Latest / Pod Save America / 50 Shades of Legal Gray

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50 Shades of Legal Gray · Pod Save America

0:02
Speaker 1: Thank you.
0:20
Speaker 2: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Alex Wagner. I know
0:23
Speaker 2: some of you may be tuning in today expecting our
0:25
Speaker 2: conversation with the Michigan Senate candidates on the Democratic side. Well, unfortunately,
0:30
Speaker 2: you're going to have to wait just a little bit longer.
0:33
Speaker 2: We had to reschedule that conversation to accommodate for an
0:37
Speaker 2: unexpected change in candidate schedules. But do not worry. We
0:41
Speaker 2: are setting a new date and we will have more
0:43
Speaker 2: on that very, very soon. So stand by. Today, instead,
0:47
Speaker 2: I wanted to focus on the avalanche of corruption, some
0:50
Speaker 2: folks might just call it theft, coming out of the
0:53
Speaker 2: White House. The $ 1. 8 billion slush fund to pay off
0:57
Speaker 2: January 6th rioters. The announcement that the president and his
1:01
Speaker 2: family are now immune from IRS investigations. The ballroom slash
1:05
Speaker 2: bunker slash money pit. The reflecting pool. The president's 3,000
1:10
Speaker 2: plus stock trades while in office. The self-enrichment, the cronyism,
1:15
Speaker 2: the taxpayer abuse, all of it has hit new heights,
1:18
Speaker 2: or should I say new lows. And I wanted to
1:21
Speaker 2: talk to someone who could help me make sense of
1:23
Speaker 2: all of this, but also about what Democrats in Congress
1:26
Speaker 2: and lawyers outside of it can do to fight back.
1:30
Speaker 2: Joining me for that conversation is the incredible Norma Eisen,
1:33
Speaker 2: founder of the Democracy Defenders Fund and former special counsel
1:37
Speaker 2: to the president for ethics and government reform in the
1:39
Speaker 2: Obama administration. There is truly no better expert in America
1:44
Speaker 2: on White House corruption than Norm Eisen. We are going
1:47
Speaker 2: to get to that conversation in just a moment. But
1:50
Speaker 2: before we do, I want to remind you that CrookedCon
1:53
Speaker 2: 2026 tickets are on sale now. Come hang with us
1:58
Speaker 2: November 5th through 7th in Washington, D.C. for live shows
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Speaker 2: and panels and meetups and more. I will be there
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Speaker 2: and you.
2:05
Speaker 1: Should be there too.
2:06
Speaker 2: Get tickets at CrookedCon.com and if you like what you
2:09
Speaker 2: hear today.
2:11
Speaker 1: please.
2:11
Speaker 2: Do check out my show, also on Crooked, called Runaway Country,
2:15
Speaker 2: where every week I talk to people at the center
2:18
Speaker 2: of the headlines. We just published, I think, a pretty awesome,
2:21
Speaker 2: if disconcerting, episode where I talked to one of the
2:24
Speaker 2: police officers who was at the Capitol on January 6th
2:27
Speaker 2: about his reaction to the news that he will be
2:30
Speaker 2: funding payments to the people who beat him unconscious that
2:33
Speaker 2: day and gave him traumatic brain injury.
2:36
Speaker 1: Check it out.
2:37
Speaker 2: Okay, here is Norm Eisen. Norm, thank you for doing this.
2:45
Speaker 2: I have so many questions. I think everybody has questions,
2:49
Speaker 2: but I have like many, many, many, many questions for
2:51
Speaker 2: someone who really knows what the hell is up with
2:54
Speaker 2: all of this or has a sense of the law
2:56
Speaker 2: at least. Let's just start at the beginning. On Monday,
3:02
Speaker 2: the DOJ announced that it had made a settlement agreement
3:05
Speaker 2: with on Trump's $ 10 billion lawsuit against the IRS, which
3:10
Speaker 2: he filed over the 2020 leak of his tax returns
3:13
Speaker 2: to the New York Times and ProPublica. As part of
3:16
Speaker 2: that settlement, the DOJ announced they would establish a $ 1. 776
3:21
Speaker 2: billion anti-weaponization fund to compensate individuals who claim they were
3:26
Speaker 2: victims of government weaponization during the Biden administration. Norm, was
3:33
Speaker 2: your reaction the same as mine, namely, what the fuck?
3:37
Speaker 1: Yes, Alex, it might have even earned a what the
3:42
Speaker 1: double fuck technical legal term. You know, when I was
3:49
Speaker 1: the White House ethics czar, I would not even allow
3:55
Speaker 1: Barack Obama to refinance his modest family home in Chicago
4:02
Speaker 1: because it was the Great Recession and he was regulating
4:07
Speaker 1: the banks. The thought that the president of the United
4:11
Speaker 1: States can, in essence, sue himself and throw that case out,
4:18
Speaker 1: set up by $ 1. 8 billion slush fund. It's an endowment
4:24
Speaker 1: for January 6th insurrectionists, including those who attacked the police
4:30
Speaker 1: and were convicted by juries. It's just inconceivable. We filed
4:38
Speaker 1: an immediate legal objection on behalf of 93 members of Congress,
4:43
Speaker 1: the very first. And there's been a tsunami of of
4:49
Speaker 1: other opposition that has developed since. And like the Epstein files,
4:55
Speaker 1: this is one that is not going away because also
4:59
Speaker 1: like that scandal, it's such an outrageous corruption situation.
5:07
Speaker 2: And there's a paper trail explaining just how first of all,
5:11
Speaker 2: utterly unnecessary and totally corrupt it is. That paper trail
5:15
Speaker 2: exists within Trump's own administration. I was stunned by the
5:19
Speaker 2: reporting we got this week that IRS lawyers compiled a
5:23
Speaker 2: 25-page memo that was supposed to be sent to the
5:27
Speaker 2: Justice Department saying, hey guys, listen, Trump's lawsuit isn't going
5:31
Speaker 2: to stand up in court. This is literally Treasury Department
5:35
Speaker 2: lawyers saying this whole thing is bogus. And yet, That notwithstanding,
5:41
Speaker 2: first of all, it's unclear if the DOJ ever read
5:43
Speaker 2: the memo. They felt the need to make a settlement
5:47
Speaker 2: agreement with Trump nonetheless. I mean, there seems to be like,
5:50
Speaker 2: I mean, I have questions, Norm. Do you have questions
5:52
Speaker 2: about this?
5:53
Speaker 1: I do. And you know who else has questions? It
5:57
Speaker 1: appears the top lawyer at the Treasury Department who quit
6:02
Speaker 1: in proximity to to the establishment of this outrageous slush fund,
6:08
Speaker 1: taking $ 1. 8 billion out of your and my and the
6:11
Speaker 1: American people's pockets in order to pay off Trump's cronies.
6:22
Speaker 1: The legal flaws were in the filing that we made
6:29
Speaker 1: with the court on behalf of those 93 members of
6:34
Speaker 1: the minority in the House of Representatives. There's no constitutional
6:41
Speaker 1: authority to do this, including because it creates an emoluments issue.
