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TRANSCRIPT

Jane Coaston: It’s Friday, February 6th, I’m Jane Coaston, and this is What a Day, the show that really enjoys the deep empathy and care President Donald Trump showed for religious Americans like House Speaker Mike Johnson at the National Prayer Breakfast Thursday. 

[clip of President Donald Trump] You know, Mike Johnson’s a very religious person, and he does not hide it. He’ll say to me sometimes at lunch, sir, may we pray? I’ll say, excuse me? We’re having lunch, you know, in the Oval. It’s okay with me. 

Jane Coaston: You’re praying is ruining the whole vibe, Mike. [music break] On today’s show, is it the weekend yet? We’re gearing up for a faceoff between the Seattle Seahawks and the New England Patriots in Super Bowl 60. And the U.S. is gearing up for a face off, I mean, talks with Iran in Oman. But let’s start with, well, a lot has happened in the last week, hasn’t it? I mean the Department of Justice released three million files related to its investigation and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein just one week ago. And since then, we’ve learned that many of our bestest and brightest spent a lot of time sending Epstein misspelled messages begging to hang out on his island. Then, President Trump argued Monday that the United States should, quote, “nationalize elections.” Then the White House said he was actually referring to the Save Act, which would require voters to prove they are U.S. Citizens in order to cast a ballot. And then on Tuesday, Trump made it clear during an Oval Office press conference that, yeah, he wants to nationalize the elections. 

[clip of President Donald Trump] Look at some of the places, the horrible corruption on elections, and the federal government should not allow that. The federal government should get involved. 

Jane Coaston: Great, and there was more. Clearly seeing some poll numbers the administration didn’t like, border czar Tom Homan ordered 700 federal immigration agents out of Minnesota on Wednesday, a decision Trump took credit for in an interview with NBC Nightly News that night. But Congress is still fighting about whether or not it’s okay for immigration officers to be unidentifiable masked weirdos who smash car windows. So for more on the shit show that kicked off February 2026, I spoke to Tim Miller. He’s writer-at-large at the Bulwark and host of the Bulwark podcast. Tim, welcome back to What a Day! 

Tim Miller: It is good to be back, what a day it has been. 

Jane Coaston: What a day. 

Tim Miller: For a lot of days in a row now, actually. 

Jane Coaston: Yeah, I mean, to that point, somehow, it’s been a week since the Department of Justice released more than three million Epstein files. What were your biggest takeaways from that drop? 

Tim Miller: Hmm. I feel like my biggest takeaway was just a deep shame about our society. I was going through the emails. I had this craving that there was going to be one person that just said, hey, you pedo piece of shit. I don’t want to go to dinner with Larry Summers. I’m not interested. And it doesn’t feel like anybody did that, at least in the emails I’ve seen. And that’s very distressing. Just like that there’s just a general lack of any sort of red line when it comes to networking among our elite. And it’s not surprising, but it’s depressing for it to be so stark. Besides that, look, I feel a little bit unsatisfied because obviously Trump is covering up something, but I don’t think that this process is going to yield anything worthwhile unless there are other co-conspirators that are brought to justice. And like at this point, it’s like basically Andrew formerly known as Prince. And Ghislaine and Jeffrey, and that’s it. 

Jane Coaston: Yeah, I mean, at a certain point, there’s only so many of Andrew’s homes he can be removed from. 

Tim Miller: Yeah. 

Jane Coaston: Like, they’ve started kicking him out of places that I think he kind of forgot he had. 

Tim Miller: Right. One of the most interesting documents, too, is that the original um indictment. 

Jane Coaston: Right. 

Tim Miller: Of Epstein in Florida that Alex Acosta kind of threw in the trash and kind of returned an insanely lighter indictment. I mean, that’s almost an understatement to put it like that. But all of the counts were everything we’ve known, we’ve come to know since. But there are other co-conspirators in that original indictment besides him, and there’s three others. I assume one of them is Maxwell. Who are the other ones? 

Jane Coaston: Yeah. 

Tim Miller: You know, and I think that is an element of this that’s still missing. I think the victims obviously cannot feel any thing even close to closure if like the end result of this is, you know, pointing and laughing at like a handful of elites that were way too cozy with him in emails. 

Jane Coaston: Yeah, I mean, obviously, we actually didn’t get all of the files. 

Tim Miller: Right. 

Jane Coaston: Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said the DOJ held back about half of the Epstein files for various reasons, like protecting victims and withholding content related to child sexual abuse. The problem is, um, they didn’t properly redact many of the files they did release. This says to me that this was done because they had to do it, but they don’t actually give a shit at all. 

