Bill Kristol: Make It the Summer of Epstein

Hello and welcome to the board podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. It is Monday. So, of course, we are here with editor-at-large Bill Crystal. There's so much news to talk about we're going to try to carve out some time for the NBA at the end, since Donald Trump is sullying the beauty of the NBA finals. But Bill, how you doing? on, good weekend for you?

Yeah, good. The Knicks, maybe not aware of that. The Nix, the Knicks look strong, right? We'll get to that at the end. We'll race through all the other topics to get to the Nix. You're looking nice in that green polo. It's a good color for you. All right, let's talk about what's happening in Iran. I'm just going to run through the last 24 hours. We're very much deep into the Groundhog Day portion of the Iran war. But here we go. Yesterday, Israel is carrying out strikes against Hezbollah forces in Beirut. This prompted Iran to fire missiles at Israel.

Trump then urged Israel not to return fire and for both sides to stop shooting. Really strong. That's a strong man right there. Say, after you've been bombed, do nothing. Israel nevertheless responded. They were not moved by Donald Trump's pleas. They launched air strikes against Iran early this morning. Following that, Iran announced that they're halting military action in Israel.

Israel continues to strike Lebanon. Axios's Barack Ravid post another siren alarm tweet. about how Trump says we are in a ceasefire and a deal is coming soon, and the stock market is up. So I don't know what you make of all that. In some senses, a increase in hostilities in another way, it's just kind of a different version of the same story that we've seen for the last 100 days or so.

Yeah, I do think it's Groundhog Day pretty much. I mean, a couple of little tidbits that are amusing, not abusing, but depressing about our commander-in-chief. He seems to have called your friend Barack Wavid at Axios before calling BB to directly tell him not to retaliate. He was like, I didn't, I mean, isn't that right? I mean, you could talk to several reporters. There's a New York Post reporter he also spoke to.

There's a third one I'm forgetting. It's unusual management of the war, certainly, to have the ally that you're in war with, for better or worse, get attacked, and then for you to immediately start telling media outlets that you want them not to retaliate. And you're about to call their prime minister to tell them,

I think the gulf between Trump and Nis and Yahoo and really between the U.S. and Israel is probably greater than they're letting on. And then we might think given history and given it both real history of over decades, but also history of Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu, which has been a lot of close coordination, obviously. And let's not forget that we got into this war, BB's urging. He's allowed to urge the U.S. to do it. I don't think it proves anything inappropriate, but he urged the U.S. to do it. had this moment of opportunity to bump off the top leadership and we took it. So I wonder really where, once this ends, and I kind of still think it will, this Trump really, really, really doesn't want it to continue, as we've seen. It will end, of course, with Iran having some ability to just shut the

straight again. I mean, it's not going to be true free passage where God knows the nuclear program. They can kick that down the road, I suppose. They'll arrange to get some money to Iran through the Gulf states. All of our allies will have lost total faith at us. But I think one thing that will happen over the next several months, I wouldn't be surprised to see the administration turn against Israel. And then you really have an interesting moment, right, for MAGA and for the Republican Party, I think. I definitely agree that's possible. A couple of other ways to look at this. I don't think this is happening right now, but I think it bears mentioning that Trump and Beebe have done the good cop, bad cop thing in the past.

It doesn't appear that that's what's happening now, you know, where Trump kind of pretended like he wanted peace and to give cover for BB to continue to prosecute wars. We saw this in Gaza and other places. So it's possible. I don't think that's what's happening now, but it bears mentioning. I think the one element of what happened yesterday that makes it slightly different from what we've seen for the past three months is if there are continued hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah and Israel and Iran, and if Trump can't contain that or can't credibly say that he wants to contain that and a negotiation. I do think that further complicates, you know, his ideal to get a final deal. I mean, Iran's, it's hard to even say what each side's terms are to end the war because the ball is moving on both sides a lot.

You can't really trust anything coming out of, you know, either party. But if you take, you know, Iran's stated metrics for ending the war, you know, one of them is tell Israel to stop attacking Lebanon. They want reparations for the finances lost. You know, they want, you know, some element of control over the straits. to form moves and they want Israel to stop attacking Lebanon. And if Trump can't promise that as part of the deal, then that complicates the deal somewhat. And I do think that that's kind of the one development from yesterday that is newish and relevant.

And it highlights the fact that Iran has made this a demand and it's being treated seriously as a demand. So that Trump is in fact telling Benjamin Netanyahu, hey, lay off on Hezbollah too much because it's going to screw up the deal with Iran. But that's really amazing when you think about it. All of Israeli strategy for the last several years has been, and it's been quite successful, incidentally, in totally degrading Hezbollah and limiting that thread, obviously post-October 7th that was belated and then attacking Iran, you know, for other reasons. One of the reasons being to weaken Iran's hold on its proxies, and that's been the, and then they seem to be doing a pretty good job of that until this war. I mean, one of the 19 different bad effects of this war is that it's restored Iran's ability to

have to claim control and probably to exercise control over its proxies and make an attack on Hezbole and attack on Iran. That was never Iran incidentally positioned or policy in the past. They might talk to good game, but they never actually gotten to fights because Israel went into Lebanon or anything like that. I mean, they might do a little terrorist on the side, but the actual launching of missiles against Israel. So the extent of the damage Trump has done to U.S. credibility, U.S. foreign policy, all of our

allies' interests, it's a pretty astonishing achievement, you know, for one. stupid war. I guess the last thing I've said this several times, but I kind of note ever want this topic to go by anymore without mentioning just how humiliating and weak it is, just because like it is truly unimaginable, like that Barack Obama would do something like this, start a war, demand, unconditional surrender, and then start tweeting, please, baby, don't bomb. I mean, honestly, like the people at Fox News could not contain themselves. I'm talking about, you know, how much he's a bicycle riding, a rugelating, you know, weak leftists. And Trump has demonstrated more weakness and less resolved than any president that we've had in modern times

in this war. And I just think that continues to bear mentioning. Speaking of Trump being weak and erratic, he was on Meet the Press yesterday and could not handle the tough questions from Kristen Welker and had a temper tantrum stormed off. I did a kind of full, you know, sports center style breakdown of the tape over on the board takes feed if people want to check that out. But I was just wondering, Bill, what you're in a big picture of thoughts were on the interview. And Trump goes real domestic.

It's in Wisconsin ostensibly as part of some proactive messaging about how the administration is caring about farm country. And despite the fact that farm country is getting eviscerated by their policies. And so, you know, they were there by some big tractors. The rain was hitting the barn roof. And so the audio was very strange. And he ends up melting down on leaving on the top. of the 2020 election, but there's a bunch of other stuff in there, too. I don't know what struck you. I think your coverage was excellent, and people should watch that, and then they can skip

the interview, not that they were going to watch it anyway. I've got to think. I certainly didn't, but you see clips of it in your coverage, so that's good. The 2020 election, again, people treated a little bit too much like, well, he's obsessed with it. It's kind of weird. He's obsessed with it because he's going to try to do it again. I do think that's why he's so both insistent on promoting the lie and at every opportunity, but also very sort of sensitive about the discussion. of the lie. Extremely sensitive. What do you make of that?

