The Bulwark

The Bulwark

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The Bulwark episodes

  • Democrat Pulls Off Incredible Upset With Just $56,000 (w/ LaKesha Womack)

    She spent just $56,000 to defeat one of North Carolina’s most powerful Republicans—and the man who helped gerrymander his own congressional district. Tim Miller talks with Congresswoman-elect LaKesha Womack about her astonishing upset, her path from a near-death experience to Congress, and the last-minute legal controversy she believes was meant to derail her campaign.

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    6 min
  • The All-Encompassing Terror of ‘Godzilla Minus Zero’
    (Courtesy Toho)

    Godzilla Minus Zero has the IMAX screens this weekend in theaters across the country, and if you’re going to this movie, that’s the ideal way to experience it. Note: I didn’t say “see it.” I said “experience it.” Because right from the very first moment, as King Ghidorah screams onto the screen, leveling city blocks with golden beams of fire, you realize you’ve entered into something terrifyingly immersive.

    The image is big, obviously, but the sound is bigger, a terrifying cacophony of animal roars, screeching metal, and collapsing concrete. The roaring din is something both Godzilla Minus Zero and its 2023 predecessor, Godzilla Minus One, have emphasized, particularly in the theatrical setting. These are not your friendly neighborhood kaiju from the Godzilla vs. Kong set of films put together by Warner Bros. and Legendary, a series that, among other things, has shown a giant lizard suplexing a giant monkey with pyramids as a backdrop.

    From the first moments we see Godzilla in Minus One, on the Japanese island of Odo, he is big, mean, and loud. The sort of angry-loud that makes you involuntarily shrink back in your seat, clap your hands over your ears like Timmy in that jeep in Jurassic Park. In the new movie, Ghidorah is, somehow, even louder. And that’s before he grows two extra heads—hence his name, which comes from “hydra”—with which to screech and breathe fire and, terrifyingly, lift whole towns via some sort of antigravity breath before dropping them thousands of feet straight down.

    Minus Zero begins where Minus One left off: It’s two years after the attack by Godzilla, and the island nation is still just picking up the pieces when Ghidorah strikes. Mr. Noda (Hidetaka Yoshioka) leads the nation’s emergency response, and once again calls upon former kamikaze pilot Kōichi Shikishima (Ryunosuke Kamiki) to aid in the defense of the people. Helping them is Aoyama (Masami Nagasawa), a savant meteorologist who can feel when storms are coming like Roy Hobbs can feel when a fastball’s coming. And, of course, there’s Noriko (Minami Hamabe), whose surprising survival in the first film came with a terrible price.

    Modern action films sometimes run into a problem of scale: The bigger the threat, the less terrifying the threat truly is. The Godzilla/Kong movies are just goofy; Galactus in last year’s Fantastic Four seemed relatively lightweight despite his city-sized presence; Superman fought his clone a few weeks before that and I struggled to remember what, precisely, was smashing around Metropolis. One reason these movies, particularly the comic book movies, fail to land is that, oftentimes, it feels like no one is actually in any danger. New York, Metropolis: They’re always magically evacuated, free of civilians.1

    (Courtesy Toho)

    Godzilla Minus Zero does not spare civilians. Indeed, one of the main points of this film is the responsibility that comes with choosing to do the right thing in order to save civilians. But for that message to land, we have to see the aftermath of war. Not just the war against the kaiju, mind you, but war in general. Never forget that the Godzilla franchise is one born of the scars the Japanese psyche incurred after the firebombing of Tokyo and the nuclear annihilation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Minus films add to that legacy by tossing in the wickedness of Japan’s own policy of fighting to the last man, of turning soldiers into suicide bombers and self-immolating pilots.

    As such, Godzilla Minus Zero really earns its R-rating: I did not go into this expecting to see multiple sequences of nuclear annihilation and the effect that has on the human body, but see them we do. When Ghidorah isn’t eating people or burning them alive or stomping on them for fun, he’s levitating their houses and smashing them on the ground. All of this happens amid a soundscape that has been turned to 11. It’s an intense film, is what I’m saying, and maybe one you’ll want to leave the younger children home for. Particularly given the surprising emotional heft of the movie, which revolves around the Shikishimas and their daughter, Akiko (Sae Nagatani).

    These are not triumphal films, precisely, but they are, ultimately, hopeful: movies about shared humanity and the necessity to keep living, no matter what. Because, hey: You never know when things are going to turn around.

