← The Jim Acosta Show
The Jim Acosta Show
Breaking Epstein news with legal analyst Joyce Vance plus British filmmaker James Glancy live from the frontlines in Ukraine and foreign policy expert Elise Labott on Zelensky visit.
01:05:38
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- [00:00]
A
Welcome to the Jim Acosta Show. It's another day that ends in Y and Trump's struggle to escape Epstein gate. He has thrown out just about every distraction in the book, including what looks like an invasion of Washington, D.C. i'm coming to you live from the nation's capital, which is currently living under a kind of occupation by maga. It seems Trump has pressured Republican governors to send their national guards to D.C. my big guest on today's show you can see right There is former U.S. attorney and legal analyst Joyce Vance. She writes the civil discourse on Substack. Joyce, you and I were just talking a few moments ago. I'm not allowed to say I'm a big fan of yours because as you were saying before we got started, you were just a prosecutor doing your job. But I'm going to say it anyway, and I'm sure a lot of people are going to say it as well. But I do want to talk about Ukraine, and the Ukraine talks over at the White House in a moment. But as you and I were just saying, there is breaking news to get into, and that is the Justice Department is going to begin sharing the Epstein files with Congress on Friday, according, according to James Comer, who is the chairman of the House Oversight Committee. I mean, this just came down on the Washington Post. Joyce, your thoughts on this? I guess it depends on which files, how quickly they come. Lots of questions.
- [01:11]
B
I think that's right. And look, Trump is in a box on the Epstein files. They had no option other than to say that they would comply with this subpoena. But Comer, even this early on, is already making excuses for partial compliance. And of course, if you can pick and choose what you release, claim it's a big complicated file, and delay for months at a time. Well, this is how Donald Trump operates. Right. He knows delay always works in his favor. He hopes that Epstein drops off the public's radar screen and he never has to belly up for everything that's in there.
- [01:47]
A
Yeah, and you're absolutely right. You can sort of read that Comer's lowering expectations a little bit in the statement that he put out. He said in a statement that there are records, there are many records in DOJ's custody. It will take the Justice Department time to produce all the records and ensure the identification of victims in any child sexual abuse material are redacted. It makes you wonder what they're redacting, what that process has been like, who's been doing the redacting, and have any political motivations entered that process? One has to assume it's the Trump administration. And yes, that is the case, that there are some political considerations going on here.
- [02:26]
B
Right. I mean, there's no longer any reason to give this administration this sort of presumption of fair dealing and good behavior, something that, that we've always afforded the White House and the administration, but no more. But, but, you know, there is an important point here. For any of these files to be released, it is important to redact, to protect victims and to protect witnesses. But there's a. You know, I mean, I'm just going to tell you, these files, by the time a case like this gets invite indicted, are just voluminous. They're FBI 302s, which are reports of interviews with witnesses. There's no reason a lot of that information can't be released. Yes, there's grand jury secrecy, but in this case, we're told that there were two summary witnesses put on in front of the grand jury just to give the grand jury probable cause to indict the charges against Epstein and Maxwell. And there's this whole other universe of records about transportation and travel. Presumably the FBI followed the money. That's what they always do in a case like this. I'd be surprised if they didn't do it here. Lots of stuff that should be fair game if, as Comer says, the administration is committed to transparency and if the.
- [03:37]
A
Committee is receiving this information, presumably that means that the ranking member, Robert Garcia and the other Democrats will have some access to this material. And we will know fairly quickly, I would think, how this process is shaping up. Are we seeing timely deliveries of materials over to the committee? Are they slow walking? This is the material heavily redacted and kind of unreadable. I mean, these are things that I would think that the Justice Department was sort of going through and saying, oh, no, we can't put that in there. Redact this, redact that. I hate to set those kinds of expectations, but one has to think that that may be going up. But then again, the Democrats will have some access to this. So it's unclear what we're going to see here.
- [04:24]
B
Yeah, I mean, I think part of this is, you know, when someone sends a subpoena to an entity, there's a date that they're supposed to comply with this peanut by that's tomorrow. In this case. The Trump administration had plenty of notice, plenty of time. The fact that they're not prepared to begin turning over material tomorrow, I think suggests that they never treated this with any level of seriousness. And now that the issue is still pretty much live right in the public's imagination. They've realized that saying no is not an option. So as you say, you know, ranking members, Democrats will have some access. Part of the problem is if you don't know what the universe is of what's in an investment investigative file, it's hard to say whether or not it's being turned over. Right. And I suspect that's what the administration will count on.
- [05:11]
A
Right. And Joyce, I mean, what we saw previously was the White House tried to pull a fast one and say, well, let's just turn over the grand jury documents. And of course, the grand jury documents are completely useless. I mean, as we've talked about. You've talked about, I'm sure in your analysis, there's just very little that's useful in terms of what's in that information. I believe there was a maybe one or two summary witnesses as part of.
- [05:36]
B
The Maxwell case and they knew that. Right. Because those grand jury proceedings were to indict Epstein and Maxwell. They weren't about anybody else. And the public's desire to have information is about everybody else.
- [05:50]
A
Yeah. And so I guess let's. I do want to jump to Russia, but and talk about these Ukraine talks over at the White House. But I mean, since you and I haven't had a conversation about this, your sense of just how Trump has behaved during all of this. And just to button up the Epstein conversation here, when the Justice Department puts out that memo, what was it, July 7th, right after 4th of July weekend, trying to sweep the whole thing under the rug. And that memo came after Donald Trump was told by Pam Bonney, by the Justice Department, oh, by the way, you're in the Epstein files. And then we just saw what we've just seen over the last month and a half. It says to me and you and I haven't talked about this, that Trump is very worried about this and the behavior has suggested that to me he has something to hide. That's my characterization.
- [06:41]
B
I was going to say the same thing. My prosecutor's spidey senses say that's someone with something to hide. If you were investigating the case, you might want to try and put someone. I'm just not talking about Trump now, but a witness or maybe a subject who looked like that. You might want to try to get them under oath if they would and see what they had to say. If not, and you didn't want to charge them, you might try to compel their testimony. No one's really using any level of, you know, force in that sense against Donald Trump because thanks to the Supreme Court, he has no fear of any sort of criminal immunity.
