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2 days ago | 
thebulwark.com | William Kristol |Jonathan Cohn |Jim Swift
Happy China Trade Thaw Day to those who celebrate! The United States and China agreed overnight to suspend many of the tariffs put in place after Donald Trump’s “Liberation Day,” which had ground trade between the two nations to a virtual standstill. “The consensus from both delegations is that neither side wanted a decoupling,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said at a news conference in Geneva hours ago.
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5 days ago | 
thebulwark.com | William Kristol |Andrew Egger |Jim Swift
So, look: Your Morning Shots correspondents aren’t highly acclaimed Vatican watchers. But what’s this we’re hearing about the new American pope, Leo XIV? He voted in Republican primaries in Illinois in 2012, 2014, and 2016—but seems to have departed the Republican fold since. Recently he’s been a resolute antagonist of Vice President JD Vance. Hey, on the off chance he’s a subscriber: Your Holiness, we wish you all the best.
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6 days ago | 
thebulwark.com | William Kristol |Andrew Egger |Jim Swift
A tough lede to read, from the AP:Democratic Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania was meeting last week with representatives from a teachers union in his home state when things quickly devolved. Before long, Fetterman began repeating himself, shouting and questioning why “everybody is mad at me,” “why does everyone hate me, what did I ever do” and slamming his hands on a desk, according to one person who was briefed on what occurred.
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1 week ago | 
thebulwark.com | William Kristol |Andrew Egger |Will Selber |Jim Swift
The Senate confirmation of Ed Martin, Trump’s loyalist pick for U.S. Attorney for D.C., looks like it may be in trouble. The Washington Post reports:Sen. Thom Tillis (R-North Carolina) said he informed the White House that he opposed naming Trump’s interim appointee to a full four-year term. “If Mr. Martin were being put forth as a U.S. attorney for any district except the district where Jan.
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1 week ago | 
thebulwark.com | William Kristol |Andrew Egger |Sonny Bunch |Jim Swift
More from the disaster zone:Enrique Tarrio, the former leader of the Proud Boys, said he personally thanked President Trump on Saturday night for issuing a pardon that cut short the 22-year prison term he was serving in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. Mr. Tarrio’s expression of gratitude came during a brief but extraordinary encounter with Mr. Trump at Mar-a-Lago, the president’s private club and residence in Palm Beach, Fla.
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1 week ago | 
thebulwark.com | William Kristol |Jonathan Cohn
This week on Bulwark on Sunday, Jonathan Cohn joins Bill Kristol to discuss why RFK Jr. is the worst cabinet secretary and what he's doing to America's public health. As always: Watch, listen, and leave a comment. Bulwark+ Takes is home to short videos, livestreams, and event archives exclusively for Bulwark+ members. Don’t care for video? Use the controls on the left side of the player to toggle to audio. Add Bulwark+ Takes feed to your player of choice, here. Discussion about this video
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1 week ago | 
thebulwark.com | William Kristol |Andrew Egger |Jim Swift
We’ll be honest: When Sam and Andrew unearthed a clip last November of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. interviewing a chemtrail conspiracy theorist on his podcast—“I am persuaded by what you’re saying,” Kennedy told him—we thought we were spotlighting the then-HHS nominee’s conspiratorial frame of mind. The idea he would actually use his lofty perch in the government to succor chemtrail nuts seemed, even then, a little far-fetched.
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1 week ago | 
thebulwark.com | William Kristol |Andrew Egger |Jim Swift
Heading into any business meetings today? We hope you’ll have someone on hand to gas you up as effusively as Attorney General Pam Bondi did for Donald Trump in yesterday’s cabinet meeting. “President,” she said, eyes locked on her boss, “your first 100 days has far exceeded that of any other presidency in this country. Ever. Ever. Never seen anything like it.” Bondi went on to claim that Trump’s efforts to crack down on fentanyl had already saved—“are you ready for this, media?
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2 weeks ago | 
thebulwark.com | William Kristol |Andrew Egger |Jim Swift
The kind of headlines we get to grit our teeth through in 2025: “‘A great friend’: Audio undercuts Trump US attorney nominee’s disavowal of alleged Nazi sympathizer.”It’s not enough that Trump has his personal bagmen lined up to serve as U.S. attorneys. And it’s not enough that these bagmen are longtime lionizers of January 6th criminals. Now we’ve got to deal with U.S. attorney nominee bagmen who are longtime lionizers of Nazi-sympathizing January 6th criminals specifically. Happy Tuesday.
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2 weeks ago | 
thebulwark.com | Tim Miller |William Kristol
The Trump administration keeps showing it's sooo tough on immigration that it deported three U.S. citizen children, arrested the wife of a member of the Coast Guard because her visa expired, and perp-walked an allegedly immigrant-concealing Wisconsin judge in handcuffs—instead of showing her the kind of deference Trump received over the course of his four indictments.
