Bulwark Takes - Terry Moran Breaks His Silence: Trump Is Not As Tough As He Seems!

Episode Date: June 16, 2025

Journalist Terry Moran was fired from ABC after a tweet criticizing Stephen Miller sparked an overblown backlash from the Trump administration. But Moran isn’t done. He joins Tim Miller to talk about Trump’s attacks on the free press, his Trump interview and what comes next.

I'm welcoming you to the Bullwork Podcast live on Substack. This is the first attempt at this for us. So hopefully it goes well for folks that don't know you. I assume everybody here knows you, but you were senior national correspondent for ABC News up to about two seconds ago, previously chief foreign correspondent, chief White House correspondent, co-anchor of Nightline. And now you're a free man. How's that feeling?

Oh, well, it's, somebody said, somebody used the word skiting, which is a combination of scary and exciting. Okay. Which all by, I would say it's exhilarating and daunting and scary. But yeah, exhilarating. I was at the point in my career, 65 years old, in a business that just as a matter of demographic fact is dying, I was having less impact in ABC, ABC having less impact in the world. I'm like, well, what's next?

Because I have these inappropriately young children. And so, court stops that in a lot of all these new spaces. And now that I'm here on an accelerated timetable, it's a brave new world. And for all of the things that come with job loss, there is a great deal of excitement and joy in my heart, genuinely. All right. Well, that was my first hard-hitting question. You look great for 65. What's your skin care regimen? Are you moisturizing? You know, yeah, well, I will say this. So I met my wife in 2006 and I'd never put anything, I just washed with bar soap and I didn't like what is the problem because she's up on all that. And so yeah, I would use a little moisturizer or whatever. It's working. Okay.

And name or no. Let's get to business. So the tweet that started it all, for folks who missed it, I just want to read a little bit from it. The thing about Stephen Miller is he's not the brains behind Trumpism. It's not brains, it's vile. Miller is a man who is richly endowed with the capacity for hatred. He's a world-class hater.

You can see this just by looking at him because you can see that his hatreds are his spiritual nourishment. What prompted that? What was behind it? Yeah, one thing I can say is that it wasn't a drunk tweet. Everybody assumes it was because it was after midnight. And it wasn't.

I had been thinking during the course of the day, on and off, you know, thinking about the country, right? As we all are ruminating, whatever. And I was out for a long walk with the dog and something kind of came to me. And I thought, because I was thinking about that guy, like, what, what, what is it? And what is it in this moment? And there was something there. And I thought, all right, well, so I came back, we had a family dinner. We then watched a family movie, we watched Ocean's Eleven.

And I can't blame that because that's such an excellent caper movie. And then put the kids to bed, we were up for a little while, and it was not a rock and roll wild night, it was a normal family night. And then, you know, got in the bed and I thought, what was that? And I typed it out and I looked at it and I thought, that's true. And I hit send. It's true. I hit seven. I mean, it's you can't, you got to forgive people who think that it might've been a drunk tweet. I mean, are you usually popping off at midnight?

Is it a concern that you're thinking about Stephen Miller at midnight? I mean, I guess maybe it says something about the state of the country that you're thinking about Stephen Miller at midnight. I believe so. It, it, it was more the, the, the moment that we're in, which he represents in such a vivid and to me quite disturbing way. I do, I will say this, I looked at it, I thought, okay, what is that? And I thought that's a description of the public man that I'm describing him. Yeah.

I mean, there's no lies detected from my side of things, but I'm an opinion podcaster and you do got to admit like you went a little hard in the paint there with that talking about how his hatreds are his spiritual nourishment. So, you know, I guess it does leave people to wonder, like, were you and Stephen Moore fighting? Like, was there something, was there a news story that prompted it? Like, was it something off of your Trump interview? I mean, given like your background as a newsman, obviously you had a perspective, but that's hot, that's hot material. It's way hot. And I wish I had a better story, Tim.

