Bulwark Takes - Ric Grenell Screamed at Trump’s Gatekeeper. Whoopsie...

Episode Date: February 13, 2026

Tim Miller joined Nicolle Wallace to talk about the DOJ’s failed attempt to indict six Democrats—and the stunning cowardice of Mike Johnson, who suggested his own colleagues may have committed crimes. As grand juries reject Trump’s lawfare, Democrats like Mark Kelly, Elissa Slotkin, and Jason Crow appear to be hardening their stance and meeting the moment.Plus Tim talks about the Daily Mail's brutal takedown of Rick Grenell: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15443145/richard-grenell-exile-susie-wiles-feud-kennedy-center.htmlWatch Deadline: White House on MSNOW: https://www.ms.now/deadline-white-house

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Hey, everybody, Tim up from the bulwark here. I just got off with Nicole, and I'm usually on with her for the whole hour, but that's a crazy news environment. They kicked me out early. That's some other shit to say. So I'm going to say it here with y'all. And I can stick around at the end for our exchange,

which is focused on the failed effort to indict six Democrats at the grand jury there in the DMV. And, boy, what just a disastrous failure. by this administration to go after those six Democrats and like just get resoundly rejected by a grand jury. Now they're going back for a second bite. I guess this is kind of like a thank you, sir. May I have another situation, it seems like.

But we'll keep an eye on that. But one of the things I want to get into with regards to that is column by my colleague Joe Perticoke, who writes the press pass newsletter. It's our newsletter about what's happened on Capitol Hill. You can get that at theblark.com. You should sign up if you haven't. He talks about just how embarrassingly timid it is that none of the Republicans, basically with two exceptions,

have stood up for their Democratic colleagues who are being targeted by this administration. I mean, it's really kind of unbelievable cowardice. Can you imagine working with somebody, being a colleague, and having, you know, someone,

you know, try a sham effort to run. them out of the company and then you don't say anything. I think back to like an 80s movie about a prep school, you know, where the dean is targeting a kid inappropriately. Like, what do you learn? What is the moral of all those stories? Like you stand up for your classmate and your colleague, even if they're, you know,

your rival or even if they, you don't like them. They're not in the same, your same group. That's not happening with the Republicans. And, you know, Mike Johnson, a little twerps that he basically did think they committed a crime. which to me, I just think that's, this is the beginning of the end of Mike Johnson speakership. And that is going to be a really dark quote for him to look back on when he's in the

minority, when he realizes that his speakership is gone for good. And he was trying to jail his colleagues saying they should be jailed for putting out a video where they simply said that members of the military should not follow unlawful orders. Members of the military should live up to their oath. all they said. Mike Johnson thinks they should be jailed for that. Oh, yeah? Okay.

Well, we'll see what goes around, comes around on that. But I was intrigued by Tom Tillis, who's retiring, is finally found us behind. And so he, you know, said that political lawfare is wrong, no matter either party. It's like, okay, buddy. Let's not, let's not try to compare Merrick Garland, limply going after Donald Trump's myriad real crimes to Donald Trump and Ham Bondi going after Mark Kelly for imaginary crimes. It's not the same thing.

But I was interested in Chuck Graf, These point. Here's what he said to Perthico. I think our law enforcement people ought to be spending their time on making our community safe and going after real lawbreakers. That's an important point, Grandpa. That's an important point, Grandpa, Chuck. Like, the amount of resources that's being spent on chasing after fake crime by this administration at the expense of efforts to go after real criminals is truly mind-blowing. It is no longer after white collar crime at all.

If you're a rich guy, you have impunity in this country right now. You can do whatever you want. If you're a crypto scammer, you can do it ever you want. If you're kidnapping, Nancy Guthrie, no results on that yet. And yet instead, we have all these law enforcement officers and officials and resources going after nonviolent immigrants and imagine any political foes, Jim Comey and Tish James. and the Democrats. It's embarrassing. Like, you have limited resources in any organization.

You have limited resources, certainly in federal law enforcement. And they're being wasted by these clowns on these vendettas. And they're not even succeeding. As I said, with Kinsinger today, it's in fucking embarrassment. How big of a failure

they've been on all of this. So, Grassley speaking out of that is noteworthy. A pertinent is chance to talk to Jason Crowe, who's one of the six Democrats who had been targeted. And here's what Crow said about Johnson. Speaker Johnson has been very clear that his long time selling of his sold to Donald Trump is thoroughly complete at this point. I think it's kind of a real attack on a supposed to Christian. You're not supposed to, I think like not worshiping false idols is one of

the key tenants. So anyway, Crow goes on. So I'm not going to hold my breath for congressional Republicans to do the right thing. But I've also been very clear that it's never too late to do the right thing. So none of us are holding our breath. But it is, we'll monitor how long this embarrassment goes on, but it is pretty striking that these guys are simultaneously soulless and incompetent when it comes to their lawfare efforts. I like to talk about something else that has nothing to do with the topic at hand. But I'm sitting here and we're friends. And sometimes in the content business, I like to think about this, which is like, you know,

three for you and one for me. You know, every once in a while I get to do one for me. I get to do a video about something I really like. That might not be the highest or most important thing. But I do it either because it's stimulating intellectually. Those are the good versions of the ones for me. Or I do them because I'm a petty bitch who wants to rip on somebody that I really dislike personally. I'm lucky for you guys.

