The Bulwark

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.

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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

• 20% OFF FLASH BULWARK+ on Substack for the next year. Go beyond the paywall and get unfettered access to ad-free and member-only video and written content from The Bulwark. Go to: TheBulwark.com/sanitywins
  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.

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Tim Miller’s Bulwark Daily is available wherever you get podcasts and on YouTube. New shows drop each weekday afternoon. If you like the show, leave a comment and ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ wherever you listen.

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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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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.

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.

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.

• 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.

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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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

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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We know you’ve been waiting for a post-election Trio, and we weren’t about to disappoint. If you love having these three together to laugh through the madness, become a Bulwark+ member and help us keep the Trio coming. And you’re in luck—we’re running a flash sale for 20% off for the next year of Bulwark+. Offer ends soon.

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Tim Miller, Sam Stein and Will Sommer are back together to celebrate the midterm results and take a victory lap over MAGA’s spectacular election night failures. They break down JD Vance getting roasted by the manosphere, Tim Pool’s election meltdown, and the humiliating defeats of MAGA candidates like Brandon Herrera.

Plus, Laura Loomer and Benny Johnson spiral over the results, Will introduces the trio to one of the internet’s most influential right-wing streamers (and his truly horrifying living conditions), and Russell Brand is convicted of rape and sexual assault after appearing alongside Trump administration officials just weeks before his trial.

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Don Leonard just pulled off a stunning upset in Ohio, defeating a Republican incumbent in a district Trump won by 10 points. The congressman-elect joins Tim Miller to discuss how he did it, his arrest at a No Kings protest, his plans to dismantle ICE, Trump’s treatment of Haitian immigrants, and why he believes JD Vance has betrayed his working-class roots.

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CONGRESSIONAL DEMOCRATS OBVIOUSLY have lots of things on their to-do list for next year, starting with cost-of-living issues and cracking down on corruption. But there’s another key priority that has gotten less attention but is no less important: restoring the constitutional separation of powers so that Congress actually controls the power of the purse again.

Or to put it in more colorful terms: Congress is about to reclaim its cojones, and then go after the low-profile cabinet member who sliced them off in the first place.

I’m referring to Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought. He served in that role for the second half of Trump’s first term, then spent the next four years preparing for a return to office—starting a Trumpian think tank and writing a critical chapter in Project 2025. Since resuming the OMB job, Vought has orchestrated many of Trump’s most brazenly authoritarian moves as president. There’s a reason Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.), the incoming chair of the House Budget Committee, called Vought “the most dangerous man in America that most Americans have never heard of.”

“It’s easy to pay attention to fools like RFK and Hegseth,” says David A. Super, an administrative and constitutional law professor at Georgetown. “But Russ Vought is actually pretty good at his job. He’s just evil as hell.”

Vought is not a clown. And he’s not overtly corrupt. He’s just really, really good at turning Trump into a king.

So let’s talk about some of the sneakiest, most devious ways the Trump administration has been shredding the Constitution, and what the new Democratic majorities on Capitol Hill can do to glue it back together—and maybe inflict a little pain on the guy with the shredder, too.

This gets a bit wonky, but stick with me. I promise it’s worth it.

We have big plans for Illegal News. The election may be over, but the fight for accountability is just beginning, and they’ll be here to explain what Congress can do, what the courts will allow, and how to make sure the guardrails hold this time. Join The Bulwark to support the show and help us keep these conversations going. And you’re in luck—we’re running a flash sale for 20% off for the next year of Bulwark+. Offer ends soon.

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Sarah Longwell and Andrew Weissmann are still celebrating the wave, but they’re already looking at what comes next. From the judges and lawyers who thwarted Trump’s election meddling to the new Congress’s power to hold his administration accountable, they discuss what this victory changes—including Trump’s suddenly limited options for Supreme Court appointments.

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Kansas Senator-elect Hamilton was not recruited out of the Democratic Party pipeline. The Methodist pastor chose to challenge Roger Marshall because he didn't like what was happening in the country, including with ICE agents and cuts to healthcare. But he was also bothered by people in DC claiming to be Christian but not acting like it. Plus: Kamala campaign alum Rob Flaherty joins Tim to celebrate some of the biggest midterm stars, the Dems figuring out how to communicate with voters, the massive blowouts in Georgia, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania—and how Democrats in the new Congress have to address the growing concerns over AI.

Senator-elect Adam Hamilton and Rob Flaherty join Tim Miller.

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show notes:

• Hamilton's victory speech

• Tim’s interview with North Carolina’s Anderson Clayton

• Gina Hinojosa’s personal “I Chose Her” ad

• Scott Colom’s “Pick Another Senator” ad

• Colom talking to Trump voters in line for a Trump rally

• Rob’s “Nobody Knows Anything” podcast

• Rob’s piece for The Bulwark on the DNC autopsy

• The Bulwark store

• 20% OFF FLASH BULWARK+ on Substack for the next year. Go beyond the paywall and get unfettered access to ad-free and member-only video and written content from The Bulwark. Go to: TheBulwark.com/sanitywins
  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.

Ad-free editions of The Bulwark Daily are available exclusively for Bulwark+ members.

Tim Miller’s Bulwark Daily is available wherever you get podcasts and on YouTube. New shows drop each weekday afternoon. If you like the show, leave a comment and ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ wherever you listen.

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