Trump and Musk Are Strangling the Government

Plus: In Defense of Snow Days

Feb 07, 2025

BILL KRISTOL & ANDREW EGGER: A Late-Night Call Between Trump and Bannon
JVL: The Story of Us
JOE PERTICONE: Pam Bondi’s Gift to Foreign Influence Peddlers🔐

Overtime is for everyone. If you’re a subscriber: thank you. If you’re not, there’s no better time to subscribe to Bulwark+ than today. If you like today’s issue, you can share this newsletter with someone you think would value it.

ICYMI: New York Magazine has a nice profile out about The Bulwark. It’s thanks to you all of you that we’re here. We’re so grateful for all your shares, comments of encouragement and support. We couldn’t do this without you. The only way through is together.

SAM STEIN: Trump and Musk Are Strangling the Government

Young girls with U.S. and Kenya flags taking part of a PEPFAR project for girls' empowerment in Nairobi on March 10, 2018. (Photo credit: JONATHAN ERNST/AFP via Getty Images)

ON SATURDAY, THE STATE DEPARTMENT issued a memo clarifying that PEPFAR, the world’s most successful initiative to combat HIV and AIDS, was exempt from President Donald Trump’s pause on foreign aid.
The announcement was a relief to the global health community, which had been uncertain if prior waivers for life-saving medical services had put PEPFAR in the clear. But in the days since, officials on the front line of the fight against HIV in Africa say operations remain hampered, resource-strained, and stuck in limbo.

READ THE REST.

🎥 PODCASTS AND VIDEOS 🎧

Bulwark Podcast with Tim Miller: Michael Steele: Gum Up The Works [YouTube]
The Next Level: Boom, Roasted [YouTube]
Bulwark+ Live:
The Michael Steele Podcast: We Don't Have to Agree, But Let's Seek the Truth (with Dr. Cornel West and Dr. Robert George)
George Conway Explains it All (to Sarah Longwell): How to Stop the Dismantling of Our Government

Did you know? Bulwark+ members can listen to an ad-free version of these podcasts on the player of their choice.

Learn more at Bulwark+ Podcast FAQ.

📣Bulwark+ members can now listen to ad-free podcasts on Spotify! Learn more here.

Our 🎥YouTube offerings are the free-versions of shows, and they do have ads.

✍️Also: Did you know that every podcast has a transcript for B+ members? Yes! If you’re more a reader than a listener/viewer, open any podcast and the transcript button is beneath the player.

CLARE COFFEY: In Defense of Snow Days

THE EXCITEMENT STARTS BUILDING the night before, when temperatures begin to drop. The night air turns sportive, feral, running off with your breath when you step out the door. The stars glitter like they know a secret. Anticipation is half pleasurable fear: What if it doesn’t happen after all? What if it doesn’t come? That would be unbearable, now. Children sweat through probabilities and superstitions like hardened Vegas gamblers. Is not doing the assignment a sign of faith that guarantees the outcome—that there will be no one to turn it in to the next day? Or is it presumption that invites a sickeningly foreseeable contrapasso?

READ THE REST.

🚨OVERTIME🚨

Happy Thursday! We’re going to do what with our ATC system now?

J.D. Vance’s half brother… Is running for Mayor of Cincinnati (Enquirer).

Trump has ruined... the U.S. friendship with Canada (Pete McMartin, Vancouver Sun).

Do Democrats Have a Plan? Senator Brian Schatz on how the Party should be responding to Donald Trump’s breakneck assault on the government. (New Yorker)

DOGE Staffer Resigns… Over Racist Posts (WSJ).

Libertarian Party Gets New National Chair… After Angela McArdle's Surprise Resignation. This Reason story has all the twists and turns needed for a perfect Libertarian Saga.

The National Garage Racing Championships… Are taking place in Northern Virginia later this month.

“Let me just let me make this clear: We’re either the party of law and order, or we’re not.” NJ Republican Gubernatorial candidate Jon Bramnick criticized Trump’s pardons of violent January 6 insurrectionists in a recent debate. (NJ Globe).

“The psychopathy is the point.” Anthony Fisher at MSNBC on shattering the Overton window.

We Have to Take Some Kind of an L on Immigration, For Now… you can only ignore public sentiment for so long, argues Freddie deBoer.

The World of Hans Zimmer… Some remastered tracks from Hans Zimmer, including the 1996 Action/Thriller classic The Rock? Sign me up. Also Final Ascent from No Time to Die is great.

Fox’s hiring of Lara Trump… Is exactly what it looks like (MSNBC)

What do you think?