Bulwark Takes - Trump’s Disgraceful Autism Press Conference Was Cruel, Stupid and Dangerous

Episode Date: September 23, 2025

Tim Miller and Sam Stein take on Donald Trump’s horrific autism press conference — from his bizarre Tylenol claims to his breathtakingly ignorant vaccine rants. Get 30% off your order with Soul at https://GetSoul.com with promo code BULWARKTAKES.

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Please play responsibly. If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connix Ontario at 1866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. But MGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario. Hey, everybody. Tim Miller from the Bullwark here with managing editor Sam Stein. I think you were called Rob on the Bullwark Reddit this week. Someone had some complaints about you. They called you Ben or Rob, that managing editor that interrupts too much.

I was like, who is that? Ben Parker? Sorry, dude. Let us cook. Let us cook, managing editor. Here's the thing, guys. Speaking of cooking, I'm pretty sure the president's brain is cooked. This is the craziest press conference of the administration.

I know that that's a competitive category. I haven't thought about it. What's up there? The number one craziest press conference. I mean, like there were more outrageous ones, Zelensky in the Oval Office, for example.

There have been more ridiculous ones, you know, the flags, flag pulls and the Panera garden. But like, the craziest, just pure crazy old man shouting at cloud,

this is number one, I think. It was vintage 2020. It really was. It was Trump at his like Apex Predator moment where he's just like pretending to be a doctor. It was just like the worst, most irresponsible. Apex Grandpa Simpson moment maybe. Okay, here it is.

So the press conference was set up like this. Fox had a blaring graphic autism announcement. Autism announcement. It's a pretty funny double entendre there. But yeah, guy. It came to autism. And the announcement, well, there's a lot there. I guess I want to play the first clip where Trump, I guess we'll just set it up like this.

Trump has fingered a culprit on the autism question. The big question of why have autism rates gone up in this country? The obvious answer to that is that we're just diagnosing autism more often than not. But even if you under the premise that autism has gone up, Trump's trying to figure out why. and he's demonstrated who the culprit is, let's watch. Nothing bad can happen. It can only good happen. But with Tylenol, don't take it. Don't take it. And if you can't live, if your fever is so bad, you have to take one because there's no alternative to that.

Sadly, first question, what can you take instead? It's actually there's not an alternative to that. And as you know, other of the medicines are absolutely proven bad. I mean, they've been proven bad. Yeah, so nothing bad can happen. It can only good happen if you don't take Tylenol. That's it. That's what the president has to say there.

Tylenol is the culprit. Cedaminophen. Bad news. If you're taking out of acetaminifin, if you're a woman, luckily neither of us have ever had to go through pregnancy. But if you're a woman who has or has plans to go through pregnancy, nothing else you can do, the president says. Sorry, bad news. No Tylenol for you. it'll give your kid autism and if and there's no alternative pain medication that is acceptable

you must suffer did you find him convincing there yeah and he didn't bring out a lot of science I noticed there and that we have some more clips to go through that I didn't see like a lot of charts or some I didn't see a lot of studies this is like double blind tests you know this is the worst of his like attributes coming together where it's just like zero preparation zero subject matter expertise, complete faith in just winging it and like speaking with conviction, being like, you know what, Talon, nothing good. No, wait, yeah, good, no bad. It's like, you can't even get good and bad right.

It's so, it's so irresponsible and quite dangerous, in fact. I was talking with Cohn. He should be here, obviously, but he's not for religious reasons. John Cohn's bringing on some actual, we're not some actual experts on tomorrow. Yeah. This is Sam and I are more kind of. This is the palate cleanser. Yeah, we're reacting to the atmosphere.

This is the amuse-boosh of the YouTuber. But I was thinking about, I was texting with Kohn about this. And Kohn was like living, like, Cohen was like driving. He had his kid slack me so that he could like talk to me about it. He's like, just really, this is like, this is the worst thing. This is horrible, way worse than I, than I thought. And we talked about two cohorts here.