- [07:16]
A
Yeah. And we haven't even talked about Ghislaine Maxwell being moved over to that minimum security prison which was in violation of the administration's own guidelines for what to do with sex offenders. But we'll tackle that another time. I do want to get to Putin because, I mean, you talked about this in your civil discourse substack, Joyce. You pointed out that many Republicans have been saying for years that Putin has to be treated for what he is, that he's a killer, and that Ukraine and its territorial sovereignty has to be protected and so on. And you were writing this in 2023. John Cornyn, Senator from Texas, in a little bit of hot water right now, I'm adding that part, issued a statement on the first anniversary of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, emphasizing that a victory in Ukraine is a, quote, victory for all who value freedom. This weekend, critics from the party that used to believe America had a role to play in bringing democracy to the rest of the world, now they kowtow to Trump so that they can hold onto power and avoid primary challenges. I think that's absolutely right. The way that this summit went down in Alaska, it was a total debacle. And it suggests to me, you know, getting back to Trump and his distractions, that the summit was essentially a distraction for him. He went into there looking like. And even as his deputy officials went in there looking like they hadn't done their homework for dealing with Vladimir Putin, they walked away with nothing.
- [08:39]
B
You know, this is so intrinsic, I think, to how Trump operates. Right. He's the president as businessman and not a very good one. Right. The businessman who bankrupted a couple of businesses and traded on inherited money. So, you know, I'm obviously not a political type person, but I do study democratic institutions as a scholar. I teach at the University of Alabama's law school. And parties are important when you think about democratic institutions and how the government operates. So watching this once proud party that took a very principled stand that called Russia the evil empire, that understood that they were a geopolitical enemy of great significance. And, and to now have them just doing about face for no reason other than because Donald Trump insists upon it, I think that's a frightening development in our politics. It's dangerous for our institutions. And it's something that no one ever really, I mean, everybody knows, everybody sees that. And yet there's no level of accountability or serious public conversation asking Republican leaders to explain, hey, what the hell's going on here?
- [09:48]
A
Yeah. And you have to wonder, from a legal standpoint, what would be legally binding, what would be binding in terms of security agreements if Volodymyr Zelensky were to say, okay, we'll trade a piece of land of territory in exchange for peace, and he has no reason to trust Vladimir Putin. The New York Times was reporting this earlier today, Joyce, that hours after Zelenskyy arrived in Washington for these meetings, Russian attacks on large Ukrainian cities and villages near the front lines killed 10 people, injured dozens. I mean, this is on the eve of these talks, just as these talks were getting going. And it just, it's as one of Zelenskyy's top aides says, that's why Putin doesn't want to have a ceasefire. He enjoys shelling peaceful cities while talking about his desire to end the war. And so you just have to wonder, how does, you know, how does Zelenskyy take any deal where Putin is involved?
- [10:44]
B
You know, it was an interesting gambit by Putin. Perhaps it was a message that said, take this deal or far worse is coming. Maybe. But if you're Zelensky, it's a tough deal to take, particularly because in the past, modest security guarantees have not kept Russia from invading, from trying to take more territory from Ukraine and others. I think the most interesting development here is that Zelensky is not alone, that he's got, you know, his wingmen, the leaders of European NATO countries. And, you know, I wonder if the worm isn't about to turn here. This is asking Republicans in Congress, particularly senators, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, to stomach an awful lot. I'm interested to see what happens in the next 24 hours.
- [11:33]
A
Yeah, those European leaders raced to Washington to have Zelenskyy's back after what they saw transpire in Alask and hearing Donald Trump almost, I mean, essentially echoing Putin and Kremlin talking points. And so they raced to D.C. i'm going to talk about this in a little bit with James Glancy. He's a journalist who's on the front lines in Ukraine, and my friend Elise Lavitt. But, Joyce, we have to get to the situation that's here in Washington right now. Trump ramped up the national guard presence in D.C. over the weekend. I want to get into the fact that you have numerous. I think it's now four different states sending their National Guards, Republican states. West Virginia, Ohio, South Carolina. And then Governor Tate Reeds of Mississippi just became the latest Republican. You're in Alabama. Maybe you can tell me. Maybe Alabama has joined the party, too.
- [12:24]
B
But not quite yet.
- [12:26]
A
Not quite yet. But, you know, the first thing I wanted to get to is what about the precedent that is being said by a Republican president pressuring Republican governors to send their guards into a Democratic city? It just doesn't. How is this happening in the United States?
- [12:42]
B
You know, what's happening, I think, is that Trump is trying to shift the Overton window, that sort of notion of what the legitimate range of political choices are to include. Ooh, I just have to say, Jim, that's a fine mug with your dog that you. This is Duke out of.
- [13:00]
A
This is my rescue beagle Duke. Yes, absolutely.
- [13:03]
B
My two German shepherds are being quiet for the moment, but it might be okay. Sorry, no more dogs. Back to the serious stuff. So this is just Trump, I think, trying to include in the range of choices that people that the public will see as legitimate choices for the president, the idea of sending the military, sending mass law enforcement out onto American streets to police. And of course, he's taking advantage of the fact that the rules in D.C. are a little bit different. The president commands the National Guard in dc, unlike in the states where it's the governor. And Trump can't take over and command a guard unless he finds a willing governor. He's now got four. And of course, the effort he's made in DC to take over the Metropolitan Police Department, DC's partial home rule law lets him ask the mayor for their services for 30 days. So DC is very different, but he's using it, I think, to set up a paradigm that he might try to use elsewhere to. There's a lot of weird technical stuff that happens here, because when the National Guard is acting in state at the behest of their governor, they can engage in a full range of domestic law enforcement. They can essentially help out state officials and state law enforcements with regular tasks. But if they're federalized, and frankly, that's not clear here, what capacity are they Washington in? It seems to me that they almost have to be federalized, but no one will come out and say that. And that impacts who pays them and who's, you know, what their chain of command looks like. There's all sorts of just sort of inside of baseball implications. But. But I think none of that matters to Trump. He doesn't care about getting it right. He cares about the appearance. He wants his base to begin to accept this as normal so that he can try, whether it's legal or not, to send forces into blue cities across the country. He's Threatened he'll do it. I believe in taking him at his word.
- [15:01]
A
Yeah. I love the analysis that this shifts the Overton window of what the public will accept from its government. And I think you're absolutely right. That has been sort of at the heart of what he has tried to do. I mean, since I covered him back during the first administration, but certainly since he came back into the White House the second time around. But I'm curious, Joyce, doesn't this violate the Posse Comitatus act, which bars the use of the military for domestic law enforcement reasons? It seems to me that they can't do this. But is it because they're national Guards that it's different? Is it just Berkey and somebody needs to challenge him on this? What's the point of having Posse Comitatus?
