Tom Nichols: Remember the Split Screen
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Hello and welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. Delighted to welcome back one of your faves, Professor Emeritus of the Naval War College. He's a staff writer at The Atlantic. His books include The Death of Expertise. It's Tom Nichols. What's up, man? Hey, Tim. Good morning. Good to be with you. A reminder to listeners to check out our Bulwark Takes podcast feed for breaking news because we've had another fucking insane 24 hours. Israel executed a devastating attack on Iran. The DHS raids are escalating. Trump's talk going again. But

But so we'll get to all that. But I think we've got to start with the scene at the federal building in L.A. where DHS security wrestled Democratic Senator Alex Padilla to the ground and handcuffed him after he tried to interrupt Kristi Noem's press conference with a question. Boy, it was quite the scene, Tom. I've got a lot of thoughts. What was your what's your top take on what we saw yesterday? Well, you know, I used to study Eastern Europe back in the day. I don't want to live there because this is really interesting.

I mean, this is kind of balkanized politics, roughhousing and, you know, fascistic, authoritarian, strong arming. I mean, you don't, I'm sorry, you know, she knows who Padilla is or she should. My colleague David Frum had a great line on social media. He said, what was she supposed to do? She stops. I see my friend Senator Padilla is in the audience. I'll be happy to take your question as soon as I'm done speaking.

But instead, everything with this bunch is a chest-thumping show of force. And so it's shameful, embarrassing as a country, frightening that people would manhandle a U.S. senator. I mean, it's a disgrace all around. Yeah, it really is. And look...

For some folks, I saw some of our folks in the comment section on the board yesterday. They were like, well, should Ascender really be doing that? And we can talk about that. I, for one, was happy he was doing it. But I understand there's going to be some people who want more decorum in their political leaders. I don't know. Maybe that's where you land, Tom. But here's the thing. Here's how images work. I don't know what he did because I didn't come into the story with

Until I saw the clip of a bunch of guys wrestling him to the ground. So, you know, that this is something we can I'm sure we'll talk about this later. But this is something I keep trying to get across to people about the protests in L.A. You don't control those clips. And, you know, when I finally saw, you know, Padilla going in and yelling and I'm like, yeah, you know, I used to work for a senator. I wouldn't let my boss do that.

You know, I would have stopped him from doing that. But that doesn't then excuse everything that happened after it. Being a boor is not an excuse for authoritarianism. Yeah, that's right. And this is like the area where I can bring some expertise to the table. We bring you in for your Russian and Eastern European expertise. We'll have a lot of that and your war college expertise. I've disrupted press conferences before. So I know this was my game back in my rat fucker days.

I've been on the side where I was the press aid to a candidate having a press conference who was getting disrupted.

And I've been on the side of being a disruptor at a press conference. And never has anybody put their hands on anybody in any of those situations. And then afterwards, the DHS says, well, they didn't know who he was. He didn't identify himself. Well, he's screaming, I'm Senator Alex Padilla at the beginning. And then the next question is, well, maybe the cops didn't believe him. And there are a couple issues with that. Number one, it's inside a federal building. So he was escorted in there by an FBI agent and by security. So...

There should have been some context clues. It wasn't like you're in a street corner where it could be some random kook. And even if you were, he didn't really present like a random kook. He looked like an older senatorial-looking man named Padilla. So context clues come to play here. And also, this didn't happen in Maine. Right. I mean, he's in his own state where he was the Secretary of State and the U.S. Senator. Yeah, and was the ranking member of this committee. And then they push him into the hallway. And again, so then you're like, okay, well...

If they're like, oh, well, they just didn't believe him. Then at that point, then maybe it's appropriate to be like, can you show me your ID, sir, or something? Can you prove it? But they didn't do that. They get him out in the hallway. Then they push him onto the ground. They handcuff him. They tell his aide to stop filming, even though you're at a press conference.

And so it was far outside the bounds of what we've seen at these kind of press conferences before. And I think it comes also within the broader context. I just played on yesterday's pod before all this happened, that clip of Chris Murphy from a month ago questioning Kristi Noem and talking about how the DHS is out of control. They're acting lawlessly. They're spending money they don't have. Their agents are acting thuggishly with people. So it's a trend. It's not just some one-off security guy that got a little too out of pocket.

And I know people think that some of these positions are, you know, well, I became never Trump. And now I'm, you know, I've adopted all of these kind of hair on fire left. I was calling 15 years ago for disestablishing DHS because I was exactly worried about this, that it was an unnecessary panic response to 9-11. It creates its own kind of internal. I mean, how many internal security forces does one democracy need?

you know, I'm sorry, but especially when you see, you know, like clips in front of these federal buildings, it's like there's LA police, there's the, there's ice, there's Homeland security. There's secret service, secret service. I mean, personal security, Jesus Christ, you know, the, the freaking Kremlin doesn't have this much security all the time around it and they need it. But this is, as Bob Dylan once said, you get a lot of knives and forks, you got to cut something. I just went there on Dylan, by the way, that's kind of weird for me, but, um,

When you've got this many security forces with training that probably isn't the best, with a bunch of guys that are being brought in from various other agencies and given badges, you're going to have these kind of mini militias inside of these organizations. And in theory, the person who should be riding herd on all this is the secretary. But like Hegseth, like others, Cheney,

She is way in over her head, way in out of her league. She has never run anything of any consequential size. This was all supposed to be just TV to own the lips, not actually running a department. And now we see what happens when you hire people that are telegenic.

ostensibly, and tell them to run big departments. And it's just shameful. You're right. I mean, ostensibly carrying a lot of weight. Carrying a lot of weight there. But, you know, that's why Trump hires people. He sees them on TV. He likes them on TV. And, you know, this was just disgraceful. And I think that kind of permissiveness about

uh, force and kind of that, you know, sort of punch first, ask later, forget about IDs that, that all comes from the top. We are talking LA, not New York, but, uh, it was a good reference. Anyway, the, um,

Did I say New York? I'm sorry. No, the Bob Dylan. The Bob Dylan quote. Oh, Bob Dylan. Sorry. The other thing about it that's fascistic and feels like an Eastern European authoritarian country is that you have Christie and her new face on TV immediately after talking about how he didn't identify himself. Tricia McLaughlin, our little spokesperson, is putting that out. DHS is putting it out. And it's like telling us not to believe our lying eyes. Right? Like, it'd be one thing if it was just like, you know what, guys?

