← The Beat with Ari Melber
The Beat with Ari Melber
Trump WH Vet Sees Impeachment for Trump & Bondi Amid "Bribe," Epstein & 'Illegal' Revenge cases
00:41:09
MSNOW’s Ari Melber reports on President Trump’s unlawful targeting of his critics and the deepening fallout from the Epstein files. Former Trump White House attorney Ty Cobb joins.
Loading summary
Transcript79 lines
- [00:01]
A
Get in the game with the college branded Venmo Debit card. Ref your team with every tap and earn up to 5% cash back with Venmo Stash, a new rewards program from Venmo. No monthly fee, no minimum balance, just school pride and spending power. Get in the game and sign up for the Venmo debit card@venmo.com collegecard. The Venmo MasterCard is issued by the Bancorp Bank N.A. select schools available. Venmo Stash terms and exclusions apply at Venmo me stash terms max $100 cash back per month.
- [00:30]
B
Looking for a Valentine's gift she'll truly love? 1-800-flowers.com knows what she wants. For 50 years, 1-800-flowers has helped guys like you get it right, delivering millions of fresh Valentine's roses nationwide. 1-800-Flowers offers premium fresh cut flowers backed by their seven day freshness guarantee plus same day delivery when you need them on time.
- [00:50]
A
Valentine's is coming up and bouquets are selling fast, so don't wait on this.
- [00:54]
B
Order today at 1-800-flowers.com sxm that's 1-800-flowers. Com sxm. Welcome to the beat, everyone. I'm Ari Melbourne. We begin with something that is usually unconstitutional and unlawful. And in each case, we can follow the facts to proof that up. But the president continues to abuse the government and the powers of arrest, of detention, indictment, prosecution, jailing, even to go after critics. This is a diverse list of targets. And while some people are busy and have looked away, and there were Republicans who initially said, well, what's one or two cases we're going to show you tonight, we're way past that with new developments. In the key case of something that many people thought wouldn't happen in America, journalists rounded up and indicted for their coverage. What all the people targeted have in common is that they have criticized Trump, even if they once were Trump officials or Republicans. Today, Don Lemon, a veteran CNN anchor known to so many who also is an independent journalist, was back appearing in court because the administration continues to push white what are widely derided legally as flimsy charges, probably unconstitutional. But this case is real. This is not going away. Now, he was covering a protest in a Minneapolis church where other individuals may have violated the law, including storming a church. But Lemon was covering it. This is a huge deal. He pled not guilty. This isn't just about me. This is about all journalists, especially here in the United States. For more than 30 years, I've been a journalist and the power and protection of the First Amendment has been the underpinning of my work. The First Amendment, the freedom of the press, the bedrock of our democracy. Lemon spoke broadly, as most defendants are advised to do by their lawyers, not to get into the facts or the details that will be dealt with at trial if this case isn't tossed before trial. Most legal experts, First Amendment experts, people who've looked at these kinds of things, don't see a case here. There's a lot of video evidence of what happened. No traditional DOJ would charge in this situation. And he was there with the accoutrement of journalism, interviewing people, holding a mic with a cameraman. He repeatedly referenced that day that he was a journalist and doing journalism. Although, by the way, you could be reporting at a foreign capital and not constantly wave your hand and say you're a journalist, you'd still be fine. This is what free speech looks like. Here's one part where he was outside the church talking to people. Today, the Post reports the video on also contradicts key claims by Trump's prosecutors. The charging document went out of its way to try to turn what I just mentioned, video of him basically interviewing people. I mean, that kind of facility with people running around can have some mayhem. But what he was basically doing, which is all captured on the video, was kind of twisted in the prosecutor's document, which claimed that he somehow physically obstructed churchgoers who were trying to exit. Best we can tell, they are misdescribing moments like this. Yes, I am. I want to give you the facts. No, no, no. Did you know that undocumented people and immigrants commit far less crime than American citizens? We're done here. We're done. Than natural born Americans. You won't listen. What you're looking at there is standard free speech. Lemon's asking questions and talking. This gentleman talked for a while and decided that we're done and wanted to leave. He has every right. The man you see on the left, every much is right, as Mr. Lemon has both of them to speak in this country. As for the physicality, well, you saw it with your own eyes. Lemon sort of moved with the man and at one point held the door open for him. Now, that is the incident they're trying to use more broadly. We know that Mr. Lemon, a veteran of CNN, now independent, has been publicly using his speech rights to Times cover and criticize President Trump. Donald Trump didn't conduct himself properly.
