Tim Miller joins Krystal Ball on Breaking Points to share his takes on Biden’s decline, Democratic dysfunction, and how political cowardice opened the door for Trump’s comeback.
We are in this constitutional crisis that we are in with our democracy being destroyed by this authoritarian fascist movement because it has been in the making for decades.
As Charlie and Tim have admitted they missed it and have spent time trying to figure out how I missed it .
Which is very admirable
But there were many of us that thought happening and left the Republican Party long before 2016
Again, a piece of an article yesterday from MeidastouchNetwork by one of the brothers Ben:
This was from the beginning of this article and then you can just read on the rest above:
“We don’t fall for the distractions here at the MeidasTouch Network or the obvious traps that try to pit pro-democracy voices against each other.
That’s one of the keys to our success and growth.
I see too many good people who are too focused right now on pointing fingers about the 2024 election and about messaging and branding—looking back and pointing fingers—that they are forgetting, fundamentally, that politics is about people.
We shouldn’t think about cooking up “political brands” in a lab to try and connect with people.
We need to keep it simple.
We need to be humble and just shut up sometimes and listen to people.
Listening is far more important than hearing ourselves talk.
We need to understand what people are going through and connect with them as people and human beings—not as robots.
We need to connect with empathy and genuine concern for the human experience, to fight for people and make their lives better, and talk about specific ways we can help people live better lives.”
Tim, I do not see a through line between Guantanamo during the Bush administration and Trump's deportations to El Salvador. You do not need to concede that point. The men sent to Guantanamo were combatants. Perhaps you saw Michael Moore's documentary on American healthcare which opened with Michael on a boat heading toward Guantanamo to make the point that those imprisoned there received better healthcare than many American citizens. A relevant precedent in the birthright citizenship challenge will be Hamdi v Rumsfeld in which a combatant captured in Afghanistan Yaser Hamdi, who had been sent to Guantanamo, was deemed to have all the rights of American citizenship because he had been born in the United States.
Our national security is being threatened and compromised . Millions of people are about ready to lose their healthcare because of these vicious, Medicaid cuts that they’re doing. Social Security is at risk for millions. The department of education is being gutted. The FAA the FDA , medical and scientific research NIH is being gutted.
Every facet of our lives is being compromised.
People are being picked up off the street by people with masks on no credentials no badges and shipping them wherever they want.
Corruption is everywhere
Our rights and freedoms are being compromised as they move into fascism and authoritarianism.
So why is anybody talking about Joe Biden and trying to destroy and blame him?
This is a part of an article from Meidastouch network by one of the brothers Ben who is an attorney talks all about fascism authoritarianism, and what’s happening in our country. They just won the best podcast award and have a great following.
I don’t think the Bulwark people who I have been a paid subscriber since the very beginning when Charlie Sykes created it are listening. They have done an excellent job being an anti-Trump talking about all this stuff but right now they are doing what Republicans do
It is not necessary, and it is hurting the cause
There is no reason to put Joe Biden under the bus and try to destroy him and his legacy of all good that he’s done in his life especially pulling us out of Trump 1.0 in Covid.
I think you’re right they are not gonna let it drop.
“We don’t fall for the distractions here at the MeidasTouch Network or the obvious traps that try to pit pro-democracy voices against each other.
That’s one of the keys to our success and growth.
I see too many good people who are too focused right now on pointing fingers about the 2024 election and about messaging and branding—looking back and pointing fingers—that they are forgetting, fundamentally, that politics is about people.
We shouldn’t think about cooking up “political brands” in a lab to try and connect with people.
We need to keep it simple.
We need to be humble and just shut up sometimes and listen to people.
Listening is far more important than hearing ourselves talk.
We need to understand what people are going through and connect with them as people and human beings—not as robots.
We need to connect with empathy and genuine concern for the human experience, to fight for people and make their lives better, and talk about specific ways we can help people live better lives.”
