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- [00:00]
Philip DeFranco
Well, it's. It's happening again. The world is so crazy. You're getting two videos today because the Jeffrey Epstein conspiracy, it has captured the morbid curiosity of the American public, and it's not hard to see why. Here's how it Presidents, a prince and some of the richest men in the world all took part in child sex trafficking on a private island far from the United States. And due to the powerful nature of these individuals, it stayed a secret. And no country was brave enough to actually prosecute Epstein due to the certain blackmail that he had on their leaders. And as a result of this, Epstein became mysteriously wealthy and supposedly maintained a client list in addition to his already released flight. And then when Epstein was arrested by Trump's doj, the ever mysterious they killed him in his prison cell and they framed it as a suicide in order to hide the truth from coming out. That is the Epstein conspiracy. And it could be argued that it is the centerpiece of Trumpism, or at least the latest rendition. But a significant portion of Trump's base, they believe that small groups of powerful people control virtually everything, and they use this power to partake in horrendous activities like cannibalism and sex trafficking.
- [00:56]
Tim Miller
Right.
- [00:57]
Philip DeFranco
When Trump was running For President in 2016, there was Pizzagate, a conspiracy that said that Democratic Party elites were running a pedophilia ring in the basement of Come Ping Pong pizzeria in Washington, D.C. that conspiracy would later fall apart when a gunman shot up that restaurant and then found out himself that Comet Ping Pong doesn't even have a basement. And in Trump's first term, he pushed this idea of a shadowy deep state, this conspiracy, that there were invisible networks that controlled the visible institutions. And despite being the most powerful man in the world, Trump insisted that there was this secret group holding him back, with many saying that what Trump called the Deep State could just also be called a federal bureaucracy. But it also took on a life of its own, and it helped give birth to QAnon, which blended Pizzagate together with Trump's Deep State conspiracy. And the QAnon conspiracy was that a cabal of satanic, cannibalistic child molesters in league with the Deep State was operating a global child sex trafficking ring and that Donald Trump was secretly leading the fight against them. And this shadowy figure named Q would post cryptic messages on an anonymous message board, and then the true believers would have to decipher it when it was revealed to likely just be two plus guys writing fan fiction and not some secret agent dedicated to Trump's. Shadowy fight, QAnon essentially fell apart, but not before leading the charge to overturn the 2020 election. In the Epstein, he'd eventually become the next rendition of Pizzagate. And Unlike Pizzagate and QAnon, there is both very much real smoke and fire, which is why it's much more mainstream. Jeffrey Epstein was a billionaire New York socialite and philanthropist. It's never really fully been made clear exactly how he made his money outside of the generic term financier. And throughout the 80s and 90s, Trump and Epstein were friends who partied a lot. Trump's always had nice things to say about Epstein. There have also been lawsuits here and there accusing Trump of misconduct with Epstein by alleged victims, but nothing's really come from them. And in 2006, Epstein was charged with solicitation of prostitution, with him then being granted a sweetheart deal by Alex Acosta, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida. And Acosta, he'd later become Trump's labor secretary in his first term, though he would resign just before Epstein's death over criticism of his handling of the case. Also notably in 2017, Epstein said that he was Trump's closest friend for 10 years. And in 2019, Epstein was arrested by Trump's DOJ and he would soon kill himself after being denied bond. And later Trump's biographer claimed that Trump thought about pardoning Epstein's girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, to keep her silent in that, as she's now in prison for 20 years for trafficking. And then you had Trump running to become president again in 2020, and there you had Trump promising to defeat the deep state by bringing about a reckoning, and then he would be able to release the Epstein files. And in just six months, Trump has brought the government to its knees in subservience to him, with many saying there's no longer a deep state. Where could it go? As Project 2025 and DOGE have dismantled most of the state capacity on the federal government, but really nothing stands in Trump's way. Yet his DOJ said that Epstein killed himself and there's no client list. And hey, that could be the truth. After all, the Biden DOJ and the New York City medical examiner found that Epstein killed himself. It's also a long standing DOJ policy to not release about people who aren't being charged. If Epstein's list is real, surely the DOJ must have investigated it and found that there's nothing to it. In that case, releasing the list could damage the reputation of who knows how many, though of course if you believe this is all a conspiracy to help the rich elite stay out of trouble, then that's nonsense to you. But MAGA is currently in a rebellion against the President. And they are now for the first time having to reconcile with the fact that Trump was an associate of Epstein's, that Trump is the swamp, and that the President views the movement as a means to an end and is not a true believer. And Trump is certainly not making it easier for them to accept this because he just keeps telling them to essentially shut up now. For personally, I am always incredibly skeptical when people say, you know, this is it, Trump's finished. But this does feel different than a number of things that we've seen. And while usually everyone ends up falling in line, but the longer this goes on and the hotter the anger gets, who knows, right? And so to discuss maga's defection and feud with Trump, I'm joined today by Tim Miller, or you may know him as the Bulwark guy, but he's the host of the Bulwark podcast as well as a personality on msnbc. And you may have seen him on crooked media as well. He is everywhere, especially on my dad's tv. And before all of this, he was Jeb Bush's communication director in 2016 and actually a spokesman for the army before he left the party in 2020. Tim, thank you so much for the time. I really kind of. Just before we fully dive into the Trump MAGA feud, I wanted to talk to you about and ask you just kind of right at the top, what do you think is the truth behind Epstein? And that's partly connected to. Because conservatives have been the ones historically that have pushed the claims. Right. They're saying that they're deep state actors, that they're hiding lists of clients and videos of crimes. And there's other evidence being covered up. And Trump himself has even suggested there's a cover up. But what do you think is the truth behind Epstein?