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    SPEAKING OF THINGS TURNING AROUND: How about that election in Texas, huh? I was at the vice president’s final stop in the state last week just days before the election; you can read my dispatch here. Needless to say, his last-ditch swing through North Texas did not have the hoped-for effect on turnout.

    And if you hit that paywall, I hope you’ll consider signing up for a Bulwark+ membership. We’re doing a post-election flash sale, so take advantage now while you can:

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    Assigned Viewing: The Daniel Roher Filmography

    Tuner (Paramount+)

    Navalny (HBO Max)

    The AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist (Netflix/Peacock)

    Once Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson and the Band (HBO Max)

    Blink (Disney+)

    On this week’s episode of The Bulwark Goes to Hollywood, I talked to Daniel Roher about his recent film, Tuner, and what goes into making your first narrative feature after a hugely successful career in documentaries. Of particular interest in this interview: The importance of hiring Dustin Hoffman for a key supporting role, which helped attract Leo Woodall to the project. And Woodall delivers what I can only describe as an “Oh man, that guy’s a star” performance here. If Denis Villeneuve wasn’t giving him serious consideration for James Bond after this film’s release, he and his casting director were making a mistake.

    Tuner had a run in theaters early this year but got a little swamped by coming out around the same time as Obsession and Backrooms. The directors of those films—Curry Barker, 27, and Kane Parsons, 21, respectively—got a ton of attention for being young filmmakers making exciting originals. But any list of exciting younger filmmakers that doesn’t include Roher, 33, is missing a key entry. It’s not just Tuner—though, again, Tuner is really quite excellent, a tight, 107-minute high-concept crime thriller/romantic drama of the sort that they “don’t really make anymore”—but his documentary work as well.

    Director Daniel Roher (left) posing with the cast of Tuner—Dustin Hoffman, Leo Woodall, Tovah Feldshuh, Lior Raz, and Havana Rose Liu—in September 2025 in Toronto. (Photo by Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images for IMDb)

    Most notable is Navalny, for which he won the Best Documentary Oscar at the 2023 Academy Awards. It is one of the key texts of our age and a must-watch for anyone who wants to understand the levels of depravity Ukrainians are dealing with in their ongoing war against Russia, even if it’s not a film about the Ukrainian war. No, this is a thriller disguised as a documentary, a taut, fast-paced drama about a guy trying to do the right thing in a country where the right thing gets you poisoned to death by the government. It’s gripping and gutting, a must-watch.

    Once Were Brothers is a little less dramatic, focused more on music and the work of the 1970s rock group the Band. It’s a relatively straightforward musical history documentary, featuring new interviews with seminal figures like Martin Scorsese (who directed The Last Waltz, arguably the greatest concert film of all time, about the Band’s farewell performance) and Bruce Springsteen. Not to harp on runtime, but it’s a lean 98 minutes, which is the perfect length for a documentary of this sort: not rushed, not languid, won’t take your whole night but will leave you satisfied. (We talked a bit in the interview about the importance of respecting audiences by keeping runtimes under control, and I have to say that I salute Roher for doing just that.)

    And then there’s The AI Doc, which came out earlier this year. I wrote about it a bit here, but given all the talk about, you know, the possibility of Anthropic and the other AI companies figuratively careening us all off a cliff to fiery death via “misalignment”—as devilishly benign a phrase for extinction as one can imagine—it’s probably worth revisiting. Like Roher, I’ve long had an eye on the possibility of accidental AI self-immolation and the fantasies of transhumanism that dominate much of Silicon Valley, so this doc felt like a worthwhile warning to folks who haven’t paid enough attention . . . as well as a reminder that there are, potentially, some positive uses for the tech as well.

    When I interviewed Roher, he was in the midst of editing his latest feature, a “romantic caper” starring Matthew McConaughey. It’ll be out next year from Netflix. It is, he says, likely to be about an hour forty-five minutes. I can’t wait to watch it.

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    1

    One of my long-running grievances about the response to Man of Steel is that the complaints about civilian casualties incurred during the fight in Metropolis between Zod and Superman led to every comic book movie either emptying their cities or moving the action to barren wastes, as in The Flash or Eternals. It just absolutely kills any sense of stakes or danger.

    0 min
  • Elon Musk Loses $80 Billion as Tesla Pulls the Plug on the Cybertruck

    Elon Musk’s Cybertruck is on its way out, corporate America is lawyering up, and Donald Trump seems strangely subdued after a historic election defeat. Catherine Rampell and JVL discuss the possibility of Trump stepping aside, the investigations Democrats are preparing, and the government insiders who may be sitting on a mountain of evidence of wrongdoing.

