MAGA Propaganda Machine HYPES UP Fake Arrests

Summary

Podcast Summary: Bulwark Takes – "MAGA Propaganda Machine HYPES UP Fake Arrests"

Release Date: July 22, 2025
Host/Authors: Tim Miller and Sarah Longwell
Podcast: The Bulwark
Title: MAGA Propaganda Machine HYPES UP Fake Arrests

---

1. Introduction and Performance Review

In the opening segment of the episode, Tim Miller and Sarah Longwell conduct a candid performance review of The Bulwark's YouTube channel. Tim initiates the discussion by presenting concerning analytics, highlighting that their channel is not among the top performers in the political YouTube landscape.

Notable Quotes:

• Tim Miller [00:00]: "We're doing okay, but we're not in the top 10."
• Sarah Longwell [01:04]: "This kind of performance isn't going to cut it. It's not."

Key Points:

• Competitive Landscape: The Bulwark's subscriber growth is lagging behind competitors like Benny Johnson, who gained 2.2 million subscribers in the last three months.
• Comparative Performance: Other major channels mentioned include Fox News, MSNBC, and Cast News, with Cast News notably outperforming The Bulwark by doubling their subscriber count.
• Subscription Challenges: Despite extensive content creation, The Bulwark struggles to convert viewers into subscribers, partly due to the popularity of rival channels offering free content.

---

2. The Rise of Benny Johnson's YouTube Channel

The discussion shifts to the significant growth of Benny Johnson's YouTube channel, which has become a leading force in right-wing media. Tim and Sarah delve into the possible reasons behind Johnson's surge in popularity.

Notable Quotes:

• Tim Miller [03:01]: "Benny Johnson is doing so much better than everybody else."
• Sarah Longwell [04:27]: "This is the point... we live in an attention economy and that means everybody is competing for your attention."

Key Points:

• Content Strategy: Benny Johnson's channel capitalizes on sensationalist and often misleading content, such as fake arrest scenarios involving prominent political figures.
• Attention Economy: In a landscape where every media outlet vies for viewer attention, Johnson's provocative content effectively captures and retains a large audience.
• Distraction Tactics: Johnson's focus on fabricated stories serves as a diversion from more substantial issues, notably the Epstein scandal, redirecting public discourse to sensational narratives.

---

3. MAGA Propaganda and Fake Arrests

A significant portion of the episode centers on the manipulation of information by MAGA-aligned media figures to fabricate political scandals, particularly targeting former President Barack Obama.

Notable Quotes:

• Sarah Longwell [04:08]: "Benny Johnson by lying. And this is what a lot of the right-wing influencers do."
• Tim Miller [05:00]: "Four of the last nine Benny Johnson videos are about Obama going to jail."

Key Points:

• False Narratives: Benny Johnson has produced multiple videos falsely claiming that Donald Trump has released footage of Barack Obama being arrested and thrown in jail, a scenario that is factually baseless.
• AI-Generated Content: Sarah posits that such arrest footage may be AI-generated, emphasizing the proliferation of deepfakes and their role in spreading misinformation.
• Political Implications: The spread of these fake arrest narratives serves to maintain and amplify support for Trump and distract from unresolved legal issues involving other figures like Epstein.

---

4. Distraction from Epstein Cases

Tim and Sarah discuss how the focus on fabricated arrest stories, particularly those involving Obama, is strategically employed to distract the public from the ongoing Epstein investigation.

Notable Quotes:

• Sarah Longwell [05:29]: "They are trying to use that in order to move the conversation away from Epstein."
• Tim Miller [06:00]: "It is the playbook that has worked for Trump so far."

Key Points:

• Strategic Diversion: By flooding the information space with sensational but false stories, right-wing media attempts to divert attention from critical issues like the Epstein case.
• Public Reaction: While such tactics gain traction in certain circles, there is a hint of diminishing returns as seen in recent developments within the Epstein investigation.
• Impact on Credibility: Continuous dissemination of false information risks eroding trust in right-wing media, as evidenced by official responses questioning the legitimacy of the fake arrest claims.

---

5. Potential Impacts and Consequences

The hosts express concerns about the long-term implications of perpetuating false narratives, both for individuals involved and the broader political climate.

Notable Quotes:

• Tim Miller [07:34]: "At what point have you hyped people up so much... and then, no, he's not."
• Sarah Longwell [08:05]: "Did you see Matt Walsh?... He wants accountability... but this is a right-wing fantasy."

Key Points:

• Escalation Risks: Constantly hyping false accusations can lead to public disillusionment and potential backlash when reality contradicts propagated narratives.
• Psychological Toll: The creation and spread of false arrest images can contribute to paranoia and distrust among the public, potentially inciting real-world tensions.
• Political Repercussions: Such strategies might alienate moderate viewers and erode the base's trust when discrepancies between claims and reality emerge.

