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This Is the Fight Democrats Need To Have · Pod Save America

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• 1:18
  Speaker 3: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
• 1:21
  Speaker 3: On today's show, we're going to talk about the Democrats
• 1:23
  Speaker 3: fighting back against the Trump regime's illegal renditions to a
• 1:27
  Speaker 3: foreign torture dungeon. And Dan just spoke to Maryland Senator
• 1:30
  Speaker 3: Chris Van Hollen, who's in El Salvador trying to get
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  Speaker 3: answers about Kilmar Obrego Garcia, one person the government has
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  Speaker 3: admitted sending to the prison by mistake. We'll also get
• 1:41
  Speaker 3: into Trump's latest targets for retribution, colleges and universities, most
• 1:45
  Speaker 3: notably Harvard. The president is also threatening to fire Federal
• 1:48
  Speaker 3: Reserve Chair Jerome Powell. We'll talk about whether he can
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: or will. And in case you didn't think Elon Musk
• 1:54
  Speaker 3: was creepy enough, there's a shocking new Wall Street Journal
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  Speaker 3: story about the billionaire's, quote, baby-making project. Yeah, that's right.
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  Speaker 3: Then later in the show, Tommy talks to Congressman Jamie Raskin,
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  Speaker 3: the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, about how
• 2:10
  Speaker 3: Democrats are trying to push back on Trump's defiance of
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  Speaker 3: the courts. Big show. But let's start with what's keeping
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  Speaker 3: many of us up at night, at least me. Our
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  Speaker 3: government is disappearing people to a dungeon in El Salvador.
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  Speaker 3: They don't get a trial. They don't get any contact
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  Speaker 3: with a lawyer or their families. They may never leave alive.
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  Speaker 3: And Trump says he's looking into sending American citizens there next.
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  Speaker 3: He said, quote, he would love to do it. Our
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  Speaker 3: courts are trying to stop this. Since our last show, D.C.
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  Speaker 3: Chief District Judge James Boasberg announced that he will start
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  Speaker 3: looking into whether people in the administration should be held
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  Speaker 3: in criminal contempt for their refusal to abide by his
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  Speaker 3: order to halt these renditions under the Alien Enemies Act. Meanwhile,
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  Speaker 3: the disappearance that's attracted the most attention is Kilmar Obrego-Garcia's,
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  Speaker 3: primarily because the government admitted to the Supreme Court that
• 3:06
  Speaker 3: they sent him to the torture dungeon by mistake. But
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  Speaker 3: Trump is so far refusing the court's order to facilitate
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  Speaker 3: Garcia's release. He was asked about this again on Thursday
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  Speaker 3: in the Oval. Here's what he said.
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  Speaker 4: Will you take steps to return Kilmar Abrego Garcia to
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  Speaker 4: the United States.
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  Speaker 2: And put him in front of a judge?
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  Speaker 4: Well, I'm not involved in it.
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  Speaker 5: I'm going to respond by saying you'll have to speak
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  Speaker 5: to the.
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  Speaker 4: Lawyers, the DOJ.
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  Speaker 6: I've heard many things about him, and we'll have to
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  Speaker 6: find out what the truth is.
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  Speaker 3: So the many things about Garcia that Trump referred to
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  Speaker 3: likely match up with the case that his team has
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  Speaker 3: been making, not in court, notably, but in the media,
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  Speaker 3: that Garcia is a foreign terrorist who deserves to spend
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  Speaker 3: the rest of his life in prison. Here's some of
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  Speaker 3: what they're saying.
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  Speaker 2: Nothing will change the fact that Abrego Garcia will never
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  Speaker 2: be a Maryland father. He will never live in the
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: United States of America again.
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  Speaker 7: Every time I read a story about this, it's Maryland father,
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  Speaker 7: Maryland father. They don't mention he's a member of MS-13,
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  Speaker 7: who is a designated terrorist group. If somehow he comes
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  Speaker 7: back and that happens, he's going to be detained and
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  Speaker 7: removed again.
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  Speaker 6: He's an illegal alien, and I'm sick of the liberal
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  Speaker 6: media saying that he's a Maryland man.
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  Speaker 2: He's not a Maryland man.
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  Speaker 3: He's a guy from El Salvador.
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  Speaker 2: Maybe he's not a terrorist, but he's a potential terrorist.
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  Speaker 2: He's a terrorist watch list person.
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  Speaker 3: He could be a terrorist. Any of us could be terrorists,
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  Speaker 3: I guess.
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  Speaker 2: That's why it's going to be a very long watch list.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, a long watch list. A few hours before we
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  Speaker 3: recorded this, we got another ruling in this case, this
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  Speaker 3: time from a three-judge panel at the Fourth Circuit Court
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  Speaker 3: of Appeals. This is their second ruling, by the way,
• 4:48
  Speaker 3: at the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. This one, they
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  Speaker 3: ruled that the government has to comply with a lower
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  Speaker 3: court's order and that they show the steps they're taking
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  Speaker 3: to get Abrego Garcia out of prison. Here's the key
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  Speaker 3: line from the judge who wrote the opinion, a conservative
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  Speaker 3: Reagan appointee who was joined by the other two judges. Quote,
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  Speaker 3: it is difficult in some cases to get to the
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  Speaker 3: very heart of the matter, but in this case, it
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  Speaker 3: is not hard at all. The government is asserting a
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  Speaker 3: right to stash away residents of this country in foreign
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  Speaker 3: prisons without the semblance of due process that is the
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  Speaker 3: foundation of our constitutional order. Further, it claims in essence
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  Speaker 3: that because it has rid itself of custody, that there
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  Speaker 3: is nothing that can be done. This should be shocking,
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  Speaker 3: not only to judges, but to the intuitive sense of
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  Speaker 3: liberty that Americans far removed from courthouses still hold dear.
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  Speaker 3: It's a real barn burner of an opinion. I would
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  Speaker 3: encourage everyone to read the whole thing. Dan, any sense
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  Speaker 3: of what happens next here, now that we are in
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  Speaker 3: this constitutional crisis. I know we've said it before. It
• 5:52
  Speaker 3: sure feels like one. If this isn't a constitutional crisis,
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  Speaker 3: I don't know what is.
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  Speaker 2: You're exactly right. This is the moment. We are not
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  Speaker 2: 100 days into the Trump presidency yet, and we are
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  Speaker 2: headed towards a massive collision between the judicial and executive
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  Speaker 2: branches of our country, the results of which will, I think,
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  Speaker 2: affect our democracy for generations to come. Just the idea,
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  Speaker 2: the judicial branch exists as a check and a balance
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  Speaker 2: on executive to ensure that the president, is not king.
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  Speaker 2: If we lose that at a time in which the
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  Speaker 2: Congress is controlled all by the president's party, all of
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  Speaker 2: whom seem to have never read a constitution and don't
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  Speaker 2: care either way, then Trump has unlimited power. This is
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  Speaker 2: where we're heading. Will Trump step back from the brink?
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  Speaker 2: I think it's notable he said that you have to
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  Speaker 2: talk to his lawyers, but if he doesn't step back
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  Speaker 2: from the brink, will anyone speak up who's not an
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  Speaker 2: elected Democratic member of Congress? Will any Republicans speak up?
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  Speaker 2: Will any Republicans not employed by the bulwark speak up?
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  Speaker 2: Will business leaders speak up? Will anyone in American society
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  Speaker 2: speak up if he operates in pure defiance of these
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  Speaker 2: court orders? Because this is where it comes to. Ultimately,
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  Speaker 2: if Judge Boasberg decides that someone has to be put
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  Speaker 2: in jail because they're held in contempt, the U.S. Marshals
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  Speaker 2: have to put that person in jail. Who controls the U.S. Marshals?
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  Speaker 2: Donald Trump.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, Pam Bondi. Who seems to be a very independent voice.
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  Speaker 6: Yes.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, right.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: Apparently, Boasberg talked about appointing a special prosecutor, which a
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  Speaker 3: judge has the power to do if DOJ is conflicted
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  Speaker 3: or refuses to go along with contempt proceedings. But again,
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  Speaker 3: once you appoint the special prosecutor, the special prosecutor does
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  Speaker 3: their thing. Eventually, you get back to needing to rely
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  Speaker 3: on the marshals if someone's going to jail. or if
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  Speaker 3: someone's not paying the fine they've been given, or if
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  Speaker 3: someone's not, you know, doing what the judge orders. And that's,
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  Speaker 3: you know, that's what the executive has the power there, right?
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  Speaker 3: So this is why it's very, very dicey. I mean,
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  Speaker 3: I just want to, the strategy being employed by the
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  Speaker 3: Trump White House now, and the right-wing media, and all
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  Speaker 3: of their goons, and all their friends, it's important to
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  Speaker 3: highlight what they're doing. And to me, it's even... their
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  Speaker 3: response to this is even more disturbing than what happened
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  Speaker 3: in the first place. Because what they're trying to do is,
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  Speaker 3: when they were in court, they never offered evidence to
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  Speaker 3: prove that this guy is MS-13, right? They never offered evidence,
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  Speaker 3: all the stuff they're saying now, like, oh, well, there
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  Speaker 3: was a, you know, his wife years ago tried to
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  Speaker 3: get a restraining order against him because of domestic violence,
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  Speaker 3: and then she dropped it, and she has since said
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  Speaker 3: that they've They have the rough patch and they're great
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  Speaker 3: now and everything. None of this was introduced in court.
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  Speaker 3: There's still no criminal charges. There's still no solid evidence
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  Speaker 3: that the DOJ has provided any of these courts.
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  Speaker 4: Right.
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  Speaker 3: But what they're doing is now they're trying it in
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  Speaker 3: the court of public opinion. And they're trying to say
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  Speaker 3: this guy that you want to make some as a martyr.
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  Speaker 2: Right?
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  Speaker 3: Like that he's the hero for Democrats now. He's really
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  Speaker 3: just a bad guy. And they think that if they
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  Speaker 3: can get people to just believe he's a bad guy,
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  Speaker 3: what do you care? Why do you need him back?
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  Speaker 3: Then that's enough. But the problem with this is, I mean,
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  Speaker 3: there's a lot of problems with this, but like a very,
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  Speaker 3: you know, you heard Tom Homan, the immigration czar in
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  Speaker 3: that clip that we just played saying like, if he
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  Speaker 3: comes back, we're just going to deport him again. You
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  Speaker 3: know what? A very easy way to handle this would
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  Speaker 3: be for the government to facilitate Garcia's release, flies back
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  Speaker 3: to the U.S., he's detained at customs, and if the
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  Speaker 3: government wants to deport him, they bring their case to
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  Speaker 3: a judge. And if they win, he gets deported to,
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  Speaker 3: I don't know, one of the many countries that are
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  Speaker 3: now taking our deportees. And while I'm sure he would
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  Speaker 3: certainly rather be in Maryland with his family, at the
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  Speaker 3: very least, he would... be in a fucking concentration camp,
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  Speaker 3: which is where he is right now. There's not enough
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  Speaker 3: focus on the prison. It's all focused on like the
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  Speaker 3: character of the people that we're sending. We are sending
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  Speaker 3: people to a foreign prison that might as well be
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  Speaker 3: a concentration camp. It is that the conditions are terrible.
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  Speaker 3: People do not get, it's extra legal.
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  Speaker 7: Right?
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  Speaker 3: How long do these people, are these people going to
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  Speaker 3: sit in that jail? We don't know. They've not been
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  Speaker 3: given any sentences. They've not been convicted of anything. They're
• 10:29
  Speaker 3: just thrown in a hole. They don't get to contact
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  Speaker 3: their family, their lawyers. They are, they don't, the lights
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  Speaker 3: are on 24 hours a day. There is torture. There
• 10:37
  Speaker 3: is starvation. There is like, they're not getting the healthcare
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  Speaker 3: they need and they're dying. I mean, it's just, it
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  Speaker 3: is fucking insane this place, that we're sending people to
• 10:46
  Speaker 3: this place.
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  Speaker 2: And in particular, we're sending people Accused of no crimes.
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  Speaker 6: Right.
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  Speaker 2: It'd be one thing if he was just deported to
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: live– understanding that a judge said he cannot be deported
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  Speaker 2: to El Salvador because it's dangerous. But he could be–
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: even if they said we don't believe– we're going to
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  Speaker 2: get that order removed. We're going to send him to
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  Speaker 2: El Salvador. He's going to live in society in El Salvador.
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  Speaker 2: What is the purpose of him being in this prison
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  Speaker 2: other than keeping him out of the reach of just cruelty, right?
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  Speaker 2: Keeping him out of the reach of the judicial system
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  Speaker 2: and– because if they just send him to El Salvador
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  Speaker 2: in violation of the order– They can find a way
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  Speaker 2: to get him back. But because he's in this prison
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  Speaker 2: that no one who's not a Republican member of Congress
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  Speaker 2: shooting vertical video can get into, then there's no way
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  Speaker 2: to get to him, right? I mean, you'll hear– I
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  Speaker 2: talk about this with Chris Van Hollen in my conversation
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  Speaker 2: coming up. But if you have this case, right, like
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: present it before a judge. Just do that. And then
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  Speaker 2: the president has broad power to deport people if they
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: go through due process. But they are unwilling to do that.
