Loading summary
Transcript36 lines
- [00:01]
Jack Daniels Advertiser
This episode is brought to you by Jack Daniels. Jack Daniels and music are made for each other. They share a rhythm in the craft of making something timeless while being a part of legendary nights. From backyard jams to sold out arenas, there's a song in every toast. Please drink responsibly. Responsibility.org, jack Daniels and Old no. 7 are registered trademarks. Tennessee Whiskey, 40% alcohol by volume. Jack Daniel Distillery, Lynchburg, Tennessee Mint is.
- [00:26]
Harry Littman
Still $15 a month for premium wireless. And if you haven't made the switch yet, here are 15 reasons why you should. One, it's $15 a month. Two, seriously, it's $15 a month. Three, no big contracts. Four, I use it. Five, my mom uses it. Are you, are you playing me off? That's what's happening, right? Okay, give it a try@mintmobile.com Switch upfront.
- [00:48]
Sponsor Announcer
Payment of $45 per three month plan. $15 per month equivalent required. New customer offer first three months only, then full price plan options available, taxes and fees extra. See mintmobile.com.
- [01:02]
Harry Littman
Welcome to Talking Feds. One on one deep dive discussions with national figures about the most fascinating and consequential issues defining our culture and shaping our lives. I'm your host, Harry Littman. Hello, hello, hello, everyone. Welcome to this month's Molly Harry Mashup politics and Law, in which I get to ask Molly John Fast some political questions. She gets to parry with some legal ones. Molly John Fast I got to say, A needs no introduction. B is often short on time. So I think we should just jump right into it. I got a Kimmel question for you, if I could start there, Molly. So Trump reacts to the suspension with triumph, though we know in court he would say, oh, it's not us, but he certainly seems to take credit for it. But now that Kimmel has been reinstated, Trump is chagrined. But it's not clear he has any cards to play. Still, does it play as a loss for him with the base and does he need now somehow to try to scramble to do directly get Kim off the air what he tried to support or do obliquely before?
- [02:18]
Molly John Fast
So I'm not sure how oblique it was, right? With Brandon Carr being like, we can do this the easy way or we can do this the hard way. So here's what I would say about the Kimmel situation. I don't see a clear way out of this for Trump either. He forces Kimmel off the air, which will be the world's biggest lawsuit, a huge pain for him, signs of authoritarianism.
- [02:43]
Harry Littman
And will be and a Flat out First Amendment violation. No two ways about it.
- [02:47]
Molly John Fast
But we'll get back to that, besides that. And they'll come careening into the Supreme Court where the Supreme Court will have to stand up to Trump, which they don't want to do, which is inevitably coming. But there's no way that the MAGA crew on that court is gonna be like, yeah, you can just take stuff you don't like off the air. I mean, even they will be like, no. So it's hard for me to see where the off ramp is for this, but I think probably Trump just goes on and ignores it and does some mean tweets. I think it's hard for me to see him keeping going. I mean, the good news for him is that when things happen that he can't deal with, he just distracts from.
- [03:24]
Harry Littman
Them or declares victory and moves on. Right? Yeah.
- [03:27]
Molly John Fast
Right. But I do think I want you to talk to us about. You used to be in such demand. But now that we have an administration that no longer cares about the law, it doesn't matter what the law is, because whatever.
- [03:42]
Harry Littman
Right. I'm a man without a country. That's right.
- [03:45]
Molly John Fast
Isn't that. I mean, don't you feel like there's so many moments where you're like, well, obviously this is illegal, but discuss.
- [03:53]
Harry Littman
You know, I don't. I wish I felt that way a little bit more. Every week there are legal outrages. And I've said this to you before, Molly. My main job I think of is trying to educate, explain the dangers and the like. And you know, this week alone, Kimmel and the prospect of censorship. Homan and. And the prospect of two tier or three tier justice, the Supreme Court just coming in and without making it clear, just nevertheless overruling a 90 year precedent. I actually find legally, you're right, they don't care. You know, I've totally kind of changed the stuff. I'm really all about the new kind of independent channel of substack and YouTube and I do just a little bit of. Of TV. But I think the law stuff is flying at us fast and furious. It will continue to fly at us fast and furious because what Trump is doing is basically corrupting different areas of law everywhere. Humphrey's executor. That's a pretty darn legal arcane thought from 1935. You got to explain it. And it's a huge deal practically. And my kind of my feel is a little bit the opposite. My feel is this authoritarianism is like a little boring. And I think people don't quite. But it's my job to say, whoa, whoa, whoa, this was a big one. Firing Siebert. This was a big one. And I find there's still, like, plenty to talk about, even as I also feel that, like, we are just trudging on into the end of the Constitution and we're going to have a showdown, just as you said, in about a year with the Supreme Court. Do people still want to hear the legal outrages of the week? But they are there, these legal outrages. So, yeah, I don't feel like underutilized.
