The Bulwark Podcast - Tim Miller: The Thomas Family Grift

Episode Date: May 5, 2023

Clarence and Ginni are enjoying the grift that keeps on giving, Fox's PR moves are not helping, seditious conspiracy doesn't require actually being at the Capitol on Jan 6, God bless E. Jean Carroll, and Colin Allred vs. the podcaster. The weekend pod with Charlie Sykes and Tim Miller. show notes: Charlie's Atlantic piece The Next Level's Colin Allred interview  Sarah's Year Zero piece Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I'm Charlie Sykes. It is Friday. We have made it through another week. And of course, I am joined by Tim Miller. Tim, how are you doing? How's New Orleans? Hey, Charlie. New Orleans is good. I'm here in my very makeshift office. The computer is sitting on boxes, and I get to look at you with your fresh haircut. We're doing this YouTube style. What do you think? It's like 2009. We're moving into the modern era slowly but surely. Our Fridays will be on TikTok soon enough. I figured that what we had to do was to have a little bit of a practice of seeing one

another since we're going to be doing this thing in New York in a couple of weeks, May 18th. By the way, if you are in New York, you might want to see this podcast live, might want to see the Next Level folks live. Great opportunity. We have a few tickets left, but you have to go quickly. We do. Come on. It's going to be great. The weather's been terrible everywhere. Come to New York, May 18th. I'm going to do a little TV. I'm going to do a little cable beforehand. We're going to hang out after. Select people might get invited to an after-after party. Not Charlie, but some of you might be. Yeah, I won't be there. It'll just be the youngs. It'll be the people who will actually be able to party in the... Do they call it the Big Apple anymore? You'll be there at the after

party. There'll be an after party. There'll be a little hangout. There'll be a little hangout after party. I'm talking about the after-after party. Champagne room. That's what I'm talking about. I will definitely be in bed by then. Okay, so Tim, I was telling you right before we started, I was making a list throughout the week of things I wanted to talk to you about. And I'm looking at the list today and everything is old. I mean, everything is like, okay, we just got to move on. Because the last 24 hours, I mean, I'm sorry, holy shit, there's just so much coming down. We have the big seditious conspiracy convictions of the Proud Boys. We have new information about the prosecutors with a confidential informant or cooperating witness down in the

Mar-a-Lago case. We have the E. Jean Carroll case wrapping up. I know I'm leaving things out, including the latest gobsmacking story about Clarence Thomas and his wife, Ginny. Were you a Wire fan, by the way? I did COVID. I did The Wire during COVID. I caught up to it. I didn't do it live. Okay. So the amazing thing about the Clarence Thomas story, and we can double back on this, is this story about Leonard Leo, the godfather of the Federalist Society, basically, you know, sending $25,000 to Ginny Thomas, but saying, don't mention her name. We don't want to have her name.

And the thing that's amazing to me is they wrote it down. And so I had a tweet saying Stringer Bell would like a word. And that's kind of a deep dive because Stringer Bell is the character who's running the drug operation in Baltimore. And he notices after one of their meetings where they're planning their drug dealing operation that there's one earnest young man who is writing down notes. And he says, what are you doing? And he said, well, I'm taking minutes of the meeting.

And Stringer Bell, then, and I'm not going to use all the language, basically says, you do not take notes for a criminal conspiracy. This is the thing. They write it down. I continue to be amazed by that. Yeah, I think that there is a feeling of being maybe above the law is overstated, but certainly a feeling of the fact that they're in rarefied air. They can't touch me. Yeah, exactly.

And a feeling of being untouchable and a feeling of, you know, getting comfortable with these sorts of deals. Like, let's just, you know, step back. The Federalist Society's little slush fund is really immense, right? And there kind of are like two Federalist Societies. Like there is what's happening on campuses at law schools and, you know, rank and file lawyers who want to identify as conservatives. And then there's this Leonard Leo operation that's happening in DC that has all these nonprofit organizations that's paying lots of groups, that's moving money this way and that way, that's running ads and political campaigns. It's the dark and dark money.

Yeah. And it's almost all dark money, right? And so when you get into the habit, as somebody who used to work in the world of dark money, when you get into the habit of doing these sorts of things, you start to get comfortable with it, right? It's like, am I really going to get tagged over this 25 grand for Ginny Thomas? It seems like a small ball when the amount of money that's moving through all of the various Leonard Leo operations is like upwards of nine figures and you're getting into close to 80, 90 million, maybe more, right? So 25 grand of Ginny Thomas is like nothing, like it's a payoff. And so I think that is like nothing like this is a payoff and so i think that is like how i get into the mind of how they get comfortable with things like this but man it's

really comfortable yeah really comfortable how bad they're very on the private jets the thomases are very comfortable yeah putting their feet up you know sitting by the fire with the weird statues of you know various nazi leaders smoking cigars the thing that's interesting is this stuff is moving so fast right like i was watching i was suffering through laura ingram last night because our friend tom cotton is on i'm sorry they had the talking points down on the grand nephew i guess that was also that his schooling was being paid by harold crowe you talked about this yesterday great podcast yesterday by the way with ben with us and that crew and he had his talking points on this down.

