Bill Kristol: Are the Winds Finally Shifting?

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At Shopify.de, let's record it. Hello everyone and welcome to the boardwork podcast. I'm Sarah Longwell, publisher of the boardwork and I'm sitting in for my good buddy Tim Miller. I didn't have my pearls today, but I'm going to try this hat for just a minute. Actually, Bill, what do you think of the hat?

Excellent. But you look better at it than Tim Miller. I'm going to check it for the record. But you can take it off. Yeah, I can take it off.

Now the pizza is over. Okay, well, just because I am sitting in for Tim. Since he has nobody works anymore, Bill. No one works anymore. These kids.

Except for us. Except for us. Oh, yeah. But just because you don't have Tim doesn't mean you don't get Bill Crystal. Bill Crystal's here to join me after a action packed news filled weekend.

So many things happen. In fact, Monday hasn't slowed down one bit. We have this morning Donald Trump posting himself as Jesus. He is in a hot war with the Pope America has now closing itself the state of Hormuz. And most importantly, and where I want to start is with the big election.

The hungry where Victor Orban yesterday was defeated, uh, resoundingly, resoundingly. And for people who maybe at a macro level say, I know Orban's a bad guy, uh, and a gladi lost. But maybe they don't understand all of the implications, uh, both for Europe and for us. So I thought, Bill, I just turned it over to you and let you set the stage for why yesterday's

election was so important.

“I happy to. And it was important and I felt exciting and moving really when you saw the”

scenes from, yes, Budapest, elsewhere in Hungary, uh, and write about what everything that had happened to make this possible. I do think it's we're living in a new world. I was at this long schedule to kind of social get together yesterday afternoon and evening. And, uh, checking my phone constantly for updates on the Hungarian returns.

Looking at this one website that had me too. And I don't speak Hungarian, let's just say, but luckily they had like the colors. You could see the blue dots increasing on the, in the, in the assembly in the, uh, Hungarian parliament and, and actually getting over two thirds, which was important. So Orban's been in Paris since 2010.

He's been the model of what he called illiberal democracy. He used that term proudly way back, 2011, 2012, something like that. And it became a kind of inspiration, a calling card for authoritarian, around the world, including here from Aga for Trump world, and, and people like that, close to them, various American conservative right wingers went to Hungary and set up camp there, obviously, as

we easily is this last week, J.D. events went to Hungary and had a big rally with Orban. So, you know, it's a small country and I, you got to be careful, obviously, that extrapolating themselves to, to literally, almost. But the fact that he lost overwhelmingly, having really consolidated power, suppressed opposition,

and media, imagine Trump and powerful, like 10 years doing what he's doing today.

So it's not just CBS news and, and X that are controlled, but it's everything, except the whole work, basically, a couple of websites, and it's, well, every business is, and, you know, kind of in league with him, not just some of them and so forth. So the fact that the Hungarian people were able to do what they did is really inspiring, and it seems like it's going to hold, it was such an overwhelming victory for Orban's, or

but did a lot of things to monkey with the elections, but it didn't end up mattering it, doesn't look like huge defeat for Putin, Orban also, within the EU, has been one of the made upologists for Putin, has stopped certain actions against Putin, and so that's important, I think. Yeah, so really a defeat for global illiberalism and authoritarianism and real inspiration.

“And I think the one thing I will say is, I, I just, highest regard for the Hungarian people”

for pulling this off. I mean, I might go, I won't love to remember, you know, 99, obviously, the fall of the Berlin

Europe to try to help them set up, you know, a functioning democracy, and they did, I mean,

“a lot of the good things, and they helped, I think, get things going there and many of”

those places are still very a functioning democracy's, Hungary's failure, and not in this case, so maybe now we'll get a success story, but it's the opposite here, we can really learn from what they did, and I think we have to have real humility and sort of a bad and unusual, we're Americans, we're the place with the sort of 50-year-old democracy, and these other places are struggling to kind of imitate us, we now have to try to imitate

what the Hungarian people have done and what the movement that Peter Maggar led has accomplished. Yeah, let's talk about some of that, because, of course, I basically learned all about Hungarian politics in, you know, the last week or so, and started going deep on it, and one of the things about the opposition, Peter Maggar, is that how you pronounce his name? I think so, Peter, Peter, Peter, whatever they say, how you're in, but he's, you can

call Pete, you can call Pete, he's our buddy, you know, but he was basically a version

of a never-trumper, right?

He was sort of a center right, he was used to be in Orban's party was an actual Orbanist for a period of time, who then joined the opposition party and began to lead it, that

“was an interesting wrinkle to me, because one of the things that I think people who are”

looking at this for the first time might not know is they might assume that Maggar is the liberal opposition candidate, he is not, he's sort of a center right who also was tough on immigration, but he is somebody who believes in liberal democracy, and so if it's not a straightforward analogy to sort of the Democrats rising up in America, so can you talk about that a little?

No, I think that's, I understand it also having learned a lot more about Hungarian politics in the last week, that's very true, but I do people who were in touch with sort of old fashion liberals, good people, Apple people and fighting Warbon for 10 years in Hungary, and there was a little touch of resentments to straw, but like a little irony in the fact that he is the leader, and he will be now the Prime Minister of Hungary, President, like

I said, it was a Hungary, and not one of the sort of people who stood up to Orban the longest, but Maggar certainly broke with Orban, and he did so decisively, I think that's

really important to say, so it's a little more like the never Trumpers, I mean, he's

more like Liz Cheney, and the sense that she was, you know, wet along with Trump

“longer than we did, you know, it didn't fade so January 6th, I mean, I think Orban maybe”

a little more like that, or it would be as if Dicky Hilling and Mike Pence had sort of think of a good analogy, you know, had sort of turned against Trump and run against him, but then really turned state against him, and become the leader of the opposition, instead of in the Dicky Hilling's case, the worst Trump in 2024, and it pets his case, going off to do whatever, you know, within the Republican Party, but I mean, I mean, I want to forget

