Fox Host Decides To Take Back WHAT WORD?!

Summary

Bulwark Takes: Episode Summary Title: Fox Host Decides To Take Back WHAT WORD?! Release Date: July 18, 2025 Hosts: Tim Miller and Sarah Longwell

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In this episode of Bulwark Takes, hosts Tim Miller and Sarah Longwell delve into a controversial moment from Fox News host Greg Gutfeld, who recently made headlines by attempting to reclaim the term "Nazi" in his comedic segments. The discussion examines the implications of such actions, the differences between reclaiming slurs, and the broader societal impacts.

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1. Introduction to Greg Gutfeld's Controversy

Tim Miller opens the conversation by referencing a segment where Greg Gutfeld takes an unconventional approach to addressing accusations of being a Nazi.

Tim Miller (00:00): "Anytime a Fox News host decides they want to start calling themselves a Nazi and self-identifies as a Nazi, we feel like that's important thing for us to peruse."

Sarah Longwell chimes in with a humorous take, highlighting the absurdity of the situation.

Sarah Longwell (00:18): "I can't believe you didn't start this show with 'what up, my Nazi?'"

The duo expresses skepticism about the effectiveness and appropriateness of Gutfeld's attempt to reclaim the term.

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2. Breakdown of Greg Gutfeld's Attempt to Reclaim "Nazi"

The hosts dissect Gutfeld's segment, critiquing his methodology and the potential repercussions.

Greg Gutfeld (00:35): "This is why the criticism doesn't matter to us when you call us Nazis... 'What up, my Nazi?'"

Tim Miller points out the awkwardness and forced humor in Gutfeld's approach.

Tim Miller (01:20): "It was kind of like an awkward silence there for a while, and then she does that, and then a little forced laughter."

Sarah Longwell emphasizes the difference between reclaiming words like "queer" and "Nazi," arguing that the latter lacks the same contextual flexibility.

Sarah Longwell (01:58): "Greg, but here's the thing. The n-word and words like queer were used as invective... Nazis were a very specific thing... So what does he reclaim?"

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3. The Challenges of Reclaiming Hate-Fueled Terms

The conversation shifts to the complexities involved in reclaiming terms that carry significant historical and emotional weight.

Tim Miller contrasts "Nazi" with other reclaimed slurs, highlighting that "Nazi" wasn't initially a slur but a self-designation.

Tim Miller (02:24): "The Nazis called themselves Nazis. It was a badge of honor, actually... It wasn't a slur."

Sarah Longwell discusses the unintended admissions made when individuals attempt to reclaim such loaded terms, suggesting that it inadvertently affirms the negative connotations.

Sarah Longwell (04:24): "Unless the point he's trying to make is they were Nazis... we should point out to Greg Gutfeld that he is making a logical mistake."

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4. Societal Implications and the Rise of Anti-Semitism

The hosts contextualize Gutfeld's actions within a broader societal framework, addressing the rise of anti-Semitism and the amplification of hate speech on social media platforms.

Sarah Longwell connects the discussion to the resurgence of anti-Semitic rhetoric, particularly on platforms like Twitter under Elon Musk's leadership.

Sarah Longwell (07:54): "Anti-Semitism is on the rise... he let all the Nazis back on Twitter."

Tim Miller reflects on the parallels between past and present societal attitudes towards racist jokes, noting a shift towards normalization.

Tim Miller (07:31): "It's been like, we're not sort of call ourselves Nazis, but they become self-fulfilling."

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5. The Intersection of Comedy and Political Extremism

The episode explores how comedic attempts to normalize extremist language can have unintended consequences, potentially emboldening hate groups.

Sarah Longwell critiques the effectiveness of Gutfeld's humor, emphasizing that such jokes do not land as intended and may instead trivialize serious issues.

Sarah Longwell (11:24): "It's just a joke. It's just a gag... it's not funny."

Tim Miller warns against the slippery slope of normalizing Nazi terminology through humor, citing the potential for these jokes to evolve into more entrenched extremist beliefs.

Tim Miller (11:50): "If you're going to make Nazi jokes, they better be really funny. And you didn't nail it on this one."

