“Democrats want an answer”

Summary

Podcast Summary: “Democrats Want an Answer”

Podcast: Deadline: White House
Host: Nicolle Wallace, MSNBC
Date: October 2, 2025
Guests: Tara Palmeri, Tim Miller, Helene Cooper, others

Main Theme / Purpose

This episode centers on explosive new developments in the Jeffrey Epstein scandal and the Trump administration's response, highlighting conflicting narratives, calls for accountability, and the unique political stakes as Democrats push for the release of the Epstein files. The discussion expands into the ramifications for the Republican Party, public opinion, and broader questions about partisanship, government dysfunction, and the radical reshaping of US military policy under Trump’s second term.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Howard Lutnick’s Revelations and Epstein Allegations

• Nicolle Wallace opens by spotlighting recent comments from Trump’s Commerce Secretary, Howard Lutnick, who bluntly contradicts the official DOJ line on Epstein (01:09).
• Lutnick’s Assertions:
  • Claims Epstein was a prolific blackmailer using secret video recordings of high-profile guests, implying many prominent figures were complicit or blackmailed (01:59).
  • Suggests that Epstein’s “sweetheart deal” (2008) was in exchange for suppression or destruction of these videos (04:33).
  • Describes in detail visiting Epstein’s home, observing openly displayed massage tables, and being propositioned in front of his wife (09:14).
• Wallace and panel underscore the gravity: Lutnick is openly undermining cabinet messaging and raising new investigative questions that Democrats now demand be answered (05:10).

2. Democratic Response and Public Pressure for Transparency

• Rep. Robert Garcia (Ranking Member, House Oversight) vows to have Lutnick testify, questioning what he knows and calling for deeper investigation (06:17).
• Unanimity in public demand: 90% of Americans want the Epstein files released (NPR/PBS/Marist), with only 6% approving of Trump’s current handling (17:02).
• Future flashpoint: Upcoming press conference led by Reps. Ro Khanna and Thomas Massie aims to force a vote on file release, presenting political peril for Republicans (20:30).

3. Wider Network of Complicity and Societal Failure

• Tara Palmeri, citing her reporting and sources, points out the vast network of elites (e.g., Bill Gates, Leon Black, Peter Thiel, Steve Bannon) who continued socializing with Epstein even after his conviction (14:16).
• Quotes survivor Virginia Giuffre: “You could not spend time with Jeffrey Epstein and not see young girls around him.” (11:51, paraphrased by Tara Palmeri)
• Panelists decry ongoing cultural and class-based blind spots that enabled his crimes.

4. Political Implications and Republican Dissonance

• Tim Miller lampoons Lutnick’s lack of discretion, underscoring that he may be “too dumb to toe the party line” but, by stating the obvious, exposes the cover-up (14:53, 16:24).
  • "In a cabinet of dumb people... he stands out as the dumbest. But all Letnick is saying there is just the obvious truth."—Tim Miller (14:53)
• Speculation on whether this issue could finally pierce Republican unity, with parts of the right (e.g., Project Veritas, manosphere) agitating for full disclosure, unlike previous Trump controversies (18:16).

5. Democrats’ Political Strategy Amid Dysfunction

• Tim Miller articulates that Democrats don’t need grand policy pitches; they need to directly blame Trump for failures—including rising premiums and the shutdown—leveraging public discontent (24:16, 25:24).
  • “The way to get back power is... not the MAGA ideologues, but the people who for whatever reason were unhappy with their lives.... Now Trump is the president in power."—Tim Miller (26:01)
• Wallace notes lack of Democratic messaging horsepower on right-wing networks, highlighting an opportunity gap (27:32).

6. Trump’s Militarization of Domestic Policy

• Segue into analysis of Trump’s military policies in his second term (33:17):
  • Trump has ordered military strikes against alleged drug cartels without clear legal rationale, killing 17 in the Caribbean.
  • He recently summoned military leaders, naming US cities as “training grounds” for the military, heightening fears of using armed forces for policing/dissent suppression (35:57).
  • Pentagon correspondents and insiders express horror at the erosion of civilian/military boundaries, recalling rebukes by former defense officials and generals (38:41, 39:53).
• Helene Cooper explains the chilling silence among current military leaders and the legal peril for military commanders in contrast to Trump’s immunity (42:58).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Howard Lutnick on Epstein’s M.O.:

  • “He participated, right? That's what his M.O. was. You know, get a massage. Get a massage. And what happened in that massage room, I assume was on video. This guy was the greatest blackmailer ever.” (01:59)

• Lutnick’s Theory on Epstein’s 2008 Deal:

  • “I assume way back when, they traded those videos in exchange for him getting that 18 month sentence... Must have been a trade. So my assumption... is there was a trade for the videos because there were people on those videos.” (04:33)

• Rep. Robert Garcia, House Oversight Committee (on Lutnick):

  • “Anyone... in the Trump administration and you are saying those comments so freely, you have to have additional information... We're going to follow up.” (06:17)

• Tara Palmeri on the Elite’s Willful Blindness:

  • “You could not spend time with Jeffrey Epstein and not see young girls around him. ... Why does that not ring alarm bells? ... It's a huge societal problem... they were not seen as valuable... It was a class issue.” (11:51–13:40)

• Tim Miller on GOP Cabinet:

  • “The Commerce Secretary is really stupid. ... Sometimes dumb people just don't know how to cover up, how to stay in line with the talking points. All Letnick is saying there is just the obvious truth.” (14:53)

