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- [00:00]
A
Wish you could become a morning person. You know the type. Up before the sun, early morning runs. First one to the office with donuts and a smile. How do they do it? Easy with a new Galaxy Watch 8. Sleep tracking and personalized insights from Samsung Health help you improve so you can wake up to a whole new you. One who, dare I say it, skips the snooze. It's possible. Train your sleep with Galaxy Watch 8. Learn more at samsung.com requires compatible Samsung Galaxy Phone, Samsung Health app and Samsung account.
- [00:31]
B
This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance Fiscally responsible financial geniuses, monetary magicians. These are things people say about drivers who switch their car insurance to Progressive and save hundreds. Visit progressive.com to see if you could save Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states or situations.
- [01:05]
C
Welcome to Talking Feds, a roundtable that brings together prominent former federal officials and special guests for a dynamic discussion of the most important political and legal topics of the day. I'm Harry Lintman. The government shutdown slogged into its third week, and hundreds of thousands of federal employees are missing paychecks in Congress. Both parties are starting to size up a compromise, but without much apparent urgency. Trump's erratic handling of the shutdown and the threat that he could upend any arrangement for his own gain make a deal that much harder. And in a court just north of D.C. the Department of Justice indicted former Trump national security adviser John Bolton on 18 counts of violating the Espionage Act. The feds alleged that Bolton kept a diary through his email and shared it with his wife and daughter during his time of service in Trump's first term. The case seemed to have far more merit than those against other Trump targets, but it was hard to rule out the possibility that presidential animus figured in the charges. Meanwhile, Politico published a collection of messages from a chat group of young Republicans joking about reenacting the Holocaust and peppered with flagrantly racist language. In a sign of just how much the Republican Party continues to cast its lot with extreme voices within the MAGA movement, Vice President J.D. vance dismissed the ensuing uproar as pearl clutching. To help us make sense of these fast changing politics of the shutdown, the case against Bolton, and the revelations about young and old Republicans, I'm really happy to be able to call on three of the top commentators in the country, and they are Charlie Sykes. Charlie's a founder and former editor in chief of the Bulwark and an MSNBC contributor. He is the author of Not Count Them nine books, most recently how the Right Lost Its Mind, his substack newsletter to the contrary, where I am a regular guest hosts terrific analysis and conversations in defense of democracy. Charlie Sykes, thanks as always for joining Talking Feds.
- [03:35]
D
Thank you.
- [03:36]
C
Ali Vitale, the host of MSNBC's Way Too Early. Ali covered Capitol Hill for NBC News for nearly a decade, including every major election from the campaign trail since 2000 2016. Welcome as always, Ade Vitale.
- [03:53]
E
Thank you.
- [03:54]
C
And Jacob Weisberg, the executive chair and co founder of Pushkin Industries. He was previously CEO of the Slate Group, co founder of Panoply, and editor in chief of Slate magazine. He's the author of several books and serves as chair of the Committee to Protect Journalists, whose protection is more exigent now than I think anytime in a generation. Jacob, thanks so much for joining, as always, indeed.
- [04:22]
B
And thanks, Hari. Nice to see you.
- [04:24]
C
I think first and foremost we're on week three of this government shutdown and there doesn't seem to be a great sense of urgency relative to previous shutdowns. What's going on? Are one or the other of the parties of the Dems Republicans miscalculating? Why are both relatively nonchalant as the days tick by?
- [04:49]
E
I've been at the Capitol every day from before this shutdown started and we all sort of knew it was going to happen. And now as we head into week three, I've also done two exclusive interviews with the speaker of the House and the Majority leader in the last three weeks. And I think what's so stunning to me is how comfortable each side is in their staked out position. And that's always how shutdowns start. But the fact that there is that level of comfortability continuing now as they start to break more records, they went from being the fifth longest to now they'll be at least the fourth longest and on and on. I mean, when I asked Majority Leader Thune this week, do you think this could go until Thanksgiving? He said, I hope not. And I said to him, hope's not a guarantee. The fact that they can't guarantee that is stunning to me. I do think the one thing that happened this week in that interview that I did with Thune was watching him float an offer to Democrats publicly. They bristled at that, though. I love when they negotiate through the media. But I think that I do think that was a moment where he tried to shake up the stalemate and he's trying to do it in a few different ways. But I think it was the first moment that I questioned, could Democrats risk looking like they're overreaching given the fact that Thune is now coming out and saying, I can't guarantee you an outcome, but I can guarantee you a vote. And of course he only controls the Senate, which is why that kind of an offer works. Cuz we know it's going nowhere in the House unless Trump gets involved. But I don't think it really moved things much either.
- [06:17]
C
And when you say just one quick follow up that people may think the Dems are overreaching, you mean Thune's apparent conciliatory nature might change public opinion about who's at fault?
- [06:28]
E
I think that for people who are looking at this and saying, well, wait a second, didn't I hear the Majority Leader say that he would offer Democrats the very vote on Affordable Care act subsidies, a reformed version of them. Isn't that what they've been asking for? Why wouldn't they say no to that? Now I could list for them a million reasons why they would say no to that, and Democrats are doing that right now. But I think that when you watch polls kind of shifting in Republicans favor, they think, I think that things like that will help them and they might be right.
