Bulwark Takes - Tim and Katie Spill on 2028 Rumors, Trump’s Boring Wedding, and Fighting for Democracy

Episode Date: May 28, 2025

Tim Miller joins Katie Couric to discuss possible 2028 candidates, Trump-era corruption, media accountability int he changing tone of American politics, and Donald and Melania Trump’s boring wedding.  Watch Live with Katie Couric on Substack

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Thank you. And I'm a subscriber. Tell me about the interview with Adam Skenzinger. I was saying that he's really been going off lately. I mean, in a way that's like Adam, my goodness. Dude is unleashed. I love it. I want more unleashed politicians and ex-politicians.

I interviewed him not long ago, Tim, and asked him about whether he was going to run for president. He was super actually honest with me and said, you know, I'm considering it, right? You guys didn't add. You know, usually people are so cagey when you ask them questions like that. And Adam Kensiger was really very like straight up saying, you know, something I'm going to consider, which I think is, I think this Rahm Emanuel thing is so weird. What do you think? It's funny. So I'll tell you a little secret since we're on your first Subsec Live. I like tried so hard to recruit Adam Kinsger to primary Donald Trump in 2020.

And he really thought about it. And it was a hopeless endeavor. And I, and so it's not really great when you're pitching somebody on an idea and you're like, Hey, I've got an idea I think you should do this. It's definitely gonna fail I think that there might be some long-term benefits to it and he really thought about it So I'm not surprised that he's still thinking about it. I'll ask him about that tonight I'll tell him we talked the wrong thing. I also think is kind of strange

But we'll see I I spoke it I spoke to him once, um, in the last couple of months on the phone briefly, I'm hoping to get him on the podcast soon. And, um, look, I think the Democrats. Look, I used to be Katie, you know, this is, I'm maybe getting, getting crossways with some of my bull or colleagues like Sarah long well and others. Uh, the bulwark is a place that we love norms and I loved Poppy Bush, you know, and I loved Reagan and Tip meeting together, you know, like we're a place that like we appreciate all that. And I was hoping for a while that we could beat Trump

and go back to that where we disagreed on, you know, with comedy, comity and comedy, but comity. And we were, you know, and the rhetoric returned. And I just think it's over. I think once Trump's been around for a decade, I think that the coarsening of the politics is permanent. I was with a guy last night, who I was with some younger folks who went to U Chicago here,

and they don't even remember before Trump. And so when they hear politicians talking in normal old school politician voice, it feels weird to them. I, and so I think if somebody like Ram wants to throw his hat in and just be a bomb thrower and, and maybe that will land. I don't, I think that we should be much more open to like, what might possibly be a different path forward. No, I think you're right. I think that we should be much more open to what might possibly be a different path forward. No, I think you're right. I think you're right. I think the culture has changed and I think there's no turning back. It's really hard not to get sucked into the coarsening of the

culture. I can't believe some of the things people write and comments people make. And I was in a really shitty mood yesterday and somebody reposted my bitching about $1.8 billion being taken away from NIH and how it was going to affect cancer and clinical trials. And some person said, you know, she's not a scientist. What does she know? You know, she doesn't. And anyway, normally I don't do this

But I was like I wanted to be like hey bitch, but I just said hey I can say that Hey Hi, I'm hi Susie or whatever her name was. No, I'm not a scientist But I actually started an organization that raised $800 million for cancer research that actually led to the approval of nine new FDA approved cancer fighting drugs. Your move. I've become such a bitch, but I don't feel like I'm in an alternate universe. I feel like I'm in a, like this could not be my life. I'm just sitting here and Katie Couric's calling somebody a bitch in front of me on live substack.

I don't, I don't know how this is my life. It can get even worse. Just stick around, Tim. You know how I mentioned earlier that we should, the Democrats should be open to creative new ideas and paths. Maybe cussing Katie Couric at 2028. I just think that's something to consider. I'm not gonna press you on it.

The whether you're gonna rule that out. So I peed on the pod yesterday. He is too articulate, is that possible? He talked- He's too hard to be president. What did he come to? Well, he talks at a graduate level. And so I don't know, maybe he can prove me wrong.

He's proven me wrong before. He's proven a lot of people wrong. I thought he did really well on that flagrant podcast. But the Democrats big challenge is how do they reach people that don't tune in? People that are tuned out, like if you just look at the numbers, if you're a daily reader of the news,

Kamala Harris got like 60 some percent of the vote, and the inverse if you're not if you're checked out. So the Democrats got to figure out how do you reach people that, you know, get their news passively through TikTok and social and, you know, people that are good. Yeah. And people that don't like the status quo and how things have been going. How do you sell yourself to that group if you kind of are just the golden boy of the meritocracy who was in the last administration?

