The Bulwark Podcast - Sen. Tina Smith: The Bulwark LIVE from Minneapolis

Episode Date: February 19, 2026

The junior senator from Minnesota joined Tim on Wednesday for the first show of a two-night Bulwark run at the historic Pantages Theatre in Minneapolis—the city that caught ICE off-guard with its "radical empathy" and kick-ass organizing skills. It was the "secret sauce" of Minnesotans that looks to have federal agents winding down their operation there. Plus, Democrats need to continue to hold the line on DHS funding, the incompetent clown atop the DoD and other loser Republicans, the Senate is fundamentally broken, and the beauty of retiring to make way for a new generation of leaders.Sen. Tina Smith joins Tim Miller.show notesTickets are now on sale for our LIVE shows in Dallas on March 18 and in Austin on March 19: TheBulwark.com/Events.

Hello and welcome to the Bull Work Podcast. I'm your host Tim Miller. We're live in Minneapolis. And I'm excited to bring out our guest, Tina Smith. You invited my base vote to the podcast. Is it? Do you have a base vote anymore? I thought you were done.

I thought you're done. This is, I've just, I've been, I was backstage trying to tell them, I think Tim and Tina. It might be a good podcast. All right? They're going to be out of the market. Tim and Tina, cut loose. Yeah. What would it look like?

Terrify. A glass of one bottle, share a bottle of one. I'll carry, I'll have my glass, my tin cup that looks like a coffee cup except on the outside, it says probably wine. Okay. So I want to start here. You know, we've been gassing up the people of Minneapolis. I'm very inspired. The courage.

It's been very moving. That said, I don't really understand why people live here. This is, it's uninhabitable. Can you give me a little bit of insight into the Minnesota mindset? Like, you choose to live here, right? You're not forced? That is exactly right, and that is the secret of why we are so scary. Right?

And today is a perfect day because we not only have growing inches of snow, but we also have a layer of ice under the snow, which means that every single articulated bus that I drove by on my way here has over-articulated and is blocking the road, so it's a mess. Yeah, I noticed that. You know, I was talking to, who was I talking to about this? Adam Surwer was saying this to me, and I thought it was a really interesting insight. We're going to talk about your former colleague J.D. Vance, your friend J.D. Vance in a little bit.

But one thing I critique he has of the American system is he's just like, you know, social cohesion. It's just not happening anymore in this country. Too many immigrants, you know, things are going too fast. And like Minnesota, Minneapolis in particular has demonstrated like the lie of his theory. This is a city that has a lot of immigrants, and we have seen the type of social cohesion and unity and commitment to liberal values that he says is gone. And I wonder what you think that is. Well, so the first thing is, I mean, J.D. Vance and his ilk wants us all to believe that we're all just in it for ourselves, that there actually isn't any cohesion, that everybody is, everybody is. on their own. And that's, they want, they want people to believe that because that is how they maintain power, right, by dividing us and by making us be afraid of each other. But yet, what

Minnesota has shown, the people of Minnesota have shown, is that, I mean, it's, we've shown, like, this radical empathy for one another. And, and then we're like, fucking good organizers. And so that's the other side of it. Those two things go together. And it is that the reality is that people actually feel better when they are working on a common project, when they are doing something together with other people that they think makes a difference and is going to matter.

And I believe that that is a lot of the secret sauce of what has been driving people to show up in places that they've never shown up before for people that they will probably never know. because that's like what matters. They know that that's what matters. Maybe there's a tie between these two things that I'm saying. Like, it's so uninhabitable, you know, that you need your neighbor's help.

You need to communicate across difference, you know, in case you need your driveway shovels. Totally, totally. Like, we'll shovel your driveway. We will bring you food. We will deliver a doula to your door if you're having a baby and you don't feel safe going to the hospital. And not only that, but we won't brag. about it, but we actually do think that we're pretty much better than everybody else. And so we don't really want to have to say it out loud.

