Bulwark Takes - Sen. Warner: Trump’s Firing Spree Looks Like Watergate!

Episode Date: September 22, 2025

Trump is firing U.S. attorneys for refusing to target his political enemies, floating a return to Afghanistan, and threatening a shutdown that could devastate health care and jobs. Sen. Mark Warner joins Sam Stein to break down the national security risks, from MAGA billionaires eyeing TikTok’s algorithm to the growing chaos inside America’s intelligence community. Get 30% off your order with Soul at https://GetSoul.com with promo code BULWARKTAKES.

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Eric Seibert, and the reason he did so explicitly, as I understand it, well, explicitly, period, was that Seibert was not going after Letitia James, who had brought charges against Donald Trump, obviously, in Trump's time out of office. Senator, what is happening in your state? I mean, it's, it's, it's, well, Let me take two minutes and just, I know everybody follows the ballworkers all, follows all the process stuff. But the way we do U.S. attorneys, and we did this under Biden, under Trump, under Obama, Tim Kaine and I, we have a bipartisan group, and they take anybody that wants to apply to a U.S. attorney. They review them, and then we interview three to five, and we know when there's a Republican president, you know, we've got to pick people with good Republican credentials.

We still want them to follow the law, but we recognize the president's got a right to pick who he wants. He doesn't have to pick the people we suggest. So starting with the Western District of Virginia, the other, we'll come to East District in a second. Western District, we picked two great names. Trump White House said these are great. Matter of fact, one was the Republican Speaker of our State House. He was the guy who was picked. He was in for about a couple months, and all of a sudden we get this call.

he's getting forced out supposedly because he wouldn't do what the Justice Department asked on moving things around. So I think following law, Eastern District of Virginia. And Eastern District of Virginia, again, for non-legal vehicle types, you know, it's the freaking number one or number two most important U.S. attorney in the country. This is the office that does all the counter-terrorists, does all the counter-espionage, you know, a lot of the cyber security. So again, we go through this process. We come up with two folks to recommend. Trump Whitehouse said, great, great, great. A point, Eric Sievert, he's the acting going in.

And then, you know, at least the first time I heard was last Thursday where they're saying, oh, my gosh, they're going to push him out as well because he's not bringing a case against one of Trump's political enemies. And it's like, holy Christ. I mean, you know, the one thing I did feel, Tim and I, Tim Kaine and I both talked about it, you know, the one thing we asked both of all of the candidates, you know, you're going to work for President Trump. That's fine.

But at the end of the day, you've got to follow the law. And it appears to me that at least on character basis, we made pretty darn good choices. Yeah, I mean, it's not, what's interesting about this, I suppose, is that there's not even any subtlety to it. They're pretty explicit that Sabreter is getting axed because, or was acts, I should say, because he was not bringing charges against Letitia James over mortgage fraud, allegations of. I'm curious, are you, have you, were you given any heads up that this was coming? Did the Trump administration ever say, hey, we're thinking of doing this,

or was this all discovered vis-a-vis? Yeah, first I heard with Thursday. I need to check with my staff to see if they heard any rumblings. And, you know, went from Thursday, and it felt like there were a lot of people that were trying to protect, you know, Eric, in the Justice Department. And so, you know, Thursday, we said, holy crap, what's going? And then we said, well, wait, well, maybe he may be able to be saved. But to your point, you know, I'm old enough to remember Richard Nixon. At least Nixon tried to do this stuff late at night and hide it. The fact that Trump is now, you know, blasting his U.S. attorney for not bringing a case.

and then blasting his attorney general. Yes, that was the weird part. It was the post where he said, Pam, we got to get this moving. Actually, the real historical parallel here, for me at least, is the Bush era, 2006 U.S. Attorney Saga. I was talking about with a colleague here,

where, you know, for the Bush administration, if people forget, fired a number of U.S. attorneys. It's within their right to do. I mean, no one, I don't think you're disputing the president. But it was because it seemed like it was being done by political or for political means that it became a scandal for the Bush administration.

