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- [00:00]
A
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- [01:00]
B
Hey, everybody. Tim O. From the Bulwark here with managing editor Sam Stein. You decided to dress like me. For some reason, I got on here and he changed and he wanted to copy. I don't know what's happening, but we're doing our best. It's been a long week. What day is it? Who knows? There's a cabinet meeting today. One of these made for TV cabinet meetings that Donald Trump invented. And this one, a couple notes before we get into the clips. It was only an hour and 20 minutes. They'd been about two to three hours before. So I think that's showing that he doesn't have the stamina. Stamina. He's losing the stamina. Then we had. This was the first time ever where he did not take any questions. And among the people who did not speak, all the people who have controversy around them, Kristi Noemi, Pam Bondi, Tulsi Gabbard, and Stephen Miller. We're going to go take you through a couple of the quotes. But, Sam, any, any thoughts, Any big picture thoughts?
- [02:03]
C
I, you know, I. The same points that you made. It was we at the office had set the over under for two hours. How long he would. It would go. I took the under. Just saying, okay, I'm on a streak here. Because I had, I had a suspicion that he wanted to keep it tight, that he's a little bit anxious about how things are going. I did not anticipate that he wouldn't call on Christina. I did not anticipate that he wouldn't take questions. Definitely issues of stamina, for sure, obviously. And then on top of that, I think he's running a little bit scared, but there was enough obsequiousness from the cabinet members to make it comical, too.
- [02:43]
B
Yeah, the run, the running scared, I think is an important part of this. And I just want to mention, like, this is all. It's still abnormal, right? Like, and you still have, as you mentioned, the, oh, dear leader, your pee smells like flowers, like, all that kind of stuff. But there was, it's like a traditional politician move to be like, ooh, we're just not going to let a couple of these people speak because they have controversies right now. Or, oh, I can't take questions today because, you know, we killed the guy and we got like, you know, people are mad at us. Right. You know, like, it, it is very un Trump. I think it is a reflection that he recognizes that he has some political issues that he's not exactly sure how to navigate, that he avoided this stuff and did kind of what you would expect from, like, any other Joe politician in the middle of a scandal.
- [03:34]
C
No, I think it's right. Usually, you know, you wouldn't do, you wouldn't even do this, right? You would just, you know, kind of lay low for a little bit. But he, he lives by this code where he has to be in the headline at some point or grabbing the mic or grabbing the television camera's attention at some point. So he's going to go out there and say things. The, the, the extension that the, like, crazy conclusion of that type of approach is what we saw during co. Right, where he just decided, I'm going to go out in front of the cameras every day and try to, you know, reorient the news cycle. And then he started talking about putting bleach on your body and in your chest and lights and stuff like that. The other thing I would just notice that people forget this, but, like, he's supposed to be in the midst of some sort of affordability campaign, right? He went out to Iowa. He was supposed to be talking about affordability. He had the trump cards yesterday with Nicki Minaj and Scott Besant. And, you know, he's got this Fed pick coming up. This is supposed to be the affordability week or weeks for him. And he's been diverted and overtaken, rightfully so, by real questions about what's happening in Minneapolis. And, you know, you had Tom Holman speaking this Morning. You're going to have more questions about it as the government shutdown comes into focus tomorrow night. And so he can't get off that topic even though he wants to.
- [04:53]
B
That is a great point, Sam, about affordability week, infrastructure week. And for that reason I'm going to go to the clip that I was going to save for the end, but I think it's relevant here. He talked a little bit about affordability here, particularly in one area where people are particularly concerned about affordability and that's housing. And let's play the clip about what his message is for people who are hoping that housing prices might go down.
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D
There's so much talk about, oh, we're going to drive housing prices down. I don't want to drive housing prices down. I want to drive housing prices up for people that own their homes and they can be assured that's what's going to happen.
- [05:27]
B
So you go, Sam, classic real estate man there. He wants housing prices to go to the moon. He's not interested in housing affordability or affordability and other things, maybe not in housing.
- [05:38]
C
The other day he was like, I don't really care if the dollar goes down. Your money's not gonna get you as far, but your houses are gonna be hyperinflated. Not sure that one's gonna sell on the trail. I, as a homeowner am comfortable with housing prices going up, but I'm not looking to purchase a home.
