Nicholas Kristof: What a Mess Trump Created

Hello and welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. Delighted to welcome back to the show, a columnist for the New York Times, two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize's latest book, Chasing Hope, is a memoir. He's also the general manager of Christoph Farms. In Oregon. He briefly ran for Governor of Oregon also in twenty twenty two with a bunch of other stuff. It's Nick Christoph. How you doing, man? Hey, good. Good to be with you.

Yeah. I'm pumped to talk to you. Uh you were just back from the West Bank. Uh so we're gonna get into that and and maybe some politics, but obviously I wanna start with the Iran war stuff.

I guess I kind of just want to begin by letting you cook on what you think uh is the state of play in the Iran war and and how you assess where we are today. Boy, I mean, well what a mess. Uh you know, we got into this war unnecessarily and now we're in a worse position than when we started. You know, we're now trying to get the Strait of Hormos reopened.

Um and I think it's actually more likely that Iran will end up with nuclear weapons, say, you know, three or five years from now than at the start of the war. You know, at the Right before the war, Iran was actually offering a pretty good nuclear deal. And we turned it down. We're not gonna get as good a deal now, I believe. I think Iran is gonna try to uh really hold on to some kind of control over the strait.

Meanwhile, uh we have spent as much on this war Tim, you know, enough that we could have provided a free college education to everybody or every family earning one hundred and twenty five thousand dollars or less in the country, and provided uh daycare to every three and four year old in the country.

And so You know, it is maddening when we do these things that cost lives, have a huge opportunity cost, and leave us in a worse strategic position, all because we haven't thought through the consequences.

That's pretty compelling to me. Uh it's kind of like an other than that, Mrs. Lincoln uh assessment of uh the Iran War. I wanna read this counterpoint. Mark Dubowitz over at uh F D D has been one of the biggest uh agitators for the war and supporters of it. And uh he he he posted a thread last night that made the case for why things are going so well. And I want to go through a little bit of that with you so we can sure hear the other perspectives.

Uh number one, nuke program set back years, enrichment and reprocessing gutted, weaponization sites destroyed. That's number one. Number two, ballistic missile program crippled. Number three, air defense is devastated. Number four, full economic warfare, not just sanctions anymore, but military pressure laid on top with the blockade. Number five, regime decapitation.

Number six, the region turning on Iran. Number seven, proxy network shattered. Um he he goes on from there, but that's basically the gist. What would be your counterpoint to what Mark offered then? Well, I mean, some of the things he says are true. Um, the ballistic missile program, you know, has been set back. Now that's partly because

they fired ballistic missiles that caused real damage to, you know, the US Embassy in Saudi Arabia, for example, uh, to US bases that, you know, killed some Americans. So but Do they have fewer ballistic missiles now? Do they have fewer drones? Yeah. I mean, on balance, maybe half of their missile and drone capacity uh was used up. Uh now

uh at least that much of our interceptor capacity was also used of, so we're, you know, less able to defend Taiwan, for example. But have we badly degraded their missile capacity? Absolutely. Have we badly degraded their air force, their navy completely. N have we set back their nuclear program? We did with last year's war, not so much with this year's war, but maybe more importantly is whether they actually intend to build a nuclear warhead.

And in the past, since uh two thousand three, the US intelligence community and the Israeli intelligence community have assessed that Iran they wanted the capability of building when they did not actually want to build a nuclear warhead. Now You know, I think that may well have changed.

And it would kind of make sense for Iran to see that, you know, nobody messes with North Korea. They do mess with Iran and that it maybe it should make a rush for a weapon. Um so I fear that we may be turning Iran into a North Korea. It's also Mark makes the point that uh we decapitated their leadership and you know that is absolutely true. We in a sense do have regime change. We have a harder line regime, we have one that is more controlled by the IRGC.

one that may be more inclined to uh take over the strait, to build nuclear weapons, and one that I think the Trump administration is finding it harder to negotiate with because they're Um, they're just harder aligned and I think Iran's new leaders feel that the previous leadership was too easy.

uh did not establish deterrence after the Kasamani killing, after the war last year. And so they they feel they have to reestablish deterrence. They have to make the US and Israel really suffer. And that is not the right kind of regime change.

Indeed not. Um speaking of missile capabilities set back and crippled, uh there's an interesting uh New York Times story, Wall Street Journal has a similar story, uh out. uh yesterday. This is from Eric Schmidt and John Swan, your colleagues. Uh the US has burned through around eleven hundred of its long range stealth cruise missiles built for war with China.

Uh we fired off a thousand Tomahawk cruise missiles, roughly ten times the number we currently buy each year. Uh the Pentagon used more than twelve hundred Patriot interceptor missiles in this war at four million dollars a pop. This is all leaving inventories worrisomely low, according to internal Defense Department estimates and congressional officials. Uh the journal story adds onto that that

uh we basically couldn't fully execute our contingency plans to defend Taiwan at this point based on the the stockpile loss. In addition to all the costs that you laid out earlier and just how this money could have been spent otherwise, even from a defense perspective. Seems like a risky risky bet here.

