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- [00:00]
Matt Gertz
Hi, I'm Darina, co founder of OpenPhone. My dad is a business owner and growing up, I'll never forget his old ringtone. He made it as loud as it could go because he could not afford.
- [00:11]
Anna Bauer
To miss a single customer call.
- [00:13]
Matt Gertz
That stuck with me when we started OpenPhone. Our mission was to help businesses not just stay in touch, but make every customer feel valued, no matter when they might call. OpenPhone gives your team business phone numbers to call and text code customers all through an app on your phone or computer. Your calls, messages and contacts live in one workspace so your team can stay fully aligned and reply faster. And with our AI agent answering 24. 7, you'll really never miss a customer. Over 60,000 businesses use OpenPhone. Try it now and get 20% off your first six months@openphone.com business and we can port your existing numbers over for free.
- [00:56]
Danielle Moody
Open Phone.
- [00:57]
Matt Gertz
No missed calls, no missed customers.
- [00:59]
Darina
I'm no tech genius, but I knew if I wanted my business to crush it, I needed a website. Now, thankfully, bluehost made it easy. I customized, optimized and monetized everything exactly how I wanted with AI. In minutes, my site was up. I couldn't believe it. The search engine tools even helped me get more site visitors. Whatever your passion project is, you can set it up with Bluehost with their 30 day money back guarantee. What have you got to lose? Head to bluehost.com to start now. When the Moore family ditched cable Internet and switched to Zigly Fiber, they got so much more. Mr. Moore got more upload speed for next level gaming and live streaming to the masses. With reliable service, Mrs. Moore is no.
- [01:39]
Danielle Moody
Longer her family's IT guru, leaving her.
- [01:41]
Darina
More time to stream games into overtime.
- [01:43]
Danielle Moody
Let's go.
- [01:43]
Andy Levy
And young Mason Moore got more done.
- [01:45]
Darina
Quickly uploading HD product demos and video conferencing. Without freesight, the numbers look good.
- [01:51]
Andy Levy
Brad, you're on mute.
- [01:52]
Darina
Switch from cable Internet to Zibli Fiber and get more of what you love for $65 less per month than cable@ziply fiber.com.
- [02:00]
Andy Levy
Hi, I'm Andy Levy, former Fox News and CNN HLN guy and current cable news conscientious objector. I'm a former libertarian who now sits pretty comfortably on the left.
- [02:10]
Danielle Moody
Hi, I'm Danielle Moody, former educator and recovering lobbyist. But today I'm an unapologetic woke commentator on America's threats to democracy.
- [02:18]
Matt Gertz
And I'm producer Jesse Cannon, and I'm here to make sure things don't go.
- [02:21]
Andy Levy
Too far off the ra we're here to have fun, smart conversations with some of the most knowledgeable and entertaining people in politics, media and beyond.
- [02:30]
Danielle Moody
Our goal is to try and make sense of our current crazy world, our new abnormal, and hopefully even make you laugh through the tears.
- [02:37]
Andy Levy
What a great show we have for you today. Matt Gertz, senior fellow at Meteor Matters, is here to talk about Signalgate, the growing scandal surrounding leaked Trump administration war plans and how Fox News is just struggling to spin it. Then lawfare senior editor Anna Bauer joins us to break down the Trump administration's escalating legal battles, from executive orders targeting law firms to courtroom showdowns over the limits of presidential power. But first, let's have some fun. Danielle, we are currently clean on opsec, and I think that that's very important as we go into this recording because we're going to be talking about, oh, I don't know, one of the biggest, I would say, operational signal intelligence blunders in certainly in recent American history. I think. I don't even know how far back you'd have to go to figure this one out. But I'm talking, of course, about the fact that the editor in chief of the Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg, was inadvertently added to a Signal group chat while we were gearing up to drop some lovely bombs in Yemen. There are so many things wrong with this, and maybe we should break them down piece by piece. A, this shouldn't have been happening over Signal, which is a genuinely a very secure communications app, but it's not where the US Government is supposed to do its business. So there's that, there's the fact that a journalist was added to the chat and had access to all of it. The, there's the small fact that there are parts of the chat that very much seem to describe war crimes, really, that just scratches the surface of all this. So, Danielle, I'll leave it up to you. Which of those you want to talk about or all of them and take it away.
- [04:32]
Danielle Moody
Fist pump, flag fire. That's just my response because this is audio. I needed to say it, but that's pretty much going to be my go to coordination of emojis moving forward. Our government is being run by teenage boys. That was just overtly evident in this catastrophic breach of our national security that funny enough, all of the Republicans, from Mike Johnson to others, are telling us that, you know, people make mistakes. Andy, what they took from it as, as Mike Johnson, speaker of the House, said, was that look at our leaders coordinating efforts and just executing at a top level. What, what are you talking about? Oh my God. I put this on Blue sky the other day and I said, the upside of doing away with any aspects of diversity, equity and inclusion is to really showcase white male incompetence and the fact that they don't have anyone to blame in this moment for their utter absolute, as Pete Buttigieg said, fuck up. All they'll do is lie and shrug it off. It's about Mike Waltz saying on Fox News that he's spoken to Elon Musk to figure out how Jeff Goldberg got in his contacts because he doesn't have any contacts for him. And, and then it's, you know, it's, it's looking into, oh, he's a liar and is a discredited journalist. And I'm like, so is he a liar and a discredited journalist or did this display how you're operating at the top most optimization of your executive work? It can't be both. It can't be both things. And I don't think that we need fucking Elon Musk in a chainsaw to tell us that, like you had an oopsie when it came to adding somebody to a group signal chat like that. A fucking, I don't know, elementary school kid can do. The incompetence is wild. And maybe they actually do need people in positions that did earn their position and weren't just placed there because they were white and, and men. Or, you know, in Tulsi Gabbard's case, you know, I just showed up last minute. She said in the Senate confirmation, I had never saw a quicker about face, cover your ass moment than that. She's like, I didn't. If you notice, I didn't say anything. Yeah, we noticed, Kelsey.