6:45
Speaker 1: There's no statutory authority. It's contrary to the rules governing
6:52
Speaker 1: the Judgment Fund, which is the pot of money that
6:55
Speaker 1: is going to be raided for this. I mean, the
6:58
Speaker 1: illegalities are vast, and it's so bad that reportedly dozens
7:07
Speaker 1: of members of the president's own party confronted Todd Blanch,
7:13
Speaker 1: the acting attorney general, Donald Trump's former defense lawyer, and
7:18
Speaker 1: he's still behaving that way, confronted him. And they had to,
7:24
Speaker 1: Alex had to shelve the reconciliation negotiations. It blew up
7:30
Speaker 1: the reconciliation package because it's these senators who are normally lapdogs.
7:39
Speaker 1: Even they can't take it. So it's the worst corruption
7:42
Speaker 1: scandal in the history of the presidency.
7:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's, okay, so that is the breaking news of today.
7:48
Speaker 2: We're reporting this on Thursday. So Republicans were all set,
7:53
Speaker 2: they were all teed up to pass a reconciliation bill
7:56
Speaker 2: before the imposed June 1st deadline set by Donald Trump.
8:00
Speaker 2: And that was going to give ICE up to $ 72
8:03
Speaker 2: billion in funding, which was a tidy sum for a
8:06
Speaker 2: paramilitary organization that slaughtered American citizens. But I digress. That's
8:10
Speaker 2: neither here nor there in terms of this conversation. But
8:14
Speaker 2: as part of that reconciliation negotiation, senators and Republican senators
8:20
Speaker 2: apparently wanted to put some guardrails on the slush fund.
8:24
Speaker 2: According to the New York Times, Republicans were exploring adding
8:28
Speaker 2: a measure to the immigration bill, that's the ICE bill,
8:31
Speaker 2: to limit the slush fund. The slush fund, that's my terminology,
8:34
Speaker 2: not the New York Times. In part, Norm, because leaders
8:38
Speaker 2: were worried that if they didn't, a Democratic effort to
8:42
Speaker 2: kill the slush fund could draw enough Republican support to succeed.
8:46
Speaker 2: First of all, walk me through this. I mean, how
8:50
Speaker 2: are these two things related? Like, you're talking about, on
8:53
Speaker 2: one hand, reconciliation funding that would have given money to DHS,
8:57
Speaker 2: to ICE. But then you're also talking about a fund,
9:01
Speaker 2: a pot of money that exists at the DOJ that's
9:03
Speaker 2: already been allocated. Is that right? I mean, how can
9:06
Speaker 2: they use one to tackle the other, I guess, is
9:09
Speaker 2: what I'm asking.
9:10
Speaker 1: Reconciliation is a budgeting process that Congress uses that under
9:19
Speaker 1: the rules of the Senate, it's called the Byrd rule,
9:24
Speaker 1: under the rules of the Senate is not subject to
9:27
Speaker 1: the usual procedures for purely budgetary matters. You don't have
9:34
Speaker 1: to get 60 votes in order to move the bill.
9:38
Speaker 1: You can do it on a pure majority. But Alex,
9:42
Speaker 1: once you have that majority, you can put anything into
9:47
Speaker 1: that reconciliation package relating to how the federal government spends
9:53
Speaker 1: its money. And you do it on a simple majority.
9:57
Speaker 1: So that means if only a handful of Republican senators
10:03
Speaker 1: and members in the House were willing to agree, hey,
10:08
Speaker 1: We should not be creating a slush fund to compensate
10:14
Speaker 1: violent cop assaulters from January 6th who were convicted by
10:21
Speaker 1: juries who had long jail terms until Donald Trump himself,
10:27
Speaker 1: a 34 times convicted felon, pardoned them on day one
10:32
Speaker 1: in what was previously the greatest scandal in the history
10:37
Speaker 1: of the presidency. We should not be paying them out
10:41
Speaker 1: of a fund of $ 1. 8 billion. That proposition might have
10:46
Speaker 1: garnered enough votes that this reconciliation bill would have been
10:51
Speaker 1: used to limit or shut down the slush fund. So
10:56
Speaker 1: leadership freaked out. Everybody go home. Funding ice is on hold.
11:04
Speaker 1: And now we're going to see what happens and whether finally, finally,
11:10
Speaker 1: like with the Epstein files, but unfortunately, unlike hundreds of
11:16
Speaker 1: other outrages where the president's party has caved, Finally, we're
11:22
Speaker 1: going to see if there's another example where a few
11:27
Speaker 1: of them are willing to stand up to him.
11:29
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, and we can talk about the new reality
11:32
Speaker 2: as of this week, where Trump is just saying off
11:35
Speaker 2: with their heads to any of his Republican critics in
11:39
Speaker 2: the Senate and effectively creating an anti-Trump coalition inside his
11:43
Speaker 2: own party. But just let's table that for a second.
11:46
Speaker 2: Because to your point about the reconciliation bill and the
11:49
Speaker 2: way in which this is such a fa-cocked up piece
11:52
Speaker 2: of political strategy, here's Burgess Everett from Politico reporting. Senator
11:56
Speaker 2: Kevin Cramer says it would have been a good idea
11:59
Speaker 2: for the Trump administration to announce the $ 1. 8 billion fund
12:04
Speaker 2: after the reconciliation bill passed. Instead, it exposed the bill
12:08
Speaker 2: to all kinds of amendments because of its judiciary title.
12:12
Speaker 2: We can't help the president with the budget reconciliation package
12:16
Speaker 2: with this hanging over us. Okay, can you unpack that
12:20
Speaker 2: for me? Like, I just, did the White House shoot
12:22
Speaker 2: itself in its own foot on this? And obviously not
12:26
Speaker 2: in consultation with Senate Republicans.
12:28
Speaker 1: The incompetence of this White House knows no bounds. We
12:37
Speaker 1: see that I had to fill my car with, with
12:45
Speaker 1: gas today. And you see that. Every American sees that
12:50
Speaker 1: when they go to the gas station or they drive
12:53
Speaker 1: by one. So if they had just waited until this
13:00
Speaker 1: budget package were done, you wouldn't be able to peel
13:04
Speaker 1: off Republicans to attach a provision to shut down or
13:10
Speaker 1: limit the slush fund. So it's an it's where would
13:15
Speaker 1: we be as a democracy if Donald Trump were not
13:18
Speaker 1: a dictator? I mean, Alex, fortunately, he's not very good.
13:24
Speaker 1: I mean, in some ways he is good.
13:27
Speaker 2: I'm going to give him a little credit because he
13:29
Speaker 2: just I feel like I'm living in a tyrannical moment.
13:32
Speaker 2: But In terms of the practical execution of tyrannical endeavors,
13:36
Speaker 2: he's not very good. Not only does he announce this
13:39
Speaker 2: slush fund before the reconciliation bill is passed, which throws
13:43
Speaker 2: the whole thing into doubt, he does it the same
13:46
Speaker 2: moment he's alienating members of his own party who he
13:51
Speaker 2: needs marching in lockstep to get this thing over the hump.
13:54
Speaker 2: I mean, it's just, it's like, it's pure own goal
13:57
Speaker 2: after own goal from this administration.
