Bill Kristol: Trump Wants All-out Kleptocracy

- Hello and welcome to the board podcast. I'm your host Tim Miller. It is Monday.

“He is back, editor at Large of the Bull Work.”

Fourth of July, content creator, extraordinaire, Bill Crystal. You were working this weekend. - A little bit in between World Cup games, obviously. It was too hot to go outside, and I was kind of avoiding

watching Trump and his attempt to hijack the 250th, so it was World Cup and a little bit of work. - You know, we'll get to the World Cup at the end. I also missed Trump. You said you were trying to watch Trump

or trying to avoid Trump? - Yes, trying and succeeding in avoiding Trump. Then I had to discuss it a bit with Sam Stein on Sunday, but you know, luckily Sam had watched it, so I was able to just play off him, you know.

- Okay, well, you're ahead of me, because I just decided I'm going dark. I know this is my job, and I'm paid by you people and interested by you people to watch this sort of thing. But it's midnight, so whatever, 11 o'clock on the 4th of July,

I took my daughter in a neighbor kid. We went up to the roof of a hospital parking garage, maybe against the rules to watch all the fireworks around town, I came home. I'm like, I'm not gonna turn this on.

Why would I do this to myself? In the next morning, I woke up and I was like, I'm not gonna worry about you. Why would I do that to myself? So I don't know how it was.

And, you know, there's much to have been said about it and the lead up and we did, it is sad and unfortunate that our 250th anniversary could not have been more of a unifying celebration. I do, to your point, about the World's Cup,

I do think that it's been kind of just replaced by, you know, that there was a vacuum, and it was filled. Mostly, we'll get to that at the end, mostly by the World Cup team. So that's all, do you have any other deep thoughts

for people who are desperate for observations about his speech? - Just that I think Trump's attempt

to hijack at basically failed.

I think, you know, 90% of Americans were ignoring. What was happening in Washington or, you know, enjoying life worth it a pretty traditional way in their neighborhoods and their backyards and their local high schools,

you know, watching fireworks or like you, semi legally on the roofs of garages, watching fireworks.

“Seriously, that's what people do on July 4th”

and they go to swimming pools and it is hot here. We went to our little neighborhood, get together on July 4th, it's usually a little parade, little kids in their tricycles kind of thing.

It was too hot, actually, so they just assembled in one area where there was some shade and mixed in mammals and provided, you know, bad white and blue popsicles. But it was charming, and it was nice. And I was there about 45 minutes,

several will work, readers and viewers. I'm happy to say, though talk of Trump actually, except for the implicitly, I'd say, and the phrase for the will work. But, you know, just chatting about what was people's lives

and what was going on and how their kids were and so forth. So I, that we assured be that the huge bulk of America was able to tune out Trump, I think. - A federalist, a small D Democrat, you know, for the July, us and our communities, that feels right.

Well, the president is back this morning, up early, ringing the bell in the oval office. It's all just, all feels so ghost and appropriate.

And it was the first joint opening of the Nasdaq,

and the Dow, to announce the Trump accounts, just but his name on them, in his remarks, he mentions Michael Dell, who contributed to those accounts. And he urged people to buy the Dell stock and said that Dell was gonna be repaid for his donation,

the Dell stock surge this morning after he said that. Last week, we heard right for the weekend that, as an investment accounts owned by Trump engaged in 300 previously undisclosed stock purchases. One day, ahead of his surprise announcement,

that he would pause his liberation day tariffs. There'd been a 45 day deadline to report those transactions he doesn't know about by deadlines. You replied to that story with just a brief tweet that said in Peach and Convict, the stirred me.

I wanna talk about the merits of impeachment, but first, the degree of grotesqueery around this, it's hard to even kind of wrap your harms around.

“It really is, I remember year and a half ago,”

it was like the Trump is admired, or bond, but we can't, it's America. We're not gonna go that far down that path. And people met partly the authoritarian path, but partly the kleptocracy path, the corruption path.

I don't know, Orban's regime in detail,

but I feel like we've finally gone further than Orban

or at least equivalently far, kind of in Putin territory, almost with this level of corruption, aren't we? And it's really, it's appalling. And the reason I just couldn't resist,

I just tweeted in Peach and Convict, because then I'm curious on your thoughts on this, though, but is it, you know, some of the other stuff that I'm more complicated, I'm proving that Trump is being lawless,

or I'm just using the Justice Department,

I mean, these are all pretty obvious. Bad things that Trump has done in my opinion, but there are people around who will say, oh no, it's more complicated. The stealing is just, I mean,

“no one's ever doubted that you can be a peach for that, right?”

I mean, that's in a way, it's the way the most straightforward. It's the least grave of his offenses, you might say, in terms of the future of America, it's a liberal democracy and a constitutional public,

but it's also the most glaring and obvious, I guess, I think. - I guess I even quote with Lee Scrave, just because, you know, it is the path towards just being, just total banana republic territory. - No, too.

- This is just how things work from Putin in, you know, great powers, or one's great powers, former great powers, that behave like this, that decline

to just kind of random tin pot-third world countries.

This what happens, you know, like the president gets paid off by the corporation that runs, you know, whatever agricultural product they have, or, you know, they pay off the TV station owner. Like, this is just how things work in countries

where there is no rule of law, and we have kind of declined fully into that level of, I don't even mean this like as a majority of those countries, but third world is on, in the way, a lot of times what you need to get

kind of third world economies up and going, and the successful ones are, you know, they institute rule of law. The leader of the country no longer can be paid off and cannot, like, pay off his children

and doesn't have his son-in-law running things. (laughs)

“Like, that's how you build trust in the system,”

and that's how you get business,

and money into the system.

