They Stopped Fighting. Now Trump Thinks He's Untouchable.

Summary

Podcast Summary: Bulwark Takes

Episode: "They Stopped Fighting. Now Trump Thinks He's Untouchable."

Date: October 14, 2025
Hosts: Sam Stein & Sarah Longwell

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Episode Overview

This episode delves into the sense of capitulation in Congress and the business community under Donald Trump's renewed presidency. Stein and Longwell analyze recent reporting that highlights Trump's increasingly unchecked power, the implications for American democracy, and the cultural forces driving leaders—both corporate and political—to avoid challenging the President. The discussion is candid, nuanced, and occasionally darkly humorous, as the hosts grapple with what it means for the country when opposition wanes and systems of accountability weaken.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Total Capitulation to Trump (00:52–03:56)

• Referencing a Wall Street Journal article by Josh Dawsey, the hosts explore how Trump has "made Congress his":
  • Sarah Longwell: “It's about the complete and total capitulation of the business community of Congress...Trump basically sitting there being like, I can't believe it. They fought me last time. They gave me such a hard time. Now everything's easy.” (01:41)
  • The sense that no one—Congress, corporate leaders, or the business community—wants to stand up to Trump in his second term, especially after winning the popular vote.

2. Changing Incentives for Corporate America (03:07–05:14)

• Comparison of 2017 vs. 2025:
  • In 2017, visible public backlash discouraged alignment with Trump; in 2025, CEOs are more cautious, fearing Trump’s vindictiveness and the power of his supporters to “take down” brands.
  • Sarah Longwell: “Republican influencers on social media...have been feeling themselves and they have got everybody running scared that they have the power to take them down.” (04:38)
• The culture has shifted—the “socially conscious” approach is no longer seen as key to consumer loyalty.

3. Inadequate and Sporadic Pushback (06:16–09:42)

• Instances of corporate and Republican pushback are rare and often ineffectual.
  • Anecdote from the WSJ: Tech CEOs disgruntled by Trump’s worker visa policies couldn’t bring themselves to speak up in a meeting.
  • Sarah Longwell: “They have been weighed, they have been measured, they have been found wanting when it comes to courage. Right? Like they are enormous cowards.” (06:27)
• Even mild resistance (“the Jimmy Kimmel thing,” a tepid defense from Ted Cruz) quickly fades; everyone is risk-averse.

4. The Danger of Trump Feeling Unchecked (07:14–09:13)

• Trump perceives no boundaries—"everything he pressure tests, there's nobody [to stop him]."
  • Sarah Longwell: “As soon as people do [push back], they do back off…Pushback really does matter.” (07:58)
  • Longwell expresses hope for a groundswell of opposition, like the prospective “No Kings” protest.

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5. Culture of No Accountability and the Need for Oversight (10:13–12:52)

• When admonishments occur, they’re often transactional—less about right and wrong, more about fear of Democratic retaliation.
• Longwell argues Democrats must win the House in 2026 to restore meaningful oversight:
  • Sarah Longwell: “If Republicans think there is no world in which there is accountability for their actions, they are acting entirely like there is no accountability...” (11:56)
• Reining in executive power is highlighted as the essential, if difficult, reform.

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6. Dark Humor in Trump’s New Administration (12:52–13:51)

• Stein shares a “perverse” humorous anecdote from the Dawsey article:
  • Trump, now more extreme than even Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on vaccines, ignores his HHS secretary's advice and pushes for radical changes:
    • Sam Stein: “He’s too crazy even for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on vaccines.” (13:51)

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7. Resisting the Narrative that Trump Deserves Credit (13:51–15:53)

• Longwell pushes back on narratives praising Trump for foreign policy wins, such as the recent Middle East ceasefire:
  • Context matters—these are not purely Trump’s achievements and should not distract from his abuses of power:
    • Sarah Longwell: “I just think we should be circumspect before we give him too much credit personally for these things.” (15:53)
• Stein recounts an interview with Dan Shapiro (former ambassador to Israel), emphasizing the complexity of Middle Eastern diplomacy.

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8. Congress Abandoning Its Role (17:01–19:49)

• The conversation moves to a Washington Post article on Congress losing control over the power of the purse:
  • Sarah Longwell: “Our system is literally built on the idea that the ambition of each of the branches of government...will counteract the ambition of the others.” (17:23)
  • When Congress "lies down," checks and balances collapse, eroding liberal democracy.
• Stein argues that, absent the power to control appropriations, Congress becomes irrelevant:
  • Sam Stein: “If you can't protect your institution on this very basic ground, then your institution will have no authority, zip.” (19:45)
• Both lament lawmakers’ lack of institutional pride or motivation to fight for Congressional prerogatives.

