The Bulwark Podcast - Alex Wagner: Team Trump Can't Get its Epstein Story Straight

Episode Date: November 13, 2025

Trump's involvement with Epstein is simultaneously a "hoax," but he was also a "perfect gentleman" when he spent hours with one of Epstein's underage victims, Virgina Giuffre, at Epstein's pad. And Trump was an FBI informant on Epstein's sex trafficking, but again, it's all a hoax. The White House and Fox's defense is not working, and Trump may be in the worst political shape he's been in since the aftermath of January 6. Meanwhile, the wealthy and powerful old men needing teenage girls raises huge questions about manhood and virility. Plus, the shutdown fight was a stress test for how far the Dems were willing to go in the face of an authoritarian, and the party's big tent strategy faces real headwinds. Alex Wagner joins Tim Miller. show notes Alex's new podcast, "Runaway Country" The Atlantic's piece, "The Limits of the Democrats’ Big Tent"

Hello and welcome to the Bullwark podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller, delighted to welcome to the show, the host of the new podcast, Runaway Country, from Crooked Media. I know those guys. She also writes on Substack, How the Hell, with Alex Wagner. It's Alex Wagner. Welcome back, girl. How you doing?

You know, no one says runaway country like you. you just you just there's a certain southern lilt that I really appreciate it too and it's just I still love this country you know I still got my George W. Yeah you got it in you yeah you know I still got it right I might not be a Republican anymore but I still love this country you have that conservative enunciation and I'm here for it Tim I am here for that is good you I'm glad that you can notice I'm glad that you can notice I do I do occasionally the progressive listeners some of my some of my word choice it's just different I'm just I'm just I'm not I'm still an immigrant to the coalition.

And sometimes I say a word, and I didn't realize that this is a sensitive word now or what we're not saying. It's a salad bowl, not a melting pot. You are who you are, and we appreciate you for who you are. I'm the peppers. You're the cherry tomato. Oh, I love a cherry tomato. Okay, let's talk about Jeffrey Epstein. Yeah, good segue.

The pedophile. I don't know who he is in the salad bowl, the balsamic. We talked about this a little bit yesterday, but it was breaking right as Michael Phenone came on. And so I think it's worth just kind of revisiting. I want to talk about the Trump of it first. There's so much, though. After, when we were on, it was just kind of those three Trump emails that had been leaked. And then they're like 20,000 pages that were leaked after that.

I'm not going to pretend like I read all of them. But I read a lot. And, you know, we have some bulwark nerds who are combing for me. And so we'll get to some of them. We appreciate those bulwark nerds. Yeah, we do. And also reporters who are doing some impressive. We do appreciate the reporters and the nerds both.

The key ones, though, remain. He was spending hours alone. Yesterday we were talking about this. The victims didn't have been redacted, but it was Virginia Jouffrey. And we saw it an unredacted email. He'd spent hours alone with her at Trump's home. It's important who she is for some of the reasons of the Trump spin, which we'll get to in a second. There also is the Maxwell Epstein email about how Trump knew about the girls with regards to the ones that he'd taken from Mar-a-Lago.

One that we hadn't got to yesterday, Epstein emailed Obama lawyer. Catherine Rumler. I'm still not sure why she and Epstein were such pals. Kathy Rumler had a lot of correspondence, the White House Council.

Yeah. I don't know about that. We'll get back to that. But Epstein said to Kathy, you see, I know how dirty Donald is. And he also said, I was telling a story

in one email about how Donald was like put his nose up to the glass because he was so excited to see all the girls that were running around that he crashed. He almost walked through the glass door

because there were young girls frolicking in the pool. Yeah. Wolf said to Epstein, you can hang him in a way that generates positive benefit for you. So a lot there. I mean, no like, whatever, smoking guns like, oh, like directly relating to Trump actually, you know, doing anything sexual with an underage girl. A lot of smoking guns related to Trump, knowing exactly what Epstein was up to, being around, being in the house for hours and hours on end, having a lot of baggage that Epstein's aware of and covering up. the details of all this so that we all wouldn't see it. So that seems bad. What were your big reactions? Yeah. I mean, I think that, you know, if there's a, not a smoking gun, but if there's something that is explosive in this, it's, of course, he knew about the girls, right? And there's

no getting around that. And Donald Trump's feigned innocence in all of this. I think the immediate is kind of, first of all, what's going on with Galane Maxwell, who's already gotten special dispensation from Trump. It's clear Gleine Maxwell knows more about Trump than she's let on. Some of the stuff dates from a period where Gleine Maxwell, you know, said he was a perfect gentleman, but then she's also on email with Jeffrey Epstein saying, yeah, I've been thinking about the fact that Trump is a dog that didn't bark, right? That's Epstein's line. But clearly there's more there there. And the fact that we have, we have someone in jail right now who's asking for, I believe, a full pardon for Trump or commutation and for sentence.

Like this week, I mean, there needs to be a lot of scrutiny on that because I don't even think quid pro quo covers it. It's like so clearly an insider's deal. And to the degree that Democrats, I mean, we'll get to this later, I'm sure, can tie this to the overall corruption of this administration and the protection of the powerful and the wealthy. I mean, this is like the best case in point, something everybody understands. The enabler of one of Trump's, you know, sick party guys, aka Jeffrey Epstein, is. is maybe going to get off for heinous crimes because she has dirt on the president. I mean, it's like... Yeah, even if she hasn't gotten off, I have to Julie Brown about this earlier this week.

Like, her situation is crazy. I don't know the exact quote in front of me, but I guess there was somebody at the jail at this club fed in Texas was, like, complaining that they're being treated like Glenn Maxwell's bitch, like the way that, like, she's, like, bossing them around. The warden is being very helpful to her and, like, getting emails out. She has access to a computer where she can contact people outside without oversight. Her treatment is totally, you know, abnormal as like an understatement. It's not anomalous. Like there's no example of somebody who has her type of conviction being in this prison at all, forget being in this type of jail and then also having this like special favors and access.

