Bulwark Takes: BREAKING — Jeff Bezos is Gutting the Washington Post

Date: February 4, 2026
Host: Sam Stein (The Bulwark)
Guests: JVL (The Bulwark), Max Tani (Semafor)

Episode Overview

In this urgent episode of Bulwark Takes, Sam Stein is joined by JVL and Max Tani to dissect the dramatic slashing of the Washington Post by its owner, Jeff Bezos. With news breaking just hours before recording, the trio explores the scale of the newsroom layoffs, the decisions behind them, and what this crisis says about the changing media landscape, mismanagement, and the broader existential challenge to American journalism.

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. The Catastrophic Cuts at the Washington Post

• Scope of Layoffs
  • Approximately one-third of Post employees were laid off.
  • Sections completely eliminated: Metro desk, Sports department, Book section, all international presence (Middle East, Jerusalem, Ukraine bureaus).
  • The Post’s flagship podcast, Daily Post Reports, was also canceled.
  • Notably, some correspondents were let go while reporting from active war zones.
    • “I was just laid off by the Washington Post in the middle of a war zone. I have no words. I am devastated.” — Ukraine correspondent Lindsay Johnson via Twitter [02:05]
• Leadership Absence
  • Major announcements were delivered via Zoom by Editor Matt Murray.
  • Neither Publisher Will Lewis nor owner Jeff Bezos attended the meeting.
• Emotional Toll
  • “I’m not nostalgic… I’m mad. Like, I’m legitimately mad at what happened.” — Sam Stein [02:54]

2. Did This Have To Happen?

• Financial Context and Bezos’s Role
  • The Post reportedly lost ~$150M in 2025, but Jeff Bezos’s fortune dwarfs these amounts.
  • “Jeff Bezos lost $60 million last weekend on the Melania documentary… He’s spent $40 million building a clock inside a mountain… So, no, this didn’t have to happen. This only happened because Jeff Bezos wanted it to.” — JVL [03:15]
• Max’s Take: Broader Blame
  • While Bezos could have intervened, years of mismanagement, bad business bets, and poor adaptation to the changing media environment contributed to the crisis.
  • Not endorsing Kamala Harris in 2024 deeply alienated a large part of the Post’s audience, further shrinking its subscriber base. [04:22]

3. Mismanagement and Failed Business Models

• Questionable Decisions
  • The Post did not diversify revenue streams after leaving behind its profitable Kaplan test prep arm.
  • “Imagine you are getting into the media business and the first thing you do is… I just want the media part of it. What the fuck?” — JVL [08:56]
  • Expensive and ineffective projects:
    • $5M Super Bowl ad in 2019 (“Insane.” — JVL [10:13])
    • Pivot to Alexa voice journalism
    • Attempted launch of a now-defunct “third newsroom” [11:10]
  • Poorly navigating the collapse of traffic from Facebook and declines in organic search (“If your business is built on third party platforms, you’re fucked.” — Sam Stein [12:07])
• Misguided Editorial Moves
  • Unsuccessful forays into lifestyle journalism under Sally Buzbee.
  • Failure to support or leverage unique journalistic talents such as Will Sommer. [16:12]

4. Spiritual and Brand Crisis

• Loss of Mission and Identity
  • The Post’s “Democracy Dies in Darkness” era during Trump brought a clear mission and subscriber growth; this clarity was lost post-2020.
  • “Good journalism, but I didn’t really know what the paper kind of stood for.” — Sam Stein [19:44]
• Category Confusion
  • The Post has vacillated between being a national vs. local paper, leaving it neither here nor there after the latest round of cuts.
• Comparisons to Other Brands
  • New York Times, Fox, Wall Street Journal, Atlantic, Politico, and Axios all possess clear and consistent identities—each leveraging this clarity for loyalty and growth. The Post failed to do the same. [21:35]

5. Failures in Leadership Accountability

• Publisher Will Lewis & Organizational Dysfunction
  • “Will Lewis isn’t going to lose his job, which is amazing because this guy has an unbroken string of failures… He’s not laid off. That makes no sense to me. Makes me angry.” — JVL [22:36]
  • The upper management is seen as insulated from consequences, while the newsroom suffers.