Maybe he can do it. I hope he could do it. And I think to me, that's a bigger challenge than the gay stuff. I think that you could get over the gay. I think people could get over the gay stuff. The other thing I'm not sure about. I hope so.

I hope they could. And I bet if, I mean, Pete's so smart, I think he could learn to talk in a more sort of direct simplistic way. I mean, I so appreciate how eloquent he is when he's answering a question. That was really the case with Hillary Clinton. You know, she, you could, you know, you'd ask her a question and I just loved hearing what would come out in terms of the way she would express it, the things she would cite, the historical references,

but I bet, I bet Pete is trainable to be less smart. How pathetic is that? Yeah, well, maybe just a monthly appearance with me might help. With my safety school vocabulary. I don't know. Yeah, we'll see. We'll see.

Anyway, so what else? What else have you been thinking about? I mean, what do you think about what's going on at Harvard right now? I'm so proud of the president of Harvard for saying basically everyone needs to stand together and stay firm. Obviously a lot of schools aren't, but I mean, it's really like Trump got rejected or put on the waiting list at Harvard and he's really still very pissed off about it and he's seeking his revenge.

Yeah. Trump's good at picking foes, right? Like that's one thing he's good at. Harvard is not, you know, doesn't engender a lot of sympathy with the masses, right? And so I think that that's part of what he's doing. And part of it is just, yeah, his bitterness at whatever being an outer borough person, you know, and which is silly. You think that hole in his stomach would be filled after being elected president two times.

No, but that's the thing about narcissists. You know, I dated one once and so I read a lot of books about them. And I think what people misunderstand about narcissists is they are so empty inside. And like you were saying, that hole, I think people, everything, the self-engrened eyes meant is actually

Compensating for this deep unfillable hole that they'll always have no matter what so, you know Trump bragging at West Point about building up the military the best wonderful military and by the way What was with that total thing where he was talking about a trophy wife at the West Point graduation? It was so crazy. But I just think that I don't feel sorry for him because he's a narcissist. But I'm just saying, it's really, it's deep. It's almost tragic. I know I don't feel sorry for narcissists. Don't worry you guys, but I do feel like sometimes they're misunderstood Is that fair? Yeah, maybe and I think that that is so like it's certainly the megalomaniac side of this where he is I mean, it's just the uttermost extreme

so I don't know the Harvard thing the thing that bugs me the most about it and the thing that has like I don't know, the Harvard thing, the thing that bugs me the most about it, and the thing that has, look, I found Trump completely unappealing from day one, and so there's almost kind of a non-ideological personal reason for my defection for the Republican party. But like, the ideological thing that is at the core of it, that what sent me away from the party was,

I really bought in to the Reagan shining city city on the hill thing. Sometimes I tell progressives this and they like roll their eyes at me and like, really Tim, like you bought all that BS that I like bought it. Like I was a kid and I was like, I thought America was great. And I wanted everybody to be able to come here and have a chance and have an opportunity to succeed and that this was our story and what was unique about us. Like I really, at my core, that was the animating thing that got me interested in, in politics and the fact that, that he is so hostile to that, you know, at every level, that it's like all of that, all that idea that we need, it's all,

he's all like, we need to get ours. We shouldn't have these foreigners come into Harvard. We've got to ban the foreigners from Harvard. You know, like we want more Americans to be able to get to Harvard. I just like that stuff pisses me off so much. So I'm happy Harvard's standing up. If you dig a little deeper on the policies of Reagan, you know, the stuff that he did. I mean, you probably weren't super jazzed about those things. I don't know. That's a good question. I think it was a mixed bag. I mean, beaten the commies was pretty good.

That was brilliant. But the HIV stuff, not very good. You know, there's some toots and boots for Reagan, probably. Yeah. Union, union busting. I mean, I guess we could have a conversation about that with the air traffic controllers and kind of what that, what that, what happened after that. But I wanted to read you something funny. November 14th, 2016. Dear President-elect Trump. So I went to his wedding, everybody, when he married Melania, and I knew him because I was on NBC doing the Today Show when he did The Apprentice, so he was always coming to the Today Show to hawk, you know, The Apprentice. Can we just, before you read the letter, can we just pause on the wedding for one second?

