Breaking News from Pod Save America - Trump Nominee Is SO RACIST That Even MAGA Is Shocked Into Silence (w/ The Bulwark's Tim Miller)

Episode Date: October 21, 2025

The Bulwark's Tim Miller joins Jon Lovett and Jon Favreau to discuss Trump nominee Paul Ingrassia's leaked racist texts. Get 50% off your new system. Visit https://simplisafe.com/crooked. There’s no safe like SimpliSafe®. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you're a QuickBooks customer looking to grow your business without the growing pains, you need the Intuit ERP. Upgrade to Intuit Enterprise Suite in a matter of hours. It's the AI Native ERP from the makers of QuickBooks. Learn more at Intuit.com slash ERP. Tim Miller. Welcome to the office. What's happening, baby? This is exciting. We're YouTubeing now.

Look at this. John between me and Tim and a little sandwich, huh? Dear Diary. Dear diary. Ooh. A little salami. Between two pieces of French two baguettes. Yeah, that classic salami baguette sandwich. And even better. We got some Nazi texts to talk about a second Nazi group chat.

Has hit the White House, yeah. This is Paul Ingracia. He is the nominee for the Office of Special Counsel. He currently is employed at the Department of Homeland Security. I believe he's a liaison to the White House. It's kind of a big job, the Office of the Special Counsel. It's not like putting somebody over in commerce. No. Although when you go to their website, it does say it's currently closed because there's no one there.

But it's supposed to investigate whistleblower claims. Yeah. So you would want somebody judicious there, you know, investigating internal whistleblowers. You would. Do you follow Paul? And before you get to his text, do either of you follow him on Twitter, on X? I can't say that I do. No. I'm going to tell you, you're really missing a good time. He is out there. And he is like, I would say that he would make. Cash Patel's, like public persona, look downright, just

middle of the road. You know, he's like John Huntsman, compared to Paul and Gracia, who is out there. He's just wheels off on all of the conspiracies. He's a big Andrew Tate guy. Likes Nick Fuentes. All of the Trump conspiracies.

He's full, whole hog on. So this is a helpful setup because if he's that out there publicly, you can only imagine. You can only imagine what's going on in the group chat. Six MAGA operatives and influencers in the group chat and Paul, and I guess some of them decided to leak this chat to Politico because they were so horrified by it.

Let's put some of the texts up on the screen here. We got MLK Jr. was the 1960s George Floyd, and his holiday should be ended and tossed into the seventh circle of hell where it belongs. this one was so crazy that one of the people in the chat responded Jesus Christ and then said Paul belongs in the Hitler youth with Uber Gruppin Fuhrer Steve Bannon That's a high-ranking position

And that's when Paul says This is of course the title of the piece I do have a Nazi streak in me from time to time I will admit it He is later Appreciate the candor Yeah a lot of candor Later in the chat

Never trust a Chinaman or an Indian, never, just for emphasis, all caps never, just in case anyone was, you know, thought maybe he was joking or. Well, that's tough break for Mrs. Vance in case there was ever a whistleblower inside the second lady's office. It seems like the office of the special counsel might, you know, might be siding with the enemy within. I will say just before we came in here, Trump is doing his typical, his daily Q&A in the

Oval. It's during a Diwali celebration. Cash is there, Tulsi. Harmeet Dylan, you know, all of our favorites. And a lot of questions from reporters, but I didn't, it's funny that the Diwali celebration, nothing about Paul and Grascia and the never trust an Indian. This is nominee for special counsel that, this is now, by the way, we're recording this Tuesday afternoon.

It's been almost 24 hours since the story broke. Nothing from the White House about his nomination. Or his current employment. Right. Quite the timing on the Diwali celebration for them. Bad draw for them that this came out. just about right before that. Also, it's interesting the word Chinaman being there

because it's like, are you pulling this from Big Lobowski? Like, you know, why is that in your vernacular? Like, you're just like such a fucking loser. It's maybe, because he also does an Italian slur for blacks in here. Let's get this one. I said, I said, I said, it's very popular in the Sopranos. I said we're making Kwanza illegal in the next Trump administration.

