← Bulwark Takes
Bulwark Takes
Tim and Katie Spill on 2028 Rumors, Trump’s Boring Wedding, and Fighting for Democracy
00:21:59
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- [00:00]
Katie Couric
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- [00:32]
Tim Miller
Thank you.
- [00:33]
Katie Couric
And I'm a subscriber. Tell me about the interview with Adam Kensinger. I was saying that he's really been going off lately. I mean, in a way that's like.
- [00:42]
Tim Miller
Adam, my goodness, dude is unleashed. I love it. I want more unleashed politicians and ex politicians.
- [00:49]
Katie Couric
I interviewed him not long ago, Tim, and asked him about whether he was going to run for president. And he was super, actually honest with me and said, you know, I'm considering it. Right. You guys didn't. Adam, you know, usually people are so cagey when you ask them questions like that. And Adam Kinziger was really very like straight up saying, you know, something I'm going to consider, which I think is, I think this Rahm Emanuel thing is so weird. What do you think?
- [01:17]
Tim Miller
It's funny. So I'll tell you a little secret since we're on your first subsect live. I, I like tried so hard to recruit Adam Kinzinger to primary Donald Trump in 2020. And he really thought about it and it was a hopeless endeavor. And so it's not really great when you're pitching somebody on an idea and you're like, hey, I've got an idea. I think you should do this. It's definitely going to fail, but I think that there might be some long term benefits to it. And he really thought about it, so I'm not surprised that he's still thinking about it. I'll ask about that tonight. I'll tell him we talked. The ROM thing I also think is kind of strange, but we'll see. I spoke to him once in the last couple months on the phone briefly. I'm hoping to get him on the podcast soon. And look, I think the Democrats, look, I used to be Katie, you know, this is, I'm maybe getting, getting crossways with some of my Bulwark colleagues like Sarah Longwell and others. The Bulwark is a place that we love norms and I loved Poppy Bush, you know, and I loved Reagan and Tip meeting together, you know, like, we're a place that, like, we appreciate all that. And I was hoping for a while that we could beat Trump and go back to that where we disagreed on, you know, with comedy, comedy and comedy, but comedy. And we were, you know, and the rhetoric, you know, returned. And I just think it's over. I think once Trump's been around for a decade, I think that the coarsening of the politics is permanent. You know, I was with a guy last night who, I was with some younger folks who went to Uchicago here and like, they don't even remember before Trump. And so when they hear politicians talking in normal old school politician voice, it feels weird to them. And so I think if somebody like Rahm wants to throw his hat in and just be a bomb thrower and maybe that will land, I think that we should be much more open to like what might possibly be a different path forward.
- [03:17]
Katie Couric
No, I think you're right. I think you're right. I think like, the culture has changed and I think there's no turning back and it's really hard not to get sucked into the coarsening of the. I mean, I can't believe some of the things people write and comments people make. And I was in a really shitty mood yesterday and somebody reposted my bitching about $1.8 billion being taken away from NIH and how it was going to affect cancer and clinical trials. And some person said, you know, she's not a scientist. What does she know? You know, she doesn't. And anyway, normally I don't do this, but I was like, I wanted to be like, hey, bitch. But I just said, hey, I can say that on substack, right? I was like, hey. I was like, hey, hi, I'm. Hi, Susie, or whatever her name was. No, I'm not a scientist, but I actually started an organization that raised $800 million for cancer research that actually led to the approval of nine new FDA approved cancer fighting drugs. Your move. I become such a bitch.
- [04:26]
Tim Miller
But I don't feel like I'm in an alternate universe, am I? I feel like I'm in a. Like this cannot be my life. I'm just sitting here and Katie Couric's calling somebody a bitch in front of me on Live Substack. I don't, I don't know how. This is my life.
- [04:39]
Katie Couric
It can get even worse. Just stick around. Tim.
