← Bulwark Takes
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- [00:00]
Sarah Jones
Love.
- [00:01]
AMPM Spokesperson
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- [00:30]
Host
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- [00:43]
Katharine Appel
Book now@vrbo.com hey everybody, I'm here at the MSNow studios. I just jumped off set with our bulwark gal, Kathryn Rampel and everybody else on the weekend crowd and we were talking about the Zoron Trump bromance meeting, Marjorie Taylor Greene deciding that she's gonna leave Congress as well as some Epstein files stuff. And you know, there's only one thing I didn't want to get to that I wasn't able to get to, rather, that I wanted to add for you guys with the Trump Zoron meeting, I think that there was a lot there that was predictable. The way that Zoran handled that I think was very strong. I don't know that I would have liked it if it was a Democratic 2028 person. But as a mayor of New York who, who needs to work with Trump and who has his own juice right now, I think what Zoran did made a lot of sense strategically. And I get into some more on the show about what I think Zorin did got out of this meeting, rather, that was really useful for him. But the one thing that did bug me was that Trump makes this joke that says, go ahead, you can call me a fascist. It's fine. And they laugh and, you know, it's like a big ha ha ha. And I don't want to be the clutching pearls guy, but it's like in our country, our system of government actually matters. And the fact that we are a republic, the oldest running democracy in the world, is something that is important and meaningful. It's meaningful to people throughout the world. It's meaningful to people in our country. And to just joke about it and just be like, hey, I'm a fascist. Ha ha ha. The mayor of New York can call me a fascist. It's no big deal. To me, that sounds a bad sign. It sends a bad sign to the world and it makes the whole thing feel fake. It makes Our whole system of government feel fake. And I think it contributes to lack of trust about what's happening. And it makes everybody think that we're just playing pretend and this is just a big reality TV show. And there's not actually any weight to the system of government. There's not any meaning to it. So anyway, sorry to get a little heavy for you. Stick around. Your girl Katharine Appel's with me. She's on here on the weekend every night. Every weekend night on Ms. Now. And I'll be back in my pinto beans chair on Monday with Bill Kristol. See you all then.
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Host
Let's start with the Trump Mamdani meeting, which I know shocked some people on both sides of the political spectrum. Oh, Elise has some. Take a look at this.
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Political Analyst
So this is quite a turn of events when it comes to the New York Post. It's not a sickle like they had had up on another Mamdani cover. Now it's, they're trying to fill out which direction they go.
- [03:20]
Tim Miller
It's more of a meet cute.
- [03:21]
Host
But are we so surprised that two guys from Queens kind of got together and got along here? I mean, for me, I wasn't shocked by this for a few reasons. The first is Donald Trump loves winners. He likes to be around other stars, people who he perceives as sort of being central casting. Zaramdani certainly fits that. Bill is top billing right now in terms of the national conversation. And then I think he sees some of himself in Mamdani. You know, this underdog thing. You know, you were this sort of little known assemblyman from Queens and now look at you here. You've proven all these haters wrong. That's sort of how Trump likes to think of himself.
- [04:01]
Sarah Jones
Trump also wants to be liked. And I was reading an old magazine profile of him over the weekend from like the first term where they're trying to understand what was happening with, you know, his first crazy cabinet round. And one insider said to the reporters that you don't understand. He's a real estate guy. Like, he wants to be liked. It's, it's hard, I think, for some people to understand because he seems so unlikable in so many ways. But interpersonally, you hear this often when people go meet him. Now, that breaks if you don't tell him what he wants to hear. Right. And I think that the Oval Office meeting could have exploded like the Zelenskyy one did because Zelenskyy was telling him something he didn't want to hear. Right. But Zorin had No reason to do that, you know, on the first day. And so I think that's, you know, before he's even taken over. Like, that obviously might change if he starts sending ICE officials into the city, et cetera. I don't think that this bromance, or whatever we're calling it is going to last forever, but I think that makes sense. The one thing that just caution a little bit, I saw some on the left doing the shtick about that was like alluding to your populist thing, saying, like, look, this could be. This could be what it looks like when it's working class politics on the left and right uniting and it's up, down versus up, and it's working class versus the elites. And I was like, okay, all right.
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Political Analyst
That's Bernie Paul actually believe.
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Sarah Jones
Yeah, let's dial it back. I'm down to got one other substantive thing out of this, I would say, which is there was discussion among rich New Yorkers and among Jewish New Yorkers that like, maybe we might have to leave the city after this because of the kind of scaremongering that's going on about Mamdani or in some cases maybe legitimate concerns about the increase in taxes or whatever might be coming. Trump was asked that question, and Trump said, no, I'd stay in New York. And we talk about defanging. That really takes the teeth out of that hit on Mamdani. You sound kind of ridiculous now. You know, like the barstool guy was saying that he's thinking about moving barstool out of New York now. You sound kind of ridiculous if you're like, I'm running scared for Mamdani in New York after Donald Trump said he would, he would have stayed.
