Bulwark Takes - Sam, JVL and Sonny Deconstruct Trump’s “Buy Less” Disaster

Episode Date: December 10, 2025

Trump wants your kids to have fewer dolls and fewer pencils, but he’ll happily take a new ballroom, a Gatsby party, and a marble-soaked Lincoln bathroom. JVL, Sam Stein, and Sonny Bunch give their takes on the surreal contrast, his obsession with opulence, and why Trump should instead be hosting an HGTV show. Exclusive $35 off Carver Mat at https://on.auraframes.com/BULWARKTAKES. Promo Code BULWARKTAKES

Welcome to Bulwark Takes. I'm JVL here with my colleague, Sam Stein and Sonny Bunch, and Donald Trump, like Marie Antoinette before him, had some messages for the little people about Christmas. Sam, Sonny, before I let you guys off the chain, let's go to the tape. We need, the one thing you need, you need still. You know, you can give up certain products. You can give up pencils. It's under the China policy. You know. every child can get 37 pencils. They only need one or two.

You know, they don't need that many. But you always need, you always need steel. You don't need 37 dolls for your daughter. Two or three is nice, but you don't need 37 dolls. This is the second time he's gone on the doll thing. Do you remember that before? We had lost in the midst of time. He has a real thing about the weakness of America's little princesses having 37.

I think it's always also 37 dolls. 37. Is it always 37? I think so. I think that, again, we'd have to go to the archives for that. It's such a specific number. I don't really understand him. Anyway, maybe Ivanka had 37 dolls, and he's always regretted that.

Who can say? I mean, let's just go. I grew up as a young conservative, and I would always hear tale tales of this Jimmy Carter person who sat America down and wore his cardigan and said, you got to turn your thermostat down. You've got to suffer in the summer. You've got to be cold in the winter. And that's what America is.

It's suffering. And you give things up for the common good. And then Ronald Reagan came in and said, no, we were not, we're not going to do that. And that is, you know, that's the, that is when I, when I hear Republican politicians talk about, you know, America, it is not, you got to give up your pencils. You got to give up your dolls. It, I, flames on the side of my face watching this because it drives me crazy. This idea, every American child should have a cup on their dresser with like 40 pencils in it that are a varying states of sharpness. And when they get too dull, just throw them away.

Throw them away and get a new one out of the fresh pencil box. Don't sharpen them. No. Sharpening is for poor communist countries. You know what? We use pencils once. the only reason anybody needs a pencil sharpener

is in the classroom if you want an excuse to get up from your desk to go do the little, because that's pretty cool actually the little turning one. That was, I was always very into that. It's like mechanical. You don't have the automatic ones now? Like the, no, mechanical pencils are the worse. Stick them in and that sharpens a fire. Okay. Oh, well, no, well, the

well, see, but that's, that's just not as much fun as the crank. I like the hand crank, you know, because I'm old. I'm an old man. Sorry, you're cooking. Go ahead. Go ahead. No, I just, I just, I, it's the pencil thing in particular, dolls, I, well, I, I, whatever, my, my daughter has more than 37 dolls, I'm sure if I went into there and counted them, if you include the stuffed figures, more than 37, but the pencils, she has cups and cups of pencils and every time I see them, I smile and I think this is what an American child should have. And he's trying to take that away from, he's trying to take that away from our precious young people. And I just can't, I cannot abide this. Did Hulk Hogan grow up with a pencil short? shortage in his house? I don't think so. Absolutely not. I don't think so. Sam, I've never heard such a passionate defense of pencils in my life. I didn't really suddenly was such a pencil man.

I don't really have much to add on the pencil front. The dolls are a little bit of a quirky thing because it's like one of these things where Trump's obviously caught in the like 80s, 70s mindset where like people just go home and play with their little Barbie dolls and so on that stuff. It's a weird tick. I guess we'll have a lot of steel. Everyone, every child could have their steel in Trump's world, but not thousand. You get a lump of steel. But obviously, you know, it's like we can jump ahead here because he's doing this as he himself is indulging in just the most, you know, opulent bullshit possible for our president.

