Bulwark Takes - Bezos Didn’t Just Bend The Knee To Trump. It’s Worse.

Episode Date: April 29, 2025

Tim Miller and Sam Stein share their takes on how Jeff Bezos appeared to cave to Trump after a Punchbowl report triggered a MAGA meltdown, and why this episode reflects the broader pattern of influential figures bending to Trump's intimidation.

Bettering your business takes working with the best. With the James Hardy Alliance, you gain access to leads, training, networking, and support from the number one brand of siding in North America. Achieve new levels of success by joining the James Hardy Alliance today. Hey guys, it's me, Sam Stein, managing editor at The Bulwark. I'm joined by Tim Miller, and we are about to talk about Jeff Bezos and whether or not he bent the knee to Trump yet again. Before we get into that, subscribe to the feed. We appreciate it.

All right, so backstory here, Tim, is we woke up this morning, a story by Punchbowl sponsored by Amazon, about Amazon, which said that Amazon was going to be putting the price of the tariffs, or at least on the price of goods, they're going to explain how much of that price increase was due to the tariffs, or at least on the price of goods, they're going to explain how much of that price increase was due to the tariffs. Carolyn Leavitt had an absolute freakout over it when she was asked about it at her 8.30 a.m. briefing.

You can take a listen to that here. So it was reported this morning that Amazon will soon display a little number next to the price of each product that shows how much the Trump tariffs are adding to the cost of each product. So isn't that a perfect crystal clear demonstration that it's the American consumer and not China who is going to have to pay for these policies? I will take this since I just got off the phone with the president about Amazon's announcement. This is a hostile and political act by Amazon.

Why didn't Amazon do this when the Biden administration hiked inflation to the highest level in 40 years? And I would also add that it's not a surprise because, as Reuters recently wrote, Amazon has partnered with a Chinese propaganda arm. So this is another reason why Americans should buy American. It's another reason why we are on shoring critical supply chains here at home to shore up our own critical supply chain and boost our own manufacturing. Is Jeff Bezos still a Trump supporter?

Look, I will not speak to the president's relationships with Jeff Bezos, but I will tell you that this is certainly a hostile and political action by Amazon. All right. So Levitt says it's a hostile act. And then lo and behold, within like minutes, it turns out maybe it wasn't true or not. You know, Amazon saying, this wasn't actually a policy. It was for a specific subsection of the group. And then we get this report from CNN that in fact, Donald Trump directly called Jeff Bezos up to talk about the initial punch bowl report unbelievable stuff through and through what do you make of it I think that Jeff Bezos didn't just bend the knee I think he's fully prostrate on the ground like with his

face in Donald Trump's feet I think it's pretty much what is happening here I don't you know I don't I don't I trust the punch for reporting I don't, you know, I don't, I don't, I trust the punch for reporting. I don't know. Sometimes there's a miscommunication between flack and reporter back in my days when I was a PR guy, it's possible. There's a miscommunication here.

Obviously went to Amazon with what they had and Amazon didn't dispute it. Yeah. I mean, or even more likely I would say the other way, the Amazon points, send it, send it to them. So I,

I don't know. I'm not going to speculate on the reporting. The point is it was at least partially true. And more likely, I would say the other way. Amazon points, send it to them. So I don't know. I'm not going to speculate on the reporting. The point is, it was at least partially true because they were doing this for the Amazon haul subsection. It's also worth noting that the Amazon's Chinese competitors, Timu and Shine, they're both already doing this. They're putting the cost of the tariffs on the goods. The tariff cost.

Yeah, I've seen this on uh people have been sharing those screenshots i'm not a i'm not a team of user myself but i've been seeing the screenshots um and uh you know like so this is something that other companies are going to do but this is that you know what i mean so like this is not like it wasn't like a huge shot across the bow by amazon i mean companies do this like if you any of us have been annoyed when we're buying tickets from ticket master it's like here's the price and then it's like building fee and ticket and tax because the company wants you to know that like it's these other things that are they're passing they're passing it off there yeah passing off blame for it in this case there's a direct tie to the tariff though right yeah for sure and so you can understand

why trump's mad about it so like i i think it was a pretty normal business move assuming that that's what they're planning on doing uh the fact they've backed off again i i don't know if this is all about blue origin and you know wanting to make sure katie perry can go into space or whether jeff bezos just doesn't want to make an enemy out of trump and like this was some mid-level manager and a company that decided to do this and it didn't get Bezos signed. Like who the hell knows how to speculate? The point is that when it comes down to it, like Bezos is very interested in coddling up to Trump. He's very interested in rubbing Trump's belly and making sure that he feels okay and he doesn't come after him. And no matter how exactly this came down, it's pretty clear that Bezos is doing his best to stay in Donald Trump's

good graces for now. Yeah. Yes, 100%. And there's nothing that Bezos has done over the past year that suggests that he wants to take any stand whatsoever that pits him against Trump. I mean, from what he's done with Amazon, to the donations to the inaugural committee, to apparently showing up at the West Wing when he's in town town to changing the Washington Post's editorial page and how it operates. All of it's in one direction, all of it. And so when, you know, when I should full disclosure, pull the curtain up,

we recorded a version of this video earliest morning before Amazon came out and said, but we made a prediction. We're like, well, will they back down? And I was like, yeah, within days, like maybe hours. And yeah, that's what had happened. Now,

who knows? Maybe it was Stein, Stein Stradamus over here. I look, I, there's a, when you play poly market and call she as much as I do, you get to know these things.