And like he hadn't updated them for the new Leonard Leone. It's like the amount of money that is just, you know, the amount of different times that Ginny, in particular, is getting paid over decades is pretty noteworthy. I know that the conservative media is working overtime to make this into a nothing burger. But, you know, Clarence Thomas a nothing burger. But, you know, Congress Thomas is really making it hard, you know, particularly when you have the anti elitist movement has decided that, yes, being, you know, flown around on private jets and taken off to exotic vacations, and then having massive transfers of cash that would be life changing for most normal Americans are just nothing. And I felt a twinge of sympathy, actually not, for the NR bloggers who were all day

working on trying to polish this particular turd. And then what happens? We drop the story about Leonard Leo with his grift with Ginny and then saying, but don't mention Ginny's name. By the way, Kellyanne Conway is on all of this. This is the thing about dark money, Tim. If it's dark, the dark and dark money is you don't put it in writing. Hey, we are sending money to the wife of a Supreme Court justice. Don't tell anyone this. Click, click, click, send. It kind of screws the whole dark thing. And this is the big contrast. So the big pushback on all this yesterday, and this was what Cotton was arguing on Fox. And so you saw a lot of the nr guys offering is like oh these leftists and the you know never trumpers like are picking and choosing their spots here

their body this isn't true this is hypocritical because sonia sotomayor received three million from her book publisher book right and she sat and she didn't recuse herself for a case that was particularly related to that publisher. And I'm going, are they even listening to themselves? Like they think this is the same thing. I get it's fine. If you want to do a standalone critique and saying Sonia Sotomayor should have recused herself from this one case. Sure. Agree. Agree. But like getting paid for services rendered, like you wrote a book, the book publisher paid you. I didn't even speak to it. I had an editor at the book publisher. I got a form letter from the head of HarperCollins after I got the New York Times bestseller list.

It was like, thank you, Timothy N. Miller. Great work. You know what I mean? It's not like you have this personal relationship with the head of this conglomerate book publishing company. The whole comparison is ridiculous. That's what they're leaning in on. Of course, nobody knows what Ginny actually did for the money, right? I mean, speaking of money for services, like what exactly was she doing? Nobody knows,

right? Leonard Leo's quote even in the Washington Post about this is like, well, Ginny is a well known person who can weigh in on matters of public opinion and public concerns for nonprofit advocacy groups. It's just like, this is just bullshit. This is a do-nothing job. She had a bunch of do-nothing jobs. She's a dilettante for a bunch of conservative world groups. Okay, maybe if you're saying if everyone can see it, then at least, all right, we're following the rules. But if you're doing it in secret,

this is not comparable to the Sonia Sotomayor getting paid for writing a book. Okay. Like there's not, there's nothing similar. I mean, there's a certain consciousness that perhaps this does not look good, right? If you write, keep Jenny's name out of this, don't mention. I talked about this with Ben Wittes yesterday. This is actually an easy one to analyze. Just for a second, imagine the reaction on Fox News or the NR folks if we found out that Ruth Bader Ginsburg was being flown around by George Soros, that George Soros was paying the tuition of one of her grandchildren or grandnieces. If any of these things, if George Soros was writing checks to Ruth Bader Ginsburg or anybody in her immediate family and saying,

let's not let anybody know that we are paying family members of Ruth Bader Ginsburg or anybody in her immediate family and saying, let's not let anybody know that we are paying family members of Ruth Bader, they would be out of their minds. We would be having impeachment hearings right now. It's not a close call. Am I missing anything there? You know, now there's really no defense. I suffered through all these conservative defenses. I almost got in a few fights on Twitter yesterday. Do you do this? You start to reply to people and you're like, why am I doing this? Okay. Nobody's even on here anymore. This is my space. Okay. Like people, you know, this is an empty mall. I don't need to fight with strangers on here. There's something to be said for all of my real anger. And I kind of despise really Ginny Thomas without having met her. And she was involved

in an effort to overthrow our democracy. She seems like a pretty bad person, but like the fact that they're trying to help this grand nephew, right, is fine. That's a nice thing. Yeah, it's a nice thing. And it's nice. And so like a lot of these conservatives trying to lean on that, like these are good people. That is a nice thing. And it's a nice thing. Fine. If Harlan Crow wants to use his large ass to like, I'd rather spend it on some grand nephews or education than on private jets. But like, if you want to be on the Supreme Court, like part of the deal is you got to explain what's happening, right? Like that is the thing. And I think that they felt like they were inoculated from all this for a long time

and were hiding a lot of slush money. And as you and Ben got into yesterday, in a different era, he would be pushed out. And who knows, maybe even if it was a Republican president, he might be pushed out. In a different era back in the 1960s, Abe Fortas, and you know, I tweeted out that era, back in the 1960s, Abe Fortas. And, you know, I tweeted out that we all ought to study the history of Abe Fortas. Abe Fortas was, you know, a prominent liberal Supreme Court justice who resigned because of, you know, some financial relationships with a millionaire that pale in comparison to all of this. So speaking of Ginny Thomas and seditionists, yesterday was a big day. I do think

that this Proud Boy conviction was the most important conviction so far. Turns out these guys are not just casual tourists who knew that they are not patriots. They are seditionists. They are traitors. I mean, this is one of those moments that we, you know, with all the flood and all of the things that are going on, take a deep breath and think about what just happened. That we have the proud boys, the folks that the president said stand back and stand by, who felt they were doing Donald Trump's bidding, who were the tip of the spear in the attack on the Capitol. And they're not just charged with rioting or they're not just charged with vandalism. They are charged with seditious conspiracy and they were convicted up and down the lines.

Merrick Garland had this to say yesterday. And now, after three trials, we have secured the convictions of leaders of both the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers for seditious conspiracy. Specifically, conspiring to oppose by force the lawful transfer of presidential power. Our work will continue. Okay. This, of course, raises the question that curious minds want to know, what does that mean? Are they moving up? How do you have a

seditious conspiracy that does not include many of the principles here? So as Roger Parloff of Lawfare to speculate, what's Jack Smith's reaction to all of this? But I don't know, what do you think, Tim? I mean, how does this not put some wind at the back of Jack Smith saying, I really have to go up the ladder and I have to go hard. And I've proven that I can actually get a conviction for conspiracy charges, which means you don't actually have to be physically present and you don't have to explicitly say, go in and F up the Congress. You can have that unspoken understanding. So what do you think? I mean, at this point, it would become a huge, I think, failure of the Justice Department not to continue doing what they've been doing.

