Bulwark Takes - BREAKING: Trump Is Bombing Iran Again

Episode Date: July 8, 2026

Trump's Versailles peace deal feels truly dead. Iran fired missiles at tankers in the Strait of Hormuz, the U.S. answered with strikes promised to be "more intense" than last month's—and Tim asks the question nobody in the administration can answer: why?Plus: JD Vance's Iran victory lap ages badly, Trump trolls Meloni then insists he likes her, Belgium dunks on the "Trump curse," and the White House story that shows just how thick the narcissism bubble really is. Larineco is offering listeners up to 50% off at https://BuyLarine.com/BulwarkTakesWatch Clint Smith on The Bulwark Podcast: https://youtu.be/kQb657ieShkWatch Deadline: White House on MS NOW: https://www.ms.now/deadline-white-house

Hey, everybody. Tim Miller from the bulwark here. I just got off Deadline White House with my friend Nicole Wallace. We discussed at length the world laughing at Donald Trump, both over his World Cup face plant and his bizarre performance in NATO. Comics are laughing at him. The Belgian soccer team is making fun of his dance. People are just pointing and mocking our embarrassment of a president. world over. I'm trying to just shut up in president. I don't know if that's

actually going to hit or not, but we talk about that a little bit. So we get into that. We also get back into this interview I had. It was on the 3rd of July, 4th of July observed with Clint Smith. And so I do think something you missed it. So I'd encourage you to go back and check it out. He's awesome. He's a poet, historian. And

we covered his interview with Lonnie Bunch, who runs the Smithsonian and Trump's attacks on our history and on the Smithsonian. We also get into just kind of what it means to be an American and how to think about a country that you love that is also really letting us down. Clint's awesome on that. So go back and check that up. So before we get to the Nicole hit, many laughs there.

I do just want to talk about the breaking news out of Iran. You'll be surprised to hear that Treaty of Versailles II Electric Bogaloo is not going so well. we have talked today on the pods about how Iran fired two missiles at commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz, including one apparently at a Quddery tanker. Iran is denying that they shot a missile at the cutter tanker, but it doesn't seem like denying that they were going after the ships that were taking the Omani route to the Strait of Hormuz. as a result, the U.S. revoked the license that authorized the sale of Iranian oil under the MOU, so no more free Ayatollah oil for the Americans, at least for the time being. And then we engaged in another round of powerful, quote, unquote, everything's got to be strong with the Department of War, even though we've lost the only war we started.

Powerful airstrikes in response to the Iranian attacks on the strait. we have according to ABC, U.S. official saying that the strikes are expected to be more intense than last months. Well, you'd hope so since last months didn't work out, or you'd hope not, or you'd hope you just stopped doing it, spending

our money on these fucking missiles for no purpose. It's truly amazing how just cocky being stupid this war was. Like, we're spending my tax money. I mean, I pay my tax money for blab and do you guys. So, yeah, maybe that's not the most sympathetic, but we're taking your tax money. y'all grinding away out there tiring yourself trying to make sure your family's got enough money for vacation this year we're taking a cut out of that and using it for missile and drone strikes into iran for what for what to try to get the straight of war moves back to the pre-war status quo just cut and run you've got nothing more airstrikes that's the plan it is an embarrassment

like we're still embroiled in this and that you had this dramatic signing at Versailles. What did that catch you? That didn't. That barely lasted a day. So we'll see how these things go. I mean, the war, the thing, the only thing keeping this from escalating more is that the Iranians don't really want full-scale war. They just want money and control over the straight. And Trump doesn't.

So he does these little, you know, attacks from the sky. He doesn't, he'd rather just get out of us. So it feels like the best of the bad options. Mark Hurtling and I talked about this. He's getting presented with various options. And, you know, kind of this half in, half out, nothing is where he's landed for now. It is a bit of a rebuke. You do have to say to the vice president, J.D. Vance, who was the point person on Treaty of Versailles

II, Electric Bugaloo, and it was going around during a massive media tour, talking about how cool it was. He made friends with the Iranians. The coolest thing about the progress we've made over the last few weeks is that you see people within the Iranian system, senior leadership, even IRGIC officials say, you know what? We may have some animosity. We may have some mistrust. But we recognize the way that we've done business with the United States for 47 years is a mistake. Let's try something else. We're going to verify that, of course, but we're certainly willing to try something else if they comply.

