Dem. Congressman Ritchie Torres, Legal Expert Glenn Kirschner and Michael Cohen

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Jim Acosta Show – June 30, 2025

Title: Dem. Congressman Ritchie Torres, Legal Expert Glenn Kirschner, and Michael Cohen
Host: Jim Acosta
Description: Don’t give into the lies. Don’t give into fear. Hold on to the truth. And hope.

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1. Introduction

Jim Acosta warmly welcomes listeners back to "The Jim Acosta Show," expressing his enthusiasm to engage with critical topics after a brief hiatus overseas. He immediately dives into the pressing issue of the Republican-controlled Senate’s latest reconciliation bill, which aims to extend Trump-era tax rates while proposing significant cuts to Medicaid and other essential programs.

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2. Impact of the Republican Reconciliation Bill

Guest: Democratic Congressman Ritchie Torres of New York

Congressman Ritchie Torres categorizes the reconciliation bill as a "catastrophe for the Bronx" (00:50). Representing America's poorest congressional district, he emphasizes the dire consequences of the proposed Medicaid cuts.

• Medicaid Cuts:
  Torres highlights that 67% of his district is enrolled in Medicaid. The bill’s nearly trillion-dollar cut is projected to destabilize healthcare providers nationwide, leading to the loss of health coverage for 16 million Americans (01:32).

• Economic and Social Consequences:
  He explains that healthcare is a major employer in his district and across the country. A $1 trillion reduction in Medicaid could result in mass unemployment and cripple both urban and rural healthcare systems (03:23).

• Wealth Inequality:
  Torres underscores the extreme wealth disparity, noting that the top 1% holds 12 times more wealth than the bottom 50%. He further illustrates this by stating, "The top 0.00001%, which consists of 13 families like Elon Musk, have as much wealth as the bottom 50%, which consists of 65 million Americans" (01:32).

Notable Quote:
"Republicans are cutting healthcare by a trillion dollars in order to provide tax cuts not to working people, not to the middle class, but to the top 1%." — Ritchie Torres (02:45)

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3. Clean Energy and Economic Consequences

Jim and Torres discuss the bill's adverse effects on clean energy initiatives and the broader economy.

• Impact on Clean Energy Projects:
  The bill endangers approximately 800 planned clean energy projects that would generate enough power for 27 million homes. Notably, 75% of these projects are situated in Republican districts (05:35).

• Future of Electricity Generation:
  In 2024, 90% of new electricity generation in America was from clean energy sources, with solar accounting for 60% of that. Torres warns that defunding these initiatives will not only hinder progress but also raise electricity costs by up to 30% in the hardest-hit states (04:38).

Notable Quote:
"Donald Trump is going to defund the leading sources of new electricity in America and he's restricting the supply of electricity at a time when we want to be the leaders in the AI revolution, which requires massive amounts of energy." — Ritchie Torres (04:57)

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4. Wealth Inequality and Tax Cuts

Torres delves deeper into the fiscal irresponsibility of the bill:

• Debt Accumulation:
  The Trump tax cuts of 2017 added $1.5 to $2 trillion to the national debt. The current proposals could further increase it by $3 to $5 trillion, exacerbating America's financial instability (07:44).

• Government Spending Priorities:
  Interest payments on the debt have become the largest line item in the federal budget, surpassing expenditures on Medicaid, Medicare, and military defense. Torres attributes this fiscal mismanagement to Republican policies (07:44).

Notable Quote:
"We are in a debt spiral and we are approaching World War II levels of debt accumulation not during wartime, but during peacetime. And I worry we're going to enter a debt spiral in which we're going to pay more and more for less and less, and it's largely because of Republican policies." — Ritchie Torres (19:05)

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5. Immigration Policy and ICE Raids

The conversation shifts to the bill’s immigration provisions, particularly the allocation of $80 billion for ICE raids and detention facilities.

Torres Critique:

• Cruelty and Economic Impact:
  Torres condemns the administration’s aggressive immigration tactics, likening Trump to an aspiring dictator intent on instilling fear. He emphasizes the economic contributions of immigrants, who add $96 billion in taxes without accessing corresponding benefits (37:42).

Guest Transition:
Jim brings in Legal Expert Glenn Kirschner and later Michael Cohen to further discuss immigration policies and their legal ramifications.

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6. Supreme Court and Legal Concerns

Guest: Legal Expert Glenn Kirschner

• Birthright Citizenship Case:
  Kirschner analyzes the Supreme Court’s ruling on birthright citizenship, highlighting its limitation of nationwide injunctions. This decision necessitates handling such cases through class actions, potentially undermining the principle of equal protection (20:10).

• Concerns About Judicial Independence:
  Acosta expresses worry about the Supreme Court's politicization and its conservative majority's impact on constitutional rights. Kirschner agrees, suggesting the need to expand the number of justices to balance judicial power (30:45).

Notable Quote:
"No right is safe if our Supreme Court, at least the sixth justice majority, refuses to abide by both the express terms of the Constitution and the spirit of the Constitution." — Jim Acosta (26:49)

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7. Political Dynamics and Future Outlook

Guest: Michael Cohen

• Democratic Strategy Flaws:
  Cohen criticizes the Democratic Party for failing to acknowledge Republican successes and for not effectively engaging with moderate Republicans. He stresses the importance of building a united community to counteract GOP policies (44:18).

• Immigration and Economic Policies:
  Cohen elaborates on the necessity of sensible immigration reforms, highlighting the economic benefits of immigrants and the detrimental effects of the current administration’s policies (55:13).

• App Critique:
  Discussion about a new app that alerts users to ICE agent locations, raising concerns about safety and escalating tensions (59:24).

Notable Quote:
"We have to speak up forcefully and with moral clarity against Islamophobia. We are the party for Jews and Christians and Muslims and people of every color and every creed." — Ritchie Torres (12:53)

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8. Conclusion

Jim Acosta wraps up the episode by reflecting on the critical issues discussed:

• Medicaid and Tax Cuts: The reconciliation bill's potential to devastate healthcare and exacerbate economic inequality.
• Immigration Policies: The cruelty of ICE raids and the economic necessity of immigrants.
• Supreme Court's Role: Concerns about its politicization and the need for institutional reforms.
• Political Unity: The imperative for Democrats to unite and strategize effectively against the GOP's aggressive policies.

Acosta urges listeners to consult his Substack for a more detailed analysis and emphasizes the importance of maintaining hope and resilience in the face of political challenges.

Final Notable Quote:
"The briefing room should not be propaganda sessions. They should not be Fox News talking point sessions. They should be providing reliable, accurate information to the American people." — Jim Acosta (62:10)

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Key Takeaways

• Medicaid Cuts: The Republican bill poses a severe threat to healthcare coverage, especially in impoverished districts like the Bronx.
• Wealth Inequality: Tax cuts favoring the wealthy deepen the existing economic disparities.
• Clean Energy: The bill undermines clean energy projects, hindering economic growth and environmental progress.
• Immigration Policies: Aggressive ICE raids are both cruel and economically counterproductive, given immigrants' significant contributions.
• Supreme Court Concerns: The Court's current trajectory threatens constitutional protections, necessitating structural reforms.
• Political Strategy: Democrats need to adopt a more unified and proactive approach to effectively counter Republican policies.

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Timestamp References:

• 00:50 – Introduction of Congressman Ritchie Torres.
• 01:32 – Impact of Medicaid cuts and wealth inequality.
• 02:45 – Torres on tax cuts favoring the wealthy.
• 04:38 – Clean energy generation statistics.
• 05:35 – Threat to clean energy projects.
• 07:44 – Discussion on national debt.
• 12:53 – Torres on Democratic obligations against Islamophobia.
• 15:48 – Legal aspects of birthright citizenship.
• 19:05 – Debt spiral concerns.
• 20:10 – Introduction of Glenn Kirschner.
• 26:49 – Acosta on Supreme Court's impact on rights.
• 30:45 – Need to expand Supreme Court.
• 37:42 – Economic contributions of immigrants.
• 44:18 – Michael Cohen on Democratic strategy.
• 49:01 – Community building for political change.
• 55:13 – Economic dependence on immigrant labor.
• 59:24 – Concerns about ICE alert app.