We'll get to that. So we're going to continue with the affordability because that's what this is all part of his pivot to affordability. Well, he also said there that he's not allowed to say anymore that affordability concerns are a hoax. which means it's on which means he thinks it's a hoax but he just can't say it and then he had an interview the other day with dasha burns where he was just sort of scoffing at the idea that it was dramatic to think of holiday shopping as a concern for consumers so he's in a bit of a different reality than I think most people let's look at the video on that to the people not to the insurance companies are buying their holiday president's presence

they're planning look don't be dramatic no no don't be there's what I want to be such a drama queen I know. And what I want to do? What does he mean by that? Don't be dramatic. Don't be dramatic. You need to get the question out. Don't be dramatic. They're buying their holiday presents. I mean, don't be dramatic. Don't be dramatic.

I, no, I really think it's, it is fascinating. It is fascinating to watch this, this happen in real time. Because again, this, this idea that a politician can go out there and say, you need to be happy buying less stuff. You need to be happy buying less stuff for your family. Is such insane messaging. It is such. It is such, like, it is so counter to everything we understand about American politics, the American consumer, the American political class, the American media class. There's nobody and everybody who runs the advertising departments in these newspapers and television channels like, buy less, buy fewer dolls.

No, they need to buy 38 dolls. Hold on. You just came upon a great story idea. We should call up the doll manufacturers and the pencil manufacturers and say, what do you make to me? Mattel. Yeah, what do you think of this presidential message here? I, uh, so few, so few dolls. So I, I am slightly conflicted on this because I am in favor of politicians doing truth telling and not pandering to idiotic voter concerns. And so this is, you know, one of the things that I, I said much through 2024. I said inflation has been beat. We are actually net positive. Real wages have outstrip

inflation growth. Everybody's working with outdated, outdated feelings. People's views of the economy are as if it was the autumn of 2008 when the global financial system was blowing up. And so I am, again, sympathetic to a politician saying, hold on now. Things are not as bad as you think. Let's look at X, Y, Z. Let's sort of have a rational understanding of how prices work. Yeah. But this isn't that. This is just like you should be happy. happy with less stuff. It really is Jimmy Carter. Shut up.

He says, it is, Shut up. Shut up and have fewer things. And again, of course, the cause of all this is tariffs. And there's only one, I've long argued that there's, there are two things Donald Trump believes. One, walls. He believes in walls, in buildings, on borders, whatever.

He believes in walls. And he believes in tariffs. He, like, absolutely believes in tariffs. He thinks tariffs are a good thing. He will do a tariff just for funsies. Like, he'll be like, what can we tariff today? Let's do that. I don't think he's able to handle messaging the fact that the tariffs make things cost more.

Like, I just think he doesn't, he doesn't understand how to make this argument other than you don't need those things. I, I, you don't need those things, just have less. And that is, again, just from a, from a pure politics standpoint, I watch this with my mouth agape and think, how is he going to get away with this? Sonny, I'm going to blow your mind. I'm going to blow your mind here, Sonny. And I promise you, I haven't taken a soul gummy, sponsored by soul in AdReed.

But tariffs are walls. Oh. Oh, shit. Oh, shit. I did it. Trade wall. Mike drop. Boy, do you used to work at the Cato Institute, Tim?

It's a real double rainbow moment for me here. I'm like really, you know. Maybe a triple rainbow. So here is the, here's the kicker, though. Because Donald Trump, he believes in one other thing, though, which is buildings. And all this is happening at the moment when the only thing he really seems to care about deeply are the renovations he's doing to the White House, including there's the ballroom, which is currently halted because he did have to fire the guy who was the architect. Amazing, they did the demo before they had a final. Is that normally how projects work?

Like, if you're putting an addition on your house, do you demo the part of the house before you've settled on what you're actually building in a final design? Is that how approved processes? Yeah, okay. Yeah, good. And we have some true social

and the Lincoln bathroom in the White House. Talk about how it was renovated in the 1940s and an Art Deco green tile style, which was totally inappropriate for the Lincoln era. I did it in black and white polished statue. Marble, this was very appropriate for the time of Abraham Lincoln, and in fact, could be the marble that was originally there. I don't know how that could be true.

In fairness, in fairness, if you look at that pictures, you don't see a single doll. You don't see a single pencil. How many pencils? How many pencils are in that bathroom? No pencils. Highly polished, statuary marble. Bullwork takes a sponsor by ORAFRAIMS. I've got a bit of a holiday gift-giving pattern.