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Tim Miller
I feel like we need the X Files music to go on while you ask that question. You can do that in post. The honest answer is I don't know. Right. There's some things we can know though, right? It's very strange that only two people were arrested for this. It was a crime that was going on for over a decade. There were a lot of victims, there were a lot of people involved on the financial side at minimum, or you would think on the organizational side. Was Ghislaine Maxwell really the only person that was helping him throughout all this? I don't think that it's obvious that it was not just Jeffrey Epstein that sexually assaulted or raped or whatever these, all of these women, there are other men involved. And so there are people that are guilty of crimes that were not arrested. I just, I think that, that a pretty easy declarative statement that we know how many, how much evidence do we have about all of them that is unknown. That was really what undergirded the call for people to release the files in the first place. That's why people wanted more information. And that wasn't just at the beginning of all this saga. That was not just like a write coded thing. Right. It was Miami Herald reporter Julie K. Brown that was really pushing for this and did a lot of great reporting that kind of reopened the story. And I guess it would have been about 2008. And so a lot of folks who are interested in back then, it was more like kind of tabloid, like People magazine reading crowd. Tabloid reading crowd. Right. And then eventually this becomes kind of a right wing MAGA media coded conspiracy. But for a long time people wanted more information. So we know there are other folks involved. Now we're getting into presumptions like I presume some of them are people that Donald Trump knows or that they're supporters of him. Is he in there anymore? I don't know. We know that he was friends with Epstein. We know he's on the plane. You know, was he ever interviewed? Right. Like there are a lot of questions. There are a lot of tapes that were coming out of the Epstein home. Was Trump on any of these tapes? Maybe. I, you know, maybe he, Epstein told Michael Wolf or allegedly showed Michael Wolf. Michael Wolf says that he showed him a photo of Trump with women on his lap. A bunch of women, something younger looking. It didn't say whether they're 18 or under. So you know, I think that there's obviously more information to be had. Exactly what, what that is, you know, we don't know. But I don't think that's a crazy conspiracy. Now what happened in his jail cell, that gets I think more into a little bit towards conspiratorial land though, right? You know, who the hell knows, right. I point out that when he died in jail, Donald Trump was the President and Bill Barr was the Attorney General. So if there was an inside job that was going to take him out, it wasn't Hillary Clinton walking through the woods in Chappaqua with no power. Right. But you know, to me like that feels it gets a little bit more into conspiracy land. But it also, you Know, is not something that it feels like people have been totally forthright about.
- [08:17]
Philip DeFranco
Right. I mean, that's the thing is it does feel like there's so much smoke that it could explain a fire. But also like, if you're talking about if Donald Trump was guilty of this, if he was on the list, which I'm not saying that he is, all of his actions would seemingly make more sense because it's like, we know that he can be erratic, we know he can be a little all over the place. Well, a little all over the place is downplaying it. But it's just bizarre going, going from. And obviously, you know, some of it's coming from him, some of it's coming from his people. And that, that resulted into the Bondi Bongino Patel situation. But it does feel like a situation where, you know, sometimes it's, it's not the actual scandal. It is more of a, the, the COVID up or the perceived cover up that is, is getting the attention. And I, I don't know if you think that, do you think this is a situation that can go away? I saw, you know, we're seeing more Republicans kind of like trying to go like we need to focus on the other issues, but this is, this is their bomb that they brought largely, you know, not every single one is connected, but this is this, this, they've set the stage.
