Trump can't abide flying around in crusty, old Air Force One. Qatar—funder of both Hamas and the leading U.S. college Gaza protest group—just happens to have a spare, pimped-out 747 lying around, which they'd like to gift to Trump so he can use that instead. Pay no attention to the complete hypocrisy of an administration that says that students protesting for Gaza are a threat to our foreign policy. Plus, Trump's fake drug price cap, the White House caves to China on tariffs, Herr Miller becomes the leading voice for disappearing people, and Bill tells Tim he's rethinking his position on "Abolish ICE." Bill Kristol joins Tim Miller. show notes Sen. Barrasso dodging NBC's questions on habeas corpus Tim's FYPod Go to https://surfshark.com/thebulwark or use code THEBULWARK at checkout to get 4 extra months of Surfshark VPN!
Chapter 1: Who are the hosts and what is the episode about?
Hello and welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. A quick shout out, we do have that Nashville event coming up May 29th. Got some tickets available for that. Chicago sold out. I decided to make a little family weekend out of it. So that might be something for you to consider as well. Come hang out with us in Nashville. Go to thebulwark.com slash events today.
We've got a lot to discuss. The liberation of the American economy is on a 90-day pause. We're borrowing a new Hamas Force One from Qatar. Socialist price controls are good now. American hostage is free. Russian propaganda about a Keir Starmer cocaine vendor. A tenuous India-Pakistan ceasefire. The zone has been flooded with shit, and we're here to wade through it.
It's Monday with Bulwark Editor-at-Large Bill Kristol. What's up, Bill?
How are you, Tim? Busy weekend, you know? Busy morning today even, right? Terrorists, Air Force One, drug prices magically going down. It's really something here in Trump's America.
I know. It's brutal, you know. Today was the first day where I was like, in a while, I was like, oh, okay, I guess we got to wake up and care about this shit. But here we go.
And I want to say to you over the weekend, I feel like we're overwhelmed. Of course, they have the whole federal government like doing stuff for them, you know, and we have like the board. The fine team that we are, that will work as staff. And Congress has its small staffs trying to fight back. It is a big advantage being president of the United States.
And for all their clownishness and incompetence, you know, having some people who know what they're doing and loyalists who are willing to do everything Trump wants and foreign leaders who want in some ways to – Work with Trump or, you know, use Trump, let's put it that way, you know, and give him some token victories occasionally or not rub his face in it. It is a big advantage being president.
If you think of your four years in office as, you know, just defeating your enemies and rewarding your friends, not doing something good for the country, it does feel like they're constantly coming at us with a lot of forces. Yeah.
Yeah, plenty of opportunity for that. And one other thing, I mean, this is a little bit, you know, kind of an obvious at this point observation, but it just feels particularly acute today. It's just like the reality show element of it. It's preternatural. I don't even know if it's actually strategic. I just think that he is a reality show figure.
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Chapter 2: What are the recent developments in US-China tariffs?
also it's a good point and you know i don't watch many reality shows i'll be honest but i get the impression they keep everyone interested and excited based on ludicrous little things right oh the couple broke up i don't know and some like married you know whatever the thing is married at first sight and oh they didn't break up they're having a fight you know it is like that i mean trump obviously has internalized what you keep people interested with with what are if you step back for two seconds are trivial or you know not important things but hey there's drama you know
All right, so let's go through it. We'll go through today's reality show because it is our burden. It's our rock that we have to push up the hill. So, Liberation Day has come and gone. The U.S., after some negotiations in Switzerland over the weekend, has decided to reduce the China tariff to 30%. China's reduced the U.S. tariff to 10%.
For context, this means there's an additional 20% tariff over the pre-Trump status quo for products coming into the U.S., The China State TV summed it up this way. The outcome of the trade talks with the Trump team shows China's firm countermeasures and resolute stance have been highly effective. China gets nearly all tariffs off for doing very little other than agreeing to talk.
The markets, though, are happy this morning. They soared, you guys wrote in the Morning Shots newsletter. That was a result of Trump, at least for a little while, deciding to stop holding a pillow over the face of global trade. So I've got a few other reacts from people this morning. But what are your other top takes from the fact that we're back down to 30%?
I mean, it's marginally good for the world economy and for our economy. So that's good. It's still marginally bad compared to where we might have been if we just continued to
biden's policies at this point or to more traditional low tariff policies but yeah i mean liberation day that was such hoopla just over a month ago it turns out the markets like it whenever there's a relief from liberation day when we're like unliberated liberated from liberation day and i mean trump is just shrewd enough student of public opinion of the markets to maybe keep following that but he's also once you launch the tariffs it's not quite so easy to unwind them so we're seeing that with with china and and uh
The other point I'm so struck by is it's all so lawless. He decides he's had some meeting in Geneva and suddenly tariffs are down to this for 90 days. Because, of course, if it became a permanent thing, someone might say, hey, don't we have like Congress that ratifies these things? Like I seem to I'm old enough to remember a huge fight over NAFTA. What was NAFTA about?