I it's a it's a tense moment my security team was doing their best to protect me obviously we shouldn't have handcuffed a U.S. senator I was happy to meet with him afterwards it still would have been chilling and felt un-American for it to even get to that place but that would be an appropriate response you didn't have to even apologize just to say but then to go out the next day and just be like no and then Mike Johnson's like Padilla should be censured yeah well uh Mike Johnson I

But what I was going to say, and you know this from, again, from working in the world of politics and optics, the power move would have been to do what you just said, to say, hey, you know, would never have done that, you know, to be gracious, right, to be magnanimous. Of course, I would never want that to, you know, happen to Senator Padilla. Instead, they look weak. They run to, you know, their favorite outlets and they kind of turtle up and hunker down. And that...

In a way, I think that's actually better because it shows that these things happen not out of strength,

but out of weakness. I mean, in a way, I'm kind of glad she didn't apologize or try to explain it because I think it just underlines it. It underscores just how incompetent these people really are. This clip I'm about to play is what Kristi Noem was saying right as Padilla is interrupting her. It doesn't appear like Padilla is actually engaging on the merits of what she's saying, but still, the coincidence is pretty jarring, I think. So I just want to listen to Kristi Noem at the press conference.

And increase our operations in this city. We are not going away. We are staying here to liberate this city from the socialist and the burdensome leadership that this governor and that this mayor have placed on this country and what they have tried to insert into this city. So I want to say thank you to every...

So you can hear Padilla in the background there. We're going to liberate the city. We have troops in the streets right now and we're liberating the city from the socialist mayor.

I mean, that is pretty, it's comical, but it's dark. Yeah. And it's also, it's Orwellian duck speak, right? I mean, it's just. Duck lips, I think. Easy. You know, it's. She chose them, but she chose them. I went into the, went into the office and pointed at the picture of Daffy and was like, I want that one. Sorry. Continue. So as I was saying, it's that assembling of, of approved phrases, you know, California socialist, you know,

you know, invaders, liberation, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah. It's meant to like ping dopamine receptors in the faithful. You know, it doesn't mean anything. And I'm sure she doesn't believe it. And I think this is the problem for a lot of the people in LA that are trying to protest this. As far as Trump's concerned, this is an away game. This is all just fodder

to generate stuff that he's going to export back into the bloodstream of the rest of America. So, you know, it's good. Socialists liberating from socialist lead. But of course, that also sounds like the DHS secretary saying, I'm here to overthrow the local government of California. Right.

And, you know, you should be a little careful about that kind of rhetoric, I would say. And I think it's an important context when you have the senator from California who's trying to represent his own constituents who didn't vote for the militarization of their streets to liberate them out there trying to engage. And the reaction is to handcuff them. I think that context is important. Yeah.

I thought conservatives were all about the 10th Amendment and local control and small government and, you know, limiting executive overreach and not having the deep state extend its military tentacles throughout the blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You know, it just goes to show you that that when on these issues were and I suppose this is why I still bristle every time people say, well, they're conservatives and you're conservative. There is nothing conservative about conservatives.

This situation, this right wing, far right wing radicalism is indistinguishable from the kind of left wing radicalism that if, you know, a bunch of like John, some president of my old school, he used to call me a bunch of short pants communists today.

took over the government, they'd be doing the same thing. They'd be saying, we're here to liberate, you know, the people of California from this fascistic, you know, police state. It's the same dynamic with just different labels on it. Yeah, right. I started, like, there's no apt comparison, but just like, just work with me here. Let's say there's a red state somewhere that was...

you know, discriminating against trans folks in a way where trans folks felt like they were unsafe. And President Kamala Harris had decided, I'm going to actually nationalize the Arkansas National Guard, and we're going to put troops on the streets of Little Rock to protect the trans kids at the local high school. I mean, it's kind of a silly metaphor because it doesn't quite work in the reverse, but there would be just talk about accusations of communism.

Fox would be like apoplectic government takeover of the American state. Let's think about where there's a lot of other illegal immigrants, Texas, Arizona,

He picked L.A. because the one and I wrote about this a few days ago. He picked L.A. because he has a genius for picking the right fights. When I used to teach strategy to military guys, we had an expression that we used for lucking out and getting a kind of a dumb enemy, which is that he chose L.A. because it also has a cooperative adversary in it. It has an adversary that doesn't just take his bait, but rushes into the traps that he sets.

you know, with open arms and he knew it would happen. And so, so far he, this is getting scripted out exactly the way he thought it would. And people are playing into it, but it really shows you the, that this is that the modern Republican party, the,

whatever it's become now, not the thing that you and I knew 20 years ago, but it's become about power, just the raw exercise of power, not about principle, not about ideology, not about conservatism. It's about a group of people who have carried around a lot of resentment and feeling like they should be the people in charge, you know, getting picked up in the limos every morning. And that's all it's about. There's no overriding philosophy of government. I mean, I suppose

If you had to look around in this coterie of people, for somebody who actually believes in what they're doing, it's probably somebody like Russ Vout. The rest of them are just, you know, where's my limo? Who's bringing my lunch? And, you know, tell me what I have to say to stay in this job.

Yeah, we will get to some prime examples of that on Israel, but just a couple more things in L.A. and on the immigration stuff. Because it's also not about – obviously about small government or constitution or individual rights. Like what's happening right now is continuing to happen in L.A.,

The fact that they're not producing more crazy Waymo's on fire videos just continues to demonstrate how ridiculous what is happening right now is like we currently still have federal military on the streets of Los Angeles for no legitimate reason. And so what they're doing now is essentially creating a perimeter for ice rates.

So we've got two different types of, to your earlier point, federal law enforcement. One going in and harassing unarmed people because they're being racially targeted because they're suspected of being undocumented immigrants. And then you've got dudes with guns standing around creating a semicircle around them.

And that is totally inappropriate. Of course. And I still think that part of the reason that they're doing that is that they want people to rush that perimeter. And in fact, when they're not getting that response, what's Trump's answer? Well, I'm going to send more Marines.

