Vance BEGS Voters for Second Chance, Dems Grill Patel, Mitch McConnell is Barely Conscious (9/17/26)

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Mark, are you here? Yes, he's here. Hello, Mark. Yeah.
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What up, everybody? Good to have everyone in the mix today.
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I heard you missed me.
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It is such a pleasure to welcome Albert back in. Albert,
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thank you. He's our producer. He's back from his visit
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to the doctor to check on the new baby who's
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due in December. That's still the agreed-upon date, Albert? That's
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still the plan.
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Yeah, December 8th, we're counting down.
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Just in time for the NFL playoffs, is that you're thinking?
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Mm-hmm.
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Yeah. Yeah, not during the playoffs. Albert is the commish.
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He likes sports-related type events. And I'm guessing that he's
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timing this child's arrival with some significant sporting event. Kim,
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she's had her children. Kim, how are you? She doesn't
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have any plans for other ones unless you're holding out
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on me. Thank God that's over. You think you're going
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to be giving Albert advice on an ongoing basis about...
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I'm here for it.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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Only if he seeks it out, as you're thinking. Yeah.
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Yeah, you know, you don't want to be overbearing, but
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there's a lot of advice to give. I'll tell you, Albert,
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when you're in the middle of the night and that
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baby won't stop crying, I'll be awake and you can
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call me. What?
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Well, we'll hope that gets road tested. That's really great. Oh,
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here is my coffee, my Coachella Valley coffee. This is such...
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Thank you so much, Courtney, my darling Courtney. And I
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must tell you that.
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Time for tea.
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Yeah, drink your coffee, drink your tea. Headphones, I think,
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are the wrong... Is this the right... Are you undressing
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on the show now? I'm trying to get my headphones right.
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I broke my ankle, so I can't do anything. Everything's seated.
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It's crazy. Everything's a pain in the ass. I don't know.
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It's awful. It's awful. I don't... I don't sleep at night.
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I don't sleep at night. I mean, I get it.
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You're into the sexy. Do this to me all the time.
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I don't know what the hell you do it for.
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I'm into the crap that I have. I'm sleeping like
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three and a half hours. Courtney gave me this stuff
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to put under my eyes so you can't see how
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positively horribly debilitated I look. Richard Delamater with a $ 5
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super chat. Big shout out. Thank you. This morning I
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introduced myself to Gemini with my name and address. And
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said that if anything happens, I'm on your guy's side.
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Am I crazy or not? Albert, do you want to
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take that one? Is Richard Delamater crazy or not? Albert,
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thank you. You wanted AI to know you're not a Trumper? Kim, you... Kim,
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how are you? You wanted to give some Richard Delamater advice? I...
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You know, you tell AI what you feel it needs
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to know. That's great. Wow. That's about as... Good and
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non-advice that you're going to get. Yeah. I think that
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you're covering your bases, Richard. Yeah. For the AI takeover,
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I get what you're doing. Very clever. By the way,
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if you want coffee just like I have, which is
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the best coffee on earth, it's CoachellaValleyCoffee.com. You can use
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our discount code, Mark T. You'll get 10% off. I
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just want to mention that as long as I was
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a drinker. As long as I was drinking the coffee,
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why not let you know about that? Big show today.
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David Katz will be here. We'll discuss the Supreme Court setback.
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This is what David had predicted. He's the former federal prosecutor,
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now defense attorney. He had predicted a setback for Trump
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at the Supreme Court level. And indeed, Trump was bitch
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slapped by his own court. It is also true that
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there are legal judgments against the Kennedy Center moves that
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Trump is making, and yet, it appears that he's going
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to make them anyway. You know, he's mobbed up the
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board at the Kennedy Center, and it looks like he's
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going to ignore court orders the same way he ignored
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court orders when he demoed the East Wing and began
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on this ballroom slash data center that's going to go
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into military installation into the White House. So, You have
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to be aware, even as these court judgments come down,
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that Trump may continue with whatever plan he has. Now,
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I'm not suggesting that he is going to mess with
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the mail-in voting right now, given the SCOTUS decision. But
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I guess what I'm trying to say is just in general, remember,
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this isn't a crew that is bound by existing law.
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And I'll use the Epstein files as another example. I mean,
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they are, as you're well aware, compelled by law. by
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a congressional vote to discharge all of the Epstein files.
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And they have not only not done that, they have
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actively redacted and otherwise withheld the release of many of
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those files. Fully a third of them continue not to
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be released because Trump is all over them like a
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bad smell, along with a lot of other high-profile banking
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Wall Street establishment figures and also political figures. So this is, again,
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a sign that this is not a group necessarily that
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is bound by the word of judges along the way.
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Mitch McConnell is back, everybody. It's exciting.
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Yep.
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It is a... Girl, you just wooed. Yeah, girl is wooed.
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He is wooing all the way. Very... very weekend at Bernie's.
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I know he said it before, and I think probably
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others have said it too. I mean, it's just the
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thing that comes to mind, you know, wheel him out,
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raise his hand for him, you know, tell him what
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to say or what to try to say. I don't
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know that he can say much. He's probably, um, I mean,
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have we heard him speak at all? We've heard, uh,
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I know that there've been statements issued. You'll hear him
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right now in a, in utterance, but I wouldn't say
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it's speaking. Um, I get it that it's speech, technically,
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because it is in the utterance of a word as
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he is there to vote, but I'm really unclear as
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to Mitch McConnell's true state of being right now. Nonetheless,
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he was wheeled out, and the wheel out didn't look impressive.
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The cut one, Albert, is Mitch being rolled out of
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the House to his... Capitol Hill post for a vote. And, uh,
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he has a very, um, uh, you know, frozen look
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until he gets to the curb. He kind of gets,
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he kind of, when he gets to the curb, he's like, uh, guys, uh, guys.
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And then they flip him around and, um, he does
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the reverse, a curb descent and his, uh, you know,
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I'm just saying that, uh, this, uh, This wheelchair scene
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is not necessarily inspiring in terms of him being a vibrant,
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dynamic figure any longer. But let's get to the vote
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where he basically was told what to do. Mitch told
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how to vote is cut 10, please, Albert. Cut 10.
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Mitch is being instructed what to say. You'll hear the
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roll call and then they'll get to McConnell. McConnell, by
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the way, for those of you who are watching this,
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is in the lower part of your screen, the lower
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center part of your screen. Mitch McConnell, he's the gray-haired
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gentleman in the wheelchair. All right, go ahead. The question
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is on reporting the Agriculture Act of 2026.
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As amended, as an original bill, the clerk will call
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the roll.
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Senator Klobuchar. No.
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Senator Bennett.
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No.
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Senator Smith.
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No.
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Senator Durbin.
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Senator Booker.
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Senator Lujan.
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Senator Warnock. Senator Welch. Senator Federman.
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Senator Schiff.
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No by proxy.
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Senator Slotkin.
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No by proxy.
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Senator McConnell. No.
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Senator McConnell.
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Aye.
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Senator Hoeven.
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So there you go. They had to call him a
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couple of times, but he got on board with the aye,
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so he voted for that agricultural bill. Congress is starting
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to look like an assisted living facility, says Sandy. That's
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exactly right. I mean, we've talked about this before. I mean,
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term limits make sense. I don't know about age limits because,
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as I've said before on this show, I think there
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are a lot of older people who are vibrant, dynamic intellects,
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and they bring an experience, and oftentimes a seniority when
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it comes to certain things can be a good thing, right?
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This isn't their first rodeo. So I don't discount people
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of age at all, but I think at some point
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you owe it to your constituency to push away. I mean,
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this guy is basically someone who was out of commission
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for the entire summer, still taking a government check, and
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he was someone who, I would say, engineered a Supreme Court.
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You know, they talk about packing the court. He basically,
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it was a Supreme Court steal of a seat from
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Barack Obama. And so I don't view him as a
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sympathetic figure politically at all, but he doesn't have the
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acumen in the least, I wouldn't think, to do much
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in the way of representing his constituency. Now, so there
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he is as he sat there in the halls of Congress.
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But we do have a lot of... older people who
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fall into this category of Mitch McConnell, which is there
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but not there. Dianne Feinstein, to be fair, as a Democrat,
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she wasn't exactly lighting up the room. She had to
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be told how to vote. When she was speaking, it
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seemed as though once in a while she didn't know
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where she was. So we were quite vocal about that,
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and I think this is an abomination. This is an
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absolute abomination, and this is kind of where American gerontocracy
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has led us, where you have a lot of people
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who are incumbents, and the power of incumbency allows them
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to stay there for a long time. And sometimes, oftentimes,
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it's too long. And that's where we are. Exactly. Guy
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can't do the job, says Pietro Antonio. So insulting. It
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is insulting. It's insulting to America. But You know, you
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may lose it in all the other insults to America
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at the moment, but this really is pretty brutal. Why
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do they want to cling to power to the very end,
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says John Watson. Of course, the answer is because it's
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not just Mitch McConnell. Mitch McConnell is part of a
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machine that hangs on to power. So even as he's
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told to vote, there is a lobby that is being
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responded to with that vote. There is an agenda. that
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is being honored with those votes, right? There is an
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agenda that is being pursued and is in place, and
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those strategies are laid down, and McConnell, in a sense,
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becomes just a technical point. You just have to say
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aye when we get to voting on this bill, which
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is what he did. So why do they want to
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cling to power? Because of that agenda. And this is
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something I talk about in the context of Fetterman. And
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this puts me in disagreement with some people, even some
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of the guests on this show, because, you know, Fetterman
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is clearly someone who is not representing a lot of
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the viewpoints of Democrats. That said, because he has a
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D by his name, he is in the Democratic column.
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And the Democratic Party... to the extent that they want
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to achieve a numerical dominance, need that name in the column.
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Similarly with McConnell, you're loathe to give up that power
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because with that power comes the ability to control outcome,
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which is what happened here, and that's why that vote,
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and being told how to engineer that vote, and literally
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McConnell being told, when they come to you, say aye,
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Of course, he didn't have it right away. They had
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to come to him twice, but that's how that all
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went down. If Mitch is not fully cognitive, you would
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think his votes could be challenged, says CC Ryder. Yeah,
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I mean, again, though, this goes to the gerontocracy. This
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just goes to the full crew. And you can see
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in this shot here how he's, I mean, he's being
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welcomed back as the guy who is, and this says
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it right. Jeff Carter says it, night of the living dead,
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you know. So that's Mitch McConnell back on the Hill.
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Why is that taxidermied turtle still in office, says Louise. Louise.
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With a $ 5 super check. Come on, America. Weekend at
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Mitch's is the best we can do. Hashtag go Spain.
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All right. The Mark Thompson Show. All right. Soon they're
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going to need to get a Ouija board to get
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McConnell's vote, said, was that John Watson said that? That
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was very funny. There's been some good comments. It's worth
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it if you're just listening on iHeart or on Spotify
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or on iBull Podcast to go to YouTube and see
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some of these real-time comments. You're welcome to comment on
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the show, on anything you see on the show, anytime.
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As you watch the video, if something occurs to you,
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that dynamic actually helps us in the world of YouTube
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as well. So please do feel free to comment in
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after hours commenting or live here as we go.
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Smash it with your iron rod.
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Oh, yeah, and you can smash it. Smash it like
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a boss. This is an extraordinary thing that's happening with
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the emergence of J.D. Vance on the stage of political...
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aspiration of, uh, uh, a kind of, um, I think
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JD events is caught in this place where he's, uh, uh,
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he's an explainer for Trump and he's trying to, uh,
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honor his loyalty, right. To Trump. And as of course,
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the JD events pivot is insane, right? He called, uh, uh,
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he used, he referred to Trump and used Hitler's name. Okay.
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He referred to Trump as the danger to America. And
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now he's Trump's vice president, as I say, doing the
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explaining and doing the jockeying of facts to somehow, again,
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blame the Biden administration for all these problems, inflation, etc. Anyway,
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my point is beyond the pivot. J.D. Vance is sort
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of a pathetic figure. I mean... don't get me wrong,
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I'm not sympathetic to J.D. Vance, but his arguments as
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to why people should vote for the GOP again here
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at the midterms and again in the upcoming general, they're pathetic.
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So here is J.D. Vance and the latest pitch he
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made to give us another chance. It's cut 11, go ahead.
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There is a lot of good that we've done over
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the past 18 months. We cut taxes bigly. We cut
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taxes on overtime, Social Security and tips. Those are tax
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cuts for middle American workers, not just for the elites
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in Washington and New York City. We've had an amazing
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success with the border, with immigration. We've pursued H-1B reform
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that prioritizes American workers. over foreign nationals. There's a lot
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of good that's been done, but there's a lot of
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work left to do. Don't give power to the people
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who cause the problems that we're fixing. Give us another
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chance or give us another couple of years to continue
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to work on the amazing things that we've been doing
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for the past two years. And the second argument I'd
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make is even if you don't agree with us on
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every issue, The other party is consumed by craziness. They're
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consumed by people who want to steal everything, who want
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to give the country over to illegal aliens and criminals.
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They actively brag about it.
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Yeah, yeah, they actively brag about turning over the country
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to illegal aliens and criminals, really. Where is that brag?
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Can you show it to me? And you want us
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to give you a chance to finish what you started?
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What you started was a war in Iran that has
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so turned... the economy of the world on its side
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because of the energy constriction, that inflation is out of
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control in the way of energy, and soon it'll be
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out of control in the way of consumer prices across
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the board. You have an unprecedented level of American military
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adventurism on the part of this president. Venezuela. 13 days
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in Iran to take out their nuclear facility, then doubling
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back now with this war, which continues on month after
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month after month, and it is producing those effects that
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I've talked about. This is a crew that is completely incompetent,
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led by a president who is utterly out of it.
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He is both demented mentally, that is to say, in
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and out with his tweet storms and his proclamations about
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ending the Iranian civilization and then swinging back and forth
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to that and we're going to make a deal in
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a moment could happen any time now to continuing to
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double down on this bad policy to the point that
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you have the incompetence of others that he's appointed along
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the lines of Pete Hegseth exhausting American munitions so even
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this foolish war that you guys started can't be prosecuted
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with any efficiency. Even the intelligence that you got as
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to how this war would go down was way off
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or it was not honored. Specifically the fact that American
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military bases would be vulnerable to the point that in
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the first days of the war they were eliminated. Those
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bases in places like Jordan They're gone. You cannot house
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military people now in all of these countries that were
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part of this cloak of American protection. So this is
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what you've done in the Middle East, and this is
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what you've done economically. And so that's not all when
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you say, let us finish what we started. That's what
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you started, sir. You started that. There was no Iran
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war when you guys came to power. You started it. Then,
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Prior to that, you'd sown the seeds of inflation already
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because Donald Trump wanted tariffs across the board against some
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long-standing trade partners, allies, adversaries. Everyone got completely arbitrary tariffs.
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So arbitrary that even Trump couldn't explain the formula as
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to how you got them. And it set up a
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system of patronage whereby people come to Trump, countries come
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to Trump, diplomats come to Trump, and they bestow upon
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Trump some kind of gift, some kind of trade. Greenlighting
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the Trump resort in Vietnam, for example. Greenlighting the Trump
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resort in the Middle East. These were things they did
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for tariff relief. The Swiss brought him that gold clock.
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The Swiss looked for ways that they could get out
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from under the Trumpian tariffs. All of those tariffs are inflationary.
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You started that, guys. There were no tariffs of this
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sort under Biden. So don't talk about the fact that
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you're cleaning up the mess that Biden made. You guys
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made the big steaming mess. You're the ones who smack-talked
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the allies in the first hours of the presidency. You're
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the ones who talked about Canada as the 51st state.
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You're the ones who talked about Mexico as a place
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we may have to go send troops. You've created this narrative,
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this insanity, and while you suck up to leaders like
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Vladimir Putin, you... go after Ukrainian leadership like Zelensky. I mean,
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JD Vance, that guy you just saw, he leaned on
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him like a mobster when he went to the White House, Zelensky.
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So this idea somehow that they're pursuing these things that
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have to be finished, give them another two years, let
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the GOP do what we started. What you've started is
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the dismantling of government Across the board, I haven't even
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gotten to health and human services where you have outbreaks
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of measles. You have people who are literally with thin
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medical backgrounds who are part of this machine of dismantling
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the health system in America. And the health care system
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in America is broken already, but it has nothing to
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do with what's going on with the CDC. It has
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to do with the way insurance companies have captured government funds.
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But when it comes to capturing government, that's what this
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government is all about. You've got Trump there who is
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open for business. He will sell anything. He'll sell an
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executive order. He will sell a pardon. And he's selling
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pardons to the point that millions and millions and tens
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of millions of dollars are coming in to get people,
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some of them very serious criminals, guilty of everything from
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white-collar crime to violent crime, to get them out from
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under the justice system. These are people who were convicted.
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And in RFK Jr., you have a guy who's completely
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sold out to Trump in every way. And so when J.D.
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Vance says, let us finish what we started, if you
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were the AI, I'd say you're out of control. I'd
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be looking for the kill switch on you guys. Show
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me how to unplug this thing. These policies are lunacy.
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And the war itself you know is illegal. And that's
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the reason that Johnson adjourned Congress, adjourned the House. He
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adjourned it also for the reality which is that Pete
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Hegseth and the impeachment proceeding and the list of impeachment
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charges that he was reading actually might be vulnerable to impeachment,
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to removal. in the House. So Mike Johnson adjourned the
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House in a hurry. Here's Adam Kinzinger on the impeachment
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of Pete Hegseth and adjourning the House. It's cut nine.
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I was facing an impeachment vote in the House.
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Speaker Johnson abruptly announced he was sending members home early
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for their midterm election recess today. postponing any vote on
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impeachment of Hegseth until after the election. As a former
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Republican member of Congress, I'm wondering what he made of
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that move.
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Yeah, I mean, look, I know exactly what that move
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is because it's happened a number of times.
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It's happened a lot under Speaker Johnson because he has
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such a slim majority. It's because that vote would have passed.
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Tom Massey created these articles of impeachment. I think there
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were eight of them against Hegseth. and actually didn't tell leadership.
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So there's a privileged resolution, which means any member can
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bring it. And he kind of snuck it in, was
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ready to drop it. Leadership found out about it. And
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then that is the oldest.
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Thing in the playbook is send everybody home early.
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And I mean, if you actually look at how many
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days Congress has been in session this.
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Year, it's egregiously low.
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They're now going home until after the election despite being
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here just a week after just coming off of the
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significant break.
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So it's a really good job if you can get
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it because you really don't have to go to work much.
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But do you think that impeachment resolution would have passed?
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It really seems like it.
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I think if they knew they had the votes to
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shoot it down, they would have shot it down because
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clearly by going home when that thing is introduced, it
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appears to all of us like it actually would pass.
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There's enough for the Republicans who think he's doing a
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terrible job.
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I think so.
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There doesn't need to even be that many Republicans that
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are willing to vote for an impeachment because they're such
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a slim majority. But yeah, I think Republicans, if you
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put them on the polygraph that Hegseth seems so keen
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on giving, I think they would all fail if they
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tell you he's doing a good job.
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But I think there's a few that were willing to
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put their money where their mouth was and vote for it.
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And I think Speaker Johnson had to go home.
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Otherwise, that would be a crazy story to go on
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for up until Election Day.
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Well, that's an intriguing story. The idea somehow that you
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have done the head count ahead of time and you're
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not persuaded that there was enough of your– there were
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enough representatives in the House essentially to make the question
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of Pete Hegseth's future questionable. I think that's a really
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fascinating– and I'd suggest– I'll put it this way, and
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I'm not sure that I believe that, but it is
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all of a sudden letting the House go home early,
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adjourning the House a day early. It's putting it in
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a context now. I get that they didn't want to
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have to vote on it. I think that was enough.
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They didn't want to have to vote on it. They
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didn't want to have to vote on the war. There
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are a lot of things that are wrapped up in
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that vote that before a midterm produced basically a bad look.
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So I think that's the reason he adjourned it today.
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But he's saying that there might have been a headcount
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that actually leads him to believe that it's conceivable that
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there would be votes sufficient to support impeachment of Hegseth.
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It's wild. But again, to the point, they haven't been
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around for a lot of this session. And it appears
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that that's kind of what Johnson's job has been, to
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avoid doing anything. And the other thing I would say
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that is quite, I think, relevant to America's future is
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when we talk about the rise of authoritarianism and the
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power of a president who wants clearly to be a king,
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and I'd say is a king, he is an authoritarian
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in many ways, and this brings me to my point.
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When you have the GOP and the Congress in control
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of the GOP adjourning to avoid votes, to avoid going
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up against the president, You have essentially conferred power to
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the President of the United States as an autocrat, as
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an authoritarian. You've abdicated your power and you've given it
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to the executive branch. So as a practical matter, if
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you will, he is king. Who's going to turn him back?
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None of you guys. I mean, you've let him demolish
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the White House. You've let him go ahead with whatever
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he wants to do in terms of leasing national park lands.
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You saw what happened with the EPA, how they're rolling
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that back. They're rolling back basic standards for endangered species.
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These are effective things that have happened through the years
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to protect landscape, to protect natural resources, and to protect
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wildlife and habitats. It's all getting rolled back. It's all
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for money. So I'd say you've Basically, given that power up,
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Congress has. And Congress in control of the GOP. So
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when we talk about the GOP and let us finish
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what we started, finish how? It's, I think, a pathetic argument.
