← Bulwark Takes
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- [00:00]
Tim Miller
Hey, everybody. Tim Mo from the Bulwark here with Congressman Jared Moskowitz of Florida, who's apparently posting on Twitter instead of coming into this, this, this YouTube show. What's happening?
- [00:12]
Jared Moskowitz
I was late. I had to get that tweet out.
- [00:13]
Tim Miller
What were you tweeting about? Tell me.
- [00:15]
Jared Moskowitz
I may have made a Dr. Seuss kind of verse with Chat GPT on how Mike Johnson is running away.
- [00:22]
Tim Miller
Oh, a doctor. A Mike Johnson themed Dr. Seuss book. Well, that's something that I wouldn't read to my child, but I could read myself.
- [00:28]
Jared Moskowitz
This is adult Seuss. This is adult Seuss.
- [00:30]
Tim Miller
Adult seuss. Okay. Over 18, hopefully, in the Epstein case. What, what I want to chat with you about. And it feels like the House has actually made some progress. There's been a lot of frustration by everybody. And you and I have talked about it. Just like, what is the right way to kind of combat what Republicans are doing in this moment? It turns out maybe trying to get them to live up to their comments on Epstein is the way to do it. I, Mike Johnson has shut down the House now potentially till September. What's the latest on that and the kind of tactics you guys have been using?
- [01:00]
Jared Moskowitz
Well, Tim, let's go backwards for a second. Sure. Right. Like, how did we get here? Right. So, you know, during the entire election, President Trump talked about the Epstein files. He said Bill Clinton was on it. This goes back actually to the first Trump presidency. Right. In which. In which he said Clinton's got big problems. He was on the plane and the island. Right. And all of that. So this goes back, you know, eight years lead up to this administration. Right. He's got Dan Bongino, Cash Patel, which he puts into the FBI to these guys made a career on releasing the Epstein files to take on the powerful. Right. We get into the administration. Pam Bondi is Attorney General. Let's not forget she was Attorney General in Florida during Epstein. Right. And had worked on, you know, had people working on that sweetheart deal that he got. So he's got his full Epstein crew at doj, Bongino, Patel and Bondi, Right. You know, he's all, all the A listers. And what does Bonnie do? Within, like her first couple weeks, she creates empty white binders. Phase one, like it's a Marvel movie. Phase one, right. We're going to get to the six phases of all of this. In, in the binders, nothing, nothing new. Everything that's already public. She promises more. Then what do we get up? The list is on my desk. I just have to finish Reading it, vetting it, and then it's coming out. And then we get a letter quietly, very quiet, posted on there. Oh, there's no list. Not only is there no list, there's nothing more to see. This now spins up maga, who has bought into this conspiracy theory that they were told that we were going to finally get to the big and powerful, along with, you know, a dozen other conspiracy, Conspiracy theories we can't even keep up with. Right? It was, we're going to release the Epstein files, we're going to find out if there's aliens, and, you know, I'm having dinner with Hannibal Lecter. That literally was the top three, three things that the President talked about in these rallies. And now MAGA is furious because now it looks like, guess what? Cover up, deep state, all the stuff that they've been fed for years. And then Trump's reaction now enters in the don, right? His reaction to all this is baffling overreaction. Calling his own people stupid and that they bought into a Democratic lie and they're doing the Democrats bidding. Okay, he's just overreaction. You know, there's nothing to see here. Move on. Why are you so interested? They were the ones telling everyone to be interested. And then we get the old playbook, right? We get distraction. We should deport Rosie o'. Donnell. He loves that one. Yeah, right. I'm surprised here. I'm surprised she's still here, quite frankly.
- [03:39]
Tim Miller
Yeah.
- [03:40]
Jared Moskowitz
He's deported her like 12 times. Right? They tried Hillary's emails. People didn't bite on that. They're like, that's so several years ago. So now we're back to Obama.
- [03:50]
Tim Miller
We're arresting him any minute now, Right?
- [03:52]
Jared Moskowitz
This is Obama's fault, Right? Because now we, we found, we found the smoking gun that Obama created. You know, the files, along with Joe Sleepy Joe Biden in the basement. And Obama also created Russiagate. I mean, they are throwing everything at this. And I feel bad at the same time. I mean, it got so bad that they finally released health information on the President. He was the healthiest guy of all time in the history of health documents. And then they were like, this Epstein stuff is bad. What do we do? Tell everyone he's got a minor vein issue.
- [04:26]
Tim Miller
Yeah, it's got a little veins. I was. I'm with you on the whole story. There's just one little thing I want to pick out. And then I want to come back to the Democratic strategy on the Hill again, though. But just about the actual facts of what happened. Use the word Conspiracy A couple of times kind of. And you know, lumped it in with aliens. Is it a conspiracy though? Like isn't, isn't, hasn't there been associates of Epstein that have been protected?
