Will Saletan: The Weekend of the UFOs

Welcome to the Bullework Podcast. I’m Charlie Sykes. It is Monday, February thirteenth two thousand thirteen, and just a warning that if I say anything particularly or fundamentally stupid or I just get something wrong. I’m just gonna write it off to COVID brain. Could you just keep an eye on me?

Will Salitan, of course. He’s gonna be writing shotgun today. So just just kinda give me a side eye a little bit if if it gets a little weird. Alright. Sorry.

I’m actually feeling pretty good. A little lower energy than usual, but nothing I cannot handle. But can we start with just the stupid stuff? Yeah. You can work up to the really interesting stuff.

Did you watch the Super

Bowl, first of all? I did. I thought it was a great game. What about you?

Was a great game. I mean, I remember that that, you know, there was a long period of time when the Super Bowls were all blaws. There were these overhyped pieces and it was, you know, forty three to seventeen and everything. They have been much more entertaining. But yesterday, I thought was it was a great matchup.

It was a great game. You had to come behind. You really had the future of the NFL. But I wanna talk about the the halftime show just for a moment. Do you know that I didn’t feel any need to tweet out or comment on Rihanna’s performance?

Because nobody cares what I think about Rihanna’s performance, which which I thought was pretty good. I just wanna say this. Okay? But I didn’t feel the need to comment. Do you know who did not have that feeling?

Who, Charlie? The former president of the United States sitting down in Mar a Lago is firing off attacks on his failing social media site. He felt the need. Okay. This is the former president of the United States, an announced candidate for president of the United States.

And in the category of like shit you can’t make up, he’s sitting down there. And he writes. Let me just take my glasses off here. Epic fail. Rihanna gave without question the single worst halftime show in Super Bowl, his three.

This after insulting far more than half of our nation, which is already in Syria’s decline on caps. With her foul in insulting language, also so much for her quote unquote stylist, which I I’m not gonna even get into. He’s upset. He has to comment on first of all, everybody seemed to have liked it. She’s pregnant.

She’s performing on this massive platform. And don’t you think that if you want to be the leader of the free world, you know, on your list of things that I really want to get myself worked up about And yet he’s kind of been obsessed of This this guy’s mind continues to be. It doesn’t reveal anything new, but

it is fascinating. Part of what’s fascinating is the idea of Donald Trump as the world’s most masculine man. I mean, the guy is like half Neanderthal, and then he comes in with this stuff about her stylist and, you know, criticizing her clothing. He’s like half Nancy and then he’s like half Rupaul’s drag race judge — Yes. — I’ve never

seen a straight man with such strong aesthetic opinions about women’s clothing. I think that’s an interesting observation. Because he does have strong opinions. Apparently, she’s posed in front of something that basically says F Trump, so he just can’t let it go. I

did feel Charlie. I know there was a very controversial call during the game and everybody had their own view of it. In our house, we had to play it back just to be sure, but we were pretty certain that Rihanna was pregnant. Ihana is definitely pregnant. There’s

no question about it. Okay. So since we’re on the the the mind of the former president because it continues to just be amazing. There’s a big New York Times story today about how, you know, Rhonda Santos is still struggling with how and when to respond to the various insults from the president who’s you know, had been throwing out implications that he was a pedophile and everything. And apparently, and this is kind of buried in the story.

That Trump has insulted mister DeSantis in casual conversation describing him as meet all Ron. An apparent dig at his appearance or shut down Ron, a reference to restriction the governor put in place at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic I have a couple of quick cakes on this. I mean, both are better than Rhonda’s sanctimonious. But, I mean, they are still pretty weak stuff from the GOP’s Apex Predator. I mean, if he’s still on muteball run, I mean, really, the problem is is having discussions about a man whose brain is stuck in the sixth grade.

I mean, this is this is part of what we wrestle with. Right? Is that we’re trying to parse something out and it’s like, it’s that dumb kid on the playground in sixth grade. Just to another point, Of all the people who shouldn’t be focusing on mocking other people’s appearance, you wouldn’t think that he would have self awareness to know that probably he shouldn’t be mocking someone’s appearance, the meatball stuff.

Just yeah. So Trump, you know, he did this from the beginning. Right? When he started running for president in twenty fifteen, he, at that time, was a new face to a lot of people. He certainly was new in politics.

I don’t think this whole sixth grader insult thing is gonna wear well as the former president who lost an election lot of Republicans think he should have won. I mean, if he’s gonna try to counter a real governor who has done things with this sort of school yard bullying stuff. I don’t think it’s gonna work the way that it did work for him. When he was a candidate in that sixteen man field.

I’m not seeing that it’s getting much pick up. And the fact is that one of the things that DeSantis is doing is DeSantis says mood so hard right. I know the JVL has talked about this. He’s actually, you know, picking off the various magna activists and gifters and he’s sort of going down a list and I’m gonna make Christopher Ruffo one of my guys, hey, Claremont Institute. I mean, they’re all in on, you know, election of the island’s edition, but I’m gonna brace them as as hard as possible.

