Latest / The Nation Podcasts / Fighting Trump’s Corruption w/ Chris Lehmann / The Time of Monsters with Jeet Heer

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Fighting Trump’s Corruption w/ Chris Lehmann / The Time of Monsters with Jeet Heer · The Nation Podcasts

• 0:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: The old world is dying, the new world struggles we born.
• 0:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: Now is the time of monsters.
• 0:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: With those words from Gramsci, I welcome you to the time of monsters podcast.
• 0:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: Today I wanted to take up the issue of Donald Trump's corruption.
• 0:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: And yeah, this actually is like an argument against the idea that Donald Trump is descending into sinility as some Democrats are saying.
• 0:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: Because I want to straighten things about Donald Trump's
• 0:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: evolution is from the first term to the second term is that he's actually gotten like much more bold and imaginative about corruption.
• 0:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: Not to say he wasn't corrupt in the first term, but there's a lot of like sort of penny-anty stuff with emoluments of having foreign leaders stay at his hotels.
• 0:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: And you know, you're dealing with stuff in the range of like millions, you know?
• 0:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: What's if you're in the White House?
• 0:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like, you know, you have an opportunity to steal
• 0:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: Um, but I think one of the things that one could actually say about Donald Trump is that he has learned that I see like the Presidency is worth what's more than he had imagined when he was first elected.
• 1:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: So to take up all this is your corruption and what can be done about it And what it says about the larger
• 1:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: problem of, you know, the United States of the Imperial Presidency and of this sort of impunity of the ruling class.
• 1:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm very happy to have on my colleague, Chris Lehman.
• 1:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's also a columnist and editor at the nation and he was written about this.
• 1:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: So first of all, welcome to the podcast.
• 1:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: Thanks, Jade, it's always a pleasure, even when addressing these grim topics.
• 1:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I mean, I sort of alluded to, I mean, like Trump being corrupt is in some ways that old story.
• 1:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: But I do actually think that's where we were rehearsing, like just the sort of startling scale of these sort of corruption and the dollar amounts that are involved.
• 1:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: So let's just run through a few these things.
• 1:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: So we have a sense of what we're talking about.
• 1:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I think you did a recent column on the so-called anti-weaponization fund.
• 2:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: So so what exactly is that?
• 2:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, that is this sort of make-believe legal settlement arising from what's clearly another of the many meritless legal actions that Trump brings in order to broker these kind of payoffs.
• 2:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: very much an adjo prop kind of fun was given the sum of 1.776 billion to pay out to victims of quote the weaponization of justice, which is a whole other discussion we can have, but
• 2:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: principally, and well, you don't see a legitimate settlement when the dollars of arrived at happens to, like, echo the national anniversary year that you're celebrating.
• 2:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, which is a whole other realm of corrupt, you know, the preparations for the 200 that White House's memorization of the country, it's 250th anniversary, is a total exercise
• 3:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: This is small, but I think richly symbolic thing is the effort to renovate the reflecting pool outside the Lincoln Memorial, which Trump has bragged.
• 3:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: It runously, it turns out that he got someone who had done contracting work on water-based facilities at Mara Logo, which turns out not
• 3:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: to be true, and weirdly, what is a restorative interest, right?
• 3:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no
• 4:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: this lawsuit that Trump was bringing against the IRS speaking of sort of conflicts of interest.
• 4:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't think we've ever had a president sue an agency who resides over for a cash settlement.
• 4:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: He was seeking $10 billion in damages because a contractor working at the IRS had leaked his tax returns, which again,
• 4:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: The scale of corruption is so mind boggling, you have to take a step back and realize, Trump is suing the government for something that in the modern presidency is a routine disclosure for people holding power, right?
• 4:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: We had this kind of tradition of, okay, you're gonna seek maximum power in our political system.
• 4:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: You should disclose your finances so we can guard against these very kind conflicts and interests, right?
• 4:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and as you suggested, the very idea of a president suing to receive damages for leagues.
• 5:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, like the one can imagine, like Richard Nixon, maybe as a failure on his part that he did not sue VFBI for the leaks of deep throat at received a settlement of billions because I mean, like he was clearly damaged.
• 5:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, but it's a good infax offer where it's, I think it's an open, like,
• 5:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mean, when after what's telling is that after Trump's tax information with leaked, I mean, there was an ample evidence of tax evasion and fraud and corruption, which we all just sort of accept as being baked into the model of leadership, right?
