Breaking News from Pod Save America - Gay Icon Trump DEMANDS a Ballroom At the White House, Loves Musicals, & Wears Make-up

Episode Date: October 23, 2025

It’s time for another episode of SpeechCenter! Jon Lovett and Tim Miller of The Bulwark get into Donald Trump’s rant about beef and the White House ballroom, JD Vance not telling jokes, and Mike Johnson being triggered. CHAPTERS 0:55 - Mike Johnson deflecting 4:05 - JD's jokes 7:20 - Trump's ballroom 11:09 - Trump the peacemaker 13:47 - Trump on beef Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Trump would be a gay icon if he had just had liberal social values, and he loves the musicals, cares a lot about aesthetics, and now he's like, the one thing I want to do to the White House is we need a new ballroom. Hey, everybody, welcome back to Speech Center, and for the first time on this program, Tim and I are both in studio. Tim Miller, good to see you. What's up, bud? We're kind of far from each other. I thought we might be like actual sports center. We could touch. There might be some under the table. I never know. Very far away, though. Not sporting, but exciting. This used to me at a dining room table. Is that true? Yeah, this was for my home. Wow. Did you have Shabbat around this too?

Yes, and other dinners. We have there's six dinners other than that, but yes, one of them would have been Shaman. We got a tattoo under your shirt like Grand Platon. Watch out, that was an accident. I just wanted the meanest looking skull. On today's show, we've got White House renovations, tariffs ending wars, and grown men telling edgy jokes. But first, let's go to Mike Johnson reacting to the news that a pardon January 6th rioter was charged for threatening to kill House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries.

This is one of the number of individuals who have been re-arrested on various charges. Did President Trump make a mistake by just offering a blanket pardon for every single person that was convicted as a result? I don't know any of the details of this at all. I don't know who's been alleged to have been involved in this. I will tell you this, the violence on the left is far more prevalent than the violence on the right. Don't make me go through the list. You all know it. And the rhetoric that you saw on display on Saturday, we highlighted yesterday, it plays into this, okay? There are people that get triggered. There are deranged people in society when they hear elected officials participating in a rally that was paid for by Soros and sponsored by communist with signs and placards and mantras that were repeated that we should bring death to, you know, fascist politicians.

What they mean is they call every Republican a fascist now. they're calling for the death of elected officials. Please, enough of that. We've got to stop it. I've got one piece of good news before we get to the business. The woke left has won. Even now the Speaker of the House from Shreveport, Louisiana, a Christian conservative, is now talking about being triggered by placards. And he's like, people get triggered now.

And words and placards are violence. And so, you know, we need to have safe spaces. And so I think that is at least, that's something. Mike Johnson has this posture now in these press conference. First of all, I don't even know why he's doing them at this point. But he goes to front of the cameras, and he acts annoyed to be getting these kinds of questions. You know, he gets these questions about the ridiculous and dangerous words and actions of his boss. And he acts put upon, but then, of course, either defends them or denies them or ignores them or changes aside.

I think that Mr. Trump wants to see him out there, I guess is why he's doing it. Because Congress hasn't been in session for, like, weeks. That's a great gig. Yeah, they've been at the house. basically been off since the August recess. And he can't bring the House back because if he does, he has to seat the Democratic who won the special election, thereby giving them the numbers they need to do the discharge position for the Epstein files.

Yeah, the Emstein Files. So I think that's why he's doing it. So it feels like they're out there doing something. But no, it's not compelling. I can't even really imagine that the base is that excited about this? The previous press conference to this one was the one where he put up the, he had four easels out. Yeah, he found the four signs from the protests he didn't like.

Yeah, yeah. And, like, two of the four were just that same thing that James Comey did with the seashells. It was just, like, 86, 47, which is, like, not really a threat. It's kind of like the live, laugh, love of resistance memes, you know? You know, we had these massive, peaceful protests all across the country. And, like, Mike Johnson is thinking he's going to win the argument by showing a couple of mean placards. I just don't really see that as landing with anybody. If you really did want to diminish the protest,

you'd say, like, I'm glad they had their day. I think they're all a bit kooky, but onward we go, I wish them luck. They're Americans, and they have the right to do it? We're focused on whatever, winning, blah, blah, blah, right? Right. Next up, let's go to J.D. Vance, whose opinion on telling jokes continues to evolve in real time.

