Alex Wagner: An Unlawful Administration

Tim Miller (0:12)

Hello and welcome to The Bulwark Daily. I'm your host, Tim Miller, excited to welcome back to the show. Host of the podcast, Runaway Country, Crooked Media. She writes on sub-stack at HowTheHell.

Dot, dot, dot with Alex Wagner. And she's the author of a brand new book, The Steal, Four Right-Wing Hardliners, One Republican Presidency and The Raid on America's Cords. It's Alex Wagner.

Alex Wagner (0:32)

Oh, buddy. It's great to see you.

Tim Miller (0:35)

Welcome back. Thank you for doing this. We're doing this on Thursday evening, which I appreciate Alex doing because I'm flying very early tomorrow to Ohio for our benefit fundraisers for the Haitian community.

Alex Wagner (0:47)

Amazing.

Tim Miller (0:48)

If you guys cannot go and you want to support them, we'll put a link in the show, the Haitian Community Help and Support Center. I saw a number today on how much we've raised. It blew me away actually. We appreciate the Bulwark community very much.

Alex Wagner (0:59)

That's so awesome. You guys are an awesome community. You have awesome hosts and that is the right thing to be doing right now.

Tim Miller (1:05)

We'll have a number for you all next week, but I think we'll be proud of us, but important work. I've got a lot of rants to do. I've been building up on my rants for the show on Friday night, so you've got to carry me on the show, on the rants.

Alex Wagner (1:17)

I love it. He ain't heavy. He's my bulwark brother.

Tim Miller (1:22)

I got it. I got a couple of rants, just to be clear, but just not as many as I would have. I want to start with the war vote.

And kind of like a niche, a thing that maybe I'm only interested in when it comes to the war vote, or maybe it's you.

Alex Wagner (1:33)

No.

Tim Miller (1:33)

Because it was 50 to 49

Alex Wagner (1:35)

Definitely.

Tim Miller (1:36)

So in a situation where the war vote is 50 to 49, every vote is really the deciding vote. Obviously, it was 50 against the War Powers Resolution that would have taken the War Powers back to Congress where they exist. It's kind of unclear why that's needed, but whatever. It's neither here nor there. Almost all the Republicans voted against it. Still fully in solidarity with Trump. But one of the deciding votes was former Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. And I want to show a real video of him going to vote to keep the war going today. A real video. Not a lie.

Senator McConnell, can you say anything to us?

SPEAKER_3 (2:10)

Senator, any word, any comment for the press?

Tim Miller (2:12)

Even just the hello, sir?

SPEAKER_3 (2:14)

Senator, why did President Trump spend millions of dollars to remove Thomas Massie from Congress, placed in silent about you? Senator, any word for us?

Tim Miller (2:22)

Have a good day, Senator.

SPEAKER_3 (2:23)

Can you say something, Senator, about a news conference? Will you have one?

Tim Miller (2:27)

Peace, Senator. For the listeners there, he does not move. His mouth stays open the whole time, but no words come out.

Alex Wagner (2:43)

His soul is slowly escaping to the green here after.

Tim Miller (2:46)

That weekend at Mitch McConnell, he cast today, whatever that is, human, quasi-human figure, cast a deciding vote to keep us in the Iran War today.

Alex Wagner (2:55)

I, okay, so I have thoughts on this.

Tim Miller (2:58)

Okay, great.

Alex Wagner (2:59)

I mean, I think everybody in Kentucky should be super outraged. Thomas Massey should be most outraged of all.

This person is a hollow vessel, but here's the thing, Tim, they all are. Like, does it matter if Mitch McConnell is a zucchini? Like, they're all zucchinis. They're all squash, as far as I'm concerned. The idea that Bill Cassidy and John Cornyn and for that matter, Dan Sullivan and John Husted, but really the YOLO caucus of the Republican conference that has nothing left to lose here is still voting in support of a disastrous war that is likely to cost their party control of Congress is like, poof, doesn't matter. Doesn't matter if you are functionally brain dead or not. Like nobody's using whatever they got in their noggin at this point. Like what's the point? Who cares?

Tim Miller (3:52)

Yeah, well, we're doing ventures. Bill Cassidy, I guess would be, is a husk of a man. Because he was the last one to vote, because he stalled, because he hemmed and hawed as he's been doing. People have been saying Bill Cassidy is a deciding vote. Like I said, everyone was a deciding vote really, so that includes Mitch.