← The Jim Acosta Show
The Jim Acosta Show
Congressman Eric Swalwell, Mallory McMorrow talks about her U.S. Senate bid, plus Molly Jong-Fast on Musk's Stunning Defeat in Wisconsin.
01:01:12
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- [00:00]
Jim Acosta
All right, welcome, everybody, to the Jim Acosta show. It is Wednesday. Trump says it's Liberation Day, and yet Trump is still president. It's also Wisconsin hangover day for Donald Trump and Elon Musk. And as you can see, joining me on the program today is Mallory McMorrow. She's a state senator in Michigan, and just this morning, she announced she is running for the US Senate in that state. Mallory, it's great to see you. Thank you for doing this. Really appreciate it.
- [00:28]
Mallory McMorrow
Thanks for having me on. And hi, everybody. I see everybody hopping on. Good to see everybody who's joining this afternoon.
- [00:33]
Jim Acosta
And this is your first substack live, correct? You've done this in other forms?
- [00:38]
Mallory McMorrow
Yeah, I've done this on Instagram, but this is my first substack, so I'm glad to be doing it with you.
- [00:42]
Jim Acosta
Well, as you were noticing a few moments ago, there are folks who are going to chime in. They're going to say stuff. There are hearts flowing up in your direction. So this is all good. But, you know, it turns out that the cheese head doesn't always fit if you wear it. For Elon Musk, Mallory, case in point. He spent $25 million on the state supreme race in Wisconsin. That's a lot of beer and brats. If he had just spent the money on beer and brats, maybe they might have done a little bit better in Wisconsin. But we don't want to give him any ideas. Susan Crawford won that race. The Wisconsin Supreme Court will retain its progressive majority. I know you're Michigan, but this was a highly important race because Elon Musk, who has just come onto the scene, basically like a Category 5 hurricane, whatever natural disaster comparison you want to make. And he's done a lot of damage to the federal government, done a lot of damage, I think, to the political discourse in this country to, I mean, elections, you know, trying to pump $25 million into race. I do want to talk about Michigan for a moment, but just your reaction to Wisconsin.
- [01:48]
Mallory McMorrow
It's incredible for Wisconsin. I have a lot of love for Ben Wickler and the Wisconsin Dems. As a Michigander, we always, we hold them very close as fellow Midwesterners, and they've done great work over there. There's an account that I follow on Instagram, a woman in Wisconsin called Motherhood For Good. And I love her visualizations. She stacked up her baby's blocks to show, like, look across the board. I don't think most people will disagree. We need to get money out of politics. But to understand the scope of, you know, comparing George Soros versus and she starts stacking block after block after block after block and then starting another row. $25 million into a state Supreme Court race on top of just, you know, blatantly violating every ethical norm and treating voters like they can be bought. You know, I'm going to come in and I'm going to give out these million dollar checks, and it's just a disgusting abuse of our democratic system. And we're really proud of Wisconsin voters today for saying, no, we can't be bought. You know, at the end of the day, this is on us.
- [02:54]
Jim Acosta
Yeah. And I mean, there were also those Florida congressional races. Those candidates did not win those seats, but they seriously carved into Trump's margin of victory that he had last November. It shows that the Democrats are energized. Is that part of the reason why you announced this morning to sort of maybe hop on that wave you were hoping and maybe counting on Wisconsin to turn out the way it did? Let's talk about that. Was there any connection there?
- [03:18]
Mallory McMorrow
There wasn't, but, you know, I. I'm a firm believer that things happen for a reason that you cannot deny the moment, the energy from Wisconsin to Cory Booker's marathon 25 hour speech on the Senate floor to our announcement this morning. And it feels like the tide is turning. And I've been feeling this on the ground in Michigan now for many weeks, where we've seen people show up at town halls and coffee hours in droves, not only asking what I can do, but what they can do. They're putting their hand up and they're saying, put me in, coach. And that is the energy that we need right now. It's not just enough for Donald Trump and Elon Musk to be stepping in it. This is our operation Opportunity to step into this void and present a new vision for voters to take us out of this mess.
- [04:04]
Jim Acosta
And you're the majority whip in the state Senate in Michigan. You went viral. I remember talking to you back on my old Show Back in 2022, when you made that stand for LGBTQ rights. Everybody was very proud of you when you did that. You really sort of came onto the scene in the Democratic Party at that point. And one of the things that you've been talking about lately is sort of, maybe I'm describing it wrong. Please correct me if I'm doing that wrong, but you want to see a new generation of leadership sort of come up in the Democratic Party right now. Perhaps that's a little bit of what we saw yesterday with Cory Booker. Who knows what that's going to lead to down the road, but it seems like that's what you're driving at right now.
- [04:46]
Mallory McMorrow
That's right. And to be very clear, this is not about one person. It's not even about one vote. In the. The cr, for example, I think most Michiganders probably couldn't tell you what a CR is.
- [04:58]
Jim Acosta
Yeah, but I did want to talk about that. But, yeah, we have.
- [05:00]
Mallory McMorrow
We have to recognize this is a very different moment in time than the reality that Senator Schumer came up in even President Biden. This is no longer the Republican Party. This is the MAGA party. Trump has me remade this party completely in his image that prioritizes one thing and one thing only, and it is tearing government and institutions down to the stud in their image while they support themselves. So, you know, it is frustrating to me, and I had a constituent say to me, mallory, it feels like Democrats and Republicans are sitting down to play chess and the Republicans have flipped the table over and lit the house on fire, and Democrats are still sitting at the table planning our next move. So when we hear remarks like, well, their popularity is going down and their polling numbers are declining and we'll just get them in the midterms, that's not enough for most voters, and it's not enough for me either. So it requires a new generation of leadership who has kind of come up in this moment, who understands what we're dealing with and who knows how to respond to it.
- [06:06]
Jim Acosta
Yeah, I like the chess analogy. I sometimes feel like Donald Trump is eating the chess pieces, though. But, I mean, maybe Elon Musk is using them in a slingshot. I don't know. But. And in this case, it just boomeranged in his face. But let's talk about. We mentioned the cr, and I get it. Michiganders, you know, I'm from Virginia, a lot of folks, Northern Virginia, they probably know what a CR is, but a lot of Virginians probably don't know what a CR is. But at the same time, I know you had some. Some misgivings or you weren't exactly on board with the way Chuck Schumer handled that. Can you talk about that?