She's signed for this commutation. And we're seeing here like the direct emails between her and Jeffrey. yes about Trump this is not everything obviously there's more Trump at least you think knows what's in there since they you know had been grummaging through these files and been flagging his name and they say they have a share file about him so I don't know I don't think it takes him a guyver to figure out whether there's a direct connection there well yeah like one of one of these people is dead right one is in the white house and the other one's in jail trying to get out. Like, let's look closely at the relationship between the two living people and see what

happens this week, right? And then, of course, like, I mean, first of all, I mean, I don't think everybody's combed through all 20,000 emails. There's going to be more to come. Trump's handling of this makes no sense. The fact that their defense here was that the redacted name in the email, which we now know was Virginia Dufre, that she said Trump was a perfect gentleman. It's like, she said that about Mar-a-Lago. She committed suicide herself. She's not here to tell us more. And, like, just saying, oh, you know, this person once said something nice about me does not absolve Trump of clearly what is extensive behavior. And, by the way, extensive interactions with Virginia Jufre because she apparently spent hours with Trump, not just at Marlago, but at Jeffrey Epstein's house. So I love that spin, by the way.

White House Rabbit Response account was tweeting it at my colleague Sam Stein, right? That was just like, well, here's an old quote of Virginia Jufre saying that Trump was a perfect gentleman. I was like, so you're, so what you're saying your spin here is. is, is that Trump spent hours alone with an underage girl who worked for you and then got poached by Jeffrey Epstein as part of his child sex trafficking ring. And he was hanging out with her at the child sex traffickers house for hours. And she said that he didn't do anything to her. Well, okay.

I mean, I guess it was just babysitting stuff. I mean, were there no, were there other girls around? Like, maybe it was just because she was, you know, otherwise indisposed with Prince Andrew. I don't know, I guess just, I've never been, you know, at a child sex traffickers house with an underaged girl or boy hanging out for hours. Like, that seems like a pretty incriminating situation, even if the child says you were behaved. And that he was just helping her with literally babysitting tips and babysitting leads because he's known to be a selfless person that's really engaged in child care. Huh? Also, if it's all fake, what a weird defense.

The White House wants to have it every which way and none of it makes sense anymore. and nobody is going to believe Donald Trump even knows how to hire a babysitter, let alone give people other people tips on babysitting gigs. No. Who would want to be a babysitter for Donald Trump? I mean, I guess you could argue everyone in the White House is a babysitter for Donald Trump. I guess. I was thinking more like if you're a parent of a teen, would you, and Donald Trump was calling

saying that he needed a babysitter for a little baron. I think that's like a do not send. That's a do not send. Oh, sorry. Sorry, Donald. You know. My daughter here. Little Lauren is not going to be available this weekend.

You mentioned the White House response. Let's listen to it. It's pretty, it's pretty. When I say the White House, I mean Fox. One of the same. Caroline Leavitt fielded questions about the release of those emails from House Democrats related to President Trump and Jeffrey Epstein, calling it a manufactured hoax. So this administration has done more than any.

And it just shows how this is truly a manufactured hoax by the Democrat Party. Manufactured hoax. is what everybody's going with. You saw that a couple times on Fox yesterday. You could do one or the other, gilding the lily a little bit. I don't really understand. Or it's manufactured. Yeah, which is part is the hoax?

Yeah. I guess the manufactured part is that they're doing it today. Like they thought that it was a politically, the timing was manufactured, but it had to come out sometime. Well, sure, manufactured story. Is it a hoax? But they are also saying, like, the people in question are these people. But then if it's not real, how could, what? Yeah.

None of it. The defense makes no sense. He was a gentle. but it's a hoax. But it's a total hoax. He was also an FBI informant and a police informant and told on Jeffrey Epstein, and he kicked him out of Marlago

because he knew he was a creep, but it's a hoax. Right. And Maxwell got moved. If it were real, he would have been a gentleman and kicked him out. But it was not real,

but he was a gentleman all the same. And they had the calendar girl party. It's completely incoherent. Oh, can I just, like, I am so obsessed with the fact that like part of the reason we even know about Jeffrey Epstein is because Donald Trump made him part of his campaign,

not like as a staffer, but as a narrative about like all these rich and famous Democrats who were in cahoots with Epstein, going to the private island, partaking of the girls, whatever. And all along, Trump knew that he was involved too, even if he wasn't doing anything illegal. He was apparently on the plane. He was at Marilago inadvertently part of the pipeline of sex trafficking, again, in it, essentially inadvertently, but nonetheless involved in this, going to parties with Epstein, going to Epstein's house. And with all of that knowledge goes forward and is like, I'm going to

make this a big fucking deal. In my campaign, it's going to be totemic as far as the storyline of the elites fucking everyone over and having secret cabals where they do bad, bad things. I'm going to use this to my advantage. And I'm going to call for the release of the Epstein file and then populate the upper echelons of my cabinet with people who believe in the release of the Epstein file. knowing the entire time that if and when the Epstein files came out, he was going to be all over them. It is the behavior of a madman. It's insane that he has put himself in this position. It's behavior of psychopaths, but also behavior is somebody that believes, I mean, the original text of Trump, the only text you really need to understand of Trump is the audio from Nexus

Hollywood tape, which is if you're a star, they let you do it. I do think that was his mindset. Like, I don't, who knows exactly what the worst possible thing that he did in the Epstein file is. But I think that it's legitimately possible that he thinks that he didn't do anything wrong because it's fine to have 18, 19 year old girls around and fondle them. And like, that's just kind of one of the benefits of stardom. Then if that's true, then why did he go back on his promise, have Pam Bondi pull a hard Ui and, like, create this problem where now members of his own party have to defect and hold hands with Roe Kana and like sign a dish. Maybe because he saw it. Maybe it was one of those things. I don't know.

He was like, oh, shit. It's worse than I remember. Yeah, I was a bad kid. You're good. And I was never doing pedophilia. But I was a, I had it was a bad kid. Sometimes I can imagine a situation where people are like, where I was like, oh, we

and my buddies were doing. That wasn't that bad. And then you go and then somebody shows you the text. Bro. And then you look at him. You're like, oh, no, bro. Ooh, I don't want, I don't want, I don't want my, I don't want my husband to see this. Maybe it's that.

