There is no pre-political Tim Miller. From a fifth-grade bet on Bill Clinton, to becoming a Republican strategist for Jeb Bush, to finally saying “Goodbye to All That” and leaving the party in 2020, and now hosting the Bulwark podcast as a ‘Never Trumper,’ Miller has been immersed in politics his whole life. In this episode, Tim joins Nicolle to discuss finding (and losing) community within the Republican party, the manosphere, and what he’s learned about breaking down the Trump coalition as a long-term anti-Trump advocate.
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Note: This is a rough transcript. Please excuse any typos.
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?
Nicolle Wallace: Right.
Tim Miller: Like what we’re talking about, the disengaged 20-something. If I was somebody who’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, like, not all the other stuff. Like, what is on the hat?
(Music Playing)
Nicolle Wallace: Right. 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 Nicolle Wallace” is where you have found yourself, and the best person this week is Tim Miller.
Tim Miller, thank you for being here.
Tim Miller: What’s up?
Nicolle Wallace: Did you know that? Did you ever know that?
Tim Miller: No, I did not know that.
Nicolle Wallace: Yeah.
Tim Miller: Nobody at the suits ever tell me anything about my Q Score.
Nicolle Wallace: I mean, this may be leaked classified information, but I know it to be true, corroborated.
Tim Miller: Okay. 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, the kid’s basketball game, and somebody is like, hey, I love watching you. The next words are always with Nicolle, every time. You know, no offense to any of the others.
Nicolle Wallace: 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 where we are right now? How would you define the Trump coalition?
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, you know, their trolls in our mansions, right? And it’s been the key to his political power, right?
Nicolle Wallace: Yeah.
Tim Miller: So there’s always like this. It’s like, ooh, is this going to break through at the base? Is this going to crack them? And I just am kind of in the working view that nothing is ever going to crack them —
Nicolle Wallace: Yeah.
Tim Miller: — and that, you know, decades from now, we’re going to be in old folks home together, Nicolle. And long after Trump has passed, there’d be people down the hallway with little, you know, venerations to him. And I just think that’s just unfortunately like our reality. So, 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 talked about. One is I do think that there is kind of an evolving, like mutated MAGA that is younger, you know, and that they listen to Candace Owens and Tucker Carlson’s podcast. But I think some of those folks have some doubts.
Did you watch any of the Mehdi Hasan thing, where he was like Mehdi Hasan versus 20 far-right conservatives? It’s called Jubilee. It’s like fight porn. It’s like argument porn. And Mehdi goes on and they found, like, these 20 kids who define themselves as far-right conservatives.
(Begin Audio Clip)
Mehdi Hasan: You’re saying you don’t care about the Constitution, but actually you do because you quote a lot the Second Amendment. You just don’t like the bits that you disagree with. Can I just be clear on that?
Unknown Man: Yeah, absolutely.
Mehdi Hasan: Okay.
Unknown Man: I’m more than willing to amend it and include —
Mehdi Hasan: Whenever it’s in your favor?
Unknown Man: Yeah, absolutely.
Mehdi Hasan: Okay. So can Democrats do the same when they’re in office?
Unknown Man: No, absolutely not, because you just don’t befriend the enemy.
Mehdi Hasan: So you don’t believe in democracy?
Unknown Man: No, I don’t. Absolutely not.
Mehdi Hasan: What do you believe in?
Unknown Man: Autocracy.
Mehdi Hasan: You’re a little bit more than a far-right Republican.
Unknown Man: Hey, what can I say?
Mehdi Hasan: I think you can say, I’m a fascist.
Unknown Man: Yeah, I am.
(End Audio Clip)
Tim Miller: 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.
Nicolle Wallace: Yeah.
Tim Miller: 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. Like, those guys, and they were very important to him because for every one of us, you and me lost, Nicolle, like he picked up one of them, right?
Nicolle Wallace: Right.
Tim Miller: Like, that kind of offset his losses with this 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 guy, I’m going to butcher his name, the guy from Texas —
Nicolle Wallace: Yeah.
Tim Miller: — James Talarico, right? If you listen to that —
Nicolle Wallace: Yeah.
