Bulwark Takes - Trump Spent the Holidays Yelling at the TV

Episode Date: December 24, 2025

While most Americans were with family, Trump spent the night before Christmas Eve rage-posting threats at TV networks he doesn’t like. Tim Miller was on MS NOW Reports to disuss. Watch MS NOW Reports: https://www.ms.now

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please contact Connix Ontario at 1866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario. Hey, everybody. It's Tim Miller. Merry Christmas Eve to all of you. I hope it is a merry one in your house. It is here in New Orleans. I don't think it's quite as married down in Mara Lago. I hope you don't have anyone in your life behaving like the president of these United States on this holy holiday. The president was up late last night around midnight, hate tweeting the television. That's true. That's what's happening. So I don't know what you're doing. I was around my friends at Tipitinas. We were, I was having a Christmas spectacular with a bunch of New Orleans musicians. It was wonderful. I'm here this morning with my in-laws. Life is good. I've not been shit posting at all. I was up on MS now. We're going to play a little bit from that clip for you here in a second. That feels normal. That feels like. Something that regular people who are not deranged do, people with families and loved ones. You know, maybe we'll cook a little meal down there today. Who knows? Go to the park.

That's not what the president is up to. The president, I don't know. I guess maybe Melania goes to bed. He doesn't even drink. You'd think that this was drunk posting. He doesn't even drink. He just is so barren and soulless that he cannot find community or validation from any other way besides bleeding about how much he hates the stories on the TV. He doesn't like that people are saying mean things about him on the TV, and he is up at midnight on Christmas Eve posting about how terrible all the people on.

the TVR. So I want to read for you a couple of these just, you know, because I assume you're enjoying yourself, you know, you're with your family. Maybe you're taking a little break from right now to talk to listen to me, but mostly you're not, you're not scroll and truth social, right? So let me give you a little read. If network newscasts and their late night shows are almost 100% negative to President Donald J. Trump, MAGA, and the Republican Party shouldn't their very valuable broadcast licenses be terminated? I say yes. So that's his Christmas Eve message at midnight to the American people is that he's thinking about terminating

the broadcast licenses of the network television stations. If we thought he was serious about that, that would be a Soviet-esque statement from the president. I remember all those free speech warriors had to be for President Trump because it's the golden age,

to create the golden age of free speech, said Mark Zuckerberg. We were so offended that Biden had some mid-level staffers telling asking us to take down COVID misinformation that we have to go for Trump because he is for free free speech. Well, here he is threatening to shut down the broadcast stations. Now, I assume most of those people say, well, that's not real. That's just bluster.

So that's the best spin we have is that a totally deluded and deranged president of the United States is up at midnight issuing false threats to shut down television stations. That's the best spin we've got for Donald on that one. he continues though it wasn't just one and maybe you can allow somebody one off you know blowing off little steam you know after after you had your pecan pie

no not Trump he kept going he asked this rhetorical question who has the worst late night host CBS ABC or NBC they all have three things in common high salaries no talent really low ratings all caps all caps

cares deeply about network television ratings, the president of the United States. That's what he's worried about. You know, a lot of things happening in the country. For some people, Christmas Eve's a tough time, you know, lost a loved one, struggling financially. You're not going to have the kind of present under the tree. They wish they could have. They may have the work on Christmas Eve, which is tough. We appreciate all people out there working, serving us food, doing the last second Amazon deliveries from some of us late shoppers. Like, you know, we've got troops mobilizing around Venezuela and other places.

We're doing deportations still. Like, there's very serious things afoot on Christmas Eve. People in the country have things that are really worried about. What the president's word is commenting on is the low ratings of the network TV late night hosts and how they have no talent. That would be bad enough, but he's also issuing threats to them. I, you know, there's the, the first post, which was, who knows they're all bad. And then I guess he decided, he kind of, he's riling himself up a little bit.

He decided that Stephen Colbert is the one that he wanted to call out in particular. Stephen Colbert is a pathetic train wreck with no talent or anything else necessary for show business success. Now, after being terminated by CBS, but left out to dry, he has gotten worse along with his non-existent rating. Stephen is running on hatred in fumes. That seems like projection to me. He writes, Stephen is a dead man walking. CBS should put him to sleep now.

That's the humanitarian thing to do. I mean, again, taking it at face value, the President of the United States is putting a target on a late-night TV host and suggesting that he should be put down now. You can say that, okay, well, that's easier to be a metaphor. He's saying CBS should cancel him. So the better spin would be not that President Trump wants to kill Stephen Colbert, but that he wants to dictate. to a private TV network what they should do with their late-night hosts. They already tried that once with Kimmel. He wants to do that, I think, also in the context of that network, the owners of that network,

wanting to get approved for a merger where they would purchase another network, CNN. And so, you know, it's bullying. It's presidential bullying as well. And then I guess, again, someone would be the early. tweet that maybe the best possible thing you could say about this is that it's all just fake and that the leader of the free world, the commander in chief, the most powerful person in the world just like stays up at midnight on Christmas Eve and issues empty threats at television commentators because like he's he's cuckoo because he's just a delusional like obsessive you know

poster. He can't control himself. He can't stop from posting about how he hates people and he can't help himself but threaten them even if there's no actual real umph behind it. Like that's the best case scenario that not that he's abusing his power like a fascist dictator, but that he's just like a crank, a diluted crank. I mean, like literally. I mean, look at this. What is this the principal of your school? I'm thinking about that. Like I woke up this morning. And there's a little text chain with the, it's mostly moms. Let's just be honest. But it's the mom's chain. We're texting. And they're like, you seen what the head of school posted last night? She was up all night posting about how she wants Stephen Colbert to be put to sleep now. And she doesn't like the network news anchors or the late night hosts.

