Bill Kristol: This Is Accelerationist Authoritarianism

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Hello and welcome to the Bulldog Podcast. I'm your host Tim Miller. It is Monday, January the 12th. And so we have our editor at large, Bill Crystal. Bill, something has been in the water the last nine days. It kind of felt like the beginning of the administration was like this, where Trump was doing all kinds of crazy shit in quick succession. And it's not as if it was not crazy towards the end of the year, but it did feel like he was losing a little steam. Maybe grandpa was losing the verve for some of this. But man, between what we've seen in Minnesota and Venezuela and then the big news from last night, which is that the administration is investigating Jerome Powell now, the Department of Justice has been a Jerome Powell. It's where we've ratcheted things up. Yeah, I was thinking about that. I guess the last two, three months of the year, Trump seemed a little bit on the defensive and he was some with Epstein and other things. They didn't do well in the government shutdown. The Democrats did pretty well. Very well in the November elections. And then the stuff he was doing was bad, the Kennedy Center kind of thing and all that, the East Wing. But it was more performative, you might say, than serious. I do feel like the last 10 days we have seen real accelerationist authoritarianism in foreign policy, obviously, with ICE and now with Powell. I'll just add to that list, the Epstein file. I mean, they were pretending at the end of last year they were going to release them. They were redacting a lot of stuff. It was a little bit slow. But now they've just, I don't know, I guess they've just decided they don't even have to pretend to be obeying a law that Trump himself signed a couple of months ago. Accelerating is a key word. I got a text this morning from a friend saying the accelerationists are winning within the magus side of things. Interesting. And that is, yeah, I think that's correct and ominous. Well, let's start with Powell and then we'll kind of go through all these things individually. So what we learned last time is that federal prosecutors are investigating federal reserve chair over the central bank's multi-billion dollar project to renovate its headquarters. You might remember that they had that press conference a couple of months ago where Trump went there and then Powell was in the hard hat and Trump was giving him shit over this. And so this has been kind of in the ether for a while now. Among those behind the case to investigate Powell are Jeanine Pirro, Judge Box of Wine, the U.S. attorney, and then Bill Pulte, this housing official that has been going after other enemies of the president over their supposed mortgage issues, including Tish James and others. I think obviously this is horrendous and sort of keystone authoritarianism. But I think the most striking home of the story was how quickly Jerome Powell responded. I just want to play a clip from a two minute video he put out last night on the gets to the heart of the matter. Let's listen to that. The threat of criminal charges is a consequence of the Federal Reserve setting interest rates based on our best assessment of what will serve the public rather than following the preferences of the president. This is about whether the Fed will be able to continue to set interest rates based on evidence and economic conditions or whether instead monetary policy will be directed by political pressure or intimidation. So you can see there that he didn't mince words. I mean, Jerome Powell is saying that this this threat of prosecution is directly related to the Fed not responding to Trump's pressure campaign for them to push down interest rates. I think that's the important part here, because I mean, obviously it's bad if he's going after enemies, but if it's specifically tied to undermining the independence of the Fed, there are a ton of other potential consequences of that. And you saw last night I was saying on social media, even some of Trump's supporters who are kind of in finance were sort of shaken by by that element of it. Yeah, that's the good news. I think that the business community, which has been so pathetic, honestly, in its response to Trump, maybe they'll finally decide this is really a problem, though. I don't know. They have such ability to rationalize that a couple of calls from your friend, Scott Bessent, and a couple of reassurances that don't worry, Kevin Warsh will be a responsible Fed chair. I don't have a lot of community, a lot of confidence necessary, although the business community will really go into the kind of resistance mode they should. But he's a prominent guy. They're going after a kind of ridiculous thing, this rehabbing or rebuilding of the Fed headquarters, I'm sure exactly what they're building and so forth, cost overruns, that kind of thing. That's a criminal offense. I mean, so it is part of the broader intimidation effort, obviously. But you're right, it also raises the specter, which is we've seen coming for quite a while, which is Trump does not want an independent Fed. And just to complete that thought, the reason he doesn't want an independent Fed is not because he has a deep I mean, it's probably because he likes low interest rates and that's just his prejudice. But it's not because he has deep thoughts about monetary policy. It's because he wants a Fed that will do what he wants and goose the economy in 2028 ways to help Republicans hold the White House. You know, look, there's no doubt about that. It's about power manipulation. If the independence of the Fed is threatened or altogether eliminated, I mean, the economic consequences are extremely severe. You go through the countries that have had this issue, you know, it's like Argentina, Venezuela, Trump's trying to Venezuela, the whole country. We're going to get into that a little bit. I mean, it's very serious. Yeah, this is, as you mentioned, there have been, you know, some business guys finally showing some backbone on this. Also, just a little bit on the hill, we should mention Tom Tillis spoke out about this quite quickly last night and he wrote this in a statement. If there are any remaining doubt whether advisors within the Trump administration are actively pushing to end the independence of the Fed, there should now be none. It is now the independence and credibility of the Department of Justice that are in question. I don't know if it's in question at this point, but we'll give them some things. It's better than nothing. Tillis goes on, I will oppose the confirmation of any nominee for the Fed, including the upcoming Fed chair vacancy until this legal matter is fully resolved. Now, Tillis by himself does not really have the power to hold up a Fed chair vacancy, but yet in a couple of others, Murkowski, who knows potentially others and they really could have a standoff with them on this. No, it's striking that Tillis did this. Now, Tillis is retiring and it will be very interesting today to see if other people weigh in. This is, I mean, you'd think of all the issues. I personally am even more outraged about ICE than the Fed, though both are outrageous and dangerous. But this is the issue that Republicans presumably are most susceptible to breaking with Trump on as terrorists was and on terrorist Trump did back down. So let's see if there's support for Tillis. It was striking, I've got to say, I just can't resist even Tillis who's doing the right thing here. And I hope he succeeds. I hope everyone wants to support him. All the Republicans on the Hill. He can't quite say Trump, right? The advisors, how does it agree? The advisors to Trump are prevailing and attacking Fed independence. It's like, God forbid you actually say that Donald Trump himself is doing something terrible. And also that the