Orban, I had been a Democrat, Orban, I met Orban back in, I mean, like, I did really 2000s, he was a real star of the headbin, it's a very young man of the Hungarian Democratic opposition. After he lost one race to a populist, and I think 2004, he totally flipped and became what he became, which was a sort of embraced the populism that ate of it, and all that sort

of stuff, and then Putin, as Putin, was rising to, the left and hungry deserves a lot of credit for going along with my gr. as the leader, again, it would be as if the entire Democratic Party gets decided to support Liz Cheney or, or a, you know, more outspoken Mike Pence or something, and 2024 or 2028, for that matter, or maybe Adam Kinsey, if you want to, so slightly less tracking example, and they did, my gr. is a very talented politician,

clearly, and that's also, show the variety, just pure talent, you know, and talent, but also a vision of building a movement, not just a party, people I talked to, and we have a piece on the website this morning and morning shots by David Beer, who's covered hungry for us, and has been way ahead of the curve. He thought, or I was in trouble a year ago, when people thought it's impossible, anyway,

David, we're as an excellent piece, making the point, madger saw himself as leading a social movement. And when you see those videos, it is right, it's that tens of thousands of people in city, after city, and small towns, even in Hungary, embracing madger, each channeled a lot of the historic opposition to Russia, way back to the Hungarian revolution of 1956, which

was obviously crushed by the Soviet Union, and used some of the chance from that era, some of the slogans from that era, to turn against to our bond, and to get to our bonds of surveillance to Putin, so they used social media, and, you know, non-print media, not judicial media, which they don't, didn't have any access to in Hungary, very, very effectively. So, probably a lot of lessons there, both in the sense of my garbage being the leader,

but also everyone agreeing to consolidate behind them, which I get, I give the left credit, it was a bitter pill for them to swallow. My garbage didn't, I think he's fine on his fine on democracy, and I think he's fine on the basic issues of tolerance and civil rights, but he didn't make a big issue of some of the stuff that the left, and people like us, honestly, would have in the US made a big

it the center of his appeal, and ran a very broad-based campaign that made a lot of

conservatives who had voted for or about in the past, and think about the swing, you work on this all the time, persuasion, just mobilization, and there was a high turnout election, so there was some mobilization of people who hadn't voted for before, but there was, you guys swing like this, or you're talking 30 points or something, you're getting a large number of people who had voted for or about before, feeling comfortable voting for a year.

Yeah, I mean, some of the things that I read about what Magya did to me were just fascinating examples of how you do this. Number one, like you said, Orban controls the media, and I do want to draw some comparisons to the United States, because it is fair to say, and we're going to get to JD Vance at a minute, but it's very fair to say that the Trump administration is actively following

“a lot of the Orban playbook, like I think Hungary, like CPAC, went to Hungary, the conservative”

right, has been observing what Orban has been doing, and I would say Project 2025 was very orbanist, and in what it was trying to accomplish, but one of the things that Magya did was he started in 2024, so a couple of years ago, and because they had shut down like a free press, he went in person all over the country. He was just, he went everywhere, especially to rural areas and spoke to them directly.

And I think that this ability to think about the fact that Trump is, of course, buying up the information infrastructure, he and his ally, selling TikTok, CBS, Washington Post, like if you watch that, it is very reminiscent, but we still have a lot more access to opposition media here in this guy. I mean, by a million times, so how did he do it without access to the media?

He did it like hand-to-hand combat. He went everywhere and made the case and brought people over to his side. And I think that that is, it's almost like an energy thing.

It's the ability to say, if it really depends on it, here's what I'm going to do.

It's shoe leather. It's going. It's meeting people. It's making the explanation.

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When I was also reading about, I was staggering to me the extent to which the chips were stacked in favor of Orban. It's not just that they had the media. It's not just that they had the courts. They also had Putin and JD Vance.

So let's talk about JD Vance because this is where not only has the Trump administration been following the Orban playbook, but they actively decided to go and campaign for Victor Orban. JD Vance went there and they'll talk about what level of defeat this is for Trump and for JD Vance.

Yeah. I mean, Trump, I guess, did if you post about it and had welcomed or about earlier at Mara Logos as I recall two months ago. But yeah, they sending Vance, Ruby was there I guess right after that Vance this week and explicitly endorsing Orban rallying within this photo of the two of them, Mara holding

their arms up together and so forth. In the old days, when there was some liberal versus authoritarian type referendum, you could sort of assume the U.S. was probably on the side of the Liberals. But implicitly would be on their side and maybe a little bit of help. Now it's the opposite, right? I mean, the people of Hungary repudiated both Putin and

Trump and Orban, very impressive. And as you say, without many levers of power, they're as well as also they certainly use the ones they had. I hope it has a big effect. I think I'll have an effect in Europe.

I mean, obviously, there's been many countries that are teetering between the populist authoritarian, someone on the one hand, and liberal Democrats and the broad sense of liberal Democrat. On the other, they've since back and forth. And some of these countries, Poland, Slovakia, elsewhere, Czech Republic.

And so this has gotta make other people think, hey, if Hungarians can go down this path,

And I hope it makes Americans think that I do think, you know, I kind of feel like

“Jesus, if Hungarians can repudiate Trump and Vance, can't we repudiate Trump and Vance?”

Kind of easier for us, as you say, we're not as nearly as far down the road to authoritarianism as they are. And we have a long tradition, much longer tradition of liberal democracy than Hungary. So I don't want overstated, obviously, there are many zig-sense acts in the fight against authoritarianism and many countries have gone, you know, the right direction that others

have gone in the long direction, Bolsonaro lost in Brazil, that are the people of one. You know, it's been a very much of a mixed bag in the last several years. This was such a explicit referendum.

He was one of the first, one of the first of the ill-lippled Democrats.

