Bulwark Takes - Trump’s War on Law Firm Is Another Shocking Abuse of Power

Episode Date: March 9, 2025

Tim Miller appeared on MSNBC's Alex Witt Reports to discuss the censure of Rep. Al Green, Trump's retribution agenda, and how the courts are handling Trump's abuse of power.

Hey guys, I just got off Alex Witt's show on MSNBC, and we talked about a bunch of issues, but kicked off focusing on Al Green's reply to the censure, talking about how that Trump and Musk are not treating people with dignity, that their capricious and arbitrary firing of people is not giving folks due process, and it's really not treating them like humans that are, that were serving the public and serving the country in their own way. And I think that it's a really great point. Alex's first question to me about was whether that was politically salient. I don't know, really, and I don't care.

I think it's important to say sometimes it is important just to stand up for people and let the chips fall where they may. And so we had a good chat about that. And then we got into some other issues about Doge and what's happening with something that I haven't got to on the podcast yet, which is Trump targeting law firms and trying to bully and intimidate them, particularly the firms that had been involved

in the investigations against him during the first term. It's really chilling stuff. So stick around for my discussion with Alex Witt. Subscribe to the feed, and we'll be talking to you soon. Where's the dignity in all of what he's doing? Where's the dignity? A person who's working, you have children in school, you may have someone that you're a caregiver for,

and you receive a letter indicating that you are no longer going to have the job that is so important to you and the many people who depend on you. It seems to me that there's no due process in this, but due process is one thing. Another thing is just the dignity, the humanity. Democratic Congressman Al Green there reacting to mass layoffs and cuts in the federal government. Green was censured by the House this week for disrupting Trump's joint address to Congress. And joining me now, we have our friend Tim Miller, MSNBC political analyst and host of the Bulwark podcast. Tim, is that what the Democrats should be focusing on right now?

Less the illegality, the abuse of power, and more just the cruelty and rash nature of these cuts. Are they effectively getting their message out to Americans? Yeah, well, I think they need to do all of it, you know, and you could always use more. I think probably the most effective thing to do is to talk about the human cost of this, right, like the real stories of veterans who are losing their job indiscriminately, you know, people that are losing, people that really need it, that are losing access to government services, they're cutting down, they're cutting, getting into social security offices around the country that people call into when they have problems getting their

checks, right? Like, I think focusing on these real world examples is probably the best. But to be honest, Alex, we are 19, 20 months away from the midterm elections. I think that the Democrats really shouldn't be totally preoccupied with what is the best possible political message right now and be focused more on just raising, creating as much noise as possible about the damage that is being wrought by Elon Musk's, as you mentioned, illegal actions as an unelected autocrat. You are exactly echoing the sentiments of another analyst who had on in the last hour who said the same thing. Trump, though, is going after law firms that represented his political enemies. This week he signed an executive order hitting the firm that represented Hillary Clinton's campaign in the DNC in 2016. He also went after the firm representing special counsel Jack Smith. Is retribution his priority? And if so, Tim, will issues like the economy and cost of living, are they going to suffer from a lack of focus?

Yeah, I'm glad you brought this story up because this is one of those examples. This is just a shocking abuse of power. Obviously, D.C. law firms are not going to be the most sympathetic victims here of Donald Trump and like the most effective people to put forth during a political campaign. But that doesn't mean that there shouldn't be a focus on it. I mean, it is absolutely outrageous that a law firm would be targeted by the federal government for doing its job, which is, you know, defending clients. The ripple effects of this are real. The other thing is there are only a certain number of law firms. I know it feels like there are a lot of lawyers in D.C. and there are, but there really are

only a certain number of law firms that can take on especially sensitive cases, right? And so if the federal government continues to go after, you know, people on Jack Smith's team, go after people from the Mueller investigation, et cetera, it's going to be hard for them to find counsel that has the experience, et cetera, to be able to represent them if Trump's going after these law firms. So I think it's a major story. And yes, I also do think that it's distracting the administration from what would probably be a more prudent use of their time on the economy. And let me remind our viewers that Trump was asked in a debate if he will seek retribution against his political enemies. And he said, quote, my retribution is going to be my success. Is that what we've seen so far or has it been a lot of retribution?

No, we've seen mostly him focusing on retribution and, you know, culture wars and advancing kind of the silly agenda items of changing the names of bodies of water, et cetera. I look at the economy. I, from the start, was deeply skeptical of Trump's economic agenda. I think it was undercover during the campaign. I think it was very obvious that it was going to be disruptive to the country and probably inflationary. But even I am shocked that, like, six weeks in, the damage that has been done to, you know, the loss of jobs,

as we mentioned, from federal government workers, but then the ripple effects of the people in those communities that are going to be harmed. And then on top of that, we've seen the stock market crashing, consumer confidence is way down, the Fed's estimates for our GDP growth is way down. There are real storm clouds on the horizon. I know it's felt longer, but he's only been in there six weeks. It's been really kind of an astonishing, you know, amount of economic failure already from the first month and a half of his presidency. So the New York Times has a new report on those who used to speak out against Trump, but are now silent, fearing retribution from Trump and Musk. One prominent first-term critic

of Trump said he wouldn't comment on the record and, in fact, didn't want to be mentioned in this article at all. Is the administration, is this one, better at intimidation than it was in the first Trump term? And if so, how and why? I think people assess that the people around Trump are more willing to go after foes. You know, I think that there was a censor in the first term that, like, Trump might tweet at you and that might cause, you know, harm to you. You know, you might get bullied by people on the internet. There might be some death threats against you. But, you know, a lot of the folks that were in the agencies weren't really going to use their power to go after people. There were

some exceptions. This time, it feels like the entire administration is on board with the retribution agenda from the DOJ to Kash Patel's FBI. And I think that does have a lot of people scared. I will say this, though. I don't really like the pre-surrender at all. I don't like that this narrative is out there. They haven't really successfully targeted anybody yet. This is not Putin's Russia yet. People still have due process. This guy that is the district attorney, Ed Martin, who's been, you know, sending off letters to people. You know, he sent off a letter to a congressman who said, I don't care what you say. He sent a letter to Georgetown. Georgetown said, no, I'm not going to follow it. He tried to get somebody, a grand jury together.

I forget who it was that he was targeting. And the grand jury said, no, you don't have evidence to prosecute this person. So, you know, for them to actually go after you, there are still rules. There's still the rule of law in this country. And I think it's unfortunate that people are backing down, you know, before the fight has even really begun. So quickly, Tim, to what extent do you think the courts are providing a check on his power? And will that last? Some, some. And we've seen people are very upset at justice barrett right now on

the mega right about her ruling uh regarding the usaid funds that that had to be paid out and you know we've obviously seen some district courts that are already spent by the way yeah all right sure i mean it was a cut and dry place it's kind of crazy it was only five to four but even still you know so far so good on on checks from the courts we'll see how it plays out okay we'll have you back soon my friend thank you tim miller