Bill Kristol: Call the Pool Police

- Hello and welcome aboard podcasts, I'm your host Tim Miller. It is Monday, so of course we are here with Edgar at Large Bill Crystal, who is we're all walking free,

“that we are watching very closely on of our colleagues.”

Who is the first person down there

doing a trepid reporting at the reflecting pool, noticing, or maybe not noticing, but documenting that the blue paint was coming off. Chipping would be the most generous thing you could say to Donald Trump's reflecting pool paint man,

huge portions of it were coming off. And in the intervening period, we've heard that the arrest happening for any troublemakers who are observing the president's failures.

As Andrew pointed out this morning, it's funny, but maybe not so funny because actually they've arrested the 67-year-old bicyclist to show it up and seems to have simply reached into the pool to see what it feels like with all the algae

and the part of the bottom coming off there. And I think he has been arrested, I mean, and presumably has to,

I don't know, get bail and get a lawyer and all this.

- Like everything, you know, it is one part in theocracy, one part minus, you know, tell your elements of it that are concerning, that the North Korean elements, you know, people can not observe our governments

incompetence and waste and buffoonery, you know, without fear that the state will come after them. To example, this judge box of wine was on Fox News over the weekend, speaking to Peter Ducey and they talked about how seriously

they're taking the investigation regarding any so-called vandals of the reflecting pool. And that includes those in the press. Let's listen to that. - Trump's got a crime stoppers tip for a human and a man.

- Lightweight ABC reporter Jonathan Carl was seen sticking his hand into the pool and trying to rip the rubber off this surface. Judge, is Jonathan Carl from ABC in trouble? - Well, you know, it depends, you know, anyone

who was in a position, vandalizing or attempting to vandalize the reflecting pool will face the criminal justice system in DC. Look, the president has made it a priority to make DC not only safe but beautiful.

And there are several citations that have been handed out to individuals. And these are cases that will be prosecuted to the full extent. - Prosecuted.

Both of those people have a face and voice for print. I'm not sure that what Fox is doing there with their line up, but prosecuted to the full extent. This is the world we're in. It is farsicle, and one doesn't want to,

mostly it's farsicle. And it's actually doing Trump damage, which is good.

“I think this everyone's just laughing at him.”

Both it, what's happened, of course, with the pool itself and the algae and the pink comment, paint chips, as you say to be charitable, if you call on that huge

chunks of the whole bottom of the pool, basically.

And then this attempt to intimidate people from going and looking at it or maybe even feeling what it's like, pulling up one of these loose pieces of stuff. Trump has invented this vandalism

capital V, it was on it, the vandalism of 255 feet, then I think it became 300 feet. I noticed in some later tweet. Someone went and gasped the pool for 300 feet. That's kind of a big gash, you know.

I feel stupid even taking it quasi-seriously. I think this thing is on camera 24/7, and no one went into the pool and gasped the bottom. And this is, I mean, the big lie thing, but here we have Fox, sort of treating it like a real thing.

And I don't know, this, as I said, there could be some people who are being harassed. I mean, Peter, do you see there basically agitating the John Crawl to be arrested? And he does it like this fake laughing voice.

But honestly, I mean, you're interviewing the person that arrested the Sandwich man, right? So I mean, you know, Judge Janine is going to, you know, do investigations. And it's kind of reminiscent of, it's like a 90s movie

with a school principle. You know, it's very reminiscent of like a Simpson's or a Ferris Bueller, stay off type situation, where you have a grumpy principle, it's like anything you do to embarrass me, you'll get detention.

And you know, that, like, element to this, which is not how things should be going on a free country. I think we're enough of free country still that it is more farsical than medicine. Unlike some of the other things you're doing,

which really are probably more medicine than farsical.

“But look, it's very important, I think, to,”

I was out of call over this morning, some lawyers were debating that it's actually some lawsuit that's pending from some star preservation group that this was five, four weeks ago. But you keep shouldn't be messing around with them. Reflectable this way, they're processes.

You should go through, we've very changes start like that. And I think they're thinking the lawyers are revitalizing this suit and light of subsequent developments by not a bad idea. And there was a little bit of an argument, well,

But I think the more news, the more attention

the reflection pool gets, the better, the more only what he's giving a speech to their Wednesday Trump is in either the beginning of this great American fair, whatever the heck it is, you know, the all the artists pulled out of him that he decided he would give this

opening speech at. And I'm hopeful that, hey, no, we'll pay it. And it has to do it would be to do me people pay attention. It's entirely to take a look at the reflecting pool. Not to, of course, listen to Trump's interpretation

of our children 50th birthday, so. Well, there was a dead duckling on the reflecting pool. Yeah, that's bad. Don't you think that's bad, the, I mean,

“I think you did this stuff for a living once 10, 15 years ago.”

And I think I think a dead duckling is not good. Not good. It's going to be opposite of Bernie's bird. Remember, the bird landed on Bernie's podium and all the Bernie people made a big deal.

That's sort of like the opposite to them, the dead bird.

