Bulwark Takes - Tim Miller: Kash Patel is LAUGHABLY Unfit for the Job

Episode Date: September 17, 2025

Tim Miller and Sam Stein join Nicolle Wallace on MSNBC’s Deadline: White House to take on Kash Patel’s Senate meltdown, Adam Schiff’s explosive questioning, and Trump’s $15 billion lawsuit against The New York Times. WATCH: MSNBC's Deadline: White House – https://www.msnbc.com/deadline-white-house

Grab a coffee and discover non-stop action with BudMGM Casino. Check out our hottest exclusive. Friends of one with Multi-Drop. Once even more options. Play our wide variety of table games. Or head over to the arcade for nostalgic casino thrills only available at BetMGM. Download the BetMGM Ontario app today. 19 plus to wager, Ontario only.

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, Tim Miller from the bulwark here. We had a bulwark double-dip on MSNBC. Me and your boy Sam Stein were on Nicole Wallace's show for the full hour. So it won't really feel like Sam was on for that long.

It was tough for him to get a word in edgewise with my chatty ass over there across the panel from them. We covered a bunch of stuff, the threats to free speech coming from the administration. I got something I haven't really got into, which is like how the left should talk about this, especially in the context of like critiques that had been leveled at the left about attacks over cancel culture or whatever you want to call it. So I think that's an

interesting discussion. We also get into the Adam Schiff portion of the Cash Patel hearing. We had a live reaction about halfway, three quarters away through the Patel hearing since Schiff is the newest member of the Senate. He was the last to go on the Democratic

side. And so we had already taped by the time he got on and ended up being the biggest fireworks of the hearing. So shout out to Adam Schiff. Stick around. You can watch some of that. Sam and my reaction to it, Nicole Wallace being a little cheeky. It's a great show. Subscribe to our feed here.

We're always keeping up to speed. We have so much coming today, man. We really have a full slate for you. So tell your friends, stick around. Enjoy. We'll see you all soon. Right after she gives this testimony, in front of an FBI agent among others, she's transferred to minimum security prison, not suitable for a sex offender like herself.

Who made that decision and why? The Bureau of Prisons. The Bureau of Decisions made it in prisons. The Bureau of Prisons decided on their own, without any consultation with Blanche or anyone else, that they were going to suddenly, after this interview, completely unrelated to this interview, completely unrelated to anything she said, move her to a prison not suitable for a sex offender. You want the American people to believe that? Do you think they're stupid? No, I think the American people believe the truth, that I'm not in the weeds on the everyday

movements of inmates. What I am doing is protecting this country, providing historic reform and combating the weaponization of intelligence by the likes of you. And we have countlessly proven you to be a lawyer in Russia in January 6th you are the biggest fraud to ever to the United States Senate. You're disgraced of this institution and an utter coward. I'm not

surprised. I'm not surprised that you continue to lie from your perch and put on a show so you can go raise money for your charade. You are a political buffoon at best. Well, you can take an internet troll. Take it to the

bank that the FBI is protecting this. You can make country and the state and citizens of the California. We have been a historic reform. But all you care about is a child sex predator that was prosecuted by a prior administration and the Obama Justice Department and the Biden Justice Department did squat. And what did President Trump do, bring new charges courageously? And what have we done? You said I'm the most transparent FBI director in history, 33,000 pages of information to you.

I challenge you to say anything credibly to the truth. Go ahead and run to the cameras where you want to go now. But, quote, why won't the House Republicans put on their big boy pants and tell us who the pedophiles are? Said Cash Patel. Tim Miller, I have to start with you. What did you think about Cash Patel today? Were you just impressed with his professionalism there, Nicole? And could you just imagine Bob Mueller or, you know, Jim,

Comey sitting there screaming, like just crazed maniac, leveling, like really wild accusations against senators as if he's a reply guy in the senator's comment feed with his eyeballs bulging. I don't know. I just didn't give me a lot of confidence that somebody in a very high pressure job. He has to make a lot of tough decisions, who has to deal with a lot of incoming, has to deal with a lot of bad guys, like has the temperament to kind of handle that job. I think that there's a good reason to doubt that.