Agree. And it seems like Jack Smith's doing that. That's why I like having your Thursday podcast, so I don't have to pretend to be a legal expert on this podcast. It seems like things are moving that direction. That is the natural question to those of us who are you know laymen out here going if people can be convicted for seditious conspiracy who is more guilty of seditious conspiracy than donald trump i don't think anyone or you know and you can go down the list of his other compatriots in that regard rudy and sydney powell etc uh jeff clark for example who i see is out there on truth social sending out truth still so uh that man is walking free for some reason despite his attempt to have a coup in the Department of Justice. So I would love to see us move up. And keeps talking. Yeah. And I think that the short term, though,

it's important to also just recognize how embedded these Proud Boys had been in establishment Republican circles, right? Like this Enrique Tarrio, who's convicted, like there are pictures of him with all of these folks, right? I mean, the selfies with Sarah Sanders, and he was going to a lot of the Trump events. If you go to South Florida, a lot of these guys have taken over the local parties, the Miami-Dade Republican Party has Proud Boys involved. Obviously, you discussed yesterday the stand back and stand by quote from the debate. You know, I think it's important to just recognize and to state and for Democrats actually to make this argument and for, you know, the five good natured Republicans left to make this argument, right? That like, this is an implication of the whole party and certainly of the MAGA part of the

party, right? Like these were not like five dudes who randomly showed up to like create trouble because they saw an opening. Like these were political actors who had embedded as maybe a stretch, but had like deeply connected themselves within the Republican party infrastructure. Well, and also, I mean, just break down the charges, the severity of this, because we're in the middle of, you know, an attempt on the one hand to revise it and it was no big deal. It was peaceful tourists.

And then you have Donald Trump who is, you know, leading, you know, hand over heart, you know, leading renditions of the January 6th prisoners, you know, God bless America. I mean, he is now embracing this. He is trying to, you know, describe them as real heroes, as patriots. What happened yesterday was they not only convicted them of, you know, felonies, they convicted them very specifically of seditious conspiracy, people who betrayed their country. These are very hard cases to bring and hard cases to win. It goes back to the Civil War. And it basically says, look, this was not just an attack on an Arby's or an attack on a Starbucks. This was an attempt to overthrow the government. I mean, this is what's significant about this. Well, I have something for you here. Here's a montage the folks from CNN put together early on, where all of the generally Fox News talking heads are saying, well, this January 6th thing can't be that big because nobody's being charged with sedition, are they? I mean, they understood this was a lie. Let's just play this courtesy of CNN.

Oh, it was an insurrection. So how many of the participants in that insurrection have been charged with insurrecting, with sedition, with treason? Five. Zero. But you know what? No one has been charged with sedition.

No one has been charged with sedition or insurrection. Most have been hit with charges like parading. Parading. Who knew that was a crime? Do you know how many people have been charged with inciting insurrection or sedition or treason or domestic terrorism as a result of anything? Zero. Has anybody been charged with sedition? Nobody. Has anybody been charged with treason? Nobody. So why do they keep calling it an insurrection? How many times do words like insurrection, sedition or treason appear in Biden's own DOJ indictments against the January 6th rioters? The answer, zero.

Not really. These did not age well, Mr. Miller. But this was the red line that they drew. They fired Tucker. I heard a lot of voices in there in that little montage. It wasn't just Tucker over and over again. I noticed it's across the network now. Yeah, no, it didn't age well. And I spoke to one of the reporters who was down in Waco for the Trump event there yesterday. We were just kind of like talking through a couple of these issues. And it was reminding me who was there in person.

It was saying that Trump, you pointed out that he has lended his voice, to the extent that anybody wants his voice, to the January 6th choir. He's doing this on stage in Waco, having an event honoring the people that are now convicted of attempting to overthrow the government. I mean, that is a notable moment. And who he has suggested that he will pardon. I mean, now this becomes a major issue. And he needs to be asked this over and over again. Will you pardon them? Right.

It feels so weird still, despite the fact that we've been living it for seven years, that it's like the leading candidate for the Republican Party is in league with and promoting people that are literal traitors. I have been convicted of conspiracy against the country and against the government against the democracy yeah i'm just obsessed with republican primary stuff so i always lead everything back to that but this is like what's missing from that right it's all asa hutchinson is the only one out there like making that case against trump not even in the the more it'd be nice to hear some people making it in the moral case within the republican

party but but even in the practical case ch Well, Chris Christie's throwing some punches. Chris Christie too. Chris Christie, you're right. But even in the practical sense of like, do we really want to hitch our wagon to a guy who is singing with the traitorous choir? I guess so. I guess they do. Yes, I guess so. You know, I was actually thinking about this. I mean, it's become now, you know, almost a cliche to say what a gift to the Democrats, because rather than having to spend the next, you know, six, seven, eight, nine, 12 months, you know, debating the economy and everything, the Republicans have said, no, no, we're going to debate Donald Trump and everything that he says, and he's out there. He's out there promoting.

Now, I thought that montage was very effective by CNN. I just, I hope they play it at their town hall meeting, their free live primetime town hall meeting that they're giving to the completely normal, usual presidential candidate. I have to say that in terms of judgment, I don't know how you come down on this. I mean, CNN trying to explain and saying, okay, we do know he's unique. We do know that he's chronic liar. We do know that he's an accused rapist. We do know that he has called for the termination of the constitution. We do know that he is facing federal indictment. We do know all of these things, but nevertheless, proving that we've learned absolutely nothing in the last eight years, we are going to treat him like every other presidential candidate by giving

him a town hall. What do you think? Can I offer a contrarian view on this? Yeah. This might age as poorly as those Laura Ingraham quotes. So we'll see how things go next week. Yeah, mark the tape. I want to see it. There is a potential advantage. Okay, Donald Trump is cloistered in a cocoon in Mar-a-Lago. He's in a cougar cocoon where he's surrounded only by the people on the pool deck at Mar-a-Lago and the people that want to have Donald Trump themed weddings and the people in Steve Bannon's media universe. Like those are the only people that he surrounds himself with. He doesn't get questioned. This week, he had that plane flight to Waco. He had like two normal reporters on there and he throws the phone of Vaughn Hilliard, you know, tosses it aside because he gets so mad that Vaughn asked

him a couple of tough questions. He hasn't gotten tough questions for a long time. And so I just want to see it. I totally understand the criticism. CNN deserved it. The way CNN handled things in 2016 was wrong, but it's a new leadership there. I want to see the town hall because there are a lot of tough questions that could be asked of him. Okay. There are a lot of tough questions that could be asked of him. Okay, there are a lot of tough questions that could be asked. And by the way, I have something else for you here. Now, I can't play the whole thing, but it runs more than five minutes. Can we put it on 2x speed? Maybe we should do that.