14:00
Speaker 3: Yeah.
14:00
Speaker 1: Yeah. And we've seen a lot of that at Democracy
14:05
Speaker 1: Defenders Fund and Democracy Defenders Action, the organizations I co-founded,
14:11
Speaker 1: where we have over 300 legal cases and matters. Again
14:16
Speaker 1: and again, Donald Trump has tried to break the law
14:20
Speaker 1: in the stupidest way possible and has been slapped down
14:23
Speaker 1: by the courts for doing it. But you also see
14:26
Speaker 1: it in his handling of the... other main job of
14:33
Speaker 1: a president, foreign policy and international relations. There has never
14:38
Speaker 1: been a bigger fiasco in the history of American war making.
14:43
Speaker 1: And we've had some fiascos, Vietnam, Iraq. We've never had
14:48
Speaker 1: a bigger one. than Iran. You want to talk about
14:51
Speaker 1: on goals. He handed the Strait of Hormuz over to Iran.
14:58
Speaker 1: So this, but the slush fund, like the Epstein files,
15:03
Speaker 1: this really, and like the war, it's breaking through. And
15:08
Speaker 1: day after day, the country is saying, what? And, you know,
15:12
Speaker 1: you are getting this pushback from Republicans in Congress. We'll
15:17
Speaker 1: see if that holds up. when it's time for a vote.
15:21
Speaker 1: But it's a sign of just how foolish, venal, corrupt,
15:28
Speaker 1: and wrong this $ 1. 8 billion pot of cash for January
15:35
Speaker 1: 6th insurrectionists and others is.
15:37
Speaker 2: Can I ask a word about the money itself? Like,
15:40
Speaker 2: we keep talking about slush fund. It's already been allocated.
15:44
Speaker 2: The Senate may try and put some guardrails on it.
15:48
Speaker 2: post facto. But the reality is this money already exists
15:51
Speaker 2: somewhere at the DOJ. Can you explain? I mean, for
15:55
Speaker 2: people who don't understand how and where this money is pooled,
15:59
Speaker 2: can you shed some light on that?
16:01
Speaker 1: There's a fund at the Department of Justice called the
16:06
Speaker 1: Judgment Fund, and typically it is used to pay judgments.
16:11
Speaker 1: You don't have to go back to Congress every time
16:14
Speaker 1: the United States Government loses a case if you have
16:17
Speaker 1: to pay somebody or you have a legitimate settlement of
16:20
Speaker 1: a case, not a case where the president is suing himself.
16:24
Speaker 1: You use the judgment fund. But Alex, like all money
16:29
Speaker 1: spent by the United States, it is subject to congressional guardrails.
16:39
Speaker 1: Congress establishes the rules on how money can be spent.
16:44
Speaker 1: And because here, there never was a real case to
16:49
Speaker 1: be settled. The people who are benefiting from this were
16:53
Speaker 1: not a part of that phony tax case that was
16:56
Speaker 1: about to be perhaps thrown out in Florida. There's none
17:02
Speaker 1: of the triggers here. that under Article I of the Constitution,
17:10
Speaker 1: Congress passes the laws to govern the utilization of money,
17:15
Speaker 1: including the Judgment Fund. None of those triggers are implicated here.
17:20
Speaker 1: This would be an illegal disbursement of money. Anybody who
17:24
Speaker 1: took the money would be at risk of having it
17:27
Speaker 1: clawed back. It's part of a gigantic cash grab. It's
17:34
Speaker 1: as if the president rode in his limo to the
17:38
Speaker 1: Treasury Department, took bags of cash, and then went to
17:44
Speaker 1: a picnic of the insurrectionists and threw the money in
17:47
Speaker 1: the air. It's totally illegal in every way. So, you know,
17:52
Speaker 1: the people who participated in January 6th, including violently assaulting cops,
17:59
Speaker 1: should not be too excited about the cash that they're
18:03
Speaker 1: about to collect.
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21:13
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Speaker 2: Can I ask, I mean, there's already, you know, Blanche,
22:07
Speaker 2: Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, who's, I don't know, conducting
22:10
Speaker 2: the most pathetic, stunningly pathetic job audition, job interview ever,
22:18
Speaker 2: just doing literally anything, breaking all laws and norms to
22:22
Speaker 2: get the title permanently. But nonetheless, Acting Attorney General Todd
22:27
Speaker 2: Blanche has been very opaque about whether and when the
22:32
Speaker 2: American public might find out who is a potential recipient
22:36
Speaker 2: of these funds. Here's my question. Because they are public
22:40
Speaker 2: funds and because they are subject to some oversight, the
22:45
Speaker 2: DOJ says, we wash our hands of this money. It's like,
22:48
Speaker 2: we have nothing to do with it once it's given out.
22:51
Speaker 2: Don't come knocking on our door. But that's not the
22:54
Speaker 2: end of this, right? There can be FOIA requests to
22:58
Speaker 2: find out where this money went. I mean, there are
23:00
Speaker 2: mechanisms by which, whether the administration wants the public to
23:03
Speaker 2: or not, the public can find out how this money
23:06
Speaker 2: has been spent. Is that correct?
23:08
Speaker 1: To be sure. The government is still subject to congressional oversight.
23:17
Speaker 1: Members of Congress can demand that information should Congress change hands.
23:23
Speaker 1: Come January, the House and perhaps the Senate will have
23:27
Speaker 1: enforceable subpoena power to pursue that information. But Alex, you
23:34
Speaker 1: and I also have the power to do it. Any
23:36
Speaker 1: journalist and any American through the Freedom of Information Act
23:41
Speaker 1: can file a request for this. We have filed hundreds
23:47
Speaker 1: of Freedom of Information requests over the years. including a
23:51
Speaker 1: large number at the Democracy Defenders Fund and Democracy Defenders Action.
23:59
Speaker 1: And then if we don't get the information we want,
24:02
Speaker 1: we go to court and the court forces the disclosure.
24:06
Speaker 1: So they should not think that at the Department of
24:09
Speaker 1: Justice that they're going to be able to hide this.
24:14
Speaker 1: But more to the point, I believe the litigation has
24:18
Speaker 1: already begun and there's going to be a very substantial
24:24
Speaker 1: court pushback on the first dollar ever going out the
24:28
Speaker 1: door at the fund because it's so blatantly illegal.
24:33
Speaker 2: Yes, going to a J6 picnic and throwing a bunch
24:36
Speaker 2: of cash up into the air doesn't seem like what
24:39
Speaker 2: the founding fathers intended. Let's talk about those lawsuits because
24:42
Speaker 2: your party, your organization, Democracy Defenders, filed a motion to
24:46
Speaker 2: block this use of taxpayer funds, and it was filed Um,
24:51
Speaker 2: in a cult of the coalition on the suit includes,
24:53
Speaker 2: as you mentioned, members of Congress, including Congressman Joe Neguse
24:57
Speaker 2: and ranking member Jamie Raskin. Can you talk a little
25:01
Speaker 2: bit about your confidence that that can move forward? And
25:03
Speaker 2: then I also want to get your thoughts on other
25:05
Speaker 2: suits and who has standing here.