- [07:16]
Andy Levy
Yeah, I mean, look, she blatantly lied to Congress about this. She told the House Intelligence Committee that no sources, methods, locations, or war plans were shared. We can read. And there were absolutely locations mentioned, there were methods mentioned, there were war plans shared. She flat out lied to Congress. That used to mean something.
- [07:40]
Danielle Moody
Yeah, Perjury.
- [07:41]
Andy Levy
I don't know that it does anymore, but it should be noted for the post administration trials that I am still holding on to hope will happen. Hannah Jones, the New York Times staff writer, and so much more she posted on Blue sky the other day. She said, all I keep thinking is about how Pete Hegseth raised questions of the competency of a black four star general and Air Force fighter pilot who was the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Hegseth asked, did he get the job, quote, because of his skin color or his skill we'll never know, but always doubt. And that's absolutely true, that that is what Hegseth said. And, you know, I sort of. I quoted it and I said, the thing is, with Hegseth, there's no doubt we know why he got this job. And it wasn't because of his skill, and it was in large part because of his skin color and because of his fealty to Donald Trump and because, I would argue, because of his insane and heinous Christian nationalist beliefs. He did not get this job because of his skill. He did not get this job on merit. And this is just more proof of that. The fact that he is sitting there in unofficial channels, this being the signal chat, talking about contemporaneously what they're doing in Yemen when the bombs are falling, all of this stuff. I mean, again, in a sane world, he never would have been Secretary of Defense. In a slightly less sane world, but still sort of sane, he would be forced to resign over this. In our current world, I don't think that's gonna happen. I will be shocked if anyone pays the price for this. Possibly Mike Waltz, who is the one who added Jeffrey Goldberg to the chat. But even that, look, the Trump administration and Trump himself, they know. And Donald Trump has learned this his whole life. All you have to do is lie, and all you have to do is do nothing, and shit goes away. I really don't see any reason why they can't use that game plan. They were already doing the lying part, as you pointed out. Danielle, I think I counted four different excuses that they're using. One is basically a version of Trump's perfect phone call, which, as you alluded, you know, is saying is the party line of this is a bunch of guys being really competent. And look what they did. We should be celebrating this. And then it ranges from that to Jeffrey Goldberg is a hack, which even if you think that has nothing to do with this, to Jeffrey Goldberg is a liar. Well, what is he lying about? As you said, he can't both be lying. And for the transcripts to make to say that the Trump administration folks are great and so they can't really get their story straight. They're doing the throw all the shit against the wall and see what sticks thing. But, Danielle, where do you think we go from here?
- [10:31]
Danielle Moody
The thing that I think is very interesting in this. Well, I mean, so many. Interesting is not the right word, but the thing that I think is fascinating in this moment is where the public seems to be sitting right now like, you're Right. In terms of how Trump world has ever dealt with any of their scandals or issues, it has always been deny, deny, deny, and then deflect, deflect, deflect. And that has worked. I think that this is something that is different over the last. What is it? We are just shy of two months into this administration and we have watched the just like them take a fucking sledgehammer and a chainsaw to our government each and every day. People feeling less economically stable, less secure. And now with this latest catastrophe, knowing that we are just less safe as a nation, right, from any type of outside threat. And I think that this latest poll, that was done because, you know, of course you have this issue of utilizing the signal as a platform, which again is fine. But even the Pentagon had issued an email a week prior to this scandal stating unequivocally that signal was not secure. That even folks who are inside of the Pentagon that you are vulnerable vis a vis your text messages signal and what have you to foreign actors who are trying to gain information. So it's not again, as if they were warned. But what this hearkens to is back in 2016, when the Republicans made it their campaign motivation around upending Hillary Clinton was around these private email servers. How can Hillary Clinton be trusted with our national secrets when she doesn't follow protocol? And she's using this private email server. I think it was even Paul Ryan, who at the time was our speaker of the House, that introduced legislation to deny her access to national intelligence briefings because of her use of a private email server. So now, some years later, a poll is done following this incident by YouGov, and guess what? 72% of Americans believe that this incident, this signal gate, this whiskey gate, as I call it, is much more detrimental and serious of an issue than Hillary Clinton's private email server ever was. And yet they use that to place into the people's minds that Hillary Clinton was not to be trusted. But we're supposed to be trusting our national security to a fist pump, flag fire, emoji fucking teenage group, Scooby Doo Signal chat. It's outrageous.
- [13:42]
Andy Levy
Yeah, it's completely outrageous. And look, there are a variety of reasons why you wouldn't use signal for something like this. A lot of them pertain to the fact that government records are not supposed to be set to disappear after a month, as Mike Waltz has set this chat to.
- [13:58]
Danielle Moody
Here's an idea.
- [14:00]
Andy Levy
Yeah. And beyond that, signal is not approved for classified messaging. It's not government approved for that. It doesn't mean Signal itself is not a secure platform, but it's not approved for that. It's the same reason there are secure platforms that are not HIPAA compliant that doctors are not allowed to use to transmit medical information over. It's not that the platforms aren't secure, but they're not compliant with hipaa. And these regulations exist for a reason. There's also the fact that if an adversary has control of your phone, if they're in your phone, they can see everything you're doing on Signal, regardless of whether signal itself is secure because they're on your phone. So there's just. There's a million reasons you're not supposed to be using it. Before we pivot, I do want to say that there's been a lot of sort of glossing over of something I mentioned in the intro, and that has to do with war crimes. And I just want to point out that these. These chats show that a building was targeted or a building was bombed where a target's girlfriend lived. And the building, according to the Signal chat, was pretty much reduced to rubble. That means that a bunch of non combatants were targeted, which is not what you're supposed to be doing, and I think is very clearly a war crime. So I don't want that to get overlooked in the technical minutia. And was this the wrong platform? Oh, my God, I can't believe they put a journalist on it. All of that is important and needs to be talked about, but I think we need to also take note of what our country just did.
