← The Jim Acosta Show
The Jim Acosta Show
BREAKING TONIGHT - Arming National Guard in DC, Searching John Bolton's House, and the picture of Putin in Trump's hands. Heather Cox Richardson Michael Fanone and Larry Sabato join the show.
01:49:00
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- [00:01]
A
All right, welcome to the Jim Acosta Show. It's another day that ends in Y. And Donald Trump's assault on American democracy today is also cleanup on aisle 1600, as in 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. The Epstein Gate cover up continues. Mike Fanon is with me. And, Mike, the DOJ released these transcripts. We thought that this might happen. Transcripts and recordings of Top Blanche's interview with Ghislaine Maxwell. And shocker, brace yourself. She does not point to any wrongdoing on Trump's behalf. Remember, we predicted that would be the case, and they moved Maxwell to minimum security prison in Texas after she did this interview. So, I mean, come on. Right? I mean, Mike, we knew this was going to happen. Yeah.
- [00:44]
B
I mean, you know, as somebody who's conducted these interviews before, I would tell you that this is a person who has no credibility, given the severity of her convictions, and has absolutely every reason to lie and no reason to tell the truth. And this is kind of like it's a bizarro world experience for me, because typically when I go into an interview like this and somebody is looking for, you know, whether it's, you know, a cooperation agreement and they. They want, you know, to benefit from, you know, from talking with law enforcement, the benefit comes from telling the truth and providing law enforcement with, you know, factual accounts of either their criminality or. Or people that they have, you know, witnessed criminal behavior from. Well, in this case, the potential criminal is the President of the United States. Right. And the people conducting the interview are Donald Trump's Department of Justice, who have already proven themselves time and time again to simply be an extension of Donald Trump himself and not this independent body that we've all come to know as our Department of Justice, FBI, et cetera.
- [02:13]
A
And so. And Todd Blanche was his attorney.
- [02:15]
B
Right, Exactly. So, I mean, you know, it couldn't get any closer than that. So here we are, you know, with a person who said at least what I've heard paraphrased or from you and from Aaron Parnas's reporting, exactly what I would have expected, which is, you know, and here I'm paraphrasing myself, but Donald Trump is the perfect gentleman. He. He never did anything wrong. She even, I mean, we were talking offline before, lauds him with praise in, you know, his.
- [02:48]
A
Oh, I got it right here.
- [02:49]
B
President of the United States and what an incredible accomplishment that is, and blah, blah, blah.
- [02:55]
A
Yeah, it's on page five, 105 of the transcript. And she says, as far as I'm concerned, President Trump was always very cordial and very kind to me. And I just want to say that I. I find that I admire his extraordinary achievement in becoming the President now. And I like him and I've always liked him. So that is the substance of my entire relationship with him. Then if you keep flipping to pages 107 and 108, did you ever observe President Trump receive a massage? Ghislaine Maxwell Never. Did you ever observe. You said that you were. I mean, have you seen these photographs, these public photographs of Trump and Epstein together? Yes. And there's photographs. And then he goes on to, you know, what was the relationship like? What was going on here? And she says, that's. That's my memory. These were social settings. I don't know Epstein's, if he had. Whatever the nature of the relationship was with the president, friendship with the President, if you will, however you want to define that with Epstein, I was never. I never witnessed it. And so she kind of hems and haws and dances around some of this stuff, but she's obviously trying to say what they want to hear.
- [04:02]
B
Absolutely. Because she's looking to benefit from this interview. And in this particular case, she knows that she'll receive the greatest benefit, not from telling the truth, but for simply, you know, saying that Trump is, is, is innocent of, of any of these charges. Again, as someone, you know, law enforcement background, I would look at this interview and say, and completely discard it as something that bears no, you know, has no substance, no credibility, and is simply being put forward as a distraction from the fact that the administration hasn't released, you know, the Epstein files, whatever. However, that, you know, those exist, which we do know exist. We know that the President is in.
- [04:56]
A
Those files he's mentioned.
- [04:57]
B
Yeah, exactly. And so, again, release the files. No one gives a shit about Gazelle, Ghislaine Maxwell, whatever her name is. She's meaningless. She's a convicted child predator. She should rot in prison for the remainder of her sentence and should not be getting any benefit from this interview or for any cooperation from. From the government.
- [05:22]
A
Yeah, this transcript, and I guess there's a recording, too, it doesn't tell us why Donald Trump is mentioned in the Epstein files. This has already been reported that Pam Bondi went to Trump back in May and said, you're in the Epstein files. You're mentioned multiple times. Okay, if he's mentioned multiple times, then this doesn't square with the Ghislaine Maxwell interview. And I think you're absolutely right. She's a convicted child sex trafficker. And that tells you Everything that you need to know about her credibility. I mean, Mike, we also have to jump to the other big news of the day, and we thought this was going to be the big news of the day. And maybe this, this transcript release is part of the cleanup on aisle six. And so they thought, well, this bolt news is not great for us, so maybe we need to release this transcript stuff. But John Bolton, his home was raided by the FBI earlier this morning. I guess Cash Patel signed off on this. He tweeted about it earlier this morning. Obliquely your thoughts on this, Because, I mean, this is. I mean, this is Trump and the DOJ and the FBI going after a very big Trump critic. He was Trump's national security adviser and then wrote a book that was very critical of Trump.
- [06:30]
B
Yeah, I mean, listen, I guess the biggest question that I have at this point is was there a warrant signed by a judge that authorized this search of John Bolton's hope? What facts were put forward by this FBI director? And whatever agent was, you know, Was. Would have been the affiant. You know, what are the facts here that support conducting this type of a raid? Because, I mean, what we do know is that if in fact, John Bolton is in possession of the documents, I mean, just as an average citizen, from what I've seen unfold over the past four, six years involving two presidential candidates, a vice president, is that there have been or there typically would be conversations between the government and that individual's lawyers about the returning of these documents rather than conducting this raid. And I mean, the other thing is, you know, John Bolton hasn't been National Security Advisor for a number of years. When was the last time he was in a skiff to take these alleged documents? And why is it now that they're conducting this raid, you know, what, six, five, six years after he served in that position? I think it's pretty clear that this is Trump's retribution tour, that he is going after, you know, his enemies in the same way that, you know, he's pursuing Miles Taylor and Chris Krebs. Now you have John Bolton, and I think that, you know, from talking with other people today about this, I surmise that this probably goes nowhere as far as criminal charges, but who knows? But that the point was to conduct the raid, to do it in a very public manner and send a message not only to John Bolton, but to anyone else that speaks out against this administration that we can reach out and touch you and that we have the full backing of the federal government to utilize in that capacity.
- [08:47]
A
Yeah, well, Mike, the Other thing is, John Bolton has been all over TV over the last week or so. He was highly critical of Trump's suck up summit with Vladimir Putin. And you know, Trump is watching that coverage and he's gotta be seething and he's gotta be thinking how much he is sick of John Bolton, how much he hates John Bolton. They tried to stop John Bolton from writing his book. I remember that. I mean, I covered some of that during my time covering Donald Trump at the White House. And so I'm sure this is Trump trying to knock what he sees as a chess piece off the chessboard and, and send a message out, like you said, to people like John Bolton, like, if you go on TV and you trash me and I have the ability to come out and mess with your life, I'm gonna do that. And I mean, it's part of the reason why. And I want to get into the Occupy DC aspect of this too, and, and, and all of that, because I know you're, you're perfect to talk about that too. But this, this is like Putin's Russia. This is what, this is what Vladimir Putin did to his prominent critics in his rise to power and his consolidation of power in Russia. And I think Trump is trying to pull, pull a Putin here and going after John Bolton, I think that's a big part of this.
- [10:07]
B
He clearly admires those men. I mean, it's almost cliche to say that, that he, you know, louds them with praise on pretty much every opportunity that he gets.
- [10:20]
A
Right.
- [10:20]
B
But I agree. I mean, I think that he is, he's someone who likes to wield power in this manner, especially when it comes to his dissenters.
- [10:33]
A
Yeah.
- [10:34]
B
And I think that unfortunately there's going to be a lot more of this to come.
- [10:41]
A
There's no question about it. Yeah. I mean, and today Trump was holding up a picture of Vladimir Putin, you know, in the Oval Office and saying that he wants to sign it and send it back to Putin or what? I mean, so, you know, I mean, not to go down that path, but like, how are we ever supposed to ever believe that Donald Trump is ever going to get tough on Vladimir Putin? It's just a load of shit. And, you know, he, he fanboys this guy. It's a little, it's a little creepy.
- [11:13]
B
Honestly, it's, it's a lot creepy.
- [11:17]
A
I mean, not pretty fucking creepy.
- [11:19]
B
I mean, you know, it's like, yes, there's the, the comedic aspect of the fact that he has this man crush on another leader who clearly has absolutely no respect for him whatsoever.
- [11:33]
A
Yeah.
- [11:34]
B
But it's also scary, as you know, I'm sure I don't have to tell you, like, as a, as a Trump dissenter who has a public Persona, you know, and you see the way that he's willing to go after people like you and I and set examples, you know, it's, it's scary stuff.
- [11:58]
A
Yeah. But at the same time, I, you know, I want to get into the National Guard thing, but just to button that part of the conversation up. It's extremely important that. And I, you know, Bolton was tweeting about Trump and Putin after the raid happened. I mean, it was like 20 minutes later. He's. He's tweeting about the, about the Trump Putin relationship. But I mean, to me, it's just about, like, don't, don't fucking be afraid. Just, just everybody just needs to stop. Everybody who's freaked out and afraid and frightened and terrified, just stop. In my view, that's. That it's time to stop that. Yeah.
- [12:34]
B
Hey, you.
- [12:35]
A
Not to get you fired up.
- [12:36]
B
I'm saying it's scary stuff. I'm not saying be scared.
- [12:40]
A
Yeah.
- [12:41]
B
You know, listen, FBI. Trump wants to send the FBI to my house. You're welcome to it. You know, I live in a two bedroom apartment. It should take you about 15 minutes to search this. You guys, all those FBI agents that like to get, you know, get to Happy hour by 2pm you guys will be done by like 10 o' clock in the morning. Yeah, but, you know, that being said, you're right. Like, people's got to stop, you know, being afraid and, and, you know, fearful and look, you know, find somebody like you or I or the people that are out here at the forefront of this and, and stand up next to them because there is, you know, safety in numbers, so to speak.
