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A Fate Worse Than Hegseth · Politix

0:00
SPEAKER_01: I think we need to have a different Musk conversation at some point,
0:02
SPEAKER_01: because I think this is something where the libs are on one and not thinking clearly.
0:07
SPEAKER_02: I know you think that because he's rich,
0:09
SPEAKER_02: he's smart and therefore good,
0:11
SPEAKER_02: but I don't think that that's correct about Elon Musk.
0:22
SPEAKER_02: This week, a split screen has emerged in Donald Trump's proposed second term cabinet.
0:28
SPEAKER_02: Last week,
0:29
SPEAKER_02: we talked about the normalish group of partisans that Trump has nominated to
0:34
SPEAKER_02: domestic non-defense agencies.
0:37
SPEAKER_02: But since then,
0:38
SPEAKER_02: he signaled that he intends to stack the security services,
0:42
SPEAKER_02: but also the Department of Health and Human Services with a group of corrupt loyalists,
0:48
SPEAKER_02: all of whom seem to have pretty damaging skeletons in their closets.
0:52
SPEAKER_02: So we'll talk about what this all signals,
0:55
SPEAKER_02: how the parties in Congress have responded,
0:57
SPEAKER_02: how they should respond,
0:58
SPEAKER_02: and whether this means we're in for another clownish Trump term or a more ruthless one.
1:05
SPEAKER_02: I hope you enjoy the conversation.
1:06
SPEAKER_02: And if you want to hear the whole thing, you can upgrade your subscription to paid at politics.fm.
1:15
SPEAKER_02: Hey, everyone.
1:16
SPEAKER_02: Welcome to the Politics Podcast.
1:17
SPEAKER_02: I'm Brian Boitler.
1:18
SPEAKER_01: I'm Matthew Iglesias.
1:21
SPEAKER_02: So it's all kind of a blur to me,
1:23
SPEAKER_02: but we sat here a week ago talking about how Donald Trump's first batch of cabinet
1:28
SPEAKER_02: nominees represented something like,
1:31
SPEAKER_02: I guess,
1:31
SPEAKER_02: what you'd expect in a least bad scenario of a second Trump presidency.
1:38
SPEAKER_02: I mean, nobody either of us would pick- A professional.
1:40
SPEAKER_02: Well, I mean- I would say.
1:43
SPEAKER_02: It's sort of like the way Republicans do professional administrative branch stuff,
1:48
SPEAKER_02: which is a point a bunch of scowling partisans to run agencies they don't agree
1:55
SPEAKER_02: with the missions of,
1:56
SPEAKER_02: but at least-
1:57
SPEAKER_02: These tend to be people with experience in Congress or running states or whatever.
2:01
SPEAKER_02: So the idea that they will oversee a large bureaucracy is not crazy.
2:07
SPEAKER_02: And it's very standard for the GOP.
2:11
SPEAKER_02: If Mitt Romney had appointed...
2:13
SPEAKER_02: Lee Zeldin to run the Environmental Protection Agency.
2:17
SPEAKER_02: It's not like I would have been impressed,
2:20
SPEAKER_02: but I would have thought,
2:21
SPEAKER_02: okay,
2:22
SPEAKER_02: that's not that much different than the- Unremarkable.
2:24
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
2:25
SPEAKER_02: The kind of people that George Shelby Bush picked to run.
2:27
SPEAKER_01: Well, let's just go down.
2:28
SPEAKER_01: Who fits that mold?
2:30
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
2:30
SPEAKER_01: Who's in here, right?
2:31
SPEAKER_01: So Doug Burgum, Secretary of the Interior.
2:33
SPEAKER_01: This is a Western governor from a big public lands and natural resource state.
2:39
SPEAKER_01: He will now manage public lands and natural resources.
2:43
SPEAKER_01: Christy Noem to be Secretary of Homeland Security.
2:46
SPEAKER_01: This is a little bit random, but this is a conservative politician to run a cabinet agency.
2:55
SPEAKER_01: You've got...
2:57
SPEAKER_01: Who else is on here?
2:59
SPEAKER_01: Chris Wright.
3:00
SPEAKER_01: Stefanik at UN?
3:01
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
3:02
SPEAKER_01: At least Stefanik at UN.
3:03
SPEAKER_01: I mean, Republicans don't really care about the UN.
3:06
SPEAKER_01: Stefanik is a Trump loyalist and a kind of rhetorical foot soldier for Israel.
3:12
SPEAKER_01: You have an oil and gas industry guy, Chris Wright, to be Secretary of Energy.
3:16
SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's a little odd just because the Energy Department...
3:20
SPEAKER_01: Has the least jurisdiction over oil and gas relative to like any other form of energy.
3:26
SPEAKER_01: But, you know, it's fine.
3:28
SPEAKER_02: It's a nuclear regulatory body.
3:30
SPEAKER_02: And nobody in Republican politics seems to know this.
3:33
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's the main thing they know.
3:35
SPEAKER_01: Brendan Carr,
3:36
SPEAKER_01: who is the senior Republican FCC commissioner,
3:40
SPEAKER_01: will now be the chair of the FCC administration.
3:43
SPEAKER_01: That's, like, super normal.
3:44
SPEAKER_01: That's what happens in these things.
3:48
SPEAKER_01: You know, Lee Zeldin, you mentioned.
3:50
SPEAKER_01: Who else do we have here?
3:52
SPEAKER_02: Don't forget your boy, Sean Duffy.
3:55
SPEAKER_01: Sean Duffy is the one that I think, like...
4:00
SPEAKER_01: He's Trump-y, right?
4:01
SPEAKER_01: So here's a guy, he's a former congressman from Wisconsin.
4:05
SPEAKER_01: He is a second-tier Fox News host, and he's going to be Secretary of Transportation.
4:11
SPEAKER_01: He has no real background or profile on transportation issues.
4:16
SPEAKER_01: That being said- When he was in Congress, was he not even on the relevant committee?
4:20
SPEAKER_01: He is not.
4:21
SPEAKER_01: He's a finance committee guy.
4:22
SPEAKER_02: That kind of gives you windows into a lot of stuff, anyway.
4:27
SPEAKER_01: The closest he came to being involved in transportation issues is that he was
4:32
SPEAKER_01: involved in the Puerto Rico Financial Rescue Board as a financial services member
4:39
SPEAKER_01: that came together late in Obama's years.
4:42
SPEAKER_01: And they kind of toyed with Jones Act reform, but then didn't do anything.
