Bulwark Takes - Tim Miller: Trump Laughs at Being Called "Fascist"—But We Shouldn't

Episode Date: November 23, 2025

Tim Miller join MSNOW’s The Weekend (with The Bulwark’s own Catherine Rampell) to discuss Trump’s weird Mamdani meeting, why MTG suddenly bailed on Congress, and what the looming Epstein Files release could shake loose. Check out The Weekend on MSNOW: https://www.ms.now/the-weekend

Hey, everybody. I'm here at the MSNAL Studios. I just jumped off set with our bulwark gal, Catherine Rampel, and everybody else on the weekend crowd. And we were talking about the Zoron Trump bromance meeting, Marjor Taylor Green, deciding that she's going to leave Congress, as well as some Epstein-Files stuff. And, you know, there's only one thing I didn't want to get to, that I wasn't able to get to rather, that I wanted to add for you guys with the Trump-Zerun meeting. I think that there was a lot there that was predictable. The way that Zodon handled that, I think, was very strong. I don't know that I would have liked it if it was a Democratic-2020-person.

But as a mayor of New York, who needs to work with Trump and who has his own juice right now, I think what Zoran did made a lot of sense strategically. And I get into some more on the show about what I think Zoran did, got out of this meeting, rather, that was really useful for him. But the one thing that did bug me was that Trump makes his joke that says, go ahead, you can call me a fascist. It's fine. And they laugh. And, you know, it's like a big ha-ha-ha.

And I don't want to be the clenching for old guy, but it's like in our country, our system of government actually matters. And the fact that we are a republic, the oldest running democracy in the world, is something that is important and meaningful. It's meaningful people throughout the world. It's being a beautiful of people in our country. And they just joke about it and just be like, hey, I'm a fascist, ha, ha, ha. The mayor of New York can call me a fascist, but it's no big deal. To me, that sends a bad sign. It sends a bad sign to the world.

And it makes the whole thing feel fake, right? It makes our whole system of government feel fake. And I think it contributes to the lack of trust about what's happening. And it makes everybody think that we're just playing and pretend. And this is just a big reality TV show. and there's not actually any weight to the system of government. There's not any meaning to it. So, anyway, sorry to get a little heavy for you.

Stick around. Your girl Catherine Pell is with me. She's on here on the weekend every night on MS now. And I'll be back in my Pinto Bean's chair on Monday with Bill Crystal. See you all then. Let's start with the Trump-Mamdani meeting, which I know shocked some people on both sides of the political spectrum. Oh, Elise has some, take a look at this.

So this is quite a turn of events when it comes to the New York Post. It's not a sickle like they had had up on another Mom Donnie cover. Now they're trying to fill out which direction they go in. It's more of a meat cute. But are we so surprised that two guys from Queens kind of got together and got along here? I mean, for me, I wasn't shocked by this for a few reasons. The first is Donald Trump loves winners. He likes to be around other stars.

people who he perceives as sort of being central casting. Zorn Mamdani certainly fits that bill, is top billing right now in terms of the national conversation. And then I think he sees some of himself in Mamdani, you know, this underdog thing, you know, you were this sort of little-known assemblyman from Queens, and now look at you here, you've proven all these haters wrong. That's sort of how Trump likes to think of himself. Trump also wants to be liked.

And I was reading an old magazine profile of him over the weekend. from like the first term where they're trying to understand what was happening with, you know, his first crazy cabinet round. And an insider said to the reporter, so he don't understand. He's a real estate guy. Like, he wants to be liked. It's hard, I think, for some people to understand because he seems so unlikable in so many ways. But like, interpersonally, you hear this often when people go meet him.

Now, that breaks if you don't tell him what he wants to hear, right? And I think that the overall of his meeting could have exploded, like the Zelensky one did, because Zelensky was telling him something that you didn't want to hear, right? But Zoran had no reason to do that, you know, on the first day. And so I think that's, you know, before he's even taken over. Like, that obviously might change if he starts sending ICE officials into the city, et cetera. I don't think that this bromance or whatever we're calling it is going to last forever. But I think that makes sense.

