Marco Rubio was supposed to be one of the only adults in the room, and now he's become a shell of himself executing Trump's unwinding of the US role in the world. Meanwhile, Pam Bondi just can't keep her blubbering sycophancy under wraps. Plus, Mike Waltz's ouster at NSA, our shakedown of Ukraine with a minerals deal, Trump's pettiness is getting lost in the firehose of his revenge, and even the president of El Salvador doubts the criminality of the people ICE is sending to CECOT. Tom Nichols join Tim Miller. show notes Tim's interview with Rep. Chris Van Hollen NYT's recent story on the deportations to El Salvador (gift) The link for tonight's AMA at 8pm ET
Chapter 1: What are the key updates from the podcast's recent events?
Hello and welcome to the Bullwark Podcast. I'm your host Tim Miller. A few quick housekeeping items. The Chicago event with Adam Kinzinger sold out. Sorry, you can stand outside and, I don't know, throw underwear at Kinzinger if you want, but the tickets are no longer available. Nashville is available May 29th. Thebullwark.com slash tickets.
Yesterday, I interviewed Chris Van Hollen, Senator Chris Van Hollen. So make sure you're not missing those bonus interviews and instant reaction hot takes I'm doing on YouTube. We're putting them in the Bulwark Takes podcast feed for you audio folks. So go check that feed out if you haven't.
And lastly, tonight, me, JBL, and Sarah are doing a live AMA, stands for Ask Me Anything, for Bulwark Plus members only on YouTube and Substack. So go grab a beverage. Join us at 8 p.m. Eastern. I'll be pre-gaming an LCD Sound System concert, so I'll have a beverage. And you'll find links for this live AMA on theblog.com or on the YouTube page. See you all tonight. Here's the guest.
You know who he is. Professor Emeritus at the Naval War College. He's a staff writer at the Atlantic. He wrote The Death of Expertise. It's Tom Nichols. What's up, man? Hey, Tim. Good to be back with you. Is it good to be back with me? It's been a little long. It's been a little too long. I need my Tom Nichols. You know, every 27 days or so, you know.
Yeah, it's been about a month. I think we're in the lunar cycle of, you know, hanging together.
Okay, good. Bill Kristol did me the displeasure of listing how many days left we have of this Trump term yesterday. And it was like 1,300 and something. So, you know, we have a lot more podcasts ahead of us. I'm curious what the very long list of topics to get to. But just the biggest picture. 100 days was yesterday. What has alarmed you the most, surprised you, if anything?
I guess it's become fashionable to say that you're completely surprised by the speed with which Trump moved. But I actually look at it from the other side. First, let me be optimistic. I actually think Trump and his people, once again, while they are aggressive and cruel, they're not competent, which is still working to the benefit of the United States and its people. Wow. Okay, fair enough.
Maybe not on the economic side, but we'll get to that. In terms of what he's up to between he and Elon Musk, this is not going so great. With that said, what's really dispirited me has been the kind of passivity
of millions of americans including you know at least some of the institutional democratic party but also a lot of other folks who are kind of you know feeling helpless now i know there have been big protests and people have been marching but i guess i am always stunned when trump does something staggeringly illegal i mean doge let's just doge itself for the past three months there is no such thing as doge they made it up it's not a thing
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Chapter 2: How has Marco Rubio's role changed under Trump?
Right.
That's it. And just put it out there and then radio silence and no, you're not going to the May Day parade. You're talking about the change in Marco Rubio, who goes from Reaganite to Trumper. But it seems like that's just a more watery version of what happened to, say, Lindsey Graham. And the reason that all of this is happening is because the Republican Party is now full of people
You know, how many times can you and I say it? I mean, it's opportunism. These are the hollow men. They don't really care what they're doing as long as they're not. I mean, what's Elise Stefanik up to next? You know, the one thing we know she doesn't want to do, and I think this was a really funny, you know, she was supposed to join the diplomatic and foreign policy team.
But the one thing it's clear she doesn't want to do is have to go back to upstate New York and actually represent her constituents. You can almost hear, you know, no, no. As she was almost could touch the Midtown East and was almost there. That's what powers Trump is that nobody cares as long as everybody's interests are taken care of.
