Bulwark Takes - Trump’s Truth Social Meltdown Rant Keeps Coming

Episode Date: June 23, 2025

Trump spent the morning posting to Truth Social about oil prices and nuclear threats. Tim and Sam discuss why the chaotic bleats could be incredibly dangerous. Bring on the good vibes and treat yourself to Soul today! Go to GetSoul.com and use the code BULWARKTAKES for 30% off your order.

Hey everybody, Tim Miller from the Bulwark here with my buddy managing editor, Sam Stein. It is Monday, June 23rd and Trump woke up this morning and he's been bleeding. He's been just posting shit posting onto social media across a variety of topics. And so we want to cover them because some of them are silly and mockable and others are a little scary, which is kind of the general Trump oof, I guess. So Sam, I want to start with the oil prices topic if that works for you. It's not my favorite of the bleeds, but this is your show. Go for it. My YouTube.

Okay. All right, we'll start. We'll do what I want then. And do you mind, I guess before we get to this, do you monitor True Social? Do you have Trump's True Social on your phone? No, I do not, but I I do not but it's become so There's accounts on Twitter that I do monitor that like sort of auto generate the bleats, but I can't I don't I don't have time for another screen and social platform I'm actually kind of impressed. He stuck with it. I thought for sure it would give up because who the hell's going it's like a

Potemkin Business that's worth millions and so if he got off of it then it was fall like might hurt Barron's, you know Yeah, but do you think people are like sir you've gotten you've gotten like 500,000 Rebleats on this Does he know that no one's there? Do you think he knows I? Don't know. Okay. Uh, not that's one part I don't care about. Okay. Here we go. Here's the, here's the latest. He did two back to back on energy. Yeah. First one, all caps. Everyone keep oil prices down. I'm watching. You're playing right into the hands of the enemy. Don't do it. Okay. Follow up to the department of Energy drill baby drill exclamation point and I mean now

So there are a couple of issues here before I get to your response Just a few fact checks if you will a few concerning issues for starters You might wonder why wouldn't the president United States just call or issue a memorandum To one of his departments with regards to energy production, do a more formal process. That's something to think about. Why would he do it? It'd be a true social that nobody's watching. A secondary and maybe even more important problem is that the Department of Energy has

no purview over drilling. That would be the Bureau of Land Management, which is under the Department of the Interior. I feel like something you should know in your second round as president. I know the first time everybody's like, he's learning on the job. All these elitist libs are fact checking him. He doesn't. He was a businessman. This is the second time though you think he would know who's doing the drilling. And I thought we learned that when when Rick Perry discovered that he had to like deal with nukes and he was like, Oh, wait a second. This isn't just drilling. What I thought when you made me Department of Energy I was in charge of the Hermian Basin and in Texas

It's like no that liquid gold what are the scientists talking about? I guess just it's slightly concerning that the president doesn't know anything about what he's Then the secretary responded. He's like I'm on it, sir You've responded not a Really hard to just believe that this is what we have to deal with hey guys It's summertime and we're all getting out and enjoying ourselves a little bit more But if you're like me you don't want to be drinking your calories Waking up with a hangover and that is especially true because I've got to get up

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and capsules that can improve your sleep, help you with your stress, alleviate some pain, or just help you focus. So bring on the good vibes and treat yourself to Soul today. Right now, Soul is offering our audience 30% off your entire order. Yeah, you heard that right. You're not high on Soul's gummies right now. 30% off your entire order. Yeah, you heard that right. You're not high on souls gummies right now. 30% off your entire order. Go to get sold calm. Use the code bulwark takes that's get sold calm promo code bulwark takes for 30% off. You'll love it. I just also say as a capitalist, as a house capitalist here, one of a couple, this isn't

how the oil markets work. The president can't just be like, keep the prices down. It's a global market. There's supply and demand in effect. We're not a state run economy. Anyway, so I guess there are a lot of just substantive issues that it's worth worth pointing out I guess there's a political question. I'm curious your take on is He does seem to be worried about this it seems to among hit and maybe even a greater concern than like the lives of our troops

And and such in the Middle East he's concerned about his the political impact of of increased prices with uh, oh, yeah well I mean this seems very on-brand for Trump to be concerned about like oil prices and like, you know, geopolitical fallout and stuff like that. But it does strike me that this is a concern. It was such an obvious thing that was going to happen if you did this. And so, you know, who knows what's going through his head? My assumption is he saw some sort of segment on Fox and Friends and was like, you know, straight of our moves. What is it? What is that? And shit? they're they're turning around these carriers and we got to go and and

But there's like a larger thing here and come we kind of glossed over it at the top of the chili come from the straight of I Do think there's something I know we're making fun of truth social But there is something kind of inherently corrupt about it. He owns the platform and he's announcing like that we're bombing Iran on the platform. Like this is there. There is a clear conflict here where he's trying to drive. He's trying to use this platform that he owns to be the megaphone of the presidency and directing cabinet officials to do official business through this platform that he owns. I mean, it's like not top 20 concerns, but it should be a concern probably.

