Bill Kristol: What a Bunch of Jackasses

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And so I have saved a section at the end of the podcast for some laughs. I feel like we need some laughter and deserve some laughter, Bill. And so, you know, we'll kind of see. Have you do have a favourite stand-up comedian? Is there an old timer that you're into? Yeah, no, that's a good question. I'll think about it and get back to you at the end of the show. You'll play out that for the end. Okay. I can tell some of my favourite, my favourite, Hendy Youngman jokes. That'll go over well. That'll date me. Okay, great, yeah. That'll date me back to 1946 or something. That's exactly what I was hoping for in the answer. So you work on that. We need to start though with serious matters, abroad and domestically. And I want to, like, really begin with our friend and colleague, well, not really colleague, but your former colleague, my aspiring colleague, Bob Kagan, who is in the Atlantic yesterday with an article titled, Checkmate in Iran. Washington can't reverse or control the consequences of losing this war. And it's really well argued and just basically a full accounting of how rough the situation is strategically and geopolitically right now for Trump. And he goes into a lot of themes that he went into a month ago when he was on this podcast, because not a lot has changed since then. But I do think he kind of even broadens it out further as far as, like, why this is such as Geo's political strategic defeat, even more so than whatever, Vietnam, etc., because of what some of the implications are for us losing control of the straight of form is. So I was wondering what your thoughts were on his assessment. Yeah, no, I think it's very strong piece. And he's been arguing this for a while, as you say, but I think he's being vindicated by events. Trump, understandably, does not want to escalate. He doesn't want to get in an even bigger war. And I think the conventional wisdom has been, well, it's not great for Trump, but he kind of, and I've had this view somewhat, and he can slide out of it without too much damage to himself. Or I suppose to the U.S., Iran's capabilities have been degraded. We've paid a price. The world economy has paid a price, but we can recover. I still think it could be pretty serious defeat. Bob is more struck by the severity of that defeat. Also struck by the fact that Iran, he's been writing about this for the last week or so, we've been talking about it on the phone a lot. Iran's not so eager to let Trump slither away, right? That's really striking. In Iran, fields, they have the upper hand. I kind of thought maybe they just a little worried about being pummeled again, and they just ended in a good situation. Pocket their winnings, got in a pretty good situation for them. But so far, they haven't seemed to want to do that. And Trump has bellowed and threatened, but not done much. So we'll see what happens. I mean, while the strait is closed and the economy, the global economy pays more for price. But I think what Bob's big contribution is, seeing that what a defeat it is for us to have allowed Iran to establish the principle that they can close the strait, and that's established going forward. Whatever fake kind of agreement there is, Iran says, well, we'll open it. They're pretty much making clear that it's at their sufferance. 40 years. Trump likes to talk about 47 years this nation's been plaguing the world. It has been plaguing the world and us and others for 47 years, and it's a very bad regime. The one thing they've never done in the last 40 years, intimidated from doing, was closing the strait, really. Kind of striking isn't all these wars going on in the region, including with Iran. And we hit Iran in 2020, and then again in June, Israel, the US hit Iran. They didn't close the strait. That principle, they didn't want to challenge the principle that we upheld with many others of freedom of passage in international waters. And now they've established the principle that they can do this. That's a huge defeat. And then the damage that's been done to our alliances in Europe and elsewhere, confidence in us by the Asians who depend much more on the strait, of oil and for energy. The Gulf states now signaling who were hawkish near the beginning. They thought Trump might go ahead and take care of Iran, which not a nation, not a regime they like, but get along with very well and are scared by. Now they seem to be telling Trump, could you end this, please? This is just getting worse and worse and worse. I mean, so they're going to make their own deals with Iran and also their own deals with countries like China, which seem like maybe more reliable allies than us. So I think Bob has seen the big picture of the damage to the US standing in the world. I mean, I think that those are the two things that struck me just like the Arab states may be feeling like they need to make deals with Iran now, which is just a dramatic change from just a couple of months ago, just for economic purposes. And then just this general principle, it's kind of a piece of a lot from the Trump era. There were these like kind of general principles that just were things that existed since I was born that like you didn't really have to think about, right? President leaves on an election so far, that president follows a Supreme Court ruling, right? That we are going to maybe have disagreements, but like generally, working concert with our allies and the democratic nations of Europe. They're just all these general principles that Trump has upended. And this one of like freedom of navigation on the seas is something that just has been the norm in the post-World War II era and the US through, you know, sometimes through military power, but also just like projection of strength and, you know, fear from other countries of wanting to incur the wrath of the US. You know, we've had like these freedom of the seas for commercial ships to travel globally. And like that is now in question. And if you listen to Trump in his interviews, he doesn't seem to really prioritize or care about returning to that. And you hear him say a lot like, well, we've got a lot of ports, you know, we got ports in Alaska and Texas and people are getting our oil from us now. I don't know. Like in some ways, you know, he like, Bebe was on 60 Minutes talking about how he talked to Trump about how Trump wants to send in troops to go get the nuclear stuff. But who knows if that's true or not? That's what Bebe says. And so you have that kind of pushing for more aggressive action. Where the other hand, you have Trump like not seeming to really care that much that the straight of, again, maybe it's bluster, but like, I mean, if he decides that it doesn't really matter, because we have our own ports and our own oil exports. And, you know, if Iran decides to put