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Trump's Secret Epstein Letter Revealed · Pod Save America

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1:51
Speaker 3: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
1:53
Speaker 4: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
1:54
Speaker 3: Dan, welcome back.
1:56
Speaker 4: God, what a week to be gone.
1:58
Speaker 3: It's been so long. Well, then I was gone the
2:00
Speaker 3: week before. It's been like, this is the longest we
2:02
Speaker 3: haven't podcast together in a long time.
2:05
Speaker 4: Here's the thing. We're always podcasting. It's just sometimes the
2:08
Speaker 4: microphones are on.
2:09
Speaker 3: That is very true. Where did you go on vacation?
2:13
Speaker 4: I was on a family trip with my parents and
2:16
Speaker 4: my brother, my sister-in-law, my niece in Hawaii.
2:19
Speaker 3: There you go.
2:20
Speaker 4: It was very nice.
2:22
Speaker 3: Well, it's good to have you back. We have a
2:23
Speaker 3: packed show for today. We're going to talk about Trump
2:25
Speaker 3: threatening to fire the Fed chair. the Republican Congress going
2:29
Speaker 3: after Big Bird and Daniel Tiger, new midterm polling from
2:32
Speaker 3: Trump's pollster that should scare the hell out of Republicans,
2:35
Speaker 3: the party's attempt to pick up seats in Texas by
2:37
Speaker 3: redrawing the maps, the return of Andrew Cuomo, and then
2:41
Speaker 3: Dan's interview with the chair of the House Progressive Caucus,
2:45
Speaker 3: Texas Congressman Greg Kassar. But we've got to start with
2:49
Speaker 3: the question that's weighing heavily on all Americans as they
2:53
Speaker 3: huddle around their kitchen tables each night. Where are the
2:59
Speaker 3: epstein files we had some of this from uh shane
3:04
Speaker 3: gillis hosted the espies this week and uh this was
3:07
Speaker 3: at the very beginning of his opening monologue.
3:09
Speaker 5: Actually there was supposed to be an epstein joke here
3:11
Speaker 5: but as it got deleted must have uh probably deleted
3:18
Speaker 5: itself right probably never existed actually let's move on as
3:23
Speaker 5: a country and ignore that uh.
3:27
Speaker 4: I would say the joke before that was quite funny
3:29
Speaker 4: as well, which was about Trump wanting to stage a
3:32
Speaker 4: UFC fight on the White House lawn and say, last
3:34
Speaker 4: time Trump staged a fight in DC, Mike Pence almost died.
3:38
Speaker 3: People weren't sure if they could laugh at that one
3:40
Speaker 3: as hard. And then I feel like then they got
3:42
Speaker 3: into it and they laughed at the Epstein one pretty hard. Anyway,
3:44
Speaker 3: this is basically Donald Trump's answer too, though his is
3:47
Speaker 3: serious and not a joke. Trump's latest answer is that
3:50
Speaker 3: the Epstein files he promised to release, the files from
3:54
Speaker 3: a child sex trafficking case that Trump's own Department of
3:57
Speaker 3: Justice was set to prosecute in 2019 before Epstein died
4:03
Speaker 3: in federal custody. Those files are actually just a big
4:08
Speaker 3: hoax created by none other than Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton,
4:13
Speaker 3: and Joe Biden. And if you are a supporter of Trump's,
4:18
Speaker 3: who still might have some questions about his latest theory
4:22
Speaker 3: on the Epstein files, You are, according to Trump, quote, stupid,
4:27
Speaker 3: a weakling, and someone whose support he no longer wants.
4:32
Speaker 3: That's right. According to Trump's latest posts and comments, you
4:35
Speaker 3: are officially excommunicated from the MAGA movement. If you still
4:39
Speaker 3: have any questions about his good old friend, his late friend,
4:45
Speaker 3: Jeffrey Epstein, the man, he's on his plane at least
4:49
Speaker 3: seven times, partied with him, once said that, uh, He
4:53
Speaker 3: knows he likes girls and he likes them young. This
4:56
Speaker 3: is all Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein. But now, if
5:00
Speaker 3: you have any questions about the promise he made in
5:01
Speaker 3: the campaign to release the files, you are stupid and
5:05
Speaker 3: you are not welcome in MAGA anymore. The White House
5:08
Speaker 3: also said on Thursday that the president does not want
5:11
Speaker 3: Pam Bondi to appoint a special prosecutor, even though some
5:14
Speaker 3: of Trump's closest supporters, like Steve Bannon and Laura Loomer,
5:18
Speaker 3: have called for one. Republicans in Congress said, blocked votes
5:22
Speaker 3: all week on measures that would force the DOJ to
5:24
Speaker 3: release more information from the Epstein files, though Republican Thomas Massey,
5:29
Speaker 3: who Trump has threatened with the primary challenge, is teaming
5:32
Speaker 3: up with Ro Khanna to force a vote via discharge petition,
5:35
Speaker 3: which is a long and complicated procedure that probably does
5:39
Speaker 3: have enough votes to succeed, which is also one reason why,
5:42
Speaker 3: as we're recording this and Trump's debating this package of
5:45
Speaker 3: cuts that we'll talk about later, they can't move forward
5:49
Speaker 3: on it because Republicans may attach a measure that may
5:53
Speaker 3: be binding or not binding to vote on whether there
5:56
Speaker 3: should be a release of the Epstein files, probably because
5:59
Speaker 3: they know Massey has the votes on a discharge petition.
6:02
Speaker 3: And all this is because Donald Trump just keeps making
6:04
Speaker 3: this worse every time he speaks or posts about Epstein.
6:08
Speaker 3: Here's some of what he said in just the last
6:10
Speaker 3: 24 hours.
6:12
Speaker 6: I call it the Epstein hoax.
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Speaker 7: The sad part is it's people that are really doing
6:18
Speaker 7: the Democrats' work. They're stupid people.
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Speaker 4: Does that mean that you're effectively disowning any supporters who
6:23
Speaker 4: are now.
6:24
Speaker 7: I've lost a lot of faith in certain people, yeah.
6:26
Speaker 7: I've lost... because they got duped by the Democrats. In
6:30
Speaker 7: the case of Epstein, they've already looked at it and
6:32
Speaker 7: they are looking at it. And I think all they
6:34
Speaker 7: have to do is put out anything credible. But, you know,
6:37
Speaker 7: that was run by the Biden administration for four years.
6:40
Speaker 7: I can imagine what they put into files, just like
6:43
Speaker 7: they did with the others. I mean, the Steele dossier
6:46
Speaker 7: was a total fake.
6:47
Speaker 3: So, Dan, there's this MAGA influencer named Luke Rudowsky, who
6:52
Speaker 3: is so shocked by Trump's handling of the Epstein scandal
6:55
Speaker 3: that he posted this. to his half a million Twitter followers.
6:59
Speaker 3: What if Donald Trump is being held hostage by a
7:02
Speaker 3: foreign entity and he knows the only way to tell
7:05
Speaker 3: people about this is by being very obvious about it?
7:09
Speaker 3: Is that believable or not believable? He had a poll.
7:12
Speaker 3: So far, not believable is winning, but only 55 to 44.
7:14
Speaker 7: Wow.
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Speaker 4: What do you think the margin of error is in
7:16
Speaker 4: that poll?
7:20
Speaker 3: What do you think?
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Speaker 4: I think that's one theory about what's happening here. The
7:25
Speaker 4: other theory... that seems more plausible to me, is that
7:29
Speaker 4: Donald Trump either knows or believes strongly that he's mentioned
7:34
Speaker 4: in the Epstein files, and that's why he is acting
7:36
Speaker 4: like a complete lunatic right now.
7:40
Speaker 3: It is hard to avoid that conclusion. And I have
7:44
Speaker 3: been trying in my mind to think about other possibilities. Also,
7:49
Speaker 3: there's Oliver Darcy broke this news. There is apparently a
7:52
Speaker 3: Wall Street Journal story in the works with some more,
7:55
Speaker 3: I don't know if it's evidence from the Epstein files
7:57
Speaker 3: or just elsewhere about Trump's relationship with Jeffrey Epstein that
8:01
Speaker 3: Trump is so mad about. He's calling everyone at the
8:04
Speaker 3: Wall Street Journal, including the editor, to try to kill
8:07
Speaker 3: the story. So everyone is excited about that, except Donald Trump,
8:12
Speaker 3: I guess. I mean, when.
8:14
Speaker 4: You run through the evidence, right, Trump's long relationship with Epstein,
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Speaker 4: long history of sexual misconduct, his long history of complimenting
8:26
Speaker 4: in very gross ways young women, certainly young women below age,
8:31
Speaker 4: the fact that he is quoted as talking about, in
8:34
Speaker 4: the quote you just read, knowing that Jeffrey Epstein liked
8:37
Speaker 4: young girls, that they partied together. And then you get
8:41
Speaker 4: to the point here where they say they're going to
8:43
Speaker 4: release it. Pam Bondi says the client list is on
8:46
Speaker 4: her desk. And then right after that, they're like, oh, sorry,
8:50
Speaker 4: no client list exists. There's nothing here. Turn around, go away.
8:53
Speaker 4: And then the way Trump talks about it, he keeps saying,
8:57
Speaker 4: we'll release anything credible. And then he keeps making these
8:59
Speaker 4: accusations that anything that there could be some sort of
9:02
Speaker 4: malfeasance on the record. So if perchance these ever come
9:06
Speaker 4: out through Congress, through subpoena, through leaks, that if Trump's
9:10
Speaker 4: name is in there, then obviously it's part of some
9:13
Speaker 4: Democratic hoax. And Merrick Garland, who we've known to be
9:16
Speaker 4: very aggressively anti-Trump over the years, and they're just writing
9:18
Speaker 4: Trump's name in. The most plausible answer here is that
9:25
Speaker 4: Trump's name is in there, and that's why he's acting
9:27
Speaker 4: this way. I don't know what other reason he would
9:28
Speaker 4: be putting himself through this, acting this way, opposing the
9:31
Speaker 4: special counsel. If there really was no there there, then
9:35
Speaker 4: this would be one way that his closest allies, people
9:38
Speaker 4: who like him the most, like Steve Bannon and Laura Loomer,
9:40
Speaker 4: want him to do, but he says no to that.
9:42
Speaker 3: Can I just point out a potential flaw in the
9:45
Speaker 3: president's logic in this latest theory that the Democrats created
9:51
Speaker 3: the Epstein files or the Democrats under Biden, I guess,
9:56
Speaker 3: slipped in some files that are incriminating for Trump that
9:58
Speaker 3: aren't real. So to believe this, you would have to
10:03
Speaker 3: believe that the Biden administration, Merrick Garland, like you said,
10:08
Speaker 3: starts throwing in some fake incriminating news about Donald Trump
10:12
Speaker 3: in the Epstein files during the Biden years, chooses not
10:17
Speaker 3: to release them or leak it in any way. Because
10:20
Speaker 3: I guess they wanted to hold out the possibility that someday,
10:25
Speaker 3: if Donald Trump becomes president again, his Department of Justice
10:29
Speaker 3: would stumble upon the fake files and then put out
10:33
Speaker 3: a statement that in no way claims they're fake.
10:38
Speaker 4: Yeah, you have identified a flaw. You've identified a real flaw.
10:43
Speaker 3: It is so fucking stupid. This was, and it was like,
10:47
Speaker 3: you know, Obama and Hillary, like, this is like, predating
10:52
Speaker 3: any of this.
10:52
Speaker 4: Stuff, right? Three consecutive presidential elections. We did not use
10:57
Speaker 4: this completely made up smoking gun that we had.
10:59
Speaker 3: We were playing the long game. You can't be, can't
11:03
Speaker 3: be releasing damaging information about Donald Trump while he's running
11:07
Speaker 3: for president a third time. You've got to wait until
11:10
Speaker 3: he's president and then still do nothing.
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Speaker 4: You know, as you mentioned, I was on vacation and,
11:19
Speaker 4: last week when this was all happening. And so I
11:21
Speaker 4: have a lot of pent-up takes about this. One of
11:24
Speaker 4: them I would just like to share here is that
11:26
Speaker 4: in the initial, when this started coming out and the
11:29
Speaker 4: MAGA folks were getting mad about it, one of the
11:31
Speaker 4: things you saw a lot of even credible people say is, obviously,
11:35
Speaker 4: there's something bad about Trump in the files while Joe
11:39
Speaker 4: Biden was president and Merrick Garland was attorney general. That
11:42
Speaker 4: would have come out. Have any of you people met
11:45
Speaker 4: Merrick Garland? Right.
11:47
Speaker 3: Like, what?
11:49
Speaker 4: There's nothing more believable than Merrick Garland was just sitting
11:52
Speaker 4: with a giant smoking gun about Donald Trump and the
11:54
Speaker 4: Epstein files in his top desk drawer for four years
11:57
Speaker 4: and would– and maybe this is admirable, I guess– not
12:00
Speaker 4: violate the independence of the Justice Department in any way, shape,
12:03
Speaker 4: or form. This idea that obviously Merrick Garland and Joe
12:06
Speaker 4: Biden would have put this out has never met– does
12:10
Speaker 4: not remember how much they love norms, right? So it's
12:12
Speaker 4: very– that is– I do not find that to be
12:14
Speaker 4: a compelling reason that there is nothing in these files.
12:17
Speaker 3: Can I throw out one overly generous possibility here of
12:23
Speaker 3: what's really going on?
12:24
Speaker 4: You go on the Flagrant podcast once and now you're
12:26
Speaker 4: doing Trump defense?
12:28
Speaker 3: They would not have an over.
12:29
Speaker 4: No, no, they would not. They are leading the, I
12:32
Speaker 4: love what they're doing here.
12:33
Speaker 3: So I started thinking about this because both the rumors
12:37
Speaker 3: of the Wall Street Journal story and I read a
12:41
Speaker 3: post from Ben Wittes, who's been on this podcast at Lawfare.
12:45
Speaker 3: So Ben Wittes' post is like, hey, everyone, of course,
12:49
Speaker 3: DOJ shouldn't be just dumping a bunch of sensitive information
12:54
Speaker 3: from a case that wasn't tried into the public's hands.
12:57
Speaker 3: And first of all, a lot of the files, a
13:00
Speaker 3: lot of this information is under seal by the courts.