That was the gist of my tweet. No, I guess it's mullion, moulon holidays. I don't know if those... Moolies and Sopranos, they just called a Moolies, if you don't remember. I don't think you're going to get cast in that Sopranos movie

after that performance. No, I don't think... I don't know. I don't know Italian slurs for black people, so... I guess that, yeah. And then it says, from Kwanza to MLK Jr. Day

to Black History Month to June 10th, every single one needs to be eviscerated. It's so like... What do we think, guys? It's so funny, too, to be like, we're going to eviscerate these holidays.

We're going to send these holidays. We're not just going to get rid of the holidays. We're sending them to the seventh circle of hell. And I don't remember if the circles of hell in Dante's Inferno are like the DefCon system. And they go, you know what I mean? In my mind, the seventh circle of hell is the outer circle. And I don't think you've got to get deeper in.

I would presume that the center circle, that's where Judas is. The worst stuff is happening? Yeah, that's where Judas and the devil. That's where they are. It's been a minute for me since I read it. I'm going to zag a little bit. What I take on this? Unlike what I just do.

right on the middle. Make sure you get back on topic. Is Paul, isn't Paul and Grascia's view of the woke holidays like more in line with the spiritual imperative of MAGA than having a Diwali celebration?

You know, like, isn't the Diwali celebration really the outlier when it comes to the Trump administration? It's an important point, yeah. Because I thought they were mad about all of that. about Kwanza. You hear a lot of people get very mad about Kwanza. I only hear about Kwanza actually from the people who are mad about it for the most far. I feel like now that in year 10 of this,

their coalition has become more diverse, especially in 2024. They're thinking about Southeast Asians that they won over, thinking about younger black men that they've won over. So I feel like now it's it's more important to just, you know, take, take mega people wherever you can get them, right? Can we just talk about the, um, the lawyers? response on Grasseh's lawyer has responded to this. He said, looks like these texts could be manipulated or are being provided with material context omitted. I'd love to know what the context was. However, arguendo, if the texts are authentic, they clearly read as self-deprecating and satirical humor making fun of the fact that liberals outlandishly and routinely call MAGA supporters Nazis,

he wrote in a statement. In reality, Mr. Ingrasi has incredible support from the Jewish community because Jews know that Mr. Grascia is the furthest thing from a Nazi. Love it? Yeah, as the spokesman for the Jews, I'll say that, I don't know that that's, that doesn't resonate with me on my Jewish frequency.

Yeah, so the argument is he's joking about being a Nazi in a private group chat where he says, I have a Nazi streak in me, because liberals accuse conservatives of being

Nazis in public. And so he performs as a Nazi for small groups. Or maybe it's AI. Or maybe it's false. Yeah, so they're either fake, but if they were real, they'd also be fine. They would be jokes. I will say, though, that

that sort of explanation runs into some problems when there's some text that I actually think are the worst that were not up on the screen, and they weren't please share. So at some point, as he's doing all this, a third participant in the chat replies, Paul, you were coming across as a white

nationalist, which is beneficial to nobody. And when Grascia apparently said that, quote, defending our founding isn't white nationalist, that participant pushed back and said that saying ingratia reflexively went to saying whites built the country. And then Ingracia says, they did. And then that comment prompted the same participant to respond, Jesus, you're going to be in private practice one day. This shit will be around forever, brother. And Gracia then posted an image of painting showing several founding fathers, including Washington, Adams, and Hamilton into the chat. Quote, we should celebrate white men and Western civilization, and I will never back down from that, he said, according to the chain. So that's not like a racist joke or even a racist comment.

That's just a defense of racism. That's like a full-throated, that's racism. Yeah, it's interesting, right? the person's responding saying like, hey, hey, hey, cool it. You're not supposed to say it this way. You got to chill out because you're saying things the way you're not supposed to sing. You've got to be cool about this. You're not being cool right now.

So you're taking the negative view. I was going to take a more positive, which is that like, it says something that there's some mega people on this private group chat who decided that they do not want this man to be in the office of the special counsel. And it is different from the young Republicans group chat in that sense. Like there wasn't a lot of like internal dissent. It felt more escalatory. Yeah. And you know, that to me, I hear you love it, but there's something to be said for having a value that in polite society you're supposed to show people respect, even if you don't actually respect them. Like there's something to be said for that.