- [06:54]
B
Ali, I thought your interview with Thune was super interesting.
- [06:57]
E
Thank you.
- [06:57]
B
In some ways it pointed to some possibilities for how the crisis might end. But I think what Thune is worried about is Trump selling them out. Trump selling the Congressional Republicans out. Because Trump has floated very casually in his crazy improvisational the way that he might cut a deal with Democrats and that would leave the Senate Republicans twisting slowly in the wind. And clearly what Trump with his political antennas picked up is that people's health insurance doubling is going to be a political loser. And so if he makes a deal with the Democrats on that, Republicans need to get on board quickly. So I kind of read what Thune said to you as Republicans opening the door to making that deal with Democrats before Trump sells them out and makes it with the Democrats.
- [07:45]
E
Just like more than anything, I think that Democrats can say they notched a win here because they took Republicans from saying we'll never negotiate on this thing to now having to figure out, okay, we actually probably should negotiate on this thing cuz a lot of our own constituents are gonna get hurt. But it's always been true that Trump could come in at any moment, sell these guys out. He did it tons of times in his first term with Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer. Johnson and Thune fully are aware.
- [08:09]
D
Let's just remind ourselves this is a Very abnormal shutdown in very, very abnormal times. You know, this is not a conventional political moment. One of the reasons why there's no sense of urgency is because they're getting no pressure from back home. Because, frankly, you know, in our attention economy, nobody's really paying that much attention until the pain actually begins. You know, we all spend time talking politics and, you know, current events with folks all the time. The shutdown very rarely comes up because there's just so much going on here. So I do think that the Democrats do have an advantage on healthcare. I think it's very possible that Trump will cave in on all that. He doesn't want to see those go up. But I'm going to continue asking the question I've asked from the very beginning. What is the exit strategy here? In a conventional world, you cut a deal on health care and then everybody sings Kumbaya and they get together and they reopen the government. How will Democrats, I mean, they will claim a win on healthcare, but then they're reopening Donald Trump's government at this very, very abnormal time. And my guess is that the Democratic base is not going to be in the mood necessarily to take just a win on healthcare. So I'm not giving advice here. It's just always, you know, when you see a game of political chicken like this and neither of them have any incentive to be the one who, you know, turns out of the way until there's a big crash, it gets very, very messy. So this is one of those moments where we all keep saying, you know, this is not normal. This is not a conventional time. And so I'm not sure that we can look at the shut down in conventional political terms because there's waves hands, all this other stuff going on that, you know, are Democrats going to shake hands with Donald Trump and say, you know, carry on with that as long as we get this deal? I don't know.
- [10:02]
E
I think you're exactly right. I mean, I've been asking this question of my Democratic sources for a while because I really question if anything will be good enough for the base. I mean, Democrats are right with the foundational supposition that people are hurting and they need to do something differently from the way that they've done it. That's why this strategy has them feeling confident, despite how much they hate shutting down the government. They want to be known as the party of good governance. It's why it's like, so against the Democratic DNA to do what they're doing right now. All of these moderate Democrats who would typically be the ones and were back in March and April to fund the government are deeply uncomfortable with what they're doing, but they recognize foundationally that something has to change. It also just I keep questioning, I don't know if them saying, but look, we got the ACA subsidies saved. I don't know that that's going to be enough. I don't know if they even got the Medicaid cuts rolled back, which will literally never happen. But I wonder if they even got that, if that would be enough. Nothing is enough because the Democratic Party right now, it wants so much, and what they really want is Trump out of the White House, and that's not going to happen.
- [11:10]
C
Do you detect a schism between leadership and rank and file of the Democrats?
- [11:14]
B
I'm not sure there's a schism there. I think to Ali's point, the rank and file wants Democrats to win. They want a victory against Trump. They don't necessarily have an overall position on what would be a good deal or fair deal. The larger problem is how can you make a deal with Trump in the context of random rescissions whenever he feels like it? A deal literally is not worth the paper it's probably printed on, because you're making a deal with someone who doesn't accept the premise that a deal would be binding. I mean, even as they're doing this, they're talking about rescinding other congressional funding.
- [11:50]
C
If you have a president, particularly for Democratic projects. Right?
- [11:53]
B
Yeah, but I mean, even more fundamentally, I think you have a president who doesn't recognize the separation of powers and then the Constitution and doesn't recognize that the spending authority belongs to Congress. And so if you have a president who says, actually the spending authority belongs to me, nevermind Congress, what good is a deal? I mean, a deal may get you through the crisis and it may get government functioning again, but then we're back where you were. And in that sense, it is like negotiating with a terrorist or being held hostage. You can't rely on it to be the other side to live up to it.
- [12:26]
D
This is the problem.
- [12:27]
C
Yeah, it's remarkable. I think the chicken analogy in the car is just precise, but it's almost like three cars here and they're all converging. Do we foresee a crash point where all of a sudden it must, you know, exigency does arise?
- [12:42]
D
I don't know. I mean, it's, you know, Ali probably knows that better than I do, but I do think that this is a, you know, a meta problem for the Democrats, they're going on Saturday at the no Kings rallies. You know, millions of people are gonna come out and healthcare is gonna come up, but it's not gonna be the dominant theme. And you know, to Jacob's point, you know, the other big problem here is that we have a president who clearly does not, you know, have any respect for, you know, the checks and balances of government. And you think of all the things that are going on right now and the absence of Congress playing any significant role whatsoever that, you know, is the House even in.