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So order yours now to get it in time for the holidays. Support the show by mentioning us at the checkout. Can I riff on this for a little bit? Please. It's so out of control. There's two things that are really wild. So it's the bathroom innovations, the ballroom innovations. We could throw up the picture of the great Gatsby party and all that stuff.

And he's out at all these spawning events. And he's doing the Kennedy Awards, in tuxes. And it's like, you can tell people, hey, you know, we need to kind of dial it back and everyone needs to conserve a little bit. But you got to conserve too, right? Like, you can't be out there just splurging with the taxpayer money on all this stuff because that's insane. But the other thing is that he does generally seem to be overconsumed with these random renovations and totally unnecessary portions of the job. I mean, his presidency really is defined in large degree by how much he wants to build buildings and go to sporting events.

That's because he plans on vacating the White House in 2029, right, Sam? Yeah, he's checked out. Well, so you think that, yes, I hear you, you don't build a new White House in a ballroom so that you then leave it, right? You can leave it and the next person can move in? You don't get a Qatari jet so you could park it in your library, right? Like, that makes sense to me. And yet, he clearly has little appetite for the actual job itself.

He's not doing any of the actual presidential work. He likes doing the ceremonial shit. The deals. That's always been the case, though. I want to cross some threads here because here's what I've just realized that Donald Trump is actually best suited to be an HG TV host, right? He is, he wants to host a home renovation show. That's what he wants to do. And you know who owns HGTV?

That's part of the Warner Brothers Discovery universe. And you know, you know what's happening with Warner Brothers Discovery right now. If either Netflix or Paramount were to offer Donald Trump his own home renovation show, they would close it like that. That deal would be over. It would be done. Donald Trump, Donald Trump rebuilt. I don't know what you would call it. I don't know.

Who cares? Delightful goal. You're joking, but it's true. You're joking, but it's absolutely true. I'm not joking. I am being 100% serious. I, like, it is, it's a wild thing. The renovations are fascinating.

because it really does feel like he is just doing he's just that is what he has the most fun doing it's like the for in his first term remember when he was in the big trucks remember when he was in the big like that he that was when he was doing big truck things and he was when he was doing some kind of construction adjacent stuff that is what he seems to really enjoy doing i don't think that's appropriate for the president to be doing but you know whatever question about the gatsby party first of all picking the theme of a great Gatsby party is so, I mean, it is like saying, oh, we're going to do a, you know, our Marie Antoinette party. It's literally like, you know, at the moment, you could pick any other opulent theme that wouldn't, you could be like the Egyptian pharaohs or something. And it wouldn't be as like, like let them eat cake as Gatsby. But here's my question. Doesn't Trump get away with this? Hasn't part of his appeal always been? that he doesn't live like the common man and that that's that's what makes him an ubermensch

and an alpha is that he you know oh his people don't seem to hate him for this or resent him for it they admire him for it i'm going to push back on this slightly because i think that his appeal is not his appeal is not i am so great and you are so small it's i am so great and you can too like that is that is the idea of trump is it like he writes the Art of the, he writes, air quotes, art of the deal to give people a guide to be like Donald Trump, you know, like, I think, I think that is, it's the, the idea of Donald Trump is, this is how I would live if I had this much money, right? And I think he undercuts that. I actually, like, I think this is actually really bad for him. I think he really undercuts it when he says, I live like this, but you have to be poor. And I don't, I don't think that works for him. I feel like this will, I feel like this will actually undercut his basic appeal to that core demo. just add two things in that. One is I'm not totally sure Trump understood what happened after the 20s or 1929. So it's totally fair that he could throw a Gatsby party. Two is I think yes to both of you. Like that is his appeal. But remember, the context of the Gatsby party wasn't just that they had this ostentatious party with half-dressed women in big martini glasses and all. It was that they were doing this at the same time that they were debating cutting food stamps. Okay. That's that's a whole other level. That's, that's, that's, That's different than look at me. I don't give a fuck.