- [04:53]
C
Donald Trump inspired an insurrection.
- [04:55]
B
What he's doing is objectively bad for.
- [04:56]
C
The world, is objectively bad for our democracy. History's not going to look fondly on.
- [05:01]
B
Donald Trump for doing what he's doing. Donald Trump is strong arming, bullying. That's what Lemon told us the last time he was on this program. The criticism of the administration is being attacked. And when you look at the people who are targets of Trump's retribution, it is quite clear how broad this list is. We just added all the green no charges signs you see here on the left there. That's new this week because Donald Trump just tried to indict six lawmakers. Unlike the Lemon case, where they shopped it around and found a way to move forward, that case has stalled out this week. Best we know, the guardrail that has held back, that has those green stamps is the American people who've stepped up by serving on these citizen juries. In the old days, they would always talk about how, because the grand jury process is the first step, not the last. It's easy. And a grand jury will basically indict a ham sandwich. That's because prosecutors are supposed to follow the rules and have way more evidence than they need at that first step. Everything now in these cases is upside down. In fact, there was a struggle to even get an indictment on the guy throwing a sandwich, speaking of sandwiches, at a federal officer on video. Because this DOJ under Trump in one year has essentially lost a lot of the credibility that usually gets them a benefit of the doubt when they want to bring charges. Americans are increasingly skeptical of selective prosecutions, even as we are now in a country where journalism and being in the opposition party and serving on the Fed and serving on the FBI, among other faces I showed you, are all reasons for Donald Trump to harass, subpoena, or charge you. With all this in mind, we want to turn to an expert that we've called on for some of these deeper conversations, especially as we take a step back at the end of the week. Ty Cobb is back with us, longtime legal expert, former prosecutor, White House attorney in the first Trump administration. Welcome back. I'll put those faces right back up here, Mr. Cobb, because between the last time you and I spoke, now about a week, we've got those six new lawmakers, most of whom are veterans or intelligence veterans of some kind, and they tried to charge them this week. They just failed. How do you look at that? In concert with Mr. Lemon as a defendant and these other individuals.
- [07:26]
D
So I think Those, the congressional six, if you will, folks, and Mr. Lemon and Pete Hegseth, you know, they all wrap into the First Amendment issues. You know, a judge in D.C. richard Leon, yesterday excoriated Hegseth and the Department of whatever it is defense for, you know, even attempting to stifle the First Amendment privileges of Mark Kelly, a man who'd flown 39 combat missions and four space shuttles and served the country for decades. And he and his congressional colleagues were. They attempted to charge them for truthfully explaining in the terms that exist in the Uniform Code of Military Conduct, that the military, when asked to commit war crimes, is not obligated to follow illegal orders. So they got kicked out of court there. You know, they're coming back to try to defend themselves on additional grounds, which I think will go against them. You've got Don Lemon, of course, that's a flagrant First Amendment violation. The magistrate before whom he entered a guilty plea today, only a few days ago or a week or more ago, threw out the government's request to indict Mr. Lemon, the federal judge to whom they appealed. It ruled likewise in the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals on also refused to honor what the government had attempted to do. Now, they later got a grand jury indictment, unlike the Congressional Six, where not a single grand jury juror is reported to have voted in favor of the indictment. I mean, it's highly unusual that you don't get a true bill. It's, I think, unprecedented in America that not a single grand juror would vote for a true bill. And only with Jeanine Pirro, who couldn't indict the trans Sam. I mean, ham sandwich and, and. And Ms. Halligan in Virginia, who, you know, attempted to indict Comey and James unsuccessfully by acting inappropriately. Only these Trump sycophants that are appointed to these positions are. Are flailing in that regard.
- [09:55]
B
And you mentioned Mark Kelly and his heroism. There's also just the basic fact that lawmakers are going to speak, whether they speak on video, as you said, explaining a matter of how the military works. And those veterans certainly have some credibility there. But even if one disagreed with their explanation, we have big disagreements. That's what our First Amendment protects. And here's what Kelly is saying about it. We were saying something that we felt because of this president and what we know about him and who he is, a message to tell people, hey, first of all, we have your backs, but this is an important message to hear that you do not have to follow unlawful or illegal orders. We have an administration that is trying to prosecute senators, a president who is threatening to hang US Senators. And against that backdrop, if we look at impeachment as a Constitutional question, which we all know it can be. That's where it starts. But it's also a question of what the constituted members of the House or Senate think. But at what point, in your view, constitutionally, Mr. Cobb, how many such cases targeting critics become a high crime, become impeachable? One or two, maybe. People of good faith debate. Five or six is more than we've had in decades. We'll put the chart back up to remind people as we end the week, because it's grown a lot this week with Mr. Lemon as well in court. What. What number does it become a potentially impeachable offense?
