The Bulwark Podcast

Roughly 2,000 people a day are being swept up by ICE and put in subhuman conditions. And Stephen Miller's quotas likely contributed to the recent tragic deaths of two immigrants. Meanwhile, Graham Platner is still holding the Democratic Party hostage. What lessons can be learned for Democrats who went along with this walking red flag?

After being a guest on Piers' show numerous times, Tim gets a chance to pin him down for answers. Like, how could he have ever thought Trump in his second term was ready to be a "great president?" And even though Piers is now critical of Trump's tariffs and the war he started in Iran, he still thinks the verdict is out on Trump's obvious corruption—and whether the man can evolve and change the course of his presidency.

POTUS went on a stock buying spree the day before he paused some of his tariffs last year. The markets rebounded on his tariffs' reversal. On Monday, Trump from the Oval Office encouraged Americans to buy stock in Dell, a company he's heavily invested in. And he defended his children having access to insider information because of his presidency. This is Putin-grade corruption.

It's hard to be in a celebratory mood about America 250. The administration only wants to tell a narrow story of the country without all the contradictions and complexities of its history.

Not only did Trump pocket $2.2 billion last year—vastly increasing his pre-presidency wealth—he shamelessly showed off his new hand-me-down plane from Qatar which Americans paid hundreds of millions of dollars to upgrade. Not to mention, there's a massive conflict of interest involved in Trump taking a gift from a country that is directly impacted by his administration's foreign policy decisions.

Trump leaves ice cream cartons, potato chip bags, and candy wrappers all over his personal space at the White House. His diet aside, his aides are working overtime to keep the state of his health a secret. And it turns out that his loss in 2020 made him more powerful: He didn't have to deal with post-Covid inflation and the withdrawal from Afghanistan. Trump also wouldn't have been prosecuted, which ultimately led to him getting his get-out-jail free card to break all the laws, courtesy of the Supreme Court.

SCOTUS did manage, for now, to stop Trump from recreating the American republic, but four of the court's justices believe that the fundamental law of birthright citizenship in the Constitution can just be repealed—along with the very nature of what American citizenship means. But overall, while Trump had some big wins from the Supreme Court this term, he also had massive losses. David runs down some of the latest rulings with Tim.

The most powerful person in the world repeatedly creates his own narrative about a news event despite what we can see and hear with our own eyes and our own ears. Media organizations that don’t fight like hell in response are failing at doing their most basic job—and they’re failing the country and our democracy as well. That’s what CBS News did when it settled Trump’s frivolous “60 Minutes” lawsuit and when it tried to change the story of the Minneapolis protests to benefit Trump.

The "eating the cats and dogs" blood libel worked so well that SCOTUS agreed to end humanitarian protections for Haitians. Justice Alito, who complained about the way Italian-Americans were depicted in "The Sopranos," just couldn't see any racism in Trump's repeated disparagement of Haiti or its immigrants. By the way, Megyn Kelly: You didn't do anything to build this country. And while JD thinks NIxon's Watergate crimes are now no big deal, the federal government just sentenced an American to 30 years in prison for moving anarchist zines out of his home.

The POTUS speech to kickoff the "state fair" in honor of America's 250th year was all about how the country is great because of him. Meanwhile, Hegseth is continuing to purge the Pentagon of some of our best warfighters for political and cowardly reasons.

The Mamdani sweep in NYC shows that the populist left is winning the arguments about Israel policy and going after billionaires, but it sure seems like there may be limits to their success outside the blue urban core. And Republicans are likely to make hay with at least one of Tuesday’s congressional primary winners—Darializa Avila Chevalier—who wants to end policing and won’t say whether murderers should go to jail. But the GOP colossally screwed up in North Carolina and Georgia, and Tim makes a bold prediction about how the party will respond.

The era of hell that we are living through may have been ordained in the 90s by angry Republican voters who felt screwed by the corporate elite—and political leaders who didn’t represent them. Trump watched Pat Buchanan and David Duke and saw how their protectionist, anti-immigrant, culture war messaging was resonating. More recently, Trump returned to his New York wheeler-dealer vibe by getting us in a war because he needed to look strong after SCOTUS struck down his stupid tariffs.

Trump is so embarrassed by his own personal vandalism of the Reflecting Pool that he's got the Justice Department investigating his latest conspiracy about bad guys that don't exist. Of course Fox News is happy to oblige by menacing journalists who dared to report on the damage POTUS did to the national monument. Meanwhile, Vance's Catholic conversion story is almost more fake than Trump's tough stance against the Iranian regime.