Tim Miller: — Rogan and Theo Von, lately, talked —
Nicolle Wallace: Yeah.
Tim Miller: — about Gaza. These guys don’t want to be evil.
Nicolle Wallace: Yeah.
Tim Miller: They’re not Stephen Miller.
Nicolle Wallace: Yeah.
Tim Miller: Right?
Nicolle Wallace: Yeah.
Tim Miller: Like, they might say things inappropriately and they might, you know, do things that you would tell your teenage son that you wish they wouldn’t do. Right? You know, they’re not perfect men, but they don’t want to be evil. They’re not on board with just like randomly killing the poorest children in the world, and send —
Nicolle Wallace: Yeah.
Tim Miller: — masked men grabbing people off the streets. And they also really believed that something weird happened with Jeffrey Epstein and that people should get to the bottom of it.
Nicolle Wallace: Right.
Tim Miller: And it’s bad that people are covering it up. And so, I think that Trump is very vulnerable with, like, that part of, you know, whether you call 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.
Nicolle Wallace: Well, I agree with you. I mean, I’ve covered Joe Rogan initially, reluctantly —
Tim Miller: Yeah.
Nicolle Wallace: — 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 know over 80 percent 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 percent and 90 percent. In the minds of some of the coalition, again, not MAGA, I think MAGA is for throwing everybody out, we’re not supposed to be targeted. They were supposed to go for the worst of worst.
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 winning coalition for Donald Trump that is engaged in some of the most cruel and sadistic practices, especially when it comes to deportations.
Tim Miller: Yeah. And it’s depressing, right? Because it’s like easy for all of us to see those defined. They had it on the placards, you know. And Stephen Miller, that was part of the plan last time, they did the child separations. They already did all this once before. They did the Muslim thing.
Nicolle Wallace: Yeah.
Tim Miller: And so I didn’t even know. Sometimes we give too much credit to, like, the strategists. Like, I don’t even really know if it was strategy.
Nicolle Wallace: Yeah, me neither.
Tim Miller: It’s kind of, yeah, gut instinct. It was this combination of, you know, Stephen Miller was able to animate that nativist base, which is real, and there are a lot of people. And they kind of globbed onto it, these other guys who were attracted to this for various other things, whether it was like macho signaling, or that they felt like white men were being, you know, pushed aside. There a million things you could say.
And so, it’s annoying that, like, so quickly, so many of them were like, whoa, we didn’t sign up for this, when like, in fact, they did sign up for this, you know. I think that we are who we are. And politically speaking, I think it’s important for the Democrats to recognize that a lot of these guys were voting for them 10 years ago.
Nicolle Wallace: Yeah.
Tim Miller: You know, some of them are too young to vote. You know, it’s not human nature. Like, it is aberrant that Stephen Miller self-identifies as a bad person, like I’d really think he does. I think Stephen Miller likes being the villain, like I really do.
Nicolle Wallace: Right. It’s his brand.
Tim Miller: Yeah. That’s not normal. Like, a lot of people don’t like that.
Nicolle Wallace: Yeah.
Tim Miller: And I think it would be a huge mistake to just be like, oh, screw, you guys. Like, you signed up for this, you knew it. Like, now, you’re trying to like —
Nicolle Wallace: Yeah.
Tim Miller: — save face. I think that they might have gotten snowed —
Nicolle Wallace: Yeah. Totally, totally.
Tim Miller: — and that they really don’t see themselves as bad people. And that the worse Trump is, 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 like focusing on Epstein and MMA and other —
Nicolle Wallace: Yeah.
Tim Miller: — conspiracies.
Nicolle Wallace: And the pyramids. They’re into the pyramids.
Tim Miller: The pyramid. 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, you know.
Nicolle Wallace: It’s amazing. I mean, let’s put a pin in the Democrats for a second —
Tim Miller: Yeah, sure.
Nicolle Wallace: — because I feel like you understand this piece of the coalition and I feel like 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.
Tim Miller: Yeah.
Nicolle Wallace: The ambient noise in my house.
Tim Miller: Yeah.