13:04
Speaker 3: And so you would have to get a judge to
13:06
Speaker 3: unseal it. It's not Pam Bondi's decision. It's not the
13:08
Speaker 3: attorney general's decision to just throw this out there. It
13:11
Speaker 3: would be against the law to release a lot of
13:12
Speaker 3: this information. Other information, as the Trump people have said, would,
13:17
Speaker 3: you know, involve some of these victims. And you don't
13:20
Speaker 3: want to further hurt the victims by just throwing a
13:23
Speaker 3: bunch of information out there. And then there is information
13:26
Speaker 3: about people who have not been charged with anything, people
13:30
Speaker 3: who may have given evidence or testimony against Jeffrey Epstein.
13:34
Speaker 3: And now you're going to just publicly release their testimony now.
13:40
Speaker 3: we might think, well, if it's about Donald Trump or
13:42
Speaker 3: whatever else, I'm like, yeah, of course, let's get it
13:44
Speaker 3: out there. But as a practice, if you had a
13:47
Speaker 3: Department of Justice that was operating on the up and up,
13:50
Speaker 3: which we do not, but if you did, we would
13:52
Speaker 3: not want the Justice Department to just start, if you
13:55
Speaker 3: go give testimony to the Justice Department or you go
13:58
Speaker 3: talk to give testimony, to just put everything you said
14:00
Speaker 3: out there. So there's a whole bunch of things. Now,
14:03
Speaker 3: Ben suggests, which I think is a very good suggestion,
14:05
Speaker 3: he's like, you can still get a lot of this information.
14:08
Speaker 3: We have a body called Congress. which can certainly launch
14:11
Speaker 3: an entire investigation and the Justice Department is supposed to
14:14
Speaker 3: work with. And, you know, obviously Democrats don't have subpoena
14:17
Speaker 3: power now, but if we took back the House, you know,
14:20
Speaker 3: then you could imagine a congressional investigation that gets to
14:22
Speaker 3: the bottom of a lot of this. And then, so
14:24
Speaker 3: you have that, right?
14:25
Speaker 4: Can I respond to that part for a second?
14:27
Speaker 8: Sure, sure, sure.
14:27
Speaker 6: Yeah.
14:28
Speaker 4: That is an explanation for why the Epstein file should
14:30
Speaker 4: not be released. That is not Donald Trump's explanation for
14:33
Speaker 4: why the Epstein file should not be released.
14:35
Speaker 3: But this is what, this is my second part of it,
14:37
Speaker 3: which is, So say this Wall Street Journal story is
14:39
Speaker 3: true and George Conway is tweeting out that he heard
14:43
Speaker 3: a rumor that it might be something about a birthday
14:45
Speaker 3: card that Trump wrote to Epstein that was overly nice
14:48
Speaker 3: or something. But you can imagine that Donald Trump hates
14:51
Speaker 3: anything that causes any kind of reputational damage like this,
14:56
Speaker 3: especially if it's such a big deal that has captured
14:58
Speaker 3: the attention of the entire country. And what if it's
15:01
Speaker 3: just a very sort of gross... like you're the best,
15:06
Speaker 3: we've had the best times. And it's not like incriminating,
15:09
Speaker 3: but it's just deeply embarrassing. And you combine the deeply
15:13
Speaker 3: embarrassing information about Donald Trump that's still not incriminating with
15:17
Speaker 3: the Justice Department thinking, well, we have an excuse, which
15:19
Speaker 3: is we can't release a lot of this information anyway. Now, again,
15:23
Speaker 3: it's one possibility. I don't even think I buy it.
15:26
Speaker 3: But to me, the reason I bring it up is
15:28
Speaker 3: it is the most generous possibility I could imagine. about
15:31
Speaker 3: this whole thing. I can't imagine another one that's, that's, that's,
15:34
Speaker 3: that's more Jackson.
15:35
Speaker 4: But that he's in there.
15:36
Speaker 1: Yes.
15:36
Speaker 3: I don't know how he's, I don't know how he's
15:38
Speaker 3: not in there. If he wasn't in there at all.
15:40
Speaker 3: And if he felt sure about it, why not just
15:42
Speaker 3: say some version, some Trumpian version of the first thing
15:46
Speaker 3: that I said that Ben would have supposed to, which
15:47
Speaker 3: is like, Hey, it's against the law. Hands are tied.
15:50
Speaker 3: It's only about victims. There's no other, that's it. And
15:53
Speaker 3: just like, keep repeating that.
15:55
Speaker 7: Yeah.
15:55
Speaker 4: But he's, he's not doing that, which is the thing.
15:57
Speaker 4: And we know Donald Trump is, you know, I was
16:01
Speaker 4: here– some friends texted me today and they said basically
16:04
Speaker 4: like why wouldn't he just release it? The guy has
16:05
Speaker 4: been charged. He's been– he's on the Access Hollywood tape.
16:10
Speaker 4: There's all these accusations out there. He's sort of a
16:12
Speaker 4: famous– he's a famous adulterer. Like why does he care
16:16
Speaker 4: about this?
16:17
Speaker 3: I get the same question from some of my high
16:19
Speaker 3: school friends.
16:21
Speaker 4: But we know he does care about these things because
16:24
Speaker 4: the reason he's a convicted felon is he paid off–
16:28
Speaker 4: he paid a large amount of hush money– illegally to
16:31
Speaker 4: Stormy Daniels to try to cover up that affair becoming public.
16:36
Speaker 4: And so this is actually the sort of behavior that
16:39
Speaker 4: Trump engages in when he's worried about reputational damage.
16:44
Speaker 3: And how do you think about the reputational damage with
16:48
Speaker 3: his base right now, with his like, some of his
16:50
Speaker 3: strongest supporters in MAGA media, influencers, all that? Because, you know,
16:56
Speaker 3: they've gone back and forth. I A lot of them,
16:59
Speaker 3: most of them, I would say, were pretty upset at
17:01
Speaker 3: the beginning. Some of them have, you know, gotten back
17:04
Speaker 3: on board with Trump. Some of them are still trying
17:06
Speaker 3: to figure it out. You got this from from neo-Nazi
17:10
Speaker 3: Nick Fuentes, who dined with Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago famously,
17:14
Speaker 3: along with Kanye West right before he launched his his
17:17
Speaker 3: third campaign. He said, fuck you. You suck. You're fat.
17:21
Speaker 3: You're a joke. You're stupid. You're not funny. We're going
17:23
Speaker 3: to look back at MAGA movement as the biggest scam
17:25
Speaker 3: in history. The liberals were right.
17:29
Speaker 4: Ouch.
17:30
Speaker 9: Tough.
17:31
Speaker 3: That's a tough one. How do you think about this?
17:33
Speaker 3: Do you think this is long-term damage from these folks,
17:35
Speaker 3: from the MAGA elite, let's call them? Yeah, I do.
17:38
Speaker 4: I do think there is a breaking of the core
17:41
Speaker 4: trust here. Because what happens, let's say they put something
17:44
Speaker 4: out at some point, right? Either Congress forces them or
17:48
Speaker 4: Trump gives in. These people aren't going to believe them
17:49
Speaker 4: because they feel that Trump has lied to them and
17:51
Speaker 4: lied to them repeatedly. And what I think is just
17:54
Speaker 4: really interesting about this is These, not Nick Fuentes per se,
17:58
Speaker 4: but Megyn Kelly, Steve Bannon, Laura Loomer, Alex Jones, these
18:03
Speaker 4: are media people. These people have an audience. Prior to
18:07
Speaker 4: the Epstein scandal, Fuhrer, whatever you want to call this,
18:12
Speaker 4: if you were anti-Trump in the right-wing media, there was
18:15
Speaker 4: no place for you. You faced a terrible backlash. Places
18:17
Speaker 4: like the Weekly Standard shut down because there was no
18:20
Speaker 4: business in right-wing media in being anti-Trump. If these media
18:27
Speaker 4: folks were getting blowback from their audience, they would stop.
18:31
Speaker 4: But instead, it seems like based on their behavior and
18:33
Speaker 4: some metrics, like they're actually getting a boosted engagement. And
18:37
Speaker 4: that says something about where at least the hardcore MAGA
18:39
Speaker 4: base is. And I think even more importantly over the
18:41
Speaker 4: long term is it flips the incentive structure in right-wing media, right?
18:46
Speaker 4: Where now you have it, the incentive was to be
18:47
Speaker 4: as pro-Trump as possible. That's where the audience was. That's
18:50
Speaker 4: where the engagement was. That's where the money was. There's
18:52
Speaker 4: basically a viable aim to be to Trump's right, to
18:54
Speaker 4: be an anti-Trump MAGA person. And that really will change
18:57
Speaker 4: the discourse because Trump has depended on essentially unanimity from
19:02
Speaker 4: his media allies for the last decade. And if he
19:04
Speaker 4: doesn't have that, that does have real political ramifications beyond
19:08
Speaker 4: just this scandal.
19:10
Speaker 3: I would say to either be on Trump's right or
19:12
Speaker 3: to just be part of a crowd that is disappointed
19:16
Speaker 3: with Trump for whatever reason, right? And this is like
19:19
Speaker 3: not uncommon in politics in general in both parties, right?
19:23
Speaker 3: You support your candidate. You love your candidate. You get
19:27
Speaker 3: your candidate into office. Your candidate now has power. And
19:31
Speaker 3: then your candidate disappoints you in some number of ways.
19:35
Speaker 3: And the more disappointments and the more core the disappointments
19:38
Speaker 3: are to why you supported them in the first place,
19:41
Speaker 3: the angrier you're going to be. And now he is
19:42
Speaker 3: facing that both with the like super extreme right some
19:46
Speaker 3: of the Trump-curious, manosphere-type some of the podcasters.
19:52
Speaker 4: Like the folks in the Flagrant podcast, Theo Vaughn.
19:54
Speaker 3: The Flagrant podcast, Theo, you know, Joe Rogan, right? Like
19:58
Speaker 3: those types. I think it could leave a mark. I
20:01
Speaker 3: could also, what do you think Republicans in Congress and
20:04
Speaker 3: Republican politicians are thinking right now? Because I could also
20:08
Speaker 3: see with them, thinking, you know, we just got to
20:12
Speaker 3: wait for this. This is just going to blow over
20:13
Speaker 3: at some point because it is impossible in this information
20:17
Speaker 3: environment to hold people's attention on one thing for too long.
20:22
Speaker 3: And so, you know, if we make some, some noise
20:25
Speaker 3: about possible transparency and where for transparency, and maybe we'll
20:28
Speaker 3: vote on some non-binding resolution, or maybe it'll be binding,
20:31
Speaker 3: but then the DOJ will tell us to go fuck ourselves.
20:34
Speaker 3: And at some point people are going to turn to
20:36
Speaker 3: something else and this will blow over. And We just
20:38
Speaker 3: got to kind of say the right thing now, and
20:40
Speaker 3: I think we can just hold on tight.
20:42
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think that's where the congressional Republicans will be
20:45
Speaker 4: is they want to try to chart a lane between
20:50
Speaker 4: the audience that very much wants transparency and angering Trump
20:52
Speaker 4: too much. So if they could do some sort of
20:54
Speaker 4: non-binding resolution, what they probably don't want is a bunch
20:57
Speaker 4: of votes in a row every time they want to
20:59
Speaker 4: do something for the next 18 months. that says that
21:01
Speaker 4: they're against transparency here. They're against releasing the files because
21:04
Speaker 4: that will have some consequences for them because they need
21:06
Speaker 4: that base to turn out, right? That's the difference between
21:08
Speaker 4: holding the house and losing the house. So I think
21:11
Speaker 4: they're going to try to find some sort of probably
21:13
Speaker 4: unsatisfactory middle ground there.
21:15
Speaker 3: And what about White House options here? As I mentioned,
21:21
Speaker 3: Laura Loomer, Steve Bannon, others were urging Pam Bondi to
21:26
Speaker 3: announce a special counsel or Trump to tell Pam Bondi
21:29
Speaker 3: to appoint a special counsel. Caroline Leavitt at the White
21:32
Speaker 3: House briefing today said the president does not want that
21:36
Speaker 3: special counsel. And I'm wondering what other options they have
21:39
Speaker 3: at the White House to let the air out of
21:41
Speaker 3: this balloon a little bit, or maybe they don't care.
21:44
Speaker 3: Maybe they don't want to even try.
21:46
Speaker 4: It seems like their strategy is to try to just
21:48
Speaker 4: muscle through to the next crisis. And Trump's been trying
21:51
Speaker 4: to create them, right? He's trying to prosecute Adam Schiff,
21:56
Speaker 4: He's making announcements about the sweeteners used in Coca-Cola. He's
22:01
Speaker 4: trying to find some way to change the subject. He
22:03
Speaker 4: has thus far failed to do that. Special counsel is
22:07
Speaker 4: an option if they wanted to go that route. I
22:10
Speaker 4: don't know that anyone should ever want a special counsel.
22:13
Speaker 4: There was a very famous meeting in the Clinton administration
22:16
Speaker 4: in the middle of the Whitewater crisis where I think
22:20
Speaker 4: it was Bernie Nussbaum's White House counsel was in the
22:21
Speaker 4: room with the political advisors like George Stephanopoulos and They
22:24
Speaker 4: had a debate and the political advisors wanted the Clintons
22:26
Speaker 4: to call for an independent counsel. Back when we had
22:29
Speaker 4: independent counsel law and the lawyers were like, that's insane.
22:32
Speaker 4: The Clintons were agreed with the political people. They called
22:35
Speaker 4: for an independent counsel. That independent counsel was Ken Starr.
22:39
Speaker 4: It's like the next seven years of their lives were miserable.
22:43
Speaker 4: So maybe you don't want that. You could say, you
22:46
Speaker 4: could announce we're going to, one way to do this,
22:48
Speaker 4: I don't know that I'm going to give communications advice
22:50
Speaker 4: to them, but one thing you could do is announce
22:53
Speaker 4: that you're going to do a review and you're going
22:55
Speaker 4: to release everything you can release in 90 days.
22:58
Speaker 7: Right?
22:58
Speaker 4: Like that's a classic Trump tactic to just kick it
23:00
Speaker 4: down the road. You could just pretend like Aaron Sorkin's
23:03
Speaker 4: in charge and say we're going to do a two-hour
23:05
Speaker 4: primetime press conference about it. You could sit and do
23:07
Speaker 4: an interview with.
23:08
Speaker 3: Certainly not with Trump. You'd need a person to do
23:11
Speaker 3: that interview. Trying to think of who could do it.