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Notable Quotes & Moments (with Timestamps)

• “They have been weighed, they have been measured, they have been found wanting when it comes to courage.”
  — Sarah Longwell (06:27)

• “He’s so crazy, he’s too crazy even for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on vaccines.”
  — Sam Stein (13:51)

• “Our checks and balances rely on having a Congress that is obsessed with its own power, that is protective of its own power.”
  — Sarah Longwell (17:23)

• “If you can't protect your institution on this very basic ground, then your institution will have no authority, zip.”
  — Sam Stein (19:45)

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Tone and Language

The dialogue is frank, occasionally sardonic, and grounded in both humor and earnest concern about democratic backsliding. The hosts' rapport combines light teasing ("You never ask, Sam") with moments of real gravity about the health of American institutions.

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Important Timestamps

• 00:52 — Transition from banter to main topic
• 01:41 — Longwell on the "total capitulation" dynamic
• 04:38 — The culture shift in corporate America
• 07:14 — The danger of unchecked power for Trump
• 10:13 — Accountability and the need for oversight
• 12:52 — Sam's "perverse" humorous anecdote
• 17:23 — Longwell on checks and balances
• 19:45 — Stein's warning about Congress becoming irrelevant

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Takeaway

The episode paints a bracing picture: With leaders across the spectrum declining to oppose Trump—or even defend core institutional prerogatives—the safeguards of American democracy are eroding. While flashes of pushback exist, they're isolated and insufficient. The hosts argue that without a more robust opposition and a reinvigorated Congress, the country's system of checks and balances faces a dire threat.

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Transcript

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[Sam Stein]

Hey, everybody, it's me, Sam Stein, managing editor at the Bulwark, and I have a treat. I rarely get to do this. I'm joined by Sarah Longwell. She usually tries to avoid me. I don't know why.

[Sarah Longwell]

It's not true.

[Sam Stein]

It's not true.

[Sarah Longwell]

You never ask. You never ask, Sam.

[Sam Stein]

Every day I come in and I say, can I get a video time with Sarah? And I'm told she doesn't want to do one with you. Just jbl, Not a thing.

[Sarah Longwell]

That's true.

[Sam Stein]

It's true. Anyways, I finally got her to do with me and we're gonna be talking about a story that tickled me and I'm probably angered. Sarah a little bit in the Wall.

[Sarah Longwell]

Street Journal didn't tickle me.

[Sam Stein]

Oh, there's some funny parts. There are some funny parts. I'll get to that. It's in the Wall Street Journal. It's by Josh Dawsey, who is one of the great chroniclers of the Trump White House. This one's about Congress, though, more or less. It's about Trump basically realizing that he's made Congress his. It's called Trump Feeling emboldened pushes agenda into higher Gear. Sarah, you read it. Is my description wrong? Is that not the basis of this piece?

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah, I mean, I guess I'm trying to think about exactly what you found funny.

[Sam Stein]

I, I think there's a part. I'll get to it. Don't worry.

[Sarah Longwell]

Go on. Okay. Because it really is just, it's, it's sad. It's about the complete and total capitulation.

[Sam Stein]

Right.

[Sarah Longwell]

Of the business community of Congress. About. It's Trump basically sitting there being like, I can't believe it. They fought me last time. They gave me such a hard time. Now everything's easy. I can. Everything. And he's absolutely right. I mean, there is, there is no pushback coming from anywhere other than, I guess the fact that Democrats are being unwilling to fund Congress right now. You know, we did an awesome show in New York over the weekend, and one of the questions that we were going around the horn on was, you know, who surprised you pleasantly? And I would say Democrats during this shutdown have surprised me pleasantly, but only because it's the very first real sign of life from them. And so there's a reason that Donald Trump is able to walk over everybody, and it's because everyone has just decided, you can't fight this guy especially. And this is where it comes from. It's not that Trump has a mandate mandate, but he did win the popular vote, and he did win with all of his various baggage. And I think the lesson that especially our corporate leaders have taken from that and our congressional leaders have taken from that is like, there's no stop in this guy. We're just going to have to take it for the next three and a half years, and then we'll see what happens. But nobody is acting like their hair is on fire or like there's something serious they can and should be trying to do to push back on it.