- [15:43]
B
You know, it's murky, but it's not all that murky in this context. Posse Comitatus says unless Congress issues its blessing, which it has not done in. In this case. Right. The military can't engage in police work on American streets. They're a fighting force. They operate, you know, not in the law enforcement space. With the National Guard, that gets less clear. As I've said, when they're operating in the state, they sometimes can't. And when we talk about law enforcement, you know, we're thinking about stopping people, arresting people, executing search warrants, these sort of foundational law enforcement sorts of rules that get played. Posse Comitatus prohibits the military from doing that. Once the National Guard is federalized, they are prohibited from doing that. That's a bright line rule. But here's a problem with Donald Trump. He loves to take bright line rules, look for the loopholes, and then sort of stretch them out of shape to give him the ability to take more power for his own. That's been his trajectory throughout this presidency, whether it's firing executive branch officials. You'll recall he started with inspectors general. Right. Could have given Congress 30 days notice and fired him, but he just went ahead and did it because he wanted to establish this principle that everybody in the executive branch served at his pleasure. Then he started shutting down congressionally funded programs and agencies. And so we've seen this whole trajectory of Trump seizing more and more power. That same thread runs through everything that we're seeing here. He wants to convince against people that he decides and. And what anyone else thinks or what the law says doesn't matter.
- [17:30]
A
Well, and this brings me to maybe a depressing part of the conversation, and that is, can. Can the court stop him and to me, the problem that we're seeing right now is it's just the beginning. We're just six months in, and he sent the National Guards from four different Republican states into the nation's capital, a Democratic city. He has gotten the permission from Congress to supersize ice. And that is being controlled by a White House where you have people like Stephen Miller saying that the Fifth Amendment, that due process does not apply to migrants. I mean, you have a president of the United States who is pushing what's acceptable, I would think, legally or constitutionally, in all sorts of different directions. If any of these cases get to the Supreme Court, what do you expect to happen? Because I think, you know, there was a. There was a time. Getting back to your conversation, your points earlier about. Well, you know, traditionally Republicans have said this and said that. I think John Roberts, the Chief justice of the Supreme Court, was. Has been regarded for quite some time, up until maybe the last year or two, as sort of like the establishment conservative ideology of people who go up on the Supreme Court. I just don't see that as the case anymore. And I wonder if they're just gonna continue to give him blank check after blank check, and then where does it go from there?
- [18:53]
B
You know, John Roberts has really tried to sort of curry this impression that he's an institutionalist, but I can't figure out what institution it is that he's interested in upholding. It sure doesn't look like the presidency. Let me say this. The death of the rule of law is largely overstated. And here's a great example. Last week when Trump tried to seize direct control of the Metropolitan Police Department in D.C. you know, he's entitled to get their services through the mayor. What he wasn't entitled to do was set up the administrator at dea, the Drug Enforcement Administration, as the head of that police department. The District's response was to turn around and sue the administration. Judge Honor Reyes had them in court the next afternoon, and when she indicated that she wasn't going to let the administration do that, they backed down. They entered an agreement with D.C. they pulled it back. They complied before the court ruled with the dictates of the law because they understood that DC had them, you know, sort of square at the center in that run. Of course, the question that Eve asked is more difficult. It's the question that people like me really dislike answering.
- [20:11]
A
I'm sorry.
- [20:12]
B
No, I mean, you know, it is what it is, right? The question is, will the Supreme Court hold? And I think we have to be candid and Say, we don't know. We hope that they have learned the lesson. You know, when you. And look, going into this whole affair, I mean, these are ideological conservatives who believe to some extent in the unitary executive theory, which argues that the president is much more powerful, has much more power under Article 2 of the Constitution than presidents have been exercising. Hence all of Trump's, you know, that little sort of tromp into, I can hire and fire, regardless of, you know, what the career civil service says about hiring and firing, all that stuff. We've got some justices on the court who are just baked in on that theory. But having seen what happens when they give, for instance, Donald Trump complete and total immunity from criminal prosecution, and when they're permissive on some of these early issues, one hopes that they might perhaps realize that the job that they are assigned to do under the Constitution is to oversee the executive branch, to keep it from accumulating too much power and upsetting the balance of power that the Founding Fathers envisioned. And, and I mean, this is the moment, right? Either they do it here or not. And the issue might look something like this. I apologize if I'm being pedantic at being a law professor. You know, something that Trump loves to argue, and he's doing it here, is that no one can second guess his decisions. So if he says that there's an emergency and he has to go into the District of Columbia, even when it's very clear that even DOJ concedes that crime is down in the District, nobody can say, hey, he made that up. That's a bunch of malarkey. He's argued it here. He argued in California as his justification for going in there and federalizing National Guard troops and bringing in the military. That's the confrontation the Supreme Court will have to resolve. Can anybody check the president? And look, decades of case law say that the Supreme Court can.
- [22:23]
A
Well, and I mean, either we have checks and balances or we don't have checks and balances. And to me, what seems to be going on here is that the Supreme Court emboldened Donald Trump with the immunity decision. I mean, I suppose that's. That requires some psychoanalyzing on my part. But it seems to me that Donald Trump took that decision and said, not only can I get away with crimes as a president or ex president, I can do whatever I want if I get back in the White House. And then he got back in the White House and he, I mean, I remember covering him during his first administration. He could be totally out of control. There's no question about it. I think we're seeing a different and more dangerous Donald Trump this time around. I'm glad that you're saying that the rule of law will hold, but I do worry, and I wonder what your thoughts are on whether the immunity decision kind of opened up this Pandora's box, and we just don't.
- [23:14]
B
I mean, it was a terrible decision. You know, look, whenever a court decides a case, half the people don't like the decision, Right? And so I draw a distinction between cases where I just don't like the outcome and cases that I think are wrongly decided. I was the appellate chief in my U.S. attorney's office for a long time before I became a political appointee. And, you know, we are all those of us who have those jobs, court watchers. This job, this decision did not seem to be a principled one that was grounded in the law. The court really had to contort itself to find more than a modest sliver of presidential conduct that merited this sort of immunity from criminal prosecution. And we see the fallout now, right? If a president can't be prosecuted for taking bribes, well, then he can sell pardons, and Trump could do that openly and notoriously, and no one could do a thing about it. I think we're all expecting the other shoe to drop, perhaps an argument from people who work for him that they, too, are covered by his immunity, but he can always issue pardons for them on the way out the door. So I think the Supreme Court set up this dangerous paradigm. They have a lot to answer for, unless John Roberts wants to go down as the chief justice who sold out democracy. I hope he's thinking about all of that.
- [24:34]
A
I hope he's thinking about it, too, Joyce. And to me, it's sort of the big bang moment for what we're all dealing with right now, because to me, I've covered Donald Trump a long time. You give him an inch, he'll take a mile, as somebody's grandfather might have once said. And he's just that kind of person, and he's not going to stop. And I think six months in, he's just demonstrated that, you know, the rule of law be damned, he's just going to do whatever the heck he wants. And that if that means taking a jet from the Qataris, he's going to take a jet from the Qataris and so on. But I guess we should close out by talking about our rescue dogs. I didn't realize you were a dog enthusiast, too, but I don't want to hold you up too Long. So you said two German shepherds and then I'll let you go.
