Former GOP Operative On Enabling Trump's Rise

Fresh Air

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4.4 • 34.4K Ratings

🗓️ 22 August 2022

⏱️ 45 minutes

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Summary

Tim Miller is a former Republican communications operative who held moderate views and backed moderate candidates for years. But he says in practicing the dark arts of opposition research and planting negative stories about rival candidates, he worked with increasingly extreme right-wing media outlets and fed populist outrage that would radicalize much of the Republican voter base. Miller examines his past work, and considers why so many Republicans who thought Trump unfit for office nonetheless backed him, in a new book, called Why We Did It.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is Fresh Air.
0:01.4	I'm Dave Davies, Infra Terry Gross, who's off this week.
0:05.3	Our guest today, Tim Miller, is a former Republican political operative whose new best-selling
0:10.2	book takes a hard look at the Republican Party's embrace of Donald Trump and his own role
0:15.6	in events that took the party down that road.
0:18.8	Miller never supported Trump and actively worked against him after his own candidate in 2016
0:23.9	Jeb Bush fell out of the race.
0:26.3	But Miller writes that on reflection, his own work as a hatchet man for the Republican
0:30.6	National Committee and other candidates helped to create the climate that enabled Trump's
0:35.4	rise.
0:36.7	His book offers a revealing look at how the conservative media world has evolved in some
0:41.0	disturbing ways, and he takes a harshly critical look at Republicans who privately regard
0:46.0	Trump as unhinged and dangerous, but still found reasons to support him politically or work
0:51.2	in his administration.
0:53.2	This section of the book is based on interviews he conducted with many Republicans, including
0:57.3	friends and former colleagues.
0:59.8	Tim Miller is currently an on-air analyst for MSNBC and a writer at large for The Bull
1:04.7	Work, a website launched in 2018 which features news and opinion from a center-right perspective.
1:11.2	His new book is titled Why We Did It, a Travel Log From The Republican Road to Hell.
1:17.0	Tim Miller welcomed two fresh air.
1:19.4	You know, a lot of Republicans who have denounced Donald Trump eventually came around to embrace
1:24.9	him.
	...

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