The Bulwark Podcast - No One Has Seen McConnell in Weeks—and His Office Just Recycled an Old Statement

Episode Date: July 24, 2026

Since we don't have an episode of The Bulwark Podcast for you today, we're sharing something a little different—a preview of The Secret Podcast. This is a show that JVL and Sarah do every week, which is available only for paid members of The Bulwark. If it seems like something you'd enjoy, why not join us? You can sign up on Apple Podcasts, YouTube and Substack.Come ride with us!

There's no shortcut for saving time, but saving money is simple. Just combine your car and home insurance with Bel Air Direct and save. Get a quote at bellair direct.com. Hello, everyone. This is JVL here with my best friend, Sarah Longwell, publisher of the bulwark. Sarah, happy Friday. Also, happy Friday to people who are hearing this show for the first time. If you were tuning in to get the bulwark pod, you're getting this little secret thing, while Tim is on vacation.

It's a real treat for you. What a treat it is. Because Sarah and I tape at 7 o'clock in the morning. And so you get this weird bedhead show. So this is a show that you may not be familiar with. Sarah and I do it every Friday. We do it in secret. It's just for members of Bulwark Plus.

And this is a little preview of it. Maybe you'll love it. Maybe you'll decide that just taking Tim for free, isn't enough and you want to become a Bulwark Plus member and get all of the stuff. Sarah, they should do that, right? They should. Look, we don't paywall very much and listen to how my voice sounds. This is a,

this is an authentic morning. The first person I've spoken to is JVL on this podcast and all of you. We do a punchy show, but I got to tell you, the secret pod is one of the earliest podcasts that the Bullwark has. It's one of the very few things we put behind a paywall. JVL and I talk about some news of the day, our first

drafts. We have Secret Pod Rules, guys. Part of Secret Pod Rules is that we're allowed to be wrong on this show because we're going to tell you we're not sure if we think a thing. It's a great show. People love it. It is the member staple for this show. And so if you are not yet a member and you

want to know what happens on the other side with the commenters, and I'll just say this too, we only read comments from our community, the people who are rocking with us. You guys want to comment for free on YouTube and yell at us? We're not going to read that. Maybe Tim does, but I'll just be very honest. I don't. Like in terms of my time each day to engage with community, like, I, you know, I try to give like at least an hour, an hour and a half

every single day to community engagement. And so I do have to prioritize it. And so I tend to prioritize it with the Bullard Plus members. And again, this isn't, this isn't a value judgment. It's not saying I don't like you guys. I spent a lot of time in the chat this past couple of weeks because I've written some triads and uh how's that going to do you read those? Nope. Did you read this? Literally, I didn't just so I control you. My favorite comment is somebody was like Sarah finally figured out how to read the triad.

She started to write the triad. Hey, I, okay. Yeah. So people go do, we're going to jump into the show. Because J-B, I got something I want to say to you. I've been, we've not, you've been out. And I missed you. Missed you, too.

Best friend. Tim is out. I've been carrying this whole thing. Do you guys all right? Nobody's. You put the bulwark on your back and just carried the whole thing. I'm in the comments. But I got into this thing with Bill.

And you know how sometimes your best content ends up being like a throwaway thing that you ended up going down this rabbit hole on? But I got into it with Bill about something that's just been on my mind. And you and I've talked about sort of my broken man. theory before. But I started to talk to Bill about the inverse, which is one of the reasons I get sort of obsessed with how terrible the men leading us all right now is that I've always really loved a good man. And I went on a bit of a rant about this on the Monday show with Bill. And then, but I've been thinking about ever since because it got a big reaction. A lot of people

emailed me about it. And I was reflected. on what it is about, like, why I feel this. And the thing is, is I've been very lucky. I've been surrounded by good men. And sometimes people think lesbians, I don't know if people watch chasing Amy, but there's this, you know, some of the stereotypes of lesbians, they don't like men, you know, the feminist stuff makes them hostile to men. I, A, don't think that's true.

I do think that straight men and lesbians are natural allies. But also I have always like from my dad to my brothers to the like totally idiot dudes that were my best friends from, you know, middle school on, they've all turned into these really great men. And I love a good man. And I think that it doesn't like, and you know, now I'm raising a couple of boys. And I say to them a lot, I'm like, hey, you're going to. to get big someday. I think about this. I'm a small person. When people meet me at the shows, they're always like, you are shorter than I thought you'd be like a five two. Tiny. Yeah. And so then are these like big things to me. And always height maug in me. But I say to my

boys, like when you get big, like your job is to help people. Your job is to use the fact that you're big. Like I don't, you got to get stuff off shelves for me, obviously. But in life, like you should look to be someone who helps. because you will have this sort of physical advantage over a lot of people. And I try to really put that in there because I just, I've been surrounded by men like that. And to watch us be governed by men who are the opposite of that has genuinely been jarring. But I did want to say, you are such an example of a good man when I think of good men. And it's funny, people who don't know you, sometimes people get the cranky version of you.