25:07
Speaker 1: Yeah. And the, we, we filed the, uh, initial legal
25:12
Speaker 1: objection within moments, literally within minutes. Um, We had that
25:19
Speaker 1: ready to go on behalf of those members of Congress.
25:23
Speaker 1: We got a whiff of this at the end of
25:25
Speaker 1: the week last weekend. It worked through the weekend. The
25:29
Speaker 1: team pulled an all-nighter to get this together. The judge
25:37
Speaker 1: in Florida who had the power to investigate and perhaps
25:42
Speaker 1: to block it did not exercise that power. That means
25:46
Speaker 1: that we and others now will go to court. We're
25:49
Speaker 1: going to need to find new places to do that.
25:53
Speaker 1: Those lawsuits have started to pop. And anybody who has
26:00
Speaker 1: an injury as a result of this misbegotten slush fund
26:08
Speaker 1: has the power to bring that case. People who are
26:14
Speaker 1: entitled to reparation for genuine abuses of the government. There
26:22
Speaker 1: have been so many over the past 16 months who've
26:26
Speaker 1: been targeted by the administration. They're the real victims of weaponization. Alex,
26:35
Speaker 1: it's dubious. You can tell from the context. That's not
26:38
Speaker 1: who's going to be getting money. And then others who
26:41
Speaker 1: are injured in various ways by the funds, including people
26:46
Speaker 1: who might have gotten under properly, congressionally authorized disbursements from
26:52
Speaker 1: the Judgment Fund. That $ 1. 8 billion has to come from somewhere.
26:59
Speaker 1: There's people who would have been able to recover. That
27:02
Speaker 1: money is gone. So there's a huge number of folks
27:05
Speaker 1: who are injured in various ways by this. And the
27:09
Speaker 1: litigation is going to be going on, I predict, for
27:14
Speaker 1: months and years to come. And if you liked our
27:18
Speaker 1: first brief on behalf of those 93 members of Congress
27:22
Speaker 1: where we laid out all the illegalities here, stay tuned.
27:26
Speaker 1: Much more ahead from us at Democracy Defenders Action.
27:32
Speaker 2: What do you think about, you mentioned there's an excess
27:35
Speaker 2: of lawsuits that are either being filed or that are
27:38
Speaker 2: coming down the pike. Two officers who famously and publicly
27:42
Speaker 2: defended the Capitol on January 6th, Daniel Hodges and Harry Dunn,
27:47
Speaker 2: sued the administration this week to try and stop the
27:50
Speaker 2: creation of the slush fund. What do you think of
27:53
Speaker 2: that effort and where does it go?
27:56
Speaker 1: I think it's great effort. Hats off to Harry and
28:04
Speaker 1: to Daniel. I know them both. They're wonderful public servants
28:08
Speaker 1: for taking the leap. The Public Integrity Project and my
28:13
Speaker 1: friend Brendan Ballew, who brought that case, was pulling no punches.
28:19
Speaker 1: So I think you're going to see that case unfold.
28:23
Speaker 1: together with other litigation that is coming down the pike
28:27
Speaker 1: for all the different individuals or groups of individuals who've
28:31
Speaker 1: been injured by this terrible case. So I'm optimistic that
28:38
Speaker 1: the litigation front is going to result in putting some
28:44
Speaker 1: limits and even an injunction stopping the implementation of the
28:50
Speaker 1: fund to work together with Congress, where I think they're
28:53
Speaker 1: also going to impose some limits. And that one-two punch
28:58
Speaker 1: of the court of law and the court of public opinion,
29:02
Speaker 1: if you will, the public outrage has reflected in even
29:08
Speaker 1: the Republican members' anger about this. Well, you know, they've...
29:17
Speaker 1: You won't lose money by betting against their willingness to
29:25
Speaker 1: take on the president. But here you have all of
29:29
Speaker 1: the cylinders of the scandal clicking. And it does remind
29:36
Speaker 1: me of the Epstein files where it became more and
29:39
Speaker 1: more intense. And finally, the president's own party broke with him.
29:43
Speaker 1: There seemed to be, according to press reports, somewhat of
29:47
Speaker 1: a mutiny today when the president's former defense lawyer, Todd Blanch,
29:52
Speaker 1: tried to sell this to the Republicans in the Senate.
29:56
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, and by the way, Thomas Massey, who
29:59
Speaker 2: led the charge on Epstein, still in Congress. John Cornyn,
30:03
Speaker 2: who Trump basically sent, you know, to put on top
30:07
Speaker 2: of a.
30:07
Speaker 1: Door in the floor.
30:08
Speaker 2: He's still in the Senate. You know, these people who
30:11
Speaker 2: Trump has alienated are very much still there, still angry,
30:14
Speaker 2: and I think ready to go out Yosemite Stan style,
30:16
Speaker 2: guns a-blazin'. I want to ask, you know, about your
30:19
Speaker 2: level of alarm there. on the why. So we know
30:26
Speaker 2: that Trump likes throwing bags of cash at people. We
30:30
Speaker 2: know that he likes sort of mob-style comeuppance. But I
30:36
Speaker 2: wonder what it signals that he... I mean, how worried
30:41
Speaker 2: are you about the midterms? That right now, as the
30:43
Speaker 2: polling shows Trump and Republicans on track to lose one
30:47
Speaker 2: or both houses of Congress, the strategy is not to
30:50
Speaker 2: pivot towards a better message but to throw cash at
30:54
Speaker 2: a group of people who have proven themselves violent and
30:59
Speaker 2: willing to do anything to upend an election in Trump's favor? Like,
31:04
Speaker 2: does it make you worried about the levers Trump might
31:07
Speaker 2: pull as the sort of weather forecast gets worse and
31:11
Speaker 2: worse for him in the party ahead of November?
31:14
Speaker 1: I think that the kind of machinations that we've seen
31:18
Speaker 1: and we've been litigating already are a sign that Donald
31:24
Speaker 1: Trump fears the will of the people. But based on
31:31
Speaker 1: the track record, I think voters can be confident that
31:36
Speaker 1: there will be free and fair voting no matter what
31:40
Speaker 1: he tries. Look, Alex, at Democracy Defenders Fund and ACTION,
31:46
Speaker 1: We litigated against Donald Trump's election takeover executive order. He
31:52
Speaker 1: issued one last year. We went to court. We got
31:55
Speaker 1: a preliminary injunction. Then he pivoted to try to steal
31:59
Speaker 1: five seats through redistricting in Texas. We represented those Texas
32:07
Speaker 1: legislators who fled the state to sound the alarm on redistricting.
32:12
Speaker 1: The result was there was five seats added in California
32:16
Speaker 1: to cancel out Texas. We went to court. We defended.
32:20
Speaker 1: We won that Prop 50. We helped defend it in court.
32:24
Speaker 1: We won it. We won again at the Supreme Court.
32:30
Speaker 1: The trial judgment was untouched on an emergency Supreme Court
32:35
Speaker 1: opinion without a single dissent noted dissenting vote. Donald Trump
32:41
Speaker 1: has tried another elections takeover. We're in court on that.
