Bill Kristol: Voters Are Realizing Trump Doesn’t Care About Them

- Hello and welcome to the Bullard Podcast. I'm your host Tim Miller. It is Monday. So of course we have editor at large. Out of the morning shots newsletter,

a bill, crystal bill. You had some almost optimistic notes in the news letter this morning.

“I guess if bad news for Trump is good news”

for America and the pro-democracy movement, you're focused on the polls. But you framed Trump's bad poll numbers up first by talking about what was happened down here in Louisiana. So let's start there.

Bill Cassidy finished third in the Senate primary gear. I should know quick aside for the Louisiana people. Jeff Landry put five ballot initiatives on the ballot all went down. No, no, no, no, no.

So I think that's another good sign about where things are politically in the country. But Lindsey Graham said over the weekend about Cassidy's loss. If you try to destroy President Trump,

you're gonna lose because this is the party of Donald Trump. And that and itself may be the problem. Talk about what you, your little meditation on the news letter on that.

- It's just kind of amazing. Isn't it that the Republican Senator been in the Senate quite a long time, the House before it.

There's always some attachment to the broader party.

It's principles ran against Trump office in 2015, 2016. Just says it's the party of Trump. And it's not saying it regretfully or sadly or you know, melancholy kind of melancholy way. That's just a fact.

And you know what politics is about? Tim politics is about as adjusting to whoever's in power and just sucking up to him shamelessly no matter what he does. So Bill Cassidy, I don't know, Lindsey was close to Bill Cassidy.

They've served together quite a long time. But no, no regrets. He goes down because he voted five years ago to impeach Trump for what he just clearly deserved to be impeached for the January 6th insurrection.

Cassidy, unfortunately, then spent the next five years basically sucking up to Trump.

“So I have limited sympathy for him honestly,”

including of course the key vote to confirm Robert of Kennedy, Jr. and before the committee would check his Cassidy's chairs, right? The House committee anyway. So yes.

So that's it is the party of Trump. Talk about Louisiana for a minute too. Yeah, it is kind of interesting, right? I mean, yeah, look, I mean, Cassidy goes down basically only wins some districts around New Orleans,

which is basically, I don't know, our people probably Paulding their nose and voting for him, essentially. I had a gathering on Saturday or a couple of people said that, you know, they were in there. We have the best eye-voted stickers here in Louisiana.

That's a little crawfish. You know, looking at all of us with his little snappers talking about voting and a couple of them had it on. And I was like, what do you decide to do? And several of them just said that they

are Kate Belkacity with them, like, well, the end of the day. You know, we know that whoever Trump endorses will just do literally whatever he wants. And maybe Cassidy will go back to being independent after he wins again, not excited about that,

but there's no other good option. But not much sympathy for that view in the rest of the state. But I don't know, I thought that the ballot initiatives were telling, you know, they weren't particularly close. And if you look at the turnout, in the deep south,

it's sometimes a little hard to look at turnout based on voter registration because there's still some, like, basically elderly Republicans who are Democrats, you know, back in the civil, you know, back in the 90s, racist Democrats.

So other Democrats who just never changed their party

identification, actually registration. But now that they're close primaries, you assume most people would choose the party that they're actually in and re-register. And it was only like 8% more Republicans than Democrats voted, which is about a 12% swing, which if you kind of map to that

on the election in the fall, no, wouldn't mean that Louisiana would have a Democratic Senator, but it would mean maybe Texas or Iowa would. And if there's a 12 point move towards the Democrats. So I thought it was pretty, in that sense, pretty telling,

you know, a lot to not be happy about here in Louisiana. I mean, they canceled the household elections because they're trying to steal a house seat.

“But like the broader dynamics, I think, are pretty clearly”

it play. And this is like what you get into, if you look at the numbers, CNN approval at this morning, CNN New York Times, Trump approved 37, disapprove 59, CBS, Trump approved 37, disapprove 63, I thought, interestingly in the CBS poll,

they asked Trump's favorability on the economy, even lower than is overall favorability. 30% favorability on the economy. Now we're getting down towards that tricky decline at 30%. So I don't know, what, what did you make about that?

- No, I think the polls are really striking. They're both good polls.

And you always want to compare apples to apples,

so what you compare them to previous polls by the same organizations. The CBS poll has the approvals picked out a point, and the disapprove will picked up a point each month. And a point's not much, it's frustratingly slow,

it has, but the last half of 2025, Trump is very stable,

kind of just up and down.

Then in January this year, he was 41, 59, then 40, 60, 39, 61, 30, 62, and by May 37, 63. Kind of a trend line, I think. And again, confirmed by other trend lines, including this morning's New York Times,

which, let's see, that had Trump,

“Trump was within two points, I think, in the time,”

last September, in approval of disapprove gap. And then it opened up some in January. However, I think it was the next one, and now it's 37, 59. So Trump has gone down in the New York Times poll as well. So the trends are similar, and almost every poll,

37% approval in those two polls, 38, 39%. If you look at the big averages now, in which include some lagging polls, I would say, the New York Times average in this and date silver average, I mean, that's very bad for the midterms.

There's a lot of political science data on this, Ron Brownstein, Smith's all the time. Come right to give at it in a very intelligent way.

Republicans running for Congress will win some Trump

disapprovers. There's no question there are some people who say, "I just flew Trump, and I'm still one "over Republican member of Congress." But when you're having a midterm election,

when the president's party has control, both has some Congress. So it becomes a referendum on do you want a Congress to continue to go along with the president, or to check the president?

You know, when that many usually, if you're just a proofers, Ron says about 10% normally, if you look at the polls on election day. And especially, and this is what gets to the Lindsey Graham comment, if the party is just tied at the hip with Trump.

It's one thing, if you have a whole lot of independent members of Congress, and they have their own identity, their own brand, and voters can tell themselves, so you said it by Cassidy, but that was more, wishful thinking, but even so, Cassidy

was one of the four or five most dissidents,

I suppose, Republican members of the Senate, the others, you know, Marshall and Kansas, and either packs that are cornered for that matter at this point, are not, have not shown much dissidents at all, and that would be true in other states as well.

