time. Sure. But we can't argue with the results.

And I'd say Tim, just to I actually thought about adding the bowlwork into this as a positive, by the way. I'm not just saying this because like if you look at bowlwork 2.0, you're a little grittier. You're doing a deeper reckoning, right?

Like you're doing something different than you the first time.

And the same way that I'm trying to do something different. Because I think frankly, if I'm now just pick up myself, but I think it applies to a lot of people. But we secretly felt kind of like heroes. Like we're here on the Vanguard Defending Democracy.

And that's not inviting to people. And it's not enough to talk about Trump with the Sharpie. You've got to talk about like, why Trump with the Sharpie means that he's not paying attention to the things that you're actually pissed about in your lives.

So there's a lot there, but that's the summit. Well, I agree with this.

“And I think it's important to really, and I'm like trying hard.”

So I genuinely appreciate the company. It's hard to actually reflect on stuff. And obviously, again, at some level, this was a failure. And we should reckon with that, because he's fucking back in there. There were two things that I just wanted to bring up from the piece

that are, I think, kind of comforting reckoning for the left. Yes, because these are easy things to say. Because it doesn't really actually require that much reflection. And one is a personal nitpick, which is about poor Liz Cheney. Yeah.

You write this. Liz Cheney was even enlisted as a leading surrogate for Kamala Harris.

Ignoring the fact there was little evidence of a non elite never Trump coalition.

I agree with the broader point, but I have a quick quiz for you. What was Liz Cheney's convention speaking sought? Do you remember where she spoke? I don't know. I was referring more to her in Pennsylvania at the end.

Yeah. Yeah, she wasn't invited to the convention. Yeah. She had like three events with Kamala. My point is just like, I think it's really easy to like look at this.

I think this is a short hand. She's like, oh, the Liz Cheney thing. So I can, I don't know. I feel like there are a lot of mistakes that you could look at to the Harris campaign about ways that did not resonate.

And it's kind of like, if you're in the left coalition, it's like easy to be like, you know, the big mistake with those two events that she definitely was Cheney for something. Yeah. That's the wrong thing. And it's kind of like, well, I mean, Liz was trying to help.

I don't know. You want that. By the way, so number one, I don't blame Liz Cheney for this. You know what? She's trying to help.

You know, I believe that like they did bring her out in high profile events.

“And like, I think the final week of the campaign in key swing states.”

I think Pennsylvania maybe was constant. And they kept stepping on the rake of being the establishment, right? Like whatever you think about Liz Cheney. And I know you know, like have things like more things better than I do. But I like something's better.

Her name is Cheney. She represents, you know, most Americans hear Cheney. Like they don't think January 6, committee. Yeah. They think Bush Cheney.

They think Iraq War. And there are a lot of ways in which the Democrats like repeatedly were telling people like, Hey, look at us. We had the backing of these establishment Republicans. We're bipartisan.

When in fact what Trump had figured out was I believe the way Trump got credibility with voters is by breaking the Republican party. Being like, I understand how mad Republicans and Democrats are. The Republican party. And I'm willing to blow it up.

And so again, like Liz Cheney caught my strays. But it's more about that's indicative of a democratic party mindset. I mean, I remember Tim like looking at the, and I'll give you a lefty, another lefty thing. That, that Kam Harris convention speech when, you know, She's talking about like we need the most lethal military.

It's a very like 2002 Democrat. We're still trying to convince people that we're going to like, we're willing to go fight wars. Um, when in fact like that that's not what people want anymore. You know, and so I think the Liz Cheney thing is indicative of a mindset

that we didn't understand that, you know, that ship is sailed. And I also do think that, you know, I earned some green rooms or at least virtual ones. They're these narratives that play out on cable where Liz Cheney is a hero for January 6. But I don't know how much that filters down to Wisconsin. And I do think Democrats lived too much in the green rooms

Uh, and through the first Trump term in the binary.

Yeah. I totally agree with that right. Except, I guess my point was more, sometimes I get frustrated with the left criticism

“because I was like, because I'm like, you know, what's the pretty important election?”

Yeah. Was the easiest choice of my lifetime. Liz Cheney was begging the Harris campaign to let her do it. And she's like, I'll do whatever you want literally.

They didn't fucking call her back until October. And then it's like, and then meanwhile, you've got a bunch of people that are like, shitting on Capitol at the whole time. That's right. You know what the big news is?