And you're cranky about this stuff too. The only version I got. No, no, no. I mean, you are cranky about this. But, you know, sometimes when we're off camera, the thing you will get, I've heard you just go on these benders about like men who leave their families. Like you, but you're like a great dad, a great husband. and you think about how you care for people. Yeah.

That's the job. That's the job. That's the job. We can talk a little more about, you know, well, let's do some man talk at the end of the show. Okay. We've got a lot of stuff we're going to get to today. We're going to talk a little bit about streamer JVL. That's a new thing that's happening.

The ice vehicle stops. They're back. Iran. We have all sorts of, it turns out that we have two wars in Iran, not just one. That's really interesting. And we're going to talk about the Michigan primary where you are going to continue to educate me about the attractedness of Haley Stevens as a political commodity. That's not what I'm going to do. It is something that is, again, this is probably a me problem, not a judgment on her.

We're going to get to all of that. First of all, I did a streamer show yesterday. Do you know what streamer shows are, Sarah? Unfortunately, I do, but only because I got inadvertently dragged into the great streamer war of, you know, 2026 because of the, like, I didn't know who Hassan Piker was until somebody put me on a panel with him, like last year. And the thing was he couldn't, he ended up being not in person. And they were like, trying to explain to me like, yeah, he can't be here in person because. because I was like, I don't know who this guy's. Yeah, because the venue wouldn't let him stream on camera for the event.

And then I learned about how there's destiny and then there's these other streamers and they all fight with each other. And they're on camera for like eight hours at a time. Yeah. Yeah, that's the thing that sort of blew my mind. So I believe the origins of streaming come from the gamer community. And so there's a message, a platform called Twitch. that back in the day, like, you'd be on Minecraft or League of Legends or some other game, and you'd just be streaming, and people, it turned out the people would just watch other people

play video games. Like, that was a thing that people would do on the internet. It's like 10 years ago, maybe. And some of that just sort of expanded to other things. They're like baseball card streamers who will just literally open packs of cards on camera and talk about them as they're opening baseball cards. There are political streamers. And like your friend, Asan Piker, and this guy, Destiny.

And I went on Destiny Show because Barry is a big Destiny fan, our friend Barry Rubin. And Barry was like, you should do Destiny's show. Would you do that? I'll hook you up. And I was like, I don't know who this guy is. But if you like him, Barry, I trust you. Oh, you trusted Barry. I love Barry.

I mean, this is not a value judgment. I trust Barry with my life. Okay. Is that a mistake? I mean, love me some bear. Bear and I've been together for 15 years. But if Barry gave me a suggestion about a streamer, I don't know if I would take that as gospel.

I went and did it. And it was fine. It was, but here's the thing, because so I'm doing this over Zoom with him. And so I'm not seeing the river of comments that happen on a stream. And so for me, it was just like doing a podcast.

I got the sense that he was maybe like playing video games like in the background while talking to me while also looking in his comment stream and like multitasking. But this is very clearly an age divide medium because and I think that this is maybe I'm wrong, but this is a lot of it's just like where you are in the season of life. Because once you pass a certain age, I don't think it's possible to keep up with streamers. because you just have too many other responsibilities between your job and your family and driving kids back and forth to soccer practice and all like, you know what I mean? Like people must age out of streaming consumption, I think. That's a good question. I certainly, I can't understand the appeal of sitting.

Like some of these guys, they're like, I'm going to go to sleep now. and the camera will just stay on me. You're like, while I'm eating. I don't know exactly why this is a thing, except I will say America has an enormous loneliness problem. And I do think that this is part of the manifestation of that, right? This is how people form community. And that typing that everybody's doing, as best I can tell,

like, there's just a hyper conversation that comes so people do feel sort of connected to it at all times. But anyway, okay, whatever. You went on the streaming show? I don't know a stream. That was it. Basically, my takeaway is that, uh, according to many of the America's most popular streamers, I am very based. And that's good.

I think it's good. Were you like, I could see you going on one of these streamer shows and going full JVL, like just, just the whole end. The America's dune. That's true. Yes. Uh, I did do America's doomed. Yes.

When he, when, when Destiny, uh, I don't know why I'm calling it. His name is Stephen. I was just like, do I call you Mr. Destiny? Can I just call you by your given name, Stephen? He was like, yeah, people in my real life call me Stephen. I was great. Thanks, Stephen.

Yeah, he was like, you know, but you're a little hopeful, right? No, not really. Great. JBL to America's chronically online youth. Give up now. Give up now. No, but that's what I said. I was like, here's the thing.

You've got to go down fighting. We're going to lose But that doesn't mean you give up You keep fighting all the way down Okay So here's the thing that happened You'll recall when we did Two weeks ago

The next level I opened by saying We have some good news And the good news is that ICE had Like an hour before we taped Ice had said We're going to stop doing these vehicle stops Since our agents keep murdering people

When they do vehicle stops I got reversed real quick. Well, it did take almost nine days. Tom Holman says that we're doing vehicle stops. They're back on because he's concerned that people will, if they don't use vehicle stops, that people will use their vehicles to hurt ICE officers. Sarah, I would pay any amount of money, any amount of money, for a responsible news reporter,

the next one who is interviewing Tom Homan on News Nation or whatever, two, when this subject comes up, ask him, should the Capitol police have started shooting January 6th protesters when they did not follow commands to step back from the barricades?

