Bulwark Takes

Bulwark Takes

The news cycle doesn’t slow down, and neither does The Bulwark. Bulwark Takes brings you bite-sized takes on the news of the day from the entire Bulwark team, including Tim Miller, Sarah Longwell, and Bill Kristol, and more.

Episodes

December 4, 2025 18 mins
Tim Miller and JVL take on the wildly conflicting stories coming out of Congress after lawmakers watched the same “double tap” boat strike video—from Jim Himes’ alarm to Tom Cotton’s macho fantasy version.
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In a financial crisis, the markets need to trust the Treasury Secretary and the Fed chair. After watching Scott Bessent posture and preen his way through a NYT interview, it’s clear he can’t be trusted with either role. JVL and Tim give their take on just how dangerous it would be if Trump puts someone this political in charge of the Fed.

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Sam Stein and Catherine Rampell take on Corporate America's biggest concern: how to flatter Donald Trump. From Rolex clocks to Diet Coke trophies, and even a resurrected Rush Hour 4, Sam and Catherine walk through the strangest offerings, the economic harm caused by political suck-ups, and why companies would rather bribe a president than run their businesses.

Exclusive $35 off Carver Mat at https://on.auraframes.com/...
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Sam Stein and Andrew Egger take on Trump’s surreal cabinet meeting—the praise parade, the nodding-off moments, the shifting story on the Venezuela strikes, and the loyalty-pledge Pentagon press corps.

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Sam Stein and Will Saletan take on Trump’s bizarre pardon of the former President of Honduras—how he was nudged into it by friends and fixers, why the story he repeated falls apart, and what this decision means for U.S. credibility, drug enforcement, and the growing pattern of Trump siding with corrupt leaders over the law.

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Jonathan Cohn and Dr. Demetre Daskalakis take on the FDA’s dramatic “vaccine-death” email, the CDC’s autism web page rewrite, and the turmoil inside RFK Jr.’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP)—getting into how these moves sow panic, undermine science, and threaten real public-health protections.

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Ben Parker and Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling take on the alleged kill order at sea, the Pentagon’s denials, Trump’s contradictory comments, and the White House attempt to blame it on Admiral Bradley.

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JVL and Will Sommer give their take on the latest culture-war absurdity: a 650-word psych class reaction paper at the University of Oklahoma that somehow escalated all the way to the governor’s office and right-wing media ecosystem.

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Andrew Egger is joined by law professor and constitutional law expert Leah Litman to discuss why the court rejected Habba’s appointment, how it fits into Trump’s larger strategy to pack DOJ offices with loyalists, and what it could mean if the cases reach the Supreme Court.

Exclusive $35 off Carver Mat at https://on.auraframes.com/BULWARKTAKES. Promo Code BULWARKTAKES
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November 30, 2025 18 mins
Andrew Egger and Will Saletan take on Trump’s stunning move to pardon Honduras’s ex-president Juan Orlando Hernández, convicted in U.S. court for drug trafficking, and detail Trump’s pattern of protecting criminal allies from around the world.

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Bill Kristol and Aaron Reichlin-Melnick discuss Trump’s escalating nativism and the implications of his increasingly aggressive anti-immigrant policies.
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Tim Miller takes on Scott Jennings’ pro-Trump turn, breaking down his on-air persona, his shifting claims about conservatism, and why the Bush-McCain-Romney tradition flatly rejects the path Jennings chose.
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James Carville, the “Ragin' Cajun,” is back with his view on the Democratic Party and once again, it’s all about the economy. Tim Miller gives his take on Carville’s latest New York Times column, where he argues that Democrats need a clear, unapologetic focus on economic issues to unite the party and win over voters. From government shutdowns to the pitfalls of “performative woke politics,” Tim digs into what Carville calls th...
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Sam Stein and Will Sommer take on X/Twitter's new geolocation feature and the weekend chaos it caused. MAGA accounts that claimed to be all-American turned out to be from places like Bangladesh, Nigeria, India, and Serbia, sparking a major debate about why political discourse has become so toxic online.

Read more from Will's False Flag newsletter: https://www.thebulwark.com/p/new-x-twitter-games-location-geolocation-a...
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JVL and Sarah take on the shooting of two National Guard members in DC, Trump’s escalation, his push for denaturalization and “reverse migration,” the online right’s king-fantasies, the Wall Street Journal’s warning about abandoning allies, and what real leadership demands in moments of national crisis.
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Andrew Egger and Catherine Rampell take on the Trump administration’s sweeping push to strip work permits and legal status from hundreds of thousands of immigrants who followed every rule. They cover Stephen Miller's quiet bureaucratic campaign to “de-document” legal workers, what it means for construction, caregiving, and tech, and why states like Florida, Texas, and New York are bracing for major labor shocks.

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Tim Miller sits down with ESPN’s Seth Wickersham to talk football, politics, and Seth’s new book, American Kings: A Biography of the Quarterback. They get into how the NFL became a culture-war stage, the league’s bizarre “socialist” structure, owners who change politics to suit their stadium deals, why evaluating quarterbacks is still a coin flip, the Manning dynasty, race and the rise of black quarterbacks, and the chaos insi...
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NOTE: This is a special preview of Tim and Sam's members-only Q&A. To listen to the whole thing, become a paid Bulwark member on Apple Podcasts, Substack or YouTube!

Tim Miller and Sam Stein take on Tim’s wild Jubilee experience—the secrecy, the debate tactics, the generational clash, and the moment things actually boiled over.

Watch Tim on Jubilee here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSOz63coD7M
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Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling (Ret.) joins Bill Kristol to reflect on what Thanksgiving means for the military, sharing his favorite stories from years of service, including the traditions, the meals, and the special efforts to bring a taste of home to troops and military families.

Learn more about Operation Gratitude: https://www.operationgratitude.com

Read Mark's article, "How the Military Celebrates Thanksgiving"...
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Sam Stein and Will Sommer take on the bizarre rise of James Fishback—the 30-year-old ex–hedge fund analyst who inflated his résumé, ran sock-puppet schemes, and is now throwing bombs in Florida’s GOP primary against Trump’s pick, Byron Donalds.

Be sure to read Will's newsletter on Fishback: https://www.thebulwark.com/p/james-fishback-ambitious-duplicitous-semi-fictitious-florida-governor-candidate

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