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This comprehensive summary encapsulates the multifaceted discussion on the Jim Acosta Show, providing listeners with a clear understanding of the critical issues surrounding the Republican reconciliation bill, immigration policies, legal challenges, and the broader political landscape.

Transcript

[Jim Acosta]

All right.

Welcome everybody to the Jim Acosta show on this Monday. What can I say, it's great to be back. It was hard to leave all of you over here while I was overseas, but I'm feeling rested and energized, but also jet lagged and in need of a nap. It's kind of a twisted tale, but I think there are some US Senators right now that could use a nap. Up on Capitol Hill this afternoon, the Republican controlled Senate appears to be hell bent on taking trillions of dollars of your tax dollars and handing that to the wealthy in this country in the form of extending the Trump tax rates. The plans to pay for all that by driving up the debt by $3 trillion over the next decade and by cutting critical programs like Medicaid by more than a trillion dollars. As you can see, my big guest today to talk about this is Democratic Congressman Richie Torres of New York. Congressman, great to see you.

[Richie Torres]

It's a pleasure to be here.

[Jim Acosta]

All right. It's a pleasure to have you on. Thanks so much for doing this. And your staff was telling me that your district has some of the highest enrollment numbers for Medicaid in the country, if not the highest. And so I guess first of all, how is this impact your constituents? Because it sounds like, as I was saying, the Republicans are hell bent on doing this and the numbers might move a little bit here and there, but Medicaid is due for a huge cut, just a huge cut here in the coming days.

[Richie Torres]

The Republican reconciliation bill is a catastrophe for the Bronx. So I represent the poorest congressional district in America. 67% of my district is enrolled in Medicaid.

[Jim Acosta]

Wow.

[Richie Torres]

So more than 70% of children, more than 80% of nursing home residents, more than 90% of baby deliveries are covered by Medicaid. Just about every hospital in my district is either teetering on the brink or in the red. And so a nearly trillion dollar cut to Medicaid is going to destabilize healthcare providers throughout the country in both urban and rural America. You know, 16 million Americans are projected to lose their health coverage. And Republicans are cutting healthcare by a trillion dollars in order to provide tax cuts not to working people, not to the middle class, but to the top 1%. And keep in mind, the top 1% has 12 times more wealth than the bottom 50%. In fact, wealth inequality is so extreme in America that the top 0.00001%, which consists of 13 families like Elon Musk, have as much wealth as the bottom 50%, which consists of 65 million Americans. And so the so called big beautiful bill is going to compound inequality to an extent that we've never seen before.

[Jim Acosta]

And you know, it's interesting that you say all of this. It's very important that you say all of this because some of the conversation that we've seen had over the last several months regarding this bill was, oh goodness, the MAGA supporters, the Trump supporters who don't understand that they're voting against their own self interest, they're gonna see important programs that are probably vital to their communities getting cut, things like hospitals and so on. But you were just saying a few moments ago, it sounds like your hospitals will be in jeopardy in the Bronx and in places like the Bronx, all over the country. And I mean, this is very much going to be an attack on people who live in urban areas.

[Richie Torres]

And keep in mind that what is at stake are not only lives, but livelihoods. It is often the case both in urban and in rural America that the largest employer is the healthcare provider. Right in the Bronx, it's Montefiore, which employs tens of thousands of people. Healthcare is 25% of the Bronx economy. It's 20% of the overall American economy. And so a $1 trillion cut to both Medicaid and children's healthcare is going to lead to mass unemployment in both rural and urban America. It represents a betrayal of the very working people that Donald Trump pretended to champion. And Donald Trump is exposing himself as a snake oil salesman. But again, keep in mind that the cut to Medicaid is the tip of the iceberg. Yeah, it's gonna add trillions of dollars to the debt, putting America at risk of, of entering a debt spiral. It's actually going to restrict the supply of electricity in America and raise electricity cost by 7% for American families, by 10% for American businesses, with increases as high as 30% in the hardest hit states. And keep in mind, in 2024, 90% of new electricity generation in America was clean energy.

[Jim Acosta]

Right.

[Richie Torres]

Solar was 60% clean in and of itself. Donald Trump is going to defund the leading sources of new electricity in America and he's restricting the supply of electricity at a time when we want to be the leaders in the AI revolution, which requires massive amounts of energy.

[Jim Acosta]

Yeah, there's no question about it. And it also seems as though, I mean, he's just throwing in that, I mean, not that he cared about climate change to begin with, but the country is going to be throwing in the towel to some extent in the battle against climate change for years now. All sorts of credits for electric vehicle purchases are going to be wiped out. I do, I do wonder. There are a lot of Republicans who drive electric cars. I mean, Elon Musk, I think he only sells his cars to Republicans now. I mean, those tax credits are going to get wiped out. And it was in the triple digits in D.C. and all over parts of the country this past week. The country is baking what happens to climate change.

[Richie Torres]

But actually, you know, here's the cruel irony.

[Jim Acosta]

Yeah.

[Richie Torres]

The, the, the, the districts are going to be the hardest to do are not the Democratic districts. So the Republican reconciliation bill is going to endanger about 800 planned clean energy projects that would generate enough power for 27 million homes. 75% of those projects are in Republican districts. So Republicans are sabotaging their own congressional districts, are sabotaging job creation and investment and electricity generation in their own states. In their own congressional districts.

[Jim Acosta]

Yeah. And I mean, speaking of Elon Musk, I mean, not to ask about the thing of the day, but I will just ask. I mean, he did put out a tweet earlier saying it's obvious that the insane spending of this bill, which increases the debt ceiling by record $5 trillion, that we live in a one party country, the Porky Pig Party, he calls it. Time for a new political party that actually cares about the people. I sometimes think of Elon Musk as like Eliza Doolittle, My Fair Lady. He's just sort of learning how to speak the King's English for the first time. He doesn't understand Washington works. I mean, the Republicans, by and large, as a party, they have been driving up the national debt on their own by trillions of dollars over the last couple of decades. If you take out, I suppose, what happened during the Biden administration with COVID I mean, it's Bill Clinton who balanced the budget. I mean, does Elon Musk not understand this? What was your response? Maybe you haven't seen that, but if I'm reading it to you now and you're hearing it, what's your response to that?

[Richie Torres]

You know, when I think of Elon Musk, I'm reminded even a broken clock is right twice a day. But he has no one to blame for himself. Like he's been complicit in empowering the Republican Party. But the greatest fiction in American politics is that Republicans are fiscally conservative. Most of our debt is the product of Republican policies. Republican wars, Republican recessions, Republicans tax cuts for the top 1%. Democrats have been much more fiscally responsible. All our legacy pieces of legislation, whether it's the Affordable Care act or the bipartisan infrastructure law or the Inflation Reduction Act. All of those were fully paid for.

[Jim Acosta]

Right.

[Richie Torres]

The Trump tax cuts in 2017 added 1.5 to $2 trillion to the debt. And these tax cuts could add 3 to $5 trillion to the debt. At a time when the debt has never been larger and more expensive, people don't realize, but interest payments on the debt have become the largest line item in the federal budget, second only to Social Security. America spends more on debt than we do on Medicaid or Medicare or military defense. And the reason is the Republican Party.

