Bulwark Takes - Tim Miller: Sorry Sen. Murkowski, This Is Your Party Now

Episode Date: January 20, 2026

Tim Miller joined MSNOW’s Deadline: White House with Alicia Menendez to talk about why Republicans admitting Trump is wrong—on Greenland, tariffs, and foreign policy—means nothing when they refuse to act. Plus, why a viral Minnesota man’s firsthand account of ICE hits harder than any talking point.

Hey, everybody. It's Tim over from the Bullwark. I just got off with my friend Alicia Menendez who was sitting in for Nicole on the holiday. We talked about a bunch of stuff, including I gave kind of a postgame reaction to my conversation with Chris Ostrusco, the Minnesota Angry Man, who's out there saying, this is fucking nuts. I can cuss now that I'm back on YouTube. And why what he's doing is important, what we've learned from him. We also discussed Mike Johnson is in the United Kingdom today. And I think he might get some tomatoes thrown at them. We'll see how that goes. We talk about that a little bit. But at the beginning, Alicia Godlover, was somewhat encouraged by the fact that there have been like seven-ish

Republicans in Congress who have spoken out about the Greenland nonsense. And I hear that. I don't mean to be dismissive of that. I just, I just get this rage in my head when I hear them rationalize it and say what you want about fucking Rand Paul see what you want about Rand Paul Rand Paul is just going to be Rand Paul

right he's a libertarian and he's just like this is crazy when you ask him about the Greenland stuff when you ask about the Venezuel stuff like we shouldn't be doing this this shouldn't be our responsibility this is wrong we should act

Rand Paul is just explains what's happened clearly explains his position on it He's got some crazy positions, but, like, you know, elite, that's refreshing to me. What I can't take is the kind of establishment, norms, moderate type, whatever, Republicans, who like rationalize others, make excuses for it and say it's wrong, but da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da, but there's this and there's that.

And if pushing my colleagues, pushing his stuff, anyway. So I get kind of hot. I haven't to listen to all these clips. And I'm not going to make you listen to all the clips. But I'm going to make you listen to the one that sent my blood pressure spiking the most. And now is Lisa Markowski out of Alaska. Let's watch that. So you're not seeing a lot of Republicans here today.

And I'm not going to give you the details of other members' schedules. But Senator Coons, quite honestly, you put this trip together pretty quickly. And I don't think that the absence of Republicans is because they don't care about this issue or they have already decided what side of the fence that they may be. So I would not take

that as an indicator of support or lack of support. When they played that clip, Alicia sent it to Claire McCaskill and I have smoke coming out of my years over here. When it finally gets around to me, well, just stick around for that.

Appreciate you all. Subscribe to the feed. Got a bunch of good stuff coming today. We'll be back soon. Peace. Tim Miller, the number of conversations that all of us around the table have that come back to this fundamental question of what Republicans on Capitol Hill are or aren't going to do. But the amount of sound that I was able to play for you at the top of this hour of congressional Republicans actually either mocking him saying legitimately he has a political problem, legitimately he's not understanding the law.

I have to, that is closer to critical mass than I have to. heard on anything other than Epstein. Do you think I'm wrong? Kind of. I love you, Alicia. But I know I wasn't really impressed with that list of people at the beginning. You know, it's like you got Don Bacon, who's retiring and quit Congress because he realizes he still out of step with his party. Tom Tillis was retiring and quit Congress because he realized he's out of step with his party. You know, Lisa Murkowski, who had to get elected as an independent. And she was, they tried to beat her with a kook from the right, but she was one of the rare ones I was able to defeat that attempt to beat her from the right, but she's not really

in the mainstream of MAGA or the Republican Party. And I just, I don't, I don't understand why I and the people watching the show understand Lisa Murkowski's colleagues better than she does. I just going back to that video you played, this idea that other Republicans didn't go because Chris Coon scheduled the trip to recently, like what else are they doing? Like, Josh Holly had to wash his hair? Like, that's why he wasn't there? Do you think? Like, John Corman had a, you know, had a barbecue you had to go to? Like, what else are they doing?