The taxpayers will pay it. They'll be paying more to fix that. He goes, so we'll work will begin immediately on fixing that. They're a flight to pool.

So the bill will go up for that just like for the ballroom and the ballroom and the ballroom. And nothing, no big contract. So they can contract with each other. It's like he's a bad guy from the 1980s movie.

Who is part of the gym traffic? Can't stand all the guy part of the gym traffic? Yeah, no, it's, you can't make it up, right? I can order that case. OK, well, just as for the bicycle we meant

and we will continue to keep an eye on the story. Let's move on to Iran. The straight-of-ormous was closed again, over the weekend, in response to Israel and Hezbollah continuing the fighting in southern Lebanon

and attacks back and forth there. If you look at the analysis of just monitoring the ships going through the straight and it does seem like that there's maybe ghost ships going through it, et cetera, but just the ones that you can monitor.

Before the war started, I was also going to chart, let's talk about spending on the day 60, 70, 80 ships were going through.

That went down to basically zero.

We hit a peak after Treaty of Versailles to electric boogaloo of 15 ships making it through. That number went back down to three yesterday as Iran closed the straight again. Meanwhile, the vice president and the president

son of law are in Switzerland negotiating. - Yeah, quote negotiating. They seem to be giving you a ride of the war to try to get that straight open again. And since Trump correctly said it,

this could cause the longer it says, because the more problems for the global economy, this thing is ridiculous to follow every twist and turn. And I feel like part of the writing, what he says this morning, I don't have to write about Iran.

“It's kind of important that they don't like God.”

And other fake toughness from Trump, fake negotiations and vans, fake concessions a year, fake achievements there, the IAA might get back in. I believe they were in there. That was the whole point of the Obama deal.

They were in a very complicated and serious way, actually. And now we're on vaguely promise. Yeah, well, that's some of these inspectors in maybe what Vans says they promise you don't even know if they promise, honestly.

Meanwhile, we're giving up sanctions, we're giving money right in the left to them. They're doing fine, and that's going to continue to be the case. - Yeah, so that was the big, kind of new, what a good news this morning.

The inspectors are coming in. And they also vice president said this and a press conference this morning. Jared Kushner came up with a very interesting idea during the negotiations.

Kushner and the Qataris figured this out together. Vans said, it is kind of interesting. I mean, we had the big signing on Wednesday. So it feels like the ideas about the sanctions relief and the inspectors should have been previously

to the MOU, but anyway, nitpicking. Jared Kushner, according to Vans gave up an interesting idea as idea, which is that when we unfreeze the money for Iran, that will then actually go to buy American soy,

American corn, and American wheat for the benefit of the Iranian people, what Jared and the Qataris and the entire team here at Bergen Stock at Compass to me is a classic Trump deal. Maybe true, but not in the way the device president

means a classic Trump deal. But all of this is absurd, and it's desperate. And it's just like, OK, well, we've now we took some heat that we're giving the Iranian so much money. So it's like it's going to go to the American farmers now.

It's like, does anybody believe this? Do the Iranians even care? Why is Jared there? We have an agent of the Saudi government who doesn't work for our government.

They're the vice president is crediting with being the point person on this negotiation.

“I think one interesting side sort of minor aspect of it was advanced,”

dragging Jared. I mean, mentioning Jared so prominently, right? The Jared to go shaded this very well. So this is the dirty thing this is advanced trying to make, say, this is Trump's deal.

This is Trump's the fan, Trump families involved. This isn't just, they try to put me out there. It's the kind of, you know, sacrifice me as the sacrificial lamb on this. But I'm working closely with Jared.

It's also pathetic on eight different levels. Or maybe Jared is a charge at its pathetic. I believe he's not trying to do anything.

And he's like, whatever you say, sir, I don't know.

It's hard to say.

“And they posted, the guitarists posted a picture”

of Jared, J.D., and the cutter he got representative. Like, you know, it looks like kind of like a hotel conference room. There's a curing machine in the back. And they're like hunched over a single laptop. And J.D. has like a woman's ID card but into the computer.

So I don't know, maybe he forgot his pass code for, you know, Jared doesn't have his security clearance. He's in there with a foreign agent. And only the vice president, I guess, didn't have his, his password. So it's some other woman's card is in there.

And like, that's the picture that they're putting out. And it's like the Iranians are kind of just chilling. Yeah. It's like all of the optics of this about who has the power and the negotiation.

And there was a video from the initial meeting in Switzerland. And the Iranians didn't show up to the open press part of the meeting. It was just kind of Jared knowing about talking to a couple of golf state leaders. I mean, he is just clearly, you know, the beta party. And then we go, she shouldn't right now.

As we are like begging them to get the straight back open. And also giving them money. Yeah, I guess was that picture put out photo put out by the guitarists. I think so fairly, right? And so yeah, let the guitarists.

Yeah, so they're relishing their status here. They're a country that we have for sure. We have had the past to real issues with. I believe, tolerant, you know, Hamas is at quarter there and stuff. But, you know, they're great.