[Jim Acosta]

That's so true. And the other thing that I feel like does not get enough coverage in all of this is. I mean, apparently tucked into this bill is $80 billion for more ICE raids and detention facilities in this. I mean, if people have been just overwhelmed with shock and grief and watching these images of mothers and grandmothers, abuelas, you know, people getting the cinder blocks thrown into their cars and people getting ripped out of cars, you know, to be detained by ice, you know, they're going after cooks and house cleaners and landscapers. They told us they were going after criminals, that they're going after landscapers. How do you see all of this playing out? Because it just sounds like this is going to be a huge investment in more cruelty.

[Richie Torres]

Look, I see Donald Trump as an aspiring dictator, like his role models are Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, and he's intent on creating a reign of terror that's gonna drive immigrants into the shadows. His mass deportation industrial complex is wreaking havoc on American families, on American communities, even on the American economy. And his deportation machine has been so cruel that even he has had to apologize. He had to issue an apology, a mea culpa, to farmers and to the hospitality industry and to restaurants for conducting raids and arrests that have destabilized those industries. But we are a nation built on immigrants. Immigrants make invaluable contributions to the American economy. Every major economy, including ours, has a demographic crisis, but we have a solution. It's immigration. And there are whole sectors of the US Economy, whether it's health care, home care, construction, agriculture, that would collapse without the invaluable contributions of immigrants. And so an attack on immigrants is an attack on who we are as a country.

[Jim Acosta]

Yeah. And I mean, just. I think it's tomorrow he's going to be paying a visit to this alligator Alcatraz, this monstrosity they want to build down in Florida. I guess Ron Desantis is looking to be relevant Again. And he's going to give Trump an Alcatraz that is, I guess, allegedly surrounded by alligators. I mean, it sounds medieval, and I guess that's the point. They want to get medieval on migrants in this country. What do you think about that? I mean, to me, I guess this is par for the course with what Donald Trump wants to do to this country.

[Richie Torres]

I would call Donald Trump a sociopath, but that might be an insult to sociopathy. He seems like a much worse figure, but he's reminding us that medieval cruelty is not a bug, but a feature of Donald Trump and the MAGA movement. Cruelty is the point. I mean, why else would you deport people to a maximum security prison in El Salvador where they will likely be tortured? It's all about cruelty.

[Jim Acosta]

Yeah. And the other thing that has been happening in New York, I'm sure you've been commenting on this. I'll get your comment on it. The mayoral election. Zoran Mamdani looks like he's on the path to becoming the next mayor of New York City. Unless, you know, something extraordinary happens that that gets in his way. There are some pretty racist comments made about him from people like Tommy Tuberville. And even the Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessant has been saying that New York City is going to be turned into Caracas and that sort of. What are your thoughts on all of this? I mean, I know Mamdani has made some controversial statements, and people in the Democratic Party are absorbing that, trying to figure out, okay, what do we do about this? But at the same time, the way he has been just sort of treated in this sort of racist way, just awful racist way, it's just downright un American. It seems to me he won a race. This is what the people of New York voted for. We'll see how he does. But for Republican leaders like a senator and a Treasury secretary to use that kind of language, to me, it's just completely out of bounds.

[Richie Torres]

Well, there was a member of Congress who sent a letter to the attorney General calling for his deportation. Yeah, I mean, he's the Democratic nominee. He won the election. And whether you agree with his politics or not, every member of the Democratic Party has an obligation to speak up forcefully and with moral clarity against Islamophobia. We have to send a powerful message that we are a Big Ten party. We are a multiracial, multi ethnic, multi religious democracy. We're all welcome. We are the party for Jews and Christians and Muslims and people of every color and every creed. And we have to speak out forcefully against all forms of hate, including Islamophobia. But the attacks on him shows that how far we have to travel before we reach a country that treats everyone equally.

[Jim Acosta]

And forgive me for asking this, because I saw this. I was away last week. I was on vacation. I'm looking at my phone, I'm thinking to myself, I don't really know Zhuran Mahamdani that well. I wonder if, or do the elected officials in New York City know him that well? Do you know him that well? Congressman, what could, what do you. What can you tell us about him? You know, he's. He's very young. I think he's younger than you. And so I guess we'll see. Yeah. Yeah. What's that?

[Richie Torres]

Yeah, look, I, I don't. I don't know him well. I've had one conversation with him, but I feel like there's much to learn from his campaign. I mean, he ran on affordability, and I feel like Democrats would do well to run out. Affordability?

[Jim Acosta]

Yeah.

[Richie Torres]

It was the first election where a majority of the electorate was Young. Voters ages 18 to 44 made up about 50% of the electorate in New York City, which is unprecedented. It was the highest turnout since 1989, and he managed to mobilize 50,000 volunteers and turn out 200,000 new voters. And so whether you agree with his politics or not, and I have my disagreements with him, you have to admire the magnitude of the movement that he has built, and we have to learn from it. And look, there's a generation of young people who feel the affordability crisis is the central issue, who are struggling to cope with the crushing cost of housing and higher education and healthcare, who feel the political establishment has failed them catastrophically. And he's offering them an alternative. He's speaking to their legitimate grievances. And so I feel like we can learn from that.

[Jim Acosta]

Yeah. And I know, I'm sure, because you've been a very strong defender of Israel, that, that, that might be an area where you might have some disagreements with Mamdani. But on, on Israel, on Iran, this is something that a lot of folks are wondering, okay, what did happen with these strikes on Iran? Do you have any sense as to. Because the, the, you know, Trump and Caroline Levitt and Pete Hegseth, they made it sound like the, the entire nuclear program has been taken out. Obviously, that doesn't seem to be the case. When you look at what some of the reporting has been on, the intelligence assessments and so on. Do you have any sense of where things are? And I know the administration's been pretty cloaked in secrecy in terms of what was accomplished. What would he know we don't have?

[Richie Torres]

So here's what I do know. Donald Trump's initial statement, surprise, surprise, was a lie. The notion that it was totally and completely obliterated is a lie. It is probably the case that the United States delayed but did not permanently derail the nuclear weapons program. But the extent to which it was delayed, no one knows for sure. And one thing that's troubling is the whereabouts of the 400 kg of 60% enriched uranium, which is pretty close to weapons grade enriched uranium. No one knows where that is. And so that's the huge question mark that emerges from all of this.

[Jim Acosta]

Yeah. And I mean, as a congressman from New York, I mean, I remember 9 11. You're obviously a lot younger than me. But one of the things that was always a concern in the 2000s after 911 was loose nukes. And that is one of the, I suppose, byproducts of this is you could have a situation where we might have loose nukes. We just don't know. I mean, that was one of the reasons why you wanted to have a diplomatic sort of program in place to sort of rein in the Iranians. I understand why the Israelis are frustrated with the Iranians. Everybody's frustrated with the Iranians. But now we have to deal with that prospect too as well.

[Richie Torres]

You make an important point. So everything we know about the program is based on the iaea, the International Atomic Energy Agency. We need them to have visibility into Iran's nuclear program, because if we lose visibility, then we're going to have much less knowledge of how rapidly Iran might be progressing toward a nuclear weapon. And so diplomacy has to be part of the equation. There's no escaping it.

[Jim Acosta]

And finally, Congressman, because of your very stout support for Israel, just wondering where you are in terms of where you think the Israelis should be right now in terms of dealings with Gaza, getting that region on the path to peace. I know you have lots of conversations with your friends over there, and it's obviously a very important constituency in your district. What are your thoughts on that whole situation? Because folks are looking at their TV screens and they're saying, my goodness, how much longer is this going to go on? What do you think?

[Richie Torres]

I think we need to secure the release of the hostages. We need to end the war which has brought untold suffering to both Israelis and Palestinians. And we need to find a framework for Israeli Palestinian peace that ultimately peace is the only way forward.