[Sam Stein]

Yeah, you interesting point I hadn't really thought of, but if you were a corporate leader in 2017 and Trump had just won, but not with the popular vote, and immediately you saw the women's march and the backlash to this and the shock and revulsion and people going out to the airports and protesting the Muslim ban stuff, and just like there was this clearly a collective revulsion over this. And you could basically say, oh, the consumer sentiment is clear. Like, if I want to keep my customers, I got to be, you know, seen as not acquiescing to this guy. If you're a corporate CEO in 2025, guy just won the popular vote and, you know, there's little of that. And you probably think, you know, I gotta actually stay in this man's good graces because he's vindictive. So I do think there's different incent incentives here.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah. And it's, look, he's vindictive. And Democrats aren't really, like, they're a lot more afraid.

[Sam Stein]

Right.

[Sarah Longwell]

Trump and him being in power in a way that they're just not afraid of Democrats, and they're afraid of Trump voters in a way that they're not afraid of. I mean, like, I think the Washington Post and Disney plus and some of these places where people have been able to flex their disdain for Donald Trump by, you know, canceling a subscription like that gets Jimmy Kimmel back on the air. But I would say that the zeal and passion and commitment of MAGA voters to say, taking down a brand like Bud Light for having a trans spokesperson or Netflix.

[Sam Stein]

Recently they're doing that with Netflix. Yeah.

[Sarah Longwell]

I just think they have made Republican voters, Republican leaders, Republican influencers on social media. They have been feeling themselves and they have got everybody running scared that they have the power to take them down. There's a real sense among these guys that the culture has shifted decidedly away from the incentives that they thought were there before to be more. I don't want to sort of play into the woke stuff, but just more socially conscious as a, as a corporation that that was the way to consumers hearts. And they do not think that anymore.

[Sam Stein]

Right. And I don't want to go tip for tat, but like Democrats, liberals were doing this. Right. But it was not to the know if it was this, to this degree. For instance, you know, they demanded like Major League Baseball not have its all star game in Atlanta. Right. Because of the voting legislation there. They weren't saying don't ever show up at Major League Baseball games. But maybe they were. I could misremember it. The other thing is collective action as an issue. So this, this story has this incredible anecdote where all, like the tech CEOs were just really upset with some of the worker visa pro policies that Trump was going to be implementing. And they're kind of all waiting to say something to the guy when they met with him and then they met with him and no one had the, you know, audacity to speak up and say anything. It was for the $100,000 for per H1B visa policy that they're going to introduce. And so they just stayed quiet. They just sat there and they just didn't do anything. And so he doesn't get pushed back because no one wants to be the single person who has to start the pushback.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah. And can I so. And I don't know that it's audacity so much as just like the guts. Right. I know you're just looking for the right word. But like these, everybody has shown themselves. Like, they have been weighed, they have been measured, they have been found wanting when it comes to courage. Right. Like they are, they are enormous cowards. I do also, what, what freaks me out is on one hand, I get in a fight with JVL every time he tries to talk about Trump 2028, like, Trump's. Trump's gonna run again. Trump's gonna be the nominee. And I'm always like, I'll just say, I want to make a distinction between that which I think is not a real threat and different threats which Is Trump just not leaving? Like, the idea of, like, like, part of what I was thinking about when I was reading this story is about how Trump feels not just emboldened, but this idea of like, no one is standing in my way. No one is going to stand up to me. Like, everything he Pressure tests, there's nobody to. There's no police that come in and say, you cannot do this.

[Sam Stein]

There's nobody.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah, no, everybody's just like, sir, with tears in your eyes. Go ahead and do this to us.

[Sam Stein]

Well, let me push back. There's been a couple. So, yes, I agree with that. But, like, this is such a weak push back. So take it.

[Sarah Longwell]

Well, go ahead, give it to me.

[Sam Stein]

The Jimmy Kimmel thing, like Ted Cruz did speak up and say, ah, this is not good. Don't like it, don't want it. And then Brendan Carr kind of took his foot off the gas, right? Like when they have faced a little bit of pushback, it has worked somewhat. I don't know.

[Sarah Longwell]

Oh, that's not what I thought you were going to push back on. I thought you were going to push back on this contention that I'm, I was, I'm mistaken to think that people are overblowing this idea.

[Sam Stein]

Like Trump, how do you.

[Sarah Longwell]

Trump can run again.

[Sam Stein]

Yeah.