- [11:31]
D
Well, it should only be one. If there's one fraudulent, unsupported indictment that's brought for personal reasons, political reasons, in which the facts are distorted and the law is abused, that that alone should be impeachable. You know, the. The multitude of cases that we've had now certainly provides a wealth of evidence that could be used to impeach Pam Bondi. I think, you know, it's probably difficult to extend, you know, the. Her performance and the illegal and unconstitutional unethical way that she's managed the Justice Department all the way to the president. But the president, you know, on impeachment alone, you know, that issue, there are so many things in. In the column that deserve impeachment. You know, taking a $500 million bribe from the.
- [12:23]
B
Slow you down because you're sure you're. You're very knowledgeable about these things. And so you're referring to, of course, the impeachment clause is a. Is a congressional power under the Constitution for both the president. That's what we hear about it the most. But you're reminding people it exists for other officers. Are you suggesting that if the Democrats were to win the House. Because we. We can see how. How this has been not gotten oversight from most Republicans. A few criticize it, but very few. You're suggesting they could also try to impeach, say, Bondi, Blanche, those responsible for this miscarriage of politicized justice.
- [12:57]
D
So I'm not so sure about Blanche, whether the confession that he extorted out of Ghislaine Maxwell in exchange for favorable treatment, whether that rises to an impeachable offense. Perhaps it does. But certainly with regard to Bondi, obviously unfit for office based on her performance yesterday, Kristi Noem, you know, who's supervising the execution of American citizens and lying about them as being alleged terrorists, Hegseth and the multitude of classified violations that he has, as well as the war crime crimes being committed at his behest. All of those people should be impeached for sure. And I expect that we'll see articles introduced if the Democrats are lucky enough to take over the House. But I think with the president, you've got really extraordinary information out there. The $500 million bribe from the UAE in exchange for our AI chips, the $480 million plane from Qatar in exchange for a Air Force base and him his Venezuela oil revenue account in Qatar. The facts here are just extraordinary and unprecedented. This is not a matter of degree. This is a ripple in the force. And impeachment, however, is a weak tool in the hands of a Congress where you have people like Mike Johnson and others willing to do whatever the president desires and certainly not willing to honor their oaths of office to work for the American people, as opposed to Donald Trump.
- [14:47]
B
Yeah, you put it plainly. That's a lot on the, on the sort of malfeasance side. There's also new accountability measures on what we're learning from those Epstein files. A lot of pressure on Trump on his cabinet official who lied about an Epstein island visit. Ty will be back with you. As we turn to that. We'll be back in 90 seconds.
- [15:08]
A
Get in the game with the college branded Venmo debit card. Rep your team with every tap and earn up to 5% cash back with Venmo Stash a new rewards program from Venmo. No monthly fee, no minimum balance, just school pride and spending power. Get in the game and sign up for the Venmo debit card@venmo.com collegecard the Venmo MasterCard is issued by the Bancorp Bank NA Select Schools available Venmo Stash terms and exclusions apply at venmo me stashterms max $100 cash back per month.
- [15:38]
C
Olivia loves a challenge. It's why she lifts heavy weights and likes complicated recipes. But for booking her trip to Paris, Olivia chose the easy way. With Expedia, she bundled her flight with.
- [15:51]
B
A hotel to save more.
- [15:52]
C
Of course, she still climbed all 674 steps to the top of the Eiffel Tower. You were made to take the easy route.
- [16:00]
B
We were made to easily package your trip.
- [16:03]
C
Expedia made to travel flight inclusive packages are atoll protected.
