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Chapter 1: What are the implications of Trump's actions in Iran?
Hello and welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. Delighted to welcome back to the show the co-creator of the short-lived TV sitcom, 1600. Wow. Wow. Last place finisher on Survivor 47. And my co-host on Speech Center, the video series taking the world by storm on the Love It or Leave It YouTube channel, which you should subscribe to today. It's Jon Lovett. How you doing, man?
I'm doing great. As a great president once said, it's not whether or not you get knocked down, it's whether you get back up again.
That's true. Way to pander to the eight Bush lovers left listening to this podcast. Don't worry, everybody. We've got good news. We're going to get to the bimbofication of Kristi Noem's husband at the end of the program. And this might be coming out a little later than usual today because Lovett likes his beauty rest. It's...
It's Farm Workers Ni Cesar Chavez Day in California, something I was just informed of this morning. And so it's, you know, it's taking us a little bit longer to get going today, but it's going to be worth it because had we done this on time, we would have not had the bimbofication topic to give you at the end of the podcast. So stick around. That's right. Levitt, here's where I want to start.
One year ago, you were last on the podcast. It feels like too long, so we're going to have to do that. The title of that show was A Worst Case Scenario Comes Into View. And I was kind of curious what I thought we meant by that. And I went back and read the transcript. And here's what you said.
You said, it's hard to imagine a version of the Trump administration unfolding in which they're doing more in bad things without getting the blowback that might hurt them.
Yeah.
And I thought that was interesting to reread that, thinking back to March of 2025, that the worst case scenario was not just their behavior, which we expected, but the behavior of everyone else. And that's something to be positive about in the ensuing year. A lot of bad behavior has continued, but that has changed somewhat, wouldn't you say? It's... Not enough?
Not enough. I mean, look, the full... co-opting of the republican party has continued the the idea that we would have gone to war in iran without a debate without a vote without a plans extraordinary we're going to talk about what he posted today about our about about what europe should be up to and the the like incompetence and chaos and
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Chapter 2: How is the Democratic Party responding to current challenges?
It's kind of one of those things. It's like, I started the war with Iran. Everything was fine. The oil was going. And everything wasn't fine for the people of Iran. You know, oil was traversing through the strait. People of Europe and Asia were able to get access to this. Trump starts this war. Doesn't really explain to them why. Doesn't ask them to sign up for it.
And then he's like, now I've created all this damage. I'm like, good luck. Go fix it. President EJT.
What a strange few weeks in terms of what he's been asking from people. So he starts the war. Who knows what they thought would happen. Obviously, the fact that Iran could close the Strait of Hormuz was an extremely predicted and predictable result.
So whether he was told that and didn't understand how serious it would be, whether he was convinced by like Hegseth or someone else that you would never get that far because they would so quickly eviscerate the regime that it would be like Venezuela and we'd just be kind of talking to new and more reasonable people and everything would move on. Who knows?
But after the fact, he goes to all of these countries and says, we've got a real problem in the Strait of Hormuz. I need you to jump in there. And they're like, no, thank you, sir. No, thank you. You started this war. We have our own domestic politics. Also, we don't want to put our people in harm's way for a war we didn't start. You started this war with Israel. You can fight it to the end.
And that's that. Then he says, oh, we don't need anybody. Meanwhile, in that interim, the goals go from regime change to preventing Iran from projecting power in the region. Then it becomes basically the Rubio version, which is destroy the Navy, destroy their capacity to make missiles. Nuclear doesn't really come up.
Now Rubio is on the tarmac at the end of last week saying, after this war is over, we're going to have a real problem in the Strait of Hormuz. And so- You have Trump then saying kind of on the plane, you know, there's actually much more reasonable people in charge of Iran now and we can really work with these people.
And then you have – and Rubio saying that the Strait of Hormuz is going to be a problem and what Iran is planning to do after the conflict is unacceptable.
Rubio also being like we can't tell you who the reasonable people are that we're working with because it might harm them internally, which doesn't seem like that's the most stable counterparty when you have to do it in secret.
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Chapter 3: What does the bimbofication of Kristi Noem's husband reveal?
There are many other political implications, but, like, the big one is kind of the big one. There is an existing other cadre of neocons who are, like, the biggest cheerleaders of the war. Like, Trump's, like, go-to chorus right now is, like, Mark Levin, Ben Shapiro, Mark Thiessen at the Washington Post, the Commentary Magazine guys. I mean, there's, like, a group of people who just...
I can never see enough blood spilled in the Middle East for their taste. I don't know. I guess until Israel controls from the river to the sea and beyond, as Mike Huckabee said, into the Levant. Until that, they won't be happy, I don't think. But no one else is for it.
Yeah. The fact that the Lindsey Graham school like that, they got control, that they got the they got the helm for this, even though they represent a vanishing minority in the country in terms of views at this point. Like it's it's it's pretty staggering. The critique from like the kind of soft Trump supporters were like, this is what he said he wasn't going to do.
Why are you letting these people do this? They're sort of using him. I think that's true. I think that's true.