[Jim Acosta]

Yeah. Yeah. Well, Congressman, I guess we're all going to watch and you said you're coming up tomorrow. Your expectations for this so called big beautiful bill. I've been calling it the big boulder of bullshit, but, you know, that's just me having fun over here on Substack. But I mean, it doesn't sound like there's really much that can be done to stop this from happening. It seems like the numbers are there. Freedom Caucus is not going to stand in the way. People like Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins in the Senate, they've expressed their concerns. You know, this is happening is that it's all hollow.

[Richie Torres]

I mean, these people are morally bankrupt. You know, the Republican Party is not a normal party. It's become a cult of personality around Donald Trump. Donald Trump is their lord and savior. He has an iron grip on them. I mean, I saw a number of Republicans author a letter opposing the Medicaid cuts that they voted for.

[Jim Acosta]

Right.

[Richie Torres]

Like, these people are not serious. Like they will publicly say, oh, yeah, we oppose the defunding of clean energy tax credits and we oppose the cuts to Medicaid, but then ultimately vote for it when it matters. So they're frauds.

[Jim Acosta]

Yeah. I mean, I can't tell you how many conversations and interviews I've done with Republican members of Congress where they, people like Tim Burchett, maybe I should have one. But, you know, they, they talk, they talk a good game about not wanting to run up the national debt and this is just going to explode it. And, you know, I do worry about that for future generations. And I think that how are we going to pay this down? I have no idea.

[Richie Torres]

We are in a debt spiral and we are Approaching World War II levels of debt accumulation not during wartime, but during peacetime. And I worry we're going to enter a debt spiral in which we're going to pay more and more for less and less, and it's largely because of Republican policies.

[Jim Acosta]

Yeah. All right. Well, Congressman, really appreciate the time. Thanks for doing this. Good to see you, sir. And Safe travels to D.C. and hopefully your staff eats lots of pizza over the next 48 hours or whatever it is going to be. Thanks for the time. Yeah, thanks. Thanks for the time. Thanks, Congressman. Appreciate it. All right, that was Congressman Rich Torres of the Bronx. And I want to go straight to Glenn Kirschner because Glenn and I, I think the last time he and I spoke was at the town hall we did in D.C. about a month ago. And I really am interested in talking to Glenn because, I mean, again, a lot of this, forgive me, because you Know, a lot of what I'm doing over the course of this show and probably some other shows is getting caught up on the news. There's Glenn right there. Glenn Kirschner. How are you, man?

I'm good, Jim, how are you?

Good to see. I was just saying I missed a lot of news last week when I was off. I felt like I needed to take that time. I was running on fumes. Don't want to get, you know, too much into a me, me, me type of thing. But the birthright citizenship case sort of hit the, you know, you know, news world like a meteor basically last Friday. And I, you know, in Fridays in D.C. and for a lot of people across the country, they just say, you know what, I just need a poor tall one and turn the TV off and get the hell away from my phone. Because, you know, it gets, it just gets nutty. But, you know, this was a, this was a fairly. I saw some of your comments saying, okay, don't worry, you know, it doesn't sound like birthright citizenship is going away in this country, but it does seem to me this, this notion the Supreme Court has really limited nationwide injunctions in this country. And that to me is kind of an undercovered. I know there was, there was some freak out Friday night into the weekend, but the, your sense of the magnitude of this, because to me, you know, we've been living in a country with nationwide injunctions for some time now, and now we just, we just rip the, the rug right under that. Is that what we've done is.

Yeah, you know, in part we have, Jim, and I am of two minds with respect to the birthright citizenship case that was just handed down by the Supreme Court. Maybe one of the burdens of being a lawyer is like, I can see both sides of the argument here. This is not an all or nothing proposition. But let me not bury the lead because I agree with you. It feels wrong. It feels like it cuts against American principles to say, okay, if you're a litigant, you can afford to hire a lawyer, you can go in and seek to have your constitutional rights vindicated. Not only your constitutional rights in the birthright citizenship arena, but if you're a pregnant woman who has been living here for decades, but you are undocumented, maybe you're otherwise a law abiding citizen, working, paying taxes and all of that, and you're about to deliver a child, you know, you are asserting the rights of that unborn child, soon to be born child, if you have the money and you can get in court and you can get yourself an injunction to prevent against your and your soon to be child's constitutional rights. Great. Good for you. Bully for you. But guess what? If you're not, maybe you can't afford a lawyer, maybe you can't become part of a class action. Then, even though the constitutional principle is solid birthright citizenship. Well, sorry, everybody else is out of luck. And almost, Jim, not to get into an analogy feels like a poll tax, right? It feels like, well, if you don't have the money to hire a lawyer and get in the court and vindicate your rights or become part of a class action, you're right, you're out of luck. I don't like that. However, now, now let me go to the other side of the point. What the, what the opinion basically says, and it's a fractured opinion. I mean, there, you know, there are so many different opinions authored, multiple concurrences by, you know, Alito and, and Thomas, multiple dissents by Sotomayor, Ketanji, Brown Jackson. So there's a lot to unpack. And of course, the majority opinion was authored by Amy Coney Barrett. But in essence, when you, when you parse through it all, they say, listen, all we're saying is this is more appropriate for class action lawsuits. And you know, what happened immediately after that opinion was handed down, amended complaints were filed to expand the nature of the litigation to be class action lawsuits. So I do think it is a problem we'll be able to remedy. It remains a problem because it feels like it cuts against what we stand here, little thing called equal justice for all, which is the layman's way of saying equal protection of the laws as guaranteed by the Constitution. So I don't like it, but I didn't have a hair on fire. Well, I never have a hair on fire moment, to be honest, but I didn't have a hair on fire moment because organizations like Democracy Defenders, right, Norm Eisen's group, the aclu, the NAACP Defense Fund, they are already filing lawsuits to accommodate what the Supreme Court has now said. These things have to be handled as class action lawsuits. So I do think we'll be able to move through this. And importantly, nobody, none of the opinions said the guarantee of birthright citizenship should be revoked or Donald Trump can write it out of the Constitution with a Sharpie. That's not what this case was about. This was only about the process by which these kind of suits should be brought.

Yeah, it doesn't sound as though he's going to succeed, that he's gonna be ultimately victorious on this issue of, you know, revoking birthright citizenship in this country. But there, there is, you know, and we could parse it out and have that conversation. But to me, this idea that you can't have nationwide injunctions anymore, that injunctions are gonna be basically, what, regional or apply to only certain parts of the country. I mean, if you're seeking an injunction in a case that has national implications, basically, you know, you might have just certain parts of the country covered by what is, you know, decided to be, you know, the grounds for an injunction in that particular case. Whereas it might be the right thing to have a nationwide injunction in some of the. What's your sense of that?

I agree with you. Because, you know, it doesn't seem like if a judge concludes that a preliminary injunction should be granted because what Donald Trump has done in a given executive order is, quote, blatantly unconstitutional, which is exactly what the federal judge John Coffin Hour, who was appointed by Ronald Reagan of all people and of all presidents, he said, it's blatantly unconstitutional. And he asked the question rhetorically, where were the lawyers in the room when Donald Trump was signing it? Well, unfortunately, the lawyers were right there. And I think they all know precisely what they're doing. They're doing things that are blatantly unconstitutional to try to bubble them up to the Supreme Court and get the court to rewrite the Constitution as it did in the presidential immunity case. That's. That is the goal here, right? There's no secret about what they're doing. But once a judge rules, no, no, no, this is unconstitutional. Well, guess What? Unconstitutional for one person or one of our 13 federal jurisdictions, unconstitutional for all.

Right?

That is kind of. That's only right by the standards that we like to apply equal protection of the laws. But here's what I think it's going to inspire, Jim. Once you have one suit filed, you're probably going to have similar suits filed in all 13 federal jurisdictions. So if we have to play this game, it may be we'll play it by new rules and we'll still get the equivalent of a nationwide injunction if we have to do it 13 times.

