← The Best People with Nicolle Wallace
The Best People with Nicolle Wallace
Tim Miller is Ready to Fight Fire with Fire
00:40:15
Tim Miller joins to talk about creating a lasting pro-democracy movement and parenting at this political moment.
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- [00:00]
Tim Miller
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- [00:09]
Nicole Wallace
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- [00:52]
Tim Miller
Is our hat pro democracy? Probably not, right? If you're going to try to reach the Doc Rivers people, you know what I mean? Like that we're talking about the disengaged 20 something. If I was somebody that's thinking about running in 2028, which I'm not, that would be what I'd be spending most of my time thinking about right now. Not all the other stuff like what is on the hat.
- [01:11]
Chris Murphy
By every measure available to us, every way we ask our viewers who they want more of, the answer comes through loud and clear. It's our next guest. The best people with Nicole Wallace is where you have found yourself. And the best person this week is Tim Miller. Tim Miller, thank you for being here.
- [01:32]
Tim Miller
What's up?
- [01:33]
Chris Murphy
Did you know that? Did you even know that?
- [01:34]
Tim Miller
No, I did not know that. Nobody had the suits never tell me anything about my Q score.
- [01:39]
Chris Murphy
I mean, this may be like a, this may be leaked classified information, but I know it to be true, corroborated.
- [01:45]
Tim Miller
Well, I love to hear that. I appreciate the viewers. And it's true. At least anecdotally. This is not math, but you know, on the street or at Whole Foods or whatever, at the kids basketball game, if somebody's like, hey, I love watching you. The next words are always with Nicole. Every time. It's never, you know, no offense to.
- [02:03]
Chris Murphy
Any of the others, let's dive in right there. I mean, I loved your description of the manosphere and the different layers of the Trump coalition. Tell me right now we're sort of maybe in the second inning of the Epstein story. So like, for where we are right now, how would you define the Trump coalition?
- [02:22]
Tim Miller
Yeah, I mean, look, he has this core base of support that everybody always talks about because it's so visible. Right? So in our face, they go to the rallies, they're trolls in our mentions. And so. And it's been the key to his political power. Right? So there's always like this, I feel like we're on. It's like, oh, is this going to break through at the base? Is this going to crack them? And I just am kind of of the working view that nothing is ever going to crack them and that, you know, we're going to be decades from now, we're going to be in old folks home together, Nicole. And there's going to be people long after Trump's past. There'll be people with little, you know, down the hallway with little, you know, venerations to him. And like, I just think that's. That' unfortunately, like our reality. So I don't even. It's, you know, whatever. It's important to hear them and know what's happening with them. But, like, that's not where the crack could be. Right. And I think that there are two other kind of groups that we talk about. One is, I do think that there is kind of an evolving, like, mutated maga, right, that is younger, you know, and that they listen to Candace Owens and Tucker Carlson's podcast. And I think some of those folks have some doubts. I don't know. Did you watch any of the Mehdi Hasan thing where he was like, Mehdi Hasan, verse 20:20 far right conservatives. It's called Jubilee, and it's like fight porn. It's like argument porn. Anyway, and Mattie goes on, and they found these 20 kids who define themselves as far right conservatives. You're saying you don't care about the Constitution, but actually you do because you quite like the Second Amendment. You just don't like the bits that you disagree with. Can I just be clear on that? Yeah, absolutely. I'm more than willing to amend it and whenever it's in your favor. Yeah, absolutely. So can Democrats do the same when they're in office? No, absolutely not. Because you don't believe in democracy? No, I don't. Absolutely not. What do you believe in? Autocracy. You're a little bit more than a far right Republican. Hey, what can I say? I think you can say I'm a fascist. Yeah, I am. It was funny a couple of times. They said they didn't vote for Trump because they're not part of the Trump base. They're spinning off into a whole new world that's even scarier and we can maybe talk about that. So that's A pretty small group. The main group that I think is important to think about in this whole Epstein case is like the folks that listen to Joe Rogan, as you mentioned, these sort of manosphere guys who aren't ideological. Many of them vote for Democrats. They're not Christians, they're not weekly churchgoers in any meaningful sense. They got attracted to Trump because he was like a finger in the eye to the establishment. They liked the anti woke stuff, those guys. And they were very important to him because for every one of us, you and me, he lost Nicole. He picked up one of them, right. Like that kind of offset his losses with these college educated suburban types. And so they're important. And here's the thing about them, a lot of liberals want to like look at them and say they're bad, wag their finger at them and stuff. But if you listen to their interviews, like if you listen to Rogan with that, I'm going to butcher his name. The guy from Texas, James Talarino, Right. If you listen to that Rogan, you can tell her and this Theo Vaughan lately, talking about Gaza, these guys don't want to be evil. They're not Stephen Miller. Right. Like they might say things inappropriately and they might do things that you would tell your teenage son that you wish they wouldn't do. Right. They're not perfect men, but they don't want to be evil. They're not on board with the just randomly killing the poorest children in the world and masked men grabbing people off the streets. And they also really believe that something weird happened with Jeffrey Epstein and that people should get to the bottom of it. And it's bad that people are covering it up. And so I think that Trump is very vulnerable with that part of whether you called it his base or his coalition, probably better his coalition. And you're really seeing the cracks develop on that over the past couple weeks.