32:45
Speaker 1: He's trying to do more redistricting in the South. In Florida,
32:50
Speaker 1: more seats being stolen. We're in court on that. And
32:54
Speaker 1: we've been winning these cases now since January 20th, 2025,
32:59
Speaker 1: plus a lot of others in our over 300 cases.
33:02
Speaker 1: So voters should know, and it's not just us, we're
33:05
Speaker 1: part of a very big coalition. Voters should know that
33:11
Speaker 1: we are going to go to court, we are going
33:12
Speaker 1: to fight for them, and we are going to make sure,
33:17
Speaker 1: no matter what Donald Trump and his cronies try, that
33:22
Speaker 1: voting is safe, free, and fair.
33:25
Speaker 2: And, you know, to your point before, it's a system-wide
33:29
Speaker 2: It's an attack on the separation of powers. It's an
33:33
Speaker 2: executive branch attack on the legislative branch and potentially the
33:38
Speaker 2: judicial branch. And those two branches are potentially not going
33:41
Speaker 2: down without a fight, right? They're the lawsuits. And then
33:44
Speaker 2: there's also Congress saying, uh-uh, like this is actually, I mean,
33:47
Speaker 2: at least Democrats and perhaps Republicans join them. This is
33:51
Speaker 2: our purview. We are granted the authority. We are granted
33:55
Speaker 2: the power of the purse. And you can't take that
33:57
Speaker 2: away from us. Because by the way, what does the
33:59
Speaker 2: appropriations process matter if a president can just come up
34:03
Speaker 2: with a fake lawsuit and then a fake settlement and
34:06
Speaker 2: give himself control effectively over billions of dollars? Why bother
34:10
Speaker 2: having Congress if that's going to be the new strategy?
34:14
Speaker 1: Republicans in Congress have been disappointing. That's Article 1. Article 2,
34:23
Speaker 1: the president has been outrageous. But thank heavens for our
34:29
Speaker 1: federal trial court judges and the Article 3, because they
34:38
Speaker 1: have been the guardrail. But Those cases don't start themselves.
34:45
Speaker 1: You need groups like ours and our wonderful coalition partners,
34:50
Speaker 1: hundreds of clients and partners who go to court, who
34:54
Speaker 1: bring those cases. And that makes it possible to have
35:00
Speaker 1: these many, many victories that have hemmed Donald Trump in.
35:06
Speaker 1: And the other good thing about that is, Each one
35:09
Speaker 1: of those court cases is an alarm bell. And the
35:13
Speaker 1: American people have woken up. They see what's going on.
35:16
Speaker 1: And that's why the president has these historically low approval ratings.
35:22
Speaker 1: So he's not coming from a place of strength. He's
35:25
Speaker 1: coming from a place of weakness. Of course, that can
35:28
Speaker 1: be very dangerous. And that's why we are all on
35:34
Speaker 1: our guard. But there's a proven record of success in
35:38
Speaker 1: court over the past 16 months to build on in
35:40
Speaker 1: elections and more broadly.
35:42
Speaker 2: I got to ask you about one last part of
35:44
Speaker 2: the slush fund, the settlement agreement, which is the provision
35:49
Speaker 2: that the DOJ added on Tuesday that the IRS is
35:55
Speaker 2: forever barred and precluded from investigating Trump and his family
36:00
Speaker 2: on their taxes, making it The first family effectively immune
36:05
Speaker 2: from audits from the IRS. Okay, Norm. I mean, double
36:10
Speaker 2: what the fuck on this too. But like, is this legal?
36:14
Speaker 1: Triple what the fuck? Might be a triple.
36:16
Speaker 2: But like, can you do this?
36:18
Speaker 1: You can't do this, can you? No. No. No. First
36:24
Speaker 1: of all, the transaction was already complete. So it's like, oh,
36:29
Speaker 1: we forgot we're going to throw in a freebie. Secondly,
36:32
Speaker 1: they have no power on this kind of a false
36:38
Speaker 1: and phony basis to get rid of the existing cases,
36:43
Speaker 1: much less, as it appears, to forgive future wrongdoing. It's
36:49
Speaker 1: like a preemptive pardon. It won't hold up in court.
36:56
Speaker 1: The whole sick... shebang is going to be flushed, but
37:04
Speaker 1: this is one of the worst parts. And it's like, oops,
37:06
Speaker 1: we forgot one more freebie at the end. I mean,
37:10
Speaker 1: it's so transparent. We are still a government of laws,
37:15
Speaker 1: not of people. And in these many court cases we've
37:19
Speaker 1: brought in one, uh, we've seen again and again, uh,
37:23
Speaker 1: that our federal trial courts, uh, have stood up to
37:28
Speaker 1: Donald Trump. And, um, He's going to fail in these
37:34
Speaker 1: in these efforts. And, you know, we and many others
37:38
Speaker 1: are going to fight him on this worst of all
37:43
Speaker 1: presidential corruption scandals in the history of our nation.
37:55
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39:13
Speaker 2: Okay, so here's my segue. It doesn't end here. Like,
39:16
Speaker 2: The corruption, the malfeasance, the self enrichment, the megalomania, it
39:20
Speaker 2: all continues. I mean, this is not the only scandal
39:24
Speaker 2: this week. Buried in all of this is the news
39:27
Speaker 2: that in the first quarter of this year, Trump made 3,700 trades,
39:32
Speaker 2: not himself, but his accounts. A managing director at a
39:35
Speaker 2: major Wall Street brokerage told Bloomberg, in the 40 plus
39:40
Speaker 2: years of my time on Wall Street, this is an
39:43
Speaker 2: unusual amount of trading by any standards. I mean, yes, OK,
39:47
Speaker 2: we all assume Trump was insider trading, but thirty seven
39:51
Speaker 2: hundred trades norm. I mean, do you have a sense
39:55
Speaker 2: of the scale of this? I know you're not a
39:57
Speaker 2: Wall Street trader, but it seems eye watering.
40:00
Speaker 1: Another trader said that it was insane. To have this
40:07
Speaker 1: level of trades and. The enormous dollar value, many of the.
40:12
Speaker 1: equities being traded are companies like Nvidia or Intel, where
40:23
Speaker 1: the president is involved in decision-making. But given the presidency,
40:30
Speaker 1: you're involved in decision-making for every American company. Now, The
40:38
Speaker 1: Trump Organization has said the president does not personally make
40:43
Speaker 1: these trades. And number one, you shouldn't have to ask
40:50
Speaker 1: the question. Number two, forgive me if I approach anything
40:56
Speaker 1: that they say with a bit of skepticism, given the
41:00
Speaker 1: over 30,000 lies that Donald Trump has told, according to
41:04
Speaker 1: Washington Post tally. You know, like the slush fund scandal, Alex,
41:14
Speaker 1: the American people elected Donald Trump to put money in
41:20
Speaker 1: their pockets to make their lives better, to make their
41:24
Speaker 1: lives more affordable, not himself to expand his wealth. So
41:33
Speaker 1: this stock trading scandal is another profession profoundly concerning case
41:42
Speaker 1: of the president doing the opposite of what he was
41:46
Speaker 1: put in office to do. At The Contrarian, where I'm
41:50
Speaker 1: the publisher, we included both the slush fund and the
41:54
Speaker 1: stock trading on our weekly top 10 list. It changes constantly.
