1075: Secret Podcast: Trump’s War Runs on Pure Make-Believe

Summary

The Next Level – Episode 1075: Secret Podcast: Trump’s War Runs on Pure Make-Believe

Hosts: Sarah Longwell, Tim Miller, Jonathan V. Last ("JVL")
Date: April 24, 2026

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EPISODE OVERVIEW

In this episode, Sarah Longwell and Jonathan V. Last (with Tim Miller notably absent) bring their trademark blend of political skepticism and humor to analyze the state of the Trump administration during an ongoing conflict with Iran. They focus on the White House’s internal chaos, the firing of Navy Secretary John Phelan, and the farcical push for a "Trump class" battleship. They also riff on the federal government’s controversial bailout of Spirit Airlines, and close with a critique of media coverage of gerrymandering, revealing the double standards of editorial pages. The conversation is full of sharp insights, pointed barbs, and comic asides, especially as the hosts dissect the absurd theater of Trump-era governance.

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KEY DISCUSSION POINTS & INSIGHTS

1. The Firing of Navy Secretary John Phelan & the "Trump Class" Battleship

• [01:00-08:46]
  • Context: John Phelan, a billionaire and Trump’s friend, is fired as Secretary of the Navy. His offense? Not getting "Trump class" battleships built fast enough, per Pete Hegseth, who orchestrated his removal.
  • JVL: "When you are winning wars, you don't go around firing senior level leaders in the military in the middle of them." (01:31)
  • Hegseth's real issue seemed to be Phelan’s independent relationship with Trump.
  • The "Trump class" battleship is a Trump vanity project. Trump allegedly insisted on their design, saying he “put a little more spirit in the hull.”
    • Trump: “I want that ship to look gorgeous, you know.” (quoted by JVL, 04:06)
  • The reality: building such ships by 2028 is logistically impossible.
    • JVL: “You can't get anything in the water by 2028. From the starting point of 2025… These things take years… this thing will never, ever, ever happen.” (07:21)
  • Core absurdity: Key Pentagon figures circle around promising Trump the impossible for job security, only to be fired when those promises inevitably fail.
  • Cycle of dysfunction: JVL points out cabinet positions go to those willing to sell Trump on outlandish projects, then get ousted for failing to deliver miracles.

2. Trump Era Surrealism – Sycophancy & Make-Believe in Governance

• [05:34-08:46]
  • Sarah Longwell: Compares Trump’s self-image to “the episode of the Sopranos where they paint Tony Soprano as like a Napoleon… but also like an old man narcissism that is steeped in the History Channel… it needs to look like Liberace threw up all over it.” (05:34)
  • The panel laments high-level U.S. military and Pentagon decision-making reduced to rivalry, incompetence, and Trump’s need for self-aggrandizement.

3. Replacing Phelan – Further Decline of Cabinet Qualifications

• [11:34-12:04]
  • Phelan’s replacement is, in their words, “an insane person... a winsome Sears type... fun choices.” The bar keeps lowering for top leadership.

4. Trump’s War in Iran, Fuel Prices, and Spirit Airlines Bailout

• [12:05-16:45]
  • The U.S. government buys a 90% stake in Spirit Airlines, after the company declares bankruptcy twice due to high fuel prices (exacerbated by Trump’s war).
  • Sarah: “Trump creates a problem through bad policy… then raises the prices of an entire industry... and then Trump's like, don't worry guys, we're going to bail you out… We, the American taxpayer, pay twice.” (14:40)
  • JVL details how market-destabilizing Trump policies disproportionately bail out allies and friends of Trump, perpetuating a cycle of favoritism.
  • Memorable banter about Spirit Airlines quality:
    • Sarah: “It's the Greyhound bus of... Or maybe Peter Pan... if you're a 20 year old with a knapsack who basically just needed to throw some underwear and like a bong into a backpack.” (12:42)
    • JVL: “Honestly, I forget where...I was sort of curious as to whether...Spirit...would save me... but once you added all the extras...It was basically the same price.” (13:38)