But you'll have to do it through class action cases filed on all of these different IC appellate districts. But, you know, when Sonia Sotomayor, and, you know, to me, she has been downright heroic in the way she has, you know, grabbed the bull by the horns among these nine justices and stated things very plainly. I mean, she said, no right is safe in this country right now. If the Trump administration can get away with this. I mean, your thoughts on how. I mean, the way she has responded to this. I mean, to me, you know, if she is saying something along the lines of no right is safe, and, you know, and she's even talking about Second Amendment rights, you know, people who care about that, those kinds of rights, if somebody is seeking relief from a federal judge because they feel like their civil rights are being violated, it, you know, it sounds what Sonia Sotomayor is saying is that. That, you know, there are all kinds of rights that could be in jeopardy here.

I couldn't agree with her more. No right is safe if our Supreme Court, at least the sixth justice majority, refuses to abide by both the express terms of the Constitution and the spirit of the Constitution. But what I have seen, Jim, over and over again is the federal judiciary, and that includes both the trial court judges who see these cases in the first instance and the federal circuit courts of appeal who see them in the second instance. If an appeal is filed, they are holding strong. By and large, they are a firewall against Trump's rampant lawlessness and unconstitutionality, which is what he's churning out every day in the Oval Office, seeing how much he can get away with, how much people will basically give him their lunch money rather than fighting the bully, because then maybe he doesn't even have to go into court and defend some of this illegality and unconstitutionality if the people who are hurt by these executive orders aren't willing to fight in court. But here's the thing, Jim. Behind that firewall that is being built, and it is being built high and thick and wide and strong, the Supreme Court seems to be tearing down the back of that firewall that's being built by their own lower court judges. So I think that is what Justice Sotomayor is referring to when she says, no right is safe. It's not because the trial court judges, and it's not because the federal circuit courts of appeal. It's because of that sixth justice majority.

Well, and I, you know, I'm very concerned about, you know, what the Supreme Court has been doing, sort of acting as, you know, as sort of a MAGA Supreme Court. It seems to me, ever since Trump has come onto the scene, it's just unreal the way they gave him the immunity decision while he was running for reelection. And since he's been in office, they've sort of, you know, helped him expand the powers of the presidency. And it just. I, you know, I do wonder what a legal expert like yourself thinks about all of this because it just sounds as though, you know, the concern that I have is, you know, do you have a Supreme Court that is essentially becoming yet another political body in this country? And I know a lot of people are concerned about that. And if enough Democrats come to that conclusion, won't they say at some point, okay, well, you might as well expand the number of justices on the Supreme Court, or you might as well have term limits on justices at the Supreme Court. If they're going to act like political animals, they should be term limited too.

They should be, yeah. I think we are long overdue to expand the number of justices for a whole host of reasons, not just because it seems like there is a block of justices on the supreme Court who are rewriting the constitution on a whim. You know, when Yale constitutional law professor Akhil Reid Amar said in the presidential immunity case, the supreme Court ruled that the Constitution is unconstitutional, I mean, that is dramatic. And you know, I will take his assessment to the bank every day of the week. You know, I feel like I tried to find an analogy that helps describe how I feel, because I'm a rule of law guy and I was for 30 years as a fed, first an army prosecutor doing court martial cases, then a federal prosecutor for decades doing murder and RICO cases. And I kind of feel like if I were a medical doctor, if I were a surgeon, I would have to stand outside the operating room doors and watching doctors flood into the operating room to intentionally kill patients. And I would be helpless to stop it. That is how I feel. You know, the rule of law is being handled by, you know, this six justice radical right wing block up on the Supreme Court. And so going back to increasing the number of justices, first of all, nine is not a magic number. People seem to think it's gotta be nine. In our nation's history, we've had as few as five, we've had as many as 10. And nine is not a magic number. Moreover, we have, our population has increased in the United States. The caseloads that federal court judges and justices are handling have increased. So what have we done? We've increased the number of trial court justice judges, we've increased the number of federal circuit court of appeals judges, but somehow we can't raise the number of supreme court justices even to norm for the population and the increased caseloads. You know, we have 13 federal jurisdictions and one justice is supposed to have supervisory authority over one jurisdiction, but we don't have enough. So some of them have to double up for every conceivable reason we should be looking to raise the number of Supreme Court justices, in my opinion.

Interesting. Yeah. No, I mean, I think that that is not an unreasonable thing to want to go about pursuing. I mean, especially when you look at what has taken place over the last couple of presidential terms. I mean, the way Mitch McConnell sort of paved the way for Trump to get three Supreme Court justices. He may get another one, two, who knows, maybe three during this term in office. I sort of think that any of the three liberal justices will want to leave the scene, but you just don't know what might happen in life. To me, it seems that it's only natural that he's going to get more appointments to this court. And if you end up with a Supreme Court majority, what, seven to two, kind of a seven to two MAGA majority on the Supreme Court, I mean, there are a lot of rights, constitutional protections in this country that are just going to go away.

Yeah, I can see them going after marriage equality. I can see them, you know, anything that displeases them ideologically or I will add, religiously, you know, I think it's at risk. I think first and foremost, those are some of the rights that are at risk. And frankly, it's generally the people who need the protection most because they are often the, relatively speaking, the voiceless, the powerless, they have no influence in high places. They're, you know, they're put upon in a lot of ways by our society. And I think that is now true. And what we're seeing in the, you know, the deportation arena, and these are the folks who are going to suffer most, and frankly, a lot of them are going to end up being red state folks. So, you know, there's so many reasons, Jim, to do it right and to remain loyal to the Constitution. And yet the MAGA block seems intent to do it their way based on their motivations.

You know, and the last thing I wanted to get into, because you and I haven't spoken in a while, is we're seeing Trump in this big, beautiful bill, as they call it, I call it the big boulder of bullshit. They want to have another $80 billion for ICE roundups and raids and all of these atrocious things that they've been doing. I think what we're about to see unfold in this country, if that money is approved and put out to dhs, is just going to be ungodly. But I'm wondering how much of this you see as being legal and being constitutional in this country right now when they're Talking about building an alligator Alcatraz in Florida. I mean, the purpose appears to be to drive home the idea that if you were an undocumented immigrant in this country that you're going to be subjected to government sanctioned cruelty. Government permissible cruelty is going to be what happens to you without due process. And there's just not a whole lot you can do about it. And I suppose folks might say, oh, well, you know, that's throwing around some hyperbole there. But when they are putting out social media posts over at the White House that shows alligators outside of a, you know, cartoon looking prison and they, they want an out, they want an alligator Alcatraz. So they, they want basically, you know, confinement that might run up to the edge of cruel and unusual punishment in this country. Is, is, can that be, can this be challenged on constitutional grounds? Glenn, I mean, what are your thoughts on this and how these ICE raids have been conducted? Because it seems to me that this isn't pushing the envelope. This is blowing up the, There is no envelopes. Tearing up the envelope.

Yeah, the fear and the intimidation is the point. I would say the cruelty is the point. I, I don't know where the kindness, where the empathy, where the decency for our fellow human beings is in all this. But let me say first and foremost, deportation is an important law enforcement tool of the United States. If we have somebody who comes here illegally, commits all kinds of crimes against the population, violent crimes, drug crimes, sex offenses, you name it, and they enjoy all their rights under the Constitution, they are convicted, they're sentenced to prison, the next thing that ordinarily happens, I know because I was involved in this as a former prosecutor, they would be deported at the end of their prison term. Deportation is an important law enforcement tool of the United States, but that's not what they're doing. They are chasing down undocumented immigrants. Now, I don't consider them criminals. They may have violated a law when they came here, but we know many of them were asylum seekers. Many of them had status that Donald Trump is now trying to revoke. And there's lots of arguments that he shouldn't be able to revoke status and denaturalize people. That's a whole nother conversation.

