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- [00:01]
Dan Pfeiffer
This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever find yourself playing the budgeting game? Well, with a Name youe Price tool from Progressive, you can find options that fit your budget and potentially lower your bills. Try it@progressive.com, progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Price and coverage match limited by state law. Not available in all states.
- [00:22]
Brian Tyler Cohen
Trump finds himself isolated on the world stage and begging for help. And I have three interviews. Pod Save America's Dan Pfeiffer, Congressman Jamie Raskin, and legal journalist Adam Klassfeld. I'm Brian Tyler Cohen, and you're listening to no Lie. It did not take long for Trump's chickens to come home to roost. Because after spending the entirety of his second term in office denigrating every single one of our allies, now that he's found himself embroiled in an unpopular war, he has realized that it would probably be helpful to have some allies. Unfortunately, he's engaged in a bit of an internal tug of war between his need for some obvious help and and his own ego. Now, I'm gonna play audio from Trump in the same press conference just a couple days back, separated by 30 minutes.
- [01:05]
Jamie Raskin
We want them to come and help us with the strait. My attitude is we don't need anybody. We're the strongest nation in the world. We have the strongest military by far in the world. We don't need them.
- [01:18]
Brian Tyler Cohen
That is a half hour apart. And look, of course the US Needs help because it entered into a war with no plan, no objective and no allies. And it's not like this hasn't been tried before. Donald Trump isn't the first American president. This isn't the first US Administration to try and take down the Islamic Republic. Meaning had he consulted with anyone not named Donald Trump, he probably could have avoided some of the more predictable problems, like, for example, Iran closing or mining the Strait of Hormuz, which can have major implications on the price of oil. A lesson that Trump is apparently learning in real time. But here's the problem. Trump has spent the last year alienating all of our allies. Basically tried to declare war on Greenland. He's threatened to invade or annex Canada and Panama. God knows how many threats he's lobbed in Mexico, he's shit talked most of Western Europe's leaders. And now that he's turned the US Into a pariah on the global stage, here he is asking other countries to help us. It's almost like there's some value in having allies around the world as opposed to just being a tough guy and going at it alone, which, you know, frankly, would be bad enough unto itself, isolating this country on the world stage. But what's worse is that Trump alienated our allies and cozied up to Russia, which right now is the one country actually helping Iran against the United States. That's why we decided we needed to blow up our global standing so that we could cozy up to Putin, who would, in turn, screw over the United States because something, something art of the deal. And of course, Trump refused to condemn Putin because he won't. He can't. It's more important for him to feel like a member in good standing of the autocrat club than bother to act in the best interest of the United States. This is the per usual a matter of Trump's ego versus our national security. Now, in terms of what happens next, the reality is that Donald Trump is finding himself increasingly isolated at home and abroad. Our allies are clearly not falling over themselves to help the guy who has spent the last year threatening to annex their countries, undermine NATO, and relegating their presidents, their leaders, to the role of governor, as he's taken a liking to doing. And then home in the U.S. his director of National Counterterrorism Center, Joe Kent, just resigned. Posting on Twitter quote, After much reflection, I have decided to resign from my position as director of the National Counterterrorism center, effective today. I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran. Vance as vice president's begun seeding stories in Politico suggesting that he was always skeptical about the war from day one. Polling shows that this is the least popular war at its outset in US History. Gas prices are now surging. Here is. Here's a clip that I think puts everything into a neat little bow.
- [03:55]
Dan Pfeiffer
If you could say something to President Trump and he was gonna hear you right now, what would it be?
- [04:00]
Brian Tyler Cohen
You are a worthless pile of. And you voted for him how many times?
- [04:07]
Adam Klasfeld
Three times?
- [04:08]
Brian Tyler Cohen
That was my bad. Apparently, I'm an idiot. No notes. That about covers it. But I want to make one thing clear. This isn't just about Trump. Like, I try to make this point as often as I can. The rest of the Republican Party had the ability to exercise their own autonomy here, and every step of the way, they refused. Outrigh, they own just as much of this as Trump does. This is full Republican governance in action, unbridled Republican power in action. It's not just Trump who's at fault. It is every single one of these people who wanted power and then chose to contract every ounce of it to a stark raving lunatic who put us all in danger, who made us all weaker, all more isolated and raised the price of everything. This is a reflection of the entire gop. So when it comes to vote, remember that every single one of them played a role in this. Next up are my interviews with Dan Pfeiffer, Jamie Raskin and Adam Klasveld. No lie is brought to you by Oneskin so we've talked before about why Oneskin really stands out as a skincare company. It's not hype or just fancy packaging. It is real science. The founding team are longevity researchers who asked a deceptively simple question. If many visible signs of aging like wrinkles, fine lines and loss of elasticity are driven by so called zinc zombie cells, what if you could actually reduce those cells to slow the aging process down instead of just covering it up? That research led to OS1.1 Skin's proprietary peptide. It is the first ingredient proven to switch off those damaged senescent cells, actually slowing skin aging at the source. This is serious science that fits easily into an existing routine. And every time I use Oneskin, I'm giving my skin a clear signal to repair damaged cells, support collagen and strengthen my skin barrier. Right now I'm making really good use of the OS1 body moisturizer. The cold weather isn helping my skin, but this moisturizer is a game changer. And it's not sticky, which is also great. And this isn't just my experience. Oneskin's products are backed by extensive lab and clinical data including 4 peer reviewed clinical studies to validate their efficacy and safety on all skin types. Plus They've got over 10,000 five star reviews and have been recently featured by Bloomberg as a leader in skin longevity. It really shows that you don't need a complicated routine to achieve healthier younger looking skin. Born from over a decade of longevity research, OneSkin's OS1 peptide is proven to target the visible signs of aging, helping you unlock your healthiest skin now. And as you age, for a limited time, try OneSkin with 15% off using code BTC at OneSkin co. BTC, that's 15% off OneSkin co with code BTC. After you purchase they'll ask where you heard about them. Please support our show and tell them we sent you. I'm joined now by the co host of Pod Save America, Dan Pfeiffer. Dan, thanks for joining me.