Mediasan, I'm sure I disagree with him on a lot of issues, but the man is, he's freaky good. He's a national treasure. And I don't know whether you saw his montage where he came up with, okay, CNN, I wouldn't do this. But since you are going to normalize this guy, you are going to give airtime to this guy. Here are 10 questions that you should ask him.

And then he goes through the 10 questions. They are all outstanding. I think we have time for the first two. Give you a flavor. This is Mehdi Hassan. Personally, I wouldn't interview a man who has used live interviews to incite violence and tell lies who has in the past encouraged violence against CNN itself. I wouldn't normalize him in that way.

But if you are going to interview him, you need to have some very tough and very specific questions. Here are 10 questions I would ask Donald Trump if I had to do an interview with him and that CNN should consider posing to the indicted former president next week. Make a note, Gabriel. Number one, the president of the United States has to swear an oath to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States. You are on record, Mr. Trump, just a few months ago, calling for the termination of parts

of the Constitution. So you have disqualified yourself from the presidency, have you not? Number two, many would argue that you, Mr. Trump, disqualified yourself from the presidency on January the 6th, 2021, when you incited a mob to march on Congress and fight like hell. A mob you knew was armed. A mob you beckoned to Washington, D.C. A mob that included Proud Boys since convicted of sedition.

And on the day itself, it wasn't just Fox hosts like Sean Hannity and Laura Ingram, who sent texts to your chief of staff demanding you condemn the violence, but also your own son, Don Jr. So why didn't you? And why did your own son have to beg you to condemn the riot? He got to the question. For a little bit, there was more of a comment than a question. Okay, so and this goes on, and there are eight more. You could do 100 of them. He did 10. The whole video is good. You could do 100. That's my point. The problem with the town hall. I mean, there's several problems with the town hall. One is the time limitation. And you know that Donald Trump can have a firehose of lies, you will not be able to fact check every lie fast enough.

Number two, he will go off on tangents. And he knows that the iffy filibusters, he will go off on tangents and he knows that if he filibusters, he will just chew up time that they cannot get back. Third, it's a town hall meeting, which means the potential for really stupid questions is great. If it was an hour of Mehdi Hassan or Jonathan Swan interviewing Donald Trump, that's one thing. But this kind of format, what could go wrong? I don't know. I have low expectations. You have this unicorn hope that he's going to melt down and then he's going to get all sweaty and spit's going to fly. And he's going to throw the microphone at Caitlin Collins. They say, damn right, I called the code red. Yes, I wanted a coup. I want a coup again. We got to finish the coup.

All I'm saying is that we're in a different world than in 2015. We're in a different world than in 2015. We're in a different world than 2015. The challenges of dealing with him are different. And the more Trump is talking about a lot of this shit, the worse he's done. Now, he has actual things that he can be engaged upon. This is different than the empty podium. That's all I'm saying.

It could end up being like the empty podium. But I think that we have to. He's the leading candidate in the Republican primary. What are we going to do? Never have any media people question him. These are bad options. No, you cover him. You have media people do it, but you treat it like you practice journalism as opposed to reality television. That's the distinction. You do not just give him unedited live time. You do cover him. You cover him extensively. I'm one of those who believes that, you know, you want to cover him every time, you know, he says something, you know, do a story about it.

I mean, I don't think ignoring him is a good idea. I think that we should expose him. On the other hand, these kinds of formats, I think, are designed for him. Plus, he can't lose because no matter how tough she is, no matter how awful he is, he's going to come out and he's declare that he's the winner and that he's a martyr, that he's both the champion and the victim, right? Oh, see what they did to me on CNN. They beat me up. Liberal media. That didn't work in 2020, though. Savannah Guthrie, Savannah Guthrie got the best of him. That didn't help him.

It didn't help him. Look, I get a little frustrated when I hear the media criticism. I think there's plenty of legitimate media criticism, which I issue sometimes. But it's like, you shouldn't engage with the guy. You shouldn't. That's fighting the last war. Okay, he already became the president. Now he has to be held accountable.

And he has this entire media ecosystem. I think that really pissed me off is the right-wing media critics that are like cnn is doing this again they're back to the empty podium i'm just like i'd love to hear you guys criticize anyone in the right-wing world like like the people who are voting for donald trump aren't watching cnn okay like there's an entire ecosystem of news that they get i just listened to when in every focus group on sarah's pocket she starts and asks people where do you get your information nobody's like oh i'm watching don lemon no yeah it's r.i.p you know nobody's like oh i get it from anderson cooper and jake tapper i'm a religious viewer of jake tapper's show yeah i understand that argument but i have to say that you say it's not 2015

anymore and yet these feel like 2015 arguments again, that if we just show him and people will see that he's crazy, it will go away. Well, that did not happen. So we'll see. I mean, I wish we would have had the kind of questioning from Mehdi Hassan. Okay. So since we're on the media criticism topic, yeah, I want to get your take on the whole Tucker Carlson text thing, because I just want to lay it out here. I'm not buying this story. I'm not buying the story that, you know, the day before the trial, the Fox board was shocked and panicked and alarmed to find out that Tucker Carlson was a racist asshole. I was like, who knew this? I mean, and they decided they had to do something because he had this text

message where he describes how he was watching a group of Trump supporters jump on an Antifa protester. He wanted them to beat the shit out of him. He found himself, you know, this was not the way white men fight, but he found himself, you know, hoping that they would actually, you know, kill him. And then he thought, well, you know, I don't want to become that person. Okay. Two things. Number one, that text just confirms everything we knew about Tucker Carlson. It confirmed that he was in private what he was in public. The fact that he was racist, not a surprise. They've known this for months. Why would that text message have triggered anything? or cutting him any slack whatsoever, but there is this Fox PR campaign out there, I think has two things.

