Bill Kristol: The Weak Bully Keeps Flailing

Hello and welcome to the Bull Work Daily. I'm your host Tim Miller.

It is Monday, so we'll get to Bill Crystal on just one second.

A couple of updates on the favors I asked you for last week. There was some mix reports on Freddy's and Agariani who are stuck in a Dilly internment camp. Thanks in large part, probably entirely, frankly, to your phone calls and tweets and emails. Katie Brett was forced to respond to their pleas. She gave a very Susan Colinask statement, but we at least now have the story on the radar of

the powers that be, which is something. The result of that was Agariani did get a sonogram and got to see that her baby was healthy. And so that is a small positive step on the other side of the ledger, though, they just heard this morning that they are not going to be able to get on a flight back to Venezuela this week.

So they're stuck in the camp for at least another week. And so if you feel like following up on any mail that you sent last week, I guess it probably

couldn't hurt at this point.

So I appreciate everybody's advocacy on this. And just the thing, it does make a difference when you send podcasts, you like to your friends. I did see an uptick over the weekend, pretty significant, and downloads and views for the Julia Curley interview, and, you know, I just, I really appreciate that because I was

“so moved by that conversation, and I think it's a good opportunity to try and engage people”

and the work that we're trying to do here. So I appreciate you guys for sharing that around. All right, it is Monday. He's editor at large the bowl work, he was on a brief vacation, well, deserves bill crystal. And he's going to keep traveling because he's going to be with us at the board live event

in Atlanta coming up in October, you go to the board.com/events to get tickets for Columbia, Charlotte and Atlanta, we have a good surprise guest in Charlotte too coming, but Bill's going to be there in Atlanta coming out. Bill, are you excited to get down to what's the famous strip club in Atlanta? What's that called?

You know, I live at to you in JVL to really, you know, that's for JVL. Yeah, JVL's ever been to a strip club. I, you know, we could discuss that on the stage there in Atlanta, you know, you can. Magic City is what it's called. Yeah, it was my quiz for you in Atlanta, just kidding me.

I haven't looking forward to it. I think it will be fun.

“I guess the last one we did was Minneapolis, right?”

Was there, maybe the, I guess I didn't call for it. You weren't California. I wasn't there. Yeah.

Minneapolis was so unbelievable right after the obviously the killings and the kind of incredible

civic mobilization there in response to ice. Can I say, I'm glad you got people mobilized on the ice thing. I was at the beach last weekend was didn't do one of your shots and didn't do your podcast, but did follow things somewhat. The ice thing is just horrible and people are not upset enough about it.

If I could just drink for 20 seconds here and I'm really glad that you have been so on top of it since the beginning and the audience here seems to be very moved by it. I think politicians are wrong to think that it's not couldn't be a huge issue. I mean, I don't know. I obviously agree and at minimum at least in Democratic primaries is not going to

run my ongoing beefs like with the two sides fighting with each other and it's like,

“I think that you'd win plot it to every faction in the Democratic primary.”

If you just were maximalist in your attack on ice, which is the right thing to be doing incidentally, both politically and morally and policy-wise, this horror story is keep coming out. I mean, I keep getting sent out and we're trying to vet them as we do more coverage. So they'll be more this week, but I end up just one story.

I was just reading them and be see this morning about the guy who's on the USS Lincoln, whose dad gets detained, and this is combining all the horrors of the Trump administration into one story. So more and that stuff is the week goes on. I wanted to start with you on the news out of Canada, our friends in Canada, another

lot of way to great live show in Canada a couple of months ago. Mark Carney, now the leader of the free world, the leader of the resistance standing up to Donald Trump, trade talks Friday, after we taped, this was late on Friday, fell apart between the US and Canada, which means that steep tariffs are now going to go into effect from our sides, putting tariffs on Canada, 50% tariffs on a bunch of stuff.

Carney now says that retaliatory of tariffs will go into effect on September 8th. It's going to target dairy appliances, agriculture, equipment, pulp and paper, and electronics. I think they're already tariffing the hell out of Jim Beam. Carney pointed to tensions between Howard Nutlick and James and Greer seems like Nutlick came in late and kind of scuttle the deal, Trump put out an insane statement about Canada.

And it's a pretty dicey situation. It is. And Carney speech, Saturday was really impressive as the speech at Davos, what six months ago had did. I like that, Dave Carney is we now have several leaders of the free world.

We have Zelensky obviously, really fantastic over five years.

We have the Pope, hopefully over the 14th, to again, to give it excellent set of remarks last week. And we have Magyar in Hungary. So it's kind of bad that we're not part of that. And we're indeed on the opposite side.

If you think literally in each of these cases, Trump is against those people, basically.

Right. Carney was interesting. I mean, he didn't just talk about the trade issue narrowly and Latinx going it up. He did say, you can't trust America, basically.

You can't trust what he said. The things are now signed to pencil, not in ten, something like that. And he really understands the moment we're in.

“And I think he's doing a service to the country, not to the Trump administration.”

But to the country and clarifying it for us, that this is where Trump has taken us. I friend, David, from I think pointed this out very succinctly, just looking at it from our perspective, the domestic side, but just how stupid this is. Trump is fighting a trade war that very few American support under leadership that most Americans reject to achieve results of virtually all Americans would dismiss as pointless if not crazy.