So you are getting a lot of blowback from people like, come on. Are we gonna do this again? Well, you know, as As Tim wrote, you swallowed an awful lot. You’ve gone through all of the other insults and now suddenly, you’re upset. Because it’s aimed at one of your own guys.

But this is this is what you signed up for

people. Really? Right. You know, and, Charlie, you you and I have discussed before Cults are dangerous, and there has been a cult of Donald Trump. But one of the solutions to cults is fatigue.

Yeah. People get tired of stuff over time. So I think fatigue has already worn down the Trump cult, that and defeat, have worn down the Trump cult to the point where he won’t get away with just bullying people out of the race or or Charlie, I’m having a really tough time bracing myself for the implication of what we’re talking about, which is the idea that Ron DeSantis will be the adult in the room in that Republican race. I can’t wrap my mind around that.

Yeah. I am not completely there yet. Okay. So let’s switch to the other really interesting story that nobody actually understands. We’re shooting balloons or something out of the air.

We have now shot four things out of the air. We don’t know whether they are all Chinese spy balloons, whether they are weather balloons, or whether they are alien spacecraft. This was the weekend of the UFO’s. It’s almost as if the scriptwriters of twenty twenty three are going, okay, things are getting a little quiet. No.

Let’s throw in the UFO’s. Oh, come on. Come on, Herb. We can’t just throw in a UFO. Come on.

Just let’s just try it. They’ll accept everything. So we’re blowing these things out of the air, and I must say there’s a little bit of pride that some of the f sixteens that the blue the whatever it was, the hexagon out of the air over over Lake Huron. It was an Octagon. Octagon.

I’m sorry. We’re dispatch from Madison, Wisconsin. So this was this was a cheese head operation. So, Will, what the f is flying above us. What’s going has it just been that somebody turned the dial and we’re starting to see all kinds of stuff floating that wasn’t there?

I mean, Is something new happened? Or are we just basically saying, this is stuff that’s been there that we ignored or missed? And maybe we ignored it for a good reason. So what

are we shooting down? Do we know? We don’t know because we have to go retrieve some of the records that we just shot down. Right? But we will know relatively soon about these, but there will be more.

There will be more because, Charlie, I’m sorry, but I am with the most boring theory about this, which is the one you just described. We know that after the Chinese spy balloon came through, we adjusted our radars and we’re trying to capture slower moving stuff. Right? We were looking for missiles. We were looking for fast, you know, dangerous stuff.

Now it’s like, oh my god, slow moving balloons. What else is out there that’s slow and we don’t wanna be embarrassed again? So now we’re just finding stuff. And we already have the example, Charlie, of the so called radar anomaly over Montana, right, where we send up the f twenty twos or whatever. And we find nothing.

There’s nothing there. But we’re just on alert for it. And one of the theories that’s been out there is that there’s a lot of stuff floating in different elevations. That we just haven’t been looking for. So it’s not the UFO’s.

It’s not even the Chinese. And can I just say one thing about theory that the Chinese are bombarding us with stuff? I have been seeing people saying that after the first balloon, and we shot down their blue. Now they’re sending more stuff to Bombard us. People, there wasn’t time.

It takes a while for this stuff to float over from China. It’s not like China then launched a bunch of more stuff at us. Right? This is just stuff that’s up there floating and has been for some time. And now we’re seeing it.

That’s my theory. Maybe. Or they launched all kinds of stuff earlier

that we didn’t see. Okay? So We have the great minds of Congress who were weighing in on this yesterday morning. Here is congressman Jim Hines. On meet the press talking about all of the stuff that’s up there.

Let’s see what congressman Hines had to say.

You said on Friday, you you speculating, you admitted you were speculating that, hey, you know, there’s a lot of stuff up in the air these days. Private companies put up issues, you know, things up there to deal with WiFi. There’s other foreign objects from other countries up there, including weather balloons. Just how cluttered is it up there?

Well, yeah, and and that’s still where my head is. And I should be clear, as I was on Friday that, you know, I haven’t been briefed on the other two shoot downs. But I I looked back a year ago to when we had this both open hearing and class find hearing on what are most people called UFO’s, you’re supposed to call unidentified aerial phenomenon. And what we learned in that hearing is that there is a lot of garbage up there. It’s really not that hard.

Certainly, countries can do it. Companies can do it and do to it. Individuals with resource can put balloons up

there. Of course.

And so there is a lot of garbage up there. And Mike, again, speculative guess as why we’re seeing these things happen in quick succession is that now we’re really attuned to looking for them. Right? Okay. I believe him.

I also believe

that Himes is trying to disguise the fact that he’s he’s actually citing stuff he got from from one of these classified briefings. Notice how carefully he is to say, I haven’t been briefed on this, but from stuff I’ve read in the press or from some public hearing blah blah blah. I think his degree of confidence is because This is what the military thinks. This is what the intelligence analysts think. This is what’s called sky garbage, sky trash.

Charlie, we know that this stuff is in orbit. Right? We know there’s all kinds of stuff floating that’s at a higher altitude. So now we’re just finding that there’s more of this stuff at lower altitudes. I mean, if you’re some telecom company and you put up something that’s floating and you I mean, nobody who’s tracking what you what you left up there?