4:46
SPEAKER_01: That being said,
4:48
SPEAKER_01: like this is literally how Joe Biden picked his transportation secretary was decide
4:54
SPEAKER_01: this is not an important job.
4:55
SPEAKER_01: So put someone who's good on television in it.
4:59
SPEAKER_01: You know, so whatever.
5:00
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I wish people took transportation policy more seriously, but they don't.
5:05
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
5:07
SPEAKER_01: And then you get Marco Rubio as Secretary of State, again, a prominent senator from his own party.
5:15
SPEAKER_01: That's Hillary Clinton.
5:17
SPEAKER_01: That's John Kerry.
5:19
SPEAKER_01: Not every Secretary of State is like that, but it's a well-trod path for Secretaries of State.
5:27
SPEAKER_01: But then?
5:29
SPEAKER_01: Then it gets a little weird.
5:32
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
5:32
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
5:33
SPEAKER_02: So before we, I mean- Oh, Veterans Affairs.
5:36
SPEAKER_01: Sorry.
5:36
SPEAKER_01: Just to be thorough and accurate.
5:39
SPEAKER_01: I don't know this guy really well.
5:41
SPEAKER_01: He's like a House Republican who also is a veteran.
5:45
SPEAKER_01: So, you know, why not?
5:47
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
5:47
SPEAKER_01: Now let's move on.
5:48
SPEAKER_01: You didn't even give his name.
5:50
SPEAKER_01: I don't know his name.
5:52
SPEAKER_01: I think he's the second guy named Doug.
5:55
SPEAKER_01: We're going to have the most Dugs.
5:57
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, Doug Collins.
5:58
SPEAKER_02: All right.
5:59
SPEAKER_01: Two Dugs in the cabinet.
6:02
SPEAKER_02: Okay,
6:02
SPEAKER_02: so about half of those people,
6:06
SPEAKER_02: basically all of the first three or four nominees,
6:11
SPEAKER_02: I think were intentionally rolled out to...
6:17
SPEAKER_02: to mislead the establishment,
6:21
SPEAKER_02: the press corps,
6:22
SPEAKER_02: Democrats,
6:23
SPEAKER_02: whatever,
6:23
SPEAKER_02: into thinking,
6:24
SPEAKER_02: okay,
6:24
SPEAKER_02: this is not going to be the,
6:26
SPEAKER_02: like,
6:27
SPEAKER_02: fascist insurgent administration that Trump campaigned on,
6:32
SPEAKER_02: that Democrats were warning about,
6:33
SPEAKER_02: et cetera.
6:34
SPEAKER_02: But then, like, just as soon as we'd all internalized that,
6:39
SPEAKER_02: He nominated Matt Gaetz, the disgraced Florida congressman, to be attorney general.
6:47
SPEAKER_02: He nominated Tulsi Gabbard.
6:48
SPEAKER_02: I don't even really know how to characterize her to be his national intelligence director.
6:56
SPEAKER_02: And then a Fox News host, another second tier Fox News host named Pete Hegseth to run the Pentagon.
7:07
SPEAKER_02: And he's got some issues.
7:09
SPEAKER_02: Apart from being like lacking any qualification to run an enormous bureaucracy,
7:15
SPEAKER_02: we'll get to what he has in his closet.
7:18
SPEAKER_02: And then Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
7:22
SPEAKER_02: to run Health and Human Services.
7:26
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
7:27
SPEAKER_02: These are really bad.
7:28
SPEAKER_02: All of them for various reasons.
7:30
SPEAKER_01: They're bad in different ways, I think.
7:34
SPEAKER_01: The Hexeth one, I think, though, is at the nexus of bad across like multiple.
7:41
SPEAKER_01: It's like an event diagram of badness, it seems to me.
7:46
SPEAKER_01: Right.
7:46
SPEAKER_01: And that starts with just picking somebody who is a lightweight.
7:52
SPEAKER_01: Hegsith,
7:53
SPEAKER_01: combat veteran and a conservative guy who,
7:58
SPEAKER_01: after leaving the service,
8:00
SPEAKER_01: worked for Concerned Veterans of America,
8:03
SPEAKER_01: which is,
8:06
SPEAKER_01: you know,
8:06
SPEAKER_01: the Koch brothers basically didn't like that the main veterans organization in the
8:12
SPEAKER_01: United States had a kind of progressive take on how the VA health system should be run.
8:20
SPEAKER_01: Their logic,
8:20
SPEAKER_01: which I think is correct,
8:22
SPEAKER_01: is that the population of veterans is a pretty right wing group and they usually
8:28
SPEAKER_01: vote for Republicans.
8:29
SPEAKER_01: And so they wanted to create a sort of counter more right wing veterans
8:34
SPEAKER_01: organization that would push for VA privatization.
8:37
SPEAKER_01: So Hegseth was involved in that for a number of years.
8:40
SPEAKER_01: It was not very successful because John McCain didn't really agree with it on the merits.
8:46
SPEAKER_01: Um, but Hegseth, uh, became a Fox news talking head, um, had a lot of success with that.
8:53
SPEAKER_01: Um, I mean, some, he didn't like host a primetime Fox show, but no, no, I don't even think he did.
8:58
SPEAKER_02: Like,
8:59
SPEAKER_02: like in the,
8:59
SPEAKER_02: in the affirmative action of right-wing media,
9:02
SPEAKER_02: like the people who rise to the top are like Hannity.
9:05
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
9:05
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
9:05
SPEAKER_02: And so, and so if, if, if you're sub Hannity, you're like,
9:11
SPEAKER_02: Even with all the money and like low standards in the conservative media world,
9:17
SPEAKER_02: like you're kind of a washout.
9:18
SPEAKER_01: Trump floated him to be VA secretary at one point because he liked him on TV.
9:24
SPEAKER_01: And because even though, you know, Trump flirts between...
9:30
SPEAKER_01: being sort of more moderate than most Republicans in certain ways because he's more
9:35
SPEAKER_01: purely selfish,
9:36
SPEAKER_01: but then also indulging the furthest right-wing people in the universe based on who
9:42
SPEAKER_01: he's talked to recently.
9:44
SPEAKER_01: So he put Hegseth forth to be VA secretary,
9:46
SPEAKER_01: I think because Trump liked him on television,
9:50
SPEAKER_01: like the cut of his jib,
9:52
SPEAKER_01: as they say,
9:53
SPEAKER_01: didn't think too much about the specific politics of VA health care.
