Bulwark Takes - Decoding Trump’s Kennedy Center Fever Dream

Episode Date: August 13, 2025

Sam Stein and Sarah Longwell react to Trump’s Kennedy Center announcement, mixing Phantom of the Opera with wild tangents on D.C. crime and grass.

Hello again, everybody, Sam Stein, managing editor at the bulwark here with our fearless publisher, Sarah Longwell. We're here to talk about Donald Trump, the Kennedy Center, the Kennedy Center awards, and musical theater. Because Sarah is our in-house musical theater buff, we made sure that she was on this program. Sarah, what's your favorite show? You know, my favorites are ones that mix my most favorite two topics, which is politics and musical theater. And so, you know, well, it's a very favorite. Well, it's Evita, it's Hamilton, you know, Lae Mizz, the French Revolution. Oh, my God.

1776. There's lots of good political musicals, man. Fair enough. Well, you and Trump do have something uncommon, it appears, after all. Yeah, but his favorite musical is like cats. And Le Miz. Yeah, but Lill Mizz is a great show. He likes Phantom.

Do you like Phantom of the opera? It's not my favorite. It's fine. It's fine. He's more of a classic guy. Okay, cool. Well, that's great. So Trump had a big event this morning where he was going to unveil who was going to get the, who was going to be the honorees for the Kennedy Center Awards this year. And lo and behold, he threw a real curveball at us, although I suppose not that big a curveball concerning as Trump. Let's listen to his opening remarks and get some reaction on the backside. delighted to be here as we officially announced the incredibly talented artists who will be celebrated later this year at the 2025 Kennedy Center honors it's going to be a big evening I've been asked to host I said I'm the president of the United States are you fools asking me to do that sir you'll get much higher ratings I said I don't care I'm president of the United States I won't do it But they said, please.

And then Susie Wells said, to be sorry, I'd like in our house. I said, okay, Susie, I'll do it. That's the power she's got. But I just, so I have agreed to host, do you believe what I have to do? And I didn't want to do it, okay? They're going to say, you insisted. I did not insist. But I think it will be quite successful, I think.

It's been a long time. I used to host the Apprentice Finaleys, and we did rather well with that. It reminded me of that scene in Anchorman where Ron Burgundy is at the jazz club and he's like, nah, I couldn't possibly play. And then he whips out the flute or whatever. Couldn't possibly play if you here. Are you excited for Donald Trump to host the award ceremony, Sarah? No, I'm not, obviously. And I do not appreciate this whole.

It's the Trump Kennedy Center. He's going to rename the Kennedy Center after himself here. Like, he wants that more than Mount Rushmore. You know, it's always funny to me with his thing where he likes musicals, because Donald Trump does blend, not that musicals are inherently feminine, because they're not, but they are theatrical in a way that it is always funny to me that his like hyper masculine, especially his supporters, the way they talk about him, like he's a hyper masculine with the makeup and the weird poofed hair and the love of musicals, I'm like, guys, this guy is one step away from. You know, I mean, it looks like like Pavarotti threw up in the White House, you know, so it's just, uh, he's got a gay vibe. He does have a gay vibe. Let's just be honest about it. Which is not, which is mean to gay people. I don't mean to do that. But he's not, um, yeah, this is not, the guy's not guns and roses here, man. If you ran into someone who wasn't the president who was obsessed with gold, uh, adornings in their house and musical theater and interior design, uh, I think you would like have some suspicions about. for sexuality. I think that's totally fair. Yeah. Makes sense that he's been overcompensating his whole life by having sex with porn stars.

The idea that he would take time out of his day to host the Kennedy Center Awards and that he obviously wanted to do this and that he even took out of time that out of his day to do this announcement about it is so hilarious and outlandish to me. Like in a normal world, he'd be pretty busy, right? Like there'd be other things going on. But he's very, very, I mean, I think if he had his druthers, he would focus on redecorating federal buildings, hosting award ceremonies at the Kennedy Center. And, you know, there's another couple we're going to play, like the design of Washington, D.C. Like, I think that's what he really has his passions around. This is how he wants to spend his time.