5. Media Coverage, Bailouts, and Gerrymandering – Selective Outrage

• [16:45-22:17]
  • The Wall Street Journal editorial blames the Spirit bailout on Obama/Biden-era interventions, not Trump—even though Trump caused the need for the bailout.
  • Sarah: “I am suddenly living with socialists to the left of me, socialists to the right of me. There's just socialism everywhere and it's great.” (16:53)
  • JVL: “It is fitting that the Trump led administration decides to get into the airline business and purchase the single worst airline that exists.” (15:40)
  • On bailouts: JVL distinguishes the Spirit bailout from more defensible bailouts (like GM), tying automotive production to national security.
  • Media Double Standard:
    • The Washington Post gets called out for publishing two contradictory editorials: one dismissing worries about a Texas gerrymander (done by Republicans), the other decrying a Virginia map (blaming Democrats).
    • JVL: “Texas gerrymander freakout. What is happening in the Lone Star state is not a threat to democracy. [versus] Virginia plunges America deeper into the gerrymandering abyss.” (21:23-22:10)
    • Sarah: “Get over it, you freaking out, democracy lovers.” (21:42)

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NOTABLE QUOTES & MEMORABLE MOMENTS

• JVL: "To get a place in this cabinet, you had to promise Trump impossible things, and then you're gonna get fired because you didn't achieve the impossible things. There’ll be somebody behind you who promises new impossible things, and they will maneuver you out and then take your job. It's great. It's great." (11:17)
• Sarah: "I am suddenly living with socialists to the left of me, socialists to the right of me. There's just socialism everywhere and it's great." (16:53)
• JVL (on Trump’s vanity): “I want that ship to look gorgeous, you know, Mr. Trump... I put a little more spirit in the hull.” (Reading Trump’s alleged words, 04:06)
• Sarah (on Spirit Airlines): “It's the Greyhound bus of... Or maybe Peter Pan…if you're a 20 year old with a knapsack who basically just needed to throw some underwear and like a bong into a backpack and get somewhere, then like Spirit, maybe that's for you." (12:42)
• JVL (on Trump administration priorities): “It is fitting that the Trump led administration decides to get into the airline business and purchase the single worst airline that exists.” (15:40)
• Sarah (on the double standard in media): “Get over it, you freaking out, democracy lovers.” (21:42)

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TIMESTAMPS OF IMPORTANT SEGMENTS

• [01:00 – 08:46]: Firing of Navy Secretary and the Trump Battleship absurdity
• [08:46 – 12:04]: Sycophancy, make-believe, and Pentagon dysfunction
• [12:04 – 16:45]: Spirit Airlines bailout, impacts of Trump’s Iran war, and populist economic policy
• [16:45 – 19:47]: Media response and editorial hypocrisy regarding bailouts; discussion of government intervention
• [19:47 – 22:17]: Comparison of media coverage on gerrymandering — exposing double standards

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TONE & STYLE

The episode is characterized by biting sarcasm, exasperation, and a tone of resigned amusement. The hosts repeatedly highlight the absurdity of the Trump era, the dysfunction of political sycophancy, and the self-serving nature of policy decisions under his administration. The show moves quickly, blending serious institutional analysis with wry banter and pop culture references (e.g., Sopranos, History Channel, “Liberace threw up all over it”).

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USEFUL FOR NEW LISTENERS

This summary captures the episode’s main threads: the chaos and incompetence baked into Trump’s administration of the military and the economy; the personal and institutional dysfunction at the heart of policy; and the performative, shifting stances of media and editorial boards in response to partisan forces. It is a sharp, entertaining, and sometimes darkly comic conversation about the current state of American politics.

Transcript

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[JVL]

This is JVL here with my best friend Sarah Longwell, publisher of the Bulwark. Sarah, John Phelan, Secretary of the Navy, was fired this week. Pete Hegseth, who has clashed with him for a long time, has muscled him out. Even though Phelan was a billionaire buddy and neighbor of Donald Trump's.

[Sarah Longwell]

Is that what made him qualified to lead the.

[JVL]

That is what made him qualified to lead the Navy, yes.

[Sarah Longwell]

It's funny because the Navy's not doing anything important right now. No, literally, when was the last time the Navy was as essential as it is right in this moment?

[JVL]

It's funny. It's funny. So the thing I wrote about during this week was how this is to me a sign that we are losing the war. Because when you are winning wars, you don't go around firing senior level leaders in the military in the middle of them. You might note.

[Sarah Longwell]

Makes sense.