- [13:26]
A
Yeah. And I mean, and let's talk about occupied D.C. because, I mean, I guess this just came out this afternoon that Hegseth has authorized the National Guard to carry weapons in Washington, D.C. and it's at around 2,000 right now. Mike, what are you hearing? I mean, how long do you think this is going to last? What do you think Trump's up to? It seems to me he is. The press keeps calling it a police takeover. He's taking over the police department. He's taking over D.C. he's definitely taking.
- [13:55]
B
Over D.C. and I mean, I think that, you know, this is a complicated conversation that has a lot of different parts to it. And I think, you know, it's important to recognize if we're going to be honest with ourselves that D.C. does have a crime problem. You know, there is a problem with crime in D.C. and juvenile crime in particular has been an issue pretty much my entire time as a police officer. And a lot of it was created by some of these ultra progressive policies enacted by the city council. And so they kind of created this environment in which roving bands of juveniles can commit, you know, crimes that draw this type of attention. That being said, I am certainly against, you know, as somebody who believes in limited government, a president or anyone going into a local community that has a city council, that has a mayor and forcing them to do things in a manner that goes against what people elected these officials to do. I mean, listen, like, if you want to live in Washington, D.C. you want to elect a city council that's, you know, incredibly soft on juvenile crime, you live with consequences. I don't think a president or anyone for that matter should be able to come in and then take over the police department. And I think that, you know, a lot of the police officers that are, you know, excited about this need to look at it from that perspective in that, you know, how would you feel if somebody came into your community and let's say it was in reverse, let's say it was a progressive president. You know, let's say, let's go back to 2008. Say it was Barack Obama decides that your community in Virginia is too tough on crime. So we're going to come into your community and, and we're going to get rid of, you know, we're going to take over the police department and teach every police officer, you know, how to knit and, and do, you know, fun, you know, we're going to have hot dog stands and lemonade stands. We're not going to fight any crime. We're just going to go out and, you know, put on a show for the community and make everybody feel warm and fuzzy inside. You'd be pissed off about that too. And so, you know, I think that again, it comes down to the democratic process. This is a democracy. At least, you know, at least that's what it says.
- [16:35]
A
Yeah.
- [16:36]
B
On the paperwork. But that's a big problem when you talk about the National Guard troops coming into Washington D.C. purely performative.
- [16:48]
A
Yeah.
- [16:49]
B
You know, as somebody who worked, you know, I remember early on in my career we had an actual crime emergency in which there were multiple homicides occurring on a daily basis and that went on for multiple weeks. And there were drive by shootings and there was rampant crime associated with open air drug Markets. This was something that was, I think there was nobody that was going to say that we had control over the situation was out of control. And so we called up the National Guard and really what they did was they took over responsibilities of local law enforcement so that police officers could focus specifically on the violent crime. So they would be out there doing things like directing traffic. Now, they did have a presence in certain neighborhoods. They were unarmed because they don't have arrest powers. So what is the purpose of giving them a gun other than, you know, this show of force? To intimidate and to scare people. And the other thing that I want to point out is where are these National Guards people? I mean, you've been out there on the streets. Yeah, the National Guards are, they're posted up in front of Union Station. There's a little bit of crime in front of Union Station. There's some unhoused people that, you know, were there until they, you know, had their homes torn away.
- [18:03]
A
But yeah, the.
- [18:05]
B
Where the real crime is, these motherfuckers are nowhere to be found.
- [18:09]
A
They're not going anywhere. They're not going to Anacostia. They're not going down Benning Road. I grew up around here. You know, Mike, you and I are both from this area. We know where, we basically know where. And you worked at the NPD. We know where the crime is in Washington D.C. right. And I was down on the National Mall yesterday. They were all over. They were in front of the National African American History Museum. They're walking up and down the mall. I saw a group of them meeting at a picnic table next to one of those concession stands. There ain't no crime there that, you know, I don't know what they're thinking and I don't understand why they need to be carrying their service issued weapons, which is what the Pentagon said earlier in the day, that they're going to be carrying their service issued weapons. To do what? To just be intimidating. To make it look like, you know, that you've landed in North Korea or Moscow, whatever Trump wants people to think when they get into town.
- [19:03]
B
Yeah, I mean, you know, the other concern that I have again, is that, you know, anytime you have this type of, you know, massive law enforcement presence, that, that, that is constant. And you're bringing in entities like the National Guard that are not trained in, you know, traditional police techniques or tactics. You know, this is a military force. They're there, you know, primarily to, if they're called up, protect our country overseas or deal with some type of a, a Disaster or catastrophe that happens at the local level, mostly the latter. And so now you're, you've got these guys armed, you know, roving around Washington D.C. you're the, the prop or the, the opportunity for something to go catastrophically wrong is now going up, you know, exponentially. Yeah, you've got people, not paid protesters, not, you know, outside agitators, but D.C. residents who resent all of this activity, who are pissed off and listen, like, I, I feel for a lot of the cops and I feel for a lot of these guardsmen. They don't want to fucking be here. They don't want to be doing this. I know MPD officers that are, you know, being forced to, you know, follow ICE agents as they go around the city doing their immoral, unethical and in, you know, unconstitutional actions.
- [20:41]
A
Yep.
- [20:41]
B
But they've got to do it. And you know, that people tell me, well, that, you know, it's, it's unconstitutional. They don't have to do it. Well, following ICE agents around the city is not, you know, is not necessarily unconstitutional. They have to be there. Now, granted, I wish they wouldn't, I wish they would refuse because I think that the long term effects are going to be, you know, they're destroying the credibility and trust, if they had any to begin with, with the local community. And I don't think it's going to be soon forgotten. I think that, you know, the residents of the District of Columbia are going to see that their police department, you know, cowtail to this administration without any resistance whatsoever. Yeah, that's the optics of this moment. And I, I don't, you know, it's something that people aren't going to assume for, soon forget.
- [21:33]
A
Yeah, I mean, but they've got the MPD over a barrel. I mean, they've got the high ranking commanders of the MPD over a barrel. I mean, it's not like they can do anything. It's not like the mayor can do anything. Trump is just taking over. And, you know, I, to me, I just think that we're in a dangerous place right now. We're in a spot where, you know, I walked up to one of these protests last night. There was a protest not too far from where I was with, you know, just walking my dog, Duke. And there were people having a good time protesting. They were being totally peaceful. The cops showed up, they shut down like a two block area around the protest and everybody was kind of doing their thing and it was totally fine. But you just have to wonder, Mike, after days and weeks and months of this, you have six states sending their National Guard members here. And yeah, they're starting up down at the mall right now. But perhaps at some point they do creep into the neighborhoods and we do see those MRAPs going up 14th street or going into various neighborhoods. At some point tempers are going to flare and there's going to be a spark. And that's what Trump wants. That's what worries me.
- [22:43]
B
Yeah, no, I, I, I mean, I believe, you know, based on everything that I've seen going all the way back to January 6, that he's looking for that opportunity to, you know, to declare martial law.
- [22:56]
A
Yeah.
- [22:57]
B
You know, I've heard, you know, from people that I talk to within the, the D.C. police Department that this is not a 30 day exercise, that this is something that, you know, will exist long beyond that 30 days. And that potentially the real target here is, you know, D.C. home rule itself. You know, I heard today Trump announced that Chicago is, is next on his list. And I think that that's going to be, you know, for lack of a better term, interesting in that Chicago is not a federal city. It doesn't, you know, have, it's not as easily accessible to Trump as the president that, as Washington D.C. and so how would that look? And you know, that, you know, that could be the beginning of the end.
- [23:56]
A
He wants to pick a fight with JB Pritzker. He wants to see what the governor is going to do. That's another Democratic city in another Democratic state. He's not sending the National Guard into cities in Republican states where they may have higher crime rates. It's just, he's not doing it and he, he wants the confrontation because he wants it to, to lead to something where he can say, okay, see, I guess we have to do X, Y and Z. And you know, now we have to escalate things. But I, you know, I, I want folks to remember that we still have a constitution in this country. We still have judges and we still have courts in this country and all this stuff's going to get challenged. And I have to think the big breaking point might be where a court, maybe it's the Supreme Court, tells Trump, you can't do this. Even the MAGA Supreme Court might say, you can't do this. And then Trump says, you, I'm going to do it anyway. And, and that's, that's when it's game on. I think that's what we're going to see. And, and people need to understand we're six or seven months into this I.
- [24:59]
B
Mean, that's why this effort requires, like, everybody doing everything. I mean, it's so multifaceted. There's so many violations that are taking place all at once, which is, you know, part of the game plan, the. The chaos of it all. But, you know, I mean, you have just. In a week, you've got the DC Takeover, you've got Texas gerrymandering.
- [25:20]
A
Yeah.
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B
Which. Which is a huge issue as well. You've got, you know, Texas Representative Nicole Collier is being held hostage in her own state legislature for, you know, by the state police. For violating which law.
- [25:38]
A
Yeah, pretty well. They said. They said she needed a permission slip to leave the chamber. It's totally nuts.
- [25:44]
B
Right? I mean, I know, you know what, that there's a low threshold for detaining a person, but, you know, you can only detain them for so long, and then it arises to, you know, if you want to arrest them, you gotta have probable cause that a crime was committed, what fucking crime was committed. I mean, and then you look and it's just, you know, Abbott, Governor Abbott is just an extension of this administration. You know, Trump has, you know, within his party, he has blurred all of the lines between the federal government and state government. It's just maga.
- [26:21]
A
Exactly, maga.
- [26:22]
B
And then there's everybody else.
- [26:25]
A
That's right. And I think you laid it out perfectly, Mike. I mean, it's. It's. It's one or two in a combination of things. I mean, going after your critics, people like John Bolton, sending the FBI after them. What took place in Texas, he plans to do in other states. I'm going to talk about this in just a little bit with Larry Sabato, and I think that, you know, this is. He. He is just getting started. He's just getting warmed up. And people just need to understand that they've got to be strapped in for the long haul here. I know you are.
- [27:01]
B
They got to focus on the fight for democracy.
- [27:03]
A
Yes.
- [27:04]
B
A lot of issues out there that are important to a lot of different people, and I get that. I mean, there are some issues that are very important to me and others that I just couldn't give a shit about. But democracy should be at the forefront of everybody's mind at this particular moment, because without democracy, none of those issues are going to matter, because it's only going to be up to Donald Trump as to, you know, how we live our lives. It's going to be up to him and his lunatic fucking advisors as to, you know, what we can say, what we can't Say where we can go, what our kids learn in school, what health care we have access to. Everything comes down to preserving democracy and then maybe being better stewards of our Constitution going forward and making sure that we don't send sacks of shit to represent us in Congress and in these other places.