Are you gonna go clean it up? That’s not easy. So I just think this stuff is left out there and we have essentially debris floating around. Okay. Alright.

Although I have to say it did occur to

be over the weekend, that he’s talking about anybody with resources. There have got to be some hobbyist out there with big balloons who gotta be looking at each other going, what do you think? Think maybe we could maybe we could float something up there and how cool would it be if they scramble jets? And they shut down our balloon. Is that a crimes?

Here’s the thing is, have you done something wrong? Let’s say, you inflamed some giant mylar balloon and you let it out over Lake Michigan. And then you just sorta sit back, light your cigar, and wait for and wait for top gun to come along. So

Wait. Charlie, if I if one of these floats over Wisconsin, are you to blame?

No. No. No. No. No.

But but I’m thinking about, look, we’ve seen how people get into drone or I mean, balloons are not really obscure technology. Okay. Now I understand that it takes a lot to get a balloon, you know, that far up twenty thousand, thirty, forty thousand feet up. So I’m not saying that people could you know, run off to the, you know, the party store and get a bunch of balloons. But there are some people who have balloons.

Have you committed a crime if you launch a balloon over Lake Michigan right that goes up to twenty thousand feet. Have you done something illegal? I I don’t know. Somebody should do a PSA on this because I’m telling you if it occurs

to me, it’s occurred to somebody else. Right. Okay. So just to the PSA, please don’t do this. Don’t do it.

Don’t do it. And and by the way, just to be clear about the plausibility of this, the original Chinese balloon was, what, like, two hundred feet tall. Like Yeah. That’s just ginormous. You know, so you

need to be

a major world power to do something like that. But these other ones that we’ve just shot down, one of them was described to be the size, you know, you have a balloon, the size of a car. That’s not that hard to get together. You bet on Amazon? Yeah.

Yeah. You can get that stop off

there. So so but

Oh, okay. Wait. One thing one thing about this. The altitudes that these things are at is the serious stuff. Okay?

The original Chinese blend was like at sixty thousand feet. No problem. That’s above commercial air traffic. These other ones They’re at forty thousand. They’re at twenty thousand.

That’s dangerous. Don’t do it because you can cause an air accident. You can cause a civilian airliner to have an accident. So don’t do it. What’s that we get gets sucked into the engine and bad things can happen.

Right. Alright.

So Mike Turner, who is the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, and you’ve talked about him before he was on. And it’s kind of interesting how he’s adjusted his attitude towards whether or not we should be shooting these things down. Let’s play Mike Turner from yesterday. What can you tell us? What were the second and third objects of the military shutdown?

And and where did they come from? Yeah. Well, I I certainly don’t know as the administration is saying they don’t know. They do appear somewhat trigger happy. Although, this is certainly firmly for the negative environment that they showed when the Chinese spy balloon was coming over some of our most sensitive sites.

Okay. So there he is yesterday saying that we are trigger happy. He kinda wants it both ways. Right? I mean, Yeah.

But this is preferable to what happened. Now that’s kind of interesting that he would be used to turn trigger happy because here’s Mike Turner. Unmeet the press from last weekend. In this instance, this president should have taken this as an urgency in social of our military. This should have been taken down before it entered a US airspace when it was overlapped.

So a little bit of a flip flop there, I will? Totally

a flip flop. Right? It was like, we should’ve shot the other one down before I came in. And now it’s like they’re trigger happy and he goes on in the CNN interview, the one yesterday to say, that they the military, they took this action without a real understanding of what they were going after. So, obviously, it’s a flip flop.

And we were just talking about how maybe the military has set its radar to find everything. So the Republican political radar, the radar of the House Republicans, is clearly set to Whatever Joe Biden did, we’re against that. Whatever Joe Biden did is dangerous. It’s that he neglected to shoot down a balloon when he let it go across the United dates. And then it’s they’re trigger happy.

They’re firing without any real understanding of what they’re looking at. I just can’t take these guys seriously because they plainly are looking for a political hit first, and then they’re trying to rationalize it later with some theory about what is good or not for the national security of the United States? I

think that’s fair. Although I suppose that one piece of good news and maybe even a little surprising was that the house passed a resolution condemning the Chinese balloon, and they passed it unanimously. It was bipartisan. And this came just a couple of days after there was some speculation that they were going to take just a political cheap shot at the

administration. So that didn’t happen. That was a little bit off brand for this Congress, wasn’t it? Right? And, you know, look, there has been a you and I are pretty cynical about this current version of the Republican Party But there had there had been a version of what they’ve done that is bipartisan and that is, you know, and was supposed to be in the form of the committee to investigate China.

And there, Kevin McCarthy, has bragged about the bipartisanship, that the democrats voted for it, that the democrats are working with them, and that they’re going to make it about targeting China, not about targeting Joe Biden. So that is a proposition that will be tested over the next couple of years But in this case, as you point out, in the case of this resolution, it’s borne out. They could have targeted Biden and they didn’t. Couldn’t spiracy theories. Paranormal.