I just, it was something that was in my heart and mind. And I would say I used very strong language deliberately, because he, I felt, and it wasn't any, you see him all the time doing the same spitting venom and lies into our debate, degrading our public discourse, debasing it and using the power of the White House and what he's been given to grind us down in that, in that, in that bio. And that's very disturbing to me. I'm actually, you know, not that liberal, you know, I'm like a lot of people, some conserve some liberal, but there was something about that and what it represented about that movement and Trump himself that I felt, to describe it accurately, needed that language. Yeah, it's interesting. It does feel like it was something that was weighing on you. I don't have

it in front of me, but like maybe a week before that, you'd sent kind of a long tweet about about immigration. And it wasn't a lefty tweet, really. It started with, you know, a comment about how, you know, we need to be able to have self-government and have our borders. Here it is. It's like people have a right to say who comes into our country and at what pace they're admitted. That's not racism. It's self-government. By turning migration into a moral demand, a matter of right rather than policy, advocates have ignited a backlash.

And that was, this was you like a moral demand, a matter of right rather than policy, advocates have ignited a backlash. And that was, this was you like a week before, then you go on to talk about how we are seeing a bunch of people who are being racist in the way and in the ways that they are treating immigration. So like there's something about this issue that has been obviously noodling in your head for a while. Yeah. Yeah. I would say that, you know, I'm a member of the most despised political tribe in America. I'm a proud centrist. But what I mean by that is, I guess I'm old.

And the viciousness and the intolerance that you feel when we argue politics. Somebody asked me the other day in connection with all this, so what are your politics? And I said, well, I guess I'm a Hubert Humphrey Democrat. You know, I mean, I'm old enough to remember him. And you know, get practical things done that people need in a decent way and stand up for what's right.

And that is my politics. So someone like Stephen Miller in my judgment, and in my observation, which is what reporters do, is degrading all that and is a danger. And that's what was in my heart. Pete I don't feel this way, but you know, I used to be a Republican. So, I want to steal man the Republican argument for a second with you, which is I think that some of my old friends over there, our former friends maybe, better put,

would say, look, he just admitted it. Terry Miranda submitted it. He was a Democrat. He was hiding it his whole life. He was a Hubert Humphrey Democrat. One night, the mask came off. This is the problem with the media. What would you say to that? I have added, you know, but my own feeling is you don't sacrifice your citizenship as

journalism and your job is not to be objective. There is no Mount Olympus of objectivity where a Mandarin class of wise people have no feelings about their society. We're all in this together. What you have to be is fair and accurate. And I would refer to the interview with the president that I did or a lot of my work. And I would also say that this wall very hot is an observation, a description that is accurate and true. Yeah. And we got 10 years evidence. You know, it's the 10 year anniversary today, the escalator. Do you know that?

I did not know that. One of the most significant moments in American history. No question about it. 10 years. What were you thinking about it back then, that day? Do you remember? You know, he was a sideshow to me at that point, but I quickly came to understand.

I was actually in London because I was the foreign, chief foreign correspondent. So I'd covered Brexit. And as soon as I started hearing what he was talking about, I thought I told colleagues who didn't believe me, I told, I teach in the summer, I said, he's gonna win in 2016. Because, partly because I had covered Brexit,

partly also because I thought I did not understand what Hillary Clinton was saying to me in terms of what she wanted to do with that power. And if you had taken a poll a week before the election, what does Donald Trump stand for? 95% of Americans are going to go to Trump, build a wall, die now, whatever. What does Hillary Clinton stand for? I think harder to get a hold of that. And I think that was kind of an issue, but I also felt like he was onto something,

just like Brexit was onto something. Brexit was a catastrophe and a disaster and a tragedy for Britain. But there was a reason it happened. And I could see the same thing happening with Trump. Yeah. That bile and that hatred, though, goes back to that very speech, you know? I mean, it's like the rapists and the murderers, the cantaloupe legs and the grievances, right? I mean, it's

not a lot has changed there over the decade. I mean, your observation, we've got a decade of evidence, I guess, about your observation about Stephen Miller and the Trump movement. Peter T. Leeson Well, I would say this, I agree, yes, that that's part of the sale. That's part of the revving up of the resentment and all of that. And you saw it also in Britain and in other places where Trump is a nationalist. The night he was elected, I was on ABC news as we were covering the election. And I said, Trump's not a Republican, he's a Democrat, he's a nationalist. We haven't seen one in a long time and he's now basically