23:13
Speaker 3: Who could do it? Like maybe you send Marco Rubio out.
23:17
Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah.
23:20
Speaker 3: Fellow Floridian, Marco Rubio. Um, yeah, no, I, I think
23:24
Speaker 3: that they, they probably just, they probably just don't care. I,
23:28
Speaker 3: I kind of thought they would, I was a little
23:29
Speaker 3: worried that they would say, okay, special counsel, Ed Martin,
23:33
Speaker 3: or in fact, do you know who, um, Lauren Boebert
23:36
Speaker 3: suggested for a special counsel to look into this child
23:40
Speaker 3: sex trafficking case?
23:42
Speaker 4: I do know the answer to this, but is it
23:43
Speaker 4: better for the podcast if I pretend like I don't?
23:45
Speaker 3: Go for it. Go for it.
23:46
Speaker 4: It's Matt Gaetz, right?
23:47
Speaker 3: It's Matt Gaetz.
23:50
Speaker 1: We are looking into.
23:51
Speaker 3: Well, look, if you want someone.
23:52
Speaker 1: The almost attorney general.
23:53
Speaker 4: The almost attorney general who may know a thing or
23:55
Speaker 4: two about a Florida-based sex trafficking ring.
23:58
Speaker 3: Yeah, sure does.
23:59
Speaker 7: Allegedly.
23:59
Speaker 5: Allegedly.
24:00
Speaker 3: Sure does. Yeah, that would be a real troll. That
24:01
Speaker 3: would be a real troll.
24:02
Speaker 4: You're getting a subject matter expert there, I guess.
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25:41
Speaker 3: All right, so no special counsel, but the Justice Department
25:43
Speaker 3: did fire Maureen Comey on Wednesday, an SDNY prosecutor who
25:49
Speaker 3: went after Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. And yes, if you're wondering,
25:54
Speaker 3: she is related to that Comey. Maureen happens to be
25:57
Speaker 3: James Comey's daughter. What do you make of this? Probably
26:01
Speaker 3: doesn't fix any of Trump's Epstein problems, huh?
26:03
Speaker 4: No, it seems to make them much, much worse, right?
26:07
Speaker 4: Like if you had a lot of, you have a
26:08
Speaker 4: lot of questions what's going on here that all of
26:09
Speaker 4: a sudden out of the blue, Trump fires the person
26:12
Speaker 4: who prosecuted Epstein Maxwell and Diddy. The racist question is
26:16
Speaker 4: about Diddy. What do we know about the connections there?
26:19
Speaker 4: Like I am assuming that this is an idea that
26:22
Speaker 4: has like been working its way through the system. Like
26:24
Speaker 4: there's someone in charge of like petty revenge and they
26:27
Speaker 4: finally got around to firing her. They just happened to
26:29
Speaker 4: do it right at the worst possible moment.
26:31
Speaker 3: Oh, so it was like right person for the wrong
26:33
Speaker 3: thing kind of thing?
26:34
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's just a truly insane thing to do right now.
26:39
Speaker 3: The theory that the New York Times- floated in its
26:42
Speaker 3: new york times way which is not directly but just
26:45
Speaker 3: sort of through their kind of vague language is she
26:49
Speaker 3: was mentioned in a politico story last week about not
26:53
Speaker 3: wanting to release some of the information and evidence in
26:58
Speaker 3: the epstein case for the reasons i mentioned earlier because
27:02
Speaker 3: victims sensitive under seal all that and i think the
27:07
Speaker 3: new york times said um she may be getting set
27:10
Speaker 3: up to be a scapegoat by the Trump administration because
27:13
Speaker 3: then they could say, oh, see, she was the one
27:14
Speaker 3: withholding all this evidence. But I was like, the only
27:16
Speaker 3: problem there is now that they've got rid of her,
27:19
Speaker 3: who's holding up the evidence now?
27:21
Speaker 4: Could you just imagine if Trump went to the right-wing
27:25
Speaker 4: MAGA people and was like, look, I'm trying to do it,
27:28
Speaker 4: but Jim Comey's daughter is stopping me.
27:32
Speaker 3: Like, and now she's finally out, but she took it
27:34
Speaker 3: with her. She took the files with her.
27:37
Speaker 4: My assumption here in a less New York Times way
27:41
Speaker 4: is that they've been wanting to fire her a long time,
27:43
Speaker 4: but they thought it was probably a bad idea to
27:44
Speaker 4: fire her in the middle of the Diddy trial. And
27:47
Speaker 4: so they just waited until that was over and then
27:50
Speaker 4: fired her, which also happened to be in the middle
27:51
Speaker 4: of the Epstein scandal.
27:53
Speaker 3: You might say that they 86ed her.
27:55
Speaker 4: Oh, there you go.
27:59
Speaker 3: The traditional use of that, by the way.
28:02
Speaker 4: Okay, thank you.
28:03
Speaker 3: So we're starting to get polling on this. Quinnipiac poll
28:06
Speaker 3: taken over the weekend has 63% of voters disapproving of
28:09
Speaker 3: Trump's handling of the Epstein situation, only 17% approve. When
28:13
Speaker 3: you narrow that to Republicans, 40% approve, but a full
28:16
Speaker 3: 36% disapprove. A Reuters poll conducted Tuesday and Wednesday had
28:21
Speaker 3: similar numbers, and it has 69% of voters nice, saying
28:25
Speaker 3: they think government is hiding key details about Epstein. So
28:29
Speaker 3: that's people's views on it. Not great. What's your guess
28:32
Speaker 3: on the salience of this issue for people and particularly Republicans?
28:36
Speaker 4: I'm just going to guess that if you ask people
28:38
Speaker 4: what they care about most, cost of living, the economy, jobs, immigration,
28:44
Speaker 4: Epstein's going to fall well below all of those things.
28:46
Speaker 4: But I think that's sort of an overly pedantic way
28:48
Speaker 4: of looking at this issue. What this issue is about
28:52
Speaker 4: is not about the Epstein files per se. It's about,
28:56
Speaker 4: it goes to the crux of what is decided the
28:58
Speaker 4: last several elections, which is a We live in a
29:02
Speaker 4: perpetual change election, and people are dissatisfied and angry about
29:07
Speaker 4: the political system that they view to be corrupt and
29:10
Speaker 4: broken and helping protect rich and elites and the politically connected.
29:15
Speaker 4: And this entire thing is about Trump going from someone
29:20
Speaker 4: who was coming to Washington to break up that corrupt
29:23
Speaker 4: political system to being someone who is now wielding power
29:27
Speaker 4: to protect the very elites, himself included. And so it
29:32
Speaker 4: goes to something much bigger that I think doesn't show
29:33
Speaker 4: up in polls. What we really should be tracking on
29:35
Speaker 4: this is how people feel about Trump as a change
29:38
Speaker 4: agent or an outsider or part of the status quo.
29:40
Speaker 4: We haven't seen that polling yet.
29:43
Speaker 3: Or I think CNN did ask different qualities, and this
29:46
Speaker 3: is sort of not the perfect substitute for that, but
29:49
Speaker 3: cares about people like you. And he's quite low on that. Yeah.
29:52
Speaker 4: And he's been low on that for a while. That's
29:54
Speaker 4: always been, he lost that to Harris in the election.
29:57
Speaker 4: One notable polling out there is there's a data for
29:59
Speaker 4: progress poll that shows that. 55% of Republicans who have
30:04
Speaker 4: heard a lot about the Epstein files disapprove of how
30:06
Speaker 4: Trump has handled them. He has a net approval rating
30:08
Speaker 4: among people who've heard some of them and, uh, and
30:12
Speaker 4: a decent program people who've heard none about them, which
30:14
Speaker 4: is weird to have an opinion on that. But so
30:17
Speaker 4: like there is this argument here that the more attention
30:20
Speaker 4: that this gets, the more people hear about what Trump
30:23
Speaker 4: is doing, the very suspicious circumstances in which he changed
30:25
Speaker 4: his position on releasing the files. will hurt him more
30:28
Speaker 4: with Republicans.
30:30
Speaker 3: One more question before we move on this topic. Maybe
30:33
Speaker 3: for good, probably not. No, we are talking about this
30:35
Speaker 3: next week. I'm telling you that right now. Democrats, they
30:38
Speaker 3: have jumped all over the issue, which we urged them
30:43
Speaker 3: to do.
30:44
Speaker 4: I mean, you did. I was on vacation, but.
30:47
Speaker 3: That's right. I did.
30:48
Speaker 5: I did.
30:48
Speaker 3: Me and Tommy did. Special Epstein correspondent, Tommy Vitor. So...
30:54
Speaker 3: What do you think about it?
30:54
Speaker 4: Does he broadcast from Epstein Island?
30:57
Speaker 3: Essentially, yeah. I haven't seen him. Anything Democrats have to
31:00
Speaker 3: be careful about? And I ask this only because you
31:03
Speaker 3: can almost feel Republicans, some of the MAGA people starting
31:07
Speaker 3: to get negatively polarized and that like if the Democrats
31:11
Speaker 3: are having too much fun on this and then I'm
31:14
Speaker 3: going to be, now I'm going to flip and I'll
31:16
Speaker 3: be on Trump's side. I haven't seen that happen like
31:18
Speaker 3: completely yet, but there's a balance there. What do you
31:21
Speaker 3: think about that?
31:21
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think the Democrats should talk about this. We
31:25
Speaker 4: want to keep the story in the news. And I
31:26
Speaker 4: use the news in the broadest sense of the news,
31:30
Speaker 4: not necessarily the New York Times, but the social media conversation.
31:33
Speaker 4: But we shouldn't put too much spin on the ball.
31:36
Speaker 4: We should want transparency. We just want answers. We want
31:38
Speaker 4: the exact same thing Donald Trump said he wanted like
31:40
Speaker 4: six minutes ago. We want to know what's in the files.
31:43
Speaker 4: They should be released and leave it at that. Because
31:44
Speaker 4: there is this risk of polarizing the issue, right? And
31:49
Speaker 4: where people just revert to their partisan priors. If we
31:53
Speaker 4: overdo it and there's no real advantage in overdoing it
31:55
Speaker 4: because our, the audience that we are trying to reach
31:58
Speaker 4: here is primarily Republicans.
32:02
Speaker 6: Right.
32:02
Speaker 4: And, and in this case, actually more hardcore partisan Republicans.
32:06
Speaker 4: And so the best messengers to do that is not Democrats.
32:10
Speaker 5: Right. It is.
32:11
Speaker 4: So I like one thing I wrote a message back
32:13
Speaker 4: newsletter about this earlier this week, where one of the
32:15
Speaker 4: things I encourage Democrats to do is instead of posting
32:17
Speaker 4: your own social media videos about yourself, talking about it,
32:20
Speaker 4: just share the conservative, the Joe Rogan, Andrew Schultz, all
32:27
Speaker 4: these people, Theo Vaughn, these people who had real influence
32:30
Speaker 4: with some segment of voters, get that content out there.
32:33
Speaker 4: That's what we should be sharing. That's more valuable than
32:35
Speaker 4: a witty refrain, a tough tweet, whatever else it is.
32:42
Speaker 4: We should just recognize every messaging strategy begins with understanding
32:47
Speaker 4: your audience. And then the second question always ask yourself
32:49
Speaker 4: is who's the best messenger for that audience? very often
32:52
Speaker 4: in this particular situation, the best messenger for that audience
32:55
Speaker 4: is not going to be Democrats themselves. It doesn't mean
32:57
Speaker 4: we shouldn't talk about it, but how we talk about
32:59
Speaker 4: it matters.
33:00
Speaker 3: I also think you need to be, you should be
33:03
Speaker 3: honest about how you've always felt about this case, right?
33:07
Speaker 3: Like it is not really believable for someone who has
33:10
Speaker 3: never talked about releasing the Epstein files for the last
33:13
Speaker 3: four years to suddenly be like, oh, it's the most
33:15
Speaker 3: important issue to release the Epstein files. What I do
33:19
Speaker 3: think is that Trump's handling of this case is so...
33:24
Speaker 3: It even surprised me how insulting it is to his
33:27
Speaker 3: own supporters' intelligence. And I think he has insulted their
33:31
Speaker 3: intelligence plenty of times over the last decade. But this
33:34
Speaker 3: is like a new level where it is obvious that
33:39
Speaker 3: he is lying when he says that this was created
33:41
Speaker 3: by Obama and Hillary Clinton and Biden and it's a
33:45
Speaker 3: hoax and all that shit. It is such an obvious
33:48
Speaker 3: lie that even the biggest Trump supporter... is not going
33:52
Speaker 3: to believe at least privately, if not publicly. And I
33:56
Speaker 3: think getting people to really sit with this idea that this,
33:59
Speaker 3: this guy that you really believed in and voted for
34:01
Speaker 3: many times is lying to you and thinks you're stupid
34:05
Speaker 3: enough to just kind of believe the lie or really
34:08
Speaker 3: doesn't care if his lie is so bad that you don't,
34:11
Speaker 3: that you don't believe it. Like he's, he just doesn't
34:13
Speaker 3: give a shit about you. And, you know, as, as
34:16
Speaker 3: we go on in the next, however many years we
34:18
Speaker 3: fucking have to deal with him, um, It's something to
34:20
Speaker 3: think about the next time he makes a promise, the
34:23
Speaker 3: next time he tells you something, the next time he
34:26
Speaker 3: doesn't fulfill one of the things he promised he'd do
34:28
Speaker 3: in the campaign. You know, you got to wonder, is
34:30
Speaker 3: he lying again like he was lying in the Epstein files?
34:34
Speaker 3: So let's talk about more traditional kitchen table issues. We
34:38
Speaker 3: learned this week from the Labor Department that inflation is
34:41
Speaker 3: on the rise again. Prices are on the rise again.
34:44
Speaker 3: Biggest jump since January. The culprit is Trump's tariffs, which
34:48
Speaker 3: are starting to hit people. In a hopeful sign that
34:51
Speaker 3: he's willing to change course when presented with new information,
34:54
Speaker 3: Trump did pledge to back off his trade war. No,
34:58
Speaker 3: just kidding. He didn't do that at all. He threatened
35:00
Speaker 3: to fire the Fed chair. The Fed chair he appointed
35:03
Speaker 3: because Jerome Powell won't cut interest rates and he won't
35:07
Speaker 3: cut interest rates on account of Trump's trade war. On
35:11
Speaker 3: Tuesday night, Trump showed Republicans in Congress a draft termination
35:14
Speaker 3: letter for Powell and asked them whether he should send it.