9:58
SPEAKER_01: He got really negative feedback on that from top military commanders,
10:03
SPEAKER_01: and so ultimately did not put him up.
10:07
SPEAKER_01: So...
10:08
SPEAKER_01: We now have him being put forward for a much, much, much bigger job.
10:12
SPEAKER_02: Overseeing those very people, right?
10:14
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
10:15
SPEAKER_01: So that's the strike.
10:16
SPEAKER_01: You know, VA secretary, I mean, of course, we all support the troops.
10:19
SPEAKER_01: We love our veterans.
10:20
SPEAKER_01: It's an important agency with some administrative complexity.
10:24
SPEAKER_01: The Department of Defense is obviously a much larger and more important cabinet agency.
10:29
SPEAKER_01: It is the
10:32
SPEAKER_01: almost always goes to a real heavyweight person.
10:37
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I was joking about... America has a not-so-illustrious roster of transportation secretaries.
10:44
SPEAKER_01: Defense secretaries are usually people with either big-time politicians with big reputations,
10:51
SPEAKER_01: backed up by strong deputies,
10:53
SPEAKER_01: or people with...
10:55
SPEAKER_01: deep experience in the military or management.
10:58
SPEAKER_01: Hexeth is none of those things.
11:01
SPEAKER_01: And it's a big fuck you to the top military commanders who Trump has beef with after,
11:13
SPEAKER_01: I guess,
11:15
SPEAKER_01: Millie's handling of January 6th or whatever else.
11:20
SPEAKER_01: So he's like unqualified.
11:22
SPEAKER_01: He's very right wing.
11:24
SPEAKER_01: It's destabilizing to institutions.
11:27
SPEAKER_01: And he also has like significant personal scandal in his background.
11:33
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
11:35
SPEAKER_02: Two.
11:36
SPEAKER_02: One and a half.
11:37
SPEAKER_02: Apparently his body is festooned with white nationalist tattoos that he insists are like,
11:42
SPEAKER_01: oh,
11:42
SPEAKER_02: this is just Christian iconography.
11:44
SPEAKER_01: I've heard some... I don't know.
11:47
SPEAKER_01: Listen, I have learned to mistrust...
11:50
SPEAKER_01: the woke media's decisions about which iconography is in fact white nationalist.
11:57
SPEAKER_01: Well,
11:58
SPEAKER_01: I think these are,
11:59
SPEAKER_01: these are,
11:59
SPEAKER_02: these are insignias that are maybe shared between people whose main commitment is
12:04
SPEAKER_02: racism and whose other people whose main commitment is the Lord.
12:08
SPEAKER_02: And maybe there's some overlap between the two.
12:09
SPEAKER_01: Can you, can you, can you tell me more about headlines?
12:11
SPEAKER_01: Like Trump's Pentagon pick paid woman after sex assault allegation, but denies wrongdoing.
12:18
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
12:18
SPEAKER_02: So this initially got reported out as like there's an accusation of sexual
12:25
SPEAKER_02: impropriety that resulted in an NDA.
12:27
SPEAKER_02: And then the scandalous aspect of it was that Hegseth didn't tell Trump about it
12:32
SPEAKER_02: before he got the nomination.
12:33
SPEAKER_02: So it's creating all this turmoil in Trump world.
12:35
SPEAKER_02: But the details that have emerged about...
12:40
SPEAKER_02: what Hegseth signed the NDA over,
12:43
SPEAKER_02: what Hegseth had this woman sign the NDA over,
12:45
SPEAKER_02: are really very disturbing.
12:48
SPEAKER_02: My recollection without having the story in front of me is that she invited him to some conference and
12:58
SPEAKER_02: she was with some peers who were concerned about how he was behaving towards them.
13:07
SPEAKER_02: And I think the idea was to try to
13:11
SPEAKER_02: defuse the situation and the night.
13:13
SPEAKER_02: Um,
13:14
SPEAKER_02: but it ends up with one of the women waking up in his hotel room without much of a
13:19
SPEAKER_02: memory of the night before,
13:21
SPEAKER_02: and then going to,
13:22
SPEAKER_02: uh,
13:23
SPEAKER_02: get a,
13:23
SPEAKER_02: a rape test,
13:24
SPEAKER_02: which came back,
13:25
SPEAKER_02: the rape kit came back positive.
13:27
SPEAKER_02: Um, and, uh, and so that is the basis of the NDA.
13:34
SPEAKER_02: He claims everything was consensual.
13:37
SPEAKER_02: Um,
13:38
SPEAKER_02: But there's,
13:39
SPEAKER_02: I think,
13:39
SPEAKER_02: pretty good reason to suspect that's not true or else that he doesn't have enough
13:44
SPEAKER_02: of a recollection of the night to know.
13:47
SPEAKER_02: And then also tried to cover it up.
13:51
SPEAKER_01: So the city of Monterey confirms that local police investigated an alleged sexual
13:56
SPEAKER_01: assault that occurred in 2017 between midnight and 7 a.m.
14:02
SPEAKER_01: at the Hyatt Regency Hotel.
14:04
SPEAKER_01: It does not have the name or age of the alleged victim, but noted sustained bruises on the right thigh.
14:10
SPEAKER_01: A report was completed on October 12th, but no charges were filed.
14:17
SPEAKER_01: You know, there was a memo about this was provided to the Trump transition.
14:22
SPEAKER_01: Susie Wiles says that she talked to Hegseth about the incident,
14:27
SPEAKER_01: which he characterized as a he said,
14:29
SPEAKER_01: she said.
14:30
SPEAKER_00: You know, I mean...
14:36
SPEAKER_01: This is the kind of thing where clearly charges were not pressed for any of the
14:42
SPEAKER_01: many reasons why charges are sometimes not pressed in these kind of situations.
14:47
SPEAKER_01: And I think we will never be able to know for sure what occurred, especially in this case.
14:54
SPEAKER_01: So the victim, this happened at a conservative political conference.
15:00
SPEAKER_02: And one thing I remember from the story that I read is that
15:04
SPEAKER_02: is that she attended this conference with her family.
15:07
SPEAKER_02: Like her husband was there, her children were there.
15:11
SPEAKER_02: And so if you're just trying to,
15:13
SPEAKER_02: you know,
15:13
SPEAKER_02: you can't know with any certainty what happened in a room with only two people in it.
15:18
SPEAKER_02: And they're telling different stories.
