Once upon a time, presidents used to take tough questions from the press, but the current White House occupant can't handle any scrutiny from cantankerous reporters. And on his sad and sulking days, he needs warm and fuzzy Newsmax in the press pool to envelop him with flattery. Meanwhile, the joint session of Congress address has become basically pointless, SCOTUS blocks Trump's usurpation of power by one single vote, and at Trump's behest, the CIA is punishing Zelensky because he won't cooperate with the administration's disinfo campaign. Plus, Democrats need to show voters they are genuinely furious. And if you've thought about running for office, now is the time to jump in—particularly in districts the Dems have tended to ignore. Amanda Litman and Jim Acosta join Tim Miller. show notes The Jim Acosta Show Amanda's 'Run for Something' When reporters rallied around Fox after Obama White House tried to shut it out
Chapter 1: What is the significance of Trump's relationship with the press?
Hello and welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. Many of you have been asking, what can I do? What can I do? All right. In segment two, we're going to talk about a tangible thing I think people should be looking at doing to combat Trump's threats to our Democratic Republic. But up first, former chief White House correspondent for CNN.
He's now an independent journalist and host of the Jim Acosta show on Substack. It's Jim Acosta. How you doing, bro?
Hey, Tim. Good to see you again.
I am kind of of the view that these things, even when it's not Trump, are basically pointless in the modern era and they have very little impact. So I'm wondering what your assessment is of that and if there's anything you saw last night that you think might matter, even on the margins.
Yeah, I did a Substack right after the speech was over with Michael Fanone. And Mike says to me, he goes, Jim, I love you, but fuck you for making me watch that. And I said, that's fair. I said, honestly, that's fair. I mean, it was a bullshit-a-palooza. I mean, this is what we expect from Trump now. And I kind of agree with you, Tim. I think this thing has just turned into, you know, hee-haw.
I mean, I think the next president would be well-served to just do it from the Oval Office or like, what did they say in the olden days? You would just like send a letter down on a horse down Pennsylvania Avenue.
Yeah, just send the letter. That's where I'm at. It kind of annoys me. I don't know. This is maybe a meta commentary about the media, but just like the pomp and circumstance of it all. I mean, we're here in Trump 2.0. I mean, he didn't obviously respect any of the traditions, right? You know, at any point, it's like, why should we continue to have respect for it?
It's like, oh, and they're kind of there's the first lady and she looks beautiful today. And here comes the cabinet. I don't know. The whole thing is just kind of like to me, it's like this is from another era and it's a fake. It feels fake, I guess.
It is. And I loved hearing from the people last night who were saying, can you believe Congressman Green and what he did? And, you know, after Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert and their antics from whatever last year or the year before, every year for that matter. And Joe Wilson, you lie from when Obama was president.
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Chapter 2: How does the State of the Union address reflect Trump's leadership style?
You know, he knows he can't get away with everything. The people around him know he can't get away with everything, but he's going to give it a hell of a try. And for some of the people on the Supreme Court, I'm not going to mention any names to go along with this is disgraceful. And to me, you know, it's no wonder you were talking about poll numbers.
It's no wonder that confidence in the Supreme Court is, I think, near an all time low if it's not an all time low. And I tend to agree with, you know, when Biden was on his way out, not to say, you know,
I know it's probably not fashionable these days to praise anything that Joe Biden does or says, but when he was talking about term limits for the Supreme Court, I mean, I've long felt that that needs to happen. It is ridiculous that you can put hyper-partisan people in the Supreme Court in their 40s and hope that they live for another 50 years.
To me, it's just sort of a gross exploitation of the checks and balances and trying to find loopholes to rig things. a system that's supposed to protect all of us and uphold the rule of law.
You say the American form of dictatorship, and what he's trying to do, really, they think that he has unlimited Article II powers for the executive branch. It doesn't matter what Congress actually decides. passed legislation as far as funds are, and supposedly they have the power of the purse, but we can actually do whatever we want, and we can just stop payments.
We can stop things that have been approved by Congress, signed by previous presidents. We can do whatever we want. Then the question is, does the court allow that, right? And if the court doesn't, then eventually that becomes kind of the next step, right, of this question of, are they going to try to defy that?
Luckily, we have not reached that point yet, but I just think when you look at these things and there are just cut and dry cases like this that end up five, four, you know, we'll see where Amy Coney Barrett ends up, but it's hard to imagine that she won't end up on the other side of this when the circumstances are slightly, slightly less egregious.
You're absolutely right. And I think that's where the rubber is going to meet the road here, because, you know, if the courts say, no, you can't do this and he keeps defying the courts, what do we do at that point? I mean, I don't know if anybody has really answered that question.
And, you know, the last time around at the end of his first term, you know, we were all pretty damn lucky that he left the building. And my concern this next time around is no matter what happens in the upcoming election, he's just not going to want to give this up. I was with him on January 20th, 2021. I was at that ridiculous departure ceremony that he had at Joint Base Andrews.
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Chapter 3: What are the implications of Trump's recent comments on intelligence support for Ukraine?
I think AOC pretty typically is one of the better ones in which it seems so authentic. You know, I think Chris Murphy's stick is not always for me, but it does seem true to him. And I appreciate that. Like he seems genuinely furious and is communicating that in a way that really works.
Other than that, I think we've still got a lot of like wide open field for people to step up, which is again, chaos is a ladder. Climate Democrats, just fucking climate.
That phrase is right. Genuinely furious. When people ask me, like, what do you want? I'm like, I want you to be genuinely furious. There's a lot of things to be furious about. And I actually don't care if it's the thing that I'm furious about. And not all the Democrats need to be furious about the same things.
You can be furious about whatever it is that you think your constituents are furious about or whatever it is that animates you as a politician and try to bring people along with you. And that, I think, has been the thing that when people are like, the Democratic base is unhappy, to me, that is what is missing. They're like, we are really fucking mad. Just be mad, too.
Also do stuff, but just be mad, too, for starters.
Well, it's because when they're not mad, it makes us feel like the crazy ones for being mad. I don't want to be gassed. My rage is not misplaced. It is not invalid. It is totally legitimate. And if my elected leaders aren't showing that, or if they're like, oh, calm down. We're going to talk about the price of eggs. There's not an election for this shit for another 18 months. Be mad right now.
And then channel my fury into something good. But be mad with me. It will make me feel better.
I agree. Feelings do matter. Maybe I'm a millennial postmodern. I want to talk about Run for Something. How many years have you been doing this for?
This is since Trump's first inauguration days. We've been on eight years.
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