independence of the Department of Justice is in question. It's like, I don't think it is actually. I think it's pretty clear that there is no independence of the party. I don't even think that Trump is pretending like there's an independence of the Department of Justice right now. So I don't know what the question is. You know, I think all sides pretty much agree that the Department of Justice is now, you know, completely just in service to Donald Trump's wishes. Just for one second, we should do it because why not? We do the crystal fantasy politics. They're just because as we get more and more into a crisis scenario where we are now, people do have agency on the Hill. And you wrote this on X. Tillace McConnell, Murkowski Collins could announce, oh, caucus for now with the Dems to give them control of the Senate to check Trump. Like that could happen. Like they could just do that. It's not crazy. It has happened before in state legislatures. Texas, some others. And Alaska, I think, which we'll get into some Alaska politics later. And Collins probably would not be part of that being up for reelection this year, but others potentially that are retiring. Like it's not that fantastical. To build the future you've been working toward, visit myfico.com slash free or download the My FICO app and take the mystery out of your FICO score. Dreaming of buying your first car or a new home, knowing your FICO score is the first step in making it real. With my FICO, you can check your score for free and it won't hurt your credit. You'll get your FICO score, full credit reports and real time alerts all in one simple app. Your credit score is more than just numbers. It's the key to building the future you've been working toward. Visit myfico.com slash free or download the My FICO app and take the mystery out of your FICO score. I mean, the Dems, if you really wanted to get serious about the fact that it is a genuine crisis, the Dems could also offer to withdraw opposition to Collins to reelection if she joins them. The Dems have some cards to play here too if they're serious about the moment the ball is in the Republicans court. Most of these instances, you say they have agencies, say I'm in the house and say, I'll leave, but take what two Republicans now, I think, given how narrow the margin is to say they're going to temporarily vote for Jeffries for Speaker. And again, they could cut deals. They could get some committee chairmen, all the ones I mentioned could get committee chairmanship. One of them could become Speaker or Majority Leader conceivably. And if you get really in this kind of emergency, I think it is worth at least trying to get people to think a little more broadly. It has been so infuriating for the last year to have all these, you know, everyone's, well, I guess it's 53-47. There's just nothing that could be done as if people can't act to change the status quo. And there's enough unhappiness. I should think about tariffs, war powers, the Fed now, some about ice, I would think, I hope. Maybe this is a moment where it all comes together. Maybe it is kind of fantasy, but I put in a few last few shots to try to give people something to think about. No, it's fantasy. I don't want people to think that we think it might happen, but it could happen. So it should be stated, right? Like this is like the pre-surrender. Like, why is it impossible? And there are two retiring senators who know, who have stated objections to Trump on various things. There's the libertarian senator who has stated objections. There's Murkowski, who's run as an independent before. And this is not. It shouldn't be outside the realm of possibility, even though it probably is. I want to talk about Renee Good and her murder last week, since we've not spoken about it. So we got together, you talked about it with Sam on your Sunday live conversation. But your column this morning and morning shots is about being opposed to ice, has been galvanizing of the resistance. So obviously some references to the French resistance since it is Bill Crystal. So I just wanted to kind of just let you cook on both what we've seen from ice in Minnesota, the situation with Renee Good and kind of how you think it's appropriate to react to it. I mean, the killing of Renee Good and everything else we've seen. And then the administration is lying about it, got to say at least lying immediately about it and continuing to lie about it and lying in the face of all the evidence about it makes it all the more horrible and also all the more laying the groundwork for this continuing. And it's not just laying the groundwork for this continuing. They've doubled down. They're sending more people into Minneapolis. They seem to have intensified their brute force intimidation tactics and other lesser forms of violence so far. Someone asked me earlier this morning on a different call about Kent State and how it compared. And I got back and looked at that a bit over the weekend. But I mean, that was terrible. But actually less purposeful than the ice violence. It was young kids in the National Guard. And I think afterwards, and Nixon did defend it for a while. And there was a lot of stupid stuff said. But at the end of the day, they kind of withdrew. I don't believe the Guard got deployed much after that. And I think they set up a commission to look into all this. There's none of that with Trump. I won't say they wanted this to happen, but they are purposely trying to exploit it to further intimidate people not to correct the obvious things that have been shown to be wrong about the way ISIS is behaving. They're purposely trying to escalate. I just want to get a bunch of stuff to I want to just talk about Trump's response last night really quick before I rant. And as is our policy, I won't play it. I'm going to read it for you. So Trump's on the plane. This is a gaggle on Air Force One. He's asked by a reporter, do you believe that deadly force was necessary? In the case of Renee Good, Trump replies, it was highly disrespectful of law enforcement. The woman and her friend were highly disrespectful of law enforcement. Then he goes on to kind of talk about how they had been following them around. Law enforcement should not be in a position where they have to put up with this stuff. So he says law enforcement should not be in a position where they have to put up with this stuff. A truly appalling statement by the President of the United States, like when asked about whether it was necessary to kill the protester, he says essentially yes, because law enforcement shouldn't have to be hassled. Unbelievable, really. And it's really that comes on top of JD Vance saying Thursday, ICE agents will have absolute immunity, I guess from state prosecution, which isn't correct, I gather from my lawyer friends, but they have quite a lot of immunity. I'm probably more than they should have with qualified immunity the way that doctrine is developed. But what does that say? That says, Vance went to Yale Law School between those a little bit about this. What that says going forward is you guys are fine. You guys are free. Go for it. You follow the example of what happened there in Minneapolis, leaving even aside the pardon power, which obviously could kick in and take care of these guys. So the degree of the just, you know, we've seen where this is going and they embrace where this is going. That's why it is accelerationism, don't you think? Yeah, yes. You just look at the videos from this weekend and there's just so much happening. I couldn't really pull it together in time for this podcast. I'll probably do a separate video on this for folks to watch, check out later. But like just the way that ICE is acting in Minnesota is, since this killing, is a category difference from how they've been acting. You see certain skirmishes and misbehavior from ICE since this