- [04:50]
Jared Moskowitz
Like isn't that a true thing? Is not the Epstein thing is not a conspiracy. Obviously you got Maxwell, who is in jail, deserves to be here, be there. The, the things that she did are actual crimes. No, the conspiracy they were told, right. Is that, that the only people on the list were Democrats.
- [05:07]
Tim Miller
Right.
- [05:07]
Jared Moskowitz
Got it right. That it was Democrats that were on this. It was the Clintons. Right. It was going to be Bill Gates.
- [05:12]
Tim Miller
It was basement of the pizza parlor.
- [05:14]
Jared Moskowitz
Yeah, right. The pizza parlor was all these liberal people. It never dawned on anyone that, oh, there might be some very powerful Republicans and maybe the most powerful. Even though of course there's ton of video evidence and photo evidence and interviews that they spent a lot of time together.
- [05:29]
Tim Miller
Because it seems to me, and so I'm interested in your thought on this from your oversight experience. Seems to me like there's a cover up if you believe what is in the Dick Durbin letter that was written, that they actually did have FBI agents going through the Epstein files and that they were flagging anytime Trump was mentioned in there. It seems likely to me they have like a file with Trump.
- [05:50]
Jared Moskowitz
Think about that. Right? That just sounds like logical for these folks.
- [05:55]
Tim Miller
Right.
- [05:56]
Jared Moskowitz
Dan Mangino, who I don't think we've heard from, is he okay? Like we haven't heard from him in weeks.
- [06:01]
Tim Miller
We had a picture of him with a newspaper with the date.
- [06:04]
Jared Moskowitz
They're, they're going through this and like every day they're like, shit. Page 11, page 19, 25, page 29. And look, I'm not saying he was on the island, I'm not saying he did anything wrong. We don't know. Right. But clearly the reaction to this necessitates more questions, more concerns and it, you know, as they always say, it's not the crime, it's the COVID up. In this instance, it's definitely both. And so, yeah, look, this seems to be that they are keeping this quiet as much as they can. And now the late breaking news of today is, oh, DOJ has been talking to Ms. Maxwell who has been begging for a pardon. And now, you know, they're going to work, they're working it out. You know, she's going to reveal the truth. Right. And now we get into the truth is we'll give you a pardon if you say Donald Trump never knew Jeffrey Epstein.
- [06:56]
Tim Miller
Yeah, right. So you know, just imagining you get the, that oversight gavel. Let's say the Democrats win next time. You have experience on the committee, like, what? And where are you going with this? Like, to me it's straight to Patel and Bongino and like, what were these agents doing? And can we see the documents that they reviewed? But I don't know, maybe that's wrong. I don't know. Like, what would be a worthwhile use of resources, do you think, in the future.
- [07:19]
Jared Moskowitz
Yeah, Democrats challenge getting the oversight gavel. Will, will be. Not to be, you know, squirrels. And by that I mean they can't do 20 things, right? I mean, there's so much to do over.
- [07:30]
Tim Miller
So would this be one of the things? That's a legit question. Would this be one of the things?
- [07:33]
Jared Moskowitz
Listen, I don't know if it would have been one of the things, but at this juncture, Tim, I think it has to be one of the things because the responses and the moves that they have made since they took office have, have, have not made any sense other than they found stuff. Right. That they can't let get out. I mean, maybe there isn't a list, but there's gotta be names. Who are the names?
- [07:59]
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- [09:40]
Tim Miller
Fair enough. Real quick, we had Mike Johnson. So as I mentioned at the top. So they're shutting down the House apparently, I think in large part due to the tactics. He has a quote out today, Mike Johnson, we have an equal moral responsibility to protect the innocent. I guess that's only if Donald Trump's the innocent. It's not, you know, I don't remember him talking about the moral responsibility to protect the innocent that we rounded up in immigration roundups. But what do you make of what Mike Johnson's been doing?
- [10:05]
Jared Moskowitz
Should always protect the victims of what happened here. Right. Who were victims of crime.
- [10:10]
Tim Miller
Yeah, the victims, not the innocent who are accused.
- [10:13]
Jared Moskowitz
Yeah, right. Of course not. Okay, well, they never thought it was innocent. Every time they said Bill Clinton was on the plane.
- [10:19]
Tim Miller
Yeah, right.
