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- [00:00]
A
I wasn't sure what I was getting into with it. I was, you know, sometimes I was like, feeling.
- [00:05]
B
Had a feeling you might be.
- [00:06]
A
I'm a good stand in for an audience for something like this because it is like a quick, like, focused read, which I really appreciated.
- [00:16]
B
But you also see me that. Wait, that's what you're saying. It's so not.
- [00:19]
A
I'm not saying that exactly. Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Illegal News. I'm Sarah Longwell, publisher of the Bulwark and I'm here with my guy, Andrew Weissman. What's up, Andrew? Good morning.
- [00:33]
B
Oh, we know what's up.
- [00:34]
A
Yeah, we know what's up. It's book launch day.
- [00:36]
B
It is book launch day. I started at 5am I was telling you I'm going to go to 10:30 at night.
- [00:42]
A
And I cried for you.
- [00:44]
B
Yes, I. You did. You cried for me. You're basically like, I, it's the world's smallest violin. Going like, shut, shut, shut up. With other. That was the abbreviated.
- [00:54]
A
Oh, my God. Does everyone want to interview you about your book?
- [00:57]
B
Oh, yeah. Wait. But you know what? I know people. This is like, I'm going to play like, out of character, but there's something we have to talk about and it's not. We are going to talk about my book, but we are going to first talk about the obvious news. It's one. I keep on having to remember that it starts with a B. B 1.776. This is the month of four digits we have. You know, it's like 86, 47. Now it's 1776. That is, in my view, 1776 is the amount of the fraud and theft of money from you and me and everyone who is listening to this from the Trump administration with a complicity of the Department of Justice in a fraudulent scheme to steal taxpayer money. There are million legal things wrong with it, let alone the idea of it crazy. But anyway, that's what we really want to talk about.
- [02:02]
A
Yeah, look at the back of the podcast. We do a whole conversation about Andrew's book, which is coming out today. But we did want to do some news because both Andrew and I are. What's the legal term? Rip shit about this?
- [02:13]
B
It's almost like you went to law school.
- [02:14]
A
Yeah, I've got all the Latin, the rich. Sure.
- [02:18]
B
Yeah. It's. It's rip. It's like, it's like, it's like. It's a different version of like race. Ipso loquitter. That. That, that is so. This is like rip shit.
- [02:29]
A
Uhhuh.
- [02:30]
B
That's, that's, that's a, that's the. I think it's in third year law school.
- [02:34]
A
That's good. Yeah, that's where I made it.
- [02:35]
B
Let's, but let's talk about. Because this is so serious. I mean, it's so serious.
- [02:39]
A
So if you listen to the illegal news on Saturday, you heard Ben Whis and me talking about ABC's reporting that Trump was negotiating to settle his 10 billion with a B lawsuit against the IRS in exchange for 1.7 billion to pay victims. And I'm using air quotes for people listening of the weaponization of Biden's doj. So it turns out that the fund which was announced yesterday and named the anti weaponization fund is actually 1.776 billion. So closer to 1.8 billion and also the year of the country's founding. Real cute. It's like they can get really cute with their corruption. All right, Andrew, just as the easiest top line matter, to me, it seems like this should be illegal. Why isn't it?
- [03:24]
B
No, no, no, it is.
- [03:26]
A
Oh, okay, great.
- [03:27]
B
So this is not like it's fine now. There's always to unpack it. And there are all sorts of outrages I think I have said to you, or maybe you know what, I hate to admit this, Sarah, but I think I said it to Tim Miller.
- [03:40]
A
Oh, yeah, I saw you were on his pod.