- [13:19]
E
Hasn't been in for almost a month.
- [13:21]
D
The House of Representatives is basically AWOL at a time of multiple spinning crises, foreign, domestic, financial, and nobody even seems to think that they are going to play a major role. And they are completely comfortable with it, is actually stunning. And the other problem is the Democrats wanna win. The moment that a deal is cut to restore those healthcare subsidies, guess who's gonna take credit for that.
- [13:50]
C
That's right.
- [13:51]
D
You know, guess who is going to say, see, I solved the war in the Middle East, I'm gonna solve the Ukraine war, and I have reopened the government because only I can do it. He will take credit for it. You know this.
- [14:04]
C
Yeah. Now, one thing you have heard proffered, a provisional solution of a one year extension, which of course would fall just on the eve of the shadow of midterms and would allow another dynamic like this that might be at least precarious for Trump, but it's. You think of a shutdown as being the houses of Congress or the parties, and he is nevertheless, as you guys are all detailing the dominant figure in everyone's calculations and probably in actuality, Harry.
- [14:37]
E
Can I just detail, I mean, like, for listeners who are like, when might there be a future pinch point? I think Capitol Police are already missing paychecks. Senate staffers start missing paychecks. I think it's either this week or next. House staffers are at the end of the month. And I know that people, like, have no sympathy for anyone who works in Congress, despite the fact that I know that these are good folks. But for senators, when they start seeing it around them, I mean, we saw what Marjorie Taylor Greene did simply because she saw her kid was gonna have his health care premiums spike at the end of the year if they didn't fix this. Right. Politics is local, but politics is also personal. It's who you see in front of you. And so I wonder if those could shake it loose. I mean, the other thing too, and this ties into the presidential overreach of how they're spending money that isn't actually supposed to be spent the way they're spending it. Yes, they are paying the troops, but they're not doing it with money that was appropriated to pay the troops. Like, they're kind of doing some moving money around, and it's good. It's magic money. No one thinks that troops should not get paid. But I think what John Thune has expressed some reservations about in a way that I thought was interesting in my interview as well, when I asked him about rescissions and the way that the White House is sort of playing funny money however they want, he acknowledged multiple times that he does not like it. He said it as, I prefer regular order, which is, I kind of want to do it the way that I want to do it in the Senate and the way that we do it in Congress all the time, not with the White House and rescissions. And I asked repeatedly, have you told them to stop? And he's like, I prefer regular order. Which, again, in a world where very few dissent with the President, it was interesting at repeated times to hear Thune voice the way that he takes his disagreements with the White House to them privately. Sometimes he gets a change, sometimes he doesn't. But I thought that that was interesting at a moment where the House has basically completely farmed out governing to the White House.
- [16:27]
C
I thought that discomfort was palpable, and I wanted to stick for a moment with the Thune interview. I just want to say first what a superb job that was. Everybody should watch it if you haven't. You were so prepared and fluid and comprehensive. Honestly, you crushed it.
- [16:45]
E
Thank you. I appreciate that.
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C
But to dive into the details a bit, you know, we had to decode it a little. But I was really struck by that distance. And I'm sure they calibrated it very carefully in the White House that he doesn't fully trust the president. But also the music or the body language of it, to me, did seem to think like he would like to see his way clear, even if it includes some kind of extension. What was your sense sitting across the table?
- [17:16]
E
My sense is he wants to deal. But the reality, too, and I hear this more privately from Republicans in the Senate, is they know that their dynamics are still such that they can potentially do something bipartisan. It's tough, but, like, it's not impossible that reality changes in the House. And I think that the interesting role reversal is usually it's the House looking over at the Senate. This time it's the Senate looking over at the House, because Johnson is the only one who's proven that he can command his conference. Now, I say he with an asterisk because he does so with an extra push from Trump. But I think that's an important dynamic for us to continue to watch. And the fact that Johnson has kept the House out, he's already planning to keep the House out for next week as well. And yes, he's doing it, he can say, because the government is shut down. But by keeping the House out, it also means he doesn't have to swear in Adelita Grijalva, the congresswoman elect from Arizona, who would then be the 218th signer on the Epstein discharge petition. And then that would put Johnson on the clock to make members take a vote that he doesn't want them to take because Trump doesn't want them to take it. So, like, that is very much happening here, too.
- [18:26]
B
They're gonna have to come back someday, and Jeffrey Epstein will be waiting for them from beyond the grave when they do.
- [18:32]
C
He's gotta swear in eventually, right? I think it's pretty solid claim. Like, we all voted her in and you're just basically neutralizing it.