You guys don't understand how cool it is when you actually talk to these people. Like, they're fine. They're chill. chill vibes from the Iranians. That's what Vance was saying. You know, Vance, he's in this condescending matter. He's like all these stupid leaders of the past. I got us stuck in these stupid wars.

Not us. We did this smart thing where we started a war that doesn't have a point. And then we declared victory. And then we decided to end it. And then I went around and was like, hey, I'm the smart one. I can end this easily. All these stupid leaders couldn't get us out of wars. But I can get us out of wars because,

What's really cool is that the Iranians are actually great. Really? Well, here we are. Still bombing each other. I guess that cool friends we made along the way results from the negotiations didn't turn out quite like J.D. Van said, Donut. What? Who could have seen that coming? Everybody, actually. All right. We got some giggles with Nicole coming up. So stick around for that.

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Well, this is not my favorite flavor. I want the berry, but this is pretty good, too. And after I finish my morning coffee, I pop in a piece of Lorinco, and it feels good to know that I'm helping my teeth stay strong and healthy every time that I use it. It's a totally effortless way to make sure that you're taking the best care of your teeth as possible. Right now, Lorinco is offering our listeners up to 50% off. Yes, 50% off at bylorine.com slash bulwark takes. 50% off to get your teeth in great shape. What a deal. That's by Loreen, L-A-R-I-N-E dot com slash bulwark takes for 50% off. The idea that we are considering blowing up our relationship with allies that have kept,

not just us safe, but have kept peace since World War II is one of these insane things that makes me feel like we're watching the Republican zombies, right? Sort of just watching him march the country off the clip. And other than I think one senator, one of the people that got primary or someone retiring got mad and he took troops out of Europe. But that's like a standing threat that he makes. And it barely gets any coverage. but I think he threatened to do that again today.

Yeah, he did threaten to do it again today, particularly on the grounds of Greenland. And, you know, his arguments around Greenland starts to not make sense. I think you did everybody a favor by cutting up that very long ramble that he was doing today, but there's some nonsensical stuff in the middle there

as he was trying to explain why we need Greenland because of the Chinese ships, et cetera. When Greenland has said we can do militarily what we want, what we need to do, as far as putting military resources there, to your point about him not being able to actually build things, like there is something that he was pretty good at, we should just say,

which is just putting his name on other people's stuff. And to me, I think that is, like, the summary of what is happening in Greenland. And he, Donald Trump wants to put his name on new things. He's got this new airport in Palm Beach he's happy about. He wants to put his name on a new country. He wants that to be in the history books. Like, that's it. Like, doing things is hard,

like putting your name on other people's things. is easy. He's made a career for it out of it. Kudos to him. And I think that's part of what's happening. And then the other thing, I guess I would just throw out here, why, to your question to Rick, but why isn't go out of NATO? I think a lot of it is the fact that Mark Rudah, the head of

NATO, has been sucking up to him. I mean, Trump is a child. And like, that's where we're at. Why was he in Ankara today, did he say? Well, because Erdogan's been so nice to him. And there have been some reporting, you know, that we haven't really found out the truth actually from the first term about some suspicious

just financial transfers from Turkey to Trump, and maybe that will come out. But also, we know that Erdogan sucks up to him. Mark Ruta's been the head of NATO really sucks up to him, and called him daddy. And I think that it's like that kind of like he's a child, like that kind of base suckuppery is why we're in NATO. And the fact that a lot of the other European countries won't do that to him

is why he's mad at them. I mean, I think it's as simple as that. Well, Tim, speaking of being mad, I mean, do we think he's seen people laughing at him? I mean, if he's going to be mad at anyone, it's going to be mad at the mockery. I think I have some more of the sort of celebrations in the locker room. And, you know, sports, we've had a lot of sports content to chew on just as fans of the Knicks. But I can't imagine there's anything more psychologically motivating than to try to defeat a team where the, you know, American president has involved himself in a way that I don't think,