And the fact that that value has been like stripped from a lot of young Republican circles and the opposite, frankly, has been put in place. Are your friend Jane Koston, you know, talks about this lot, the vice signaling. And instead it's been replaced and it's actually the value is to who can be the cruelest and who can be the fucking nastiest and, you know, the most outlandish. And so I don't know. I have kind of accepted that in the private circles that I'm no longer privy to in Republican world, that there wasn't a lot of, there wasn't really any self-policing anymore. And so I'm taking it as a minor silver lining that there was some self-policing in this case. I appreciate that. I'm persuaded by that.

Yeah, and I do, yes, like, even if what they are saying in the chat is, hey, whatever you think, don't express it, that's wrong or at least unacceptable, does have value even if they know he believes it and can continue to believe it while being in public life because he has an unacceptable view that does, like, lend that that, that is a way of asserting morality even among people that may not believe in it. I agree with that. It's a society. Yeah. We live in a society. Yeah. Can I give you guys one more that? from the gang that loves America and its founding so much. And Grasio writes, we need competent white men in positions of leadership. The founding fathers were wrong that all men are created equal.

We need to reject that part of our heritage. I mean, that's pretty. That's a bad one. I mean, I haven't really been... Is that a joke about the lips? I know. I haven't really been caught off guard that much by the text you know

I went to prep school I heard racist jokes what was that could you repeat that one more time we need competent white men in positions of leadership the founding fathers were wrong that all men are created equal we need to reject that part of our

heritage which I will say is not entirely different from J.D. Vance's Claremont speech about the principals and the declaration not being what you should identify as American and and Eric Schmidt, Senator from Missouri, his speech at NatCon. I don't think either of them went out there and were like, no, all men were not created equal.

They're inferior. They're inferior. They're inferior stock. And they should be treated inferior. And that is like the definition of racism. Like race preference, white supremacy. Sometimes you'll throw around white supremacy when, you know, it's really more talking about other types of racism or bigotry. In this case, this is like textbook white supremacy.

The whites are supreme and people are not created equal. They are less. It's interesting to live through this. I mean, I saw the picture of this man. And I thought, oh, this all tracks. And I didn't understand until we lived through. Another 50-year-old looking 30-year-old. Yeah.

I didn't understand until we, I didn't appreciate until we live through it, how much, like, what an authoritarian state, what its dangers are, how much it mirrors the flaws of individual people, but like how much it is like a manifestation of people's terrible qualities. And you look at this guy and you're like, he likes the politics of like hierarchy and control and domination and cruelty and meanness.

And then it's like, of course, you're a fucking loser. Like you're a loser. And you're like, the only hope you have for feeling superior would have to be grounded in like some kind of like ancient racial or like gendered grudge. because otherwise, you're just a fucking loser.

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That's simplysafe.com slash crooked for 50% off. There's no safe like SimplySafe. I have one additional thought on this. Can I just play my role as the former Republican here to answer about the Republicans for a second? We knew about the fact that these texts had to be leaked is a total failure of the Republicans in the Senate. And also obviously people work for Trump, but you would expect that you'd not expect. You would think in a normal world that the Republicans in the Senate, when this person's name was floated for this job to be the head of the special counsel. office that John Thune or whoever would have back channeled to Trump and just been like, no,

this one's going to be a no. Like, try somebody else because these texts, like I said, his public tweets are almost as bad as these texts. Can I give you two that surprised me? Sure. I'm not a Paulingrasia follower on Twitter. In March of 2023, he said that education should focus on helping, quote, elevating the high IQ section of your demographics, so you know, basically young men, straight white men.

And in December 2020, here was a Twitter. Here's a tweet from Ingracia, quote, Exceptional white men are not only the builders of Western civilization, but are the ones most capable of appreciating the fruits of our heritage. Yeah, there you go. That is not that different from the... And on top of that, he's been a promoter of Andrew Tate and of Nick Flintes saying that Nick Plentis was an important voice for rising young Republicans.

He said all this in public. He also is not qualified. It's not even a qualified racist. It's a totally... It's a ridiculous choice for this job. And a couple months ago, Rick Scott. Fucking Rick Scott, that's amphibian. And he has, like, his endo and exoskeleton are inverted.