- [09:25]
Tim Miller
Yeah. A couple of thoughts, just one on the smoke before it goes away. The other thing that we know, right, is Donald Trump doesn't have a lot of empathy for other people generally, but he has demonstrated over time that he does have empathy for, you know, rich, wealthy people that have been accused of crimes in the, in the, in the newspaper. Right. Like he has, he's always been on the side of the accused in me too situations going back a long time. Right. He said that he wishes Jolaine Maxwell well. Right. So it's also possible that it's not like him in there, but that there are a bunch of other rich buddies that he knows and he feels like the accuser, you know, and he looks at it like that. Right. So I think that I'd be open to that as well as maybe like a lesser, you know, cover up than covering up something that has to do with him personally, which would again also be horrible as far as could this go away. Here's my view on this. And you really saw this playing out yesterday. And I started talking about this yesterday morning and it was like, okay, well, these guys are very predictable at this point. Fox is going to Shut up about this, right? State media, you know, establishment Republicans in the Congress are going to shut up about this. Right. It doesn't do them any good to talk about it. They don't want to embarrass Trump anymore. They want to move on to whatever other priorities that they have legislatively. The biggest Trump sycophants, Charlie Kirk yesterday literally said, I'm going to stop talking about this. I trust my friends in the administration. So I mean like doing exactly what MAGA always accused other people of doing, which is, you know, under pressure from the deep states, shutting up about scandals, like that's what Charlie Kirk is doing. So that at some level I think the heat will dissipate a little bit. But a couple other things are happening. Trump's other base, which is, you know, the people that, people that he added to the coalition this last time, right. Which is kind of this tech bro, this manosphere, whatever you want to call it, the Theo Vaughn's, the Andrew Schultz is the Rogans, those guys, they don't sing from a playbook, right. And they have been covering this story and talking about this and, and speculating about it for years. And their audience cares about it it. So they're not going to stop talking about it because some guy at the RNC tells them to. You know, like they don't like Andrew Schultz doesn't care about that. Theo Vaughn doesn't. So I think that the story is going to continue in that world. And then there's another level of like the more conspiratorial side of maga, the Alex Jones, the Tuckers, the Candace Owens, they're not going to shout out about this. Their audience is there because they want to hear titillating right wing kind of conspiracies or theories. So they're gonna keep talking about it. And then Democrats in Congress seem to have finally got off off their ass on this. And like there was an amendment that was blocked over in Congress by the Republicans, but even one Republican, Ralph Norman voted for it, you know, kind of calling for release of all the information DOJ has within 30 days. So Democrats are gonna pressure on this more than they have. So I don't think it goes away. You know, I do think that, right, like the total pandemonium of this past weekend where like people are booing Trump at the TPUSA rally, which was, which is the Charlie Kirk event, which is like crazy and unprec. I, you know, that'll probably die down a little bit, but I don't think, well, this will just go away.
- [12:33]
Philip DeFranco
Yeah, I. Those two worlds, I think, are the most interesting to me right there. There are the, the Schultzes, the Rogans. But then, yeah, specifically, I think the, the tpusa that it's, that one's weird because. Yeah, Kirk, just what I've kind of seen over the last 24, 36 hours especially is like, him trying to be more of getting back into his place, kind of like being a good little boy. But then, like, you have what I had a few things. It was like Senator Mike Lee saying, like, would you like to see Ghislaine Maxwell testify before Congress? You got Laura Loomer and Steve Bannon calling for a special counsel into the Epstein case, which is a whole different can of worms of like, what that would look like making Kelly going after Bondi, which is interesting. I always love when it's like people go after the soldiers, even though the general is obviously telling the soldier what to do and is defending the soldier. But it does, it does feel like we are at this place where, I mean, Tucker Carlson is an interesting one as well, but because, you know, he's gotten the ire of kind of more MAGA and Ted Cruz and Trump recently. But it feels like the situation is exposing Republicans for once again, we're kind of assuming what is actually in the file, but maybe we're looking at the situation where Republicans are exposing themselves as not really caring about this situation, nor the victims that are in it that, you know, are very real. And they only cared about it as a blunt force instrument, some tool to try and villainize or demonize Democrats or get Trump in office and. Or Republicans who are just willing, kind of like Kirk, just willing to get behind the President no matter what. Because power kind of crushes everything. Because at the end of the day, he knows that probably 40% will stick with him.
- [14:20]
Tim Miller
Yeah. And like you said, look, this is not born out of genuine concern for the victims in most of these cases. Right. So the question is like, what is the fissure over? Right. And there are two things I can think of. One is that the villain is different for different of these groups. Right. Like for the Charlie Kirks, for the Republican hack kind of crowd. My old job way back in the day, it's getting a long time ago now, your job is to be against the Democrats. Right. And just like if you're the DNC chair, your job is to be against the Republicans. Right. Like your job isn't to like, give them credit when they get one. Right. You know what I mean? And so for that crowd they're going to get in line because Epstein was a tool, because they thought or believed or wanted to pretend to believe that there were a bunch of Democrats, elite Democrats, that were involved. So that's why they talked about it. And now that Trump says there's nothing in there, they're ready to move on, they'll find something else. Right? But that other group that you mentioned, the Bannons, the Tuckers, to a lesser degree, the manosphere guys, to them, the bad guy is the elites, broadly, not Democrats per se only. But you hear Bannon talk about the uniparty, the big banks are part of that big Hollywood, the universities, to that crowd, they are against the establishment status quo writ large. And they believe, or pretend to believe. I can't get in their heads that Epstein, the Epstein files, which would bring down a lot of those. A lot of people, right? Like, not just Democratic senators or whatever, but like elites, the people that they're going after. And so they can't let this go, right? Like, this is fundamental to the worldview, right, of. Of people that have been pushing that. There are. There are these shadowy forces behind the scenes in elite corridors where nobody ever gets held accountable and they can do the worst things, up to and including pedophilia, and get away with it. And so they're going to keep talking about that. And that, I think, is where you see these guys getting at crossways with each other over this. And just the one last thing about this is that group also has an audience. You can't tell an audience for 10 years, you know, oh, right, there's a secret pedophile ring and the elites are behind it and they've stolen the election from you and they created a fake pandemic and, you know, whatever, hunt. There's a laptop from hell. And then you get in power and you're, whatever, seven months in now, six months in, and you say, well, you know, we couldn't find any of the perpetrators of any of those crimes, like, at all. Eventually the audience is going to be like, what the fuck? You've been telling me for 10 years. All these horrible people are out there, like, why haven't we indicted any of them? Yeah.
