Bill Kristol: Stop the Stupid Infighting, Dems

- Hello and welcome to the Bullmark Daily. We'll get to that.

“Onto Miller, thanks so much to everybody who sat in”

while it was away. You know, we bought fever dreams back. You know, Sarah did multiple heads bill as everywhere Bill Crystal doing multiple podcasts for me, so I appreciate that.

I appreciate the pod production team for working while I was getting tanned. We'll do a little vacation talk, explain the new pod, logo and name, and I got some thoughts on the Michigan elections.

Do all that at the end.

But first it's Monday, and so he's back again.

It's Bill Crystal. - Hey Bill. - Thank you very much, Jim. We missed you, the audience missed you. Everyone was still on your work

to talk about the two main topics here. Where's Tim Miller and the Odyssey? - They're close. - I don't believe that's true. I really tried to bubble myself as much as possible

as I was going, and so thanks to the producers here. Thanks to Anne's Lee. I really pulled together a list of the things that happened since I bubbled myself, and I just kind of want to go through them with you, and then we can pick

whichever topic you want to start with. You feel like it's the most pressing two weeks I was going. More US casualties in the Iran war, which was supposed to be over very quick, as I recall. Numbers, number of service members killed in the war

is now up to 18.

The regional war is expanding.

Trump is pretending like we're close to a deal again, but I guess last week had promised the biggest attacks since World War II. So that's kind of a little bit same as it ever was. So what's going on with the Iran war?

Brent Crew did get back over $100 of barrel laws gone. There were cyber attacks on our water supply that experts say point to Iran, but Trump said it was Minnesota, but did it. So that's concerning.

The Saudis, we have a deal. The Saudis to go nuclear, that doesn't seem great. There's still imprisoning foes of the regime. I don't really know if we want them having a clear weapon. We're bailing out Japan for some reason.

Jay Clayton, a man of no experience for the job, and now integrity was tapped to the D&I. The G.O.S., she centers all what along with it, because he was better than the other person that they had previously put up with.

Let's experience the less integrity.

Todd Lanches on the ropes for a second.

“The Secret Service illegally surveilled Jim Komey”

over the seashells we found out. Trump's social media companies now giving early access to his market, moving tweets to banking clients. So otherwise known as taking bribes, the Trump family's taking bribes to give

finance years early access to his announcements. The D.O.J. admits that they're reflecting pool problems were caused by shoddy work, not vandalism. So they dropped the case against an innocent man. They were gonna put in jail for 10 years

for going after the reflective pool. Even after the Dr. Case Trump administration officials are still pretending like the vandalism was happening and doubling down against the people that they had also accused.

The vandal agents around the country were told that the FBI would no longer investigate confrontations with immigration agents. The Trump administration has launched plans to channel more asylum seekers in the deportation proceedings

without hearings. The Haitians are going to be deported. They have plans for that. Putting them on deportation flights back to crisis stricken Haiti, that's coming.

The executive director of the Office of Homeland Security statistics resigned saying that there's a war on immigrants when they're using the statistics for ill, Trump kind of sort of hit the bush slide. Socialism is coming back to the upper Midwest

and I didn't even want to know what's happening in the DNC. I'd gently tried to brief me and I don't want to continue bubbles for whatever's happening there. So that's the summary.

Where do you want to start? Did that cover everything?

“Was there something in the thought that you feel like I missed?”

- I think those are the high points or maybe we should say the low points, right? - Yeah, low and low. - A lot of corruption, a lot of lying, a lot of bad government. And you know what's good about that list actually

which I hadn't really thought of since I happened kind of following it stupidly, you know, getting to involved day to day is, it does give you a sense of the magnitude and the breadth and depth, I guess,

so I put it of what's happening in the Trump administration. You know, the lying, the corruption, it's not one little place, it's not just the White House, it's not one department, the Department of Interior who thought about them at all,

turns out Doug Bergum is also lying or it is people are lying to the Justice Department and they all together are lying to the court. And then, and the Secret Service is calling the Air Force One to report on Jim Colley.

I mean, did you agree if it's bad? It's bad, that's my conclusion. - The way that the corruption and just the incompetence all ties together, it's like looking at the list, I cheekly said we're bailing on Japan for some reason.

We're really bailing on that because of the Iran War. - Right. - Honestly, I didn't like, you know, because we got into a stupid war and you know, Japanese yen is now down to lowest point,

it's been eighties and that a lot of Asian countries including our allies are having oil crises because it's more acute for them as far as, you know, receiving oil the oil that goes to the straight of horror moves,

you know, versus, you know, how it impacts us domestically. So like, you know, all these things, like the insider dealing, like the insider trailer,

'cause I think that's what we should start on first.

“I mean, like ostensibly the objection to Blanche,”

which was, I guess maybe the one besides Trump hitting the bushline, the one green shoot from the news update for the last two weeks, was that Blanche had been briefly held up by Republicans in the Senate because they're like, this slush fund is too far.

This is like, like, Trump failing taking bribes like through his social media company, that's no big deal or taking bribes from Middle Eastern countries that now we're giving nuclear access to, like that's not a big deal,

but like Trump literally taking tax dollars and giving it to insurrectionists was like a step too far for like two Republicans. And so last night, Cornin and TLS fold on this because Blanche's promised put out on a piece of paper.

The slush fund is not gonna go forward. Money isn't gonna be dispersed to allies of the administration, but they did not do anything to take back like Trump being able to avoid being audited from first access.

And the idea that this was the only reason to object to a really honest even the main reason. It was one that they'd latched onto and it was good that they did, I guess.

“And I was happy when they were directing to Blanche,”

it would be a better than you not be attorney general. But I mean, as you said, he's busy prosecuting innocent people, not prosecuting eyes agents who are attacking both American citizens and people who are here lawfully,

if that matter people who are in an undocumented way, but mining their own business and living peacefully. The Epstein thing unbelievable in the meeting he had, with the Epstein survivors, maybe we were already waiting for that really extraordinary

to talk to Danny Blanche and Benzki about that, just what it was like in person, the kind of contempt he had. And who he had covered up, you know, had no intention of not even not doing anything, but not even making them feel heard, I mean really.

So, but anyway, they came predictably. - Yeah, they came predictably. And it's ridiculous, Professor, to put a man for those who just laid out, but just in the grand scheme of things,

like the slip-up from his confirmation hearing, where he was like, when John Kennedy said to you in Trump's friends, and he's like on Trump's lawyer. And it's like, that's how he sees that. - Yeah, I like the scale.

Like, you were just talking about the scale of corruption. - Yeah, they're doing sham investigations, whether it be over the reflecting pool, or over Colmey, it's under the doing plenty of sham investigations against foes. They're not investigating, so the ice agents,

think about all the other stuff they aren't investigating now. And like the scale of public corruption right now is unimaginable. One of the other stories that briefly pierced my peaceful bubble was how corporations are going into Trump

and it's like you got to give a million dollars

to the mag super PACs in order to get kind of favorable treatment on regulation, et cetera. I mean, the graph that is happening in this administration is incomparable to the first term. And then extremely incomparable to anything else

in modern American history. And it's like to put a person in charge of the Department of Justice amidst all that under party line votes, it's just like gonna act as a henchmen for the president, isn't saying, it's insane.