started, right? Like there are a bunch of examples, but just like the intensity of it, you know, you see the ICE agent saying the woman in the car, you saw what happened to that other woman that did this. You see that, you see them storming into a house of, you know, there's a door dash driver who goes to deliver food and he goes into a house and the woman that's host house, is that is protecting, you know, is protecting the driver. And it's like these guys are like storming Fallujah, you know, the amount of, you know, weaponry and masks like going into some, like modest, some person from citizens house in the country and just, you know, you could go on and on, so there's more. They want that. Like they want to escalate it. I saw there was a smart post I saw from David Austin Walsh, a professor, I said, he can't overemphasize how much we're seeing, what we're seeing is this libidinal desire on the right to reenact the George Floyd uprisings. And I do think that's right. I think that there's a lot of like regret on the right that there wasn't more shooting from the cops during the George Floyd riots. And they want, they, there is like a fantasizing about that. And they want that. And they want it so that they can take more power. They can want it, they want it for the purpose of accelerationism on their authoritarian mission. And they want it because they hate the, I mean, you just hear it in their voice. They hate the woman. Like they hate the, you know, lesbian protesting woman who, you know, whose attitude they don't like. I don't think it's too far to say that. Like that there is like a cycle, there's both the authoritarian desire, but also the psychological element that they want to accelerate this and they want to have more skirmishes and violence. And Kristi Noem, I think on TV yesterday, wouldn't even deplore the fact that An Ice Agent, I think maybe it was the one who shot everyday good, maybe it was one of the others right in that little cluster called her, is that a terrible thing? Called her a fucking bitch. I'll say it. Yeah, you should say it. After they shot her in the face three times. Yeah. And Kristi Noem didn't say, well, that's very tense moments and people shouldn't, of course, shouldn't say things like that. She couldn't even say that, but she doesn't want to say that because I guess they don't believe that, right? They believe that that's what people are getting what they deserve as you sort of, as Trump kind of said, right? Yeah. Yeah. Law enforcement shouldn't have to put up with these uppity women. Yeah, honestly, that's really what it is. Tapper in that same interview, Tapper was really good with Noem and also gives her the obvious question to this, which is, okay, well, if the response to being highly disrespected with a law enforcement is that people get killed, like what about January 6th? Those people are very disrespected with law enforcement and you pardon them. They don't even have an answer to that, right? Some of the mega media types when you see engaging on that point on social media, they will do like the, what are you even talking about? They let them in through the gates and they didn't do it. There's a lot of that just fantasy, like Earth 2, like there wasn't even violence against cops. The administration is not quite that shameless. I guess I shouldn't overstate it. Maybe somebody in the administration is that shameless, but they won't do that. So they just sort of like just dance around all of that. They don't have an answer to like, because the true answer is that they think that the state and police, and ICE agents can do violence against their political foes, but not against their allies. That's just really the truth. And they think their allies can do violence against the Capitol Police, where the Capitol Police are defending the elections and their allies are storming the Capitol, right? I mean, it's really, it is kind of remarkable. Dreaming of buying your first car or new home, knowing your FICO score is the first step to making it real. With my FICO, you can check your score for free and it won't hurt your credit. You'll get your FICO score, full credit reports and real time alerts all in one simple app. Your credit score is more than just numbers. It's the key to building the future you've been working toward. Visit myfico.com slash free or download the my FICO app and take the mystery out of your FICO score. You know what I could really go for right now? Literally anything that comes in a McDonald's carton, wrapper or bag or a McDonald's cup. Yes, any of those items you do it. We've got your cravings covered. Now stop in for the flaky flay of fish, the crispy snack wrap, or a large fries for just $2.99. Limited time only, price and participation may vary, cannot be combined with any other offer. I talked about this a bit on Friday, but by the time we had posted this podcast, the video from the agent hadn't come out yet. I do want to just touch on that one more time because it's the most telling of all of the videos. When I first reacted to it, I said it was body cam footage because this is all happening so quickly. We found out after I taped was that it was his own cell phone. You can see him switch the phone from his left hand to his left hand so he can have his shooting hand ready at some point during this 45 second video. Why they decided to leak this video? I think betrays a deep darkness in what they think is defensible, honestly. To me, the most alarming thing of all maybe is that they decided to leak this video because to me, it showed just very clearly that Jonathan Ross was in no danger. He really just wasn't. It's preposterous to think that he was in danger. I mean, people feel more at risk from being run over in a car in a Walmart parking lot every day than this. Like he walks around the car, he talks to her. She's smirking, so it's maybe a little teasing, but she says, I'm not mad. She says, don't worry, dude, I'm not mad. 20 seconds later, he kills her. Three shots. He goes around the car, her partner or whatever, a girlfriend was teasing him. Okay, you got to take that. Then he comes around to the front and you can see her turning the car. It's just so... And then he shoots her three times and says, fucking bitch. We think it's him. The video itself reveals that to me, that there is no in between. That video of his cell phone reveals that he either intentionally wanted to kill her because he was upset that the lesbians were mocking him or whatever, the reason. He intentionally wanted to do it, or that it's so cowardly. Maybe it's PTSD or whatever, but this person should not be in the street. They're not trained. To think that you are in danger, to genuinely think you are in danger in that moment when you watch that video is crazy. The only other explanation besides intentional murder is that these guys are cowards and that they're trigger happy cowards. And I think that maybe if it's a political purpose, might actually resonate better. But with some of the people who are ostensibly on their side, then kind of doing the hair on fire stuff. I don't know. What do you make of that? He wasn't in danger objectively. That is one of the legal standards I believe that people have to use before they kill, before they discharge. They have to be in... It has to really be in self-defense, not just in some fantasy self-defense or defense of others whom they were not threatening. But he didn't believe he was in danger. He don't like moving the cell phone to the other. Continuing to video. That's why this is such a telling cell phone video, because he kept it on. We know how people behave in their danger or what they know. And B, none of his colleagues thought he or they were in danger. They're strolling around and then they stroll away. I mean, the whole thing... And of course, they don't let the physician approach as