We just want you to notice it. We're noticing. And you're starting to mention it from time to time, but that's okay. Is there anything you've heard? Just inspiring stories. Before we get into the politics, politics, just felt like what you've been hearing from constituents and, you know, people in the community. I mean, I have been moved to tears more times than I can count by just the random people telling me things.

Just yesterday, I was at a restaurant in St. Louis Park. I won't tell you the name of the restaurant because they haven't been able to open their door for over five weeks. The person who owns this restaurant, his wife is a U.S. citizen, his child is a U.S. citizen. He is an asylum seeker. He knows that if ICE pulls him over, they will. will consider him illegal and they will take him away. He's already lost two of his cooks. He has no idea where they are. He burst into tears as he's telling me that he doesn't know where they are, and he knows that they're gone. And there are these three people who have anointed themselves

to sit by the door of this restaurant to make sure that he is safe inside. Well, he cooks food for people who pull up. And I'm like, why are you here? Like, why are you here? And they're just like, well, I live in the neighborhood. And I really, like, I'm not going to say his name because I don't want to target him. He's like a really good guy. And I just thought he needed help. That's unbelievable. And that's like, that really happens every single day and every single place.

I could tell you a thousand stories. And I bet people in this audience could tell you the same number of stories. Yeah, I put out a request. I just was asking our listeners, like, who are in the area to send me stories. And it is mind-bellion because you do wonder, you know, when you're at a remove, right? and it's like, harden our social media age to grasp. Like, what is really happening? Like, am I seeing the four worst viral clips?

It's like one of these, an old clip or, you know? Yeah. And every person I talked to to a person is like, no, it's worse than what you're saying. It's worse. It has been worse. I mean, the thing that's so tragic about this is the viral clips. I mean, everybody has seen the picture of little Liam Conejo Ramos, the little boy with the rabbit ears. Conejo in Spanish means rabbit, and that's why he wore the hat.

Now, that is an example. Okay, so that clip went so viral that it broke into the Republican algorithms. Right, yeah. And there's a lot of Republicans who really aren't seeing any of this because it's not getting into their feeds. But that got in. I mean, I talked to Katie Britt about that, my colleague. We're going to get back to her, too. Yeah, okay, no.

And so she's like, yeah, I, like, didn't want to see that. But that's just that's truly the tip of the iceberg about what's going on. Yeah. The other frustrating thing you just wrote the policy of what they've been doing here is, like, it was pointless. It had no... And that, I think, is the most frustrating thing about all of this, right? Like, if it was, you know, even if it was part of the ideological project for the, like, we have to, you know, we're choosing Minneapolis because that has a disproportionate number of illegal immigrants that we want to deport. Like, that's not what it was.

Like, like, 23rd in the country before. It's not for any of that. Like, like, all of this pain, it was towards their... I guess more narrative project, right? Like the authoritarian project. Like it wasn't about fixing anything. It wasn't about a policy. You can't meet them in the middle on it.

No, that's exactly right. That's exactly right. I think that, I mean, two things. First, when you see what they have done here, you can really only conclude that cruelty is the purpose. You know, meanness is the purpose. And maybe it's towards their ideological goal convincing people, you know, don't come to the United States because we're like, we're like

assholes. Maybe that's what they're trying to convince people of. Not quite the Shining City. Yeah, no, I know. It's a little different. Like the Statue of Liberty, not so much. No, we will like, we will like rip you away from your children and we'll put you in a detention center in Texas and never let you out. So I think that is part of it.

But the other thing, Tim and I think is really important is that Minneapolis has been, Minneapolis, but it's not just Minneapolis, it's the whole state, has been, we're like the proving ground, a testing ground for their authoritarian project. And yes, it is about the attack on immigrants and people that are different and not white. Yes, it is about squashing public dissent, including arresting journalists. Yes, it is about launching investigations into the people they perceive to be their political enemies, Keith Ellison and Tim Walz. Yes, it is about saying,

we are not going to send the money that Congress is appropriated for SNAP and for agricultural projects. And yes, it is about give us your voting roles so that we can control what happens in the election in 2026. And Minnesota is basically saying, like, leave us the fuck alone. Nah. No, thanks. Am I allowed to swear on this podcast?