- [15:27]
Danielle Moody
Oh, that is straight facts and something that will be overlooked. Thank you, Andy. Oh, speaking of things that are terrible and horrible that we shouldn't overlook, every time that there is some type of scandal that is unfolding in this Trump regime, I always think to myself, what are we missing? What are we missing in this moment that we're all focused on Signalgate? What else is happening that we need to be paying attention to? And I have to tell you that the video of the young woman at Tufts University PhD scholar Ramsaya Ozturk, who was filmed on video on her way. She was on the phone with her mother on her way to break her Ramadan fast on her way to Iftar, was approached by masked, masked men in broad daylight, who took her by the wrists. Multiple men surrounded her, all masked, and kidnapped her in broad daylight. When she asked, can I call the police? Their response was, we are the police. And I don't know about you, Andy, but I don't know about what police are walking around in Broad daylight, in plain fucking clothes with masks on. Every time in history when autocratic dictators, fascist regimes take hold of a country, what is one of the things that is consistent across the board? It is some form of small militarized group that begins to disappear. Dissidents and from Mahmoud Khalil, whose abduction happened at the beginning of March, to now Azturks abduction that has happened a couple of weeks later. And there are several students that are being hounded in between these two major headline grabbing incidents. We are in it now and it is terrifying. She, as far as we have known, have not broken any laws as Mahmoud Khalil did not break any laws. But these students are being picked up, are being disappeared to detention centers and treated like terror threats. I'm outdone, Andy. I am absolutely outdone and terrified in this moment.
- [18:04]
Andy Levy
You mentioned that she didn't break any laws, Danielle, but she did co write an op ed for the Tufts Daily, the student newspaper, which I think we can all agree that in America is the kind of thing that is supposed to get you kidnapped by the government. No, it is absolutely unreal. This woman co wrote an op ed that basically called on the Tufts administration to adopt resolutions that Tufts Senate had voted on that had to do with divestment from Israel. None of that is illegal. I don't care whether you agree with her position or not. None of it is illegal. None of it should be illegal. None of it is grounds for any kind punishment, let alone being kidnapped by a bunch of cowardly federal agents who won't show their faces and who, by the way, as you said, they identified themselves as the police. They are not the police. And the mayor of that city has made it clear that they had nothing to do with, with the local police. So they lied. As you said, there is no way to look at something like this and not instantly draw comparisons to every authoritarian regime pretty much in history, every totalitarian regime in history. You can make Nazi comparisons, you can make Stalinist comparisons, you can make Maoist comparisons, you can make Khmer Rouge comparisons, you can make comparisons to a lot of places in South America. Every single one of the comparisons you are making it to is or was a horrific regime. And this is who we are now. We are a horrific regime. There's just no getting around it. Every day something worse happens. And out of all the horrible, terrible stuff that has happened in the past, what's it been now, like two months? This may be the worst. This may actually be the worst because it involves the brazen kidnapping of, of a college student in broad daylight and the whisking away of her to some unknown location, which again, even if she had committed a crime, this is not the way to deal with it. But she did not commit a crime. She wrote a fucking op ed in a college newspaper. And if you can support this, if you can look at this and say, well, she deserved this, then you are lost and there's no hope for you because you have passed into would have been helping if not part of the Nazi regime, would have been helping if not part of Stalin's regime and every other regime that I mentioned, that we widely and correctly hold up as exemplars of the worst of humanity. And that is who you are. If you can look at this and shrug your shoulders or look at this and say that's fine, she deserved it.
- [21:15]
Danielle Moody
We have given up on clearly the Constitution and freedom of speech and freedom of the press. These students are being disappeared for having opinions that are contrary to the Trump regime. And because their opinions are contrary to the regime, they're being labeled as terrorists. This is where it starts. This is not where this ends. And if we don't speak out and say things now and push back against this, then who is to say who will be next on their list?
- [21:49]
Andy Levy
Yeah, the last thing I want to say is it's not my place to speak for you, but I think we both agree on this. When we say we, we are not talking about all Americans. There are a lot of us, a lot of you out there who are horrified by this, who are speaking up, who are going to protests or making your opinions known. You are fighting the good fight. And so I just want to make clear when I say we, I'm talking about the we that is represented by the American government right now. And I would like to think, and I do think that this we does not represent all of us. And I just think it's important to note that I don't want anyone to mischaracterize what we mean when we say we. Hey folks, it's Marc Maron from wtf. Today I want to talk to you about Boost Mobile offering reliable nationwide coverage backed by a 30 day money back guarantee. Love your service or get your money back, no questions asked. Boost Mobile offers the coverage, network speed and service you're used to, but at more affordable prices. We why pay more if you don't have to? You can get an unlimited plan for $25 a month that will never increase in price ever. No price hikes, no multi line requirements, no stress. Visit your nearest Boost mobile store or find them online@boost mobile.com After 30 gigabytes, customers may experience slower speeds. Customers will pay $25 per month as long as they remain active on the Boost Unlimited plan.
- [23:24]
Darina
I'm no tech genius, but I knew if I wanted my business to crush it, I needed a website. Now, thankfully, bluehost made it easy. I customized, optimized and monetized everything exactly how I wanted with AI. In minutes my site was up. I couldn't believe it. The search engine tools even helped me get more site visitors. Whatever your passion project is, you can set it up with Bluehost with their 30 day money back guarantee. What have you got to lose? Head to bluehost.com to start now.
- [23:52]
Andy Levy
Say hello to Samantha. Hi there Samantha. Build a SaaS platform that helps small businesses manage their workflow. But she needed a smarter way to reach decision makers.