I mean, you watched the whole show so we didn't have to and commented on. What is going on with him? I like to turn to George Conway for armchair psychological analysis of Trump, but since he's still in a campaign, I'll do my best to fill the role. Are you ever getting to a fight? I'm sure this never happens to you, Bill, with your spouse, where you kind of know that you're wrong. There's one point in which you sort of know that they have you, but you don't want to give in

because for whatever reason, you're defensive, you're in a grumpy mood. You want to make your broader point. And so kind of go over the top, you know, you lose your cool a little bit because somewhere deep down, you know, you know that they have you. I think that that's what's happening basically with Trump on this, right? It's just like, it seems like he's talking to the press a lot, but he's not because he's talking mostly to people that just suck up to him. And they're in these very managed settings where he can just, if he does get a hard question, he just like calls Caitlin Susan Collins ugly or whatever and then moves

on to the next person, right? And like, that's how he behaves. So it seems like he's getting on, but he's never really getting challenged on this stuff. And Kristen, I really wasn't even challenging that hard. It was just she was doing the natural reporter thing following up saying, like, you don't have any evidence of this. It's relevant now in particular for a couple of reasons. One, he's making up lies about California. And two, he wants to give that slush fund to the people who are allegedly victims of, you know, his lies. And so he can't, like, provide any actual evidence or data.

And so he ends up lashing out. And I think it's extremely important. I saw Charlie Gasparino of Fox News or Fox Business being like, why do we even care about this anymore? It's five years old. It's like it's extremely relevant to the policies that he's putting forth right now, whether you want to get appointed to cabinet level positions, the slush fund, California, their plans for the midterms.

I mean, it all is related to his, like, delusions, self-delusions about 2020. What implication of what you're saying, though, is that as his popularity goes down and it gets the sense that maybe he won't be able to pull all this off. He won't be able to do it all by elections legitimately and that he worries maybe. He won't be able to pull it even off with Bill Pulte and Todd Blanche and all these people, even if they get in. He gets more desperate.

He gets more radicalized, right? I guess that's the way to say it, right? The anger would fit in with a sort of increased disregard for, I don't care what people say about it. I don't care if people can tell me it looks bad or I'm losing some swing voters. He doesn't care at this point. Lashing out.

And really, in my psychological analysis, it's probably less that you or me in a fight with our spouse. And it's more like a child or when I was a kid. I changed my report card in sixth grade, which I did one time. You know, and then I finally got called. I finally got called to the mat on it. You better not run for office. I know.

That could be big. Yeah. I know. The most embarrassing thing is I think I just changed a minus to a plus. I don't know. It was something extremely embarrassing. But whatever it was, when I got caught, it's like you first, before getting to acceptance

and asking for apologies, it's like tantrum. you know, screaming. How could you accuse me of this? You know, and there is a little bit of that. He's like a child having a tantrum. And I do think that it will, you know, continue to get more and more alarming, you know, as we get closer to the end. So that's the thing to be concerned about it. But the good news is, Tim, that the Republican members of Congress, they see what you see.

And they act accordingly. They're going to act accordingly. They're going to put more guard rails and place and check him and not just go along because they know how dangerous would be just to passively go along with this. increasingly deranged at authoritarian president. Okay. Well, I appreciate your optimism, Bill. Keep an eye on that. All right, Father's Day is coming up,

and we're actually celebrating my dad's retirement this week. So it's a double for me. I had a little bit of Reiders block on my retirement toast, but it just came to me in the shower over the weekend, and I'm very happy about that. So I don't know. Hopefully Dad's not listening to this, but I'm excited about the toast.

It can be hard to stay connected, though, with your father if you're living away like I am. And one thing that you can do if you haven't already as a Father's Day gift is aura frames. We gave my parents the aura frame and they love it. It's a great way to make sure they aren't missing out on any of the big moments. And they get excited every time a new picture shows up on the frame. I saw a dude out at Jazz Fest, young guy who was fucking pumped about the aura frame that he had delivered to his mother on Mother's Day as a result of this very advertisement. So how's that for an endorsement? ORAFrains have free unlimited storage.

You can add as many photos and videos as you want. You can preload photos before it ships and keep adding from anywhere, any time from your phone. They're using the free ORA app or texting photos straight to the frame. And ORAFraFames also makes it easy to personalize your gift for your father. You can add a little message before it arrives. It's named number one by wirecutter.

You can save now by visitingoraFraimbs.com. For limited time, listeners can get $35 off. Select frames with code the bulwark. That's A-U-R-A-Frames.com promo code, the bulwark. Support the show by mentioning us at checkout terms and conditions apply. One example of where Republicans in the Senate could do that. How about this for a transition is Todd Blanche is being officially put forth as the permanent attorney general, which means I have to go through a confirmation hearing, which I expected this year for reasons we've discussed before,

which is that, you know, on the one hand, you could have kept him as acting into next year, but then he's not confirmable. Basically, the options for Trump was to try to confirm them this year when they have a Senate majority that's big enough to potentially do it or going to do a musical chair as of acting attorneys general for the rest of the term. And they seem to be going through the formal route, which I guess is not nothing. You wrote about the upcoming confirmation and how Democrats should think about that. So talk about your newsletter this morning. Then there are a couple other elements of it I think we're worth getting into. Just an obvious point.

There are many lawyers and judges, for that matter. many Republican lawyers in the country, and unfortunately, quite a number of them were pro-Trump. Some of them would even have some qualifications to be nominated as Attorney General, members of Congress, judges, anyways, worth getting into, because he's chosen one man, Todd Blanche, and was the one most distinctive thing he's done. He organized and executed the Epstein cover-up. That's his claim to fame, right? I mean, Pam Bondi testified about 10 days ago and really explained.

I mean, she was partly just ducking, but she was, I think, telling the truth. This was Todd's baby, and he did it. And I just go through some of the things he said in the course of both executing the cover-up. Of course, the famous visit to Ghislaine Maxwell and then moving her to the nicer facility as a reminder that she could be in her interest to keep quiet about Trump. And maybe better things will be coming at some point down the road. Trump hasn't ruled out of pardon there. And then obviously he's been publicly out there defending Epstein, or as he calls him, Mr. Epstein.

I was really struck by that in the interview with Laura Ingram where he says he makes this astonishing comment that's gotten a lot of publicity, but you get even more that it's not a crime, it isn't a crime, to party with Mr. Epstein, you know. He really says that two or three times. He thought that was a good talking point. It was really kind of mind-boggling.

But Laura Ingram asked the question in a normal way. This isn't testifying before Congress where one gets all maybe sort of formal, not the most Trump administration, people do that. But anyway, maybe that Todd Blanche's just, I haven't looked at all the transcripts, you know. this is literally on Laura Ingo's television show.

Laura Ingalls says, well, what about Epstein? Some pretty bad things happen at this party, Todd Blanche. It isn't a, Laura, it isn't a crime to party with Mr. Epstein. He adds the honorific mister. It's like, really? Does he refer to all the people he's defended sending to unjustly to El Salvador? Mr. Hernandez-Ramaro or whatever? Yeah, do you think he's very careful to always put the honorific in front of all men?

