Bulwark Takes - BREAKING: Trump Fires Pam Bondi

Episode Date: April 2, 2026

Sam Stein, Sarah Longwell, JVL and Will Sommer react to the breaking news that Trump has fired Attorney General Pam Bondi.

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please contact Connix Ontario at 1866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario. Hey everybody. It's me Sam Stein, managing out of the Bork. I'm joined by a potpourri of personalities here. We've got Sarah Longwell, JVL, Will Summer. They don't need introductions. Everyone knows them. And we are coming live because Pam Bondi, Attorney General Pam Bondi is now former Attorney General Pam Bondi. Donald Trump has announced she is fired. Here is the bleat. You can read it with your own eyes. We love Pam. And she will be transitioning to a much needed and important new job in the private sector. She doesn't even get like the shield of the Americas. That's rough.

There's a lot of people who have thoughts, but since she is the publisher, I'm going to go to Sarah first. Sarah, stop smiling. JBL? JVL. What do we like? What do we like, JVL? When bad things happen to bad people.

Give me a cigarette. Listen, whoever replaces Pambondi is going to be terrible. but this is still a good day. This is still a good day. And we shouldn't miss an opportunity to celebrate this. Now, here's the thing.

The Daily Mail has a great piece up. I don't want to preempt it. But somebody else can talk about it broadly. But part of what is in it is that Pam Bondi was fired last night. This is when she was informed last night before Trump gave that insane speech that said absolutely nothing about the Iran war. And she begged, like, one of the main things in is that she asked for more time. And to me, this is very interesting because I think that for Pam Bondi, the reason that this is happening is because of an original sin. Like, this is a long time coming because Pam Bondi, who was, remember, Matt Gates was supposed to be Attorney General.

And Matt Gates would have never screwed this up the way that she did. Pam Bondi came out of the gate and said, files are on my desk. and then she gave all of the weird MAGA influencers, these binders, right? And from then on, she was screwed because she was in a position of having to put this stuff out for the base. And because she was an establishment sort of compromise pick, she never understood the MAGA lizard brain. She never understood that this was going to get away from her, that she wouldn't be able to just make those lies. They all think that they can just sort of lie and that people will let them do it.

And it turns out she got caught in this and it became this enormous albatross around their necks and Trump needed a sacrificial lamb on it. And I just think it's funny though. Trump is not going to be able to admit that he fired her for botching the Epstein cover-up because that would require admitting that there's been an Epstein cover-up.

But that is why she is being fired. Top line. my top line thought javile i mean i'll i'll read from the daily mail okay that it's so good i just want people to appreciate part part of the story makes no sense zero sense like you look at it and you're just what the fuck is this but some of it is just so good let me speak sam okay okay okay okay trump informed the attorney general let's i read in a british why are you british because it's the daily mail sarah no there's no trump informed the attorney general General last night shortly before his Iran speech that she would soon be leaving the Justice

Department, according to a senior administration source. Following the meeting, Bondi left Washington, D.C. on Thursday and flew back to her home. She remained at the White House for the remainder of Trump's speech. Bondi responded by pleading with the president, give her more time in the role. But Trump remained firm that her time leading the agency was over. The Daily Mail can exclusively reveal. She was unhappy and tried to change his mind. The source said, she begged like a dog. Not actually in the daily mail story. Sorry. However, the president told her she was fired and then an announcement would be made shortly. The announcement was set to be made on Friday, but was rushed on Thursday due to all the media attention, according to the source. The fact that Trump

fired her at midday on a Thursday before Easter weekend, instead of waiting to bury it, is a sign. There is no greater disrespect. At least Christy Knoem got to go to her fake shield of the America's job. Pam is being kicked to the curb with not even really the pretense of like, yeah, she'll get some super important,

needed private sector job, probably. And on a Thursday. That wasn't even the weirdest part of the damn mail story. I'll continue reading. Please. Trump's reason. for the sudden dismissal comes in part because the president believes Bondi tipped off Eric Swalwell about the FBI's efforts to release investigative documents related to his relationship with an alleged

