Hegseth Blames the "Fog of War" While Trump Naps - with Rep. Jason Crow and David Rothkopf.

Summary

---

The Jim Acosta Show

Episode: Hegseth Blames the "Fog of War" While Trump Naps

Guests: Rep. Jason Crow and David Rothkopf
Date: December 2, 2025

---

Episode Overview

This episode examines troubling recent developments in the Trump administration, focusing on the controversial Caribbean boat strike, the repercussions of “fog of war” defenses, eroding norms in military conduct, the President’s apparent disengagement, and broader system issues from democratic backsliding to billionaire-driven policy. Congressman Jason Crow and columnist David Rothkopf join Jim Acosta to provide insight, accountability, and a call to civic action.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Controversial Caribbean Boat Strike

Background:

• Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth blames the “fog of war” for a follow-up strike on an alleged drug boat in September, in which survivors of the initial strike were killed ([00:06]–[01:57]).

Congressman Crow’s Response:

• Crow: “Fog of war is no excuse for firing on non-combatants, which it appears is what happened.” ([01:07])
• Highlights Hegseth’s lack of qualifications and disparages his attempt to cast blame ([01:07]–[01:57]).
• Emphasizes law and military ethics: “Once someone is no longer a combatant, you have a moral and legal obligation not to target them and to provide aid.” ([05:12])

Key Quote:

“Pete Hegseth should know better… The fog that he’s most familiar with is from his drunken stupors of years past… This is real stuff.”
— Rep. Jason Crow ([01:07])

---

2. Hegseth’s Defense & Rules of Engagement

Hegseth’s Defense:

• Hegseth, in Cabinet and at Quantico, advocates for removing “stupid” rules of engagement, saying, “We unleash overwhelming… violence… We untie the hands of our warfighters to… hunt and kill the enemies of our country.” ([02:59]–[03:14])
• Accuses the press and politicians of undermining “American heroes” ([02:07]–[02:45]).

Crow's Critique:

• Crow labels this a “dereliction of duty” ([03:27]).
• "It's crazy stuff until it actually happens in real life and you see the consequences… and then it's illegal and it's murder." ([03:54])

Key Quote:

“…This man has a long history of creating permission structure for lawlessness and recklessness.”
— Rep. Jason Crow ([03:27])

---

3. Potential War Crimes & Accountability

• Crow agrees war crimes may be possible, urges investigation and oversight ([04:38]–[05:45]).
• Asserts this is a by-product of Trump’s “lawless and reckless” culture ([04:42]–[06:28]).

Key Quote:

“Now you look at what happened — if there were unarmed survivors of a strike… those folks have been rendered noncombatants. This is very basic law of land warfare stuff.”
— Rep. Jason Crow ([05:12])

---

4. Erosion of Oversight and Lack of Transparency

• Lawmakers were not fully briefed about the strike; Crow expresses “deep concern” over military strategies and lack of congressional input ([07:57]–[09:13]).
• Administration’s approach seen as “endless conflict with no strategy.”
• Trump accused of pardoning drug lords rather than addressing the opioid crisis ([09:14]–[09:27]).

---

5. Unlawful Orders, Intimidation & Danger to Democracy

• Crow and others warned service members not to follow unlawful orders — White House responded with accusations of “treason and sedition,” FBI intimidation, and enabling of threats against lawmakers ([11:02]–[13:00]).
• Crow: “If he thinks he can threaten and intimidate us… he’s chosen the wrong adversaries.” ([12:17])

Key Quote:

“He accused us of treason… This is the man who literally did inspire an insurrection.”
— Rep. Jason Crow ([13:00])

---

6. Trump’s Behavior, Fitness for Office & Cabinet Extremism

• Trump was disengaged, sleeping through Cabinet meetings while the country faces urgent crises ([14:36]).
• Acosta: “I have never seen him nod off this much… it’s almost like a daily thing now.” ([20:02])
• Concerns that inept leadership gives Cabinet “carte blanche” to act recklessly (e.g., Hegseth and Kristi Noem) ([14:36]–[19:25]).