Nicolle Wallace: Welcome to the Wallace house.
Tim Miller: Should we bring them on board?
Nicolle Wallace: Oh, I think that’s why she’s pissed.
Tim Miller: Yeah.
Nicolle Wallace: Yeah, we’ll bring her up for guest appearance in a minute. But I wonder how you would reverse engineer the piece of it that attracted him, because it was anti-elitism. It was feeling parented during COVID, right?
Tim Miller: Yeah.
Nicolle Wallace: I mean, there were people that didn’t want to be told what to take —
Tim Miller: Yes.
Nicolle Wallace: — 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.
Tim Miller: Yes.
Nicolle Wallace:didn’t realize how much of it was still in the system. But if you reverse engineer that, who do you see on the Democratic side that doesn’t have those problems politically?
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 and the fights, but they just were on the sidelines altogether. And just think about this, Nicolle, I mean, as weird as this moment is, like, 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, like, you go back and with the exception of W (ph) basically, New York, you go back to Clinton ’92, it was Clinton’s appeal. He was like totally outside of the Democratic establishment world. This is a governor from Arkansas. Okay.
Obama might seem like an establishment guy now, but he comes up with this weird name. He was against the Iraq war and he was outside. He was going against Clinton, you know.
Nicolle Wallace: Yeah.
Tim Miller: And then, Trump, obviously. And then kind of Biden wins sort of by accident in this weird way. And then Trump wins again. What were people telling us this whole time? Sarah Longwell always 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, you know, don’t have my best interest in heart. Some of that is not fair, and we can go win that fight. You know, we can go fight that fight. But, like, reality is just what it is. I mean, 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.
Nicolle Wallace: Yeah.
Tim Miller: And I think by providing Clinton and then Biden, and then Biden’s vice president, you know, it just felt very status quo, and people didn’t want status quo. And so, I kind of feel like, you know, I don’t know, I’m just picking a name out of the hat. But, like, Wes Moore, you know, he’s the governor of Maryland.
Nicolle Wallace: Yeah.
Tim Miller: He’s outside of that. Like, he was governor —
Nicolle Wallace: Yeah.
Tim Miller: — a little bit during that time. He’s not in those fights. He’s kind of a guy’s guy. He can talk about some of this stuff was silly and some of it wasn’t right, right?
Nicolle Wallace: Yeah.
Tim Miller: Or maybe somebody else, I don’t know, like, it could be somebody. You can start naming names. But I just think like a fresh person that can come in and say, look, I have some good tricks 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 —
Nicolle Wallace: Right.
Tim Miller: — he said he was outsider, and then what did he do? He protected billionaire pedophiles and gave a tax cut to the rich. Like, that’s an easy talking point, you know.
Nicolle Wallace: Right.
Tim Miller: So, to me, it’s like I look at the Bill Clinton and Obama models as, like, both of those people came out of basically nowhere. I mean, Obama was a senator for two years.
Nicolle Wallace: Yeah.
Tim Miller: You know, Clinton was a governor of a small state.
Nicolle Wallace: And to your point, they conquered something, right?
Tim Miller: Yeah.
Nicolle Wallace: So Obama conquers the Clinton machine. And so, you’re not telling a story of how you’re strong. You’ve shown it.
Tim Miller: Right.
Nicolle Wallace: Because, I mean, I still think 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.
Tim Miller: Yeah.
Nicolle Wallace: His base sees the bullying as strength, and they perceive the median elites to hate him, and they align themselves with him. And that’s why the gold toilets and the supermodel wife, and that they have never heard him politically because they see him —
Tim Miller: Yeah.
Nicolle Wallace: — as sort of rating high on those two axis of political measure. Do you think those measures still hold?
Tim Miller: I do. Yeah. Again, it’s weird. I feel like vibe is such an overused word these days. But 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 —
Nicolle Wallace: Yeah.
Tim Miller: — like, come on. Like, he’s at McDonald’s and whatever.
Nicolle Wallace: Right.
Tim Miller: And he says, I’m going after those guys, 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. You know, you can say you are if you’re a Democrat, right? And you can be earnest. I can think of a lot of really earnest Democrats who are in Washington —
Nicolle Wallace: Yeah.