And we're happy to use their past because they're a card for the computer. No issues there. No security problems. They're given us the plan. We've got the plan.

That was a great deal.

They only cost its taxpayers a billion dollars to retrofit it to make it.

Both secure. So we could look for all the bugs that they put in there. Yeah, I'll set the thing, JD's walking around her is milling about the pack of stannies are also there in JD's. We love the pack of stannies.

Thank you. It's like, where are they hiding? Some of them.

“Actually, I didn't, didn't we have to send a CLD to send their in secret at night?”

If we like the pack of stannies so much, couldn't we have negotiated the arrest of Osama done? Why then would we have needed to fly in under cover of darkness and kill them? The whole thing is absurd. This is Trump's farm policy, right?

We're in great terms with Qatar, the pack of stannies. We're getting on great terms with Iran. Traditional Democratic allies, people you create were fighting for their survival and for a liberal democracy. We don't care that much about them.

Yeah, really there's also said I just shouldn't have that even once the straight gets back open, you are going to have to fill out a TPS report before you can get through. It's got to be submitted through three Mala bobs and you have to do it 48 hours in advance, cover sheet's got to be right. And so we'll see how that shakes out.

I wanted to play a little cop from Fox about how they're feeling about things. It's really interesting to watch. There are kind of two factions on Fox, right?

There is kind of like the America first, we shouldn't be involved there at all, like whatever

who cares, like we should be humiliated and just let their audience have whatever they want to get out of there, crowned and go back to focusing on things that really matter, like mass deportations and like menacing people at Kinston-Jeras, you know, like there's that crowd at Fox and then that kind of overlaps just the cultists type, so I'll just say everything's great no matter what happens.

And then they're the hawks who are still trying to spit backfill and spin this idea that's like, well, you know, Trump might be, there might be some 40 chess at play here, you know, Trump might be waiting till an athlete election, Trump might be, you know, leading Iranians into a trap and in that category, we had trig outy last night interviewing the former Vice President Mike Pence and I was kind of tickled with the end of the exchange and that interview

I'd like to play for you. I've seen his patience run out with me on the golf course. I don't know if you've ever seen his patience run out, but that is not something the Iranians I think, while I see. It's like, on the one hand, it's like, oh, the Iranians better watch out.

Like Donald Trump's get an impatient now, it's like, oh, wait, he just signed a surrender in Versailles in France, like last week and then number two, it's Gaudi looking at Pence

“being like, has, have you ever seen Trump run out of patience with you?”

Like, uh, yeah, you sent them out to kill me. I think Pence had a little career down this face when Gaudi said that. Did you think Pence was aware of the irony of this situation? Oh, good. It's like, um, yeah, try.

Yeah, yeah, he's, he's been on out of patience with me. That's the kind of material you're getting on weekend Fox. So, you know, it's all kind of post-doc backfilled spin from the megaphoax. The one thing I will say is like, if it were true, the Trump cared about the actual result in a run, which it doesn't, like chilling out now and avoiding the energy crisis

name to do.

But it's just, I just don't think that that's real.

“Yeah, no, I think what, I don't think he's going back there and also what would that”

even mean? I mean, handling it, right? We tried to handle it for 37 days, didn't work out, so it came to other 37 days or something. It's possible, I don't know.

Don't take the grand troops options really on the table. Great point. Well, like, the premise of the war was wrong. Not, it's not just Trump being a, I think it is true that Trump is humiliated and he's walking away and he's embarrassed and he's weak.

Like, it's also true that the whole premise of the war was flawed as Bob Kaking light out from the start, you know, and that, like, going back to doing it again next year, would not have any better for a result. Yeah, I think that's right. The real world effects are bad.

It's one of these things. This one is, and the first of all, plus disaster side. This one's bicycle, also, of course, watching the negotiations, so Washington, Trig Audi, stuff, but it is more disastrous than far so far so far, it's the fucking below this war vehicle that just has stress.

This is the way we balance things of the Trump era, you know, there it is. All right, y'all, I've got some more travel coming up this week.

It's summer, and when I started to hit the road, you know, I follow one rule, ABC, always

be charging, all of my devices have charging cords, they're a lot of them, they're different now. I can get annoying, and I'm a loser of things, and so having cords, like all tankled up everywhere in my bag, not being able to access them, getting on to the plane for getting that I have it.

It's been a problem for me.

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Don't miss one of their biggest discounts all year, just head to Ridge.com/thebowork, and you're all set. See, you've heard about them, please support our show and tell them we sent you. So JD has been on his media tour about the war and about his book Communion. For people that missed it, over on the board, takes feet on YouTube, JPL and I did a dramatic

reading of some sections of his book of Communion, and spoiler alert, we weren't impressed. We weren't impressed, but people can go check that out. You guys are good dramatic waders though, I want to say that. I didn't realize that was in your tool kit. That was good.

