Bulwark Takes - Trump’s 100 Day Rally Goes Off the Rails

Episode Date: April 30, 2025

Jonathan Cohn, Tim Miller, and Sam Stein break down Trump’s 100 day Michigan rally.

Hey guys, it's me, Sam Steyer, Managing Editor for The Borg. I'm joined by Jonathan Cohn, Tim Miller. We're going to be talking about Trump's rally in Macomb County, home of the ancestral Reagan Democrats. Just want to make sure you have to, you're contractually obligated to say that. Before we get to that, subscribe to the feed. We appreciate it. All right. So Trump did his 100-day rally tonight. It was preceded by an event with Michigan's Governor Gretchen whitmer we can talk about that in a little bit because there's some interesting observations i have from that one um but look it was kind of a standard rally honestly it was like the greatest hits talked

about water pressure and how he's fixed that and you know trade and how he's got that under control he went off on jerome powell you know stuff that would normally be crazy but it's pretty standard for trump the thing that stood out for me was he played a film about the mass deportations. It was like this classic porn that he plays for his audience about, you know, immigrants that he's sent to foreign countries. And then a big USA chant broke out among the audience. You can watch it here. all right so tim i know your thoughts in it i have thoughts in it you go first yeah i look at what level there's a reason why cops was on the air for a couple decades

popular that was my thought that was you know we're on a certain age you know we have a certain cultural milieu so you know look i get it i don't like whatever bad things happen to criminals who are rapists uh i'm not I don't exactly have a ton of sympathy for rapists. But, you know, the context of this is pretty tough and pretty ugly. And and this is where I get my my ancestral Reaganism comes out about like what you know, what merits a USA chant? What is the usa actually about and like sending people out of the country to a foreign gulag because the president says they're bad right it's actually about as opposite of a usa thing as you can get i mean like the whole actual point of the usa is that people were able to come here

who are fleeing other countries and so you know and that is a real change i know that you know sometimes they're who knows well cone's a pro prog come up like it was always like this but i was just gonna say it was always like there was a moment at bob the italians they all got you know there was a moment at bob dole rallies at george h you know at george w bush rallies where people cheered for things like you know this is a land of milk and honey and people can come here to achieve their dreams and anything is possible in america like those were applause lines then it's the fact that the inverse is the applause line now is is notable and sad and that's my that's my this was this so my thought on this was again it went back to cops but also sort of that late 80s early 90s genre of tv and relatedly how trump really is a product of new york city right like this is

you know he late 80s early 90s crime in new york city and the rise of giuliani and i think trump was kind of baked in that a little bit and and sort of recognizing that you can be as tough as you want on haitians on immigrants in this under the guise of reducing crime. Yeah, exactly. Just get crime done, and they'll let you get away with pretty much everything. And that was Giuliani. And I think Trump has kind of adopted that mindset. And it's really like it's a classic late 80s, early 90s mindset. I don't know if Cohen has any additional thoughts on that,

but that's what stood out to me is this guy is just like you know playing that hit yeah yeah well you know so so when tim said reagan i don't know my mind immediately went back to this sort of iconic picture i think it's from his first campaign when he's in front of the statue of liberty giving that speech and you know look so i i am you know i do come my come from the progressive side here and, you know, whatever my mixed feelings. I've always thought one of the things about Reagan was there was always that idealism in Reagan, right? I mean, you know, I didn't agree with the program at all. But I mean, there was that idealism, that calling to America to be a greater place.