- [18:44]
D
Anyway, can I just make a note here how amazing it is that the Epstein story continues to hang over everything. We live in an era where everything is forgotten a week later. This is the one story that just hangs on. It is just there. And it comes up in all of these contexts. The fact that the speaker of the House of Representatives is keeping the People's House out of business because he doesn't wanna swear her in because she's the 218th signature on the discharge petition for the Epstein files. And we have to keep coming back to all of this. They are spending a tremendous amount of political capital and energy, even within their own caucus, to not have that vote, to not release those files. And I have no idea. But the longer this goes on, the juicier it gets. But nothing matters. I mean, honestly, nothing matters for Donald Trump. I mean, think of everything that he has politically survived. What could possibly be in those files that they are willing to do this? And frankly, we could play the game. What would it take, you know, for Donald Trump to really take a hit? What would the story be that he paid for abortions of a mistress? No, I don't. I literally. I can't come up with. Well, there's something.
- [19:58]
B
I don't know what it is. Well, if you pay attention to Michael Wolf, he says that he saw.
- [20:04]
C
That's a big if, right?
- [20:05]
B
That were. Yeah, well, I cautioned it appropriately, but he says that in Jeffrey Epstein's safe were photos of young women of indeterminate age, topless, sitting in Donald Trump's lap, fake news. So if those are in the files, that would be, you know, I mean, to Charlie's point, would it be worse than what we already know? No. But would it be more attention getting? Possibly. Can I just come back just on the kind of larger point about the shutdown politics? We've had many previous shutdowns going back to the Gingrich era. We've never had politicization of what is the emergency and necessary funding. So the prioritization until now has never been, we're going to fund ice, but we're going to cut off the Department of Education. And Trump sees that, I think with typical short termism is he's got the leverage, he's going to cause the pain that's going to force the Democrats to come to the table and crumble. Where I think he might just be completely wrong about that, is that that strategy, there is no way of prioritizing the spending that only affects blue states and not red states, particularly the health care insurance premiums. But there are other things, too. Special education is a good example. If that doesn't get funded, he's not able, I don't think, to restrict that funding cutoff to his political enemies. And that's where it starts to be, that his political strategy starts to be a base strategy rather than a kind of midterm swing voter strategy. And I think that's the Democrats sense that a little bit, that he can cause them disproportionate pain in the short term, but longer term, the disproportionate pain might be his.
- [21:46]
C
It's a great point. And you may have seen moving to the Democrats, the AOC and Bernie town hall last week, and they fielded that question, the medical funding then wants to cut hits rural red states worse hardest in the country. Why should they're asked? Democrats interrupt Republicans while they make this political mistake. So that's part of the calculation, presumably, as well. Yeah.
- [22:13]
E
It hits on something that I think Democrats have been grappling with over the course of the last nine months. And I hope I can use somewhat salty language on here, but you've got like the fuck around find out caucus. Right. So we'll call them the FAFO caucus. But they're the people who say, all right, America elected Trump, let's let them fuck around, find out what they get. Then you've got the other side of the Caucus. Who's saying we can't do that? We're the party of good governance. We don't want to see people hurt. They're already hurting. And that is like a constant tension point that we've actually seen flare on a few different occasions in the Senate, in the House, in a few different ways. There's so much else going on. So it's fleeting, but it's a through line that I've been following because it's going to come to fruition. Yeah, in the midterms, but definitely in the 2028 presidential. Because the party's going to have to figure out do we want someone for FAFO or do we want someone who's going to be a more moderating governing like capital P, presidential force? And I don't know that the party has any sense of what the answer is going to be on that, but this is like an active. Every single day I see a new example of the way that this debate is happening within the Democratic Party. As someone who loves politics, it's fascinating.
- [23:26]
C
I think it's so true. Look at Pritzker or some of you who've decided we can't. They go low, we go high, we just can't do it anymore. And yeah, I think that people are getting the most attention, including AOC and Bernie. But Pritzker I would point to is really, you know, he's come out notably, like gloves are off here.
- [23:46]
B
Well, the Democrats are, you know, the old version of this was the Mommy Party and the Daddy Party, you know, and it's the Mommy Party. The Democrats are more responsible. They feel that responsibility and, and you know, they really hate to see the country suffer in a way. The Republicans don't hate to see the country suffer. The Republicans are kind of okay with it, as Ali was saying. And you know, that's what I think makes it hard for the Democrats to play hardball because as the responsible party, they see the consequences and they don't want people to suffer pain that might come with them winning politically.
- [24:22]
C
I mean, as Ali says, it's a huge cross cutting theme of the whole era. They gotta get. They're desperate to return to power, but if they play down in the cesspool with them, it defeats everything they got into government for.
- [24:39]
D
You know, part of it is that the entire, the rules of politics have changed and so dramatically and we're all having, you know, trouble keeping up with it. I constantly, you know, think that sometimes we're having this discussion about the best chess strategy when we're actually in The Thunderdome, or as somebody made the analogy, that if you're playing chess and somebody stands up and punches you in the face, the solution is not to work on your chess skills.
- [25:05]
C
Now, I have an en passant move, right?
- [25:09]
D
So I constantly think that there are these category errors here, and the Democrats are, you know, having these discussions as if it's like 1996 or 1997, again, early shutdown. And, you know, generals always fight the last war, and so do politicians in some ways. So that's why, you know, to Ali's point, that they just really don't seem to know what they're. What they're going to do. And quite frankly, I think their leadership is, in many ways, they are conventional politicians in the unconventional era. And they are. They're just not necessarily suited for the.