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  Speaker 2: And the reason that they– and the fact that they
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: have picked this case to– this would be such an
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: easy one for them to solve. They admitted they made
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  Speaker 2: a mistake. They bring him back, bring him before the judge.
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  Speaker 2: As you said, he gets deported elsewhere or gets deported
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  Speaker 2: to El Salvador, not in the fucking concentration camp. But
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  Speaker 2: they will not do that because in their mind to
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  Speaker 2: let him back somehow unravels the whole system or, as
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: some people pointed out today, would allow him to talk
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  Speaker 2: about the conditions of the prison. Because everyone else who's
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: been sent there has not been heard from again. Reportedly,
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  Speaker 2: no one has left the prison in the history of
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  Speaker 2: the prison.
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  Speaker 6: Yep.
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  Speaker 3: Yep. And all of the reporting about people who have
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  Speaker 3: died in some of these prisons in El Salvador, it's
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  Speaker 3: some of the other prisons there that they have been
• 12:33
  Speaker 3: able to track some of the people there who've died
• 12:35
  Speaker 3: in those prisons. I think they had like, since Bukele
• 12:39
  Speaker 3: declared a state of emergency and became a dictator, like
• 12:42
  Speaker 3: 350 people in these prisons have died. But you're right.
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  Speaker 3: They don't know. They have no idea what's happening in
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: Seacott because no one's gotten out. And in fact, the
• 12:50
  Speaker 3: justice minister in El Salvador says the only way you
• 12:53
  Speaker 3: get out of Seacott is in a coffin. That's where
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: the United States is sending people right now. And, you know,
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  Speaker 3: there's been comparisons to, and I heard, you know, I
• 13:03
  Speaker 3: heard this today that, and I think Tommy's made the
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  Speaker 3: comparison too, that it's like, you know, we did the,
• 13:09
  Speaker 3: it's like Gitmo, right? But even Gitmo, they were able
• 13:13
  Speaker 3: to file habeas petitions, right? They were able to like
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: ask why they're being detained there, right? And, you know,
• 13:20
  Speaker 3: and it's whatever, shameful. We all disagree about what happened
• 13:23
  Speaker 3: at Gitmo, but even they got more rights than what's
• 13:26
  Speaker 3: happening right now. And one of the judges on the
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: fourth circuit who wrote the first opinion said, even the
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  Speaker 3: fucking Germans who were Nazis in this country during World
• 13:35
  Speaker 3: War II got more due process than these folks that
• 13:39
  Speaker 3: were sending to prison. who at least one of them, Garcia,
• 13:43
  Speaker 3: we know has been sent unlawfully to prison.
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  Speaker 2: For a, what is this? What is a life sentence?
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  Speaker 6: Yes.
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  Speaker 3: It's like, oh, it's the liberals want to bring him home.
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  Speaker 3: But no, no, I just want to fucking shut the
• 13:56
  Speaker 3: prison down or at least stop sending people who are
• 13:59
  Speaker 3: in custody of the United States, who were many of
• 14:02
  Speaker 3: them asylum seekers here legally, stop sending them to a
• 14:04
  Speaker 3: fucking torture dungeon.
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  Speaker 2: That we're paying for. We're paying for it.
• 14:08
  Speaker 3: We're paying for it. Six million dollars a year. One
• 14:13
  Speaker 3: piece of good news in all of this is that
• 14:15
  Speaker 3: Democrats are really starting to fight back. Maryland Senator Chris
• 14:19
  Speaker 3: Van Hollen, who represents Garcia, traveled to El Salvador on Wednesday. Dan,
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: you spoke with him by Zoom today, Thursday afternoon, from
• 14:28
  Speaker 3: San Salvador. Let's listen to that interview.
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: Before we get to the interview, one note. After we
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: recorded the episode and this interview, Senator Van Hollen tweeted
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: that he had actually gotten a chance to meet with
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: Kilmar Abrego-Garcia. We don't have a lot of information yet
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: about how that meeting came to place or what Senator
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: Van Hollen learned in that meeting. We do know that
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: Senator Van Hollen has called Kilmar's wife to pass along
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: his message of love. Later on last night, President Bukele
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: tweeted that now that Kilmar has been confirmed healthy, he
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: gets the honor of staying in El Salvador's custody. We
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: hope to learn more about this today. Joining us today
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: from El Salvador is Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen. Senator,
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: welcome to Pod Save America.
• 15:11
  Speaker 6: Dan, good to be with you.
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: Senator, it's my understanding that you just tried to visit
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: the prison where Kilmar Abrego-Garcia is being held. What happened
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: when you tried to visit?
• 15:22
  Speaker 6: I did try to visit to check on his health,
• 15:24
  Speaker 6: and I was stopped about three kilometers outside of the
• 15:28
  Speaker 6: prison by soldiers who told me I could not proceed.
• 15:33
  Speaker 6: You could see cars continuing to go by. on the road,
• 15:37
  Speaker 6: but they were ordered to stop me from going.
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: Now, we have seen videos, social media posts from Republican
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: members of Congress who have been inside the prison recently.
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: So it's pretty clear that it seems to me at
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: least that you were being targeted because you are not
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: a supporter of Trump's policy here. I assume that's your
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: assumption as well?
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  Speaker 6: I think that's fair. My request also has been to
• 15:57
  Speaker 6: go see Kilmar. Republicans don't seem to care about the
• 16:02
  Speaker 6: fact that he was illegally abducted and taken. to Seacott.
• 16:08
  Speaker 6: The Trump administration seems to be celebrating that fact. And
• 16:12
  Speaker 6: of course, they're ignoring the court orders to facilitate his return.
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  Speaker 2: Now, it's not just you. No one has spoken to
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: Kilmar since he was taken to this prison. Is that correct?
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: Not his wife, not his family. Has his attorney spoken
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: to him?
• 16:25
  Speaker 6: No, they haven't allowed anybody to speak with him. And that,
• 16:28
  Speaker 6: of course, is a violation of international law. But that
• 16:34
  Speaker 6: is the current situation. And I explained to the vice
• 16:38
  Speaker 6: president of El Salvador yesterday that they're really being complicit
• 16:42
  Speaker 6: in these illegal actions by the Trump administration and illegal
• 16:48
  Speaker 6: under U.S. law for lack of due process. But by
• 16:52
  Speaker 6: not allowing him to have any contact with anybody, that's
• 16:55
  Speaker 6: also a violation of international law.
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: As you mentioned, you met with the vice president yesterday.
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: What did the vice president say when you requested that
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: they return Kilmar to the United States?
• 17:06
  Speaker 6: Well, his basic response was that they had this deal
• 17:08
  Speaker 6: with the Trump administration. The Trump administration was paying the
• 17:12
  Speaker 6: government of El Salvador millions of dollars to detain him
• 17:18
  Speaker 6: and others. And I explained that the courts of our country,
• 17:23
  Speaker 6: including the Supreme Court, by nine to zero ruling had
• 17:27
  Speaker 6: ordered the Trump administration to help facilitate his release. You know,
• 17:31
  Speaker 6: the president of El Salvador has said that Well, he
• 17:34
  Speaker 6: doesn't have the power to smuggle, you know, Kilmar back
• 17:38
  Speaker 6: into the United States. I pointed out to the vice president,
• 17:41
  Speaker 6: we're not asking El Salvador to smuggle him in. We
• 17:44
  Speaker 6: just want them to open the prison gate. And Attorney
• 17:47
  Speaker 6: General Bondi did say the other day that they'd send
• 17:50
  Speaker 6: a plane. I don't know if that offer still stands,
• 17:52
  Speaker 6: but I want to make that distinction clear. El Salvador
• 17:56
  Speaker 6: is a sovereign country. We don't think that they can, quote,
• 17:59
  Speaker 6: smuggle him back to the United States. But what they
• 18:00
  Speaker 6: can do is smuggle open the gates to the prison
• 18:04
  Speaker 6: to somebody who's been illegally detained there.
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: And it also seems clear that the Trump administration has
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: not asked for him to be returned. You know, it
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: sort of felt in the meeting with Bukele that, well,
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: we can't, it's up to him, he doesn't want to
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: do it. So, you know, that's the end of the matter.
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: But they also haven't asked, right? There's no evidence that
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: they have done anything to facilitate, correct?
• 18:23
  Speaker 6: Well, that's absolutely right. I mean, the first question I
• 18:26
  Speaker 6: asked of the American embassy team here has Has Washington,
• 18:29
  Speaker 6: has the Trump administration given you any instructions to help
• 18:33
  Speaker 6: facilitate his release? And the answer was no.
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: Obviously, in clear violation of the Supreme Court, the Fourth
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: Circuit just weighed in on this. Have you had a
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: chance to see that opinion?
• 18:43
  Speaker 6: I have a very strong opinion where they said, essentially,
• 18:46
  Speaker 6: they backed up the federal district court judge and said
• 18:50
  Speaker 6: that this violation of due process by the Trump administration
• 18:56
  Speaker 6: goes to the very heart and foundation of of our constitution,
• 19:00
  Speaker 6: a total violation of the due process rights. And they said,
• 19:05
  Speaker 6: I'm reading here that we, which should be shocking for
• 19:09
  Speaker 6: all of us to also listen to the Trump administration's
• 19:13
  Speaker 6: claim that since he's already left the country, they have
• 19:16
  Speaker 6: no obligation to get him back. I mean, they admitted,
• 19:20
  Speaker 6: they admitted in federal court that they had erroneously abducted
• 19:25
  Speaker 6: him and taken him to another prison. And instead of
• 19:27
  Speaker 6: fixing the problem, The Trump administration fired the lawyer who
• 19:32
  Speaker 6: told the truth in court, fired or put on administrative leave.
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: One of the theories, other than just pure cruelty, about
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: why the Trump administration is so unwilling to address what
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: is their own admitted error is that if Kilmar were
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: to come home, he could talk about what he saw
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: in that prison, which is notorious. for torture, starvation, absolute
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: violations of human rights. Do you assume that to be
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: the case as well?
• 19:57
  Speaker 6: I think the Trump administration wants to cover up all
• 19:59
  Speaker 6: of their illegal activity and wrongdoing. That can certainly be
• 20:03
  Speaker 6: a part of it. But they're lying through their teeth
• 20:07
  Speaker 6: every day about this case and trying to fool Americans
• 20:14
  Speaker 6: as to what it's about. What this is about is
• 20:18
  Speaker 6: stripping an individual of his rights to due process. And
• 20:22
  Speaker 6: if you can do this for this individual, the rest
• 20:26
  Speaker 6: of us watch out because what bullies do is they
• 20:28
  Speaker 6: pick first on the most vulnerable. And that's essentially what
• 20:32
  Speaker 6: the Fourth Circuit just said today.
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: I know you're focused on getting Kilmar freed. But over
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: the last 36 hours here, the Trump administration has engaged
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: in a full-throated effort to try to smear his character,
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: putting out evidence that claims he's a domestic abuser, comparing
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: him to Osama bin Laden in one case, saying he's
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: a proven gang member. What's your response to that effort?
• 20:54
  Speaker 6: Well, all I know is the federal judge in the
• 20:55
  Speaker 6: case looked at the administration's claims regarding that he was
• 21:00
  Speaker 6: in MS-13 and found them lacking. That's where the Trump
• 21:06
  Speaker 6: administration should be providing any evidence they have rather than
• 21:09
  Speaker 6: just putting this out in the court of public opinion. Look,
• 21:13
  Speaker 6: I want to be clear. I'm not I don't know
• 21:15
  Speaker 6: every single fact here. What I'm vouching for is the
• 21:20
  Speaker 6: system due process. That's the forum in which these things
• 21:24
  Speaker 6: are decided. And it is exactly that that the Trump
• 21:28
  Speaker 6: administration wants to avoid entirely.
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: So what happens now? You know, what realistically can be done?
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: What are you going to do next? What leverage do
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: Democrats or others back home have in this matter, do
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: you think?
• 21:43
  Speaker 6: Well, number one, I intend to keep a spotlight on
• 21:46
  Speaker 6: this issue because I do believe that, you know, the
• 21:49
  Speaker 6: government of El Salvador, at some point, I think the
• 21:54
  Speaker 6: international community may also weigh in and just say what's
• 21:57
  Speaker 6: happening here is illegal, becoming, you know, contracting out prison
• 22:02
  Speaker 6: in a way that violates people's rights. But the Trump
• 22:06
  Speaker 6: administration is going to be providing those monies to the
• 22:10
  Speaker 6: government of El Salvador. And ultimately, Congress appropriates these funds.
• 22:15
  Speaker 6: And so I'm certainly not going to appropriate one penny
• 22:20
  Speaker 6: of American taxpayer dollars to the government of El Salvador
• 22:26
  Speaker 6: to pay them for violating this individual's rights and violating
• 22:32
  Speaker 6: the rulings of the United States courts with respect to
• 22:35
  Speaker 6: his rights.