They're trying to talk about that too. Exactly.

Today. But, but let's talk about the practicality for a minute and then let's talk about the legality. Jim. The practicality is if you look at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, itep, they put out a comprehensive study of how much Money undocumented immigrants pay into the government coffers. The last reported year was for 2022. And you know, most undocumented immigrants are law abiding. They're working, they're paying taxes, they're raising their families, they're doing everything right. They just don't happen to have documentation. And ITEP said they are contributing, get this, $96 billion to the government coffers when they're paying taxes and when they're having Social Security withheld, Medicaid withheld, unemployment withheld from their paychecks. And guess what? That's free money to the United States government because they're not entitled to any of the benefits that they're paying in on the front end. And so not only is it economic suicide, politically speaking, to do what we are doing to undocumented immigrants, but we also need them to keep our economy up and running. I mean, there's no two ways about it. Plus look at how much money it takes to don masks and run through produce fields and garment districts and Home Depot parking lots. Getting people who are doing everything right in life except they're not documented. That's the practical and the financial. It's insane because to the United States, it's lose, lose, lose on the legal. Listen, if somebody is properly subject to arrest and they're undocumented and they are taken to immigration court and they have all of their constitutional rights of due process notice, an opportunity to be heard and what that means, those are like buzzwords and people may not know concretely what that means. Notice means before this government does something against you, including deporting you, you have to be given advanced notice and enough time to acquire a lawyer, get into court and then what? Part two, your opportunity to be heard and make your case as to why you should not be deported. And if the system works the way the system was designed to work and a judge orders that person deported, then they should be deported. Not to a third country where they're going to be persecuted, tortured and killed, but they should, they should be deported. That's the way it's supposed to work. But what we know, Jim, is this administration doesn't give a rat's ass for anything I just described. They don't care about the practical and the financial. They don't care about the legal and constitutional. All they care about is looking strong, playing, you know, playing to their base so Donald Trump can remain in power. Right? Feeding red meat to MAGA and instilling fear and intimidation in hopes that people will self deport or won't come here in the first place. That's not what America is about.

No, it absolutely is not. And denying people due process for kicks, because you're trying to make a political point. I mean, that's just un American. It's unconstitutional. It's unamerican, and you just can't do it. And I just wonder, are the courts going to getting his. Is the Supreme Court ultimately going to say to him? Because I think that's the, that is the whole ball game here is if and when this makes its way up to the Supreme Court, some of these unconstitutional methods that they've used, what does the Supreme Court do then? Because, you know, if due process is a squishy, you know, undefined thing ultimately down the road, you know, under this administration, then I, you know, I think all bets are off as to what, what could transpire after that.

But Jim and I think we both know it's a fool's errand to predict what this Supreme Court might do. But let me be foolish for just 30 seconds. First of all, on the due process front, we've had four due process cases in the last month or two, and one was 90 unanimous in favor of due process. The second one was 72 in favor of due process. The third was 72 in favor of due Process. The fourth was that outlier and kind of horrific opinion that, you know, we're not so worried if the, if the Trump administration is deporting people to third country, third country removals where they may be at risk of torture, persecution or murder. But we're not so concerned about that. So, listen, we're batting, what,750 there on the due process front, so that at least gives me some hope that they will continue to honor the constitutional guarantee of due process for all persons. It doesn't say all citizens. And then I don't think, I don't think they're going to, they're going to sanction or endorse Donald Trump taking his Sharpie and crossing out the constitutional guarantee of birthright citizenship. When push comes to shove and we're up there on the merits, not just the preliminary injunction or a nationwide injunction, I don't see them doing it. But goodness knows this Supreme Court has proved me wrong before.

No, that's true. And yours truly as well. All right, Glenn, great to see you, man. Thank you so much for doing it. I like the way you bring the optimism and the glasses half full from time to time, because I am of that mindset, too. I don't think it's curtains for us all. And you have to have hope. You have to have faith in your fellow Americans. You have to have faith in these institutions. My God, I mean, if they've kept them in, they've kept us in good stead up until this point. You have to have some faith that they're going to keep that doing, you know, moving forward. But Glenn, great to see you. Thanks so much. Appreciate it.

Thank you, Jim. Great to be with you.

All right, good to, good to be with you as well. That's Glenn Kirchner. Let me bring in Michael Cohen. It's been a little while since Michael and I have spoken. Lots going on. I see folks are there in the comments asking about where, where we are in terms of the big beautiful bill. I hate calling it that because it's just ridiculous. And then you see, hang on, I'm having some trouble here. Hang on, folks. Hang on. Doggone it. Let me try that one more time. You see some outlets just try to call it the GOP Mega bill and things like that. You know, it's such a mess trying to come up with, you know, what to call this stuff. I like big boulder of bullshit. That's me. There's Michael Cohen. Michael, great to see you, man.

[Michael Cohen]

Jim, it's good to see you. Welcome back stateside. I, I was away, too. I was in Europe. I was in France.

[Jim Acosta]

Oh, good for you. Great. Yeah, you know what? I'm, I'm a little jet lagged, I'll be real honest.

[Michael Cohen]

And I don't get jet lag.

[Jim Acosta]

What's that?

[Michael Cohen]

I don't get jet lagged.

[Jim Acosta]

Oh, good for you. Good for you. I, I probably should have had a Diet Coke before coming on today, but that's, you know, folks are just going to have to cut me a pass here. But no, it's good to see, you.

[Michael Cohen]

Know, Jim, I'll tell you, it's great to see you as well.

[Jim Acosta]

Yeah.

[Michael Cohen]

Michael, Mondays, there's so much for us to actually get into. You know, I, I, I watched the show, obviously, and I was listening to my good friend Glenn Kirschner there. And I have to tell you, here's the mistake that we are making as Democrats. So it's a massive mistake. I wrote about it in my substack the other day. The mistake that we're making is we have to acknowledge that Trump, despite the craziness, the craziness that's coming out of that administration, they are actually winning and we need to really give ourselves like one of those old V8 commercials. I wish I had a V8 where you slap yourself in the head and you ask yourself why? It's not just why. What are our politicians, our Democrats, doing wrong? Because at the end of the day, it's their way. It's not even a let's meet in the middle. The old Tip o' Neill days. You remember those days? The old Newt Gingrich day, right, where you can have a disagreement. Listen, Jim, you and I don't agree on 100% of things. We're not supposed to. We have different backgrounds. We live in different states, yada, yada. All right? We're supposed to be different. But you and I can sit down on any given day and we can have a fair, irrational, and a respectful conversation where at the end of the day, I don't get everything I want, you don't get everything that you want. That, to me, is a good result for a negotiation. But that's not what our members of Congress are doing. And even when you see somebody like. What do you call it? Don Bacon or Thom Tillis.

[Jim Acosta]

Thom Tillis and Don Bacon. I mean, two of these sort of moderates who are left in the Republican Party up on Capitol Hill announcing that they're not going to run for reelection. I mean, to me, I was traveling back yesterday, and I saw the announcement from Thom Tillis, and I thought, well, of course. I mean, he's sort of like the Bob Corker of this new administration. You know, Bob Corker, the senator from Tennessee who also was chased out of the Republican Party, chased out of Congress by Trump and maga. They're doing it now to Tom Tillis. They're doing it to Don Bacon. You have some.

[Michael Cohen]

I'm sorry, Jim.

[Jim Acosta]

And this is just how it's gonna go. Until the party stands up to him. This is how it's gonna go.

[Michael Cohen]

But is it really Donald that's chasing them out, or do you think it's cowardice? They don't want to deal with the primaries. They don't want to deal with the bullying. They don't want to deal with all of the negatives that are going well.