Yeah. You know, I've got a lot of weakness at this bill, but I have a few surprising strengths as well. You know, another person that had the did something surprising was Ross Dalthet in the interview with JD Vance, because Ross doesn't want to really go at him hard. You can tell it's a friendly space, but Ross has not completely given himself into the

devil and the way the JD has. You know, and he still has, I think he's still, you know, trying to process how to balance sympathies with mega with genuine Catholic faith, which at times creates tension between

him and JD, because for JD, the whole thing is the first, right, like the whole thing.

I mean, who the hell knows, he might be a Baptist in two years if that helps him out politically and the whole thing is ridiculous. And so that creates tension at times, and during JD's interview with Ross, Ross was asking him how he, you know, manages to align the rhetoric of this administration with Christian teaching and on a play a little bit of that exchange.

Let's be honest, the tone of the administration is not consistently a Christian tone. There is a tone of aggressive, uncharity to people who are not born with the administration's policies. I'm not saying we're perfect because we're not. My point is that the tone argument is in some ways, I think, people see what they want

to see. And I also think that tonal arguments are ways of frankly policing working class ways of communication and covering them in elite preferences. Ross's face there, so we're doing it on the video, and he just like, I can't even fake it.

the way that we're working class talk.

What do you make about going? JD's amazing, right? I mean, he's read some of this. He's not stupid. He's read some sort of high-toned bullshit about, you know, in defense of Maga World and working

class prejudice world, if we can be honest about it over the years. And one of them is something about, yeah, elite policing, of working class, you know, real man, real manly talk there in middle America or something.

“And so JD throws out this one or two sentences, subtle gibberish, right?”

And he's the relevant to what he's saying here. And it's not only it shows what JD really thinks about the work in class, he has, he thinks they can't be asked to do better than be aggressively uncharitable, I guess that was Ross's turn, right?

That is, if my experience with working class people is many, then we're quite charitable.

They have, you know, somewhat fewer resources than some upper middle and class and wealthy people that often they're better. They're more charitable. You know, I think there's a lot we've all had that experience alive the person who is a nurse or a school teacher or works in the cafeteria, and it's a very generous and warm person,

a much nicer than the wealthy guy down the street who's a jackass, you know, but that will be the kind of obvious answer to make here, but JD doesn't go there because he does have deep content. They all have such content, like I said, you made this point, and maybe this is a JVL point too.

I mean, they have the MAGA world leaders have such content for the actual followers. Yeah. Of course. I JVL, just family, did you see, like this is not JD, fans, as people, he, you know, went to Yale.

The whole thing is, is preposterous, but it is, and it's extremely revealing, like this idea that it's like, oh, well, it's, it's the working class people who are uncharitable.

“Like Ross's question was not, oh, about how you're craft, right?”

I might be one thing to say, oh, you know, in these fruit-fruit elite circles, you know, people want us to use fancy $100 words and whatever, and like Donald Trump, you know, talks in more of a reality TV, you know, way, which in the hill curse, and it'll, you know, be a little craft. Like that wasn't the question.

The question was about the administration's tone of a aggressive, uncharity to their opponents, right?

And so he's referring to there as a, and then, obviously, a million examples of all the

ways that Donald Trump insults the humanizes opponents, but JD himself, just the other day, I believe it was on, I think it was on Greg Gutfeld's show on Fox, where he's talking about how Democrats are just bad people, yeah, because they don't like America. That is the aggressive uncharity we're talking about. It's talking about how somebody that you disagree with politically, that means that they're

a bad person. And that means that you can insult them and be mean to them and be an asshole and be cruel and not consider their humanity, or, you know, maybe the example of talking about a group of people that are migrants into a community and you create a lie about how they eat their dogs and they eat their pets because you want to use them as a cudgel.

Like that is aggressive uncharity to people. That is something that is distinct to mega leaders and it is something that is in JD events and Donald Trump's character that they are so nasty and cruel to people that either oppose them politically or that they can use to advance their political interests. And JD's response to that is let's just kind of how working class people are.

They're all fucking assholes like me, right, they're all dicks. And that is an unbelievably revealing admission in addition to it not being true and the whole thing shows how much of a put on it all is, too.

“It's like, oh yeah, okay, whatever, like, oh, that's how the regular folks are.”

They are really nasty to people and it's just like, that's not how America is. That's not true, actually, like you don't go to, like, you know, if you're at a church function or if you're at a YMCA event, if you're at the Scottard team, like, people are not, like, aggressively uncharitable to the fellow people in their community. That's just not true.

Yeah, that's a good point. I'm like, I thought, I mean, JD somewhat cleverly, you might say, takes a question of Ross's straightforward question about the administration, aggressive uncharity. Yeah. It doesn't defend the administration.

Makes it seem as if Ross is asking about or almost attacking working class people who were not in the question to unholy, for not living up to liberal elite culture standards. And then gives a fake defense of working class people, which is a self-acquired, you know, a terrible concession that somehow they're not behaving well, but that's just an elite cultural judgment to them.