a toll on the straight, like that's a problem for Asia, but not a problem for us. If like that's what he decides, like that's a major shift in kind of how the world has worked. And one that decreases our power. Yeah. I mean, it's America first and it takes into its reasonable conclusion, you know, not reasonable, but logical conclusion, I guess. Yeah, which is who needs all this upholding the international order and providing a public good of, you know, free transit of the seas and holding open straits that are thousands of miles away from us and so forth. Let others do it. We've got our ports. Maybe we'll take care of our immediate vicinity. And that's actually in their strategy document. Western Hemisphere comes first. I mean, the price we will pay for letting the whole rest of the world outside the Western Hemisphere, maybe somewhat in the Western Hemisphere too, but certainly outside the Western Hemisphere kind of just topple into or descend into, you know, man eats dog, everyone or dog eats man, whatever, which is that man eats dog. I can't remember anymore. Everyone for himself, you know, countries just making their own arrangements. It can become, it can be sort of stable for a while. These countries will watch out for themselves and they'll act in their self interest. But that's what kind of got us into two world wars. It's not a recipe. Eventually it'll come back to bite us. I mean, it didn't 1914. It didn't 1939. And it's certainly going to do huge damage to all, as you say, a lot of things we just taking for granted, this global trade and commerce, everything that we just sort of assume happens that it gets interrupted by the pandemic. And that was terrible. But then it got back on course again. And, you know, we quibble about, argue about, I should try to be permitted to have these particular chips and all that. That's a national security question five, but in general, the principle that we can, all these goods will flow. And I mean, that, that, that ends. Nations can't depend on us. They look to their own weapons. They certainly decide they have to arm themselves. You just get regional conflicts all over the place, regional accommodations to all over the place to various dictators. No, it is the end. I mean, it's what a lot of people have been writing about. We've been talking about, and it's been sort of clearly beginning to happen for the last year and a half, the end of the post World War II order. But this war in Iran really has, I think, to think been the exclamation point on that, on the end of that. Yeah. Accelerant to the sort of news. But yeah, same thing. Yeah. Same trajectory. So, just to that point, and the latest one talks is the same as it's been, but should mention that over the weekend, the Iran foreign ministry responded to a U.S. proposal to end the war. And their response included sovereignty over the state, sovereignty. People get mad at me, whatever, over the straight of four moves, and a bunch of other stuff that Trump responded and said was not reasonable. So, that's where at, where at, same as it ever was. But you're right. I mean, one thing Trump, Trump seems to stress over and over is the nuclear material. It's a little weird. I mean, honestly, this stuff is not usable right now. It seems to be buried away. If they try to start getting at it, we will see it and can act to stop them, I should think. I'm not against getting the stuff out of there, but the idea that we fought this whole war because of stuff that we pulverized obliterated in, was that June of last summer? It's just ridiculous. But it is very revealing. That one, I think he says just because that's very important to Israel, honestly, and for BB, really stopping the nuclear program and not even giving them any remnant of one is so important. It's not consistent with America first. That nuclear dust, as Trump calls it, poses zero threat to the United States of America right now or for the foreseeable future. But it poses a threat to Israel, which is a real thing. We should work in the old days, we worried about that because we worried about threats to other nations around the world and destabilizing influences and so forth, sort of left over in this case because of Trump's being close to Netanyahu, I suppose. But so he keeps repeating that. He never explains why that's so important. But it is very striking how after a week or so where opening the straight over moves was important to us, that we closed it so we could, I guess, for the sake of opening it. Now that seems to have just received. We have this blockade there. What's the point of it? I mean, to tighten the screws on Iran, I guess, so they'll then be more reasonable on the nuclear thing. It's an awfully... To me, it just feels like a tangible... Israel's part of it for sure, but also just feels like a tangible thing Trump can wrap his head around. It's like, this is something that we did. Like he wants, as we'll get to, a trophy, a statue. Like he wants something right now. Like the argument is weak. It's like he can sense it. He tries to say it. Like they've been obliterated and it's like, okay, so they've lost their ships. But the nuclear, the nuclear, that's the thing for him to say. Like we got the nuclear. That's a good point. I do think that there's a simplicity and talking point element to it. This has kind of related to all this, but it struck me. Trump did an interview with Cheryl Atkinson, who is a little kooky these days, who's got her on YouTube channel. Nothing wrong with doing news on the YouTube. I'm doing that. Subscribe to the Bull Work YouTube if you haven't already, but she's got a pretty kooky channel. Trump did that and he said this about the strait. NATO has proven to be a paper tiger. We don't use the strait. We don't need it. We don't need the strait. We were doing it to help Israel and Saudi Arabia. We don't need it. We don't use it. I like, there's just so much revealing about that there, right? Like that, A, we were doing this to help Israel and Saudi Arabia. Like he just comes out and says it. Again, contra-American first, but also just like the degree to which, like NATO had nothing to do with us. We didn't call NATO. We didn't get NATO involved. Like this was not a defense issue. It has nothing to do with the NATO treaty, but he is like looking for any excuse to kind of blame NATO and more kind of formally separate from those countries because he doesn't like them personally because he feels like they're mean to him, etc., etc. And he wants to blow up the degree. He has any view beyond the personal. He wants to blow up the post-war order, which he vaguely thinks has been bad for the US, though it's been very good for the US. And NATO is a key part of that. Yeah. I mean, the normal and suddenly person who knows a little bit about international trade, he said, well, who benefits a lot from the strait? People