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It was funny to watch Donald Trump. In fact, let me,
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do I have time that... I fear he will cheat
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in this election. Yeah, it's interesting that you say that.
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Let me get to Patel for a second because there's
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something on that that I want to get to. Cash
474
00:29:05.430 --> 00:29:09.930
Patel being questioned on Capitol Hill. And, you know, I
475
00:29:09.950 --> 00:29:11.930
have to say, you know, these senators are good at
476
00:29:11.970 --> 00:29:14.750
what they do. It's become a lot of theater, of course.
477
00:29:15.369 --> 00:29:18.000
And Patel is pretty good at beating it back. I mean,
478
00:29:18.019 --> 00:29:21.119
that's what he is. He's a podcaster. He's a smack talker.
479
00:29:21.480 --> 00:29:25.619
You've seen him in action. But to the point that
480
00:29:25.660 --> 00:29:29.529
was mentioned by a commenter, I do want to talk
481
00:29:29.569 --> 00:29:32.049
about the election for a second because I think that
482
00:29:32.730 --> 00:29:36.930
the– I see that. I'll get to it in a second.
483
00:29:37.589 --> 00:29:40.890
I think that the idea that they're going to pull
484
00:29:41.039 --> 00:29:45.579
every lever they can to control the election, to suggest
485
00:29:45.619 --> 00:29:50.619
that there's too much chaos around the results. I've even
486
00:29:50.680 --> 00:29:53.680
said here before, I think they may resist in a
487
00:29:53.700 --> 00:29:56.880
lot of ways, seating those who've actually won the elections.
488
00:29:57.200 --> 00:29:58.680
I think there are a lot of different things that
489
00:29:58.700 --> 00:30:01.680
are going to happen. creating the chaos, sowing the chaos.
490
00:30:02.029 --> 00:30:05.450
That is the Trump playbook, and it's already in play.
491
00:30:06.269 --> 00:30:10.569
And so it was in that context with Kash Patel testifying,
492
00:30:10.630 --> 00:30:15.890
as I say, that it was brought up that Patel
493
00:30:16.450 --> 00:30:24.440
might actually get involved with the FBI in intimidating these
494
00:30:25.039 --> 00:30:29.609
characters along the way that are involved in controlling the election.
495
00:30:29.650 --> 00:30:32.329
I'm talking about secretaries of state and other election officials.
496
00:30:32.390 --> 00:30:37.849
It's cut 16 questions to Patel on the FBI and
497
00:30:37.869 --> 00:30:42.759
the election. And would he be willing to pledge that
498
00:30:42.799 --> 00:30:47.059
the FBI won't involve themselves with the elections? Go ahead,
499
00:30:47.079 --> 00:30:48.039
cut 16.
500
00:30:48.039 --> 00:30:49.759
Priority rests with DHS.
501
00:30:51.579 --> 00:30:54.940
So you would agree with me that deploying FBI agents
502
00:30:54.980 --> 00:30:57.910
to the polls on election day would be contrary to law?
503
00:30:59.440 --> 00:31:01.160
I don't know that we can't legally do it. I'm
504
00:31:01.200 --> 00:31:03.420
telling you we're going to house our agents and intel
505
00:31:03.460 --> 00:31:05.779
analysts in our field offices for election security.
506
00:31:05.799 --> 00:31:09.670
Well, I'm dissatisfied that you are unable to give us
507
00:31:10.130 --> 00:31:15.269
an unequivocal, clear, unambiguous commitment that the FBI will be
508
00:31:15.349 --> 00:31:20.150
kept out of election interference. You are involved in seven
509
00:31:20.210 --> 00:31:25.430
voter-related subpoenas issued to the Nevada Secretary of State's office.
510
00:31:25.470 --> 00:31:31.750
You were involved in seizure of elections records from Fulton County, Georgia,
511
00:31:31.849 --> 00:31:37.670
clearly the FBI has been involved in possible election interference.
512
00:31:37.690 --> 00:31:42.220
That's why you're committing to avoid that kind of interference
513
00:31:42.279 --> 00:31:47.200
going forward is so important today. Do you have plans
514
00:31:47.559 --> 00:31:51.869
to implement the executive order issued by the president, which
515
00:31:51.940 --> 00:31:57.130
directed the attorney general to prioritize investigations and prosecutions of
516
00:31:57.230 --> 00:32:02.380
state and local officials who and I'm quoting, issue, print, produce, ship,
517
00:32:02.940 --> 00:32:09.809
or distribute ballots to individuals the administration deems ineligible to vote.
518
00:32:09.849 --> 00:32:13.309
Have you begun any investigations pursuant to that executive order?
519
00:32:13.410 --> 00:32:16.150
I'm unaware of any investigations, but we'll follow every executive
520
00:32:16.210 --> 00:32:18.299
order because that's what the Constitution and law require.
521
00:32:18.720 --> 00:32:21.420
So that's the key there. You saw two things that
522
00:32:21.460 --> 00:32:24.279
were important, right? The last one was what we were
523
00:32:24.440 --> 00:32:26.390
just talking about a moment ago, which is that You know,
524
00:32:26.410 --> 00:32:28.829
you're going to put the FBI in charge of hassling
525
00:32:28.890 --> 00:32:32.750
people who are involved in state elections, state election board officials,
526
00:32:32.789 --> 00:32:35.619
secretaries of state, etc. And the other is, will you
527
00:32:35.660 --> 00:32:38.240
pledge that the FBI, you know, won't be involved? Well,
528
00:32:38.420 --> 00:32:42.279
I'm going to have my FBI agents and FBI officials
529
00:32:42.440 --> 00:32:45.529
at their various field offices, which is a way of
530
00:32:45.589 --> 00:32:48.230
saying they're going to be poised to move in. So
531
00:32:48.250 --> 00:32:51.069
you've got Mark Wayne Mullen, the guy who runs those
532
00:32:51.269 --> 00:32:55.279
ice thugs, saying that, The ice thugs will only be
533
00:32:55.559 --> 00:32:59.519
at the polling place if there is cause. And, of course,
534
00:32:59.880 --> 00:33:03.109
you know, you can hatch cause in a heartbeat. And
535
00:33:03.130 --> 00:33:06.230
you have essentially Patel saying the same thing, that, you know,
536
00:33:06.309 --> 00:33:08.289
our guys are going to be, I mean, guys generally,
537
00:33:08.349 --> 00:33:10.390
men and women, are going to be at the field
538
00:33:10.470 --> 00:33:13.410
offices and ready to respond. And this is not a
539
00:33:13.470 --> 00:33:19.779
crew that doesn't go after families, journalists, etc. Cut 14,
540
00:33:19.779 --> 00:33:23.980
Cory Booker talks to Patel immediately. about how he's used
541
00:33:24.000 --> 00:33:29.839
the FBI already in ways from protecting his girlfriend to
542
00:33:29.900 --> 00:33:32.519
going after the families of journalists.
543
00:33:32.539 --> 00:33:38.410
Reporter's mother. You get upset when somebody writes a fair
544
00:33:38.490 --> 00:33:41.950
story about your girlfriend, but you're out there using the
545
00:33:42.089 --> 00:33:45.730
FBI to go after a reporter's mom. You support the
546
00:33:45.869 --> 00:33:49.970
records of two reporters' spouses, not their girlfriends, but their spouses.
547
00:33:51.220 --> 00:33:52.930
This is a fact pattern.
548
00:33:54.589 --> 00:33:58.730
Director, the president was secretly shuttled from the Qatari jet
549
00:33:59.329 --> 00:34:03.930
via an airport catering truck to a smaller Air Force
550
00:34:03.970 --> 00:34:07.410
jet on July 8th. The story ran the next day
551
00:34:07.549 --> 00:34:12.619
on July 9th. You demanded those reporters' phone records, but
552
00:34:12.679 --> 00:34:16.039
you didn't just go back to this period. As an
553
00:34:16.139 --> 00:34:20.340
act of further intimidation of reporters, you went back six months.
554
00:34:21.139 --> 00:34:24.179
all the way to January 1st, before there was even
555
00:34:24.219 --> 00:34:26.920
a story, six months before there could have even been
556
00:34:26.940 --> 00:34:31.940
a leak. There was no crime in January. The judge
557
00:34:32.000 --> 00:34:35.059
admonished you for this. The judge saw this for what
558
00:34:35.099 --> 00:34:40.820
it was, an abuse of power. On July 23rd, a
559
00:34:40.860 --> 00:34:44.530
federal judge in Manhattan took this up. He told your
560
00:34:44.570 --> 00:34:48.010
government's lawyer he would throw out every one of those subpoenas,
561
00:34:48.789 --> 00:34:52.750
He raised whether to sanction your lawyers for false statements
562
00:34:52.809 --> 00:34:57.730
and sworn applications. Your own lawyers conceded that there was
563
00:34:58.329 --> 00:35:04.449
inadvertent errors, end quote, in their filings. Director, you talked
564
00:35:04.489 --> 00:35:08.639
a lot about your making history. Has any federal judge
565
00:35:08.739 --> 00:35:12.960
in the entire history of the FBI ever asked whether
566
00:35:13.059 --> 00:35:16.800
to sanction the government for what it's support in a
567
00:35:16.860 --> 00:35:17.920
subpoena application?
568
00:35:17.940 --> 00:35:18.440
Do you know that?
569
00:35:19.639 --> 00:35:20.139
Yes, I do.
570
00:35:20.280 --> 00:35:20.619
They have.
571
00:35:20.760 --> 00:35:22.139
We weren't targeting journalists.
572
00:35:22.239 --> 00:35:23.619
No, sir, they haven't.
573
00:35:23.679 --> 00:35:24.579
You are making history.
574
00:35:24.599 --> 00:35:25.739
You are abusing this office.
575
00:35:25.820 --> 00:35:28.019
If you're going to continue to mischaracterize our.
576
00:35:27.909 --> 00:35:29.690
Work, I'm not going to participate in it. I am
577
00:35:29.809 --> 00:35:31.570
stating a fact pattern.
578
00:35:31.769 --> 00:35:32.190
Go ahead.
579
00:35:32.210 --> 00:35:36.170
Nothing I've said is not supported in the facts of
580
00:35:36.210 --> 00:35:41.019
your agency. You're unwilling to offer transparency here and talk
581
00:35:41.079 --> 00:35:44.619
about things that deal with your girlfriend. but you should
582
00:35:44.679 --> 00:35:48.130
talk about your personal behavior. This isn't a personal vendetta.
583
00:35:48.670 --> 00:35:50.909
Senators on both sides of the aisle should have to
584
00:35:50.969 --> 00:35:55.059
know why are you using FBI resources in ways that
585
00:35:55.099 --> 00:36:00.159
benefit yourself and your family and your girlfriend, but you won't.
586
00:36:00.059 --> 00:36:01.139
Even answer questions.
587
00:36:01.619 --> 00:36:05.110
And yet, like a thug, you're using your agency to
588
00:36:05.250 --> 00:36:09.010
go after reporters in a chill to one of the
589
00:36:09.050 --> 00:36:13.030
most sacrosanct ideals of the United States of America. They
590
00:36:13.050 --> 00:36:15.309
can pass you all the notes they want, but the
591
00:36:15.389 --> 00:36:20.099
truth is clear. Right now, you are stonewalling this committee
592
00:36:20.440 --> 00:36:24.559
for asking simple questions of accountability on how you're using
593
00:36:24.659 --> 00:36:28.780
government resources to go after reporters. And yes, there is
594
00:36:28.800 --> 00:36:32.860
a chill out there. Reporters like you like, like Hannity,
595
00:36:33.219 --> 00:36:36.079
you give them all the information they want. You answer
596
00:36:36.119 --> 00:36:40.539
their questions. Reporters you don't like, you subpoena their mother's records.
597
00:36:42.000 --> 00:36:46.170
That's Cory Booker, and he... really drills down in all
598
00:36:46.190 --> 00:36:50.369
the ways you can drill down on Kash Patel. Patel is, again,
599
00:36:50.809 --> 00:36:56.039
one more member of this president's crew who really is
600
00:36:56.380 --> 00:37:01.119
a presidential henchman. And he does the bidding of Trump,
601
00:37:01.340 --> 00:37:06.360
he investigates at the whim of Trump, and he investigates
602
00:37:07.300 --> 00:37:10.239
And this is the irony when he talks about politicizing
603
00:37:10.260 --> 00:37:14.090
the justice system. That's exactly what he's all about, right?
604
00:37:14.730 --> 00:37:17.730
In addition to the self-enrichment and blowing around on the
605
00:37:18.090 --> 00:37:21.050
taxpayer dime to go see his girlfriend, et cetera, on
606
00:37:21.090 --> 00:37:24.630
these private jet missions and to go party with the
607
00:37:25.050 --> 00:37:30.769
Olympic gold medalist hockey team. So Patel is corrupt in
608
00:37:30.809 --> 00:37:33.769
all the ways we've seen this government corrupt. He's covered
609
00:37:33.829 --> 00:37:36.449
up the Epstein files, even though he called for the
610
00:37:36.489 --> 00:37:39.530
release of the Epstein files, as you're well aware, prior
611
00:37:39.610 --> 00:37:42.309
to getting into office when he was just a podcaster.
612
00:37:42.590 --> 00:37:44.789
He said all the Epstein information is right there on
613
00:37:44.829 --> 00:37:47.429
the FBI director's desk. It would be easy. All you
614
00:37:47.469 --> 00:37:50.409
have to do tomorrow, we could see all of that
615
00:37:50.590 --> 00:37:54.699
Epstein file information. Well, now, dude, you are the FBI
616
00:37:54.719 --> 00:37:58.699
director's desk. You are that guy. And now you're actively
617
00:37:59.059 --> 00:38:03.619
covering it up for your president. So that's what's happening
618
00:38:03.659 --> 00:38:06.780
on Capitol Hill. And, you know, this is he's pursuing
619
00:38:06.840 --> 00:38:11.440
the investigation into John Brennan, into James Comey, into all
620
00:38:11.460 --> 00:38:13.380
of these people who I don't really have any great
621
00:38:13.420 --> 00:38:16.380
sympathy for, any of these guys. But, I mean, these
622
00:38:16.420 --> 00:38:20.280
are political jihads, and they're just wrong. And that's what
623
00:38:20.800 --> 00:38:24.139
Patel is all about increasingly. So that's what's happening on
624
00:38:24.179 --> 00:38:26.699
Capitol Hill. If I have time, I'll double back for more.
625
00:38:27.570 --> 00:38:32.230
But now... Now, I'm going to get to the former
626
00:38:32.269 --> 00:38:34.349
federal prosecutor. Before I do, I'm going to ask you
627
00:38:34.369 --> 00:38:37.050
to smash the like button. Smash it with your iron rod.
628
00:38:37.309 --> 00:38:39.349
If you're watching on YouTube, smash the like button. It
629
00:38:39.369 --> 00:38:42.070
helps us with the world of YouTube. You know, they
630
00:38:42.210 --> 00:38:45.289
care about that stuff. I don't really understand it. But
631
00:38:45.329 --> 00:38:48.929
we came from broadcast radio, of course, and we came
632
00:38:48.969 --> 00:38:51.789
over here to YouTube, and now we're heard as an
633
00:38:51.869 --> 00:38:57.449
audio podcast on iHeartRadio, on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts,
634
00:38:57.469 --> 00:39:00.300
so In all of these different ways that you get podcasts,
635
00:39:00.559 --> 00:39:03.730
we're heard that way. But on YouTube, that is a
636
00:39:03.769 --> 00:39:06.710
way in which we can communicate with you visually, and
637
00:39:06.750 --> 00:39:09.170
we can put your comments on screen, and we can
638
00:39:09.210 --> 00:39:11.210
have sort of a little bit of a dynamic that
639
00:39:11.250 --> 00:39:14.480
we didn't have on broadcast radio. One of the things
640
00:39:14.519 --> 00:39:18.960
that is important about YouTube is this, again, subscribing, hitting
641
00:39:18.980 --> 00:39:23.250
the notification bell, leaving comments, and also hitting the thumbs up.
642
00:39:23.449 --> 00:39:28.170
So that's why I mentioned that. So without any further delay,
643
00:39:28.210 --> 00:39:31.489
although it is fun to delay, let's... get to the
644
00:39:31.530 --> 00:39:35.280
Mark Thompson Show. The former federal prosecutor is now a
645
00:39:35.320 --> 00:39:41.059
defense attorney, and he is probably one of the great
646
00:39:41.679 --> 00:39:44.340
legal analysts in the English-speaking world. I'm looking for... I
647
00:39:44.380 --> 00:39:48.219
made a list of all the legal analysts. I think...
648
00:39:49.210 --> 00:39:51.659
I think Katz is number one. I really mean it.
649
00:39:52.530 --> 00:39:56.610
And his prediction as to how SCOTUS would rule was
650
00:39:56.750 --> 00:39:59.429
spot on. How about it for David Katz?
651
00:40:00.590 --> 00:40:02.050
Hi, great to be with you, Mark.
652
00:40:02.449 --> 00:40:06.260
You're coming off of a pretty good at-bat on the
653
00:40:06.980 --> 00:40:10.159
prediction as to how SCOTUS would rule on the mail-in
654
00:40:10.280 --> 00:40:14.880
ballot situation, the idea somehow that Trump wanted to really
655
00:40:14.900 --> 00:40:16.840
get in the way of mail-in balloting. Give me a
656
00:40:16.909 --> 00:40:19.289
beat on that, because as I say, you did forecast
657
00:40:19.349 --> 00:40:19.969
this outcome.
658
00:40:21.110 --> 00:40:23.730
Well, I thought that on the mail-in ballots, there were
659
00:40:23.789 --> 00:40:27.050
two rounds of it. And in the first round, where
660
00:40:27.090 --> 00:40:29.050
they said they weren't going to rule on the merits,
661
00:40:29.820 --> 00:40:32.559
they took about four or five weeks on that. And
662
00:40:32.619 --> 00:40:34.460
if they had really wanted to just be in the
663
00:40:34.519 --> 00:40:36.960
pocket for Trump, they would have not taken four or
664
00:40:37.019 --> 00:40:40.780
five weeks to consider the injunction issued by the federal
665
00:40:40.820 --> 00:40:43.840
judge in Boston. They would have just reversed her and
666
00:40:43.880 --> 00:40:47.599
the circuit up there. And that would have been that. Instead,
667
00:40:47.679 --> 00:40:50.730
they added about four or five weeks to delay, if
668
00:40:50.769 --> 00:40:52.829
you want to call it that. And in fact, Trump
669
00:40:52.929 --> 00:40:55.949
ended up being very angry in the last day or two, saying,
670
00:40:55.989 --> 00:40:57.929
they say there's not enough time. Well, who ran out
671
00:40:57.969 --> 00:41:01.329
the clock? The Supreme Court itself. So although they ruled
672
00:41:01.369 --> 00:41:03.989
in a way that scared people at the time, because
673
00:41:04.030 --> 00:41:07.199
they sent the case back to the judge in Boston
674
00:41:07.280 --> 00:41:10.980
and dissolved the injunction against the Postal Service doing what
675
00:41:11.019 --> 00:41:14.360
it wanted to do because it wasn't ripe. Then the
676
00:41:14.429 --> 00:41:17.670
Postal Service did indeed issue the order that would have
677
00:41:17.730 --> 00:41:22.210
set it all in awful motion. And so the judge said, well,
678
00:41:22.250 --> 00:41:26.230
now it's ripe. They just set the standard by which
679
00:41:26.289 --> 00:41:29.860
they will not mail out ballots to certain people. They'll
680
00:41:29.880 --> 00:41:33.440
disfavor certain states in the election. And so I'm issuing
681
00:41:33.480 --> 00:41:36.900
my injunction all over again. That very rapidly went to
682
00:41:36.940 --> 00:41:40.880
the Second Circuit, or the circuit up there, and then
683
00:41:40.920 --> 00:41:43.679
that very rapidly went to the U.S. Supreme Court. And
684
00:41:43.739 --> 00:41:46.570
I predicted both of those, and I predicted the last one,
685
00:41:47.030 --> 00:41:52.150
that it was just not in even the conservative justices'
686
00:41:52.230 --> 00:41:54.730
view of themselves and what they're about to create the
687
00:41:54.909 --> 00:41:57.699
massive chaos that they would have created. This would have
688
00:41:57.719 --> 00:42:02.579
been called the Chief Roberts debacle, the worst election result
689
00:42:02.719 --> 00:42:07.079
anywhere in the Western world. all because of Roberts and
690
00:42:07.099 --> 00:42:09.989
the court creating this chaos. They didn't want to create
691
00:42:10.030 --> 00:42:15.170
this chaos, even seven of them, even Coney Barrett, Kavanaugh,
692
00:42:15.590 --> 00:42:19.210
and Chief Justice Roberts didn't want to create the chaos
693
00:42:19.250 --> 00:42:21.030
that would have been created. And now, of course, we
694
00:42:21.070 --> 00:42:24.760
have all of these secretaries of state and these registrars
695
00:42:24.820 --> 00:42:27.769
of voters saying, I couldn't sleep at night, This would
696
00:42:27.809 --> 00:42:29.730
have been a disaster of a lifetime. I would have
697
00:42:29.750 --> 00:42:32.010
had no idea how to comply with this. We'd already
698
00:42:32.090 --> 00:42:34.480
sent out ballots at the time that the Supreme Court
699
00:42:34.519 --> 00:42:36.960
was considering this the second time. We were going to
700
00:42:37.039 --> 00:42:40.960
set out ballots again, revise ballots, not count the first ballots.