Tim and Sarah will NOT let this drop. They wind up propagating a MAGA talking point. Today the Washington Post has a story on the book by Jake Tapper & Alex Thompson which supposedly investigates the decline of President Biden. There is no end to this thread when we should be discussing the literal vengeful insanity of Donald Trump,
Agree with you they are propagating a Maga talking point Instead of energizing and informing and engaging people to fight this authoritarian fascist movement they’re wasting time. You do not give abusers ammunition
Glad that you and I are on the same page. I call out Tim and Sarah every time they trash Biden on his refusal to withdraw or not run for reelection in the first place. Enough already. I am 78 myself and NEVER thought that at his age, Biden should seek reelection which would be a betrayal of our understanding when he ran in 2020. We wanted Joe Biden to be a one term healing president who as it turned out was also able to get shit done. Tim asked Anthony Blinken about Biden's diminished capacity as our chief executive, as if Blinken would actually say anything about that. Why even pose the question??!!
Hey Diane-- Check out Michelle Goldberg's piece in the New York Times today that summarizes the Tapper/Thompson exposé on Biden's infirmity. The matter should not be ignored but Tim and Sarah's obsession with Biden is counterproductive. Goldberg notes that Tapper & Thompson found no evidence that Biden's decision making and judgment were impaired apart from the decision to run again. This settles the matter, let's move on to talking about those in Trump's first cabinet who were discussing the invocation of the 25th Amendment against Trump after Jan 6th.
Oh, the 25th amendment has been a big issue for me . Mike Pence just received the “profile in courage “ medal from the Kennedy library a couple weeks ago. I don’t believe he should’ve ever gotten that award.
He certified the election as he was required to do by the constitution . You don’t need a medal for that.
He went along with the whole mega movement and he supported over 30,000 pathological lies in the Trump administration .
After January 6, he should’ve been voted the 25th amendment and had him removed from office for treason and eliciting a riot . If Mike Pence had finished his job as vice president and had him removed from office, he would’ve never been able to hold the office of the presidency again or any other public office..
And we would not be living this nightmare .
I don’t believe he deserved any profiles, encourage award. I was disappointed that he did not have the humility and the decency to decline that award.
Nope, this is unnecessary armchair vitriol and ancient history by now. Biden's decline was noticeable--as was Reagans' in the '80s--but it did not seem precipitous or dangerous, just noticeable. Time in politics moves like lightning, and there was likely some panic as the election season started to pick up pace. Biden should not have run again. He finally came around, and we had a good presidential candidate in Harris. The American voters are to blame--not Biden and his team. They had a clear choice and plenty of time to think about it, and 90 million people couldn't be bothered to make a decision.
We, the people-- not Biden --failed.
History will accord him gratitude for stabilizing a seriously careening nation. The man and his family were hounded, lied about, insulted, and threatened 24/7 for four years. A man who's lost two children already. Please leave him and his aborted second campaign in peace.
In retrospect, Democrats underestimated Biden's decline, and overestimated Trump's legal and political problems. And to be fair some, like Tim Miller, saw this coming and tried to warn us. For me, like many, it was the supreme Court siding with Trump on the "he can do anything" claim, and the debate shock that finally snapped me awake. Too little too late. But now is the time to fight back, not wallow in what might have been.
Ohhhh boy here we go again. By all real accounts, Biden's decline was physical, not mental. It was likely the stress of the office and what was going on with Hunter at the same time, not an excuse, but that is the context for what was happening. He likely was not up for another 4 years but given the decisions at the time, it looked like he was when he decided to run, and I think the people around him were hoping the substance of what he was offering would override the performance, and that was wrong. His policies and team were great.
I don't know what to say about the thing in the wheelchair. If he was in a wheelchair now, I would take that more seriously, but the fact is he is not and I'm sure someone would be able to grab a photo of that.
The major pushback I have with any of the anti-Biden talk is more that it seems to be in a vacuum and 2020, and even 2016, did not exist. Trump was a threat, Biden was considered the only one who could beat him and I have yet to hear a convincing argument on what really changed, other than the changes of Biden himself. If Trump didn't run in 2024, I would have absolutely agreed that Biden running was a mistake, but that is not what happened either.
Nope. NOT a direct line from the ridiculous choice to cling to running Biden for far too long, to the reelection of Trump. But circle that line through the 90 million eligible voters who looked over their choices and chose to STAY HOME. They don’t get a pass when they darn well knew what was at stake, or should have. Then loop it around the media ducking coverage of the voter suppression that enabled Trump to squeak by with a percentage point among those who could and did vote.