Key Quote:

“If you’re the President of the United States and you can’t stay awake long enough… what’s going to go down?”
— Jim Acosta ([20:02])

---

7. Policy Cruelty & Targeting of Minorities

• DHS, led by Kristi Noem, planning raids targeting Somali immigrants in Minnesota following a National Guard shooting — despite Somalis having no connection ([22:38]–[23:48]).
• Acosta: “It gets to the nastiness. It gets to the cruelty of this administration.” ([23:33])

---

8. National Crisis: Lawlessness, Authoritarian Drift & Urgency

David Rothkopf’s Analysis:

• Argues the U.S. is in a “new phase of national crisis: accelerating madness, lawlessness, corruption, cruelty, and destruction.” ([25:02])
• Every major policy area is being managed in the “most destructive way imaginable.” ([25:02]–[28:24])
• Calls for “greater urgency, greater numbers, bolder actions”: “No one is going to come save us. If we don’t save ourselves, the acceleration will continue.” ([27:23])

Key Quote:

“This has got to be kind of an alarm to everybody… This is not normal, and no one is going to come save us.”
— David Rothkopf ([27:25])

• Acosta: Complacency is dangerous — “People are getting up off the sofa, but it has to be sustained.” ([28:24])

---

9. Systemic Inequality & Subversion of Democracy

• Rothkopf: “American capitalism has killed American democracy.” Billionaires and corporate interests now “drive policy,” blocking popular reforms ([36:16]).
• Majority-supported reforms (gun safety, healthcare, campaign finance) can't pass due to the “money primary” ([34:13]).
• Acosta: “The system is rigged… we’re becoming detached from our own democracy.” ([35:45])

---

10. Generational Change & Hopes for the Future

• Rothkopf: A generational shift is coming. By 2028, voters will be majority Millennial/Zoomer; they reject the failed stewardship of Boomers and GenX ([38:54]).
• Both see hope in younger generations demanding real change ([39:52]).

---

Notable Quotes & Moments with Timestamps

• “Fog of war is no excuse for firing on non combatants.”
  — Rep. Jason Crow ([01:07])

• “He’s become the most interventionist, pro-conflict president of my lifetime, which is saying something.”
  — Rep. Jason Crow ([09:27])

• On death threats and incitement:
  “He accused us of treason… This is the man who literally did inspire an insurrection.”
  — Rep. Jason Crow ([13:00])

• Regarding Trump’s napping:
  “I have never seen him nod off this much… It’s almost like a daily thing now where he has a meeting… and he’s just, he’s asleep.”
  — Jim Acosta ([20:02])

• On billionaire-driven politics:
  “American capitalism has killed American democracy… Not to say capitalism is bad, but vulture capitalism is bad.”
  — David Rothkopf ([36:16])

• On urgent action:
  “We cannot, must not continue as we have been. We must respond… with greater urgency, greater numbers, bolder actions…”
  — David Rothkopf, quoting his Substack ([25:02])

• On hopefulness for generational change:
  “2028 will be the first election… where the majority of voters were born after 1990. They know it’s not there for good. They’re saying, we’re not buying that anymore…”
  — David Rothkopf ([38:54])

---

Important Timestamps

• [00:06] – Opening: Acosta frames the “fog of war” controversy, introduces Rep. Crow
• [01:07] – Crow rebukes Hegseth on "fog of war"
• [02:07] – Hegseth defends the strike; antagonizes the press
• [02:59] – Hegseth rejects rules of engagement at Quantico speech
• [03:27] – Crow: “dereliction of duty” and consequences
• [04:42] – Potential for war crimes, Trump’s lawlessness
• [07:05] – Importance of rules of engagement, moral obligations
• [09:14] – Opioid crisis, Trump’s hypocrisy
• [11:02] – FBI intimidation over warning against unlawful orders
• [13:00] – Crow: death threats, January 6 connection
• [14:36] – Trump’s fitness and disengagement
• [17:03] – Trump says affordability is “a scam”
• [18:52] – Trump’s personal priorities: ballroom, jets, golf course reconstruction
• [20:02] – Acosta on Trump’s napping and disengagement
• [22:38] – DHS prepping operation targeting Somali immigrants
• [25:02] – Rothkopf on “descent into madness”
• [27:25] – Call to urgent civic action
• [34:13] – Systemic policy gridlock due to billionaire donors
• [36:16] – “American capitalism has killed American democracy”
• [38:54] – Generational hope for post-MAGA change