- [06:47]
Dan Pfeiffer
Thanks for having me Brian.
- [06:49]
Brian Tyler Cohen
So we are watching the Iran war continue to play itself out. Most recently there was a high profile resignation from the Trump administration citing Donald Trump's engagement in the Saran War. We're also watching gas prices surge across the country. We're watching issues with the Strait of Hormuz where Donald Trump seems to be begging other countries to help him. So as we watch this whole process play out, is there any upside for Donald Trump as he continues to engage in this thing?
- [07:13]
Dan Pfeiffer
Not that I can see. And really, it's hard to fathom a scenario where that could happen even if this were to wrap up in the next couple of weeks or days. Damage has already been done to Trump politically. Damage has been done in the United States economically. Gas prices have spiked. That has created a glut the oil market, that's gonna linger for a while. But it's also just the. In two ways, it hurts Trump politically. One is he looks like a moron for doing this. No one understands why he did it. It violates the principle of no forever wars that he claimed to run on in 2024. And it's the second high profile action he's taken to raise prices for people, undermining the other central premise of his presidential committee. I think real damage has been done here, no matter what happens.
- [07:58]
Brian Tyler Cohen
Why do you think Trump engaged in it?
- [08:01]
Dan Pfeiffer
He's an idiot. I think he, I mean, just, there's
- [08:04]
Brian Tyler Cohen
no, I think usually you can describe some, even, even misguided.
- [08:09]
Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah. If you're, if you want to try to play armchair psychologist, I think it would go something like this. After Venezuela, he thought the United States could do this on the cheap co. Quick and easy. It would be fast. And I think somewhere in the back of his mind, he has this image of like, as he thinks about his legacy, he's not thinking about what helps keep Mike Johnson speaker or keep John Thune majority leader. He thinks about what gets Donald Trump etched into Mount Rushmore or whatever else. And I think he has this vision where it's in his head, where it's like, I did regime change in Venezuela, I do regime change in Iran, I do regime change in Cuba. And the last two, he believes are historically important because they have been long term problems and long term adversaries in the United States. And he didn't think it through. And there's a. I mean, he's not the first person to think that regime change in Iran is a good idea. People have been talking about this, thinking about it, planning it, the possibility of a war with Iran since 1979. And the reason why no one has done it is the consequences are tremendous because of this type of regime. That Iran has how big a country it is, and most notably the Strait of Hormuz, they have this leverage point over the rest of the world that is very hard to unstick. And so he kind of stumbled ass backwards into it.
- [09:22]
Brian Tyler Cohen
There's also the fact that Trump doesn't seem to ever have enough of an attention span to stick with anything for more than a few days. And so I'm curious, because now we're watching Iran start to bomb their neighbors and bomb embassies, and this thing really start to unravel and get a little bit out of control. Do you think that this is gonna be something where Trump can just kind of back off, focus on the next shiny thing, and be able to let go in a way that that's kind
- [09:49]
Adam Klasfeld
of clean and neat?
- [09:49]
Brian Tyler Cohen
Or do you think that we've already passed the Rubicon here and this thing has taken a life of its own?
- [09:56]
Dan Pfeiffer
That's a great question. And I'm certainly not enough of an expert on Iran and the Middle east to know he cannot change the subject, move on to something else, as long as the Iranians are firing drones and missiles at other countries in the region, because that disrupts travel, that disrupts oil, that disrupts trade, that disrupts the global economy. And he certainly can't do it while the Strait of Hormuz is still blocked. If even. Or even if it's somewhat open and the flow of traffic continues, but at a greatly reduced rate, that continues to keep gas prices up. Americans aren't paying a ton of attention to what's happening every minute of the day in this war, but they are going to pay attention to gas prices. They're going to pay, food prices are going to go up. Most of the world's fertilizer comes through the Strait. If diesel prices are the highest, they've been, I think either at least a sense of dynamic, if not ever. I think the second time in history, diesel prices have been this high. And that leads to greater distribution costs for food, which leads to higher prices for Americans. And so as long as that's in place, it doesn't matter what Trump focuses on. People are gonna be pissed about it.
- [11:02]
Brian Tyler Cohen
On the messaging front, Trump has been kind of leaning on this Hail Mary narrative, which is this is a small price to pay, temporary pain. And the most important thing is that we don't have a nuclear armed Iran. And so what do you make of that message?
- [11:19]
Dan Pfeiffer
People do not think Iran should have a nuclear weapon. They also don't think that Iran was on the cusp of having such A weapon.
- [11:25]
Brian Tyler Cohen
Yeah.
- [11:25]
Dan Pfeiffer
And Trump made maybe it's possible that if he had spent months like the Bush administration did in 2002 and 2003 to sell a war, to explain the threat, to lay out the consequences, he might have been able to get at least some people to be willing to pay higher gas prices in service of that larger purpose. He never did that. The guy gave the longest State of the Union in history and barely touched on Iran in that speech. He did not try to convince people of this. And you can't do it ex post facto. Right? You can't say. It's just like you and I follow stuff closely. We knew for weeks that a war with Iran was very possible, could happen at any moment. We knew the day that the last negotiation was scheduled. Most Americans had no idea. They truly woke up Saturday morning, that one fateful Saturday morning, and we were at war with Iran. They had no context, no reason, no explanation. Even if they had watched the President of the United States give that speech to the State of Union, which they probably didn't, they still wouldn't have. That wouldn't have helped explain that we were about to go to war with Iran. I mean, it really was a no context, no war. Cause he didn't try to sell it to anyone.
- [12:31]
Brian Tyler Cohen
You know, usually Trump has a pretty good handle on how to control the media, a pretty good handle on the issues. That he can continue hammering gas prices was one of them. I mean, he's been taking victory laps on gas prices pretty much every day of his presidency. And so the part that I don't understand is how could he engage in this, recognizing that the biggest, you know, weapon that Iran could. Could wield against us is closing the Strait of Hormuz or mining the Strait, and that that would inevitably send gas prices higher. How is nobody there around him or Trump himself there to say, hey, if this is the one thing that we pride ourselves on being do, this is going to imperil that, and so we should avoid doing.