- [24:01]
Darina
That's where Acast came in. They helped me produce a professional audio ad which played to business owners and ops leads using their audience attributes targeting tools. Suddenly my platform was showing up in the ears of the exact people I needed to reach.
- [24:13]
Andy Levy
Now that's streamlined marketing. Samantha, what's your tip for scaling smart?
- [24:17]
Darina
Solve a real problem and make sure the right people hear about it.
- [24:21]
Andy Levy
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- [24:34]
Danielle Moody
Folks, I am very happy to welcome back to the New Abnormal Matt Gertz, who is a senior fellow at Media Matters and just one of the people on social media who I get a lot of info from and so I'm a big fan. Matt Signal Gate, you've written two pieces, Risa. Actually you've written like three in the in the last two days.
- [24:59]
Matt Gertz
It is a target rich environment. I would say.
- [25:02]
Danielle Moody
Yeah. The entire story as it continues to pour out is wild. But I find what I'm finding interesting now as Jeff Goldberg from the Atlantic, the editor that was added into the Signal Group chat by Mike Waltz, has provided the receipts, has One of the things that we know about Donald Trump and his regime is that whenever you're caught in a scandal, all you do is lie, lie, lie, deny, deny, deny, deflect, deflect, deflect. And it seems as if Fox over the course of the last couple of days, Fox News is having a really difficult time trying to pivot this story in a favorable light because one, there isn't one. But talk to us about what you have been seeing and reporting on on the last couple of days.
- [25:55]
Matt Gertz
I think that's exactly right. This is a level of scrambling that I have not seen from Fox News in quite some time. They are all over the place trying to cook up some sort of explanation for what happened, some sort of excuse. They realize that the Trump administration stepped in shit and they are doing their best to scrape it off, but it doesn't really seem to be working. You know, in the last couple of days, we'd really seen everything from people saying on Fox that what the texts that Goldberg had then described but not revealed just show a bunch of hardworking national security officials and you should be proud that they're serving our country, to attacks on Goldberg himself, to a couple of nights ago, a really weird conspiracy theory that maybe Goldberg had, like, cleverly manipulated Mike Waltz into pulling him into those chats. I liked that one because it was an argument that our national security advisor is easily deceived, that it's just really easy to fool the person who's supposed to be advising the president about some of the most dangerous issues surrounding the country. What they all assumed was that or had talked themselves into was that maybe this wasn't really that bad, that Goldberg was kind of exaggerating what he had. And so they all walked out on the limb on this one, and the Trump administration just sought it right off. You had a bunch of the officials who were on these texts saying in Congress and outside of it that there was no classified information in any of these texts. And then Goldberg, to his credit, said, okay, you said no classified information. I guess that means I can publish these and drop the whole thing the next morning. And that was putting everyone who would defend this in a very bad spot because the texts have language like 14, 15 strike drones on target. This is when the first bombs will definitely drop in all caps. Just very specific information about the specific weapons platforms that were being used, about the specific timing of the attack on the Houthis, all being revealed ahead of time. The sort of thing that is just obviously very highly classified, that if it's not very highly classified, to reveal the timing of imminent military strikes, like, what exactly could be highly classified? And so basically, I mean, we're in a situation where all of the people who defended this on Fox News and elsewhere are just totally screwed.
- [28:42]
Danielle Moody
Here's the thing, because I want to dig into one of my favorite, and by favorite, I mean worst personalities on Fox, which is Jesse Waters. In your piece entitled Fox Defense for Negligent Texting of War Plans, Top Trump National Security Officials are Incompetent, you dropped in a video of Jesse Waters, again with this rousing Defense of accidents happen when you're taking action. It was the first kind of pivot that they were doing that look how amazing these top officials are. And like, unlike Biden, as he said, who was quote, unquote, citizen sleeping, these guys are taking action. And that's when accidents happen. This was also mimicked by speaker of the House Mike Johnson and other notable Republicans in Congress. And I'm just wondering, who did they think they were fooling?
- [29:38]
Matt Gertz
It's much easier to fool people who agree with you than fool people who disagree with you or are kind of neutral. And so maybe they've been able to talk themselves into the idea that these attacks have been remarkably successful and that they've doing something dramatically different from what the Biden administration did. But the reality is, you know, we've been doing missile strikes on the Houthis this entire time. The Biden administration, the Trump administration, the policy is basically the same. You know, for all the claims of dramatic success, the individual military strike that Hegseth talked about ahead of time might have had some tactical benefits, but they're still doing missile strikes on Yemen today. Like, there's, there's no actual change in whether or not various container ships are able to move through that area. And so the idea that this is some sort of rousing success that we should all cheer for and therefore look past the obvious misconduct that happened in the signal chat, I think is kind of ridiculous.
- [30:40]
Danielle Moody
How does it, in your mind, the mischief media's handling? And I'm, you know, obviously we're, we're talking specifically about Fox, but in my mind, I guess the assumption that I have, Matt, is that the Fox audience just eats up anything that they say. They just take it in and they take it as fact and they run with it. And so what does it say to you that over the course of the last couple of days that they have made so many pivots? Is it that they believe that their audience no longer trust them? Is that it is over the last two months of the chainsaw that Donald Trump and Elon Musk have taken to our government and to institutions, that the facade that Fox has created around Donald Trump is beginning to crumble. And now they feel like they need to do this two step.