I'm sorry, I'm a post now too, so like we're both, it's two hosts talking. What's it like to go to those kind of weddings? I'm sorry, I'm a post now too. So like we're both, it's two hosts talking. What's it like to go to those kinds of weddings? Where it's like the people there aren't like real friends from like, you know, and it's just all like famous people and everybody's hanging. Like, what's the vibe like at those kinds of weddings? I find that such a strange culture. Okay, well, I mean, it's kind of a crazy story.

First of all, my date was Matt Lauer, so we could start with that. Matt and I left because we're both anchoring the Today Show and Donald Trump was on NBC and, you know, he only invited me because I'm on the Today Show. I have no illusions that, you know, that he liked me as a person. I think he tolerated me. Honestly, it was the wedding itself and the church was pretty. Melania looked beautiful. There were a lot of famous people like I think Barbara Walters was there,

Hillary Clinton was there. And, but afterwards the reception was at Mar-a-Lago. And this is, I feel bad saying this, bad slash not that bad It was really boring. It was really was there love there. I don't it felt like did you feel like you're on a TV set? I don't know. I'm like imagining myself there. I'm like, this is so strange Yeah, I'm never walking around the pool and it's just boring. Yeah What's the third wedding and he it's not any real friends there.

Nobody cares about Melania, according to Patricia West. Whatever. Yeah. Let's hear the letter. I wanted to tell you, Jim. Thank you. Okay. So here's my letter to Trump in 2016, November 14th, handwritten.

And for whatever reason, I made a Xerox copy of it. And I never did stuff like that. Because I'm super disorganized, but here we go. I'm actually going to vomit reading this, so please forgive me. Dear President-elect Trump, congratulations on your historic and unprecedented victory. What an extraordinary achievement. I wanted to wish you the best of luck as you face the awesome responsibility of leading our country. There are huge deep divisions to be sure. I hope

you will be able to start the healing process, lol. I added that, please. And that many Americans will see many of the positive qualities I've witnessed for many years. I've said many three times in that sentence. Please let me know if I can be helpful in communicating your goals and ambitions in the coming months. I know you're more of a traditional news consumer, but there are millions, but tens of millions come to Yahoo. This is when I was at Yahoo regularly. And many are your supporters in the heartland. Again, congratulations and best of luck, Katie. Well, Katie Couric, 2028 is over before it started. There you go.

The Democratic primary campaign, I think that clip will be airing in ads run by your opponents. That's rough. The more I so fortify. My letter that I wrote, so I didn't know Donald, thank God. I did know Reince, who was his chief of staff

he was my boss at the RLC and Me and Reince obviously had a pretty big falling out during the campaign over my anti-trump advocacy And so we hadn't talked in a little while but like we used to talk a lot Rance would ask me for my advice on stuff and I just sent him a much shorter note than yours That was like that also had a nice thing at the start It was like rights congrats. Good luck Then I just said the most important thing that you're gonna have to say Over the next few years is no and I hope you're able to say no when it's needed

And he did not reply to me and I don't think he ever said no, so he didn't take my advice He was he pushed out? He was eventually pushed out. Yeah. But it was mostly just because it was in that very first few months, the Trump thing was less about rights trying to put barriers on him. That was more of his problem with John Kelly. It was more just it was insane because all those people have gotten in

and they are all knifing each other because it wasn't like a traditional White House, right? Where there was somebody that was expected to have every job. There was like the Bannon group and the Javonka side. And then there were the traditional Republicans and they were all knifing each other in the press. And so I think Reince got kicked out mostly because he couldn't control the staff

from like trash talking each other constantly. And what is Reince doing today? It's a great question. He does, he has some appearances on Fox from time to time I notice, and he's lobbying. He's probably making bank. The swamp is thriving in Trump. It's one of the great misnomers.

These guys, it's unbelievable how much money they're making. I just saw- It's disgusting. It's disgusting, Tim. And I don't get it. Like how can the Trump family enrich itself to the tune of $3 billion? How can he take these trips to the Mideast and you know what, build all these hotels

and obviously the plane from Qatar, Qatar. Now it's fashionable to call it Qatar, but when I was there, I called it Qatar. Qatar. Which sounds very unsophisticated, so Qatar. But anyway, how are they able to do this? And how are they able to be so fucking corrupt? Sorry, you guys.