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: Are you coming home? Are you staying there much longer?
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: What is your plan?
• 22:40
  Speaker 6: My plan is to come home either later this evening
• 22:44
  Speaker 6: or tomorrow. I've had lots of meetings here. I also
• 22:47
  Speaker 6: met with some of the human rights groups. I met
• 22:50
  Speaker 6: with the lawyer for Kilmar's mother and his wife, who's
• 22:55
  Speaker 6: down here. In to try to go see a Kilmar
• 22:59
  Speaker 6: in prison. He was also blocked by the soldiers when
• 23:03
  Speaker 6: we made that effort. I also met with the US
• 23:07
  Speaker 6: embassy team here to talk about bilateral relations between the
• 23:10
  Speaker 6: United States and El Salvador. But I intend to either
• 23:15
  Speaker 6: leave later tonight or tomorrow morning, but I can assure
• 23:18
  Speaker 6: you and I've assured the government of El Salvador that
• 23:21
  Speaker 6: I may be the first Senator here or the first
• 23:23
  Speaker 6: member of Congress There will be more to come because
• 23:25
  Speaker 6: a lot is at stake for Americans in terms of
• 23:28
  Speaker 6: protecting the right of due process for this individual, but
• 23:33
  Speaker 6: really for every American when it comes right down to
• 23:36
  Speaker 6: it and every resident of the United States.
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: Senator Van Hollen, thank you for joining us. Thank you
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: for what you're doing and safe travels home.
• 23:43
  Speaker 6: Thanks so much. Thank you.
• 23:44
  Speaker 3: All right. So that was Chris Van Hollen. Dan, what
• 23:46
  Speaker 3: do you make of Van Hollen's visit and your conversation
• 23:50
  Speaker 3: with him?
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: First, good for Van Hollen for going. We need people
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: to draw public attention to this. Just as you heard
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: in his interview, like what a surreal authoritarian experience. He
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: can't get to the prison. He can't get information. No
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: one in the embassy has heard anything. Just the fact
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: that it is very clear that Trump has done– as
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: I said to Senator Van Hollen, like in the Oval
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: Office meeting, it's like we asked. He said no. What
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: do you want us to do? But what's very clear
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: from Van Hollen's visit is no one asked.
• 24:22
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: They've done nothing to try to bring him home and
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: seem to be trying very hard to keep him from
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: getting any information. I mean, just as Van Hollen noted,
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: no one has spoken to Kilmar since he went into
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: the prison. Not his lawyer, not his family, not Senator
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: Van Hollen, no one. And that is, as Senator Van
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: Hollen said to me, a violation of international law.
• 24:45
  Speaker 3: Same thing with many of the other people we've sent
• 24:48
  Speaker 3: there who have no.
• 24:52
  Speaker 3: Sure, some people might be gang members and whatever, but
• 24:55
  Speaker 3: like Andre, the gay stylist from Venezuela, who they thought was,
• 25:01
  Speaker 3: you know, his random tattoos of his mom and dad
• 25:04
  Speaker 3: were Trende Aragua, you know? No one's heard from him.
• 25:07
  Speaker 3: No one's heard from any of these people that we've
• 25:08
  Speaker 3: sent there.
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: It's horrifying. It's really horrifying.
• 25:20
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• 26:37
  Speaker 3: A bunch of other Democrats, Cory Booker, Robert Garcia, Maxwell Frost,
• 26:40
  Speaker 3: among them, have said they're trying to go to El
• 26:42
  Speaker 3: Salvador too. I just saw that the House Republicans turned
• 26:45
  Speaker 3: down the House Democrats' request to have a CODEL go
• 26:49
  Speaker 3: there or to be able to go there. They're not
• 26:51
  Speaker 3: going to fund Democrats going there. They're just going to
• 26:52
  Speaker 3: fund House Republicans going there so they can take selfies
• 26:56
  Speaker 3: in front of the prison full of detainees. Do you
• 27:00
  Speaker 3: think that's still worth doing since Van Hollen died? couldn't
• 27:04
  Speaker 3: get anywhere by going. I kind of think it is
• 27:05
  Speaker 3: just because I think it's a show of like, we're
• 27:08
  Speaker 3: going to fight on this, but I don't know what
• 27:09
  Speaker 3: you think. No, I agree.
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: I think people should keep going. The second public attention
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: moves to the next thing, we've lost this, right? And
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: not just for Kilmer. It's not just about Kilmer. This
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: is for everyone who's already been sent and everyone who's
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: going to be sent. And so people should keep going.
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: The only weapon that we have in this environment is
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: public attention and public scrutiny. And we got to keep
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: it focused on this for as long as we possibly can.
• 27:34
  Speaker 3: Not all Democrats want to fight about this. One House
• 27:37
  Speaker 3: Democrat told Axios that this shouldn't be a, quote, big
• 27:41
  Speaker 3: issue for the party and that they should instead focus on, quote,
• 27:44
  Speaker 3: the basic things that affect people every day. Another House
• 27:48
  Speaker 3: Democrat said that this is a, quote, soup du jour issue, a, quote, trap,
• 27:53
  Speaker 3: and that the party shouldn't, quote, take the bait for
• 27:55
  Speaker 3: one hairdresser, referring to Andre Romero, the gay hairdresser from
• 28:00
  Speaker 3: Venezuela with no criminal record who has also disappeared to Seacott.
• 28:04
  Speaker 3: Gavin Newsom called it, quote, the distraction of the day and, quote,
• 28:09
  Speaker 3: exactly the debate they want because they don't want the
• 28:12
  Speaker 3: debate on tariffs. Deep breath. Deep breath. Going to try
• 28:18
  Speaker 3: not to scream about all of this.
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: I'm going to scream about it.
• 28:20
  Speaker 3: I'm going to warn you right now.
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: Good.
• 28:22
  Speaker 3: Thank you. Because I can't anymore. My head's going to
• 28:25
  Speaker 3: fucking pop off my body. You wrote a message box
• 28:28
  Speaker 3: on Thursday making the case that they are wrong. What
• 28:31
  Speaker 3: is your argument?
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: First, I will stipulate happily that all the public opinion
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: research says that the best way to drive down Trump's
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: approval rating is to talk about the economy. Tariffs, inflation,
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: economic chaos, market drops, tax cuts for billionaires, cuts to Medicaid.
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: That is without a doubt the most persuasive message in
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: all the polling, right? I'm not arguing that. I do, however,
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: think that Democrats look cowardly, calculating, and fucking ridiculous at
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: If our response to the father and husband of a U.S.
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: citizen being sent illegally in defiance of a Supreme Court
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: order to a foreign gulag is to vomit up some
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: poll-tested talking points about tariffs, to turn our back to it,
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: that is absurd. Who are we and what do we
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: stand for if we do that? We don't always get
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: to pick the fights. Trump gets to pick them most
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: of the time. The fights come to us and we
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: have to decide how to win them. And at this moment,
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: with so much on the line, not just for Kilmer, Obrego, Garcia,
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: but for democracy, for the rule of law, for due process,
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: this is an important fight. And the idea that Democrats
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: lose every time we talk about immigration is such learned helplessness,
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: it drives me bananas. Yes, it is a strong issue
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: for Trump. Yes, people want a stronger border. Yes, people
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: want gang members and violent criminals out of this country. Yes,
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: they want less chaos at the border. And they want, frankly,
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: a lot of the migrants who came here in the
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: last few years to go home. But the people they
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: do not want deported, the people who have, like Gilmore
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: Brigham Garcia, who have been here for 10 years, who
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: are married to a U.S. citizen, who have U.S. citizen
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: children in this country, people who are gainfully employed, people
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: who are paying taxes, abiding by the law. Those are
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: the people that majorities of Americans, including large swaths of Republicans,
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: believe should be given an opportunity for a path to citizenship,
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: to find a way to have them stay here. Pay taxes,
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: follow the law, go to the back of the line,
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: whatever else. But that is what people believe. When they
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: think about mass deportation, they don't think about people like Kilmer, Bragg,
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: or Garcia. And if we turn our blind eye here,
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: we are seeding the ground. I think Democrats are learning
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: the wrong lesson from 2024. We did not lose on
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: immigration because we talked about people like Kilmer Abrego Garcia
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: too much. We lost because we ceded the issue to
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump. We allowed him to decide that immigration was
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: about border security and border security only. And we tried
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: to out-tough him on who would be tougher on transnational gangs.
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: Of course, he's going to win that fight. But when
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: you brought in the issue to talk about who is
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: actually going to solve the problem, the complex problem of
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: immigration in this country, if you talk about what mass
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: deportation means for people who have been in this country
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: for a long time, for our communities, for the workforce.
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: That is a fight we can win, and we just
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: never tried to win it. So this idea that this
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: is some sort of trap is idiocy, but it also–
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: it's a fight we can win. We have a lot
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: of public opinion on our side here. And so I
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: just– it is so frustrating that our party in the
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: face of something so serious, so dangerous, so real would
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: be such– prisoners to polls for an election that's happening
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: in 16 months is exactly why people hate politics. I'm
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: so pulsing with rage right now over this. It's like,
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: if we are not willing to stand up here, then
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: I don't know what we are fighting for or what
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: we stand for or who we are.
• 32:15
  Speaker 3: You don't think if we just get egg prices down
• 32:17
  Speaker 3: a bit, then that'll... I feel like some of these
• 32:20
  Speaker 3: I feel like some of these Democratic politicians are going
• 32:22
  Speaker 3: to be screaming, what about the egg prices as they
• 32:26
  Speaker 3: are hauled off to El Salvador to rot in prison?
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: You know where people find out what the egg prices are?
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: It's not from a press release from a Democratic member
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: of Congress. It's when they go to the grocery store.
• 32:35
  Speaker 3: That is one of my big points on this, which
• 32:37
  Speaker 3: is the effects of Trump fucking up the U.S. economy
• 32:46
  Speaker 3: and maybe the global economy are going to be felt
• 32:48
  Speaker 3: by people in their everyday lives, whether Democrats talk about
• 32:52
  Speaker 3: it or not, particularly now this far out from an election.
• 32:56
  Speaker 3: The politics of immigration. You, Gov, tested this question two
• 33:01
  Speaker 3: weeks ago. Do you support or oppose deporting immigrants without
• 33:05
  Speaker 3: criminal convictions to El Salvador to be imprisoned without letting
• 33:08
  Speaker 3: them challenge the deportation in court? This was on a
• 33:12
  Speaker 3: list of, I don't know, about like 12 Trump policies.
• 33:16
  Speaker 3: It was the least popular. Under tariffs. Less popular than
• 33:21
  Speaker 3: the tariffs. And it was 61-26 people opposed this. 61%
• 33:25
  Speaker 3: to 26%. Signal, which is a right-leaning polling organization, tested
• 33:32
  Speaker 3: support or oppose deporting people who entered the U.S. legally
• 33:35
  Speaker 3: on humanitarian status. That's Andri, the Venezuelan hairdresser. 36-56% 56%
• 33:42
  Speaker 3: of people oppose that, only 36% support deporting those people. So, yes,
• 33:47
  Speaker 3: the politics are on our side, first of all, but
• 33:50
  Speaker 3: even if those numbers were flipped and the politics were
• 33:51
  Speaker 3: on our side, you know what, to that Democrat who
• 33:54
  Speaker 3: talked to Axios, what the basic things that affect people
• 33:57
  Speaker 3: day to day, one of those things is whether you
• 33:59
  Speaker 3: can walk down the street without a van pulling up
• 34:01
  Speaker 3: with masked people throwing you in the back and shipping
• 34:04
  Speaker 3: you to El Salvador so you're in a prison for
• 34:06
  Speaker 3: the rest of your life. That affects your day to
• 34:07
  Speaker 3: day life. And if you think it's just going to
• 34:09
  Speaker 3: happen to Kilmar Obrego Garcia, because you think he might
• 34:12
  Speaker 3: be a bad guy because he's MS-13, three US citizens
• 34:15
  Speaker 3: have now received emails in the past week from the
• 34:18
  Speaker 3: government telling them to leave the US immediately. Two of
• 34:21
  Speaker 3: them were immigration attorneys. One was a doctor from Connecticut
• 34:25
  Speaker 3: who has absolutely nothing to do with immigration. She was
• 34:28
  Speaker 3: talking to the new, like, she's like, I have no
• 34:29
  Speaker 3: idea why I got this email, but I had to
• 34:31
  Speaker 3: get an attorney, an immigration attorney, because I'm like, maybe
• 34:34
  Speaker 3: it was an error, but it was pretty serious. And
• 34:36
  Speaker 3: it told me to leave the country. And you think
• 34:38
  Speaker 3: the Department of Homeland Security or CPB or ICE would
• 34:40
  Speaker 3: be like, oh, I'm so sorry. These emails were sent
• 34:42
  Speaker 3: in error and said they were like, they may have
• 34:44
  Speaker 3: been sent in error, but they may have been trying
• 34:46
  Speaker 3: to get to an illegal alien and blah, blah, blah.