I'm not getting the allergic response I want. And then he sends more Marines and then people. It's almost a symbiotic relationship at this point. The best idea I heard about what to do in LA. Someone said, yeah, instead of flying Mexican flags and burning Waymos and yelling at the National Guardsmen, these guys don't have enough food and places to sleep. Have a bunch of taco trucks or food trucks show up, put out some really great food, say this is for you guys and leave.

Because they don't want to be there. They don't know why they're there. And I think that's the most powerful part of this is that when it's over, what you want is a bunch of military guys who said, why was I there? You know, what was the point of this? So, but it's just going to keep going on. Just for kicks, just for kicks.

Since L.A. is on fire, producer Katie, maybe you can chime in in case I'm missing anything here. She's out in L.A. I just pulled up while you were talking NBC, like the local L.A. 4. So I'm like, maybe I'm missing something about what is happening in L.A. The top stories right now on NBC 4. Number one, downtown L.A. businesses miss out on customers due to city curfew. Yeah.

Over 30 farm workers detained by ICE in Ventura County sparking widespread fear. And the Padilla story. And it's like, we have troops on the streets for what? It was like the LAPD, one of the biggest police departments in the country, couldn't handle this? I can't believe what a sheep you are. You're going to totally believe that lamestream media stuff when there are socialist...

taking over and leading a Mexican invasion force in the streets of Los Angeles. Hmm. I mean, what do you think? Is that right? Okay. That's what I hear is going on. Maybe CBS has CBS. Los Angeles says something on this. No, uh,

One suspect was arrested for throwing a can at a deputy during the downtown protest. Not great. A socialist can. Don't throw cans at deputies. Don't do that. But if that's the number two story, again, it doesn't seem like it's a city on fire that requires the federal government to liberate it.

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Just on a couple of other immigration stuff, Trump does seem to be tacoing a little bit on at least certain kinds of deportations. I don't know if you saw this. He said, our great farmers and people in the hotel and leisure business have been stating that our very aggressive policy on immigration is taking good longtime workers away from them. With those jobs being almost impossible to replace, they're being replaced by the criminals that Biden brought in, apparently.

G.T. Thompson, the chair of the Ag Committee, real ones who listen might remember G.T. Thompson as the person that voted against the codification of gay marriage. I believe it was either the week before or after attending his son's gay wedding. He's the House Ag Chair on the Republicans. They need to knock it off, G.T. Thompson told reporters of DHS. Let's go after criminals and give us time to put process in place so we don't disrupt the food supply chain.

So there's some concerns in red America about what's happening. We got some phone calls from people who own hotels. Such as the president. Yeah. And, you know, suddenly...

You can write this script, right? People calling up and saying, listen, I understand you had to say stuff to get elected, but you're about to arrest a lot of people that actually keep the economy functioning here, including my business. And that's always when Trump backs down. Some rich guy calls him and says, hey, not my industry, OK? OK, sorry.

So the other thing I think when you talk about tacoing, you know, going back to why this is happening in L.A., it's happening because in everywhere else in the courts, Trump's losing and he wants to change that narrative. He's underwater. The only thing people really agree with are deportations. And, you know, if you ask that question.

Ask me, am I in favor of sending people home who are here illegally as a general answer? Yes, of course I am. Of course, it's this obvious answer of saying if someone's breaking the law and they're here, you know, illegally, should they be sent back to their country of origin? For most people, the default answer is yes. And then yes, but with due process, with some understanding, with some compassion, with some understanding, with input from the community, you know,

that not every person here illegally is alike. They're not all MS-13. They're not all, you know, armed robbers. Do this in a sensible way with a lot of input from the local level. He's underwater on everything else. Yeah. Including how it's being done. You know, and so he wants this. He wants these images. He wants to be able to say, look, I know you don't like this, but these people really are just a foreign army.

And, you know, I will I know I'm a broken record on this. I'll put the plea in one more time. Don't give him the video that he wants so badly.

Yeah. I mean, this is the thing that frustrates me is like, oh, hotel magnet is upset that the hoteliers are losing their staff. It's like, oh, won't somebody think about the poor hoteliers who can't staff their kitchen? And it's like the ag committee chair is upset about the rich farmers that are calling him. It's never like, you know, maybe I should consider if in the one area that I know very well, hoteliers,

in Trump's case, farms and Gigi Thompson's case, this is being handled haphazardly. Maybe it's also being handled haphazardly across all of the other verticals as well. You know, that never seems to sink in with anybody. Stephen Miller saying, I want 3,000 people a day. Well, you know, the problem is that when you say that, they're going to go hunt where the ducks are. Yeah. They're going to go try and find the biggest concentration of people where they can think that some percentage of them

Because it's very important not to stereotype here either. Not everybody who works on a farm or in a hotel is an illegal immigrant. Right. But they're going to go and say, what are the chances that I'm going to be able to make my quota? They're not going to walk through South Central LA and say, all right, everybody show me your ID. Duck call. Yeah.

But they're going to go to places where they can say, all right, I know people are out where everybody, everybody down in the kitchen, everybody over here in the utility room. All right, you, you, you and you. Because it becomes and this actually happens in authoritarian countries on a lot of levels when it comes when they're looking for those. I just say, you know, put a bunch of people together. I got to file a report. I have paperwork that I need to finish. So you, you, you and you, you're under arrest. Let's go.

And they're not actually doing the policing or the work that makes people safer, which is what Trump promised, right? I'm going to, I'm going after the criminals. I'm glad that,

innocent people are not going to get swept up in this, but there is a part of me that wants Americans to see, as many of them have already said, hey, wait a minute, I didn't vote for this. I thought they were going to take the bad immigrants. No, Stephen Miller doesn't care about that. Stephen Miller has, you know,

I mean, somebody must have really humiliated him in high school about immigration or something. But this is his thing. And he's not he doesn't care about that. And so once you set this machinery in motion, it will become, you know, just this kind of

clockwork of must find people, must arrest, must process, find arrest process, find arrest process. Trump and other people just didn't think through what that looks like on a daily basis and now they're finding out. And the other gathering place, just the last thing on this, is the courts. We'll put it in the show notes. It won't really translate to audio, but I was watching a video this morning that our buddies at Tennessee Holler put up of this guy who's an Afghan interpreter who's going in for his normal court check-in who is getting cuffed and

and taken out. And he's shouting, I helped the military for three years. Right. And so like, that's the other way. Like it's, it's the opposite actually of going after criminals. They are gathering up the people that are showing up that are trying to do the right thing. Right. It's, but it's easy because they have got to make a quota of people who are here illegally. I'll just wait for the good ones to obey the order to show up and explain themselves and take them away. Because really who wants to go deal with a bunch of criminals?