well. I mean, it is grotesque. What a great point. None of them pull a weapon. I've tried. I said this ago, people have been arguing about this. If it was so obviously a dangerous situation, why didn't any of the other, I say, pull their weapon in order to protect their colleague? The only possible way that you could justify that he actually thought he was scared is because he was too focused on trying to get his videotape of them. And so he got distracted. But even then, it's like, okay, well then why do you shoot her execution style through the side window after the car is already pulling away? So, and there's just no possible rationale for this to make any sense. The administration thinks that they're on the right foot here. Like they want to be fighting over this. They do. I'm not sure that's right. Sometimes people think that they're on the right foot and politically, and they're wrong. And I think that it's important to continue to push on this because I do think there are big parts of their coalition that are actually not okay with execution style murders of women and Honda pilots with a dog in the backseat and their kids toys in the passenger seat. And so I want to play this next clip. It's just, it's little tongue in cheek. Obviously, this is a tragic scenario. And it's just horrible. It happened very good. And I fucking like my, it's just my heart breaks for her and her family, the kid, especially. But I do wonder if this kind of thing resonates with people in a different way. This is like a right wing comedian who is pushing back on the narrative, the magan, the Trump administration narrative on this. I don't believe the cop was justified in shooting her three times in the face. By the way, I've always believed this. And this is something that I've quite heat for, but I've literally believed it since I'm a kid. I don't believe you should ever shoot someone in the face more than once. I've no seriously, I think, I just think it's ridiculous. So that they did that and they, you know, the guy, these are, these are not well trained law enforcement people in ICE right now. We're taking people that did backyard wrestling. I mean, okay. So we're being silly. Well, he's being silly, obviously. But I think that could resonate with people. Just like people who are not ideologically, you know, disposed to this, right? Who are just like watching this video, who are not, you know, Fox News zombies, who are like, wait a minute, I don't want to live in a country where a bunch of ill-trained thugs are running around with masks on, firing through the side window of a lady's Honda pilot. Like that is not a society that I want to live in. It's not okay. I have a wife. I have a mother actually believe in the real definition of don't tread on me. And I don't know. I just think that that's an important argument to make and to not lose sight of. I totally agree. And I think it's an important argument for Democrats to sort of come to believe that at least it's a reasonable chance that this could become or is the majority of you. I think it is actually, but, and there's some poll even to suggest this, but they need to, in my view, I'm curious whether you agree. I mean, to act to follow up really, and they are Congress, they do authorize and appropriate funds for ICE. And they should say if the funding, which is unfortunately already baked in, it's going to increase so much that they could change that too, of course. But even if they leave the funding that's, that's, that's the plan that it can't go ahead unless ICE takes off the masks, unless they don't use guns or that, you know, use them very, they're all kinds of regulations for when to use guns, etc., etc. Right. I mean, you can get the required approval of local authorities. Senator Murphy has, I think, Well, let's get into the Senator Murphy thing. Okay. I'm just, I mean, people again, sort of your point earlier, the agency is, people have agency in Congress has agency and ICE is not an autonomous thing that just descends from the skies and shows up in cities. And part of that is therefore, Kristian Ohm, Donald Trump's responsibility totally in my view, as well as the individual agents, obviously, and part of it is Congress's responsibility to not let this continue. Yeah, we have another budget round coming up. This is what Chris Murphy said. It's like, we can't, Democrats can't vote for any budget that funds this. He said specifically he wants to plan legislation that would require agents to have warrants for arrests. Oh my God. That's, well, how radical is that in a free country that people should have warrants if they're going to arrest someone. I mean, it's to ban them from wearing masks. It wants to limit the use of guns by ICE and restrict the border patrol to the border. I think those are all going to be very popular. I don't know about limit guns, but I don't exactly, I'd be interested to see what the polling is. The rest of that is very obvious and popular. I had somebody who's very well read, watches the news in my life, just on one of my text change, I think it was over the weekend saying like, why is it seat, why is border patrol there in Minnesota? It's not the border. Because unless you're like really following this, you don't realize what they're doing and it does just feel wrong to people. Are we redeploying people from the border to Minnesota and Chicago to go into the streets? I just think that there are compelling arguments that could be made. I think the Democrats get wrapped around the axle sometimes around like the slogan, abolish ICE wasn't popular. And you get into this like left wing fight over like, should we do abolish ICE or should we not say abolish ICE? And it's like, stop, like stop it, stop pearl clutching over whatever your fucking slogan is, like, and just being so obsessed with the specific word. It's like, no, just go out there, make the argument against what ICE is doing. And, and you know, you can also simultaneously say that, yeah, I, I support doing what Trump said he was going to do. They can even say that, like go after the violent criminals, deport them from the country. We're all for that. Like we can think about all the money we could be using to go after actual criminals that were wasting, you know, chasing people down the street, chasing DoorDash drivers. And this is crazy what they're doing. So I don't know, I was encouraged by what Murphy said. I think that they Democrats can really should really do that. Mark Kurtlings in the newsletter with you this morning arguing, they need to take the masks off, talks very compellingly about his experience in Iraq. I encourage people to read that. And, and I think that those are all areas where the Democrats could be an offense on this. And on the funding, I mean, just to be clear, I said this, I was having similar conversation over the weekend. So it's, well, but isn't that funding all baked in? And it is for now, Congress does not have to accept prior Congress's decision about funding and they can change it. And if they want to make it conditional on these reforms, if they want to reduce the growth of ICE, ICE has gone from 10,000 to 22,000, I believe officers in the last year. God knows what the quality of those 12 new 12,000 is. I'm not sure that the shooter was one of the new ones. And certainly he may have been someone who was more at other problems. But anyway, it can't be good. And it just increases the chances of all this happening. And they can put a pause on the expansion of ICE, they can put a pause on the expansion of funding, they don't have to totally defund it. I myself not being a member of Congress feel like and maybe slightly irresponsibly say abolish ICE just to get people to think about it and, and, and reorganize DHS and so forth. But yes, there are many things they can push for. And if they have to compromise to get some