And these guys, like, you know, the only two people that offered tepid pushback are people that are trying. Like, what is their point of fold again now? What's the point of folding now?

“And I think that these guys are so deep,”

so you get a bubble, they're so deep in their own bubble that I do think that they've convinced themselves. That like, blanche, I got to go with blanche because, you know, it's not him who the hell knows what it could be, could be somebody worse.

- Yeah, that was the attitude to let them to quickly confirm Clayton, right, for director of the National Intelligence. So we have, just to get to steppe back, as you say, we have now, Blanche at Justice Clayton

at ODI and I, Hexethet Defense, Mark Wayne Mullin at DHS at Patelit FBI, Keynash security agencies, all involved in justifying corruption, lawlessness, election, subversion, incidentally, which Blanche's just apartment's been flugging ahead

on as much as they can. They're losing fair amount in the lower courts, but I was talking to a couple of state sectors to state last week. And y'all, they're getting a lot of pressure.

It's something that we're resisting, but the pressure has some effect. Maybe it's a tourist, some people from voting too, if you scream and yell it off about how you're going to get deep trouble if you make a mistake

and vote when you shouldn't. And they're not sure if they're correctly registered. Anyway, the whole thing is, it's very bad. I mean, we have a really bad administration full of true Trump loyalists,

who are some of whom are not totally incompetent, unfortunately. And I guess the other thing I'd say is, it's clearly what you read about the reflecting pool case, for example, it's penetrated down, right? It's not like there are interior department staffers

who provided the bad information to justice department staffers who in turn provided it up to peer up.

There are people at the second, third, fourth, fifth levels

who are going along or who are enthusiastic, in some cases, if they were hired as Maga Loyless and enthusiastic participants at all this

So the degree of danger of the next two and a half years,

I think, from the executive branch, it's just kind of confirmed by the confirmation of latch. And it wouldn't matter that much incidentally, if you didn't get confirmed, it's not like Trump was going to put someone good in there,

but Blanche probably a little more dangerous to see knows what he's doing. So that's really the bad news. - Let's go to the security side of that, because you're right.

And I do think since it gets lost and when you, on Thursday at a podcast, a focused on the Department of Defense, and what's happening with Hanks app, which is really good. And you say that, well,

sure they do have some competent people

“in some of these offices, I think Blanche is like”

the philosopher after his learning how to open the doors and he's learning how to do. And you've got Miller and then the immigration, they've got some competent, nefarious people in immigration and other places.

From this to security standpoint, like the incompetence at the top of DOD, where Hanks have no idea what he's doing. They're now leaks coming out about the ways in which we're not prepared now

for counter attacks against us, against the home land against allies in the region. And then you pair that with Jay Clayton, who was just like had one of the most buffoonish clownish confirmation hearings I've ever seen.

Being at ODI and I, you have a cash at the FBI. You're the president of the States coming back to that rundown saying that what was seems like an attack on the homeland, a cyber attack from Iran, like he's pretending is from Minnesota.

You know, who knows, maybe we'll get out of this. Good luck. And maybe, you know, for whatever reason, you know, good fortune will fall on the country and that we won't face threats from, from foes.

But like it is truly madness thinking about kind of that, like just the Higgs F. Clayton Cash, in a kind of leadership of in these security offices. - No, totally. Especially when you have a president who's,

it's all gone to his head. The imperial vision is now much more part of where he is

than in the first term, where he had all kinds of

other terrible visions and prejudices and inclinations and policies, but that really wasn't quite as much part of it. Now it's clearly central and now he's got himself in the hole in Iran and he can't get out and won't do the things he would have to do to minimize the damage.

Yeah, so we get the worst of all worlds, right? Very aggressive authoritarianism at home. So some of it, unfortunately, was some prospect of succeeding at least for a while and then at a broad sort of incompetence

“imperialism, if you want to call that authoritarianism.”

If you were just staying at home, at least what would feel like, okay, maybe, you know, it's not great policy in our alliances to get a weaker, but it won't can imagine it just being a gradual process. But the Iran War really has, you've made this point

several times. It's put an exclamation point on, you know, on the retreat abroad and on the incompetence abroad and every ally and every opponent we have around the world is looking at us in thinking.

Well, none of 10 of the consequences. I want to do a little bit more on Iran and once I can watch this really close on Blanche because you had in the news that it was morning, trying to make lemonade out of lemons.

It was a good effort. I appreciate it at the effort. You know, it's pretty sour out there. But, why don't you make the case for people and have an attention through?

Well, just it does force all these Republican senators to vote for Blanche, maybe with the exceptional Collins, then they need to get 50 votes and several them around the ballot and then it forces them with the other. In the open seats, the Republican challengers

are gonna gas this week and they'll say they support Blanche's confirmation. I don't know the Blanche is a huge voting issue,

“but I think it does bring home what for me is the key issue”

for the next three months that Democrats just need to hammer.

A Republican Congress will never stand up to Trump.

You don't like Trump, Trump is hit the bush line, Trump is a 34% approval, you want him checked. Whatever you think of us Democrats, you don't have to love us, God knows, but we will check Trump and the Republicans won't.

And here's the latest instance. It looked like they were gonna check Trump and they didn't, right? I mean, so it's good to go out into the process with a capitulation to Trump in that respect. I think for a political point of view.

- And I think it's good to just make the point also than that they really didn't stand up to Trump at all. And I don't think they can firm him. They did it based on this fig leaf, like total sham document, like the document

I ever have legal standing really could have held in a court before now, but like this isn't signed by all the parties to the original agreement. Like it's just blanch, right? And Trump has certainly broken a lot of handshake deals

before and it doesn't seem as if Trump was on board for this. And again, like even the stupid piece of paper he put out didn't do anything to address like the other corruption about this, which is a immunity for Trump on the tax side.

And so like the whole thing is fake. And what Trump wants to spend his time and focus on in the next two years is just going to be more and more examples of this enrichment of himself and his allies. Like that is what is left of his agenda.

of that for some of these house and center races

is sensible. - It's still tough. - Especially the Senate. I was even literally will vote for him.

“It has to have no eye on Moody and Florida, and they really”

will have to cast that for him. And it's not a great vote for them. I don't think so. - It's all within and it'll ask us. - So they make a marginal difference.

And I do think it fits into the theme and if it keeps Democrats on message, which is, you need us to check Trump as much as we can. They shouldn't oversell it. There's corruption, it's going to be hard to stop it,

but at least you're not going to facilitate it. Turn a blind eye to it, co-alarm in it. So that's got to be their core message. I would add, I say this in the morning shots, I don't know if you agree with this.

