This time around, Trump has dispensed with the ribbon-cutting side of being president—he's just not giving average Americans anything to feel good about. Instead, his administration is defunding the police, freeing criminals, and welcoming home the alleged sexual predator Tate brothers. Meanwhile, Trump is also shrugging off the economic news even as Maria Bartiromo is raising the threat of a recession. Plus, our allies and trading partners are infuriated, and we've officially become one of the bad guys in Ukraine. S.E. Cupp joins Tim Miller. show notes Tim joined Bill for the "Bulwark on Sunday" "Bulwark Takes" on Apple Podcasts The Noah Smith piece Tim referenced
Chapter 1: What is the purpose of the Bulwark Takes podcast?
If you go and search Bulwark Takes on your podcast player of choice and subscribe to it, you can get kind of one-off conversations. You know, if maybe I'm talking to somebody from Canada, or I talked to that guy who's reporting from Kiev last week, those types of conversations, you can get those on the Bulwark Takes feed. So go check that out. All right, up next, SE Cup.
Hello and welcome to the Bullard Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. You might notice I'm sounding more masculine this morning. I'm on day two of the flu. And so I'm excited to have the laugher with me today because I need someone who can carry me on this podcast. And I found the right person.
She's a political commentator for CNN, contributor to their new show, Table for Five, host of the Off the Cup podcast, which gets off the news, which we all need. It's Essie Cup. What's up, girl?
Sorry, I'm so giggly. That was just really funny.
Chapter 2: Why is the Trump administration's approach causing concern?
Well, you know.
And I'm sorry you're sick, honey. I'm sorry.
Thank you. I appreciate that. I'm a little worried about the lights in here. I'm going to be sweating through at the end of the podcast. You need some good material because we're clipping your clips today, not mine. I don't think I'm going to look good. All right. The last time we spoke. I don't know if you remember. Well, I mean, we've texted or whatever.
But the last time we spoke on the podcast was the day after the Kamala debate. Simpler times. Wow. Yeah, I know. I know. It feels like a lifetime ago or even another Earth. I wonder what you make now of just the biggest picture, like the first seven weeks. How does it match or change your expectations? Is there anything in there? Any green shoots? I don't know. Just anything. Top line.
What do you make of it?
What's crazy is... I thought the 2016 campaign was incredibly disorganized. Yeah. And then his first term... For all the things. Sure. Was a bit more organized, or at least it efforted at it. It brought in some good people. He kicked them all out when he realized they were actually too good and wouldn't do his bidding. But this is the reverse.
I found this 2024 campaign to be run in a very high-level way by Suzy et al., And the collapse of that organization and order on day one of this term has been, I guess, shocking, but not. I mean, I am shocked at the level of disorganization and chaos, considering he came in, I think, with a way bigger mandate this time. I mean, I judge people for voting him in the first time.
I judge them harder for voting him in the second time. And there were more of them.
Right.
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Chapter 3: How is the U.S. economy being affected under the Trump administration?
Yeah, but elsewhere on Fox, I'm sure you've seen, they're already messaging the Biden recession.
That in itself is a sign of just very dire economic circumstances, I would think, right? Yes.
Yes.
So anyway, I don't know. What do you make about the economic situation?
The other crazy part is the campaign and his voters were so clear on the three issues, the economy being the top thing that they were going to the polls for. They didn't give a shit about pet-seeding migrants in Ohio. Like, all the crap that surrounded the campaign, voters were super clear. Don't care about that. We care about the economy, immigration, crime, period, full stop, end of sentence.
Nothing cracked... the numbers that those three issues did. And again, economy at the top. So to come in and in his joint address, uh, Mention the economy. Spend like, I think, something like 7% of his speech addressed the economy specifically.
That feels like a lot. I don't know. It felt less.
It took 30 minutes to even get to the economy and lowering costs.
Mel McKinley was in there and complaining that the Democrats don't clap for him.
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Chapter 4: What is the current situation in Ukraine and how is the U.S. involved?
And now all these talks of maybe militarily taking over Panama or Greenland, and then all of the withdrawing from these alliances, and in fact, strategically breaking them on purpose. This is all a weakening of... And it does not feel like isolationism, which is, I think, what he was promising.
This is a lot of interventionism to change global economic stability, to change global security, to change... long-held geopolitical relationships. I mean, this is incredibly interventionist to me. I don't know that anyone on his side will care, really, but I care about things like consistency and honesty.
You, you know, a little bit more than me. I'm pretty much persona non grata in this world. But, like, you talk still to, like, national security Republican types, right? Some of them still chat with you. Like, what... Where are they? And we have a big budget thing that coming up this week, March 14, they're going to need to pass a continuing resolution to keep the government open.
It only takes three House Republicans to say, hey, I'm going to vote for this. But like the string attached here is that we got to do Intel sharing again, or we have to at least provide the weapons that have already been budgeted, right? You know, and it can be a small thing, right? But like, I don't know.
I mean, like, what are you hearing from that world that just is just not worth fighting with the mad king?
Yeah, basically. I mean, everyone complains. Not everyone. Let me be more judicious with my words. But I've heard a number of Republicans in the House and Senate and staffers complain about, like I said, cabinet picks in these security positions, right? Specifically Tulsi.
One person I talked to called her a clown and voted for her because not being with this president on everything is, I feel like, not an option.
Lisa wasn't a very significant role that he was voting to confirm a clown for, he or she, I guess. Lisa was just the director of national intelligence.
Just that. Just that. Yeah. I know that there was some relief when she pushed back on Doge, when she pushed back on Elon and the firing he's trying to do. There was a little relief of that, but she has since come out and said some propagandist shit about Russia that confirmed she is exactly who we thought she was.
