Tim Miller vs 20 Gen Z Conservatives

Summary

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Surrounded — Tim Miller vs. 20 Gen Z Conservatives

Podcast: Surrounded (by Jubilee Media)
Episode: Tim Miller vs 20 Gen Z Conservatives
Date: November 26, 2025

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Episode Overview

This episode of Surrounded features Tim Miller, a liberal millennial and political commentator (The Bulwark Podcast/MSNBC), stepping into a literal circle to debate twenty Gen Z conservatives—one after another—on some of America's most contentious issues: immigration, gun control, American values under Trump, red states vs. blue cities, and abortion. The conversation is fast-paced, at times heated, but consistently challenges assumptions and probes for common ground. Each participant cycles in and out after being “voted out” by peers. The structure forces intense one-on-one exchanges marked by candidness, probing, and frequent attempts (and failures) to build bridges.

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Key Discussion Points and Segments

1. Immigration & ICE: Fascism or Rule of Law?

[01:31 – 21:35]

• Tim Miller kicks off with a provocative claim: “ICE has become a fascist institution and should be abolished in its current form.”
• Gen Z conservatives repeatedly stress the electoral and democratic mandate for aggressive immigration enforcement, arguing “the people want deportations.”
• Tim pushes back: democratic victories don’t justify illegal or inhumane tactics, comparing ICE’s actions to “East Germany and the Stasi.”
• Notable exchange:
  • Gen Z: “Should they just politely knock on the door?”
  • Tim (03:36): “Yeah. Do you want to have a little chat? ... They broke the law. ... Deportation, fine. But masked men jumping out of unmarked cars? That’s not America.”
• Real-life stories (e.g., George, a dual citizen wrongfully detained by ICE) are used to highlight due process failures.
• Some participants argue Miller is cherry-picking “fringe cases.” He counters that these abuses are widespread and symptomatic of systemic problems.
• Discussion on solutions: Miller advocates restoring pre-ICE (pre-2003) immigration enforcement structures, using existing federal agencies without secretive, aggressive tactics.
• Throughout, both sides struggle with where federal authority ends and human dignity begins.

Selected Quotes:

• Tim Miller (05:37): “He didn’t have his passport. They grabbed him, threw him in the back of a van, took him to the detention center. He’s an American citizen, detained by ICE.”
• Gen Z participant (06:53): “The vast majority... getting deported are illegal aliens. You’re pointing to a small percentage.”

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2. Pathways to Citizenship & Individual Responsibility

[09:31 – 12:34]

• Discussion pivots to what should be expected of undocumented children and longtime residents.
• Gen Zers question why more don’t pursue citizenship; Tim highlights systemic barriers and logistical realities (e.g., children can’t initiate proceedings themselves).
• Conservative participants reference examples of “doing it right,” suggesting platforming such stories more often.
• Miller repeats that under Trump-era rules, legal pathways were stifled, not encouraged.

Selected Quotes:

• Gen Z participant (11:19): “Let’s revisit this issue with the child ... Why can’t that child say, ‘Mom, Dad, let’s get on this’?”
• Tim Miller (11:43): “You think a seven-year-old? ... If your parents brought you here illegally, you can’t take the initiative.”

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3. Guns, Gun Violence & the Second Amendment

[23:18 – 45:40]

• Miller posits: “It is not worth the costs of gun deaths every year to have the Second Amendment [as currently interpreted].”
• Gen Zers challenge: show real-world legislation that would reduce gun deaths without infringing rights.
• Gun Control Comparative Stats: Tim repeatedly invokes drastic international comparisons (e.g., U.S. had 46,000 gun deaths in 2023 vs. Japan’s 10).
• Conservatives argue that gun violence correlates more with culture, fatherless homes, or criminal justice breakdowns, not gun prevalence.
• Policy debate:
  • Tim supports an assault weapons ban, magazine limits, licensing akin to car ownership.
  • Opponents argue criminals, not legal owners, drive the numbers—no law would have stopped high-profile shootings.
• Some propose mental health investment as the higher priority.
• Notable exchange:
  • Tim: “If you have a gun in the home, you’re much more likely to be killed by that gun.”
  • Gen Z participant: “It’s the heart problem, not the gun problem. ... Frankly, it’s a lack of Jesus.”

Selected Quotes:

• Tim Miller (26:00): “If you try to kill yourself with a handgun ... nine out of ten times. ... It increases suicides because people have easy access.”
• Gen Z participant (42:17): “It’s not a gun problem, it’s a heart problem. ... It’s a lack of having Jesus.”

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4. Trump, Democracy & ‘American Values’

[45:50 – 65:20]

• Miller’s core claim: “The Trump administration is an attack on American values.” He defines these as: freedom of speech, religion, rule of law, democracy, pluralism.
• Young conservatives counter-define “American values” as deriving from Christianity/Judeo-Christian roots, emphasizing right to life (abortion) and protection of the unborn.
• Dispute arises over religious origins of America’s founding. Miller argues the documents enshrine pluralism and secularism, not theocracy.
• Freedom under Trump: Miller charges that Trump and ICE undercut free speech, free markets (with tariffs), due process, and pluralism.
• Conservatives challenge: “Where is Trump restricting press or religion?” Miller cites the Muslim ban, actions against protestors, and politicized use of DOJ/ICE.
• Democracy and the 2020 election: debate erupts on January 6, 2021, and the integrity of American democratic processes.

Selected Quotes:

• Tim Miller (47:00): “The values that I’m talking about are the ones in the Constitution and the Declaration ... freedom of speech, freedom of religion, rule of law, democracy.”
• Gen Z participant (47:47): “They had those Judeo-Christian values ... Protecting the unborn. That’s what we’re passionate about.”

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5. Red States vs. Blue Cities: Who Governs Best?

[70:32 – 91:59]

• Claim: “The reddest states are governed worse than the bluest cities.”
• Miller argues red states lag on poverty, education, economic mobility, health outcomes, and (per capita) violent crime.
• Gen Z conservatives push back, focusing on gun violence in cities like Chicago despite strict regulation.
• Miller responds: blue states fare better overall, and gun violence in cities is often enabled by lax rules in surrounding red states (guns trafficked from Indiana into Chicago).
• Counter-arguments cite business climate and population influx into states like Florida and Texas—as evidence of “good governance.”
• The debate pivots to social issues—school choice, homelessness—and how societal “moors” or cultural factors may be declining in liberal areas.

Selected Quotes:

• Tim Miller (75:19): “Los Angeles is objectively governed better than West Virginia, Oklahoma, on every score. Where would you want to send your kids?”
• Gen Z participant (84:06): “I think today liberal cities have an issue that’s not really about government. It’s about hyper-individualism.”

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6. Abortion: Grave Moral Evil?

[92:12 – 102:14]

• Returning participant’s claim: “From the moment of conception, abortion is a grave moral evil.”
• Miller: “I disagree. ... But abortion does reach a point where it is a grave moral evil—heartbeat is a compelling line for me.”
• Pro-life advocate presses for a clear philosophical argument, analogizing abortion pre-heartbeat to historical moral failings (e.g., slavery, Holocaust).
• Miller stresses that true pro-life principles require compassion for the born as well (support for mothers, healthcare, safety).
• Debate cycles back to societal support structures, culture of life, and limitations of public policy vs. personal morality.

Notable Quotes:

• Tim Miller (93:02): “You can feel a grave moral weight. ... but when you get into ... how the government remediates that, I think there are different questions.”
• Pro-Life Advocate (101:10): “A third of my generation is gone because of abortion. ... I will have that passion [for other issues] when abortion is completely ended in this country.”

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Memorable Moments & Notable Quotes

ICE and Authority

• Tim Miller (03:18): “If you described what they’re doing in another country, you’d obviously say it’s fascist. ... Masked men grabbing you, asking for your papers. That’s not American.”
• Gen Z participant, JP (04:16): “My name is JP, it stands for Juan Pablo. ... I understand it might seem like they’re coming after the Latinos, but really, what we’re doing is respecting our laws.”

Guns

• Tim Miller (27:20): “Would you feel more or less safe if everybody had a gun in here right now?”
• Pro-Life Advocate (27:29): “I would feel plenty safe if I had a gun. Yes.”

American Values

• Tim Miller (47:00): “Liberal democracy, small-L liberalism, is something that basically began here in this country ... liberal values are basically freedom of speech, freedom of religion, pluralism, tolerance.”

Trump and Speech

• Tim Miller (56:17): “The Trump administration is doing the exact same thing right now with information about ICE. ... They’ve gone to Facebook and Apple and told them to stop. ... In a free country, people should be able to post ... ‘ICE is in your community’—without government shutting it down.”

Red vs. Blue

• Tim Miller (75:19): “Los Angeles is objectively governed better than West Virginia ... on every score. Where would you want your kids to go?”

Abortion & Dignity

• Tim Miller (99:06): “Let’s protect the newborns. Let’s protect the people that are fleeing and want to come to this country ... Let’s protect mothers ... who are dying in childbirth.”

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Time-Stamped Highlights (Top Segments)

• ICE = fascist? / American values: 01:31 – 08:37
• Child and citizenship / Pathways: 09:31 – 12:34
• Gun deaths, legislation debate, international comparison: 23:18 – 45:40
• Trump and American values: Free speech, rule of law, religious freedom: 45:50 – 61:46
• Red states vs. blue cities governance: 70:32 – 91:59
• Pro-life moral philosophy, abortion debate: 92:12 – 102:19

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Tone & Takeaways

Tim Miller maintains a tone of “liberal exasperation”—blunt but seeking connection, referencing both high-minded ideals and lived anecdotes. The Gen Z conservatives are passionate, deeply ideological, and at times more interested in rhetorical wins than finding consensus. The back-and-forth is authentic, sometimes raw, but always anchored by Jubilee’s mission to move past echo chambers.

Miller’s closing advice:

“The main thing you can do as an individual to bridge the partisan divide is to see people from the other side as humans.” (103:23)

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Summary produced for listeners seeking a lively, challenging, and revealing episode about the culture wars, generational rifts, and American identity—through the lens of real debate.

Transcript

[Tim Miller]

The values that I'm talking about are the ones in the Constitution and the Declaration, as I said, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, rule of law, democracy. If you go down that list that we said, whether it's freedom of speech, what does the Declaration, Trump is attacking that. Freedom of religion. Trump is attacking that.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

He's not attacking freedom of religion.

[Tim Miller]

How is it we had a Muslim band, we had a Muslim ban in this country?

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

No, we have never had an actual Muslim ban. That is an insane claim by you.

[Tim Miller]

Yes, we did.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

From Jubilee Media, this is the Surrounded.

[Tim Miller]

Podcast, where one brave soul faces a.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

Room full of disagreers. In the center of today's episode is Tim Miller. He's the host of the Bulwark Podcast.

[Tim Miller]

He is also a liberal millennial, and he will be facing 20 conservative Gen Zers.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

Tim will debate them one on one until they're voted out by their peers and replaced by someone new. Let's get into it.

[Tim Miller]

You're tuning in to Candy Crush music season with me, DJ Devine.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

Sweet.

[Tim Miller]

We've had a request from Tiffy to.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

Drop the new Thundercat track upside down.

[Pro-Life Advocate]

Delicious.

[Tim Miller]

But you can do more than just listen. Go to candycrushupsidedown.com to swipe and pop the video. From November 3rd to December 7th.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

Selected players level 36 + terms apply. See in game optional in game purchases.

[Moderator / Other Participants]

Hit pause on whatever you're listening to and hit play on your next adventure this fall, get double points on every qualified stay. Life's a trip. Make the most of it at best Western. Visit bestwestern.com for complete terms and conditions.

[Tim Miller]

Hey, everybody, I'm Tim Miller. You might have seen me on the Bulwark Podcast on YouTube or on MSNBC. I'm a liberal millennial, and today I'm surrounded by 20 Gen Z conservatives. My first claim is ICE has become a fascist institution and it should be abolished in its current form. What's up, y'? All?

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

So the point that I want to make about immigration, I specifically that I think is worth making, is a structural one and one that I think you could respect. And it's the fact that, democratically speaking, it's been an issue that was not very popular before Trump came into power, and it was the central issue for which he was selected for the first time, and then the second time he doubled down and it was an even stronger argument. Do you remember that? He, like the people in his rallies and himself, were talking about mass deportations and that idea won. What do you think is going to happen in the next election? You know do you think that sentiment is going to disappear?

[Tim Miller]

Well, look, we live in a constitutional republic, so just because you get elected on a certain issue doesn't mean you get to do whatever you want. If the next democr Democratic president ran on a campaign that said, shut down all the evangelical churches, because I think they're doing hate speech and they became president and then they tried to shut down all the evangelical churches, people would say, that's fascist. That's wrong. You can't do that. That's illegal. What the president has done on the border, we can talk about what's happening with cbp, but with ice, I don't think that a lot of people that voted for him pictured this. I think that if you described what they're doing in another country, you'd obviously say it's fascist. You got people coming up in unmarked cars. They are wearing masks, they're jumping out, and they're asking people for their papers. That's not American. That is not within our traditions or our rule of law.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

How should they deport them? Should they, like, just, like, knock on the door and be like, hey, Mr. Illegal, can you come out?

[Tim Miller]

Yeah.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

Do you want to have a little chat? You know, like. Yeah, actually, they broke the law. They came here into this country illegally, and we have to enforce it. So, like, if we're gonna call eyes fascist, which, yeah, you guys call everything fashion nowadays, then what are we going to have? We're not going to deport them. And then the people are going to be ignored.

[Tim Miller]

I don't think we need to ignore the people. I think you look. Deportation. There are a lot of Donald. Look, there are a lot of Donald Trump supporters out there that don't like the way that ISIS has been acting. You hear this from Joe Rogan, you hear from Tim Dillon. What they have been doing is un American. You should not be. Look, you should not be hassling people.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

Who are American to bring in millions of illegals into this country.

[Tim Miller]

There are people that voted for Trump.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

What are you talking about?

[Tim Miller]

Look, look, jp.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

My name is jp. It sounds from Juan Pablo. I love the Latino people. I might look like a white boy.

