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The Jim Acosta Show
BREAKING NEWS: MARK KELLY INVESTIGATED? PLUS COMEY AND JAMES' CASES TOSSED WITH STEVE SCHMIDT ADAM KINZINGER & GLENN KIRSCHNER
01:06:50
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- [00:00]
Jim Acosta
Foreign.
- [00:07]
Welcome to the Jim Acosta show. And it's another day that ends in Y and Donald Trump's assault on American democracy. He now has the Pentagon waging a war against dissent, as the self described Department of War is warning Arizona Senator Mark Kelly that he may be court martialed simply for producing a video encouraging members of the military to remember they don't have to carry out unlawful orders. Let's discuss with Steve Schmidt, who hosts the Warning with Steve Schmidt on substack and YouTube and everywhere else. Steve, great to see you.
- [00:37]
Steve Schmidt
Good to see you, Jim.
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Jim Acosta
Yeah. I mean, what do you think about this? I mean, we should put the tweet up from. I mean, it all seems half baked and cockamamie, but he's. Here's Pete Hegseth. The video made by the seditious six was despicable, reckless and false. He goes on to say that Mark Kelly could be court martialed and that sort of thing. And then you have the Department of War, which is not really called the Department of War. They've made this up. And Pete Hexseth, you know, know, put up a sign outside the building that says that it's not called the Department of War, but basically saying the same thing, threatening Mark Kelly with court martial. What do you make of all? I mean, this is right out of Joe McCarthy red scare. Your thoughts?
- [01:18]
Steve Schmidt
Well, the stupidity of it all shouldn't confuse us at all from the danger of it all.
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Jim Acosta
Yeah, yeah.
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Steve Schmidt
And Pete Hagseth is an immoral leader of America's military which predates the independence of the country and its commander in chief first commander in chief, who sits first on the retired list remains George Washington. And so this is an affront to every American value that you can think of and then some, but most importantly to the concept of the separation of power. So I want to talk about this in two distinct categories. The first is the lawful and then the second is the political. On the first side of it, we don't talk too much about this, but it's important. The Department of Defense is the lawful name of the organization.
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Jim Acosta
Right.
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Steve Schmidt
And so I'm old enough to remember when all these red hats used to believe in the broken windows theory of policing, that small violations lead to deep transgressions. So in the year 1947, after the Second World War, when we went from the 38th largest army in the world in 1938 to a force of 16 million men under arms, it required a different generation of statesmen, serious leaders, to think about the changes to the society and how to organize the constant need for a vigilant defense against threats in a nuclear age. And the reforms of 1947 established the Department of Defense as the national military establishment. The leader of the department is the Secretary of Defense. There is no Secretary of War and there is no Department of War. Now there is a constitution with three co. Equal branches of government. The Article one branch is the Congress. The Article two branch is the executive. And here we have an Article 2 branch officer, a cabinet official, confirmed by the Article 1 branch, threatening the protected speech of a United States senator in a co. Equal branch of government that he doesn't like, seeking to punish dissent with kangaroo court justice, which in this case is unconstitutional.
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Jim Acosta
Right.
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Steve Schmidt
But to. The threat is important.
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Jim Acosta
Yeah.
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Steve Schmidt
The. The threat is why General Milley and others are silent. That hangs in the air unreported. On which is the notion is if you speak out of turn, you'll be called back to active duty and you'll stand court martial and maybe go to prison. And here's the deal with that. The military has a long tradition of kangaroo court justice. Dick Winters, the protagonist and hero of Band of Brothers, faced a Mickey Mouse court martial. Jackie Robinson faced an unjust court martial. General Benjamin O. Davis famously, along with many black officers, faced an unjust court martial. So in the case, because of the constitutional separation of powers, Mark Kelly is not able to do the right and the noble and the easy thing here, which is to say, hey, Secretary Hegseth, I'm delighted to return to active duty and to stand court martial, though more. Kelly wouldn't say it. I'm sure he could figure out a polite way to say f you.
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Jim Acosta
Yeah, and he would say that, apparently, but go ahead.
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Steve Schmidt
He'd be acquitted in that court martial and then perfectly positioned to run, to run for president. But, but understand, the, the, the undue influence of the command on an unjust prosecution breaks the military justice system, just like Trump is breaking the Department of Justice. And in the end, it's going to take a very careful review of every text of every email that was sent over these years to root out the politicization of the officer corps. And every instance of politicized corruption will be known. The inspector generals will be back and, and will know. But the attack on Senator Kelly is outlandish.
- [06:58]
Jim Acosta
It is. And it violates the spirit of what we're supposed to have in this country, which is civilian control of the military. You know, I mean, this, this idea that you can just go after people for, for what they say via the military is just not it's just counter to the American experience. And you mentioned Mark Kelly. We have his statement. We put his statement up. Senator Mark Kelly put up a very dignified response. There's his uniform. He says, when I was 22 years old, I commissioned as an ensign in the United States Navy and worn oath to the const, Sworn oath to the Constitution. I upheld that oath through flight school, multiple deployments on the USS Midway, 39 combat missions and Operation Desert Storm, Test Pilot School, four space shuttle flights at NASA, and every day since I retired, which I did after my wife Gabby was shot in the head while serving her constituents. Talking about his. His wife, Gabby Giffords, he goes on to say, if this is meant to intimidate me and other members of Congress from doing our jobs and holding this administration accountable, it won't work. His colleague in the Senate from Arizona, Ruben Gallego. And I'm just telling you, this is what he said. He told Pete Hexeth that he can go fuck himself. He used that kind of language. And that's the kind of pushback that we need right now. I mean, quite honestly. I mean, they are. They are making a mockery of this. And you've gotta. You've gotta stand chest to chest with these. These dudes. It's. They're totally out of control.
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Steve Schmidt
Well, there's the difference between a US Navy captain, Mark Kelly, and a United States Marine Corps lance corporal between Ruben Gallego, the junior senator from Arizona, and he also said Mark Kelly, the senior senator. I knew a former senior senator from Arizona pretty well. He'd be proud of both of those guys. And he would be indignant about this, to say, to say the least.
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Jim Acosta
Look.
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Right now. But I'm sorry. Go ahead.
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Steve Schmidt
Pete Hagseth is a deeply paranoid, Captain Queeg type figure, deeply disrespected. He is referred to behind his back by the brass in Washington at the Pentagon as the major. And it's done dismissively and derisively, just like the German general staff used to dismiss Hitler as the corporal. And so, same, same dynamic.