- [06:40]
Mallory McMorrow
Yeah. Look, in Michigan, our Senate delegation split on the vote where Senator Gary Peters voted in favor of the continuing resolution and Senator Lissa Slotkin, our senator, voted against. And I think you could maybe justify both sides. When I heard Senator Schumer explaining that if Donald Trump's ultimate goal is to shut down the government, then if you're giving him that it makes it very hard to bring departments back online. However, what Senator Slotkin said was that she had asked for guarantees that Elon Musk and Doge would not continue to fire people at will, and that if they appropriated dollars, that there would be a guarantee that those dollars would be used as intended by the Congress. And because she did not get those guarantees in the negotiation, she voted no. So that I think is, is where I likely would have fallen, because otherwise, you're just handing them the keys to the kingdom to keep doing what they're doing with no recourse until September. And even if voting in favor of the Continuum Resolution was the right move, you got to get out there ahead of that. You got to talk to people. You got to and treat them with respect. People are plugged in and they're paying attention and they want to hear why you're making the decisions that you're making and what you are going to do to protect them.
- [08:03]
Jim Acosta
And being in Michigan, I know that these tariffs that Trump is about to announce, he's about to announce them while we're on, and we'll get some of the details, I suppose, as they come out. But you know, with him, when he does these tariffs, that's sort of a moving target. You know, one day he'll announce tariffs and then we'll find out a day or two later there are carve outs and of course, he has people from various countries and companies and so on going to them, in some cases on bended knee looking for relief in some of the cases with those tariffs. And I'm going to talk about this with Eric Swalwell, Molly, John Faslow, later in the program. But Senator, in your view, what's the special sauce here? What's the right formula? I know some folks in Michigan agree with some level of tariffs when it comes to certain areas, perhaps in the automotive industry to protect jobs. What do you think?
- [08:53]
Mallory McMorrow
Yeah, you know, right now the, the approach is chaotic. That is the only way to describe it. And in a place like Michigan that is so heavily based in the automotive industry, we have been hurt by trade policy that has encouraged jobs in manufacturing to move out of the country. So there is a world in which if there are targeted, narrow tariffs that help bring some of those jobs back into Michigan, maybe there's a plant that brings on a third or fourth shift that has been idle. That would be a good thing. But when you PA it with, you know, this isn't targeted narrow tariffs. This is tariffs on everyone and on everything, it seems like. And I'M hearing from voters who cannot comprehend why we would be at a trade war with Canada. I mean, you cross the border between Detroit and Canada, that that's just a city next door that is not, you know, it is mind boggling to people. So people are going to feel this in their pockets and in their budgets in a really big negative way. And it feels like the approach from the Trump administration is stealing from Elon Musk. We're going to bring in a tech approach of move fast and break things. They're going to break a lot of things in the process. And that's not the thoughtful approach that we need to bring jobs back without hurting people's budgets.
- [10:09]
Jim Acosta
Well, and there are the unintended consequences and intended consequences. I mean, the New York Times was reporting just today that now there's just a great deal of uncertainty over at the Federal Reserve and what the chairman Jay Powell is going to do about interest rates. And there was a lot of hope at the beginning of the Trump administration because of the trajectory at the end of the Biden administration that maybe inflation was getting to a point where interest rates could start coming down, people could start buying houses again. And now that's just like, poof, that's sort of gone. And you've got Goldman Sachs and other places saying, not a bad, I mean, decent chance that we will have a recession. That is, I mean, that tells you what all of this is caused. Just in the short term, who knows what happens six months to a year from now.
- [10:51]
Mallory McMorrow
That's right. You know, I've talked to a lot of people who said they've been waiting to buy a house. And the longer they wait, you know, housing prices have doubled from 2019 even to now. So they were really hoping and waiting for those mortgage rates to come down. And now they look at it like that is just a pipe dream that you cannot even think about anymore. And that's devastating for people who thought we were almost there.
- [11:16]
Jim Acosta
Yeah. Well, and for folks I just saw somebody saying Trump is on tv. I'm turning it off. Welcome to the Jim Acosta Show. And we have State Senator Mallory McMurray with me. She's running for the U.S. senate. And I do want to end our discussion talking about Cory Booker, because what. And we can talk about anything else if you want in the time that we have left. I don't want to hold you up. I know you've been doing a lot of hits, but I thought, you know, there might be folks out there who will say, well, how important is a senator's speech. Yes, he went 25 hours. Yes, he broke the record. Yes, he broke Strom Thurmond's record. And there's a lot of significance there. And that's all well and good, but, you know, gosh, it's a senator. They're not in the majority. But there was something inspiring about it. And it just, it felt good to see somebody say, you know what? I'm just going to throw myself on the line here. I'm just going to put myself out there in a dramatic way because I'm just so pissed off. I'm so upset about what I'm seeing right now.
- [12:14]
Mallory McMorrow
I think that's exactly right. You know, this is a moment when people are looking for their leaders to do something, anything. And I think most people acknowledge, yes, we know that Democrats are not in the majority in the Senate. We know the Democrats are not in the majority in the Congress. But just coming to a podium to tell people we can't do anything because we're in the minority is not enough. Because if you are one of the most powerful people in the country and you can't do anything, then the average person sitting at home watching feels like, well, I can't do anything either. So I really appreciated Cory Booker, you know, took to his social account. He pre recorded a video where he explained why he was about to take to the floor. He said, I have heard loud and clear from my residents who want me to do more, and if this inspires any of you to stand up and use your voice, then that's worth doing. There's also something just absolutely poetic about how long change takes, that he was very intentional about beating Strom Thurman's record.
- [13:16]
Jim Acosta
Absolutely.
- [13:17]
Mallory McMorrow
About the reason he is there as a senator is because of civil rights and against this man who stood on the Senate floor to prevent people like him from having rights. So I loved that he came to the floor not just yammering for 25 hours. It was, you know, 1600 pages of thoughtful, prepared information about the Constitution, about what Donald Trump was doing to strip the Constitution with constituent phone calls and emails and stories. He was uplifting people's voices and he giving voice to the voiceless. And I think that's just so powerful in a moment where people want to know that their voice matters. Seeing somebody who does have a position of power, using it in a way that will inspire more people to stand up.
- [14:05]
Molly Jong-Fast
Yeah.
- [14:05]
Jim Acosta
And Mallory, I mean, my sense about you and you feel free to just throw something at me and say, jim, you're way off here. And it has something to do with what Cory Booker was doing yesterday. There was sort of an optimism and a hopefulness to his speech. And I don't want to call it Pollyannish or naivete. I don't mean it like that, but just sort of like almost like kind of back to a Jimmy Stewart sort of time of innocence. I don't know. And I know that that time is all Hollywood made up poppycock. But I get the sense, listening to you, Mallory, and following your career over the years, that I think you're a millennial. You would describe yourself as a millennial. You are not sort of like depressed, down in the dumps, defeated, feeling defeated about the world. And you are an optimistic person. And in addition to needing younger people getting into the process, we need optimistic people. I call myself a foolish optimist. Are you kind of also in that category?
- [15:02]
Molly Jong-Fast
Yeah.
- [15:03]
Jim Acosta
Give us that sense of who you are. Yeah, yeah.