UFO’s. During the entire nineteen seventy one debacle of this red die number two, parents all around America were buying Frank and Berry, so only a few days after the cereal was released, kids all across the country. Started being rushed to hospitals. All of them had one symptom in common.

Fairees of the third kind on YouTube or wherever you

listen. Let’s go back to Rhonda Santos because you were mentioning, you know, how how weird it is that Ron DeSantis might be the adult in the room. Although, what is interesting is, you know, DeSantis’ branding is is not subtle, what’s soever. I mean, he is moving as hard right as he can. He’s giving as much candy to his base as he can.

He’s attacking the media He’s cozying up to the Clairemont Institute, and I have I have a couple of links in my newsletter about that. The Clairemont Institute is really the fever swamps most prominent tank tank. And apparently, they’re so enamored of Rhonda Sandis that they’re moving some of their operation to Florida because they think that the Sandis providing the first template for any red state in America through his leadership. And you have to understand the Clairemont Institute is way way out there. He’s also continuing to move ahead on his efforts to punish the Walt Disney Company for speaking out for actually saying some engaging in political speech about his policies involving gays in education.

And stripping them of some of their of their status, taking over their tax district, which is interesting because there hasn’t been a lot pushback has there from fellow Republicans about a governor using the full power of the state of the government to punish a private company for engaging in pure political speech. I mean, there was a time will when that would have

crossed a lot of red lines, but not anymore. It’s a division here. It’s a choice in the Republican party between principles that the party claimed to stand for. Remember, they used to be a Republican platform with ideas in it. One of those was limited government, right, and free markets.

Right? Those are procedural. And then you have this new Republican party that’s built around not so much ideas, but sentiments, resentments, you can see it in the Saracobhi Sanders’ response to the state of the union. It’s about, you know, it’s a culture war. Right?

Yeah. And in this culture war, this new Republican Party, basically suspends all of the old principles. Anything procedural? Anything about whether the government should be doing it or the market should be doing it. That’s all set aside.

In this full throated embrace of desantisism, which is basically the use of state power once you have it

to fight culture wars against the left. And interestingly enough, with all of the the usual juvenile, you know, the former president coming up with nicknames for Rhonda Sandis, there actually was an outbreak of actual substantive criticism yesterday. I I don’t know where New Hampshire governor Christian who thinks his presidential bid is gonna go. I I I don’t know. But He’s on Face the Nation, and he’s talking about Ron DeSantis, and he’s specifically talking about this politics of retaliation and and using government to go after private companies.

So soon he talked about a lot and he was had his feet held to his fire about wokeness. He didn’t handle that particularly well. But I thought this answer was interesting. Let’s place Sunu new on DeSantis in big government. There’s

a lot of leadership that says, you know what, when we’re not getting that result out of a private business or a locality, we’ll just impose from the top down our conservative will. You’re not talking about the Florida governor and Disney for example. That’s a bad example. Yeah. That’s that’s an one one of the many to Sandoz may be running for president Trump.

Trump is a very good governor. He is, but I’m just trying to remind folks what we are at our core. And if we’re trying to beat the democrats at being big government authoritarians, remember what’s going to happen. Eventually, they’ll have power in a state or in a position, and then they’ll start penalizing conservative businesses. And conservative nonprofits and conservative ideas.

That is the worst precedent in the world. That’s exactly what the founding fathers tried not to

try to avoid. So will, this seems like a pretty fundamental question. Right. It certainly is. And, okay, we’ve been talking about the schoolyard bully stuff in the silly insults.

This is a real ideological substantive debate that could be had in the twenty twenty four Republican race. And I I am with you. I don’t see Chris Sunu going anywhere in that race because he represents an old version of the Republican Party that’s Trump voters and the new Republican voters don’t care about, but he is making a very good point. I mean, and that is a very bold way of putting it when he describes DeSantis he didn’t describe him specifically this way, but he used the phrase big government authoritarians. That is what the scientist is and it would be very interesting to see if somebody can be sinu, it can be Liz Cheney, it can be Larry Hogan, somebody in the Republican field raising this in a way that at least makes traditional Republicans reflect on how far they have drifted from the party’s original principles.

Yes. On the other hand, there is the very real possibility that this is precisely what the Republican voting base wants. That this appeals to that megabase, that they that what they’re looking for is not some set of principles, they’re looking for somebody who is going to punch the right people in the nose, who will hurt their enemies, who will take the fight to the elites who dominate everything and are trying to decide. So maybe in fact, yes, you know, they’re going to make this critique assuming that there’s still a residual sense of libertarianism or belief in small government, but maybe that’s just eye wash that what people really like is the fact that, you know, as the governor meatball is gonna step up and he’s gonna punch Disney in the face.

Right. I think that’s what is likely to happen. It would at least be clarified buying to have them, you know, firmly reject what the party used to stand for. I will say that when I posted this quote from Sunu Nu about the DeSantis, One of the responses I got back from a lot of conservatives on Twitter was they’re just incredulous at Synchronoss saying, that Liberals will start punishing conservatives for their opinions because the argument is they’ve been doing this the whole time, Powell. Exactly.

