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Foreign.
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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 Littman. In Texas, a bruising Republican Senate fight ended with Ken Paxton's writing a late Trump endorsement to a dominant win over incumbent John Cornyn that sets up a showdown between Paxton and Democrat James Talarico that figures to be the most closely watched and most expensive race of the midterms. Back in D.C. trump's grotesque slush fun continued to roil his own party and drew new pushback from the courts, with one judges ordering a temporary halt to to its creation. And shortly after we taped another judge reopened the case that generated the settlement, applying new intense scrutiny. The whole thing is shaping up to be a scandal that could persist through the midterms. Pam Bondi's much anticipated trip to Congress was an anti climax. Her responses not under oath to the questions about the department's handling of the Jeffrey Epstein scandal offered up predictable bromides and pinned blame on her then deputy Todd Blanche. Meanwhile, the department appears, its denials notwithstanding, to be going after a new retribution target, Trump accuser and private citizen E. Jean Carroll. To discuss another scandal plagued week, but with a heartening series of setbacks for the president. From various quarters, I'm really pleased to be joined by three of the smartest political minds in the country and they are Jonathan Alter, an award winning author, filmmaker, columnist and MSNBC political analyst. He's authored books about fdr, Obama, Jimmy Carter, and most recently the felony trial of Donald Trump, which we watched sort of shoulder to shoulder. And he's got an excellent substack called Old Goats. John Alter, thank you very much for being here.
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C
Great to be here, Harry.
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B
David Graham, a staff writer at the Atlantic. He led the magazine celebrated reporting on Project 2025 and that turned into his first book, the Project. Previously, David won the Toner Prize for excellence in national political reporting for his coverage of the 2020 presidential election. Graham, thanks very much for being here.
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D
It's great to be here.
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B
And Senator Heidi Heitkamp. She served as the first female senator elected from North Dakota from 2013 to 2019. Before that, she was eight years as North Dakota's Attorney General and thereafter headed the University of Chicago Institute of Politics. Senator, thank you very much for coming back to Talking Fits.
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A
It is always fun to be on your show.
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B
Thank you. Hey, let's start please. In the Texas Senate race, which was the has been the center of attention in this round of elections and where a late endorsement by Trump carried Ken Paxton to a sizable victory over the popular mainstream incumbent John Cornyn. On a recent roundtable, conservative columnist David French begged, that's a quote, his liberal friends to be careful what they wish for. If they hoped for Paxton to go up against Talarico, he's sure a deeply flawed candidate. An impeachment by the Republican Texas legislature. Does his scandal ridden past and hardcore maga bona fides handicap him in the general? Or are those just more strengths in a red state so far like Texas in the Trump era?
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A
Well, if you love Trump, you're gonna love this guy because they've never found, they've never seen a grift they wouldn't go with. And so, you know, it doesn't surprise me. I think Trump probably had some advanced polling and knew that Paxton was gonna win, wanted to jump in. I think the margin clearly spread once Trump got in. But they, this has hurt him and wounded him deeply in the Senate and his relationships with senators.
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B
But you mean the cutting off of the knees of Cornyn?
- [04:45]
A
Yeah, yeah. And Cornyn's pretty popular guy, almost was the Senate leader. And so, you know, it doesn't surprise me that the Republican establishment is getting behind him because they wanna hang onto that majority and they see it slipping away. The tighter they hold onto that sand, the more the sand is going through the fingers. And the reality is that we keep saying Texas could be blue, Texas could be blue, you know, a lot of money. I don't think the Democratic establishment's gonna spend a lot of money, but he's a very good fundraiser. Plus, I'm not convinced money is what it the end all and be all anymore. But I do know many, many conservative yet old establishment Republicans in Texas who I'm not convinced are gonna vote for Paxson. I think they might just sit this one out. If there was a shot, I think we've got it in Texas. But I would not ignore other places like Mississippi, which I want to put a plug in, for, not ignore Iowa. Don't ignore Nebraska by pouring in tons of money into Texas.
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B
Let me serve it up also with a little bit about Talarico, who they're certainly going to try to paint as an extreme liberal. Attack ads already are featuring is I think 2021 statement. God is non binary, man. Two straight heartbreaks in Texas. How, how bruising is it going to be and how effective do you think they can make Talarico out to be extreme?
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C
You know, you never know it's going to happen. And there could be other things about Tall Rico's past that we don't know. I think Democrats would obviously be foolhardy to be overconfident. But I am giving you my, my actual, like, real assessment, not wishful thinking.
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B
You mean you don't normally.
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C
John, I have to admit, sometimes I've been guilty of some wishful thinking, okay? But I actually think this is for the Democrats to lose. They're in a very, very strong position. They can blow it. Talarico can lose. But in my mind, he's the favorite at this point. And there's a couple of reasons why I think that. One is you've seen the familiar things about how Latinos are moving back to where they were in 2020, which needs to happen for Talarico to win. Obviously, there are some very discouraged Republicans and you've seen some talk about independents who are in Texas and everywhere else, a huge factor. And Talarico has a big margin right now with independence. And, you know, if you've got something, let's say that this trans stuff or God is non binary. Let's assume for sake of argument that that's a good issue. If you're unveiling it in May, it's worn out as an issue by the middle of the summer. And then the question for the Republicans is, what else do you got on this guy? The vegan thing doesn't work. Trump called it vegan. It doesn't work. It's not working at all. So what else do they have on them? I'm not sure they have anything else on them.