I mean, I just like that environment.

“I'm just kind of like, why weren't you offering to her?”

I don't maybe, and maybe if Kamel said no, then it's like a gift that's on her. But I think that there was not a ton of excitement to help her

from some of the people that were critical.

Okay. My other next effect is just this, um, uh, one of your top lessons. I thought it was funny. I thought you were going to mention it, then you didn't. Online energy is not a shortcut to electoral success.

I agree with that about the resistance one. I also wonder if it's also true about the current kind of online energy for the DSI left. And I don't know if it's true or not. But I, I think that like right now there is like a lot of sort of assumptions that

it's popular and it's working because it worked in some primaries. And because it gets you a lot of retweets. So I think that this is maybe the most offensive thing I could say to DSI posters. But like, is there actually some parallels between the big, you know, online DSI accounts and George Conway actually, um, in lack of trying to persuade and more of, you know,

aren't we, so aren't we doing so well right now? Sorry, George, I love you. Sorry to both sides with that comparison. I know both of you like. Yes.

“It's very critique. I think if you look at the DSA candidates that get meaning, like real”

traction, right? Like a mundani is not just posting, right? Like he's modeling a different kind of politics, right? Both in terms of his agenda and also just he's literally showing up in every single place. He's talking every single person he can, right?

He's the best example though. He's that's kind of like me using a soft as the example for a good resistance one figure. You know, some people are just gonna come over. I guess my point would be the DSA's how far they can go. Like I don't think there's any world much the DSA like becomes a democratic party.

Like I don't think they think that. They want to move the party to the left on certain things, right? That happens in politics. Like every freaks up, but this is a good normal occurrence.

The Tea Party wasn't the first time this always happens.

Like an activist wing comes in and they're trying to pull the party in a certain direction left or right on certain issues. And I guess what I would say is you're right. That the success of that effort is not going to play out online. It's just not.

It's gonna depend upon how good are these candidates in different places. You know, and again, Donnie's the best example. I mean, in a way like Angie Nixon far to like she, she's gonna hard time winning that general election. But it's that Florida democratic party, you know, you know, this time from far.

It's gotten pretty sclerotic over the years. I think it's quite good for them. It is good. It's good. It's good because she ran a better campaign and the message is like, you don't, you know,

you guys are out of touch with these voters. And I'm on the ground doing the work and talking about the things people really upset about. And you know, like that will regenerate that party in some fashion, right? And so I think you're correct. Like it's not going to come from like, you know, I don't know.

You know who the DSA posters are, like the, you know, I was gonna pick on for Matt 14. I know. Yeah. I was like, he just, the first day comes back.

Who does to him that he's the George Conway at the first day in the close to mine? And he was so excited about the DSA posters too. Like, they have the wrong definitions of success in some ways, right? Because just posting Medicare for All is not going to make Congress pass Medicare for All. Like the point is, like, this is how change happens in politics.

And now I'll get dunked on by the, the left on.

Like, you're never, you're not going to pass Medicare for All the next Congress.

I don't think. I mean, happy we've proven wrong. Like, the more you've set a barometer of, the more and more people that are for this kind of single payer system. Like you, you've turned the public option into the mod position, you know,

which was the like left position in the Obama era. Like that's how change happens, right? That's a win, right? Right now I'm against any arm sales digital. The mod position has become cutting off assistance digital.

Like the like financing of those sales, right? Like that's a win, right? So like, part of what you're doing, and this is why primary success matters. Even if not all those primary successes or, you know, we can look the Kennedy quality varies.

That the party's going to have to kind of readjust to that. And by the way, if they don't, they're going to have problems too. Because then they're going to have this endless internal civil war.

“That's why I think this packer stuff is so stupid, it's not enforced there.”

Because it's like, we can't fight an internal civil war when we have an existential threat to the country here. Except the fact that the party's moving a bit to the left, okay? It doesn't mean that math 14 is going to be writing the agenda and picking every committee assignment in the next Congress.

I agree with that. I just think that, yes, stated.

That does not mean, there's no solution.

“It's like, that means that, okay, this new thing that we're doing”

that's really hot online now, that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like, I don't know, it might be worse. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, I mean, like, we won, I, I don't know.