Chinese spy. She's intervening in these matters. The White House wasn't pleased. She was intervening due to her personal friendship with Swalwell. The source added. It's unclear why Bondi would have intervened, but it is believed that Bondi and Swahua have a friendly relationship. I'm calling bullshit. Such bullshit. No fucking way. No way. Will, what are the actual reasons that you think happened? And you need to make sure your microphone works and is not muted. That red button, there we go. There we go. Yeah, I look that up as well. The Daily Mail said, you know, his, their famous friendship, you know, according to this Trump source. I thought, well, are they from the same state? You know, how do they know each other? And then, I mean, there's no evidence of it. He's always ripping into her and, you know, vice versa. And so this just is so crazy. You know, look, I think, you know, Sarah's, you know, makes a good point here about the Epstein stuff. That really was kind of the moment that even the Trump base was like, well, wait a minute, if they're giving these fake files to Jack Posobic, what's going on here?

But, you know, also there is this aspect, as I think Sam pointed out, that, you know, she had failed just over and over to get Trump's enemies indicted. And I think clearly that's something he really wants, you know, whether it's Jim Comey. I mean, some of these people got indicted, but weren't prosecuted. People like Jim Comey, Latisha James, you know, all these Democrats who had said troops don't have to follow unlawful orders. So I think it's really, you know, I think the ominous side is, is that, you know, whoever's going to replace her is probably more willing. And I think from Trump's eye is more effective at doing that. Well, the sandwich guy, too. She failed to indict the sandwich

guy. She couldn't even get the sandwich guy. She couldn't even indict a ham sandwich. Yeah, pretty much. Actually, I want to go back to the top of the stock market while under oath. Can we do it? Let's play. Let's play it. Because everyone's talking about the $5,000,000. And let's just play it. It's so, so beautiful. The Dow, the Dow right now is over, the Dow is over $50,000. I don't know why you're laughing. You're a great stock trader, as I hear Raskin. The Dow is over 50,000 right now. The S&P at almost 7,000. And the NASDAQs smashing records, Americans 401Ks and retirement savings are booming.

I don't know. I'm just going to effort the Dow right now while you talk. I was doing that. 46.403. 46-4-40. Yeah. If anyone's looked at crude right now, but what's it is? 65-64 for the S&P.

Crude 113, I believe. Brent Crude, 113. Yes, but also, also regardless of what those numbers. Sorry, 107. Yeah, but whatever the numbers are, it doesn't matter. nothing to do with the Epstein files. That was like, what was the point? She's like just shouting that into the ether.

Here's the thing, though, let me ask you guys this. This is a genuine question. That performance was to me like basically a performance Trump would kind of like from her, right? She's like not letting them get anywhere on the Epstein files. Now, I do wonder, she was scheduled on April 14th to testify again. And I don't know if Trump thought, man, we can't have her testify. again if if it was you have you've screwed up the Epstein stuff and it is now relentless and we can't

get out from under it. I don't know if it's failing to secure any indictments from his enemies. Like she's just not going at them hard enough. I know the Swalwell thing's not it. But I do wonder why now on Bondi? What do we think it is? That's a good point. Well, I mean, my view is it's a ram. Things are going badly enough in Iran that he's like, I got a, make some news. I got to control the news cycle. And so let's fire Bondi. Maybe we'll fire Tulsi next, which is the rumor. I would fire all the women. 100% of the women in my cabinet. Doesn't that make you a little bit? I would

100% agree with JVL. To me, this is just an absolute classic Trump Chase the Shiny Object moment. And it almost makes you like get a Lido to resign so I can nominate somebody. Right. It doesn't, I'm not uncomfortable talking about it because she is the Attorney General. It's huge news. She was a disaster in the post. And of course, we're going to, and we'll get to this in a bit, figure out who's going to replace her.

But there is a little bit of discomfort in talking about it. Because I know he wants us to talk about it. You know he wants us to talk about it. So it does seem like a classic chase. I wrote 2,000 words about Iran this morning, so it's okay. People should read it and as, you know, they should obviously. Got a great headline. I will say so.