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D
I think it'd be a real irony if Democrats, having tried for so many years to turn Texas blue, failed and it was Donald Trump who pulled it off for them by pushing Paxton over the line. Two things that I have noticed just in these first couple days of the race so far. One is Republicans are talking about how extreme Talarico is. Talarico, meanwhile, is out there appealing to Cornyn voters, saying there's a place for them in the campaign. And his campaign is eagerly pushing out clips of Cornyn, Chip Roy, Louie Gohmert. I mean, these people who are not squishes by any stretch of the imagination talking about how corrupt and terrible Paxton is. So he's got Republicans making the case for him on the other side. I mean, not only are they unloading with this stuff on him, but the sort of tone, I mean, it's not just anti woke, it's, I think it's, you know, they're calling him a sissy it's kind of gay baity. It is like low T stuff. Look, that stuff has worked in politics and probably does work, but the extent to which they're pushing it, if you're not deeply embedded in like, manosphere podcasts, I think that stuff sounds weird, like talking about low T. And I think, you know, that's certainly not going to appeal to a lot of, you know, soccer mom, suburban swing voters. So I have real questions about how far they think that can really carry Paxton.
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B
You know, that's a great point. And you gotta wonder who, who wasn't already gonna vote for Paxton could be actually persuaded by that. I wanna call Quick Audible and pick up on something you said, Senator, and this is a super expensive race by all measures. It was 130 million in the primary. Everyone's gonna be pouring money into it. You just suggested that maybe you're coming to the view that money, what we've always heard, is the mother's milk of politics. Maybe its role is a little bit obsolete. Now. Did I hear that right? And why do you think money might have faded a little bit in importance?
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A
Because there are so many other ways to get content out there. There's so many other ways to reach voters that are not the 30 second commercials. Plus, you've got the opportunity to cheap places. If you think about the Indian reservations where we campaign, number one, you know, you can advertise on Indian radio. People who don't live here don't know that. And I'm sure that there's Hispanic radio, Hispanic media, that's not as expensive. And so it's $4 million to saturate the airwaves a day in Texas. And if you don't figure out how to do a workaround, you will spend your way into oblivion. And so if you look at Trump, Trump never outspent his opponents. And so what I would say is content personality, in some cases celebrity, which Talariko has.
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B
He really does, right. He's got that charisma factor, you know,
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A
low T or not. I want to David's point, you know, they now say, where's your girlfriend? Yeah, where's your girlfriend? So that's code. But they should be a little careful with that because they might have a few candidates who would want to know where their girlfriends were too. Anyway, the thing that I think is that we overemphasize money and we don't emphasize messenger and message nearly as much as we should the three M's of campaigning. And I think he's got a rhythm. He's been out there. He's basically been building his reputation as they've been duking it out. And he's gonna have plenty of negative to work with. And there's a lot of people who don't like Paxton already. But if you think that it's worth $4 million a day to advertise in the traditional sense, I don't think that's going to get you what you need to win in Texas. And so be smart about the money.
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B
You know, it's a great point. The most celebrated political campaigns of late have found ways around the deluge of TV ads.
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C
I wanted to ask Heidi a question. So this is just something I might be ignorant about, but are there any Democratic candidates these days who still pay their media consultants a percentage of the buy?
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A
You know, everybody's getting down and dirty now. Yeah, everybody's certainly that was true in the last cycle. And it is obscene the amount of money that goes to consultants. It's the, you know, we talk about the military industrial complex. We have a campaign industrial complex that we need to break loose of because, number one, usually those folks produce really boring ads. They're cookie cutter and they don't move numbers. And so the authenticity factor, it goes not only to what you say, but where you say it and how you kind of project yourself in normal kinds of ways.
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D
It's been interesting to see Democratic strategists in the last few days sort of trying to figure out what to make of this race.
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C
Yeah.
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D
And it's a, you know, it's a gamble. Like, do you want to put a lot of effort into this when it could be the tipping point for the Senate? Or do you want to make Republicans spend a lot of money there but understand that you might not get a victory? And if you do that, you know, what is the opportunity cost of spending $4 million a day to blanket Texas versus putting that into House races or putting that into, as you said, center, into Mississippi or into Nebraska or somewhere else. And I will, you know, Democrats don't have the, there's no coordinating force that can, can decide how to allocate that. But, you know, donors, big donors and individual donors alike are going to be sort of trying to figure out where their money makes the most sense.
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A
And I want to raise this point because you did raise Beto. And you know, I had a person that I worked with at the, at the university who did some analysis for him, and he is very sophisticated about the voter base. And so I think you're going to see a lot of the hard work that he did since his race come into play in terms of turnout and how you get the turnout. And so to me, if I were investing millions of dollars in that race, I wouldn't be on television. I would look at content and where you're getting that content. But I would look on voter engagement and the work that's been done in Texas to identify low propensity turnout voters who, who you might be able to turn out, who share your values.
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C
The only problem with that, and this is a concern that I would have, is I saw Scudder, the state party chairman, on with Simon Rosenberg the other day and he was talking about how proud they were that they finally have like a Democratic candidate in every district because for a long time in big chunks of Texas, they didn't even feel Democratic candidates. And he said they were working from a pretty old voter file. So there was a lot of party building activity in Texas that didn't get done for years and years. And they have to do a lot of it fast. And I think they have the enthusiasm to do it. But it's a project.
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A
There's a lot of analysis that's been done on the Texas voter base. And so we'll see. I mean, the problem when you talk to state parties is state parties have become essentially irrelevant in big races like this. You know, it's other people who fund the gotv. It's not your state party database. And so I'd be a little careful and it's going to help that they have someone running in each one of those districts. That's the problem. And you know, you guys know my passion for rural politics and rural America, that I mean, we've been devoid of candidates. So of course you're going to lose momentum, people are going to get quiet who are your supporters and they get demoralized. And so there's a new energy out there for Democrats in red states to really stand up and say it's time. And you know what? It's all motivated by one thing, one person, Donald Trump.
