Bill Kristol: End the War

Hello and welcome to the Bullwark Podcast. I'm your host Tim Miller. It is Monday, so he's back, editor at large of the Bullwork Bill Crystal. Hey, Bill. Hey, Tim. How are you? I'm doing pretty good. You know, I'm disappointed on behalf of all the Timothy Chalemay stands out there. It's three straight snubs for him at the Oscars. He should have three already. And yet zero. I think it's potentially discrimination against Twinks that's at play here. It could be something to that. But I don't know. We're hoping for more representation in the future. You should have them on the podcast tomorrow to discuss that. I've been trying. I've been trying. You want me to place a call? I could help. I can help with that, you know. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. I'm sure you have some New Yorkians. He's in New York. I'm sure you guys have, you know, same temple or something. We want to talk about Iran to start. And you had Bob Elena Kagan on yesterday, your Sunday conversations with Bill. And. As we've come to expect from Bob, not exactly optimistic about the state of affairs, but super insightful knows the region understand. So why don't you just kind of summarize what he described as the fork in the road facing Trump and where we're at right now with this war? Yeah, sure. You had a motto about six weeks ago after his big peace in the Atlantic, which was sort of pre-war, obviously, on kind of what Trump was doing to our alliances and making the world much more dangerous. And I would say he... views this war very much in that context. People should go back and look at your discussion with him and then look at mine if they want that I capture the highlights in warning shots this morning. No, what he's so good at, I think, Bob, he puts it in the bigger context. And it is striking. I mean, this war has damaged our relationship with all of our allies, basically. Europe. not consulted. Can't believe we've got into this. Now we're calling on them for help after rejecting their help early on or mocking that, the idea that they could help. They care about Ukraine. They care about Russia. And this war is helping Russia with the oil sales, the oil waving of the sanctions. So from the European point of view... And prices going higher. Right, right. Exactly. Yeah, what helps Vladimir Putin at a time. What it seems like is things would kind of rickety there. So from their point of view, it's like he didn't consult us. He's gone to war without a plan. It's helping Russia, which is really the existential threat. We are having to deal with without Trump's help because he's not helping Ukraine these days. And so now he wants us to help in the strait. And the German defense minister this morning, Pretorius, who I know I'd met once, but I mean, I gather from people who know this stuff is a very pro-American, hawkish that kind of, we've been hoping for a German defense minister like this, building up Germany's defenses and working with the other European nations helping Ukraine, just basically said, forget it. I mean, pretty. a stunning rebuke from a very close ally yeah so the german defense minister not the french yeah right like those pansy french start cutting and running right that's notable it deepens the rift that was already there that you and he just you and mom discussed six weeks ago and just makes it even harder to fix it i mean it's you know iraq the germans of the french i remember well did not agree with our decision we tried very hard to get the outboard we had

endless meetings to UN Security Council votes. We got a lot of other European nations on board. And we respected, in a sense, the German and French decision. I mean, there were members of Congress who made fun of the French with, you know, the French Fright was. The Freedom Prize. But, you know, the Bush was polite. We continued to meet with them. They didn't go out of their way to cause trouble for the other European nations that were helping us. So that preserved the alliance despite that pretty important rift, right? We're in the opposite situation now where, you know, where we really. deepening the rift in the alliance, almost making it irreparable. Asia, the Trump people sold themselves. They're going to be tough on China. And now Trump's asking for help from China actually to open the strait and pulling troops out of the China theater to, I don't know, what, maybe do a land, ground operation in Iran. And if the Chinese are watching this, it's like we can't keep the straight open. You know, the straight between Taiwan and China is a lot of tougher to deal there with the Chinese. military than the Iranian military. So I don't think they're getting very intimidated by what we're doing here at Iran. Only time I just a little bit of a couple of the shows last week, too, and the, you know, the Japanese, South Koreans, like, okay, we were moving troops. We're also moving weapons systems now to the Middle East. And also, you know, they are going to feel the energy cost spike even more acutely than we will. Because, like, that's where they're... getting their energy from. Right. They get almost all their energy. Japan certainly from abroad anyway and a lot of it from the Gulf. So yeah, totally. No, so they're losers on this. And again, we're not going to make a decision on the Gulf based on Japan and they wouldn't expect us to. Would they expect to get a phone call at some point saying, hey, heads up? So again, just treating them as if we don't care what they say, which Trump doesn't, I suppose. One point Bob makes that I hadn't really thought about is the Gulf states themselves. I mean, they've sort of cast in with us. They've cast in with the Trump family. There's a lot of deals. Let's just go on there, which have tried to cement that relationship in ways that are not entirely, you know, legal or maybe or appropriate. But still. whatever you think of it, it was a way of buying, I guess, getting them to invest with us. They have a huge stake now at American investment there, tourism and all. Owning our TV networks, you know, our golf lanes. Yeah, I know. It's like, yeah. I mean, we're kind of like the junior partner to cutter in a lot of ways. Right. Like we're borrowing their used planes. And now they're getting pummeled, some of them, UAE especially. And we're not protecting them much, apparently. And they've got to be thinking, I don't know, the whole point of this was to make sure that. Big Bad U.S. was kind of behind us as we cut all these corrupt deals and do our business dealings. And they've got to be thinking, was that really worth it? I see all that reporting that Mohammed bin Salman has been for this warrant behind it, which I guess must be true. But I don't think he speaks for the other Gulf states, honestly. And I wonder, he's, I don't know what his foreign policy judgment is either. Anyway, so basically, it's weakening us around the world. I think this is Bob's core insight that people, you know, we look at these things so much in. regional terms. It's understandable, obviously, and that is the primary effect, presumably. But the degree to which right now, two weeks in, we look like we don't know what we're doing. We went to war without a plan. It's not going well. We keep saying it's going better than it is. We keep saying it's going to be over soon, but also we could be doubling down and sending ground troops. And people look at this is the U.S. This is the superpower. If you're an ally, you're supposed to depend on. And if you're an enemy, you're supposed to be scared of. And in both cases, we've eroded that.

