The one thing Mr. Authenticity was supposed to be was the anti-politician: the guy who would supposedly go after the establishment, clean up Washington, and make a booming economy. Now, Trump's acting just like a typical politician trying to cover-up a scandal—and he's vulnerable to a backlash from the manosphere that went all in on him. Meanwhile, he is getting near-Biden polling numbers on the economy, he's trying to make the Fed chair his scapegoat, and he's the best American president the Chinese auto industry ever had. Plus, Newsom's prospects in '28 and the success of 'change' mayors across the board.
Mike Murphy joins Tim Miller.
show notes
Mike on the EV industry after the passage of the budget bill
Mike on leaving the Republican Party
More clips from the first episode of South Park's new season
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The Bulwark Podcast
Some rando far-right social media suck-up, who Trump rewarded with an appointment to his administration, is pushing mortgage fraud investigations of Adam Schiff, Tish James, and now Fed governor Lisa...
Trump and his people have used the summer months to up the despot game—sending armed troops into the streets, taking over the police in D.C., and promising to export the same tactics to even more blue...
The fears of jack-booted thugs and the military in the streets that filled the fever dreams of numerous people on the right since the 90s have come to pass. Not to mention that these are boom times fo...
While Trump keeps working hard on his own monetization and glorification—and delivers a Watergate practically every hour—the pro-democracy coalition must stay focused on winning next year's midterm el...
Russia is losing the war in Ukraine. More than 1 million Russian troops have been killed or injured, and it's been estimated that it would take another four years and 2 million more soldiers for Putin...
Back in the day, Trump used to puff up his wealth to get on the Forbes list. Lately though, he doesn't talk about how much money he has, especially now that he and his family have pocketed an estimate...
Militarizing the nation's capital is not a distraction, and Democrats really need to stop using that term. Trump is trying to seize power, intimidate the public, and foment violence in the streets. An...
While Donald Trump delivers chaos, cruelty, and corruption—and Republicans play the facts-and-hypocrisy don't matter game— Democrats have to do more rallies, more town halls, and more hearings, on and...
At the Alaska summit, Putin will likely be angling for a sequel of the Helsinki meeting, the infamous tête-à-tête in 2018 where Trump got rolled and cajoled. And because Trump refuses to accept that h...
Tim Cook groveling to Trump with a golden trophy and a dash of MAGA identity politics is probably a sign that we are not currently living in a healthy free-market economy. But business leaders apparen...
Trump keeps creating all these phony crises—an 'invasion' at the border, immigrants in the interior, crime in D.C.—so he can put on a show of force for his white base. He's also declaring fake emergen...
Crime is down in D.C., but Trump is using the pretext of an attempted carjacking of "Big Balls," the former 19-year-old DOGE employee, to take over the city's police department and deploy the National...
There's a direct line between when the Democratic Party got nationalized and when it started getting wiped out in red states. Dems need to embrace heterodoxy in their candidates—running in New York Ci...
The United States, through USAID, not only supplied a big chunk of the world's humanitarian aid, it also provided almost all of the logistical support for other aid organizations to deliver relief as...
Gerrymandering has always been partisan, but what's happening in Texas is straight-up racial politics. Republicans are targeting and trying to disenfranchise black voters while betting that Latino vot...
Voters in the seven swing states that elected Trump in 2024 thought he'd make the economy better. His perceived strength on the economy is the cornerstone Jenga piece of the whole Trump Tower. And he...
The boss only wants to hear good news: that's the takeaway from Trump's high-profile firing over the weak job numbers. So if a government worker has something bad to report, they now know they'll have...
Osborn, the populist independent who ran a surprisingly close campaign for a Senate seat in Nebraska last year, is back for another run in the 2026 midterms. A steamfitter and union member, he says he...
Texas Republicans are busy gerrymandering their already gerrymandered congressional map, and other red states are looking to do the same—all aimed at blocking the Dems from winning back the House and...
The rise of Elon—and why he is still involved with our government—has everything to do with the dimming of America's one-time crown jewel, NASA. We are now dependent on his rockets and his satellites...
Gaza is strewn with rubble, the war's end is nowhere in sight, and an entirely predictable humanitarian disaster is unfolding. With daily reports of starvation and malnutrition, Israel must provide a...
The man who cavorted with Jeffrey Epstein for 15 years never even bothers to feign empathy for Epstein's victims—even a sociopath would fake it. And neither Trump nor his administration and supporters...
The deputy attorney general of the United States, who took an oath to help Donald Trump no matter what, is conferring with Jeffrey Epstein's literal partner in crime—a woman who lied about the sex tra...
The one thing Mr. Authenticity was supposed to be was the anti-politician: the guy who would supposedly go after the establishment, clean up Washington, and make a booming economy. Now, Trump's acting...
Mike Johnson is racing to shut the business of the House down to avoid a vote on releasing the Epstein files. Trump's own criminal lawyer, who's moonlighting as deputy attorney general, will be mindin...
Republicans are nullifying bipartisan budget deals and planning a mid-decade redistricting to try to hold the House after the midterms. Trump is methodically working to crush dissent in the media, chi...
Our government disappeared hundreds of Venezuelans to a hellish Salvadoran prison for 125 days. When Trump's and Stephen Miller's whole CECOT plan even became too much for the dictator who runs El Sal...
If anyone in America was still thinking that Trump's ties to Epstein were a nothingburger, Trump’s own behavior this week has probably disabused them of that notion. His panicking and flailing around...
While the Trump administration is doubling down on fossil fuels, China is annihilating us in the clean energy space. Right now, 75% of all renewable projects anywhere in the world are being built by a...
In addition to eviscerating the top leadership at the Bureau, Kash Patel has assigned whole squads of agents to immigration enforcement. Seasoned FBI veterans who used to focus on national security or...