- [16:08]
B
Flowers die in three days. Matching underwear from Meundies. That's a gift that lasts. Meundies creates matching prints for couples and friends. Same adorable designs and different cuts for each of you. All made from their signature ultramodal fabric that feels impossibly soft with 90,000 five star reviews. MeUndies matching prints are the perfect gift. Valentine's Day is February 14th, so don't wait. Get exclusive deals up to 50% off at Meundy. Meundies.comsxm code sxm that's Meundies.com sxm code sxm. And the reckoning over Epstein continues. Two prominent executives ousted from really top roles because of ties to Epstein. Some of them were known, some further detailed because of these recent file exposures. That includes the person you see on your left. We reported on her, Kathy Ruemler, really weeks ago over some of the earlier files. She's a Democrat who was at Goldman Sachs and is ousted. If you look at the other names here, you see all kinds of different individuals who faced either questions, subpoenas, or sanctions. And yet, while banks and organizations and universities have all kinds of accountability, the White House does not. Donald Trump famously ran saying he would help with the Epstein files. He had aides who said they would get to the bottom of it. And it turns out the problem is coming from inside his own cabinet. Commerce Secretary Lutnick lied for years about his ties to Epstein, and then only through these new files, was forced to admit under oath that he had visited Epstein's island. The Wall Street Journal reports tensions are rising that Lutnick's revelation, his confession, deepened the White House's Epstein woes. That's putting it mildly. It also appears to attempts to deflect questions about Epstein. From what I hear, he was there.
- [18:02]
D
With his wife and children. And I guess in some cases, some people were.
- [18:07]
B
I wasn't. I was never there.
- [18:09]
C
Did you, in fact, make the visit to Jeffrey Epstein's private island?
- [18:14]
B
I did have lunch with him as I was on a boat going across on a family vacation. Secretary Lutnick remains a very important member.
- [18:22]
D
Of President Trump's team.
- [18:24]
B
And the president fully supports the secretary.
- [18:26]
D
Secretary.
- [18:29]
B
There you have it. Ty Cobb is back with us. Do you view the history here, as well as Mr. Lutnick lying about this while he was in office, while he was Commerce Secretary in the last year, as something that should merit his dismissal? And what do you think, given you have a lot of experience about this sort of contrast, that, you know, maybe it's for public pressure reasons, what they might call the quote optics, but the banks and some of the big institutions seem to be making more changes in response to what's come out than the White House itself.
- [19:03]
D
Yes, Ludnik in any other administration would have been gone long ago, but certainly this type of conduct would never have been tolerated by any other president without requesting his resignation. And frankly, the President shouldn't have to request the resignation of anybody with integrity in those positions when confronted with, you know, misconduct of this type, you know, in the, in history, even Nixon resigned when humiliated. Ludnick's testimony interesting because he tries to minimize the incident on the island where he took his wife and children. And, and this is, keep in mind, this is seven years after he said he had no further contact with Epstein. You know, he said that it all ended in 2005 when he and his wife walked out of his house, you know, disturbed about their neighbor and their next door neighbor who remained their next door neighbor. And also, it's not only, not only did he lie about the island visit and, you know, that conduct, but within, within another year or two after, after the island visit, he and Epstein both invested multimillion dollars in, in the same joint venture. So these are deep ties. I mean, in Europe, you know, people just, who are just mentioned in the files are resigning. Ludnik, having lied about his participation, you know, should be long gone.
- [20:33]
B
Yeah. On the investigative side, I'll put up what we now learn from the doj. I thought this was one of the most striking documents. You don't usually see them in public, which is the inner circle and who they were tracing. Obviously, everyone has a right to a lawyer, but they don't have a right to lawyers who commit crimes. Everyone has, you can use an accountant. But they were clearly subpoenaing and looking at some of these individuals. One of them, Brunel, indicted and then died abroad. How do you interpret this, given your background? Obviously, it's possible that good faith, honest prosecutors did run down these leads. It just didn't find enough to prosecute inside the U.S. it's also possible that there's more to the story, given everything we've learned. How do you view it based on what we know at this time?
- [21:20]
D
So I think there is a distinction between unethical, disgusting, inappropriate conduct and criminal activity. It's not always clear what that is. But keep in mind, there were very competent prosecutors involved in the Epstein cases. Maureen Comey, you know, in the, in the Southern District, was among the serious people that were trying to bring people to justice there appropriately. So she prosecuted Maxwell. And I think the, I think the reality is there may not have been a lot of criminal cases, but there are a lot of people as to whom there was evidence contrary to what Bondi said, contrary to what Blanche said, contrary to what Patel said, you know, and they pretended to have reviewed every document according to them, which we now know would have been impossible given the 3 million documents that they miraculously found and dumped last week. So this is really a scandal. It's a scandal that has, has multiple victims. We saw many of them in the, in the well of the Congress the other day when Bondi was testifying and refusing to acknowledge their existence or apologize to him. And that's tragic. And, and they deserve justice to the extent justice can be available. But it's not gonna be available unless there's some transparency. And so far, what we have is a Justice Department eager to protect Trump and his donors and those who work for him, but not at all eager to protect the victims. And that is sad and it's a shocking. It reflects the shocking decay of our government under Trump and Bondi.