In some ways, it's similar to what's happening in Iran in that sense. It's just like, what is this even about? Like Trump is wrapped up in ego. He doesn't have a clear strategic objective and it's net harmful to Americans, particularly Americans and places and industries that rely on free trade with Canada and Susan Collins

is concerned. We heard from her. She urges both sides to return to the negotiating table, not using the actual power to do anything. But that's because there's a lot of, obviously, cross-border travel between Maine and Canada.

And it's a small thing, but like tourists, you know, Canadians aren't going to America and then there's obviously trade that is being impacted by it on goods as well.

I mean, Canada is a small, small-ish country and population, 40 million, I think, so

I think. A little bit of that. It's our second largest trading partner and not much behind Mexico and ahead of China. And it's our largest export market, number one. So people think Canada well, it's a nice place.

You know, you go there for visit March, or go back, or listen, you know, there's some Canadian beer and lumber reference or hockey, lumber, hockey, too, yeah. But I mean, it's a big, big, especially export market for us. We don't have much of a negative balance with trade there if people care about that also. So it's all insane.

It's stupid. The tariffs is also like, like I said, I feel like an issue. It really does hurt Trump because whatever inflation there is and there is, wouldn't there should be. And whatever economic slowdown there is and there is some of that too.

This is our contributing to it. And that's something Trump is doing. And the Republican Congress is permitting it was to do Democrats when they get back. They should produce an addition to defunding ice. They should really go after the tariffs stuff in maybe, maybe do it just these particular

tariffs. These are really insane. And so these are Trump's Trump's invoking, I don't know, the number three third age.

“So I think I made some particular part of the code.”

It's literally part of the 1930 tariff act has never been invoked by American presidents.

The 1930 tariff act. I looked this up as I thought, 1930 was it. It was the Swood Halley act. The notorious act that turned a recession probably into the Great Depression. That is what Trump is literally invoking.

So then Stein was criticizing and Ferris Bueller's day off. So I forgot that. Yes. Swood Halley. That was a big thing in the '80s for us, Reaganized Fee traders, you know, anyway.

So yeah, that's what Trump is using. And the tariff stuff is, is really insane. I mean, and of course with the beef tariffs, if now he's taking off the beef tariffs, I've got that right. I'd be good to import more beef.

Yeah. I want to get to the beef in a second. I've come out of the candidate things just because I think this is worth all we're clubbing out. No, what a car need like this is real.

He does have the country behind him politically, but like there's real economic harm that is going to be caused by this. I just want to say this in the context, obviously, there's some evidence to this parallel. But, you know, we talk a lot how we want, you know, more fight from central left, kind of Democrats here and a lot of times, you know, it's like, well, you know, they're making

a pragmatic decision or pragmatic choice. For Cardi, like you can imagine him kind of a centrist, like, you know, technocrat type guy, you would think, well, okay, a bad deal is better no deal. And he's not doing that.

“And I think that's showing real political courage, it's easy for me to say, sitting here”

to podcast studio, right, but like, I do think that part of it's notable. And for escalation here is real, I think some of this feels silly, but I want to play for you, but Sean Duffy said, and then some of the rhetoric coming from Canada. Obviously, they're a major partner for us back and forth across the borders, playing strains in automobiles.

Do you see a lot to do with that? Is there anything in your position as Secretary of Transportation that you're thinking about with respect to a tool in the sort of, in the sort of, in the sort of, in the more back and forth? We're, we're great trading partners, right, but, but, but Canada gets the benefit of trading

with the US, more way more than the US gets the benefit of trading with Canada. It's a country that doesn't have a military. It has a country that has a single-parent health care system that's failing. They have record high, youth in Asia rates.

with the US, I think it's foolish on their part.

Wow. I mean, he doesn't know anything, and he just plays the, what he thinks of as the cultural work arts. If he has the fake, you know, macho military card, that's called that the Hexaf card. And then he has the fake social conservatism, youth in Asia card.

And just the use of the Asia, they have more liberals, suicide, laws in Canada. You can like them. We're just like them.

“The fact is, if you look this up, I've heard about this this morning and morning shots,”

the actual suicide rate, including those, I believe, is the suicide, is lower in Canada than in the US. So, I mean, not something for us to boast about, I don't think, and suddenly longevity

is longer, is higher in Canada than in the US.

So, that social conservative thing is just, you know, to cheap kind of thing, that stuffy, vaguely remembered hearing wants from J.D. Vans, somewhere I suppose. And on the macho military stuff, it's an unbelievable insult, obviously, to the Canadians, who were extremely prominent in D.D.A., if you ever heard of Juno Beach and fought with us in other wars.

Obviously, including in Afghanistan, where they took considerable casualties and per capita, not that much below the American casualties actually. So, it's unbelievably just insulting, I don't know, it says a lot, you remember the cabinet. It's not your area, so you normally, in the old days, if you were opiting us, something is not in your field, you'd be pretty cautious.