[Sarah Longwell]

No, no, no, no, no. But I. This, I do believe. No, actually, I don't. I don't think that's weak pushback. I think that's good push. This idea of that people have agency when people do push back. Right? Because this is the problem. He's being lulled into a pretty, a real sense of security. Like, nobody's going to stand up to him. And as soon as people do, they do back off. Right. Like, Jimmy Kimmel not only was reinstated by ABC because of the backlash and the. It was, I think, to some degree, it was. The call was in inside Bob Iger's house. His wife, who was a big free speech advocate, was like, you need to stop this. I also think all of the canceled Disney plus subscriptions, the backlash in general, I think being out there in Hollywood where there were a lot of people who were friends with Jimmy Kimmel saying, knock this. Like, so, like, pushback really does matter. And I think that it is like, I'm looking forward to the no Kings protest because my hope is, is that it isn't an enormous showing of force. And by force, I just mean, like bodies in the street saying, we don't approve of this because I do think we need to turn the vibes around because the vibes really are. Nobody can stop Trump. Nobody's doing anything about Trump. And that is no good.

[Sam Stein]

Yeah, there's sporadic, there's like little bits of pushback here and there, but it's nothing, nothing major. So like you have Kevin Stipping like the National Guard should not be deployed from Texas to Illinois. You have obviously the Ted Cruz instance. Occasionally a Republican will speak out about the appropriations process. Be like, we don't like this, but like that's it. I mean, that's it. And he just says a pound sand. I mean, I guess like the Indiana Republicans haven't done redistricting yet, but we're really scraping the bottom of the barrel here for, for moments.

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[Sarah Longwell]

I think we are, they do see there are some people. So one of the interesting things to me is when there is an admonishment about Trump shouldn't do this, they don't say for pure because it's wrong reasons.

[Sam Stein]

It's mostly because what happens Democrats, yeah.

[Sarah Longwell]

Democrats could do this to us. And honestly I think that, I think that, I think that is both bs But I also think it is important that people have some sense of and this is why I don't love the sort of fait accompli about we're not going to have elections in 2026 or won't be, you know, fair. 20. No, they have to, they have to believe. We have to believe you to do everything. Winning Congress in 2026 is enormously important for oversight reasons. Donald Trump is so fearful of oversight from Democrats, so fearful that they will start to have hearings, that what they are doing to people, dragging them in front of Congress, going after comey, going after political enemies. The people in Trump's shop should be afraid that that kind of turnabout turns into fair play. They should not want that to happen. And I think that Democrats should say, should be clear, like, you guys break these rules. Like if these are the new rules, it's a real problem. And I do think I, I've never liked this because I always feel like when it gets into a real, you know, Hatfields versus McCoy's, you know, Capulets versus Montague's, we're in a, in just a backlash, like a vortex of backlashes that lead straight to the bottom. On the other hand, I don't think you can decide that or if Republicans think there is no world in which there is accountability for their actions, they are acting entirely like there is no accountability for what they're doing. And you have to reinstate the idea that there can be accountability for Stephen Miller, for the corruption, for the breaking the law, for Kristi Noem in the Hatch Act. Like Kristi Noem right now at airports is just, there's a video that's like the normal video when TSA is there, you see that Mayorkas was there before and now you see Kristi Noem and just somebody talking about the importance of the safety, whatever, fine. And now she's saying the Democrats in it, that's illegal, you're not allowed to do it. But because there's nobody who goes and enforces that, they think they can do everything. And so, man, I will tell you the only way out of this is if Democrats do win, I would like them to have a serious discussion about reigning in executive power. It's very hard to do when it is your team who's in charge. But that is part of what is going to be required is rolling back executive power.

[Sam Stein]

I hear you. Do you want to know what I thought was funny about the piece now?

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah, tell me what's funny about the piece.

[Sam Stein]

I'm going to read the piece. It's, it's a perverse humor which is my specialty. It goes into sort of the differences between Trump 1.0, Trump 2.0 and Josh Dawsey writes and Trump's first term aides kept Robert F. Kennedy Jr. From working on anti vaccine effort after he met with Trump at Trump Tower. You might remember that in 2017 this time Kennedy is the Health and Human Services secretary and Trump is willing to go even further. This is where it got dark and humorous for me, I guess. Minutes before Trump in an Oval Office news conference repeatedly instructed pregnant women not to take Tylenol and offered his thoughts on changing the childhood vaccine schedule. Kennedy tried to talk him out of making such broad proclamations about childhood vaccines. Advisor said Trump didn't listen. Instead he said he believed the schedule needed to change. So he's so crazy, he's too crazy even for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. On vaccines. That's, that's the, we're in yeah, because.