15:22
SPEAKER_02: This does not sound like the pattern of behavior of somebody who was looking to have
15:28
SPEAKER_02: Like an extramarital affair away.
15:30
SPEAKER_01: No, no, no.
15:31
SPEAKER_01: I completely agree.
15:33
SPEAKER_01: The point I'm making is that in this case,
15:35
SPEAKER_01: we have the allegation,
15:37
SPEAKER_01: but we actually don't have the accuser,
15:40
SPEAKER_01: right?
15:40
SPEAKER_01: Because the victim in this case is a professional Republican Party operative.
15:50
SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
15:50
SPEAKER_01: Like, she was working at this conservative conference in Monterey.
15:55
SPEAKER_01: She didn't make the allegation public at the time,
15:58
SPEAKER_01: didn't want to press charges,
15:59
SPEAKER_01: et cetera,
16:00
SPEAKER_01: et cetera,
16:00
SPEAKER_01: and has not—the information has come forward via a friend and then subsequent
16:07
SPEAKER_01: questions asked of the Monterey Police Department,
16:09
SPEAKER_01: et cetera.
16:10
SPEAKER_01: But we don't have—
16:12
SPEAKER_01: The live accuser.
16:13
SPEAKER_01: And I think that we probably won't,
16:16
SPEAKER_01: you know,
16:16
SPEAKER_01: coming forward in a situation like this always poses various risks to your life,
16:21
SPEAKER_01: your reputation,
16:22
SPEAKER_01: other things.
16:23
SPEAKER_01: But if you're working in Republican Party politics and all things considered.
16:30
SPEAKER_01: you know,
16:31
SPEAKER_01: are just like,
16:31
SPEAKER_01: are still a Republican,
16:34
SPEAKER_01: obviously crossing Trump on something like this by coming out,
16:38
SPEAKER_01: pointing the finger at his designated defense secretary,
16:41
SPEAKER_01: who you know that Trump was briefed on these allegations and went forward with it anyway,
16:46
SPEAKER_01: you know,
16:47
SPEAKER_01: is probably not something that's going to
16:50
SPEAKER_02: Wait, did Trump, is the story that Trump knew about this before he put the nomination forward?
16:55
SPEAKER_02: I thought that the drama in Trump world was that Hegseth had not told him until,
17:00
SPEAKER_02: and it didn't come to their attention until after the nomination.
17:03
SPEAKER_02: But maybe I fucked that up.
17:05
SPEAKER_01: Oh, sorry.
17:05
SPEAKER_01: I thought, okay, it's a vanity fair.
17:10
SPEAKER_01: Donald Trump's transition team scrambled Thursday.
17:13
SPEAKER_01: Oh, sorry.
17:13
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
17:14
SPEAKER_01: So, right.
17:15
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
17:16
SPEAKER_01: Susie Wiles was given the information right after the announcement was made.
17:23
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
17:24
SPEAKER_01: So they're a little wrong footed, but they are not looking into it.
17:28
SPEAKER_01: You know, I think it's important to understand if you are a listener out there that
17:36
SPEAKER_01: Pretty much everybody I have spoken to in right of center politics,
17:43
SPEAKER_01: including people who like didn't vote for Trump,
17:46
SPEAKER_01: you know,
17:46
SPEAKER_01: like the kind of people who were fired up about Ron DeSantis in the in the primary
17:52
SPEAKER_01: and think tariffs are terrible or whatever.
17:56
SPEAKER_01: They've all decided,
17:57
SPEAKER_01: I don't know on what basis exactly,
18:00
SPEAKER_01: but that like the allegations against Brett Kavanaugh were bullshit and that this
18:05
SPEAKER_01: is how the left does things.
18:08
SPEAKER_01: So,
18:10
SPEAKER_01: you know,
18:10
SPEAKER_01: it's not surprising to me that Trump,
18:15
SPEAKER_01: who obviously is not a particularly sensitive person about such matters,
18:20
SPEAKER_01: would completely brush something like this
18:22
SPEAKER_01: And the upshot is that we are going to have,
18:26
SPEAKER_01: on top of Trump's rape case,
18:29
SPEAKER_01: on top of the Kavanaugh case,
18:31
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
18:31
SPEAKER_01: I think another one of these things where it comes down to,
18:36
SPEAKER_01: you know,
18:37
SPEAKER_01: do you believe people are making up,
18:39
SPEAKER_01: women are making up lies about prominent Republican politicians for no reason?
18:45
SPEAKER_01: Or do you believe that sexual assaults occur in circumstances where it's hard to
18:50
SPEAKER_01: obtain proof beyond a reasonable doubt?
18:52
SPEAKER_01: And I'm much more in the latter camp.
18:54
SPEAKER_01: Of course.
18:55
SPEAKER_02: It is true that you can't prove these things.
18:57
SPEAKER_02: Look,
18:58
SPEAKER_02: if you want to be generous to the Republicans who decided quite conveniently that
19:02
SPEAKER_02: Christine Blasey Ford was just an opportunist and blah,
19:06
SPEAKER_02: blah,
19:06
SPEAKER_02: blah.
19:07
SPEAKER_02: Like, you can look at how that all went down and tell yourself a story about Democrats.
19:14
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
19:15
SPEAKER_02: trying to fish something out of ancient history.
19:18
SPEAKER_02: You know,
19:20
SPEAKER_02: Dianne Feinstein was apparently sitting on this and then sprung it at the last
19:24
SPEAKER_02: moment is how they like to tell the story.
19:26
SPEAKER_02: This appears to not involve Democrats at any level.
19:31
SPEAKER_01: No, I mean, absolutely.
19:32
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
19:33
SPEAKER_01: the charge happened in 2017 when I don't want to say nobody had any idea who Pete
19:37
SPEAKER_01: Hegseth was,
19:37
SPEAKER_01: but I certainly didn't.
19:40
SPEAKER_02: And it's not, you know, Jack Reed of the Armed Services Committee.
19:46
SPEAKER_02: or some other top-down,
19:47
SPEAKER_02: Gene Shaheen on the Armed Services Committee,
19:50
SPEAKER_02: bringing this up to trip up Trump's nominee after he's already run traps on Capitol Hill.
19:58
SPEAKER_02: This is all internal to Republican politics.
20:01
SPEAKER_02: So if they want to play the same game they played with Ford,
20:09
SPEAKER_02: with this woman,
20:10
SPEAKER_02: I don't know if it will wear as well outside of...
20:15
SPEAKER_02: outside of like Republican elite circles.