• Nicolle Wallace on Polling:

  • “Release all or some of the files. 90%, like you see 80/20 issues. I don't know that you see any 90% issues in American politics. There is no one that agrees with their current position...” (17:02)

• Helene Cooper on Militarization:

  • “It's so quiet, this resistance.... All the military leaders that I talk to ... are pretty much horrified by this because the idea of military troops in American cities going after American citizens is something that they hate.” (35:57)

• General Milley, on the Constitution:

  • “We don't take an oath to a tyrant or dictator... We take an oath to the Constitution.” (39:53, quoted)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Introduction, Main Controversy Framed (01:09–04:26)
• Lutnick’s Epstein Revelations & Reactions (04:33–07:26)
• Panel Discussion: Elite Complicity (11:51–14:16)
• Political Implications, Public Opinion (16:24–20:18)
• Democrats’ Strategy vs. Trump (24:16–27:32)
• Polls on Division, Public Fatigue (27:32–30:12)
• Discussion: Trump’s Militarization & Venezuela Strike (33:17–44:41)
• Military/Civilian Boundary Fears (35:57–42:58)
• Closing Segment: Anti-Semitic Attack (44:42–46:02)

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Style, Language & Tone

The episode features sharp, biting commentary and a blend of exasperation and urgency. Nicolle Wallace’s questions are direct and often incredulous. Guests are frank, sometimes irreverent—Tim Miller in particular brings a sardonic wit. There is a strong throughline of seeking accountability and emphasizing the stakes for both policy and democracy.

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For Listeners Who Haven’t Tuned In

If you missed this episode, you missed a major on-air undermining of the Trump administration’s Epstein narrative from an unlikely cabinet source, a rare unified front from Democrats (and 90% of Americans) for transparency, and an urgent warning from national security experts about escalating military overreach. The episode balanced scandal, political strategy, and constitutional alarm, making it a must-listen for anyone tracking US political fault lines.

Transcript

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[Nicole Wallace]

Hi there, everyone. It's four o'clock in New York. We begin today with a story Donald Trump desperately does not want to see covered anywhere. The one that makes you wonder whether the government shutdown is, at least in a teeny little tiny part, just a good reason to avoid an uncomfortable vote on this one subject, one that would result in the Epstein files being released. Without further ado, here is Donald Trump's commerce secretary, Mr. Howard Lutnick, talking about Donald Trump's former friend, the dead sex offender, Jeffrey Epstein.

[Howard Lutnick]

The guy's gross, right? With my wife is grow. The guy's gross. This was not. Oh, the deep nuance of Howard Lutnick. This guy is gross, right?

[Tara Palmeri]

So how come Bill Gates and all these other people could hang around him and not see what you saw? Or did they see it and ignore it?

[Tim Miller]

Or.

[Howard Lutnick]

No, they participated, right? That's what his M.O. was. You know, get a massage. Get a massage. And what happened in that massage room, I assume was on video. This guy was the greatest blackmailer ever.

[Tara Palmeri]

What?

[Nicole Wallace]

What? He's so gross, I brought my wife there. None of that makes sense. We should say, despite the fact that the American Secretary of Commerce said all those things, you should know there's no evidence that we're aware of at this time of wrongdoing by Bill Gates or other Epstein associates. But importantly, Blutnick is directly contradicting the Trump cabinet statements and their official line on the Epstein case. The unsigned official memo that the Department of Justice released in July said this, quote, this systematic review revealed no incriminating client lists. There was also no credible evidence found that Epstein blackmailed prominent individuals as part of his actions. So DOJ did not find what Lutnick just told us there, that they took videos of massages and then blackmailed them. And then there's this sworn testimony, for whatever that's worth, of current FBI Director Kash Patel of, quote, put your big boy pants on and tell us who the pedophiles are fame. Here he is again, testifying under oath just like 10 days ago.

[Tim Miller]

You've seen most of the files. Who, if anyone, did Epstein traffic these young women to besides himself?

[Howard Lutnick]

Himself? There is no credible information. None. If there were, I would bring the case yesterday that he trafficked to other individuals. And the information we have, again, is limited.

[Nicole Wallace]

Like, I could connect the calls from Cash Patel to Lutnick if they want to chat and get their story straight. With 81% of the public thinking Trump is covering something up, it might serve those guys to get their story straight. Because if Epstein trafficked women to certain people and then, as Lutnick says, quote, blackmailed them, I mean, Kash Patel's position under oath 10 days ago is that he would, quote, open an investigation yesterday, end quote. And if there are videos, as Lutnick says, where are the videos? Well, the Commerce Secretary has a theory on that. Watch.

[Tara Palmeri]

Why is there now such a dearth of information when Donald Trump's people are running the FBI and the doj?

[Howard Lutnick]

I assume way back when, they traded those videos in exchange for him getting that 18 month sentence which allowed him to have visits and be out of jail. I mean, he's a serial sex offender. How could he get 18 months and be able to go to his office during the day and have visitors and stuff? Must have been a trade. So my assumption, I have no knowledge, but my assumption is there was a trade for the videos because there were people on those videos.