• 34:48
  Speaker 3: And people should take it seriously. So those are U.S. citizens.
• 34:51
  Speaker 3: There was a story, another story in Boston, a man
• 34:54
  Speaker 3: from Guatemala who's here legally. His wife has asylum protections.
• 34:58
  Speaker 3: She's here legally as well. They were both pulled over.
• 35:01
  Speaker 3: they wanted to wait for their lawyer. While they were
• 35:04
  Speaker 3: saying that they wanted to wait for their lawyer to
• 35:06
  Speaker 3: the ICE agent, the ICE agent smashed his window, dragged
• 35:10
  Speaker 3: him and his wife out of the car, took them
• 35:12
  Speaker 3: into custody. And then ICE said, oh, we were looking
• 35:15
  Speaker 3: for someone named Antonio. The guy's name is Juan. And
• 35:19
  Speaker 3: he's still, they're still trying to get him out, right? Now,
• 35:23
  Speaker 3: a lot of these people, maybe it's a mistake. Maybe
• 35:26
  Speaker 3: they get out. Maybe it's no problem. But like, Or
• 35:29
  Speaker 3: maybe they get sent to El Salvador by mistake, which
• 35:32
  Speaker 3: the government has already admitted that it did with Garcia.
• 35:35
  Speaker 3: And then what's going to happen? The government's going to, oh, well,
• 35:38
  Speaker 3: in El Salvador, nothing we can do. Nothing we can do.
• 35:41
  Speaker 3: That's their argument. In the most generous terms, if they
• 35:44
  Speaker 3: just mistakenly send some people to El Salvador, nothing we
• 35:48
  Speaker 3: can do. Sorry. This is not like... Like, should we
• 35:53
  Speaker 3: fight on this issue? This is the issue, right? Living
• 35:55
  Speaker 3: in a fucking free country where the government doesn't, we're
• 35:59
  Speaker 3: not in a police state where the government scoops you up.
• 36:01
  Speaker 3: If you don't fight this, what are you doing? You're
• 36:03
  Speaker 3: fighting for fucking, to avoid Medicaid cuts and lower egg prices? Yeah.
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: Like, if we wanted to have a debate about what
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: the ad traffic should be in New York 17 or
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: wherever in October of 2026... That's a real debate. We
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: are not there. This is happening. And if Democrats don't
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: speak out about it, and this has been my argument
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: that I've been making in recent weeks, is we know
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: the media just doesn't have the reach or the power
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: to make people know about these things right now. And
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: the only thing we can do, the only power we
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: have right now is our voice. We don't have the
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: ability to pass legislation to stop them. We don't have
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: the ability to stop him from confirming these judges. We
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: just don't, we have no tools other than our voice.
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: So we should use that right now. Because if we
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: don't do it, no one else is going to do it.
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: And then Trump is going to get away with all
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: of this.
• 36:51
  Speaker 3: And I do want to say, before we move up
• 36:52
  Speaker 3: the Democrats, like, I think after the Oval Office meeting
• 36:56
  Speaker 3: with Bukele, I noticed, because I was like, again, I
• 36:59
  Speaker 3: was like, why aren't Democrats talking about this? And I
• 37:01
  Speaker 3: saw more elected Democrats speaking out, not just posting, you know,
• 37:06
  Speaker 3: but like, talking about it, Van Hollen's going, all these guys.
• 37:09
  Speaker 3: So like, I do think that most elected Democrats are
• 37:12
  Speaker 3: ignoring the advice of some of their colleagues and probably
• 37:16
  Speaker 3: most Democratic strategists, I'm guessing, are behind this. People who
• 37:19
  Speaker 3: are like got their head deep in the polls. And
• 37:22
  Speaker 3: so I'm encouraged by most of the party.
• 37:25
  Speaker 8: Yes.
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: Like obviously Chris Murphy's been talking about this stuff. Cory
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: Booker's been talking about it. AOC and Bernie talked about
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: it at the rallies over the weekend. Like more and
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: more people are talking about it, but there is still
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: this instinctual reticence to take Trump on on these issues
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: that I think is going to be very damaging to
• 37:43
  Speaker 2: the party in the long run, not to mention the
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: country itself.
• 37:46
  Speaker 6: Right.
• 37:47
  Speaker 3: And even if you don't care about the country and
• 37:49
  Speaker 3: the party, if you care about just your own narrow
• 37:51
  Speaker 3: political considerations, you're looking to run for president in 2028.
• 37:55
  Speaker 3: Look at the fucking latest polls of who's on top
• 37:59
  Speaker 3: in the primary field, the people who are Cory Booker
• 38:02
  Speaker 3: is now second in some polls because he went up
• 38:05
  Speaker 3: there and gave that filibuster and showed that he's willing
• 38:08
  Speaker 3: to fight. There is political benefit to this.
• 38:12
  Speaker 2: I mean, there's individual political benefit for someone who wants
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: to be president. There's also collective political benefit for the
• 38:17
  Speaker 2: party to be seen as people who will fight for something.
• 38:20
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 38:21
  Speaker 6: Yes.
• 38:21
  Speaker 3: And that, I mean, yeah.
• 38:23
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 38:24
  Speaker 3: Two other items on this that I think should serve
• 38:26
  Speaker 3: as a preview of coming attractions. Brendan Carr. the Project
• 38:31
  Speaker 3: 2025 co-author turned chairman of the Federal Communications Commission under Trump,
• 38:37
  Speaker 3: attacked Comcast in a tweet this week because he isn't
• 38:41
  Speaker 3: happy with how they're covering the Garcia case. He also
• 38:44
  Speaker 3: included this threat, quote, Comcast knows that federal law requires
• 38:49
  Speaker 3: its licensed operations to serve the public interest. News distortion
• 38:54
  Speaker 3: doesn't cut it. Did he point out any specific examples
• 38:58
  Speaker 3: of MSNBC's Lying? Giving the wrong facts? No, not at all. Nothing.
• 39:05
  Speaker 3: He's just upset with the coverage. Meanwhile, OG Trump goon
• 39:08
  Speaker 3: Sebastian Gorka, he's back in the game as the White
• 39:12
  Speaker 3: House counterterrorism czar, he went on Newsmax this week to
• 39:15
  Speaker 3: say this.
• 39:16
  Speaker 8: The other side that is on the side of the
• 39:19
  Speaker 8: cartel members, on the side of the illegal aliens, on
• 39:22
  Speaker 8: the side of the terrorists, and you have to ask yourself,
• 39:26
  Speaker 8: are they technically aiding and abetting them? Because aiding aiding
• 39:30
  Speaker 8: and abetting criminals and terrorists is a crime in federal statute, Rob.
• 39:35
  Speaker 3: Aiding and abetting. If you don't like Trump disappearing people
• 39:39
  Speaker 3: to foreign prisons, you may be aiding and abetting terrorism.
• 39:44
  Speaker 3: Seems bad. How seriously do you take these threats from
• 39:47
  Speaker 3: these two goons?
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: I think we should take them deadly seriously. It was
• 39:50
  Speaker 2: just this time last week that you and I were
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: talking about the president of the United States sitting in
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: the Oval Office and signing two executive orders to target
• 39:57
  Speaker 2: two specific individuals for the crime of criticizing the regime
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: to instruct the Department of Justice to investigate them. So, like,
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: Seb Gorka and Brendan Carr, frankly, are deeply unserious people,
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: but the Trump era is about unserious people having deadly
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: serious power, and so we should expect them to wield
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: that in ways that could be quite dangerous.
• 40:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and this is why, like, The whole terrorist thing,
• 40:20
  Speaker 3: they're throwing around terrorists a lot these days. You're a
• 40:24
  Speaker 3: terrorist supporter. It's not enough for you to maybe have
• 40:28
  Speaker 3: weak ties or unproven ties to a gang. Now it
• 40:31
  Speaker 3: has to be a foreign terrorist organization. And this is
• 40:35
  Speaker 3: how it starts, right? And again, we're only 100 days in.
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. Therapy can feel like
• 40:51
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• 40:54
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• 40:55
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• 41:59
  Speaker 3: That's BetterHelp.com. The Trump regime has also been targeting a
• 42:08
  Speaker 3: number of other political enemies lately. The Times reports that
• 42:11
  Speaker 3: a housing official in the Trump administration is referring New
• 42:15
  Speaker 3: York Attorney General Tish James for criminal prosecution by the
• 42:18
  Speaker 3: Justice Department for allegedly falsifying real estate records, which is
• 42:22
  Speaker 3: what she went after Trump for. Pam Bondi is suing
• 42:25
  Speaker 3: the state of Maine for not complying with their trans
• 42:28
  Speaker 3: athlete ban. An interim U.S. attorney for New Jersey, former
• 42:31
  Speaker 3: Trump personal attorney Alina Haba, announced late last week that
• 42:35
  Speaker 3: she plans to investigate New Jersey's Democratic Governor Phil Murphy
• 42:38
  Speaker 3: and his Attorney General over immigration enforcement. But the biggest
• 42:42
  Speaker 3: news of the week is Trump going after Harvard. We
• 42:45
  Speaker 3: talked about Harvard's decision to fight back on Tuesday's pod,
• 42:48
  Speaker 3: but there are a couple updates here. First, in response
• 42:51
  Speaker 3: to Harvard, the government has moved to eliminate over $ 2
• 42:54
  Speaker 3: billion in grants and $ 60 million in contracts from the school.
• 42:59
  Speaker 3: Then on Tuesday morning, Trump posted to Truth Social that
• 43:02
  Speaker 3: Harvard should, quote, perhaps lose its tax-exempt status. Sure enough,
• 43:07
  Speaker 3: CNN reported on Wednesday that the IRS is making plans
• 43:10
  Speaker 3: to do exactly that. Later that day, Secretary of Homeland
• 43:13
  Speaker 3: Security Kristi Noem demanded that Harvard submit lists of international
• 43:18
  Speaker 3: students who have engaged in, quote, illegal and violent activities
• 43:22
  Speaker 3: before the month is out, or the school will risk
• 43:25
  Speaker 3: losing the certification that allows it to enroll any foreign
• 43:28
  Speaker 3: students at all. They are threatening to eliminate Harvard's ability
• 43:33
  Speaker 3: to take any foreign students. Because they're mad at Harvard.
• 43:37
  Speaker 3: To take the foreign students things first, do you want
• 43:39
  Speaker 3: to talk about just why that's such a big deal
• 43:41
  Speaker 3: to schools like Harvard?
• 43:42
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 43:43
  Speaker 2: The foreign students pay full freight. They are not eligible
• 43:47
  Speaker 2: for financial aid in the way that U.S. students are. Oftentimes,
• 43:51
  Speaker 2: they are children of wealthy people abroad or their education
• 43:54
  Speaker 2: is being funded by nonprofits or organizations from abroad. So
• 43:58
  Speaker 2: the students who are paying full tuition are subsidizing the
• 44:02
  Speaker 2: tuitions of the kids who are getting financial aid. So
• 44:05
  Speaker 2: if you were to get rid of all the foreign students,
• 44:08
  Speaker 2: what that would mean is that tuition for everyone else
• 44:10
  Speaker 2: would go up, which would be just the pitch perfect
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: addition to the Trump agenda to raise prices on every
• 44:17
  Speaker 2: American in every facet of their lives. We're going to
• 44:19
  Speaker 2: do it for smartphones. We're going to do it for
• 44:21
  Speaker 2: car seats. We're going to do it for eggs. We're
• 44:23
  Speaker 2: going to do it for college tuition too.
• 44:26
  Speaker 3: And how would stripping Harvard's tax status work? What would
• 44:29
  Speaker 3: that do? Why is that a big deal?
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: That would be a massive deal for Harvard because it
• 44:34
  Speaker 2: would mean they would all of a sudden owe taxes
• 44:37
  Speaker 2: on everything, including their $ 60 billion, whatever it is, endowment,
• 44:42
  Speaker 2: property taxes, state taxes. It also would reduce their ability
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: to raise money because donations to a university are tax deductible.
• 44:53
  Speaker 2: There's often part of the charitable giving plans of foundations
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: or individuals that So for example, when Jared Kushner's dad
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: bought that building so that Jared Kushner could go to Harvard,
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: he got to write that off on his taxes. And
• 45:03
  Speaker 2: so they would owe more money and they'd be able
• 45:06
  Speaker 2: to raise less money. And now the question is, can
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: they actually do that? The president does not have unilateral
• 45:14
  Speaker 2: authority to do it, although the IRS are the ones
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: who decide whether someone has tax exempt status. There is
• 45:20
  Speaker 2: a pretty narrow statutory definition for what you cannot do
• 45:25
  Speaker 2: to retain your tax exempt status. And it's a certain
• 45:27
  Speaker 2: amount of political lobbying and becoming a private, you know, profiteering.