- [31:30]
Matt Gertz
I think they feel like on this particular story, they're losing their audience a little bit, that their audience is not really going along with what they're saying. There was a poll out today that found that 60% of Republicans think this scandal is very or somewhat serious. And 74% of all Americans Say so that is a very, very high number. That is higher than the numbers were for the Hillary email scandal or the Biden or Trump documents investigations. My pet theory here is that this is very easy to understand and discuss for most Americans. We've all got our group chats, we have our groups of friends that we, you know, will send messages back and forth. And you know, this is the sort of thing that is going to be very popular in the group chats. People send it to their friends, they say, look, wouldn't, wouldn't it be funny if something like this happened to our group chat? And, and then what happens is the veteran on the group chat says, oh, if I did this, I would go to prison. And then everyone realizes, oh, there's actually like a really bad damning story about Trump administration malfeasance beneath what starts as kind of an in joke of sorts. That's my little pet theory. I don't, I don't know how far I want to take it, but it's the sort of thing where if that's what you're getting from your peer group, you're going to be less likely to buy the explanations that you're hearing from your television set.
- [32:59]
Danielle Moody
And I want to go back to what you said with regard to the YouGov study that came out, the poll that came out that you were referencing, which is Fox got a lot of mileage out of the Hillary Clinton email story. All of corporate mainstream media got a lot of mileage out of that in saying that because she used a private email server, how could we possibly trust her? We with our national security, with, with the country secrets and talking heads, or after talking Republican heads came on air for months talking about the email server. And this is where Lock her up came from. And so that being said, and this 60% of Republicans now believing that this is more serious than that issue, what do you think that that says to the Jesse Waters and the Ingrams and the folks at Fox who are used to just peddling whatever and not having to do multiple two and three steps in order to force feed their bullshit?
- [34:06]
Matt Gertz
I think what it's telling them is they need to move past this as quickly as possible and hope that the Trump administration can make it go away. Because otherwise they're really at risk of having more cracks in that right wing media matrix, more people recognizing that what they're being told isn't actually the truth. On Wednesday, Jeffrey Goldberg put out the actual text messages. And then that night something very funny happened. You had all of these different Fox Hosts explaining to their viewers that the text showed that there was nothing really to see here. You had them saying that in the words of Laura Ingraham, when you look at these texts in their entirety and more released today, they show a serious and thoughtful group of advisors trying to carry out the clear wishes of Donald Trump. And it's abundantly clear that none of this put national security at risk and there was no risk to our troops. You got Jesse Waters saying the first so called scandal of the Trump second term, it's dead in 48 hours. Sean Hannity says there's no classified material released in those texts. And they're just, you know, a one off text exchange surrounding a successful strike in Yemen without any details. But they did something very interesting. They didn't show the texts, the texts are now public. They didn't show the texts, they didn't read from the texts. They don't want their viewers to know what the texts say because the actual language in the text is so damning for the administration that it makes their argument look incredibly foolhardy. That's really the situation they're stuck in. They know they can't criticize Donald Trump and they know that they can't actually defend any of this on the merits. So they need it to go away. They need something else to fill the public discourse. They need to make sure that there are no investigations of any kind and the whole thing gets swept under the rug, they can move on to something else.
- [36:04]
Danielle Moody
Well, what's really interesting is that there are Republicans calling for an investigation in Congress. I am not going to say that these are major cracks. Time will tell. But I think that it's really fascinating that this particular incident, this scandal, which is major, as Pete Buttigieg said, this is a spectacular, spectacular fuck up that Republicans now are calling for an investigation. So Matt, what does that signal to you? Because these Republicans in Congress, in both the House and the Senate, have been in lock step with Donald Trump, not to lift their heads up from just following marching orders. And with this incident, they're saying, no, we actually need to get to the bottom of this. So what does that say to you?
- [36:56]
Matt Gertz
I think it kind of depends on how far they're willing to go. Certainly they're willing to at this point speak up and say that something was seriously wrong here. That needs to be fixed, that needs to be investigated. That's good. It's good to encourage that. But the question is how far they're willing to push because certainly Pam Bondi, the Attorney general made, made very clear in some recent comments that she has no intention of opening any sort of criminal investigation into anything that happened. FBI Director Kash Patel similarly has been loath to do anything about that. You know, we've talked about the Hillary Clinton email server scandal and the Trump and Biden cases, and all three of those involved actual federal criminal investigators. Investigations that in Trump's case led to indictments in Clinton's and Biden's cases did not, but they were actually taken seriously. But the reason that Patel and Bondi are in their positions in the first place is that there is absolutely no way they will willingly open any sort of investigation that Donald Trump doesn't want to have happen. So how far are the Republican critics really willing to push on that aspect? We've also seen a push for a inspector general investigation from the Defense Department that I think is also good, though. Again, I mean, the problem with that is right now there's an acting inspector general. What happens if Trump puts a flunky up to replace that acting inspector general? You know, are Republicans really going to stand up and demand a real independent actor to look into this? I think it's too soon to tell.
- [38:46]
Danielle Moody
Basically what you're laying out is that their show of defiance may be just that, just a show of defiance. Because in every which way that you could seek to move for a quality investigation, it seems, as you know, Donald Trump can just stamp it out and ensure that nothing comes of anything. But I wonder, in terms of public opinion and the public narrative, which we know is incredibly important to Donald Trump and what he has been able to conjure in the public imagination about MAGA and about only having the best people around him and about getting rid of diversity, equity and inclusion so that we have white men at the helm once again, do you think that the public will demand more than what Donald Trump is used to giving them?
- [39:36]
Matt Gertz
I think they very well could. I think trust once lost is very hard to get back. And the fact that a broad swath of the public, including a majority of Republicans, just doesn't trust what the Trump administration is selling on this particular issue is a real fissure. It is something that can be exploited by the administration's opponents. If the they can keep this story in the news, if they can find ways to continue to talk about it, if there are lawsuits that could be used to release more information about the portal usage of high ranking Trump officials or anything like that, that would certainly help keep the story going in that way.
- [40:20]
Danielle Moody
Well, Matt, I thank you for your reporting on this. And just in general, over at Media Matters for America, keeping us all informed. Really appreciate you.
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Matt Gertz
Thanks so much for having me.