[JVL]

Hey, this person is bad and I gotta get rid of him. But I'm gonna wait till after the war's over. Right. You don't do it right again, you don't. If you're winning, that's the only important thing and you don't want to have unintended consequences. Even though Jon Phelan, his remit does not touch on the actual activity of the Navy in the Strait of Hormuz. Right now you start moving pieces around and, well, somebody's gonna slide into his spot, somebody's gonna slide into their spot. You know, there's a lot of stuff that happens. What I am more interested in is the. The casus belli for his firing. Do you know why? Or the argument that Pete Hexseth made to the president for why John Phelan had to be fired?

[Sarah Longwell]

I don't. And as you can hear in my voice, like, I have been sick this week, and so I was out the first three days, which then means I am doing all my things in the last two days. So my news. You're gonna have to just read stuff to me, and I'll react to it. But I have wondered how it is possible. What were the reasons? What is the. I want the Kremlin ology of why this guy was fired.

[JVL]

Okay, so the reason for what. The reason why he seems to have been fired is because Hegseth did not like that Phelan had an independent relationship with Trump, even though Phelan worked for Hegseth. So that's why Hegseth wanted him out. It was because Hegseth wants total control over everybody inside the building. The. The reason Hegseth gave to Trump for why he needed to go was because John Phelan, according to Pete Hegseth, was falling down on the job of getting the Trump class battleships built.

[Sarah Longwell]

Okay? And when Trump heard that, he said, oh, this guy.

[JVL]

That is when he thought, well, we got to get him out of there.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah, there's only one priority right now at the Navy, and that's having ships

[JVL]

with my name on them, because the Trump class battleship is, according to Donald Trump, going to be in the water by 2028. Now, we'll talk about why that's important in a minute ago. I would like to read to you from the New York Times. The breaking point for Mr. Phelan, who often said that he and Mr. Trump texted and talked on the phone regularly, came in the last two weeks as the President's frustration over Mr. Phelan's management of his prized battleship program grew. Da da, da, da, da. Mr. Trump has spoken repeatedly about his plans for a new Trump class battleship. In a February speech to soldiers at Fort Bragg, he insisted that he helped design the new class of ships that bear his name. I put a little more spirit in the hull, Mr. Trump told the troops. I want that ship to look gorgeous, you know, Mr. Trump. For Mr. Trump, the ships were called Victory at Sea, a documentary television series that ran in the 1950s. Did you ever see Victory at sea? He mused to reporters in January when talking about the new battleship. What a great thing that is to watch. Oh, my God. Mr. Phelan played a prominent role in selling Mr. Trump on the new ships. Wait, wait. I'm sorry. We have to keep going. In his confirmation hearing last year, Mr. Phelan said that the president often texted him late at night to ask him about, quote, radio rusty ships or ships in a yard and what Mr. Phelan is going to do about them. Before the Navy settled on its plans for the Trump class battleship, Mr. Phelan wooed the president to the idea by showing oil paintings of some of the service's great battleships from earlier eras. Defense officials said.

[Sarah Longwell]

Do you remember the episode of the Sopranos where they paint Tony Soprano as, like, a Napoleon, Like a general with, like, the hat and a horse?

[JVL]

I do not.

[Sarah Longwell]

Okay. It's just like, there is something. This is. It reminds me of it. Both because Trump is like a Mafia boss, but then he has that narcissism where people. But also like an old man narcissism that is steeped in the History Channel. No, I want it to be like when we won World War II, but also it needs to look like Liberace threw up all over it, because that's how our battleships need to look. Okay, well, but this is. I'm sorry, this is exactly who he is. I mean, right now, what are we dealing. We've got a ballroom. We've got an arc to Trump. He's trying to put in our my City, and he needs his battleships to be named after him. Like, this is just the Trump and the. And the Kennedy Center. This is all he cares about.

[JVL]

Yes. So here I would just like to note the. The hysterical nature of this, because Phelan seems to have gotten the job by telling Trump we should build battleships with your name on it. Trump bought this secretary. We've got it, but we got to get it done by 2028. And then Pete Hegseth seems to have gotten Phelan fired by telling Trump, well, you know, I mean, these things should be able to be in the water by 2028. And he's just not getting it done. And so that's why he's been fired when.