Just really quick on the Saudis. I don't want to pretend to be an expert on this stuff. I did do some work a couple years ago for some Saudi Arabian dissidents who were being targeted by the regime. So I have a decent amount of familiarity with the politics there. I don't think it's crazy that there could end up being a little bit of in. consistency or incongruity between what they want and what like UAE and others want, right? Because, you know, the big article in the Times of the weekend about how Dubai might ever recover from this, you know, the types of people that move to Dubai are not really keen. Like, they have plenty of money and resources and it's not really worth the risk that a missile's going to hit their high-rise condo. You know, to live there, there are other fancy places in the world they can live. And so. the Saudi and Iran, you know, geopolitical kind of competition is, is at play here. So, you know, I don't think it's impossible that Mohammed bin Salman is, you know, kind of working back chatting with the president's son-in-law, supportive of this, and that maybe the other Gulf states were, like, initially kind of supportive and are starting to get, we need that. I don't think that's a crazy development, potentially. Just one other thing on the Cagan conversation, in addition to kind of the strategic. problems that Trump has created throughout the rest of the world is just like he now is kind of at a decision point a little bit about what to do. I mean, I think that many of us thought just based on Trump's past behavior that he was going to do what he's done before, which is kind of like declare victory. There's a guy I fell online who said one of Trump's great political superpowers is he can always just say. hey, we did it, you know, and he'll have a base of supporters that will believe him and go along with him. That's the advantage of having a cult of personality. And so kind of a lot of folks, I think, assume that was going to happen here. I think Bob points out that that is like getting a little tougher to do now, certainly than in the 12-day war, you know, for various reasons. And, you know, potentially, you know, at some point, they're going to have to have kind of a shit or get off the pot decision here that they both. carry different types of consequences and ramifications. I just talk about that a little bit. Yeah, that was the second big point, Bob Biden. I see the New York Times is making this point this morning, too. It is, yeah, we're getting to a decision for it. I guess Trump can delay it, but you pay a price for that too. I mean, do we go in in a serious way and try to secure the straight? I mean, the regional goal, remember the grand, the big goal was regime change. You don't hear much by that anymore. Now the real big goal would be securing the straight, which is kind of pathetic because the straight was open until two weeks ago. And getting rid of their missile capabilities. I think that's the other thing that they keep saying now. Right, but that we probably have done. So I've assumed he would cut and run. I assume Taco Wing was the more logical thing for him to do from his own personal point of view, which is always his main point of view. I kind of still think it's slightly more likely, I guess, than really going all in with Marine Expeditionary Forces landing on. on the Iranian side of the strait and all the risks that entails. And then basically, once you go that far, you can't really just get out without caring about what happens in Iran. Do you get out the insured regime changed? I mean, you have troops there on Iranian soil when the IRGC is still running the country. I mean, there's so many risks and that's such an escalation. So I still am 6040 that he doesn't do that. Bob is more to 6040 the other way, I would say. He just thinks Trump has gone so far down the road of.

bellowing about how, you know, this is so important and fundamental and it's going to be such a great victory that a little harder from to back down, I don't know. You can't make a judgment about the war until we know which of those decisions he makes, and then what the effects of each of those decisions is, both are bad. Both are bad. He could have bugged out, honestly, after the first 48, 72 hours, and I think taking credit, and I don't think it would have been more like June, and he could have done a huge amount of damage to the missiles and all this, and he could have just said, you know, we have made the... World Safer, we're the area safer. We weaken this horrible regime. We killed a huge number of their top leaders. Thank you, goodbye. A little harder to bug out two weeks in, but I still think he could. And the damage, though, making us look weak would be real. The damage are getting involved, obviously, with ground troops and everything of that implies is a higher risk and more fundamental. What I said to Bob... I guess I did push him a little on what do you really think he's going to stick with it? It's so risky. And Bob then sort of played the final card on that side, which is nothing, which is, are we sure that Trump doesn't see the advantages of having a war go on for a while in terms of his domestic authoritarian agenda? Presidents have used wars to crack down on free speech and crack down on dissent. And clearly they were interested in doing that. And they got elections coming up and the national security sort of excuse can be used to do all kinds of things. And that was the. the slightly dark note that the conversation closed on. Yeah. I definitely think that you can't rule anything out on this front. We're going to get a little bit more into what they're kind of threatening right now, though it's been a lot of empty threats on this front, I think, too. We should also just be honest about it. Back to the straight real quick in the Coalition of the Unwilling that we're creating. You mentioned the Germans who rebuffed Trump. I'm just kind of pulling this up here. Italy rejected Trump, Spain, rejected Japan, France is hesitant, Norway, no, Canada, no, Australia, no. Germany, no, you mentioned. UK is out this morning, Keir Starmer. I'm saying we're still looking at it. We're going to give it another look. We'll see in two weeks. Netherlands, no response. South Korea, no confirmation. That's a pretty big rebuke for the United States on this one. And I think speaks to kind of what you and Bob were talking about, about how there's no work at all done on the front end to get these folks involved. And now Trump just thinks he can boss them around. I assume maybe some of them might look at Trump and say, hey. Instead of us, maybe you should be calling your friends at the Board of Peace to keep the straight open. What about Kazakhstan? Can they help? Belarus. Maybe those folks are in. And it's pretty noteworthy. Who knows how things go in a week or two? But just that even the Trump administration is kind of hedging on now what the ask is, kind of saying, well, maybe it'll just be after hostilities end that we're asking for this help. And then meanwhile, Trump was on the phone last night with the FT called him. And he's like back to making threats at NATO. And it's just it's not a lot of evidence that he's in control of the situation. No, absolutely. And they've mocked the allies, including especially the UK, which that was. And I mean, he has gotten.