So when you see someone celebrating Charlie's murder, call them out in hell, call their employer. Especially young boys, they tell edgy, offensive jokes. Like, that's what kids do. And I really don't want us to grow up in a country where a kid telling a stupid joke, telling a very offensive stupid joke, is caused to ruin their lives. Over my four years in the United States Marine Corps, I probably learned about a hundred jokes about United States Marines. And every single one of them Marines would mean the end of my political career if I told it up here today. I sent a few of them last night to my Marines.

communication staff and I said, can I tell this one? And they said, please no, sir. Please, please, do not tell that one. So I watched this speech. I was so sure that we were going to hear a joke. I was actually excited. As I was no longer a person who was watching this as a pundit who dislikes Vance and his politics, I literally was like, ooh, exciting. I wonder what kind of jokes he used to tell. I'm actually interested it. Consumer. But it's such a difference between him and Trump. He would do the fake Trump like the generals were crying and they were saying, don't do it, JD. You know, the pre-R people were saying, don't do it, J.D. And then he doesn't do it.

He listened to them. The whole point of saying they're trying to stop me from telling this joke is you gotta tell the fucking joke at the end. He's extremely humorless. It's one of the few things giving me hope right now. He isn't really up for it as being the Trump replacement. He doesn't have the juice. He doesn't have the sauce.

Trump seems to be enjoying himself most of the time. Yeah, there's a charming decadence to Trump. J.D. Vance has within him front of classroom energy. He can't shake that Yale law thing. Like, if you're at Yale law school, you're a worker. He doesn't have, like, that ability to just cut loose and do the fun part of MAGA. And part of it I do kind of feel for him, not for him personally, but Donald Trump started out ahead. He was a nepo baby, had a ton of money.

He has managed to get out of consequences his whole life. Vance got to the B vice president through grinding effort. Goes to Yale, like, succeeds at Yale. Like, that is an incredible amount of hard work. He'd be so smart and so hardworking. I want to go back to just the same. substance. This is good stuff, Delon. Fuck you. We're in person. We're in

person, DeLon. Going back to his original point from the very first clip about Charlie Kirk. Good point to bring us back. That clip is one that pisses me off so much about him because he's saying, no, you should tattle on them to their boss and get them fired. The TPA USA Superfans

that are watching the Charlie Kirk podcast are like, hell yeah. But if you go like one you know, circle out, concentric circle out to the Andrew Schultz crowd, you know, to the comedian podcast, They're like, whoa, bro. Well, part of why Vance has called their employer or get them fired is not because he wants to live in a world

or believes he wants to live in a world where that happens. It is a kind of retribution for 2020 cancel culture. That's what they did. So now we get to do it. But the get is important. This is all about payback. The only justification for getting people fired for speech you don't like online is not because that's who we are.

That's who they are. And we have to pretend to be like them for just a little bit to get things back to be right in the world. All right, we now go to Donald Trump addressing why part of the White House is demolished for a ballroom, of course. This has been a labor of love. You know, we took over a building that was not properly taken care of. It just wasn't.

It's a very special building, and we are taking care of it. This was grass, and when you have a news conference, and this was going on for many years, but everybody would just sink into the mud. And most excitingly, on the other side, you see the fence and the wall. We're building a world-class ballroom. You know, for 150 years, they've wanted a ballroom here. We don't have a ballroom.

We have a little cocktail area, but we don't have a ballroom. And we're putting up our own money with the government just paying for nothing. You probably hear the beautiful sound of construction to the back. You hear that sound? Oh, that's music to my ears. I love that sound. Other people don't like it. I love it, Josh.

I think when I hear that sound, it reminds me of money. In this case, it reminds me of lack of money, because I'm not. I'm paying for it, so it's the opposite. Makeup work isn't great there. Yeah, the lips are light. The lips are light. Government is currently shut down. They are building a ballroom.

Trump also had said that they weren't going to disturb anything, but then all these photos come out of them ripping down the walls of the East Wing with a wrecking ball. Not even, what are those called? The big claw thing. Yeah, two kids. I don't know. Those claw machines.

We work with our minds. We work with our minds. here at Crooked and the Bullwarks. Speaking of gay, is Trump would be a gay icon if he had just had liberal social values and run as a Democrat. And he loves the musicals, you know, cares a lot about aesthetics.

And now he's like, the one thing I want to do to the White House is we need a new ballroom. Though he was a Democratic donor for a long time. Yeah. There was a path. There was a path to our gay icon, Trump, but alas, was not meant to be. Instead, we get, what, fascism with a ballroom? Imagine if Democrats had tried to build a ballroom,

it would have been impossible. They would have found some way to fuck it up to meeting their way and to it never taking place. We're rules people, I get it. But, man, I think about how careful Democratic administrations have been, and Republican administrations have been.

And then I think, wait a second. The same group of kind of bureaucratic minds over the last 40 or 50 years allowed together an extraordinary accrual of power to the executive and a kind of legal culture around the White House in which the law is kind of what you say it is. There are rules, but you really can just write it out.