Tim Miller: — who care about policy, who care about regular people. But if they go out and they say, you know, I want to raise the minimum wage and there’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?
That’s silly. Should that be how our politics works? Probably not, but it is.
And so, I just think that’s the challenge, right? How do you recapture that feeling of, you know, another way of saying I care about you is by saying, like, 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. I’m going to be on your side.
And you can’t be on Washington side and on their side, right. And that has been the challenge. And at some point, it’s part of it. Because Trump has been such tact coalition (ph), it’s like natural and right to want to defend it, to say, wait a minute, the FBI is not corrupt. Our democratic system isn’t corrupt, right? 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 the big challenge for reaching these people is just incredibly feeling like you’re on their side against, you know, whatever are the forces that have been favoring people that have excess or people that are well-off.
(Music Playing)
Nicolle Wallace: We’ll be right back with more of my conversation with fan favorite, Tim Miller. Stay right here.
(Announcements)
Nicolle Wallace: 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?
Tim Miller: Yeah. It’s another tough one, 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, like, whenever a Democrat tries to dismiss it to me, and I’m like 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.
Nicolle Wallace: Me too.
Tim Miller: When I was a Republican, that was always my view.
Nicolle Wallace: Me too.
Tim Miller: I’m confused back then, anyway.
Nicolle Wallace: Yeah. I think that was George Bush’s view.
Tim Miller: Yeah.
Nicolle Wallace: I mean, in his heart, he believed in amnesty. Yeah.
Tim Miller: You know, my family is in Denver and you can see it in Denver. Like, on the street, there were so many Venezuelan asylees, you know, asking to wash windows and stuff. And you can see it in schools. If you go to public schools, in certain neighborhoods, the number of young people who don’t speak English coming to the schools was becoming a burden, right? Like, some of that was real, right?
So the Democrats need to simultaneously say, okay, we learned our lesson. This is real. You know, we’re going to deal with this. But also we need to take back what is America, about America, and our shared humanity. And nobody wants us to become an immigration police state. Well, a few people, Stephen Miller does.
Now circling back to these bros, I do think that resonates with the broad part of the country, right? Like, 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. Like, that’s not what people want.
I was talking to Chris Murphy about this this morning. Also, when it comes to USAID, this 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, you know, blessings as a country, to make sure that the most vulnerable 3-year-olds in the world don’t starve? Like, 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-Lago. 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 putting them 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. You know, people get really sick of we are better than this because it kind of demonstrate maybe we’re not better than this. But, like, we aspire to be —
Nicolle Wallace: Yeah.
Tim Miller: — and we can be. And people should have the ability to live free. There’s almost like a “don’t tread on me” element to this, you know? 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 nationalists, closed borders. Like, that’s where the party is moving, blood and soil USA. And so, you got to fight that with a different vision of what the American flag is, right? Something that’s a little bit more about everybody’s rights, you know, to live free without fear of the masked men.
Nicolle Wallace: It’s sort of the old, like, New Hampshire, Republican strain —
Tim Miller: Yes.
Nicolle Wallace: — in the primary, to win there. It’s like a different kind of Republican than you have to appeal to in Iowa, right?
Tim Miller: Yeah.
Nicolle Wallace: 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. 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 us, as people with platforms.
Tim Miller: Yeah. I mean, I think our challenge and something I think about a lot, as somebody with a platform is, like, okay, how can you either say something in a way or go into a space where you can reach people that want to hear that message, that are open to hearing that message, right? It’s not about going to argue what’s on some MAGA platform with some guy, you know, performative arguing. 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 you know, it didn’t break through to them, because that is the big challenge that we face, right? Our polarization now has gotten based around, like, education level and engagement level, right? And so, it’s like, okay, well, we can scream it through the face, to the people that are already kind of in our bubble.
And I think the challenge is less about breaking 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 why I think what you’re doing now, like I’ve been listening to some of your other ones, and like the Doc Rivers one lands with me because it’s like that conversation was interesting because it’s like, who is he talking to? Like, he’s coaching. Like, the NBA players are so young now because they’re only in college for a year.