Republican votes and, you know, let little, little more funding go ahead than they want, but in return get some of these restrictions, you can't just sit there and say, well, we have to keep the government open and it's a big appropriations bill and it's got a lot of some other stuff in it that we like. And we're just going to go ahead and fund this agency that's doing these kinds of things. I don't think that's, I don't think personally it's acceptable. I wouldn't vote for such a thing. And I really think you can, they could get a lot of support by insisting that this, that this not go ahead the way it is. I started in what, 2003? Something like that. It's like the, it's like the country existed. We were able to successfully, you know, handle immigration before having, you know, this, this organization. So like defunding is not insane. I just pulled up here, it's the civics. If you look at the, the, they're polling, they're tracking on the question of abolishing ICE. I had very low support, I will say in 2024. Right now it's at 50 opposed 42 support. So 42 support for abolishing ICE. You've seen that number move. Some Democrats have the jitters because of defund the police, which was an extremely stupid slogan. And, and like the people, even the people that argued to defund the police didn't offer like what their alternative was going to be. It was going to be like community engagement and hugs and stuff. And it's just like, this is crazy. Like this is not, not realistic. Like that's not what we're talking about. Like this is different than that. Like you can go out there and say, I like this agency has been corrupted. Like we can do immigration enforcement. We have a ton of other federal law enforcement. I'm not, I'm not talking about defunding federal law enforcement. I want to fund good law enforcement. I want to fund the local police in Minneapolis who are actually doing good work right now as we talked with Mayor Fry about. And this fucking organization is, is like Donald Trump's paramilitary and it's going after US citizens and going after rule it here legally. And we should defund it and replace it with something else. Like that. I, you know, I don't think that I've, I mean, everybody needs to get all panicked about that. That's defund the police 2.0 as long as, you know, they're, they're making clear arguments. Totally. And I would just add that, I mean, in a way, Chris Murphy maybe he's done this even as could present his proposals as we are trying to make hold ICE to the standards. We routinely hold all police forces to who, right? I mean, the good things he's proposing are things that are, in fact, the procedures of police for that's what's so appalling about this. I mean, that, and again, the Christie known reaction, no sense of, okay, we've, you know, we're going to take a look, we're not going to comment until the investigation's underway. It'll be independent. We'll provide counseling to this person who killed someone I get a police force does if a police officer, unfortunately gets in this kind of situation. They don't even have a scintilla of that kind of attitude. And so I think they can be pro FBI. I mean, if they want and pro, as you say, local police to within reason and, and, and say, this is just totally different. This is, this is a paramilitary force deployed in our cities. Before it was a little speculative about how bad it could be. We've seen how bad it could be. So we have to act. Then your point, I just think just worth emphasizing one more time is like, they're not even trying to argue that this should be reformed. And again, I, I look at this video and I see somebody that was just like either an unbelievable coward who was like scared and was shitting his pants and decided to kill a woman who had just told me wasn't, she wasn't mad at him 20 seconds earlier, or somebody who intentionally was, was out for revenge. Those are the two options. If you, if you even if you're on the other side of that and taking the view that like, no, this guy really got scared in the moment. And like, he's somebody who just can't really even make it through a grocery store parking lot without, without grabbing for his weapon, because he's like so afraid of moving vehicles. Like if you're on that point of view, then even then the thing to say is like, this is a tragedy. We need to talk about our procedures. Like we're going to talk with our agents, you know, we're going to make sure people don't, we're going to make sure we're to focus on deescalating, you know, you don't hear them saying that you don't hear them saying we're going to try to focus on, we want to deescalate. We're not at war with US citizens. We're not at war with people that are peacefully protesting, you know, like we're going after people that are here illegally. Like you can imagine how they could define what they're doing in a different way. They're not doing that. They're escalating. They're escalating. And basically saying he did nothing wrong, shooting execution style of a 37 year old lady through the side window for Dreaming of buying your first car or new home, knowing your FICO score is the first step to making it real. With my FICO, you can check your score for free. And it won't hurt your credit. You'll get your FICO score, full credit reports and real time alerts all in one simple app. Your credit score is more than just numbers. It's the key to building the future you've been working toward. Visit myfico.com slash free or download the my FICO app and take the mystery out of your FICO score. I don't talk about Venezuela. The trouble this round table with oil executives last week, to I guess gain some excitement for our imperialist effort to steal the oil from Venezuela. One CEO at Exxon dissented. Let's listen. We have a very long history in Venezuela. In fact, we first got into Venezuela back in 1940s. We've had our assets seize there twice. And so you can imagine to reenter a third time would require some pretty significant changes from what we've historically seen here and what is currently the state. If we look at the legal and commercial constructs and frameworks in place today in Venezuela, today it's uninvestable. Okay. So pretty clearly clear there from that. Exxon guys just like, why would I go into Venezuela? Basically, like what changes? Like they've seized my oil twice down there already. Since we went in there for the first time in the 1940s. And now you're just like, trust me, we should go into Venezuela. It doesn't make a lot of sense for me. Trump lashed out at him on that same playing gaggle and said he's inclined to keep Exxon mobile out of Venezuela after the CEO skeptical response. So I just, is that the president's job? Like does the president of the United States get to decide what companies invest in other countries? I get apparently that's, this is the new free market conservatism. The Donald Trump just, if you're a gas, oil and gas CEO, you got to suck up to Trump. Yeah. The president does just get to decide in this and in other areas, it turns out, all such things. And the whole, I think it was executive order he issued, I think quietly on Friday also that doesn't, I couldn't quite understand it at first. I think I got this, it doesn't allow the oil companies to go to court basically, I think, and try to recoup the funds that were taken from them somewhat illegitimately. Maybe they say at least by the previous Fed as well, like government in 2000, you know, under Chavez or whatever. But Trump doesn't want that. That's actually very revealing. Like, as he said, he wanted to get back all the money that was stolen. He doesn't want that was he wants, but that would just let Exxon and everyone else whoever's about go to court and get whatever they can get. No, he wants to control that money. He wants to give it to the people he favors. The whole thing's a