The whole kind of miasma of what presidential power became is really dangerous, but somehow it didn't allow us to also achieve our objectives. In some ways, doing the like, what if Obama did this? It's like really eye-roly and stupid at this point. But in this case, it's kind of interesting because it's so weird. It isn't a traditional issue that is a partisan issue, like whether we needed an East Wing Ballroom. Like you imagine the Fox News reaction to it would have just been like,

off of the charts about how he's no respect for the country and how he's no and how, you know, he's uppity and like he thinks that he is, you know, a great historical figure. And that probably would have worked as an attack on him. And that's why I do not begrudge people that want to use this as an attack on Donald Trump and be relentless and going after him and say, this is a manifestation of his recklessness and, you know, whatever. Like that's, yeah, you roll your eyes, But like, okay, you roll your eyes at the shit the Fox did. And like, it probably would have worked. But the other side is also, well, this isn't what Obama would have wanted to do.

Right. And I think that Democrats in particular, and also my kind of established Republicans, can learn, like, the one thing from Trump, which is like, I don't know, maybe we could have done some more cool shit if we would have just did it. Next up, here's Trump telling reporters that his tariffs have helped him settle a record-breaking number of wars. That feels wrong. It feels wrong. Would you consider lifting the tariffs that you've imposed on a story?

Australia. And can you give us any details about the critical? Yeah, well, the tariffs have been amazing because, you know, tariffs have been really a reason that I was able to settle almost all of the, you know, I've settled eight wars in eight months. Not bad. I have one more to go. It's Russia, Ukraine, and I think we'll get there. I don't think there's been an American president that settled one. I think there probably hasn't been outside of the two countries involved, or however many are at war. I don't think there's ever been an outside country that settled the war, period. You have within your power, you're the most powerful man on earth.

Why don't you just enable Ukraine to finish his war tomorrow? Well, if you knew anything about what you were talking about, you'd be able to, you do. I don't think you do, really. I don't think you do because it's a little more complicated than that. But it sounds easy. We're in the process of trying to make a deal. If we make a deal, that's great. If we don't make a deal, it'll be a lot of people that are going to be paying a big price.

He was the one who said it was easy, by the way. We all have weaknesses. Can I admit to one personal weakness before I say this? I love to hear this. Is there a part of you that like when you hear him bragging about the stupid eight wars that he thinks he's solved that kind of like wants Armenia and Azerbaijan to flare back up? I don't want anything to get hurt. It's just it's just a thought that coming across my mind. I didn't post it on the Reddit like Graham Platner did. It was just in my mind. but now I had to say it.

There are qualities that I don't have that I should have. Okay. Based on my personality. Like, you would expect me to be really insecure about being short. I'm not. You would expect me to, I think, like, do a lot of, like, Chadenfreude stuff. I actually don't.

Doesn't motivate me? I love that for you. It doesn't. It doesn't. Yeah. And also, babies on planes don't bother me. Green monster, you don't have to envy? Envy's different.

Envy's different. But I find... Choden Freud you don't have. What are we talking about again? Oh, yeah. I'm solving all the wars on planet fucking Earth. Meanwhile, the 3,000 year peace in the Middle East has not lasted a couple days.

The fire has not completely ceased. A lot of fire for a ceasefire in my book. A little bit more, a lot of more, a little too much bang bang, boom, boom for a piece. Yeah, I mean, he's annoying. I like that he doesn't take the bait for a female reporter telling him how powerfully is. He doesn't fall for it, which is interesting.

Maybe he's growing, maybe he's changing. I doubt. I doubt it. And lastly, here's Trump being confronted about the Argentina bailout at why we need to start buying beef from them. This is wild. You're looking to do that deal with Argentina, the bail swap. So... Are we expecting a beef deal? I assume you're talking about beef, yeah.

To get beef prices down. The only price we have that's high is beef and we'll get that down. And one of the things we're thinking about doing is a beef from Argentina. But my question is, what do you have to say to you as farmers who feel that the the deal is benefiting Argentina more than it is them as they are. Argentina is fighting for its life, young lady. You don't know anything about it. They're fighting for their life. Nothing is benefiting Argentina.

They're fighting for their life. You understand what that means? They have no money. They have no anything. They're fighting so hard to survive. If I can help them survive in a few world, I happen to like the president of Argentina. I think he's trying to do the best he can,

but don't make it sound like they're doing great. They are dying. All right, they're dying. Jesus. Argentine farmers are dying. The only people he has that we've ever seen him demonstrate empathy for are white, South African farmers and Argentine beef farmers.