- [28:03]
A
Yeah, yeah, that would be great. Fewer stacks of shit would, would probably help. We're up to our eyeballs in them right now. Mike, good to see you, man. Happy Friday. Happy Friday.
- [28:14]
B
Likewise. Good to see you.
- [28:16]
A
All right, see you next time. See you, buddy.
- [28:17]
B
Take care.
- [28:17]
A
Thanks a lot. That's the one and only Michael Finon. I'm going to quickly go to my good friend Larry Sabato because we need to show every once in a while that we can have a stimulating discussion here, intellectual discussion, with a respected, you know, big thinker when it comes to these issues. And I've, I've got a lot to talk about with Larry and Larry is plain spoken, to make no mistake. Larry is very plain spoken and, and he will make that plainly clear. And I believe for the folks who saw my, my post on, on Truth Truth Social on, on social media earlier on Substack, I believe we're going to have Heather Cox Richardson joining us at the top of the hour. I thought there was so much going on on this Friday and there's been so much going on this week that I really wanted to get as many folks on here as we could and, and so really appreciate everybody hanging in there and also tolerating my, my Friday end of the week brain fade, which is happening too. And there's Larry. Larry, how are you? Good to see you, sir.
- [29:20]
C
Thank you, Jim. Great to see you. And I've enjoyed listening to Michael Fanone there.
- [29:24]
A
How about Mike? He, you know, Mike, Mike's, you know, he's a Virginian too. And you know, and sometimes we needed some of that, that simple, straight to the point kind of Virginian perspective on things. And Larry, you have that as well. I mean, where to begin? My goodness, the, the release of this, this Maxwell interview. I mean, on a Friday, I mean, Larry, you've been witnessing and observing this for a very long time. They tend to put things out on Fridays. For folks in the back who aren't aware, they tend to put things out on Fridays that they want to sort of sail off onto the horizon and go relatively unnoticed. Of course, Ghislaine Maxwell did not implicate Donald Trump. That's why she got transferred over to a minimum security prison.
- [30:13]
C
Oh, that is so cynical, Jim. And also just because she wants a pardon. It has made that clear. I'm sure that has no relationship at all to her saying that Donald Trump never did anything untoward. There's no relationship at all. Just like with Bolton. There's. It's a total coincidence that the FBI was there this morning when he's been on TV criticizing Trump and his Anchorage summit virtually nonstop for the last couple of weeks. Completely coincidental. We need to combat this conspiracy theory tendency among the public. I know you agree with me. And by the way, I wore this for you.
- [30:54]
A
Oh, there you go.
- [30:56]
C
It says, make lying wrong again.
- [30:59]
A
Make lying wrong again. And, Larry. And doing it from the UVA center of politics, I think that is absolutely perfect. And Trump apparently was in front of the cameras earlier today talking about John Bolton, and he had. Trump was right about everything, or whatever he has on his hat. And I just think to myself, you know, this is the President of the United States. I guess we're beyond the conversation about demeaning the office, and there's nothing to demean.
- [31:25]
C
It's gone. I mean, really, it is impossible to take that office seriously while he's in it. And frankly, it's going to take a lot of work to reconstruct the public's view of the presidency and American government, and we've gone straight downhill.
- [31:41]
A
Yeah. And, Larry, as much as you and I like to yuck it up, I do want to say that this FBI raid at John Bolton's house is incredibly serious. And it reminds me of Putin's Russia and what Putin did over the years, over the course of, what, a couple of decades in terms of consolidating power and sending the message to political opponents that you cross me at your own peril. And I think that's some of what's going on.
- [32:08]
C
Oh, I do as well. Look, Trump, I don't know how many times he watched the Godfather, all of them, but I suspect it was quite frequently. Should have.
- [32:17]
B
Anyway.
- [32:18]
C
Maybe he wrote the script, I don't know. But that's the way he approaches politics. It's the way he approaches life. This administration is not the New Deal, and it's not the Great Society, and it's not the New Frontier. It is revenge and retribution. That is what this administration should be known for in history. And I think it will be. I mean, if we're still writing history. If we're free to write it.
- [32:44]
A
Yeah. And you. And you don't say that in any sort of hyperbolic sense. I mean, Larry.
- [32:51]
C
Yeah, I'm absolutely serious. I mean, I'd like to work pettiness in there as well, but, you know, you can only string so many words together for a label for administration.
- [33:02]
D
Yeah.
- [33:03]
A
And I mean, to me, this has been the summer of Jeffrey Epstein for Donald Trump. And it started back in May when they told him he was in the Epstein files multiple times. Then they put out this Department of justice memo on July 7 that says, nothing to see here. Nothing to see here. Knowing that he's in the Epstein files multiple times and that they had promised to release them on numerous occasions. And then this Ghislaine Maxwell thing comes out. The Ghislaine Maxwell thing doesn't even tell us why he's mentioned in the file. So we still don't have the complete story, but it seems to me there have been. He. He is running scared of this thing.
- [33:38]
C
Well, I agree with that, but the reason that they haven't mentioned it is because, of course, the mentions of him are completely innocent. Completely. There's always an answer that will satisfy some of his MAGA base. You know, they only have to peel off a few percent to believe him. And some do automatically, or they say, well, I don't like this, but I just love the rest of it. This is what I voted for. That's. That's the tweet I get more frequently than anything else when something awful is being described about what Trump's done today. This is what I voted for. And what frightens me is they're right. That is what they voted for.
- [34:19]
A
It is what they voted for. The thing that we. That we really should dive into. And, and it's something that. That I want to. And just a few minutes ago, before you're coming on, I was getting the words jumbled up in my head, and I. I meant to say substack when I said truth Social, which, you know, my God, why did I say that? But the reason why I was saying is I was queuing up a Truth Social post from Donald Trump from yesterday, and he says. And he talks about the Texas redistricting. He talks about how he wants to stop mail in voting. And he's out in the open, Larry, talking about how he wants to basically steal congressional seats. He says, well, if other states follow Texas's lead, like Florida, Indiana and others, and if he can stop mail in voting, he says this in the Truth Social. And I can read the whole damn thing if people want me to read it, but I think people know what I'm talking about. And he says, quote, if we do these two things, we will pick up 100 more seats and the crooked game of politics is over. First of all, how does he think he's going to get 100 seats? I mean, that is delusional. But when he says the crooked game of politics is over, it's almost as though he is saying democracy is over. Choosing your own leaders is over. Fair elections is over.
- [35:34]
C
Yeah, Democrats winning is over.
- [35:36]
A
Democrats winning is over. Right.
- [35:38]
C
Democrats winning. Look that, well, that tweet, there have been so many of them and so many things he said about mail voting and so on. And here I hope and expect actually in this case that the courts will, will make sure that he doesn't carry through on these promises in part because he doesn't have the power to do it. A plain reading of the Constitution would tell even the densest of those six justices on the Supreme Court that he can't do this. But if, if somehow this is implemented through state legislatures and look how many red states there are where they've got the governorship in both houses of the legislature and most of the judges in the state. Hey, it's a, it's a real threat when the reason he is being so successful at this is because never before, never have we had a president of either party who was so determined not just to ignore the rules, but to blow them up. And he's doing it. We're only into the first six months of this four year administration, assuming he leaves on time for. Which is a big assumption.
- [36:49]
A
That's right. And as I tell people all the time, Larry, you were the one who told me when I wrote my book back in 2019, I think it was that you would not be surprised if you tried to pull off a coup to stay in power, which is basically what happened after the 2020 election when he lost on January 6. So for people who say, oh, that's hyperbole, there's no way that's. Folks, this has already happened once. And the way he's going to these states and trying to, you know, redistrict and redraw the congressional maps, it's as though he's, it's almost trying to pull the same move that he did after the 2020 election. Let me see if I can find some states who will go in cahoots with me in some scheme to make sure the will of the people doesn't happen. Yes.
- [37:33]
C
And this time he's got not only three and a half years to plan it all out, he's got loads of help. He's been very careful in picking true believers who, who also would Discard democracy for him in an instant. They don't care about it. And he's got the court, too. I mean, six out of nine justices, that's a super majority. And who knows whether he'll get another one. It's entirely possible during this term. What he really wants to do, though, is to make sure that the House doesn't go Democratic, because while that doesn't stop him from doing many things, it does make it much more difficult and they have subpoena power. So that's what he's trying to do, shape those elections, the rules of the elections in 26, to make sure Democrats don't take over. Then if they don't, he's in a much better position to restructure the presidential election so that it favors either him or his chosen successor. Though I, I pity the chosen successor because he'll be for him for about 24 hours before he starts critiquing him.
- [38:36]
A
That's exactly right. And I, I'm not convinced that he's not going to try to run for a third.
- [38:41]
B
Third.
- [38:42]
C
Oh, I think it's, it's right on the table. He saw the reaction the last time and he decided, I'm going to pull back on that. Yeah, but, but it's in his mind. He mentioned it too many times and too many other people have mentioned it, and they love to dangle it out there because they know it sends us through the roof. If I could just add one thing, Jim, you know you mentioned, I said throughout his first term, he is so out of the box that he could potentially lead a coup. I didn't know whether he would, but I said it, said there's nothing you can rule out with him. Do you know how many communications I got saying, you need to be fired, this is outrageous, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You know, hey, it turned out to be true, didn't it?
- [39:23]
A
It absolutely turned out to be true.
- [39:24]
C
And they're still, they're still saying it's not realistic. No, I got news for them. They better be prepared this time.
- [39:31]
A
Yeah, well, and that is the problem, isn't it, Larry, is that it goes back to that old Peter Jennings line about 9, 11, a failure of imagination. And there's just a lot of people who want to stick their head in the sand. And I used to call the 2024 election the ostrich election, because people just stuck their head in the sand and they did not want to deal with Donald Trump, the possibility of Donald Trump becoming president again. So they just sort of, they just did want to think about it. And then he got back in and I tell people he went out with a bang the last time, he's going to go out with a bang this time. And hopefully we all don't get blown up in the process. I mean, that's the scary thing is that he's kind of going for it this time, I'm assuming, and maybe it's.
- [40:15]
C
A big assumption, but I'm assuming that a lot of good people, not just Democrats, they're independents and Republicans who are also very concerned about him deconstructing or destroying the constitutional system. Surely, surely people are privately, maybe in small groups, maybe in organizations that are geared to democracy in the Republic. Maybe they're making some plans. I know I am, and I'm sure you are. We have to have some countermeasures ready so that we can use them at a moment's notice because we're not going to get much notice.