Nicolle Wallace: Yeah.
Tim Miller: Like, this really, really young guy, like way closer to your son’s age —
Nicolle Wallace: Yeah.
Tim Miller: — and to mine. You know what I mean?
Nicolle Wallace: Yeah.
Tim Miller: 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 that’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 care. They’re not caught up in all the MAGA, you know, signaling. But they didn’t feel engaged by whatever the pro-democracy movement was offering, right? Like, thinking about reaching those groups feel much more attainable than like thinking about how to reach whoever is listening to Charlie Kirk or whatever, you know.
Nicolle Wallace: Yeah. And I even think about, you know, 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. You know, I even grapple with my descriptors, like, what are we, right? We’re ex-Republicans who vote for Democrats because the Republicans have been corrupted and it’s under the umbrella of pro-democracy. But is that what we should be calling ourselves?
Tim Miller: Yeah. Maybe not, I don’t know.
Nicolle Wallace: I mean, I don’t know.
Tim Miller: Honestly, maybe not. And in part, because also like back in the corners, this is the other thing, because I have Chris Murphy on the mind, because I think he’s been just so good on all this.
Nicolle Wallace: Me too.
Tim Miller: I was 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.
Nicolle Wallace: For sure.
Tim Miller: Right? Which means, at times, you know, maybe not being as respectful to the traditional norms. The redistricting is one example. It’s supposed to happen every 10 years. But if the Republicans do it, then the Democrats should do it too. Okay. I agree with that. Like, 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. Don’t combat it. Then you’re making yourself seem like a hypocrite, right?
I think that’s a really tough question. I don’t know. And I think that there’s no rush to find someone to emerge, to lead the 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, you know. Can you define the make America great again, America first? Like, it’s graspable in a way that pro-democracy kind of isn’t.
Like, my biggest worry going into the election, I always come back to this, I was interviewing James Carville like three weeks out. The documentary was coming out about him, and they went back to the old white board about what the three things were for Bill Clinton, change versus more the same, et cetera. It’s the economy, stupid. And I was like, what’s common list three things? And I don’t think anybody knew, right? You know, everybody could come up with different stuff. Nothing against common. I thought sharing it in a pretty good campaign in a tough environment.
But I do think that’s a problem, right? Like, 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?
Nicolle Wallace: Right.
Tim Miller: Like what we’re talking about, the disengaged 20-something. If I was somebody who’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. Like, not all the other stuff. Like, what is on the hat?
Nicolle Wallace: What’s on the hat?
Tim Miller: Like, what is on the chalkboard? You know, like, what is something that’s graspable that cobbles this whole thing together?
Nicolle Wallace: What is your pre-political Tim Miller story? What’s the Tim Miller story, the baby Tim Miller story?
Tim Miller: There kind 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. So we moved to Denver when I was in fifth grade. So it would’ve been one of the Clinton elections, Clinton, Bush. And I bet my grandmother, my parents weren’t really into politics, but my dad’s mother really was, and she was a big Republican. She loved George H. Bush. And I was like, you know, 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.
Nicolle Wallace: Saxophone. Yeah.
Tim Miller: 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. I don’t know, there’s something about the competition of it. I always liked sports when I was little. I was a late bloomer, so I was never good at sports as a kid. And so, like, it scratched my competition itch.
And I started volunteering for Bill Owens when I was like 15 and a half. I had a learner’s permit. I 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 meet somebody from middle school that I haven’t seen in years, they’ll be like, you’re tall, is their response to me. Because, like, in eighth grade, I was like 5’4”. Like, I grew.
And so, when I was interning for Bill Owens back then, who’s running for governor of Colorado, people would ask me like, are you Bill’s nephew? Who’s your dad? Like, you know, it was like ridiculous that this child is working on the campaign. And so, anyway, there really isn’t a pre-political me. I was into that part of it from, you know, like middle school.
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Nicolle Wallace: We’re going to pause right here. When we’re back, more with author and journalist, Tim Miller.
(Announcements)
Nicolle Wallace: 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?