Should they have, because that's his, Tom Homan's thing is, basically look, look, if a police officer tells you to do something and you don't do it immediately, well, I mean, you're going to get killed. Right. That's his thing. If you don't want to die, just do what they tell you to do. When should the Capitol police have started firing and murdering January 6th insurrectionists? Well, Jim, you're missing a critical distinction, which is the people who attacked the Capitol on January 6th were homegrown. terrorists who supported Donald Trump.

And so you got to understand that for them, that's very different than literally anyone else, but especially people that they deemed to be illegal immigrants. Although part of what part of the reason this did get pulled off, there's two reasons. One is Susan Collins called Mark Wayne Mullen because it's hurting her electoral chances there in Maine because one of these shootings was in Maine. And the other reason is, is they keep getting the wrong person. Like they are- Also a problem.

They are, the people they are killing are not even the intended person they were trying to go get to deport. Oh, they're not trend to Agua members? They are not. And so we're running into this situation with ICE. ICE is now so wildly funded. They have so much of our money that they can go. This is happening all over the place now where they are, they are trying to meet quotas. 2,000 a day.

2,000 a day. So they've got quotas. So they're just trying to get anybody they can. And I think that unless it happens right in your backyard, this is one of those things people don't really see. Or until it happens to one of the people who you're like, wait a minute, this guy's been here for 20 years. He's like, he's part of the community. And then suddenly everyone goes, well, I think this is going too far. But unless it's happening right in front of you, it's an easy thing, I think, for Americans to not see, which is why Minnesota was so important because the way that the community itself pushed back led to it being, you know, white Americans who got shot, which I think changed the way.

And it was caught on tape. I do keep thinking that this matters a great deal. Oh, yeah. The fact that Alex Preddy and Renee Good shootings were both caught on tape so that we could see that the government was lying, which is the other important thing about ICE is that they're not telling us the truth about anything. No. Right. It's a huge problem, isn't it? That like, I mean, whatever.

It's very, very bad. But can you explain to me why nobody, no straight media reporter would just ask Homan? the January 6th question when he when he says like well you know people just have to to comply I mean okay so sir could you critique that why were the jam were the capital police wrong to not open fire on on the January 6th insurrectionists they didn't comply with orders we have videotape of them not complying media if you're listening if tom homin is going to talk to you you should ask him this question you're interviewing Tom homan ask him when they should have started shooting This is one of the reasons why I would never say abolish the police, but I might say abolish ICE, is ICE is playing by very different rules.

Like, I've heard this. A lot of people who are in law enforcement who have done sort of critiques of the way ICE did the shooting is that their rule is to not. They are not supposed to just unload on anybody who's fleeing. They're not. You're not supposed to walk purposely in front of the vehicles either. That's right. They're supposed to get out of the way. You're supposed to say to the side of a vehicle, not go in front because you go in front, you are inviting yourself to believe that you can be in danger. I mean, I just sort of take it as a baseline fact that ICE has to be deleted, like completely deleted.

And it isn't to say that you don't have those functions, right? I think the entire Homeland Security Department should be disassembled. And just it didn't, the Homeland Security Department didn't exist until 10 minutes ago. And it turns out to have been a mistake. And so it doesn't mean that all those functions go away, but you reapportioned them to the other parts of the government where they had been before. And for the types of functions that ICE is supposed to do, you just got to start over. stand up a new agency, build it from the ground up, because this is a rogue agency. There is no, like, well, we'll just weed out the bad apples.

It's all bad. There might be a couple good apples in there somewhere. I just think at this point, the amount of money, like, they have been out there recruiting new people. Like, it is now filled with people who came into it for the purpose of, I would like to fill the hole in my soul with dragging, you know, people who've been here for 20 years. And they were being pushed out onto the streets without any training. Right, or without adequate training.

And so the idea that, like, well, in four years, you could reform that. You can't. Right. The entire culture is just broken. And so start over. Okay. So this is a moment. This segment, not what you just heard.

What you just heard was done by me and Sarah, because we want to talk about it. So, Sarah, we've had some developments in Iran. You may have noticed that on Wednesday, the Pentagon had a list of casualties from American service members in Iran. And there were 18 service members killed. And then on Thursday, there were only 14 service members killed. You will not forking believe what their explanation for this is. And we're going to talk all about that.

Do you know where we're going to talk about it, Sarah? Other side of the paywall. The other side. Yeah. Yeah. Guys, come hang. It's a good time. It's not a good time.

It's the bad place. But you should come and hang at the bad place with us because that's like the only way to do it, right? Nothing worse than being in the bad place by yourself. Be there with your friends. Yeah, look, we give a lot of stuff away for free. There's not that much behind the paywall. This is one of the things. It's one of the best things.

Come do it with us. There's no shortcut for saving time. But saving money is simple. Just combine your car and home insurance with Bel Air Direct and save. Get a quote at bellairdirect.com.