The episode opens with back-to-back pre-roll advertisements. First, McDonald's promotes its six new summer drinks — Refreshers with popping boba and crafted sodas including a Sprite Berry Blast with cold foam. Then Novo Nordisk runs a branded Ozempic ad reminding listeners that only they make FDA-approved Ozempic semaglutide, distinguishing it from other GLP-1 medications. Neither ad contains editorial content relevant to the episode.

Tim Miller opens the Bulwark Podcast, previewing a double-header episode. He introduces Cameron Kasky — described with characteristic Miller wit as 'the podcast's favorite Gen Z bisexual quasi-communist' — for the second segment on the DSA's primary performance. But first, he welcomes Maggie Haberman, New York Times White House correspondent and co-author with Jonathan Swan of the new book 'Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump.' Miller's opening question is disarmingly blunt: he admits he doesn't understand why people want to relive Trump's first year in long-form prose.

Haberman pushes back on Miller's skepticism, explaining that 'Regime Change' is not nostalgic re-reporting but an attempt to understand something genuinely new. Unlike the first term — where half the White House viewed Trump as dangerous and was actively leaking — the current administration is staffed by true believers who want Trump's agenda to succeed. The book nearly killed Haberman and Swan to report, she says, because the sources are tight-knit and secrets are kept. The core thesis: Trump has expanded and transformed the U.S. presidency to a degree not seen in our lifetimes, and the title 'Regime Change' reflects the authors' belief that America is experiencing a domestic version of the phenomenon usually reserved for foreign nations.

Haberman lays out the book's central counterintuitive premise: Trump's 2020 defeat was actually the foundation of his current power. Had he won, he would have owned post-pandemic inflation and the chaotic Afghanistan withdrawal — both deeply damaging political liabilities. Instead, he became a mythic figure within his party, enduring criminal indictments, a conviction, civil suits, and two assassination attempts. The resulting congressional Republican dynamic is one of both awe and fear, enabling Trump to maintain what he and his team openly call an 'iron fist.' His ban from Twitter, far from being a political setback, helped insulate him — his most caustic posts went to Truth Social, reaching far fewer people. The cumulative effect is a president who could never have wielded this much power with two consecutive terms.

The conversation moves to one of the book's most vivid early scenes: Trump wanted to announce sweeping J6 pardons in his inaugural address. An aide warned that Democrats would walk out on camera, and Trump relented — his last concession to decorum. Hours later he pardoned roughly 1,500 people anyway, including those who attacked police officers. The immunity discussion then expands to the Supreme Court's presidential immunity ruling, which Trump has internalized as a simple, all-encompassing phrase: 'I'm immune.' Haberman reveals that Trump has repeatedly told associates he will issue preemptive pardons to anyone who has come within 200 to 250 feet of the Oval Office — what she calls a 'pardon radius.' Several people who have spoken to Haberman and Swan are personally banking on receiving one. It creates, she notes, 'a certain mindset.'

Haberman turns to one of the most astonishing periods in the book: the Musk co-presidency. Musk rejected his cramped West Wing 'hovel' and relocated to the magnificent Secretary of War suites in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, which he made his own with large video game screens. According to Haberman's reporting, he would call Trump late at night to propose cutting government entities — including, in one instance, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. His unilateral decisions often surprised Trump's own official staff. He didn't always align with Stephen Miller or Russell Vought on methods, creating internal friction. His most aggressive target was USAID — a congressionally established agency — which he effectively dismantled, leaving Marco Rubio to clean up the mess. The Musk era, Haberman notes, feels like ancient history now, but it dominated the first several months of the presidency and had lasting consequences.

Tim Miller zeroes in on what he considers one of the most underreported revelations in the book: Rubio sitting with Bukele in his palace and personally hashing out the CECOT arrangement. The original pitch was a 'safe third' style agreement, but Bukele offered up CECOT as a destination for deportees — supposedly the most dangerous gang members, each rigorously vetted. The vetting, as events proved, was fiction: innocent people were sent, including Venezuelans with explicit no-deportation orders to El Salvador. One such case became a weeks-long political controversy for the administration. Haberman argues the Rubio-Bukele scene is emblematic of what this administration actually looks like — and that the desire to cast Rubio as a grown-up or a John Kelly figure is simply not supported by anything in the reporting.

Having personally observed Rubio in the White House's Upper Press area, Haberman reports that he is constantly in and out of Caroline Levitt's office and 'looks like he is having the time of his life.' This contrasts sharply with the first term's reluctant adults — John Kelly and Jim Mattis, both of whom considered Trump dangerous and found his worldview detestable. Rubio, by contrast, rarely travels internationally despite being Secretary of State because he believes he needs to be physically near Trump. And the reason for that, Haberman explains, is that the entire government is run by six to eight people depending on the issue. If you're not in the room with Trump, you have no idea what is happening at the State Department, the Pentagon, or the CIA.