I do think, so, you know, last night. You read that right before we hopped on? Yeah, that was the first thing I said. I'm sorry. Of course I will read it because I'm sure it was great. I will say I was watching you guys last night. Jealous. I just, I wanted to come do what Tim did and jump on the live after that speech.

Because I was beside myself about that speech. How utterly. You can always come and jump on. I know. I was fine. I was in my pajamas. But it was, you know, it was so insane. that I do wonder if they moved, maybe he informed her.

They say in that Daily Mail piece that he decided to do it today because news leaked overnight. I would not be at all shocked if he was like, I got to change the news cycle from that speech. Like specifically that speech, that's why it's got to happen right the second because that was exempt unless you're Mark Levin or or stupid Rich Lowry being like that speech was amazing. And you're willing. If you're willing to debase yourself, that's like that's like watching Joe Biden. have that health event on stage and say, best speech Joe Biden's ever given. He won that debate. Faint, completely crushed it. Like, nobody did. Nobody said that. But that's where these guys are on that absolute catastrophe. Anyway, I think that's why this is happening right this second. But doesn't worry,

we can, we can walk and chew gum, Sam. We can. We can talk about Bondi. We can celebrate it. And then we can go back to Trump's manifest failures. That's fine. Hey, Will, question for you. back to the Epstein files a little bit, but you know, there's no constituency for her, right? Like, with cash, he has some, he has some, maybe he doesn't anymore, but you know, there's like some dead enders for him, maybe some

pegs at dead enders, but like, there's no constituency for Bonnie. That might be why she's easy to just get rid of. Can't do this with RFK. I think that was her challenge. Was, I mean, she really wanted to be, I think she sensed correctly that she needed that base, that kind of like right wing media

fanaticism. She needed to win over the Gateway Pundit in its audience. And that's what got her in trouble with the binders. I mean, reportedly she was just like, oh, they're at the White House. The bloggers at the White House. Let's get the binders for them. And, you know, they'll be impressed. They'll love Pam Bondi because I gave them this exclusive. And it blew up in her face. I mean, she's kind of in a tough spot where on one hand, she's like awkward as we saw with the S&P thing. I mean, she's a woman. They don't like that a lot of the time. I mean, they, she's in this position where she's not like a true like maga media beast. But on the other hand, she's not like a kind of like a kind of like

out of central casting guy like Todd Blanche, who's like a very serious looking man, who's going to get some of the president's dirty work done for him. So I think she was in a tough spot, and she's going to cop between these worlds. The last thing I would add that before we talk about who's next, in her final weeks, I was struck by how she had really been sort of reduced

to just sort of standing with Trump. You know, they went to Graceland, and there's this great video that Andrew Eger pointed out that, you know, Trump is talking about how much cooler he is than Elvis and all this stuff. And then it pans out and Pam Bondi's just standing in the corner like she has nothing better to do. She went with him to the Supreme Court arguments for like an hour.

I mean, what is the, you know, all of these things are still going on. Iran might try to do an attack on American soil and Nancy Guthrie, he's still missing, all these things. And the head of the DOJ is just like, yeah, I guess I'll come and hang. Wait, can I just say that this is actually, this is a really important point. In Trump's first term, he did this to people. He defenestrated them. He humiliated them.

Part of what was happening in his second term, though, is it looked like he was going to stand by people in a different kind of way, right? Especially someone like Bondi. I mean, I always was kind of skeptical he'd let Bondi go because she's such a, she's like a heat shield for him. Like the base doesn't really like her so she can be this heat shield on the Epstein stuff. And we thought that she knew too much. Well, so I don't know about this, Javier.

Actually, we should unpack this just slightly because I was wondering about this too, which is do you fire somebody if she knows, if she's like a huge lie of, Like, don't you keep actually that person in the tent? Because I think... Where does she go in the private sector? Right? He's got plenty of private sector ventures, a lot of crypto money. He's got that new presidential library.