Like, this is just kind of basic stuff, and like, we're going the other way. He said about his kids, almost anything they do, they have insight information. And he sort of starts rambling,

he's like, if they buy a cupcake company, then the cupcake company has a contract with somebody, and he's just like, I don't have to care about it. We don't care about it. I bet it was like the upshot of this.

Like, they're gonna have an insight of information about everything, and who knows exactly what's happening, this is what you have to have an investigation. Like, who is doing these investments? Did they have insight information?

Sure seems like it, I don't know. I didn't buy a bunch of stocks the day before. He did the pause on the tariffs. Maybe it's luck, but I do think

that I just going into on the pure, like financial corruption

is to your point, I think both easy to explain to people as a political matter. But I also think it's just important. And like, safeguarding the future of the republic, just to be like, hey, we can't do this anymore.

Like, this isn't gonna be allowed next time, they're gonna be held to account for this.

“Just on that level, I think that obviously investigating it”

is important and holding accountable based on what it's found. But that's, I think, a pretty compelling impeachment case for me. You know, I think about it. When the founders use the word corruption, which they use about the republic in general,

they also mean just corruption. And they understood right from the beginning, this is, as you say, how corrupt monarchies and other kinds of despotisms work, I mean, it's an aspect of the broader corruption,

but maybe I was understanding it a little. That's a kind of important aspect, right? The financial corruption is an important part of the broader political and social corruption, really. - Yeah, I think you've been more

pro impeachment than me from the start. I don't know if I was, if this was about being beaten down by the last time or there's like a one part of being it's just a little bit like what's the point? There's a little bit of that on it to it,

like, is like, what is impeachment anymore? Like, you got to like the back of your can. Like, how is it different than a strongly word of letter? Like, at some level, like, there's that argument that kind of bounces around my head.

And then there's like the strategic argument, which I think is not nothing, right? Which is you don't want to signal to people, if the Democrats get back in power, that their only priority is re-retribution against Trump.

Like, you do want to signal to people that, you know, the thing that they care the most about they want to spend time on is ensuring that, you know, that their lives are made better. And maybe there's a way to tie the corruption to that,

which is, you know, hold Trump accountable. So you can, you know, focus those resources on, on actually helping me forgotten man or the working man, and woman in America. Both of those points, I think are not totally invalid.

Okay, I think that that's a worthwhile thing to think about and to discuss if you're hacking Jeffries and his crew or, you know, whoever is kind of making those calls next year, presuming to Democrats get back in power. And I think the point that I was making earlier,

just that, for there to be any hope for repair, you kind of have to say, no, like, there is a line. And it's been well past crossed. And this is how the system works. And just because we know that there can be any honorable

Republicans, you know, who go along with this, does not mean that we are not going to do our obligation to the law and to the Constitution by going through impeachment. That's kind of where I find out, I don't know where you're at.

in speech and conflict,

I thought, it's kind of a division of labor thing.

I do think people like us. If a game Jeffries calls me after he watches this, not gas later today and says, "Well, should I be talking?" And I encourage my members to be talking more about impeachment.

I'm not sure if the reason you said, I'm not sure I would say yes. And even if he calls me on January 5th or whatever of 2027, the speaker and says, "Should we move ahead on it?" I don't expect him to, but if he worked too,

I'm not sure what I would say, because that's a different role. I do think our role is to sort of tell the truth, obviously, and to be a little provocative. But this is being provocative and telling the truth.

So I am happy to at least get the idea out there. It's important that people understand,

“I think, that he deserves to be impeached”

as a practical matter. People's deserve all kinds of things and deserve various punishments and people decide not to impose them for potential reasons.

But it's important to bring home how terrible what's happening is. - I guess we won't know how many democratic senators there are, so they'll end up being with, there's no doubt that there would be 20 Republican senators

who would gladly go along with the impeachment process of a democratic politician. And if their sons were invested in 14 different rare earth mineral companies around the world, and we're doing illegal stock trades

with what seems to be insider information and going on and on, there's just no doubt that these Republicans would go along with that if it wasn't for Trump. Part of it, then for me also,

is when you go back to have strategic question, I think that there's a risk, I think that if there's a long side of this strategically, we need to also demonstrate to Americans that they care about their concerns

and not just going after Trump,

“but I think also there's a strategic benefit”

of making the Republicans defend this nonsense. Like really, like this is, you think this is okay. For the president and his family to enrich himself at levels like totally unimaginable in past white houses, totally beyond anything

that you criticized about Hunter Biden or anybody else, I think that's worthwhile, pressure, campaigning to put on them. - And also the amoluments and gifts and bribes, if we can call that, for foreign governments

and I guess, for our companies too, that's kind of worth bringing home, right? I was thinking, I think that would have you mentioned for that or public earlier or if it came to my mind,

if we're talking about about third world countries,

I don't know what the archer of that phrase is, people can look it up, obviously these places in Central America and Latin America, I guess group of that is, group of that is, but also I think part of the phrase comes from the fact

that we, you know, you're at your food company or whatever, participated in the corruption of their, the willing corruption, I guess I would say, of their governments, of their dictators, by and effect cutting deals with them to get good commercial deals.