35:18
Speaker 3: Firing Powell could do significant economic damage and is illegal
35:23
Speaker 3: unless there's actual cause to fire him. Sure enough, Trump
35:26
Speaker 3: told reporters that, quote, he probably wouldn't do it unless Powell, quote,
35:30
Speaker 3: has to leave for fraud, which is a reference to
35:34
Speaker 3: a multi-billion dollar renovation of the Fed's D.C. headquarters, which
35:39
Speaker 3: Trump and a lot of his aides and allies are
35:42
Speaker 3: calling fraudulent as a way to have an excuse to
35:45
Speaker 3: fire Powell. How big of a deal do you think
35:47
Speaker 3: this is?
35:48
Speaker 4: I mean, it is potentially a massive deal. If Trump
35:52
Speaker 4: were to fire Powell, it would fundamentally change how the
35:58
Speaker 4: US economy is viewed around the world. One of our
36:02
Speaker 4: strengths is that the US dollar is the global reserve currency.
36:06
Speaker 4: It's the currency that is thought to be so safe
36:08
Speaker 4: and so stable that it's what most federal reserves in
36:10
Speaker 4: other countries keep to ensure stability in their economies. And
36:14
Speaker 4: so if all of a sudden, U.S. monetary policy is
36:17
Speaker 4: believed to be in the hands of someone who is
36:19
Speaker 4: operating at the whims of an erratic wannabe authoritarian that
36:24
Speaker 4: would have massive impact on the global economy. It's a
36:27
Speaker 4: deeply dangerous situation. And even just like if you watch
36:31
Speaker 4: the Dow Jones average this week on the date that
36:34
Speaker 4: story came out that he had written that letter, it's
36:36
Speaker 4: like going up, going up, drops right down. Trump makes
36:40
Speaker 4: his remarks that he's not going to do it. It
36:41
Speaker 4: goes back again. Like this is going to have massive,
36:43
Speaker 4: there'll be massive market volatility around this.
36:46
Speaker 3: I heard our old friend and colleague, Jason Furman, talking
36:49
Speaker 3: about this.
36:50
Speaker 4: Did you listen to Jason Furman on Derek Johnson's podcast?
36:53
Speaker 1: I sure did.
36:53
Speaker 4: I went for a walk this morning. That's exactly what
36:55
Speaker 4: I listened to.
36:57
Speaker 3: And Jason's point, it helped me understand it too. He
37:01
Speaker 3: was like, the reason that the Fed is independent, the
37:05
Speaker 3: reason it's important that the Fed is independent and insulated
37:07
Speaker 3: from political pressure is that if you're not insulated from
37:11
Speaker 3: political pressure, you are likely to want to make decisions
37:15
Speaker 3: that help in the short term, or you're tempted to
37:18
Speaker 3: make decisions that help in the short term. So like,
37:21
Speaker 3: maybe I'll cut interest rates a little bit now, because
37:22
Speaker 3: that'll help juice the economy, you know. And if you're
37:25
Speaker 3: completely insulated from political pressure, you can make decisions that
37:30
Speaker 3: might have some issues in the short term, but long
37:32
Speaker 3: term are going to be the best for the economy.
37:35
Speaker 3: So people know, the rest of the world knows, that
37:37
Speaker 3: you are making decisions based on what you believe is
37:39
Speaker 3: best for the American economy, which a lot of the
37:42
Speaker 3: rest of the world depends on. And if we're just
37:45
Speaker 3: now thrown in Fed chairs to cater to the whims,
37:48
Speaker 3: the short-term whims of Donald Trump, who's the most short-term
37:52
Speaker 3: thinker we've ever had as president, then we're really fucked. Now, apparently,
37:57
Speaker 3: there's a story in Politico that the lawyers in the
38:01
Speaker 3: White House may have convinced Donald Trump not to do this, A,
38:05
Speaker 3: because he'll lose in court, B, because all the economic
38:09
Speaker 3: damage it can do. And they just think that this
38:12
Speaker 3: this whole like, let's fire Powell for cause and the
38:15
Speaker 3: cause is these renovations that have gone over budget. And
38:19
Speaker 3: we don't think he was honest to Congress about how
38:22
Speaker 3: they went over budget is just sort of bullshit. One
38:25
Speaker 3: administration official from the Trump White House said to Politico,
38:29
Speaker 3: whether or not it's illegal, I don't know, but is
38:31
Speaker 3: it a good thing to point out to damage this
38:32
Speaker 3: guy's image? Yeah. That really sums it up, doesn't it?
38:37
Speaker 6: Yeah.
38:38
Speaker 4: I mean, I think the Wall Street Journal had a
38:40
Speaker 4: very big story on this and they came to the
38:42
Speaker 4: same conclusion that there is no there there on this
38:45
Speaker 4: idea that you could use these renovations to get to cause, right?
38:49
Speaker 4: Because the cause here that you can be fired for
38:51
Speaker 4: is essentially malfeasance or failure to fulfill your duties. And
38:54
Speaker 4: the courts have been pretty clear that refusing to cut
38:57
Speaker 4: interest rates at the president's command is neither malfeasance nor
39:01
Speaker 4: failure to fulfill your duty. And that what Trump is
39:03
Speaker 4: really trying to do here is put so much pressure,
39:06
Speaker 4: political pressure on Powell that he will either resign on
39:09
Speaker 4: his own or cut interest rates earlier to appease Trump.
39:16
Speaker 3: So according to the Times, the person who drafted the
39:18
Speaker 3: termination letter was Bill Pulte, who knows, the Trump lackey
39:23
Speaker 3: who is now in charge of the Federal Housing Finance Agency.
39:28
Speaker 3: Pulte has been attacking Powell on Twitter for not lowering rates,
39:32
Speaker 3: which is, you know, what you do as the head
39:34
Speaker 3: of the Federal Housing Finance Agency. He's also been driving
39:37
Speaker 3: the effort to exploit the renovation thing. And get this,
39:42
Speaker 3: he's also the person pushing to investigate Tish James and
39:46
Speaker 3: now Adam Schiff for mortgage fraud. So It seems to
39:50
Speaker 3: me like using one of your top housing appointees to
39:54
Speaker 3: go after your political enemies for phony fraud charges and
39:58
Speaker 3: renovation bullshit is the bigger scandal than maybe splurging on
40:04
Speaker 3: a new reno.
40:06
Speaker 7: Yes.
40:07
Speaker 4: It's not in the job description for the head of
40:11
Speaker 4: the FHA to be just like an attack dog on
40:14
Speaker 4: Twitter or elsewhere.
40:15
Speaker 1: It's very.
40:16
Speaker 4: It's very strange and actually probably makes you raise questions
40:19
Speaker 4: about what's actually happening at FHA if this is how
40:21
Speaker 4: this guy's spending all of his time.
40:24
Speaker 3: Someone in Project 2025 planning clearly looked at housing and
40:30
Speaker 3: was like, oh, this is one way we can go
40:32
Speaker 3: after people. Mortgage fraud. We can play pretty fast and
40:35
Speaker 3: loose with mortgage fraud. Pulte, just right before we started
40:39
Speaker 3: recording- just tweeted, I am told by very reliable congressional
40:42
Speaker 3: sources that there may be a criminal referral coming from
40:45
Speaker 3: one or more Congress members to the DOJ for Jay
40:48
Speaker 3: Powell's alleged perjury about the $ 2. 5 billion building. So now
40:53
Speaker 3: they're just going to do a criminal referral.
40:56
Speaker 4: Cool. Just a very normal country we live in.
40:59
Speaker 3: Un-fucking-believable. I mean, this is what they want, right? Did
41:04
Speaker 3: Adam Schiff do anything? No. He didn't do anything wrong.
41:07
Speaker 3: But now people are like, well, Trump says Adam Schiff's
41:10
Speaker 3: a criminal and Adam Schiff says he didn't do anything.
41:13
Speaker 3: And I don't know. And then the administration official that
41:16
Speaker 3: told Politico, well, we're just trying to damage their reputation.
41:19
Speaker 3: We don't know if it's legal. You know, that's how
41:20
Speaker 3: they went. Another Trump lackey on his way to a
41:23
Speaker 3: lifetime appointment is Emil Bove. Trump's former personal lawyer turned
41:27
Speaker 3: top Justice Department official who told DOJ lawyers they may
41:30
Speaker 3: have to say, fuck you to the courts, brokered the
41:33
Speaker 3: deal to drop the prosecution of Eric Adams in exchange
41:35
Speaker 3: for his complete loyalty to Trump. and oversaw the mass
41:39
Speaker 3: firings of DOJ lawyers who worked on January 6th prosecutions.
41:43
Speaker 3: On Thursday, the Senate Judiciary Committee advanced Bove's nomination to
41:46
Speaker 3: the full Senate on a party line vote after Chairman
41:49
Speaker 3: Chuck Grassley refused to let Democrats debate the whistleblower report
41:53
Speaker 3: on Bove, which led the Democrats to storm out of
41:55
Speaker 3: the hearing. What do you think? Is the fuck you
41:58
Speaker 3: to the courts guy going to get a lifetime seat
42:00
Speaker 3: on the courts?
42:01
Speaker 4: I mean, this is the Republican Senate that confirmed Tulsi
42:04
Speaker 4: Gabbard to be the head of the DNI and RFK Jr.
42:08
Speaker 4: to be the head of HHS and a weekend Fox
42:10
Speaker 4: anchor to be head of the Pentagon. So yeah, it
42:12
Speaker 4: seems like they're probably going to do what Trump wants
42:14
Speaker 4: here again, which is just the amount of disregard you
42:19
Speaker 4: must have for your own duties and your own oath
42:21
Speaker 4: of the Constitution to put this guy on the court
42:24
Speaker 4: of all people. Because it's not like if it's not him,
42:27
Speaker 4: it's going to be Zoran Mandani. There's just be another
42:30
Speaker 4: right-wing person that Trump would put on there. And so
42:33
Speaker 4: they just don't take their jobs seriously at all. They
42:37
Speaker 4: have no sense of separation of powers, of independence, of
42:41
Speaker 4: advice and consent. It's just whatever Trump wants, they do
42:43
Speaker 4: no matter how fucking ridiculous it is.
42:46
Speaker 3: The person I can't figure out is Tom fucking Tillis,
42:49
Speaker 3: who is not running again now. Talked a lot about
42:52
Speaker 3: how free he is to say what he wants and
42:55
Speaker 3: talked about how you know, the Pete Hegseth thing, he
42:59
Speaker 3: now regrets that vote and he voted for RFK Jr.
43:01
Speaker 3: because Bill Cassidy told him to just give him a
43:04
Speaker 3: chance and it'd probably be fine. And then also said,
43:07
Speaker 3: and then voted against Ed Martin, crazy Ed Martin, and
43:10
Speaker 3: said then, well, I'm not voting for any nominees that
43:13
Speaker 3: think that January 6th was okay. Well, Emile Bove fired
43:18
Speaker 3: all the January 6th prosecutors and did all the pardons
43:21
Speaker 3: and Tillis is somehow just voting for him, voting for
43:24
Speaker 3: him out of committee. The guy who's told the DOJ,
43:27
Speaker 3: Trump officials, like, hey, we may have to say fuck
43:29
Speaker 3: you to the courts, who encouraged lying to a judge
43:34
Speaker 3: over the deportations. Like, what is Tom Tillis doing? What
43:37
Speaker 3: do you have to lose at this point?
43:39
Speaker 4: His next job.
43:41
Speaker 3: Un-fucking-believable, man.
43:42
Speaker 4: There's just like these– we've seen this before. There's two
43:45
Speaker 4: dynamics that happen with these people. We saw it with
43:46
Speaker 4: Jeff Flake. We've seen it with some other people leaving. One,
43:50
Speaker 4: they're starting to wonder what they're going to do next. right,
43:53
Speaker 4: which usually involves working in some sort of Republican-loving firm
43:56
Speaker 4: or law firm or trade association. And so you have
43:59
Speaker 4: to find some way to balance your previous independence with
44:02
Speaker 4: doing the party's bidding. And there's this other, like, terrible–
44:06
Speaker 4: I mean, this is just a stupid way to run
44:07
Speaker 4: a government, but there is this, like, high school dynamic
44:09
Speaker 4: of Tom Taylor has to go have lunch with all
44:11
Speaker 4: these people every week and doesn't want to be the
44:13
Speaker 4: asshole every single time. And so he will put a
44:16
Speaker 4: different asshole on the court just to– so he has
44:18
Speaker 4: someone to sit next to at the lunch table.
44:21
Speaker 3: So, yeah. So now the guy who– who put Eric
44:24
Speaker 3: Adams in his pocket, it's the most corrupt fucking deal ever,
44:27
Speaker 3: is now on an appeals court, going to go up
44:30
Speaker 3: to the appeals court, and possibly the Supreme Court if
44:33
Speaker 3: Alito or Thomas retire in the next couple of years.
44:36
Speaker 3: That's who we could get on the fucking Supreme Court.
44:47
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46:25
Speaker 3: So the Republican Congress is really crushing it this week.
46:28
Speaker 3: They're about to pass a bill that would claw back
46:29
Speaker 3: about $ 9 billion that Congress already appropriated. Much of it
46:33
Speaker 3: would have gone to help sick, starving people, mostly children,
46:36
Speaker 3: in poor, war-torn countries all over the world. The cuts
46:39
Speaker 3: will also defund NPR and PBS because local radio and
46:44
Speaker 3: Sesame Street and Daniel Tiger are all too woke. for Republicans.