The one thing that just I would caution a little bit, I saw some on the left doing the schick about, that was like alluding to your populist thing, saying like, look, this could be, this could be what it looks like. when it's working class politics on the left and right uniting and it's up down versus up and it's working class versus the elites and it's like, okay, all right, let's Bernie and Paul actually believe Yeah, let's dial it back.

Mamdani got one other substantive thing out of this I would say which is there was discussion among rich New Yorkers and among Jewish New Yorkers like maybe we might have to leave the city after this because we're because of the kind of scaremongings going on about Mom Donnie or in some cases maybe legitimate concerns about

about the increase in taxes or whatever might be coming. That Trump was asked that question. And Trump said, no, I'd stay in New York. And that really, we talk about defanging. That really takes the teeth out of that hit on Mamdani. You sound kind of ridiculous now. You know, like the barstool guy was saying that he's thinking about moving barstool out of New York. Now you sound kind of ridiculous. If you're like, I'm running scared from Mamdani in New York after Donald Trump said he would have stayed. You look at what just happened to Marjorie Taylor Green. And so now you have, he's bringing in to the Oval and just couldn't be more conciliatory and laudatory to his former foe,

who he called a communist, and then Marjorie Taylor Green, who really was his strongest advocate for so long, banished, done. Is she done? Is she done? Is Marjorie Taylor Green done? This is not good pun to think, but I don't know what the heck is going on with Marjorie Taylor Green. I really, it's hard to, it's hard to fathom. because it was like she just beat trump i she just got like brought trump to heal on this big upstein fight i think that she obviously i don't think that she was a threat from a trump primary in her district so she could have stayed i think that there were there was some like right

leaning uh... types of media types that were floating her for 2028 so she was getting but even she didn't want to do that she was getting buzz so why i leave i like the only thing that i can think of and i was texting robert who does a great profile on her today for the new york times and he was saying like he does he thinks that she is really genuine concerned about safety you know and i do think that there are a lot of threats and you look at this trend you've seen of republicans who stand up to trump then get a lot of threats and then decide this isn't really worth it i'm going to move i'm going to you know step off the stage and we've seen a bunch of those examples uh over the last 10 years now so it could be something as simple as that maybe

she has a second act planned though i don't it's hard for me to get inside her head so i'm going afloat sort of a half-baked hypothesis, which is, what if the reason why Marjorie Taylor Green had her awakening and why other Q&N people might be

deprogrammed, if you will, is that she, like, got to D.C. and realized the conspiracy theories cannot hold because people are too incompetent. You know? It's like, in some ways it is a moderating or, you know, it's a, it's a,

call to Earth event, right? You come to D.C. and you realize maybe there aren't, like, the space laser. I would have thought her experience with the Epstein fight would have only made her, like, I don't know, spiral. But, but, like, but it's, she won. She won. You know? And it's like, I don't want

to send any time with these people. We're not actually doing anything. It also seems to me, like, even if she, you know, is out of D.C. and sort of out of the picture for a while, although I really do think she is going to come back, whether she gets a podcast or she joins forces or someone on. She does.

She does. She does. Yeah. Every says, you start a podcast, all right? But let me tell you, it's a grind. You have one of those? We have one. It's out there, all right?

The water's warm. We welcome more people into the fold, but not a lot of successful... She may be beating you in the rankings in a few months. We'll see. Candace is beating me, so that, you know, that happens. Well, you know... The House of Representatives, look, they're... The Republican advantages was so slight already.

They could barely do anything. And the Republicans have done basically nothing in the House this year, and they passed the one big tax bill, and that's about it. and now they just finally belatedly voted on the discharge petition release the Epstein files. So I think that that is very meaningful as far as whether they'll be able to do. I don't think that there's enough in the special elections on the table, and those in the red states are going to be pretty tough for the Democrats, and they're pretty deep red seats.

I don't think there's enough in there for the Democrats to actually like take the House back before next November. But I do think it means that we're going to look at basically what we've been seeing, which is not much from Congress, and a unitary executive Donald Trump kind of doing what he wants, and Mike Johnson just sort of, I mean, the House hasn't even been in session for two months. The one thing that I'm going to miss most of the Margie Taylor Green thing that makes me most upset is she was like the first person and it happened for three weeks

to offer whether she was genuine or not, a genuine right-wing populist critique of Trump from within the party, right? Like saying that not going on him because, oh, he breaks norms or like the stuff that I did like the former never Trumpers do, right? Going after and saying, no, actually your voters want more health, you know, want more government health care. Like, your voters are unhappy that you're spending this money bombing boats in the Caribbean when you should be spending that, you know, supporting public, you know, works programs in the states. She was starting to offer that critique, and I'm curious if that critique could work, because nobody's ever really tried it within the Republican Party.

