Bulwark Takes - Tim Miller: Trump's Own Voters Feel Betrayed

Episode Date: July 16, 2025

Tim Miller joins MSNBC's Katy Tur Reports to discuss how the Epstein files are driving a wedge between Donald Trump and his most loyal supporters. They also examine MAGA’s backlash to Trump’s foreign policy flip-flops and President Obama’s leaked warning for Democrats to toughen up. Bring on the good vibes and treat yourself to Soul today! Right now, Soul is offering my audience 30% off your entire order!  Go to https://GetSoul.com and use the code BULWARKTAKES. 

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If you have questions or concerns about gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531- 2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. Ben MGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with eye gaming, Ontario. Hey everybody. Tim Miller from the bulwark here. Just got off with Katie tour. And we talked about a bunch of different topics. We did the Epstein stuff, which we've been covering a lot here. There are two other topics we got into. I kind of want to extend my comments on a little bit and then let you sort of watch the discussion. The first was about some leaked comments from President Obama, former President Obama at a fundraiser where he was talking about how a democracy can get out of the fetal position

and fight more. I talked about that a bit on the show. Other comments he made was talking more about, you know, being more supportive of the YIMBY, the Yes in My Backyard, or the abundance message to Democrats, that Democrats, particularly in blue cities, should be thinking more about how they can build and do more to provide services to people, and how to kind of break through some of the red tape, some of the, you know, rules, regulations that have like prevented Democrats from providing the good governance that people want. The example of this always

is the California high-speed rail thing. We spend hundreds of millions of dollars, billions of dollars on a railroad that can never get built. Nobody's for that. Nobody's for that. Nobody's for making it very hard for people to get access to government services, right? And if you're the Democratic Party, the party that believes in government is, Zoran and I talked about this actually, the government should be responsive to that. Like you as a politician should be responsive to failures in government providing services to people. So I thought that that was interesting. I have a little bit more on Obama's comments in the conversation with Cornell Belcher and Katie Tur. And then finally the last topic is about Ukraine and potential fissures. We haven't really gotten

to those potential fissures on the MAGA side in Ukraine. The same people that I've said about Epstein aren't really loving Trump redoubling his support for Zelensky, or not even redoubling, Trump finally starting to provide some support for Zelensky is maybe a better way to put it. So I get into that with Katie as well. So stick around for all that. We'll be back more on this feed as stuff breaks. I've got some interesting interviews coming your way that I'm very excited about.

So make sure to subscribe to the feed. We'll be seeing you soon. You are not allowed to be a president if you're not born in this country. He may not have been born in this country. And I'll tell you what, three weeks ago, I thought he was born in this country. Right now, I have some real doubts. I have people that actually have been studying it and they cannot believe what they're finding. You have people now down there searching, I mean, in Hawaii. Absolutely. And they cannot believe what they're finding. Good to be with you. Back with you. I'm Katie Turin.

2011, shortly after a successful appearance at CPAC, Donald Trump said he was considering running for president. During that time, he spent weeks telling anybody who would listen that then-President Barack Obama needed to prove that he was born in America, single-handedly bringing into the mainstream what was previously a fringe conspiracy theory. Since then, we've seen no limit to what sort of conspiracies Donald Trump has been willing to fan, like January 6th was a government-staged riot, or that Haitian immigrants in Ohio were eating people's pets,

or that the George Floyd protests constituted a coup attempt that was led by a well-funded network of anarchists. But there's now one conspiracy theory that just might come back to bite him, and its name is Jeffrey Epstein. Tim, what do you think? might come back to bite him. And its name is Jeffrey Epstein. Tim, what do you think? Well, first for starters, Katie, I just have to say, you just like to dig up all of my trauma

for the past decade every time I come on with you. I got to read less into Trump birther interviews from 2011 now. Come on, Katie. I might give it to you. Here's why I think this one matters. Because in all those other cases he was lying to people he didn't need or care about. He was lying to you, to the

media, to me. You know he's lying to NeverTrumpers, he's lying to whatever. In this case he was lying to his own people and his own voters right now have now over that whole long period dating back to all the way back to those birther interviews, they've been promised a lot and they've been promised that a lot of, there are a lot of bad people out there in the world in the deep state and their, their pedophile rings and they're stealing elections and they're starting a plandemic and that once he gets back in there and he gets cash for tell at the FBI and you know, the whole range of characters they've seen on all their podcasts and cable

shows for the last decade, they're going to finally be able to bring these people to account. And so six months in for them to say, oopsie, no, actually, that wasn't true. There really weren't any bad people. There really weren't any pedophiles involved at the elite levels of the country. It's not unreasonable for his own voters to be mad, to feel betrayed about that. And so I know that might feel kind of silly to people who haven't engaged in this that closely or it might be easy to say, well, there have been so many times before that he's misled. Well, sure.