away with mistreating them, if I could put it that way, for an awful long time because they, look, they still depend on us, they still want the U.S. to be involved. They all sucked up to Trump in different ways, many of them have in different ways and pull their punches, let's say. You get the sense here that this is maybe the moment of, look, I'm sorry. When, A, they don't want to do it. They don't, as the German defense would say, we wouldn't even want us for. I mean, you got the U.S. Navy. If you can't open this. We can't help you open this. And so again, but specifically with Trump and Pete Hegseth rhetoric, this is the mightiest military force, the world's obviously, we're overwhelming, we're intimidating, we're crushing, we only fight pipsqueaks that we can crush. But hey, could you guys all help? And it's the number one country on that list when he had that to eat or whatever was, five or six countries he was asking for was China. How pathetic does that look? And if you're Japan, you think, really? Wait a second. Are we supposed to be like, he's inviting China to come into the Strait of Hormuz? I mean, I don't know. It's just the degree to which this has a sort of spiraling, out of control fiasco effect, I think is what strikes me. It's also in a pretty big contrast to the whole, how long ago was it that there was like a lot of high-minded foreign policy analysts talking about how Trump was changing the world order. And we're going to do the Don Roe doctrine. And spheres of influence are all the rage now. And we're focused on Greenland because of its strategic importance on our side of the globe. And it's like, well, okay. Well, how did the spheres of influence Don Roe doctrine turn out? Because now we're. and a quagmire in the Middle East, and Trump wants help from people in Asia and Europe, and they're not going to give it to them. I mean, the JD vansers of the world, if they would say what they really think, would say, I guess. I mean, truthfully, I guess, look, hey, that all depended on us bossing around little countries in the Western Hemisphere or maybe Greenland sort of in the Western Hemisphere, I guess. And, you know, and that's kind of what that whole Don Roe doctrine was. This is why JD Vance, in a way, is more consistent if you're America first. You shouldn't get involved in these things in the Middle East, but you can't really pull this off, you know, in the same way. But JD Vance has been kind of quiet, hasn't he been? Have you been following it closely there? J.D. has been quiet. Greenland is in the Western Hemisphere, right? You have me for a second. Just like just because of the time thing. I don't know. I'm a little confused about those maps are very misleading. That's curving thing that they do. I was pretty good at the geography B in third grade. I was like, I think that that's right. But, you know, your memory starts to fade. Yeah, JD's been pretty quiet. Let's talk about the Maggot response to this a little bit. I want to come back to the economic stuff too. JD gave one. kind of speech where he was doing like the condescending JD thing where he was talking about how you guys want me to tell you what I really said to the president in our private.

repartee in the, you know, in the skiff. And I would not do that because it would be illegal. And, you know, he needs to get good guidance. And we're not the same as the liberals that, you know, that tell everything to the New York Times. And so I know, and that was like what he tried to do. He hasn't been, he hasn't been fighting on social media, you know. I mean, I just, I think all you have to do is point to the gap between this and what happened after the Alex Freddie and Renee Good murders. I mean, Renee Good got killed by a government agent. And JD Vance was at the White House briefing room the next day, insulting the victim, insulting the people that were concerned about it, insulting local law enforcement and talking about how good and right it was that we had massed people in the streets, like cracking down on free citizens. So J.D. saw that as a political victory that he was in line with. And he was arguing with people on social media about it, like a random troll. Not now. You know, simultaneously to that. in this intro right feud. Have you been following Megyn Kelly versus Mark Levin? Just the, just so what are two tweets? It's not the most elevated discourse, I would say, on the internet. And that's saying that it's saying something. Well, you've got Mark Levin saying that Megyn Kelly is a shill and doesn't know anything and is stupid. Megyn Kelly said that Mark Levin has a micro penis and is wrong. Marjorie Taylor Greene this morning said this. I wholeheartedly support Megyn Kelly telling the world that Mark Levin has a micro penis. It's the most deserved insults, and I don't care if it's vulgar. And Trump's gigantic defense of Levin, only enrages the base more. People are done, all caps, MAGA, destroyed by micro penis mark. So that was Marjorie Taylor Greene. She's a little bit sharper on the nicknames. Trump's nicknames are starting to kind of taper off, but I think there's something there from MTV. You know, how much do these people matter, how much influence they have? And we see in the polls, the Trump does have a cult of personality. There's a big group of people who go along with him with whatever. But it's pretty telling that, like, Trump is out there complimenting Mark Levin, who was the never-trumper, who was all in for Ron DeSantis. Was that a never-trumper in the sense of, like voting for the Democrats, but within the Republican fighting, he was always anti-Trump. Now, Trump is complimenting on how great Levin is. The more mega folks, traditional MAGA folks, are attacking Levin and at least with MTV, Trump himself. JD is kind of hiding in the bushes a little bit. And I think that just all tells you what you need to know about the weak political position, he said. And one dark reason why I think the back is split could be more serious this time is that the America First stuff dovetails with anti-Israel stuff, which dovetails with some anti-Semitic stuff. And gee, Mark Levin, what a coincidence that's going after him. And Ben Shapiro for that night. And Van Josh Shapiro, yeah. And those are the guys who on the one hand and the other hand, it's MTV, I guess, and Tucker Carlson. And they're true. I mean, they are. truer America first-ish people, they also are pretty vitriolically against Israel and against pretty into sort of conspiracy theories about Israel and the U.S. and the Jews and the Jewish lobby. And so this could go into a very dark place. But I think, unfortunately, there is support for that and some chunk of mega world. Well, particularly among younger folks. And there's a little bit of a young old split. And I think you see also that this is the strategic thing that what Megan and Tucker Carlson are doing, I don't.