Tim Miller: Yeah. It was politics, and it was Republicans for me, but kind of in a soft way. I mean, it’s like so quaint, like the things that got me into being a Republican. Literally, the Dems of my life would, like, 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 in America. Like, that was what drew me to the Republican stuff.
Nicolle Wallace: Yeah.
Tim Miller: Like, I have a distinct memory of being in high school and being so mad at Clinton over Elian Gonzalez, you know, and just being like that poor boy wanted to come. 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 like a morality story, kind of like El Salvador thing. It was, like, this boy was fleeing communism and wanted to come here, and we sent jack-booted thugs in to get him. Like, no. Like, wrong. Like, thugs with weapons? No, like, that’s not America.
Nicolle Wallace: No. We sent him back to Cuba. Yeah.
Tim Miller: Yeah. I was like, that’s not America. So it was that. All that said, though, you know, my neighbor was friends with Bill Owens, which is how I got that job. You know, I was always a moderate Republican from the start. I mean, literally, in that first campaign in 2000, I told John Kasich this, when I see him at the MSNBC green room. I was like, I was for Kasich. You know, I was for McCain.
Nicolle Wallace: Yeah.
Tim Miller: And so, you know, had things been different, like had my neighbor been, you know, a consultant for some conservative Democrat, which there were at that time in Colorado, like with Ben Nighthorse Campbell or something, maybe I would’ve gone that. You know what I mean? I would’ve just gone up that route because it did quickly become about like, I like the politics, I like the campaigns. 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.
Nicolle Wallace: But it’s the oldest story, right? You’re looking for your tribe. You’re looking for a community.
Tim Miller: Yeah.
Nicolle Wallace: You’re looking for your people. And I think we both found that in Republican politics.
Tim Miller: Yeah.
Nicolle Wallace: I mean, I think you’re about heartbreak, which is what I felt when Trump took over the party and I saw it literally fracture my friend group. I mean, Trump 1.0 had a ton of, you know, normal Republicans in it.
Tim Miller: Yeah.
Nicolle Wallace: 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, you know, the rule of law in 1.0. In the White House, there were formerly normal.
Tim Miller: Yeah, sure.
Nicolle Wallace: 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’ve ever had a job. And that’s the point, so I’m not even insulting these people.
Tim Miller: Yeah.
Nicolle Wallace: Right? This is the point.
Tim Miller: They wouldn’t have wanted the job.
Nicolle Wallace: They wouldn’t have wanted the job. Right.
Tim Miller: Yeah.
Nicolle Wallace: 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 wonder if that was intentional, or if you feel that, or if you feel how powerful people’s connection is to you?
Tim Miller: Yeah, I do feel it. I mean, it’s really true. Just really quick as a side about the community thing and something to be conscious of in our new communities that we’re building is part of community and belonging is that you want to belong, but 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 process. 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 —
Nicolle Wallace: Right.
Tim Miller: — you know?
Nicolle Wallace: Right.
Tim Miller: And so you project things onto people, you know —
Nicolle Wallace: That you want. Yeah.
Tim Miller: — that you want. So, anyway, back to other than our community, I do feel it and I appreciate it. And I think that, like, at some level, it was intentional initially because, you know, this is not like a great charity or whatever. Like, 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, I was like, I need out. Like, I can’t support the stuff anymore.
Like, I was running underground railroad out of that baby. I’m like, we are hiring people and Sarah Longwell is good, does a bunch of other stuff outside of the Bulwark. I had her hiring people for staff and other friends. And I felt that, and like I said to her, I was like, we need to do that, like include people that are part of our initial group of expats in this. And I’ll 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. Like, Republicans are crazy.
And you know, I’d always give them free subscriptions. Like, you know, come and do it. You come to the events, you can come. And so, we did try to create that initial group, but it sort of like has ballooned so far beyond that. And I wish I could say that, like, I consciously tried to cultivate a community with people, because we have a ton of people who are far-left Democrats and 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 —
Nicolle Wallace: Right.