I forgot to ask. I was supposed to swear on the podcast, and you were supposed to be Minnesota nice. But, you know, things have, we can do a roll reversal. Please swear. All right, let's talk about what's happened in the Senate. So we're in this partial DHS shutdown now over this fight. Except for the $75 billion that they have, right? But, yes, that's right.

So it's not like a real shutdown. But, you know, the funding has been approved. We would have an internal discussion here at the board because it's not that, it's actually not that easy of a call, right? Like, it's easy to sit on the Internet and be like, don't give them anything, you know, fight, fight, fight. And, like, that appeals to me deeply on an emotional level. Like, on the other hand, when you think about whatever city they go to next and the folks that are still here,

like, some meaningful concessions would be good. Like, I would like to be able to see these guys' faces, you know, just like every other public asservant, right? And so if you could get meaningful consent. So how are you thinking about that right now? Like, you know, are there things on the table they could bring that it would be worth coming to a deal on? or is it just no, no, hard no. Well, so I am in a phase of really looking at harm mitigation. We need to minimize, mitigate the harm of what they are doing here in Minnesota

and what they will do to the next place that they go. And so, you know, that is why I think we have to be serious about trying to bring some concessions out of them. And let's be clear. We're not asking, like I think that this agency needs to be ripped down to the studs. I think we need to start over. We need to start with a blank piece of paper and reimagine what it should look like. That's the moderate position now, right?

That's the moderate position now. But that's not what I'm talking about. Now I'm talking about just basically saying these federal law enforcement people need to comply with the same laws that any local police department complies by. And yet they don't seem able to even get there. It doesn't seem like they're there yet. And so what does that say about them that they cannot even have the basic constitutional protections apply to this sort of masked secret police force that's been raiding our cities?

Yeah, no, it's for our friends, everything, for our enemies, the law, right? Like, they don't feel like they have to follow the law, you know. And I think that essentially the entire Republican Senate except maybe Rand Paul, right, is essentially okay with how ICE has been acting. They want them to be able to act with impunity and be a quasi-Trump secret police. So if that is their position, like, where does this end? So where do we go? Right, where do we go? Don't love that.

So, you know, my view of it is that I won't vote for another penny for ICE and border protection. And we need to understand that they already have, because of the big, so-called big beautiful bill, they have what? A ludicrous amount of money. A huge amount of money. More money than the Marines, more money than Israel's military. Exactly. So, I mean, so they're not, and, you know, people will say, well, we should be funding, you know, what's the rest of Department of Homeland Security?

You've got FEMA, you've got the Coast Guard, people that are actually contributing to the public safety of this country rather than tearing apart the public safety of this country. But, I mean, they've got plenty of money. What we need to do, I think right now, is to stand firm on this principle because it's, you If we don't, they're just going to do it again someplace else. What's your read of the room among your colleagues? Are folks with you or are people getting a little wishy-washy? I think that, you know, we'll take it a week at a time,

but I think that people are pretty strong on this. And everybody knows what I know, which is that they, you know, they have all this money. And so it's not as if you are starving the beast. The beast has enough food for, you know, four, five, six years. Yeah. And that's the challenge for next year. you won't be there. But you know, you could give your advice from the outside in the Teen and Ten podcast

about clawing that money back. Yes, that is exactly right. That is the next step. That is a good point. The other thing that I wish was coming before the Senate, but I don't think so. I saw some news this morning. We might be going to war with Iran. Did you see that? It feels like you should have some say in that. Have you got a call from Pete Hexeth? Strangely, nobody has called to ask whether I've given my approval for that. I'm not a lawyer, but I don't believe the 2001 Iraq, A-U-M-M-M-South. qualifies here because Iran and Iraq kind of sound the same. Yeah, no, no.