- [40:50]
A
That's right. No, that's right. And I guess, you know, getting back to the Democrats, I do want to talk about that because I know you guys have the crystal ball there at the center for Politics. You do forecasting of elections and so on. And I know it's very early and a lot can happen. We're not even to November of 2025, but despite the fact that Democrats are doing pretty poorly in the polls right now, people really haven't focused on that very much. The table is set pretty well, I think, if we don't see a whole lot of crookery going into 2026 or if the courts stop him from engaging in a whole lot of crookery going into 2026. The Democrats are well positioned, aren't they, to take back the House and possibly the Senate and maybe more so than we thought a few months ago historically.
- [41:35]
C
You would think they're well positioned. And I'll go along with that for now because I love history and I've studied it all my life.
- [41:41]
A
Yeah.
- [41:42]
C
But I'm not nearly as convinced as I usually am that the historical trend will hold. You see, not just Texas, what people are not focusing on is what's going on under the COVID in Indiana, in Ohio, which is already going to redistrict. That's court order. And they're going to take three or four seats from Democrats just in Ohio, another seat in Indiana, another seat in Missouri. Who knows what other states they're working with. And they're perfectly willing to eliminate the Democratic contingent from certain states. It'll be, you know, 12 to nothing. Whatever, whatever it is in the state, however many they have. So there's no limit. There's no limit. Jim, you've watched both parties for a long time. We all know the Republican Party that we grew up with, I'm a lot older than you are, that I grew up with from the 50s on, would never have considered this kind of foul playing, would never have used this kind of poor sportsmanship and everything else an anti Republic activity. But there's a completely new Republican Party. But here's what's interesting. The Democrats have gotten even more determined to play by the rules. The more the Republicans don't play by the rules, the more Democrats enjoy saying to themselves, we're playing by the rules. You know, Michelle Obama's old thing, the more they go low, the more we go high. That may have worked, you know, two decades ago. It doesn't work now, and I'm sorry to say that. But you have to, they say fight fire with fire. Unfortunately, as they go low, you have to go lower.
- [43:21]
A
And the Democrats have to figure out, can they be ruthless. And, I mean, we are seeing Gavin Newsom to some extent do that in social media. They're having fun with these meme wars and these social media attacks on Trump and so on, which are very funny. And he is attempting to do a redistricting plan of his own, although that has to go through the voters. So we'll see what happens with that's California probably will pass. But your sense of, I mean, at least Gavin Newsom, Democrats will say, is showing some fight.
- [43:51]
C
Yes. Although it's a long time to 2028.
- [43:54]
A
Yes.
- [43:55]
C
I don't think this necessarily has any impact on the presidential race. It helps him. It helps him. You know, six months, eight months ago, a year ago, you ask people about Gavin Newsom and they say, nah, he doesn't have it. Too much hair gel. I mean, people have said that to me. Stupid, silly. So I think he's gotten rid of those superficial problems. Problems. And he's going to be taken seriously because Democrats are grateful to him for showing some guts. You know, he's. He's got some backbone, which some of them just don't have, or they're sticking to the rules. That worked well in the 1960s.
- [44:29]
A
Right.
- [44:29]
C
I lived through the 60s. I don't want to go through it again. But people did obey the rules. That's how Nixon got out. You know, there was no Fox. But it's beyond that. People paid attention to the rules. They cared about the system and it mattered. The Republic mattered. It doesn't anymore. One person matters to half the country or almost half the country. One person matters more important than the system, more important than the republic, more important than the future. And it is deeply disturbing. It really is. I'm 73. I don't have that many years to waste. I hope we can get back.
- [45:06]
A
I think about that too. And we have to think about our kids. And we also have to think about our kids and our grandkids and what kind of country we're leaving to them. My God, and the students I teach.
- [45:16]
C
I look at them, they're bright eyed, they're idealistic, they're hardworking, they want a happy future. They also want a very strong republic. But they're going to have to work so much harder than we did because we could assume certain things. They can't assume anything.
- [45:32]
A
Yes. And I think that worries me greatly as well. But Larry, getting back to conventional wisdom, the conventional wisdom would be that in the gubernatorial race in Virginia, Abigail Spanberger would be able to win this thing in a walk. Virginia gubernatorial elections, these off year elections have tended to be bellwethers. And if the incumbent president is not doing that well, it swings back to the Democrats. That's probably going to happen in New Jersey. But I've seen some polling that shows that Spanberger doesn't have the kind of lead that maybe Democrats would want her to see over. Over Winsome Sears. Not to go hyper local here, but are you worried at all about that race? Because I thought that Winsome Sears was so far off the deep end that she really had no chances as a gubernatorial candidate.
- [46:20]
C
Well, Spanberger is clearly the front runner and she's got a lot going for her. And you mentioned the key thing, Donald Trump. The truth is Democrats are energized already and they'll be even more energized by the time voting starts in late September and it accelerates and become hits the peak late October, early November.
- [46:41]
D
Right.
- [46:41]
C
So she's got a lot going forward. But I'll tell you something that I've learned over a long life the hard way. You can't depend on anything in politics. And when you do, when you think you can't lose, you're halfway to losing. And also she has to take some chances. You can't just stand up there and say and I'm going to make everybody happy and we're going to please this group and that group. No, you have to take some tough stands. And also you can't avoid conflict, say on this trans issue, which Winsome Earl Sears, the Republican is now using It's a tough issue. I mean, it really is. And people have feelings in both directions, but you have to take a stand sometimes. You know, remember when Bill Clinton went after Sister Soldier?
- [47:29]
A
Sister soldier, yes.
- [47:30]
C
In 1992. I'm sure all our audience remembers.
- [47:33]
A
Yeah.
- [47:33]
C
You know, it was only, it was only what, 30 plus years ago, but it worked. You know, Clinton had the guts to do it.
- [47:41]
A
There was a time when talking about Bill Clinton was not ancient history. But anyway. Go ahead, Larry.
- [47:45]
C
Well, that's true. He's in his 70s, too.
- [47:47]
A
Yeah.
- [47:48]
C
But he did, he did the right thing politically. It cost him some problems and Jesse Jackson got upset and on and on and on, but it worked. It sent a message to middle America that this guy was going to at least consider their views and try to act on their behalf. And Democrats have to do that, whether it's Spanberger or Sheryl or, or Mamdani. Although New York is so different that I don't really think we can generalize too much from it.
- [48:17]
A
No, we can't extrapolate too much from New York City. But I do think, I mean, I do think Mamdani has, has captured the imagination of New Yorkers and they've, he's energized progressives. The thing, though, I think, and maybe the mom Donnie case is a good example of this. I think the Democrats just need new faces. They need fresh legs, they need some new blood in there. And, you know, I think they would be well advised to, you know, start at the top in the leadership positions and start working their way down in terms of finding new faces, finding some new people, new messengers, new messages.
- [48:52]
C
No, absolutely. And I've, I've talked to some of the younger ones who are, who are thinking about running for office or already have thrown their hats in the, in the ring. Now, I don't know whether to win and I'm not saying that the incumbents are necessarily bad, but it's good for the incumbents to face a challenge from a young person just in general. But the party does have to look for younger people to take the, the staff take the flame and carry it forward. And they haven't done nearly enough of that and they're too mild mannered. And again, you know what it is, Jim? Democrats think the rules still work. The rules still apply. No, they don't. They've been, they really don't. Will you please get that through your heads there?
- [49:38]
A
That's right.
- [49:38]
C
No more rules.
- [49:40]
A
That's right. That's right. And I think Trump has made that very clear. And, and Republicans in general have made that very clear. I mean, if, you know, if you are a governor in a red state and you're sending your national guard to Washington, D.C. because Donald Trump gave you a phone call for a crime problem that is overblown. I'm sorry, you know, we're in trouble.
- [50:11]
C
You've seen the chart where the, the governor sending their national guard troops to D.C. all have higher murder rates in their, in their cities or overall, like Mississippi, it's number one in the country. I think Louisiana is second in the country. But, boy, they can spare those troops for Washington, D.C. where the rate's been dropping dramatically.
- [50:31]
A
And can you imagine, can you imagine what the response would be if a Democratic president were to send National Guard members from Democratic states to some of these Republican states or even try to do that? It would be nuts.
- [50:45]
C
No, they would. And even with this precedent now from Trump, if it happens at any time in the future, they'll still go bananas. It won't make any difference because their guy was good and it was a good reason, even if it wasn't justified. And the Democrat, of course, will be trying to take over and take their guns.
- [51:03]
A
Yeah. And so, Larry, one of the things we should mention is I'm going to be joining Larry, this fall if the offer still stands. I don't want to be too presumptuous.
- [51:11]
C
That we're counting on it. And we've already got you slotted in for all kinds of classes without pay.
- [51:17]
A
Of course.
- [51:18]
D
It's an honor.
- [51:18]
C
It's an honor to teach. By the way, I did say I was critical of the elderly statesmen in the Democratic Party who were in office. That was too generalized. I don't really believe that. For example, I believe that all older tenured professors should serve forever. There should be no term limits whatsoever.
- [51:40]
A
And not be subject to any rule to everybody. Yeah. And not be subject to any political pressure of any, none of any sort whatsoever. Well, I'll be down there as a fellow and I'm so looking forward to it. And I think I've roped in Mike Fanone to come down and talk to the students.
- [51:56]
C
Fanta. No, that's wonderful. We had it down once. We gave him an award, he and the other, some of the other officers who were beaten up on January 6th. And he, he really came across well, we would welcome him again. And of course, students cycle out so quickly that the ones who are here now don't remember his visit because they weren't here. So absolutely bring him down. We'll have A lot of fun. And they'll learn something. They'll learn something. And we need to show the films, too. That's right, the films. And we need to point out the people that Trump has either commuted their sentences or pardoned outright. It's one of the outrages that will live in history, Jim. And I wouldn't say that about just anything because people forget quickly, but this is going to live in history. January 6th and then the pardons four years later of the people who committed the crimes.
- [52:46]
A
Yes.
- [52:47]
C
It's almost unbelievable.
- [52:49]
A
That's right.
- [52:49]
C
There's some times when I cannot believe this has happened in our country.
- [52:54]
A
That's right. Well. And the other day, the guy threw a sandwich at one of the police officers in D.C. or whatever it was, the Subway sandwich. And Cash Patel and Pam Bondi. We will not tolerate any attacks on police officers here in Washington, D.C. with sandwiches.
- [53:12]
C
You missed that part.
- [53:13]
A
With sandwiches.
- [53:14]
C
We will not tolerate attacks on police officers with sandwiches. They said nothing about, you know, the other, the other weapons used on January 6th. So let's give them credit.
