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- [00:00]
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- [00:24]
Tim Miller
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- [00:32]
James (No Such Thing As A Fish)
Hi, there we are. James and Dan. 2 thoughts of the Hit UK Podcast no such Thing as a Fish.
- [00:38]
Dan (No Such Thing As A Fish)
Each week we get around the microphones with our four favorite facts that we've learned over the last seven days and sit down to blow each other's minds.
- [00:45]
James (No Such Thing As A Fish)
Yeah, here's a fact for you, Dan. Yep, in knot theory, a circle of rope without a knot is technically a knot, but it's called a knot knot.
- [00:54]
Tim Miller
Very good.
- [00:54]
Dan (No Such Thing As A Fish)
I go on here as well. In 2019, a marathon runner with the words Jesus saves written on his bib had had a heart attack, but was revived by a man called Jesus.
- [01:03]
James (No Such Thing As A Fish)
That's amazing. If you want to hear more facts like that, search for no such thing as a Fish wherever you get your podcasts.
- [01:10]
Tim Miller
Hey everybody, it's Tim Miller from the Bulwark. The other morning I was on with David Pakman over on his sub stack and we don't get a lot of Pacman over here on the Bulwark YouTube channel. So I thought you guys might be interested and hearing a bit of our discussion. It kind of asks me, what is the state of Never Trumpism at this point. We talk a bit about the news and the ways in which things are unraveling for the Trump administration. It's a good convo where we get to flip it around and have me in the answering chair. So thought you guys would enjoy it. We'd share it with you here. So stick around for me and David Pakman.
- [01:53]
David Pakman
Tim, it's always good to see you. Good to catch up. I was just checking out your recent appearance on Piers Morgan where you told this pastor, like, listen, this is me. This is my editorializing. I am not going to treat you differently because you're calling yourself pastor. I'm going to evaluate what you say objectively. I'm curious, do you like doing those, the Piers Morgan appearances?
- [02:20]
Tim Miller
Yeah. It's funny. I wish I had done more prep for this one because a lot of people saw this video, I think, and maybe part of this because I didn't do Prep. Because I was just like, I don't. Doug Wilson, I know to be a hateful pastor that was influenced. That is an influencer of Pete Hegseth. And I know that he's done a bunch of anti gay stuff. You know, I don't, I don't follow his work that closely. And I didn't even know I was going to be on with him. I just. My Piers Morgan policy is when I feel like I have anger I want to get off my chest, I just say yes. You know, I say no usually, but I'm like, if I have something I want to vent about, I say yes. And so I just said yes blindly. I was like, whatever you can put on whoever you want. Trump is such a disaster right now. It's not like I'm worried about debating any of these things. And so in this particular episode, it was kind of boring because the pastor couldn't articulate. The pastor couldn't articulate a defense of Trump in the war. And. And so then we end up getting into theological stuff. And I'm like, I don't know, I just think I should call you Doug. And I feel like that felt right in the moment. No, I felt, watching it, it felt very right.
- [03:24]
David Pakman
It felt very right. Do you think? You know, now we've seen all of these. I don't really want to call them mea culpas, but we've seen all of these around the whole Trump's the anti war guy stuff. We've seen words like betrayal used by some of the manosphere podcasters. And I never would have guessed that this was going to. Is your sense that they truly believed the whole I'm the real anti war candidate thing and that now they're genuinely surprised, or is your sense that they went along with it because they thought it was useful for getting Trump elected?