- [06:08]
Chris Murphy
Well, I agree with you. And I think there's, I've started listening to, I mean, I've covered Joe Rogan initially reluctantly, now more with wonder, and mostly because of his power in the culture and in the space. And he seems to have landed in a place where he's flirting with the reality that cruelty isn't manly. And he's one of the earliest defectors on rounding up people at work. It's actually one of the lowest polled deportations that Trump does. I think over 80, I know over 80% of Americans in a Pew poll said they didn't want people deported who have a job. It's even Higher. If they're married to someone or they have American born kids, I think it's like 85 and 90%. But people with jobs were not supposed to be in the minds of some of the coalition. Again, not maga. I think MAGA was for throwing everybody out. Were not supposed to be targeted. They were supposed to go for the worst or worse. And I wonder what your thoughts are about the arbiters of Trump over Harris who are now on board and culpable, responsible for putting together a winning coalition for Donald Trump that is engaged in some of the most cruel and sadistic practices, especially when it comes to deportations.
- [07:29]
Tim Miller
Yeah. And it's depressing, right, because it's like it was easy for all of us to see that it was gonna be the plan. And they had it on the placards, you know, and Stephen Miller, that was part of the plan last time they did the child separations. We already did all this once before they did the Muslim ban. And so it's like, you know, they were, they. I don't even know sometimes that we give too much credit to like the strategists. Like, I don't even really know if it strategy.
- [07:52]
Chris Murphy
Yeah, me neither.
- [07:53]
Tim Miller
Yeah, gut instinct. It was just like it was this combination of Stephen Miller was able to animate that nativist base, which is real and there are a lot of people. And they kind of glommed onto it. These other guys who were attracted to this for various other things, whether it was macho signaling or that they didn't like that they felt like white men were being, you know, pushed aside because of diversity. You know, there are a million things you could say. And so it's annoying that like so quickly, so many of them are like, whoa, we didn't sign up for this. When like, in fact they did sign up for this, you know, But I just, I think that like, we are where we are and like, politically speaking, I just think it's important for the Democrats to recognize that like a lot of these guys were voting for them 10 years ago. You know, some of them are too young to vote and a lot of them are. Don't. You know, it's not human nature. It is aberrant that Stephen Miller self identifies as a bad person. I really think he does. I think Stephen Miller likes being the villain. Like, I really do.
- [08:56]
Chris Murphy
It's his brand.
- [08:57]
Tim Miller
Yeah, that's not normal. Like a lot of people don't like that. And I think it'd be a huge mistake to just be like, oh, screw you guys, you signed up for this. You knew it. Now you're trying to save face. I think that they might have gotten snowed and that they thought and that they really don't see themselves as bad people and that the worst trump the more they're like, I don't know. And maybe that doesn't mean they're ever Democrats. Maybe it just means that they're like, I'm going to go back to focusing on Epstein and MMA and other weird pyramids.
- [09:29]
Chris Murphy
They're into the pyramids.
- [09:30]
Tim Miller
The pyramids, yeah. Who built the pyramids? Why can't we build the pyramids anymore? That's great. Talk about the pyramids hang out. That's great. That's a safe place for you.
- [09:38]
Chris Murphy
It's amazing. I mean, let's put a pin in the Democrats for a second because I feel like you understand this piece of the coalition and I feel like this is. This is. If you start reverse engineering how the pro democracy movement starts winning elections in decisive ways so that we're not like teetering on the edge of autocracy and democracy every two to four years, it feels like engaging the people who wanted the ambient noise in my house. Welcome. Welcome to the Wallace house.