One is the women who were just finished pregnancy in Tocytanol, who have to listen to this and who might not really be. up to speed like a lot of people aren't up to speed on the stuff and we're like holy shit what did i just do to myself like what did i just do to my child i mean that's legitimate psychological torture that the president inflicted and i must say it goes out saying we should have said it though none of what he said is actually supported by medical research there are some studies out there floating out there but if you dig into the research it is not conclusive in the slightest in fact it may be completely coincidental and anecdotal so that's one cohort that's really i'm sorry i have some pushback for you on that point

but do you want to talk about the suffering cohort and then we'll get back? The second cohort and then you can push back. Are the women who are now going to go through pregnancy in like real pain and decide, you know what, I guess I shouldn't take Tylenolinaw and they're just going to, they're just going to suffer through it. And, you know, like that doesn't have to happen. Ivermectin might work. The horse tranquilizer.

It feels like they do prescribe that for everything. But yeah. I'm not going to, I won't, I'm not a doctor nor would I suggest that. do that. Yeah, it doesn't seem great for women. Subopt. I wouldn't say, there's another, I was laughing. I was watching social media.

There was somebody I follow who there's some other studies out there. Again, I'm not a scientist, so I'm not trying to offer which of these suspect studies are less subsets or more. But there are some other studies on kind of the level of the Tylenol research on autism, which is like maybe the I'm thinking autism comes from elderly male semen. we have too many old dads now and that's causing the uptick back in the day used to be all of young dads anyway that's not that's not the semen just isn't cutting it out these days

it's just not worthy though that while there's spitball and different ideas out there the old dad theory doesn't come up Trump would never throw that one out the mom needs to stop taking Thailand all comes up all right well anyway the president

does, you know, we like to shoot straight here, the president does offer a counter to your point there, Sam, that there's no evidence that the Tylenol theory can be true. He said it's two different groups that provide evidence and support for his advocacy that women stop taking Tylenol during pregnancy. Let's hear about the first group. There are parts of the world that don't take Tylenol. Well, there you go. And it is a rumor, and I don't know if it's so or not, that Cuba, they don't have Tylenol because they don't have the money for Tylenol and they have virtually no autism

okay tell me about that one and there are other parts of the world where they don't have Tylenol where they don't have autism that tells you a lot and I want to say it right now you know the way I look at it don't take it don't take it

tell me about that one Sam I've heard this thing I don't have any proof of it or any evidence I've heard from somebody down at the bar that people in Cuba, they don't have autism, they don't have Tylenol. What more do you need?

Do you have any, all right, Mr. Mr. experts, Mr. facts and science, what do you got to say about that one?

I mean, just to go straight up, be like, I don't have any evidence of this. But I think Cuba doesn't have Tylenol. And therefore, what are we doing here? It's unbelievable.

Also, it's just the irony of just being like, yeah, we should be like Cuba. Like, This seems very, very socialist of him because obviously the big thing on the left is that Cuba's health care system is universal. And if that's what we're trying to emulate, God bless. But I don't think people are going to make that trade off willingly.

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Just a quick Google there. We'll look to Cohen for expertise on that. Okay, well, there's another group. Theo Vaughn was also looking into this group recently. Yeah, I remember Theo. Theo Vaughn had somebody from this cohort on his podcast and was asking about whether their community had ADHD. And Donald Trump may or may not have seen that,

but he has some similar questions. Let's watch. And by the way, I think I can say that there were certain groups of people that don't take vaccines and don't take any pills that have no autism, that have no autism. Does that tell you something? That's currently, is that a correct statement, by the way? Who knows? Who knows? We're doing it live here. Does that, do I get that right? Yeah, virtually. Bobby, no, I heard none. See, Bobby wants to be very careful with what he says and he should, but I'm not so careful with what I said. No, shit. But you have certain

groups. The Amish, as an example, they have essentially no autism. It's great. You know what else they don't have? Auto deaths. Let's go with that one. Also, they do have autism. Based on all the scientific evidence, Amish children do get autism. Based on what we're seeing here on the internet. I mean, that is just, that is classic. It's like Bobby Kennedy is now like Mr. Careful in the administration. Like Trump is over there. He's like Bobby over there He's trying to He's always crossing his T's and dot in his eyes

I'm like you know After he's fucking behead's the whale I'm just shooting this shit We're like live with the White House I'm the president I'm just like throwing out there with things I heard about the Amish What did you hear about the Amish?