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B
It's a really important point. And let's maybe this is going to be the focus going forward for months. Let's do a sort of closer on this topic. Taking off from David's comment that this could be the tipping point. So let's assume Talarico pulls it off and that evening when that's announced, what do you think that means for the overall calculus of whether the Dems retake the Senate? If that one comes through, how do you see the overall board playing out or Is it really just a. On its own isolated race?
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C
Well, I mean, the midterms are often trend elections. And so if he were to win, it would probably be a indication that it was a very, very good night for Democrats generally. And we would be then living in a more accountable America. Be a very, very good thing for
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A
the Republic and for the Republican Party, in my opinion.
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B
Yeah, it's got to do something eventually, right?
- [16:53]
C
Yeah. Failure is a teacher. I mean, if they get wiped out, then maybe they come back differently. Although Stuart Stevens and some others say it's hopeless, that, you know, it's hopeless
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B
for the current party, what he says isn't even a party.
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A
This is a tear down, not a remodel.
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B
Huh? Right, Exactly.
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C
So, Heidi, in rural America, like, so you know, Dan Glickman, who was Secretary of Agriculture, you know, former congressman, Congressman. And he was telling me when I was working on my Jimmy Carter book, you know, I was asking him, like, why is rural America so red when. When I was a kid. It wasn't. It was. And he like attributed a lot of it to Carter's misguided grain embargo of 1980. And he said people still remembered that they were trying to boycott the Olympics. And Mondale vice president told him, don't do this. Just the Soviet Union will buy its grain elsewhere. This is just a thing that's going to piss off the farm belt and don't do it. But he did it anyway. And Glickman told me that he thought that people in the farm belt had really long memories. And it wasn't just that they were listening to Rush Limbaugh. They were remembering that the Democrats screwed them in 1980. So my question, Heidi, are people going to remember the tariffs, remember the damage that Trump did to them in rural America?
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A
Yeah, I think they're demoralized. We see record bankruptcies. We see operated. People can't get operating loans. It's bad out there. Purdue does a index of farm sentiment that everybody should look at because these are reliably his base. But I would respectfully disagree with Dan. I don't think it was the grain embargo, the wheat embargo. I think that what happened is for years we could peel off really a lot of votes in rural. I won rural counties the first time I ran. And I ran because people knew me and because people were concerned about the farm bill, which they couldn't get passed. And so when the Republicans flipped and started supporting the farm bill, started doling out the money, and you took away the economic issues, then people went to the cultural issues and then the wedge was driven about. Those people hate you. They really disrespect you. They're liberal elite, latte sipping, Cadillac driving, whatever coastal party. And the Democrats never fielded candidates to say anything about that. They never ran campaigns for Mondale or for Kerry or any presidential campaign in red states. And they slowly gradually lost rural America by not competing and by not corresponding and communicating. And that's one thing that they need to fix. And so we'll see what happens. But right now, if the tariffs on the grain embargo were the reason why they lost, then clearly losing the soybean market and the corn market and record low commodity prices and record high inputs should drive farmers to vote Democrat. I don't think that's going to happen. I think the margins will be better, but I think there's more kind of structural work that needs to be done in rural America.
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B
I just want to second what the senator said. When I was U.S. attorney, I covered 25 counties and a lot of them were red. And the cultural issues were very, very strong there, including the kind of accompanying resentment, bitterness toward supposedly what Democrats represented. I want to return now to the current news and especially the slush fund. So Republicans unleashed some, it seemed genuine outrage over the slush fund. This may have been connected to Trump's takedown of Cornyn, but you had several pretty loud and prominent voices. They've gone quiet just in the last day or two. Even as a lot of good things are happening in the courts. I just want to ask, ask initially your views of whether this, what was looking pretty much like a line in the sand is going now to, you know, wash away like so many others, or does this one have legs, as it were?
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D
I think it cuts a couple ways. I mean, one thing we've seen, you know, your point about the courts I think is really salient. We've seen time and again that Republicans in Congress want the courts to solve their problem with Trump. For them, they thought they didn't have to impeach Trump, that the courts would deal with it. They thought that various charges would do it. They just want somebody else to do the work for them because they don't want to face the blowback. So it's like, perverse. When the courts rule against Trump, the Republicans in the Senate and in the House get quiet. I think, though, you know, Trump is creating this caucus of folks who don't have a lot of reasons to stay in line. Cassidy, Tillis, Cornyn, you know, what is the incentive for them not to try to tank something like this. He's ruined. He's, you know, he's ended their political careers. He can't really punish them a whole lot more. And I think they understand it's bad, and they also understand that it's bad politics and they can kind of fall in the grenade for other colleagues. So I don't know, I'm torn between sort of optimism that, that, you know, there's finally enough backlash building and having been fooled time and again when it seemed like Republicans were willing to stand up and then they backed off.
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B
Yeah. There's a Lucy football dynamic, isn't there? I wanted to ask you, Senator, because I spoke this morning with Jamie Raskin, who is spearheading an effort on multiple fronts. Let's assume for the moment that they have successfully and sort of cynically cut off the legal challenges based on standing and just set that to the side for now. Nevertheless, there could be a howl of protests from many quarters, and we've certainly had the seeds of that. Do you see that as enough to force DOJ and Trump to back down? And I'll just add, this is obviously something he cares about a lot.