701
00:42:41.260 --> 00:42:43.849
It would have been an absolute horror show that the
702
00:42:43.889 --> 00:42:47.429
Supreme Court didn't want to buy into in 2026. Now,
703
00:42:47.750 --> 00:42:51.110
if they retain power, the Republicans in the House and
704
00:42:51.130 --> 00:42:54.949
in the Senate, that's absolutely what Trump is going to
705
00:42:54.989 --> 00:42:58.719
try to do next time. Disenfranchise people en masse, have
706
00:42:58.760 --> 00:43:01.980
these envelopes. I mean, people don't understand. This isn't just
707
00:43:02.059 --> 00:43:04.730
a type of envelope, like it's a little oblong or
708
00:43:04.750 --> 00:43:05.809
it's a little squarish.
709
00:43:05.869 --> 00:43:05.969
No.
710
00:43:06.329 --> 00:43:08.329
The envelope that it would have had to go in
711
00:43:08.730 --> 00:43:13.079
if they had succeeded before this 2026 election, if it
712
00:43:13.119 --> 00:43:15.619
hadn't been in the proper envelope with the proper label,
713
00:43:15.659 --> 00:43:17.579
it wouldn't have been sent. And if somehow it got
714
00:43:17.659 --> 00:43:20.199
sent and returned, it wouldn't have been counted. So this
715
00:43:20.239 --> 00:43:22.960
would have been an absolute disaster that I predicted the
716
00:43:23.000 --> 00:43:27.719
Supreme Court would avoid. Kavanaugh issued a concurring opinion. where
717
00:43:27.760 --> 00:43:30.960
he said, it's just timing. I'm not ruling on the merits.
718
00:43:31.000 --> 00:43:33.289
I want to make that clear. But the timing is
719
00:43:33.349 --> 00:43:36.030
so awful, he said, it would have been arbitrary and
720
00:43:36.090 --> 00:43:39.949
capricious under the Administrative Procedure Act. What that means is
721
00:43:40.010 --> 00:43:43.260
that federal changes have to be put in the Federal Register.
722
00:43:43.449 --> 00:43:46.119
They have to be chewed on, commented on. They have
723
00:43:46.159 --> 00:43:50.039
to be implemented. All of that was absolutely short-circuited. And
724
00:43:50.059 --> 00:43:52.780
you might ask the last question, why did Trump wait
725
00:43:52.840 --> 00:43:55.039
so long? Why didn't he start this about a year ago?
726
00:43:55.400 --> 00:43:58.050
And I think the reason was he wasn't this unpopular
727
00:43:58.090 --> 00:44:00.710
a year ago. He wasn't this desirous of figuring out
728
00:44:00.730 --> 00:44:03.329
a way to steal the midterm election a year ago.
729
00:44:03.690 --> 00:44:06.809
He got desperate. put this in operation. He had his
730
00:44:06.869 --> 00:44:10.230
henchmen and minions do this. And there just wasn't time
731
00:44:10.289 --> 00:44:13.170
to make a change that was this huge. And seven
732
00:44:13.210 --> 00:44:16.110
of the Supreme Court justices said so. The other two
733
00:44:16.469 --> 00:44:18.969
are really clowns for the century. I can't think of,
734
00:44:19.159 --> 00:44:21.639
you look back to Taney during the Civil War, I
735
00:44:21.679 --> 00:44:24.400
really can't think of a worse justice than Clarence Thomas.
736
00:44:24.840 --> 00:44:28.800
And Alito wants to be either second or third. Thomas, Taney,
737
00:44:29.039 --> 00:44:32.059
you know, from the Dred Scott decision. And then Alito.
738
00:44:32.460 --> 00:44:35.230
What a group. Well, to be fair, a year ago,
739
00:44:35.750 --> 00:44:38.530
Trump wasn't thinking of this. He was thinking of the
740
00:44:38.570 --> 00:44:40.989
color of the curtains for the ballroom and trying to
741
00:44:41.030 --> 00:44:43.449
pick out the matching chairs with the gold leaf. I
742
00:44:43.489 --> 00:44:48.440
do think it interesting. And you note Kavanaugh suggesting it's timing.
743
00:44:49.039 --> 00:44:51.599
It wasn't a substantive pushback on it. It was a
744
00:44:51.659 --> 00:44:55.820
timing thing, almost inviting that this be revisited, David.
745
00:44:56.929 --> 00:44:59.869
He did the same thing with birthright citizenship. He's waiting
746
00:44:59.889 --> 00:45:03.050
for that magic bill, which is somehow going to undo
747
00:45:03.429 --> 00:45:07.869
a constitutional amendment promise. I guess he took a different
748
00:45:07.929 --> 00:45:11.050
civics class, Mark, than you and I did, where you
749
00:45:11.090 --> 00:45:15.500
just pass a bill and you reverse a constitutional promise.
750
00:45:16.000 --> 00:45:22.619
prohibition or constitutional provision. But I never know who he's
751
00:45:22.699 --> 00:45:25.699
writing for. He seems like sort of writing for like
752
00:45:25.760 --> 00:45:28.800
sort of a love letter to Trump in these concurrences.
753
00:45:29.079 --> 00:45:31.219
Why don't you try this? Just try to get around
754
00:45:31.260 --> 00:45:36.610
birthright citizenship. Luckily, five of the nine said birthright citizenship
755
00:45:36.659 --> 00:45:39.750
is guaranteed by the Constitution. If you're born here with
756
00:45:40.570 --> 00:45:43.369
tiny exceptions, if you're born here, you become a citizen
757
00:45:43.389 --> 00:45:45.329
of End of debate. End of story. You want to
758
00:45:45.369 --> 00:45:48.909
go after people who are doing birth tourism? Sure. Have
759
00:45:48.949 --> 00:45:51.349
you seen, by the way, since all of that hoopty-doo,
760
00:45:51.650 --> 00:45:54.610
that there's a new task force with some brilliant attorneys
761
00:45:54.670 --> 00:45:58.349
and FBI agents funded with some of that $ 172 billion
762
00:45:58.389 --> 00:46:00.679
that went to ICE so they could do something about
763
00:46:00.719 --> 00:46:03.199
people who come here seven or eight months pregnant just
764
00:46:03.239 --> 00:46:06.019
to be born here? Mark, I haven't seen it. Have you?
765
00:46:06.039 --> 00:46:06.099
No.
766
00:46:07.210 --> 00:46:10.090
I mean, again, it's a front and center issue. To me,
767
00:46:10.130 --> 00:46:12.829
it felt like almost a bumper sticker issue. They do
768
00:46:12.849 --> 00:46:14.730
a lot of this stuff, Trump particularly, you know, the
769
00:46:14.750 --> 00:46:18.760
stuff that he wants to wave and he'll wave it
770
00:46:19.659 --> 00:46:22.460
for a while. And it's almost a distraction from a
771
00:46:22.460 --> 00:46:24.420
lot of other things. It's also kind of a cultural
772
00:46:24.480 --> 00:46:28.059
wedge issue. He creates a kind of narrative around, and
773
00:46:28.380 --> 00:46:30.059
I'm not saying it doesn't exist, you know, kind of
774
00:46:30.239 --> 00:46:32.739
those who come here to have children in the U.S.
775
00:46:32.760 --> 00:46:36.130
so they can have U.S. citizenship and U.S. passports. But
776
00:46:36.150 --> 00:46:38.869
all I'm saying is I think it's consistent with Trump's
777
00:46:39.309 --> 00:46:41.630
desire to make a big deal out of something and
778
00:46:41.670 --> 00:46:47.219
then when he suffers the setback, he doesn't follow up
779
00:46:47.239 --> 00:46:50.460
in any way that it really matters. It's interesting to
780
00:46:50.500 --> 00:46:54.780
me too, David, that the Supreme Court has– this is
781
00:46:54.820 --> 00:47:00.289
a court ruling on the way that there are warrantless
782
00:47:00.550 --> 00:47:05.000
stops going on with immigration. It becomes– And it's painful
783
00:47:05.039 --> 00:47:08.590
to watch. Of course, it's led to all sorts of
784
00:47:08.730 --> 00:47:13.050
encounters that have involved assault and even worse. And now
785
00:47:13.130 --> 00:47:18.010
a judge has weighed in on this and said, you
786
00:47:18.219 --> 00:47:22.239
must have some kind of warrant in order to stop people.
787
00:47:22.260 --> 00:47:26.219
Can you speak to this? This is a tentative ruling
788
00:47:26.260 --> 00:47:29.550
that was issued last month, and now it's been finalized.
789
00:47:29.989 --> 00:47:33.010
saying that immigration agents can't just arrest someone, even if
790
00:47:33.030 --> 00:47:37.219
they're in the country unlawfully, without determining if they're likely
791
00:47:37.260 --> 00:47:40.900
to flee before a warrant can be obtained. So there's
792
00:47:40.940 --> 00:47:43.260
a component now of a warrant that's being demanded.
793
00:47:44.079 --> 00:47:46.260
Just a little bit of an introduction, you know, to
794
00:47:46.300 --> 00:47:50.659
remember back to the 2024 campaign and the Democrats had
795
00:47:50.719 --> 00:47:55.400
become unpopular, even though they did rein in illegal immigration,
796
00:47:55.420 --> 00:47:59.460
asylum seekers, you know, paroled into the United States and
797
00:47:59.500 --> 00:48:02.360
allowed to live here en masse. Even though they reigned
798
00:48:02.389 --> 00:48:04.510
that in about a year before the election, it became
799
00:48:04.550 --> 00:48:07.409
a huge issue in 2024. And I think the electorate
800
00:48:07.730 --> 00:48:11.829
that swung for Trump on this issue really imagined that
801
00:48:11.869 --> 00:48:14.090
what ICE was going to do was they were going
802
00:48:14.110 --> 00:48:17.210
to find like, let's say, apartment complexes that had been
803
00:48:17.269 --> 00:48:21.030
taken over by some gang. And the people there were,
804
00:48:21.070 --> 00:48:24.050
you know, it's like New Jack City. And they were
805
00:48:24.110 --> 00:48:27.789
just subjected to all of these indignities, almost held in
806
00:48:27.949 --> 00:48:31.690
servitude and made to stuff drug bags. And those would
807
00:48:31.829 --> 00:48:34.610
be the places that ICE would hit. ICE would go
808
00:48:34.690 --> 00:48:38.429
to like night spots at 1.30 in the morning, and
809
00:48:38.469 --> 00:48:41.369
they would find people in like a known criminal area,
810
00:48:41.590 --> 00:48:44.269
a large percentage of whom were engaging in criminal activity.
811
00:48:44.590 --> 00:48:46.960
That's the place that they would hit. I don't think
812
00:48:47.000 --> 00:48:49.960
that anybody who voted for this or very few of
813
00:48:49.980 --> 00:48:54.380
the people who voted for Trump's programs in 2024 really
814
00:48:54.420 --> 00:48:56.719
had in mind what they were really going to do.
815
00:48:56.820 --> 00:48:59.559
And they showed the nation at Los Angeles and Minneapolis
816
00:48:59.599 --> 00:49:01.639
what they were really going to do, which was to
817
00:49:01.679 --> 00:49:04.429
go into car washes. We almost couldn't get a car
818
00:49:04.449 --> 00:49:07.289
wash here in LA because it was so known they
819
00:49:07.309 --> 00:49:10.849
went to car washes. They grabbed people's nannies for real.
820
00:49:11.110 --> 00:49:13.369
They grabbed them at churches. They grabbed them when they
821
00:49:13.429 --> 00:49:17.320
turned up for their INS appointments. These were the law-abiding
822
00:49:17.400 --> 00:49:19.860
people who were not only abiding by the law, but
823
00:49:19.929 --> 00:49:22.659
they were the rule-following people who would go to the
824
00:49:23.000 --> 00:49:26.880
easy place to find them. They found the most legally compliant.
825
00:49:26.920 --> 00:49:29.820
They didn't find the worst of the worst, okay? They
826
00:49:29.880 --> 00:49:33.059
found the best of the people who might not have
827
00:49:33.099 --> 00:49:37.900
had papers. Luckily, we started to have photographs. We started
828
00:49:37.920 --> 00:49:41.420
to have cameras of the ICE agents were wearing cameras.
829
00:49:41.480 --> 00:49:43.559
And so a lot of this lawsuit you're talking about
830
00:49:43.639 --> 00:49:46.559
is generated by looking at what's on the cameras. And
831
00:49:46.599 --> 00:49:50.800
the cameras show clearly that they are not making this
832
00:49:50.940 --> 00:49:54.099
check that they have to under federal law, ICE is not,
833
00:49:54.519 --> 00:49:57.099
that are you a flight risk or not? Are you
834
00:49:57.139 --> 00:49:59.000
being asked questions? So they go to.
835
00:49:58.920 --> 00:50:01.800
The car wash, and there are photos of the videos
836
00:50:01.840 --> 00:50:03.980
of the car wash that had a great influence on
837
00:50:04.000 --> 00:50:07.659
this case and on this district judge here in Los Angeles,
838
00:50:07.820 --> 00:50:09.480
who made this ruling in the last few days.
839
00:50:10.280 --> 00:50:12.360
Well, she first made an understeel ruling, and now it's
840
00:50:12.699 --> 00:50:15.039
a lot of inside baseball. But the rulings that she
841
00:50:15.079 --> 00:50:18.679
has made, that they have to comply with the Constitution
842
00:50:18.760 --> 00:50:21.559
and with statutes on this. And this, I think, people
843
00:50:21.599 --> 00:50:24.199
don't quite understand. And once they understand it, they'll realize
844
00:50:24.260 --> 00:50:27.360
how important it is. They cannot just snatch people off
845
00:50:27.409 --> 00:50:29.889
the street and throw them into detention, which is what
846
00:50:29.909 --> 00:50:32.960
we've seen them do. And that's why they take these
847
00:50:33.019 --> 00:50:35.460
cases to the courts. This is why Trump has been
848
00:50:35.500 --> 00:50:38.639
so reluctant to take these cases to the court. This
849
00:50:38.699 --> 00:50:40.969
is why it's so predictable that the court is going
850
00:50:41.010 --> 00:50:43.690
to rule against Trump over and over again, because the
851
00:50:43.750 --> 00:50:47.190
colloquy at the car wash And there's a fellow in
852
00:50:47.269 --> 00:50:49.739
one of the examples where he says, I have my papers.
853
00:50:49.820 --> 00:50:51.219
I have my first thing out of his mouth is
854
00:50:51.280 --> 00:50:53.280
I have my papers. And you can see they don't
855
00:50:53.320 --> 00:50:55.719
bother to look at his papers. They throw his hands
856
00:50:55.780 --> 00:50:58.079
behind his back. They don't even look to see that
857
00:50:58.099 --> 00:51:00.159
he has a green card. They don't even look to
858
00:51:00.199 --> 00:51:02.179
see that he has papers that allow him to be there.
859
00:51:02.500 --> 00:51:05.559
There's another fellow in another video, and he's saying, call
860
00:51:05.590 --> 00:51:08.809
my wife, call my wife. Llama mi señora, llama mi señora,
861
00:51:08.949 --> 00:51:12.230
he keeps saying. They do not call his wife, certainly
862
00:51:12.250 --> 00:51:15.369
not before they detain him and take him off to prison.
863
00:51:16.010 --> 00:51:18.849
They don't call his wife. What should happen and what
864
00:51:18.869 --> 00:51:22.679
the Constitution and this particular statute's demand is that when
865
00:51:22.719 --> 00:51:25.099
you say, look at my papers, that they look at
866
00:51:25.139 --> 00:51:27.090
your papers, they see the paper there, they say you
867
00:51:27.119 --> 00:51:30.230
live at 1 Elm Street, okay? Before they take you
868
00:51:30.269 --> 00:51:33.650
into detention, they go check 1 Elm Street, right? Maybe
869
00:51:33.670 --> 00:51:35.849
they get the phone number. You say, what's the number there?
870
00:51:35.869 --> 00:51:38.510
They call the number, and they reach your wife and
871
00:51:38.550 --> 00:51:41.199
your daughter, who say, hey, we have more papers over
872
00:51:41.260 --> 00:51:43.920
here that show he's here. We'll post a bond for him.
873
00:51:44.300 --> 00:51:46.360
He's been here for 10 or 12 years. He's not
874
00:51:46.400 --> 00:51:49.780
a flight risk. That's what's supposed to happen. Fortunately, we
875
00:51:49.820 --> 00:51:52.500
have these videos which show that none of that happened.
876
00:51:52.699 --> 00:51:55.929
They were simply taken into detention. And there's a really
877
00:51:56.050 --> 00:51:59.510
good instance of it where one of the supervisors says,
878
00:51:59.849 --> 00:52:02.409
let's get the hell out of here. And the detaining
879
00:52:02.590 --> 00:52:04.730
officer says to the supervisor, well, I need to check
880
00:52:04.769 --> 00:52:06.630
this guy. He said, you check him later. We're getting
881
00:52:06.650 --> 00:52:08.130
the hell out of here. Put him in the car.
882
00:52:08.309 --> 00:52:09.989
We're getting the hell out of here. And all of
883
00:52:10.030 --> 00:52:12.019
this is in black and white. All of this is
884
00:52:12.159 --> 00:52:15.659
on these body cameras. All of these are on the
885
00:52:15.699 --> 00:52:18.360
body cameras, thank goodness. So what she said was the
886
00:52:18.449 --> 00:52:21.150
law means what it says. You have to make a
887
00:52:21.190 --> 00:52:24.929
determination that you don't have, that this is an instance
888
00:52:25.010 --> 00:52:29.670
of a warrantless detention. Generally speaking, you cannot detain people
889
00:52:30.349 --> 00:52:33.590
unless you get a warrant. So what should be the procedure?
890
00:52:33.829 --> 00:52:36.449
The procedure should be that after the person shows the
891
00:52:36.469 --> 00:52:38.789
green card, says I have a green card, they look
892
00:52:38.849 --> 00:52:41.380
at it. After the person says, call my wife, they say,
893
00:52:41.440 --> 00:52:44.480
what's her phone number? And they call the wife. And
894
00:52:44.880 --> 00:52:47.440
In the process of doing that, they find out whether
895
00:52:47.480 --> 00:52:49.699
the person is a flight risk or not. That's not
896
00:52:49.820 --> 00:52:52.059
that hard to do. The person has a wife who's
897
00:52:52.119 --> 00:52:54.519
a U.S. citizen. They have a child who's a U.S. citizen.
898
00:52:54.719 --> 00:52:57.119
They're in school. The guy has a job. He lives
899
00:52:57.179 --> 00:52:59.480
in a dress for five years. He's not a flight risk.
900
00:52:59.900 --> 00:53:02.090
I just determined right now he's not a flight risk.
901
00:53:02.389 --> 00:53:03.989
I had to give this guy a ticket. You know,
902
00:53:04.010 --> 00:53:06.769
like the police don't take you into custody when they
903
00:53:06.809 --> 00:53:09.869
pull you over for a traffic violation. They would give
904
00:53:09.909 --> 00:53:13.369
this guy a ticket, and that would be that. Anyway,
905
00:53:13.389 --> 00:53:15.469
that's what she said that they have to do. That's
906
00:53:15.489 --> 00:53:18.260
what this judge said that they have to do. As usual,
907
00:53:18.360 --> 00:53:21.039
they want to appeal it to a higher court and
908
00:53:21.059 --> 00:53:23.599
they wanted a stay. And the judge said, why should
909
00:53:23.619 --> 00:53:25.449
there be a stay? Why should there be a delay
910
00:53:25.530 --> 00:53:29.219
in enforcing my rights? All I'm saying is obey the law.
911
00:53:29.739 --> 00:53:31.760
All I'm saying is obey the law. The law and
912
00:53:31.780 --> 00:53:35.039
the statutes already say that there has to be some
913
00:53:35.079 --> 00:53:38.500
determination that the person is going to run away. They've
914
00:53:38.539 --> 00:53:40.820
had all these affidavits where they said, well, the person
915
00:53:40.860 --> 00:53:43.699
took evasive action. They started to run away. And the
916
00:53:43.760 --> 00:53:46.900
judge pointed out, no, they didn't. When I looked at
917
00:53:46.980 --> 00:53:50.280
the tape of what happened, I see the guys working
918
00:53:50.349 --> 00:53:52.869
at the car wash. He sees the ice approaching. He
919
00:53:52.909 --> 00:53:55.690
keeps washing the car. He doesn't run out the back way.
920
00:53:55.710 --> 00:53:57.110
How are you going to tell me this guy is
921
00:53:57.170 --> 00:53:59.969
a flight risk when he didn't try to flee? He
922
00:53:59.989 --> 00:54:02.610
didn't take any evasive action. And when you asked him,
923
00:54:02.909 --> 00:54:05.690
what's your name? He said, Jose Gonzalez. And look at
924
00:54:05.730 --> 00:54:08.190
my green card. Look at my papers right here. And
925
00:54:08.239 --> 00:54:10.960
they said, manos atrás. Put your hands behind your back.