reframing the political debate, which he's now successfully done. The Republican Party is a nationalist party and I do think that part of that is going to be hard to get out of our system. Once it gets there, and I don't mean a patriot, I mean a nationalist. One thing about them, they're sending rapes and murders. I did, I covered a mock election in a little town in the middle of Pennsylvania as part of the story and it was a school election. And the teachers were kind of gathered around watching the kids vote. Trump won overwhelmingly. And the teacher said, yeah, you guys in the media, you saw that thing and all

you said was, yeah, he's sending the rapists. And I said, well, yeah, that was, that was kind of bad. He said, I bet you don't remember what he said next. And I said, all right, what'd he say next? And they said, they're sending the drugs. He said, the guy said, you go into any one of these classrooms, you asked how many kids have a loved one or somebody they know who's been in drug addiction. And I did it.

And we put it on nightline because every hand in that classroom went up. Yeah. I want to get into a couple of other new things for you. Just a few more things on the tweet that changed your life. So were you expecting the next morning? Obviously it leads to you leaving ABC. I'm sure there's some limitations that you can talk about,

but what were those conversations like? The next morning, were you kind of expecting that it was over? That were you bullwerthing it? Were you Jerry McGuire-ing this or were you kind of upset that there was even an issue because you felt it was so accurate? Yeah. Well, the Bullworth reference, I have to say, I hate that move. But the Jerry McGuire, no, I wasn't Jerry McGuire-ing it either.

I don't want to go into all the gory details about what happened. But it was, I was rocked clearly and, and full of fear. Okay. And, and I realized that this was going to be a very serious situation and had to stand up, you know, and deal with it. And activity is one of the best things to assuage fear. But also, I thought about it in my own conscience first and I thought, as I tell you, I wrote it because I thought it was true. And at the end of the day, when all the bad stuff has happened, my children will know that whatever it means, it means that. Did you feel like you should have been able to stay there within the context of what you

wrote? You know, I don't know. That's a bureaucratic thing. I don't know. You know, actually it wasn't bureaucratic. It was their calculation and had the the Stephanopoulos press. I shouldn't get too close to the line because there's still a lot of stuff, but

it was a business decisions from my perspective. It looked like a business decision and I became bad business. It feels like. Yeah. I understand those limitations, but just one more thing on that. It is worth seeing what happened to you in that

context, right? Like there was a settlement with Trump over the Stephanopoulos thing, which to me was pretty borderline. We're saying this at some of the other areas, 60 minutes we've seen folks have to walk away from. So what do you make of just the broader environment around you having to leave, with regards to the media's response to Trump 2.0? That's a huge challenge because these media companies are part of bigger What goes to the media's response to Trump 2.0? That's a huge challenge because these media companies are part of bigger companies that

have major business interests and Trump has demonstrated with law firms, with universities, with companies that he will bring all the power he can, rhetorical and the power that is the people's to destroy them if they don't kowtow to him. That is the story in industry after industry. The media is no different. And that has to be the calculation, in the calculation of, and I'm not talking about any particular person

of any executive. And we can't live like that. So, you know, one of the great things about where we are right now, Tim, is that we are free to speak our minds here in a way that, that people in other ways aren't. I'm not just slagging anybody. Sure. Were you worried after the settlement? Were you worried after the settlement that things might be going away that concerned you?

I should have been, but no, I wasn't. Were you worried after the settlement that things might be going away that concerned you? I should have been, but no, I wasn't. I was kind of known at ABC as somebody put it in, and I think I know who it was. Somebody who I don't think enjoyed my explorations of the issues and such. He said he's always had a very high opinion of his opinions, which is nasty when somebody's been fired, but a fair comment, I suppose. But no, I didn't think anything like that was. Yeah.

I mean, you got the Trump interview in the meantime, like in between that. That was accidental. It was. There were factors like the settlement, like the debate, like other things. I was kind of low man on the totem pole and some of the others were kind of knocked off. So three days ago. It was accidental that it was you, you mean? Like you were kind of the default choice.

That's what you're saying? Yeah. Yeah. Which I was, I had that blast of all the things I've done at ABC News have been 86 countries and lots of elections and conflict zones. I've had a wonderful career there. I love a lot. I love most of my colleagues who were there and have tremendous respect for the work they do

under difficult circumstances. But yeah, that was, it was clear that I was not the first choice there and I had three days to prepare and that was the most fun I've ever had. I wanna get to the interview right next, but just really quick, have you seen Palli's commencement?