I don't know. This isn't just some random friends. And this is a person who is like, you know, a child sex trafficker, like, solicited prostitution in Florida, like, is a known entity and a bad dude. And, like, the relationship was years long. Yeah. I don't know. It's definitely a self-deception of some kind. I don't know.

I like this. Yesterday, there was a moment. Yesterday, I was feeling a little bored by this because I was like, and it's really bad. And I feel horrible for the victims. I think that, like, some people who have, like, didn't pay attention to this for all the time. are kind of titillated back because it's titillating. Like, I was really titillated by this when I first, like, learned about it. Well, of course.

But it's been years. Trump did. I mean, he was involved. We know it. By the way, he also has two dozen other women that have accused him of sexual misconduct. Right. Like, there's like some element of this that like the mystery element is a little bit gone. But how you phrase it, it does bring a little mystery back, which is just like, why covered?

I mean, like, if the hubristic point of this was just like, fuck it, I'm a. you know like yeah people know it i'm a playboy i can go out on fifth avenue and do whatever i want i grab them by the plus and so who cares i'm going to use this as a cudgel on a campaign because i have teflin on this sort of stuff then why covered up now and i mean who know like maybe it's worse than he remembered maybe it's worse than he realized maybe milania started talking to him yeah maybe maybe it's the other people in there which i want to get to in a second and i i don't know but that that is a mystery they're easter eggs there are some easter eggs in there are some easter eggs in that suggests there's like a little bit more to the story, or maybe a lot bit more than

we don't know. You put together, of course, Trump knew about the girls, the fact that he's spending hours, you know, at Epstein's house with victims, and the fact that he wrote that incredibly suggestive, very intriguing birthday message to him. And you just think, what was the relationship between these two guys? And if it was just like sleazy Donald Trump walking into glass patio doors because there were like girls and bikinis on the other side, I feel like that's something Donald Trump as a former like Miss America host would own, but he's going out of his way to the degree that we have almost like a Watergate level scandal where the office of the director of national intelligence, the leadership in the House Republican Party,

and the FBI and DOJ are all in cahoots to either distract or cover up what happened between Trump and Jeffrey Epstein leads me to think, but I got some questions. Also, the death in jail got a lot of questions about that, given who else was on these text chains. Do you? Where are you at on that? I don't know, man. You know me. I like a good conspiracy every now and again. You're interested? Do you think he killed himself?

Well, I just think what we learn here in this latest tranche of information, setting even Trump aside is like he's talking to the Russians. He's talking to the Israelis. Epstein, when you're saying he. Epstein, like this is also that's crazy here. Epstein is just on the Russians. We should mention this. Just because, like, Epstein, this isn't an email to the Norway envoy.

He says, I think you might suggest to Putin that, Lavrov could get insight talking to me. The exchange goes on and he says, I've already actually spoken to Vitali Chirkin, who is Russia's ambassador of the United Nations about Trump before Chirkin died. And he said he benefited from hearing my perspective. So yeah, and he's talking about the Russians on the Israeli stuff.

Like, obviously, the Ehud Barak is just in these emails everywhere. You know, he's like, he can barely type. This is another sign thing about this. Like, he can't type. He writes like... Predinct tests existed in 2018. I mean, like, the emails are, like, my second grade child has fewer grammar mistakes and Jeffrey Epstein does.

And yet somehow he's brokering deals between Israel and foreign countries. I don't have in front of me, like, Mongolia, I forget what it was, but Israel and a couple of foreign countries. Talking to Bannon about how to make inroads to Europe and, like, what the European landscape dictates of people who'd like to be, you know, relevant in Europe and making kind of directing policy in Europe. I mean, just like, literally everything that QAnon has been suggesting about this elite cabal that orchestrates global affairs like here's jeffrey upstein in the middle of all of that and then

they have the meeting with lauren bobert yesterday i'm sorry to get the we're getting the string out in the court board right now but it's like it's why we're here the Israelis he's dead we don't know i mean he died while bill bar was in charge of the justice department which you just mentioned not not while hillary clinton was and then they're covering it up obviously it's like okay maybe again it's something else maybe it's trump embarrassment maybe it's that trump didn't know that there were women that called the FBI about him in relation to their that's another thing that wasn't in these emails that's another thing that's come out recently one of the women had like contacted the FBI and said that like Epstein took her to Trump's office so maybe

he was like whoa I had the FBI on my ass I don't I don't know but then they're doing a final effort to stop the next tranche which we may or may not get but that the house that rocana and Tom Massey are trying to get released with this discharge petition and he's trying to get the remaining Republicans who have signed on to the discharge petition off of it. And he calls Lauren Bobert to the White House. And they have a meeting in the situation room. Why was the meeting in the situation? I mean, you could meet anywhere.

There's a lot of meeting rooms in the White House. She was meeting in the situation room with Bondi, Boert, Rubio, I think. Again, it does not assuage one's paranoid suspicions, right? No. It did the opposite to me. I was like, why was this meeting in the situation room? Was there classified information related to Epstein? And was it?

And has Trump hasn't really demonstrated a lot of care in the past about like classified documents. Like, you know, he had them in his bathroom. He's leaking things about the Israelis. He calls people on his personal cell phone. Like. Yeah. Lavrov was in the Oval Office. He's telling him about what the Israelis have on it. Like, but in this case, he felt like he needed a situation room meeting with Lauren

Bobert. It's one of two things. One, there is actually classified information relating to, like, sort of the geopolitical landscape and Mossad and whatever else that is in, that dovetails with this or CIA, whatever, which is like, or he's trying to scare the shit out of Lauren Bobert and be like, Lauren, we're going to the red room. You know what I'm saying?

Like, just like, I'm really fucking serious about this, Lauren. So serious, we're going into a room where you can't bring your cell phone. That's bizarre. Yeah. Most holiday gifts end up in a drawer or the back of your closet or accidentally left at your cousin's house. Not this one. Mitt Mobile is offering unlimited premium wireless for $15 a month. That's their best deal of the year.

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So, I mean, I feel like this is a story that's with us for years ahead still. I mean, it comes in dribs and drabs. There's a lot of correspondence. I do not think that this will have this, unfortunately, because I think it warrants. bipartisan interest and investigation. I just feel like the MAGA appetite has become very clear that Donald Trump is actually involved in this cabal. The MAGA appetite for revealing the truth has lessened.