I don't think that works. But, I mean, it's, I don't know if you know any more than I do, but it seems like they're maybe planning on going forward with more military action there without any congressional approval. About this massive buildup that's happening and no conversation with, as far as that I'm aware of with, you know, any of the, you know, the gang of aid or any of the, any of the leaders of Congress. And I mean, the question is, really the question is, when are the, when are the Republicans in the Senate going to go, hold the phone? Like, I'm over here, the legislative branch.

Maybe the America First senators. Where's Josh Hawley on this? Like what? Right. Exactly. I mean, they, the unwillingness to stand up. And I think that, you know, my party needs to also be really, really clear that we're not going to just, you know, go along to get along with this kind of radical behavior that we're seeing. And is this an area to fight on with the party? Because I do think sometimes Democrats go away. Look, I used to be a neocon, all right? I want freedom for the Iraqi, for the Iranian people. I just fooled my, I just tricked myself with the Iraq Iran bit. I want them to be free. At the same time, this is absurd. You know, I mean, like the president is acting totally lawlessly. We cannot trust him. We can not trust him. We can

not trust the clown running DOD. Like, just even if it happened to work out by accident, like, still, like, the Democrats should be against this. It seems to me on policy, on the politics of it. I don't think the American people want this. But sometimes I do feel like Democrats get a little bit worried to be hardline on this stuff because, like, what if it turns out okay, you know? Like, we've seen this in the past.

Or I don't want to be seen as being too much of a peacock. You know, there are just these political considerations. But I think the Democrats should be balls to the wall on this. Like, no war with Iran, no. I do. I totally, I totally agree. And I think that, like, we all need to, like, people who are in elected office, people who are in the Senate and in Congress need to understand that, like, Americans can hold more

than one idea in their brain at a time. People are smart. And they don't, you know, people don't wake up every day and go, oh, like, I'm a Democrat. I need to take my kids to school. Or I'm a Republican. What am I going to fix for dinner? But they know when they're being lied to, and they know when they are being just trampled on. And Democrats, I think, any party, but Democrats right now need to show that we can fight for them.

And whether it is on, no, I'm not going to send your kids to the Middle East to die in a war that you have no reason to want to be in. Yes, I'm going to care about lowering your prescription drug costs, but I'm also going to fight. for your freedom. I don't have to just do one thing. Right. All of them. All the above. So we're counting you on as a no on Pete Hegseth run, war, and Iran. That's a now for you? Okay, good. That's right. We'll get to the section of my notes called loser Republicans. So here we go. Why don't start with Pete? He was supposed to be at the, towards the end. But he's from here, right? He's one of your great Minnesotans. Not super popular in this crowd. You guys said there was something special about your state, you know?

people came together? What happened to Pete? Did you guys not bring them enough hot dishes? See, these are the Minnesotans that didn't care that the weather was really terrible tonight and they still came out, so. What do we think, what's happening over there? You know, do you have any oversight of Pete Hegg-Suff? Yeah, what's your, what's your Pete Hegg-Suff? I just want you to kind of cook on Pete Hegg-Suff for a minute. Okay, all right. For your fellow Minnesotan. I mean, what a loser, right? I mean, not only is he incompetent, not only can you just tell that the generals don't, you know,

have any real respect for him. I mean, how about when he called, like, every general from around the whole world in for, like, a class meeting so he could tell them that, like, we're going to be tougher now? No, we're going to bunch up. And that's, exactly. And is that, like, really a safe idea? from a national security perspective

to have everybody in one room? I mean, I would say... My only problem with that is I kind of did want him to make everyone in the chain of command do like a push-up contest and then like a one-mile run. Or maybe he could do it with... I'm not sure the kind of commander-in-chief

would have done in that. What was the thing that RFK Jr. did with Kid Rock yesterday with the sauna and maybe we should all be doing that? I don't know. Not me. Were you giving that a close look? That was really, really good. What was it? I read someplace online, somebody who's like,

could we just please be normal? No, was the answer to that. Ritorial question. I want to talk about Mike Lee also. He's another colleague of yours. You had a confrontation with. He posts a lot on social media and was posting a lot of things that were not true.