Mr. Evergo-Garcia? Yeah, Mr. Alex Pready. I'm somewhat a little doubtful that he's been so careful at all these cases. But Epstein. Epstein is Mr. Epstein. Mr. Epstein. Anyway, they just need to hang Epstein around his neck ruthlessly and totally, totally fair to do it. And just make the Republican senators who want to vote, if they're going to vote to confirm, Todd Blanche,

they're confirming that they approve of the Epstein cover up. They think there's no reason why anything further should have been looked at. Any of the survivors should have been taken seriously. anyone else should have been investigated or prosecuted, really wrap it around their necks. I like the honorific point, but I think your most important observation there is about how it's prospective, right? Is that that with Mr. Todd Blanche in charge of the Department of Justice, the Epstein coverable continue? Yeah. And I don't imagine that he has a great answer for that, right? Like, he can, you know, do the same gish glop, you know, nonsense about the past and what happened

and why they were delaying and why they were reviewing documents. He's good on all that. But when it comes to the question of, well, are the rest of the documents going to be put forth? Are there going to be additional investigations? I can't imagine he has a good answer. I could lie, I guess, and say we're looking into it or whatever. But I think it's pretty clear that if you put in the point person for the Epstein coverup

and at the top of the Department of Justice, the Epstein cover will continue. So I think that is an important part of his confirmation. The other part is the nomination for Attorney General is not going to be the thing that makes or breaks the Republican senators in these swing Senate states. Obviously, like, it's just not an issue that is that broadly of concern to the public. But it's still pretty noteworthy that you will have Houston, Dan Sullivan, and Susan Collins, three people who are going to claim to be moderate, claim to be middle of the road, you know, claim to be sensible Republicans as they run for. election in Alaska, Ohio, and Maine, respectively. You would think that Trump would need at least one of them in order to get Todd Blanche confirmed. And, you know, I haven't heard anything from any of them.

I think that it puts them in a little bit of a tough political position. It's hard for you to kind of look at me with a straight face and say Susan Collins is a moderate that needs to be defended in the Senate, if she's even open to the idea of confirming the person that orchestrated the Epstein cover-up that came up with the Kakamamee slush fund that was going to pay $1.8 billion to insurrectionists. And Todd Blanche is obviously unqualified for this job on so many levels. And I think that will be one of several things that put somebody like Susan Collins in a tough spot. Yeah, I think, look, normally as you say, at Attorney General, any cabinet confirmation really pretty hard to elevate it to the level

that one could elevate it perhaps, except Epstein. That is kind of a huge, huge, huge issue. And if you can make this about Epstein, I think suddenly it may be even dwarfs some of the other debates we're going to have. It could become the debate of the summer. You know, Trump may get a Supreme Court nomination or two. They'll presumably be pretty well

prepared for that, and the Democrats historically have not been great in dominating that debate. I think they might be better this time, but still, so I would, just from a political point of view, that we want to have a huge debate about Epstein all summer. Yeah, and I think that that is something that can trickle down to your point into the main Ohio, Alaska Senate race, right? Which is Donald Trump's putting up a guy that's going to continue the Epstein cover-up, and Susan Collins and Dan Sullivan and John Hustead will see, but seem to be going along with that.

On the other nominations front, so Bill Pulte, who has put forth to be the acting Director of National Intelligence, absurd nomination, of course. So interesting things are happening there. We are finally seeing some minor Republican backbone on this one. And basically going along with the Democrats, they're using this FISA reauthorization as kind of like the hostage to try to prevent Bill Pulte from becoming DNI saying that they won't reauthorize FISA if Bill Pulte is in there. I think that's interesting. Does Trump actually care about that that much unclear? unclear, but we have kind of an example of something that I know you've been arguing about for a lot over the last year and a half, which is, you know, Democrats are the minority,

and also a handful of Republicans, like actually using the levers of power they have to try to limit Trump from kind of his worst instincts and impulses. The Democrats who are ranking on the two committees in the House and the Senate of the Intelligence Committee had kind of signed off on a deal on Section 702 on the FISA East and how it affects Americans. That's Heim's in the House, right? Who's in the Senate? Yeah, and Mark Warner in the Senate.

So Heim's sort of hesitant to sort of, he thinks this important program, which we knows a lot about, and maybe he's right, probably right. Still, he was hesitant to sort of say no with Bill Pulte there. I'm not willing to necessarily not reauthorized 702. I believe he finally, on Friday, he sort of came around on that. And I think it's pretty obvious that you cannot have this guy Bill Pulte running. Odie and I, with everything that we've already seen Tulsi Gabbard do in terms of election interference. Foreign election interference is the excuse for the national intelligence

world to get involved in our elections. And Tulsi Gabbard already has tried to use that to get involved in Fulton, Georgia. We now see Trump's eagerly charging fraud in California. I mean, why won't the next thing be if Bill Pulte's in there the two weeks from now? Oh, got some interesting intelligence findings here about munking around with the vote in California. I mean, it's very dangerous 26. It's infinitely more dangerous for 28, obviously. Warner has been a little more hesitant than but he seems he loves that, you know, he's worked well with Tom Cotton. I just heard him say that on something recently I know, and he's proud of some of the reforms they've added to the 702 program.

I can't judge if they're serious or not. So I'd say there's still a little bit of reluctance to play real hardball here, but this isn't hardball. I mean, this is honestly, this guy's so mind-bogglingly on qualified. And, this doesn't require a huge, a big reversal by Republicans in Congress. It doesn't require a policy change that Republicans don't love. Like it requires Trump literally just not appointing Bill Pulte to be the acting director of national intelligence, a job that he's adding to Bill Pulte's other jobs.

It's so ludicrous anyway. No one's even saying that he has to fire Bill Pulte from the housing job, that we should be fired from that too for what he's done. No one's saying that he has to put in someone we like a lot in national intelligence, just withdraw it. So I think they should really make that case more energetically, honestly. Trump can solve this problem in one minute. By getting rid of Bill Pulte, you mean?

By just withdrawing his appointment or his planned appointment to be acting director, doesn't require going to Congress, it doesn't require removing him from something he's been doing. He hasn't begun yet, right? This is a very easy one to fix. But why would Trump do that, right? I just, I guess to my end, I think Trump obviously seems more interested in having Bill Pultzzi in their DNI creating problems for his enemies than he cares about Pfizer, the particulars of protecting the country.

Trump doesn't give a fuck about protecting the country. Totally. No, no, no, totally. I just think it's a, the Democrats can make just the point usually. Oh, it's a good message. Yeah, it's kind of good. The Mark Warner thing, Mark Warner seems like a good person, fine person. I think it's too in particular, but it is funny from a political standpoint.