Like, he doesn't want to spend his time doing normal presidenting, right? And I also, Sam, I got a question for you. how are they going to have this successful program in Washington, D.C., which is in the middle of a crisis, of crime, of such epic proportions that they need to federalize the National Guard and put troops on our streets? How can we have musical theater in an environment like that? The city is in worse shape than Baghdad, and I can't see how we could possibly put on a show in these conditions. Although Trump has some disqualification. designs on that. He said during this presser that he's going to potentially go well past

the 30-day limit that is mandatory or mandated under law for these types of emerging declarations. He also talked a lot about sort of the image of Washington, D.C., and he got so granular that he literally started talking about the city's grass. Let's play that clip for you. We're doing that and doing some other things, and we're going to also fix up A place called Washington, D.C. We're going to make it so beautiful again. We're going to be redoing the parks, redoing the grass. You know, grass is a lifetime like people have a lifetime.

And the lifetime of this grass has long been gone. When you look at the parks where the grass is all tired, exhausted, we're going to redo the grass with the finest grasses. I know a lot about grass because I own a lot of golf courses. And if you don't have good grass, you're not in business. Very long, Lindsey Greenham. By the way, you have very good poll numbers, Lindsay. I just saw congratulations.

So random. That's the real weave, man. I know a lot about grass. The grass is tall. The grass is green. It's greener on the other side. Is the grass dead on the mall? I don't think it is.

I've been down there recently. It looked fine to me. The grass is fine. I mean, at least the federal government has control over the parks, unlike the way that they're federalizing, like the cops in D.C. I just as weird to have a president obsess over the quality of grass on the ball. It's not. No, this all makes total sense, though, for Trump.

No, it makes sense for Trump because Trump, Trump doesn't actually know how to be the president still. He knows how to do all the things he's done all his life, which are corruption, make deals in which he tries to bully people, not pay people. Golf courses. do golf courses and build buildings, right? This is where, why is he building a ballroom? Because he knows how, and like he cares about that. And that's how he seeks to put his imprint on things. He wants to like, he wants all the puddings.

Like he wants the, okay, just rock with me for one second. Okay, I'm thinking of DeSantis now, but go ahead. Yeah, I know. Sorry, not finger eating pudding, but like he wants the treats. The treats that come with, um, being of high status, right? Like, that's, he likes the, he likes the fancy planes and the ornate offices and the Nobel Peace Prize.

He doesn't, but this is like classic for Trump. He doesn't want to do the work, like the real work of diplomacy and, I mean, meeting with Putin is not exactly diplomacy. This is who Trump is. And he's not good at the real stuff. He likes chasing the shiny stuff. Let's note that he is meeting with Putin. He was asked about the meeting with Putin.

during this press conference, he's pressed about the fact that it emerged that Russia was the ones hacking federal databases recently. And he seemed to be like, well, of course, that's what they do. He talked a little bit about a resolution to the war, potentially weighing the possibility of punishing Russia. If there is no resolution, we'll see, probably not. And then he kind of like, weaved in and out. I mean, this whole thing was really wild. He was rambling on about the success of Les Mis. And then he's talking about the government shutdown possibility. He then guided. into the issue of the Fed Reserve building and Jerome Powell, to your point, Sarah.

The honorees, he did reveal these are the honorees this year. Sly Stallone, the rock band Kiss, George Strait, Gloria Gaynor, and the British actor Michael Crawford, who famously starred in Phantom of the Opera. And then at one point he said of the song, I Will Survive, quote, it is an unbelievable, unbelievable song. So he's got, again, it's got that vibe. George Strait. Love me some George Strait. Carrying in love with me.

I listen to a lot of country music. What do you make of these honorees? Well, these are from real America, Sam. But, you know, they're great. I begrudge Sly Stollone, nothing. Sly's the man. He deserves this. He's an incredibly accomplished artist.

At Pennsylvania, like myself. You know, Philadelphia. I'm totally fine with these honorees. I was expecting, like, Kid Rock, honestly, to get. to get his due and, you know. Do you know, I have been increasingly thinking about Trump's mental decline and what seems like dementia, I mean, when he was talking about. Thank you for me for this up.

The grass thing. I was like, man, that sounded kind of like, imagine like Biden rambling like that. We'd be like, that guy's demented, right? Yeah. And I do, I think that Trump, this is what happens with people who start to go into this kind of mental decline when they're old is they go back to their basics, right? The stuff they really know. And this is where him talking about grass, him talking about the songs that he loves.