46:48
Speaker 3: But none of these cuts will come close to making
46:50
Speaker 3: a dent in the $ 4 trillion that Trump and Republicans
46:53
Speaker 3: just added to the deficit because of an economic plan
46:55
Speaker 3: that gives huge tax cuts to the rich while gutting
46:58
Speaker 3: Obamacare and Medicaid, a vote that at least one Republican
47:01
Speaker 3: senator is already regretting. Missouri Senator Josh Hawley has introduced
47:05
Speaker 3: legislation that would undo some of the Medicaid cuts he
47:09
Speaker 3: just voted for two weeks ago. Meanwhile, millions of Americans
47:14
Speaker 3: who buy their own health insurance are about to pay
47:16
Speaker 3: a lot more because of what Trump's bill does to
47:18
Speaker 3: the Affordable Care Act. And those price increases are going
47:22
Speaker 3: to hit this winter. The notices could come as early
47:25
Speaker 3: as this fall. One of Trump's favorite pollsters, Tony Fabrizio,
47:29
Speaker 3: has been circulating a memo that finds generic Republican candidates
47:33
Speaker 3: trailing generic Democratic House candidates by an average of three
47:38
Speaker 3: points in the country's most competitive House districts. But Fabrizio
47:42
Speaker 3: says that if Republicans in Congress undo their Obamacare cuts
47:46
Speaker 3: and extend these premium tax credits in the Affordable Care Act,
47:50
Speaker 3: the polling shows they would actually lead the Democrats in
47:53
Speaker 3: these districts. If they don't extend them and Democrats run
47:56
Speaker 3: on that, polling shows that the Republicans would lose by
48:00
Speaker 3: double digits in these districts. What do you think the
48:03
Speaker 3: chances are that Republicans will try to run on saving Obamacare?
48:06
Speaker 3: Is that something we're going to see?
48:08
Speaker 4: I would love to know who paid Tony Fabrizio for
48:10
Speaker 4: this poll. Because I just do not.
48:12
Speaker 3: Probably that coalition of people who are trying to extend
48:15
Speaker 3: the tax credit.
48:15
Speaker 4: Yeah, there's a couple of them.
48:16
Speaker 3: Some combination of like left and right or not.
48:20
Speaker 4: I assume the insurance companies are involved in here somewhere.
48:22
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think like insurance companies like it. I think
48:24
Speaker 3: patient advocates like it, right? Doctors probably like it.
48:27
Speaker 4: But just this idea that Trump's pollster is just out
48:31
Speaker 4: there pushing for the extension of Obamacare tax credits on
48:34
Speaker 4: his own seems not particularly credible to me. Having said that,
48:37
Speaker 4: I have seen Democratic polling on this, which shows... that–
48:41
Speaker 4: it doesn't ask the exact same questions, but it makes
48:43
Speaker 4: it very clear that this is a very powerful issue
48:46
Speaker 4: and that Republicans will pay a price because these premiums
48:48
Speaker 4: will go up next year. This is not like the
48:52
Speaker 4: Medicaid cuts and everything else that they have kicked past
48:54
Speaker 4: the midterms. And so you will– and it's 24 million people,
48:57
Speaker 4: I think, last I checked. And so there's a lot
48:59
Speaker 4: of people in all the country who are going to
49:00
Speaker 4: do it. And Democrats, if we do this right, both
49:03
Speaker 4: in how we handle the one big beautiful bill and–
49:06
Speaker 4: or one big ugly bill or whatever we want to–
49:07
Speaker 4: what are we calling it these days?
49:09
Speaker 3: And I'm calling it Trump's economic plan because I'm not
49:12
Speaker 3: forcing myself to say big, beautiful bill or big, beautiful
49:14
Speaker 3: betrayal or whatever the fuck the Democrats are saying.
49:17
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's so hard to say. But the goal here
49:20
Speaker 4: is to make Republicans own health care in America, right?
49:22
Speaker 4: So that every single decision, whether it's a hospital closing,
49:26
Speaker 4: changing in Medicaid reimbursement rates, any premium increase anywhere, it
49:31
Speaker 4: has to do with how Republicans have handled this. And
49:33
Speaker 4: so Democrats should absolutely run on it. And I don't
49:36
Speaker 4: think I don't see Republicans coming to save the day here,
49:39
Speaker 4: but we should make them pay for it for sure.
49:41
Speaker 3: Yeah, just on the there's a headline in the Detroit
49:43
Speaker 3: Free Press that one insurance big insurance company in Michigan
49:46
Speaker 3: already announced double digit premium increases for next year. And
49:50
Speaker 3: maybe not related directly to what just passed, but double
49:55
Speaker 3: digit premium increases in addition to losing a credit that
50:00
Speaker 3: was helping people pay for those premiums is going to
50:03
Speaker 3: be an even higher price for people to pay. And
50:05
Speaker 3: every single time there's a headline like that, Democrats should
50:07
Speaker 3: fucking scream about it to voters.
50:09
Speaker 4: And there are much people who are on Medicaid today
50:11
Speaker 4: who at some point will not be on Medicaid and
50:12
Speaker 4: will have to buy insurance on the exchanges if they're
50:15
Speaker 4: lucky enough to have insurance at all. And they will
50:18
Speaker 4: pay more because of what the Republicans have done.
50:20
Speaker 3: Speaking of Medicaid, what do you think about famed Medicaid
50:23
Speaker 3: moderate Josh Hawley's legislation trying to undo the cuts that
50:28
Speaker 3: he just voted for?
50:29
Speaker 4: Just get the fuck out of here. I mean, just
50:33
Speaker 4: what are we doing? If you don't like the cuts,
50:36
Speaker 4: you know what you could have done? Vote against the bill.
50:38
Speaker 4: You could have stopped it.
50:40
Speaker 3: Unbelievable. I do think that some of the comments and
50:44
Speaker 3: moves like this from Hawley and others are really going
50:46
Speaker 3: to come back to bite them in the midterms. I mean,
50:50
Speaker 3: to your earlier point about the Epstein stuff, you don't
50:53
Speaker 3: even have to have a bunch of Democrats yelling about
50:55
Speaker 3: health care. You can just have Republicans like Tom Tillis
50:59
Speaker 3: or Josh Hawley or Susan Collins or Lisa Murkowski. talking
51:04
Speaker 3: about how this is going to hurt people. And then
51:06
Speaker 3: you pair that with actual people who are feeling like
51:10
Speaker 3: they're paying a lot more money or lost their health
51:12
Speaker 3: insurance and talking about it. And it's pretty compelling, I think.
51:14
Speaker 4: There's a great clip of Hawley talking about how bad
51:18
Speaker 4: these cuts are, like six minutes before he ends up
51:21
Speaker 4: saying he's going to vote for him. But that's something
51:23
Speaker 4: that if you're running a congressional race in Missouri, or frankly,
51:25
Speaker 4: anywhere else, you could use that. It's as long as
51:27
Speaker 4: you just label it Republican Senator, right? You don't have
51:29
Speaker 4: to believe me. Here's what Republican Senator Josh Hawley said.
51:31
Speaker 4: Here's what Republican Senator Tom Taylor said. Here's what Republican
51:34
Speaker 4: Senator Lisa Murkowski said, and on and on.
51:37
Speaker 3: Any thoughts on the $ 9 billion in cuts to life-saving
51:40
Speaker 3: aid for poor kids in Daniel Tiger's neighborhood?
51:42
Speaker 4: I will just say that if this cut to PBS
51:47
Speaker 4: means that PBS Kids is going to stop making new
51:49
Speaker 4: episodes of Wild Kratts, my kids will storm the Capitol
51:51
Speaker 4: like it's January 6th.
51:54
Speaker 3: Charlie loves Wild Kratts.
51:55
Speaker 4: Wild Kratts is, I mean, Wild Kratts is a great show.
51:58
Speaker 4: It has turned my kids, particularly my Jack, my four-year-old son,
52:01
Speaker 4: knows so much about such insane facts about animals.
52:04
Speaker 3: Yeah. Charlie will say to him, how did you know that?
52:07
Speaker 3: He's got the Wild Kratts Tony. He's got the Wild
52:11
Speaker 3: Kratts on television.
52:12
Speaker 4: I always say, did you learn that in school? No,
52:13
Speaker 4: I learned that on Wild Kratts. He just kept going
52:16
Speaker 4: around telling everyone that the Gila monster lives in the
52:18
Speaker 4: Sonoran Desert, wherever he goes. But a more serious point
52:23
Speaker 4: is to pass these cuts to life-saving aid for poor
52:28
Speaker 4: kids and to public broadcasting a few weeks after you
52:34
Speaker 4: gave a trillion dollars in tax cuts to the top
52:37
Speaker 4: 1% in this country is so gross that it's hard
52:40
Speaker 4: to take. And as it was happening, as the Senate
52:44
Speaker 4: was debating this, Lisa Murkowski said that there was a
52:48
Speaker 4: tsunami warning in Alaska as the vote was happening, and
52:52
Speaker 4: that in the rural parts of Alaska, the only way
52:54
Speaker 4: people got to hear about the tsunami warning was on
52:57
Speaker 4: the public Airwaves, right? Local public radio. And with these
53:03
Speaker 4: cuts in big cities, they're probably going to be able
53:06
Speaker 4: to make up the difference with fundraising and tote bags
53:08
Speaker 4: and all the other things that PBS and NPR do.
53:11
Speaker 4: But it's going to be rural parts of the country
53:14
Speaker 4: are going to lose their radio stations, lose their local
53:16
Speaker 4: TV because of what Republicans did. And to what point?
53:19
Speaker 4: It is a drop in the bucket compared to all
53:22
Speaker 4: the money they just sent out the door to rich people.
53:24
Speaker 3: Yeah, the Republican line now is, well, everyone's got cell phones.
53:27
Speaker 3: Everyone's got mobile phones. No one gets their alerts, their
53:31
Speaker 3: weather alerts from public radio. And then someone was like,
53:34
Speaker 3: only 12% of people do it. I'm like, well, okay,
53:37
Speaker 3: that's 12% of people who aren't going to get fucking
53:38
Speaker 3: emergency alerts. What are you talking about? Just use something else. Also,
53:43
Speaker 3: I realize foreign aid does not poll well. I get it.
53:48
Speaker 3: There was a story in The Atlantic this week that
53:50
Speaker 3: they're incinerating about a million dollars worth of food that
53:57
Speaker 3: we already bought taxpayers already spent the money on and
54:01
Speaker 3: was supposed to go again to like starving children in
54:06
Speaker 3: afghanistan and pakistan and some war-torn countries and some really
54:10
Speaker 3: tough places and we already bought it it was it
54:13
Speaker 3: was in a warehouse in dubai and now because uh
54:17
Speaker 3: marco because first elon fucking musk and now marco rubio
54:20
Speaker 3: refused to do anything about it Now it's expired. Could
54:23
Speaker 3: have fed a million and a half kids. Million and
54:26
Speaker 3: a half kids. And now it's just incinerated, just wasted food,
54:30
Speaker 3: wasted food. And now we're cutting, Tim Miller pointed this out.
54:34
Speaker 3: So they're going to cut $ 100 million from UNICEF. UNICEF
54:37
Speaker 3: like helps kids in life or death situations. And because
54:41
Speaker 3: we couldn't spend $ 100 million on that. In the bill,
54:44
Speaker 3: in the economic plan, tucked in the economic plan that
54:46
Speaker 3: just passed, $ 300 million for security at Mar-a-Lago and all
54:50
Speaker 3: of Trump's other homes. $ 300 million for security for Trump,
54:53
Speaker 3: because I guess he can't pay for that. But $ 100
54:55
Speaker 3: million we couldn't do just for UNICEF to help starving kids.
54:59
Speaker 4: Kind of says everything.
55:01
Speaker 3: That's where we're at right now. Incinerating food and can't
55:04
Speaker 3: even help starving kids. Fucking ridiculous. One other way Republicans
55:09
Speaker 3: are trying to improve their midterm chances is by redrawing
55:11
Speaker 3: House districts so they can pick their voters. Their first
55:14
Speaker 3: target is Texas, where Trump and Governor Greg Abbott are
55:16
Speaker 3: pressuring the Republican state legislature to hold a special session.
55:20
Speaker 3: on redistricting years ahead of schedule in order to, in
55:23
Speaker 3: Trump's words, pick up five seats, pick up five House seats.
55:28
Speaker 3: He's also suggested that other states could follow. But in
55:31
Speaker 3: a pleasant surprise, Democrats are fighting fire with fire. Tommy
55:34
Speaker 3: and I sat down with Gavin Newsom this week, who
55:36
Speaker 3: broke news right here in this studio about the options
55:40
Speaker 3: he's considering. Let's listen.
55:42
Speaker 9: We can do a special session. I can call for
55:44
Speaker 9: one today if I chose to. We can then put
55:47
Speaker 9: something on the ballot and I could call a special election.
55:50
Speaker 9: We can change the Constitution with the consent of the voters,
55:53
Speaker 9: and I think we would win that. Or you can
55:55
Speaker 9: look at other avenues which we are exploring, which are
55:59
Speaker 9: pathways with the legislature to do urgency clauses with two-thirds
56:03
Speaker 9: of the legislature in both of our houses, to move
56:06
Speaker 9: forward with legislative redistricting in between the constitutional construct, which
56:13
Speaker 9: is every census the Independent Redistricting Commission does new map.
56:19
Speaker 9: but it's silent about what happens in between. So it's
56:21
Speaker 9: a novel legal question and it's being explored.
56:24
Speaker 3: So not every Democrat is on board. California Assemblymember Alex Lee,
56:29
Speaker 3: head of the state's Progressive Caucus, said that, quote, trying
56:31
Speaker 3: to save democracy by destroying democracy is dangerous and foolish.
56:35
Speaker 3: Another anonymous Democratic consultant told Politico that the optics would be, quote,
56:39
Speaker 3: horrendous and indefensible. That said, most other Democrats in California
56:44
Speaker 3: and in Washington, D.C. are supportive. What do you think?
56:48
Speaker 3: Is this a close call?
56:49
Speaker 4: I don't think it's a close call. I think I
56:52
Speaker 4: wish we lived in a world where the Supreme Court
56:55
Speaker 4: thought would rule against partisan gerrymandering as an assault on democracy.
56:59
Speaker 4: They have chosen not to do that. I wish we
57:01
Speaker 4: lived in a world where we could pass a law
57:04
Speaker 4: banning partisan gerrymandering as Democrats tried to do in the
57:07
Speaker 4: John Lewis Voting Rights Act, but we don't. And so
57:10
Speaker 4: the only way that we can stop partisan gerrymandering is
57:14
Speaker 4: through mutually assured destruction. Oh, Texas, you want to do it?
57:18
Speaker 4: California will do it. Florida, you want to do it?