20:17
SPEAKER_02: And then on top of that,
20:19
SPEAKER_02: You know,
20:20
SPEAKER_02: the problem of sexual assault in the military is one that members of both parties
20:26
SPEAKER_02: have taken a real productive interest in.
20:30
SPEAKER_02: I don't know sitting here how much progress they've made,
20:33
SPEAKER_02: but it is a thing that members of both parties working together in good faith have
20:39
SPEAKER_02: tried to do something about,
20:41
SPEAKER_02: to reform the UCMJ,
20:43
SPEAKER_02: to make it to...
20:45
SPEAKER_02: to help female service members like feel safe coming forward, et cetera.
20:53
SPEAKER_02: And so springing this on them and then saying,
20:56
SPEAKER_02: and you're not going to get to know more about this allegation.
20:59
SPEAKER_02: Also, we're going to put this guy in charge of the whole department of defense.
21:02
SPEAKER_02: Seems like the kind of thing that might generate like genuine
21:10
SPEAKER_02: from people like Susan Collins,
21:13
SPEAKER_02: who will go ahead and vote for a Brett Kavanaugh,
21:16
SPEAKER_02: but under these circumstances might be like,
21:18
SPEAKER_02: uh-uh,
21:19
SPEAKER_02: this is different.
21:20
SPEAKER_01: I believe Joni Ernst is probably the key actor here, right?
21:24
SPEAKER_01: So,
21:25
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
21:25
SPEAKER_01: an important backdrop for all Trump cabinet stuff is that,
21:30
SPEAKER_01: you know,
21:32
SPEAKER_01: when Trump had his first trifecta in 2017 and 2018,
21:39
SPEAKER_01: Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski, who are both quite moderate, right?
21:44
SPEAKER_01: So like Collins represents a Hillary Biden Kamala state.
21:50
SPEAKER_01: She needs to get crossover Democrats to vote for her to win elections.
21:54
SPEAKER_01: So her vote is always in principle in play on anything that happens.
21:59
SPEAKER_01: Lisa Murkowski is in a weird situation in Alaska,
22:02
SPEAKER_01: which has an odd electoral system and where she once lost a Republican primary and
22:07
SPEAKER_01: then won as a write-in candidate.
22:09
SPEAKER_01: She, again, relies on the votes of Democrats so that she can beat more right-wing Republicans.
22:16
SPEAKER_01: So her vote is always in play on everything.
22:19
SPEAKER_01: In 2017,
22:21
SPEAKER_01: there was also John McCain,
22:22
SPEAKER_01: who just had a strong personal dislike of Donald Trump,
22:26
SPEAKER_01: as well as some meaningful policy disagreements about national security,
22:32
SPEAKER_01: trade,
22:32
SPEAKER_01: immigration.
22:34
SPEAKER_01: And that's the coalition that blocked Affordable Care Act repeal and that,
22:39
SPEAKER_01: in principle,
22:40
SPEAKER_01: could have blocked Brett Kavanaugh,
22:41
SPEAKER_01: but then didn't,
22:43
SPEAKER_01: et cetera,
22:43
SPEAKER_01: et cetera.
22:44
SPEAKER_01: Trump's majority is bigger now, and there's no McCain-like figure.
22:50
SPEAKER_01: Murkowski and Collins alone don't block anyone.
22:55
SPEAKER_02: Neither do Murkowski, Collins, and a player to be named later.
22:59
SPEAKER_01: Right, right, right.
23:00
SPEAKER_01: So you need four.
23:01
SPEAKER_01: And so you need somebody who...
23:04
SPEAKER_01: is like a safe red state Republican conventional conservative to object for whatever reason.
23:12
SPEAKER_01: Joni Ernst is a woman.
23:14
SPEAKER_01: She is a military veteran.
23:16
SPEAKER_01: And she was,
23:17
SPEAKER_01: in terms of the bipartisan action on sexual assault in the military that you referenced,
23:22
SPEAKER_01: she was sort of the GOP lead on that.
23:26
SPEAKER_01: Her dissenting vote is not enough to derail Pete Hegseth, but it would...
23:32
SPEAKER_01: It would make waves in the caucus.
23:35
SPEAKER_01: There's other women in that caucus.
23:37
SPEAKER_01: There are people.
23:38
SPEAKER_01: There are senators from Wisconsin and Pennsylvania who can't just totally blow off
23:43
SPEAKER_01: political considerations.
23:45
SPEAKER_01: But I have no idea.
23:46
SPEAKER_01: She's super right-wing and obviously in a state where Donald Trump is incredibly popular,
23:52
SPEAKER_01: but people also have personal convictions as well.
23:54
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
23:55
SPEAKER_02: And she,
23:55
SPEAKER_02: I mean,
23:55
SPEAKER_02: she also,
23:56
SPEAKER_02: I think during Me Too,
23:57
SPEAKER_02: I'm getting the timelines confused maybe,
24:00
SPEAKER_02: but she was one of the few Republican women who came forward to talk about a sexual
24:04
SPEAKER_02: assault that she experienced when she was in college or something like that.
24:08
SPEAKER_02: So she has the,
24:10
SPEAKER_02: like,
24:11
SPEAKER_02: you would think that the totality of her experience would make her think,
24:16
SPEAKER_02: fuck this Hegseth guy and fuck Donald Trump if he thinks that I'm going to
24:21
SPEAKER_02: help him get confirmed.
24:23
SPEAKER_01: Potentially.
24:24
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you never know what people are doing.
24:26
SPEAKER_01: I just, I think that that's the, that's the relevant actor to look at.
24:31
SPEAKER_02: So somehow it somehow I accept this is like in competition with another one of
24:40
SPEAKER_02: these guys for having like the worst sex abuse scandal.
24:45
SPEAKER_02: I mean, there's Trump obviously, but he won the election.
24:47
SPEAKER_02: So there's,
24:49
SPEAKER_02: Nothing that can be done about that.
24:51
SPEAKER_02: Well, I think what Hegseth did here is worse.
24:54
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I think it's interesting.
24:56
SPEAKER_01: Matt Gaetz has attracted more attention as like scandal-plagued.
24:59
SPEAKER_02: Well, there's more information in the world.
25:01
SPEAKER_02: Like, okay, so let's just be like specific about what we're talking about.
25:07
SPEAKER_02: Matt Gaetz,
25:08
SPEAKER_02: who Trump nominated to be attorney general,
25:11
SPEAKER_02: has been under an ethics committee investigation for a long time now because...