What happens to the country and its alliances is really just collateral damage.
There's a minerals deal, I guess, that was released. New York Times saying it could bring untold money to a joint investment fund between the U.S. and Ukraine that could help rebuild Ukraine whenever the war with Russia ends. That said, there was no mention of a security guarantee in the deal, which Ukraine has long sought to prevent Russia from regrouping after any ceasefire.
You wrote about a week ago that the Trump proposal to end the war as in a peace plan is a reward for aggression. I don't know. To me, it's like,
i want to at least have an open mind that like they are starting to change their tune on this and this is a good sign like you've seen the tiny number of pro-ukraine republicans that were out there you know crenshaw and all them praising this deal yesterday but it's hard for me to see this as anything other than like us absconding with some of their resources as we you know turn and run but i don't know what do you make of it the
country is fighting for its existence and we're wrapped around the axle about you know mineral deals because of course with this president if you don't get something tangible to put in your pocket then you're the sucker somehow you don't support ukraine because it's the right thing to do you support ukraine because it puts some coin in your pocket
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Chapter 3: What is the significance of Trump's approach to foreign policy?
Are you ready for this? 258 million lives saved. So here's the good news, Tom. You know, it's been kind of a rocky start for Trump. Had Kamala been president, there's a 75% chance you would have died from fentanyl overdose, apparently.
258 million lives. I mean, you know, and the rest of us living here as if we weren't raptured or something. Or, you know, like, you know, the post-nuclear wasteland where, you know, only 30 million of us are left alive.
How many people do you think live in America?
Wow. Well, that's like making 200 deals with 190 countries. In the category of broken clocks every five years, even Ann Coulter, I guess, yesterday was like, hey, can we kind of chill with the North Korean tributes? Again, it tells you something about how insecure Trump is, but how insecure the people around him are as well, that it's just...
This amazing, you know, let us not be the last one to stop clapping, comrades. These aren't real cabinet meetings, real cabinet meetings. You close the door. President says, OK, you know, tell me the stuff I got to hear. What are we doing this week? How are we going to get our message and our program for it.
Instead, everybody goes around the table taking turns talking about the amazing three holes in one that the dear leader shot at Mar-a-Lago yesterday. I mean, it's everything the American system of government first of all, isn't supposed to be, but also was designed to prevent. I mean, it really tells you that our entire constitutional system of government is hanging by a thread here.
And thank God for other parts of our constitution. And let me give a shout out here for federalism, where you have states around the country saying, president can say anything he wants. States have rights and there are still courts and people can still organize.
But at that level within the White House, I mean, George Washington and John Adams and I imagine FDR and Jack Kennedy and Ronald Reagan, a lot of other presidents are spinning in their graves saying, you know, what the hell are you doing?
I have two favorite things I just want to just call attention to in that clip. Well, one of them you didn't get to see because it was on what I sent to Katie when I said we've got to pull this clip up this morning. It's the Fox News tweet of that little bit from the press conference. Just totally straight. They just wrote it as, A.G.
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Chapter 4: Why is the discussion around Ukraine's security guarantees important?
then I wonder, okay, who's actually running anything? And what, at least at State, some of the rumors that I've heard are that It's the same people that have been there forever. It's the deep state. Why? Because no one else knows what they're doing and because they fired so many people. And so you have second and third tier appointees and career folks.
And I suppose, again, that's a reason for optimism is that the lights stay on and things still keep happening in government, basically because nobody got to them fast enough and fired them and emptied out these offices and made it impossible for the government to function.
I want to talk about a friend of the show, Chris Krebs. We had another news item about him yesterday. Trump's former cybersecurity and infrastructure security agency head. His global entry has been revoked. He received an email yesterday from the trusted traveler program saying his status had changed. No longer a trusted traveler. These fucking like just these low rent bullies. It's just so fun.
It's like Trump is like, I am ordering my attorney general to go after this man for embarrassing me for speaking the truth. And it's like, what have we come up with so far? You've got to wait in the longer line. And when you go through customs now.
And it is like simultaneously like pathetic and embarrassing bullying and just an unprecedented attack by the federal government on a single person over political concerns. It's not unprecedented in the post-Watergate era, let's say.