- [23:07]
B
Yeah, you put that very clearly. Decay, a moral problem that also has the legal and criminal questions on more than one issue, as I think we've covered tonight. Ty Cobb, appreciate your time.
- [23:20]
D
My pleasure. Thank you for having me, Ari.
- [23:23]
B
Thank you, sir. I'll tell folks coming up, we've heard a lot about how one political party might have a problem with these influential conservative so called brocasters. Well, it turns out it's Donald Trump. He has a Rogan problem. It's growing. We'll explain. Meanwhile, Fox News is seeing the writing on the wall and telling the folks who watch Fox News their party may be in trouble. But next we turn to one of these stories that, you know, it's Friday, getting ready for the weekend, maybe making Valentine's Day plans. But this is one where you go, okay, I still gotta watch the rest of the news. Tonight, the Wall Street Journal blowing the lid off the infighting, the chaos, the petty blanket drama inside what many see as a failed DHS under Kristi Noem. That's next with Molly Jong Fast and Jake Omidori.
- [24:12]
A
Get in the game with the college branded Venmo debit card. Ref your team with every tap and earn up to 5% cash back with Venmo stash a new rewards program from Venmo. No monthly fee, no minimum balance. Just school pride and spending power. Get in the game and sign up for the Venmo debit card@venmo.com collegecard. The Venmo MasterCard is issued by the Vanccorp Bank. NA Select Schools available Venmo stash terms and exclusions apply at venmo me stashterms max $100 cash back per month. If you're a parent and want to help set up your child for success, then IXL is right for your family as an effective and affordable online learning program. IXL covers math, language arts, science and social studies using interactive practice problems for kids from Pre K to 12th grade. Listeners can get an exclusive 20% off IXL membership when they sign up today@ixl.com 20. Visit ixl.com 20 to get the most effective learning program out there at the best price.
- [25:12]
C
Why have I asked my electrician I.
- [25:13]
B
Found on Angie.com to bury my pet hamster?
- [25:16]
C
I was so moved by how carefully he buried my electrical wires. I knew I could trust him to bury my sweet nibbles after his untimely end.
- [25:21]
D
This is very strange, Angie.
- [25:23]
C
The one you trust. Define the ones you trust. Find pros for all your home projects@angie.com.
- [25:30]
B
The Wall Street Journal is out with an expose on Homeland Security chief Kristi Noem, and it is making waves. It's also drawn a response from the White House. It's one of these big stories even as we round out the week, and it involves what the Journal has reported from multiple sources and a lot of backroom detail as a kind of constant chaos at the Department of Homeland Security, where the stakes are obviously high. There are firings that are described as basically incompetent or don't make sense. There is a nastiness and pettiness described in the article, a sometimes circus like atmosphere. The Journal says Noem also wants to pin blame on various other officials. She sees herself in a kind of a PR political war with the other immigration officials. She wanted the acting ICE director to sort of be the face of the problems in Minneapolis rather than actually solving the problems. Now there are plenty of stories like this in every administration, but the sheer details here are still something People told the Journal that Noem demanded that they drop a new plan for ICE to carry out targeted enforcement in Minneapolis. But that was the approach, of course, the director had been advocating that Noem would berate her staff if she saw Homan on tv, that she was keeping track of their TV appearances and is also angling with Corey Lewandowski for some sort of higher role or power within the White House of the Republican Party going forward. That is the scrutiny on Mr. Lewandowski, who of course is an original Trump figure all the way back from the first campaign, but that even though he is in this special government role at dhs and they fly on a government jet or a leased jet, they have security and it's dhs, they got officers all over the place for some reason, Lewandowski kept wanting to take the unusual step of getting a kind of government federally issued gun. And the Journal reports that despite his power and proximity to the president, this is just not done, because at dhs, you have the people with the guns in those roles, not the executives also having guns. And a lawyer would not sign off on it. And then days later, that lawyer was put on an administrative leave. Lewandowski eventually persuaded other lawyers to sign off on some aspects of this. Apparently he wanted a gun and a badge. They also apparently fired a pilot when they couldn't find their blanket. This was Lewandowski and Noem. Noem had to switch planes after a maintenance issue. The Journal reports her blanket was not moved to the second plane. And a Coast Guard pilot, the Journal reports, was fired over this, but then reinstated because as you see there on the screen, no one else was actually available to fly them home. And as is often the case in these kind of backstabbing stories, even though the public accountability and transparency could be good, note at the end of what you see see there, that was a quote, according to people familiar with what happened. So if it wasn't Noman Lewandowski, it's a small number of other people at that high level plane situation who apparently want the public to know what's going on. At DHS, I'm joined by Molly Zhang, Fast New York Times writer and MSNow analyst, host of the Fast Politics podcast, and Obama campaign veteran Che Komonduri. Che, as I mentioned, you see articles like this throughout administrations, but the Journal stands by its details and sources, and it really paints a picture of incompetence and pettiness at dhs, which is also mired in these other problems. And sooner or later, with enough security failures, killings of Americans, other problems, you would think that. That there will be little tolerance if this is what they're actually spending their time on.