Like, these are burrowed deep in there. And I think he's lost his facility to sort of catch on to newer things. He does. But this is in there. Yeah, he does definitely talk about this stuff way more regularly than he did in the first grind. You know what? Let's play that last one about the Fed, because he started around him about the Fed's redesign and the construction doing there. And he started talking about wallpaper and random shit.

Let's just play to emphasize the point you're making. And that's the beginning. They did just a terrible job. Instead of I could take a ceiling like this, they'd rip out the ceiling because they see a crack. Let's rip out the ceiling. And I would fix the crack and I would paint the ceiling. And under the ceiling, they put the most incredible protective material.

They go out by three-quarter-inch, brand-new, gorgeous, three-quarter-inch plywood and sheetrock. hardened sheet rock and they had it all over the building so if a little piece of flake came down but the problem is when they took the ceiling down and it would hit they spent millions of dollars on protective material that you didn't have to spend anything his brain is soup his brain is soup this is we've got to start talking about this this is a problem he has some man camera woman you know parachute he is in severe decline and he is he starts to play the hits right this is what really old people do and what's ironic about all this sam stein is that over in the corner when trump's like lindsay graham love your ball numbers way to go buddy it's because lindsay graham is wearing a trump 2028 hat i know and you listen to trump and you're like no and i just said this on the next level so it's a bit of a repeat but i i believe this to be true which is that we are very lucky uh when it comes to

to the authoritarian takeover of the United States, that Donald Trump is 79 and almost 80 years old. As opposed to 59. As opposed to 59, because the authoritarian project would have a lot of a lot of rope at that point. But instead, we have the reality of actuarial tables. You know, just listening to him, he is mush-mouthed. He cannot articulate things.

He does. He sounds like Biden being like, listen here, Bubb, when corn popped was doing the thing and had them hair on his legs and you're like, where, where's this going? What's happening? Trump sounds exactly like that. Well, so someone made the point this morning because, and I'm all, I want to get it right. The post that Trump put up this morning about Leningrad, did you see that one? Yes, I did. So someone made the point. I forget who it was about how there's a big scandal when Biden erroneously referred to Macron as the deceased French Prime Minister Midron and

how this was evidence of decline. And it's like, well, you know, the standards seem to be uneven here, to put it lightly, like Trump can get away with saying, yeah, Putin wants Leningrad, which hasn't been a city in Russia since the 90s. So, you know, I do think you're right about that. And I think it's probably worth having or seeing people have more honest conversations about it. I thought today's press conference was just emblematic of it. It's like a guy who's very much obsessed with the most trivial stuff possible, gets off on it and then spends a lot of time just kind of rambling, frankly, in a way that if you saw it from anyone else, you'd be like, this person's, you know, not all there.

And in some ways, this is like a much clearer for, I think, other people. I think we see the authoritarian project clearly with putting, you know, the National Guard on the streets and everything else. But in some ways, him standing up and rambling forever, even the press conference he did about D.C., where he was flanked by Bondi and Cash and Ed Seth, you could see them. You know, Piro, like, these are not responsible, respectable. people by any stretch, but you can even see their eyes being like, I wonder how long he's going to go.

And he goes for so long that at some point he says, you know, like, I'm going to let you guys go. They're busy people. Like he was just going to keep standing there and forcing everyone to listen to him. That is real authoritarianism, right? Where everyone's got to sit and sort of abide your nonsense. Or show up at the Kennedy Center with a 2020 hat to show how much they care. 28 hat.

2028, sorry. My bad. Yes. Yes. It is what it is. All right, Sarah, thank you so much for doing this. Really appreciate it. No, it wasn't that big a lift because you would jump at any opportunity to talk about musical theater.

I was told we were going to talk about musicals the whole time. I have so, we haven't talked about rent or in the heights, which preceded Hamilton. Yeah, I mean, let's save that for another one. I can go on and on about rent, really an uplifting musical, definitely. So are you, are you crapping on rent right now? I like rent, but it's super depressing. Yeah, but it holds up. It's good.

It does hold up. actually yeah all right sarah thanks so much everyone watching thank you too subscribe to the feed tell friends subscribe to the feed love you talk to you bye