You know, I can't get inside Megan's heart, but this doesn't all seem authentic to me. And, you know, you just look at the polls. I don't have it in front of me, but somebody did a Gen Z poll of MAGA the day, and it's like a shocking number. I believe in Holocaust denialism, believe that Jews are bad for the country. Like, they also think that Muslims are bad for the country, by the way, but some other groups too. But I think that for people who don't follow this closely, they might assume that, like, it's the older MAGA Republicans who are more. bigoted, right? Just because that's kind of like the stereotype, like older generations. But, you know, but that's like not true, actually. It's the inverse. I feel like the numbers. Our friend Nick Fuentes is there, that guy who you follow. You keep an eye at him, right? He's probably part of. I do keep an eye on Nick Fuentes. But Nick Fuentes is fallen on the, again, like he's anti-Semitic and he's on the mega-Marjorie Taylor Greene side of this. Right. So it makes sense. You know, I mean, you can have a really nasty stab in the back by BB kind of ruining MAGA, ruining America first, dragging us into this war. it's the Jews. We're one step from that, I mean, that narrative is out there already, obviously, in Nick Fuentes world. The question is could it permeate into sort of more political elected official world? I think we're a bit away from that, but I don't know how far. Yeah, I agree. Speaking of Tucker Carlson, see what he, his little monologue this weekend. No, like I said, it's good that you keep an eye on this. You and Will Summer, you and Will Summer are really indispensable for this. It seems to me that Tucker Carlson is at the highest level of doing geopolitical negotiations with our foes. So it is kind of important to check in on him, unfortunately. It's not just, you know, he's not just ranting from his main basement or whatever. Again, it's important, I just want to say, anytime I say something that Tucker Carlson said, I like to caveat. Tucker Carlson has demonstrated himself to be just a liar and a fabulous. Like, not just a conspiracy theorist. Like, he just lies and makes up stories, exaggerate stories to suit himself. And so... I assume the story is exaggerated, I guess is what I'm starting up. But he does a big monologue about how he says that he got a call from DOJ. They're looking into his conversations he was happening with Iranian nationals before the war started. And the CIA, you know, Tucker Carlson says that the CIA has hacked his phone and is looking through his text messages and they had information about his text messages. That led to like serious people on the right saying that like maybe Trump was like using him as a useful idiot and like back channeling bad information to the Iranians. Our old friend Mark Caputo reported that that is not what happened. Like that, you know, Trump was not doing 40 chess with Tucker Carlson when Tucker Carlson came to visit him and try to convince him not to do the war. But I don't know. Like I guess it's noteworthy if it's a lie. That you have Tucker Carlson now doing a full frontal attack against the Trump deep state because that could set up something down the line in 2028 for Tucker Carlson or some other, you know, vassal candidate for Tucker Carlson. And it's also noteworthy, it's true. I don't want to wait like totally eliminate the possibility that there is some. And I guess I think it would make sense that the intelligence agencies would be spying on Tucker Carlson. I mean, he's talking to Vladimir Putin. He's talking to the Iranians apparently. He said that he's talking to the Iranians.

World War, I don't know. Do you think that's crazy? Well, especially given, I mean, who knows which intelligence is given that Tulsi Gabbard and Kash Patel are running them, you know, all the normal constraints on spying on American citizens or whatever metadata, all those stuff we once knew, I once knew better because they were actually legal constraints and one had to think about those things. One assumes they're all gone. So who knows? I agree. I've really thought about this to you. brought it up. The degree to which you have a Tucker Carlson, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Younger, Groyper, anti-Israel, anti-Semitic, America first thing. That could build up on the right. I don't know. Is that trivial in Republican primaries in 28? Is it right now it's presumably 10 or 15% against, you know, a JD Vance, Marco Rubio, you know, field. But I don't know. It could be 25, 30%. It's trivial as long as Trump is around because of the cultural personality element. Just like I just, you know, I don't want to overstate like the degree of the splintering. I think that it's at an elite level and at a younger activist level more than among the electorate. Like you. I forget who was talking to about this, but if you look at the internals of the polls about Iran, it's kind of strange. Like, people who say I'm a MAGA Republican are more supportive than people who just say I'm a Republican, right? Because if you say you're a MAGA Republican, like, that's basically like saying, like, I'm part of a lifestyle brand and I support anything Donald Trump does. So, like, it'll be interesting to see, like, assuming Trump leaves and, you know, and there's a lot of potential ifs ands and buts. But, like, in theory, I think that if there was a vacuum. on the right i think it would be a very significant force the Tucker Carlson Marjorie Taylor Greene wing and i think that the idea that he's laying the groundwork that the trump government went after him i'm not saying i think Tucker Carlson's going to run for president would be a favorite or anything but like to me that is laying the groundwork for like an actual whatever, pins for attack on the Trump part of MAGA at some level. So anyway, we'll keep monitoring that. Just really quick while we're talking about crazy right-wing stuff. I do think it's important for our listeners also to just be a little vigilant about, I don't even know if I would call this crazy left wing stuff, but crazy conspiracy stuff that gets into the left pipeline, including, for example, this weekend, the idea that BB was dead. I had several people, regular people, normals in my life, not, you know, not randoms on the internet, like texting me, asking me, is BB really dead? They had been following influencers that were like, doing Zepruder film style like looks at these videos that Beebe put out that didn't look kind of weird, I would say. But like, you know, kind of saying it a sixth finger when it was just a shadow or, you know, doing deep analysis about his coffee, like why it didn't spill. It's just like, I just want everybody like, if you're following an influencer that's doing a frame by frame on why BB's coffee didn't spill.