He's up this year. It's like, it's kind of funny that there's sometimes this scuttle butt that you hear about how the Democrats are having their Tea Party moment and the Democrats are following the Republicans down the extremist path. And it's like, Mark Warner didn't even have a primary. I don't know. I'm a middle of the road person and I might have been interested in a Mark Warner primary. I don't know exactly.

it would have looked like, but just a little creative destruction, getting some more ideas in there, maybe pressuring him, a minimum pressuring him to be a little tougher and less willing to talk about how great his partner is. Tom Cotton on Intelligence Committee actions. I don't really believe that Tom Cotton is that great of a partner. Sorry. But here we are. Mark Warner kind of moseying on towards reelection as if we are in a national crisis. something pretty great happened for me on Sunday. I slept in. I slept in.

I didn't go out on Saturday night. I was not hungover. I didn't have to wake up in podcast. I didn't get waking up by my daughter for some reason. And I looked at the clock when I rolled over. I was like, damn, 848. That is a treat. And we might have to give at least some of the credit,

maybe all the credit, to our friends at Helix. My Helix mattress is helping me work on my sleep habits. It keeps me cool and comfortable. Plenty of support and also a little firm. Firm mattress is what I'm looking for. No waking up with random makes and pains that you get from sleeping on the uncomfortable mattress. Plus, Helix makes it easy to upgrade your setup. They deliver your mattress right to your door with free shipping in the U.S.

They got 120-night sleep trial and limited lifetime warranty. With a happy Helix guarantee, you can rest easy with seamless returns and exchanges. go to helixleck sleep.com slash the bulwark for 20% off sitewide. That's helixleck sleep.com slash the bulwark for 20% off site wide. Make sure you enter our show name after checkout so they know we sent you. It's helixleck sleep.com slash the bulwark. Okay. The Department of War is led by Pete Hegseth, a weekend talk show co-host.

And he, to our great embarrassment, was giving a speech. honoring the anniversary of D-Day in France. And the speech just overall was just nauseating. But there was one particular clip that got a lot of tension that I want to play for you. Their legacy demands far more than quiet reflection. It requires our active vigilance. Sadly, today, different European beaches are stormed by different dangerous ideologies. beaches in Spain, in Italy, in Greece, and Bulgaria, boats and men arrive.

When will European capitals do something about that invasion? A lot of issues there. For starters, in that metaphor, he's the Nazis. I just think that's an important thing to bring up. Famously on D-Day was, you know, the allies, the Americans that were storming the beaches, that were trying to ensure that the European capitals were protected from the internal fascists. And so in this metaphor, I guess he's talking about how he wants to defend the capitals from the invaders, which, again, would have put him on the side of being the Nazis.

So that's maybe a miss on the metaphor. On top of that, this whole thing is just, it's so insane where they're at, like where he thinks that the parallel is immigration and that immigration is the apt comparison to what happened in World War II and not Russia's invasion of Ukraine and Russia's menacing of Europe because he's got nothing to say about that because he doesn't think that the Americans should be involved in that. He doesn't think that Americans should be helping to defend European capitals from fascist invasions. He only thinks he only wants to wave his finger at the Europeans and say let in fewer brown people.

That's basically his lesson of D-Day and the brave men. storming the beaches of Normandy is he thinks that the lesson today that we could have learned from them is we should be harsher about the brown immigrants. Yeah, some number of those people storming the beaches, indeed they were the sons and grandsons and great-grandsons, obviously of immigrants, quite a lot of them, quite a high percentage I would expect. So, yeah, who came here for the same reasons a lot of those migrants are coming to Europe. Not that doesn't mean that they should let, maybe they've made some mistakes in immigration policy. Yeah, it's such an unbelievably inappropriate metaphor comparing them to the Nazis, right? As you say, plus the

reversal of who's storming the beaches and who's not and all this. But I mean, it's really kind of grotesque. Just embarrassing. Mark Hurtling, our colleague, when he was still in active duty, when he was a general, a tenant general, gave the speech, maybe 11, 12 years ago, I think shortly before he left, retired at this ceremony. It's an annual ceremony, obviously. And he was, I was in touch with them over the weekend. He was so personally just offended and appalled that this could be happening. This is, you know, such a important ceremonial. A moving one, usually the veteran, the old, old veterans are there, the locals in France, but other Europeans as well take D-Day seriously.

They put flowers on the graves, the American soldiers buried in the famous cemetery in Normandy, but also in other cemeteries in France and Holland and Germany, actually. To use it as an occasion for this is so gross, really. Yeah, it's depressing, honestly. Yeah, it's gross and depressing. It's just like to have this buffoon. giving this kind of like it's not even a high class version of the conservative worldview and it's like a tabloid weekend Fox News version of what the argument would be and it's really

it's really shameful this is where we're at it is striking how much i took the time josted about this on the sunday bowl workshop yesterday and i don't fully understand i guess i underestated a little bit There's a lot of kooky things in Trumpism, you know, a lot of things that I don't like and are deplorable. And there's a lot of just garden variety, racism and bigotry and nativism and all this. But the degree to which the great replacement theory and the re-migration agenda is really at the heart of it. I think I'd sort of underestimated that. You know, there's so many others. I say some many other things that are very unpleasant to say the least.

But he could have done much more of an America-first foreign policy type. It could have had some fake. I don't know what the analogy would be. You know, we have to be strong and tough in Department of War and we have to, weakness doesn't work. But you went right to the re-migration agenda. I don't know.

Are you a little surprised how central that's all become in the second term? I guess it was central in the first term, too. I mean, it's tied to the original Trump escalator speech of the invasion of America. You know, in this way, it's just like Father Coughlin stuff all over again, you know, and it's just a sense that like the real threat is that, you know, these third worldists or whatever are, you know, invading our, you know, pristine Western civilization. And, you know, none of them actually go to Europe either.

Right? This is like the other thing. Like, it's just, it really, I mean, truly, they take the worst examples. Kathy Young wrote about this. And you're in the morning shot this morning, actually. There is this horrible story in London, you know, of a Brit that gets killed by a migrant. and there's a misunderstanding. The police come and the migrant that killed them and actually called the police. And so the police didn't know who the perpetrator was and who the victim was.

And they obviously fucked it up. But they like turned it into this big, you know, sort of example of why, of how immigration is killing London. That's just like, they've never been to London. They don't talk to anyone before. I was in Manchester last summer. I was, I'm telling you, Manchester is not,

there's not an migrant invasion happening. It felt very British. I think, though, their worldview depends on this, right? The, like, the real threat is from, you know, this other. And, like, if you centralize that, then, you know, you don't have to feel so guilty about, you know, being on the side of Russia and Ukraine, for example. Or, you know, some of the other, you know, ways in which they've departed from more, you know, classical Reagan, that's right, conservative ideology. Right, and then they could be on the side of all the neo-Nazis and nativist parties in Europe, which obviously have gained ground in many places.

