How America Ends Up Alone
One weird trick to lose friends and influence around the globe.
It’s a tough year to run for governor of a swing state as a Republican. The folks elected this year will supervise their state’s elections in 2028, and many voters reasonably wonder: What did you do last time Donald Trump tried to steal an election? If he tries to do it again, will you stand in his way?
At least some candidates are plainly feeling the pressure. In 2020, Wisconsin Rep. Tom Tiffany, now Republican nominee for governor, strongly supported Trump’s efforts, backing a lawsuit to overturn the election results and voting against certifying them on January 6th. Last year, he said he supported the Trump FBI’s muckraking efforts into finding “improprieties” in the 2020 election; earlier this year, he refused to answer the question of if Biden had won in 2020.
Now, though, Tiffany’s had an apparent change of heart. “Joe Biden won,” he told CNN in a statement. “I’ll cooperate with law enforcement on investigations because Wisconsinites deserve full transparency and the ability to see the facts. . . . In 2028, I’ll certify whoever wins the most votes in Wisconsin.” In 2026, admitting Trump lost and insisting you’ll do your job if elected is apparently how you pivot to the general. Happy Tuesday.
Busy morning here at Bulwark HQ. Our Bulwark+ presale for members for The Good Fight Tour stops in Columbia, Charlotte, and Atlanta opens at 10 a.m. in the East. Head to TheBulwark.com/Events to get early access to tickets. General admission sales open on Friday.
Morning Shots Live: Andrew Egger and Ben Parker will be live on Substack and YouTube starting at 10:00 a.m. EDT. A replay will be posted on the site and the Bulwark Takes feed.
Who Would Want to Be Friends with America Now?
by Mark Hertling
Over the weekend, President Trump made a point of complimenting our enemy, North Korea, and antagonizing our ally, South Korea. Continuing the pattern, yesterday he threatened to bomb another longtime American security partner, Oman.
Asked about Oman’s talks with Iran concerning the Strait of Hormuz, which borders both countries, President Trump reportedly told Fox News reporter Trey Yingst, “If Oman gets in the way, we’ll bomb the shit out of them.” He seemed to double down on the threat later yesterday in the Oval Office.
The president is threatening to bomb a country that for nearly half a century has quietly provided the United States with military access, logistical support, diplomatic assistance, and something increasingly rare in the Middle East: the ability to communicate with friends as well as enemies. For decades, Oman hasn’t been in the way, it has often been the way.
The modern Omani–American military relationship dates to 1980, when Oman became the first Persian Gulf state to sign a formal agreement allowing American forces access to its military facilities. That access was particularly valuable during the “Tanker War” of the 1980s. When the Reagan administration launched Operation Earnest Will in 1987 to protect reflagged Kuwaiti tankers from Iranian attack, Oman was one of the few Gulf countries with agreements already in place for military access and prepositioning.
That cooperation continued through Desert Storm, Afghanistan, and Iraq. In 2019, Washington and Muscat expanded the relationship again, giving American forces access to the ports at Salalah and Duqm. The latter is especially important in the Gulf: Duqm is a deep-water port capable of handling large American warships and sits outside the Strait of Hormuz.
That close cooperation in no way means that Oman is an American puppet. Oman is friendly with the United States while maintaining relations with Iran. That balancing act sometimes frustrates Washington and Oman’s Arab neighbors, but it has also made Muscat a useful intermediary when Americans and Iranians cannot—or will not—talk to one another.
Oman helped establish the secret channel between Washington and Tehran during the negotiations that produced the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement, and it has helped secure the release of Americans held hostage by Iran. When Washington and Tehran needed an intermediary during the current crisis, Oman stepped forward again.
Which makes Trump’s threat especially bizarre. Just one day earlier, Trump ordered the Pentagon to substantially reduce the Ulchi Freedom Shield exercises with South Korea, criticizing Seoul for failing to support his Iran policy while again emphasizing his relationship with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un. Meanwhile, NATO countries in Europe have been confronting increasingly brazen drone activity and suspected Russian provocations, without any kind of presidential threat directed toward Moscow. An emerging pattern is taking shape, and America’s friends are certainly noticing it.
Japan, the Philippines, Australia, and other Indo-Pacific partners will watch what happens to South Korea and wonder what it says about America’s commitments to them. So will leaders in Riyadh, Abu Dhabi, Doha, Manama, and Kuwait City. Those governments have spent decades building relationships with Washington, have cooperated with American administrations of both parties, and all understand that partnerships sometimes involve disagreements. But alliances and partnerships depend on something more fundamental than agreement. They depend on predictability and trust.
