← Bulwark Takes
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- [00:01]
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- [00:54]
Tim Miller
Spin Quest is a free to play social casino void where prohibited. Visit spinquest.com for more details. Hey everybody, Tim Miller from the Bulwark just got off deadline. White House with Nicole and Molly Zhang fast. We are talking about Jared Kushner and Ivanka raping Flamingo island in Albania and the corruption around this regime. We talked about the new New York Times story about Platner and I didn't get a chance to talk about this, but Dan Goldman was on right after me and he was discussing the vote that failed narrowly in the Senate that would have stopped permanently Trump's ability to use the Thug Fund he negotiated with himself and to disperse that to his allies. So we know that Trump has backed off of, you know, his $1.8 billion thug fund. But I think there's a lot of feeling that maybe after the midterms he decides he doesn't have the political baggage. There's not fewer Republicans, you know, chirping his ear on the Hill about it, that he'll just find another way to either through this fund or something else to pay off his January 6th instructionist allies. Dan Goldman talked about that. I want to play a little bit of that from you from our deadline White House hour and then come back and talk about one particular element of this that got in my craw relating to my senator. Not for long, from Louisiana, Bill Cassidy. Let's listen to Goldman.
- [02:18]
Dan Goldman
We finally seem to have hit at least some low spot, I wouldn't say bottom, but some low spot where the Republicans are jumping. And I don't know if they're jumping as much because John Cornyn and Bill Cassidy were removed by Donald Trump endorsed candidates around the same time that the slush fund happened, or if it is actually just too much, or perhaps it is a critical mass of Thom Tillis, of Cassidy, of Cornyn, as well as the others who have Murkowski, etcetera, Who have generally been skeptical. But I'm very concerned that about Todd Blanche's testimony yesterday and his refusal to put in writing that was gratuitously put in writing to begin with. There was no case here that is a ruse. Just ignore whatever the case was. They created an agreement, a written agreement out of whole cloth that they tried to ram through the American people and the Congress. Then the next day, Todd Blanch adds an addendum to this to absolve Donald Trump, his family and his businesses of all tax liability from here ad infinitum. Now, the fact that he says, no, no, no, we're not going to go forward with it now, but I'm not going to put it in writing is highly, highly suspicious. And it's also very concerning because there are other ways that they could do this through the False Claims Tort act, as one example, that they might just be able to do this through the side door, what they were unable to do through the front door. And the fact that there's no discussion about this IRS tax immunity is very disconcerting with whatever it is that's going on over in the Senate that needs to be included in whatever is the Republican senators are going to insist remain in the reconciliation bill whenever it's finished.
- [04:20]
Tim Miller
Goldman's so strong on this and corruption. He's in a primary coming up in New York, and, you know, that's kind of gotten bogged down a bunch of other issues. But you got to shout out this guy for just being a dog on a bone on Trumpian corruption throughout his time in Congress. Here is a political angle to what happened today with regards to the slush fund that I just cannot let pass by my senator. Bill Cassidy had worked with Cory Booker on an amicus brief to the that was urging the a judge to halt Trump's slush fund. He also had worked on some amendment language that was going to make that permanent, like preventing Trump from being able to disperse the slush fund. Cassidy and Booker argue in their case that this is a question of whether the machinery of Democratic government may be turned by design and with explicit intent against the Democratic foundations it exists to serve. That's pretty high pollutant language from Bill Cassidy. Right? He's arguing that this slush fund explicitly is an attack on the Democratic foundations of the country. So, like a policy that is that important, is that severe, that is that potentially damaging to the very fabric of our democratic republic, you would think that Bill Cassidy would be stalwart in opposition to that, right? That he wouldn't cut random deals about it, that he would. He has no political future anymore, so you'd think that he would hold the line. Well, if you thought that, you're stupid, because Bill Cassidy is a cowardly cuck and we knew that he would do exactly what he's done every time, which is completely fold to Donald Trump and to pressure from his Republican buddies. Here's what's happening today. When you get to the bill and it's like, it's hard to even believe and it's all on video. We can watch some of this. We'll. We'll pull up some of the video and pictures for you.