Tim Miller: Yeah, well, it’s also rushed. It’s like, it is an unserious process, you know? If they if this was a real process where they were trying to identify, A, co-conspirators, or B, other people that were involved in illicit behavior towards young women and girls, then, like, there’s a way that they would’ve gone about this, right? You know, you go back to the 2007 indictment, and then you release this, and you have somebody who’s an expert inside the FBI, or the DOJ in child sex crimes, like writes a memo at the top. And is like, here’s the context of these files. And here’s why we redacted this and that, right? Like there would be a way to do that. I think that the administration’s “excuse” quote unquote would be that like, well, they gave us this legislative deadline. And so we’re just dumping it all out and you guys get to to go through it. But like they’re not acting like people that want justice for anybody. I mean, hell, Trump even said that he’s feeling bad for Bill Clinton. 

Jane Coaston: Right. 

Tim Miller: Like Trump, Trump is demonstrating the only kind of empathy we’ve ever seen him demonstrate, which is the empathy for, you know, men who have been accused of sex crimes. And like, it seems to me like their main concern here is like protecting people from being falsely smeared or whatever. And there is not any serious or judicious effort to you know uncover new information that would be valuable. 

Jane Coaston: Right. But, uh, it’s been a really weird week. Earlier this week, President Trump said Republicans should quote, “nationalize the voting” when he was on ex-deputy FBI director, Dan Bongino’s podcast, his spiritual home. It was interesting how a bunch of administration figures tried to say this was about the SAVE act. This was about like, oh, requiring a passport to vote. And then Trump was like, nope, that’s not what I meant at all. This is wild on a ton of levels, but like, should we be concerned about this actually happening, or is this more like concerning because he wants this? 

Tim Miller: Well, I’d like to bring my old Republican hat on here for a second and say that maybe the pro-democracy movement should consider some kind of negotiation with the MAGAs if they want to mandate a passport for voting. 

Jane Coaston: Yeah, because you’re well aware of who owns passports in this country. 

Tim Miller: I think that passport mandated voting would yield results that um I would prefer. I mean, we’d see how that would shake out. It’s just something to consider. We shouldn’t throw the baby out with the–

Jane Coaston: You know. 

Tim Miller: –bath water, I guess, on that idea. 

Jane Coaston: Yeah. 

Tim Miller: As far as the accusations about nationalizing elections, and obviously they can’t do that. I was pretty alarmed by the fact that he kept using that number 15. I don’t have the exact quote in front of me, but it’s something to the effect of that we have to take over the voting in you know, the places where there could be problems, you know, there might be like 15 places where we might have to take it over. And then that number 15 came up again in a press conference. And I’m like, well, Trump has the kind of lizard brain, like little random facts stick in his head. And to me, as a Trump observer, I watched that and I was like, I think that there were some people briefing him about how there are 15 areas where they’re going to try to monkey with the midterms. I don’t think he would have just made up that number. And so I think it’s relatively alarming that they’re taking it seriously. Your friend Steve Bannon was yesterday talking about how they want to be putting ICE agents around voting booths, or not the booths themselves, but voting locations, um, in certain precincts around the country. That’s kind of alarming. So, uh, you know, there’s a little bit of a gang who can’t shoot straight element to this. Like their effort to rig the elections through gerrymandering backfired badly. A lot of times voter suppression efforts backfire badly because people don’t like having their votes suppressed, none too much. So I’m not like at the far end of alarmism. Like we’re not going to have elections again in the midterms, but I do think we need to be vigilant. 

Jane Coaston: Right. I mean, Trump cares most of all about the 2020 election, which he will tell you over and over again. And we talked about the DOJ’s recent raid of an elections warehouse in Fulton County, Georgia earlier this week with director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, present. And there’s been this like amusing back and forth in the Trump administration about why she was there. In a letter to the Senate intelligence committee, she said, president Trump asked her to be there, but now Trump is saying Pam Bondi told her to go. It seems kind of weird that no one wants to take responsibility for Tulsi Gabbard being in a place where Tulsi Gabbard doesn’t need to be. 

Tim Miller: Yeah, I mean, you got to assume that Trump is lying because I that’s just a good safe baseline that here, like why would Tulsi say that Trump told her to go if he didn’t? I don’t know, she’s weird though, so who knows? And they’re all liars. You’re dealing with a lot of liars. 

Jane Coaston: Right, that’s the thing. Like. 

Tim Miller: Yeah. 

Jane Coaston: This is a real it’s just, you know, a real bureau of liars, so. 

Tim Miller: Yeah. There was not really a credible testimony. 

