Mike Murphy: The Sh*t Is Sticking to Trump
episodePreviously titled “Mike Murphy: Republicans Are Feeling Fed Up with POTUS” — renamed by the publisher on Aug 3, 2026
Transcript
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What triggered Senate Republicans' opposition to Trump?
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Hello and welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. Delighted to welcome back to the show veteran political strategist. His campaigns include McCain, Romney, Schwarzenegger, and Jeb. He's the co-host of Hacks on Tap, co-director of the Center for the Political Future at USC. He also runs the American EV Jobs Alliance. We're in California, so I'm bringing in Mike Murphy. What's up, Murph? Hey, good to be here, Tim. At last night's live show, we brought out a bunch of, you know, lib content creators and commentators. You're Jon Favreau's, you're Jane Koston's, you're Van Lathan's, you're Brian Tyler Cohen's.
It's like a swarm here in LA. You can't avoid them.
They're everywhere, honestly. You know, people need kind of like some raid to keep them away. But I subjected them to a Never Trumper trivia, which had like deep cuts, questions about Mitt Romney, who did Dick Cheney shoot, you know, all that kind of material. And you would have dominated. It was an embarrassing performance by them last night.
We need to start up a school to properly educate the young'uns here.
We do. We do. All right. We've got much to get to. Part of the reason we wanted to have you here in California, there's a lot of California politics, so we'll get to that. Sure. But first, we have some good news. So I'd like to start with some good news. Modest good news, you know, but we take it where we can get it. We're seeing some Republican Hill pushback over the fund and over a couple of different things. And the reconciliation bill has been derailed. Everybody from, you know, the retiring Tom Tillis over to Tommy Tuberville. They aren't thrilled. Todd Blanche went over to the Senate to try to win people over to try to bribe them saying, hey, even some of you senators might be able to get some money from this fund.
And it doesn't seem like it's taking. And that's that's meaningful, I think. What about you?
No, I agree. I mean, it's kind of an interesting mixture. On one hand, this bill, hey, let's have a COP assault payola fund, is so odious and horrible that even the Gumby-like flexibility of the modern Republican elected federal official is like more bending than even they can do. But Trump's also got what I call the rotary revolt going on, which is the Senate is a combination of Rotary Club and Nursing Home. And they're, you know, they're their own thing. And they like Cornyn. And what they liked even more was having some hope they can hang on to majority, which by rights and by the nature of the states that are up this year, they should be able to. But this Democratic kill Trump wave, which is now a national Democrats and independents, even some Republicans punish Trump wave is threatening the Senate.
And so the one they felt pretty good about Texas, Trump pops up and endorses the biggest loser in the history of Republican Party, this corrupt Paxton guy killing their friend Cornyn. So there there's just good old institutional slash personal rage going on. And they're looking for ways to punish him in this odious payola thing and the blimp hanger, too. That's wobbling. And then he's got the Revenge Caucus, which are people he screwed with who lost primaries or could have lost primaries.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What triggered Senate Republicans' opposition to Trump?
0:00–7:36
2
How are Democrats strategizing around the DHS shutdown?
7:36–15:25
3
What implications does Trump's stock trading have on politics?
15:25–23:27
4
How are Senate races shaping up in the current political climate?
23:27–32:09
5
What are the key issues facing California politics today?
32:09–39:35
6
How is the Democratic National Committee responding to internal challenges?
39:35–46:57
7
What are the prospects for EV manufacturing in America versus China?
46:57–54:25
8
What lessons can be drawn from the political dynamics discussed in this episode?
54:25–57:09
Speakers
3 identifiedMore from The Bulwark Daily
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Adam Jentleson and Pablo Torre: This Country Is Being Scammed
Bill Kristol: A Blue Wave vs. the Toxic Red Tide
David French: MAGA Is Making America Less Free