For the love of God, please stop letting the willfully ignorant, bless their hearts, off the hook for this mess by insisting it was all Biden’s fault. If our citizenry and our media can’t embrace the truth — all of it — then no party, or inner circle in it, can save us!
Yes based off election results 59% of those who did not vote bear a majority of the responsibility. Of those 41%, 49.4% percent voted for Trump and 48.8% and 1.8% for other candidates.
- You could blame the 1.8% that voted for Jill Stein. Really not effective as an argument.
- You could blame the low information voters who voted for Trump which may be estimated to be around 20%. Sure they could have made a difference.
- Logically the 59% would make more sense, those that didn't vote which would have hugely tipped the balance had they made the choice to perform their civic duty. Who were these people? A portion were the pro-Palestinian vote we know. How much of a percentage of non-voters were they? Hard to say. Let's pretend for arguments sake it wasn't large but significant like 5%. Would they be to blame? More so than the people who blame Biden, or Harris for that matter.
Was Palestine worth sacrificing democracy over? I'll never believe that. I think continuing to protest and making a convincing argument to go a different direction would have been more effective. I think Harris missed an opportunity to bring those people back in, even if it meant sacrificing her position, much like Trump did with RFK Jr. but she didn't. That was on her. But largely it was the non-voting electorate that got us here.
The "Biden fucked us" argument would be more availing if it wasn't such a close election. The results are totally overdetermined. Sure, every little thing matters, and if it makes people feel better to scapegoat Biden, fine. But it sure seems like of all of these little things people have a lot more smoke for Biden—who did get out of the way, people seem to forget—than any other similar factor.
What's another similar factor? People like Krystal Ball depressing the turnout of Dem voters with bullshit like Uncommitted and so on.
Team Amanda on the internal firing squad. I was a staunch Hillary supporter, but in retrospect if there were not thumbs on the scale we may have gotten a President Bernie and avoided Fat Donnie Two Dolls. The Bernie to Trump voters tell a tale.
Bernie would win as many electoral votes as Mondale when he ran for president. I’m tired of Bernie fans saying he would have won against Trump. A very small faction in the Dem party may have been fans, but many independents and normal Republicans would have stayed home then vote for Bernie.
Flip side of that, if the Republicans had super-Delegates to prevent Trump from running, that also might have prevented a disaster. I think Bernie was treated unfairly knowing what we know now, and that Hillary shouldn't have been blessed as the de facto candidate though I think at the time they thought he was too left of center to win. And that's largely due to the fear of years of Republican messaging that he was a Marxist, when he was actually a little s socialist.
As a NeverTrumper self-exiled GOPer who voted for Biden in 2020 and Harris in 2024, I don't see how the Democratic Party will repair its self-inflicted, damaged brand and regain its credibility when the Democratic Party's leaders & elected officials are still so wrapped around the axels about shielding American voters from the self-evident knowledge that Joe Biden was incapacitated by his advanced age and incapable of beating Trump in 2024 or doing the job as President for four more years that THEY STILL WON'T COME CLEAN ABOUT THEIR COMPLICITY. Reid Epstein's NYT review summing up the new book, “Original Sin,” by Jake Tapper of CNN and Alex Thompson of Axios notes that "the book is so reliant on anonymous sourcing — very few aides or elected officials are quoted by name — that it reveals the enduring chill that Mr. Biden’s loyalists have cast over a Democratic Party still afraid to grapple publicly with what many say privately was his waning ability to campaign and serve in office." https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/13/us/politics/biden-book-takeaways.html?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20250514&instance_id=154502&nl=the-morning®i_id=134147545&segment_id=197914&user_id=bc14d03a761de2052eec6e938e440633 ARRRGGH!!
AGAIN
You are repeating Maga talking points
The same way Trump repeats Putin’s talking points
We are in this constitutional crisis that we are in with our democracy being destroyed by this authoritarian fascist movement because it has been in the making for decades.
As Charlie and Tim have admitted they missed it and have spent time trying to figure out how I missed it .
Which is very admirable
But there were many of us that thought happening and left the Republican Party long before 2016
Joe Biden was one of the biggest supporters and fighters for you to be able to have your marriage and your family Tim.