Trump's not even hiding the ball on that. Didn't the attorney general then end up having to resign? That is correct. Yes. But Trump's not even bothering to hide the ball in this case. He's basically saying, yes, it is because of political means. And Sam, that's the part where I've had people say, well, what are your Republican friends? I'm hoping that Grassley will stay with the blue slips and keep the process.

But frankly, on this one, if. lawyers across the country, if the judiciary across the country, if people who believe in a rule of law, aren't saying, hold it. This is not just one more, oh, there he goes again, but this is plain old, you go after my political opponents and to heck whether there's any evidence, bring a case regardless. If that becomes the new norm, we're more screwed than we think we are. Bullwork takes is sponsored by Seoul. I still love a good night out, but I'm not always in the mood to drink. And luckily, I found a great alternative. Sol's out-of-office gummies. They give me that same light, happy buzz without the hangover, sugar, or awkward next morning. I've been taking these,

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Right now, Soul is offering our audience 30% off your entire order. 30% off. Can't beat that. Go to getsole.com and use the code, bulwark takes. That's getsold.com promo code bullwork takes for 30% off. I haven't seen that sort of institutional outrage. Obviously from the Hitler's been outrage, but the American Bar Association, I'm not sure if I've seen anything from them. You know, there's the normal lawyers who expect, you know, who are out there publicly standing up for this stuff. But are you, what's your take on sort

of the institutional response to this? You know, so far, um, Not much, you know, I guess we could do what this all happened on Friday afternoon, the normal, you know, dump news time, it's Monday now, Monday afternoon. If everybody rolls over and just says, oh, there he goes again, then, you know, when evidence is brought, and if it's not against a political enemy, it could be against a broadcaster or a podcaster or a politician. and we don't say, well, until they come from me, it's just okay. And the thing that has blown my mind the most, mostly around national security, because the irony of this was, I was doing a bunch of stuff Thursday and Friday pointing out the politicization of the intelligence community that also want to scare the academy.

But there have been so many times in these last eight months where I thought, okay, this will be the thing, where our Republican friends, when I love our country, every bit as much, they're going to finally say, no mas, this is enough. And we blow through these events

and then they start aggregating. And then I think people feel, I don't know what they feel, unless they feel. It becomes the new norm, right? I mean, you start to feel like, okay,

that's just the baseline. I'm a little confused about one other element. Then I actually do want to talk about some national security stuff with you. There was reports over the week, in that Pam Bondi was going to nominate or appoint, I should say, Mary, Maggie, Cleary for this role. But it turns out to not be the case. And it is, in fact, Stacey Halligan. And I, or sorry, Lindsay Halligan, I should say. Do you have any insight into what's going on here?

And again, I don't want to, Ms. Cleary, we had interviewed at one point. I think she may be at least temporary. I don't know for a fact. But the fact that, they're nominating the other young attorney. And I'm not going to speak about her because I don't know her yet. I want to see her record. My understanding is, at least from what's been press report, is that, you know, she did insurance law, didn't do prosecution. But I got to tell you this, that Eastern District of Virginia, maybe with the exceptionally of the Southern District of New York, but number one or number two, most important U.S. attorney. This is not a place for on-the-job train. This is a place where we've got to have a prosecutor that knows how to go after terrorists,

knows how to go after spies, understands technology, because this does a lot of the cyber docket. And again, if the president's going to, Mom, I don't take a look at it, but it would also seem to me that the president is going to kind of blow off then what has been the tradition for decades and decades that senators from the state at least get to recommend names, and then the president can choose them or not. Right. Well, she, so Halligan, well, if she does take the job will serve in an interim basis at some point that runs out. I think it's like 120 days or so. Do you expect at that point that the president will, in fact, have to go back to the Senate and that because Chuck Grassley has stood by the blue slips process that you and

Senator Kane will in fact have some say, or do you just imagine that it's done? I don't know. I mean, I hope so. I'm not sure I should actually tell the president that, you know, because we work well. So you know what? Here we hear me out on this. I don't, well, that's what did in Eric Seiber, right? And judges that we nominated in his first term. Right. And if he says, oh, my God, Warner and Kane, their sleeves balls and nice and awful people. You know, I don't know whether, does he know that we actually, there's our judges that were Trump appointees that we recommended that he thought were great?