- [17:08]
Philip DeFranco
And I think. I think with that, it's. It's definitely also the aggression of it, like, you still talking about this guy? It's like you were talking about the guy. Why are you making me feel like the asshole? But I mean, when you were talking about, you know, how long it's been, I mean, do you feel like. Do you feel like How. How connected is Trumpism with Epstein?
- [17:29]
Tim Miller
I mean, I don't want to overstate it because, like, obviously there are a ton of elements of Trumpism and Trump. And Trumpism is a lot of, like, what Trump wants, and he's a cult, you know, at some. But there's one way in which there's, like, a connection that I think, which is why this has had more salience than some of the other controversies that have been going around. And that is that going all the way back to QAnon. Right. Like, you remember Pizzagate and, like, the guys showing up to that pizza parlor in D.C. thinking that there was a pedophile ring in the basement of it and that Hillary Clinton was, like, taking baby skin and putting it on her face and frazzle dripping and all that. I spent too much time reading the mega blogs. I could give you some details on what they all thought. But. But so they were kind of like, this was a central part of the QAnon conspiracy around Trump won in 2016, and you had people to cue signs at the events and et cetera. Okay, so that is your, like, one of your core beliefs, right? That there is an. A secretive cabal of Democrats that are doing bad things, that are going after regular people, and they're all. They also happen to be pedophiles. And then you have this real story in real life of a. Of a very prominent guy who has really prominent friends in politics and finance who was running some type of pedophile. Right. Like, at some level at least, he was running a trafficking ring of teenage girls, whatever phrase you want to use for that. And so then you're like, okay, wait, wait, that happened and now you're covering it up. Right. That just creates, like, a disconnect. That Trumpism is full of disconnects. But I think that that one is a little too on the nose to just, you know, sweep under the rug. Right. And. And I think that is the element of it that kind of connects, you know, whatever. Trumpism, if you will, to this story.
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Philip DeFranco
Yeah. When you're talking about the disconnect, I think that's something that always kind of confused me because, I mean, you made the reference to, you know, Trump was president in, in 2019. But also, I don't know how you disconnect their background because I feel like, you know, Epstein and Trump, their relationship, it's been public for decades. Like, it's not like the photos and videos were recently unearthed. And if you could have a defense for Trump that, okay, the reason he's in the flight logs is because of just, you know, it was famous people being around famous people and you could have some sort of disconnect, but then you're not giving that to other people. That would potentially or, like, would potentially be. Be there. I don't understand, like, do you have any sort of insight into how that. That disconnect? Because it's, it's, I think part of what we're seeing are people now connecting those dots. And I don't know if it's because they put on blinders themselves or it, like they're actually just being presented and finally open to that information.
- [20:18]
Tim Miller
Yeah, there are a couple of different, I think, rationalizations people use. Do you know the meme of like the Winnie the Pooh meme where it's like Winnie the Pooh and then Winnie the Pooh and the tuxedo, you know, and it's like the fancy description. So the fancy, the winning between the tuxedo rationale among the kind of educated, more engaged sort of MAGA crowd was. And I think, and for all I know, this is actually true, which is that in 2004, Trump had a falling out with Epstein, I think, not over the women, but over some South Florida real estate thing, like rich guy real estate falling out. And so that crowd will say, well, like, oh, well, they were friends and they were in circles. But then once it became clear that he was bad Trump, whatever. So that's one rationale you hear. Another rationale you hear this is just Winnie the Pooh with no clothes on, putting his hand in the honey is that Trump was going to uncover all this. Trump was around them because he is whatever. He was the one elite that was going to go after all the elites. And he needed to be in those circles. So, you know, this is like the Trump is secret Superman kind of like whatever, like, has super secret magical powers. The Trump great man theory. And so that theory gets really hurt by this. Like, right. The fact that he hasn't actually done it and he's tried to sweep it under a rug. And then I think there also is an element of this where, like, which is why you've seen this break out in the open so much in the past week is a lot of these people just didn't see this news. David French, who writes for the New York Times and who is a friend of mine and lives in rural Tennessee, fellow, never Trumper, who is a longtime conservative who left over Trump, way more conservative than me, Christian evangelical conservative. And so he lives around a lot. He goes to church with Folks. And a point that he makes over and over again is I don't think that a lot of, you know, people in whatever urban corridors, liberal bubbles, realize just how much this information doesn't trickle down to those folks. Right. Like, they're just, they're consuming media world where like this is. The story is just not even really touching them. And like that they are, they are not QAnon people. They're just MAGA Christian folks who like, watch, you know, whatever primetime Fox and like, don't have an even and don't get a lot of negative, don't get barely any negative information about Trump at all. And so then all of a sudden is coming out and they're like, wait a minute, there's a million pictures with him and this guy. Right. Like, they're learning information now that they hadn't learned before. So I think that like kind of a combination of those things are happening.