I think you should just be a little bit skeptical about the material that they're providing. And I know we have some legitimate complaints about the MSM these days, but like there's a reason why there's, you know, editors out there and some of those outlets. So I don't, BB's alive. Do you want to talk about the hill first or the economic stuff? Why don't we talk about the hill? Then we'll go to the economy. I saw this from Punch Bowl this morning. This jumped out to me. And I think it does kind of relate to the conversation we're having about MAGA and the factioning on this. Pudgeon was the Capitol Hill kind of insider newsletter rag. There it does. The White House Pentagon and congressional leaders have begun talks about a supplemental funding bill for the Iran War. We've had several sources suggest the package may carry a price tag of $100 billion or more. Lawmakers see this as potentially the last must-pass bill of the year. It's March 16th. Isn't it March? Aren't we in March? And they may try to attach their own costly proposals to it as well. Wow. I just think that there's a lot to unpack there about, you know, it kind of relates to what Elena Kagan was talking about, about how they're like planning for a more extended conflict, that they would have, I think, I don't know, it would create questions for the Democrats and what to do about this. I think, you know, talks about just how neutered Capitol Hill is. I mean, have there been less powerful same party leaders in the history of Congress than John Thune and Johnson that they're like, this is the only thing we might do all year? Anyway, so go ahead and riff on any of those elements. Two obvious points. Hey, what is, as Trump launched the war, some of us thought, well, before the war, some of us thought Trump should get approval if he's going to do this as he was threatening to do it. He did it. We thought, hey, Trump should get approval now that he's begun to do it. Or at least there should be a War Powers Act type vote, 30 day, 60 day kind of deadline. Now we're talking, the Marine Expeditionary Force, I think the 31st Meuse is heading towards the Gulf, the serious talk about, the war's not letting up, except boast that it's more intense each day, you know? Literally, we now are going to fight, what, weeks, months, with no congressional authorization or no even fresh appropriations, just nothing. I mean, no testimony, incidentally from them to the hill on the hill either, except in, you know, a couple of secret sessions with some committee leaders. It's a new level in just cutting them out entirely. And the Republican leadership is obviously totally pathetic. And at some point is one of these people who's allegedly privately very concerned, you know, the Roger Wicker of the world are all these characters. Are they going to say something? They're going to conceivably vote for a war parish resolution type thing? I mean, probably not for a while, but it is pretty astonishing. How did the Democrats handle this? Traditionally, like, there have been... You know, the Democrats have, even when they opposed wars, like, let's you saw this in Iraq. Like, there would be Democratic senators who opposed the war, but they did it. They would vote for the funding because you didn't want to see him anti-trups. You didn't want to make sure the troops had the resource, if we're going to be in the war. I don't, like, I don't feel like this is that situation, particularly on this first vote, right? Especially if you're not going to have a war powers vote. I feel like the Democrats have to be aligned just a hard no on this.

Yeah, hard though, with the caveat that the hard note should be, obviously, we'll appropriate funds for 30 days to make sure our people can exit this area safely. Or we will consider appropriating funds if, if, A, there's a 60-day deadline, B, there's a plan submitted, C, you know, there are things they can do to make it. They have to be. Ben of Rebecca's a little bit, probably not to undercut the troops who are actually in harm's way. But I think, you know, you could easily, pretty easily say 30 days, 60 days to get them out of arms way, or let Trump come back in 30 days and say he really needs the money. This is this case for keeping them in harm's way. But, yeah, I think it's pretty hard no on extending the war. I mean, he's fought for 16, 17 days now already. I mean, I think the Democrats just have to say no blank check for ground troops in the Middle East. That's what I think. I mean, I... I don't disagree with those caveats you offered for the behind the scenes negotiations. I just think that the Democrats need to be a little bit better at having the top line message be absolutely not. And I think you see some Democrats who are good on this. Ruben Gallego's guy who's been good. He was on recently. Like Chris Murphy, there have been some others. But I just, I feel like every time I see Chuck Schumer talk, he's like starting with the caveats. And it's just like, give me the top line, which is that this was war. They didn't come to us to support. It's illegal. Like they did not come to Congress. for approval at the beginning, and they haven't offered a rationale, and it's been a total shit show, and we're against. The details can come after that. I totally agree with you about the top line and indeed to be very firm on that and sharp on that. And I think the phrase that maybe does that is end the war. end the war is not the same as undercutting the troops or a backward looking. You should have come to us, which is Chuck Schumer spends too much time talking about, you know, just end the war. It's not working. We're risking more. The more we digger we deep the digger. I can't be the deeper, we dig this hole. We dig. Yeah, stop digging this hole. The Dirk Diggler, we deep. Exactly, whatever it is. So I think end the war is a good thing that they need to say over and over. And I think that's, and suddenly, that's honestly their view. I take it. It's honestly my view. You know, so just say it. On the economic consequences, you do hear, especially from the more rah-rah folks about the war and about the way that we've annihilated the Iranian capabilities. You know, when it comes to the economic part, there's a lot of, oh, this is a short-term thing. You know, like this is a shock. It's going to take a few months. Like, it'll be, you know, we'll be back down to normal by the end of the year. I kind of wonder if any of those people were awake during the COVID inflation situation, which, you know, spiraled out of control. ended the Biden presidency, basically. And, you know, it happened years after we already had the jab. And, like, you know, supply chains. Like, this stuff just doesn't remedy itself overnight. You shared this. It was on CNBC, I believe, Jeff Curry from Goldman Sachs, who's a commodities analyst. And I thought it was pretty compelling. I just want to play it for everybody.