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Jim Acosta
That's exactly right. And you know, your thoughts, though, Steve, on this notion that, you know, members of Congress ought to be able to tell members of the military, especially if they've served in uniform, that you have a duty to not obey, to not follow unlawful orders. Hegseth. And, you know, and so on. They've said, oh, no, no, you have to follow the president's commands no matter what they are. That's. That's not how it works.
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Steve Schmidt
Well, no, that's absolutely not True. And it's contrary to the training. And I think it's important to understand you don't need a permission slip by virtue of being a veteran to deliver that admonition. In a country that maintains civilian control over its military, Douglas MacArthur, in his very famous 1962 speech at West Point, says to the assembled cadets, the military does not belong to the army, to the soldier. It belongs to the nation. Its legacy is to the citizen, not to the. Not to the soldier. And. And so. And the group that I started with, some other folks, the Save America Movement, the very first communications we did, the first advertisements were on this subject five months ago to the two seven Marines deployed in Los Angeles, where we reminded them that in America they swear an oath to the Constitution, that they swear an oath to the republic, not to a man, not to a leader, not to a party, not to a faction. And that saying, I followed orders is not a defense right for committing crimes. And so whether it has been the time that I have spent in my life or in Auschwitz or in Treblinka or in Theresienstadt or Dachau or Bergen Belsen or any of the other camps or any of the places, or any of the places where there were race riots and murder, whether that's in Tulsa, whether that's in Wilmington, North Carolina. Charleston, North Carolina. How do these evil acts transpire and happen? There's a book about this subject called Ordinary Men that tells the story of Special Police Reserve Battalion 60 of German, Ordinary Germans that become some of World War II's most notorious killers. If you read the opening statement of the Nuremberg Trials, delivered by an American Associate justice of the Supreme Court named Robert Jackson, who's the chief prosecutor. If you read the words of Francis Biddle, who was the Attorney General of the United States under fdr, becomes one of the Nuremberg judges. This issue is of the most profound importance. And we have in this country right now, as we speak this instant, 66,000 people, most all of whom have committed no crime whatsoever in conditions that we do not know about, other than that they are abusive, that they cannot see communion, that there is no transparency around. And so in that moment when we see this cruelty everywhere, when we see oppression priest being shot in the head by a pepper ball from on top of an ice facility by a mask agent, what is paramount is to remind every single person to Save America Movement has ads around these prison facilities directed at the guards, saying there is no hidden corner, secret space where you can do this evil at. There will be accountability. What you have done will become known, it will be seen, it will be recorded, and there will be justice. And so the best way to avoid catastrophe at an individual level, at an institutional level, is to understand from the outset that illegal orders are illegal in the United States. And so when we're blowing boats out of the water on the word of Donald Trump and a pack of liars.
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Jim Acosta
Yeah.
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Steve Schmidt
Everybody involved should be given long thought to the legality of what it is they're being asked to do. And every American has a right to communicate to every soldier, every sailor, every airman, every marine about the expectations we, the citizens of this nation have of them who are the shields of a republic, not the militia of a thug autocratic leader.
- [14:45]
Jim Acosta
That's it. That's it in a nutshell, Steve. I mean, you're absolutely right and really love the history lesson as well. People forget and, you know, it also kind of flies in the face of what we think of our military. We want our military to not just be a force for good, but that you have some sense that it is part of us. And if there's, if there's any kind of a sense that the military is the tool of whoever happens to be president, United States, then, then we're living in a very different place. We're not living in that country anymore. And, you know, my concern is when you see, you know, Trump sending in troops to places like Los Angeles, when you have real concerns, I think, going into next year's midterm elections that Trump may want to use the military to intimidate voters going to the polls in the upcoming midterm. I mean, there's, you know, for Christ's sake, he's talked about wanting to shoot protesters in the legs and having the military do that. There's a whole host of issues where it's perfectly legitimate for these members of Congress to say, not only are we. We're not imagining things here. There are, there are cases in point where obviously we need to communicate to members of the military. And I thought it was an ingenious way of doing it to string together those videos. Very well respected members of Congress, Alyssa Slotkin, who's. Who served in the CIA. I mean, these are all very, very important, you know, well established people. The other thing that we got to get to, Steve, is what has taken place over the weekend. And you and I have talked about Marco Rubio before. You and I have had this discussion before. What the hell has happened to Marco Rubio? Well, over the weekend, there were members of the Senate from both Democrat and Republican side of the aisle who were saying that this peace propo. These. These. These peace proposals that were being bandied about.
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Steve Schmidt
One second.
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Jim Acosta
Basically, Russian talking points. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, hang on. I got you.
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That.
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That these. That these. That these peace proposals that they were talking about out in Geneva were essentially Russian talking points, Kremlin talking points. And I was just wondering what you thought of that. God knows where this is all going to end up, but you saw Michael McFaul put out a tweet saying drafting a peace plan with Putin and then telling the Ukrainians to accept it is not mediation. It's acting as an agent for the Kremlin. There's Senator Mike Rounds, Republican, was saying that they were basically being told that, you know, that. That the U.S. proposal, that the Trump proposal was basically from the Russian point of view. And, you know, Marco Rubio tried to go out there and clean it up, but he had to know that he was being roped into this. The hell's going on?
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Steve Schmidt
Marco Rubio is a fascist. Marco Rubio is an immoral man. Marco Rubio. I said this four years ago, and when I did, he went nuts on Twitter and so did Ted Cruz. But besides the time when I said the most delicate flower in the world is the male ego, besides that time, this may be the truest thing I've ever said, which was that if Marco Rubio was in Havana, Cuba, in 1959, he would be dressed in olive drab and he'd be carrying Castro's coat or raincoat and locking up as many prisoners as he could, executing as many people against the wall to get to the highest position that he could get. And anybody who didn't understand that about this guy wasn't paying attention and was exercising bad judgment in their analysis, is who. We kept trying to tell you who he was. Right, And. And. And this is a guy who's quoting Bible verses, quoting scripture, you know, tweet after tweet after tweet. He, at age 52, is personal, directly, singularly responsible. His signature for the deaths of scores of tens which will climb to hundreds of thousands of children made in the image of God, according to what he says it is that he believes in the teachings and gospels of Jesus Christ, the least amongst us. And by his hand, he signed the order that consigned them to painful and cruel depths of starvation and dehydration and painful diseases that had been cured by the beneficence of the most generous people in the world, the American people. It wasn't Marco Rubio's money. It Was it was our money and it was our honor, and it was our charity and it was our goodness. And he took it and he desecrated it. And that man who was an advocate for the very programs he killed now is a great appeaser of America's most mortal enemy. A Russian dictator.