• 5:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't think he kind of alleges there was significant damage to his reputation?
• 5:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: No, no, no, no, no.
• 5:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: That is reputation, right?
• 5:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 5:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: And the other thing I pointed out in the column I wrote about this fund is going back to the victim presidency and the Watergate scandal, people tend to forget that the engine of the Watergate, which plays only one of a series of executive ramps scandals under the Nixon presidency, which involved turning in the White House over the operation to get the political address
• 6:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: That was all done, my friends, that's like that, right?
• 6:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: That came from Epic Psych resources.
• 6:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's how my real difference is.
• 6:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: And AT&T funds, I think, $44 million for $4 million.
• 6:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: In first up, he's dollars in which the White House broke their approval of anti, you know, a favorable get-tutrust.
• 6:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: decision for AT&T in order to get a commercial that was the melt fund, where a series of no cooperatives wanted to evade price control on melt.
• 7:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: And again, then which administration agreed for a lot of money, which they all use, and Watergate is parting them.
• 7:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: They're
• 7:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: person with political enemies.
• 7:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, this is the model.
• 7:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it's telling me that happens to a guy that's with a huge panel, he wants around the presidency.
• 7:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: And now it's a feature of the project 50 years later at their Trump.
• 7:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, no, no, I mean, one of the big differences also like the current slash fund is like much faster in scale.
• 7:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I went back and did the math using inflation calculator and all that and yeah, I think the return, that's where the 44 million figure paper.
• 7:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: That was the revenue match.
• 7:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: The milk production has got.
• 7:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah.
• 7:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: They pay off.
• 7:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: I forget now exactly how it works up, but I think it's my effect or pan or something.
• 8:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: Again, all public sector money, right?
• 8:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: We, the taxpayers, are paying directly.
• 8:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: And the other big piece of it is the beneficiaries of the fund are, you know, it's sort of, it's legal status as an assortment of up in the air top lunch, as it's not gonna happen, Trump is still saying it will happen.
• 8:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: But the important detail, I think, is that this is all money that would directly to January 6th of a test or rioters.
• 8:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, who are already plundering in another, you know, Trump's abuse of the pardon power in this or in terms of charge.
• 8:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: Right.
• 8:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: First day at office, we pardon everyone convicted of crimes relating to the January 6th,
• 8:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: Many of whom have already gone back as recidivists and committed all kinds.
• 8:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I don't know, this is sort of like a minor crime wave in, you know, it says.
• 9:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: Go ahead.
• 9:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: If you've heard, it's a tough release to deal.
• 9:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: I live in DC right, and they're still, and they're actually going to double the deployment of National Guards for this 250 other anniversary, but like,
• 9:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: Trump pardon all of these people who menaced and physically assaulted in some case in a way that resulted in the deaths of, I think, six police officers.
• 9:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: So, this is why it's hard to wrap your head around the scale of corruption here, because it is mind-bending, let's say, to have this imperial posturing around
• 9:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: you know, lawn order, crime wave in the capital, and the most significant.
• 9:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: crime that's occurred in the last decade in Washington is January 6th.
• 9:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, no.
• 9:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, that's absolutely, I mean, yeah, basically the president only has like a pardon, the mob that he incited to attack Congress, but is that rewarding them?
• 10:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: So how that's compatible with anything like, while our republic, I'm not, yeah, which is, I mean, that's a really interesting point because I'm not generally
• 10:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: in the camp of students of history who reflexively reviewer the founders, but it's really important to underline the chief threat you see embodied in the constitution and the federalless papers is the idea that the executive with this news, there are a consistent little government.
• 10:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: could become a pirate.
• 10:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: So that's why you have the separation of powers calibrated away there.
• 10:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: There are the controls, the power of the powers.
• 10:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: You don't want that in the present, let's say, because.
• 10:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: If you give them a lot of money, he's going to engage and help you.
• 10:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I don't know.
• 10:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know.
• 10:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know.
• 10:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's absolutely the case.
• 11:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: And seeing with war powers, which is a nice subject.
• 11:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: Because finally, Congress has passed a motion.
• 11:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: to exercise war powers authority over the illegal war and around.
• 11:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: But this is all of a piece.