So it's really like a two or three or four step, I don't know, a vision plus, I mean, shows he's unwilling to defend the administration. I guess, well, that's worth, but I think Ross maybe if Trump's reading it carefully or listening to this, he will turn out you will get even more in order, JD, but it is very much

Right.

If you criticize anything, if you criticize ICE for, you know, what they've been doing,

yeah, you just don't understand, work class America, Tim, you know, that's, that's, that's really similar to what they've been about and I inside the belt way, coastal. Because the people working in the kitchen that ICE is menacing, they're not working, and they're not the worst Americans we're talking about actually, we're just talking about us for specific type of white working class people that support us.

“We're talking about the same thing on the white background, though, so that's what's actually”

right. They're talking about themselves. They're finding a way to deflect the criticism themselves and they have content for the working class people that you don't like, especially if they're people of color. And they have content for the working class people who mostly have voted for them, many

of whom have voted for them, so they're losing some of them, and how I'd point out, because

they have content for them, too.

This is almost as much of a photo as Trump. I mean, it's really kind of boring, isn't it? More. Yeah, Trump is a liar, but he is authentically himself. Yeah.

Trump lies in his own self-interest, right? Yeah. He's a meglamaniac. He loves himself, and he will do and say anything to support his own interests, which in a way is like, it's like the old billboard, they're going around, like at least I knew

he was a wolf. I can't remember how they have a wolf and a wolf in sheep's clothing.

Trump is just kind of authentically wolf.

The whole thing is fake. Like the whole thing is the whole thing he's trying to, like the book, the degree to which is like conversion story is just so obviously phony, is like hard to really put into words. Like the rationale that he comes up for it, like don't even make any sense.

He's like, oh, Peter Teele taught me that religious people could also be smart. It's like, you didn't know that before, you met Peter Teele of all people. The whole thing is just, he's so transparent, he's changed his name three times, changed his religion several times, he's changed his political ideology.

“The whole thing is fake, and he's telling, what was the George Packer wrote about this?”

He's talented Mr. Ripley, like, he's a talented con man, like he's deafed, trying to find cute sounding rationalizations for all this, just like in this interview, right? And it's like you can see what he's trying to do. He's trying to, you know, divert accountability for his own behavior and, you know, immediately pivot it back to an attack on some, some elite culture.

But he also in the book, I'm sorry, now you've got me on one about JD, he fucking pisses me off so much. Yeah, this is interesting though, I am most of us have a red, but you've read this book so most of us don't have to Tim, so that's, yeah. Well, I actually shed a tansley who read it on discussion then, you just gave me key sections

because I can only take so much, the ministers don't want me to have struck down last week. You know, I do stuff, stay out of the hospital, you know, the blood pressure gets high, just talking about it. But he also reflects on like how wasp culture was superior to our meritocracy. It's this is another kind of old canard of the right wing, how just like it wasn't actually

that bad when before DEI and before the left wing, meritacrafts and attack, you know, technocrats took over. We had only just had white Protestant running everything and, you know, handing things down to their, their children. It was better because they had this, like, no less of a beliefs, right?

Like there was this. They believed in certain morays and, you know, they cared about service, mid-dignity. And it's like, there's something to that, right? Like it's like the whole premise isn't crazy, but like he's citing like George H. W. Bush's type of person as like an example of this, right?

And I do think that kind of era there was, you know, more of a cultural norm and a cultural

“sentiment that, you know, you should be respectful and you should give back and, you know,”

that because you didn't really earn this, right? Like you had an obligation to give back to the community, right? But then there's no following of any of that. And the idea of George H. W. Bush would in any way, like, defend like this type of behavior towards fellow Americans, I know it would be totally anathema, right?

And so he's trying to have these things together, like a defense of the, you know, white Christians supremacy and also a defense of, like, whatever, crafts, maga, nastiness, Donald Trump's nastiness. And he's trying to unite those ideas and just like, it doesn't work. And he's trying to fundamentally, it odds with each other.

I'm glad I got you to go on this rant on the book and say, that's actually a very important point. I mean, the hexat attack blocks the approach of, to general officers, various women in minorities, because of meritocracy, but they also, the maga types advance themselves, vaguely remember they don't like that kind of technocratic meritocracy, because that was also very bad,

because that's globalist, that it's elitist, and this, so there they want to go back

But then, I thought that they were now, so they're former meritocracy, but they're not really

from meritocracy. Yeah, what it comes down to is they're for white America, run by them. Yeah, run by them. Run by them. And they can, you know, hand out, you know, kind of like a spoiled system.

I can't throw you away when they want to take things back to, just to segregate an America as a loyal system. I don't even know how to transition to this, so we're just going to do it. Is this Washington Post article about Tulsi, Javer's guru, the gentleman saying this is Chris Butler.

He goes by Guru, Siddaswa, Rupananda, Paramahamsa, I'm just going to come guru, Chris. He's a white guy from Hawaii, and it's insane. Tulsi's whole career, he was writing memos and giving dictates to her about what she should say and did. My parents run this cult, she was part of it, it's kind of a spin off of Hinduism, it's sort

of rude to the Hindus.