This is one such case. There's a guy named Rick Grinnell. Rick Rennell is a gay Republican. He's kind of like the gay Marco a little bit, but meaner. And like less dynamic and a problem. peeling if that's possible. But on his ideological journey, he was like a neocon, basically. I worked for John Bolton. And then he totally redesigned himself or refashioned himself as a mega, whatever that is, isolationist, nationalist. So it's kind of fake their foreign policy worldview. Their foreign policy

worldview is whatever Donald Trump's whims are. So he tried to follow, you know, where the winds were blowing on Donald Trump's whims. And so Grinnell sucks up to Trump, sucks up to Trump. Trump ends up getting a job at the end of the first Trump term as in the Tulsi role that she has now. And coming into this cycle, he was one of the ones who was sucking up to Trump when he was in the wilderness, didn't go for desactymonia. So going to this cycle, he thought he was well positioned. The rumors going around were that he wanted to be Secretary of State. But according to this latest story from the Daily Mail, he had even higher ambitions than that. And so I want to talk a little bit about this brutal.

Daily Mail story about Rick Cornell and just relish in it a little bit. It is kind of like the National Review. I'm kind of doing this thing for you where I'm going behind the paywall of right-wing rags and telling you what's there, so you don't have to pay them. This is the story is by a U.S. political reporter there, Phil Nito, good job on this, Phil. The headline is, downfall of Trump, VP hopeful exile to construction job, filthy message, over office humiliations and tearful feud with Ice Maiden who fucking hates his guts. cut my attention.

But I looked at it. I was like VP hopeful. I was like, who are they talking about? And I started talking about Rick Grinnell. And I was like, are they talking about Rick Grinnell? Turns out, Grinnell was floating himself at Maralago

as a potential vice presidential nominee with other campaignates, which is hilarious. Like, I've known Rick going back to 2012 in the Romney campaigns. Let me just tell you guys this fun backstory. You know, do you want to stick around? Pull up a chair.

Get a fun backstory. 2012 campaign Grinnell gets hired and at this point like having out gay Republicans there weren't really any I was at the RNC as a spokesperson and I was really like the most prominent

gay Republican that was like actively working for Republicans or some who like retired and then came out of the closet but who were still working and I was out nobody wasn't a big deal nobody made a big deal about it Romney didn't care Wright's previous was my boss they didn't care

and Rick gets this job and he immediately becomes a huge fucking pain in the ass for Romney because he's a dick and he's been posting misogynistic posts at reporters and popping off and just like being erratic being an asshole you know he's just he's unappealing to work with reporters hated him he brought nothing to the table basically except for drama and um the Romney campaign started to think about what to do and so they sort of were pushing him to the side a little bit. They didn't want to push him out because they didn't want the perception that they were firing a gay person. Like they didn't want to seem in a general line by the time of 2012 like views

had changed on gays and they didn't want to like be seen as a campaign that was anti-gay. And so they're just trying to give more of behind the scenes role. He throws a temper tantrum as a hissy fit about it. Quits claims that they were sidelining him because of his sexuality. It's just like it was all fucking fake bullshit drama. You know, he just, it was over there, I'm like, I'm, I'm catching strays in some of the articles about

him, you know, because they're like, there's another gay guy over here. I'm like, don't look at me. So, anyway, he's just a prick. Fast forward, back to the Daily Mail store. I should also mention the Daily Mail, I guess, found his Instagram, and there are a lot of, not that flattering shirtless photos of him on vacation and the

story, so we'll throw a couple of those up there if you close your eyes if you want. Among the other things that happened here, why he didn't get any of these jobs, is that he had another one of his temper tantrums with Susie Wiles before the Republican National Convention. He didn't like his speaking time. Here we go. Let's get the quote here. He screamed at Susie, and he told her, you're the reason why we're going to lose his fucking election. He berated, Susie, because he didn't get a prime time speaking slot.