And I think that was, you know, the most fireworks of the hearing. And I appreciate Senator Schiff. Some of the other Democrats, I don't think, were quite as pointed to say the least, in their questioning of Patel. But Senator Schiff did a nice job there. But Patel in a bunch of other areas, you know, I think was demonstrating to be obviously hiding the ball. And Schiff was asking him about Glenn Maxwell. And I think rightly pointing out the absurdity of the notion that, that there was not a decision at the highest levels of the Trump administration to move her to

this club fed. I think that's obvious on the merits. There's actually a Republican senator, my Senator John Kennedy, that was asking him about whether there were any other co-conspirators with Epstein and Maxwell. And Patel gave just, I think, an extreme, an answer that was so unsatisfactory that even Republican Senator John Kennedy ended his remarks being saying, that is extremely unsatisfactory. You're going to have to come up with something better than that. if you're going to try to claim that there were no other co-conspirators in the Epstein files. So, you know, there were a couple of other, I think, interesting things to go over about his management of the FBI. But on the Epstein front, those are the two most significant moments.

I want to show you, Sam Stein, something that seems significant in the Trump cabinet's shifting blame game. This was Patel with a new person he's holding accountable, Alex Acosta. Now, I know that there's a lot of talk about Epstein, and I'm here to testify that the original sin in the Epstein case was the way it was initially brought by Mr. Acosta back in 2006. The original case involved a very limited search warrant or set of search warrants and didn't take as much investigatory material it should have ceased. If I were the FBI director, then, it wouldn't have happened. So on that point, the Oversight Committee is going to interview, and there'll be a transcript, Alex Acosta. on September 19th, I think that's Friday of this week, Sam's time. But Cash Patel is certainly building up the pressure on Mr. Acosta.

Yeah, Tim and I were discussing this earlier. He ran him over with the bus and put the bus in reverse and decided to run him over again. It was a notable decision by Patel because they had not this point brought in Acosta because for obvious reasons, primary one being that Alex Costa was Donald Trump's Labor Secretary. Terry. This was after he struck the plea deal with Epstein. So it does raise questions about whether Trump himself, why he would hire someone who was the author of the original sin in the Epstein saga. But it's clear from that sound by that he just played that Patel wants to get out from under this, that Acosta is going to play that role for him, where he can just push it all

on Acosta. And it does raise the stakes for what Acosta says to the house when he does come in for an interview. And if we do see that interview, I'd be very curious to see what he says about it. The other thing that's sort of looming over this as well is that we have this whole Massey Rokane a discharge petition that in a matter of weeks, if the vote holds and this next Democrat is seated as is expected to happen, they should get to 218 votes that they need to force a discharge petition. So, you know, while there were moments today during the hearing that were very electric with respect to the Epstein saga, the other thing to consider, or is that we have this Acosta transcript coming up.

We have interviews happening with other officials. And then we do have this discharge petition in the weeks ahead that could keep this story in the news cycle. Tim, it's such a good point. I mean, there's what's happened in the past that Trump ran on making public. His followers voted for him for variety of reasons, but one of them was releasing the Epstein material. And then there's the things they've done since this became an epic scandal

where, for a time, Megan Kelly and Joe Rogan and others turned against them. Let me show you Adam Schiff's questioning about Todd Blanche's interview with Galane Maxwell. Let me ask you this. When Todd Blanche went to interview Jaze Maxwell, she said, but did I like, think these guys were coming for that? I really don't. If you met Epstein, there's no way that this cast of characters of which it's extraordinary, and some are in your cabinet, who you value as your co-workers and you know would be with him if he was a creeper because they wanted sexual favors. A man wants

sexual favors. He will find out they didn't have to come to Epstein for that. And the next question, Todd Blanche, the president's former criminal defense lawyer, asked, is not who in the cabinet, who are you referring to? His question is, so when's the last time you think you were with Mr. Epstein when he got a massage? So let me ask you, who are those cabinet members that Jazeem Maxwell, Jelaine Maxwell was referring to that were part of this cast of characters associated with Mr. Epstein? Who are they? The Deputy Attorney General took the aggressive step that no one else did and interviewed Ms. Maxwell for two days. And we release the entirety of that transcript.

I do not have that transcript in front of me. I mean, I do. Here it is. Tim, I'll play it for you. I have the audio. Did I think these guys were coming for that? I really don't. If you met Epstein, there is no way that this cast a character

of which it's extraordinary. Some of me in your cabinet, who you value as your old, co-workers, and you know, would be with him if he was a creep, because they wanted sexual favors. A man wants sexual favors, he will find that. They didn't have to come to Epstein for that. Now, did some, okay, I don't know. I wasn't there.

I didn't see it. So, once a last time you think, you were with Mr. Epstein when he got a massage. I mean, I think Todd Blanche should now launch a conspiracy theory of his own that there's like a missing minute. Because how does anyone who's trained as a lawyer hear this? If you met Epstein, there's no way that this cast of characters, of which it's extraordinary. And some are in your cabinet who you value as coworkers.