Absolutely. I mean, maybe the worst nightmare for international strategists him, I think, is a war in the Taiwan Strait. I think most people think that's uh less likely than otherwise, but possible. And Xi Jinping, when he calculates whether or not to

encircle Taiwan, whether or not to make a move on Taiwan is surely calculating what the American response will be. And if we've used up uh eighty percent of our Patriots, eighty percent of our THAAD interceptors, as we appear to have done, you know. that will incrementally increase the risk of an attack on Taiwan, which would be uh devastating to the Western Alliance, devastating to the supply of uh chips worldwide, would

cause a global economic depression because uh Taiwan is the source of uh more than ninety percent of advanced chips worldwide. So Um, you know, the idea that we would undermine our capacity to defend Taiwan, undermine our capacity to defend uh Europe. You know, we told Estonia that we cannot supply some weapons that it has purchased because they've been used. uh in uh in the Iran war. You know, this is undermining our defense, not enhancing it. Yeah.

So given all of the problems and concerns this the war powers resolution gives I the President the ability to fight this war even without congressional approval uh for a sixty day period. That takes us to May one when that expires, which is now next week. Uh the law does provide for a single thirty day extension of the campaign without congressional approval if certain conditions are met.

Does Donald Trump even care about the law? Will he even follow what does it matter whether he follows those conditions? I think that there's a legal question uh that is coming up in the next seven, eight days. Uh, but also like a prudential one about whether, you know, the Congress is going to have to uh weigh in on this. Um I think that the beginning of the war there were some Democrats that were indicating that they might even be supportive

of a resolution, it's harder and harder to see that every day. And and so then the question is do do the can the Republicans jam it through on a party line basis? Uh pretty, I think, important political uh moment coming up in the next week. No, I would push back a little bit'cause I think President Trump will just ignore it. We'll just do whatever the fuck you want.

Exactly. And you know, in fairness, President Obama ignored it in the case of the Libya war. Um I think presidents, you know, whatever their political complexion, uh are willing to sail ahead. Presidents have always been a little skeptical about the constitutionality of of that measure. And so I don't think Trump will view that as a constraint. You know, it's not as if he's

It might th I agree with that. It might be an inflection point it could be if the Democrats choose to make it one an inflection point for them to further solidify like the position and being opposed to this war. And and there's been some Democrats who've been very clear and strong on this, but there's a little been a little bit of mixed mess. Messaging, I would say. And it it's maybe an opportunity for them to get aligned.

Yeah, I mean I I think it's absolutely true that politically it can have impact, and this is a very unpopular war. I think it'll grow more unpopular as uh supplies of oil that are actually on ships, uh, you know, stop reaching their destinations. Uh and so I think this can be a point to, you know, to make this very public. Can I also just say one other thing, please, Tim that we haven't talked about. You know, this started

Because of the massacre of Iranian protesters in January. And supposedly this was somehow gonna help them. And You know, I've I've reported in Iran and I've seen the incredible courage of some of these Iranian some of these Iranian women lawyers. I just I'm in awe of them, of their courage, their willingness to go to prison and suffer brutally because they want change.

You know, then President Trump said that you know, help is on the way in January. Then no help was, and now we bomb them. We bomb a girl school, we'd bomb a a a volleyball team. And you know, now we've saddled them with a more oppressive, harder line regime that is more likely to be around that in five years than it would have been otherwise.

And they're the people who are suffering the most in this. And, you know, they've been kind of lost, I think, in our national, international conversation and my You know, my heart just totally goes out to them. We've totally screwed them over.

Yeah, it's important point j both from the humanitarian and human rights perspective. Um, for you know, from for those of us who did want hope and freedom for the Iranian people and just are opposed to this strategically. It's also important just about the framing and the discussion of the war. I I they The administration has really, you know, tried to create new post hoc rationalizations for the war that are much more limited um than than what they were at the start. Like the initial

Like this is why we we had regime change. I forget where that was on on Dibblitz's list of of good things that have happened. Like originally the point was sorry, like the administration said this was that we were gonna decapitate the regime and that the regime was cracking down on protesters and that I there was

BB at least had pitched that the whole regime could collapse and be replaced by something that's more amenable to us. Trump was obviously interested more of a Delcy Rodriguez type situation, and that has been an utter failure. Yeah, and one of the paradoxes is that there actually was kind of a Delcy Rodriguez uh model back with the JCPOA. You know, that initially empowered some of the more moderate folks in Iran, Mohammed Khatami, people like that.

it would have been plausible that when the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei died, that somebody, you know, a little bit more moderate might have taken over, somebody like Hassan Khomeini, for example. And instead we ended up with the worst scenario where he was succeeded, you know, by his son who has these IRGC connections, who's just harder aligned than ever. Uh and so yeah, was there a a Del C scenario? Absolutely. And President Trump killed it.