And I think the reason it was resonant and the reason, you know, Trump was in a tailspin over it, not to say that he's not still in some kind of vortex, is because he felt like there was, it was a real inflection point. And he was really, the support for him at the base was eroding. And I just, you know, though this should confirm. everyone's suspicions about a global elite that was, in fact, including the president of the United States, doing untoward and possibly illegal things, though that should spike an interest in the part of people who embrace conspiracy theories, many of whom are in MAGA. I just don't know that it will

because it is such an indictment of Trump, given how much his name appears in all of this. So, like, politically, like, I don't mean to sound craven about it because I, again, it's like, this is horrible. And by the way, like other people who are involved in this, who are Democrats, also are fucking awful and should not get any kind of, you know, pass on any of that. But, you know, I think the way that it even changes the political landscape is if Democrats can offer this as a data point in the larger argument about corruption in the Trump administration, right? Like, it has to be part of a bigger thesis. Because otherwise, it's just like another scandal involving women and Donald Trump where there's no kind of clear, there's like some shadowy

details and the narrative is going to be garbled by Trump and the White House is going to the spin as it does, the victim's voices are never going to match the bully pulpit of the president. And so, you know, I feel like unless and until it becomes woven in with a very established narrative that President Trump is really only out there for the benefit of his friends, the wealthy and himself, then I don't think it's politically that resonant. I don't know. I'm interested to do what the Joe Rogan show does. It's not cracking Fox. And as I, we were joking earlier, but like, like, Fox only talks about this in the context of how the Democrats are trying to use it as political tool like that's how that's the only frame in which it's discussed on that network but

the world is out there you know what i mean like rogan candis you know like there there's some rogue that was not an intended pun uh elements of the of the maga media world now in a way that there wasn't as much 10 years ago so i don't know that part's interesting you mentioned the other people i just say because i've loved old bill clinton in here a couple of times one of the other emails i found was interesting was like epstein specifically was emailing somebody else saying that Clinton has never been to the island, and I don't know why people are making these accusations about me and Clinton. So, who knows?

Epstein, that's the most reliable source. Some other Democrats, on the other hand, and other people. Larry Summers. Gross. Obama, a cabinet member, head of Harvard. Extremely gross. Economic advisor. Remember when the DOJ came in and they were handing out the binders to, like, D.C.

Drano and all the mega influencers. Now, like, here are the Epstein files. We're going to go after these. You mean manufactured hoax? Yeah, of the manufactured hoax. They're handing out the binders with the information about the manufactured hoax. Yeah. When they were doing that, part of that was like they're going to come after because they thought

it was going to be all these Democratic elites and they were going to come after them. The Department of Justice was going to come after them. Larry Summers has to be breathing aside of relief, you know, that Donald Trump is in the file so much because he's in there a lot. One of the things, though, besides just the gross behavior. Wait, can we just talk about the Larry Summers of it? Oh, no. I want to just, I was going to read a couple of the emails.

Oh, please do. I was separating there is gross and potentially complicit, certainly complicit in whitewashing Epstein. Minimum, Larry Summers, is complicit in greatly whitewashing Epstein after he'd already been convicted of child sex trafficking. It's the minimum thing he is he's complicit in. In addition, though, he's pretty pathetic. The emails from the pathetic rich guys, or to me almost outside of politics, the most interesting takeaway, you know, if they weren't emailing the most notorious, child sex trafficker in the world, you would almost feel sad for a couple of them. Here's Summers, 64-year-old man in 2019, asking Epstein for lady advice.

Apparently, as him and another younger gentleman were pursuing the same woman, he said, I didn't want to be in the gift-giving competition while being the friend without benefits. Epstein replies encouraging him, being annoyed shows caring, not whining, shows strength. Why are you going to Jeffrey Epstein for your advice? Jonathan Farkis, here's one other guy. I just want to lump in with him. Trump friend. Am ambassador now?

Malta, I think. 2017. Farkas, I'm a bit old and not tall enough, but she seems intelligent and kind. Epstein, careful. She's not trustworthy. Farkas, a two-timer? Epstein, worse. Farkas.

Jeffrey, please help me. Is she a hooker? It's like what? What? Like these rich powerful old men are like 11 year old boys talking about the crush that they have and they're asking Jeffrey Epstein for advice about this? I feel like this is the whole ballgame. It's all about sex and power. And you have people like Larry Summers who is a notorious like notoriously egotistical. kind of like, dare I say douchebag, like known to be, you can dare, you can dare here in this space. I just known to be kind of like arrogant. And then you see him on the flip side of this so pathetic, like not completely at sea. And I feel like this is, it's like, it's like so much of MAGA, for example, is built on the sort of reaction to this notion that men have been, they're their

beta cucks, that Democrats have, have destroyed masculinity that they have. you know, emasculated the American male and that it is all about reclaiming your manhood and your confidence. And like, this is such insight into how these wealthy, powerful men were so not even naive, but just incapable of navigating basic sort of romantic relationships and sexual relationships. I mean, I'm not in any way, excuse me, but I think it also informs why they were preying on young girls, too, right? In the most toxic expression of this sort of masculine inability to close the deal, they're like, oh, well, we're going to go off to 14 and 15 year olds because they're easy marks. Like they get, because we're emotionally 14 and 15.

We're emotionally 14 and 15. We don't know how to do it. And like, we're playing at our level there. I don't know whether they're like consciously or subconsciously saying this. And of course, they're praying on children because they're innocence. And like, they're not part of this game of gift giving and, you know, the complications of dating in the 20th and late 20th and early 21st century or too much for these men. they want something simple, they want to dominate, they want to win. And like, they so obviously don't know how to otherwise. It's, I think it just gets at the central problem of like the masculinity that lays in like the heart of darkness. Apparently, in a bipartisan fashion,

with both Democrats and Republicans alike, but these big questions about manhood, virility, um, power and love or lack thereof. It's really crazy to me. Those emails, I think, just sociologically are the most revelatory. I'm getting increasingly radicalized against AI, and I'm like I'm pretty concerned about the young boys and the porn and the sex bots and the whatever. But maybe we need sex robots for old men. No, wait, Tim, that's the wrong answer.

