The Bulwark Podcast
David Graham and Pablo Torre: Is Lil Marco a Cuban Communist Agent?
Thu, 20 Feb 2025
If Marco Rubio was NOT playing the long game masquerading as a patriotic neocon who gets placed in the State Department to then give Russia everything it wanted, what would he be doing differently? Meanwhile, a Democratic version of the Tea Party may be brewing, the tensions between Elon and Russ Vought are likely to pop out, and a psychoanalyst needs to explain Mitch McConnell. Plus, the Saudis are getting their claws in our sports with a LIV-PGA deal and Trump's astonishingly corrupt involvement. And also -- Trump doesn't know ball. Pablo Torre and David Graham join Tim Miller. show notes David's forthcoming book, "The Project: How Project 2025 Is Reshaping America" David's newsletter on the Department of Education Pablo's podcast, "Pablo Torre Finds Out"
Chapter 1: Is Marco Rubio secretly working for Cuba?
And they placed him here and dressed him up as a neocon, just waiting for the right moment where they could take this patriotic explant and turn him into an asset that gives Russia everything they ever wanted.
Well, you know, we had that situation a few years ago where there was a foreign service agent who was a long running Cuban sleeper cell. So we know this is the sort of thing they do. I think you get this going.
Yuri Bezmenov, the Russian KGB guy said that, you know, their goals was to change people's concept of reality. What better way to do that than to put a Cuban neocon expat and the State Department together? It's confusing people. It's what would he be doing differently if this weren't the case, I guess would be another question that I would ask.
What would he be doing differently if he weren't a long running communist Cuban asset? I don't know. I know that the Atlantic has kind of different standards than what we're offering here on this podcast. So I don't want to put you in a corner. But you have to admit that you're a little intrigued.
Yes, I'm intrigued by the idea. I'm intrigued by what he would be doing differently if this is true. I mean, I think that's a good question. That's a useful question to ask outside of conspiracy theories.
Well, we're going to keep thinking about it. Unfortunately, I don't have like Elon Musk won't come on to kind of like chief the joints with me and like really ruminate on it like Rogan does. But we're kind of dipping our toe in the water of conspiracy podcast content and we'll kind of see what the people think. Who's going to be your Elon of the left for podcasting purposes?
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Chapter 2: How does Trump view dictatorships and Ukraine?
That is a great question. That is a great question. It's hard to imagine Reid Hoffman coming on the podcast and getting really high with me. So we need to think about who else that might be. Maybe the listeners have some suggestions. On to actual news. So Trump yesterday put out a lengthy statement attacking Zelensky saying that he's a dictator.
which is a strange pejorative for Trump, since he usually really is kind and complimentary to dictators. Today, the G7 was trying to put out a statement on the third anniversary of the full-scale invasion into Ukraine. The U.S. is opposing the statement because it calls Russia the aggressor, apparently, according to some reporting in the FT and others.
Dan Crenshaw, my old sparring partner, offered a theory on the Piers Morgan show yesterday that Trump...
gives negative names to people that he really likes and like butters up his enemies it's all part of his strategy i'm a little confused by that i guess that would mean that he like really loves crooked hillary i don't i don't i don't understand how that theory works exactly so anyway i'm wondering if you have any thoughts on what we've seen over the last 48 hours
I mean, this is one of these things that feels like it shouldn't be surprising, but it still is. The dictator thing is something that is floating around, the idea that Ukraine is the aggressor. We know he doesn't pay attention to any of the facts and he doesn't remember any of the history, but it's a wild thing to say.
And I feel like we got so sick of talking about the question of a big lie and if you tell people something enough times, blah, blah, blah. But that's what's going on here. We all know who the aggressor was in this case. It was very clear. And Trump is going for the, I'm just going to tell you a really brazen lie and see if I can get away with it strategy, I guess.
That's a good point about the big lie. I think there's also an ominous element to it. Like when you just think about this strategically, I talked about this earlier this week, was if you're Putin... Probably the best deal you could get out of this is to basically get Ukraine without having to fight anymore, right? And one path to that is by having Zelensky be overthrown and replaced with Puppet.