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A
I don't think he has a reverse on this. And there's a lot of yak kind of chatter about, well, setting some guidelines in the reconciliation bill. I don't think that'll pass. The birdbath.
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B
The reconciliation, you mean?
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A
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so, you know, I know David and Jonathan may have a different opinion about this, but I don't see restricting this legal settlement. But what I heard, which was funny, and I used to be the tax commissioner, I'm a tax lawyer, is that the way this thing is structured, it may be income to him that he has to pay taxes on, even though he says, I'm not going to take a dime, which would be kind of funny anyway.
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D
Well, they can't audit him, so it's not a problem.
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B
Yeah. But let me just add very quickly that the doctrine is. And they can't just declare it away if it's a benefit to him. You can't just get a settlement, assign it to third parties. You are liable on the taxes. And that's even leaving aside the whole add on part of the audit. So that's a real issue that could come up in a subsequent administration.
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C
I mean, because he got that audit provision that he's basically figuring he will never be audited for the rest of his life, and that means he will never pay taxes for the rest of his life. So I think in the Past, he sometimes paid a few hundred dollars in taxes, but now he'll just be a tax evader. He won't pay anything because he can't be audited. But I'm a little bit more optimistic, is too strong, but a little bit more hopeful of pushback. So you mentioned Cornyn and Tillis and Cassidy. If you add Murkowski and Collins, it's five Republican votes, you know, and you can do a lot with that. And it can be, for example. Well, I mean, it puts the whole reconciliation conversation in a different place. And I mean, Heidi knows a lot more about this than I do, but that's a pretty good. Pretty good group of dissident Republicans that you have, maybe not on every vote, but on quite a few votes.
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A
And you're gonna go through this process of amendments, right, during reconciliation. And so they're gonna force this caucus to vote on. Even if it's not Germaine, they're going to force him to take really, really tough votes on this. And this thing stinks to high heaven. Everybody knows it stinks to high heaven. Everybody knows that this is a, you know, like a draw, jobping, outrageous settlement. And, you know, let's see if they're going to put their money where their mouth is. But right now, you don't see the president backing up. And these are going to be, you know, if you were arrested for assaulting an officer, if you've been since arrested, you know, if you're now running for governor of Minnesota and you told a bunch of lies and have a huge civil judgment against you, I mean, just think of the characters that are going to get this money, and it's the drip, drip, drip. You know, Trump may try and put it behind the wall, like, say, you can't see who gets this money. But, you know, so far, that that's something. If I were there, I would say there's got to be absolute transparency about who gets this money. And it's the gift that keeps on giving you guys.
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B
Politically, yes, it's a.
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A
It's obnoxious, it is horrible, it is wrong on so many fronts. But politically, for the Democrats, this is a huge gift and a huge mistake on Donald Trump's part.
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B
I mean, look at the line that's already forming. Enrique Terrio, when he steps up and leaves with a million or each one, it doesn't go away. And to my. I'll just put my cards out that I. The legal avenues are hard, but yet if there's a coalescing and a real political groundswell, man, oh, man, one way or another. You know, I don't even on the
- [26:45]
C
outside, if you get, you know, if Raskin's bill, they can get, you know, a discharge petition, whatever it is, to get that bill out on the floor. That's a hard vote for incumbent Republicans.
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D
And you have some Republicans already. You've got Fitzpatrick out there talking about it. You could already see a couple of votes that would peel off, that's for sure.
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B
And even so. So whatever they do, let's say they pass Raskin's bill, he'll veto it. But yet there's just a way in which kind of everything is coming together on this one.
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A
So just for everyone.
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B
Yeah.
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A
Do you think it's a good thing that we're talking about this every day? No. I mean, this is a president who doesn't know how to stay on message, no matter what. Rule number one in politics, when people are making really bad mistakes, your opponent step out of their way. Do not. I mean, I think what Raskin's doing is very smart. I think that, you know, having a line of amendments to make the point. But think about how if this is in the media every day, every day, it's a bad, bad thing for the Republican Party and for Republican incumbents. And so where's their good news? He's going to sign. If the, the reports are true about the agreement with Iran, that is another explosive, absolutely explosive problem for the Republicans and for people like, you know, Ted Cruz, this is a very, very bad deal, the way it's been described to me and the way I read about it. So where's the good news? Well, he should be talking about, you know, we're trying to, you know, lower interest rates and I appoint, you know, whatever it is, he's gotta go back to the economy. But he doesn't have a good news story there either. And that's a huge problem. And he can't stay on message. I saw his small business, which started out like a pretty persuasive look, we're trying to help small business. That's what we're doing. And within five minutes, he was talking about the ballroom. He's uncomfortable and doesn't know what he's talking about over there. So he goes to where he's comfortable talking about it. And that's, you know, I'm a builder. I build gaudy, horrible structures and I'm going to impose them on the American people for the next 250 years and the nation's capital.
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B
I'm thinking about a Republican congressman or woman at A town hall meeting. Do you support. Man, oh, man. Not only is there no good answer, but you have to resent the president for putting you in that position.
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A
So this is for you, Harry. I mean, I wondered. This horrible timing and, you know, he filed the lawsuit, so the statute wasn't gonna run on it. He could have waited until after the midterms, but there was a court order that was gonna be issued basically on whether he could sue. And weren't they trying to get out ahead of that court order, which is why they made the announcement when they made it, right.