- [03:42]
B
Yeah. Okay. But to be serious, what is the difference between what is happening and they're just going to Fort Knox and taking the gold and using it for whatever purposes, personal reasons they want. Also, people today are talking about like, well, it's possible they will use this to pay out to people who are convicted and of the January 6th insurrection and, you know, violent attacks on the police officers. That's not a lot of speculation. It's going to have a committee that's overseeing this. The five committee members are appointed by Donald Trump. And we've already seen payouts to Carter Page and Michael Flynn. Michael Flynn admitted to a federal judge that he was guilty before. He then said, oh, no, I'm not guilty. Which would mean that what I just said to the judge about being guilty is, would be wrong because I'm now telling you I'm not guilty. But that guy got over a million dollars. Now it's, we're going to talk about it with a B. Here's, here's something that I think is if you want a sense of the pretextual nature of the, quote, settlement and why this is a fraud in my View one of the filings before the federal judge in Florida, which is that Trump brought this case saying, you know, my tax returns were improperly leaked and I want $10 billion. And the judge there had issued an order saying, I'm not sure there's real adversity here. I'm not sure I like there's a case or controversy because it looks collusive, because you're on both sides of this. And she then issued another order saying, I don't understand how this can go forward because one side would be violating their oath of office to protect the public. Fisk, she, though, has very, very limited authority because in a civil case, not which. This is not a criminal case. In a civil case, the technical rule is that the plaintiff, the person bringing the suit, has automatic right to withdraw the case if the other side hasn't responded yet. And usually it takes a while for the other side to have to respond. Here the other side didn't respond. And so there's. I don't know if any authority the judge has not to just say the case is over. But that doesn't mean there can't be a new legal challenge or Congress couldn't step in. One of the most interesting filings that tells you why this is such a pretext is an amicus was filed that's like a friend of the court brief by former tax authorities, former IRS commissioners, former DOJ Tax Division attorneys saying, judge, wait a second. People who are exactly situated, like Donald Trump, who claimed that they were hurt by the same leak by this contractor of tax returns, the Department of Justice and the Tax Division are fighting all of those lawsuits, saying they're either not timely, that you're suing the wrong party, that you can't sue the government that has sovereign immunity when this is a contractor, not an employee, that the damage amount is way off. It's like, basically, you'd be entitled to a thousand dollars, not 10, oh, wait, 1,000 versus, wait, 10 billion. Again, I don't do math in public, but there's a difference there.
- [07:18]
A
Yes.
- [07:19]
B
And so their point is, the government right now is fighting legally, saying all of those other people are not entitled to a penny, a single penny. And yet this is being quote, unquote, settled for over $1.7 billion. That tells you why this is just so collusive and is a way of using this just as a vehicle to, in my view, steal the money from taxpayers to use it for some preferred cause.
- [07:53]
A
So one of the things that the DOJ did is they put out this memo about the fund saying it's not unprecedented. Right. They're trying to give themselves sort of precedential cover.
- [08:02]
B
Yeah, love this, love this.
- [08:04]
A
And they're referencing an Obama era fund in the Keeps Eagle case, which I was not familiar with. And so without getting too into the weeds, does that case support what the DOJ is doing here?
- [08:16]
B
No, no. But there's more to this. That. And by the way, let me just give a quick shout out to the podcast that I do. I. I'm cheating on you. Right, left and center, Sarah. But with the great, the great Mary McCord, because I understand we talk about this particular aspect that you just asked me about in, in our main justice podcast, which, by the way, yesterday we, it's coming out, I think today, but yesterday we, we joined the modern age. And we did it not as audio. We did it as audio and video so people can actually see us. I mean, they see us anyway, but it's like they will see us doing the podcast, which is a first. I know. You're like going, oh my God, like, you're so antiquated. Do you still use dialogue?
- [09:03]
A
I know. Congrats on turning on your cameras.
- [09:06]
B
Yes, exactly. You know, so here's the thing that's amazing that they c. This Obama era precedent and that that case was about racism and using the fund to go to. To go to victims of racism. Now, wait for it. That specific settlement and settlements like that was, I think, the first thing that Attorney General Sessions took issue with when he became the Attorney General as the first Trump Attorney General. And he issued a memo that I went back and looked at yesterday as soon as I heard about this and said, wait a second. I remember the Attorney General of the United States under the Trump administration saying, no more. We are not going to have settlements where the Department of Justice takes the money and gives it out to third parties just like favored causes, that you can only give it to the person who has been hurt. And that the specific people. So in this case, if you were applying that the victims would be the people who the contractor leaked the tax returns of. Right. It's a, That's a small universe. And it would. So that, I mean, assuming this was even a good faith settlement, this idea that, that Attorney General Sessions was saying is, I don't think that you should be using settlements to sort of dole out money to favorite causes or to interpret sort of what who's harmed, which is exactly what's happening here, by the way, as many of my friends joked. They said, I assume, Andrew, even though you Think this is all bad, it's all illegal, that it's a violation of Congress's role, the appropriations function. I assume that if it is upheld, you're going to be putting in a claim and, and you know, and you and I can come up with huge lists and just to not to be serious for a moment, the memo that you referred to, Sarah, said that this is going to be an apolitical process. So if they start giving it only to like J6ers and Republicans and you have people like Letitia James and Jerome Powell and the Federal Reserve and I mean, could go, James Comey, James Comey. I mean, I mean, the list really could be so long of people who have been targeted by this administration. I mean, it's like this is the, the land of weaponization. I see that being a sort of second phase lawsuits saying that this is political and a huge problem.
