Bill Kristol: It Always Comes Back to Trump/Russia

Tim Miller (0:13)

Hello, and welcome to The Bulwark Daily. I'm your host, Tim Miller. It is Monday, so of course, we have editor-at-large Bill Kristol. A couple of notes. Bill will be joining us in Dayton for the Springfield fundraiser we're doing. I think we now do have the direct link, we can't make it to Springfield to support the organizations there that are helping the Haitian community. We've had a huge response for tickets, which is great. We've added some new seats, so if you ended up on the wait list, there is going to be room. Go to the bulwark.com/events, come hang out with us in Dayton September 25th.

If you're like, what do I do in Dayton for a weekend? A ton of Dayton stands replied to that question last week in the comments. You can go read. There's so much to do in Dayton. Dayton's great, apparently. We'll see. I'll be able to report back. Also, we have merch. I'm right now in my Capitalist Wing of Antifa t-shirt, which I've been wanting for a while.

I did not get the early access to the Wilk Bill Kristol merch like JVL did. But I don't know, how did you feel about the design, Bill?

William Kristol (1:15)

It's very limited access, Tim. Only the most elite of the elite get that one.

I stayed out of the whole process so I could have the ability. I think it's okay.

Tim Miller (1:26)

I don't know.

William Kristol (1:27)

What do I know? As Susan said to me, in her kind way, it's not going to be the best seller among the merch.

Tim Miller (1:33)

I don't know if that's true. You look like a South American Codillo a little bit in the merch. I like it. I couldn't be happier.

I think people go get Wilk Bill Kristol merch. It's fun. Halloween's coming up. I don't exactly know what the costume is, but you'll come up with something. News. Let's get to news.

I guess in some ways a bombshell story, and in other ways a dog bites man story out of ProPublica this morning, which is the Trump family's close ties to the Russians and close financial ties to the Russians. We have a new data point on that. Russian oligarch Umar Kremlin footed the bill for Donald Trump Jr's second wedding, which is crazy. I mean, like they're robbing people with their crypto coin. You think they could pay for their own wedding, but no, a Russian oligarch paid for it. Six figures rented out a private island, paid for the fireworks show. Kremlin was the head of the boxing organization there, a scandal-plagued boxing organization. He's also a close ally of Putin. Only 50 people showed up to the wedding. Remember famously Donald Trump Sr. didn't. Don't know if there's anything related there. Eric, when asked about this, said he has no clue who this person is and has never heard his name, which is pretty strange. Since there are only 50 people at the wedding, you think Eric would have met all of them. Kushner was also there, also noteworthy. Bill, this is pretty astonishing, no?

William Kristol (2:59)

Yeah. Well, as you say, it's both astonishing and routine in the era of Trump, just yet another grift. Putin associated, Russia associated grift, which is slightly more appalling than all the regular grift, but still.

This goes hand in hand, of course, with Trump chastising Zelensky for not being nicer to Russia, really. Yeah.

Tim Miller (3:20)

This guy Kremlev, this was deep in the ProPublica story. Shout out to those guys doing excellent reporting. I was like, whoa, this is an interesting thing to tuck in here. Kremlev 43 is also heavily involved in an organization called Healthy Fatherland, run by his 23-year-old wife's twin sister.

The group, which promotes healthy eating and youth sports, is under Ukrainian sanction for its alleged role in a program of abducting Ukrainian children and relocating them under the guise of rehabilitation. This is one of those things that's both horrifying and veep. Right? It's just like, oh, healthy fatherland organization. We want kids to get involved in ice hockey and eat their vegetables. But it is like a cover organization for abducting Ukrainian kids.

William Kristol (4:10)

I hadn't gotten that far in the article. I guess I was so sickened by the whole thing. But that is very, as you say, interesting and reveal. I mean, it's all such a grift. And I guess one sometimes is inclined to say, okay, it's a grift. They're getting rich. They're creepy, corrupt people. But it's not like old-fashioned corruption where people got rich, right? It is all with, somewhat of it is with dictators and really horrific dictators and with the horrific enterprises, horrific dictators, right? It's not sort of, let's call it innocent corruption where you're just stealing some money from the taxpayers of your own city, state or country, which is kind of what we're used to, right? I mean.