---

6. Conclusion and Call to Action

In the concluding segment, Tim and Sarah reflect on the challenges faced by The Bulwark in combating misleading narratives while striving to maintain integrity and factual reporting.

Notable Quotes:

• Sarah Longwell [11:04]: "I would like to achieve narrative dominance for the Bulwark by doing it right, by telling people the truth, by not lying to them."
• Tim Miller [12:16]: "The right has cornered off big parts of the Internet for themselves and somebody's got to come back."

Key Points:

• Commitment to Truth: The Bulwark emphasizes its dedication to factual reporting and resisting the temptation to follow the sensationalist tactics employed by rivals.
• Call to Support: The hosts encourage listeners to subscribe and support The Bulwark to help counterbalance the influence of misleading right-wing media outlets.
• Future Outlook: Despite current challenges, Tim and Sarah express optimism about The Bulwark's role in providing credible and trustworthy news in a highly polarized media environment.

---

Final Remarks: The episode underscores the pervasive issue of misinformation within right-wing media, particularly through the strategic use of fake arrest narratives to manipulate public perception and divert attention from significant scandals. Tim Miller and Sarah Longwell advocate for a steadfast commitment to truth and factual reporting as essential tools in combating the influence of sensationalist media outlets like Benny Johnson’s channel.

Listeners are encouraged to support The Bulwark by subscribing and engaging with their content to promote a more informed and truthful media landscape.

Transcript

[Tim Miller]

Hey guys, Tim Miller from the Bulwark here. I'm here with the publisher of this very website, Sarah Longwell. I want to get a little performance review. We've been looking at some YouTube stats and also take a peek at what the fuck is happening in the right wing media because it is insane what some of these YouTube pages are doing. So Sarah, here's the, here's the bad news. I want to start with the bad news. I'm doing my best over here, but there's a new report out from our guy Kyle Tharp that looks at the biggest growing political YouTube channel. We're doing okay, but we're not in the top 10. Number one is this guy named Benny Johnson. He gained 2.2 million subscribers in the last three months. In Q2, we only gained like 200,000. Fox News is second, then some of the big ones, MSNBC. And then you kind of go down, Tim. Cast news is beating us, doubled us up. Turning point us from, from Tim Pool with that little hat, the little beanie. So anyway, I don't know, I just. Sorry to break it to you. I'm doing my best over here in the, in the, in the content minds. But here's the. This is the state of play, Tim.

[Sarah Longwell]

This kind of performance isn't going to cut it. It's not.

[Tim Miller]

This is.

[Sarah Longwell]

Your performance review is poor. No, hey, look man, I know you're trying. I know you're out there. You're doing I. Because as somebody else who, who, who creates content on, on this here website, nobody creates more content than you do. Nobody's given more people. Somebody's giving it away for free. More than Tim Miller. Guys, this is a key point.

[Tim Miller]

It's free.

[Sarah Longwell]

It's free.

[Tim Miller]

Subscribe. Why are you letting me get beat by Tim Pool? People just click the little subscribe button. It's right up there at the top.

[Sarah Longwell]

If he added 2.2 million, okay, which is more than the total number of subscribers than we had. And we're a big channel. But that means enough of you who are watching are not subscribing. It means that he gained 2.2 million because he visited Alligator Alcatraz and put on the merch from a like place where they're going to illegally detain people. What? You can't let somebody like that get that kind of positive reinforcement for that kind of behavior. Reinforce good behavior. Like Tim Miller wearing pearls, telling you the truth, showing up every. What'd you say?

[Tim Miller]

Freshwater pearls today even, you know, the.

[Sarah Longwell]

Dark ones also come for the lesbian who doesn't know what he's talking about most of the time. So, guys, you gotta subscribe. Come help us out.

[Tim Miller]

Come subscribe. One more pitch before we get. And we gotta get into the Benny Johnson page to give you some, I guess, news or some just at least a view of what's happening over there in the other world. But we also have YouTube plus, you know, so if you really want to support us, if you're like, fuck, you know, you really want to support us, you can, you can become a YouTube, a bullet plus subscriber on YouTube. You get bonus content. You get the full secret pod with Sarah and jbl. You know, you don't get cut off at the end. You get a little emoji of my face. I don't know why you would want that, but some people want it. You know, you get boosted comments. Anyway, YouTube get my face too.

[Sarah Longwell]

I know it's all about Tim, but also face.