926
00:54:11.539 --> 00:54:15.320
And so they didn't engage in this necessary questioning, Mark.
927
00:54:15.920 --> 00:54:18.139
And they did it all over the country. And she
928
00:54:18.199 --> 00:54:21.340
had the record. Luckily, she had the videos and looked
929
00:54:21.380 --> 00:54:25.019
at them and gave her intellectual ability to them and
930
00:54:25.039 --> 00:54:27.340
her analysis to them. And she issued this injunction that
931
00:54:27.360 --> 00:54:29.719
they have to obey the law. What a concept. ICE
932
00:54:29.739 --> 00:54:31.139
has to obey the law in America.
933
00:54:33.119 --> 00:54:38.159
The thuggery that is associated with ICE is indisputable. It's
934
00:54:38.570 --> 00:54:44.730
remarkable to me. And so you see these under-trained officers,
935
00:54:45.630 --> 00:54:51.829
you know, glorified nightclub bouncers who are there given badges,
936
00:54:51.869 --> 00:54:56.730
given weapons, and they pursue, as I say, a thuggishness
937
00:54:57.190 --> 00:54:59.840
that is really part of the game. The cruelty is
938
00:54:59.880 --> 00:55:01.429
part of the game. But when they run up against
939
00:55:01.489 --> 00:55:05.079
a justice system that's actually evaluating substantive aspects to all
940
00:55:05.099 --> 00:55:08.409
of this, it just doesn't hold. I wanted to ask
941
00:55:08.449 --> 00:55:12.289
you about the Kennedy Center because this is a wild story.
942
00:55:12.909 --> 00:55:16.730
To me, as usual, it's not just the Kennedy Center.
943
00:55:17.829 --> 00:55:21.110
It is the Kennedy Center, but it's reflective of a
944
00:55:21.170 --> 00:55:23.639
desire and an impulse on the part of this president
945
00:55:23.679 --> 00:55:26.500
to do what he wants to do and have whatever
946
00:55:26.539 --> 00:55:32.039
he wants to do be unassailable. And it's the kingship
947
00:55:32.159 --> 00:55:37.110
that he feels he has. So they have now... described
948
00:55:37.130 --> 00:55:40.349
the Kennedy Center as in a state of decay, and
949
00:55:40.829 --> 00:55:45.639
he is saying, President Trump, that he could raise it,
950
00:55:45.840 --> 00:55:48.599
destroy it, if the courts don't allow him to add
951
00:55:48.639 --> 00:55:53.849
his name to the facade. The court has done a
952
00:55:53.889 --> 00:55:57.409
couple of things. This congresswoman who has gotten a lot
953
00:55:57.449 --> 00:56:00.489
of media oxygen in the last day or so, Beatty,
954
00:56:01.030 --> 00:56:06.679
she took him on and she requested this emergency hearing.
955
00:56:06.719 --> 00:56:09.679
She's a member of the board. She was a member
956
00:56:09.760 --> 00:56:15.219
of the Kennedy Center board. And apparently Trump just lost
957
00:56:15.300 --> 00:56:19.119
it on her and on the situation. But now the
958
00:56:19.199 --> 00:56:24.199
law has gotten involved and The idea is that before
959
00:56:24.260 --> 00:56:27.409
the Kennedy Center can be destroyed, there has to be
960
00:56:27.469 --> 00:56:31.510
a 30-day notification. That's the latest ruling from this judge.
961
00:56:31.869 --> 00:56:34.750
Give me a moment on what's happening with this Kennedy Center.
962
00:56:35.090 --> 00:56:37.349
It's the insanity, but as I say, it's also the
963
00:56:37.409 --> 00:56:39.329
entitlement that Trump displays.
964
00:56:40.630 --> 00:56:44.230
Well, Trump is fascinated with the Kennedys. I think one
965
00:56:44.250 --> 00:56:47.699
of the reasons that he went for Robert F. Kennedy Jr.,
966
00:56:48.000 --> 00:56:50.679
even though he's kooky and weird and you sort of think,
967
00:56:50.719 --> 00:56:53.880
what does he bring to this administration? Except, you know,
968
00:56:53.900 --> 00:56:57.300
this weirdness. It was his name. It was all his name.
969
00:56:57.659 --> 00:57:00.780
RFK Jr., don't think you ever accomplished anything in life.
970
00:57:00.840 --> 00:57:03.059
You had that name, you were a nepo baby, and
971
00:57:03.099 --> 00:57:06.590
it's carried you that far to a cabinet post right now.
972
00:57:06.989 --> 00:57:09.010
So he's fascinated with the Kennedy name. He'd like to
973
00:57:09.050 --> 00:57:12.030
somehow associate himself with the Kennedy name and particularly with
974
00:57:12.050 --> 00:57:15.599
the Kennedy name on the Kennedy Center. He also likes
975
00:57:15.639 --> 00:57:18.969
to associate himself with cultural centers because he's a person
976
00:57:18.989 --> 00:57:22.030
of such poor culture. He's seen as a bore, right?
977
00:57:22.349 --> 00:57:25.250
And a lowlife and someone who doesn't get anything with culture.
978
00:57:25.510 --> 00:57:27.449
So he likes this idea of his name being plastered
979
00:57:27.510 --> 00:57:30.019
on something that's, it's a big cultural thing, you know,
980
00:57:30.360 --> 00:57:33.679
it's a big cultural thing for me. So that I
981
00:57:33.699 --> 00:57:36.659
think is the motivation. I don't think, you know, in,
982
00:57:37.420 --> 00:57:39.960
He's going to really get anywhere with this. I don't
983
00:57:40.000 --> 00:57:41.880
think he's going to be able to demolish it. That's
984
00:57:41.900 --> 00:57:44.050
the one thing I'm scared of. We wake up one morning,
985
00:57:44.139 --> 00:57:47.389
one long weekend, right? And it's been demolished with some
986
00:57:47.449 --> 00:57:49.409
story that it was leaking so bad that it had
987
00:57:49.449 --> 00:57:52.289
to be demolished and it's turned into a pit. And
988
00:57:52.329 --> 00:57:54.409
of course, that's to take the marbles and go home.
989
00:57:54.690 --> 00:57:57.789
If I can't have my name on a beautiful cultural center,
990
00:57:58.309 --> 00:58:01.550
I'll turn it into a big, ugly pit. And that's
991
00:58:01.610 --> 00:58:03.530
the threat. But other than that, he has a very
992
00:58:03.590 --> 00:58:05.590
good judge on this case who gets it. He has
993
00:58:05.630 --> 00:58:09.639
this ex officio member of the board who's standing up
994
00:58:09.699 --> 00:58:12.599
to him. And so all of this is set for,
995
00:58:12.639 --> 00:58:14.659
you know, he can keep a tarp on for a while.
996
00:58:14.920 --> 00:58:17.070
He can try to have a little plaque on one side,
997
00:58:17.130 --> 00:58:21.010
you know, renovate it. by Donald J. Trump. But he's
998
00:58:21.050 --> 00:58:24.329
not going to get anywhere. It will reopen under the Democrats.
999
00:58:24.449 --> 00:58:27.159
It'll be great again. There'll be a sane Republican in
1000
00:58:27.199 --> 00:58:29.760
the future who'll keep it open. It'll have cultural events
1001
00:58:29.800 --> 00:58:32.019
in it. The one thing that's scary about it is
1002
00:58:32.059 --> 00:58:34.840
that he'll try to demolish it. I hope that they
1003
00:58:34.880 --> 00:58:37.760
have something in place. They have somebody withstanding who can
1004
00:58:37.800 --> 00:58:41.260
get an order right away and stop those demolition efforts. Remember,
1005
00:58:41.280 --> 00:58:43.860
they're not on the White House grounds. All these places
1006
00:58:43.909 --> 00:58:45.989
are easier to deal with for the courts, and they're
1007
00:58:46.030 --> 00:58:49.199
not worried about being defied outright. as they, I think,
1008
00:58:49.280 --> 00:58:52.039
were on the White House grounds with a place like
1009
00:58:52.059 --> 00:58:54.079
the Kennedy Center. If I could just move on. The
1010
00:58:54.199 --> 00:58:57.280
Arc de Triomphe is a huge mess, too. He's put
1011
00:58:57.460 --> 00:59:00.719
all of his flunkies on all of these boards. And
1012
00:59:00.760 --> 00:59:03.590
I don't think the boards need congressional approval. They don't
1013
00:59:03.630 --> 00:59:06.170
have to have the advice and consent of the Senate.
1014
00:59:06.269 --> 00:59:08.210
I think that's true of most of them. So he
1015
00:59:08.230 --> 00:59:10.960
can just take flunkies. He can take Howard Luttnick and
1016
00:59:11.000 --> 00:59:13.699
stick him on there. I think it may be J.D.
1017
00:59:13.780 --> 00:59:15.960
Vance's wife may be on one of them. That would
1018
00:59:16.000 --> 00:59:17.780
be such a stink on J.D.
1019
00:59:17.840 --> 00:59:18.079
Vance.
1020
00:59:18.099 --> 00:59:20.000
And a lot of people think he and his wife
1021
00:59:20.300 --> 00:59:22.469
could really stink much more than they do. But the
1022
00:59:22.530 --> 00:59:25.409
stink of being on those boards is. for J.D. Vance's
1023
00:59:25.449 --> 00:59:29.070
supposedly sophisticated wife and all these other wives and prominent
1024
00:59:29.110 --> 00:59:31.289
people are on these boards and all they are are
1025
00:59:31.349 --> 00:59:34.190
yes men and yes women on them. So this Arc
1026
00:59:34.230 --> 00:59:37.780
de Triomphe is really scary. It blocks Arlington. The judge
1027
00:59:37.800 --> 00:59:40.699
that I clerked for is buried at Arlington. All these
1028
00:59:40.760 --> 00:59:44.699
illustrious Americans, you name them, were buried at Arlington. It really,
1029
00:59:44.760 --> 00:59:47.260
really means something to block the view of it, to
1030
00:59:47.300 --> 00:59:51.840
block where you stand there at Kennedy's, where Kennedy was buried.
1031
00:59:52.309 --> 00:59:54.909
You can go visit in Arlington and stand at that
1032
00:59:54.989 --> 00:59:58.429
Kennedy burial site, and you have these beautiful vistas from there.
1033
00:59:58.670 --> 01:00:01.230
This ark would block those vistas. It would block the
1034
01:00:01.269 --> 01:00:05.440
vistas between the Capitol and Robert E. Lee's house. That
1035
01:00:05.480 --> 01:00:09.000
was symbolic, Robert E. Lee's house, the Lincoln Memorial. None
1036
01:00:09.019 --> 01:00:11.559
of that is being taken into account. All of that's
1037
01:00:11.599 --> 01:00:14.360
supposed to be taken into account. I'm scared about that one,
1038
01:00:14.400 --> 01:00:17.860
that they're going to start putting as much stuff down
1039
01:00:18.000 --> 01:00:22.369
on that one. and blocking views, making it ugly, saying
1040
01:00:22.409 --> 01:00:25.210
it's so ugly right now, we have to make it pretty.
1041
01:00:25.269 --> 01:00:27.989
And of course, there's the ballroom, which are the Democrats
1042
01:00:28.070 --> 01:00:30.630
really with all the priorities to do things for the country.
1043
01:00:31.030 --> 01:00:33.570
How much money are they really going to spend demolishing
1044
01:00:33.590 --> 01:00:35.889
the ballroom? I mean, it's symbolic to not let him
1045
01:00:35.949 --> 01:00:38.159
get away with the ballroom, but I think he may
1046
01:00:38.219 --> 01:00:41.039
get away with the ballroom. Oh, and the pond. The pond,
1047
01:00:41.079 --> 01:00:45.289
of course, was his fiasco. The reflecting pool, yeah. Yeah,
1048
01:00:45.309 --> 01:00:48.369
the reflecting pool. So those are what Trump wants to
1049
01:00:48.409 --> 01:00:51.280
leave as his, and he does, it's like Hitler. Hitler
1050
01:00:51.320 --> 01:00:54.980
wanted to leave Berlin looking a very certain way and
1051
01:00:55.019 --> 01:00:59.119
had very certain old style architecture. And he's got this
1052
01:00:59.139 --> 01:01:01.400
very old, he wants to take down all these modern sculptures,
1053
01:01:01.440 --> 01:01:04.210
wants to put up an enormous George Washington, where there's
1054
01:01:04.269 --> 01:01:07.909
now the infinity sculpture in Washington, D.C. You and I
1055
01:01:07.949 --> 01:01:10.670
go back to Washington, D.C., so among everything else that
1056
01:01:10.710 --> 01:01:14.150
Trump does, That's horrible. He has no, he has no
1057
01:01:14.190 --> 01:01:18.369
aesthetic sense. It's all this grandiose Mussolini Hitler type architecture.
1058
01:01:18.510 --> 01:01:20.639
Yeah. And then of course the white house looks like, um,
1059
01:01:20.880 --> 01:01:24.039
you know, uh, a Mar-a-Lago kind of, uh, Miami beach
1060
01:01:24.179 --> 01:01:26.400
club with, uh, even the font that says, you know,
1061
01:01:26.440 --> 01:01:29.780
kind of, uh, uh, oval office this way or whatever,
1062
01:01:29.800 --> 01:01:31.239
you know, it seems to be like, you know, spa
1063
01:01:31.300 --> 01:01:33.360
and pool this way. I mean, it's really look, it's
1064
01:01:33.420 --> 01:01:35.559
all like that, but beyond that, there is a self
1065
01:01:35.579 --> 01:01:39.300
aggrandizement of courses, you know, it's the unquenchable thirst to
1066
01:01:39.340 --> 01:01:41.860
get his, His picture up, and as you say, you
1067
01:01:41.900 --> 01:01:44.599
and I go back to Washington a bunch, and you
1068
01:01:44.639 --> 01:01:47.320
see in front of the Justice Department, there's that huge
1069
01:01:47.360 --> 01:01:48.880
banner in front of the Department of Labor. There's a
1070
01:01:48.920 --> 01:01:53.030
huge banner in front of the Portrait Gallery. These banners
1071
01:01:53.070 --> 01:01:56.130
on his face are ubiquitous, or so it seems, certainly
1072
01:01:56.150 --> 01:01:58.090
in the downtown area, which is populated by a lot
1073
01:01:58.110 --> 01:02:00.639
of government buildings. And I'll just say one last thing. I,
1074
01:02:01.070 --> 01:02:03.710
of course, don't share your optimism on the Kennedy Center.
1075
01:02:03.829 --> 01:02:05.570
I know that there's a judge's order that he gives
1076
01:02:05.570 --> 01:02:08.949
30 days before he were to demolish it. But they're
1077
01:02:08.989 --> 01:02:12.710
already indications that they're, you know, they're nicking away at it.
1078
01:02:12.929 --> 01:02:16.829
And it may be a dismantling that is a little
1079
01:02:16.889 --> 01:02:18.849
different than what they did with the East Wing. But
1080
01:02:19.329 --> 01:02:21.820
I think Trump is in this who's going to stop
1081
01:02:21.860 --> 01:02:25.199
me kind of mode. And I hope you're right, but
1082
01:02:25.300 --> 01:02:28.840
I definitely am concerned that he might just go about.
1083
01:02:28.880 --> 01:02:31.679
And that's why I think the Kennedy Center is the
1084
01:02:31.699 --> 01:02:34.780
canary in the coal mine, yet another canary that's going
1085
01:02:34.800 --> 01:02:38.820
to die. Because I think the idea that somehow Trump
1086
01:02:38.880 --> 01:02:43.360
respects the law is suspect at best. And I understand
1087
01:02:43.400 --> 01:02:45.380
that Blanche has said they're going to respect the Supreme
1088
01:02:45.420 --> 01:02:49.030
Court decision on mail-in voting and the rest, David. But boy,
1089
01:02:49.070 --> 01:02:51.829
I think when it comes to knocking stuff down and
1090
01:02:51.909 --> 01:02:55.170
slapping his name on it, Trump really is feeling like
1091
01:02:55.269 --> 01:02:59.349
he is someone who can't be restrained in any legit
1092
01:02:59.389 --> 01:03:00.210
way that he sees.
1093
01:03:00.829 --> 01:03:03.489
What else could Blanche say, you know? And then he said,
1094
01:03:03.510 --> 01:03:05.489
of course, we're going to try every other way to
1095
01:03:06.170 --> 01:03:08.730
make sure we have free and fair elections, which meant
1096
01:03:08.750 --> 01:03:10.469
we're going to put our finger on the scale in
1097
01:03:10.690 --> 01:03:14.349
every way that the Supreme Court hasn't expressly issued an
1098
01:03:14.489 --> 01:03:16.449
order that we can't do. But I think those are
1099
01:03:16.469 --> 01:03:18.929
going to be ineffective, Mark. One of the things they're
1100
01:03:18.949 --> 01:03:20.650
going to do to make sure we have free and
1101
01:03:20.690 --> 01:03:23.730
fair elections is they're going to prosecute people who have
1102
01:03:24.309 --> 01:03:27.829
wrongly voted in federal elections. They have seven people. This
1103
01:03:27.889 --> 01:03:31.210
is such a vanishingly small problem. This won't have any impact.
1104
01:03:31.530 --> 01:03:33.760
And I said before, I think in the blue states
1105
01:03:33.820 --> 01:03:38.460
and the swing areas, there'll be enough police forces, independent
1106
01:03:38.579 --> 01:03:41.739
sheriffs and so forth, that if there's all these shenanigans
1107
01:03:41.800 --> 01:03:44.739
at the polls, I think the local officials will stop it.
1108
01:03:44.780 --> 01:03:46.860
If people show up with ice or they show up
1109
01:03:46.900 --> 01:03:49.119
with masks, the cops will show up and say, what
1110
01:03:49.139 --> 01:03:50.960
the hell are you fools doing here with these masks?
1111
01:03:51.019 --> 01:03:52.980
And where are you from? Well, I don't care where
1112
01:03:53.019 --> 01:03:55.079
you're from. You can't run around the polls with a mask.
1113
01:03:55.119 --> 01:03:58.539
You can't run around with a weapon near the So
1114
01:03:58.880 --> 01:04:01.610
I just don't think that's going to be that big.
1115
01:04:01.710 --> 01:04:04.030
I think that the vote. I mean, the thing now
1116
01:04:04.130 --> 01:04:06.989
is we're right there. You know what, 45 days before
1117
01:04:07.010 --> 01:04:10.190
the election, get out and vote. This is it. This
1118
01:04:10.250 --> 01:04:14.469
is a blue wave unless people get overconfident, unless they
1119
01:04:14.489 --> 01:04:18.559
get complacent. This is a blue wave where absolutely, you know,
1120
01:04:18.579 --> 01:04:21.280
they made peace with that senator up there who's running
1121
01:04:21.360 --> 01:04:24.019
in Michigan, as they should. You want the 51-49 or
1122
01:04:24.039 --> 01:04:30.619
50-50 Senate with Vance breaking every tie? and every lunatic
1123
01:04:30.639 --> 01:04:33.099
that they send up there for an appointment being appointed,
1124
01:04:33.420 --> 01:04:38.550
you know, 50-50? Or do you want this fellow from Michigan, okay?
1125
01:04:38.989 --> 01:04:41.269
If you think there's anything wrong with his politics or
1126
01:04:41.309 --> 01:04:44.710
his stances that makes a Republican and Republican capture of
1127
01:04:44.750 --> 01:04:47.610
the Senate a better option than him, boy, we should
1128
01:04:47.650 --> 01:04:49.750
call into the show or write into the show, and
1129
01:04:49.809 --> 01:04:51.710
Mark and I will do our best to set you straight.
1130
01:04:52.170 --> 01:04:54.110
Well, I would also say, you know, it's funny. We
1131
01:04:54.159 --> 01:04:57.210
were playing a cut from J.D. Vance earlier yesterday, in
1132
01:04:57.250 --> 01:05:00.070
which he said a bunch of stuff, give us a
1133
01:05:00.090 --> 01:05:03.369
chance to follow through on what we started, which just
1134
01:05:03.409 --> 01:05:06.409
to me is hilarious since they really started the dismantling
1135
01:05:06.449 --> 01:05:11.400
of everything wholly about the U.S. government, everything from USAID
1136
01:05:11.420 --> 01:05:15.539
to EPA, et cetera, Interior, and started the wars. There
1137
01:05:15.559 --> 01:05:19.820
are all of these things, these inflationary, the gas, if
1138
01:05:19.840 --> 01:05:22.300
you'll pardon the expression, that they poured on the fire
1139
01:05:22.320 --> 01:05:25.420
of inflation. in the form of this war and the tariffs?
1140
01:05:25.619 --> 01:05:27.119
I mean, it's crazy. So you want us to give
1141
01:05:27.139 --> 01:05:29.380
you more rope to hang all of us?
1142
01:05:29.840 --> 01:05:30.039
No.
1143
01:05:31.139 --> 01:05:33.650
So as you say, it's really one of those things
1144
01:05:33.670 --> 01:05:38.090
that seems pretty straightforward to many. But, you know, I
1145
01:05:38.130 --> 01:05:41.110
always worry that we can get a little too confident.