And so that's also could be one last thing about D-Day, just I was struck by this. Trump, this was Saturday, right, June 6th, and I was looking around on Twitter or whatever, and blue sky and all that. And Trump seemed not to have posted anything yet about D-Day, seemed a little odd for the American president. So I sort of double-checked so much as like good, true social and all, and he seemed not to. So I just pointed that out.

and Volodymyr Zelensky had made a very moving statement about what D-Day meant. Trump had said nothing. But I kind of figured since, you know, 50,000 other people had made the same point by the time I made it, I believe, and social media and elsewhere, I figured, you know, someone in the White House

would fake, you know, would write some vaguely appropriate or even inappropriate thing for Trump to say about D-Day, you know, so he could sort of avoid that criticism. And he never did. You know, he posted about a whole bunch of other things. He had a lot of insane AI photos and went out about that kind of stuff,

in the arch. He loves the arch, and it's going to be great. But he didn't say anything about D-Day, which is somehow very revealing. He thinks that there are suckers and losers, you know. Well, he thinks there's suckers and losers. And the megalomania, the degree to which it's now all and entirely about him, there's no sense that there's like American history, other generations, things that happened in the past, generations we should look back to with gratitude. It has so, it's become so narcissistic and solipsistic that he can't even bring himself to go to the trouble of shouting at one of his aides, right? You know, right, you know, right sentences about D-Day and posted.

You mentioned the arch there. You're mad about the arch. That's interesting. I want to sort of stoke your anger, you know, because it's hard to be mad about everything now and certain things happen that peak my anger, and, you know, listeners can tell when that happens. And for some reason, for you, it's the arch. So I want you to try to get my dander up about the arch.

Because it's one thing, I don't like it, but it's just, I'm not feeling it in my core. So I want you to make the pitch to me about why I should be madder about the arch. I mean, you know, Washington, but so we live in Northern Virginia. There are three bridges, basically. You drive across four maybe to Washington, and one is the Morial Bridge, which has Arlington Cemetery on the Virginia side and basically the Lincoln Memorial

on the Lincoln Memorial on the other, on the D.C. side. And it's a wonderful vista coming either way. And so I do that fairly often. And the arch is supposed to go up smack in the middle of this as a little plot of land. So it's just a circle that it would take up all of, totally dominate. The height is unbelievable 250 feet.

I mean, people who haven't sort of maybe quite internalized how much it would loom over everything, but especially loom over Arlington. So for me, that's really disgusting in a way that I got to say, just, and again, this isn't rational really past. The White House stuff is terrible, believe me. I'm not, you know, the ballroom, the cage match. But I don't know, I think it's the White House, you know, it can be fixed by the next occupant. He's living there. So I guess, you know, he's got, I don't, he doesn't title to ruin the place, but it's sort of more understandable that he's doing so. But the arch is not, that's like not on his grounds. You know what?

I mean, that's actually sort of in between, sort of in the area, between Virginia and D.C. Right outside Arlington, I come back to Arlington. So I guess it just moves me. And what is it mean? What is it a symbol of its symbol of imperial triumphalism? The French put it up and they didn't do too well on the subsequent wars they were fighting. Maybe it's a bit of a irony of history kind of situation. But anyway, but what has he done?

What have we done, to be totally honest, in the very recent years to put up the arch, we should put up a tribute to the Ukrainians, not some fake triumphalist arch. You're getting my dander up a little bit. It's coming. It's coming slowly to surely. I've walked across that bridge a bunch. My senior year college apartment was just kind of right on the other side of the Memorial Bridge there.

So I went down there a lot. I had a smoked a bowl on the bridge one time. That's memorable. I want to mention, since we have Pete Hegseth really quick, the Mormons are mad. And I mostly just want to mention this in the spirit of like, you know, First, they came from the trans. I said nothing for Mike Lee and the Mormons.

Pete Hegseth Winnowed the Pentagon's list of recognized faith codes from over 200 to just 31. LDS was still listed, but it was moved out of the section for the Christian faith. For example, the list says Christian Seventh-day Adventist, but not Christian Church of the Latter-day Saints. Mike Lee tweeted angrily about this repeatedly over the weekend. At about midnight last night, he tweeted, I just got out of the phone with Trump. we discussed the Pentagon's Christian list. I won't speak for him, but I'm thrilled where this is heading. We're the most fortunate that Trump loves us and stay tuned.

So I just wonder what the Mormon thought was going to happen when they put the Christian nationalists in charge of the Department of War. But anyway. And, you know, I'm not an expert on this, but in real Hexethean Christian nationalist supremacist circles, they don't like the Mormon. I mean, we know this if you. Right.

This was an issue in the Brownie campaign to kind of popped up a couple times. They quickly suppressed it, you know. But yeah, they don't think, they think the Mormons are a cult and not legitimately Christian and so forth. And so this is someone, I guess, who was running this in Pete Hegseth World was more of that. It was a format part of the Christian nationalist world and took out his animosity to the Mormons. Yeah, they are a big group and an important group and a very impressive group of Americans. And so it's probably a mistake. And they have senators. So they dominate a state, Utah, Mormon senators. They're not the only the Mormon senators. And so they're probably a mistake to pick that fight. And Trump couldn't

care less either way, obviously. So it's like, does two Corinthians say something about the Mormons? I don't know. I mean, Trump's in his head is just like, I mean, you guys are, I've got to be kidding me about this. Like, we're going to fight about your imaginary, you know, scog, Jesus, whatever you guys want. I don't care. Summer is in full swing here. Nola. And that impacts how I get dressed. It's hot. It's getting hot out there. You need pieces that feel lighter and more breathable to deal with the summer heat. And that's why I keep coming back to Quince. They focus on high quality essentials that feel and look amazing. Think breathable linen and soft organic cotton, well-made basics, but

without the luxury markup, Quince European linen pants and shirts of the perfect warm weather upgrade your rotation starting at just $34. Their teas are soft and easy to wear and their lightweight cotton sweaters are perfect for cooler summer nights for the rest of y'all. We have hot summer nights here, which is just, I love it. I love it. Everything at Quince is priced 50 to 80% less than their similar brands. If you go check out the video of my breakdown of the Kristen Welker Trump interview, I was in kind of a casual Sunday shirt. It's a little button up, light and breathable. Got a lot of compliments for it. Wasn't one of those expensive designers from Europe where you got to pay the tariffs? No, it was Quince, baby. It was Quince. It's looking good. And

I was looking designer. You guys were complimenting me. I also like my quince linen button down. wore that on the plane the other day. The plane's a little chilly sometimes, so you want a long-sleeved shirt, but then you get outside New Orleans and it's hot. The linen shirt is a nice combo for that.

Elevate your summer wardrobe. Go to quince.com slash the bulwark for free shipping on your order in 365-day returns. Now available in Canada, too. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E dot com slash the bulwark. For free shipping and 365-day returns, quince.com slash the bulwark. I don't move to Scott Pelly did an interview with the Times over the weekend.

You need to describe her as driving toward the officer. We have gone out of our way in our plan from the very beginning to show the protesters for the responsibility that they had. We had already scrubbed the video archives, looking for those scenes. But it somehow wasn't enough for Ms. Bari Weiss. The video showed that the officer wasn't standing in front of the car and she wasn't driving toward him, but that's what the president said about that. And that's the way she wanted it described. That's pretty striking and concerning, just how blunt he is that Bari Weiss came in and said after Agents of the State killed Renee Good, she was demanding that the 60 Minutes story.

reflect the point of view of the killer and of the president as much as possible. Two little things just struck me. I mean, she directly intervened. I mean, presumably, when people want to put their thumb on the scale, it's happened, God knows, in life. I mean, they do it through intermediaries, so they have little deniability. She didn't care about deniability. Maybe she didn't want deniability. Maybe she was fine, but she wanted to be able to tell the White House, hey, I fixed, look, this thing was much came out better than you would have thought.