And instead, you just try to out-heccess, take-seth, and out-vance vans, and say nothing about the actual substance, right? There's no actual defense of Trump's tariff policy. No, it's pathetic, and obviously, Canada does have no tarry, and that hasn't, again, to the point, hasn't needed our defense, nobody's attacked them, and they've come to our

defense when we've been attacked. So, like, that's three out. I have to 9/11. That's really, absolutely.

“They led the effort to invoke Article 5, and as you recall, I mean, I remember this well,”

in 9/11, a lot of American planes, we closed our airspace, a lot of our planes got diverted to Canada, and people were stuck there, but we were had to say there for a few days. We're treated with great hospitality, and Canadians didn't ask for reimbursement or anything like that.

They put up these people in gander, and so, yeah, Canada's been a good ally. Really, you know what? Think of all the nations you could have brought into you all over the world. Think what other head, what headaches other nations have from their neighbors, you know, we should be extremely happy to have Canada out there on the north.

I'm into that, and the rhetoric, I just use in the word war, again, going to war with Donald Trump, these guys are playing childish games, and that you don't know what results from all that. And this is why you speak diplomatically, this is why diplomacy is a thing that matters. And you have Ontario's Doug Ford saying this morning, he said that, "Carnish have

“already the cut electricity and critical minerals to the U.S. if trade war continues."”

And like that seems outlandish, but that is where they're at. They have to have conversations about that, which is nuts. And I should note this was flagged for me this morning by a Canadian friend. It was two hundred twelve years ago today, August 24th, 1814, that forces from President Canada serving the British Empire burn the White House and retaliation for the American

attack on the war of 1812. So only two hundred twelve years ago that Canada, you know, showed some muscle. Something to tell you about that, because it's kind of uncanny, but Mark Hardy was probably wise not to mention that. Well, Americans are carrying over a trillion dollars in credit card debt at rates north

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Even fixes that go to even.com to discover your offer that's AVEN.com, even. Stop overpaying for capital, even paying an inch of an animal S204, 2345 cards issued pursuant to a license from Visa USA Inc. by Coastal Community Bank, animal S462289, member FDIC equal housing winner subjects to approval terms apply, visit even.com for details. You mentioned earlier on the beef trade news and the tariffs and the other kind of damages

Trump said on Friday he was going to temporarily increase beef imports free of tariffs.

Funny thing is he's like, and he's got a commitment to sell the meat at 25 percent below

market prices. But the tariffs was twenty-six percent, so yeah, this guy doesn't understand one at one basics of what his tariffs are doing to consumers. The notable part of this doing is to push back from foreign country, his ties to politics, a lot of the big center races this year, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, other places, Ohio, you

know, have, you know, big foreign communities. And there's been a bunch of videos of ranchers upset about this over the weekend, going viral on TikTok, including Mago Ranchers, and I just want to play it wonderful. They're going to import a bunch more box beef, ground beef, scrap cuts, what I call them, and hopefully bring down the price of ground beef in the store for y'all.

We've seen a market crash for live cattle, live cattle that people like myself grow and take to the processing plants or go down through the system. That's dropped, 40 cents a pound already just from that plant closure.

“Now this morning, the markets are crashing, but will your price change?”

So far we have not seen that, and you're going to lose more ranchers, and in the long run, you're going to lose everything, because where they're a cattle, they're afraid of. And when these disappear, so does your freedom. I don't think this is going to work out like they hope. Mago Ranchers are pissed.

I mean, this kind of real political effects go into Nebraska, for example, and Kansas, I mean, the sad thing with tariffs, they do real damage. And once you start the business from imposing them and taking them off, you get you offend people both ways, right? And especially if the prices don't come down, would you take them off really?

Then you're just not offended, you've injured the ranchers. What is that commitment about keeping the prices being, who's made that commitment? I mean, supermarkets, the importers, I don't know what he's talking about. I mean, it's just some made-up thing, obviously. And it's a made-up Soviet thing, too.

He's like, he's like, the sorrow, the world's capital of the price of beef at the market for you. It's really amazing.

And it's not always been that tariffs are not inflationary, but then why is he getting rid

“of this particular set of tariffs to bring down prices?”

I mean, that's literally the definition of deflation, just lowering prices. So, because you'll be those tariffs were inflationary. So, yeah, I think the tariffs thing is, I say, I think the more he does in a way, if you put some on people like economists complain, we point a call attention to it. But then it's odd if people get used to it in the system of just economic growths, those

point one or two point two percent, and inflation goes up and extra point two percent. And that's not nothing in the big picture, but people get used to it, you know what I mean? This in a way is the worst of all worlds from politically, isn't it? The kind of jerking around of the tariffs up and down. I feel like it just reminds everyone, like, what the hell are we doing here, you know?

And even get some pushback light, but notable from Tom Cotton, for example, over in the Senate, I put out a tweet saying, "Be prices are too high for some reason our cattle hurts too small and poor to be below market price is the only put more pressure in our cattlemen. It's going to act going that cattlemen's message there."

Of note, as this is one poll, and I don't really expect that Democrats to win our can saw, but there was a poll showing farmer Halley Schoff and I was running against Cotton feeding him in a recent poll. So to me, regardless of what actually happens in November, it seems like Cotton feels enough heat on this that he has to put out that statement.

“I think that says a lot about where, you know, the midterm stand right now.”