So we used to be on the side of something we didn't, we're proud of, but we did it for whatever, we let our companies do it at some point we passed laws,

“I think in the 70s to stop American companies”

with this kind of behavior, but it did happen for quite a while. But it's bad enough to do it and we stopped it doing it, it's worse to be on the other end, it's pathetic, right? I mean, we're like Qatar is like the old US, and we're like the old, I don't even know what country

to in South Guatemala or someone who United Food Hunt, yeah, primed, right? - A good night's rest that's you up for a great day, a big sleep fan, I love sleeping. People sometimes ask if I'm getting enough sleep

because you know, I'm producing so much content and while I produce content, you hear about my, the other parts of my lifestyle that I enjoy, the gay lifestyle, going out, partying, parenting,

and the reality is I do get sleep

because I hit the pillow and I'm out immediately. It's nice, it's a great gift, doesn't happen on every mattress, and there's one mattress that's been ensuring that I get that sleep that I need, it's our friends at Helex, we love our Helix mattress,

it is supportive, but it's still comfortable. They've got upgrades for some special cooling features, taught New Orleans night, it's easier to fall asleep and I wake up feeling rested and ready for the day. And he looks makes it easy for you to make the switch too.

He looks delivers your mattress right to your door with free shipping and the U.S., they have 120 night sleep trial and a lifetime limited warranty. And they happy with Helix, guarantee me,

and you can rest easy with seamless returns and exchanges, so it's easy to give Helix a try, it's been great, and you'll love it too. Go to HelixSleep.com/thebowork for 20% off site wide, 25% off Luke's mattresses, so I got,

and 30% off elite mattresses, that's HelixSleep.com/thebowork for 20% off site wide, make sure you enter our show name after check out, so they know we sent you HelixSleep.com/thebowork. - That is right, until the guitar point,

Trump is now taking the inaugural flight on their plane. We get hand me down from cutter now, that's the state of our decrepit country. And he isn't flying that plane today to NATO summit in N.K.R. the Seafging.

- Yeah, I don't know, I'm not gonna do the NATO of it,

Like, the Trump is in business with the UAE,

“on his script of business, and the cutter,”

I has now given us our Air Force One as a gift, which we've accepted this bribe simultaneously to this point where we're still embroiled in a conflict that involves cutter that involves a region where they have interests where allegedly, still working on a final deal

to resolve the stupid Iran war that we started, that cutter has a point of view on, and if Trump was ever happy, what was ever to fly to a summit where he sets across the new gay eye a tola

and signs a piece deal, it'll be flying on the cutter plane. - Yeah. - I don't have a question. - I got just. - I just see what about that Iran war?

That's didn't seem to come up all that there. Over the last several days, this thing that Trump went to headset. They were so proud of this was America. We were pulverizing it, obliterating everyone.

We were back, this no other president has ever done this. The American Bill of Times, everything like this for 200 years. Suddenly, we're having this giant celebration of July 4th to Trump be battered.

I didn't watch his features for your saying earlier, so I don't know if he mentioned it even, I don't hear a lot of talk about it though, which was as well, since it was a humiliating defeat, actually. But, you know, we'll see how much talk about it

that there is at the NATO summit. I guess it's good that Trump's going. Maybe not though, I don't know, it's a little bar. And he could've just totally given up on NATO by now. I was pretty struck, the Europeans have been pretty good.

And we've had a lot of compliments of the Europeans on Bill and Tim Monday.

“They've been surprisingly strong-willed, I think,”

in the Trump second term and they've been stalwart

in support of Ukraine and standing up Trump on Iran, I think was pretty noteworthy. Even still, you get the kind of little weak need European nature comes up from time to time. This is a playbook this morning, I was just reading it.

These are a couple of various quotes and sentences about the lead up to the meeting tonight. European NATO allies are pulling out all the stops to prevent a Trump blow up. The mood in the run up to the summit is poised,

but with a sense of foreboding. Well, European governments have on paper done. Everything they can to keep Trump happy, a last-minute surprise can't be rolled out. European allies will be holding their breath

as Trump heads to Ankara. Like, do they have to be, do all of this? Maybe Trump should be holding his breath. Why are they letting him be the protagonist of the story? He's the outsider anyway, that was a little bit annoying.

You know, we'll see exactly what they're going to focus on. I'm sure Trump will bluster on spending money and complain about the lack of support and Iran, but unclear what like tangible might come of it. Maybe this European ambassador is just saying things

to an American media outlet that they know Trump will read about it. And sort of want to make Trump feel important and that they really want him to be behave. I guess they do want him to behave.

He's still in the game, which I don't blame him for. If like, keeping line for it as long as possible. And I do think on Ukraine, it's a practical concern that they just, he seems to be annoyed at Putin. He seems to be less intent on damaging

Zelensky and Ukraine. That's the one thing that Europeans have stepped up the most on.

And it's the most important thing.

So I give them a certain amount of leeway here. But yeah, when bristles, when one reads that,

“but I think Ukraine will be the big story.”

I mean, how much do they do for Zelensky will be there? How much do they do for Ukraine? How much does Trump get in the way? The second story after Zelensky is my jar being there. I think representing Hungary.

So I guess I said this in one of your shots. You know, I'm going to listen to Zelensky and my jar speak for American ideals and kind of just try to avoid Zelensky Trump. So supposedly Trump had a call with both Putin and Zelensky

and they'll lead up to this. That was interesting. The telegraph reported this. The source thing on this is a little shaky. I think it's worth at least mentioning.

