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- [00:00]
Uncle
I' ma put you on, nephew. I've been hitting up McDonald's for years saying, I need the snack wrap. What's up with that Snack wrap? Is the snack wrap back yet? All right, Unc, when we get to the window, I got this. Welcome to McDonald's. Can I take your order, miss? I posted and sent DMs every day. Now it's back. We need snack wraps. What's a snack wrap? It's the return of something great. Oh, so what you're saying is snack. Snack wrap is back. I'mma put you on, nephew. All right, unk. Welcome to McDonald's. Can I take your order, miss? I've been hitting up McDonald's for years. Now it's back. We need snack wraps. What's a snack wrap? It's the return of something great. Snack wrap is back.
- [00:45]
Tim Miller
Hey, everybody, Tim Miller from the bull work here. I just got off with Nicole Wallace was there the whole hour. Me and Nicole just hanging out a lot these days. We covered a lot of stuff. We covered the pickle that Mike Johnson is in over the Epstein files and how it's getting even more complicated. We covered the New York Times reporting about the 1996 FBI report and what might be getting covered up when it comes to the Epstein files. We covered the freedom of Andre Hernandez Romero and the changing poll numbers on immigration. I appreciate it, Nicole bringing back a flashback video of my interview with Lindsay Teslowski from our live fundraiser and not playing the video where I'm wearing a little shorty skirt. But I wanted to. Before we got to all that, I wanted to get to one question I didn't get to answer. Nicole was asking one of the other guests, which was about the other New York Times report about this party, this Calendar Girl party. This is an insane story I kind of mentioned with Bill Kristol today for folks who watched that interview. But I just wanted to put a finer point on it. According to this New York Times report, there was a guy, a Mar A Lago member, who said that he was going to host a Calendar Girl party for Trump at Mar A Lago and that there were going to be a bunch of VIPs there. But instead of inviting VIPs, Trump only invited Epstein and two women there, including a 22 year old, quite a young woman. Both testified that Trump harassed them. One said that he groped her, and then the 22 year old said he got into bed with her. Unwanted, unasked for yuck, by the way. And I mean, so look, all these stories of Trump being A creep and a pervert and committing sexual harassment are as old as time now. That's why the whole thing about why the right wing wanted to Epstein file is crazy. When Trump has this huge track record of disgusting behavior to young women. But it's the party that really gets me. Assuming the story is true. I don't any reason to believe it's not. Trump hosted a party at Mar a Lago with a bunch of young beautiful women and the only person he invites is Epstein. It's just Epstein and Trump and all the young women running around Mar a Lago at the pool deck. Like, how fucking weird is that? I mean, putting it even, obviously it's very, would be the word incriminating. I mean it's very, it's very inconvenient in a investigation of Trump and potential involvement with Epstein. But even just putting aside all that I know you're not supposed to put aside, but just like for a second, just step outside of the heinous, disgusting crimes that Epstein committed. What is this party? Imagine you're throwing a party at your house and you invite all these younger girls and then they all come and they show up and they're like, where are the guys? And it's like, well, no, I only invited this one creeper over here standing in the corner being weird. Like that is like one of the weirdest, strangest parties in history. I mean, these guys like, what, what are the odds that you had a creeper party and the only person you invited is the most notorious sex criminal in the country? Child predator. Doesn't look great, Donald. Doesn't look great. More where that came from. Stick around with me and Nicole Wallace next. Subscribe to this feed. We're getting our ass kicked by this douchebag, Benny Johnson. There's this big article out Today about the YouTube subscriptions and how Benny Johnson, this right winger who is a plagiarist, who has some personal peccadillos that I, you know, don't need to get into, but it's just who sucks, who's a phony. Like, his numbers are skyrocketing. He's passing us. Don't let that happen. Subscribe to the feed. Tell your friends. We got to subscribe to the feed. Let's do it. Don't let Benny Johnson and his drivel run circles around us. All right?
