Trump's Latest Presser Made Our Heads EXPLODE

Summary

Podcast Summary: "Trump's Latest Presser Made Our Heads EXPLODE" – Bulwark Takes

Release Date: May 12, 2025

In this episode of Bulwark Takes, host Sam Stein, managing editor at The Bulwark, engages in a spirited discussion with Tim Miller about former President Donald Trump's latest press conference. The conversation provides a critical examination of Trump's actions, the internal dynamics of the Republican Party, and broader implications for American politics.

---

1. Introduction to Trump's Press Conference

Sam Stein opens the episode by describing Trump's recent press conference as "an out of body experience," highlighting the unconventional mix of attendees, including RFK Jr. and Dr. Oz. Stein humorously notes feeling like he was reliving “HuffPost 2007” with RFK Jr. and Bernie Sanders supporters praising Trump’s initiatives [00:00].

Notable Quote:

• Sam Stein [00:00]: “I felt like I was in HuffPost 2007… about to write a joyous article about everything that was going on.”

2. Satirical Analysis of Political Ideologies

Tim Miller adds a satirical layer to the discussion by blending disparate political ideologies, questioning whether the current administration resembles an “Islamic kleptocracy petro state” or a “Northern European Democratic socialist” system. This hyperbolic comparison underscores the perceived contradictions in Trump’s policies [01:21].

Notable Quote:

• Tim Miller [01:21]: “Is this an Islamic kleptocracy petro state that we're running or are we like a Northern European Democratic socialist?”

3. Republican Party Divisions

The hosts explore the internal divisions within the Republican Party, particularly focusing on differing views on pharmaceutical price controls and Medicaid. Stein previews an interview with Jonathan Cohen, who criticizes Trump's approach as bypassing necessary rulemaking processes [03:14]. They discuss Josh Hawley’s stance on reducing pharmaceutical costs while opposing changes to Medicaid, illustrating the fracturing opinions within the party [04:18].

Notable Quote:

• Sam Stein [03:14]: “They tried something of a smaller version of this in Trump 1.0 and it got shut down because they shockingly didn’t follow the proper rulemaking processes.”

4. Trump's Relationship with Oligarchs and Corruption Allegations

Stein and Miller critically analyze Trump's alleged favoritism towards wealthy donors and oligarchs. They discuss RFK Jr.'s claim that Trump stands up to oligarchs, countering it with observations of Trump’s favorable dealings, such as taking “$400 million bribes from countries allied with Iran” [05:18].

Notable Quotes:

• Tim Miller [05:18]: “We're just doing price controls. We're doing deals with the people that are funding the Hamas protests.”
• Tim Miller [07:40]: “Trump has been pretty, Trump has really given them the fucking thing.”

5. The "Gimme" Analogy and Bribery Concerns

A significant part of the discussion centers on Trump’s acceptance of a $400 million bribe from Qatar. Miller likens this to a "gimme" in golf, suggesting it was an effortless advantage for Trump, highlighting the unethical implications of such actions [10:08].

Notable Quotes:

• Sam Stein [10:08]: “This is a gimme. You don't think taking a $400 million bribe from a country… is a gimme.”
• Tim Miller [10:26]: “You don’t think taking a $400 million bribe from a country that was also funding the Palestine protests that we are… is a gimme.”

6. RFK Jr.’s Rhetoric and Trump's Tactics

The hosts scrutinize RFK Jr.'s rhetoric, noting his attempts to echo Trump's narrative of resisting corruption. They suggest that RFK Jr.'s statements are more performative than substantive, aiming to mimic Trump’s style without addressing the underlying issues [08:26].

Notable Quote:

• Sam Stein [08:26]: “He knows it's a Trump talking point that he can't be bought and so he just wants to mimic it.”

7. Speculation on Qatar’s Involvement and Policy Implications

Stein speculates on the origins of Trump’s negotiations with Qatar, suggesting a connection to events at West Palm Beach or golf tournaments. Miller expresses skepticism about the legitimacy of these deals, questioning their impact on U.S. policy and international relations [11:57].

Notable Quote:

• Sam Stein [11:57]: “The Qatari, I guess. I wonder if it was maybe for the golf tournament… this is pretty nice here. I’m liking, you know, I’m liking the gold toilet.”

8. Closing Remarks and Future Press Conferences

As the episode wraps up, Stein and Miller reflect on the ongoing nature of Trump's press conferences, noting that despite him operating from overseas, these events will continue albeit at “odd hours.” They acknowledge the chaotic and unpredictable state of current political discourse [13:04].