The United States has supposedly warned Poland that Russia could be preparing a military provocation named attesting NATO's resolve and weakening Western support for Ukraine. This is kind of single source to a Polish outlet

through a Polish source. And so it's kind of thing where it's like, when the United States did this, it's kind of unclear like kind of how high level this tip off is. But I don't know, it just gave me a little flashback

to these types of stories. We're sprouting up before the Ukraine more. Where our intelligence services were warning Ukraine. This was real and some people weren't taking that seriously in Europe and even in Ukraine.

And then we saw it happen. So Russia is just getting obliterated on the front line.

maybe aren't as happy as they were.

It wasn't seem crazy to me that Putin would try some other gambets to try to change the narrative, change the momentum around what's happening. I mean, I gather from some friends who were more in touch than I am with European diplomats or even European,

you know, intelligence officials and so forth. They've been to Europe recently at conferences. That the Europeans seem pretty concerned. I take it this is partly based on their own intelligence about Putin trying to recover from what's happening

in the front with Ukraine by doing something either a Poland or maybe in the Baltic States and maybe not a full-fledged invasion. But you know, a lot of trouble making and false flag type operations is maybe a subset of that, you know? - Yeah.

“I just think that's important context and the lead”

up to the NATO meet summit in that, yes, come on to those obvious statements, but it would be nice. So I know for sure that the United States president was aligned with Poland and aligned with our European allies and the event that something like this happened

because Putin doesn't have the guys for a full invasion of, we're just seeing what's happening in Ukraine, they just couldn't do it successfully. What could be successful is a provocation that yields what Trump and others of his ilk starting to be like,

"Well, this isn't worth it anymore. "We can see the escalation is happening." Like it's time to back off, right? And that would be the gambit and hard to have confidence that our president would not fold to that gambit.

You all know that I'm not really the DIY type when it comes to home improvements. There's this home improvement show I was watching with this gay couple there, from Detroit, dang I'm blanking on the name of the show,

but they're from Michigan and then they did a New Orleans season. And I'm jealous. I wish I was a DIY gay, but I'm not. And I still like the redesigning part of the house. I still like jujaging.

I still like making things nicer and more fresh. And doing the shopping part, like the shopping part. The DIY part not as much. And our friends at three day blinds give me everything I need to ensure that I can do the shopping

and enjoy it and not have to do the execution. What a win. Three day blinds is a leading manufacturer of high quality custom window treatments in the US. And right now, if you use my URL, three day blinds.com/thebullwork.

They're running a buy one, get 150% off deal. We can shop for almost anything at home. Why not shop for blinds at home to three day blinds

“as local or professionally trained design consultants?”

We have 10 plus years of experience to provide expert guidance on the right blinds for you in the comfort of your home. Right now, get quality window treatments. Fit your budget with three day blinds. Head to threedayblinds.com/thebullwork

for their buy one, get 150% off deal on custom blind shades and drapery for a free, no charge, no obligation consultation. Just head to threedayblinds.com/thebullwork. One last time that's buy one, get one 50% off. When you head to the number three DAY blinds.com/thebullwork.

I have a segment right now. This is very rare for me. We're doing it 20 minutes into the show. It's two topics. It's the Tim is sometimes right segment.

JBL and Sarah have their always right shirts.

I'm not always right. And ethos of the show is radical candor. I admit when I'm wrong, I'm wrong often. We're I'm learning, I'm trying to have guests on who are smarter than me on things.

I'm learning with the audience.

“There are a couple of things that I've pretty astute air about.”

I do want to mention them 'cause they both came to a head over the weekend. The first is my friend Mallory McMorow dropped out of the Senate race in Michigan. She was, I don't know, three months ago now at the top.

And it was basically a three-way coin flip. And I had lunch with somebody, I don't know, in the spring at some point, it was very deeply involved in that race, not in a MacMoro camp who understood all the polling and at that time,

they said to me, it's a three-way coin flip. It's totally even, I could hear the argument that MacMoro is leading, I or not. Around war starts, I'll say EED starts really leaning into anti-war stuff, he has Hassan Piker

and some other DSA types come to visit.

The third-way puts out a demand that all candidates condemn,

on Piker and condemn these people on the left that have said things that are anti-American or just medical whatever. And more of us, okay, condemns, I'll say EED for having Piker there, that was like one small,

kind of internet thing, but that leads like this broader skirmish of kind of a left-right attack where Stephens is not being attacked that much, the Chuck Schumer support a candidate,

and Saeed started attacking each other.

“And if anything, it will have no effect.”

Worst case scenario, boomerang back on the candidates that you're trying to pressure, like this is even if you're right in the principal, like even if you grant everything they said about whoever else that EED campaigned with

and that they're a bad person, it's still a dumb strategy. And that obviously bore fruit and turned out, like democratic voters right now are like not interested in hearing their candidates decide that they want to pick fights with people

on the far left flank. Like it's that there will be a time for that, there'll be a moment for that, like potentially, if you want to have that fight, maybe it'll be at the 0.28 primary, we'll see,

but like that is now what they're interested in, is stupid. And we lived through this, I said this the whole time,

like we lived through this, again,

if we're taking outside the morals, you're just trying to win, like all this is as you're as interest group, there's trying to help with the candidates that you prefer ideologically win. Who did well in the Tea Party time?