Miller delivers a characteristically spirited membership pitch, arguing that the left and center should not cede July 4th patriotism to Trump and MAGA. 'We're here, we're queer, we're Americans, we love it,' he declares, offering a full Bulwark membership for $86 a year — 14% off — for the July 4th week only at thebulwark.com/july4. A Nordstrom Rack advertisement follows, promoting up to 60% off brands like Rag & Bone, Levi's, Adidas, and Free People through the Nordy Club loyalty program.

The conversation turns to one of the book's most striking chapters: how Trump's cultural campaign extended to the Smithsonian. Lindsey Halligan, an insurance lawyer who became a White House staffer, visited a Smithsonian museum, saw something she didn't like, and flagged it internally. This ultimately led to Trump demanding the firing of National Portrait Gallery director Kim Sajet, issuing executive orders about museum content, and pressuring Lonnie Bunch — the Smithsonian's first Black secretary and founder of the African American History Museum — over his institutions' exhibitions. Haberman recounts a pivotal scene at the Smithsonian Board of Regents' June 9th meeting, where a 30-something aide to Vance named Ben Moss pulled out an iPad and showed an image of Amy Sherald's trans-themed painting (based on a trans model) to the assembled regents — including Chief Justice John Roberts — and declared it was 'not what Americans want to see.' The episode, Haberman says, is unlike any directive from a White House to a cultural institution she can recall.

Tim Miller pivots to a more personal revelation from the book: the notes that Natalie Harp, Trump's constant information aide and 'human printer,' was leaving in his private White House spaces. Haberman describes them as raw and emotional — in one, Harp wrote 'You are all that matters to me.' The Secret Service was alarmed enough to raise concerns. Trump is open about his feelings toward Harp: she loves him on staff, he tells people, as much as his wife and children do. While the rest of his aides will eventually go make money elsewhere, he says, she will never leave him. Haberman notes that Harp — a former OAN network figure who has been with Trump since late 2021 or 2022 — was present for every single court appearance during his 2024 Manhattan trial and was one of only a handful of people in the room during Haberman and Swan's fact-checking interview with Trump.

Miller raises the Iran war and the surprising revelation that Trump was privately hawkish on Iran long before the conflict began. Haberman explains that Trump's view of Iran is rooted in his 1980s formative years — Jimmy Carter humiliated by the hostage crisis, Iran as the defining threat. When Netanyahu visited Mar-a-Lago after the Butler assassination attempt to make peace (Trump had been furious at Netanyahu for congratulating Biden in 2020), Trump made clear he would be far more aggressive on Iran in a second term. He was fascinated by Israel's pager attacks on Hezbollah and flush from what he saw as the clean, successful Venezuela operation — in which a foreign head of state was seized with no American casualties. He went into the Iran war expecting similar speed. His top military advisor Dan Caine warned him explicitly: munitions could be critically depleted, the Strait of Hormuz could be closed. Only JD Vance emphatically pushed back in the meetings. Trump went anyway. Now, Haberman says quietly, he wants out.

Miller presses Haberman on the vice president's extraordinary public allegation that the authors must have tape recordings from inside the Situation Room to have sourced certain scenes in the book. Haberman is diplomatically immovable: she will not discuss sourcing, period. She does note that the book's sourcing note describes both the volume of interviews — more than 1,000 — and the rigorous methodology for what goes in direct quotes versus paraphrase. Miller, noting this was 'a pretty serious accusation from the vice president,' doesn't push further. The exchange itself is revealing: it confirms that the book's Situation Room reporting hit a very sensitive nerve for the administration.

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Miller asks about the topic Haberman and Swan were least able to crack: Trump's physical health. She admits it freely — this was the area where their reporting most fell short, not for lack of trying. What is visible is telling enough: Trump falls asleep at public events and during his 2024 trial. His sleeping habits are strange — he was found still asleep late one morning by a trusted aide who went to the residence to check on him after he'd gone silent. He has chronic venous insufficiency causing swollen ankles, a condition that only became public when photographers noticed, and which Trump directed press secretary Caroline Levitt to address from the podium — a decision that struck many in the White House as highly unusual given his well-documented vanity. His visits to Walter Reed are increasingly frequent. And throughout, the administration has released less and less health information. Haberman's conclusion: beyond the visible facts of an 80-year-old man who 'looks 80,' she knows no more than the public does.

In one of the episode's most memorable passages, Haberman describes the state of Trump's private White House bedroom. When the Trumps returned, they wanted everything as they had left it — Melania hadn't arrived yet, so Trump was alone in the residence. He picked items from the center hall and distributed them between his bedroom and the Oval Office, which he was simultaneously gilding until there was 'not a square inch not covered in something gold colored.' In his own bedroom: a carpeted bathroom, ice cream cartons, potato chip bags, Starburst wrappers (not Starbucks, Haberman corrects — that was a typo in early editions). Staff monitored the silverware because pieces kept vanishing into the trash. And then there were the bankers boxes, stacked so high their removal left visible impressions in the carpet — the same 'Beautiful Mind boxes' that became central to the Mar-a-Lago documents indictment.