They wanted to make it all, you know, ice-age. as fault for murdering Renee Good. So that part strikes me. I mean, does she even mind this coming out? I mean, I just probably doesn't like it. But they certainly went out of the way not to pacify anyone at 60 minutes, right? Not publicly.

I guess they had a private meeting with Bill Whitaker. Which was terrible, apparently. With Whitaker. With Whitaker, yeah. Maybe they want to have, keep someone. But, you know, she and her bosses are paramount, I don't really even understand the corporate structures anymore.

But whichever bosses she has who want the merger approval and for either past mergers or future. merger. They want Trump to know that she and they are on his side, right? And the old days, they would do these things, you know, under the, you know, a cover of darkness, if you're going to distort the news a little bit. They want Trump to know, which is another step down the authoritarian path. And this is why Nick Bilton couldn't answer the question when Pelley was asking him at that, that original meeting that leaked about, like, why they had fired the other, the previous

executive producers in the heads of the show, right? This is why it was someone. important for Bari Weiss to get somebody that was her choice in charge of the show that they couldn't they couldn't do what they had done traditionally which is you know promote the person internally that had been the best story producer like that's how sexy minutes worked right they they would you know promote from within they'd find somebody that was that understood the program and that had demonstrated you know skill and leadership at shepherding various stories to the TV instead she has to bring in some outside guy and it's like why well it's for this So she doesn't have to send an email to somebody she doesn't know saying, hey, can you make sure the story reflects the lie that the president told that Renee Good was aiming her car at the officer when all video shows that she was doing the opposite.

Now she can just communicate that to Nick Bilton and have him try to do it. So we'll see how it continues to go. Look, everyone needs to do what's right for them. I understand the reason Leslie Stahl and Bill Whitaker said that they want to stay. I think that they probably are rightly worried that if they quit, it's over. Like 60 Minutes is basically dead. And maybe by having them around, you can kind of shepherd this thing and muddle through into something different in the future. But it seems to be like the writings on the wall.

I guess I was just thinking we discussed Bill Pulte earlier. I guess Bari Weiss is the Bill Pulte of CBS News, right? I mean, she was utterly qualified. She never run anything big. And I mean, with all due respect to the free press, certainly not a TV newsroom. certainly not a TV news organization. She comes, takes over and immediately starts budding right into Trump's behalf, which is exactly what Bill Pulte is going to do with national intelligence.

I mean, the authoritarian stuff happens within government, and of course it happens within other organizations that they want to corrupt and shape. It takes us to the L.A. mayor's race, with all due respect to the free press. Matt Iglesias shared this screenshot this morning of their coverage of that race. I'm just going to read for you a couple of headlines. Heidi Montag, Spencer Pratt's wife, is already L.A.'s first lady. the revenge of the California Republicans inside Spencer Pratt's viral video machine. Spencer Saka la Basura.

Will L.A.'s Latinos back Pratt? Pratt baddies' revenge. Everything is reality TV and Spencer Pratt knows it. It goes on. The very obsequious fan girlish, even coverage of Spencer Pratt's mayoral campaign for the free press and a bunch of other center right folks on social media, bragging about how great of a campaign he ran. It turns out, as the count continues to trickle in six days later, that he will not even make the runoff.

He's been passed by Nithya Raman, more of a, it's kind of hard to frame her ideologically, because in some ways she's left of Bass, but she also has been trying to move a line with the Yimbi crowd, which she would maybe say is more to the middle of Bass. But she now appears certain to enter the runoff with Bass. Pratt, it looks like, will get a smaller percentage of the vote than Trump did in Los Angeles, which goes to tell you that the whole buzz about this campaign, it was just this bubble. It's just a total online bubble, you know, of a certain type of person that was excited about this. A lot of people don't live in L.A. that liked his videos.

And, you know, those videos can do well on X, but like that is not a substitute for an actual campaign. I don't know if you have any thoughts on Spencer Pratt. No, it's a good sign if the right, if the MAGA world is being deceived by their own bubble. I mean, it's a big, and somewhat correct indictment of the left that it lives in a bubble and blah, blah, blah, and they didn't understand. Middle America, got to go to a diner. Maybe they should go to some diners in L.A. You know, and talk to actual people who live there. I don't know.

Maybe, yeah. Maybe the MAGA Media should go to some diners in L.A. Or, you know, I don't know, maybe a takaria. Yeah, it says you're not diners. Takaria or keep little, you know, vegan cafes or whatever. movie shop. I want to talk about the conspiracy theories, which now are proliferating online.

And by proliferating, I mean, obviously the president himself shared conspiracy theories about this L.A. mayor's race. I've seen it from Megyn Kelly. I saw it from Will Chamberlain. I've debated on the Pierce Mortgage show. I just, it's really widespread.

The federalist, Megan McCain, Megan McCain even shared a potential conspiracy theory about the L.A. mayor's race. And I just, if you have friends, in your life that are sharing conspiracy theories about the count in the LA mayor's race, I just would like to offer you an easy rebuttal to send them. It's important just to start from the baseline here that 15% of people in LA are Republicans, 15%.

And so Pratt did not even run a campaign to try to appeal to those who are not Republicans. He did AI videos that were very withering, making fun of Democrats, and those were very popular among Republicans. who live in other places online, understandably. But that is not how you appeal to a city that is 60% Democrat and the rest independent, 25% independent. And so you had all these people online, all these Republicans from other states, Spencer Pratt is running this amazing campaign.

It's like, well, he's running an amazing campaign to appeal to you, like, Maga Republican that lives in Orlando or like Republican commentator that goes on Fox News and lives in New York. Like he's running these. No wonder you like it. He's appealing to you. But he did not run a good campaign appealing to Democrats that live in L.A. It's possible that you could reach them.

I think that there's some unhappiness with the democratic governance there. But the way to appeal to them is not to run a MAGA campaign. And so the reality is that Pratt had zero chance to win. Like even if he made the runoff, there was no path to getting a majority of the vote running a MAGA campaign in L.A. And so the whole conspiracy theory rests on this notion that Karen Bass wanted to prevent Spencer Pratt from getting into the runoff, which is like the opposite of truth. Now Karen Bass is in a real danger. Like the incumbent L.A. mayor, who I assume, I guess nobody ever says who is doing the election thieving, but I would assume it would be the incumbent mayor who would have some control over the election process and for whom the people that run the election. work for, why would she want to rig the system to get a more formidable challenger in the runoff?