He has shown no principle in any way. And even Rick Scott said, I don't know, I'm probably a no on this guy. A couple of months ago. And yet, they were still going to push him through until these tech. As a recording, they haven't pulled him. They haven't pulled him. He's got a hearing on Thursday. And it's been 24 hours, and I'm like,

let's look for some good clips of Republicans reacting to this and here's what we got. Did Dune say something though? No, no. He said... He didn't say it on video. No, but Thune said he should... I don't think he should show up.

Something like that. A couple of them are saying, we haven't found any... Let's just go to the streamer thing. So, yeah. So the couple of... Thune, Scott, and I think Lankford and maybe someone else.

And Ron Johnson. Ron Johnson. We're like... No, this is not going to work. Too far for Ron Johnson. Have you seen that? Ron Johnson's like revisiting 9-11 conspiracies. Ron Johnson's on a journey.

He went to like a conference. The Senator of Wisconsin showed up at like a crank conference. You know, the people that happens at a Ramada Inn or something recently. Because he's trying to learn more about some of these conspiracy things. He's just asking questions. He's doing his own research. And then here's the Democratic response. When you think it can't get any worse from Donald Trump in the White House, it does.

Recently, they nominated a man named Paul Ngrossia. They nominated him for a high up position in this administration. The man is an outright bigot, racist, he's a pig. Here's what he said. He said, Africa is a shithole continent. Racism, if there ever was one. He said he has a streak of the Nazi in him. He seemed to be proud of that.

And he said that Martin Luther King Jr. Day belongs in the circles of hell. What the hell is going on? They should remove his nomination, withdraw it immediately, and denounce everything he said. And one more thing. How incompetent is this White House? What kind of vetting process do they have

that lets a guy like this through? Did they know about it and not care or do they not know about it? Either way, they're damned. You know what, not bad. Not everybody's meant to be a TikTok influence. Yeah, okay. What are the arms?

What are they? Punch down. They punch down. Just send him at a table. For God's sakes, he's in a... He's hunched over and a chair. You thought it was good? He's doing his best.

What do you want from Chuck Schumer? Don't go to the hardware store for milk. Well, I will go somewhere for it. Yeah, we got to get milk from somewhere else. Then, if you want milk, we got to go to the grocery store. We got 47 senators, how many? You know, maybe we could

be elevating someone else as more of the TikTok, the face of the TikTok response for the Democrats. One more thing. How incompetent? It's fine. It's fine. It's fine. It's fine. It's fine. It's fine. This is sort of a, the more I read the story and look at the text, I'm like, this is in fucking insane.

And we're ever, it's just like a... But you know the thing that I, like, we're lucky we saw these texts. It wasn't, to Tim's point, it wasn't a guarantee that we ever would. Do we think that the group chats that some of these other fucking Kook nominees have are like just talking about the Federalist papers

and everything that's appreciated about them? Like, God only knows, every time we see a group chat from these people, they're monstrous. The only times we're lucky enough together because Jeffrey Goldberg's been accidentally added to them. Or, or Lindsay Halligan text a reporter to say you're reporting is dog shit.

He's like, what I get wrong? Shut the fuck up. That's what. Why are you texting me? It's off the record. No, it's not. Fuck you. These are disappearing messages.

I'll take, honestly, can we, why are we getting only the white part, but not the competent part? I was promised the best of the best whites. I'm only getting whites. I'm getting mediocre. Where the high IQ whites? I'm getting 40 percentile whites at best.

Can I just say, even if, even if we don't get any more group chats leaked, maybe we can do a better job looking at the Twitter feeds, the public posts that people are putting their names to. Last year, Pongracia, he said plenty in public that's, again, just as bad. And we're just, maybe we look at those. We don't have to do any digging, any reporting.

Just scroll through the feeds. In a way, people have turned Twitter into their group chats, where they are sharing all kinds of things that would make them unqualified in a sane country. Who was that running the office of the special counsel for Obama? I honestly don't even know. Do you think they were texting about their Nazi feelings, tendencies? I don't think so. Probably not.

It was probably somebody that went to Bowden and finished at the top of their class and was very responsible and volunteered on the side on the weekends. Like, Zoran Mamdami? One of the many, many brilliant lawyers during previous Democratic and Republican administrations that said all the things you're not allowed to do. Yeah. Leading us to this wonderful moment we're in. Here we are. So it worked.