57:20
Speaker 4: New York will want to do it. And that is
57:22
Speaker 4: what we have to do because if the idea is
57:24
Speaker 4: Republicans do whatever they want and we will wave the
57:25
Speaker 4: white flag, we are never going to solve these problems
57:28
Speaker 4: because we will never have the majorities necessary to actually
57:31
Speaker 4: pass a law to ban nonpartisan redistricting. If Republicans think
57:34
Speaker 4: that they can come out on the bad end of
57:36
Speaker 4: partisan redistricting nationally, then we can maybe get them the
57:40
Speaker 4: table at some point for them to actually get a
57:43
Speaker 4: deal to actually pass legislation. If they think they can
57:46
Speaker 4: always win, if the dice comes up with the right
57:49
Speaker 4: roll at the end of every decade with the census,
57:53
Speaker 4: then they're going to keep doing this. And so we
57:55
Speaker 4: have to fight fire with fire. I don't think it's
57:57
Speaker 4: a close.
57:57
Speaker 7: Call at all. Yeah.
57:59
Speaker 3: Nonpartisan, independent, redistricting for everyone, or we don't disarm unilaterally.
58:06
Speaker 3: It's very easy because you need, I mean, this is
58:09
Speaker 3: about national house races. This is about national control of
58:12
Speaker 3: the house. So it's not a state by state thing really,
58:15
Speaker 3: even though that's who is drawing the districts.
58:16
Speaker 7: Right.
58:17
Speaker 3: And so, I don't know, like I just, I, yeah,
58:20
Speaker 3: we can be like, Oh, you know, it's anti-democracy. Anti-democracy
58:23
Speaker 3: is like the Republicans winning the house back or winning
58:26
Speaker 3: the house again. And we have no check on Donald
58:28
Speaker 3: Trump for all four years while he's in office. Like that,
58:30
Speaker 3: that to me is more anti-democracy than trying to fight
58:33
Speaker 3: fire with fire on this one.
58:34
Speaker 6: So.
58:35
Speaker 3: All right, Dan, here's the Wall Street Journal story has published.
58:38
Speaker 3: I'm just reading this now for the first time. The
58:41
Speaker 3: Wall Street Journal has reviewed a book put together for
58:43
Speaker 3: Jeffrey Epstein's 50th birthday. As part of that book, a
58:47
Speaker 3: letter was submitted by Donald Trump. Trump's letter features a
58:50
Speaker 3: drawing of a naked woman and this text, which imagines
58:54
Speaker 3: a conversation between Trump and Epstein. There's a voiceover that says,
59:00
Speaker 3: there must be more to life than having everything, the
59:02
Speaker 3: note began. Donald. Donald. Yes, there is, but I won't
59:05
Speaker 3: tell you what it is.
59:06
Speaker 1: Jeffrey.
59:07
Speaker 3: Nor will I, since I also know what it is.
59:09
Speaker 7: Donald.
59:00
Speaker 3: Trump, a pal is a wonderful thing. Happy birthday and
59:01
Speaker 3: may every day be another wonderful secret.
59:30
Speaker 4: Wow.
59:32
Speaker 3: I mean, what the fuck?
59:36
Speaker 4: Huh?
59:37
Speaker 3: Oh, in an interview, in an interview with the journal. No,
59:40
Speaker 3: we should everyone hold on. Everyone hold on.
59:42
Speaker 4: Yes.
59:43
Speaker 3: In an interview with the journal on Tuesday evening, Trump
59:45
Speaker 3: denied writing the letter or drawing the picture. This is
59:48
Speaker 3: not me. This is a fake thing. It's a fake
59:51
Speaker 3: Wall Street Journal story. I never wrote a picture in
59:53
Speaker 3: my life. I don't draw pictures of women. He said,
59:56
Speaker 3: it's not my language. It's not my words. I'm going
59:58
Speaker 3: to sue the Wall Street Journal just like I sued
1:00:01
Speaker 3: everyone else.
1:00:04
Speaker 4: Wow. Did they publish the letter? Is that in here?
1:00:08
Speaker 4: I want to see the picture.
1:00:09
Speaker 3: That is.
1:00:10
Speaker 5: Oh, yeah.
1:00:11
Speaker 3: Where is the picture? Here, let's look. Don't worry. We'll
1:00:16
Speaker 3: put it up if we can. It doesn't look... I'm
1:00:19
Speaker 3: not seeing a picture in here, which is real disappointing.
1:00:23
Speaker 4: Also, good sources from George Conway.
1:00:26
Speaker 7: Yeah.
1:00:27
Speaker 3: Yeah, George.
1:00:28
Speaker 4: He nailed that one.
1:00:33
Speaker 7: Wow.
1:00:34
Speaker 3: That is wild. May every day be another wonderful secret.
1:00:39
Speaker 4: We have certain things in common, Jeffrey. Enigmas never age.
1:00:47
Speaker 3: Have you noticed that? Enigmas never age.
1:00:51
Speaker 4: Man, I could really use a textual analysis of this.
1:00:56
Speaker 3: Well, that's what we got for now.
1:00:57
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, this is great. Thank you to the
1:01:00
Speaker 4: news guys for putting this out in minute 68 of
1:01:05
Speaker 4: this podcast or whatever.
1:01:07
Speaker 3: Well, and now we can segue seamlessly from that to
1:01:10
Speaker 3: a couple of other New York fucking bozos.
1:01:14
Speaker 4: That was a brilliant segue right on the fly.
1:01:17
Speaker 3: We got Andrew Cuomo and Eric Adams still to talk about.
1:01:20
Speaker 3: Andrew Cuomo announced on Monday that he will give this
1:01:23
Speaker 3: whole campaign for mayor thing another go. By running as
1:01:26
Speaker 3: an independent candidate in the general election, Cuomo made the
1:01:29
Speaker 3: announcement in a video that went viral for all the
1:01:31
Speaker 3: wrong reasons. Let's listen.
1:01:33
Speaker 8: Hello, I'm Andrew Cuomo. And unless you've been living under
1:01:37
Speaker 8: a rock, you probably know that the Democratic primary did
1:01:40
Speaker 8: not go the way I had hoped. But as my
1:01:43
Speaker 8: grandfather used to say, when you get knocked down, learn
1:01:46
Speaker 8: the lesson and pick yourself back up and get in
1:01:49
Speaker 8: the game. And that is what I'm going to do.
1:01:52
Speaker 8: My opponent, Mr. Mondani, offers slick slogans, but no real solutions.
1:01:58
Speaker 8: You deserve a mayor with the experience and ideas to
1:02:00
Speaker 8: make it happen again. and the guts to take on
1:02:04
Speaker 8: anyone who stands in the way.
1:02:09
Speaker 3: The Republican nominee for mayor, perennial candidate Curtis Sliwa, had
1:02:14
Speaker 3: a quippy retort to Cuomo's candidacy. Let's take a listen.
1:02:18
Speaker 3: Andrew Cuomo is a creep slapping fannies and killing grannies.
1:02:26
Speaker 4: Oh, well done. Well done, Curtis Sliwa.
1:02:29
Speaker 3: Slapping fannies and killing grannies. Curtis Sliwa. Sliwa? Sliwa?
1:02:35
Speaker 4: Sliwa, I think.
1:02:36
Speaker 3: Sliwa. Yeah, it sounds like Sliwa. Meanwhile, sitting mayor Eric Adams,
1:02:39
Speaker 3: who also intends to run as an independent, has just
1:02:42
Speaker 3: been sued by his own former police commissioner for running
1:02:45
Speaker 3: the department as a criminal racket. That follows four similar
1:02:48
Speaker 3: separate lawsuits from former officers filed last week, accusing Adams
1:02:52
Speaker 3: of selling promotions, among other things. I don't know, Dan,
1:02:56
Speaker 3: you think... You think Mamdani has any chance against these powerhouses?
1:03:02
Speaker 4: I mean, just what?
1:03:03
Speaker 1: I don't know.
1:03:06
Speaker 4: I mean, just the Cuomo video is just really, it's
1:03:09
Speaker 4: a piece of work.
1:03:10
Speaker 7: It is a.
1:03:11
Speaker 3: Now, Dan, you mocked this video on Twitter.
1:03:14
Speaker 5: I did.
1:03:15
Speaker 3: And ended up in the New York Post and a
1:03:18
Speaker 3: Cuomo campaign staffer, consultant, hit back hard at you. And
1:03:23
Speaker 3: all of us, I guess. We caught some strays, your
1:03:25
Speaker 3: co-host here, because it says, well, If it's coming from
1:03:28
Speaker 3: the insular guys of Pod Save America, we must be
1:03:31
Speaker 3: doing something right. And let me just say, thank you
1:03:34
Speaker 3: for lessons on insularity, Andrew Cuomo's campaign.
1:03:38
Speaker 4: From a guy who did no interviews, talked to no voters,
1:03:40
Speaker 4: doesn't seem to want the job he's running for, isn't
1:03:43
Speaker 4: sure why he's running, doesn't know what to do other
1:03:44
Speaker 4: than run for office, and has decided to... I mean,
1:03:49
Speaker 4: let's back up a step just with Andrew Cuomo. He
1:03:52
Speaker 4: was the Democratic governor of the state. He is a
1:03:55
Speaker 4: scion to the most famous democratic family in New York.
1:03:59
Speaker 4: He gets his ass kicked in the primary, right?
1:04:02
Speaker 3: He didn't lose the Trump family, right? He didn't get,
1:04:05
Speaker 3: he didn't.
1:04:05
Speaker 4: Lose a little bit. He didn't, it wasn't close. There's
1:04:09
Speaker 4: no like allegation of that. So it was taken from him,
1:04:13
Speaker 4: but he's running as an independent to try to take
1:04:14
Speaker 4: it from the Democrat. I mean, that's a wild thing
1:04:17
Speaker 4: to do. And it's wild that anyone in the democratic
1:04:19
Speaker 4: party would support him. It's wild that much of the
1:04:21
Speaker 4: democratic party is so much that all the democratic party
1:04:23
Speaker 4: is so much is not united behind Zoran and here, right?
1:04:27
Speaker 4: We have a choice of a Democrat, an independent who
1:04:30
Speaker 4: has been accused of a lot of corruption and malfeasance,
1:04:34
Speaker 4: a independent who is engaged in some sort of bribe
1:04:40
Speaker 4: with Trump, and a Republican. And we're not going to
1:04:43
Speaker 4: back Zoran because he is too progressive for you. It's insane.
1:04:47
Speaker 4: The whole thing's insane.
1:04:49
Speaker 3: You support the Democratic nominee if you're a Democratic official. Yeah.
1:04:53
Speaker 3: If you're a voter, you do what the fuck you want.
1:04:54
Speaker 3: You want to vote for a Republican?
1:04:55
Speaker 4: Yeah, you can do that.
1:04:56
Speaker 3: But if you're a Democratic official in this party, you
1:04:59
Speaker 3: support the person who wins the primary. If the person
1:05:02
Speaker 3: who wins the primary is too conservative for you, you
1:05:04
Speaker 3: support them. If they're too liberal for you, you support them.
1:05:07
Speaker 3: We set the rules. That's what we do.
1:05:10
Speaker 4: I will just do some live reporting here, which is
1:05:11
Speaker 4: I had friends who were at the Wu-Tang show on
1:05:13
Speaker 4: Wednesday night in Madison Square Garden. Zoran walks in.
1:05:17
Speaker 3: I heard.
1:05:17
Speaker 4: Crowd goes bananas.
1:05:19
Speaker 3: That's pretty cool.
1:05:20
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's very cool. I don't see the crowd going
1:05:22
Speaker 4: bananas for Andrew Cuomo anywhere.
1:05:24
Speaker 3: You don't think a Wu-Tang crowd? Yeah, no, I don't
1:05:26
Speaker 3: know what crowd.
1:05:27
Speaker 4: I mean, the Wu-Tang crowd, I hate to say this
1:05:30
Speaker 4: because it pains me personally, but maybe not such a
1:05:32
Speaker 4: young crowd anymore, John. This is their final tour.
1:05:34
Speaker 3: Maybe like a Frank Sinatra cover singer?
1:05:38
Speaker 4: Yes, I guess. I don't know.
1:05:41
Speaker 3: Okay, when we get back from the break, you'll hear
1:05:42
Speaker 3: Dan's conversation with new Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Greg Kassar.
1:05:46
Speaker 3: about redistricting in Texas, what House Democrats are planning to
1:05:49
Speaker 3: do on the Epstein files, and the federal government's response
1:05:52
Speaker 3: to the heartbreaking floods in his home state of Texas.
1:05:55
Speaker 3: Two quick things before we get to that. Got some
1:05:58
Speaker 3: new merch in the Crooked store that'll help spread the
1:05:59
Speaker 3: word that we are not okay with what ICE is
1:06:03
Speaker 3: doing here in California, if you didn't already know, and
1:06:05
Speaker 3: around the country. You can check out our new Friend
1:06:08
Speaker 3: of Immigrants and California Bear Flag tees at crooked.com slash store. Also, Dan,
1:06:13
Speaker 3: you're out with a new episode of Polar Coaster. What'd
1:06:15
Speaker 3: you guys cover?
1:06:16
Speaker 4: We went deep on all the polling we've seen about
1:06:20
Speaker 4: Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein and talked about why this
1:06:22
Speaker 4: scandal is really not going anywhere for Trump and could
1:06:25
Speaker 4: leave some lasting damage. And we also talked about really
1:06:28
Speaker 4: interesting new polling from Gallup, which shows that Donald Trump
1:06:30
Speaker 4: and Stephen Miller are making America pro-immigrant again. That is very,
1:06:36
Speaker 4: very interesting stuff, which shows that Trump may be winning
1:06:39
Speaker 4: the battle, but losing the war on immigration in this country.
1:06:42
Speaker 3: Well, if you want to hear that episode, and you should,
1:06:44
Speaker 3: and submit questions for a future one, head to crooked.com
1:06:47
Speaker 3: slash friends or subscribe on Apple Podcasts.
1:06:59
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Speaker 4: Joining me now is the new chairman of the Congressional
1:08:54
Speaker 4: Progressive Caucus, Texas Representative Greg Kassar. Congressman Kassar, welcome to
1:08:58
Speaker 4: the pod.
1:08:59
Speaker 6: Thanks so much for having me on, man.
1:09:00
Speaker 4: All right, we've got a lot to talk about today.
1:09:02
Speaker 4: Let's start with redistricting in your home state of Texas.
1:09:05
Speaker 4: John and I talked about this a little bit earlier
1:09:06
Speaker 4: on the podcast, but Trump wants Republicans in Texas to
1:09:09
Speaker 4: redraw your state's congressional map to get them a whole
1:09:12
Speaker 4: bunch more seats and try to hold on to power
1:09:14
Speaker 4: in what should be a tough election. What do you
1:09:16
Speaker 4: think of their plan and what are the consequences?