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Over to Israel and Iran. Just, who knows? We're 12 hours into this at the time of taping this. So, you know, obviously, this is a developing situation. Things could happen by this afternoon. But at least that first wave, just an unbelievable...

First of all, it was a christening. Excuse me, christening.

The Godfather breast. Right. Obviously. Yeah. You know, I just need a little more coffee. Jesus, Tim. Christening. Baptism. But, uh, yeah, the baptism. Do the whole circumcision. It's just, we don't have like a little, we don't have a ceremony around. Wow. Uh,

But, yeah. I had Israel on the mind. We're talking about Israel. Okay. Anyway, sorry. I'll just keep digging. Okay. Anyway, talk to us about the Godfather. That clattering everyone heard was the shovel coming in after you. So, yes, the scene in the Godfather where Michael's at the christening and his guys are wiping everybody out.

And the reason I brought it up is not because of the scale of the wipeout, but because Michael says afterwards, if you remember, he says to his traitorous ferret of a brother-in-law, Carlo, he says, today I settled all family business. And that's what it came across as Netanyahu basically saying, that's it. I'm going to settle all accounts here. I'm going to take out the Iranians.

I have mixed feelings about this. I don't trust Bibi Netanyahu. I don't like the idea of courting a major war in the Middle East. By the way, another musical reference. It's one of his lesser known songs. But if you're thinking about this stuff today, do yourself a favor and go play The Envoy by Warren Zevon, which was written 40 odd years ago and it practically predicted all of this. On the other hand, if the Iranians are that close to a nuclear weapon, and

And the Israelis were claiming, you know, weeks, you know, they could make the argument, look, it's a genocidal regime. They've been threatening for, you know, decades to wipe us out. The moment of, you know, push has come to shove and we need to take this out. The reason I'm a little skeptical about that, the Israelis keep saying this is a preemptive attack, right? Like a preemptive attack is the thing you do when someone's just about to attack you, when the fist is cocked.

You know, when the gun is being drawn from the holster, um,

And instead, this looks like a lot more like a preventive war. It's like, look, the timing is advantageous to us. We know where these targets are. We can get at them. We're going to do this on our schedule. And so we're just going to execute an attack with, if not strategic surprise, operational surprising. Not that the Iranians didn't know that something was coming one day, but they didn't know it was coming today. And also the breadth of the targets says to me at this point, and again, we're working on

partial information 12 hours in, but this doesn't look like we're just going to take out the nuclear program and end this threat to our existence. When you kill the entire general staff and you do this big sweep of leadership, that looks like a regime change operation. I mean, that looks like really just kind of knocking the struts out of the government everywhere. And

I'm an American. I would not miss the Iranian regime, but I'm also not comfortable with putting the entire Middle East in flames at a touchy moment like this.

So that's my kind of squishy one hand, other hand approach to this. I want to react to that, but I just, you had me on the Warren Zevon song, so I had to pull it up. Nostradamus, nuclear arms in the Middle East, Israel's attacking the Iraqis, a little off. Syrians are mad at the Lebanese. But then you go into verse two, things got hot in... El Salvador. El Salvador. How about that? CIA got caught, couldn't do no more. Of all the songs. The breadth of the attack...

I just want to caveat what I'm about to say is my operating assumption about all. This better not be about circumcisions, Tim. It isn't. My operating assumption about all things Middle East when it comes to Middle Eastern. And you're going to, you might get mad at me about this because it's a little bit, I'm a little bit on the death side of the death of expertise on this. All the Middle East experts have been wrong about everything my whole life. Like everybody, everybody keeps being wrong and,

And everybody's very reactive to the last thing. Well, this thing didn't work, so we shouldn't do it anymore. And it's like, well, you know, and nobody predicted Assad was going to fall. He fell in two days. We're going to be out of Iraq in two minutes. We're in there for a decade, right? Like you could just go down the list. Like the Obama people will be like, we were right about the Iranian nuclear deal. Well, it turns out that that Iran ended up being emboldened and there's a lot of terror that comes out of it, right? Like,

No matter which side of it you're on, you've got some X marks as far as the Middle East. And so I have a skepticism of all of the experts telling me what's going to happen. I do not, again, disbelieve my lying eyes, though. And Israel has, over the course of the last year, executed some of the most effective pinpoint military operations against Hezbollah and Iran. Not talking about what's happening in Gaza, but against Hezbollah and now in Iran against

that you've seen. And I don't know, maybe like the conventional wisdom that, okay, if Israel does this, it's going to lead to some wider war and Iran's going to escalate. That might turn out to be wrong. They might be able to successfully incapacitate them. And if so, good. If so, good riddance to the Islamic regime and Iran. Yeah, but I still think that if the Israelis are going ahead on this, on the pretext, let's not even say pretext, on the

rationalization, the platform of being a preemptive strike. They're going to have to show a certain amount of necessity here because otherwise it looks like the kind of thing we did with Iraq, which really poisoned the well for 25 years of saying, we just don't like this regime and it's got to go. I supported that at the time. I said, I remember at the time thinking the world's too... From 9-11, rogue nuclear weapons,

massive rogue state, you know, a big rogue state in Iraq. I sort of was where Tony Blair was and, you know, Bush and a lot of others saying this many dangerous moving pieces, one of them has to go. Now, that could be the argument for Iran.

Problem is, I also worry about how much this is fused personally to Netanyahu's domestic problems. So, you know, again, there's kind of a trust issue there. And you're right, it could, you know, this could be the beginning of the end of a lot of strife in the Middle East because the Iranians are the source of so much of it. Iran's pretty isolated right now in the Middle East, you know, with the Syrian regime fell, like they don't really have a state ally in the region. We'll see. We'll continue to cover it more. I just...