41:59
Speaker 1: I started putting together this top 10 list, and I
42:03
Speaker 1: had to revise it four or five times in the
42:05
Speaker 1: space of 48 hours Because there were so many new
42:08
Speaker 1: corruption scandals. So how can you pick just 10?
42:13
Speaker 2: It's like Taylor Swift top single. There's just always another one. Singles.
42:18
Speaker 2: I want to get the language right from the Trump Organization.
42:21
Speaker 2: A spokesperson from the Trump Organization told Axios, President Trump's
42:25
Speaker 2: investment holdings are maintained exclusively through fully discretionary accounts independently
42:31
Speaker 2: managed by third-party financial institutions with sole and exclusive authority
42:36
Speaker 2: over all investment decisions. Now, let me read to you
42:40
Speaker 2: a list of all the companies that Trump traded whose
42:43
Speaker 2: CEOs also, Norm, happened to accompany Trump on his field
42:47
Speaker 2: trip to China. Nvidia, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Broadcom, Goldman Sachs, Micron,
42:55
Speaker 2: and a handful more. I mean, Are you buying?
42:59
Speaker 1: You don't.
42:59
Speaker 2: You're not buying.
43:00
Speaker 1: Are you?
43:01
Speaker 2: I shouldn't put words in your mouth. The idea that
43:03
Speaker 2: a third party has exclusive authority over Trump's investment decisions.
43:06
Speaker 2: And oh, by the way, some of those big companies
43:09
Speaker 2: just happened to be my, you know, travel buddies as
43:12
Speaker 2: I went to Beijing. No, it's just a co-winky dink.
43:15
Speaker 1: This is another matter that will be investigated. There's no
43:22
Speaker 1: official immunity for doing personal stock trades to the benefit
43:29
Speaker 1: of her president's account. So should the House or the
43:34
Speaker 1: Senate or, for that matter, state security regulators or anybody
43:39
Speaker 1: else have the occasion, they ought to check whether that's true.
43:47
Speaker 1: And is it really the case that the president had
43:50
Speaker 1: no awareness? He now knows what's in his accounts. How
43:54
Speaker 1: does he build a wall in his brain so his
43:58
Speaker 1: decision-making is not influenced by these stock holdings? I think
44:07
Speaker 1: we're entitled to ask highly skeptical questions about about this
44:13
Speaker 1: whole pattern, and particularly given the amount of dishonesty and
44:19
Speaker 1: dissimulation on other topics in the past, not to accept
44:23
Speaker 1: at face value the statement, oh, the president had nothing
44:27
Speaker 1: to do with it.
44:27
Speaker 2: He's going to build a wall in his brain that
44:29
Speaker 2: Mexico will pay for, Norm. I do want to talk
44:33
Speaker 2: a little bit about, as we talk about the megalomania
44:36
Speaker 2: and the corruption, some of the construction projects that so
44:39
Speaker 2: animate whatever part of Trump's brain has not yet been
44:42
Speaker 2: walled off. Where would you prefer to start? There's so
44:46
Speaker 2: many to choose from. The ballroom, the no-bid multi-million dollar
44:50
Speaker 2: reflecting pool contract, or the Trump arch that the administration
44:56
Speaker 2: is now claiming they don't need congressional approval for because
44:59
Speaker 2: Congress approved a plan for the Arlington Memorial Bridge in
45:04
Speaker 2: the year 1924, 102 years ago, that contained an arch-like
45:11
Speaker 2: structure that was never built. For people who are unfamiliar
45:13
Speaker 2: with this absurd argument, the Washington Post reports that Congress
45:20
Speaker 2: formally ratified a report in 1925 that allowed for the
45:25
Speaker 2: building of Memorial Bridge. However, the columns that were part
45:28
Speaker 2: of that design were not actually constructed. And Trump officials
45:31
Speaker 2: today argue that in building the arch, they would be
45:34
Speaker 2: carrying out past lawmakers' wishes by building an arch that
45:38
Speaker 2: was maybe at one point part of a design 102
45:41
Speaker 2: years ago. Where do you want to start, Norm?
45:49
Speaker 1: All of these projects... serve the president's personal ego, his whims,
46:00
Speaker 1: his desire for self-aggrandizement, not the public interest. I think
46:05
Speaker 1: the granddaddy of them all, the thing that kicked us
46:09
Speaker 1: off was renaming the Kennedy Center. And then when artists
46:17
Speaker 1: and audiences fled pretextually, shutting down the center, claiming it
46:26
Speaker 1: was necessary for repairs. We're litigating that case and others
46:31
Speaker 1: of the matters that you describe as are our wonderful
46:36
Speaker 1: partners and colleagues in the democracy movement. So it started
46:42
Speaker 1: with the Kennedy Center case. Then you have the destruction
46:45
Speaker 1: of the East Wing ballroom, where there's a great legal
46:49
Speaker 1: team working on that. We also, we and colleagues also
46:54
Speaker 1: have a piece of that case, Alex, because it turns
46:59
Speaker 1: out that when you demolish that historic, beautiful East Wing,
47:06
Speaker 1: the debris has to go somewhere. Donald Trump trucked it
47:10
Speaker 1: to a public park and public golf course in D.C.
47:15
Speaker 1: where he dumped it. Alex, it's full of toxins. Lead. chromium, asbestos, carcinogens,
47:25
Speaker 1: pardon me, arsenic, carcinogenic substances. And we're litigating that case
47:33
Speaker 1: of the toxic dumping coming out of the East Wing demolition.
47:38
Speaker 1: And then other folks are working on the reflecting pool,
47:42
Speaker 1: which should be called the Fifty Shades of Blue case,
47:48
Speaker 1: because They can't even match the paint colors. It's so incompetent.
47:55
Speaker 1: Like the renaming of the Kennedy Center that caused all
47:59
Speaker 1: those names to hemorrhage. We do that case for Congresswoman
48:03
Speaker 1: Joyce Beatty, our client there. And then you have this
48:06
Speaker 1: Arch case, which another group of lawyers is litigating. So
48:13
Speaker 1: the courts are looking askance at these people. We did
48:19
Speaker 1: get a temporary restraining order to get information about the
48:24
Speaker 1: Kennedy Center, what was going on here. Donald Trump had
48:28
Speaker 1: claimed there was a one-year review involving outside experts. When
48:33
Speaker 1: we got the documents pursuant to a temporary restraining order
48:37
Speaker 1: for Congresswoman Beatty to go into the White House for
48:41
Speaker 1: a Kennedy Center board meeting and confront the president, It
48:45
Speaker 1: turned out there had been no one-year review of the
48:48
Speaker 1: kind that was promised. So these whims are extremely expensive
48:54
Speaker 1: for the American people. They're extremely damaging to the historic environment,
49:02
Speaker 1: or in the case of this toxic dumping to the humans.