Now I think it's a decent chance that Karen Bass loses. And we've now been through this system a million times. I mean, literally in L.A. we went through this, whatever that was, four years ago, where Rikaruso was winning an election day against Karen Bass and the mail came in and Karen Bass won. Like, if you tell voters that mail-in ballot is fraudulent and you shouldn't use it like the Mago-Republicans do, then it shouldn't be a surprise that your voters don't use the mail and that progressive voters do. And if the mail ballots get counted later, it won't be surprised that the more, you know,

the more progressive candidate will do well in the later counts. This is very easy to understand. It's very easy to explain. There's no conspiracy. And yet, like, ostensibly reasonable people who've worked in politics for years, whose parents, where senators have decided that, like, they think that this is a big conspiracy, and yet the conspiracy makes no sense. And the Democrats, in this case, held their,

I think the disproportion between the early vote and the later Malin vote, and the majority of the vote in California is male, and I believe, would be a large majority. That was, disproportion was accentuated by the fact that Democrats were holding back on the California good editorial vote, but it's the same at that place. It's the same ballot as the mayor. Because they wanted to see which of the Democrats were going to emerge, so they could make sure that you didn't get a Republican, Republican primary rights.

First of all, there was all well, and then there was a question about who was. So it's, yeah, looks like more of a disproportion, but it's perfectly understandable, plus the normal disproportion that you mentioned between Republicans voting earlier, probably thanks to Trump and Democrats voting later. Yeah, anyway, but there's literally no evidence. I mean, no one, whatever they, maybe they should count the ballots faster. Maybe you don't like mail-in voting generally, and you think they should vote more. Fine, that's a policy issue, say different states run differently.

There's literally no charge of fraud here. I'm not even like a fake charge that we had in some of these other areas where some, I don't know, one box got mixed up for 10 minutes and it looked funny when they moved to somewhere, whatever their charges were in other states in 2020 or whatever. Yeah, the bamboo ballots or whatever, but many voting machines. There's nothing. They have nothing. It's just like it looks fishy. It's like it doesn't look fishy, actually. It looks exactly like what you would have expected, what I would have predicted would have happened beforehand and what election watchers would have predicted beforehand.

And there is also no motive. If you're going to say that there's election fraud, what would be the motive of Karen Bass to have to run against a more formidable Democratic challenger? It doesn't make any sense at all. Anyway, the whole thing is idiotic. We covered this pretty much at length last Monday, but we do have the main primary tomorrow.

Do you have any updated Graham Platner thoughts or should I move on to the other Senate races? No, I guess it's a rank choice voting, and I personally, if anyone cares, since a couple of people asked me, I would vote for Mills and for Costello and rank them and not rank Graham Platner and hope that 51% of Mainers maybe decided to think better of Graham Platner, whatever they, even if they like him and respect him, that maybe it's a little whiskey just nominating him on the entire U.S. Senate is at stake here, conceivably. But no one really cares about my opinion about who they should rank in the Democratic primary in Maine, I suppose.

I don't think they do either. And my other thing I would say about this is like Maine is not California. and Graham Platner has been campaigning a lot throughout Maine. And so the people of Maine have got a chance to meet him. They know them. There have been plenty of examples of quotes you see of people. And, you know, Alex Seitz-Walds, who's a guy used to know as a national reporter who moved to Maine to edit a local paper.

And he's like, I hear from people that say, you know, everybody is two degrees of separation from Graham Platner. I heard the stories about him. I was for him and I knew things before the New York Times even wrote anything. I think that there's that element there. that a lot of this stuff is baked in and main voters like his message and that's democracy. I continue to share the concern that there's a little risk. I don't know that main voters maybe know everything.

So it remains to be seen. But anyway, that election is tomorrow. Iowa, I had Josh Turk on Times of Flat Circle. Was that last week? The day after his primary win, I think it was last week. We have a pull-out this morning that shows the Iowa race tied. I should say this is an internal DSCC polls. This is one of those things

where DSCC is a Democratic Senate campaign committee having been in this boat as a press secretary. It's like if you, people oftentimes say that the internal polls are like rigged to make your candidate look better. That's not what's happening. Internally, you want to know what the truth is. But you just don't tell reporters if it's bad.

You do tell them if it's good. So if there's like a margin of air and you've gotten three poll, you know, you do a poll every week and two weeks you're down five and then one week it shows you tied, then you're like, you show the reporter to say, we're tied, right?

So I don't know that this means that the race is actually tied, but it does show Ashley Hinson underwater, the Republican, shows Turk up big with independence. I think that's encouraging. To me, Iowa is the battleground. I said the salute grass right when he was on last week.

I was like when his dad did the Florida, Florida, Florida. I'm Iowa, Iowa, Iowa, in November. Rob Sand, they just announced this morning, I think astutely, He chose his lieutenant governor candidate, the guy named Dave Mulbauer. I know nothing about this person except for that he is a farmer from Crawford County, Iowa, which is real rural. I've been to Crawford County.

That's not fake rural. It's like Des Moines Exerbs. It's out there in farmland, northeast Iowa. And he's got a cowboy hat on his picture. It seems like the aesthetic choice there of who they're trying to appeal to is pretty obvious. So I don't know if you have any thoughts on Turek or what's happening in Iowa. No, I do think the farm economy stuff is very real. And everyone I talked to is from there who has business there or who's visited there says that.

So yeah, it feels like, don't you think Iowa, Alaska and Ohio are really, I don't know, close to toss-ups at this point, I think. And those are those with this. I think Alaska and Ohio are toss-ups. I think Iowa I would have lean towards the Republican in the Senate, Ashley Hinson and the Democrat and the governor's race. I know that there are going to be skepticism. I've heard some from one listener in particular about the idea that ballot splitting still happens. And I just think that on the margin, there's enough. Governors races and Senate races are different.

There is a psychological barrier. If you are yourself, like, I am a Republican. I've always been a Republican. I don't really love Trump that much. If you're that type of person in Iowa, then you're like, we really need a new state government. Like, the state government has not been serving us well. And, like, the Republicans nominated a guy from Kansas who is a total clown. who is an investor and a Cochering company, Firm Tech.

I don't know if you know about Cochering's Bill. Just what I've read online a little bit. I haven't read too much. I haven't read too much. I don't really want to know. But go ahead and tell, please. Shout out to our friends at Firm Tech. When they were mentioned last week, I received a free sample,

which I've not tried yet. So I can't give an endorsement, but I appreciate them. So the Republican nominee for governor, and Cochering Investor lives in Kansas, just absolute absurd choice to be governor of the state. No, a career political operative that he marries a rich person. It's just a nepo baby that is totally out of step. So back to my point, you can imagine the Republican in Iowa looking at that race

and being like this is crazy. Our obsan seems like a middle of the road guy and then struggling to also pull D in the Senate race. I can imagine that. And so I do think that there's a little bit of an additional barrier for Turek. I think it's doable, though, for sure. Democrats have won the governorship in Trump time, recent times, Trump times, and obviously in Kentucky and Kansas, actually, a couple other states that are, I'm now black now for a second, whereas the Senate races, which get our federal races, do become referend on the parties as a whole.