I want to play a little bit from Pete Hegseth, who's also not really been very impressive, I don't think, as Secretary of War. I don't know where you're at on that. But he did a press conference this morning. I don't know if this was a speechwriter or if he asked Grok to kind of write him like a novel, like a romance novel of the war. But during the press conference, he gave us this.
I'd like for you to react to. I did the same with his boss. A colonel with a heart the size of Texas and a beautiful deployment mustache to match. I witnessed lethality. I met a junior airman as the sun was going down and a chill was setting on the tarmac who, when asked what they needed, she simply looked up at me with a sly smile on her face and said, more bombs, sir, and bigger bombs.
We will happily oblige her.
I'm sorry. What do you even do with that? He saw lethality. And a man with a mustache. I thought they had to cut their mustaches and beards. I don't know.
I don't know where we landed on with the mustaches. Maybe it was just the beards. Yeah, that looked up on the chill, you know, a frost on the tarmac, a sly smile on the face. Why was it sly?
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Chapter 4: How do the hosts analyze the state of the Republican Party?
I think there were people that predicted the impact would be worse. That's the truth, right? Like people said, oh, these are going to be terrible. And they have been terrible for prices and they've had a negative impact. But we weathered it. We have weathered it. That's just absolutely the truth. They're bad costs. We shouldn't have done it.
And I think he's counting on the same thing here, that we can weather the implications of this. Our alliances can weather Trump's mercurial bullying across the world. But at a certain point, that's just not true. It stops being true. There's only so much we can take. And he just pushes it and pushes it and pushes it. And we'll just pay. We're just going to pay for years to come.
But I think this is unweatherable, I guess, is my take.
This is not a popular thing to do because you don't want to be – You don't want to be the never Trump pundit that's like, this is the end. The walls have closed in. A lot of carcasses in the desert of the walls are closing in on Trump takes. I don't think that this one is weatherable. I mean, you know, who knows? He's not ever running for anything again.
So I guess I mean, it depends what you mean by the definition of that. But I just I think that he's permanently politically damaged by it in a way that at other times he wasn't.
I agree with that. I think this is more like Bush after Katrina or Biden after kind of inflation hadn't resolved quickly enough and people determined that he was too old and were shocked that he was considering to run again. And there was no coming back from it and they were self-perpetuating. I think this is the chaos of this.
The failure to address prices, the fact that gas prices are now going to hit $5 a gallon across the country, plus him going around showing people the ballroom. I think this is locking him in. But he still remains popular on the Republican side. That's the problem.
I noticed you didn't pick an Obama flashpoint, like Obama after he failed to do Simpson Bowles or Obama after Solyndra or something like that.
Yeah, Solyndra. Did you see – listen, I'm sorry. Sorry. So I did it to trigger you to go ahead. Republicans spent a decade talking about cylindrin. And if you're not caught up on your 2010s, if you if you turned into politics after because of Trump, whatever, or if you're a kind of independent spirited person who maybe isn't familiar with the great.
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Chapter 5: What insights do they provide about the upcoming elections?
Okay. And you were at, I believe, the No Kings rally. That's right. And you were talking about... the MAGA rights immigration agenda, what's happening right now with the deportations, with DHS not being funded and how they were and the weakness of their blood and soil nationalism. And I was like, that's pretty good off the cuff bit, but I love it.
So I don't know if that's a shtick you've been working on, that you've been kind of workshopping in various podcasts or any place, but I want to explore it with you. You're basically talking about the hollowness of the MAGA rights blood and soil nationalism.
Yeah, so something I felt there out there, we were downtown in L.A. It was a bigger No Kings protest than the one that came before, and... You know, like it's a big coalition of people showing up. There are a lot of people.
I walked in like the first people I saw were as a lady. She was like, do you want to know what the communists think about the Epstein files? And I was like, I don't actually, but I appreciate that you're out here. And, you know, good luck.
I have a feeling it's actually maybe the one spot where you and the communists find some alignment.
We probably have some alignment on it. I just, you know, I had to move forward. I was with my kid, my husband, you know, we were kind of...
up to head speakers like blood and soil nationalism it kind of depends on having people kind of not just online but in the world right it's meant to be people that take great pride in their country and this is our country this is where we belong but you'd think if that were a genuine deep felt political ideology, it would exist in the world.
There'd be people walking around on soil, blood in their veins. But that's not really what MAGA is. There are people that'll go to a Turning Point USA event. There are just people that'll show up at a Trump rally. But millions and millions of people are showing up for No Kings.
They're leaving their house and their phones and their computers to bring their phones with them, but they're leaving their screens and they're going out and having a real experience with people in the world. MAGA doesn't really do that in the same way. MAGA is a movement of people watching screens and consuming content on social media and on television. That is what it is. It is
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Chapter 6: How does the discussion touch on the concept of evil in politics?
It's like, well, you know what? I think it'd be harder to turn Hungary into Hungary if it were filled with fucking Americans. There's a little bit of a lack of like, hey, we're America. First of all, we're a big, fractious place with multiple levels of government. We are a rebellious and freedom-loving people. And we don't like being told what to do for good and for ill. That's who we are. And
We talk a lot about the grievance part of what a fascistic government offers, right? You can point at the right enemies. You can galvanize people to turn against the other. We talk about that a lot. But there's another part of it, which is meaning and purpose, right? This only can happen if there's a real gap of meaning and purpose in a society. And I do think we are in that.