---

Notable Quotes Summary

• Sam Stein [00:00]: “I felt like I was in HuffPost 2007… about to write a joyous article about everything that was going on.”
• Tim Miller [01:21]: “Is this an Islamic kleptocracy petro state that we're running or are we like a Northern European Democratic socialist?”
• RFK Jr. [06:12]: “There has never been a president more willing to stand up to the oligarchs than President Donald Trump.”
• Tim Miller [07:40]: “Trump has been pretty, Trump has really given them the fucking thing.”
• Sam Stein [10:08]: “This is a gimme. You don't think taking a $400 million bribe from a country… is a gimme.”

---

Conclusion

In "Trump's Latest Presser Made Our Heads EXPLODE," Sam Stein and Tim Miller provide a critical and often satirical analysis of Donald Trump's recent press conference. Through their discussion, they highlight the internal conflicts within the Republican Party, examine allegations of corruption and favoritism, and reflect on the broader implications for American political dynamics. The episode offers listeners a comprehensive and engaging insight into the complexities of contemporary politics.

Transcript

[Sam Stein]

Hey guys, it's me, Sam Stein, managing editor at the bulk, and I'm joined by Tim Miller. I always want to get a little Tim Miller on Monday, start the week off right. We're going to be talking about Donald Trump's press conference which concluded earlier this morning. But before we get into that. Subscribe to the feed. All right, Tim, look, the press conference was an out of body experience to some degree because here you have a Democratic. Not, sorry, a Republican president. Freudian slip. Republican Freudian president. Freudian president. Republican president. Next to RFK Jr and Dr. Oz talking about price controls for prescription drugs and talking about, you know, alluding to direct negotiations with Qatar to release a hostage, apparently going over the head of the Israeli leadership. You have RFK Jr saying, look, this is Bernie Sanders dream. And my Bernie Sanders supporting kids were reduced to tears. They were so happy to hear what Trump was doing. So I felt like I was in HuffPost 2007. I was about to write a, a joyous article about everything that was going on.

[Tim Miller]

Well, I mean, you were probably an Islamo fascist back then, too. Yeah, we're going just back then. Yeah, we're going back and forth during this press conference over, you know, is this a, you know, Islamic kleptocracy petro state that we're running or are we like a Northern European Democratic socialist?

[Sam Stein]

Why not?

[Tim Miller]

Well, not democratic socialist, I guess because Congress didn't actually do this. We did this by decree. So, you know, kind of a soft authoritarian socialism or maybe a petro Islamo Islamo fascist state.

[Sam Stein]

It's the best of both.

[Tim Miller]

It's the best of both and the worst of both at the same time. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I guess this is what John Thune is for now and Mike Johnson. I guess the party has just totally accepted this. We're just doing price controls. We're doing deals with the people that are funding the Hamas protests. Like we have. It's, it's fine for us just to take $400 million bribes from countries that are allied with Iran. I guess that's what's happening now. The, the, the interesting thing about it is they are, they're unapologetic about this. Right. Like Trump was not there. Was maybe. I may, maybe I'm overstating it. I noticed a little bit of a slight, you know, kind of an un, like the body language. Dr. When, when RFK was like, this was central to Bernie's agenda.

[Sam Stein]

Trump, the fulcrum.

[Tim Miller]

I think he said the fulcrum that Trump did Kind of like adjust his body a little bit. And so I don't know if that' old man being tired standing or whether there's something uncomfortable about that. But, you know, I mean, that, that is like where these guys landed. I think it's important to note that regardless of what, and this is an area where there are a variety of views on the bulwark slack. Regardless of what your views are about price controls for, for pharmaceutical drugs, this is not something that a president can do by fiat. There's certain things you can do with the negotiations of prices over like government health care, Medicaid or Medicare, whatever, though. There are real rules around that. And so like, some of this is just, I just think it's important to contextualize this by saying like, they want this to be free PR for them. That's like they're, they are unilaterally reducing pharmaceutical prices. And that's not exactly how the world works as you know, in our, in our, you know, teetering liberal democracy.

[Sam Stein]

Yeah, I'm going to do just to preview. I'll be talking to Jonathan Cohen about the specifics here about this deal because as Cohen wrote, I mean, they tried something of a smaller version of this in Trump 1.0 and it got shut down because they shockingly, sit down, didn't follow the proper rulemaking processes and the courts were like, no, you can't just do this this time around. If you read the exact language of the executive order, it's actually not as far reaching as you would have thought given the, the sort of boasting that was happening on social media. But it gets to a larger point and I'm actually curious for your take on this, which is, I think there's way more division within the Republican ranks than gets appreciated right now because there is actually legislation from Josh Hawley to do some version of, you know, reducing pharmaceutical costs. And Josh Hawley also is out there with an op ed in New York Times saying, do not touch Medicaid. Like, this is, this is what our people depend on. Josh Hawley seems like he's doing a lot of kind of interesting, unorthodox stuff. What's your take on how widely, how widespread that sentiment is in the party?

