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The Bulwark

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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.

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Page 16 · 50 per page
Published 2025-12-09

Jared Kushner Joins Paramount’s Hostile Bid For Warner Bros.

21 min
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JVL is joined by Catherine Rampell and Sonny Bunch to give their takes on the wild Warner Brothers takeover drama and the surprising role Jared Kushner is playing in Hollywood’s biggest bidding war. we break down how Kushner and Trump allies are shaping the bidding war and why Paramount and Netflix are fighting over Warner Bros. and CNN.

Get 40% off unlimited access to Calm’s entire library at https://Calm.com/BULWARKTAKES.
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Published 2025-12-08

Okay, What's REALLY Going on With Benny Johnson?

18 min
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Sam Stein, Tim Miller, and Will Sommer give their takes on the wild Benny Johnson vs. Milo Yiannopoulos feud that started with with gay allegations, lawsuit threats, and MAGA chaos. Even George Santos somehow becomes the voice of reason in this mess. We dig into the political infighting, factional battles over TPUSA’s legacy, and how the right-wing influencer world weaponizes sexuality for power. Is Benny’s “traditional family man” persona under threat?

Get 40% off unlimited access to Calm’s entire library at https://Calm.com/BULWARKTAKES.
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Published 2025-12-08

How the Hell Is Cory Mills in Congress?

19 min
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Tim Miller takes on the jaw-dropping story of GOP Rep. Corey Mills with guest Roger Sollenberger—the reporter who’s spent nearly a year digging through Mills’s financial records, sex scandals, secret religious conversion, and his bizarre “rescue mission” abroad.

Get 40% off unlimited access to Calm’s entire library at https://Calm.com/BULWARKTAKES.

Read Roger’s article on Substack, “‘George Santos With a Gun’: The Untold Story of Cory Mills, A Mercenary In Congress”: https://substack.com/home/post/p-180742305
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Published 2025-12-06

Pediatric Cancer Bill is Good News That Still Hurts

13 min
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Sam Stein highlights 16-year-old cancer patient Mikaela Naylon, who spent her final days lobbying Congress for the Give Kids a Chance Act, helping revive the long-stalled pediatric cancer research bill, with her story inspiring new momentum and raising cautious optimism it could finally pass.

Sam's piece from September 2025, "Elon Musk Torpedoed a Beloved Pediatric Cancer Bill. It’s Yet to Recover.": https://www.thebulwark.com/p/elon-musk-pediatric-cancer-bill-congressional-inertia-give-kids-a-chance

Sam's piece from December 2024, "Elon Killed the Budget Deal. Cancer Research for Kids Was Collateral Damage.": https://www.thebulwark.com/p/elon-musk-killed-budget-deal-children-cancer-funding-collateral-damage
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Published 2025-12-06

Inside The Blaze’s Pipe-Bomb Face-Plant

15 min
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Sam Stein and Will Sommer take on The Blaze’s spectacular pipe-bomb fiasco—from the bogus gait analysis to the wrongly accused Capitol Police officer and the scramble to retract the story once the real suspect was arrested. They discuss how the piece got published, why it collapsed so fast,  and whether a brutal defamation fight is about to hit The Blaze hard.
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Published 2025-12-06

Should We Just Keep Trump Busy With Fake Prizes?

21 min
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Ben Parker and Catherine Rampell give their take on the absurdity of Donald Trump receiving the first-ever FIFA Peace Prize, a prize that didn’t exist until it was suddenly handed to the most unlikely recipient imaginable. They walk through the surreal ceremony like the Village People performing, the corruption vibes radiating off every angle of the event, and why FIFA and Trump seem perfectly matched in their mutual need for flattery and image laundering.

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Published 2025-12-03

Scott Bessent Is a Political Hack. Treasury Can’t Survive That.

17 min
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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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Published 2025-12-03

Rush Hour 4 and the Billion-Dollar Bribe Machine

16 min
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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.

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Published 2025-12-02

Trump's Honduras Pardon Looks Worse and Worse

14 min
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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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Published 2025-12-02

The FDA’s Vaccine Death Email Looks Like a Political Stunt (w/ Demetre Daskalakis)

24 min
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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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Published 2025-12-01

Alina Habba's Appointment Ruled Unlawful (w/ Leah Litman)

18 min
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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.

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Published 2025-11-30

Trump's Drug Kingpin Pardon Makes No Sense

18 min
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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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Published 2025-11-29

Tim Explains Why James Carville Pisses People Off

11 min
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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 the era of "economic rage" and why it could be the key to future Democratic victories.
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Published 2025-11-28

Turns Out America First Lives in... Bangladesh?!

13 min
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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-about-right-wing-groypers
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Published 2025-11-28

Trump is Exploiting a Tragedy to Burn This Country Down

21 min
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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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Published 2025-11-28

Stephen Miller’s Secret Immigration Regime

18 min
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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.

Get 40% off access to Calm’s entire library at https://Calm.com/BULWARKTAKES

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Published 2025-11-27

The NFL Pretends It’s Above Politics. It Never Was. (w/ Seth Wickersham)

29 min
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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 inside college football’s coaching carousel.

Get 40% off access to Calm’s entire library at https://Calm.com/BULWARKTAKES

Buy American Kings: A Biography of the Quarterback: https://www.amazon.com/American-Kings-Quarterback-Seth-Wickersham/dp/1368099181
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Published 2025-11-27

Inside Tim Miller's INSANE Jubilee Experience

15 min
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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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Published 2025-11-26

Behind the Scenes of a Military Thanksgiving

15 min
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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": https://www.thebulwark.com/p/how-the-us-military-celebrates-thanksgiving
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Published 2025-11-25

Is James Fishback the Weirdest GOP Candidate Yet?