- [06:11]
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- [06:35]
Tim Miller
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- [06:41]
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- [07:11]
Tim Miller
We have Cassidy and Tillis, the two exiting Republican senators, so they have no election, they have no political considerations here. They both put up amendments regarding the slush fund. So there are various amendments are going around, but you end up with the main amendment that they're voting on is the Schumer amendment that would halt President Trump's $1.8 billion payout. This would codify it so that he couldn't go back and do it again in the future, unlike other expected attempts that maybe would be just for show, you know, because it's really direct conciliation and other Senate nonsense you don't want to know about. Schumer's motion to halt the fund could have been approved with a simple majority vote. So the Democrats went over four Republicans and the slush fund is kaput by law. So you end up with Cassidy and Tillis as the key, key kind of votes on this to get it to four, because you have three Republican senators. We'll get to one of them who are up for reelection that don't want this baggage or of, you know, they don't want there to be TV ads saying that they voted for $1.7 billion of your tax money going to insurrectionists. So they were going to vote against it. So you need to get one more. Cassidy and tell us had both expressed that they wanted to halt or change the fund. You can see them on the House floor kind of talking about this and what they're going to do. And a little bit later you see John Husted is running against Sherrod Brown for Senate in Ohio and have walk up and chat with them. And I'm not a lip reader, it's hard to see you don't know exactly what they're talking about. But you can, as you see with many votes that like there's a strategy here where the Republican majority will like let some of their vulnerable senators vote against stuff in order to protect them electorally. That makes sense. If you're John Thune, you'd want to do that. You know, we can criticize it, we can mock it, but you understand why John TH Would want to protect his own senators. Why does Bill Cassidy care about that? Like Donald Trump ended his career. Donald Trump ended his political career. It's over, kaput. Donald Trump humiliated him. Like Bill Cassidy has no obligation to the Republican Senate majority. The Republican Senate majority screwed him over. If anything, he should want to stick his finger in their eye if he had any balls. But for some reason, Bill Cassidy feels that still compelled to play the D.C. republican Insider Games despite the fact that he has been totally jettisoned by the D.C. republican insiders. I mean, how humiliating. Like, have some dignity. And so here's what happens. Eustat and Tillis and Cassidy talk. Cassidy goes up and votes against the Schumer amendment which would allow the Thug fund to go forward. Mr. Cassidy, no, Mr. Husted. And then Husted, who's running in the Ohio Senate race gets to come up and vote in favor of it. So it's kind of a double whammy really. Like Bill Cassidy single handedly prevents Chuck Schumer from being able to block this illegal Thug Fund that Cassidy himself said was an attack on democracy. He ends up being the key vote to prevent us from codifying legislation that would not allow that slush fund to go forward. Cassidy's a key vote. Yesterday he was like, this thing is an attack on Democracy Today, it's like he's the one that sides with John Thune and Donald Trump and says, ah, well, we'll see how it goes. We kind of let this go forward for a little bit longer. And then on top of that, he also does a solid to John Hustedt, who, unlike him, still has a viable political career and is running an important Senate race in Ohio. Why they did nothing for you, Bill? Why are you doing favors for the NRC and John Husted and Dan Sullivan and Susan Collins, who all pretended like they were principled and voted with Chuck Schumer, like he does this massive favor for them in exchange for what? I don't know. Maybe we'll find out. Maybe he gets something. But after this vote, he said there's now these amendments are to the broader reconciliation bill which includes a ton of funding for the ICE and CBP thugs that are currently terrorizing migrants and non migrants, frankly, from around the country. And he says that he could still vote for that reconciliation bill that includes increased funding for ICE and CBP even if an amendment like this doesn't get through to curtail the slush fund. Shameful, just shameful, cowardly, cuckolded behavior from Bill Cassidy, who just two days ago said that the slush fund one more time was designed with explicit intent to be an attack on the democratic foundations of the country. That's what he said. And now it's him. Now he's got his paws on it. He's got his fingerprints on it. Like it potentially could continue to exist if next year, if Donald Trump decides he wants to reanimate it, that will be all thanks to Bill Cassidy, who Donald Trump totally defenestrated and embarrassed just a couple weeks ago.
- [12:20]
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I don't.
- [12:20]
Tim Miller
It's unbelievably pathetic. It is unbelievably pathetic. And I don't know. I don't know how Bill Cassidy, you know, manages to sit up straight in the plane on the way home. But we'll see. We'll see how all this shakes out. Much more on that coming in the days ahead after this. Stick around for me on Flamingo island and Graham Platner. Subscribe to the feed. Tell your friends. Appreciate y'. All. We'll see you soon.