McConnell, Mitch McConnell did well, not the people in the party that decided that they wanted to go to take a full on head-on fight with the Tea Party people.

“They lost, Eric Cantor lost, like how did McConnell survive?”

McConnell survived by, like being strategic, being smart. Sometimes adapting to appeal to the Tea Party right, other times, picking spots to find weak opponents to go after on weak topics, like going after the DSA left on over war and Israel, like right when Israel

was getting us into a stupid war, was moronic. It was you were fighting from your weakest possible perch at the worst time, 'cause anyway, okay. So they're out, and I think it sucks,

'cause I think that Mallory would have been the best candidate.

I think the both else I ate in Haley are imperfect candidates for different reasons. And, you know, I just, I want people to be smart. And I don't think it means that they have to swallow their principles or not say what they think, but it's just like,

the Democratic voters right now are looking for people that are anti-status quo, that are going to fight Trump, that have their eye on the ball, that are focused on the real enemy, and they're looking for people that are demonstrating

that they're going to be against stupid wars, so they're going to care about their economic concerns. Like that's like, every focus group Sarah does says it, every poll says it, and picking this factional fight right now is both dumb strategy, and it's just wrong.

Or it's not, it's the wrong fight to have right now, even outside of kind of the more Machiavellian political concerns. So there's my rant about the Michigan Center race. I'm, it's in sorrow, not an anger that I talk about Mallory, getting out of the race, and I think she'll come back.

It's fine, like her personal brand, I don't think it's hard, and I think that she can run for a statewide office in Michigan in the future and be fine. So I don't do anything to add or rebut. - No, except the general, yeah, people should come down

and accept that it's a big part. There's McConnell, I, you know, examples interesting, sticking back to those years. He at times accommodated the tea party. He at times fought them, very satana muddied you

to feed some of their candidates, and he sent it race,

“who's remember that Mississippi race room, is that?”

- I was going to use him as an example, Chris McDermott. - Tango. - Tango, who was that? - Great shape at that point, you have to be saying that. - But it's like Chris McDermott. - It was a racist talk radio host,

and it's like they went at him, and they went out of aggressively, and they used very smart strategy. It was kind of a pincer attack. They brought in some black voters to vote in the primary,

to defeat him, and it was a very sophisticated strategy to go after like one of the weaker Tea Party people, and that's, like you mentioned, and there are other times where they just ended up with the teams. - Of course, I mean, I think it was a couple

of centers points, they were able to save Cochrane at that point. And then if I was thinking of 2010, I think it was 2012, I would produce you at McConnell's, trade race, and who I knew slightly at the time, ran for the Senate, the open Senate seat, I guess it was,

against Rand Paul, and Rand Paul covered McConnell's guy at Grayson in the primary. And then, and McConnell wasn't thrilled about that, but you know, he decided, okay, Rand Paul's my colleague from Kentucky, I don't know, I don't love him,

but you know, gotta make the thing work, and McConnell was a pretty effective, better horse, majority leader, minority leader, they're majority leader for the next, I don't know, 10, 12 years, and had Rand Paul's vote

when he needed it, I don't know, but everything except the what issues were Paul really. - You know, I had a friend's party with Rand, and state of that, and this is the same thing with Rubio, remember?

Like again, it was like they had Christ initially at the time, and then Rubio runs as a Tea Party person, and it's like, you know, McConnell didn't, you know, go whole hog going after him, and look at where Rubio is now, right?

So I just, yeah, like there are times to have the fight, okay, this was not the right time, particularly given the topic of the war. And I'll say, again, say what you want about him, like, has been run a pretty effective campaign,

and Mike Murphy, who is much more erasable and grumpy than me, and much less willing

when he still is our Republican outstanding, I've been watching, I've been listening to his analysis about this, and he's like, I'll say it is the best protest in the race. Like, he doesn't have the baggage

that like some of maybe those house candidates in New York did from the DSA side, you know, that Murphy's not rooting for him, but it's just as an analysis standpoint.

“It's like, you have to look at the field and say,”

okay, you know, maybe I'll say, this is gonna be offensive to both sides, it's more of a Rubio, you know, and less of a Christmas Daniel, right? And so then you have to, you know, assess it from that,

from that vantage point. So you also have to know what kind of year and what cycle it is, and I think that in a different year, I think I'll say it would be a pretty risky bet in Michigan. I'm like less convinced that that's the case this year,

like in the first Trump midterm. I mean, is he slightly more risky than Steven's, probably slightly more, but I'm not convinced like a lot more, and I'm not sure anybody's like demonstrated that.

- Yeah, Mike knows Murphy knows, but she can well equip there and ran the Enclink campaign's there, and I say, "Frank campaign." And so you know, that keeps a close eye on that state.

I like that your idea that you're, what would you claim you are, you're mostly writer, or sometimes write, as a, yeah, I'm gonna be occasionally, right? - I'm sure not.

- Sometimes.

“- When you're not full of you, say, you know, JBL,”

(laughing)

- So it's not fair that you're always the best.

- Of course, it's more claimed to be always right category, but in my occasionally write persona, I've always thought Steven's was a stronger candidate than people thought just because she's such an experienced tough candidate, tough-minded candidate with a good team,

and all that. And I kind of think she's, I mean, if I had to bet I'd bet on her defeating, I'll say you'd in the primary, but in a way, if you were designing things,

look more as the kind of the best of the three, because she captures a lot of the young change, side of things without, I'll say he's, you know, being so far alive. So I don't know, I don't know what's gonna happen.

