Bulwark Takes - Trump Folds the Second Mamdani Walks In–Plus a Sam & Sarah Q&A!

Episode Date: November 22, 2025

Sarah Longwell and Sam Stein take on Donald Trump's surprisingly friendly meeting with Zohran Mamdani, with Trump praising the future mayor of NYC and Mamdani calling him a fascist to his face. Plus, Sarah and Sam answer your mailbag questions on the future of the Bulwark, Sam's non-traditional management style, and Sarah's possible future run for office.

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It was Zoran Mamdani in the Oval Office with Donald Trump and an actual love fest broke out. We'll get to that in a second. But about like 10 minutes into this discussion, we're going to stop. We're going to pause it. And then we're going to do a Q&A, which is basically I'm going to grab some mailbag questions for Sarah. And she's going to grab some mailbag questions for me. That's only for people who are paid subscribers to the bulwark, either YouTube subscribers or substack.

so look grab a subscription it's worth it uh it's a great investment a lot of fun that happens you get a chance to post questions to either of us all right sir let's talk about zaron uh he goes into the oval office everyone's portraying it as a great socialist beat down to come trump gets in there and showers him with praise the just was this guy's not so bad i could lie i could actually live in new york city under him i think he's going to do great work would you feel comfortable living in New York City under a Mammondon administration? Yeah, I would. I really would, especially after the meeting. Absolutely. I really think there's a chance to do a great job. We're going to help him,

but I really think there's a chance to do a great job. You know, we actually do have a lot in common. At one point, they said, Zara and Mamm, do you stand by calling Trump a fascist? And Trump just interjects and says, you can call me a fascist. It's easier to just dispel with the question that way. Are you affirming that you think President Trump is a fascist? I've spoken about... That's okay. You can just say, yes.

Okay. It's easier. It's easier than explaining it. I thought this was going to happen, but I didn't think it was going to happen to this degree. What do you make of it? You know, there's a couple things. One, you often hear from people that Trump in person is very charming. Yes.

Which I'm always like... Have you never met him in person? Why would I have met him in person? No, I've met him in person. I don't know, crossing paths once upon a time. I'm in a green room or something? What kind of life do you think I lead? No, I was never, the closest I've come to proximity to Trump is my proximity to Tim Miller as he was shouting at Trump.

Your tie was made in China back sometime in 2016. No, I've never met him. I have met, but I, of course, no, I was actually when I was at Dick Cheney's funeral yesterday, one of the newscasters was recounting a story about being in the Oval Office with Trump and taking their family in and how Trump is so charming in those situations. And I just, for me, Trump is so repellent. But he also, this is it. When people talk about skilled politician, sometimes what they mean is just sort of like, how do they make you feel when you're with them? And Trump is an ingratiating type of person.

That is what he does to people. He is, I think, you know, I think he's a despicable human who knows how to turn on the charm in certain situations. But part of it, too, is what happens when you're such a coward that you only, talk shit behind people's backs, which is what he does, right? He will tweet horrible things about the Democrats, but when they're sitting right in front of him, he's, oh, no, no. And it might be why he's like so nice to the dictators, right? It's like, as long as you're nice to him, he will be nice back to you. Did you chop somebody up with a bone saw? Are you a mass murderer? Trump is just,

he's looking for your best qualities. And your best quality is, do you like him? And it sounds like Momdani was also solicitous of Trump's approval in this meeting. Well, this is what this is so two things. One is I completely agree with you. There's this kind of false narrative that Trump can like corner you in the Oval Office and diminish you and like brabby, you know. People, and it's all, it's mostly based on the Zelensky meeting. People forget that that meeting was actually going fine until it was J.D. Vance who stirred the pot and he got everything going. And then after it started billing, Trump jumped in.

and said, you know, you don't have any of the card, but Trump, you know, it wasn't actually that cantankerous meeting up until that point. Secondarily is, while Trump is incredibly charming in person, and I have met him once or twice, and I remember once where he found him charming? Look, he came up to me.

This is pre-presidency. We are in the green room. He came up to me, and he throws it on thick. He was like, I watch you on TV. You're so great. You know, you're a little hard on me. Maybe take it a little easier. It's like you feel all insides.

sidery and chummy with the guy and you're like wait a second this dude's been talking about Mexicans being rapists you know it's like it's very there's something out of body about it while he is a charmer he's also very susceptible to charm and i think it's very obvious that mom donnie came in with quite aware of that because he kept saying and he thinks you know i talked to all these voters in new york who voted for trump back in the day and they you know this is why because he was so focused on cost of living and he ends these end list wars and we don't want what's going on in Gaza that happened. And Trump agrees with it means. Like, you know, it's very easy to figure out how to get on Trump's good side, right?

You just flatter him. And I think that's what Mom Dani did. Yeah, I mean, I wonder to the extent that people, so first of all, I've got to say, I struggle with this. I understand Mom Dani's incentives. And I wonder how people, because the vast majority of the people who like Mom Dani like him in part because they see him as kind of an anti-Trump or somebody who might take Trump on. They don't want him cozying up to Trump. But this sort of, Momdani, now as the mayor of New York, knows that it is better for him to get along and go along with Trump. It's better not to have the president of the United States, I don't know, sending the National Guard in and calling you a socialist every five minutes. Holding back resources, yeah.