- [23:02]
Philip DeFranco
So that's. Yeah, that's an interesting way of saying it's like this, this kind of bubble popping. I wonder how long it takes until that bubble closes or if it just immediately does. Right.
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Tim Miller
Like, and you saw this yesterday on Fox, the Media Matters for America guys were like, I forgot. Last I looked, he was sending some updates. And I think it was like at 5pm and it was like, Fox has mentioned Joe Biden 80 times today and Jeffrey Epstein zero. Right. So the bubble, I think does close back up very fast.
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Philip DeFranco
Yeah, it sounds like, I feel like they're going to be like, auto pen, auto pen, auto pen. They're like, Epstein, did he make the auto pen? Okay, then you should maybe.
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Tim Miller
Was Epstein on the auto pen? Actually, the spirit of Epstein was signing the auto pen.
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Philip DeFranco
But I mean, do you. Okay, so when you were talking about, you know, Bondi, Manchino, Patel, do you feel like any of these, these generals, based off of what we're seeing and the kind of the, the reports and the updates coming out, that anyone is going to be a, like a quote unquote fall guy or are we past that? Is that. Was that more Trump 1.0 administration? And now it's. Everyone's locked in because everyone becomes a hyper liability like Elon Musk.
- [24:07]
Tim Miller
Yeah, I, I think probably the latter. The Bondi situation is interesting. You know, it's unique in the sense that Trump thought that he had picked loyal attorneys general last time with Sessions, who was his first endorser of Republican elected officials, and then Bill Barr, and then both of them end up turning on him at some level, at least from his vantage point. For those of us from our vantage point, it was just like they were doing their job, following the law, but he sees them as having turned on them. And so that role of Attorney General is maybe, I'm trying to think if there'd be another one. I think probably like the most important role to him in the administration, ensuring that somebody there will not do that again, like will not, you know, use the power of the law enforcement against Trump. And that's why Gates was considered for it originally. Like he wanted a hack in that role. And so if Trump thinks Bondi's being loyal to him and assuming, as I think we all do, right, that like Trump wanted this memo out or at least blessed this memo, and if Bondi just keeps doing whatever Trump wants, she's not going anywhere, right? Like, she has, she has a one man, you know, audience. And, and so if the people at TPUSA are booing her, Megan Kelly shit talking her, like, that's, she doesn't care about that, right. Like, to stay in the job, she's got to keep Trump happy. So she's probably staying as long as assuming this is what Trump wants, which I think is a pretty safe assumption. The FBI situation is a little different and Cash is probably in a similar boat. Dan Bongino, you saw he had to take a mental health day on Friday and la, and apparently some reporting he was shouting at Susie Wiles. These guys have different calculus. Bongino might want to come back into our world, be a competitor. What about you, Phil? Are you interested in being Deputy FBI Director in a future administration? You have the qualifications now?
- [26:03]
Philip DeFranco
I, yeah, I, I, I'm, I'm set up for the, for 2028. That's what I'm really lining up for. I'm gonna make a pivot. No, I, I just, I don't, Yeah, I feel like when we're talking about those jumps, it does feel like we are. Yeah. I mean it feels like everything's just clownish. Like I, I used to look to the government and go and, and maybe falsely. These people are established and while I do not necessarily agree with a lot of what they're doing, they must have some miles on them in this specific situation where they are best qualified, a million times more qualified than me now it feels like it's really just perception based, right? When, when you put certain people, when you put hegseth in and it's about, about the like masculinity and like what are the, the talking points? It's, it's, and it makes sense, right? Reality TV president, Like, it's perceptions, everything.
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Tim Miller
Yeah.
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Philip DeFranco
And it's been like the, the masculine push has been very successful for them. I agree with Scott Galloway that says, like, I feel like a lot of people are confusing cruelty with masculinity these days, but it's. Yeah, it's all a show. A lot of it's a show. And unfortunately, what we're seeing every single day is there's like a real human loss there.