[Tim Miller]

Have the white bo aura, but I'm a Latino man.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

And I understand that it might seem like they're coming after the Latinos, but really what we're doing is respecting our laws. We're constituting.

[Tim Miller]

No, they're legally. They're not respecting our laws.

[Moderator / Other Participants]

Pause, Pause. I'm sorry, but you have to respect.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

Me when I say pause.

[Moderator / Other Participants]

You've been eliminated. You have to Go back to your chair.

[Tim Miller]

Good to see you, man.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

As you can see, I'm pretty well aware of how this deportation game goes. A lot of relatives have to face it, and I got to tell you that it's very well warranted. I find that with the mandate that Donald Trump got in 2024, he got a stronger mandate, in fact, than he did in 2016. And obviously in 2020, he in particular had immigration and deportations, by the way, as being one of the strongest issues.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, I hear you. We said this in the last one, though, again, you don't get to break the law just because you won the election. That's not how it works in a free country. We have rule of law. We have rules. Here's the thing. What ICE has been doing, going after American citizens, going after people, going after folks that look like you and asking for their papers is wrong. Here's an example. Do you have your passport on you right now?

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

Well, actually, yeah, I bought it, but I traveled.

[Tim Miller]

But no, I'm sorry. Do you have it on your person? Can you show it to me?

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

Okay.

[Tim Miller]

You don't have money for them. That's interesting, because there's a guy named George here in LA who worked at a car wash. Here's what happened. ICE rolled up to his car wash. He is a dual citizen. He was from born in Mexico. He came here, he became a citizen. He has a wife that's a citizen and two kids that are a citizen. They came into his car wash. He asked ice, he's like, can you. Do you guys have a warrant? He showed me a warrant. They didn't have a warrant. They said, can we see your driver? Can we see proof that you're from America? He showed them his driver's license. Then they said, can we see your passport? He didn't have his password on him. They grabbed him, they threw him in the back of a van, and he came downtown here to the detention center. George Reddes is an American citizen, got detained by ice. Just the other day, the New York Times was talking about this, that there was an unmarked car in Chicago driving down Lake Michigan. Two guys hopped out of the car. They were masked. They jumped out and grabbed these two joggers, and they were like, show me your papers. This is. I'm sorry, this is not mass deportations now. This is hassling American citizens. This is breaking the rule of law. This is anti due process, and it's wrong.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

The anecdotes you bring up are actually relevant because I could do the same thing for Medicare abuse. And whatnot. But I'm not calling for drastic reforms or even an abolishment. You're calling for an abolishment of ICE as we know it now. You're pointing out to fringe cases.

[Tim Miller]

They're happening all over the country all the time.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

Okay, so I'm arguing that the vast majority of the people that are getting deported are illegal aliens. You're pointing to a small percentage of folks that are getting deported because of, obviously anything that the government does, there's going to be mistakes done. And I feel like the majority of the people of the country voted more than they did for Kamala for such things to happen. And so what you're pointing to is, I think, to be something that's ineffable.

[Tim Miller]

There are many people that voted for Donald Trump that have already said they're upset about this. Prominent podcasters have said that they're upset about what he's doing. So just because he voted, it doesn't mean he gets to act, like, legally and act with impunity. All right, so ICE is about to have a bigger budget than the entire military of Israel. It's an insane way. Thrilled about that over there. It's an insane way for us to be spending our resources. This country. They're hassling American citizens. They're hassling people who are here on legal visas. They're demanding their papers. Like, this is East Germany and the Stasi. That's not how you act in a free country. You can do border control and you can do deportations without having masked guys coming and grab you because of the way you look.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

Well, if that's the case, then how come CBP and the other things before eyes and before Trump haven't been working? And that's why the people elected Donald Trump in the first place. So then what would be your solution? That would be some sort of a middle ground because it seems like you just want to get rid of the whole thing.

[Tim Miller]

What do you mean, no? ICE just started in 2003. We had Immigration Naturalization Services. That was inside the DOJ. It happened the entire history of our country up until 9 11. There were plenty of ways to deal with this. We could have the FBI go after criminals. We could have the DEA go after drug dealers. We could have the CBP go after the border like, there is no. There is. This isn't working. What is happening now isn't working when you are illegally detaining US Veterans and putting them in prison for three days. That's not. That is not working. That is not that is not what happens in a free country.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

That's when Republicans write up death panels for Obamacare.

[Tim Miller]

That is not a free country.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

And by the way, you say that some people, like Tim Dillon don't support Trump anymore. Didn't Obama lose a ton of support in 2010? So what's your point? You lose some part of the coalition?

[Tim Miller]

My point is that. My point is that. Is that in a free country, just because you get elected, that does not mean that you can start to do illegal things. We still have rule of law. We still. Yeah, they are doing illegal things all over the country.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

Okay, you're saying he's doing illegal things to get rid of everybody.

[Tim Miller]

What is. What. How. How do you think it makes sense for a masked person to jump out of their car and go and grab you? Well, how is that legal?

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

So there's no unmarked police cars before I said this.

[Tim Miller]

Will they give people. They give people due process.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

How so as compared to people that are already not even citizens in the first place?

[Tim Miller]

I don't understand the question.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

All right, so yours. You've been eliminated.

[Moderator / Other Participants]

Hello. Nice to meet you. I'm Tara.

[Tim Miller]

Hey, Tara. Nice to meet you.

[Moderator / Other Participants]

So I guess I just want to know first, you know, kind of a personal question. Do you know anyone who's been deported?

[Tim Miller]

Do I know anybody personally that's been deported? No.

[Moderator / Other Participants]

Like, personally?

[Tim Miller]

No.

[Moderator / Other Participants]

Okay. I know a few.

[Tim Miller]

I mean, I've interviewed some people, but I don't have any friends, really.

[Moderator / Other Participants]

Tell me about some of the interviews. How long were they here for?

[Tim Miller]

You know, look, and I think that there have been people that were brought here as kids that got deported. We did a big thing on msnbc. Jacob Soboroff was doing it with somebody whose mother had been here for decades.

[Moderator / Other Participants]

Decades, you say? So that's interesting. So that's a lot of time to put off doing the process of becoming a citizen.

[Tim Miller]

Sure.

[Moderator / Other Participants]

So what do you think we should do about that?

[Tim Miller]

I think that there are a lot of other punishments that we could give somebody besides deportation. Somebody spending the time. No, no, no.

[Moderator / Other Participants]

Not punishment. I'm talking about the solution. Let's back up from when the law enforcement begins. Let's go back to when they realize they are here illegally. Maybe they turn 18 as a child, or maybe they know as a child that they are an illegal citizen. What do they do next?

[Tim Miller]

I would assume that they go to college, they stay in the country, they work, they go to church, they make friends, they try to do their best, and they're to.

[Moderator / Other Participants]

When do they fill out their Papers. When do they take the initiative to become a legal US Citizen?

[Tim Miller]

I mean, if your parents brought you here illegally, you can't take the initiative. You have to go back to your home country first before you do that. Unless you're under daca and, you know, it's complicated. There are a lot of different rules. I guess my point is the individual choice that you're trying to get to that question. A lot of individuals break a lot of laws. Right? Like, here's like. And we make decisions about how we want to punish them and how we want to enforce them as a society. Like, for example, I don't know. Have you ever, like, borrowed somebody else's Netflix?

[Moderator / Other Participants]

Well, hang on, hang on. Back up a second. So we're talking about, like, legal citizenship. We're not talking about a streaming platform. But I just want to visit this topic.

[Tim Miller]

I'm just curious, though. Have you ever bought, have you ever, like, borrowed anything?

[Moderator / Other Participants]

I just want to revisit this style. Well, I want to revisit this issue with the child whose parents are illegal immigrants. Let's talk about that. Because this child is in America, right? Let's say they're going to a public school.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, great.

[Moderator / Other Participants]

Probably, you know, most kids know what's happening. Why can't that child say, mom, dad, let's like, get on this. I know I'm an illegal citizen. I have two kids.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, you think a seven? What? A seven year old? A second grader? I would say that Honduras.

[Moderator / Other Participants]

Okay. I have a friend. I had a friend who was 16 years old who helped her grandmother apply for citizenship and her grandmother is now a legal US Citizen.

[Tim Miller]

That's great.

[Moderator / Other Participants]

Why don't we have more stories like that?

[Tim Miller]

We have a ton of stories like that. That's the story of the whole country.

[Moderator / Other Participants]

Why don't you use your platform to encourage more of those stories?

[Tim Miller]

Going after the law enforcement. No, no, we, we should make it easier for people to do that. It's impossible for us to do that right now. In Donald Trump's administration, they've made it much harder to come through by legal pathways. The refugee program is down to zero. I'm getting voted on. I'm sorry, it's taking people from.

[Moderator / Other Participants]

I need to tell you about RFK Jr. Made a documentary called Border at Midnight. If you haven't seen it, I encourage you to watch it. It's like 20 minutes. It talks about the trafficking that is happening. We are in a state of emergency in this country. Okay, so go after the traffickers. No, the law is traffickers.

[Tim Miller]

Then that's easy.

[Moderator / Other Participants]

Thank you.

[Tim Miller]

Thank you. Nice to meet you. Hey, man, you're looking good.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

Thank you very much.

[Tim Miller]

You're showing me up here.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

You're looking good yourself.

[Tim Miller]

I appreciate it.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

What is your solution here to Donald Trump?

[Tim Miller]

I think that the Trump administration should follow the law. And I think that there's a lot of ways that we can enforce immigration that doesn't include having a internal secret police that has a bigger budget than the military of Israel. We have the CBP that can handle the border. We have the Drug Enforcement Agency that can handle going after drug dealers. We have the FBI that can go after terrorists. We do not need masked people jumping out of cars and asking brown people for their papers. And I think there's a lot of elements to. A lot of ways to enforce immigration without doing it. Okay, I probably agree with you on that.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

But would you say that this is.

[Tim Miller]

A. I love agreeing. I love a green, too.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

But would you say this is. This is willfully Donald Trump and ICE breaking the law, or that he has to deal with immigration?

[Tim Miller]

Well, of course they're willfully breaking the law. Let me give you one example. One sec.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

But do you think this is him willfully breaking the law because he's malicious.

[Tim Miller]

Or because things don't work out perfectly when you. No, no, no. They're willfully breaking the law because they're malicious. For starters, everybody is masked. Why are they masked? Every other agency, every other police officer, every other military officer, they put their name on their.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

To protect the identity of ICE agents.

[Tim Miller]

Because why would they have to protect the ICE agencies?

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

Because they're getting shot. Because they're getting killed.

[Tim Miller]

There are people that put themselves at risk. Podcasters are getting shot. Judges. How about judges or prosecutors are getting. How about. Yeah, how about judges or prosecutors who go after the gang members and who go after the criminals? The judges don't sit up there on that bench and hide their face because they're worried that the gang members are to come for them. The prosecutors don't. There have been tons of examples of judges and prosecutors and other cops having people go after them. That's part of public service in a free country. This is not East Germany. You don't get to put on a mask and go hassle people on the street here. Talk about willful. This is. What about what they did with El Salvador? What they decided to do is great. I'm happy you like it, so we can debate that. What they did is they took a bunch of people that were here. They did not vet them. They Decided that. They decided they were gang members based on their tattoos, and they sent them to a foreign country over the objections of a judge. Where they put them in. Where they put them in a gulag in another country. The people that were there, many of them we already know, are not gang members. They were wrongfully sent. What did the administration do? They said F you to the judge. When it came out that many of the people that were sent to El Salvador were not gang members, they made fun of them. They attacked them. It is exactly what happened. The judge told them to stop the planes, and they kept flying the planes to El Salvador. This is an intentional effort to go around the law. Emile Beauvais said it. And, you know, look, the head of the whole immigration enforcement effort took 50 grand in a Kava bag. And this is not a group that is interested. Well, because it's not a group that's interested in the law.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

Well, but I mean, again, I think that there has to be a distinction between what the President is trying to do broadly and then how that's practically applied.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, I just think that you don't believe you're lying eyes. I mean, look at what they're doing over and over again. There are plenty of times. Let's go back to George Reynolds. How many people have been deported?

[Moderator / Other Participants]

You've been eliminated.

[Tim Miller]

I would love to go back to George Rennie. Rolling now.

[Moderator / Other Participants]

Hi.

[Tim Miller]

Hey, girl. What's up? I'm Tim.

[Moderator / Other Participants]

I'm Noel.

[Tim Miller]

Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you.

[Moderator / Other Participants]

Nice to meet you. So I wanted to ask you, could you define fascism for me? How would you define it?

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, sure. It is a government that cares more about the power that they have than individual rights. Right. It's basically subverting individual rights and service to the state. There's a great book by a guy named umberto Eco called ur fascism, where he kind of lists out the 14 elements of fascism. But that's the short of it. Okay. Individual rights don't matter. Okay.

[Moderator / Other Participants]

And then also in your world, how would you like to see immigration. I guess, how would you like to see immigration policies be applied then?

[Tim Miller]

Well, sure, I guess. For starters, I'd like them to do what they said, which was go after the criminals first. And I think that, again, we have agencies to do that. We have the da, we have FBI, we have Border Patrol. I would like to start with that. I think that we should give a pathway to citizenship. Obviously, people that were brought here as kids think it's insane to suggest otherwise. I think people that have been here for A long time that have been following the rules, paying their taxes, learning English should get a pathway to citizenship. And then I think that the other folks that are more in the gray area, I forget it was the first guy who came up and said, knock on the door and say, hey, Mr. Illegal, could you get out? That seems like what to do kind of in a free, fair country, like go up to the door, knock on the door and say, hey, Mr. Lopez, sorry, you didn't meet these metrics. You have four months to get back to your home country. And then if they continue to break the law or you can appeal this, you can go to asylum. If they continue to break the law, then sure, then you can send in law enforcement. And again, we have CBP and a bunch of other enforcement agencies that could do that. That's just a humane way to deal with this. That I think probably has 80% support.

[Moderator / Other Participants]

Yeah. And I think sensible conservatives would actually agree with a lot of what you said of a pathway to citizenship.

[Tim Miller]

I guess I don't think some of your pals would. Do we have any Catholic citizenship pans?