The democrats have been using government to hurt us. And the implicit conclusion of that is that these conservatives are saying screw our old principles, screw all that stuff we said about the free market, they hurt us. Now that we have power, we’re gonna hurt them. No.

That that is exactly right. And in fact, that would be the almost universal go to art meant that, look, they’ve been coming after private companies for a long time. I mean, they went after Hobby Lobby. They went after Chic fil A. Look what they have done.

And there’s some truth to it, although it’s government quite as naked as what DeSantis is doing. On the other hand, look, this is what happens when you get into this cycle of payback. And I do think that there are progressives who have become very, very comfortable, much more comfortable over a long period of time in saying that if we believe that a company is doing or saying something that that we find to be deplorable, that we’re going to take action against and that that’s that’s been internalized. So this is a new idea on the right, but it’s perhaps not that new one I’m not gonna get blowback for the both sides isn’t he?

Charlie’s right people. The look, the absence of principle is kind of a default in politics politics is about power. It should be about ideas. It should be about values. It should be about principles.

But in fact, when people get power, whether they are on the right or the left, it’s awfully tempting to just use that power to directly achieve what you want. So that is what DeSantis is doing. That’s why Governor Meatballs has such strong support on the right. And, Charlie, this ties right back to the Twitter hearings, right, the the social media stuff, where the right is very very upset that there was backstage lobbying by the left by democrats to suppress stories that democrats thought were false or and And meanwhile, there’s absolutely no concern about efforts that were made by the Trump administration, by Donald Trump, by people on the right, to manipulate Twitter, including a guy buying Twitter Elon Musk, and then, you know, basically trying to skew it back in a direction that serves the interest of the right. We haven’t

talked about Elon Musk in a while, mainly because I just find it completely exhausting. But the fact that he has now decided to cut off StarLink to the Ukrainians at a crucial point in the war. For anyone who thinks that Yes, Elon Musk is trying to be even handed. Elon Musk is not, you know, being an over pro Russian shell that is not betraying the Ukrainian. The thing about Elon Musk is that Elon Musk is one of those guys that is so deeply damaged and hypocritical and vicious that it’s hard to keep up with it, and and therefore exhausting.

And and this is a disadvantage because I find myself to sort of dropping the ball and going, I I can’t deal with this anymore. How many days in a row? Do I wanna talk about how Elon Musk is, you know, effing up Twitter? Elon Musk now engaging in in kind of weird kind of of appeasement of Vladimir Putin at the time when he is ratcheting up the genocide, the rape, the murder, you know, the the want and assault on civilians. And what is Elon Musk who had posed for holy pictures as a

guy who was helping out Ukraine with Starling? Basically just completely screws them over. Well, okay. I’m actually gonna have to defend Muscular or at least complete. So Alright.

So anyone who’s who sees what Elon Musk is doing on Twitter can see that he’s an egomaniac and a narcissist. Right? So that’s that’s what’s driving his behavior on Twitter. And probably the purchase Twitter, which makes no sense financially. He’s demanding engagement and firing people and, you know, all that stuff.

But in the case of StarLink, I think this is straight up corrupt. It is the behavior of an international businessman. Right? He allowed them to use the starlings. But he doesn’t want the starlings to be used for what drones because, like, that could escalate things and that would get Elon Musk in trouble with who, I assume, with the with Russia.

It’s not really Russia that is the ultimate problem here in terms of Elon Musk’s behavior. It is China. It is that this guy because he has financial interests around the world, does not wanna piss off authoritarian regime.

Okay. This is your defense. This is your Pensabille on Musk.

Musk said I’m saying

he’s not just Putin’s bitch. He’s actually also China’s bitch. And this is your defense.

I

hate

you. I gotta start somewhere for you. This is So my my defense of Elon Musk. Yes. You have me emailed here.

My defense is he’s not trying to screw Ukraine. He’s just trying to protect himself from pissing off one authoritarian regime, which is the Russians. But he’s also afraid to confront the other authoritarian regime, China, to which he is deeply, deeply in Hawk. And that over the long term is going to be a bigger problem, but I cannot deny that in Ukraine, he is practicing financial cowardice. Did

you see that at the Super Bowl yesterday, he was he was there with Rupert Murdoch. Elon Musk. And it’s, like, if you wanted, like, just a little snapshot of, you know, what do we mean by the oligarchy? In the United States, you know, in in the West. You know, deplorable billionaires sitting together, what was their conversation like?

I don’t know. George Orwell once said to see what’s in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle. It’s the way I felt as I was reading the piece in the Washington Post over the weekend by Michael, is it pronounced Michael Cranish Michael Cranish about the incredibly sleazy grift between the Trump’s and the Kushner’s and the Saudi Arabians, you know, the Atlantic’s and Applebaum. Has seen a lot. I mean, Anne Applebaum is is one of those folks who’s been watching what’s been happening with democracy and authoritarianism all over the planet.

I mean, she knows corruption. She knows the various kinds of corruption. And, I mean, she has seen an awful lot. She tweeted out yesterday that this new reporting on the Trump Kushner Saudi deals looks like the most blatant example of high level corruption in American history cannot think of a precedent. You know, this is the the story.