[Jim Acosta]

I'll tell you what it is. And I don't want. I don't want to have anybody make. Make the mistake of saying, okay, this is. I believe this is what Thom Tillis is up to, or I think this is what Don Bacon is up to. I will say that one of the proud traditions here in Washington is members of Congress decide, announcing that they won't run for reelection to preserve their ability to go be a lobbyist on k Street in D.C. they don't want to lose a primary. They don't want to lose an election. They think it steals some of their juice if they're going to go make some money on K Street. There is that. I'm just saying that that is there, that is Washington.

[Michael Cohen]

I enjoy doing this with you on Michael Mondays. You really fucking smart, you know that? Because, because you just laid it out as good as anybody has done. They don't want to ruin their opportunities for future. Yeah, for their future Pocket. And you know what I call that? Cowardice. Because let me tell you something. What the Democrats should be doing now, they should be going ahead and they should be speaking to all of the moderate Republicans and say, listen, this does not work for the American people. The big beautiful bill, Medicaid, I don't care how many times Caroline Levitt says it's going to add $4 trillion to, you know, to Medicaid down the road. And so it's all nonsense, it's all lip service. It's not true. But we, we did not elect these individuals to ultimately become lobbyists and consultants and board members and so on. We elected them to lead. And if they're only willing to lead when it is conducive for them, well, that's a problem for the rest of us. And I have, I take offense.

[Jim Acosta]

I do too. And that's, I mean, that is why, I mean, one of my favorite books is, and it's over my head is John F. Kennedy's Profiles and Courage. I mean, he wrote a whole book about lawmakers and politicians and leaders in American society over the years. Putting their own self preservation on the line, putting their own political careers on the line. We just don't see that happening in Washington as much anymore. And what it reminds me of IS When John McCain gave that infamous thumbs down to the Republican efforts to kill Obamacare during the first Trump administration, that was somebody acting in a pretty goddamn heroic way. People might can say, I don't like John McCain for this or that. He saved Obamacare almost basically single handedly when it was about to be torn down during the first Trump administration. And he just didn't give a rat's ass anymore. And I just wish we had more of that. I mean, we had John Fetterman saying today, gosh, I'm missing my family beach vacation right now because I'm stuck here in Washington. Who the fuck cares? Honestly?

[Michael Cohen]

Not me, by the way. Not me. You know what I care more about? I care more about the fact he walks in with A fucking hoodie into the people's house that I care about. But the fact that he's doing his job, I mean, give me a, give me a break.

[Jim Acosta]

And it's not that far to the beach. You could get from D.C. you could get to Ocean City in three hours. What's happening here?

[Michael Cohen]

He makes it seem like, you know, he's missing his flights and so on. By the way, even if he did, isn't our Democratic Republic worth more than that? And if it's not to you, get the fuck out, Leave. You know, it's gotten to a point right now, this win, win, lose, lose scenario. Republicans and Democrats have to get together and we cannot and we should not. And it's one of the things I respect most about you because you tell it the way it is.

[Jim Acosta]

Yeah.

[Michael Cohen]

We can not for a second let our, you know, just let our guard down when it comes to this administration. They are winning.

[Jim Acosta]

And what do you think about when, I mean, to me, you know, when apparently Trump's going to go down to Florida. I, I, unless this has changed, but I believe he's supposed to go down to Florida to do the, he wants to go see this alligator Alcatraz. And you know, I, at some point, isn't this just a tired old shtick?

[Michael Cohen]

No.

[Jim Acosta]

He goes down to the border and he does the whole, he looks around, he looks around and then maybe they'll put his, his name or his face on a, on a pillar of, the, of the, of the border wall. Now he's going to go down to alligator Alcatraz. I mean, what is this monstrosity? It's insane.

[Michael Cohen]

It's, it's very interesting as a concept because it is complete and total brutality to individuals that this administration. And I'm going to be very, I'm going to be clear about something because I know Trump better than anybody. He doesn't care about Alcatraz alley. He doesn't care about any, it's all Project 2025. It's, you need to scapegoat someone. And in this specific case, it's the non documented migrants, it's the illegals, as they call them. And so they come up with what has to be in everybody's mind. What is this ridiculous shit?

[Jim Acosta]

It is such sick, sick bullshit. They're not arresting criminals anymore. I mean, I guess they are a little bit here and there. They're arresting grandmothers, you know, working in hair salons, and they're busting restaurant staffs at your favorite restaurant around the corner. They're scooping up landscapers at Home Depot. They're going to put them and Alligator Alcatraz.

[Michael Cohen]

Yes, yes.

[Jim Acosta]

What a bunch of bullshit.

[Michael Cohen]

And if you listen to Caroline Levitt describe alligator Alcatraz, it is in a remote section of, literally the, The. The. The marshes of. Of Florida.

[Jim Acosta]

The Everglades.

[Michael Cohen]

Yeah, the Everglades. The only way out is one road which is infested with alligators, hence the name Alligator Alcatraz. So it's even more impenetrable if you think about it, because if you are, say, 50 miles away from a main road and you have to actually try to go through marshes and stuff and it is infested with alligators, there's probably less than a.00001% chance that you will survive.

[Jim Acosta]

Right?

[Michael Cohen]

That's the point. It is to instill as much fear into the hearts of individuals so that they don't come to this country. And you know what bothers me the most about it, Jim? What bothers me the most is the number of people that turn around and say they shouldn't be here anyway, all right? And they shouldn't be crossing our borders without authorization and permission. And you know what they have. They have some. I don't know. It's not.

[Jim Acosta]

It's not wrong. But, you know, I have the Statue of Liberty over my shoulder. People have been coming here for decades. People have been coming here for over a century on boats, on ships, across rivers, on planes. A lot of the people who come into this country come in on planes and then overstay their visa, and they just stay. There's sort of a cartoonish misunderstanding of how people, of how immigrants come into this country and just. They just stay. And by and large, you know, what people are responding to is they see six or seven guys in a Home Depot parking lot, and they say, you know what? I don't like that. I wish I didn't see that in my neighborhood, in my community. But those guys might get picked up in the back of a pickup truck by a white citizen of this country who just wants cheap day labor while he's redoing the tile in his bathroom or he's trying to clear a lot that he bought somewhere.

[Michael Cohen]

It's all about the cruelty, Jim. That's all that it's about. It's to show strength. Do not cross into the American border.

[Jim Acosta]

Or.

I'm just saying, for the people who complain about these workers, you know, they need to ask themselves, the folks over on Long island and some of these places where you got these big tough guys, they're big, tough MAGA guys from New Jersey and Long Island. I don't like those guys on the corner at the Home Depot and all this stuff. Ask yourself, are your kids, are your teenage kids gonna go cut the grass when it's 100 degrees outside? Are they going to go work in some sweaty kitchen when it's 95 degrees outside and wash lettuce?

[Michael Cohen]

No to that is no.

[Jim Acosta]

The answer to that question is no. They're not going to do that. And so I don't understand, I don't understand this. You know, I'm on the end of my bar stool and I don't like the, the immigrants at the 7 11. Who the fuck do you think is working at the 7 11?

[Michael Cohen]

Yeah, look, you're not wrong, Jim, when you said that this is something that has taken place in America for a long time. I know you came to this country legally. My dad came, you know, after World War II as a displaced person to this country, but couldn't even stay here. Went to Canada, ultimately came back to America to teach. To teach head and neck reconstructive surgery. My wife comes from the Ukraine. Came to this country, you know, legally. There is a path. The problem is that because Congress is so divided, the divisiveness between the two parties is so great. They can't even sit down at a table and try to come up with an immigration plan that.

[Jim Acosta]

Well, they had an immigration plan and Trump deep sixed it, or he86it, to use a term. I mean, they had a bill when Biden was president and he quashed it.