1:09:18
Speaker 6: Look, Donald Trump doesn't have a plan yet. to win
1:09:22
Speaker 6: the upcoming midterms, he has a plan to rig the
1:09:25
Speaker 6: election rules. He knows that kicking over 15 million people
1:09:30
Speaker 6: off of their health care, giving all these benefits to
1:09:32
Speaker 6: his billionaire buddies is deeply unpopular. And so he's trying
1:09:36
Speaker 6: to figure out how he can completely change the rules
1:09:40
Speaker 6: of the game in the middle of all this. And
1:09:42
Speaker 6: he's basically demanding Texas Republicans completely redraw the map, not
1:09:47
Speaker 6: just nibble around the edges, violate the Voting Rights Act
1:09:51
Speaker 6: in ways we've never seen before and see if he
1:09:54
Speaker 6: can use that as a roadmap to steal even more
1:09:56
Speaker 6: districts and even more seats, just all in his quest
1:09:58
Speaker 6: to hold on to a little bit of power. And
1:10:01
Speaker 6: what's interesting about this is that it likely puts Republican
1:10:05
Speaker 6: incumbents in a really risky situation because you don't just
1:10:09
Speaker 6: change five Democrat seats. You probably change the entire Texas
1:10:13
Speaker 6: map and those Republicans could start having crazy districts that
1:10:17
Speaker 6: don't make sense. They could represent whole new areas, be
1:10:19
Speaker 6: vulnerable to Republican primaries, be vulnerable to a democratic challenger.
1:10:24
Speaker 6: And so those Republican congressmen have to decide whether in
1:10:28
Speaker 6: this moment where it's their own voters on the line,
1:10:30
Speaker 6: their own necks, their own districts, whether they're going to
1:10:33
Speaker 6: stand up for themselves or just be Trump's water boys.
1:10:36
Speaker 4: Obviously we, even though some Republican incumbents could be at
1:10:40
Speaker 4: more risk, we do want to stop this plan, right?
1:10:41
Speaker 4: And how can that be stopped? Um, House Minority Leader
1:10:46
Speaker 4: Jeffries urged Texas Democrats to do the quorum bust by
1:10:48
Speaker 4: leaving the state, something that Texas Democrats have done before.
1:10:52
Speaker 4: What's the right way to stop this, the right way
1:10:54
Speaker 4: to fight this?
1:10:56
Speaker 6: There's basically three steps in my mind. First, we need
1:10:59
Speaker 6: to buy time. And that's why House Democrats in the
1:11:03
Speaker 6: state of Texas need to be ready to filibuster, to
1:11:07
Speaker 6: bust quorum, which means if 50 House Democrats leave the building,
1:11:12
Speaker 6: you shut down the session and They need to be
1:11:14
Speaker 6: able to march in the streets to buy time so
1:11:17
Speaker 6: that folks like Governor Gavin Newsom, who's out there speaking out,
1:11:21
Speaker 6: saying that other states may start reaping what the Republicans
1:11:25
Speaker 6: sow so that that pressure can start to build up.
1:11:28
Speaker 6: Republican members of Congress in other states and in Texas,
1:11:34
Speaker 6: like I said, need to start feeling the pressure as well.
1:11:38
Speaker 6: And Democrats need to make sure we fully fund Campaigns
1:11:42
Speaker 6: to be ready to take on those Republican incumbents with
1:11:45
Speaker 6: and we use that to buy time Then we also
1:11:49
Speaker 6: need folks to speak up all over the country This
1:11:51
Speaker 6: needs to become a national issue because the Voting Rights
1:11:55
Speaker 6: Act as we know it is under threat here Texas
1:11:58
Speaker 6: is already racially gerrymandered to hell if they want to
1:12:01
Speaker 6: squeeze out five more seats that means Trump is basically
1:12:04
Speaker 6: ripping a everything up, sending us basically to pre-1965 on
1:12:08
Speaker 6: many of our voting rights laws. So we've got to
1:12:10
Speaker 6: fire up the country. And then if they end up
1:12:13
Speaker 6: doing it, we've got to make them pay for it.
1:12:15
Speaker 6: We can't let this work because then it will just
1:12:17
Speaker 6: be their playbook every single time.
1:12:20
Speaker 4: How is what they might do violate what remains of
1:12:24
Speaker 4: the Voters' Rights Act after the Shelby County decision about
1:12:27
Speaker 4: a decade or so ago?
1:12:28
Speaker 6: Yeah, they got rid of preclearance, meaning that states that
1:12:32
Speaker 6: have a history of discrimination now are basically off the
1:12:36
Speaker 6: hook for that past discrimination and can do stuff like this,
1:12:39
Speaker 6: call session that should be about rebuilding from the flood
1:12:41
Speaker 6: and instead just do redistricting in a week or two.
1:12:45
Speaker 6: We lost so much of that. We lost so much
1:12:49
Speaker 6: of them now being able to say they can gerrymander
1:12:51
Speaker 6: in a partisan way, but they're still not allowed under
1:12:55
Speaker 6: Section 2 to chop up and racially gerrymander such that, say,
1:13:01
Speaker 6: communities of color Can't just be chopped up into five
1:13:04
Speaker 6: or six districts in a way that completely dilutes their vote.
1:13:08
Speaker 6: At this point, if Trump wants to demand five more
1:13:11
Speaker 6: districts from the Republicans, then he may be trying to
1:13:15
Speaker 6: completely do away with that section of the voting rights act.
1:13:18
Speaker 6: And if he asks the Supreme court to rubber stamp
1:13:20
Speaker 6: this Texas map, then that could be essentially what he
1:13:25
Speaker 6: uses all over the country. This is a five alarm
1:13:28
Speaker 6: fire in Texas. It's probably, I think, the biggest political
1:13:32
Speaker 6: story that people haven't heard of. And this five alarm
1:13:35
Speaker 6: fire could start spreading all across the country.
1:13:37
Speaker 4: Have you talked to members of the California delegation? Are
1:13:40
Speaker 4: they on board with what Governor Newsom is at least floating?
1:13:44
Speaker 6: The members of the California delegation I know are all
1:13:48
Speaker 6: in on saying that Republicans might just reap what it
1:13:51
Speaker 6: is that they sow. So I ultimately am going to
1:13:54
Speaker 6: let folks from other states speak up for themselves. But
1:13:57
Speaker 6: here's what I'll say. I think, I believe in ending
1:14:01
Speaker 6: gerrymandering across the country. But that means across the country.
1:14:05
Speaker 6: I think that states, blue states should say they're going
1:14:09
Speaker 6: to implement independent commissions when Texas does. You know, I
1:14:13
Speaker 6: don't think that you get to national ends to gerrymandering
1:14:19
Speaker 6: by blue states just signing up to do it and
1:14:21
Speaker 6: red states not having to pay any kind of a
1:14:23
Speaker 6: cost for continued gerrymandering and diluting the votes of communities
1:14:28
Speaker 6: of color.
1:14:29
Speaker 4: Yeah, it seems like there really are only two options
1:14:31
Speaker 4: to deal with partisan gerrymandering in this country because the
1:14:32
Speaker 4: Supreme Court has opted out of that fight. To put
1:14:37
Speaker 4: it politely. To put it politely, yes. They basically set
1:14:41
Speaker 4: up this incredibly absurd system where the way to deal
1:14:44
Speaker 4: with being gerrymandered is to vote, even though you lost
1:14:47
Speaker 4: the power you brought through gerrymandering. It's very effective. But
1:14:52
Speaker 4: two ways. One is national legislation, which folks tried to
1:14:55
Speaker 4: do during the Biden administration. And then the second way
1:14:58
Speaker 4: is mutually assured destruction, which is essentially what you're suggesting,
1:15:01
Speaker 4: which is Texas has to know that if they move,
1:15:03
Speaker 4: California will move. Florida has to know if they move,
1:15:06
Speaker 4: New York will move, and so on. And we can't
1:15:08
Speaker 4: just wave the white flag and let them do.
1:15:10
Speaker 7: It, right?
1:15:11
Speaker 6: And in the same sort of analogy, in a world
1:15:14
Speaker 6: of mutually assured destruction, you can eventually do cooperative, you
1:15:19
Speaker 6: get rid of a nuke, I get rid of a nuke,
1:15:22
Speaker 6: and eventually you get to nuclear nonproliferation. And that's where
1:15:26
Speaker 6: we want to be. But in my view, we have
1:15:29
Speaker 6: to stop the growing autocracy and authoritarianism, get back to
1:15:36
Speaker 6: reasonable democratic majorities, and then no longer have the kinds
1:15:40
Speaker 6: of Kyrsten Sinema's and Joe Manchin's who, frankly, I think,
1:15:44
Speaker 6: in my view, put themselves over the future of the country.
1:15:48
Speaker 7: Absolutely.
1:15:48
Speaker 4: Okay, we're talking right after the House has passed three
1:15:51
Speaker 4: big pieces of crypto legislation. One of them is now
1:15:53
Speaker 4: headed to Trump. Two of them are headed to the Senate.
1:15:55
Speaker 4: You voted against all of them. Can you explain to
1:15:58
Speaker 4: people what these bills do and why you opposed them?
1:16:00
Speaker 3: Yeah.
1:16:01
Speaker 6: So I think what folks need to know is that
1:16:04
Speaker 6: these were extremely light touch, in my view, regulation of cryptocurrency. Look,
1:16:12
Speaker 6: we established laws to protect us from big market crashes
1:16:19
Speaker 6: like we had in the 1920s. We established those laws
1:16:21
Speaker 6: after the Great Depression. And course, they did not foresee
1:16:25
Speaker 6: cryptocurrency coming. But in my view, there's a lot of
1:16:27
Speaker 6: lessons to be learned from that. The Biden administration tried
1:16:29
Speaker 6: to apply some of those laws to cryptocurrency and the
1:16:32
Speaker 6: crypto industry and crypto lobbyists sued the Biden administration, didn't
1:16:36
Speaker 6: want to follow those laws we created after the Great Depression.
1:16:39
Speaker 6: So we wound up in what is kind of a
1:16:41
Speaker 6: vacuum where they didn't want to follow those laws and
1:16:43
Speaker 6: the Trump administration wasn't going to enforce them. So they
1:16:46
Speaker 6: put forward this kind of light touch regulation. What does
1:16:49
Speaker 6: that mean for you? If you have cryptocurrency and there's
1:16:54
Speaker 6: very light regulation, it means somebody could take advantage of you,
1:16:59
Speaker 6: could make a killing telling folks that this thing is
1:17:01
Speaker 6: worth a ton, and then leave you in the dumps.
1:17:06
Speaker 6: People essentially could get screwed out of their money, I think,
1:17:08
Speaker 6: if there's not strong enough rules. And if you don't
1:17:11
Speaker 6: own cryptocurrency, that's actually my greater concern with this regulation,
1:17:15
Speaker 6: light touch regulation, because the AFL-CIO came out against these
1:17:19
Speaker 6: policies because Your pension, your retirement funds could get wrapped
1:17:23
Speaker 6: up in this. My fear is that five or 10
1:17:27
Speaker 6: years from now, these votes and this light touch cryptocurrency
1:17:32
Speaker 6: regulation could look like credit default swaps in 2008. It
1:17:36
Speaker 6: could be the vulnerable point that results in people that
1:17:39
Speaker 6: had nothing to do with this losing their money. And
1:17:43
Speaker 6: in my view, the reason we wound up with light
1:17:45
Speaker 6: touch regulation rather than something more thoughtful for this evolving
1:17:50
Speaker 6: industry is because the cryptocurrency industry bought the president, bought
1:17:54
Speaker 6: the Republican Party, and took out guys like Sherrod Brown,
1:17:58
Speaker 6: who were trying to get to, I think, kind of
1:18:01
Speaker 6: the law of the 1920s upgraded to the 2020s kind
1:18:05
Speaker 6: of environment.
1:18:06
Speaker 4: I mean, a decent number of your Democratic colleagues voted
1:18:09
Speaker 4: for these bills. Is that right?
1:18:11
Speaker 6: That's right. And I, you know, of course, everybody gets
1:18:13
Speaker 6: to vote their district and vote their conscience. But I,
1:18:17
Speaker 6: and I understand their argument that they would rather if
1:18:20
Speaker 6: the crypto industry doesn't want to follow the 1920s rules,
1:18:24
Speaker 6: which I think that they should have, because those are
1:18:25
Speaker 6: the rules in the books, that they would at least
1:18:28
Speaker 6: like them to follow these minimal rules, I fear that
1:18:31
Speaker 6: if these minimal rules become the baseline, that a lot
1:18:33
Speaker 6: of people could put their money in this thinking it's safe,
1:18:36
Speaker 6: thinking it's regulated, and lose it five or 10 years
1:18:38
Speaker 6: down the line. And as somebody here in my mid-30s,
1:18:41
Speaker 6: I can kind of see five or 10 years down
1:18:43
Speaker 6: the line coming soon.
1:18:45
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's fair enough. There is a sort of a
1:18:49
Speaker 4: school of thought among some, you know, this has been
1:18:52
Speaker 4: pushed by Mark, you know, fellow Texan Mark Cuban, among others,
1:18:55
Speaker 4: that one of the things that hurt Kamala Harris in
1:18:58
Speaker 4: the election, at least with a segment of younger, particularly
1:19:00
Speaker 4: young male voters, was that Biden administration's approach to crypto
1:19:05
Speaker 4: in the sense that they were not pro-regulation, but sort
1:19:08
Speaker 4: of anti-crypto, right? Do you think that this is an
1:19:11
Speaker 4: industry that exists?
1:19:12
Speaker 3: It is.
1:19:13
Speaker 4: It's developing. Let's stipulate that these regulations were too light touch.
1:19:18
Speaker 4: This is not what you want. But is there a
1:19:19
Speaker 4: middle ground there you're looking for?
1:19:21
Speaker 3: Yeah.
1:19:22
Speaker 6: I would want to get to a place where you
1:19:24
Speaker 6: have good rules for the folks that choose to invest
1:19:27
Speaker 6: in crypto. I feel like I sit down and talk
1:19:31
Speaker 6: to actual crypto voters, and we can have a good conversation.