Just to get the viewer to understand this, it's specifically because, I mean, he referenced the fact that you and Tim Kane recommended or a, appreciated cyber as a reason to fire the guy. He said, well, you know, if they have the backing of Warner and Kane, ergo, they must be bad, he must be a bad guy. And so, yes, you have this perverse incentive to not throw your support behind people you like. Let's talk quickly about some other issues, the national security stuff. There's some preliminary reports about this TikTok sale that has come to fruition. We're going to get an actual announcement, apparently later in this week. some confusing details to me about whether or not the Chinese government will still have the ability to sort of decide the algorithm. What's your understanding of the contours of this

deal? Have you been, as someone who's high up in the Intelligence Committee, have you been briefed about any of this? No, I have not been briefed at all. You know, and again, irony of ironies. It was Donald Trump and then Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin back in like 2019 that first convinced. Minnuchin and I were friends and it was Mark, this is really bad news. And I looked into it and then 80% of the Congress said, yeah, this could be a real propaganda tool for the Communist Party. And Trump led the charge. And then I'm going to reserve judgment until I look at the deal. But at the end of the day, the challenge can be, can we make sure that the algorithm, which is so good at figuring out what we like before we know what we

like, whether that has some American control over. That's really critical. Well, but I mean, the flip side of the is that there's real concern among people who are very concerned already about media consolidation that the people who would essentially get granted control of the algorithm in light of this deal would be Trump-friendly magabillionaires, Oracle, and then Trump briefly mentioned the Murdox, among other people who potentially have this. I mean, media consolidation now is becoming paramount issue for Democratic voters, too. I would have again thought having an FCC commissioner threaten public broadcasting licenses.

And, again, a lot of things I don't agree with Ted Cruz. I give Ted Cruz credit for at least speaking up on that. Yeah. Two more questions for you. Boggram Air Force Base. Donald Trump has now said he, I think, wants to reacquire it. There's reports about talks with the Taliban. Obviously, going back in would require an incredible footprint for American personnel, I imagine, if you want to at least protect the base.

I ask, again, have you have any insight into what's going on here? No, I remember Donald Trump was going to end the war in Ukraine and Russia. If anything, it's gotten worse because Russians are flying through Estonia, sending drones in Nepal. And you're going to end the war in Gaza. It's obviously worse. and, you know, B.B. Nettinghouse's government thumbing his nose at Trump in terms of bombing our ally cutter. And now this idea, you know, that he's going to put American forces back in Afghanistan, you know, for everybody who supported President Trump, is this really the kind of national security war-ending guy you thought you were hired? All right. Last question for you. We're facing a shutdown in a matter of, like, a,

Week and a half. Virginia, as you obviously know, tons of jobs with the federal government. Everyone's sort of looking at you to get a temperature or read on the temperatures of the Senate Democrats. Where do you stand on the shutdown right now? Listen, Virginia's already gotten doge. We've lost hundreds of thousands of positions. But what I hear is people also are terrified about losing health care. And, you know, I don't care whether you buy your health care through the Obamacare marketplace or get it elsewhere. We take away those premiums and everybody's rates are going to go up. And the idea, well, we can talk about that later, but only the rates are going out right now in October 1 in Virginia.

So all we're saying is Trump, sit down with the Democrats, see if we can cut a deal. You know, you're supposed to be the world's greatest dealmaker. Let's not do further damage to health care. and let's not do further damage to our government. This is, I think there was a deal to be done. But you've got to have two at the table. And if Donald Trump is the ultimate dealmaker, why should he be afraid to sit down with a couple of Democrats?

And we'll see if he takes you up on that offer. Look, I was going to ask you to make a tune amount on this, but your staff forbid you. That's way too classified, you know. For that for another version, I'll give you, the secret is heavy on the mail. Oh, I think. that's what's the TikTok algorithm is going to be rejiggered to make sure that it's only

videos of your tuna melt making prowess from here on out, okay? Senator Warner, thank you so much. Take care. Take care. Thank you.