14 min
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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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Published 2025-11-24

The Story Riley Gaines Doesn't Want to Tell (w/ Pablo Torre)

24 min
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Tim Miller and Pablo Torre break down how Riley Gaines went from a college swimmer to a full-blown MAGA political figure—how her story was reshaped by conservative media, why her rhetoric escalated, and why severe abuse allegations inside her own program barely get mentioned.

Read the full story at Mother Jones: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2025/11/riley-gaines-anti-trans-lia-thomas-ncaa-trump/

Watch PABLO TORRE FINDS OUT on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@PabloTorreFindsOut

..and subscribe to PABLO TORRE FINDS OUT on Substack: https://www.pablo.show
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Published 2025-11-22

Trump’s Government Is Purging Core Economic and Social Data

21 min
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After the shutdown froze key agencies, the U.S. is now stuck with permanent black holes in the economic record from missing jobs numbers, missing inflation data, and missing surveys that can never be recovered. But this crisis didn’t start with the shutdown. Andrew Egger talks to Catherine Rampell to get her take on the data series that have been deleted, defunded, or censored under Trump.

Read Catherine’s article here. 

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Published 2025-11-22

Trump Folds the Second Mamdani Walks In–Plus a Sam & Sarah Q&A!

12 min
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Sarah Longwell and Sam Stein take on Donald Trump's surprisingly friendly meeting with Zohran Mamdani, with Trump praising the future mayor of NYC and Mamdani calling him a fascist to his face. Plus, Sarah and Sam answer your mailbag questions on the future of the Bulwark, Sam's non-traditional management style, and Sarah's possible future run for office.
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Published 2025-11-22

How Sen. Mark Kelly Learned Trump Wanted Him “Executed”

14 min
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Sen. Mark Kelly joins Sam Stein for his take on Donald Trump’s posts calling for him and other lawmakers to be tried for sedition and executed, why the video on unlawful military orders was originally released, and how his wife Gabby Giffords’ survival of a politically-motivated shooting shaped his response.

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Published 2025-11-21

Meet the Most Hated Democrat in America (w/ Bill Ferguson)

21 min
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After Lauren Egan wrote her newsletter Meet the Most Hated Democrat in America (https://www.thebulwark.com/p/meet-the-most-hated-democrat-in-america) about Maryland Senate President Bill Ferguson has become the unlikely villain of the left, he reached out and wanted to come on and explain himself.

All the attention was because he won’t redraw the state’s congressional map. He argues that pushing for an 8–0 Democratic map could backfire, thanks to a 2021 court ruling that reshaped Maryland’s entire redistricting landscape.
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Published 2025-11-21

Sen. Cassidy Said RFK Jr. Would Not Change Autism Guidance. Now What?

19 min
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The CDC just updated its website regarding vaccines and autism, backtracking on a promise RFK Jr. made to Senator Bill Cassidy during his confirmation. JVL and Jonathan Cohn explain what the CDC actually said, review the scientific evidence on vaccines and autism, and give their takes on the implications this could have on public trust in health agencies.

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Published 2025-11-20

Rep. Fletcher: Trump May LOSE the Texas Map Fight!

21 min
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Sarah Longwell sits down with Congresswoman Lizzie Fletcher to break down the Texas redistricting ruling and why a Trump-appointed judge delivered a major surprise. They dig into what this means for 2026 and why the fight over fair maps is far from over.

Get 40% off your order during Soul’s Black Friday-Cyber Monday sale at https://GetSoul.com with promo code BULWARKTAKES

Take our quick survey and help us make The Bulwark even better. https://bit.ly/bulwarkvideo

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Published 2025-11-20

Trump Called for Democrats to Be Executed

14 min
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Trump spent the morning amplifying posts calling for Democratic lawmakers to be hanged for releasing a video reminding service members they don’t have to follow unlawful orders. Sam Stein and Andrew Egger give their take why Trump snapped, what the Democrats actually said, and why this moment is more dangerous than we’ve gotten used to pretending.

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Published 2025-11-20

Billionaire Sickos Cozy Up With Saudi Dictator at Trump Dinner

13 min
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Donald Trump hosted a dinner for Saudi Arabia's Mohammed bin Salman and America’s billionaire class were all tuxed up, grinning, and taking selfies with a dictator who had a journalist chopped into pieces. Tim Miller gives his take on the most depraved display of American oligarchy we’ve seen yet as Saudi Arabia looks to buy its way into Silicon Valley and Washington.

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Published 2025-11-19

Loomer As Fed Chair? Don’t Laugh–It Could Happen!

18 min
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Trump publicly fantasized about firing Jerome Powell and installing a more compliant Fed chair. Andrew Egger and Catherine Rampell break down why Trump’s threats to seize control of monetary policy could destabilize inflation, markets, and the entire economy—and why Wall Street still seems weirdly calm about it.
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Published 2025-11-19

Trump Can’t Keep His Own Stories Straight Anymore

21 min
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JVL and Sam Stein take on Trump’s rambling McDonald’s appearance, the scrambled stories, and the stark drop in his energy compared to last year—and discuss why his team keeps steering him into cushioned, low-pressure settings.

Be sure to read JVL's Triad newsletter on the speech: https://www.thebulwark.com/p/trump-is-not-have-all-the-mentals-cognitive-functioning

Take our quick listener survey and help us make The Bulwark even better. https://bit.ly/bulwarkaudio
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