- [13:16]
Dan Pfeiffer
Seems like some people told that to him, right? There are reports that Dan Cain, the Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff, made that point to him. And Trump dismissed the idea that Iran would actually close the strait. He did not. He really did not do the homework, not understand the threat. And in war, you have to worry about the worst possible consequence. Right? You prepare for the best, which you prepare for the worst, but you hope for the best. And he simply just prepared for the best and hoped for the best. And this is how we ended up where we are.
- [13:43]
Brian Tyler Cohen
It's not just Trump, who seems to be ang like trying to find some political angle here. We also have JD Vance now figuring out his footing. He was, of course, this avowed anti war opponent before he got into office. There's a ton of footage and sound from him over the course of the last few years, basically denigrating the idea of going into another war in the Middle east, saying that if Kamala was elected, she would, you know, she would be the reason that this war would pop off. And yet the New York Times also reported that J.D. vance was in the room saying that, you know, if Trump is gonna do this, he needs to go bigger and go faster. And so, you know, he's got his fingerprints all over this. I'm curious what you make of the Politico piece that was obviously placed by his. Either J.D. vance himself or somebody on his team saying that he was like the lone skeptic against this war in Iran. And so like, the way I read that is it's pretty obvious that he's trying to position himself for 2028, seeing the writing on the wall and recognizing how unpopular this thing already is. But just curious for your reaction to kind of this angling by JD Vance.
- [14:51]
Dan Pfeiffer
I think it is pretty unsubtle and politically. And pretty politically maladroit to go about this way. Look, J.D. vance is the overwhelmingly likely next Republican nominee. Sitting vice presidents almost always get the nomination. There is no example in modern history of them not getting it. You basically have to go to prison like Spiro Ragnu in order to avoid being the nominee. Now, there is one big thing that could get in J.D. vance's way, and that is if Trump turns on him. And so he gets like, not that J.D. vance is asking me for advice, not that I would give him advice, but he is in for a penny, in for a pound with Trump. There is no path for him, which is, he's like, he differs himself from Trump because there are gonna be other candidates who don't have the problem of having been his vice president and at his side during all the unterrable things that Trump did. Who can be the anti Trump? The Republican Party, if that's what voters want. And the odds are they probably don't, but if that's what they want, he's never gonna be that person. So like, it's just, it's. He is, he just really is kind of an awkward doofus. And this is just him. And he is so ambitious that he can't like see straight. And so this is him. Like, he should not be Trying to distance himself from the president three years from the Republican nomination. Right. Like this is when people will be voting three years from now for that. And so it's just, it's very, it is, it's very JD Vance, which is a guy who thinks he can be never Trump one day the most pro Trump person, the next day most loyal vice president history one day differ with him on the war the next day. Like it does. It just, it makes him look calculating and sort of what everyone hates about politics, which is his, probably his biggest vulnerability in a presidential election in 2028.
- [16:33]
Brian Tyler Cohen
You know, most of these people seem to have gotten away with, seem to be able to get away with anything. That, that political gravity doesn't exist so long as you're near Trump. We obviously saw that that bubble pierced when it came to Kristi Noem just a couple of weeks ago. She was relegated to some new position as the head of the Shield of the Americas, replaced by, by Mark Wayne Mullen. We now have Pam Bondi coming in to testify for the Oversight Committee, and a subpoena was just issued. A formal subpoena was just issued to her to testify. Do you think that this, that this veneer of protection thanks to Donald Trump is kind of dissipating now that these people are engaged in all of their respective scandals, whether it's the war in Iran, whether it's gas prices rising, whether it's covering up the Epstein files?
- [17:19]
Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah, I think there is something that has changed, which is Republicans are looking for some evidence of independence, and they are necessarily not going to take that from the president because they're scared of the president. So they are basically going for the weakest members of his herd. Right. Kristi Noema is the least in favor, most controversial. Let's take her out. Pam Bonding is probably next on that list. Go after her. And so the question isn't like, it's not every single person that works for Trump is going to be at risk. But if you were the person that Trump is unhappy with at that moment, Republicans will use that as an opportunity to demonstrate some independence, either to swing voters or to the base angry about the Epstein files not being released or whatever else.
- [18:00]
Brian Tyler Cohen
Do you think that Pam Bondi would ever be at risk of getting ousted from her position? The reason I ask that is because she's there for one reason. It's expressly because she won't do the thing that's causing people to turn on her, like she won't release the files. That's the, the sole reason that she's in that spot in the first place. So I get that that is causing people to hate her and to lose confidence in her. But. But if. If not for that, she wouldn't be in that job.
- [18:28]
Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah. So I don't think that she is going to be fired and then replaced with someone who would release the Epstein files, someone who would return the Justice Department to its roots of independence.
- [18:38]
Jamie Raskin
Right.
- [18:38]
Dan Pfeiffer
Who would refuse Trump's orders to prosecute his political opponents. I think if she were to be ousted, it would be for someone who was a better manager of doing the things Trump wants. Right. Like, he's not going to fire her for mishandling the Epstein files. He's going to fire her for the fact that she has tried on multiple occasions to bring indictments against people. He wants to go to prison and, like, face planted in an incredibly embarrassing way. So if he can be convinced that there's someone who will do that job of political vengeance and corruption better than her, he can replace her. Like, I don't really care if Pam Bondi gets fired, because the person who comes in is most likely as bad as her, but slightly better at her job. Right. And so it just seems like I don't think Mark Wayne Mullen is going to be particularly good at dhs. Like, maybe he'll manage the department better, but he's going to. I mean, he's. He's going to be as bad as Christine. Him. Just maybe slightly less clumsy in his corruption.
- [19:33]
Brian Tyler Cohen
Yeah, yeah. Which. Which is almost. Almost worse. I mean. Exactly.
- [19:36]
Dan Pfeiffer
Exactly.