So, you know, Kushner who’s a terrible businessman needed a billion dollar bailout in his last deal. Let me just read the paragraph here. Just from the Washington Post. The day after leaving the White House, the day after leaving the White House, Jared Kushner created a company that he transformed months later into a private equity firm with two billion dollars from a sovereign wealth fund, chaired by Saudi Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman. Kushner’s firm structured those funds in such a way that it did not have to disclose the source, blah blah.

A year after his presidency, Trump’s golf courses began hosting tournaments for the Saudi funded backed LIV Golf. Separately, the four president’s family company, the Trump organization, secured an agreement with a Saudi real estate company that plans to build a Trump hotel as part of a four billion dollar golf resort in Oman, the substantial investments by the Saudis in enterprises that benefited both men. Personally came after they cultivated close ties with Mohammed while Trump was president of the United States in office helping the crown princess standing by scheduling Trump’s first presidential trip to Saudi Arabia, backing him amid numerous international crises, and meeting with him repeatedly in DC. And the kingdom, including on a final trip Kushner took to Saudi Arabia, on the eve of the January sixth two thousand twenty one attack on the capital. This is one of those cases where it’s so big.

It’s so blatant. It is in plain sight. I don’t wanna engage in what about isn’t, but the juxtaposition of the obsession about Hunter’s laptop versus what about Kushner and Ivanka and Trump who are just feeding at the heat of one of the worst monsters on the international stage. In addition,

let’s just point out what Donald Trump did for Mohammed bin Salman. I don’t know how to avoid saying this. In exchange for these billions of dollars that his son-in-law and that Trump himself pick up after they leave office. Right? So the first trip that Donald Trump made was to Saudi Arabia.

He goes over there. He has a parade of US arms manufacturers walking in front of on a carpet to receive contracts. From the Saudi government. The Saudis are, like, literally handing over money here. Here’s a contract for you and for you.

It’s all lucrative. He had then has some round table where he’s got these guys all. It’s all about the money. And it’s explicit that it’s all about the money. And then Mohammad bin Salman orchestrates the murder of a journalist Jamal Khashoggi, an American resident, by the way.

The CIA says that Mohammed bin Salman did this. And Donald Trump, the president of the United States, refuses to accept the CIA’s conclusion he rejected. And in fact, he said he quote saved mom had been salman. Right? That’s Trump’s own words.

He covered up a murder, and then he gets billions of dollars, and his son-in-law gets billions of dollars. And Abba BAM is exactly right. There is no parallel for this level of corruption.

No. And it is the quid pro quo, but it also is very, very on brand that Donald Trump admires foreign thugs who commit atrocities. I mean, when he was asked about Vladimir Putin, he says, well, we’re not so innocent. We have lots of killers too. When the Chinese ran over the demonstrators in Tianna, and Now he talked about their strength.

He was, you know, overtly enthusiastic about Philippine president Duterte’s extrajudicial murders of drug dealers. I mean, you just run down the list. There’s you know, I wrote that piece, the brutality is the point. Right. This guy has a real kink.

He likes the the the use of force. It it’s not just that he’s willing to tolerate and look the other way. There’s something about him that is wired in to say, you know, you get away with this. You do this. This is strength.

This is this is what the strong man does. It’s one of the scarier aspects of a very scary guy. It is. And just as a reminder to people,

it’s how long ago was it a couple of months ago that Donald Trump announced his presidential campaign for twenty twenty four. And in the speech, announcing his campaign, he calls for one day trials of of accused drug dealers and immediate executions, and he explicitly explicitly cites Xi Jinping as his model for this kind of stuff. So it’s not subtle. It’s right out there that Donald Trump wants to turn the United States into just

another authoritarian autocratic country that violates human rights. You’re reporting on that is what inspired my column about the brutality that he made that a centerpiece. And His fascination with bloody bullets goes way back. Remember, in twenty sixteen, he kept telling that story over and over again, clearly made up story. About general blackjack purging putting down a Muslim revolt in the Philippines.

They would line up fifty Muslim insurgents, and he would shoot forty nine of them in the head, with bullets dipped in pig blood. And then he would know, give the bullet dipped in pig blood to the fiftieth and say, go and tell everybody what we’re doing here. Yeah. Basically, bragging about an atrocity that he made up. But it was the atrocity that attracted him.

So, I mean, there we are. So, what do we make of the debate over the weekend about Social Security and Medicare. Interesting that the Republicans continue to scurry away as far and fast as they can And yet, you know, Rick Scott is still out there. Ron Johnson, still calling Social Security a Ponzi scheme. There are, you know, actual fiscal conservatives who are going, wait, are you guys abandoning any idea of reforming these entitlement programs and don’t don’t email me about whether it’s an entitlement program.

This is shorthand. So this continues to be a real problem for Republicans. The Democrats have decided not surprisingly just to wrap it around their neck and pull.