He can make it very lucrative if he wants. He could, but he is humiliating her. And I actually, I think this is what I'm, this is my point about what's important. I think for cash, I think for Tulsi, I think for a lot of these people who have been like, no, no, no, Trump's going to stand by me. this is a very rattling move for them. Because this is Trump now being like, no, I'm back to firing people by tweet. I'm ruining your careers.

I'm ruining your reputations. I'm making you hold on to all of my baggage and then I'm sending you away with it. So I don't have to shoulder it myself. So I want to tell you I am happy. This is one of the reasons I'm happy. I think it is important, genuinely important for democracy, for people in Trump's cabinet to see that Trump is still the guy who will hang. you out to dry, destroy your reputation, you will never recover from it. You will be humiliated.

Pam Bondi deserves this. They all deserve it when it happens, but also like it can happen. People who think it couldn't happen the second term, they're wrong. Yeah, I don't disagree with that. That's who's that that's a question. It's like they should have known this, right? They should have known this going into this. And this is like the irony of all this is that they everyone has seen this pattern of behavior and they still sign up for it because they become convinced that they can, withstand the cycle. Like if Matt Gates had gotten this job, the same thing would have happened with Matt Gates.

It just always happens, which leads us to who's next, who's dumb enough to try to do this. So let me, I know you're driving, Sam. I'm sorry. No, go, you drive. Drive a little bit. So I want to ask who's next.

And of the people who could be next, are any of them at risk for going rogue? Because I think Tulsi is. The problem of firing Tulsi is that Tulsi is going to be big mad about all the Iran stuff because she's one of these, you know, let's not do that sort of thing. And she was late to Trump. I think Trump can fire Pam Bondi and she does not have a real public base of support. You can say, well, I'll just buy her off down the line.

Tulsi's a little tougher. Can you get rid of Tulsi and still keep? keep her on side? Anyway, that's my question for you guys about who's next. And if it's Tulsi... I thought you're asking me... I thought you were asking who's next to be attorney general, but you're asking who's next to be fired?

Who's next to be fired? I agree with you on Tulsi. I think RFK Jr. The same problems happen with RFK Jr., which is he will talk about all the ways that he wanted to do more Maha than Trump. And Trump let down the movement. Cash probably could be next.

He'll stay loyal. trying to think who else. Well, you know who might not stay loyal? Or like, you know what's interesting about the body thing? Remember who she really got into it with was Bongino? And so, like, I am dying to, I mean, I would never listen to Dan Bongino's podcast. But if somebody else could go ever get for me. Will Will. Hello, Will Stummer.

Will Stummer. As a formal employment condition, I'm going to need you to go listen to Dan Bonino and report back as to how gleeful. He might be the only person. today happier than we are to see Pam Bondi out on her ass. Yeah, because famously he said, I mean, their whole beef was that, you know, he felt she had kind of screwed him over with the base because she kind of implicated him in the Epstein thing. Yeah, that's right.

Well, he's out there with a podcast now. And he loves fighting. He loves fighting when he was doing it all day to day. And I'm sure there's more. I'll just keep driving for a minute. So who's the next attorney general? That's what I want to talk about. I have an idea.

No. No, you missed it. There's reports now. There's speculation that she might be going. This is from Scott McFarlane. Yeah. Whispers inside the DAJ that she might be out. There you go.

Well, I mean, if you're mad about the D.C. Grand Juries, I mean, she's the one in charge of that. So she's got to go through. All right. Here's my speculation. I pulled a clip for you guys about who you think is going to be next. Let's put it up. Thank you, Sam.

Okay. You're welcome. Now, Lee Zeldon is the one who's everyone's talking about as being next. I mean, it's musical chairs, right? It's just, there's like a group of people who they can trust or he thinks he can trust and they'll just pop someone in there. Why, do you have some dark horse candidate JVL? No, I'm putting into the floor. I want to hear you guys.