And as you say, so prominently hailed by all these Trumpists and magotypes in the US that I think it's a little more significant than maybe just, you know, sort of, different elections that have gone back and forth around the world. Yeah, I mean, Bill, when you and I were starting out in our Trump opposition, right? You and I were the OGs together and we were, you know, working ourselves up about what

we could do and we started going, you know, trying to learn more about the environment as when I started doing focus groups.

“But it was also, I think when it, I realized just how much Trump was part of a global phenomenon”

at the time, in large part, I think it's most basic level. There's all kinds of things that feed into this, but it's most basic level. It seemed to be a bit of an authoritarian backlash against mass migration to a lot of different countries, right? And including hours.

I do wonder now if, you know, we're 10 years on here. They were 16 years on in Hungary, because remember, these are people who voted for Orban in

the first place, just the way people hear voted for Trump.

But the economic stagnation that is basically post-COVID that caused the inflationary environment, that ended up getting Joe Biden, right? He was part of the incumbent wave, where sort of all the incumbents lost, and that post-COVID inflationary environment, is it possible, though, that we are at the beginning of a global backlash to the competitive authoritarianism of Orban, that is basically like, okay, we

tried, you guys out, you authoritarians, and actually all we got for it was a ton of corruption, which by the way, that is another lesson I would really like to point out, I think, in this country, this is also what happened in Russia, like the way that you could get at a lot of these leaders, and Trump, this is another place where he borrows the playbook almost exactly, which is how to be completely corrupt and give everything out to your buddies and

enrich them and enrich yourself, but is it possible that this is a beginning of a global backlash against these corrupt authoritarians? Yeah, I mean, for one thing, as you said, it's harder to be an authoritarian and power than to be a demographic out of power, and Trump has twice defeated incumbent parties that Democrats in 2016 and then 2024, and now having been elected, he's now in popular again,

and they're going to have a big defeat, I think, in 2026, so it means free and fair election. So, you know, I think it's just harder to govern, and they get blamed for their poor policies, which genuinely, in Orbans case, and in Trump, this is a good, I think, comparison are poor policies. That is, people had the sense that Orbans policies were hurting them.

It wasn't just that, you know, globalization and technology, that could also become a grievance and that could be a legitimate grievance, in some cases, and it certainly could be demagogues, Trump has shown it all this has shown, but this was particular policies, Orbans was pursuing that were just hungrier areas, could look across the borders to remain in and to other countries and say, well, those countries are doing okay in the last 15 years, you know, again, whatever

they're internal issues like we have with men, you know, he's supposed to distribution

of wealth and so forth, but basically, the living standards are going up and not so much

in hungrier populations, but decreasing. So I think that there's a good comparison there with some of Trump's policies.

“I think, but I think you're important about the global character of it is really important.”

I mean, it turned down in retrospect that Brexit at summer of 2016 was a real harbinger of Trump, right? I mean, the global populist movement was going to start winning some victories and he Brexit was a close thing in Britain and Trump's victory, half of the scene in 2016 was very close and somewhat flukish even in the electoral college in the US, but people like, this

maybe think about the 70s, which you were worried about, but it really helped us young Reaganites, it helped give us a sense that the win was at our back and sort of momentum was on our side when Factor won in '79 in Britain, and then this is a bit of a stretch, but Pope John Paul took over in the 50th of '79 and went to Poland and, you know, he was a great anti-communist.

So if you were a young anti-communist, you had had a rough time with Vietnam and the bit 70s and Carter and all the defeats, and suddenly there was a sense of, no, you know what, you can fight back and suddenly it's like, I don't know, maybe Factor is the way of the future, not Jimmy Carter or not sort of, you know, having to kind of exceed to communism and sort of day-to-day time, tenderness and your right.

from the sense that the illiberalism was the way of the future, touch you think, we were the one sort of defending the old institutions and the old ways that we were right to, I guess. The world is better off with those, with the post-World War II order, but we were kind of playing defense and you tried and we tried to turn the defense into offense, but it

helps to have the sense that it's happening elsewhere. I do think Hungary's not Britain, it's a swallow country unless connected to us obviously.

“And the Pope analogy is pretty good, it's an elderly, though, right?”

I mean, having a pope who sort of is speaking for what you believe and also came out of nowhere, right?

I would jump over the first not Italian pope in four hundred years, I think, and then

the first American pope. So some of these analogies are a little arc kind of striking, and again, I do think it just helps practically, for all the people say Americans don't care about the world of this, some truth to that. You want to have a sense that you're in sync with some other people elsewhere in the world,

you know? Yeah, I mean, I think there's the wind at the back point. I also just think, you know, the JVL, our great friend, JVL, and I have this talk a lot. And when he's doing dark JVL and he's feeling especially bleak, one of the things he's

“always hitting me with is Sarah, how are we going to rebuild after this?”

How do we ever get back to something after we've created our credibility and we've destroyed

so many of these institutions? And by the way, they're in Hungary, they did a very similar thing to Doge, right, where they got rid of all their, the people who ran their, their institutions. And it's a tough thing to look at what's happening in America and think, well, how do we get back to this thing that we used to be, right, where we had a clear sense of who we were

in our role in the world, and I just think Hungary is a little bit of a slice of hope against that that you can now to be fair, I don't want to overstate it, just like you. You know, we are, this guy just won, then he says he's going to go dismantle many of the illiberal things that Orban has done, but we'll see, and obviously America and Hungary are quite different.