- [11:59]
A
I want to just throw out some of the other things in this, you know, about this settlement, just some other details and let you react to them, because I've gotten up some strong opinions on a couple of them. So all other conditions are one, Trump will get in a formal apology from the irs. And to me, this is kind of the most pathetic and laughable part because he's getting 1.8 billion for his friends, his family, his cronies, his legions of pardoned felons. And like, he still needs someone to say I'm sorry to him. And also because I think they're trying to get themselves immunized for the future. Right, that. So anyway, okay, you can react to that. Also, once the fund is set up, the US has, like, no liability whatsoever for protecting the safeguards of the funds, including if there's fraud or misuse of funds, which seems crazy to me. And the last one, like, seems like it might be a tacit omission.
- [12:55]
B
By the way, you can't sue me if you can't do anything. If I were to somehow pocket the money.
- [13:01]
A
Well, that's the thing, right? It's like, it's like they are anticipating that fraud is going to occur and they're inoculating themselves in advance from being prosecuted for committing fraud with this money.
- [13:10]
B
So obviously there can be pardons, but you don't get to say that. You don't get to say, by the way, when I commit a crime in the future, you can't come after me. I just wanted to know, Sarah, like, if I'm robbing a bank tomorrow, I've, I've decreed that you're not going to Be able to, like, I'm immunized from that. But it's like the only way to do that is to pardon. And by the way, the pardon power, one of the only things is, like, it doesn't apply to, like, you know, like in the future if you commit zillions crimes. I think it has to be retrospective. But anyway, that's sort of a crazy provision anyway.
- [13:44]
A
This is all just to say this is a fraud against the taxpayers and he can use money.
- [13:51]
B
There's more.
- [13:51]
A
Okay, go ahead.
- [13:52]
B
Because another provision that I think is there, but I don't know if I interrupted you, is I think there's a provision that says, by the way, the IRS is not going to come after me or my family anymore.
- [14:04]
A
That's right.
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B
That's the part that I'm like, excuse me.
- [14:08]
A
I mean, this is like, they can't prosecute Don junior Down the road for, like, the crypto scams or the insider dealing he's doing.
- [14:17]
B
So let me just pause at this hypothetical. Let's. And a true hypothetical person A commits massive tax fraud to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars. Let's take that as the hypothetical. The IRS is slowly pursuing it, but somebody who likes him or somebody who dislikes him decides, I'm going to improperly leak one of his old tax returns. And the remedy is that you cannot be prosecuted. It's apples and oranges. I mean, the idea that it's like, oh, you may have been harmed, you know, by the way. No, there's been no showing of how it's not good to leak tax returns, but there's no showing of that. Donald Trump was harmed by this in, in any sort of really material way. But even if there were, it's not $10 billion. But also it's not remedied by saying, oh, and that means that you and your family can never be investigated for separate independent crimes. And that's the part, like, of all of these things, that was the one that stuck out to me as just so preposterous. And it's a way of saying I don't have to take, like, the hit of also pardoning all of my family members for any sort of tax cheating. And with respect to Donald Trump, there is an open constitutional issue whether the pardon power applies to yourself. In other words, whether a president can pardon himself. But this avoids that because he's like, oh, I'm just building into the agreement that they can never, ever pursue me.
