The Bulwark Podcast

Chuck Todd: Is the Economy the Biggest Political Threat to Trump?

05 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Voters in the seven swing states that elected Trump in 2024 thought he'd make the economy better. His perceived strength on the economy is the corners...

Bill Kristol: This Is So Third World

04 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The boss only wants to hear good news: that's the takeaway from Trump's high-profile firing over the weak job numbers. So if a government worker has s...

Dan Osborn: Connecting with Working People

01 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Osborn, the populist independent who ran a surprisingly close campaign for a Senate seat in Nebraska last year, is back for another run in the 2026 mi...

Marc Elias: An Election War Machine

31 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Texas Republicans are busy gerrymandering their already gerrymandered congressional map, and other red states are looking to do the same—all aimed a...

Franklin Foer: Elon, the Man Who Ate NASA

30 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The rise of Elon—and why he is still involved with our government—has everything to do with the dimming of America's one-time crown jewel, NASA. W...

David French: Israel's Humanitarian Obligations

29 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Gaza is strewn with rubble, the war's end is nowhere in sight, and an entirely predictable humanitarian disaster is unfolding. With daily reports of s...

Bill Kristol: Trump Is a Moral Monster

28 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The man who cavorted with Jeffrey Epstein for 15 years never even bothers to feign empathy for Epstein's victims—even a sociopath would fake it. And...

Andrew Weissmann: It Stinks to High Heaven

25 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The deputy attorney general of the United States, who took an oath to help Donald Trump no matter what, is conferring with Jeffrey Epstein's literal p...

Mike Murphy: Trump's Kryptonite

24 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The one thing Mr. Authenticity was supposed to be was the anti-politician: the guy who would supposedly go after the establishment, clean up Washingto...

Neera Tanden: Aiding and Abetting Trump

23 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Mike Johnson is racing to shut the business of the House down to avoid a vote on releasing the Epstein files. Trump's own criminal lawyer, who's moonl...

Chris Murphy: Time to Break Norms(?)

22 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Republicans are nullifying bipartisan budget deals and planning a mid-decade redistricting to try to hold the House after the midterms. Trump is metho...

Bill Kristol: It's the Crimes and the Cover-Up

21 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Our government disappeared hundreds of Venezuelans to a hellish Salvadoran prison for 125 days. When Trump's and Stephen Miller's whole CECOT plan eve...

Tom Nichols: Secrets and Lies

18 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

If anyone in America was still thinking that Trump's ties to Epstein were a nothingburger, Trump’s own behavior this week has probably disabused the...

David Wallace-Wells: The U.S. Is Handing the Baton to China

17 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

While the Trump administration is doubling down on fossil fuels, China is annihilating us in the clean energy space. Right now, 75% of all renewable p...

Ben Wittes and Michael Feinberg: Breakdown at the FBI

16 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In addition to eviscerating the top leadership at the Bureau, Kash Patel has assigned whole squads of agents to immigration enforcement. Seasoned FBI ...

Brian Beutler: Time to Pop Off, Dems

15 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The majority of elected Democrats would prefer to talk only about policy, but that's not enough for today's freewheeling new media environment. It's w...

Bill Kristol: Has Trump Trapped Himself?

14 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

With the Epstein case, the conspirator-in-chief has finally found a hoax that MAGA isn't buying—and he's risking his credibility among his newer sup...

Sam Stein: This Is the Country They Want

03 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Republicans are creating, and celebrating, an immigration police state financed by their megabill. Our cities will be militarized, we'll have prison c...

Galen Druke: Americans Do Not Like Trump's Deportations

02 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Trump has moved public opinion against his own immigration policy platform by sending masked agents out to nab people off the street. So, Democrats sh...

E. Jean Carroll and Sarah Longwell: Such a Bad Man

01 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Ever the journalist, E. Jean took assiduous notes about her two civil suits against Donald Trump, the only occasions he has been held liable for his l...

Bill Kristol: Limp Opposition

30 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Thom Tillis finally showed some backbone and opposed Trump—because of the giant Medicaid cuts in the Big Fugly Bill—but now he has to self-deport ...