fantasy. And of course, the oil thing, how much, or they're going to get, how easy it's going to get, be to get, how much difference it'll make on the oil market, which is in any case, not, we're not short of oil right now. Prices have come down or not lie. But anyway, leaving aside the whole Trump fantasy about oil stuff, it's, it is revealing that yes, he wants to control it. This is about him being you know, more authoritarianism in this case abroad, but also back at home, right? Because it does end up he controls what the oil companies do here. And he wants to control the more. The energy secretary, Chris Wright, said the US is thinking about taking ownership stakes in oil companies like they did in Intel. Like this is like beyond Bernie Sanders level fantasies. Like the whole thing is about controlling and manipulating these CEOs. And I know that I'm a broken record on this and that that good on the exon guy for speaking out and for a couple that we've seen on the Fed thing. I just don't understand why these guys are going along with this. The hair would be on so on fire that Kamala Harris was president and had the oil and gas CEOs in and was like, no, you have to, you got to say these magic woke words for me to allow you to drill. And if you don't do it, I'm going to ban you from drilling and insult you publicly. Joe Kernan would have had a heart attack on Squawk box by now. Like he would be so red in the face screaming about the socialism. And they have been screaming about the social god, fifth mom, Donny sets up five tiny little grocery stores in New York or gets a little tougher on some of the real estate guys. If California passes it probably or tries to enforce probably it'll advise whatever tax on the wealth of billionaires, probably would just be counterproductive. They'll leave, but whatever, though that's the end of that's it. That's the end of capitalism. This is so beyond the pale. We can't even have a discussion about it or pretend that it's anything but an assault on everything we hold dear in this capitalist country of ours. But Trump has gone so far beyond mom, Donny, even what my daddy wants from, you know, even if you were constrained by all these other characters, Trump's not constrained. But even so far, mom, Donny, so far beyond Gavin Newsom, that's all. Is anyone complaining? I don't know. I mean, they did finally get alarmed about Powell as we were saying, but I don't know. Are they all screaming about this? Maybe I missed that. I give the ex-boyfriend credit for just saying it. I guess maybe X times is so big. He doesn't care or he just felt he had to be honest that it was unusual. Yeah, he's just being blunt. What happened to that? Those are the kind of old guys I liked. There was kind of a type of old guy that was just very, you know, I've seen a lot of things, you know, and I'm just like, I'm just going to be blunt about what I think about this and not engage in your pipe dreams. More of that would be welcome among the CEO class. You say that sounds so big. It's like whatever, Apple's so big. Yeah, fair enough. Amazon's so big. What is Jeff Baiz? I, you know, what are they scared about? That he's worried he's not going to get his little, I guess, penis rocket to get into space approved. And that's what matters to him now. I don't know. Trump posed a meme of himself as acting president of Venezuela also. I just want to say that. Post a meme, it was a picture of him Wikipedia, acting president of Venezuela. That seems like a mistake to me. Actually, that seems like a legitimate mistake. And I want to get into why here as we look into 2028 in America first stuff, but this Venezuela thing could end up as a disaster. And who knows? Like right now, they've made the decisions to do everything they can to guard against there being instability. You know, it's like, we'll leave the vice president in there. We'll leave the kill squads in there. You know, we'll do it. We'll, you know, buy people off. But, you know, you don't control everything. It's a big country. Venezuela is, you know, and there's other groups and interests. And I don't know. I just think that little, that little picture of Trump is acting president of Venezuela. If this turns into a total shit show, might be something that they could stick with people. Yeah. No, I think so. The mission accomplished sort of thing, right? And I don't know. Did they elect him to be acting president of Venezuela? There's a little bit of still, I think fragmenting of the Maca base to be done here if people aggressively push on this, don't you think? Yeah, that takes us to 2028 and other stuff. My notes say America first, 2028 here. Steve Bannon, my friend of me, that's right. But me and Bannon have gone around the bend quite a few times together. And he leached to acts. Yes, not to the bulwark, looking at a 2028 run. He said that he's not, it doesn't actually think that he could win. But it's about advancing the agenda potentially. I guess I just throw out there that Donald Trump didn't think he could win when he got in either. So I don't think that Bannon doesn't have that in the back of his mind. I think that he's just trying to say what feels like he needs to say at the moment. But it's notable that you have Bannon out there, compelling speaker, would actually have an argument for being genuine in America first. And if you imagine a potential 2028 primary where JD Vance is trying to straddle the old more traditional republicanism with the America first Tucker crowd, and you've got Bannon there basically, as the jockey on the horse, kind of whipping him anytime that he sort of gets off track. I could have real impacts on that, on how a race turns out. And I just, I also think that like, if it's banned or somebody else, like Trump is leaving an opening for this right now, just across the, especially if the economy doesn't get better, so you'll get worse. It is not hard to come up with an America first argument against the Trump vans administration from the right or from the populist right or whatever. That just basically says these guys ended up caring more about Kennedy Center and East Wing and Venezuela and the Peace Prize. And you guys got left behind and we're not, we'll keep up the immigration fascism. And then besides that, focus on you. And Bannon can say truthfully, he was for Trump from the beginning, which JD Vance certainly wasn't a Marco Rubio certainly wasn't. He was he went into the White House. He was willing to criticize others and he warned about what was going to happen in the first term, which from their point of view is correct. He warned that McMaster and all these characters like and Bolton and Gary Cohn and all these people were not really on board what Trump wanted to do. And that's why he could, he will say he got shoved out. And he warned about that for the next three years. Then out of power, he was for Trump, I think pretty much all the way. Wasn't he? And yeah, for sure. And he went to jail for Trump. Unlike him. He went to jail for Trump. What did JD Vance give up? Yeah, who toured with DeSantis or maybe Vance, but anyway, who had their own whatever agendas. And then coming back in, he wanted to help Trump and he helped him on some stuff. But unfortunately, Trump got captured again by some bad people. I think it's in a way, I mean, I don't overthink this. And I don't know that you were, our endorsement of that would help him really in the in the Republican primary. But, but I mean, he has a pretty good way of being both the Trumpy candidate and the candidate who warned against the betrayal of Trump at the same time. You know what I mean? And it's only I was thinking about this, would Trump personally, who would he prefer? Let's assume he's not running, which may well be, but let's assume there's no John Jr. He's got to be worried about what he would want someone in there