We’re at War. Why Is Trump Silent?

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Hey everybody, Tim Miller from the Bullwark here with the publisher of the Bullwark Sarah Longwell.

We are taping this at about eight o'clock on Sunday evening, and we want to jump on because

the White House has called a lid for the day.

For those who don't know, a lid is basically where the White House Press Secretary tells reporters

they're not going to have any more news or comments for the rest of the night.

Reporters can go home, obviously if emergency happens, things can change.

But essentially, they've shut it down for the weekend.

This is pretty notable, given the fact that we started a war with Iran this weekend,

and the president has not taken questions.

The VP's been totally missing.

They went on the Sunday shows.

So much to go over on this, but Sarah, what's your sense for what that means?

The big access president for this one day is decided to kind of play it close to the best.

I can't tell you what it means because I have no information like everybody else.

There's a whole bunch of things that have been making me insane all day.

One of them is I couldn't believe that there hasn't been a presidential address,

like an actual formal presidential address from the Oval Office.

I still don't care if it has to be from some whatever makeshift room they've gotten Mar-a-Lago

fine, but like stand up with the networks and make sure the American people understand what's

happening. It's sort of maddening to watch the discourse on Twitter where people are fighting

about. Is it a good idea? Is it a bad idea?

And you're like, I don't know what are our stated objectives.

Like the only thing we got today, none of them went on the Sunday shows,

none of the people from the administration to lay out both what has happened

and what they expect to happen. The only thing we have gotten are two truth social videos

of Trump-directed camera giving us almost no information. I mean you can spend some time talking

about how he sort of casually says Americans are going to die.

The lives of courageous American heroes may be lost and we may have casualties.

Some Americans have died. There's probably going to be some more. That is not a strategy.

It's not, and I'm not saying he's got to lay out every little thing that's happening who he's

working with exactly in the Middle East, but like or what conversations he's having,

but tell us what the state of a stated objective is. Not just that Iran shouldn't get nuclear weapons,

but like, are we staying? Are we sending in troops? Like what are we doing? And it is remarkable

that what you have got is a president you can't trust, an administration that lies to people.

The president's son-in-law doing negotiations with people in the Middle East, like

there's no point in even all of us fighting about it anywhere about whether it's good or bad.

We just don't know anything. Yeah, and it's just disorienting.

To your point about the Oval Office address, like something of this magnitude,

I mean three Americans have already died. This war, you know, they're claiming it's going to go on

for weeks. You know, in any other circumstance with any other president, at least a case would be

being made to the American people. And then you get instead the city you mentioned, so it's been

these two truth social videos crazy enough as it is. Like this is a private company. The president

owns that has a stock, you know, that people can invest in. It's insane that he's doing this on his

own private business platform. But then he puts it up and like there are obvious places and cuts,

let's just like just play a little bit of it. For almost 50 years these wicked extremists have been

attacking the United States while chanting the slogan death to America or death to Israel or both.

They are the world's number one state sponsor of terror. I mean, without getting to the substance,

we'll be doing a lot of that. You know, tomorrow, it's just like what is happening?

An edited video on social media and then he lands tonight at back in DC. And you know,

Caitlin Collins reports that as he's walking off the plane or whatever,

there's shout questions out of like they do. He usually comes over and answers some questions.

He doesn't, but he does shout out unbelievable statues about the new statues he put up in the

Rose Garden. I'm truly crazy. I want people because I think sometimes I'm tempted when it gets

so insane. You only sort of want to laugh or just like talk about how crazy it is. But I want

people to zero in on the fact that you made this point on our live stream. But I've been thinking

about it ever since you said it. It's really true. Trump just addressed the nation on Tuesday in the

most high high profile speech of president and give. He laid out no case. He laid out no justification.

And maybe you're thinking, okay, let's say for some reason you think the president doesn't

owe us some kind of justification. You already want to keep it secret for strategic reasons or whatever,

till it's tough. They haven't gone to Congress and brief Congress, right? So like now everybody's

in a fight over, is it a legal war? Is it an illegal war? Like, okay, like that's not great to live

in a country where the fight is illegal or illegal. Is Congress going to do something? What would

Congress do? What information does Congress have? I mean, feels like they're all looking at Twitter

just like everybody else trying to glean what's going on in the situation. Like the American embassies

are being attacked or are being threatened to be attacked. There's a there's a maybe terrorist

attack in Austin. Like it feels like things are a little bit off the rails. It would be great if we

could hear from the president or somebody from this administration with some authority to talk us

through what's happening. I think that the lack of clear objective, the lack of making a pitch

about it on Tuesday, the lack of really a sense that there's a unified objective, even within

the administration, partially explains this, right? So just for one example, right? We had Rubio

after the Venezuela strikes, Trump held the press conference, and then the next day Rubio appeared

on all three networks to questions, et cetera. Well, whether you're four against what happened

in Venezuela, they had a plan. They had something they were going to do that they were going to get

rid of Maduro and install some other communists who they thought was more pliable and take the

like right. Like that was the plan. Maybe not a great plan. No, not a great plan. But they had one

and everyone was kind of able to defend. I got Rubio because it's probably Rubio's plan really.

And so Rubio felt confidently going on the networks and he's like, I can talk about this. The boss

won't get mad at me, right? Because we're all singing for the same him book. That I don't think

it's happening right now. And so nobody went on the networks this morning on the Sunday shows.