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    17 min
  • BREAKING: Trump Picks Stephen Miller to Replace Susie Wiles as Chief of Staff

    After a crushing midterm defeat, Donald Trump is firing Susie Wiles as chief of staff and replacing her with Stephen Miller. Sam Stein, Andrew Egger, and JVL react to the stunning shakeup, Trump’s search for someone to blame, Miller’s disturbing record, and what his promotion could mean for immigration policy, political retaliation, and Trump’s growing rivalry with JD Vance.

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    12 min
  • The Day After Deliverance

    There’s a little bit of everything in this one: joy, exhaustion, some well-earned gloating, a few wild theories, and even a few tears. And that’s what makes the Secret Podcast special. Join Bulwark+ while our 20% off flash sale lasts for more of these unfiltered conversations with Sarah and JVL.

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    Sarah and JVL are still coming to grips with the enormity of this week.

    • Feelings!

    • These Democrats are good, actually.

    • Ways the Democratic Congress will be able to make the world better even with Trump still in office.

    • Is Hegseth cooked?

    • How long will Rubio wait?

    • Can JD outfight Trump?

    • Is MAGA trying to force Alito to resign?

    All that and we take time to make Susan Collins wear the clown suit she made for herself.

    And then, at the end? Well, don’t leave early. This is a top 2 percent episode. Instant classic.

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    The Secret Podcast with JVL and Sarah is exclusively for members of Bulwark+. Upgrade now to watch (or listen) to this episode and join the Secret community in the comments. New shows drop each Friday. Ride with us!

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    25 min
  • Michael Steele: A Total and Complete Schlonging

    After ten years of Trump dominating American politics, we’re finally having a very different conversation about the future. There are fights ahead, but as Tim and Michael remind us, sometimes you have to take a moment to celebrate. And we’re thrilled to be celebrating this one with you.

    And you’re in luck—we’re having a 20% off flash sale on membership. Come ride with us.

    Join now

    The MAGA coalition is falling apart, Fox News is flummoxed, and Trump is having to grapple with being rejected by huge swaths of America. Steele only has double birds for Republicans who played along with the 10-year hijacking of the party and are now trying to clean up their act. And in a way, the country gave double birds to the administration over DEI, based on the diverse slate of candidates who’ve won statewide office all over the place. Plus: Texas is the whole enchilada for Republicans, electing the president via the national popular vote is looking more possible, Marco leaving the administration would be consistent with how calculating he’s always been, and Tim’s 2012 autopsy was not wrong, just early.

    Michael Steele joins Tim for the (much gloating!) weekend pod.

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    show notes:

    • Bill in Friday's "Morning Shots"

    • JVL on the conspiracy to push Trump aside (gift link)

    • Image of the before-and-after of Georgia’s statewide office holders

    • Talarico’s early vote total > Paxton’s overall vote total

    • The Bulwark store

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      Bulwark+ members via Substack can set up their personal RSS feeds on their podcast player of choice to access ad-free and member-only shows.

    As always: Watch, listen, hit the like button or leave a comment. We want to hear from you.

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    1 hr 3 min
  • Trumpfall
    (Photo illustration by Sarah Rogers/The Bulwark | Photos: Getty, Shutterstock)1. Trumpfall

    I was wondering which would break first, Trump’s spirit or his body.

    Today we may have an answer.

    The president is an old man. He tries to cover up that fact with hair dye, elaborate combovers, layers of makeup, and other visual f/x. But he’s obviously unwell. Morbidly obese. He falls asleep sitting in public, in meetings, while on camera. His body emits random noises that his underlings pretend not to notice. His voice is weak and strained. His extremities are mottled and swollen.

    And yet until this week Trump’s spirit had still been strong. His will-to-power intact. His urge to dominate and ability to take the initiative had dulled, but were extant.

    Since Monday it’s different. We may have broken his back, once and for all. Let me lay out the scenario for you . . .

    The election is over but the fight for accountability is just beginning. Wage it alongside us.

    With our post-election flash sale, you can join Bulwark+ for 20 percent off the normal price. These are your people. Come ride with us.

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    0 min
  • Trump Got One Thing Right: We’re Not Tired of Winning

    As the last votes get counted, we’re starting to see the final, remarkable shape of our blue tsunami. Next year, it looks like America will have 56 Democratic senators, around 260 House members, and the governorships of 13 of the 14 largest states. About 60 percent of Americans will be represented in the House by a Democrat, and about 70 percent will have a Democratic governor.

