Bill Kristol: It Always Comes Back to Trump/Russia

The Bulwark Daily

This episode of The Bulwark Daily examines the Trump family's troubling ties to Russian oligarchs, highlighting a ProPublica investigation revealing that a Putin-aligned Russian

Key takeaways

• Russian oligarch Umar Kremlin, linked to child abduction schemes in Ukraine, paid for Donald Trump Jr.'s wedding, revealing deep financial ties between the Trump family and Putin-aligned figures.
• Jared Kushner's recent comments suggest he supports Russia's territorial demands in Ukraine, framing it as a 'win-win' negotiation despite the humanitarian crisis.

Main topics

• Trump family's ties to Russian oligarchs
• Jared Kushner's stance on Ukraine-Russia negotiations

Notable quotes

"It's not just corruption—it's with dictators and horrific enterprises."

"If Ukraine would withdraw to the Russian lines, we have a deal ready. We have a great deal..." – Jared Kushner

Conclusion

The episode paints a troubling picture of the Trump family's ongoing entanglement with authoritarian figures, particularly

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (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, if you 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. So go to the bulwark.com slash events. Come hang out with us in Dayton, September 25th. And 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 shit to do in Dayton. Dayton's great. And 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 Woke Bill Crystal merch like JVL did. But I don't know. How did you feel about the design, Bill? Very limited access, Tim. You know, only Speaker 3 (1:17) the most elite of the elite get that one, JVL. I stayed out of the whole process so I could have the liability. I think it's okay. I don't know what I know. As Susan said to me in her kind way, it's not going to be the best seller among the merch, Bill. Speaker 1 (1:33) I don't know if that's true. You kind of look like a... South American Cardeo a little bit in the merch. I like it. I couldn't be happier. And I think people go get Woke Mill Crystal 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. Just really, I mean, 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 kind of crazy. I mean, they're robbing people with their crypto coin. You'd 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. Famously, Donald Trump Sr. didn't. I 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'd think Eric would have met all of them. Kushner was also there, also noteworthy. And Bill, this is pretty astonishing, no? Yeah, well, as you say, it's both astonishing and routine in the Speaker 3 (3:02) era of Trump. Just yet another grift. Putin-associated, Russia-associated grift, which is slightly more appalling than all the regular grifts, but still. Yeah, and this goes hand in hand, of course, with Trump chastising Zelensky for not being nicer to Russia, really. Speaker 1 (3:19) Yeah, and this guy Kremlin, and this was kind of deep in the pro-publican story. Shout out to those guys doing excellent reporting. I was like, whoa, this is an interesting thing to tuck in here. Kremlin 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. I mean, and this is like one of those things that's both like horrifying and veep, right? And it's just like, it's like, oh, healthy, the healthy fatherland organization. We want kids to get involved in ice hockey and, you know, eat their vegetables. But it is like a cover organization for abducting Ukrainian kids. I hadn't gotten that far in the article because I got so sick. I was Speaker 3 (4:12) so sickened by the whole thing. But that is very, as you say, interesting and reveal. I mean, it's all such a graft. And I guess one sometimes is inclined to say, OK, it's Speaker 4 (4:22) a Speaker 3 (4:22) graft. 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 so much of it is with dictators and really horrific dictators and with the horrific. Enterprise is 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, or Speaker 1 (4:44) even just kind of like the Trump's palling around with these guys, which was bad enough. It's pretty horrifying, frankly, just for someone that's allegedly involved in the abducting of Ukrainian children to be one of the 50 people at Donald Trump Jr.'s wedding. I mean, like that itself would be a scandal. He's paying for the wedding. Yeah. You know, as he says in the article, it's like the Russians, when they pay for something, want something on the back end. This largesse does not come out of the good of this man's heart to Don Trump Jr. It's just it's hard to imagine this guy did some background reading on him. This guy grew up in rough background, joined like a biker gang in Russia. It's like it's hard to imagine this guy looks at Donald Trump Jr., the pampered child of Donald Trump Sr., who is. you know, mentally not at the top of his game. I can, this is like, I really just love this guy. I just met this guy a couple of years ago and I just think we're going to be great friends. He's such a good, Hey, it's like they want to get something. What do they want to get? Well, I don't know. We have some evidence, as you mentioned earlier, Bill, uh, Jared Kushner, again, who was at the wedding, our chief negotiator in this war. at the wedding funded by the Russian side. This weekend explains what he thinks the state of play is in the Russia-Ukraine war in an interview. Let's listen to that. Look, I think right now, from the Ukraine perspective, Speaker 4 (6:02) I mean, President Putin's laid out his line of what he wants to achieve. If Ukraine, you know, wanted to withdraw to that line, then obviously, you know, we have the rest of the deal set up and put together. Ukraine right now does not want to do that. And obviously, our job as the mediators to figure out how can we come up with a creative solution that doesn't violate their desires and that helps them achieve, you know, their objective and does in a way that we can get Russia to end the conflict in a way that hopefully, you know, allows both parties to move forward in a framework that that where this doesn't happen Speaker 1 (6:34) again. If Ukraine would withdraw to the Russian lines, we have a deal ready. We have a great deal, you know, a win win kind of, as we say in the business world, as long as Ukraine would withdraw. Why is Ukraine? They're kidnapping the kids. The kid kidnapper is funding Don Jr.'s wedding. And Jared's like, well, you know, the Ukrainians are being a little. a little demanding here by not just kind of giving Russia their territory. By Speaker 3 (6:59) withdrawing further, I guess is what he's saying, right? That Russia would do better from the negotiation than they've done on the battlefield. No, it's all sickening. And