- [05:55]
B
So, yeah, and we're getting old, you know, so we're in a different little demo. I mean, if you look at the groups where Trump has tanked the most with, you know, one of them is that 20 to 29, 18 to 29 demo. And you know, the fucking kids could have been listening to us from the start and just not voted for them. That was one idea. Okay. Now that they're in there, I think they're unhappy about basically two things. Two things, Gaza and affordability. Right. And it's like Trump didn't. Trump's ends up being worse on that issue in foreign policy from their perspective. And then housing, not only is he making, not making things more affordable for them, not only is the job market worse, he's cheering for it to be more expensive for the generation that like feels like they're never gonna be able to buy a house.
- [06:43]
C
So at least they can get a 50 year mortgage.
- [06:46]
B
Yeah, sure. And two dolls. And, you know, they could have that one piece of broccoli at lunch. If you're really saving, you can afford a boomer's house. You know, you can go buy a boomer's house when they die if you save your. Every lunch is just one piece of chicken, one broccoli stalk and one other thing.
- [07:07]
C
No, it's a corn tortilla. Don't forget, don't leave out the corn tortilla.
- [07:12]
B
That's if you have that for lunch every day, you start to squirrel away your resources. By the time you're Sam's age, you might be able to buy a dead boomer's house in the suburbs. Just one idea for Gen Z. Here's a kind of related is was what's happening at the Fed. And I do think this is Trump's, if you'd even call it that like notion of how things could get more affordable and that's with lower interest rates. Let's play what he had to say about the new Fed chair that's coming.
- [07:38]
D
Going to be announcing next week. I think sometimes Scott and Howard and everybody, we're going to be announcing the head of the Fed who that will be. And it'll be a person that will, I think, do a good job. We're paying far too much interest in the Fed. The Fed rate's too high, unacceptably high. We should have the lowest and I think you read my statement today, I put out a statement before the meeting, but we should have the lowest interest rate anywhere in the world because a lot of these countries are successful only because of us.
- [08:09]
B
So there you go. He invokes Howard Nutlik there, his key commerce secretary talking about that. And I guess that's the new. And we sort of knew this is coming. Powell's, you know, term is up, but. Right. He basically says next week we'll have the name of his nominee for the Fed. I'm not sure if we've had an incoming Fed share that has had to deal with the president saying you need to make the interest rates lower the lowest of anywhere in the world when you come in. It might make the confirmation hearings a little dicey.
- [08:44]
C
Yeah, well, we know this is where it's going. He wants someone who just absolutely browbeat the rest of the Fed to lower interest rates. The issue is he can appoint a chair, but it is not just a chair's decision. Right. So they're going to have to have vote on this. But it's, you know, this is classic Trump. There's an incoherence to this. Obviously he had some truth social where this morning we said because of the vast amounts of money flowing into our country because of terrorists, we should be Paying the lowest interest rate of any country in the world. I'm not sure how the two actually relate. Not to mention that he's already spent all that tariff money on other shit. But yeah, there's not much coherence in the economic policy here.
- [09:19]
B
No. And it also might not actually work. You know, the. There are other factors at play, particularly of taking this back to housing. You know, the 30 year rate is set by what the bond market says and like what people are willing to pay. Right. So, you know, you could get into a situation where the Fed's moving the rate down that doesn't actually do that much. So we'll see TBD while we're on the economy. Let's play one other clip. He's talking about tariffs here.
- [09:48]
D
They're coming in, they're building because they don't want to pay the tariff. And the tariffs are very, you know, steep. They could be much steeper. You probably saw I put out a truth today and the tariffs could be much steeper. We've been actually very nice about it. But even being nice about it, we've taken in hundreds of billions of dollars. And honestly, they've given us tremendous national security.
- [10:09]
A
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- [11:09]
B
Okay, so he put out a truth about it. Did you catch the truth that he did there, Sam? Yeah, you did?
- [11:16]
C
I think I just read the truth. Right.
- [11:17]
B
Which one?
- [11:18]
C
Different truth. There was like 60 of them. You're right. I don't know if I read the right one.
