Bulwark Takes - Tim Miller: Ghislaine Too Dangerous for Puppies—But Not Trump’s DOJ

Episode Date: August 9, 2025

Tim Miller joins Nicolle Wallace on ‘Deadline: Whitehouse’ to discuss Democrats’ need to act on redistricting, Ghislaine Maxwell’s unusual prison privileges under the Trump administration, and his interview with Venezuelan asylum seeker Andry Hernández, who survived months of abuse after wrongful deportation. Watch Tim’s interview with Andry Watch Deadline: White House on MSNBC

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Please play responsibly. If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connix Ontario at 1866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. But MGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario. Hey, everybody, I was on with Nicole Wallace today, and girl, she was spicy. She wants the Dems to fight back now. Stop waiting for Texas to act. Realize, to borrow a phrase that a lot of varieties like to use, realize what time it is.

It's time to go. It's time to act. So we talked about the redistricting stuff. I mentioned this on the show, just to expand it a little bit. I had a chance to talk to Rob Bont. I was the attorney general in California today. He was down here for NetRooten Nation in New Orleans. I was pretty persistent with him in asking him.

if they're actually going to do something, if California is actually going to move, if it was just talk. And he was adamant that the state is going to make the changes needed, that the legislature is going to vote on new maps, that Gavin will sign it, that it will go to the voters. We will still be at the mercy then of California voters to go out and do the right thing. Yeah, I'm confident in that. Trump started this.

The Republicans in Texas started this. They're trying to abuse their power and manipulate and rig the outcome of an election that they know they're going to lose in the midterms. And so California's not going to let that happen. we're putting a proposition on the ballot. That was an encouraging little bit of news I got from Bonta because, you know, I just, I'm no looking in California being out here. You just, I'm hearing rumors back and forth about, you know,

whether there's certain legislatures, legislators that aren't going to want to do anything. So anyway, it was encouraging to hear from Bonta, who's like they're in the mix and fighting the Trump administration tooth and nail. I should also mention on a lot of these lawsuits, particularly on birthright citizenship. It's good to hear from him. that this is actually happening. Nicole and I also talked about,

I'm sorry to laugh, Nicole and John Heilman were all in on this news that Jolaine Maxwell can't even be by a puppy because of the bylaws that you don't want to have a sex offender around a puppy. And it's crazy how we're giving nice treatment to a woman who's literally not allowed to be around puppies because she's a danger to vulnerable creatures.

So we talked a little bit about that. She is fucking awful. And what else? Oh, and we talked about my interview with Andre, which if you haven't watched it, please go watch it. I understand there's a language barrier and it's closed captioning, but it's worth it. His wisdom was just off the charts. So, anyway, stick around for all that. Nicole Wallace, little John Heilman.

Tim, I do not worry that Democrats don't have the tools. I am more than nervous. I despair that they don't have the balls to do what they need to do. This time when everything's going to work out is over. It's like the sixth sense. Bruce Willis is dead and the only one that knows it is the little kid it is over

and Democrats should find a new word for it is not gerrymandering it's racist disenfranchisement of American voters and Democrats you know they blinked in Georgia when they said no no no don't boycott Georgia and they blinked and balked in New York

and everywhere I mean it is go time it is time to save democracy or just watch it burn I am bringing some uncharacteristic good news Nicole This is an unusual spot for me to be in. This is a total role reversal. Yeah.

I shared your concern, and I just, there's a conference happening down here, Netroots. So I've got to have dinner with Beto, and I just finished lunch with Rob Bonta, as the Attorney General of California. And I just gave him that same speech you just gave. And, you know, he assured me that the Democrats are going to do what they need to do in California Yeah, and then he expects that the legislature is going to move, and there'll be something on Gavin Newsom's desk by the end of the month, and then there'll be a ballot initiative that will have to be put before the voters.

And this goes back to kind of past we go, they go low, we go high, elements of Democrats, is there is a disproportionate number of blue states that, you know, have a lot of hoops, have more hoops you have to jump through than in some of these red states because of, you know, some pro-democracy reforms that had happened in the past or well-intended. And so one of those in California is you do have to take this to the voters. And in this case, it's relatively more transparent than what's happening in Texas. And it's still gerrymandering, but you take the actual maps to the voters and they can vote on it.

So I assume that the California voters would share the view of those on this panel, that this is something that should be done if Texas is going to act the way they're acting. So I think there's some good signs there. I worry, though, you know, about, that's why I said it's only partially good news. I've got to be typical, is that, you know, other states kind of move on the Republican side, too. I think we're going to see stuff in Florida and Indiana and elsewhere. And there are other Democratic states like Maryland, West Moore, and other folks are going to have to step up to. Yeah, I mean, J.D. Vance has been reported to be working on this as the country's vice president. Donald Trump is urging this as the nation's commander in chief.