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I want to talk about the economic impact both at here and abroad, because as you mentioned, I mean once the oil stu that's on the seas stops getting delivered, I think that the uh actual consequences of this are gonna be hitting home for people even more. And they already are with gas prices. But I but uh the the worst is yet to come on that front. Um you posted about

In addition to that, there's the sulfur crisis um that is coming that comes to the strait that impacts fertilizers, which means food prices go up. I mean it's metals, plastics, and a bunch of you know, there's a bunch of unintended supply chain consequences coming down the pike.

Um, and and that m all that stuff might be coming for us last because we make a lot of that stuff here in the US as well, but they're global markets and so it's gonna come for us eventually. And in the meantime, like there's gonna be a lot of suffering in the rest of the world. And it's gonna be, uh, the poorest and most vulnerable people worldwide who are gonna suffer, you know. Tim, half of the people in the world today are alive because of uh artificial fertilizer things like urea.

And uh without Eureo, the world could only support about four billion uh lives. And in fact, you know, we have about eight billion people worldwide. And so you're already seeing in country I've you know had sort of reports here and there about Malawi, Zimbabwe, other countries where food prices are rising, partly because of transportation, that to truck food around the country now requires, you know, more diesel.

And uh and to uh when farmers produce things and truck it to the marketplace costs more as well. And as urea grows more expensive, then farmers are gonna be less able in poor countries to use it. and so yields will decline. And more kids will go hungry at just the time that the US followed by France and Germany and England, have been cutting aid. So there'll be uh more kids suffering severe acute malnutrition and less aid to try to ease that that hunger.

Yeah, I just think that the global impact economically is underappreciated right now. And'cause you're you're now talking about these are the poorest people in the world that were already suffering because of the cuts and and last time you were on we talked about your reporting in in Africa on that and and now th they're gonna face higher prices.

I but then I just working class people in a lot of countries in Europe and Asia are are really gonna be hit hard by this. And and I I just think that the r potential ripples and unintended consequences of you know, p there's gonna be political disruption in those countries. Uh you know, people are gonna be unhappy and say some of them are gonna blame the United States, but they're gonna blame their own governments and w we've already seen a lot of this around the world and

I I it's just it's kind of unpredictable who it could empower. But but I mean we have really like checked a massive economic hornets nest that that I don't know that people have really kind of processed like the degree of disruption that's coming down the pipe.

You know, I think that's right. And I think that there has always been a misperception that China is uh hurt by this. And it's true that China depends on oil passing through the Strait of Romans, so there's something to that. But uh it's also true that countries all around the world are looking for how they can

use more green power, more solar, for example. And you know, China totally dominates the solar industry, dominates the battery industry. And so it is already getting more orders for, you know, those kinds of uh products. And also, I think worldwide, you know, people look at the US and just see us as this unstable. crazy country that causes problems worldwide. And they look at China and they see a more sober, mature power. And, you know, as somebody who lived five years in China and

has had so many friends arrested who saw the Tannerman Massacre. I find that just really painful. When Mark Carney in Canada, when Canadians, a reasonable, lovable Canadians you know, hedge by uh building ties with China to balance their dependence on the US. What a mess we've created. What a mess.

Now you're talking about it, yeah, from like a human rights perspective. Also, I I the craziest thing about this is that Trump has a lot of China hawks around him. Yep. Even if you're thinking about it from a great power, like military perspective as well. This is a this is just a disaster. Total disaster. Yeah. I mean, and they always talk about the importance of uh defending Taiwan. And you know, meanwhile, they've undercut the defense of Taiwan.

And signific I think, you know, raise the risk of this catastrophe, uh a war, you know, in the Taiwan Strait that could draw in the US and you know, it theoretically could become a nuclear war. I mean j this is just catastrophic miscalculation.

Um all right. So as mentioned you're just back from the West Bank. I want to hear about that, but first just as it kind of relates to this war. Um we also have Israel's ongoing attacks in Lebanon. Uh that was part of the ceasefire. This what is it even an agreement anymore? I like Iranians are s attacking a couple of boats. The US is blockading. We have a quasi whatever you want to call this, uh qua I I feel like ceasefire is too

uh uh you know, too extreme of a word, something short of ceasefire. Uh but Something between ceasefire. Yeah, slow fire. Something between ceasefire and active war. Slow fire. That's good. Um and uh as part of that, uh Israel started bombing uh He Hezbollah again in in southern Lebanon, including there was a a journalist that died uh in in that in that attack.