- [25:43]
C
Painting, maybe Uncertain standing in the middle. Yeah, it's so true. And I was playing the wrong game. I think maybe we leave it here. I had a series of questions having to do with how and when does it end? But. But I've, you know, teased that out a few times in our conversation. I think we all agree we've really plumbed the depths of all kinds of nuances, but that doesn't really bring an end game into clear focus. So let's see if next week we're starting week four of the. Of the shutdown. I wanted to move to, in my world, the biggest news of the week, even more in the shutdown, which is the charges that were brought against National Security Advisor John Bolton. Let me just serve it up in general. And as always, I want to. You know, there's always the time in the podcast, 30 minutes in 40 minutes, where someone says, I am not a lawyer, but. So to just preempt all that stuff. I'm not asking you for legal stuff, but it's got its own kinds of facts and political dynamic. Any thoughts about the indictment in general?
- [26:47]
B
It's a little complicated, this one. I mean, when it comes to James Comey or Letitia James, you know, this is obviously purely political bullshit prosecution. You know, total destruction of the Department of Justice, all its policies. Like, no question about it, those are phony political indictments. With Bolton, it's a little. It's a little hard to be sure. I'd be very surprised if there hasn't been a political dimension to it, that is, if there hasn't been pressure from the White House to indict him. But this case was going in the Biden years, and because everything's classified, it's very hard to know, and this comes down to when Bolton, who was still in the Trump administration and was gathering material for his book, and then when writing the book, whether he followed the rules on classified material. And there does seem to be evidence that there were security breaches that were at the very least irresponsible on his part. Were those over matters that really involve classified material. Would this case be prosecuted if there weren't the political kind of context, if it were anyone else, really hard to say. So I'd rather kind of put brackets around this one and say, well, we don't need the third case or the fifth case or the eighth case to prove that Trump is abusing the Department of Justice. He definitely is in these other cases and someday we'll know. And there's a pretty good chance he is in some ways in this case too.
- [28:14]
C
And I'll just say, I mean from a DOJ institutional perspective, it's night and day that as opposed to a complete neophyte appointed US Attorney loyalist, this was done by a 12 year veteran head of the National Security section in the Maryland a different office. And it goes back to what had been before a very strong presumption of regularity that all this other mischief by the Trump DOJ has eroded. It makes it far fetched that it's just completely fanciful. But something that's always given me pause from the time of the search is, you know, Bolton and you guys Al, you probably have dealt with him. He's a sophisticated actor. I think he's too attentive to the ways of Washington, have just grabbed stuff the way Trump did. On the other. What he did was keep a diary. Yes. And then share it with his wife and daughter. That's the accurate on unclassified systems. One of which was then hacked. We know at least alleged in the indictment. And that really did make my head spin. What the hell? How could John Bolden have have done it? But I agree that there may be all other layers of considerations and man, anybody knows you don't share things on an unclassified system.
- [29:38]
E
But does Hegseth know that?
- [29:39]
C
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. It's on one of his tattoos, I think. No, I mean this is a good point. Right. Because it could come up with other folks. I will say that at least as alleged to Jacob's point, is it the sort of case that they've brought in the past which is not true of James and basically not true of Comey? And the answer to that is yes. But I still even with the indictment out again, in contrast to Comey and James, I think it's a little bit of a. Of a mystery if it's a righteous case or not. So as opposed to would it hold up legally? Abby Lowell, the same lawyer as for James, is going to be defending, and he has taken the early claim of this is all old stuff. And Jessamay did look at it, but they took a pass on it. So I feel it's still kind of in a murky area. What's your sense, though? Obviously, Trump's kind of dancing for joy over it. Yeah.
- [30:42]
E
Yeah. But I guess this is actually a question that I would ask you when he keeps saying, and he has this dance that he does because I was anchoring on the day that the raid happened at Bolton's house. And of course, we've been asking this question now through the Tish James, through the James Comey, through the looming threats, when he talks about needing to indict Adam Schiff, which, like, I have a ton of questions of, what does it mean when you indict a sitting senator who. It's clearly a political prosecution. I mean, like, that begs all sorts of questions that continue to tear at the seams of what we assume about a small d democracy. But my question for you is when he keeps going out there and saying, I am the chief law enforcement officer, but then pairing it with statements of like, but I don't know, Pam and Cash do what. What they wanna do and like, they do it their way. But then he's also tweeting at them, like, does that then get taken into a courtroom by someone like a Comey, like a James or even like a Bolton to say, these are political prosecutions? Because the President is saying, I am the chief law enforcement officer and I.
- [31:41]
C
Have problems with these people 100%.
- [31:45]
E
Yeah.