FIVA has overturned a call like that since the 1950s. Here's the team that won. What do you think about the Trump curse? Yeah, small country, Belgium there, kind of dunking on Trump. This is fun, it's funny when you take back the clock on this. Like, as Trump kind of came into our lives in 2015, a big complaint on the right was like this idea that, you know, sports leagues have gone to liberal or whatever,

I've gone to woke and people should, you know, politics should stay out of it. This was the big critique over on Fox for a long time. And you'd probably remember Laura Ingram, you know, talking about how LeBron James should shut up and dribble. And I don't know. In some ways, I feel like that Belgium dance is the Belgians telling Trump to, like, shut up in president, you know, like shut up and two-year job.

It's like he keeps getting involved in this stuff. Like, he got himself involved in it. The only game the Knicks lost was the one he showed up to. like Belgium just like absolutely shames us last night in soccer after Trump gets involved in it like he wants to be involved in everything he has to try to get himself involved in our lives and in every corner of society and and a lot of what he's touching is doing the opposite of the Midas touch I guess this has been on my brain since I think before the state of the union where it's clear to me that the quality of him for and it came from some of the folks who

went and saw him that day and he wanted to show everyone the renovations of his bathroom, like the obsession, like true, I mean, I'm not really good at these things, but even when I have been involved in minor home renovations, they have not been something that I've talked to friends about. He is the president of the United States of America and cannot stop talking about paint colors for plastic linings, repairs to his bathroom, wants to show journalists the bathroom he renovated. There were pictures out there. I mean, this was the day of his state of the union address. I mean, what do you make of the absence of any attachment to crisis, not just for the country, not just for the world, not just for NATO, but to his own political

coalition. Yeah. And I think there are a couple things of play here. Some of this is what Ashley just laid out. He's like not getting a lot of the same information. You know, he has this human printer who, according to the Hayperman and Swamp book, is also leaving him some mash notes around the White House. So there's that kind of weirdness going on. I think we discussed on last week's show. I fundamentally think he doesn't care that much about the midterms. I think he doesn't, I think he

just gave him truth serum and it's like, what do you care about more, that the ballroom turns out great and that people talk about how great the ballroom is or that the Republicans hold the house? I think he would say the ballroom in a second. So I think that is part of it. And again, I just don't,

he's always been kind of a power of positive thinking guy, but when you're not getting bad information. I think this is what happens. You start to delude yourself. I mean, every president gets in a bubble. Rick had talked about this historically, but I think he's in about the thickest bubble we've seen in a while. And one anecdote that sticks with me is I had

somebody tell me that they brought they were working for a principal. They brought them to meet the president for business. And he like went around and introduced this person to like Marco Rubio and was like, hey Marco, how are things going in the world? Great, right? Marco said great. And then he goes to Scott

best sentence says, hey, Scott, how are things going in the economy? Great, right? And Scott's like, great. And you know, you think this is a real thing that happened. Like the president is just taking strangers around the White House, like getting praise, like asking people to praise him. And so I do think he is in, you know, just sort of this bubble, this kind of narcissism bubble that is preventing him from from reckoning with some of these crises. Yeah. I mean, I think we think because they're so unbelievable, these cabinet meetings that he sleeps through are the performance and that what happens behind closed doors is rubio's like hey we need to get in there you know the iran peace deals falling

apart or bescent is like hey we need to do something the tariffs are really dragging up the prices of a cart full of stuff from walmart no like the cabinet meeting is real life and the fact that we get to see it is just a window into it i think she's a nice person actually we've had a good we We had a bad relationship, but it became a little bad because she refused to help us. Again, I didn't put happy press on her, but she refused to get involved with the hormone street. Or you could also say just a rent. She refused to get involved.

So it soured my relationship with her a little bit. But I like her. I like her, just trolling her on social media. And we know that his words, you know, have a lot of pick up. and a lot of people watch them. He called for, again, a, quote, restraining order being needed about her and then says, I mean, this is hard to even read back to you, but I will. She refused to get involved with the Hormuz straight, or you could just say Iran.