Everybody does, they say they're being populist, but when they say populace on the right, it's mostly like right-wing culture war stuff with some, like, populist rhetoric. She was trying, she was offering, like, a policy program that would match the populist rhetoric. And I'm interested, I think that could possibly work. The countdown for the Justice Department to release the Epstein Files has begun with a fast-approaching deadline of December 19th. Now, it is still unclear exactly when and how these files could be released, but Democrats on the House Oversight Committee are already concerned that the DOJ could use a provision in the Epstein Files Transparency Act to redact or withhold documents from Congress. we don't understand why

there would be a lot of redactions? Why is the word classified keep even coming up you're raising your eyebrows it's like Jeffrey Epstein was a private citizen They care so much about classification This Trump

Yeah yeah They really hold it Just put it on signal And it's all Concerned about it right Because they move Maxwell They're clearly protecting someone in some thing right

And he was a private citizen He certainly had a whole lot of contact With non-private citizens Sure, I guess, but I don't... Why would he have a lot of classified information in his emails? Well, he wouldn't, but we know how governments... Yeah, it's what they can cover up to. I think it's about...

So, that's redacting. So those are two separate things. But they do keep bringing up, like, oh, there's going to have to be some redactions because of protecting victims. And I think one of the other big questions about redactions is, like, for a while they were trying to redact that they didn't want potential perps to be smeared.

Right? But I think that fight has been kind of lost, but who knows, right? Like, who knows of the DOJL decide to do they might decide to just selectively protect you know friends of the president you know so i think all of that stuff will be um you know worth looking at but i i think that there are more questions than answers about what what will be in the fire so this is what i keep coming back to will there ever be an end to this like is there any any release that would satiate the the mobs who have been following that i mean i i forget the victims who like actually want justice by having the men who abused them be arrested and held accountable. I'm talking about like the people

who are interested in like the lurid conspiracy theories. Like is there anything that will probably not, but look, I think that there are some things that could make it, you know, that could tamp it down, like right, for example, the notion that they're all these victims and that the only people that were complicit in this were Jeffrey Epstein, Glenn Maxwell and maybe former Prince Andrew, like it's crazy. Again, and nobody believes that. And, and notably it would be true so if the next round of files comes out and once again it's like oh well we looked into it and it was just geoffrey and glain doing all this i then people keep having questions right like if if they're obvious redactions of things related to trump or

trump or friends of trump people continue to have questions so i think it kind of depends on this but i don't know i was watching just for one sense this uh tim dillans podcast it's kind of right when comedian podcaster and he was like going off on this just this weekend which is like this is crazy like there's no way that they're going to give us all this stuff and so you can I can already sense the next round of the non-conspiracy conspiracy bubbling up, right? Like this, you know, the notion that we need to see more. So Julie Kay Brown does the Miami Herald, the big takedown on Epstein that leads to his second arrest. Summers is emailing Epstein asking for dating advice after that Miami Herald article comes out.

So he knows, right, no, and so I just, that is an atrocity. It's a praise. I think that this actually did get a blow to Donald Trump's political. fortunes among the Maga crowd? Yes, for the reason that Basil just said. Because I think it combined, there was this storm of things that was happening that showed that Donald Trump was on the side of rich

elites and not on the side of the regular people. And I think that the Epstein Fowles was one of them. I think that the shutdown fight was one of them where he didn't want to negotiate it all on the Obamacare subsidies. And then he's simultaneously, he's throwing the great Gatsby parties. He's having the rich tech guys at the White House. I think all those things together did hurt him a little bit.

Yeah, it's interesting that the thing, the piece of all of this that might have hurt Trump the most is not so much the paling around with the sexual predator and maybe more the he's an elite, he's not one of the people, which like shouldn't be surprising for a whole host of reasons. But Tim Miller, Basil's Michael, thank you so much for joining us.