Bulwark Takes: "Tim & Sam Try To Make Sense of Trump’s Bizarre Interview"

Date: September 2, 2025
Host(s): Tim Miller, Sam Stein
Main Theme:
Tim Miller and Sam Stein, two Bulwark editors, break down and react to Donald Trump’s recent interview with the Daily Caller. They analyze the eccentric and meandering style of both the interviewer and Trump, discuss the content and implications of several strange moments, and offer commentary on the increasingly self-referential right-wing media echo chamber.

Overview

The episode centers on a thorough, often bemused postmortem of a sprawling, unconventional interview that Donald Trump gave to right-wing outlet The Daily Caller. Miller and Stein dissect the interview’s conspicuous lack of tough questions, bizarre tangents—like extensive discussions over portraits, the Rose Garden, and the “auto pen”—and Trump’s characteristic meandering narrative. Through this dissection, the podcast highlights larger trends in conservative media’s relationship to Trump, the state of right-wing journalism, and Trump’s current bearings and preoccupations.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Media Bias Irony & Interviewer Approach

• Opening Irony: The interview starts with The Daily Caller’s Reagan Reese complaining about media bias, yet proceeds to ask a series of adulating, softball questions.
  • Miller:

    “You would just think there would be some self-awareness. The woman who begins an interview upset about media bias, then proceeds to ask a series of questions…” (01:48)

• Example Questions:
  • Naming a ballroom after Trump
  • Putting Biden on a “presidential wall of fame”
  • Whether Trump wants to see Jim Comey and John Brennan “handcuffed and arrested on live TV”
  • Mount Rushmore, Nobel Peace Prize, etc.
  • Miller, listing questions:

    “Would you like the new ballroom to be named after you? ... Would you like to be on Mount Rushmore?... Is the Nobel Peace Prize that you're interested in? Those are all questions from the person who is concerned about media bias.” (02:09)

2. Bizarre Tangents & Interview Structure

• Constant Interruptions for Tangents:
  • Frequent breaks in the transcript as Trump shows portraits, leads Reese to the Rose Garden, and discourses on unrelated matters—all accompanied by in-text clarifications (“Trump and Reese walk out… Hotel California plays…”).
    • Stein recounts the transcript’s surrealism:

      “So much of it is bracketed because they keep doing random things, like they get up from their chair to go check out portraits... There's Trump and Reese. Trump shows Reese the presidential of the Rose Garden, Trump shows Reese what the Biden auto pen portrait apparently is…” (04:06)

  • Continuous asides disrupt any normal flow, resulting in a transcript "interrupted the entire time."

3. Long, Meandering Discussion about Portraits and the ‘Auto Pen’

• Auto Pen Portrait:
  • Trump proposes hanging a portrait of Biden’s auto pen in place of Biden’s actual portrait.
    • Miller & Stein commentary:

      Miller: “…Trump is, I guess, planning on doing a wall of all the presidents, where in place of Joe Biden, it's an auto pen…” (08:43)
      Stein: “…they're going to hang a portrait. These guys are unbelievable. I love it.” (08:56)

• Obsession with Portraiture:
  • Trump fusses over whether the auto pen portrait should be black and white or color.
  • Minor details (“Washington didn't have color photos...”) spiral into extended asides.
  • Miller highlights this theme:

    “He seems a little bit more obsessed with portraits than usual, but a lot portrait talk. Yeah.” (17:00)

4. Questionable, Incoherent Policy Answers & Wild Claims

• Stage Nine Cancer Falsehood:
  • Trump claims Biden said he had “stage nine cancer”—an invented term.
    • Direct transcript reading:

      Miller: “Can you imagine? He says he had stage nine cancer. That was, what, two, three months ago?... Stage nine, I've never heard more than stage four. Stage four is the highest. I've never... If you're stage four, you're dead...” (06:26)

    • Stein clarifies:

      “He has a Gleason score of nine, which is a specific score for prostate cancer. Stage nine cancer. I mean, I don't know what to say about that…” (07:16)