This is not just a disruption oil. It's gas, it's fertilizers, it's metals, it's petrochemicals. The list goes on and on. And then you've disrupted supply chains in countries all over the world. The ships are in the wrong places. The insurances have been canceled. You've taken the pressure out of the fields that you've shut in in places like Saudi Arabia or Iraq or even in the UAE. I can just, the list goes on and on. The damage is going to take months to unwind. But I want to bring it to the immediate. There is no policy response that can stop this ascent and crude. None. And yes, you've heard this 400 million barrel headline. Flow rate is what matters. You know, the maximum sustainable flow rate is 2 million barrels per day. So 400, that'll take them 200 days to get that out. And you put that in the context of a disruption of, you know, let's net it out of, you know, it's got to be somewhere around 18 million barrels per day right now. You're just minuscule in terms of offsetting it. So again, there's not many options here. Talk about the Strategic Oil Reserve offset choice there. I think you should listen to those guys. It's like even if he did, you know, take the fork in the road out now, I mean, that's months and months and months and 200 days, you know, to get it back to where it was. Right. And I mean, even that fork in the road, he probably has some face saving, you know, ceasefire or negotiations. So we're probably a week or two from that. But yeah, I guess the other point I'd make is just two weeks is a pretty long time. Four weeks is twice as long as two weeks. Eight weeks is four times as long as two weeks in terms of the disruption, right? I mean, it is the COVID-type situation where, yes, you can manage these things as a short-term spike. But I think that's what the markets are telling us. They're looking at it and thinking, this could be. you know, much longer. God knows, I can't really judge it. I've talked to a couple of economists, and they're a little cautious because these things are pretty hard to judge in real time. But the economy was slowing anyway. And I've got to wonder six months from now, when people look back at this first quarter of 2026, they say economy was slowing, big oil shock recession. Just to put a finer point about it, because sometimes you're following this and it's like, oh, there's the one day it goes up, it goes down. And, you know, like you can. be overly responsive to just, you know, sort of movements in the market. I just pulled this up, like the Brent oil barrel price on February 17th, so one month ago, it was 66 bucks. Right now it's 101. And like, that's like not quite double, but a very significant increase that is, you know, it has like just tons of ramifications through an economy that, as you mentioned, was already kind of shaky. Like, you know, all of the jobs numbers, there was a, you know, they've been doing the corrections, you know, looking back at the last few months, it turns out there are fewer jobs created than we thought.

It's a dicey situation. And I guess that's why Karoline Leavitt just posted that Ben Shapiro praised Trump's strike is the single bravest foreign policy move of my lifetime. Because it is pretty brave to just absolutely hammer your own domestic economy and, you know, the rationale for your presidency on behalf of a project internationally that doesn't have like a clear outcome. It does take some courage to do that. I guess, in some ways. Reckless is one step over from brave. Half step, I think. Half step. So Brendan Carr was out talking about threatening the network TV licenses for supposed misinformation about the Iran war. Trump posted that media companies wrongly reporting on the war should be charged with treason. There's some death penalty threats for journalists wrongly reporting on the war. I'm not shaking in my boots personally on that one, but it is something that the president said. We talked last week to the Secretary of War. It was talking about how excited he was for CNN to be taken over by his friend. I mean, the degree to which they're trying to manipulate the media, crackdown on free speech, you know, is pretty stark. Try is the key word there. I mean, like they've had some success, obviously, in the private sector with the purchases and the takeovers from the Ellisons. Using the force of government power has been not that effective so far. Well, actually, I have a caveat in that, but why don't you go first? Well, just, I mean, the next No Kings protest is in just under two weeks now. They tried to discredit the one in October, remember, very, you know, that was between the government shutdown. So that was the militants, the rabid militants. I think they used the word terrorists. It will be out there demonstrating anti-American and stuff. I take it part of the No King's protest will be an anti-war protest. And in any case, there will be other anti-war protests. I think there you will have real, you know, Joe McCarthyite. or 1919, depending on what historical, this has happened before where people, you know, presidents who are fighting wars label everyone who's opposing them, but certainly anyone who's protesting them as, you know, on the side of the your enemy. kind of on the side of terrorism, I suppose, since Iran is a sponsor of terrorism on the side of, and it's treasonous and stuff. It's been pretty ineffectual so far. It's only was for the first No Kings protest, the attempts to either sell that or to weaponize it mostly. There's been, you know, there have been executive orders and attempts to begin to lay the groundwork for really going after people. But I don't know, we're in a real war now. And sort of on the one hand, not quaking my boots, but on the other hand, taking it a little more seriously than I would have just a month ago. Like, there's a ton of evidence out there that Trump and this administration has had success intimidating people in the private sector. I was having a conversation over the weekend about this, about somebody who's working on projects that two years ago would have been approved for, you know, that are in the politics space, news documentary type stuff. That's just like they don't want to do it. Like, it's just not worth the risk of, you know.

backlash from Trump in these Hollywood studios. So, like, there's been a chilling effect. Like, there's been success in that. Like, the most robust effort that they had to try to silence people directly was over Jimmy Kimmel when Brendan Carr was basically going to the local stations and saying, like, I'm going to threaten your licenses. And you would think that those, they would be less able or willing to handle this kind of economic. assault from our government than you know disney or whatever some big multinational corporation and that didn't work right like it were i didn't work for a couple days like he was off there for a couple days and then and then you know everybody pushed back so we'll see i i guess i just think it's important to note that like while he's making these threats have been pretty empty threats in the past but you know i think also just looking at it more globally And this was the hungry playbook. And it took time, you know, for Viktor Orban to kind of take over these various companies. Trump made a post on truth social that's like simultaneously like intimidating and mockable, you know, which is it's a meme talking about how he's reshaped the media. And at the top, it's like, gone. You know, and there's some things that are really, like, serious. PBS defunded, you know, but then it's like, Joy Reed and Terry Moran fires. It's like, okay, I don't know. Poor Terry Moran, he's been on the show. He's doing great on Substack, but it's like, okay, you know, Chuck Todd out at NBC. It's like there's some of these things. And then the reforms. It's like Trump is doing that interviews, you know, news bias ombudsman at CBS. So, you know, Disney ends key DEI practices. It's like there's like, it's this mix of like things that have happened that have changed in ways that the media has accommodated itself to the Trump regime that's chilling. And then it's tied with other kind of silly stuff in terms like personal beefs with people on the stories that he watches on TV. But like. That took time. It took time in Hungary. I don't know. I'm of two minds about it. On the one hand, it's like it took time in Hungary. And there is. a lot of power and danger in government censorship and control of media. On the other hand, in this brave new world, like reality kind of does end up finding a way, not in the way that we want. There's like the old Jurassic Park about how life finds a way. Like, I don't know. There are efforts to intimidate the media into silence over the Iran more don't seem to be working based on the polls. So I don't know. Which side of that do you kind of fall on? I tend to come down on the optimistic side of it with a caveat that People need to fight. And I do think, you know, the merger with para. I mean, this is where people have to have a, if I can use a stupid term that I don't like normally, a holistic view of what's happening. You need to fight on many, many, many fronts. The merger stuff, which is a business story and not one that I personally pay much attention to, and the people in the media sphere, that are thing, you know, unlike direct intimidation of Jimmy Kimmel or whatever. But it's kind of important if they're only allowing mergers to Trump friendly.