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Andy Levy
Want to upskill on one of the most effective ad channels out there? With Acast Ads Academy, you can learn everything you need to plan and run podcast advertising campaigns completely free. Whether you're new to audio or ready to sharpen your skills, our self paced courses fit your schedule and finish with an industry recognized certification. So if you want to grow your expertise and stand out in a competitive industry, head to go.acast.com forward/academy. Lawfare is a nonprofit multimedia publication that calls itself dedicated to hard national security choices. And it's really been living up to this claim in these opening months of the second Trump administration, publishing excellent piece after excellent piece@lawfaremedia.org on top of that, senior editor Anna Bauer has been killing it on social media with her coverage of the growing everyday number of judicial hearings regarding Trump's executive orders, along with his threats against law firms. She joins me now. Anna, thanks so much for being here.
- [42:22]
Anna Bauer
Thanks so much for having me.
- [42:23]
Andy Levy
So I want to start off with what I like to call the curious case of the capitulating law firm. And I'm talking about legal giant Paul Weiss. Walk us through this. It started with a Trump executive order aimed specifically at this firm, right?
- [42:36]
Anna Bauer
Yeah. So there's an executive order that is one of a series of executive orders that Trump has issued that targets various big law firms. This one in particular, Paul Weiss, is a firm that is known particularly as a, as a more progressive leaning firm. It's one of the most powerful firms arguably in the world. Again, a corporate law firm that represents a number of clients, including clients that might have contracts with the government. And that's important here because this executive order, among other things, requires the government to review any government contractors that disclose that they might have business with Paul Weiss. It requires the government to, where possible, terminate contracts with Paul Weiss. It terminates and initiates a review of security clearances of any attorneys at Paul Weiss. And then also it potentially bars Paul Weiss attorneys from federal buildings. And keep in mind, courthouses themselves are federal buildings. So it does a number of things that really is seems to be targeted at affecting the Paul Weiss business. Bottom line. And again, this is one of a series of these executive orders that we've seen. Paul Weiss was the third law firm that was targeted. There was an earlier, very similar order that targeted a law firm called Perkins Coie and then before that, Covington and Burlington. So it really seems to be the case that this is an assault on a number of corporate law firms and that is situated within a kind of larger attack on the integrity of the judicial system and rule of law, including attacks on specific judges who have ruled against the administration and calls for impeachment of those judges.
- [44:39]
Andy Levy
So, yeah, you mentioned Covington and Burling and Perkins Coie. How did they handle being targeted by Trump as opposed to how Paul Weiss has handled it?
- [44:50]
Anna Bauer
Right. So with Covington, we actually haven't heard much from Covington. They haven't brought any litigation over that particular order. However, with Perkins Coie, what we saw fairly soon after this order was issued was that Perkins Coie sued. They brought suit in D.C. district Court and they were represented by Williams and Connolly, which is a DC Based firm that is quite well known and seemed to be warming. One of the early examples and still today one of the only examples of real solidarity from a peer firm amongst these targeted firms. And by that I mean another firm that is, you know, a big law firm that is a kind of a competitor, a potential competitor of Perkins Coie, but nonetheless stepped up to represent Perkins Coie in this suit and the suit, because keep in mind that all of these executive orders in the kind of what you might call the introduction or preamble to them, they reference this reasons why these firms are being targeted. So in the Covington and Burling example, the reasoning is that that firm gave pro bono services to special counsel Jack Smith soon after the end of his tenure as special counsel at a time when Trump, of course, was suggesting that special counsel Smith might be prosecuted once he becomes president. Then in the Paul Weiss and the Perkins Coie examples, there's references to Mark Palmer, Lawrence and Andrew Weissman. Those are both prosecutors who were, at one point or another involved in, in different cases that were investigating or ultimately ended up indicting Trump. And then in the case of Perkins Coey and Paul Weiss, there are references to attorneys who were rehired by those firms after those employees were involved in investigations of Trump. And then there was Mark Pomeranz, who was involved in the investigation of Trump in New York related to the hush money scheme. And so in these executive orders, there's this kind of references to these employees who no longer are even at those firms, the choice of representation that these firms are making in terms of what kind of clients they take on, who they employ. And then there's other references to DEI practices that these firms might use in hiring associates. There's references to the types of interests that they represent or advance in court. And so taking this all together, what Perkins Coie decided to do was to file suit, argue that this is, among other things, a First Amendment violation. And then, on the other hand, after Perkins Coie files suit and a judge issues a temporary restraining order that bars certain sections of this order from being implemented, there's an order that comes against Paul Weiss that's very similar to that order against Perkins Coie. Yet Paul Weiss takes a very different approach. They decide to negotiate with the Trump administration. We have some idea of what the thinking was because of a series of emails that were sent by the chairman of Paul Weiss, Brad Karp, to Paul Weiss Associates, in which he explains the deal that was made and his rationale. We also know from a truth social post by Trump what the White House's account of the deal that was made was. But essentially, they come to this agreement in which Trump agrees to rescind the executive order against Paul Weiss. And in exchange, again, among other things, Paul Weiss agrees, for example, to provide $40 million worth of pro bono services to areas of interest that align with the administration's priorities. And so this is a very different approach that Perkins Coie chose in that it was seen widely amongst the legal community as capitulation to what really seemed like a shakedown by the Trump administration, an effort to extort, essentially, as some have put it, this big corporate law firm into coming to heel to the Trump administration. And it really has been widely seen privately by lawyers as shameful. But at the same time, we have yet to see a really unified response from big law and corporate law firms who may very well be next on the list of targets by the Trump administration.
- [49:34]
Andy Levy
So is there any way that this is not capitulation and that it's some kind of 37 dimensional chess move that's.