would say Asia and Japan and South Korea, two kind of important allies of ours. He has no thought about them. I'll make the point to be, I don't think he shows us this in the piece. The Japanese, the Japanese Prime Minister, she went pretty far in trying to really accommodate Trump and get along with him. She came here, swallowed hard when Trump made his Pearl Harbor joke, remember that? And she was in the Oval Office shortly after the war began, I think. And she got a lot of grief back at home, apparently, for not speaking up a little war on that, but whatever. She thought it was important. Trump couldn't care less about that. Why do we have the troops in Japan from Trump's point of view, incidentally? I mean, and therefore, Japan starts thinking, we've got to take care of ourselves. South Korea starts thinking that suddenly Asia, which has been very stable for a long time. And that's been pretty good for the world. That starts to fall apart. I mean, the key thing I just want to worry about, Bob's piece, he uses the word defeat. And I think he does that on purpose to really try to bring home to people, this is a real defeat. It's not, didn't quite work out as well as we hoped, or didn't quite get all the things we wanted, or kind of a stumble. It's an important defeat for the United States. When Trump, when she was there, Prime Minister was visiting, and remember, he makes this joke about how we weren't warned about Pearl Harbor when she was complaining that Japan wasn't consulted. We were saying at the time, it was like, hmm, how did Pearl Harbor work out for the Japanese? It's like, not great. In the end, ended up weakening them quite a bit. And really, there are a lot more parallels than maybe he realized between our action in Iran and Pearl Harbor. Delete Me makes it easy, quick, and safe to remove your personal data online at a time when surveillance and data breaches are common enough to make everyone vulnerable. Delete Me does all the hard work of wiping your personal information from data broker websites. It's easy. All you have to do is sign up and delete me know exactly what information you want to leave it. And their experts take it from there as a, somebody that has an active online presence to say the least. 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He's doing kind of the Putin thing, where he was speaking in code a little bit and trolling a little bit. But also definitely it was different than the past, kind of like his bravado of how Russia was on the March, etc. So he starts opening the door to maybe finding an off ramp. And this is happening, I don't think, coincidentally, simultaneously with Ukraine, like gaining a lot of military ground for the first time in a while. And the front lines have been pretty stagnant thanks to drone warfare. So anyway, you had a long conversation with Phillips about this, wondering what your takeaways were. Yeah, I mean, Phil really is a military historian, he really knows the military stuff. And very early on, he thought Ukraine would hold. And he's always been more bullish under Ukraine than the Kovach was, and was right for the first two years, three years. Frustrated that the US didn't do more and Europe could have done more. But he was basically right that Russia would not walk right over them. He was right that, unlike Trump, who believed they would and that Russia holds all the cards and that Trump holds all the cards. Phil and everyone else is very worried, obviously, a year ago, when we started, we cut off our aid, which was kind of important. But it turns out Ukraine's progress in the drone side of things, and the progress of drones as a military weapon and the transformation of the battlefield that they have caused is pretty astounding. And he says, really, he doesn't like to use it to revolution in military warfare, a real transformation. And so that's, they will have to stabilize the battlefield and maybe have a bit of an advantage now. And also the Russian casualties, Cathy Young has a good piece on the website, the Bulwark website about this kind of sad victory day parade, Putin had where they cut it back. First, he went to Trump to get Trump to get Zelensky to promise not to attack it with drones. Actually, Zelensky did, but he sort of trolled Putin by kind of embarrassing him. And also the other point he made that I hadn't really thought as much about is we're all happy or we're all lost. But one real practical effect of war about losing is that he had been blocking the $90 billion of aid from the EU to Ukraine, which probably is enough for them for the next year. So they can keep on, not just keep on fighting, but take the fight to the Russians. So that looks much more promising. Ironically, I mean, in a weird way, Trump, Trump's forced the Europeans to step up and they are doing so much more. Mostly it's Russia that's forced the Ukrainians to defend on themselves and have this fantastic ability to make the drones. But still, Trump's accelerated that probably. So yeah, that war looks like it's going better. I think Putin's sort of throwing something out here on the well, it could end if only Zelensky comes to Moscow will negotiate something. But of course, Putin's terms are not going to be acceptable to Zelensky, Putin wants to keep probably 20% of Ukraine that they have. And that's not going to happen. So I'm dubious that they'll be an agreement. There might be a bit of, you could imagine some ceasefires, though, and that kind of thing, maybe what Phil is most worried about is Putin and Trump actually getting together, maybe with Chinese sort of back into to really kind of agree to actually, you know, make things tougher on Ukraine. Trump has been out of the war. He hasn't really been an aggressive adversary of Zelensky at this point. But it could get a little worse. I mean, the counter to that is that's been disastrous in Iran, this kind of shift within the Trump administration, but maybe, you know, points to a little less worry on that front. And he's going to align so much with Russia is that like the people with his ear right now, at least, are the relatively more pro-Ukrainian, not as pro-Ukrainian as we would like, but the relatively more hostile to Russia elements of his administration, be that Marco or the people outside the administration he's talking to, Tisin and Lvovian, etc. Like, you know, the war in Iran has been kind of more with that crowd once and less what the JD Vance is of the world want. So we'll see how that plays out. But it's interesting development. And the other potential is, which kind of ties to what you're saying at the top is Trump just deciding to wash his hands of this altogether. You know, it is the inevitable destination of America first. Like, that's why I don't care about this at all. The Europeans can hash this out. The Arab nations, states can hash this out. And I'm going to