• 11:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: And this is, well, I think we've lost under the conditions of the modern imperial presidency.
• 11:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: This basic understanding that the kind of most pressing mortal risks through the Republicans' system of governance fall are in the American system is this runaway presidency,
• 11:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: He, you know, the president, like you give him things like the murder to clear war.
• 11:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: If you give him sort of access to primary undying streams, it's going to build up into something like the monarchy.
• 11:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: And again, I'm not a fan of the no king of slow hit.
• 12:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think that a facial glass politics in certain ways, but speaking historically, this is the threat.
• 12:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: that the rafters on the Constitution understood very clearly, you have to aim in this office of the presidency.
• 12:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: The whole idea of the Ontario Executive, which is that the right has been opted in legal circles, is simply a fiction.
• 12:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: It does not arise from any coherent historical understanding of what the Congress will help.
• 12:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, no, no.
• 12:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think that's absolutely right.
• 12:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: And like in terms of foreign policy as well, I mean, he is very striking the degree to which Trump is like openly, like, you know, said that his foreign policy is guided by like the sort of business interest that he has he had his family have in the release.
• 12:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, he basically gave a speech or he basically said, you know, like,
• 12:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: and here late husband gave me a lot of money so I rewarded them by making Jerusalem the Capital Abraham in order to yeah, I mean they put them according to basically an encodes this model.
• 13:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's all about
• 13:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: there's a sense of being, you know, the leading factor in shaping diplomacy in this.
• 13:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: And then, you know, I just like business interests in the sort of classic American imperialist sense of, you know, like we have like these oil interests in the presidential care, but like I've seen very specific things where, you know,
• 13:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: very wealthy people in the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia are investors in businesses run by the Trump family and run by Jerry Kushner and see Woodcock and and that the whole purpose of a market for policy is to consolidate.
• 13:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's interesting, that's clearly yeah, now and you know the chief sector in which the Trump family is enriching itself at this moment is
• 13:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: through crypto currency, you know, they realize something like $5 billion in, I guess you can't even call it paper returns because it's crypto.
• 14:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it's another thing that, you know, I don't think people understand sufficiently because of all the propaganda around what crypto is.
• 14:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: In this context of exchanging, you know, basically political favors for foreign investors, it's a perfect system of bribery.
• 14:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: And Whitcloth is one of the chief sort of financial players behind the Trump crypto currency.
• 14:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: So again, not it's just like a first order conflict of interest in the classical Republican sense of things.
• 14:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: You can't have your Middle East guy.
• 14:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: who's supposed to be running, you know, diplomacy, profiting.
• 14:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: It is, it is, it's in the same, I mean it.
• 14:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, okay, so also there's also, we have like, you know, pretty special evidence of, really, I think corruption on like an unprecedented skill.
• 15:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, as you mentioned earlier, again, like Nixon must, the ghost of Richard Nixon must feel like such a type.
• 15:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: Exactly, but I mean, so the whole question is then like you know like how does one deal with us and there's a sort of like obviously some Democrats I think Elizabeth Warren has been a long been at the forefront of this are raising these issues, but there is a kind of like a school of flop that thinks well
• 15:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, well, we tried this and it didn't work.
• 15:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like we, we pitched all the ground twice and then he got reelected.
• 15:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: Uh, it's probably better to focus on yours or bread and butter, economics and table issues or you're not to say.
• 15:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, because this is just like clearly the public doesn't care.
• 15:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: So like, well, what's your sort of like response to that?
• 16:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: my short responses that it's wrong and stupid politics, but I can go into more detail because politics is a quote, Henry Adams.
• 16:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: who is someone I'm otherwise not a great fan of, but as he said, the organization of hatred.
• 16:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: And you have to, you need animators, you need sort of narratives about bad actors.
• 16:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: And what's so frustrating about democratic parties possible right now, you've got these like cartoonish super Millions in the White House.
• 16:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, it's not hard to construct these narratives because they're true.
• 16:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: What has really, what began Donald Trump's slide in the opinion polls, obviously, things like the disastrous Iraq and more accelerated, but it was the destruction of the youth playing in the like, and that's just something about so palpable.
• 16:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, you've got this colligulent figure who's in the mentioning himself, and he's literally taking a wrecking ball to the White House.