Very strange. And then just one as one person as an example, JD Vance, who's the vice president,

who, you know, has positioned himself as one of the more dovish, whatever isolationist people in

the administration, he said nothing. JD Vance has not tweeted about this. We either count. I mean,

JD Vance was shit posting the minute they were in a good with shot. You know, and so it's not like he

is scared of going out there where, you know, it's a controversial situation. JD Vance has not

tweeted one time. He's not given a statement. A lot of people on social media were confused because

it's been so quiet. There was this one viral video of JD talking like after the last Iranian strike

about how Trump is smart. And that's been going around. And I saw some people get confused

in thinking that was today. It wasn't today. He hasn't talked. So nothing on camera from him,

nothing on camera from the defense secretary, nothing from Trump besides that cut video.

Nothing from the secretary of war. And I think it's important because they don't know what to say.

They're like, JD Vance would be worried or he says we worried if they answer one of these

questions about what's your purpose. They don't want to say something that Trump would then

disagree with or, you know, undercut. Because like this is another piece of information we don't

exactly have, right? I mean, last time, Hegseth was tweeting out the war plans on signal or like he

was, you know, just including everybody on his signal chat. So he was read in on that, right? He

was running an operation. The last time, as you point out with Venezuela, it's not just that we

heard from each other. They held a press conference. They held a press conference where they all

stood on stage together. This is nothing. We're getting no information. And so you might be right.

But like his Trump, not freelancing exactly. But is this just him and Netanyahu and MBS

together just cooking these things up? And it does seem like Israel is the senior partner in the

military side of it. But he's out there. Like, I mean, even like again, former, again, he has a

clear plan. Baby wants a regime change in Iran, right? Baby is not hiding the ball about that. Maybe

true. Maybe this is again, we don't know because they're not talking. Maybe they have a more ambitious

plan of supporting the Israel regime change operation. They just don't want to say that.

Because I know it's not popular. I literally, I just, we can't know.

Yeah. I mean, that's right. But it is the, everybody else is out there talking. People from, I

mean, I watched the prime minister think like he's out holding a press conference with his

country, saying, let me tell you our position on this. We weren't actually involved in the

operation. But here's a briefing. And here's what our position is, our stated position.

The United Kingdom played no role in these strikes. But we have long been clear.

The regime in Iran is utterly apparent. Part of this is also so maddening because

it'd be one thing if this was something where we all understood what was happening because Trump

had campaigned on this. Trump had a really coherent foreign policy vision. But in fact,

he has had a coherent policy vision. It's America first isolationism. And this is the exact

opposite of that. So it is also the absence of information is problematic because not only is

this contra everything he's told us about how he planned to handle foreign policy. It's also

contra foreign policy objectives of most of his administration, like the stated ones that they ran

on. And so if it's the opposite, nobody's telling us that. Right. And you think that would make it

more incumbent on them to explain. Right. Right. You know, do you want to think it's like, well,

you know, you're going to get from me, like, why not explain? It's a huge change, you know,

from, from their stated posture. Yeah. This is a little cheeky, but I just think it's a fair

point. Michael Cohen is a writer. I like not not the fixer for Trump. A different guy, same name.

He posted this. If Trump can speak from the Oval Office about Charlie Kirk, he sure his

ship can do the same when he takes the country to war and people die. And like, that's just right.

Like, I just think that the fact that Trump is out there so much is also what makes this so

conspicuous. Right. Yeah. Trump has get to, you know, this term in particular, the second time

around is taking every opportunity possible to be in front of cameras. And the idea that in this

moment, he is not doing interview on the plane. He's not walking up to the gag all shouting at him.

He's not having no, he's not doing any of those things. You know, this is a little bit of

tea leaf reading, but again, to be kind of betrays a lack of confidence. Like, I don't think,

I guess what I'm saying is I don't think they know what the plan is, which is why we don't know

what the plan is. Right. I don't actually think that there's some secret, you know, three-dimensional

chess thing going here that they're hiding from us. I think that Trump liked to see the bombs go

boom and was on board with the MBS and BB project. And he's kind of like live in minute to minute.

Yeah. I mean, and I think that the fact that Trump was able to like grab Maduro install, you know,

just the next person and have it kind of go away in the news and not really be a thing. And

similarly, bomb around the last time and say he obliterated it without any follow-up, whatever.

I think he's he's got this sense that he can just go in, do a smash and grab job and then walk

away. And like, he might, is it possible he is belatedly realizing that that is not possible

with something like this and that it requires like drawing it inside straight where the people in

Iran are going to rise up and take over the government or like, are we going in like, this is the

I think anything's possible. I think anything's possible and maybe we'll find out tomorrow. So

anyway, we wanted to wait until there was the official lid and you know, vent some spleen about

this and you know, we'll be continuing to monitor it as things go on. Do you have any other final

final thoughts for folks? Only I'm sorry if like we want to do the sense making for you. We have

I've spent all weekend trying to understand better what could possibly be going on. And so I am

extremely, I got up this morning to watch the news shows. I'm trying to watch the Avengers movie

with my kids and instead I'm on Twitter just trying to glean anything I can. And instead, it's just

like, it's just discourse. It's just people taking sides. Like, there's a bunch of like brain dead

analysis being like Democrats who don't think we should have done this, you know, are siding with

a, you know, the Iranian regime. And it's just like, actually a bunch of people would just like to

know maybe what's going on here. Yeah. What are we trying to do here? What are we doing? What

exactly is it that you'd say you do here? Anyway, that's Sarah Long while she publishes the

vote work. Subscribe to the feed. We'll be back tomorrow with much more from us. I'm talking

to build crystals around the pod. Our current laying will be back on the channel. So stick with us.

We'll see you guys soon.

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