Loading summary
Transcript28 lines
- [00:02]
Lowes Announcer
Lowes knows that no matter your paint project, saving is at the top of your list. That's why when you shop today, you can buy one, get one free. Select Valspar and HGTV Home by Sherwin Williams. One Coat coverage Interior paints via rebate. Shop these deals in store or online. Today at Lowes, we help you save. Selection varies by location while supplies last. Discount taken at time of purchase. See Sales Associate for details. Offer valid 821 through 93 hey y'.
- [00:30]
Tim Miller
All, Tim Miller from the Bulwark. I had a double header over on MSNBC earlier, first with my buddy Ari Melbourne. I'm not on that show very much. You get a little Me and Ari for once, a little change of pace. And then later on the 11th Hour with Jacob Soborough sitting in for Steph Rule. And in the first one we discussed JD Vance going to Georgia, which I haven't a chance to get to on the podcast, and giving this speech in defense of the Trump economic agenda and the one big ugly bill. And he had some interesting thoughts there. One of the things I didn't really get into was that he talked about how everybody should be able to have access to health care except illegal immigrants and people who are not even trying to get a job. And whatever you think about that policy, that's not the Trump policy. The Trump Vance policy is not universal healthcare for everybody who is a citizen, except for those who aren't trying to get a job. A lot of other folks are going to lose access to health care and health services. It's not private market and people are going to get kicked off Medicaid. So, you know, the rhetoric is imagining the reality. We talk a little bit about why he's doing that and what the threats are for them and the economic stuff. So that conversation is focused mostly on economics. And then in the second batch, we get into the redistricting wars. I express some of my concerns about what the next steps of that are with the red states and also talk about the bullshit going on in D.C. and the ice theater where we have these little we have these new kind of fascist characters now in the National Mall that people get their selfies with, like we're going to Disneyland. So anyway, stick around for those conversations. Appreciate you all very much. Subscribe to us on this feed. We got so much more coming today. You're going to want to see it. Talk to you soon.
- [02:17]
Interviewer
In Georgia, rural hospitals facing not only limits, but possibly having to shutter to close. J.D. vance was in Georgia today while the state senator joined this very news channel to discuss the damage.
- [02:34]
Commentator
It's not about kicking people off of health care. It's about kicking illegal aliens the hell out of this country.
- [02:40]
Tim Miller
Defunding hospitals and nursing homes to cut taxes for the wealthiest people in the country.
- [02:45]
Commentator
If you're working hard, the government ought to leave you alone. Ain't that the truth?
- [02:49]
Tim Miller
That bill is like 20 points underwater in Georgia.
- [02:52]
Commentator
You ought to have a tax code.
- [02:54]
Interviewer
That rewards you instead of punishes you.
- [02:56]
Tim Miller
Vance is being sent on this little errand to come and play defense in.
- [03:00]
Commentator
Georgia, defending a bill they can't defend.
- [03:03]
Tim Miller
Trying to sell the unsellable.
- [03:08]
Interviewer
We're joined by Tim Miller, a longtime conservative operative, now turned independent critic. You tell me. He's the host of the popular Bulwark podcast, an MSNBC analyst. Many of you know him well. Nice to see you.
- [03:24]
Tim Miller
Hey, Ari. What's up?
- [03:26]
Interviewer
What's up? I wanted to get your credentials in there because you come at this from experience working in Republican politics, at least before it went pure maga. And so let's start there. In states like Georgia, which we just saw that are going to face the brunt of this, what do you think's going to happen?
- [03:45]
Tim Miller
Well, look, I mean, I think it's hard to have a crystal ball for how this stuff plays out in the midterms. I mean, usually the out party does. Well, I think the problem they have here is mostly that this bill didn't really please anybody. It was a big mismatch. Right. It didn't please traditional conservatives, folks like myself who wish that they would have balanced the budget more. It didn't please MAGA populists who don't want Medicaid cuts. It didn't really. And I guess it pleased some in the super wealthy in a few industries that got tax cuts, natural gas and others. But for the most part, the coalition was really fractured by this bill. And so how Trump has done in the past ostre's run of these situations is he's done a good job as a marketer and a brander out there pushing it and redefining things. He hasn't done this on this bill. Steve Bannon was just complaining about that yesterday on his podcast that I, I suffer through from time to time. He's like, where is everybody out there on this? I think that explains why you see J.D. and Georgia. But I think it's an uphill battle because, you know, they. They ended up, you know, passing a bill that was not economically populist and so was not going to appeal to the MAGA base and still managed to blow up the deficit as a result.
- [04:57]
Interviewer
Hmm. When you look at the healthcare cuts, there are people who are losing or will lose coverage over this process who may not know it yet. What happens when people, whether they are MAGA voters or just in the community or known, find out. This is also what Trump began the term with, which is just kicking people off healthcare. A point that's concerning enough that Vance felt the need to bring it up to then deny it, which fact check. False in many cases.
- [05:31]
Tim Miller
Yeah. Well, look, the big tell on this is that a lot of these cuts don't actually go in place till after the midterms. On the health care side, there will be impacts, particularly rural hospitals because, you know, hospitals have to plan and they're, you know, there's kind of complicated factors that go into this sort of stuff, but like the actual, like cuts to benefits, a lot of most of that is post 2020 is 2027 and after. And you know, the funny thing is, like Josh Hawley, like, this is the most, you know, besides Vance, now that he's out, probably the most traditionally Mag. On a policy front, Senator was like, I'm voting for this bill because I don't think that health care cuts will ever go into effect. I think that they'll hurt our voters and I'm going to fight to block them from actually going to effect in 2027. So that, that tells you all you need to know. They know that it will be unpopular with their own voters if it goes into effect. And I think that's a real problem for them probably in 2028, not 2026.