[Nicole Wallace]

Just stop this. We're going to stop the car and get out. Howard Lutnick doesn't believe their BS spin. They have lost Howard Lutnick, who wants to be in the Cabinet more than anybody else in the Cabinet. He doesn't believe their BS spin on the Epstein story. He says they, quote, must have traded the videos for the sweetheart deal. That's the sweetheart deal that Epstein received in 2008 from then U.S. attorney Alex Acosta, who would go on to serve in Donald Trump's Cabinet. Epstein avoided federal sex trafficking charges because of that sweetheart deal. He pleaded guilty to lesser state charges, served 13 months of essentially work release. And there are allegations that he would go on to commit sex crimes during that time. Blutnik's comments certainly invite more questions and more avenues of new investigation. Alex Acosta just testified before the House Oversight Committee. And was he asked about the trade that Letnick seems to know about? I don't think so. But now Democrats want an answer to that. They want Lutnick to testify. Here's ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, Congressman Robert Garcia.

[Howard Lutnick]

Quite frankly, after Those comments by Mr. Lutnick, we need to speak to him, the entire organization, Oversight Committee, we're very interested in understanding what exactly he knows, where those theories come from. And anyone, particularly if you're in the Trump administration and you are saying those comments so freely, you have to have additional information so you can, you can believe that. We're going to follow up.

[Nicole Wallace]

Team Trump's handling of the Epstein case, undermined by one of their own is where we start today. Tara Palmeri's here. She writes the red letter on Substack. She's hosted two acclaimed podcast series on this topic called Broken Jeffrey Epstein and Power the Maxwells. And here with me at the table for the hour, MSNBC political analyst, host of the Bulwark podcast, Tim Miller joins us. Sarah, I wish I could get to the point in my job and in my life where I can't be shocked by anything that these, you know, yahoos say, but I was gobsmacked. I watched that Nick clip five times. First of all, he's so gross. And he's telling us how he brought his wife into the home of this gross guy. Yeah. And then he's talking about all the people that he's like a cabaret or something.

[Unnamed Guest/Contributor (possibly a journalist or analyst)]

Right, right.

[Nicole Wallace]

And, you know, I assume, quote, they traded videos.

[Tara Palmeri]

What?

[Unnamed Guest/Contributor (possibly a journalist or analyst)]

Yeah. I mean, there were cameras all over the house. You could see that when you walked in, which is exactly how Jeffrey Epstein wanted it. I think it's, it's really disgusting. But I think we can't forget that Howard Lutnick was the CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald, and he knew a lot of the people that Jeffrey Epstein was around, people whose estates Jeffrey Epstein managed. Right. Like Leon Black of Apollo, who gave him $170 million for estate planning, or Jess Staley, who was his banker at Morgan Stanley. So he had already heard about Jeffrey Epstein's reputation. After all, it had been reported in many newspapers, including the New York Post, that he was a sex offender. And so even the fact that Howard Lutnick would go into his house is questionable at best. Right. But I think he does raise. That's important, that you could not walk into Jeffrey Epstein's home and not realize that this was a depraved person that, you know, there was something wrong with him. In 2005, when the Palm beach police raided his home, they found so many pictures of young girls all over his wall. It was like wallpaper. It was disgusting. And so I just find the whole. I think it's interesting that he is obviously contradicting the doj, but how does a person have a thousand victims and have three massages a day and have a totally separate social life? I'm sorry. That just doesn't happen.

[Nicole Wallace]

So, Tara, what you're saying is Lutnick addresses all of this. I mean, and these are facts I didn't know about. Lutnick says, we shared a wall. And he describes the daily massage ritual that he knew Epstein engaged in. Let me play this part of the interview. Yeah.

[Howard Lutnick]

His assistant on, like, A Saturday says, Mr. Epstein, your neighbor would like to invite you over for coffee. So my wife and I go next door. You know, we walk the seven steps. Yes, right. To the next house for. For coffee. We share a wall. Right, Right. So it's in New York City. So he invites us in. We have coffee in this. And he says, do you want a tour? We said, great.

[Nicole Wallace]

Interesting.

[Howard Lutnick]

It's got a really big house.

[Tara Palmeri]

Every room you went in, he's got.

[Howard Lutnick]

He's got it. Well, I'll tell you. So his house is, like, super big, really wide. And so he gives me a tour in the living room. Big living room. And then across from it is double doors. I assume it's the dining room.

[Nicole Wallace]

Yeah.

[Howard Lutnick]

And he opens the doors, and there's a massage table in the middle of the room and candles all around and stuff. So I ask very insightful, cutting questions. I say to him, massage table in the middle of your house. How often you have a massage? And he says, every day. And then he, like, gets, like, weirdly close to me.

[Nicole Wallace]

Oh.

[Howard Lutnick]

And he says, and the right kind of massage. Now, my wife is standing here, so. So she looks at me, and I look at her, and we say, I'm sorry. We have to go.

[Nicole Wallace]

Tara, I've interviewed now enough victims to believe this about this story. These women, many of them were girls. None of them were without intelligence, massive amounts of potential and integrity. Epstein would have preyed on them if they'd been any of those things. But they didn't necessarily have agency or the status that Jeffrey Epstein and the other men had. And to hear another millionaire or billionaire, whatever. Heck, Lutnick is rich enough to share a wall with Jeffrey Epstein. Describe a massage table in the middle of a dining room, which, and it's, you know, it's amazing how these folks live. The room was so big. And in all the other big townhouses that are this wide, the dining room abuts the living room. But not this weirdo. What is so revealing is how many people knew that Jeffrey Epstein had a daily massage. Who did they think massaged him every day?