who would not want to cause any trouble for him. And I think in a way he probably would judge the ban and would be more loyal than Vance or Rubio. I think that's could well be true instantly. Yeah, maybe. I mean, again, Bannon went to jail for him. Bannon went to jail for him. So that probably tells Trump that he could be, he could live with Bannon in there. So that testifies. So Bannon, Bannon 20, we worked that out, Bannon 2028. Yeah, I don't know. Not for it. Not for it. I just think that objectively, analytically, I agree. Like there is space that Trump has created the space for someone to run, whether that's Bannon or someone else is an authentic America first person. And if JD Vance decides to go down with the Trump ship and apologize for everything he's doing and pretend like there's an America first rationale for Venezuela and for all this other nonsense that Trump is doing with the fact that he was an ever Trumper. And I was going back looking some of JD's old blog posts with Lee Kent. There's one where he's talking about how can conservatives who distrust the government on the government's able to efficiently run all these other things like the post office, etc. How can we then turn around and say that the government can efficiently run a deportation campaign of 12 million people? That was JD Vance and 10 years ago. I just, he's phony. He's phony. And no matter how much he sucks up to Trump now, the vulnerability of being phony will always be there. I don't know. I think it's interesting. Tucker, speaking of the America first wing, Tucker was at the White House had lunch with Trump. Trump gave him as a gift, a pair of brown wing tips, not a brown shirt. I was thinking a brown shirt would have been more appropriate, but he gave him a tip, a pair of brown wing tips. I don't know what to make of that exactly. But it's certainly, there was this whole controversy on the right where people were trying to define MAGA in their own ways and like these more establishment types for like the Heritage Foundation is being too nice to Tucker and TPUSA is being too nice to Tucker and that's wrong. And real, if you look at Trump, he's not actually listening to Tucker. And there he is, Trump at Tucker having lunch with Trump after advancing a bunch of Nazi shit and conspiracies, etc, etc. Half the Heritage Board and half the Heritage staff, I think quit because of the fact that their president at Heritage wouldn't repudiate Tucker enough. And now Trump, the president, is having a cheerful lunch with the guy after he's indulged with all these anti-Semites and all this other horrible stuff. Let's tell you a lot. Tells you a lot where the MAGA coalition is and how, again, the radicalization of everything. So now, you can't quite probably have what's that guy's name, Fuentes, to lunch at the White House, but you can be Fuentes adjacent and be Trump and MAGA and that's MAGA today. So the accelerationism is both on the policy side and in the kind of coalitional side, right? I mean, of MAGA, I think. Yeah. I mean, Tucker gave Nick Fuentes like a to us, called a softball interview, it'd be an understatement. It was more of like a blowjob of an interview that Tucker gave Nick Fuentes and then complimented him after and he didn't say they disagree on things. Just like that would be Tucker's defensive. But he gives him this massive platform and puffs him up and glazes him and then he's at the White House a couple weeks later having lunch. Speaking of other vulnerabilities on the America First side, I've been thinking this for a while and it's touchy about how to handle it. But I do think that the Democrats potentially have an angle here too. And I've been interested in particular in seeing the launch ad from Mary Peltola. She's an Alaska congresswoman, tragically lost her husband and playing crash recently, was a Democrat who is heavily being recruited to run for Senate, decided to get in the race today. And my being, I think it's the most important recruitment that the Democrats have had because it legitimately adds another state to the potential myth. It's a stretch. It's Alaska. There's no doubt it's a stretch. But she assiduously maintained like an independent brand in Alaska. And she has kind of a funny slogan. It's like fish, family, freedom. Like she's, she's like really focuses on parochial Alaska issues and being independent. And she did a whole launch video, which we'll put in the notes show notes for people that you can watch like three minutes. But I just want to play the last 10 seconds of it because it's interesting the argument she's trying to make. Let's listen to it. Ted Stevens often said to hell with politics, put Alaska first. It's about time Alaskans teach the rest of the country what Alaska first and really America first looks like. You know, the whole ad is about Alaska first and about focusing on Alaska and these lower 48 assholes don't know anything. And, and you know, the cost of living is higher here than anywhere. People don't even believe us when we tell them how high the cost of living here is. And, and then the ad ends with we should be Alaska first and also America first are a real kind of America first. And I know both you and I blanch at that because he, you know, it has a lot of baggage, the phrase, but it also resonates with people who don't understand historical baggage. And so I don't begrudge her trying to co-opt it. And, and I think that Trump is leaving himself very vulnerable here. And I'm going to be super interested to watch Mary Paltola. I've been on this show several times said I'm not super impressed with the Democrats recruiting in these red states right now. And I think that there's stuff that's in play and they have to jump on it right now. And this is the first one I've, I, you know, I'm not predicting she's going to win, but I think that I'm interested in the campaign and how she's positioning herself. Very much agree. And you know, she won, I guess she won the congressional seat in 2022. Is that right? I got the chronology, I think, right, which was the last off your election. And that's a statewide race in Alaska. So, you know, she won the same, the same electorate, the person who will vote in 2026, she beat a Republican and Dan Sullivan's in incumbent, maybe a little tougher. But is Dan Sullivan still in the Senate? Is that right? Yeah, you've noticed how courageous he's. Dan Sullivan that she's running against? I think so. Yeah. And you notice he's been a real profiling courage. I mean, he's surprised. I've seen his statement this morning supporting Tom Tillis on the Fed. I've seen him condemn the brutality of the ICE agencies. I mean, I know you Dan Sullivan back in the day when he first got elected. I think that would be right. He's elected in 14 and then reelected in 20. So it'd be 26. And I know Dan Sullivan a bit. And I think he's a nice man and impressive service and the military, but he's been a profile in non-courage. Disappearance in absence. Yeah. Honestly, it's just like, if you would have said to me, I knew this now, like I've done this this year because I've been, I've been locked in on, on looking at potential stretch seats for the Democrats 2026 map. But like if in September of 2024 you'd said, you'd said to me, you know, is Dan Sullivan still the U S Senator from Alaska? I think I would have been like, I think so. I just, I wasn't, I'm not sure. I, he's been that, he's been a ghost. And so I don't know. And I think that could potentially harm him with my, I don't think the MAGA people are like super excited about Dan Sullivan or feel like he's been a huge advocate for them. So I don't know. Alaska is so weird. And, you know, I don't want to pretend like I'm an expert on the eccentricities of Alaska politics, but like you said, she won the statewide thing already. And we'll be interesting to monitor that race, Mary