Nicholas Kristof: Gratuitous Cruelty

27 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

A miracle food paste that fights malnutrition in children, that taxpayers have already paid for, is collecting dust in warehouses. Donated drugs for p...

Michael Weiss and Jonathan Cohn: Animal House at the Pentagon

26 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Trump was so awestruck by Israel's intel infiltration and air supremacy over Iran that he just had to give himself an executive producer credit. And h...

Derek Thompson: Winning Without Anger

25 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

A DSA candidate winning a Democratic primary in New York City is not an ideal laboratory for other Dems to draw lessons from, but Mamdani sounded auth...

Nicolle Wallace: The Silence of Republicans Is the Bigger Threat

24 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

While Trump and his administration are the ones politicizing the rule of the law, ignoring due process, and annihilating democratic norms, it's Republ...

Bill Kristol: Trump Is Not the Right Man for a Crisis

23 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Tim and Bill may have different takes on the wisdom of the U.S. bombing of Iran's nuclear sites—and on potential regime change—but they see eye-to...

Mark Cuban: Character Is Destiny

20 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

What if it had been a Harris-Cuban ticket in 2024? Well, it turns out the billionaire entrepreneur had been seriously considered for the VP slot—and...

Mark McKinnon and Dan Shapiro: Mid-Wreckage

19 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Because half the country so desperately wanted Trump back, we may now be on the verge of attacking Iran because the fake peacenik president wants some...

Ben Rhodes: The World We Made

18 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Iran is in a vulnerable spot for a variety of reasons, and Israel sees this as a stars-aligning moment to decapitate the Iranian state. But if the U.S...

Zohran Mamdani: FYPod Crossover

17 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

NYC mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani joins Tim and Cam for a special edition of the daily pod to discuss making the city more affordable, building mor...

Bill Kristol and Terry Moran: True American Spirit

16 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In contrast to the saddest military junta parade in history, millions of patriotic people took to the streets on Saturday to defend American values an...

Tom Nichols: Remember the Split Screen

13 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

On Saturday, Trump would like nothing more than images from Los Angeles of tear gas and balaclava-clad anarchists throwing bottles at Marines to compl...

Andrew Weissmann: Outlandish and Outrageous

12 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Trump is outright fabricating a justification for sending Guard troops into Los Angeles, and his directive is not limited only to LA. So, if someone a...

Mark Hertling: Contrary to American Values

11 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Trump keeps wrapping himself in the American flag while while behaving in a very anti-American way—like threatening to shut down protests at his $45...

Bill Kristol: People Should Be Mad

10 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Where is Obama? Where is George W. Bush? A Marine battalion and the National Guard have been deployed in response to a spark Trump set off by sweeping...

S2 Ep1060: Ta-Nehisi Coates: A Natural Human Reaction

09 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Trump and Stephen Miller wanted a backlash against the immigration raids, because even they know that humans will respond when the federal government ...

S2 Ep1059: Sam Stein: The Divorce

06 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Elon went nuclear, accusing Trump of being a pedo, taking credit for his election victory, and calling for his impeachment. Trump in return may try to...

S2 Ep1058: Matt Yglesias: Elon's Smash and Grab

05 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Trump's and Musk's very public breakup may be amusing, but don't lose sight of the fact that DOGE was a failure—despite what the manosphere says. El...

S2 Ep1057: Rahm Emanuel: Trump Is a Chump

04 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The lovelorn TACO trader has been hanging by the phone at 2am hoping China's Xi will call him to make a tariff deal. But that call is not coming witho...

S2 Ep1056: Catherine Rampell: Slow Burn

03 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Jamie Dimon is spooked about the bond market, business uncertainty about tariffs is dragging the economy, and it seems like no politician will get ser...

S2 Ep1055: Bill Kristol: The Grotesqueness of It All

02 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Mike Johnson and Russ Vought outright lied on camera about the proposed Medicaid cuts and the impact they would have on millions of Americans. Marco R...

S2 Ep1054: Adam Serwer, Lauren Egan, and Justin Jones: The Attack on Knowledge

30 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The Trump administration is trying to exert ideological control over every knowledge-producing institution in the country. And the assault on colleges...