1146
01:05:41.309 --> 01:05:43.550
And sometimes when people see the polls, as you said,
1147
01:05:43.570 --> 01:05:45.719
you kind of alluded to this, like, you know, the
1148
01:05:45.760 --> 01:05:46.960
only thing that can do you in is sort of
1149
01:05:47.000 --> 01:05:48.900
feeling like, oh, we got this, you know, my vote
1150
01:05:49.159 --> 01:05:52.409
isn't needed and it could really go the other way. Hey,
1151
01:05:52.429 --> 01:05:54.750
I wanted to ask you one other thing about a
1152
01:05:54.809 --> 01:05:58.489
contempt of Congress decision. It just happened yesterday. The House
1153
01:05:58.550 --> 01:06:03.210
held billionaire investor Leon Black in contempt of Congress. Now,
1154
01:06:03.269 --> 01:06:07.489
this is a bipartisan move that they made after Black
1155
01:06:07.550 --> 01:06:12.079
refused to provide additional information on his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.
1156
01:06:12.500 --> 01:06:14.940
It's the first time the House has held a witness
1157
01:06:15.119 --> 01:06:18.539
in the Epstein investigation in contempt. This is a billionaire,
1158
01:06:18.599 --> 01:06:22.820
Leon Black, right? And he defied two congressional subpoenas issued
1159
01:06:22.860 --> 01:06:26.460
by the House Oversight Committee. And they're looking into his
1160
01:06:26.519 --> 01:06:30.880
relationship with Epstein. He appeared for a closed-door meeting, and
1161
01:06:30.940 --> 01:06:34.420
it was a voluntary interview back in June. But he
1162
01:06:34.519 --> 01:06:39.030
walked out before that ended. And now they're saying that
1163
01:06:39.210 --> 01:06:44.010
he declined to answer questions about Epstein. various nondisclosure agreements,
1164
01:06:44.150 --> 01:06:46.869
and they're holding him in contempt of Congress. Speak to that.
1165
01:06:47.050 --> 01:06:50.389
First of all, remind us what contempt of Congress is,
1166
01:06:50.730 --> 01:06:52.619
and then speak to how it might affect him.
1167
01:06:53.679 --> 01:06:55.420
I want to get this in, though, for people who
1168
01:06:55.460 --> 01:07:00.059
like all the personalities involved. His lawyer is Susan Estrich.
1169
01:07:00.519 --> 01:07:04.280
If people don't remember who Susan Estrich was, Michael Dukakis
1170
01:07:04.320 --> 01:07:09.530
was 17 points against Bush. Bush was the incumbent. Dukakis
1171
01:07:09.550 --> 01:07:14.199
was 17 points ahead With Susan Estrich as his campaign manager,
1172
01:07:14.500 --> 01:07:20.260
Dukakis did not win. So now she's a lawyer and she.
1173
01:07:20.219 --> 01:07:25.670
Is representing this black guy. She's a woman leaning in,
1174
01:07:26.570 --> 01:07:29.969
helping this man with these charges for the Epstein case.
1175
01:07:30.369 --> 01:07:32.769
And I think doing what appears to be a terrible job.
1176
01:07:32.829 --> 01:07:35.300
This is the worst option, at least from the client's
1177
01:07:35.360 --> 01:07:38.070
point of view. He has to be seen as cooperating
1178
01:07:38.110 --> 01:07:39.250
with this investigation.
1179
01:07:39.329 --> 01:07:41.710
If they want him to give a second deposition, they
1180
01:07:41.750 --> 01:07:44.510
should have him, he should give a second deposition. What
1181
01:07:44.550 --> 01:07:47.150
he's decided to do is to go to court and
1182
01:07:47.210 --> 01:07:51.909
file a lawsuit against Comer and the Republican committee. That's really,
1183
01:07:51.949 --> 01:07:55.219
really stupid. When you realize that they haven't indicted anybody,
1184
01:07:55.449 --> 01:07:58.460
when they seem to be in Trump's pocket and Trump
1185
01:07:58.579 --> 01:08:03.550
wants Epstein files hushed up, Why would he go to
1186
01:08:03.630 --> 01:08:07.019
court and make himself poster boy for Comer is going
1187
01:08:07.039 --> 01:08:09.320
to get me? Comer is going to get him. He
1188
01:08:09.340 --> 01:08:11.320
really is. He's going to be the one guy and
1189
01:08:11.380 --> 01:08:13.300
Comer is going to go after him. He's going to
1190
01:08:13.340 --> 01:08:15.400
be the guy who's really going to go down in this.
1191
01:08:15.420 --> 01:08:17.060
He's supposed to be at one point. He was the
1192
01:08:17.100 --> 01:08:20.569
richest person, I think, in Ohio. Maybe he still is.
1193
01:08:20.609 --> 01:08:23.850
He's a righteous billionaire. But, you know, it's so hard, Mark,
1194
01:08:23.890 --> 01:08:26.729
to get good tax advice in this country. You know,
1195
01:08:26.750 --> 01:08:28.970
why go to one of the big, huge law firms
1196
01:08:29.010 --> 01:08:30.890
and one of the great accounting firms You have to
1197
01:08:30.930 --> 01:08:33.130
go to Jeffrey Epstein, and you have to pay Jeffrey
1198
01:08:33.189 --> 01:08:37.789
Epstein over $ 100 million. That's what he was supposedly paying
1199
01:08:37.829 --> 01:08:40.970
him for, not blackmail, not anything else. And Leon Black
1200
01:08:41.010 --> 01:08:43.630
had to pay him over $ 100 million for this really
1201
01:08:43.750 --> 01:08:48.869
unique special tax advice, $ 100 million worth, that Jeffrey Epstein
1202
01:08:48.890 --> 01:08:51.850
was giving him. That's his story. He's apparently sticking with it.
1203
01:08:51.909 --> 01:08:53.510
And the rest of his story is that his case
1204
01:08:53.569 --> 01:08:56.350
is now in federal court against the committee, and therefore
1205
01:08:56.390 --> 01:08:59.149
be inappropriate for him to testify in front of this
1206
01:08:59.229 --> 01:09:01.770
committee any further They're gonna lock him up at the
1207
01:09:01.810 --> 01:09:02.600
rate that he's going.
1208
01:09:02.819 --> 01:09:04.260
That's kind of what I was getting at I was
1209
01:09:04.279 --> 01:09:05.220
gonna say locked up.
1210
01:09:05.199 --> 01:09:07.319
Bannon and they locked up in the bar and if
1211
01:09:07.359 --> 01:09:10.500
he keeps playing games What appear to be games to me?
1212
01:09:11.479 --> 01:09:14.239
This is this is really going nowhere and of course
1213
01:09:14.520 --> 01:09:17.659
though you know, he'll turn on him like a dime.
1214
01:09:17.720 --> 01:09:19.659
Trump will. Trump will say, ah, well, maybe he was
1215
01:09:19.680 --> 01:09:21.600
a Republican. Maybe he was a billionaire. We don't care
1216
01:09:21.619 --> 01:09:22.310
if you're a Republican.
1217
01:09:22.319 --> 01:09:23.369
We don't care if you're a billionaire.
1218
01:09:23.409 --> 01:09:25.390
If you're on the wrong side of Epstein files.
1219
01:09:25.609 --> 01:09:27.949
Of course, Trump, the only person I think mentioned more
1220
01:09:27.989 --> 01:09:31.869
there than Leon Black is Donald Trump in the Epstein files.
1221
01:09:33.069 --> 01:09:36.359
Yeah, ain't it true? He's all over the Epstein files
1222
01:09:36.380 --> 01:09:39.819
like a bad smell. Black is. And Trump, of course,
1223
01:09:39.899 --> 01:09:44.369
it's even worse. Do I have am I out of
1224
01:09:44.409 --> 01:09:44.869
time here?
1225
01:09:44.949 --> 01:09:46.149
Can we do the environment?
1226
01:09:46.489 --> 01:09:47.630
Yeah. Okay. Great.
1227
01:09:47.689 --> 01:09:47.949
Great.
1228
01:09:48.010 --> 01:09:53.189
Let's let's let's do it the Endangered Species Act is
1229
01:09:53.250 --> 01:09:57.369
being gutted and this is a seismic shift and they
1230
01:09:57.449 --> 01:10:02.310
are moving the new administration this Trump regime To strip
1231
01:10:02.449 --> 01:10:05.159
core protections of the Endangered Species Act. This is something
1232
01:10:05.180 --> 01:10:07.420
they started very early on they did a bit of
1233
01:10:07.479 --> 01:10:09.680
it in their first term when they were around for
1234
01:10:09.699 --> 01:10:12.300
the first four years and under a new interpretation of
1235
01:10:12.319 --> 01:10:18.479
the law's language, the accidental killing or injury of an
1236
01:10:18.680 --> 01:10:24.430
animal would no longer be considered illegal. Only action specifically
1237
01:10:24.520 --> 01:10:29.869
intended to target an animal would be considered illegal. This
1238
01:10:29.930 --> 01:10:34.489
change would be transformational because in the U.S. now, the
1239
01:10:34.510 --> 01:10:38.789
killing of endangered animals almost always happens incidentally. It's in
1240
01:10:38.810 --> 01:10:43.760
the course of Economic activity, the expansion, the development, mining,
1241
01:10:43.859 --> 01:10:49.779
these fragile habitats. So industries and corporate polluters, et cetera,
1242
01:10:49.840 --> 01:10:56.229
individuals that could have been held accountable for foreseeable deaths
1243
01:10:56.350 --> 01:11:00.590
by that kind of development now will not be held accountable.
1244
01:11:00.670 --> 01:11:03.029
That's the essence of this. Please speak to it.
1245
01:11:04.109 --> 01:11:07.329
Well, this is the Trump administration's view in a memo,
1246
01:11:07.350 --> 01:11:09.729
and these things are important because it's like the Office
1247
01:11:09.770 --> 01:11:12.390
of Legal Counsel with the Department of Justice. If they
1248
01:11:12.430 --> 01:11:15.350
take this opinion, and it looks like this is going
1249
01:11:15.409 --> 01:11:19.350
to evolve into an opinion of the Trump administration, it
1250
01:11:19.390 --> 01:11:23.880
will utterly gut the Endangered Species Act because we're not
1251
01:11:23.949 --> 01:11:26.779
in the era and when Congress passed these laws like
1252
01:11:26.819 --> 01:11:30.119
the EPA and the follow-up laws to protect endangered species,
1253
01:11:30.439 --> 01:11:33.439
they weren't going after Moby Dick. The problem was that
1254
01:11:34.560 --> 01:11:37.319
people would get in whaling ships and go kill whales
1255
01:11:37.460 --> 01:11:40.149
on purpose. The thing was they would engage in economic
1256
01:11:40.270 --> 01:11:43.229
activities with these huge ships or with these practices that
1257
01:11:43.250 --> 01:11:46.090
would kill a bunch of whales. If the only defense
1258
01:11:47.050 --> 01:11:49.189
that they have to make is, I didn't mean to
1259
01:11:49.229 --> 01:11:51.869
kill the whales, they'll kill whales all over the place
1260
01:11:52.130 --> 01:11:55.699
because they incidentally kill whales. They don't intentionally kill whales.
1261
01:11:56.100 --> 01:11:58.100
And I think the New York Times gave the example
1262
01:11:58.140 --> 01:12:00.779
of the salamanders. If you want to get a permit
1263
01:12:01.420 --> 01:12:04.020
either for something that would hurt whales or or that
1264
01:12:04.039 --> 01:12:07.060
would hurt salamanders, you have to make an agreement with
1265
01:12:07.079 --> 01:12:10.489
the EPA that involves the Endangered Species Act and say, well,
1266
01:12:10.510 --> 01:12:11.750
we're going to do it in a way that we
1267
01:12:11.869 --> 01:12:15.189
won't kill whales. We'll spend a lot more money, but
1268
01:12:15.250 --> 01:12:17.630
we'll kill a lot less whales. And that's the deal
1269
01:12:17.670 --> 01:12:20.119
you end up making to get your permit. Or salamanders,
1270
01:12:20.159 --> 01:12:22.079
you say, look, I know we're going to kill some
1271
01:12:22.140 --> 01:12:25.359
salamanders in this place. I mean, all the... The records
1272
01:12:25.439 --> 01:12:28.279
and then the reviews of it, the environmental impact reviews,
1273
01:12:28.600 --> 01:12:30.810
show that that's what we're going to do. But we'll
1274
01:12:30.850 --> 01:12:33.310
do it in a way where we kill less salamanders
1275
01:12:33.350 --> 01:12:35.510
or less whatever, or if there's no way to avoid it,
1276
01:12:35.810 --> 01:12:38.680
our deal will be that we'll do a salamander habitat
1277
01:12:38.739 --> 01:12:41.619
as close to where we're doing the project as possible,
1278
01:12:42.000 --> 01:12:44.310
and that'll be the basis for the permitting. If the
1279
01:12:44.390 --> 01:12:47.760
government doesn't ask for that quid pro quo in the permit,
1280
01:12:48.060 --> 01:12:50.520
they won't get one. There will be a permit which
1281
01:12:50.560 --> 01:12:54.539
just allows you to do whatever you want willy-nilly, kill animals,
1282
01:12:54.619 --> 01:12:59.640
including Endangered Species Act animals willy-nilly. This is one of
1283
01:12:59.680 --> 01:13:03.239
those things that, please, the Congress has to change fast enough.
1284
01:13:03.720 --> 01:13:06.720
that they can either bolster that law or make it
1285
01:13:06.819 --> 01:13:09.819
absolutely clear that that kind of permitting is not going
1286
01:13:09.840 --> 01:13:12.020
to be allowed. But, you know, some of Trump's favorite
1287
01:13:12.079 --> 01:13:16.079
friends will just go and get these permits, and the
1288
01:13:16.140 --> 01:13:19.680
permits won't have any limit on, you know, what they
1289
01:13:19.720 --> 01:13:22.380
can do and can't do as to endangered species acts
1290
01:13:22.439 --> 01:13:24.720
or other animals. And then when they get caught up
1291
01:13:25.000 --> 01:13:29.100
by some agencies, let's say by some later Democratic administration,
1292
01:13:29.699 --> 01:13:32.409
they'll say, well, We have a defense. Our defense is
1293
01:13:32.449 --> 01:13:35.810
that we didn't mean to kill any animals. And this
1294
01:13:35.890 --> 01:13:40.069
is all from a Scalia dissenting opinion that everyone thought
1295
01:13:40.109 --> 01:13:43.659
was so clever. Ah, another right winger wending his way
1296
01:13:43.699 --> 01:13:46.399
through the law. And so these former clerks and these
1297
01:13:46.560 --> 01:13:53.359
Scalia aficionados have taken this dissenting opinion, and tried to
1298
01:13:53.399 --> 01:13:55.439
make it the law, and this will be awful, Mark.
1299
01:13:55.479 --> 01:13:57.600
People have to stand up and say, oh my God,
1300
01:13:57.640 --> 01:14:00.819
the Endangered Species Act, this would throw it out the window.
1301
01:14:00.850 --> 01:14:03.130
I'm not being an alarmist. If this becomes the law,
1302
01:14:03.149 --> 01:14:04.329
this would throw it out the window.
1303
01:14:04.670 --> 01:14:07.010
Well, it's also just, it's a sign of the times.
1304
01:14:07.069 --> 01:14:09.350
I think, you know, you've seen now the capture of government.
1305
01:14:10.390 --> 01:14:13.989
The attempted capture of government, of course, has taken decades
1306
01:14:14.170 --> 01:14:17.649
to kind of be set in motion with corporate interests
1307
01:14:17.909 --> 01:14:20.819
of one sort or another, development interests, the interests of
1308
01:14:21.340 --> 01:14:26.180
of economic forces in this country that Trump and his
1309
01:14:26.239 --> 01:14:28.739
administration is very, very closely aligned to. So when you
1310
01:14:28.779 --> 01:14:32.710
talk about mineral exploitation, you talk about oil exploration on
1311
01:14:32.770 --> 01:14:35.289
public lands, you talk about the leasing of public lands,
1312
01:14:35.550 --> 01:14:37.569
these are all things that are sort of adjacent to
1313
01:14:37.609 --> 01:14:41.149
this Endangered Species Act because this is precisely the kind
1314
01:14:41.189 --> 01:14:43.930
of development that would affect those endangered species, that would
1315
01:14:43.970 --> 01:14:46.550
wipe out habitats and wipe out these creatures. And so
1316
01:14:46.569 --> 01:14:49.170
you're right, it's a big ask. But as I say,
1317
01:14:49.189 --> 01:14:50.949
I don't mean to always be sort of the bleak,
1318
01:14:51.149 --> 01:14:54.689
you know, glass is half empty guy, but I have
1319
01:14:54.729 --> 01:14:57.619
to say that I just feel as though the forces
1320
01:14:57.659 --> 01:15:00.659
of evil in this case, I think, have lined up.
1321
01:15:00.739 --> 01:15:06.100
And now finally, these corporate polluters and corporate developers have
1322
01:15:06.520 --> 01:15:09.510
found an ally in Trump and a GOP that is
1323
01:15:09.550 --> 01:15:11.890
just not going to push back. Now, it might be
1324
01:15:11.970 --> 01:15:14.810
that if the Democrats take over, Maybe they push back
1325
01:15:14.909 --> 01:15:18.909
on this. I don't know. But right now, it's pretty
1326
01:15:18.949 --> 01:15:20.479
bleak in my view, pretty dark.
1327
01:15:21.060 --> 01:15:23.720
Some of these things have huge impacts on red states.
1328
01:15:23.779 --> 01:15:26.380
You know, what they're doing in Louisiana, which is a
1329
01:15:26.420 --> 01:15:30.130
red state, not preserving that coast. You know, that coast
1330
01:15:30.170 --> 01:15:32.649
just keeps getting, you know, the oil and gas industry
1331
01:15:32.689 --> 01:15:36.250
just keeps destroying the coast down there of Louisiana. And
1332
01:15:36.689 --> 01:15:39.000
there's a lot of good old boys and a lot of,
1333
01:15:39.100 --> 01:15:42.279
you know, red-leaning voters who are saying stop already. And,
1334
01:15:42.319 --> 01:15:45.380
of course, it's happening with the data centers where people
1335
01:15:45.439 --> 01:15:48.000
are saying, uh-uh, not in my neighborhood, not anywhere near
1336
01:15:48.039 --> 01:15:50.010
my neighborhood. You know what a disaster this is? And
1337
01:15:50.319 --> 01:15:53.930
it's turning a lot of red districts blue. And of course,
1338
01:15:54.430 --> 01:15:57.590
Trump's not handling that situation very well because he's in
1339
01:15:57.609 --> 01:15:59.789
the pocket of the billionaires who want to have their
1340
01:15:59.810 --> 01:16:00.409
data centers.
1341
01:16:01.399 --> 01:16:03.029
If you want to see, you just made me think
1342
01:16:03.069 --> 01:16:04.560
of a David Katz. If you want to see a
1343
01:16:04.659 --> 01:16:11.439
good documentary about what's happened in Louisiana and Mississippi, the
1344
01:16:11.460 --> 01:16:14.260
other states that they're border on the Gulf of Mexico.
1345
01:16:15.020 --> 01:16:18.920
And you want to see how corporate interests, oil interests,
1346
01:16:19.079 --> 01:16:23.619
oil exploration and exploitation has destroyed that coast. There's a
1347
01:16:23.779 --> 01:16:26.939
great documentary, and it's called Lube Job. I don't know
1348
01:16:26.960 --> 01:16:29.739
where you could see it, but it's about just what
1349
01:16:29.779 --> 01:16:33.279
David Katz is speaking of in the area of Louisiana,
1350
01:16:33.300 --> 01:16:37.430
these habitats that are fragile. But you really see how
1351
01:16:37.550 --> 01:16:41.430
corporate interests take over, how they buy out communities, and
1352
01:16:41.449 --> 01:16:43.409
they get to do whatever they want to do. And
1353
01:16:43.449 --> 01:16:45.430
I feel like that's the time we live in. It's
1354
01:16:45.449 --> 01:16:47.989
called Lube Job. It came out a while ago, but, man,
1355
01:16:48.060 --> 01:16:53.329
it's really good. I recommend it. Katz, I love talking
1356
01:16:53.369 --> 01:16:57.399
to you. I'm out of time. Please come back and
1357
01:16:57.439 --> 01:17:01.760
visit next Thursday. Congratulations on getting the SCOTUS ruling correct. And,
1358
01:17:01.899 --> 01:17:04.699
you know, we talk about Kavanaugh, at least so far,
1359
01:17:04.739 --> 01:17:07.460
you could lose Kavanaugh on that mail-in ballot thing, and
1360
01:17:07.479 --> 01:17:10.369
you still have the votes to block any kind of
1361
01:17:10.409 --> 01:17:11.970
messing with mail-in balloting, right?
1362
01:17:13.310 --> 01:17:16.529
Yes, that's true. But if they have both houses of Congress...