- [53:23]
A
And Trump pardoning all of those people, too.
- [53:25]
C
Yes.
- [53:26]
A
Unreal. Well, great. Great to talk to you again, Larry. Really appreciate it. Looking forward to coming down to Charlottesville. It's going to be fun.
- [53:34]
C
We will catch up about a lot of things. And most importantly, you and Michael and others will help to open young minds and make them think about things that they need to think about, even though they're unpleasant.
- [53:46]
A
Yeah, no, there's no question about it. And I hope some kids come in there with some, some tough questions because, I mean, you know, we need to, we need to start having these kinds of conversations. I'm big on. When I see Pete Buttigieg and I see some of these folks going on Fox or going to conservative media, going to different places and talking to these different audience audiences. It, it desperately needs to happen.
- [54:07]
C
Oh, absolutely.
- [54:08]
A
We've got to get out of these.
- [54:09]
C
We have plenty of conservative students. That's not a problem. We have plenty of Republican students. No. And they, and I encourage them to argue with one another, and they all have good points to make to one degree or another, and that's part of their training. But it doesn't. They're objective facts. You know, people don't believe that anymore because of Trump, but there are objective facts, and you have to present the facts before you start arguing.
- [54:32]
A
Exactly. Exactly. Well, Larry, as always, really appreciate it. And we rarely argue. We, we tend to almost see things completely eye to eye. Don't tell anybody down there in Charlottesville.
- [54:43]
C
But I, I don't worry. I try and keep lots of things secret, so don't worry about it.
- [54:48]
A
That's good to know. All right.
- [54:49]
D
Okay.
- [54:49]
A
Good to see you, Larry. Thanks a lot.
- [54:51]
C
Take care, Jim, we'll look forward to welcome you back to Charlottesville.
- [54:54]
A
Can't wait. I'll be heading down Highway 29 soon. Thanks a lot. Good to see you.
- [54:58]
C
Take care of yourself.
- [54:59]
A
Thanks, Larry. You too. You too. The great Larry Sabo at the great University of Virginia. Love the folks down there almost as, almost as much as I love my folks at my alma mater, jmu, but, and also love my buddy John, Mike Fanon. Always enjoy having Mike Fanon on. I, I had hoped to have Heather Cox Richardson on at the, at the, at the beginning of this next hour. I'm going to start sending her the invite now just to see if we can get that process started. And we're going to hold the line here for Heather if she can jump on with us. And it would just be a total delight, obviously, if she can. She and I had a great conversation about a month ago and just absolutely connected on, on, on so many levels. And one of the things that we talked about was this need for a news community in this country. It's something that I would definitely love to see expand and grow. And we're starting to see that expand and grow here on Substack. You know, we, the conversations that I've had, I mean, I'm heading into about seven months now of being here on Substack. I've just loved every minute of it and talking to so many great people like Heather Cox Richardson. And there she is right there. Heather, how are you? Great to see you again.
- [56:18]
D
It's good to see you. How are you doing down there? Aren't you in Washington?
- [56:21]
A
I'm in D.C. i took my little dog Duke over to the protest last night that was here in D.C. and people are starting to get fired up about this stuff.
- [56:31]
D
Good, good. Well, you know, summer is never often not a great time for people to push back against the administration. But September and October tend to be biggies. Unfortunately, they also tend to be the months for when people look at the economy and realize we're in trouble. So I'm a little nervous about that. But we've got no choice but to move forward, right?
- [56:50]
A
No, there's no question. I'm worried about it, too, because everybody's been sort of riding high and thinking and sort of whistling past the graveyard a little bit and thinking, well, you know, you know, Trump, he's he's dangerous to democracy. But as long as we're still making a buck, everything's okay. And I just, you know, there's, there's just always a bill to pay. And I sort of feel like that's coming.
- [57:10]
D
I can't agree more. And that's one of the things that's so incredibly frustrating. I actually wrote a whole letter this morning about the pieces of our government that have been dismantled that people aren't paying any kind of attention to yet. I mean, silly things like the idea that there aren't really people inspecting the ports and the Internet for people to be importing things like ants into this country, which is a story Wired did a couple of days. And you know, most people are walking around thinking about the invasion of exotic species, but, you know, that's how we lost a lot of the orange crop. That's how we've lost, you know, a lot of New England to things like bittersweet or, you know, all the things that happen when you import exotics. And that's. That bill is going to come due on somebody else's watch.
- [57:58]
A
Yeah, there's no question. And speaking of bills coming due, I mean, I don't know where to start. I pinged you earlier today because of the John Bolton news and then this galactic Maxwell transcript news came down and obviously, I mean, it's, you know, this is pretty, you know, in, in your face in terms of. They're just trying to bury this on a Friday evening. The fact that she didn't say anything troublesome about Donald Trump. I mean, no, no kidding. That's why she was moved over to a minimum security facility. But, you know, he is, they're trying awfully hard. They're trying so darn hard to put this thing to rest and they're just not doing it.
- [58:36]
D
Yeah, that's because, you know it's on fire. You just know it's on fire. I mean, that's one thing that's been really interesting about Trump is because he says he blurts out what is uppermost in his mind all the time. And I feel like I've spent the last at least six years looking at the space around the elephant to try and figure out what the elephant is. And one of the stories that is not getting covered today with the, the raid on John Bolton's house and office and with the many other things that are going on in Washington D.C. is the fact that the administration has just fired the Pentagon's Director of intelligence and Tulsi Gabbard from the office of the Director of National Intelligence just said she's reducing intelligence officers by 40%.
- [59:26]
A
Unbelievable.
- [59:28]
D
But what's going on with that?
- [59:31]
A
I agree with you. I agree with you.
- [59:33]
D
Trump's so cozy with Putin all the time. Why, when we started talking about Epstein, did he suddenly start talking about Russia? I mean, I don't know the answers to those things, but it's kind of like you're trying to watch this. It's like trying to watch an impressionistic painting and think, wait a minute, what are these dots adding up to? And I don't see yet what they're adding up to. But I don't think the story is just that he is attacking people he doesn't like. That's part of the story, but I don't think it's the whole story. What do you think?
- [60:07]
A
Well, that's very interesting that you say that. I mean, sometimes it's complicated with Trump, sometimes it's simple, and it's hard to know which is what we're dealing with. I do wonder whether it's as simple as John Bolton has been all over TV the last couple of weeks, trashing Trump after that ridiculous summit with Vladimir Putin, if you want to call it that, up in Anchorage, which was a total. I mean, just an embarrassment to the country. And it doesn't sound like they have much new information on John Bolton to warrant. I don't know what judge was hearing this and authorized this warrant to go and raid John Bolton's house. But Trump has had this grudge against John Bolton going back to when I covered Donald Trump the first time he was president. I mean, John Bolton wrote that book. It was an incendiary book. He was very tough on Donald Trump, and they tried to stop that book from being written. I mean, I remember covering that, and it's been this way ever since. And I just wonder if it was a moment where he just thought, okay, time for a new distraction. He's been all over tv. Let's go get him. But you might be right. It may have something. I mean, Trump today was just holding up that picture with Vladimir Putin.
- [61:21]
D
Yeah. Which was weird. I'm sorry. It was just weird. Like, that was supposed to be a meeting about FIFA, and all of a sudden he's holding up a picture and talking about how sad he is that Putin can't be at FIFA. I mean, why is that uppermost in his mind?
- [61:40]
A
Yeah. I don't know. And I've called it the Scooby Doo mystery because at some point we're going to find out that the mask is going to come off of old man Withers at the haunted amusement park Spark, and we're going to find out what this is, but we just don't know what it is with Trump and Vladimir Putin. Is it a financial thing? Is it compromise, as we all thought it might have been back in 2017? Trump has over and over again called up the hoax and the hoax. And that makes me think that maybe there is some fire, not just smoke. When it comes to some of that, I really don't know. But I do find raiding John Bolton's house to be a very worrisome development. And talking about Vladimir Putin, it reminds me of what goes on in Putin's Russia.
- [62:26]
D
Well, that's just it. I'm less concerned about what happened in the past than why he is so obsessed with it going forward. And it seems to me that what we are looking at is not just retribution against enemies. Although Trump has said he was going to do that so much as an attempt to rig the elections going forward so that he or people like him stay in power. Because if you think about what Russian operatives actually did in 2016, aside from all the stories that people heard, is we know that they flooded social media. We know that they worked to weaken ideas about American democracy, to pit the ends of the spectrum against the middle so that they could insert somebody like Donald Trump. And we seem to be getting rid of all the guardrails that could stop that from happening again. The guardrails that people put in place after 2016 and then during the Biden administration. And so when I look at the attempt to intimidate opponents like Bolton, but also like Senator Adam Schiff of California or Letitia James, the Attorney General of New York, or the governor of the Federal Reserve governor that they went after this week, that's certainly part of shut up and do what I say. But it does seem to me to be an attempt to guarantee that. Not just that, but the attempt to put troops in major democratic cities, which are the center of democratic power, to really demonstrate that the administration holds control over Washington, D.C. there are many aspects of this that look like it's really about destroying our ability to. Ability to choose our leaders.
- [64:11]
A
Yes. And I wonder, Heather, what's on your mind in terms of that? Because that to me, is you. And I can say what we want to say and be outspoken and so on. It worries people, it terrifies people when National Guard troops start showing up in communities. And it was just said today over at the Pentagon that these National Guard troops are going to be authorized to carry their service issued weapons. You know that it's, you know, we can, you and I can say all we want, but when there's a gun in our face, that it's a different story. And that worries me and it should worry you.
- [64:51]
D
I will, I will just point out that it appears that the National Guard troops overwhelmingly don't want to be given these assignments. They have lives. This is why they, they signed up for the National Guard not to be deployed in Washington D.C. or other cities to theoretically police. But mostly they're standing around the mall and the places where the tourists are. And we can tell that that's not just me talking. We can tell that because of the re up rate after the National Guard was federalized in Los Angeles and normally about 60% of people whose terms of service come up reenlist and after that deployment, only about 20, 21% did. They wanted no part of it. So that's an important thing to remember here, is this is not yet a military that answers to Donald Trump. It has been a professional military. These are very well trained people who volunteered for one reason or another. Trump is trying to make them his. But so far that hasn't happened.
- [65:50]
A
Yeah, there's no question about it. And I was down in the mall yesterday trying to get a look at all of this. And you know, they're walking around the mall, I saw two dozen of them in front of the National African American History Museum. And I was, I think, mentioning it maybe to April Ryan or somebody earlier this week. How would that make you feel if, you know, you're seeing National Guard troops from Mississippi in front of the National African American History Museum? My God. And I just, you know, it makes me wonder what have we done to allow this to happen in our country where this is tolerable, this is allowed to happen. And there's no way a red state governor would tolerate this coming from a Democrat with Democrat National Guard. National Guard troops from Democratic states.