Jane Coaston: Yeah. 

Tim Miller: To be had here. And it is extremely strange that she was there. Like the only possible rationale you could think of for her being there is that, you know, part of her remit is foreign interference in the elections, that traditionally, you now, people in her role as Director of National Intelligence would be focused on preventing foreign interference im elections. It’s possible that she might kind of see her role as a little bit of an inverse of that in allowing certain types of interference. But none of their explanations are any better. 

Jane Coaston: Right. 

Tim Miller: By the way. It’s like the attorney general demanding that the director of national intelligence is at a raid of of–

Jane Coaston: In Georgia. 

Tim Miller: In Georgia, of ballots based on conspiracy theories that have been debunked multiple times in court and been debunked by Republican elected officials in the state. I’m like, it’s fakakta any way you look at it. 

Jane Coaston: Yeah, I mean, Trump will take responsibility for some things. And I found this interesting. On Wednesday, White House border czar Tom Homan announced the withdrawal of about 700 federal officers from Minnesota, a decision unlike Fulton County. President Trump personally took credit for later in an interview with NBC. And that tells me Democrats are winning the perception fight over immigration enforcement. You worked on the campaign for Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush. Immigration reform is a big thing there. What is your view here? Can the US actually come to a consensus on immigration? Because it seems as if like, you know, in 2024, Americans voted with regard to immigration on not that, but now you’re getting the, oh, not that either. That seems terrible. 

Tim Miller: Yeah. 

Jane Coaston: So where do we go next? 

Tim Miller: Well, I think that the Democrats would be wise to focus their messaging for now on the second batch of not that’s, to use–

Jane Coaston: Right. 

Tim Miller: The way you framed it, right? Like I think trying to put forth some future grand bargain where you bring in, I don’t know, Katie Britt and Lisa Murkowski, it’s hard to imagine. And I think it would be hard to execute. And I think at this point that the overreach of the Trump administration is so extensive that that you had this like article yesterday in the New York Times with the aforementioned Katie Britt, who was like trying to act like she really cares about Liam Ramos, that five-year-old in the beanie who was victimized by ICE and sent to Texas. Right like so if Republicans are going to the failing New York Times–

Jane Coaston: Right. 

Tim Miller: To say, hey, I’m one of the good ones, yeah, that is a tell.

Jane Coaston: It’s always a tell, it’s like I mean you saw that with Mike Lawler. When you want to go to the New York Times and say like wow, I’m very worried about what’s happening. I’m like somebody showed you a poll. 

Tim Miller: Yeah, that’s a tell that they know that, yeah, they’re in trouble politically. So I think the Democrats should run through that door and try to create a lot of rules that will have broad appeal, you know, beginning with taking off their masks and maybe funding for more immigration judges and creating limitations on what children can be detained and how people that don’t have arrest records can be dealt with, right? I, like there are a million ways that you could do this, I think, where you’re not getting into the sticky questions of like do you give citizenship for somebody that’s been here for 15 years and instead just try to enshrine some more legal protections for people who are being like abused, frankly, and scared by this administration? 

Jane Coaston: Tim, as always, thank you so much for joining me. 

Tim Miller: Girl, anytime, we’ll see you soon, alright? 

Jane Coaston: That was my conversation with Tim Miller, host of the Bulwark Podcast and writer-at-large for the Bulwark. We’ll link to his work in the show notes. Good news! You’ve made it this far. Just a little bit of news to come before you’re home free for the weekend. If you like the show, make sure to smash that subscribe button, leave a 5-star review on Spotify and Apple Podcasts, watch us on YouTube, and share with your friends. More to come after some ads. [music break]

[AD BREAK]

Jane Coaston: Here’s what else we’re following today. 

[sung] Headlines.

[clip of John Thune] We have one week and one day left to pass the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Bill. 

Jane Coaston: Senate Majority Leader John Thune said Thursday lawmakers are nowhere near an agreement that would enable them to fund the Department of Homeland Security. Congress is trying to renegotiate the DHS spending bill after it was separated from a larger spending measure. But from the sound of it, it isn’t going too well. Thune warned that the D.H.S. could shut down next week if Democrats do not work with Republicans and the White House. 

[clip of John Thune] And I would hope that the Democrats will come to the table. The timeline that they asked for has been granted, and I hope that they are finally ready to get this done. It’s important for the American people. All these agencies, Federal Emergency Management Agency, which oversees disasters in this country, we’ve got a number of weather-related disasters in this county that are gonna require the able attention of FEMA. A lot of important agencies, Mr. President, that won’t go funded if they remain in this posture of resisting anything that doesn’t give them all of their demands. But worse yet, Mr President, not only insisting on all the demands, most of which are, as they know, very unrealistic and unserious. 