• 45:33
  Speaker 2: And so they did it theoretically in a world where
• 45:35
  Speaker 2: there were rules and norms and courts and court decisions
• 45:37
  Speaker 2: abided by, they would have to prove that the, that
• 45:41
  Speaker 2: Harvard did something to violate their tax status on that very,
• 45:45
  Speaker 2: those very narrow statutory grounds. And so the second would happen, which, which,
• 45:51
  Speaker 2: I would find it hard to imagine that Harvard did
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: anything like that. But it can't be, we didn't like
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: their response to the Gaza protests. It cannot be a broad,
• 46:01
  Speaker 2: unsubstantiated allegation of anti-Semitism. It cannot be political speech. It
• 46:06
  Speaker 2: cannot be bias.
• 46:08
  Speaker 3: Yeah, which Trump has already discarded their defense there on
• 46:12
  Speaker 3: anti-Semitism because Trump was like, Also, they're just so liberal.
• 46:16
  Speaker 3: They're just too liberal.
• 46:17
  Speaker 2: But none of those things, you cannot do this on
• 46:19
  Speaker 2: First Amendment grounds. That is very clear in case law
• 46:23
  Speaker 2: that you cannot take away their tax status because you
• 46:25
  Speaker 2: do not like what they say. In a world where
• 46:28
  Speaker 2: there are norms and laws and people in court decision people.
• 46:31
  Speaker 4: Abide by them.
• 46:32
  Speaker 3: It doesn't seem like they're going to stop with Harvard
• 46:34
  Speaker 3: either on this. There's a lot of rumors and concerns
• 46:39
  Speaker 3: that they're going to go after people with 501c3 status. Yeah. uh, nonprofits.
• 46:44
  Speaker 3: Trump was asked about it today again, uh, when he
• 46:47
  Speaker 3: was signing some EOs and he said, he's mentioned crew
• 46:50
  Speaker 3: citizens for responsibility of ethics in Washington. Uh, he talked
• 46:53
  Speaker 3: about them. He talked about some climate groups. So I
• 46:56
  Speaker 3: think there's more of this coming. And, um, again, like
• 47:00
  Speaker 3: good for Harvard for standing up. I saw the Stanford
• 47:04
  Speaker 3: did the same thing Northwestern. So I think that like
• 47:07
  Speaker 3: Harvard standing up is hopefully inspiring. We were talking about
• 47:10
  Speaker 3: this on last episode, hopefully inspiring other colleges to stand
• 47:13
  Speaker 3: up as well and not be Columbia.
• 47:16
  Speaker 2: Well, Columbia had learned the lesson pretty quickly since they
• 47:19
  Speaker 2: caved and then Trump immediately demanded more from them.
• 47:22
  Speaker 6: Yes.
• 47:23
  Speaker 3: Obviously, the administration is targeting Harvard because it's the most
• 47:26
  Speaker 3: elite of the elite institutions. And it does seem like
• 47:30
  Speaker 3: they are daring Democrats to defend these institutions. We've talked
• 47:34
  Speaker 3: a lot about putting us in a position to defend
• 47:36
  Speaker 3: institutions here. How are you thinking about that now?
• 47:40
  Speaker 2: I think we have to stop trying to litigate this
• 47:44
  Speaker 2: on each individual data point and make a broader argument
• 47:48
  Speaker 2: about abuse of power. There's a very interesting navigator poll
• 47:52
  Speaker 2: out today, which talks about how people are feeling about
• 47:56
  Speaker 2: Trump and one of their big concerns is abuse of
• 47:58
  Speaker 2: power and thinking he's above the law. And I think
• 48:00
  Speaker 2: that these are examples of that. Like we need to
• 48:03
  Speaker 2: tell a story, not just respond, not play whack-a-mole with
• 48:06
  Speaker 2: every single thing Trump does.
• 48:08
  Speaker 3: I think equality under the law is like a bedrock
• 48:12
  Speaker 3: principle of America that everyone gets, that everyone supports, that,
• 48:17
  Speaker 3: you know, because when you frame it as institutions and
• 48:20
  Speaker 3: due process and all that, but like when you're talking
• 48:21
  Speaker 3: about everyone deserves to be treated equally, everyone deserves a
• 48:26
  Speaker 3: chance to defend themselves in court. Like just the most
• 48:29
  Speaker 3: basic foundational principles of the country. Talk about it in
• 48:34
  Speaker 3: those terms. I do think that it's a powerful case.
• 48:37
  Speaker 3: One other Trump target who's back in the president's crosshairs,
• 48:40
  Speaker 3: the chairman of the Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell, who was
• 48:43
  Speaker 3: the first appointed to the job in 2017 by Donald Trump.
• 48:47
  Speaker 2: Not that guy.
• 48:49
  Speaker 3: Powell said this week that Trump's tariffs are, quote, highly
• 48:52
  Speaker 3: likely to cause a spike in inflation. Trump responded on
• 48:55
  Speaker 3: Truth Social, where he does all his best work, that, quote,
• 48:58
  Speaker 3: Powell's termination cannot come fast enough. Powell's current term doesn't
• 49:02
  Speaker 3: expire until May of next year. He has maintained that
• 49:05
  Speaker 3: he cannot be fired by the president. And Politico reported
• 49:08
  Speaker 3: Thursday that Treasury Secretary Scott Besant has, quote, repeatedly cautioned
• 49:12
  Speaker 3: White House officials that Trump trying to fire Powell would, quote,
• 49:15
  Speaker 3: risk destabilizing financial markets. Is Trump listening to Scott Besson's advice?
• 49:20
  Speaker 3: Let's find out.
• 49:21
  Speaker 8: Oh, he'll leave.
• 49:22
  Speaker 2: If I ask him to, he'll be out of there.
• 49:24
  Speaker 5: But I don't think he's doing the job.
• 49:29
  Speaker 6: He's too late, always too late, a little slow, and
• 49:33
  Speaker 6: I'm not happy with him.
• 49:36
  Speaker 8: I let him know it, and.
• 49:39
  Speaker 6: So if I want him out, he'll be out of
• 49:41
  Speaker 6: there real fast.
• 49:42
  Speaker 5: Believe me.
• 49:45
  Speaker 3: Nice work, Scott Besson. Just what the economy needs. Some
• 49:50
  Speaker 3: uncertainty over the future of the Fed chair as we
• 49:54
  Speaker 3: still grapple with inflation and now a global trade war
• 49:58
  Speaker 3: that could tip us into recession. How do you think
• 50:00
  Speaker 3: this plays out?
• 50:00
  Speaker 2: I mean, this one is.
• 50:03
  Speaker 2: Alarming and fascinating on a whole host of levels. I mean,
• 50:07
  Speaker 2: the market chaos of firing Powell would be devastating. It'd
• 50:12
  Speaker 2: be somewhat akin to the freak out in the bond
• 50:15
  Speaker 2: market that caused Trump to back off the reciprocal tariffs
• 50:19
  Speaker 2: because it would do two things. One, replacing Powell with
• 50:23
  Speaker 2: a Trump goon like Kevin Hassett, the goober at the NEC,
• 50:27
  Speaker 2: which is what was speculated in some of the reporting today.
• 50:29
  Speaker 2: would raise questions about the independence of US monetary policy, obviously,
• 50:35
  Speaker 2: which would ring into question the idea that the US
• 50:38
  Speaker 2: is the world's reserve currency, which is the foundation of
• 50:41
  Speaker 2: economic strength. So that would– real fears of financial crisis
• 50:44
  Speaker 2: and sparking global recession there. But then also, the reason
• 50:49
  Speaker 2: he wants to fire him, as he said on True Social,
• 50:52
  Speaker 2: is because he wants Powell to cut rates. The reason
• 50:55
  Speaker 2: Powell is not cutting rates more is because he's worried
• 50:57
  Speaker 2: about inflation and sparked in part because of Trump's policies
• 51:00
  Speaker 2: like tariffs. And so if you bring someone in during
• 51:06
  Speaker 2: a time of possibly growing inflation and have them cut rates,
• 51:09
  Speaker 2: you're going to lead to more inflation and to be
• 51:13
  Speaker 2: deeply damaging to our economy and the world. And so
• 51:16
  Speaker 2: that's what happens, he puts there. The interesting question here is,
• 51:19
  Speaker 2: like Trump obviously wants to bully him out. Like that's
• 51:21
  Speaker 2: the easiest path, just force him to resign like he
• 51:23
  Speaker 2: did Christopher Wray and some other people within the government.
• 51:26
  Speaker 2: If he wants to fire him, It is believed he
• 51:28
  Speaker 2: does not have the power to do that, right? That
• 51:30
  Speaker 2: the Fed has independence. But what not just Trump, but
• 51:35
  Speaker 2: the right has wanted forever is to test the idea
• 51:37
  Speaker 2: of the unitary executive theory, right? The idea that Trump
• 51:42
  Speaker 2: has control over the entire executive branch, including independent agencies,
• 51:45
  Speaker 2: including the Fed. And so this would be, if he
• 51:48
  Speaker 2: fired him, probably be stopped. It would go to the
• 51:50
  Speaker 2: Supreme Court. And then we would test this big case,
• 51:53
  Speaker 2: which would have massive implications for the balance of power
• 51:56
  Speaker 2: in this country.
• 51:58
  Speaker 3: Do you think maybe Jerome Powell just needs to read
• 52:00
  Speaker 3: the art of the deal? That would set him straight?
• 52:06
  Speaker 2: Like everyone else in America, but required to do so
• 52:08
  Speaker 2: before too long.
• 52:10
  Speaker 3: I know there is, you know, and I do think
• 52:13
  Speaker 3: there's a good chance that the Supreme Court could rule
• 52:16
  Speaker 3: on some of these cases that Trump has more power
• 52:21
  Speaker 3: over these independent agencies than we thought. The law is
• 52:23
  Speaker 3: pretty explicit. around the Fed that the Fed chair can
• 52:27
  Speaker 3: only be fired for cause, for malicious behavior or whatever.
• 52:31
  Speaker 3: I don't know if there's a certain standard there. I
• 52:34
  Speaker 3: guess the Supreme Court could say that law is just
• 52:36
  Speaker 3: unconstitutional that was passed by Congress, but it does seem
• 52:39
  Speaker 3: like they have a little more insulation at the Fed
• 52:42
  Speaker 3: than they do in some of these other independent agencies,
• 52:44
  Speaker 3: which are no longer independent.
• 52:46
  Speaker 2: They would need a majority to adopt the idea of
• 52:47
  Speaker 2: a unitary executive.
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 52:51
  Speaker 3: So as we've been talking about Trump's attempts to trample
• 52:54
  Speaker 3: on the courts and the universities and the Fed chair,
• 52:56
  Speaker 3: some of you might be thinking, isn't there another branch
• 52:59
  Speaker 3: of government that's supposed to have some power here? Indeed,
• 53:02
  Speaker 3: there is. It's called Congress, Dan.
• 53:04
  Speaker 7: What?
• 53:05
  Speaker 3: I haven't heard about that in a while. Yeah, it's
• 53:07
  Speaker 3: controlled by Republicans, barely, who are apparently scared shitless of
• 53:11
  Speaker 3: pissing off Donald Trump. Here's Alaska's Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski
• 53:15
  Speaker 3: at a nonprofit conference in Anchorage on Monday.
• 53:19
  Speaker 6: What do you have to say to people who are afraid?
• 53:23
  Speaker 5: Or who represent people who are afraid?
• 53:27
  Speaker 3: We are all afraid.
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: Okay?
• 53:34
  Speaker 2: It's quite a statement.
• 53:39
  Speaker 6: But we are.
• 53:46
  Speaker 5: We're in a time and a place where I don't know,
• 53:50
  Speaker 5: I certainly have not been here before. And I'll tell you.
• 53:58
  Speaker 7: I'm.
• 54:01
  Speaker 5: Oftentimes very anxious myself about using my voice because retaliation
• 54:11
  Speaker 5: is real. And that's not right.
• 54:17
  Speaker 3: I mean, look, I have a lot of thoughts about that.
• 54:22
  Speaker 3: And some of them are, you know, some part of
• 54:25
  Speaker 3: me wanted to react to like, you know, pull my
• 54:27
  Speaker 3: hair out and be like, hello, you're a Republican senator.
• 54:31
  Speaker 3: Like you have some power here. But just the way
• 54:34
  Speaker 3: that she answered that and like the pause before she said,
• 54:38
  Speaker 3: we're all afraid. And then she said, that's quite a statement.
• 54:41
  Speaker 3: Like she's, you can tell she's legitimately afraid, grappling with it,
• 54:44
  Speaker 3: trying to figure out what to do. And it was
• 54:50
  Speaker 3: sort of chilling.
• 54:51
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 54:51
  Speaker 2: That was my reaction.
• 54:53
  Speaker 3: It's like, wow, we are here.
• 54:55
  Speaker 2: We could scream about it because she could, you know,
• 54:57
  Speaker 2: she could do more, although her power is certainly limited
• 55:00
  Speaker 2: within that caucus. But I think it's just, it's a
• 55:03
  Speaker 2: real statement from where we are that a Republican Senator,
• 55:05
  Speaker 2: one with an independent base of political power, right? Trump
• 55:07
  Speaker 2: really can't, of all the Republican Senators, she's the hardest
• 55:12
  Speaker 2: one for him to do something to.