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Jim Acosta
Yeah.
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Steve Schmidt
Who seeks war with the countries in the world that most share our values. And so we see this playing out in plain sight with great acts of corruption everywhere between the Trump, Trump officials, the Saudi government, the Russians. And the one thing we know is that there are two great warnings in American history. One is about avoiding foreign entanglements, and it was from George Washington. And the other was about a new danger that that national military establishment had brought to life. The military industrial complex that Eisenhower warned about. Yeah. So what you see here is these dangers coming together in a way that's a real threat to every single American. It's disgusting. And Marco Rubio is a faithless man. He is un American. He is oppositional to everything that he said he once believed in, but he now supports so he can have power with Trump. He's just hideous. He's disgusting and he's trying.
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Jim Acosta
Well, and he's, he thinks that this is his ticket to the 2028 campaign.
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Steve Schmidt
He'll never be president.
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Jim Acosta
And I'm sorry, again, you and I have talked about this before. He's, he's, this is the guy who tries to take shortcuts at every turn and he thinks that he can sort of leapfrog the rest of the field by doing Trump's bidding. But when you surrender yourself to somebody like Vladimir Putin, I mean, some of the stuff that the, that the Americans were talking about in these so called peace talks that were basically cutting out the Ukrainians, limiting the size of the, this 28 point plan. This is from Nick Schifferin over at PBS. And this was Senator Angus King, the leaked 28 point plan, which according to Senator Rubio or Secretary Rubio is not in the administration's position. It is essentially the wish list of the Russians. I mean, that is some wild stuff to be acknowledged by United States Senator, Senator Angus King, who is not like some wide eyed progressive, he's an independent from Maine. But I mean, some of the things that they were talking about was limiting the size of the Ukrainian military handing over territory, you know, like the Molotov Ribbentrop pact.
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Steve Schmidt
Right. It's, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a treacherous document. It's an embarrassment.
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Jim Acosta
It's an Embarrassment.
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Steve Schmidt
Here's the deal. Either MAGA survives or the American Republic does either, or one or the other. And there's no way back across the bridge for someone like Marco Rubio, the diescast. And I don't think Marco Rubio will ever be president. I think he's going to live his life with a lot of ignominy and a lot of shame. I think a lot of these people, I think the person that they should look to as the model for what life is going to be most like for them is Prince Andrew. Andrew Mountbatten. Excuse me. Right. It's going to be a lot like that. You got a Rubio. You know, he looks like he's in. He's in good shape. You know, the, The Cubans have a lot of longevity as a, As a people. You know, I think. I think Marco. I think Marco Rubio's got 40, 50 years at least. Right. Of living in total ignominy and shame and villainy in this. In this country. All these people did. And by the time we get to the end of this disaster, remember something. Franklin Roosevelt was elected in 1932. The next Republican was Dwight Eisenhower.
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Jim Acosta
Yes, that's right.
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Steve Schmidt
Who won the Second World War that both parties tried to recruit to be their nominees in. You did not have a Republican elected to the office of president who was not the hero of a world war from 1932 until 1968.
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Jim Acosta
Richard Nixon.
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Steve Schmidt
It's a long time.
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Jim Acosta
Yeah.
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Steve Schmidt
This year of Trump is not a year old yet.
- [24:46]
Jim Acosta
No, we.
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Steve Schmidt
We have a while to go to get to an election with a cratering economy where the gaslighting, the lies. We got the Agriculture Secretary telling the farmers it's never been better when the metrics tell us that the farmers are now the leading suicide demographic in the country. We got Howard Ludnick telling the American family the tariffs are great for them. The billionaires are feasting. The billionaires are dining out. We got J.D. vance in that 1970s Eddie Munster sweat stain pit stain shirt with the Saudi friends doing bitcoin deals. It is all going down.
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Jim Acosta
Paradise.
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Steve Schmidt
It's all going down, and the American people are going to repudiate it. Trump does not have the power to cancel elections. Trump does not have the power to kill people who dissent with. Right. All of the horror show, all of the lies, all of the vapid questions asked of all the liars cannot save them.
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Jim Acosta
No, that's right. And add to that. I mean, he just got his ass handed to him in federal court. You know, in the Comey case, the Comey and Letitia James cases. I mean, it was. These cases were dismissed without prejudice. I suppose they could come back from the dead. But you have a federal judge saying that Lindsay Halligan, the supremely unqualified interim U.S. attorney who was implanted in there because they couldn't find somebody in the U.S. attorney's office who take on these kangaroo court, Mickey Mouse court cases. And they were just. It's just, what an embarrassment. This is an embarrassment for Donald Trump and his administrator and the Justice Department. Just unreal to have a former FBI director have his case dismissed. Like. I mean, it's just the whole. The whole saga is a goddamn national embarrassment.
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I.
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Steve Schmidt
The Democratic majority to come has to make commitments to the American people after the Merrick Garland era.
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Jim Acosta
Yes.
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Steve Schmidt
Of the oversight to come and the review of all that has happened, all that has been done, and the reforms that lead to a type of reconstruction of the country, of the democracy, of our liberties under threat. Every instance of somebody saying that people who have been warning about the danger of this were exaggerated.
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Jim Acosta
Right.
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Steve Schmidt
Were hyperbolic, were too much, has been proven wrong.
- [27:52]
Jim Acosta
Correct.
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Steve Schmidt
All of it.
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Jim Acosta
And so we're run out of town on a rail for warning about it too, by the way. Anyway.
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Steve Schmidt
The fundamental truth of the moment is the reality of it can no longer be hidden and it can no longer be denied. Everybody has become who they have chosen to become in a moment that gave everybody an opportunity to reveal what they were all about. Completely.
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Jim Acosta
Yep.
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Steve Schmidt
Fully and absolutely no question about who has integrity and who doesn't, who has conviction and who doesn't, who's an actor and who's not, who's a patriot and who's not, what matters and what doesn't. And so we live in an era where richest man in the world and the Kardashians jamming out at a birthday party in a house for 258 million doll. 47% of the country doesn't have $400 cash. The Ellisons are about to control overwhelming percentages of America's communications companies. The consolidation of power into realms of new kingdoms. We don't have to tolerate it. And so politics evolves. It changes. There are moments in our history where events slow like a lazy river to a trickle in the summer. And other times they rage like rapids. And that's the type of season we're in on that. On that river, and we're in it. And we have to get through it, and we have to defeat it by appreciating that. On the question at hand, there are two distinct sides One is imperfect and one is fascist. One seeks to take your liberty and freedom. The other one does not. One is a patriotic side. The other is a cult of personality built around the whim of a man. His delusions are a gospel delivered by his apostles who are supposed to work for us but instead have traded in a constitutional oath for a seat on predator patio of Mar?