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B
100%. First of all, it was barred by the statute anyway. One of three big infirmities, but a court was gonna have it. And the most interesting. I've been obsessed with this, I gotta say, but a very interesting development this week. 35 judges have gone to that judge and said, you know what, you can reopen it and you should, and find that it was fraud and find that it was collusion. Then they'll be left really naked and having to say, okay, we're just doing it for fun between us friends anyway, and that, you know, so it's one more kind of load for them to carry. But I think she will probably take the advice of those judges, and that's going to be a whole nother drama. It was put on hold today by judge in the Eastern District of Virginia. I don't know if that case prevails on standing, but I just see, all in all, such an accumulation of protests that, you know, and. And certainly, as you say, this is not something that the Republicans want to have the flames fanned on.
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C
I think the Democrats can do a little better on the language, you know, slush fund. That's what, like, Nixon had. It's kind of a survivable thing because people go, wait, is that a slush? Slushy? Like, what is, you know, what is that, that fun? Do I think it should be called the self deal Steal.
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B
Ah, there you go with a little trademark altar on anybody.
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C
Could somebody else steal it from me? I give it away to anybody.
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B
Right.
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C
But it's self dealing. And I think that people understand that, you know, that he's just feathering his own nest. And I think it's not crazy to say that some of that money that's going to go from that $1.8 billion fund will find its way into Trump's pocket or the pocket of his family. And I think if you say that to voters are going to go, yeah, that's for sure. Yeah, we'll figure out how to do that, like to, to turn it into a self deal story. And it's yielding a lot of benefits, as you say, Heidi, right now. But. But it could be even better. And the other thing is running out the clock. Right. So it's almost summer, then you get into the fall, then the midterms. After the midterms, there are going to be a lot more impediments to this. The same way that he's not going to have his face on a $250bill. It's just not going to happen. Right. Besant was saying, oh, well, it's a Capitol Hill issue now. Yeah. They're not going to let him accelerate the process of the Bureau of Engraving, you know, so that it's ready for
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B
July 4th, even after they fired the head of it who protested.
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C
I mean, the new head of it doesn't know where the, the bathroom is yet. You know, it takes a while for them to settle in. Although with Doge, they prove that they can do damage pretty quickly. But, you know, to actually get a new bill that, you know, a $250 bill, that's a, a pretty long process. There's a lot of steps in it, and I don't think they're going to get there.
- [32:39]
B
And time is not on their side. Right. The settlement fund itself is designed to run out, not coincidentally, at the end of 2028. I feel this way also about the Grotesque Ballroom. It's not clear anyone's even entitlement to sue. But, you know, just at the end of the day, can he, you know, really pull it off? I, for no really good reason. I'm a lawyer. I agree. In the law, think like it's just, it's just not happening.
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C
That one is a done deal. They're already building it. It's like, you know.
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B
Yeah. No, the question is whether they'll build the Xanadu mausoleum, though. Right.
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C
And whether they'll do their version of it.
- [33:19]
B
Yeah. Whether the White House and District of Columbia skyline will be altered in some permanent imperialist or Stalinist tribute to Donald Trump. That's. That's the stakes.
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C
You're talking about the arch or the ballroom?
- [33:33]
B
Both. I'm talking about both.
- [33:35]
C
So I don't know where defeating the arch stands. The ballroom is almost a fet accompli. I mean, it's happening. It's not like the $250bill. It's like it's happening.
- [33:49]
B
We'll see.
- [33:49]
C
I don't think they're going to get the federal money because that's a horrible vote for anybody to take, but they don't need the federal money to do some version of it. But I actually have a thought about what it should be used for when a Democrat becomes president. Is a community center for the District of Columbia. You just have kids in there playing basketball.
- [34:10]
B
You put down the wood floor, they'll be very safe. And I mean I do think there's a possible prospect in our future of, you know, as happened in post 89 Soviet Union, Russia, where these big Stalinist heads were just brought down and imploded and I've taken us off course. But you know what I'm basically saying about the what is it? Self deal steal. There's a ultimate factor of Democratic participation that to my mind is going to defeat some of this stuff, notwithstanding the particulars of the legal difficulties. We'll see. Let's close out this topic here, though. You've mentioned the prospect that by the midterms and they're they're coming along pretty quick. Right. Less than six months away. That would be a game changer. I know it would be a game changer on the self deal steal because the there would be a different standing argument for the House. But what do you think? You know, are there lessons here for a time when the Democrats control the gavels and how can they get proactive about preventing these kinds of Trump moves? He'll still be president that are designed to exploit legal loopholes.
- [35:32]
A
Yeah.
- [35:33]
D
I mean there's this amazing category of things that are obviously illegal and no one seems to know how to stop.
- [35:38]
B
Right.
- [35:38]
D
This is one the ballroom is one emboluments in the first term. All of these things I don't know. I wish I could say I felt more confident that a Democratic House alone, for example, could make a big difference. And I think there's, you know, the oversight role is so important, but so many things he's doing and you're right about the standing questions, but so many things he's doing intentionally avoid going through Congress.
- [36:00]
B
Right.
- [36:01]
D
And he has centralized power, the executive branch, so he doesn't have to go through Congress. He's both sidelined them and worked to sideline them in the future. So, you know, I think Democrats will have to be really creative and inventive. I'm not sure that I've seen a lot of creativity with some exceptions from the Democratic Congress so far. And I hope they have some good ideas for what they will do if they do have the gavels.
- [36:23]
B
And it does seem to me maybe I can ask you about the Senator that, like something a little bizarre is going on with him where he is taking moves that seem politically counterproductive but just wants to go down with the, you know, feathering his own nest, the all the emoluments violations, but helping his friends. It's as if even as his approval ratings are tanking, he's indifferent because he just wants to govern to the shrinking base. And if that's the strategy, that's his end game. Yeah, we'll have some really hellacious battles to wage.
