1050: Secret Podcast: Trump Is Now Deeply Unpopular
The Next Level
The Bulwark
4.8 • 3.2K Ratings
🗓️ 23 January 2026
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
JVL and Sarah Longwell discuss the latest—from Trump's sinking poll numbers and the Greenland spectacle to escalating ICE actions and local resistance. They also talk about new focus-group findings showing Gen Z Trump voters cooling on JD Vance (and warming to Marco Rubio), react to the White House’s use of AI imagery in political messaging, and critique Jared Kushner’s glossy “Dubai for Gaza” redevelopment pitch, with a look at how Michigan protest politics is landing now.
Full episodes of the The Secret Podcast are available to paid supporters of the Bulwark on Substack, YouTube and Apple Podcasts.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, everyone. This is JVL here with my best friend, Sarah Longwell, publisher of the bulwark. |
| 0:05.6 | Today, we are going to talk about all the new terrible things that our president is doing to |
| 0:10.0 | America. That's great. We're going to talk about his terrible poll numbers. Yay. Yay. Whatever the |
| 0:17.5 | giff is that people do for yay. I would like to talk then about your focus group that has been in Politico about how |
| 0:28.7 | young Trump voters do not want them some J.D. Vance. |
| 0:32.8 | A little bit of Jared Kushner's beautiful plan for the Board of Pieces plan, really, for Gaza. |
| 0:40.9 | And I'd really like to talk to all of those activists in Michigan who were convinced that they were helping Donald Trump, help the Palestinian people. |
| 0:51.8 | But before we do any of that, Sarah, there has been some concern registered in many places |
| 1:00.5 | about my appearance over the last couple weeks. |
| 1:05.8 | What's wrong with you? |
| 1:06.7 | I'm sorry. |
| 1:07.7 | Well, that's what people are asking. |
| 1:09.3 | People are like, is JVL okay? He looks pretty rough. And I'm sorry, the answer is yes. I have looked pretty rough. Just sort of where I am right now in life. I've also had to tape from some remote locations, which don't have even the terrible lighting of my office. |
| 1:28.9 | And also, it's winter and I haven't seen the sun since like October. |
| 1:34.9 | Yeah. |
| 1:35.6 | So this is a, this is, this is, this is a problem for me too. I mean, I am the amount of |
| 1:40.2 | concealer. I've got like my hair loses all of its blondeness. My, I become extremely |
| 1:45.2 | pasty, almost translucent. And I don't put makeup on for these things. So maybe I should. |
| 1:51.1 | Which is, by the way, Link, I should what? Yeah, you should have to put makeup on because I'll tell |
| 1:56.5 | you, the most annoying thing is when people are like, Sarah, why isn't Sarah just like, can she can't she |
| 2:02.6 | get on in the next five minutes? I'm like, if you guys are going to move me from PJ territory to |
| 2:06.8 | regular territory, I got to do a whole thing to myself. I didn't want it to be this way. |
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