• 55:13
  Speaker 3: She won a write-in campaign.
• 55:15
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 55:16
  Speaker 3: The Republican Party tried to drive her out. She was
• 55:19
  Speaker 3: so popular. She's a longtime senator. She's a senior Republican.
• 55:24
  Speaker 3: And she's still scared.
• 55:26
  Speaker 2: That should say a lot.
• 55:29
  Speaker 3: I don't know, man.
• 55:29
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 55:31
  Speaker 3: I do think that her speaking out, people talking about
• 55:36
  Speaker 3: being scared, and then people saying, you know what? Yeah,
• 55:38
  Speaker 3: we're all scared, but we're going to speak out anyway.
• 55:41
  Speaker 3: And again, there's strength in numbers. And the more people
• 55:44
  Speaker 3: speaking out, the more Places like Harvard saying like, no,
• 55:47
  Speaker 3: we're not going to deal with this shit. Chris Van
• 55:50
  Speaker 3: Hollen saying, you know what? I'm going to El Salvador.
• 55:53
  Speaker 3: Even though that's, you know, carries with it a lot
• 55:55
  Speaker 3: of risk as well. Some of these other Democrats doing that.
• 55:58
  Speaker 3: Cory Booker going on the floor for 24 hours, right?
• 56:00
  Speaker 3: Like we're starting to see people going to the hands-off rallies.
• 56:03
  Speaker 3: You know, we're starting to see as things get really
• 56:07
  Speaker 3: dark and bad really fast, people feeling more courageous and
• 56:12
  Speaker 3: showing that courage in different ways. And back to your
• 56:15
  Speaker 3: earlier point, like that's all we have right now, right?
• 56:18
  Speaker 3: Is we have like our strength in numbers and our
• 56:20
  Speaker 3: voices and our ability to try to focus public attention
• 56:25
  Speaker 3: on what's going on. And it doesn't feel like much,
• 56:28
  Speaker 3: but it's something, you know, all we got.
• 56:31
  Speaker 2: You're right. It's all we have. And you have to
• 56:34
  Speaker 2: believe it. Maybe it's a naive hope, but that it
• 56:36
  Speaker 2: can matter. We still have elections coming up, right? We
• 56:40
  Speaker 2: still have the ability to shape elections. what is going
• 56:44
  Speaker 2: to happen in this country. And we have to take
• 56:46
  Speaker 2: advantage of that. But it begins with, we're only going
• 56:48
  Speaker 2: to do well in those elections if everyone understands the stakes.
• 56:52
  Speaker 2: And what we can do right now is help people
• 56:54
  Speaker 2: understand the stakes of that election.
• 56:56
  Speaker 6: Yes.
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 56:57
  Speaker 6: All right.
• 56:58
  Speaker 3: One last thing here before we get to Tommy's interview
• 57:00
  Speaker 3: with Jamie Raskin. Our pal Elon hasn't been making as
• 57:05
  Speaker 3: many headlines lately, which is probably good for America. But
• 57:08
  Speaker 3: the Wall Street Journal ran a story about him this
• 57:10
  Speaker 3: week that's too crazy not to talk about. So the
• 57:14
  Speaker 3: headline is, quote, the tactics Elon Musk uses to manage
• 57:19
  Speaker 3: his legion of babies and their mothers. I'll read you
• 57:23
  Speaker 3: some highlights. Quote, in Musk's dark view of the world,
• 57:27
  Speaker 3: civilization is under threat because of a declining population. He
• 57:31
  Speaker 3: is driven to correct the historic moment by helping seed
• 57:35
  Speaker 3: the earth with more human beings of high intelligence, according
• 57:39
  Speaker 3: to people familiar with the matter. And separately, Musk has
• 57:43
  Speaker 3: said he is concerned about what he called third world
• 57:46
  Speaker 3: countries having higher birth rates than the US and Europe.
• 57:51
  Speaker 3: So we're not concerned about declining birth rates globally, just
• 57:56
  Speaker 3: declining birth rights in Europe and the US and perhaps
• 58:02
  Speaker 3: other countries in the global south overtaking us. That's what
• 58:07
  Speaker 3: he's really worried about. Musk refers to his offspring as a, quote,
• 58:12
  Speaker 3: legion a reference to the ancient military units that could
• 58:16
  Speaker 3: contain thousands of soldiers and were key to extending the
• 58:18
  Speaker 3: reach of the Roman Empire, he texted one of the
• 58:21
  Speaker 3: women he impregnated, right-wing influencer Ashley St. Clair, and the
• 58:25
  Speaker 3: Wall Street Journal reviewed these texts, quote, to reach legion
• 58:29
  Speaker 3: level before the apocalypse, we will need to use surrogates. Apparently,
• 58:35
  Speaker 3: the Wall Street Journal reports, and again, they looked at texts,
• 58:38
  Speaker 3: they talked to Ashley St. Clair, you know, he like,
• 58:42
  Speaker 3: Goes online, reaches out to some women that he follows online.
• 58:47
  Speaker 3: I don't know, he likes some of their posts, likes
• 58:49
  Speaker 3: some of their content. And he's like, hey, you want
• 58:51
  Speaker 3: to have a baby with me? That's basically what's happening here.
• 58:55
  Speaker 3: And then some who say yes, then he pays them.
• 59:01
  Speaker 3: But as long as they don't go public, he doesn't
• 59:02
  Speaker 3: like them going public. He's got a fixer who tells
• 59:05
  Speaker 3: the women like, oh, if you go the legal route,
• 59:07
  Speaker 3: it never goes well for people. And then you don't
• 59:09
  Speaker 3: get as much money. I mean, it is so fucking creepy.
• 59:13
  Speaker 3: I don't even know where to start with this one,
• 59:14
  Speaker 3: but did you manage to read the whole thing and
• 59:16
  Speaker 3: what jumped out at you?
• 59:17
  Speaker 2: Here's what I'm gonna have to admit something to you.
• 59:19
  Speaker 2: I think I sent you this story the night it
• 59:21
  Speaker 2: came out. I had not read, I did not, I
• 59:24
  Speaker 2: had not read the whole thing at the time because
• 59:27
  Speaker 2: I had to stop reading it. And then this morning
• 59:30
  Speaker 2: in our editorial meeting, you suggested we add this to
• 59:33
  Speaker 2: the podcast. I argued against it. I was upvoted two
• 59:37
  Speaker 2: to one by you and, uh, and read, uh, and
• 59:42
  Speaker 2: I tried to read it all the way through again
• 59:43
  Speaker 2: and I could not, it's so fucking weird and so
• 59:48
  Speaker 2: gross and the grossness and weirdness of weirdness of it
• 59:51
  Speaker 2: is like, if he was just Elon Musk head of
• 59:55
  Speaker 2: Tesla and SpaceX and whatever else, It would be weird
• 59:59
  Speaker 2: and gross and disgusting. The fact that he is now
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 2: the second most powerful person in our government who is
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 2: making decisions about what government programs exist and which do not,
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 2: who has access to all of our data, our health data,
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 2: tax data, financial data, is so concerning. This person has
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 2: just an insane level of apocalyptic narcissism. Just imagine this
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 2: in yourself. The world's coming to an end. And the
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 2: only solution is more me. And for more me, I'm
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 2: going to start DMing random women to have babies with
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 2: them and then pay them. According to the Wall Street Journal,
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 2: to be clear. According to the Wall Street Journal.
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 3: According to the Wall Street Journal. Well, and then some
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 3: of this is just all like the texts. They've reviewed
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 3: the texts, right? So the Wall Street Journal is making
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 3: up the texts. Another great story here. Cryptocurrency influencer Tiffany
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 3: Fong was covering disgraced crypto tycoon Sam Bankman Freed's downfall
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 3: when Musk started liking and replying to her posts. So
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 3: then she got a lot more followers, right? And it
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 3: was a financial boon because she had all these followers
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 3: because Musk is interacting with her. And she was earning $ 21, 000
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 3: on the platform in a two-week period in November. And
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 3: that's when Musk sent her a direct message asking if
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 3: she was interested in having his child.
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 2: Is that like the opening line, do you think?
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 3: That's what I want to know. I want to know
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 3: how that goes. Is it just like, hey, I've been
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 3: following you. I've been responding to some of your posts.
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 3: You want to have a kid? The two had never
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 3: met in person. Fong didn't move forward with Musk because
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 3: she pictured having children in a more traditional nuclear family.
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 3: Great understatement in the piece. But confided to a few
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 3: friends about the approach, including St. Clair, and she was
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 3: worried that turning him down could hurt her earnings. And
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 3: then once Musk learned that Fong disclosed the request to others,
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 3: he chided her for not using discretion, and that contributed
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 3: to a fall in her engagement and her earnings declined.
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 3: That is a sad state about... Everything. Everything.
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 4: Everything.
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 3: It is fucking... Also, there's the text. I'll stop after this,
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 3: but it's too wild. He was texting St.
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 6: Clair.
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 3: Again, she gave these texts to the Wall Street Journal.
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 3: When he was in Pennsylvania at the end of the
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 3: election helping Trump, he texted her, I can't be president,
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 3: but I can help Trump defeat Biden, and I will.
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 3: And then he said, in all of history, there has
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 3: never been a competitive army composed of women Not even once.
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 3: Men are made for war. Real men, anyway. I am
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 3: in full war mode. Going to the front lines today.
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 3: Must win Pennsylvania. Like, what a perfect combination of being
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 3: a fucking misogynistic asshole and just a douche. Just a
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 3: real tool.
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, it's a lot. It's really a lot.
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 3: It's a lot.
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 3: It's a lot. Great guy. Glad he has so much
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 3: power over everything.
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 3: Cool. Anyway. Okay. We're going to take a quick break,
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 3: but before we do that, obviously, the news environment is
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 3: overwhelming and grim, as you may have caught that from
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 3: listening to this episode. Our daily newsletter can help. What
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 3: a Day comes out every afternoon. It's a quick, accessible
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 3: roundup of the day's top stories, plus sharp analysis and
• 1:03:14
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• 1:03:17
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• 1:03:18
  Speaker 2: He's been crushing it.
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 3: About Doge, about other things the Trump administration is doing
• 1:03:22
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• 1:03:25
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• 1:03:28
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• 1:03:31
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• 1:03:34
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• 1:03:43
  Speaker 3: When we come back, Tommy talks to Maryland Congressman Jamie Raskin,
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 3: who stopped by the studio Thursday afternoon.
• 1:03:58
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• 1:05:35
  Speaker 9: Joining us now in studio is the congressman from Maryland's
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 9: 8th Congressional District and the top Democrat on the House
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 9: Judiciary Committee, Jamie Raskin.
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 3: Great to see you.
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 4: I'm delighted to be with you, Tommy.
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 9: Thank you for being here in person in Los Angeles.
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 4: Sorry it's not warmer out. Well, it's better than DC
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 4: where we say it's not the heat, it's the stupidity.
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 5: Well said.
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 9: So Dan Pfeiffer just spoke with your fellow Maryland delegation member,
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 9: Senator Chris Van Hollen. He is in El Salvador right
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 9: now trying to meet with Kilmar Obrego-Garcia, the Maryland man
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 9: who even the Trump administration has admitted was wrongly sent
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 9: to El Salvador. The Supreme Court has ordered the administration
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 9: to facilitate his return, but the White House so far
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 9: has refused. If that continues, what can Congress do to
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 9: put pressure on the White House or the government of
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 9: El Salvador to bring him back?
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 4: Well, first, they admitted in court that he was wrongly
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 4: detained and transported to El Salvador. They confessed it was
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 4: an administrative error. In public now, they are saying that
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 4: he was rightfully taken down there, and they're making up
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 4: various stories about him. But he's basically Like a disappeared person.
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 4: I mean, that's what happens in authoritarian societies where you
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 4: get swept off the street and then taken to whereabouts unknown. So, look,
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 4: you know, we have the problem that they still have
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 4: a couple vote majority in the House and in the Senate.
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 4: But we're going to do everything in our power to
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 4: get him back, including sending other members down there to
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 4: go and try to get in. but it's a lawless
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 4: situation and we have to see to it that the
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 4: Supreme Court's 9-0 decision is actually enforced. There's no argument
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 4: for what the administration has done here, none whatsoever, which
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 4: is why you even had Thomas and Alito in the
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 4: right wing on the court agreeing there's got to be
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 4: due process. Otherwise, we are living in an authoritarian police state.
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 4: If anybody can be swept off the street and just
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 4: transported to a torturer's prison in another country, then all
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 4: is lost. Because if they can do it to a non-citizen,
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 4: they can do it to a citizen. Because the only
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 4: way you can prove you're a citizen is if you
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 4: have a hearing.
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 6: Right.
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 9: The due process.
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 8: Yeah.
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 9: And Trump has now repeatedly said that he is interested
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 9: in sending American citizens to this very same prison, potentially
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 9: other foreign prisons. You're a former constitutional law professor. Where
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 9: does that idea land on the range from unconstitutional to constitutional?