Have you heard anything about the Scientologist? What about the Quakers? Do the Quakers have autism? What's their rate? Yeah, what's the deal? I just want to emphasize Calvinists. The quote is

I'm not so careful with what I say in a press conference about child autism rates it's like so deeply reckless this man what is he doing reckless yeah i would say reckless um a ludicrous dangerous right yeah i think those did you not get covid flashbacks i was starting the red lights were going off me at that point i was like this is the bleach inject the bleach shit all over yeah i do i have gotten some flashbacks to that and uh we're to go ahead and skip ahead producer katie um because I think this is the most bleach-esque quote.

Let's do clip number five from the press conference. Break it up because it's too much liquid. Too many different things are going into that baby. At too big a number, the size of this day, when you look at it, it's like 80 different vaccines and beyond vaccines. And 80. And you give that to a little kid. I mean, I can. Too much liquid.

Too much liquid. He's got to shine the light into the body instead. It's like a cleaning. Not as much liquid. More light, fewer, fewer amounts of liquid. What do you think his level of scientific knowledge is here? Is it like not even, I'm not even going to pass. I'm not even going to try to look into this shit.

I'm just going to like purely gutteral go up there and just talk how I feel. Yeah, it feels like little baby. big needle bad don't like i don't know man but um i think that it's important to get into this and i want to play the next clip because this um press conference as is bobby kennedy's want does not end up just being a i can effort to freak people out about acetaminophen and taking Tylenol while pregnant it is also a full frontal assault on the vaccine schedule uh He laid out the 80 vaccines. Well, he just did that.

Just to be clear, he just did that there because they, he wants to break up the MMR vaccine schedule, which is, yeah, that's what I was going to go next. Yeah, so that was about the 80, all the vaccines, too much liquid. But then he specifically goes after the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine that he doesn't know what the R stands for. Let's go ahead and watch that one. The MMR, I think, should be taken separately. This is based on what I feel, the mumps, measles,

and the three should be taken separately. And it seems to be that when you mix them, there could be a problem. So there's no downside in taking them separately. In fact, they think it's better. So let it be separate. Who is they? The chicken pox is already separate.

So he thinks they should be taken separate. He doesn't know what they all are. Couldn't come up with the name of Rebella there. And, you know, he thinks it's too much liquid. And potentially, this is, also, again, this is like kind of a side quest down off of the autism announcement that was mostly, it was supposed to be about Tylenol, but he's like, we got to throw in some vaccine slander too. Who knows, maybe it's the MMR. Maybe we've got to separate it. It's just how he feels.

It's just how he feels. He says very clearly, in case there's any doubts about whether this is science or not, this is just what the president feels. I'm struggling because he's so, it's so dangerous. There's one point during this press conference. I don't think we have this clip. But someone read him the American College of Obstetrician's statement where they're like, don't do this. They said, Talonel remains a safe, trusted option for pain relief during pregnancy. And he was just like, oh, that's the establishment.

They're funded by a lot of different things. And it's just like he's basically just telling people, you know, just, you know, go figure it out. Like, trust me. Don't trust them. You know, and a lot of people are going to suffer for this shit. It's totally reckless. There's one guy, Craig Spencer, who's a doctor. He's on, I follow him on Twitter.

