← Bulwark Takes
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- [00:00]
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A
Hey everybody. Tim Miller from the Bulwark here with my colleagues Andrew Egger. He writes the Morning Shots newsletter. Go sign up for that@the bulwark.com and Will Salatin. We all signed up for some pretty pointless duty tonight, so we might as well hang out together and laugh about it. Donald Trump gave like one of the stupidest presidential addresses in history. It's competitive category with mostly him as the other contestants and maybe W doing mission accomplished. But we can rank them later. We announced nothing. I guess, I guess that's not true. He's giving a very meager Christmas bonus to the troops. Which we appreciate the troops and we thank them. Besides that, he spent most of the speech complaining about Joe Biden. We could run through the details if we want, but Andrew, why don't we start with you. What was your impression of our.
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C
Can you imagine? We pay a lot of attention to this guy every day. Imagine being the kind of voter that this sort of addresses for. Right.
- [02:37]
A
You're gonna watch Survivor. You're about to watch Survivor. It was gonna start at 9, but I had to start at 9. 22.
- [02:42]
C
Exactly. You pay no attention to politics. You know, Donald Trump is president, obviously. Maybe you have some of these economic gripes that pull Nicole's show. More and more people have. But, like, he's not. Like, you've been watching the show, the Donald Trump show all along. You're like, oh, the president's speaking. Let's see what this is all about. I've watched some of these before. And he gets up there, and the first thing he says is, we inherited a mess and we're. And we're gonna fix it. But it's. Look, it's taken some time. You know, we're not done yet. Okay, get off our back. And then he just is off. And he barely takes a breath for what, 20 minutes. I mean, it was really just one thing after another after another. A festivus of grievances and a parade of boasts about, you know, we got, we're getting, we're getting boys out of women's or. Sorry, yeah. We're getting men out of women's sports. And we're, we're, we're solving the, you know, the Biden inflation, and we're, we're bringing in all this money with tariffs and just thing after thing after thing. And, And I mean, I feel like it was sort of written to be a speech that was one and a half times as long as it was, but he just blazed through it and, and signed off, and here we are.
- [03:43]
A
I think they were running the prompter fast because they didn't want CBS to cut out and go to Survivor. I looked at my little thing and my YouTube TV, and it said Survivor supposed to start at 922. So they're running that prompter a little faster than usual because I did. I was concerned. I was on 1.25 speed for a second there, because he was talking a lot. Will, what was your takeaway?
- [04:02]
D
So for people who are too young to know about this, there used to be on Saturday Night Live, there was a guy named Garrett Morris, and he would do. They would do the news, the fake, the joke news. And then at the end of the news, they would say, and now the headmaster of the New York School for the Hard of Hearing, Garrett Morris. And they would say, Our top story tonight. And he would just shout our top story tonight. Basically this whole speech was if I just shout this louder like and, and without any punctuation and just go on for what is it, 20 minutes, half an hour, that somehow this message I'm putting out that everything's great, even though all of you people know that like things cost more, that somehow that's going to sink in just because I say it. And Andrew sort of nailed it. The first seven words of this thing were 11 months ago, I inherited a mess. Okay, so inherited was the big theme of this, right? Everything that's wrong is I'm blaming on other people. But the 11 months thing is kind of a problem because you've been president for a year and you're still blaming people. And at some point when you say I blame the other party for this and this and this and this, the message that people get, particularly if they're ordinary people who just, you know, tuned got this because they were tuned up to. They wanted to watch their show. The message isn't like that. It's the Democrats fault. The message is you're a guy who blames other people and you blame them even when you've been in office for a year.