Miller offers Haberman a chance to respond to the 'why save it for the book' criticism, and she takes it seriously. The Iran war reporting, she notes, was published in the New York Times five weeks into the war — still the most comprehensive account of how Trump took the country to conflict. The habeas corpus memo reporting likewise ran in the paper after months of work to obtain the secret documents. Jonathan Swan took a 10-month leave from the Times; Haberman took five and a half. The book covers the first 14 months of the presidency and was published in month 17 — an extraordinarily fast turnaround for a project of this scope. The misconception, she says, is that people imagine a hotline rings and material goes straight into a file for later publication. For this book, every piece of reporting required months of confirmation. She says she knows there's a misconception about how this works, and gently but firmly pushes back on it.

Miller closes the Haberman segment on a lighter note, asking whether she dreams about the people she covers. Haberman's deadpan response: she doesn't sleep enough to reach a REM cycle, let alone dream. She promises to text Miller if that changes. Miller signs off warmly, holding up the book's gold cover on camera, and they agree to speak again soon.

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Tim Miller introduces Cameron Kasky — former Parkland activist, congressional candidate, and Ro Khanna advisor — and immediately digs into the previous night's Colorado primary results. Michael Bennet lost the governor's race, Phil Weiser (attorney general) lost to a more progressive challenger, and Hickenlooper survived a Senate challenge but not without a significant protest vote. The most striking result: DSA-affiliated Milot Quiros defeated Diana DeGette, who had represented Denver in Congress since Miller was a child. Kasky notes that critics immediately said after the New York DSA wave that it was a local phenomenon. Colorado just proved them wrong. He also flags that another candidate — Manny, in Colorado's 8th district — won and happens to be notably handsome, briefly derailing the conversation.

Miller frames the Gaza question as 'table stakes' in progressive primaries — the minimum requirement to get in the door with progressive voters, after which other factors determine the outcome. Kasky agrees but adds texture: the Israel issue became a credibility problem specifically for Dan Goldman, whose ideological Zionism was genuine and visible, making his position politically untenable in NY-10. Espaillat's case was different — Kasky believes he probably could have survived had he adjusted his position, because unlike Goldman, there was no personal or religious tie to Zionism for Espaillat, just political habit. Kasky also notes that AIPAC's brand has become so toxic that even fundamentally pro-Israel Democratic candidates in NY-12 — including Alex Borres and Michael Lasher — were telling AIPAC explicitly not to donate to them. The discussion ranges across Daria Leza's upset of Espaillat in Harlem and the Brad Lander-Dan Goldman Brooklyn dynamic.

Miller plays a viral clip of Scott Wiener being confronted on the streets of San Francisco by protesters declaring he 'stopped being queer the moment he supported Israel.' Miller objects on multiple grounds: the tactic is counterproductive with a politician who has actually moved on the issue, the notion of 'de-queering' someone over foreign policy is absurd, and at least one of the protesters appears to be a straight man rather than a member of the LGBTQ community. Kasky can't speak to the specific individuals involved but raises a broader concern: a significant portion of the anti-Zionist activist space, in his experience, talks far more about hating Israel and the Zionist apparatus than about the actual welfare of Palestinians being killed. The bird-doggers confronting Wiener, he suggests, were driven by anger toward him rather than genuine concern for people on the ground.

Miller asks Kasky to go deeper on his travels with progressive Senate candidates Graham Plattner in Maine and Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan. Kasky's Maine dispatch is vivid: he arrived the day after a major New York Times scandal story dropped on Plattner, without his anxiety medication, expecting chaos. Instead he found hundreds of Mainers in an upbeat mood. The explanation, a local offered: in a state with one or two degrees of separation between everyone, the 'revelations' were things people already knew. In Michigan, El-Sayed's campaign has evolved from combative messaging to something more aspirational — a crescendo of positivity that Kasky finds interesting to observe. Miller notes Plattner is down 3 points to Susan Collins in polling and invokes his own Tea Party experience: the trick is channeling primary-base energy outward toward Collins, not inward toward ideological purity fights.

The episode winds down with Miller warmly thanking Kasky for visiting him in New Orleans, where they apparently enjoyed Guy's Po' Boy and Popeyes. Kasky raves about the city's food, noting that even the convenient mid-tier meals were exceptional. Miller plugs Cameron as the podcast's ongoing correspondent for DSA, bisexuality, and 'looksmaxing,' signs off, and thanks the production team — lead producer Katie Cooper, associate producer Ansley Skipper, video editor Katie Lutz, and audio engineer Jason Brown. A brief, absurdist comedic song plays before the formal credits roll.