And that's just so absent in Maga land. It's just not, it's all vengeance. It's all punishment. It's all putting other people down. And it's just, it's a dramatic difference. You know, and, you know, you see that straight up through like George W. Bush, there was an idealism through there also. And again, I just, it is something, I do think that's a really important difference that's worth, you know, worth commenting, you know, marking as a big shift in the party's uh well the other thing though is that i mean it's the promise of some dynamism down the road right he's like well i'm going to fix all your problems i think obviously one of the big issues he's

confronting now is that he he's not and he made like these wild claims about fixing everything within like a week and it's not coming to fruition and so that is there was an optimism like it's not optimism in trump it's the promise of more optimistic times and it's that i think that's what's the problem right now for him yeah um to uh to cone's point about how it's just all negative it's all vengeance uh to our friend scott jennings um who uh called up great the cnn's gotta be proud of the way that they've molded this so he gets called up on the stage come here scott they have an awkward kind of to call it a bro hug thinking he'd be not right because neither seem very comfortable doing the bro hug but a half hug and then jennings only has one line uh which is michigan we were flying in here today and and I said, look at these farms.

I got to get a farm in Michigan because when you own as many libs as I do, you got to put a place to put them all. Thank you all very much. So there's the joke. He's owning the libs. It's a dad joke. It's a bad dad joke, a bad dad. Yeah, but that's the constant through line of all this.

I know, but that's my point about Cone. It's like you have a chance. Like whatever you say. I know, but that's my point about Cone. It's like you have a chance. Like whatever you say. I don't know. I do not aspire to or want to be called to a stage by a future president because of my punditry or my podcasting. But I do hope that if that ever were to come to pass and I were to have one sentence that I could say. If Mayor Pete was up there. Yeah, it would not be like, how about that time i owned my cousin vinny how about that time i owned vinny on the piers morgan show

cheer for me like i would hope that i'd have some ennobling comment alongside a joke at least but anyway it's just noteworthy just again about like the absence of any anything but the vengeance he chose michigan he chose uh he chose this place specifically because it's supposed to be the you know he's able to get these democrats fully across over to republicans and then he chose um an airbase in the state um and he chose to be there with governor whitmer governor whitmer there a meeting of president trump at the tarmac this is the second time uh that the governor democratic governor of the, has ended up at a Trump event. The first one was in the Oval Office where she was advocating for suffrage airbase in Michigan.

And he's there. He's saying, you know, we're going to keep it open. We're going to do all these projects in there, investments in there. I know you're writing about this, Jonathan, so don't give away too much of the game. But what are your thoughts on how she's handled this so far? Yeah. So, I mean, the backdrop to the issue here is this is this air base. It's a significant economic impact in that part of Michigan.

You know, we talk about the thumb of Michigan, I guess, for my camera here. This is like this part here north of Detroit. And the air base is, it's a big driver of economic activity there. They were retiring the squadron of planes. And for years, this has been like a bipartisan Republicans, Democrats in Michigan have been trying to lobby to get a new mission there. When she went to Washington and that infamous, you know, the infamous Oval Office meeting where she went like, you know, that was what she was there for. She was with the head of the Republican, the senior Republican in the state legislature to try to

get that. And she got it. I mean, you know, she and, you know, she didn't get it on herself, you know, by herself. But, you know, they were able that was the big announcement. It was a big announcement that they were, you know, bringing this new squadron it is a like significant economic benefit it's the kind of thing that like as a governor you do i personally like i get that part i mean you know it's like when your president visits to announce something that's you know it's a bipartisan thing you show up she only spoke for a minute at the thing at the air force base she didn't go to the rally she said she had not been expecting to speak which come on well i hadn't planned to speak but i'm yeah i mean there was an awkward moment where she's like i'd like to thank or like i was like she was like she caught herself she's like i'm not going to

actually thank the president it's crucial for the michigan economy it's crucial for the men and women here for our homeland security and our future. So thank you. I'm so, so grateful that this announcement was made today and I appreciate all the work. Thank you. It's nice that this happened. What do you think was going through her head? Like, oh, Charlie, Chris hugging Barack Obama, Chris Christie hugging Barack Obama. Yeah, of course. Here's my question to you, though. We don't need the

happy talk. Presidents, they should all meet, whatever. Was this thing in threat? These things take a long time. Could not this have happened without Gretchen Whitmer doing anything? Did she have to show up to the Oval Office? Did she have to show up today? Couldn't she have just done nothing? I could not, this have happened without Gretchen Whitmer doing anything. Like, did she have to show up to the Oval Office?