[Sarah Longwell]

He doesn't care about people, he doesn't care about their kids. He doesn't care what happens to anybody. And, Sam, let's just talk for a second. I want to contrast this. I'm watching a lot of people today feel like they got to hand it to Trump. They feel like they got to say, hey, you know, Trump really helped get these hostages home and broker this peace deal in the Middle East. Now, I want to tell you, I am thrilled the hostages are home. I'm heartbroken for the children who've lost their lives. But I am glad that there is this ceasefire, that there's going to be humanitarian aid, that we might be working way out of this. The idea, though, that Donald Trump's, you know, smart, strategic mind on this, you know, really, I. I object to that line of thinking, but because I don't think Donald. This is Donald Trump, other than pursuing his Nobel Peace Prize, has. Does not care about what anyone is doing. And also, he made a lot of big, bombastic claims about how he would immediately be ending things. Both the Israel, Palestinian, but also Ukraine and Russia, which of course, he has not done. And so, like, let's not go overboard and having to hand it to him. But it also smacks to me of, look, the guy's present United States has basically taken unilateral authority. He ought to be able to get a couple things done that aren't terrible. Like, but that doesn't negate. Like, I don't think people should talk about the wins without the context of the fact that he currently is sending troops into American cities for no reason, even when judges have told him it's wrong. Like the idea that you have to say, like, to be on, to be a good neutral observer or just a good balls and strikes type. That Donald Trump really got this one. No, I just think we should be circumspect before we give him too much credit personally for these things.

[Sam Stein]

No, totally hear you. I had a really interesting conversation, actually, with Dan Shapiro right before you and I got on to talk. Dan is the former ambassador to Israel under Joe Biden. We talked a bit about this, what actually facilitated the end to the conflict and the sort of psychic. The psychic blow that it took on both, obviously, Gaza and Israel, but also on the US Foreign policy apparatus, like what it means for managing that region and affecting the US Israel relationship. And it's deeply complicated. Obviously, a lot of things went into this. One of them may have been Trump, but he's not solely responsible for getting us to this point. There's a variety of different factors, including the other Arab states, Israeli leadership, Hamas, you know, they had to be brought to the table somehow at some point. So I encourage people to listen to that, as I do encourage people to subscribe to our feed where you can get stuff like this. Sarah. See, it's not so bad being on with me. It's not.

[Sarah Longwell]

It's not so bad. We didn't even talk about the second article, though. I was like.

[Sam Stein]

Well, the second article was just the second, like a reiteration of the first. Right. It was just sort of like Congress is lame. Why did you have thoughts on that?

[Sarah Longwell]

Well, I just had one thought. Can I just, I'll close with.

[Sam Stein]

Let me, let me set it up. This. Because the second article is the Washington Post piece kind of the same, but it's both mostly focused on the appropriations process. Now, Trump has given Congress the middle finger on that one, too. It's called Congress losing its grip on the power to spend America's money. What did you think about that one? Why was that? Why did that get your goat?

[Sarah Longwell]

Here's why. And it's. I'm going to apologize in advance. This is a very political sciencey take, but I just do want to reiterate something. I've talked about this before, but it's important to me. The thing about Congress lying down is that our system is literally built on the idea that the ambition of each of the branches of government right our separation of powers, our checks and balances. They are predicated on the idea that the ambition of each branch will counteract the ambition of the others. Our checks and balances rely on having a Congress that is obsessed with its own power, that is protective of its own power, which is when you lose that, we lose the fundamental checks and balances that guide our system, that undergird liberal democracy, American liberal democracy. It's a very fundamentally American idea of these checks and balances. And when you have a Supreme Court, but most importantly a Congress, when you have a Congress that does not do its job, that allows Trump to do pocket rescissions and to control the power of the purse and to decide everything and ignore things that Congress did, like TikTok's illegal, like when those things happen, we do not have an American government with checks and balances anymore. And so that is why I want to talk about that.

[Sam Stein]

Well, and also, and I'll just say this, it's like this whole government shutdown debate has centered around health care and Obamacare subsidies and whether this is the appropriate vehicle for cutting a deal or not on that. And I feel like I'm taking crazy pills because to me, I mean, obviously that stuff's important. But like, fundamentally, if they are going to pursue a policy of rescissions, if they're going to disrespect Congress's authority to make a deal on appropriations, if they're going to say you can pass a spending bill with 60 votes in the Senate, but we'll just undo it with 50 votes, then what the hell is the incentive to cut any deal at all? Like, why would a Democrat say, yeah, sure, I agree to this level, knowing fully well that in two weeks Mike Johnson will just say, you know what, let Donald Trump decide what to spend and whatnot. So that's right. I just don't get it. Like, have some dignity as a lawmaker. If you can't protect your institution on this very basic ground, then your institution will have no authority, zip.

[Sarah Longwell]

And that is they do seem to have decided they do not care about their.

[Sam Stein]

They don't care. They don't care. It's crazy. All right, Sarah, thank you so much. Appreciate it. Everyone. Subscribe to the feed where you get great conversations like this. Talk to you soon.