And um and has blown now saying that they're, you know, back to attacking Israel. And so like that um theater of this war and and this slow fire also seems to be you know starting to unravel.

So we do have, you know, this three week extension of the Israel Lebanon slow fire. Um and it is I mean, I'm glad that President Trump seems to be willing to put pressure on Netanyahu to um to to slow the fire. Yeah. You know, she worked for a newspaper in Beirut called a Loch Bar and it sure seems that she was targeted, you know.

The car in front of her was hit. Then she took refuge uh under a little shelter. Uh her car was then hit. She was injured. She was taken into a house, uh, frantically made calls. Uh and then that house was uh hit. She was buried under rubble. She was still alive. They tried frantically to to rescue her and then Israeli strikes made it impossible to rescue her. By the time they were later able to go, she was dead.

I do think the journalist community should stand up for our colleagues worldwide when they are targeted. Last year a hundred and twenty nine journalists were killed worldwide, a record as far as we've been keeping records, and about two thirds of them were killed by Israel, often with weapons provided by us in the US with no accountability. And, you know, I hope that Journalists will stand up for colleagues like Amal and create some accountability for that kind of killing.

And I think that what Israel advocates would say about that is that like some percentage of those journalists were kind of like quasi-journalists and uh they were you know laundering you know Hamas. arguments uh into the public sphere. This is not this is not my position at all to to defend that. But I I guess you know, how how do you kind of sort through that argument?

Yeah. I mean, so there is something to that. I mean, you know, if you are a journalist in Gaza, you are probably not very sympathetic to Israel. You're not neutral between, you know, Israel and and Gaza. Uh you're sympathetic to Gazans around you to your family being killed. Likewise if you're in uh Lebanon and especially if you're a Shiite in Lebanon, then you may well have lost family members. You were not very neutral.

uh as Israel um tries to seize southern Lebanon. But it's I think a uh deeply unfair to portray somebody like uh Amal Khalil as just a a Hezbollah stooge. Um, you know, her newspaper, uh, Al Akbar, it's not a Hezbollah is a religious organization. Hezbollah in in Arabic means the party of God. Well, Al Akbar is a secular newspaper. It was founded by these these secular leftists, not by not by these, you know, radical Muslims. And uh was she

At times has it been sympathetic to uh Hezbollah and to the Shia community in general and them absolutely. But you know, is she a uh Hezbollah stooge? No. And you know, likewise in Israel, there are very conservative uh newspapers and people who support Netanyahu's you know carpet bombing of Gaza, but should they be targeted and killed? Absolutely not. Neutrality I don't think is required to to not be assassinated.

Yeah, full neutrality um is n is not uh I I don't think the the basis for As an opinion journalist, I totally endorse that. Yeah, same. It's a podcaster. It's like I don't I don't think you can you can kill me and then be like, Well, he was he was pretty mean to the regime. He did critique the regime a lot, so um you can understand it. No, it's it was it's a horrible story of them all is horrible and and I'm I'm glad you can

provide additional details about that'cause I haven't I haven't gotten into that this week. Um talk about the the the West Bank. Um obviously like this is something that is ongoing amidst the broader conversation of the of Israel's conduct in Gaza, Israel uh our partner in this war in Iran, what you're talking about in Hezwa, but that seems like a huge uptick. in aggressive action into the West Bank. I'm wondering what you what you saw there and and your perspective.

Settlers are completely out of control. And y you know, look, I mean I've been traveling to the West Bank since nineteen eighty two and I mean there's been long time repression, um, but it has pretty steadily gotten worse over the last uh twenty five or thirty years and it's certainly gotten way worse since October twenty twenty three.

And now settler I you know, I visited some uh rural areas where settlers are brutally attacking these Bedouin villagers, um, stealing their sheep, threatening to uh rape and kill the children. unless they flee, it's really part of an ethnic cleansing movement.

And uh and it's scary. I mean, you know, we were when I was visiting one village, um, settlers stopped us and blocked our car as we were uh leaving. And um I, you know, I spoke up in English and tried to interview them and I think that, you know Maybe that was why they they made some phone calls and sort of got nervous and then let us go on. But uh there is a violence to settler activity and an increase in the way it is now backed by the Israeli defense forces.

in a way that again, I think makes us as Americans supplying that weaponry complicit in what sure looks like an attempted ethnic cleansing in the West Bank.

And, you know, even kid like what the one of the communities that I visited, uh the the school is not exactly a school bus, it's kind of a school car taking these little kids, these elementary school kids to school. And now the settlers are attacking it. uh this little school vehicle um in ways that just have these parents just desperate. I mean they've been on this land for, you know, thousands of years.