- [66:41]
D
No, that's right. And it is worth remembering that political scientists will tell you that even one single encounter with a police officer makes somebody less likely to vote. So the idea that we're, we're seeding at this point, how many soldiers is it in Washington, D.C. i think it's 4,000 right now and soon to go up. Is that right?
- [67:00]
A
I think it's about 2000, 2000 so far. But that was, that was as of yesterday. So. And now it's up to six states. So you, you may, I think you may be right in that it is growing to that level. And when I was talking with Mike Fanon earlier on in the last hour, he is saying he's hearing from his police sources that this is just the beginning, that Trump has no plans of pulling them out after 30 days, and that the reason why you have multiple states involved is that there may be something of a rotation and that these rotations are going to continue.
- [67:34]
D
What does he say about how the people he talks to feel about it?
- [67:39]
A
He said that there's a great deal of worry inside the NPD right now, inside the law enforcement community in Washington, D.C. because they don't want to be asked to do illegal things.
- [67:49]
D
No.
- [67:50]
A
And they don't want to be a part of this. And I mean, cops, yeah. There are problems with law enforcement in this country, but what cops want to be part of a police state. I mean, that to me is the un American part of all of this, is that Trump is trying to turn this country into a police state. And, Heather, you know, it's counter to who we are. It's not who we are.
- [68:13]
D
Well, so you asked how we got here, and I think it's important to realize that the Republican Party has gone in the 1980s from a time of really objecting to the idea of the New Deal and the policies that the Democrats were advancing to starting to believe that any kind of Democratic governance was illegitimate. And, you know, we could talk about how that happened, but that turned into because Democratic governance is illegitimate, we need to weight the scales of the country in order to make sure that Democrats don't win office. And so you get Citizens United and the gutting of the Voting Rights act and the gerrymandering of states, the severe gerrymandering that happens after Barack Obama is elected in 2008. But now we have gotten to the point, I think, where the Republican Party, the magas, because. Because these are not traditional Republicans are willing to give up on democracy altogether and say anybody who wants to use the federal government for the good of the American people is a socialist, is a communist, is fill in the blank, and therefore, they must never be allowed to rule. And that is exactly what happened in the United States after the Civil War, during Reconstruction, when then it was the Democrats, they've switched places. The Democrats ultimately said, listen, we don't care if you can win office freely and fairly. We don't believe you have the right ever to hold office because we don't agree with your ideas. And we're seeing that happen at a national level now. And I will say one of the things that Jumps out to me is for years people have said to me, and I'm primarily a scholar of reconstruction, and people have said to me, why didn't people fight back? And my answer was always exactly what you identified terrorism works by showing a gun to a few people and making sure a lot of people hear about it. But also because people who should have been paying attention didn't think that was what was really going on because, you know, oh, this is about crime. Oh, this is only about this election. Oh, this is only about. And they didn't pay attention to the bigger picture. And I really hope the fact we have social media and that we're having such fast responses to the overreach of the Trump administration will wake people up to the fact it is now or never if we want to preserve American democracy.
- [70:23]
A
Well, and Trump is saying the quiet part out loud, or as I sometimes say, the riot part out loud when he put out on Truth Social. This is just in the last 24 hours that, hey, big win for the great state of Texas. And he goes, I don't want to read the whole thing because it's so nauseating. But he essentially says he wants other states like Florida and Indiana and others to jump in and redraw their congressional maps. And he says on top of that, if we stop mail in voting, which is of course something he's done before. If we do these two things, he says, quote, we will pick up 100 more seats and the crooked game of politics is over. What he's saying there is basically that democracy is over and it's delusional for him to think that he could pick up 100 seats without outright cheating. And I mean, this is the, should we call this the big rig? I mean, this is Trump. He's trying to rig the next midterm cycle.
- [71:15]
D
Oh, I like that. I like the big rig. But you also, you just had an important word there and that was delusional. The thing in this, that is the real wild card to me is that Trump is cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs. He is not 40 year old man who knows what he's doing. It is my impression that the people in the White House around him are deliberately putting in front of him sort of real estate things for him to do. Add a new wing to the White House. Gold everywhere. Walking around on the top of the White House today at that press conference, he was talking about redoing the Kennedy center that he was calling the Trump Kennedy Center. I think they're trying to keep him busy while they grab all the centers of power, so that when he can no longer be propped up behind the Resolute desk, have you noticed that he actually sits now behind the Resolute desk as if he's holding the rest of the world at bay and is not able to engage in conversation? Or when that happens, the game will already be in play to put somebody else in there. And one of the things that I hope those who are huge fans of Donald Trump recognize is once you have given him this system, it's there for JD Vance, it's there for anybody else they choose to put in there. And those are not the people that American voters have ever expressed any great support for. JD Vance has never had a base that's exactly right.
- [72:45]
A
And to his mental state, I mean, I used to tell people during the first term that he was crazy like a fox, but I think this time around, it's more like crazier than a shithouse rat. And I think that he is not fully in control of what he is doing. And I think you're right on. And they did some of this to some extent during the first term, where they tried to distract him, give him things to do, and now it's on steroids. Because my sense of it is, because I witnessed some of this the first time around, is that there are probably people on the inside who may be just as MAGA as he is, but are probably terrified of how bananas he has gotten. And when he's showing up, what was it earlier this morning, and he had the hat on that said Trump was right about everything. It's the President of the United States.
- [73:33]
D
Yes.
- [73:33]
A
He looks like he's lost it.
- [73:35]
D
Well, totally. And remember, we're seeing him in his best. We're seeing him when they have cleaned him up for the cameras, when they have adjusted his meds in whatever way needs to be done behind the scenes. You know, it's not pretty. And you know that Stephen Miller, the deputy White House Chief of staff, and that Russell Vogt from the Office of Management and Budget are really the ones that are running the immigration issues and the cuts to the US Government. Those are enormously unpopular. And they also know they've got to grab as much power as they can while he is still upright. But I hope this is something that I sort of have given up on the Republican senators ever recognizing that they're essentially just throwing away their own power. But I do hope they recognize that once this power goes into the hands of a mad king, it's also there for the next guy who may not be so Mad, but now has that power.
- [74:30]
A
Right. And somebody like a JD Vance or Marco Rubio, who appears to be so Machiavellian that he. I mean, he was very much an establishment Republican. I mean, he did come up with the Tea Party movement, was very much an establishment Republican, was running as one back in 2016, remember when he and Trump used to get into it, and Marco Rubio said that Trump was a con man. And you're absolutely right. And the willingness to sell one's soul, you know, it's extraordinary to me. And to go back to what you're saying about Tulsi Gabbard trying to clear out 40% of the people at the Director of National Intelligence. These are the people. Heather, you and I both know this all too well. This office was created to prevent another 9, 11.
- [75:12]
D
Yeah. Yeah, it was. Because. Yes, no, but because we're probably driving people over the edge. It is worth pointing out that there are. It's worth remembering Trump is bonkers and that these moves are deeply unpopular. And that Trump is also frustrating the business community, which is really important. We know from the rise of the Nazis that which way the business community jumps is really important. And he's been taking cuts of all these different companies. There was yet another one today which is essentially a form of state capitalism, as opposed to the free markets that business tends to like. But you can also tell that protesters are really getting under at least Stephen Miller's skin from the fact he melted down the other day with the comments about the aging hippies. It's important that it's older white people out there because it's very hard to call out troops to attack old white people. And that's actually something I'm really proud of protesters for doing, is getting out there and saying, you know, we think in America of protest as being a young person's game. But there's no reason to think that older people have been involved in protests for a long time. And this time around, it seems like they're in the forefront. And that really, really matters, because Stephen Miller can't portray somebody in their wheelchair as the kind of racist takes he takes on people of color.
- [76:42]
A
No, you're absolutely right. And I took my little dog Duke up to a protest here in D.C. last night, and you're absolutely right. There were some senior citizens out there, and I was so proud of them. And they had some of the feistiest signs, too. I mean, there were a couple of really good ones. One of them was about how, you know, the presence of the National Guard was Definitely a distraction from the Epstein files. And you know, I love that. There you see Epstein files release the Epstein file signs all over D.C. now. And a lot of the protests you write are baby boomers who are getting out there and doing it. And for the folks who are out there, because I see this from time to time, Heather, and I think you do as well, people want to know what can they do, how can they get involved, get out there and protest. The protest I saw was perfectly peaceful last night. The DC Police cordoned off a couple of block radius around what was taking place. There were little kids dancing in the street, no trouble whatsoever. And we just need more of that. Kind of like a happy people, power, energy.
- [77:41]
D
We definitely need more of that. I would also urge people to really put pressure on Congress over voting rights because I really think this is what's going on as an attempt to rig our voting system. And with Congress coming back into session on September 2, clearly the fight over redistricting is going to be on the table. And I mean, making sure your Republican representation representatives, both at the national level, but also at the state level in those states you mentioned, Texas, Indiana, Florida, Ohio, the places where Trump is putting pressure here, that this is something that is deeply unpopular because it is. Even Republicans don't like gerrymandering. We would like to have this straightened out around the country. And I do think there is one thing about the baby boomers and that's that if you are under probably 55, you don't remember a time when American democracy worked. If you are over 55, you feel like what was our birthright has been taken over by this very small group of radical extremists that is trying to destroy democracy. And so I think one of the reasons so many of us are out there is because we can sit there and say, hey, we remember the way it used to work when Congress would compromise and you would get deals that actually worked for the American people. And that's something that if you're, as I said, if you're younger than 50 anyway, you don't remember when politics wasn't the Republicans simply playing it as an all or nothing game in which they were the ones who got to call all the shots.
- [79:13]
A
That's such a great point. And the other thing that you are thinking back to your expertise on Reconstruction, I have to ask this question, and forgive me if it's a question that can't be totally answered with any 100% certainty, but the way that the Republicans are trying to redraw these congressional maps Particularly in Texas, but I would have to assume in Ohio and Indiana, wherever else they do, it is going to take congressional seats away from people of color. And I wonder if we have seen it to this degree since Reconstruction.