1363
01:17:16.840 --> 01:17:20.010
This is a way to federalize elections. And you'd think
1364
01:17:20.029 --> 01:17:23.010
that it would be, you know, shot down immediately, that
1365
01:17:23.050 --> 01:17:26.979
he's receptive to the idea. And then, you know, you
1366
01:17:27.029 --> 01:17:31.180
add Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett, they don't need the chief.
1367
01:17:32.119 --> 01:17:35.819
And suddenly they really would disenfranchise a lot of people.
1368
01:17:35.859 --> 01:17:38.470
And then if you're not getting a reliable mail-in ballot,
1369
01:17:38.479 --> 01:17:40.470
then you have to go and vote. And there's a
1370
01:17:40.489 --> 01:17:43.210
lot of older voters, a lot of rural voters. A
1371
01:17:43.270 --> 01:17:46.609
lot of them are staunch Democrats. And they wouldn't be
1372
01:17:46.649 --> 01:17:49.170
able to get to the polls. And believe me, Trump
1373
01:17:49.210 --> 01:17:51.670
has figured all this out. This is, as you say,
1374
01:17:51.710 --> 01:17:54.829
the ballroom interests him and how to cheat and win
1375
01:17:54.869 --> 01:17:58.710
elections interest him and who they cut out, how they
1376
01:17:58.750 --> 01:18:01.310
cut out. Of course, black people That's still going on.
1377
01:18:01.510 --> 01:18:03.829
That hasn't stopped for this election. They're going to do
1378
01:18:03.850 --> 01:18:06.270
everything they can to suppress the black vote. You know
1379
01:18:06.289 --> 01:18:08.229
what they've done with the Voting Rights Act and the
1380
01:18:08.270 --> 01:18:10.619
redistricting and all of that. But a lot of that's
1381
01:18:10.640 --> 01:18:12.819
going to come to the fair. There's a blue wave.
1382
01:18:13.199 --> 01:18:15.960
You know, they've made these districts where they think the
1383
01:18:16.000 --> 01:18:19.100
Republicans will will clinch them. But if there's a blue wave,
1384
01:18:19.399 --> 01:18:21.539
you know, we can have something like what happened under
1385
01:18:21.560 --> 01:18:25.329
I guess it was Clinton. where 55 seats changed, and
1386
01:18:25.369 --> 01:18:29.359
I'm ready for the Congress, which is 55 more. Then
1387
01:18:29.399 --> 01:18:31.220
we can fight. The two wings of the party can
1388
01:18:31.279 --> 01:18:33.680
fight a little bit with a little comfort zone, right?
1389
01:18:35.020 --> 01:18:38.119
I'd love it. I'd love to see it. David, thank
1390
01:18:38.140 --> 01:18:41.180
you so much. Always love seeing you. David Katz, everybody.
1391
01:18:41.199 --> 01:18:43.130
You look very elegant today, Mark.
1392
01:18:43.170 --> 01:18:45.310
I don't know why I did. I did throw on
1393
01:18:45.390 --> 01:18:48.409
a jacket. You're right. Maybe I classed it up subconsciously
1394
01:18:48.470 --> 01:18:49.590
for you. I don't know.
1395
01:18:49.649 --> 01:18:52.319
Well, thank you. you so much. And Kim, be well, Albert.
1396
01:18:52.500 --> 01:18:53.100
Take care, guys.
1397
01:18:53.739 --> 01:18:56.340
All right. So long, David Katz. David Katz, everybody.
1398
01:18:56.359 --> 01:18:58.199
I love it.
1399
01:18:58.279 --> 01:19:00.779
I love it. I really always love talking to him.
1400
01:19:00.859 --> 01:19:02.739
He's so stinking smart.
1401
01:19:03.159 --> 01:19:03.340
Wow.
1402
01:19:05.430 --> 01:19:08.270
I have a couple of things I wanted to do,
1403
01:19:08.630 --> 01:19:11.390
one of which is I want to revisit, for those
1404
01:19:11.409 --> 01:19:18.439
who just may have joined, the Mitch McConnell moment. Two moments,
1405
01:19:18.500 --> 01:19:24.439
Mitch McConnell being brought to Capitol Hill to go to
1406
01:19:24.479 --> 01:19:27.920
a vote that he was then coached into making. Let
1407
01:19:27.960 --> 01:19:30.810
me revisit that quickly. And then I want to get
1408
01:19:30.890 --> 01:19:31.270
to my.
1409
01:19:33.789 --> 01:19:39.189
Conversation with Arlie. Can I still do that? Or, um, or, uh,
1410
01:19:39.680 --> 01:19:41.729
is that not possible now? I think I can do it.
1411
01:19:42.100 --> 01:19:42.800
You know, can I?
1412
01:19:43.300 --> 01:19:43.479
Yeah.
1413
01:19:44.199 --> 01:19:45.619
Uh, who's going to stop me? Am I right, Albert?
1414
01:19:45.720 --> 01:19:49.920
I mean, there's no one to stop me and that's.
1415
01:19:48.739 --> 01:19:49.319
The point, Albert.
1416
01:19:49.340 --> 01:19:50.300
I might have to stop you.
1417
01:19:50.699 --> 01:19:50.899
Why?
1418
01:19:52.649 --> 01:19:56.189
I think we've pushed our time limit and we haven't
1419
01:19:56.229 --> 01:19:57.770
even talked about the meetup.
1420
01:19:59.130 --> 01:20:00.409
Well, we have to talk about the meetup, but we
1421
01:20:00.449 --> 01:20:02.949
have no time limit. So why do I, why do I,
1422
01:20:02.970 --> 01:20:07.100
you know, I'm, I'm, uh, so, um, but I do
1423
01:20:07.109 --> 01:20:08.569
want to talk about the meetup and thank you for
1424
01:20:08.609 --> 01:20:13.439
mentioning that, Kim. I, I want to mention what's happening
1425
01:20:13.979 --> 01:20:19.420
with the meetup, which is coming up, uh, in October. And, uh,
1426
01:20:19.520 --> 01:20:24.319
I blame you. Yeah. October 2nd, five o'clock Pacific time.
1427
01:20:24.359 --> 01:20:27.260
That is eight o'clock in the East. What's up East coast.
1428
01:20:28.600 --> 01:20:32.909
Join us. Prime time in the East. Mark's Monster Meetup.
1429
01:20:34.310 --> 01:20:35.789
Albert's going to be there. Albert, are you going to
1430
01:20:35.810 --> 01:20:37.289
be there? Albert, thank you. I didn't ask you if
1431
01:20:37.329 --> 01:20:38.270
you could make it, actually.
1432
01:20:38.289 --> 01:20:40.109
I think you can swing by.
1433
01:20:40.550 --> 01:20:44.880
Okay, that would be very, very cool. It's two hours
1434
01:20:44.939 --> 01:20:49.119
of haunting fun. That's right. We're playing on the October
1435
01:20:49.159 --> 01:20:56.800
Halloween theme with these fine graphics prepared by Kim McAllister. What? Yeah,
1436
01:20:56.819 --> 01:21:00.500
I know. She's got the abilities far beyond what you see.
1437
01:21:01.340 --> 01:21:03.579
Two hours of haunting fun. If you want to join,
1438
01:21:03.979 --> 01:21:07.819
it's a $ 50 donation to the show via PayPal. And
1439
01:21:07.840 --> 01:21:10.359
there are PayPal links under this video and all of
1440
01:21:10.619 --> 01:21:14.010
our videos. Please note when you make the donation, MMM,
1441
01:21:14.689 --> 01:21:18.090
Mark's Monster Meetup. Then after you've done that, send us
1442
01:21:18.130 --> 01:21:23.890
an email to say, hey, I did it. mtsmeetup at gmail.com.
1443
01:21:24.189 --> 01:21:29.840
mtsmeetup at gmail.com. And for deep staters, Shout out to
1444
01:21:29.859 --> 01:21:33.060
the deep staters. Let me tell you. Big shout out.
1445
01:21:33.460 --> 01:21:35.560
If you've been a deep stater for two plus months,
1446
01:21:35.729 --> 01:21:36.789
you get in for free.
1447
01:21:38.229 --> 01:21:38.529
Yeah.
1448
01:21:39.350 --> 01:21:44.210
Free access to our monster meetup. But you still have
1449
01:21:44.270 --> 01:21:46.750
to confirm your spot. It's not enough just to be
1450
01:21:46.770 --> 01:21:48.810
a deep stater. You have to say, hey, I'm a
1451
01:21:48.829 --> 01:21:51.369
deep stater and I want to be part of things.
1452
01:21:52.050 --> 01:21:59.100
Send to the same email address, mtsmeetup at gmail.com. We'll
1453
01:21:59.119 --> 01:22:00.300
remind you again, but this is going to be a
1454
01:22:00.340 --> 01:22:03.020
lot of fun. October 2nd, we have some special guests
1455
01:22:03.380 --> 01:22:06.779
who have confirmed. 5 o'clock Pacific on October 2nd. It's
1456
01:22:06.840 --> 01:22:12.789
a Friday night. 8 o'clock Eastern Time. We'll kind of
1457
01:22:12.850 --> 01:22:19.229
warm you up. We'll make you happy that you joined
1458
01:22:19.590 --> 01:22:22.659
this special event. I do hug you.
1459
01:22:23.050 --> 01:22:25.350
And kiss people casually.
1460
01:22:25.630 --> 01:22:28.329
I'm not responsible for what happens at the meetup, but
1461
01:22:28.369 --> 01:22:30.689
it is a virtual event, so hugging and kissing will
1462
01:22:30.729 --> 01:22:33.930
have to be all done on a virtual level. Now,
1463
01:22:34.149 --> 01:22:36.789
I did want to... And now, your comments. Well, now
1464
01:22:36.850 --> 01:22:39.100
it really is running late. If we do everybody's comments,
1465
01:22:39.380 --> 01:22:44.220
Vivian Alshawa, she is an OG of the show. Big shout-out.
1466
01:22:44.260 --> 01:22:47.479
Big shout-out. Thank you for a $ 10 super sticker, Vivian.
1467
01:22:48.279 --> 01:22:53.310
Adore you. Thank you. Appreciate you. Weston, Florida says September
1468
01:22:53.329 --> 01:22:54.149
of 2022, gas was $ 3.
1469
01:22:54.050 --> 01:22:54.109
94.
1470
01:22:54.090 --> 01:22:56.229
Now it's $ 4.
1471
01:22:55.369 --> 01:22:55.800
40.
1472
01:22:55.800 --> 01:22:56.279
Diesel is $ 4.
1473
01:22:56.100 --> 01:22:56.189
96.
1474
01:22:56.189 --> 01:22:58.229
It was $ 4. 96. Now it's $ 6. 29, diesel is. Ground beef.
1475
01:22:59.680 --> 01:22:59.899
Was.
1476
01:22:59.920 --> 01:23:08.239
My words upset so many people. Okay, ground beef was $ 4. 89.
1477
01:23:20.479 --> 01:23:24.840
Now it's $ 692. A family of four's grocery bill was
1478
01:23:24.840 --> 01:23:26.159
$ 297 back in 2022. Now it's $ 330. NATO was stable.
1479
01:23:26.180 --> 01:23:29.739
Now it's unstable. Yep, promises kept, says Wes in Florida. Yeah,
1480
01:23:29.760 --> 01:23:43.000
I mean, it doesn't... It doesn't track that there's any
1481
01:23:43.039 --> 01:23:47.420
kind of policy or follow through associated with this administration
1482
01:23:47.439 --> 01:23:49.439
that you want to continue with. So when J.D. Vance
1483
01:23:49.479 --> 01:23:53.159
gets out there and says, you know, that's what we
1484
01:23:53.199 --> 01:23:55.479
want to do. We want to follow through. You want
1485
01:23:55.500 --> 01:23:57.140
to clean up the mess left with us. Clean up
1486
01:23:57.159 --> 01:24:00.850
the mess. There was no mess. The whole steaming mess
1487
01:24:00.939 --> 01:24:04.069
is you. So it just doesn't track.
1488
01:24:04.529 --> 01:24:08.750
We had a super cut that CNN put together about Trump.
1489
01:24:09.260 --> 01:24:11.899
like through the last couple of years and all the
1490
01:24:11.920 --> 01:24:14.720
times he said, you know, this is, this cost is
1491
01:24:14.760 --> 01:24:16.770
coming down and this cost is coming down.
1492
01:24:16.850 --> 01:24:21.449
It's so obviously, you know, let's play that it's cut seven,
1493
01:24:21.470 --> 01:24:25.010
but what you see here is Trump is a huckster. Okay.
1494
01:24:25.310 --> 01:24:28.739
Trump is a carnival Barker. Trump is a con man,
1495
01:24:29.199 --> 01:24:34.220
but the fact that so many were desperate for something,
1496
01:24:35.109 --> 01:24:37.430
that they actually let this guy back into the house.
1497
01:24:37.750 --> 01:24:40.970
It's crazy. And by the way, on that, I have
1498
01:24:40.989 --> 01:24:43.949
a conversation coming up with an author who goes deep
1499
01:24:44.189 --> 01:24:48.960
into Trump country. She is a brilliant writer. Her book
1500
01:24:49.199 --> 01:24:53.739
was picked out by Barack Obama as his favorite book
1501
01:24:53.779 --> 01:24:56.359
of 2024. She's coming up in just a minute. But
1502
01:24:56.380 --> 01:24:59.930
what I wanted to mention is that she speaks and
1503
01:25:00.060 --> 01:25:04.329
writes about these people with whom she's met in this pandemic.
1504
01:25:05.229 --> 01:25:09.109
desperate area of Kentucky that has been ravaged economically and
1505
01:25:09.149 --> 01:25:12.220
has been a victim of a fentanyl addiction and all
1506
01:25:12.239 --> 01:25:14.960
this other stuff that goes on there and how they
1507
01:25:15.100 --> 01:25:19.039
still sparked to this guy, Trump. They voted for Trump
1508
01:25:19.039 --> 01:25:25.149
80% to 20%. So, but here is Trump with his promises.
1509
01:25:25.159 --> 01:25:28.609
And as I say, these promises got swallowed whole. People
1510
01:25:28.710 --> 01:25:31.789
believed it. To me, it's, as I say, it's a
1511
01:25:31.850 --> 01:25:33.829
carnival barker, but here it is, cut seven.
1512
01:25:34.180 --> 01:25:36.100
Thing that the president ran on, the thing he said
1513
01:25:36.140 --> 01:25:38.619
he was going to do, he hasn't done. I mean,
1514
01:25:38.640 --> 01:25:41.000
let's look, let's flashback and watch all of the times
1515
01:25:41.539 --> 01:25:45.449
the president claimed, promised everyone, all of you watching, everyone
1516
01:25:45.470 --> 01:25:48.090
in America, that he was going to lower inflation.
1517
01:25:48.210 --> 01:25:48.529
Watch.
1518
01:25:50.409 --> 01:25:54.300
I will end the devastating inflation crisis immediately, bring down
1519
01:25:54.380 --> 01:25:55.939
interest rates and lower.
1520
01:25:55.699 --> 01:25:56.680
The cost of energy.
1521
01:25:57.310 --> 01:26:01.029
Starting on day one, we will end inflation and make
1522
01:26:01.149 --> 01:26:04.500
America affordable again. And your prices are going to come
1523
01:26:04.579 --> 01:26:08.479
tumbling down. Your gasoline is going to come tumbling down
1524
01:26:08.520 --> 01:26:10.859
and your heating bills and cooling bills are going to
1525
01:26:10.899 --> 01:26:13.680
be coming down. When I win, I will immediately bring
1526
01:26:13.739 --> 01:26:14.539
prices down.
1527
01:26:14.760 --> 01:26:16.880
We will defeat inflation quickly.
1528
01:26:17.239 --> 01:26:21.590
Your energy prices will be cut in half within 12
1529
01:26:21.590 --> 01:26:23.090
months from January 20th.
1530
01:26:24.270 --> 01:26:25.710
That explicit promise, your energy.
1531
01:26:27.500 --> 01:26:32.000
That's the lunacy, right? I mean, it was just, I
1532
01:26:32.039 --> 01:26:34.649
can end the war in 24 hours. I may not
1533
01:26:34.689 --> 01:26:36.369
even have to take office. I can just make a
1534
01:26:36.409 --> 01:26:38.729
phone call and end the war. I'll lower your energy
1535
01:26:38.770 --> 01:26:42.810
prices by half. I mean, all of the made-up numbers,
1536
01:26:42.909 --> 01:26:45.270
trillions of dollars of new business to the U. I mean,
1537
01:26:45.430 --> 01:26:48.930
he just, to me, it's so obvious. That's why I
1538
01:26:48.930 --> 01:26:52.739
always call him a clunky con. But a lot of
1539
01:26:52.760 --> 01:26:56.000
people bought in, so... That was the way it was.
1540
01:26:56.380 --> 01:26:59.760
Support independent media, says Maude Day, who is an OG
1541
01:26:59.800 --> 01:27:03.340
of the show. Big shout-out. Maude Day with a $ 25
1542
01:27:03.270 --> 01:27:03.909
Super Chat.
1543
01:27:03.930 --> 01:27:05.590
Thank you so, so much.
1544
01:27:05.729 --> 01:27:09.630
Ditch corporate media. Thank you, Mark Thompson Show. Thank you,
1545
01:27:09.810 --> 01:27:12.289
Maude Day. Thank you so much. Thank you so much.
1546
01:27:12.649 --> 01:27:14.149
I'll give you a thank you, thank you, thank you.
1547
01:27:14.189 --> 01:27:15.630
Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.
1548
01:27:15.649 --> 01:27:15.750
Yes.
1549
01:27:16.310 --> 01:27:19.109
Really do appreciate that. Yeah, I mean, it's sad we
1550
01:27:19.130 --> 01:27:21.520
have to come over here to independent media, but I
1551
01:27:21.560 --> 01:27:23.180
think it's the, you know.
1552
01:27:24.770 --> 01:27:26.670
It's the way. And even here, we have to kind
1553
01:27:26.729 --> 01:27:32.689
of watch ourselves a bit. Is this Angela Silva with
1554
01:27:33.149 --> 01:27:34.680
a $ 10 super sticker? Big shout out. Is that who
1555
01:27:34.720 --> 01:27:37.500
that is? I love it. Thank you so much. Thank
1556
01:27:37.520 --> 01:27:41.880
you so much. Thank you, Angela. Vilma with a $ 2
1557
01:27:41.739 --> 01:27:46.460
super chat. Next Trump remodel. Watch out. Lincoln Memorial. Yeah,
1558
01:27:47.039 --> 01:27:49.189
I like it. I like it, but I just think
1559
01:27:49.229 --> 01:27:51.510
it could be better. People have been asking for a
1560
01:27:51.569 --> 01:27:57.010
remodel of the Lincoln Memorial for a long time. It's
1561
01:27:57.090 --> 01:28:00.470
crazy what he's doing. Louise for the $ 5 Super Chat.
1562
01:28:00.569 --> 01:28:02.920
Vance wants, quote, another chance.
1563
01:28:03.399 --> 01:28:03.619
Right.
1564
01:28:03.960 --> 01:28:06.100
And the Empire wants another shot too because of the
1565
01:28:06.159 --> 01:28:13.960
destruction of two Death Stars and a planet. Just minor setbacks. Yeah.
1566
01:28:15.020 --> 01:28:18.189
It's insane. I mean, you can't run on a record
1567
01:28:18.310 --> 01:28:21.409
of achievement. You can't run on a record of accomplishment.
1568
01:28:21.649 --> 01:28:25.189
I mean, how long are you going to run on
1569
01:28:25.609 --> 01:28:28.579
no tax on tips. And that's about all you've got
1570
01:28:29.100 --> 01:28:33.300
because your tax cuts overwhelmingly favored the richest Americans. And
1571
01:28:33.340 --> 01:28:39.189
then you gut the IRS of any white-collar enforcement. So
1572
01:28:39.770 --> 01:28:43.689
tax dodging is invited. This, in addition to all the
1573
01:28:43.789 --> 01:28:48.039
open corruption and all the rest that's juxtaposed against the
1574
01:28:48.060 --> 01:28:51.939
kind of plight of the every American. For those just joining,
1575
01:28:51.979 --> 01:28:55.020
I wanted to show you Mitch McConnell being wheeled back out.
1576
01:28:55.819 --> 01:29:00.479
Mitch McConnell wheeled out of his home. On to Capitol Hill.
1577
01:29:00.539 --> 01:29:05.199
Here's Mitch leaving his Washington, D.C. home in a wheelchair,
1578
01:29:06.800 --> 01:29:12.399
and he looks excited to get back to work. For
1579
01:29:12.420 --> 01:29:15.939
those just listening, they wheel him, and then they turn
1580
01:29:15.979 --> 01:29:20.090
him around for the curb maneuver, lowered off the curb,
1581
01:29:20.770 --> 01:29:25.029
and then piled into a car as he waves. Says nothing,
1582
01:29:25.590 --> 01:29:28.989
but then gets to Capitol Hill where he's being coached
1583
01:29:30.119 --> 01:29:34.960
As to how to vote, here he is, center, bottom
1584
01:29:34.979 --> 01:29:38.239
of your screen, being coached as to how to vote
1585
01:29:38.520 --> 01:29:43.149
on this Agricultural Committee piece of business. As an original bill,
1586
01:29:43.510 --> 01:29:48.149
the clerk will call. You can see Senator next to
1587
01:29:48.189 --> 01:29:52.699
him leaning over. Senator Fetterman. Yeah, you got it.