Number one, they want to make him look bad, which is fine, but they also kind of want to make him look he was the bad actor. And maybe let's talk about Tucker Carlson rather than talk about the fact that we have just been exposed, losing the biggest defamation suit in American history as a bunch of chronic liars. So what do you think about the fact that we have just been exposed, losing the biggest defamation suit in American history as a bunch of chronic liars. So what do you think about the Tucker texts? Yeah, I'm not impressed by the Fox PR campaign on this.

To me, frankly, a lot of these leaks have made Fox look much worse than Tucker. Again, this is just me. I don't, it is what it is. Media Matters is posting a lot of videos of him behind the scenes. Someone from Fox is leaking, where he's saying kind of sexist stuff. And it's like, I don't it is what it is like media matters is posting a lot of videos of him behind the scenes someone from fox is leaking where he's like saying kind of sexist stuff and it's like i i don't know but none of it's worse than what he did night after night after night yeah yeah i'm just like why are you leaking this video where he thinks he's in private where like

he you know makes a joke about like women you know wanting to see women pillow fight like yeah it of gross, but like, that's way less gross than what he was doing on TV in front of millions of people. Right. And so to me, this is just Fox, like trying to do some face saving, trying to make sure advertisers come back. My response is kind of fuck you guys. You know, there was a Vox story that quoted me on this because I basically gave this opinion on Twitter a couple of days ago. And, and they were saying that oh well i was missing that like this text was like more directly racist than the stuff on tv because he specifically said white people are better than black people in it because they don't jump people and like yeah sure okay like maybe i give we're slicing this really thin yeah he didn't do the oh you know

colorblind bullshit that he does on tv what when he's talking about thugs in the streets and talking about the gypsies coming for your family and all the other you know the replacement theory dirty immigrants yeah exactly the tv stuff is what matters to me and i think this is just fox you know trying to save their ass i'm not impressed i'm interested by the way just really quick on the tucker thing one other take the ratings are down and it's hurting the other hosts badly this was an open question we discussed on the next level podcast but the day after and it was like what would be interesting to see because you know o'reilly left and everybody's like oh wow you know it's a rally and push out it's gonna

hurt it didn't really hurt him in the end. And I always felt like Tucker might've been a category difference. It's only been a week or two. Maybe, you know, you get back to election season, people, you know, get back into their habits. But so yeah, maybe it's noteworthy though, that like there's been a very substantial drop. And again, back to the other point,

I don't think those people are turning the channel to Anderson Cooper. You know, they're turning the channel over to Greg Kelly and Eric Bolling and the freaks on Newsmax. You know, I think that may be a temporary phenomenon because I think we've seen this so many times. And I mean, again, we will find out. But, you know, the thing about the Tucker text, I don't want to keep dwelling on all of this. But, you know, as I was reading this story and the spin from the Fox folks, that this was really what panicked them. First of all, I don't get it because it didn't have anything to do with the Dominion lawsuit directly. I'm not

even sure how it would have been introduced. It was redacted and all of this stuff. So he says some racist things, which did not tell us anything new, because here's a guy that's been pushing the great replacement theory. I mean, you could do a montage of all the racist things he said on the air. So that's not new. The overall context, though, is he's writing in a moment of introspection. And this was the kind of the surprising thing. He's saying, OK, I'm watching this thinking I want them to beat the shit out of this guy. I want them to kill him. And then I thought, wait, no, no, no. I don't want to become that person.

I'm trying to think what an analogy would be. It would be like, you know, Jimmy Carter saying, you know, I have lust in my heart. But then I that's a dated one. But but no, I don't want to be that person. I'm trying to think what an analogy would be. It would be like, you know, Jimmy Carter saying, you know, I have lust in my heart, but then I, that's a dated one, but no, I don't want to be that person. I don't want to. I mean, there's a long history of people thinking, I am tempted to do this and I pull back from it. I am not sure that text made him look as bad as they tried to market it. You know what I'm saying? Okay, racist, racist, likes violence. We knew that. Actual conscience and introspection. Who's sending these long essay style texts?

I don't, it didn't, doesn't read like a text. It's a very weird thing. I agree with you. Again, within the introspection, he doesn't introspect about the line about how he thinks white people don't fight like this. He introspects about the effort of wanting to see the antifa guy get beaten up that said i agree with you i just nothing that's been leaked has made me think oh man that is really worse than

what is on tv to me if anything it's made him look better than what was on tv and and i think that it's all bullshit post hoc rationalization from the suits. So, you know, we haven't mentioned so far in this podcast, which is amazing. Joe Biden. Well, we haven't mentioned Joe Biden yet. We have not mentioned Ron DeSantis. I was thinking about it, whether or not I was, we were even going to talk about it because I feel it's been done so much, which is really kind of remarkable in itself. The guy has not even announced that he's running for president. And there's kind of remarkable in itself. The guy has not even announced that he's running for president. And there's kind of this sense that it's already over, that it's blown up on the launch pad. So let's not talk about why that's happened, because I think we all know.

But here's what the take I wanted to get from you. Yeah. Is it possible he won't run? No. I mean, given how bad the polls are, given how bad the buzz is, given the fact that people are like Nate Cohn's writing in the New York Times that basically his campaign's over before it begins. Does he know that? Might he not get in? What do you think? No, I think he's going to run. My party's about this this week and I, out of character, give him a little advice at the end, like a little advice for Tiny D. That's just like, maybe this is something you should consider is getting back to the type of positioning you had when you were doing well in the polls. Crazy idea. I know. Which is what?