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Chapter 5: Why are the U.S.'s international alliances being questioned?
And, like, I think that unlike any of these other people that have been around Trump and embarrassing him at various levels – None of them had their own base of support. Elon has its own Twitter base of support. Do you really want to get mad at him and have him sicking people on you? He does seem erratic. He has his own financial support. Boots on the ground. It wasn't even just writing a check.
He was out there doing organizational stuff. You could use him to intimidate somebody that's not going to support your agenda, not that they seem to really care about legislation at this point since they're just doing everything by fiat. So I do think that there's some element of that, too, that Elon has a little bit more leverage than any of these other Trump people ever have.
I think that's right. I think that is true. But then again... What does Elon have over Trump that Trump can't say, hey, let's cool it with this. Let's rein this in or let's do it this way. Let's get a little more responsible, a little less reckless. Like, why can't he rein him in? He doesn't want to. That's the part I don't. I guess I just don't get.
It's also been seven weeks.
Psychologizing Trump has never been my strong suit.
Here's the other thing about Doge. Here's just a prime example of the ridiculousness. I don't know if you saw this. This was Friday afternoon. Tom Cole, who's like one of these old line Republicans that's still around. You kind of forget he's still in there. He's from Oklahoma. He's the chairman of the Appropriations Committee. So, you know, powerful. And he wrote this.
After working closely with Doge, I'm thrilled to announce that common sense has prevailed. as the National Weather Center in Norman, the Social Security Administration office in Lawton, and the Indian Health Service offices in Oklahoma City will remain operational, blah, blah, blah. He goes on. And Chris Murphy posts about this and is like, this is an insane system. It's a petition to the king.
That's how we're going to do this thing? This is a very un-American system where it's just like, Elon's going to go in with a flamethrower and start burning everything to the ground and you can get your thing rebuilt and if you happen to be the Appropriations Committee chair from Oklahoma.
But, you know, there are Social Security Administration offices in places that don't have representatives like Tom Cole or have Democratic representatives or have insane MAGA representatives. And so I guess those are just going to go away.
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Chapter 6: What role does Elon Musk play in the current administration?
Right, exactly.
Well, while we're discussing Democrats, I do have one Democrat to pick on today just because I just think it was just such a prime example when I was watching this sick over the weekend of like why it's important for everybody to get out of their bubble. You know, you got to get out of your bubble a little bit. Oh, good. Tell me who offended. I love these. It's Stacey Abrams.
If you get stuck in your bubble. And then you start to make arguments.
And expect nothing less, by the way.
Exactly. That don't make any sense. Okay. And you have to at least be able to hear the critiques. Even if you grant that like 94.7% of the mega critiques are bad faith or BS, you got to at least listen to them so that you can understand how to push back on them. And so that you can kind of address the 5% that accidentally were legit. Yeah. So here it is. Stacey Abrams, I guess, got $1.9 billion.
She was the head of this group. And Chris Hayes, in a very friendly way, just kind of asked her to explain what all the hubbub was about. I wanted to play for you her explanation of how she was going to use the $1.9 billion taxpayer dollars.
In 2023 and 2024, I led a program called Vitalizing DeSoto. We worked in a tiny town in South Georgia to demonstrate that by replacing energy inefficient appliances with efficient appliances, you can lower your cost. And in fact, we accomplished that. For 75% of the community, they got appliances that are lowering their bills right now.
We had one woman who saw her electric bill cut in half from $180 to $98. That's what we delivered. And based on that program, a coalition of organizations... Famous organizations came together and said to the EPA, if we can do this here, we can do this for millions more Americans. Let us invest the money of America in lowering the cost for Americans. And the EPA said, OK, great, go for it.
So DeSoto, Georgia has 116 homes in it, in the town. Okay. So, I mean, I guess it seems good what happened in that. Scalable. Scalable. It seems good what happened in that trial program. But it's like, okay, so what do we do? Okay. What's the plan? I guess if you came to me and said, our plan was to give 2 million poor people new appliances. Mm-hmm.
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Chapter 7: How are government services being impacted by current political strategies?
Or it's a question of whether we protest at the joint's address and hold paddles up. That's going to solve it. Or Stacey Abrams' big solution. Here's what I did with Billions of Dollars. This is so missing. This is so missing the obvious point.
And Alyssa Slotkin, who I know and really like, got the closest to that, got the closest to it in her address when she talked about, listen, people want cuts. Okay, that's acknowledging something that many Democrats do not acknowledge. People want cuts. I have a different way to do that than the current administration is doing it. People want to lower the cost of goods.
I would have a different approach to that than this administration is doing. Democrats need to accept the problems that Americans are telling them they have and offer different solutions instead of protesting about Elon or Trump paying taxes. I mean, none of that is it. That ain't it.
That's very good. And I would add on the list of problems that the American people have, I did not notice a big clamoring that was like, I really want the government to give me a new microwave. What I really need right now is a new high efficiency microwave. And I want to do it at scale.
I haven't gotten a raise in five years. I'm working three jobs. I'm worried about my kid and opioids. I'm worried about crime in my town. But give me a new oven.
Energy efficient oven. It's going to cut $60 off my monthly bill. My buddies that are in, who I love, by the way, that are in renewable, you know, kind of hedge fund world are going to be mad at me for this one, shaking their finger. But I actually, I just want to reiterate, I'd support this as a nonprofit effort. Yes. As an effort in the private sector.
Right.
Figure out ways, raise some cash, go do this. Great.
Or what if the government offered like a GE program? some subsidies for giving people new energy-efficient appliances.
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