Did she have to show up today? Couldn't she have just done nothing? Like, I'm not saying she had to do, be Tim Miller and like throw spitballs at him and like chase him around and call him fucking the small fingered mango Mussolini. But like, couldn't she have just said nothing and still had these jobs come? So, okay. So two things. I mean, I wasn't in the room i don't

know all the machinations behind me i mean people who know this stuff do say she actually did lobby hard and there was a lobbying effort she did play a role you know significant role as did you know had you know mclean you know various democrat republican officials so yeah she probably did play a role and it is kind of it was under threat i mean they've been trying to get this and there was uh a threat that this thing, that this squadron would go away and they'd lose the economic benefit. Personally, and again, I don't want to give away too much

of what I'm going to say later. I think the bigger problem for her was less about this and that Oval Office thing. But there was, that day, the reason she, when she was in Washington, she gave this big speech, this economic speech, which was surprisingly kind. And it was it had some punches for Trump, but it was very much couched as a kind of I'm going to cooperate. I just felt very much not of the moment.

And you could put it side by side with, I don't know, Pritzker's speech the other day, if you saw it or any number of Democrats who have been stronger. And, you know, if she was in a position where she felt like she couldn't trash Trump without costing that squadron, which, you know, let's face it, Trump, that would be a Trump thing. Right. You know, well, I was going to put this squadron in Michigan, but now the governor trashed me. So I'm not going to. I mean, mean fine but then maybe don't give the speech right i mean just don't you know keep low do the lobbying and you know speech for those who the speech who does miss it she was there and she praised partially the tariffs tariffs are good so as i've said before i'm not against tariffs outright but it is a blunt tool when targeted uh her issue with Trump was not the tariffs. It was the fact that he was just kind of absent-minded in how he was calculating what to do with them.

So I find it very fascinating that she's doing it. I can see why. I can also see how it really screws her. And that's your piece, hopefully. Yeah. I don't see why. Actually, I just – I honestly honestly i just don't get it at all you don't get the case at all i really don't i i don't um and i've been wrong before so who

the hell knows maybe maybe it will emerge but like there's a lot of bad things happening there's going to be a lot of economic damage to our state as regards as with regards to these tariffs she could have events with just union people and talk about how she wants to do targeted things to protect them i wouldn't be for that policy wise but like she doesn't have to do it in the context of trump she doesn't she could have gone to this you know um uh you know to have a thing with the squadron next week so the local news would have come like she's the governor of the state she's not p booted like she does not she has no job right it's like the local news would cover her like does she have to stand

next to trump and do it did she have to be there today i just i don't i don't think so i don't get it i really i truly don't understand i think it's politically quite dumb and i just look at what jb pritzker was saying like jb pritzker is out there being like, people should be in the fucking streets right now. Never before in my life have I called for mass protests, for mobilization, for disruption. But I am now. And the next day, or two days later or whatever, Gretchen Whitmer is like in a hat, like shaking his hand, being like, great. Glad we could work together on this i i just i i think i you know i think one of those is a clearly more uh politically savvy position um you know no

no you know maybe again i'm opening the fact that from a policy perspective the having the squadron is so important that she just shouldn't have been in jb pittsburgh mode but she could have just waited and and done the economic speech in the fall you know like there's no rush we got a long time we got three and three and three quarters years with this guy no no rush to do it well there's i think there's a high there there's a high probability that this does end up coming back to biter but in the short term you know she's where she is today all right well we can leave it there i appreciate you guys doing this i'm sure i was wrong about cap i couldn't find it in the meantime cone can't wait for your peace sunday tim thanks for doing this

thank you guys for watching we'll talk to you later peace