[Tim Miller]

I haven't seen anybody using your face. Anyway, let's go to the Benny Johnson page because, I mean, this is, it is. It sucks we're getting beaten and it's alarming and it's also, it's all these things. It's scary and funny at the same time. I pulled up, Kyle was, was looking at his recent content and we'll put up graphic that Kyle did in his newsletter where he talked about why Benny Johnson is doing so much better than everybody else. But since then, since that newsletter came out, you know, there's been a big news item. I don't know if you've seen this, Sarah, which is that the President of the United States, Donald Trump, has been suggesting that the former president, United States Barack Obama, needs to be imprisoned.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yes.

[Tim Miller]

And I pulled up Benny Johnson's feed this morning as we're taping this. And I swear to God, I swear to God, three of the last nine videos he's done is about Barack Obama going to jail.

[Sarah Longwell]

Sure.

[Tim Miller]

One of them says, one of them is headlined this Trump releases footage of Obama being Arrested, Thrown in jail. So I mean, I'm not really, I'm not really a fact checker. Usually that's not my beat. But I don't, I don't think that's possible for Trump to release footage of Obama being arrested and thrown in jail because as far as I know, Obama still walks free. I don't know. Have you seen anything to the contrary?

[Sarah Longwell]

I do think Barack Obama is still free. I'm pretty sure that was an AI generated arrest. And I got to say, this is sort of the point Right now we are, and this is kind of the serious part of this conversation, which is we live in an attention economy and that means everybody is competing for your attention. People who are watching and listening to things. And Benny Johnson by lying. And this is what a lot of the right wing influencers do. They lie and they carry Trump's water. Because this Barack Obama story was, it comes from Tulsi Gabbard trying to sort of remanufacture some of the Russiagate stuff that they think they're on good ground on. Honestly, they're on bad ground on that too. But what, what they are trying to do is change the conversation to use the kinetic energy that all of them can generate as right wing talkers. They are trying to use that in order to move the conversation away from Epstein. Right, that's what's happening here.

[Tim Miller]

No, that's exactly what's happening. And you can. And this is why Trump does that stuff. Sometimes we look at it and you laugh and you're like, why is Trump even doing it? Like, it's like Rosie o' Donnell is going to be deported. And you know, it's like some of the stuff, it has to be actually news because he's the president, people elected him. But some of the times it's like everybody laughs and it's like, well, there's this whole other ecosystem out there which apparently is getting more views than in our ecosystem until we kind of continue to expand and spread the truth that where, like this does, where it works, like Trump puts that out and it's like, okay, yes sir, sir, we'll go out and do this. I actually is incorrect. I need to fact check myself. Four of the last nine Benny Johnson videos are about Obama going to jail. It's just only three of them had Obama in the orange jumpsuit behind bars. One of them is from is General Flynn sends dark warning to Obama we will raid your mansion. And it's just all of this is, it's totally fanfic, it's in another world, but it is what, you know, it is the playbook that has worked for Trump so far. I will say the one good thing that I've seen this morning is that like, it hasn't really worked on Epstein and it might be working in the fantasy universe of Benny Johnson's YouTube page, but like, you know, the fact that the deputy Attorney general had to come out today and say, okay, we've re looked at it, we're going to interview Ghislaine Maxwell now. I don't have any trust that they're going to take that seriously or whatever. But just the fact that they feel like they have to do that means that the distraction thing isn't working. So that's, I guess, a modest piece of good news.

[Sarah Longwell]

So I've got two other pieces of good news. Well, one is strategically, what they're doing is they're literally trying to do anything they can to distract from Epstein. But in the. What they're doing with this Obama thing is kind of boxing themselves in the same way they did with Epstein, which is to say this is explosive. Obama finally going to be held to account? Well, no, he's not, because you're making this up. And so, like, at what point have you hyped people up so much to say he's going to jail and then, no, he's not.

[Tim Miller]

Not to be the dark guy, but it makes me worry about the safety of some of these people. Right. And honestly, like, you know, Jim Comey's been on, like, I'm looking at this. It's like there's so many people in orange jumpsuits on Benny's page. It's Joe Biden, Jim Comey, Barack Obama, Elon Omar, Barack Obama again. You know, and so. Because if nothing, that's kind of what led to January6, right. It's like nothing happens. Right. They promised them everything, and then eventually it boils over. I worry about that a little bit because that, I mean, but it also could hurt him politically at the same time. Both of those things.

[Sarah Longwell]

Did you see Matt Walsh? So I don't normally pay attention to Matt Walsh.

[Tim Miller]

I only saw the tweet describing the video. I haven't actually watched the video.

[Sarah Longwell]

So I watched the video and it is him in his way, which is whatever.