    Oh, and Laura Loomer’s podcast is going on hiatus, and Elon just discontinued the Cybertruck. It’s been quite the week. Happy Friday.

    Supporters of Wisconsin Democratic gubernatorial candidate David Crowley watch early election results at the campaign’s election-night event. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)It Is Hereby Ordered...

    by William Kristol

    Writing here on Wednesday morning, I remarked that “surely we’re entitled now to a day not of thinking or worrying or arguing, but of celebrating.”

    Then, thinking of all the work that does lie ahead, I added: “But only one day!”

    I was wrong. I now see that we deserve more than one day of celebration. We’ll have to get back to work soon enough. There’ll be no shortage of struggles and challenges and difficulties. There’ll come a time very soon to think and worry and argue.

    But how often do we get to celebrate something like what the American people accomplished on Tuesday? The breadth and depth of the popular repudiation of Trump and Trumpism deserves more than a mere twenty-four hours of joyful recognition. It feels as if, from the Mississippi Delta to the Alaskan tundra, from the Outer Banks to the Great Plains, a kind of iron curtain has been lifted from across our continent. A feeling of dread has given way to a sense of possibility.

    So continue the celebratory mood into the weekend! Live it up! You have my permission.

    Don’t celebrate alone! Join our pro-democracy community.

    Indeed, President Trump has inspired me to make that permission official. Yesterday, in one of his first acts since the election, President Trump issued an executive order designating the Oval Office a “national landmark” to prevent a future president from altering it. He said he wanted to “make it impossible for anybody to ever destroy this incredible space.” He wants his Saddam-inflected Cheesecake Factory–style Oval Office to be preserved intact for posterity.

    The order can and will of course be rescinded by the next president. But it made me think. If President Trump can issue meaningless executive orders, so can I. So:

    Now, therefore, I, William Kristol, coauthor of Morning Shots, by the authority vested in me by the Constitution and Bylaws of The Bulwark, do hereby extend our period of National Celebration through the end of the weekend.

    So that’s done.

    I can’t help but mention one other matter: Soon after Donald Trump issued his ridiculous executive order, Pete Hegseth gifted us with a video—lest we forget, even for a minute, his noxious presence at the Pentagon.

    The commentator Heather Delaney Reese gives a good account of it here. She begins,

    After renewed calls for his impeachment and removal, this afternoon, Donald Trump’s handpicked Secretary of “War,” Pete Hegseth, with his greasy hair slicked back and an American flag handkerchief poking out of his pocket, released a video of himself that marked an all-new low point . . .

    The video is a familiar litany of culture war attacks and idiocies. It’s an embarrassment to our military and our nation. But Hegseth did have a purpose: to convince President Trump not to toss him overboard. So he begins by talking about the inspiring moment he first walked up to “President Trump’s War Department.” And then he links the motion to impeach him, which is due to come to the floor when Congress returns next week, to the earlier impeachments of his leader and master. “Just like they tried against President Trump, twice . . . Didn’t work against President Trump, and it won’t work with me.”

    This did make me think: What would be more fitting as a first post-election act by the Congress of the United States than the impeachment of Pete Hegseth? It would be an act of the old Congress in a lame-duck session, not the new one. But in a way that would make it an even more powerful statement. Since it would require some Republican defections to pass, it would show that even some functionaries of the old order realize that we need to begin to clean up the mess, and turn the page and move on to a new order.

    But here I’ve drifted into thinking and arguing about the future—which I said we should put off for a few more days. So feel free to put Trump and Hegseth out of your mind. Celebrate the past week. And have a great weekend.

    Vibe Shift Check

    by Andrew Egger

    How big of a bust was Republicans’ extraordinary focus on trans panic during the midterms? Even Ron DeSantis, Mr. Anti-Woke himself, thinks they were laying it on too thick.

    “Four years ago, we were in the peak woke era. It alienated a lot of people, rightfully so,” DeSantis said in remarks on Wednesday. “Well, now the issues are different. And Republicans, it seemed like, with some of the ads I was seeing, with how much money they were spending, they were really fighting yesterday’s battle.”

    Actually, Tuesday’s results had some interesting cross-signals for GOP culture warriors. On the one hand, DeSantis is correct: Republicans’ attempt to scare voters with trans panic against candidates like James Talarico couldn’t have fallen flatter. This year, a Democratic candidate could run as an unapologetic supporter of LGBT rights in a ruby-red district and still wildly overperform: In North Carolina’s 5th Congressional District, which Trump won by 18 points in 2024, Democrat Chuck Hubbard currently leads Rep. Virginia Foxx, a powerful eleven-term incumbent, by 99 votes. Watch this video of Hubbard saying that the closest issue to his heart is protecting the rights of people like his lesbian daughter and try telling me we haven’t had a vibe shift.