So I really do think in the House Races, obviously.

“So I think the degree to which Trump at 37”

means a good Democratic year, this November, and that can't be overstated, and this trend remains down, incidentally. Trump could bounce back some 37. I expect these trends have a go with tirely

in one direction for 10 months, you know, that'll be some uptick, one month of a point, but yeah, it just is likely he'll be low in 37 in a higher, especially if you think about the real world, what's the, our things gonna get better in the economy

in the next five, six, five months, so kind of doubtful for hate, so it's the corruption gonna get less obvious. So one last point just found the CBS poll, which is the one I looked at more closely

the times poll came out very early this morning, and I was already writing about CBS, but it does Trump care about people like you was terrible for Trump. This is pretty interesting.

How much do you think Donald Trump cares about the needs and problems with people like you? A lot, 18%, some 17%, so 35% cares about you. Not much, 14%, not at all, 51%, 35, 65. That's been a Trump's strength,

care about people like you, right? I mean, so man, 51%, doesn't care about you at all, but if you two% strongly disapprove, that's a very big hill decline for the Republicans. - It is indeed.

The only counter-bealing point to that, maybe we'll do a little bit more on this at the end, but I just wanna flag this, is that times the end of poll asked people for views of the Democratic Party, and it was worse than Trump for 26, 70,

26 satisfied, 70, dissatisfied. Now, a big part of that is Democrats being dissatisfied by the Democrats aren't fighting hard enough. So it's a little bit overstated, I don't have a front of me, but among Kamala Harris voters,

it was like 46% disapprove of the Democratic Party. Here's something like that, just a massive number. It's a little worse than it actually is.

“I think I think it's people who are perfectly satisfied”

to actually vote for Democrats, but are satisfied with the Capitol D Democratic Party, or are unsatisfied with the Capitol D Democratic Party for that matter. But even still, I think that's the one cautionary note,

to probably won't play out this fall, but I just think the Democrats really need to grapple with seriously that 70% of the country is dissatisfied with them. - Now, that's a huge 2027, 2028 issue for the Democrats,

when you're actually talking about choosing a president and choosing a Congress to govern, as opposed to putting people in their check-trop. Move that it can be overcome in 26 is that in that actual time,

Seattle poll, the generic ballot is plus 11 Democrat. I don't know, it's kind of comical, right? You know, we hate the Democratic Party. I don't know, plus 11 Democrats this fall, but it's perfectly reasonable.

It's perfectly rational, right? You've got all kinds of issues that Democrats that you progress with and I progress up and off. I don't like this guy. That one, you know, they need to take for the war in this issue.

That issue doesn't matter. They're not going to be able to pass stuff on with anything in the next two years. They can check Trump, and so it really is about Trump. Now, the one piece of advice for the Democrats,

therefore, is keep the fuck focused on Trump. Make the 2026 midterm about Trump. Forced the Republican members of Congress

Trump is doing over and over and over and over. And I think those unpopular things can range from serious unpopular things. The war, you know, and the like to the ballroom and all the symbolic things that show Trump doesn't care

about you and he's just obsessed with himself. So that is my strategic advice to Democrats. Forget about yourself. Make it all a back Trump. - One other thing related to Trump's political power

with his own party is Thomas Massey's primary and Kentucky Four is tomorrow. I've been discussing this a lot to flag it again. And his poll numbers looking better than Cassidy's.

“I think in part because he has his own political brand”

and he's like always been a bit of a god of lie,

a really extreme libertarian. And the polls have been pretty interesting in that race. Like basically they show that everybody under 55 is from Massey. But that his, you know, MAGA AI bot opponent is winning Bosch or Assad level numbers among like 65 plus MAGA

against who are spending all day watching Fox News and reading Facebook. That's not a great place to be in a Republican primary. You probably want to be doing better among the 65 pluses. So Massey might go the way of Cassidy,

but I do think the race is interesting because it's the first time that somebody is really bucked Trump. Helped the line. Didn't do Cassidy did. I mean, Massey continues to be conservative

and vote with Trump when they agree, but he's not sucking up to him. He's not doing a apology, you know.

He bucked Trump on a couple of issues has not strayed

and then his ran a vigorous campaign to win against him, which Liz Cheney would qualify for that up to the last point. I don't think Liz Cheney kind of gave up on her real action campaign if we can be real honest about it. Like Massey really is trying to win this race.

They've, huge bunnies going in against him, APAC and MAGA Inc, money. Most expensive primary in history. Trying to kill Thomas Massey. And so somehow he's still close.

“I think probably what happens is he loses close.”

But, you know, even a close loss. It's kind of a pure victory. There's the horses and hand grenades on it to that. But I don't know. It would be something to be said for the fact

that somebody bucks Trump stands up to him and still gets 40% in a primary. It would mark at least some shift from where we've been, where everybody who bucked him and got just actually annihilated in Republican primaries before this.

Yeah, great. The issue and what you bucked him most conspicuously

in first, I guess, really, was Epstein.

And so I think it would show a little bit also. Because, you know, he's not voted to a beach Trump. He's not voted against, you know, whatever, some of the other obvious places you could split with Trump. Now he's been a little more unhappy with Trump

and Mike Johnson generally. So there are some other issues he's bucking the money as war powers as the other one of the war. Yeah.

“Obviously he has but a libertarian ran Paul type on that.”

So Epstein and the war, those are pretty big. If Massey were to win or even compare very because suggest this real potency, a mug of Republican voters. Now, how many Massey voters are going to vote Democratic and it's at before, probably not a huge number.

But elsewhere and statewide and some places, I think those, that's the, you know, that the Massey vote becomes sort of interesting, you know. All right, y'all, it's the Monday morning podcast when the term brain fog is the most resident with me.

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Please support our show and let her know we sent you. All right, to the war, here's the latest Trump to the bleet yesterday. We're in Groundhog Day here. For Iran, the clock is ticking and they better get moving fast.

All caps or there won't be anything left of them. I'm talking about the boy who cried wolf. Trump has been bleeding about ending Iranian civilization for like six weeks now. We've had doing anything extremely humiliating and weak.