Maybe I overstated it, but meanwhile, yesterday, this is before the capitulation on Blanche, and we'll end this out there. There's some chance the Blanche still doesn't make it.

I'll think Republicans might have problems, etc.

And Democrats should fight it hard and drag it out all week and make a big fuss about it. Assuming he does make it through. Democrats yesterday announced, they were at a agreement on a continuing resolution.

They're going to fund the government through December 11th. It totally confuses their message. The message should be the Republicans are terrible. All they want to do is accommodate Trump.

But you know what, we're going to kind of deal with them. I totally unnecessarily. Now, before they go home, so they can go home and saying, you know, we're governing responsibly. Look, the Democrats just voted for a bipartisan way

to keep the government open. I was going to rant about Dan Sullivan, but we'll just give it to you. He's okay, you rant about it. Well, no, we'll give it to Dan Sullivan next.

We're going to do the CR. Because I couldn't believe this. I texted this to you yesterday. I got my little idea. I did. You were the one I hadn't noticed.

I turned my attention on. You know, they're all off. And it was like the punch ball news or words. And it says this, congressional appropriators have released a short-term spending bill that will fund federal agencies

through December 11th, attempting to avoid a pre-election day shutdown. The bipartisan bill is expected to be taken up and sent it this week. It's like, why?

What? Why? Why? Why would the Democrats come along with anything? And this is like, we're doing Michigan the very end.

You understand what people are going to go for. I'll say, when the stuff like this happens.

“Honestly, like what could possibly be the rationale”

for signing on to a bipartisan effort to fund this government with the way that Donald Trump is spending the money on. It's fucking triumphal arch. And I'm masked, murderers, and mistreats.

Let them have the shutdown fight. Do the same thing you did last two times. Talk about what you're not going to find the government. Because you want to spend people's taxpayer dollars on helping taxpayers get health care.

Good things that they need. Not fun, Donald Trump's fucking pet projects. It's crazy. And they get almost no concessions in this. So they don't get to--

there are no limitations on what ICE does. There's no question of the war. We'll be funded, or all the things that America shouldn't be able to fuss about, A, and B, just to make the point even more obvious.

I mean, the current funding runs through September 30th. If they feel in September 26th, that it's too hard to shut the government down and they're better off doing a short term CR, I could-- that will be a case to be made.

Doing it now, two months early, giving the Republicans this nice out to say they're being bipartisan and they're being responsible and look, we're working with the Democrats and the Democrats are saying, we just suck up to Trump. But no, we're working together on its beyond--

I don't think we're going to go crazy. I look around last night. I thought maybe after you sent me the thing that I started to read about it, this is crazy. There must be something I'm missing.

And I looked around. But so far, I have not found a compelling argument the other way. Maybe I'm missing something. If you're a Democratic-centre staff, I would be glad to hear a counterpoint to this.

But I'm looking at the bill. It's like we're going to fund the National Security Department of State and Related Programs Appropriations Act. Why? Why would the Democrats be funding Marco Rubio's coups?

“That's what Marco is going to spend money on”

over the rest of the year. He's planning his finishing his Cuba coup. It includes DHS funding. It includes Interior, which I think is funding the arch. Why?

Well, not one cent. Would be my position. I mean, to see R, so it includes--

I think it includes all of them, basically.

And again, there are ways to-- is that if you want to keep stuff open in late September, there are ways to selectively keep the key departments that service people up in their ways to do even a short-term CR, maybe get some--

but insist on some concessions on some of these things that you're saying. But this is really kind of crazy. And I do-- it's your right. I mean, honestly, wire Democratic voters

on behalf of the Democrats and Washington and the Democratic establishment. That's why they are. But one of the other moments of clarity ahead of education was thinking about--

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“because I think you did make a good point.”

Now, I was a little cheekily dismissive of it about these senators having to confirm him. I just, the dance Sullivan, you were talking like, got me going, so I pulled up Dan Sullivan's Twitter feed. I pulled up his little pressurly thing to see what he's doing.

And is there a more pathetic figure than him?

And Dan Sullivan tried running like a Tom Cottonask,

kind of, as like that he was going to be like a national security, kind of responsible steward, strong US military type senator. And that's like, he's nowhere. He's just, he's the invisible man in Washington.

He goes along with everything Trump wants to do. It didn't, and he's hearing. It doesn't seem like he is any concerns about somebody being in the head of ODNI, who is absolutely no experience, who is, like, who is offensively dismissive

about questions of basic facts, about the election, and other matters. Like, no complaints about the concerns of DOD that you've covered on Thursday's podcast and the issues that we have with material like nothing.

Like he's posting, like, oh, he was at the blueberry festival this weekend in Alaska. He's got two posts about him and Mike Roe having an event. It's like nothing, he goes weeks without putting out anything. What is his position on the Iran War?

Who knows? So I guess, Pro, he doesn't say anything about it. These guys are so unbelievably pathetic. Trump is at 34%. Like, he's up for reelection.

You have no concerns about the way things are going. If you're Dan Sullivan, I can apparently not. Mary Peltola for Senator. Once you've gone along so long, it's just too hard to break. Maybe you wouldn't help him to break this light,

but he's gone along with everything. As you say, though, he's actually, I knew him a little bit back in the day. Obviously, senior person in the military knew a lot about defense. It's a care about us sincerely. It also was incidentally kind of a McCain internationalist.

“I think he joined the board of IRI, didn't he?”

The international president. Maybe he's chairman even now. I'm not too sure I've lost track. It's pretty, it's become a pretty ineffectual epithetic organization. It's going to be interesting.

But it was once a place that kind of was a home for internationalists, conservative internationalist Republicans. Yeah, he's the chairman of IRI. Yeah. It's going to be part of that.

But is he spoke up against all the other stuff? No. It's like what? Tell people this, just to be able to understand my laughter. Tell people what IRI was supposed to be about.

It's like, what was IRI? They're part of the complex organizations that get some money from the government and that can raise money on their own. To do things like election, observance, helping civil society groups, especially in Ukraine, for, you know, but in places where they're a conflict or where there's authoritarianism.

And it was, they, in the Democratic equivalent, did some pretty good work over the last two three, four decades. Yeah, sort of. Do you know the tag line? It's right here.

Pulled up. Advancing democracy worldwide. Okay. It's under attack everywhere with Donald Trump leading the charge and, like, Dan Sullivan, who is a sense with the chairman of this group as nothing to say about it.

It's just like unbelievably, like, pathetic and cocked. Yeah. I don't know. He's chairman of IRI. Yeah.

I'm glad we circle back. Dan Sullivan. If I'm in it, hate on Dan Sullivan is a nice way to return. Where was I? I wanted to talk more about the war.