pivot back to the Western Hemisphere and focus on toppling Cuba. And we have a couple of pieces of evidence of that, many more surveillance flights over Cuba than previously. There was reporting on that over the weekend. And that is in line with kind of what they were seeing before we went into Venezuela and Iran. Trump expressed in that same YouTube interview a frustration that the Cuban regime hasn't already been toppled by that economic pressure we've been putting on Cuba and Tis, you know, basically saying once we deal with this one, we're on to the next. Something to that effect about pushing towards Cuba. So that seems inevitable at this point. I guess so. I mean, A.B. Sotterd, our former colleague, said the conversation about three weeks ago. So I said, this could lead, you know, Iran could lead him to sort of, maybe I should avoid all this foreign, these foreign adventures and, you know, get back to demagoguing on domestic issues and better luck with that. But she said, now the psychology is he can't, he needs a big win. And Cuba is the easiest one. And he's got some support for it here because Cuba is a terrible regime. And we've been so at odds with it for so many decades. Yeah, I really wonder whether he's thinking, you know, August, September, before the midterms, maybe not even that far off, you know, June, July, time for the, I guess, the invasion of Cuba or just the pressure kind of a Venezuelan type situation. I don't know. But apart from the bad ideological elements of the Trump administration, it's driven so much now by his megalomania and vanity and all that. It really is dangerous. A lot of it could peter out into silly things. You know, I hate all the triumphal arch and the statute and all that stuff, but in a way, you're part of, you've paid this point before, you know, maybe it's better if he just distracts himself with all that, you know, and doesn't go around causing huge foreign policy crises, which too will damage to us and the world. But unfortunately, it's of a piece, you know, and I suspect the suspect we're going to see something with Cuba. Yeah. Summer is right around the corner and I love the heat. So that just means I get outside more and more. We moved here to Louisiana. We moved in the summer and immediately everybody was like, I'm so sorry for this weather. And I was like, this is why I'm here. I want to leave in the winter to go to other warm places. That's out Lebanese skin. But, you know, when you're outside, when you're seeing concerts, you're just going to a crawfish boil, you need good outdoor clothes. You need something comfy and cute. And thanks to Mack Weld and I got the wardrobe staples, I need to be ready for anything. You can discover upgraded basics, fresh styles, and more at Mack Weld and dot com plus get 20% off your first order of 125 bucks or more with code, the bowl work. I got a few Mack Weld pieces. 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Go to Mack Weld and dot com and get 20% off your first order of 125 bucks or more with promo code the bulwark. That's m-a-c-k-w-e-l-d-o-n dot com code the bulwark. I want to move forward to the domestic stuff. Obviously, there's a bunch of panic and rage and anger and democratic circles over the redistricting, ruling, we're discussing this was kind of happening as we were taping on Friday with Adam Serwer. The Virginia ruling comes down that negates the will of you and your fellow Virginians who voted in a ballot initiative to redraw the maps. The courts overturn that. So we have a couple of things like happening simultaneously. I mean, there is just a complete righteous anger about what is happening in the South and how the Republicans are going to try to redraw out all the districts that are represented by blacks in the old Confederacy. And then you also have, I think, a real, I don't know if panic is the right word, but concern among Democrats about, okay, is there any way to mitigate this right now? Because I think that the House of Representatives still looks quite likely to flip to the Democrats, but it's a much closer run call now with the way that the Republicans have successfully rigged the map in some of these states. So a bunch there, I was wondering what your initial reactions are. We'll go through a couple of the elements. I'd say they threw out a referendum and a pretty shaky, technical alleged problem with the way the state legislature did it. And the fourth redecision, I think the dissent is stronger than the majority opinion, but it's not in the way to really overturn it, I wouldn't say. I think that would have moved from a six to five democratic apportionment to a 10 to one, probably. I think in any kind of decent democratic year, that six to five goes, the current six to five goes seven, four, maybe eight, three, a couple of those districts are pretty close. Yeah, I think eight, 30. Yeah. So it's a two seat loss. That's a democratic redistricting thrown out by the court. So we have a weird way of appointing judges here in Virginia. It's from court judges. So I don't think to be fair, that's it's not clear that's racially driven. It's not partisan. The racial stuff in the South is pretty... It's truly insane. That just really quick. It's pretty rare that a court overturns an election result. There aren't a ton of examples of that and to do so on four, three grounds. And a highly litigated one. Yeah, I know it's a little unusual, very unusual. And forces, yeah, and it turns around what people were planning on in terms of the districts they were going to run on in the primaries in August. The Southern stuff is pretty good task. I mean, I really feel, I just can't quite believe, you know, to see it happening in 2026, let's just have no blacks in our congressional delegation in these states that have 2025% black population. 30, 33, or north-earth black population. I mean, I don't know. I mean, and also it's so undisguised. I mean, now the partisanship of the racism have a high correlation as G.L. Amor is pointing out. So you get... But of course, one reason the court was able to get to the decision was sort of a fake statistical thing. But what's not really about race, it's about partisanship. You know what? If one party gets 92% of the white vote and the other party gets 90% of the black vote, what are you proving when you say it's about party, not about race? I mean, it's the same things. So, and this is about race. Literally, I mean, the decision, the Supreme Court's decision, the U.S. Court's decision was about race, you know, and got it section two of the Voter Rights Act, which had been passed and repassed by Congress by huge majorities. Again, it's a good case, sort of like you're saying about the referendum. This isn't just tweaking with something or an administrative interpretation of the Clean Air Act. This was a major legislation that was passed by Congress. That's