6. What Next for the Post?

• Bleak Outlook and Lack of Vision
  • No plan has been communicated by leadership for the future.
  • “There’s no vision communicated with this. No, zero, zero.” — Sam Stein [24:01]
• Possible Paths Forward
  • The “optimist case”: The Post could run leaner, focus on Washington-insider products, newsletters, and more tailored content, but this is a steep challenge amid lost morale and resources. [24:22]
• Podcast and Innovation Void
  • “They cut the podcast that… was supposed to be their version of the Daily. It’s kind of hard to compete with The Daily when there’s The Daily.” — Max [26:03]
  • Above all, the Post suffers from having no compelling point of view.
• The Spiral is by Design
  • “We’re talking good-faith rescue, but this is the spiral that Bezos created. This is what he wants.” — JVL [26:36]

7. Could Bezos Sell the Post?

• Discussion of Sale Prospects
  • “I've seen no indication that he wants to. It seems like they’d be selling low.” — Max [28:26]
  • Even if sold, the high ‘carrying costs’ of a legacy newsroom make it unattractive to many potential buyers.
  • Political risks for “antagonistic” ownership under a potential second Trump administration further depress the pool of viable buyers. [29:45]
• Bezos’s Silence
  • He remains mostly publicly disengaged, rarely commenting or interacting with staff beyond a select few. [31:08]

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the scale of the layoffs:
  “Among the sections that were restructured, which is just corporate speak for eliminated, were the Metro desk, the entirety of the sports department, book section, the canceling of the Daily Post Reports podcast, and a dramatic shrinking of the paper’s presence around the World.” — Sam Stein [01:41]
• On Bezos’s responsibility:
  “Will Lewis would not be doing anything unless Bezos approved of it… The thing that is happening that Will Lewis does means that Bezos wanted it to happen.” — JVL [05:33]
• On organizational dysfunction:
  “The whole org chart needed to be just thrown out and redrawn from start.” — JVL [16:53]
• Brand crisis:
  “They tried to pivot to being a broad general interest publication in the way that the New York Times had done, but the Times had already done that years and years earlier. And they've done it better and they were bigger.” — Max [20:31]
• On cutbacks leaving no identity:
  “Now they’re neither [national nor local]. Now they’re basically townhall.com… An op-ed section with a handful of great national reporters still there, but no metro, no sports, no international.” — JVL [21:56]
• On lack of management consequences:
  “The people who fuck things up actually never pay the consequences.” — JVL [22:36]
• On the “optimist’s” case:
  “Maybe build some more tailored products, newsletters that are appealing to people, podcasts that people want to listen to that are more highly tailored and specific.” — Max [25:26]
• On Bezos’s vision:
  “We’re talking about… how do you save it? This is the Jeff Bezos-saved version of the Post. This is what he wants.” — JVL [26:36]

Timeline of Major Segments

• [01:30] — Sam Stein summarizes the layoffs and Post restructuring
• [03:15] — Discussion begins: Did this have to happen? (JVL & Max’s perspectives)
• [06:07] — Detailed breakdown of business, editorial, and management missteps
• [12:07] — Dangers of reliance on third-party platforms for traffic & the shift away from “scale”
• [19:15] — The spiritual/mission crisis at the Post
• [21:35] — National vs. local identity confusion and the void left by cuts
• [22:36] — Accountability failure and anger at lack of leadership consequences
• [24:12] — Paths forward: Is there a way to save the Post? Discussion of possible buyout
• [31:08] — Bezos’s role, disengagement, and prospects for sale

Tone & Style

Authentic, frustrated, and unsparing in criticism, the hosts maintain a tone of both professional insight and personal anger/grief over the losses at the Post—equal parts business analysis and lament for what’s being lost in American journalism.

Summary Takeaway

The collapse at the Washington Post is not simply a casualty of “changing times” in media—it’s the result of a perfect storm: years of poor and sometimes baffling leadership decisions, failed pivots, brand confusion, and abandoned audience relationships, all made possible (and now finalized) by an owner with limitless resources but little public accountability. Despite moments of optimism about what’s left of the brand, the episode leaves the listener with a sense that the story of the Post is, for now, one of profound mismanagement overlooked by those with the power to change course.