    But at the same time, it’s not obvious that the electorate’s policy preferences have actually shifted much on these issues since 2024. The specific trans-policy issues that Republicans flogged to great effect in recent years, including keeping biological males out of girls’ sports, still enjoy plenty of support: Four states, from red Nebraska to blue Colorado and Washington, passed ballot initiatives restricting such participation on Tuesday, even as the same voters elected Democrats to Congress by the truckload.

    What seems to have happened is simple: Republicans way, way misunderstood what their 2024 advantage on trans policy meant—and thus massively overread their perceived political advantage.

    During what DeSantis called the “peak woke era,” Republicans capitalized on a backlash against a culture in which trans groups had briefly achieved widespread adoption of their maximalist demands. Lots of voters who bore no ill will toward trans people still recoiled at, say, the expectation that they would suddenly list their pronouns everywhere: You’re telling me I need to consider NOT being trans a core part of my self-identity from now on?

    When these people saw Democrats aggressively pandering to these same groups—think of Kamala Harris promising to support taxpayer-funded sex-change surgeries for prisoners—they recoiled much as voters recoil today from Donald Trump’s personal corruption: not because they care deeply about the thing itself, but because they think a politician who is focused on it is probably not focusing enough on the stuff they do care about, like making their lives more affordable. That’s what made Trump’s famous 2024 “Kamala is for they/them, Trump is for you” so effective. The point wasn’t that Kamala was going to pass a bunch of trans policy voters wouldn’t like. It was that she might treat liberal culture-war concerns as a priority and fumble the ball on more important stuff.

    Which is exactly why the issue proved so useless for Trump and Republicans in 2026. They forgot that the whole implicit promise of their own anti-trans stuff in 2024 was about building a case that they were better equipped than Democrats to deliver on affordability—a case that they then spent two years blowing up. Instead, Republicans somehow got it in their heads that what voters wanted was a bunch of gratuitous cruelty against trans people just for the sake of it: We can say “retard,” “pussy,” and “tranny” again! Use AI to put James Talarico in a dress in ads and dub Annie Andrews “Tranny Annie”—that ought to do the trick.

    What a shock, in retrospect, that it blew up on them so spectacularly.

    AROUND THE BULWARK
    • Dems Put Up Saddam Numbers in Cheesecake Factory Districts… Obama made a joke. Republicans made a fuss. Voters, BRENDAN HARTNETT reports, made it a rout.

    • How ‘Tuner’ Found the Perfect Pitch… On The Bulwark Goes to Hollywood, Director DANIEL ROHER joins SONNY BUNCH to discuss the must-see indie gem of the year.

    • Ohio Democrat Pulls Off Stunning 20-Point Swing in Trump Country… Representative-elect DON LEONARD joins TIM MILLER on Bulwark Takes to explain his win in a district Trump won by 10.

    • Meet the Most Revolting Man in MAGA’s Universe… MAGA’s biggest influencers are taking the election results about as well as you’d expect, THE TRIO discusses.

    • Knock Holes in the Darkness… A Kansas pastor makes history, and Trump’s election schemes fall apart. Senator-elect ADAM HAMILTON joins TIM MILLER on The Bulwark Daily.

    QUICK HITS

    ADDRESSING THE BIG PROBLEMS: As the week of his electoral annihilation winds down, it’s becoming increasingly bizarre to watch how Donald Trump is choosing to spend his time. On Thursday, he was all but silent on Truth Social, posting only three times. One was a reposted tweet from a conservative commentator suggesting Republicans had lost the midterms because “Trump was elected to do politically difficult but necessary things.” One was a White-House-produced video of Trump bragging about his renovation of the Reflecting Pool, set to peaceful acoustic-guitar music. And one was a call, set to be ignored by his entire party, for the votes of the third- and fourth-place candidates in Alaska’s Senate race to be “immediately given to the REAL Dan Sullivan” because “There is no other fair solution!”

    Trump publicly emerged only once yesterday, to sign a crucial, high-priority proclamation designating the Oval Office a national monument. It was an apparent attempt to stop future presidents from removing the gold bric-à-brac he’s larded the place up with without congressional approval.