[Unnamed Guest/Contributor (possibly a journalist or analyst)]

Yeah, no, I think you're right. It's just he seems to be enjoying even regaling the story. It's like he's, he's enjoying telling you about this sort of access he had to this pedophile and the fact that he had his own experience with Jeffrey Epstein himself. And you're right. I mean, this is one thing that Virginia Giuffre told me when she was alive and we worked on the Broken podcast together. She said you could not spend time with Jeffrey Epstein and not see young girls around him. You cannot get the feeling that there is something off about a 50 year old man spending time with girls as young as 14. And they are not his children. They are somebody else's children. Why does that, why does not, not ring alarm bells for him and his friends? Why does that not lead to a call to, to some sort of law enforcement? Why did it take so long for anything to happen? Because it was just. They were not seen as valuable. And I think that's a huge societal problem. I think it's both. It was the fact that they were young girls and that the fact that they were. It was a class issue. It wasn't their daughters. You know, he often picked girls from the other side of the intercoastal in Palm Beach. He trafficked girls into this world that they couldn't get out of. Some of them were young models, they were foreign. Their parents weren't around. They came from broken families. I mean, I could keep going, going, but it's, it's so obvious that he chose really easy prey. And they were around some of the most powerful people in the world who could end this in a second, Nicole. Like they could end this in a second. They had the credibility too. They were leaders of banks, of institutions, of, you know, they were leaders in, of universities, of science, you know, foreign dignitaries, presidents. They could do something about it. And they chose not to. They chose instead to spend time with him to continue after 2008, after he was a registered sex offender. He saw Steve Bannon hanging out with him on the schedule. Elon Musk, TBD to the island on low. You know, Bill Gates, a philanthropist, going to a party with him. Then there's Peter Thiel, a mega donor GOP mega donor, having, having lunch with him, a breakfast. Why? Why did they think this was a good idea?

[Nicole Wallace]

Yeah. Let me read you the reporting that she's referencing too, Tim. This is from Politico. Musk, Bannon and Thiel named a new Epstein estate documents, quote, in what appears to be a copy of Epstein's itinerary. Musk, Elon Musk had a tentative trip to Epstein's island on December 6, 2014. A note appended to the plan reads, quote, is this still happening? At the time, Epstein owned a private island in the U.S. virgin Islands. Another schedule notes a planned lunch with tech billionaire Peter Thiel on November 27, 2017, and a breakfast with conservative political strategist Steve Bannon on February 16, 2019, just months before Epstein was charged with sex trafficking of minors.

[Tim Miller]

And a couple thoughts about this, and Tara knows this as well as anybody, but like, this wasn't 2003 or whatever. He'd already been arrested for sex trafficking minors in 2017 and 2019 when these guys were going to hang out with him. So they chose to do that so you don't have to do the whole thing. Like, well, we don't know if there's any, you know, allegations. Just hanging out with this person and giving credibility to this person after he's already been convicted of sex trafficking minors is bad enough. The other thing I want to say about Letnick, and this is going to maybe seem like a low blow, but it's kind of an important low blow, is that the Commerce Secretary is really stupid. Like in a cabinet of dumb people, like where you have a weekend talk show host and a fake wrestling executive, he stands out as the dumbest. And if you polled the cabinet, they would all say that he's the dumbest based on reporting. And that's important to say because, like, sometimes dumb people just don't know how to cover up, how to stay in line with the talking points. All Letnick is saying there is just the obvious truth. Right. You and I know that Tara knows as well as anybody that Lutnick just isn't clicking with him. He needs to go along with the plan as far as part of this cover up, that he needs to be saying these farcical lies that Kash Patel and Pam Bondi and Donald Trump and J.D. vance are saying about how, oh, the justice story doesn't know anything more about this. Like, we know they're covering. We don't know exactly what they're covering up, but we know they're covering something up. We know that there were other co conspirators at some level. We don't know exactly.

[Nicole Wallace]

Ash Patel knows, quote, put on your big boy pants and tell us who the pedophiles are.

[Tim Miller]

Right. So it's obvious that there was some kind of co conspirator. And to Tara's point, it's like just the scale of the number of women. It's just not physically possible for it to have been just Jeffrey Epstein. Right. And we know all these people went to the island after he was convicted. We know all this. And so all Letnick is doing is he's just being dumb enough to say the obvious truth, which is that my fellow cabinet members and the President of the United States who I work for, are covering up something related to this sex trafficking ring. And so we appreciate him for just.

[Nicole Wallace]

Telling us that for just someone just rolling the camera and putting the microphone.

[Tim Miller]

In front of us.

[Nicole Wallace]

Right. I mean, let me come back to the politics of this because in this sort of we cover the moment as being dynamic and volatile, which it is, but. But not this issue. These have been the poll numbers for a long time now. This is NPR, PBS. Maris, Trump's handling of the Epstein files. 20% approved, 61% disapprove. NPR, PBS. Maris again, should the Epstein files be released? Release all or some of the files. 90%, like you see 80, 20 issues. I don't know that you see any 90% issues in American politics. There is no one that agrees with their current position, which is that one, there's nothing to see here and two, we're not going to seat the new elected member of Congress because we want to avoid this vote.

[Tim Miller]

I mean, the 6% has got to be like Trump.

[Nicole Wallace]

It's got to be the co conspirators. There are that many of them that all of them responded to the Marist poll.

[Tim Miller]

I guess, I mean, the 90 to 6 look, here's the bet that Trump is making. He's making, made this in other issues and we just don't know if it's going to work on this. One is that he can just gut it out and he's never been on the wrong side of a 96 issue. But when he started doing the stop the steal stuff, everybody was like, this is crazy. And then eventually everybody went along with.