49:09
Speaker 1: within the District of Columbia. And it is yet another
49:14
Speaker 1: corruption scandal. And this basket of horribles is also part
49:18
Speaker 1: of our contrarian top 10 list. Yeah.
49:23
Speaker 2: I mean, again, a top 10 list that has no,
49:26
Speaker 2: that should probably be like a top 100 given the
49:29
Speaker 2: number of the candidates you have to put on the list.
49:35
Speaker 2: I Can we talk a little bit, though, specifically about the,
49:39
Speaker 2: you know, we talked about the resistance inside Congress to
49:42
Speaker 2: the slush fund. There's real resistance to the ballroom. The
49:45
Speaker 2: lawsuits could be a way to stop it. But it also, again,
49:48
Speaker 2: it's a legislative branch looking at this and saying, this
49:50
Speaker 2: is totally corrupt and this is a vanity project. And
49:54
Speaker 2: even Senate Republicans, who I am loathe to give any
49:57
Speaker 2: credit to. It looks like, I mean, we know almost
50:01
Speaker 2: for certain that it's going to get dropped, that they're
50:03
Speaker 2: not going to put it in the reconciliation package. The
50:06
Speaker 2: Senate parliamentarian has been like, nice try. That kind of
50:10
Speaker 2: shit doesn't belong in here. I mean, what do you think?
50:15
Speaker 2: I mean, are you surprised that, first of all, there's
50:17
Speaker 2: even that resistance? And do you think that this dies
50:20
Speaker 2: in the legislative branch?
50:22
Speaker 1: Well, when we were talking earlier about the reconciliation laws,
50:28
Speaker 1: and how Congress allowed for purely budgetary matters to move
50:36
Speaker 1: with less than 60 votes. You can do it with
50:39
Speaker 1: a simple majority. They put in a rule that policy
50:47
Speaker 1: decisions can't be part of that. It has to be
50:50
Speaker 1: pure appropriations. Obviously, it's a huge policy decision in our
50:55
Speaker 1: country to build this policy ballroom. And the parliamentarian, she's
51:02
Speaker 1: a hero. She said, no, the Senate parliamentarian, no, I'm
51:07
Speaker 1: not going to let this through. This is not a
51:09
Speaker 1: purely budgetary matter. Donald Trump demanded she be fired. To
51:15
Speaker 1: his credit, it's a pretty low standard, but Majority Leader
51:20
Speaker 1: John Thune has so far declined to fire her. And
51:25
Speaker 1: the Republicans do not seem to be overruling her. So
51:30
Speaker 1: they let the parliamentarian do their dirty work for them,
51:33
Speaker 1: but they're not pleased about building a golden ballroom in
51:38
Speaker 1: a time of tremendous famine. fiscal challenge and a cost
51:42
Speaker 1: of living crisis for Americans that is exacerbated by this
51:48
Speaker 1: kind of corruption. So that is a positive sign that
51:54
Speaker 1: the system is holding, particularly that wonderful parliamentarian.
52:00
Speaker 2: Yeah, not all heroes wear capes.
52:09
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53:33
Speaker 2: I mean, I think you're so right to point out
53:35
Speaker 2: the sort of, real economic climate in the country contributing
53:40
Speaker 2: to and really exacerbating the outrage over the corruption, right?
53:43
Speaker 2: The corruption on its own is eye-watering and historic. But
53:46
Speaker 2: the fact that it dovetails precisely with the moment when
53:49
Speaker 2: Americans can't afford hamburger meat and gas and air conditioning and,
53:55
Speaker 2: you know, health insurance, it makes it that much more galling.
53:59
Speaker 2: And I think when people just, in terms of the
54:03
Speaker 2: political moment, People have said, oh, well, the corruption message
54:06
Speaker 2: hasn't stuck in the way that I think Democrats have
54:09
Speaker 2: wanted it to. Well, we're in a different moment right now.
54:12
Speaker 2: And as you point out, the dichotomy, the chasm that
54:16
Speaker 2: separates the corrupt activities of this president, the gilding of
54:20
Speaker 2: the ballroom, the arch, the painting of the reflecting pool,
54:24
Speaker 2: many mottled shades of blue for multiple times what it
54:28
Speaker 2: was supposed to cost. All of this seems like this senseless...
54:33
Speaker 2: deeply cynical, completely self-absorbed behavior of someone who at the
54:38
Speaker 2: same time is asleep at the wheel when Americans need
54:41
Speaker 2: him the most to tackle the one issue he was
54:43
Speaker 2: elected to tackle, which is affordability. I mean, it's really
54:46
Speaker 2: giving Marie Antoinette vibes. You'd think they would at one
54:51
Speaker 2: point say, just like, let them eat cake. That's kind
54:54
Speaker 2: of where we are. He's building his own Versailles, and
54:59
Speaker 2: the American taxpayer sees what's happening here, and they're outraged.
55:03
Speaker 1: And I do think you see it reflected in polls.
55:06
Speaker 1: Americans say in poll after poll that corruption and fighting
55:10
Speaker 1: corruption in government is one of the most important issues
55:13
Speaker 1: for them, that the cost of living and the crisis
55:19
Speaker 1: around the cost of our everyday existence is a very
55:24
Speaker 1: important issue for them. Well, he's basically applying a Trump
55:29
Speaker 1: tax to every American to pay for these construction projects,
55:34
Speaker 1: to pay for the $ 1. 8 billion slush fund. And the
55:39
Speaker 1: people see the connection. They don't like it. And I
55:44
Speaker 1: think that the public opinion polling demonstrates that this corruption
55:53
Speaker 1: spree is a part of why we have the most
55:58
Speaker 1: unpopular president at this point, in modern presidential history. As
56:04
Speaker 1: you said, that's not why the people put him there.
56:07
Speaker 1: And he has hemorrhaged independence. It's another form of corruption.
56:12
Speaker 1: It's corruption of the rule of law to utilize ICE
56:16
Speaker 1: the way he has to attack innocent people. He said
56:20
Speaker 1: he'd protect the border and arrest criminals. Not that he
56:25
Speaker 1: would tear moms and dads and kids, uh, out of
56:30
Speaker 1: their homes, out of their communities, out of the American economy,
56:34
Speaker 1: or that his ICE agents would murder the Rene Goods
56:39
Speaker 1: and the Alex Pretties. That corruption of the rule of
56:42
Speaker 1: law also matters. And then you throw in the other
56:46
Speaker 1: scandal that has really broken through, like the slush fund
56:49
Speaker 1: or the ballroom or the Kennedy Center, and that has
56:54
Speaker 1: broken even bigger, the Epstein files. That's a corruption story.
56:58
Speaker 1: I think the American people get it. And I think
57:02
Speaker 1: there's going to be a very serious price to pay
57:04
Speaker 1: come November.
57:05
Speaker 2: I think a lot of people don't know about the
57:09
Speaker 2: garbage from the East Wing demolition being put onto a
57:13
Speaker 2: public park. I believe it was a public golf course
57:16
Speaker 2: that was really inexpensive to play on. And so people
57:20
Speaker 2: from all over the city used to play on that course.
57:23
Speaker 2: And now they can't because it's covered in toxic building materials.