I hope, well, we'll see what happens, right? - Yeah, and the black vote is another thing that is subtext to all of this, you know, which is, you gotta do well with black voters, the Democratic primary, and I do think

what more I was struggling with that, and I think that's kind of unrelated to that other tactical element that I was talking about. And, you know, I think that's some of it. People aren't gonna be continually reminded of,

as you head up to 28 discourse. - Okay, two minutes sometimes, right number two. Michael Cohen, Donald Trump's fixer, a resistance star for Ohio, the resistance, certain resistance outlets loved Michael Cohen.

And they wanted to, you know, welcome him in and talk about a great he was and give him shows. He's back in Trump's good graces who could have predicted, "W, oh wait, I did, "W, ABC, owner, giant, cats, and metidas,"

said Cohen and Trump have smooth things over. He offered him a radio show, and W, ABC.

“Like, that's what Matidas says, "I checked with the White House,”

"they had no objection." - What a wonderful world we live in. You're running a media outlet, and he just says, is if it's a, of course, I checked with the White House

to make sure they've never promised.

- Cohen gave a quote, "I was told the president gave me "a glowing recommendation for this gig, "because he believes I'm gonna be the next Russian limba." - We all are weaknesses. We like being told that we're right, you know?

We like having our biases flatter. This has benefited something ever terms I'll be honest about it. It's fun a lot of Democrats like coming to us. They're like, "See, one of the things I like about this

"is, see, Bill Crystal, who I was used to agree "with disagree with when he was on this week. "Now says I'm right." Okay, yeah, you also have to use your judgment. I'd never had Michael Cohen on the show.

I will have people on the show that have Trump be views. I might this week as a matter of fact, but as long as they're not bullshitting me, we can not have people that are completely full of shit that have therefore sale sign up that are obviously

going to go back and forth, depending on what is convenient, that was true about Cohen. Cohen was not like, he got slumped in with us. This is why maybe it's a little bit offensive at times.

He's not like the never Trumpers,

who some of us never supported Trump, you and me, or others who like reluctantly were on the outskirts and then came around. And people who were young, like Sarah Matthews, who went in there and then saw it was gross and came out.

That was my little Cohen was Trump's fucking bag man. He was his bag man. I can use doing gross, disgusting, illegal, corrupt things on behalf of Trump for decades. I was never really convinced that that ML had changed.

And then you go on the shows, it's like the end of Trump. It's like, okay, all right. He has what we thought he was. So Michael Cohen off. So if you ever wonder, why has not Tim had random resistance

superstar on the show, maybe maybe the Michael Cohen lesson is one of why. Any other thoughts on that for we move on? I don't know if I was ever on anything with him. Maybe there were two shows that it didn't control

so to speak, where you know, like Zoom, or whatever I found myself on with him.

But I do recall, I worried some of the little double technists and maybe I once went on.

“He asked me to be on his, he had a podcast, I think.”

And he asked me to be on the other end of the times. I mean, many, many times. And it was kind of offended. I was just like, it said, I think I'll pass. You know, I didn't say anything about why.

And then to get kind of fristly, as I vaguely recall, from our brief exchanges on DMs, I think, on Twitter or the time, whatever it was.

I think I never went on the show.

So I'm with you and being that one too. You were good, you had good sense on that. My summer vacation is almost here. I can't wait. I need the time to relax and I'm on wind.

I'm going to shut down the Twitter machine. You guys are going to have to hold me accountable for that. Once you're looking or you spying on my Twitter account, seeing if you even do any retweets, retweets are also not going to be allowed.

So one thing I'm trying to do is I prepare for my restful, no Twitter European vacation is a little bit of language work. Some fun with our sponsors at Babel. If you're traveling with summer, here's a real travel hack.

Don't wait until you land to start learning the language. Instead, try Babel. Even just 10 minutes a day with Babel, can help you start having real conversations in as little as three weeks.

Instead of memorizing random boat cab, if you're learning phrases, you'd use ordering dinner, asking for directions or talking with the locals. Stuff you can actually use to make the trip smoother and more fun and more fulfilling.

I like the Babel for real life. No vocabless or verb charge just real conversation, practice lessons are quick, practical and built, but more than 200 language experts, I've been doing them at the dinner table

and going on to a restaurant with my daughter, the period between ordering and the food getting there can sometimes be dicey with children. Babel is a nice way to fill it. Now we're learning French words together.

If you've got summer travel coming up right now is the time to start so you can actually use what you learn on the trip. Babel is offering listeners up to 60% off. Go to Babel.com/bowlwork.

That's BABBL.com/bowlwork for up to 60% off rules and restrictions may apply. Speaking of just really on the media corruption thing, you mentioned with the WABC reminded me. This isn't the story that's been kind of happening in the background,

which is if there continue to be a right wing effort to take away the licenses of these local ABC TV stations

or this all kind of first in the public over the Jimmy Kimmel element,

where Brendan Carr was threatening one of the,

“I think, most pernicious parts about that”

is used to threatening these local ABC affiliates where the government does still have licensing power. You know what I'm saying? Hey, if you don't take them off the air, you know, we're gonna challenge these licenses

and then Kimmel gets back on the air. But that part of it continued. And you have this media research center who has one of the stupid Bozell kids that runs it, they're well funded though and the right.