[Nicole Wallace]

Well, because Kevin McCarthy goes down to Mar A Lago and resuscitates him.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah. So that's probably not going to happen this time. You wouldn't think. But the bet that may be where this risk comes on, the bet is my colleague Will Sommer at the Bullock, who kind of monitors the far right world. He just has an article just out today about how James o', Keefe, the Project Veritas guy, not my favorite character in the world who does the undercover stings, he still cares about, he's still going after Trump about this because that's what far right people who are into conspiracy theories and into uncovering things like this is where the juice is, right? Then you have the manosphere guys. They're still going to talk about this. They're not here to run cover for Donald Trump. They thought it was an interesting story. They don't want to be made to look like idiots. So it is a little bit.

[Nicole Wallace]

Marjorie Taylor Greene.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, it's just a little different than some of those other more straight political issues where eventually everybody kind of folded to Trump. I think that the political elites besides Letnick, the smart political Republicans, will get in line just because they probably don't think it's worth the fight. And they're not principled. They've already folded on everything else. But like, but what if that's the.

[Nicole Wallace]

Issue they get primaried on? I mean, the whole thesis of why the Republicans aren't doing their jobs anymore and why they go, I mean, no Republican was ever for tariffs. No Republican was ever against. No Republican ever said it's a good idea to ignore the courts. I mean, they're doing things that they've never believed in or advocated for before, ostensibly because they're afraid of their base. What if the base cares more about the Epstein files than a lame duck president?

[Tim Miller]

And at this point they are making the bet against that. But, and I think it remains to be seen, I believe the Thomas Massie case is an interesting one. Him and Marjorie Taylor Greene are the one. I mean, it is like an interesting coalition of like the most MAGA and then like a handful of principled libertarians that have like taken the consistent line on this of wanting to release the files. So I think that a lot of these guys, again, it just comes back to cowardice. These guys are like, anytime you've bet against Trump within the Republican Party in a primary, you've lost. And so eventually that'll end. I don't know when maybe it'll be this. Hopefully it'll be this. But I think that explains their behavior.

[Nicole Wallace]

Tara, have you heard from any of your sources on this story or any of the victims that you covered for a long time about Lutnick's sort of mask off moments, I think, you know.

[Unnamed Guest/Contributor (possibly a journalist or analyst)]

It just reveals what they already know. And they're actually really excited for October 8th or 9th, whenever Ro, Khanna and Massie have this press conference outside of the Capitol to try to get this bill, did the discharge petition on this bill a, it's a vote that it'll be so difficult for Republicans to say no to. I mean, how can they vote against release in the Epstein files? And then I think when it moves on to the Senate, it'll be the same. And if it ends up on Trump's desk, if he vetoes it, it's just such a, it's just such a bad look. I mean, they, they believe that they can put political pressure on some of these members. I think they believe that, that this is, that the people are on their side and they're hopeful. They are hopeful.

[Nicole Wallace]

90% of the people are on their side. So they have reason to be hopeful. I don't like to dangle any false hope in front of human beings who have already endured so much. But if the polls are to be trusted, it's a 96 issue of which there are no other issues in this country right now. Tara, thank you so much for joining us on this. When we come back, we're going to talk to Tim about the state of our politics right now, the government shutdown and the opportunity right in front of the Democratic Party. Plus, how Donald Trump in the second term has changed the United States military in fundamental ways, turning our armed forces into a partisan organization focused on, as Trump puts it, quote, the enemy from within. Longtime Pentagon reporter Helene Cooper will be our guest. And later in the broadcast, the White House using the shutdown to help complete Project 2025's promise of gutting the federal workforce, threatening that mass layoffs should come at any time, just as Project 2025's Russ Vogue continues with his revenge campaign on blue states. We'll have all those stories and more when Deadline White House continues after a quick break. Don't go anywhere.

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[Nicole Wallace]

The American people are basically telling the.

[Tara Palmeri]

President that they are not okay with any of this.

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[Nicole Wallace]

As viewers of this program already know, the government has ceased to function this week as Democrats and Republicans are right now deadlocked on. On funding how to fund the government. Here's what Tim Miller told Jon Stewart yesterday about how Democrats don't have to explain health care premiums to convince voters that they are the better option compared to Trump's approach.

[Howard Lutnick]

The malpractice here, in my mind isn't messaging. It's that they don't know where they're messaging us to. They have not created a platform or infrastructure that addresses directly the needs. They are still dancing around the old paradigm.

[Tim Miller]

Look, man, I agree with you. So I don't disagree that the Democrats should have a health care plan and the Democrats should have a vision and a direction and someone should emerge to try to lead them. But that's not actually necessary to be politically successful. I mean, as the former Republican here, may I remind you that Mitch McConnell did pretty good for a few years as the opposition to Barack Obama. Just saying, you will do nothing and I will blame everything that bad happens on you.

[Howard Lutnick]

That's a good point. That's a good point.

[Tim Miller]

And to me, that's kind of like that's a useful first step. Right. Is fighting Trump, doing everything you can to slow him down. And then when bad things happen, many of them Trump is to blame for. So you can credibly say he's to blame for it. But even for some of the other ones, it's like, sorry, man, Buck stops with you. You want to be authoritarian. This bad thing is happening. We're gonna blame it on you, and we're gonna relentlessly and we're going to remind people why the current status quo sucks. And that's an easier thing to do than what you're asking. And so I just feel like my suggestion to them might be the first little baby step towards doing things better.