- [05:46]
Molly John Fast
Right. But so the ice. There's a shooting at an ICE facility. They found. They killed these immigrants. No law enforcement, but they found these bullets. Maybe Kash Patel tweeted a picture of the bullets. I mean, talk us through this and also explain to us what it seems to me like. What I keep coming back to is it feels like this administration and Trump more generally has squandered any kind of benefit of a debt of the doubt.
- [06:22]
Harry Littman
It's exactly right. And man, oh, man, think about that for a minute. So yesterday, is it the White House formal representative says Homan never did this. And then other people say they did. And in a real before Trump, you'd at least say, wow, there's just a, you know, flat out, you give them maybe the benefit of the doubt, or a better word that I think applies a lot to prosecutions. Molly, presumption of regularity. They did it. The case came out. The grand jury said so we presume regularity and we take it from there. Let's see your proof. Guess what? There's no presumption of regularity. And judges are calling that out. Grand juries in D.C. are saying, we're not going to actually give you a true bill, which is stunning. It's happened to me once in my career. They did it like seven times last week. They don't trust them. And they don't trust them for very good reason. They've been, you know, 10 times burned. Of course there was going to be that picture of the Epstein in the epstein birthday book, etc. So I just want to say there's a lot of things that, you know, as a DOJ type, and that is where my stripes are, I get really sad about what's happening. But this, you just can't, can't but be morose because people over decades build up this advantage. So when you go and say Molly John fast for the United States, it really means something. Guess what? It is all squandered now. And a whole Big thing. I hope maybe you'll join. I want to think about at least to give some kind of alloy to people who are, you know, relentlessly down. What might it look like to try to clean this humongous mess up on the other side? But that's a good one, right? It doesn't. You're not going to like, oh, Trump goes and now you stand up and everyone's going to, to trust you. They are. Besides breaking the law, breaking the Constitution, being completely unfair, they have absolutely squandered generations worth of goodwill from the Department of Justice. And it's just not the kind of thing that you just, you know, start up again with once the if the bad, bad guys leave town. Okay. I got so much for you, Molly, but here's a little. A short one. I love these Trumps from back on. Everyone says, everyone says it was a perfect call. Everyone says. So here's his. Everyone says, everyone says that I should get the Nobel Peace Prize for each one of these achievements. And I guess what I mean, my question to you politically is this will sound like it's not serious. It is. Which is, is he serious? Does his b, you know, is his base now looking for this is are they going to agitate when surprise, surprise, he doesn't get the Nobel Peace Prize. And I don't know what he'd get it for. Right. You know, just yesterday. Totally switches directions on Ukraine. He's no leader in the Middle East, Ukraine, China, anywhere else. But real fantasy. What the, what the, what the heck? He's going around saying everyone says I should get the Nobel Peace Prize.
- [09:38]
Molly John Fast
This is such a good topic because actually, I was reading the Washington Post earlier, though, Jesse just sent this to me where it says that 22% of all Americans think Trump deserves a Nobel Peace Prize. But I don't think this is not for the base. Right. The Nobel Peace Prize stuff, they don't care.
- [09:56]
Harry Littman
Is that right? Yeah, that's my first question. Okay. Yeah.
- [10:00]
Molly John Fast
I mean, I don't think there's any world in which they care. It's like, I don't think, like his obsession with Hollywood. I mean, I get that he feels that, that politics is downstream of culture, but ultimately what I think we're seeing here is just there are some things that this 80 or is he 80 or is he 79?
- [10:22]
Harry Littman
Last I heard, he was 79. I don't know when we have a national holiday and close all the banks when he turns 80.
- [10:29]
Molly John Fast
So he's 79 years old and he has certain things he's Very stuck on from living in New York. And they include, you know, Debra Messing, ratings, award shows, stuff that isn't necessarily stuff that I think the base really cares about. And then there's stuff the base really cares about. The Nobel Prize is. I think he hates Obama. He's mad when people laugh at him. Obama did this thing where he. He spoke.
- [11:01]
Harry Littman
The White House Correspondents Dinner.
- [11:03]
Molly John Fast
White House Correspondent Dinner, the mother.