They have deep, deep ties to it, and they're terrified that their kids are going to be killed, that their daughters are going to be raped. just frantically trying to figure out what to do. And again, you know, this is partly because of our American policy. Yeah, my former pod colleague, uh, Cam Kasky was also there and and told a similar story about threats that he faced. And it's just it's just as a sense that like the violence is really

spiraling out of control if uh you know people neutral people can't even visit without without fear. I I'm wondering like what you

What do you think what is underpinning kind of why why now? Like is there a sense because of what happened in Gaza that that settlers and and and folks within the Israeli government feel like Like this is an o this is just an opportunity to kind of rip the band aid off and try to get as much as they can while Trump is still in charge and while they're already being criticized anyway for the behavior in Gaza, or is there something else that is kind of underneath why? Growing right now.

So I mean I think the fundamental truth is that since the late nineteen nineties, Hamas and the Israeli right have mutually supported each other. You know, that was when Hamas started bus bombings and car bombings in Israel. And that kind of destru th that led to Netanyahu's election in nineteen ninety six. Uh that uh kind of destroyed the Israeli left.

Uh and then as the Israeli right in Netanyahu took more extreme and more brutal policies toward Palestinians, that boosted the fortunes of Hamas. And so you have these two extremists just mutually reinforcing each other and destroying moderation on each side. And then that became more apparent after October seventh, twenty twenty three. And, you know, the terrorist attack on southern Israel. led to, I think, this sense among a lot of Israelis.

that we just have to be much more forceful. We can't ever let this happen again. And we uh have to, you know, round up every Palestinian in the West Bank and you know, cut off Red Cross visits, enable torture, which is, you know, I t I talk to detainees, including children, and the torture that is now routine for detainees is

is just so widespread. And so and you know, Netanyahu then um I think, you know, by bringing in Smotrich and Ben Geer into his cabinet, again sent a signal that there is complete impunity. Um you can do whatever you want. And so you get these bored prison guards who were low sadists themselves and they delight in torturing these Palestinian detainees, including kids. Yeah, it's horrible. Not to compare like the torture to

to these sort of corrupt economic crimes um in in the US. But like your your point about uh Ben Geer at like the incentive structure is similar to the like, you know, free reign to do white collar criming here in America right now, right? Whereas just like if you know The president and the DOJ aren't gonna investigate you and you know if you're a supporter of the administration that you're gonna get pardoned.

Then like there's just huge incentive to, you know, go ahead and and get while the getting's good. And I and I do think that there's some like bad incentive parallels there. Delete me makes it easy, quick and safe to remove your personal data online at a time when surveillance and data breaches are common enough to make everybody vulnerable. It's easier than ever to find personal information about people online, having your address, phone number and family members' names.

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After you know we've c covered all this miserable, terrible ground, can I offer a little ray of hope? Um I love I love that. I I'm looking at the list of the rest of topics I have to talk about and there's no hope. So please, any any anything you want to inject in there, I'll take. Yeah. So, you know, I've spent much of my career covering authoritarian, nasty regimes and

There are two things that are so characteristic of them, and they're also characteristic of Trump. And one is that the authoritarians, they surround themselves with yes men. And so as a result, they tend to have dumb economic policies. Uh Singapore is a rare exception, but in general, because they don't have intelligent critiques, they don't have

corrective mechanisms. And so they have dumb economic policies that lead people to be upset with where things are. And the other thing they do for the same reason, and as you just alluded to it, is they become corrupt. if there is a big pot of honey right here and you know you're not gonna get in trouble, then you reach in and and grab some and you enrich yourself and your family. And you know, fundamentally

That was why um Orbon was pushed out in Hungary, uh, because bad economic policies and corruption. You know, I think that is um that is gonna be a real toll on Republicans and the Trump administration. I I I wish the corruption were getting more attention in the US. I think that is a potential weakness for uh Trump because, you know, as you say, it's just endemic. They can do whatever they want. They feel they can anyway.

Yeah, I I think the attention will hopefully increase uh when the Democrats get in charge next year because I I do think that that focusing on corruption and the investigations is gonna be absolutely their top responsibility, at least assuming they take the House, maybe to Senate, uh uh next year, um, because it's not like

any bipartisan policies are getting done. So they might as well focus on on corruption investigations. And and I and I do think that there's a lot there. And while the administration uh is going to be I I think stonewall more than any administration in history when it comes to testimony and providing documents. A lot of these outside business deals that this administration is doing, I think the calculus is going to be different.

uh if you are, you know, hired Don Jr. to be on your board or put money into the Trump coin or are involved in the deal, I want to talk about the UAE uh deal that we're we're getting to. I I do think for people involved in that

uh you know, they have other considerations. You know, they have to they realize that there'll be a w a future where Trump is not in charge and and I think we'll feel forced to actually participate and and who knows what that's going to lead to, but we just know that everybody's getting their beak wet.