- [25:16]
B
I will always talk about dogs. So my mother in law actually, and my father in law too, bred dogs. My father in law was a federal judge, but his favorite gig was being a dog dog show judge. And so they bred Great Danes and salukis. Bob and I don't show dogs. We just love our dogs and spoil them to death. And we lost a boxer late last year who was a very beloved family member. So we now have a brand new German shepherd puppy who joins our older dog. But we're like those people. We're magnets. Stray dogs just show up on our doorstep. We've had, you know, we had a chow at one point. Who showed up? Who? My husband sat out on the front porch with hot dogs to get her closer and closer to bring her in. We, we like our dogs just like you.
- [26:02]
A
That's wonderful. Well, they probably can sense the strays and any other dog in the neighborhood, which house to go to, and especially if they're handing out hot dogs that you're going to be the most popular house in town.
- [26:14]
B
We, we do attract strays, but we take them all in. So, you know, if you have strays, just leave them on the front porch. We'll take them in and find them in bed.
- [26:22]
A
Well, Joyce, I appreciate you doing this all so much. This is my rescue dog, Duke. He has learned during these substack podcasts to hang out over on the sofa. In the very beginning, when I started doing this, he would come over and jump on my lap and bring me toys and stuff. And now, and it's not because I got mad at him or anything. He's just a good boy. I don't know how else to explain. He just has learned. Okay, it's dad's time to talk into his phone. I better be quiet now.
- [26:45]
B
But, you know, they are so good. I have a German shepherd who sits at my feet when I do hits on msnbc and she just sits there quietly. Such a good girl.
- [26:57]
A
All right, well, what would we do without them? Joyce, thank you so much. I really appreciate it. If I were much more sinister, I would have liked force you to talk for another 30 minutes because I've enjoyed it so much. But I won't do that in the hopes that you'll do this as a fan, but thank you so much. Really appreciate it.
- [27:12]
B
I enjoyed it. Jim, thanks for having me. And thanks y' all for joining us.
- [27:16]
A
All right, thanks a lot. Really appreciate it. That's the wonderful Joyce fans I mean, anybody. Have you ever watched Joyce on msnbc? I mean, you just absolutely can't stop listening to her. I mean, it's just cold, straight, clinical analysis, no hyperbole, just kind of tells it like it is. And we, of course, love that drawl as well. And the fact that she is a dog lover just makes it even better. So my thanks to Joyce Vance. I want to quickly turn the page and get to James Glancy. I haven't had him on the show before, but I wanted to bring him in because he reached out and he is somebody with a lot of expertise when it comes to being on the front lines of dangerous situations. He is a retired Royal Marine. I hope I'm getting this all correct. I believe he served in British politics and now he's a filmmaker and journalist. And I'm sending out the request now. He is now near the front lines in Eastern Ukraine. He was sharing some of his reporting with me offline over the weekend. And there is James now. James, good to see you. Thanks so much for doing this.
- [28:31]
C
No, not at all, Jim. Sorry, just sorting my light out here. I've just. Just got back.
- [28:36]
A
No problem.
- [28:38]
C
We've been out on the front line. Well, near the front line. It's a. It's. It's a challenging place.
- [28:43]
A
Absolutely. And I know you're. I know it's very late, so I appreciate you doing this so much. And you're in Eastern Ukraine. And. Did I have this correct? You were in the Royal Marines, and did you serve in Parliament or did you. You were a politician at one point. Do I have that correct? And now you're a journalist, is that right? Oh, yeah.
- [29:07]
C
There was just a very short period of time. It was accidental, actually. Okay. But my. My main career has been military, and I'm a. I'm a filmmaker. I got involved in politics very briefly, but I am a filmmaker. My so biggest film today was Afghanistan, and I've come out here, really. I came out here on a charity mission to deliver some vehicles and some humanitarian aid, and I've stayed on to make a film. And it just so happens it's. It's coincided with the. The huge meeting with Putin and Trump on Friday. But, of course, today you've got everyone in D.C. and I'm getting all the thoughts and the feedback from the people here on the ground.
- [29:45]
A
No, I'm sure you are. And I'm wondering what kind of feedback you're receiving. I mean, one of the things that you told me over the weekend is that you had met some children On Saturday you said they were killed last night in the shelling. That is horrific what's happening.
- [30:04]
C
So I think what we need to understand is what you're doing with Putin is a man that for some reason Donald Trump is very impressed by, and yet he is knowingly launching missiles into civilian populations, into cities all around Ukraine. He's been doing that for years. We delivered some humanitarian aid on Saturday, close probably about 12km from the front line, which is in drone striking range. Those people, we, we, they were told they needed to be evacuated and they said they were considering it. 24 hours later, a missile struck outside where a father and his son, 13 year old son were mending a tractor and it killed the son and the father has lost his leg. So we just went to visit, we just visited them just now. The family are obviously in pieces. They've lost everything, their home, they've been forced out. And this is all the while, by the way, they're talking about peace deals and carving up Ukraine. And it's really challenging, it's awful for me to experience. But if you're a Ukrainian seeing Trump clap Putin as he got off the plane, it just makes no sense to them because on one, America has provided a huge amount of support and people are grateful here and in many ways the country would have collapsed without it. But at the same time, being forced into a surrender deal when your children are literally being murdered by military grade missiles is a, is a tough pill to swallow.
- [31:36]
A
Yes, there's no question about it. And I mean, you have it, I mean, up close and personal, the perspective as to what the Ukrainians are up against. I mean, Donald Trump is parroting basically Kremlin talking points and saying, well, Zelensky, you can have peace in exchange for territory. And James, we all know, and Europeans know this all too well, if you give Putin some territory, he's going to want more. This has been going on for the last quarter century. And so I have to think that the Ukrainians don't trust this at all.
- [32:08]
C
You're absolutely right. I mean, Donald Trump's always touted himself as a deal maker. Okay, look, in the business space, maybe some could argue he is or isn't. But in international relations, it's not the same. It's not a case of, of cash for cash for, for a deal. It's not the case of just carving things out. We're not in the Potsdam Yalta era of the, of the 1940s. Now, if I take you, if I take your, your, your, your viewers back to the around 19. That's a 2020. When Donald Trump decided he wanted to end the conflict in Afghanistan, yes, it'd been going on a long time, but what did he do? He went straight to the Taliban over the head of President Ghani, and he did the Doha deal. Now, the Doha deal completely undermined the Afghan government, and that's what started the beginning of the collapse, which we obviously saw the disaster in 2021. It was a disastrous deal, and it sold out the Afghan government. That is the fear from the Ukrainians here, that is the fear from the European leaders, who are also cut out of any negotiation, despite the fact it's on our doorstep. The fear is, is that Trump is saying, like you have to. He's going to bend Zelensky's arm up his back and say, unless you see territory, crucial strategic territory, we're going to start supplying you with arms. And that will only embolden Putin.