Who on earth? I mean, I don't think you even have to go to law school. Who on earth doesn't want to know who in the cabinet that he values his coworkers hung out with Jeffrey Epstein? Like, how does that happen? And no one has followed up and asked who those people were until shifted that today. Yeah.

I don't know. Maybe he was distracted by her noxious fake Mary Poppins voice thing that she's doing there. It's just, it's really kind of hard to listen to, given what she has, you know, been culpable with. And I don't know that Blanche was even trying to get information. I can help a little bit. Unlike Blanche and unlike Cash Patel, I haven't had any access to the Epstein files.

But I could tell you that at least one of the captain members she's referencing is the Secretary of Health and Human Services, RFK Jr. Because he's admitted to being on the plane with Epstein and discussed it himself publicly. You know, it doesn't seem like this administration is very interested in learning any more about that. I don't have any, I don't know anything about it, but I think that that just tells you, it's just such a blatant example of what type of cover-up this is, right? Like they have, they're trying to do whatever possible to kind of check this box to throw some chum into the water that hopefully their base will accept and they're really struggling. And they're now in this position where it's like they're obviously doing a cover-up of Trump's

mentions in the Epstein files, which they still haven't shown us, which we know they have and a share drive, and, you know, they are obviously not interested in learning anymore about RFK and, I don't know, maybe other members of the cabinet based on what Jeline Maxwell said in that interview. In his latest attack on the free press in America, Donald Trump announced overnight in a social media screed that he is suing the New York Times and four of its reporters. He's accusing them of defaming him ahead of the 2024 election. Donald Trump is claiming that a series of articles published by the New York Times were, quote,

specifically designed, end quote, to undermine his candidacy and disparage his reputation as a businessman. The lawsuit asked for damages of at least $15 billion. The defendants named in the suit include New York Times reporter Suzanne Craig and Ross Boutner, who's reporting about Donald Trump's finances, was the subject of a book by Penguin Random House, also a defendant. The suit also named New York Times reporter Peter Baker, who reported that Donald Trump has been accused of wrongdoing more than any other candidate for the Office of the President in American history and Michael Schmidt, who published an audio interview with Donald Trump's former

chief of staff, General John Kelly, saying that Donald Trump would rule like a dictator in his second term as the host of this broadcast. It is important today to disclose that Michael Schmidt is my husband. He, along with Sue Craig and Peter Baker, have all spent a lot of time on this program specifically, as well as contributors and analysts. on MSNBC and NBC News Network. The New York Times has responded to the lawsuit by saying this, quote, this lawsuit has no merit. It lacks any legitimate legal claims and instead is an attempt to stifle

and discourage independent reporting. The New York Times will not be deterred by intimidation tactics. We will continue to pursue the facts without fear or favor and stand up for journalists' First Amendment right to ask questions on behalf of the American people. Penguin Random House has also responded to the lawsuit saying this, quote, this is a meritless lawsuit. Penguin Random House stands by the book and its authors and will continue to uphold the values of the First Amendment that are fundamental to our role as a book

publisher. Sam Stein, Tim Miller, and Christy Greenberg are all back with us. Tim, you and Christy somehow became family members in my re-introw. I'm sorry about that. It's an honor. Let me let me, I would love to be related to Christy Greenberg. Christy, let me start with you on, actually, let me start on the tactic. Because to be honest, what CBS and ABC have done is, you know, clear the path for a big money settlement, right? I mean, that is, that is the muscle memory that Donald Trump is leaning on when he sues the New York Times for $15 billion overnight, Tim Miller. It is. And them folding is going to have extreme long-term ramifications, them being specifically

CBS and ABC. And I think it's important to talk about this context, right? The New York Times, this lawsuit is just preposterous on its face. And it's written in such ridiculous manner. Like one of the complaints against Sue Craig, I believe, was that she reported that Mark Burnett resuscitated Trump's career and his celebrity. And then she's getting sued for libel over that. And they cite in the report that Trump was on WrestleMania before he was back on The Apprentice.

And so he was already famous. It's just, it's like a completely ridiculous, laughable lawsuit in many ways, including one way where he says he's worth $100 billion, which if true, is a pretty big sign of the corruption in the White House. So that might be a follow up for Sue Craig. But look, here's the thing. The 60 Minutes lawsuit was ridiculous. It was completely ridiculous. They sued CBS under the premise that they edited an interview when 60 minutes edits every interview that they do. Nicole, I'm sure back when you were a flack, when I was a flack, I had politicians that did 60 minutes interviews that they follow you around for a couple days.