- [19:37]
Brian Tyler Cohen
On another messaging, a message that the right has largely coalesced around right now amid all of this bad news, the one kind of sliver silver lining that they've jumped on is the fact that TSA agents aren't getting paid right now because of the government shutdown. The DHS section of the government shutdown, and there are long lines at airports, and they're all coming together. They've got their marching orders, and they're saying, you can thank a Democrat for this. So what is your reaction to what we're seeing? As, you know, the Republicans kind of coalesce around this messaging, I think they're
- [20:10]
Dan Pfeiffer
gonna struggle to make people specifically blame Democrats. Most people have no idea the government issue. The Department of Homeland Security is shut down. They are, I think, most likely to blame the incumbent party and to blame the president. Now, it's also worth noting that Trump said he's not signing a single piece of legislation unless the SAVE act is passed, which the SAVE act is not gonna get to his desk. And so basically what he's essentially saying is that if Democrats were to pass a Democrats problems were to come together and pass a bill to fund TSA but keep ICE unfunded, he wouldn't sign that bill. So the person right now standing in the way of any sort of deal on getting the TSA agents paid is Donald Trump himself.
- [20:51]
Brian Tyler Cohen
Well, it's also worth noting that Democrats have tried to do that. I mean, there was a moment where Greg Cassar and John Cornyn were both doing, I guess publicity, press conferences, gaggles, whatever you want to call it, at an airport in Texas. And and Greg Cassar asked John Cornyn right there on camera, we have a standalone bill to fund tsa. If you say you want to fund these TSA agents, let's go ahead and do it. And John Cornyn, the first words out of his mouth were no, I mean
- [21:18]
Dan Pfeiffer
that is ultimately the promise. The Democrats have the more reasonable position here. And that's the problem for Republicans. The challenge for both parties is people are not paying attention to this because we're at war with Iran right now and gas prices have gone up 40% in the last week. And that's sort of drowning all of
- [21:32]
Brian Tyler Cohen
the and finally, I want to talk about something that I've seen on, on the left as we're contending with our own primary elections. And that is the, the kind of ever present issue of progressive or leftist candidates, DSA candidates versus liberal moderate candidates, and kind of the infighting that ensues. And we saw a little bit of it with Talarico and Crockett with that race. And it feels very much like, you know, for those of us who are paying attention back during the Bernie Hillary days, it feels like a redux of, of that race. And you know, we're on one hand we have the more difficult job because the Democratic Party is a less homogenous coalition than the right is. But I'm curious, you know, as we engage deeper into this process and tensions continue to escalate and emotions continue to run higher and higher, how do you avoid getting into a position where we just kind of are at each other's throats and these primaries are so bruising that it fractures the very coalition that it requires to win?
- [22:41]
Dan Pfeiffer
You know, these primaries are sort of a little all over the map. In some cases they are like truly liberal or leftist or progressive or DSA versus moderate. Sometimes they are just different approaches to politics, which is what I think Texas between Talarico and Crockett was. They kind of had the exact same Issue positions. It wasn't really about one was a leftist and one was a moderate. It was just they sort of disagreed on how politics works. You know, some of it's generational change, right, where you got a lot of candidates who may be more progressive on some issues but are challenged, are representing just a younger set of leadership. You see that in some of these Illinois primaries that are happening on Tuesday night. You see that in, you know, to a certain extent, that's part of the dynamic in both Massachusetts and Maine where you have people challenging older incumbent Democratic senators. Here's my take on it. Like, our party needs to figure out what the fuck we're doing, what the fuck we stand for, how we go execute politics. And primaries are one way in which we do that. And I think Texas is an object lesson because as bitter as that primary was online, and it was a brutal online conversation, and there were some tough ads exchanged and some tough commentary on the trail itself. But before that election was called, both Talarico and Crockett said they would support the other person and campaign for them to help beat whoever the Republican nominee is. And they have come together since then. And so whatever happens between now and when the primary votes are cast, I'm not worried about. What I care about is whether people come together on the back end. So you take Maine, right, which is this increasingly bitter race. If Janet Mills is the nominee, I fully expect Graham Platner to marshal his supporters to campaign for her to beat Susan Collins, because that's the main goal. And if Platner is a nominee, I expect Janet Mills, her supporters at the DSCC and Senator Schumer to do the same thing for Platter. Like that's what we. That's what we should expect. And I do think that there is A. Unlike 2016, everyone understands the threat that we are under and they are the urgency of the cause. And so we have to do is we got people to come together. And so these. I think the primaries are healthy, but they're only healthy if there is unity after the voters have their say and we all get to work of defeating the Republicans and taking back the majority this fall.
- [24:52]
Brian Tyler Cohen
Well, from your lips to God's ears, highly recommend for everybody who's watching and listening right now. If you're not signed up for Message Box, which is Dan's newsletter, it is the smartest political writing online. I'm gonna put the link right here on the screen and also in the post description, if you're listening on the podcast, I'll throw it in the show notes. So if you're not yet subscribed, please do yourself a favor and subscribe. Dan, as always, I appreciate the time, man.
- [25:13]
Dan Pfeiffer
Awesome. Thank you Brian.
- [25:17]
Brian Tyler Cohen
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- [26:58]
Jamie Raskin
Thank you for having me on.
- [26:59]
Brian Tyler Cohen
So, Congressman, you have some news to share about a new criminal referral that you're working on right now as it relates to a trip a former top Trump administration official. Can you explain what that news is?
- [27:11]
Jamie Raskin
Well, I mean, we can't allow people to come before Congress and then lie or conceal material facts, both of which are against the law. It's against the law to make material false statements under oath. Period. And then there's a specific statute which adds that you can't conceal material facts from Congress when you're testifying in Congress. And Kristi Noem came here and it's Just inescapable that she engaged in false statements and concealed material facts from Congress repeatedly.