- [27:28]
Tim Miller
Yeah, I, I think maybe you were thinking seeing it falsely in like some political roles. I don't, you know, somebody that was like, I never worked in the White House, all my candidates lost. But, you know, that like, worked with top level political people. There were always a lot of hacks around. Okay. Like, there's no shortage of that. I. That's like the FBI. Like some of these roles, though, it really is different, you know, and like the fba, the idea that Dan Bongino, who is like a rage baiting podcaster, is like the deputy director of the FBI, and that really was a job that had historically been given to people that did have a lot of miles on them, prosecuting cases, looking into domestic espionage questions like the things that are in the FBI's remit. And to take this guy who had no experience at all and put him in this very important operational role. I talked to a lot of FBI people who are deeply alarmed by it. And so I think that that perception is true about certain elements of the government. And I think this case, this is where it takes you to a place that it gets very strange. It's like, okay, well, the clown is the one that's whistleblowing and it's hard for people to kind of wrap their head around. Right. Whose side am I on in this one? Pam Bondi or Dan Bongino? But, like, meanwhile, as these guys are all fighting, like the FBI has real work to do. Right. It's not like, you know, say what you want about some of the other parts of the government. Like, there are some parts of the government can go on autopilot, pilot for six months and, you know, the Republic will survive, but not really the FBI, you know, and so, you know, and there have been people resigning. There was a great story in Lawfare last week about this FBI, very serious guy. He's like, he had been investigating Chinese espionage, whatever. He had gone to a concert with somebody that Trump didn't like or Cash Patel didn't like, and Cash wanted him to do a loyalty plunge, so he had to quit. Right. There's under the Surface. There's a lot of crazy stuff happening in the FBI. And I think to me, that is a secondary, real story about all this. Our top law enforcement officials are in a pissing match over, like, whether they're going to release documents that far right bloggers have been demanding, like, when they should be, you know, protecting us.
- [29:52]
Philip DeFranco
Well, but I think that's, that's why I think in the past Democrats have said, you know, this is, that he's pushing unfounded claims. This is a really dangerous situation. But now, right, we're seeing that 180 from Democrats. They're saying, hey, like, well, actually, I'll ask you, do you see it as more hypocrisy or do you see it as Democrats are like, well, you took us down this road and so now we have to go down it because there has been that argument of there are very real things that are happening. Why are we putting so many resources towards this? What are your thoughts there as far as what Democrats are doing?
- [30:23]
Tim Miller
I don't think I call it hypocrisy and it's definitely political. But I kind of come as somebody who comes out of the politics world. I'm always like, I wish the Democrats would do politics a little bit more. Like sometimes I feel like the Democrats get a little bit, you know, sniffing their own farts. And it's like, you know, it's okay to do politics sometimes. Like, this is doing politics, right? Like, they stepped in it. This is a legitimate issue. They should be held to account for it. And like, again, like, they might seem like clowns, but if the deputy director of the FBI is threatening to resign over something and if the attorney general is promising that they had evidence of crimes and then, and then did a complete reverse and are saying there is none, we should know what the truth is. Right? Like, was she lying before? So I think that like the Democrats are obviously doing politics and there's an element of this of like, yeah, I mean, probably the Democrats and I think this is true across a range of issues. Should have been more engaged. I think that there is this sometimes view in Democratic circles. It's like, oh, if Fox and the right win media are talking about it, we're too good to talk about it. Like, that can't be a real issue. We shouldn't talk. And I feel like that sometimes gets them into trouble. That can happen on the border, whereas it happened in this story. I'm sure there are a couple other examples I could come up with where it's like, I don't want to dignify that that's something for the fever swamps. And so if I was going to criticize Democrats, it'd be on that. This has been an issue for nine years that a lot of people cared about and that you haven't because you thought it was just crazy people that cared about it. So it's kind of better late than never. More than hypocrisy for me, I think my. On my view of the Democrats on this.
- [32:05]
Philip DeFranco
Yeah. And when you were talking about Epstein recently and I wanted to go back to see who you were talking about specifically, but on this topic, you said that the credit. Their credibility is unrecoverable in this situation. Was that in reference to Trump or his people or who are you talking about there?
- [32:21]
Tim Miller
Again, that was kind of a little bit what I was referencing earlier. So I'll just kind of expand on this is like, it's the credibility with the true believing MAGA audience. And again, I want to bifurcate this. Part of the true believing MAGA audience is just Trump is every. Trump is right. I'm in a cult. Everything Trump says is great. That's not. I'm talking about the people who, like, really, you know, day to day. Like, listen to Steve Bannon. Listen to Band Candace. Follow Donald Trump Jr. On Twitter. They have been told that the Bidens were running a crime family. Family. That there was a pedophile ring of elite Democrats, that this Jeffrey Epstein guy was at the center of that there was a plan Demic that like, that Fauci and the elites were part of a, you know, were responsible. Right. Et cetera. I could go down the list. And now Trump is in there and he's put in place characters that they know from their media. Bambandi and Cash Patel, who is telling them. Kash Patel is telling them this. Dan Bongino is telling them this. Trump was telling them this for years. And so if you put themselves in their shoes, you're like, wait a minute. You guys told me there are all these great crimes that were happening. Why haven't you indicted anybody? And so to a liberal, you're like, this might sound kind of ridiculous because it's all like in, like, it's just in a world that is totally foreign. But if you're in their world where you've been getting this information every day, like little like, I've got another new nugget about the Hunter laptop. And now it's like, you guys control the Justice Department, you control the FBI, you're the president. You have both houses of Congress. Why haven't I? I thought you told us there were a lot of crimes happening. And I think that, like, if Bondi and, and, and Cash and Bongino in particular, less than Trump because Trump is just. Because he has this effect on it. If they don't get a scalp, if you not to be, you know, crass about it, I do think that their reputation, again, with some of these folks, some of them are just like, whatever, will go along with anything. But like, with some of these folks, I think their reputation is going to be unrecoverable. The people that were like, like this was what they cared about. Right. I mean, I know that might seem crazy to some people, but it's like they didn't care about, you know, whatever, like the big beautiful bill. Like they didn't vote for Trump because they wanted, you know, tax cut extensions and Medicaid cuts. Like they wanted the bad guys caught. And now they're telling them, well, now that was just, that was just part of the deal, you know.
