The Bulwark Podcast

→ WHAT IT COVERS California Congressman Ro Khanna joins Tim Miller to discuss the Epstein files investigation, the unauthorized Iran war, AI's economic disruption, and how unlikely cross-partisan coalitions between progressive Democrats and MAGA Republicans are forming around government accountability and anti-interventionism in 2025. → KEY INSIGHTS - **Cross-partisan coalition building:** The Massey-Khanna Epstein bill succeeded by deliberately obscuring its Democratic origins, branding it as...

→ WHAT IT COVERS Host Tim Miller interviews Ashley St. Clair, a former TPUSA influencer and mother of one of Elon Musk's children, about her exit from MAGA politics, ongoing lawsuits against X/AI over AI-generated nonconsensual imagery, and the mechanics of right-wing influencer funding. Cameron Kasky discusses West Bank human rights legislation and Illinois primary dynamics.

→ WHAT IT COVERS Tim Miller and Bill Kristol analyze the U.S. war against Iran two weeks in, examining the collapse of allied support across Europe and Asia, Trump's looming decision between escalation and withdrawal, MAGA fractures over the conflict, and oil price surges from $66 to $101 per barrel threatening recession. → KEY INSIGHTS - **Allied Collapse:** Every major U.S.

→ WHAT IT COVERS Tim Miller and Tom Nichols analyze the U.S. war against Iran two weeks in, examining 14 American casualties, depleted Tomahawk stockpiles, oil approaching $100 per barrel, Trump's contradictory surrender claims, Russia's financial windfall, Gulf state alienation, and domestic terror incidents linked to the conflict. → KEY INSIGHTS - **Strategic objective drift:** The administration has cycled through at least four stated war goals — nuclear program elimination, regime change,...

→ WHAT IT COVERS Tim Miller and Sam Stein analyze the U.S.-Iran war's strategic incoherence, economic fallout including $11.3 billion in first-week costs and fertilizer supply disruptions, Trump's unfocused leadership style, the DHS leadership transition from Kristi Noem to Markwayne Mullen, and a cabinet ranking update identifying Pete Hegseth and Marco Rubio as the worst performers. → KEY INSIGHTS - **Iran War Costs:** The first seven days of U.S. military operations in Iran cost $11.

→ WHAT IT COVERS Bulwark host Tim Miller interviews Breaking Points co-host Saagar Enjeti, a self-described right-wing populist and two-time Trump voter, who delivers sharp criticism of the Trump administration's Iran war, Epstein cover-up, and personnel failures, while debating immigration, coalition realignment, and where the America First project went fundamentally wrong.

→ WHAT IT COVERS Tim Miller hosts two segments: foreign policy journalist Laura Rozen analyzes the Trump administration's failed Iran nuclear negotiations and subsequent bombing campaign, then culture editor Sonny Bunch examines how AI, social media algorithms, prediction markets, and media consolidation are accelerating a measurable societal drift toward dystopian conditions.

→ WHAT IT COVERS Tim Miller and Sarah Longwell analyze the U.S. war with Iran, covering rising oil prices near $120 per barrel, seven American military deaths, the Trump administration's refusal to acknowledge legal war status, Israeli influence over U.S. war decisions, government credibility failures including a bombed Iranian school, and voter sentiment shifts among Biden-to-Trump voters.

→ WHAT IT COVERS Tim Miller and Neera Tanden cover Kristi Noem's removal from DHS, Markwayne Mullen's nomination, a jobs report showing net losses since April, the Iran war's economic fallout including 11% gas price increases, the administration's lack of strategic planning, and 2026 Senate race dynamics across Montana, Texas, Alaska, and Maine. → KEY INSIGHTS - **DHS Leadership Shift:** Kristi Noem's removal marks the first cabinet firing of the Trump administration, signaling that sustained...

→ WHAT IT COVERS Tim Miller and Derek Thompson analyze the Trump administration's military strikes on Iran, the executive branch's systematic use of emergency statutes to consolidate power, the Pentagon's weaponization of procurement rules against AI company Anthropic, and the tech oligarchy's transactional relationship with the Trump administration across 65 minutes of political and economic analysis.