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6. Conclusion: The Responsibility of Public Figures in Language Use

Wrapping up the discussion, Tim Miller and Sarah Longwell underscore the responsibility that public figures hold in steering public discourse, especially concerning sensitive and charged terminology.

Sarah Longwell (11:28): "It didn't work. Your joke's bad."

Tim Miller (11:51): "If you're going to make Nazi jokes, they better be really funny."

The hosts conclude by reiterating the importance of thoughtful language use and the potential dangers of attempting to reclaim terms that carry historical atrocities.

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Key Takeaways

• Reclaiming Loaded Terms: While some groups successfully reclaim slurs, attempting to reclaim "Nazi" is fraught with complexities due to its specific historical context and the potential to inadvertently legitimize extremist ideologies.

• Impact of Humor: Comedic attempts to normalize sensitive terms can backfire, trivializing serious issues and potentially empowering hate groups.

• Rise of Anti-Semitism: The episode highlights a concerning increase in anti-Semitic rhetoric, exacerbated by platforms that allow for the proliferation of such content.

• Responsibility of Media Figures: Public figures like Greg Gutfeld bear significant responsibility in shaping public discourse, and their use of language can have far-reaching societal implications.

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This episode of Bulwark Takes offers a critical examination of the intersection between comedy, language reclamation, and the perpetuation of extremist ideologies, urging listeners to consider the weight of words and the influence of media personalities.

Transcript

[Tim Miller]

Hey, everybody. Tim Miller from the Bulwark here with our publisher and my bestie, Sarah Longwell. We promised you this during the next level. It was a great next level. By the way, if you haven't watched it yet, go check it out on YouTube. A little bonus segment. Anytime a Fox News host decides they want to start calling themselves a Nazi and self identifies as a Nazi, we feel like that's important thing for us to peruse.

[Sarah Longwell]

I can't believe you didn't start this show with what up, my Nazi?

[Tim Miller]

Oh, sorry. Come on. Sorry, my Nazi. Yeah, for anybody who missed this, God bless you. So why don't we all watch it together? And this is the kind of material you're getting in the 5pm hour over.

[Sarah Longwell]

We'll be stupider after watching it.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, with George. Anyway, George W. Bush's former press secretary sitting there. You know, that's what's happened with everybody.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah.

[Tim Miller]

Why don't we. Why don't we give it a watch together right now?

[Greg Gutfeld]

This is why the criticism doesn't matter to us when you call us Nazis. Nazi this, Nazi that. You know, I'm beginning to think they don't like us. You know what? I've said this before. We need to learn from the blacks the way they. They were able to remove the power from the N word by using it. So from now on, it's what up, my Nazi? Hey, what up, my Nazi? Hey, what's hanging my Nazi?

[Tim Miller]

Nazi, please.

[Greg Gutfeld]

Thank God you did a hard eye there.

[Sarah Longwell]

I did not see that coming.

[Tim Miller]

Nazi, please. It was kind of like an awkward silence there for a while, and then she does that, and then a little forced laughter. I don't know if the metaphor really works for me, but, Sarah, what are your initial thoughts?

[Sarah Longwell]

Well, so here's the thing. When you say the metaphor doesn't work for you. All right, so reclaiming words. He's right. There are people who do it. We, our community has taken the queer back and now everything's queer. We can't even be gays and lesbians anymore.

[Tim Miller]

Right?

[Sarah Longwell]

It's all queer.

[Tim Miller]

No, we've taken it back too hard, actually. Much queer happening in Oakland. If you're a straight person that likes anime, you call yourself queer. It's like we gotta dial it back a little bit.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah, Greg. But here's the thing. The nword and words like queer were used as. They were hurled as invective. Right. At people who had done nothing as a way to be cruel to those people. Nazis were a very specific thing. Part of the German military. They did quite a bad thing, as you may recall. And so what does he reclaim?

[Tim Miller]

Also wasn't a slur. And I'll just real quick, like it wasn't a slur. The Nazis called themselves Nazis. It was a badge of honor, actually. They had a salute, they had a. They had a leader. They had a coherent ideology. Like it was a group, it was a political party. Yeah. It wasn't a group with a worldview. So it's the. These N words are very different. They do both start with the letter N. I guess that would be the one similarity that I would have. But yeah, I think it makes, it creates a little bit of a weakness in this idea that I'm reclaiming Nazi when Nazi has like a very definable ideology that that is, that is on the rise again among some people who are at least quasi allied with Greg Gutfeld at times.