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Adam Kinzinger
A Lago.
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Steve Schmidt
And the great underbelly of American society has always been greedy. You had Hollywood studios, American companies doing business with the Nazi Germans well into early 1942. Couldn't quite believe we were at war with them yet.
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Jim Acosta
That's right.
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Steve Schmidt
And in this moment has laid out a record that he's etched in the granite and carved in the rock about who did what and when they did it. And. And in the end, the one thing I don't know the answer to is how much damage will be done by this gang.
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Jim Acosta
That's right.
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Steve Schmidt
But I do know they will not succeed. And they will be buried and pulled up high by the high court of history.
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Jim Acosta
That's right.
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Steve Schmidt
They are villains. And our side wins. And the country will be stronger, ever stronger, through the test of faith that has come that will drive a renewal that our children will be the beneficiaries of. I deeply believe that.
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Jim Acosta
Amen. I hope you're right. I hope you're right. No, I. In other words, too many turkeys around these days, not enough mashed potatoes. But Steve Schmidt, always, always a pleasure, man. Always, always. Enjoy the passion.
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Steve Schmidt
Happy, happy Thanksgiving.
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Jim Acosta
Happy Thanksgiving. And we'll do it again soon.
- [32:35]
Steve Schmidt
Bet. Jim.
- [32:36]
Jim Acosta
All right, take care. All right. Enjoy that nice weather wherever you are. Steve. Steve. The great Steve Schmidt. There's. There's a little turkey there at the bottom of the screen. We're starting to get in the holiday spirit here at the Jim Acosta show, and I, and I always appreciate Steve reminding us of what matters and, you know, maybe arming us with some facts as we gather around the Thanksgiving Day table. Although I'm not so sure they're going to be as many folks in red hats at the Thanksgiving table this time around as there were last year. Something tells me fewer red hats at the thing. We'll talk about this as the week goes on, but I'm just going to start to make that prediction now. In the meantime, as Steve and I were talking about earlier, you know, this, this development over at the Department of Defense. It's not the Department of Wars, the Department of Defense. We're not going to call the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America. We're not going to call the Department of Defense, the Department of War, no matter what. Pete Hegseth, you know, he went to Home Depot as well and hung a sign outside the Pentagon just like Donald Trump goes to Home Depot and hangs up crazy gold shit in the Oval Office. But, you know, this development where the Trump administration has basically made it clear they're going to go after people who have served in our military are now serving in Congress for simply exercising their right to free speech. And I talked about this with somebody else who has served, Adam Kinzinger. He and he and I had a discussion about this earlier today. Here's our conversation. Take a look. And joining us now is former Republican congressman, former member of the January 6th committee, Adam Kinzinger. Adam, always great to see you. Thanks for coming on.
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Adam Kinzinger
Yeah, man, good to be with you. And I apologize to everybody for my voice, so don't get too annoyed by it. But I'm all right. I'll survive.
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Jim Acosta
You're sounding good. Maybe some turkey will help.
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A little gravy.
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Yeah, you know, it always helps me when Mom's turkey hits the table. That's perfect. Well, let's talk about a different turkey, if you don't mind. We'll talk Turkey about Ukraine and Russia and this, I don't, I don't know if you can call it a turkey or what happened over the weekend. Something foul, I guess, if I can continue with the dad puns. But there was, you know, they've been having these talks to try to come up with some sort of peace agreement, which I'm just suspicious of from the get go. If the Trump administration is involved, I'll just be truth and advertising about this. But there were these weird tweets, and I'm sure you saw this over the weekend, Adam, where, you know, Nick Shifrin, really good reporter over at pbs, was saying that Senator Angus King of Maine, Senator Mike Rounds, a Republican, you know, they were saying that they're looking at this peace plan and they were briefed by Marco Rubio, the secretary of State, about it. And this is what Nick Schiffrin reported. The league 28 point plan, which according to Secretary Rubio, is not of the administration's position. It is essentially the wish list, wish list, I should say, of the Russians. Adam, what did you make of all this news when it was coming out over the weekend? And it just seemed as though it sounded like Marco Rubio was just pushing what the Russians want to see happen in Ukraine, which to me is nuts. But.
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Adam Kinzinger
Yeah, well, the whole thing is bizarre. And you know, first off, there's this also this weird thing which you saw you see on the domestic side, but it's happening now on the international side in terms of domestic actors where they, they want to blame everybody except Donald Trump. So they can blame Steve Witkoff or they can blame this person or that person, but it's never Donald Trump's fault.
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Steve Schmidt
Right.
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Adam Kinzinger
Because for whatever reason, I think what you're seeing is the manifestation of a real competition, almost a civil war between the JD Vance faction of the, of the administration and the Marco Rubio faction. Undoubtedly, Marco Rubio is a little more naturally hawkish on Russia. J. JD Vance is a little more sycophantic to Russia. And so there was this confusion that is this really the plan? Is this not the US's plan? And for a day nobody was sure. And that's where Marco Rubio was like, no, this is just the Russian wish list. We're going to go into this and negotiate. You know, other side was saying, yeah, this is our plan. And it didn't take long to clean up to where Marco Rubio was tweeting. Basically, this is our plan, this is our starting point, but this is our plan. So what clearly happened is Steve Witkoff talked with Vladimir Putin to negotiate something. Basically, Vladimir Putin rolled him intentionally or unintentionally for Steve Witkoff and now they're trying to jam this down Ukraine's throat. That's exactly what's that they're trying to say, take it or leave it. And you know, and it's putting Ukraine in a pretty bad position.
- [37:06]
Jim Acosta
And they've done this a few times and Donald Trump has been involved in this. And just recently Trump was basically saying, well, they can just keep fighting their hearts out in Ukraine and if they don't want to take this. And we should note, I guess there, the talks that are happening that are ongoing, you know, there, there are some rumblings that maybe some positive developments might come of this. But again, I, you know, I'm a skeptic. I just, you know, I'll believe it when I see it. But I just wonder if there's something baked in here that is just not going to work out well for the Ukrainians in the long run, Adam, and that it sounds as though the Russians are saying, listen, the only way this is going to work is if you give up some of your territory and we're going to give you sort of a half baked security agreement, you know, a promise that we won't invade you again. Which I mean that and 50 cents won't get you a cup of coffee. And Donald Trump is just naturally inclined to take that view. And it just keeps happening, cycling over and over again. Every few months. We just. It's the same damn thing.