[Nicole Wallace]

Maybe it's because we work for Republicans that we are like masters of the baby step, and I'll just leave it at that. But trying to solve a 3D puzzle isn't the mission. It's like whack a mole.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah. And the health care thing is Complicated. I'm happy that they're talking about this. And there's a simple part of the health care issue, right, which is that people's premiums are going up right now and it is Trump's fault. And so for these guys, Democrats on the Hill, to go out there and say that's Trump's fault, your health care premium is going up, it's higher than it was last year. It's because they didn't have to. They don't have to come up with a plan for what their solution is because they have no power.

[Nicole Wallace]

Correct?

[Tim Miller]

They have no power. They lost. And so the way to get back power is to reach the. Is reach people out there. Not the MAGA ideologues, but the people who for whatever reason were unhappy with their lives and wanted to shake things up and wanted to, you know, throw out the president in power. Well, now Trump is the president in power and there's a lot of reason for people to be unhappy with their lives. Nothing's gotten better for most working people and a lot of things have started to get worse, right? And so that's the Democrats job, right? Is to go out there and make Trump hold the bag for all this stuff. And Trump, and you can see this in the administration right now, they're out there saying, well, the administration is literally saying, right now we're going to stop funding projects. You might be a worker. We interviewed a guy for the Bulwark who is a steel worker, I think that works on wind turbines. That guy's going to lose his job. That's a working guy that had a project that was funded. And the Trump, they're just cutting that and they don't care and they're gonna try to blame that on the Democrats. And it's just the Democrats job to say, no, sorry, you guys are in charge. Manufacturing jobs are going away, costs are going up. The government shut down. Come up with a solution, do it. Let's figure it out. You wanna be in charge of everything? Be in charge. And I think it's the Democrats job to do that relentlessly and also everywhere. And I was saying to you before we got on, I watched FOX on the whole way up here. There's no counter message on there. And I don't know, maybe Fox isn't booking Democrats. Maybe they're folks that are trying to. Maybe it just didn't happen in the two hours between New Orleans and New York. But like that is their job right now. And I think that's a pretty doable job. You know, even if you have some concerns about the Democrats in other areas.

[Nicole Wallace]

I want to show you a poll that the Times has today. It's a Times Sienna poll. Voters who think America's political system is too divided. 64%. It's like almost a 30 point jump. 20, 30 point jump. It's a worse political climate than during COVID when people were literally isolated and upset and scared and angry. A majority of Americans say they would describe America as a Democratic country still 55%, but 41% disagree, including 52% of Democrats and 40% of independents. So you've got 40% who don't think we are still a democracy. This is the most interesting to me. Donald Trump's position right now, as publicly stated, is that he, quote, hates his opponents. A micro, micro minority of Americans agree with that. When Democrats are asked whether they think of Republicans as the enemy or as FELLOW Americans, like 10% chose the harsher description. And 14% of Republicans think of Democrats as the enemy. Donald Trump thinks all Democrats are the enemy. Donald Trump is doing something to Democratic run cities. I mean, by taking away the counterterror programs in New York. I mean, Donald Trump spends a lot of time in New York. I don't even understand the sledgehammer he's taking to counterterror programs in New York. The revenge politics have the support of 10 to 14% of Americans.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, that's encouraging poll actually, because sometimes in our world of hyper partisanship, you hear from the loudest voices, particularly on social media, who are kind of in that on both sides of like, I see the other side as my enemy. And so, you know, again, this is an area where Trump needs to be pushed outside of the mainstream. But you have to do that, you have to run a campaign against him to position himself there. Cuz they do. I know this is crazy to us and the people watching this, but it's just worth looking at what they do strategically. They're all like, well, the Democrats call us fascists and that's to blame for political violence. The Vice President is out there doing that. Stephen Miller is out there doing that. It's bs when you're on this show, you cover that and you say no. The only person that actually called Trump Hitler was the Vice President and the Secretary of Health.

[Nicole Wallace]

And he was saying, oh, America's Hitler said JD Man. And then it's important on the fascist thing, fascism became a term attached to Trump. When Bob Woodward's book came out and he had reporting that said that two of his top generals described him as quote, fascistic. To the core.

[Tim Miller]

Exactly.

[Nicole Wallace]

That's when that coverage started.

[Tim Miller]

So it's a legitimate point. I'm just talking about the rhetorical fight. Right. Like they are making it seem like the Democrats are the extreme and crazy ones. Going back to my watching the Fox yesterday. Fox only plays one clip of the most insane thing that Ilhan Omar said. It was the only Democrat I saw the whole two hours.

[Nicole Wallace]

And some of them are from like 2019, right, exactly.

[Tim Miller]

So it's not incredible, but Democrats gotta fight back and do that and go into those spaces and say, no, it's actually this guy that is the first president ever. Ever. Or at least back to whatever pre Civil War times that is like, no, our fellow citizens are the enemy within and they're more dangerous than the enemy without. And we've gotta target them. Like, we all see that. But that message has to go out there to more people need to understand the degree to which Donald Trump is pushing this type of division. And that's the way to start pushing people away from him again.

[Nicole Wallace]

No, I mean, it's all in an Aaron Sorkin script somewhere. I mean, this is, you know, the crime bill. Right. I'm putting it in the drawer because there's no chance of actually fighting crime. I mean, this is like the fights that you don't engage are fights that are impossible for you to win.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah.