- [04:00]
Tim Miller
Yeah, I think they're both. And, you know, it's hard to know what's in anybody's heart. So, you know, I can only judge based on what I've seen of people's content and what I know about them. But I think some of the manosphere guys feel really betrayed and for good reason. Like, I watched Andrew Schultz podcast, for one example. He's a guy that had Trump on. I ripped him at the time. He gave a very friendly interview to Trump. They challenged him a little bit, but it was really soft and almost fanboyish. And you listen to his podcast now, or Tim Dillon, who's another comedian who is for Trump. If you listen to them for long enough, it's like this, Maybe they're snowing me, but this feels real. I think that there is a category of people that genuinely were sick of all the foreign wars, thought that Trump was kind of an outsider who is not beholden to the military industrial complex, and that he wouldn't get us into as many stupid wars, and he didn't last time. Obviously, we can debate the margins of what that means, what he actually did and didn't do in the first term, but, like, you know, he didn't start, he didn't do anything like Iran in the first, in the first term. And so I think that some of those guys feel betrayed, and I think that we should engage with them on that level and, like, take their, take their flip at Good Faith. I think that they're partisan hacks, too. You know, I got, like, Tucker called Trump a demonic force in a private text message five years ago. Like, Tucker knew what he's signing up for. Okay? Like, Tucker wants power and influence. You know, anybody that's in kind of that Fox Newsmax type, you know, rah, rah, Republican Party world, you know, some of them maybe, you know, were just, it kind of doesn't even really matter what they thought Trump's foreign policy was going to be. They were going to be formed no matter what. You know what I mean? Like, they were, they just wanted Trump to win and come to lose because they're Team Jersey type guys. And so, you know, I get a little flustered when I see people sharing the Tucker stuff because I'm like, man, in the same interview where he's talking about how he feels bad about going along with Trump and how he feels betrayed, he's also talking, he's like, making fun of my colleagues, Katherine Rampel at the Bulwark and saying that, you know, she, oh, she was totally crazy to be in support of lawsuits to break up segregated country clubs. Like, she does this whole rant in support of segregated country clubs and this same podcast. And so it's like, I, I, I worry that people hear Tucker talking about this war and they think that he's an ally and he's not. And so I, I think he's a, he's a different case than some of the guys who aren't political experts, went along for the ride, got snowed, got conned, and, and, you know, now are rethinking it.
- [06:37]
David Pakman
Yeah, I think I generally agree with you about how we should be, like, talking to and dealing with with those folks. One of the things I've said is when we should welcome them reconsidering. And that's great. But I think, and I'm curious your view. I think it's important also to mention this was not unpredictable. And we know that because there were dozens or hundreds of us that were predicting that this was exactly what was going to happen. So I think that it's important both to say, hey, you're not like, shunned and blacklisted forever because you are now revisiting your views and saying, hey, I made a mistake. But also, let's not pretend that there was no possible way that anybody could have seen this coming, because there was.
- [07:17]
Tim Miller
Yeah, look, I think the way I think about this is, you know, if you have a friend or a cousin or an uncle or an aunt in your life who is mirroring the Tim Dillon, Andrew Schultz turnabout on this, you know, and they are the type of person that you fought with a couple of times on your group text or over a holiday, but, you know, whatever. But you still are, you know, it's somebody that you care about. Right. And you are on other side. What would you say to them right now? And maybe you'd say to them, you know, like, I had some points. I think it's important to consider that you're being. You're getting bad information from the media outlets you're following. You know, you think about how would you talk to them in a way that wouldn't make them say F to you. Right, right. You know, and different families are different, different personalities are different, but it's somebody that you care about. And you're not the type of family that, like, likes to yell at each other. There are certain families like that, but if you're not that, you wouldn't go to them. You know, you wouldn't go. Go to the next bar family barbecue and be like, eat shit, Uncle Chris. You know, like, told you dunked on you. You know, like, that wouldn't be productive. So I feel that way about this. Like, yeah, it's important to mention that part of the reason why these guys got snowed is because they bought a bill of goods from Donald Trump and the people around him and the big media influencers around him, including Tucker. And so they should be wary about that next time and they should think about who was telling them the truth and who wasn't. I think that's totally fair to say and to bring up and to bring up if, you know, we get invited on. I'm trying to go on those shows. And that's kind of what I would say to Their audience just, just like, you know, it's important to update your priors when you find out that somebody's been lying to you. And so hopefully that that is what happens in certain cases. We're seeing it in the polls, so I do think it's happening naturally.
- [09:10]
David Pakman
Who do you think is the most influential or are the most influential right wing commentators right now? And I know that I could just look up audience size, but I don't. I mean, more in like an agenda setting sense, the way that for a while, like Rush Limbaugh had this agenda setting power as to like, what are going to be the two or three things that this week or today are the things that we're talking about. Does that still exist on the right wing messaging machine or has it kind of become fractured?