“I think to say that, but like that's how they, it's what they claim it is.”

This report of the Washington Post John Swain shout to him. There was a member of the group who became estranged from the cult because she was trying to protect a kid that was a runaway from, you know, some one of the families, it was abuse or whatever. And then the cult came after her, and so she found in her archives like all of these memos

and these emails between Guru, Chris himself, isn't on the emails, but he has an intermediary that is sending stuff to Tulsi. Among the things sitting said to her, serious subject to many of the memos, including once from August 16, that documented tactical advice on preventing the United States from alsting Bashar al-Assad, so he is a big pusher of Tulsi's pro-Assad stance, he sent

through talking points for TV hits. They looked through the talking points that were sent and then Tulsi's remarks in 32 TV interviews. And on 24 occasions, she used the language in the memos, basically verbatim. On the other eight instances, she used different words,

but promoted basically the same ideas. They're million other examples. You really should

read the whole story, it's insane. But I just bring it up to the context of, this person was the director of national intelligence, and she was apparently under the sway of a cult leader the whole time. So, I don't know if that makes you feel good about sleep at night, maybe Bill Paltty's looking good by comparison all the time.

“That's what I say, maybe it's why our intelligence wasn't that great actually about Iran”

and its capabilities and what would happen and so forth. Yeah, Bill Paltty, so it's like you go out of the frame, pat it to the fire. We either have a cult leader, someone who's taking orders from a cult leader, or we have a totally more standard corrupt henchman, it's really, again, that is sort of drop world too, right? It's either that crazy or there, just corrupt. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's sort of like you're either genuinely crazy,

so maybe seems like we can see our or like corrupt and in on the take, or you know, just like a total phony striver who likes all the opportunity to get close to power and like this is your chance to get on to get on the train. Or to set the personality and character of a really creepy authoritarian bully who likes making people slice miserable. They've quite a lot of them. That's a great point. Shouldn't forget them. Yeah, it's still a full

character sketch. Yeah, a lot of interesting stuff happening around the world with world leaders. We'll just do a little carbon thing in Diego. What's happening around the world with you, Bill? You wrote about what's happening in the UK for morning shots to your starmer is out today. Where are your check-with? Fifth British Prime Minister to leave in 10 years now leaving. I guess he's gonna stay a month or two for transition. You know, that

Brexit thing didn't work out so well. And I don't know, I don't remember this in 2016. I don't know if you felt this. When Brexit won, it was right at this time of years, 10 years ago to

“tomorrow. I think by, by four points was close, but still I kind of had this moment of”

fragmentation of, oh my God, it's gonna happen there. It's gonna happen here. Part of this was given by my memory of the satellite's 70s. The actual one in 79. It was such a,

she was such a outsider. People sort of forgotten this. I'm she was the first British first

female British Prime Minister ever, but also, you know, she'd been at mine for a year in the concerto party. It sort of toppled the established leadership. Then she had to be labor. She did that in a big upset after they had a very visible winter in 79. And so she wanted, I remember sort of thinking as a young kind of rake and I grew up looking type by then, you know, if she could do it there, we could do it here. And there was every tattoo's victory kind of was both the harbinger

of rake and but also a bit of a encouragement, I'd say, to those of us who wanted a change from Carter. And I kind of feel like Brexit helps Trump. You know, that, that you think it sort of

from me to the line, pretend like I did, but I did just, I was just like, I was like, I'm fucking

Europeans. I stepped it on there and did. That's right. That's the line it. So I guess a little egg on my face on that one since it did come our way afterwards. But yeah, I don't know, I thought sought more on the vein of our friend Stan Boyger likes to tweet the British experiment in self-government contingencies. I kind of feel more, it felt more that way about it. But I agree with all that. And I think that, you know, taking the lens back, the degree of dysfunction

since Brexit and like the problems that have come are are really telling. And and I think that honestly, they're particularly in Europe here, like, they're like anything else, like you can have access in anything. So they're like legitimate critiques of some of the immigration rules

“and policies. There's like the idea that's the skeleton key to fixing everything. I think continues”

to bear out that it's not the case. But I was more struck about a different element of summer being

pushed out, which was kind of the Biden parallels a little bit. It's like, I'm not going to pretend to be an expert in everything that's happening domestically in the UK. But like, it's actually like kind of fine. I don't know. I mean, the cost of living issues in the UK are really, really bad, particularly in London. And I've got friends over there and it's like tough, you know, even for middle upper middle class people, it's like the cost of living issues are really bad if you're

in London in particular. But like, you know, Starman did some basic reforms. Like they're in a really shitty financial situation. You know, and people like, well, you know, he did too much austerity on the other hand. It's like, well, they hadn't done austerity. Like, who know, this is,

this is kind of an unfalseifiable thing. But like, you know, it was at the bond market sort of

done. And that could have like, you know, they could have ended up in a hyperinflation place for Costco or even worse than they are. Anyway, they've got problems over there. The idea that care starmer has like the popularity of lower popularity than Trump here is a little bit kind of hard for me to process. And I get he's a little bit of a, that's a British word. I could a little bit of a milk shop for something like that. Larry, we come a little bit of a wet noodle. I don't know,