The Trump attacks and the Trump indictments have hurt him. Okay. But the other thing that's hurt him is that he doesn't feel electable anymore. Like, right. The reason to move off Trump onto him was that Republican voters who liked Trump were like, Trump can't win. I'm going to, we're going to try this guy because he's a winner. Ron doesn't seem like a winner right now, in part because he had this insane legislative session where he's like, oh, we're going to do a six-week abortion ban. Trump's even criticizing it, right? And Republican voters get this. They're like, I don't know. Ooh, I don't know. I might be for that, but I'm a little worried about this guy. Then his performance, he doesn't seem like a fighter anymore. He doesn't seem like a tough guy. He seems weird. So he's gone from like being this tough guy that can win in a red state to being kind

of a weird person with extreme policy views that might seem less electable than Trump. And you look to that Wall Street Journal poll, his electability advantage versus Trump had shrunk to 10. Like 40% of Republican voters thought Ron was more electable. 30% thought Don. 30% didn't know. He can't win if that's the number. And he's got to really crush Trump on the electability argument. So anyway, so to your

question, I think he gets in because he still remains, despite being weakened, the only one that could beat Trump. He has a very small circle and his circle includes his wife, who obviously wants to be Jackie Kennedy, and a bunch of sycophants in Florida who think that he's kind of godlike. There were some weird Trumpian elements to a recent event that he had in Florida where people were like, DeSantis is the strong one on a horse. And donors and strategists who want money from him. So these are the people that are talking to him, all people that want him to run. And I think that if you back out now, he seems so weak and so emasculated. You can never come back from it.

Look, Scott Walker, Ted Cruz, none of those guys are running at this time. Right. Like once you've been emasculated to that level by Trump, you can't run again. And so I think he still will think this is his chance. OK, so I think that's a smart take, because I know there are people who are saying that, OK,'s a young man. If he, if he doesn't run, if he doesn't go into this buzzsaw, he can go in four years, you can go in eight years. Well, you know, the way things are going, you can go in 40 years, but to your point, you cave in now and you have put loser weakling, you know, on your forehead forever, especially when your super pack is don't back down. Have you heard this buzz about

draft Brian Kemp out of Georgia? Because I know there's been some buzz about, wait, there's this other successful governor who won reelection, who has not, you know, gone full DeSantis or full Trump and actually stood up to Donald Trump. I mean, strong MAGA cred, except for not going along with stopping the steal, et cetera. So what do you think, Brian Kemp, is that real? Yeah, I think in an imaginary universe that we do not live in, Brian Kemp is the obvious person to run in the Republican Party, given the problem in Georgia. Emphasis on imaginary. Yeah. And I think that the people that are pushing this are wish casting that the Republican Party is something that it isn't. So I would love to see it as a political science

exercise. I think that obviously, the country would be much better off with Brian Kemp as a Republican nominee than somebody that helped try to overthrow our democracy or tried to overthrow our democracy in Donald Trump's case. Even if I disagree with Brian Kemp on certain issues, that's true about Joe Biden for that matter. So I would like to see that. But I think that it's wish casting. You know, this is what I got into with Karl Rove when we were on that panel a couple months ago. I was like, look, if voters wanted what Karl Rove is saying that they want, right, which is traditional Republican values, blah, blah, blah, then there would be a groundswell for Brian Kemp. Because that's what he offers is traditional Republican values, ability to win. That's not what they want. There is no ground. The only groundswell for Brian Kemp is in, you know, pundit circles of before times pre-Trump Republicans. Sarah Longlaw, that great article for the book a week ago, if you haven't read it, go find it. It said, like, Trump is year zero. You know, the Republican voters don't want anything from BT, you know, before Trump. They want new. And the people that are doing the Kemp pitch are all BT Republican strategist elites

who are wishcasting. I would love nothing more to be wrong about this, but I'm about 99.999% sure I'm right. I don't think you are wrong about it. Okay. So this is actually on my list of things I wanted to talk to you about. But as we were talking about wishcasting and various other things, did you see that long transcript of a conversation of the no labels people who are this no labels group, which is apparently seriously thinking of raising tens of millions of dollars to put some third party on the ballot? Maybe it's Joe Manchin or everything. And despite the fact that most people are looking at them and going, you want to talk about wish casting. I mean, the only role you will play is spoilers. I mean, how dangerous are they? And I say this

because there will be people who will look at what the no labels people are saying and thinking, hey, that sounds like you bulwark people, right? I mean, you're not tribal, you're not partisan. And yet, I don't see any impact that they would have on the presidential race other than to help Donald Trump. What do you think? Yeah, well, we're not tribal at the Bulwark, but we are rational. We can do the math. We can look at the reality, all right? I mean, Bill Kristol, who loves a unity ticket more than Bill Kristol?

No one in America. You know, I mean, hell, if we could get a unity presidency of Joe Manchin and Liz Cheney, if I could snap my fingers, great. I'm for it. All right. But, like, come on. It's not going to happen. And that transcript was really telling. Nancy Jacobson and Mark Penn are egomaniacal.

They're grifting money from a bunch of boomer millionaires that, like, want to live in a world that doesn't exist. They live on the Upper East Side. And, like, they think that, you know, they can wish this into existence the people don't want this i did i guess it was maybe two weeks ago i did my party on this that it might seem illogical but the fact that trump is so dangerous makes it less likely that people would support a third party the third parties that have even none of them close to working but the one that came the closest to working was perot when clinton and h. were seen as pretty close, right? Because it was when Clinton was really leaning into the DLC thing and Bush was seen as a moderate Republican.

Perot's like, oh, here's a third option. And people feel comfortable like, I like Bush a little better than Clinton, but would Clinton be that bad? I can try with Perot or inverse, right? It wasn't existential. Yeah, it wasn't existential. This is. People are not going to do it. try with perot or inverse right like it wasn't existential yeah it wasn't existential this is people are not gonna do it so the only people who are gonna do it is you're gonna trick some low information people one or two percent that could matter on the margins so no it's a horrific

idea they are idiots and egomaniacal i do not think that this is a there are some people in the never trump world who think that this is like a secret MAGA attempt to steal the election for Donald Trump. I don't really think that. I think that this is Occam's razor. They're idiots and egomaniacs. And God willing, they can't recruit anybody to do it. Let's talk about something you had recently. You talked to Texas Congressman Colin Allred on the other podcast a little while ago.