- [29:11]
C
Yeah, I would say that you don't really see anything like this in other administrations. I mean, yes, you see some mismanagement, some minor, unfortunate, petty corruption, but this is of a totally different scale. This is, you know, this is, you know, Trump is the reality star president, and this is like the Real Housewives of Washington, D.C. if that Washington Wall Street Journal article had included an anecdote about a glass of wine being thrown in somebody's face, it would not have been at all surprising. This whole thing is a soap opera. But I think for Trump and for the people around him, they kind of like this soap opera. You might remember with the episode with Elon Musk having somebody else who draws attention, who can be blamed for things is extremely useful for Trump. Trump's approval ratings did much better when Elon Musk was. People were blaming him for everything bad that was going on. And I do think that Kristi Noem is serving the same purpose this time.
- [30:15]
B
Yeah. That the sort of a lightning rod thing. She was asked about the deportation programs in Mali. The substance here, of course, is that whether whatever the reasons, Trump didn't like the reaction to the killings in, in Minnesota and they have since left. But they've also put other people front of that. In front of that. So here was her, her response when I asked about who's in charge.
- [30:42]
A
Still.
- [30:42]
B
In charge of the mass deportation campaigns or is home.
- [30:46]
E
I'm still in charge of the Department of Homeland Security. That includes all 23 different agencies under our umbrella, including ICE and CBP, but also FEMA, TSA, Secret Service, the Coast.
- [30:57]
B
Guard, many, many more. Molly.
- [31:03]
E
Yeah, I mean, look, Donald Trump has decided he doesn't want to fire anyone. And as for as long as that goes on, this is going to be the situation. But this article and there's a lot of stuff in there that has, you know, that was sort of low key known about is pretty damning and it is like real banana republic stuff. And if you think about how, you know, what I thought was sort of the through line and it's a through line in a lot of the reporting about Lewandowski and Kristi Noem is that it seems they're very interested in her political future and sort of putting her, you know, the, you know, her. I mean, one of the antidotes in there is that he texts someone say, you know, text Tony Fabrizio saying he wants to do ads for her. She needs more FaceTime. Yeah. And anytime anyone goes through an airport, you can see that this woman wants to be more than just Homeland Security. Right. Because she's got this big, you know, there are photos of her when you go through tsa, very done up. So clearly she has a lot of ambition and it's a really, I think, I don't, I sort of see this as a political, she's got a lot of political moves that she's trying to make and they're very sort of ham handed and ham fisted.
- [32:19]
B
Yeah. And Jay, I mean, DHS hasn't historically been a, a leapfrog to running for president. I guess, I guess the question here with Kristi Noem is will that dog hunt?
- [32:32]
C
Yeah, I can just do a spoiler alert right now. Kristi Noem will never be president. You can give her a quarter and have her call her parents and let them know she will not be president. This country will elect Kim Kardashian before it will ever elect Kristi Noem. I mean, Kim Kardashian's a much better reality star diva, to be honest, than, than Kristi Noem. I mean, you know, the, the missing blanket. I mean, the fact that you would fire a pilot over a missing blanket and then have to rehire this pilot because nobody else is going to fly you home is absolutely comical. I mean, if you did an SNL sketch about it, nobody would believe it. It would, it's, it's so ridiculous. So I don't.
- [33:15]
B
Right, exactly. Is that, Wait, is that a real dog in the background? Am I imagining things? That's you, Molly. I'm just saying it's, it's a small dog. Yeah, that's great.
- [33:26]
E
Small dog, but very vicious. Small dog, but vicious.