[Moderator / Other Participants]

I think that's. I would say that a pathway to citizenship for those who are working here for a long time and for those who follow the legal process. Because you can't cut in line, because that's not fair to other people who have been trying to. I have a lot of family as well, who came and. Right. And so if you cut in line, it kind of devalues everyone who took out maybe loans or borrowed money to try to get into the country legally.

[Tim Miller]

You can't get in the country legally.

[Moderator / Other Participants]

No, but still, there's no.

[Tim Miller]

There are no legal pathways unless you're a white South African.

[Moderator / Other Participants]

That's not necessarily a white South African.

[Tim Miller]

You can get in here.

[Moderator / Other Participants]

I have family.

[Tim Miller]

That's fine.

[Moderator / Other Participants]

I have family. I'm Mexican.

[Tim Miller]

But during the Trump. Second Trump administration, not during this. They've changed the policies a lot during this ministry. We're going to have negative.

[Moderator / Other Participants]

That just means that people just come in, that people just break the law.

[Tim Miller]

No, we're going to have negative. We're going to have negative net migration in this country this year. The only countries that have that are like Venezuela, Syria, African countries, the United States.

[Moderator / Other Participants]

If I can, can I. Can I address your claim specifically on fascism?

[Tim Miller]

Sure.

[Moderator / Other Participants]

Because fascism historically has been going after people who politically disagree with you. And what we're seeing right now.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, they're doing that for sure, too.

[Moderator / Other Participants]

What we're seeing right now, though, is worse. And I don't I would say that everyone should be treated with human dignity. Everyone, regardless of your immigration status. But that being said, I can still enforce a law and treat someone with human dignity.

[Tim Miller]

What do you think, Stephen, is treating people with dignity?

[Moderator / Other Participants]

I'm not saying that everything that ICE is doing is okay. That's. But my.

[Tim Miller]

Just generally, I think that they're treating people with human dignity.

[Moderator / Other Participants]

My concern.

[Tim Miller]

What about the.

[Moderator / Other Participants]

Specifically. I like to address the fascism claim that you made. Specifically the fascism. Because we've seen even, for example, Charlie Kirk last month was shot and killed. And so what happens when we use inflammatory flames like fascists? It paints people, certainly.

[Tim Miller]

I hear you, Noel, but here's the thing. If they don't want to be called.

[Moderator / Other Participants]

The fascist, that's like me saying if you want lax border policies, then you're an anarchist. It's a false equivalency. If the right calls the left someone.

[Tim Miller]

Communists and enemy within all the time.

[Moderator / Other Participants]

You do this, then that just, I'm just saying. Look, that's not.

[Tim Miller]

Look, if they don't want to be called fascists, they shouldn't act like fascists. I just think that if this was not this country. If you saw unmarked cars, everyone, mass people hassling. Look at the story of Narquiso Barranco. He's gardening outside in ihop. A bunch of masked agents come out. He's an old man. A bunch of masked agents come out, hassle him, tackle him to the ground. He's got three kids who are in the Marines.

[Moderator / Other Participants]

In a fascist. Why would we do this?

[Tim Miller]

That's obviously fascist. How would you describe it?

[Moderator / Other Participants]

I'm not saying that's okay. What I'm saying is that in a fascist country, and yes, I would say that's not treating someone with human dignity and I believe that everyone is worthy of human dignity. But what I am saying is sending.

[Tim Miller]

Somebody to a gulag.

[Moderator / Other Participants]

Janel Salvatore, Could I finish? In a fascist country, some political dissent is repressed. So all of the media is controlled by the government. So we still, even though there's polarizing rhetoric, we still have ways for people to express their opinion. We still have ways for people to appeal to civil systems and to. They can still appeal for mistreatment by ICE agents. And so I think that's super important because when we're calling people fascists, blatantly that's what fuels political violence. That's what causes people like Charlie Kirk to be killed. Because we're calling people Nazis, we're calling people fascists. That would be wrong. If I went around calling every Democrat.

[Tim Miller]

Well, I agree with you that we're not a fascist country. Yet. What the claim was that is that ICE is becoming a fascist institution. And to that point, the one thing that you said in that sentence that is just not true is that victims of ICE cannot contest their claims. If they get deported back to Honduras, they don't have a legal pathway. They're a U.S. citizen. There were kids. There was a baby that had a disease like a rare kidney disease. It was a five year old that got deported. That is a US Citizen got deported with his mother back to Honduras. The mother wanted him to stay so he could get medicine. That five year old doesn't have a legal remedy. They're stuck. The gay hairdresser. I'm sorry. That we sent to a gulag in El Salvador.

[Moderator / Other Participants]

I don't know.

[Tim Miller]

He doesn't have a legal remedy. They don't have legal remedies.

[Moderator / Other Participants]

He's referring to the prison system in El Salvador.

[Tim Miller]

No, no. We sent like 200 Venezuelans to El Salvador. Claims that they were gang members. And one of them, I did an interview with him. Andre Hernandez Romero, he's a gay hairdresser. Unless he was doing the makeup for Trenda Aragua, he was not in a gang.

[Moderator / Other Participants]

I don't agree.

[Tim Miller]

And he doesn't have any redress.

[Moderator / Other Participants]

I don't agree with the way that ICE is approaching the immigration system. I'm with you there. I don't agree with it. I don't agree with sending American citizens without due process. I'm with you. My concern specifically is using the rhetoric of fascists because it fuels political violence. That is my concern. It's okay to disagree, but I don't think that that is an equivalency to Nazi Germany. I just don't.

[Tim Miller]

I don't either. Thank you so much.

[Moderator / Other Participants]

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[Tim Miller]

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[Moderator / Other Participants]

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[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

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[Tim Miller]

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[Tim Miller]

My next claim is it is not worth the costs of gun deaths every year to have the Second Amendment. Oh, all right.

[Pro-Life Advocate]

Well, first you made the claim, so I want to hear your reasoning behind it.

[Tim Miller]

Well, yeah, obviously this is a reference to the Charlie Kirk quote about how it was worth some gun deaths every year to have this, the Second Amendment as it's currently written. And my view is this. Look, I'm not, this is not an argument to repeal the Second Amendment. My point is that we shouldn't have a fatalistic view about this to just say we have the second Amendment. Nothing we can do now. Some people are going to die because of it. And so that's just the price of freedom. For example, in Canada, you have a right to bear arms still. But it's like you have to get a license. There has to be training, you have to pass background checks.

[Pro-Life Advocate]

Is that not also in the United States too? No, you don't, you don't need a gun license.

[Tim Miller]

Well, no, you know, what I'm saying is it's not like a driver's license. Like, you don't have to like go to a. When you're getting a driver's license here, it's more akin to what you do in Canada. You have to go to classes. You have to, you don't have to do any class. You don't. You have to prove. You have to prove that you have to know how to use the guns. Like there is a process.

[Pro-Life Advocate]

There's no process in the United States.

[Tim Miller]

Well, in a lot of cases, you don't have to go through a process. Sure. People have easy access to guns in this country without going through the process. There is easy access for younger people to get high, to get high powered weapons.

[Pro-Life Advocate]

That's definitely not true. But can you name the legislation that would have prevented Charlie Kirk from being assassinated?

[Tim Miller]

Well, no, because there wouldn't have been a piece of legislation that could prevent a Charlie Kirk to be assassinated. My point is that his initial claim Was in service of this idea that we have a maximalist view of the second Amendment where there is nothing that we can do to limit gun deaths. In the United states, we had 46,000. In the United States, we had 46,000 gun deaths in 2023. In Japan, they had 10.

[Pro-Life Advocate]

Okay.

[Tim Miller]

And France, they had 800 and something. So, like, there is obviously many things that we could do to change the cultures, the rules, the laws and the mores of this country to not have the gun death that we do.

[Pro-Life Advocate]

I don't think the statistics of these other countries. I kind of doubt that there's.

[Tim Miller]

Japan is.

[Pro-Life Advocate]

You're not giving me really any pieces of legislation that would actually do things. Unless you're talking about the abolition of the second Amendment, which we can get into that. And the majority of these gun deaths are handguns. I think, let's be honest here. They're handguns and they're suicide, right?

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, yeah.

[Pro-Life Advocate]

If we limit that number, if we actually take that into account, it's not really looking as bad as.

[Tim Miller]

Well, no, it's looking. I mean. No, it's looking pretty bad. Again, 46,000 versus 10 is a pretty big gap.

[Pro-Life Advocate]

What percentage of.

[Tim Miller]

I think about half of them are.

[Pro-Life Advocate]

Suicides and what percentage of that is handguns Are you advocating?

[Tim Miller]

Oh, no, a bunch of handguns. I'd like to answer this. I think this is an important question because a suicide attempt via handgun. Now I'm going from memory, so these stats might not be exactly right, but it's something like if you try to kill yourself with a handgun, you get it. Right. Like nine out of ten times, basically. Right. If you try to kill yourself using a lot of other methods that people try to kill themselves, a lot of times it doesn't work. Right. And so it increases the number of suicides in our country versus other countries because people have easy access to firearms in our country, the neck. The amount of firearms we have in this country. The next closest country is Yemen.

[Pro-Life Advocate]

Okay.

[Tim Miller]

We have double the amount of them.

[Pro-Life Advocate]

Tell me, what policy proposals are you proposing that would actually limit this?

[Tim Miller]

You can't give me a policy that.

[Pro-Life Advocate]

We don't already have.

[Tim Miller]

No, I can give you a bunch that I. That I would be for. I think we go back to the 90s. Assault weapons ban. I think we should limit high magazines.

[Pro-Life Advocate]

Would any of those have stopped?

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, well, yes, I guess that's my point. You keep saying no. This is your. You are on the side of we should just give up. There's nothing we can do. I'm Saying we're the only country where this happens.

[Pro-Life Advocate]

You haven't even asked my position, so that's not true.

[Tim Miller]

All right, so, I mean, you're trying to refute my.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

I can.

[Pro-Life Advocate]

I know I can see a case. I can see a case for, like, universal background checks and things like that, but ultimately. Right. The pros of guns, I would say, outweigh the cons of guns.

[Tim Miller]

Really?

[Pro-Life Advocate]

Yes.

[Tim Miller]

Well, you're obviously more at risk of death if you have a gun. We'd all be less safer if everybody had a gun right now. Would you feel. Would you feel. Would you feel more or less safe if everybody had a gun in here right now?

[Pro-Life Advocate]

I would feel plenty safe if I had a gun. Yes. If I had a gun.

[Tim Miller]

Coming to a debating show. You'd feel more safe if there were 20 youth carrying guns.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

You've been eliminated by the group.

[Tim Miller]

Hey, man, what's up? What's up?

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

Tim, right?

[Tim Miller]

Yeah. Tim Dylan. Nice to meet you. You packing?

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

No, I'm not packing right now.

[Tim Miller]

Good.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

We're in California.

[Tim Miller]

Good. Better. You know, just making sure.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

Okay. Well, are annual car deaths worth keeping cars in society?

[Tim Miller]

I'm glad you brought up the cars with. With car deaths. Obviously, you know, we're not gonna go back to horses. People need cars to, you know, so they learn a positive job. I would say the cars are. But here's some other things you have with cars. Here's some other things you have with cars. I think they are. You have some seat belt. There's a million laws related to cars to try to minimize car deaths. You have seat. Yeah, like laws, speed limits. Elite. Making it illegal to do DUIs. So my point is that I think that on the right, there are a lot of people that want to take the maximalist view of the second Amendment. Should we ban supercars because they go faster or something?

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

Because that would be the argument for, like, an assault rifle.

[Tim Miller]

I don't want to ban supercars. I don't think. I don't know. But my point is that if we regulated guns in the manner in which we regulated cars, that'd be a good step. I think we probably have less than 46,000 total gun deaths to see if we have a license to get a gun.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

You have to do certain things to be able to purchase a firearm.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, but again, it's completely incomparable to the types of things you have to do to get a driver's license to drive a car. Well, actually, cars have tons of driver's license. Cars have a bunch of safety checks. You Know, there. There are. There are tons of things we do to try to mitigate deaths via cars like this. This. This analogy just doesn't make any sense. Like, what I'm trying. What I'm saying. What I'm saying is that what we're. What we want to do is figure out ways to limit the amount of gun deaths. I'm not happy with. Are you happy with the number of gun deaths we have in this country? Do you?

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

Of course not.

[Tim Miller]

Okay, so, like, are you satisfied? Like, we have way more problem.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

I don't think it's a gun problem.

[Tim Miller]

We have. Do. Do people have bad hearts in other countries? I think they have better hearts. Do they have better hearts than us?

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

Every person in the world is inherently bad by nature.

[Tim Miller]

Okay, so then why do we have the most gun deaths here?

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

Because the wrong people are getting guns.

[Tim Miller]

You don't think bad people get guns in Yemen or in France or in other places? Our country is the only place where this is happening.

[Moderator / Other Participants]

Pause. You've been eliminated by the group.

[Tim Miller]

Well, thank you, man. I had to bring it up. Thank you. Hey, how's it going? Hi, Tim.

[Moderator / Other Participants]

My name is Hannah. So I want to address the claim. First of all, I want to clarify. You are not in favor of abolishing or confiscating guns, correct?

[Tim Miller]

I'm not in favor of abolishing the Second Amendment. I could potentially be in favor of a gun buyback situation where it's voluntary.

[Moderator / Other Participants]

Okay, okay. Right. So I also want to talk about. You talked about there's other problems that are facing America. Not only that there's more guns and that's why there's more gun violence, correct?

[Tim Miller]

No, I think the problem. I think there's more gun violence in America because there's more guns. I think it's pretty simple to understand. There's not. They don't have anywhere near. We don't have anywhere near this level of gun death in any other country in the world. Any other first world country, Basically any western country. If you're under 18, the most likely way you're gonna die in this country is by gun deaths. That is not equivalent in other similar Western nations.

[Moderator / Other Participants]

Right.

[Tim Miller]

So I think it's basically the guns.