- [16:04]
A
This is, it is actually like, so outrageous in multiple components. Like, it's not Just the overall thing. That's outrageous. It's lots of the specifics of it. So just a thing that's got my. Got me all wound up is not only does this turn it into a situation where Trump has this unaccountable slush fund, he can give it to whoever he wants. He is actually creating an incentive for people to do crimes on his behalf to knowing that they will get both a pardon and then potentially a payout. Like the, the extent to which it is not just backward looking like he's going to go give money to January 6th people. Whatever it is.
- [16:44]
B
The hiring a hitman. Yeah, it's like hiring a hitman.
- [16:47]
A
It is what it creates for the future. It's a bunch of people saying, oh, oh, I can go mess around at polling places in 2026 or going into 2028. And, and then if the government comes after me, not only will Trump let me off, he. He'll give me money.
- [17:00]
B
Right. No, this is hiring people to do that. I mean it's absolutely. I have a question for you. You are outraged. I am outraged. So many people are waking up to this outrage we have talked about. And you are the pollster par excellence. Is this, to me, this feels like the kind of thing that's easy enough to understand. And I don't mean to denigrate people. I mean that people are busy in their lives, it seems the way you have talked about and I have taken this home with me about like the Alex Preddy video was something that could break through because people could see it for themselves and people. You keep you. I remember you saying everyone was, had watched it. Yes, everyone wanted to see it themselves. This feels like something that people can understand in sense. Like there's, it's sort of like, wait a second, you're taking how much money for what?
- [17:57]
A
Yeah, I do think this is one of those where actually it doesn't, it doesn't land as much as you'd want it to immediately in part because everybody has decided Trump is sort of so thoroughly exhausted people and the right is so good at taking, let's say, let's take Hunter Biden and compare it to this right in the voters minds, not in ours. Just so people can understand the difference between us and the people. I'm talking about in a lot of the voters minds, they kind of do like a pox on both their houses. Everyone's corrupt. They're all using the government to enrich themselves. And people have also, especially Trump supporters have told themselves their own story about Trump that because he was rich. Coming in to this administration, they sort of think, like, he's not trying to get richer. They, like, they have this story that they've told himself about, like, well, he's a billionaire already. Like, he doesn't need the government to make himself rich the way these other politicians do. So here's. But that doesn't mean that this won't land. But it is a question of messaging, emphasis and offense. Okay, so this is where there is a whole story to be told here to the American people. And it's a contrast story, and it should always be a contrast story, which is that Donald Trump has stolen 1.7 billion in taxpayer dollars. In taxpayer dollars to pay off his friends who've committed crimes, number one. But also trying to get a billion taxpayer dollars for his ballroom. Right. He's taken a $400, a $400 million jet from Qatar. Like, you sort of have to tell a full story of the scale of the corruption and then contrast it with. And your prices are going up, your gas prices are going up, your everything's more expensive. Because he's focused on those things. He's enriching himself and his family. But Democrats, this is where, like, they should be losing their minds right now about this every day. They should be holding press conferences.
- [19:47]
B
And, and there's something that I'm very focused on is sincerity. This is, this is one. You do not need to feign outrage. Outrage here.
- [19:59]
A
Yeah.
- [20:00]
B
Like, you can, like, what I would call on people is, why did you become a politician?
- [20:05]
A
I say this all the time, you know, like, tell me why you ran in the first place.
- [20:08]
B
And I am not. I, obviously, I know, like, there's a bell curve. There will be people who did this for the wrong reason, but there will be people who really, really think about public service as, as the highest calling that there is in America and giving back. And you need to channel that when you are talking about this. It is. It's not a game. It's not something where it's like, oh, look, I can use this to score a point. This is one where the way it's. I, I totally agree with what you're saying. And by the way, I'd add in all of the stories that are breaking now about insider trading.
- [20:46]
A
Yes.