[Sarah Longwell]

That's right. And also when you reclaim something, it means that there was a period, I.

[Tim Miller]

Guess we're breaking this down. Like it's a very serious thing. It's like we're going to diagram the sent Nazi. Please.

[Sarah Longwell]

There, there's a reason that we're doing this one because the stupidity hurts and you just, you feel you want to make fun of them for being this. When you reclaim a word, what you're saying to us, Greg, here's the thing they're telling on themselves. It's an accidental admission. Which is why I just think we should point out to Greg Gutfeld that he is making a logical mistake. Unless the point he's trying to make is they were Nazis. He himself and his friends were Nazis. And they decided, you know, we're being maligned for being Nazis. So we are being treated poorly as Nazis. And so we must take that word back and make it great again. Make it an easy thing. And I just think, I know Greg Gutfeld thinks he's a comedian, but this bit doesn't land. Also, I do wonder how because what's his name is there on the panel. He used to be on Morning Joe all the time.

[Tim Miller]

Ford, Harold Ford Junior.

[Sarah Longwell]

Harold for Junior, I believe. Does he. How does he feel about Gutfeld's. We got to learn this from the blacks. It's not.

[Tim Miller]

And Gut looks right at him when he says the blacks. You notice that I've said this before.

[Greg Gutfeld]

We need to learn from the blacks.

[Tim Miller]

He's like, you know, we're going to learn a little something from Awkward Paws. The blacks.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah. And the thing is, I'm not particularly sensitive. Like I think that, you know, we can all just say what we are racially and we can talk about this and it's not. But there when he's talking about, thank God you used the hard eye. You know, I, I see where he was going with that joke, but actually like the weirdest part was the hard, the blacks in his delivery, like, that was the part where you're like, you're not, this doesn't, you're, you're not landing this, bro. You're not.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah. Couple other thoughts. When you're thinking about Greg's Kampf, you know, his struggle as a white man who has gets maligned as a Nazi, is that, you know, if it really, if the issue really was like, it's not that big of a deal and you're being treated unfairly and it's a cancel culture that you have to say, then it's notable that he didn't just say the N word, right? Like, he could have just done that. Like he said the N word, right, but he could have just said it if it wasn't really that big of a deal, you know, and he wants to take something back from the blacks that would be just something to consider. It leads you to believe that there again, it shows you about the difference between the two words. The fact that you are able to actually say one of them and not say the other one. It shows that they have, you know, a little bit of a different, different weight to them. But the serious part of it, it is fun to, it's fun to point and laugh. But there, there's the serious part of this and it's a trend I've seen over like really the Trump era. And it's not, I don't think this is like one thing that isn't really Trump's fault. Like, Trump just kind of like rose simultaneously to this kind of like backlash to cancel culture, you know, sort of thing. And they, they played off each other and like one, you know, helps make the other stronger, I think in various ways. But like, I see this in my life of. I remember being a all boys school privileged 17 year old white boy who would occasionally make racist jokes. And then when people would say to me, like, oh, that's not cool. It's just like, oh, it's just a joke. Like, why, like why are you taking this stuff so seriously, right? Like, it's just, it's just a joke. It's just a gag. Like, I'm not actually racist. Like there are racist people over there. We're just doing jokes. And you're the, you're the problem because you're too sensitive. Right. And that's a childish way of thinking. And it's something that I grew out of pretty quickly in my teen years. But what you see now is the opposite where people start to make those jokes and say, oh, it's just a joke. But then slowly over time it starts to be like not really actually like you see this in Nick Fuentes world, which is pretty close. Just again, Greg Gutfeld is not Nick Fuentes. But the idea is the same where Nick Fuente starts by making Nazi jokes and racist jokes and then over time his little group called the Groipers, they start to grow up and then eventually reach to a point where you're kind of like, you know, the Nazis did have some points, you know.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah.