[Nicole Wallace]

Do you see any Democrat doing this?

[Tim Miller]

Sure. I mean, we mentioned last segment, Roe was out there with Massie. That's. That's Murphy. That's notable. Yeah. Chris Murphy's out there doing. I hate to like shut him down, I guess. What I don't. I'll say what I don't see. And like, you know, Pete's out there doing interviews. You see some for Westmore. What I don't know is like, who is the Democrat that is carrying this fight right now about the Washington fight to the rest of America? Not to just pro democracy America, you know, and that's not Hakeem or Chuck Schumer. And maybe Chris Murphy should be appointed to do that. And there are people that are capable. Maybe it should be Madeline Dean. You see Jared Moskowitz on Fox. Sometimes there are people out there that can do it. And I do think that there needs to be more of a concerted effort to do it though.

[Nicole Wallace]

Right, right. All right, you're sticking around up next for us. From troops on the streets in major American cities to strikes against drug cartels, alleged drug cartels, Donald Trump is dramatically reshaping the American military. That's next.

[Helene Cooper]

Foreign.

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[MSNBC Promo Announcer]

MSNBC presents the chart Topping original podcast the Best People with Nicole Wallace. Each week, Nicole speaks with some of the people who inspire her the most. This week, she sits down with comedian and actress Rosie o'.

[Tim Miller]

Donnell.

[Tara Palmeri]

We all try to make our way in this way by being a good and honest person, and that's the tenets that I live by.

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[Nicole Wallace]

Donald Trump has declared that the United States is now at war with drug cartels the White House deems or classifies as terrorist organizations. The notice was officially sent to Congress to justify the military strikes that Donald Trump has already ordered on boats in the Caribbean last month, killing all 17 people aboard them. The Army's former senior advisor for law of war issues tells the New York Times that Trump's move is a, quote, abuse that crossed a major legal line. It comes on the heels of Trump crossing another line this week, telling the most senior military generals that they need to defend from a war quote within. The New York Times warns that in that moment, the president pitted himself against the wishes of the country's founding fathers. Deploying troops inside the country as an arm of law enforcement is not what the founding fathers wanted. They feared that the government could use a standing army to suppress dissent and establish tyranny. That desire that Trump expressed to use the military internally is one that his generals in the first term feared the most. And Trump did use the military to clear out peaceful protesters in Lafayette Square in D.C. in 2020. It drew this rare and blistering rebuke from his former defense secretary, Jim Mattis, who said this, quote, we must reject any thinking of our cities as a battle space that our uniformed military is called upon to, quote, dominate. Militarizing our response sets up a conflict, a false conflict between the military and civilian society. It erodes the moral ground that ensures a trusted bond between men and women in uniform and the society they are sworn to protect and of which they themselves are a part. Trump's former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, and his former chief of staff, General John Kelly, also had to explicitly warn Donald Trump that using the US Military against civilians is outside his authority. But this time around, as the New York Times reports, quote, those men are now gone. And the men Trump has installed in their place in his second term have either amplified his wishes or bowed to them. I want to bring in New York Times Pentagon correspondent MSNBC contributor Helene Cooper. Tim is still here. Helene, it's an extraordinary moment, and I feel like so many of our conversations, especially around the generals that you've covered for so long, have almost built to this moment. Just take a step back and tell me how you see the public statements and events of this week.

[Tara Palmeri]

Hi, Nicole. Thanks for having me.

[Nicole Wallace]

You're right.

[Tara Palmeri]

I think we have been. We started down this road at the beginning of this administration. It's President Trump's second term. We kind of started down this road in the first term. But he had people at that time, as you just mentioned, who were willing to sort of throw their bodies in the way. He doesn't have that now. We saw as President Trump came into office and he immediately sent National Guard troops to the border. And that had kind of been done. That had been done before. So it wasn't viewed as that huge deal. But as the months have progressed this year, you've seen more and more and more politicization of the military. And it sort of reached not sort of a point because it's continued. But in June, there was a big sort of crossing of the Rubicon when President Trump sent not only National Guard troops to Los Angeles, but active duty Marines against the wishes of the governor of California. Now, the way the National Guard works, usually they go in because a governor repressed them. There's a hurricane, there's some sort of civil disturbance. This was not anything of the sort. This was President Trump trying to put in place his political agenda and pushing. And he said that there were, you know, Emory, he termed the handful of riots, the handful of protesters in Los Angeles against ICE raids as rioters and who needed to instead painted this picture of some sort of urban hellscape that he needed to send troops in to help to protect. That was a big deal. And it's so interesting for me as a reporter covering the Pentagon, I've been around these generals for as long as I've covered this beat. And the military in politics is Something that almost to A1, they do not like. And it goes back to, you know, our founding fathers and how they viewed a standing army. But this is something that during, during President Trump's first term and even during President Biden's term and during President Obama's term, any hit that the military was being pushed into more of a political realm is something that they pushed, the military leaders push back against really hard. And now it's so quiet, this resistance. You haven't heard anything from the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Dan Kane. You certainly haven't heard anything from Pete Hexseth, the Defense secretary. He's egging President Trump on. And all of the military leaders that I talk to on the phone are horror, are pretty much horrified by this because the idea of military troops in American cities going after American citizens is something that they hate. And President Trump on Tuesday in Quantico, at that Marine base, at that hastily called meeting, they summoned all these, you know, 800 military commanders from all over the world to attend. And he said, I want you to look. And he looked at these guys, and most of them are men, but there are a few women there. And he looked at them. He said, I want you to. I told Pete, I want you to look at our cities. And he named San Francisco, he named Los Angeles, he named New York, he named Chicago, Seattle and Portland. And he said, these are. These should be the next training. These would be the training grounds for the military. And, you know, this. That's a pretty scary notion.