Both you and Sarah
He is a good man
This constant persecution of him serves no purpose
I will repeat again
You guys are repeating Maga talking points
Just like Trump repeats Putin talking points
Again, a piece of an article yesterday from MeidastouchNetwork by one of the brothers Ben:
This was from the beginning of this article and then you can just read on the rest above:
“We don’t fall for the distractions here at the MeidasTouch Network or the obvious traps that try to pit pro-democracy voices against each other.
That’s one of the keys to our success and growth.
I see too many good people who are too focused right now on pointing fingers about the 2024 election and about messaging and branding—looking back and pointing fingers—that they are forgetting, fundamentally, that politics is about people.
We shouldn’t think about cooking up “political brands” in a lab to try and connect with people.
We need to keep it simple.
We need to be humble and just shut up sometimes and listen to people.
Listening is far more important than hearing ourselves talk.
We need to understand what people are going through and connect with them as people and human beings—not as robots.
We need to connect with empathy and genuine concern for the human experience, to fight for people and make their lives better, and talk about specific ways we can help people live better lives.”
The rest of the article is very good
You know how Trump sounds like he’s repeating Russia’s Putin’s talking points
That’s how you guys sound about Maga Trump talking points
Take the advice of Tom Nichols from the Atlantic
You and Sarah must drop this. It is not useful.
These people writing these books are trying to make money and it’s sensationalism
You are playing right into Maga’s hands
Tim PLEASE DROP THIS
You are acting republican
You are propagating MAGA talking points
Please read the responses of your viewers and your listeners
Please respect us like we respect you
Tim, I do not see a through line between Guantanamo during the Bush administration and Trump's deportations to El Salvador. You do not need to concede that point. The men sent to Guantanamo were combatants. Perhaps you saw Michael Moore's documentary on American healthcare which opened with Michael on a boat heading toward Guantanamo to make the point that those imprisoned there received better healthcare than many American citizens. A relevant precedent in the birthright citizenship challenge will be Hamdi v Rumsfeld in which a combatant captured in Afghanistan Yaser Hamdi, who had been sent to Guantanamo, was deemed to have all the rights of American citizenship because he had been born in the United States.
Our national security is being threatened and compromised . Millions of people are about ready to lose their healthcare because of these vicious, Medicaid cuts that they’re doing. Social Security is at risk for millions. The department of education is being gutted. The FAA the FDA , medical and scientific research NIH is being gutted.
Every facet of our lives is being compromised.
People are being picked up off the street by people with masks on no credentials no badges and shipping them wherever they want.
Corruption is everywhere
Our rights and freedoms are being compromised as they move into fascism and authoritarianism.
So why is anybody talking about Joe Biden and trying to destroy and blame him?
This is a part of an article from Meidastouch network by one of the brothers Ben who is an attorney talks all about fascism authoritarianism, and what’s happening in our country. They just won the best podcast award and have a great following.
I don’t think the Bulwark people who I have been a paid subscriber since the very beginning when Charlie Sykes created it are listening. They have done an excellent job being an anti-Trump talking about all this stuff but right now they are doing what Republicans do
It is not necessary, and it is hurting the cause
There is no reason to put Joe Biden under the bus and try to destroy him and his legacy of all good that he’s done in his life especially pulling us out of Trump 1.0 in Covid.
I think you’re right they are not gonna let it drop.
“We don’t fall for the distractions here at the MeidasTouch Network or the obvious traps that try to pit pro-democracy voices against each other.
That’s one of the keys to our success and growth.
I see too many good people who are too focused right now on pointing fingers about the 2024 election and about messaging and branding—looking back and pointing fingers—that they are forgetting, fundamentally, that politics is about people.
We shouldn’t think about cooking up “political brands” in a lab to try and connect with people.
We need to keep it simple.
We need to be humble and just shut up sometimes and listen to people.
Listening is far more important than hearing ourselves talk.
We need to understand what people are going through and connect with them as people and human beings—not as robots.
We need to connect with empathy and genuine concern for the human experience, to fight for people and make their lives better, and talk about specific ways we can help people live better lives.”