Yeah, I also saw that poll, I had no idea how legit it is, or maybe you're interested outlier or whatever, but it is pretty striking. Yeah, I agree. The statement does say something else. And somebody got the statement to me, in some ways, kind of buttresses the poll, even if

it's not right, the fact that he feels like he's in a race, right, and he feels like he's got a distance himself from Trump, which he is not done on anything.

And when he's supposed to China, he's never distances from Trump on all the ways that he

cozys up to China, and he never distances from Hague Seth. I'm always fucked up the war, but here he is. Yeah, the war, the terrorists. I mean, those things they've had to vote for, or vote, prevent voting, voting on, let's vote it that way.

Democrats need to really bring that home. This is not just Trump's war and Trump's terrorist. It's the Republicans in Congress, war, and the Republicans in Congress, terrorists. Let's talk about that midterm, why's there's been a lot of scuddle on social media this weekend, so I've been saying for a minute, is that there's like some feelings that this

is like 2006. I've talked about 2006 a couple of times, because I was working that year in Iowa on a Republican

It was a challenge or going against Leonard Boswell, RIP, who's a Democrat representing

the Des Moines area back then, and we ended up being the second closest challenger in

the country. The Republicans did not pick up any seats that year, we did not want to single one. And the war, you had Harriet Meyers, Katrina, Mark Foley, and this thing after thing was happening, Republicans didn't pick up a single seat in the house that year. And I've heard of the context of like the Democrats also won weird places, like there

was I was working on this hotly contested supposedly like swing seat around Des Moines. And then the Democrat goes and picks up this seat in eastern Iowa, that the Republican Jim Leach had held forever, and like it would the guy didn't even campaign, he was like a professor and he just won, because the, you know, the wave was so big.

“And to me, I think that is kind of instructive way to think about how this year could go.”

A lot of work between now and then, but I don't know, where do you think things stand right now?

I've always been on the sort of wave-ish side of what could happen this year, just because

of Trump's approval rating and the very consistent, gradual, but consistent to Clyde. And I just think history suggests history could be wrong or could be, this could be a year where history gets counter-manded, so to speak. But history suggests that just Trump said 35 or 38 or even 40 among those who actually shocked about, which would be a bit of a take back up for him, that's rough on these candidates.

Senate candidates, and certainly House candidates, I mean, not just by definition, right? If he's at 40, then if his state's plus 10, Trump or District's plus 10, Trump is probably at 50 there, but he's not above 50, and our election is so nationalized now that if Trump's full of 50, his run, Brownstein likes to point out over and over, but correctly, you're in trouble if you're a Republican candidate.

I'd say incumbent or challenger. So I think a lot of these states and some districts, I mean, everything's more polarized, and there are fewer competitive House districts all that, but fewer competitive states and these to be in a way.

“But I do wonder about some of these, I think the farm economy in particular, those Midwestern”

and upper Midwestern states, I mean, they have had democratic members of the Senate and Democratic governors in our memories, not like no one's ever voted for a Democrat, Kansas has a Democratic governor, Montana had Democratic Center, I mean, these, you know, these

are not states where it's like, well, I like that, because people I think always talk about

the, you know, when they think about the way that Trump changed up the coalitions, you know, the famous thing to talk about that every time, it's like, Scranton or Toledo, right? I keep it well, and he's going to hollow down industrial towns in the Midwest. But like, that's the same type of shift happened in the farm country, like, along the Mississippi.

Like, that Eastern Iowa was very democratic, the Duke, the Quad Cities, they had a Democratic Congressman for a long time, and Tom Harkin was a senator from Iowa, who's ran up big numbers in Eastern Iowa, so I have the people that lived there, there's not a huge turn over. A lot of these folks remember voting for Democrats in the not too recent past, and, you

know, Trump, you know, the end of having this big flip there, it's not like a huge influx of population there. It's pretty stagnant populations. Like, all of these older people have, like, voted for Democrats, they do feel out of touch with the National Democratic Party, but like, my pay vote for their local Democrat this

“time when all of these things are going bad, I think so.”

And a couple of states, they're independent candidates where the Democrats have actually intelligently stepped aside. So sure, if you can pick up 10% of the vote in a Senate race, leave a side of the House Senate, if the rural vote is 25% of the vote in the state, going 25 to 35 is worth as much as going from 65 to 75 more or less, if the same number of people obviously that they're

in an urban area, something like that. So it really matters to reduce those margins, leave a side whether they could actually be democratic again. And I think that could happen in a lot of these areas. And I think Democrats have a pretty good cast of characters running, for both the Senate

and the House. I know I've been panics about one or two who are somewhat problematic, and I wouldn't have voted for in primaries, like in Michigan. But honestly, if you step back, I tried to do this a little when I got that notification on stage.

Just saying, look at the whole map. If you had told us a year ago, this was going to be the cast of characters in the competitive 10 or so, if there are Senate races in the competitive House statistics, it's pretty good, really. And it's a big coalition.

There was going to be one or two on the left and one or two are on the left, and then a lot, sort of, who are centrist centred left, and that's kind of what's happened. But I think the variety is pretty good, a lot of them are younger. Some of the ones who are older are well established, well liked, like Roy Cooper and North Carolina, are colleagues, Lori, and he had a good piece of at his race this weekend.