Jane Coaston: Let’s stop him right there. On Wednesday, Democratic minority leaders Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jefferies released an expanded list of ten detailed guardrails to quote, “rein in ICE and stop the violence.” Those demands include better identification of DHS officers, new use of force standards, and a stop to racial profiling. You tell me if that sounds unrealistic. The FBI is organizing a mysterious conference call in late February for local election officials from all 50 states. The plan? Discuss the midterm elections with federal law enforcement agencies. This is all according to an email obtained by What a Day’s newsletter writer, Matt Berg. The exact purpose of the call remains unclear, but it’s raising concerns after President Trump called for state elections to be nationalized. When asked for an explanation, an FBI spokesperson wrote to Matt, quote, “Thank you for reaching out. The FBI has no comment.” Nevada Secretary of State, Cisco Aguilar, told What a Day he’s never heard of a conference call like this being organized by the FBI between state officials and federal agencies. Aguilar said in a phone call, quote, “I was just like, what is this? It’s the strangest thing in the world that the FBI is reaching out to us and trying to coordinate election security.” He added, quote, “they’re just sowing this confusion and chaos to try to intimidate us into compliance.” So, more of the same. 

[clip of President Donald Trump] They’re negotiating now. They don’t want us to hit them. You know, we have a big fleet going over to Iran. 

Jane Coaston: President Trump also casually spoke of war at the National Prayer Breakfast on Thursday. Maybe I don’t really know what the National Prayer Breakfast is, as I assumed it involved prayer and maybe some breakfast. The US and Iran will hold nuclear talks today in Oman. Trump has turned up the heat on Iran recently, moving US military assets into the Gulf and threatening the possibility of strikes. And earlier this week, a US warship shot down an Iranian drone that flew too close to a U.S. Aircraft carrier. So it’s safe to say that tensions are pretty high right now. According to the Associated Press, the talks will center mainly on Iran’s nuclear program. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said earlier this week that the U.S. hopes to discuss other issues like the protesters killed in Iran, the country’s ballistic missile program, and aiding proxy groups across the region. But Iran has made it clear that it intends only to talk about its nuclear program. The Seattle Seahawks will face the New England Patriots this Sunday in Super Bowl 60. And if you’re wondering who to root for, here’s a tip from White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt on Thursday. 

[clip of Karoline Leavitt] The president has wisely chosen not to make a prediction in Sunday night’s game, but as a native girl from New Hampshire, go Patriots. 

Jane Coaston: Got it, go Seahawks. But the Super Bowl is more than a game, and no, this isn’t the start of a paid Nike ad. It’s a look inside how politics are reflected in America’s biggest sporting event. For one, Trump is skipping the big game. Last month, he told the New York Post, quote, “it’s just too far.” The game is in California. But according to one report from Zeteo, the real reason Trump skipped out is because his advisors warned him, sir, you’re probably going to get booed. And what about immigration and customs enforcement? The NFL said earlier this week that it’s, quote, “confident that ICE won’t conduct operations at the Super Bowl.” That’s contrary to what Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem said in October, that ICE would be, quote, “all over the event.” To top it all off, Bad Bunny, a vocal critic of Trump, is slated to perform at halftime. Bad Bunny made history at the Grammys last week, becoming the first artist to win album of the year for an album sung 100% in Spanish. So we don’t know who will win the game, But we do know that Trump has already lost. And that’s the news. [music break]

[AD BREAK]

Jane Coaston: That’s all for today. If you like the show, make sure you subscribe, leave a review, stand with the audience at the AEW Dynamite Pro Wrestling match in Las Vegas Wednesday, and tell your friends to listen. And if you’re into reading, and not just about, [clip of people chanting indistinctly plays] like me, What a Day is also a nightly newsletter. Check it out and subscribe at Crooked.com/subscribe. I’m Jane Coaston and as is always true, there’s a lot we can learn from the world of pro wrestling. What a Day is a production of Crooked Media. It’s recorded and mixed by Desmond Taylor. Our associate producers are Emily Fohr and Chris Allport. Our producer is Caitlin Plummer. Our video editor is Joseph Dutra. Our video producer is Johanna Case. We had production help today from Ethan Oberman, Greg Walters, and Matt Berg. Our senior producer is Erica Morrison, and our senior vice president of news and politics is Adriene Hill. Our theme music is by Kyle Murdock and Jordan Cantor. We had help today from the Associated Press. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East. [music break]