They get hours of footage. They cut it down to 60 minutes. It's right there in the name. It happens every week. They do more than 60 minutes of interview and then cut it down. And that was the premise of the lawsuit. But CBS, in a totally craven move, in a greedy move, and a corrupt move, wanted to have their merger, or Paramount, rather, the parent company wanted to have their merger approved.

And so they settled on this preposterous lawsuit. And so now you go forward and Trump is emboldened to do things like this. I don't expect that the New York Times will fold in the same way. But it creates a chilling effect across the industry. and obviously Trump is culpable here ultimately for these attacks on free speech that are unprecedented for the president, but the media companies that folded

are almost as culpable as he is. And what do you make Pam Bondi saying she's going to go after hate speech? Is that, I mean, a lot of people, a lot of your allies say hate speech is free speech. You should probably go after people like you because you treat me so unfairly. It's hate.

You have a lot of hate in your heart. Maybe they'll come after ABC. Well, ABC, made me $16 million recently for a form of hate speech, right? Your company paid me $16 million for a form of hate speech. So maybe they'll have to go after you. Sam, Tim, and Christ here back. Sam, in 2017, none other than Charlie Kirk said that there's an illegal basis for going after

hate speech, was an advocate for free speech. A lot of folks on the right are not happy with Pam Bondi's comments about, pursuing speech and criminalizing speech. The memo hasn't reached Donald Trump, clearly, who in that clip accuses John Carl of, quote, your heart is full of a lot of hate. Your thoughts on this moment for journalists. Well, it's a really delicate moment, obviously, for journalists. I think the purpose of this Times lawsuit is not about necessarily looking back and making these reporters pay for anything they've done because, as Tim noted, it's ridiculous and meritless. I mean, some of the accusations, putting aside his fame in Home Alone, too, in

WrestleMania, some of the accusations are just absurd, and they don't form any foundation for a lawsuit like this. But this is really about it's trying to dissuade future reporting around him and into his finances and into his politics. And it's meant to have a chilling effect on other publications and news outlets so that when they go about doing the type of reporting that traditionally is done for the president of the United States, they may think twice. And frankly, I worry that that's going to happen. I worry that outlets are going to say, well, do we really need to use that adjective or describe it that way?

Or do we even need to do that story, because if we do, we risk getting hit with a lawsuit for, what was it, $15 billion? It's crazy. And then, of course, you see this bleeding in, not just into journalism, but elsewhere in that press exchange, he went after a report. order from Australia saying it might affect diplomatic relations with the country because they asked a question that he didn't like. So it's bleeding into the other politics as well. The one upside of this, and I'll stop talking about this, is that when Pam Bondi did utter her comments

trying to distinguish between free speech and hate speech, there's a torrent of pushback from people on the right who said that's absurd. It doesn't make any sense. It's legally indefensible. And Bondi did have to walk back what she said. The problem, as you note, though, is that it's not Bondi who's just saying this. It's Trump who's echoing this. And when you file these frivolous suits, it's clear that he doesn't really see or care for any distinction. I mean, Tim, you made a great point yesterday on social media

that if anyone on the left in American politics had said any of the things that Vance said yesterday, it would be all that anyone talked about. Sam is correct that the reason the brakes may get put on some of what Vance and Trump are saying is because there's pushback on the right. but why isn't the left even a player in pushing back in terms of how we talk about or think about this stuff?

Yeah, I think it would be smart for the left to take up the mantle of free speech in this moment. And I think that at some level there definitely was an attempt by in some corners of the left to cancel people over speech over the last few years. And I was opposed to that in most cases. This is a different category from that, though. This is the president of the United States telling a. reporter, John Carl, who's a really good reporter. I bet some Democrats would say he's a little

tough for their taste, too, telling him that he practices a hate speech. You had J.D. Vance telling people yesterday that if they see a mean tweet about Charlie Kirk that they should call a person's employer and rat them out. And you had Pam Bondi yesterday saying they should go after a hate speech. So look, I am not for hate speech. I'm not for, I do not think people need to be smearing, you know, somebody that was just assassinated. But the idea that the federal government would use the power and levers of the government to target people through the Justice Department or to target people through their employer based on a tweet that they sent or a post that they posted on Instagram or Facebook or whatever,

that is deeply chilling and is anti-free speech. And I do think it would be smart for someone the left to really try to recapture that mantle. So there's a big spirit in this country that is cross-partisan of wanting to protect people's and not wanting people to fear the government going after them if they say something errant on social media.