Well, I guess I'll go back to Trump. I just want to say one more thing on this about the effectiveness while we're talking about it. It just is also noteworthy to me. My main takeaway from last night is we seem pretty unserious to me right now. And obviously, having a fucking former drunk weekend TV host at the head of the Secretary of Defense is your prime example. But it's not just the Trump administration. If you just go back to the last few administrations,

Jamie Weinstein tweeted this. Israel haters will want to frame Israel's successes as the product of American support. And then he goes on. But when have you seen us pull off operations as large, as successful as the pay drop with Hezbollah and the current Iran strike? This is remarkable. Again, it might not look this way in a week, but the seriousness with which Israel has taken action

Their military operations compared to the clown show that we see in our country is pretty striking. And I think about now the Ukraine and Israel doing these drone attacks inside Russia and and Iran. Both of them had had agents inside the countries.

And do you feel confident that the people at the top of our program are prepared for this kind of stuff? Because I really don't. That's part of what's making me itchy. I mean, I think whether you support what just happened or you deplore it,

You know, I'd feel better about all of this. Oh, look who's here. The cat's here. Here. This is my new kitty. Oh, come here, cat. Come on in, kitty. You wanted to be on TV. You got your wish. Yeah. Okay. Get out of here. You know, if we had a functioning White House, an actual National Security Council, a real Secretary of Defense...

I would say, okay, this is, you know, like, again, whether you approve or disapprove what Israel's doing, it's risky. It's putting a lot of pieces in motion. It's throwing, you know, matches at a gasoline can, but at least there are competent, reasonable people taking care of my country, uh,

who are working with these people, staying in touch, communicating. And instead you've got the president. Well, I didn't know, but I kind of knew, but what a great thing they did, but I'm sorry they did it, but we were going to negotiate, but they did a great, I mean, it's,

you know, talk about weakness. I mean, this is classic Trump. He was sitting there last night. Rubio puts out a statement that's like, we didn't coordinate with this. And then it goes extremely well. And this morning, Trump's calling reporters. He's like calling Dana bash being like, what a great job we did. Look at us. You know, it's just like this guy, like had it gone badly, you know, had Iran been firing missiles, uh,

Tel Aviv last night. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. You know, my, my colleague David Graham had this great piece about a year ago that I keep coming back to, which is never ask Trump a hypothetical. It's crazy. He never says no. Right. Right. So if you say to him, possible, we were involved in this. We possible, we looked at it very strongly. He never says, look, you know, we're in touch with, you don't get adult, adult,

competent grown-up answers out of this administration and out of the president and right now not as a writer or as a talking head or as an american citizen i just want to know what my government knows and what's going on while israel has launched a major operation against a country of 70 million people led by a very dangerous government

You know, I would like some clarity on that. And instead you get, you know, well, you get these weird posts. I don't know if you saw the one yesterday that ended with, thank you for your attention to this matter. It's like, well, we're trying to do diplomacy with Iran. Thank you for your attention to this matter. Like a letter from your hoa because you were parking in the wrong condo spot. Yeah. I mean, it's so weird.

It weakens your confidence that anybody knows what's going on. He's gutted the National Security Council. Rubio is doing, you know, four jobs. Our ambassador to Israel is, I mean, you know. Another TV host. Yeah. How do you explain Mike Huckabee? You know, a former governor, but also a guy, you know, hawks.

The guy who is the point man on the supposed deal with Iran that we were working on before the bombing started as a New York real estate man. That's also the point man on the Ukraine-Russia negotiations, where he seems to really admire Putin. Ukraine-Israel. And it goes to the other stuff. Like, again, the 700 troops or whatever we have in LA are probably not, we're not probably going to be needed to be on call in case there's an escalating war in the Middle East. But again, like,

is this the stuff we should be thinking? You know, like you have, like when you have a weekend Fox news host running the military, you have a weekend Fox news host level of seriousness. And, and what we have is a guy that has been, that was at a baseball game in LA while he's got some troops there on the streets, you know, that are going after unarmed migrants and,

and preparing for a birthday boy parade for the president to the streets of DC tomorrow. The unseriousness of that and the perniciousness of what's happening in LA, split screened with what is happening in Tehran, it's pretty disheartening and depressing. To make a more serious point about international relations here, Tim, the world is basically now operating as if the United States doesn't exist.

Yeah. And I'm not, I'm sorry, I'm 64. I'm not used to that. I mean, I, you know, I came of age when the United States was at the peak of its power.

From the mid 80s to the late 90s and, you know, remained powerful ever since. But now this past 10 years or so, it really is disturbing. And I'm going to throw some of the shade on Barack Obama for this as well, because of what he did in the Middle East, that increasingly this retrenchment, this pullback means that people are basically.

Just operating as if the United States doesn't matter. When I used to teach political science, we would talk about how do you define power? And one of the definitions of power is that other people must take you into their calculations. If you're irrelevant, you're not powerful. And that's what's happening to us is that we are increasingly being taken out of these calculations because we have an administration system.

again, for the second time, that thinks everything is about domestic politics, getting over on your domestic enemies and opponents and getting even with your domestic political rivals. The world doesn't care about any of your girl fights. And I shouldn't say that the girls are fighting. That's a reference. But they don't care about any of your stupid slap fights at home.

Okay, the world goes on and is full of very dangerous and very serious people. And they don't really care if Kristi Noem got a chuckle out of roughing up Alex Padilla. They're busy. They're going to do bad stuff. I'm going for one more cultural reference, and I used it before. It's a great line from Miller's Crossing where one of the gangsters says to his boss, I'd worry less if I thought you were worrying enough.

And that's how I feel about this government. I'd worry less if I thought they were worrying enough.

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All right. Well, initially, when we had decided, I was like, we should try to get Tom Nichols for Friday. It's because I wanted you to talk about his fancy birthday boy parade. But unfortunately, real news intervened. The birthday boy parade is it's disgraceful. I mean, it's I you know, this. Oh, no, no. It's about the army. It's their 215th anniversary. The army wasn't going to do this.

The army was not going to throw itself a parade, spend $40 million, wreck the streets of DC that will have to be fixed. This is Donald Trump. A lot of what you're seeing in this second Trump term is Trump saying, they told me I couldn't have these things the first time around. And now I'm in charge. Now I'm going to get the stuff I want. And I'm getting my parade for my birthday.

Because Uncle Jim Mattis and mean cousin Mark Esper didn't let me have it the last time. And...