Right. How's that going? Are you guys seeing each other in the lunchroom or tell us about you? Mike Lee. Well, so you all know the story, I think, about how I wanted to talk with Mike Lee personally about the posts that he put up about our dear Melissa Hortman. Just yesterday, we was the first day of the legislative session in Minnesota, and there was a

big acknowledgement of Melissa, the first day that everybody was back in Congress, I mean, in the state capital after that happened. and I mean, Tim, I would say that Mike Lee is the kind of person who is not used to having people actually confront him directly in a person-to-person way about

like the bad shit that he did. You notice he doesn't go out of the Fox safe space. We've invited Mike Lee on the podcast to discuss. He's not interested. And he seemed like truly, when I confronted him that, he was like truly sort of like nonplussed. He didn't even know really what to do. Yeah, like, why are you mad? It's just Twitter.

Right, right, exactly. I'm just smearing your dead friends. I'm like, this is real life, this is my friend. People in Minnesota feel really are hurt by this. So now when we cross each other, once occasionally in the hallways of the United States Congress, he usually is looking at his shoes. He's looking at his shoes.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. This takes us back to the aforementioned former colleague, J.D. Vance. I guess by the time he was in the Senate, he had already made the full turn, right? The full mega turn. So you didn't even really know, you know,

before this iteration of J.D. And he's on his fourth name, his second religion, his second political ideology. But, like, what, you know, are you getting anything different from him in the Senate than what we're seeing now? So in the Senate,

J.D. was one of those people. who could be like one moment like super charming and really friendly and all smiles and sweetness and light, as my mother would have said. And then the next minute, he's in a committee hearing where I served with him on the banking housing committee. He's in a committee hearing, you know, grilling some poor witness about how we wouldn't have a housing shortage in this country if all the illegal, in his words, the illegal aims. aliens weren't filling up all the houses. Yeah. And so you kind of, I mean, it's just sort of like... Well, tell me more about the sweetness and light.

I don't get to see that much of them. What was it like? What does nice J.D. sound like? Do you know people who are really good at, like, flipping on the nice light? That's a talented Mr. Ripley thing. Yeah. And then it flips right off again. And you really wonder what's the real deal, but you think you know.

He's concerning to me for the real deal. that reason. I think that people, because he's, he is extremely unappealing as a person. Like, he is like one of the most unappealing people. And so, yeah. So for those of us, we look at him and like this guy, but like he, uh, he has a way about him that he is able to explain like deeply offensive and pernicious points of view, but make it seem like it's the common sense view. Like, he's good at that. He's skilled at that. That is true. And I worry about him because he seems used to have taken, like, I think he's been pretty much on board, not pretty much, like, fully on board with the Minnesota program. Like, and I think that a J.D. Vance presidency would

maybe in some ways be, like, less crazy than Trump. He probably wouldn't be, you know, weird tweeting at night. But like the ideological... Maybe he's more disciplined. Yeah, right, but the ideological program, the Stephen Miller program, that's what we'd be getting. Totally. And, you know, remember when it was shortly after Renee Good was shot and killed, and we could all see the video, and Vance stood there and said, these officers have 100% immunity. Yeah.

That's what he said. He later tried to deny it. There's no such thing as 100% immunity. That's right. There isn't. But that's what he tried to claim. He chose to go out. And that was so notable to me.