- [09:34]
Tim Miller
It's really, it's become so fractured. I think that we're going to learn a lot in the next year to answer that question. Because, you know, I think that in the pre Trump era, you know, there were a bunch of people clamoring for different roles and different types of influence. You know, there's the more of the neocon set, the more of the let's moderate on things, more of the hard on immigration, you know, set. And obviously Trump won, kind of making the case that, you know, we should care about America first and crack down on immigration and et cetera. We all know what happened there. And then Trump became so popular, he kind of became a cult. Right. And so they're really like the only way to agenda set, so to speak, would be to influence Trump himself. And so in that way, who had influence, it was like the Fox hosts, because he watched Fox or the people that had his phone number. Right. Like those are the people that had. And that's been the case now for like nine years. You know, I mean, Tucker can claim that he has some agenda setting capabilities and et cetera, but frankly, time and again, up until basically Epstein and the war, the Republican base went along with whatever Trump wanted. And so there was no outside influence. You're starting to see that taper off now. And I think that it will be interesting to see kind of who emerges. Obviously, Tucker is trying to make a case for more of America First. Real, authentic, real communism has never been tried. Real America first has ever been tried. I'm going to do it the real way. You'll see Ben Shapiro is still, I think, waning a little bit in influence, but has a ton of influence with the White House. More of a traditional hawkish, you know, foreign policy side of things. And so I think that's kind of where this stuff is going to net out. And I don't think that you can understate still, like, the influence of Fox. I mean, like, Fox, it's an older audience, but, like, Fox still, you know, drives a lot of the conversation on the right. And the big anchors there still do
- [11:30]
David Pakman
the Bulwark. And I have a lot of overlap in terms of audience, which I think is interesting. Where do you, like, are. Are you a Republican? Are you on the right? Are you conservative at this point? Do you consider yourself center left? Like, where. Where do you see yourself kind of in this. In this atmosphere right now?
- [11:50]
Tim Miller
And I think it's different within the bulwark. Right. And like, you know, the funny thing about Never Trumpism, I'll answer the question, but just to give a little background, I. I used to joke about this. My colleague, Amanda Carpenter has since left the bulwark and she's working for Protect Democracy, which is an awesome organization. But me and Amanda were on opposite sides of every primary our whole lives growing up. Like, I always worked for the moderate candidate. She worked for the Tea Party candidate. Like, in short. Right. And so, you know, we had certain things we agreed about, obviously, but we were on different. Had different set of ideologies. And so when you started a Never Trumper outlet, like, they're gonna be. There's gonna be that, like, proliferation, like, among this original crew. Like, JBL is like, I think probably left most left. And like, Sarah and Mona are more, I think, still kind of see themselves as small c conservatives. Now we've added a bunch of people who aren't even really never Trumpers. They're just people that are experts in various areas. So, you know, I think it's different throughout the. The publication. Me personally, I've just kind of embraced the fact that I'm a liberal in the small l sense. Like, and. And that in a certain world, like, would have put me on the center right. And I think this, these days, kind of puts me on the center left. Right. And I think that the way that things have changed, especially conceived as you
- [13:03]
David Pakman
are not authoritarian and this current MAGA movement is extremely authoritarian and like small l liberal, quite literally places you opposed to that opposite.
- [13:13]
Tim Miller
Yeah. In direct opposition to them, you know.
- [13:14]
David Pakman
Yeah.
- [13:15]
Tim Miller
And so, yeah, I think whether that kind of means a belief in basic, fundamental American values, democracy, pluralism, you know, but all, you know, free speech, free trade. Right. Like, free trade was a Republican issue a while ago. You know, more open immigration policy. That was the Bush position. Right. So certain things have changed. You know, I've changed on some things. I've moved a little left on a few things. But, but, you know, in a lot of ways the way that the parties made up have changed. And you know, I kind of see us hopefully trying to carry that banner for small l liberalism. And when times when, when there are forces on the left that are trying to act in illiberal or lefty authoritarian fashion, like, we'll critique that. But I mean, obviously I think we're right now kind of just in a big tent fight against right wing authoritarianism. And, and then I think if that gets defeated, which it's looking better than it's looked in a long time, that it could be defeated. You know, we can kind of hash everything out after that.
- [14:16]
David Pakman
Speaking of left wing illiberalism, since you mentioned it, there have been a lot of interesting pieces lately about, you know, just opinions as to, to what degree should the more communistic, socialistic, we like the Venezuelan regime, Cuban regime, wing of the left should have in the broader left wing ecosystem. Some of the pieces center specifically around Hassan Piker, although some of them are more, more kind of broad in their thinking. Do you think that there's a decision here to be made by whoever as to like, what involvement should that wing of the left have in Democratic Party politics? Or do you think it's the sort of thing that's just going to be decided naturally by vot?
