The Bulwark Podcast

It doesn't take courage to break the law. It takes courage to uphold the law.

I mean, the president's words were reckless. It was clear he decided to be part of the problem.

I turned to my daughter who was standing nearby. And I said it doesn't take courage to break the law. It takes courage to uphold the law.

I mean, the president's words were reckless. It was clear he decided to be part of the problem.

Tim is the author of Trump Nation, The Art of Being the Donald.

We are joined by Barbara Slavin, director of the Future of Iran initiative at the Atlantic Council. Also a lecturer in international affairs at George Washington University and the author of the book, Bitter Friends, Buzzing Enemies, Iran, the US and the Twisted Path to Confrontation.

I continue to be have a morbid fascination with the devolution of the mind of JD Vance, who I would like to remind people used to be a serious person who wrote bestselling books, who wrote for The New York Times, who would show up at things like, you know, the Aspen Ideas Festival to talk about, you know, the forgotten American.

You're also the author of several books, Dark Mirror, Edward Snowden in the American Surveillance Society and Angler, the Cheney Vice President.

By and large, if he said it, he believed it. He was a true believer and actually kind of a zealot for his beliefs.

I believe that to be true when I wrote Angler and I believe it to be true of Liz Cheney now and she clearly has sacrificed self-interest for principle.

The author of the book Sandy Hook, An American Tragedy in the Battle for Truth, Elizabeth Williamson joins me on the podcast today.

Over the last decade, as I say in the book, Sandy Hook turned out to be a foundational story in the spread of disinformation and false narratives.

I started to understand that individuals for reasons of ideology or social status, tribalism or for profit were willing to reject established truths and how once they'd done it, it was incredibly difficult to persuade them otherwise.

Dan Friesen said something that I thought made a lot of sense in which I put in the book and that was that, was then that he realized that this was going to be an absolute trench fight for new gun legislation.

The book is Sandy Hook An American Tragedy in the Battle for Truth which was recently named one of the best books of 2022 by publishers weekly.

The book is The Confidence Man, the making of Donald Trump and the breaking of America.

The book paints a jarring portrait of Trump, but one that differs in some respects from more common one-dimensional portraits, from more common one-dimensional portraits as a basically lonely man whose own views and attitudes are amorphous and situational rather than strategic.

Axios describes this as the book that Trump fears most.

This is neither of those. This is focuses on his character and he doesn't like people talking about his character.

The book is Confidence Man, the Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America by Maggie Haberman.

And when that failed to occur, the latest proof positive of election theft was Dinesh D'Souza's pseudo documentary 2000 mules, which also proved nothing but simply because of its very existence served as a kind of proof that something nefarious must have occurred.

And he referenced this tattered blue book on a side table in his office, Principles of federal prosecution that was published back then. And you asked him if he had anything to do with the publication. He told you that he helped edit it.

Garland was at the heart of all that. He just he wrote, he updated that book that you described.

So Michael your new book is Hold the Line the insurrection in one cops battle for America's soul So let's start with this. How is the battle for the soul going?

I think at night when the lights are turned off Abe Lincoln and Ronald Reagan have some pretty choice words to say about the fact They have to hang on Kevin McCarthy's wall

They did some fucking above average things and they've got to adorn the wall of this fucking weasel bitch named Kevin McCarthy

And his fake fucking spray on tan whose fucking claim to fame at least in my eyes is the fact that he amassed a collection of Donald Trump's favorite flavored starbursts put them in the Mason jar and presented them to Fucking Donald Trump

one of my books, King Leopold's Ghost was about Belgian colonization of the Congo, which was a very nasty business which led to a decrease in that population's territory of some 10 million people. And this thing was almost completely left out of Belgian history books.

He is the co-author of the book The Hill to Die On, The Battle for Congress and the Future of Trump's America, which was published back in 2019.

This whole thing is going to end up as less than one paragraph in the book of Trump Grift which will run about 10,000 pages.

it's a combination of Peter Navarro's Immaculate Deception document, Jenny Thomas belief systems, Rudy Giuliani belief system, Sidney Powell draft executive orders and her wanting to use executive order 13848 to rationalize seizing voting machines and employing the insurrection act and deploying military troops.

And then we find out later that she was sending emails supporting alternate electors to specific states. So it looks like some of the states were directly out of Peter Navarro's Immaculate Deception.

and he's going to be joining me for a live discussion and, of course, a podcast about the insurrection and his new book, which is coming out tomorrow. It is called Hold of the Line.

Professor of History and Public Affairs at Princeton University and the author and editor of 24 books, including The Presidency of Donald J. Trump, a first historical assessment.