I assume you have since he left 60 minutes. I mean, like quite powerful stuff. I, it is your departure from ABC is within that context, right? You have somebody leaving 60 minutes and giving a commencement, which is who is basically warning that we have real threats to democracy, to freedom of speech, to the free press, to diversity. What did you make of his remarks? I thought Scott was absolutely spot on.

I'm now in a position where I can help in that good work and that fills my joy as well. We can all put our shoulder to the wheel because I do think he's right. This is a moment of danger and I'm happy to be able to help if I can. All right. Back to the Trump interview. So you, uh, I have many thoughts on it. I've, I've, I've now watched like this, a Pruder film, like three or four times through, um, the, uh, What was going through your head when he starts arguing with you about how Kilmar of Rego Garcia actually did have the letters MS-13

tattooed on his hand? Wait a minute. He had MS-13 on his knuckles. He had some tattoos that are interpreted that way. But let's move on. Wait a minute. Terry, Terry. He did not have the letter M s1 it says ms1 3 that was photoshopped So let me know his photo. She had Hey, they're giving you the big break of a lifetime. You know you're doing the interview I picked you because frankly I never heard of you, but that's okay I mean this I picked you Terry, but you're not being very nice. He had MS 13 tattoo. We'll agree to disagree

I want to move on to something. Terry Do you want me to show you the picture? I saw the picture Here we go, don't Photoshop it go look at his hand. He did have tattoos that can be interpreted that way I'm not an expert on them. I want to turn to Ukraine I want to turn to Ukraine, sir. I want to get to Ukraine. No, no. No, no. He had MS, as clear as you can be, not interpreted.

This is why people no longer believe the news, because it's fake news. When he was photographed in El Salvador, they aren't there. But let's just go on. They aren't there when he's in El Salvador. They weren't there, but they're there now, right? No. But they're there now. They're in your picture.

Terry. Ukraine, sir. He's got MS-13 on his knuckles. All right. Okay? We'll take a look at that. It's such a disservice. We'll take a look at that, sir.

Why don't you just say yes, he does, and go on to something else. It's contested, Ukraine. I couldn't believe he went there. And also, so we were in the Oval Office and we had a time limit. So I had a couple of issues to get to and then I couldn't let it slide. And so I said, no, no, no, no, right, you know, no, Photoshop.

And it was like a dog with a bone. Okay. It was like he was, he was nuts about it. And I'm thinking, and so I'm a little freelancing at this point. This is not something I had intended to grill on him, to grill him on and had fact checked everything, but I, I'm kind of know that in the photographs when he's in El Salvador, they're not there and none of that, he interpret them. I don't know.

It's, I'm not an expert in that, there's all that stuff. And he kept at it so much so he was very angry at the end of the interview. And he, we were supposed to do a Rose Garden walk and he said, not after that interview, you know, it's a bad feeling. And he stormed out. And of course then I said, okay, that good, good day's work. And of course we were going to put an hour in prime time. So we were short.

So we had to get him back. And I, the, there was executives who went and Susie Wild's chief of staff went back. And then he managed to come back and he said, look, I'm just going to sit at this desk. You're going to stand there. I'm going to point some things out. And then that's it. No Rose for me. Oh, so that was because it ended up being at the beginning when he's showing you the

photos of my favorite one. A part of that exchange is yes. And why he has the James Monroe photo up there and he's like, well, the Monroe Doctrine. And you're like, well, what was it about the Monroe Doctrine? And he's like, very important. It was very important. So I was like, I'm not, I think it leaves some questions about his familiarity with

what the Monroe Doctrine actually was. So my nitpick of you, I know you're doing it live. I have to lift it all this. I rewatch my shit now and it's like, it's harder than it looks. But, um, you know, at one point you're like, he, you know, he's adamant that it's like, it said MS 13 and you go, agree to disagree. I want to move on to something else. And he would not let you stop.