[Tim Miller]

Like they were really, they were right about like that. It's like a trajectory we've seen a lot which is like we make these jokes where they're going to call, they're going to say we're not sort of call ourselves Nazis, but they become self fulfilling. And I think that is why we should point and laugh at Greg but also say this is like a serious thing you shouldn't do.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah. It's also, I think it also is happening simultaneously where anti Semitism is on the rise. Like we are seeing a new and honestly this is a sort of a separate conversation about social media. But Twitter, when Elon Musk came in, whether that was a Nazi salute he gave or he really awkward way to throw his heart out, I will tell you the one thing I'm very certain of is he let all the Nazis back on Twitter.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah.

[Sarah Longwell]

And like the amount of, of anti Semitic stuff that is like in my feet. Like if I get called anti Semitic.

[Tim Miller]

Slurs all the time, I'm a Catholic, you know, I imagine what the actual Jews are getting in their feeds.

[Sarah Longwell]

Well, a lot. Like if you see, if you, if you follow it, it is like wild all the, the crazy anti Semitic stuff that is in there. And I think that back in the sort of the campus pro Palestinian protests there was a real like what is happening with the left and the anti Semitism on the left. That was a big part of the conversation. And I think Republicans leaned into it especially hard as a way to deflect from the fact that Donald Trump was dining at Mar a Lago with Nick Fuentes, with Kanye west who has long left his music endeavors behind to become a full time Nazi sympathizer. And so Donald, I don't think we.

[Tim Miller]

Need sympathizer there I think he literally said like, Kyle Hitler or something.

[Sarah Longwell]

Like, I think you're right. And like made a. Maybe made a song about it. Like, I mean, I want to say so I was never a Nazi.

[Tim Miller]

I was never a pre Nazi Kanye fan. So I'm not as familiar with this as some of the other cultural totems, but I'm pretty sure he's just like, I'm a Nazi now.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah, that's right. And then like, you know the Mark Robinson who by the way made a video about Epstein. He was the guy who ran for governor now in North Carolina, but he was the one who was like the porn pizza guy.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah.

[Sarah Longwell]

Who they, they unearthed all of these things where he called himself a black Nazi online. And he is like a big Trump guy. Like the anti Semitism on right. Is actually also a very big problem. Yeah. And it would be. And I, so I. And I think that not really thing.

[Tim Miller]

To joke about, I guess.

[Sarah Longwell]

Well, I just, I think this idea of I'm gonna. People call us Nazis because there is genuine fascist tendencies happening with Trump and his supporters. And also we have a real issue right now with right wing anti Semitism. It was, I mean, Tucker, Tucker is like out of control. Like there were a lot of like the, the split in Maga world over and even like the Epstein Mossad. Like there's so much of this anti Semitic stuff happening on the right that like, I don't know, Greg, you might have to grapple with this. Like, I'm not sure that being able to just act like people are calling you guys Nazis for no reason or making comparisons to Hitler for no reason. And, and I don't like Hitler comparisons. I, I always think they are. I think it's, it's. What is that principle of like the first person to.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, Godwin's Law. I think it's God.

[Sarah Longwell]

Godwin's Law. Yeah. Mentions Hitler, loses the argument. And so it, it always feels a little hyperbolic. And yet there's no doubt that we have moved closer to early 1930s. I mean, we've got a vice president that is supporting the far right political parties in Germany right now that are like white nationalists. Like, we do have a real problem going on. And so I don't know. But more importantly, just as like straight comedy, like, he's not good.

[Tim Miller]

Not funny.

[Sarah Longwell]

It didn't. Didn't work. Your joke's bad.

[Tim Miller]

Not funny. Yeah, not funny. You know, not maybe of the moment. And I don't know, you know, Sig Heils or putting out there. I don't know if Sig Heil humor is right. So Greg Gutfeld, I guess on the one hand it's good to know we're self identifying as Nazis now. It's nice for people to know that. But just as a general just piece of advice, if you're going to make Nazi jokes, they better be really funny.

[Sarah Longwell]

They better be really funny.

[Tim Miller]

Really funny. And you didn't nail it on this one. Okay. Thank you, Sarah. I'm glad I could analyze this with you. And we live up to our promise to people. We said that there was going to be Greg Gutfeld Nazi content at the end of Next level and so here it is.