- [15:05]
Mallory McMorrow
You know, Senator Booker said something in his 25 hour marathon speech yesterday. He said, if America hasn't made you cry, you don't love it enough. And I thought that was so beautiful. You know, to recognize there is a lot of ugliness. There's a lot of reason to look at, whether it's the results of the 2024 election or the fact that people are still to this day being targeted and demonized and marginalized, that can make you give up. But in our country, you don't give up. And that it is possible to make change. And the beautiful thing about living in this country and in a democracy is it is a government of the people, by the people and for the people. And that can be really hard to accept, but it's true. You know, I'm somebody. In the wake of the 2016 election, I googled how to run for office. So anybody watching right now who is. Doesn't know where to start, start anywhere, literally.
- [16:00]
Jim Acosta
Did you get an answer when you, when you Googled that? I did.
- [16:02]
Mallory McMorrow
I found an organization called Emerge America, which recruits and trains Democratic women to run for office. And I put in an application and I went through a six month training program and I started to find my footing and my voice and learned how powerful it was. And, you know, I ran for office in 2018 against a Republican incumbent. Nobody thought we had a chance and we flipped a district and then I became a state senator. And now, you know, on this day, we are running for US Senate and trying to bring that optimism and that hope, even as dark as things are to, to Michigan and to the rest of the country, at a time when we need it. So I would encourage anybody watching. Learn more. It's at McMarrow for Michigan dot com. Come join us. This is a massive battleground state and a journey ahead, but this is something I hope people want to be part of with me.
- [16:52]
Jim Acosta
Excellent. Well, Mallory, thank you very much. Very well said. I won't make you talk for 24, 24 hours or 25 hours, but I appreciate you coming on. And you do have a battle. I mean, it is going to be a battle to win that Senate seat. So you certainly have your work cut out for you. But thank you so much for taking time. Really appreciate it.
- [17:10]
Mallory McMorrow
Thanks, Jim. Thanks, everybody.
- [17:11]
Jim Acosta
It goes fast. All right. We'll do it again soon, hopefully. Take care. Good luck. Okay, bye. That was Mallory McMorrow, the state senator from Michigan running for the US Senate seat in Michigan. I'm trying to bring in Eric Swalwell now. Again, it's Jim touching the equipment. Who knows what's going to happen? Will it work out? We just hope it will work out. Adding Eric Swalwell, the congressman from California, very fiery, loves to lock horns with maga. That's why I enjoy talking to him as much as possible. Been trying to get him on the program for some time now. And we'll let the substack machine do its work. The wheels are turning inside the substack machine, but apparently right now, Donald Trump is announcing his tariff plan. And you might be tempted to say, oh, I should go watch that on TV right now. But you know, he's just going to change his plan within the next 24 to 48 hours. And there's Eric Swalwer right there. Good to see you, Congressman. Thanks for coming on.
- [18:06]
Eric Swalwell
Hey, Jim, what's happening?
- [18:07]
Jim Acosta
We made this work.
- [18:08]
Eric Swalwell
Yes. That's my first one.
- [18:10]
Jim Acosta
Is this your first one? That's terrific. Excellent.
- [18:13]
Eric Swalwell
I told my team, I said, let's do it on the stack. And they said, no one calls it the stack, sir. Stop calling it the stack.
- [18:19]
Jim Acosta
So we try to sound cool and it doesn't work. It's okay. I know. But it's good to see you, as always. You're a fighter. I always enjoy talking to the fighters. Mallory McMurray was just on. She's got a fight ahead of her. And Trump is doing this tariff announcement right now. I hate to start there, but it's sort of in the news. My sense of it is, is that whatever he says right, it's not even worth watching. Whatever he says right now, he's going to change. It's like, it's like nailing paint to a wall. It just ain't going to happen. But what do you think about all the, I mean, there's a lot. It's creating so much economic uncertainty. You've got Goldman Sachs saying we got maybe a third of a chance of going into a recession. He doesn't seem to know what he's doing. It's just sort of because he's been talking about it for 20 years, he wants to do it.
- [19:07]
Eric Swalwell
I was just meeting with actually a distributor of healthcare products who told me, look, we're getting ready for what this is. But it doesn't help help anybody who's in the hospital, doesn't help, you know, any patient, doesn't help anyone who's going to go to the pharmacy. Because so much of what goes into keeping us healthy and well is made overseas. And the way I see it, Jim, of course I'd love to make as much as we can in America. In fact, that's what the CHIPS act that President Biden had invested in in the IRA and the Infrastructure and Jobs act, that's what that was driving towards. But this, I mean, this is a Trump tax where we're all going to pay. And the other part of it is, as you pointed out, it's just chaotic because, and it's disorienting, it's dizzying. And you know, American businesses are trying to make long term, especially small and medium sized businesses who don't have big law firms and big compliance departments. They have to price in, you know, these tariffs and make decisions. And then, you know, he's just so schizophrenic about it that, that it's really hard to do well.
- [20:14]
Jim Acosta
But he wants to change the subject. He doesn't want to talk about the Wisconsin Supreme Court race. Elon Musk went up there, spent $25 million, put a cheese head on. As I said earlier in the program, you could put it, you know, if the cheesehead fits. It doesn't, you shouldn't always wear it. But, you know, he, what's interesting about this is that, you know, Elon Musk bought his way into the White house. He spent $290 million during that campaign and it appears to be failing. SPECTAC spoke with a longtime Trump advisor just a little while ago who basically said Musk has reached his sell by date. Do you expect that we won't be seeing much of him very much longer when it comes to working in the Trump administration? What do you think?
- [20:58]
Eric Swalwell
We're feeling the effects of the Long tail on what Doge has done to retirement security, healthcare security, firing FAA employees, you know, bird flu monitors. As egg prices go up. I think Americans are awakening to just how much this is impacting them, and they're not going away. And in fact, this day of action this weekend in communities across America, they're only going to be louder about how protected they want to be. And so Trump, if anything, he understands and gets public sentiment, and he's starting to see how unpopular Elon Musk is. What was encouraging, though, about Wisconsin was the voters there made a clear statement that democracy is not for sale. You know, whatever you think you did in that last election with nearly $300 million, that we're not going to be bought. And again, it may have been a, you know, a fool me once endeavor, you know, that. That we were not, you know, so aware of how corrosive it is to our democracy for somebody to spend that much money. But it was diminishing returns for him in Wisconsin. But, Jim, the problem with that, when you have someone like Elon Musk who's willing to spend so much money, and then you have Donald Trump who's willing to issue executive orders that make it hard to vote and get to the ballot box, it creates among my colleagues this invincibility complex where you're not seeing accountability by Republicans in Congress because they think, well, Donald Trump, I'm not going to lose my job because of what he's doing, because, one, he's going to make it harder for people to vote me out with what he's doing with his executive orders on elections. And then, even if that doesn't work, Elon Musk is going to backstop any threat to me by just investing millions of dollars in my race. And so, so they just figure, why would I speak up if I've got these two insurance policies? And that is very dangerous for the country to have that mindset in the Congress.