25:16
SPEAKER_02: He is suspected of involvement in a child sex trafficking scandal that has actually
25:24
SPEAKER_02: resulted in a friend of his going to prison.
25:29
SPEAKER_02: The Ethics Committee report is done.
25:31
SPEAKER_02: It was supposed to come out,
25:32
SPEAKER_02: but then just like basically right before Trump nominated him for attorney general,
25:36
SPEAKER_02: he resigned from his seat in Congress as a move designed to preempt the release of
25:41
SPEAKER_02: this report.
25:43
SPEAKER_02: We, I think, have strong reason to suspect that the report is damning.
25:47
SPEAKER_02: both because of the details that have been reported in the press,
25:50
SPEAKER_02: but also because he resigned to block it.
25:51
SPEAKER_01: Well,
25:51
SPEAKER_01: because he resigned preemptively rather than saying,
25:55
SPEAKER_01: I want this report to come out and it will clear my name.
25:58
SPEAKER_02: And then Speaker Mike Johnson was like, I don't think the Ethics Committee should release this report.
26:02
SPEAKER_02: So the goal of the MAGA loyalist troop is to hustle gates into the Department of Justice and
26:10
SPEAKER_02: before this report can be seen or ideally to just bury the report altogether.
26:14
SPEAKER_02: It doesn't seem like that's going to work one way or another, like the report could leak.
26:19
SPEAKER_02: Senators have shown interest,
26:21
SPEAKER_02: even Republican senators who would have to vote on Gates have shown interest in
26:25
SPEAKER_02: getting their hands on a copy of it.
26:28
SPEAKER_02: But the basic allegation is that he paid to fly an underage girl or maybe more than one to
26:37
SPEAKER_02: uh, like a party, a sex party.
26:40
SPEAKER_02: Um, and, uh, and then had sex with one of them.
26:43
SPEAKER_02: Um,
26:43
SPEAKER_02: and that this was like witnessed by people and,
26:48
SPEAKER_02: um,
26:48
SPEAKER_02: and like the,
26:51
SPEAKER_02: it just seems like it,
26:53
SPEAKER_02: the justice department investigated this,
26:55
SPEAKER_02: uh,
26:56
SPEAKER_02: declined to press charges,
26:59
SPEAKER_02: like seemingly because like,
27:00
SPEAKER_02: if you're going to go after,
27:01
SPEAKER_02: uh,
27:02
SPEAKER_02: a member of Congress,
27:04
SPEAKER_02: and sustaining the charges involves testimony from people who are drunk and on
27:10
SPEAKER_02: drugs is going to make a conviction really difficult.
27:15
SPEAKER_01: I think that there are mens rea consideration.
27:21
SPEAKER_01: I think that to make a criminal charge stick, you would have to prove that Gates knew.
27:30
SPEAKER_00: that these were like underage teens, right?
27:36
SPEAKER_01: And that the only basis for that is like discussions among this group of like drunk crooks.
27:45
SPEAKER_01: Whereas like an ethics committee report can say, Congressman so-and-so,
27:50
SPEAKER_01: with his party buddies,
27:53
SPEAKER_01: one of whom is in jail,
27:55
SPEAKER_01: were arranging parties with young girls,
27:59
SPEAKER_01: some of whom were underage.
28:00
SPEAKER_01: And like, that is unethical, right?
28:03
SPEAKER_01: I mean, appropriately, right?
28:05
SPEAKER_01: Like there is a high bar, right?
28:08
SPEAKER_01: for securing criminal convictions of people versus a judgment that somebody's behavior is unethical.
28:18
SPEAKER_02: And unworthy of holding office is the thing.
28:21
SPEAKER_01: Right.
28:21
SPEAKER_02: It's like this might not be enough to say, well, Matt Gaetz, your liberty is...
28:29
SPEAKER_01: And even I would say you don't deserve this office that you're not entitled to.
28:32
SPEAKER_01: The voters of the Florida panhandle might decide that they don't care.
28:37
SPEAKER_01: Right.
28:37
SPEAKER_01: But like also they might.
28:39
SPEAKER_01: The factual information is good.
28:41
SPEAKER_01: Even in a very safe district,
28:43
SPEAKER_01: you might affect a primary challenger on the basis of like we shouldn't have a
28:48
SPEAKER_01: crook in this office.
28:50
SPEAKER_01: And certainly the Senate, when deciding its advice and consent, is free to consider.
28:59
SPEAKER_01: You know, a lower evidentiary bar than you would use to lock somebody up in prison.
29:04
SPEAKER_01: The other thing about Gates that is very relevant and I think is part of why he's
29:08
SPEAKER_01: attracted more scrutiny than Hegseth is just that like Gates was a huge pain in the
29:15
SPEAKER_01: ass to House Republican leadership.
29:21
SPEAKER_01: Kevin McCarthy really hates Matt Gaetz.
29:24
SPEAKER_01: And I think most Senate Republicans formed a negative opinion of Gaetz for reasons
29:32
SPEAKER_01: unrelated to this ethics scandal,
29:34
SPEAKER_01: but just to the...
29:36
SPEAKER_01: troublemaking that he did.
29:38
SPEAKER_01: He's the reason why McCarthy had to step down as speaker.
29:44
SPEAKER_01: He's indirectly the reason why Mike Johnson ended up being elevated.
29:48
SPEAKER_01: But it's not that Gates was a Johnson ally in this either.
29:51
SPEAKER_01: It was embarrassing and problematic for the whole Republican Party legislative effort to
29:58
SPEAKER_01: So in that sense, though, it's a power move.
30:03
SPEAKER_01: It's Trump trying to get congressional Republicans to swallow somebody who he knows they know don't like.
30:13
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
30:14
SPEAKER_01: Right?
30:14
SPEAKER_01: And I think absent an ethics skin, this would just clearly work.
30:20
SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
30:20
SPEAKER_01: Like a normal politician would say, I cannot nominate an attorney general who my co-partisans hate.
30:27
SPEAKER_01: But Trump thinks I can,
30:29
SPEAKER_01: in fact,
30:29
SPEAKER_01: nominate an attorney general who my allies in Congress hate because they are afraid
30:34
SPEAKER_01: of me and they will vote for him and it will be a humiliation of them.
30:39
SPEAKER_01: They know it will be a humiliation of them and it will prove that I can get away with anything.