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 4: It's almost certainly unconstitutional. I mean, there was a form
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 4: of punishment called banishment that existed in the colonial era
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 4: where people would be banished from their community and exiled.
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 4: And I suppose that's what they're talking about doing. The
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 4: Supreme Court or any rational Supreme Court, I should say,
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 4: would probably find that this violates the ban on cruel
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 4: and unusual punishment in the Eighth Amendment. But in any event,
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 4: it certainly violates due process to send anybody to a
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 4: foreign prison or a domestic prison, for that matter, without
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 4: due process, without a hearing. That's what due process means.
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 4: And these are the two most beautiful words in the
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 4: English language because that's what stands between us and arbitrary
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 4: dictatorial power. If anybody were to go down the road
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 4: of trying to create foreign prisons for American citizens, it
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 4: would have to be the United States Congress, because we
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 4: are the lawmaking power. So this is another constitutional principle
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 4: that gets trampled in the process. It's not up to
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 4: the president to just make up some idea of foreign
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 4: prisons and start it. The Supreme Court said in the
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 4: Steele seizure case in 1952, the president derives his powers
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 4: from only two places. One, the Constitution. There's nothing in
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 4: the Constitution that gives the president the right to do that.
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 4: And two, an act of Congress authorizing the president to
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 4: do it. And that, of course, has not happened either.
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 4: So it's a violation of the separation of powers. a
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 4: usurpation of congressional lawmaking power, and almost certainly a brutal
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 4: violation of due process and of the Eighth Amendment ban
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 4: on cruel and unusual punishment.
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 9: Do you see these reports that Eric Prince, who folks
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 9: might recall was the head of Blackwater, which is this
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 9: private mercenary group that was responsible for a horrific massacre
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 9: in Iraq in 2007 that I think irreparably damaged the U.S.
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 9: relationship with the Iraqi government and the Iraqi people and
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 9: was horrific in its own right? But apparently, Eric Prince
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 9: and some defense contractors are pitching the White House on
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 9: the idea of building more prisons in El Salvador and
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 9: maybe declaring some of the territory down there to be U.S.
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 9: soil to get around some of the legal provisions you're
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 9: talking about. Does any of that strike you as potentially legal?
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 4: Not very, no. You know, we're living in something like
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 4: a gangster state right now where People like Eric Prince
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 4: think that they've got the right to take taxpayer resources
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 4: to set up offshore prisons and justice systems or injustice
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 4: systems that have nothing to do with the American rule
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 4: of law and due process. So I imagine that they
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 4: look at Guantanamo Bay as some kind of towering example
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 4: of what they'd like to reproduce all over the world.
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 4: We have to stop that, obviously, to prevent a slide
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 4: into complete dictatorship. Look, Donald Trump is a convicted criminal.
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 4: Could he be sent off to a foreign prison? Good question.
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 4: You know, you're separating people from their families. You're separating
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 4: people from their lawyers, implicating the right to counsel. And
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 4: you're engaging in a form of punishment, banishment, which hasn't
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 4: been seen for decades.
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 9: Centuries, really, into a prison where it's well known that
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 9: people are tortured and killed. I'm interested in ways that
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 9: Democrats can push back now. I realize that we do
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 9: not have majorities in either the House or the Senate.
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 9: It's very challenging. But I was talking to a very
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 9: smart Latin America policy expert earlier this week who suggested
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 9: to me that Democrats should threaten to take action against
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 9: any foreign government that participates in the extraordinary rendition of
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 9: American citizens. The idea being, we say to them, look,
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 9: if you mess with American citizens, we will cut off
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 9: future assistance. We will seek to prosecute foreign officials involved
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 9: in these illegal actions. Basically, we publicly warn these leaders,
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 9: Trump's in power now. We're going to be back at
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 9: some point, maybe in the midterms. We're keeping score.
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 2: Thoughts on that idea?
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 3: Well, that's right.
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 4: We should be talking about cutting off aid to El
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 4: Salvador right now. The whole idea that Bukele doesn't have
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 4: any power to return an American prisoner who was sent
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 4: to him under an agreement where he's getting paid $ 6
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 4: million by America is ridiculous. He's our legal agent in
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 4: this dubious arrangement they've created. Of course he's got the
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 4: power to return them. So he and Trump are just
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 4: acting like a couple of dictators having fun at the
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 4: expense of a man's life and his family. And they
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 4: want to be able to do that all over the place.
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 4: So I like that idea and it's a compliment to
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 4: something that we need to be doing right now, which
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 4: is engaging in far more work of transnational democratic solidarity
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 4: with the democratic governments and the democratic movements and peoples
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 4: and parties of the world to try to prevent the
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 4: spread of the lawlessness and the fascist chaos that's been
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 4: unleashed against us. implicit in it should be the idea
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 4: that if and when we come back to power, and
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 4: we will, we are not going to look kindly upon
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 4: people who facilitated, to use a word of the day,
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 4: who facilitated authoritarianism in our country. That's an assault on
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 4: our constitution and on our people.
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 9: Yeah, we can effectuate that outcome. You talked about some
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 9: nerdy jokes there. An anonymous House Democrat told Axios that
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 9: Democrats are falling into a trap set by Trump by
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 9: talking about these deportations. This is a quote from that story,
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 9: an anonymous quote, but a quote. Rather than talking about
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 9: the tariff policy and the economy, we're going to take
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 9: the bait for one hairdresser. That's a reference, I believe,
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 9: to Andri Hernandez Romero, a gay Venezuelan makeup artist who
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 9: the White House baselessly called a member of Trend de
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 9: Aragua and sent to El Salvador. Your response to this
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 9: anonymous political advice?
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 4: My response is, We're going to beat them on all fronts.
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 4: We're going to beat them on the tariffs, which were
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 4: economically catastrophic for our country and for the world and
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 4: utterly destabilizing of world trade and also lawless and unconstitutional
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 4: outside of the president's powers. We're going to beat them
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 4: on his massive assaults on the rights of federal workers
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 4: and the civil service. And we're going to beat them
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 4: in court And in the court of public opinion on
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 4: their assaults on the due process rights of people in America,
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 4: whether they're citizens or non-citizens. In other words, we can't
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 4: ration justice here. And this is why we need all
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 4: hands on deck and everybody needs to be fighting at
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 4: every turn, every battle. And, you know, a victory for
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 4: one is a victory for all. And, you know, we're
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 4: going to hang together or we're going to hang separately
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 4: and we're going to hang together.
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 9: Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State, kind of, is busy
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 9: revoking the valid green cards and visas of students who
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 9: express views the administration disagrees with. People like Rumesa Ozturk,
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 9: who's the Tufts University student, who a bunch of masked
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 9: ICE agents grabbed off the street, sent to a detention
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 9: center in Louisiana for signing an op-ed that was pretty banal, frankly,
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 9: and critical of the university's stance on Israel or the
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 9: war in Gaza. I've seen reports that as many as
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 9: a thousand students have had foreign students have had their
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 9: visas revoked. Obviously, we're talking about foreign nationals in that case.
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 9: But what do you think the impact on free speech
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 9: in this country is when you're seeing these kind of
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 9: roundup and attacks on, you know, opinion?
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 4: I mean, it's totally scandalous situation with the assault on
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 4: free speech. It is like the Alien and Sedition Act
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 4: period of the late 1790s, where the attack on immigrants
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 4: became an attack on people considered political enemies of the government, dissidents.
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 4: I'm very cheered by the tremendous support that she is
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 4: getting and that all of these students are getting across
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 4: the board here. In fact, there are a lot of
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 4: Jewish student groups who are coming out very strongly and
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 4: speaking up for her and Mahmoud Khalil and others who
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 4: are the subject of outrageous government harassment and retaliation simply
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 4: because of their speech. They wrote an op-ed, they appeared
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 4: at a rally. And what's fascinating is unlike the hundreds
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 4: of violent insurrectionists, Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, extremists who Donald
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 4: Trump pardoned, people who violently assaulted police officers, none of
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 4: these people engaged in any violence at all. All they
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 4: had done was to write an op-ed or to speak
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 4: in a way that is officially disapproved by our new
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 4: authoritarians in America. So it's very important as a matter
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 4: of civil liberties for everybody to speak up for them.
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 4: And especially I've been moved over the last few days
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 4: to see the Jewish groups coming out and saying, don't
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 4: try to deport these people and destroy their lives and
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 4: uproot them in the name of fighting antisemitism. You're not
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 4: doing anything about antisemitism. And you're going to inflame things
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 4: much worse in the country by what you're doing.
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 9: It feels like there's a real frightening weaponization of the
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 9: charge of antisemitism happening. I mean, one recent example I
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 9: saw was, do you know who Ms.
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 2: Rachel is?
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 4: No.
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 9: Anyone with a three-year-old or younger currently knows Ms. Rachel
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 9: because she, uh, she's a former teacher. She makes educational
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 9: content for kids, puts it up on YouTube. Her, her
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 9: episodes have gotten over 10 billion views, half of them
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 9: on my house. Um, But so last week, this group,
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 9: they call themselves Stop Antisemitism. They're known for doxing students,
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 9: accusing them for being anti-Israel. They sent a letter to
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 9: the attorney general, to Pam Bondi, asking her to investigate
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 9: whether Ms. Rachel was getting, quote, paid to disseminate Hamas-aligned
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 9: propaganda to her millions of followers as this may violate
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 9: the Foreign Agents Registration Act. Now, that sentence is stupid
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 9: on so many levels. She's not posting pro-Hamas content. You know,
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 9: she's posting like, love and care for all kids, including
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 9: Israeli kids, including the Bibas family that was being held hostage. Also,
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 9: you can't register under Farah for Hamas. You know, like,
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 9: this is self-evidently ridiculous.
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 3: But there are these.
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 9: Organizations that are flagging foreign students, going after people like Ms. Rachel,
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 9: and then asking the U.S. government to deport them, to
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 9: investigate them, to use the awesome power of the state
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 9: to punish them.
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 4: Well, apparently some of these students who've been targeted... by
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 4: ICE for removal, were first identified by various right-wing projects
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 4: allegedly pursuing anti-Semitism. But, you know, on that understanding you
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 4: just identified, there are people who are being called anti-Semites
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 4: simply for speaking out for a two-state solution and recognition
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 4: of human rights on the Palestinian side and the Israeli
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 4: side and the necessity for mutual security. I mean, that's
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 4: just scandalous. And so, you know, this is a period
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 4: like Salem witchcraft trials where, you know, you can just
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 4: fling that charge at someone and then the right wing
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 4: thinks that that's the end of the discussion. But I
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 4: do think that the country is waking up. I think
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 4: about what Jefferson said in that beautiful letter he wrote
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 4: in 1798 to his friend John Taylor, who was expressing
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 4: his consternation about what was going on in the country
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 4: during that time. And Jefferson said, a little patience in
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 4: the reign of witches shall pass over Their spells dissolve,
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 4: and the people recovering their true sight restore their government
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 4: to its true principles.
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 2: Let's hope.
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 6: Yeah. Let's hope.
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 4: Let's hope that the reign of witches is passing over. Yeah.
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 4: And no offense meant to any witches.
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 8: No.
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 9: I'm thinking of Stephen Miller personally.
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 9: Changing gears a little bit, the Trump administration, they've handed
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 9: over these ransom lists to various universities, including Harvard University.
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 9: They want to dictate things like diversity, equity, inclusion policies,
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 9: student discipline, admissions requirements, a lot more. Harvard, to their
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 9: great credit, refused. And the administration has cut off $ 2. 2
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 9: billion in federal funding. CNN reported that the Trump administration
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 9: is planning to rescind Harvard's nonprofit statuses. So Harvard's fighting.
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 9: You've seen other schools like Columbia cave even preemptively. What
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 9: do you think is the best way to fight back?
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 2: And what's required here?
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 4: Everybody's got to summon up all of their institutional resources
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 4: and personal courage to fight back as much as you can.
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 4: And I'm very proud of Harvard, I got to say.
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 4: And I'm speaking as a graduate of the college and
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 4: the law school. And I spent a lot of my
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 4: years in school fighting against Harvard because they refused to
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 4: divest their money from Apartheid South Africa. And they were
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 4: just totally on the wrong side there. And I called
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 4: them out. And I was ashamed that Harvard did not
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 4: do the right thing and follow what Nelson Mandela and
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 4: Bishop Tutu and the people struggling for freedom there were
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 4: asking for. But I've got to say, in this situation,
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 4: I'm beaming with pride about Harvard standing up. Look, Donald
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 4: Trump spent a lot of time in real estate in
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 4: New York City, a lot of time in casinos in
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 4: Atlantic City. He knows what a mob shakedown is. This
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 4: is a mob shakedown against the universities. It's a mob
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 4: shakedown against the law firms, against lawyers, and he's seeing
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 4: how far he can push it. And it's undoubtedly a
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 4: terrifying thing for, you know, even big law firms to
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 4: go through, even big universities to go through. But now
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 4: is the moment when you get to prove why you're
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 4: a lawyer. Now you get to prove why you're a
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 4: college president or vice you know, a university administrator. You
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 4: can stand up for academic freedom. You can stand up
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 4: for the Constitution. And these judges are proving why they're judges.