- [27:50]
Brian Tyler Cohen
So in terms of whether or not this criminal referral is successful, the criminal referral goes to the Department of Justice. And so if we're talking about putting the fate of whether or not Kristi Noem for lying to Congress, putting the fate of Kristi Noem in the hands of Pam Bondi, I think it's clear to everybody what Pam Bondi is gonna do, or I should say what she's not going to do. And so how do you overcome the obstacle of the fact that this is a Department of justice and an Attorney general who are there not to uphold the law without fear or favor, but rather just to run a protection racket against Trump and all of his acolytes?
- [28:27]
Jamie Raskin
Well, I sent this letter with Senator Durbin from the Senate Judiciary Committee. And the single most important line in our letter might be the simple restatement of what the federal statute of limitations is on lying to Congress, and that's five years. And that takes you beyond the Trump administration. So all of those well trained cabinet officials in the Trump administration who think that their job is just to cover up for the president and to lie in every context possible, must reflect on the fact that we have federal criminal statutes which make it a crime to lie under oath. And those actions, those criminal prosecutions can be brought for a five year period.
- [29:19]
Brian Tyler Cohen
So if we are in a world where Kristi Noem is held to account, you know, there is a criminal referral sent to the DOJ and a subsequent Attorney general, one who is not there to just protect Republican officials, but rather to uphold the law without fear of favor. If we enter that world, then why would it just be limited to Kristi Noem? There are other administration officials or other figures in the federal government who have also committed the same violation. I think these are 1001 violations lying to Congress. Just a few weeks ago, Pam Bondi sat in front of a congressional committee and said that there is no evidence implicating Donald Trump or tying Donald Trump to the Epstein files. That's patently false. Now, the credibility of that evidence notwithstanding, she didn't make that caveat. She said there's no evidence tying Donald Trump to any criminal activity within the Epstein files. And we know that there are interviews where Donald Trump was accused of committing crimes that are contained within the Epstein files. And so how are you thinking about, about this, about consistency as it relates to lying to Congress?
- [30:22]
Jamie Raskin
Well, I mean, some of the lies that Noem engaged in are Easily contradicted by the public record. So, for example, she said that DHS always complies with court orders and always follows court orders. We know that there were at least210 cases that have been cited by courts. Them where the Department of Homeland Security violated court orders, and in fact, the Department of Justice even admitted it in 50 cases. And yet she said not. Okay, so that's one where we publicly can determine that she was lying, but then she was also lying about things that she did where it would be tough to know without pretty deep investigative work that she was lying. But we were able to determine she was lying, for example, about this $220 million contract where she told the Senate that that was the product of competitive bidding. That was a lie. My colleague Joe Neguse refuted her and said, here's the form you filled out to escape competitive bidding. You said you were invoking a national security exception. Why you needed to invoke a national security exception for a PR contract, you know, to show you on horseback, you know, out in the Wild west, you know, is a little bit weird. But in any event, he showed that that wasn't true. And then she said, oh, well, right. But, you know, we looked at different bidders, but those were all different friends of hers. So that was a dodge about, you know, the, the competitive bidding process. So the bottom line is you can't come and lie before Congress any more than you can go and lie in court. And we have got to hold the line on that to show that the perjury laws and the material false statement laws mean something.
- [32:27]
Brian Tyler Cohen
But I guess my broader question is there are other people who have also lied, who are. Who have also told demonstrably false statements. Not just Pam Bondi, for example, which was the example that I brought up before. But also, what about these Republican Supreme Court justices who, when they were just nominees sitting in front of the Senate for their advice and consent hearings, they said that they respected stare decisis and respected precedent, and then immediately went and overturned Roe versus Wade. I mean, there is this sense as people watch this, that you can say whatever you want to Congress, and then once you're in a position of power, you can flip flop immediately and there are just no consequences for it anymore.
- [33:06]
Jamie Raskin
That's right. Well, look, my point is this. The Supreme Court justices are in a somewhat different category. Like, they all got up and they swore their fealty to stare decisis and precedent. But then it's very easy for them to invoke various exceptions to stare decisis when factual circumstances have changed, when the law has changed, and so on, that's pretty slippery. So that's tough on that particular case. But the ones you've invoked with respect to the Attorney General are serious and real. And so we simply need to get the word out in a deterrent way. We are watching you. You can't get up and lie before Congress under oath the way that Donald Trump can get up and lie, the way he does every single day from the White House Oval Office or on the tarmac someplace. Yeah, nobody can get him on that. The Supreme Court has said that under the First Amendment, you basically can't make it a crime to lie unless somebody's under oath, where. Unless we're talking about fraud in order to deprive somebody of their property and so on. But we can't get so conditioned by Donald Trump's lies that the word goes out among the Cabinet secretaries that you can go ahead and say whatever you want. Now, the interesting thing about Attorney General Bondi was she refused directly to answer questions, basically from any Democrat. She changed the subject, she evaded. She began talking about irrelevant stuff going on in other parts of the country and so on.
- [34:45]
Brian Tyler Cohen
I think she had her little burn book as well. So everything devolved into a personal attack against everybody.
- [34:50]
Jamie Raskin
She turned it into ad hominem attacks. Yeah. All of that was a way, perhaps on her part, to avoid committing perjury, because the truth is, none of them is going to say anything that contradicts Donald Trump. Now, one of the ways that we assert that Noem lied was with respect to Donald Trump, because she was asked the question, did you tell Donald Trump, did you get his approval then? Did he know that you have this $220 million contract? And she repeatedly said, both in the Senate and the House, that she did. He directly refuted that and said he didn't know anything about it. One of them is lying. She was under oath. And if she was lying, that's perjury. He wasn't under oath, and he lies all the time. So that might be the one that's hardest for us to prove. But in any event, one of them is definitely lying.
- [35:45]
Brian Tyler Cohen
Congressman, is there anything that Congress can do to vindicate crimes against Congress, which is to say lying to Congress, you know, committing perjury or, or committing contempt of Congress to, To. To vindicate crimes against Congress if and when the DOJ inevitably abdicates its responsibility to adjudicate those things?
