Bulwark Takes - Trump’s Reckless Bleat Sparks Global Chaos

Episode Date: June 17, 2025

Sam Stein and Tim Miller react in real time to the chaos surrounding Trump’s late-night “bleat” about Iran, escalating confusion over potential U.S. military involvement, and Pete Hegseth’s baffling public role amid a potential international crisis. From MAGA influencers melting down to the fog of disinformation and media theatrics, the guys unpack the absurdity and the stakes.

Hey guys, me Sam Stein, managing editor at the Bulwark and I'm here with Tim Miller. It is Monday night about 10 p.m. Eastern time. We've been kind of watching as a serious situation unfolds in Iran, but a confusing one, too, frankly, because we've had a lot of different bits of information thrown into the ecosystem and people freaking out, perhaps rightfully so. It's a lot to handle. We're going to go through all of that, but before we do subscribe to the feed, um, Tim, let's start with just, let's just do this chronologically.

Okay. Cause we got, or I got home from work and, you know, I was doing my thing and then this tweet or bleat from Trump gets put out and I think you flagged in our company Slack and it was just kind of shocking to see when you read it out loud because we're just not accustomed to anything. This sort of cavalier. Yeah. And look, Trump says bluntly, everyone should immediately evacuate Tehran, the capital of

Iran, obviously. It's a city of 10 million people. Yeah. And he's saying that Iran can't have a nuclear weapon. He said it over and over again. So you know, always with Trump, there's this like element of there's this bluster, like what is he, is he, is this just him popping off or is he like being literal? You know, this is where they take Trump seriously, literally kind of breaks down a little bit. Are the people

of Tehran supposed to take him seriously or literally? Are they untruth? Yeah, untruth. Right. And so it's this question of, is this just Trumpian bluster or is there something more to it? And then, you know, the chatter gets very intense and the ensuing little bit, because a bunch of other data points happen. He's leaving the G7 early. I guess. So he's, let's just say he's in Canada. He's with G7 leaders in between some meeting he's having with them. He issues this truth social. Then as he, he talks to the press and he says I have to be leaving early I think you understand why You probably see what I see. And I have to be back as soon as I can.

When I'm dinner with these wonderful leaders, and then I get on the plane, I have to be back early for obvious reasons. I loved it. I tell you, I loved it. And I think we got a lot done. Really a lot done. In fact, in the UK, we signed a big trade deal

today, and we're working on others. But we had just a really great relationship with everybody. And it's really nice. I wish I could stay for tomorrow, but they understand this is big stuff. Yeah. And at the same time, there's reports, there's calling a National Security Council meeting, though maybe then there's some counter reports like, well, the National Security Council

has been on call ever since the Israel attack started, right? And there's reports that I think seem accurate, right? But this is just ongoing kind of intel gathering about us moving planes, you know, and other material into, you know, the Middle East, yeah, to the region. And, and so, like, all this stuff is happening at the same time. And there are a lot of takes there on social media for people who like you would think might be in a position to know like Republicans close to the White House and stuff that were essentially implying that like an attack is imminent. That Trump was being literal. It wasn't just takes.

There's people posting what they say reports from Israel about the US participating in attacks in Iran, which then the Trump administration had to say no, we're in a defensive position. It's not really attacks from the United States. Trump then put out, we mentioned this, but he went and did another bleed against Tucker Carlson. You had MAG influencers arguing over whether it was smart or foolish to get involved in Israel. Yeah, intense arguments. And then people, again, with the reason to know, signaling that they thought that this was happening, that the US was going to be bombing Iran directly,

not just through Israel or not supportive of Israel or whatever, not providing resources, but like us doing it. You know, one of the guy, just as a representative example of this, this guy is the editor of the National Pulse. He's kind of in the Bannon world, Rahim Qassam. But you know, he writes this, everyone I know in the US government, which is a lot of people, which sadly we live in a world where Steve Bannon's former co-host can say that and have it be very accurate. He does know a lot of senior people in the government. He says they're all rushing back to the office right now, as is President Trump. Whatever they have planned is very big and very real. It's like that was an hour ago, a little over an hour ago. And so at that moment, you know,

when you have those reports from Israel, you have the reports of more, you know, military equipment and moving into the region. And Trump's bleeds that people should evacuate Tehran. There was a moment online where it seemed like the conventional wisdom was we're about to bomb Iran. And then there was video, and I'm not sure if it's been confirmed or debunked, but of massive traffic jams in Tehran. I think that was, yes. I mean, I think that people might have been yesterday. Yeah. I think you have been leaving to run.

So I saw that video yesterday and then people were sending it out. And it was hard to judge with us. Is that new video or is that, yeah. So anyway, you took it all together and there was like a moment tonight where I, if you were online and paying attention to the world, following the news, it felt like Donald Trump was about to bomb Iran. And he might, like, we don't know. Yeah.

So the fog of disinformation is one obviously very problematic thing. The other thing is though, you know, randomly bleeding out that people should evacuate a city of 10 million is rife with potential catastrophes. Like, that's not something you cavalierly should do. Now maybe and maybe you should if you're about to bomb Tehran but and I don't want to be glib about this but it's just it doesn't seem like the most and I know it's shocking when you hear this. This doesn't seem like the most well thought out execution of whatever strategy they've come up with and maybe doing less bleeding and more, you

know, strategic communication would be helpful here. Maybe not. I don't know. And this is where you know things get bad, Sam, because the Secretary of Defense did spring into action. Okay. This is what we originally... I'm sorry.

