Bill Kristol
Editor at large, The Bulwark.
Director, Defending Democracy Together.
Host, Conversations with Bill Kristol.
Never Trump.
- New Q poll: ICE approval 34%-63%, down from 40%-57% on Jan. 13. 60% think ICE should withdraw from Minneapolis, while 36% think ICE should continue its operations in Minneapolis. poll.qu.edu/poll-release...
- “If a newspaper’s publisher makes a bunch of decisions that lose money, and then the owner keeps the publisher while firing the staff who puts out the paper—none of this is really about the money, is it?” open.substack.com/pub/thebulwa...
- "Senate Dems considered a requirement banning ICE agents from polling sites as a demand in negotiating the DHS funding bill. But that was not included in their final list..." Crazy idea: Given what Trump's said, update the "final list" to include it. politi.co/4t6pxt0
- "More alarm bells keep ringing about Republicans’ plans for the midterms. Asked to comment yesterday on Trump’s call for the GOP to “nationalize” elections, House Speaker Mike Johnson chose to spread baseless conspiracies about the outcome of the 2024 election." open.substack.com/pub/thebulwa...
- "Democrats will now get the fight they should want: a hardball negotiation over DHS funding alone...ICE is terrorizing America’s streets right now. Democrats have the ability and the leverage to play hardball for some of these reforms right now." open.substack.com/pub/thebulwa...
- "Trump lamented that he failed to activate the National Guard to seize voting machines in 2020. The Fulton raid should set alarm bells ringing about Trump’s willingness to abuse the power of his office to undermine free and fair elections in 2026 and 2028." open.substack.com/pub/thebulwa...
- Democrats should defund and restrain ICE to the degree possible. And they should insist on this condition at least: No ICE (or Border Patrol) anywhere near the polls or early voting election locations this fall.
- Masked thugs on the streets. Measles outbreaks across the nation. Blatant government corruption. Coverup of group of elite sex offenders. Ruling party trying to rig elections. Leader building grandiose monuments to himself. Collapse of remnants of nonpartisan civil service. Third world America.
- "Are Trump and his mooks going to try to steal the midterm elections? Trump himself is saying more openly than ever that he’d like to do just that...We’ll just keep asking: Does that sound like a guy who’s going to sit back and let the people vote for a blue wave?" open.substack.com/pub/thebulwa...
- "I’m all for different deckhands, but they won’t right this ship. Trump built it. He set it on its course...Pretti and Good aren’t dead because of bad advice. They’re dead because of bad men acting out the script that a bad president wrote for them." www.nytimes.com/2026/02/02/o...