57:27
Speaker 2: that Trump unlawfully foisted on the park grounds. The reflecting
57:32
Speaker 2: pool is way over budget. It's not getting done on time.
57:36
Speaker 2: And the work from the reporting we have, at least
57:38
Speaker 2: in the Washington Post, seems to be incredibly shoddy. There
57:41
Speaker 2: are holes in the waterproofing. There are bubbles. The blue,
57:45
Speaker 2: as you say, is 50 shades. even as a construction magnate,
57:52
Speaker 2: he's failing at the job. He's failing politically in terms
57:55
Speaker 2: of strategy. He's failing the country in terms of being
57:57
Speaker 2: a leader and adhering to the principles of the constitution
58:00
Speaker 2: or the letter of the law. And he's also failing
58:03
Speaker 2: at the one thing he is like kind of known for,
58:05
Speaker 2: which is the building part. I wonder, you know, first
58:08
Speaker 2: of all, do you think this stuff is going to
58:11
Speaker 2: get built? And if it does, what should Democrats do
58:14
Speaker 2: about it? First of all, it might be shoddy, dangerous construction.
58:17
Speaker 2: And second of all, like, does anybody I mean, do
58:19
Speaker 2: we need the arc to Trump? Like, what do you
58:21
Speaker 2: think should happen to this stuff if it exists once
58:24
Speaker 2: Trump leaves office?
58:26
Speaker 1: Well, we'll need to take it on a case by
58:32
Speaker 1: case basis. You know, certainly the public park, the golf
58:40
Speaker 1: course that's for families, people of modest means, those should
58:45
Speaker 1: be reopened. We have to get rid of those toxic
58:48
Speaker 1: substances there. I think we'll accomplish that through our litigation.
58:53
Speaker 1: That's the point of doing it. And the Kennedy Center
58:59
Speaker 1: needs to be reopened. We need to protect the independents.
59:04
Speaker 1: of the Kennedy Center. So, you know, it's very clear
59:08
Speaker 1: that it cannot be renamed for Donald Trump. Congress has
59:13
Speaker 1: said it must be named for John F. Kennedy. So
59:17
Speaker 1: we'll have a court order in place. I think on
59:20
Speaker 1: many of these projects, what you're going to see is
59:23
Speaker 1: the courts are going to step in. I don't think
59:26
Speaker 1: the Arch is going to be built. That is being litigated.
59:31
Speaker 1: But look, both with the built environment as with our
59:37
Speaker 1: government in the post-Trump era, we are going to have
59:40
Speaker 1: to rebuild. Fortunately, there are good examples the United States
59:46
Speaker 1: can learn from, both domestically and internationally, where you've had
59:51
Speaker 1: authoritarian regimes replaced. And you were able to rebuild and reconstruct.
59:59
Speaker 1: In Hungary, you just had a supermajority coalition oust a
1:00:05
Speaker 1: far more entrenched autocrat than Donald Trump in the form
1:00:09
Speaker 1: of Viktor Orban. After 14 years, they're embarking on a
1:00:13
Speaker 1: very bold rebuilding project. In Brazil— The Bolsonaro regime was ousted.
1:00:21
Speaker 1: Lula has built a big tent coalition. He's a man
1:00:24
Speaker 1: of the left. He's built a larger coalition to do
1:00:27
Speaker 1: reconstruction there. And of course, we have the examples of
1:00:33
Speaker 1: what happened in the former Iron Curtain countries after the
1:00:39
Speaker 1: end of the Cold War. They were able to rebuild
1:00:42
Speaker 1: after a much longer, more difficult time. struggle, the post-World
1:00:47
Speaker 1: War II rebuilding, truth and reconciliation in South Africa. There's
1:00:53
Speaker 1: a lot of examples we can learn from. It will
1:00:56
Speaker 1: start with knocking down. Personally, I think some of these
1:01:02
Speaker 1: monuments to Trump need to be knocked down. But it's
1:01:06
Speaker 1: what comes after. And the most important rebuilding will be
1:01:10
Speaker 1: the rebuilding of our government and setting America up back
1:01:18
Speaker 1: on our course of fulfilling what Dr. King called the
1:01:23
Speaker 1: promissory note, not yet fully collected on, of the Declaration
1:01:28
Speaker 1: of Independence and the United States Constitution. We have to
1:01:33
Speaker 1: continue that work going forward. But dealing with some of
1:01:39
Speaker 1: these fiascos, domestic fiascos, is going to be a part
1:01:44
Speaker 1: of that as well, Alex.
1:01:46
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, I think you're so right to suggest
1:01:50
Speaker 2: that there is a path forward, that we can come
1:01:53
Speaker 2: out of this, that the judicial system will continue to
1:01:56
Speaker 2: function in its critical role, providing some alternatives and some
1:02:02
Speaker 2: dose of reality in terms of what the law says.
1:02:06
Speaker 2: And also elections matter. You know, you point out Orban
1:02:10
Speaker 2: and Lula and these are the results, those changes are
1:02:15
Speaker 2: the results of a public saying no longer, no more.
1:02:18
Speaker 2: And everything that we see suggests the public is overwhelmingly
1:02:22
Speaker 2: rejecting this corruption and malfeasance and that change, real and
1:02:28
Speaker 2: significant change could be on the menu after election day
1:02:32
Speaker 2: of this year. So, you know, Norm- As depressing as
1:02:36
Speaker 2: all of this is, I think it's also cause for
1:02:39
Speaker 2: outrage and engagement. And that, I think, is hopeful, right?
1:02:44
Speaker 2: Having people involved on a civic level being enraged by
1:02:47
Speaker 2: their democracy and wanting to fix it is an unfortunate
1:02:51
Speaker 2: way to encourage engagement, but is also a really powerful
1:02:55
Speaker 2: way to do it, too. And I'll take it.
1:03:00
Speaker 1: And that has been the history of our country. And
1:03:03
Speaker 1: we've seen extraordinary turnout and electoral performance over the past
1:03:09
Speaker 1: 16 months for pro-democracy candidates. So I think we're going
1:03:14
Speaker 1: to continue to do our work in the courts of law,
1:03:17
Speaker 1: but we're going to count on the court of public
1:03:19
Speaker 1: opinion to restore that trajectory of progress in American democracy
1:03:27
Speaker 1: and to to finally vindicate those promissory notes of the
1:03:34
Speaker 1: Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. We will resume that
1:03:41
Speaker 1: if we all do this together.
1:03:43
Speaker 2: The great and inspiring and brilliant Norm Eisen. It's great
1:03:48
Speaker 2: to see you. It's great to have this in-depth conversation.
1:03:51
Speaker 2: It's been very helpful for me in understanding the sort
1:03:54
Speaker 2: of ins and outs of the lawlessness of of all
1:03:59
Speaker 2: these terrible endeavors embarked upon by Donald Trump. But, you know,
1:04:05
Speaker 2: the work continues. It's great to have you, Norm. Thank
1:04:08
Speaker 2: you guys for listening. The guys are off this Monday
1:04:10
Speaker 2: for the holiday because they're slackers. See you soon.
1:04:13
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