Tim Miller: — but I want to do nothing. He’s a bad person and vice versa. And then we have a ton of like center-left Democrats who think that maybe the party has gone a little kooky in certain areas, but are mostly, you know, pro-democracy, so to speak, liberal. And we go to our events, like, you can just feel it on people, just like the relief when they talk to you. Like, they’re so excited to 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 is 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.
Nicolle Wallace: Was your daughter aware of what you do, or is she sort of (inaudible)?
Tim Miller: I need advice from you on this, I have 13-year-old, because she’s pretty checked out, I think, for a 7-year-old, of a person like this, like unfamiliar. Like, 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. Like, I’m listening to stuff like I listen to —
Nicolle Wallace: Not taken.
Tim Miller: Yeah. I listen to the show. I’ll listen to what you guys do in my ears, you know. Like, I’m that kind of parent, listen and cook and listen. You know what I mean?
Nicolle Wallace: Yeah.
Tim Miller: 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, like, I’m going indoctrinate you.
Nicolle Wallace: And also kids only need $2.
Tim Miller: Yeah, $2. I’m going to indoctrinate you on that. For folks that don’t know, my daughter is Black and adopted. My husband just told me before I came on here, he was like, she asked me about Black History Month today, and why there’s Black History Month, you know. You know, that’s 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 trouble. There are a million of them. So it’s kind of stupid and selfish, but I was like, had he lost? She wouldn’t have really had to know about it. Like, she would have known right in the way that it’s history, like in the way that I know about George Wallace or whatever. You know what I mean?
Nicolle Wallace: Yeah.
Tim Miller: Now, like, she’ll be 11 when it’s over, God willing. So we’re going to have to deal with that. I don’t know. How do you deal with it?
Nicolle Wallace: 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, you know, by 13, you kind of go from never talking about it and thinking they don’t know anything until they open their mouth. And even though you’ve told them nothing, you realize they know everything.
Tim Miller: Right.
Nicolle Wallace: And I’ll project all of his prerogatives and privacy, but they’re good at sifting through what’s bullshit. And so, I would say, you know, at one level, don’t worry. But at the other, there’s so much history to teach a young kid. You know, my son had all of the “Who Was” books. And you know, by the time you make it through —
Tim Miller: Yes.
Nicolle Wallace: — all of the history, you can sort of put this moment. You know, I’d say you have time, but never lie to her would be my only advice.
Tim Miller: That’s good advice. Good advice for parenting and podcasting.
Nicolle Wallace: I want to ask you if any of your interviews that you conducted changed you?
Tim Miller: Oh, man, changed me. I grew up in Denver. I didn’t know any Black people really, like meaningfully, except that I played basketball. You know what I mean? Like, 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.
Nicolle Wallace: Fair enough.
Tim Miller: You know what I mean?
Nicolle Wallace: Yeah.
Tim Miller: 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 kind of want to pick their brain about like 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.
So I think back to those interviews as ones that will stand a post-Trump test of time with me and, like, 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. I think I choked up talking about it. He’s like, you know, I just talk to my daughter about how her lips are beautiful and perfect, and how her hair is beautiful and perfect. You know what I mean? I’d have to go back and listen to get the exact quotes right, but just like that very basic fundamental stuff that is just not something that my parents had to think about.
Nicolle Wallace: 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, you know, cost her son’s life. The judge whose —
Tim Miller: Yeah.
Nicolle Wallace: — son was murdered.
Tim Miller: Yeah.
Nicolle Wallace: And I think about him every day. I have her son Daniel’s picture on my desk. 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.
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 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.
Nicolle Wallace: No.
Tim Miller: Maybe you’re going to give me a break for a week and bring in more the others, you know.
Nicolle Wallace: No. 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. And 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.
Tim Miller: Yeah.
Nicolle Wallace: And you help us realize that every single day.
Tim Miller: Thank you. That’s a good show. That’s right.
Nicolle Wallace: Tim Miller, you’re not just the best guest, you’re one of the best people. Thank you so much for doing this.
Tim Miller: Thank you so much, Nicolle. I appreciate you so much. We’ll be seeing you soon.
(Music Playing)
Nicolle Wallace: I know. We’ll keep it going. Thank you, my friend.
Tim Miller: Bye.
(Music Playing)
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