So, and you covered some of this, but I, like, in some ways, this is a little bit of groundhog day with, like, Trump making threats and then backing down, but, like, there

The Ukraine war, Iran war, quasi, merge would be an overstatement, but, like, Ukraine

attacked and runny and ship, increasing evidence that Russia is providing targeting until Iran, going after our troops and our bases, and then in addition to that, kind of trying to figure out how to get out of it, there's a CNN exclusive this morning, and says that there was a request from a senior officer at the U.S. military command that said, quote, "We are looking for new, creative and unconventional ways to pressure and punish Iran,"

so that's where they're at. I can really, it's spirally, and there's a bunch of other stuff that happened as far as, you know, the expanding regional war and ways, which Saudi was getting involved in other countries. Well, at some level, it's kind of the same as it ever was, story, like, it is worsening.

Yeah, Iran turns out to be stronger than we thought, even two months ago, when we knew that they hadn't been obliterated, but we thought, I did think at least, well, maybe

they really have been set back, though, and they got a few drones and a couple of missiles,

but it turns out they have quite a lot of missiles and quite a lot of drones and quite a lot of capability to strike all over the place, and they're working closely, it does look like with China, actually, behind the scenes and with Russia, and they've got other neighboring countries totally intimidated, and B.S. called, your friend, M.B.S. called "Trump Saturday D'Aurgeum not to escalate the war against Iran."

The Saudis don't like Iran, and they don't want to make it even worse, you know, that's what, I mean, we have just destroyed the alliance structures that we have in Europe and the Middle East. Remember when they're getting in the Abraham Accords? Yeah, there's that working out.

Yeah, everything was great. You know, Jared Kushner piece in our time, it's like mockable and concerning, right, that there's like a memo going out around the security agencies, it's like, wanted. Do ideas for how to go after Iran? Like, as if there's nothing like what a half century of war gaming on this, like there isn't,

you know, people and the bowels of DOD that have been coming up with the different ideas for fucking decades, but the reason why that is, like we're harming our Asian allies, like economically, the Arab allies are being targeted, and Israel is in a different boat than

“the rest of them, but like, that's why I think that they are like, we need to come up with”

creative ideas, because they still feel like they need to put on pressure, but they don't have support for doing, I don't even think Trump wants to do what would need to be done to escalate. And the military has gone along with an awful lot of seems to be, sorry to touch from outside, maybe there was more resistance than I realized, but certainly on the show I did

Thursday, when I was pinching any for you with Margaret Donovan, I mean, it was a jagged and the decade ago, the fact that we have no report, no public acknowledgment that we hit the girl's school and how that might have happened, at least a classified report for congressmen, also a public report, that's been done many, many times, in the last two few decades as we fought wars and made mistakes and hit civilian targets, obviously.

That's just disgraceful, really. This is what got me freaked out with that conversation. The degree to which the military itself could be getting corrupted. I hate to even say it. I hope it's not happening and I think the military's more resistant than almost anything

else. In the U.S. government, you get the firings, you get the politicized promotions, you get

“the, you know, the measures that goes all the way down, if you want to get along, you're”

not just, you go along, but maybe even suck up, then New York Times story when you were gone about the way in which the guy who's chief naval operations called Admiral Cottle got the job is horrifying. It's like a story.

It's like a nightmare of what everyone who's worried about a third world politicized

military. He basically saw that Hexeth was going to fire the chief of naval operations. I think was Admiral Franketti's, I think that's when it was your name, is your name, and he decided he could get it. He spent weeks sucking up to Hexeth, hiring parlatory who was Hexeth's lawyer to be his

lawyer, saying he didn't like all that D.I. staff, I mean, basically the worst kind of political campaigning for this job, which worked. Now he's head of naval operations. So that's at the very top level, for star, but then of course, God knows what's happening at the one star level and at the kernel, major level and so forth to get promoted.

“I mean, I, I, I much more worried, I think Margaret was in this conversation about the degree”

to which in 18 months, you know, 18 months, not a short amount of time, another 24, 30 months. You're going through a whole promotion cycles here, right? People have three years for the assignments usually, Hexeth's more incompetent than the rest of them, I'd say compared to presumably the, you know, the grown-up lawyers had

justice and even to Mark Wayne, Maulin, probably D.I. Chest, but he's pretty determined to do what he's doing, and he's getting no pushback, and that gets us back to Dan Sullivan, your friend. I mean, there are people in the U.S. Senators who know something about the military, and some of them met in them, actually, are Republicans.

And this is a place where they can say, "Look, we love Trump, we love this, we love that, blow, you can have all the corrupt graph you want, but you know what, we are going to get serious about not letting you ruin the United States military." I'd have an important institution, right, and they're not doing so far as I can tell,

It's pretty telling that Cash and Hexeth are still in there.

Yeah. You know, I mean, like, for the all the stories that came out about Cash's and competence, and, you know, the American way, the people from inside the house, even MAGA, FBI agents, like just talking about how clownish it is, and then again, with all the reporting you were just talking about about the O.D., and with the obvious disaster that the Iran war is,

you would think there would be, like, that's where one of the scalps would be.

“And I think that, the fact that it hasn't been, and that there isn't really even buzz about”

it, is like, pretty, it's pretty alarming, right? As you look ahead to the kind of things to be worried about in 2008, Trump wants people that are pliable in charge of those ministries, you know? In those two cases, obviously, people who are more than pliable, who are eager to participate in all of the anti-democratic and, you know, really, but I mean, serious, when you think about

it, it's really terrible that they're there. I couldn't agree with you. Why didn't they thought about the fact that they're still there for your right that is right? It's a bondy. No.

Telling. Right. You know? Yeah. Gabbard.

Yeah. This episode is sponsored by Better Health. You've heard me talk about Better Health for a while now, but I don't know what you ever talked about how much people love the service when they use it.

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See the reviews. See what stands out and see if Better Help is right for you. Visit betterhelp.com/thebork that's BetterHELP.com/thebork. All right, I want to go to the news. One more thing from the things that I missed that I would be remiss to not cover briefly.

The surveilling of Jim Komi, like that story from our friend Kalwenag and MSNow and others apologies to whoever else was on that story, it's like this combination of shocking and alarming and it's also like the boobishness of it, I mean, it had a little bit of a watergate feel to it. It was like this was very menacing and also so boobish and crazy but like trumps on the

plane, on Air Force 1 I guess going to Middle East and the secret service folks in DC are getting messages from the plane that like redacted figure is very interested in the surveillance of Komi and where Komi is and that this is a big topic of discussion on the plane, what are we going to do? And so they surveilled him on his drive home from the beach to his house in Virginia and

surveillance house. It got his phone, their pinging where his phone was, like illegally, no warrant, like based on emergency, I guess, positive urgency, notion that he might be threatening the president. Like, that is like really just sheer madness. Yeah, I guess the surface got involved because they had to claim where there was a threat

to the president and the secret service, still so they have expertise on that in other way, which they investigated it, that justice was comical, of course, trying to get some old 86 year old mobster to say that 86 does mean rubbing some loudness of which it

“doesn't, it didn't do he, he said I think, but it does also, it doesn't, it doesn't”

mean how, again, it goes down through the ranks, so some third level secret service guy

gets a call from his buddy on the plane and he's involved in the investigative side of things in the secret service and suddenly they're all doing this stuff, which they should not be doing, right? And in that respect, it is worse than where to get, obviously, was where to get, they couldn't really penetrate the 86 quite that well, you know?