- [36:06]
Jamie Raskin
Right. Well, one thing we can do is we can wait for a future administration to Come in right. If the statute of limitations last that long. That was the point I was making before. But we also can hold people in contempt of Congress. There's an old power that Congress has called inherent contempt. And the Supreme Court repeatedly ruled that the Congress has the power to render both civil and criminal contempt charges. Civil contempt being holding someone or finding someone until they give Congress what Congress has demanded in a subpoena, whether it's testimony or documents or what have you, but also criminal contempt. You can be punished by Congress for acting in contempt of Congress, which would include life. And there were people that were. We're talking a century ago now, but who were held in contempt of Congress for engaging in behavior like that.
- [37:08]
Brian Tyler Cohen
Is that something that Congress would consider looking into in the event that Democrats retake the House and Pam Bondi and this DOJ continue to abdicate their responsibilities to uphold the law?
- [37:21]
Jamie Raskin
Well, there was a lot of talk about it during the first Trump administration, when we had a majority in the first two years, and a lot of people explored it, and people were even looking for the old jail that nobody could find that was somewhere in the maze of the Capitol basement to see whether, you know, this could be done. It never really crystallized legislatively, but it could crystallize legislatively in the future. If we continue to have spokespeople for the administration, Cabinet secretaries coming forward and blatantly lying to Congress.
- [37:57]
Brian Tyler Cohen
Is there a world in which that that contempt power could be used to compel the release of the Epstein files? If we're at a point where Pam Bondi continues to refuse to release these 3 million outstanding documents,
- [38:11]
Jamie Raskin
there is nothing in the inherent power of contempt that would prevent that from being used in that way. Now, we shouldn't have to, you know, cite the inherent power of congressional contempt to get the executive branch of government to comply not just with a subpoena, but with a federal law. But we will use any means at our disposal. But basically, Congress would go to court to say that there's not compliance taking place and that the federal government is not itself enforcing the law. But I would say we have to use any means at our disposal to restore the rule of law in America. And we are living through this absolutely atrocious reign of lawlessness and terror, as we saw in Minneapolis. And if you've got government agents who think that the Constitution doesn't apply to them and the rule of law doesn't apply to them, then you're going to end up seeing US Citizens getting shot in the face by government agents, and that's where we're at. Donald Trump, who feels absolute immunity and impunity because of some things the Supreme Court has done, has let the message go out throughout his administration that they're somehow above the law. And that's what makes this such a dangerous moment.
- [39:29]
Brian Tyler Cohen
And actually, I wanted to ask about exactly that, which is some news that Greg Bovino, who was formerly the person who was overseeing all of these operations, including when Renee Goode and Alex Preddy were shot and killed in the streets of Minneapolis, that there is reporting now that he will be leaving government at the end of this month. Can I have your reaction to that?
- [39:51]
Jamie Raskin
Yeah. I mean, I don't know under what circumstances, because I'm hearing this from you, I'm not sure I saw that before. So there does seem to be an effort to change the subject. Minneapolis was an absolute political Waterloo for the Republican Party, where millions and millions of Americans turned against them for violating not just the rights of immigrants, but the rights of US Citizens to the point of shooting them because they were bearing a lawful firearm consistent with state law and the Second Amendment, to the point where US Citizens are being shot down simply for exercising their First Amendment rights. So they're not supposed to use, apparently, the phrase mass deportation anymore. The public understands that mass deportation is shorthand for violating the rights of the people and trampling Bill Wright. So I don't know whether getting rid of him now is part of that or like most of them, he wants to try to cash in as quickly as possible and make money as quickly as possible, because I understand that the whole thing from, you know, from jump ball is they're trying to make as much money as possible off of the American people. And Donald Trump has made billions of dollars in just over one year in office. And we believe that the Trumps want to make themselves the richest family in America before they leave office or before they're forced to leave office.
- [41:25]
Brian Tyler Cohen
Congressman, I want to switch gears finally to one last point, and that is that applications are now open for the Democracy Summer 2026 program. And this is a program you and I have spoken about at length. So can you give a little bit of an introduction on what that is for folks who don't know about it and why it's so important?
- [41:43]
Jamie Raskin
Well, I appreciate that, Brian. It's for high school and college kids across America who are paying attention politically or maybe just starting to pay attention and want to get more engaged and involved. And so you sign up with Democracy Summer, you will get to participate in nationwide campaign zooms with people like Heather Cox Richardson and Larry Tribe and Tim Snyder and Benny Thompson, Nancy Pelosi, you name it. And then you go out and you exercise your First Amendment rights by involving yourself with the campaign. And there people are engaged in door knocking, in canvassing, in registering voters, what have you. And so it's a really great life changing opportunity. But you'll be able to change not just your life, but your country too, because young people have been dramatically affected by things going on, whether we're talking about war, whether we're talking about the high cost of housing and education and groceries. And young people need to be engaged in this process. And that's without even getting to some overarching crises of our time like climate change and like artificial intelligence that young people need to have their voices engaged in.
- [43:04]
Brian Tyler Cohen
Well, look, if anybody watching is in high school or college or know someone in high school or college who you think would be a good fit for this program, I could not recommend it highly enough. Uh, I've been a major fan of this for years and years and years, so I'm gonna put the link to Democracy Summer right here on the screen. And also in the post description of this video, again, highly recommend that you sign up. Congressman, as always, thank you for the time. I appreciate it so much.
- [43:27]
Jamie Raskin
Thank you so much, Brian.