- [12:50]
Nicole
As we just asked Senator Alyssa Slotkin, there is brand new reporting. It has broken since I've been on the air. It's in the New York Times and it is about Maine's Democratic Senate candidate, Graham Platner. He's currently the frontrunner to become the Democratic challenger to Republican Senator Susan Collins in that pivotal midterm race in Maine. After news reports surfaced that he had sent explicit messages to women while he was married, several women came forward to the New York Times about their experiences with Platner from that new New York Times reporting quote. In interviews with the New York Times on Wednesday, several women described Mr. Platner as a fun and caring partner and said they felt safe with him. Some remain friends with him to this day, years after their relationships ended. But in extensive conversations over the past two months, three other women who had been romantically involved with Mr. Platner offered a far more complicated assessment, describing volatile and toxic relationships that were unsettling and at times emotionally wrenching. Mr. Plattner could be charming and charismatic, they recalled in interviews, but also demeaning to women and in at least one case, even physically threatening. He drank heavily and was regularly unfaithful, end quote. It's important to tell you, our viewers, that one of the three is a conservative activist who has worked on Republican campaigns, but she says that she would have spoken out even if Graham Platner was a Republican candidate. She disputes Platner's claim that he did not know that the tattoo on his chest was a Nazi symbol. From that part of this new reporting quote, Mr. Plattner, she said, knew when they were dating years ago that the tattoo was a Nazi symbol and that he called it my Totenkopf. The Platner campaign quote, strongly disputes that claim that he knew about the tattoo and that he told her about it. Graham Platner will be Chris Hayes guest in his first national interview since his story broke this afternoon. That happens tonight at 8:00 o'clock on all in.
- [14:56]
Tim Miller
Look, Nicole, this is a complicated one. It's ongoing and so there's some elements to it. So I'll just kind of walk through what I think are the key parts. You know, number one, I think, as Senator Slotkin said, look, any accusations of any type of inappropriate behavior around women should be taken seriously. And the Democrats have shown that they've taken it seriously in the past, whether that be Andrew Cuomo or Al Franken. And I think that the Democrats have credibility on this issue for a reason. In this story, it is only the one woman that was the Republican activist that makes any accusations of him putting his hands on her. The other women don't say that. It's more just about kind of drinking and volatile behavior. And so, you know, I think that the question is, like, what else could possibly come up? And I think that takes us to the Political part of this, like, just to do ranked politics here. Like, this is an extremely important Senate race for our democracy. The Democrats need to pick up four Senate seats to take over the Senate and to control Supreme Court nominations, to be able to control the floor for any nominations that Donald Trump wants to put forward for Attorney General or DNI or any important roles in his administration. Like, they have to, you know, those Cabinet officials ostensibly will have to be confirmed by the Senate. So taking over the Senate is very important. And winning the Senate, it's pretty hard to do without Maine. And you just look at the map. And North Carolina, Roy Cooper looks very good. Good poll in Ohio for Sherrod Brown. That's two. Then you get into some pretty big red states. Iowa, the Democrats have a good candidate. Texas, Tel Rico. Alaska, they have a good candidate. But those are all states Democrats have won in a long time. Democrats have won Maine the last three cycles. And all Democrats need to do to win Maine is nominate somebody that gets all of the Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris voters. And so it seems like kind of a silly place to take a big risk. And I think that is the strongest case against Platner. Whether you're a huge Platner fan or a Platner opponent, I think there's a prudential question of, like, is this Senate race the place to take this type of risk? I do think the last thing I'd say is I get a little bit frustrated with this. And I'm sure some Platner fans do as well with, like, all of the focus on this, these things that he's done in the past, as compared to what Susan Collins has done as an actual senator and the tattoo thing in particular, I just feel it's incumbent to mention that regardless of what you think about his tattoo, which he covered up, he's not proposing any Nazi, like policies. And Susan Collins was the chair of the Appropriations Committee when we sent people to a foreign gulag based on their race and based on the tattoos they have. So I'm not here to say that that was a Nazi policy, but it's certainly a heck of a lot closer than anything that Graham Platner is proposing. And so I just do think that is also important to have in the discussion here. Like, Susan Collins controlled the power of the purse, allegedly at the Senate. If she was such a moderate, she could have stopped that and she could have said, we're not going to fund this administration as long as they're sending innocent people to a foreign torture prison based on Their tattoo, she didn't do that. And so I do get a little bit frustrated when these conversations kind of frame her up as some moderate when she's been totally complicit in some very fascistic behavior, tattoo related behavior by this administration.
- [18:12]
Nicole
I just, I want to thank you for your clarity and your courage and sort of seeing this and being able to shove it through a sieve of the substance of what is accused and the stakes of the election. I mean, I think that's the whole thing. And I guess all I would, I would add is we are not the arbiters of anything. Right? It is our job to bring forth the reporting. Maine Democrats will decide, I think, on Tuesday night, do they want to represent them? And then the broader population of Maine will decide do they want to represent them in Congress. But I think Tim just framed up the choices on both those fronts pretty well. Tim, what do you say to people who look at all of the attention we have justifiably and perhaps belatedly given to the Epstein accusers and want to understand how this story fits into that frame?