No nation expects the United States to agree with it on everything. What nations must be able to expect is that a disagreement with Washington will remain a disagreement—not suddenly become the dissolution of an alliance or even a threat of military attack.
A larger lesson here is about American leadership. Alliances are relationships built over years, administrations, wars, crises, and disagreements. Presidents inherit them from their predecessors, sustain them for their successors, and occasionally strengthen them through careful diplomacy.
But presidents can also destroy them. That destruction rarely occurs with a formal announcement. More often, trust corrodes incrementally. An exercise is canceled. An ally is publicly berated. An adversary is praised. A partner wonders whether Washington will respond to help during a crisis. Another begins looking elsewhere for security or diplomatic support.
And America loses a partner, an ally, or a friend.
AROUND THE BULWARK
How Baseball Marks the Time… The seasons change. Children grow up. Years fly by. Yet somehow you can still remember exactly where you were when the ball cleared the wall, writes MARK HERTLING.
Trump Explodes at CNN Reporter During Wild Press Conference… On Bulwark Takes, JVL and ANDREW EGGER give their takes on Donald Trump’s latest chaotic press conference, from his bizarre claims about talking with Kim Jong Un to his demand that South Korea pay up for U.S. military exercises.
A 7-Year-Old Trapped in Hell Is Begging Senator Katie Britt for Help… TIM MILLER shares the story of a Venezuelan family who have spent weeks detained at the Dilley detention facility in Texas, despite doing everything the Trump administration has asked of immigrants seeking to leave the country.
Quick Hits
THE REAL FAKE POLLS: Political polling is in dire straits for a bunch of reasons. Nobody can figure out how to get surveys in front of representative samples of voters now that people don’t pick up cold calls from unknown numbers anymore. And with reliable results seeming out of reach, fewer and fewer outfits are even trying to run high-quality polls—which leaves narrative gaps for poorer and more partisan polls to influence public perceptions of a race.
Or even downright frauds. A group calling themselves Median Polling supposedly conducted a couple polls this month, including one in Wisconsin supposedly showing Francesca Hong up 20-plus points on David Crowley and another in the L.A. mayoral race showing incumbent Karen Bass leading challenger Nithya Raman by double digits. But with skeptical reporters digging into them, the group admitted yesterday that the polls were fakes.
“All previously published polling releases have been withdrawn and should not be cited or treated as genuine polling data,” it said in a statement. “Median Strategies was created as a short-term social experiment examining how purported polling information could enter and spread through the political information ecosystem without independent verification.”
In fact, Median’s “experiment” had raised red flags from the start, at least among polling experts. But their hoaxed information did make it into broader ecosystem here and there: Bass shared Median’s bogus poll showing her comfortably in the lead on social media, even whipping up an infographic to help it pop. “Doing the work, showing up, and gaining momentum,” Bass tweeted. “Let’s do this, LA!”
NATALIE IN THE SPOTLIGHT: Donald Trump’s personal aide Natalie Harp has always been a strange figure in Trump’s orbit—a worshipful assistant dubbed the “human printer” who seems to serve as the president’s security blanket, keeping him well-supplied with printouts of flattering tweets and news clippings as well as personal letters left around his quarters. On Sunday, Sen. Jon Ossoff took a shot at the pair’s relationship, saying in one of his now-routine campaign speeches that Trump, instead of doing his job, “wants to build his ballroom and travel with Natalie on their apparently defenseless flying palace gifted by the Emir of Qatar.”
Republicans fumed that Ossoff was smearing a young aide with baseless insinuations. And the White House went berserk. After CNN’s Kristen Holmes asked Trump if he wanted to respond to Ossoff’s comments yesterday, Trump’s “Rapid Response 47” account called her a “disgraceful, humiliating embarrassment to her alleged procession.”
“Someday, your children will come across your disgusting and inhumane question,” the account spluttered. “They will be sickened and embarrassed to have a parent be so callous and vindictive.”
Cheap Shots
Folks, keep your head on a swivel:
“I’ll cooperate with law enforcement on investigations because Wisconsinites deserve full transparency and the ability to see the facts. . . . In 2028, I’ll certify whoever wins the most votes in Wisconsin.”
Does anyone believe Tom Tiffany (or any Republican) is telling the truth about this or anything else?
We’ve done such a heartbreaking heel turn over the last year and a half. We’ve alienated the world, and pushed them in the arms of the Chinese.
I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that it’s going to take decades to undo the damage this administration has done.