Why Tim Miller Loved Mamdani's July 4th Speech

Summary

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Bulwark Takes: "Why Tim Miller Loved Mamdani's July 4th Speech"

Date: July 4, 2026
Host: Tim Miller (The Bulwark)
Guests/Contributors: Eamon Mohadin, Bill Kristol, Zoran Mamdani (Mayor of New York, via speech excerpt)

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Overview

This episode of Bulwark Takes centers on the contentious politics surrounding America's 250th birthday and the July 4th holiday, with particular focus on President Trump's alleged stock trades and the corruption of the America 250 commemorations. Tim Miller highlights a powerful speech by New York Mayor Zoran Mamdani and reflects on the American creed, discussing how the country should live up to its founding ideals. The tone is urgent, critical of current leadership, but also hopeful and patriotic—calling for action, celebration, and reflection.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Trump's 327 Unreported Stock Trades [01:43–04:03]

• Breaking News: Right before the holiday, it’s revealed that President Trump conducted 327 unreported stock trades the day before announcing a pause in tariffs, raising suspicions of insider trading and self-enrichment.
• Reaction: Immediate, bipartisan disgust among the panel, with calls for impeachment and conviction due to the flagrant breach of legal and ethical standards.
  • Quote (Tim Miller, 02:48):
    “That’s insider information. This is a classic financial scam, financial crime. And it goes against everything that we come to expect from public officials and leaders in a free country where the law and the Constitution is supreme.”
  • Quote (Eamon Mohadin, 03:41):
    "It's another impeachable offense... and I think it'd be a good way to honor America and our Constitution, our declaration to announce tomorrow, if you're the Democrats, that you're planning on beginning impeachment proceedings and investigating him for these behaviors."
• Historical Comparison: The group notes that if a Democrat did this, it would dominate Fox News, underscoring the hypocrisy in political coverage.

2. The Spirit of the Fourth: Zoran Mamdani’s July 4th Speech [05:02–06:28, 09:06–10:41]

• Zoran’s Speech: Delivered to a group of new citizens, the speech strikes a balance between America’s painful history and its aspirations for progress.
  • Quote (Zoran Mamdani, 06:28):
    “America is exceptional. Because here, nothing is fixed into place... The work of fulfilling the values first enshrined in the Declaration of Independence, that work endures. And it belongs to us all... The powerful have always known their answer. America, in their view, is an arena of supremacy... Division is the oldest trick in politics and the cheapest. But time and again... those forces of division have been vanquished by the forces of progress.”
• Panel Reflections:
  • Tim Miller and Eamon Mohadin praise the balance Mamdani finds—honoring U.S. ideals without whitewashing its faults.
  • Miller distinguishes this from left-wing politicians who “seem to hate America”, saying Mamdani’s speech critiques America but ultimately affirms its ethos.

3. The Meaning of the American Creed [05:22–06:13, 09:06–10:59]

• Universal Asylum: Both the speech and Miller’s reflections cite Thomas Paine to connect America’s founding to its modern promise as a refuge for the oppressed.
  • Quote (Tim Miller, 10:16):
    “O ye that love mankind, Ye that dare oppose not only the tyranny but the tyrant. Stand forth... prepare in this country an asylum for mankind.”
  • Panelist Commentary: Miller and Mohadin stress that the July 4th holiday should be a celebration of this ideal—a living experiment in liberty, not just an excuse for partisan displays.

4. America 250: Corruption, Grift, and Administrative Abuse [12:18–16:42]

• New Congressional Report: Details how the "America 250" celebrations have been hijacked by Trump’s team, creating shadow organizations (like Freedom 250 LLC), misusing funds, and exploiting government employees for partisan gain.
  • Quote (Congressional Report, 12:18):
    “This anniversary has been hijacked and perverted into a hotbed of corruption and self enrichment... Freedom 250 may have conducted wire fraud... Taxpayer dollars were funneled to the president’s preferred contractors... Americans’ private personal information has been harvested by Trump’s allies for political purposes.”
• Panelist Reactions:
  • Bill Kristol draws historical contrasts, noting the 1976 Bicentennial was “for everybody, no matter what their party. … That’s not what this is. This is just like partisan hackery, you know, combined with, you know, like the Trump Casino grift.”
  • Kristol and Miller are particularly disturbed by government employees being forced to wear political merchandise—likened to “Vichy pins.”

5. Broader Themes: What It Means to Oppose Tyranny and Celebrate America [10:47–12:01]

• Call to Action:
  • Miller urges listeners to embrace a patriotism rooted in opposition to corruption and tyranny, tying celebration of America to defending its best traditions.
  • Quote (Tim Miller, 11:19):
    “The spirit of celebrating this weekend is to oppose not only the tyranny but the tyrant. You can be unapologetic, can love America... you can do so in opposition to the tyrant. What would be more American?”