Right. That's what makes me worried. Every part, every place you look, it's happening, and it's often buffoonish, the federal communications commission, the post office with the old ballots, but they've, you know, they're, it's a pretty sustained government wide effort to, for corruption, for prosecution

of enemies, and for elections of version. Yeah. And the foolishness just doesn't negate just the total assault on civil liberties and countries in the authoritarian nature of it, right? It's just like, correct.

Jim Komi should not be spied on because the president doesn't like it.

You know, that is what happens in authoritarian countries doesn't seem like this is

“happening at scale yet here, but the fact that I think it was happening at all is an unbelievable”

scandal.

I, you know, you always do though, if this is a Obama to just blah, blah, blah, blah, it's kind

of stupid to talk about, it's nothing, but like, really, I give you look back to another administration of our lifetime, besides the two Trump administrations, maybe any of the president, the United States directed the secret service to spy on a political fellow. I can't do it. Well, talk about a couple other Republican crazy stuff that's been happening.

I'm happy to see that the Max Miller story has burst into public consciousness, but we've been talking about on this show, but for people who missed that, I don't remember, he's a Ohio congressman that that's too credible, domestic abuse allegations against him and they're

“particularly credible because the first is from Stephanie Grishom, who is Donald Trump's”

spokesperson and the second is from the daughter of Ohio Senator Bernie Marina, to Republicans,

mega folks are in the Trump orbit saying that he assaulted them and the strangely was like, this was that getting in the attention really and he's up for the election, it's a winnable seat potentially for Democrats, Brian Poindex, who's a Democratic candidate in that district. And Marino hadn't said anything, the allegations from his daughter about Miller throwing scouting hot water on her and their pictures, just a bit of pictures of like the burning

on her skin and other kind of bruises came out like two years ago, her dad hadn't said anything. He finally put out a statement yesterday saying that Miller shouldn't be in Congress. I've had seen a whole parade of other senators or congressmen joining online, for all of the Graham Platner drama, maybe the latedly, all the Democrats even his close allies

came around to saying that the allegations were too serious for Inderun, the Miller accusations are at least a serious and I guess the first, the only person to do something so far is that this is the father of the woman who made the allegations, I guess I should say, I do think it's potentially meaningful, you don't have to hand it to Bernie Marino, who like waited two years to do this for some reason, but it's potentially meaningful that he did so because I

do think him not saying anything was like cover for the other Republicans to not say anything, because I don't like give the girls a dad, this woman's dad excuse me, isn't going to say

“anything, then allow it, I think there's more pressure now in them to do so, but we'll see,”

it's another one where you look at the senators, John, he's dead to be interested in the suit, he has to say Ohio Center Race. Yeah, I do wonder if this is much bigger story in Ohio, obviously then I mean, now it's a big story in Asheville, even it's already big, you know, yeah, what does who use it say, what are the, what does it speak of Johnson say when they get back, he's so far is oh no, we're, I guess there's an ethics investigation, just want to take a close look, I mean,

it's really appalling, it's horrifying, who's that other guy that's in there, there's another

I forget his name always, Corey Mills. Yeah, who's another, they're just all happily there in Trump's

GOP, you know, sexual abuses, but of course it fits in with the overall upstream thing too, so if the Democrats just need to say this is Trump's GOP, and then let the decent ones say, oh no, that's not me, but fine, if it's not you just English yourself from your buddy, they are a maximum of whom you're climbing around with in the house for Republican conference every day, you know. Yeah, among the other things, you see, held a gun to our head

throughout water at our police aren't also conducting an active child and abuse investigation. Yeah, it's terrible. It's terrible. What does each have to several high profile of how Republicans are including John Houston, and they didn't, they didn't give a comment. So I don't know how long they'll be able to last, but we'll keep watching these guys have no. Absolutely no integrity, they don't care at all. Millers, I put out a lengthy video, if any of them self yesterday,

there was one part of it that particularly caught my interest that I want to play for people. He doesn't really give an alternate explanation of what happened in the scouting hot water incident, but he does try to provide an alibi for himself. Let's listen. The very next day, we had a friendly phone call about our daughter's upcoming hospital procedure, and I drove in from Washington to be there for it. Six days later, she offered to cook

empanadas for me for dinner. If I had assaulted her, which she had offered to cook me dinner six days later, which she even invited me to spend an afternoon at the playground with her and our daughter. If I had assaulted her, would she have cooked me empanadas? I mean, like this is, like from

the way victims there at a top position, they feel that they have to get along with this guy

for a while. He's stronger than they are. He's a member of Congress. He has powerful friends.

She's worried about her daughter. Maybe he invited him to the playground for a couple of hours. Maybe cook him dinner or something, you know, if he keeps him from doing even worse things. But this is much study to obviously, and I those who's no much more than I do. If I roughed her up a little bit, it's just the idea that that's the defense. And now we have, I guess, these are other types. No, there's no defense. I one point thought, look, I don't want to jump to conclusions a few weeks ago.

I don't know. I don't know. I don't know any of these people who knows what happened in these cases, but it's pretty clear. And Marino, I mean, I do think that's where Marino makes a difference, right? He was very reluctant to say anything. I don't think he's covered himself in glory. It's an elderly, as if I may say, as a father of by rallying to the defense of his daughter,

“public, and now privately, I think he was with her on her side, so to speak, trying to help.”

We seriously believe that Marino and his daughter are on some conspiracy to drag down Max Miller, right? You know, I don't think so. Yeah. And it's really like, the writers of Mad Men would have been like, we're going to need to go back to the drawing board on this one. It's two on the nose, like, which she would, would she have cooked me some dinner if I had a bunch of punster? It's like, what? Like in sick sick guy, big race there in Ohio. It's another one to look at. Hopefully,

we can rid ourselves of Max Miller. I want to talk about Mitch McConnell. Not a lot has changed, since I left on that front. He did issue one more proof of life photo. We've not heard him speak. Putting everything else aside, like the paid medical leave is pretty good in the Senate. I can't I don't know if anybody else would get to just disappear from their job for months on end without getting that, maybe like Mitch McConnell. I don't know, maybe that should be an increase

“as interest in health care reform. If he's to come back to the Senate, which I don't expect. We have”