- [23:10]
Jim Acosta
Well, and you're absolutely right about the effect Doge has had. And one of the scary things is, and I've heard this from a number of Democrats in recent days, they've worried that he's going to do so much damage to the federal government, to places like hhs, to places like, like nih, the cdc, that it's going to be hard to put things back together again. And it may not be permanent damage, but it'll be sustained damage, and it will be difficult to dig our way out of. God forbid we have a pandemic or something like that.
- [23:43]
Eric Swalwell
I spoke with the father of a little girl from my district a couple weeks ago who told me that his seven year old daughter for most of her life had suffered through 40 seizures a day. And that just last year they were able to get into an NIH funded clinical trial and it brought it down to one seizure a day. And he said, like, her life is different, like she can enjoy school in a way that she had not before. He said our lives as parents was different, like we could, you know, actually have careers and, and a social life. And then because of the Doge cuts, he said that that funding was put at risk and, and her treatment, you know, was taken away. And so she's back to 40 seizures a day. And that's the consequence of, you know, these cuts. It's, it's little girls who, you know, are going to suffer because, you know, their health care is just not going to be there. And it's only going to get worse if they take from Medicaid to give to, you know, billionaire tax cuts, which is coming in the next couple weeks.
- [24:47]
Jim Acosta
Yeah, I mean, the Republicans are going to try to, you know, figure out a way to get these Trump tax cuts extended and they want to do it on the back of cutting Medicaid, slashing Medicaid to the extent that you could have rural hospitals that are deeply affected by. I've talked about this on my show numerous times. People don't realize that Medicaid helps prop up a lot of hospitals and a lot of far flung places. And you know, it sort of reminds me of the terrorists sort of maga doing it to themselves. You know, has anybody been to a small town where basically the only place to shop is a Walmart? Most of that stuff comes from China. What do you think's gonna happen to all those prices? They're gonna go up. And so I guess, Eric, Congressman, one of the things I wanted to ask you. Please, I know, I know that's a little. But one of the things, how do you communicate? How do you penetrate through the information bubble that people are in to get that message across? I'm trying to do it here. You know, I let out an occasional F bomb and stuff like that here. I say stuff that pisses off Fox because I hope they put it on Fox. And I want to try to penetrate those. How do you do it? How do we get through? Because maybe they just have to live through it and understand it.
- [25:59]
Eric Swalwell
So I have a couple rules for myself and if anyone asks for advice that I'll give to others, which is in messaging, tell me a Story or bore me. If we're not rooting our message into a story, we're going to lose people because we vote for people, not policies. And in every religion, every political party, every leader, their ascent is rooted in a story. And so we need to be better storytellers. Another rule that I tell folks is always beyond meaning. And you're doing this, you know, with Substack. And by the way, I'm so just proud, as someone who knows you, that.
- [26:38]
Jim Acosta
Oh, thank you.
- [26:39]
Eric Swalwell
You are muscling through what, you know, many journalists are not able to do right now in this new era. But you all, you are always on now with Substack, and you're going to places that, you know, vertical media were not able to reach. And if you go back, I think, to, you know, the 2024 election, you know, with Kamala Harris, one of the biggest critiques that anyone made of her was when she was asked on the View, what would she do differently? Yeah, yeah, Jim, we made. We made as candidates, we all make mistakes. And she ran an almost pitch perfect campaign, but it wouldn't be for a couple more days before she was in another interview. And what I learned from that experience, the difference with Donald Trump was he would make five mistakes an hour.
- [27:30]
Mallory McMorrow
Right.
- [27:30]
Eric Swalwell
I mean, he fucks up all the time, but he's doing it right now. So, yeah, so he's always on. And by always being on, you have, I think, more control to tell the story and define your priorities before they're defined against you. And so I think we have to be better at that. I'll give you an example of something I'm doing just kind of going outside my comfort zone. A Pew Research report showed that after the 2024 election that 68% of Americans who voted identify as Christian in one way or another. And I told my staff after that report, I said, why don't you find the top 20 Christian podcasts and start booking me on those podcasts? And I'm a Christian, but I just hate that my faith, or just my party is defined by Republicans as it relates to faith in that I'm not in the arena talking about it myself. And so every week I've been doing a Christian podcast. So going to a space that Democrats typically aren't comfortable going to. Many of us who are, you know, Christian, we just don't wear it on our political sleeve, I think, because we're. We don't like how Republicans use it, you know, as a means to power. But I'm not going to be defined by that. Anymore. So I think that's one example of what we can do, you know, to go to more places, be in more spaces, you know, to get, you know, our values out there.
- [28:55]
Jim Acosta
Well, and I, you know, you mentioned Christianity. I, you know, I am also a Christian. And to me, one of the things that steams my shorts about the way, you know, in the GOP on the far right, they cast aspersions on Democrats and any. And folks in the media as if we're godless. You know, people. I mean, okay, America has become a country, it seems, Congressman, where it's okay now to disappear people. That appears to be what's happening in the Trump. How is that Christian? The case, Kilmar, Abrego, Garcia, go.
- [29:30]
Eric Swalwell
Yeah. How does that mesh with the story of the weary traveler? Right.
- [29:33]
Jim Acosta
Yeah.
- [29:34]
Eric Swalwell
And the lesson of the Good Samaritan? It doesn't, Jim. And we can't be okay with it. And it's not just that they're disappearing. You know, these individuals who have a right to be here, they're just lying about it. I mean, J.D. vance's tweet yesterday. Oh, my God, I think John from Pod Save America, you know, saying that this individual is a convict is just not true. But they're just so willing to lie about it. And that's the same thing we saw with Signal Gate.
- [30:05]
Jim Acosta
Right.
- [30:05]
Eric Swalwell
Like, they're willing to gaslight us and then just, just outright just continue to gaslight us. You know, they made this, you know, reckless mistake, and then when they were called on it, they just lied through it.
- [30:21]
Jim Acosta
Yeah. The AP reports that his young autistic son has sought comfort in the sun scent of his father's missing clothes. This is what the AP reports his wife says, although he cannot speak, this is talking about their son. He shows me how much he missed Kilmar. He has been finding Kilmar's work shirts and smelling them to smell Kilmar's familiar scent. He has been crying and acting out more than usual. I mean, this is Godless. This is not Christian. This is not Christianity.
- [30:50]
Eric Swalwell
There's no act of faith in doing something like this. And by the way, Jim, if you do believe that this person is a member of a gang, prove it. Show it like we're a country of rules and due process. And again, to just, you know, disappear somebody and then to admit, you know, well, we're made. We made a mistake, but we're not going to do anything about it also. Just unacceptable.
