Bulwark Takes - The Fox-Trump White House Merger Is Complete

Episode Date: May 6, 2025

Sam Stein and Tim Miller talk about how Fox News has become an extension of the Trump White House, with cabinet members flooding the network to win Trump's approval or to spread propaganda? The lines are blurring between media and government.

Hey guys, it's me, Sam Stein, Managing Editor at The Bulwark. I'm joined by my pal, Tim Miller, and we are going to be talking about the marriage between Fox News and the Trump White House, a marriage that goes way deeper than even I suspected. Before we get into that- Yes, this is much worse than, well, I don't want to call it worse. It's much deeper than I suspected. Before we get into that, subscribe to the feed. Thank you very much.

All right, I'm just going to read. This was in Playbook. Kudos to them for this. I'm going to read what happened yesterday. Actually, sorry. I'm going to read what happened Monday afternoon in terms of the cabinet and top officials who appeared on Fox News. And then we're going to play two of these clips. Okay. Howard Lutnick was one of six cabinet members appearing live on Fox News between the hours of 4 p.m. and 10 p.m.

So that's six cabinet members in a six-hour window, along with Attorney General Pam Bondi, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Education Secretary Linda McMahon, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. On top of that, Fox News interviews with two of the White House's most powerful aides, Stephen Miller and Karen Leavitt, and part two of an interview with Doge's Elon Musk. So that's nine people on Fox primetime in one evening. That's crazy. That's crazy. I mean, were they holding the people in power to account? Yes, of course. That's exactly.

I don't know, man. I don't know how much deeper the marriage could be that would surprise me. Like if you had told me that Fox has a booker embedded outside of Caroline Levitt's office. They might as well. Like that, I would say, okay, that makes sense to me. Like, I don't know. Or if you told me that like Trump has demanded that one of his flunkies like works out of Suzanne Scott's, the new the new Roger Ailes, work out of Suzanne Scott's office and determine like what scheduling and programming would be for the day. I don't think that would surprise me. Would that would you be shocked if that was a little Vanity Fair item about that? I don't I don't think so. I mean, I mean, I guess in theory, no, but it just seems crazy to me. And it's also because so much of this seems driven by the idea

that these cabinet officials know Trump watches Fox, and they're just kind of like rushing to get real estate in the afternoon hours in hopes that he sees them. Because I'm not totally sure, like, you know, there are other ways to reach viewers or conservatives or to placate the base or to like influence voters if you really were trying to do this this really does seem like they are trying to find ways to impress their boss i think that's part of it i also think it's part of their flood the zone media strategy and i was just

trying to think about this like you know what were some of those secretaries again? Secretary of Education, you said, was in there? Education, HHS, Transportation, Homeland Security, and the Attorney General. HHS, right. I mean, it's like, was Miguel Cardona ever on MSNBC primetime? No. Was Merrick Garland? Did Merrick Garland do more than like three TV appearances in his tenure? And so at some level, like you don't want that, right?

You don't want Merrick Garland becoming a, you know, cable TV pundit partisan warrior. Like that's not you want out of an attorney general. Maybe you do want that. Maybe like I do think it all it is their turn to impress Trump, but it also is part of their worldview about what the cabinet secretaries are, which are not functionaries running a bureaucracy that are like the front people for this part of Trump world. And so it's part of your remit as to be a character. I get that.

But then do it on more than one network, right? Like that's the, if you were a comm comms office you would want to have a little bit more diversity in the networks you think so well you might get some tough questions on some of the other channels so no there are plenty of sycophantic other other media outlets there that you can go i mean i think some of them are doing newsmax and aon i just you're just maybe i'm just not seeing it yeah i i this is how incestuous this whole thing is. I want to play this clip, which was of Sean Duffy talking to Laura Ingraham. Sean Duffy is a former Fox official. He was a Fox contributor.

He's talking to Laura Ingraham, a current Fox host, about issues surrounding Pentagon flights near Reagan Airport. And he kind of throws Peteete hegseff another former fox host under the bus this is important before the clip it is important also we should not have just given short trip to like the idea that like also the booking is really easy because they're all pal they're all right like it is much easier to get booked on a show if you can just text the hosts and send signals. There's no doubt. There's got to be a signal channel.

There's got to be a great White House Fox signal channel going on. If you're there and you know about it, add me to it. Yeah, you've got to find the booker of the other network. You've got to get the process. Where is the studio? Like this isn't an issue, and it's just all of your colleagues. Exactly. Let's play the clip because it's really funny.

They have a mile and a half nautical separation, nautical miles, 500 feet separation as well. They breached that airspace, the helicopter did, and so two airplanes had to go around. The question becomes, who are the VIPs? Is it a two star, three star general? There's a lot of traffic going into the Pentagon. The top brass at the White House, they take a Suburban or a Tesla or they take their own car. Who do these generals think they are that they have to take helicopters to or a Tesla or they take their own car. Who do these generals think they are that they have to take helicopters to go to meetings?

