Bulwark Takes - Tim Miller: This Judge Wiped The Floor With Trump

Episode Date: April 17, 2025

Tim Miller joins Nicolle Wallace on MSNBC’s Deadline: White House to discuss a Reagan-appointed judge's sharp rebuke of the Trump administration for violating due process by deporting migrants without legal recourse. Tim also shares his take on the pushback from Harvard and Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski, saying she’s scared of Trump's increasingly authoritarian actions. Watch Deadline: White House

Hey, everybody. I just got off with Nicole Wallace. We had a chance to talk about the Fourth Circuit ruling from Judge Wilkinson, who is a Reagan appointee, a rock-ribbed conservative judge who issued an absolutely barn burner of a ruling pushing back against the Trump administration for their skirting of the Supreme Court when it comes to the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia. And, you know, in this clip that I'm about to show you, I talk a little bit about one of my favorite lines from this ruling. But more broadly, you know, essentially, the judge is saying that this is a very simple case and we cannot stash someone in a foreign country after a mistake has been made. You know, there's a line in the ruling that is essentially like if the administration admits they've done something wrong, which they have, then shouldn't that wrong be righted? And, you know And maybe there are other issues with this person. They deserve the due process of the law. So it was a very clear, very simple ruling.

And I can joke about how at times it feels like the judge is talking to the administration like they're an elementary school student. And so it is quite the smackdown. We will now see what the administration does with it. So up next in this clip, you know, we're seeing certain elements of people pushing back against the Trump administration for their, you know, illiberal, it's the nicest way you could put it, threatening, menacing retribution attempts. So stick around for both of those clips. Please subscribe to the feed. I'll be back soon.

Appreciate y'all. Peace. I mean, I think a lot about Rogan and the manosphere, Tim, and I've made this point that there's nothing we were led to believe because of the narrative dominance that the right had, that something about left wing politics was emasculating. I mean, nothing is more emasculating than losing your sort of power to purchase and losing your ability to afford things and losing the ability to buy toys or car seats or sporting equipment or clothes for your family. I mean, so at a substantive level,

in terms of blowing up the narrative dominance, the lived reality that everyone in this country is going to experience, including the men and women under the spell of the manosphere, is not going to match with the disinformation on the economic front. And then on this idea of due process, it's incredible to listen to the people that showed up at Chuck Grassley's town hall meeting in Iowa. He looked like he knew them all on a first name basis. And they're shouting at Chuck Grassley, like, why can't you just bring... I mean, even before this unbelievable ruling and this eloquent sort of poetry from a reagan appointed judge about the rule of law chuck grassley's voters said the same

thing two days ago uh absolutely i think that's right and look um you know on this ruling on the narrow side of it uh you know, unlike Andrew, I'm not usually fangirling circuit court rulings, but I like to, for simple words, which was facilitate is an active verb, which was, again, the judge talking like a fourth grader to the administration, which is, we said facilitate. That means facilitate, like do something, bring this person back. And that is simple, right? And so that's what I think, angela's point it's interesting the rogan case rogan was talking about some of the other

venezuelans that have been sent to signa particularly you know the the makeup artist andre is the one he is focused on and that's why i do think and and similarly at the grassley town hall some of them were talking about uh garcia but some more broadly that's why i think broadening this out you know is very important and critical and just like to making the simple argument that in this country we don't take people off the street because of their tattoos and send them to a foreign gulag where they have no recourse for recovery uh there will be some people that disagree with that but that remains a majority position even in the country that elected Donald Trump and I think talking about that is a better place to be for you know politically for some of the

folks then then getting bogged down into the details on this legally you know it's a better place to be to get bogged down in the details on a break of Garcia and you know as this judge pointed out so I I think both of both of those elements are true I think there are you know know, some cracks here. And and I think that's like the opportunity. But in a really dark, dark story, Brett Stevens has been doing these conversations with The New York Times editorial page where he it's like watching someone. I understand why people watch the reality shows, right, where people are in therapy. It's like watching him sort of unpack his own openness from about eight weeks ago to what Trump was going to do in the

second term. And this morning with Pat Healy, the opinion editor there, he takes us on. And Brett's been really former conservative and very vocal about anti-Semitism. And he says basically what Angelo just outlined, that it's not about anti-Semitism. And college campuses should combat anti-Semitism in response to their own student body and their parents. But as Brett sort of awakens to this new reality on the pages of the New York Times, I think Angelo reveals a bottom-line truth about Trump, that that is a cover story.

That is not the aim, because the tactics certainly do not mirror up with that as an objective. Yeah, I'm going to have to take your word about that, because that's not my reality show of choice. I'm telling you, I'm let me just because now now I'm on, because now I'm on a detour. I read them as my own sort of effort to understand anyone just, and Brett and David French and Ross, somebody, did this thing, and it went on for pages and pages. It took me, and I read it, and it was about eight weeks ago.

And I haven't actually, I mean, David French has been a very vocal critic of all of the attacks on the rule of law, but Brett was a little more, came around a little more slowly, but he's now come around and is basically saying that what Trump is doing is a basic affront to the rule of law and has nothing to do with anti-Semitism. My only point is that whether you're in the media, whether you're on the left or whether you're on the right, nobody thinks that the attacks on universities are about combating anti-Semitism. Yeah, I welcome everybody on board. And it's very obviously not about combating anti-Semitism. And the one thing, just kind of listening to all the other panelists here that really jumped out at me,

is the end of what Luke was talking about, how they're like one of the other threats now from the administration is that Harvard, you know, won't get visas for foreign students that are that are coming to to the want to come to the university. Like, does that include Jewish students? Right. Like if this is about anti-Semitism to Jewish students from Israel or from Europe, are they allowed? Are they also banned from coming to Harvard in the name of fighting anti-Semitism? The whole thing is just preposterous. And and it's worse just preposterous. And it's worse than preposterous, really. The whole thing is kind of reminiscent of China.

And it sounds like Chinese, right? That the government could say to a university, you can't have students from a certain country or from anywhere else in the world. You can't make this choice for yourself. It is so far outside the American tradition, you know, that it's really, you know, kind of impossible to come up with an apt comparison, at least from our lifetimes, of something that has happened domestically. Tim, we also have Senator Murkowski sort of finally giving a soundtrack to the reality that Republicans have been living under for nine years. It's too little too late, but it is a marvel to hear that. Yeah, I mean, like you, I'm sure I have a mixed view on it, right? On the one hand,

I'm happy she's saying it. On the other hand, I'm happy that there have been a couple of times she's spoken out. She voted against Patel and against Hegseth, I think. So two, I would have voted against many more of the cabinet secretaries, but there were two. And she speaks out against Trump from time to time, which is better than basically all 52 of her other colleagues, except maybe McConnell, just of late.

And so that all is good. The other side of it, though, is frustrating, because it's kind of like, why are you a hostage in this party? I mean, there are other independents. Couldn't you join Angus King, who's an independent from Maine? You could create an independent caucus where you could feel, you know, more free to to criticize the administration to speak out. Like if you're that scared, if you are scared to speak out and the reason that you're scared to speak out is the leader of your party. Like maybe you're not in the right party i guess that just might be something for senator

murkowski to consider but i do think that she's speaking something that is that is true about a lot of a lot of maybe not a lot anymore at one time a lot of republicans of the hill in the hill and now now a handful of them