And it feels like... Calling him a dictator, attacking him, spreading all these lies about him. There was this other idiotic lie that Trump told yesterday where he said that Zelensky was sleeping and so he wouldn't meet with Scott Besant, who was the Treasury Secretary, who was there on a diplomatic engagement. That's not true. They met with Besant. He met with Besant. There are pictures of it.
All this attack is laying the groundwork for... for, you know, some kind of removal of him, right? Like it's coming up with a pretense that, oh, well, this isn't really democracy and we're going to do, you know, this or that and allow kind of Putin to get most or all of what he wants without having to do any more fighting. Yeah.
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Chapter 3: What are the consequences of Trump's policies?
And you kind of went through a litany of folks who over the first month here have been a little bit caught off guard by Trump actually following through on what, um, what the campaign indicated he would do. What have been some of the prime examples of that for you?
Well, I mean, I was driving in my car shouting at the radio. NPR had a story where they were talking to Venezuelan American voters who were upset that Trump is terminating temporary protected status for Venezuelan refugees in the US. This is something he talked about doing. There are people upset about a lot of immigration things.
There's the Wall Street Journal. I just want to pick just on the Wall Street Journal because you'd think that they would have seen some of this coming. A couple of editorials that they've had recently. They're upset about Trump's rhetoric related to Zelensky, obviously. They are upset about the tariffs, naturally. They're upset that Trump is pushing Jerome Powell to lower interest rates.
They think that is going to lead to more inflation. Those three topics... If there's anything that Trump has been consistent on, it's been abandoning Ukraine, tariffs, such a beautiful word, and that real estate guys should have lower interest rates for their deals. Immigration, I guess, is the only other thing you could throw in there that Trump has been consistent on since the 80s.
Right. I was going to say, these are things he's been talking about for literally decades, not just in his political career, but since the 80s. He's wanted tariffs and he's wanted to cut immigration. It's so clear.
I have a little bit more sympathy for some of the other things you talked about, like the farmers, you know, who didn't like expect that their program was going to get cut or, you know, things of this nature. I think that when we're going to get into Project 2025, I think they're legitimate programs.
People who are like, you know, cuts to the VA was not really part of his campaign, at least Trump, you know, if you consider the campaign, the Trump speeches rather than Project 2025, it wasn't really part of it. But I get the top level, the degree to which people. just were so credulous about this notion that this is all just a game and he's not really going to do it is like pretty shocking.
Well, I mean, I think my favorite just for the outlandishness is the Arab Americans for Trump. Oh, you have now changed their name to Arab Americans for peace. But this is a guy who was out using Palestinian as an insult, as a pejorative on the campaign trail. And they're surprised that he's very friendly to the Israeli government and that he wants to clear Palestinians out of Gaza.
None of these things should come as any kind of surprise.
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Chapter 4: How is Project 2025 influencing current politics?
You wrote about the great surrender. To me, the Kash Patel...
example is i i think the most extreme i mean you could make an argument to me for hegg seth because it was such a preposterous choice for a weekend tv show host to become the secretary of defense but not gabbert i mean i i again you know we're grading on the on a scale here i can understand why people would be most concerned about gabbert but like she was in congress you know i mean sure i don't know like she was in congress it's
Like, it wouldn't have been a crazy choice for President Bernie to pick her for DNI, right? So it's not, you know, when it comes to resume. To me, Kash Patel has no experience in the Bureau. So there's nothing there. He's a compulsive liar, as your colleague Elena Plotko wrote in her great profile of him. He lied to all their faces.
allegedly I just like a week and a half ago when they asked him if he was involved in the firings of the FBI and he said no so he has an enemies list and it's just it's a ridiculous choice to be the head of the FBI and the dangerous choice because of the lack of oversight he has and you know these people know it I mean he did the January 6th song like the prisoner song he produced the song of the prisoners that beat the cops like this person is gonna be the head of the federal of our federal law enforcement and
You wrote about the great surrender. I assume you're with me here that we'll just see a total fold on this in a couple hours.