He's just determined to do that. And I think in a more nefarious way. I mean, Trump is very childlike in a lot of ways, but I think there is a darker thing going on here. And that is he will be happy to have the split screen of patriots saluting, going by the stand, rendering colors to the commander in chief, all that stuff with a bunch of stupid kids throwing bottles at the Marines in Los Angeles.

He lives. I know there are a lot of people, a lot of liberals, a lot of people on the left who say that split screen will destroy him. That will be he will. No, that split screen is what he's aiming for, because it will say to America, patriotism, glory, flags, good. Donald Trump. That's what Donald Trump's world is like.

Alex Padilla and Gavin Newsom and Karen Bass, you know, kids in balaclavas throwing rocks at our valiant Marines. I think these two things are happening together for a reason, because as you keep pointing out, Tim, there was no actual triggering event, no forcing function in L.A.,

to require the Marines to go into the streets. So this was timing that was purely at the White House's discretion. And I think they know exactly what they're doing. I agree with you on the imagery, but like-

It just makes them look so small. Like it just is such a little baby mushroom deck thing to do. It's like we're going to have a military parade. We didn't do anything. I don't like in the context of the Israel attack on Iran. It's like, what are we celebrating? What did you do? You've abandoned our friends in Ukraine.

We left Afghanistan. We haven't won any wars recently. You haven't done anything good to merit a parade or useful or nothing that is worthy of honoring, of having some sort of celebration. It's just for your ego. Yeah.

I don't know. And I guess maybe people don't see through it, but it's just, it's really, I just feel it looks even more embarrassing than it would have already in the context of what's happening. It's such a massive disconnect because to me, having watched Trump, you know, for, I mean, I went to grad school in New York. I remember Trump, you know, years ago, but every time I see Trump, especially over the past 10 years, he's,

Everything he does to me projects he's a bully and bullies. Well, they look impressive, you know, as a as a show. They've they always project fear and insecurity and weakness and the great disconnect in the American perceptions. I think a lot of us look at Trump and say he's afraid he's got that even down to the body like Joey tightens up the shoulders and the hands come together. And he's it's very much a kind of an anxiety thing.

And other people look at him and say, what a man, what a strong guy. And I just, I'm like, I wrote this piece years ago and I, and I'm pretty sure Trump read it because he came out swinging against the Atlantic the next morning after it ran about how Trump is just the unmanliest president, right? Guy wears bling, puts on makeup, watches TV all day, you know, complains and bitches and moans and deflects responsibility. Right.

And I guess I'm just stunned at how people sort of... Remember how they used to smear Vaseline on the lens in Star Trek to make all the women beautiful, right? Carrie Lake is still doing that.

And I mean, it's just like Trump supporters like smear the Vaseline on the lens. They put the smoke filter over the lens and they say, wow, this guy who weighs about 239 pounds, you know, is really manly and tough. I think Trump knows, to make a more serious point, Trump knows that people buy that image. And so he does everything he can to surround himself with people.

the kind of cheap festoonery of patriotism and that kind of patriotic symbolism, because it props up that image to us, to the rest of us. It looks like, you know, like you keep saying, and a lot of us feel the same way. You know, it looks like a little boy playing with toys. I always say he thinks of the army as toy soldiers, but he does it.

And I think, you know, his opponents have to take him seriously about this. He doesn't because it works with a certain number of people and not just the MAGA base. This is a war for public opinion. It's a war of images. You were a political consultant. You know this better than anybody that people don't parse words and spend, you know, read 1500 words to get through this. They see those images. And for most Americans, the image, you know, Marshall McLuhan was right. The medium is the message. Well, on that point,

I guess you just got to admit that it worked, even though, again, it was it just darkened my spirit. I got a chill down my spine watching the four brag speech. But we talked about this with Hurtling on Wednesday. But since that conversation, there's been some new reporting by military dot com and some of the other folks that cover the military.

Something that Hurtling said that we suspected was now confirmed, that there was a memo that went out that dictated what types of soldiers could be there. No fat guys. Yeah, no fats, no dems is how I summarized the memo, basically. And so that went out, which...

At some ways, it makes me feel a little bit better, I guess, because I was a little shook by just the degree of raucousness of the approval. The idea that maybe there are some other soldiers that just didn't show makes me feel just only the tiniest bit better, but a little. We also had a reporting this morning ahead of the rally, Army officials

raised alarms over the plan for a vendor to sell Trump-branded merch on site, including MAGA chain necklaces, a white privilege credit card, and other stuff. They were overruled. They were allowed to do that. Well, and that's the question. Overruled by whom? I mean, I don't know. But yeah, that's still in the reporting. I assume Hegseth, but I don't know. Well, the base commander is a colonel, and I suppose, you know,

If I were the army chief of staff, there's a scary thought, you know, especially I taught all those years for the Navy. So even talking about running the army, you know, it's like just anathema. But someone senior should say, you know what? This thing was a complete shit show. Our soldiers acted with total unprofessional behavior. We allowed a partisan vendor on the premises, fire the base commander. Now, if Hegseth can counterman that and put him back, and that's when you quit.

Then you say, if I can't fire a colonel who basically allowed somebody in his committee, you know, I don't know that this colonel allowed it, but it's his base. Everything that happens at Fort Bragg, that's his call. That's his responsibility. And if you can't hold accountable somebody,

That guy or whoever, maybe there needs to be, you know, somebody below him. Somebody should be fired for this because it broke tradition and it probably broke the law. And it's certainly contravened army regulations. And, you know, having worked in the DOD for 25 years where people were always trying to get me fired over regulations, I'm pretty sure I know what those are.

Yeah, I've seen some people on Twitter trying to get you fired as well. This is not the first. You've been there, done that. But my point, Tim, is if Hegseth overrules them, that's the moment where you say, if I'm not in charge, if I'm an army officer who's not in charge of my subordinates, then I guess it's time to go. So then let me ask about why that isn't happening. Because you were, and I asked Hurtling about this. I forget if it was an article on social media you posted about where are the generals. It was an article for The Atlantic. It was an article for The Atlantic. Why are more people speaking out? And

You know, Hertling, who's very good and clear-eyed about his values and what the military culture should look like. And unlike a lot of other retired officers, is speaking out publicly. He is.