- [43:31]
Brian Tyler Cohen
No lie is brought to you by Shopify. Starting something new isn't just hard, it's scary. So much work goes into this thing that you're not entirely sure is gonna work out and it can be hard to make that leap of faith. Trust me, I know. When I started this podcast, I wasn't even sure what I was doing. What if nobody listens? What if I can't offer something worth listening to? Now, I'm glad that I believed in myself and launched this podcast despite all the fears and hesitations. But let's be clear, it certainly helps when you have a partner like Shopify on your side to help. Shopify is the commerce platform behind millions of businesses around the world and 10% of all E commerce in the United States. From my website briantellercohen.com to brands just getting started. Get started with your own design studio. With hundreds of ready to use templates, Shopify helps you build a beautiful online store that matches your brand style, accelerate your efficiency. Whether you're uploading products or trying to improve existing ones, Shopify is packed with helpful AI tools that write product descriptions, page headlines, and even enhance your product photography. Get the word out like you have an entire marketing team behind you. Easily create email and social media campaigns wherever your customers are scrolling or or strolling. And best yet, Shopify is your commerce expert with world class expertise in everything from managing inventory to international shipping to processing returns and beyond. And what if people haven't heard about my brand? Shopify helps you find your customers with easy to run email and social media campaigns. It's time to turn those what ifs into with Shopify today. Sign up for your $1 per month trial today at shopify.com BTC go to shopify.com that's shopify.com BTC I'm joined now by All Rise News, Adam Klassfeld. Adam, we have a major update from the hands of a federal judge who just gave some bad news to one of Donald Trump's more unhinged cabinet members. J. RFK Jr. Can you explain what just happened in court?
- [45:19]
Adam Klasfeld
Absolutely, Brian. What happened is that a federal judge struck down RFKJR's anti vaccine policies and found that the ideologues that he stacked in his committee to give advice on vaccines were not properly appointed. So he had stopped all of their recommendations. He stopped RFK Junior's attempts to take off critical vaccines from the childhood vaccine schedule. It's a major loss for RFK Jr and important, importantly, a rejection of the government's long standing claim that RFK Jr's actions aren't reviewable by any court. And that's an extreme position. I'm happy to go into that first.
- [46:05]
Brian Tyler Cohen
Yeah, I would love, I would love for exactly that.
- [46:08]
Adam Klasfeld
Okay, well, I want to read this part of the ruling because it's incredible. You had Judge Murphy saying in oral arguments he was providing some hypotheticals using see, very often I've been covering this beat for two decades and very often you have federal judges take a party's argument to its logical extreme. And he did that with the government saying that RFK Jr's actions could not be reviewed by any court. And here are some of the hypotheticals that he gave. Judge Murphy said, let's say that instead of revising the vaccine schedule, the CDC said, actually we think measles is good for you. You should go have lunch with someone with measles. And we are sponsoring measles lunches in every city. Come have a measles lunch. That would seem to go right up against the goal of preventing communicable diseases. Would such a policy by the CDC be judicially reviewable? And the government essentially said no, it wouldn't be reviewable. Said, I think that would still be committed to agency discretion by law. The judge Went further, said, so even if what the agency was saying is we like communicable diseases and we think you should get more of them, that's not judicially reviewable. The government's lawyer said no. And just think about that for a second. Think of it. You mentioned RFK Jr being unhinged. This would be an unhinged RFK Jr being unleashed and saying that there is no federal court anywhere in the land. Who can second guess when he says that one of his pet theories about the public health should have the force of law?
- [47:51]
Brian Tyler Cohen
So now that a judge has struck down this effort by RFK's health agency, what are the practical implications for American families?
- [48:03]
Adam Klasfeld
Well, what it means is the public health is being protected. Just to put this into perspective, I recently spoke to a doctor in the wake of this ruling, an emergency room physician in Michigan, and he had mentioned that the United States is now on the brink of being off the list of countries that have eradicated measles. And it's not just measles. The doctor was talking about meningitis, vaccines and outbreaks. Of that. I saw that ProPublica had an expose on how whooping cough is now an issue, that long controlled and eradicated diseases are now part of the national conversation. And what it comes down to is putting confidence and expertise again. The foundation of the judge's ruling was not only the science, it was the law. He was talking about the Administrative Procedures act, which safeguards against arbitrary and capricious government actions. And what we had here was RFK Jr. Essentially nullifying and purging a body called ACIP. ACIP, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. So he purged the people who were properly appointed to it and stacked it with his fellow ideologues. And in another part of his ruling, Judge Murphy said, of the 15 members currently on ACIP, even under the most generous reading, only six appear to have meaningful experience in vaccines, the very focus of acip. So the judge is saying, you can't short circuit this procedure that was in Place since 1964 to provide sound medical advice and put it with people who share your pet theories.
- [49:54]
Brian Tyler Cohen
Adam, how come this is working? And I'm glad that it is working, but how come this is working for Health and Human Services but not the Department of Education, for example, not the epa, for example? There are people in place atop each agency that are hostile to the very mission of their agencies, and yet they're allowed to act with abandon, with reckless abandon, and oftentimes destroy the very agencies that they were tapped to lead. And there really doesn't seem to be any recourse for any of that. But in this instance, where RFK is trying to undermine the stated mission of Health and Human Services and its corresponding agencies, there are judges who are able to step in and say, no, so long as you're acting in a way that's antithetical to the mission of each agency. There is a check on that.
- [50:43]
Adam Klasfeld
Right. Well, what we're seeing is the kind of interplay of what's happening in the trial court level and on appeals. And I should be clear, the Trump DOJ is going to appeal this. And we've seen other federal judges try to take actions with the Department of Education, for example, and other agencies. There's litigation right now over doge, and a lot of this litigation is under the very statute that this case involves, the Administrative Procedure Act. Because if there's one common theme in Trump's both of his terms is this explosion in Administrative Procedure act litigation, because he does things arbitrarily and capriciously, by definition, it's a sort of unilateral thing. And he stacks his cabinet with members who act unilaterally without notifying the public, without bringing in the experts or working against the experts. So that's why you see a lot of this litigation. A lot of this will come down to whether this stands up on appeal. But one of the things that I find so important about this ruling, and it's a 45 page ruling here, is the principle being defended here, that RFK Jr cannot act alone without any court oversight. If that legal theory is adopted, we're in deep trouble when it comes to the public health.