The impact of our role in the world is deeply different, the fact that we've betrayed our values with Trump as like it has just a much bigger impact on everybody else, so they're not one to one comparisons, but I should, and I'd like it to, it gave me hope, what I like about it for America is to see what it means to have people who once voted for Orban, once supported Orban, turn on him aggressively, and to see that that, there's this sense in

America that we are so polarized, and of course we are, that something like this could never

happen. I think history moves a hot, right? These guys become the old guys. I mean, I'll just take, just because we're talking about two things here, but Trump posting a picture of himself today as Jesus, not being held by Jesus, not as the Pope, not earthly figures, which he has done in the past, because he is a narcissistic lunatic, but today he, he, he posted a picture

himself as Jesus, and the evangelical community is up in arms, and there is a little bit of me that wants to say, "Oh, did you notice that he's a terrible person?" Is that something that you're just waking up to? Good morning. Welcome to the party pal, I think, and correct me from wrong, that part of why you're seeing such an enormous backlash against this. This is everywhere today, the fact that Trump did this, and lots of evangelicals are who normally are very supportive of Trump,

are, are freely upset about it. I don't think that they would be as willing to criticize Trump, the way that they are today, if Trump weren't flailing to some degree. If people didn't feel, like the winds are shifting, a bit, and this is what can happen. The winds start to shift people realize the guy's a lame duck, they realize he's failing at his job, he realized that the people that they called names going into the last election were correct, and they're starting to move

to get on the right side, and that is how things shift. I don't know if you agree with that. I'm just making a statement now, but... Yeah, no, totally. I mean, it's that way. I mean, you can track this

“very closely. People have moved to get to Trump. I mean, again, if you want to think of the analogy,”

here, I mean, Warren Bond lost x percentage, I don't know, exact numbers of his supporters, he had it in, I think, 160% or something, and 50% in the 50s, certainly, in 2022 in the last election, and now he disselection, he gets to me, but we're like 40% of the popular vote is a little hard to figure that out, actually, for the way that's very complicated and electrosystem they have. But anyway, and Trump himself got almost 50% in 2024, and as now it, I don't know, 30% I saw on the CBS,

you got full, which is a pretty mainstream poll, I'd say, not usually a terribly bad point of Trump actually. No, and they're all hovering. And they're all hovering at four. It's very, yeah. 50 to 40 is a pretty quick drop. I mean, it's not that different for Warren. I mean, he'd have to go down another, you know, 10 points to your favorite, 32% you know, push a number to really be in work on territory, I guess. But incidentally, the work on drop also came late. The real collapse came

as the momentum built, which is another hopeful sign, perhaps the 2026 or 2028, and maybe we're

do become a little self reinforcing people. They do. What you see, some of your peers deserving, Trump, and also saying, you know what, he's flailing, then somehow it's not like you and me said, saying it for years, it's like, oh, okay, I guess I can say that too, right? I think I do think that's happening a bit now. Those are those pesky permission structures. I

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JD events a little bit because not only did JD events go campaign for Orban as we just discussed. So therefore put his stamp all over the defeat the Trump administration's stamp all over the defeat. In fact, I was I was gratified to see that it appeared that when he went there and gave his speech, I actually caused Orban's approval to drop. It actually caused his polling to drop. So JD events really does have to seem to have the sort of the kiss of death, especially this

weekend, he's having a particularly embarrassing stretch after being somebody who was going to be like

the no more stupid wars. We're never doing these things in the Middle East. Now to have to sort of

drag Trump's war around with him. Number one, number two, the Orban defeat. And then number three, Trump was like, hey, I'm going to a UFC fight with Marco Rubio. Hey, JD events, you go deal with the Iranians and do that negotiating in Pakistan. And you know, he comes out on, I don't know if it was Saturday morning or it was Friday night, but it was basically like, yeah, no deal. We couldn't get one. Turns out turns out actually the stuff's hard. Turns out if you just start a war in

negotiate later, it gets hard. Wouldn't you make of them sending JD events of the failure of JD events? And also, this has led us directly to the fact that now the straight-of-form moves once again is completely locked out. And I don't know where things are going this week, but we very well could be in a hot war again, any minute. Which is to be given to the least important thing I suppose, which is the going to the cage matches with Rubio. I had a, uh, but work on Sunday

yesterday, Sarah Matthews, our colleague, and for our deputy press secretary in 2020, to Trump, who's therefore in those Trump out there, you know, especially under the we do, and knows the Trump White House. It still talks to people who talk to people who are there. I asked her, and

“well, we're going to Saturday yesterday, did Rubio invite himself to that or just, how does it work?”

I mean, just Trump invite you or do you sort of angle for an invitation? And she said, well,

people always angle and go, of course, to be close to Trump and invite him. But no, Trump,

and this respect, Trump knows what he's doing, right? Trump wanted to have Rubio with, he didn't have to have Walker Rubio. I mean, you don't think, I don't think, you have see championship fights. I don't think Marco Rubio is the obvious guy to have there. And you know, other people in Trump's orbit who are kind of, you know, like that stuff better, probably. But he's wanted to toy with vans somehow, and maybe have Rubio there. I don't know,

which is more insulting that you're at Secretary of State, and you're at some match in Miami, and not at running the most important negotiations, the Trump administration's been engaged in yet in foreign policy. Maybe it's a constellation prize for Rubio, and maybe it's also sticking it to vans a little bit and Trump playing, you know, kind of cute games with vans and Rubio. And so forth, Trump certainly gave full of that. But, I mean, on this substance,

I mean, they are flailing. They didn't reach the deal. They had hoped to reach the ceasefire. I guess it's still holding on the island. Trump then announces he's closing the street. It's a little unclear who he's closing it, too, and how we're going to enforce this.

“But oil prices promptly went up, you know, of 10 bucks, I think, overnight.”

I do, guys, a good piece on this and warning shots. I mean, at the flailing, the back and forth, now it's gotten ridiculous. The one thing he doesn't want to do, I do think this is,

all the bombing, the closing of the street, or all ways of avoiding sending a ground troops to really try to destabilize the regime, or to really guarantee the opening of the street. I'm not for sending in ground troops. I have no trust that these guys could do it competently, and I'm against the whole war. It's been so misconceived. I'm against making it even bigger. Don't get me wrong. But this is sort of a box, Trump's got himself into.