- [05:22]
A
This is a good point. This is kind of like so I have tds, obviously anyone that's watching this probably does so may. So I think to myself, maybe I'm not judging this correctly. How would someone else, the average survivor mom take this in? And I think to your point about the blaming, will, we are 11 months in now and I compared to maybe a sports thing, right? Like LSU has a new coach next year, Lane Kiffin. And I'm like, let's say we're five and three and aren't going to make the playoffs next year. And he does a speech after the game and he's like, you know, Brian Kelly left me a mess. I'm going to be like, fuck you. Brian Kelly left you a mess. You got paid 90 million to come here and get us into the goddamn playoff. I'm going to run through my notes here. Way too much garland. I know people have criticized me because I like the Oval Office renovations. I don't like the Christmas version. Just wanted to that he says the first time we heard about affordability was last year. Maybe true for him, but I don't think that's the case for regular people. Transgender for everybody was happening that he mentioned that in the first minute before saying anything about what he's going to do or the economy. He mentioned that when he came in, there was transgender for everybody. He claims that the foreign countries aren't laughing at us anymore. I would have to object to that. Then this is me and my voice. This is embarrassing for the country that this is happening. I think that. And then, then I. Then I came to realize what we're bumping this for. And then he started talking about miners. He goes, we're giving miners something. And I got a little nervous. And Epstein stuff was coming, but it was the clean, beautiful coal, actually, the ers. And then I was wondering why the prompter is moving so fast and wondering why the Tampa St. Pete Mall Santa was doing the press conference. And then he announced the soldiers dividend. And then my final comment was, we aren't arresting people are going to a war. So I guess this is better than what the speech could have been. So I don't know. Do you have any reaction to any of those notes?
- [07:17]
D
Can I throw in a couple? So he mentioned again that prices are coming down. Prices are not coming down like ordinary people. Scott Besant, the Treasury Secretary, says, like, twice a week, he says, we're not gonna do what Joe Biden did and tell people they aren't feeling things. And then the President comes out and says, hey, everything's great. Prices are coming down even when they aren't. My favorite part of this speech, though, was when Donald Trump said, because the buildup to the speech is MAGA voters feel like Trump is spending too much time on foreign affairs and not enough on domestic stuff. So Trump gets up and he says that we are the hottest country in the world. He says, and then he says, that's said to me by every single leader I've spoken to. So his message to all the MAGA people at home who are unhappy about things at home is, don't worry, things are great. All the foreign leaders are telling me that things are great for you here in America.
- [08:13]
A
Maybe that'll work. People like to feel like we're hot. You know, I don't know if they're actually believing it. Andrew, what did you think about. Yeah, I mean, reaction.
- [08:21]
C
I think you have to put this speech in the context of, of, like, the latest Trump move, which is that some of his advisors have finally prevailed on him to start talking about affordability in a way that isn't just, I'm so mad that I have to talk about affordability. Don't you know this is all a hoax by the Democrats?
- [08:38]
A
He did basically say that, like, in the first minute.
- [08:40]
C
Yes. He, he, he continues to say that as, like, A lead in to it. Right. But like he, he at least is, has been like convinced by the Susie Wiles of the world that he has to say some things about this. Right. But the, the basic foundational like, elements of the problem, which are all of these tariffs that he's put on all these other countries that have, you know, put a pillow over the face of the economy in all these different ways, he remains completely full steam ahead on them. Right. I mean, like, there's, there's no moderation coming. There's no even like, like modicum of, of like relief that, that he seems to think is necessary. He just thinks it's no, you know, we're going to get through this. Maybe, maybe you're right. Maybe we're in a rough patch. Maybe they're not faking these polls that there's economic anxiety out there, like he seemed to think a couple of weeks ago. But look, just, just give me a minute. Give it, give it some time. These tariffs are going to work, but they are working and the thing that they're doing is raising prices and collecting some money for the U.S. treasury. But like, but, but they're, they're pushing, they're putting upward pressure on prices and downward pressure on jobs and that's just where we're, where we're going to continue to be. So, so I don't know.
- [09:44]
A
We're using that money for the Patriot benefit. Were you guys not impressed with the patriot benefit? A $1700 Christmas bonus for the troops? Tim, you must have the olden days, like a black and white tv. It's like, you know, because let me tell you, in like 1968, if you told the troops they're getting a seventeen hundred dollar Christmas bonus, they'd be thrilled. You know, not to take anything away from that, but you know, it's like a hundred bucks a month. I don't know.
- [10:09]
D
Look, if I were in a military family, I'd be grateful for this. It's like, it's not nothing.
- [10:14]
A
They could have done a bill though. They could have put it in the bill and I don't know, given them a 10, 5% raise or something.