- [33:29]
B
I just, it might be fitting. It wasn't planned, but it might be fitting. But, but. Go ahead, Jay, finish your thought.
- [33:36]
C
Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's another reason, by the way, I think Christine Noemi will never be president. Will never be president. You know, Americans love their dogs and somebody who has. Is rather proud of having shot a puppy is not necessarily a qualification that anyone is going to for as president. But you know, look, politicians have egos. They're always the last to know what political reality brings. And I think that's certainly the case in this with Christine Elm.
- [34:04]
B
Yeah. And Jay, we've been having these conversations long enough. We're old enough to remember when there was all of this hand wringing about the Democrats problem with the podcast bros. Well, the party that has a podcast bro problem increasingly right now is the Republican Party. We're going to show the new Rogan and talk about this sort of contagion that Trump is facing when we come back with both of you. We're back with Molly and Che and there is a problem. Che that Trump had. Oh, there's our dog. What's the name? Molly?
- [34:46]
E
Bucephalus. I just thought she should come in and say hi, Bucephalus.
- [34:51]
B
Well, we could hear. Yeah, if we could hear. Why not? See a lovely Friday, a guest. You book Molly Che, you get an extra guest. I mentioned Rogan. Here's what he's saying. Absolutely shredding the kind of talking points that the Trump folks are still pushing out about Epstein and putting it on Fox and other places. And yet it's a new environment live by the sword. Die by the sword. Here's what Rogan's saying. Why would your name be redacted if you're not a victim? This is what's crazy about all this. How come you redact some people and you don't redact other people? What is this? This is not good. None of this is good for this administration. It looks terrible. It looks terrible. It looks terrible for Trump when he was saying that none of this was real. This is all a hoax. This is not a hoax. Did you not know, Jay?
- [35:49]
C
Yeah, I mean, you don't become Joe Rogan without knowing your audience. I mean, this was a point that I think James Caldwell made a few weeks ago that I will piggyback on. Joe Rogan became the top podcaster in the country because he knows his audience. Last week or maybe two weeks ago, Rogan on ice towed the Trump line, saying, oh, you know, this is terrible what's going on in Minnesota, but there's some nuance. And then Trump let slip during the super bowl interview that he actually had called Rogan and discussed these things, something that Rogan did not reveal. And now Rogan sees that his audience doesn't much care for Trump anymore. They don't like what they've seen in Minnesota. They don't like what they're seeing with this, with the Epstein cover up. And he knows quite adroitly he has to go where his young male audience is, which is against Trump.
- [36:43]
B
Molly.
- [36:45]
E
Yeah, I think that's a really smart point. I also think, look, Epstein has always been an issue that the base cares about, and that has been why it's so interesting and also why it's so important. And remember, Trump has radicalized his base on Epstein, on the idea of Epstein. QAnon was in the first Trump administration. And remember, he would make nods towards QAnon. QAnon a conspiracy which basically has. It's is basically the same sort of conspiracy as what we're seeing with the Epstein files. Right. A cabal of wealthy people abusing children. It's harder to get closer, you know, to those two things. And so I do think you really see in the base. And a great example of this was Marjorie Taylor Greene, who said, it's all, you know, she came into politics because she wanted to find justice for QAnon and for a lot of these things. And then she got there and she was like, it was all along. So you're definitely seeing a real schism. And I think that Rogan is speaking to that.
- [37:51]
B
Yeah. And Che, it's. I'M almost struggling for the words, even though we talk about all this stuff all the time. Like, you don't pick which thing is going to be the thing in politics. You could make a list of all sorts of important things. You could rank them by what affects the most people. There are others who say you judge a society by how it treats the least powerful, not the most. We could have those moral philosophy debates. This is important for all the reasons we've covered, including the victims. But it wasn't the thing that everyone would have thought would actually expose Rogan's 30 million listeners to find out that, oh, my God, Jay Trump lies. And he lies even about big things, and he's not doing what he said he would do. So can you speak about how Epstein seems to be also a gateway to other Trump failures that the right is reconsidering as we saw his, his polling among young men crash?