- [05:14]
Nicole Wallace
Stick around for Nicole, Tim Miller, Mike and Tim, because they are careful and responsible people, have very specifically articulated and actually between the two of them, fine tuned, almost this visual for us, right? An investigation is a Funnel, it takes in lots of stuff and out the bottom comes corroborated things that they take to the bank that prove guilt, they hope, in a jury of criminality. The problem for Donald Trump is that Keshe Patel didn't go on podcasts and ask for the corroborated stuff. He didn't go on and describe a funnel. They have been asking for 10 years for all the tapes, all the texts, all the emails, all the videos, all of the investigative fodder, which includes accounts like Ms. Farmers. Where do you think we are in terms of this story unspooling?
- [06:10]
Tim Miller
I love how you kind of slightly suggested that I might be a little bit more irresponsible in the accusations.
- [06:17]
Nicole Wallace
Not irresponsible, but, but just knit the worlds together. Right? Like an investigative journalist and a lawyer and a prosecutor. They're using a scalpel. The Trump world has never used a scalpel when it comes to this story. They're swinging away with the most imprecise weapons, bashing at the people that they think are hiding deep inside the crevices of an investigative file. They're not asking. I mean, this is what they're asking for, the actual witness testimony and all the names that came up in the course of a decades long investigation.
- [06:48]
Tim Miller
Yeah, no, I'm just teasing. That's exactly right. And here's the problem that Cash is in, especially if we believe what Dick Durbin put out, I guess was overn saying essentially that the reporting that they're getting, Senate Democrats are getting is that in March somebody, whether it be Pam Bondi or Cash Patel or Dan Bongino, had ordered FBI agents to go through tens of thousands of pages of material related to this case and in part of doing that flagging times where Donald Trump was mentioned. So like, to your point, if you're going to take the broadest view of all this, then people should see everything that was in there. And as far as we know, if the FBI agents did what Dick Durbin is saying, that they have information that they did, then we would presume that they would have a file or a new file or a new log, if you will, that gather all of the Donald Trump mentions. And there's really good reason to believe that there's a lot of them. You know, you mentioned this case with Farmer, which I think this victim case is really important. I don't know if there are others like me out there, but I've become re obsessed with this. I'd read all the Julie Brown stories years ago, but I rewatched the documentary over the weekend. It's that 1996 FBI report that they're referencing that was massive in getting Epstein arrested the very first time. Because initially it was the local Palm beach police that had, you know, had tips related to Epstein. But in order to level it up to an FBI case, they kind of needed evidence. This was happening interstate. And so it was that very 1996 report that led to the initial FBI investigation in Epstein. So if it's in that same report, this woman says, well, Donald Trump was also involved, and not that he was abusing her, but that he was in the office with Donald Trump. And that Epstein says to Trump, this one's not for you, or something to that effect. I might not have that quote exactly right, but she's not for you. That is extremely damning. I mean, that's not just. That is certainly in the types of things that Cash Patel and Dan Bongino and all these. These guys have been railing for years that we wanna see and know, because they assumed it was gonna be all of the people that they hate. And so that is just one example of this. We have the Stacey Williams testimony that Epstein brought Trump into her house. We could go on and on. And so to me, it is extremely damning. It's exactly what they've been asking for for years. And it's there. If we believe what Durbin put out, there's good reason to believe that this is an explicit cover up by either Patel or Bondi or Trump because they asked FBI agents to look through these ma. Trump is very likely in them, and then they decided not to put it out.
- [09:29]
Mike Johnson
He has said that he wants all the credible files related to Epstein to be released. He's asked the Attorney General to request the grand jury files of the court. All of that is in process right now. My belief is we need the administration to have the space to do what it is doing. And if further congressional action is necessary or appropriate, then we'll look at that. But I don't think we're at that point right now because we agree with the President. So no vote.
- [09:52]
Tim Miller
No vote on this resolution.