- [19:06]
Tim Miller
Well, look, and obviously there's a material difference, which is the Epstein accusers were children, and I guess not in every single case, he also abused adult women. But, you know, that, you know, I think adds a level of gravity to it. But I think that one part of, one way to contextualize that, that I do think is relevant is, look, you know, as a former Republican, am I the best person to say this? But I think a lot of Democrats would say say this, particularly Democratic women like you look back at maybe the Bill Clinton era of the presidency. You look back at how Democrats dealt with Epstein prior to, you know, the latest revelations when Trump came in, I think some of them look back and say, hey, maybe we should have taken these accusations more seriously than we did. So that's not to lump Platner in with any of those. Like I said, I think that these, this New York Times article, you know, there are some serious accusations from one person and then the rest, you know, depending on kind of your definition, serious, but nothing related to violence or nothing related to sexual assault or anything like that. And so, you know, I think that Graham Platner obviously tonight will have a chance to, you know, kind of explain himself with Chris Hayes. And I think people should hear him out. This is not to say he should be thrown out, but I do think in the context of the Epstein story, you know, a lot of Democrats can maybe learn from lessons and say we should take the accusations seriously. We should look at them, we should consider them and do what's right by people that are victims. And we should also, you know, not throw the baby out with the bathwater because there are bad faith attacks against people. Like, that's a challenging tightrope to walk. And, and I think that's kind of the tightrope that Graham Platner is on right now about which, which side of that he falls on.
- [20:40]
Nicole
I first saw this story, and I'm going to sound like a broken record. Thought it was a fake AI video of Ivanka. But let me saw you. You will not call me 100 years old for thinking this is AI. This is Ivanka.
- [20:55]
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- [21:32]
Nicole
First, what's a hector? Do you have to be a billionaire who boats barefoot to know what a hector is? Do you know what she's talking about, Tim?
- [21:41]
Tim Miller
I, I, you know, I use the American system of yards and acres. I assume that's a foreign thing now that they're making all their money from foreign governments in Saudi Arabia. Maybe she has to start speaking in metric system. I don't know. Doesn't feel very America first, the whole thing to me, you said, I guess to me it felt like an updated, like Veruca Salt. You remember her from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory? I do, Daddy. I saw this island and I had to have it. I just had to have it. I love the island. So much gluttony, but I don't know, it's depressed. It's so crazy, the extent of their corruption. I guess the important thing that I would say it's hard to keep track of everything. And there's a whole Albania protest movement happening about the Trump family, you know, going and pillaging one of their islands in a corrupt deal, you know, with their government and with a bunch of other oligarchs throughout the world. And yeah, I don't, I don't think that people at all understand the scale of this. And there are Trump operations being built in Southeast Asia. They're doing deals in Venezuela. The rare earths in Greenland that they were looking into. And we're going to make Greenland the 51st state. They are just trying to take as much money as possible from people while they can while they're in charge. And good on the people of Albania for protesting there. And it's pretty sick that this is what the President's family is doing while they're also negotiating our failed deal in Iran, by the way.
- [23:18]
Nicole
I think the other thing Tim, is there is this body of reporting. I think a lot of it's in the Wall Street Journal about these really eccentric things rich people are doing that I find just fascinating. They're building moats. You know, like we wonder why they don't care about, you know, measles, vaccines. It's because they want to go live on islands and build moats. I mean this is, this is absolute insanity.
- [23:42]
Tim Miller
And it also just in the last segment to the conversation of Platner, it's also why anti billionaire left populists are popular right now and succeeding just as an analytical matter. It's like no wonder people are mad. No wonder people are mad and are turning to more anti capitalist type politicians. It's not hard to understand why when you look at what Elon is doing with the SpaceX IPO, you look at the President's family enriching themselves hand over fist. I mean I think that it's giving the Democrats a big political opportunity.
- [24:13]
Nicole
Yeah.
- [24:14]
Tim Miller
But I think that even, I think even mainstream Democrats should, should, should figure out like the, the pitchforks are out for a reason and there's gotta be a way to claw something back from, you know, this kind of international cabal of right wing oligarchs that are doing insane things like taking over islands in Albania while their father in law is the President.
- [24:36]
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- [24:58]
Tim Miller
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- [25:06]
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