No. No, not sex robots. I think Larry Summers needed a sex robot. I think we would have been better off of Larry Summers and Jonathan Farcas had a sex robot. Poor sex robots. No, I think it's more like we need to better cultivate human-to-human interaction like not go full digital like i just think this is the sorrow

at the root of so much grievance in american politics a feeling of rejection or feeling of less than and not feeling like you can be intimate with a person now i sound like esther perl but i do think sex undergirds so much of the anger in american politics me too people need sex but here's the thing can we well for the youtube people will pull up a picture of jonathan farcass for the audio you have to imagine this guy's not who wants to have sex with this guy nobody that he wants to have sex with someone does someone does but not any but not what he's hoping his expectations are out of whack for love okay you're a rich all you're a rich ugly old troll okay so that's okay nothing wrong with that we all go through our faith we all have weaknesses there's

someone for everyone sure of course yeah you know what i mean look we all we all deal with aging and frailty i'm here i'm a man i'll you know i get it women deal with it baseball cap looking like you're no day older than 32 yeah exactly right i'm in a flat for him braceball cap like fucking Peter Pan over here like trying to keep my youth all right like so I get it I understand we're all fucking vulnerable all right but like

you got to deal with it better than this you know begging child sex traffickers for advice like a 15 year old and so I'm just trying to think of other solutions for these guys because they need validation child sex trafficking I am just simply saying I know you're not excusing I'm just I'm just you're doing against me on the AI

sex body we're just brainstorming what else could we do for the what else can do for Jonathan Farkas to make him happy besides the sex bot is a sex robot? At this age, maybe it's just about the sex pot. What I'm saying is it needs to be directly addressed, especially when we talk about the manosphere, because otherwise this is the end expression of it, right? Is the fucking pathos and the loneliness is like so profound and the rejection, the fear of rejection.

Jeffrey, please help me. Is she a hooker? Like, oh my God. I don't want to be the friend without benefits. I mean, Larry Summers. Be a better person. Find some, find some recital. Find some validation, you know, find some fulfillment in life in other places.

I don't know. Garden. I don't know. I don't know. It's so sad, though. And it's a problem. The men who need this validation. This is many men, even those we don't think need it, need it.

I know. No, trust me. I get it. It's a central conceit of life. It's a pro-sex podcast. Let's do a sex podcast. I'm down. Yeah, okay. I'm down for that.

Unfortunately, we have a lot happening in the news, but I'm interested. I'm just looking at those Larry Summers and Jonathan Farcus picture, trying to figure out what we can do with future men like them. I don't know. Starts young. You got to start young. If only in college, they were, this is another problem, you know? They just got money now, but it's like too late. You know, that they were misaligned. But you don't deserve love and sex just because you have money.

I know, right. I know, but you think they do. What you have to be as a decent fucking person. Yeah, they're trying to make up for lost time. Okay, that went a little longer than I thought It's good It's good If you have sex advice questions For me and Alex Wagner

Email us Bullark Podcast at theborg.com We'll do a separate bonus pod In a couple weeks We totally will Okay Shut down stuff We're gonna keep this fast

Great But I'm taking a victory lap I know you are You guys can all hate me I had negative subscriptions People were so offended by my take that the Democratic cave was on balance still pretty good

and a win for the Democrats. Not amazing. It wasn't like, oh, my God, we've won everything. But it was like, on balance, the Democrats did better on the shutdown than they would have otherwise. People did not like that. Negative subscriptions to that. Which is, okay. That's fine. I appreciate your feedback.

I just say this. Here we are on Thursday, three days later. If the Democrats in the Senate hadn't caved, we wouldn't be able to be having all this Epstein talk. The House wouldn't be in session right now, the discharge petition wouldn't be signed. Gravalia would not be, she would not be a seat at a member of the house. Garhalva.

People would, what, what was that? Did I say? He said Gravalia. It's Grahalva. I struggle with this name in particular. Grahalva. It's okay. Miller's hard to.

Miller's no idea of Grahalva. Thank you, Alex. Grahalva wouldn't be seated. People wouldn't have their snap benefits. It'd be people that are hungry right now. Government workers wouldn't be rift. If you were traveling, your flight might be canceled. My in-laws are trying to come for Grand Friends Day.

That was about to be canceled, probably, if the government was still shut down. Not that big of a deal, but just on balance, like, a lot of people's lives that have been worst. And the GOP would have had, like, some decent talking points right now still. They'd be blaming the Schumer shutdown and blah, blah, blah. And I don't know. I'm going to get to the poll here in a second next on how Donald Trump's doing. It's not great. Kind of seems like things are pretty good.

It kind of seems like Democrats won one battle, and now they're moving on to the Epstein battle. Then there'll be another battle in January, and that's how you win. Little bricks, one brick at a time. What do you think? I mean, yes, it's good the government is opened back up again. I think that that was going to happen at some point. I do think do not get lulled into the notion slash strategy that this was really just about health care. First of all, I interviewed someone from my podcast, Runaway Country, who is going to have her premiums go up $800 a month.

Like the pain that that woman is going to experience or the lack of health care for her. her debilitating medical condition is super real. And so there is, you know, obviously there is the primary fight about premium increases that Democrats rallied around. But ultimately, this is a stress test for how much and how far Democrats are willing to go in the face of an authoritarian. Maybe if they had spun it differently, and I know you and Chris Hayes workshop some great alternative realities that Democrats could have been part of, but they weren't. If it had not been spun as a capitulation, like maybe we wouldn't be where we are, but they blinked. at a precise moment where Trump is like was pushing as hard as he could to pressure them.

And I think the upshot is that maybe the reaction both inside and outside the party has been so negative about the strategy to fold, with the exception of you, Tim Miller, that hopefully this re-energizes the party and makes them fight harder the next round. But I do worry that the signal at sent at a critical moment is not good. I worry that the actual people who are at the center of this, the 23 million Americans whose premiums are going to go. are going to get fucked in a very specific way. But that was, we agree that was going to happen regardless because of the Republicans. Maybe.

