The Joke Tim Couldn’t Say on Live TV
Bulwark Takes
The Bulwark
4.7 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 30 April 2026
⏱️ 13 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Tim Miller was all over MS NOW, talking about Trump’s $400 million “gold ballroom” obsession as his poll numbers slide and voters feel squeezed. He breaks down why the GOP’s usual message machine—coordinated distractions, echo chamber spin, and nonstop attacks—is suddenly falling flat, with backlash over Iran, rising gas prices, and broken promises piling up.
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Watch All In with Chris Hayes on MS NOW: https://www.ms.now/all
Watch Deadline: White House with Nicolle Wallace on MS NOW: https://www.ms.now/deadline-white-house
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey, everybody. It's Tim Miller from the Bullwark. Did Double Duty on MS Now. |
| 0:04.4 | Uh, was on with Nicole Wallace and, uh, my guy Mark Elias over at Democracy docket. |
| 0:10.5 | Uh, and then later with Chris Hayes, there's a lot of ballroom talk. |
| 0:13.9 | Uh, there's a lot of mockery at the ballroom. |
| 0:15.9 | The fancy Versailles ballroom as, uh, even later after, uh, both those hits, the images started to come in from Trump |
| 0:24.1 | and his white tucks at the really gold white house right now. |
| 0:29.9 | And it's like, isn't this fine? |
| 0:31.6 | Isn't this good enough? |
| 0:32.5 | No. |
| 0:33.1 | Uh, no, they need a 400 million dollars of your money to do a fancy ballroom while his numbers tank. |
| 0:41.6 | So we discussed that at length. |
| 0:43.1 | And then with Mark Elias, as usual, we get into, you know, kind of more questions about the ways that these guys are trying to monkey with the midterms. So that's that. Stick around. |
| 0:57.7 | There's some good ballroom content. There's some laughs. Chris Hayes before he turns to me, |
| 1:03.3 | talks about how Republicans like fancy balls. I was like, that's kind of rude to throw to me |
| 1:10.0 | like that on primetime cable news. because I want to make a joke about Lindsey Graham or something, but I can't. I can't do that. So anyway, I just did it here, I guess. Anyway, stick around, subscribe to the feed. Fancy balls tuck at the other side. |
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