• Transgender/Right-Wing Talking Points:
  • The interviewer pushes repeatedly on transgender issues, with Trump giving vague, occasionally contrary answers.
    • Sam notes Trump’s accidental break from right-wing narrative:

      “He, like, basically just destroys the entire emergent right wing fever dream talking point...” (11:46)

• Calls for Arrests of Political Opponents:
  • Explicit willingness to see James Comey and John Brennan “handcuffed and arrested on live TV.”
    • Dry summary:

      “Trump would not bother me at all. All right.” (13:16)

  • Miller connects this to a growing right-wing appetite for political retribution (“sleepy second Epstein…”).

5. Awkward Moments & Light Digs

• Stamina Question:
  • Reese commends Trump’s “stamina” for a long Cabinet meeting, which produces a head-scratching answer about "good genes” and a joke about being absent from public events for five days afterward.
    • Miller:

      “How do you have the stamina? ...maybe one of the ways that he has the stamina for it is that he didn't do a public event again for like, five days following.” (03:18)

• Israel and Younger Republicans:
  • Reese raises shifting Republican support for Israel, one of the few quasi-adversarial questions. Trump acknowledges the trend but meanders off into talk about the Israel lobby and Holocaust denial.
    • Summary:

      “...he just goes on and comments of how the Israel lobby is not as influential as it once was... Also a weird aside about Holocaust deniers…” (15:01)

• AI Robots & “So Much Electric”:
  • Discussion ends with Trump meandering into AI (“We’re going to have so much electric, they’re all building.”)
    • Miller closes:

      “We are getting it. This is AI. We're letting them build it. They're going crazy... We're going to have so much electric, they're all building. That's the end of the interview. No need to clarify.” (16:25)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On media bias (01:48, Miller):

  “You would just think there would be some self awareness. The woman who begins an interview upset about media bias, then proceeds to ask a series of questions…”

• On Trump's “stage nine cancer” claim (06:26, Miller):

  “Can you imagine? He says he had stage nine cancer. That was, what, two, three months ago?... Stage four is the highest. I've never... If you're stage four, you're dead.”

• On the portrait obsession (08:43, Miller):

  “Are we really gonna have a portrait of an auto pen in the Rose Garden of the White House?”

• On Trump's coherence (16:36, Tim):

  “So there you go. Trump is alive. Is he sounding coherent? Not exactly.”

• On the surreal vibe of the interview (04:06, Stein):

  “So much of it is bracketed because they keep doing random things, like they get up from their chair to go check out portraits... Some of this stuff is really hilarious.”

• On right-wing craving for retribution (13:44, Miller):

  “Eventually these people are going to want somebody arrested. And so they get a chance to go interview Trump... and she's over there being like, 'Why aren't you giving me the Comey perp walk porn?'”

Timestamps for Major Segments

• Media Bias & Softball Questions – 01:00–02:35
• Absurd Interview Structure and Tangents – 04:06–05:00
• Stage Nine Cancer & Portrait Gallery – 06:04–09:43
• Transgender Issue Exchange – 10:10–12:05
• Portrait Fixation, Oval Office & Auto Pen Details – 12:05–13:08
• Calls for Political Arrests, Israel & Youth – 13:09–15:15
• AI Robots and Closing Non-Sequiturs – 16:15–end

Tone and Takeaways

The hosts’ tone is incredulous, dryly humorous, and briskly analytical; they alternate between exasperation at the unseriousness of the questioning, amusement at Trump’s obsessions, and concern about the direction of right-wing media and politics.

Closing Message

While the episode lampoons the surreal, self-indulgent nature of the interview, it treats the broader implications—such as rising calls for political vengeance within the right, the deepening media feedback loop, and Trump’s personal state—with a critical, but never conspiratorial, seriousness. The overwhelming impression is of circus-like performance supplanting substantive journalism, with Trump both presiding over and consumed by the spectacle.

Summary prepared for Bulwark Takes listeners and readers seeking a comprehensive, timestamped, and quotable breakdown of the episode’s highlights.