He said that he thinks we're on the cost for returning to full throttle combat operations. I take that as an interesting note. I mean, he obviously hears from people in the Trump military establishment and he's doing it on Fox.

This is not idle speculation. So that's something to keep an eye on. What's your sense on where we're at?

“- Just what you say, I mean, I think checking”

is in touch with people in the administration, including up to the very top. And I think he also wishes, you know, he has this sort of, I don't know, even to call it the view at this point.

I was going to say, in work traditional hawkish food, but I don't break it away the hawkish thing to that. So he has a certain, not crazy view that once you start this kind of thing, you sort of have to finish it and leaving the straight Iran's mercy,

the straight of foreign moves that Iran's first,

he's even worse than whatever the downsides of starting the war again are, I don't agree with that. I mean, I think the straight Iran's mercy is bad, but Trump's already made that bad for himself and for us, unfortunately.

And the idea of you starting up the war with Iran then retaliating against the entire neighborhood and God knows what happens then to energy capacity. I just think that's even worse. But yeah, King is not so much just pop off.

So there must be serious people within the administration and serious people who are talking to Trump saying, you can't let this just, you do need to go back in. I assume it would be big bombing, not ground troops,

but what if the big bombing doesn't work after a week, or what if the big bombing starts? And then Iran takes out some kittari and UAE energy places and it's maybe a US-based or two, I hope not. And then what does Trump do, right?

So I mean, it's unbelievable, he's got himself in this place. You know what I mean? I mean, the fact that we're having this discussion is such an unbelievable dereliction of duty by the President of the United States to get him

so it's people like foreign policy mistakes and they get into things they shouldn't have and they go down past, they shouldn't have and they have tough choices then about getting out or staying in. But then he has gotten into this through idiocy and bluster

and letting, I guess, headset persuade him that was all going great. And of course, no one wants to help us at this point,

“why should they, we haven't helped anyone else, you know?”

Or letting anyone else even know what we're doing? To also go with Jack King can say, he should come, he's going to come back in. I don't know, doing it with this level of public support. I'm not going to constitutional crisis,

but real crisis is a governance. I do think he would hold Republicans on a war power as well if we go back in in a huge way. - I think probably once more, I think they probably give them one more go

to try to get out of the messy made. That's my feeling, but I don't know how much longer it could hold because, like you said, and it's just mind-bogglingly stupid that he's gotten himself into the situation. And there's an old line of,

but don't throw good money after bad. That would be my mind to the Republicans, but I think that they would probably feel like they're in it with him now and maybe one more push could make the situation better than the status quo.

So I think they probably would stick with him once more, but I can't imagine much longer because the unrest is real around the war. I wanna ask you, I don't do this very often,

to put on your neocon weekly standard again for one second,

because, like, imagine what Republicans, what Fox, what the standard with the entire media apparatus of the right would be saying, if this was Barack Obama, and Barack Obama had made a threat to a nation such as Iran, those like, we are gonna obliterate you if you don't fold.

And then they don't fold, and then he does nothing. And then he makes a threat again, and they don't fold. And he does nothing, and he makes a threat again, and they don't fold, and he does nothing. I just Obama would be mercilessly mocked

as humiliating and weak by the right-wing media infrastructure. And that hasn't really been happening on the left. And I guess I'm wondering if you, do you agree with that assessment

“that that's what would happen and how do you square that?”

- I certainly agree that it would happen. It did have, I mean, Obama said, we have a red line in Syria. After a side use chemical weapons in 2013, he then backed off pretty ignominously. We thought that was terrible.

I think we were right instantly. I think it led to all kinds of signals to Putin for 2014. They could go into Ukraine without us doing anything indirect. The Syrian Civil War led to the migration crisis in 2015,

which had all kinds of horrible effects for the humans involved, obviously, but also politically in Europe and back here. Again, if you'd never said red line in Syria, maybe one thing. Saying it, repeating it even, I think, once or twice.

Saying you might even go to the hill for authorization, then just backing off very bad. And so I think we had a real time example of the, we all would have to go crazy. And I think in that case correctly.

So you think the left hasn't gone as crazy about, yeah, I don't know, I will. I mean, they're more just anti-war, right? So then they are saying it.

He never should've done this in the first place.

It's unconstitutional, it's unauthorized. It's foolish, it's another endless Middle East War.

I think that this would have already said it.

And if this was Carter, Obama, or Biden, like this idea that this is a display of American weakness, I've said this before on the podcast, it is briefly like part of it is,

“I think that some Democrats and responsible commentators”

are afraid to egg him on and like by calling him weak, he might do something crazy, but I don't know. I'm kind of with the view that we should not self-censor out of fear that the irrational president that got elected might get his feelings hurt

and do something crazy, I don't know. And I just, I think that on the face of it is weak, and he's displayed astonishing weakness. I mean, this makes the Obama red line thing, look like child's flag, I comparison.

Right. I want to run through just two other foreign policy things real quick.

You crane successfully attacked inside Moscow.

This, this weekend, very interesting. Attacked a oil refinery in Moscow. Big crackdown in Russia on people sharing video of what's happening there. It's, I think, a notable change in the prosecution

of the war there. And it kind of shows, once again, you crane being more on the front foot. It's interesting to me when to bring it up because like there are two kind of ancillary effects.

Like one, it's like Russia's oil capacity being limited also impacts this kind of global oil market that's being, you know, stifled by the straight foreign moves being closed and could contribute even more to an energy spike. And simultaneously, it does, in some way,

feel like you crane like trumps backing away from this, just backing away from being involved and being now preoccupied in Iran. And doing the China, something that we're trying to get to next, like does seem to have given you crane a little bit of a sense of,

okay, well, we don't have to not do something because we're worried that the Americans are going to give us a risk test or not provide weapons that we need or whatever.

“And I think that that's a meaningful change in the state of play.”

- I bear much agree, and it's, the Europeans are now providing the aid. And so that's one point, I don't know if it just gets us last week briefly, but Phil O'Brien made this point in the conversation I had with him.