Yeah, I think that's right. You know, as you know, I I I live in rural Oregon and, you know, a place that is about Two-thirds of people voted for Trump in in each election, and the arguments about authoritarianism don't really resonate with them. But, you know, beef prices totally do. Um the social security system not working, that does. And I think Well they're not going to be able to do that. focused on news, I think the corruption issue also resonates.

What do you mean they're not focused on news? You just you know they're just not getting as much information, right? Yeah, they're just paying less attention to news and I think they're less aware of the corruption. They're uh I mean in general also I think they're suspicious of

what they hear they don't know quite what to believe when they hear things. Uh and I uh often they're the news they get is from Fox News, which doesn't exactly highlight the corruption issues, but you know, but some of it does get through. Yeah, I mean you've thought about this, um, having explored a a run as a Democrat and and as you mentioned, living in in a more rural area. I I have been of the belief that what is happening in the Middle East and and the economic wreckage that's coming is

tragedy and it's just horrible for for the country and the world. But that also I think presents a political opportunity for the Democrats to kind of reintroduce themselves to folks who really did sign up for this because they thought Trump was gonna care about them first and not get involved in stupid foreign wars and not do things that made their prices come up. And I I think that a lot of them

feel betrayed right now and I don't think that a lot of those folks are ready to just go sign up for Gavin Newsome or whoever. I or like super I they're not exactly huge big fans of the Democrats, but I I just think this is an opportunity for Democrats to be very clear about their values, particularly about war, particularly about caring about the economic concerns of working class Americans.

I I think they're doing okay on that front right now, but uh to me, I just feel like this is a pedal to the metal moment on trying to to to reshape the brand.

And I'm wondering what your thoughts on that would be if, you know, you had a a Democratic politician calling you for your two cents. Uh you know, I think that's right. Uh I certainly see that in my friends. uh and you know, Democrats in Oregon you know always ask me what they can do to overthrow this authoritarian leadership. And I think they tend to think in terms of no kings protests, things like that. And you know, that that certainly plays a role. But I think the

What Democrats have to do what the country needs is to win the Senate, and that means how do we help Sherrod Brown win uh this fall? How do we create a possibility for a Democrat to win the Senate race in in Montana? And one thing that is maybe more important than any other, I think, is to fix blue places. Because, you know, in truth. We have not done a great job in governance in some of our blue places. And my neighbors and friends.

They don't really know what to believe in some of these larger issues, but they do know that when they drive into Portland. They see a mess, and you know, in one of the last cycles of voting in Montana. Um there was a billboard of of uh showing a scene in Portland, chaotic scene in Portland, and the message was something like, you know, vote for Democrats and this will come to Montana. And that just pains me.

And um we can't just have a conversation about how awful Republicans are. We also have to fix our very real problems. In blue places. San Francisco was doing a better job of that than most under the mayor, Daniel Leary, but um governance. You know, l you look at Chicago as well. We we have a real problem and we we've gotta do a better job addressing that, to show voters we can govern.

I'm happy you said that. A lot of times Democratic Democrats don't like to hear that and I mean there are of course good things about California and there are nice places in Chicago and I you can over critique it, right? And and the parody of California that you see on on Fox News primetime isn't real, but like just the reality of folks that live in in a lot of deep blue places is that they've been priced out. Like that affordability is a massive problem. Yep.

That their needs aren't being met. I know I had John Leviton the other week and he was bitching about the the they're planning a new public transportation. uh program in Los Angeles where he lives and he's like, We're gonna break ground in twenty forty one. It's like, what will we even have a society in twenty forty one? Will we have a will Donald Trump and and have gotten us into a nuclear war? Will the AI robots have taken us over by then? It's like

This is crazy. And I think that as you look ahead to twenty twenty eight, you know, two of the candidates, Gavin Newsom and JB Pritzker, who who I think seem like good people, uh and well intentioned. There are things I like about both of them, critiques I have about both of them, but it's like Do the Democrats wanna carry the baggage of Chicago and California and the fact that they are losing residence?

And try to make the case to the American people that the whole country wants this, I think it's a hard case to make right now. I just think that's a that's a harsh reality for Democrats to uh to assess. I boy, I totally agree. And I again this is sort of seen through the filter of my neighbors, but it's genuinely true that.

we overreached, uh particularly on the West Coast. You know, in in Oregon we uh have some of the worst educational outcomes in the country. Adjusted for demographics, we ranked number fifty in fourth and eighth grade uh uh nape scores for English and math. Now don't be adjusting for demographics'cause I need Jeff Landry to stay at fifty. Okay, because in r and in raw numbers, Jeff Landry here in Louisiana is still fifty. That's important.