It's like they killed somebody. It's not like he's trying to distance himself from the worst of what this administration is doing. No, he's trying to own it. He's trying to lead it. Yeah. He was the VP, right? So, you know, after your masked goons murder somebody in the street as the vice president,

you could just like take the day off, right? Or like try to focus on oversight or do stuff behind the scenes to try to reach out to the community. He chose to do the press secretary's job that day and to inflame and needle more. Yeah, that's... Is it because he's a douchebag? Do you think? That's what... That's the feedback from the audience.

You concur? See, I'm still in the Senate, so there are some things I won't say. Okay, so you're not going to concur on that. Okay, we're going to count Senator Tina Smith as a maybe on Jamie Vance being a douchebag. I want to ask about, you mentioned Katie Britt, which I was happy back, because I got, I got rankled a little bit by in New York Times article about Katie Britt a couple weeks ago, where she was discussing with the reporter how moved she was by Liam Ramos and how upset she was. and how she was doing so much behind the scenes. Apparently she called you. And she called Christy Noem, and she wanted to get something done.

And yet, like, she's the subcommittee chair that oversees a lot of this stuff. Like, she could- It's a very powerful role on the appropriations committee. She could stop this right now. And so, like, when you talk to her, help me understand. Like, has she convinced herself she's actually helping? I mean, or is it, I don't know. You help me understand what's going on with Katie Britt.

So, you know, I'll just say this. You know, when you're in a negotiation with somebody and you are trying to see whether you can accomplish something in the negotiation, and then basically you're saying, I'd like to help you, I'd like to work with you, but crazy Uncle Albert over here won't let me. Yeah, sure. And this is, I think, what a lot of my Republican colleagues do when it comes to trying to address what is clearly the illegality and the morality of this administration. They're like, you know, I get what you're saying, and I'd like to do something about it, but I can't do it until. I can't do it until after the primaries. I can't do it because this person won't let me.

And I think that when I read that New York Times story about how heartrending it was for Katie to hear about Liam, you know, I sent her message and I said, you know, the Trump administration is threatening to redetain Liam's dad. and you obviously care so much about this. What are you going to do to make sure that that doesn't happen? And she said, oh, I will look into that. Yeah. Well, that was nice for you to do that. I think that's important and grown up, and I'm not in the Senate,

because I would be like, you funded this. She did this to Liam. They did it. Like, they wouldn't have the money for all these goons if the Republican Senate did it. John Thune did it. Like, not crazy uncle Donald. Right?

Like, not Stephen. Miller, actually. That's right. That's the accountability. John Thune has agency. Yeah. And they did it. They funded these guys.

That is exactly right. This is the hard part of the podcast. We have to do a little bit of like reflection on the Democrats for one second. We're here in Minnesota. So I have a Minnesota themed reflection on the Democrats. I think I'm going to get some booze about this one, but I'm just going to say it anyway. Do you have to apologize to Dean Phillips? Was Dean Phillips right?

I think Dean Phillips was right. Fair? I'm shaking, for those who are only watching the audio, or only listening to the audio, I'm shaking my head. That's a no. We don't think so? I mean, he was right. We can take the apology out of it.

He was kind of right. Was he kind of right? At the end of the day, Joe Biden never should have run for president again. Okay. I weren't to count that. But the way in which Dean went about it was not useful, did not accomplish anything. And I felt at the time that I want to pile on, I don't want to pile on to what, you know, everything that's gone on since then.

But I told it the way I saw it in the moment, and I don't apologize for that. I have apologized to him already. His mother's a listener, so I hopefully that she'll hopefully she'll. appreciate that. Because, yeah, I don't know. I think he had it, unfortunately. Okay, one more. Not you, per se, but the Democrats, in retrospect,

seems like kind of missed it on the Al Franken thing, too, in retrospect. I know that, I know you ended up in the Senate because of that. So that was good. Like, there was some good outcomes, but, like, just setting that part aside, your personal interests, what do you think? Was that a miss in retrospect, with the Democrats a little too hard on? That is like an almost impossible question for me to answer, but not that I haven't thought about this a lot. Yeah, I'm sure.