- [38:44]
C
Yeah, I mean, what the Epstein files debacle, if you can call it that, has shown is it's created a permission structure by which people can walk away from Donald Trump. Donald Trump advertised himself as a man of the people. Yeah, I'm a billionaire, but I'm a billionaire who eats McDonald's and KFC and watches football and Ultimate Fighting. And I, you know, I am not one of these elites who look down on you. I'm one of you. And now with this debacle, it reminds everybody that Donald Trump isn't like any of them. He is a rich guy who, like a lot of rich guys, has gotten away with a lot of bad behavior over the years. And more than that, I think the Epstein storyline, it personifies a growing chasm in America that's been going on since Occupy Wall Street. The rich are not like us. As F. Scott Fitzgerald said, they are different. They play by different rules and they are ruining this country. They are screwing you, the average man, and look, look at the gross, indecent, disgusting behavior they are engaging in.
- [39:55]
B
Yeah. And you're, and you're kind of reminding people why it does touch those other issues. And some people look at criminal justice system and complain about women's voices not being believed. That's an issue in this case. Or the treatment of poor people or people of color. This case blows it up in another way. Right. Because all the financial chicanery and people say, hey, it's not on the level. Meanwhile, they're being told, you know, AI is going to take their jobs. And so it's become this touch point, as you say, Che and Molly, thanks to both of you have a great weekend. We're going to finna break and when we come back, Bad Bunny, the week that he won and why MAGA still can't get over it. As we end the week, are we still talking about Bad Bunny or in politics, are we still talking about the way people are talking about Bad Bunny? I have what you might call good news. Not just that the show was great and diverse and inclusive. I discussed some of that earlier in the week. And not just that we can still share nice things in this country and not have them all subsumed by politics, but that the whole failed MAGA meltdown over Bad Bunny performing for a part of the super bowl, right for those 12 minutes in the halftime show actually illustrates their failure to try to control culture in this current era. Now, MAGA voices were offended by many things that they don't like in the culture, whether it's Spanish or their long running complaints about all kinds of other things that use the same playbook they tried to use here. The halftime show spiked Bad Bunny's listeners. He was already the number one artist in the world on streaming last year and the super bowl brought him even more listeners and big ratings. Then Republicans said they're even more outrage and some following again, the Trump playbook said the FCC should get involved because again, nothing better than a big government anti free speech agenda brought to you by the Republican Party. But if this all sounds familiar, even as they lost, there was such a great point made by Jon Stewart where he connected this more broadly to the Republican Party's problems. Take a look. When did the right become such?
- [42:27]
D
These people who control every branch of government are so triggered by someone singing.
- [42:33]
B
In Spanish for 20 minutes. They need to create their own safe space.
- [42:36]
D
Alternative halftime show where Trad Bunny over.
- [42:39]
B
Here is singing songs about how he.
- [42:42]
D
Can'T even enjoy sitting in a truck and drinking beer because he knows that.
- [42:46]
B
Somewhere out there there's a trans person. Trad Bunny is of course a little turn on traditional and an echo of Bad Bunny. And so what you look at here is not just what they want you to focus on, which is debating this genre or that. And by definition you're going to have different musicians play the halftime show and the different fans are going to like the music. It's really almost beneath discussing, but that the wider problem is this maga, that mood wants everyone to get as upset and outraged as they are about things not going their way, which is the exact snowflake type critique that they have hurled at so many other people. Stewart noting that this type of political fragility comes while they represent a president who has all of these problems posted, these racist memes won't apologize for it, and these policies that we're living through still affect everyone's real lives. It's actually pathetic.
- [43:54]
D
The gap between the power you all.
- [43:57]
B
Wield I'm not done. The gap between the power you all wield and the victimhood you all claim.
- [44:06]
D
Is the real offense.
- [44:07]
B
If you didn't actually have the power.
- [44:09]
D
To do so much damage in our.
- [44:11]
B
Country, I think we all dismiss it.
- [44:13]
D
As a weak and pathetic pity party.
- [44:19]
B
A pity party. John Stewart does not hold back. He stitches it all together and reminds us that people who are literally exercising the power over how you live and how you're policed and who gets shot and killed also want to have an entire meltdown when they don't get their way. Because maybe their music or their ideas aren't actually popular in the free market of ideas. We'll be right back. Have a great weekend and a great Valentine's Day.
- [44:57]
A
Get in the game with the College Branded Venmo Debit Card Wreck your team with every tap and earn up to 5% cash back with Venmo Stash, a new rewards program from Venmo. No monthly fee, no minimum balance, just school pride and spending power. Get in the game and sign up for the Venmo debit card@venmo.com collegecard. The Venmo Mastercard is issued by the Bancorp Bank NA Select Schools available Venmo Stash terms and exclusions apply at Venmo me terms max $100 cash back per month.