- [20:47]
B
So, I mean, the grift is sort of off the charts. But. But I'm going to be. So this is where I love doing this show with you because there's, like, these. There's, like, what happened. There's the legal pieces to it, but then there's like, is it, there's sort of like what are going to be the sort of the political ramifications. And this story in so, so many ways really combines both. Because in many ways sort of Congress acting is that, you know, you asked me the question like what can be done now. The, the, the most and effective thing is for Congress to act. And if I were in Congress and, and sort of, you know, a Democrat or like an honest Republican, I'd be like putting a bill out there saying and you can, you can put out a bill on this issue. Now I know there are arguments that, that says it's already illegal, but you can, you can make it absolutely 100% clear by having a bill. And there's no expos facto issue in my view when it's a civil matter, you're not, this is not the situation where it's going back to say, oh, I want to criminalize something that had not been criminal. That's like a huge, huge no, no. People have to have notice of what crimes are. But in civil matters that's not the case. So this is something that Congress can act on. What I would say is for people listening. Speak up.
- [22:09]
A
Yeah.
- [22:09]
B
And by the way, speak up. A lot of people think oh, but I'm, I live in Massachusetts. Like I already have people who are going to be speaking for me. They need to know how much people care. So if you care about this, speaking up is, is useful.
- [22:25]
A
I completely agree. I do think that Donald Trump often benefits from the scale of his corruption. The scale, you know, this was something about happened with the litigation against him was he was running is just there were so many cases against him that starts to become white noise for voters. Right. And so you have to your point about being authentically outraged, like if you're mad, it should drive these politicians to a microphone to demand accountability. They should be in their Republican colleagues office shaming them for allowing us to go call them out by name in your local media. And like you, you listener, you can tell your local Republican, your local Democrat that you demand they do something about this scale of corruption. And I'll also just say, you know, I looked a lot at Novaney in Russia and the way that he built the social movement to push back against Putin, which of course he was killed for because it was so successful, was all about this exact type of corruption. Corruption really can be a potent messaging tool, especially when voters are suffering themselves under high prices. Right. That's the contrast you need to draw to Trump enriching himself while America gets Poorer has to pay more, can't afford things this summer. And like Democrats should be relentless on this. I just want to build a relentless gene into people where you're like, yes,
- [23:47]
B
come on, dogs with bones.
- [23:49]
A
Yes.
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B
Or in this case, dogs with a bone. Like just. And stick to it anyway.
- [23:57]
A
Okay, guys, this is a monster show for you guys today because we, we, we've talked about this and then we're going to get into another enraging thing, but which is not. Andrew's book is not enraging, but it is about Liars Kingdom. It is about the way that Trump has told lies, especially about the election. But it's also about what we can do about it. Right?
- [24:16]
B
Exactly. It is, it is really forward looking. So it is, it is not just sort of wallowing in woe is me. This is where we are. It's this. These are where we are. But let's look forward. What can we do?
- [24:29]
A
Yeah, it's a great discussion. I've been looking forward to it coming out. We pre taped it a few days ago. So guys, go enjoy that. Andrew, good luck on your book tour and I'll see you day one, day one. I'll see you on the other side, man. Hello, everyone and welcome to the Illegal news. I'm Sarah Longwell, publisher of the Bulwark and I am joined by the great, the good, the wonderful Andrew Weissman for a special episode of this show to talk about his book Liars Kingdom, which is on sale. This is my copy, which is all marked up because I've been reading it, loving it, pulling out the sections that I think are what I want to talk about today. But guys, don't pause the podcast right now. Pause it and go buy this book. I love that it is being sold as a companion book to mine on Amazon. You can buy them as a bundle. So go do that if you haven't done it here. We are a pair. And you know what this is? I, this is with deep sincerity now having finally gotten my hands on a copy of your book. There's so much about clearly where your head and my like, we are talking about two different things in our books. Like I'm talking about voters, you are talking about Trump and his lies in the 2020 election around it being stolen. But there is. We just, our heads must have been in very similar places as observers.
- [25:51]
B
It's really funny as we've been doing these shows together. That's exactly what I've been thinking, which is, you know, we're coming at it for different places, but we're dealing one with the same big picture issue of, like, what we can do. Yes, very much dealing. It's funny, in terms of diagnosing the problem, there's a lot of similarities.