- [31:20]
Jim Acosta
Unreal. And I don't want to hold you up. I'll let you Go and say, I did want to ask you very quickly, I saw a video that you, you made mocking the idea that Trump would run for a third term. And you're basically like, good luck with that. You know, things aren't going so well right now. You don't sound worried about that or what.
- [31:38]
Eric Swalwell
Well, as I said, it's not as if he's knocking it out of the park in this second term. I mean, it's a Trump slump, shit show disaster. So nobody right now is asking, you know, when you're sitting at 40ish percent approval rating, I mean, nobody's asking you for a third term. But what I think is interesting, we had a hearing yesterday in the Judiciary Committee and this just shows that public sentiment is working against him. And so to your viewers and your followers, I just say this, stay in it. Do not give up. It can seem crushing the era that we're in, but public sentiment is working. And I want to give you a couple examples. Yesterday in the Judiciary Committee, there was a hearing on essentially impeaching judges. Cuz Trump has been going after these judges who are ruling against him, even if they're, you know, Republican appointed judges or a Trump appointed judge. This hearing was set a couple weeks ago. In the hearing, only one Republican, and it's the one who introduced the articles of impeachment, you know, to raise money, even suggested we should be impeaching judges. No one else wanted to touch the hot stove. And Newt Gingrich, who was their witness, said, I don't think we should be impeaching judges. So I think we have created a hot stove on this issue that they don't want to touch. And so that just shows me we have to make Trump's desires, like what he wants to do to our democracy, so undesirable, so unpalatable, so undemocratic that they don't touch it. It's the same thing with the tax cuts, you know, for the billionaires. They're now talking about maybe raising, you know, taxes on the wealthiest American. They're not doing that because it's the right thing. It's because we are speaking up. And so I think, Jim, our small victories will lead to big victories, small victories that we get fighting inside the Congress, whether it was like that on the Judiciary Committee yesterday or Cory Booker in 25 hours on the Senate floor. Small victories in Wisconsin, as we had last evening. Let's get some bigger victories in Virginia and New Jersey and the governor's races later this year. And then if we have the electoral infrastructure by going to the courts and having those democratic states max out democracy, we can win the midterms next November and cut our time in hell in half.
- [33:54]
Jim Acosta
Well, we'll see how that all plays out. I mean, it is a. I think it's a very plausible scenario. And I always enjoy talking with you, Eric. It's great to see you. Same here, too. And I feel like we just got going here at the end, but let's keep doing it. Let's get you on back again as soon as possible. But great to talk to you. You.
- [34:12]
Eric Swalwell
You too. All right.
- [34:13]
Jim Acosta
All right. Congressman Eric Swalwa, thanks so much. Really appreciate it. I'm going to add in Molly John fast because we've got a lot to talk about with Molly Junk fast. There is so much happening on this Wednesday afternoon. We had Mallory McMorrow on earlier. She's launched her race for the Senate. Eric Swallow came on. Just terrific in terms of, you know, I don't know if there's a theme here today, but there's been some optimism, I think expressed by both Mallory McMurrow and Eric Swalwell. And so let's just try to keep this going here. We're waiting for Molly to come in to the substack machine. The wheels of the substack machine, they churn slowly, but they churn towards good tv, I hope. I don't know, I'm just making it up as I go along here, but apparently Trump is announcing these tariffs right now as we wait for Molly to come in. He's apparently unveiled a 10 tariff on all U. S. Trading partners with war to come, he says, for the worst offenders. That is just coming in now from NBC News and the tariff package, obviously. I mean, one of the things that folks should be keeping a lookout for is I'm just going to tell Molly looking for you now. Hopefully she's coming. And there she is. She. I did not even need to text you. That's okay. That's okay.
- [35:44]
Molly Jong-Fast
Well, I saw. I. You were on something. You were on a different one. So I was listening to Trump give.
- [35:50]
Jim Acosta
Oh, no, you did not. And what can you report from. From the scene of your apartment?
- [35:58]
Molly Jong-Fast
Of your home? Yes. From my weird angle on my phone.
- [36:03]
Jim Acosta
No, no, you're not.
- [36:04]
Molly Jong-Fast
So I was watching this Trump tariff speech on C Span. And you know what's so interesting about him is he just seems so diminished. Right. So when he talks.
- [36:20]
Jim Acosta
Yes, yes.
- [36:21]
Molly Jong-Fast
He seems exhausted.
- [36:23]
Jim Acosta
What's going on with that? I brought this up the other day with. I can't remember who I brought it up with. I swear that that is the case in a very, you know, anytime Joe Biden slurred or stumbled or got a name, fox be 12 hours of nothing but that kind of coverage. And Trump just seems like he's out of it.
- [36:40]
Molly Jong-Fast
He just. And he's just not. He's low energy. I mean, what's interesting is I started reading this book by John Allen and Annie. Not Annie Carney, Amy Parnes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Parnes. About how, you know, Biden not being up to the job. Okay, sir. I mean, that's just him. Yeah, exactly. But when you. But the thing is, with Trump, like, it is such. I mean, it was. I mean, look, Biden was not the Biden he had been four years ago, but Trump is not the Trump he was eight years ago.
- [37:15]
Jim Acosta
I mean, that's the thing. You can't be on Fox six months ago and complain about Joe Biden. You know, he's lost a step or, you know, look at him fall on his bicycle or he's doing this and then six months later pretend like there's nothing happening with Donald Trump. And when he's down at Mar a Lago, he's taking pictures. Who was it with? Tom Cotton the other day? And the makeup is just like I've been describing it as. When I look at my shoes that I'm going to buy, I can pick British tan, black. It's British. I think it's British tan. I think that's the shade.
- [37:49]
Molly Jong-Fast
That's the tan.
- [37:50]
Jim Acosta
Yes, I think that's what it is.
- [37:53]
Molly Jong-Fast
Yeah. I mean, no, the guy. I mean, he clearly thinks, and I mean, there's reporting that he leaves when he gets makeup done. He just leaves while they're working on it because he has such a short attention span. I mean, the thing that's. I feel like if we're gonna talk about a top line here, it's that tariffs are wildly inflationary. We are in a period of real inflation where we're trying to get out of it. There is a real likely scenario. And I actually asked Andrew Ross Sorkin about this today on Morning Joe, which is like, we're set up for a stagflation situation. I mean, we are just sleepwalking into stagflation, which is what happens with stagflation means that you go into a recession, but because you still have inflation, things are more expensive. So in a normal recession, things would be cheaper, but when you are in stagflation, you have inflation. Right. And what I also think is interesting about Trump right now, when he's giving this speech is he cannot stop defining the word reciprocal.
- [39:07]
Jim Acosta
Why is he mad at these other countries? Is it sort of like New York high society? He's just working through his. He's just pissed off at certain people. He's working through his grudges. He was pissed off at some. Some people in New York, so he's got to go after them.
- [39:22]
Eric Swalwell
He's.