- [10:19]
Jared Moskowitz
That was, he wasn't innocent just by being on a plane. And so, you know, of course the rules are always different. Right. When it comes it comes to them. But look, Marjorie Taylor Greene's not having it anymore. Right? They've lost Marjorie Taylor Greene. She said, stop dangling the red meat and give us the red meat. You know, you know, Matt Walsh is out there talking about they, you know, Barack Obama needs to be in handcuffs, otherwise what Tulsi Gabbard put out is a lie. And so MAGA has finally said and is saying put up or shut up. Right. Either do the things you said you're going to do or stop dangling this stuff in front of us. It really is one of the first schisms. Who knew protecting a pedophile. Right. Would, would be the line too far for some Republicans, as you know, not too far for other Republicans. Some Republicans are like, let's move on. We got the big beautiful bill. But, but apparently some in MAGA are holding firm. And so, yeah, they want to get to the six week break as fast as possible. That's clearly the strategy. Mike Johnson running away because he doesn't want to have a vote on the floor. He doesn't want to have more motions in committee. I mean, again, what do they have to hide? What is it that they're hiding? They're definitely not protecting Joe Biden.
- [11:29]
Tim Miller
Yeah, no, they're not. Okay. Last thing you got to run to get votes. But you have expertise in emergency management. After watching what happened in Texas. I live down here on the Gulf coast in New Orleans. I'm a little nervous about the FEMA changes and, you know, some of the cuts and their plans. The fact the new FEMA had didn't know about hurricane season. Apparently, like, you know this stuff better than I do. But what is the thing you're worried about the most? Like, you know, what, what, you know, what kind of oversight do you think is needed on these guys with regards to FEMA and emergency management?
- [11:59]
Jared Moskowitz
Yeah, the FEMA head didn't know about hurricane season. Can you imagine the briefing when they told him about the five categories? Yeah, listen, FEMA is in worse shape than we know and we're being told. And I actually think the White House is finding out how bad a shape it's in. And that's all because of Christy Noem. Kristi Noem didn't do reform. She did deletion. And the emergency management industry has known that FEMA has needed reform. I have a number of reform bills taking FEMA out of Homeland. I have that, you know, in a bipartisan bill with Byron Donalds filed that three years in a row. There's other reforms, the different programs, but Homeland has been disabusing FEMA for a long period of time, making them do all of the grant writing for the 22 other agencies in there. But Noam came in, she got rid of 20% of the personnel, the experts, the people with experience. Then they forced buyouts of other folks who got regional offices that are 20, 30% empty. She then held on to $10 billion of previously declared presidential declarations. Money for reimbursements. Right. That money can't get down to cities and counties. So that means they don't have a capital if they, as they go into the next hurricane season, she created a rule that said anything over $100,000 had to come to her. Does that make FEMA more efficient? Did that make FEMA faster? I thought we were trying to make FEMA faster. No, that made everything slower, has slowed down response. And that's what happened, unfortunately, in Texas. First of all, what happened in Texas is one of the worst flooding disasters I've ever seen. Being in the emergency management industry, obviously all those innocent kids that were killed, it breaks your heart. It's just, it's unimaginable. I saw what it was like in Marjory Stoneman Douglas, watching all those parents bury their kids when they sent them to school here. These parents sent their kids to summer camp and they're not coming home, Tim. I can't even fathom what those families are going through. But People depend on their first responders and government response when disasters happen. And there needs to be an after action review. It's why I called for an investigation to figure out what worked and what didn't work. You do that after every disaster. The idea that the secretary says this is the fastest response in the history of response is bullshit. This was the slowest response from FEMA since Katrina and that was solely with the secretary. The idea that she didn't put the federal search and rescue teams on the road for 72 hours is ridiculous. It is a violation of protocol. FEMA would usually move these search and rescue teams without even talking to the emergency management director. They would just pre position them, get them ready. These guys should have been in the water within 24 hours, not 72. At 72, it's a recovery mission. It's not search and rescue. And so that needs to be investigated. If the Biden administration did that, my Republican friends would be saying it was criminal and that people died because of what the Biden administration did. Look, it's tough to make that analysis and I'm not going to do that because I don't want to. I'm not getting involved with what happened to the, to the families. But government did fail those families. Government did not respond the way it should have responded at, at the federal level. And so FEMA is not ready for hurricane season. We don't know if they're going to do pre landfall declarations, which helps you pre position assets and equipment before a hurricane comes. We've seen them really slow with the other declarations, even in Arkansas, right where the governor there worked in the previous Trump administration. Took her two weeks to get her declaration. So, yeah, look, I'm really worried about it and the only thing I can pray for is that we don't get a bad hurricane this season because FEMA is not ready.
- [15:27]
Tim Miller
Wolf, that's bleak. All right, Congressman Jared Moskowitz, thank you so much for your time today. We'll be talking to you again soon, brother.
- [15:33]
Jared Moskowitz
Thanks, Tim.