Yeah. We made Jimmy Carter sells peanut farm. Exactly. It's one of those things like, what are we just going to ignore this? I suppose, because there's so much other shit. Correct. I thank you for raising that Sam. All right.

I want to move to what I think is your favorite lead from the morning. I'm going to read it. Okay. Did I hear former president Medvedev from Russia, casually throwing around the N word. It's not there. He's feeling very clever with this. Very funny.

Then he puts in parentheses, nuclear exclamation point and saying that he and other countries would supply nuclear warheads to Iran. Did he really say that? Or is it just a figment of my imagination? If he posted it on social media, this whole thing is just like, I don't understand a thing here. I think it was a social media post from Medvedev. Anyway, if he did say that and confirm, please let me know immediately. Well, here we are, Mr. President, I'm letting you know that it did happen. And he then goes on, the N-word, funny. This is a long post, just to be clear, people should buckle in here.

Yeah. The N word should not be treated so casually. I mean, I just, I can't with this. Um, but he goes on, I guess that's why Putin's quote the boss. Who's boss. Trump's maybe by the way, if anyone thinks our quote hardware was great over the weekend, far and away, far and away. The strongest and best equipment we have 20 years advanced over the

pack is our nuclear submarines. And now we get concerning here. They are the most powerful and lethal weapons ever built. He's referring to our nuclear submarines there and they just launched 30 Tomahawks all 30 hit their mark perfectly. So in addition to great fighter pilots, thank you for having to encourage Sam. What do you make of the ball? That was a journey.

Oh, you, you, you kind of took a few points here that I was going to make, which is one maybe I've never made this point verbally. It was a post again. I think he's just watching Fox and friends and he saw someone read the post. He's like, did I hear that correctly? And then it just like, it's like one of these journeys that goes from being like stupid and like, you can tell Trump's trying to be funny to like oh, this is actually it's getting a little little concerning

Threading which part is concerning for you in particular? Well, I think the part where he's talking about the nuclear submarines and he's directing this at Russia And I feel like we're back in the Cold War era That's concerning but this is. This is Trump, right? He did the same thing to North Korea and he's done the same thing through Iran. It's all fun and games until, you know, someone hits the button. So someone calls his bluff, right? And so Bill and I sort of arguing, um, not really arguing a friendly

disagreement over his views on the Iran attack versus mine. And one of the concerns I raised with Bill was like, we get that you get, you can get down an escalatory pipeline in these things where it's just like hubris and machismo takeover and we're like, Trump might not have ever really had any interest in using a nuclear submarine. Like all of a sudden, like he feels backed into a corner because we bombed Iran and then Iran did something to us, and then Russia does something to so-and-so, and then Trump feels like he can't seem weak.

And next thing you know, he's doing something that wasn't part of the plan, but just because he's in a fucking small dick contest with the other countries. Is that the likely outcome of all this? I don't think so. Is that a legitimate risk right now that's greater than it was 72 hours ago. I think yeah, oh 100% first of all, it's funny I was just saying this on another call, but you know HuffPost Sam from 2006 if you ever told him he'd be editing Bill Crystal's pro-war Per ran war die tribes and morning shots. I don't know Might have to welcome a board. Yeah, this is out of body for me

But secondly, you know, I I joke but I think it's it's healthy to have like a large dude You know internal debates are on these things and I'm glad that we have them here. I I take your point very seriously I also think the other thing to look out for is that you know Trump's type of guy it strikes me that if he has success and in certain, you know Foreign policy ventures that he assumes that he'll never not have success. And so, you know, Soleimani takeout was a success, um, you know, on a tactical level, what happened on Saturday was a success. Um, the fact that, you know, he got, you know, North Korea to back down or play

footsie with him and be nice, I guess was a success in his mind, but then you start, you know, doing stuff like this. And look, I'm not saying they were a success. I'm saying he internalizes as all successes and at some point, you know things won't go well and That's just how it works. And I you know, I don't like the escalatory nature of these things I think your point is exceptionally valid which is It different ad ends up being a tit for tat and the tats get bigger and then tits gotta get bigger.

Don't you say that? Let's delete that. Jamie, we'll leave it in. We'll leave it in. It's fine. You're wearing a pink shirt, so you're not very gay. You know, we're changing you in so many ways, Sam. We're like, you're editing.

Only at the bulwark do you get war get war in a pro war, pro trans? We're going to make Iran a trans utopia. That's what we're going to do. Don't, don't give a clip to the fucking people that hate us. Don't give Fox news a clip to use. Um, all right. Uh, any, everybody. Thanks so much.

That's the managing editor, Sham Stein, who said all that stuff at the end that I don't endorse and, uh, subscribe to the feed. We'll be seeing you soon.