Who was it? I don't know who it was. We should find out. And will the DOD- But what do we ask? I mean, you're the Transportation Secretary. How do you not know? The FAA doesn't know. We asked the DOD.

The DOD has promised radical transparency. They should tell us who is qualified to take a helicopter out of the Pentagon. I don't know. But they have to tell us. Well, could you just call out of the Pentagon. I don't know, but they have to tell us. Well, could you just call up Hegseth? Well, I should actually. Let's call him right now. You call Pete. Okay, I got it. I got the phone. She actually has a phone right by her desk. Yeah, I do. I'm ready for that. But those are the answers that we need. Again, when we have these near misses, you got to stop the traffic. And this is the president, the vice president pete hegseth they

all should fly in helicopters but a two-star i mean come on i have a couple of questions it's amazing i mean at some level i love like the real housewives element of this and it's like you know like they're coming into the confessional and they're like oh i've got a shit talk so and so over there who's so i some of it is that i guess i i also i also think that like they're playing pretend like they're playing a character like what is the point of this like what is the point of doing a laura ingram interview about the faa regulations like who are you trying to reach are you trying to educate people about this oh it's your point buddy that was the point you made they're out there to try to like you know sell their department and sell their i get it but like i understand that talking about other stuff like

he's not he's not talking to aviation magazine right i know but this isn't even political and it'd be one thing if he was out there trying to blame i would get the point of this interview if he was out there being like i don't know who was the fucking biden transportation secretary that would be pete oh yeah pete budajich great mayor pete he was out there trying to be like mayor pete really fucked this up i went through a memo and i saw that mayor i saw that mayor pete was in over his head and he didn't put the right restrictions on i would get that what's the point of otherwise of having an faa nautical miles discussion on laura because she's a fairly well-regarded expert in nautical but no obviously not i don't know because they're petty i'm excited

to see if pete hagseth go which which fox show pete hagseth goes on to respond to sean duffy about the criticism um i couldn't think of mayor peakake because I couldn't get Ray LaHood out of my head. I was like, Ray LaHood. Silver Fox. I love Ray LaHood. I have a soft spot. All right. Last one.

Totally unrelated, but this kind of caught my mind, caught my eye because this is what happens on these shows. And it goes kind of unremarked because there's so much flooding of the zone. But if you actually listen to the substance of this and you step back, you're like, this is a pretty alarming thing for a cabinet official to say. And we wouldn't normally just sort of let it go in normal times. This is Kristi Noem, again on Fox News, making a plea to Pambandi. Whoa. The face is still alarming. I'm sorry. It is'm sorry it's like it's it is uh it's the uncanny valley let it go i can't let it go look at that look at play play clip

let me get your reaction tom homan referring congresswoman aoc uh to the justice department she had a webinar know your rights and as part of it, recommended that illegal immigrants ask for warrants, deploy phones to record ICE searches, tips on how to differentiate between ICE people and others. Is this what you see, and I'm sure you've looked at it, is this aiding and abetting in your view? I think she might be frozen. I think the Department of Justice absolutely should look into this situation. We've seen not just those that serve in public office be willing to break the law to facilitate the invasion that has happened and allow criminals to stay here.

We've also seen judges take radical action to help protect these criminals. It's time that we stand for what's right. The American people are sick of these people abusing our system to try to promote an agenda. And remember, the Democrats are using fear to control people. They're out there motivating people by fear, and they're standing alongside known terrorists in order to endanger our future. So I think it's entirely appropriate that the Department of Justice look into these situations. All right. So you have a cabinet official using Fox News to tell another cabinet official to investigate a Democratic member of Congress

in a predominantly popular one. So just, you know, a casual day. It's kind of like a dark Pinocchio situation. But I am tired of people ab abusing our system i'm not i'm not in the way that she means tired of her uh it is like i mean the fact that they just look it isn't scary in like a real sense that i'm worried that aoc is going to be put in a gulag right but it is just although they did arrest a judge they did so like how how willy-nilly they are, just throwing around this accusation. There was a congresswoman yesterday, Tim, that tweeted out, I want to throw Anthony Fauci onto Alcatraz. He should be the first person.

That's not going to happen. They're not going to make Alcatraz. But it's the willy-nilliness of it. I'm going to let my thought bubbles fart out into Twitter. They're not sounding the best. No, definitely not. All right, man. Appreciate you.

Appreciate you. I watched a lot of Fox for this. Thank you for doing that. The viewers should appreciate me. Thank you for doing that. I only do Fox in hotel rooms. Hotel rooms only rule for me on Fox. It's an interesting place to watch Fox.

All right. Talk to you later, buddy. And thank you guys for watching. Subscribe to the feed. We will be in touch. Bye.