- [10:19]
D
Oh, but that, that, that would require Congress and that wouldn't be, that wouldn't be Donald Trump's. And this has to be unilateral from the king. He's giving you this money. But also, Tim, you must have been in meetings where they sit around and they say, well, here's the amount of money we have. We can't give everybody $2,000 like you said, here's what we got. And someone, some little genius came up with, well, well, if we give it to the troops, here's how many of them there are. We can get about 1700. Oh, that's great. What a great little gimmick.
- [10:44]
A
Yeah. And so that the tariffs are bringing in a record. I mean, the tariffs, he had promised that we were going to get free ivf, we're going to pay down the debt, people are going to get a Trump check. Like, all of those things have been floated. I'm sure there are other things floated. You know, just. It's a little, feels a little meager to me. I don't know.
- [11:01]
C
Well, that's because the number that he has in his mind for what the tariffs are bringing in is $18 trillion. Right. I mean, he, he thinks that, like, that's money that we can use, when, in fact, he is not only talking about actual tariff revenues in the treasury, he is also talking about, like, every promise that every world leader has, like, given him a gauzy handshake deal on, of like, oh, yeah, we'll totally bring, you know, $2 trillion of investment into your country, sir, if you lift some tariffs on us. He's like money in the bank. And so, like, he, he, he basically thinks he can buy anything with that amount of money. But in fact, I mean, the, the, the amount of money that has been brought in is between 100 billion and $150 billion this year. That's not nothing. That's quite a lot of money. It's money that's getting sucked out of US Businesses as additional taxes. But, but, but, yeah, I mean, look, it's, the dividend is fine. It's a good thing. It's like, good for the troops, but it is like, one small thing. It's not like that's not like what the economy is going to rise or fall on. It's a little bit like no tax on tips in that way where, you know, he, he did get rid of tax on tips in the one big beautiful bill. But also people who are working for tips in Las Vegas or whatever are realizing that tourism is drying up because of the broader economic, you know, pressures and, and, and, and storm clouds. So, so I don't know. I, it's good for the troops, but I'm not sure the troops are even better off with the economy where.
- [12:16]
A
Yeah, it's not that good for them, I guess is my point. Here's, here's my real, like, serious takeaway about, about it, about how they're struggling I think if this is the best thing to do, they, they're struggling. I mean there was before the speech, AOC tweeted something like, remember, whatever he says Epstein files are supposed to come out in two days. And, and so think of what he says in that context. And in that context, this was a nothing burger. Right. I mean some of all fears thing where he's gonna start a wag the dog war, like start arresting political foes or start doing something to distract from the Epstein files. Like this was a nothing burger. Just as like a, as just like grading him on Trump is good at distracting everybody and changing the narrative. I don't, I think he achieved nothing on that front. And then on a substantive front, they don't seem to know what to do about the economy. And again like, again like the dividend, whatever. We can discuss whether or not we think that that's a sufficient Christmas bonus for the troops. But like that's obviously not a plan to fix the economy. And they don't seem to have any other one except for hoping that the big beautiful bill kicks in next year. Right. I mean, am I, am I judging that's too harshly and it feels like they're really.
- [13:28]
B
Yeah.
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A
Laughing around for not.
- [13:29]
D
He doesn't, he doesn't have an answer. As Andrew said, he doubled down on the tariffs that the, and the, the promise that he's making about the investment coming in is something people just don't feel yet like he could be right about it. I agree with Andrew. It's just a bunch of smoke and I mean he's a bunch of rich people and a bunch of other leaders told him we're going to invest this much money. They don't, it hasn't materialized. There's no commitment that nothing requires them to do that. People aren't feeling that. What they're feeling is the increase in prices. An ordinary person watching this speech, all they know is, look, things are costing more. And if I have to explain what it, how the government's policy relates to it, the most obvious thing is they're taxing all the products that are coming into this country. So like that's just a really simple thing that people can understand readily. And as to like him having a nothing burger here, he's been complaining for days that the polls don't show, don't reflect are not giving him credit for all the great stuff he's doing. He's like, he second guesses whether the polls are real. Is there fake polls? But then he says like people just don't Understand? So this whole speech, I think, was Tim, him just saying, look, other people aren't communicating this well enough. What if I just get on TV and say the same thing that I've been saying, but loudly in front of, like, this large national audience? And what's wrong with people? They must understand. So the next thing that's going to happen is if the polls don't move, what's he going to do then? Is he going to say the polls are fake? Is he going to blame somebody else?