- [34:48]
Philip DeFranco
Yeah. The last thing that I do want to ask you, you, because one of the things I feel like when I, when I do watch you, you constantly say, like, I think the Democrats should. Right. Aside from trying to fundraise off of this, which they will always do, and send you a photo of Hakeem Jeffries with a baseball bat, what would you say that Democrats should do in this specific moment? We could talk about 24 hours or even just this week.
- [35:14]
Tim Miller
Yeah. So, well, this week in 24 hours, it's like what the Democrats eventually should do is hopefully the Democrats should focus on winning back the House. And then when they win back the House, Democrats should not do what they did during the last time that they took over the House and just say, oh, well, we're not going to do the oversight. Like, we don't want to. You know, again, like some of the, I think there are times there's Democrats out there, too. So in the future, they should be like, we should investigate this and like, actually bring these guys in front and do what Republicans did for Benghazi and all these other issues. Okay. In the current moment, I like what they're doing as far as trying to pressure other Republicans to, you know, with amendment votes on the Hill. I don't know why they haven't been doing this more over the past seven months. Like I said, they got one vote from Ralph Norman already yesterday to, you know, who voted with the Democrats on an amendment to a crypto bill to release the Epstein files. I think a lot of Republicans are gonna feel pressure on this. There are gonna be a lot of Republicans that don't have the Trump halo, that have voters who care about this in red districts, and maybe they can be pressured. I think that there is a message here that is potent that goes with kind of the economic populist message, which is Trump promised that he was going to care about working people. What he's done instead is give a tax cut for the rich and protect the richest people in the world who are involved in pedophilia. There's got to be a way to get that message, right, where it's like, instead of going after the Epstein perpetrators, he gave him a tax cut. You know, I think there's a way to kind of get this into an economic space, you know, that is more in touch with people because I think that's going to be a key message for them in the midterms. Right? Like he promised he was going to get costs down. What has he done instead? Right? What has he done instead? He's protected the Epstein perpetrators, He's thought about going after Greenland, he gave a tax cut to rich people, he's cut your snap in Medicaid. Right? Like, there's a way to kind of tie all this stuff together. And I think rather than saying, okay, I did a tweet about Epstein now and can move on, I think there's a way to kind of tie this into the broader, whatever you want to call it, populist or economic focused kind of message about, like, what are Trump's priorities? How can you use this story to continue to drive home with people that he hasn't followed up very last thing? And I think we're starting to see more of this now. Democrats gotta go on these other platforms, right? Coming on my show is great to talk about politics. I have a politics based audience. Figure out how to go on. Shane Gillis and Andrew Schultz and Pete just did this recently. He was on the flagrant podcast, more of that. And then talking about this there, bringing this up there and being familiar and being able to do it. This is, I guess my final piece of advice for Democrats is say what you want about Trump and like, he's an idiot. Like, if you, if you, Phil, if you had him on the show and you're like, I want to really dig deep on Medicaid. I want to dig deep on the Medicaid cuts. He would have. He has. He doesn't even fucking know what was in the Medicaid cuts in that bill. Okay? He doesn't even Know, but if you said, hey, Mr. President, I want to have you on to discuss the 2020 election or the Biden crime family, Donald Trump could tell you, like, details about Hunter Biden's friends and that web of conspiracy that, like, you wouldn't even know, right? Like, Donald Trump is in the fucking fever swamps. He knows this stuff and he can do. And so when he goes on Rogan, like, he can. He can vamp about. Not policy, but, like, about all this sort of ephemera. Democrats need to be able to. This is a crazy advice, but, like, they need to be able to do that. They need to be able to go on fucking Andrew Schultz and bullshit about Jeff Epstein and actually, like, know what happened, right? Not just do, like, talking points. Not like we need accountability for Jeffrey Epstein. No, it's like, you know, do what we're just doing, right? Just like, bullshit about it. Like, be like, really, there was nobody else involved. It was, you know, da, da, da, da. They were neighbors in Palm Springs. Like, you got to be able to do that in this world.
- [39:15]
Philip DeFranco
I wonder if they're actually going to understand that message because it does feel like there has been this push from the DNC of like, some sort of messaging out there. Like, you got to go and talk to people online. But I think to your point, they're. They're maybe not talking specifically the right people. I would love. They're knocking on my door more than ever over. Right. Congrats. And certain ones make sense. Right? But I also think that I'm such a tiny spec. I think it's the Rogans. I think it's. Or not specific people.
- [39:46]
Tim Miller
You're not tiny, bro. You're doing numbers. You're doing numbers over here.