And I don't know quite where it goes. Yeah, no, I mean, I'm worried because it could always

could escalate. I had a good conversation last night with Pete Wader, our friend, who has been very interested in the psychology of Trump. I'm where then I have, I've been a little, I'd say, I'm not interested enough in it, but I just sort of think it could be a bit of a distraction, and we should just focus on the levers of power and the sort of the fight and not so much on analyzing it, which is a little bit of a endless rabbit hole. But I've got to say, Pete's been

good on this and some of our colleagues have been good on this. Pete made the point that he's pretty worried that just as Trump gets frustrated and we're desperate and watches the polls going down and the Iranians are not doing what he wants and and or about losing the lashing out can

get more and more dangerous. I mean, the destabilization of his own psyche, whatever one thought

of him in the past and God knows there's plenty of destabilization and plenty of terrible, terrible things. We're also sort of thought that he was candy in a way and a little bit pull back for the brink of doing really catastrophic things from self or the country. He kind of knew that, you know, he wouldn't. Those would not help him, even if only for his own personal self interest. But I don't know, what do you think about that? I mean, how worried should we be just about the personal

kind of belt down and unhinging of Trump? I would worry about it a great deal. I mean, and I even think like last night, when he in the middle of the night, he kept posting and posting and one of them was this thing of Trump as Jesus. I mean, he's at and these long screeds against the

pope. I mean, I don't know in any other time in American politics, don't you think everyone would

say, I'm sorry, he's lost his mind. And this is really scary. Why is the president of the United

“States who is in the middle of this negotiation for this insane more that he started without Congress?”

He doesn't go himself. He he hosts this enormous UFC fighter goes, man takes Margot Rubio, whatever. The one place where Donald Trump is still going to get an unreservedly warm reception, probably a UFC fight. If that is the case, it's cute playing them off each other. It's Trump playing mind games with fans in Rubio. Well, that in itself is an insane thing to be doing with American foreign policy. And you're right, though. I also looked at it and I was like, I don't know who

he's like, who's getting the shaft here? And this is it is it vans because Trump's like, I'm going to take Rubio with me. Vans you go handle this horrible thing over here that is a that is a total catastrophic mess that I've made. And also that you were the one person against and now you're leaking to people that you're against it. Or is it, no Margot, I'm going to let JD handle this, even though you're secretary of state and maybe the only person in my cabinet

who has any legitimate experience, you know, I mean, because what they're going to send Trump's builder buddy, Whitcoff and his son-in-law, neither of whom both of whom have conflicts in the Middle East who actively make money or lose money depending on what happens over there. So like, those are not our best negotiators. And so things ends those three in vans. That's a strange choice. Anyway, I just didn't know what to make of all of it. All I did know is that when gas is seven

“bucks, remember that picture of Trump at the UFC fight with Marco Rubio. I mean, here's what's”

happening with voters. It's very simple. They do not tolerate the price increases on gas, at least not for any length of time. And over and over and now with swing voters and even with Trump voters, the episode I released this weekend with Amy Walter, that was a group of two and three time Trump voters. All of whom are extremely down on Trump and horrified by what's happening and frustrated that prices are still going up, which by the way, just to take it back really

quickly to Peter Magiar, he ran on health care affordability and education. Like, that's what he ran on and really on on affordability and prices, because that's what people are frustrated about they didn't want this war. No, I think I tried. Anyway, with Magiar, I think he ran all those particular issues to make clear he was in touch with people's concrete frustrations. I guess the backdrop of a broader can't go down this path of being Putin's laptops and being, you know, alienated from

“Europe and, you know, and not being a freedom of democratic nation. So I think he did a good job”

of combining kind of the, let's call it, the broad liberal democracy message, but make clear that that was not at the expense of caring on awful lot about and being very attuned to people's very concrete concerns and then trying to tie them together because, of course, for hunger, you know, being at odds to the EU has practical consequences. The Trump sort of de-compensation or whatever is scary, I think. I mean, honestly, in another world, if we had a non-maniac

and stuff, they would be privately calling like congressional leadership and say, you know what, you guys need to start and feed for proceedings and meaningful proceedings here and we're going to be, we're not going to say anything publicly. We're working for this guy, but we'll we'll keep things under control here as much as we can. They'd be calling me military and saying, "We want you to check things with us, if you ever close you directly as,

happened at the late, very late stage of Nixon." I mean, these, none of these guys are doing that,

“which is one reason why it is genuinely a scary moment, I think.”

Yeah, I think the scariest part is is that the two mechanisms that we have at our disposal in America are the 25th Amendment and impeachment, and I've seen a lot of renewed calls for the 25th Amendment, including from some on the right, it makes sense, right, because people are watching him decompensate in real time and it's starting to freak people out, including people

as part of his own coalition, but unlike the first go round, Trump 1.0, where you had a cabinet

that could potentially, you could potentially convince of 25th Amendment, even now, of course, they didn't, and we really only heard them talking about it in the wake of January 6th, but you're just not going to get this cabinet, anyone in this cabinet to do anything close to the 25th Amendment. You know, the impeachment failures of the last two, I think, make impeachment a pretty unlikely. Like, people are like, I've seen this movie before, it's kind of the voters

don't like impeachment, they're just like, "What's the point?" But even before you get to the 25th Amendment, again, what's even scariest, we do know, as a fact that, from, especially after November, after election day in 2020, the Justice Department, Bill Barr, Vice President of the United States, like, Pence, Secretary of Defense, Mark S. Preves, and fired, but other people at defense who were still in touch with him, General Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, they did a lot

to stop Trump from doing things that he wanted to do. That's right. That's right. That's right. For turn, the election, right? I mean, we focus on January 6th itself the day, but of course,