O'Brien's defeat was very important in this practical way. He was blocking 90 billion dollars of EU aid to Ukraine, which is now there, which probably is what they need for the next year. So they'd be much better off with more American aid, too.

And there's some American weapons that can't be replaced. And they've adjusted, and so impressively, I mean, the way Ukraine's done, pretty amazing, honestly. So yeah, now they're liberated from sort of having to be nice, worried about Trump.

I never would have thought, I've got to say,

I've been a Washington long time, you know. The EU is fine with the Ukraine thing of Greece. The Europeans, the Wimpy, Pasifus, welfare state, living in, you know, their own little Disney land there, Europeans, you know, can't spend any money on defense.

They're giving a lot of money to Ukraine, and are not limiting what Ukraine can do very much, if at all. And we are sitting here, not helping them at all, and blustering against Iran without being able to reopen

the straight-of-war moves. I mean, it is a pretty, it springs home and away how massive the transformation of the world has been. For the worst, mostly, is they still worry a lot but without the US is the core of the alliance.

It's going to be tough for the Europeans to keep it going in this way with Ukraine. But so far, I give them a lot of credit,

“and but it again shows how much things have changed, doesn't it?”

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and expanding on the feeling that Trump is just

“demonstrating real weakness on the world stage.”

The China Summit last week ended with a whimper, basically.

Trump is trying to save space this morning with some like minor announcements about trade, cooperation, changes. But for all intents and purposes, Trump goes to China, brings all the American CEOs. Doesn't really have an agenda or angles that they want to achieve.

Doesn't really get anything out of it. It gives just over the top praise to she, just like a sequeless treatment of Jeremy Cheap by Trump. Talking about what an honor it is to see on what a strong leader he is and how handsome he is.

He's straight out of central casting. It's tall, it's like five nine or something. It's not that tall, I don't know. And anyway, so Trump is just really over the top praise of him. And on the other hand, it was not really reciprocated that

watch and China held very firm on Taiwan and was very clear that they did not want the American's interview interfering with Taiwan, Trump waffled on that. No progress was made on Iran. And to me, you go have this summit amidst this Iran

where you started and China has as dealings with Iran, economically and otherwise. And so you might think to the President, we want to put pressure on China to put pressure on Iran in order to gain concessions, none of that.

It was basically nothing and I don't know.

I just don't see how you look at the summit any other way than the China demonstrating upward mobility and strength on the world stage vis-a-vis America. - Yeah, totally. I mean, everyone's taking it their way around the world

from what I can make out what I've been reading and reading accounts of what other people are reading in Europe and Asia too. I mean, really very bad for the US. China wanted it to be a meeting of two equals,

two partners, two peers. Trump was fine with that, except not, which is already terrible, honestly. Except China's also the much more forceful and stronger peer,

“because on these two key issues on Iran,”

China made clear they're not going to stop buying oil from Iran and if I'm not mistaken, the few tankers came out from Iran to add it to China out of the Gulf, we don't seem to have stopped them. Right when Trump was there,

or just as he was arriving in China, so they kind of signaled to, you know what? We're not bending to you. And then on Taiwan, G was very tough and Trump himself said

that G talked to added an awful lot and Trump's public message signaling on that was appalling. It wasn't even moderately tough for spots of a kind of, well, we think the status quo was fine, but we will no one needs to take do anything riskier

than anything like that. It was so kind of, well, I'm rethinking this, this arms deal is waiting for Trump sign off, you know, the Congress is fine with it. This highwood is if I have agreed to purchase

$14 billion in weapons. Trump is now publicly saying he's going to reverse that. That is a huge signal. I mean, I don't know. I don't know enough about the military stuff

to know how important those $14 billion

warms are actually to the defense of Taiwan, which I would be tough against China anyway, but as a signal to Taiwan, but also Japan, South Korea, everyone else, it's a real sign.

G, bully Trump, and seems to have gotten away with it. Now, what is Trump's response, nothing. So, I agree, yeah, I'm thinking more about your point about the weakness and the bluster, but not backed up by anything.

“If people, they should make that point more, honestly.”

I mean, it is, it's very bad for the country for the US, for one thing, it's very bad for the world. And it also is revealing about Trump. He is ultimately a weak person. I mean, that is actually true statement, right?

It is, like, most police, right? So, the Taiwan thing, I can feel about Taiwan kind of, how I feel when we discuss what would happen if Putin would try to invade Estonia. Like, at this point, I just, you know,

obviously there's a lot of ins and outs in what have yous if you're a China expert about what exactly that means and about navigation of the seas and about what we're doing about the chips

and how it looks and whether China militarily conquerors Taiwan or whether they buy off a bunch of Taiwanese. Like, they're just, they're a lot of details with how it looks, but, you know, some of these things, it's hard to go back to the way things were before.

And to me, I, I'd look at the Taiwan situation that seems like this is a permanent damage that Trump has done now to the world. And it's hard to imagine, even if China doesn't make any moves up to 2028, it's like in 2029 or 2030,

or 2031, a president of either party, going back to a place for the, like, we're gonna send militia. I know you milit very aid weapons. Like, the Taiwanese step up in the way Ukrainians have,

but it's kind of hard to imagine anything more than that

at this point, given how much turf we've given up over the past few years. I don't know, do disagree with that? - I mean, I hope that's entirely the case. And the Taiwanese are pretty resilient.

I have a little bit of Ukraine in them probably, but, and they, yeah, I don't know. And this is, again, as the damage, I mean, that's been done by Trump. You can't just go back to the way it was

once you give it, once you make clear that the fundamental guarantees or the fundamental commitments are there anymore. And it's certainly, on that one, that's the case where, aren't there, so let's just be all these China hawks

in the administration, and didn't they all lecture us in 2024 about how tough China Trump was gonna be on China, and in think tanks, and in the conservative journalism world, and all those, you know, the kind of respectable, theormy types who we gotta go along with Trump

better than Harris, Harrison Biden, very weak. Biden on Taiwan is like 20 times stronger than Trump at this point. And, or any of them saying anything, we did criticize Republican administrations

when we didn't agree with what they were doing. Obviously, we were, you know, we criticized Bush on Iraq, the beginning of the, not enough troops, the kind of emergency to get rid of Rumsfeld, and so for those who bigly stand and talk,

“but also on China, but also on other things, right?”