Let me just start with a general view I have about the Republican Party. And unlike you and London like a lot of, you know, of other folks at the board, I did not come from this background, but my view coming from the Democratic background, I do believe that we need a conservative party in this country, but it needs to stand for conservative ideas. And it needs to stand for them even when they’re politically unpopular. So some of the most politically unpopular conservative ideas are let the market do its thing even when we all want a result. Right?

That’s in the case of Ron DeSantis. Another is in fiscal responsibility. Look, people love tax cuts and people love spending. Anything that gets my money back to me or somebody else’s money to me, it’s good for me. Right?

And to be a true conservative party, to be an honorable conservative party, you need to be willing to say no to that stuff. You need to be willing to say no to spending. You know, one of Trump’s innovations was to basically toss that aside and say, we’re we’re gonna ignore that. And now in the case of Social Security and Medicare, honestly, Charlie, it’s so much of federal spending at this point. That if we’re gonna get, you know, the national debt under control, if we’re gonna get we are gonna need to address these programs somehow.

And if Republicans are gonna set stuff off the table at the beginning, which is the Kevin McCarthy position. They’re they’re not serious and nobody will do it because the left will not do it. Right? The right has to do it. And they’ve just decided, the right has just decided to abdicate that responsibility.

And that’s a shame. So I hope there are a few folks who are willing to raise this Mike Rounds, the senator from South Dakota’s one of them who was on TV this weekend, gingerly suggesting ways of getting, you know, these programs under control. Because right now, we’re not gonna be able to sustain the level of spending that we have for them over the next several decades. But

there aren’t fixes that don’t strike me as as deal breakers. Actually, cutting benefits that as a deal breaker there have been adjustments in the past that have not touched the third rail. We have gradually raised the retirement age. I don’t think that’s particularly desirable. But the biggest reform, and and I could see this coming from the Democrat, is to raise the cap on the the payroll tax I mean, right now, if you’re an upper income person sometime in the middle of the year, you stop paying Social Security taxes because they only tax the first, and they get and they’ve raised this without creating an outcry.

I mean, it used to be, like, around a hundred thousand dollars. What is it now? For the first hundred and sixty thousand dollars. So accelerating or eliminating the cap on income that is taxed for Social Security seems like a pretty easy lift and particularly for the Democrats

who don’t mind raising taxes on upper income people. Right? Well, yes, that’s exactly right. They would just be translating that principle over into the Social Security system. Look, the the reason why Democrats say they don’t wanna do this kind of thing.

They like Social Security and Medicare to be these. You pay and you get out. Right? An insurance.

Right?

It’s supposed to not be a welfare pro what they call a welfare program. Right? So it’s not transfers from the rich to the poor. That feels rhetorical. It it is.

It is. And and I will just say, this is where I am basically a progressive why is it that we are setting aside money and paying it out to the rich? We should definitely do what you suggest it. Right? We should raise the cap so that you continue to pay the tax.

Above a certain threshold. I think, Charlie, we should also mean to test the benefits. There are a lot of wealthy people collecting Social Security who do not need it. I just think we should suspend the fiction of social insurance and make it a welfare program. Okay.

So I’m I’m with you halfway. I think the danger of means testing would be very, very messy. I think that the fundamental thing behind the Social Security system is that it is a promise that, you know, people pay into it with the expectation they’re gonna get out. Anytime you break a promise like that, I think it’s very, very dangerous. On the other hand, the taxing system that we have accepted in this country, I think generally a progressive income tax.

I wonder how many Americans actually understand that there’s a large number of people in this country that just do not pay Social Security taxes after, say, August. I actually remember learning about this as a young journalist when the editor of the paper walked through the newsroom and for some reason when a nitty gritty was, you know. Started, you know, commenting on the fact that, oh, it’s May first. Shouldn’t my Social Security Tax have disappeared by then? Because, you know, at his income level back then, In May, he hit the limit.

And from May through the rest of the year, he paid nothing in Social Security taxes. Okay. So what principal was being upheld there? Everybody else in the newsroom was paying the Social Security tax and paid it all twelve months. The fact that a very large portion of wage earners don’t do it.

That strikes me as the lowest of the lowest hanging fruits. Going after benefits, part of the problem though is those calculations and that people might get caught in it. You know, people who have played by the rules, who saved you’ve really done a good job of putting money aside in their 401k’s and it worked hard for them to be penalized. I think that’s dangerous politically, but

raising the taxes, you know, making it, you know, year long strikes me as much easier. But, Charlie, once you’ve taken that step, once you’ve raised the cap, you are, at that point, departing from the idea of this of social insurance because that boss had paid in enough to get out the check that was coming at the end. Right? I mean, that principle has no regard for your level of income. So I think once you’re saying raise the cap beyond what is needed to pay out your benefits, then at that point, you are transferring from the wealthier to the less wealthy.

Which I think is fine,

which we are anyway. Okay. So just take a deep breath and go, okay, yeah, we’re doing that. This is a program. This is a social safety net and this is the way we’re going to pay for.

And my guess is the number of Americans that actually understand the distinction you just made or who have internalized it is probably around five percent. So, I mean, moving on. Alright. Not asking for a prediction here, but last week, I was getting rather grumpy. About the pace of the Department of Justice and noting that the clock was really, really running on all of this and that we were twenty five months past January sixth without a single major indictment of one of the architects of the of the insurrection.