- [26:12]
A
Yeah. And. But here's what I love about your book. There's a lot of books that can diagnose the problem. Right. And I think there people have been diagnosing the problem around Trump. My book obviously does a fair amount of diagnosis, although I think it does a lot of diagnosis on things that people have not previously discussed. But the thing that yours does and that mine endeavors to do as well is to like, what can we do about it? Because I don't know about you, but when I'm out at live shows or I'm just talking to people, the depth of their desire to do something, to understand what the mechanisms are, are to how we fix this, especially for people who I think are, let's just say people who are interested not just in rage, but in channeling the rage that they feel and making sure it doesn't, like, devolve into helplessness is like, okay, well, what are the things that can be done? And I love that your book is focused on stuff that we can do.
- [27:07]
B
So that is the number one question that I get, which is why, what can I do? What can I do? And it's. That is why, you know, I know you feel the same way. Just, just being able to explain legal things to people, which I do on Ms. Now or I do with Mary on Main justice, is a privilege, because it's like, it's something you can do to help. But a lot of people are looking for, what is that outlet? You know, how can I. What do we. What is the answer? Um, and it's also, I really been thinking a lot about, it's the 250th anniversary of our country. If it just feels like it's a time, it's a real wake up call where we are.
- [27:52]
A
Yeah. And I just want to be clear. We are recording this on May 14th. Your book comes out in four days, May 19th.
- [28:01]
B
I don't do math in public, so you can, you can tell me. You can figure out that number.
- [28:07]
A
Well, that's five days. Five days. I also, I. I'm terrible if I told you this, that in my high school, they invented a class for me called the History of Math because they were like, we are never getting Sarah through like, trigonometry or anything. Like, after geometry, which was, by the way, my brother was two years younger and he and I were in the same class, which was deeply embarrassing for me. Not only was it, no, but no worse than that. After class I would like punch him in the arm and be like, yo, what? What answer did you get for four? Because I can't figure it out. This is terrible. Terrible. So anyway, yeah, they invented a history of mass so I could write papers because. Yeah, anyway, five days I was going
- [28:45]
B
to tell you that I have a beef to pick.
- [28:48]
A
Oh, I. This isn't in my show notes. Let's go. What do you got?
- [28:52]
B
So do you remember when I was on and we were both talking about signing like book plates and you said, so what are you writing? And I'm like thinking my name and you're like, no, no, no, but I mean, what are you writing? I mean, you have to write something.
- [29:09]
A
What's your inscription to people?
- [29:10]
B
And I'm like, oh, yeah, of course. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So I then went back and signed my 650 cards.
- [29:27]
A
What did you write? What did you add?
- [29:29]
B
Well, you could. I will give you a signed copy and then you will see. So it's. I know, a little bit of mystery, but I have to tell you, I then had to.
- [29:39]
A
It's like, you know what, Andrew?
- [29:42]
B
Where's the auto pen?
- [29:43]
A
You can, you can pick this fight with me, but I, I think I gave you a life hack. I think I improved the quality of your connection with, with your readers.
- [29:52]
B
You did? Wait, that's why I did it? You know? You know, it was one of those things when you said it, I went, oh, that's right.
- [30:01]
A
Yeah. Because I'm working on mine right now. And I am like, I. Not only am I not writing the same. I'm not only am I writing something, I'm trying not to write the same thing in all of them. So how about. You have to go, go back and think about that, Andrew, like, stop, stop.
- [30:15]
B
But I need, I need Joe Biden's auto pen.
- [30:18]
A
Yeah, that's true.
- [30:20]
B
You know, maybe. Maybe the White House has it because they're holding it for evidence, you know, when they, when they make their case on him. Okay, but let's be serious.
- [30:27]
A
All right? Let's be serious. I want to. I want to get into the actual book because I've been waiting to talk to you about this for forever. We've had to like skirt around the edges because I've really been out and you don't want. Even with books like this, the publishers are like, no spoiler alerts. Don't tell people everything. You want people to buy the books. Okay.
- [30:43]
B
Yeah. Okay.