“I think the degree of unhappiness. My guess is that they'll probably end up with six Prime”

Ministers in 12 years. I guess this is where I'm coming around to this. I don't think that the replacement is going to solve their problems. I've got some big issues over there. What do we just keep popping around Europe? I'm fascinated by what's happening with Maloney. And this is, I wish that there wasn't so much craziness in our country because according to my visions for the podcast had come all one, what's going to be like, you know,

one or two days, we call learn about something together. And I was like, I'd love to do a deep dive on Maloney and just like understand what's happening. It's hard for me to tell. And the things that I overlap with my interests, Trump, I, she's been like surprisingly good. She's been surprising. You got a new crane. She stood up to him on the Iran war. Now we have this recent kerfuffle where Trump, you know, I guess said that she was begging to be in a picture with them.

And you know, not created international incident. And now the Italians are not like coming for a visit to America and she's popping off on him about how Italy's strong and she's going to protect Italy's interests. So she keeps doing some surprising things for somebody that when she came in was kind of pitched as like a Italian orbot. And I think domestically, not good for Gaze and like there are other things that are not great. And so anyway, I still might do this

anyway. In this case, because I've become so obsessed with Maloney, people might have to deal with having one Maloney episode at some point over the course the next few months. But it's, it's

“pretty interesting. What we've seen from her. You should do an episode so I've decided to learn”

a lot more. I mean, I'd like to say this, but this is based on like very little knowledge that this, you could start off as a populist, nationalist with some pretty creepy associates, what maybe you yourself aren't quite as bad. And maybe this is the sort of good story, you know, the happy way it can be. You can work out, you know, you can end up okay. Some things that one doesn't like in policy terms, stuff. And not a bit of decent agenda in terms of Ukraine and

in terms of fighting Trump. And also not really authoritarian. I don't think at home in the sense of death, you know, or corrupt, just just conservative, you know, in a sort of old fashioned way, maybe with touches of intolerance, maybe it's some groups. We're not real authoritarianism. I don't know, maybe this is, they get us on my part. This would be the combination of Maggar was after a part of Orban's party Maloney. Maybe there's a way back that parts of Europe,

and maybe for maybe for people here in the US, you know, we need a Maloney here. So I have a flu. Who's the Republican Maloney? Yeah. And again, without overstating the Maloney part of this, what

I get this point this kind of ridiculous question, but I'll get the question a lot, which is like, do you think the Republican Party can come back to something that you could support or something

that you think would be healthy? And my answer was always the classical liberal elements of the

Republican Party are guys. You know, like it will look more like a European right party, like in the European continent, you know, then like we've had these kind of outlier parties in the Anglesphere in the UK, you know, Canada here, Australia, where you have more, you know, kind of, um, the parties that are more of the free markets, free people, less of the blood and soil

“nationalism of that, you know, that sort of stripe. And I was like, I think that that's over.”

And so I think that like the best case scenario, I said that you could hope for would be like a Boris Johnson type, like kind of one of the Brexit type right from the conservative party folks who is like a little populist and a little rougher on the edges, but I can not fundamentally like wanting to turn the country into a dictatorship, you know, and I do and maybe now that we've gone a little bit further down the path, that is even a little bit optimistic,

like maybe the Milani model is more optimistic. I don't know, but like that's like what I do think is not the good outcome in the sense that I'm going to vote for Republicans again anytime in the foreseeable future, but the outcome that like we're not an existential threat to the country anymore, if you know, you have some kind of right populist that also is at least in touch

with basically like reality. And you know, wants to be a positive influence on the world,

maybe not aggressively, you know, like maybe not an active influence on the world, but like, you know, it is not trying to be actively harmful, I don't know. And to that extent, maybe that's how the story is like relevant here. Yeah, the one thing to get to find you were, being more intelligent on this, I mean, one thing that I think has happened though, it does happen in Europe is the EU constrained someone like Milani. Now, it's been constrained

or not, but not so much, but in a way, it did ultimately constrained, I would say, and it probably helped

“to feed him. And the guardrail, so you have to be internal on Trump, that could be a little bit”

external, someone like Milani pushing back doesn't hurt actually, and there are people on the U.S., that's possible, no, she has, but you know, kind of vague sense of, well, he's even alienating the more right wing types in Europe, you know, with a more sane, sane version of the right wing types in Europe. So anyway, I think the EU turns out to be a positive force there that we don't have here, but the degree to which Trump just picked up on our earlier conversation for

one second, I mean, really, who is allies now? His allies are literally the worst dictators,

period, and the, you know, most corrupts golf states, basically. And he doesn't have Milani, he doesn't have the conservative prime minister of Japan, he doesn't have, you know, kind of anyone who's a vaguely recognizable, normal, conservative leader in a democracy. He has only autographs or aspiring autographs or corrupt shakes. And he's about to get some more new allies. That's the other place I wanted to go and around the world. Things are not great in Latin America.