And that that I was getting increasingly concerned that Merrick Garland’s foot dragging was going to go into the presidential campaign and make it much, much more difficult. Within twenty four hours of my ripping about that. You had the stories that Jack Smith is, in fact, moving ahead rather aggressively. He is subpoenaing vice president Mike Pence, They’re still going after documents done in Mar a Lago. We’re getting reports that the grand jury in.

In Fulton County, the at least some of the recommendations are going to be released this week, Fannie Willis, who’s the DA keeps saying the charges are imminent. Keep saying it. So what is your sense? Because I have been thinking spring of twenty twenty three absolute drop dead must happen by then. Give me your sense.

It’s certainly seen as if Jack Smith was putting an exclamation point on his investigation by subpoenaing the former vice president, that strikes me as a BFD. Your thoughts? It

is. It is. But first of all, let’s just say, as evidenced by your gripe and the the results, to note to advertisers, Charlie Sykes gets results.

I’m going for a coincidence theory.

Alright. So we’ll we’ll go with the coincidence theory. I’m always a fan of coincidence. Look, inherently things are going to move forward. There is an investigation going on.

Even if it’s not going to end up where you want or I want, there will be more subpoenas, there will be more grand jury action. So I wouldn’t assume that this is going to end up in an indictment. I wouldn’t assume this is gonna end up in a prosecution. I would much rather that the system function properly than that it achieves some result that I want. I don’t think it’s necessary.

Wait. I

don’t think it’s necessary to indict Donald Trump. I think it is much more important that we reestablish faith in America’s institutions, including the rule of law, So I want Merrick Garland and I want Jack Smith to go buy the book. Will, come let us reason together.

I need to pull you back from that completely incoherent answer that you had there, and which was wrong on so many different ways. I I wish I had it in front of me so that I could do one of those little charts. Yes, we need to restore faith in the rule of law. And the only way to do that is to hold the lawbreakers accountable by establishing the principle that no one is above the law, and the only way to do that is not by issuing a report, not by having a press conference. But by having the rule of law applied to the people who were the worst miscreants, the worst felons in this attempt to overthrow the government.

There is no way for the system to work. If it does not work, in holding the architects of the insurrection accountable. This seems to me to be very clear. The system does not work if Donald Trump and company walks. That will be in fact the historic red line marker when when the institutions, when the guardrails, failed, to hold them

accountable at a moment of absolute constitutional necessity. Okay. We were just talking earlier about Trump importing Chinese justice or lack thereof, right, of violating the rule of law to get results, which is like execute drug dealers. It is very important, Charlie. You use the phrase hold law breakers accountable.

Yes, we must hold law breakers accountable. But first, we must prove that people broke the law in a way that merits process accretion. And I’m fine if Jack Smith proves that. I’m fine if Mary Garland proves that. And God knows Donald Trump, to the extent he did that, should be held accountable, but I would much rather be very careful about that.

It will be a scandal. It will be an outrage, and it will undermine the rule of law. If Donald Trump gets away with breaking the law, leading up to and on January sixth because he is a politically powerful figure. And if the law is afraid to process execute him for that reason. And meanwhile, the people under him, the people who went into the capital, go to jail.

That will be a scandal, and that will undermine the rule of law. But if the distinction is that the crimes can be proven. If prosecutors sit around the table and decide they can prove the case against the people who are in the capital, but that it is difficult to prove elements of the crimes charged to Donald Trump. Then in that case, I’m for them drawing that distinction and honoring

Well, if that is the decision, however, just having watched the absolute avalanche of evidence that we’ve seen from the January sixth committee. I think the case has been made. I think it’s been made compelling. And I think that the federal grand jury, the federal prosecutors have much more robust tools in order to compel that the testimony and to fill in the gaps. And, you know, the willingness to Pena Mike Pence tells me that they’re not playing.

They’re not playing games. They understand that they need him. They need him under oath. And they’re sending a signal to everybody else. It was one thing for these folks to play games with the congressional committee and not go in and testify or ignore the subpoenas.

No one is going to treat the federal grand jury in the same way. So I would be extremely disappointed given everything that we know that they made that decision, but we’re going to find out relatively shortly, aren’t we will? Yeah. I mean, the clock is running. Right?

I’m glad. I’m glad we finally have an agency in the form of these subpoenas from the special count. We we finally have something that Mike Pence and others have to honor. You know, Mark Meadows can’t escape this. Mike Pence can’t escape this.

And we will find out the truth and it will go one way or the other and I’m happy to go with the truth.

We’ll sell it in. Thank you so much for joining me once again on this Monday, this very strange post Super Bowl, post UFO, post Rihanna halftime show, Monday. So we’ll do this again next week. Okay? Alright, Charlie.

The truth is out there. Maybe. I keep hoping that it is. And thank you all for listening to today’s Bulwark podcast. I’m Charlie Sykes.

We’ll be back tomorrow, and we’ll do this all over yet. The Bulwark podcast is produced by Katie Cooper and engineered and edited by Jason Brown.

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