That's why he doesn't have a big job. It's why he's never considered for Secretary of State. So, you know, Susie hasn't really stopped Trump from infringing on any of our rights or sending people to a gulog in a foreign country, but at least she kept Rick Grinnell out of the Secretary of State's job. That's funny little tidbit in the story. Grinnell said this wasn't true, told the Daily Mail that Susie would call them and confirmed that that didn't happen. That call from Wiles never came, according to the reporter. And then the day of the mail reached back out to her to tell him that Wiles hadn't called and he hung up on them. So whoopsie, oopsie, oopsie.

now his job is as he's running the Trump Kennedy Center was right into the ground actually nobody will perform there and Trump has to shut it down for two years so now his job is I don't know bringing some swaths of marble in to Mr. Trump to ask him to pick which ones he likes better for the armrests it's his new job he's kind of like the fabric coordinator for the Trump Kennedy Center

so good luck with that Rick Tough tiddies, tough break, hate to see it. Hate it when bad things happen to bad people. All right, I get a little bit more on the other story with Nicole Wallace. Stick around for that. We'll be back tomorrow. Another pod of my Marty Gras shirt. We're in carnival season down here in New Orleans.

See you on the parade route. I always get picked for juries. I don't know what that says about me. I always get picked. And it is, it's sort of awesome, right? Like you see, these people have nothing else in common except they drew the same, number. They're there on the same day. I wonder, though, how you fix this, right? Like, we were talking to local officials in Minneapolis and Minnesota about how you begin to repair

their communities. And this feels like as much of a long-term effort as that, right? Because you know how, we now live in a country, or at least in the District of Columbia and the Eastern District of Virginia, where jurors have, on more than one occasion, listen to one side of legal argument and said, no, I don't believe you. How do you repair the system after they're gone? Well, we're going to have to clean house. And I think that's going to be a big question. I mean, we have a lot of question between now and a Democratic presidential primary. A lot of work to do between now and then. I think that'll be a big question for those candidates, is how they navigate this. Because, you know, in the past, you kept career employees in their jobs.

You know, that was the whole point. You had experts in all these jobs. But now this administration has replaced a lot of real expertise with a bunch of hacks. And I think one way that we're seeing the kind of nature find a way on fixing it without any intervention is a lot of folks are leaving. You know, I mean, I understand the idea that the prosecutors have brought this case where we're certainly doing so on orders from political figures up the food chain from them. but we've seen those orders be given to other prosecutors and have them quit. I mean, in Minneapolis, 75% of the Minneapolis U.S. Attorney's Office has quit already. And so on the one hand, that's good, that is wonderful.

And those folks should be praised. On the other hand, you had the former chief of staff to Pamp Bondi posting on X, I think two weeks ago, saying basically if you're an attorney out there somewhere in the country that supports the Trump agenda, you call me because we need U.S. assistant U.S. attorneys, which is a crazy thing to post. And that's a very coveted job. And Carol would know better than me. But so I do think they are going to be putting people in these roles that don't have the judgment for them or don't have the experience for them. And that's going to have to be a house cleaning if we ever get through this. Tim, I know you've interviewed a lot of these six, and we've had the privilege of interviewing them as well.

I just had your colleague Sarah Longwell-on. She's talking about the rage that voters feel. There is something in waging this fight that they didn't really pick it. They released this video, and Trump is threatening to charge them with crimes. Crimes as serious as treason, which is punishable by death. He's brought their case before a grand jury. Their fight is something different than a lot of the things that you and I have covered, really over the nine years of Trump.

And I wonder what you see from Senator Kelly and Senator Slocke and Jason Crowe are the three that we have on this show the most. But they seem to get steelier and stronger and more direct and they seem to either be lifted or inspired by some of the courage in Minneapolis or maybe I'm projecting that onto them. But there is something about this fight there

waging against the injustices of the Trump administration that I haven't seen before in the Trump story. Yeah. Well, look, I do think their rage has grown into this. We've, outside of the context of this authoritarian moment, we've seen this from politicians in the past, politicians that have arisen to the occasion, you know, that you might not have expected. Yeah. You know, the Mark Kelly that I watched in that Senate race in Arizona, maybe this was just out of strategy, you know, but was, because Arizona, having been a swing state, was like presenting himself really, really as, you kind of a moderate, bipartisan, you know, not really a bipartisan. and, you know, like, not really a bomb thrower.

Like, that was not the face that he put forth. And I think that that's maybe his nature probably. Like, he'd rather be a problem solver than, you know, then, you know, like raging, you know, being the leader of a resistance fight. But this is the moment has been thrust upon him. And this is what a lot of us have been calling for. And you want Democrats. They're going to rise to the moment and say, and say no, you know,

and say hell no, frankly. In the face of, like, the abuse from this administration, he's done that. And I've been talking to a lot of Democrats about what Democratic voters want and what Democratic strategists tell their candidates. And I'm really seeing right now like a, you know, instead of having like a left-right divide within the Democratic Party, like you're seeing like who is ready to fight in this moment divide versus who is not. That is not that ideological. And you're seeing Slotkin and Crow and Kelly who are more traditionally moderates. And then you're saying kind of AOC or Zorot or whoever, who are more traditionally on the left who arise in the moment. you're seeing some folks who, you know, fit both of those ideological categories who are still catching up.