- [36:59]
A
Yeah, well, he's not indifferent. He's delusional. He just absolutely refuses to believe because, you know, think of everybody has written him off how many times? And it's like, I've always known that I could get reelected. I've always known that's why it's so important for him to believe that the 2020 race was stolen from him is because it doesn't fit his image, his self image. And so it was interesting because he basically said, I don't care about the midterms. And then he followed it up with.
- [37:32]
D
He explicitly said that.
- [37:33]
A
Yeah, yeah. But he followed it up with, you saw what happened yesterday. And so everybody took the I don't care about the midterms to mean that he knows he's going to lose. I took the follow up. I saw what happened yesterday. What he meant is, I'm not afraid of the midterms because look how powerful I am in Texas. I think he thinks that he will, in fact pull this out because he has in the past. And so he's like that old tired boxer who continues to compete in a way that he won before but can't win now. And he's getting punch drunk because of it. And, you know, he looks at these numbers and I think the sycophants in the White House and David, you probably know this better than I do. I think they just feed him happy news and he doesn't believe what he is, what the rest of us see and know as a matter of kind of the correct politics. And so I think he's not indifferent. I think he's delusional.
- [38:32]
C
Well, he's not delusional about his power over the Republican Party. So. Oh, no, you know, Franklin Roosevelt in 1938, he got really mad at these Democrats who are not voting for all of his programs, and he tried to purge 10 of them in Democratic primaries and he was one for 10. Trump in the last few weeks is nine for nine. It's an astonishing record of successful purging, but a smaller and smaller group of voters. And so I think he is very worried about the midterms. And when he says something, it often means the opposite. When he says, I'm not thinking about the midterms, it means he's thinking about them all the time. But when things are going badly for him, whether it was in New York real estate when things turned bad for him, or with his casinos, he then does something even crazier. So the question, you know, I've said this on your podcast before, Harry, like every time you think he's touched bottom, he crashes through the floor. So this goes to your earlier point that it could be a really bumpy ride moving forward in ways that we can't even imagine. I mean, one thing that I think is unfortunately coming is when, when the Democrats get the gavel, you know, assuming they don't blow it. And I don't think the redistricting is going to prevent them from taking the House. But if they, if they get the gavels, they will then haul these jokers up on the Hill all the time. Some of them, they'll have them come up, you know, like every two weeks and punch them around.
- [40:19]
B
And if they show, but that's.
- [40:22]
C
Right. Well, but then they'll issue subpoenas. And then when they don't show, suddenly you have this big subpoena showdown. And I think we're going to be.
- [40:31]
B
Which goes to the doj, but I'm with you. I mean, I understand we're going to
- [40:34]
C
be arguing a lot about subpoenas and you know, what's the punishment for violating a congressional subpoena? And Navarro went to jail, you know, so that'll consume a lot of oxygen, I think.
- [40:49]
D
Well, we've seen this so far, is that, you know, they, when they do go up to the Hill, they put on these big shows of fighting with the members. And I think, you know, I think about Cash Patel a few weeks ago. I think they think it looks really good. And I think to Trump maybe does look good. He likes when they go out there and fight.
- [41:08]
B
That might be what they're thinking. Looks terrible to everyone else, but. But Trump likes it.
- [41:12]
D
Yeah, exactly. But it looks terrible to everyone else. And so, I mean, this gets to the same point that y' all are making about, you know, Trump's power in the Republican Party versus outside. You know, it works really well in one political field, but it ends up being self defeating otherwise. And so I think they're going to get caught in that trap.
- [41:27]
C
But when you think about that, your point, David, for 2028. So if you're J.D. vance and you've had these just reprehensible people on Capitol Hill time after time, and then you have to run saying, this is what I'm running on. I'm running on Cash Patel, you know, because if you try to put distance between yourself and Trump, he's going to crush you. So they're going to be lashed not just to this guy, but to all these people, this whole new cast of characters that they're going to have to answer for when they run for president.
- [42:05]
D
Yeah, well, and Trump doesn't care if it hurts them. He doesn't care if these guys are screwed. He only cares about himself.
- [42:11]
B
That's so true. I mean, that's principle number one, two and three. There's a perfect segue, the dynamic up there. To this morning's news we tape on Friday about Pam Bondi, who was clearly out of the playbook of act nasty and contemptuous to the, to the overseers to win. Trump's effective.
- [42:34]
A
The Dow's at 50,000.
- [42:36]
B
There you go. Okay, well, I guess. And that's our Talking Feds episode for today. But I just want to cite in what you were saying, John, Josh Marshall's I thought great little image of we're down now to the uncut cocaine, as he put it, of the MAGA types. But that's what he's fueled on. But let's go to. So Bondi shows up, much anticipated, but not under oath and of course behind closed doors. But that doesn't stop leaks, including, you know, Congressman comes out after and says surprise, surprise. For the Epstein foibles. She blamed her then deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, I wonder if, you know, anyone has murder on the Orient Express.
- [43:22]
A
Everybody get off the sharp knives.
- [43:24]
B
Everybody has everybody, everybody has the blade in. I want to turn a little bit in our few minutes to things that are going on at doj. So, you know, let's start there. Any takeaways from Bondi or is it a nothing burger? Because she's not under oath, she's not the AG anymore, et cetera.
- [43:43]
D
It's not a nothing burger, but it might be like a veggie burger.
- [43:47]
B
Hey, you take that back. I'm a.
