Bulwark Takes - Tim Miller: Thune May Be the Weakest Senate Leader EVER

Episode Date: September 10, 2025

Tim Miller joins MSNBC’s The Weeknight to take on Donald Trump’s desperate Epstein cover-up, the GOP’s ritual humiliation in defending him, and a Senate leadership that’s never been weaker from Trump’s absurd signature denial to John Thune’s vanishing act. Watch MSNBC's The Weeknight – https://www.msnbc.com/weeknight

Hey, y'all, I just got off the weeknight with Simone Sanders, Michael Steele, Alicia Menendez, Tim O'Brien, really a murderer's row. We were talking about, I bet you could guess, guess, just really quick, think of your mind. What do you think we were talking about? Epstein, y'all got right. We were talking about Epstein and Trump's lies and the fucking signature gate and all that stupid shit. So there's a bunch on that coming up next. So stick around for that. Subscribe to the feed. I took us on a little aside path because they,

They played a clip of John Thune talking about it for me. And I was looking at the pick. And the thing that just struck me was just how fucking limp these Republican senators are. How pathetic this Republican Senate leadership has got to be the most limp, weak, non-entity in the history of the United States Senate. Maybe not in the history. I don't know. I couldn't do a deep dive with you, if I'm being honest, on the 1880s. Senate leadership, but at least in my lifetime, I mean, we have never, Mitch McConnell,

Harry Reid. I mean, like, we've had just these real power brokers, the power broker himself, LBJ, like in this job. And John Thune is just, I mean, he's like nothing. He's a little hufflepuff. He's just, he's a husk of himself. He's just like a fake tanned scarecrack. and you might as well not even exist. And he's got behind him, like John Barrasso, who is in Zero from Wyoming. He'll do anything Trump tells him.

Every once in a whole like dip out. Which was it? There's a hearing. Oh, it's the RFK hearing. He has some concerns. Oh, yeah, I'm sure John Barrasso. I'm sure you're really going to lay down the law. Behind that, you have John Cornyn,

who's so weak. He's being primaried in his own state right now. Then he had James Langford in Oklahoma. I got a shout out James Langford, who at least had the balls to try to do the bipartisan immigration deal. last year, but, like, he has no power. Trump can care what he thinks. So that's it.

Those four guys, they're standing there talking about how, oh, wow, they'll see how things go. They're for transparency, but they trust the DOJ. None of you're all going to do shit. None of you all going to do shit. Had to self-respect. You just sit in your office and play snake on your phone. That's a dated reference, Tim.

You know, I don't know. Sit in your office and play. I don't play phone video games. What's a good film video game? Place a dooku. Just sit in your office. Place a doco, read, listen to some like World War II history podcasts, you know, listen to drunk history.

Just don't do, don't pretend like you're going to do something. You're not going to do anything. I'm a little grumpy tonight. Anyway, um, stick around. I was grumpy, but I was punchy. So, you know, it'll be worth your time. And subscribe to the feed. I'll see you back here.

soon. We're going to begin tonight with congressional Republicans asking Americans to deny what they see with their own eyes. After Democrats on the House Oversight Committee released a copy of the birthday note, Donald Trump allegedly sent to Jeffrey Epstein, Republican lawmakers are insisting it's not Trump's signature on the lewd note. Well, I don't know. I mean, anybody can do a signature. I think really someone might have just forged this somehow in seconds. Yeah, I mean, somehow, it's so easy to do. For what I see is. not a signature. I've seen Donald Trump sign a million things. This doesn't look like his signature to you? Nope. I highly doubt that it is. Right. I mean,

how could someone could have forged this? Well, are we talking about, are we talking about the birthday card? Letter. Trump apparently. Oh, you know, I would, you know, that's new for me. I've not seen that. We'll let other people decide whether it's real or not. But Trump's signature in letters to George Conway and our own Lawrence O'Donnell show striking similarities to the 2003 birthday note provided to the Oversight Committee by the Epstein estate. Other outlets, like the New York Times, have examined several letters, not independently reviewed

by NBC News, but they reached the same conclusions. But Trump continues to double down, denying he signed or drew the letter and telling NBC News that Epstein is, quote, a dead issue. Folks, the survivors of Epstein's abuse who are still seeking justice and accountability, well, they would disagree. Joining us now is MSNBC political analyst and senior executive editor of Bloomberg opinion, Tim O'Brien, and host of the Bullwark podcast, our friend Tim Miller. He's also an MSNBC political analyst.

Well, look, the reality here is Tim. This is not a, a, all the Tim's actually. Tim Miller, Tim O'Brien. All the teams. Well, this is the reality here, Tim Miller, is that this issue is not dead. It is, in fact, defining. That is the D word he is looking for.

It is defining for Donald Trump. I'm not saying folks are going to, MAGA Republicans are running away from him in droves, but this is a point of contention. You know how I know? Because Donald Trump himself keeps talking about it, and the story keeps changing. And I frankly think it's a bunch of stuff

that I can't say on this family. show that people actually spent their time today and yesterday evening arguing about his signature. It's the man's signature. Let's go to the root of the issue here. Yeah. I mean, do we really need to have handwriting experts out here? Like, this is just, like, we're all, that's a silly.