Maybe. You think it was possible that Donald Trump was going to sign an Obamacare subsidy extension? Come on. At one point, he said, we have to do a deal. Like, I think if it had gone on longer, like, I don't know. I mean, I think we're in Terra Incognito insofar as there is a point at which Democrats or people interested in democracy are going to have to abide very painful things for the larger fight. And they didn't do that this time. And again, I understand to some degree, especially when you

have food for 42 million Americans on the line at the beginning of the holiday season, right? That's just like we as a country have not traditionally starved our own people for political gain, right, or for a principled fight. So I understand that the circumstances were conspiring to make it hard for Democrats. But I do think, like, this guy doesn't give a shit about anybody or anything. And his behavior over the last week. Which makes it hard to play a game of chicken. him. Yes, of course. But, you know, if anybody is going to try and curb his worst impulses, this shutdown fight was nominally about health care, but it was also about ice dragnets, the unlawful detention of American citizens, tariffs, economic pain, and someone who's running

roughshod over the Constitution. And, like, those are battles that still need to be fought. So, yeah, which I'm for, by the way. I think this is all, like, I guess this is part of the reason why I was so adamant about trying to make this point is that I do think that, like, our politics gets flattened. And this is something that you try to deal with a lot. Like we're doing it out in the road. It's part of foreign-related country. Like your politics does get flattened where people are like bad and good, black and white, fight or

don't fight. And I'm like, I'm for all the fighting. I do think a lot of Democratic senators are not up for the moment and would be, I'd be totally supportive of a couple of primaries for some of the folks like Angus King who went out and decided to go on

MSNBC and decided to talk about how strong Donald Trump was for some reason, right? Like, There's certainly some weak soldiers. You know, not everybody in the Senate conference is democracy's strongest soldier, I wouldn't say. And so all those fights are needed. And the fighting must continue. And it is continuing today on Epstein.

I just think that also you've got to be smart. Yes. And in that way, signaling that you're just waving the white flag and allowing eight members of your caucus to go forward and freelance a solution. The messaging was not smart. I thought the timing was pretty good. I mean, and like, as you said, with Chris, tactically, they could have said, you know what? We gave them some time. They fucking couldn't man up. We're going to take this to the ballot

box in November. That would have been one solution, but you would have had to have actual leadership and a coordinated message. And by the way, they should have followed up the deal with town halls and rallies across the country talking about health care. Like signaling to the American people, we are not done. They gave up on you, but we haven't. And like, that needs to be part of the message going forward. They should still do that. I agree with that. Point, Alex. again on the other side about where things are i think he's in the worst political shape that he's been in right now today since january 6th or like since at least that year after after january 6th when he was like in the dumps and when like the murdochs were saying that it's the desantis

is the future and stuff like that he was he was in pretty bad straits so he can come back from this he was in whatever that was 2021 than he is right now but he's i think in in his worst position at least since he started running again for president right now. Navigator poll was in the field last week, came out this week. One in six Trump voters say they regret their vote. Another one in six say they're disappointed in him. It's just one survey, a thousand people. So, you know, there could be some margin of error here, but that's 32% together.

So even if that's off by half, and it's 16% regret or disappointed in their vote, that's significant. And the word cloud of what people say of where they're disappointed, why they're disappointed or why they regret. They say shutdown, immigration, economy, food stamps, prices, promises, ballroom. And that's a pretty good summary of how people feel, I think. These are people that voted for Trump and they think that basically whatever you put promises in, there could be a lot of things. Like, he's falling down on all of that.

And the economy's not better. Prices aren't better. Immigration stuff for some people is too much. They look disparate, but ballroom goes with food stamps, goes with. economy goes with shutdown. And this is the work of the left, is to put it all together into a nice, easy to understand thesis of corruption and potentially kleptocracy. The ballroom thing, just like if you turn the White House into the inside of Aladdin's lamp, people are going to fucking notice and like have an issue with it at the same time that you're trying to strip them

of necessary food and medical care. Like, what in the fuck? I think, I think, I, I agree with you. I think he's incredibly weak. And I think actually the climate's going to get worse. Like, I don't think he has an instinct for any kind of corrective measure. His instinct is always to lash out against anybody who's critical of him inside or outside his own party. And the fact is he's a lame duck. I mean, let's not, I think he wants to run for a third term, but constitutionally is prohibited from doing that. Like, he is a man with diminished power by virtue of where he is in office. And he's doing everything he can to undermine his own salience and credibility with his own people. So, like the iron is hot like strike now he's completely mismanaged the economy the tariffs are only

going to make pain worse the holiday seasons upon us people can't afford christmas gifts food stamps and like immediate food assistance are taxed already though the government has opened back up there are going to be disruptions people's health care premiums are going to go up by two to three times in the course of the next year which means everything gets less affordable those numbers are going to get worse tim i agree for sure they're going to get worse i mean And the premium stuff isn't even baked in. There's not a ton of signs of economic turnaround at this point. I think we're kind of at the beginning.

I'll go back and forth. I don't play Trump's voice on here as much as possible. And you get tempted for the same reasons to play people like Candice or Tucker and Nick Fuentes, where they're attacking Trump. But it helps them in the algorithm. So I'm not actually going to play them. But Fuentes was out this week. And it was just kind of like, hate to hand it to Nick Fuentes, but he's right.

And he was on the disappointed side, and he's just like, look, to the crux of his argument was that Trump has, you know, abandoned the America first principles in favor of the policies that are pushed by the donor class. Obviously, there's an anti-Semitic dog whistle and bullhorn in Flentis' case and how he talks about that. It is Nick Fuentes. You look at it from a policy standpoint. His point is, focused so much on the foreign policy stuff, whether that be Israel or Venezuela or from their point, like, still supporting Ukraine. Right. Like, now this is, I'm for what he's doing in a couple of those situations, but not Venezuela in particular. Yeah, I was going to say. For the American First. Killing fishermen. Yeah. From the America First perspective, it's like he's been focusing on what's we've been focusing on.