And they have a lawsuit against these local stations or a challenge against these local stations saying that they're doing communist propaganda and who the hell knows what else. And it's just worth noting that like that pressure

from the White House on media outlets where they have power is still ongoing. - And your Brendan Carr is a good example. I don't fall very closely, but I know a tiny bit about what he's doing at the FCC.

This is term they use a kind of stupid term.

I always say all of the government,

we do have an all of government foreign policy on whatever something you'll get. The Treasury Department, it covers everyone's evolved in some effort. This was used a lot during the early days

because of the war in Iraq and the war in terror. And then to some degree I do create. And it's true, it's just the phrase, it's a little bit pompous and pretentious. Trump has an all of government assault on his opponents.

It's not like it's only the White House or Stephen Miller or you know, or Blanche is Justice Department. Regulatory agencies that we don't think about a lot and then mostly have been pretty passive or an effectual over the recent decades.

You might even say they're involved.

“And as you say, and each of these things adds up, right?”

Brendan Carr is not quite as scary as having FBI is Justice Department chasing you down or maybe having our friend there at OD&I, you know, trying to find you and prosecute you. But it's not nothing if you're running a local TV station, right?

The degree to which they have done pretty good job from their point of view. But again, this is Orbanish, right? And Putinish, every part of the government, they're going after you from many different angles to once.

When I had John Gianz on here, there's a jock, creep theory of fascism. And we're noting that there are a lot more jocks in this administration than creeps. But Brendan Carr definitely fits in the creep category.

And that's your how much there is to say about the story, but it's like so shocking, I have to mention it. So this is board podcast, Ghost True Crime. And Idaho mother was charged with the murders of her 18-month-old twins a year after suggesting

their deaths were the result of vaccinations. Days after the kids, a boy and a girl were found dead, Sean or husband appeared on a podcast produced by RFK's children, health defense

I mean, that is just horrifying and astonishing.

That that is now the secretary of health and human services. Like what? (laughs) - Well, that's another aspect. The going after opponents is pervasive

in the government, I don't know what to call this, exactly, I don't know the way it works for this is, but being adjacent to true, truly detestable and despicable actions, not to say criminal actions.

“That's also pretty pervasive in this administration, right?”

- It is. And it also just is the danger. This is obviously something that is much more acute on the right, but occasionally, we see in left media that I like to comment on why this is important.

Like participating in conspiracy theory culture is dangerous in ways that's hard to predict. Just as, and like you get into this world

where you have people that are mentally unwell

and like they attach onto your conspiracy theories and something like this happens. I mean, this is not wholly unconnected kind of what situation was with Tina Peters. I mean, obviously Tina Peters didn't murder somebody,

but like what was the underlying cropped act in that story? Well, it was that she was like so convinced that the elections were stolen, that she tried to rig the machines herself, right? Are going to the machines to get proof of it, right?

Against the rules, right? Like that type of thing happens, right? People would come so convinced or something,

“they try to make it through, it's not, it's pizza gate, right?”

It's the guy showing up to the basement of the pizza parlour with a gun. When you participate in this type of conspiracy culture and advanced these conspiracy's like, you know, it should not be surprising what comes of it.

- Should we end with soccer? Brother, any of the burning stories that you have on your mind that you want to cover? - No, well, we've covered them. - So, great.

- England, Mexico, game last night was very fun to watch. The Brits now had against the Norwegians. I noticed in your Twitter feed, there's a historic reference about the last time the Brits and the Norwegians met.

What do you know about the battle of 1066? - The Battle of Hays, I don't know, but some Brit was to say, was talking about how they lost that battle. They defeated the Vikings in that battle. They then lost to William the Conqueror coming from France,

so they still have to make up for their French defeat, but they're, he's hoping that they defeat Norway

for the first time in a millennium, I suppose.

- The Battle of the Stamford Bridge. - Yeah. - That Norwegian dude, Holland is a beast though. - Yeah, I've been intrigued by that. So, the joy that has been brought to the world cup,

similarly to the next joy, I Donald Trump obviously has to try to ruin everything, and like involve himself and everything. We cannot, there's no part of the human existence, the Donald Trump does not want to get his little tent

coals on to, he's all tiny little orange digits, he wants to touch everything and make everything tainted by his burnt orange aura. And it's as such that it's happened here. The American player gets, I don't fucking know,

I'm not a soccer person. Seeing like a pretty tricky tack, red card to me. If you get a red card, you can't play in the next match. People are, I think, seem to be rightly outraged about this to me,

so he was going to be out for the game against Belgium, which takes place this evening. The FIFA, and which gave Trump, you might remember the FIFA Peace Prize. I don't know if they've given anyone a FIFA prize

for literature or science, but they have handed out a FIFA Peace Prize Donald Trump. They rescinded the red card. It had only happened one time before in 1960 something to a Brazilian, and Trump is now taking credit

for this kind of cheekily, so that they called FIFA, there's kind of conflicting reports on how many times he called and how aggressive he was, et cetera. I kind of don't care, but it's unfortunate. The right thing to do,

somebody that does not amagalomaniacarch Trump, even if he did call, the right thing to do would be to say he did not. If you were to say that righteousness prevailed here, that the player had not committed the red card,

and so it was smart of FIFA to rescind it and honorable and fair, but that's not what they're going for, fair play. So anyway, he's back, which is good news for the Americans, but it's similarly to Trump showing up

to game four of the next finals, is my comparison. - I mean, I see like a Tickie Tackie, red card and we joked

“in the morning shots, I think on Thursday morning,”

Trump's whatever was, Trump's a mob boss, he should be arranging this stuff. We didn't really think he would, I mean, if you were a mob, it's not only if you wanted to do this in a way that didn't make one kind of conflicted almost

about watching him here, but it was really, even if it's a bad call, they probably should have, you know, gone by the rules of the game once the call was made and the end of one was preparing for a game, which wouldn't play.