three times. Yeah, it's three times. It was reauthorized under Reagan and then reauthorized again under W. Bush. Right. By big bipartisan majorities. And they've been chipping away, well, more than chipping away at it, but undercutting it for quite a while. And this was maybe the final blow. So, Sarah and I discussed this on yesterday. I mean, I guess Sarah's very, kind of persuaded more people and stuff, which is correct, I think. I think also some of the anger can be beneficial in the sense of mobilizing democratic turnout, including minority turnout in some of these states, which could help with the state with the Senate elections actually. They can't redistrict the Senate, you know, so can't Jeremy enter the Senate in any way that it is already in terms of, you know, rural or representation. I remain pretty optimistic. I actually don't, I mean, I think it's going to be a very big blue wave. And I think it's probably going to swap these, the House will be plus 30 instead of, plus 25 instead of plus 30, honestly. And I think the Senate's in play. But maybe I'm kidding myself and I don't blame the pros, the operatives for looking at it and thinking yikes. What final point though, I'd say people are a little too fatalistic about these districts and about the ability of the Republican legislatures to draw them so brilliantly. And so the Tennessee Districts, they've shot Memphis up into three pieces. So there's no black, no majority, minority district. In 2018 when Prederson ran for Senate, I guess, right, and lost, he was a strong Democratic candidate. So that caveat stipulated. He got in the new districts, if you go back and calculate what his vote was, 48 or 49% of the vote, I think, in those three Memphis, partial now Memphis districts. If 2026 is a good year, Democrats could win one or two of those seats, you know, maybe three. I mean, I think that's true in some of these other states too, I think that they're not so sure that Democrats can't do okay, but it is certainly a, it's a hurdle. And there are two things to look at there. I mean, just on that point about whether the Democrats can win, they can win some of these districts, but it's not as if they will win so many that a backfires on Republicans. And they can mitigate the Republican gains by winning some of the districts. And that is definitely true. Tennessee is going to be very hard though. The states moved more to the right since 2018 and Brett is the most good candidate. And it is just a total outrage. Like you mentioned, like they cut out Memphis into a third, a third, a third, that's, they also cut out the black vote, a third, a third, a third. I mean, it was a purely racial gerrymander in Tennessee to ensure that black voters in Memphis do not have the representation that they choose notably in this one case and all of the other districts. It's a black representative. In this case, it's a white representative, Steve Cohen, though he was in a primary, just in Pearson, but like, however that like, you know, ends up playing out, but they divide the city into thirds, which is illegal and an affront and racist and all those things, right? And so look, they don't totally demoralize the people of Tennessee, like, because they simultaneously are living in a basically undemocratic estate that is basically done everything possible to minimize their democratic rights. They also have the benefits of having a couple of horrific candidates like Andy Ogles and Scott Dejerlet are like particularly offensive, even within the construct of MAGA, right? Where everybody is offensive, like they stand out as uniquely offensive. So it's possible to go win some of those seats, but it's pretty, it's tough. And Lauren Egan's article, which is well reported, and the way of the board yesterday, it was pretty depressing to me, you know, because it was just like, what is the Democrats plan? And it's, oh, we've got to run candidates more suited to winning these districts. And like, I agree with that, we do, but it's, it's too late to recruit candidates now. It's in May and, and there are a lot of things preventing Democrats from doing that. And you can't overcome this level of cheating solely with persuasion. And persuasion is part of it, but, but the cheating is pretty effective, at least in the South for, for the Republicans. 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And Suhas, Supermoney, we had on the podcast, who's a big supporter of the amendment, said this, we have Republican states ignoring their constitution to interrupting early voting and ignoring their Supreme courts altogether. We know based on that Republicans will explore every single option possible to move this forward. So we should do the same. He's pushing for that. I think that that is interesting as a political matter that a quite moderate member of the Virginia congressional delegation is pushing maximum warfare here. I think that's notable and encouraging. This specific tactic feels like a bit of a stretch to me even, but I don't know. I'm curious. I'm intrigued. What's your reaction? Yeah, I think it's a stretch. And what he's responding to is what is happening in the other states, right? He doesn't act. I mean, Virginia Supreme Court has been pretty bipartisan-ish that this was a pretty partisan decision. I think if people ahead of time had said this is a disaster, it shouldn't go to the court at all, whatever. But they argued the case. I think they thought they were going to win it at the state. So no, I don't think it's going to happen. Probably shouldn't happen. I'm certainly for all kinds of hardball. I was for the Virginia redistricting on that grounds, but that was a legal constitutional matter. And precisely, they had to have the referendum because the Virginia constitution required it. And they also required the two state legislative sessions pass it. And that's why they did the October or November, whatever was session. And then the next one, and that's what the little technicality is. If I was a really, voters went to the polls in October, not knowing that members had voted or would vote in favor of this thing. Honestly, kind of a ridiculous technicality, I would say. But anyway, technicality may even give you a little too much dignity. So, no, I'm not really with that particular move, but I'm certainly in favor of, I agree with you. You can't wish way to cheat. Look, this is, we have all been saying for a year and a half, some of us have been saying that they're going to do whatever they can. They're going to do whatever they can for 26, whatever they can for 28, whatever they can involves voter suppression. It involves God knows what kinds of shenanigans, in terms of the actual voting in September and October, and then in the counting of the ballots. It also involves this kind of thing. So, we shouldn't be surprised by it. We should be ready for it, I