Obama never thought Trump could win in 2016, perhaps because he underestimated how much the opposition loathed him. At the opening of his new presidential center on Thursday, he spoke of presidents acting with duty, honor, and kindness—even though the current occupant at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is all about destroying things, being mean, hurting people, and starting dumb wars. Indeed, Trump's foreign policy may be more in the American tradition than Obama's.

Donald Trump gave away the store in the second worst treaty signed at Versailles. The bounty POTUS delivered has already started to flow with the lifting of oil sanctions on Iran. The unfreezing of restricted assets—and a $300 billion reconstruction and investment fund—is just around the corner. Trump is even defending Iran's right to have ballistic missiles. He likes to talk tough, but he is a wuss, and the Dems can't let up on calling him out for his cowardice and his stupid war.

The pro-Israel hawks are still reeling from the terms of Trump's initial deal with Iran, which grants access to funds that had been frozen because of the regime's support of terrorism. The neocons got bamboozled by Trump, like so many before them—in this case believing that he would always have Israel's back.

Vance is trying to sell the administration’s initial deal with Iran as a signal that the regime is ready to end its reign of terror and join the community of nations. Never mind that the CIA is outwardly saying that the Iranians can’t be trusted and that the developing agreement looks like a disaster waiting to happen. Also looking pretty naive are the pro-Israel American foreign policy hawks, who thought Trump would be a good war partner with the Israelis. Trump is now on day three of trash-talking Bibi and Israel—this time at the G7.

POTUS humiliated himself and our country with a peace “deal” that strengthens Iran’s hand and apparently pays billions to the regime—which it can use to build more weapons and fund its proxy terror groups. We don’t even know if the Strait of Hormuz is open, despite the credulous reporting by numerous media outlets. Meanwhile, Trump’s cage fight at the White House was beyond parody and truly despicable on so many levels, including: taxpayer money being spent to glorify him, the corruption and kickbacks surrounding the fight, and the Saudis underwriting a White House event, even though they share none of our traditions or values.

The vice president of the United States called a meeting in the Situation Room last year to discuss the administration's cover-up of the Epstein files. Never mind that there were allegations in the files that Trump had had sex with an underage girl in Epstein's child trafficking ring—and which somehow involved Trump's alleged nipple fetish. The Epstein victims and the underlying crimes were not a priority in the meeting; getting Ghislaine or Vance on a friendly podcast was.

Trump shifts his position on the Iran war so often that it sure looks like he is using the same propaganda technique that Putin uses with abandon: Flood people with contradictory stories to confuse and exhaust them so they'll just tune out. That could be helpful for a commander–in-chief running a failed military campaign. At the same time, the only engagement the administration seems to want is from the online world—which they use to create an alternate reality.

Donald Trump knows he is on target to lose the midterms, so he's busy laying the groundwork now for challenging the outcome in the fall. That's why he seized the 2020 ballots in Fulton County, why he's determined to get hatchet man Bill Pulte in place as director of national intelligence, and why he’s pushing the South to gerrymander back to the dark days of Jim Crow. This is not the time to despair or to outsource the fight for democracy to others.

Trump's approval rating may be near record lows, but tech tycoons and powerhouse CEOs are still all-in with bending the knee to Trump and bearing him gifts. If he turned America into an oligarchy, they'd be OK with that too. Anything to gut regulations and keep their taxes low—even if regular Americans might soon be looking for a pitchfork. Jason tries to explain the view from the tech world to the rest of us.

Todd Blanche did one singular thing that particularly pleased Donald Trump: He organized and executed the Epstein cover-up. Democrats must ruthlessly hang Blanche's dirty work on every Republican senator who's willing to confirm him as AG. That includes his moving Ghislaine Maxwell to a cushier prison, the millions of documents he's not releasing, and his complete disregard for the survivors.

The corruption in the Trump administration is so shameless and so abundant that neither the media nor regular people can keep up. While Ivanka’s purchase of a private “fixer-upper” island is getting a lot of attention (aside from infuriated Albanians), the private equity deals her husband is making while supposedly negotiating Middle East peace are not.

Most of the multibillionaires are not only hoarding their money and failing to contribute to the public good, they're also using their wealth-based power to manipulate the government, the markets, or our elections. Like Elon, for instance, who just manipulated the Nasdaq so all Americans with a 401(k) can help him become the first trillionaire by the end of the year. At some point, there is such a thing as too many billions for one person, and we need to start applying the pre-Reagan tax rate.

