Bulwark Takes - The Worst Senator You Know Just Made a Great Point

Episode Date: September 20, 2025

Tim Miller is in agony as he’s forced to give Ted Cruz a sliver of credit for standing up for free speech—while refusing to say Trump’s name. Blame Alicia Menendez, who was sitting in for Nicolle Wallace, for putting Tim in this impossible position. Watch more Deadline: White House on MSNBC: https://www.msnbc.com/deadline-white-house

Hey, everybody. It's Tim Miller. I was on with Alicia Menendez sitting in for Nicole over on MSNBC. And we were covering this Kimmel Ground that obviously we've been following quite closely. There was one element of the story that I got into that we haven't yet covered on the feed. And that was Ted Cruz's surprisingly normal response. Surprisingly, I don't, I can't put the word principle next to Ted Cruz, but at least consistent. How about that? Consistent with past statements position from Ted Cruz. You'll be able to hear that clip in the interview I did with Alicia. But, you know, I just, I think that one potential, we're going to the weekend. I'm giving everybody one little silver lining. One potential silver lining of all this is that free speech is just such a universal principle that is so, you know, woven into the American identity that there are a lot of people who, how should I put this,

they might have been drawn to Trump for cultural reasons or partisan reasons or dislike for elites or whatever. There are a million reasons people were drawn to Trump. But fundamentally, their identity is not MAGA. Like, these are not talking about Fox News eight hours a day, viewers. I'm not talking about people that have the red hat. I'm not talking about people that, like, when you ask them their identity, they put Republican in their Twitter bio. I'm talking about Trump voters who were drawn to him for a variety of socioeconomic forces. A lot of those folks, they look at this and wince.

Not for them. It's not for them. and it's a lot of prominent folks to feel that way and spread that message to their own supporters. And there are also a handful of even that old school Republican, even though I wouldn't call Ted Cruz old school, but even that more traditional constitutional conservatives, what they call themselves, we can, I think, laugh about how serious they are about that, but that crowd, this is a little bit of a breaking point for that. So I analyze this deeper in this interview. And I think that what Ted Cruz does, it's significant. It's not, you know, we don't need to start building any statues to them. I've got some statues takes coming your way next week, by the way.

We don't need to be building any statues to them. But it's noteworthy. And so stick around for a little bit more of my analysis on that. Subscribe to the feed. We ain't going anywhere. Nobody's canceling us. Nobody's canceling this show. So tell your friends about it.

We'll be seeing you soon. Joining us now, host of the Bullwark podcast, MSNBC political analyst, Tim Miller, Max is still with us. Tim, when you get John Stewart on a Thursday night, you know that it is big consequential news. But let's start with that sound of the president on Air Force One. I mean, there's no subtext. He is telling us what this is about.

This is about the mysterious 97% of bad coverage. Yeah, who needs me on this show, Lisa? you could have just played the whole Daily Show from last night. I considered it, Tim. I considered it. I'm going to do my best to add to what those great comedians were doing. Look, it's a real threat. And so it's a serious threat.

But it's also a good sign that all those guys were out there last night mocking him. I think that's the right posture towards trading Donald Trump. It's the thing that he abides the least getting mocked. And when it comes to these other threats about how. you know, he might come for the licenses and the networks. And, you know, there was some suggestion by Brendan Carr, I think, that The View or Saturday Night Live and some of these other late-night shows might be next. Those are real scary threats. They aren't with precedent in our lifetimes, at least, coming directly from the government.

And I think that the problem that I see, though, is that too many people are folding to the fear, right like they haven't they haven't actually done anything right I mean they've made threats that's that's bad it's inappropriate some they should be taking the court right but nobody's licenses

were going to be taken away they weren't going to the branding car can't take Jimmy Kim off the air Bob Iger took him off the air and I think that if right now I think that the right posture towards this administration's aspiring authoritarianism

is to stand up to it to say no okay do it let's see try me And, you know, maybe Donald Trump calls the bluff, maybe Donald Trump tacos. But I think the most concerning thing for me right now, and I'm extremely concerned about Donald Trump, but the most concerning thing is the response to him, you know, and how easily people are folding in the face of these threats that might just be bluster. I mean, the guy tweets out all kinds of crazy stuff all the time. You know, I don't know that people need to be quite so responsive to it.

This afternoon, Republican Senator Ted Cruz addressed the FCC's pressure to censor Jimmy Kimmel. It is likely going to surprise you, so take a look soon. I think it is unbelievably dangerous for government to put itself in the position of saying, we're going to decide what speech we like and what we don't, and we're going to threaten to take you off air if we don't like what you're saying. And it might feel good right now to threaten Jimmy Kimmel. Yeah. But when it is used to silence every.

conservative in America, we will regret it. And so again, I like Brennan Carr, but we should not be in this business. We should denounce it. It's fine to say what Jimmy Kimmel said was deplorable. It was disgraceful. And he should be off air, but we shouldn't be threatening government power to force him off air. That's a real mistake. And we are back with Tim and with Max. Tim, your response to what we just heard from the senator. Well, should we start with the good or the bad? We'll start with the bad. We'll start with the bat and then we can compliment him on the back side. He didn't mention Donald Trump. None of these guys ever mentioned Donald Trump. And we've had the spate of courage from people on the right. We should say not just Cruz, but a bunch of the right-wing commentators spoke

out against Pam Bondi last week when she said that the Department of Justice was giving him after hate speech in the wake of Kirk's death. I think that obviously there's some conservatives for whom their obsession over free speech. Obsession is probably the wrong word. There's some conservatives for whom, you know, their use of arguing for free speech was maybe more of a political power play in retrospect, and they don't really care that much about it, but there's some conservatives who genuinely care about free speech. And they've gone after Pam Bondi, and now we've seen Ted Cruz rightly go after Brendan Carr. They only seem, though, not mentioned Donald Trump's name. And Donald Trump has not only agreed with Carr, but said he should go further, and not only

agreed with Bondi, but said she should go further. So I would need, you know, a little bit, a little bit more from Ted Cruz to give him full kudos, you know, to give him a standing ovation. But we'll give him one clap for that. And I'm happy that he's out there saying it. You're giving, you're giving the Nancy Pelosi State of the Union clap for that one. A snap, maybe, a snap. I'm only got about 30 seconds left, but I do wonder if you think this is breaking through with folks who might not watch, you know, politics as closely as you and I do. I do think so. I think that, you know, obviously there are some mega folks who are disingenuous about their concerns about free speech. But I think that there are Trump

voters, you know, particularly, you know, kind of people in the comedy space and the manosphere space and the podcast space, three speeches, they're business, you know, and I think that it's kind of an American thing that is bipartisan, the belief that in this country we can say what we want, we can make fun of our leaders. This isn't China. It's part of American pride that a lot of people feel. And so I do think this is breaking through. And I think that there are parts of Trump's coalition, you know, maybe not in Washington, but out in the country that are upset about this. And I think we've seen some of this if you watch kind of the Barstles Sports Podcasts or some of the other comedian podcasts that are out there.

I will say anecdotally, there are definitely parents at the bus stop who I ordinarily do not seize talking politics who were like, whoa, we're at a different moment now. Tim Miller, Max Rose, thank you both so much for joining us today.