suppose, as much as we can be. I think going for the intro of Virginia, destroying the Virginia Supreme Court, you know, is a little bit of a weird, weird way to fix this problem, I'd say. Yeah, I kind of with you. I love, I love the energy though. So, keep the energy there. People should be looking to Sue Haas as kind of a way to have the right attitude. People really need to look at these states and districts. I think Lawrence Peace was excellent. Tennessee may be the worst case, but I don't know in some of these other states where there could be competitive Senate races, for example, really increased minority turnout could make a difference in the Mississippi or something like that. And so, it would be ironic, I've thought about this. Everyone's conventionalism, I always like it, but conventionalism could be wrong, could be wrong or reversed. Everyone, the absolute conventionalism, House is pretty easy for the Dems, Senate pretty impossible. That was six months ago. Then it became House, very easy Senate, possible. I would be funny if the Senate ends up being sort of, you know, left because of this redistricting, the House becomes more democratic and the Senate starts to fall into place. I don't think, I think it's overstating it obviously, but- Well, Jay Mar wrote in Politico about worries about backlash. And I don't know, I think maybe I'm too beaten down by the last 10 years to be hopeful about that. But the point that he was making is that Republicans did make a lot of ground with Black voters, not really with Black women, but with Black men. Trump was the high watermark in a couple decades for Republicans. And just the overt effort to overturn the progress made of the civil rights era and to take away voting power from Black folks, I think, could help on margins and on engagement turnout. And that could make a difference in some of these states. Again, will that make up for the rigging and the cheating? I don't know, but it could matter in some of these districts. And I hope it's true. And people should be outraged, motivated, rather than dispirited. Because I do think that while the House seems tougher today than when we taped down Friday, the Democrats are still favored to take it. So. ICE and Border Patrol have infuriated Latino voters, quite justifiable, they should have infuriated all of us. And now the court ruling should infuriate, will infuriate, and the subsequent legislative action, which is so aggressive and beyond the pale, should infuriate Black voters. So, you know, Trump doesn't win without better numbers. They're not huge. Blacks, they're pretty big among Latinos. It doesn't win in 2024. They don't win the House and Republicans without that spillover from Trump. So it does matter if there's a real reaction, leaving aside, like, maybe some decent white people might be offended by this too, you know? God willing. I'm a little dispirited about the hope for decent people coming to the defense of others, you know, but maybe it will happen. And they should be fucking righteously pissed and hoping to make a difference this November. And maybe that will, you know, also come in concert with some MAGA voters feeling not that motivated to turn out. So I do think that's that's the caveat here. But boy, it's, it's enraging and, and pretty negative development. Hi, it's Joe and Zoe here from Dig It, and we're currently sponsored by QVC. If you're thinking about giving your garden a bit of a refresh, this is very good timing. My garden escape at QVC is basically like having a whole garden center, but at the touch of a button. Everything's there, furniture, plants, tools, lighting, all in one place. I rather like the look of their Studio 70 collection. It's got this very lovely retro feel to it. Yeah, if you sort of think bold colors, striped sofas, lounges, it is giving proper 70s revival. And my garden escape is it's not just for big gardens either. It's for balconies, it's for windowsills, whatever you've got. Plus, they've got advice from expert gardeners available through their online hub and streaming platform. So you're not just guessing what to do. Search My Garden Escape at qvc.com to discover more. You can also use code QDigit for £10 off your first order. That's code QDigit, Q-D-I-G-I-T for £10 off your first order over £30. For full terms, visit the QVC website. The world moves fast. Your workday, even faster, pitching products, drafting reports, analyzing data. Microsoft 365 Copilot is your AI assistant for work built into Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and other Microsoft 365 apps you use, helping you quickly write, analyze, create, and summarize. So you can cut through clutter and clear a path to your best work. Learn more at Microsoft.com slash M365 Copilot. Let's get to the fun. Here's some other things that could cut against the Republicans. Just their total lack on focus about the concerns of the American people of all races and genders and ages. The Secretary of Transportation, Sean Duffy, not like that, important of a role, Secretary of Transportation, usually not at the center of our public debate, but in a moment where everybody is pissed off about gas prices, pissed off about the rising price of air travel. You'd think that he would be laser focused on trying to alleviate those concerns instead he was on Fox and Friends on Friday announcing this. So I want to lean into America's 250th birthday. Rachel and I actually met on a road trip on a reality TV show. And so over the course of seven months, we just kind of found these moments where I might be able to do some work. I could take the kids with me, do a road trip. Oh yeah. And our motto is to love America is to see America. And there's so much to see in this beautiful country. A seven month road trip for the Secretary of Transportation? We're paying his salary. He's going to do some work. He's going to do some work while he's on a seven month road trip? Well, everybody is enraged about a skyrocketing gas prices. To call that tone deaf feels like an understatement. I couldn't agree more. They're also, they're so self-centered and smug and self-satisfied. Such jackasses. They don't see how this stuff looks. I hope it looks bad. I hope people take advantage of it, honestly. I mean, I mean, Democrats should create fake road trips and have like little, I don't know what they should, I'm not good at this kind of thing. But some of our friends would be good at figuring out putting little mock-ups of Duffy and his family in some car and having them go around everywhere, not doing his job. And isn't it paid for? Or was it paid for by various corporations who put the money to some 501c3? Yeah, it's paid for by a non-profit run by a transportation industry lobbyist and funded by various transportation companies that are seeking Duffy's favor, things like Brightline, the private railway, and I think Toyota