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Bill Kristol [14:53]:
  “Yeah, it says the country's a racket right now, and it's run no different from any type of banana republic that's run by a corrupt oligarchy at the top. Usually those types of governments combine rather corruption with comic incompetence. And that's what we're seeing on the National Mall.”
• Response to Government Employee Coercion:
  “Only Donald Trump could put on a 250 celebration that causes people to invoke Vichy France.” (Congressional Report Narrator, 16:00)
• Patriotic Reflection (Tim Miller, 12:01):
  “And what an asylum we've got for him. So I'm going to leave you guys with that. Enjoy the fourth.”

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• [01:43–04:03] — Discussion of Trump’s unreported stock trades & calls for impeachment
• [05:02–06:28] — Introduction and exploration of Zoran Mamdani’s July 4th speech
• [06:28–08:07] — Key excerpt from Zoran’s address about progress and inclusion
• [09:06–10:41] — Panel reflects on Thomas Paine and the enduring American creed
• [12:18–16:42] — Congressional report breakdown: Corruption in America 250 celebrations, panel outrage at political coercion of government workers

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Takeaway

This episode appeals to both heart and conscience—condemning the corruption of national institutions and the 250th anniversary by Trump and his allies, while holding up a vision of American patriotism that is honest about the country’s flaws but refuses to cede its promise to the forces of division. Tim Miller finds hope and resonance in Zoran Mamdani’s speech and Thomas Paine’s words, and the show closes with a charge to celebrate July 4th by recommitting to the fight against tyranny—both personal and systemic—within American life.

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Transcript

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[Tim Miller]

Hey everybody, it's Tim Miller. Happy third of July. I was just on deadline with Ayman Mohadin and we were talking about a pretty alarming report that shows just the

[Eamon Mohadin]

scale of the grift and what Ravel said on the same panel. The hustle around America 250, the lack of oversight, the connection with Jan Sixers and other white nationalist groups like forcing people to wear America 250 flair. The whole thing is just sick. It's just a classic Trump stakes Trump scam situation. And you can get some of the details watching that segment I just finished,

[Tim Miller]

but I wanted to use this opportunity

[Eamon Mohadin]

to talk about the other what I think is a really big news of the day and that was Trump discloses right before the holiday weekend that there were 327 unreported stock trades made a

[Tim Miller]

day before his first tariff pause.

[Eamon Mohadin]

So following Liberation Day, he made some purchases on April 8th and then the next day it was a surprise announcement that he was going to pause the tariffs and obviously chart go up from there.

[Bill Kristol]

So I guess I would just like

[Eamon Mohadin]

to second my colleague Bill Kristol's response to this story. Impeach and convict. I say that not cheekily at all.

[Tim Miller]

In any other scenario had a President

[Eamon Mohadin]

of the United States planned a secret announcement that would affect the stock market

[Tim Miller]

and mere hours before that made hundreds

[Eamon Mohadin]

of trades that enriched him.

[Tim Miller]

That's insider information. This is a classic financial scam, financial crime. And it goes against everything that we come to expect from public officials and leaders in a free country where

[Bill Kristol]

the

[Tim Miller]

law and the Constitution is supreme. It's totally unacceptable. And there's no other case in which it would be accepted. And this would be every hour on FOX News Today, even on a holiday,

[Eamon Mohadin]

obviously, if this was Nancy Pelosi or a Democrat or Joe Biden or Hunter Biden, who a day before Joe Biden made some announcement, made a bunch of stock trades that he cashed in on for the president of the United States

[Tim Miller]

to be doing this is appalling. It is totally without precedent.

[Eamon Mohadin]

It's another one of these things without precedent.

[Tim Miller]

And it's another impeachable offense of many

[Eamon Mohadin]

that he's committed in this term. And I think it'd be a good way to honor America and our Constitution, our declaration to announce tomorrow. If you are the Democrats that you're planning on beginning impeachment proceedings and investigating him for these behaviors.

[Tim Miller]

And you guys know people have been listening to this for a while. You guys know this is.

[Eamon Mohadin]

I've come around on this. Originally I thought it was kind of pointless to do impeachment and to focus instead on investigations. And

[Tim Miller]

maybe there's still like a little,

[Bill Kristol]

I guess I'm still persuaded. Well, there's still like a little political

[Eamon Mohadin]

bone in my brain that's wondering if it sends the wrong message to people that you're focused on that. But the behavior calls for it. And I think letting it go by and acting as if it's not a big deal sets a precedent for the

[Tim Miller]

future that we shouldn't say it's the country. If this republic is going to last another 250 years, there should be a

[Eamon Mohadin]

clear demarcation that it's not going to become a corrupt catchocracy.