K. Granger also died. I was gone. She was a house Republican from Fort Worth. She spent the final months of her house career in an assisted living home in Texas. These people, I can need to understand who they are representing and like what their job is. I don't understand how they can rationalize this continues to be okay. And I guess we're coming up on August 6th, is that the idea that Mitch McConnell, like the rules and Kentucky on how it gets replaced

for suffered different, coming up in the next few days. But if they do that, if they try to pull

this, where Mitch McConnell finally drops out right after the deadline, it is a total offense

in a front to the people that they're supposed to be representing, including people that don't vote for them. Yeah, the degree to which we are going to have such a massive generational, I mean, a real web alley and against the old people in both parties, though, including healthy ones. But you just, you know, sort of has to be a presumption now that you cannot just have the attitude of you're there forever and you're there till you become feeble and you're there till you die. It's

to, I mean, it's been after everything we've been through. Shouldn't we know where Mitch McConnell's status is? I don't know. I mean, I felt like when I was moving out left, there was like some rumblings, like whether Andy Bashir, she'll be a little tougher on this, like, I do kind of feel this way. Like, shouldn't the governor of Kentucky, like, know if the senator from Kentucky is compass-mentus? Well, yeah, he doesn't he says and do any Republican

senators know, I disposed John Duno's, he's just keeping them home. I mean, I don't know. Yeah, it is kind of astonishing. All right. Well, I've got more stuff for people. I've got little business, you know, podcast business, so I'm going to share with people. I've got a very lengthy dissertation on the Michigan Senate race, which I'm sure people are really excited about what else. There anything else from the past that I missed, Bill, anything else you, we want to get off your

chest, reflecting pool, otherwise. In fact, it was amazing. And again, just the kind of degree to

which all kinds of people at interior and justice and the White House for lying, the lying, the continued lying, the the shamelessness of the lying, we shouldn't forget about that. It's stupid to even talk about. It's been so obvious for years, but again, we shouldn't neglect that. I suppose, you know, it is quite something, the lying, the corruption, the incompetence. So on the one hand, it's all bad. I guess the one thing I would say is the bush line. I mean, the good news is last week,

they really were several polls. And and respectable polls, a couple of them have registered voters instead, I'm not just adults. Trump is typically done a little better with registered voters. All for them under 35 percent. I mean, that's pretty astonishing. And that really is a drop down

“from the 40 was bad. Or 40, that's what I started to think that Senate's really in play 35. I mean,”

now, presumably, he gets a little bounce back from that. And around Brownstein was on the book, I said, yes, today. You just do the math. We know quite a lot about how approval ratings correlate

in the different states that we've been talking about. It's going to be better than 35. If he's

35 naturally, his approval rating in Ohio is 45. Maybe, right, 10 points, 10 points, better than the nation, probably, for Republicans. Yeah, it's not about 50. And there's a lot of evidence that if you get the present below 50, the Senator or the Senator candidate from his party has trouble, especially when that party is so closely linked to Trump, it's why the Democrats have to make it all about Trump. They have to, if I can maybe I'll close that with this, not go along with

“stupid unnecessary compromise bills to keep the government open two months before you have to pass”

anything about keeping the government open and why they have to just hammer the Republican going along with Trump in this thing, just a rubber stand for Trump in the most shameless way, I think. Can I have one thing to discuss with what I'm going to rant about next, please. I want to get your take is. And also, the time to Trump is also just keeping the eye on the ball about like what this midterm election is, is about Trump. I just like, to the extent that my bubble got pierced,

the amount of like, factional infighting and nitpicking, I find it like, almost irresponsible. And I, and I think that it's, and it's a pox on both sides are all the sides of the fight within the Democratic side. I understand the notion that the Democrats need new fresh thinking in the future, if they're not present, if they're going to win presidential majority. Again, I hear that. But like, that's not what the 2026 election is about. I totally agree. It's

an, I'm a part of the fact, yeah, it's analytically stupid. I mean, that is to say, what 20, in the sense that obviously Democrats need to have a positive agenda at center in 28 for the presidency. And the obviously they should fix various things about the party and about liberals and liberalism, message and figure out who's right between the progressives and the centers on all bunch of issues. Center, it says, sort of the one thing they have to do in 2728 is

stop Trump for further, especially they can, stop Trump from further ruining the country. It is not just politically useful to make it about Trump because he's a 34 percent.

It is correct to make it about Trump. It is the most important thing. But we're in this like,

I'm not even close. It's not even close. It's not even close. No, not in a totally, I mean, well, the Democrats really have to work a little on the health care thing because they're, oh, Medicare falls kind of good, but it's kind of problematic. What about this thing? You know, what, I just think tax should do that. Individual members should do that. They have tasks. They have their committees. I'm all for that. They should be ready to go with good legislation in

27. We'll go anywhere probably in 28, but certainly in 29. And that's all fine. But it is not the fundamental thing. So this is the case where the political imperative and these, what we call it,

“substantive imperative, are they saying, if I think? It's such a comfort to be back with you, Bill.”

It's a happy family. Thanks again for your assistance. It was on holiday, and we'll catch you next Monday. All right, everybody. Stick around. I got more for you. Stick around though. This is going to be a good rampant in terms of. All right, so a couple of items just between me and y'all. You may have noticed whenever it matriculates into your pod feed, we've got new art. We've got a new bulwark website. It's looking great. Go to thebork.com, sign up if you haven't. We also have a new name

for the podcast kind of ish. It's the bulwark daily now. I've been wanting to do this for a while because like this show is really more than a podcast. It's in part my engagement with you guys. And it's obviously video. It's on YouTube. I'm surprised by how many people who say they listen to the podcast. Tell me that then subsequently tell me they didn't realize it was daily. So I got it's good for the branding. People who know I'm here every day. People need everyday material.

I also noticed some of the other podcasts like mine have started calling themselves video podcast lately and there's something about that that just makes my skin crawl. It just feels wrong. Video podcast. I don't I don't even like to say it. I thought for a second about the bulwark show. I felt weird. I don't know why. I just didn't read right. So anyway, before daily, we're here every day. Nothing else is changing, but just a little brandy fresh for everybody. And I really and also I want to

acknowledge and appreciate everybody that comes every day because I do think that it is a different type of thing, a different type of relationship when talking to you guys every day and hearing

“from you guys every day. And I think that is something that I value about what we're doing here.”

So hopefully then spook you too much. I know some people don't like change. I know all are never

chump or OGs. You know the small sea conservatives out there. We don't like change. We're going comfortable. But I think it'll I think it'll ring right after a minute. A few vacation baked thoughts. Before I wax poetic about how great it is to have two weeks off of on vacation. I do just want to say I realize that like I'm really lucky. You guys make that possible for me. So I appreciate that. A lot of people have jobs or financial situations or family situations that don't allow them to just

was important because I feel like I found a lot of clarity in week two. Week one, you know,

you're still on vacation. You still have this stress. You're still tense. I was partying a little bit. Week one. Week two. There's a piece. There's a lot of time for reading and thinking. I felt like I got a lot of that. I felt like I got some clarity of mind about what our purpose is here that is useful. I feel like I was able to do some learning again, which is nice.

“Did you got to be able to consume to provide new kind of thoughts and ideas and perspectives to people?”

I was able to learn in particular a lot about bananas. So you're going to be hearing a lot of banana facts in the next few podcasts. I don't know if you guys knew this, but we gave the gift

people and they got to Ellis Island of banana for a period of time when they got off the ship.