- [33:27]
A
Right. And my question is, why give Putin the win now? I mean, it seems to me this has been a massive struggle for the Russians. They've lost countless lives, tens of thousands of lives, maybe hundreds of thousands of lives, if I'm not mistaken. And they have not been able to achieve really very many objectives at all, except for perhaps pieces of the Donbas region, which he now wants as sort of consolation prize. But why, I question, why even give him that? It seems to me the better course of action for the Ukrainians, and they must be thinking this is to try to see how long they can grind it out.
- [34:03]
C
Yeah, and this is the real problem, because it is a grind. Look, I fought in Afghanistan. I did three tours, and I call it the last easy war. And I don't mean that flippantly. What I mean is this is total war. And with the drone situation. So they've got these FPV drones. These things hunt soldiers wherever they are. Unless you're below ground, you cannot survive. So you've got to think about it like this. For the soldier on the ground, you've got mines and IEDs, you're being shot at, you've got artillery. And now you've got FPV man hunting drones 24 hours a day. So the casualties are huge. You go to the graveyards here, and you see thousands of young men and mainly men, a few women, but. And then you see the families visiting them. So this is. This is a meat grinder for both the Russians and for the Ukrainians and, of course, the civilian casualties. So Trump is right to pursue peace, but he's not right to give Putin Everything and applaud him for it. And. And I think that the optics are. Are bad.
- [35:08]
A
Yeah. And. And besides the. The very tragic situation you. You saw on Saturday, what is, what is life like where you've been there in Eastern Ukraine.
- [35:21]
C
Right. So this is really interesting.
- [35:23]
A
Yeah.
- [35:24]
C
Lviv and Kiev, the cities are pretty normal. In fact, you can have a. You could probably have a stag dude in Kiev.
- [35:31]
A
Right.
- [35:32]
C
It's a beautiful city. It's amazing. The further east you get, you start seeing more military vehicles. There's checkpoints, there's curfews. We have had air raid sirens every night. About a kilometer away from me, a missile landed. This is the real deal. Bus stops, schools getting blown up, but still the people trying to go around, go about their normal life. You see people walking, going to the gym, walking the dog. So the Ukrainians are resilient, but there is a massive divide in this country between the western cities and the eastern cities. And I would say there's also a divide between those who are really doing the fighting. And some. Some Ukrainians have either fled, there's. There's problems of desertion, and the under 25s haven't been called up by Zelensky, which I know is controversial. It's a political decision. But is there. Is there more that could be done? Probably, but there's a big argument not to destroy an entire generation in this meat grinder. All I say, Jim, is that this is a horrendous conflict that needs to end, but we cannot. If we give Putin what he wants, he'll use it to rebuild, and we'll be back in this situation in two to five years time, guaranteed.
- [36:46]
A
No, I agree totally. And it may be under a different administration, who knows? But your sense of the Europeans scrambling and heading to Washington, I've never seen this. I don't know if I've covered politics in D.C. for a long time. I covered two presidential administrations. I've never seen European leaders race to Washington en masse after a disastrous summit like Trump had with Putin. Your sense of it having covered this from a geopolitical standpoint, it's pretty astounding. And it makes me think that the Europeans are very worried about Trump giving away the store.
- [37:21]
C
Yeah. If we dial back to what Europe and Britain has done to itself through underfunding its defense and relying on the American protection. Trump has always had a point on what he's saying about the Europeans need to stand up, and I think it's emboldened Putin by taking his gas and not having strong defense rely On America, we've not had a place at the negotiating table. But flip that round and you've got a president who just wants this to end. And you've got some very, very concerned leaders that know that if, if, if, if, if Putin gets what he wants, you know what's coming next. It's not just Ukraine. It could, we've already had Georgia. There are other countries that are in the European Union, that are in NATO that are very, very concerned. Now, I'm not saying this meat grinder that Russia has experienced, it doesn't mean they're going to go in, in the next few years, but will they, will we start seeing asymmetric warfare in some of these territories that we saw in 2014 in Crimea? The likelihood is probably yes, at some point. That's why they're all out there. And they are all pushing Trump not to force Zelensky into a Doha deal equivalent, which is a surrender deal.
- [38:40]
A
Yeah, no question about it. Well, James, terrific stuff. Really appreciate you staying up late for us. Please stay safe. Let's do this again. Keep us posted on all the developments out there. But, but good timing having you there in a terrible situation. But thank you.
- [38:56]
C
Yeah, thank you for having me. All right, good night.
- [38:59]
A
Thanks, James. Good night to you. Really appreciate it. That was James Glancy, who, you know, when you go through his bio, he's such an accomplished guy. And the fact that he was there documenting this stuff in Eastern Ukraine, we just had to get him on the show. And I hope he and his colleagues stay safe out there. I know that they're risking quite a bit to bring us that kind of reporting. And it was stellar, stellar reporting. So I appreciate his time very much. Want to bring in my friend Elise Labet, if she is ready to, ready to go, I'll bring her into the discussion here because Elise can look at this from the 30,000 foot standpoint, which, you know, may not be high enough given everything that we've witnessed over the last 24 hours in D.C. but Elise, great to see you. Thanks so much for coming on.
- [39:49]
D
Nice to be with you.
- [39:50]
A
I don't know if you know James Glancy. I mean, I, I was just introduced to him recently, but he's over there reporting on what's been taking place in Eastern Ukraine. And I mean, it is worth noting that as Zelenskyy was arriving in Washington preparing for this meeting with Trump, Putin, the Russians, they were continuing to bomb civilians and kill them. And so it just makes you wonder why even go to the negotiating table?
- [40:17]
D
Well, I Think that, Listen, the Europeans have said themselves and generals and everyone, all wars end at the negotiating table. I think that's a legitimate question. Does Putin want to end this war? And the answer is no. Is he playing for time? The answer is yes. I mean, he's gonna drag out these negotiations, say, oh, I'm not ready, you know, let's talk more. Maybe you and I should meet. You should come to Moscow. As he said the other day, he's trying to basically drag this out, just like Kim Jong Un did. And remember, Jim, you know, Kim Jong Un, despite his love affair with Kim Jong Un, Trump did walk away from Kim Jong Un. There was no nuclear deal. And my hope was that he was going into that meeting with Putin. And that was my understanding. You know, he had what Madeleine Albright called cojones. Right? I'm not taking Putin's bullshit. I'm gonna demand a ceasefire. I'm gonna, you know, threaten severe consequences. And he like, you know, God brainwashed by Putin again. I think he was getting sick of Putin making him look like a chump. And so.