Do you get to buy the dip on that Canadian election last night? I was a little late. There were a couple of ridings that came in in favor of the conservatives early. There was a big opportunity to make money last night. I saw Carney went down to 54%. I was like, ooh, this seems lucrative. I should get in on it. But I just didn't have my fingers ready.

I was doing bedtime with the kids. The other thing that we talked about this morning, which I kind of want to get your thoughts on, is the sheer sort of irony about Trump accusing Bezos and Amazon of being, for a brief period, of being a stooge of Chinese communist propaganda. When at the same time, he's out there and he won't act on this TikTok man. If he wanted to stick it to China, there's ways to do it. He could stick it to China by enforcing tiktok man he can pull the manufacturing of his own trumpware the trump bible is manufactured in china i don't foresee that happening where he's like you know what we're going to actually produce this domestically

so it's all fucking bullshit honestly well it is and it's a little bit of a disconnect by some china hawks around him who want to position this as like being very tough on China and Trump himself who just like wants China to you know wants to be nice and wants Chairman Xi to be his friend and to just concede and like be like the win here for Trump has nothing to do with economic concerns or manufacturing or ideology like he just wants Chairman Xi to call him and be like hey Donnie I'm gonna give you this one I'm gonna make you look strong I'm gonna make an exchange for you just pulling it back like that's that's that's all he wants it's a personal ego thing and i think that's that's the situation but i don't know the bezos play one just one more thing on this just an interesting thing to monitor uh i talked about

this a little bit with pablo tori yesterday it was interesting that jeffrey lurie the eagles owner went to the white house when lurie had been a Trump critic and they didn't go to the White House last time. Zuckerberg is now on the receiving end of a full frontal attack from J.D. Vance and other people in the administration who are not impressed with his sucking up to Trump. Now, Trump hasn't started bleeding about him yet, but these guys around him, it's done nothing to get the government off his back as far as antitrust is concerned. No, he's got that antitrust case. Yeah. And so I do wonder, you know, if you're Bezos, we're three months in, you're like, I got to do three and a half months, three and a half more years of this. I'm not defending this. This is totally unprincipled, but I'm just saying,

if you're being practical, you do wonder if like these guys are like how long can i run the clock on this before i pull out of this of this bad deal like what does this mean what does stop playing nice with them because it's not gonna because you realize it's not gonna get you anything well that's like eventually i guess my point is eventually the calculus flips you know if you don't if you feel like you're actually losing more than you're gaining which i that calculus might already be happening for Zuckerberg. So, yeah, and this is what we're talking about this morning. So I was on with – again, I was on with Egger and Egger was like, look, there's a distinction between when Bezos' Washington Post operation and Bezos' Amazon operation. And it totally makes sense that Bezos would re-engineer the Washington Post to make Trump feel good because, frankly, the Post is not a moneymaker for him.

It's just a way to publicly interface with the administration in the world. Amazon is his moneymaker. And he might want to just not get the blame of a bunch of customers if the costs on Amazon go up. And that's why he would do something like this. And so Edgar's point was, I don't foresee him pulling back on this policy because this is actually about his bottom line. Now, of course,

Andrew was wrong, but I understand. Release the tapes, release the tapes. Let's see Andrew's full opinion. So we can, I don't want to, I don't want to throw Andrew under the bus more than I already have.

But when will Bezos pull out, to borrow your phrase? You would think when it hurt his bottom line. But this is hurting his bottom line and he's still not. So I think more has to come. One last thing on the politics of this, and I want your take because, you know, one of the reasons that Trump people were super mad this morning about this whole thing is because they don't want the tariffs to be blamed for people paying more money. And they don't want people pointing out that the tariffs are to blame for people paying more money. Brian Schatz, senator from Hawaii, went on Twitter. He said, quote, telling the truth about the taxes you are paying because of Donald Trump is neither hostile nor political.

But this is the more important point. You cannot spin the price of things. Trust me, that was tried last year. I think that's right. That is, amen, Brian Schatz. It's almost like he's been listening to the Bulwark podcast. That's exactly where I'm at on this. I think that the Democrats should talk about this and whatever,

but there's so many areas you can fight Trump and try to impact him. The prices thing, obviously they should run ads on this next year but like and they will but but people yeah but but like you can't jujitsu people into thinking that their grocery bill is bigger is more is more than it is like most people not everybody not me i don't really pay i'm i'm kind of a uh i'm like what i'm like an absent-minded professor i have no idea how much i paid at the grocery store the other day.

But like a lot of people – But you do know what your Uber Eats avocado toast order is. Of course I do. And I did notice from those plantain chips. I was like $9.99 for the plantain chips. So even I can be shaken out of my kind of stupor when it comes to money. But like most people know what their grocery bill is. They were really $9.99?

That's absurd it was absurd i mean it's a big pack of plantain chips i get like a family pack of plantain chips i love plantain chips but you know most people that have family budget like that pay attention to something like they notice you know there's nothing you can do it's not because you know just because like charlie dent i'm sorry to pick any charlie he's not even in Congress anymore. Some random congressman. I was like, I was trying to think of the first generic congressman that came to mind. My buddy, Charlie Dent.

Just because some random congressman's like, prices are sure going up. That's not, nobody pays attention to that, except for sickos. So anyway, I think that Brian Schatz is exactly right on that. And they're in tough shape on this. And this is what I talked about with Joe Weis Weiss and thought everybody should go check out the pod today because he's really smart on all this.

All right. We'll check it out. Thank you, Tim. Thank you guys for watching. Really appreciate it. Bad on you, Jeff Bezos. I guess bad on you. And bad on you, Andrew Egger, for such a bad prediction this morning. We won't hold the tapes. Don't worry. All right. Talk to you later, bud.