- [11:05]
Harry Littman
The mother of all.
- [11:06]
Molly John Fast
That was the original sin. And then Trump decided that he was. I mean, look, the irony is maybe it's not the original sin because Trump was on the birth certificate thing before Obama. So ultimately, really, Trump did start it. But the point of this is that he hates being laughed at. And so I think part of where we are at this moment is that he's kind of trying to get revenge. And he even said that when he was running for president. Remember, like, I'm gonna. People would be like, no, no, you're not gonna seek revenge. And he was like, no, no, I am.
- [11:42]
Harry Littman
Yesterday. I hate my opponents.
- [11:44]
Molly John Fast
Right? Charlie loved his opponents, but I hate them. So I think this is, you know, he wants to win a Nobel Peace Prize because he feels like then people will stop laughing at him. I mean, it goes back to this, what we saw at the UN where the first time Trump spoke at the UN he was laughed at, and this time he spoke at the UN and he was basically like, I'm so powerful. I've. You know, I'm more powerful than the institution. I can cut all this foreign aid. You have nothing to laugh at because it's so scary. And I think that's real, and I think that drives a lot of where we are right now.
- [12:26]
Sponsor Announcer
Talking Feds is supported by the Brennan center for Justice. In this new political era, the Brennan center will do what they do best. Defend the Constitution and the rule of law. They're prepared to fight against presidential overreach and will continue advocating for reforms to resist weaponized government, stop billionaires from corrupting our elections, and ensure every eligible American has the freedom to vote. Stay informed by visiting Brennan Center.org Trump.
- [12:54]
Molly John Fast
Fired this guy in the Eastern District because he wanted him to prosecute his enemies. And maybe because the Comey case is about to be out of statute of limitations. Right. If they want to prosecute it, it's now. So basically, what we've seen is these people, they don't want to go forward with fake cases, which is what Trump wants, but they will dismiss cases that are against Trump's people. So, like the Eric Adams case, Comey So it seems like we have a real disconnect here with the stuff where the administration just wants to make stuff up versus wants to let stuff go. So do you think Trump is going to be able to find. So now he's going to put, maybe he's going to try to put one of his parking lawyers or one of his, the people who don't know better in that job. But do you think that we're going to see a world where they start just making up stuff? I mean, what do you think that looks like? And also, do you think that there's a mechanism for that? Right. Because there are grand juries. I mean, there are a number of hurdles that you have to get past if you're making up fake stuff.
- [14:14]
Harry Littman
Yeah. So glad you asked this question. What does it look like the ninth circle of Hal Muller? We hear about all these different outrages, doj and I'm here to tell you nothing, nothing, nothing could be worse than making shit up against an innocent person in order to just bring criminal charges that aren't there against a political enemy. Start with the first principle in the U.S. attorney's Manual. Start with the Constitution. Making stuff up. It's like a quarter inch away from just taking people and putting and disappearing them. This is the soul of autocracy. And even though it is also a complete dereliction of the same rule to force the dismissal of a righteous case, still better 10 guilty walk than one innocent person. So the combination of stuff here, no facts and you can't. No facts. I can't tell you how fundamental the, you know, DNA here that when Siebert and his first assistants say no facts, no facts, even now, right in the White House, Levitt said, well, they, what they do, they weaponized the justice. That's not what's your federal crime. The federal crime is make shit up. It's just couldn't be worse. And because it's a Trump enemy. Now just very quickly to the practical question, will they be able to do it? I mean he, he's so imbecilic, he's given a huge bat to any to, to Comey Schiff, James, anybody who's indicted to say this isn't, this isn't bona fide. So, you know, if this happens, A, I think they're very vulnerable and B, it's the most nauseating bottom, bottom, bottom, rock bottom thing that can happen. I wrote, I wrote a subset a couple of days ago. You know, Donald Trump in the ninth circle of hell.
- [16:18]
Molly John Fast
But it also, when you see that kind of thing where you no longer trust what the administration is trying to do. Like, I also think we're seeing Trump sort of say the quiet part out loud, like when we talk about the.
- [16:37]
Harry Littman
Kimmel stuff, which nobody ever, ever has said, because you can't say it because it's the same as saying, you know, let's just all get rid of our democracy. So stunning to former prosecutors. What happened here, Molly? And I know that office. I worked in that office, right?
- [16:53]
Molly John Fast
So with the tweet where he said, you know, I'm firing this guy because he won't find the stuff I want. And then he said with the Kimmel stuff, you know, we were told it was canceled and now it's not. Both of these things are, like, technically admissible in court. Right. Can you talk us through that?