- [15:03]
Tim Miller
I think the part of this is going to be decided naturally by voters. I guess I'd say this. I think that the elites have less influence on all of this than they want to think. And I can tell you that from experience. And I worked on the Republican autopsy, which basically was saying that the Republican Party should be more traditionally liberal in the sense of appealing to different types of demographic groups and, you know, being more open on immigration and women's rights. So like, that was the advice that the elites of the Republican Party were giving to the party in 2012. And the voters put that in the toilet and, you know, wiped their ass with it and said, no, we want Donald Trump, we want authoritarianism. That could that happen on the left? Sure. I think there's a ton of differences between the makeup of the Democratic base and the Republican base. One's much more educated, you know, one's much more demographically diverse. So I don't think the same exact thing would happen. But like, in principle, the power in our system right now comes from the people that make up the party, not the party Elites, there are certain things they can do to shape it, but not as much as they think. And so if you accept that, my advice to party elites is to say, okay, well, rather than thinking about the Democratic base, as I should fight with the parts of the base I disagree with, because I think that's a losing battle, why not think about how do you engage with the parts of the base that I disagree with on some things, but find areas where we can find common ground and build trust together. And that is my argument about this Hasan Tiker and all the lefty socialist stuff. I think Hasan's crazy when he's talking about the USSR in China. Like crazy. And if Hasan ran for president, I would be against him. He would not be my choice for president. But his audience has a lot of legitimate grievances about the way that the US has managed foreign policy and the way that the US leadership has succumbed to corporate elites and not been responsive to, you know, concerns about the rising costs of health care. And for me, if I. My advice to Democratic elites is to like, engage with that. You know, if you're a center left Democratic elite, let's say engage with that part of the base and say, hey, I hear you. I also don't think we should be in stupid wars. I also think that we should go after the tech billionaires, you know, who are hurting the economy. I also think that we need to change the healthcare system to make it, you know, more affordable, give you an option, a public option, whatever your position is. Right. That's how I, I sort of, I think, would be smart politics. And I think that, you know, rather than, you know, doing the finger wagging, you have a bad position on whatever, on China, it's kind of like, okay, well that's just going to make them not trust you. That's going to, I think, hurt you, lose your power.
- [17:41]
David Pakman
It seems at least potentially that the idea of a focus on anti corruption and anti cronyism not only work to pull over some disaffected MAGA types in upcoming elections, but maybe there would also be some appeal to this further left that sometimes dabbles in supporting some authoritarian regimes. I don't know. I'm just thinking out loud.
- [18:03]
Tim Miller
Well, sure. Or just to be able to name who you're, who you think you want to fight, you know, who is the enemy. Right. And if, if you're making the case to people that Trump said he was going to drain the swamp, this has been the most corrupt administration ever. And so I want to root out the Trump corruption, but I also want to root out the corruption of all the other people that have undue influence on our politics. Like, look at how much money AI it is crazy. You just look at the amount the people that are spending big money in primaries right now. It really is. It's pro Israel, pro AI, pro crypto. And I don't know, I think that you could have a pretty compelling message to some disaffected magas and to some disaffected left people that just says, you know, we are not going to hand our government over to the tech billionaires and like, you know, and also if you want to throw in the foreign Arab states that are trying to buy off our politicians, like, we are not going to sell our government to the big tech billionaires and to Israel and UAE and Saudi, and I'm going to fight it and we're going to put new rules in place to prevent them from influencing our government. And I care about that. I'm not just going to, like, say it one time or put out a statement like, I'm going to talk about this. Like, this is a pernicious force in our government and we need to root it out. Okay. You know the details on that. Some people are like, more about some stuff than others, but I think just as a big message. Yeah, I think that feels like that should appeal to people.
- [19:33]
David Pakman
Last thing I want to ask you about, in thinking about the Republican primary for 28, you know, one of the question marks around this is that Trump seems increasingly lacking confidence in his ability to decide, is it Vance or Rubio that I want to push? That's a separate question from whether he will be so diminished in power by the time that decision comes that no one will care what Trump's opinion is on whether it should be Vance or Ruby Rubio or somebody else. Do you have any insights for us from inside in speaking to your former colleagues, maybe as we might refer to them, of the way that the people not in Trump's inner circle are things thinking about how that next Republican primary is going to be influenced.