    “It will not be allowed to be touched by anybody. Destroyed, ripped down by stupid people, in order to build something in a slightly different shape,” Trump said. “It’s a symbol of our country, and the greatness of our country. So I’ll sign that, and I think in theory that should end that problem.”

    MIND YOUR MANNERS: Trump may be completely out to lunch, but others at the White House are more attentive to the present danger of their fragmenting coalition. The Wall Street Journal reports that the White House Office of Public Liaison delivered a warning message to outside conservative groups on Thursday: We’re watching you. Here’s more:

    Two days after voters rebuked President Trump and his party, the administration moved to hold together a coalition that was beginning to splinter.

    The White House Office of Public Liaison, which works with outside groups, sent a memo to more than 3,000 conservative organizations that laid out a list of Trump’s accomplishments in office and pledged to prevent newly ascendant Democrats from reversing them. The memo concluded with a sentence that was highlighted in yellow.

    “As always, we are monitoring statements, press releases, and media engagements from your organizations,” the memo said. Leaders of two prominent conservative organizations confirmed that they had received the memo.

    The warning shot comes as conservative groups—particularly longstanding D.C. fixtures whose policy issues have gotten short shrift under Trump 2.0—have begun openly blaming Republicans’ disastrous midterms on an abandonment of conservative conviction. Read the whole thing.

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    0 min
  • Dems Put Up Saddam Numbers in Cheesecake Factory Districts
    (Photo illustration by Bill Kuchman/The Bulwark | Photos: Getty, Shutterstock)

    OF ALL THE SIDE ISSUES that popped up at the end of the midterm campaign, none seem quite as contrived as the anger directed at Barack Obama for his line about the Cheesecake Factory.

    While campaigning in Cleveland for Ohio’s Democratic ticket, the former president mocked Donald Trump’s interior-decorating skills, saying, “He’s got the White House looking like Saddam Hussein opened a Cheesecake Factory.”

    Republicans pretended to be appalled. Obama had crossed a line, they insisted, ridiculing a restaurant chain whose healthy portions are a synecdoche of American prosperity and whose welcoming tables are a rightful reward for hard-working Americans simply trying to afford a good meal.

    “Obama, without even trying to be, just can’t help himself from being super elitist,” resenter-in-chief Vice President JD Vance said at a Fox News town hall.

    Republican strategist Matt Whitlock tweeted, “Classic Obama snobbery. Cheesecake Factory is a great option for people who can’t afford a private chef at their Martha’s Vineyard estate,” while Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, whose wealth is measured in the hundreds of millions, literally went to a Cheesecake Factory, after which he advised that “the Martha’s Vineyard set” should give it a try.

    Fox News’s Martha MacCallum summed up the issue by saying that Obama’s remark “goes exactly to why Democrats lost the middle class, why they lost blue-collar voters.”

    The whole brouhaha felt like a preposterous relic of an earlier political era—one in which Obama’s choice of suit or salad greens could tie conservative pundits and pols into knots of rage. And now we have some proof of how manufactured the outrage really was.

    That’s because, while we will have to wait for granular data from voter files to assess just how well Democrats did with middle-class and blue-collar voters, we can reach one hugely important conclusion just working from the data already available: Democrats won the majority of U.S. House seats with a Cheesecake Factory in the district.1 And a hearty, Cheesecake-Factory-portion-sized majority at that.

    There are 215 Cheesecake Factory locations currently open across the 50 states. Under the maps used in the 2024 elections, those restaurants were scattered across 175 different congressional districts (so that some districts have the distinct honor of being home to more than one Cheesecake Factory), of which Democrats currently represent 108.

    Under the new maps in place for the 2026 elections, those same Cheesecake Factories were scattered across 171 districts. By the end of Tuesday night’s election

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    0 min
  • How ‘Tuner’ Found the Perfect Pitch

    On this week’s episode, I’m joined by Daniel Roher, the Oscar-winning director of Navalny, to talk about his first narrative feature, Tuner, which is streaming now on Paramount+. It’s one of my favorite movies of the year, so I was pretty thrilled to get him on the show and pick his brain about how the movie came to be, the importance of sound design for creating an unforgettable theatrical experience, and how he nabbed Leo Woodall, who has shot up my list of best young actors on the planet following this and Tony.

    And really, seriously: you should watch Tuner. It’s streaming now and available for rental. It’s a propulsive 107 minutes, the perfect length for a high-concept thriller like this. And I guarantee you’ll be blown away by the cast: Dustin Hoffman, Havana Rose Liu, and Woodall are all pretty amazing.

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    39 min

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