- [41:33]
A
Well, he certainly did that. I mean, Elise, I mean, to me, I'm a little suspicious, I'm a lot suspicious as to whether there were any good intentions in holding the summit in Alaska to begin with.
- [41:46]
D
What summit? I mean, a summit is like, that was a joke. It could have been done on the phone. Okay, yes, that was a phone call. Look, I blame Trump, but I also blame Steve Wyckoff, who is an idiot. And basically he. I'm sorry, he's not an idiot. He's just has no experience in this and he doesn't know Ukraine. They all think these are like real estate deals. And this wasn't.
- [42:16]
A
He went, they're trying to bullshit their way out of a war.
- [42:18]
D
And look, look, Witkoff misunderstood or didn't hear or didn't understand what Putin was telling him. And so he comes back and says, oh, Putin wants a deal. Putin wants a surrender. And so he told Trump this. Trump's like, oh, I can get a deal, and hastily calls this meeting. It wasn't a summit. It could have been done on the phone. And you know, cuz you've covered, We've covered so many summits together. Yeah, a summit is a meeting that's, you know, prepared over weeks. Rubioko would go out, he would talk to the Foreign Minister, he would lay the groundwork. This was, you know, they were leaving.
- [43:01]
A
Documents on the copy machine. I mean, it's just amateur, you know.
- [43:05]
D
This was like a banana republic type meeting. And it just didn't need to be taken place. A summit should be, you know, if he wants to really negotiate this, bring these guys to Camp David, have it be quiet. Yes, all the press wants to talk about it, but, but have it be in private like Jimmy Carter did, you know, with Camp David, or Bill Clinton did. And don't do a half hour press conference about your position before you even go into a meeting with Zelensky. I mean, this is just being done. And I know Trump does things in his own way, but now there's, now they really gotta, if they're serious about it, they gotta do it in a serious way. And they need to talk to people that know about this conflict. And you know, with all respect to the.
- [43:52]
A
Marco Rubio knows about this. He doesn't, but Marco Rubio has some knowledge in this area and he's completely sold out. He does not show any kind of, I don't know, a public face in that he's pushing Trump to draw a hard line.
- [44:08]
D
We don't know. Let's. We don't know what he's telling him privately.
- [44:12]
A
We don't. That's true.
- [44:14]
D
We know what he's saying publicly. And I think if you read between the lines, Jim, he can't get a ceasefire.
- [44:24]
A
He can't get a seize.
- [44:25]
D
It's not that he doesn't want one. He wanted one, he can't get one.
- [44:30]
A
Right.
- [44:31]
D
And so now they're trying to spin the fact that, oh, it's not necessary and it's not good or whatever. Whatever.
- [44:36]
A
Whatever. Yeah. Well, let's.
- [44:37]
D
If he came, if you think if he went into that meeting and all of a sudden didn't think a ceasefire was a good thing, he wanted a ceasefire and he couldn't get it.
- [44:45]
A
But if he knew he couldn't get one, and if he had officials around Donald Trump who knew that he couldn't get one, don't get on that plane. Don't go all the way out there. Don't embarrass the United States in front of the whole world.
- [44:57]
D
Looks better. Nobody has more confidence in his deal making abilities than Trump himself. He thought he was going to be able to go in. And don't forget, he was prepared to, you know, those consequences. And. But he could have held a tough bargain and Putin steamrolled him. Let me say something about the Europeans too.
- [45:18]
A
Yeah, good. Cause I wanna ask you about that.
- [45:20]
D
Everybody is saying, oh, they're there to protect Zelensky, make sure he didn't get bulldozed. And I have to Say both the Europeans, and we've talked about this before on this show. Both the Europeans and Zelensky have learned how to deal with Donald Trump.
- [45:37]
A
Yes.
- [45:38]
D
And they're flattering him in the way he needs to be flattered. Zelensky was deferential and respectful and everything. He needed to be dressed up, wore.
- [45:47]
B
A suit, blah, blah, blah.
- [45:50]
A
And the German Chancellor brought Trump's grandfather's birth certificate or something.
- [45:53]
D
They've learned how to deal with President Trump, I think, particularly the NATO citizens.
- [45:59]
A
Was it the long form birth certificate? Anyway, sorry, it's.
- [46:03]
D
I don't know if he's a naturalized citizen or whatever somebody call ICE anyway, you know, especially NATO. Secretary General Root and Starmer in particular have been really, I think, handled Trump well. The Europeans are not only there to make sure Zelensky doesn't get bullied, they're there to tell Trump. They don't only have Zelensky's back, they have his back.
- [46:32]
A
And that's a very good point.
- [46:34]
D
And no one's talking about that. They're there. Look, let me finish. They're there to tell Trump, you can do this. You can stand up to this guy. We've got you. And I think it's a really good tactic. That's why they scrambled to be there, to get him on the same page and help him find his balls, so to speak.
- [46:58]
A
Well, you know, and, and that could take some time. But the thing that I thought was remarkable was that the summit went so poorly in Alaska that these, that these European leaders felt like they had to scramble and race to Washington all at the same time. Elise, you and I have covered this stuff for a while. I have never seen anything like that before. Where, you know.
- [47:20]
D
Yeah, it's there to hold. It's not only. It's not to hold Zelensky's hand. I think it's there to hold Trump's hand.
- [47:25]
A
Hold Trump's hand and to say, don't fuck this up.
- [47:29]
D
Yeah. No, and, and, and look, every. The world is depending on you. You can do this. We've got you. I think you even saw, like, you know, Trump did a 180 in Alaska. Maybe he's. Has he moved a little bit? I mean, he's, his language is a little bit softer. And so, you know.
- [47:48]
A
Yeah, I think it's. Well, he didn't shit all over.
- [47:51]
D
They're trying to be a buffer between him and Putin.
- [47:54]
A
But here's the thing. And again, you can talk me off the ledge, but I'll probably stay on the ledge.
- [47:59]
D
You can Stay on the ledge. You talk me off the ledge all the time.
