Alan Cumming and Robert Garcia: The Traitors Running Our Government

Tim Miller (0:12)

Hello and welcome to The Bulwark Daily. I'm your host, Tim Miller. We got a double header for you today in segment two. It's a special treat. Alan Cumming, Tony award-winning actor, host of The Traitors on NBC, is an inaugural message to the program. But first, he's the Democrat charged with rooting out the traitors in our government. Ranking member of the Oversight Committee, Robert Garcia. What's up, man?

Robert Garcia (0:31)

Hey, man. Good to see you.

Tim Miller (0:32)

It's good to see you coming at us live from Long Beach. I want to spend most of the time on oversight plans for next year. But before you get the gavel, you got a few items of business here the next three weeks, making sure the Democrats win in the midterms. The economic state of play seems to be working in y'all's favor. We have news this week, inflation ticked up. PPI, which is usually a precursor to future inflation, had the biggest jump since 2022

Trump's solution to that is handing out some free money to people, which I think is inflationary. I'm not an economist. I'm trying to do a deal with Putin. What's your feeling on how things stand as far as the cost of living economy part of the election is concerned?

Robert Garcia (1:13)

Well, first, the economy is pretty fucked. There's no question people are struggling. You hear that every single day. No one is feeling like things are getting better. Gas prices here in my home state are over six bucks a gallon. They're worse if you are driving diesel in Iowa or in the Midwest.

Groceries, rents, mortgage, I think everyone is struggling on all these things. They're not feeling like things are going to get better anytime soon. I'm hearing that all across, not just here in my home state, but wherever we're traveling. I think three weeks out until the election, I think there is definitely a desire for big change, for big movement, for things to get better. That's why I think Democrats are going to do really well. Donald Trump has done nothing but make things worse. A war nobody wants, gas prices out of control, corruption everywhere you turn, Republicans can't stand up to them.

I think we should feel bullish, but run through the tape. I mean, there's a lot of work to do in the next three weeks, but I'm feeling pretty good.

Tim Miller (2:12)

Yeah. Obviously, the biggest contributor to all of this is the Iran War of Choice.

To me, it seems like there's some signs that they're planning escalation. There have been some reports that they're presenting Trump with the idea of using the Moab, the mother of all bombs. I don't know if they figured out what they plan on bombing yet, but they're looking at using that. I noticed that Mark Levin and some of the Iran hawks are being nice to him again, which usually happens when he's calling around and looking at options.

I'm wondering what your thought is on that. Obviously, there'll be a lame duck period after the election, but it seems to me like all signs are pointing towards escalation rather than de-escalation. What do you see?

Robert Garcia (2:57)

Yeah. I think unfortunately, that's true. I think that's what is being discussion with a lot of members of Congress, talking to some of my colleagues, particularly on the armed services, foreign affairs side, they're very concerned that Trump has really this schizophrenic policy agenda in Iran. We have no idea what we're doing. One day, it looks like he wants to wind things down and can't even call it a war.

The next day, he's ramping it up. Right now, it's looking like he's getting pushed and there is interest to try to ramp up whatever he's trying to accomplish there, which we're not even sure what that is. Which I think is a bad policy, obviously. We have right now no clear mission. Pete Hexhaff, who supposedly is trying to lead us there, can't even get the numbers right about how many service members we've actually lost. They've lied to the public and to the media about that. They continue to reverse their position. We're losing American service members, their lives and their families. Families are being impacted by that.

Then beyond that, we're seeing what the costs are to the American public. Nobody wants us here. We've got to wind this thing down and get out. Some type of escalation with no clear purpose is not the approach.

Tim Miller (4:05)

What do you got the next few weeks? Are you out on the trail? Are you campaigning for other House members? Or are you just getting the subpoenas ready?