Peltole. Hey, it's Ryan Ripken for Auto Stream Car Care Centers. You're never too far away from the best auto repair and customer service in Maryland. As a family run business, Auto Stream Car Care is dedicated to quality car repairs and helping the community from oil changes to factory scheduled maintenance or even major repairs. Auto Stream has 10 locations to serve you. Make sure your family is safe with the car care experts at Auto Stream. Visit auto stream car care.com today. It's so weird. This app shows that my credit score is pretty good, but I couldn't get the car loan. Are you using myfico.com? No, it's some other company. Oh, you should get a my FICO account instead. FICO scores are the ones used by 90% of lenders and other credit scores can vary up to 100 points. That would have been helpful yesterday. Get the scores lenders use. Get the right FICO credit score for your credit goal, including your FICO scores used for mortgages, auto loans, and credit cards. Visit myfico.com or download the My FICO app to get started today. I want to close with, I wanted to get, there's some crazy corruption stories. Do you want to talk about Ron Louder or should we just, I'll do that later this week. I'll tease people. Yeah, do that later. Maybe, yeah. Yeah. The Cosmetics Air, the 81 year old Cosmetics Air, he's expanding. Okay. It's good. He's doing perfume. He's also doing a rare earth snout in Ukraine and Greenland. That's something we're going to talk about later this week. But I want to close with Ron. The protests, bigger than we've seen in years in Iran over the weekend, major crackdown by the regime, thousands killed at this point of the protesters. And Trump kind of played a little footsie with the idea that we might get involved in the press conference yesterday. He did kind of one of those wait and see things that he does. What do you make of what we're seeing and what could be useful at this point? People who know a lot more about this than I do, do think the regime is in real trouble. It'd be good to have some of the instruments of soft power and sort of public diplomacy and ability to help them get their message to the internet. They've shut down the internet there. I think we could do a lot to help them with that. And I'm not sure we are, but I think we're not. And I think in fact, we've disabled parts of the US government that could be pretty good at that. No, maybe he and Musk could get together and really decide to help people who are genuinely fighting for freedom against a horrible regime there. So that would be nice, but we'll see if he does anything more than bluster. Look, you know better than anybody. It's complex and our role is complex because simultaneously, the more the US is publicly seen as being on the side of the protests, the worse it is for them internally. Not always, but it can backfire, I guess, it would be a more accurate way to put it. But also too, like unarmed protesters aren't going to overthrow the regime. Right? And if you look at Syria, like what did it take to overthrow Assad? It was like basically Turkish backed militia groups, you know, in short, that ended up getting rid of Assad. And so like, if this is actually going to work in overthrowing the regime, you know, you need either internal defection from the military, you know, or the US or some other combination of outside, you know, maybe Arab countries like providing weapons and resources to the folks that are on the ground. Like that's just right. I mean, it's not the thing doesn't just collapse just because a lot of people are in the streets. And like that's kind of a complicating factor here. And the Assad regime collapsed when Joe Biden was president. And I would, you know, point out to all my just beating Trump, you know, defending friends, oh, I see he's really much doing much more to get rid of Maduro. And Biden, I believe I really don't, I think this is correct. Quietly was willing to let others help the people who did end up deposing Assad, really the Turkish based forces there. And we're not in great terms with Turkey. We got all kinds of issues that are wrong. But you know what, that's part of what you do is you do that stuff quietly and behind the scenes and you ended up with a real victory for freedom there. We'll see how that works out in Turkey, Syria, but so far better than it was certainly. And I don't know, is Trump administration even have the wit to do anything resembling that in terms of getting others to help behind the scenes to get real support to these people who deserve it? I wish they did, but there's no evidence of it. It'd be nice. That's something good happening in the world. You know, we've had a lot of the forces of autocracy and authoritarianism have advanced quite a bit in the last decade. So it would be nice to have an advance for people that want freedom. Just to go all for 30 seconds of us, of neocon kind of, you know, people want freedom. I mean, are we allowed to say that anymore? I mean, it's sort of encouraging that they do and it's an all honor to them and they're being unbelievably courageous. And there's something heartening about that, right? We are allowed to say it on the Bulwark podcast at least. It is heartening. And I'm hoping for continued positive progress there. So we'll keep monitoring it. And if it reaches a boiling point, we'll bring on somebody with more expertise on what's happening in Iran. So any final thoughts from you, Bill? A little resistance? Do you want to give us a French, do you have a French poem that you want to share? No, no, I just struck that. I'll just take 30 seconds on this. I mean, it became sort of fashion. I noticed this on the last few couple of weeks, people were saying, well, I'm not a resist lib, but, you know, and they were about to make perfectly sense and point that I agreed with. I thought, I don't know, why can't we just say we're all resist libs now? You know, let's just get beyond that. Maybe we were right not to be incidentally, six months ago or certainly two or three years ago, there were more complicated aspects of building a broad opposition, but we should be resist libs. And that gets to what you said about Mary Patolta. I mean, if she's going to have to say America first to win, go for it. People need to stop messing around. We need to, the Senate is really important actually in 26, more than just winning the House. And if it takes Mary Patolta saying that one thing and someone else saying something else, I am, as long as they are going to stop what Trump is doing, I'm for it. Amen. We're all resist libs now. Thanks so much to Bill, as always. Finally, I went also fairly well to the great Bob Weir, who died over the weekend. He meant a lot to so many of my friends. And I know so many of you have heard from you with emails over the weekend. The Grateful Dead was essential to much the music that changed my life. And I think there are others who are much better suited to offer credible tributes to Bobby. So I'll just leave you all with a little bit of his music and may the four wins blow him safely home. We'll see you back here tomorrow for another edition of the Bull Work podcast. Peace. There's nothing like your first Mac. Here's what people online are sharing. At Dr. Rainne says, everything is just so smooth and fast, I still can't get over it. Sinking stuff between my phone and this is just chef's kiss. At Mr. Incredible 488 says, Apple Silicon basically cures low battery trauma. That's how they felt with their first Mac. How will you? Introducing the all-new Mac book, Neo. An amazing Mac at a surprising price. Find out more on Apple.com. Did you know 39% of teen drivers admit to texting while driving? Even scarier, those who text are more likely to speed and run red lights. Shockingly, 94% know it's dangerous, but do it anyway. 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