- [48:03]
A
Well, Donald Trump goes out to Alaska, makes an ass out of himself, rolls out the red carpet, claps for Vladimir Putin like he's at the Bozo the Clown show. And he comes back to Washington, all these European leaders run in there, like you said, back up Zelenskyy, but also to back up him. And then he goes on this rant about voting fraud and all of this stuff, and it's. I'm sorry, he does not sound like he is all there. And I don't know what you do in a destabilized world with Donald Trump in the White House when he is not all there and he feels compelled to go off on these wild tangents.
- [48:43]
D
Well, I mean, this is your first time deciding that he's gone on a wild tangent. Every press conference, every, you know, he did something last week.
- [48:53]
A
My point is, how could anybody reasonably expect this guy?
- [48:58]
D
He did a press conference last week. Oh, the Kennedy Center.
- [49:02]
A
Yeah.
- [49:03]
D
And it was like a word salad about things that had nothing to do with the Kennedy Center.
- [49:07]
A
The grasses. He's gonna fix the grass. Yeah.
- [49:09]
D
And immigration and I mean, it was just a word salad. It was like a Bret Easton Ellis novel, like stream of consciousness. So this, he does that all the time. But what Putin did, effectively, I might add.
- [49:22]
A
Yeah.
- [49:23]
D
Is he planted these seeds in his head. And this is the brilliance of a KGB operative dealing with a reality TV star. Putin said something about mail and voting, even though, by the way, Trump, Putin allows mail in voting. So. And then he said this stuff about.
- [49:40]
A
They only vote for him, but anyway.
- [49:42]
D
And then he said the stuff about you never would have invaded. He gave Trump all of the things that he wanted to hear that are making him look good with his base, that are making. That are like dealing with his old grievances. And Trump swallowed it whole.
- [49:57]
A
But I don't know if that. I agree with you. And I think tactically, of course, Putin is the KGB chess master that he is. I'm not surprised at all that he was telling Donald Trump this war would have never happened had you been president at the time. It's utter bullshit.
- [50:11]
D
But.
- [50:11]
A
But the fact that they all have to run and placate him says to me that he's not in control. He's totally destabilized situation. And the only move that these leaders have is to kiss up to him, which is not going to result in anything other than continued ass kissing. Because at the end of the day, Putin wants territory. He wants to reconstitute the former Soviet Union or the Russian Empire, whatever version of that is in his head, and he's going to continue to do this. When we were just talking to James Glancy a few moments ago.
- [50:44]
D
Yeah. He was excellent.
- [50:45]
A
He was excellent. And he made that very strong point, which is, you know, we're going to be back here in two to five years, no matter what happens here, because we're.
- [50:52]
D
You may be back here in two to five years, but you won't have the same president. So I really think these leaders are just. Jim, I just think they're trying to get through the day.
- [51:03]
A
They're just trying to get through it.
- [51:05]
D
They're just trying to get through the day, and they're trying to almost kick the can down the road.
- [51:10]
A
That's what this whole world is doing. We're just tap dancing until 2020.
- [51:13]
D
One thing that Trump didn't do, because he can't do, which is basically accept Russian sovereignty over. What Putin really wants, is accepted Russian sovereignty over all the territory they have now. Anything that comes out of a peace deal, Russia wants everyone to, like, basically accept these as the new borders.
- [51:34]
A
Yeah.
- [51:34]
D
And the Europeans won't do that. Why won't they do that? Because they know that Trump won't be there in a few years. And if you get a more reasonable president, like, this is gonna be a frozen conflict.
- [51:47]
A
Yeah.
- [51:47]
D
This is not gonna be a peace deal. This is gonna be a peace. Maybe some kind of armistice agreement like you have between north and South Korea. This is not a peace deal because a. Because they're hoping Trump won't be there. Did you see that thing about the election that if you're at a war with another. Did you catch that?
- [52:06]
A
Yes. Yes.
- [52:07]
D
What he said, if you're in. Oh. Zelensky said, we can't have an election because we're at war. And Trump said, oh, if you're at war with another country, you can't have elections.
- [52:16]
A
Yeah. Let's not give him any bad ideas.
- [52:18]
D
Right. So what they're hoping is that Trump won't be there in a few years, but neither will Putin. Putin's not gonna be there forever.
- [52:28]
A
Yeah.
- [52:28]
D
And so this will be an. My. My suspicion is this will be an armistice agreement, not a final agreement, because they'll wanna negotiate that with.
- [52:38]
A
Somebody else.
- [52:38]
D
Anybody else, a bunch of other leaders.
- [52:41]
A
Yeah. Well, I think the best that we might be able to hope for is some sort of weak ceasefire agreement that Putin's gonna violate within a couple of months. And the thing that scares me a little Bit is, I heard, and perhaps you can correct me if I'm wrong here, that the Brits are even talking about having peacekeepers on the ground to enforce some sort of ceasefire.
- [53:00]
D
Yeah, but did you see what the Russian. You're right, but did you see what the Russian Foreign Ministry just said, that they would not accept any troops inside Ukraine that are from a NATO member.
- [53:10]
A
I have to see. That's the thing. That's the whole ball game. They don't want anything that has the width of Ukraine becoming some sort of NATO partner or whatever you want to call it.
- [53:20]
D
Look, there are only two things that are going to stop Putin. More weapons to Ukraine and these sanctions. There's a reason why Putin wanted to have that meeting with Trump because those sanctions are starting to bite. Don't want the sanctions and he doesn't want those. Secretary. Secretary. Those secondary sanctions on India, on China, on his oil partners. That could really hurt him. And so this, you know, it's like with Iran. Like, this is what brought Iran to the table. And if there's anything that's going to bring Russia to the table, it's those secondary sanctions. And we've talked about this a lot, right? The west has not wanted Ukraine to lose the war, but they haven't done enough to help them win the war. And I still don't think they want to. But if I think the best thing.
- [54:13]
A
That can happen, I mean, frankly, the best thing that can happen is for this to just be a quagmire for Russia.
- [54:19]
D
A quagmire.
- [54:20]
A
A quagmire that just continues to weaken the Russians until Putin is somehow deposed, which I don't know. That might be a fantasy on my part, but to me, giving him some sort of agreement that he's going to violate, it's just.
- [54:33]
D
Who thought it would happen to Milosevic? Who would have thought it would happen to, you know, once, Once, like we.
- [54:40]
A
Saw what Prigozhin did. He almost, you know, that was. That shit came out of nowhere.
- [54:45]
D
It shows you. Look, he had to. Putin was so weak that he had to rely on the Wagner group.
- [54:52]
A
That's true.
- [54:53]
D
You know, very good point. And so, look, continue to weaken the guy. And that's what. You know. And if, look, and if a bonus is that Europeans are buying U.S. weapons, like, again, that idea was brilliant. Yeah, well, buy the weapons from the US I have a feeling they're gonna try to kick the can down the road, placate Trump into something and have some kind of armistice agreement that freezes the conflict so that they don't have to deal with a final agreement with Trump.