And Democrats are worried that it looks bad. And I am worried that they will once again be restrained by their earnestness. I'm hardened by what you're saying about California. but to your point, there are a lot more steps. If one more person goes on national television and says we're looking at it, I'm going to pull all of the hair out of my head. Tim, I want to come back to you. I guess my worry is that Democrats already look like they're responding to something.

Instead of saying, we're going to save democracy. Here are the pro-democracy maps for California, New York, and Illinois. They are now publicly saying we're going to wait and see what happens in Texas. They've shown us who they are. We know already what they're going to do. Yeah, look, I understand. understand their frustration with that, and I understand that they're like, this goes against principle. And they're like, well, let's see if it happens first. But you're right. And I think

that it has to go beyond California. Like I said, I think that California feels like they're moving. There are other states that are potentially in play here, such as Maryland and Illinois, not as many seats there. But this stuff could really matter. I mean, whether the Republicans have the House gavel in 27, as you go into the 28 election, has huge implications, which we can talk about. Like, this is not, so it's just, it's too important to sit on the sidelines. So I think there are a lot of other tactics here. But the actual making of the rules of the game that the Republicans are trying to change is the important first step before you get to the actual game itself, which is the midterm election.

So, Tim, the reason Galane Maxwell can't be near this program and the vulnerable puppies is because of the nature of her crimes. And I think that Trump winning after being convicted of 34 felonies has also had this downward pressure on the idea of convicted felons. Well, you know, convicted felons, they can do anything. They can be president of the United States. Maybe. But you know what they can't do? They can't be alone with a puppy because to carry out your crimes and be convicted of them when they are against a vulnerable population, in this case children, young girls, disqualifies you from.

being around or training a puppy, a program that's existed for 30 years. And I think it's so important because I feel like people are throwing around, you know, convicted sex offender Galane Maxwell. It's all, you know, rolls right off your tongue every time we cover her. Her crimes were to sexually molest herself with her own hands, her own body girls to tell them to take off their underwear. She is a sex criminal. And she is being treated as someone credible by Todd Blanche. She has this upgrade in her prison conditions approved by somebody in the Trump administration. And I feel like for all the sleepwalking, Republicans have done for nine years, this is among the most heinous that the Republican Party has sleptwalked through.

Yeah. It is crazy that nobody really has spoken out in opposition to this within this administration and this party, just the complete moral bankruptcy of it. When you were talking about how it was kind of defined deviancy down or whatever about felonies because Trump won again, in 24, I thought you were in reference in 2016, there's this feeling of, you know, after Trump won, even after the Access Hollywood tape, even after he was admitted on tape that he had sexually assaulted women and had dozens of women that had accused him of some type of sexual misconduct, you know, that there's this kind of sense among people that

like, well, what are you going to do now, right? like there was a referendum on this and people voted and like while yeah there was a referendum on Donald Trump and he won and that is we're going to suffer a lot as a country for that you know there still are like rules of the game that need to be avoided by there's still rules of the country that need to be avoided by more accurately and in this case like this is a total exception it's a crazy outlier like there there are no sex offenders in these types of prison. Forget being around puppies, just being in this kind of club-fed-style prison. It's a white-collar crime-type prison. And she's not just some sex offender, right? And you both use

the word heinous. It's the most heinous of the sex crimes. And she essentially brought girls into a quasi-sex slavery. And there were girls that were in their clutches for years that she bullied and held hostage, essentially, threatened, making them come back, either financially or through other threats. I mean, this is, like, she is the worst of the worst of humanity. And the fact that she got moved, obviously, it's part of a deal, right? We don't have reporting that was part of a deal, but there's no other conclusion you can come to based on the evidence.

Like someone with her kinds of crimes is not in these prisons. She met with the Deputy Attorney General. A couple days later, she gets treatment unlike any other sex criminal in the entire Bureau of Prisons. So there was something happened. There was some deal. She's getting some sweetheart treatment from the Trump administration. We don't exactly know what yet. And it is truly appalling.

And, again, it's another example of the moral bankruptcy, the fact that nobody within the Trump administration, at least, has spoken up about. Trump administration deporting hundreds of Venezuelans to the notoriously horrible Seacott prison in El Salvador was zero due process. It was a crisis and a scandal that gripped the country because of the stories of the men that were sent there. Men like Andre Hernandez, a Venezuelan hairdresser who was deported because his tattoos in honor of his mother and father were mistaken for some sort of affiliation with the Trend de Arago again. Our friend Tim Miller had the chance to sit down and talk to Andre this week about his harrowing experience in Seacott. Here's a look at some of their extraordinary conversation. Had you heard about the El Salvador prison before? Like, what were you thinking when they were taking you in?