- [10:07]
Tim Miller
Should we bring along?
- [10:08]
Chris Murphy
Well, I think that's why she's pissed. We'll bring her up for a guest appearance in a minute. But I wonder how you would reverse engineer the piece of it that attracted them. Because it was anti elitism. It was feeling parented during COVID Right. I mean, there were people that didn't want to be told what to take in terms of a vaccine. They didn't want to be told to wear a mask. They didn't want to be told to stay at home. There's a whole unprocessed piece of rage and grief over Covid that neither party has dealt with. And then there's sort of the rejection of political correctness, which is so old and tired. I didn't realize how much of it was still in the system. But if you reverse engineer that, that who do you see on the Democratic side that doesn't have those problems politically?
- [10:52]
Tim Miller
I kind of feel like it has to be somebody that just wasn't involved in all those fights. Right. And so it's not as if they were maybe on the side of the bros in the fights, but they just were on the sidelines altogether. I just think of this, Nicole. I mean, as weird as this moment is, there's some things that have just been true for a while in our politics. And I think that maybe we in the pro Democracy movement and the Democratic Party certainly just didn't embrace the lessons enough. But you go back and with the exception of W basically who you worked for, you go back to Clinton. 92. What was Clinton's appeal? He was totally outside of the Democratic establishment world. He's this governor from Martin. Okay, Obama might seem like an establishment guy now, but he comes up, he's this weird name. He was against the Iraq war and he was outside. He was going against Clinton and then Trump, obviously, and then kind of Biden wins sort of by accident this weird way, and then Trump wins again. What were people telling us this whole time? Sarah Longaller says about the focus groups? What do people say? Always it's like, I don't want a typical politician. I don't want the establishment. I think that they don't have my best interest at heart. Some of that's not fair. And we can go win that fight. We can go fight that fight. But reality is just what it is. And I think that people want American people have been telling us over and over again that they don't want the same old. They want somebody that's going to shake things up. And I think by providing Clinton and then Biden and then Biden's vice president, it just felt very status quo and people didn't want status quo. And so I kind of feel like, I don't know, I'm just picking a name out of the hat. But Wes Moore as the governor of Maryland is outside of that. He was governor a little bit during that time. He's not in those fights. He's kind of a guy's guy. He could talk about how he didn't think that some of this stuff was silly and some of it wasn't, or maybe somebody else. I don't even leave somebody out if you start naming names. But I just think a freshman person that can come in and say, look, I have some contrites about how the Democrats were doing things. I mean, I really don't like Trump. And I think that, look, he sold you a bill of goods and he said he was outsider. And then what did he do? He protected billionaire pedophiles and gave a tax cut to the rich. That's an easy talking point. So to me, it's like I look at the Bill Clinton and Obama models as both of those people came out of basically nowhere. I mean, Obama was a senator for two years. Clinton was the governor of a small state.
- [13:13]
Chris Murphy
And to your point, they conquered something, right? Obama conquers the Clinton machine. And so you're not telling a story of how you're strong. You've shown it. And Trump is not. Because, I mean, I still think that the old thing about politics, that people want someone who is a strong leader and understands their problems. And in a way that everyone has been blind to, they see Trump that way. They see all the bul. His base sees the bullying as strength, and they see that they perceive the media and elites to hate him, and they. They align themselves with him. And that's why the gold toilets and the supermodel wife and the jet have never hurt him politically, because they see him as sort of rating high on those two axes of political measure. Do you think those measures still hold?