Sure. Sure. Yeah. So I agree with you that Oregon has done some silly stuff, uh, and overreached in places, but uh just I d I don't wanna take Landry's Landry's trophy away. Well, okay, well well Oregon, um, you know, I I would argue the demographic it is important to adjust for poverty level and and this kind of thing. But in any case, you know, in twenty twenty the state legislature allocated six million dollars to put

uh tampons in every bathroom, including kindergarten boys' bathrooms. This very well meant inclusive gesture to support trans kids, absolutely. But when you put tampons in kindergarten boys' bathrooms. This is self parody. Well they're dirty. They get dirty. You can use it to kind of clean off the dirt on the face after you get off the playground. You know, I'm sure that uh you know, maybe it uh maybe it leads to ingenuity among the five year old boys. What could you do with this tampon?

And I just think that it's an urgent issue for Democrats. So like they both need to use this moment to offer a clear message about how if they do get back in power, they're going to care more about working everyday Americans and less about this adventurism overseas and and recapture that. That was a very successful message for Barack Obama in two thousand eight that the Democrats have lost.

And they need to simultaneously do that with kind of fixing some of the business in Blue Cities. Um I wanna go back to just a couple other issues that we g glazed up before I leave you. Um the on the um the UAE bailout is in is in the news today. And that's kind of related with with uh the corruption and and and underpinnings of what's happening in the Middle East. And I guess it also could be related to democratic messaging that could be useful. But it's

Pretty wild what they're discussing with the UAE. I was just wondering what your thoughts were. Oh, I mean it's unbelievable. Uh I mean the UAE is one of the richer countries worldwide. It's where billionaires who don't want to pay taxes somewhere else, where they go to f you know to flee. And then, you know, we're unable Sudan is the world's worst humanitarian crisis right now.

Uh kids are starving every day in Sudan. Yemen, brutal situation. We don't provide enough aid to save kids in those places. We you know current humanitarian aid situation in uh But the Lancet said this year that nine million people will die unnecessarily because of aid cuts worldwide. And meanwhile, we're talking about providing aid to uh the UAE, one of the wealthier countries in the world. And you know

Uh magnifying that is this corruption issue as you say. You know, the UAE signed this deal to enrich the Trump family by half a billion dollars, which sure looked like, you know, a a retainer for just this kind of situation. It's just mind boggling, it's so frustrating when we have these kids dying unnecessarily worldwide for lack of Such simple interventions. And then we're talking about bailing out the UAE. It's maddening.

Yeah. The geopolitics of the of the Arab states too with us is is gonna be uh super interesting over the next few years as well because we're already seeing They're suffering economically for this. Saudi has talked about pulling out of some of their American investments, including the Golf Tour. Uh I th I think uh you know, they were propping up

some non profits here as well, theaters. I th you know they had their hands in everything in order to try to kind of get in our good graces and it worked to a certain degree. But I I think now kind of similar to Canada in a weird way, might start looking at this and saying, Oh man, like we need to hedge a little bit more as well with China. And uh it's a it's a complicated geopolitical scene right now where they're simultaneously paying off the Trump family.

And also feeling the pinch of what's happening in our I hope that the message goes out that when you think you are buying friendship and support from the Trump family. uh you know, that you're not necessarily getting loyalty back, partly because of the competence issue and partly because that loyalty doesn't run very deep. And uh you know, I hope those who were trying to ingratiate themselves with Trump uh understand that

One other story I wanted to talk about that I just hadn't been able to get to this week and it's something you've reported on and care about is the way that we're treating uh the Afghan allies, um, and those that were trying to flee Afghanistan after uh we we pulled out. And since then, Afghan refugees who had been helping US forces, interpreters, things of this nature, uh, they've been stranded at a military base in Qatar.

Uh, and now the Trump administration is making them choose between either returning to Taliban, ruled Afghanistan, or sending them to war torn Congo. Well it's like eleven hundred people. It's totally insane and offensive and depraved that that this is what we're doing to folks that that tried to help us in prosecuting that war. I mean depraved is exactly the right word. I mean, these these folks, uh, they saved American lives uh in Afghanistan.

And because they worked with Americans and because they did save those American lives, they and their families are at risk in Afghanistan. If they are returned, um, they will suffer brutally, some will be killed.

And then sending them to Congo, um, you know, which you may remember that as one of the wars that Trump uh solved that for which he deserves the Nobel Peace Prize. Um you know, it hasn't been solved and uh Rwanda is laying waste to uh in eastern Congo. Um uh i it's a place that is close to my heart, partly'cause we held it uh by one of the militias in eastern Congo, um uh because I happened to come across the massacres and then to chase through the And it is a mess. The idea that we would say

Can I hear a little bit more of that? Actually you can't just throw out this was close to my heart because I spent five days being chased through the through Congo. I I I I just I I like the kind of sh reader's digest version of what happened there. So the quick version is so um I was reporting on the the beginning of the Congo Civil War in nineteen ninety seven and uh in trying to fly into Kisangani uh our plane crashed.