I say fucking once in a while. We got, they made Jimmy Carter sell his peanut farm. The whole thing is just truly unimaginable It's because look we had this this is kind of what I was talking about at the start and and the bulwark We do appreciate all these things But I think it's important to kind of live in reality Which is we had a bunch of things that I think we thought were like laws that were really kind of norms, right? They were really just like shouldn't do's, you know, like, and

that was true. And Trump had broke all of them. He's just like, I'm not going to, I'm not going to follow this. I'm not going to show you my tax returns. You know, it goes back to day one and I'm not, you know, is there a law that says my kid can't build a golf course resorts in a, you know, Petro fascist Islamic Republic? No, there isn't. So I'm going to do that. Is there a law that says I can't start a fake coin and have people pay me millions of dollars to get my weird Bitcoin offshoot? No, there's no law against that apparently. And by the way, it's Melania having her own Bitcoin family. So as somebody wrote, yes, it's $1 billion a month richer.

It's so insane. And I think that's such a good point. We have to hold them accountable. That's the thing. We'd have to do it. The people had to do it. And so far they're falling short. Right?

Well, what, you know, the most often asked question I get when I do interviews, Tim, is what can we do? And I never quite know the answer to it because people feel so powerless. Journalism and some journalists are really holding them accountable, but then you see like CBS folding, ABC folding and capitulating because they don't want to be sued or they don't want him to interfere with some merger with Skydance and Paramount. I mean, it's really scary. So, you know, taking, taking it to the streets like the Doobie brothers used to sing. I mean, what, what do we do?

Yeah. I take it to the streets matters. I get this question a lot too, obviously. I tell people getting involved in your community matters like sometimes stuff when stuff feels like the Fed this stuff is out of control I think that helps you personally and it obviously helps your community and I totally agree with that when you feel like paralyzed By not knowing what to do but but there is the larger issue sure sure What can be done to actually preserve democracy to sure for sure? And we look and some of the stuff is in the legal space only into one particular thing We're doing in a second, but I think I love the group run for something my friend of me and the lip meant runs I think that there's a lot, you know, look I think that there will be the Democrats will do very well in the midterms

I'm not one of these people that believes that that we are not gonna have elections and that I think that there will be the Democrats will do very well in the midterms. I'm not one of these people that believes that we are not going to have elections. And that I think that they might try to monkey with stuff. But I think that the that there is still an opportunity to stop them at the ballot box and that people need to run for more offices, more local offices, more house offices, good people, people that are not traditionally thought of as candidates. I think could do better. I think the Democrats would do better with people that are like folks who have been who are not lawyers or who are not traditionally thought of as candidates, I think could do better. I think the Democrats would do better with people that are like folks who've been who are not lawyers or who are not.

Like a farmer. Yeah, right. I remember thinking about a farmer running for office and he was so great. I don't know. Yeah, I think that, yeah, so encourage to find people, recruit people. I think that's one thing. I do think getting the streets matters. There are the no no Kings protests coming up June 14th.

I had the organizers of that on the podcast recently. I think it matters. The protests matter No Kings protests coming up June 14th. I had the organizers of that on the podcast recently. I think it matters. The protests matter. What we're doing. What about the whole thing, Tim, where people like don't buy anything for three days? Have those worked at all? I've gotten notices about that. I just don't know that. I don't believe that that's workable in our culture. I don't think so. I mean, I think specific things. Right. It is sad. I just don't think that's realistic. I think everybody should feel is fulfilling for them. I think actually working. Look, and so this is the thing that I'm really focused on the El Salvador stuff. And I do think, you know, divesting from El Salvador is something that should be happening

at both at a personal level of people's consumption also you know democratic states uh you know shouldn't you know be treating El Salvador like they treat whatever North Korea or Venezuela our friends in Canada should be doing that in Western Europe like they should feel the squeeze um I think that's one thing but look I think that the in the El Salvador situation we're I'm doing a thing if you if you wouldn't mind to plug June 6th during World Pride in DC with my buddy, John Lovett and Sarah Longwell, where we're holding a fundraiser for, and it's going to be a live show for the lawyers that are representing the Venezuelans that have been sent to El Salvador. I think in these cases, giving attention to this stuff so that it cannot just go away is important, is an

end in itself because Trump wanted to disappear these people. And by the way, they wanted to disappear more people, but they got stopped by the lawyers who were doing the work to sue the administration by the judges that have ruled rightly, including a lot of judges that were appointed by Republicans, including the Supreme Court, maybe has been wrong on some things, but has been very good so far on immigration stuff. And so they've been stymied and how many people they wanted to send to El Salvador. It was going to be a lot that that first group was 250 or so they haven't sent more. And so and I think it's important that people protest and they do what we're doing and speak

out and call your reps, call your senators and do not forget these people. They should not be just disappeared into the ether. And I don't know if that's gonna save our democracy, but maybe we can help save some of the people that have been sent to El Salvador. And so that's a good start.