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Political Analyst
You look at what just happened to Marjorie Taylor Greene. And so now you have. He's bringing in to the Oval and just couldn't be more conciliatory and laudatory to his former foe who he called a communist. And then Marjorie Taylor Greene, who really was his strongest advocate for so long, banished. Done.
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Host
Is she quick? Is she done, Tim?
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Sarah Jones
Is Marjorie Taylor Greene done? This is not good pun to tink, but I don't know what the heck is going on with Marjorie Taylor Greene. I really, it's hard to fathom because at one she just beat Trump. She just brought Trump to heel on this big Epstein fight. I think that she obviously, I don't think that she was at threat from a Trump primary in her district. So she could have stayed. I think that there were some like, right leaning types, media types, that were floating her for 20, 28. So she was getting. But even if she didn't want to do that, she was getting buzz. So why leave? Like the only thing that I can think of, and I was texting Robert Draper, who does a great profile on her today for the New York Times, and he was saying that he thinks that she is really genuinely concerned about safety. You know, and I do think that there are a lot of threats. And you look at this trend you've seen of Republicans who stand up to Trump, then get a lot of threats and then decide this isn't really worth it, I'm going to move, I'm going to step off the stage. And we've seen a bunch of those examples over the last 10 years now. So it could be something as simple as that. Maybe she has a second act planned, though it's hard for me to get inside her head.
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Tim Miller
So I'm going to float sort of a half baked hypothesis.
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Sarah Jones
Let's do it.
- [07:28]
Tim Miller
Which is what if the reason why Marjorie Taylor Greene had her awakening and why other QAnon people might be deprogrammed, if you will, is that she like got to D.C. and realized the conspiracy theories cannot hold because people are too incompetent. You know, it's like in some ways it is a moderating or, or, you know, it's, it's a call to Earth event. Right? You come to D.C. and you realize maybe there aren't like the space lasers.
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Host
I would have thought her experience with the Epstein fight would have only made her like, I don't know, spiral.
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Tim Miller
But, but like, but it's. She won.
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Sarah Jones
She won. You know, ECN's like, I don't want to spend any time with these people. We're not actually doing anything.
- [08:13]
Host
It also seems to me like even if she, you know, is out of D.C. and sort of out of the picture for a while, although I really do think she is going to come back. Whether she gets a podcast or she joins forces with someone at work, she.
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Sarah Jones
Does a little harder than it looks.
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Katharine Appel
Okay?
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Sarah Jones
Everybody says podcast, all right? But let me tell you, it's a grind.
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Host
Do you have one of those?
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Sarah Jones
I have one. It's a grind out there. All right. And what the water. Water's warm. We welcome more people into the fold, but not a lot of successful people.
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Host
She may be beating you in the.
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Political Analyst
Rankings in a few months.
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Tim Miller
We'll see.
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Sarah Jones
We'll see. Candace is beating me so that, you know, that happens. Well, you know, the House of Representatives look, their. The Republican advantages was so Slight already they could barely do anything and the Republicans have done basically nothing in the House this year and they passed the one big tax bill and that's about it. And now they just finally belatedly voted on the discharge petition to release the Epstein files. So I think that that is very meaningful as far as whether they'll be able to. I don't think that there's enough in the special elections on the table and those in the red states are going to be pretty tough for the Democrats and they're pretty deep red seats. I don't think there's enough in there for the Democrats to actually like take the House back before next November. But I do think it means that we're going to look at basically what we've been seeing, which is not much from Congress and a unitary executive. Donald Trump kind of doing what he wants, and Mike Johnson just sort ofi mean, the House hasn't even been in session for two months. The one thing that I'm gonna miss most about the Marjorie Taylor Greene thing, the thing that makes me the most upset is she was like the first person and it happened for three weeks to offer, whether she was genuine or not, a genuine right wing populist critique of Trump from within the party. Right. Like saying that, not going at him because, oh, he breaks norms or like the stuff that I like the former, the never Trumpers do, right. Going after him and saying, no, actually your voters want more health, you know, want more government health care. Like your voters are unhappy that you're spending this money bombing boats in the Caribbean when you should be spending that, you know, supporting public, you know, works programs in the states. She was starting to offer that critique. And I'm curious if that critique could work because nobody's ever really tried it within the Republican Party. Everybody does. They say they're being populist, but when they say populist on the right, it's mostly like right wing culture war stuff with some like, populist rhetoric. She was, she was offering like a policy program that would, would match the populist rhetoric. And I'm interested, I think that could possibly work.
- [10:26]
Political Analyst
The countdown for the Justice Department to release the Epstein files has begun with a fast approaching deadline of December 19. Now, it is still unclear exactly when and how these files could be released, but Democrats on the House Oversight Committee are already concerned that the DOJ could use a provision in the Epstein, Epstein Files Transparency act to redact or withhold documents from Congress. Hmm.
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Sarah Jones
Don't understand why there would be a lot of redactions why does the word classified keep even coming up? You're raising your eyebrows. It's like Jeffrey Epstein was private.
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Political Analyst
They care so much about classification. This Trump.