[Sarah Longwell]

Let me guess. You can't actually get battleships in the water by 2028. That the production line for these things are quite long.

[JVL]

You can't get anything in the water by 2028. From the starting point of 2025. Ship design takes longer than anything else, including aircraft design. These things take years to get right, oftentimes decades. Doing new classes of warships, these systems have to be tested and tested and retested. And re refined. And it getting a new class of ship out into the water is unbelievably hard. And anybody who knows anything has said from the very beginning, yeah, this thing will never happen. This thing will never, ever, ever happen. Because this is a stupid idea that the Navy does not need. And so they're just going to spend whatever they spend to pretend that they're working on it for three years, and then the next administration will just cancel the program.

[Sarah Longwell]

Right.

[JVL]

That's how these things work. But that is also why Trump is obsessed with getting it done by 2028, because he understands that if these things don't get in the water before then they won't ever happen.

[Sarah Longwell]

Right.

[JVL]

And so just everybody's playing make believe. They're playing make believe. And the President, United States, the commander in chief, who is currently leading our forces in a hot war in the Middle east with Iran, is the type of guy who gets convinced of things by having billionaire neighbors of his show him oil paintings.

[Sarah Longwell]

Okay, so question. So I, I'm, I'm with you on this descent into the absurd, but is it possible? And I'm just asking questions, but is it possible this is just cover for actual incompetence or anger over the Strait of Hormuz? And the fact that we are currently embroiled in a naval blockade standoff that's not going well.

[JVL]

Does not seem to be reading between the lines. One of the things, one of the reasons Hegseth hates this guy is because this guy has the ability to text Trump at night. And Hegseth can't abide a subordinate who has a direct, personal, peer to peer relationship with Trump. And so Hegseth was just looking for a way to get rid of this guy, and it turned out that he was able to do sort of jujitsu by then saying, Mr. Trump, this battleship program is so important and he's just not going to be able to get it out in time. Look, Mr. President, it's so critical we get these battleships in the water by 2028, sir. And so this guy, having promised like, oh, yeah, we can do these battleships, is then in the position of trying to explain why? Well, no, of course we can't get them in.

[Sarah Longwell]

I mean, part of me is like, it's Trump. I don't know. This is maybe this is a crazy thing to say. It's like, is he, he's dumb. Like, we all know he's dumb. We all know he's like, is he that. I mean, if this guy's his neighbor and his Friend. And you think that once this guy admitted that it was just impossible, like, he got called onto the spot. No, it's impossible. Then Trump was like, all right, then get rid of him.

[JVL]

I don't know that he told Trump it was impossible, but he had to be explaining why they weren't further along, because they aren't very far along, because these things take forever. And so Trump, I guess, having been talked into the idea that, A, they were a good thing, and B, it could be done by 2028, was then like, well, I don't know. Then get it done. And there's no. When you promise the. The king something that's impossible. And he then says, why hasn't the impossible thing happened?

[Sarah Longwell]

Sure.

[JVL]

Like what? It's amazing.

[Sarah Longwell]

I mean, I guess. I guess it's true. I mean, I guess that's Bondi, right? Bondi, yeah. Bondi, probably. You know, Bondi wasn't fired because she was not doing well on the Epstein files or because they had become a problem. Bondi was fired because she wasn't being successful at prosecuting Trump's enemies. So. And like, she must have. That's how it is, everyone.

[JVL]

To get a. To get a place in this cabinet, you had to promise Trump impossible things, and then you're gonna get fired because you didn't achieve the impossible things. There'll be somebody behind you who promises new impossible things, and they will maneuver you out and then take your job. It's great. It's great.

[Sarah Longwell]

So. And so the replacement for him, I only saw this briefly, the replacement for him, because everyone's like, well, this guy wasn't qualified, but the next guy is also, like, a super weirdo.

[JVL]

The next guy's. So this guy wasn't qualified? The next guy seems to be an insane person. Yeah, like. Like a winsome Sears type fun choices. It's great. It's great. All right. I would like to talk a little bit about the media, if that is okay with you.

[Sarah Longwell]

Just the media.

[JVL]

Just two pieces of the media. You saw that perhaps that we are. We, The United States government, is buying Spirit Airlines.

[Sarah Longwell]

I like this story. I like this story. Do you know why I like this story?