→ WHAT IT COVERS Tim Miller interviews 26-year-old Democratic strategist Morris Katz, who ran media for Zohran Mamdani's successful New York City mayoral campaign. They cover left populist electoral strategy, Mamdani's two Oval Office visits with Trump, the Iran war, the Texas Senate primary, Graham Plattner's Maine Senate race, and whether economic populism can win in red states.

→ WHAT IT COVERS Retired Lt. General Mark Hertling and Senator Ruben Gallego analyze the U.S. military strike on Iran, examining the absence of clear objectives, contradictory statements from Hegseth, Vance, and Rubio, munitions stockpile concerns, the deaths of six U.S. service members in Kuwait, and how Democrats should communicate opposition to the conflict.

→ WHAT IT COVERS Tim Miller and Bill Kristol analyze the U.S. military operation against Iran, examining the lack of clear strategic objectives, the deaths of four American soldiers, incoherent White House messaging across multiple media interviews, congressional authorization failures, and the domestic and geopolitical consequences of a war launched without a defined endgame.

→ WHAT IT COVERS Tim Miller and Amanda Carpenter cover DHS enforcement abuses including warrantless arrests and domestic surveillance of protesters, the Zohran Mamdani-Trump meeting, the Paramount-CNN merger deal, Anthropic's standoff with the Pentagon over AI red lines, and Republican complicity psychology drawn from Carpenter's book research. → KEY INSIGHTS - **DHS Surveillance Accountability:** Project Democracy filed a lawsuit in Maine after federal agents used facial recognition and...

→ WHAT IT COVERS Tim Miller and Jonathan Chait cover the Trump administration's corruption patterns across crypto, the Canada-Michigan bridge deal, and CBS News, alongside analysis of Epstein file suppression, potential Iran military action, Democratic Party failures on education reform, and polling data showing early Trump voter remorse. → KEY INSIGHTS - **Trump Voter Erosion:** A longitudinal poll tracking 2024 voters found roughly 15% of Trump supporters already disapprove of his performance.

→ WHAT IT COVERS Tim Miller and Susan Glasser analyze Trump's State of the Union address — the longest in U.S. history — dissecting its contradictions on the economy, immigration, Iran policy, and the administration's multi-front assault on free speech, while examining media capture through ongoing corporate merger negotiations. → KEY INSIGHTS - **Industrial-Scale Lying:** Trump's State of the Union built its economic argument on demonstrably false claims — asserting Biden-era inflation was the...

→ WHAT IT COVERS Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Charles Duhigg joins Tim Miller to analyze why MAGA's decentralized organizing model outperforms Democratic mobilization, drawing on his New Yorker article and book *Supercommunicators* to offer concrete communication and political strategy lessons for the left. → KEY INSIGHTS - **Organizing vs. Mobilizing:** Decentralized organizing — training thousands of local leaders who operate independently — consistently outperforms mass mobilization...

→ WHAT IT COVERS Tim Miller and Jonathan V. Last cover five interconnected political crises: FBI Director Kash Patel's conduct at the World Junior Hockey Championship, Trump's preparations for an Iran strike, the Supreme Court's tariff ruling and Trump's 15% global tariff response, USAID humanitarian funding cuts across 16 countries, and the ongoing immigration enforcement occupation in Minneapolis affecting undocumented residents.

→ WHAT IT COVERS Tim Miller and Michael Weiss analyze four converging geopolitical crises: the Supreme Court's 6-3 ruling striking down Trump's emergency tariffs, the buildup toward a US military strike on Iran, the stalled Ukraine peace process, and Marco Rubio's strategic compromise between MAGA loyalty and traditional Republican foreign policy principles.

→ WHAT IT COVERS Senator Tina Smith joins Tim Miller live in Minneapolis to discuss ICE enforcement operations targeting Minnesota's immigrant communities, Republican Senate accountability, potential military action against Iran without congressional authorization, and Democratic Party self-reflection on past political decisions including the Al Franken resignation.