[Moderator / Other Participants]

Yes. Okay. So more guns equals more. More gun violence. I want to. I want to address that claim by, first of all, bringing up how the majority, or at least almost 50% of all homicides caused from guns are in cities where the gun per capita is much lower than the rest of the country. So. And secondly, I'd like to bring up that from the, from 1990s to the early 2000s, we had a major decrease in homicides by guns, but we had an increase of guns by nearly 50%. So the other thing I'd like, we.

[Tim Miller]

Had an assault weapons ban during that time. I guess the stats in the city, this is kind of a funny thing and I'm glad somebody brought this up because the pro gun side in this country is always trying to like cut and dissect the demographics down. They're like, okay, so there was a higher percentage in this city or among this type of person or among this demographic. The only reason you can do that kind of statistics is because we have so many fricking gun deaths in this country. Again, there were 10 in Japan in 2023, there were 10 in Australia, there were 236. Yeah, I'm in France, there were 887. We had 46,000. So it seems pretty obvious, I don't know why we have to come up with other convoluted reasons why we have all these deaths in this country.

[Moderator / Other Participants]

Right. So I think that there are a few reasons. First of all, I think that fatherless homes is a big part of it. In America. We have the highest rate of any country in the world of one single parent households, the majority of those being without fathers. Also, 76% of people who commit violent acts come from fatherless homes. Additionally, I think a second problem that we have is releasing criminals back into the street. It's our criminal justice system. The majority, 76% percent of people that cause that have violent crimes in the United States have a criminal record of some sort, whether that be an arrest, a conviction, whatever. So it's, we need to stop releasing people back to the streets. And then third, I also want to address your claim that nothing, that there's this attitude that nothing else can be done. I just, I disagree with that. So I want, I want to point out, so I want to, I want to go back to my point about the 76% of people having a criminal record. If you have a criminal record in the United States, you cannot legally purchase a gun, right? So we can agree that if you have a criminal record, you're not obtaining these guns legally. The rest of them, which are like the school shooters and the mass shooters, they are getting their guns legally. However, these are people suicides.

[Tim Miller]

It's the domestic violence. And look, there are a lot of other against. But again, like look, 25% of the gun deaths in this country. You're making me do math. Live would still have been like 11,000 gun deaths. That's still 100 times more than in Western European countries. I just. Look, I hear you. I think that dads should be in the homes. I think that we shouldn't, you know, violent criminals. I think we should keep behind bars. But that is like, that, that is not like the reason that we have this problem. Like, I'm a dad, I'm in the home. I have to worry that my kid, when they go to school, the school's gonna get shot up. A person that lives in the Netherlands doesn't have to have that worry. And it's not because of the number of fatherless homes in the country.

[Moderator / Other Participants]

Well, okay, I disagree that that's necessarily the case, that it's not a cultural thing, for one. I'd also like to talk about the school shootings, for one. I am one myself. 100% in favor of having armed guards at schools. I think that we need to get people.

[Tim Miller]

Is there an armed guard at Columbine?

[Moderator / Other Participants]

No.

[Tim Miller]

Was there an armed guard apartment? Yes.

[Moderator / Other Participants]

Oh, yes. I don't. Yes. Yes.

[Tim Miller]

Do you remember what happened in Uvalde? Do you remember what happened in Uvalde?

[Moderator / Other Participants]

Okay.

[Tim Miller]

The cops. These were the most militarized police you have ever seen in your life. And they showed up to the school and there were cops everywhere and little babies were getting murdered and they didn't, they couldn't do anything about it. There was an armed guard at Parkland who ran away from the school. Like, one armed guard is not going to do anything. Door locks aren't going to do anything at Columbine. I grew up a mile from Columbine. The deaths that happened in Columbine. People talk about all these things. A lot of it was people were coming outside for lunch, you know, and you can't, like put these schools all behind fortresses. It's just not realistic.

[Moderator / Other Participants]

So I'm not really. I have thought a little bit about the practical implications of this. Right. I've done a little bit of mental math and the budgeting and everything. It's more than just one armed guard for one. And it's not, it's. It's. This could be as like cops sitting.

[Tim Miller]

Outside of the armed guards. Whoa. Hey, what's up?

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

Hi. Nice to meet you, sir.

[Tim Miller]

Nice to meet you.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

I would disagree with your point on that. There isn't many restrictions in America for obtaining firearms. I just two weeks ago was in a five hour class regarding training of firearms. And I believe that those are actually required. Specifically in California, you have to obtain a CCW rules are different in California. Yes, rules are different in California. That's correct. I lived in Texas for last year of my life and there are still a significant amount of restrictions and regulations and requirements for obtaining firearms in those states. And specifically in Texas, where there's a lot more people in firearms in those more rural areas, I personally felt a lot safer. I understand that's different person to person.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, I mean like you can't rent a car in this country if you're 24 and you can buy a handgun in every state. You can buy. Oh, I have 24. You can buy an assault weapon in every state. 18 year olds can buy guns in some states in this country. Can't buy a beer, can't buy a Zinn. Like there are literally states where you can't get a Zinn but you can buy a weapon. It's crazy. So you just, I'm sorry, you just can't tell me that like the rules for getting guns in this country are as strict as they could be. We could obviously add some more rules.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

I'm not saying they could be.

[Tim Miller]

We could at least give the, you know, do the Zen standard I would say, I think would be fair at a minimum or I would go with the renting car standard. I don't know, 25, you guys would not be probably thrilled about that. But I don't know. Yeah, I don't know why people need an AR15 if they're 24. That's just for me.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

There's hunting rifles. There's a difference between hunting rifles and Armalite rifles. That is a case and there's different reasons behind those. But no, I don't, I disagree with that. Just saying.

[Tim Miller]

Thank you. Thanks man. Good to meet you.

[Moderator / Other Participants]

So I just wanted to bring up your claim about how you said in certain places like an 18 year old can own a gun, can't do all these things. Would you consider the fact that their life might, they might be in more dangerous places or live by themselves in which they feel that they need to purchase a firearm to be protected. I myself are a 20 year old. If I live by myself and a 200 pound man comes in trying to rob my home. I feel that if I had a firearm, first of all, if they, if they were to think that firearms can be owned by anybody, that reduces the amount of them coming into my home in the first place. And second of all, if I were to have a gun, that is the ultimate equalizer. I cannot fight a 200 pound man off. And for me it's it kind of braces the security might be able to.

[Tim Miller]

Look, here's the thing. I understand that some people are going to want to have guns for their protection. I understand that that makes people feel safer in a free country that you want to, you know, within certain limits want people to be able to do things that they feel like they need to do to protect themselves. I get all that. But here's the thing. Like the facts just don't bear that out. Like if you have a gun in the home, you're 500 times 500% more likely to be killed by that gun than you than if somebody that doesn't have a gun in the home.

[Moderator / Other Participants]

So much more likely. If I live in a city where like in here, in Los Angeles, I could present you with. In 10 to 12 miles from here, you can go and buy a 3D printed gun for cash anywhere. There are several places where you can do that. And in a place like this, I feel that I would need to protect myself individually. And whenever there's government outreach and they take the rights away from people and they take the rights from guns, the gun violence is higher. It is actually not lower.

[Tim Miller]

And again, that's just not true. Again, in this country. No, in this again, I just, I have one of the people, maybe it'll be you. We have three minutes left. Will come up here and explain to me how Japan only had 10 gun deaths. Like, I just. It isn't. It isn't. It isn't.

[Moderator / Other Participants]

It is a way bigger population density is much more fortunate than Japan. We have a very big, more wide.

[Tim Miller]

Country, 10 to 46.

[Moderator / Other Participants]

They only have really one major city.

[Tim Miller]

Rather than Australia had 236. Australia 236. France had 800. So like we are the only country where this happens. It is. It doesn't make people safer. I'm sorry, I understand that people might want to feel like it does, but having all these guns in this country.

[Moderator / Other Participants]

Are the people safe, individual, how do you think that people are going to keep themselves safe individually in their own homes? If, if I call the police and somebody is trying to attack me, I have no time.

[Tim Miller]

Sure. Again, I have no time. Well, for starters, I would do education. I think if people want to have a gun in their home, want to keep it locked, want to keep it in a safe, that's. I'm for that Again, I'm for you doing that if you want. I'm just telling you the facts is you're much more likely to accidentally kill yourself with the gun than you Are.

[Moderator / Other Participants]

But you would have in that classes and those educations to not do that. So that is in place. So if you write by. By law, if you.

[Tim Miller]

If you.

[Moderator / Other Participants]

If you own lawfully, if you own a gun lawfully, you will make sure that you have the education and steps you need to not kill yourself with that gun.

[Tim Miller]

The claim is that we. So again, this seems a lot of us seem to agree on this stuff. The claim is that. Is that it's not worth the cost of some gun deaths to not do.

[Moderator / Other Participants]

Anything to the second when you give out freedom, there are going to be. There are going to be marginalized parts where things. Mistakes are going to happen. There are going to be bad things.

[Pro-Life Advocate]

That's life.

[Tim Miller]

It's kind of like.

[Moderator / Other Participants]

Would you consider that if you're going to kill yourself with that gun, like you mentioned, homicide. How about instead of trying to take guns away, would you rather give maybe that funding or some sort of set up some sort of mental health system that can kill.

[Tim Miller]

I love mental health funding. Who's for more mental health funding in here? And. Oh, really? Everybody? Why don't. Why aren't any Republican elected officials for that?

[Moderator / Other Participants]

There are plenty.

[Tim Miller]

Not in red states. In red states, they're slashing mental health.

[Moderator / Other Participants]

I'm trying to make. Is if we have a drunk driver that crashes because they're drunk, are we going to ban cars? No, we are going to focus.

[Tim Miller]

You're gonna make drunk driving illegal, but you're gonna make drunk driving illegal.

[Moderator / Other Participants]

Yes, exactly. And it is illegal. But we are not going to make guns illegal because certain people do certain things with them. Are we gonna ban cars for everybody else because one person does one wrong thing?

[Tim Miller]

We're making drunk driving illegal. We already went through this with the other guy. There are a lot of restrictions that you can have. Thank you. Good to me. Nice. What's up?

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

Isaac. Good to meet you. I want to go back to what someone else brought up earlier, that it's not a gun problem, it's a heart problem. You keep going to this fact of Japan only has 10 gun deaths. How many stabbing deaths do they have? How many car deaths do they have? How many suicide deaths do they have? They still exist.

[Tim Miller]

Exist way less. Yeah, of course. And so we already are at a. Trying to mitigate harm.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

Okay. Yes. We're at a point in this country where there are more guns than people. We can't go backwards. We can only go forward. These are the cards that we've been dealt with. And so you can look at Japan, you can look at Germany which has a lot of gun deaths and stabbing deaths. France, the uk, Nicaragua. Tens of thousands of people are getting slaughtered.

[Tim Miller]

Are you trying to be Nicaragua?

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

No. What I'm getting to the point is it's not a gun problem, it's a heart problem. And frankly, it's a lack of having Jesus in your heart problem. Because we as a society, yes, we as a society and globally have gotten.

[Tim Miller]

Rid of the moral giver.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

So there's no morals behind what we do. There's a lot of violence and there's a lot of reason for someone to do something if they don't see each other in the imago day that we're fearfully and wonderfully made. When we eliminate that from the picture, violence increases. And you can see that everywhere around the country. Yes, in the US I'll give it to you, there's more gun deaths. But if you look at anywhere else in the country, there's a lot of death and a lot of violence. And, and that ultimately is what we're both agreeing with, that there needs to be a reduction in violence. And frankly, getting rid of guns doesn't do that. Lessening guns doesn't do that. Fixing people's hearts and allowing them to know that they're saved through Jesus is what gets them to that.

[Tim Miller]

Look, I would, I want people to try to become their best selves, whether that's through Jesus, through the church or otherwise. I'm for that. I'm just saying, like there are other countries that have smaller populations of Christians, that have greater populations of Christians and they all have way less gun deaths than us. Like it isn't. How many deaths do they have?

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

We eliminate gun deaths.

[Tim Miller]

Just talk about violence. Violent crime is higher in this country than it is in any other first world western country. It's lower than, sure, like Nicaragua and some other countries, but of the first world western countries, violent crime and death is higher here. And a lot of it is because we have such easy access to firearms. And all I'm saying is that we should try to fix that. Yeah. And I think that policy wise, you know, I appreciate what you're saying about people finding. Finding. Finding Christ. I think this administration and their policies are about as unchristian as imaginable.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

I'm not talking about this policy or this administration. I'm talking about people.

[Tim Miller]

Okay, Right. Well, no, but. So that's what I'm saying. I think that like, if we're going to do this, it should be a, it should be unified across the board. And if we're trying to Encourage people to, you know, improve their hearts. I'm for that. But. But there's. But we still. People are still going to have demons. There's still sin people. And if they've easy access, deadly guns.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

The effort into fixing that, than trying to eliminate guns. And if you look at the gun deaths, they're suicide.

[Tim Miller]

That is a personal problem. That is not a mass shooting. How would you. How would you suggest that we go into helping more people find Jesus in their hearts?

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

By allowing them to understand that we are flawed, that we need to.

[Tim Miller]

But as a government, how would we do that?

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

Well, as a government, it's not the government's responsibility, it's the Holy Spirit's responsibility.

[Tim Miller]

And we are the cp. We're here debating about what the government's policy should be.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

Exactly. And so the government's policy is not going to solve the problem because we're both trying to reduce the violence. That's the problem at hand.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah. And. Well, I think that obviously you could reduce the violence because there are many other governments and many other places that have successfully reduced the violence. And I think that it would be best for all of us. Yeah, look, everybody wants. Yeah, all. Everybody. In Europe, we have a higher. We have a higher violent crime rate than every country in Europe. It is just true. Maybe like Belarus and Ukraine, some of the Eastern Europe. Western Europe, of course.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

Does that have to do with guns?

[Tim Miller]

Yes. Yes, it has to do with guns.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

No, it doesn't.

[Tim Miller]

Yes, it does. That. We are the only outlet, we are the only outlier on this, on this front. And look, the people that die of the gun deaths in this country, that's terrible. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, they did not. They did not deserve to be snuffed down. They did not deserve that. And they're only at risk of that. In this country. They have an opportunity to live a full, full life of purpose and meaning, whether that's with. With Christ or otherwise. But limiting the guns doesn't do anything.