was in there. It's like, what? The swamp is buying off Sean Duffy so he can take his family to go see Mount Rushmore and the Arch in the Grand Canyon. To see America, to love America, to see America, Tim. You know, you're typical anti-America lefty bullwark type. People are going to be able to go on road trips this summer because they can't fucking afford it, Sean Duffy. People should think of ways to bring this home. Yeah, as they are playing ticket prices soar, because of the price of jet fuel and it's gas prices soar. Yeah, absolutely. They're really bad. You know, the Trump, maybe you haven't noticed this, the Trump cabinet is really bad. They're not just incompetent. Pretty bad. They're just all smug assholes, if I could say so. Yeah, it's true. Sam and I a couple of weeks ago did our cabinet ranking worst cabinet officials and it's tough. I mean, it's competitive. It's really tough choosing. Having to narrow it down to the worst four was a challenge. Is one of them, two of them, respectable, do you think? We always keep coming back to Doug Burgum as the respectable one. Yeah, I see. But that said, there are some stories about some pretty strange ways which he is treating his staff. So, I don't know. It's really one of the worst collections of individuals you could possibly imagine. Speaking of which, why don't we get into the comedy? One of the other ones, this is Macabre, dark comedy, I guess, was our Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. We have the Hantavirus going around, you know, pretty serious. The people on the ships, for some reason, we're bringing one person that was exposed to the virus on one of these cruise ships back to America to quarantine. I'm kind of like, can't we quarantine that person somewhere else? Do they have to be quarantined here? And there's some concerns that Robert F. Kennedy is in charge of that, you know, given his past comments and beliefs about how to deal with these kinds of pandemics and epidemics. John Mulaney, a comedian who did the famous Trump is the Horse in the Hospital bit, which is really good. He had a comedy show at the Hollywood Bowl this weekend, and some of the video leaked of that. And it's so good, I just want to play a point. The Hudson River Clean. That was his job. That's how good he is at jobs. His old job was keeping the Hudson River, whose native fish is tied off, used condom, clean. Towers and sharnam in charge of your bones and your tummy. Stupid fuck, your thing can't eat the measles. Did you get the measles? Did you read the card is from me? Do you like having the measles very much? So that leaves me pretty concerned about the hantavirus. I don't know. Yeah, no, not a, I think I'm staying off cruise ships. I was going to stay off cruise ships anyway for the next n years. Forever. Yeah, that's the easiest way to say that. I think I'll just stick with that resolution. Yeah, you're not going to go in the MAGA Gay Cruise. We had a little video. What is going on with that? We're closer to the eye. That's your kind of, yeah. Yeah, I have an update. I have an update. There was a cruise of gay MAGA influencers for people who don't follow or just pod only. We did a series of videos of Will Summer and me and Sam Stein trio videos where we talked about the craziest stuff happening in MAGA over on the board. Takes feed and we did one on this. And I didn't really know a whole lot about it. I just, I'd seen a MAGA Gay that I follow had posted about his time there. And so we kind of, we watched that video and made fun of him and rift on that. That after we published a listener posted on the board credit page that they were on the ship, that they hadn't like rented out a ship for the MAGA Gay Cruise. When you did the weekly standard cruises, I assume it was all weekly standard people. No? No, no, no. At times you would get 250 cabins out of 1000 cabins. Okay. So I didn't realize. And you would eat together and you would have your own seminars and stuff and your own, you'd get the ballroom. But no, no, no. So I didn't realize that. And so in this case, that cruise was about a third. And then this person was posting the pictures of them, like all of the gays and their red shirts, like over on the corner of the boat. And they weren't the cute gays. We should at least say that. But I don't, I just, I can't imagine, I mean, A, I can't imagine going on a cruise vacation in any circumstance, but talk about the bad luck. And I guess we had to rank worst luck of getting on cruises. Getting on the hand to virus cruise would be definitely number one, you know, since your life is at risk. The poop cruise, I think, number two, it's second worst. But then getting on a cruise and having it be the game. I want to. Nice, nice three generation family from, you know, wish to talk hands. This is going to be the 75th birthday of the grandparent. This is not a lot of these cruise things, right? The, you know, the teenage kids, the nice, the pin between the parents, your age. And, and then yeah, it's showing up. You're on the pool. You're like, I'm a guy in a Hillary for prison speed out. You're like, what? Okay. I want to go with the, your newsletter this morning was about, I told you there'd be laughs at the mood side of this morning. It's about the gold statue. Because we have the policy of not playing Trump's voice. I'm not going to play the audio, but there was a dedication of a golden calf at Mar-a-Lago. I don't know any other way to say it. It looks just like Kim Jong-un's golden statue. It looks just like the calf from the Old Testament. That's more of your area than mine. The Old Testament. So if you have some ruminations on that, Trump calls in to the dedication, talks about how great it is, how excited it is, how excited he is. He talks about how he went to the golf course, people were complimenting him about the golden statue. Pastor Mark Burns, who was the pastor, I guess, in charge of the statue posted this. Today at Trump National Dural, history was made. I'm deeply honored to lead the dedication event for President Donald J. Trump and the unveiling of the 22-foot statue created in his honor. This was far more than a ribbon-cutting. It was a moment for gratitude, honor, and remembrance. Let me say this plainly, this is not a golden calf. The statue is not about worship. It is about honor. So I don't know. Doth protest too much a little bit, maybe. Do you have any thoughts on that? You think? I think let me say this plainly, this is not a golden calf. It's not a good thing you want to have to say about something if you're a pastor, blessing and consecrating this wonderful grotesque. Pretty ugly to I'd say. Why was it a pastor if we're not worshiping it? Why was it a Christian? It would have been a layman. I don't know if the clergy was necessary. Yeah, they could put up the idiotic statutes, his own golf course, I guess, his private