It was about the tariffs between us, Mexico and Canada. And then Trump changed it in 2017, 18. And it went back to Congress, if I'm not mistaken, that whatever they called it then. US-Mexico something. USMCA. It's Monday morning. But it went to Congress. So we're just like having the whole US economy and global economy chugging along at the whim of this guy and his kooky advisors in some cases.
Just a few other things. I just I was kind of collecting some of the reacts today to kind of contextualize this for people who we've had so many different tariff rates with China over the past four months. It's been a little hard to follow. Justin Wolfers summed it up like this. There's two ways to frame the news. U.S.
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Chapter 3: How does the fluctuating tariff policy affect the economy and businesses?
It's like you combine all of that with like a halt, you know, a slowing of federal government hiring and a bunch of firing, you know, with the tariff uncertainties. Back to Wolfer's point, I mean, it still is like it still is a significantly worse economic environment than it was five months ago.
In a worse political environment in the geopolitical sense, I mean, we all know, we all say this, that one objection to all this tariff manipulation is that it empowers one person, Trump, instead of having a more of a rule of law predictable situation. It also empowers Xi Jinping.
If Trump internalizes that, ooh, that was good that we were able to hit this deal to go down to 30, it means Xi just has to, if we send an extra aircraft carrier near Taiwan to try to deter something, Xi says, you know what, you want to go back up to where we were? We can have that trade war going again.
As I say, the tariff stuff empowers Trump internally vis-a-vis Congress, vis-a-vis predictability and the rule of law, but it empowers bad guys externally to also manipulate us.
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Speaking of aircraft news, it's kind of unimaginable corruption and potential national security risks all wrapped up in one, which is what is, I guess, going to be the new Air Force One. It's going to come from Qatar, a palace in the sky. Jonathan Karl broke the news over the weekend that this would be the most valuable gift ever extended to the U.S. from a foreign government.
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Chapter 4: What is the controversy surrounding the new Air Force One gift from Qatar?
Totally unacceptable. He'd have to return it. If he didn't return it, he'd be court-martialed or whatever, right? The commander-in-chief can take a gift, but the commander of some platoon can't. I mean, it's all beyond corrupt and beyond unseemly, really, for the president.
It's a great suggestion. Democrats absolutely should pressure them to take a vote on this and force Republicans to vote on this if they're going to jam it through. Because you have seen... some pushback from Republican circles, not from actual candidates, right? They're all cowards. But, you know, crazy Laura Loomer is even against this. Ari Fleischer. I know. I mean, here we are.
We're on board with Ari Fleischer. He's against this. There's an editorial in the Free Press today, some of those folks who have been Trump-friendly. And part of the argument from the Free Press is related to the Israel side of this, which I think is worth at least bringing up, right? I mean, look, the corruption –
The Trump corruption, which is astonishing, and maybe this is the type of thing that could break through in a way that the meme coin doesn't. I'm going to keep talking about the meme coin, but it's hard to understand. It's hard for people to understand. This is not that hard for people to understand. A foreign government, an Islamic government, is giving Trump a plane that he's going to fly on?
A government that does business with Iran that was funding Hamas? It was essentially the Hamas sugar daddy in Qatar. they are going to pay for our Air Force One? That's absolutely insane.
And Larry Summers was talking over the weekend that there are very serious rules for colleges to take money from countries like this, from Qatar, because we don't want foreign governments, especially those that are quasi-hostile, at least in certain elements of foreign policy, to be overly influencing the country.
And so, again, this would be a horrible, corrupt Trumpian deal if the plane was coming from I was about to say Denmark, but I guess Denmark isn't our friend anymore. If the plane is coming from Norway, it would still be horribly corrupt. But we could conceivably be on the opposite side of Qatar and various military-related foreign policy issues over the coming years.
And Rumeysa Ozturk, who, thank God, got out of jail, who we shackled and we put into a prison. Because she was the co-author of an op-ed that was critical of Israel's actions in Gaza. So we jailed her for that position.
Now, simultaneously, we are taking the biggest gift in the history of the American government from a country that was actively supportive of the Hamas terrorist attack in Israel, that was actively supportive of Hamas. that was harboring the Hamas terrorists that committed the atrocities.
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Chapter 5: Why is Qatar's involvement in funding Hamas and US campus protests significant?
I mean, if you want to signal that you'd like to get more bribes, what's the best way to do that? Take one bribe. Because then everyone else thinks, oh, my God, I mean, if I want to have my equities in here, maybe I need to do – I don't have a $400 million plane, but I have a $250 million concessionary contract on a Trump hotel, a golf course.