- [30:43]
A
But you, you structured the book in sort of three sections, and I want to talk about each one of these sections. That's how I want to do the show. And so the first one is, what's wrong with US Law that has allowed Trump to lie so vociferously? Right. Trump is. Lies about all these things, specifically the 2020 election. Why does US law allow this? Number two, what do other countries do to prevent politicians from lying like Trump? This part is so interesting to me because it, well, I never even occurred to me the idea that you would have a law about something like this. But actually it makes a lot of sense from a civic hygiene that you're saying elected leaders cannot lie about the outcomes of elections. That makes complete sense. And then three, you know, what can we learn from what people do abroad and then change our laws here to prevent something like this from happening? And I, I'll say at the jump, part of the reason this is so interesting to me is I would say there's a, I brought up court packing or court expansion with you in a previous show, and I think neither of you and I were. That is not our preferred court reform. We were both think more along the lines of, you know, can you do term limits? Can you do age limits? But, but all of it is. And people who are viewers of the show or when I talk about in other shows who disagree, I think we're all of a piece, though, that, like now, Donald Trump has exposed so many weaknesses in the honor system that guided the American system of government, that in large part the, the mechanism to change things, the mechanism or for, for accountability is essentially entirely with voters. It is like, well, if they do these bad things, voters will vote them out. Like, yes, you have things like impeachment or 25th amendment, but what happens when Congress just stops doing its job? What happens when polarization reaches the level it has? What happens when somebody lies like Donald Trump? And, and so thinking about the reforms and God willing, there's a Democratic president in 2028, they're going to have a ton of pressure on them to deal with the economic fallout of Trump. The, you know, to try to, you know, make Americans everything cost less and deal with, but, like, there's also going to need to be some systematic reforms. And I think the ones that rise to the top or which ones the candidates or the elected leaders should spend political capital on is a very interesting and important conversation to me.
- [33:20]
B
There's never going to be a perfect system. Right. You can't, you can't build this Mousetrap. So that it's, it's what we used to say when I was at the Bureau. So it's agent proof, meaning like, you know, some knucklehead isn't going to make a mistake, but so that there will always be a certain amount of good faith that's required of, of relying on some of that. But right now that, you know, that was not the main genius of the Constitution, which was, you know, obviously checks and balances. And that is, you know, in so many ways, is faltering. And there are just so many things that, where while there will be lots of pressure on any normal administration that's to come to fix all sorts of immediate things, that to me has to be the project because that's the only way that we don't sort of keep repeating this. You know, that is the thing that's going to hold this country back over and over and over again if we don't figure out a systemic check. So that, that was what I was thinking. You'll be happy to know. Sarah, I'm also writing something. I have another idea, but I'm going to wait on that because, like, I'm really trying to figure out in my, in my area what can be done.
- [34:44]
A
I will just as a, as a. So, you know, I wrote the book. I started writing the book. I don't, I don't know when you started it, but I started writing mine maybe like five months after the 2024 election, maybe a little bit longer than that. And so much has changed since then. My analysis all still stands, but the problem is, is that as new things sort of come up in our politics, once you've gone deep in a book, you then suddenly are like, I don't know. No way. I got more, I got more, I got, I got more ideas, more things to do.
- [35:12]
B
So it's funny, when we were talking about foreign, what other foreign countries were doing. So I am, I am this past summer writing about Brazil and I'm writing about the. How it's just fascinating, the parallels between Trump and Bolsonaro, who was the president of Brazil, who was both indicted and also barred from holding office in two separate proceedings. And I'm writing all of that and suddenly what do I read about Donald Trump is criticizing that he'd been prosecuted, is saying this is really unfair. He's impressed. Imposing tariffs on Brazil as a sanction for the fact that they were holding their former president to account, who engaged in an insurrection and was saying that there was fraud in the election. And I was just Like, I was like, I couldn't keep up between, like, my book and the headlines. It was like, wait, I'm going to use that. I'm going to use that.
- [36:07]
A
The hardest thing right now about trying to write about US Politics is how fast everything continues to evolve and change. I will say, and I swear to God, then we're going to, like, get into the structure. I tried to do so that, to keep us on track and to run with the book, with the title Liars Kingdom. Right. It's apparent in your book, it's focused on the impact of Trump's lies across the country, but you focus specifically on the lies Trump told around the 2020 election. So Trump lies constantly. So of all his lies, why focus on the election lies? Like, do you think that those are the most destructive to our democracy, or do you think they're the most punishable?