Those foreign entanglements, the BBB was tax cuts for rich people and his corporate friends, special deals for the Silicon Valley oligarch, who are his friends, and building a fancy ballroom. Did any of that help, like the core MAGA base? The answer is obviously. know. It's not just passively not helping them. He's actively undermining their their like household finances and making life worse for them on a very practical day-to-day level. And on top of that, he's not giving them the Epstein files, which they wanted. So there is a way to tie all that together. So he's in tough straits. The question then is, can the Democrats message against it? And can the Democrats offer an alternative? That probably won't matter next year. I think it does. I think it does. Talk about that. Then I'll get into the bigger picture.

Well, I was just going to say, I mean, I think they have several really important points to make all under the umbrella of the system being rigged against normal everyday Americans, you know, like I just think all of it fits in there and they need to not think of it. I mean, I think the biggest problem, like affordability, yes, I get it. It really won big on Tuesday. But it's, it really is part of the broader thesis around Trump bringing the system for the wealthy and the elite. And that already is something people believe. You just need to. hammer at home with examples and show people that Trump is a, it is a complete farce, his presidency, that it's in any way populace. It is all about the rich and the elite and the people who like gilding on the ceiling and can help him pay for it. You know, like, it is a joke that he has been able to ride into office and get back in there under the auspices of making life better and more affordable for the American public. And now the American public is going to see it in their checkbooks and at the kitchen table at night and when they try and go to the doctor. So, Democrats need to be on, first of all, they just also need to go out there and fight for it, like, on the ground, shoe leather politics, right?

Like, let's go. No more just being in Congress and doing pull-asides as you get on the little mini subway, but, like, go out there and have town halls, start talking to people. There is so much canon fodder. There's so much they have to work with. And they need to start making a very simple, very elegant, and very compelling argument against Trumpism ahead of 2026, because that's going to lay the groundwork for 2028. I agree with that in the micro in 2026. That's tactical stuff. That's less about where I was going, which is like the Democrats actually put together a majority coalition themselves, right? Which is like more of a 2028 question in the long term. I wanted to bring that up because we last saw each other last weekend at Crooked Fest, Cricket Fest, which did pretty well. And I was put on what was intended to be the fun panel. You were grumpy. Yeah. I was grumpy personally because we're not going to get into it. But, you know, because my life is great. So I don't want to burden anyone with my random complaints. It was supposed to be the fun panel. I had fun, but it was a lot of disagreement on the fun panel.

It was the panel that had the most fighting, which some people like. Some people like fighting, which is fun. And so then it turned into kind of being the panel that represented, well, this is our big tent panel. Actually, it was going to be the fun panel, and now it's the big tent panel. And Atlantic wrote an article about it people, go read if they want, about these kind of question of like, is a Democratic big tent actually workable? and with like kind of using the panel I was on as a as a as a as a microcosm of that and it was me and and jessica tarloff kind of representing relative versions of moderate simone kind of representing you know kind of traditional democrat she'd worked for Bernie and biden yeah she worked for both right and um and you know was talking a lot more about some kind of like the identity politics stuff that you get from big portions of the democratic coalition and then you had hassan piker on there who's like an anti-capitalist who is in China right now, talking about how he thinks China is doing a pretty good job. So I guess the question is, can, like, former Republican capitalists and who, and that

I'm talking about me necessarily, even, but like voters, like, who live in the suburbs, who started voting for Democrats because they hate Trump, and, like, anti-capitalist, like, CCP-interested, Mowists, like, is that a workable tent? Like, do you think, like, is that a- I think it's exciting that tent. That's an exciting tent. I don't know if the flaps can hold. Listen, I've been thinking about this a lot in the context,

not of your panel, which I unfortunately couldn't attend because I was hosting my own panel with Primalogia Paul and Ruben Gallego and Brian Schatz, which did not devolve into a fight, but was spicy. That was spicy. I will say that I think what I worry about in the context of Tuesday's wins is I think Democrats are finally figuring out the secret sauce of, you know, an anodyne enough message that can work for a whole bunch of different kinds of candidates,

right? So whether it's health care, reuniting the Democratic caucus in the shutdown fight, or whether it's affordability, uniting everyone from Abigail Spanberger to Zohran Mamdani, it's like, okay, we can all run with this idea because it's big enough and it's, you know, widely accepted to be strategically sound enough that, you know, everybody can agree on it. And we're each going to do it in our own different ways. But like short of this big thing that we all agree on. We have radically different ideas about both how to combat it, but like what else should be a part of the Democratic platform. I think Democrats are proving that they can win statewide elections, right? Governorships or mayoralities or, you know, state legislatures because those candidates know the sort of

ingredients required to win in that particular state. But my concern is what Democrats do when it's time for a national election. Because when you have a tent that big, I just worry that no one can be everything to everyone. And, like, if you are a, like, if you are a believer in Zohran Mamdani style politics, which are, you know, first of all, very driven by specific personality, very strong, very outspoken, very unapologetic. You could say the same thing about Graham Platner up in Maine. Then I don't know that the politics of Abigail Spanberger and Mikey Sherrill are going to appeal to you, nor do those candidates. And what you have to do in 2028 is agree on someone who's going to lead you nationally. And I do worry that with a tent,

that big that includes maybe Hassan Piker and Jessica Tarloff and you, like, how do you find someone that can weave all of that together? I mean, maybe it's just the sheer force of personality, but that's going to require one fucking hell of a personality, right? Like, you could argue that Obama was able to paper over divisions within the Democratic Party because everyone just liked him so damn much. Maybe there's someone like that in the Democratic bench for whom there is just enough general adoration that there are not too many questions ask about the specifics. But I do worry about the Democratic Party having the problem that Republicans had for a long time in the early 2000s and sort of mid-aughts, which was, we're really good at the state

level, we're terrible at the national politics. I worry about that, too, because, yeah, it's going to have to be a really damn good personality and I'm not really seeing it out there. I can imagine somebody that is enough of kind of like an outsider that gets maybe to the left of the traditional democratic message on economics, maybe to throw some chum to the populist lefty, Bernie, Hassan, Zoran, whatever you want to say, wing, but also, you know, doesn't share, you know, maybe some of the more eccentric foreign policy views of, or like, you know, views on other random issues, let's say, of, of Hassan in particular, but even,