Then he continued and you're giving him agree to disagree, which is maybe, maybe wrong. And it's kind of like if Trump was saying, the moon is made of cheese. And you're like, agree to disagree, let's move on. And then he's like, no, the moon is made of cheese, Terry. Well, and the last thing I said in that, that's fair and I've seen people who said,

I should have gotten up on my soap box and say, how dare you, Mr. President. First, I don't do theater. And second, I felt the facts had been well established for anyone who wanted to look at them. And, and third, the last thing I said was it's contested. Yeah. So yeah, the agreed to disagree thing was an error.

I agree. But he was adamant. The facts, the funny way, like you had him, but he really thought it, right? I mean, like there's no way to interpret that other than he really thought that the MS-13 was on his fingers. Yes, not only that, so back in the, in his hold or wherever he went, because we were in the oval, he apparently told Stephen Chung, go get the photograph. I'm going out there. I'm going out there. I'm going to show him. And A, that shows he's got terrible staff work who are too afraid of him to tell him the truth.

B, that he was still fixated on. Yeah. And that he's like extremely gullible. It also shows. I just, I mean, truth is truth. It wasn't a convincing tattoo, really, on the fingers. It wasn't, but he has demonstrated the capacity to bend reality, to bend truth for tens of millions of Americans, simply through sheer force of will.

And he can do it. Another thing when I was rewatching the interview this morning that struck me was there's a section on his meeting with Zelensky that happened in Vatican City. And you were talking about how striking it was and like how there was this historic photo, you know, moving photo maybe or historic meeting between the two of them in the Vatican. And you know know there's that somber photo that people have Trump leaning forward and staring at him and I just watched that with like a month difference and it really is striking how that actually was nothing. You know like Trump is very, you said you don't do theater, Trump does theater. Like he was happy for that to be theater, like him and Zelensky having this serious

meeting in Vatican City. But unfortunately, it's changed nothing, right? And I guess we had over the weekend that Trump got a happy birthday call from Putin and nothing has changed. Well, has nothing changed though, Tim, because it's like he's disappointed and I think he's still going to abandon Ukraine. Trump's barely bent on that. But I do feel that he thought he could just wave his bending reality wand and get make peace there. And the reason I did kind of lay it on a little thick is moving for this historic for whatever was, was to get them to open up a little bit about it.

Yeah, no, I wasn't really curious. In that moment, it felt that way. There was like a moment of, okay, well, gosh, we've got a new pope. They're meeting there in the Vatican and his fake reality about what Russia wants is crumbling, right? And it had been a month prior that they had the shouting match, you know, the kids, you know, food fight in the West Wing, right?

And maybe this is a sign of progress. And it's kind of like, this guy is not movable. You know, I don't know. I guess my point is the majesty of the Vatican and the reality of Putin's behavior, like, just in the directionally hasn't really changed where Trump's posture is on all this. Um, he came into office bent on abandoning Ukraine.

He has, as far as he has this kind of thing, he's one of the world historical figures. Henry Kissinger, just before he died, saw it. He said Trump is one of those, one of the world historical figures. Henry Kissinger just before he died, saw it. He said Trump is one of those, one of those figures that history brings forward who marks the end of one era, right? And I thought, right, that's Trump. How much he has a grand theory, I don't know, but

he does as far as he does, sees great power politics as the world. You get Ukraine, we get Greenland and Canada or whatever. And that's the way he sees the world, like risk. Yeah. Um, was there anything else striking from the interview? And you mentioned earlier, you got more and more mad over time. I do, I do think it said something about, it says something about his personality,

right? That he comes in his tone at the beginning of the interview. Like he's malleable. Right. Like if you had just kind of sucked up to him and just said, sir, look at all this progress on the border and you know, whatever, like, and, and, and Henry Kissinger said you were, you know, you marked the end of history, right? Like he would have, you could have, you know, he would have went along with you throughout it, right?

Like, like the dramatic change of his temperament, I think is pretty noteworthy because, you know, I mean, a lot of politicians you've interviewed probably keep it a lot cooler than that, even when challenged. Yes, I'd say a couple of things about that. First, I did say that the accomplishment on the border is staggering and a judgment on Democrats. The fact that arrests at the border are down to close to zero, basically.

Simply because obviously there's cruelty, I believe the actions in courts have found to be illegal, but simply saying we will enforce our laws and you will be arrested, that it's the force of that more than any individual arrest and the terror campaign that it amounts to against people who are here without the authority of law. But it really is the credibility that was lacking in whether in a vicious way or virtuous way. There was no credibility to our border. So I gave him that.