- [14:56]
A
Wore the full Santa suit, I think, you know, all the garland, he should have kind of just gone. That would have been distracting. At least that would have got people talking. Where are you on this?
- [15:04]
C
A little more garland in the shot. Like, that was like 70% Garland capacity there.
- [15:10]
A
I thought it was pretty high on the garland. Where are you? Just Andrew on, like, just the grading him, like, on the Trump performance scale, like, he doesn't seem to have the juju that he, you know, that he's had in the past and coming in two days, like, what? He didn't give us anything. He didn't, you know, there were no racist comments. He didn't even do anything offensive for people to get mad about. Like, he. None of his. He didn't have any of his bag of tricks.
- [15:34]
D
He did Somalis just so he did.
- [15:36]
A
Take a shot at the Somalis.
- [15:37]
C
That's the Somalians, as he calls them. Yeah, the. The. Trump is always at his best, like, kind of charismatically and rhetorically, when he is seeming, like, totally in command, when he's just like, he's working his audience, he's surrounded by his base. You know, he's doing these transgressive moves and they're eating it up, and he's just, like, up there, like, I can say anything I want. I'm God, you know, that kind of stuff. And this was so far the opposite of that because of exactly what Will said right now.
- [16:02]
A
He.
- [16:02]
C
He spent that whole speech aggrieved, like, like, not just sort of, like, channeling grievance, but, like, personally aggrieved that the things that he thinks. He thinks he is doing a fucking amazing job of being the president. And he does not see that reflected in what he gets back from, like, polls and things and all these stuff. He's like, how am I not getting credit for all of this stuff? Right? And that is, you know, it's not a very attractive place for anybody to be let alone, you know, this guy. And I think that, that because of all of that, like, the stuff he's saying like all that victory lap stuff. It would make a lot. It would land a lot differently in an environment where he was like a wildly popular president at 60% approval, where he's like, we are all celebrating together these great things that I have done that you're all really happy about. But because it's the opposite of that, because he's like in the 30s, the high 30s, like literally a third of the country's happy about all this stuff. It literally just feels like him kind of hectoring the viewer. And again, it was so loud and so nonstop and he's just shaking his finger at the American people for 25 minutes, basically without stopping. Like, don't you realize all the problems are the Democrats fault And I am your savior, you dummies.
- [17:12]
A
You don't have a better idea?
- [17:14]
C
People are gonna find it very.
- [17:15]
A
Just spitballing. The McDonald's thing really worked for him. Maybe he could have called in the McDonald's CEO, said, I won't tariff you if you'll do like a 99 cent Christmas shake. And then he goes to McDonald's and does an address from there where he starts handing out people free Christmas shakes. That feels like that would have got people chatting a little bit. I don't know this.
- [17:38]
D
It would be nice. I think the only shakes Trump cares about are in the Persian Gulf.
- [17:41]
A
Oh, well, that's pretty good. That's a B minus. Should we do the fact checks? I don't know. Who cares? Crime wasn't close to record levels under Biden. Trump didn't inherit it in the worst inflation US history, nowhere close to 25. And who cares? Trump has gone back to asserting that he cut drug prices by 400, 500, even 600%. It's worth noting that a 100% price cut would be cost of zero. So that that isn't really happening. I don't know. Here we go. Bannon is also doing this live. He pointed out that. Oh yeah, Bannon. Was that too intense for a broadcast audience? Was Bannon's. Thought they should probably get Bannon back in there. I don't know, Susie seems a little out to lunch. I don't know, maybe I'm giving them too many good ideas with the McDonald's and getting Bannon back in there. I'll shut up. All right, my final thing. Go ahead, Andrew. And then I'll.
- [18:35]
C
I was just going to agree with you. They totally miss Steve Bannon or somebody like Steve Bannon. I mean, like the populist thing has gone totally missing. It's all just a bunch of maga, straightforward MAGA sycophants and like tech people and billionaires around him now. And you can see it.