- [37:59]
Adam Kinzinger
Yeah, I call it. It's snatching, you know, defeat from the jaws of victory because Ukraine is really. Look, the. The estimates are, at the current rate Russia is advancing, it would take them four additional years, which would mean at the same rate, it's been another million Russian lives, which I would argue the Russians would not be able to handle that to take the rest of Dumbass, which they're talking about, or Donetsk, which they're talking about releasing as part of this peace agreement. And also, by the way, that area that they're fighting over right now is a natural defensive belt for Ukraine. So if Ukraine gives that up, it's almost like us giving up, in theory, like a mountain range. Right. That could be a natural barrier to an invasion. And so that's a problem. The other problem is limiting Ukraine's armed forces to 600,000.
- [38:46]
Jim Acosta
I saw that.
- [38:47]
Adam Kinzinger
Which is insane. I mean, that's like, you know, World War I, Germany stuff. Secondly, part of this is all of the Western fighter jets that Ukraine now owns would have to be parked in Poland, not in Ukraine, which is nuts. And then on top of that, there's all these different provisions that the US Benefits from. We now are going to enter. Well, we don't benefit from them, but, you know, Russia does. Inevitably, us, you know, in theory, we're going to enter minerals agreements with Russia. We're going to enter Arctic exploration together. We're going to let them into the G8. We're going to restore, you know, economic relations with them. It appears to be as much of a, you know, an agreement between the United States and Russia for just prosperity in the future as it is even with Ukraine. And Ukraine's going like, what are we, mince meat? Like, can't we have a say in this? It is. It is the worst thing. I mean, this is basically what Russia was demanding of Ukraine before the war even started.
- [39:44]
Jim Acosta
Yeah.
- [39:44]
Adam Kinzinger
And.
- [39:44]
Jim Acosta
And you mentioned Steve WYKOFF earlier, the U.S. special envoy who's involved in these talks, and I guess he recently did an interview with Tucker Carlson. I. I just want to play a little mini clip of that. But, I mean, this is nuts, what he said. If we can play that. I think of him, I. I liked him.
- [40:01]
Yep.
- [40:02]
I thought he was straight up with me. Of course, by the way, I've said that. And you, you can imagine by the.
- [40:07]
Steve Schmidt
Way I say that, I get pillory.
- [40:09]
Jim Acosta
Don't I like him. He's not a bad guy. I mean, what's going on there? It's, it's strange.
- [40:17]
Adam Kinzinger
So Dim Philby, AKA Steve Witkoff, is either, you know, all in on Vladimir Putin, because these guys, these rich guys, right, all they think about is money. All they love is they, they love powerful people. It impresses them. Or he's getting completely rolled. It's one of the two. I mean, look. Yes. When you meet with Vladimir Putin, you're gonna walk away thinking, he's a nice guy, he's good at his job.
- [40:42]
Jim Acosta
Right.
- [40:42]
Adam Kinzinger
There's a reason I, honest to God, if you met with Adolf Hitler back in 1941, you would have walked away being like, actually, he's pretty nice in person. Well, yeah, because that's what they say.
- [40:54]
Jim Acosta
Trump is charming.
- [40:55]
Adam Kinzinger
But anyway, yes, that's what they do to gain power. I mean, like. And so to sit here and say he's nice while at the same time, probably while Dim Philby was there talking to him, there's missiles being launched from Russia indiscriminately in Ukraine. You know, the Russian soldiers are indiscriminately killing Ukrainian POWs. They're kidnapping children. I mean, everybody watching knows this, but this guy goes and just gets, you know, tied up by him. I mean, it's, it's unbelievable how ill prepared he is.
- [41:25]
Jim Acosta
Yeah. And I, and I want to move on to something else, but the other thing that is in the back of my mind, I don't want to sound like a nutty conspiracy theorist like Glenn Beck or something like that, but when the Epstein emails come out, and there's an Epstein email that says, you know, talk to the Russians, you know, Epstein is saying like, I want to talk to the Russians because I, if you want to understand Donald Trump, talk to me. I, you know, it's just, it's a, It's a little metric. It's a little, it's. It's some. It's something weird. You know, there's something weird going on.
- [41:53]
Adam Kinzinger
Well, and let's look at how clearly, and I'm not saying anything, it's even controversial.
- [41:57]
Steve Schmidt
Controversial how?
- [41:58]
Adam Kinzinger
Clearly, Donald Trump is driven by economic deals and money, right?
- [42:02]
Jim Acosta
Yeah.
- [42:03]
Adam Kinzinger
The Qatar jet, you know, the, the Trump hotels that are built. Everywhere he goes. There is, there is no doubt that money can speak with Donald Trump. And we know the Russians are very good at using money to win people over. So we're not making an accusation. But sometimes you see a duck walking and it may take a few steps to figure out it's a dock, but starts to look like one.
- [42:23]
Jim Acosta
It's walking like a duck. It's. Something's going on there. The other thing I want to ask you about, Adam, is I saw some of your comments about Marjorie Taylor Greene, and I know from your days on the January 6th committee, you're a little suspicious of this deathbed conversion for Marjorie Taylor Greene. Your thoughts on this? I, I do have to say, you know, the way she stood there with the Epstein survivors and victims and so on, I thought that was something. I, I don't know what to make of it. You know, is she purely just a political person who just did that for political reasons? I don't know. I can't get in her head. But you, you recently that she's got a whole lot of other stuff to walk back before she gets welcomed into, you know, altogether plight company at all.
- [43:03]
Steve Schmidt
That's right.
- [43:04]
Adam Kinzinger
She. Let's keep in mind she harassed survivors of school shootings. Right. She claims January 6th was a government conspiracy. 911 was a government conspiracy. We know the whole Jewish space lasers thing, you know, sitting on the floor screaming and yelling at Joe Biden when he was talking.
- [43:18]
Jim Acosta
Right.
- [43:19]
Adam Kinzinger
Harassing a fellow congresswoman who has a trans daughter. I mean, you take that stuff into account and it's like, look, I hope she found what I call politics. Jesus. It would be great. Right?
- [43:31]
Jim Acosta
Yeah. But maybe she got a taste of her own medicine.