- [11:21]
B
Yeah, I mean, I think he was posting 40 an hour late into the evening last night. And then he was up at 5am posting again. Yeah. So, you know, in his defense, it's probably why he needed a nap during the last cabinet meeting, you know.
- [11:38]
C
Well, he said, he said he didn't. He also said he didn't nap in the last cabinet. He just got bored.
- [11:42]
B
He just got bored.
- [11:43]
C
Closed his eyes out of boredom.
- [11:45]
B
So I, you know, I didn't see the truth that he's referencing. He sent so many the concept that, like, they could be much steeper. We're just doing this out of being nice. It sort of feels like for a while he pretended there was this farce, right? Which was like the tariffs were an America first policy. And the purpose of the tariffs was that if we tariff these other countries strategically, we could bring manufacturing back home and that would create jobs in America. And also as a benefit, we get this revenue that we could use to pay for other ships. That was like the conceit, which was bullshit, obviously, and economically illiterate, but that was a conceit. Now he's kind of. He basically just talks like a mob boss now. Like, he doesn't really even talk about that. The American first part, it's just like we could have, we could have been meaner to you. He's like, are you going to, you know, are you going to try to get onto that next corner or charge you a higher vig next time? Right. Like it's, it's all about power and him trying to bully other countries.
- [12:49]
C
Oh, yeah, it's a cudgel, right? I mean, he, he, he cites the tariffs for solving wars. He cites the terrorists for blowing up, you know, diplomatic relations with random countries. I think the South Koreans had thought they would had a tariff deal and suddenly they didn't. And it's just like he's using this and creating chaos because he thinks it's a leverage point. What obviously he's not appreciating is that other countries are just turning to more stable economies to cut economic deals and that China and India are the ones who are benefiting. Then he gets mad at Canada for going to China and he's like, well, they do that. I'm going to put a tariff on Canada. And it's like, dude, that's why they're going to China, you know. So no, he gave away the game a little bit. Now, I will say not in any credit. He also spent the cabinet meeting talking about how, you know, all these companies are on shoring and all that stuff. Not sure that's technically true or statistically true. There's plenty of companies that. Big companies.
- [13:46]
B
Yeah, he does say that sort of the Brad portion, but I guess I just mean, like, in the context of tariffs, he's saying, you know, they could be much steeper. They could be much steeper. We've been nice about it. Like, that's not about, like, there's no part of that where that's like, oh, the negotiation is about how we're going to ensure things. Well, it's also.
- [14:02]
C
It's like he. He tacos all the time.
- [14:05]
B
Yeah.
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C
So he kind of takes the, the.
- [14:07]
B
You know, he takes three quarters of the time. I thought that more than I'd even thought. Yeah. So there's an analysis done. Man, I hate, you know, I hate to not credit the person, but JVL wrote about it in his triad and he did credit the person. So if you go read JVL's Triad this week about the economy, you can. We, we will make sure. Shout out the right person. And him and Catherine talked about this on YouTube, but, like, they looked at the analysis and like, 75% of the tariff threats totally have not gone into effect either. They either were threats that he didn't actually implement or they started to implement and then they pulled him back. So only a quarter have. Have actually gone through, which is why you can understand why people just sort of wait it out at this point. Yeah, we'll see how it goes. Big boy. The tremendous national security. I'm not sure sure about either. I want to move on to your favorite topic. Where is he on your, on your cabinet rankings now? Right now? Bobby, Bobby K. Is he still number two behind Christie? Is he still holding strong? Number two or.
- [15:00]
C
Well, Christie's definitely elevated her game. Honestly, it's. It was. It's tough, tough to separate. Knock her off the pedestal at this point. Yeah, she's definitely separated. Seabiscuit, she's run ahead of him. It's unbelievable. Bobby's up there, though. At one point during the Cabinet meeting, Trump was like, how you doing with the autism thing?
- [15:19]
B
Oh, that's where we're going. Let's show. Let's play it for everybody.
- [15:22]
D
And the autism, that's moving along, really.