- [18:51]
A
I was embarrassed. We're laughing. I feel embarrassed. Do you have the capacity for embarrassment anymore? I don't. I'm not sure why I feel embarrassed, but it's. The country is stupid. It's really unbelievably stupid that we're here, that this person is the president and that that was real, that that was not a spoof. I don't know. I mean, is that kind of just too obvious of a point to make at this point? You can't even say it anymore.
- [19:16]
D
Maybe, maybe it was legit to feel embarrassed for on behalf of America and Americans being stupid when this guy got elected, which happened with like one and a half percent of the vote. Just to be clear, he's at a like a 40. He's, he's, he's below 40. And his approval, he's, he's like under 20 points underwater in his approval rating. So I wouldn't say Americans all are stupid. They're wising up.
- [19:36]
C
I wonder if CBS airing this gets, gets David Ellison back in Trump's good books as far as this whole they all is concerned.
- [19:43]
A
I don't know. They all aired it across.
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C
Oh, did they?
- [19:46]
A
Yeah. I mean, I wonder, I wonder how the ratings will compare to the Erica Kirk town hall. I didn't notice that the Erica Kirk town hall, which was very heavy in my X feed, it had 2 million fewer viewers in the Army Navy post game analysis. That tells you a little something. Tells you a little something. You know, I mean, the Army Navy game isn't exactly, you know, you know, it's not Ohio State, Michigan or anything. The post game had three and a half million and then it drops two more million. I don't know. All right, anything else? Any other takeaways? Any Christmas cheer you want to offer.
- [20:23]
D
Us will Christmas cheer. I got.
- [20:28]
C
I'm like ponies.
- [20:29]
A
You have a pony for us?
- [20:30]
D
Do I have a pony coming out of this? I mean, I think the reception to this speech will be exactly what we've just said. There was nothing here. So, you know, if you thought that Donald Trump had some other ammo that he was going to bring out that was suddenly going to like get his mojo going again, I think the answer is no. We just saw that. And that's my pony.
- [20:48]
A
Andrew, what are you feeling right now? I mean, you didn't feel embarrassed? You don't. Are you unhappy to be here? You Feel annoyed that you had to do this. Like, what emotion is coursing through your veins right now?
- [20:58]
C
Yeah, I don't know. It's weird to me. I mean, my whole. My whole professional career has been in the Trump era, so, like, I, I don't really. I don't necessarily have the same sort of memories as of the before times as you guys do.
- [21:07]
A
You have to have the memories of the before times.
- [21:10]
C
Yeah, no, it's. It wasn't.
- [21:13]
A
You see, you see what other prime ministers do in other countries. You know, you could watch one of their speeches and kind of.
- [21:18]
C
Yeah, I skipped church tonight. I skipped church tonight to stick around and watch him yell at the camera for. Yeah, yeah. Wednesday night services in Advent. That's the thing.
- [21:26]
A
Maybe. Maybe it would have been. What. What's the. What's the vibes in the pews these days at your church about Mr. Trump, or is that not coming up?
- [21:35]
C
We don't really bring it up.
- [21:37]
A
You're not bringing it off. Maybe do a little focus group next week, See what people are thinking.
- [21:42]
C
Rabble rouse, I feel like.
- [21:44]
A
Not rabble, Ralph. I'm not saying I should do it. I'm saying you should do it.
- [21:49]
D
Tim, what do we recommend for somebody who's just been in the Trump era? Like, go back and watch, like, all the way to, like, Jimmy Carter and the sweater. Like, presidents used to talk at a lower decibel level, you know, and, like, just less shadow.
- [22:02]
A
I go to Gerald Ford. I go watch a Gerald Ford speech because he was mocked for being a moron and being very not capable of, like, living up to the rhetoric of those who came before him. And I think if you, if you go right now and everybody, after I sign off, YouTube A Gerald Ford speech and you watch that, you'll be like, wow, this is like Epictetus, like, one of the great orators of our time. Anyway. All right, that's Will Salatin and Andrew Egger, who is really unhappy he didn't go to church services tonight, but that's okay. You know, Advent skill still continues. There's more Advent left. All right, you'll have other opportunities. Thank you for joining us, and we'll be seeing you tomorrow.
- [22:49]
E
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