And I know I don't want to giggle about it, but it's so absurd. Tonight, Pete Hicks said... This is what I to giggle about it, but it's so absurd. Tonight, Pete Hegseth, the secretary of defense, who's, he runs the defense department and they have all this stuff going on and we're like on the cusp of what appears to be a fairly, fairly major operation in Tehran involving potentially bunker busters to try to get at the last remnants of the country's nuclear program. It would involve the defense department. And here is this guy who chooses to spend his evening doing this.

The deal is still on the table, but all options are on the table from what it sounds like. What does that look like? What it looks like right now is we're vigilant. We're prepared and we've messaged consistently from the beginning that we're in the region to defend our people and our assets. And Israel took an action out of self-defense. We believe that Iran, as President has said from the beginning, should not have a nuclear weapon.

That position hasn't changed. They can give it up peacefully. That position hasn't changed. And as a result, right now, we've got assets in the region, and we're going to defend them. And we're going to be strong in the process. So people are reading into a lot of, right now, we've got assets in the region and we're going to defend them. And we're going to be strong in the process. So people are reading into a lot of aspects right now. We're strong, we're prepared, we're defensive, and the President Trump hopes there can be peace.

Okay, so let's head, Seth, on Jesse Waters. Yeah, I mean, that's an interesting choice of outlet. It's an interesting choice of his time. Yeah. I know I was laughing about how Trump has to rush back from the G seven and people are rushing into the offices. The national security council has been called is on high alert. And so we have all the key players are ready and plotting about what is going to happen and this various Fox it.

Table moment, the middle East, Where is the secretary defense? He's making a beat line for his makeup desk. You know, he's got to, he's got to make sure that he's got the, you know, powder on, he's got the hair jelly in. And it's like, I am speaking to my audience here. Waters World program, which is a prime time show on Fox, a big audience. And then he goes on there and gives kind of this statement just about how like, oh, we want them to make a deal. We're in a defensive posture. So I think it does confirm that like, I mean, I guess it's possible that we're planning to bomb Iran without Pete being in the loop or that he would lie to his friends, his former colleagues at Fox, but most likely, I think it kind of confirms that he's just like, no, you know,

this stuff just kind of spiraled out of control and now I'm tamping it down and I'm going to the credible, the new source of record for the administration to let you know we're in a defensive posture right now. Right. It's like, it's like, um, you know, there's so many different ways to look at this. Like one traditionally when I was in a campaign of something got messed up, you know, we wanted to clarify something you call the AP, you know, associated

project, like a wire going like nightly news, something of like, with like a little bit more gravitas, a little heft. What do you got have against water's world? I mean, they do the main on the street segment. What was the segment after Hex app is soup gay? Is soup gay? And are we going to bomb Iran? I you know, I think you just choose a different outlet. But okay, so there's that interpretation. There's that point. The other one is comes

on the heels of Hex that article I think is in New York magazine about how he's Oh, yeah, I interviewed the author that's coming out tomorrow on the It was very, it was a very delicious article. But basically, what was the summary? Like he just coast blank defense? The summary of this article is like, it's pretty alarming about what's happening inside the Pentagon, just that like he, he's paranoid. He's deeply paranoid. He's fired a lot of longtime aides. His circle is very small and includes like his wife and brother and some lawyer that's pretty hot under the collar. And, and it's, and nobody knows how decisions are being made. And he's being very just at this point, he's like just being deferential to whatever Trump puts out on his social media or executive orders. It just doesn doesn't like there's not it doesn't appear that there's a lot of adults in the room

I mean my hope is that there's like a second kind of channel Happening of like longtime military people but like the Hague Seth so almost like they figure in show Situation for Pete we're fighting this war show situation for Pete. We're fighting this war. Pete, you focus on taking the name off the changing the ship names. All right. You get Harvey milk's name off. You focus on that. Well, focus on making sure there's no trans people. You do the parade, the big boy parade. And meanwhile, we've got it. We've got another group over here focusing on the war with Iran. Maybe. Yeah. I mean, that's sort of like the best of all worlds at this point though, right?

Just like let him do his thing, I guess. I don't know. I will say Bill Kristol wrote about this in this morning's morning shots, that Dan Cain, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, when he sat down with Hexup, it was like they're reading from different scripts. Like, you know, they just were like,

Dan Cain's like, no, that's not really an invasion on the southern border. And Pete's like, absolutely, we need to use the military. So there is obviously a dichotomy here. I think having him go on water's world really, it may be to your point, it's possible that they're just like, look, our people are freaking out. A lot of Maggot types think we're going to war. We told them that we're peace through strength. This is, you know, we got to just calm the waters.

That type of thing. That's one interpretation. The other one is just that like Pete's got nothing really really going on, other than like, he really is actually sort of the press secretary for the Defense Department. And this is his responsibility. Pete Slauson Or it's just all he knows, you know, in a moment of crisis, he's got to go to… Chris Snell Gotta go. Pete Slauson Yeah, it's like kind of, I don't know, what do you have a comfort food, like, you you know an ice cream or something that you go to

kind of I'm like a cereal I'm a cereal guy yeah that seemed weird yeah no so maybe that's Pete's cereal as he just wants to hang out with Jesse Waters at a moment of crisis just in waters is like his honey bunches of oats yeah yeah maybe that all right well we'll leave it at that I guess as of now it's 10 o'clock we have not have not seen any US action in Iran, but that could change. We hope that everything goes well. But like Tim said, this is just a very crazy situation where we get little pieces of info and people are jumping to some radical conclusions. Kind of scary stuff. Any final thoughts, Tim? Yes, sir.

All right. Take care, guys. Thanks for watching this. Subscribe to the feed and we'll talk to you later.