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Sarah Jones
Yeah, yeah, the Trump. Is concerned about it. Right. Because they move Maxwell, they're clearly protecting someone inside something.
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Katharine Appel
Right.
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Host
He's a private citizen. He certainly had a whole lot of contact with non private citizens.
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Sarah Jones
Sure, I guess. Why would he have a lot of classified information in his emails?
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Political Analyst
Well, he wouldn't have government stones. Yeah, it's what they can cover up.
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Tim Miller
I think it's about.
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Sarah Jones
So that's redacting. So those are two separate things. But they do keep bringing up like, oh, there's going to have to be some redactions because of protecting victims. And I think one of the other big questions about redactions as, like, for a while they were trying to redact that. They didn't want potential perps to be smeared. Right. But I think that fight has been kind of lost. But who knows, right? Like, who knows what the DOJ will decide to do? They might decide to just selectively protect, you know, friends of the President, you know, So I think all of that stuff will be, you know, worth looking at, but I think that there are more questions than answers about what will be in the fight.
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Tim Miller
So this is what I keep coming back to. Will there ever be an end to this? Like, is there any release that would, say, satiate the mobs who have been following? I mean, forget the victims who, like, actually want justice by having the men who abuse them be arrested and held accountable. I'm talking about, like, the people who are interested in, like the lurid conspiracy theories. Like, is there anything that will.
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Sarah Jones
Probably not. But look, I think that there are some things that could make it, you know, that could tamp it down. Like, for example, the notion that there are all these victims and that the only people that were complicit in this were Jeffrey Epstein, Glenn Maxwell and maybe former Prince Andrew. Like, it's crazy again. And nobody believes that and nobody believes it'd be true. So if the next round of files comes out and once again it's like, oh, well, we looked into it and it was just Jeffrey and Ghislaine doing all this, then people will keep having questions, right? Like, if there are obvious redactions of things related to Trump or Trump or friends of Trump, people continue to have questions. So I think it kind of depends on this. But I don't know, I was watching just for one Census, Tim Dillon's podcast, kind of a right wing Comedian, podcaster. And he was going off on this just this weekend where he's just like, this is crazy. Like there's no way that they're going to give us all this stuff. And so you can already sense the next round of the non conspiracy conspiracy bubbling up right like this. You know, the notion that we need to see more. So Julie K. Brown does the Miami Herald the big takedown on Epstein that leads to his second arrest. Summers is emailing Epstein asking for dating advice after that Miami Herald article comes out. So like he knows, right? No. So that is an atrocity. It's Debras.
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Political Analyst
Do you think that this actually did get a blow to Donald Trump's political fortunes among the MAGA crowd?
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Sarah Jones
Yes, for the reason that Basil just said. Because I think it combined there was this storm of things that was happening that showed that Donald Trump was on the side of rich elites and not on the side of the regular people. And I think that the Epstein files was one of them. I think that the fight, the shutdown fight was one of them where he didn't want to, you know, make negotiate at all on the Obamacare subsidies. And then he's simultaneously he's throwing the Great Gatsby parties, he's having the rich tech guys at the White House. I think all those things together did hurt him a little bit with the base.
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Tim Miller
Yeah. It's interesting that the thing, the piece of all of this that might have hurt Trump the most is not so much the palling around with the sexual predator and maybe more the he's an elite, he's not one of the people. Which like, shouldn't be surprising for a whole host of reasons, but. Tim Miller, Basil Smikel, thank you so much for joining us.
- [14:32]
Host
What do you think makes the perfect snack?
- [14:35]
AMPM Spokesperson
Hmm, it's gotta be when I'm really craving it and it's convenient.
- [14:38]
Sarah Jones
Could you be more specific?
- [14:39]
AMPM Spokesperson
When it's cravenient.
- [14:40]
Sarah Jones
Okay.
- [14:41]
AMPM Spokesperson
Like a freshly baked cookie made with real butter, available right down the street at AM pm. Or a savory breakfast sandwich I can grab in just a second at a.m. pM?
- [14:49]
Host
I'm seeing a pattern here.
- [14:50]
AMPM Spokesperson
Well, yeah, we're talking about what I.
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Tim Miller
Crave, which is anything from am pm.
- [14:54]
AMPM Spokesperson
What more could you want? You want stop by AMPM where the snacks and drinks are perfectly craveable and convenient. That's cravingience. Am pm Too much. Good stuff.
- [15:03]
Sarah Jones
Hey, this is Sarah.
- [15:05]
Host
Look, I'm standing out front of a.m. p.m.
- [15:07]
Sarah Jones
Right now and well, you're sweet and all, but I found something more fulfilling, even kind of cheesy, but I like it. Sure you met some of my dietary needs, but they've just got it all. So farewell Oatmeal so long, use strange.
- [15:22]
AMPM Spokesperson
Break up with bland breakfast and taste AM PM's bacon, egg and cheese biscuit made with cage free eggs, smoked bacon and melty cheese on a buttery biscuit AMPM Too much good stuff.