[Tim Miller]

You don't know. Matt Walsh is one of the Daily Wire is in the Daily Wire universe, which is Ben Shapiro. And he. And he's the. What is a woman guy.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah. He usually spends his time talking about why women should, you know, not work and, you know, alpha males and all this stuff. Real. He's kind of an effete intellectual type trying to dominate the manosphere. Whatever. The point is, he was.

[Tim Miller]

He's a big beard over the fact that he's never Ted Cruz.

[Sarah Longwell]

We know what you're doing, guys. You all grew beards to, you know, butch up for whatever. But here, here's what he was saying. And I think this is right. He says, look, I believe what Tulsi Gabbard says. I like Tulsi Gabbard. I think this. This theory about what Obama did. Like, I think the evidence is overwhelming that they manufactured evidence against Trump in the Russia, Russia, Russia scandal. And so I want to see people in handcuffs. I want to see accountability. I want to see them do something. And this is where, like, this is what happens is like at some point people are like, well, if this is true, if you've got them, if you've got them, Benny Johnson, then I want to see it for real, not in an AI generated, you know, fake video. And I do think there's a period of people or people who are sort of like, Obama is in jail. Like, if you read the comments, and who knows how many of them are Russian bots. Who knows how many of his likes are his favorite.

[Tim Miller]

Johnson, we should say, was one of the people that took money from the Russians, or is that like about a year ago is him and Dave Rubin and Tim, two of the top 10. Two of the people beating us took Russian money in the past. So maybe, maybe some their subscribers are, are writing in Cyrillic, not English.

[Sarah Longwell]

But even still, everybody wants accountability for people when they think they broke the law. We wanted it for Trump.

[Tim Miller]

Sure.

[Sarah Longwell]

And we thought, because we think he broke the law. I also think we're not. Yeah, he was convicted and I think. And had the cases gone on or been moved faster, he would have been convicted in several other situations. But Barack Obama has not been indicted for anything. He hasn't been impeached for anything. Like, this is a right wing fantasy. And so. But at some point, these voters, like with Epstein are going to say, you're in charge now. So. So give us the accountability. This is why we elected you.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah.

[Sarah Longwell]

Well, they can't.

[Tim Miller]

Okay. Hopefully there's some backlash to that. Hopefully we will. We will see. My final question for you, just kind of as part of the performance review, is I should we consider doing AI images of Stephen Miller in jail? I mean, I could do that. I could come on tomorrow and be like, Stephen Miller. The Hague. It's happening. The international police force and the marshal of the Supreme Court are coming for you any minute now.

[Sarah Longwell]

I would like to achieve narrative dominance for the Bulwark by doing it right, by telling people the truth, by not lying to them.

[Tim Miller]

All right.

[Sarah Longwell]

We are always going to tell you what we think, even if. And. And we'll always tell you when we think what the other people at the board think is wrong.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, I can tell.

[Sarah Longwell]

You weren't.

[Tim Miller]

You weren't a cheater in school, were you? You didn't cheat a Kenyan, A Kenya.

[Sarah Longwell]

No.

[Tim Miller]

High school, A Couple, I would say.

[Sarah Longwell]

In high school, my brother. I was so bad at math that my brother and I were in the same math class. And there may have been attempts by me to ask my brother if he'd done his homework. Did you do your geometry homework? Is this right?

[Tim Miller]

Yeah. Okay, a little cheating. Yeah, some light cheating. We're not going to go over my track record on that front because we're doing it right now. We're following the rules. Subscribe to the feed, become a Board plus member. Let us at least compete with fucking Tim Pool in his hat. And I can't be the second biggest Tim on this place. I'm a little suspect of the Benny Johnson numbers. I mean, we should beat him, but still, it. Could it possibly be. I mean, I don't know. Donald Trump got elected president twice, so it could be real, I guess.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah. And this is where. Look, the. The right has. Has cornered off big parts of the Internet for themselves and somebody's got to come back. And what if. Tim, here's what I wonder, okay? What if we're. We centrist, lapsed Republicans? What if we're the Joe Rogan of the left? When people are like, we need. We need a Joe Rogan. We need some of this. What if that's us, that guy in.

[Tim Miller]

The mustache that was interviewing Hunter Biden for three hours? That might be the Joe Rogan at the left. Okay, no, no, no. We're not going to go there. Sarah Long. Well, I've got a separate thing on that letter. Sarah Long. Well, thank you for not, you know, coming down too hard on me. Everybody subscribe to the feed. As I've mentioned, we'll be back here soon. We've got some great interviews today. I got Chris helped him out.

[Sarah Longwell]

Help him improve his performance.

[Tim Miller]

Guys, thank you so much. We'll see you all soon.

[Sarah Longwell]

Bye.