So, no, I feel like the pieces are falling into place pretty well. I've got to say, for the Democrats, I mean, knock on wood, and with all the obvious caveats, but I do feel like it could be a pretty big wave, and waves can surprise. They tend to kind of have another surge if that's the right, continue that metaphor, often in September.

That's certainly happened in '94, which I remember very well. I mean, a lot of times ago, but I was sort of more and more involved in that one.

George Allen was still ahead in polling.

I'm pretty certain at this time. And I would say, intimate in September, even. George Allen was staffed up for 2000. Right, for presidential campaign. No.

Yeah, I had some goals. I was looking for jobs for 2000, maybe. He was probably the leader of the governor's team.

“Even though I think I'm in the first time in '90, if I don't think it ever lost an election”

of Virginia, is that it was said, obviously, running for reelection, likely presidential candidate, and just gets made one sort of mistake on the trail, didn't handle it well. But mostly, it was just a national wave, and it was early indicated that Virginia moving purple, and then blue, that would be a fair point to make also. But again, we don't know whether some of these other things happening in Midwest couldn't

be early indicators of things that could happen to four or six a year now.

People are a little too convinced that what's happened in the last one, two, three cycles. necessarily, it's going to hold forever. Right? Maybe our Labor Day podcast should just be in 1994 and 2006 retrospective. I think people might like that.

Take people back from before Trump, at the end of the summer. We'll talk about it. Give us some feedback. That's what you want. One Monday off, and we'll do a little, you know, this is political history with Bill

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“The other news kind of related to, I think the political dynamics they're happening right”

now was the New York Times reported over the weekend that I came Jeffries and Jared Kushner had a private one on one meeting that was brokered by a mutual friend a couple ways to look at that. The generous way, which I don't share, but I will state is that magas already basically conceding the house, the Trump already is and so they're trying to think about what to

do going forward and maybe it's a good political sign that Kushner wanted to talk to Jeffries. The less generous way to see that is that the King Jeffries is already standing down from the battle stations and is planning on being more accommodating than we would wish you would be during the 2728 end of Trump years where as far as I'm concerned the only conversation he should be having with Jared Kushner is across the table during an oversight hearing after

he's been subpoenaed. But Bill, where were you at, on the report of that meeting? I'm on the ungenerous side and we're waiting, but it's not even about 2728. I think some of them have talked with us to the notion that we have to look at where ready for governing in 2728.

We can't just be running against Trump and against the Trump administration and against the against ICE and against terrorist, against corruption and against the war. I mean, God forbid, that would be like, that's pretty good platform to run on to me. But for them, you know, we've got to show that we're willing to govern and affordability and that means working with them and so meeting of this kind might signal that we're

not just saying no, just saying no, just saying no for the next three months.

“You end up going to really have it to say no for the next two years, honestly.”

And that's good too because you know what, saving us from whatocracy, from a stupid war, from failed terrorists, from ICE's horrors, that would be a very, very good thing to do. But no, they have to be working with Jared Kushner on a fortability. Kushner of all people is at the center of all the corruption, right? Why are they meeting with him?

He has a test fight in like eight years or something. I pulled this up every day, but it's crazy. And he's a point person negotiating the Iran more deal, the Ukraine deal, both at a failed, while he's taking money from Saudi, while he's also sparked an uprising in Albania.

And like the idea that, oh, we can find some common ground, why would you want to find

common ground? What would you find? What, like, a Donald Trump's going to sign some bill and that you're going to go to the White House, you know, for a bill signing next to the rebuilt East Wing, like, what do you, what are you even talking about?

Like, what are you imagining? The whole thing is crazy. And there were some people who are defending him, talking about like, well, people complimented Zoron when he meant to meet Trump. And it's like, these are different jobs.

Like, Zoron is the mayor of a city, okay? He went there.

I think in the hopes of talking Trump down from sending ICE thugs and invading a city,

and, you know, we sat there and and Trump complimented him, it was kind of an alpha dog move, really. Like, that is different from the speaker of the house that is supposedly allegedly incoming speaker of the house, who is going to have to be the point man in holding Trump accountable over the next two years, that that's going to be his main job doing like a behind

the scenes meeting with his son, like, these are not comparable. Sorry, I have an elected mayor, so obviously if you're the mayor of New York and you have a whole bunch of issues,

“maybe you need to go meet with the president of the United States, if he asks to meet with you,”

or is willing to meet with you, he did probably put off the ICE attack on New York. I think it's beginning to happen now probably, but, you know, maybe that was worth it. And anyway, he didn't give away much, but yeah, the private secret meeting, a range by an intermediary was someone who's not the president of the United States, but the son of law, the president of the United States who's engaged in all kinds of corruption, and as you say,

all kinds of failed policies to the degrees doing policies that hasn't ever testified to Congress, I mean, yeah, it's utterly, utterly ridiculous. To the war, a friend Bob Kagan wrote about this in the Atlantic, and as I have her, Bob is the only person out flanking me on how bad the war is, like, every time I think I'm going to be out of my, of my rhetoric in opinion on how bad this war is, Bob writes something, I was like,

well, it's actually a little bit worse than I thought his take was that Iran has now reconfigured the power structure of the Middle East, and will be the dominant power region going forward, rather than Israel or us along with our allies in the Gulf States, here, it's for years, the world has been dealing with an Iran constrained, or now what discover what Iran unleashed looks like.