- [39:49]
Philip DeFranco
I'm doing numbers, but I'm talking about the specific people that are not motivated to vote or don't actually understand the platform or are convinced by people going on personality podcast to vote against their own interests.
- [40:05]
Tim Miller
This is so important, dude. This is so important. And that people don't understand the thing. My number one advice for Dems, because it's the opposite of the Obama era, so it's taking them a while to learn this. People that pay attention the least are who the Democrats need. People that are really engaged in politics are mostly voting for Democrats. Not entirely. There's a group of people that are really engaged in politics that watch Fox all day. But Convo would have won if the only people who are allowed to vote were people who read the news that day, even if the news counted. Newsmax or watching this people who engaged in the news, comma, would won. So they got to get to people that are not engaged. And so sometimes you hear this advice of, oh, you got to focus on the kitchen table issues. And it's like, nah, man, you got to go into these other worlds out there and, and talk to them about what they want to talk about. If they want to talk about Epstein, you got to be able to, like, talk to them about it like a normal person. Right? Like, and just like, just like you're hanging out with your friend or whatever, your Thanksgiving dinner, and you got your cousin or whatever that's really obsessed with this. And like, that's. That's how you got to do it. And. And there is like, this tension sometimes between, like, oh, we should really focus on Medicaid cuts. And oh, we also need to reach the people that. That don't follow the news at all and only get their news through, like, random tiktokers and like, you know, they. They follow a late weightlifting, like, influencer who talks about RFK sometimes. Like, you got to figure out how to get to those people, you know, and that. And this story isn't a way to do that. Right. And so they should take advantage of it.
- [41:40]
Philip DeFranco
Do you. To go one step further on that, what are your thoughts on the. Going on the podcast that. That aren't necessarily personality. They are in the other space. So, like, Newsom's done a different version of it where he's had people on and he's kind of just heard them out with little pushback here and there versus, you know, there's a whole world out there of people kind of yelling or debating at each other on each other's stuff. Is that. Do you think that is helpful? That's performative, or each side goes, my guy got my guy one.
- [42:09]
Tim Miller
Yeah, I'm kind of less keen on that. I'm not like, anti. You know, especially if you got the skills for it. Newsom's pretty good at that, right? Like, going on and arguing. I didn't like it so much when Newsom was hosting them. Like, if you go into their podcast with their audience, make a couple points. I don't. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. Pete. Going on Fox makes a lot of sense to me.
- [42:28]
Philip DeFranco
Sure.
- [42:29]
Tim Miller
Doing the yelling shows. Sometimes I do them just because I like it to get it off my chest, but it's not like I don't feel like I'm doing it in service of democracy. You know, it's kind of just the.
- [42:38]
Philip DeFranco
Emails I don't answer.
- [42:39]
Tim Miller
I'm like, yeah, sometimes I'm just like, I kind of want to argue today, so I'll pop on. And I want to argue today. And sometimes I've been on a couple of them. I don't want to, you know, because God love them, they're trying to do their best. So I don't embarrass any of them. But I've been on these shows where it's like two anti Trump and two pro Trump. It'll be like me and some congressman and I'm going, sir, why are you doing this? Like, this is not, you're not winning any votes doing this. Like, this is just a food fight. People are like watching just like people are rubbernecking this show. But like, they're on the highway and they want to see a crash. And so like every once in a while I do it for fun because I don't have a real job. This is my job. But so anyway, I think it's a case by case. I don't hate going on. But you know, and also if there's an important issue to you, I guess here's one really good time to do it. If you feel like the Republic, if you care about an issue that you think you're actually more in line with Republicans on and you think Trump has let them down. Right. Like Ro Khanna going in there to talk about populist economic stuff and how this big, beautiful bill actually didn't help working class Republicans. Going on to some Republican platform to argue with them about that. That's not, that's not a total waste of time. That's fine. Awesome.
- [43:47]
Philip DeFranco
Tim, thank you so much for the time this morning.
- [43:48]
Tim Miller
Philip, man, so great. I'm happy that now that I know that you've been rejecting Democratic politicians who have been desired to come on the show, I'm thrilled, thrilled to be included. So let's stay in touch.
- [43:59]
Philip DeFranco
It's just, I don't know, there's part of the people that only have like 20%, 27% of approval from their base that have no desire to change and are learning all the wrong lessons. And I'm like, I don't need to give a megaphone to that. All right.
- [44:14]
Tim Miller
I appreciate it, buddy. Thanks for having me.
- [44:15]
Philip DeFranco
Appreciate you. And then let me just say to you, watching at home, thank you for watching. If you like getting this bonus video before today's Philip DeFranco show, definitely let me know by hitting that, like, button. I'll also be getting these interviews up on Spotify and Apple podcasts and if I was able to turn things around in time, there might even be a link in the description so you can go and follow and subscribe there. If you do, please give us five stars there. Leave a comment, let us know what you think. Especially comment because I personally have been growing to like having people come on the show. With all that said, remember you got another Philip DeFranco show which you can click or tap right now if it's live or I got links in the description. Love you mean it. Bye.