- [39:22]
Jim Acosta
Then he's pissed off at the lawyers in D.C. so. And now he's pissed off at Emmanuel Macron. I mean, you know Emmanuel Macron. Didn't he invite him to Notre Dame and all this shit? Like, give me a break. What the hell?
- [39:32]
Molly Jong-Fast
Deborah Messing is going to end up in Gitmo. Like, that's where this is going.
- [39:38]
Jim Acosta
No, I love her.
- [39:40]
Molly Jong-Fast
No, but he loves her, too. And she never would go out with him, remember this whole story. So she's ending. She's gonna be in one of those prisons with the guys and the many with the shaved heads. No, I'm just kidding. Debra Messing. You're safe. Don't worry.
- [39:56]
Jim Acosta
We will protect Debra Messing at all.
- [39:57]
Molly Jong-Fast
Costs as we protect a national treasure, Deborah Messing. But, I mean, he does. He gets stuck on these people. And because it's a cult and not a real administration, they just let him do whatever you want.
- [40:10]
Jim Acosta
And I didn't want to get too. Too caught up in the tariff thing, but, like, all the bros out there who voted for him in the last election, I don't know if you heard this, but on CNBC, they're reporting that the administration will implement a 25% tariff on all imported canned beers. That's expected to hit Constellation brands and beers like Corona and Modelo. Now, Corona usually comes in a bottle, comes with a lime, thank you very much. But Modelo, a lot of these frat bros, they like those cans of Modelo, you know, man, back to Milwaukee's Best for you.
- [40:41]
Molly Jong-Fast
That's right. You voted for him. I mean, wine, right? Is he gonna do tariffs on wine? He's gonna do. Look, the whole point here is that you've made a completely nonsensical human being president. And now we just, like, with the first admin, we have to live with the consequences. And I mean, you know, he's more unhinged. He has no. There is no Mattis, there's no Kelly, there's no one there to say he can't do this. Right? It's illegal. All you have are people sort of exploiting his worst instincts. So it's a Stephen Miller, and it's, you know, the bad people.
- [41:20]
Jim Acosta
Elon Musk, I mean. But, you know, here's the thing. I want to ask you about this, Molly, because I'm curious what your take is. He's. Apparently Trump has told his inner circle, according to Politico, including members of his cabinet, that Elon Musk will be stepping back in the coming weeks from his current role as governing partner. I talked to.
- [41:37]
Molly Jong-Fast
Can you imagine?
- [41:37]
Jim Acosta
Shadow president? Yeah.
- [41:39]
Molly Jong-Fast
Can you imagine if Obama was like, I'm bringing George Soros and you guys, you know, I know, it's so true. He's gonna be co president. He's very rich, so we have to do it.
- [41:48]
Jim Acosta
Yeah. But that cheese that is on Elon Musk said it's just melting ever so slowly.
- [41:53]
Molly Jong-Fast
Yeah.
- [41:54]
Jim Acosta
Like a bad Simpsons cartoon. But to me, this was totally predictable. And yet here we are. I mean, the Wisconsin race, they called it pretty darn early. I mean, that was not an hour. That was not close at all.
- [42:13]
Molly Jong-Fast
So, look, I am hesitant to embrace anything that Trump says.
- [42:20]
Jim Acosta
That's a good point. Yes.
- [42:22]
Molly Jong-Fast
We don't know. But clearly, eventually that's what's going to happen. Right. Because those unfavorables. Elon Musk's unfavorable favorable numbers are wild. I mean, this guy's not popular. And again, I want to point out, I feel like we don't talk about this enough. There is a reason that very, very rich people have done philanthropy. It's not because they're such good people, though some of them are. It's mostly because they know that being very, very rich makes them somewhat unpopular. And so doing things like giving money to poor kids is a way to sort of, you know, mitigate some of that. So what, you have Elon Musk, who is like, like, I'm just gonna take stuff away from poor kids. Like, I'm gonna try that, you know, cancer research. I'm not gonna give all this money to do a hospital. I'm gonna take all this money away from hospitals. And like, that has never worked throughout history. That play has never made people like you.
- [43:19]
Jim Acosta
It doesn't work. It does not work. I mean, and Eric Swalwell was just telling this awful story about this man who came up to him and said that his daughter has 40 seizures. Seizures a day. But because of this NIH program, it's down to one seizure a day. And now that program may be affected by these funding.
- [43:34]
Molly Jong-Fast
I mean, this is like, everything's going to be affected. Everything. Childhood cancer. I mean, this is the joke. So during Trump's. It's Not State of the Union because it was only two months into it, whatever it is, joint session, right where he gave that speech and he had this kid who had brain cancer stand up. And there was the whole thing. Why won't Democrats stand for kids with cancer? Okay, that's what it's about, kids with cancer. Meanwhile, Elon Musk cutting funding for kids with cancer. Like period, paragraph. And it's funny cuz it's like my one interaction with Elon Musk was I tweeted, why is the richest guy in the world cutting funding for cancer research? And he was like, I am not. What the fuck are you talking about? Right? Means that totally doing it, just completely doing it. NIH grants are. And you know, it's so funny because it's like one of the things with, with Elon is that he doesn't know how the federal government works. So at some point he's like learning on the fly. So he'll be like, we just cut these NIH grants because, you know, indirect grants. What does that even mean? Because the man doesn't know scientific grant writing well.
- [44:42]
Jim Acosta
And he was trying to weigh in on the Wisconsin support Supreme Court race. I don't know if you saw that soundbite or heard that soundbite. He makes these comments and he's, he's speaking in this very pedestrian way and saying, you know, well, judges should not be politicians. They're like politicians in robes and stuff. And he just sounds like some guy in a bar stool, doesn't know what the he's talking about, honestly, just does not know what he's talking about. And to me it's like, you know, why do we have to listen to this? I don't go down to SpaceX and say, you know, I guess you just light a fuse and the rocket goes up. You know what I mean? Like, I would sound like an ass if I went to SpaceX and try to talk rockets with these people. So what the hell is. Get him out of here.
- [45:22]
Molly Jong-Fast
He's bad at governing. I mean, the one thing I will say that has worked for Trump is that he's sucked up a lot of the oxygen. So Trump is probably not as unpopular as he would be. I mean, Elon is a very good fall guy.
- [45:37]
Jim Acosta
That's true, that's true. And they lie to the press today. They lie to the press today and say, well, Elon Musk's days are numbered. And then tomorrow, you know, he'll cough up another 50 million.
- [45:47]
Molly Jong-Fast
And maybe that is the like, fundamental problem. And what we saw with the CR Two weeks ago. Right. The continuing resolution to fund the government is that, well, Mike Johnson can't whip votes because he cannot do math. You know who can whip votes really well? The richest man in the world. World. Because he just goes around and it's like, you want me to fund you? I'll fund you.