I said, you know, it's amazing. The other thing I'd say is that I tried to be as respectful as I could. Uh, he's the president of the United States, people in the constitution put him there and he deserves respect in that regard. And I just don't think he brooks anything but praise. And that I, I couldn't, obviously I wasn't going to do. Right. And that's the striking thing to me. It's like, it's not like you went, you went in there with Trump, like going at him in the hardest possible way or being rude or whatever, but he, he

just is unable to handle like the slightest amount of pushback and that, I mean, that is a noteworthy trait when you consider, you know, he's going to have to make some high stakes decisions here on the next over the next three and a half years. Over the next three and a half years. That's it. Yeah, no, he's a piece of work as we all know. And I just will also say this, you know, just kind of batten it back and forth with him for that amount of time. You're looking into someone's eyes, you know, what do you see? Yeah, so he's mean, he's there, there's, he's can lash out at any moment. You can feel that.

And I think there's also, obviously he's, you see him on the golf course. He's enjoys people and he's sociable person. But I, what I don't think, I don't think he's that tough. If he can't handle you, you mean he's not that tough? One point he said something like, you know, because I asked the question Do you have a hundred percent confidence in his head? So he's a stupid question about confidence and anything out of my husband confidence This interview is gonna even is gonna whatever we're gonna finish the interview and I just said no we will and he just said

All right, go on. He just gave that up. I just felt like, and I didn't really even intend to back him down, but he did. He's never mentioned me. I have a name built for Trump tweet. And I've heard it since I was in third grade, Terry Moron. I was waiting for the everybody and everybody, everybody says it thinks they invented it, right?

I've been hearing it my whole life. And he hasn't, he hasn't whispered anything about, not even about this. He hasn't even dunked on me for this. Yeah. Not that he, not that he, yeah, and I want him to, I don't, but I don't know what that means. So weird as part of the whole Trump phenomenon. I mean, you said, you know, you said you were kind of on to it. You saw the appeal of the nationalism and really the Brexit at the beginning.

But some of I can't really grasp is that to me, he's just obviously weak, right? And that he's not, he's not the traditional, you know, kind of tough man and the John Wayne, you know, kind of, which is obviously fake, but I got, you know, the, like this sort of strong silent type that, you know, conservatives and folks have traditionally held up as being what it means to be a tough, strong guy. Like, he's the opposite of that. He's like a whiny child. And it is interesting to me that that, that that myth of him as a tough guy persists. Yeah.

What do you think that is? That's a great point. Although there's one moment when he rose from the ground after being shot at. That was tough. And told him, told him, I got to stand up. And he had enough of the sense of his, of his own persona in front of the country to do that.

I'm not gonna take that away from you. But I hear- That's a fair point. But I hear what you're saying, which is that, you know, my dad was, I was thinking of my father yesterday, yeah, yesterday, and he was in World War II. He joined right after Pearl Harbor,

ended up in the Airborne, paratrooper in the Pacific, on the islands, you know, Philippines, Philippines Okinawa and then the occupation Japan Never much talked about it. He hated braggart He hated blowharts because men of that generation and by tradition Americans We used to like think those guys bullies all those and now He is you know the leader of the biggest and most important political movement, certainly of my lifetime, if not, you know, one of the one of the biggest in history.

Yeah, wild. You are right about the Butler thing. I know it almost feels like it's fake. It almost makes me think we're living in a simulation. What happened in Butler, to be honest? Just one more thing I just was thinking about right now, like thinking about the, the interview you had with him and the MS 13 fingers and his will, like his ability to kind of suspend disbelief when it benefits him, you did ask him about the other thing that I'm obsessed with, which is the Venezuelans that we have now kidnapped and sent to El Salvador without any due process. And you asked her about that and you asked it and you, and you, you did push him on it

about how like, we don't know, some of these people might not be bad people, right? And, and he kind of had the same response to that he did on the fingers, he's like, no, Terry, he's like, we know that these are, these, these people are bad. And I do wonder, I do, I do think that he's convinced himself of that, right? And that, and to me, that presents an