And then sure enough, he is now jumping into the U.S. Senate race in Texas against Ted Cruz. He's an interesting guy. And I know you've talked about him, but let me just play a little bit of his announcement video because I thought it was interesting the way he raised certain issues and took it right to Ted Cruz. Let's play this. When I left the NFL, I thought my days of putting people on the ground were over. Then January 6th happened. I remember hearing the glass breaking and the shouts coming closer. I texted my wife, whatever happens, I love you. Then I took off my jacket and got ready to take on anyone who came through that door.

And Ted Cruz, he cheered on the mob. We will not go quietly into the night. Then hid in a supply closet when they stormed the Capitol. But that's Ted for you. I love that. All hat, no cattle. When Texans were freezing in the dark, he jetted off to Cancun. He'll do anything to get on Fox News, but can't be bothered to help keep rural Texas hospitals open.

Spends months trying to whip up phony culture wars, but not a minute trying to raise wages or lower drug prices. Okay, Tim, first of all, I got to ask you this. You didn't write that for him, did you? Because it was really good. No, I didn't. I'm retired. I do DM with him from time to time. I think he's going to be strong. You know, with Texas is still tough. The ad is really good. If I had written it for him, I've been telling him, I just keep leaning harder on the cop stuff. This I'm on the side of the police. I'm on the side of a law enforcement on law and order. Ted Cruz is responsible for the deaths of cops. Okay. That's who this guy is. I think that that's good. All right, has a good ear for

it. George Bush and Laura are his constituents actually in Dallas, like that's where he lives in the Dallas suburbs where George and Laura lives. So the interview with him, he had strep when he did it, people should go watch it if they haven't on the on the next level as a couple weeks ago, just kind of scroll down the next level feed on YouTube or the Apple podcast. And he's careful, but he's impressive. And I think that he's going for a Biden model, right? Like he's not the Beto. He's not, you know, hair on fire. And I think that he's, he's trying to position himself vis-a-vis Trump as I'm competent, you know, I'm center left that this other guy is like a fucking podcaster and a, you know, like a tweeter, and not a senator. Okay. Nothing wrong with being a podcaster, by the way. So that was my next

question is, is how is he not Beto? Beto surprised everybody by coming as close as he did against Ted Cruz. He only lost by three points. And then of course, I think he kind of flamed out. So why do we think that Colin Allred will do better than Beto O'Rourke? Or do we? I do. I mean, I definitely think he'll do better than Beto did in the governor's race. And I was very negative on the Beto governor's race. And I like Beto.

He just got too far out over his skis and was positioned as too liberal. And here's the thing. You have to win people that voted for Donald Trump. It's Texas. You have to win people that voted for Donald Trump. Donald Trump won the state by five points. So Beto, you know, just got too far out on his flank. I think that what Beto did that was useful was the engagement, the turnout way up. Right. But now you got those people in the system, they're registered,

younger voters, et cetera. Now you got to win crossover voters. You know, you got to get the people that Beto engaged into the system, you know, which got the floor higher in Texas, and you have to win some crossover voters. Can Allred do that? I don't know. Here's what I do know. Ted Cruz ran significantly below Abbott in 18. Okay? If Allred can do that again, if he can get people who just don't like Ted Cruz because he's not likable to cross over and split ticket and vote for him, I think it's a win-win. I compare it kind of to the Frisch race against Boebert. He got really close. It's a tough race, but it's a vulnerable opponent. And if you run a good campaign, I think that it's a stretch goal. But this isn't like Jamie Harrison in South Carolina and Amy McGrath in Kentucky and some of these buzzy races that we've seen in the past from Democrats that are total flameouts. I think that he is a legitimate shot if he runs a good race. And Ted Cruz, of course, is uniquely unlikable. Yes. You think about the political figures. Who likes Ted Cruz? Many of them have people who say, I really like this guy. The thing about Ted

Cruz, and of course, I realized this back in 2016, when some of us thought we will use Cruz to stop Donald Trump, which was a terrible idea, because it turns out that Ted Cruz was so universally loathed. The only option we had. That was the only option, but he was universally loathed. Okay, I have one more thing that I wanted to share with you, because this is particularly painful for me as part of our extended years-long apology tour. Oh, you're putting the hair shirt on?

Well- I love it when you put the hair shirt on. Since we're going to New York, there's a story about what happened in the New York subway where you had a homeless guy who was yelling and screaming. He did not hit anyone, did not attack anyone. And you had this off duty or former Marine. He hasn't been arrested. Guy tackles him, brings him to the floor and chokes the life out of him on the subway, kills the guy. Obviously a major flashpoint because it's caught on camera. This homeless man clearly having mental issues who is killed by a vigilante on the subway. Because this is New York, because it's 2023, people are dividing along political tribal lines. There are people who are applauding it, who think that it's great that this guy was, you know, defending, you know, law and order,

et cetera, versus people say, you just killed this man, you know, for yelling on the subway. So this comes up on Fox. And here's Wisconsin's own Rachel Campos Duffy, sharing her deep thoughts about why this has become controversial. This is all meant to distract people. We saw that during the last big racial riots with George Floyd, a lot of power was consolidated in the Democrat Party. A lot of election rules were changed during that period of time with COVID and everything else going on. These are opportunities to consolidate power and to distract minorities with fake racial stuff so they don't think about what's happening to their economy, to their paychecks, to their grocery bills,

to everything else that's happening in America. The stupidity. A lot of buzzwords there. Well, I mean, it's just the, it's all there. Was she the Tim before Tim? Was she the Fridays with Charlie and Rachel Campos Duffy? No, it was actually worse than that. I created a thing called the Right Women Awards for the most prominent, best and brightest, you know, conservative women in Wisconsin.

And she was one of the award winners. Brightest? Well, see, that's what hurts so much because it's so stupid. It's that conspiracy theory like people are not genuinely shocked to see a man choked to death in the subway. The strings are being pulled by who this sort of this idea that George Soros is sitting there saying, what is the plan? You know, let's whip up black people about this thing so they won't think about the price of eggs or something. I mean, so we can take power. Get millions of people listening to Fox News going, yes, that's right.