1588
01:29:53.210 --> 01:29:53.930
Senator Schiff.
1589
01:29:56.060 --> 01:29:56.899
No by proxy.
1590
01:29:58.600 --> 01:29:59.579
Senator Slotkin.
1591
01:30:00.989 --> 01:30:01.850
No by proxy.
1592
01:30:03.729 --> 01:30:04.689
Senator McConnell.
1593
01:30:05.649 --> 01:30:05.770
No.
1594
01:30:10.109 --> 01:30:10.989
Senator McConnell.
1595
01:30:11.529 --> 01:30:11.609
Aye.
1596
01:30:12.649 --> 01:30:13.390
Senator Hovind.
1597
01:30:13.409 --> 01:30:14.750
So he did get aye out.
1598
01:30:14.909 --> 01:30:17.050
But did you hear that he said no first?
1599
01:30:17.369 --> 01:30:17.510
Yeah.
1600
01:30:17.529 --> 01:30:21.170
First he said no. Yeah, he didn't get it right.
1601
01:30:21.569 --> 01:30:23.510
I'd like to make a statement, Mr. Chairman.
1602
01:30:23.529 --> 01:30:25.289
First, first three of them at number one.
1603
01:30:25.229 --> 01:30:26.810
Was timely filed by the committee.
1604
01:30:26.829 --> 01:30:27.770
That's okay. Thank you, Albert.
1605
01:30:28.489 --> 01:30:28.689
The.
1606
01:30:30.609 --> 01:30:33.289
Look, there's so many things to say, and I mentioned
1607
01:30:33.310 --> 01:30:37.590
this in the last hour, but the first thing that
1608
01:30:37.609 --> 01:30:39.770
comes to mind is that these guys have dined out
1609
01:30:40.680 --> 01:30:45.399
on Biden being completely checked out, on how Biden, you know,
1610
01:30:45.420 --> 01:30:47.960
didn't know where he was half the time. These guys,
1611
01:30:48.119 --> 01:30:51.159
everybody piled on to the Biden doesn't know where he is.
1612
01:30:51.680 --> 01:30:58.659
Biden is, you know, a walking vacant man who needs
1613
01:30:58.699 --> 01:31:03.800
the auto pen. And without, uh, guidance, uh, nothing would
1614
01:31:03.840 --> 01:31:06.640
happen in the white house. He's not even really president, uh,
1615
01:31:07.020 --> 01:31:10.859
or everything from Obama's still president to, uh, he's being
1616
01:31:10.920 --> 01:31:13.659
coached by any number of people who are actually doing
1617
01:31:13.699 --> 01:31:16.470
the governing because Biden just doesn't know where he is.
1618
01:31:16.609 --> 01:31:19.810
They dined out on that for months and months and
1619
01:31:19.850 --> 01:31:23.470
months and months. Now you get this guy, Mitch McConnell,
1620
01:31:23.510 --> 01:31:26.939
who was out of commission through the summer. There were
1621
01:31:27.140 --> 01:31:30.159
no public statements made from Mitch McConnell, but everybody talked
1622
01:31:30.199 --> 01:31:32.869
to Mitch McConnell. That Scott Jennings guy, I talked to him.
1623
01:31:33.119 --> 01:31:37.130
We talked about, we reflected on government and government service. And,
1624
01:31:37.350 --> 01:31:39.729
you know, Mitch likes to talk about history. And yeah,
1625
01:31:39.909 --> 01:31:41.810
this is the same stuff you heard about Biden, right?
1626
01:31:42.350 --> 01:31:44.819
When people said that about Biden, they made fun of it.
1627
01:31:46.130 --> 01:31:47.949
I talked to Joe Biden this past weekend. He was
1628
01:31:47.989 --> 01:31:54.250
perfectly fine, etc. So, again, you can't pillory Biden the
1629
01:31:54.289 --> 01:31:58.130
way you did and then somehow be cool with what's
1630
01:31:58.170 --> 01:32:02.550
happening with Mitch McConnell. And Mitch McConnell, again, indicative of
1631
01:32:02.569 --> 01:32:06.810
this foundational problem we have in our government, this gerontocracy
1632
01:32:07.149 --> 01:32:14.100
that takes over and rules for decades. And ultimately... Mitch
1633
01:32:14.140 --> 01:32:18.500
McConnell needs to be coached. I mean, I and nay?
1634
01:32:18.520 --> 01:32:22.539
I mean, you need to coach him like you'll remember
1635
01:32:22.579 --> 01:32:28.060
Dianne Feinstein was coached. It's embarrassing. It's shameful. And it's
1636
01:32:28.100 --> 01:32:32.479
an insult to the American public. So this is where
1637
01:32:32.520 --> 01:32:38.329
we are. And to me, it both is ironic because,
1638
01:32:38.369 --> 01:32:42.029
as I say, they so went after Biden for the
1639
01:32:42.069 --> 01:32:45.829
same thing. And it's also shameful and reflects a real
1640
01:32:45.890 --> 01:32:49.819
problem with incumbency, with the lack of term limits, and
1641
01:32:49.880 --> 01:32:54.260
with those in charge who, again, on some level, really
1642
01:32:54.979 --> 01:32:57.399
don't know where they are. And they have to be
1643
01:32:57.840 --> 01:33:02.380
helped along in any number of embarrassing ways. So that's
1644
01:33:03.199 --> 01:33:06.380
what happened with Mitch McConnell as he has been propped
1645
01:33:06.479 --> 01:33:09.970
up Weekend at Bernie's style. to get a vote done.
1646
01:33:11.329 --> 01:33:14.649
The Mark Thompson Show. I had a conversation just yesterday
1647
01:33:14.680 --> 01:33:19.020
with a great author of a best-selling book, and this
1648
01:33:19.359 --> 01:33:27.720
is a conversation about the deepest red areas. She wrote
1649
01:33:27.760 --> 01:33:31.470
a book about Louisiana, and she wrote a book about Kentucky.
1650
01:33:31.510 --> 01:33:34.470
This is a book about Kentucky, and this is an
1651
01:33:34.569 --> 01:33:39.890
area that went overwhelmingly for Trump, but the revelations that
1652
01:33:40.050 --> 01:33:45.000
she brings forward are extraordinary. I think you'll really love
1653
01:33:45.020 --> 01:33:47.300
this conversation. As I said, just had it yesterday. So
1654
01:33:47.380 --> 01:33:58.079
without any further delay, um, let's do it. Oh my goodness.
1655
01:33:58.180 --> 01:34:00.590
I've got a big star here. I'm very excited. A
1656
01:34:00.619 --> 01:34:04.750
little bit nervous. So I'll go from her bio sent
1657
01:34:04.770 --> 01:34:10.960
to me by the publisher. But, uh, Arlie Russell Hochschild
1658
01:34:11.859 --> 01:34:15.560
is the author of many groundbreaking books. You'll be familiar
1659
01:34:15.600 --> 01:34:20.020
with them. The Second Shift, The Managed Heart, The Time Bind,
1660
01:34:20.460 --> 01:34:23.000
Strangers in Their Own Land. That became an instant bestseller.
1661
01:34:23.060 --> 01:34:26.029
It was a finalist for the National Book Award. She's
1662
01:34:26.060 --> 01:34:29.180
a professor emerita of sociology at the University of California
1663
01:34:29.199 --> 01:34:32.699
there in Berkeley. Bay Area kid, I love that. We
1664
01:34:32.739 --> 01:34:36.039
love the San Francisco Bay Area here. Her previous book,
1665
01:34:36.079 --> 01:34:39.329
Strangers in Their Own Land, is fascinating and really is
1666
01:34:39.369 --> 01:34:42.050
a companion piece to this book that we're going to
1667
01:34:42.090 --> 01:34:47.289
talk about. Strangers in Their Own Land looked at Louisiana,
1668
01:34:47.409 --> 01:34:50.909
deep into Louisiana, and at the Tea Party movement. And
1669
01:34:51.289 --> 01:34:53.829
she spent five years there getting to know the people
1670
01:34:54.409 --> 01:34:59.229
who were part of that movement. And in a way,
1671
01:34:59.250 --> 01:35:05.010
it spoke to the growing political divide in America. And critically,
1672
01:35:05.930 --> 01:35:07.770
because this question is asked a lot, how come these
1673
01:35:07.810 --> 01:35:10.369
people vote against their own interests? You know, you always
1674
01:35:10.409 --> 01:35:13.630
hear that question. And this is something that she addresses
1675
01:35:14.069 --> 01:35:18.619
in the prior book. So, again, that became a bestseller,
1676
01:35:18.869 --> 01:35:21.770
and it was a finalist for the National Book Award.
1677
01:35:22.109 --> 01:35:26.569
And I think this book, Stolen Pride, Lost Shame and
1678
01:35:26.590 --> 01:35:29.329
the Rise of the Right, which has now just become
1679
01:35:30.930 --> 01:35:34.590
paperback available, it was, I believe, and I'll ask her
1680
01:35:34.609 --> 01:35:37.890
in a second, one of Barack Obama's favorite books of 2024.
1681
01:35:37.890 --> 01:35:44.420
How about it without further delay, although delaying really is fun.
1682
01:35:45.260 --> 01:35:50.699
Arlie Russell Hochschild, everyone. And Arlie, welcome. You are a
1683
01:35:50.739 --> 01:35:53.060
big star, as I mentioned, and I'm delighted to have
1684
01:35:53.100 --> 01:35:53.399
you here.
1685
01:35:54.689 --> 01:35:55.510
Well, wonderful.
1686
01:35:55.569 --> 01:35:56.050
Thank you.
1687
01:35:56.329 --> 01:35:57.430
I'm with the big star.
1688
01:35:59.489 --> 01:36:03.289
It's star on star fun. Here we go. I'm right.
1689
01:36:03.449 --> 01:36:07.069
Didn't Obama say that this book was his favorite of 2024?
1690
01:36:07.069 --> 01:36:08.149
Yes, that's right.
1691
01:36:08.310 --> 01:36:14.029
That's right. So I want to start with the title because, um,
1692
01:36:15.050 --> 01:36:22.850
Stolen pride, I feel, is deliberately a loaded way to
1693
01:36:22.890 --> 01:36:28.819
describe the reaction of so much of the country. And
1694
01:36:29.279 --> 01:36:35.659
when you think something's stolen, you feel the sense of anger.
1695
01:36:36.239 --> 01:36:41.479
You feel a sense of fear. revenge being necessary maybe,
1696
01:36:42.680 --> 01:36:47.279
and like a repudiation that you want. And I'm wondering if,
1697
01:36:48.699 --> 01:36:51.510
and I know the answer, but I think I know
1698
01:36:51.529 --> 01:36:54.250
some of the answer, but maybe you can expand on
1699
01:36:54.270 --> 01:36:56.310
that because you do talk about this in the book.
1700
01:36:57.930 --> 01:37:06.779
Yes. Stolen pride is a narrative that is part of
1701
01:37:06.920 --> 01:37:13.090
what I came to think of as emotional capture that occurred.
1702
01:37:13.710 --> 01:37:23.229
And I went to Eastern Kentucky, that's in Appalachia, that's
1703
01:37:23.350 --> 01:37:29.289
coal country. It is the second poorest and whitest congressional
1704
01:37:29.329 --> 01:37:35.350
district in the country. And the reason I went there
1705
01:37:36.069 --> 01:37:40.649
I was interested in was that it used to be
1706
01:37:41.189 --> 01:37:47.260
New Deal Democrats. It was Uniontown. And they went for
1707
01:37:47.319 --> 01:37:52.619
Bill Clinton. But in the last three elections, 83% of
1708
01:37:52.680 --> 01:37:56.180
those that voted, voted for Donald Trump. So I went
1709
01:37:56.239 --> 01:38:03.609
there saying, what happened? What's going on here? And so
1710
01:38:03.649 --> 01:38:09.199
what I found, and essence is that already before Donald
1711
01:38:09.270 --> 01:38:14.850
Trump hit town, there was a predisposition that people had
1712
01:38:14.869 --> 01:38:18.590
to look for answers to the big thing that had
1713
01:38:18.710 --> 01:38:23.229
happened to them, which is loss, loss. They felt that
1714
01:38:23.310 --> 01:38:27.069
their region had lost coal jobs. They used to be
1715
01:38:27.109 --> 01:38:33.600
the pride of America. You know, we put on the
1716
01:38:33.680 --> 01:38:38.579
lights in America. Our coal, they got us through World
1717
01:38:38.600 --> 01:38:41.359
War I, World War II. There's great pride. And now
1718
01:38:42.119 --> 01:38:46.539
coal was out and no jobs, other good jobs were
1719
01:38:46.600 --> 01:38:49.380
coming in. And in fact, what was coming in was
1720
01:38:49.420 --> 01:38:55.680
an opiate addiction crisis ongoing. And when, just before I
1721
01:38:55.760 --> 01:39:02.060
got there, there was talk of a neo-Nazi-led white nationalist
1722
01:39:02.220 --> 01:39:05.140
march coming to town. I thought, oh no, this is
1723
01:39:05.180 --> 01:39:10.399
a perfect storm. Bad answer to real problems. That was
1724
01:39:10.439 --> 01:39:17.479
the predisposition. But stolen pride comes from something else. It's
1725
01:39:18.779 --> 01:39:25.390
the emotional capture that occurred when Donald Trump came to
1726
01:39:25.470 --> 01:39:32.289
town and he did three things. One, he put out
1727
01:39:32.430 --> 01:39:36.449
an appeal to recognition. I see who you are. I
1728
01:39:36.750 --> 01:39:40.829
understand your loss. I'm speaking to loss. Loss is a
1729
01:39:40.909 --> 01:39:45.340
big deal. Loss not just of jobs, but of identity,
1730
01:39:45.439 --> 01:39:50.899
of community. pride so i see what's happened to you
1731
01:39:52.239 --> 01:39:58.329
and then the second thing emotional capture is is putting
1732
01:39:58.449 --> 01:40:03.350
out a persuasive narrative this narrative of stolen pride what's
1733
01:40:03.409 --> 01:40:10.020
that narrative the narrative is oh you've what a mess
1734
01:40:10.079 --> 01:40:13.000
you are you used to be crap proud and now
1735
01:40:13.199 --> 01:40:18.640
you're ashamed Who took your pride from you? That didn't
1736
01:40:18.720 --> 01:40:25.359
just go away automatically. Somebody stole it. Who stole it? Migrants,
1737
01:40:26.119 --> 01:40:32.439
you know, the federal government, the universities, the left. And
1738
01:40:33.920 --> 01:40:38.460
I will get revenge. So that's the narrative that got sold.
1739
01:40:39.260 --> 01:40:43.020
But there was a third moment. So first appeal, second
1740
01:40:43.159 --> 01:40:48.439
persuasive narrative. And the third thing, and it's recurring every
1741
01:40:48.520 --> 01:40:52.699
few weeks in different guys, is what I call an
1742
01:40:53.720 --> 01:41:00.569
anti-shaming ritual. What's an anti-shaming ritual? It has certain moments.
1743
01:41:01.250 --> 01:41:10.449
The ritual begins with Donald Trump saying something outrageous, like,
1744
01:41:12.189 --> 01:41:16.640
Haitian immigrants are eating your pet cats and dogs.
1745
01:41:17.520 --> 01:41:17.840
Okay.
1746
01:41:18.380 --> 01:41:22.420
Moment two, the punditry shames Donald Trump. You can't say that.
1747
01:41:22.500 --> 01:41:26.270
It's not true. It's a lie. How can you do that?
1748
01:41:27.289 --> 01:41:32.409
And then, you know, the comedians begin to mock him.
1749
01:41:32.829 --> 01:41:39.560
And the congressman, so he gets criticized by the pundits.
1750
01:41:40.500 --> 01:41:45.619
Then in moment three, Donald Trump becomes the victim. Oh,
1751
01:41:45.800 --> 01:41:51.729
look how they're criticizing me. It's awful. Don't you, he
1752
01:41:51.850 --> 01:41:55.829
says to his followers, don't you know what that's like
1753
01:41:55.949 --> 01:41:59.890
to be shamed, to be put down? Isn't that hard? Well,
1754
01:41:59.909 --> 01:42:03.970
they're doing to me what they want to do to
1755
01:42:04.050 --> 01:42:07.600
you is to shame you further. And then this is
1756
01:42:08.310 --> 01:42:12.729
in moment three, Donald Trump's Jesus moment. I will take
1757
01:42:12.850 --> 01:42:17.029
the shame off of yourself and put it on myself.
1758
01:42:17.149 --> 01:42:21.300
So I'm the victim of your shame. And you should
1759
01:42:21.340 --> 01:42:25.340
feel a little lighter now. And I feel heavier. It's hard.
1760
01:42:25.659 --> 01:42:28.659
It's hard. They want to indict me. They say I'm
1761
01:42:28.699 --> 01:42:31.899
a liar. They say I'm a thief. You know how
1762
01:42:31.960 --> 01:42:37.020
hard it is to be criticized. That's moment three. And
1763
01:42:37.060 --> 01:42:40.909
then moment four is retribution. I'm getting back at them.
1764
01:42:41.460 --> 01:42:45.420
for the shaming they did to you. So that is
1765
01:42:45.539 --> 01:42:50.380
the three-part emotional capture. Again, I see who you are.
1766
01:42:51.119 --> 01:42:54.060
I'm going to give you a narrative to turn shame
1767
01:42:54.399 --> 01:43:00.590
to blame, depression to anger. And then thirdly, I'm going
1768
01:43:00.630 --> 01:43:04.090
to take the pain off of you, give you a
1769
01:43:04.170 --> 01:43:08.930
feeling of elation and community, and put it on myself.
1770
01:43:09.510 --> 01:43:17.670
So people say, why did People elect to billionaire anti-union guy,
1771
01:43:17.750 --> 01:43:23.310
doesn't believe in minimum wage, taking your benefits away. Well,
1772
01:43:24.130 --> 01:43:27.840
it's because part of their interest is emotional. As for
1773
01:43:27.920 --> 01:43:33.439
us all, they're not alone in that. And so I
1774
01:43:33.579 --> 01:43:39.029
think that in this small place, we see a paradigm
1775
01:43:39.170 --> 01:43:42.569
for a larger story that's happening not only elsewhere in
1776
01:43:42.590 --> 01:43:48.109
the United States, but in other countries around the world.
1777
01:43:48.350 --> 01:43:52.689
The turn right, I think, involves those two things. A
1778
01:43:52.789 --> 01:43:57.449
predisposition among people who have lost, their region has lost,
1779
01:43:57.729 --> 01:44:03.109
they personally have lost something. And that kind of answer
1780
01:44:03.140 --> 01:44:04.920
of emotional capture.
1781
01:44:04.939 --> 01:44:12.909
Yeah, it's... so very much relevant, the emotional aspect to voting,
1782
01:44:13.090 --> 01:44:17.310
to movements of all kinds. I mean, this is what
1783
01:44:17.369 --> 01:44:20.670
you discuss at length. And this pride paradox that you
1784
01:44:20.689 --> 01:44:26.930
talk about where there is a desire to live up
1785
01:44:27.010 --> 01:44:31.029
to what you feel you should be doing, that is
1786
01:44:31.069 --> 01:44:35.960
to say working, doing well, providing for your family, having
1787
01:44:36.000 --> 01:44:40.539
a robust, even middle-class life, yet that life has left town,
1788
01:44:40.979 --> 01:44:44.810
you know, and now you're searching. I wonder if you
1789
01:44:44.819 --> 01:44:47.609
could spend a beat on that, because that's a combination
1790
01:44:47.649 --> 01:44:49.050
of emotion and economics.
1791
01:44:49.949 --> 01:44:56.630
Exactly, exactly. You've got it exactly, Mark. And I found
1792
01:44:56.930 --> 01:45:01.909
something sad, a kind of a paradox, that here in
1793
01:45:02.109 --> 01:45:09.689
Eastern Kentucky, where people are highly traditional and highly individualistic.
1794
01:45:09.989 --> 01:45:17.279
So they'll think, well, if I make it and I'm
1795
01:45:17.319 --> 01:45:20.739
doing well, that's on me. I did that with my
1796
01:45:20.819 --> 01:45:26.079
hard work. And if I fail, damn, that's also on me,
1797
01:45:26.319 --> 01:45:32.029
my failure. And So it's a version of the American
1798
01:45:32.100 --> 01:45:36.460
dream that puts a lot on the individual. And so
1799
01:45:36.720 --> 01:45:42.180
when there is a structural collapse of the main industry
1800
01:45:42.239 --> 01:45:48.270
in a one industry region, you have people blaming themselves,
1801
01:45:48.329 --> 01:45:55.329
feeling bad, and they need food stamps now when they're unemployed,
1802
01:45:55.390 --> 01:46:00.750
but they have to drive to another region another village
1803
01:46:01.090 --> 01:46:04.550
because they're ashamed to be seen on welfare. I never
1804
01:46:04.590 --> 01:46:06.750
thought I was that kind of person. So it's a
1805
01:46:06.770 --> 01:46:12.000
kind of a shame story. And what's paradoxical is in
1806
01:46:12.359 --> 01:46:16.840
regions like the Bay Area, we're kind of the winners
1807
01:46:17.180 --> 01:46:25.810
of globalization, not the losers of globalization. The winners who
1808
01:46:25.869 --> 01:46:33.529
have more good luck, uh, economically have a more circumstantial
1809
01:46:33.949 --> 01:46:38.560
culture of pride. They're less likely to say, damn, what
1810
01:46:38.600 --> 01:46:41.579
did I do wrong? You know, I didn't get in
1811
01:46:41.600 --> 01:46:47.619
my truck to go to work early enough. And they're
1812
01:46:47.640 --> 01:46:52.199
more likely to say the sector fell down. So you
1813
01:46:52.239 --> 01:46:57.189
have people who are being doubly punished in the areas
1814
01:46:57.310 --> 01:47:00.340
that went for Trump. I think you have people who
1815
01:47:00.619 --> 01:47:06.720
both get hit economically and tend to blame themselves. That's
1816
01:47:06.760 --> 01:47:09.699
what the pride paradox is.