I mean, the whole world starts thinking – and again, you sort of almost can't blame the other leaders. They've got – Real realpolitik things to deal with. I better bribe Trump, too. So he's in his own cunning way, of course, has opened the door to just unimaginable amounts of corruption, really.
There will certainly be more bribes coming behind. I also should just note one more thing is that Pam Bondi, the attorney general who who made the ruling that this was legal. They did some kind of one-page document giving a legal blessing from the Department of Justice to this bribe. She was a lobbyist for Qatar before she got the job.
So, in addition to the Bondi thing, Eric Trump was in Qatar recently, and they just inked a new deal on a luxury golf resort worth $5.5 billion. So, like... In addition to the government to government or government to Trump library, however you want to take it, bribe of the plane, the Trump family is also personally enriching themselves.
And this is, A, a direct violation of the emoluments, no doubt about this. And B, you can't tell me that this is not going to impact the foreign policy of the country. Guys, I think we've got a perfect time for an ad about finding certainty in an uncertain world. And that is on the moment that Donald Trump has decided to move the tariff rate down 115%. It's 30. It's 10. It's 60. It's 145.
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Chapter 6: What are the legal and ethical implications of accepting a foreign gift like the Qatar 747?
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One good news in this situation is it does sound like, and who knows, maybe it's thanks to the bribe. Hamas said Sunday, they're going to release the last living American hostage. Eden Alexander has been held for over 550 days as Trump heads to the region, which is again, good news. This is the nature though, of these sorts of situations.
When you go to corrupt real politic in the, in the extreme, you know, you get, obviously there are, uh, Some positives when you start getting bribes. So this is a good positive. Genuinely happy, though, for Eden Alexander and his family and saying that he was taken for so long. And hopefully the health will be good.
I think we'll be seeing here maybe by the time the podcast is out, learning more about his physical status. I want to move on to the pharma stuff. Thank you very much. We're setting price controls via executive order. Trump pleaded back in August, Kamala will implement Soviet-style price controls. I guess we're keen on Soviet-style price controls now.
If you want to have a take on the policy of this, I'd be happy to hear it. For me, though, it's just... America is supposed to be a constitutional republic with different branches of power. This Congress, so far, has passed five bills, the lowest in generations. They've done nothing, essentially, since the Lake and Riley Act in January. Everything else since then has been very modest.
It's hard to even say everything else. It's been four things that have been very random, niche issues. They've passed nothing. And This is not how the American government is supposed to work, where the autocrat issues a diktat from on high about what the price of medicine is going to be. Traditionally, maybe the presidential administration would have a policy paper, have proposed legislation.
They'd have an announcement. Maybe they'd have in the White House, have some people from the Hill that are going to be the lead sponsors on it. They would roll it out. That's how you do things in the country. I think, obviously, there would be legal challenges like this to everything else. I don't know what you make of our new, to quote Trump, Soviet-style price control regime.
for Medicare, basically, for maybe Medicare, I suppose. And that's how, when they talk about getting drug prices down, it's never really been, almost never been direct price controls on the private sector. It would be what price the government would pay, and the government's such a major purchaser. And Biden did negotiate some prices down, and that was touted by Harris in 2024 and so forth.
But it was done according to congressional legislation. And it was done according to certain specifications of making clear what the criteria were and procedures and so forth. So as you say, it was a law. I mean, it was a legal way. They had to pay some price. The government has to pay some price. And they got a law allowing them to push prices down. Trump is now just inventing that he's going to
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Chapter 7: How might the Qatar 747 gift impact US foreign policy and Trump's personal interests?
But it's pretty striking that we're also seeing it like more broadly from the whatever business community in the free market advocacy community.
And it's related because obviously, if business leaders all over were going crazy about this, some hill Republicans would say, yeah, they who get huge support from these business leaders. Would be responsive to that. In this respect, the cowardice of the Hill Republicans and the cowardice of the external groups, including but not only business leaders, reinforces each other, right?
Neither wants to go first. And I guess the business groups think they'll take care of this behind the scenes, just like they lobbied to get the China tariffs down to a more reasonable level. They'll go to court or they'll... The self-fulfilling spiral of abdication and cowardice is very bad, actually, among the elites. You and I have discussed this before, too. I come back.
When is the public going to get upset? Well, you know what? The public's not going to get upset if they get no signal from any elites whom they do respect. I don't care what people say about it. Everyone hates all these institutions. They voted for these members of Congress, the senators of Congress. They respect. They think business leaders know something about their businesses.
And the economy, if they hear nothing from senators and members of the House, if they hear nothing from the relevant business leaders or trade union leaders, for that matter, or civic leaders or public interest group leaders, if they hear nothing or little from them, they think, I guess maybe it's OK.
You know, the people who should be most upset aren't upset, who I'm just, you know, I don't know as much as the head of Pfizer about whether this is a good idea or not. Right. I mean, it is it's a very dangerous the spiral of of abdication.
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