There are theories of elections in South and Central America where it's like, there's a funny meme going around, which like, all Latin American elections are on the one hand. It's like, socialist school teacher who wants to redistribute money. And it's like, right wing, Uber fashion, it's called you. And then it's like, and it's like, socialist school teacher, 49.99% like right wing, cadia 50.001% and that's like every election. And it's like,

been true in Peru, you know, that looks like I don't think it's called, they're doing California style counting going in Peru. And then in Colombia over the weekend. And the other alarming thing, I did just want to flag is Colombia president Gustavo Patro says that Israel stole the election. He was not running those as successors on kind of one of the social aside. The software was compromised. He says the only entity in the world capable of doing that is the state of Israel. And I do

think it's important to bring this up because we were simultaneously processing through a world where there's some legitimate complaints about Israel and their actions of the world stage, whether they're encouraging Trump to get into the stupid war. They're also as a serious amount of Israel derangement syndrome out there. And like the fact that the Colombia president, what does he believe this? I don't

“know, does he just he just wants to incite their supporters against Israel? I believe it's something”

to gain social media, cloud has so many posts and then social media. I don't know. But not great sign about what's going on down there. Colombia, the guy wins is like a no political experience, did AI ads with him as a tiger. And you know, I mean, it was like Hector Mountain Duke,

said it was ranked by Israel. So not a lot to get excited about there.

“Thank you, that. If you want to close with some World Cup, you said you are feeling”

you're feeling the spirit of Scotland. But it's a world custom impressive and I think a good counterpoint to Trump and to Trumpism and to Trump's attempt to hijack the target 50th anniversary. I feel like the World Cup captures the spirit of American liberal, liberal American patriotism, liberal in the broadsets. Just say American patriotism, look, that complicated of a kind of healthy patriotism where you move to your country, but you're also enjoying it and you're friendly with the

fans with the other mostly with the fans with the other countries. And you know, you'll learn

about the host country at the same time. It's a kind of globalist liberal patriotism, which is what

American patriotism is and should be and has been. And indeed still is because look at the reception they're getting here. People really are being very enjoying it. I think in some of the kind of cities enjoying hosting it. They're enjoying hosting the practice sites for the teams. People are getting I myself and not a big World Cup fan. I've been thatish to the soccer in the last few decades. And I kind of got into it. I was in Boston last week and the Scott

Scott's were there and that was really something. I mean, everyone was talking about them and you could see them everywhere and they were drinking out every bar. You know, they were emptying

at the bars and so forth and they lost. Unfortunately, Friday night at Foxborough, but they

“could make it for the first time. And I think they've never made the knockout round. They've never”

gotten past the elimination round with which we're now in the group round. And so maybe everyone's rooting for them, right? How are we rooting for the little countries, Kurosawa? It's kind of I find kind of kind of kind of kind of gotten into it. It's kind of watching the games and stuff does a little boring. But the idea of World Cup has been sort of invigorating and I think somewhat hardening. I'm struggling to get into it, but I don't have a lot of free time on my hands. And so there's

a lot of passing. And I support everybody who is very excited about it. I will tie it back to my obsessive hatred of J.D. Vance to close, which is I do think that what we've seen from the World Cup is a directed tack on his claim that in order to support American social cohesion, we need to stop immigration. Since this argument that he's making, as far as, you know, that's when he tries to make the L, I'm a benevolent, you know, anti-immigrant leader. Like I'm not one of

these bad racists that everybody's making me out to be, like when the arguments that he makes is only his high-minded sniffing his own farce arguments is like, you know, just you have so much immigration in the country so quickly at harms the cohesion. You know, we can only be socially cohesive with people that look like us and sound like us. And you know, go to the same church that I just

“started going to two minutes ago, right? That's the only way to have social cohesion. And it seems like”

we've had a ton of social cohesion, actually, with all the visitors from around the world, send the Japanese and the, from the Netherlands, that, that match we talked about last week and people from everywhere, it's Cape Verde and Scotland and everyone's coming and they're going in our cities. There are some of the small towns. I forget which country went to chat a new go, but one of the teams was based in chat a new go and they were in chat and, again,

Lawrence Kansas was hosting another team. Small towns, big cities. They're welcoming people from around the world, getting along and enjoying each other's company, having camaraderie, seems like the social cohesion is just fine. Seems like maybe the vice president of the United States, smearing people and making out supplies about people based on their, a nation of origin and their, their race is, is, is maybe what is harming the social cohesion, just one man's opinion.

Um, that's the podcast for today. Thank you to Bill Crystal. We'll have more JD, Vance Durangement Center. I'm next Monday. I'm next Monday's show who knows what kind of offenses he will inflect on the human spirit between now and then. Um, in the meantime, I think we got a new guest coming tomorrow looking forward to the old man. Bye, Bill. Thank you. 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 and audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.