No, no, I'm dependent of how many carcels exist in the world, no, I'm depending on what is the most good or the more dula. I was going to know or to know of the Secoot was just standing in the secote and me entero that was the carcern

more dangerous of all Latin America the most the most grand the terrorists and the first my impression me was

what I'm what I'm here why I'm here why am I here we're back with Tim Miller Tim this is amazing tell me what first tell me what it was like

for you to talk to Andre I mean it was very emotional I'm so happy to be able to talk to him and that he's willing to just his demeanor and you see it a little bit there but various times he's laughing he talks a lot about how gratefully is to God

and to his family that he's out and it was kind of a that part is just astounding it was very moving it's just like I mean this person went through hell and he was we literally our country literally sent him to hell for no reason and he was in there for four months and he told he confirmed to me the story that

he was sexually assaulted in in the prison in addition to other torture and to come out and not just being enraged right like i don't know i i would think that i would come out and if i wanted to go on some buddies podcast it would be to yell and scream and to you know like rage against the the people that did this to me and it was the opposite and he just had this kind of grace and forbearance and humor. And so that part was extremely moving. Talk about how he said he got through it. Yeah. You know, he talked a lot about the fellow inmates, because it wasn't just him, and he was the face of this in a lot of ways because it was such an absurd situation,

right, that this hairdresser was in a gang, right? And to Melissa Murray's point about education, One thing I wish I had just said more explicitly, he didn't even come illegally. It's not like he crossed, not that it would have been okay if he did, but he came through the process that he was told to come through during the Biden administration through using the CBP1 app. So he hadn't even done anything wrong, and he gets sent to this prison. And so he becomes the face of this, but there were many others who were similarly in that situation. They were not in a gang.

They didn't even come illegally. They came through the app, and they were sent there because of their tattoos. And so he was there with a lot of people in his boat, and he said he got through it, A, through faith in God, which he mentioned several times, but also this, use the word camaraderies, probably wrong, but, you know, just the support of the other men that were in there with him. And to me, maybe the most moving part, the most emotional part for me is he said when they got out, they've been talking and texting, and he said a couple of the men now feel like they have this new life and are going to get married to, you know, the person that they had done.

been dating or whatever before this all happened and he said i'm going to go get to do the hair and makeup for the weddings and i'm very excited about that so i i know it's like heartbreaking and also a little beautiful so it's horrible that we did this to them but it was that it was these men bonded and and and you know i i wrote this morning about it a little bit for the borg and i you could probably speak to this it reminded me a little bit of john mccain honestly talking about his time in the hanoy hilton he always talked about the same thing about bud lee and the other people that he was in there with when we would work for him. And I guess that's how you get through it. This case, though, heart pains me a little more since it was us doing it, not some

foreign, you know, communist country. Not a country we're at war with, but us and in our name. I want to read from what you write. It's hard not to contrast Andrew's mercy and forbearance with the small, sad grievances that dominate America's political life today. Our current regime is powered by anger at 100 perceived slights, too many brown people at Harvard, a book with gay penguins, a swimmer who didn't get the fourth place trophy she felt she deserved, having less than the Joneses. Meanwhile, the guy who came to America looking to make a life for himself was locked away in a foreign dungeon because he had the wrong tattoos. He was tortured, raped, and left for dead. He wasn't even allowed the dignity of calling his mother. This avalanche

of trauma was piled onto him because the luckiest people in the history of the world were convinced that the immigrant down the street might eat their cat. Um, you get out something that makes me cry, but you get at, um, what is this politics of grievance that went from being sort of a party trick, right? Um, all sort of, um, you know, the eye rolling at the, at the Fox News pumping the adrenals of the toxic male personality to real sadistic crap. And I wonder if you think we're anywhere close, um, of a fever. breaking moment. I don't know if we are. That's what that makes me mad, right?

And that was the nice thing where I'm trying to learn from Andre a little bit, from our at least a little bit, that I got to know him in the exchange. Because I am aggrieved at the grievance people, right? I'm mad at them for doing this thing. Yeah, me too. Right? Yeah, me too. And it's just like, like, everybody has legitimate grievances, bad things have happened

to people. I understand. Like, people have real challenges, right? I get it. But to be in America in 2025, at 2024 when they vote for Donald Trump, it's just this great blessing. I think about all of the other things

that other people have to be aggrieved about. Think of what Andri has to be aggrieved about, to be wrongfully sent to a foreign dungeon for four months, be sexually assaulted. Like, he has so many reasons to be angry and filled with rage and filled with grievance and for him to come out the other side and want to preach empathy.

Anyway, the contrast between that and the people that put them there is just so stark. Tim Miller, this is why we need you. This is why you're one of our best people. Thank you so much. And anyone that hasn't watched the whole thing, it's incredible. We'll play more of it on Monday, but you'll come back. Thank you for being here, my friend.