We can't actually be concerned that this is a horrible human tragedy here. We have to see it in the context of, you know, we're not talking about what we want to talk about. I mean, every moment we talk about the death of an innocent black man is a minute that we're not able to talk about Hunter Biden's porn or something. I mean, you know, things that really matter to America. And this is how like brain worms these people are, right? And that's the sound. And like, this is just a sad story. Oh, that was the word I had. Yeah. This is horrible. And like, we'll see as more details emerge. I

will say one other fact, we're doing this on jobs day, the lowest black unemployment rate in like a half century right now. It seems kind of important. Yeah, it just shows you like the buzzwords are one other fact we're doing this on jobs day the lowest black unemployment rate in like a half century right now which seems kind of important yeah that just shows you like the buzzwords are completely like disconnected from any news right it's like it's like why aren't they talking about the economy and how bad the economy is for black people it's like is it bad for black people yeah sure some prices are you know we're still dealing with inflation and stuff but like on on balance, you know, there's a lot of positive stuff to talk about. But there's not like an effort to care about that, right? Like it is, it's COVID, it's George Soros.

I need to double back because we were talking about what an amazing, you know, 24 hours, 48 hours we've had in the judicial system. And we're talking about, I got distracted by the Proud Boys. But what happened in that Manhattan courtroom in the E. Jean Carroll case was really amazing. It's a civil case, so you can bring in all kinds of things. I mean, she had very compelling testimony. But playing the video for the jury of the Donald Trump deposition, this was just an epic moment where he's actually asked about the Access Hollywood tape about, so do you think celebrities can really grab women by the pussies? And he basically goes, yeah, you know, famous people get away with stuff.

Unfortunately or fortunately, they get away with it. And then he's asked, well, are you a star? And he goes, yeah. Okay, this is going well. And then, of course, the jury also gets to see Donald Trump, the man in full, where he's talking about how, well, he couldn't have raped E. Jean Carroll because she's not his type, even though apparently she looked just like Marla Maples, but leaving that aside. Then he turns to the lawyer who's questioning him and said, and by the way,

you're not my type either. I would have no interest in you either. It's like, okay, so this is going to be the last impression that the jurors have of Donald Trump, the man, basically saying, yeah, I'm a star. And yeah, stars have been able to get away with grabbing women by the pussy for centuries, unfortunately or fortunately. I don't think this trial went well for him. I'm not going to say that it's going to move the needle or this is going to be the thing that's going to change, but give me your thoughts on all of this because it's almost in the background. We have all this, we have the sedition, we have the obstruction of justice, and then we have the fact the former president of the United States is credibly being accused of rape and it may not be the top five

story of the day. I think you had a great newsletter on that point. It's just like, nobody talks about this. I used to call White House briefing room reporters when he was in there, friends, and just be like, why doesn't anyone ever ask him about all of the people that he sexually assaulted? Or why doesn't anybody ever ask Kayleigh or Sarah Huckabee Sanders about this? Like, it was like, oh, once he got elected, it's like, well, since he got elected, I guess that means he's innocent of all that. So we litigated that.

Yeah, God bless E. Jean Carroll for taking it to him in civil court. The lawyer that you're talking about is my friend, actually Roberta Kaplan. She's amazing. She happens to be a lesbian. So I don't think it's hurting her feelings that much that she's not his type

because he's certainly not her type either. I think that that lash out is a reflection of just how effective she's been as a lawyer who knows what a jury does in these sort of situations you get one fucking mega person on the jury right like we'll see how how it shakes out but good on eugene carroll and and robbie caplan for taking it to him because there are a lot of other women out there who are victims of him too. Well, I mean, this is the point that I was making, I'll make again, I can't imagine anybody else who has more than two dozen accusations of sexual assault, being able to survive in business, in sports, in entertainment, in any other realm of life. And also, when's the

last time that Donald Trump was even asked about this? Is it even going to come up at the CNN town hall? How many of these women's names will even be mentioned? So, you know, Harvey Weinstein's got to be sitting there and is he in jail somewhere? I hope. Wait, this guy might be elected president of the United States and I'm doing how many years for doing this stuff? Nobody else. And this is this weird moment we're in where our moral ethical standards for the presidency of the United States are lower than for being a Hollywood mogul, for being a used car salesman, for being a CEO. Yeah, I was going to say, go lower. I mean, literally, Donald Trump would not be named the CEO of any publicly held company,

right? Nobody would even put him on the board. They wouldn't allow him to own a team in the NFL or the NBA. He couldn't pass a security check at any level of the federal government. Be a teacher. Think about, would your local Burger King hire him as a manager? And yet... Yeah, we're worried about our teachers being groomers. So because I live in Wisconsin, I live amidst a constant focus group of real people. And so I do know people who have voted for Donald Trump. And there's this weird disconnect where, OK, they're willing to go along with him. But in their own lives, they have a sense of decency and character and rectitude.

They would not hire a lawyer or an accountant or a principal who had Donald Trump's character. They want their children to be around role models, except, and then there's this break, except, yes, let's give Donald Trump back control of the nuclear codes. Let's put him in charge of the IRS, the CIA, the FBI. Let's make him the face of America. And it's like in every other aspect of their lives they would have nothing to do with someone like donald trump except when it comes to making donald trump president of the fucking united states well joe we could do a full fucking hour

on that we could do a whole nother hour on that topic i wrote a whole piece for the atlantic on it and then it basically um took a perhaps unfair shot at Alexander Hamilton for being naive about this. Tim Miller, thank you for joining me. We will do this again next week. And if you want to see Tim and I live in New York,

that is May 18th. You can go online and get the tickets today. Will there be a name that tune section of the live event? We're close to Broadway. Have you contemplated that yet? To be determined. Thanks all for listening to this weekend's Ball contemplated that yet? To be determined. Okay.

Thanks all for listening to this weekend's Bulwark Podcast. I'm Charlie Sykes. We'll be back on Monday. We'll do this all over again. The Bulwark Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper and engineered and edited by Jason Brown.