1:19:37
Speaker 6: I'm concerned that the crypto lobby written bills are a
1:19:42
Speaker 6: big problem here. But look, frankly, in my view, you know,
1:19:46
Speaker 6: I was in Nevada during the beginning of the Harris campaign.
1:19:49
Speaker 6: I traveled all over the state of Texas. And what
1:19:52
Speaker 6: I heard, you know, I almost never, ever from an
1:19:55
Speaker 6: independent or swing voter heard that cryptocurrency was their top issue.
1:19:58
Speaker 6: I heard that paying the rent was and making sure
1:20:02
Speaker 6: that their childcare wasn't so damn expensive and that government
1:20:06
Speaker 6: actually worked for them and didn't sound so corrupt in
1:20:08
Speaker 6: both parties. That's what I heard time after time after time.
1:20:12
Speaker 6: And I think that we just got to stop getting
1:20:14
Speaker 6: pulled into thinking that sort of the DC bubble of
1:20:17
Speaker 6: politics is what's dominating there. But I also understand that
1:20:21
Speaker 6: there are millions of people, tens of millions of people
1:20:24
Speaker 6: that have crypto and we want to make sure that
1:20:27
Speaker 6: we're speaking to them as being protected and not just
1:20:30
Speaker 6: let uh, the industry lobby speak for them.
1:20:33
Speaker 4: The Senate last night or this morning, depending on what time,
1:20:37
Speaker 4: what time zone you're in, uh, passed a bill cutting,
1:20:41
Speaker 4: essentially codifying the doge cuts. It's going to take $ 9
1:20:44
Speaker 4: billion of congressionally appropriated funding for foreign aid and public broadcasting.
1:20:49
Speaker 6: I heard you guys were reporting that they're defunding Daniel tiger.
1:20:52
Speaker 4: I were very upset about the day. Dale and tiger,
1:20:55
Speaker 4: but my kids are sort of, they've moved into wild
1:20:56
Speaker 4: crats now. And they're very, very upset that wild crats
1:20:58
Speaker 4: could be defunded. Um, In the old days, like 10
1:21:04
Speaker 4: years ago, there used to be three parties on the Hill, Democrats, Republicans,
1:21:07
Speaker 4: and appropriators. And the idea that Congress would allow a
1:21:11
Speaker 4: president to take away money that they appropriated was impossible
1:21:16
Speaker 4: to imagine. Is there any chance these rescissions get stopped
1:21:20
Speaker 4: in the House? Are they just going to green light
1:21:21
Speaker 4: this as they always do?
1:21:23
Speaker 6: Well, the way that we've been able to slow it
1:21:25
Speaker 6: down so far is by trying to force votes on
1:21:28
Speaker 6: releasing the Epstein files, right? That seems to be one
1:21:31
Speaker 6: of the only places where, you know, these guys just
1:21:34
Speaker 6: do anything for Donald Trump. And I don't know why
1:21:37
Speaker 6: sometimes I get surprised when it's the same thing over
1:21:41
Speaker 6: and over and over.
1:21:43
Speaker 4: You never get your hopes up, right? No one ever
1:21:45
Speaker 4: made money betting on the independence of these guys.
1:21:47
Speaker 6: It's billionaire bootlicking first, but then before first is Trump
1:21:53
Speaker 6: ass kissing, you know? And so, yeah, you know, they've
1:21:57
Speaker 6: got this thing about NPR and Trump is saying he's
1:21:59
Speaker 6: going to run over the appropriators and they're headed that way. Then,
1:22:04
Speaker 6: you know, we've got, we're saying, well, why don't you
1:22:06
Speaker 6: release the Epstein files while you're at it? And that
1:22:09
Speaker 6: slowed them down a little bit, but now it sounds
1:22:10
Speaker 6: like a bunch of the people that have said release
1:22:13
Speaker 6: the Epstein files a million times are now like, well,
1:22:15
Speaker 6: you know, maybe after Trump is gone, they'll just do
1:22:18
Speaker 6: anything the guy asks. And at the end of the day,
1:22:21
Speaker 6: you know, I'm, I'm a relatively new member of Congress.
1:22:24
Speaker 6: Like this is my third year here. I am, was
1:22:27
Speaker 6: hoping that you would get here and be able to
1:22:29
Speaker 6: have more reasoned debates and figure some stuff out in
1:22:33
Speaker 6: the back room. But at the end of the day,
1:22:35
Speaker 6: I just think that for some of these folks, we
1:22:36
Speaker 6: just have to beat them because there has to be
1:22:39
Speaker 6: a cost to just being such a bootlicker.
1:22:42
Speaker 4: As we're recording this, the Republican House Rules Committee has
1:22:46
Speaker 4: been meeting. They're trying to find out. They're all very
1:22:48
Speaker 4: worked up by the fact that the Democrats keep asking
1:22:51
Speaker 4: for votes on the release of the Epstein files. They're
1:22:53
Speaker 4: trying to figure out what to do about that. Is
1:22:55
Speaker 4: this a democratic strategy you guys are going to keep doing,
1:22:56
Speaker 4: keep pushing this?
1:22:58
Speaker 6: I mean, we absolutely should because we've got to, like
1:23:01
Speaker 6: I said, we've got to show people just how absurd
1:23:07
Speaker 6: the thing is, right? That Trump and the Republicans went
1:23:11
Speaker 6: and sold this as one of their top policy platforms.
1:23:14
Speaker 6: And as soon as Trump tells them not to, that
1:23:17
Speaker 6: they won't. And so I think we've got to make
1:23:19
Speaker 6: that really clear. And then I think it's also part
1:23:22
Speaker 6: of making clear to Independent voters and for people that
1:23:26
Speaker 6: this is the issue that they care about, that Democrats
1:23:28
Speaker 6: are willing to say, I want to show we're willing
1:23:30
Speaker 6: to say, look, just because you're really rich and powerful,
1:23:33
Speaker 6: you don't get off the hook. Because clearly, you know,
1:23:37
Speaker 6: Epstein was interacting with a bunch of really rich and
1:23:39
Speaker 6: powerful people. And rich and powerful people getting off the
1:23:41
Speaker 6: hook is something that's really upsetting. And that I think
1:23:45
Speaker 6: as a Democratic Party, we have to say, release the
1:23:48
Speaker 6: Epstein files and you don't get a free pass just
1:23:50
Speaker 6: because you got a lot of money.
1:23:52
Speaker 4: Do you have a theory as to why Trump did
1:23:57
Speaker 4: such a 180 on this?
1:23:59
Speaker 6: I'm getting inside Trump's head or Laura Loomer's head about
1:24:02
Speaker 6: why she ended up picking it. You know, there's already
1:24:05
Speaker 6: enough mental health strains in this job. All right, all right.
1:24:09
Speaker 4: I will free you from the obligation to.
1:24:12
Speaker 6: It's like I make sure I go for a run
1:24:16
Speaker 6: or another workout every morning and I tried to stop
1:24:18
Speaker 6: getting in Trump and Laura Loomer's heads.
1:24:21
Speaker 4: Okay. Fair enough. All right. I, you will, you have,
1:24:24
Speaker 4: I will let the record show you've passed on the
1:24:26
Speaker 4: opportunity to irresponsibly speculate about what's in the Epstein files. Uh,
1:24:31
Speaker 4: so we will take that, uh, for whatever that's worth,
1:24:33
Speaker 4: you know, I mean, it would have been great content,
1:24:36
Speaker 4: but I understand, I understand, I understand why you did that.
1:24:38
Speaker 4: Moving on to a much more serious topic. I want
1:24:42
Speaker 4: to talk briefly about the awful floods in Texas, the
1:24:43
Speaker 4: administration's response. You call, you've called for the inspector general
1:24:46
Speaker 4: of the department of homeland security to do an investigation
1:24:48
Speaker 4: of What do you see in the response that has
1:24:51
Speaker 4: you concerned? And is there any chance that Congress will
1:24:55
Speaker 4: learn any lessons from this in terms of funding for
1:24:58
Speaker 4: the National Weather Service or other disaster response or climate
1:25:00
Speaker 4: resilience or whatever else?
1:25:02
Speaker 7: Yes.
1:25:02
Speaker 6: So first of all, the devastation is ongoing. There's still
1:25:08
Speaker 6: over 100 people missing. Search and rescue is ongoing. All
1:25:12
Speaker 6: these people dying, including these kids, horrific and tragic. And
1:25:16
Speaker 6: I think part of respecting the dead is is making
1:25:20
Speaker 6: sure that there's accountability and that we ask real hard questions,
1:25:24
Speaker 6: like why FEMA whistleblowers said that Secretary Kristi Noem waited
1:25:29
Speaker 6: 72 hours to approve search and rescue at the federal level.
1:25:35
Speaker 6: I mean, you should only have to think about that
1:25:37
Speaker 6: for 72 seconds max. So we should be asking those questions.
1:25:41
Speaker 6: You have severe understaffing at the National Weather Service. We
1:25:45
Speaker 6: need to know whether that reduction in staffing had an
1:25:49
Speaker 6: impact in this case. And if, you know, we had
1:25:53
Speaker 6: one of the chief meteorologists for the Central Texas area vacant.
1:25:58
Speaker 6: They say they brought some other folks in. Who'd they
1:26:00
Speaker 6: bring in? How did that go? And if there were
1:26:04
Speaker 6: two disasters happening at once, and as we know, you know,
1:26:07
Speaker 6: there was floods in Rideau, so right after this, what
1:26:10
Speaker 6: would have happened? We've got to ask those questions to
1:26:12
Speaker 6: respect the dead and to see, you know, How do
1:26:17
Speaker 6: we protect people in the future? So that's why I
1:26:20
Speaker 6: authored a letter asking the inspector general to look into this.
1:26:24
Speaker 6: That's an independent investigation. And I've got some news to
1:26:27
Speaker 6: break here on your podcast, not on purpose. As I
1:26:29
Speaker 6: was putting these AirPods in, my staff mentioned that the
1:26:33
Speaker 6: inspector general has confirmed that they're going to launch the investigation.
1:26:38
Speaker 6: That's part of being on the oversight committee. That's one
1:26:40
Speaker 6: of the pieces of democracy that we still got that
1:26:43
Speaker 6: we can use. And so there will be an independent
1:26:46
Speaker 6: investigation tomorrow. into this. I also think that we have
1:26:49
Speaker 6: to call the question about whether we're going to fully
1:26:52
Speaker 6: fund FEMA and fully staff the National Weather Service after this.
1:26:58
Speaker 6: We can't just let this happen, give our thoughts and prayers,
1:27:03
Speaker 6: and then completely ignore that Elon Musk and Donald Trump
1:27:08
Speaker 6: have severely cut the staffing at the Weather Service, which
1:27:12
Speaker 6: is supposed to anticipate floods and hurricanes and disasters like
1:27:17
Speaker 6: this because just a few minutes extra notice getting to
1:27:22
Speaker 6: a little bit of higher ground saves lives.
1:27:24
Speaker 4: Myself, so many of our listeners are just so heartbroken
1:27:27
Speaker 4: by what's happened in Texas. Just reading the stories about
1:27:30
Speaker 4: the girls at the camp is so horrifying. Is there
1:27:33
Speaker 4: anything that our listeners around the country can do to
1:27:35
Speaker 4: help to contribute to the recovery there?
1:27:38
Speaker 6: Yes, there is the Community Foundation of the Hill Country.
1:27:41
Speaker 6: Maybe the folks here a pod safe can put that
1:27:46
Speaker 6: information up in a place that you can get it.
1:27:48
Speaker 6: They're distributing funds. And that is a really important thing
1:27:52
Speaker 6: because we are just, we have a lot of rebuilding
1:27:55
Speaker 6: to do. And then something else we can all do
1:27:58
Speaker 6: is recognize that these disasters are going to get worse
1:28:02
Speaker 6: and worse, more and more frequent in places like Texas.
1:28:06
Speaker 6: And we've, we've used to hurricanes and floods, but not
1:28:08
Speaker 6: this often, not this big, not this frequent plus freezes
1:28:12
Speaker 6: plus wildfires all over the country. So making sure that
1:28:17
Speaker 6: we take care of one another, look out for one another,
1:28:20
Speaker 6: contribute what you can, even just a few bucks to
1:28:23
Speaker 6: helping in the hill country, and then keep speaking out
1:28:26
Speaker 6: because as a community, we can reduce the damage from
1:28:31
Speaker 6: these sorts of disasters, but we've got to take care
1:28:35
Speaker 6: of one another. And I think getting involved in local
1:28:37
Speaker 6: government is a huge way of participating. I'm a former
1:28:40
Speaker 6: city council member. And let me tell you, the decisions
1:28:42
Speaker 6: are getting made there about putting in the infrastructure to
1:28:46
Speaker 6: prevent floods and putting in the infrastructure for early warnings
1:28:49
Speaker 6: or hardening your city against wildfires. So I'm in Congress now,
1:28:53
Speaker 6: but I also really encourage folks listening to get involved
1:28:56
Speaker 6: at the local level because you can make a big
1:28:57
Speaker 6: difference to save lives in the future.
1:28:59
Speaker 4: Congressman, thanks so much for joining us. It was a
1:29:01
Speaker 4: pleasure to talk to you.
1:29:02
Speaker 6: Thanks a bunch, Dan.
1:29:08
Speaker 3: That's our show for today. Tommy Lovett and I, he
1:29:11
Speaker 3: still does this show. He's still a co-host. He's back.
1:29:15
Speaker 3: He'll be back with a new show on Tuesday. Have
1:29:18
Speaker 3: a great weekend.
1:29:19
Speaker 9: Bye, everyone.
1:29:21
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Speaker 3: help boost this episode and everything we do here at Crooked.
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Speaker 3: Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. Our producers
1:29:43
Speaker 3: are David Toledo, Emma Illich-Frank, and Saul Rubin. Our associate
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Speaker 3: producer is Farah Safari. Austin Fisher is our senior producer.
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Speaker 3: Reid Cherlin is our executive editor. Adrian Hill is our
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Speaker 3: head of news and politics. The show is mixed and
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Speaker 3: edited by Andrew Chadwick. Jordan Cantor is our sound engineer
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Speaker 3: with audio support from Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis. Matt
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Speaker 3: DeGroat is our head of production. Naomi Sengel is our
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Speaker 3: executive assistant. Thanks to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Haley Jones,
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Speaker 3: Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild
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Speaker 3: of America East.