[JVL]

Tell me.

[Sarah Longwell]

Okay.

[JVL]

Because Spirit's the worst fucking airline in existence.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah. I mean, have you ever flown on Spirit?

[JVL]

No. I have. Sonny flew Spirit once, and his. His story, to me about what it was like, made me believe that even if they were half the price of any other carrier, I will not fly that.

[Sarah Longwell]

Nothing's worth it. Nothing was worth flying on this airline. I mean, if you are. Here's where it is. It is like it's a Greyhound bus of. Or maybe Peter Pan. I don't know what's the lower level of bus travel, but it's like if you're a 20 year old with a knapsack who basically just needed to throw some underwear and like a bong into a backpack and get somewhere, then like Spirit, maybe that's for you. But part of the reason you need to be in that age bracket is that you need to have the kind of butt that will not feel enormous amounts of pain from sitting on the worst seat that you've ever sat on. No cushion whatsoever while you're flying. And like if you get some turbulence, like you're just wrecked. And if they, they don't, they don't give you. There's no, you can't have like it's like coffee or like another bag. Anything other than a book bag, they charge for everything. That'll be a hundred dollars.

[JVL]

Yeah, I have priced this out before. Honestly, I, I forget where. I was sort of curious as to whether if Spirit. How much money would Spirit save me versus United for a flight that I was looking at. And the reality is once you added all of the extras that you need to make the Spirit flight like even remotely comparable as a thing you're buying because the extras include things like, I would like to pick my seat, I would like to have a carry on bag.

[Sarah Longwell]

Right.

[JVL]

It was basically the same price. It wasn't all that much cheaper.

[Sarah Longwell]

Now, to be fair, having a business that basically says we're going to take the planes that are worn out and, but still flyable and we're just going to do really cheap air travel so that people. That's fine. The problem is, is that the costs of air travel.

[JVL]

Is the office on fire?

[Sarah Longwell]

No, there's just a. This happens with the ambulances sometimes. You know what this is?

[JVL]

I like this. This is good theater of the mind for the listeners.

[Sarah Longwell]

I'll let you. Here, I'll just let you.

[JVL]

It's the Towering Inferno. No, no, no, keep going. It's like they're inside the Towering Inferno. Go ahead.

[Sarah Longwell]

The thing that I. Not only is it. So it's like not a, not a good thing to purchase as an asset for the government though, it's like not a strong business because what's happening is it's. It lives on the edge of profitability to such a degree and that the fuel prices being driven up by Trump's war in Iran are going to put this company out of business. It's the same thing that happened with the farmers and the tariffs. And it's like Trump creates a problem through bad policy. Okay. And then raises the prices of an entire industry. The lower tier of that industry starts going underwater. And then Trump's like, don't worry, guys, we're going to bail you out. And so the Spirit airline thing is the same thing as the bailout we gave to the farmers. We, the American taxpayer, pay twice, we pay twice, we pay the higher price like everybody else, and then we pay as taxpayers to bail them out for Trump's BS policies.

[JVL]

This is, as you said, this is an airline which lives on the edge. They have declared bankruptcy twice in the last two years. Does not really seem to be a viable business. It is fitting that the Trump led administration decides to get into the airline business and purchase the single worst airline that exists. They're going to own 90% of it. This is the way this deal is. We're going to own 90% of Spirit Airlines. If I were the rest of the carriers, I would be pretty pissed. Because the way these things work typically, if you believe in markets, is that Spirit is pushed out of business and that actually helps everybody else because there's one less competitor. And as times are tough because of fuel prices, et cetera, et cetera, that does give them a little bit more pricing power. Because there's one less competitor, it gives them more power over labor, et cetera, et cetera. And so all of a sudden, it's just because the Spirit people are friendly with Trump, they get to be. They get to operate at a loss.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yep.

[JVL]

And if you're United, you don't. But that's not really what I want to talk about. I just want to set the table so I could talk about the Wall Street Journal editorial today.

[Sarah Longwell]

Okay, can I just make. Can I just make a point that, like, I am suddenly living with socialists to the left of me, socialists to the right of me. There's just socialism everywhere and it's great.

[JVL]

Everywhere.

[Sarah Longwell]

I guess everybody's going to get to see how viable it all is. I'm here for the socialist stove. Touching. Let's give it a shot, guys.