- [43:34]
She.
- [43:34]
Adam Kinzinger
Yep. And she's got a lot of walking back to do. The truth is, I think she and I love, look, I love watching the Civil War, don't get me wrong.
- [43:42]
Jim Acosta
Yeah.
- [43:43]
Adam Kinzinger
But I think what's really going on is she sees that, you know, she either wants to run for president or do whatever she wants to do. And, and in that process, she's kind of trying to find a lane and that lane. Because if you listen to her resignation video, it wasn't I've done bad things. I was wrong. It was Donald Trump is not MAGA enough. And so she is going to spend the next couple years, I think, trying to claim she's the real MAGA so that when Donald Trump doesn't run again, which he won't, she can try to come in and swoop that up. That's my theory.
- [44:14]
Jim Acosta
Yeah. Well, and I mean, she was complaining that she was getting death threats. And you know, I wanted to, you know, I was waiting for somebody to tweet out the meme of, of Bruce Willis and Die Hard. Welcome to the party, pal. Because you know, I mean, look, look what happened just the other day with this group of Democratic lawmakers who were saying, don't follow orders, unlawful orders. I wanted to get your take on that because they're already saying they're getting death threats, which is. I mean, this is what happens. You go up against Trump. I'm sure, Adam, you got them, I've gotten them. This is what happens. You go up against him. This is. They're going to unleash the hounds on you. But what is. Yeah, what did you think about that whole thing where, you know, they said, don't follow unlawful orders? I mean, to me, it's right.
- [44:52]
Adam Kinzinger
Yeah, it's absolutely right. I mean, look, it's. That's not even a controversial thing to say.
- [44:56]
Steve Schmidt
We.
- [44:56]
Adam Kinzinger
We learn this at the very beginning of. When we're an officer training. Right. It's part of our ethics training. You know, I'm sitting there and they said, you know, the very. Literally, the very first day of officer training, they're like, hey, just so you know, your job is to kill people and break stuff. If you have a moral problem with that, walk away now. Now, the second thing is, you have to refuse unlawful, unimmoral orders. If you have a problem with that, walk away now. That's not controversial. And these people aren't saying, hey, on the drug boat situation, don't do it, or on deploying to American cities, don't do it. They're simply saying, do not follow unconstitutional orders. Because, let's be honest, there is a concern that an unconstitutional order is going to come down. Nothing wrong with what they said.
- [45:41]
Jim Acosta
Yeah. And also, didn't Trump pardon people who were convicted of seditious conspiracy?
- [45:45]
Adam Kinzinger
I mean, you know, 1500 of them, he has this thing like sedition worthy of death, and he pardons them. I mean, it's unbelievable. Everybody knows this. And the problem is, is the Magas are so in their little tribe, they have to defend their tribe at all costs. But I really believe in 10 years, Jim, there's not going to be a single person that ever in polite company admits that they supported this. This guy.
- [46:07]
Jim Acosta
Interesting, you think, because you see this sort of unravel. I mean, I see it unraveling, too. It's unwrap. It's unraveling right now.
- [46:13]
Adam Kinzinger
It is. I don't know if it's gonna, you know, unravel totally in the next year. Maybe it's three years, maybe it's even the hindsight of history in five years, but it will unravel.
- [46:22]
Jim Acosta
Yeah. And you've Got this. Just quickly, before we go, you got this documentary that came out, the Last Republican. Is that right?
- [46:29]
Steve Schmidt
Very cool.
- [46:30]
Adam Kinzinger
You. Everybody go watch it. You can get it on Apple tv, Amazon Prime, Google. It's only an hour and a half. It's funny, it's entertaining, and it's really good. The Last Republican covers the January 6th stuff, but there's so many layers, including, you know, the effect on my family and I having a kid during this and everything else. So go watch the Last Republican.
- [46:49]
Jim Acosta
We will definitely check it out. And there are videos of you telling people how to get jacked. That's. I gave you last time for this, like. All right, Adam.
- [47:00]
Adam Kinzinger
That's a great thing about having time now. You know, I know it's true.
- [47:04]
Jim Acosta
I. But I just. I haven't gotten there yet, so I need. I might need some tips or something, but we'll do that offline. I won't make you do that here, but I'll let you enjoy some turkey, too. Adam, great to see you, as always. Thank you, man.
- [47:14]
Adam Kinzinger
Take care.
- [47:14]
Jim Acosta
Good to see you.
- [47:15]
Appreciate it. Yeah. No, and if there's a through line between all the guests today, and. And, you know, you don't hear a whole lot of optimism sometimes from Steve Schmidt, but Steve was saying towards the end of his comments on the show today that he feels as though things are trending in the right direction. You heard that from Adam there as well, which I thought was an interesting prediction on his part that, you know, in years from now, folks will just not even admit that they were maga, which that will be. That will be astounding if that actually occurs, but I'm kind of with them on that. And. And the other thing that I think should cause some, I mean, you know, signs of optimism in. In my view is what happened today when a federal judge dismissed the cases against James Comey and against Letitia James. And earlier today, I had a chance to speak with Glenn Kirschner, our pal, Glenn Kirchner, legal analyst from Justice Matters, about that important development. And here's what Glenn had to say. We'll talk about it, joined by legal analyst Glenn Kirschner. Uh, and, uh, the. The breaking news is, is that a federal judge has dismissed the criminal cases against the former FBI director James Comey and the New York Attorney General, Letitia James. The judge in the case said the prosecutor who was bringing the charges, Lindsey Halligan, was illegally appointed by the Justice Department. And, Glenn, I mean, you and I have talked about this case. We did that live coverage when Comey showed up. At the courthouse. It was about a month or so ago, and this isn't too surprising, but it's reassuring.