- [20:14]
Tim Miller
Yeah, I mean, I think that a lot of them are in uncharted waters on this. I really. Trump has changed, like, the way that Republican primary politics worked from my first job as an early teen in the 2000s as an Internet through 2014 was basically the same. You know, like, there are establishment guys, there are Tea Party guys. Like you said, there's radio, there's Fox. And like, you tried to influence and you tried to get a plurality. Right. And then Trump came through Kool Aid man through the wall. And it's like for the past 10 years, the only way to succeed Republican Party was to be the Trumpiest person. You know, even people that didn't like Trump privately would pretend like they would in their TV ads. Right? And that's how you gain power in the party. So now they're all looking around and saying, okay, well, he's a lame duck. You know, maybe he leaves. Hopefully he leaves, maybe he endorses somebody, but is he popular enough for that to carry the same weight? And I think that a lot, some people will make the bet that it's like, you know, I'm going to stick with Trump until that bet doesn't work. And that's not a crazy bet. You know, past results is the best predictor of future or, you know, past actions best predictor of future results. And so I think a lot of people do that. But I think my opinion is that I think that there will be a lane for somebody. This wouldn't be my cup of tea in particular, but that somebody that says, you know, Trump was onto some stuff but he got too co opted by the interest groups in D.C. and I don't think this is true, by the way, but I'm just saying that to Republican voters, I think this is going to be a compelling message of change. That's just like there was a lot of stuff he did that was good. He got co opted by these bad forces. I am a true independent force. I learned lessons. I watched this for the last 12 years, you know, and I saw the ways in which Trump, you know, went along with whoever the boogeyman is, Rubio or Elon or you know, whoever they decide is right boogeyman. And I, and I am going to, you know, offer a different type of America first, different type of maga. To me, that is the only way to dislodge him. I think that somebody going back and saying, I'm going to do Nikki Haley Republicanism again, it's just not going to work. Like a big part of the reason is a big part of the people that like to Nikki Haley Republican aren't Republicans anymore. Going back to the Bulwark Coalition, like a lot of those people at this point are so grossed out by the Republicans that people that used to vote In Republican primaries 10 years ago, they're going to be happy to vote for Pete or Wes Moore or whoever ends up being kind of that lane in the Democratic primary. They're not going to vote in the Republican primary. And so there's no base for that type of politics. So I just think that, like, what Marjorie Taylor Greene and Tucker are doing are a little bit extreme versions of this, but maybe, like, a little softer version of that, I think could work.
- [23:07]
David Pakman
Would you ever run for something?
- [23:12]
Tim Miller
My text messages aren't great, David, and we've been talking a lot. I talk a lot. I mean, I don't know. Somebody clipped me out of context the other day, some MAGA guy. I got a question from a viewer that was like, would you kiss Corey Lewandowski if it meant that Kamala was president? And I was like, I would do unspeakable things to Corey Lewandowski if they clipped it in such a way that it made it look kind of like a threat. Anyway, I just. You know, I've got a long tracker, so I don't think so. You never say never in life. I'm really happy living here in New Orleans. Maybe I get bored with podcasting and I decide I want to do something down in New Orleans. I could see that in my future, but, no, I'm not. What about you? Why don't you run? You're. You're an actual. You. Actually, it's not. You should do it. It's not.
- [23:55]
David Pakman
It's not really interesting to me. Too much. Too much oversight. Too many people controlling my time. You know, I. I like my fle and doing what I want to do.
- [24:04]
Tim Miller
Yeah. Think about it. Life is short.
- [24:08]
David Pakman
I guess no one ever knows.
- [24:10]
Tim Miller
Are you a citizen? Wait, wait. Where were you born? Were you born?
- [24:12]
David Pakman
I can never be president because I was naturalized.
- [24:15]
Tim Miller
You're naturalized? So you could run for. You could be Zoran. You could run for mayor.
- [24:20]
David Pakman
Who knows? Mayor of New York, maybe. That's the. That's the way to go. All right, listen for my audience who's watching. Make sure you're following, and subscribe to the Bulwark Unsubstack. They're killing for the Bulwarks audience. If you don't have a total rejection of me, I would be flattered for you to subscribe to my substack as well. Tim, always good to talk to you. We'll do it again. And keep up the good work.
- [24:42]
Tim Miller
Later, David. We'll see you, brother.
- [24:43]
David Pakman
Take care. Bye.
- [24:44]
Angie Hicks
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Tim Miller
Spin Quest is a free to play social casino void where prohibited. Visit spinquest.com for more details.
- [25:47]
James (No Such Thing As A Fish)
Hi there we are. James and Dan two thoughts of the hit UK podcast that's no Such Thing as a Fish.
- [25:53]
Dan (No Such Thing As A Fish)
Each week we get around the microphones with our four favorite facts that we've learned over the last seven days and sit down to blow each other's mind.
- [25:59]
James (No Such Thing As A Fish)
Yeah, here's a fact for you, Dan. Yep, in knot theory, a circle of rope without a knot is technically a knot, but it's called a knot knot.
- [26:08]
Tim Miller
Very good.
- [26:09]
Dan (No Such Thing As A Fish)
I go on here as well. In 2019, a marathon runner with the words Jesus Saves written on his bib had a heart attack but was revived by a man called Jesus.
- [26:17]
James (No Such Thing As A Fish)
That is amazing. If you want to hear more facts like that, search for no such thing as a Fish wherever you get your podcasts.