But even him, like you can sense with him, like there is something about the military culture that is different, right? Like where he is like, he's at certain times carefully choosing his words. And I think it's very easy to see what he thinks and like, you know, by listening to him. And I'm grateful that he came on, that he's speaking out. But so many others aren't talking at all, right? Like you hear nothing from Mattis. You hear nothing from any of these people, Kelly.

What am I missing? Why is that? I don't understand. I'm a soft-handed, sedentary civilian. So between the teaching I did and other stuff, I spent about 30 years working with the professional military. And one of the things that I admire about them, aside from their patriotism and their love of country and their service to America, from the very beginning...

Like when they become senior non-coms, you know, sergeants, chiefs, or lieutenants, captains, majors. One of the things that has drilled into them is the lives of these men and women under you are your responsibility.

You are responsible for the literally for the life and death of people who are following you. And you have to maintain that unit cohesion. You have to maintain that authority. You have to you have to know that when you all go somewhere, you go together and you're going to offer your lives up for each other.

And so it's not part of the military culture. And I say this as an outside observer, and I say it admiringly. It's not part of the military culture to say, hey, we got to deploy to L.A. Who's pissed? Who doesn't want to fucking do this?

No, but it's been driving me crazy watching people on social media say, well, these Marines should just say they're not going to go. No, it doesn't work that way. In part, not just because you're getting orders from your superiors, but because these are all your friends and comrades in arms. They're going to get deployed. You're not going to say, well, good luck, Bill. Screw you. I'm not going with you. You go. You support those folks. And I think when you get to very senior levels, the kind of job Mark Hertling had,

You're worried that you don't want to start pushing over dominoes that then fall and disrupt the chain of command and that kind of cohesion. I'm not speaking for Mark, by the way. I know him and I admire him greatly, but I'm not speaking on his behalf here. And so part of that culture is that and also at very senior ranks to say,

How do I defend the apolitical tradition, George Washington's tradition of the army by speaking up and becoming political? Right. They feel mousetrapped by that. It's like if you say I'm going to stand up and defend the traditions of the army by criticizing the commander in chief, their answer, I think, for a lot of those guys would be to say, at which point I have become part of the problem.

Now, my answer to that, and I have spoken with many of them, you know, off the record, you know, just to have called or contacted me, expressed their concerns. My answer is this is an extraordinary moment. I was on Nicole Wallace's show the other day, and I kind of very emotionally, I said, if there was a time to speak out, this is it. This is it's now. This is this is now because I have never seen anything.

And I've been to a lot of military events in my career. I have never seen a bunch of young enlisted people standing behind a president hooting and yucking it up and imitating his dance moves and, you know, jeering the governor of California. This is out of control. I mean, this is really crazy.

This is really dangerous stuff. It's obscene. It's an offense to the greatest traditions of the American civil military relationship. And I think, you know, I understand the reticence of all those generals and admirals who say, if I speak up, I become part of the political issue.

But there is a time to I think there's a time to speak up to say, look, I don't care what Donald Trump's politics are. I care that he allowed orders to be issued to put partisans behind him. And I would object to any president doing that because, you know, I'm a general. I'm an admiral. I've had to lead these people. And I think it's just time. But that reticence you're seeing, Tim, it comes from a place of principle now.

I'll just finish by saying, because this is all too much happy talk and you and I are usually much darker. There's also just a lot of rank careerism and cowardice taking over some of these folks.

And that's just how it is.

serve the country and are here to protect the fake news that they were booing and jeering and to protect the people of California that they were jeering their elected officials. Like, that feels wrong. It's wrong and it's against Army regulations. Yeah, it does feel wrong. And it does feel like the type of thing that you'd speak out against. And that's just circling back to the top.

That's how I felt about the Padilla thing. At some point, there's times where it would feel gauche and silly for a senator to just interrupt a press conference and do that. But I don't know, man, if the Department of Homeland Security is sending...

masked agents onto the streets of your city and they're, and they're hassling your constituents and they're, they're doing it extra judicially and, and they're doing it in a manner that is against the constitution and they're bullying and you are their representative. Sometimes this is just a moment that where it calls for this, where you got to stand up and say, no, no. You know, and I, and I'm glad on this going back to the Padilla thing,

You know, I've been pretty hard over about saying, don't go out there and get into a pissing match with the National Guard. Yeah, right. On the other hand, Alex Padilla standing in front of Kristi Noem saying, I want answers as the senator from California. Absolutely. Absolutely. That's exactly what should be happening. There should be a lot more politicians there and in Washington saying, no, it's not business as usual. We're not just going to keep going on here. Now, interestingly enough, yesterday,

District court said Trump has to return control of the guard back to the governor. Yeah, that got over. I think it was stayed. Yeah, at least to the weekend. And that was stayed until... There was a night-night ruling that they're going to look at it on Monday, I guess. But so it stayed down to Monday. Until we know if the president is actually going to obey the order of a court to return control of the guard, there are a few issues in American politics more important than that right now.

And everybody should be focused on that. And by everybody, I mean elected officials should be focusing every, you know, every chance you get to say, I want to know if the president's going to follow the lawful orders of federal court to return the guard to the jurisdiction of the governor.

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Real quick, rapid fire. One funny thing and two things that are off, you know, just into our musical side of interests with Tom. Marco Rubio put out a statement yesterday. Did you see this? Not the one where he said we weren't involved in Israel. He put out a different statement. He put out two pretty shameful statements. Here's this one. I just want to read it to you before we lose you. On behalf of the American people, I want to congratulate the Russian people on Russia Day. Okay.

The United States remains committed to supporting the Russian people as they continue to build on their aspirations for a brighter future. We also take this opportunity to reaffirm the United States' desire for constructive engagement with the Russian Federation to bring about a durable peace between Russia and Ukraine. It's our hope that peace will foster more mutually beneficial relations between our countries.

I swore I thought that was fake. I thought it was fake. And before I read it, I went to the State Department website to make sure. For people that don't know, June 14th is like Russia Day.

It's a post-Soviet holiday. Again, this is the Secretary of State. If Russia had a non-neo-fascist government, that's exactly the thing you should send. Sure. But not today. They weren't kidnapping our allies' children and bombing indiscriminately cities. Somebody standing next to Rubio should have handed him the piece of paper that says, do not congratulate. Yes. But it just shows you, first of all, it shows you that...