After "60 Minutes" veteran Scott Pelley was fired, he said that the new management at CBS News had instructed him to put false information in his political stories. Coupled with the decimation at The Washington Post, it feels like there is a vast rightwing conspiracy to take over the media. Plus, the much-promised ceasefire with Iran is nowhere in sight, Megyn Kelly feels duped by Trump, California's marquee races look like they'll be Dem v. MAGA, and Steve King gets revenge.

Republicans never defend Trump’s corruption on the merits. Their lot in life is just to serve up anti-moral excuses for his repeated acts of immorality. And the Dems are currently in a bit of a moral dilemma of their own over the latest Platner revelations, given the moral imperative of having a Senate that obstructs Trump’s worst policies. Questions of morality also surface with AI, particularly if we allow machines to do the thinking for us.

Another weekend passed without a promised Iran deal. Despite reporting to the contrary, Iran’s negotiators don’t live in caves, and they’re not interested in dealing with the U.S. anymore, at least according to state media. Meanwhile, the president continues to release unhinged midnight bleats on his social media platform, including one targeting not just a judge who ruled against him in the Kennedy Center case but also that judge’s spouse. That’s just one reminder that the authoritarian threat remains, and we should prepare for election meddling if the midterms don’t go Trump’s way.

Tim just happened to quote from an official Iranian news agency about how the regime is cleaning up in their negotiations with the Trump administration, and the White House accused him of being a foreign agent. Maybe the administration should take a closer look at all the money the guy sitting behind the Resolute Desk and his family are getting from Mideast dictators if they're really looking for foreign agents. Speaking of massive amounts of corruption, the Dems need to be making the case everywhere just how brazenly corrupt Trump & co. are—and not wait until 2027.

Bezos, Elon, Andreessen and the whole lot are such terrible, tiny, greedy people. They blow off the public’s concerns about AI while living apart from us in their cashmere prisons; they keep talking about things they know nothing about; and they figured out how cheap it is to buy and manipulate a president. The pitchforks are coming.

The United States lost the Iran war back in March when Trump chickened out and didn’t retaliate against Tehran once it proved it could inflict economic pain on the Gulf states. While much of the mainstream media keeps hyping the negotiations and the ceasefire, Iran is not making concessions and is focused on shaking Trump down for money. But the biggest loser in this debacle may be Israel, which turned itself from a dominant power in the region to a losing power. And Israel, which the administration is likely to turn against, has been irreparably damaged in the U.S. as well.

As we barrel towards July 4th, Trump wants the celebration of our country's 250th anniversary to be not only about him but also about America as a white republic. But this diverse nation needs to speak up and speak back loudly to drown out that MAGA messaging. In his new book, Glaude lays out the inherent contradiction of America's milestone anniversaries, starting with the one in 1876.

The master negotiator couldn't have been more clear how badly he wants out of his war, and now the Iranians are enjoying twisting the knife over a murky developing deal that will likely deliver sanctions relief and more. Trump keeps trying to shoehorn the Abraham Accords into the negotiations as a face-saving move, but there's no denying that the U.S. has made Iran a stronger power than it was before the war.

Trump's killing off of John Cornyn's political career was the last straw for Senate Republicans, who magically found the courage—for the moment—to oppose his thug fund and the cool billion dollars he's demanding for his ballroom. And while the DNC autopsy shows a party not focused on winning, Jeffries and Schumer played a very shrewd hand with their anti-ICE DHS shutdown.

From the state where Trump claims he’d win if Jesus counted the votes, Sarah and Sam joined Tim live on stage in San Diego to debate who is the most cucked Republican and whether Bill Cassidy should get credit for his late-in-the-game YOLO opposition to Trump. Also, Jeff Bezos has Tim rethinking his opposition to socialism, and how could Bibi and Trump have had such an absurd plan for a new Iranian president?

Tennessee is on the front lines of the racialized politics that has resurfaced in the South since SCOTUS gutted the Voting Rights Act. Its Jim Crow legislature stripped the people of Memphis of congressional representation for their majority-black city, and Democratic legislators have been punished for protesting the move. The state is looking less like a democracy by the day.

Donald Trump—as a private citizen—sued our government, which he runs, and then "settled" the lawsuit with $1.8 billion that he stole from the U.S. Treasury. See, he needs a secret fund of taxpayer money so he can pay not only reparations to his band of Jan 6 rioters, but also to incentivize future (election) criming on his behalf. In a special emergency TNL, Tim, Sarah, and JVL break it all down.