People. Oh, that part is super. Yeah, it's really important. They're so chaotic and so mockable and such jackasses. But they are pulling a lot of levers at once, I guess is the way I would say it. And we need, if I can say we, the Democratic opposition small D needs to be alert to that and pulling whatever counter levers at once it can too. You know, I mean, it can't just be sort of, well, the courts weren't going to really like that one. And it needs to be an aggressive response on all fronts. I agree. And I want to caveat my caveats just also, which is. With technology, the degree to which reality can find a way might change. You know, I think that in some ways, you know, this stuff is all like progressing and changing. It's like a river. And, you know, in the 80s. crackdowns by fascist governments on media were, like, very effective because there were so few media outlets, right? I feel like it was happening in, you know, kind of the Soviet sphere of influence, right? You know, right now, like, and obviously the disinformation was effective enough to get Donald Trump elected twice. It's not like nothing, but like right now there also is other information is getting out. It's just like a question of whether it's getting to people, right? Like, it's different than the type of censorship we've seen in the past from fascist regimes. And, you know, eventually. again, like Trump lost his second election and right now he's losing politically. So I just think that's important to deal with that reality. But as the technology changes with AI and these guys controlling TikTok, it's controlling the big tech companies, you know, I think the threats get. much, much greater. And like to that point, I'll talk about some immigration stuff too. There's a federal case in Oregon where ICE officers set under, oh, it's something we've kind of, we've known already. But number one is that they have the daily arrest quotas. But second is that they're using the Palantir app elite for like mass surveillance and targeting. And again, those who are watching this have known this because like fucking little Greg Gregory Bovino was like taking his phone up and putting in people's faces and telling them that he was putting their face to a facial recognition app. But that technology is a. advancing very quickly. And the government now using this with impunity targeting citizens, not that it would be okay for them to do it targeting undocumented people, but they're doing it targeting citizens, protesters, people that are here illegally, people that are suspected of being here illegally, is pretty chilling. I mean, libertarians have been upset for a long time. I've thought excessively, but not crazily, about the 702 program. I don't even, you know, the NSA. It's, I don't even understand all that stuff. But pretty carefully monitored and restricted, actually, uses where the federal government thought they wanted to understand some conversations with foreign nationals, like Tucker Carlson with Iranians and or Vladimir Putin, but careful in how they're getting Pfizer warrants, all that stuff. We are now. totally blown by any of that kind of stuff. We're blown by the notion that we should have a debate about whether, well, maybe I shouldn't be allowed to do this. The Congress, the United States, could actually pass a law saying they can't have such a register of terrorism.

I want to ask you a question on the Republicans in Congress. We would discuss it for a minute. But I mean, do they just endlessly go on? There's no point to enough of them say, wait a second, that you really begin to get a crumbling. We've seen sort of hints of it. And, of course, it's all been ultimately disappointing, I think, so far. But a little bit of crumbling in the ability for him to hold 50 Republican senators and 218 Republican House members. And again, it was so infuriating, of course, is it would take a handful of them. right to say no on a whole bunch of areas you know look at the midterms who knows how do people how do people act when they're in the minority how might they act in the senate if it's really a one vote situation rather than three right maybe you see some difference i don't know i just think it comes back to the short-term incentives like this like the massy primary is interesting and sam talked about this last week right it's like We still now, 10 years in, no one has really challenged Trump directly and won. and survived. The caveat to that would be the Georgia guys, Brian Kemp and Brad Raffensperger. And so I'll credit to them, honestly, but like the state elections are a little bit different. At the federal level, House or Senate, you know, there hasn't really been anybody. You know, everyone in those challenges either retired or one run quixotic primaries like Lish Cheney did. You know, nobody is really like dug in. And so the Thomas Massie primary in Kentucky, I think is very important inflection point on that. But I just think it's like, They decide it's not worth it. Is that not worth it? And look at that. This is the primary in Louisiana, for example. So I get the TV ads for Bill Cassidy and Julia Letlow. And you would think that Bill Cassidy was the biggest Trump fan in the universe. If all you're doing is just watching basketball and seeing the ads and not getting any news otherwise. And that Julia Lettlow, the Trump endorsed MAGA candidate is, you know, Bill Crystal, some woke never Trump squish. Like if you're just watching the TV ads, that's what you'd get the sense of. As long as that's the case that they feel like they need to have the Trump halo to survive, I don't expect that we're going to see a lot of courage. My question back to you on the Hill stuff, you're out early on the Democrats needing to be. You offer a middle ground on the DHS shutdown and just saying, hey, we'll order to fully fund FEMA, TSA, these other elements, anything else that's related to domestic terror threats, et cetera. They've done that, but I don't, I haven't really like done a big pressure campaign on it. I wouldn't say. Where do you think this stands? I mean, it's pretty crazy that DHS is still like not funded given the state of affairs.