And why not Blanche? Why would Blanche only be acting? I have a theory. I think you need Blanche in the shadows, meeting with Galane Maxwell, doing the dirty deeds. And on one hand, he gets some heat from the base because they'll be like, He's holding up reparations for Jan 6 people or he won't bust, like have the FBI raid the prison where they're holding Tina Peters. But, you know, on one hand, if he's at a deputy level, you can kind of avoid some of the blame over that. And I think you need someone that may be a bit more of a dofus kind of as the face of DOJ to take the fall for these things.

Let me throw out one name. This is crazy, but it's not totally beyond the realm of reason with Trump. Megan Kelly. I like it. She finally get to the bottom of the Charlotte Kirk case? If he goes Candace, I'm going to flip, but I don't think she's been outside on Iran, though. She has been outside of Iran. You can get her on side.

Yeah, that could be true. All right. I've got a crazy one that I also think is not that crazy is that he goes back to try it. He tries Gates again. Yeah. Because, you know, here's the thing about the Epstein files. He needs somebody who says the pedophilia ring was good, actually. Like, he needs somebody to do.

There are some people at the federalist who will make that case. Yeah. No, I mean, he needs, like, he needs a defender that says, guys, we're talking about, you know, mostly 16, 17-year-olds. Look, in my personal capacity is Matt Gates, Congressman. I know that that's not such a big deal. No, I think it wouldn't surprise me if he tried to put somebody up who was like a lunatic for the media. to have a feeding frenzy on, but that actually keeps it away from Trump.

Is there somebody who could be put into this post who would be better than Bondi? I argue no. People forget that Bondi was the responsible choice. I mean, everybody breathed a sigh of relief after he let the Matt Gates thing go and was like, oh, at least she's just woman's an attorney. Good question.

You talk. I'm going to look at a per confirmation vote while you guys talk. Because I do believe there was Democrats. Yeah. So I, the case I would make to you guys is that having witnessed the last year, any even semi-serious person would think I can't do this because he'll want me to indict people that I can't get indictments for. And then he'll blame me for it and fire me. And so it would take a crazy person who thinks they can actually get Jim Comey indicted or something nuts like that to take the job. Yeah, I think there's a lot to that.

You know, if I could just make a point about Lee Zeldon, I mean, he is a guy, I will say, who has more clout with the right-wing media than Pamp Bondi does. Like, he's not like a beloved figure in a way like Cash was. But he worked them. He had, I think, Benny Johnson visit the headquarters. go like wow we i can't believe these democrats were out of control so you know i i think he has a little more finesse with them than that bondi then i was i stand corrected only one democrat voted for pan bondi you can guess was it fatterman yes of course hey uh kately collins reporting that robert garcia says he still expects pan bondi to testify in accordance with her

deposition that'll be i mean she kind of has to right can she's subpoenaed if she's been subpoenaed Can she not show up to this now that she's in the private sector? I'm not a lawyer, but I think you have to, and the subpoena doesn't change just because your job status changed. I think you'd have to go unless you want to be in the fines of the subpoena. Wow. That's exciting. I wonder what the stock market will be doing on that day.

You know, it would be, here, listen, if you're a Democratic member sitting on that committee, I'm asking you now, if she shows up, just ask, her what the Dow Jones is at this moment. Just ask for a look and say, take out your phone. Go ahead. Can you just tell us what the Dow Jones is at, please, Ms. Bonding? Look, I know we're having a lot of fun. I know we're having a lot of fun with this.

I just want to make one point. I have to bounce a little bit, unfortunately. But there were some, I will just say, her handling of Minnesota and ICE and Pready was reprehensible. And I don't want that to get lost as we gloat about what's happening here and how it's silly her handling. of the Epstein stuff was and the Dow Jones of she during the course of that whole horrible month period both refused to have an investigation into what happened and then had the audacity

to request voter rolls from the governor of Minnesota in exchange for cooperating in some sort of oversight into what happened there or at least to take away some of the ice presence in in the city I thought that whole thing was like the perfect encapsulation of how wretched this experience was with her as AG. You know, I do, I think you're making a good point that we should just make very clear, which is people who have decided to go carry water for Trump and his administration like this, they're bad people, right, who have made horrible decisions and they deserve the level of humiliation that Trump is dishing out.