Uh and uh w everybody uh the plane was destroyed. Everybody um in the plane survived, but one person was killed on the ground. And so after that experience getting into Congo, I thought, well, maybe I'll instead of flying out, I'll drive out. So I I was in Kisangani. I looked at and the in theory there was this kind of road going through eastern Congo. So I hired a

uh uh vehicle that had probably been stolen in the Civil War from somebody or other. And we drove out and the first day we ran into this Rwanda backed militia that was massacring uh Hutu and you know, I asked these child soldiers, What are you doing? And they said, Oh, we're killing all the Hutu. I mean they were you know unapologetic about it. So I asked them, Well, can I interview your your chief, your boss, your warlord?

And uh that was a dumb thing to do because they took me to the warlord and he understood it was a bad idea to be giving interviews about this. One of the basic rules of journalism is you you never lie. When you're being held by a warlord who's busy massacring people, you July. So I told him that I had the

approval of his Uber warlord. Um he tried to reach that guy on the on the radio. He could not. So after an hour or so he uh he let us go. Uh later that evening he did reach the Uber warlord who had never heard of me. And so we sent a truckload of soldiers uh after me. And so that unfolded over the next five days. Um Holy shit. How'd you end up getting out? Uh

So what we were ahead of them. We uh we got stuck for hours at a time because the road was so bad, but so did the truck. Uh we had a somewhat better vehicle and uh we got to the Uganda border. Um and uh then the Vehicle turned around and immediately ran into the soldiers, but the only people in it were my interpreter and the driver at that point, and they did not bother the interpreter and the driver. And the idea that we're sending these Afghans to a place like that.

So given that story, uh it doesn't seem like the place to send eleven hundred Afghans to try that that helped us in the uh Absolutely not.

Fucking crazy. Um okay. Well uh I wanted to end uh like we did last time with a little convo on Kristoff Impact, but is there anything that I didn't ask you about? Any reporting you've been doing, anything that's on your mind you wanna leave people with? You know, I do just hope that Democrats make a real push for winning back working class voters, uh uh both those of color and the white working class. I think that one of the real mistakes in the first Trump administration.

was that we were so outraged that he that Trump pushed us to the left in ways that made it harder to win those working class voters. We seemed less sensitive to them. And in particular, too often I think concluded that every Trump voter is a racist and a bigot and it is really hard to win votes from people whom you're accusing of being racist and bigots.

Uh, so so much is at stake right now in terms of the future of the country. And, you know, I I just hope we will do better and be so focused on winning Senate races in, you know, Ohio and Arizona and Georgia and and Maine and Alaska. Iowa. Yeah, Iowa is now in play, it looks like, you know.

Well we could not be more aligned on that. So the next time you're on, I'm gonna find something that we can fight about. Oh right. Oh yeah, that's right. Last time I fucking hate Pinot Noir still. Pinot Noir's disgusting. Okay. If I wanted a juice fox I'd have one. Uh I'm drinking pet nats and oranges. Do you make any orange wine? You doing any orange wine out there? No, we don't. We make hard cider though. Uh r uh really good hard cider. Some of the best hard cider.

That's okay. We're gonna find another issue though, besides Pinot Noir and Hard Cider to disagree on. I do want to close with this. You posted yesterday that your twenty twenty five Kristoff Impact Drive raised fifty two million for three nonprofits, which is really unbelievable. Um, we try to do this as well from time to time with the Bulwark Support certain uh advocacy groups or people that are a in need. Our listeners like yours really love to do that. I wanna feel like

They are uh having an impact and helping. So if you have a organization you want to shout out now, I would love to uh put that in the show notes and and direct people to it. Yeah, and you know, maybe there's a way to partner uh in the SEM form, you know, with the next drive. You know, I believe in something called solutions journalism where you not just point out problems but also

point out solutions and give our audiences a way to try to address the problems. And so that's how this evolved. The three organizations that I supported this year were one is the emergency response rooms in Sudan, which are this grassroots approach to Deal with the famine there. Another is Helen Keller International, which uh does God's work in fighting malnutrition and hunger. Uh and then the third works in the US, uh Vision to Learn, which gets glasses in the hands of

low income kids in especially in the early grades who no can't see the blackboard and how can you learn to read if you can't see the blackboard? Just a gr three great organizations. And if we in journalism, if we give Our audience is a way to step up and help. I'm just awed by my my audience and how willing they are to step up. Uh we will put the link to the Helen Keller charity in the show notes because I made a Helen Keller joke this week. So I feel like that You owe them.

Uh needed for karmic balance. Like we need to bring some karmic balance to the world. Uh so we'll do that. Nick Christoph, um, I really appreciate you. Uh thanks for coming back on the show and uh we'll do it again soon, all right? I look forward to that with a glass of Pinot Noir next time. Everybody else, uh we'll see you back here Monday. It's gonna it's Monday, so it's Bill Crystal. Have a great week.