- [13:59]
Tim Miller
I do. Yeah. And I think that. And it's also, again, it's weird. I hate to use the, I feel like vibes is such an overused word these days, but, like, he gave off the vibe to them of, like, signaling that he cared about them with the stupid stunts. The stuff that we look at, like, come on, it's like he's at McDonald's and like, whatever, but, like, he's at the round and he's with the. And he says, I'm going after those guys and the, you know, and even though he didn't do any of it, like, the feeling was that he was more on the side of the regular guy. And it's hard to, you know, you can say you are if you're a Democrat, right? But, like, even. And you can be earnest, right? I can think of a lot of really earnest Democrats who are in Washington who care about policy, who care about regular people. But if they go out and they say, I want to raise the minimum wage and I care about, Here's a white paper for how to help people. But they give off an energy of, well, no, you're just kind of a typical politician. Right. And that's silly. And should that be how our politics works? Probably not, but it is. And so I just think that's the challenge. How do you recapture that feeling of another way of saying I care about you is by saying, I'm going to fight the things that are preventing you from living the kind of life that you wish. Right? Like, I'm going to be on your side. Right. I'm going to be on your side. And you can't be on Washington's side and on their side. Right? And, like, that has been this challenge. And at some point, it's part of it. It's because Trump's been such an attack. It's, like, natural and right to want to defend it. Right to say, wait a minute, the FBI is not corrupt, our democratic system isn't corrupt. Right. Like our, you know, whatever. And so you find yourself always defending these things that people don't feel are serving them. It's tougher than it sounds like, but I just think that's like the big challenge for reaching these people is just credibly feeling like you're on their side against whatever are the forces that have been favoring people that have access or people that are well off.
- [16:00]
Chris Murphy
We'll be right back with more of my conversation with fan favorite Tim Miller. Stay right here.
- [16:14]
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- [16:45]
Nicole Wallace
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- [17:52]
Chris Murphy
I feel like you have articulated why not taking our eye off the human beings impacted by the deportations matters. You say it's being done in our name as Americans, regardless of who we voted for. It is being done in our name. And you could lay that over usaid, right? Our name. The United States of America was on all those bags of food and meals ready to eat and the rice and the Peanut paste. But on deportation specifically, if you play this forward, what is the message that you take to the country in four years about how to clear our name?
- [18:28]
Tim Miller
Yeah, it's another tough one, right? Because you have to balance these things at the same time, which is people were upset about the number of people coming to the country and how haphazard it was. And you could see it in cities. I mean, I always say, whenever a Democrat tries to dismiss it, to me, and I'm as liberal on immigration as I can get. I mean, I'm just totally like a Statue of Liberty. Give us your tired, your poor person. Like that's something. When I was a Republican, that was always my view. That was a lot of Republicans views back then.
- [18:53]
Chris Murphy
I think that was George Bush's view. I think in his heart he believed in Amazon.
- [18:57]
Tim Miller
But my family's in Denver. And you can see it in Denver on the street, there were so many Venezuelan asylees asking to wash windows and stuff. And you can see it in schools. If you go to public schools in certain neighborhoods, you're like, the number of young people who don't speak English coming to the schools was becoming a burden. Some of that was real. So the Democrats need to simultaneously say, okay, we learned our lesson, this is real. We're going to deal with this. But also we need to take back what is America about America and what is our human, what is. And our shared humanity. And nobody wants us to become an immigration police state. Well, a few people, Stephen Miller does, but that. Now circling back to these bros, I do think that resonates with a broad part of the country. We want to have laws, we want to have rules, but we don't want to be a police state where masked men are grabbing people off the street like this is China or Stalin's Russia. That's not what people want. And I think also I was talking to Chris Murphy about this this morning. Also, when it comes to USAID stuff, yeah, it's not that popular of an issue. But on a basic level, it's like, can we just do a little bit with our blessings as a country to make sure that the most vulnerable 3 year olds in the world don't starve? Can we just offer a little bit like this last budget that we cut 100 million from UNICEF and put in 300 million to secure Mar A Laco? It's like, can we balance that out? Can we spend as much money on security for our elites in this country as we do making sure that the poorest kids in the world don't starve. And can we make sure that people fleeing oppression and who want to come here and who do it the right way can get here and not be afraid that they're going to be nabbed out of their workplace by some guy in a mask and put in the back of a van and sent to the Everglades to be tormented by Ron DeSantis? I think that you can kind of do this in a patriotic kind of American way. People get really sick of we are better than this because it kind of says demonstrate. Maybe we're not better than this, but we aspire to be and we can be, and people should have the ability to live free and we don't. There's almost like a don't tread on me element to this. And I don't know, all of that is a little bit of a ramble, but there's something in all of that that I think would resonate with people beyond the folks who voted for Kamala. There are other folks that do still believe that. And I think that's honestly going to be the big fight, because I think no matter what happens next with the Republicans, they're going to be nationalist. Closed borders. That's where the party's moving. Blood and soil usa. And so you got to fight that with a different vision of what the American flag is. Something that's a little bit more about everybody's rights to be to live free without fear of the masked men.