While still, we should acknowledge that this is Trump. Trump is the one who, like, it is, it, Pam. Bondi is getting punished for like mishandling the Epstein stuff. But like Trump is the one who was really good friends with Epstein. Trump is the one who was trying to keep those things under wraps. Trump is the one who set Tulsi down. Like they're all deserve the humiliation and the professional ruin that he puts them through. But we also shouldn't lose sight of the fact that all of these things that they have done are because of Trump's policies, because of what he is implementing, because of his, the cruelty is the point.

And they defend them at their peril. But that also comes from Trump. So I just like, both those things can be true. I just want to say that as we look forward to what the next, we're caught looking backward on the Epstein stuff. But from Trump's perspective, the next attorney general's number one task will be election interference. And so, I mean, I'm sort of reversing myself saying that, well, you know, he's going to want the next person to indict people like Jim Comey. That's probably not right.

Trump would want Bondi to be his retribution candidate. And then he needed her to be his Epstein fixer. And she wasn't good at either of those things. But he has a real need over the course of the next 10 months to have somebody who is going to be able to use the Department of Justice to interfere in investigations. in elections and at least money the waters, maybe stop some results from being done, maybe apply pressures to getting voter rolls expunged and stuff like that. And so he might need somebody who's really competent and eager to go after election

interference and pursue election interference leading up to the midterms. And so that is like the semi-serious part of us, which actually concerns me a little bit. Will, who's who is around from the 2020 project who might be still in the orbit that, you know, would do something like that? There's definitely some folks. I'm not talking about like Mike Lindell or Ryan. Oh, yeah. Oh, I mean, you know, the Wall Street Journal just had a story about like these investigations, these fake investigations into the voter fraud where you have all these characters, some of whom are now in the justice department. I mean, the guy who was just talking about teleporting, who I believe works for DHS and FEMA.

I mean, he was a big, like, you know, truth or conspiracy guy. And actually, just since we mentioned Tulsi, she's working on the quote-unquote report that is supposed to kind of justify this midterm election crackdown. And I think when we talk about, is she going to get fired? I mean, I think it all really hinges maybe on that report. Like, they can't fire her unless the report comes out. But if it's kind of a dud, maybe they fire her then. But I think that's, like, really her key role for Trump right now. Well, I got to run, guys.

There is some good video that you should probably play about with Pamette. Graceland, apparently it's really good. Well, let's play that just to wrap things up. You play it? Okay. A lot of news. He was just comfortable. Yeah, this was his home. This, no matter where he lived.

He always came back here. I'm going to Grace Lane. It was always home. And that's what she was like she looks like a docent. Wow. The ritual humiliation, man. She had a job. And the, yeah, I do see a lot of good, um, uh, suggestions in the chat about who could replace.

Some of my favorite are, well, Dershowitz. What a, what a. Oh, God. I love that. Nikki Minaj. Nikki Minaj. That's a good one. Uh, yeah, we got, there's been some fun stuff in here.

Now I forget. I saw a couple other ones that I was like, oh yeah, Ken Paxton. Oh, Kanye West. Um, these are good, good, good guesses, folks. Actually, um, here's a real. Here's a real possibility. Oh. Baxter, that's not a bad one.

Not Paxon, but what about Cornyn? Oh. You're not going to win. I don't think so. I don't think so, actually. It would be the opposite, right? He'd want to put Paxton into the job to get him out of the race since Cornyn has a better chance.

Paxton knows he's going to win, and Paxon's not going to take the job. But maybe one of the others. Yeah, it could be interesting. All right, I have to run. I don't know if you guys want to stay on. No, it was. I think we've, I think we've, I think we've had our victory lap, but.

All right. Well, let's call it a feed then. Sarah, JVL, Will, thank you guys so much. Everyone who tuned in, thank you. We love doing these emergency lives. Subscribe to the board. Forget more content like this. Support the mission.

Talk to you soon, guys. Later. Bye.