You know, obviously Trump has been making these threats and then backing down, but an interesting thing he pointed out is that Trump was specifically ordering attacks on Iranian infrastructure. Oil and energy infrastructure, and did one one time, making attack on them, and then Iran attacked oil fields in the Gulf States, and not in the Gulf States are like holy fuck.

Like this is a huge threat to us, and so now every time Trump threatens that the Gulf States are calling Trump itself, don't do that again, don't do the energy infrastructure again, and Kagan's point is like the particulars of that to show why Iran has gained more leverage in all of this. Yeah, I think it's a very good piece.

“People who read it, and I think it's consistent with what he's been saying, what we've”

been saying honestly for six months, it's not just a embarrassing loss, it's not just tragic opposite in terms of the fatalities and the casualties, it's an actual strategic loss in the Middle East, and I would say in the world for the US, and has all kinds of ramifications, people haven't focused on yet, and we're not sure these things are the world, these things are contingent.

They may not happen all of them. It could be Iran could screw up and overreach, and it could other nations could rally against Iran and so forth, but the degree to which all kinds of things are being unleashed now, including Iranian control of the strait, but also in nuclear proliferation, the scenario in the Middle East, and then elsewhere, incidentally.

I do think this will turn out to have been a very, unfortunately, a very big deal this war. The best hope for it, and this is something we were urging, I think, and talking about a month into the war was ended, and it quickly, you take the loss, but it's not cataclysmic. The longer it goes on, the longer Iran gets to show how strong they are, and how weak we are.

“We look both erratic and weak, if you want to figure it this way.”

It's one thing to be erratic and strong, as kind of a Trump look like in the first year,

that's the Nixon thing, okay, people are a little intimidated, they don't like you, you're a bully, ultimately, that's not good for the US to be a bully, but, you know, bullies do kind of carry certain power with them, and people don't quite want to take them on. If you look like a weak bully, not good. Not good, and the real world results have been, I think, worse than also, people realize,

and post-reported it over the weekend, that the number of US service members reported wounded or killed in the Iran War has jumped to 774, the previous estimates were much lower than that, because the Pentagon was hiding the ball on this, and I guess the true numbers have now trickled out. That's significant.

Yeah, obviously. Yeah, and of course, they haven't told the truth about how much the bases were damaged, and so decades, building up this base infrastructure in the Middle East, maybe it was getting out of date, maybe we should have refotted at some point, but now it's just to be deprived of it.

We can't use it, while why couldn't the US us link in, why couldn't the sailors get decent food, because they couldn't decide to be shipped over 2,000 miles, I think, from Diego

So you couldn't use our base in, for our rain, the whole point of the base in our rain.

“I mean, literally, the reason we have these giant bases that are quite expensive, and important”

if you're a global power, is to support fourth deployed troops, I mean, what else they doing there? You know, I'm this in diplomatic stuff and other stuff too. If they can't support the forward deployed troops, it's a very big defeat for us, and then they call it the army chief of staff announces, but the new army chief of staff who's

Texas Crony, who replaced the very, very well-respected chief of staff, whom he accepts fired self-lead during the war. So I'm closing that down that drone thing we were working on, you know, that experimental drone unit seems kind of important to get a little bit up to speed here on drones, maybe

they're doing it elsewhere in the army, I hope they are in the military, but again,

the degree of damage has been done to the military, kind of across the board, because of excess politicization and favoritism and firing of somebody well-qualified people, we haven't seen it unfortunately, all of that yet either. August is a perfect time to hit reset before the autumn rush begins, and a wardrobe refresh

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Go to Quintz.com/thebullwork, get free shipping on your order in 365 days, it turns now available in Canada, sub candidate and the UK as well, that's QUI-NC.com/thebullwork. Tomorrow night in South Carolina, we've run off in the republican center race between two geriatric candidates, including a NEPO sister, just really quick aside on that George Conway and I. There is some rhetoric on Friday's podcast, picking on the selfish boomers

for our $40 trillion in debt. And I received some feedback from that from some boomers who I love, who are talking about the things that they did in their personal lives that are good and the

no kings and boomers to that. And I agree with that, you're always painting with the broad

bush in this situation, but like objectively speaking, we have increased the debt, $40 trillion a while while the boomers have been in charge. Like that happened, is every single person accountable for that? No, but like I don't know, Chuck Grassley, I guess, is probably the silent generation, but a QU is supposed to go over the weekend about how we need to take this seriously. I saw somebody posted, I was like, you've been there for 50 years!

What are you talking about? So anyway, it's with love. We love the no kings' protesters, and I love the boomers in my life, but is what it is. Two boomers, primary, each other in South Carolina, Darling Graham and Ralph Norman, Ralph Norman was big on the insurrection, and he's like he's losing a step, actually himself. Friend of the show Ben Jacobs was in South Carolina reporting on this, and was at a little gaggle that Darling Graham had, and he fired a couple of things.