[Michael Cohen]

He did. But they can't even sit down now. Even bring back, bring back. I forget the senator's name. Who put that out there? Who was a Republican, by the way?

[Jim Acosta]

Yeah, James Lankford.

[Michael Cohen]

Yeah, Lankford. Right. So Lankford's bill, let's bring it back and call it the Trump Immigration. They have kicked this can down the road for more than five decades. When it comes to immigration, we need, and we need a policy that makes sense. We need a policy that gives individuals.

[Jim Acosta]

I agree.

[Michael Cohen]

The opportunity to come to this country where they don't have to live in the shadows, they don't have to live off the grid where they can't have a bank account, they can't own property and so on, that they have to live in a cash, on a cash basis. When we technically live in a cashless society, we need to do things like that. But the divisiveness between the two parties is so huge. It's so it's bigger than the grand fucking Canyon, where, Jim. It's unfair. It's unfair to America because, you know, look, Glenn was correct when he said it's like they produce billions of dollars of income and revenue for the, of this country, and now you're going to cut them off. It's not just cutting them off, Jim. You know how angry you're going to be when Your blueberries cost $25 for a little tiny bushel?

[Jim Acosta]

They're already pretty expensive. Last time I got them, they were like seven or eight bucks. And I'm like this for goddamn blueberries. What's happening here?

[Michael Cohen]

What's going to happen when it's 20? Because it, because you don't have the cheap labor. And Trump understands this. He truly understands it.

[Jim Acosta]

Well, he's used cheap labor at his own properties. I mean, you know, that's been reported. That's been documented. He's used undocumented immigrants at his own properties over the years. He has. So, I don't know. I haven't seen any ICE raids at Mar A Lago or.

[Michael Cohen]

By the way, have you heard about this new app that has caused a lot of consternation? I saw that to the White House right now, and they're freaking out about it. I wouldn't be shocked if Trump and Pam Bondi and Keshe Patel and others file some sort of an obstruction of justice charge.

[Jim Acosta]

They'll, they'll go after him for sure.

[Michael Cohen]

Against the makers of the app. The app. Just to those of you who are watching, it's a great audience, by the way. Yeah, you know, the app is an app that basically tells you where ICE agents are currently operating. So therefore, if you live in that area, it's almost like a neighborhood watch type of an app. So instead of it being, hey, there's a guy who's robbing people on, you know, 44th Street. Instead, it'll say that there are ICE agents in the area. So it basically becomes a warning.

[Jim Acosta]

Well, Michael, you and I are old.

[Michael Cohen]

Enough in an obstruction case.

[Jim Acosta]

You and I are old enough to remember when we had neighborhood watches and was it the Guardian Angels in New York? And people would call and they'd say, there's some guys with some ski masks down on the street corner. You need to go check this out. Now, the guys in the ski masks on the corner are the ICE agents. I mean, so I can understand why people are a little freaked out right now when they see this going on in this country.

[Michael Cohen]

You know, the, you know, the bigger danger with all of that again, this is a country that is unfortunately gun heavy. I mean, there's so many firearms. What happens when these guys end up breaking into a house to arrest people or somebody?

[Jim Acosta]

Yeah, I agree with you.

[Michael Cohen]

And, and I don't want to see that happen. And I'm nervous that that's going to. Me too, because you know what that's going to do, Jim? It's going to amp up ice within which to be even more cruel to individuals and to.

[Jim Acosta]

Whatever happened to Joe. Yeah, whatever happened to Joe Friday Dragnet, you know, show up at the, at the door with the badge. Let me just introduce myself, ma' am. I'm Joe. I'm Joe Friday. You know, Joe Friday's in a mask now, Jim.

[Michael Cohen]

You're dating both of us and I don't like it.

[Jim Acosta]

Done, done, done.

[Michael Cohen]

Right.

[Jim Acosta]

All right. Hey, Michael, Good to see you, man. I. I'm so jet lagged if I keep talking. I know I've probably said too much already, but you're a bad influence on me. But thanks, Michael, for doing this, by.

[Michael Cohen]

The way, to anybody that's a Michael Cohen supporter, please. You know, one of the things that I in, in finality, that I say all the time and I truly mean it. One of the things that I appreciate so much coming on with Jim on Michael Monday and others is we're building a community. The only way things are going to change is to be a part of the community. Be active, be loud, be angry. All right? Be angry. And don't be afraid to express your anger. If you're a Michael, if you're a supporter of Michael Cohen, you don't support Jim Acosta and you don't subscribe to his show. Shame on you. Or vice versa. You know, if you're a Jim Acosta supporter, come check out my posts. We are building a community. We're cross pollinating that 2026, that 2026 goes the right way. Because right now I'm telling you. And I can read the tea leaves better than anybody. I'm afraid. I'm afraid.

[Jim Acosta]

I am too.

[Michael Cohen]

Doesn't go the way that we think.

[Jim Acosta]

Yeah, I'm afraid too, Michael. I'm afraid. Actually, you know, what I'm afraid of is I do really believe that the people are going to rise up in this country and it is going to shock people the way that people are going to rise up with this country next year. And the thing that concerns me is what Trump is going to try to do to stop that. What Trump and Stephen Miller have up their sleeves to try to Stop that. That's what concerns me. But Michael, great points as always. Great to see you, my man.

[Michael Cohen]

Thanks so much to you, my friend. Go get some rest.

[Jim Acosta]

All right, I appreciate it. All right. I wish I knew what Michael's doing to not have jet lag, but I am feeling very jet lag, everybody. Thanks so much for watching. I really appreciate it. I did plan on speaking out a little bit on what the so called press secretary Caroline Levitt has been saying in the briefing rooms. One of the other things that I was absorbing while I was off and trying not to look at my phone was just the non stop BS emanating from her during these press briefings. And as an experienced, I think of myself as pretty experienced, senior White House chief White House correspondent is the press secretary usually does not lie that much. And I mean, you're talking to somebody who recovered Sean Spine and Sarah Huckabee Sanders. Caroline Lever just seems to go out there with bullshit talking points and just lie all day long. And I did want to say, please go read my substack that I put out late last night. If you haven't had a chance to read it, check it out. It sort of crystallizes my thoughts a little bit better than me just pontificating here in an extemporaneous way. But one of the points that I made is, and I think that the Trump press secretaries lose sight of this, you know, more than anybody, that the briefing room is named after James Brady, the press secretary for Ronald Reagan, who took a bullet for Ronald Reagan. James Brady, Republican. He, he would just be ashamed of what he sees right now coming from Caroline Levitt in the White House briefing room. Those, those briefings should not be propaganda sessions. They should not be Fox News talking point sessions. They should not be, you know, rehearsals and, and, you know, performances, you know, to land some kind of job on FOX someday. You know, this is not, you know, maga's Got Talent. You know, that that's not what Caroline Levitt should be doing, auditioning for maga's Got Talent. You're supposed to be providing information to the American people. Reliable, accurate, reliable information to the American people. And I mean, I was trying not to look at my phone. I was trying not to absorb information. The way that she was going after my former colleague Natasha Bertrand was absolutely shameful, outrageous. But anyway, I wrote about it and I was much more eloquent about this, I believe, articulate about this, I believe in my substack that I wrote last night. So I will point you to that and not go any further. In the meantime, I do want to thank Congressman Richie Torres for joining me today. The great Glenn Kirchner, who is bringing the fire today, and of course, Michael Cohen for this recurring edition of Michael Monday. It's great to see him back. I think I got a little bit more overheated than he did, which is not always the case. So anyway. But I'm blaming the jet lag for anybody who has any concerns about what I had to say. I am jet lagged and I'm not responsible for everything that I just said. All right. Thanks everybody for watching. Really appreciate it. Still reporting from Washington, I'm Jim Acosta. Have a good evening. Good night.