S2 Ep1053: Live from Chicago

29 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Adam Kinzinger joined Tim on stage in the Windy City Wednesday night to dis Chicken Trump, who's made bitcoin bros, private prisons, his family and fr...

S2 Ep1052: George Packer: JD, Hollow Man

28 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Our VP used to think his path to power was through the ruling class at Yale Law School. But after 2016, he saw that his route was through Trump, so he...

S2 Ep1051: Pete Buttigieg: Dream Bigger, Talk More Boldly

27 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Democrats need vastly more imagination to confront the enormous challenges the country faces politically, economically, and on climate. The party can'...

S2 Ep1050: Bill Kristol: Something Worth Fighting For

26 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Despite our missteps in some of our more recent wars, we were fighting to bring freedom, democracy, and self-governance to others. Now, Trump's mercan...

S2 Ep1049: James Comey: Uncomfortably Numb

23 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Public corruption used to be a congressman hiding $90,000 in his freezer. Now, we have a president taking "me time" to rake in $40 million from a Chin...

S2 Ep1048: Jonathan Chait: House GOP Doesn't Care How Bad the Bill Is

22 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Republicans moved at such lightning speed that even they don't know how many people would lose health insurance— or how much they'd be spiking the d...

S2 Ep1047: Susan Glasser: American in Name Only

21 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

On deportations and on foreign policy, the Trump administration is swapping out American values and violating everything the U.S. has stood for in exc...

S2 Ep1046: David French: Schizo-in-Chief

20 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

One day Trump sounds like Bernie promising the government will provide for everything. Then the next, he's like Paul Ryan the belt-tightener, prepping...

S2 Ep1045: Bill Kristol: A New Gilded Age

19 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

No, the Trump administration is not focused on the forgotten man or bringing industrial jobs back. Instead, the real estate developer is handing out t...

S2 Ep1044: Peter Hamby: All in Service of Kissing Trump's Ass

16 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

MAGA is having a performative tantrum calling for James Comey to be jailed over a seashell meme because the daily job of Trump's supporters and Cabine...

S2 Ep1043: Michael Weiss: All Bribes Accepted

15 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

American taxpayers may have flown Donald Trump to the Middle East, but he's not there to negotiate on behalf of our strategic or national interests—...

S2 Ep1042: Leah Litman and Andrew Egger: Grievance All the Way Down

14 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The five men on the Supreme Court are so easily triggered and seem to be making law based on their emotional needs. Meanwhile, they also see discrimin...

S2 Ep1041: Justin Wolfers: Trump's Centrally Planned Economy

13 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

China sounds downright Reaganesque and is acting like a more stable, attractive trading partner than the country that launched a trade war. And even t...

S2 Ep1040: Bill Kristol: A Golden 747 from Hamas's Sugar Daddy

12 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Trump can't abide flying around in crusty, old Air Force One. Qatar—funder of both Hamas and the leading U.S. college Gaza protest group—just happ...

S2 Ep1039: Amanda Carpenter: MAGA's Bad Week

09 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

First, the Vatican chose a Bulwark pope, not an AR-15 loving, immigrant-hating pope. Then, in a major blow to Steve Bannon, Trump pulled his nominee f...

S2 Ep1038: Leah Greenberg and Ezra Levin: The Power of 'No'

08 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Protest is the new brunch again. We're witnessing historic levels of pro-democracy grassroots engagement across a broad-based movement of everyday peo...

S2 Ep1037: Katie Phang and Greg Casar: Trump & Co Are the Real Flag Burners

07 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The Supreme Court is working hard to tend to Mr. Presidential Immunity's wounds because he just can't abide lower federal court judges telling him he ...

S2 Ep1036: Jonathan V. Last: An Economic Tsunami Is Coming

06 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Because Donald Trump's stupid trade embargo has us reading shipping charts, we now know that 40% of containership traffic between Asia and the U.S. ha...

S2 Ep1035: Bill Kristol: A Reckless, Tin-Pot President

05 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Trump 2.0 is showing so little concern for his political standing that even Fox made primetime room for Karl Rove to vent about how he's failing at th...