[Nicole Wallace]

Helene, I've just taken a break. I want to bring Tim in on the other side and ask you about 7,000 more questions about the events this week. We'll all be right back.

[Helene Cooper]

We in uniform are unique. We are unique among the world's armies. We are unique among the world's military. We don't take an oath to a country. We don't take an oath to a tribe. We don't take an oath to a religion. We don't take an oath to a king or queen or to a tyrant or dictator. And we don't take an oath to a wannabe dictator. We don't take an oath to an individual. We take an oath to the Constitution. And we take an oath to the idea that it's America and we're willing to die to protect the millions wounded in our nation's wars did not sacrifice their limbs and shed their blood to see this great experiment, democracy, perish from this earth.

[Nicole Wallace]

Rebecca, Helene. And Tim. Tim, it was powerful when he said it. It's almost more eerie to hear it now in light of everything that Trump is asking of the military. And one of the things he's asking of the military is that they strike coming from Venezuela without providing evidence of the drugs he says are on them. And I wonder what you make of today's escalation.

[Tim Miller]

I think it's crazy. I looked really quick on Millie. It's like, it's kind of melancholy and refreshing to hear that at the same time. It's crazy that we're not hearing more of that. So it's nice to hear that again on Venezuela.

[Nicole Wallace]

I should play it every day.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah. Really, I could hear it every day. I needed to hear it every day.

[Nicole Wallace]

It's a soundtrack for our time.

[Tim Miller]

But I think that both on the policy and the politics, I think what they're doing in Venezuela is insane. And it's completely insane. It's like Venezuela isn't even the biggest country that brings drugs into our. Even if you took this on the merits that we're going after drug cartels because we don't want drugs in this country, it'd be kind of crazy to start bombing drug cartels. But like Mexico, Colombia, Peru, Bolivia, China, I think Venezuela's like sixth or seventh. And so we're doing this, I guess because Marco Rubio really doesn't like Maduro or because Trump's mad about something, it's hard to even tell why doing this. Trump ran as the anti war candidate and some people believed him, by the way. He had some success running as that. And now he's going to change the name of the Department of the Defense. Department of War, start an illegal war in our own hemisphere, in the Caribbean for no really stated rationale. Like, it's unclear what even the rationale is. The New York Times was reporting two days ago that maybe we wanted regime change in Venezuela. We're going to do a Venezuela. I mean, we used to be Bush Republicans. Like, I'm for pro democracy, but that's not even when he's arguing. So we're going to do a regime change war in Venezuela.

[Nicole Wallace]

Something, something drug, Russia, take Ukraine. But we're going to do regime change.

[Tim Miller]

And it makes no sense. It is insane policy. It is illegal. And I think it's potentially really bad politics for him with not like the Fox News watching part of the base, but the, you know, whatever.

[Nicole Wallace]

The country.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, the country. The RFK crowd, you know, and there's a lot of people in his base that don't want this.

[Nicole Wallace]

Helene, what is the response or reaction inside the military.

[Tara Palmeri]

It depends on who you're talking to. The Trump military, the Hexath Crew and the Pentagon civilian leadership are not giving any sort of real explanation about why they're doing this or what they're doing or really, the first we saw about any real legal basis was this. Some Pentagon officials, DoD people, and some Trump people went to speak to members on the hit on, in Congress and on Capitol Hill and came up with this. New president. Trump has deemed these drug cartels as, you know, combatants, he said. And it's a very thin legal rationale for what looks increasingly like it's probably an illegal act according to every single person, every JAG or, or lawyer that we've talked to so far. So this is, it's really shaky. The military, the military part of the Pentagon is terrified because at the end of the day, and one general said this to me yesterday, you know, Trump is protected, he said, by the Supreme Court immunity decision. Military commanders are not. And so we don't know where this is going to end up. But the question of why, I think is a really, really good one, because why Venezuela? It doesn't make a lot of sense right now.

[Nicole Wallace]

Helene, your reporting on all this has been incredible this week. Thank you for joining us today to talk about all these things. Tim Miller, thank you for spending the whole hour with us. It's great to have you at the table.

[Tim Miller]

Anytime, girl.

[Nicole Wallace]

Thank you. Wait to sneak him a break. We'll be right back. Police are now investigating a deadly attack this morning at a synagogue in Manchester, England as an act of terrorism. Police say it happened as the community observed Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar. An attacker drove a car directly at people standing outside the synagogue and then started stabbing people with a knife. Authorities say police fatally shot the suspect, who they've identified in the last hour as a 35 year old British citizen of Syrian descent. Two separate arrests have also been made. The attack adds to growing concerns about rising anti Semitism around the world. Manchester is home to the second largest Jewish community in the UK Whereas the New York Times reports a charity that tracks anti Semitic acts in Britain reported already more than 1500 incidents in just the first half of this year after a record more than 2,000 cases last year, another horrific attack. An important story that will continue cover here. Up next for us, we'll turn to politics. Donald Trump's administration has promised maximum pain and trauma for the American people during the government shutdown. Out loud. We'll get to that next.

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