• 17:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: flourish of democratic order because at that time, they were saying, oh, he's, you know, he's just growing the people's house, which is, I view misleading kind of glossy rhetoric, because the White House is built by slaves, like which people are you talking.
• 17:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: And second of all, it's.
• 17:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: Again, like the King's rhetoric takes the public's eye off the wall, and it's really happening.
• 17:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: This guy is building his insane baller, which is like a typical Trump property.
• 17:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's gonna be like gilded, vulgar.
• 17:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it
• 18:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: We're like everything is redeemed after the Glorys leader putting his face on the $250 bill.
• 18:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: In this piecemeal way and their outrage and those issue press releases, but you need a very bistero and again, I think the ballroom is a powerful symbol in this regard, you know, because a lot of
• 18:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: You talk about the first tournament of Hishman, you know, people didn't really glam on to the Ukraine payoff that was the occasion of the first event.
• 18:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: It seemed, you know, sort of abstrucing away later about back in the White House.
• 18:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: And yeah, I mean, it wasn't downstairs because this is, you know, to them's ML.
• 19:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: So, but, but they nearly selected a subject where they thought they could get Republican buy-in.
• 19:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: Right.
• 19:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: Which they got a little bit of, but like not enough to, and I miss reading of what the Republican Party has become.
• 19:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: It is an authoritarian call, you're not going to peel off, you know.
• 19:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: That ship is sale, like all the never took risks have been there.
• 19:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: Exiled and repudiated, there's whole idea that you're going to pivot towards some medical mental, sorry, like our politics changed decisively in 2016 and you need to just acknowledge that.
• 19:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: and develop news strategies.
• 19:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I would say, you know, the tactical era and the first impeachment was not to include the many violations of the Amalibans clause.
• 19:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, yeah.
• 19:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's clause.
• 19:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: Again, reflects this founders.
• 19:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: extreme solicitude to prevent corruption in the Oval Office and it involves receiving money and gifts from foreign leaders.
• 20:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: And like simple corruption, like you can easily demonstrate it.
• 20:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: Everything from, you know, the Trump properties you want to develop in Saudi Arabia.
• 20:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean,
• 20:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: so straightforward, so easy.
• 20:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: And there's maths and public resentment of the ultra well.
• 20:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: Why?
• 20:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, no, no, no, no, absolutely.
• 20:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I think like if we're looking at places or the mistakes, the first impeachment, it really was like a very narrowly-based impeachment designed to appeal to the sort of national security Republicans.
• 20:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: and like keeping all the other stuff off the table because you know they would have signed on for that.
• 20:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: I don't think it was like, where's that?
• 20:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like, you know, get a loose treat to you or whatever, you were thinking of off the table.
• 20:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, we have the returns from that experiment.
• 20:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
• 21:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: economics versus corruption, politics.
• 21:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's not an either-or, and I think the Nixon example that you pointed to, like, gets to that.
• 21:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I think one reason, like, watergate took off was not just like, you know, the tapes and the evidence of corruption, but also that, like, they had tangible effects.
• 21:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: This is a time where because of the old shock, inflation was taking off.
• 21:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: people are paying a lot more money for like basic thing like, you know, meat and milk.
• 21:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: And you have, you know, like the president, like, oh, yes, office.
• 21:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: So the white has openly taking money from the milk interest to like lift up price controls on milk, which is going to make milk more expensive.
• 21:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: Right.
• 21:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: And joking about it.
• 21:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: And the White House tips, so I mentioned this in the, you know, as we were chatting before, but, uh, there's this moment where John Heraldickman at, you know, they all agree, okay, we're going to take this money from no cooperatives and raise a price of milk and John Heraldickman jokes, you know, you better buy a glass of milk now because you're not going to be able to afford it later and it's just like.
• 22:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, yeah, this is why corruption is an effective narrative because, you know, he's basically saying we're going to twist the knife into the average consumer and we don't care.
• 22:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: And that is basically the credo of the Trump White House.
• 22:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: And again, it's a very simple case because the illegal war in Iran has caused gas prices to spike way above what they were at the height of inflation under Biden.
• 22:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: And again, I wrote a piece last year when Trump did his first bombing
• 22:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: The Democrats need to impeach him.
• 23:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: This is a clear violation of the Constitution.
• 23:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: You don't get these powers back by just sitting on your hands.
• 23:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: You have to fight.