It's a free-court nominee, the highest thing at all this. I mean, does no one who sort of conditionally supported Trump or swallowed hard and supported Trump, maybe could speak up now? I think I'm looking around for people to think tanks

that are Trump adjacent and Trump acquiescent, and all that, the who have had long standing relationships to Taiwan. I mean, Taiwan has been close to a lot of these 'cause everything tanks, as you know, right?

That conservative, you know, influencers. John Bolton has been tough. John Bolton, who's worked for Trump, I don't have to say now, is, you know, broke with Trump, but it's not being prosecuted by Trump,

but he has been, he's the one who's been forthright. This is terrible, this is a disgrace. All the other people who are getting along with Trump, I don't know, I am kind of listening. Am I wrong?

Maybe they're saying something. - So in that attitude, look, Tom Cotton, what, you know, the Mike Walsh, and who has been more debased than these people, the China Hawks?

“Honestly, I mean, he has done actually the opposite”

of everything that they have called for, and every Trump rhetorical move is even more soft and forgiving towards China than even the policy moves, right? You know, and he is trying to expand our relationship with China.

And do you guys have about Platten or Platten? That's Plattener's stated policy view, like he thinks that we shouldn't like de-escalate with China, but, okay, so that's your position, then, no fine. But that's, but Trump was running with the support

of the people that wanted us to decouple from China as much as possible. And he's like simultaneously pushing a coupling and strengthening China with his moves elsewhere around the world.

And the China Hawks are totally silent. And Tom Cotton will have you believe that Mr. Trump was the toughest man on the stage in Beijing and its preposterous. We're gonna do a little candy for people.

Okay, so I'm not sure if you're gonna like the very end of the podcast. I do wanna talk about Trump's age and corruption real quick. So there's this story about Trump's investments, which is pretty astonishing.

And, you know, it seems like his kids are running or whatever. I don't think Trump's sitting there on his Robinhood account like making these bets himself. But I just wanna read about this.

President Trump reported thousands of financial transactions totaling hundreds of millions of dollars, including large purchases and sales of tech giants, Nvidia, and others. And the first three months of 26.

The transactions are valued between 220 and 750 million

cumulatively. Trump's account about shares of companies like Dell and Intel and February and March, just weeks before he touted both companies on truth social. He similarly bought Nvidia shares a week

before the Commerce Department approved chip sales to China and prior to a major Nvidia meta partnership. You know, totally beyond the pale and insane. - Why is he even doing it? I was the, of course he's making so many zillions

off the truly corrupt payoffs that in a way, even insider trading in the stock market and gaining 20, 30, 40% out of these trades

“'cause he was the last one, is that really worth it?”

Is that key almost just wants to, he just wants to flaunt it, right? And he wants to just, which I guess is what authoritarian it's like to do, and sort of rub your face at it, that he can do whatever he wants

and don't, you just try to stop him, Congress, or the courts, I don't know if the course can get it this.

- Yeah, as always Congress could do more,

but they don't seem very interested. - Well, this should be illegal. The president shouldn't be trading stocks at all. - Yeah, for some reason they think the ethics rules don't apply to the president,

but of course, and maybe they couldn't, because I don't know, separation of powers or something like that, but it is really crazy, it is really crazy. - I think they can sign a lot, that would be constitutional.

so I got an email from a listener, and I don't want to get them into trouble, so I'm not amazes, but they basically had to divest a few grand, like a few thousand bucks from a tech company, because they had a job in the government

that dealt with contractors, and can see the way it could have overlap to a tech company, getting a contract with the government. It is just a total outrage that I simultaneously, you're making middle manager government servants.

Divest from their small, little nastag stock investments, while the president is doing, you know,

500 million dollars in what looks like insider trading deals

with big tech giants. - And by the way, the Republicans, last I looked to control Congress, and they made a big deal by Nancy Pelosi doing stock trading, or her husband doing stock trading, the while she was a speaker,

and they don't see to a fascinating legislation that I'm aware of banning this kind of trading by members of Congress. In fact, this seems to be going on, both sides, the Democrats really are,

they should make a huge deal of this. I agree, they should make a huge deal of Trump doing it, and they should propose legislation to ban it, and let them go to, let the administration go to court and say that some kind of, you know,

unitary executive separation of powers for you, so why Congress can't enforce an ethics rule on the president, how I'm sure it's why it would be true, they can enforce the disclosure rules, whether they can enforce some ethics rules on the president,

but anyway, and then they should also do it from members of Congress, including themselves. The Democrats, the corruption think they don't feel, I feel like the Democrats are everything. The issue is having some salience,

that's why Trump's simply going down,

and be at some point in a second vote,

so the Democrats should do this, they should do that, we can all do a lot, and the Democrats can just kind of follow along, I suppose, and better fit in the mid-years, but I do feel like, this is an issue of government,

but they know a lot about this. If you work on the hell, or if you're a member of Congress, you do have ethics rules, so it's a very appropriate thing for them to understand and to get indignant about, I should think,

maybe to get a little more on this. - You've seen sometimes have been good on this, but they've got to push it more.

“And Osoff, I believe, is the sponsor of the Senate version”

of the banning the stock tax, and he's talked about this and his speeches, there's some others don't want to give people a short trip, but yeah, I mean, they haven't passed it. I think it would be an interesting thing.

I got a question, I gave a little talk yesterday, here in New Orleans, to a pro-constitution group, shown out to them. One of the questions that I was like, what can Democrats do in 27?