Right. That's the scary part is that, I mean, the immediate issue of, well, we're going to kick off global entry. It's juvenile. You can't be in our club anymore. Like you say, you have to go stand in the longer line. But mobilizing the machinery of government against one person because he pissed you off by telling the truth years ago. He's not even in government.
It's one thing to say, look, I don't want people around me, and this is a completely legitimate thing to do in government, to say, I don't want appointees who have criticized me remaining in this administration. Okay, all presidents do that, right? I come in, you're either a previous appointee of mine or you're appointed by my successor. You obviously don't like me.
We're not going to work well together. You're fired. To go from that to, you know, we're going to pull your security clearances. We're going to kick you out of global entry. We're going to look at your taxes. We're going to, you know, just harass you. This is what I meant at the beginning, Tim, about why aren't people kind of more astonished by this?
And I think that fire hosing means that we just accept these stories because there are so many of them every day. Trump is going after so many people. in this kind of petty, inane, but in the end, extremely dangerous way that we just sort of shrug and say, well, just another day of Trump seeking revenge. Well, I'm sorry, we're talking about the president of the United States.
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Chapter 5: What are the implications of Trump's administration's actions against critics?
I'm excited to get to that. To stick with it. I'm about to go there.
I don't even know what I was going to say. In this hand, I had a news item. And in this hand, I got nothing. And I don't even remember what I was talking about.
I've got a news item. We have an exciting breaking news item about the staffing of our government. But I do just want to shout. I just want to close the loop really quick on the time story because... I give so much attention to Andre, the makeup artist, but there are some of these other cases.
And this same story goes pretty deep on this young man, Nary Alvarado, who is the guy that has the autism awareness tattoo. And the time story is just so good on this, where it's like, he came here in April and he just worked, was working at a bakery and he's like sending money to help his brother with autism.
And like, he has the bakery owner is the bakery owner is like, I'm going to go to fucking El Salvador and get them myself. You know, there's this guy who just had met him. He's like, he's that good. And I, that sweet and nice of a person. So anyway, there's additional reporting, like demonstrating that we've sent people wrongly there. So it's not surprising that even Mr. Braces Bukele.
And maybe we should get them out. Yeah, no, no. Why? Because you wish it. Yeah, because you wish it. No, we can't bring him out.
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Chapter 6: How does the current administration handle cabinet meetings?
But it was something to the effect of there was a way to do this quick do-si-do with Dan Cain and another nominee that you get basically a chairman and a new sec def all at once. That would have been really uncontroversial. But, of course, that would be the simple and – Scandal smothering approach, and Trump didn't take it.
So he's going to hang out Mike Waltz and Alex Wong and some other people, because that's the easy thing to do. And because, as you say, not our people, not our guys. I mean, he really, by all reports, the president really likes Hag Seth. Because Hegseth knows how to play to that gallery. Hegseth knows how to suck up to the boss.
And that, as we now know, going back to what we were talking about earlier, you know, cabinet meetings, sucking up to the boss is a core skill set here. It's how you survive.
It's crazy if you're looking at it. Imagine the humiliation of Mike Waltz. Let's just walk through this for a second. He gives up his seat in Congress. Yeah. which is a very safe seat. He could have been in that seat for his entire life if he wanted to.
To go and work and suck up to Donald Trump, somebody who really, just based on Walt's past, he's not aligned with on foreign policy issues specifically. But he goes to do it because he wants the job, wants the access, wants to be on Air Force One, wants to be hanging out next to the power center. He laughs in the job. 10 Scaramoochies. For barely 110 Scaramoochies. That's it.
Loses his congressional seat. Gone. He's humiliated. MAGA World isn't going to like him now. They are going to protect Pete and to protect all the other MAGA people. He's about to be trashed in MAGA Media. His brother-in-law is the lead singer of Creed. It's not really his fault. It just kind of adds to the humiliation a little bit. Yeah, that's true. That's true.