property. None of the rest of us has to see it anymore after this one video. Much well-deserved ridicule for Pastor Burns. A lot of people rallying to his defense. That guy Jeffries, who's like an anti-gay, anti-Semitic, racist, anti-Catholic, actually, pastor, I guess. Is your policy that we don't call them pastors? I'm open to that. Pastor Doug, I didn't want to call him pastor. Pastor Doug Wilson, because he doesn't seem to even do any pastoring. His entire persona is just that he's a pastor that wants to bring slavery back. Jeffries, I remember him being very bad. There's a big controversy around McCain. Yeah, terrible. McCain said he didn't want to come with him. He does have a church, I think. I mean, somewhere in town. I don't know. I'm on the fence. I'm okay with what we're just calling them, Robert. Okay, anyway, pastor, yes. Pastor Doth protest too much about it. It's not a golden gaff. Everyone's immediately sees it and thinks, and then having this quote, consecration, and everyone immediately thinks golden gaff. So the first word is out of his mouth. Sorry, it's not a golden gaff. But don't even think about that. It's raising some additional questions. Could have made it silver. Could have made it orange. Trump's orange. That would have been an option. Purple. Trump tweeted that it's like, it's the real deal. It's gold. It's of course, like 1 eighth inch, I'd say, 1 16th inch gold. Whatever. It's ghastly. But at least it's, I mean, I make this point in the newsletter, it's not as stupid gaff. People signed up for Trump derail, have to endure it, I suppose. I think the world leaders is in the G20 meeting there at the end of this year. They have to walk by it. How humiliating. I mean, really, you're a leader of a semi-serious country, and you have to walk by this 22-foot grotesque gold statue of Trump, which he's put up. I mean, electorally, daughters have put up at his club, and he's thrilled about it. He's thrilled what he called in, that people are taking pictures of themselves with it. On the other hand, it's not good for Trump politically. It brings home even more. It's all he cares about is himself. And then, of course, I do think the arch here in Washington, which would intrude on Arlington Cemetery. So that's not something that's one of our most sacred public spaces. That's a different matter than putting up some idiotic statue to yourself at your private club. And the ballroom he wants a billion dollars for. Democrats really need to go crazy about that stuff. I'm worried they're like being a little too, you know, we've got to focus on affordability, Tim, and it's kitchen table and the gas prices. It's all the same. It's important. It's all the same. It's all the same. But he is, I mean, the solipsism, the narcissism, the focus on this, couldn't care less about the gas prices. Sean Duffy doesn't care about it. None of them cares about them. It's not... That guy right the energy secretary, maybe does a little better job pretending to at least be concerned about them. I don't know, but they're not. It's pathetic, really. None of them cares about what actual people are going through. And I say this in the newsletter. I think you and I discussed this maybe shortly after 2016. When Trump said in 2016, Hillary says, wants you to say, I'm for her. But I say, I'm with you. I'm with her. I'm with you. Right? That's yeah. I'm with her. I'm with her. That was their proud slogan, your first woman president. And I say I'm with you. I remember thinking when I heard that, first, I think it's a speech in New York, but then at the convention in Cleveland, that's a pretty effective line. And then of course with Kamala, it was the same thing. She's with them. She's for them. They, I'm with you. That I'm with you thing is gone. And people need to just hammer home that he's from only could care less. He's a narcissist who cares only about himself and the ballroom, the statue, the arch are pretty good concrete examples of it that people could understand. I think. Amen. I think it's a big political opportunity. It does make you a little sick to your stomach. I really consider the derral part. I just think I like the fact that the G seven is a derral is a total insane affront. So I'm mad at Glacius post about this this weekend. It's just, I got mad all over again about the coverage of Hillary's email server from 2016. He like posted an analysis of it. And it was like the three major nightly news spent like four X more time on her email server than all policy issues combined. And it's like, they're not, they don't even cover the stuff anymore. I do. What server is Jared Kushner talking to BB and MBS on? I don't think a public server that we, that we can get access to, you know, I'm like, the whole thing is absurd. And, you know, so there's not even the commensurate level of outrage at all. The fact that the G seven is at derral. But then on top of that, definitely I have like Friedrich Merz walking by like the Trump golden calf when he comes to the G seven. It's like fucking ridiculous. It's crazy. It's, it's, it's sickening and hopefully politically useful, but sickening. And I was thinking about that in the context when we're in the green room discussing we have our Bullwark, ConFab in DC on Wednesday. And so pod might be out at a weird time on Wednesday. FII on that will, will a lot of the full announcement for you guys tomorrow and Howard to do it. But I'm like, I don't want to have to go by the buildings that have his face on it. I don't know how you all live there, to be honest. Like that makes me kind of sick, just like thinking about it, about how, how gross it all is. And that's of a piece with the calf too. So I don't want to end this on a down note. So we're going to, there was the Netflix was a joke thing last night. I don't, I didn't really have an angle for bring for like a deep political analysis angle for this Chelsea handler joke. It just was very satisfying. So, um, Bill, why don't I say goodbye to you and then we can just leave people with little, we can just listen to Chelsea handler together and laugh. How does that sound? I'm for that. It's a good being with you. Now we'll listen to the joke. We'll laugh and I'll see you tomorrow. Right? Yeah. We'll see you tomorrow. Now. See you on Wednesday in DC. Everybody else. We'll be back tomorrow with another edition of the podcast. Here's Chelsea. Now that your favorite leader is making the draft mandatory, I assume that all of you will be signing up to go fight in Iran. Or do you tough talking pussies only go to the Middle East for comedy festivals? I'm so happy we can say pussie again. Bye everybody. See you tomorrow. The board podcast is brought to you thanks to the work of lead producer Katie Cooper, associate producer, Ansley Skipper, and with video editing by Katie Lutz and audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.