Like, it wasn't that good. Hillary won the popular vote though. She lost, like obviously, I'm not arguing that we should read the Hillary campaign, but this is where my small, so you can serve it as what comes in.

Things can be worse than the old strategy. It's just because it's different. Doesn't mean it's better. The online piece I agree with you on. I will say, you know, I made different.

Like, here I'll stand up for the, not the DSA, but like the progressive. Clinton Biden and Harris all ran as, as moderates. You know, like, like, it's not like we haven't tried that. I mean, Harris ran as a moderate, like, only in the construct of being an anti war person.

Well, she wasn't Medicare for all. She wasn't, um, you know, on some of the cultural issues. She was in the South. I've talked about this before. It's kind of like she was, and she was seen as a progressive on all

social issues. And, like, if you're just defining it based on health care. For in policy issues, seen as a moderate. So she's like running as a moderate on health care informed. It was like kind of the inverse.

It'd probably be better. That's fair. Yeah. Yeah.

“You know, and I think that there's, this goes back to like my easy comfort.”

You know, the, the, the, the lefty comfort food, which is, okay, well, if we fix the, the healthcare and foreign policy part, then that's good. We don't have to deal with anything else. And I'm kind of like, uh, those are things everybody kind of agrees on

this. Except for, you know, Hillary Schulton. [laughter] And sure, that's what's going on. Like, those are things that are easy to kind of check in some ways, right?

It's like the other stuff is a little more challenging. And Rob, that's where you got to look at like a Rob Sand, you know? So we both hate Endless Canter. I ran to the bottom of Monday. You wrote an article about them.

People can go read it. Um, the short of it is Endless Canter fooled both of us. Maybe didn't let her know. He, he connected with both of us on human rights issues that we care about. You had dinner with him.

Yes. I dinner with him. I had my podcast. Yeah. Yeah.

Now he's doing fight me breast stuff with women basketball players. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

It's sad because basically the person I met, you know, back in 2019,

I thought had real moral authority, like he'd sacrifice real things for his political beliefs about Turkey and Erdogan. And, and he's taken that currency. And, and, and, and, and, and now taking it all the way to, like, messing around with female basketball players, telling Americans that, you know,

don't agree them to shut up, like, which is kind of counter to the whole free speech by that he was putting off. And just kind of feeling a bit like someone who is trying really hard to be, like, a delist maga influencer. Yeah.

It's so sad. Yeah. It's so sad. Yeah. It's on the payroll.

Someone's paying him. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's America first before. It's more a sense.

It's like talking. And they're the ones following him around with cameras. I don't know. I think a little bit more offensive. Yeah.

To be someone that was positioned themselves with some of the cares about human rights to then just become, like, a downright, downright troll. Well, it makes you go back and look at some of his stuff, because, like, his next act after Turkey was about China and he's writing, like, you know, down with Xi Jinping on his sneakers and then he's, like, you know, blaming the NBA for him not getting

another contract and going on Fox. And, and, and I was like, okay, maybe, like, you know, and it's really like, you know, I don't, like, go a lot of things about Xi Jinping. But it makes even that feel like an entry point. It's like, I can get booked on Fox.

If I, because basically when on Fox and said the NBA's hypocrites, because they talk

about Black Lives Matter, not China. And even at the time, I was like, well, I don't know. Like, if I'm like a, you know, an NBA player. That's a very reasonable American. I probably would spend a lot more time thinking about, you know, the state of Black

“communities in this country than, you know, Hong Kong, which is something I care about, right?”

But in retrospect, makes a lot of what he did feel calculated. And that's, you know, yeah, that sucks. Benrods, I appreciate it. We're not long going to Friday. So thanks for all the time.

Good show. Long show. I always happy to do it. And we'll be talking again soon. I'll meet you next time in LA, right?

Cool. Sounds good. All right, ladies. Everybody else, we back on Monday with Bill Crystal. I love having Benrods on Friday, because then Bill, because I stole

his right after him at Berlin. A lot of balance to the bulwark universe. We'll see you all Monday. The bulwark daily is brought to you thanks to the work of lead producer Katie Cooper, associate producer Andly Skipper, and with video editing.

The bulwark daily is brought to you thanks to the work of lead producer Katie Cooper, associate producer Andly Skipper, and with video editing. By Dante de Chico, and audio engineering. And editing. By Jason Brett.