- [04:42]
Tim Miller
You know how I mentioned earlier that we, the Democrats, should be open to creative new ideas and paths, maybe cussing Katie Couric 2028. I just think that's something to consider. I'm not going to press you on it. The whether you're going to rule that out. I don't. I. So I peed on the pod yesterday. He is too articulate. Is that possible?
- [05:05]
Katie Couric
Is it hard to be president? What does he come to?
- [05:08]
Tim Miller
Well, he talks at a graduate level and so I don't know, maybe he can prove me wrong. He's proven me wrong before. He's proven a lot of people wrong. I thought he did really well on that flagrant podcast. But, you know, the Democrats big challenge is how do they reach people that don't tune in, people that are tuned out, that like, if you just look at the numbers, if you're a daily reader of the news, Kamala Harris got like 60 some percent of the vote, you know, and the inverse if you're not. If you're checked out. So the Democrats got to figure out how do you reach people that, you know, get their news passively through TikTok and social and, you know, people that are. Yeah. And people that don't like the status quo and how things have been going. How do you sell yourself to that group if you, you know, kind of are just the golden boy of the meritocracy who is in the last administration. Maybe he can do it. I hope. I hope he could do it. And I think to me that's a bigger challenge than the gay stuff. I think that you could get over the gay. I think people could get over the gay stuff. I don't. The other thing I'm not as sure about.
- [06:11]
Katie Couric
I hope so. I hope they could. And I bet if. I mean, Pete's so smart, I think he could learn to talk in a more sort of direct, simplistic way. I mean, I so appreciate how eloquent he is when he's answering a question. That was really the case with Hillary Clinton. You know, she. You could, you know, you'd ask her a question and I just loved hearing what would come out in terms of the way she would express the things. She would cite the historical references. But I bet Pete is trainable to be less smart. How pathetic is that?
- [06:51]
Tim Miller
Yeah, well, maybe just a monthly appearance with me might help with my safety school vocabulary. I don't know. Yeah, we'll see. We'll see.
- [07:01]
Katie Couric
Anyway, so what else have you been thinking about? I mean, what do you think about what's going on at Harvard right now? I'm so proud of the president of Harvard for saying basically everyone needs to stand together and stay firm. Obviously a lot of schools Aren't. But I mean, it's really like Trump got rejected or put on the waiting list at Harvard and he's really still very pissed off about it and he's seeking his revenge.
- [07:30]
Tim Miller
Yeah, Trump's good at picking foes. Right. Like, that's one thing he's good at. Harvard is not, you know, doesn't engender a lot of sympathy with the masses. Right. And so I think that that's part of what he's doing and part of it is just. Yeah, his bitterness at whatever. Being an outer borough person, you know, and. Which is silly. You think that hole in his stomach would be filled after being elected president two times?
- [07:55]
Katie Couric
No, but that's the thing about narcissists. You know, I dated one once and so I read a lot of books about that. And, and I think what people misunderstand about narcissists is, is they are so empty inside. And like you were saying, that hole, I think people, everything, the self aggrandizement is actually compensating for this deep, unfillable hole that they'll always have, no matter what. So, you know, Trump bragging at West Point about building up the military, the best, wonderful military. And by the way, what was with that total thing where he's talking about a trophy wife at the West Point graduation? It was so crazy. But I just think that I don't feel sorry for him because he's a narcissist, but I'm just saying it's really almost tragic. I know. I don't feel sorry for narcissists. Don't worry you guys. But I do feel like sometimes they're misunderstood. Is that fair?
