Bulwark Takes - Fox Host Says Putin Embarrassing Trump! Charlie Kirk Doubting Trump Too?!

Episode Date: April 25, 2025

Tim Miller breaks down a rare moment of honesty on Fox & Friends where Brian Kilmeade says Trump is getting embarrassed by Vladimir Putin. From awkward co-host reactions to cracks in the MAGA coalition, even Trump’s allies are starting to squirm.

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That's how humiliating this situation is right now for Donald Trump in these Russia negotiations that he was supposed to resolve in 24 hours, that even on Fox, the hosts are starting to observe the fact that things are not going very well at all. And it's interesting to watch this clip because what you'll see here is you have the truth slipping out by Kilmeade saying that Trump is getting embarrassed by Vladimir Putin.

But he's doing so not in a point-and-laugh way, like I am right now in this podcast. He is doing it in a, oh, maybe I can nudge him. Maybe I can nudge Donald to do the right thing. Like, Donald, you don't want to get embarrassed. You don't want to get embarrassed, do you? And it's funny to watch the nationalist Charlie Hurt, who's the co-host there, I want you to watch him and how uncomfortable he's getting watching Brian Kilmeade try to encourage Trump to do more because Charlie Hurt, if you don't know him, would be happy for us to

just totally abandon Ukraine. And so the different strategies at play there from a couple of hosts that know that the president could very well be watching as as they try to nudge towards their preferred policy outcome is a pretty funny subtext. But it's worth giving the whole thing a watch. So here we go. Let's listen to Brian Kilmeade. Let him know yesterday he blasted him. It's going to get worse. And there are sanctions queued up. He says it doesn't help me and doesn't help the situation if I tell you what's going to happen to Russia if they continue to undermine these peace talks. It's something. It's something. I mean, you would think that eventually the manhood would intervene here.

But here's the thing. We all know this. We know this. Fox doesn't know it, apparently. Trump is the schoolyard bully. Trump is Cartman. You know, Trump is not actually a tough person. OK, we all know. We all love Tim's favorite video of him being scared by the eagle. You know, Trump is not actually a tough person. Okay. We all know, we all love Tim's favorite video of him being scared by the eagle. And so he does not, he's just has the bluster, right? And when the bluster doesn't work, there's no second play. You know, the idea that Trump's going to use hard power, what's he going to do? You think that Trump is going to completely turn on all of his messaging where he's convinced the entire mega base that we shouldn't waste a dime in Ukraine, the Ukraine stealing from us.

Now you think he's going to all of a sudden act tough and push back on Putin? No. Let's use the cards metaphor. Putin knows he has all the cards. Trump's not going gonna start sending more fucking missiles to ukraine you think that that's possible brian kilmeade thinks it's possible i don't i don't see it and so what you have is like the one you know fox host who still believes that america should use their power uh our power begging and pleading trump to not get embarrassed like trying to play on his emotions and um you know, the result is not going to be what Brian Kilmeade wants. And sadly, it's not going to be what the people of Ukraine need. But it's interesting. It is the second time this week I've seen a video

of one of the, you know, kind of MAGA, you know, maybe not MAGA in the case of Brian Kilmeade, one of the, you know, Trump allies, you allies, somebody that is a Trump media ally, a reliable one, showing a little bit of a crack. I want to play one other clip for you. This was Charlie Kirk talking about his concerns about the arrest of the tough student, Ozturk. Let's watch that too. Deporting somebody because they wrote an op-ed critical of Israel,

I think that's probably in the gray area. So would you say that there's some things that the administration has done on immigration where you think they haven't been sufficiently respectful of First Amendment rights? Is that fair to say? No, I wouldn't even say that i would say that we run a little bit of a problem if we are going to say that the criteria to get your visa revoked is writing an op-ed now that might be an exaggeration by somebody yeah right and and but if and the op-ed was not even critical of america which it was critical of a foreign country right and again I'm very pro-Israel as I say this. And let me tell you why. I actually think it creates more anti-Israel hostility and anti-Semitism when it looks as if such a strong hand of the government is going to come in. So there you go. I mean, again, this is not Charlie Kirk's not switching sides. He's not

going bulwark. And, you know, you hate to even give Charlie Kirk any any fucking credit for anything. But I the way I look at this is, look, if there's a Fox host saying Trump's getting embarrassed by Putin, if the head of Turning Point USA is saying, whoa, maybe we're going a little bit too far on some of these green card detentions. That to me signals that you got real problems because none of that was happening back in January when there was this, oh, Trump vibe shift. Oh, the vibe shift. Everybody's getting behind Trump. You know, you weren't seeing these sort of cracks. And I think that as these policies come into play, we're obviously seeing it on the tariffs, but maybe even on immigration and foreign policy,

you know, cracks are starting to emerge all around the various sides of the coalition because like eventually reality intervenes, you know, eventually reality intervenes. And if you're going to go out there and hand over Ukraine to Putin and then send pathetic bleats about begging Vlad, please stop, please stop. You know, the remaining pro-American military conservatives are going to notice that. The remaining Reaganite conservatives are going to notice that. If you start pulling people off the street from writing op-eds, the, you know, pro-free speech on campus folks, a lot of them are going to be hypocrites. But a couple of them are going to notice it and be like, hey, wait a minute. Do we want this? Do we want the government pulling people off the street for pulling students off the street because of op-eds that they wrote? Because

that might not turn out too great for Charlie Kirk in an AOC administration, right? So people start to notice. And anyway, it's just something worth monitoring. It's something that's worth monitoring. And it's also funny, you know, because you know Trump doesn't love being told he's getting embarrassed on Fox and Friends. You know that wasn't great for him with his morning breakfast. So we'll take our little pleasures where we can get them. Everybody else, subscribe to the feed. We'll be back soon. Thanks to Brian Kilmeade.

That was kind of sad the way you were trying to nudge him. But I'm glad you injected just a little hint of truth under the Fox show this morning. We appreciate that. We'll see you all soon.