- [46:08]
Jim Acosta
That's a good point. Yeah. I don't think we've completely, you know, pushed him out of our system just yet. What do you think about. I saw you weighing in on social media about these, you know, migrants who are being disappeared. These people who. These students who are being disappeared. We live in a country now where we disappear people.
- [46:31]
Molly Jong-Fast
So. Okay, so is that.
- [46:32]
Jim Acosta
Is that overwrought blanket?
- [46:36]
Molly Jong-Fast
It feels really fucking bad. And like, let me tell you, it's not overreacting when they start disappearing people that we should be overreacting through the fucking roof. Okay. Not good. And I say this.
- [46:49]
Jim Acosta
Yeah.
- [46:49]
Molly Jong-Fast
As a great. They've done it to a couple people. A tough student. There's a Columbia student where there's video of him, his wife, they come. Look, you can be a Zionist, you can believe in. You cannot agree with these people politically. I happen to be more squishy than that. But you can say that even if you don't disagree, even if you think everything they say is wrong, they should not be disappeared by the federal government. Like, no, not okay. And as the granddaughter of a communist, Howard Fast, who was jailed by his government, it does not. You know, this is not. This leads nowhere good. They're doing this grad students, because they don't have this. These grad students are on student visas, so they don't have the same rights as the rest of us. But this is a hop step and a jump to, like, I didn't like that op ed you wrote, Molly. We're. You know, we're gonna have to cut. You're gonna have to come in.
- [47:45]
Jim Acosta
You're gonna have to come with us, you know, and we need to talk to you for a few hours.
- [47:49]
Molly Jong-Fast
You know, so what I would say is this is not okay. This should not be okay. People should be screaming about this from the rooftops. They should not be allowed to take people and put them in Louisiana detention centers. The courts, by the way, none of this is legal. Right. So the courts are going to undo all of this.
- [48:09]
Jim Acosta
If the courts are weighing in and the judges are saying, you can't do this, you can't do it.
- [48:13]
Molly Jong-Fast
You can't. But, yeah, this administration is really post constitutional. As Russ Vaughan from the Heritage foundation says post constitutional. So that is why they will do things that are illegal, because they think they are beyond the Constitution. There's not going to be so much that we can do on that right now, though. We will be able to show them in the ballot box that the American people do not like post constitutionalism. And when and if Democrats get back into power, which they need to, in order for us to stay out of Gitmo, we're going to need a new plan. Right. We're going to need Democrats who do things like make post, you know, the same kind of laws, the anti corruption laws, post Nixon times a million. We're going to need litigation legislation.
- [49:07]
Jim Acosta
I've been thinking, you know, we need like another Constitutional convention in this country. I mean, I've been talking about this a little bit here and there. I think we need term limits for Supreme Court justices. I think we need maybe some clarity on this whole third term thing.
- [49:20]
Molly Jong-Fast
I mean, it's not, there's no clarity. It's not okay. You can't do a third term.
- [49:24]
Jim Acosta
You can't do it.
- [49:25]
Molly Jong-Fast
It's not going.
- [49:26]
Jim Acosta
Yeah, can we, can we put that in there? I mean, is there a way we can put in parentheses, this means you, Donald Trump? Because I do worry he's going to push this. And I think some people try. He's going to try. I think some people are wish casting and thinking, oh, you know, he's just trying to own the libs and he's trying to distract us.
- [49:43]
Molly Jong-Fast
You have to assume at every point that Donald Trump is gonna do the most craven and illegal thing possible.
- [49:50]
Jim Acosta
Yes.
- [49:50]
Molly Jong-Fast
And then you're in good shape. Right. You just assume he's gonna try to do a third term. He's gonna try to not accept the election results. He's gonna try, try, try. Fine, he'll try. But we have elected people who are going to prevent him from doing that. And that is their job. And they need to know that the American people will. And you know, I've been talking to experts in authoritarianism on my podcast, Fast Politics. Get it wherever your podcasts are, it's the best. Sorry, little plug there.
- [50:20]
Jim Acosta
We gotta work in the plug.
- [50:21]
Molly Jong-Fast
We gotta plug.
- [50:22]
Jim Acosta
We talk about your book, too. I want to talk about your book too.
- [50:24]
Molly Jong-Fast
But the book until June.
- [50:26]
Jim Acosta
Okay, we'll do it then.
- [50:27]
Molly Jong-Fast
You can download now. I'll be back for the book.
- [50:30]
Jim Acosta
We'll do the book later.
- [50:31]
Molly Jong-Fast
Yeah, okay, good. But you know, really seeing. We need. So all these experts in authoritarianism I talk to, they say things like, get out in the streets do that filibuster, for example, the filibuster that Cory Booker did yesterday, 25 hours and 18 minutes. That is really important. And there are cynical people who will say, no, it doesn't move the needle. It's not that important. No, that's wrong.
- [50:59]
Jim Acosta
Everybody was talking about it.
- [51:01]
Molly Jong-Fast
Millions of people saw it. Number one, he transmitted the very important message that none of this is normal, that none of this is okay, that Democrats will, in fact, hold power to account. I mean, this was very good. And also, he replaced a filibuster that had been an anti civil rights filibuster by one of the sort of most racist and anti civil rights senators ever, Strom Thurmond. So, of course, good for Cory Booker.
- [51:29]
Jim Acosta
Yeah, that was a good twofer. And I love the. I mean, we've had an optimistic theme today. Mallory McMorrow, I think that's the wave she's kind of riding on. Eric Swalwell is also feeling very positive. I feel like this is the most positive Molly John fastest sounded in a very long time. But I do want to end on something that is. Or get close to ending on something.
- [51:48]
Molly Jong-Fast
It's important to say, like, Jim and I are actually friends, so we have meals together. So he has really seen me at my absolute. Like, we're off. What? Yes, we're, you know, but we're really.
- [51:59]
Jim Acosta
Down in the dumps and. And not feeling so hot about things. I do. I did see a report that says that Jeff Bezos wants to buy Tik Tok or Amazon wants to buy TikTok. I don't know. Are they still the same thing? I mean, I, you know, like, that worries me. You know, this big media getting bigger and bigger and these big tech companies getting bigger and bigger doesn't end well.
- [52:22]
Molly Jong-Fast
There's so much to worry about. Jim, like, why are you.
- [52:25]
Jim Acosta
Maybe I shouldn't worry about that. I don't know. Because my son's on TikTok all the time, and I just, like. It just drives me nuts. And I don't want it to become even more addictive. Like, Amazon has figured out how to make our phones even more addictive, and so is TikTok. Putting that together freaks me out.
- [52:38]
Molly Jong-Fast
But I guess the good news is that the Chinese government is still much, much, much better at algorithms than on Amazon. So likely they're. If they sell to Amazon, they won't. You know, the whole thing is they don't want Americans getting a hold of the trend of the algorithm. So the good news is that probably, if they won't.
- [53:01]
Jim Acosta
Okay.