- [36:41]
B
I was sitting there going, okay, how do I write a book that I want to be sort of reactive, readable for non lawyers so they can sort of understand us all? And I was thinking, okay, so I'm going to talk about his lies. Well, you can't. I mean, I, I quote the Washington Post that counted in just his first term, 30,000 lies, which came to over 20 per day. Some people sounds right. Yeah, I bet you some people listen to this. No, I think sounds a little low. So, you know, because he's, he, at certain days, he just goes on and on.
- [37:15]
A
And these are substantive lies. They're not like he had McDonald's for lunch, but he told people they had a salad. It's like, realize.
- [37:21]
B
Exactly. So, so look, I tried to pick one that was big, important, litigated, where it wasn't trivial. I mean, I, I talk about and I, I give reference to other lies and other things that are important, but I tried to pick one particularly salient one. And also because it is a lie about an election, it does pick up English law that deals with lying about an opponent. There is Brazilian law lying about the results of an election. And so I was trying, I was very cognizant of picking one that would, would resonate, but it was, it was, I just figured, pick one that's good, that people can sort of latch onto because there's so many. And again, I alluded to various ones, but, you know, this is one, it can be like a, a parlor game because it's like, pick your, pick your, you know, best lie. The one I was thinking of doing is, I don't know if you remember, but a few months ago, I was I was like, I think I was like, on air. And Trump, like, out of the blue, just goes, oh, yeah. And I'm hearing Weissman's all over those Epstein files. Guess what? I'm not. Yeah, it is true that my friends said, hey, why didn't you tell us? And how is the island? And I was just like, not funny too soon. But, you know, that's. I didn't. I tried not to pick things like that because it's, you know, there, there's, like that it's rampant and it's, It's. That's where you really think it's sort of pathological because you just have this sense that there is no deterrent to lying. And so that means that you get huge lies like fraud in the election, which is still ongoing. And it's, it is. That is a litmus test for apparently becoming a federal judge or becoming nominated to. To be in his. In his cabinet or under, you know, underlings.
- [39:34]
A
Yeah, I mean, it makes perfect sense to me. And also this point about it is an ongoing thing, like the Fulton county piece that we are talking about. It is. It was a litmus test for Republicans in the 2022 midterms, whether or not they, like, they had to run on the idea that the election was stolen in Fulton County. Right now, I got to say, I just focus group with Georgians because they've got a really interesting governor's race. They got a really interesting Senate race. That's going to be important. I was doing the. So I did a bunch of Republican groups. I was doing the Republican Senate primary. They all think the election was stolen still, like, they are still talking about Fulton County. They also, you know what they're saying? They're saying this was. They were sort of taking it as fact that Trump, now that he was in charge, that they, that he had exposed that there was fraud in Georgia in the 2020 election. And like, Brad Raffensperger is one of the people who is running in a Republican primary. He's the guy that Donald Trump called and said, find me 11,000 votes. And guess what? Republicans in Georgia hate him because they see him as somebody who is a traitor to things because he didn't do what it took to find the fraud that was really there. And, like, now they found the fraud. Oh, dude. I, I remember doing the focus groups during this time and listening to voters say, well, you know, when I went to bed, Trump was in the lead, and when I woke up, he was losing. What's up with that? And it was like, they kept counting votes. Like I don't, I don't know. They kept counting votes. Okay.
- [41:10]
B
This was part of Trump's if you remember, he was, he was at the time was saying stop the count, stop the count because he wanted the red wave. Right. Because he knew that there was gonna these, the votes were going to come in and he was going to go down.
- [41:26]
A
Well this is why he's so against mail in vote ballots now is because they come in slightly later oftentimes. Right. It's like they count them the day of comes in first. He was doing better in the day of and then the mail in ballots came and then he started to lose. But to your point about, you know, the fact that this is still a litness test, wasn't it Kevin Wash still just for the Fed got asked about this. I mean yeah, it is like in his confirmation hearings everybody's every.
- [41:58]
B
It is, I mean this is the, this is the dance which is you, you. I see. I, Donald Trump get to see that you're willing to lie for me. So I, I know I'm lying. You, I know you're willing to lie and now I know you're loyal. I have something on you. It's like yeah it's like we can
- [42:18]
A
do business as long as we're all it's the emperor has no close stuff. So the just do the solutions in your book. Do they are they do they are they.