Like, we're into silliness time. It's obviously a signature. They were friends. They were more than friends. They were close associates. We have testimony from multiple of Epstein's victims that they were brought to Donald Trump's office at Trump. hour. They hung out together in South Florida. Remember there's the one calendar girl party we just

learned about where Jeffrey Epstein was the only man invited to it. Um, so look, these guys were this close. They obviously, you know, so this is obviously the letter. The question is what else is out there, right? Like, why would you make this preposterous defense? You know, like, if Trump was really innocent here, right? You could imagine a more believable defense, something that's like, hey, you know, I signed a bunch of stuff back then. Jeline sent me this thing. And I was like, whatever. You know, I was building buildings. I was busy.

Like, I signed it, I guess. We were friends. And when I found out he was a bad guy, we stopped being friends. You could give an excuse like that. To give this bald-faced lie, to make his supporters go around and try to tell people they can't believe they're lying eyes, to me indicate somebody that knows he's guilty, knows there's more information in there in those files. And he feels like the only way out is to do what he's done so many times before, which is to give a big

lie and hope that his followers go along with it. Mr. Miller, picking up where Tim just left off, the financial shell game, yes, it is a financial shell game with a pedophile, all right? Because you can't drop that piece off the table. At the end of the day, we follow the money. But at the core of this is how young girls were abused by grown men in a universe curated by Epstein and Jelaine Maxwell, and whether directly or indirectly, Donald Trump was in it. He touched it. He was a part of it. And so it's fascinating to me that in the face of all of that,

seemingly, there is nothing that will apparently separate the lips of certain Republicans from the behind of Donald Trump. And they will always find a way to excuse the most outrageous behavior because they don't want to be on the wrong side. I take note of an article regarding Trump and Johnson, noting many in the party have spent years suggesting there's a massive cover-up aimed at protecting Epstein's associates from PR and legal fallout. But opposing Trump, especially on a potent issue, is always a risky proposition for Republican elected officials, just asked the Republicans who voted to impeach him in 2021. That was 2021.

Impeachment is not tagged to pedophilia. So when you have this new element, it changes the conversation for a lot of Americans. And apparently it has changed the conversation for a number of folks in the Magaverse. What say you, my friend, about this seemingly inability to separate, even on this, for a number of Republicans? Well, look, these guys, you know, they haven't lost yet by putting their lips on Trump's behind, right? And if they're still in Congress, that's been a safe bet for them, right? There is. Trump has worked for them so far.

So why not? So why do something different? There's, I mean, it's shameful, but there is a logic to it, right? From the Trump side, he likes the, I almost think that Trump is laughing at them, right? Like, there's a humiliation ritual element to this. It's how you gain power. You know, it's how you ensure that they'll do your bidding to be like, you're going to go out and lie for me.

You're not just going to lie for me. You're going to tell the most preposterous lie imaginable to protect, you know, to protect me for my relationship with the country's probably most notorious child sex trafficker, like, that's what you're going to do. You're going to go have to go out there and humiliate yourself and embarrass yourself in my defense, and that's how I keep you in my good graces. So I think it's kind of as simple as that. I wish it was more complicated.

Let's talk about the Senate majority leader because he is starting to think about what is going to happen if this discharge petition actually makes it out of the house. you have Massey and Kana saying they have the votes to get it done. Take a listen to what John Thune said about what's going to happen if this heads to the Senate. I can't comment on that at this point. I guess the House is having a conversation about that. What I can tell you is, and I think this is my position, my colleagues can speak for themselves. But I believe that transparency is always best, and you should get as much information out there as you possibly can in a way that obviously protects the rights of the victims.

Department of Justice has already released tons of files related to this matter. And in my view, I trust them in terms of having a confidence that they'll get as much information out there as possible in a way that protects the rights of the victims. Let's be real honest to Miller. The documents that they've shared were largely already public. They didn't give us a ton of insight into things that the House or people who have observed this. No, and Johnto knows that, right? This is like the longest game of hot potato I've ever seen. I just, I kind of forgot that John Thune was the Senate Majority Leader for a little while. Where has he been?

He's got a nice tan. I know, no, right. He looked like he was in a high six-press conference. What is he been doing? I can't speak for myself. The Senate doesn't do anything. The Senate hasn't done anything. Occasionally they confirm they rubber stamps out of Trump's appointments.

John Thune ostensibly has disagreements with Trump some various issues. You never know it. He never does anything. So there's no reason to believe that he would actually. do anything to promote transparency. This feels like a word game where he's like, well, the DOJ has already released some documents and I'm for transparency and I trust the DOJ. Well, why would you trust the DOJ when Pam Bondi literally went to Donald Trump has been reported and said, your name is in the files, you know, what do you want us to do with it?

I mean, like, Pam Bondi's already demonstrated that she has no, there's no reason to trust her. Even people inside Magarold, I mean, the deputy FBI director, Dan Bongino, that's a real sentence was like that Pam Bondi was covering something up so i don't you know john thune i think is just trying to you know survive another day without the without the maga guillotine i think