That is a feeling people have. We talk to people. There is... You can see it in whatever. You want to talk about loneliness. You talk about the ways in people feel like kind of disconnected from each other, the lack of community. People stopped going to churches and started doing horoscopes, whatever. But Trump doesn't have an answer for that. Trump can't speak to that.
He doesn't have any kind of language.
It's his library is the answer. It's a big penis tower with his name on it. That's the answer. It's like you should sign up to my lifestyle brand. You can wear the shirt if you want, the hat.
Yeah, and that is just not – it's not going to work for most people. It just isn't. And so he's not – there aren't millions of people signing up to put on a uniform and walk around the streets being a proud member of the Trump party. It just isn't what's happening because he's not offering them anything. He's not offering them – there's no positive part of the bargain.
He's not even doing the shit he said he would do for the people that voted for him even though they don't like him.
It's like a Stan culture thing. I need a New York Magazine article on this. It's like being a Belieber or whatever. Whatever Billy Eilish's fans called.
I'm not sure, Tim.
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Chapter 7: What are the challenges facing California Democrats?
Ruben guy goes been really good. There's others. I don't want to leave him to be out, but like, I have a little bit of feeling of an emptiness in the vigor of the response given the scale of the destruction. I wonder what you think of that.
You know, I'm conflicted about it. I have the same feeling you do. So let me just play it out. We talked about this yesterday on Pod Save America, John, about how you had Graham. What was that show? On what? It's called Pod Save America.
Hmm.
I'll check that out.
Lindsey Graham is at Disney World on Space Mountain. And then TMZ caught Congressman Robert Garcia of California in Las Vegas. And then Robert Garcia said, yeah, we should be in and we should be voting. But they sent us home. I'm visiting my father in Las Vegas. I'm not apologizing for that. And he posted a picture. That's the right way to handle that. I think that's right. But then you think.
Okay, I understand that you're not really in charge of when Congress is in or out, but what would an opposition look like if everyone was so incensed by the fact that they were being sent home that they refused to leave?
not because they were even necessarily that focused on the politics of it, but so outraged by the fact that they were being sent home without having had a vote on DHS, being told that they're going to leave for two weeks while people are working for the Coast Guard without being paid, while Trump is illegally paying TSA because that's what's drawing the most headlines, and just stayed in Congress, stayed there.
Yeah, called fake hearings. stood in front of the Capitol, walked to the White House, whatever it looks like. And I don't know which of those like kind of strategic things are the right thing to do to get the most attention.
But I think what you're getting at is this feeling like, where's that instinct, that sort of outrage that drives you inescapably towards standing on the stairs and refusing to go back to your district. And like that to me has been a problem with the Democratic response to Trump from the beginning.
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Chapter 8: What final thoughts do the hosts share about the episode?
Like what is our ideology? What is our view as Democrats? Because so many of the I think the like symbolic battles and you can whether it's it's like how Democrats should be signaling, right, on how angry they are about the shutdown or what should Democrats do to signal they're against the war in Iran.
So much of it flows from the fact that people generally know what Democrats, they fully and clearly know what Democrats are against. And I'm not going to go so far as to say people don't know what Democrats are for. I think they actually do broadly, right? But they don't understand what they're fighting for. They don't know what really drives them against.
And I think part of that flows from like there's just no clear ideology outside of the left of the party. Now, Rahm comes from the era, the Bill Clinton era, when there was a clear center-left, small-L liberal, pro-market governing ideology that was animating and interesting to people and interesting to them. They could talk about it.
If you asked a novel question to Bill Clinton about an issue he hadn't thought that much about – He had like a way of thinking about the world, a framework that he could use to apply it. And the left has that. I think some pro-democracy like the Chris Murphys of the world, I think do have kind of, they're on their way to that. But most Democrats just don't. They don't.
I don't think Chuck Schumer does. I don't think a lot of like mainstream Democrats have that. And so they kind of careen like. through politics, figuring out what's the best way they can kind of represent the party, signal to the base they're on their side, like kind of not be too far to the left, whatever. And it kind of leaves them straight jacket.
I think that's like kind of Kamala's campaign is like a signal example of that. So yeah, like I'm not super interested in these kinds of like signaling policy pronouncements.
I'm glad I asked you about that. That's more insightful than what I said. I do think that like short of coming up with that framework, Screaming about how much damage Donald Trump is doing would be good. It's better than nothing. It's certainly better than like leaking white papers. I just, while you were talking, I just Googled ICE raid community college. So I was curious.
It's like ICE unlawfully arrested a Minnesota community college student. ICE is taking students into custody at campuses like Elgin Community College, November 2025. This is shit that's happening right now.
And I think that there are plenty of opportunities to go engage with the world and show what you care about, even if you haven't come up with a broad ideological framework, but show where your passions are and signal that without playing the stupid, doing it in the stupid DC way.
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