- [15:26]
B
We're doing. We've commissioned now dozens of studies, maybe over a hundred, and we are going to get those done for you. And the autism, that's moving along. And the autism, that's moving along. Trump said rfk, we've commissioned dozens, hundreds. We're going to get those done for you on the Study side. So we're doing.
- [15:49]
C
Super excited, super excited for that. You know, there's like a pretty significant measles outbreak happening in South Carolina. I saw some Google Trends data where it's like, search for. Search for measles was like peaking in South Carolina and North Carolina. People are like, how do you, can you get measles if you're vaccinated? Is like a hot term right now. Which goes to show you that I wasn't wrong about Bobby. It's not that he's like, you know, he's not like, you know, covered himself in glory.
- [16:16]
B
It's not knocking it out of the park.
- [16:18]
C
You can't compete with Christine at this point.
- [16:20]
B
Yeah, we need some more dead kids. I think for him to get into the, into the mix. And Christie just. Christie's body count at this point is a little. Is higher.
- [16:27]
C
Jesus Christ.
- [16:28]
B
The Jared Moskowitz congressman from Florida had a pretty good side by side post this week, which was like the chart of the dollar going down and the measles rates going up. It was skyrocketing. Measles rating tanking dollar head to head. And then he did like the fist bump America flag thing. That's pretty good just for Jerry Boskowitz. But yeah, I have a question for you. And Edgar and I talked about this today. And this could be maybe a Jonathan Cohen assignment is like with Edgar, I was talking about. So we seized the ballots. We being the American government, the FBI went and seized the 2020 ballots from Georgia. I'm like, who are the. I'm interested in, who are the people that are going through them? Like, they're just rank and file guys, middle management at the FBI that are now going to go through those who are, who's doing these studies. Like he says, we've got dozens of studies. Are there people that work at HHS doing them? Is there like a. Is there a. You're talking about the army of cranks. Well, no, I was talking about the ballots, but me and Edgar already covered that. I'm using the same question, but for these studies, Bobby's saying that were doing dozens of studies on autism, connection to vaccine. Yeah. Who is doing them?
- [17:41]
C
So cone would know better than me, but he's definitely brought on board some questionable people in the medical community who have pretty substantial history spreading autism fears related to vaccines to basically pour over the literature and the data and come to predetermined conclusions. Like, that's. That he's done that. He's made the announcements. I don't know if they're out there commissioning or underwriting their own scientific inquiries. But it looks to me like they're just going to reverse engineer a conclusion that, yeah, all these vaccines are causing autism.
- [18:17]
B
Huh? No, it's not great. Yeah. I would like to learn a little bit more because I recognize that he's bringing in some advocacy people. But I would assume to execute these studies, you need scientists, you know, young doctor, you know, young research folks.
- [18:36]
C
In normal times, you would go through the NIH probably.
- [18:38]
B
Yeah. But is there anybody at the NIH doing this stuff for them? Are they just doing it? Whatever you say, Bobby. I don't, I'm interested in that because this seems, that seems crazy to me. The government get.
- [18:48]
C
Cone on it.
- [18:48]
B
Government is doing dozens of studies on the autism vaccine's length. I don't, I don't. I'm not seeing that. One more thing from rfk. Let's play that job.
- [18:57]
D
I read an article today where they think Bobby is going to be really great for the Republican Republican Party in the midterms. So I have to be very careful that Bobby likes us. We're letting you do your job.
- [19:09]
A
Right.
- [19:10]
B
So there you go. What's your. You're more of a. You're kind of a political analyst. Do you think Bobby's gonna do great things in the midterms for Trump?
- [19:18]
C
You know, there was the horseshoe theory. I think it was true in 2024 that people who were Kennedy curious latched onto Trump. And the fact that he's let Bobby run wild probably keeps them in the fold. The flip side, of course, is that there are a bunch of moms and dads out there who for some reason or another don't like measles. And they might not be so appreciative of what's happening here. They might be fine with the food stuff. Maybe they're not as comfortable living on piece of broccoli a day. But. But I think, I think I, I'm not going to say with like, real confidence that it hurts or helps, but you have to imagine that there's not, not everyone is comfortable with their community not having, you know, good health standards when it comes to vaccines or just to watch as certain communities are ripped apart by diseases that they thought were dormant.