- [08:59]
Tim Miller
Yeah, maybe. And I think that that is like, certainly the megalomanial side of this, where he is. I mean, it's just the uttermost extreme. So I don't know, the Harvard thing, the thing that bugs me the most about it and the thing that has. I look, I found Trump completely unappealing from day one. And so. So there's almost kind of a non ideological personal reason for my defection for the Republican Party. But like at the core, the ideological thing that is at the core of it, that what, that like what sent me away from the party was I like, I really bought in to the Reagan shining city, city on the hill thing. Sometimes I tell progressives this and they like roll their eyes at me and they're like, really, Tim? Like you bought all that bs? But I like bought it. Like I was a kid and I was like, I thought America was Great. And I wanted everybody to be able to come here and have a chance and have an opportunity to succeed. And that this was our story was unique about us. Like, I really, at my core, that was the animating thing that got me interested in politics. And the fact that. That he is so hostile to that, you know, at every level, that it's like, all about, oh, that idea that we need. It's all. He's all like, we need to get ours. We shouldn't have these foreigners come into Harvard. We've got to ban the foreigners from Harvard. You know, like, we want more Americans to be able to get to Harvard. I just like that that stuff pisses me off so much. So I'm happy Harvard's standing up.
- [10:28]
Katie Couric
If you dig a little deeper on the policies of Reagan, you know, the stuff that he did, I mean, you probably weren't super jazzed about those things, right?
- [10:41]
Tim Miller
I don't know. That's a good question. I think it was a mixed bag. I mean, beating the commies was pretty good, but HIV stuff, not very good. You know, there are some toots and boots for Reagan, probably.
- [10:54]
Katie Couric
Yeah. Union busting. I mean, I guess we could have a conversation about that with air traffic controllers and kind of what happened after that. But I wanted to read you something funny. November 14, 2016. Dear President elect Trump. So I went to his wedding, everybody, when he married Melania. And I knew him because I was on NBC doing the Today show when he did the Apprentice. So he was always coming to the Today show to Hawkins, you know, the Apprentice.
- [11:26]
Tim Miller
Can we just. Before you read the letter, can we just pause on the wedding for one second? I'm sorry. I'm a post now, too. So, like, we're both. It's two hosts talking. What's it like to go to those kind of weddings where it's like, the people there aren't, like, real friends from, like, you know, and it's just all, like, famous people and everybody's hanging, like, what's up? What's the vibe like at those kind of weddings? I find that such a strange culture.
- [11:49]
Katie Couric
Okay. Well, I mean, it's kind of a crazy story. First of all, my date was Matt Lauer, so we could start with. And Matt and I live because we're both anchoring the Today show and Donald Trump was on NBC and, you know, he only invited me because I'm on the Today Show. I have no illusions that, you know, that he liked me as a person. You know, I think he tolerated me, honestly. It was the wedding itself, and the church was pretty. Melania looked beautiful. There were a lot of famous people. Like, I think Barbara Walters was there. Hillary Clinton was there. And. But afterwards, the reception was at Mar a Lago. And this is. I feel bad saying this. Bad slash, not that bad. It was really boring. It was really.
- [12:38]
Tim Miller
Was there love there? I don't know. It felt like. Did you feel like you were on a TV set? I don't know. I'm like, imagining myself there. I'm like, this is so strange.
- [12:46]
Katie Couric
Yeah. I remember walking around the pool and it was just boring.
- [12:50]
Tim Miller
Yeah.
- [12:50]
Katie Couric
Okay.
- [12:51]
Tim Miller
Well, it's a third wedding and it's not. Any real friends there?
- [12:55]
Katie Couric
Patricia Lexington.
- [12:56]
Tim Miller
He doesn't have friends.
- [12:57]
Katie Couric
Nobody cares about Melania. According to Patricia West. Who's writing this?
- [13:01]
Tim Miller
Whatever.
- [13:02]
Katie Couric
Yeah.
- [13:02]
Tim Miller
Let's hear the letter.
- [13:03]
Katie Couric
I wanted to adult you, Tim, so thank you. Okay, so here's my letter to Trump in 2016, November 14, handwritten. And for whatever reason, I made a Xerox copy of it. It's great handwriting, stuff like that, because I'm super disorganized, but here we go. I'm actually going to vomit reading this, so please forgive me. Dear President Elect Trump, congratulations on your historic and unprecedented victory. What an extraordinary achievement. I wanted to wish you the best of luck as you face the awesome responsibility of leading our country. There are huge, deep divisions, to be sure. I hope you will be able to start the healing process. Lol. I added that and that many Americans will see many of the positive qualities I've witnessed for many years. I've said many, three times in that sentence. Please let me know if I can be helpful in communicating your goals and ambitions in the coming months. I know you're more of a traditional news consumer, but there are million, but tens of millions. Come to Yahoo. This when I was at Yahoo regularly, and many are your supporters in the heartland. Again, congratulations and best of luck.