I actually got a call from a member of Congress. My staff showed me your tweets. And I want you to know, we do agree with you that we're for no additional funding for ICE and Border Patrol. We're fine with funding the rest of it. So you need to make that point a little more emphatically in my humble judgment. And this person said, yes, well, we're beginning to. Rosa DeLora did have actual legislation. She's in leadership in the house. Patty Smith, is I don't know, the Smith? No, Perry. Murray, Patty Morris. Patty Murray. Patty Smith is a singer. Yeah, I know. Thanks. It's a little bit of touch there. Patty Murray, the appropriations, I think, ranking member in the Senate, asked United States consent to do that, actually, last week, the Republicans blocked it. And this member of Congress said, look, we've had some internal debates. Some people thought we had more leverage if we kept the whole DHS closed. I said, come on, really? It's not, it's negative leverage at this point with TSA. And this person said, yes. You'll see this week, we will make clear. Our position is we will not give additional funds to ICE. Border Patrol absent the kinds of reforms they've demanded. We want to give these other funds, and it's the Republicans who are preventing you. And I think it's a pretty easy argument to make. It's a true argument. And they just need to really hammer at home this week, and they say they're going to. So. We'll keep an eye on that. All right. Final topic, there's a candidate that I want to highlight out in America. I sometimes have said some pretty negative things about Alabama on this podcast and our Alabama listeners who I appreciate, have not always appreciated by, you know, stereotyping of Alabama by use of the word Alabama as a slur. We have a candidate here that I think is interesting. His name is Jamel J. Brown. He's a pastor and an influencer who is running for governor of Alabama. Now, Tommy Tuberville is running on the other side. I think that's an uphill battle. And so you've got to have some creative thinking. And on the podcast, I've been discussing how in red states we need heterodox Democrats. You know, they don't need to be squishy moderates, but they've got to stake out some different points of view. And here's Jemelle Brown's list of 20 executive orders that he is going to sign on day one to put the people of Alabama first. Legalize and tax marijuana for personal use. Pardon nonviolent offenders in state prisons. Eliminate state tax on groceries. That's good. Legalize and tax the lottery. Okay. $3,000 stimulus checks for those making under $100K. It's a little cansy in for me, but okay. Restore law and order in crime-ridden cities. All right. We're pivoting a little bit to the right here on law and order issues. Put parents back in charge of education, people like that. Number eight, legalize sex stores. Number nine, bring prayer back into schools. It's an interesting pairing, but I like it. I don't, you know, and separation in church of state and all that, but I do think that the Democrats reaching out to religious people is important, legalized sex stores, and bring prayer back into schools. Number 10 of us in Alabama businesses for the Chamber of Commerce class. 11 pay raise for all state employees. Public sector, that's nice. Number 12, make Montgomery a strip club city.

I don't know what that entails exactly. But I'm interested. Is that a thing you could be like in some cities, sanctuary cities, or club cities? A sanctuary. No sanctuary cities. We should call his camp, him. He seems very accessible, I think, online. I think we can just direct DM him and ask him what exactly. I've never been to Montgomery, for example, and I might consider it. Now, I know not a strip club guy myself, but just as a cultural thing, just as a curiosity. Lake Montgomery a strip club city. Three months grace period for utility bills. That's good. Support our veterans. Anyway, there goes more. I like it. I should say that Doug Jay Jones is also in the governor's race, and I think is the more prominent candidate for the nomination, and I don't want to disendorse Doug or say anything negative about him. But I just, I think that what Jamel is offering is something different. He's trying something, and I want to make sure I'm highlighting that. So that's all. Do you have any thoughts on the Jamel Brown, Canada, see? It'll be great when Doug, I know Doug, some as you do, when Doug, who's a serious and kind of earnest guy, when Doug gets asked today, you know, after people watch, maybe they saw the original tweet by his rival, but maybe after they, honestly, after they watch the show, when Doug gets asked, where are you on making Montgomery a strip club city? You know, and then it becomes the big issue in the Democratic gubernatorial primary in Alabama. A lot of times particularly presidential races, the niche candidates bring an issue to the four, you know, and the more mainstream candidates co-opt it, you know, because they see the popularity. And maybe that could be making Montgomery a stroke club study. Okay. Bill Crystal, thank you. I don't even know what to expect for tomorrow's show. So we're going to see. It's going to be fun, I think. But it's going to be a little surprise for folks. So stick around for that. We have the next level podcast also comes out on Tuesday. So a lot of. A lot of material. And then we're in Austin later. So Dallas and Austin, Dallas Wednesday night, Austin Thursday. We got a surprise guest in Dallas Wednesday. That'll be your Thursday podcast. Then Friday, it will be me with a hangover after a night out in Austin with somebody. So that's the schedule for the week. It's going to be pretty good. Bill. Thank you so much for doing it. And tickets are still available in Austin. Thebillwork.com slash tickets. It's the biggest venue we've ever played. We've already sold over 1,000 tickets. So it's awesome. How do people are coming? But if you want to pop in, go, go, go check us out. Anything else, Bill? If Montgomery becomes a strip club city, we need to do a bulwark event, obviously. I agree. I agree. We'll see you a bullwork event, don't you think? I mean, not that I would make that clear. Absolutely. That's a kind of gesture of rewarding, you know, freshly outside the box thinking, you know? Totally agree. Montgomery, we'll see you in 2027. Everybody else, Bill Chris, we'll see you back here Monday. Everybody else will see you tomorrow. Bye. And if it's all right with you before I get back on the train, I just want to see Montgomery in the rain. The Bullock podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with...