[Moderator / Other Participants]

Out.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

Thank you.

[Tim Miller]

Thank you. Thank you. Nice to meet you.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

We are releasing episodes of the Surrounded podcast every Sunday. So subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

[Tim Miller]

And consider leaving us a positive review. Thank you. My next claim is the Trump administration is an attack on American values.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

Tim, nice to meet you.

[Tim Miller]

Scotty, what's happening, man? You've been ready. I've been watching you.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

I've been ready. I've been. This has been so much fun. Let's talk about what are the American values. Let's find some common ground first. Okay. Would you consider hard work Pursuing the American dream and American value.

[Tim Miller]

Sure.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

Awesome. We agree right there. Would you say that all men are created equal?

[Tim Miller]

Of course. Yeah, of course.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

Okay, great. Then where do you get that from in your liberal perspective? Right? Because in the Declaration of Independence, right, it says that it's bestowed by our creator. Right. Where do you get those values?

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, well, look, the Declaration of Independence is probably the classic document representing liberal values. Liberal democracy, like liberal democracy, small L liberalism is something that has basically began here in this country and proliferated into Europe and around the world a lot because we promoted it. Those liberal values are basically freedom of speech, freedom of religion, pluralism, tolerance.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

Okay, but where do you get those values? Because when you're saying the Trump administration. Right. I think the Trump administration actually protects American values. Right. Protects the American values of the unborn. Right. Those are things that us, as Gen Z, we are passionate about. Right, because it has killed. Martin just said 28% of us. Abortion has killed 28% of us. Gen Z. So that's something that we're very passionate about. And you can only find that when you find your value in a creator.

[Tim Miller]

I mean, we could go back to the Enlightenment. I don't know that we need to do a bunch of John Locke talk here. But, you know, essentially the values that I'm talking about are the ones in the Constitution and the Declaration. As I said, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, rule of law, democracy, pluralism. That is the foundation of what America was founded on. That's what the founders wrote about. You can go read about in the Federalist Papers.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

They had those Judeo Christian values that were instilled from the beginning.

[Tim Miller]

I hear you, man. But you're trying to make this about faith. And what the founders were explicit about was that this country was not founded based on religion. A lot of them were religious, of course. Yes, we have freedom of religion.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

Yes, we did have freedom.

[Tim Miller]

Excuse me, we have freedom of religion in this country. So if you go down that list that we said, whether it's freedom of.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

Speech, what is the Declaration?

[Tim Miller]

Trump is attacking that. Freedom of religion. Trump is attacking that.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

He's not attacking freedom of religion.

[Tim Miller]

How is it we had a Muslim. We had a Muslim ban in this country.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

No, we have never had an actual Muslim ban. That is an insane claim by you.

[Tim Miller]

Yes, we did. It had to be overturned by the Supreme Court.

[Moderator / Other Participants]

You've been eliminated by a lot of.

[Tim Miller]

Good to meet you, man. Thank you. Let's go. What's up, man? Tim.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

That's good, man.

[Tim Miller]

Nice job. Little Clementine. There. We're ready.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

Sweet talk.

[Tim Miller]

Okay. I hope so.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

I would like to know what you mean by American values again.

[Tim Miller]

So obviously there are a lot, but I'm thinking about the values that were promoted in the Declaration, the Constitution, by the founders, the things that make America unique. So just going through them, I would say freedom of speech, freedom of religion, free markets, democracy, pluralism, and the rule of law. Those are the things that come to mind. Obviously, there could be other.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

Which ones are the ones that you think Trump is going against?

[Tim Miller]

All of them. I mean, when it comes to freedom of speech, right now you're getting cracked down on this country. If you wrote an op ed criticizing Israel, you got jailed. That was Ramesa ozturk. There are 60 minutes. There are media organizations that are getting attacked if they're mean to Mr. Trump. JD Vance said that if you said something mean about Charlie Kirk, people should call your boss. So they're going after freedom of seizures. They're shutting down the ICE block apps.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

Now, real quick with the criticism on stuff, there's a lot I. You're throwing at me right now, so I'm trying to keep up. But with the criticism on Trump, I actually agree that there can be a lot of criticism on Trump. I think there's a lot of things that he, that he does that are not reflective of traditional Christian values. So I would want to know, like, just because he.

[Tim Miller]

So we can agree on that. On the Christian values. That wasn't really the claim, but let's just do it for fun. He is terrible. And when it comes to just basic Christian. Wait, real quick.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

I just, I haven't seen him really like, terrible. Say, like, okay, some press, like, can't say certain stuff or whatever. Like he's not exactly.

[Tim Miller]

Well, yesterday the Department of Defense had a press room where people get to go in and ask questions to the press secretary. They made them sign a pledge that they were not going to report unapproved information. And now the only people in there are like the Turkey newspaper. That's something I've that talking to myself.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

I haven't heard of that. Okay, but traditional Christian values. I'm interested in what you mean by traditional Christian values, though.

[Tim Miller]

Well, sure, like loving your neighbor as yourself. I think that Donald Trump is pretty bad on that. And I think if you go down the list of American values, obviously, but Judeo Christian values, this administration has a disrespect for all of them. I mean, again, we talked in the first claim or we talked earlier about the deportation regime. I think that's Very unchristian. I think that canceling Medicaid so that people don't have health care services is pretty unchristian. The way Trump talks to people and treats people.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

I mean, there's a lot of people.

[Tim Miller]

He's nasty. Like, he's nasty. That's unchristian. But it's also on American. But anyway, so would you agree with that he has anti Christian values?

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

I mean, I wouldn't. That's the thing. Right. Like, there's a lot of things that I don't agree that Trump, like, reflects Christian values on. But at the same time, to claim that he's going against the founding of this country I just don't think is completely fair because I haven't seen any actual, by definition, fascistic behavior. Unless you were trying to, of course, get to the other points that we talked about.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, sure. Well, I mean, we could go through them again, obviously. Free markets, he's attacking with the tariffs, with the way that we're now taking over certain countries, the rule of law. He's going after his political opponents through the doj, democracy. I need to try to overturn the election. I don't think there's storming the Capitol.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

I don't think there's enough hunger.

[Tim Miller]

Well, you saw people storming the Capitol, though, right?

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

Yeah, but there's more. There's a lot of context regarding that stuff that, like, I obviously don't support any sort of political. Oh, sorry. I said pause. My bad.

[Tim Miller]

Sorry.

[Moderator / Other Participants]

All right, you may get back to your chair.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

Thank you.

[Tim Miller]

Appreciate it. Hello. Hey.

[Moderator / Other Participants]

My name is Bethlehem.

[Tim Miller]

Bethlehem. Great. I love that name.

[Moderator / Other Participants]

Nice to meet you. So your claim that the Trump administration is against the founding principles of American values in general. I like to kind of establish that American values are inherently Christian, while they're not explicitly because they're built on natural law. And natural law is. Is essentially a theology that's based on Christian values and Christian principles. So I think in that regard, I think you are kind of off there. That America is inherently built on those Christian principles being right to life, liberty, pursuit of happiness, those all coming from Jesus Christ. And I'm not saying that.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, again, this isn't the claim. A lot of folks want to talk about this here. I guess I'll play this game if we want to. I think that Trump is, like, maybe the most anti Christian president that we've had that I can think of in his personal comportment and in the policies that he put forth. But I think that the, you know, the founding principles of the country, again, Obviously, there are Judeo Christian values, but, like, they. You know, they're agnostics. Thomas Jefferson, like, they were explicit in respecting many different religions, and they came to the country so people could have freedom of religion. But I guess I would say that Trump is both anti Christian values and anti American values.

[Moderator / Other Participants]

Well, I think. I mean, we're not here to assess Trump's sins. You know, we're not priests. We're not God himself, so I don't.

[Tim Miller]

Think you guys keep bringing up.

[Moderator / Other Participants]

No, no. I mean. I mean, my. My point is that while he doesn't particularly reflect Christian values, because, I mean, he's. I mean, he's. He. He sinned like the rest of us and things like that, but my point is that he has.

[Tim Miller]

He sinned a little more than you, probably.

[Moderator / Other Participants]

He's a little older, so he has more.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah. I think probably even at your age. Even at your age, he's probably sinned a little more than you. I think we could agree.

[Moderator / Other Participants]

Okay, okay, okay. But my point is. Okay, yeah. My point is that. That he has lowered unemployment.

[Tim Miller]

Right.

[Moderator / Other Participants]

He has given child credit. Child credit tax cuts.

[Tim Miller]

Huh? Get rid of the child tax.

[Moderator / Other Participants]

Well, I mean, I'm sure. No, he. Well, I guess that was in 2017. Planned Parenthood has now been officially defined. Protecting life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. The part of life where America was founded upon.

[Tim Miller]

No, the liberty is the key one in there.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

Right.

[Tim Miller]

Which is people should have the liberty to act as they please, even if they oppose this administration. This administration is targeting political foes across the board. He calls them the enemy within. They're investigating political foes through the doj. This is fundamentally un American. It's the type of thing that happens in banana republics. And Donald Trump is the only one that has participated in this in my. In my lifetime. I may be going back to Nixon.

[Moderator / Other Participants]

Thank you.

[Tim Miller]

Good to meet you.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

How you doing, Tim?

[Tim Miller]

Charlie. What up, cow Cowboy? How's it going? Whoa. Fantastic.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

Thank you.

[Tim Miller]

We're good. All right.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

I want to start with freedom of speech.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

It was during the COVID times that the Biden administration was very.

[Tim Miller]

Agree. We can move on. I think that was horrible Biden did on freedom of speech during COVID I think. Well.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

And I don't think that's something that we should just move on from because we're saying that Donald Trump is against America. I think the freedom of speech in this country is the strongest it's ever been, and I think it's the freest it's ever been. In fact, maybe some to a Detrimental point because so many people are able to say so many things without being blocked, without being censored. Their accounts aren't being banned anymore.

[Tim Miller]

Let's talk about being banned.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

So more so during the Biden administration than they were during.

[Tim Miller]

Let's talk about the tech companies then, if you want to. So the thing that we both agree on that the Biden administration was doing was they're going to the tech companies and, and saying, hey, you should censor misinformation about COVID whether it's Ivermectin or whatever. And tech companies were doing it voluntarily. The government wasn't making them do it, but it still was bad, I think. I still don't think they should have done it. The Trump administration is doing the exact same thing right now with information about ice. They've gone to Facebook and Apple and told them to stop. Apple got rid of their app called ICE Block and Facebook shut down Facebook groups where people were going on there and saying, hey, you know, I live in this neighborhood. ICE has been doing raids in the neighborhood. FYI, Just so you know, ICE is in your community in a free country. I think people should be able to post on the Internet and say, hey, there are folks in my neighborhood. And without the government coming in and shutting it down, the government came in and shut it down. So if you were mad about that during the Biden administration, to me, what's happening now, Trump administration is worse on that front. They're also doing the same thing on speech about Charlie Kirk, Israel and other things.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

The Biden administration actually paid Facebook to go against what the Republican Party was doing.

[Tim Miller]

And we agree.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

Whereas the Trump administration, I believe with Twitter and with Facebook and all the social media that we have right now, it's actually been a lot, again, more freer and more concise and we're able to talk about things without being banned and censored. I don't know how many people's accounts got censored during the COVID years.

[Tim Miller]

I mean, Elon's still censoring people. Zuckerberg. So like that censoring is still happening, but that's in the free market. I'm fine with that. My problem is when the government, when Donald Trump is coming in and saying, you can't post about ice, you can't. If you did that op ed, what do you think about Ramesha Absturk? You know that story she wrote, she was a tough student. She co wrote an op ed basically calling from divestment from Israel. She was detained, imprisoned by the Trump administration for co writing an op ed that didn't happen during the Biden years or the Obama years or the Bush years. That's crazy, isn't it?

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

Yeah, I would say that is pretty crazy.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah. The vice president, your claim is that.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

Donald Trump is against values. Against American values. Free speech is one of those American values.

[Tim Miller]

I've been trying to get through the whole list, but you guys want to talk about, question values and other stuff again. Freedom of religion, free markets, rule of law.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

How is Trump against freedom of religion?

[Tim Miller]

Again, we talked about the Muslim ban. With free markets, you've got the tariffs where Donald Trump is bullying companies to come in and force them to bend the knee to him. Free market companies, or else he's not going to tariff them. It's crazy. You guys would be talking about how social this was if Kamala Harris said, hey, Tim Cook, you gotta come in here for me not to add a tax to you. And what you're gonna have to do is you're gonna have to compliment me. You can bring me a little trophy that says that, hey, you know, this staffer that we have who's a non binary indigenous, really appreciates your work and wants to honor you, Kamala Harris. And if we give this to you, then you won't tariff us. Everybody would call that socialism because that's what it is. That's what's happening in this administration. Tim Cook came to the White House and gave Trump a trophy from a MAGA person is like, please don't tariff my iPhone components. And Donald Trump gave him an out on that, but then he's tariffing other things. This is not the free market. Donald Trump's running a socialist regime straight out of the White House. He just is.

[Moderator / Other Participants]

Pause.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

You've been eliminated by this.

[Tim Miller]

You. Thank you, man. Good to see you. Clock down. Timothy. Tim. Pleasure. You're Timothy. You grew the full name. I go by Timothy. Okay. My parents called me Timo. Actually, I've never been Timothy. That's okay. It comes from the Greek, which is Timotheos. Yeah. Means honoring God. Honoring God. Yeah. Very cool. I want to address your claim about the rule of law and being a western value, specifically about ICE and everything. I think what the Trump administration is doing with ICE is actually protecting his constituents. He's doing exactly what I elected him for. Specifically the family of Lake and Riley. Yeah. Who's protecting them? Well, that's horrible.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

Let me just ask you this.