You know, Trump's weak enough that that could hurt in a couple of cases. I do think now, finally, and again, if the Republican senators have to vote to confirm the, organized over the Epstein cover-up, that wouldn't hurt either to make the federal race less lopsided, but Trump carried 25 states three times. All of them now have two Republican senators. That is, they have 50 Republican senators for those 25 states. So at the federal level, the ability to withstand the fact that I just don't really want Elizabeth Warren running the Senate, I mean, whatever they're going to tell themselves, you know, has been more powerful. At the state level, there's more reality this Republican governor screwed up. We're going to put

in a Democrat, you know, and so. I do, yeah, intrinsically, it's easier to win the state and local level race, for that matter, than the federal race. But this might be different with Trump, not at the top of the take it with Trump. In his second term, as president, though, and him, if he's at 38, 37%. I come back to the single best thing you can do if you don't live in one of these states and don't control, can't affect the campaign tactics or whatever. And persona of these candidates is to knock Trump's numbers down. I mean, it just makes a huge difference of these federal races, if Trump's at 36 or 39 or, or even in these states, it'll be higher with these Republican states,

but it makes a huge difference if he's at 44, 45 instead of 50. I mean, that's, you know, so. Yeah. And I think that's where he is an hour right now, 44. And I think that puts Rob San in a good place. And he's got to get down closer to 40 for Turk to be there. But that's very possible. It doesn't seem like things are getting better economically in farm country.

All right. We've gone along. Bill said we had a lot of topics today. And he didn't even know we were going to talk about Cochrings and said it was going to maybe three hours. And it's only been an hour. But I do, we do want to just briefly discuss the NBA playoffs, in part because it's overlapped with politics because Donald Trump is doing his best to salt the vibes for the New York next.

We've won 13 straight games. It's just been a truly unbelievable run. And they go home to Madison Square Garden tonight. Has not been a finals game of Madison Square Garden. And I'm going from memory like 20 some odd years, 30? 30. Yeah, 1999. 1999, I think.

So that would be what, 27 years. and Trump is going to go to game three, which is annoying, you know, making the finals about yourself, for starters. Obama was a legitimate basketball fan, did not go to NBA finals games when he was president, in part because he's presidentting, in part because it creates a huge issue,

where, for example, the Knicks have had to cancel the, like, street parties, watch parties outside the stadium. You can't get in, and this is the hottest ticket in the history of sports. You can't get into the stadium for less than five. thousand dollars. Okay, that's like the worst seat in the stadium is five thousand dollars. So if you're a regular New Yorker, you know, from Queens, um, and wanted to go down and be there and experience that what they had been doing was outside the stadium. They'd play the game on, on the big screens outside Madison Square Garden. And then you'd have a kind of a watch party vibe. They've canceled that because that makes it unsafe for Donald Trump, um, which is, you know, really kind of the turd and the punch bowl, uh, here on what should be a massive party for New York. And, in for the Knicks.

And to me, I feel like it might be a jinx. I think he might be a hex. And the 13 game winning streak, it's something to keep an eye on, whether Trump hex is the 13 game winning streak tonight. But it's been an awesome finals. I felt very bad.

I don't, did you watch game too, Phil? No, I was a dinner. I felt very bad for Wemby. It's a tie game and Wemby, the star of the Spurs. They had the ball, had the ball at the chance to win,

and he just threw it off his teammates back. It was really, sad. I was watching with my daughter and she was like, I feel sad for Wemby. I was like, that's good. But anyway, Bill, as a New Yorker yourself, do you have any takes?

Yeah, and then Wemby missed the makeable shot, right? He got the ball back at the buzzer. Yeah, it's been an amazing run for the Knicks. I mean, Trump going is really, I don't even recall him being a basketball fan, particularly. I've been sort of a Knicks fan. Not as much these days as, I mean, I'm not as much follower of NBA basketball

the way you do. I don't recall Trump showing up Nick's games the way a lot of people have for years, and even though they've had some rough stretches here in the last 20, 30 years. It's not a Ben Stiller, you know, who is there in the hard times and the good times. Exactly, right. Spike Lee. No, and so, yeah, well, that's true.

I mean, so it really is just, he's just going to, yeah, the city really, I was struck. I happened to see a couple of people from New York this weekend, who aren't huge basketball fans, and one is, but two aren't. And they said it's really amazing. Everyone's talking about it in the city. Everyone loves it. Everyone's reading up on all the stories about the individual players, and these Knicks are like the last time the Knicks won is unbelievable, it was 73,

which were teams. They were teamwork teams, you know, and they had some stars, but actually what was most amazing was there working together, and this team was like that, but everyone sort of internalized that. There's a lot of good mood and goodwill, I'd say, about it. I watched some of the clips of the press thing they do, you know, during the playoffs yesterday with all kinds of celebrities sort of fat my friend, Fat Joe, was there, you know, and joking around with Coach Brown and with the players.

I mean, it's really the city, I think, is feeling in a very upbeat mood. And Trump's going to show up, make everyone wait two hours to get into the garden or get there two hours. So they kill the watch parties outside, get booed, I suppose, when he shows up and naked about himself. I mean, it really is terrible. I hope he, I don't quite know what to hope. I hope he pays a political price for it.

I don't know how that could happen, really. He's not going to win New York anyway. Maybe there'll be some indirect annoyance from people. think he'll be well received. Do you think? I don't feel like NBA fans. That's true. I don't know. It will be the rich Knicks fans who can afford the game, but I don't think so. I don't think so. On the other hand, though, I mean, I had to experience this Trump showed up to the LSU National Championship in 2019. And like there was a mo, and that's very different because it's south, right? So we were playing Clemson. So the crowd was mostly Trump. Yeah, and football. Right. And football, which is different.

But he goes out there and there was mixed, you know, a lot of cheers. In my section, some boo. got a little heated in the section for a minute. Not going to blame my husband for that, but it was his fault. And, you know, it got a little hot. And then after that he goes away and it's just kind of like, can we just enjoy this? You know, and I do feel like that there's that. I don't want the, if you're a liberal next fan,

I don't want you to, don't let this ruin it for you. You know, a good middle finger at him and then moving, then focusing on Carl Anthony Towns and his brilliance, I think is probably the right thing to do. So there's a funny viral video going around. It's so funny. So we'll play the audio. My mayor, Muslim, my Vegas Jewish, my Christian New York,

next day, four. It's just like, it's a very New York. It's a very New York little scene. A sap Rocky was out there. Anyway, it's fun. All right, Bill Crystal, there it is. Game tonight. We'll be back tomorrow.

I guess I just will say to people, we're going to publish the next level early tomorrow. So if you don't like tomorrow, guest on this show. You will have the next level podcast as well to choose from. And I think I'm going to enjoy myself. So it'll be a little bit of a swerve from our usual fare. And then we'll be back to business as normal on Wednesday and the rest of the week. We've got a good schedule for you this week. So thanks to Bill Crystal. Everybody else, we'll see you tomorrow.

book, can they cost more money, I think a sucker could ever spend. But I wouldn't give a sucker or a punk, and not a dime till I made it again. Everybody. The board podcast is brought to you thanks to the work of lead producer Katie Cooper, Associate producer Anzley Skipper, and with video editing by Katie Lutz, and audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.