I think that's right. I really expected there would be at least one of these folks would go down. We lost Gates right from the start, but I thought that they were going to demand something. And I'm, again, I probably shouldn't be surprised, but I'm surprised that not one of these candidates has attracted more serious opposition. Except for Mitch. McConnell's out there. He's doing it.
What do you make of that? It's very strange to see somebody who is in charge of keeping Republican votes together being the one guy defying it. I mean, you know, you said Tillis doesn't want to retire yet. So he has these expressions of dismay, you know, and McConnell's clearly in DGAF territory. And I think he doesn't like Trump. He doesn't like these nominees.
And he sees no real downside to voting against them.
Yeah. I kind of feel like you need more of a psychiatrist to assess what's happening with Mitch than, you're right, than like a political analyst because to me it does feel like a rationalization thing. He's trying to convince himself that he's principled, you know? It's like a legacy reclamation sort of project.
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Chapter 5: What are the potential impacts of Project 2025 on education?
And, you know, these are coming up at the BET Awards. And you have the Dems brandishing that oversized book at the DNC. Like, they really injected it into the conversation. I mean, do you remember why?
You remember why? Like, it was because the Biden debate was so bad. Right. They're desperate for anything. I was like, we need a talking point. So, like, we're going to do Project 2025. And it did kind of work. You're right. Credit is due there.
I mean, I live in a blue bubble, but I was driving around and seeing signs in people's yards that said, Stop Project 2025. And that's a sign of how weakly people were attached to the candidates, but it's also surprising penetration for something like this.
I do think, though, in spite of what you're saying about the blue bubble, he did kind of get away with it.
Oh, for sure.
At least on the particulars.
Yes.
As far as people not really... It ties to the other topic. Not really believing that he was going to go along with the most extreme shit that... that somebody in the basement of the Heritage Foundation came up with. But like, that's what's happening. So I'm wondering, given that you wrote the book, I'm going to assume you've read all 900 pages. I have.
What so far in this first month, like what is being implemented? What isn't? What might be next? Just give us kind of a rundown of how the pamphlet matches up with what we've seen so far.
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Chapter 6: Who are the key players in implementing Project 2025?
Because, like, some people just quit. You know, some people decide they're not going to come back to work. And in some ways, maybe that makes what vote is trying to do easier.
I think that's true to a point. And the point where I think it gets dangerous is, or gets risky for vote rather, is some of the things that Elon's doing are just so clearly illegal and unconstitutional that they're going to get rolled back. And something they say a lot in Project 2025 is we have one shot at this. We have to get this right.
We have to get it right in the first two years or else we will get rolled back. And so by coming in and doing these things and getting all of the, he's going to get results, Musk is going to get results, but he's also going to get rolled back on some things. And I think that's going to cause problems for actually getting things done through the legal process.
I mean, these cuts, many of these things are going to be unpopular. You know, no one wants to see national parks closed and so on and so forth. And so you've got to get it done before the backlash.
Is there anything else, anything that's in there that you feel like has not gotten the media attention? I mean, there's just so much shit happening. You know, I just wonder if anything jumps out at you having written about this.
I think one thing that we haven't talked about as much because people are talking about civil servants is how much of it is focused on, in fact, getting the right political appointees. You know, there's just a real fury from Russ Vogt and Paul Danz about how bad the political appointees were from their perspective in the first Trump administration. Hmm.
And you're going to get these people in eventually, but they're going to be overseeing departments that are cleared out. They're not going to be able to get the things done that they want to. And so I think that's a tension.
Yeah, but you're seeing some prime examples of this that have already backfired, like Darren Beatty, who we wrote about. They were trying to put in Secretary of State as Marco's deputy, and that lasted about eight minutes. Though, I guess Ed Martin in the U.S. Attorney's Office, that's actually seemed like that's going to, who knows, that might stick. So, I don't know. It becomes challenging.
I talked to Banner about this once. Well, I was like, a big problem that you have is you don't have the horses to do all this. There's not the bench of actual people. I mean, the type of person that wants to advance the most radical elements of... MAGA or of Project 2025, there isn't like a huge number of them that are like Ivy League grads that are like wanting to work in the federal government.
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