And in addition to the oversight and the investigations, which is really important, and what I said was, assuming they take power, sort of ideally both houses, they should push things like this

and pressure Trump to veto them, right? Like, pass a bill that is just, executive branch members are banning from stock trading with these caveats, and if Trump wants to veto it, he can veto it,

but I think that is like a vehicle for the Democrats to raise the salience on this stuff, but in 27 conceivably, if they take care of business this year. - And in 26, the kick it, I suppose they kick quite, well, they can do legislation,

they can't get it forced to floor, perhaps, so they could try more than they have, but also every challenger should just go crazy about this. Every Democratic challenger, once they win the nomination, or before they win the nomination,

I am today putting my assets and I don't know if it's like trust or an index funds,

“or something that's clearly not manipulable, you know what I mean?”

But mostly, to be index funds, and third of the one that will be run by, you know, by my program, that can talk to them, and that's gonna be my practice as long as I'm in public office. And meanwhile, my opponent here has traded stocks,

or my opponent here doesn't care when Trump trades stocks, or my opponent here doesn't care what his colleagues, whatever you want, you know? I just feel like it's a, that can be a pretty kind of fun issue with the local people who get kind of interested in.

- Yeah, okay, Maddie, who yet on the pod, she's a mayor in Scranton running for Congress there. It's been a good issue for her too, but yeah, I agree, I think more is more on this one. And it relates to the other corruption issue,

which is just the flush fund where conceivably Trump's,

kind of give $107 billion out to his friends

who are allegedly targeted by the Biden administration. You know, there aren't even words described, the insanity of them stealing money for us, and handing out to insurrectionists. - Yeah, 7 billion dollars, that's sort of fake,

kind of, you know, he drops the lawsuit, it was over $1,507. - Excuse me, it's on Monday morning, 1.7 billion dollars.

“- Yeah, these numbers get a little out of control here, right?”

Of course, it's budget deficit so high, yeah. - No, it's unbelievable, it's unbelievable. - I wanna talk about the Trump is old article, 'cause I'm softening everybody up for the, for the harsh topic at the end.

We're gonna do some intro coalition recommendations. Lauren Egan, last night in her newsletter, which absolutely should be reading signup at thebork.com, talk about Trump's age, and this paragraph just really tickled me.

Here we are. Trump's been to see a dentist three times so far this year without explanation. Last fall, he told reporters, you received an MRI, but didn't say,

or at times even seem to know what it was for.

raising questions about why he's taking so many in the first place. His ankles have been visibly swollen. He keeps a fairly light public schedule,

especially compared to his first term.

There have been multiple occasions where he's appeared to fall asleep during televised White House events. Episodes, aids, and says are just prolonged links. That is an addition to obviously the bruises on his hands,

which have now seemed to expand it to his neck that he's covering up with makeup. It is important on the merits. I feel like every time people won't talk about this, they wanna do a meta conversation about Biden

and the media criticism, but I, you know, separate from the media criticism, it's pretty alarming that we're in a hot war and we have a visibly deteriorating president. - Yeah, I agree. I mean, they don't have to get beyond Biden.

They just need to forget about it. Yes, that was an effective issue against Biden. That doesn't mean they don't get to talk about it. And if someone's wants to say,

“hey, you should talk more about that about Biden.”

Fine, it doesn't matter, you know what I mean? They're not gonna lose because of that if you're a Democrat. And Republicans will pay a price for refusing to have any transit. I mean, Trump has been utterly on forthcoming and on transfer to obviously my medical record show.

The same with the dentist, I haven't really seen this look. I guess he's gone to Walter Reed, and he said three times it's for dental care. That's a good, very good dental office in the basement of the office,

well, they have to believe it is. And I think that's where presidents have had their dental care. Maybe, maybe it's a root canal you can't do with there, but I think he probably can't actually. So what is he actually going to Walter Reed for?

I hate, I really don't like that whole conspiracy road thing and we've shied away from it. I can think it's right to say, in a kind of sense of way, I think. Here in elsewhere at the bull work,

but yeah, there's enough going on now that you really do wonder, right? And we were, since I was early and saying, Biden shouldn't run again. I mean, I saw some Republican might say

that maybe there should be a little more visibility into what Trump's problems are. And, you know, presidents can't step down if they're getting too old for the job and getting ill. And, and JD Vance, their favorite guy is there.

Number two, it's not as if, you know, the Democrats can take over a Trump step down,

but of course he would never will.

So, as Lindsey Graham said,

“you can't get on the wrong side of Trump, you know?”

No one can say a word. And that's not just true for members of Congress. That's true for everyone, right? You know, big shot Republican donors, doctors, all the people who did lean on Biden, right?

Or the actors, I can't even remember any more. Remember the wall is, yeah, yeah. Yeah. You know, he also went to the dentist in Palm Beach, too. In addition to Walter Reed.

You know, he had an emergency appointment and a dentist in Palm Beach. Yeah. I don't know. He doesn't seem like he's in ship shape to say the least.

So, maybe, maybe weakening as a leader and also physically, our president. All right, here it is, okay, everybody. We get to the fun part. You talk to Rob Flarity about the 2024 campaign

on Sunday Conversations with Bill Crystal. I wanna end with that and any kind of thoughts you had. I know everybody really loves reliving the 2024 campaign. So, you know, just a little trigger warning for that. But before hand, the other big news of Friday,

which many of you have emailed and tweeted me about was Jared Polis, Governor of Colorado, commuting the sentence of Tina Peters. I understand that many of my colleagues, so the bowlwork, many of our listeners are very upset

about this commutation.

“Before I give my thoughts, Bill, why don't you let you off on it?”

- It sounds like a duck and it is a duck. I really have followed it that closely. I mean, I'm sort of ambival, I don't, she was bad. She was real, she tried to corrupt the election. She has served several years in jail

and I don't know, there's some plausible people who say the term is kind of longer than it would normally be for this kind of offense. I don't know, I respect Polis, I don't know why. I assume he thinks he's doing the right thing.

On the other hand, I don't like the signal. It might send that it's okay to kind of tamper with elections. It's not the serious requirements. The judge thought it should be in terms of the sentence thing.

But on the third hand, since Trump is busy partnering every single January, and paying off every single January to 16th or actress, and all the other people who tried to tamper with the election, have seen your positions in the Trump administration.