[Tim Miller]

Do you agree that we have an immigration problem in this country or. We did. We don't anymore. Yeah, Well, I guess I would say this we did during the Biden administration. They let in too many people. And that's why the claim, the original claim was not about border patrol. I think we obviously need border patrol. I know. So I think the Biden rule of law. Yeah, I'm talking about addressing the rule of law here and how the government. The rule of law is not. Just part of it is protecting innocent people from being attacked. Right, Totally. But another part of it is protecting all of our rights from being infringed by the government. Let me tell you about a guy named George Reddys. He lived right. He was right here. He's a security guard outside of a marijuana farm. He's a veteran. He's a U.S. citizen. He was driving to work. They were raiding the marijuana farm because I guess our undocumented people working there. George is American. He's a Marine. He's trying to get to work. The ICE agents broke into his prison by ice. Yeah. Arrested. They sent him to prison. He did not get a phone call. Okay. He was there for. He missed his child's third birthday. He was there for three days. They put him in solitary confinement for 48 hours. He's an American citizen.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

He can sue.

[Tim Miller]

Of course he can. But the administration hasn't said anything about it. But. Okay, then let's go. But you can sue and you can get restitution for that. But if you're an illegal 5 year old in Honduras, can't, you know, can't sue. But. No, but if you're an illegal alien, you don't have the rights guaranteed to you by the Constitution because you already broke the law coming in here. Now, secondly, what I also want to talk about is the freedom of religion and the Muslim ban. The Muslim ban? You talking about in the very first Trump administration when he said the Muslims can't come in? Yeah, that was a safety threat. No, it wasn't. That was a safety threat. Yes, it was. We were at war. Everybody was at war. Ban terrorists. You don't have to ban Muslims. I was at.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

During that first.

[Tim Miller]

You understand that they don't come over saying, hey, I'm a terrorist. Well, yeah, sure. That's what they come over and they say, guys, that's why we have a CIA. This is why you keep being like, look, no, there are ways to go after bad people. We've done this in every administration besides Trump. There's a way to go. I mean, there's a way to go after terrorists, there's a way to go after drug dealers. Without hassling people and having a secret and having a, you know, internal police. That's masked internal police going after people. Yeah. One more thing. I have to address democracy. I hope none of you guys have chosen to go after the democracy point, which I think is interesting. Well, we live in a republic. But the claim that you say that ISIS just made it into Texas just is ridiculous. Is laughable and everything. No, but yes, it is. Yeah, it is. They're secret. They're acting in secret. And it's Donald Trump's internal police. They're not acting in secret. They are acting. They don't have a warrant by a judge for this person. They do. Yes. No, they don't. Yes, they do. You're just wrong.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

Look, have you ever interviewed somebody from.

[Tim Miller]

ICE on your show? You could read pro publicly. Have you interviewed someone from ICE on your show? Actually, I interviewed Dean Cain, who is a. Who is a Superman actor that has joined ice. He is not the smartest tool in the shed, but he's decided that he wants to join ICE now, even though he has no excuse experience doing that. Look, man, you're wrong. They don't have warrants. Read ProPublica. Read your local news here. Read the Los Angeles Times. Many, many people have been detained by American citizens and document. I think ProPublica recently said it was like 170 hundreds of American citizens detained by ICE without a warrant. No, you're wrong. That's happening. That maybe those things do happen. But when you have 10 million people that have come in, there's going to be things that fall through the cracks. Let me ask you this. You believe that bad things happen with the police also, Right. Do you agree that they should be abolished as well? Well, no, they're. No, because. Exactly. Right. So maybe they should be reformed. Maybe there should be some other things. Exactly, exactly. It's to me, police have unions. They have accountability to their people. When the police mess up, as you mentioned earlier, people can sue the police, but also police acknowledge their mistakes. We can sue. We can sue the federal government. That's why we have lawyers. That is not happening with ICE right now. ICE has wrongly detained a bunch of people. They wrongly sent a bunch of people to El Salvador, by the way, the Department of Homeland Security is not acknowledging El Salvador. Prisons are great, by the way. Oh, really? Tell me about that. So I want to talk. So there. The guy that was the makeup artist that got sent to El Salvador. You were cool with that. I don't know about that guy. I'm just saying. What about the Guy. What about that? Okay. Well, we sent 200 people to El Salvador. We said that they were. Well, if they're an American citizen, they're going to have passports, they're going to have documentation. And so they won't. They're not going to be ending up in jail. Well, yeah, we sent 200 Venezuelans to El Salvador. American citizens, we claim. No, no, no. Not American citizens. They're not American citizens. You think that we can just send people to foreign gulags? Even if they're not American, they're not American. They're not American citizens. We can do whatever we want. Well, they broke the law coming in. If who doesn't want them? If Honduras doesn't want them, if anybody else doesn't want them, what are they going to take? Well, no, no, several of them.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

Because we told, we told, we told.

[Tim Miller]

The president of Columbia to say, hey, take your guys back. And he said, no, sorry. Several of the Venezuelans that came into the country did come through legal pathways, and we deported them to an El Salvador prison because they had tattoos that looked like they were Trenda aragua, like Ms. 13. Trenda aragua. Okay. Several of them have. You think the cartels operate in other countries besides just El Salvador? No. My question is, do you think that somebody is. No, my question is to you. Do you think someone that's a legal resident in this country that came the right way from Venezuela can, without due process, be sent to a foreign prison in El Salvador? Do you think that that's what the government should be doing? Are you talking about an American citizen? No, they're Venezuelans that came to the country through a legal process. They were working through legal pathways. They were legal pathways in regards to. They came to this country and we sent them to an El Salvador gulag. Did they break any of the laws? No, no. And the administration has not acknowledged it. It's not apologized to them. One of them is a guy I interviewed. His name was Andre Hernandez Romero. He is a makeup artist and a hairdresser. He came to this country and he went through the CBP1 app, just like you were supposed to do. He tried to do it the right way. And what we did is we picked him up, put him on a plane, and we sent him to that El Salvador hellhole. Is he still there? Four months later, Bukele and Maduro cut a deal to get him out of there. He was in there for four months. We did that to him. He came to this country, he tried to do it the right way, and we sent him to a foreign country. I'm sorry, that is against American values. This was a country where people wanted to come here. Shining city on a hill. Got to be a lot more welcoming people throughout the world. I understand that, but there's got to be a lot more to the story than you're saying. There isn't.

[Moderator / Other Participants]

Pause. You've been eliminated by the group.

[Tim Miller]

Good. That's good. Whoa. We rolling?

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

Oh, buddy, that's timeout. These people who crossed into this country, they broke a law. And so there are sort of asylum seeking processes that you do when you're outside of the country. What I don't appreciate is the cutting in line aspect of this, because it's almost like you're at a grocery store, you cut someone in line. I don't appreciate that because there were Venezuelan individuals who were criminals being housed in New York City, and that was coming out of our taxpayer dollars. Now we're talking about American values. I voted for Donald Trump not because of a mutually exclusive interest. I voted for him despite it. I wanted to see closed borders and I wanted to see things like gender ideology diminished. I wanted to go back to a time where we weren't self iding in bathrooms and we could actually vote legally instead of having things like legal aliens voting. The issue that I have and what we need to actually fix immigration, it's been thrown around like a poker chip. We've seen both sides utilize it. But I think what Republicans have actually done, and we can look at this through the DREAM act bill, which was actually voted against by a lot of Democrats, including aoc. So this DREAM act bill was going to create a process for citizenship for DACA individuals. I consider parents who are smuggling their children into this country as terrorists. Domestic terrorists, really. Yes, I do. Because these individuals, they're not having a decision on being in this country. They're sort of foregoing out of our taxpayer dollars education.

[Pro-Life Advocate]

Right.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

And we're paying over $9 billion federally.

[Tim Miller]

Well, I gotta tell you, I just think that this is gonna be an area where we aren't gonna find much common ground, because I think that somebody fleeing communism in Venezuela, somebody fleeing oppression, that is looking for freedom, that wants to come to this country and is doing so through an asylee process or through the refugee process or through the TPS process. Somebody that wants to come to this country because they want to give their kid an opportunity.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

Yes.

[Tim Miller]

I think finding a way to make that happen is the Central American value. It is what made America what it was. Have them wait outside.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

Have them wait in line.

[Tim Miller]

No, please. Some of them were able to get in through temporary protected status or through asylum status. And they're able. Joe Biden. I'm sorry. And they're. Yep. And they're able to come into this country to give their kid a chance.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

Which we did not want.

[Tim Miller]

You just let me finish. They're able to come to this country, give their kid a chance. And to me, that is the American story. Like our country is, as Ronald Reagan said, the shining city on the hill. We want to give people fleeing oppression a possibility here. And what you said is that if a parent tried to come as an asylee and bring their kids into this country, and I've worked with some of these kids. That they are a terrorist and a child trafficker. No, they're a parent that loves their child, that wants to give them an opportunity that they could not have in the communist hellhole where they came from. And we should not. We should.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

Our taxpayers are.

[Tim Miller]

A lot of them pay taxes. They come, they work. Obviously.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

Let's look at this American value.

[Tim Miller]

This is what this American value. We should not be sending people.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

All of us actually voted for Trump because we wanted what was happening right now. We want people to finally be in.

[Tim Miller]

Line with, and that's final. American value, which actually none of. None of you wanted to talk about. Which is fine.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

We can agree on that.

[Tim Miller]

No, we can't, actually, because Donald Trump lost democracy.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

We voted.

[Tim Miller]

Donald Trump lost the 2020. If I could. Donald Trump lost the 2020 election. He lost the 2020 election.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

He won this election by the popular election.

[Tim Miller]

And he pretended like he won. And then people stormed the Capitol and attacked police because they don't respect democracy. Excuse me. Let me finish. And you guys. And maybe all of you. I don't know. You're speaking for everybody. Many of you voted for. For him after.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

That's democracy.

[Tim Miller]

After he. And after he instituted an attack on our democracy on the capital. Violent.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

What was the attack? Oh, the one. The Nancy Pelosi one that was a stunt to actually look like it was Donald Trump. But it wasn't.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, that's not what happened. Sorry.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

It did on record.

[Tim Miller]

You can watch the tape. You should talk to the police. The last. Puede pares er extravagante Ocho configuraciones differentes intensidada justable ademases calefacionado y se siente pareser extravagante y dos bueno a un mas Peru.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

Cuando es ha sillas de masa.

[Tim Miller]

Se vuelben bastante practicas El Volkswagen taeguan confuciones premium como los acientos de lasa dispon Ibles solo parese extravagante. This episode is brought to you by Espolontequila. Slow, sticky, snoozy. They call these the dog days of summer, but espolon, they don't do boring. Welcome to the mark days. Espolontequila 100% blue.

[Moderator / Other Participants]

Weber agave born.

[Tim Miller]

To shake up your summer, just add lime agave and a little attitude. Visit espolontequila.com 40% alcohol volume 80 proof Copyright 2025 Campari America New York, NY Drink responsibly.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

Coca Cola for the big, for the.

[Moderator / Other Participants]

Small, the short and the tall.

[Tim Miller]

Peacemakers. Risk takers for the optimists, pessimists for long distance love for introverts and extroverts. The thinkers and the doers for old friends and new Coca Cola for everyone. Pick up some Coca Cola at a store near you. This claim is that the reddest states are governed worse than the bluest cities. What up, man? Good to see you.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

So, obviously, in order for us to understand your claim, I would would love to understand why you say that. What specifically about red states makes them.

[Tim Miller]

Govern worse than cities? Yeah, sure. Well, I think that there are kind of two ways to look at that. One is just in a technocratic sense, like, the outcomes are worse, right? Poverty rates are higher. Violent crime is higher. Divorce rates are higher. Economic dynamism and opportunity is lower. Schools, school scores are lower.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

Violent crime is higher.

[Tim Miller]

I mean, per capita, the highest violent crime state. Red state states are almost all red states except north New Mexico. I think it's Alaska, Louisiana, Mississippi. Those are the highest violent states when it comes to violent crime. Yeah.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

Okay, so the blue cities that have overwhelmingly more regulation on guns, they have more gun violence. Why do you think that that is?

[Tim Miller]

Well, I mean, I don't think that's exactly true. There are some cities that have a lot of high.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

It's not true.

[Tim Miller]

Well, there are some cities that have a lot of gun violence, like Chicago. And a lot of the guns are coming in from.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

They have some of the strictest gun regulations in the.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, but again, you have more violent crime in places like Tennessee than you do in places like Massachusetts and New York. I don't think that's true.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

No, not even New York. Let's take Chicago and New York, who have some of the strictest gun violence. Chicago's a horrific example of a lot.

[Tim Miller]

Of those guns coming in from Indiana. Yeah.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

Okay. And how are they coming In.

[Tim Miller]

They're. People are trafficking them in from Indiana and they should be stopped. Trafficking them.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

Okay, so they're coming in illegally.

[Tim Miller]

I don't know. Why are you whispering it?

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

Well, they're. They're coming in illegally.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah. Okay, right, yeah, sure.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

But they have the regulations to crack down on the guns. So are you telling me that regulation doesn't work?

[Tim Miller]

Well, no, regulation certainly does work in. In certain cases. There are ways to.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

Why doesn't it work in Chicago?

[Tim Miller]

But again, because they have problems.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

They have strict gun radio station.

[Tim Miller]

You're trying to do the debate bro thing with me, like, where it's just. But it just isn't working because the facts are not right. Like, in the states that have the least gun violence are blue states. There's places like Vermont and Massachusetts. Gun. I'm just. I'm sorry. The gun violence. Yeah, I'm just. Sorry. You know why? Here's why. Because the gun violence, like, you hear about, like the street crime, gun violence, and, and there certainly is some of that, particularly in Chicago, where it's really bad. But there is a ton of gun violence that's happening across rural America related to domestic violence. And having guns in your home just leads to suicides, leads to. Leads to wives being menaced and killed. And like, that is happening all over the country.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

But there's a lot of other factors that go into the fact, for example, in the rural areas, they are going to have less deterrence from the community. Not everybody lives together, so they don't have the threat of their neighbors shooting at a robbery, for example. They have less law enforcement. The time that it takes for law enforcement to get to these crimes that would be happening. Like, for example, all of the things that you're mentioning is a lot higher than it would be in blue cities. But that still doesn't take away from the fact that you even agreed Chicago has the highest gun regulation in the country and they have the most amount of gun violence.