“those two months were very, very important, and Liz Cheney was involved behind the scenes,”

and that's when she really broke, obviously, you know, totally decisive way with Trump, and they organized that secretaries, former Secretary of Defense letter. Anyway, a lot of things happened within the government to provide some guardrails against Trump. None of that is happening. So you got a Republican Party controlling Congress that hasn't yet broken any site of a way with Trump, that a cabinet that hasn't doing anything even behind the scenes to check

him, and he's decomposing. Yeah, that's not good. I do think that there's some incredibly on the nose irony about Trump and Rubio going to watch to like, grease stop shirtless men beat the crap out of each other, and they're like, see, this is what Alfa's do while there's an actual war that America is like teetering on the brink of as in and out of, that is affecting us domestically, but it's like, no, we're going to go watch to like, grease stop men beat each other

up. We're not going to go do like our foreign policy jobs. You know, it's a good point. I had really thought about just the visual. I mean, I started thinking so when I was in the White House ages, they just got what what if they were in middle of foreign policy crisis in a war, and you aren't going to literally go to the front, let's say, and what would you do? Well, you'd visit troops here. Yeah. You'd visit the people, you'd visit families here. Maybe

of the soldiers who were deployed over there. You'd visit one of the bases from which the soldiers or sailors had deployed and you'd sort of thank them from their home base and talking to their bodies who were still here or getting ready to deploy. There are many places that Donald Trump could go and take Rubio or accept with him that would be appropriate. You might say, last weekend, yeah, UFC fight, maybe, isn't one of them. I'm Theresa, and my experience at all

“all entrepreneurs started a choppy fight erfolgreich through. I believe the choppy fight”

has already been the first day, and the platform will make me no problem. I have a lot of problems,

but the platform is not one step away. I have the feeling that the choppy fight is a platform that can only be obtained. Everything is super, simply integration and failing. And the time and the scale that I can't go further, I can't invest in it. For all of them, in Vaxtum. Now, let's take a look at the choppy fight. So let's talk about the pulp really quickly. Just a little bit more, because like, he's really mad at

the pulp. I have trouble with his true socials now. You know, Twitter really was a much better medium for him. If nothing else, that it back in the day, it curbed his ability to get real length. And now they're like genuinely difficult to read. They're so long. And they're obviously they're the ranting of a deranged person. The pulp one is especially deranged. Why is he so mad at our American Pope? Because our American Pope is not saying pretty traditional Catholic teachings

about preferring peace to war is so forth. And I guess because he's American or I don't know and because it has having an effect. This is a question. Do you have reason to believe or people telling him it's kind of a practical, practical, political problem for him that the Pope was saying

these things he may well be is the first American Pope after all he's saying them at the English.

You, it says, so striking to me when it's so used to watching Pope speak Italian basically,

people press core, you know, abroad, the played. And here you see little clips and it's like the guys speaking like English. Not just English. He sounds like a guy from Chicago. It is kind of a little. I'm still not really used to that. I've got to say, you know, and but I guess it has much more effect back here. I call him the bulwark pope too. But I came in with the origin of that is what, in fact, we like him and we think he might be kind of where we are and being sort of

“conservativeish, but anti Trump. But I mean, why do we call him the bulwark pope? I think it's exactly”

that. I think he's got, he's got like a maga brother who Trump's always interesting and being like

his brother loves Trump. And so he's better. And this pope is, you know, I think like us, just a normal guy who previously kind of had some central right cultural ways or a central different center right positions who also, though, believes in liberalism and human flourishing and taking each life seriously and not demonizing different groups of people. And as a result, he finds himself in that very weird, sweet spot of of bulwark, those of us at the bulwark,

but Trump hates him the same way Trump hates particularly, never Trumpers. But to me, what's interesting about, there's, well, there's a lot about it that's interesting. Some of it is, again, goes to decomposition and also Trump clearly feeling under siege in a lot of different areas. But part of it is like J.D. Vance. And, and I do think J.D. Vance is really the through line of so many of these stories, right? J.D. Vance. This is a meme on social media that is just a little bit funny

about J.D. Vance being a cooler, you know, like the last pope he went and visited and the pope died. And then he went to Hungary in campaign with Orban and Orban gets crushed. And then he goes to Islamabad Pakistan to negotiate and we find ourselves back in a war like this is not a talented guy.

So, but the Catholic piece, you know, he's J.D. Vance is a book out right now. His second book,

following Hillbilly, L.J. and it's all about his conversion to Catholicism. I don't know if I could have imagined a series of events lining up so clearly to ensure that J.D. Vance doesn't have a political future to have an American pope actively dislike J.D. Vance. Number one. Number two, J.D. Vance to Ron is an anti-war president while he's got it now carry around Trump's foreign adventurism, stupid Middle East war, and also just getting into a place like voters just don't like him.

He will have a stink of a loser all over him by the time he tries to run in 2028. What is your assessment of the political prospects of one J.D. Vance? Yeah, from your lips, guys, ears and the gutters who will end up as the nomadate without fans. I don't think it's going to be ruby. I think it'll be someone, if it could be someone more extreme. I mean, when these movements break apart, when these are Thursday movements break apart, they go in very unpredictable and different directions.

Different parts, they'll go in different directions. Some will be more radical, some will be more fanatical, some will be, you gotta get back to some version of normalcy, some gotta go outside of politics, we gotta come from family, I mean, God knows where they go. It's funny we've been talking about this, I just just said, there's been so much to use the last three days. Well, on your Trump, that was kind of a big event. I haven't talked to you about it. I mean, we haven't talked to you

about it. Yeah, yeah. So I just want to get your, since I discussed it in some length with,

“I think a good conversation with Sarah Matthews who had really insight out, I was saying,”

insight into her and to how that works in the White House, how does the first lady in

giving a speech in the cross hall of the White House, which is just to be clear. That's where presidents give major speeches from. It's where Trump gave his Iran speech from the week before standing at that podium. We've all seen the image. You walk down that red carpet to come to the podium. There with a seal of the president on the lectern, which is supposed to be used for the president, with all the respect of the first lady. And then she ranges to give a five and a half minute speech

about where would she defend herself against charges of having been, you know, knowing what Epstein was up to and so forth without defending her husband at all. I don't know. What is that just, I mean, that's got to be another example of something Trump is very happy with, and a bit of a meltdown in general in Trump world. I don't know what he, what do you make of it?