• 23:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm not gloating anything, but I've done that.
• 23:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: But at least I would try to get Republicans on a vote.
• 23:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, to sort of stay, do you support this or not?
• 23:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: It would be in a much stronger political position now that we are actually in an illegal war with Iran and people are suffering.
• 23:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: Democrats could say, look, we tried to tell you, we tried to stop this thing instead, you know, you're out of this.
• 23:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: Bakes have the mentality among Democratic leaders and I'd like, oh, we can't risk political capital we need to make some returns.
• 23:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: drone away a bunch of cable issues and what's pretty making about that is just all I still don't know what the Democrats' hands can table issues very are.
• 24:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 24:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: We're going to, you know, be more natural in the formation of K.O.
• 24:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: Look Archi, it's very unspecified.
• 24:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it is a fault as you said where you don't name enemies and you don't have to say that Yeah, these people were like getting very rich while everyone else is suffering But it's you know like the actual reality.
• 24:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean like you're actually I mean Trump is in ways is the fallen back into the position of Biden of complaining well the stock market is good the wire people complaining
• 24:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: but it doesn't look at polls like there's a incredible deep economic pessimism and the discrepancy between you know what the stock market thinks and whatever ordinary people feel is like never been wider and so that does actually point towards the politics of resentment against the rich and if you actually have you know there's like you know this guy whose president is basically the monopoly man
• 25:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: the office in this way like again this this isn't hard you know this basic politics and it's just yeah i'm ponding to me at least living here in Washington you know we we still have this kind of outmoded 90s era narrative that you know we're just gonna
• 25:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: talk about, you know, protecting people who work hard and pay by the rules.
• 25:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: And, um, but, you know, there's, there's no serious discussion of a national billionaire attacks.
• 25:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: There's no serious discussion of, you know, really making healthcare have a durable social good available to all.
• 25:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's just, you know, a defensive posture at best.
• 25:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it's also like, OK, we're going to
• 25:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: get the house back and we're going to hold the long regress of hearings to generate media coverage, but what's the policy plan?
• 25:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm telling the one democratic thing to take here and plan just produce a project 2029 as any answer to the project 2025 that is now being implemented
• 26:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: Notably, sports on crime creeps, you'll all see if the funs holes in the sphere of political autonomy, because our surprise, people who fund democratic, okay, don't want progressive taxation out of as scale that will harm their interest.
• 26:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: So, again, you're back to the ASIC problem, recognizing corruption and workarchy, and real and present threats for democracy,
• 26:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: The Democratic Party is lamentable, so, and have their own concerns in the future.
• 26:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, no, don't know.
• 26:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: If, you know, the users are classic economists talk, you know, like, you know, a desert I lived with a tin can, so let's, let's, let's pause it, I can't open it.
• 27:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: It was a democratic party that actually, you know, did want to challenge us, what would be the actual instruments?
• 27:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: Let's say, you know, Democrats win back Congress and the Senate.
• 27:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's a little bit if he right now, but he couldn't, I think it's actually still very much in the realm of possibility that what do you think they should be doing?
• 27:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, you know, a bunch of stuff that I know they won't want at the leadership level, they won't want to do, and but yeah, I mean, I think this is the Barry's table of issues.
• 27:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, if you want to know why your pains have much for gas and groceries, it's because of the straight-of-home moves, you know, and it's not just gas and groceries, it's, you know, the farm economy, the economy I grew up in in eastern Iowa.
• 27:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: something like 40% of the world's fertilizer goes through the state of our moves.
• 28:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's been planting season.
• 28:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: All, you know, the long term impact of this disastrous errand in Iran is going to be really bad economically.
• 28:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it's, again, not a difficult case to make.
• 28:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's sitting right there.
• 28:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, it's this weird mama
• 28:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: There's just this endless loop of rhetoric about kicking table issues.
• 28:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it's mostly, like, we're walking, I try to walk back, you know, the ruin is Medicaid cuts.
• 28:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, restore as much as it is under the ACA, which is all good and should happen, absolutely.
• 28:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: But you need something much like, I should, you need to say, like, you know,
• 28:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: So, well, I mean, we had mentioned like impeachment before and I didn't want to be being emphasized as like, doesn't the power of impeachment go beyond the presidency?
• 29:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like aren't there like a lot of other like public officials like could there be a people?