But in this case, there's at least a cadre of people out there that truly thought that finally, the powerful were gonna be held to account. And I don't think he's even able to brush that aside that easily. Bullwork Takes is sponsored by Soul. Are you sick of drinking your calories, or are you sick of just waking up hungover?

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The former president, Barack Obama, has a message for Democrats. Toughen up, he says. Speaking at a private fundraising event this weekend, Obama called out lawmakers, law firms, and universities for not being tough enough against Donald Trump. The former president is saying, quote, it's going to require a little bit less naval gazing

and a little less whining and being in fetal positions. Tim, because right now Democrats don't have any power in Congress. They don't have the majority. They can only, I mean, they can hold, they could try to hold committee hearings, and they're not going to be able to because they're not in charge of the committees. They can hold news conferences and demand answers, but they can only do so much.

Do you think that it would be a better idea for them to start going out there and offering a positive approach for what they envision a democratically led future can be in addition to or making secondary the stuff that Donald Trump is doing is illegal and wrong. I mean how do you balance those two because when you're watching Donald Trump's policies on a national level unfold the Democrats are obviously very angry and they feel like he's crossing a lot of lines that that need to be called out. Yeah well look I think doing stuff with the power they have in DC which is lot of lines that need to be called out. Yeah.

Well, look, I think doing stuff with the power they have in DC, which is minimal, they should. And they have with the Epstein thing. I think this is smart to jump on this and they put it up for a vote and the Republicans blocked it. But now they have the Republicans on record on that. I think that is a useful use of an afternoon for the Democrats, right?

There's a lot of time between now and the next midterms. Like my advice to Democrats always call me, which is I guess somewhat related to what President Obama was saying about getting out of the fetal position, is there's so much to be outraged about or passionate about in this moment. And you should channel whatever it is you're authentically outraged about. I know this might seem kind of naive, but if you care a lot about, if you're extremely mad, as I am, about the immigrants who have been kidnapped and sent to a foreign prison,

then you should do a Chris Van Hollendan and go down and tell us all the door. If you're upset about, you know, as Zoran is talking about spending and affordability, then yeah, go out there and do events. I think what people want and what they're craving right now is passion in this moment that feels commensurate with what they feel, like either rage or anger or energy that feels in

line with how they feel. And to me, it's very reminiscent, Katie, if we're going to do flashbacks to the 2012s, of how Trump channeled the Republican voters. There was a period of time where Republican voters felt they were force fed, John McCain and Mitt Romney, two guys I love, but weren't exactly the most passionate, rousing representatives of their values. And they looked at Trump and they said, that guy's gonna fight for us.

And that didn't resonate with me in particular, but I understand why it resonated with them. And I think the Democrats don't need their own Trump per se, but they need somebody that all Democrats should think about, how am I going to represent that I'm going to fight for people? Maga is not happy about this. You have the Jeffrey Epstein stuff.

You have the decision to attack Iran, not making Maga happy. And then the decision now to keep on arming Ukraine. This is a base of support that believes Donald Trump promised them that he would get out of all foreign entanglements. Not just that, but also continuing to send arms to Israel. Tim, how much does that matter? I think this is an issue where it matters. I guess I just say from my perspective, I hope that it's true that he's come around. We'll see over the next coming weeks, but this is necessary. There's been a lot of unnecessary death in Ukraine over the last six months while he

has played footsie with Putin. But as far as MAGA voters are concerned, this was something that surprised me, Katie. Every year at the end of the year, I go to the annual Turning Point USA conference mostly just to ask the young people that show up there why they're there, what they care about, what are the issues they care about. And the thing that was most striking to me a couple of years ago is how quickly or how much it had changed where they would volunteer. I don't want to be involved in foreign wars.

We need to care about America first. We need to stop sending weapons to Ukraine. We need to stop being involved in the Middle East. And so I do think it was a genuine policy plank that particularly a lot of the younger MAGA voters feel and also a lot of folks in the MAGA media from Bannon to kind of the Manosphere. And so, you know, if Trump is going in there, he's not giving them the Epstein files, he's bombing Iran, he's now going back on the pledge to not provide weapons to Ukraine. I do think that is potentially a real problem for him with his key supporters.