- [48:53]
You know, it's such an important day on so many levels, Jim. Obviously, first and foremost, this is important for former FBI Director James Comey and current New York Attorney General Letitia James, both of whom in my opinion, as a former 30 year federal prosecutor are being pursued vindictively. But we haven't even gotten there yet because they couldn't even competently and lawfully indict them in the first place. This Department of Justice is a hot mess. It seems to be operating lawlessly in many respects. And what Judge Curry, who was brought in for the potential conflict with the Eastern District of Virginia because Lindsey Halligan was the interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. So an Eastern District of Virginia judge couldn't preside or over this issue. They had to get somebody from outside that federal jurisdiction. And Judge Curry just slammed the door on these two prosecutions, ruling that Lindsey Halligan was unlawfully appointed as interim U.S. attorney. What does that mean? The implications are dramatic. She had no lawful authority to set one foot in the grand jury room to try to secure an indictment, a vindictive indictment or a legitimate indictment against anybody. Certainly not against James Comey, not against Letitia James. And Judge Curry dismissed both criminal indictments. We can talk about what appeals might look like in a few minutes, but that is one level on which this is such an important ruling. For James Comey and Letitia James, it is vindication. The other, the other front that it's really important on is Donald Trump's eroding power. And Donald Trump being exposed as the paper tiger he is. He can threaten prosecutions all day long, but guess what? He can't successfully follow through because the rule of law is still a thing in every federal courtroom, even for most of the Trump appointed judges who have been ruling against him from coast to coast. So the rule of law today rose up, asserted itself, and these cases are now dismissed. They're far from over, but they're dismissed at the moment. And Donald Trump just got significantly weaker today, Jim. He's getting weaker on the legal front, he's getting weaker on the political front, and he sure as hell is getting weaker in the court of public opinion by virtue of his tanking poll numbers.
- [51:34]
No question about it. And I, I mean, I know judges aren't supposed to take any of that into consideration, but I think, you know, this was a turkey of a case, if you'll pardon the dad joke. A few days Before Thanksgiving. And we saw this. What was it last Friday, Right, Glenn, where there were some allegations raised by the Comey defense team that the, that the full indictment or the full case wasn't even presented to the grand jury, and that they were sort of coloring outside the lines and not really doing things in a proper fashion. And it seems to me that the court looked at this and said, you know, what is this? This is kind of a shit show here, for lack of a better term. I mean, you know, it's an embarrassment. I think this is a real embarrassment for the Trump doj.
- [52:20]
It is, but it's not a surprise because we've seen this exact movie before. For, remember Elena Haba? She was appointed as interim U.S. attorney for the Federal District of New Jersey, and a judge previously ruled that was an unlawful appointment. There's also, when I say coast to coast, that's not hyperbole. We can go out to the middle district of California where this guy Bill Asali was unlawfully appointed as interim U.S. attorney. And a federal judge told Donald Trump and Pam Bondi and the doj. So in his ruling. So this is now the hat trick of judges ruling that, listen, we've told you once, we've told you twice, we're now telling you a third time, these are unlawful appointments of your flunkies as U.S. attorneys and indictments will continue to be dismissed as a result if you try to continue to play this game. Interesting question, Jim, is there are still a whole bunch of motions to dismiss that were filed by James Comey and Letitia James. They are now what we call mooted out. They can't even be litigated. So here's the good news. In the long term, even in the unlikely event, this thing makes its way up through the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals to the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court says, you know, we are forever doing solids for Donald Trump. So we'll reverse this one as well and kick it back down to the trial court. I'm not suggesting that would be a legitimate or even a supportable outcome, but with this Supreme Court, you never know. There are still like three motions to dismiss, vindictive prosecution, selective prosecution, and abuse of the grand jury procedures. So this thing is not only dead for the moment, I don't think this thing will ever see the light of day in the form of a jury trial. Ain't going to happen, in my opinion.
- [54:12]
Yeah, because there, I mean, there are so many different. I mean, this was just, I guess, one mechanism with which the judge could throw this out. There are several others that are pending that are just as legitimate that that the Comey and the James teams were arguing before the court. And the other thing, Glenn, that is important to underline here is that, yes, Donald Trump can launch these vindictive prosecutions. He can egg on Pam Bondi, who refuses to be an independent attorney general to do these sorts of cases. But it does, it is reassuring that, you know, you can't force the courts to do what the law does not allow you to do and that the courts, I mean, yes, our guardrails are banged up and twisted and all that, but this is one area where they're kind of holding.
- [54:58]
They are holding and they're holding consistently whether issues are being litigated by Trump appointed judges, by Reagan appointed Judges, by George H.W. bush or George W. Bush appointed judges. Pretty uniformly, people are calling out and ruling against Donald Trump's lawlessness and unconstitutionality. But let me separate out the Comey case and the Letitia James case for a minute. You know, I always have my big ugly blue book of federal laws, the United States Code. I never leave home without it. And I cracked it open because there is a federal statute that can save a case once an indictment has been dismissed, if that case is beyond the statute of limitations, if the deadline is passed, if it is timed out, which is the case it looks like with Comey. So let me say that because the Letitia James indictment has not yet reached the statute of limitations, they may not even bother appealing this. They may just say, we're going to re indict her and we're gonna try to do it right this time, though they don't seem to have much of a tendency to do things right. But it looks like they probably can't re bring the Comey case at all because it has timed out, the deadline has passed. And when you think about what Donald Trump did when his own interim U.S. attorney, a guy named Eric Siebert, a career prosecutor in Maryland, excuse me, in Virginia, said, I'm not indicting this case. We don't have the goods on Comey. Donald Trump forced him out. Whether he resigned or fired really is immaterial. And within a couple of days, all he had left was his insurance lawyer who was some kind of a White House aide, Lindsey Halligan threw her in the position, threw her into the grand jury and got her to indict it, like two days before the statute of limitations expired. And even though there's a law that says for anybody scoring at home, 18 United States Code 3288 indictments and informations dismissed after statute of limitations. It looks like this one will not be saved for technical reasons that I'm not going to unravel. So I think they're going to have to appeal this and try to get this ruling undone if they are to have any hope. And I do not think they'll be successful.
- [57:11]
And the other question I have is, is it possible that they're just going to have to remove Lindsey Halligan and properly appoint somebody?
- [57:18]
She's gone. What they'll probably do. Because you have an interim U.S. attorney problem. 120 days expired.
- [57:24]
Yeah.
- [57:25]
And. And Eric Siebert's nomination was not acted on by the Senate. So that's why they stuck Lindsey Halligan in there. They can't just stick somebody else in there as an interim attorney. They would be just as unlawfully in the position. But they can use what's called an Acting U.S. attorney, somebody from within the Eastern District of Virginia, U.S. attorney's office. They can make them Acting U.S. attorney and that person could lawfully do business, including have indictments returned by the grand jury. But, Jim, they couldn't find a single.
- [57:57]
They couldn't find somebody in that office.
- [57:59]
To try this case. They had to go all the way down to North Carolina to get these two characters who I saw appear in court. I've been in the court hearings.
- [58:07]
Right.