- [53:01]
Molly Jong-Fast
Buys it. It won't be as good.
- [53:03]
Jim Acosta
All right, well. And Zuckerberg's at the White House today. Maybe he's auditioning for Elon Musk's job. Is that what's happening there? The oligarchs, they had it good there for a while. They were all at the inauguration and they were, you know, they were doing their thing with little salutes and stuff.
- [53:20]
Molly Jong-Fast
And yes, it's called a straight armed.
- [53:23]
Jim Acosta
Hand gesture and oddly inappropriate outfits. I won't go mention any names. But the oligarchs, they're not looking. So oligarchy.
- [53:33]
Molly Jong-Fast
Yeah. Well, you know, what I think is important is that the people don't like this and they need to show. We're seeing this with the Tesla stock. People don't like this authoritarianism. They don't like it. They won't buy his cars, they won't buy your products. If you are Amazon and you want to sell more crap, you need to not embrace fascism or authoritarianism, I think is more accurate. So you guys have a lot more power than you think. And what we're seeing with these protests and people getting off Twitter and these kind of things, there is real buying power. I mean, a great example is the Rev Al Sharpton has done a bunch of different protests for these anti dei, which really means pro racism. Right? If you're anti anti racism, you're pro racism. Okay, Exactly. But it's a great example. You know, the Rev has come out against a bunch of these places and they've, you know, consumers aren't going saw a drop. I mean, there's real. The reason corporations didn't get involved in politics was because they were worried about stuff like this. Show them that they are. Show them that they're wrong. Show them that there are consequences for consorting with people who are authoritarianism.
- [54:56]
Jim Acosta
And you're absolutely right. People are able to figure out, okay, these are the companies that are keeping the dei. I'm going to use those companies. I'm going to go to those places. I mean, their car companies offering $4,000 if you trade in your Tesla. I mean, you know, it's like Jurassic Park. Nature finds a way.
- [55:16]
Molly Jong-Fast
That should be our top line. Capitalism finds a way.
- [55:19]
Jim Acosta
Capitalism finds a way. Which is, in a sad way, very sad. But, you know, maybe we're going to take the glass half full today.
- [55:26]
Molly Jong-Fast
That's right.
- [55:27]
Jim Acosta
Everybody's optimistic today. I'm just going to go with it. Molly, it's great to you. Thank you for doing it as always. And we will Plug the book later. Is that the deal?
- [55:35]
Molly Jong-Fast
We'll do that June. The book comes out in June. It's called how to lose your mother. It's a memoir about what happens when the bottom falls out. But I plan to endlessly plug it and I feel like Jim is going to have me back.
- [55:48]
Jim Acosta
Absolutely. And tell your PR person, we in no way interrupted your book rollout in any way, shape or form. We're just two friends talking about things. We pledge your podcast. And I don't want anybody getting mad. I did a book once and they're like, protect the rollout at all costs. We're not messing with that. Well, great to see you. Let's do breakfast soon or what?
- [56:07]
Molly Jong-Fast
All the things that we do, we'll be there in that last week of April.
- [56:11]
Jim Acosta
So awesome. Okay.
- [56:13]
Molly Jong-Fast
Good to see you, Molly.
- [56:14]
Jim Acosta
Take care. Thanks a lot. Bye. Well, see, I try to get Molly into a bad mood there and talk about Jeff Bezos, and she just wasn't having it because it's that kind of a day. Wednesdays are usually when we're not that optimistic, but, you know, it is. And I've been talking about this on this program, what I've been calling the great American pushback. I mention it from time to time, and some of you may have been tempted out there to say, oh, Jim, you're so pie in the sky. This airy fairy rhetoric of yours, it's just, it's. This is not. You're not living in a fairy tale, Jim. And as it turns out, there was reason to be optimistic. There's always reason to be optimistic when we believe in one another, when we believe in what we have here in this country, which is the ability to change course, the ability to push back, the ability to say, no, this far, no farther. And I think that's what we have been seeing in the last 24 hours. I think what we saw in Wisconsin was a resounding message from the voters. This far and no farther, we are going to push back on you, Elon Musk. You can spend $25 million here, you can spend $100 million in a small state Supreme Court race, it ain't gonna work. The American people still have a say. And so I do think for all the dark clouds out there, for all the gloominess out there, as Cory Booker reminded all of us in his 25 hour speech, you can make a difference just by speaking out, just by using your voice, just by getting on a soapbox and spilling out your guts, spilling out your heart for 25 hours, as Cory Booker did so eloquently. I mean, I sit here and I talk for the last five minutes of my show or whatever, and I'm thinking to myself, as any of this making sense. He went on for 25 hours with no bathroom breaks. I mean, you gotta, you gotta take your hat off to that. And, you know, something that Mallory McMorrow said earlier on in the program struck a chord with me, and that is, you know, it's okay, is basically what she was saying. To be optimistic, to feel hope, to feel like we still have the ability to change course. And I've been seeing throughout this program, I'm just going to mention it because I'm going to try to talk about it later on this week. Folks are talking about how on, on, is it Friday or Saturday? There's an April 5th getting my days Mixed up day of action across the country, and people are going to be going out there in droves. And I think you're going to see on your newscast all weekend long a lot of people coming out on Saturday saying, hands off, you know, hands off our democracy, hands off this country, and so on. And I do think what everybody is doing in each and every individual way is making a difference. So don't hold back, folks. I mean, you're just seeing proof positive in the last 24 hours that individual actions can make a difference and that getting off the sidelines can make a difference. You're just one person. Yes, you may say I'm just one person. I have one voice say that to, you know, tell that to Cory Booker. Tell that to the people of Wisconsin. You know, to me, there, there is hope. There is a reason to be optimistic. There is a reason to keep believing in one another and keep believing in this country. I, I, I try to bring a little bit of that to the, this program every day. And I know all of you bring it, too. So thank you for bringing it and keep on bringing it. But in the meantime, my thanks to Mallory McMorrow, who was gracious enough and kind enough to come on this program today as she's launching her race for the US Senate that is going to be an unbelievable battle ahead of her. My thanks to Congressman Eric Swalwell for making his maiden voyage on the Jim Acosta show, hopefully one of many more to come. And of course, National Treasurer Molly Zhang, fast. I always appreciate her coming on because, you know, you can just learn so much listening to Molly, and she just speaks in this amazing political poetry that has made me a very good friend of hers in so many different ways. I really appreciate her friendship. Always appreciate when she comes on. In the meantime, thanks everybody for watching Slight Chance. I may not be here tomorrow because I'm going to be doing a little traveling, but I'm going to try to be here on Friday. But if something pops up, I may pop up. Anyway, I'll keep you posted. But in the meantime, still reporting from Washington, I'm Jim Acosta. Have a great week, everybody. Great talking to you, and thanks for tuning in. Appreciate it. Take care. Bye.