One of the big fruit companies that then did the goose to that. But I thought that was kind of nice USA. I wanted to in particular the right now to talk about one element of the clarity that I did I just previewed for you with with Bill Crystal. The distance gave me a lot of feeling of the pointlessness of the fights that I find myself embroiled in sometimes on social media or even on the comments of this year video. I don't know if it's the phones. We have to know everything about

everybody or if it's trauma from a decade of Trump or if it's like this feeling that the stakes are so high that anyone who doesn't see things exactly like you do is a traitor. If it's something else

that's some combination of all that. But like I just it feels like there's a fraying of the opposition

right now and there's a lot of like really personal petty nasty fighting that is happening that I just think is extremely counterproductive and stupid in a waste of time when we're still two and a half years away from January 6, 29. August 3rd, 2026. We know it happened in January 6, 2021. There's a lot of months, a lot of weeks, a lot of days, hours for him to if I can create problems and like that is the focus what we're doing here and I just think that's just what should be everyone's focus.

And you know we talked about this a little bit of Nicole before I left and I think that it's you know something that I like have professional admiration for about her show which is just like her eyes on the ball and tell them to show us different from a podcast and and I'm still going to

“talk about all this stuff. It's not as if you should ignore what's happening and they're”

important things happening in democratic politics. I'm about to talk about it a little bit but like the anger and the rage and the energy should be channeled against the person that is trying to turn us into a right wing authoritarian dictatorship and I think that in some ways it's obvious but like when you get into the day-to-day you can lose side of it and so that's one of the I had a lot of what's the movie line? What alcoholics call a moment of clarity? I had a lot of

moments of clarity about what's gone. I was just one of the moments of clarity so you'll hopefully hear some of the others. It's the days move on. This takes us to Michigan now. I really hate the Michigan Senate race a lot. It makes me sad and so before I get to that I just I do want to shout out a Michigan House candidate as a little pal at Cleanser. I got to meet Matt Mazdom who's running for the House in Michigan 7 a couple months ago now at Slockens old seat.

That is guy if you don't know him. He held the nuclear football for Obama. He's a navy seal. He has organized labor and Slocken behind them so he united the tribes a bit. He's got this personal profile of masculinity that people tried to project on to platinum but is actually legit and doesn't have the baggage with it. It's like a hockey dad and the dude has his priorities straight. I'll watch him under his ads this morning and he's talking about his top priority

is fighting corruption in DC and that is just correct. That is the correct focus for somebody who's going to the House of Representatives. In 2030 are there are many other issues that are going to be

“important for the Democrats to hash out like yes. But right now for these guys are getting in January”

of 2027 to the end of Trump through the beginning of the post-Trump investigating their corruption fighting it and getting our democracy back is the top priority and this guy gets it. I just think he's the type of exactly the type of dude damn does need. You can check him out. If you live in Michigan 7 and encourage you to give him a look primary election is tomorrow. There are some of the candidates in the race but I'm partial to them. Check him out. I also put a list of candidates a couple of weeks ago.

case you missed it. Go check it out. I think we're going to update that at some point here once

“all the primaries are done. But looking at candidates across the ideological spectrum I think are strong”

candidates for running in places where Democrats haven't had a lot of success recently where I think that they could have success. So there's the positive. Now we get to the center race. The story of my thoughts in the center race starts with a troubling tweet I sent and the Charlotte airport lounge before I did across intercontinental flight. I don't know if you guys remember the story of Justine Sacco, my elder and one deal. So remember this she tweeted. I don't remember what it was.

I thought about looking it up this morning. It was kind of who cares at this point. She tweeted something that was either racist or quasi-racist or interpreted as racist about her trip to Africa and then she got on a plane and people saw the tweet and they started piling on her and then a hashtag started about like when does Justine land? And so like she her flight lands and she gets off the plane and she realizes that she's been canceled and everybody hates her for the tweet that she

sent. I had kind of a microversion of that before my vacation. Not nothing racist. I tweeted that Hayley Stevens was growing on me and it's like it was like kind of cheeky. She had this funny riff

and I wish I could do her voice for a second. We got a letter rip. We got a letter rip and she's just

got a mad and I don't know. There's just something about it that made me giggle and you know I'm stuck in an airport lounge and just like you know fire it off. I fucking fired off tweets all the time. A fire off. This she's growing on me. What happened after that I guess I don't know because who cares but my understanding is like some people who follow me like also tweeted that she's growing on them and then then some other people like start tweeting that sarcastically are mockingly

and then I'm still having one on the plane and then like track a pack like somehow like got on the jump to conclusions mat and was like this must be an op and then somehow somebody decided that we're going paid $1,500 to tweet that Hayley Stevens is growing on us and Wajahat Ali is like tweeting insane accusations at me about how I'm taking money for my tweets and Rashida to leave is tweeting

“about this and it's like this is all crazy. I think it was the second nice thing I've ever said”

about Hayley Stevens. There's something she did that debate I liked and I don't remember what but I've been nasty daily Stevens mostly from such this campaign I go for friends like chest eyes me after a panel that I was on because I was comparing her to egg from a rest of development

and like being very critical of her like I'm not like this is not Hayley Stevens person really

but I thought that the clip was funny and so you know this thing like spirals out of control though and it's like their memes about this and like it's like okay well so this is part of my personal growth and land in Berlin and it's like okay like a lot of congresswoman and a lot of people like apparently I think I'm taking money to say that Hayley Stevens is growing on me just like why would they pay me for that? The whole thing is insane so whatever it's worth I don't take money

for anybody for any tweets so at least no campaigns or allied groups the only people I take money from or we take money from at the bullwork of those in the sponsored ads that you hear if you're an out of bullwork plus member she out at our friends at three day blinds and laundry sauce and there it goes to such yeah so people send me things and I like what you tweet this or whatever

like flacks but I can almost never do I never do if I disagree obviously everyone's want somebody

a flag means for me something that I might and so I'll share it of course I mean most flags like scared of me because I used to be a flag and I don't care and this podcast would be fucking boring if I was like saying things that the press secretary for Hayley Stevens wanted me to say I could it's great the whole thing is a little innocent but I wanted to share some lessons from it uh number one I sent one tweet trying to correct the record probably shouldn't have even done that

put my phone down let people lie about me and moved on went to barcine

“think that's personal growth and I think that just kind of in general”

like keeping focus on things that matter as smart as for all of us and then the stupid social media wars I will say another lesson here might be like a little bit careful of what influencers you follow if there are people that are randomly doing false smears against people that are ostensibly on their side because they want to win some inner nice and factional fight like maybe that should raise questions about what they should trust them on other matters

and uh three I think the Senate primary the Senate primaries have caused everybody to take

moderates or professional DSA like their eyes are so far off the ball right now like that they

aren't even the same stadium and I know the DSA people aren't even going to listen to be on this so I tried to say this to my moderate buddies but it's just like like going to the mat with personal nasty attacks on people who are part of the broad anti-Trump coalition right now