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 4: You know, there are 78 preliminary injunctions and temporary restraining
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 4: orders right now against the lawlessness and the chaos unleashed
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 4: by Donald Trump. And they're threatening judges. And you go online,
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 4: you see all kinds of violent threats against judges. Justice
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 4: Amy Coney Barrett's sister got a bomb threat. There are
• 1:22:53
  Speaker 4: other people on the Supreme Court and other judges who've
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 4: received death threats. are taking place. And I've got colleagues
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 4: who have wanted posters up outside of their offices in
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 4: the Cannon House office building. These judges are wanted and
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 4: they want to impeach them just for standing in Donald
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 4: Trump's way. They never tell you, by the way, substantively
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 4: what's wrong with a particular opinion. Like what's wrong with
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 4: the four opinions rendered against Donald Trump's attempt to nullify
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 4: birthright citizenship in America? one from an Obama judge, one
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 4: from a Biden judge, one from a Reagan judge, and
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 4: one from a Bush judge. And the Reagan judge said,
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 4: this is the easiest case I've decided in four decades
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 4: on the bench. This is blatantly unconstitutional. The first sentence
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 4: of the 14th Amendment reads, all persons born or naturalized
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 4: in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof
• 1:23:41
  Speaker 4: are citizens of the United States. Like, what don't you
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 4: understand about that? You don't even have to be a lawyer.
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 4: You just have to know how to read to get that.
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 4: And these judges are just like over the top angry
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 4: about what's going on. And yet they turned around and say,
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 4: there's something wrong with the judges. They're saying, well, we
• 1:23:57
  Speaker 4: got to impeach them. I think, um, I mean, everybody
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 4: in the administration, J.D. Vance, all of them. Trump tweeted
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 4: about impeaching them. They say this is a record number
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 4: of court decisions against a president, a record number of
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 4: injunctions against a president. Yes, and it's a record number
• 1:24:15
  Speaker 4: of violations of the Constitution by a president. So if
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 4: you don't like this tsunami, they call it, of opinions
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 4: against the president, then call off your tsunami constitutional crime
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 4: wave against the American people.
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 9: There's this rolling debate about whether this is a constitutional crisis.
• 1:24:34
  Speaker 9: And I feel like part of the reason there's a
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 9: rolling debate is no one's completely defined what that means.
• 1:24:39
  Speaker 9: Do you have a definition and an opinion on whether
• 1:24:41
  Speaker 9: we're in one?
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 4: Well, I think it's a hopelessly vague and abstract term.
• 1:24:46
  Speaker 4: So when people say, are we in a constitutional crisis?
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 4: I say, we are experiencing an unprecedented sweeping and comprehensive
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 4: attack on the Constitution. by the presidential administration. And so
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 4: we have to defend every element of the Constitution, due process,
• 1:25:04
  Speaker 4: equal protection, freedom of speech, the separation of powers, congressional powers,
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 4: judicial independence, and so on. So, I mean, I suppose
• 1:25:14
  Speaker 4: it's in the eye of the beholder. If it feels
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 4: like a crisis to you, it's a crisis. But the
• 1:25:17
  Speaker 4: point is, it's under attack, and we've got to defend it.
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 9: One way we have been fighting back, Democrats, is holding
• 1:25:23
  Speaker 9: town hall meetings in Republican districts. You recently hosted one
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 9: in Maryland calling out Andy Harris, congressman from the Eastern
• 1:25:30
  Speaker 9: Shore of Maryland, for being MIA. My father-in-law was there,
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 9: by the way. Shout out, Chris Cook. He said it
• 1:25:35
  Speaker 9: was a packed crowd. You gave a great speech, and
• 1:25:37
  Speaker 9: the people were just amped. But if we're being honest,
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 9: Democrats have been trying and failing to defeat Andy Harris for, what,
• 1:25:45
  Speaker 9: over a decade? Why do you think this time will
• 1:25:48
  Speaker 9: be different? Can we take him out this time? Can
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 9: we take out these, like... Well, I.
• 1:25:51
  Speaker 4: Believe that Heather Mazur... got, I think it was a
• 1:25:56
  Speaker 4: 54 to 46 in the first district of Maryland. So
• 1:26:01
  Speaker 4: we're closing in on the target. There are a lot
• 1:26:04
  Speaker 4: of people from my district in Montgomery County, in the
• 1:26:07
  Speaker 4: DC area, in the Baltimore area, moving to the Eastern
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 4: Shore in retirement. And there's an incredible new Eastern Shore
• 1:26:13
  Speaker 4: Indivisible Group that I met with out there. So we
• 1:26:16
  Speaker 4: don't give up on any congressional district or any state
• 1:26:19
  Speaker 4: legislative district. We won that great state Senate race in
• 1:26:23
  Speaker 4: Pennsylvania that nobody expected us to win, the Wisconsin race.
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 4: And even in Florida, we were disappointed that we didn't
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 4: win those two House seats, but we went up 15
• 1:26:31
  Speaker 4: or 16 points, which then builds for the future. So
• 1:26:36
  Speaker 4: no good act is wasted in this process. And there
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 4: were some very creative political art representations at that event.
• 1:26:44
  Speaker 4: When I went out there, they brought up a huge
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 4: milk carton with Andy Harris's face on it. And I
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 4: just said, hey, if your name is on the ballot,
• 1:26:53
  Speaker 4: your face should not be on the milk carton. That's right.
• 1:26:56
  Speaker 3: That's great.
• 1:26:56
  Speaker 9: So last question for you. So in the before times,
• 1:27:00
  Speaker 9: the dividing line between Democrats was on policy, you know,
• 1:27:04
  Speaker 9: moderate left, center left. Now it seems to be divided
• 1:27:08
  Speaker 9: on who is fighting hard, who is saying kind of
• 1:27:11
  Speaker 9: keep some powder dry. I would put you in the
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 9: fight hard on everything all the time kind of.
• 1:27:16
  Speaker 2: Side of the ledger.
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 9: Why is that the right place to be? And can
• 1:27:21
  Speaker 9: you help define for others listening, members of Congress, elected officials,
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 9: average citizens, what it looks like in practice, how they
• 1:27:27
  Speaker 9: can emulate that?
• 1:27:28
  Speaker 4: Well, let's just say that because we're experiencing an attempted
• 1:27:33
  Speaker 4: authoritarian takeover of American society, the job has changed, right?
• 1:27:39
  Speaker 4: There were people on all sides who thought the job
• 1:27:43
  Speaker 4: is you stay in touch with your constituents and you
• 1:27:45
  Speaker 4: go and you push a red button or a green button,
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 4: and that's your job. That's not our job anymore. We
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 4: are organizers. We are organizers and we've got to be
• 1:27:54
  Speaker 4: leaders of a nationwide popular movement to arrest the dissent
• 1:27:59
  Speaker 4: into fascism in America. And we haven't even gotten a
• 1:28:02
  Speaker 4: chance to talk about Elon Musk and the Silicon Valley
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 4: people because these people really believe that democracy is defunct.
• 1:28:10
  Speaker 4: they say we live in a post-constitutional America. And if
• 1:28:16
  Speaker 4: you listen to their intellectual guru, Curtis Yarvin, he did
• 1:28:20
  Speaker 4: an interview with the New York Times about a month
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 4: ago where he said the American people have got to
• 1:28:24
  Speaker 4: get over their fear of the word dictatorship. He said
• 1:28:27
  Speaker 4: the corporations are just dictatorships of the CEO. And just
• 1:28:31
  Speaker 4: like we have CEOs, dictatorships in the private sector, we
• 1:28:35
  Speaker 4: need to have a dictator for the government. And by
• 1:28:37
  Speaker 4: the way, that dictator does not serve the people That
• 1:28:40
  Speaker 4: dictator serves the other dictators. They're talking about a corporate
• 1:28:43
  Speaker 4: state and they're being very unvarnished and explicit about it.
• 1:28:47
  Speaker 4: So our jobs have changed. It's not enough just to
• 1:28:51
  Speaker 4: go and cast our votes and to write a monthly newsletter.
• 1:28:54
  Speaker 4: We've got to be involved seven days a constitutional democracy
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 4: in America. And when I say that, I believe constitutional
• 1:29:04
  Speaker 4: democracy is not just a structure of laws and constitutional
• 1:29:09
  Speaker 4: principles and practices. It is that, but it's more than
• 1:29:13
  Speaker 4: that because constitutional democracy is always an unfolding and unfinished project.
• 1:29:19
  Speaker 4: And if we're not moving forward, like Tocqueville warned in
• 1:29:22
  Speaker 4: Democracy in America, we're going to be lapsing back into
• 1:29:24
  Speaker 4: some other autocratic or monarchical aristocratic form of government. We've
• 1:29:29
  Speaker 4: got to be moving forward. So, you know, you've got
• 1:29:32
  Speaker 4: to hand it to Donald Trump. At least he's talking
• 1:29:34
  Speaker 4: about Greenland and Canada and Panama. He's not talking about
• 1:29:38
  Speaker 4: anything democratic. He's talking about taking them over like a dictator. Well,
• 1:29:42
  Speaker 4: we've got to put on the agenda the millions of
• 1:29:45
  Speaker 4: disenfranchised people in America. We need statehood for Washington, D.C.
• 1:29:49
  Speaker 4: We need statehood for Puerto Rico. We need a constitutional
• 1:29:52
  Speaker 4: amendment guaranteeing everybody a right to vote. We need to
• 1:29:55
  Speaker 4: pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act. We can't be
• 1:29:58
  Speaker 4: in a constant quicksand struggle against voter suppression tactics. And
• 1:30:04
  Speaker 4: they're trying it again for 2026 and 2028 and the
• 1:30:08
  Speaker 4: SAVE Act, which would conceivably disenfranchise millions of American women.
• 1:30:13
  Speaker 4: Because you've got to show, when you go to the
• 1:30:15
  Speaker 4: polls now, your birth certificate, your driver's license, or a passport.
• 1:30:20
  Speaker 4: And if they don't match your birth certificate, then you've
• 1:30:22
  Speaker 4: got to show your marriage certificate. And 80% of American
• 1:30:25
  Speaker 4: women changed their last So they've got to bring their
• 1:30:28
  Speaker 4: marriage certificate along with everything else. It's just more obstacles
• 1:30:32
  Speaker 4: to voting for the people that they think are not
• 1:30:34
  Speaker 4: going to vote for them.
• 1:30:36
  Speaker 3: So we've got to deal with that.
• 1:30:37
  Speaker 4: So I just believe, you know, I'm kind of with
• 1:30:41
  Speaker 4: John Dewey, who said that, you know, the only solution
• 1:30:45
  Speaker 4: to the ills of democracy is more democracy. And what
• 1:30:48
  Speaker 4: we're suffering from today is not democracy, but it's all
• 1:30:51
  Speaker 4: of these attacks on it and all of these obstacles
• 1:30:54
  Speaker 4: to it. But we do need to be not just
• 1:30:57
  Speaker 4: legislative representatives, you know, which is hard enough, but we've
• 1:31:00
  Speaker 4: got to be movement leaders along with everybody in the
• 1:31:04
  Speaker 4: streets and everybody in the state capitals and the city
• 1:31:07
  Speaker 4: halls and the church halls and the union halls across America.
• 1:31:11
  Speaker 9: Couldn't agree more. Well, Congressman, thank you so much for
• 1:31:14
  Speaker 9: all you're doing to fight and push back on these
• 1:31:15
  Speaker 9: monsters and for being here. We appreciate it.
• 1:31:17
  Speaker 4: It's great to be with you, Tommy. Keep up the
• 1:31:19
  Speaker 4: great work. Because the press is not the enemy of
• 1:31:22
  Speaker 4: the people. The press is the people's best friend.
• 1:31:24
  Speaker 3: Agreed.
• 1:31:25
  Speaker 4: And we need you.
• 1:31:26
  Speaker 5: Thank you.
• 1:31:32
  Speaker 3: That's our show for today. Thanks to Jamie Raskin for
• 1:31:34
  Speaker 3: stopping by. Thanks to Chris Van Hollen for making time
• 1:31:36
  Speaker 3: for us during his trip to El Salvador. I'm going
• 1:31:39
  Speaker 3: to be back with a new show on Sunday, talking
• 1:31:41
  Speaker 3: to our friend Sarah McBride, the first openly trans member
• 1:31:43
  Speaker 3: of Congress, about what it's like being a freshman in
• 1:31:46
  Speaker 3: the House right now. Lovett's going to join me. We're
• 1:31:48
  Speaker 3: both going to be talking to Sarah. She's going to
• 1:31:49
  Speaker 3: be here in studio on Friday. So definitely check that out.
• 1:31:52
  Speaker 3: Everyone else, have a good weekend.
• 1:31:54
  Speaker 6: Bye, everyone.
• 1:31:55
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