“Yeah, I mean, I didn't agree with you. I did JBL, and I did talk about it. I think on secret,”

but my general assessment just is like, from a communications matter, when you look at that, the obvious thing is, okay, so she's trying to get ahead of something. There's a story that's about to come out. I actually thought it was going to come out this weekend. My assumed it would. Now, I did see one explanation, or I would say that the explanation that seems to be out there is that her best friend, Melania's longtime best friend, had like her husband, as a Trump friend,

and they got divorced. And so the husband tried to have her deported. So she's kind of in a rage state ready to tell all. Now, that mayor may not be true. I don't know, but something. There

about it is it doesn't, it's not clear. It was sanctioned by Trump, or that Trump even knew it was

going to happen. And I didn't hear what Sarah Matthew said about the actual internal machinations, but the level of tight control around narratives like that from Trump from the White House, like, that is a rogue move. So you got to think something else is coming. You know, now he's fired Bondi. He's looking for a new person in that role. I mean, look, you want to be so careful

“about saying the laws are closing in, the wheels are coming off. You need to think about”

Orban. I thought a lot about this with Orban with like 16 years. He was there. Like there were clearly times when people thought you can't beat it, right? There's no way. But you know, time goes on and people do get tired and events do matter. Like Joe Biden lost for a lot of reasons, but one of them and then Kamala Harris, one of them was just where inflation was and people feeling, in fact, that was a major one. And so like I want people to not lose hope that nothing

can change because I do think whether it's Trump's age, which is a real issue, right, for I think he's lost a step. Like he's not the same person. He's the same person in the sense that he's evil and corrupt, but he's not the same person in that he has is as good at deflecting it, as good as controlling the narrative as he wants was. And at some point, the wheels can come off. And this feels as close as we've been in a long time. Yeah, and on the Biden point, I do think in 2020

may well have been the right person, because people wanted some reassurance and stability and so forth. So the almost 80-year-old, I guess he was late 70s and former vice president for eight years was kind of the right person to nominate and also moderate terms. Right. These used to

win, but not the right person for 24, obviously. And Harris never just, I mean, whatever,

she either didn't have a chance to attend to exceed and defining herself as much other than Biden's vice president. So it was still sort of the status quo and you might say, right, and he can't

“trump. And the one thing about Maggiar, and this he has in common with Zelensky, who I think is also a very important figure,”

if you think about the broader picture here. So we have in Europe now two leaders, two anti-putton leaders, who have come, Maggiar was more traditional or traditional politician than Zelensky had been, but are both young, both dynamic, both very talented and skilled politicians. And I got to think that's got to be the model for us. Maybe someone who hasn't been in politics that much that would be Zelensky, but or someone who's been in politics, but has sort of different from a traditional

politician, which you did his past to some degree is, Maggiar did. And then turned out to have the real talented leader of a broader movement than just a typical poll, who's adjusting his position system. I'm not sure who that is in the U.S. incidentally, and maybe our system isn't quite as well set up to make it as easy to to penetrate the Trump did incidentally. I mean, you're speaking of people who hadn't been traditional politicians. I don't know, I think, but I feel the generational

change part with Maggiar. I mean, I mean, or by the time I was saying that the U.S. is all Trump, it isn't that much older than Maggiar, but being the credible candidate of change, and a really and new start in a way that Biden couldn't have been. And Harris couldn't really wasn't able to be

“either. I think that's very important going forward for 2021. I'm Theresa, and my challenge”

and all entrepreneurs started a choppy fight at full price. I think when the choppy fight is

on the first day. And the platform makes me no problem. I have a lot of problems, but the platform

is not one step away. I feel that choppy fight is a platform that can only be optimized. All it is is super, simple, integrated and balanced. And the time and the money that I can't continue to invest in. For all of you, in the vaccine. Now, let's test out choppy fight. Was once kind of an up and comer. He was leading in the gubernatorial race out in California. He dropped out this weekend after what are a number of credible charges of sexual assault.

I'll just leave it at sexual assault because there's a lot of different things flying around. And I got to say, my main takeaway from this, because it started Friday. He was out by Sunday. Democrats turned on him quickly once it was clear the allegations were proven, which actually led then a lot of people to say, oh, what was an open secret? What a kind of guy he was and how he behaved, which then led a lot of response to say, well, if this was such an open

secret, why didn't somebody say something sooner? And so there's a little bit of all of that going around. I have two main thoughts that I'm going to lay out. One is, I think it speaks well of Democrats that when this kind of stuff comes out, like everybody abandoned him and they said,

have Republicans have treated similar allegations, whether it is Gonzalez, who was one of the

more recent ones, congressmen who, who the staffer, who he'd been having the affair with killed herself and then lots of other things came out about him. Republicans weren't out there calling for his alster. They weren't doing anything about it. Then also obviously Trump and Corey Mills, like the Democrats, I have just been a little bit better at cleaning up their own own house is my main takeaway. What about you? I very much agree with that. And Cuomo, they dumped and

didn't nominate him, even though people like us probably would have been closer to him ideologically than to someone like Moundani. But to the, you know, I don't blame the New York Democrats for saying, no, we're not going back to some sex past here, you know, at the quit is governor. Two years before, and now we're going to make them, our mayoral nominee, that's crazy. So for me, this is all

well thing, and all the others, but Gonzalez, Mills, and the Epstein matter, people want,

“are going to want change, turn over. I think the odds for every challenger to any incumbent are”

going, I get so much better than they were, you know, a few weeks ago, in the sense that they just say, this guy is part of the system. And it's early, every single Democratic rep was getting long fine with their work so well. And every single Republican member of Congress was getting long fine with Gonzalez, right? And now it's unfair to us, obviously, but they didn't know, it was only in, or they knew they didn't know for sure. And anyway, you got to, it's your colleague,

you can't do anything yourself about it. If someone's unwilling to press charges. So I guess, but the degree of anti incumbent anti status quo, anti, old voice club sentiment that there is this country now. And I think we'll be for the next three years. Can't be over estimated, I think.