- [14:14]
Tim Miller
Katie. Well, Katie Couric, 2028 is over before it started. There you go. The Democratic primary campaign. I think that clip will be arrogant ads run by your opponents. That's rough. My letter that I wrote, so I didn't know Donald, thank God. I did know Reince, who is his chief of staff. He was my boss at the rnc. And me and Reince obviously had a pretty big falling out during the campaign over my anti Trump advocacy. And so we hadn't talked in a little while, but, like, we used to talk a lot. Rents would ask me for my advice on stuff, and I just sent him a much shorter note than yours. That was like, that also had a nice thing at the start. It was like, reince, congrats, good luck. Then I just said, the most important thing that you're going to have to say over the next few years is no, and I hope you're able to say no when it's needed. And he did not reply to me, and I don't think he ever said no. So he didn't take my advice.
- [15:14]
Katie Couric
But wasn't he pushed out, Tim?
- [15:16]
Tim Miller
He was eventually pushed out, yeah. But it was mostly just because it was in that very first few months. The Trump thing was less about rights, trying to put barriers on him. That was more of his problem with John Kelly. It was more just. It was insane because all those people had gotten in and they were all knifing each other because it wasn't like a traditional White House, right, where there was somebody that was expected to have every job. There's like the Bannon Group and the Jivanka side and the, you know, then there were the traditional Republicans and they were all knifing each other in the press. And so I think Reince got kicked out mostly because he couldn't control the staff from like trash talking each other constantly.
- [15:53]
Katie Couric
And what, what is Reince doing today?
- [15:55]
Tim Miller
That's a great question. He does. He has some appearances on Fox from time to time, I notice, and he's lobbying. He's probably making bank. The swamp is thriving in Trump. It's one of the great misnomers, these guys. It's unbelievable how much money they're making. I just saw.
- [16:12]
Katie Couric
It's disgusting, Tim, and I don't get it. How can the Trump family enrich itself to the tune of $3 billion? How can he take this, these trips to the Mid east and you know what, build all these hotels and obviously the plane from Qatar. Qatar, now it's fashionable to call it Qatar, but when I was there, I called it Qatar, Qatar, which sounds very unsophisticated, said Qatar. But anyway, how are they able to do this? And how are they able to be so fucking corrupt? Sorry, you guys.
- [16:47]
Tim Miller
I love it. Once in a while, they made Jimmy Carter sell his peanut farm. The whole thing is just truly unimaginable. It's because, look, we had this. This is kind of what I was talking about at the start. And, and the bulwark. We do appreciate all these things, but I think it's important to kind of live in reality, which is we had a bunch of things that I think we thought were like laws that were really kind of norms, right, that were really just like shouldn't do's, you know, like. And that was true. And Trump broke all of them. He's just like, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna follow this. I'm not gonna show you my tax returns. You know, it goes back to day one. And I'm not, you know, is there a law that says my kid can't build a golf course resort in a, you know, petro fascist Islamic republic? No, there isn't. So I'm going to do that. Is there a law that says I can't start a fake coin and have people pay me millions of dollars to get my weird bitcoin offshoot? No, there's no law against that, apparently. And by the way, there's no law.
- [17:47]
Katie Couric
Against Melania having her own bitcoin and the whole family, as somebody wrote, yes, it's billion dollars a month richer. It's so insane. I think that's such a good.
- [17:59]
Tim Miller
We have to hold them accountable. That's the thing. We'd have to do it. The people had to do it. And so far they're falling short.