Tim and Sarah will NOT let this drop. They wind up propagating a MAGA talking point. Today the Washington Post has a story on the book by Jake Tapper & Alex Thompson which supposedly investigates the decline of President Biden. There is no end to this thread when we should be discussing the literal vengeful insanity of Donald Trump,
Agree with you they are propagating a Maga talking point Instead of energizing and informing and engaging people to fight this authoritarian fascist movement they’re wasting time. You do not give abusers ammunition
And boy are they giving it
I am hoping that they respect their listeners enough to hear the message they were trying to give them
Right now they’re acting like Republicans
Glad that you and I are on the same page. I call out Tim and Sarah every time they trash Biden on his refusal to withdraw or not run for reelection in the first place. Enough already. I am 78 myself and NEVER thought that at his age, Biden should seek reelection which would be a betrayal of our understanding when he ran in 2020. We wanted Joe Biden to be a one term healing president who as it turned out was also able to get shit done. Tim asked Anthony Blinken about Biden's diminished capacity as our chief executive, as if Blinken would actually say anything about that. Why even pose the question??!!
It’s not right and it serves no purpose. He is a good man.
Hey Diane-- Check out Michelle Goldberg's piece in the New York Times today that summarizes the Tapper/Thompson exposé on Biden's infirmity. The matter should not be ignored but Tim and Sarah's obsession with Biden is counterproductive. Goldberg notes that Tapper & Thompson found no evidence that Biden's decision making and judgment were impaired apart from the decision to run again. This settles the matter, let's move on to talking about those in Trump's first cabinet who were discussing the invocation of the 25th Amendment against Trump after Jan 6th.
Thank you I will.
Oh, the 25th amendment has been a big issue for me . Mike Pence just received the “profile in courage “ medal from the Kennedy library a couple weeks ago. I don’t believe he should’ve ever gotten that award.
He certified the election as he was required to do by the constitution . You don’t need a medal for that.
He went along with the whole mega movement and he supported over 30,000 pathological lies in the Trump administration .
After January 6, he should’ve been voted the 25th amendment and had him removed from office for treason and eliciting a riot . If Mike Pence had finished his job as vice president and had him removed from office, he would’ve never been able to hold the office of the presidency again or any other public office..
And we would not be living this nightmare .
I don’t believe he deserved any profiles, encourage award. I was disappointed that he did not have the humility and the decency to decline that award.
And the crowd was yelling “ hang Mike Pence “
Nope, this is unnecessary armchair vitriol and ancient history by now. Biden's decline was noticeable--as was Reagans' in the '80s--but it did not seem precipitous or dangerous, just noticeable. Time in politics moves like lightning, and there was likely some panic as the election season started to pick up pace. Biden should not have run again. He finally came around, and we had a good presidential candidate in Harris. The American voters are to blame--not Biden and his team. They had a clear choice and plenty of time to think about it, and 90 million people couldn't be bothered to make a decision.
We, the people-- not Biden --failed.
History will accord him gratitude for stabilizing a seriously careening nation. The man and his family were hounded, lied about, insulted, and threatened 24/7 for four years. A man who's lost two children already. Please leave him and his aborted second campaign in peace.
In retrospect, Democrats underestimated Biden's decline, and overestimated Trump's legal and political problems. And to be fair some, like Tim Miller, saw this coming and tried to warn us. For me, like many, it was the supreme Court siding with Trump on the "he can do anything" claim, and the debate shock that finally snapped me awake. Too little too late. But now is the time to fight back, not wallow in what might have been.
Krystal Ball is part of the reason we’re here. Zero respect for her or her opinions.
Ohhhh boy here we go again. By all real accounts, Biden's decline was physical, not mental. It was likely the stress of the office and what was going on with Hunter at the same time, not an excuse, but that is the context for what was happening. He likely was not up for another 4 years but given the decisions at the time, it looked like he was when he decided to run, and I think the people around him were hoping the substance of what he was offering would override the performance, and that was wrong. His policies and team were great.
I don't know what to say about the thing in the wheelchair. If he was in a wheelchair now, I would take that more seriously, but the fact is he is not and I'm sure someone would be able to grab a photo of that.
The major pushback I have with any of the anti-Biden talk is more that it seems to be in a vacuum and 2020, and even 2016, did not exist. Trump was a threat, Biden was considered the only one who could beat him and I have yet to hear a convincing argument on what really changed, other than the changes of Biden himself. If Trump didn't run in 2024, I would have absolutely agreed that Biden running was a mistake, but that is not what happened either.