- [31:45]
C
So in James and Comey, it's gonna be the centerpiece. The next thing you're gon today, as we drop the podcast, you'll have Comey's first motion that Halligan is improperly appointed, but right after that will come a selective prosecution. In fact, his lawyers are always throwing out these motions, always fail. And they do because everyone's just, you know, always claiming, oh, the government has it in for me. We've got a truth social, but became an email from him to Bondi saying, get him now. And I actually think his continual protestations of, I don't know if they've done anything wrong, but they look guilty as hell to me. Add to the point, because it's obvious it's not only coming from him, but it's coming from him for nothing even remotely connected to some alleged crime, besides it being far and away the strongest selective prosecution case I've ever seen. We're going to see a really interesting skirmish over evidence. They're going to come in and they're going to say, we want discovery. And normally it would be routinely denied, but what they want discovery of is what Donald Trump ordered Bondi or Halligan to do. Guess who's the only authoritative source of that that could come in under the rules of Evans. That would be Donald Trump. So they're going to push hard for something like a videotaped deposition. The White House will fight it tooth and nail, and that's when it's going to get really interesting. I mean, they are going to be going so uphill and overmatched already on the field, you know, Pat Fitzgerald, Lindsey Halligan and a couple. They can't even find a lawyer in the Eastern District of Virginia to sit with her. And I think the judge, Michael Nachmanoff, will be receptive to it. So this is going to be the kind of mini trial that people were hungering for, I think, back in the Biden era. But 100 he's, as always, his worst enemy. I wonder if any of you guys have views, whether he gives a shit. You know, I think it looks very bad for Bondi and Halligan. But do you think his strategy is, I'll indict him, they'll have to pay, they'll suffer the anxiety, et cetera. I don't care what happens or if it ends in a debacle, as I think it actually will, not just should, but will. Does he take a hit or not?
- [34:07]
D
No. I mean, okay, so what goes on in Donald Trump's mind? You know, he wants to inflict the maximum amount of pain. He knows that once you've indicted somebody, you've messed with their life. He doesn't have to put everybody in prison. Look, I mean, Donald Trump, does he want to see John Bolton in prison? James Comey. Yeah, of course he does. Will he be satisfied if he just messes with their life? Yeah, he doesn't. He doesn't probably give a shit. But, I mean, I do think that this is one of those moments. We've all touched on it. There are two thoughts we have to hold in our minds at the same time, and that's what I wrote, which is that, yeah, it's very possible that John Bolton did violate the law, that they've got him on something. But at the same time, the reason we're talking about this. The reason he was in court on Friday was because Donald Trump wanted him insisted on his indictment. There's no question about it. Donald Trump is waging this campaign of retaliation. He's weaponized the Department of Justice. There's no subtlety about it. He has an enemies list. He puts it in writing. He says it, Jack Smith is a bad guy. I hope they're looking at him. I hope they're looking at Adam. Shit. They should go after Andrew Weissman as well, the President of the United States, in the same breath where he's saying that I am the chief law enforcement officer of the United States is naming people that he thinks should be investigated.
- [35:19]
C
So, I mean, while Bondi and Patel kind of smile and, and congratulate themselves on the. On the Comey prosecution itself, but with Bolton, it, it.
- [35:30]
D
There's the same thing. And I quoted, and I very rarely quote Librendi Beria, who was the secret police chief under. Under Joseph Stalin, who famously, or maybe was somebody else said, show me the man, I'll show you the crime.
- [35:43]
C
Exactly.
- [35:43]
D
Start with the man. And you actually might find the crime. Right? But you start with the man. You know, get me the head of John Bolton. Get me the head of James Comey. Let's dig something up. I don't give a shit what it is, as long as we can, you know, say that he was indicted. And by the way, we just need to underline the steaming irony of the fact that we're all concerned now. I mean, the administration is concerned about, you know, leaking of secrets after what Pete Hegseth did with actual war plans and what Donald Trump himself did.
- [36:15]
B
Yes.
- [36:16]
D
And so, you know, once again, chapter 986,000. You know, that irony is completely dead, but in Trump's world, you can see he's sort of going down the list. These are things that I was accused of. And at the end of the day, if people go, you know what? Everybody does it. Both sides do.
- [36:37]
E
You know what we used to call that, Charlie? When I covered the first Trump campaign. So 2015, 2016, we were right in the playbook of what this looked like in real time. Right. I mean, we're hurtling through the air on the airplane. Nothing's built around us. And we used to call it the boomerang attack. And at that point, it was just like, oh, you're not qualified. No, you're not qualified, Hillary Clinton. You're kind of like, wait, what? Like, of course she's qualified. She's been everything. But now it's like the Casual boomerang of just an insult or a nickname has come around in such a more substantive and deeply concerning way that like to call it the boomerang attack. It feels so quaint, but, like, as someone who's been there in the front row for all of the time we've been charting Trump, it's wild for me to see something like that just carry as a full thread and only get stronger in the way that we look at it.
- [37:27]
B
Ali, I think the psychological term for it is projection. You accuse someone else of what you're guilty of and, yeah, John Bolton, as far as I'm aware, did not open a club, leave boxes of classified documents in the bathroom, and let's foreign spies join the club and use the bathroom.
- [37:43]
C
And then hide them and insist they were his.