S2 Ep1034: Derek Thompson: Trump's War on Dolls

02 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Just imagine Fox's histrionics if a President AOC had said that American kids have too many dolls and that she's raising the price on them. Now the su...

S2 Ep1033: Tom Nichols: The Hollow Opportunists

01 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Marco Rubio was supposed to be one of the only adults in the room, and now he's become a shell of himself executing Trump's unwinding of the US role i...

S2 Ep1032: Tony Blinken: America Alone

30 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

For 80 years, the United States built strong economic, military, and political alliances around the world. But in just 100 days, that trust has been d...

S2 Ep1031: Joe Weisenthal: Everything Screams Recession

29 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The markets may be hanging in there but they also held strong in early 2020—right up until Covid hit New York. Meanwhile, tariffs are driving consum...

S2 Ep1030: Bill Kristol: Creepy and Wrong

28 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The Trump administration keeps showing it's sooo tough on immigration that it deported three U.S. citizen children, arrested the wife of a member of t...

S2 Ep1029: Beto O'Rourke: Never Lose Hope

25 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Since this country's founding, we have been tested. And the Americans before us somehow stood up and fought the good fight. We can't be the generation...

S2 Ep1028: Cory Booker: A National Crisis and a Global Crisis

24 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Donald Trump is trying to foist the worst peace deal in the last 100 years on Ukraine, as he gets repeatedly played by foreign leaders on the world st...

S2 Ep1027: Jonathan Rauch: Focus On the Corruption

23 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Trump may be brilliant at assaulting us with his daily distractions, but Democrats need to relentlessly target his corruption because that may be his ...

S2 Ep1026: Michael Steele: Your Voice Matters

22 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Trump and the people around him are trying to weaken our constitutional protections like due process. But the administration is getting rattled, becau...

S2 Ep1025: Bill Kristol: Hegseth Keeps Proving his Unfitness

21 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Republican senators could have insisted on someone who was even minimally competent to run our military, but because of their spinelessness, we've now...

S2 Ep1024: Anne Applebaum: Everything Is a Game to Trump

18 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Sen. Van Hollen showed that Congress actually does have agency, and a federal judge finally scorched the administration in crystal-clear language abou...

S2 Ep1023: Ben Wittes: Sorry, We Still Have Due Process

17 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The White House is doubling down on justifying its extra-judicial actions around Abrego Garcia by trying to incriminate him in the court of public opi...

S2 Ep1022: Stephanie Ruhle: Only Trump Is Happy

16 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Manufacturing orders are down, stocks are down, and mortgage rates are up. But Trump and his family are wealthier than they've ever been. He's got his...

S2 Ep1021: Josh Barro: Total Idiocy

15 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Trump & company want to turn us into Taiwan circa 1985. But the brilliant minds behind the idea of intentionally weakening the dollar are prioriti...

S2 Ep1020: Bill Kristol: Staring Down the Barrel

14 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

We are here: Trump is openly defying the Supreme Court while sitting side-by-side with a Latin American strongman who openly mocked our judicial syste...

S2 Ep1019: David Frum: It's Too Late to Stop the Pain

11 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Trump has effectively imposed a trade embargo on China, which means that after the inventory runs out, American retail will soon dry up. And since Eur...

S2 Ep1018: Andrew Weissmann and Patrick Gaspard: Naked Corruption

10 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Just before he paused the tariffs on Wednesday, an unusual spike in activity on the S&P 500 prompted speculation that Trump was orchestrating an i...

S2 Ep1017: Catherine Rampell: Trump's Tariffmageddon

09 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The White House is pumping out a lot of happy talk about countries wanting to make deals over the tariffs, but the tumult Trump has created has spread...

S2 Ep1016: Jonathan Cohn and Mark Lilla: Lobotomizing America

08 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

When it comes to biomedical research, America is already great. We are the world's leader in the field. But the Trump administration is gutting resear...