- [21:47]
Chris Murphy
It's sort of the old New Hampshire Republican strain in the primary to win there. It's a different kind of Republican. And then you have to appeal to in Iowa. Right. And it's sort of that which isn't really anywhere in the Republican Party anymore. I mean, they want to leave measles unchecked. They want to mix the soda themselves. And people, you know, like, I'm for a healthier food supply, but you don't have to take a measles shot. And you are going to prescribe what's in all the food. I mean, there's no intellectual consistency. And I wonder what piece of that is on, is on us as people with platforms.
- [22:25]
Tim Miller
Yeah. I mean, some of it. And I think our challenge that something I think about a lot as somebody with the platform is like, okay, how do you get to. How can you either say something in a way or go into a space where you can reach people that would want to hear that message, that are open to hearing that message. It's not about going to argue on some MAGA platform with some performative Argument doing. It's not that it's about how do you reach people that are open to hearing that message that just either weren't hearing it or weren't hearing it the right way or it didn't break through to them. Because that is the big challenge that we face is that our polarization now has gotten based around education level and engagement level. And so it's like, okay, well, we can scream it till we're blue in the face to the people that are already kind of in our bubble. And I think the challenge is less about breaking into the other bubble. Like I said, I think that they've got a lock on it, but it's getting to people that are less engaged. I don't know. And that's what I think about what you're doing now. I've been listening to some of your other ones, and the Doc Rivers one lands with me because it's like, that conversation was interesting because it's like, who is he talking to? He's coaching. The NBA players are so young now because they're only in college for a year. These really, really young guys way closer to your son's age of mine. You know what I. Yeah, like the guys that Doc Rivers are coaching. Right. And you know, he was talking about how they checked out. But, like, that's a group. It's mostly black guys. You know, like, that's a group that we should be able to resonate with all this. Like, they don't want a police state. Like they don't want. You know, like they don't care. You know, they don't want. They're not caught up in all the maga, you know, signaling. But they weren't. They didn't feel engaged by whatever the pro democracy movement was offering. Right. And I think that, like, thinking about reaching those groups feel much more attainable than thinking about how to reach whoever's listening to Charlie Kirk or whatever.
- [24:27]
Chris Murphy
Yeah. And I even think about pro democracy suggests that the other side is anti. And if you haven't successfully convinced enough people, you're just shouting into the void. I even grapple with my descriptors. What are we? We're ex Republicans who vote for Democrats because the Republicans have been corrupted and it's under the umbrella of pro democracy. But I don't even. Is that what we should be calling ourselves?
- [24:51]
Tim Miller
Yeah, maybe not. Honestly, maybe not. And in part because also, like, back to corners. I know. This is the other thing. I was just. I just have Chris Murphy on the mind because I think he's been so good on all this. And we were just talking to him and it's like we didn't really come up with an answer to this. But he was talking about how the Democrats have to fight fire with fire more, which is something I agree with. Right. Which means at times maybe not being as respectful to the traditional norms. If you look at just the redistrict thing is one example. It's supposed to happen every 10 years, but if the Republicans do it, then the Democrats should do it too. Ok, I agree with that. The Democrats do need to be more aggressive. The threat is very real. On the other hand, if you're calling yourself the pro democracy movement and then simultaneously you're arguing, well, we might need to cut a few corners here to combat it, then are you making yourself seem like a hypocrite? Right. Actually, I think that's a really tough question. I don't know. And I think that whoever emerges, and I think that there's no rush to find someone to emerge to lead the kind of opposition to Trump. I might need to kind of define the coalition in a way that's a little bit different. I mean, say what you want about Trump, he's good at the hat. Really. I keep defined to make America great again, America first. It's graspable in a way that pro democracy kind of isn't. And my biggest worry going into the election, I always come back to this. I was interviewing James Carville like three weeks out and the documentary was coming out about him. And they went back to the old whiteboard about what the three things were for Bill Clinton. Change was more the same, et cetera. It's the economy, stupid. And I was like, what's Kamala's three things? And I don't think anybody knew. Right. Everybody could have come up with different stuff. Nothing against Kamala, thought she ran a pretty good campaign in a tough environment. But I do think that's a problem. Right. Is our hat pro democracy? Probably not. If you're going to try to reach the Doc Rivers people, you know what I mean? Like that we're talking about the disengaged 20 something. If I was somebody that was thinking about running in 2028, which I'm not, that would be what I'd be spending most of my time thinking about right now. And not all the other stuff like what is on the hat, what is on the chalkboard. What is something that's graspable that cobbles this whole thing together.