- [20:17]
B
Yeah. I guess just as a. Looking at this just from a political analyst perspective, it's hard for me to see, like, sure, was there a type of person that was like a Maha exercise person, you know, like, I like to drink my turmeric shakes and, and I was into Bobby, but. And I also didn't like the COVID rules and blah, blah. That person getting on board for Trump in a general, in a presidential election where Bobby's endorsing him, they're a little bit of a contrarian, sure. Like, I, I see that. But the idea that that person is then gonna latch on to, like, Michael Watley in the North Carolina Senate race, it's just. It's like, it is hard to imagine. It's so distant, you know, like, it's just so distant from.
- [21:07]
C
But that's the truth of Trump too, right? To a degree. It's like people come out because they like Trump, but this has been true every single time. If Trump's not on the ballot, those politically curious or non politically active voters who were drawn to his celebrity and his aura, his unpredictability, they didn't show up. And I think that's very much similar to Bobby, which is like, these people were kind of fringy.
- [21:32]
B
And it's even more distant with Bobby, I guess, is my point. Like Trump, the Trump Whatley connection is, like, pretty direct. Like, we're getting tenuous by the time we get to the MAHA types.
- [21:40]
C
I think that's right.
- [21:42]
D
And.
- [21:42]
C
And arguably these people were, you know, not arguably. A lot of them are Democrats. Like, they were. They were liberals on a lot of stuff. And I don't know. I don't. You're right.
- [21:53]
A
I don't.
- [21:53]
C
I don't think they're gonna, like, go out there and be like, you know what? I really like Byron. Donald's like, I'm gonna go vote for that guy. I just don't. Maybe I'm wrong, but it'll be hard to see. That's transferring one more.
- [22:03]
B
We didn't prep this one, but I had to do it.
- [22:05]
C
Oh, God.
- [22:07]
B
Because just for the rankings, for future rankings. Okay, now, you don't have to be that nervous, but when we were doing our cabinet rankings at the end of the year, both of us were kind of like Chris Wright, this fellow at the Energy Department. We don't like the cut of his jib. It doesn't feel like it's going well. We don't have a lot of specifics, though, because lots happen in the news and it's hard to keep track of day to day what's happened at doe. So anyway, he popped on the screen today, and this little segment caught my eye. I can say with some confidence, hundreds of American lives have been saved because of your leaning in and stopping the killing of coal and revitalizing coal. Saved lives. Saved coal, saves lives. Sam, Coal saves lives.
- [22:54]
C
Didn't realize it. Thank God for coal. They're talking about how windmills were frozen and we don't have solar in the cold. And it's like, folks, you got to figure out how a battery works, storage energy.
- [23:05]
B
So the theory of how the coal saves the lives is that people would have gotten too cold if it wasn't for the coal.
- [23:11]
C
It's that the energy currently would not be running if not for coal. And I just want to be clear about it. Like, there's a lot of people suffering right now in the South. Maybe they haven't died yet, but, like, you know, it's not like, you know, the energy's been out in a bunch of places. Also, coal is not like a lifesaver. Let's just be real about this. This is almost like when they said, I forget who it was where they. Like, we shot. We stopped this flow of fentanyl. We saved, you know, 50 million lives. 50 million Americans could have died if we didn't do this. Like, that's probably not how the math works.
- [23:44]
B
I'm a. I'm okay with fossil fuels, all right? I know, but coal saves lives is a step too far, even for former Republican Tim here. That's. That's a little far change, buddy.
- [23:56]
C
I'm sure you've done some cold pro coal campaigns.
- [23:58]
B
No, I was never a gold man, all right? I was a suburban. All right? Suburbs. Okay. I don't. We don't. I don't even know what's happening out there. Zoolanders. Zoolander is the closest I've ever. You're in the mind culture.
- [24:09]
C
Getting the black lawn, like.
- [24:11]
B
All right. That's Sam Stein. Subscribe to the feed. Come hang out with us. We're going. Go to bullock.com events. We're going on the road. We're going to have some events. Check it out. We'll be in a city near you sometime soon. All right, Peace out.
- [24:22]
C
Take care.