- [37:45]
B
Yeah, yeah, but there's some interesting things about the Bolton thing. I mean, it's all just so weird. But Bolton, I mean, Trump is mainly mad at the grownups who tried to stop him from doing crazy stuff in his first term, like, say, invading Venezuela. John Bolton was mad and quit because Trump wouldn't bomb or invade enough countries. I mean, Bolton really is a little bit of a warmonger. I mean, he wanted to do Venezuela, do North Korea, Iran, maybe Russia too. And now this charge. It's very interesting because you do get into this super gray area around classification, and I'll give you an example of what we might be dealing with. Big story this week that there was a presidential finding for covert action in Venezuela that was highly classified. It was revealed in the New York Times, and instead of doing what I was afraid he might do, Trump might do and say, we have to find the leaker and prosecute the journalist. Trump said, of course we're doing that. So presumably the presidential finding for covert action in Venezuela is no longer classified. Now, if you had a White House official who was keeping a diary and going to write a book someday, and they not handled that information very carefully, but that information is now declassified, where could you charge them or not charge them with exposing classified information? I suspect everything in the Bolton indictment is some version of that, that there was some classification. But things that were classified don't necessarily state classified. If they become public information and we just don't know. I mean, there's evidence to suggest he was casual with it, but maybe he was keeping a diary and was trying to keep the diary clean of things that were legitimately classified. But at the same time, there's so much over classification in the government that to even have a conversation with Anybody, at some level, you're probably violating classification status, so.
- [39:38]
E
Which was what Republicans said when Trump was in trouble for this.
- [39:42]
B
Yeah, yeah.
- [39:43]
C
Also true. And Abi, Lola's lawyer, basically, you know, invokes Reagan, keeping a diary, et cetera. And I buy all, all of that, but the weird twist on the case is sharing it with wife and daughter. Just have a quick comment and a legal observation to make and then maybe we move on. But as a former DOJ or I just have continual nausea at this sense that, like somehow with all the screaming about weaponization, which is 100% crap, where it concerns the Biden administration and a 100% accurate, that the overall sense that settles in with the American people is everyone kind of does it, et cetera. And it's so important that people don't think that that's the goal. The legal point I want to make is a selective prosecution that is unconstitutional in violation of due process clause. In no way depends on the force of the evidence. If the President orders it up for political reasons, just as if he orders it up cause he doesn't like the religion or race, that is a violation. Nevertheless, you can't help but think that the relative strength and relative I underlined because of the other cases of Bolton vs Comey and James could really affect his ability to make that argument. All right, it is now time for a spirited debate brought to you by our sponsor, Total Wine and more. Each episode, you'll be hearing an expert talk about the pros and cons of a particular issue in the world of wine, spirit and beverages.
- [41:29]
F
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- [42:41]
D
Cheers.
- [42:42]
C
Thanks to our friends at Total Wine and More for today's a spirited debate. Okay, just a minute or two on a sort of eye popping story that Politico broke about the chat group among the young Republicans, which have messages that like, are beyond shocking. You know, we would each of us probably have to leave the air just to repeat them. Charlie, you were, you know, all over this. I just wanted to ask you about your take and what is going on with young Republicans in New York and elsewhere.
- [43:18]
D
Well, I wish I was more shocked about this than I am, but it is still remarkable. And you know, first of all, these are not kids. These are people in their 30s. And I saw the phrase, I'm not sure who actually wrote it, but we've had 10 years of trickle down bigotry. If you are a youngish person and you're joining Republican politics anytime in the last 10 years, who are your role models? Who are your leaders? What are the incentive structures? Why should we be surprised at the lulls? You go back to 2016, the swamp that gave us Donald Trump. This has been going on for a long time. What I find really remarkable though is that JD Vance has made the decision to weigh in, say this is just pearl clutching kids will be kids. Now the young Republicans themselves try to clean up the mess. They have, you know, expelled them. The, you know, New York Republicans are about to, you know, basically dismantle the entire New York Young Republican club. And here you have the grown ass vice president of the United States saying, oh, come on, it's not so bad that you say I love Hitler. Everybody does that. You know, kids do this all the time. You know, I hope that there are millions of Americans who said, you know, if my kid did anything remotely like this, I would be humiliated. And I would think that this was a moment for dramatic intervention. But that tells me, and I'll throw this out for the rest of you, tells me that J.D. vance thinks that these people, you know, rather than a cause of outrage, these are his constituents.
- [44:50]
C
Yes.
- [44:51]
D
And he has their back. And he does not want to be outflanked on the right by the more based online right. He doesn't want to go into 2028 with, you know, Tucker Carlson out there who's going to basically say, you know, we should be able to say any of this stuff. But if saying I really like Hitler is not a red line in politics, then I don't know what is. And I also have to say how totally nauseating it is to see that, you know, Republicans try and look, there's a lot of history here. But, you know, for decades, we're working so hard to say we are not this. We do not engage in all of this. We want to separate ourselves. You know, the Paul Ryan's, the Mitt romneys, the John McCain's, you know, even. Even George Bush. But this is. This is the era of Donald Trump. This is Trump's party. They looked around and said, how do I fit in? What is acceptable in this party? And so, to that extent, they were doing what young people often will do. But what an ugly, ugly chapter.
- [45:53]
C
That's the big point I took as well.
- [45:55]
B
I mean, I think it's a really important point. You know, the president is a role model. And even if the president is the worst role model in the world, he's a role model to young people. And it becomes. His behavior becomes a kind of moral licensing, moral permissioning in terms of everything, in terms of ethics, in terms of taste, in terms of aggression. But the idea that he is modeling every day, threaten, insult, and ridicule your enemies with no apparent boundaries obviously gives permission for everyone in the Republican Party and people who might have acted like they were in their 20s or have descended to acting like they're 12 years old. It's also, to use the term alley raise boomerang. I mean, if woke went too far. All right, let's go. How far could you possibly go in the other direction?