[Tim Miller]

How does that work? And what, again, because we live in a free country and Chicago is not like a free fortified environment where nobody can come in and out. But I guess my point is that I think that Chicago's governed awfully. Actually, the mayor of Chicago is terrible. But my point is that there's a lot of conversation about that, that the mayor of Chicago is terrible. This is in the news. People talk about this all the time. There's not a lot of conversation about the fact that in West Virginia, in Tennessee, in Louisiana and Mississippi, there is greater violent crime than there is in Charge. It's just not as inconsistent. Area people don't talk about it. And they're incorporated, doing anything to solve it. And they're the, the govern. The governors in those states are actually making it worse, exacerbating the problem.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

You make this claim that on average, the blue cities are governed worse than run states. But when we talk about Chicago, which happens to be the one, the biggest country or one of the biggest cities in the country, the most populous, they have the strictest gun regulation, it's like, oh, well, we can't talk about that. We have to talk about.

[Tim Miller]

I'm happy to talk. Well, I'm happy to talk about it. I'm just saying I think that Chicago, objective Chicago is. Is governed not well. And I think they should be covered better.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

What do you think about that?

[Tim Miller]

But objectively it's governed better than West Virginia.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

What do you think about, like, if.

[Tim Miller]

You want to, if you live. Los Angeles is objectively governed better than West Virginia, Oklahoma, on every score. Where would you want to send your kids?

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

What policy differences?

[Tim Miller]

Sure, sure. Again, education, access to health care services, transportation, poverty levels. Poverty levels are way higher. Yeah.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

But the affordability is also higher in those states as well.

[Tim Miller]

Hi. Hey. It's. No. Elegan.

[Moderator / Other Participants]

Yes.

[Tim Miller]

Good to see you.

[Moderator / Other Participants]

Good to see you again. So I know a lot of things were mentioned and just to kind of level the playing field and find common ground. You mentioned, you know, kids dying because of school shootings. I'm with you there. My heart breaks every time I hear something, something. And I want something done about that. Same when we look at, you know, immigration and we're seeing human trafficking, kids being trafficked at the border by the cartel, horrible. So all of, all of the violence against children, I want something done by that. And I think it's horrible. That being said, and I think we can agree on that. When we look at blue cities, they have some of the most extreme abortion policies. For example, Cesar SANTANGELO In Washington, D.C. there were justice for the five, and they still haven't received justice, but they were five babies that were aborted at the third trimester. And so we see these cases happening in blue cities, and I think that's super problematic. Do you think that that is.

[Tim Miller]

I'm against third trimester abortions. I'm like quasi pro life. I would say I'm where a lot of people are in the country, which is in the middle on that issue. I think a lot of times it gets bifurcated into extremes. But now that Dobbs has been overturned, you Know, I can, like, the dynamics has changed a lot and what the, what the laws are in a lot of those cities. But I agree, and I think that the Kermit Gosnell thing, whatever, in Philadelphia. Horrible, A horrible story. Here's the problem, though, is that again, on average, like, the red states do a horrible job of protecting young people. You mentioned gun deaths. But it's also, child poverty is higher in the red states. Infant mortality is much higher than the red states because they aren't funding health care to the same degree. And my view is, look, when I think about what I'm looking for in a governor and somebody who's governed a state or the country, I used to work for Jeb Bush. One of his lines was that he wants people to be able to live a life of purpose and meaning. And that's kind of what I judge everything by. I want people to have an opportunity to live a life of purpose and meaning. What does that mean? That means that when they're born, they get to stay born, right? And that means when then they grow up and they go to school, then they have good schools where they have a chance to learn and do well. And then if they get out of school and they have like, financial issues like that, there's a safety net so they at least have a chance to go out and find a job. Like on that metric, red states are doing terrible. Like infant mortality is, high schools are terrible, and the safety net is, has holes in it. And I just, I think that, you know, I agree with you that there have been some extreme abortion laws in blue states, cities. But I just don't think that matches up to the just horrible way that red states are governing on that metric.

[Moderator / Other Participants]

I agree that the education system is a mess, and I think we need to change that. I think homeschooling should be a more popular option and people should have education choice. And unfortunately, we don't see that a lot in blue, blue states. We see that in red states to allow more freedoms of education, of choice. But I do want to say, you know, you mentioned that we should protect a life after the child is born. So do you agree that we should protect a life, allow the child to be born because. So you're pro life.

[Tim Miller]

Then again, I mean, I think that this is a complicated issue, right? Like, I definitely am not for third trimester elective abortions, right? I think that there are exceptions or the life of the mother. I think, I think that some of the red state laws are really terrible, like bounty laws in some of These cases, I think it's a little different. Abortion isn't the issue. We could probably sit here and debate the six week and eight week. You know what I mean? I think that there are different lines on there, but I guess my point is that I'm for that again. I think that people should have an opportunity to live a life of purpose and meaning. That means getting born, but that means staying born. You don't want infant mortality when they're death. You want to make sure they have good hospitals. And I just think they're failing on this front. I live in Louisiana. I live in New Orleans. We have school choice. I'm for school choice too, actually.

[Moderator / Other Participants]

Awesome.

[Tim Miller]

But like they don't fund the schools. So it's like there are three really great schools. And so if you have great parents that work hard to get you on the lists and make sure that you get the tests and you get to go to the good public schools, then you're great. If you have absentee parents or bad parents, then you end up in these crappy schools. And my point is you can have school choice, but you also got to. You also got to invest to make sure kids have opportunities. They're doing that in blue cities, they're not doing it in red states. Sure.

[Moderator / Other Participants]

But we have to allow people to have that option. And we're seeing a lot of restrictions in blue cities towards school choice. And so people should be able to choose because then they're not going to be able to even have it.

[Tim Miller]

I agree. I just think that in balance, like, if you wanted to send your kid to school and you were just like, would I go in San Francisco or would I send them to school in Shreveport? If you want to give them the best chance to succeed, I think pretty much everybody would say San Francisco. There'd be some weird woke stuff that they'd learn, but like, they would have a. They would get a good education. Education. And like there is not that investment happening in red states, but what we're.

[Moderator / Other Participants]

Seeing in blue states is we're seeing a lot of governors and we're seeing a lot of mayors be very adamantly pro choice. Like they're not advocating for any sort of restrictions on abortion. I think that's super problematic and I think we can agree on that. And so if you have governors and you have mayors who are saying it's okay to kill children, I don't really trust their judgment. If they think murder's okay.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah. Again. And I think that there are different difference of opinions on abortion.

[Moderator / Other Participants]

Thanks so much.

[Tim Miller]

Good job. Thank you. We rolling? All right, here we go.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

So I think when you look at blue states, blue cities and red states, one of the things you see a major difference in is like investment in terms of what private companies are investing in. You know, like New York City, San Francisco, you have a lot of these tech companies that are also hiring a lot of white collar workers. Right. Whereas some of these blue or red states you're talking about, Mississippi, Louisiana, used to be blue collar states that now blue collar jobs have dissipated from and gone overseas because of, you know, free trade and stuff.

[Tim Miller]

Let me object to that. Just let me give you one example again, as I mentioned, I live in New Orleans. I was thinking about, about this as I was trying to come up with a good example. If you just go up the Mississippi River, Right. So let's take out the coastal states because I do agree they're kind of different in the kind of economy it is. You just go up the river. You got New Orleans, Memphis, St. Louis that are all in red states. Yes. And then you got Minneapolis St. Paul, that's in a blue state at the top. Minneapolis St. Paul is thriving. A lot of people want to move there. There's a lot of economic opportunity.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

There is a huge more private companies investing in.

[Tim Miller]

Well, right, but why? It's because the governance there has been attractive. People want to move there. A lot of tampon access in Minneapolis thanks to Tim Walls. You know, any bathroom you go into, you can get a tampon. A lot of people want to go to Minneapolis. It's a liberal state that has been governed well, where the education is good, the healthcare is good. So no wonder companies want to go there because diverse, diverse communities are welcome. And then you go down the red states. St. Louis, St. Louis was once one of the biggest cities in the country. Memphis was once one of the biggest cities in the country. New Orleans, where I live, used to be very dynamic. They have hollowed out. People don't want to move there because they're governed like crap.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

Okay. When you're talking about moving somewhere, where are you primarily going to move for a job? Right. You're not, you're. Yes. And so, okay, so it's the job.

[Tim Miller]

Of the states to try to attract the good jobs. The blue states, it's not about geography. It's not like randomly. It's because of the coast or because of the surprise certain industries.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

So I mean, Tennessee, Tennessee has had a lot of companies move their tech companies. Right. The thing is, I think it's a false equivalency Here because okay, so a lot of the jobs have left from the Rust Belt and everything. These are the states that you're, you're saying are, you know, no worse than.

[Tim Miller]

On average and governed great. Josh Shapiro's doing a great job. Michigan is being, Detroit is having a renaissance right now. They have a Democratic governor. Wisconsin is being governed well, Milwaukee is having a renaissance. There's no reason that New Orleans, but it's also Memphis look, or like any of these other cities could be like.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

Could be like states you're talking about. The cities you're talking about have white collar jobs. So obviously those people are because they've attracted better on average, because they have better income.

[Tim Miller]

Pittsburgh, Detroit, Wisconsin, that was the rest.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

If you look at Iowa and Indiana, not as many white collar people live there. And so of course outcomes are going to be worse on average. And now I want to go back to your. Sorry.

[Tim Miller]

Thanks man. Good to see you. Welcome back. What was it? Jp?

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

Jp yeah.

[Tim Miller]

Good to see you man.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

Nice to see you again.

[Tim Miller]

What's up?

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

I don't really want to talk about like state cities because I see what you're doing. You're mentioning the states. We're mentioning the cities. But again like we all know, like it's no surprise that people are always talking about LA and New York. I come to city for the first time with my little sister. It's beautiful, it attracts eccentrics, it's a wonderful city.

[Tim Miller]

Where are you from?

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

Represent America. I'm from Miami, Florida where you don't see all this homelessness. Right. But you see it here. No, you don't see it like here. And it's no surprise that it's on the news all the time.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

So I want to move away from that because I know you're going to do. You're going to mention specific states and you're going to ignore the, the social conditions there, the poverty rates, etc. I'm not going to do that. I want to talk about the worm Morris that you mentioned. I assume you're a big toggle guy.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, sure. Alexa Tov. I'm getting old since I'm a dad. So it's been, it's been a decade since I've read to Toqueville, but yeah.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

Sure, for, for the normies. Alexis Toqueville love to talk about inclinations. Right. About Morris. I think that today liberal cities have an issue that's not really about government. It's about hyper individualism. Right. And we're losing, let's say the moors, you know, the inclinations that Make America great. Some of those are represented in, you know, rural America. And it's. It's imperfect, you know, hard to compare these up. Yeah, but I think that you sometimes make things so much about identity, about hyperactive. You mentioned gay, Latino, black. You're. You brought demographics many times today. And one thing that Trump does and Republicans do is they talk about nationhood. They talk about being an American. And right now, with liberals, a lot of times, they're like, why do all these people have American flags in their house? What are you proud of?

[Tim Miller]

You know, did you watch the protests, the no Kings protests? It was all liberals. A lot of American flags. A lot of American flags out there.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

A lot of American flags. A lot of them, you know, saying things that don't.

[Tim Miller]

And Donald Trump did the thing where he called them the enemy of the people, but the enemy within. The enemy from within. The people that were or protesting him. He called them the enemy from within. He has very kind things to say about foreign despots that like him. You know, if you're a Sharia law sand dictator, you are confusing foreign policy.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

Making like, he's trying to negotiate and get a deal anyway, and you're trying to make like, oh, Maduro loves, like, Putin. And that's what.

[Tim Miller]

I wanted to talk about. Some traditional value stuff, but I appreciate it, man. It's okay. All right. What's up? Martin. Nice to meet you, Martin. Nice to meet you, man.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

So I think that the whole framing of kind of red states versus blue cities, it's. It's kind of a bad framing because we're talking about different levels of analysis. I think the best way of looking at this would be what happens when a state goes from blue leadership to red leadership. And I think the best example of that is the state of Florida under the leadership of Ron DeSantis. So under leadership, Ron DeSantis, has the poverty rate of Florida gone up or down?

[Tim Miller]

And I don't have all the Florida stats in front of me, but I'll say, well, do you want me to do a little Florida talk? I'll give you the downside of Florida. I think that right now what you're seeing in Florida is a big rise in cost of living because people do want to move there. I get that. There's a lot of. There's a lot of. There's a poverty demand.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

The poverty rate of Florida has gone down.

[Tim Miller]

There's supply and demand. There's an Adam Smith.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

Yeah. Why? Why has it gone down to Florida?

[Tim Miller]

You know, I think probably because of economic Development opportunities come to the.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

Yeah. The main reason why is because when you lower state tax, you attract more businesses. Businesses come in. That creates more jobs and opportunity for people, which is what you see under Republican leadership. Yeah, that's really why you're seeing, you know, major companies and people leave states like California in droves to go to states like Texas and Florida with preferable business.

[Tim Miller]

California is doing better than the poverty rate than Florida is though. But look, Florida has big.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

Cuz Florida was.

[Tim Miller]

Florida has a big insurance rate crisis. So look, if you're, you're, you're, you're right. If you're doing well in Florida right now, if you're like one of the tech bros that moved from San Francisco to Miami, you're doing well. It's more than the health insurance.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

It's secondary leadership around DeSantis, mainly because when you have pro business policies, you're going to have more job growth in your states.

[Tim Miller]

You love DeSantis. That's great. I mean, are you for him in the primary?

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

I mean, you think he's. No, I voted for President Trump, but I think that. Why did I vote for President Trump?

[Tim Miller]

Ron DeSantis, the primary, that seems like a crazy thing to do.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

I think that President Trump leadership was great in his first term and I think we're seeing again his second term. But I think let's, let's stay on the topic of Florida here. So in Florida you've seen, like I said, you've seen record job growth. You've seen record.

[Tim Miller]

Record number of the other way. Yeah. What was that? I mean, Florida is starting to hit tough times. There was definitely a boom with Rhonda Sanders and right now they're in a huge insurance crisis. Right. Getting home insurance in Florida is a nightmare in part because of climate change. Yeah, that's hurricanes.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

That's not the fault of Ron DeSantis.