• 29:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely.
• 29:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, the Republicans try to, I guess they wanted impeachment vote against my orchestras that had a Hawaiian security under Biden.
• 29:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: So, again, you know, yeah, it's a failure of political imagination.
• 29:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: I can think of six Supreme Court dresses off the top of my head.
• 29:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: My prime candidate, you know, the right made a big deal of trying to impeach the girl Warren.
• 29:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it didn't go anywhere, but you can argue it was effect of politics, right?
• 29:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, no, it certainly sent to the Supreme Court.
• 29:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: I was, you know, the beginning of the long project whereby they retipped the court.
• 29:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I think, you know, you know, obviously,
• 29:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: you abolish ice in my fantasy world.
• 30:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I mean, that's the other thing is everyone in this administration is corrupt.
• 30:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, life is really like, like, kind of like, you know, who's like, I, I, I, I would be certainly like, a featured hearing's about his fitness office, given all that's what reported about I, you know, his secret and new creation.
• 30:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 30:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: He's a necessarily, you know, and, um, and, um, and, um, and space, you know, on the guy that just now nominated to the DNI, who is spectacularly unqualified.
• 30:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, there's the competence part too, which is relevant.
• 30:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know, I think a program of like sort of like mass impeachment hearings is not like unwarded given who truck has actually like dominated and that's like now I mean I think it's if you pan back
• 30:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think what Trump, the Trump MAGA project is this never-ending stress test on being deployed on the institutions of our government.
• 31:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: And there are always going to, I mean, January 6th is the locus classicus of this, right?
• 31:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: They Trump decided, I don't care that I lost the election.
• 31:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to stir up a mob, and I'm going to try to seize power and become a dictator.
• 31:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: That was literally the logic line January 6th.
• 31:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: And once, you know, the system did not respond in the way it should have.
• 31:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: That opens the door to everything coming in its way.
• 31:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I, you know, early on in this Nick and Trump administration, I wrote a column arguing that, you know, January sets, it's the model for how Trump is going to rule in this second term.
• 31:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: And
• 31:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: regrettably I think I was right.
• 31:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, all across the federal bureaucracy, you see the same stress test, right?
• 31:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: You see, we're gonna do mass depotition and you know, use ICE agents to menace both immigrants and protest peers and we don't care, try to stop us.
• 32:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: And you know, when you speak corruption like the
• 32:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, my wife, Lopper Festival, she was just reading the details of the offer to a grand jury and I went out of this thing and it's, it's you very soon upon and it was shocking.
• 32:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like, these people are just aparatics of the lowest moral character.
• 32:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, they're just doing the bidding of the Supreme Leader.
• 32:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I mean, in terms of further responses, like all the sort of people in the Department of Justice who are like involved with their political prosecution, I know there's discussions of a post-week looking after a Jean Carroll who would, you know, like one for the crime of like, you know, like the inscription.
• 33:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, what further response is that, like if the Democrats come to power, they could say, we will recommend, like, you know, like anybody's involved with them, political prosecutions of this sort, we're going to recommend to the virus association that they be inspired.
• 33:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: And you will all hearings on that will investigate this and we will be able to have that these people will face like Prosecution within their own fields, right?
• 33:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like if you go for obviously where a lawyer You just part is not a great thing.
• 33:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, there are actually like a lot of different avenues that are like open Absolutely, but you I mean you need to
• 33:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: develop those muscles.
• 33:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: You need to actually condition legislators to think in that way.
• 33:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: And instead of just saying, oh, you know, kitchen table issues, blah, blah, blah, vote for us in November.
• 33:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: Um, yeah.
• 33:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: No, no.
• 33:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: No, I will bet there's a hopeful thing.
• 33:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, like, it's very hardening that on Wednesday, the house, you know, voted on the war power resolution, uh, revoking the president and calling for the end of the war and
• 34:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know enough, we only four, but that's an effort for us to sort of pass it.
• 34:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: Um, and I think it's also a telling, you know, Massey obviously voted because he's anti-war and lame duck and Trump hate, they hate each other, but the other three were, I believe, all swing state.
• 34:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
• 34:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: I guess what they're like, yeah, the more part of the resolution like it's going to bring up interesting constitutional issues because there is you know like the vice president has basically said the war powers resolution is a fake and unconstitutional.