And, I mean, first of all, wasn't like I was sitting in the wings saying, oh, great, maybe something terrible will happen so I can be become a United States senator. That was not at all what was going on in my life or anybody's life in Minnesota. And Al was a really, really good senator. He was a really good senator. And, like, what happened in that incredibly complex, like, multiple, you know, several-week period, if it had happened at any other time in the history of our country, I don't think it would have ended the same way. Right. But, you know, like, what was going on, what was going on here in Minnesota with issues around Me Too, what was going on in Washington, D.C., what was going on with what was his name, Roy Moore. Yeah.

It all snowballed in a way that was terribly harsh. Yeah. I just think sometimes, you know, my point in asking it is not as like, got you, but it's like, sometimes it is important for the Democrats' truth. Like, that there is this, there's this imbalance, it feels like, right? We're like, the Democrats hold themselves, and the media holds Democrats to this really high standard, right? And it's like, Al Franken, you know, gets run out on the rail for something

that's, like, pretty borderline. I mean, he's a comedian, and it's kind of like, you know, we can have some grace. and like meanwhile, like the two-time president of the United States is an avowed sexual predator. Right. Like an admitted sexual predator. Like he admitted it on radio. I like to sexually assault women. It's one of the benefits of this job.

And that's frustrating. And I just think that going forward, it doesn't mean the Democrats should have shouldn't have standards, but maybe they should like be a little bit more, you know, mercenary. Well, it's an interesting question, right? because we, I mean, we hold, we do hold our leaders to a very, to a different standard. And yet, I don't always think that the standard is the right standard. I mean, like, are we looking for people who are perfect on paper, or are we looking for people who actually can connect and communicate

and who are not afraid to take some risks in order to get something done? and not just something done, but in order to fix the dramatic income and inequality in this country, in order to address the deep unfairness that exists in this country, and in order to challenge the status quo and not be safe all the time in the things that you do. And so to me, that's what we should be looking for, not like, you know, not going after people's private lives. Yeah. Yeah, no, that kind of takes you to one of my hobby horses. It's like sometimes you need rough around the edges people to do to achieve those things.

Sometimes you need people that have flaws in their past or did stupid Reddit posts to think about one Senate candidate or whatever. Sometimes you need people like that, right? And I do think the Democrats have been selecting a little bit for people who were sitting in the front row of class and like raising their hands and never got any demerits and don't like to rock the boat, you know. And Al Franken rocked the boat a little bit. I totally agree with that. People who are people, you have to, I mean, right now the United States Senate just, as one example, is fundamentally broken. And it's not going to get better

by people who are not willing to rock the boat and challenge what is so wrong about how the Senate works. So I agree with you. All right, we're going to end with some fun Mount Rushmore-themed questions. Donald Trump wants to be on Mount Rushmore. Where are you on that? Are you a yes or a no?

I'm opposed. I'm opposed to that, right. So we'll start with the mean ones. Back to our loser-Republican category. had to make a Mount Rushmore of Republican and MAGA figures that are the most annoying to you. Who would your top

four be, do you think? Who gets your blood pressure up the highest of your top four? Hegsa. RFK Jr. Jada Van. says Stephen Miller. Okay. That's a great list. Right. Okay.

I mean, how do you think do you think that things would be like dramatically different in right now if Stephen Miller just like went away? I don't know how to do that, but I do think so. I'm not suggesting that we should do it. I don't think you were suggesting that.

I do. I mean, I think that he has a lot of hobby horses. He's running rush shot around there, you know? And I don't think Donald Trump, this is not to absolve him at all, because it's obviously all his fault, but like cares about the particulars of what's happening here, right? Like, he wants there to be stories of immigrants getting deported. Like, he's not down in the nitty-gritty. Like, it's Stephen Miller's obsessions that are driving a lot of this.