even Zoran, like, who, like how? It's very challenging to do, I think, especially if there's a feeling that Trump is very weak and the threat isn't there. Like, man, and all you have to do is go into any online space to see, like, there is some pretty bitter, I feel it. Like, just looking to the response of our panel. I mean, there are a decent number of people that are like, why would you even sit next to Hassan? Because he said this about October 7th or, you know, because he's an anti-capist, right? Kamala Harris was too conservative. You can't even support her because she is too conservative. Right. Like, that, becomes tough to bridge, I think. And it's a 2027 problem. But I can imagine how somebody could do it, but it's

tough. Yeah, I think it's like when you have the sort of Ezra Klein conversation about we need pro-life candidates who are on the Democratic side of the aisle in the south. It's like, yeah, okay, maybe you can win Alabama like that. But you're not going to be able to run that candidate or anybody that accepts that platform on the national level. Like you just, like, I get the people. It's like, well, maybe we need to have more people that have guns in the Democratic Party. Well, yeah, but like one of the huge motivating, like, forces within the Democratic Party right now is, like, gun safety reform. And, like, I just don't know how you square all those circles unless you have some, I mean, Trump has proved a useful, I think, anesthetic for the Democratic Party because he's so

plainly evil and bad for the country, everybody can amass against him. But when he's no longer there and you really do just have to discuss the sort of merits of the platform, the platform becomes somewhat incoherent if you expand the tent to too big. Barman Bailey style tent. All right, runaway country. I want to hear about the pod what you're trying to get out of it. One of the, I was going to going back to some of the episodes,

maybe share just a little tease you can go to the archive about your kind of conversation with the fired immigration judge, Judge Pettit, and her story was crazy. So may just give us a little bit on the pod and on that episode, anything else you want people to know? We talked about this in the show, this show earlier, which is the way in which the way in which

the actual story gets lost, it becomes just kind of headlines that we digest and react to and then we move on. And I think that that's led to a real numbness has set in with both the American voter and the news audience, right? Like it's just people are like, oh, it's really bad out there. Generally, it's a dark cloud has descended on this country and like, let me know when it's past. And one of the ways I want people to sort of like re-engage with the stories and also better understand them is by like being emotionally invested in them. And I think the way you do that is storytelling. So one of the things we do at the start of every show is have perspective from someone who's like directly involved in the story. And the judge that you mentioned is an immigration

judge who's like in the courtroom trying to, you know, adjudicate these immigration cases as ICE agents are in the courtroom and outside grabbing people, people are screaming. She explained to me what it's like to judge cases in that climate, the way in which the Trump Department of Justice has sort of flipped the script and is changing the way these cases are adjudicated and then also firing the most qualified judges on the bench because they basically just want to bring in military lawyers and expedite all of this. And it raises huge questions about due process. But it also it brings you into the courtroom and you can kind of understand, you know, we know that the immigration system is fucked up by virtue of the fact that there are these dragnats happening that are terrorizing

black and brown communities all over the country. But like once you actually get into the system itself, you have an even better perspective on the ways in which it's been adulterated and totally derailed intentionally by this administration. And it's told to you from, you know, a first-hand perspective, which I think is actually missing in the larger immigration story and just the larger story about the Trump administration is like, okay, what does it practically mean to live through this story? So that's what we're trying to do, trying to shake people out of their slumber a little bit. Sometimes you have to like really give people something that is happening in the world, a deeper perspective on something really seismic that's happening in the world that they may

have become a little bit anesthetized too. So that's what we try and do on runaway country in this nation we live in with no breaks. It is absolutely needed. I appreciate that. So I know the immigration thing, you could have to do it on that every week, probably. I mean, we got Adrian Kershiel with us stood in the huddled masses newsletter and every week he writes one. I'm just like, oh my God. It's just hard to keep track all the stories. So anything else coming up? Any teas? Do you have a tease? Are you on the road? Are you going to... Well, this week, today's episode, we talked to Morris Katz. He was the senior advisor to Mamdani's campaign and to Graham Platner's campaign because I wanted

to get a sense of what it was like to be in the center of a kind of insurgent fighting both the bully of Trump and Trumpism, but also the specter of the democratic establishment and just what that fight is like in the context of the government shut down, where it's like, oh, these centrists are railroading the real fighters and warriors in the party. What's it like to be on the front lines of the fight? for like a new party. And then we pair that with Hassan Piker, who's talking to us about the war on the other side,

which is Republicans basically figuring out how to deal with Nazism in their own party by either saying nothing or like getting on board. So you're asking about the Chinese? I, you know, he told me a lot about the Japanese Communist Party towards the end of our conversation. The podcast is only so long, Tim, is what I found out with Hassan Piker.

And yeah, I mean, hey, I'm worried about the Republican Nazis. As we should all be. problem. We're all worried about it. No, the Chinese treatment of minorities. It's not that much better. I wouldn't say. Wouldn't say. But, you know, that's just me. More to come on that. Alex Wagner, I appreciate you so much. This has been great. I appreciate you. Thank you so much for having me on this great podcast. I look forward to our sex podcast, debuting 1026. I do too. Everybody, send us your questions. I think we give great advice. I do. That'd be good. People should hear different perspectives. I agree. Let's do it.

Right. That's Alex Wagner. Everybody else, we'll be back here tomorrow. Hopefully no discussion of Larry Summer's sex life on the podcast. We have a more sober guest. But he's a favorite. So you'll enjoy it. We'll see you back here then. Peace. Well, I heard the dirty boys are coming. You better hide your bicycle. I saw one passed out with the bridge side to his helmet. Well, you better not be out on the street boy

Oh When those dirty boys pass by They'll scoop you up And turn you into one of them Just left one head out of that pie Oh I said I'm a day of boy I think I'm

I don't think I'm turning it into The dirty boys come out when you are sleeping They collect a bunch of use as fucking shit And they throw it in a pile Down there by the river There smoke a bunch of meth under the bridge So say the dirty boys aren't even human When they're born they cut out crawling from the

blood and they say that they don't sweat somehow they're always wet and you can cut them they've got gasoline for blood oh oh a baby

I think I'll turn it into a journey for a boy. Oh, baby. I think I'm turning into a journey for a boy. Oh, baby. I'm going. and editing by Jason Brow.