The Next Level

Full episodes of The Secret Podcast are available exclusively to paid members of The Bulwark. You can join on Apple Podcasts, YouTube and at https://thebulwark.com. If you want to join, you're in luck: We’re running a 30% off October Surprise sale, so it’s a great time to get the full Secret Podcast and all of our members-only reporting.
Sarah and JVL break down Jon Ossoff’s Terminator-style destruction of Mike Collins. Seriously: It was so brutal that someone should have stopped the debate.
Then it’s off to:

The Eric Deters interview that broke our brains.

Pete Hegseth tugging it at the prospect of a livestreamed execution.

The Pro-Life movement is practicing its strategic silence.

Potato discourse.

And The Golden Girls!

Definitely a top quartile show.
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Will Sommer joins Sarah and JVL for a wild, wild show. They congratulate Kash Patel on his engagement, discuss JVL's Triad on the White House reporter-turned-press staffer from Real America's Voice. Then: Megyn Kelly's ghoulish rant against Cornell's Jane Doe, and whether we're happy to see John Roberts experiencing public shame. Finally: Two VERY weird campaign ads, one filled with weird innuendo, and the other featuring Angela Paxton announcing her vote for her cheating ex-husband. They wrap up by discussing a long New Yorker article about the Heritage Foundation's groypery turn.
show links:

Read JVL's Triad

Emma Green's New Yorker feature on the Heritage Foundation

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Full episodes of The Secret Podcast are available exclusively to paid members of the Bulwark. Join on Substack, YouTube or Apple Podcast.
Sarah and JVL are back apart, as God intended. And there’s lots happening:
- The new jobs report is bad!
- Should Democrats try to impeach Pete Hegseth?
- Trump is sending a third aircraft carrier to the Middle East.
- And then there are the two interviews. JD Vance seems to be living in one world while mush-brain Donald Trump is living in another reality.
Plus: Trump’s DoJ wants to go after the real villains of Watergate: The prosecutors who investigated poor, innocent Richard Nixon.
Also: JVL needs help picking a so-bad-it’s-awesome family movie.
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Tim, Sarah, and JVL are all together in-studio. It turns out things are so bad for the GOP, even JVL is hopeful. They discuss Marjorie Taylor Greene calling BS on the GOP's 'caravan' tactic, whether Pete Hegseth could be the administration's fall guy for the Iran war, and a new Marist poll showing Democrats with an almost-too-good-to-be-true lead on the generic congressional ballot.
Later: Did Scott Jennings REALLY talk to Mitch McConnell for 30 minutes? Can Democrats get to 56 Senate seats? The gang has thoughts on how Democrats should handle oversight investigations in 2027. Plus: Bo French is racist AND wants mass executions, and finally: the gang discusses some interesting rumors about Candace Owens.
Read JVL’s Triad.

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Live from benefit supporting the Haitian community in Springfield, Ohio, Tim Miller, Sarah Longwell, and JVL dig into the quieter tactics behind Trump’s deportation crackdown, what Sarah’s Ohio focus groups are saying about Vivek Ramaswamy, Sherrod Brown, John Husted, and Amy Acton, and just how big the 2026 Senate map could get. Plus, as conservative media struggles to defend Trump, the trio holds a contest to see who can do a better Scott Jennings impression.
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