[Tim Miller]

So impeach and convict and wave your American flag. One other thing I wanted to play for you. The mayor of New York, Zoe Mamdani,

[Eamon Mohadin]

Democratic Socialist, gave a speech about the Fourth of July and America's anniversary from his office. And he was surrounded by people who are just recently naturalized citizens. Congratulations. Welcome to the country.

[Tim Miller]

To all of them. There are elements of the speech that I would nitpick. I think that there's always this kind of balance. Right.

[Eamon Mohadin]

I thought my conversation was Clint Smith. I thought Clint was very good at striking this balance of living in the

[Tim Miller]

eras of America, not whitewashing America and not gassing America up and making into something that it isn't, while also paying tribute to the ways in which America set things on a better course and

[Eamon Mohadin]

the ways in which America has improved itself. The way which America has tried to

[Tim Miller]

live up to its creed, and the way in which that creed itself is a noble one.

[Eamon Mohadin]

I can put my former Republican hat on and see there are ways in which some Democratic politicians, particularly on the

[Tim Miller]

left, like they seem to hate America.

[Eamon Mohadin]

And not just like hate Donald Trump, but like hate America and oppose the creed.

[Tim Miller]

And that's where I get off the ship. And that's not Zoran, though Zoran's critiques were harsh. But he pays tribute to the spirit of the country. And I want to watch a little bit of it.

[Zoran (Mayor of New York)]

The truth, my friends, is that America is exceptional. Because here, nothing is fixed into place. The frontier may be closed, we may have walked on the moon, but the work of fulfilling the values first enshrined in the Declaration of Independence, that work endures. And it belongs to us all. It belongs too, to our newest Americans, those standing here with me today, all of whom were recently naturalized nearly a decade ago. I too felt what you feel. The joy of no longer being just a New Yorker, but an American too. You each hold a special power, the power to determine what America means. The powerful have always known their answer. America, in their view, is an arena of supremacy, where only a select few are allowed freedom, where not all are created equal. America, if you ask them, becomes less the more people it welcomes. America, they will tell you, belongs only to those with the right accent or the right shade of skin. The rest of us, they insist, should be grateful for merely being allowed to visit. How small they are, how weak, how unoriginal. At every moment in our past, those who led through exclusion and isolation have tried to win power and enrich themselves by turning us against one another. Division is the oldest trick in politics and the cheapest. But time and again, including 250 years ago, those forces of division have been vanquished by the forces of progress. As Thomas Paine once wrote, this new world hath been the asylum for the persecuted lovers of civil and religious liberty. Hither have they fled.

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[Tim Miller]

One thing I like about that is that he quotes maybe my favorite of

[Eamon Mohadin]

the Founding fathers, Thomas Paine.

[Tim Miller]

I love Thomas Paine.

[Eamon Mohadin]

I love common sense. I go back and reread it from time to time. But my spirit needs to be stirred.

[Tim Miller]

I think that Thomas Paine and Zoran would probably part ways about the scope of government. Paine I believe it was in the

[Eamon Mohadin]

Rights of Man where Paine said something to the effect of government should do no more than whatever society can conveniently do for itself or something that effect.

[Tim Miller]

And he was a small government guy. But there's this spirit that connects the Zoron worldview with the Pain worldview and finding that connection, capturing that, I think is a nice way to spend the holiday. So I'm going to leave you guys

[Eamon Mohadin]

with a little bit of Thomas Paine in addition to the little bit of Zoran, and I appreciated that he appealed to these greater angels of the American experiment.

[Tim Miller]

Here's a bit from common sense. O ye that love mankind, Ye that dare oppose not only the tyranny but the tyrant. Stand forth. Every spot of the old world is overrun with oppression. Freedom hath been hunted round the globe. Oh, receive the fugitive and prepare in time.

[Eamon Mohadin]

An asylum for mankind.

[Tim Miller]

An asylum for mankind.

[Eamon Mohadin]

It's right in line with the passage that Zoran was referencing.

[Tim Miller]

Oppose not only the tyranny, but the tyrant, and prepare in this country an asylum for mankind. How beautiful is that?

[Eamon Mohadin]

That is something that is worth living up to in the American spirit. And I'm going to go celebrate the holiday after this.

[Tim Miller]

And my ask is that you guys

[Eamon Mohadin]

celebrate it in that spirit, if you can. That the spirit of celebrating this weekend

[Tim Miller]

is to oppose not only the tyranny but the tyrant. You can be unapologetic, can love America, can put off your fireworks. You can do so in opposition to the tyrant. What would be more American?