And so, you know, this one's a little tough for me because on one hand, strategically, I see a lot of reasons why this is smart for Mumdani to do. Like, it makes his life a ton easier, but it also makes Republicans' lives harder to not have Mumdani as, like, they want to make him into the face of the Democratic Party to be able to crap on his policies constantly and say, see, look at these Democrats, they elects socialists, and that's why you shouldn't vote for them. scare people with him. So Trump buddying up with him was probably very annoying for Trump and his people. Like, Mom Donnie probably- You know who it's super annoying for? Elise Stefanik. He was going to portray Mom Donnie as a socialist scrooge who's going to screw over New York. And Trump was asked about that. He's like, I forget what it was. It was like, at leastophonic has said this guy is like, you know, the devil incarnate. And Trump turns to the camera and he's like, I don't see it. Like, she seems like a good guy to me. She's a very capable person.

But you really have to ask her about that, but I don't particularly, I think I met with a very, I met with a man who's a very rational person. I met with a man who really wants to see New York be great again. And I can say again, because New York was great. And it's like, oh, man, you just took the entire plank out of Stefanix gubernatorial run. Yeah, but on the other hand. Okay, what's the other hand? The other hand is Momdani calling him a fascist and meaning it because it works the other way too. where if it's like when Obama at, I forget where they were that Obama was being really chummy

with Trump after he was re-elected. It was one of the funerals. Ultimately what happens is this is like you provide cover for Trump too with people. They say, well, he can't be, can't call him a fascist if you're just buddy, buddy with him. Like, that's not how you treat a fascist. And so this is how Trump gets normalized. And it's always like this. It's like people making short-term trade-offs for their own sort of political benefit to make things easier or to say it's better for my constituents. This is a Gretchen Whitmer thing, right? They're like, I got to get something from him, right? But ultimately, then what it does is it causes voters to be like, they're overreacting. Lots of people think he's fine. Right. If you thought he was an existential threat, why would you, you know, give him covering cozy up and meet him in the Oval? Right. Which is another reason why, Trump had him in there. Trump's getting killed on the economy. Trump's getting killed on

affordability. Trump feels like he's losing his Riz on lowering prices. And so he's like, well, how about I get this socialist in here? And I like, you know, chew up some of his Riz on this. Well, I'm just, I'm going to ignore your repeated use of the word Riz. And we'll move on. Am I using it right? I think I don't know. What do I know? I get it. I don't think there's an easy answer to this one because if you're going to meet with Trump and your mom, Dynie, I think now is the time to do it, right? You're at your peak. You don't go there when you burn capital and you're not actually ascendant and you're not very popular. You go there right now. You get in good and then you kind of buy yourself a little time with the feds.

So I get why he did that. And I also get what you're saying. It's like, you know, you've sat, you've now stood next to the guy and he's chummy and you're chummy and he looks normal and he's talking nice about you and you're smiling. It's like presents his visual where it's like, you know, yeah, Trump is just actually, and we should add JVL in here, Trump is just actually a fake wrestler. Yeah, K-fabe, right? This is K-fabe. Yeah.

It's all just an act. Yeah. And Jonathan Mariner, Politico had the tweet about this. He's like, he is essentially like, this is sweet. This would be like if one of the characters in WWF match stops the fight, grabs the mic and explains to the crowd that, no, it's not real blood. Like, that's what this is. Right.

It's like, ah, this fascist thing. Yeah, don't know. He can call me that. Yeah, he is his one boy, he's like. he called you a despot and Trump's like I've been called worse you know it's like and so yeah it is a little bit of cape and it is obviously that's that's the message that's being portrayed and yet I still I think I still come down on the side that he should have done it and that you get Trump off your back your early mayoral ship is like like that this next six months for mondani is so

critical right and you can't be spending it begging the feds for resources and face you know facing off with ice and you know having all do all this other shit when you need to show progress. And I think he bought himself some time. And I think it's probably worth it. Yeah. I probably lean the other side of that. I mean, I recognize the practical implications. And he has different responsibilities. That being said, every time an elected official, call him a fascist, say they're a threat to democracy, talk about the damage he's doing in like high existential language, and then run off to see him. It creates the sense that it is all political K-Fabe. to voters. And then when they are told at election time, well, you can't elect this guy. He's a

fascist. And they're like, well, but maybe he's the one who's going to lower prices. And nobody really seems to believe he's a fascist. And so I think that probably net net, and I just think net net, it ends up doing more damage. But it does solve some of the bespoke political concerns of each person. But overall, it contributes to the reasons why Trump has been normalized in our culture and society. okay all right we're going to switch it up here for those who have been watching and enjoying this now is your chance get a subscription subscribe to us on youtube subscribe to us and sub-sac we're going to paywall this video so that anyone who's not a subscriber can't see what's coming up which is a great mailbag where sarah and i are going to take your questions do our best to

answer them and continue drinking