- [43:51]
D
But, yeah, I mean, I think it's useful to have this. It's useful to have these leaks. I think it's interesting to see her turning on Blanche. You know, she has no reason to have the buck stop with her. Why should she? She's been fired. She might as well, you know, fire back.
- [44:05]
B
And we do have a Little Ghost of Christmas future. Right?
- [44:07]
D
Yeah, I think it, you know, I think it's interesting, and I think it's some information. I think it, you know, it helps keep people's attention on the Epstein files, most importantly.
- [44:18]
A
But didn't she get a consolation prize along? They gave her some title.
- [44:24]
D
She's doing something made up titles. I can't even remember which one she did.
- [44:28]
A
But he's got to keep them. Got to keep them in there.
- [44:30]
B
Yeah.
- [44:32]
A
Keep your enemies close. The other thing you haven't mentioned, Harry, is this proposal to maybe make every state, every federal employee sign an NDA.
- [44:40]
C
Oh, wow, that's horrible.
- [44:42]
B
Yeah, right, right, right, right.
- [44:44]
C
Just. That is so pernicious.
- [44:47]
A
So I think that one thing Trump learned in the first one is you keep your. Your friends close and your enemies closer. And he's got frenemies now that he's so true. Yeah.
- [44:58]
B
I mean, it's funny, but it's not funny.
- [44:59]
A
I'm waiting to see what Tulsi Gabbard gets, what title she gets.
- [45:03]
B
Right. And the final flurry of pardons. Right.
- [45:06]
C
Yeah. I mean, that NDA thing. Because NDAs are really awful in the private sector, and they're really, really terrible. Not just for journalists, but for everybody.
- [45:19]
A
And here's the litigation. Those NDAs violate government in the sunshine. They violate open records. I mean, when I was Attorney General, I didn't let any of my agencies sign NDAs. I said, that's public information. You want to settle a case, too bad for you, you better settle it the way you can support it in the public sector, before the people.
- [45:42]
C
Well, I hope that carries just one thing about Todd Blanche. So, Harry, you remember we watched him all the time in court as the
- [45:51]
B
defense lawyer in the trial we attended.
- [45:53]
C
Yeah. Not very good defense lawyer for Donald Trump. Emil Beauvais was much better. Blanche was very inexperienced.
- [46:00]
B
The Honorable Emil Beauvais. That would be right.
- [46:03]
C
Yeah. The Honorable. But I remember on the second day of jury selection, may have even been the first day, the very beginning of the trial, this guy wanders up. We're standing in line outside the court house, and this guy wanders up, and he's a chatty guy, is. He's retired Judge George Grasso.
- [46:21]
D
Yeah.
- [46:22]
C
And he became a great source for me, and I put him in the New York Times a few times, which got him on television. And then suddenly he was even chattier. Right. He became like a court buff, and he would show up, and so he'd seen Blanche in action. And I said, you know, what's with this guy. He, he was a respectable attorney. You know, he worked for a good New York firm. Like, why is he doing this?
- [46:48]
B
And AUSA for the Southern District before that, and ausa.
- [46:51]
C
And he said to me, he looked at me like I was an idiot. And he said, well, Todd Blanche wants to be Attorney General. Like it's not any more complicated than that. And I said, really? Like Attorney General, this guy?
- [47:04]
B
Careful what you wish for. 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.
- [47:32]
E
Thank you, Harry. In today's spirited debate, we look at three different techniques for making wine to see if there's truly a best way to first is a type of wine that's actually produced quite similarly to reds, but the fermentation time of the grape is reduced, giving its signature pink color. The first technique for making is the skin contact method, which black skinned grapes such as Pinot Noir are crushed but allowed to remain in contact with the juice for a short period of time. After about 6 to 48 hours as opposed to weeks or months for the reds, the skins are separated. This method is most frequently used in the top producing region of the world, Provence, and throughout the south of France. The second method is called Sagnier, which is the French word for bleeding. This method creates both A and a red wine. Early in the maceration process, some of the pink juice created from the grape must is removed to make the while the remaining juice becomes a more concentrated red. A made from this method tends to be richer and darker in both color and fruit flavor. This method is more rarely used, but it can be found more often in Spain, Napa and Chile. The third method is blending. Contrary to what some people think, blending is not just a 5050 pour of red and white wine. Instead, blending is where a white grape such as Chardonnay is blended with a red grape and it's the most popular way to make a Champagne. Although popular in Champagne, this method is used in still. In fact, some winemakers in Provence choose to blend small percentages of white grape varieties into their it's not always obvious or easy to know which method was used to make a particular but the expert guides at Total Wine and More can help you navigate our wondrous selection to find a that makes your day. So find what you love and love what you find only at Total Wine and More. Cheers.
- [49:57]
B
Thanks to our friends at Total Wine and more for today's a spirited debate. One other quick DOJ news that I want to touch on. Is this apparent. It's right now the US Attorney Chicago is denying it latest reprisal prosecution against a private citizen. This being e. Jean Carroll. David, you wrote about it just this morning. Can you break down what may or may not be happening with Carroll and if it is, in fact a whole new bridge too far, as it were?