30:45
SPEAKER_01: The sex scandal,
30:47
SPEAKER_01: I think,
30:48
SPEAKER_01: actually complicates that move considerably because,
30:53
SPEAKER_01: I don't know,
30:54
SPEAKER_01: sex scandals are bad.
30:56
SPEAKER_01: It's very comprehensible to people with limited interest in the details of American
31:02
SPEAKER_01: politics when you are elevating rapists and crooks to high office.
31:08
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
31:08
SPEAKER_02: Well,
31:08
SPEAKER_02: so,
31:08
SPEAKER_02: so I think that,
31:09
SPEAKER_02: that none of these nominees,
31:11
SPEAKER_02: uh,
31:11
SPEAKER_02: Gates,
31:12
SPEAKER_02: Peg Seth,
31:13
SPEAKER_02: but also Robert F.
31:14
SPEAKER_02: Kennedy Jr.
31:14
SPEAKER_02: and Tulsi Gabbard will get any democratic votes.
31:18
SPEAKER_02: And I think,
31:19
SPEAKER_02: especially vis-a-vis the national security agencies,
31:22
SPEAKER_02: the DOJ,
31:23
SPEAKER_02: Pentagon,
31:24
SPEAKER_02: DNI,
31:25
SPEAKER_02: um,
31:26
SPEAKER_02: Republicans know,
31:28
SPEAKER_02: irrespective of like the,
31:30
SPEAKER_02: the,
31:30
SPEAKER_02: the,
31:31
SPEAKER_02: um,
31:32
SPEAKER_02: the moral turpitude of Trump's nominees,
31:35
SPEAKER_02: that these guys shouldn't be in charge of these agencies,
31:40
SPEAKER_02: you know,
31:40
SPEAKER_02: even if they had clean ethical histories,
31:42
SPEAKER_02: even if they weren't seemingly installed by Trump to be loyal to Trump,
31:47
SPEAKER_02: to carry out vendettas for Trump,
31:49
SPEAKER_02: et cetera.
31:51
SPEAKER_02: And,
31:51
SPEAKER_02: you know,
31:53
SPEAKER_02: part of the reason to wonder whether Republicans will vote these nominees down or whether,
31:59
SPEAKER_02: like,
32:00
SPEAKER_02: Trump will try some cockamamie scheme to install them with recess appointments,
32:05
SPEAKER_02: is that then they kind of own whatever happens.
32:07
SPEAKER_02: I think in Trump's imagination, Gates runs roughshod through DOJ.
32:13
SPEAKER_02: He assigns prosecutors to investigate Trump's enemies.
32:19
SPEAKER_02: He...
32:22
SPEAKER_01: I think,
32:23
SPEAKER_01: listen,
32:23
SPEAKER_01: I'm obviously going to rue the day if I end up in the gulag over this,
32:27
SPEAKER_01: but I feel like a lot of MAGA people have gotten high on their own supply.
32:33
SPEAKER_00: Yes, that's what I'm saying.
32:34
SPEAKER_01: About the idea of Biden administration's lawfare,
32:37
SPEAKER_01: and they have this idea that if they get a guy in there who's just the most badass
32:42
SPEAKER_01: guy ever,
32:43
SPEAKER_01: they can find that now they can do the law fair and persecute all of Trump's enemies.
32:49
SPEAKER_01: I don't think that's true.
32:51
SPEAKER_01: No, it's not.
32:51
SPEAKER_01: Federal prosecutions are challenging.
32:54
SPEAKER_01: You can't- Well,
32:56
SPEAKER_02: so I don't think that they have anticipated things like,
33:00
SPEAKER_02: let's just keep it to DOJ,
33:01
SPEAKER_02: but I think there's analogous situations at all these agencies.
33:05
SPEAKER_02: Gates comes in, and Gates, more than Hegseth-
33:09
SPEAKER_02: Kennedy and Gabbard, I think is, is dangerous.
33:12
SPEAKER_02: Cause he's, he's smart.
33:13
SPEAKER_02: I mean,
33:13
SPEAKER_02: he's like,
33:13
SPEAKER_02: he's like a degenerate,
33:14
SPEAKER_02: but he's an intelligent person and he's,
33:17
SPEAKER_02: he's like,
33:18
SPEAKER_02: he's committed to fuckery,
33:20
SPEAKER_02: right?
33:20
SPEAKER_02: Like he will, he will keep trying to fuck things up every day of his life.
33:25
SPEAKER_02: You know,
33:27
SPEAKER_02: The cocaine is just helpful in that regard.
33:30
SPEAKER_02: But starting with the fact that if he comes in and he says,
33:35
SPEAKER_02: all right,
33:35
SPEAKER_02: line prosecutors,
33:36
SPEAKER_02: your job is to go after Adam Schiff,
33:39
SPEAKER_02: Liz Cheney,
33:40
SPEAKER_02: Jamie Raskin,
33:42
SPEAKER_02: the people who accused me of this sex trafficking thing and a whole host of other people.
33:48
SPEAKER_02: What will happen is many, many, many DOJ attorneys will resign.
33:53
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
33:55
SPEAKER_02: And they'll do so in a very public way.
33:58
SPEAKER_02: And the ones who don't will obviously be more pliable group or a more Trump loyal group.
34:03
SPEAKER_02: And maybe then you get them to continue going after Trump's enemies on fabricated grounds.
34:10
SPEAKER_02: But then they have to get a grand jury to return
34:15
SPEAKER_02: And then they need to sustain those indictments in court.
34:18
SPEAKER_02: And it's just like, it's not, I mean- But that's why I don't even know resign.
34:23
SPEAKER_01: It's like, if somebody's like, okay-
34:27
SPEAKER_01: assistant U.S.
34:28
SPEAKER_01: attorney.
34:29
SPEAKER_01: Now you have to prosecute Trump's enemies.
34:32
SPEAKER_01: And then you just like, don't.
34:33
SPEAKER_01: You just like, you file charges against a guy who's running guns.
34:38
SPEAKER_01: And then what?
34:38
SPEAKER_01: You get a call from Attorney General?
34:40
SPEAKER_01: It's like, you fire.
34:42
SPEAKER_00: I feel like it's like,
34:46
SPEAKER_01: I don't want resistance porn to overly...
34:53
SPEAKER_01: It's not like,
34:53
SPEAKER_01: oh,
34:53
SPEAKER_01: calm down,
34:54
SPEAKER_01: it's fine to put Matt Gaetz in charge,
34:56
SPEAKER_01: but it's also not like Superman Trump will leverage the power of the Justice Department.