- [79:47]
D
Well, I mean, this is what the Voting Rights act of 1965 was designed to combat, of course. So since 1965, no. And John Roberts, who is the Chief justice of the Supreme Court, has made it his life's work to get rid of the Voting Rights act of 1965. So really, since then, we have not seen it. But one of the things that I think is important when you think about Reconstruction and again, in the present, is the degree to which the. The radical extremists have made poverty and people of color and women the same thing. It's two sets of language to say those people should not vote. So when in Texas, for example, they can say, this is not about race. This is only about partisan gerrymandering, which the Supreme Court has blessed. That doesn't preclude the fact that the Texas gerrymander makes a white vote significantly more powerful than a black or brown vote. So that unity of the way we talk about race and class in the United States matters. And it actually comes out of Reconstruction when, after the 15th Amendment in 1870 and the establishment of the Department of Justice in 1870, it became a federal crime to discriminate against black men at the voting places on the grounds of race. Right, Right. But as soon as that happens in 1871, former Confederates, especially in South Carolina, begin to say, hey, we don't have any problem with anybody's race. Our problem is that these people are poor. And they're trying to elect people who will put down roads and build schools and build hospitals, and that can only be paid for with tax dollars, paid for by property owners. And. And since only white people own property in the post Civil War south, this is a redistribution of wealth from white people to black people. And it is a form, they said, of socialism. And it's important to think about that word, socialism in the United States as a political term, not as an economic term. It means we don't want poor people, especially poor people of color, to vote. Similarly, when they start talking about capitalism, capitalism as opposed to capital or capitalists, they start doing that after this period in which they start talking about socialism as poor people voting. And they talk about how America should be about capitalism. And now, of course, we understand that as an economic term. But what they were saying at the time was that the people who should be running the Government are people with money. And that's a, that's a really important. And of course, they were all white men. So there's this weird overlap that also is kind of a loophole that lets somebody like the people under Nixon talk about busing rather than talking about race, you know?
- [82:38]
A
Right. It's coded. It's coded language.
- [82:40]
D
All coded. That's the word coded.
- [82:42]
A
And I mean, I spoke with Congressman Greg Cassar of Texas. He represents Austin or an Austin based district. And you know, he will lose his seat. Latino member of Congress. He's going to lose his seat as a result of this, this. And there are other members of Congress of color who are going to go through the same thing. And I don't see how John Roberts can live with himself. I don't see how he can live with himself. If you take away the Voting Rights act, if you strike down these very critical civil rights laws of the 1960s, of course, this is what everybody predicted was going to happen. And now it's starting to happen. They will say it's political redistricting, but they're taking power away from people of color.
- [83:31]
D
But, Jim, this is the plan. So think about what Peter Thiel wrote years ago about how democracy and capitalism couldn't coexist after the 1920s when women and people of color got the vote. There's two ways to think about the way government should work in the United States of America. And one is that we are all created equal and we have a right to have a say in our government, to be treated equally before the law and have equal access to resources like health care and education and the raw materials we need to have jobs and things like that. And then there's another way to think about it. And that's when you think that there are some people who are better than others and have the right to rule. And if you believe that, then you believe that the kind of democracy I just described, the democracy that is laid out in the Declaration, Declaration of Independence, is ruining that system. It's poisoning that system and you need to get rid of it in order to make sure those wealthy, educated, just better people would be able to rule. And this is where we are now in this moment with Donald Trump. Remember, he's going to have the best people running his administration. And if you listen carefully, you will notice that there is a very strong overlap between that argument I just made and of course, the enslavers of the pre Civil War years, but also with fascism, because if some people are better than others, by definition, one person's gonna be better than all the rest, and he's the one who should dictate to the rest of us. And now we've come full circle to what's happening in Washington, D.C. no, you're right.
- [85:03]
A
And I don't see how anybody could argue that Stephen Miller is the best of us. I mean, is anybody really gonna make that argument with a straight face? Any Republican or Democrat gonna make that argument with a straight face face in this country? And I. I think you're absolutely right. And, you know, it makes me. You know, it makes me want to say that what we're experiencing right now is. Is fascism. Right? In my neighborhood, there's a free book box. And on the door of the free book box is a note that says what to do if you're stopped by ice has nothing to do with the free books in the book box, but it's a little note that they. They hope that the person just casually walks by, will read. And are we at that point now, Heather, where we're having to send little coded messages of survival to one another? I don't want my home. This is my hometown. I don't want Washington, D.C. to become a police state, but I don't know how just me, myself, this one individual person right here, can stop that from happening. And I'm deadly serious about this, and I'm very passionate about this. It pisses me off to no end that this is happening to my hometown.
- [86:17]
D
Yes, I'm an annoying stickler in that there are hallmarks of the economic system of fascism that I actually don't think we're seeing in the United States right now. Not that that matters. It's just. It's a sticking point. For me, I would say authoritarianism, because in that case, instead of having this at least idea of a corporate oligarchy, you have personal rule, and that doesn't matter to you and me at all. The effect is the same. It's still a police state, but that's why I've been reluctant to use the word fascism. Are we there? 100%? We are absolutely there. We're in what political scientists like Steve Levitsky call competitive authoritarianism, where the elections will be held because the authoritarian wants the legitimacy of an election the way Vladimir Putin holds elections or the way Viktor Orban in Hungary holds elections. But they are not competitive because of the administration's control of the media and having police at the polls and so on, and fear of arrest. Now, all that being said, the game's not over yet. You and I are Sitting here talking. These are enormously unpopular positions. The American people hate them. We are not used to being told what to do by our governments. And at the same time, if you think about the rise of somebody like Hitler or even Orban, they rose. I shouldn't have put Orban there because his real issue was about immigration. But they rose at times when the economy was really terrible. Now, if you think about Trump in this administration, the economy was booming. He's the one who has destroyed it. And you hear him trying to say, no, no, the economy's really good. Well, I don't know about you. I went and bought coffee the other day at the supermarket, and you just about had a coronary. I don't know how you miss that. The prices are going up and the tariffs haven't really hit yet because they really only went into effect in August. So even the people who have supported Trump in the past are wavering on him or against him. His numbers are very low. And we still have Epstein out there, which is what brought the QAnon people to him. And the QAnon voters, I think, made up of about 21% of his base. I could be wrong. Somebody should check me on that.
- [88:35]
A
Pretty darn close to that. That's exactly right.
- [88:37]
D
But the way we push back is we stop believing everything he says. We stop assuming he has power. He does not. We push back in every possible way. We celebrate the victories that we have had, like the closing of the detention facility in the Everglades and the release today of Kilmar Abrego Garcia. We keep reiterating that in the United States of America, our democracy says that we, the people are running this government. It is our power. And we put pressure on our electeds again, from the town level to the state level to the federal level, to say we are not going to put up with this and recognize that it's going to take some time, and you've got to build communities. And if you need to look away, you can look away. But if we continue to hold tight to our principles and if we continue to express those through art and literature and community and pushing back on the government's overreach, will we come out of it? Yes, and with luck, we will come out of it better than we went in, because, like I say, it hasn't been working real well for the last 40 years.
- [89:44]
A
No, that's. You're absolutely right about that. And I think that, you know, Trump likes to rattle our cages, there's no question about it. But he also is a motivating force. And I get the sense that people are feeling dejected, they're feeling defeated. They have what I used to call Trump Depression. For as much as people worry about Trump Derangement Syndrome, I say Trump Depression Syndrome as a much more worrisome thing. And I think people have succumbed to it. I think people are coming out of it. And I do think that the wild card in all of this is Jeffrey Epstein. And they can put out this Ghislaine Maxwell transcript on a Friday afternoon and try to sell it on Fox News and to maga, but they just need to know. They just need to know over the DOJ and down at the White House that their own people are not buying it. When Ghislaine Maxwell tells Todd Blanche whatever, it's extraordinary that he's become the President and he always treated me in such a nice manner. Nobody believes that.
- [90:51]
D
No, that's right. And again, we had that happen to us with Bill Barr and the pre reading of the Mueller report. So we've been here before. I would say that that is a wild card. But I do think Trump's mental health is another big wild card. Because even if you're maga, like you say, even if you're a loyalist in the administration, the fact that he has command of the US military and the nuclear football and you know, he's making noises about attacking Mexico and Venezuela and the concept and he's talked about that before, but you know, that's cause for war and that's not. I mean, it's a war of choice in a really weird way. You know, you've got to be sitting there thinking it's time to think of other options to see if we can ease him out, get him to retire, get him to rebuild another building or something. Because he is, regardless of whether you like him or not, he remains the most powerful man in the world and he is bonkers. And that is something that gets me really concerned because we're all pretending he's okay and he's not. All you have to do is watch one of these interviews and you think, who wears a hat that says I'm right about everything?
- [92:09]
A
The hat was batshit crazy. And the way he talks about fixing the grasses in Washington D.C. i just, to me, I just, I challenge anybody on any bar stool in Lincoln, Nebraska to put that up on full blast on your 50 inch LCD TV and absorb him saying that and ask yourself, isn't he crazy? How can he not be cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs, as you said earlier? The other thing too, that I think is a tell. And you have to sometimes be very. This is my observation, having covered Trump up close for some time, there are tells, not just from him, but from his people. But when Pam, apparently Pam Bondi was on Fox last night and she was also talking about fixing the grass in D.C. which means that there's a fair amount of just sort of placating. Try not to disturb the wild bird. It's so funny that you mentioned that earlier about giving him projects like fixing up a ballroom or putting up gold leafing in the Oval Office and so on. I think that does indicate that what's going on behind closed doors is just the madness of King George.
- [93:24]
D
Well, and what's interesting about it is the parallels to an abusive family, because doesn't he feel like the crazy. Yes, you know, the guy who just will fly off and start causing trouble and hurting people. And so everyone's kind of tiptoeing around him and trying to give him make work and say nice things. Look, here's a nice hat that says you were right about everything. You know, let's talk about grass. And again, it is a very sad situation, you know, for every, the entire world. But it does suggest that, you know, the only way out is to take back our power and say, no, we're not gonna put up with this. And, you know, we don't care if Stephen Miller's getting all weepy about the 90 year old hippies, but we're gonna.
- [94:11]
A
Be insisting he really doesn't like those hippies.
- [94:15]
D
No, he does not. He does not. And here's a news flash, we're not all 90, you know, but good point.
- [94:22]
A
Some of us were black polos, by the way. But anyway.