At this point, I feel like Polis commuting the sentence, or I guess given a condolency for the rest of the sentence, is that our works is pretty low on the total poll of things that are going to encourage bad behavior.

Well, if you were looking for more outrage than that, I'd turn to Sarah Longwell's Twitter feed, because she is fucking pissed to Polis. My view is informed somewhat by the least popular article I've ever written

on the bowlwork.com. It was in 2021, regarding my feelings about the sentence of the QAnon Shaman released. She might remember him as to fellow with the horns, and the paint on the face that's thrown the capital.

Here's what I wrote in 2021.

It's kind of crazy. It's kind of crazy that I've been writing for the bowlwork this long. So it's like very weird to go back and read something I read five years ago.

I don't know, it all time flies. Here's what I said. The president industrial complex is a menace. Conditions in our penitentiaries are horrific, and sentencing guidelines that require minimum states

None of this stops being true.

When the guilty party is of the other political tribe, and it feels good to see them locked up. If we want real justice for January 6th, the government should be cutting the shaman slack and turning its energies to those

who are orchestrating the overthrow of our democracy. I feel the same way about Tina Peters. Tina Peters was sent to prison for nine years. Nine years? I just call me the lib now.

In this one, you guys also listeners who want to a blood thirsty about Tina Peters and want her punished. I guess maybe I'm the softy because I don't think that anybody should go to prison for nine years,

except for violent criminals and people that engaged in massive fraud, like SPF or something, like ruined lives, via fraud and theft. I just, I don't think that we should send people to prison for nine years if they did not physically harm

or grievously harm someone. And there's concerns about wanting to keep that person away from society. That's just my view.

I've always been, even when I was a Republican,

a criminal justice softy. So it was what me and Rand Paul, me and Rand Paul and Tom Massey now, like all back on the same side. I always was on the Rand Paul side of that debate

when it was happening inside and the Republican party.

“And I think that a lot of people saw what Paul is did.”

And I think that this is a rational human reaction and emotional reaction which is this sucks. Like our guys don't fight it hard enough. Like that the Trump side, they're pardoning all of their people.

They're trying to jail Jim Komey. Like they're doing all these bad things. Like we should get one too. You know, like what's good for the goose is good for the gander kind of thing.

And I understand that, like reaction, I truly do. And I don't, obviously think Tina Peters choosing jail for four years. I think that's an appropriate punishment for her crime. I don't think that she should ever be allowed

to have a position of public office. Again, she's a felon. She shouldn't be able to vote again. After other penalties, non-prison related that she should continue to have.

I'm totally fine with that. But I don't know. I don't think she's a danger to society. And I understand people's frustrations. But I think it's a very thick weird thing

to be very upset about.

“And I think that Paul was just the facts.”

And like made a judgment based on the facts of what was happening with Tina Peters, not on the broader political dynamic. I will say, Jared Polis is disappointing me in one other way though.

So this is not about Jared Polis's phistandum. There is a ballot initiative in Colorado right now to redistrict the Colorado rules or such that you have to take it to the voters. You have to do an regular election.

So they kind of jammed it through like Virginia did, which backfired anyway. But they have a redistricting ballot initiative that would redistrict the state in 2028 and 2030 that would likely make it a 7-1 state rather than 4-4,

which it is right now. The Republicans have not won a statewide election in Colorado since Cory Gardner and I think 2014. So been a long time now. And so it's a democratic state now.

And I think that they should do that and Paul is wishy washi on that. And I think this is a case where this is a forward-looking fight about our ongoing fight for democracy. And I think that obviously Colorado

should pay maximum hardball on redistricting. And I hope that Jared reconsideres that and comes out more strongly in support of that ballot initiative, which is on in November. And I encourage all my family and high school friends

and listeners to go vote yes on that redistricting bill in November. And I think that is a much more prudent and useful way to fight the bad guys than making sure an old lady stays in jail for four more years.

My opinion, I'm sure I'll have overwhelming more than support for it. I still love, they love you when they disagree with you. You know, I feel like I feel like our community understands that we have different views.

I was hardliner on criminal justice when you were a softy, but I've moved some honestly, just to say, I think I've learned more about it, but I'm sort of in between probably real squishes like you. And there we are.

There we are. So many bunches ready to put the lock to throw away the key. So many bunches of the hardliner. Differstive, you know, it's funny. You can't just mention one thing.

You said you most on popular IPs ever. I tweeted, this is not comfortable. Two a few days ago, I haven't reached something with mom Donis, the budget.

“I guess he's now, so you have to submit a balanced budget”

as mayor of New York, and he is doing so. He got a little help from the governor. He found some tax, little minor tax hikes, and some spending savings, and so he's submitted a budget. As I understand it, well, it is balanced.

I think it's going to become law basically.

I think it's like an increase of one percent, maybe, and real dollars over the budget to inherit it. So I just tweeted something like, you know, I'm Donis, more fiscally responsible than Trump. I mean, I'm just looking at the data here.

I mean, he's basically kept spending level, and it's a balanced budget. Trump is increased spending, and increased the deficit hugely, and we're now running a $2 trillion deficit,

down the road for the economy here. That debt is now above 100% or GDP. And so, and people did not like that. I was a little surprised by that. Oh, really?

Yeah, I don't know. Yeah. It's interesting that they have to be able to be mad at you because they can't be mad at Trump. And so it's frustrating.

It's easy to last you out of Bill Crystal, if you are a commentary magazine or national review author, who likes to make your whole career talking about the dangers of the debt.

And then for some reason, never talk about it.

When Donald Trump, the person that we're calling is have nominated three times for president, who's one twice as a worse president, American history, when it comes to debt and deficit, you would think that there would be, I don't know,

some outrage about that from people who spent their whole lives in careers, talking about homeporting the debt is, but not really, you know, Jessica Riddle, they're a few couples that you hear from for just a time.

But not too many. I haven't seen a lot from Charlie Cook or Richel Avery on that. All right, finally, I guess we can just go click on the rehash. And people can watch the whole interview with Rob.

If you want, but we had a great piece. Rob Flarity did. He was the deputy campaign manager, really overseeing digital for the Biden Harris campaign and then the Harris campaign.