- [52:11]
Brian Tyler Cohen
Well, isn't that really what Trump is looking to do? I mean, he wants, he and his party want unreviewable power. I mean, this is what they tried to do with the independent state legislature theory, which is this idea that each legislature in each state can adopt voting rules, no matter how insane. And they wouldn't be, they wouldn't be susceptible to any check or review by the judicial branch, for example, or by the governors. So if you had a state like North Carolina, for example, with such a gerrymandered Republican legislature that there was no hope that any Democratic legislature would be able to take over. But, you know, there was Governor Roy Cooper. Those people would be able to adopt rules for the subsequent elections that would be completely unreviewable by Governor Roy Cooper or even the Democratic state Supreme Court at the time. And so this has been a recurring theme for this party where they where so long as they have their own acolytes, their own hardliners in positions of power, they want those positions of power to be completely unreviewable by any other branch of government.
- [53:12]
Adam Klasfeld
That's absolutely true. As a matter of fact, one theme with the Trump government and the MAGA movement more broadly is these sweeping assertions of power. And to put a little bit of glimmer of hope here, a lot of these have failed pretty substantially in court. I mean, we've spoken about the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia many times. Early on, after Kilmar Abrego Garcia was spirited out of the country and put in a prison in El Salvador where he was tortured. The Trump DOJ line was that now it's under reviewable, now it's on out of our hands. And that was rejected 90 by the Supreme Court in and saying that there has to be some sort of due process, not only with Kilmar Abrego Garcia, but with hundreds of others who were spirited out of the country without notice or hearing. This is an extension of that, where we have another claim of unreviewable authority, absolute power, if, if you will, where a judge is shooting it down. And so there are two things that I'm looking for on appeal. One, does this ruling hold because it holding is vital to the public health and the ability of any Secretary of Health and Human Services to be able to stack the deck with their preferred ideologues rather than follow any procedures on something as important important as public health recommendations. But the other thing that I'm going to be looking forward to the ruling on very closely is will the higher courts reject this idea that Trump's cabinet members can do whatever they want without the federal courts touching it? Because if that is a finding, we're in real trouble, right?
- [55:00]
Brian Tyler Cohen
Because then it basically just eliminates our system of checks and balances. And when you have, you know, these extremists in positions of power, then, you know, we're setting ourselves up for a pretty dangerous situation. Is there any way to read the tea leaves on what an appeals court might say on this matter in particular?
- [55:20]
Adam Klasfeld
Well, citing the whole Kilmar Abrego Garcia route, I find it very unlikely that a federal court is going to rubber stamps even an appellate court, given the 90 nature of the Supreme Court's ruling on Kilmar Brago Garcia. This whole idea of unreviewable authority, it's something that the Trump DOJ trots out all the time, and they are always rejected on this issue, but it will see what happens because this judge, Judge Brian Murphy, has had a ruling paused on the shadow docket before. It seems that Trump DOJ is really attacking him on the basis that prior rulings have been paused but not fully overturned on appeal. I think that the courts always move slowly and cautiously. But as I look at this opinion, he it is so devastating and it really lays out the radical nature of the power grab here and how it cuts against the science and cuts against the expertise that I think that Judge Murphy took a really cautious and careful approach to this ruling that I expect will stand up on appeal.
- [56:37]
Brian Tyler Cohen
Was there anything especially striking that you saw in this decision? Because oftentimes these judges are speaking out in a way that we haven't seen before. And so I'm just curious whether there was something, something from the decision itself that you think was especially unorthodox or unusual.
- [56:54]
Adam Klasfeld
It's not so much that it was unorthodox or unusual, but I think that Judge Murphy puts his finger on the atmosphere of distrust. And I thought he opened this ruling in a very moving way. He quoted Carl Sagan, and I'm going to read from the introduction said science, like law, is far from a perfect instrument of knowledge. History is littered with once universal truths that have since come under scrutiny. Nevertheless, science is still the best that we have. And he's addressing the vaccine skepticism that is all over social media. But he goes and connects that to the law and he says a little bit later, for our public health. Congress and the executive have built over decades an apparatus that marries the rigors of science with the execution and force of the United States government. One extraordinary product of that apparatus has been the eradication and reduction of certain communicable diseases through the development and use of vaccines. And I thought it was just a powerful way of laying it out there that we have since 1964, come up with a system that married the law and science that benefited from things like we don't have to think about measles unless someone mucks up the system.
- [58:15]
Brian Tyler Cohen
Yeah.
- [58:16]
Adam Klasfeld
And I think that he really spoke to something in our culture. The the really spoke to and addressed the real distrust in many institutions, whether it's science and the law and saying, look what we have accomplished with that and look what we risk if we throw it all away.
- [58:35]
Brian Tyler Cohen
Look, as there continues to be a lot of distrust in institutions, one space where I think it's a little bit well deserved is the media space, the legacy media space. And we have seen a number of institutions and formerly trusted outlets basically capitulate to Trump and show that it was more worth it to side with and kowtow to to a despot as opposed to staying true to their own stated values. We're seeing the extent to which the Washington Post and CBS News and ABC in so many different instances thought it was more important to cozy up to Donald Trump. And so a small step that I would ask everybody watching right now to take is to support independent journalism, fearless independent journalism. And nobody does it better than Adam. So I'm gonna put the link to All Rise News right here on the screen and also in the post description of this video. Adam is not owned by some major media conglomerate. It's him. He is doing this work by making sure to pay his own way and go all around the country wherever these cases are happening. And he has built a brand that is trusted if nothing else. So I'm gonna put again that link right here on the screen and also in the post description. If you're not yet signed up and you wanna show some support for independent media, especially at a time where we need it, please make sure to subscribe. Adam, as always, thanks so much for your time.
- [59:52]
Adam Klasfeld
Thank you so much Brian. Always a pleasure.
- [59:55]
Brian Tyler Cohen
Thanks again to Dan Pfeiffer, Jamie Raskin and Adam Klassfeld. That's it for this episode. Talk to you on Sunday. You've been listening to no Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen, produced by Sam Graeber, music by Wellesley, and interviews edited for YouTube by Nicholas Nicotera. If you want to support the show, please subscribe on your preferred podcast app and leave a five star rating and a review. And as always, you can find me ryantellercohen on all of my other channels. Or you can go to briantellercohen.com to learn more.
- [60:29]
Dan Pfeiffer
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