- [49:42]
Anna Bauer
Actually good, if you're asking me. I look, Brad Karp in one of his emails lays out his rationale, arguing that he has a fiduciary duty to his company, to the 3,000 something people who work there. You know, in my view, I think no, there's no way to not see it as capitulation. I think one thing that's really important to again point out here is that this deal was made after a district court judge already entered a temporary restraining order against a very similar order that Trump issued as to Perkins Coie, saying that, you know, based on a preliminary look at the order, that it was likely unlawful and that Perkins Coie was likely to succeed on the merits. And I think too, it's really important to say that, yes, it may very well be the case that Brad Karp rationalizes this as related to the fiduciary duty that he owes to his company and employees. But we're talking about officers of the court who also owe a duty to the rule of law and to upholding the integrity of the judicial system. And this is a full frontal assault on the rule of law and on the judicial system. And I think in my view, that outweighs greatly any kind of, you know, business bottom line that these companies might have. Of course, it's not surprising if you know anything about the culture of big law and, and how corporate law firms, that there might be some capitulation. But it nonetheless is disappointing and I think it nonetheless is deserving of criticism from the wider legal community and demands calls for other firms to stand with firms like Perkins Coie who have decided to fight this.
- [51:38]
Andy Levy
We talked a little about this and Columbia University's similar active capitulation in a previous episode. And one of the things I said, and I I'm not the first person to say this, but it seemed obvious that Columbia caving is going to lead to more Trump attacks on universities and similarly with Paul Weiss, that it's going to lead to more Trump attacks on law firms. And then on Tuesday, we saw another executive order aimed at another law firm, Jenner and Block. What was their sin?
- [52:05]
Anna Bauer
Yes, Jenner and Block is a firm that similarly, I mentioned earlier that some of these orders are targeted at people that these various firms have employed. So Jenner and Block is the latest target of these executive orders that are very similar to the Perkins Coie order and the Paul Weiss order. This order also revokes security clearances and potentially results in the termination of various contracts does all the things that those other orders did. And here what Jenner and Block said is that after Andrew Weissman, who previously worked at Jenner before he went on to work for special counsel Robert Mueller, he then left the Mueller probe and was rehired by Jenner. He no longer works there. He's a former employee. But this order that Trump signed earlier this week mentions that Andrew Weissman was rehired after he worked on the Mueller probe. So that is one of Jenner's sends the order. Also, again, as some of these others have alludes to, you know, DEI practices and interests that it, it seems that Trump believes that Jenner has represented that are antithetical to what Trump sees as in American interest. And so, yeah, we have yet to see what Jenner's response to this will be. It has not yet filed suit. But I'm, I'm sure that there are ongoing conversations amongst the Jenner partners and amongst people there about what to do next. And, you know, they have a choice. Are they going to try to go the Paul Weiss route and capitulate and try to negotiate or will they stand with firms like Perkins Coey who have fought these orders? I will say that in terms of the response from the legal community in the Perkins Coie case, there is a amicus brief that means friend of the court brief. It's people who aren't party to the suit themselves who try to file a brief that they think might be helpful for the court to review in analyzing the issues in the case. That brief is being organized by a well known firm called Munger, Toles and Olson. It's the former employer of one Usha Vance actually, who worked there for a number of years before she became the second lady. But that amicus brief is expected to be filed within the next few weeks. And so one thing that I'm watching for is to see how many corporate law firms actually sign on to that brief and put their names on it. And I do wonder if perhaps Jenner is going to wait and see how things pan out over the next several weeks in terms of looking to see who signs on to that amicus brief, looking to see if other corporate firms are going to come out and issue statements and solidarity, that kind of thing. Because we do know know that in the Paul Weiss example, one issue that was cited by Brad Karp in explaining why they decided to negotiate with the Trump administration was that they felt that other firms were not coming out to bat for them.
- [55:24]
Andy Levy
Gotcha. There's just so much to talk about. And, in fact, I do want to mention that there's actually a Trump administration litigation tracker over at the Lawfare website, and it is a really long scroll to the bottom. But I want to get into what you've been doing with live posting a bunch of the judicial hearings that have been caused by various Trump administration activities. There's two things, correct me if I'm wrong. It doesn't seem to be going particularly well for the administration in the courts, and it feels like we've got a lot of exasperated judges out there.
- [55:57]
Anna Bauer
We do. So it's not going particularly well for the Trump administration and the courts. And. And I want to say that there's a perception, I think, or a narrative that's being presented on the right, that the reason it's not going well for the Trump administration and the courts is because we have all these activist judges on the bench who are set on ruling against them. And we've seen that one reaction to that narrative has been certain Republicans issuing or bringing articles of impeachment against judges whose rulings they dislike, that kind of thing. But. But what actually is happening, in my view, as someone who follows these cases day in and day out, goes to the hearings, watches what the judges are saying, how they are acting, what their demeanor is, what we're seeing is that these rulings that are being issued against the Trump administration, and it's not always against the Trump administration, sometimes judges are also saying that they can't rule against the Trump administration because what they're doing is lawful. But when they do issue these rulings, it's because they looked at the issues and think that it is unlawful. I have not seen any sort of conduct in the way from the bench that fits with what the right is, you know, suggesting in terms of these judges. In fact, what I will say is that very often the judges give enormous benefit of the doubt and are enormously patient with the Justice Department attorneys, who, in all honesty, across several of these cases, especially as it relates to the cases that are related to Doge and the various activities and access that Doge has had across the federal government, the Justice Department has not been very forthcoming or candid, it seems, about various facts, there's enormous inconsistencies in what the administration and the White House is saying to members of the press and public. And then what is happening in terms of terms of what the Justice Department attorneys are saying in the courtroom to federal judges. And judges have, to some extent, been quite patient. But it gets to a point where you can only obfuscate for so long when it comes to a federal judge. Right. And so judges have become quite exasperated. Some of these orders are things that just seem completely lawless. And so judges are, you know, reacting to the gall that the administration has in issuing some of these executive orders and the fact that in some ways, in some of these cases, as it relates to, for example, the firing of federal workers, there are ways the administration could go about that that would be legal, but instead they're choosing to do it in the, you know, move fast and break things way, which is the unlawful way for the most part. So I think the judges are getting exasperated not only with the lack of forthcomingness from the Justice Department attorneys, but also with the fact that the administration is issuing orders that seem plainly lawless at times. And then when the judges compel action on the part of the government, at times, the government then seems to do things that are not exactly in compliance with those orders. Right now the big question, for example, in one of the cases before Judge Boasberg is whether or not the Justice Department violated a court order by migrants continuing to be flown to El Salvador or to a third countries in violation of a court order. So we'll see what happens with that. But, yes, you're correct that the judges are very exasperated.