Like, we're threatening our biggest allies. They could do something right now. Like, I just hoping, oh, well, if you ever invaded Greenland, they'd step up. That's what she's saying. I don't know, maybe. Maybe. They didn't really step up on January 6th when people attacked our capital. Maybe they would. But, like, right now, Donald Trump is starting a tear up, a 10% tariff on our allies in what, 13 days, in two weeks.

The Senate, John Thune is allegedly against trade wars, so if he's been his whole career, he's the Senate leader, they could bring something up right now that says, no, we're not, we can't, you know, you don't have emergency powers to tariff NATO allies, or, you know, you don't have emergency powers to tariff Europe, make him veto you. You know, they could take back the power of the purse,

from the president right now it should be in congress's hands anyway senator mccascold house uh... he shouldn't be able to unilaterally make up a fake emergency and tariff the netherlands and so if they're opposed what he's doing in greenland in addition to the war powers resolution that center mccaskel brought up they can also do this and then block him from doing that but they're not going to do that because they don't actually care

maybe they say to lisa mccasian private like hey lisa this is crazy but i don't care what they're saying private think what matters what they're doing in part public and they have an obligation responsibility to the country so i you know sure it's better than nothing that there's six of them or whatever but to me i think ted cruz is much more representative of like where the party is right now which is they'll go along with whatever trump wants president trump is trying to return us to peace through strength which is an important

principle in the u.s it's a ronald ragan used to talk a lot about that and at times when america is strongest it is good for freedom-loving people around the world It seems like a mixed message salad. I'm not sure what they're supposed to make our allies feel better. Do you? Yeah, well, one of the results, not rhetoric, to go back to it, is the tariff that we're putting 10% on the United Kingdom for no reason, unclear, because Donald Trump said he didn't get a peace price.

We're going to do a 10% sales tax on Americans and screw with the British export economy. People take this seriously. People do get upset when you play games with their economy. economy and you gave in trade, engage in trade wars that hurts, you know, their way of life over nothing. People get rightly upset. And you saw, I think the cold play this last week was the booing at the basketball game of America that happened in London. And I think that Speaker Johnson should expect to get the same treatment this week. And I don't know, maybe wear an apron to that speech. Tim, you spoke with someone who gained a lot of attention for his

comments regarding ICE's behavior. Let's watch and then talk about it. I just kept observing what was going on and I saw as I was down there I saw American citizens coming out, you know, one every hour or so. And for most people that haven't seen the Whipple building, the drive is very long. People are usually walking out without jackets because their jackets have been destroyed or taken. And it's very cold in Minnesota right now. And they don't, they're not allowed phone calls. So, they walk out to the crowd and ask for a cell phone or something to use to call somebody to pick them up and i was trying to get their stories about what was going on inside the building why they were taken if they're charged with anything and um most of people were charged with absolutely nothing

Tim i wonder why you think chris's comments hit such a nerve and just what sort of your takeaway from your time with him yeah for people who don't recognize it without the cussing as come in the So does the guy who has interviewed on the street a couple nights ago and basically said that he's not a protester. He's not someone who's been to his things before. But this is freaking nuts to do it in a PG version. What is happening in Minnesota? And his comments really resonated with me. I've had a chance to talk to him.

And look, basically, what he was representing for me is somebody that, A, just was looking around to what's happening as community and saying, this is just not normal. This isn't acceptable. We need to speak out. and B, wanted to get other people to do so as well. So I was impressed by him. He said he was seeing more and more people who like him hadn't been coming to protest

and were coming out in the days after his video went viral. And I think the thing that he's really focusing on, not that we don't care, you know, it's wrong to menace or treat immigrants wrong. It's wrong to treat people who are illegally wrong. Like we have a process here. We have the nation, we should treat people, you know, with dignity and within the rule of law,

But I think his point that is important for folks to know who might not be as engaged in this as everybody's watching the news day today is that in Minnesota these ICE agents are going after U.S. citizens and they are roughing them up and they're detaining them and they're not charging them and they're bringing them to that Whipple building and, you know, harassing them and then letting them go. Like that we should not allow that in a free country. And I'm happy that somebody like Chris is out there kind of speaking up for people. who may have not been engaged in activism before, but are just outraged by what's happening.