- [27:05]
Chris Murphy
What is your pre political Tim Miller story? What's the Tim Miller story? The baby Tim Miller story there kind.
- [27:12]
Tim Miller
Of isn't a pre political Tim Miller. I just loved it from the start in ways that probably ended up getting me into trouble as I got into in the book. But I remember I was in. So we moved to Denver when I was in fifth grade. So it would have been one of the Clinton elections. Clinton, Bush, and I bet my grandmother, who is my parents weren't really into politics, but my dad's mother really was and she was a big Republican. And she was like, it's kind of true. She loved George H.W. bush. And I was like, I don't know. I had the insight of a fifth grader who doesn't know anything. And I was just like, I don't know. The other guy with the saxophone looks cooler and I think he's going to win, actually. And so we bet $1. We moved to Denver during the election and then when Clinton won, she sent me my dollar. I remember, like I had it in my room and I just, I don't know, there's something about the competition of it. I always liked sports. I was a late bloomer. So I was never good at sports as a kid. And so it kind of got like, it scratched my competition itch. But, you know, and I started volunteering for Bill Owens when I was like 15 and a half and had a learner's permit and looked 12. Like I literally didn't grow facial hair until I was 19. I grew in college. It's the weirdest thing about me. Like if I'll meet somebody middle school that I haven't seen in years, they'll be like, you're tall. Is their response to me. Because in eighth grade I was like five, four. I grew. So anyway, when I was interning for Bill Owens back then who was running for governor of Colorado, people would ask me, are you Bill's nephew? Who's your dad? They refused. It was ridiculous that this child was working on the campaign. Anyway. There really isn't a pre political me. I was into that part of it from, you know, like middle school.
- [28:55]
Chris Murphy
We're going to pause right here. When we're back. More with author and journalist Tim Miller.
- [29:11]
Tim Miller
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- [29:20]
Nicole Wallace
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- [29:26]
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- [29:57]
Nicole Wallace
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- [30:33]
Chris Murphy
So when I started in politics, I applied for a job with a Democrat and a Republican in California. I just wanted to be in the arena. I just wanted to be in the game. Was it Republicans for you or was it politics?
- [30:45]
Tim Miller
Yeah, it was politics and it was Republicans for me. But kind of in a soft way. I mean, like, it's like so quaint. Like the things that got me into being Republicans, like literally the Dems of my life will roll their eyes to see this, but I liked the idea that we were a shining city on a hill and people wanted to come here and that was what drew me to the Republican stuff. I have a distinct remember of being in high school and being so mad at Clinton over Ellie and Gonzalez and just being like, that poor boy wanted to come. And I kind of, to be honest, I tell the story. I need to go back and read the details because I kind of don't remember all of the particulars of it, but to me it was a morality story. Kind of like the El Salvador thing. It was this boy was fleeing communism and wanted to come here and we sent jackbooted thugs in to get him with weapons. No, that's not America.
- [31:37]
Chris Murphy
Sent him back to Cuba.
- [31:38]
Tim Miller
Yeah, yeah. I was like, that's not America. So it was that all that said, though my neighbor was friends with Bill Owens, which is how I got that job. I was always a moderate Republican from the start. I mean, literally in that first campaign in 2000, I was I've told John Kasich this when I see him at the MSNBC Green Room I was like, I was for Kasich, I was for McCain, I was for. And so had things been different, had my neighbor been a consultant for some conservative Democrat, which there were at that time in Colorado, quite a few Ben Knight, Horse Campbell or something, maybe I would have gone that. You know what I mean? I would have just gone up that route because it did quickly become about, I like the politics, I like the campaigns, I like the. And I think that did end up getting me into trouble, but I just think that's very common in our era, a little bit, which is so different now, obviously.
- [32:33]
Chris Murphy
Well, but it's the oldest story, right? It's you're looking for your tribe, you're looking for community, you're looking for your people. And I think we both found that in Republican politics. And it's what I mean, I think you write about heartbreak, which is what I felt when Trump took over the party. And I saw it literally fracture my Franklin. I mean, Trump 1.0 had a ton of normal Republicans in it. There were normal Republicans that I knew at the Justice Department, lots of them, all of them interested in telling some members of the press how they were protecting the rule of law. In 1.0 in the White House, there were formerly normal. At the Pentagon, there were normal people. I mean, what's so I think difficult to articulate is how far from anyone normal the second administration is. There's no one that would have ever had a job. And that's the point. So I'm not even insulting these people, right? This is the point.