- [06:24]
Interviewer
What's the bottom line on how you describe the Trump economy so far with 40 seconds left?
- [06:29]
Tim Miller
Yeah, look, it's stagnant. It's stagnant. The tariffs have put a big cap on it. If you were a Trump voter who went in there because you were worried that costs were too high, nothing has helped you. Housing costs are still up. Grocery prices are up. I saw because thanks to the tariffs, gaming console prices are up now. Gas prices are maybe down. A hair and egg prices are maybe down because the avian burr flu is over. I don't think Trump gets credit for that. So I think that's why you see his numbers so bad on the economy right now. He's not delivering what he had promised to people.
- [07:00]
Commentator
Trump's been celebrating the Texas State House passing a new congressional map to help give Republicans more seats. That legislation is now in the hands of the Texas State Senate, where Republicans hold the majority. Once approved, the bill Heads to Governor Greg Abbott's desk to sign in a social media post that encouraged more states to do the exact same thing. Trump also told Republicans to get rid of mail in voting and move to all paper ballots. Quote, if we do these two things, we will pick up 100 more seats. And the crooked game of politics is over. It comes as California moves one step closer to a new congressional map that would help Democrats win more seats there. Just hours ago, the governor signed legislation establishing a special November election that'll let the voters decide whether to adopt the new map in time for next year's midterms. And tonight he reminded people how we got here.
- [07:52]
Political Analyst
They fired the first shot. Texas. We wouldn't be here had Texas not done what they just did. Donald Trump didn't do what he just did. He went so far as to follow up and say that he didn't just want those five seats. He said he's, quote, unquote entitled to those five seats. Just pause and reflect on that. Everything should have just stopped there. President of the United States claiming he's entitled to five seats. That should put chills up your spine. Every Republican, not just Democrat and Independent, every American American.
- [08:28]
Commentator
Tim, this is not a change to the system per se. This is Donald Trump's stated attempt at making this a one party country and not having to have elections. Am I wrong about that?
- [08:44]
Tim Miller
I mean, I don't know. Not having to have elections may be slightly hyperbolic because I think he wants to rig the rules to be as favorable to him as possible. I think that's certainly one thing I'm worried about is having elections and then laying the groundwork to challenge them. Just like we saw in 2020. I think more concerned about the post2026 election period than the pre though. I think that there are things to be concerned about on both side deciding that they are not going to seat members in states where there's a certain percentage of mail in ballots accusing it of fraud. If Democratic members win in competitive seats but that happen to be in red states with red trifectas, are those going to be approved? Do you have MAGA county officials that are going to certify votes? To me, those are the real acute concerns. But they're going to try to change the rules as much as possible on the lead in and I think you guys talked about this with California and Texas likely being a draw, it gives me a little joy. Until May have said that, I hadn't really considered that Kevin McCarthy was going to take another L out of all this. So that's a small silver lining for some of us. But there are a bunch of other red states. I think they could squeeze seats out of Florida, maybe Missouri, Indiana, potentially, I think as many as five to ten additional Republican seats. If those states do go the path of Texas, I think that, as John said, there's fewer options in blue states. Maybe get one or two out of a couple of them.
- [10:13]
Commentator
I hesitate to even talk about this, but we saw the President taking this walkabout in Washington tonight, and he seemed to be talking about everything but the law enforcement presence and the National Guard out on the streets and his sort of the stated goal of why he was doing this. I mentioned him before, but literally not only the White House ballroom and all this, but that he knows grass Tim, better than anybody else. What was he doing? What was happening out there?
- [10:39]
Tim Miller
The weave, I think, is what he calls it. Jacob? I don't know, man. The interesting thing about this is the grass was actually something that was in his jurisdiction before all of this kind of a weird quirk of D.C. is that the parks are actually run by the feds. And if this was a legitimate effort to curtail crime in D.C. without wanting to bring in the show of the National Guard force and all of the pictures that he likes, like that picture right there, they could have done stuff to make the parks safer. There are a lot of parks in D.C. it could have all just traditional good government stuff, more lights, have a couple more police patrols through them from time to time. That was something that was within their jurisdiction. They decided not to do that, of course, to go straight to militarizing the national police and having these masked guys hassle doordash drivers and things of that nature. So I think what this all comes down to is that he wants the show. He wants for there to be a lot of political theater around this. Maybe he hopes that's a deterrent in some way, but I think mostly he wants to use it as a political wedge.
- [11:52]
Commentator
Like Tim said, this is a show. It was a show when Stephen Miller went to Shake Shack yesterday. The founding father of family separation talked about cleaning up DC for the families there. It couldn't get any more ridiculous. Now they're talking about Gold detailed SUVs wrapped with the words Defend the Homeland driving around them. That ice is going to spend millions of dollars on. Tim, you guys wrote about those vehicles at the Bull Work. You called them cartoonishly fascist.
- [12:22]
Tim Miller
Yeah, look, I was just took my kid to Universal out there, your neck of the woods in la, a couple weeks ago. On summer break. And I mean, like, the ice people are functionally no different than the Beetlejuice and Scooby Doo characters at Universal. Like, they're not there to do crime prevention. They want these vehicles. They want these pictures. And there are tourists there, I assume, MAGA tours, maybe some ironic liberals that are taking selfies with them. That's what they're there to do. The crime is not on the Mall. They have a big, glitzy ice vehicle sitting on the National Mall next to the Washington Monument. It's not there to go after violent gang members. It's there for show. And so people can come take selfies with it, and so they can, you know, advance their political branding of this. Defend the homeland, you know, MAGA nationalism. They want to push. Like, that's what it is. I mean, it's. It is. There is some fascistic elements to it, the way that the police are acting, particularly with the masks and not identifying themselves. But it's. It's kind of a camp of. It's like just a camp.