S2 Ep1015: Bill Kristol: The High Cost of Stupidity

07 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Part of the reason for the market bloodbath is because the finance wizzes didn't factor in that Trump would actually do the truly moronic thing he kep...

S2 Ep1014: Adam Kinzinger: Mortal Damage to the American Empire

04 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

It's been great to live in America since World War II, but Trump is in the process of blowing up that whole order. Even Canada is looking to lead a ne...

S2 Ep1013: Mallory McMorrow and Tracy Alloway: A Self-Inflicted Crisis

03 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The market plunge is just pure Trump chaos, and perfectly matches his record as a businessman. From his numerous bankruptcies and many failures—incl...

S2 Ep1012: Sam Stein: Elon Is Toxic

02 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Musk was so high on his own supply that he thought he and his money were magic—but Wisconsin voters turned out in droves to prove to him just how to...

S2 Ep1011: Susan Rice: This Is Bloody Serious

01 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The administration admits it mistakenly sent a Maryland father with protected status to the Salvadoran penal colony—but at the same time, it says th...

S2 Ep1010: Bill Kristol: Stiffen Your Spines, Democrats

31 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

If Joe Rogan is the voice in the wilderness on the disappearing of migrants to El Salvador, then the Democratic leadership really needs to rethink its...

S2 Ep1009: Amanda Carpenter: Daddy? No, Manny Trump

28 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Trump is siccing the thought police on the Smithsonian, he's got an FBI task force set up to protect Elon's car company, and he's turning random tatto...

S2 Ep1008: Jon Lovett: A Worst Case Scenario Comes Into View

27 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Trump so far is not delivering on his promised spike in deportations, but he is creating a permission structure where we lock up people without due pr...

S2 Ep1008: Michael Weiss, Ben Smith, and Annie Karni: Radioactively Stupid

26 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

No matter how hard Republicans try to spin the sharing of top secret military attack plans on an insecure app, the colossal f***up of an administratio...

S2 Ep1007: Jeffrey Goldberg and Peter Wehner: What's Going on with Our National Security?

25 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Senior members of Trump's Cabinet got caught sharing attack plans—down to details of who they were planning to kill, and with what kind of weapons, ...

S2 Ep1006: Live from Phoenix

24 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Bill Kristol joined Tim Saturday in Arizona to rip the atrocious behavior of our government—depriving even lawful Venezuelan migrants of due process...

S2 Ep1005: Michael Lewis: Government Workers Aren't the Corrupt Ones

21 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Trump loves to complain about the deep state while Elon claims he's rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse with all his mass firings. But DOGE should be ...

S2 Ep1004: Wes Moore: The System Doesn't Work for a Lot of People

20 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Trump is a vessel for frustration over the status quo, but he is not a vehicle for a solution—since he has no idea about how to make things better f...

S2 Ep1003: Ben Wittes: Putin Makes A Fool of Trump, Again

19 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The Art of the Deal guy gave a master class on how to get worked over by Putin: First, wait around for an hour like an obedient puppy only to have you...

S2 Ep1002: Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov: The Cheap Whore at the White House

18 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The fastest growing demographic class in America is billionaires—we've gone from 500 to 2,500 in the past 10 years. And they know the cheapest, easi...

S2 Ep1001: Bill Kristol: Give Back the Statue of Liberty

17 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Trump is taking liberties with our country's role in the world as a land of hope and opportunity by summarily locking up and deporting law-abiding imm...

S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution

14 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Trump & company aren't even attempting to create a pretext for why they're punishing the free speech of political opponents. They are basically co...

S2 Ep999: Sam Stein: How Do You Negotiate with Nihilists?

13 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Democrats are stuck with two terrible options: Either facilitating a government shutdown or allowing Republicans to pass a spending bill that would de...

Mark Hertling: Aiding and Abetting a War Criminal

12 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Putin has been named a war criminal because of the Russian way of war in Ukraine—bombing Kyiv and other cities, attacking civilians and first aid wo...

Will Sommer: Across the MAGA-Verse

11 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

To find out what's really going on in Trumpistan, the AP is out and random lifestyle Instagrammers and MAGA conspiracy posters are in. Meanwhile, hoth...