- [33:33]
Tim Miller
They wouldn't have wanted a job.
- [33:34]
Chris Murphy
They wouldn't have wanted a job. Right? But the idea of sort of belonging, I think is what I wanted out of politics and what I got out of politics. I think what you create and I think what you built and I think this is special about you, but also atmospheric at everyone at the Bulwark is a new community. And I want to. I wonder if that was intentional or if you feel that or if you feel how powerful people's connection is to you.
- [33:58]
Tim Miller
Yeah, I do feel it. It's really true. Just really quick, as an aside about the community thing and something to be conscious of in our new communities that we're building, is you kind of part of community and belonging is that like you want to belong somebody, you project stuff onto people. Like, way before Trump, my first disappointing moment of being like, I don't know, maybe this Republican community isn't right for me was I was kind of under the impression that everybody was faking it on gay marriage. I don't know what made me do this. I think it was part of my coming out. But I literally went and pulled the office. I just went to Everybody in the McCain 2008 office in Iowa. So it was probably a little different headquarters, a little more liberal, but in Iowa. And I was like, are you for gay marriage? And it was 1 out of 20 or something like that. And in my head I was kind of like, I assumed it was going to be 18 out of 20. And so you project things onto people that you want, that you want. So anyway, back to the other now community. I do feel it and I appreciate it. And I think that some of it was intentional initially because I don't. This is not like whatever, a great charity or whatever. One thing that I did just because I felt like I needed to do it was if somebody came to me that worked at the RNC or somewhere during that period between 2016 and 2020 and was like, I need out. I can't support this stuff anymore. I was running underground railroad out of that baby. We were hiring people and Sarah, I had Sarah Longwell, who does a bunch of other stuff outside of the Bulwark, I had her hiring, hiring people for stuff and other friends. And I felt that. And I said to her, I was like, we need to do that, include people that are part of our initial group of expats in this. And I would hear from people a lot of times, particularly young people that were like, I'm on campus and I don't really feel like I'm a Democrat yet, but these MAGA Republicans are crazy and I'd always give them free subscriptions. Come and do it and come to the events. You can come. And so we did try to create that initial group, but it's sort of has ballooned so far beyond that. And I wish I could say that I consciously tried to cultivate a community with people because we have a ton of people who are far left Democrats and they like to hear, they kind of like it when I say something they don't like because they're like, okay, good, this is normal. Actually, I can disagree with this guy that I listen to and not think he's a bad person and vice versa. And then we have a ton of center left Democrats who think that maybe the party's a little gone, a little kooky in certain areas, but are mostly, know, pro democracy, so to speak, liberal. And so. And when you go to our events, it is like you can just feel it on people, just like the relief when they talk to you. Like, they're so excited to like meet other people and talk and hang out everywhere after and new friends are meeting. And so it is palpable that it's more than just like a media outlet where like you go to see your favorite podcaster and then you go home. Right. It's not that, like, it's very much a hangout. And, you know, maybe not everybody's aligned on everything politically, but there's this common thread and that I think I built kind of organically. I don't know, maybe I did something or Sarah did something that I don't. But it wasn't like we had a meeting about it. You know, it did kind of develop.
- [37:02]
Chris Murphy
Is your daughter aware of what you do or does she sort of stay out?
- [37:06]
Tim Miller
I need advice from you on this, on having a 13 year old because she's pretty checked out, I think for a seven year old of a person like this, like unfamiliar. Like, I don't, we don't really talk about it, like around her, I don't really talk about it to her. I don't have, no offense, like cable on. Right. Like I'm listening to stuff. Like I listen to. Yeah, I listen to the show. It's like, I'll listen if I'm not on. I'll listen to what you guys do in my ears, you know, and like, I'll like kind of parent and listen and cook and listen, you know what I mean? But it's not on. So she's not getting ambient Trump talk. Right. And so, you know, when we took down the Kamala sign, she asked why. You know, we told her when the Trump toys thing happened, I did have a moment of weakness when he said kids shouldn't have more than three toys. I told her about that. So I'm like, I'm going to indoctrinate you.
- [37:55]
Chris Murphy
Kids only need two dolls.