If he was going to do it, he could have done it through an intermediary and that had a FIFA such a tool

that he probably would have made it happen anyway,

but Trump can't resist, right? He has to let up, you know, that he personally call that he's been not top of this. And all that, so I think that's, you know, they had a FIFA guy, that guy, they've thought,

I gotta say the world comes from terrific. So someone, some people of FIFA know what they're doing, but that guy who runs it, whose name is this gave you me, he seems like a total creep and someone had a funny comment on Twitter, maybe this was a type of a P tour,

someone like that, or one of the guys from the, one of the opponent of people did the contract with Fox require that we have a, that they move, they show us this head of FIFA, who no one cares about.

- In the team, you know, in the team. - Watching the game from the stands, every 30 minutes, it's really, like ludicrous, you know, they go to him more often. To their credit, they don't seem to go to politicians,

they don't interview politicians, and you get a pretty straight, 90 minutes of soccer for both, they say, and you get good commentary by former great soccer players, but that Infantino guy could do it without you.

- It's kind of how I feel about Ruda, too, what's we go to NATO. It's like, I understand that sometimes,

“as part of your job, you have to deal with this asshole”

that we are country-elected president twice, and that there's certain things that you need to do to kind of make things move along. But some people suck up to him with a little too much relish. And it's in the eye of the beholder,

but for me, both Infantino and Ruda have fallen on the wrong side of the relish line. And it's like, they seem to be enjoying it. They seem to kind of like it in the end. And maybe even like Trump.

So these people come to like Trump, and it seems like that happened to Bill Maher, like they get there and they're, there's something about them that appeals. I'm lucky, I don't have that gene at all.

- I can see it. He was his successful con man for all those decades,

and con men always have some ability

to get people to like them, right? That's how the con works, I think. And at the one time he called me in 2015, after I wrote the initial weekly standard in charge, I'll say we could ever, of course, support Trump,

but I actually, that argued this was like his June to life. 2015 was suggested that, you know, politicians probably could learn something from Trump's success. There's more of a mood out there than some of us realize

that was one of the few things one of my occasionally correct points. But as if, of course, we could never support Trump

“and Trump called me, I think I told this to end.”

And, you know, you'll come around, Bill, and all this. And, you know, he has that kind of jocular back slapping, kind of New Yorky manner on the phone that I wasn't deeply moved by. I wasn't moved it all by at all.

I was, I was, I was, I was, I remember thinking when I hung up or put down my phone, my phone, my, that, you know, I could see how he can sort of get people to think, God, he's not a bad guy, you know, kind of a back slapping, sort of type of thing.

Just objectively, that's a good interpersonal trait. Is somebody like you and, and they who write about people and the public eye or tweet about people and the public eye occasionally, there's a much less appealing trait

of other famous people, which is when you do that to call an, like, bitch and moan and talk about how unfair it is to try to work you over. And it's like, okay, and that's, that's a turn off. And if you're somebody like me when someone does that,

that makes me want to shit on you more. So backfires, the tr, and so Trump does it in a way that's like he's also, he's also complaining, right? But like you said, the jocular, it's just a better interpersonal way to handle it.

And so he does, I just buy all counts, like in private, he wins people over that way. - How many also has the other side, of course, as well, there'll be rate and scream and yell and threaten? And of course, after all that Dracula come,

my track of conversation that he spent the next three years

trying and succeeding ultimately

and getting the wiggly set or closed down. So, you know, overstate, I don't know, overstate, I don't know, overstate, I don't know. How charming and Dracula he is, but I, but I, but I did get a fight like at a glimpse there

by he's got some people who I remember at the time, thinking, how could they even work for him? Thinking, I guess, maybe he's just, they discount all the horrible things and they find it sort of entertaining or amusing

or whatever flattering I suppose. - Me too. I want to be abundantly clear just a couple of things in this podcast, just because I was not creeping, comparing,

I'd go say either, any of the left Democrats to the racist radio host and Mississippi. So, I'm using an analogy about how to handle popular insurgents within a party. Okay, that's all and learning from good strategies.

So, I just want to be abundantly clear about that. I also want to be clear. I don't find Trump particularly charming or jogger myself.

“I think that actually it's a sign of deep weakness”

to be sucked in by such transparent efforts to win people over. That said, I, other people in politics could learn from the idea that, that how you win people over via private conversations by using that strategy

rather than the bitching and moaning strategy. That's all I'm saying. Don't, no need to get mad. If you want, I take feedback. I was very right on this podcast.

So, please, in the comments, let me know all the ways on which I was wrong,

Bill Crystal, thank you.

“I appreciate you very much coming in on this Monday.”

Go USA tonight against the Belgians.

And they do have yummy waffles,

“but besides that, thumbs down for Belgium tonight.”

And we'll be back tomorrow.

Could be a spicy one tomorrow.

We'll see you all then, peace.

(upbeat music)

“The board podcast is produced by Katie Cooper”

with Audio Engineering and Editing by Jason Brown.