- [58:08]
And in the James case, they had to go all the way out to, I think, Missouri to find somebody who really didn't, I guess, care that much about their, their license to practice law because they're putting it on the line if they plug into these cases. So I am interested to see if they can find anybody from within the Eastern District of Virginia's U.S. attorney's office that would be willing to plug into a James Comey case.
- [58:31]
Yeah, but we chuckle about this, but it does damage to that very important office of the justice department that that U.S. attorney's office is. I mean, it's sort of hampered in this way by having basically an illegitimate U.S. attorney presiding over or running that office. And that's a very important district. So it seems to me they're going to have. I mean, I'm thinking about this through a normal lens, but you would not want to continue to have Lindsey Halligan there and you would want somebody there who has the chops to run the kind of cases that get run out of that office.
- [59:06]
You know, Lindsey Halligan posed a public safety danger to the people of Virginia who are supposed to be represented by the U.S. attorney doing business in that Alexandria, Virginia, courthouse. And it also represents a danger to our national security, because I can tell you, I have lots of friends and I worked cases in common with the folks in that office. They get some of our most important national security cases there. You know, I worked in the D.C. u.S. Attorney's office. We got a lot of the political cases, the stuff coming out of Congress and the executive branch, but the Eastern District of Virginia got a lot of the national security cases. So that is not an office to be trifled with or to put, you know, flunkies and lap dogs in charge of.
- [59:50]
Yeah. And just finally, Glenn, I mean, and again, for folks who are just tuning in, you know, we're following this breaking news. Pretty stunning news, maybe not surprising, but stunning, that the judge has thrown out these cases against James Comey and Letitia James. But, I mean, what does this say about Ed Martin's weaponization project that he's running out of the doj? He's supposed to be the pardon attorney, I believe, or the Justice Department, but he seems to be behind this crusade to, you know, carry out these vengeful prosecutions on behalf of Donald Trump. I mean, it seems like his. His goose is cooked.
- [60:22]
Yeah. Even after the Republicans in the Senate said no to Ed, Stop the Steal Martin, when Donald Trump wanted to make him U.S. attorney, District of Columbia. And then Trump shuffles him over to Main justice and makes him both the pardon attorney and puts him in charge of the Weaponization of Government Committee. I don't know if Ed Martin had his, you know, fingers in the mix of the Comey and Letitia James prosecutions. One, it wouldn't surprise me, and two, if he did, this is yet another, you know, embarrassment and indication that Ed Martin really shouldn't come within 100 miles of the Department of Justice or any U.S. attorney's office. And, of course, we did see recent breaking news that the DOJ, the U.S. attorney's office in Maryland, may be investigating Ed Martin and Bill Pulte. Boy, that was a bit of a surprise when we saw that. So maybe Ed Martin's days are numbered. We don't know. But I have a feeling this Department of Justice is not going to get more competent. It's only going to get less confident. Competent.
- [61:24]
Yeah. And, and these vengeful prosecutions, I mean, you know, it may sound good inside Trump's mind, in his. Whatever that psyche he is, he's. He's operating with at this point, but putting it into practice, trying to ram it through the court system. Totally. Another thing. Glenn, thanks a lot, as always.
- [61:43]
Thank you, Jim.
- [61:44]
Great being with you, manners, and great to be with you, too. Happy Thanksgiving.
- [61:48]
You, too.
- [61:50]
And that was our buddy, Glenn Kersher. And there was just a little news alert that came through a few moments ago that apparently the Trump Justice Department says they are going to appeal the ruling in the Comey case. So we'll see how all of this plays out. But I have, you know, I have an idea for, for what the Justice Department should be focusing on these days. I mean, this is about all they're qualified to deal with. And it is basically the pardoning of the Thanksgiving turkeys. Apparently, Donald Trump is going to, without irony, carry out that, that proud tradition, that proud American tradition of pardoning the. The two turkeys that they've selected. Those are the turkeys that the White House has selected for pardoning in the year of our Lord 2025. Their names are Gobble and Waddle. Uh, I thought they would be Crypto and Doner. That that's what I thought the names of the two turkeys would be, that we're getting pardoned this time around. Maybe they've done too many a donor and crypto pardons for the year of our Lord 2025. And so they've, they're down to gobble and Waddle. But, you know, that's basically all the Justice Department under Donald Trump is qualified to be doing these days. And there was one other little sign that the holiday season is upon us. Over at the White House, we saw, I think, the first Lady, Melania Trump. There was a sighting of the first lady. You don't see her very often, but there she is. You hear the Christmas music as she unveils this year's Christmas tree over at the White House. There it is. And, and in the words of Melania, be best. Be best this holiday season. And that goes for Donald Trump, too. If he could just be slightly better, slightly more, I don't know, alert, awake, that might be enough for Donald Trump these days. And we had a little. We, we had some, we had some pre. Tapes today, as they say in the business. We had a little visitor. One of Santa's little helpers came into the studio a short while ago. There he is. Duke, who is usually now, he's now used to be talking into my laptop and into my phone, strangely, for periods of time during the day. So he's learned to just go and sit on the sofa and wait till I'm done. But he paid us a little visit in the Jim Acosta show. Studio this evening, there's Santa's little hopper, Dookie Acosta. He came by. He's wondering when the turkey is going to be ready. You're gonna have to wait a few more days in about a month or so until we can start unwrapping presents under the tree. But there's a little cameo from Duke I tried to get him live. I will try to do that before we get to Thanksgiving or at least before Christmas. But unlike when we first started doing the show and they're all the holiday decorations, we're getting in the spirit. Unlike when we started doing the show, Duke, you know, he's kind of learned, like, okay, dad is still talking into the plastic thing that sits on top of the pedestal with the microphone. And so I can't bother him right now for treats or walks or whatever. So, but you know, that's, that's going to be coming up in just a few moments. So there's Santa's little Hubbard, Duke. He'll be making, hopefully making some more cameos as we get closer to Thanksgiving, Christmas. But want to thank all of you for tuning in. Want to thank Steve Schmidt, thank Adam Kinzinger, Glenn Kirschner. Our cup runneth over today. Great guests all, all hour long. And thanks. Thanks to all of you for tuning. I really appreciate. We're almost there to Turkey Day and and we'll talk about this maybe later on this week, why Turkey Day is my favorite holiday of the year. I don't care what anybody says. It is a holiday dedicated to eating and football. Those are two of my favorite things. So that's why Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. We'll talk about it later this week, but in the meantime, still reporting from Washington, I'm Jim Acosta. Have a good holiday. If you're traveling out there, please be careful and be safe and I'll see you next time. Have a good night.