You can become rich in as offensive as I am in my America. It's, hey, I'm going to live it up. And I'm not going to let you live at all. It's like I'm not going to let you eat. And I think I have to imagine that even as someone who is as creative and dexterous as Trump is at politics, that's a tough one. I just don't think I agree. Let me explain why. Maybe I can convince you.

I don't think Trump's appeal has ever been. bin, I'm going to make you rich. So when Trump has his rallies down in the panhandle, and there are a bunch of swamp trash people there, you know, with all of their great dental hygiene and whatnot, I don't think Trump's appeal to them is, don't worry, you're going to get rich and have gold faucets too. No, his appeal is, I'm so rich, and I'm going to rub it in the face of all those people that you hate.

I'm richer than all of those people at the New York Times with their, like, oh, sure, they drive a BMW. I have a jet. And I'm going to use all of this to hurt the people that you hate. And that's what they were there for. And I don't think any of that has changed. We'll agree to disagree. I think he's, I think his stick is America is going to be so damn wealthy again. We're going to win so much.

I'm going to cut your energy costs by so much. We're going to, we're so hot that you're going to best. me to stop, but I won't stop because I'm so good at this job. So I think there is some element of like, look, I've done it. I'm rich. I'm wealthy. These guys want all the wealth themselves. Let me make everybody wealthy.

And that's obviously all bullshit, right? No. But I disagree with you. I'm going to leave it at that. Sonny, did I convince you at all or no? I think there's definitely an element of that. You know, he is, there is a, there is a Ted DiBiase quality to him. If we can bring it back to the wrestling.

He is the million dollar man. and he's, you know, Sam, it's very key wrestling figure in the late 80s, early 90s. But I do, but I do think that there is also an element of, there is an aspirational element to Donald Trump that I do think him being like, you can't have these things undercuts somewhat. I do, I'm not saying that he is necessarily, again, a Reagan-ask of Rising Tide lifts all boats type figure, but he is definitely, I think he has always positioned himself as, yes, I'm rich and also other people can be rich. You, I will, you know, it's not necessarily I will teach you the secrets, but it definitely

there's, there's an element of that there. I think, I don't know, maybe not. Yeah. The austerity stuff, I think, hurts him a little more than the gilded lifestyle stuff. Oh, yeah. Totally. One hundred percent. Final question.

If, as the market seems to believe, the Supreme Court is going to save Donald Trump from himself with tariffs, does Trump then just? declare victory, or do you think he then decides he has to try another emergency gambit, an emergency declaration declaration, or he's going to force House Republicans to vote on tariffs or something? What do you think? I just go by what Catherine Rampel tells me, and she says they're going to just try to do some sort of work around, different authorities, try to get those tariffs back in place. It would, it would be fitting for him to just say, no, fuck you. I'm going to try it another way.

Although he would be handed such a gift. Could you imagine? It would be an incredible stimulus. It's like getting $37 all at once. And yet the- All the pencil suddenly in your lap. No, I think, again, he believes in one thing, right? Tariffs, walls.

He believes in walls that can also be tariffs. And like that, I think he will 100% push to reinstate it through some authority. I don't know, you know, statutory or whatever. It could be a Christmas. Yeah. Miracle. I don't know. I honestly don't know. I could see it going a bunch of different ways. Again, he could just declare victory because one of his moves is starting fires and then putting them out and taking credit for. This is what he's done with the farmer bailout. So, you know, he's given. And now look how rich all these farmers are because of me. And it's like, well, they got, they needed a bailout because of you. And that's a move that has worked for him over and over and over in the American. can people reward him for it constantly so why wouldn't he keep doing it i don't know and he has gotten a lot of what he wanted from tariffs which was all the ring kissing from american businesses right tim apple came and gave him the golden apple and all the you know Rolex went and gave him the

special gold bars and well that's a reason for him to keep using them right is that he views them as a leverage point to yeah companies and countries yeah that's right well guys this was a just a heck of a journey we've been on together. Hide your pencils. Hide your pencils before the government comes and confiscates them. Pencil hordes. That's what I'm just going to find my kids 10,000 pencils for Christmas. This is the last one. This is the last good Christmas. Hey, hit like, hit subscribe, follow us here on the feed for more upbeat and lively conversation, just like this about all the wonderful things that are happening in Donald Trump's America. Good luck.

Thank you.