He said, I'm just going to read it. I'm absolutely speechless. Like, wow, this is the worst health press conference I maybe have ever seen. And I watched everyone during COVID. How are we doing this again? I mean, people are going to suffer greatly for this. People, women are not going to take medication that they need to take, all because this guy has, you know, worm brains, not Bobby Kennedy, Trump, and he can't figure it out

and he can't get out of his own way. I don't even know. I don't even understand the incentive for doing this. Like, what constituency is asking for this? Obviously, the Maha people, but they, but Will, well, some are notes, they don't want this. They want them to yank all the vaccines. They don't care about Thailand. They don't care about Tylenol. They want the vaccines off the fucking shelf. So I don't get this. My mom, who's an obstetrician guy in a couple, just chimes in if we want to read Dr. Emily Fides. I would like to hear from her. This is straight from, you know, the source here.

My thinking is that autism is probably a multifactorial entity that is, in fact, not all one disease. So therefore, causality is also a multifactoral. There can be a genetic component, and perhaps there can be an intrapartum component as well. We also think that there may be environmental factors as well. Much more research needs to be done before we take pregnant women, make pregnant women feel guilty about taking Tylenol. I trust the American College of OBGYN's recommendation. There are multiple international collaborative studies that are ongoing and will come up with a variety of answers. As long as the government is taking away money for research and inhibiting scientists, we will not get real answers.

Hell yeah, Emily, fine. That's a great statement for your mother. Let's get her on the show. No, you don't want that. You don't want that. Instead of me. Are you sure? Instead of you, maybe.

She probably wouldn't interrupt as much. Oh. Okay, two other items for you before we go. Again, this is a side thing, but it's just worth, because Trump is just up there riffing about things that he feels. You know, I'm just going to read this one. But he also starts talking about the Hep B vaccine. He points out that FB is sexually transmitted. There's no reason to give a baby that's almost just born a Hep B.

It's just worth bringing this one up because it's just, it shows not only are they not based on science, not only did he not get briefed or educated. But he doesn't even know the basics. It's like the whole point of the HB vaccine is he talking. Why is he talking? I don't understand it. The point is to vaccinate the baby to prevent transmission from the mother. Like the reason you get that vaccine is what if case your mother has it and you're protecting from it so you're not born with this awful disease.

Again, why is he talking? What is he bringing to the table? Why is he doing any of this? Like even, I mean, I know I don't want Bobby Kennedy to talk about the stuff either. But like at least Bobby Kennedy is the HHS secretary. Why is Trump talking? because he likes attention and because he's always

he's like a talk radio guy he calls in guy and he thinks that he's like he thinks he's got something there he's like first time long time he's like he's like I'm pretty sure it's Donald from Queens he's like I'm pretty sure it's the liquid why are they giving the head bee to the moms when the moms aren't done

final question what even I haven't seen a lot of this out there already so the Thailand at all people are they going to get to sue I don't know is this like a dominion situation is the top of the time is that uh who does it who would they yeah this is we're going to get the legal like you know i mean it feels like the talent people should be able to sue unfortunately he's the president i would like for him to be able to sue the trump family for this one yeah i like for him to

them to sue the trump family rather than my tax dollars but um i mean like the degree to which this random american company is just getting totally surrendered by the president of the united states for like no reason you know it's also remarkable i mean that town i don't like the greatest victim here compared to the mothers. But like it is, it does merit mentioning since corporations are people, you know. I think Tylenol's biggest mistake here was they just, they didn't make a million dollar donation to the Trump inaugural committee, and therefore they're fucked. Yeah, give them a plane. Yeah, they need to do the Qatari system. Yeah. Totally, totally unnecessary attack on this company. I do actually feel bad for Tylenol on this one. Yeah, and the people that work there,

you know, those are American jobs. All right. We are so screwed. We are so screwed. We are so screwed. Okay, hold on. Hold on. We have to do it. I have to ask again. Okay. Is Bobby Kennedy the worst of the cabinet officials? You resist. Come on. When will you just say? I do resist. I'm thinking about it. I'm thinking through the cabinet one more time before I way in. Oh, my God. It's so obviously. Yes. I, I, I'm sorry, but I still, I still think I got to put him below Bondi and Cash. cash is not cabinet I know but cash is got a part

of the bondi agreement but it's close he's definitely going up my big board I'll say this that is Sam Stein thank you also to his mother Dr. Fine Dr. Fine

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