opportunity in the same way that the fingers did. The bubble can be punctured, like the disreality bubble can be punctured. That does happen with Trump from time to time. It didn't happen on the 2020 election, but it's happened on the pregnancy was able to come back. His buddies in the hotel industry now are going to have deportations, right? Like, there are certain ways that the stuff can, and I don't know, what do you make of that? His response to you on the Venezuela issue? You know, what I hear what you're saying to me, and I agree, I left a trick on the table there, if you will, right? I did. And it was, and it was the way we figure it out, if they're bad guys, is through due process, some version

of you cannot. And you know what, you get large majorities of Americans who agree with that, they will be stopped. But he needed to be pressed on that because it's circular. How do you know? Well, I know. And that's easily punctured. And I did leave that trick on the table. It's yeah

I'm this he did a he's a bleed over the weekend on his Feed on to get your reaction to because it's related to sort of all these issues Ice officers are here with He's come up with an old English word He likes now here with ice officers are here with ordered by notice of this truth To do all in their power to achieve the very important goal of delivering the single largest mass deportation program in history. In order to achieve this, we must expand efforts to detain and deport illegal aliens in LA, Chicago, New York, where millions upon millions of them reside, and other such cities which are the core of the Democratic Power Center where they use illegal aliens to expand their voter base.

I wonder what you made of that. That's the real thing. We're there. He wants to send troops into the homes, homelands, the strongholds, political strongholds of his opponents and punish them holds, political strongholds of his opponents and punish them for objecting to his policies and trying to stop him from exercising the authorities of the office that he has in this way. And I think that we're there. We're there, right? This is a threat to send troops into the cities run by Democrats so he can do what he wants

there. And I also get a feeling- Is the there in that sentence authoritarianism? What is the there? Yeah, we're at a crisis. We're there at the crisis of our free government. If a president of the United States is sending, I'm sending troops into cities in part for political reasons

because my political opponents are in power there and I want the troops there in defiance of the black letter of the law. I think it's safe to say this is, we can't turn our eyes from it anymore. This is an attempt at changing the nature of the American democracy, right? And they do so with lies. Let me just raise Stephen Miller once again. When the Supreme Court said that the government must facilitate the return of Abrego Garcia, Guillermo Abrego Garcia, to the United States.

Stephen Miller came out and said, with his venomous demeanor, the Supreme Court, nine to nothing, upheld the president's right to. With the Supreme Court, it says no court can tell you how much money to spend, what flight they have to be on, by what date. But the order is law and you must facilitate it. You must do it under this order. And he spit on that with his lie that Supreme Court upheld the president's position nine

to nothing. That kind of lie and then this kind of decree. What would you call that if you saw that in another country? What would you call that if you saw that in another country? What would you call it? Yeah, I mean, surpassed to urbanism for sure. It's a crackdown on due process. And so, you know, we can come up with whatever words you want authoritarianism, authoritarianism, light, urbanism, whatever, you know, we can, we can debate that academics can debate that, but I think the true facts are there. To me, Terry, it's like, and I see Stephen in this post from Trump.

It is, in addition to everything you said, it is him ensuring that there is no misunderstanding about his statements from last week about how maybe the ICE agents should chill out on the farms and the hotels. And I think that there was a concern that there was a misread of that. And he wants to reassure everybody that, no, my top priority

is we are going to deport these people. We're going to deport these people no matter what, no matter whether they've committed crimes or not. We want to have the biggest deportation in history and we're going to come into your towns and to your businesses and do it. I think that was the point. It was the point, but combine those two social media posts and statements and what you get is we're going to come into their towns and their cities.

If you are on my side, I can do a deal with you. But if you stand up to me, then I will send the troops into your towns and cities. And that is not just urbanism. Look at the Godfather of all this is Putin, right? KGB, but never forget he was a lawyer, right? And I think he, if you look at how, because I covered, I've been in Russia since 1999, probably, I don't know, 12, 15 times. And I, and I've seen and have felt, and my friends and colleagues there have felt the civic space shrink more and more. And in Poland as well, dear friend in Poland, when the law and justice government there was, was brain was trying to destroy the judiciary. And I asked my friend and colleague Tom MRolk, I said, we were late one

night at the Bureau in London and I said, what does it feel like? Oh, what, how do ordinary people do? And he said this. He said, your life gets smaller. You don't put your head up over the parapet. You don't look at it. You go to the cafe, you have the best life you can. Think how many people are already leading that life in the United States and may be

soon. And you see that happening here, not just among immigrants, but also among the broader population or right now you're saying that's kind of limited to the, that's kind of the first step as the immigrant class. Well, whatever one decides about the journalistic ethics of my post, right, and I'll let that conversation continue. I'm happy to think it's an important conversation at this moment and people can make up their minds one way or the other.