I would just want to say real quickly, this is the difference between, it's not the thing that

everybody seemed to know is that he was kind of like a, he'd get drunk and like he was, you know, out there, you know, flandering around, that's different than like assault, which it also sounds like he was, it sounds like people kind of knew about the bad behavior, which is very different from knowing about like actual criminal activity. But he is now, it looks like they're going to prosecute him. And I, I noticed with some interest that Anna Polly and Aluna had tweeted that she was

“sort of, she was going to lead the charge on expelling him from Congress. And I think you and I,”

I assume we're on the same page, you're like, go right ahead, expelled from Congress. But like, if you met Donald Trump, Anna Polly and Aluna, the extent to which Republicans are sort of blind or unwilling to grapple with. And because I pointed this out on social media, which social media is successful and whatever, but many, many people came to tell me that Donald Trump, nothing's ever been proven against him, nothing, you know, and I'm like, are you kidding, like the willful blindness

on not only did he tell us on tape about where he grabs women because he's a star, not only did he say in a deposition that, well, it's just true, you know, men are allowed to do this if they're rich and and famous. Unfortunately, it's that's true. Also, he's been accused, I don't know, certainly in the teens amount of times, maybe more than that. And he was found liable by a jury for sexual assault against Eugene Carroll, like he has a conviction on that. So like,

I don't know what to make of it other than exactly what I say, which is that it would be,

“it would be nice if Republicans cared about any of this whatsoever. I know, I think, I think”

you're right. I think Democrats are, would be wise to certainly not defense while well, not defend like it's another Democratic member who's charged with, it's not to go to trial for I think it was a more financial crisis when I was taken, but anyway, that one should be defending people that shouldn't be defending at this point. And, but again, I come back with a lot of it, we're talking with it. Well, why do Trump start up on the White House and said, these rich executives who benefit

from Epstein have been paid enough of a price, well, who is one of those executives, you know, who's who's sort of has not been held accountable for Epstein. Some of them, I think she said something like some of them have, you know, left their jobs, but we need a more thorough going the truth needs to come out. Well, what chief executive hasn't left his job, because of, because of his association, very close to association, certainly, with his payouts every Epstein.

So, I think the Epstein thing will not go away, also, not just because of Beladay, because it's just isn't going the way period at this point. This one point I'll make, though, maybe we can close in this, because you and I, and Tim, all made this point a lot over the last few months. This is not a matter of ideology. You can be a centrist Democrat. You can be quite a conservative Democrat. You could be the equivalent of a guy if you want in terms of where you are

in particular issues. You could still be as resolutely anti-Trump, as resolutely pro individual rights of liberal democracy, as resolutely we need fundamental change. If you're a mod, if you're the way in which you want to end up with fundamental changes, more of a FDR type of forms, then, you know, democratic socialist changes, that's great. But that FDR didn't pull his punches because he wasn't in agreement with Huey Long, and he wasn't in agreement with the communist

moderates need to be as fervent in their desire for fundamental change. So, do you think as the

progressives? Do I think this? Oh my gosh. I mean, this is where, you know, you brought up Mamdoni earlier. Mamdoni, I want to take what he's doing on the communication side and just force feed it to the rest of the Democrats. I mean, it is, although I got to say, we're right now the best communicators in the Democratic Party are AOC, Mamdoni, and Pete. Now, Pete's really good on a CNBC panel. I don't know if you saw that with him and Joe Curtin, but Pete just like took

him apart. And it was so glorious. I need to cigarette afterwards. But this is such an important point. And honestly, at the end here, I'll just say, this is what my whole book is about. It is

“about rejecting the idea that you need to be more centrist or more progressive. You don't have to”

align yourself with the far left or with the never trumpers. You don't have to do any of that stuff.

It is about thinking about the voters and what the voters want. And we know what they want. They want you to take the economy seriously. They want you to take the border seriously. They want you to be anti-corruption. They want you to tell them that they can have a better future that education can get better in this country. And it is about Democrats finding somebody who can lead because the way you build the big broad coalition isn't by like, I'm going to go on

this podcast and this podcast and you should go on. You should go on all of them. But it's about

you being a leader. You being able to set an agenda that other people can lock into. And a lot of

that is by looking at what is happening right now. And going so hard at it as the antithesis,

“but also having a clear, and this is what I think you can learn for Maker, which is also a clear”

vision of where he was going. Not just being anti-Orban, but also what he was going to stand for, what he was going to do, how he was going to improve people's lives from where they are right now. And so that is the part I would love to see more from Democrats because Bill, I got to say, I do think the wind is at our backs a little bit. The backs of those of us who believe in liberal democracy, and it's a good day. It's a good day for liberal democracy today.

I mean, we did our backs, got to take advantage of it there, right? Not just coast. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. It liberalism and authoritarianism was inevitable for while. And now liberalism was inevitable for while. That would be the worst possible lesson to take from this, this last weekend. That's exactly right. We have agency and we've got to use it.

Stop crying, start working. Bill Crystal, thank you so much for joining. And thanks to all of you for listening to the board podcast. Don't forget to rate and review us. Subscribe to us wherever you get your podcasts. Tim will be back soon. Don't worry. Thanks everyone for listening. The board podcast is brought to you. Thanks to the work of lead producer Katie Cooper, associate producer Ansley Skipper, and with video editing by Katie Lutz, an audio

engineering and editing by Jason Brown. I'm Theresa and my experiences with all entrepreneurs

“started with choppy fry erfolgreich durch. I believe choppy fry is the first day.”

And the platform makes me no problem. I have a lot of problems, but the platform is not a step-by-step. I have the feeling that choppy fry is reflected from continually optimising everything. Everything is super, simple, integrated and balanced. And the time and the money that I can no longer invest in it. For all of them, in vacuum. Now, let's test the choppy fry.de.