Chapter 1: What distractions has Trump faced since taking office?
President Trump made the right moves to get Puerto Rico out of a mess, putting private enterprise to work.
The electrical grid and other infrastructure were already in very, very poor shape. They were at their life's end prior to the hurricanes. And now virtually everything has been wiped out. We're literally starting from scratch.
But Governor Gonzales Colon thinks she knows better. Innovative companies ran to meet the challenge to rebuild Puerto Rico's grid. Now she's blowing up a valid contract to siphon money back to her closest political advisors. President Trump puts real businesses to work instead of fueling government waste. Don't let the governor send Puerto Rico back to square one.
Chapter 2: How has Trump's approach to Ukraine-Russia evolved?
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What if this was someone in your family that had a chronic illness that they could not get away from? Millions of Americans live with a disease that has no cure. I was diagnosed with a rare form of sarcoma. The most immediate findings indicated that I should lose my leg. It ended up taking four clinical trials in 25 years to get me to this point.
Cures are within reach if we invest in funding for life-saving medical research that's needed to find them.
Even if they're unsuccessful in my treatment, that they will have learned from my treatment that will be able to allow others to stand on my shoulders to be able to be helped.
Chapter 3: What is the significance of Trump's alleged Medicaid fraud in Minnesota?
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Hello and welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. We are back post-Christmas break. Bill Crystal, I saw you notice that our Department of Homeland Security wished everyone a Merry Christmas and said we are blessed to share a nation and a savior. Which isn't quite right, I don't think. But the Merry Christmas part was okay.
Chapter 4: How does Bill Kristol view Trump's impact on his supporters?
Yeah.
Well, now we can say that again. We couldn't say that during Biden. So it's nice to be able to wish my non-Jewish neighbors, most of whom are non-Jewish, I would say, you know, Merry Christmas. And even some of the Jews wish each other Merry Christmas sometimes. Is that right? Why shouldn't we enjoy it? Well, as someone wrote a good piece on the...
bulwark website it's kind of an american holiday at this point almost a secular holiday as well as a religious one right so that's fine that's fine i felt that way santa for example not in the bible right yeah i was talking to sam stein about this and santa does not does not come to the stein household and i was like why not yeah we don't do that either i don't know it's different people have different customs but yeah
Okay, all right.
Chapter 5: What are the implications of Trump's fundraising tactics?
We're exhausted giving them the, unfortunately, or fortunately, Hanukkah, which is a minor Jewish holiday, of course, but it's become bigger because of its proximity to Christmas. It's eight days, so we're exhausted, the signs and the crystals, from giving the kids eight days of presents. So it's like the last thing we need is Santa coming.
But, of course, the 12 days of Christmas, people don't really observe that, right? That's a thing from the past. I mean, it's a wonderful song performed by the... By the Bulwark Choir there. People should take a look at that. Organized by Catherine Rappel. I don't think I was that impressed.
Chapter 6: How is the DOJ handling the Epstein case?
I was there to make everyone else look good. And, of course, Edgar was there to show that there is a genuine star in the Bulwark.
Yeah, Andrew Edgar can sing. We'll put that in the show notes. Apparently he was in the Hillsdale Abraham Lincoln Choir. We learned over the break. Speaking of Edgar, here's a nice newsletter. It looks like you were off this morning. Yeah. Despite, you know, I don't know.
Chapter 7: What are the effects of misinformation on political discourse?
You could have worked.
I contributed behind the scenes. There's a lot of subtle editing that people aren't catching up on.
Well, Andrew Egger wrote The Morning Shot this morning, and thank goodness, because it was wonderful. And he wrote about going home for Christmas, and he's going back to Iowa. And his family is more conservative and has some Trump voters in there. And he writes about how like – but it isn't – I was surprised to learn this about him a couple of months ago. We were talking about this.
He's like, they have a family text chain where they text about politics.
Chapter 8: What cultural references are made regarding Brigitte Bardot?
Seems very healthy, actually. Yeah, I know you made that face, but I don't know. They don't seem to take it too personal, which is, I think, good in a way. Anyway, he's home and he's writing about politics.
just kind of the deterioration of everything and how you, what's the old line about how, you know, a movement becomes a... Starts off as an idea and becomes a movement, something like that, and then ends up as a...
Grift. Grift's not quite the word that's used in the line. Yeah, something like that.
Something like that. We'll find out. And just like the degree of the scamminess of Trump world is pretty disillusioning and depressing. He talks about how, you know, there was this guy, Jake Elsey, who you might remember. You were in a little drama related to him. He was like the more normie guy running in a... in a big primary in Texas for a House seat.
Our friend Michael Wood was kind of the never-Trumper candidate back when those existed. And then Elsie was more like the establishment person. And then there were some more MAGA people. And Elsie apparently was sending his text to his... grandmother asking for 10 bucks so that they can get their Trump tariff checks, which is a scam. Obviously, Jake Elsie's pack has no purview there.
And and he's from Texas and she's in Iowa. And so, you know, he's kind of trying to help his grandparents understand what was happening on the scam. And then he has an uncle talking to him about Nick Fuentes. And it's just, you know, it's not one of these stories about how we have a family food fight over the holidays, but it's about how it's kind of sad the way things are deteriorating.
No, it's really a lovely piece. People should read it. Yeah, it's also his grandma said $10, and then didn't realize she was, I think, signing up for the $10 a month recurring thing, which is one way these scams really do work. Ellsley was a kind of normie Republican. He wasn't as normal as Michael Wooden, my judgment.
But I think maybe the reason I got dragged into this, I'd given Ellsley $250 or something the previous cycle, maybe, because he was running as the more normie Republican.
I Googled it this morning to refresh my memory. Yeah, you had donated to him in 2018. Yeah.
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