- [17:09]
Harry Littman
What that means they've got an absolute golden setup motion. It probably doesn't go to the jury, it goes to the judge. And you say up front, judge, throw this shit out now. It's so obvious. Selective prosecution. You put all this stuff up, you maybe get to depose some people. The disconnect here, Molly, is that for all his pique and all the ways, and nobody is making a claim that any of these guys committed a federal crime. You stand up in front of the court and swear you know, this guy did these things and you. But you don't have a federal crime. So it's a lie. And the most serious, unjust kind of lie that a prosecutor can tell. So I, you know, I think Trump did that thing where he actually had a sort of email to Bondi, but it came out as a true social. You read that you're going to set up. There's going to be motion after motion that's going to make this harder. But I just want to start with, you know, that my head going 360 degrees and that of any former prosecutor I know doesn't get worse. Okay, my quick question to you. Another, another topic. Look, we're always told you don't understand MAGA well enough. You look down at them, you really have to think of them, and they're. And they're, you know, true concern, etc. Yeah, maybe there's 5% who are nuts, etcetera, but autism, RFK, Tylenol in pregnancy, right? I mean, it's like bleach cures Covid. It's so bad, people will probably die. As you analyze and discern his base, do we think that, that. I assume you'll say, a lot of people don't care. I'll just do it. Do we think there's, I don't know, 20%, 30% who say, I support Trump or I hated Kama Harris, but I am not anti science. And this is, you know, he's a Yoko. This is a joke. Or for all his base to the. Okay, you know, Tylenol and pregnancy whatever.
- [19:22]
Molly John Fast
So here's what I would say. Tylenol and pregnancy whatever. I think this makes more sense if you think of RFK as like a political actor and not as a public health person. So he has a base he wants to make happy. Trump has a base he wants to make happy. Some amount of Trumpism is Maha. Probably not as much as we think, because they're pretty loud and very online. I can't see a world where vaccines are an 8020 issue. So maybe they're a 7030 issue. I think this hurts more than it helps. Also, Tylenol. I mean, like Johnson and Johnson, that family was huge. Trump donors, too, which is hilarious. And I just don't think that's the boogeyman they wanted. I mean, the reason there. There are all sorts of reasons why it's very destructive to tell women they caused autism by taking Tylenol.
- [20:23]
Harry Littman
They caused autism in their children.
- [20:26]
Molly John Fast
And also that there's not any evidence to support it. That's also a problem. But I don't know that it scratches the itch the way that they are hoping it does. I do think, like, Trump really did was very negative on vaccines, and he said things like, we're going to break it up. It's too much liquid. I mean, that stuff was crazy. But it was also maybe what the MAGA base wants. I don't know. I mean, it's hard for me to see. This is another thing which I think is like kind of a boondoggle that he's gonna get stuck in because there just aren't great ways out of the vaccine problem. You tell people not to vaccinate their kids, their kids will die, you're gonna have outbreaks, even with the measles stuff. So you can keep people happy with that lie for only for so long before the bill comes due. So I just think it's a very tough line to walk. RFK Jr is very good at speaking in a way that she's very good at obfuscating in a way that Trump maybe even isn't. Like, Trump just says stuff, but he gets away with it because people think he's funny or because whatever, because we've all lost our minds. But RFK is able to say things about things and never answer the question in a way that I think works very well for him. But I don't. But ultimately I think I don't know how he does this. And ultimately I think you're gonna see RFK really come into collision with Trump because these are both very ambitious people. I don't think Trump is ready to appoint an heir apparent, and especially not one that isn't named Trump.
- [22:11]
Harry Littman
Thank you for tuning in to One on One, a weekly conversation series from 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 daily updates on top legal stories. Check us out on substack harry littman.substack.com where we're posting two or three bulletins a week breaking down the various threats to constitutional norms and the rule of law. And Talking Fez has joined forces with the Contrarian. I'm a founding contributor to this 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 and vital project designed for this pivotal moment in our nation's legal and political discourse. Find out more@Contrarian.com 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 Havean sound Engineering by Matt McArdle, Rosie Don Griffin, David Lieberman, Hansa Mahadrenathan, Emma Maynard and Hallie Necker are out. Our contributing writers production assistance by Akshay Turbailu and Sebastian Navarro. Our music, as ever, is by the Amazing Philip Glass. Talking Feds is a production of Doledo llc. I'm Harry Littman. Talk to you later.