And then you look around the government and it's like, you know who outlasted you?
the fucking radio host that's the deputy fbi director like the guy you know i mean cash for time it is a rogues gallery of clowns that are in this administration and mike waltz the quasi i mean i don't have any love for mike waltz but quasi serious at least like plausible person is the first one out it is pretty humiliating they're floating putin's pal steve witkoff as a replacement. Oh, come on.
This is where I do the Jim Carrey water meme. You know, come on. I mean, are you serious? They're floating Witkoff to be National Security Advisor?
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Chapter 7: What concerns are being raised about the treatment of political opponents?
I don't know. Are you sure that the high mark of Pete Hex's wife wasn't the time that he was aggressively pursuing a married woman and drunkenly shouting at a maitre d' at a hotel while his baby mama was at home with his baby and his wife was...
was going through a divorce with him i mean that's a huge i mean think about that you're juggling three women at once you're so hammered that you're shouting at the hotel staff i'm gonna say being secretary of defense is better than that okay i don't know i'm just gonna take it we'll see we'll ask pete in 10 years because i think the secretary of defense thing is going to be pretty ugly for him
You wrote about Ed Martin, Eagle Ed, recently, the acting U.S. attorney. Interesting item this morning. Senate Majority Leader Thune has churned through all this array of clowns that Trump has nominated for various jobs across our government. But Martin is still on hold. Martin has been a little mean to Tom Tillis.
Tom Tillis might finally find his courage because Eagle Ed Martin was mean to him on a podcast yesterday. So I don't know. Ed Martin might have done the one thing that you cannot do to get confirmed by this Republican Senate, which is be mean personally to the Republican senators. Nothing to do with your qualifications, your Russophile history, etc.
But tell us a little bit more about what you wrote about Ed Martin.
Well, Ed Martin, who has been on Russian television 150 times, You know, we've all been there, right? No, zero for me.
Always refused every time.
Well, I am proud to say that I, too, have always refused and would never go on RT. I have been on Newsmax several times, though. So, you know, that's a thin line.
Okay.
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Chapter 8: How are U.S. deportations impacting relations with El Salvador?
I really shouldn't do that again. But when you become a regular guest and a friend of the show, You know, I mean, that's like, you know, like Kash Patel and Stu Peters. I don't know who he was. I only did a show, you know, eight times. Being like me, say Tim, Tim Miller. Don't know the guy. Did I? You know, he's a face on the screen. So that tells you something. And I watched a lot of those.
I mean, when I wrote that piece, I actually went and I watched those clips.
and he's having the time of his life i mean he's yucking it up with george galloway and you know shooting the breeze with the hosts and trashing america at will and you know normally republicans back in the day back when they were still a party would have said you know trashing your own country on russian television and going on there 150 times
Probably not a, you know, that's probably disqualifying to become a senior Justice Department appointee. So it may be it may be not just that he pissed off Tom Tillis, but that that first his record is on this is so egregious. But the other thing is, does Ed Martin have the kind of institutional and White House juice that say, you know, Pete Hegseth had, right? I mean, Trump went and twisted arms.
Hegseth gets through by a single vote. Does Martin really have anybody who's saying, oh, yeah, Ed Martin, I'll go to bat for that guy?
Maybe just because it's like, who else are they going to find to put in as the D.C. U.S. attorney who's just going to fire off insane letters to Georgetown about how they can't teach DEI and to Robert Garcia saying that he is like, you know, possibly going to be charged for death threats because he used a metaphor to describe, you know, his feelings. But you would think...
Now, again, I'm making a big assumption. You would think they'd say, you know, we do want somebody in the DC, you know, as the DC AUSA to be effective and really, you know, put the fear of God into some of these people. That's not Ed Martin. I mean, this, what Ed Martin is doing is clownish and won't stand up and, you know, it's just for public consumption.
So I don't know if you were a hardcore MAGA person, wouldn't you say, you know, I don't really want a guy who's, you know, doing the kind of
carnival barker stuff i want somebody who's actually going to make people's lives miserable with really with you know using the law don't give many ideas tom i know i know that's the problem right there's a part of me that says no no everything you know you're doing fine keep everybody right where they are you know because as you say what happens if they get someone who combines that kind of politics with a minimal level of competence and then then i think we're actually worrying about something even worse
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