And she thinks that they're terrible. It's posting them all snaps about how they have really low ratings and how they should be terminated. people would be like you might need to call the board in here I might need to call the 25th amendment for the school principal if they're posting at midnight on Christmas Eve I mean I guess it was technically

the 23rd into Christmas Eve you know random threats at the people that they're watching on TV I mean so it'd be one thing it's like we should monitor this at least if this is a repeat behavior this is not something this is not someone we can entrust with our child's

education. That is, I'm certain what would happen. And here it is, the President of the United States just popping off. So, there you go. Late Night Threats is Stephen Colbert. That's what's happening inside Mar-a-Lagger. He's not worried about you. He is worried about TV ratings and making threats to broadcasters before he involves

himself in essential merger and tries to pressure new owners to be more favorable to him. Truly bleak stuff, truly bleak stuff. Part of the reason why I might be doing this, though, which I get into in this clip, I mentioned just got off MS now, is that the economy is rough for him right now. I mean, they're like really holding on to this one GDP report, but signs throughout the rest of the economy are pretty bleak. This is the kind of thing you do when you don't have a good story to tell on the thing that you put yourself into the office on, right? Like you you sold yourself as the whatever the I'm the you're fired guy the apprentice the fixer I'm going to fix the economy sleepy Joe Biden's ruining everything and then it isn't it's worse economy's worse objectively across every metric and it's been a year now it's the holidays your home you're trying to think about it you're sitting around in your golf course mansion um ignoring your wife and children and family and rage posting about the television and you're doing that because you don't have a good story to tell about the economy and

you know that people are upset. So there you go. A little bit more, some more analysis, more political analysis on what we've learned from the econ numbers coming up next. Stick around for that. Enjoy your family. Don't be Donald Trump this Christmas. You know, go go find, talk to a neighbor, talk to a cousin, talk to a nephew, a grandchild, hang out with them, learn about them, you know, reminisce about Christmases of your that seems better than rage posting of the TV. That'd be my recommendation to you. All right, everybody, we'll be seeing you soon.

Subscribe to the feed. Tim, I'll go first to you, talk about the Commerce Secretary. They're trying to use the recent good economic news as a way that would translate directly to Americans, but economists say that's not accurate. It sort of feels like the continuing thread of even the president's own address last week where he said a lot of things that on their face would just be fine.

If only he could give the accurate depiction of what they were. Yeah, hey there, Merry Christmas Eve to everybody. Look, you don't have to rely on economists to know that this isn't resonating with the American people. It's what all the American people are saying in polls. I mean, polls are showing that people are feeling less secure about their own finances, showing that they don't approve of the president's handling of the economy, or upset about

how inflation has stayed stubbornly high. And, you know, the actual jobs numbers themselves. themselves are not showing a lot of job growth. We've seen pretty much stagnant job growth over the last quarter in the country. So that is what's happening out there. The GDP numbers are not a little bit of an outlier. We are seeing some growth in certain sectors, healthcare and AI. But that's not reflective of what people are thinking the entire economy.

And this is one way where this administration, which is so unusual and abnormal in their messaging in so many ways, this is like a very typical president problem they're running into. which is that the economy, the people don't think the economy's good and they want to take credit for it and they're struggling with how to message it. I mean, it's not that different really than Biden dealing with high inflation and trying to define it as Bidenomics and that not resonating with people. Like, this just isn't working. If you're the president, people aren't happy about the economy.

You're shouting at them and telling them that the economy is good is not going to help your political standard. As we go into a midterm election year, are Democrats picking up that mantle? It feels like they've got openings on affordability, on trust, are they taking it? Well, I think in the second half of this year, the Democrats did a lot better than the first half

of picking up that mantle. And I think making the decision, which was a fraught decision when there's a lot of disagreement within the party to focus the shutdown fight on health care, affordability, and rising health care prices in retrospect, it looks like a smart move because it kind of demonstrated that the party was focused on people's concerns with rising prices.

So I think that's something that they have to carry into next year. Also, midterm years are different than presidential years. You know, like people that you kind of a cliche in politics is that, you know, if you're a party, you can't just tell people what you're against. You've got to tell people what you're for. That's not really true, kind of, in midterm years at the congressional and Senate level. You can get away with telling people what you're against a lot of time. We've seen a lot of midterm waves based on people's unhappiness with the incumbent party.

And so I think that if the Democrats continue their focus, on that. That could work in 2026, but, you know, it would be a greater challenge and a different challenge in 2028 to demonstrate that they have actual solutions to people's problems.