1817
01:47:10.159 --> 01:47:15.819
Yeah, and that bootstrap pride that you touch on, this
1818
01:47:15.899 --> 01:47:18.390
is so much, it seems part of their DNA in
1819
01:47:18.399 --> 01:47:21.770
this part of Kentucky, you know, the strong association with
1820
01:47:21.829 --> 01:47:24.850
the as you just said, I can make for my
1821
01:47:24.890 --> 01:47:30.569
own success. And so the lack of attraction in that way,
1822
01:47:31.430 --> 01:47:33.550
which is really no fault of their own in the
1823
01:47:33.590 --> 01:47:36.420
ways that you've just referred to a couple of minutes ago,
1824
01:47:37.699 --> 01:47:40.340
it leads to an even greater spiral down.
1825
01:47:41.079 --> 01:47:45.560
And I found a certain poignance and even beauty. I mean,
1826
01:47:45.640 --> 01:47:50.649
people would say, I grew up really poor. And then
1827
01:47:50.689 --> 01:47:54.430
they would say, but like Dolly Parton, Mama May Do,
1828
01:47:54.829 --> 01:47:59.420
you know, and we had fun. There was no grass
1829
01:47:59.479 --> 01:48:04.399
in the front of the trailer because we girls, you know,
1830
01:48:04.520 --> 01:48:09.260
we were skipping rope and we were having fun and
1831
01:48:09.260 --> 01:48:14.529
we all worked. Daddy did his best. He'd come home
1832
01:48:14.529 --> 01:48:18.659
from the coal mine and he'd sit down at the
1833
01:48:18.699 --> 01:48:23.319
kitchen table and I'd pull pieces of coal out of
1834
01:48:23.439 --> 01:48:26.960
his leg because he worked in the part of the
1835
01:48:27.020 --> 01:48:30.970
mine where he had to lie flat on the ground
1836
01:48:32.050 --> 01:48:36.989
and reach in crevices for the coal. So I'd pull
1837
01:48:37.029 --> 01:48:40.529
that out. He'd have his coffee and Oh, we had
1838
01:48:40.550 --> 01:48:44.649
a good life. You know, so it was poignant and admirable.
1839
01:48:44.789 --> 01:48:49.550
They are make-do people. And it was beautiful to me,
1840
01:48:49.670 --> 01:48:55.649
but poignant that that moral virtue was being, in a way,
1841
01:48:55.890 --> 01:49:04.949
abused by the laying of this narrative and the anti-shaming ritual,
1842
01:49:06.180 --> 01:49:11.880
which got them to the situation they and we are
1843
01:49:12.060 --> 01:49:16.079
in now where they're losing what little they had.
1844
01:49:17.239 --> 01:49:21.689
They feel bereft, you know, and, uh, the, the ways
1845
01:49:21.750 --> 01:49:26.270
in which you detail how, uh, that then manifests as
1846
01:49:26.369 --> 01:49:29.210
sparking to this movement in a sparking to this right
1847
01:49:29.270 --> 01:49:32.310
wing populism to, as you've described it, the sort of the,
1848
01:49:32.649 --> 01:49:35.550
the Trump, you know, savior complex thing that he's got going.
1849
01:49:36.180 --> 01:49:37.960
But what's also really interesting, and I wonder if you
1850
01:49:37.979 --> 01:49:39.859
could just give us a beat on this, is the
1851
01:49:39.899 --> 01:49:42.960
way that in this place that you've described, I mean,
1852
01:49:42.979 --> 01:49:46.439
this destitute place, which is victimized by all of the
1853
01:49:46.479 --> 01:49:49.479
things to which you've referred and more, there is a
1854
01:49:51.100 --> 01:49:55.020
group of people that goes the way that you've said.
1855
01:49:55.579 --> 01:49:57.390
And then there are a few that kind of seem
1856
01:49:57.659 --> 01:50:01.050
as though they're resistant to it. Like they're not buying
1857
01:50:01.069 --> 01:50:02.850
the medicine show that's rolling through town.
1858
01:50:04.010 --> 01:50:08.680
You know, a beautiful thing happened for me in writing
1859
01:50:08.729 --> 01:50:12.899
Stolen Pride that I've never happened with any other books
1860
01:50:13.000 --> 01:50:16.560
that I've done. The people, at first I gave the
1861
01:50:16.600 --> 01:50:19.899
book out, and then the people that I had profiled
1862
01:50:20.060 --> 01:50:22.750
wanted to meet each other. They thought each other was
1863
01:50:22.829 --> 01:50:29.029
pretty interesting. And so we gathered just about 11 months
1864
01:50:29.109 --> 01:50:34.609
ago in Portland, Pikeville, Kentucky, all got together. And what
1865
01:50:34.649 --> 01:50:38.670
they wanted to have was not a dialogue between people
1866
01:50:38.729 --> 01:50:42.010
who were for Trump and people who were against Trump,
1867
01:50:42.409 --> 01:50:45.390
not a dialogue. They called it a holler log because
1868
01:50:45.430 --> 01:50:47.909
they live in the hollers. That's what they call the
1869
01:50:47.970 --> 01:50:52.630
valley homes where their homes and trailers are. So a
1870
01:50:52.670 --> 01:50:57.810
holler log. And it was extraordinary. And in a way,
1871
01:50:57.909 --> 01:51:01.329
I found this kind of a model for the kind
1872
01:51:01.409 --> 01:51:07.369
of bridging dialogue that I think Americans need to get into.
1873
01:51:07.390 --> 01:51:10.210
They were a model of it. And it would go
1874
01:51:10.310 --> 01:51:16.149
something like this. A man who was very against Trump
1875
01:51:16.229 --> 01:51:20.680
would say, I believe that every child, even a child
1876
01:51:20.699 --> 01:51:24.260
of a poor family, should be able to eat three
1877
01:51:24.319 --> 01:51:28.550
meals a day. Okay, and someone on the Trump side
1878
01:51:28.609 --> 01:51:31.710
would say, well, I believe that too. Yeah, I'm a
1879
01:51:31.729 --> 01:51:38.409
good Christian. I believe that. But then the non-Trump person
1880
01:51:38.449 --> 01:51:44.100
would say, but Donald Trump has just cut food stamps
1881
01:51:44.489 --> 01:51:49.340
and he's just cut Medicaid. And, you know, we're very
1882
01:51:49.399 --> 01:51:49.859
poor here.
1883
01:51:49.920 --> 01:51:50.680
We need those.
1884
01:51:51.640 --> 01:51:54.489
And so the Trump person would say, Well, that is
1885
01:51:54.510 --> 01:51:58.489
a problem, and we do need those things. But reading
1886
01:51:58.529 --> 01:52:03.550
the small print, the big beautiful bill says you have
1887
01:52:03.609 --> 01:52:09.449
to work 35 hours a week if you're able-bodied. And
1888
01:52:10.840 --> 01:52:13.649
the non-Trump person says, well, I read that small print too,
1889
01:52:14.319 --> 01:52:18.180
and I believe in work. But what are the jobs
1890
01:52:18.300 --> 01:52:21.720
around here? Let's look at that. We all have these
1891
01:52:21.840 --> 01:52:26.390
clunker cars, and You lose your paycheck paying for the
1892
01:52:26.470 --> 01:52:30.609
gas to put into the car to get to a job.
1893
01:52:30.729 --> 01:52:37.260
But these are $ 9. 50 an hour, you know, at most.
1894
01:52:37.399 --> 01:52:42.659
You cannot bring home a paycheck that pays for all
1895
01:52:42.699 --> 01:52:47.310
your bills with the jobs we've got here. And so
1896
01:52:47.369 --> 01:52:50.369
then it went to, well, who is for minimum wage?
1897
01:52:50.529 --> 01:52:51.229
Who is for.
1898
01:52:53.000 --> 01:52:58.119
Labor unions that would raise these wages, but it was respectful.
1899
01:52:58.520 --> 01:53:02.189
You know, each person kind of acknowledged the values of
1900
01:53:02.229 --> 01:53:07.970
the other. I thought I was looking at a good
1901
01:53:08.069 --> 01:53:12.289
model that the nation needs. Of course, we're now in
1902
01:53:12.310 --> 01:53:15.449
the hands of a strategy of divide and rule. So
1903
01:53:15.489 --> 01:53:17.090
that's why we need this bridging.
1904
01:53:18.069 --> 01:53:22.229
Well, I just, the, the snapshot that one gets through
1905
01:53:22.470 --> 01:53:25.710
the kind of, uh, embedding that you did in this
1906
01:53:26.170 --> 01:53:30.100
place in Kentucky where there just seems as though, you know, again,
1907
01:53:30.640 --> 01:53:34.659
all hope has left the building type thing. Um, it's fascinating. And,
1908
01:53:34.840 --> 01:53:36.920
and one of the other things I wanted to, uh,
1909
01:53:37.539 --> 01:53:40.439
touch on that you mentioned in the book is the, uh,
1910
01:53:40.500 --> 01:53:44.680
the way in which, uh, you, you talk to, uh,
1911
01:53:44.800 --> 01:53:47.359
people and one person in particular who speaks to the
1912
01:53:47.399 --> 01:53:50.170
fact that, uh, At a different point in my life,
1913
01:53:50.770 --> 01:53:54.510
I could have been susceptible to the white nationalist movement
1914
01:53:54.670 --> 01:54:00.029
that came through. This movement that found traction here, I
1915
01:54:00.109 --> 01:54:04.810
could have fallen into that back then. But now, so
1916
01:54:04.850 --> 01:54:08.789
it became like an interesting thing where you can evolve
1917
01:54:09.050 --> 01:54:13.229
out of that susceptibility, even in this place so destitute.
1918
01:54:13.789 --> 01:54:14.130
Yes.
1919
01:54:15.270 --> 01:54:24.239
And this young man, brilliant. man had a very difficult life,
1920
01:54:24.619 --> 01:54:30.930
you know, and growing up, both his parents were alcoholics.
1921
01:54:30.970 --> 01:54:35.289
He became alcoholic. He's now getting other people out of
1922
01:54:35.369 --> 01:54:40.649
that alcoholism. He is a counselor in a recovery district.
1923
01:54:40.770 --> 01:54:43.680
And it was he who said, you know, I was
1924
01:54:43.859 --> 01:54:49.500
so far down that You know, I was depressed. I
1925
01:54:49.539 --> 01:54:56.069
was suicidal, in fact. And that, by the way, is
1926
01:54:56.149 --> 01:55:02.810
a problem for especially white prime age men in such
1927
01:55:03.560 --> 01:55:09.520
downwardly mobile regions. And so when you're that far down
1928
01:55:09.539 --> 01:55:17.899
and the main story of your life is loss, there
1929
01:55:17.960 --> 01:55:20.789
can be an appeal. You are looking to get rid
1930
01:55:20.829 --> 01:55:24.649
of your shame and put it on someone else's shoulders
1931
01:55:24.729 --> 01:55:30.189
to blame. And he had the perspicuity to, to kind
1932
01:55:30.250 --> 01:55:33.779
of see that how it could become a vulnerability to
1933
01:55:33.880 --> 01:55:38.779
right wing rhetoric. I, I only.
1934
01:55:38.659 --> 01:55:42.720
Have another minute or so, uh, left. Um, You know,
1935
01:55:43.000 --> 01:55:46.039
you have this empathy bridge that you speak of, and
1936
01:55:46.060 --> 01:55:49.899
I wonder if you could maybe spend a beat on that.
1937
01:55:50.060 --> 01:55:53.560
I think it's illustrative of a way in which we
1938
01:55:53.600 --> 01:55:57.020
might go to, you know, dig our way out of this.
1939
01:56:00.069 --> 01:56:04.369
Yes. You know, if I can, I'd just like to
1940
01:56:05.949 --> 01:56:15.630
say that actually I see emotional capture as... as a
1941
01:56:15.689 --> 01:56:26.579
delivery system to Trump, too, in his second term, in
1942
01:56:26.640 --> 01:56:31.899
which I see a rise of fascism that's very, I think, scary.
1943
01:56:33.039 --> 01:56:41.159
And so I think that, in a way, Many of
1944
01:56:41.220 --> 01:56:46.279
us feel overwhelmed and we feel confused. It's shock. And
1945
01:56:46.920 --> 01:56:49.899
then it talks about shock and awe. We have been shocked.
1946
01:56:49.979 --> 01:56:52.460
We have been awed. We don't quite know which way
1947
01:56:52.479 --> 01:56:58.000
to turn. So we need empathy bridges. But of, I think,
1948
01:56:58.220 --> 01:57:06.350
another sort. That is, if democracy is in danger, we
1949
01:57:06.390 --> 01:57:09.890
have to look at all the different people who want
1950
01:57:09.909 --> 01:57:13.960
to preserve it. And we're not all alike. Some of
1951
01:57:14.100 --> 01:57:21.600
us are Republicans, but not Trump. Some of us are Democrats.
1952
01:57:21.619 --> 01:57:24.159
Some of us are independent. Some of us are rural.
1953
01:57:24.180 --> 01:57:31.029
Some are urban, black, white. I think the empathy bridges
1954
01:57:31.130 --> 01:57:37.250
that we need to build now are pro-democracy bridges. And
1955
01:57:37.270 --> 01:57:41.710
that does take I can't think the kind of emotional
1956
01:57:41.770 --> 01:57:46.739
labor of, first of all, settling down and deciding to
1957
01:57:46.800 --> 01:57:54.340
defend democracy and put your passport application away.
1958
01:57:55.340 --> 01:57:56.119
You are here.
1959
01:57:56.140 --> 01:58:00.729
We are American. And we can't be afraid of our
1960
01:58:00.810 --> 01:58:03.689
own fear. I think the way we do that is
1961
01:58:03.750 --> 01:58:08.699
kind of reaching out. uh, and bridge building. So that's
1962
01:58:08.760 --> 01:58:10.880
the kind of bridge building that I'd love to see
1963
01:58:10.939 --> 01:58:11.920
happening now.
1964
01:58:13.260 --> 01:58:16.630
Well, I mean, it is an inflection moment, even within
1965
01:58:16.689 --> 01:58:19.390
this rise of authoritarianism, it seems to me with the
1966
01:58:19.489 --> 01:58:23.189
popularity of the president and many of his positions, he's
1967
01:58:23.210 --> 01:58:27.149
taken these, uh, positions that are not popular, which is
1968
01:58:27.189 --> 01:58:29.590
interesting because he's such a guy who's sort of, uh,
1969
01:58:30.390 --> 01:58:34.989
runs with the horse in the direction it's moving. So
1970
01:58:35.510 --> 01:58:37.649
for him to go, like, I'll just use the example
1971
01:58:37.689 --> 01:58:39.409
of data centers. You know, he's a big guy for
1972
01:58:39.430 --> 01:58:42.810
data centers. Data centers, they poll so poorly, it seems
1973
01:58:42.909 --> 01:58:46.239
so untrumpian to wrap his arms around them. But so
1974
01:58:46.300 --> 01:58:49.100
I kind of make it the point that it's an
1975
01:58:49.119 --> 01:58:53.079
inflection moment because I think he's, you know, he's historically unpopular.
1976
01:58:53.199 --> 01:58:56.020
And that doesn't mean, look, there are plenty of authoritarian
1977
01:58:56.060 --> 01:58:58.359
leaders who are not popular. In fact, you know, I'd
1978
01:58:58.399 --> 01:59:01.229
say most are with their with their they're populist, but
1979
01:59:01.529 --> 01:59:05.850
that said so much instructive in this book, um, I'll have,
1980
01:59:06.050 --> 01:59:08.369
because that's a part of the country you need to
1981
01:59:08.430 --> 01:59:11.220
speak to. That's, those are, those are real people. And, uh,
1982
01:59:11.760 --> 01:59:14.520
and in, uh, in stolen pride, lost shame and the
1983
01:59:14.579 --> 01:59:17.619
rise of the right, you really get a cross section
1984
01:59:17.859 --> 01:59:20.119
of that group. So, uh, as I say, I'll have
1985
01:59:20.140 --> 01:59:23.090
a link to it under this conversation. I mean, you
1986
01:59:23.149 --> 01:59:27.239
need a sociologist, you need, you know, you have this, uh,
1987
01:59:27.569 --> 01:59:31.869
this writing skill, but also the, um, the analysis of
1988
01:59:31.930 --> 01:59:34.270
a professor, because that is what you are as well.
1989
01:59:34.350 --> 01:59:37.270
And so somehow you took this big data set and
1990
01:59:37.289 --> 01:59:41.250
you organized it and made it something that's easily communicated.
1991
01:59:41.289 --> 01:59:43.399
So I congratulate you on it. Thank you.
1992
01:59:44.520 --> 01:59:47.619
Thank you. I met some amazing people there, people you
1993
01:59:47.659 --> 01:59:50.279
would like and admire.
1994
01:59:51.680 --> 01:59:53.920
Of Louisiana and Kentucky, which one did you prefer?
1995
01:59:55.460 --> 01:59:56.220
I love them both.
1996
01:59:57.600 --> 02:00:01.510
Good answer. Arlie Russell Hochschild, it is a pleasure to
1997
02:00:01.569 --> 02:00:04.729
meet you. As I say, you're a big star to me,
1998
02:00:04.890 --> 02:00:08.069
and I really cherished our time. I hope we'll do
1999
02:00:08.109 --> 02:00:08.689
it again soon.
2000
02:00:09.300 --> 02:00:09.800
Wonderful.
2001
02:00:09.819 --> 02:00:10.460
I'd love to.
2002
02:00:10.560 --> 02:00:18.310
All the best to you. That was cool. Love that.
2003
02:00:18.569 --> 02:00:21.010
Loved it, loved it, loved it. Worth going into OT
2004
02:00:21.090 --> 02:00:25.090
for it, Albert. We are in OT officially, and we
2005
02:00:25.109 --> 02:00:29.050
need to move along. We need to move along. Albert,
2006
02:00:29.109 --> 02:00:33.350
I wish I could stay. I cannot. I know you
2007
02:00:33.390 --> 02:00:40.329
have other places to go. We gave you some added content.
2008
02:00:40.350 --> 02:00:43.050
You should share that. We'll drop it as a separate
2009
02:00:43.069 --> 02:00:44.930
video soon. By the way, the Gil Duran.
2010
02:00:46.609 --> 02:00:49.170
Video. A lot of people ask me about that. That's
2011
02:00:49.270 --> 02:00:51.539
up now as a separate video. You can share that
2012
02:00:51.579 --> 02:00:54.659
across Facebook. We have a Facebook page, which I'd love
2013
02:00:54.680 --> 02:00:54.979
for you to.
2014
02:00:54.979 --> 02:00:55.260
What?
2015
02:00:55.500 --> 02:00:57.140
I know. I'd love for you to be part of that.
2016
02:00:57.699 --> 02:01:01.220
Jump on Facebook and share on that platform a lot
2017
02:01:01.260 --> 02:01:02.819
of the stuff and a lot of the content. We
2018
02:01:02.840 --> 02:01:06.399
also have a sub stack. What? I know. We sub stack.
2019
02:01:07.000 --> 02:01:09.090
We sub stack like crazy. We're subbing a lot of
2020
02:01:09.119 --> 02:01:11.270
the time. We're stacking a lot of the time. And
2021
02:01:11.310 --> 02:01:16.409
sometimes we're subbing and stacking at the same time. So... Definitely, please,
2022
02:01:16.590 --> 02:01:19.250
if you would, share that and join our Substack, The
2023
02:01:19.270 --> 02:01:23.689
Mark Thompson Show, on Substack and Facebook, Blue Sky. What?
2024
02:01:23.930 --> 02:01:29.130
I know. It's crazy. Kim, thank you for your work today. Tomorrow, Friday,
2025
02:01:29.170 --> 02:01:32.930
Fabulous Florida. And for now, I'm Shadow Stevens for The
2026
02:01:32.949 --> 02:01:37.390
Mark Thompson Show. Bye-bye. Thank you, Kim. Thank you, Albert.
2027
02:01:37.529 --> 02:01:38.170
Out of time.
2028
02:01:38.390 --> 02:01:38.930
Out of time.
2029
02:01:39.029 --> 02:01:55.229
Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Thank you.
2030
02:02:15.420 --> 02:02:15.979
So so