Bulwark Takes

Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling (Ret.) and Ben Parker are joined by Senator Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) for her take on the state of the Iran war, U.S. military strategy, and the health of American democracy heading into the midterms. Slotkin, a former CIA analyst with three tours in Iraq, pushes back on Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth's testimony that the U.S. has neutralized Iran's naval threat in the Strait of Hormuz, arguing Iran retains "veto power" over the critical waterway through drones, mines, and fast boats. Plus, Sen. Slotkin explains how her "Protect Our Polls Act" is designed to block the military from being deployed to polling sites during the midterms without congressional approval.
This episode is sponsored by The New York Times.

Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey just pulled in $124.5 million over its opening weekend, the biggest domestic opening for a live-action film this year. So why has MAGA Twitter spent the weekend insisting it's a woke disaster, a box office fraud, and a betrayal of Homer himself?
Sam Stein, Sonny Bunch, and Will Sommer give their takes on the right's bizarre backlash: the fake Achilles/Elliot Page casting controversy, the Emily Wilson translation discourse, the conspiracy theories about Rotten Tomatoes being "rigged," and the very online split between guys like Matt Walsh and Elon Musk (furious) and Ben Shapiro and Dave Rubin (actually kind of into it).
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Sam Stein and HuffPost's Arthur Delany went live to cover the brewing dissatisfaction with Trump's nominee for Attorney General, Todd Blanche.
Your health matters and taking care of yourself shouldn’t be complicated. Find and book the right doctor with Zocdoc. Head to https://Zocdoc.com/BULWARKTAKES to get started and check that appointment off your to-do list!

Bill Kristol and Andrew Egger went live to cover CNN's reporting that Trump and Elon Musk's cuts through DOGE to the CDC and USAID slowed the response to the cyclosporiasis outbreak, the Pentagon withholding the number of U.S. military injuries from the war with Iran, and why Trump's strategy appears trapped between military escalation and political retreat.
Your health matters and taking care of yourself shouldn’t be complicated. Find and book the right doctor with Zocdoc. Head to https://Zocdoc.com/BULWARKTAKES to get started and check that appointment off your to-do list!

Brendan Hartnett and Will Saletan put their encyclopedic knowledge of Donald Trump to the test by predicting which words he would use in a major speech. The fake bets produce some eerie wins, one brutal near-miss, and a new appreciation for how quickly prediction markets can become addictive.