- [46:43]
C
How anti woke can we go? Yay.
- [46:45]
B
Hip hop jokes about gas chambers.
- [46:46]
D
Yes, that's pretty anti woke.
- [46:48]
E
But the constituency point, I think is well made because Republicans in the last 10 to 15 years have not sufficiently grappled with the fact that some of the darkest parts of what was once the Internet and then spilled onto the streets in Charlottesville and now are rearing their heads in these text chats like they have not grappled with that part of society that wants to be part or feels a kinship to the larger Republican Party. And I think the constituency point. As soon as you said that, Charlie, it struck me that that's how we got the there were good people on both sides comment back during Trump's first term. The idea that people who could support him, no matter what their thinking is, is fine. I mean, I remember when we had to go on Just repeat repeated merry, go rounds of like, don't you disavow David Duke endorsing you. I mean, it seems quaint now to go back to the well of 2015 and 16, but I mean, there's so many shades of it. And I feel like we are seeing just the same chapter written a different way. But I think we're watching JD Vance do a similar reaction to what we've seen Trump do in all of these situations. It's better to have more people with me regardless of what they think. Think. Whereas Republicans in the past, you're right, those conventional Republicans who are now gone completely from Washington and politics used to think we have to appeal to our party's better angels. We should be a healthy party that engages with the way that society should be, not the worst thoughts among us.
- [48:14]
D
Well put.
- [48:15]
C
I think it's so trenchant. And remember Vance, I mean, he is the ultimate political calculator, right? He's the one who came to the Trump side for from obviously not where he had been because of those sorts of calculations. So, among other things, you know, what does it say for the conservative movement after Trump?
- [48:34]
E
Like, there's a question of, like, are any of these people gonna want a Nick Fuentes endorsement? I mean, the guy is a white supremacist, right? When Trump had dinner with him, I remember doing that story for Nightly News at that point and saying, like, this is controversial. This is bad. And now he's just part of a MAGA sphere, right? I mean, like that blurred line and the lack of moral clarity from the leaders in MAGA on moments like this, I think is just so glaring.
- [49:01]
D
Very.
- [49:02]
B
Trump will disavow you if you show disloyalty to him on the right. But there's no way simply by doing something that's too vile and bigoted or extreme on the right that you can lose him if you still support him without qualification.
- [49:16]
D
That's the key.
- [49:16]
C
And there you have it. And that's an end. Okay, thanks so much. I knew from these three would be a great conversation. It certainly has been. We just have a second left for a minute. For five words or fewer over the weekend. We tape on Friday, but this is published on Monday. So over the weekend we had the no King rallies happening everywhere. And at recent anti Trump protests, we've seen people in frog costumes, dinosaur suits, other things. The five words or fewer question is what's the craziest costume you think that will come out of this weekend's protests? Five words or fewer.
- [49:56]
B
Mr. Jacob Weisberg, the emperor with no clothes.
- [50:00]
C
I can't believe you did that. That's my fucking five words exactly. The emperor has no clothes.
- [50:07]
B
That's why I wanted to go first. There's always the risk someone's gonna go get yours.
- [50:11]
C
I hope you've enjoyed your last visit to Talking Fed.
- [50:15]
B
Think fast, Harry. What was your. What was your second best idea?
- [50:19]
D
I can't follow that. I was going to say it's. It was. It was me in Cedarburg, Wisconsin, wearing my no oligarchs, no fascist T shirt. So I want to see the person.
- [50:30]
E
Dressed up as Charlie Sykes in that outfit. That's what I like to see, the Charlie Sykes iteration.
- [50:35]
C
Right? Thank you so much, Charlie, Ali and Jacob. And thank you very much, listeners for tuning in to Talking Feds. If you like what you've heard, please tell a friend to subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts or wherever they get their podcasts. And please take a moment to rate and review the show. You can also subscribe to us on YouTube, where we are posting full episodes and my daily takes on top legal stories. Check us out as well on substack@harrylitman.substack.com where I'll be posting two or three bulletins a week breaking down the various threats to constitutional norms and the rule of law. And Talking Feds has joined forces with the contrarian. I'm a founding contributor to this bold new media venture committed to reviving the diversity of opinion that feels increasingly rare in today's news landscape, where legacy media seems to be tacking toward Trump for business reasons rather than editorial ones. Rest assured, we're still the same scrappy independent podcast you've come to know and trust just now linked up with an ambitious project designed for this pivotal moment in our nation's legal and political discourse. Find out more@contrarian.substack.com thanks for tuning in, and don't worry, as long as you need answers, the Feds will keep talking. Talking Feds is produced by Luke Cregan and Katie Upshaw, associate producer Becca Haveian, sound Engineering by Matt McGardo, Rosie Dawn Griffin, David Lieberman, Hamsa Mahadranathan, Emma Maynard and Hallie Necker are our contributing writers and production assistants by Akshay Turbalu and Sebastian Navarro. Our music, as ever, is by the amazing Philip Glass. Talking Feds is a production of Deledo llc. I'm Harry Littman. Talk to you later. Sam.