[Tim Miller]

Well, it certainly as a governor, it is, it is your obligation to try to make sure people can live affordable lives in your state. And like there's a major insurance crisis.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

Because there's a lot of hurricanes that are coming into the state.

[Tim Miller]

I, I mean, again. Yeah. And there is, it is making it unaffordable to live there. Obviously, I think we should focus on.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

Things that are actually within the country.

[Tim Miller]

Okay, well, how about health insurance? That's what I was going to say.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

Second, lowering taxes. Second amount to come in getting people to move to your state. Which is why we've seen a record number of people who move to Florida, especially since it's, that's come under Republican leadership.

[Tim Miller]

Second amount of uninsured in Florida. Look, here's my thing. And I didn't use Florida as an example because I think Ron's done an okay job compared to some of the worst red states. Right. But if we're gonna talk about it, I don't, you know, look, I intentionally didn't want to do like gay stuff as a gay here to like just kind of all kind of focus on that issue. But as a gay parent, I wouldn't move to Florida because Ron DeSantis put it a lot.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

Well, you disagree with the vast majority of Americans who are moving there from the states.

[Tim Miller]

I'd like to explain why. I'd like to explain why I would move there because Rhonda San has put in a law where any. Any Karen could sue a school if a teacher is. Has. And Tango Makes three, the book of gay Penguins. If they have to read that in.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

Secret porn in our schools, absolutely. You should be able to.

[Tim Miller]

Is that a penguin porn book?

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

There are seven.

[Tim Miller]

The main penguin porn book.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

Not a soft porn on our libraries.

[Tim Miller]

No, I'm against porn. I'm also against pornography.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

So then you're. So then you're against the vast majority of the books that have been banned.

[Tim Miller]

In the state of Florida? Well, no, but I guess my point is that you could sue a teacher for having a picture of them and their spouse in Florida. That's like something that's legal now. They had a bill.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

Yeah. I don't think gender ideology and these other weird sexual orientations are pushed on kids.

[Tim Miller]

That's an interesting question. So. So my kid's seven, she's got two dads. So she went into school and the assignment was.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

Okay, we've kind of strayed a little bit away here from the.

[Tim Miller]

Well, not. No, it isn't. This is about governance. Yeah.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

Can you read that?

[Tim Miller]

The economic of a red team has.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

Gotten better since coming from Blue Leaf.

[Tim Miller]

I would like to finish my hypothetical. And so if they're getting an assignment which is give us your family tree. My daughter's given an assignment, says, give us your family tree in Florida. And she does that assignment and it includes 2Dads and that some other kid in the class doesn't like that and goes home and tells their mom or dad and then that dad in Florida now can suit the school.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

I also like to note real quick that you didn't answer. You didn't answer my question on the economics part because you know that Florida has gotten better and the red seats get better. That seems. Get Better to red leadership.

[Tim Miller]

Look at Colorado. We did. I just did this. Pennsylvania, Josh Piro. It's gotten much better. Colorado, Jared Polis is doing a great job.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

I think Kentucky has gotten far worse.

[Tim Miller]

Under leadership of any bashum. That is totally not true.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

It absolutely is.

[Tim Miller]

So, yeah, I think that this is kind of crazy. I think they are trying to do an outlier. We can argue about Florida. I don't think that Florida has gotten better, actually. That's going to be just.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

I mean, the stats would just flat out disagree with you. The poverty rate would disagree with you.

[Tim Miller]

The jobs disagree with you. Trying to see things, the amount of.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

People that would move there have disagree with you.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, I do think Ron DeSantis would have been a better president than Donald Trump. That's not really what we're debating. I wish you would have been for that. I definitely don't think you would have seen people storming the Capitol with Ron desanctimonious flags beating up cops.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

Well, we're on to.

[Tim Miller]

I think that's very safe.

[Moderator / Other Participants]

Pause, pause, pause. Time's up.

[Tim Miller]

Good to see you, man. Tim will now choose someone from the circle to come back to the center.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

And debate a claim of their choosing.

[Tim Miller]

I think I would go with the gentleman that's been taking notes over here. I felt like we have some unfinished business.

[Pro-Life Advocate]

My claim is from the moment of conception, abortion is a grave moral evil.

[Tim Miller]

From the moment of conception. I guess I would disagree with you. Yeah. But I think that that abortion reaches a point where it is a grave moral evil. And I would agree with you on that. I think it's something that I fall on a disparate side with a lot of people on the left on where.

[Pro-Life Advocate]

I'm curious where you put the line.

[Tim Miller]

You know, I think that's. I think it's complicated, but I'm pretty compelled by arguments related to the heartbeat. And I'll tell you this. So I adopted my child. I've been. We had a couple of adoptions that went south where I went and sat with mothers that were trying to make this hard choice what to do, whether to have their child or whether to terminate the pregnancy, whether to parent the child, whether would give the child up for adoption. And so I get to sit there with them in the hospital room where you can, you know, look at the monitor. You can see the heartbeat. You can see the little fingers. And. And in those rooms, like, you can feel a grave moral weight. Like you can just feel it. Like you can feel that the decision is a big decision. Yeah, I Think that, you know, when you get into now the nitty gritty of like how the government remediates that, like, I think that there are different questions, different.

[Pro-Life Advocate]

This is obviously a really important thing just given the numbers. Right. And so I think someone said earlier it's almost like a third of Gen Z is not here because of abortion. And so whether, you know, where we put the line is actually a huge thing that we need to get right on because human rights, right. The right to life is at stake. And so I think this is something very important that we need to think about. And so you said you're persuaded by heartbeat arguments. I'm just curious, what about a heartbeat makes you a human being, a valuable human being that's worth protecting?

[Tim Miller]

Well, I think. Well, I think every human being has value. Okay. And I guess this is where I get into. I'm not trying to do like debate trick where I duck your question because I'm happy to come back to, to this.

[Pro-Life Advocate]

Yeah.

[Tim Miller]

But like this is where I do get frustrated with people on the right, like, and people that particularly that have supported Donald Trump who talk about the fact that they believe that every human has value and has dignity. Because I just, I can't think of a public figure in my entire life who has had less respect for human dignity and human life than this president.

[Pro-Life Advocate]

Well, maybe Joe Biden that advocates for abortion.

[Tim Miller]

Well, no, no, again, you're talking about. Okay, again. Yeah, you're talking, you're talking about just abortion. And again we can. Look, I'm not, I'm not an expert. We didn't, I didn't know. Well, no, of course it's a huge issue. And like I said, I think that, look, I think the European countries handling.

[Pro-Life Advocate]

Your whole argument is.

[Tim Miller]

You haven't heard my argument.

[Pro-Life Advocate]

Well, I know what you're going to say is Donald Trump has done all these terrible things. Right. But all the conclusion is from your argument is that Trump supporters that are pro life are hypocrites. That's it. It has nothing to do with.

[Tim Miller]

Well, I'm actually, we're doing this. I love that we're doing this. Hoping a lot of young MAGA and young conservatives are watching this, particularly young Christians. I want them to watch this and I'm hoping to try to compel them to the arguments that human life having value. If you believe that in the unborn, which I again, which I do. And I think there's some questions about like what three weeks and four weeks. But like I believe that every human life has value. If you Believe that, then it's not about hypocrisy. It's about manifesting that same view of life once the kid is born. And in this country, we are eradicating support for mothers, for single mothers who need support to help our kids. Can I finish? We are menacing. No, no, we.

[Pro-Life Advocate]

No, we are menacing.

[Tim Miller]

No, it doesn't. It has everything to do with it. Why is abortion grave moral evil from the moment of conception? Because every human life has dignity. Well, right.

[Pro-Life Advocate]

Because it's literally the murder of an innocent.

[Tim Miller]

Okay, great. And so if every human life has dignity, then we have to treat each other as such. And that child, when they're born, that little baby, when they're born, they need to be able to survive. So we need to make sure that they have the medical treatment to survive. No, the mothers need to have some support. Right. The kids don't want to be scared that they're going to die by a mass shooter in their schools.

[Pro-Life Advocate]

But, Tim, Tim, our differences.

[Tim Miller]

Our difference country doesn't ever be deported. I'm sorry. No, no, no, Tim.

[Pro-Life Advocate]

Our differences in opinion on what constitutes human flourishing when it comes to immigration or wealth, the welfare state or, or healthcare or all these different things.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

Okay.

[Pro-Life Advocate]

Human dignity. What are differences in our views with that have nothing to do with whether it's a human being. It has everything to do with the moment of conception.

[Tim Miller]

It has everything.

[Pro-Life Advocate]

No, it doesn't. Tim. How.

[Tim Miller]

How.

[Pro-Life Advocate]

What is the argument that a heartbeat is what makes a human being a valuable person?

[Tim Miller]

I came from a background of pro life, as I said, and I came as a Republican. I came from a Catholic family, and I. And I believe that unborn life has value, but human life having value. Being pro life means instituting a culture of life. And when I was growing up in the Republican party and in the pro life movement, this was something that people talked about, about the culture of life. It meant all the way from life until death. It meant not having the death penalty. It meant not sending people to foreign gulags. It meant being compassionate conservatism. It meant giving mothers treatment. No, no, it means all of us.

[Pro-Life Advocate]

An unborn human being is completely different from a culture criminal who has raped and murdered innocent individuals. Okay, well, sure, they're completely different cases.

[Tim Miller]

We live in a society where you're going to have to make laws. You have to understand the rights. Because in a situation of abortion, as you know, we are also. We're talking about two human lives or two human lives. Excuse me, like the life of the mother has value in addition to, in addition to the unborn life. Right. And so you have to respect the rights of the mother to be able to, to make. To. They'll make judgments based on their health. The rights of the mother to, you know, make judgments based on.

[Pro-Life Advocate]

But we don't. We don't allow mothers. Right. To murder their newborns. Right. Or their two daughters. Right.

[Tim Miller]

So we went against.

[Pro-Life Advocate]

Right, right, exactly.

[Tim Miller]

I'm against second and third trimester abortion.

[Pro-Life Advocate]

I know, but you brought it up as an argument. And so, you know, we don't do that. Why is that? It's because the newborn and the two year old are human beings that we need to protect. Right. And so let's get back to the actual question.

[Tim Miller]

No, no, now you bring it back up. Let's protect the newborns. Let's protect the people that are fleeing and want to come to this country to have a life for themselves. Let's protect people, mothers who disproportionately in red states who are dying in childbirth. Let's protect the kids. Do you have a single argument. Let's protect infant mortality.

[Pro-Life Advocate]

Do you have a single argument for why the unborn before a heartbeat is not a human being and we can kill it?

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, because. Yeah, no, my argument is basically that it's a tough judgment call. And I think that if you're making laws in a country that is not.

[Pro-Life Advocate]

A Christian country, how is it a tough judgment call? The science of embryology is extremely clear from the moment of conception. This is when a new distinct human being comes into existence.

[Tim Miller]

So that would make IVF illegal in a lot of cases because there are, you know, a lot of.

[Pro-Life Advocate]

Right. A lot of pro lifers are against ivf. Actually, actually Trump actually rescinded some of his statements and policies about IVF because he got so much pushback from the pro life.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah. And that, so that's, that's what I'm saying. I think that, I think that those are really tough moral questions. Look, we live, we don't live in a Christian. Yeah, but like, this is jubilee.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

Like, this is where we're supposed to.

[Tim Miller]

Have these tough moral questions. And I'm telling you, and I'm telling you, I think that there are some clear. There's some areas where it's clear. I think we're not living in a Christian nationalist country. We are not living in a, in a. And so if you're gonna live in a pluralistic society where people have different views, we have to respect the rights of the mother and the baby. Like, I just think that early on In a pregnancy, like you have to make laws that are gonna be the.

[Pro-Life Advocate]

Equivalent society of going back to like when slavery was around and saying, oh, well, slavery is a very complicated issue. You know, these farm, these plantations are hiring people.

[Tim Miller]

Right.

[Pro-Life Advocate]

And so. Exactly. That's, that's what you're saying. And I'm saying it's actually really not that complicated of an issue. It is a human life worth protecting. And in the same way slavery was wrong.

[Tim Miller]

Absolutely. Passion for life from the life of the one week old zygote. I wish we had that passion for the two year olds that are dying.

[Pro-Life Advocate]

Third of my generation is gone. They are gone because of abortion. This, this is the greatest moral tragedy. I would say even greater than the Holocaust as far as millions of lives are being killed. If I am correct. I absolutely, I am very passionate about that issue because of the implications. And so, Tim, I love your heart. I really see your heart behind it. All I'm saying is please come up with some arguments that, that will actually define the view or become pro life or from the moment of conception, defend the unborn.

[Tim Miller]

I appreciate your passion on this issue and like you said to me, my wish for you back and for folks that have this view is that they would have the same passion for the human dignity of the people that are being badly, badly mistreated by this administration that they do for unborn kids.

[Pro-Life Advocate]

I will have that passion when abortion is completely ended in this country.

[Tim Miller]

Appreciate it.

[Pro-Life Advocate]

All right, great job.

[Tim Miller]

Good to see you. I think we've all gotten in our own silos so much when we're talking, particularly those of us who are like in the media and after the last election and Trump won, I really want to commit myself to at least trying to communicate with people kind of outside the anti Trump bubble and particularly talk to younger people who I think feel very polarized right now.

[Moderator / Other Participants]

I think Tim Miller is a great millennial debater. I think his stances come from a place of compassion, of just wanting the world to be a better place. I think that was something when we were talking about immigration or abortion or just children in general. Something we can could all agree on is we really want those demographics to be protected. And we may have different ways of going about that, but we care about them.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

There's a deeper conversation that needs to be had in this country and it's not about guns or abortion or these issues that are important to have, but also some deeper conversations about social cohesion. What does it mean to be an American? How do we move forward?

[Tim Miller]

The main thing you can do as an individual to bridge the partisan divide is to see people from the other side as humans. Don't forget to subscribe to Surrounded wherever.

[Conservative Gen Z Participant]

You get your podcasts so that you don't miss an episode. And if you want to watch the video version of Surrounded, subscribe to Jubilee on YouTube.