[Eamon Mohadin]

And you can also do so feeling good about the fact that this country has provided opportunity for so many seeking asylum, that the country has provided this chance for those around the globe that were denied freedom, that were victims of tyranny, that they were able to find an asylum here.

[Tim Miller]

And what an asylum we've got for him. So I'm going to leave you guys with that. Enjoy the fourth.

[Eamon Mohadin]

Here's the rest of my segment with Eamon Mohadin. I'll be back here with Bill Kristol on Monday. We'll talk about that impeachment tweet and we'll see you guys soon.

[Congressional Report Narrator]

A new congressional report details how the Trump team has potentially engaged in criminal fraud in in order to hijack what was supposed to be a nonpartisan celebration of America. While the report authored by Democratic congressional staff is titled From Vanity to How the White House Cheated the American People out of their 250th birthday, here is some of what that report says. Quote, under President Donald Trump, this anniversary has been hijacked and perverted into a hotbed of corruption and self enrichment. This interim report documents how the machinery built for a national commemoration was converted deliberately and over a period of months into an apparatus for raising and spending money in service of the President's ego, political ideology and pet projects. The White House first attempted to bend America 250 to its purposes. When America 250 would not yield, the White House created a replacement, Freedom 250 LLC, a shadow organization capable of infiltrating the celebrations and injecting America's 250th with Trump's extreme partisan agenda. The new entity could exploit the credibility and donor relationships of a beloved public charity while operating outside the transparency and accountability requirements Congress wrote. The authors of the report noted that the organization may have broken the law in order to change the nature of the event. They add this Freedom250 may have conducted wire fraud by luring unsuspecting donors who intended to support the congressionally chartered foundation and giving them Freedom 250 bank information. Instead, presidential access was sold to those willing to pay for it. A spokesperson for Freedom250 called the claims the report in the in the report, quote, categorically false and a, quote, partisan smear. Tim this section from the introduction almost feels like a summary of the way the Trump administration operates writ large. Quote, licensing protocols let Freedom 250 brand deeply racist merchandise under the government's banner. An organization that was once responsible for planning events surrounding the January 6th insurrection has now been contracted. For America's 250th celebrations. Taxpayer dollars were funneled to the president's preferred contractors, Americans. Private personal information has been harvested by Trump's allies for political purposes. And so my question to you is, what does it say about how things stand in this country that the organizers of the violent January 6th insurrection on our Capitol are now the ones organizing this nation's 250th celebration?

[Bill Kristol]

Yeah, it says the country's a racket right now, and it's run no different from any type of banana republic that's run by a corrupt oligarchy at the top. Usually those types of governments combine rather corruption with comic incompetence. And that's what we're seeing on the National Mall. You know, you just can go back and watch the archive video or my co panelists were there at the 200th anniversary 50 years ago, and it was not at a time without political controversy in the country. In 1976, you're coming off of Vietnam, coming off of Watergate. But yet it was a celebration for everybody, no matter what their party was, no matter what their religion was, to come and honor the people that served America and the traditions of America that we're trying to aspire to. That's not what this is. This is just like partisan hackery, you know, combined with, you know, like the Trump Casino grift. Like that. That's. That's all that's left here. And it's no wonder that not many people want to attend that.

[Congressional Report Narrator]

Tim, the report says that the government employees were pressured into wearing merchandise promoting the event. And I want to read a little bit more from that report. It reads, in part, quote, national Park Service employees with no official Affiliation to Freedom to 50 have been seen wearing Freedom 250 lapel pins. Though not by choice, the US Department of Interior urged employees to wear the pins on their uniform and threaten disciplinary action. To those who refused, anonymous employees have taken to calling their Vichy pin reflecting an uncomfortable reality that they feel compelled to display a political symbol against their own beliefs. Only Donald Trump could put on a 250 celebration that causes people to invoke Vichy France.

[Bill Kristol]

Yeah, I liked what the Rev said before the break. You have to add the Trump hustle and everything that's this all is.

[Tim Miller]

And it is in line with all

[Bill Kristol]

of his businesses, many of which were scams. And, you know, this particular anecdote is kind of reminiscent of Trump trying to cheat these government employees, people who are serving the country, serving all of us, like they're his hotel staff. You know, you gotta wear the flare that the president wants you to wear. And, like, that's part of the Trump experience. Just like the falling down chandelier is and the broken caulk or the falling down lights. This is what we're getting from him. He's trying to enrich himself. And our national celebration turns into a total scam and a hustle.

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