“in August of 2026 I just I find to be totally irresponsible and wrong and I think everybody's”

got to everybody's got to take a breath and I think the people that are engaged in this should like also go on a two week vacation if they can or maybe two days it's going to walk around the block and like it's time to read like get get the ship back on course here while mixing my metaphor but I could be the threats are so great right now like the threats and the risks like what we talking about is Bill about like the the phones we're running the national security I've

basically there's still killing people in the streets or about to do nasty deportations of Haitians

like they're spying on Jim Komi I like why possibly would you prioritize like bickering over something it's like not even like we're going to like Bill said we're going to bickering over what your healthcare plan is it's like nobody's healthcare plan is being passed Donald Trump is fucking president okay so like fight about that in 29 like we have to defeat Donald Trump so having a good message for people that's good and and arguing about that must be like that's fine

but like these sort of low blows and lies and smears about people we're going to need to have on our side like this year and going forward to me is crazy and so until the Senate race itself

here's my thoughts I don't really like either candidate that much for Abdul I know that a lot of

people really like him like he's got a huge fan base I like the people get excited about candidates

“I think that's good I think it can be dangerous you know I don't you don't want to get into a cult”

but I want people to be excited I don't want everybody to be jaded it seems like younger people are excited about Abdul in particular in Michigan that makes me happy and so like that part of it I don't want to yuck anybody's young I worry a little bit just my personal worry is that he's like an inverse faderman and he like makes the life hard for the next Democratic president like from the left in 29 there's going to be narrow majorities we're going to have to do stuff I think this he

really seemed like a team player I don't know but I also understand why he's resonating at the people really pissed he's got a message for people that are pissed and he is he is focused message he's a good message talking about healthcare corporate influence the way that we're wasting money on these stupid wars I think that that message is right and so I understand the cult distance though again is as part of what concerns being with him the fact that he had to send out a tweet telling his own

fans to stop doing misogynist hits on Aley Stevens is a great fact that like they're regularly making up lies about their opponents I don't like fact that many of the people that were sending me messages and posting on my Instagram posts about my vacation about how I'm a Zionist job taking blood money from the Zionists and I'm worse than maga it's like guys I like if you think that Haley Stevens is like a maga or a worse than maga like you've lost your mind okay you've

lost focus on the plot and I just I think that that is the part that worries me about Elsaid and his supporters it's like they think that the enemy is the center of the center of life Democrats and not maga and I'm concerned about that I'm a little bit concerned about the election with him I will get to the flexibility and as for Haley personally she doesn't like

“she's kind of a strange cat that's what they'll have growing on anything is about she seems to have”

been totally competent house member I think that she'd be a total team player in the Senate you it's hard to imagine Haley Stevens like not voting for whatever the policy priorities are the next Democratic president you know she seems to care about Michigan you think's done for Michigan I like that is a totally fine person in the Senate there are a lot of people in the Senate like Haley Stevens as I said with Bill I'm concerned some about some of the ways that these people

want to make too many deals with the the maga Republicans I would be something I don't have concerns about Haley with but all in all I like I don't I think in the grand scheme of things I should be broadly in a fence of Senator I understand why if you were mad about the APAC stuff and I do want to talk about this really quick I just think that in general if any interest group puts tens of millions of dollars into one race like I think that should be coming issue in the race

I I do and whether that would be AI or big oil or whatever it's too much it's too much influence

this is a bipartisan thing when I was coming up this was McCain's thing and after since united things

gotten out of control and they're just going to it's going to be tough for the Supreme Court to do stuff for people to come up with ways to make changes and until we can make changes the best that can be done

“is to make it a political issue and so I think that no matter what the interest group is”

like the idea that there would be that much money flowing to one person I feel is like a totally relevant issue in the race and it's something that I understand why people would be like I don't want to go for somebody that is getting propped up by that kind of money from interest this should think in particular the APAC thing in particular it's like okay again people have to live in reality

like the Democratic Party rightly is upset about a lot of the ways in which America and

Israel have conducted foreign policy like the fact that Israel that many others in our situation room are doing for this disastrous war that's terrible the way that Israel has prosecuted their actions in Gaza and then set with the settlements I've come on talking about what's happening in the West Bank like people are pissed about it people are pissed about the way that we are involved with it and so if you're going to have an interest group that is supporting closer ties like to this

foreign country that people are upset about some of their actions recently like that's going to be a problem in the campaign and like this is going to become a campaign issue and and I just think that like this this is where like this whole race like has like devolved into this kind of sectarian like religious war which is just not how our campaign should be run like things aren't going that great in the Middle East I don't really want our primaries to be Israel Palestine and Jews or

Muslims like I don't I don't think that's healthy we're in a pluralistic society I don't think that interest groups or packs that are pushing the interests of any foreign country like should be having that much influence in our elections like I got back that is backed by a Catari Americans or Saudi Americans or Saudi Americans or Belgium that is not healthy

“for democracy and so it's become an issue in the race I think it should be have become an issue in”

the race and I don't know that the pushback results in less money flowing to these races because it's not effective because it backfires I think that's probably a good thing you know look everybody is a free speech rights in this country I really should be able to advocate for the can I just say want but like I just think that in this moment where the democratic party should be uniting or on Donald Trump and the United ground how Trump is betrayed voters and the United

around the message and economic message for people who are being left behind and re establishing themselves as a working class party like turning the party into like a Middle Eastern sectarian religious war is ill-advised to set at least and so I don't think that it was wise for a pack to spend

30 million in this race I think it ends up being self-harming to their interests and to the interests

“of American Jews were concerned about any difficulties in all that like I think that it backfired”

and I think that as a result of dual science going to win this race tomorrow so I don't know that my opinion matters that much I'm a little concerned about you know I think it's a little risky on the electability front I think that you know Michigan has elected Gretchen Whitmer as the Slocke in Danna Nessel like a lot of people that are of the Haley Stevens profile and I think that any bad year for Trump like I think that Haley Stevens would run easily

I think that I'll probably win but I do think it'll be incumbent on him to really work to win over the voters of the people that voted for what's the Slocke and who you might remember one in 2024 when Kamala Harris lost so figuring out how to talk to those voters who may have concerns it's something that he's kind of focused on and and I think that that is going to take a vibe shift from acting as if the central left Democrats are the enemy to focusing on Donald Trump

the enemy and how central left Democrats need to be on board with that so that'd be my advice to Abdul and to fight agency and to the folks that are excited about his campaign so that is that long show I have a lot to say tomorrow we're going to be alive on the next level as the results come in so that'll be great show up more Michigan Senate content was constant it's going to be a doozy of a night tomorrow night I've got a really great socials and rant going for tomorrow night

next level I've so many rants that I've been really kind of bubbling up in the old brain after a couple of resays at the beach so get fired up for that and I think it's going to be you think it's

comments criticism's compliments in the comments we'll see you back to here tomorrow for another

edition of the board daily

“the board podcast is brought to you thanks to the work of lead producer Katie Cooper associate”

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by Jason Brown