- [50:30]
D
Yeah, I mean, they deny it. We will see a bunch of sources continue to tell CNN and I think others that it's something going on. The substance here is a claim from Trump's attorneys that Jean Carroll lied about receiving funding from Reid Hoffman for her lawsuit against Trump. And, you know, I suppose it's possible we can see what an investigation comes up with, but it looks so obviously political. It obviously looks like political retaliation against someone who's embarrassed Trump. This came up in the trial. A judge deemed her credible. You know, the person investigating this is the US Attorney's office in Chicago that's so badly botched this case in just last week, we saw a judge really fiercely scolding prosecutors. So, you know, it looks, it smells, it talks, it walks like nothing but retaliation in a really, really egregious sense. And I think that's, you know, the fact that we don't believe it is a factor of the way the Justice Department is running under Bondi and under Todd Blanche. And this kind of retaliation is very much what Blanche has been pursuing ever since he became acting Attorney general, trying to take that acting off shamelessly.
- [51:35]
A
Yeah, but it also is just stupid politics, you guys. I mean, so now we want to bring up the whole rape alleg. I saw George Conway being interviewed on cnn, and he was very graphic and obviously knows Eugene very well and kind of outlined it. But do they really want to repeat all of this stuff that happened in that trial again? I mean, you know, it's like put that in the background. Think about what your good news story is. This is not a good news story by any account. It is retaliation, and it is dumb politics. I mean, never mind, you know, corrupt and horrible use of prosecutorial power. It's just bad politics.
- [52:14]
B
It really is a measure of what we've been talking about the whole time, which is his incapability of thinking straight, where he has some. Some private vendetta or whatever. He just leads with his on all these reprisal prosecutions. But this is a very good example. He's leading with his chin, right?
- [52:31]
A
Yeah, but I want to, I want to mention This I think he understands, and I believe it's true that one of the reasons why he got reelected is because he played that victim card so well. Being persecuted. When I'm persecuted, you're persecuted. He's going back again, like, I build beautiful things. He's going back to the victim mentality and thinking that's going to win him points, but it's not going to. This is bad politics for him.
- [52:57]
C
That's a great point. I mean, he's still using that mug
- [53:01]
D
shot on the $250bill.
- [53:03]
E
Yeah.
- [53:03]
A
I can't believe it. I thought, where'd that picture come from? And then I thought, exactly, you know,
- [53:08]
C
on roots during the prosecutorial abuse, which we just mentioned in passing, these Chicago prosecutors were. They were taking grand jurors outside the courtroom, telling them what to do. It's just, it's like stunning. Stunning. And what this is a question for, you know, lawyers like, can those prosecutors, two years from now, two and a half years from now, can a Democratic Justice Department prosecute those prosecutors for those, I don't know, what you call them, I guess legally called ex parte communications, whatever, whatever they are. Is it against the law to jury tamper with a grand juror if you're a prosecutor?
- [53:57]
B
Yeah. The short answer is it's an ethic first. It's such an elementary blunder and the administration's been doing it. Generally, the more effective course would be to refer them to their own bars. And that's part of this overall fight and standoff that the administration is trying to wage. But on the first part of your question, John, the two years doesn't give any kind of insulation. They can always be referred. It's what the department is at a
- [54:24]
C
minimum, can these people be disbarred? And can people, you know, in the, I don't know, the Illinois Bar, like, send them stinging letters saying, you know what? I'm gonna follow you to the end of the earth. You will be disbarred. You're prosecutor now. Fancy a USA working for Trump. Two years from now, you're gonna be looking for work not in the legal community, cuz you're not gonna be a lawyer anymore.
- [54:49]
B
I'm not sure the Bar association would put it that way. But the short answer is yeah, they can really, they can really enact a price.
- [54:57]
C
A member of the bar could just say, I'm bringing this to the bar and I'm not going to let it drop. They tried to do that to Giuliani. I don't know how it was resolved. They tried to disbar Giuliani. What happened with that?
- [55:07]
A
Yeah, he was disbarred.
- [55:09]
C
He was.
- [55:09]
A
Giuliani was disbarred.
- [55:10]
D
Eastman, too.
- [55:11]
B
And spoken as a true. As the citizen of Chicago that you are, I think that brass. Those brass knuckles will come out. Okay, we are unfortunately out of time. This has been great, especially some of the detours. Just have a minute for our five words or fewer. And it's this. This week, musicians keep pulling out of a concert series organized for Trump's celebratory Great American State Fair. All kinds of artists have now said they were misled about the nature of the event. Thank you, but no thank you. Whom can the president call on to step in? Anyone? Five words or fewer.
- [55:53]
D
A hologram of Lawrence Welk.
- [55:57]
A
Don't be picking on Lawrence Welk. He's in North Dakota.
- [56:00]
B
They like him in North Dakota.
- [56:02]
A
Okay, well, he's got talent in his own family. Laura Trump, step up. Step up. Laura Acapella, we've seen you perform. I'm sure it'll bring in at least 20 people.
- [56:15]
C
The wedding singer from Don Jr. S wedding. But he didn't show up to see her perform at the wedding, so why would she show up at the White House?
- [56:24]
B
Okay, all great. And I'm going with Todd Blanche's amazing limbo. Thank you so much, John David and Senator Heitkamp. 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 or wherever they get their podcasts. And please take a moment to rate and review the show. Check us out on substack@harrylittman.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. Paid Substack subscribers can now get Talking Feds episodes completely ad free. You can also subscribe to us on YouTube, where we are posting full episodes. And my daily takes on top legal stories, 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. 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 Lou Cregan and Katie Upshaw. Associate producer Becca Haveian Sound Engineering by Matt McArdle, Rosie Dawn Griffin, David Lieberman, Hansam Mahadranathan, Emma Maynard and Hallie Necker are our contributing writers and production assistants by Akshaj Turbailu. Our music, as ever, is by the amazing Philip Glass. Talking Feds is a production of Deledo llc. I'm Harry Littman.
- [58:30]
C
Talk to you later, Sam.