- [59:54]
Andy Levy
Anna, thank you so much for joining us. Go to lawfairmedia.org to check out, like I said at the beginning, some incredible writing on this. And also the Trump administration litigation tracker page really is a trip, so I would encourage people to check that out, too. Anna, thanks again. I really appreciate it.
- [60:10]
Anna Bauer
Thanks so much for having me.
- [60:13]
Danielle Moody
Andy Levy, Danielle Moody. How are you ending this week, Signal gate week with your Fuck that guy?
- [60:23]
Andy Levy
Well, I'm going to turn my fire on some Democrats, and it is Democrats who are, as we speak, pushing to expire Section 230 of the Communications Act. I've had a lot of guests on this show talking about how necessary section 230 is to the functioning of the Internet. Just briefly, Section 230 is what allows places like Blue Sky, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Reddit, pretty much any website that has a comment section, anything like that, it allows these sites to exist because it makes them not liable for the speech that people say on those sites. In other words, if I post something on bluesky and it's defamatory or it has to be do with a crime, I am liable for that. Bluesky is not. Without that kind of protection, Blue sky could not exist. None of these sites could exist. Basically, the Internet couldn't exist. But There are a small group of Democrats, small but way too big, who have Never liked Section 230 and want to get rid of it. And they have decided that now is the time to try to do this again. And I'm talking about Dick Durbin who has teamed up with Lindsey Graham to introduce this bill. If teaming up with Lindsey Graham is not a sign in itself that what you're doing is wrong, I don't know what is. Josh Hawley is signing onto this bill. Josh Hawley is one of the worst people in America. If you are Dick Durbin or Sheldon Whitehouse or Amy Klobuchar who are co sponsoring this bill, if you are Richard Blumenthal who has discussed joining as a co sponsor, there's something wrong with y'. All. And I don't understand how you don't understand that. And really, you could just look at the company you're keeping. Even if you don't understand what it is exactly you're doing here. Just understand that you're teaming with Lindsey Graham and Josh Hawley. That's bad. There is nothing you should be teaming with them on. They are bad, bad people. Mike Masnick, who's been a frequent guest on the show and who is the publisher of Tech Dirt, one of the best tech news sites out there, he posits a Consider this. If Section 230 is gone, RFK Jr could declare that pro vaccine information on the Internet is misinformation and it would have to be forced off because places would not be allowed to carry it. This is just one of a million examples. The ways in which this will hurt marginalized groups is unreal. I know we're short on time so I'm not going to go into it more just if you're not educated about Section 230 listeners, please, I beg you to go out and get educated on it and contact these Democrats and ask them what the fuck they are doing and tell them to stop. So fuck those guys.
- [63:09]
Danielle Moody
You said it succinctly that anytime that you think that it is a good idea to introduce legislation or I don't know, even sit next to Lindsey Graham, I think that you are on the wrong fucking, fucking side of an issue and it doesn't make any sense. But this is the kind of things that Democrats do that are about immediacy and not about the long term damage that is done. They need to think a lot bigger than the way that they do. And it's just like every time, every time, the narrowness. Fuck those guys.
- [63:44]
Andy Levy
All right, Danielle, finish Off this week. Who you got? Who's your fuck that guy.
- [63:48]
Danielle Moody
Let me tell you something, Something. It's not the first time that she has been on this list. It will not be the last time that this person is on this list. But the actions that Homeland Security Secretary Christy Noem took this week by going on a fascist field trip to the prison in El Salvador where the Trump regime had kidnapped and against federal judges orders, delivered two planes worth of who they deemed to be Venezuelan gangsters, but no one actually knows who they are because there was no due process of these people that were swept up by ICE and immediately deported to one of the worst prisons in the world. Kristi Noem thought that it would be a great idea to play fascist Barbie and dress up and head over to El Salvador to film a fucking video in front of a prison cell filled with men who have shaved heads, who are all dressed, put in some type of. Of white shirts and shorts so that she can look big and tough. It was Andy. One of the most disgusting fucking videos I have ever seen. I cannot believe that we are living in this moment where someone, not just someone, but a group of people, thought that this was a good idea, that this is who America is now underneath this racist, fascist regime that again, they don't want to provide. Judge Boasberg, who is presiding over this case of these planes that left the United States that he told to return, and they say now, oh, no, no, no. It's presidential secret, so we can't possibly give up the information of the data of who's on this plane or who authorized this or what have you. So they won't follow the judge's orders. But Chrissy Gnome can absolutely just head over there for this stunt. It is disgusting, it is offensive, and if I'm Judge Boseberg, I'm bringing her into the courts as well as everyone that has allowed this humanitarian catastrophe to happen. For that reason and so many other reasons, she is my. Fuck that guy. Hope you enjoyed checking out this episode of the new Abnormal. We're back every Tuesday, Friday and Sunday.
- [66:39]
Andy Levy
If you enjoyed it, please share it with a friend and keep the conversation going. This podcast is a Daily Beast production, with production by Jesse Cannon and Seamus Calder. Hey, this is Jonathan Fields, host of the Good Life Project podcast, Boost Mobile. Reminds me of what I love, when someone reimagines what's possible, offering reliable nationwide coverage backed by a 30 day money back guarantee.
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