She refused to get involved so it soured my relationship with her. But I like her. Just this toxic mix of mayhem and bad behavior. Yeah, I think there are a couple things of play here. you know, first, just on the Strait of Formoze and on, you know, the Iran situation, this was another case of just Trump's brazenness of megalomania. He didn't consult the allies, right? I mean, like, we've all been through this a bunch, and there's a playbook for how you do this,

and presidents in the past, you know, have gotten countries on board, even for international missions or wars that they weren't fully on board with because they did the diplomacy on the front end. And like, Trump doesn't do that. And so he starts this war. He can't explain it. It has no real purpose. There's no plan.

We're still not really out of it. We're worse off than where we were when it started. And he's like, now I'm mad that Italy won't go along with it. It's well, it's like, well, that's your fault. And so then his treatment of Maloney after that is, you know, I think a combination of one, he doesn't really like it when women stand up to him and say no to him. That's true in his personal life. It's also true in his professional life.

And so what does he do? He trolls them on social. social media. He's also kind of personally a coward, so he's not as willing to do that, you know, at a press conference or in person with her, which is why he kind of does, though, I like her still at the end. And then he gets, it comes a keyboard warrior and gets on truth's social and talks about how she's really obsessed with him. Again, it's all, it's childish. It's a hint of misogyny. And it's, and it's just, and it's unsurious. And, you know, I think that there's this big, one of the other big ideas of the Trump term was that we had all

these pencil heads, you know, that we're doing diplomacy in the past, and they all did stupid deals, and they all did dumb deals, and what we should really do is just kind of deal like we're a car salesman on the lot and just shoot by the hip and have no, you know, and like, and that's not working. You can see why. Anyone who would accept the results of a free and fair election is a sociopath. A madman. A man like that can even foment an insurrection rather than just admit that he lost. What a... He could use the presidency to enrich himself and his family.

No, no. He can send troops into American cities to terrorize and even kill American citizens all to distract from the fact that he's friends with a pedophile. We can attack universities, even the free press, silencing anyone who dares to criticize him. Ah, come on. That could never happen. That's what you think.

Are you suggesting that the president would take it the time to challenge anyone who dare make fun of him as if he were a big baby? A big baby. I don't see it. We're back with Maya, Dominic and Tim. So, Tim, you know, because all of you have been on this journey with me, this is sort of the response that I've been waiting for for 18 months. And they were all there. I mean, Rob Reiner and Jimmy Kimmel and Larry David. What do you think?

Typically subtle from Larry David there. I'm trying to figure out who he's talking about. But no, it's good. You have to laugh at him. Pointing and laughing is important. You know, and I think that it is a much more effective way at getting at Trump than kind of getting on the high horse. So sometimes it calls for getting on the high horse.

So I hadn't watched that little HBO show. seen it on my scroll. And so now I'm more intrigued to go click on it. So that was a good promo. Oh, it's funny. It's funny. If you don't mind, I just want to say what I think about Lonnie Bunch. You mentioned the last segment as the secretary of the Smithsonian. I had Clint Smith, who's at the Atlantic, and this amazing book about American history through the eyes of what happened to slavery called How the Word is Past. I added him on for the 4th of July podcast over the weekend, and he had interviewed Lonnie Bunch. And it's like, this is such an amazing person. And the, He was the first person to run the African-American Museum

and then just the amount of commitment to trying to protect our history in the face of Trump. And somebody could have retired, but decided he wanted to stay. And Clint's interview with him is just wild. You know, it's like, how is this real life? You had to have this lunch with Trump where, you know, Trump's talking to him about whether to move Dulles and to name Dulles after himself and why the,

and a bunch took him to the museum and showed him at a, exhibit about Dutch slavery and Trump's response to that is the Dutch loved me. You know, I like the whole thing is preposterous, but like it's important that we have people like that who are suffering Trump's incompetence and have the dignity to do it and who care about all that, who are out there doing it. And so I think that, and what Larry David's doing is probably reaching more people, but what Lonnie is doing is really important.