- [55:24]
A
Well, I think we're all kicking the can until 2028, Elise, maybe you and me included. But Elise, great to see you as always. The Cosmopolitics substack, everybody. Check it out.
- [55:35]
D
Thanks so much. Great to be with you as always.
- [55:37]
A
Great to be with you.
- [55:38]
D
And I know you, six and a half thousand people on your substack, Jim. It's not too shabby. It's more than was watching on cnn.
- [55:46]
A
So I did not. That's all Elise's fault. If anybody at PR gets mad at me, that was Elise. Good to see you, Elise.
- [55:55]
D
Good to see you, too.
- [55:56]
A
Take care. Okay, bye.
- [55:57]
D
Bye.
- [55:57]
A
Oh, boy. Elise. Now my attorneys are going to, I'm going to hear from my attorneys and my attorney's going to hear from other people because Elise got me in trouble. I did not have anything to do with that, ladies and gentlemen. But Elise is, she's a live wire, isn't she? She's terrific. Always appreciate her insights. I don't want to go without saying what I said at the top of this program and I, and, and I respect Joyce fans. So I did not want to pull her out on the ledge with me. But I do want to ask this question to close out the show. What would happen if under a Democratic president, Democratic states were to send their National Guard troops to Mississippi or South Carolina? What would happen? I think we know what would happen. I think they would freak out in those kinds of states and we could see political violence in this country. And I just want to say I take my hat off. Kudos to the people of Washington, D.C. for showing not just bravery and courage, but patience and restraint in the face of what is, and I'm just going to go out here and say it, an occupation. People of Washington, D.C. are living under an occupation. And I'm in Washington, D.C. right now. And I grew up in this area, grew up in Northern Virginia. And the D.C. area has always been my home. You know, as all the viewers have heard many times, Redskins, commanders, Caps, Wizards, Nationals, you name it. I'm a DC Kid. This is who I am. I'm from this area. And it pisses me off to no end that we somehow have a situation in this country where the president of the United States is allowed, is allowed to take over the nation's capital. How is that legal? How is that possible in this country? The people of Washington, D.C. already live with taxation without representation. They don't have full voting members of Congress. I see somebody saying DC Rocks DC does rock. It's a beautiful city. It's our nation's capital. It is a beautiful, wonderful place. Does it have flaws? Of course. Any city in the world has issues. But the people of Washington, D.C. deserve statehood, not a police state. Over the weekend, the Washington Post, a reporter over there captured a disturbing takedown on Saturday. This is how they reported. A federal agents detained a food delivery driver as he emerged from Washington, a northwest Washington coffee shop Saturday morning, an incident captured on video by numerous witnesses, including a Washington Post reporter, that showed the officers tackling him to the ground, holding him down, and appearing to use a stun gun before driving him away in an unmarked black vehicle. The administration says the driver was in the country illegally. Okay, fine. He's in the country illegally. He's got to get picked up. I get it. During the arrest, witnesses, including the Post reporter, asked the officers to identify themselves numerous times. All but one. All but one of those officers, who was wearing the ICE badge, refused. Oh, are you guys the cops? One agent who was wearing a hat and a mask responded. Then shut the fuck up is what one of those agents said to an eyewitness here on the streets of Washington, D.C. that agent said, shut the fuck up. To an American citizen asking, what is going on with the police in this city. Two black unmarked police vehicles, an SUV with a Maryland license plate and a sedan pulled onto R Street Northwest, and more officers swarmed as they tackled the man to the ground. One of the officers fell, clutched his head, and was dragged out by a colleague. I don't know if you guys saw this video, but in the video you can see one of the officers hits the ground, hits his head on the pavement and injures himself. All to arrest a food delivery driver. What a shit show. I'm not finished. Eventually, two of the officers escorted the detained man into the backseat of the unmarked suv, where there was another altercation as the agents climbed into their vehicles and prepared to drive away. Get this. One witness who saw all of this yelled, you're ruining this country. This is in the Washington Post, one of the officers responded. Liberals already ruined it, one of the officers said to one of the eyewitnesses. Liberals already ruined it. Ladies and gentlemen, Donald Trump's already been president once, he's now president again. I thought he was going to make this country great. Liberals already ruined it. I guess this officer hasn't gotten the memo that Trump has made America great. Give me a break. Give me a break. If you have officers who are conducting these, these types of activities in the nation's, capital saying things like liberals have already ruined this country, folks. We are on the dark side of the moon. We are on the dark side of the moon. If we have a politicized Stephen Miller esque police force sweeping the streets of D.C. and acting like a bunch of goddamn thugs, what has happened to this country? Donald Trump tapped somebody for the Bureau of Labor Statistics who was at January 6th. I'm sorry, what? Just the other day it was reported a Justice Department official, it was discovered that he had been at January 6 and had been saying kill them about the police officers and was involved in the attack on the Capitol. Do we have a government of insurrectionists? Is that what we have now? A government of insurrectionists? And is that government now occupying the nation's capital with members of the National Guard from four ruby red Republican states? Is that the situation that we're dealing with this in this country right now? That's not America. That's a police state. And people need to understand in the United States of America, we don't live in a police state. The police are answerable to the people. The police work for the people. The cop cars are supposed to say to protect and serve the people, not say things like liberals already ruined it. Not that it matters, but I say shame on this police officer for saying such a thing. He needs to have his head examined and his soul searched. That's not what this country is all about. And I'm going to say it again. Kudos to the people of Washington, D.C. for showing the courage and the bravery and the patience and the restraint to put up with this bullshit and put up with this nonsense. But I do ask the question, if a Democratic president were sending the National Guard troops from a Democratic state into a Republican state like Arkansas or South Carolina or Mississippi or Alabama, what would the response be from the local population? The crime statistics show that Memphis and St. Louis have higher crime rates than Washington, D.C. i mean, just game this out. What if a Democratic president were to do this to St. Louis and Memphis and they started staging in Republican red states, what would happen as this, as Daniel just said, they lose their shit. And so I think it is incumbent upon these Republican lawmakers who are coming back from Washington, and I'm wasting my breath here to get a hold of this president and tell him, you are out of control, man. What you're doing is out of control. People of Washington, D.C. deserve statehood, not a police state. I want to thank Joyce Vance, I want to thank James Glancy. I want to thank Elise Labet for joining me today. Thanks to all of you for joining me today. Slightly longer show today, but we had a lot of news to pack in. But thanks everybody again for watching. Still reporting from Washington, I'm Jim Acosta. Have a good evening. Good night. It.