- [18:06]
Katie Couric
Right. Well, what, what, what? You know, the most often asked question I get when I do interviews, Tim, is what can we do? And you know, I never quite know the answer to it because people feel so powerless. Journalism and, you know, some journalists are really holding them accountable. But then you see, like, CBS folding, ABC folding and capitulating because they don't want to be sued or they don't want him to interfere with some merger with Skydance and Paramount. I mean, it's really scary. So, you know, taking. Taking it to the streets like the Doobie Brothers used to sing. I mean, what, what do we do?
- [18:49]
Tim Miller
I take it to the streets matters. I get this question a lot, too. Obviously. I tell people getting involved in your community matters, like sometimes stuff, when stuff feels like the federal, this stuff is out of control.
- [19:01]
Katie Couric
I think that helps you personally and it obviously helps your community. And I totally agree with that. When you feel like paralyzed by not knowing what to do. But there is the larger issue.
- [19:13]
Tim Miller
Sure.
- [19:13]
Katie Couric
Like, what can be done to actually preserve democracy, Tim?
- [19:17]
Tim Miller
Sure, for sure. And look, I mean, some of this stuff is in the legal space. I want to get into one particular thing we're doing in a second. But I think I love the group Run for something that my friend Amanda Lippman runs. I think that there's a lot, you know, look, I think that there will be. The Democrats will do very well in the midterms. I'm not one of These people that believes that we're not going to have elections and that I think that they might try to monkey with stuff, but I think that there is still an opportunity to stop them at the ballot box and that people need to run for more offices, more local offices, more house offices. Good people, people that are not traditionally thought of as candidates, I think could do better. I think the Democrats would do better with people that are like folks who've been. Who are not lawyers or who are.
- [19:58]
Katie Couric
Not like a farmer.
- [19:59]
Tim Miller
Yeah, right.
- [20:00]
Katie Couric
About a farmer running for office, and he was so great. I don't know.
- [20:04]
Tim Miller
Yeah, I think that. Yeah. So encourage to find people, recruit people. I think that's one thing I do think getting in the streets matters. They're the no no Kings protests coming up June 14th. I had the organizers of that on the podcast recently. I think it matters. The protests matter what we're doing.
- [20:18]
Katie Couric
What about the whole thing, Tim, where people, like, don't buy anything for three days? Have those worked at all? I got notices about that.
- [20:25]
Tim Miller
I just. I just don't know that. I don't believe that that's workable in our culture. I don't think so. I mean, I think specific things. Right. It is sad. I just don't think that's realistic. I think everybody should. What feels fulfilling for them, I think actually working. Look, and so this is the thing that I'm really focused on, the El Salvador stuff. And I do think, you know, divesting from El Salvador is something that can. Should be happening at a. Both at a personal level, people's consumption, but also, you know, democratic states, you know, shouldn't, you know, be treating El Salvador like they treat whatever North Korea or Venezuela, our friends in Canada should be doing that in Western Europe. Like, they should feel the squeeze. I think that's one thing. But look, I think that the. In the El Salvador situation where I'm doing a thing. If you wouldn't mind a plug. June 6th during World Pride in D.C. with my buddy John Lovett and Sarah Longwell, where we're holding a fundraiser for. And it's going to be a live show for the lawyers that are representing the Venezuelans that have been sent to El Salvador. I. I think in these cases, giving attention to this stuff so that it cannot just go away is important, is an end in itself. Because Trump wanted to disappear these people. And. And by the way, they wanted to disappear more people, but they got stopped by the lawyers who were doing the work to sue that. To sue the administration by the judges that have ruled rightly, including a lot of judges that were appointed by Republicans, including the Supreme Court, maybe has been wrong on some things, but has been very good so far on the immigration stuff. And so they've been stymied. And how many people they wanted to send El Salvador. It was going to be a lot. That first group was 250 or so. They haven't sent more. And so. And I think it's important that people protest and they do what we're doing and speak out and call your reps, call your senators, and be like, do not forget these people. They should not be just disappeared into the ether. And I don't know if that's going to save our democracy, but maybe we can help save some of the people that have been sent to El Salvador. And so that's a good start.