- [94:24]
D
That's right, exactly. But so, you know, it's just a weird time for America, I will tell you that. One of the things that is interesting for me is I write about it every day. I read all day and I write all day. And sometimes when I write, the story turns out to be different than I thought it was. So, like this whole thing that I'm talking about now about the firing of the intelligence agents and the firing today of the, the head of the Pentagon intelligence division or whatever it's called, I'm sorry, I don't have the name in front of me and all that stuff, I did not think that was today's big story. But then when I put it in there and thought, why are we talking about Donald Trump and Putin in this photograph from Putin? And why are we firing all these people? And why is he going after, as he did in July, James Comey and John Brennan, who were the heads of the FBI and the CIA during the Russia investigation. And I thought, you know, I don't know if that's a story or not, but I do know that there's an awful lot of material on it that feels like shouldn't be there if the real story is a simple straight shot to authoritarianism.
- [95:29]
A
Yeah. And, Heather, I think what should give us a little bit of hope is that when they're firing 40% of the workforce at the Defense Intelligence Agency or the director of national intelligence or wherever, it tells you that there's still good people working in our government. And I talk about this with my friend Olivia Troy and Miles Taylor from time to time. They're absolutely convinced that there are still some good people in the bowels of the government in important places who are hearing these conversations, picking up on this stuff. I mean, we hear stories all the time privately about when people go into meetings with Cash Patel and various officials of the government. They got to turn in their phones, they're being asked to sign NDAs. This, this banana stuff is still going on in Trump 2.0. And if they're, if they're trying to eliminate these good people at these various agencies, it tells you that there are still good people there who, who can be witness to this. And for when there is an accountability moment in this country, those people can step forward. And I try to have some hope that that may still happen.
- [96:32]
D
Yeah. And the other piece of that, I think that's important. The other piece of that is once they're out, they're on the outside, and those of us who are on the outside. You know, one of the things that I look at is, again, this is a really big country, which I think matters when you think about the rise of authoritarianism, because it's really hard to stamp down on 341 million people, as opposed to Germany before World War II. You know, there's a lot of us. And if you think about the quality of the people who are standing against the Trump administration versus those who are on the inside, you know, I think that the system, the way the Republicans set it up for 40 years, enabled the takeover by this radical group of extremists, this very small group of radical extremists. But then I think about the people outside, and I think, really, you know, really, are you going to take a look at the extraordinary talent outside the government and say that it is ultimately going to be beaten by Stephen Miller? Right and that's a hard. It's. It just doesn't. It just doesn't seem to work.
- [97:35]
A
Yeah, that's right. That's right. And I finally. Heather. And we can keep going. Whatever you want to talk about, we can talk about. But the last time we spoke, you coined a term that I really. I fell in love with and I've been thinking about ever since. And that is a news community. And I sort of think that's what we're part of here on social media and independent media. And it's something that just needs to be fostered and encouraged. It was kind of depressing to me to watch the coverage around the Anchorage summit because it was treated as if it was normal. It was normalized and sanitized as if what we were watching was something that was normal when it wasn't. And then after it was over, it was. Everybody realized, oh, this was a joke. But there were plenty of us going into this who thought this is a joke. But I think having independent media and the rise of it is such a healthy thing for this democracy. And I know people are worried that this is all going down the tubes and stuff, but I do see this one thing as being a point of light.
- [98:43]
D
Oh, I agree. And it's been long overdue. But remember, we didn't have that independent news community in the first place term at all. If you think about substack, I started on substack. I started on Facebook first in September of 2019. And when I went into substack, I was one of the first people on it. They came to me because they were starting up. Now look at it and look at the literally millions of people that get their news from really good news purveyors that. That are writing in different places. And one of the things that jumps out to me about that is so many times people say to me, well, I really don't understand this stuff. I really don't care about politics. And I think you're reading Joyce White Vance, you're reading Chris Geidner. You know those are not easy reads. And you're reading Paul Krugman every day. You know, those are not easy reads. But it feels easier in part because there isn't crap there all around them that you don't care about. And if you read me and you know millions of people do, and they say, oh, well, you just make it easy. I really don't understand this stuff. And I have to laugh because if you read me, you are reading the equivalent of five 350 page books a year on history and politics. Now, how much of an expert reads 5, 350 page books on any subject at all every year? So in a way, I feel like we have not only created a news community, but we have fed this incredible hunger for real news that's out there. And we've created a community that cares about reality again, which was always the plan, right? Create a reality based community and then people will vote intelligently. Not necessarily the same way you will, that's not the point. But if they vote with a regard for what facts are and what truth is, they will vote in ways that are correct for them. And that, at the end of the day, is the goal of democracy. So it's an exciting time for all. That's also a frightening time.
- [100:46]
A
Yeah, there's no question about it. And if folks don't look too far down their nose at us video folks, video purveyors here on Substack, I would be very appreciative of that. But you know, because I, I, I do think there is just such a benefit in having these kinds of conversations. I think they're, they're just so valuable in that there's a community aspect to it. And I know maybe you occasionally look down at the messages. I look down at the messages and it's just, it warms my heart to know that people are, are so engaged and they care so much. And that tells me that we're not, we're not going down the tubes just yet. You know, Stephen Miller can call us hippies and, you know, get red in the face and, you know, whatever's happening with his hair can do what it's doing. But I started off this hour not having a whole lot of hope and now I'm ending it with some hope. So thank you.
- [101:47]
B
Well, feels good.
- [101:49]
D
And think about it now that we're not filtered by our professions or our bosses or whomever. We have developed all these relationships and friendships. So that I think shows, and I think it shows that we are part of a national community. I wish it will not be me, but I wish somebody would be watching the growth of this because there is going to be a great book to be written about how Americans recreated a national community and how they came to define America in a new way. We're not quite there yet, but we will be. And I think about, about my period, the late 19th century, when they did this to create the Progressive Era, and I realized we're in it. And I wish I had the time and the perspective to be taking notes on it, to Watch how it's going to develop, because it's going to be one hell of a story.
- [102:44]
A
Yeah, no, there's no question about it. I mean, you know, the muckrakers that we used to study of that era, and shortly after that era began, I mean, we're kind of in that new age of whatever this is of media, and it's just starting and it's just getting going and it feels great to be a part of and always wonderful to have these conversations and connect with you. And I just hope we can keep doing it. We ping each other. And I reached out to you and said, can we do this? And then you were asking me about the sturgeon and I was like, well, I'm more of a Chesapeake Bay guy. I like blue crab and rockfish. And we got to get to it. Made me put me in the mood for seafood. Honestly, what we need to do is get together, have some seafood.
- [103:26]
D
Well, the story behind that, for people listening, is that where I kayak, we are seeing sturgeon for the first time in a very long time. And if you've never seen a sturgeon, I urge you to go on YouTube and watch it, what it looks like when a sturgeon jumps, because that sucker's not messing around. And I was so excited. I told Jim, I'm like, you know, we could talk about sturgeons because I was out yesterday and there was a four footer that jumped right near my kayak. And it's really cool. It's really cool, but it's really spooky. I mean, it's almost as long as my kayak.
- [103:58]
A
The freaky fish that they have around here in the Potomac, they have these snakehead fish that they're freaks of nature in that they look like snakes and that they can briefly go on land and then go back in the water and survive. For folks who want to look that up, it's a weird thing. They're an invasive species and they've been telling people, please catch them and eat them. We don't care whatever size they are, just please pull them out of the Potomac River. And so I don't recommend eating stuff out of the Potomac River. But they have said, if you catch these snakehead fish, please dispose of them because they've been wreaking havoc here.
- [104:32]
D
I'll have to look them up. But there we go. Now we went full circle back to the fact that people aren't being able to keep out exotic species. So I know.
- [104:40]
A
Well, it's so true. And we've got these little bugs Too, these little red bellied beetles that are wreaking Havoc here in D.C. and they've been telling people to stomp on them. And I, you know, I'm kind of, I feel, I mean, I will kill a horsefly, I will do that because I can't have them in the house. But I do feel bad stepping on a beetle out in public. But there's telling people to kill those little buggers. So anyway, well, that's what we can.
- [105:02]
D
Start our new movement on. You know, getting rid of the invasive species. But a sturgeon is not invasive and they're really impressive.
- [105:09]
A
That's true, that's true. But if you look at these little beetles that I'm talking about here, they almost look like they have a little red MAGA hat on. But anyway, I won't expand that analogy too further, but Heather, great to see you.
- [105:23]
D
It's always a pleasure. Let's do it again soon.
- [105:24]
A
Jim, thanks for putting up with my corny dad jokes. All right, great to see you.
- [105:28]
D
Talk to you later.
- [105:29]
A
Take care. All right. The wonderful Heather Cox Richardson and I had to supersize this program, everybody. It just felt like that kind of a day. You know, the Trump people, they tried to throw down this Todd Blanche, Ghislaine Maxwell distraction at us. We're not going to fall for that crap. We obviously knew that Ghislaine Maxwell was not going to say anything incriminating about Donald Trump. And if she did say something incriminating about Donald Trump, there's no way that that information would have been put out to the public. So, of course we're not going to take the bait on that. We are going to. And I am going to be spending part of my weekend trying to reach out to, and I do have the ability to do this, to reach out to John Bolton and figure out what the hell is going on. I was texting with him just the other day to ask him about this Venezuela situation. And it is, it is, it is disturbing and very Putin like that. Donald Trump has sent off the FBI to raid the house of one of his critics. And they may say, oh, well, Trump had nothing to do with it. I think Trump himself was on TV saying, I didn't know about it. Come on, give me a break. Baloney. I think more needs to be reported on in that story. But it does tell us where we are as a country right now. I mean, to close out the week, it does tell us where we are as a country right now. That is, as we saw in Putin's Russia, where prominent critics were retaliated against, pushed out of windows, rounded up, sent off to penal colonies, and so on. We now have a prominent critic, the former national security advisor to the United States of America, John Bolton. People might not like him, might not like his politics, might not like the fact that he was part of the Bush administration and the push for the war in Iraq and so on. And people can have those concerns about John Bolton. There's no question about John Bolton is unapologetic about many of his views. But that doesn't have anything to do with what just took place this morning, the fact that the FBI under Cash Patel raided the house of a prominent Trump critic. And, you know, when you talk to people around Washington, people are in the know, people who have connections to folks who are in the administration or in the intelligence community. The concern is we're just getting started. The concern is the thinking is that Trump is just getting warmed up. And folks, that means we have to be just getting warmed up. It's time to strap in, get ready for the long haul, because this is going to be tough. Some tough sledding ahead. My thanks to Heather Cox Richardson, Mike Fanone, Larry Sabato. This is a lawn show, folks. I think this is my longest yet and we'll do it again soon. It felt like that kind of a Friday a it, Friday, as I like to call it. Thanks, everybody, for watching. Still reporting from Washington, I'm Jim Acosta. Have a good evening. Have a good night. Have a good weekend. See you next time.
- [108:41]
D
Sam.