35:00
SPEAKER_02: It's just like...
35:01
SPEAKER_02: No, like I don't even think- It's still America.
35:03
SPEAKER_02: I don't even think,
35:04
SPEAKER_02: I don't think these guys are so high on their own supply that they imagine like
35:09
SPEAKER_02: getting Adam Schiff convicted of a crime.
35:12
SPEAKER_02: But I think that they easily do imagine bankrupting Adam Schiff because he has to- Yeah.
35:16
SPEAKER_02: He has to like spend thousands of dollars an hour on lawyers.
35:21
SPEAKER_02: And that's how they hope to use the department.
35:24
SPEAKER_02: And, you know, the high profile resignations are not something that I think is like resistance porn.
35:29
SPEAKER_02: This is like-
35:30
SPEAKER_02: When George W.
35:31
SPEAKER_02: Bush was president and he was running an illegal wiretapping scheme,
35:37
SPEAKER_02: he tried to get the non-composimentous attorney general who had,
35:41
SPEAKER_02: I think he had pancreatitis or something,
35:44
SPEAKER_02: to sign off on it again.
35:46
SPEAKER_02: Like Jim Comey, then deputy attorney general, was like, no.
35:49
SPEAKER_02: And if you go ahead with this,
35:52
SPEAKER_02: I and the whole senior ranks of the Justice Department will resign in an election
35:55
SPEAKER_02: year and it'll be really bad.
35:57
SPEAKER_01: I just want my message to line prosecutors.
36:00
SPEAKER_01: and other people though.
36:01
SPEAKER_01: It's like, if Matt Gaetz is installed via recess appointment, like don't preemptively resign.
36:06
SPEAKER_00: No, no, no.
36:07
SPEAKER_01: And it's like, if somebody tells you to prosecute Donald Trump's enemies, just like, don't do it.
36:13
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
36:13
SPEAKER_01: And if somebody,
36:14
SPEAKER_01: if somebody tells you more strongly that you have to prosecute Donald Trump's enemies,
36:18
SPEAKER_01: ask for that to be memorialized in written form so that you are sure of exactly
36:24
SPEAKER_01: what it is they are asking you to do.
36:26
SPEAKER_01: And like,
36:27
SPEAKER_01: then still don't resign.
36:30
SPEAKER_01: Just give me the memo.
36:33
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
36:34
SPEAKER_01: You know, and like, it's like, it's, you can't really just like make people do abuses of power.
36:41
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
36:42
SPEAKER_02: So I actually think that the inertia that you're talking about
36:46
SPEAKER_02: is like easier to see overwhelming Hegseth at, at Department of Defense.
36:51
SPEAKER_02: It's one, it's just like much more cavernous department than anything else really.
36:55
SPEAKER_02: And there's a,
36:59
SPEAKER_02: you know,
36:59
SPEAKER_02: strong culture of chain of command,
37:01
SPEAKER_02: but there's also just like an order comes down from the president to repeat Hegseth
37:06
SPEAKER_02: to do something terrible.
37:09
SPEAKER_02: Well then, and then it just doesn't happen.
37:11
SPEAKER_02: Well, is that because people are defying orders or they're being lazy?
37:14
SPEAKER_02: Does Hexeth even know where to go look to see if he can get people moving on stuff?
37:21
SPEAKER_02: And it's like,
37:22
SPEAKER_02: I have my doubts as to whether that guy can get up to speed on a bureaucracy that
37:29
SPEAKER_02: big to become an effective implementer of whatever Trump orders the military to do.
37:35
SPEAKER_02: Whereas DOJ, I think, is a more blunt instrument.
37:39
SPEAKER_02: And if Gates is installed in a recess appointment or somehow confirmed,
37:46
SPEAKER_02: it's going to generate a lot of really bad abuses.
37:50
SPEAKER_02: And I agree with you about how the people tasked with carrying those out should conduct themselves.
37:59
SPEAKER_00: But I also think that it will...
38:05
SPEAKER_02: It will have more of the effect that Trump wants of chilling Trump's enemies,
38:12
SPEAKER_02: of bankrupting individuals,
38:14
SPEAKER_02: like making examples of people so that people who haven't been charged mind their
38:18
SPEAKER_02: manners a little bit better.
38:21
SPEAKER_02: And that's why I like...
38:25
SPEAKER_02: I think that Gates can easily make a hash of it.
38:29
SPEAKER_02: And the thing that you want Republicans to keep in mind as they endeavor to do this
38:35
SPEAKER_02: is that,
38:35
SPEAKER_02: okay,
38:35
SPEAKER_02: it's not just that there will be a spin war in the press over whether what's
38:40
SPEAKER_02: happening to Trump's various enemies is fair or not,
38:44
SPEAKER_02: but that if you degrade DOJ in this way,
38:48
SPEAKER_02: and then actual bad guys exploit
38:55
SPEAKER_02: the enforcement hole or the counter-terrorism hole or counter-intelligence hole you
39:03
SPEAKER_02: create because you've driven a bunch of people to quit or you've reassigned them to
39:09
SPEAKER_02: flim-flam nonsense.
39:11
SPEAKER_02: There won't be shared bipartisan blame to go around.
39:15
SPEAKER_02: That'll just be Republicans let Trump get away with everything and what he did was he
39:21
SPEAKER_02: destroyed an agency that stands between Americans and bad guys.
39:27
SPEAKER_02: And the people who are worried about casting a vote against Trump should keep that in mind.
39:34
SPEAKER_02: And I think that it's worth putting it out there that that's the unseen political danger,
39:43
SPEAKER_02: the people who might just let Tulsi Gabbard
39:47
SPEAKER_01: Well, let's take a break and then let's talk about Tulsi Gabbard and RFK Jr.
39:52
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
39:52
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
39:53
SPEAKER_01: Because I think they're in a different, different kind of category.
39:55
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
39:56
SPEAKER_02: Well,
39:56
SPEAKER_02: I also,
39:57
SPEAKER_02: and like,
39:57
SPEAKER_02: we should also talk a little bit about like what,
39:59
SPEAKER_02: what the appropriate way to,
40:01
SPEAKER_02: for like Congress,
40:02
SPEAKER_02: Democrats,
40:03
SPEAKER_02: et cetera,
40:03
SPEAKER_02: to deal with these people is because I feel like early results are a little mixed.
40:11
SPEAKER_02: If you want to hear about that, go to politics.fm and upgrade your subscription.