I've never seen him so passionate and bereft. I've never seen him feel that way. Actually, it's like a shocking clip. I've never seen him so emotional. Like, have you no decency? Have you no fiber of empathy? No particle of compassion for the Argentinian beef farmer. Are you fucking kidding me?

Are you kidding me? Where's that fucking guy coming from? How dare you? How dare you? No compassion. And we have to buy their currency. Things are going so bad in Argentina. The beef farmers are dying.

You know, people cannot, you know, use their money to buy food and services. Because the currency is worth less and less and less. They have no money. And so the two things I want to do is I want to take our money and buy up their currency. And then I want to take their beef and flood the American. American market with Argentinian beef. Exciting. America First is so interesting. It's so interesting what it gets to be, how capacious it is.

The space it has for Americans all over, all the way to Argentina, that part of America that we're also putting first as well. It's a capacious bag. Yeah, love it. I don't know, man. This is not a, it's not American First. The farmers, I'm annoyed with the farmers. Okay. The American farmers.

Uh-huh. Because it feels like when you try to think about doing, different demographic groups that might be getable. You know, people in factory towns, I think they're going to be tough to get to. They've had a tough run for 34 years. The farmers, though, in the country have been doing great. Farmers did great under Obama. We're doing great under Biden.

You know, things are fine in their communities. And right now, Donald Trump is fucking them across the board, whether they're soybean farmers or they're beef farmers. and if Barack Obama, you know, a Democrat, if anybody else was doing this, the farmers would be, literally, have their pitchforks, you know, outside the White House. And it's like nothing. Where is it? Where is this? You're, they're being damaged. Yeah, it's also like you have someone like Dan Osborne that can like catch a little bit of fire in parts of the country where Democrats have struggled. Part of it also is that Trump did a bailout in the first term. Maybe it's a little bit of keeping your head down and hoping Big Papa comes in. let's the good times roll what an insane policy that we are running it's just it's truly that's truly unbelievable like we're tariffing the other countries we're adding a tax on the american

consumer so if you are going to walmart you're paying now an extra fee Donald trump is taking that fee and he's giving it to american farmers to not sell their crops yep so he's just taking your money that you're paying an extra taxes and doing as a transfer to farmers because they can't sell their crops because of the same tax. By the way, who are not unaware that nobody wants to go from the productive work they were doing to just taking a check for the productive work they can no longer do. Of course. They're not to blame. And now I guess we're taking a little bit of the fee and using it to purchase Argentinian pesos.

And by the way, two and two beautiful new jets for Kristine Hone to fly around in. I will say Let's also note, too, like, what's the challenge in helping build political momentum among those that are not naturally part of the Democratic constituency? Well, who are we going to send? Start at the top of the Democratic pyramid. Tell me how close we are to the tombs beneath that you get to somebody that's interesting. Find a farmer. Find us a farmer. Who knows?

Maybe if a mad farmer won a surprise race in Iowa for the Senate this year, then maybe they can. You'd be the Democratic nominee next time. No bad ideas in a fucking brainstorm. And that's- Find me a farmer. And then the first thing we do when we get one of these new farmers in is we say, hey, listen, I'm sorry, but we've had some issues lately.

You got to strip down to your underwear. We got to see what kind of tattoos we're working with. Because listen, we can be being caught. We just, we're not, listen, everybody changes. Everybody grows. And we welcome that and we support that. We just want to know what's coming down the pike. Is it a Chinese symbol that you thought meant hope,

but actually means, you know, kill all Jews, right? Let's check out what's on the back. tab, right? Let's see what's in the, let's see what's back there. Yeah. You know? And we're going to need to make sure that you are exactly down the line with AOC on every cultural left issue. Sure. You can't miss on anything, you know. Because we have to be a big tent, but inside of that tent, no differences. A lot of rules. A lot, listen, we're at the door, we got a checklist, all right.

I hear you. It's tough. Things are going well though. Last question before we let you go to him if you're president. Yeah. You're building a new room at the White House. What new room would I add to the White House Pilates Studio and now let's do what's just thinking about what I would what I would want. I guess you could probably add that to the gym. I don't think Obama, Trump, Biden. I don't know if there's a reformer up there. Michelle maybe. I'd probably let us start smoking inside again. Oh, a gaming room. I want a great little gaming room. I want to be able to play my games. Yeah, I want to know. No, I don't know. I don't know. No, I don't. I don't know. I don't. No, I don't. I don't. I don't. I don't. No, I don't. I don't. I don't. I I didn't mean like with pieces. I meant with my fucking controller. Maybe again, like a big screen. Like, subscribe to this channel. Support Tim over at the bulwark. Help them build what they're building. Help us build with wood building. Send it to your friends. Send it to your friends. Everybody's got a grand platinum in their life.

Yeah. Send it to one in yours.