Sadly, it’s taken some time, but voters seem to be figuring out that Trump only cares about himself, his ballroom, his blatant corruption, and his unquenchable desire for revenge. 2026, so far, has been bad for his approval ratings. And his continued weakness on the world stage, especially when it comes to Iran and China, will only drive his numbers down more. At the same time, Trump has done permanent damage to our standing among our allies.

If the IRS goes ahead and gives in to Donald Trump's demands for a MAGA slush fund, it would be outright theft of the public's money and corruption on a scale that we've never even contemplated in this country. What would stop him from plundering even more from the American people?

The Chinese have long envied America's power, influence, and market share. But after Trump's failed trade war, his attacks on allies, and the embarrassment in Iran, the view from Beijing has shifted: It now sees us as a nation in decline. Plus, inflation is creeping back up, the stock market is out of whack, new Fed Chair Kevin Warsh is screwed, and the ag community is feeling the pain of Trump's policies. And for the view from the Democratic resistance, Rep. Garcia tells Tim that Dems are not finished with their own redistricting and that Gavin's greatest strength is his obsession with winning.

Trump’s recent insomnia-induced, Obama-obsessed posting spree showed a level of paranoia and delusion that should be raising real concerns about the mental health of our commander-in-chief. The new blotch on his neck to go with the giant bruises on his hands is not helping matters. Is the DOJ mulling a $10 billion IRS settlement with Trump to try to ease his emotional distress over his seeming loss in Iran?

Because Donald Trump has so thoroughly hijacked the Department of Justice, the public can no longer be confident that a criminal investigation or indictment is legitimate. The default assumption is that official DOJ actions are about servicing Trump's needs for validation, power, or retribution—like the latest seashell-related charges against Comey.

Instead of doing the job Americans have been paying Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy for—like trying to alleviate the high price of gas and air travel—he's been shirking his responsibilities on a seven-month-long family road trip paid for by industry lobbyists. And of course, Trump is also being looked after: His ghastly, 22-foot golden sculpture was unveiled, and Republicans promised a billion taxpayer dollars for what was supposed to be a donor-funded ballroom. POTUS needs a little bit of a psychological boost after his apparent defeat in Iran.

Tennessee just completely disenfranchised its black voters after the Supreme Court gave red states the green light to rig the midterms by redistricting black majority districts out of existence—as long as lawmakers pretend they don’t see color when they’re doing it. And while partisan gerrymandering is A-OK with Alito & co., it apparently is not alright for Democratic voters in Virginia to do anything like that to Republicans. Sure sounds like the free speech rules of the Trump administration, where people are free to say what Republicans want said.

Trump's corruption is so astonishing, extensive, and overwhelming that most people can't keep up with all the ways he's profiting off his presidency every single day. Isaac examined the reporting on the First Family's self-dealing in Trump's second term, and he's compiled the most exhaustive accounting of it so far. Just two examples: Trump's sons are doing business with a criminal syndicate that stole billions from Americans; and Trump last year branded a cellphone, had it certified by the FCC, and never delivered them to buyers who paid $100 for the device.

The regime in Tehran is not as fractured as is commonly portrayed, and it is also pragmatic enough to see the economic opportunities that would follow from a deal with an eager-to-please-the-markets Donald Trump. But the contours of a potential agreement look like a win for Iran—not for the U.S., which has spent billions a day, lost military personnel and assets, and handed Iran new-found leverage over the global economy. Also, in this season of commencement, Jodi has advice for new college grads on how to navigate the tough employment market and a digitized hiring process.

Our Constitution is about limited government and restraining the power of the state, but we've got a president asserting powers he lawfully doesn't have, a Supreme Court that largely helps him do so, and a Republican Congress that's just dozing through it all. Americans need a refresher on how our government is supposed to work under the Constitution.

Acting AG Tood Blanche announced over the weekend that basically everybody in America can use the expression "86 47" without fear of prosecution—except James Comey, who Trump yearns to see behind bars. Also, POTUS is still so steamed that NATO is not helping him with the Iran war that he's ordered thousands of U.S. troops withdrawn from Germany—even though the bases there are key to the war effort.

Fox News wouldn't shut up about Hunter and Burisma, but its viewers aren't likely to hear any criticism of Eric and Don Jr. raking it in through government contracts approved by the Trump administration.

The bombshell voting rights ruling from the Supreme Court may have been years in the making, but Ossoff sees a tie-in to Trump's sore-loserdom and his inability to accept that black voters in Georgia were responsible for his 2020 defeat. And the senator expects a full-court press to get Alito and Thomas to retire so Trump can nominate MAGA fanatics—and impose his most durable legacy on the country.