Nope. NOT a direct line from the ridiculous choice to cling to running Biden for far too long, to the reelection of Trump. But circle that line through the 90 million eligible voters who looked over their choices and chose to STAY HOME. They don’t get a pass when they darn well knew what was at stake, or should have. Then loop it around the media ducking coverage of the voter suppression that enabled Trump to squeak by with a percentage point among those who could and did vote.
For the love of God, please stop letting the willfully ignorant, bless their hearts, off the hook for this mess by insisting it was all Biden’s fault. If our citizenry and our media can’t embrace the truth — all of it — then no party, or inner circle in it, can save us!
Yes based off election results 59% of those who did not vote bear a majority of the responsibility. Of those 41%, 49.4% percent voted for Trump and 48.8% and 1.8% for other candidates.
- You could blame the 1.8% that voted for Jill Stein. Really not effective as an argument.
- You could blame the low information voters who voted for Trump which may be estimated to be around 20%. Sure they could have made a difference.
- Logically the 59% would make more sense, those that didn't vote which would have hugely tipped the balance had they made the choice to perform their civic duty. Who were these people? A portion were the pro-Palestinian vote we know. How much of a percentage of non-voters were they? Hard to say. Let's pretend for arguments sake it wasn't large but significant like 5%. Would they be to blame? More so than the people who blame Biden, or Harris for that matter.
Was Palestine worth sacrificing democracy over? I'll never believe that. I think continuing to protest and making a convincing argument to go a different direction would have been more effective. I think Harris missed an opportunity to bring those people back in, even if it meant sacrificing her position, much like Trump did with RFK Jr. but she didn't. That was on her. But largely it was the non-voting electorate that got us here.
The "Biden fucked us" argument would be more availing if it wasn't such a close election. The results are totally overdetermined. Sure, every little thing matters, and if it makes people feel better to scapegoat Biden, fine. But it sure seems like of all of these little things people have a lot more smoke for Biden—who did get out of the way, people seem to forget—than any other similar factor.
What's another similar factor? People like Krystal Ball depressing the turnout of Dem voters with bullshit like Uncommitted and so on.
Team Amanda on the internal firing squad. I was a staunch Hillary supporter, but in retrospect if there were not thumbs on the scale we may have gotten a President Bernie and avoided Fat Donnie Two Dolls. The Bernie to Trump voters tell a tale.
Bernie would win as many electoral votes as Mondale when he ran for president. I’m tired of Bernie fans saying he would have won against Trump. A very small faction in the Dem party may have been fans, but many independents and normal Republicans would have stayed home then vote for Bernie.
Flip side of that, if the Republicans had super-Delegates to prevent Trump from running, that also might have prevented a disaster. I think Bernie was treated unfairly knowing what we know now, and that Hillary shouldn't have been blessed as the de facto candidate though I think at the time they thought he was too left of center to win. And that's largely due to the fear of years of Republican messaging that he was a Marxist, when he was actually a little s socialist.
If the Democrats had nominated Bernie in 2016, Gary Johnson would have done much better than the 3% he got.
As a NeverTrumper self-exiled GOPer who voted for Biden in 2020 and Harris in 2024, I don't see how the Democratic Party will repair its self-inflicted, damaged brand and regain its credibility when the Democratic Party's leaders & elected officials are still so wrapped around the axels about shielding American voters from the self-evident knowledge that Joe Biden was incapacitated by his advanced age and incapable of beating Trump in 2024 or doing the job as President for four more years that THEY STILL WON'T COME CLEAN ABOUT THEIR COMPLICITY. Reid Epstein's NYT review summing up the new book, “Original Sin,” by Jake Tapper of CNN and Alex Thompson of Axios notes that "the book is so reliant on anonymous sourcing — very few aides or elected officials are quoted by name — that it reveals the enduring chill that Mr. Biden’s loyalists have cast over a Democratic Party still afraid to grapple publicly with what many say privately was his waning ability to campaign and serve in office." https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/13/us/politics/biden-book-takeaways.html?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20250514&instance_id=154502&nl=the-morning®i_id=134147545&segment_id=197914&user_id=bc14d03a761de2052eec6e938e440633 ARRRGGH!!