- [09:56]
Nicole Wallace
This is the White House Director of Legislative Affairs. I'm just kidding. That was the Speaker, Tim Miller. This is an issue that should be easy for them, like, even easier than tariffs, which their voters don't want. Even easier than. I mean, it should all be pretty easy because the voters, their voters do not want cuts to Medicaid, but their voters are ravenous for the Epstein files and they can't even vote to release them. What is this?
- [10:24]
Tim Miller
It's, it's a pickle for Mike Johnson. I know you think it's an easy one, but here's the problem. Yeah, sure, it's an easy one with the base voters. It's easy to know what they want in the grand scheme of things, but he can't get on the wrong side of Donald Trump. I mean, there is a graveyard of past Republican speakers who got on the wrong side of Donald Trump on various issues. And so I think that is his first and foremost priority. I think that Mike Johnson is almost certainly not, I guess, who knows? But there's good reason he would not be read in on whatever it was that was behind the decision for Donald Trump or Pam Bondi to not release these additional files. And so if you're Mike Johnson, it's like, I guess let's try to kick the can down the road. But it's a bigger problem than those other mentions, those other issues you mentioned. Right. Because tariffs and Medicaid cuts do not inspire the passions of the base or the passions of the MAGA media like this does. And just for us, coming on, Theo Vaughn, one of those manosphere podcasters who interviewed J.D. vance twice, I think, and Trump once he is posting, he's from Louisiana, like Mike Johnson. He's posting at his fellow Louisiana Mike Johnson. He's like, let Bring this to the floor. Ro Khanna. It's a bipartisan bill. Ro Khanna and Thomas Massie. Why won't you bring this to the floor? You're in a bad way. You know, if you're Mike Johnson and you have Rand, if you have these huge podcasters with massive megaphones, like, calling you out saying, bring this to the floor. And you're now put in this position where you have to be the one standing in the way of more information about these child sex crimes. It's a really bad position for him to be in.
- [11:58]
Nicole Wallace
Well, and Tim Miller wasn't. I mean, I don't feel bad for him that he's in a pickle, but wasn't he in a different position on this, like, 72 hours ago? Didn't he have a different position on one of those manosphere podcasts a week ago?
- [12:12]
Tim Miller
He did. I also don't feel bad for him being on a pickle. I just described, like, what he's, he's stuck between Trump and the, and the base. Right. In the MAGA media. Right. That's, that's where he is. Usually. They're aligned on all of that because Trump usually gets in line with where the base is or brings the base along. This is a rare issue where they've not been able to do that. So, yeah, no, he has totally flipped on this. I thought that was interesting the other day. That actually piqued my interest more than this. Right. This idea that he was going to buck Trump to push this through. So I'm not surprised that he's now gotten in line. But again, at some level, if you're Mike Johnson is kind of like, why not bring this up and kind of dump this on the executive branch? This is your issue to deal with. Anyway, you guys could decide which release. But I think in the meantime he's decided that his prime objective is staying in Trump's good graces.
- [13:02]
Lindsey Tislowski
Andre is an asylum seeker from Venezuela. He came to the US Last year when he was in Venezuela as a gay man. He faced incredible discrimination. He also was politically persecuted. He was physically hurt. He was followed home by police officers. So he made the incredibly difficult decision to come to the US but he had a really rich life there. He's been in a theater troupe since he was seven years old. He actually worked on the Miss Venezuela pageant. He was in pageants himself as a contestant.
- [13:39]
Tim Miller
Now, is that common in Venezuela for Trend Naragua men to be working on the Miss Venezuela pageant?
- [13:44]
Lindsey Tislowski
You know, I don't think that's been a cover I've seen before. Yeah.
- [13:50]
Nicole Wallace
That was last month when our friend Tim Miller and our other friends at the Bulwark hosted a fundraiser to support Andre Hernandez Romero and others who were wrongly deported to El Salvador without due process rights. We have an update to Andre's story. He has been freed from the notorious mega prison Cecot in El Salvador after being held there for 125 days. He was detained after he was questioned about his tattoos with immigration authorities, which immigration authorities associated with the Venezuelan gang Trend Aragua. Romero is back in Venezuela now because of a large scale prisoner swap between VENEZUELA and the U.S. we're back with Tim. Tim, this story was always on my radar, but you elevated it even, even higher with your astute questions about how and why he was swept up. Do you have any intel or any sense of how he's doing?