- [37:56]
Tim Miller
Two dolls. I'm indoctrinate you on that. She asked for folks who don't know. My daughter's black, is adopted. My husband just told me before I came on here. She was like, she asked me about Black History Month today and why there's Black History Month. You know, so, like some of that, you know, that stuff you just start to absorb and take in. And so I'm going to, you know, increasingly kind of have to talk to her about it. And it was really one of the sad things about this Trump win. There are a million of them, so this one's kind of stupid and selfish. But I was like, had he lost, she wouldn't have really had to. Like, she would have known about in the way that it's history. Like, in the way that I know about George Wallace or whatever, you know what I mean? Like now, like, she'll be 11 when it's over, God willing. And that, you know, that's. So we're gonna have to deal with it. I don't know. How do you deal with it?
- [38:40]
Chris Murphy
So when Covid started and I was anchoring from Here From Home, we turned off all the TVs, and we kind of never turned them back on. And my son, by 13, you kind of go from never talking about it and thinking they don't know anything to they open their mouth, and even though you've told them nothing, you realize they know everything. And I' protect all of his prerogatives and privacy, but they're good at sifting through what's bullshit. And so I would say at one level, don't worry, but at the other, there's so much history, right. To teach a young kid. My son had all of the who was books, and by the time you make it through all of the history, you can sort of put this moment. I'd say you have time, but never lie to her would be my only advice.
- [39:22]
Tim Miller
That's good advice. Good advice for parenting and podcasting.
- [39:25]
Chris Murphy
I want to ask you if any of your interviews that you conducted changed you.
- [39:29]
Tim Miller
Oh, man, changed me. Having a black daughter, I grew up in Denver. I didn't know any black people really meaningfully, except that I played basketball. You know what I mean? I just didn't know any black people. I grew up in suburban Denver, and there weren't that many black people at my college. And then I worked in Republican politics. You know what I mean? It's just like, I didn't have a ton of black people in my life until recently. And so when I am interviewing folks, whether it's Bakari Sellers or Eddie Glaude or Ta Nehisi Coates, I'm always trying to do kind of what we're doing now. It's just like, talk politics, business. And at the end, I just kind of want to pick their brain about parenting and what was it like for you as a kid? And how did you learn about racial discrimination and how did you process it? And. And so I think back to those interviews as ones that will stand a post Trump test of time with me and think about something Bakari said to me once I asked him about parenting advice for a young girl. He's got A bunch of kids. And he was like, I'm gonna get choked up talking about it. He's like, I just talked to my daughter about how her lips are beautiful and perfect and how her hair is beautiful and perfect and how she. You know what I mean? And I'd have to go back and listen, get the exact quotes right. But just that very basic, fundamental stuff that is just not something that my parents had to think about.
- [41:04]
Chris Murphy
It's the stuff that hits you as a person where you're not the interviewer. You've lost all control, and you realize that's the beauty of it. And for me, it's Esther Salas, whose job cost her son his life, the judge who's. Yeah, some is murdered. And I think about him every day. I have her son's picture, Daniel's picture on my desk. And I think. I mean, I don't always ask that, but I wanted to ask you that because I think you're that person for so many people. I mean, they feel like you're talking to them, and it always comes from a place of being open to, being moved by other people. And so I love that answer.
- [41:40]
Tim Miller
I appreciate that. That challenges me, though, you know, to think about what kind of other guests I can have that would fulfill that. That need. Because you do get into a rut, you know, like, you can get into a rut. Like, I'm your rut. So I don't know, maybe you're going to give me a break for a week and bring in more. Bring in more Diaz's.
- [41:58]
Chris Murphy
You know, I mean, my theory of the case, though, is that this show I pitched to Phil Griffin, he said, well, what would your show be? I said, it would be the conversation at the next table when you're on a blind date and you're shushing the guy because you want to listen to that table, like, that's the show. And you help us realize that every single day.
- [42:16]
Tim Miller
That's a good show. That's. That's right.
- [42:17]
Chris Murphy
Tim Miller, you're not just the best guest. You're one of the best people. Thank you so much for doing this.
- [42:22]
Tim Miller
Thank you so much, Nicole. I appreciate you so much. We'll be seeing you soon.
- [42:25]
Chris Murphy
I know. We'll keep it going. Thank you, my friend.
- [42:28]
Tim Miller
Bye.
- [42:32]
Chris Murphy
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