I'm proof that you don't want to get in the way of this administration. Not that I want to make it about me. Let me withdraw that, but say a lot of people, a lot of people are watching what they say and where they say it. And just from your experience in Russia, like how much of a parallel are you seeing? Well, all right.

I mean, obviously, I mean, like we're at a different level now, but it's been a long arc from Gorbachev to now. So like, do you see us on that trajectory somewhere? I would have to say we're such a different country. The instruments of oppression were at hand in Russia and their civil institutions were not. We have a robust system and it'll withstand a lot, but the idea that one person defines the national, one person defines what's good about the country, what's not, one person defines who's a good guy, who's a bad guy, one person exercises the power

who's a good guy, who's a bad going person, exercises the power that they have in those ways. Yeah, it's similar. But what I feel is the experience of that space shrinking, right, for people. And I don't think it'll work. I mean, I could be wrong, but the good guys are going to win. And as I said, in one of the first substacks, what a joy it is to be an American and alive at this moment in our history. This is a privilege that we have right now to speak out and use our voices and to say, no, those no-kings protests were a moment, right? Got to build on it, but it was a moment. All right. So that takes us to the last thing.

So you are free now, you're a free man, just you, you and your sub stack, your subscribers, you can go check them out on Terry Murray on sub stack. Um, you know, at least until the ice troops come into, come into Frederick, Maryland. Um, you're a free man. What do you, what do you want to do? What do you want to pop off on? I mean, it could go a lot of different directions. Are you going to be let all those opinions out you've been stifling? Are you going to do interviews? What do you think is the most valuable thing for you to be doing right now?

Yes, all the above and more. Look, I'd like to do some more of what I was doing at ABC. Look, the great thing about ABC and all those legacy media organizations, and they are great in their way, and as I say, I've got nothing to say against them. I had a wonderful career. We're working out some details at the end, but the great thing is the resources that they can bring around the world to doing that. I don't have those resources at this point, but I'd like to keep doing reporting as I did. I'll tell you the first place I want to go. I want to go to Springfield, Ohio. Go back to Springfield, Ohio, where I spent a week or so, twice during the campaign. And I want to go back

to the Haitian community that was there and their neighbors. Now that they are being, you know, sent back to Haiti. And what that's going to do to the town and not just the Haitian people there, but the town had come to depend on them. The town was falling flat and now it had risen. The mayor wanted them there. Governor DeWine wanted them there. And now that's going to be a radical and cruel change. And so that kind of thing I'll do, but, um, interviews, I hope, uh,

newsmaker interviews and, and, you know, I have, I love, by the way, I love the bulwark, um, and, um, it's why I wanted to be with you. It's, it's, it's absolutely thrilling to be in these new spaces. I don't have a great idea what the brand is going to be, but, uh, if there is such a thing, but I'm keen to find out. I'm obsessed with that Springfield story too. So that's great.

Check in. Let's do a check in when you get out there. I would love to do that. And final thing, do you see a beer summit coming for you and Stephen Miller, or are you planning to meet in his cave somewhere or any thoughts on that? I'm going to have a sense, I was describing the public man. I don't by my nature want people to feel bad from something I said or wrote or did.

And if, you know, but sometimes- That's the difference between you and me, Terry. We found the one area of disagreement. But you gotta tell the truth, right? That's the job, you gotta tell the truth, right? That's the, that's the job. You got to tell the truth. So I don't see a beer summit. In fact, I see probably maybe a couple of cop cars pulling up and, uh, and then, then I need a lawyer.

Good luck out there, man. I really appreciate you doing this. I'm excited to watch what you're going to be doing, um, going forward and, uh, let's, uh, let's check in from time to time. How about that? That's great. Thanks, Tim. All right.

Good luck, brother. We'll see you soon.