- [14:49]
Tim Miller
I talked to Lindsey Tislowski, who's in that interview, who was doing the real hard work as a lawyer on the front lines. Y and she said that he's talked to his mother. They're expecting that he's going to be released today or tomorrow. We don't know. He's going through a processing in Venezuela. There's some Hope that obviously he fled Venezuela. It's the tragedy of all this is all of these men, or at least many of them, were fleeing persecution in Venezuela, fleeing communism, to come seek freedom and opportunity in America like so many have over the last hundreds of years. And instead we sent them to a torture prison, and now they've been sent back home to Venezuela. So thank goodness they're free, but, like, they're back in this country. Right. So there is this unknown still, there's this hope that, you know, kind of this ends up being a PR win a little bit for Maduro, that he was able to be the human rights advocate. That's how bad America has acted. We've made the communist dictator of Venezuela look like the pro human rights advocate. But there's some hope that there'll be pressure on him to, to kind of treat these men well, you know, so he can get the PR credit for bringing them back home. So that's the hope. We know he's at least talked to his mother for the first time in 125 days. So that's heartwarming, though the whole story is still pretty maddening.
- [16:08]
Nicole Wallace
And Trump is in overdrive on this, with his approval ratings going down as fast as his deportations are going up.
- [16:17]
Tim Miller
Yeah, look, and I think this is why it's been important to advocate on this and something I've been pushing Democrats and others to do from this day. Immigration agenda is not popular. I think there's folks that are afraid to engage in on this because they do think that the border, the closing of the border is a popular issue. But these horrible deportations, the massed ICE raids, regular people don't like this in this country. And I think you can see it in his numbers. And so while it's good that this El Salvador gambit has failed, these men have been released for now. We'll see what happens in the future. You know, simultaneously, they just got 45 billion in this last House budget for more domestic detention centers. Tom Holman and Stephen Miller aren't backing off. So I do think there's more of this to come, and I think it's going to be a continued fight for immigrant defenders and other groups like that. But, you know, I think that the fact that this El Salvador plan totally failed, that those men have all been released, that his poll numbers have gone down, shows that, like, you can beat him if you fight him on, on these issues and that there's still at some level a feeling in America that, you know, well, maybe they don't support all immigrants staying here. They do not support this horrific deportation regime that him and Marco Rubio and Stephen Miller and Tom Homan have been putting in place.
- [17:39]
Nicole Wallace
Tim Miller, this is the sound of my slow cap clap. Because Tom Homan and Stephen Miller have done what many before them couldn't. They have made immigration great again in the eyes of the American people. 79% of all Americans believe that immigration is a good thing. That is up 15 points since a year before that, when they were waving mass deportation signs around at Trump's convention. Your thoughts?
- [18:04]
Tim Miller
Well, it's minor good news, but we'll take the good news. We can get it these days, Nicole And I think here's the thing. These guys really could have shut down the border and done nothing else or just really done what they said they were gonna do, go after only violent criminals in this country. And I think had a very popular immigration agenda, but they are committed to the mass deportation now. Agend and it's, it's kind of reminds me of the gay marriage, you know, like, turned out everybody had a gay person in their family or friend group. And poll numbers changed, right? Everybody touches an immigrant in their life, like, even if they're not, you know, and once they start to hear the horror stories in their communities and see them on TV and see these stories of these men we sent to a concentration camp with no due process, it's not surprising to me that numbers are changing and it is their fault for overreaching. And hopefully the overreach doesn't continue, but hopefully the poll numbers do.
- [18:56]
Nicole Wallace
Tim Miller, thank you so much for spending the hour with us on all these stories.