John Heilemann: Did Trump Make an Ominous Shift on Iran?
The Bulwark Podcast
The Bulwark
4.6 • 11.6K Ratings
🗓️ 29 April 2026
⏱️ 69 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
At home, POTUS shows how much he wants to be like an Arab despot, plastering his mug all over the place and deploying the Justice Department to fatuously claim that Comey’s use of seashell art can rise to a crime. But on Iran, he seems to have backed off his promise of a short war, and he’s making pretty wimpy threats against the regime. Plus, Disney’s new CEO is standing by Kimmel, Barney Frank has a warning for Democrats, and recent polling data is not backing up the Dems’ midterms bullishness—even if voter sentiment is very bad for Trump and the Republicans.
John Heilemann joins Tim Miller.
show notes
- Subscribe to The Bulwark's YouTube
- John's "Impolitic" podcast
- Tim’s livestream Wednesday at 8pm ET on Substack or YouTube
- Tickets for our Bulwark Live shows in San Diego on 5/20 and in LA on 5/21: TheBulwark.com/Events
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey, everybody. A couple housekeeping notes as well as a news note. As I was taping with John |
| 0:05.9 | Heilman, the Supreme Court came back with a decision on the Voting Rights Act that was bad, |
| 0:11.6 | but also a little narrower than we expected. It's weakening a key provision that is going to |
| 0:16.7 | eliminate at least a seat here in Louisiana that was for a majority minority district, |
| 0:24.4 | which would obviously end up yielding a Republican white man instead, almost certainly. |
| 0:30.4 | So we'll have much more on the implications of the Voting Rights Act ruling A on the Bork |
| 0:35.4 | YouTube page today, if you're antsy. |
| 0:37.1 | So check that out or else later this week on the podork YouTube page today if you're antsy so check that out |
| 0:37.8 | or else later this week on the pod i am back to streaming tonight so come hang out about |
| 0:43.8 | eight o'clock in the east youtube substack wherever you find our streaming i'll take your |
| 0:48.7 | q&As want to do more Q&A today so holler at me come out with me some fun stuff. Just one more reminder about our live |
| 0:55.2 | shows in San Diego in San Diego. It's downtown San Diego, May 20th, downtown L.A., May 21st, working on |
| 1:03.3 | some fun guests. We'll love to see out there, make a little trip out of it. Jet fuel prices |
| 1:07.7 | are going to be going up this summer. So May is a good time to go on vacation. |
| 1:11.2 | All right. Stick around for, you know, kind of a good show, long show with one of my faves, |
| 1:16.8 | John Howland. |
| 1:30.9 | Hello and welcome to the Bullwark podcast. |
| 1:32.4 | I'm your host, Tim Miller. |
| 1:34.5 | Delighted to welcome back to the show. |
| 1:39.1 | Chief political columnist at Puck, host of its Impolitic podcast. |
| 1:40.8 | He's an analyst at MS Now. |
| 1:42.2 | He's co-host of Hacks on Tap. |
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