Sen. Tina Smith: The Bulwark LIVE from Minneapolis
The Bulwark Podcast
The Bulwark
4.6 • 11.6K Ratings
🗓️ 19 February 2026
⏱️ 39 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The junior senator from Minnesota joined Tim on Wednesday for the first show of a two-night Bulwark run at the historic Pantages Theatre in Minneapolis—the city that caught ICE off-guard with its "radical empathy" and kick-ass organizing skills. It was the "secret sauce" of Minnesotans that looks to have federal agents winding down their operation there. Plus, Democrats need to continue to hold the line on DHS funding, the incompetent clown atop the DoD and other loser Republicans, the Senate is fundamentally broken, and the beauty of retiring to make way for a new generation of leaders.
Sen. Tina Smith joins Tim Miller.
show notes
Tickets are now on sale for our LIVE shows in Dallas on March 18 and in Austin on March 19: TheBulwark.com/Events.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to the Bullwork podcast. I'm your host Tim Miller. We're live in Minneapolis. |
| 0:28.9 | And I'm excited to bring out our guest, Tina Smith. |
| 0:34.3 | You invited my base vote to the podcast. Is it? |
| 0:35.0 | Do you have a base vote anymore? |
| 0:36.3 | I thought you were done. |
| 0:37.8 | I thought you were done. I thought you were done. |
| 0:39.2 | This is, I've just, I've been, I was backstage trying to tell them, I think Tim and Tina, it might be a good podcast. All right? They're going to be out of the market. Tim and Tina, cut loose. Yeah. What would it look like? Terrify. Glass of one bottle, share a bottle of wine. |
| 0:53.2 | I'll carry, I'll have my glass, my tin cup that looks like a coffee cup except on the outside. |
| 0:57.9 | It says, Terrify. A glass of one bottle, share a bottle of wine. I'll carry, I'll have my glass, my tin cup that looks like a coffee cup, except on the outside, it says probably wine. |
| 0:59.6 | Yes. |
| 1:01.5 | So I want to start here. |
| 1:03.0 | You know, we've been gassing up the people of Minneapolis. |
| 1:05.7 | I'm very inspired. |
| 1:07.2 | The courage. |
| 1:08.2 | It's been very moving. |
| 1:09.6 | That said, I don't really understand why people live here. |
| 1:13.6 | This is, it's uninhabitable. Can you, can you give me a little bit of insight into the Minnesota mindset? |
| 1:20.2 | Like you choose to live here, right? You're not forced. That is exactly right. And that is the secret of why we are so scary. |
| 1:27.0 | Right? And today is a perfect day because we are so scary. Right? |
| 1:27.5 | Right. |
| 1:28.1 | And today is a perfect day because we not only have, you know, growing inches of snow, |
| 1:33.9 | but we also have a layer of ice under the snow, which means that every single articulated |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Bulwark, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of The Bulwark and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.