[Tim Miller]

You know, I think that if we, if we survive the next four years and, and somehow end up in a place where there is like back to some normal political competition, where there's not kind of an overhang of a cult like leader leading the party, I think that would be, I think it's going to be very Interesting debate. I mean, I look, I always look to say what you want about Bannon, but my view has always been that if you look at it, if there's a policy debate between Bannon and the National Review online, Bannon has pretty much every time been more in line with where actual rank and file Republican voters are than the National Review, the more traditional type of, whatever you want to call it, classical Republican view. And then so in this case, you know, the Bannon Hawley view of being less interested in cuts to social services, at least quasi curious and some tax hikes, but, you know, a little bit kind of fake. They really want tax hikes on like one certain class of people, which is like, like rich salaried people.

[Sam Stein]

They want. The people they want carried interest. Right.

[Tim Miller]

Or is that not. Not like. Yeah, not really corporate corporations, but still. So I think that there's something that is interesting about that. You have to though, in the current world we're in, right, which is like this kind of rhetorical stuff is happening while the actual people that are still in charge of legislation on the Hill are going to jam through a massive tax cut.

[Sam Stein]

Exactly.

[Tim Miller]

And where Trump wants to do handouts for corporate, any, any billionaire that wants to like, you know, do them a. He'll do favors for back. Right. So like, so those two things are intention, Right. Like the actual lit policy that's happening now with kind of the very slow trajectory towards something a little bit different right now.

[Sam Stein]

You mentioned it, so we'll play the clip. But RFK Jr got up there, was talking about like, you know, no one is, you know, no one has been more willing to stand up to the oligarchs in Trump. Let's play the video and then we can get to it.

[Tim Miller]

There has never been a president more willing to, to stand up to the oligarchs than President Donald Trump. I'm very, very proud of you, Mr. President, for your courage, I'll say, because I don't want to be crude. Your intestinal fortitude, your stiff spine and your willingness to stand up for the American people.

[Sam Stein]

This one sort of tickled me a little bit because that's just, I mean, we could go through the list. Like, what are we talking about? Like, if you're, if you're, you know, big pocketed donor with access to Trump, more likely than not, you're going to get your way. Just look at what happened with TikTok. Like, what? So obviously it's bullshit, but it's just kind of funny to see it play out in public like that.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, I mean, I think the RFK is, is like narrowly thinking about his lane, right? Which is like the big medical companies and all that. And like it is true, I guess, that Trump, more so than like Mitt Romney was going to. You're not going to see Mitt Romney doing something that the pharma lobby is hostile to.

[Sam Stein]

Pharma never lost before until like the last couple presidencies.

[Tim Miller]

So there is something you said for that. But it's like this is kind of like what is the definition of oligarch? Right? You know what I mean? If like your definition of oligarch is like DC lobbyists and university presidents, you know, like Trump has been pretty, Trump has really given them the fucking thing, you know.

[Sam Stein]

Tim Cook.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, yeah. But if it's like the richest people in the world or by the way, aspiring MAGA aligned DC lobbyists who are crushing it right now, you know, or like a different category of DC lobbyists, right? Or the richest people in the world like Trump or the richest, you know, oil baron families in the world, Middle Eastern oil baron families, like you're doing quite well under Trump. And so I think that RFK is trying to do a cute rhetorical thing to push.

[Sam Stein]

He knows it's a Trump talking point that he can't be bought and so he just wants to mimic it. And so he gets up there and he has to say what he has to say. Perhaps it's the water from Rock Creek where he was swimming yesterday that's got the brain worms reactivated. Last thing is the Qatar jet.

[Tim Miller]

Have you ever thought about jumping in.

[Sam Stein]

The water at Rock Creek? I've gone in the water in Rock Creek. Not during the time when there was an advisory not to swim in the.

[Tim Miller]

Water, even at the non advisors and.

[Sam Stein]

Not with my jeans on. No, it's, it's nasty water. I'm not like, I'm not, first of all, I'm not like diving in there and like doing labs. I'm, I'm like skipping stones with my kid, you know, but like I'm not going in there with jeans. First of all, I thought that was the weirdest part. Like who swims with jeans? But like also the bacteria levels are pretty bad right now. Putting that aside, the 400 million dollar jet or plane, he gets up there and he's like, you know, this is you, you losers who wouldn't accept this thing. Like obviously I'm gonna take it. Like this is, this is what you do. And I think he has some, some thing about Sam Snead we can Play that. That's why you have to. Yeah. What do you say to people who.