And since the DNC was a doing an autopsy, he did a-- here was my autopsy basically. He kind of said what he told the autopsy committee that they didn't release and expanded on his socks a little bit. For us, if you're into the campaign surgery,

a very important piece, I thought, my biggest takeaway from that, and from your conversation with him, that I think he was right about, there's a lot of little details about who's mad at who,

when the super PACs and what kind of spending mix should be and all that. But I thought his most insightful point was that,

like, in politics now, even always,

“but more than ever, you have to have a brand”

that people can connect with, that you're advertising, that your speeches, that your social media, you know, all supports. The people can understand and grab on to. And partly because of the nature

of the short campaign 107 days, partly because of failings of the campaign, the Kamala Harris just really didn't have it. And like my version of that, as I asked James Carvel on this pod, to give me the three, what was on Kamala's whiteboard,

you know, heartening back to his Clinton whiteboard, and he couldn't answer it. And, you know, he tried too, but it was just a very long question, a very long-range like answer.

And it's on James's fault, it's a campaign's fault, like they didn't have one, you know. And to me, that was the most interesting takeaway, which is less, like the insider DC circles, like less fun to talk about them,

the various recommendations about who did what wrong, and who betrayed who, and who handled what thing badly, but that was my biggest takeaway from the piece. I was wondering what your thoughts were from your conversation with them.

- That's an excellent piece. I really enjoyed talking with him on the board work,

“I guess today on Sunday, I think it's a lot of interesting stuff”

on the details of digital, you know, advertising, and this kind of thing that had organized campaigns in the modern era. We talked quite a bit about the brand issue though, and I think that is an interesting way.

I think the Republican version of that, which when we when our republicans was, the values matter more than issues, we've all used heard news that formulation, which I think was correct,

I think Republicans have always got a better sense of that,

than Democrats actually, who have their issue papers, and think that if only we got them really emphasized, people, you know, this part of the lunch table issues, or whatever it is, it did her table issues. Most stuff.

So yeah, the other thing I, the most interesting part of the conversation honestly was we kind of went through a lot of this stuff that you would cover in the piece and I came up, but I, AI came up. I guess the stuff that came up in the context

of using it for digital, you know, for campaigns. But that I said, what is it? Who are those who think since the huge issue? I didn't realize it actually felt bad. Written something about this sort of giving him,

it sounded like, as well as people think, I was like, he's serving him up this softball and purpose. I was just genuinely curious, what if obviously he's a smart young guy, and he's totally obsessed with AI,

and thinks it's the issue, the issue of 2028 could even be a huge issue in 206. Huge resistance to it, both had economic grounds, but also kind of social and cultural. And resistance to straw, but as huge sense,

you can't just let it go wherever the private sector wants to take it, and wherever the most irresponsible parts of the private sector want to take it. And I thought that was an interesting 10 minutes to solve the conversation.

And I think you and I, and Andrew, actually, Edgar have also been all the head to sense that AI is just exploding as an issue. And I need to really educate myself who are what the right way to handle is.

But for now, at least having a conversation about the right way to handle it,

“and the serious policy conversation is key.”

And Democrats need to make clear. They are very much intended to do that. And make clear that the Trump administration's been totally and utterly irresponsible and in the sold out to people who want it totally unregulated.

And many Republican candidates, I gather, he made this point in Connecticut, I guess. There was some bill to stop prevent the sexualization of minors, or you know, or having a chat box, or sexual conversation

with minors, because an issue is the undressing of minors and spy AI and so forth. And 21,

in Connecticut, Republicans split 21,

“who I take it, were unbored with either the tech pros”

and probably getting huge amounts of money from the AI world, which is unbelievable out of money pouring into campaigns for them, voted against this. Can't the Democrats just pulverize?

I mean, unfortunately, Connecticut doesn't matter. They already control everything. But still pulverized Republicans were willing to not willing to regulate AI at all.

I feel like this is not a hard issue.

- I agree. - I thought that was interesting. I'd point people to it, because Rob is really smart on this stuff. And it was sort of a piece with your conversation about how important it is for Democrats

to run against the entrenched interests next time and you did a little, you know, kind of as funny. That was his opinion, and then Bill Crystal did his history. Last thing about how, you know, Jimmy Carter also was like that. And Bill Clinton was like that in ways.

And so it was Obama, like this successful Democrats have then

future oriented and running against the status quo. And I think that, you know, that means you can't be, like a lot of it about AI and like, and wish it away,

“you know, you have to be talking about like what?”

How can we build a future, you know, that is better for people that is not a total sellout to the existing interests. I thought he was good on that. And I think that's another area that if you just kind of look

at the last three presidential elections that Democrats did not do a good job really of branding the ways in which they were different from the status quo. Any of the three, the last presidential elections, frankly, Biden a little bit on, you kind of sold the country type stuff.

And because making the pitch that Trump was the status quo at that time. And so they'll have that opportunity again and they should take it. So I think that's good.

“If you want to listen to the whole conversation with Rob Plarity”

if you want more, appreciate a bill. Everybody else, we'll see you tomorrow on the podcast. But I guess might have a little bit of a wonky schedule on timing this week because we're heading to California. There are still some tickets available in San Diego and LA

on the board.com/events. And I'm not going to be there, but go to those events and yell at Tim about Jared Poles. Sarah, we with you, you know, it'll be of you. You can just wrap the whole event, could become a huge,

you know, intribull work, food fight. You guys can take it out of the heckle. But please, do come to the events, you know. If you come to the event, you get to get the heckle. If it's a heckle, if it's a heckle, if you come to the event,

you get to heckle, otherwise you know, otherwise you just keep that old lady in prison, Miller. Anyway, I appreciate it. I hope to see some of you guys out there. I'm going to be back tomorrow with another edition of the podcast. We'll see you all then, peace.

The board podcast is brought to you. Thanks to the work of lead producer Katie Cooper, Associate Producer Ansley Skipper, and with video editing by Katie Loots, an audio engineering in editing by Jason Brown.