• 35:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think
• 35:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: And that's a reference to, I believe, the sort of chatter decision of 1983, which held that sort of like legislative concurrence, where you get the House and Senate to vote on something and that can override President's action.
• 35:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: The Supreme Court has said that's not constitutional, but then there's greater questions whether the chat applies,
• 35:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: to the war power's resolution, which at the time, I believe even Louis Powell, who voted for Chata, said it did not.
• 35:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so this is, so this is actually gonna be a real constitutional issue.
• 35:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I think that it's honestly one where Democrats can win with this Supreme Court, but I think also think that it's actually worth, like, you know, making it raises the stakes.
• 35:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: And if you don't win again, you fight you create a record, you sort of get the administration Black is like bands on the record to parent these lines over and over again.
• 36:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it's a more baller.
• 36:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, because I actually don't think that like the majority of Americans with the I, I happy with the system where any president can take their word at any time without
• 36:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: whatever else you want to call it, it's, it's not a republic or a democracy.
• 36:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: No, no, no, no.
• 36:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I actually think on the word power is like, like, we are kind of heading for a constitutional crisis of some sort, because, you know, like, you know, obviously to some degree, like, you know, I have a, you know, the apologies to your wife is a legal expert, but I have a cynical view that I think a lot of this is,
• 36:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: sort of freestyled justifications of what people want.
• 37:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: But still, like, to the extent that there's a very clear cut in the constitution, he's very clear cut that the farted declare war belongs to Kaiser.
• 37:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, there's no him.
• 37:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, again, I wrote about this last year for Harper's.
• 37:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, and I went back and,
• 37:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: We read the Federalists' stuff, and it's also the history of the War Powers Act is also really instructive because it was largely triggered by the, again, next and did the same thing in Cambodia.
• 37:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: And Liz Holtsman, who later became a key figure on, and Watergate prosecution, had, you know, decided we're going to draft legislation
• 37:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: It sort of went to this green card at the time and Bill Douglas, the Supreme Court Justice issued a stay on the bombing in Cambodia, pending the court's ultimate, and he said something to the effect of like, you know, I have to do this because otherwise innocent people are going to be killed, which let's just say it's a very, that was a very different Supreme Court.
• 38:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: He was the root card, yeah, yeah, but I just feel like even, you know, you know, hostile card is actually worth, you know, like having these sort of fights in.
• 38:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: But again, this is the absolute power of the narratives and creating a record, right?
• 38:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: You just have to, you know, you're not going to win them all, but you have to go in and Wage these battles and, you know, they're.
• 38:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: In point of fact, any member of Congress can introduce an impeachment resolution at any time.
• 38:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: So you've had Congressman like Al Green and the guy in Michigan who are, you know, was doing it cynically because he's got a left way primary opponent, but whatever, I don't care.
• 38:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: and you just generate voice votes, you get more people each time you do it, and you you get Republicans on the record defending an indefensible presidency.
• 39:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, no, so what I don't under it like, and it's not like Congress is doing anything anyway, right?
• 39:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: Okay, no, no, like you've used this power, you know, it's right there, so yeah, it's baffling to me except it's of a piece with what you're describing as the pre-sleep, pretty jewel, you know, they have this idea like, oh, we can go outside anymore.
• 39:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: Aber.
• 39:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, no, no, but I mean, I think, you know, I mean, we were already violent at the dorms in the sense of like the Trump presidency.
• 39:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: I like the Nixon presidency before is a constitutional crisis.
• 39:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, like the question is to get an opposition that's willing to fight on these kind of like existential grounds.
• 39:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: Right.
• 39:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: And articulate existence earlier like this false distinction between
• 39:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: kitchen table issues and the Imperial Presidency, you know, right now we are seeing, again, like their recklessness of the Imperial Presidency is what's driving the cost of living up.
• 40:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: So every time Democrats sort of say we're not going there because of this, they are missing the crucial connection that people recognize.
• 40:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: Again, it's the White House
• 40:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: be out.
• 40:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it's all of those.
• 40:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, he's literally just building these kind of late Roman monuments to himself.
• 40:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: Never a publicist collapsing.
• 40:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, it's a lot of crap immersive one here, but it's true.
• 40:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like, you know, you know, you know, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I
• 40:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: But, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but
• 41:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you, Jade.
• 41:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: Always a pleasure.