[Tim Miller]

View that luxury jet as a personal gift to you? Why not leave it?

[C]

You're ABC Fake news, right?

[Tim Miller]

It's only.

[C]

Only abc. Well, a few of you would, let me tell you, you should be embarrassed and asking that question. They're giving us a free jet. I could say, no, no, no, don't give us. I want to pay you a billion, or 400 million or whatever it is. Or I could say, thank you very much. You know, there was an old golfer named Sam Sneed. Did you ever hear of him? He won 82 tournaments. He was a great golfer. And he had a motto. When they give you a putt, you say, thank you very much. You pick up your ball and you walk to the next hole. A lot of people are stupid. They say, no, no, I insist on putting it. Then they put it, and they miss it, and their partner gets angry at them. You know what? Remember that, Sam Sneed. When they give you a putt, you pick it up and you walk to the next hole and you say, thank you very much.

[Tim Miller]

Respect.

[Sam Stein]

All right, so if you got a gimme. If you gave. If you're giving a putt, you're giving a gimme. I don't know if anyone's a golfer out there. Usually it's like, within two feet. They say, yeah, you could take. You don't have to hit it in. He says, you take the gimme. And on that front, I actually do agree, but I don't think that's the actual analogy here.

[Tim Miller]

This is a gimme. You don't think taking a $400 million bribe from a country that was also funding the Palestine protests that we are. I guess if you are a participant in the Palestine protest and you're on a student visa, America's policy is that we're going to jail you without due process. It's the current Trump administration's policy. If you are a funder of those protests and a funder of Hamas itself, and you want to give a bribe to the President of the United States, the Attorney general says that not only is that a gimme, the attorney general is like, yes, great.

[Sam Stein]

Well, the attorney general did lobby on behalf of the same exact country, like, a year ago.

[Tim Miller]

So this is just as a meta topic about the conversation around Trump. I think this is a good example of, like, you know, you can't have a hard and fast rule over how to, like, deal with crazy stuff. Right? Because, like, you know, sometimes, like, oh, don't chase this thing because it's like, not actually going to happen. Like, this was one of those, right? Or this thing comes out, John Carlson comes out and people are like, okay. I mean, this is really going to happen. We're going to like, the President's going to be on Cutter's plane and then, you know, there's some pushback on it. And then Trump is just like, no, yeah, no, this is happening. Not only is it happening, it's like a gimme.

[Sam Stein]

That was the best part when all the mag accounts are like, ah, you fools. Once again. Deranged media making up. And then Trump just is like, actually.

[Tim Miller]

Yes, this is actually.

[Sam Stein]

No, you're the fools. I'm taking this.

[Tim Miller]

It's true. Do you. Have you seen the origin story of how this really actually came to be? This is my favorite little.

[Sam Stein]

Oh, no. Because I had speculation. What does it say?

[Tim Miller]

The Qatari, I guess. I wonder if it was maybe for the golf tournament. I haven't seen what they're over there, but the plane, the Air palace that we're taking was. Was parked at the West Palm beach fbo.

[Sam Stein]

Oh, come on.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah. And Trump. And they asked Trump to tour. Like, he was like, wanted to tour it, so they gave him a tour of it back in February when they happened to be a Florida, I guess. I don't know if they're at the Be from Mar a Lago or for the golf tournaments and like a bad episode of Homeland. Yeah. And it's like, you know, this is pretty nice here. You know, I'm liking, you know, I'm liking the gold toilet. You know, I'm liking the furnishings around.

[Sam Stein]

Put an extra gold.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, yeah. We've got, you know, fully reclined seats.

[Sam Stein]

So he just liked it a lot. And that was it.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, I guess that's how the conversation got started. And like. And here we are. I mean, that was the.

[Sam Stein]

This is just. This reminds me that Sam Snead story where he's sitting over. Sitting over putt.

[Tim Miller]

It's also kind of a little bit of an ancient golf reference, I should mention. Not exactly a culturally. No, not like Bryson, Jason, Bow.

[Sam Stein]

Yeah, no, that's Trump, though. He likes the oldies. Jack, Sam, whatever. All right, buddy. Thank you so much. Really appreciate you walking through another one of these press conferences. One a day. No, he's going overseas now, so we might be. Actually, the press conferences will still happen just at odd hours. All right, thank you guys for listening. Appreciate that, too. Subscribe to the feed and we'll talk to you later.