[JVL]

So the Wall Street Journal editorial page has an editorial today about how terrible this is. Now, that is not surprising. You would expect the Wall Street Journal editorial page to be against a bailout.

[Sarah Longwell]

It's basically the reason they exist.

[JVL]

Okay, would you care to know who they blame for this?

[Sarah Longwell]

Joe Biden and Barack Obama.

[JVL]

Yes,

[Sarah Longwell]

I'm gonna read it to you. It was so Scary.

[JVL]

This is a story of how one misconceived government intervention leads to another. And so it's. It goes back to the bailout of General Motors in 2009, and then talks about how Biden's antitrust division blocked the merger of JetBlue and Spirit. And so, you know, you have these. Look at these bad Democrats who were monkeying with putting the government in the middle of things. And, you know, they did those things, and that's why this government is currently involved in the Spirit Airlines bailout. It's not. Not Donald Trump's fault, really. It's unwise. It's unwise. But this is just, you know, this is the logic of these things. If Barack Obama and Joe Biden hadn't been monkeying in the markets.

[Sarah Longwell]

I do. Look, I'm against government bailouts basically, on almost all fronts. But here, here's the. The inability of people who want to talk about personal responsibility, which, by the way, to be a capitalist, to be in love with the markets. Personal responsibility. Right. Has to be at the core of your belief for them, the inability to have Trump take responsibility for anything. And also, to be fair to Joe Biden and Barack Obama, they're Democrats who are pretty open about their worldview. Now, we can disagree with their worldview, but they are saying, yeah, like, this is how government. Government's going to take a bigger role. Right. That is, to the extent that there's an old world where we had slightly different philosophies, it is that Democrats thought government should do more than I often thought government should do. It was kind of most of it. And now the Wall Street Journal refusing to blame Trump, who explicitly runs on the opposite. That's the rich part.

[JVL]

That's fantastic. I have a more complicated relationship with buyouts than you do, I think, or bailouts than you do, because I think the wisdom of bailouts is highly circumstantial in that it really does matter what the sector is, why the business has been pushed into insolvency. So, for instance, the GM bailout, I think, could be defended on. On two grounds. The first of which is that automotive production is a critically important industry to America because that ties to a lot of defense stuff. And having the ability to manufacture cars is not all that dissimilar to the ability to manufacture tanks. And so it's important to keep those industries, at least some of them, here in the States. And that a big part of what happened to GM was that they were caught in a financial crisis caused by, like, the real estate sector. And so, you know, when you have these big systemic crises where there's industries that are collateral damage, I think that. But again, these things all become prudential. And so I am not prepared to either be totally for bailouts or totally against bailouts. I, I think it in almost every case, you have to evaluate it on the merits. That's me.

[Sarah Longwell]

Uh huh.

[JVL]

Different people can come to different. Different conclusions.

[Sarah Longwell]

Sure.

[JVL]

All right, media story number two. I'm going to read two Washington Post editorial headlines.

[Sarah Longwell]

Oh, no.

[JVL]

This is a Washington Post editorial from Aug. 20, 2025.

[Sarah Longwell]

I know which headlines these are. Go ahead.

[JVL]

Headline the Texas gerrymander freakout. What is happening in the Lone Star state is not a threat to democracy. Okay?

[Sarah Longwell]

Get over it, you freaking out, democracy lovers.

[JVL]

Here is the Washington Post editorial from this week. On Wednesday, Virginia plunges America deeper into the gerrymandering abyss. The redistricting scheme was always a power grab by Democrats. Voters went along with it.

[Sarah Longwell]

Wait, you know we haven't done the Virginia redistricting thing. And I gotta say, hey guys, we're

[JVL]

gonna take the rest of the show behind the paywall. We do almost none of this. Almost everything we do is free. Like 95% of what we do at the Bulwark is free. Uh, but we do got to keep the lights on and do a little something for our members. If you haven't joined yet, come on in. Do it. It's a good time. Promise. You join Bulwark plus, book a loved

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[JVL]

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[Podcast Host 1]

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[JVL]

Good reason.

[Sarah Longwell]

Oh, and for the pool. Cause pools are cool.

[JVL]

I feel the love.

[Podcast Host 2]

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