Unlike the first Trump term, they've managed to wipe out a lot of the competent staff. This is a classic kind of staffing error. Because Marco Rubio, and remember, Rubio is supposed to be the best of the cabinet nominees, cabinet appointments. That turned out wrong. Marco Rubio has probably not spent a lot of time sitting around thinking, you know, what should I write on Russia Day on June 14th?

you know, this is somebody, some staffer, this, this problem got staffed out. And it's like, doesn't anybody at foggy bottom know what they're doing? No. Was there not one person in the room set to say, uh, maybe not today, sir. Just maybe this isn't the year to congratulate. This isn't the year.

You could send a message that says, we congratulate the Russian people on Russia Day. We look forward to them returning to the fraternity of democracies or something. But instead, as if nothing's happened. It's just remarkable.

It's not remarkable. It's shameful. It's shameful. It's shameful. There you go. All right. Into musicals. I'm sorry to... I hope you're going to use the Envoy as your outro music today. Well, I had a different idea, but we'll talk about it. Maybe the Envoy. We'll see. Who knows? Maybe we'll have two musics today. I don't know. Maybe we'll have... Was there a spot for an intermission? We'll have to think about that. Andrew Wiseman yesterday. I hate to correct...

guests, you know, when they're not here to get corrected. And so I listen with love and appreciation, Andrew Weissman, I have to correct him. I received so many messages about this. He was wrong about the plot of Les Mis saying it was happening during the French revolution. It was happening. I don't know. As I mentioned on yesterday's podcast, I don't do musicals. I don't do musical theater. I couldn't have named a character in Les Mis. I couldn't have told you what country it happened in. I know nothing about it.

And so in this case, I was unable to correct him live. And I just wanted to let, let's say that. So I guess you, I'm sure you have some expertise on this. Les Mis takes place during some other French conflagration. I have not seen, I believe I know that it is, does not take place during the French revolution. But yeah,

I have never seen Les Mis. Okay. Me and Tom together. Cheers. Unlike you, this is a weird thing, Tim. I'm very into musical theater. I know. I'm totally a Broadway guy. That's a weird gap for you. And so here's this last one. I don't know if you're going to agree with me on this or I suspect you'll shame me, but Brian Wilson died. RIP. Oh, yeah. Okay. I'm just going to whisper it. I hate the Beach Boys. I hate the Beach Boys.

What's wrong with you? And I went through a phase. Where did the Beach Boys hurt you? When I was younger and getting into music and learning all of the seminal albums you're supposed to learn if you're going to be a high school alternative music guy that smokes pot, everybody, all the potheads liked Pet Sounds. And I went through a period of time where I pretended to like Pet Sounds to kind of fit in in high school. But there's one good track on it, I guess, which is nice. But at

They turned Maga, which makes me, I don't know if Brian did, but some of the rest of them turned Maga. So anyway, I don't wish him any ill will. I'm sad he died, but I did feel like this was a moment maybe to admit that.

Okay. This is just such a, this is so wrong. You know, do you like the Beatles? I do like the Beatles. Yeah. They're great. McCartney once said that God only knows is one of the most beautiful songs ever written. Well, the one track that I, that you have to shout out is it's amazing. All right. Is that the one? That was the one track on pet sounds. I like, well, but I would also say that, you know,

Watch the John Cusack, Paul Dano biopic about Brian Wilson. Okay. I do love Paul Dano. Paul Dano plays the young Brian Wilson. John Cusack plays the adult Brian Wilson. Okay. And it's a lot of it is about how they actually created songs like Good Vibrations, you know, like going and getting the guy. Like Brian Wilson was this demented genius. Hey, you know what this song needs? A theremin. You know, the theremin is the thing that goes...

you know, in the back, he just, the layering, the tracks, you need to get away from pet sounds because I will tell you, I'll admit this to him as a big beach boys fan from childhood. I didn't buy pet sounds until I was in my thirties. Yeah. And I kind of didn't even,

I don't put it. I don't listen to pet sounds. Okay. Well, I think the other stuff's worse. Oh, come on. It could be a generational. It must be generational. I put on Oasis for my daughter yesterday. I'm getting excited about the Oasis reunion. Don't worry, baby. No, none of it happened in France. All that sounds. Oh, yeah. It's giving me the cringe.

I'm sorry. I don't mean to speak good of the dead. I won't drop the thing on you about how influential Brian Wilson was because John Heilman does this shit to me about Led Zeppelin and the Velvet Underground. You hate Lou Reed? Yeah, I hate Lou Reed.

Okay. Well, we don't care about your opinion on anything anyway. Tom Nichols, thanks so much. As one of my friends so brilliantly put it, I'm not wealthy and alienated enough to like Lou Reed. Okay. Well, there you go. I feel red by that. Sorry for being an alienated bitch, kid. John's always getting on me, but, well, the Velvets were so influential. I'm like, yes, but their albums sucked. Wrong. Oh.

Nobody sits down and says, you know what? End the show. End the show. That's Radio Free Tom. He is just speaking ill of Lou Reed, which is not accepted on the Bulwark podcast. We appreciate you. Oh, and everybody else.

I'll be out there tomorrow. Go to your do what Tom says. Don't, you know, throw any water bottles at anybody, but go and peacefully speak out tomorrow at the No Kings protest. I'll be at the one in New Orleans. We'll see you all there. And Tom Nichols, I appreciate you coming on the podcast. It's good to see you again, Tim. Even though you have horrific opinions about Lou Reed. Oh, don't even start. I'm sorry. In the big Lou Reed versus Brian Wilson war, my troops outnumber yours, pal. All right, Pete Brian Wilson. We'll see you all back here on Monday. Peace.

Nuclear arms in the Middle East Israel's attacking the Iraqis Assyrians are mad at us And Baghdad does whatever she please Looks like another threat to world peace And now Salvatore got caught Couldn't do no more He's got diplomacy He's got a lead

♪ An effort that nobody sees ♪ ♪ Looks like another threat to world peace ♪ ♪ For the Envoy ♪ ♪ Send the Envoy ♪ ♪ Whenever there's a crisis ♪ ♪ The President sends his Envoy in ♪ ♪ Guns in Damascus ♪ ♪ Oh, Jerusalem ♪

The Bulwark Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.

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