I agree with that. I think he is so idiotic. Trump is driven by power, and Miller seems to me to be driven by ideology. And a really cruel and heartless ideology. And so I think that's right. All right. On the more positive side, we're honoring Minnesotans here. So if you created a, if we put a, do you even?

have a mountain in Minnesota? Do we have any mountains? Do we have a hill? Yeah. Yeah, Mountain that Lutzen. We have some mountains up by Lake Superior. Okay. So if we're going to, if we're going to, if we're going to, if we're going to, we have our mountain is a hill. Is a hill? Okay, what was it called? Buck Hill. Buck Hill. Okay. It's where Lindsay Graham learned how to, I mean, Lindsay, Vaughn learned how to ski at Buck Hill. If we created a monument on Buck Hill to four great Minnesotans, who would you want to have on the Buck Hill Mount Rushmore? Four great Minnesotans. Yeah.

This is good. They're really... So what the audience is suggesting, and I would agree with, is Paul Wellstone. And so here's an... This is interesting. It's part of the conversation that we're having. When Paul Wellstone ran for Senate in 1990, nobody thought he was going to win. He was rough around the edges.

He had never really been elected to anything before, and he was considered to be way too radical to win statewide in Minnesota, and he won. And he was an incredible senator, and I think he is a bit of a model right now for the kind of leaders that we need in Washington who aren't afraid to challenge the conventional wisdom. The poll...

Yeah. We could do a poll. Any other ones? You don't have any other nominations? Oh, gosh. I mean, right now, yeah, Prince, we are hearing. Prince. Bob Dylan.

A hockey player, maybe. Kirby Puckett. World Be Free. Okay, we're going to workshop it. Yeah, I know. We're going to workshop it. We know we've got Wellstone and Bob Dylan and Prince. That's not a bad start.

We need a woman. Put a woman on there. Who's the famous? Probably not you. No, I couldn't put myself on. Amy Clover. charm? I don't know. Okay. Our next governor.

Is Judy Garland from Minnesota? Yeah, Judy Garland is from Minnesota. How about that? Hot damn, Judy Garland. Okay, okay, that's enough suggestions. That's enough suggestions. We get it. You guys have a lot of famous people from here, for

some reason. Last thing. Why are you leaving? Because it's just, you know, this time? Joe Biden? I'm going to be 68 in about three weeks. And only in the United States Senate. I know.

You could be 68 and you're like fresh blood in the United States Senate. But I will have done this job for nine years. That's actually the longest I've ever done any job. What's the longest you've ever done a job? God. This job on year three, it feels like a decade. I don't know. Yeah, probably five or six years.

So I actually believe that it is one of the, the important things about leadership is to do a really good job, do the best job that you can, that you can, and then open the door for the next leader to come in. I don't suffer under the delusion that a lot of people in politics do, which is that I'm the only one who can do this job. And there are, there's an incredible group of leaders that I know are more than ready to do this job. I've endorsed Peggy Flanagan to be my successor. But it's not up to me. It's up to Minnesota to figure it out.

And there's going to be a spirited competition. And I think that that is good for our democracy to not have people who just stay there forever. I agree with that. I appreciate that. And one thing, these guys, you know, if it was a worst political year for you, I'd be like, Tina, what are you doing?

Okay, I'm going to hold this seat. But these guys have created a backlash in this state. And it's not just in that Senate race, but it's State House and the State Legislature, those races. It is time to put it on them this year. I feel so confident. I feel so confident that this will be a good year. And I'm excited to see what I'm next. So in Governor Wals.

I want you guys to put it on them in the state legislature. And then we're going to Gavin Newsom this bitch next time. He said that there's some legal issues with that. And I was like, that's the problem for Amy, I guess. I don't know. Well, she ought to deal with that. Senator Tina Smith, thank you so much. Thank you, Tim.

All right. We appreciate it.