She's been trying to differentiate with from her brother on something. I love what it is. Do you

“you want to guess? Do you know what it is, what she's trying to differentiate from a one?”

I think I saw it was immigration. Yeah, he's all too weak on immigration. I've all the things to distance him from line. Not be wrong, we're not at the truck's Trump's presidency, but like a little too weak on immigration for Darling's taste. And so Ben asked her if she thought that the DACA, the dreamers should be deported, because Lindsay had supported status for DACA kids, and she didn't answer the question, and then he followed up,

and she said that she has no thoughts on that right now, which pretty much summarizes her whole campaign, and I guess most of the Republican Senate. She also was asked about the certification of the 2020 election, and of course, she had answered Tim Scott intervened and said it'd be helpful for us to talk about the issues of tomorrow, and not yesterday, as if that's the job of the reporters there to be helpful to Tim Scott and Darling Graham. So I don't know what, it seems like

Trump went down to campaign for, it seems like she's going to win. And in some ways, I think it's what the Republicans in the country deserve, is having somebody who's just totally an empty vessel for whatever Donald Trump wants. It's unbelievable, and immigration to begin with that.

the war, then we're talking about it, and that's their way of distancing. I mean, immigration, I feel like the Republican base, I mean, there's some evidence for this even in the polling, is not moved that much. There's been some movement among soft Republicans and some swinggoaters against dice and nasty deportation, but certainly in Republican primaries, she's not wrong to think that she should be more fervently anti-immigrant than even

the Lindsey had become, I mean, Lindsey actually never quite could consistently do if it's actually

“on that one issue, probably remember that he had been a co-sponsor of the bipartisan immigration”

bill in 2013 and stuff. So Lindsey didn't really go down the most demographic rabbit hole, steady on immigration, I don't think so. >> No, no, the campaign. I kept quiet, I guess. >> Yeah, anyway, I'm sure he said something gross about it. >> Obviously, some political consultant said here, we got data here, the one thing he had once been with McCain on immigration, so you got to go right wing lunatic. The normative is kind of right wing lunatic was in the head of the

Freedom Caucus, I think in the house. I have this hunch totally based on no evidence that value we're on, so I mean, I don't know if I could get good odds, how it did on Norman in the sense

that she's been so ridiculous as a candidate and is just, if I can, the sister of Lindsey Graham

and said that he died, but I mean, that's not really a qualification. And Trump coming in, maybe Trump's cloud isn't quite what it was, I don't know, I wonder if it's, it's possible

“that it would be interesting if Norman made a close or, or beat her, I'd say. >> It would be.”

Yeah, the Norman's situation is weird, like because he was one of the point people in the instruction, as I mentioned, like one of the people plotting along with Mo Brooks and Alabama, and the Republican nominee for Governor and Arizona and he digs, and I did a big video and you can go check out in Bullard Tech, season lunatic, but then he endorsed Hayley. Right. You know, so he's kind of, you know, he doesn't map very easily on the kind of MAGA and Ternessen war,

but we'll see what happens from our night. When it comes to cultural wars, there is something that's ongoing that both of us have monitored somewhat, which is the WNBA nonsense. Last night, NSC Inter, who was a traffic cone of a center in the NBA, played for a bunch of teams, including the Portland Trailblazers, where he got absolutely dominated by Nicole Yokech and a win one playoff series. He went to the fever versus sky game in Chicago last night, sat courtside and some anti-trans shirts.

It seems to me just kind of based on my reading of social media that this is funded by one of Trump's

C4s. They were posting about it. America first policy institute. It seems like he's on the

take now from Trump affiliated group to do this. He gets in a verbal dispute with one of the women on the court. She starts to go towards him. He walks out onto the baseline. He gets kicked out of the game. Then he cries like a little bitch and the lobby. I'm forgetting kicked out of the game. Before this it all happened, it was before bedtime. I was watching some of this by daughter. And secret game, really fun game. I mean, the fever, like just drain and stuff curry threes all over the court.

“And it's unfortunate situation. And this was actually, I think we both had kind of worked with him a”

little bit a while back. It's he was a big advocate for political prisoners in his homeland of Turkey. In particular, his dad was a prisoner, but that extended. I did some work with him on political prisoners in Saudi Arabia. I don't know. His dad's out of prison. It'd be one thing if he was like putting on this show to help his dad and figuring it would help him get in good places with Trump. I know it would be horrible, but you can understand it. But now, I guess, something very much darker than that.

It is dark. And I knew a little, you know, it was like a DM level relationship on Twitter or something at the time. And I think I met him a couple times, but yeah, yeah, it's very tall. That was my main memory. But no, he was a brave, I mean, a opponent of the Turkish dictatorship. And a good spokes for human rights, it seemed like around the world. And then he gets sucked into Trump for the world. And now he's all in. I guess that issue to the transgender issue and the immigration

issue should strike me as the two where people get sucked in and they don't stop. I mean, they go all the way. And it's really terrible. I mean, sad, but really terrible for the country, obviously, and for them, if I could say for their character, in my opinion, they just become haters. They hate. And what is this whole idiotic WMB? I'm declaring myself transgender women. So I could be drafted in the WMB. It's really funny. I mean, it's just so gross, really, and disgusting. As with the attacks

on the immigrants, they, and it is dangerous. They are demonizing, but they're going to get people hurt. They are getting people hurt. And people getting beat up, right? It's because of the cause of the, you know, in, at a time when there's this unabashed demonization of people who have done nothing, who are, and whatever the controversy is about, very minor, I might say on, you know, transgender women in sports or about, maybe some of the stuff, how, how you handle children

and parental consent or, and all that. These are adults. I mean, who have done nothing to anyone,

out of hatred, it's just hatred. I mean, there's nothing. There's no rationale. There's no argument,

