Bill Kristol: Fight on All Fronts

The Bulwark Podcast

The Bulwark

Politics, News, News Commentary

4.6 • 8.9K Ratings

🗓️ 17 November 2025

⏱️ 55 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Not a lot of people predicted that Trump would fold and let Congress vote on the release of the Epstein files. But his retreat shows that Democrats have more leverage than conventional wisdom has suggested, and they should not rule out long shots in the fight against Trump’s authoritarian project. Meanwhile, MAGA looks to be fracturing in real time and Trump looks more and more vulnerable—on his ballroom, falling asleep in meetings, and his constant reminders that he’s only out for himself. Plus, MTG’s possible Saul to Damascus moment, Border Patrol’s invasion of Charlotte, bombing Venezuela would not be America First, and the Epstein emails are a reminder of how gross and nauseating the elites can be. Go away, Larry Summers.

Bill Kristol joins Tim Miller.

show notes

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to the Bullwark podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. It is Monday. So we're back with Bill Crystal. Bill, I think we should probably start by talking about Jeffrey Epstein.
0:21.0	What about you?
0:39.3	I think it's kind of the lead story of the day, wouldn't you say? I was getting ready to write my morning shots, the newsletter, like yesterday afternoon, and I thought I'd gotten a limb and predict that Trump would actually have to fold, which has been contrary, I guess, to conventional wisdom in a way. And even I wasn't sure he would at all. but then Trump folded at 9.15 p.m.
0:38.5	So I had to recast my newsletter a little bit you know uh the burdens of newsletter
0:44.0	writing exactly the burdens of newsletter i'm happy happy it's your problem not mine um well let's talk
0:49.4	about that fold uh here's what trump wrote is an extremely long bleat. I'll just read the key parts here.
0:56.4	He starts this way.
0:57.8	As I said on Friday night, aboard Air Force One to the fake news media,
1:01.4	House Republicans should vote to release the Epstein files.
1:03.9	I don't remember that exactly.
1:05.3	I don't have that on tape.
1:06.7	I'd like to see the tape on that.
1:08.6	Maybe that was the fake news media had not decided to report on that very big breaking news item that he says that he did on Friday.
1:17.4	Anyway, he goes on, we have nothing to hide and it's time to move on from this Democrat hoax.
1:22.7	The House oversight committee can have whatever they are legally entitled to.
1:26.5	Maybe a little bit of a, maybe a little bit of a,
1:28.2	maybe a little bit of an interesting carve out there, then all caps, I don't care.
1:32.7	All I do care about is that Republicans get back on point.
1:36.3	So there you go.
1:37.1	The Trump fold, he's ready for the Democrats to release the files.
1:39.8	And there's going to be a lot of particulars about what that actually looks like.
1:43.8	But to me, I think
	...

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