Thank you. Anyway, good luck, Paul Ingrossia. I think there will be spared, Paul and Grosio. Yeah, I think so, too. You get to hear what J.D. Vance has to say about it. But he'll probably get... He'll weigh in on whether this is pearl clutching and college kids. Another, another tyke.

Another sweet innocent. Another 12-year-old who dresses like Chuck Schumer. We're going to ruin his life over some texts about white men being better. The interesting question about Ingracio, the more interesting question, because I think he probably won't be confirmed is. he probably will remain as the liaison to the Department of Homeland Security. Yeah, well, he'll lose his job. Which is, you know, not great.

Good group of people over there, top notch. All right. Well, thanks, Tim. Thanks for coming by. We got anything else to talk about you. I want to talk about Russ Vote. Doing a little kind of like Cougar Speed Dating at Mar-a-Lago. Where was this story?

You two were both talking about this. Tim, walk us through what's happening with Russ Vote. Okay, well, Russ Vote is a, we, could Google it, but I think he's a 46-year-old man who looks like he's about 64. All of them. Looks not great. Does not moisturize. He's a divorced man.

They've called him Darth Vader. He was the architect behind Project 2025. 49. 49. Okay. Well. Maybe he moisturized a little. Maybe he moisturized a little.

Would be helpful. Well, I said he looked 64. But anyway, the, Russ. Since he's been divorced, Donald Trump, he's looking for some entertainment in his life. You know, I think that I think Mr. Trump isn't, you know, he isn't, when he's down at Marlau, he can't do the calendar girl parties with Jeff Epstein anymore that he used to do it.

Right, right, right, right. And so he's looking for something. And so he's invited Russ down, and he's trying to introduce him to some, some, I don't know, some ladies. Some ladies with new faces and big lips and saying, hey, have you ever wanted to go down to Vader Town? I can't imagine a worse wingman on earth than Donald Trump. Donald Trump walking up to him and says,

I have a giant hog. You want to fuck this bald guy? Jesus Christ. I believe it was the Daily Beast that has the stretch of shout out. Swin. Swin was the report. I'm working on it. And yeah, I don't know. I mean, I think that Russ is probably working for him.

Do you think Trump's on his iPad, just given him the right playlist? I don't know if it's a playlist, and I think that they probably, you know, it's like, hey, this is the bathroom where I sexually assaulted a People magazine reporter in 1993. And maybe, maybe Russ and my budget director. Yeah, maybe Russ and Elaine could head back in there for old timesick. We're both trying for a second. I know. I'm like, recisions, that's not anything. Get me a budget pun.

Jesus Christ, yeah, I'd like to... Yeah, we can't... I have nothing. What the fuck? You have no double entendres for budget? Pencil. Pencil butcher, pencil dick. You know what he can... Yeah, he can bend the curve in the out years. That's for...

Jesus. Oh, my God. Is that anything? I don't think... I think we need to do eight minutes to get a standalone YouTube video. Otherwise, this is going to be a short. We'd like to come back to my...

We've got to come back to my suite at... Mara Lago, let's just say I keep my furlough. It's nothing. What? That was horrible. Okay. Well, you know what? Not a safe space to brainstorm. These are the kind of jokes that get you canceled. This is why J.D. Vance didn't tell jokes at his Marine Day speech because he was afraid of getting canceled by the woke mob.

No one. No one asked him. No one asked Donald Trump about his nominee who thinks that only white men understand our heritage because they built some. press conference that's too bad no it's weird because they don't have they have such tough reporters there you know anyway a lot of people uh dogeon nothing i don't know how you guys end these shows i was about to do it like it's a like it's a bulwark take i'm in your fucking studio this is this is what i tell people to please subscribe to the channel for more content like this thank you positive america it's free you just hit subscribe and uh you know because you want more content like this. You want the algorithm to surface more content just like this. This is the part of, in the bulwark, this would be the part where Bill Crystal tells a story about placing one daisy in the rifle of an ice person.

As his ever shift towards hippie love continues, and I love it. We love Bill Crystal. He's out there quoting lock and talking about how important it is that youth sports are open to people of all gender identities. It's beautiful. It's beautiful. telling you what a what a pleasant surprise of the jump ears you know unbelievable we love Bill Crystal love Bill Crystal all right that's we're gonna end by everyone bye