“there's no nothing. And I think the same is very much true, obviously, of the immigrants, especially”

the ones who've been here a long time. They're doing no harm to anyone. And we're welcomed in their communities. What's happening in Springfield with Haitians is terrible. I mean, so I, those two issues really, I feel like this is dark side of the soul. And unfortunately, that sort of exposed that unfortunately, a lot of Americans, fair enough, are, okay with that. Yeah, and he's in the stadium shouting at people, like in the fans, like, what are you doing? I also did this controversy,

you just, my final thing that this is, to your point, like, whatever you think about youth sports and, I do, I think it's overblown, but I think it's complicated. There's certain sports with which we different rules and others for. It's like, that's like the, I just think the reasonable

view on all this. But like, none of it has anything to do with the WMBI. There's never been a

transgender person in the WMBI. There's no transgender person coming in to the WMBI. Like the only person trying to get in the WMBI is Anna's canter. He's made it up himself. He's pretending like he's being a, like, there's no problem here. It's like it. So, so you've totally inserted yourself into this and, and, and create and stirred up all this hate and animus over nothing. And it's really, it's really shameful. Final thing on the intersection of Trump and sports, did the dumb car race,

whatever, if you're into car racing, that's fine. Everybody has to have their own interests. That's what makes our country beautiful. I can't think of anything less appealing to me than attending a car race meant to be a tribute to Donald Trump. And to me, like, that, like, combines two of my least favorite, you know, endeavors. And I could not imagine anywhere I would want to be less than that. I went to a single car race in my life. I'm a fragile gay boy. It was very loud. My ears hurt.

I didn't understand what was happening. I didn't know that I was watching. It was not a fun experience for me. They had it for the streets of DC that it was an I saw on DC. It created all this traffic.

Did you have any interest in going where you wanted to monitor? I did not. I never really

been to one of those with big car race. Well, at least if you do it in D500, there's like an actual race track that's set up for this here. They had to, you know, do a lot of close national airport and close all much of avenues in DC. And you know, spent a lot of money, make sure the streets support these cars and all this. So, so I don't know if the impression was that big a deal. I don't have the impression that I talked to someone who's in DC yesterday that they were at DC was wild,

“they crowded, or the hotels were full of anything like that. So, I think it was all kind of”

much to do about not too much. I do think that, I mean, it's the last, I guess, that those freedom 250 events, the 250th anniversary events, the Trump comment year, and got the federal government to spend money on. I feel like the whole thing, this is good news. I think it was a bust. Trump's attempt to hijack the Jordan 50th anniversary. This is the end of it, presumably. And it kind of ended up going nowhere. And that's good for the country.

Totally failed. The other good thing, the other kind of silver lining of all this is that Malania attended with him. And so, we got video of them fighting during the car race, which I enjoy. I appeared to be fighting, I guess. I think I know what a couple of spat looks like, and maybe they just have both of our BF, but they seem like they're quite upset at each other. For about a minute there, and then, you know, Natalie was kind of over Malania's left shoulder standing, 10 yards away.

So, is that element to it? So, you know, if the results of this was a little, a little marital tip, I can take just a modicum of joy out of that. No? And we just have a lot of credit for going 45 minutes or whatever it is in this podcast without mentioning Natalie. I'm like,

“I missed, and I, I think I went on to the beach on a week ago Saturday, and I think that's kind”

of when the whole thing flew up wasn't it because our soft made us remarks, and then that they will hit back at them. So, I, I spent the week at the beach reading about Natalie. - Do you have any final facts about it? You want to know? - I don't. I mean, I just, you got you and JBL, and everyone have done an excellent job just guys to get, and I mean, it's all ridiculous. It's all ridiculous except it tells you a lot about the Trump administration,

not something we didn't already know, but still about the Trump White House, that one of the five or six people apparently closest to Trump and most influential on Trump, I think it's fair to say, one of the three took with him on that ridiculous food cart thing in Ankara, right? A woman who's making $150,000 a year as Trump's special assistant is Natalie Harper. I mean, given what we know about her qualifications or lack of qualifications for any senior job in the White House and any

kind, right? I mean, you know, I mean, it tells you something about the Trump White House and about Trump's psychology that he likes that. I mean, it's terrible. I mean, I don't know. I don't know where it all obviously, and I don't want to pop psychology and all that stuff, but I don't feel like it's doing her any favor for her to be treated in this way. I know enough having read the letters, and that's all that I need to know about what's happening with Natalie Harper. That's true for

edition of Shell, we'll see you next Monday. Great. I will see everybody piece. The more work daily is brought to you, thanks to the work of lead producer Katie Cooper, associate producer Anzley Skipper, and with video editing by Dante DeChico and audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.