that whole idiotic, as you say, sort of fake business negotiator mode of speaking and tone of voice. And, you know, we're just trying to help out both sides here as if they're equally. guilty or innocent. I mean, it's really appalling. It Speaker 4 (7:22) really is. I mean, every time I think, okay, you know, look, they haven't done as much damage as they might have, which is way true Speaker 3 (7:27) to Ukraine, but Ukraine has been so incredibly resourceful and tough and the Europeans have stepped up some. Every time I think, okay, so maybe that part of the Trump administration isn't as reprehensible as I kind of expected it to be. It turns out they want to be that reprehensible. It's just that Zelensky and the Europeans haven't let them be, you know, and it's. And Kushner, he's not in government, right? He's got God knows what business interests, as you said. The whole thing makes me wonder about, we discussed this before, about the degree to which the Trump family is at the heart of the grift. And can they afford to just give this over to someone they don't fully trust? Do they trust Vance, Rubio, Hegseth, all these guys to fully, fully be on board? I mean, there's a reason most of a lot of authoritarian dictatorships become family enterprises, right? Speaker 1 (8:08) And this is JVL's point. You know, there's some element of it that could feel a little alarming. I mean, JD is pretty mobbed up with the Trump family at this point. But yeah, Speaker 3 (8:16) I Speaker 1 (8:16) don't. Jared there, just for people who are just on audio only. If I had to bet who in the world is most likely to be a lizard person, you would think that he would be at one of my top draft picks. He looks very uncomfortable. Like you're saying this whole tone is just like this. Oh, hey, we're doing this real estate deal. It's like, that's not what this is. Like this is a different category. There's a different clip where he talks about how war can be a no-sum. And we're trying to get to a win-win. And it's like, I don't know. His skin looks inverted. The whole thing is very creepy. Trump also spoke out this weekend. Again, maybe this is all just a big coincidence. But he does have a complaint about somebody in the conflict. And as you mentioned, Bill, Zelensky. Mr. Zelensky has to do one thing, Trump said. He has to stop knocking out diesel fuel in Russia. Let him go after targets, but not diesel fuel. Because he's causing a shortage of diesel fuel. He's like a stim there. This isn't done by the Middle East. This is done by what's happening in Russia and Ukraine. For the video, I will just pull up this chart here. People can look at the link if they want. The diesel price chart does go up after Russia invades Ukraine. Because it was Russia's fault, not Ukraine's fault for bombing the Russians. And then it goes up more again right after Trump starts the war in Iran. That's what's happening here. Trump is now trying to blame the exorbitantly high price of diesel that's really impacting a lot of people on Zelensky. It's Zelensky's fault for defending himself. And Speaker 3 (9:52) all this sucking up to Putin is happening as Putin's intensifying the attacks on civilians in Ukraine. Speaker 3 (9:59) It's a lot of reporting about how he's been helping Iran, responsible for aiding Iran in various attacks, even in terms of the missile capabilities, and therefore some of the damage, some of the killing of American service members. So it's really, it's grotesque. It really, I mean, yeah, you're right. It's good that you did that. I had not paid sufficiently close attention to this latest outrage. When discounts out, as you say, it's man by dog by man. So they're all outrages. This war that Trump is so proud of that he's fighting in such a manly way in Iran, we're sucking up to Putin and to China, if I might add. Speaker 1 (10:32) Yeah, let's Speaker 3 (10:33) get Speaker 1 (10:33) to China next. We're just really quick to put a button on this, right? Again, it was Trump's war of choice in Iran that has caused the increase in energy prices. That's what it is. And there are other factors. Of course, it's a complex global economy, but that's what happened. At least if you were going to lie to me. like at least lie by being on the right side, right? Like to your point, you could, if you wanted, he could blame Russia and China, right? He could say that like, you know, look, we had, this thing would have been easy to resolve. We got rid of the Ayatollah day one, but it's like now the Russians or the Chinese have been helping them, you know, and it's like, that's a, it's a, it's a great power conflict, right? I mean, that would also have the benefit of at least be kind of true. I don't know. Like maybe, you know, you could say the Iranians would not be able to close the strait if it wasn't for the targeting help and the other resources being provided by Russia and China. Like you could do that, but that's not what he's doing. He's saying it's Zelensky's fault. It's sickening. It's total affront. But to your point about China, let's talk about that just for a second, because she's going to be here in what, two weeks, I think, something like that. Yeah, two weeks. And Trump was asked about this also in the same. gaggle where he blamed Zelensky for diesel prices. And people were like, hey, we have evidence now, a Wall Street Journal report, that China helped with the targeting of an Iranian attack that killed three American service members. And what do you think about that? You know, Xi's coming to the U.S. Are you going to confront him about this? And Trump's basically like, yeah, well, we both do it. They're doing the same thing we do. I don't think it's that big of a deal. That's literally what he said. about their help in killing three American service members. Speaker 3 (12:14) No, it's unbelievable, really, isn't it? And he'll be second up to Xi in two weeks. He, of course, rolled out the red carpet for Putin. What was that, a year ago now already? And broke the embargo on him that had been held until then. And now he's inviting him to the G20. No, I mean, he likes the dictators. Obviously, he's a little bit in awe of them. And so he personally sort of loves the kind of man-to-man dealing with them. That's pretty clear. Speaker 1 (12:39) Oh, God. Yeah. I mean, we're going to talk about AI stuff at the end, but I do think that. The only coherent story, I guess, is the oligarchy and the corruption, right? Because, again, it's like you can imagine a coherent anti-China story or China threat story that ties AI and why we need to do chip restrictions to China's involvement in this Iran war and how it's important that we asserted ourselves in Iran as a way to weaken China. You can imagine that story, but