---

Additional Memorable Moments

• Acosta, throughout, deploys biting sarcasm regarding Trump’s inattentiveness: “It’s Weekend at Bernie’s at the White House, starring Donald Trump.” ([44:00]–[45:46])
• Trump, defending his cognitive ability: “Right now I think I’m sharper than I was 25 years ago. But who the hell knows?... They said to me, would you like to take a cognitive test? I said, is it hard?” ([45:46])
• Acosta: “He is not alert, folks. He is not awake.” ([46:17])
• Media crackdown: All reporters ejected from Pentagon unless willing to pass stories through the press office; only MAGA-sympathetic personalities remain ([50:46])
• Acosta: “What you witnessed today… is an example of what state media looks like.” ([50:54])

---

Tone & Language

• Candid, outraged, and often darkly sardonic (especially from Acosta)
• Guests provide sharp, urgent analysis; combine moral clarity with informed alarm
• Frankness around threats to democracy, government abuse, and the dangers of complacency

---

Summary Takeaway

The Trump administration’s slide into lawlessness—evidenced by reckless military orders, attacks on oversight, and disdain for institutional norms—is compounded by the President’s disengagement and a system captive to billionaire interests. Yet amid the chaos, both guests call for alarm, civic resilience, and hope in a rising, more just generation ready to reclaim American democracy.

---

Transcript

[Congressman Jason Crow]

Foreign.

[Jim Acosta]

Welcome to the Jim Acosta show. And it's another day that ends in Y and Donald Trump's assault on American values. Trump is standing by his secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, who is blaming the fog of war today for the follow up strike on an alleged drug boat back in September. Let's discuss with Democratic Congressman Jason Crow of Colorado. Congressman, thanks for coming back on Jim.

[Congressman Jason Crow]

Always great to be with you. Thanks for having me.

[Jim Acosta]

You bet. As always, we appreciate it. But we should dive right into this because there was this wacky cabinet meeting over at the White House. Trump had the whole cabinet, they went around the table and did the whole Dear Leader thing. But then it came around to Pete Hegseth and he had to defend this, this drug boat strike that happened back in September. Apparently there was a second strike, a follow up strike that killed the survivors. And he's been trying to shift the blame to the admiral who was partly overseeing the operation. And then today he talked about it being the fog of war. We'll play that sound in a second. But what's been your sense of this whole thing?

[Congressman Jason Crow]

Yeah, well, I mean, that was a pretty short cabinet meeting for Donald Trump since he slept through half of it is the video that I saw. But you know, Pete Hegseth should know better, right? I mean, he served overseas, I served overseas. You know what the law is, you know what the rules are in fog of war is no excuse for firing on non combatants, which it appears is what happened. So we have to get answers. You know, Pete Heg says fog that he's most familiar with is from, you know, his drunken stupors of years past. So he should know something about those fogs. But you know, this is real stuff. This is stuff that matters. And that's why you don't put somebody with no experience who's a FOX News host in charge of our largest organization in our national security because bad things can happen.

[Jim Acosta]

Yeah. There's no question about. Let's listen to, you know, we'll get the Devil is Due and play the sound bite. Here's Pete Hexad defending the boat strike, saying it was the fog of war.

[Pete Hegseth]

Did not personally see survivors, but I stand because the thing was on fire. It was exploded in fire smoke. You can't see anything. You got digital. This is called the fog of war. This is what you and the press don't understand. You sit in your air conditioned offices or up on Capitol Hill and you nitpick and you plant fake stories in the Washington Post about kill everybody phrases on Anonymous sources, not based in anything. Not based in any truth at all. And then you want to throw up really irresponsible terms about American heroes, about the judgment that they made. I wrote a whole book on this topic.

[Jim Acosta]

You.

[Pete Hegseth]

Because of what politicians and the press does to war fighters.

[Jim Acosta]

Yeah, yeah. And then the congressman, the funny thing is, is that at the speech at Quantico, he was talking about doing away with rules of engagement and so on. Let's play that sound bite, and then we'll have. We'll continue on the conversation.

[Pete Hegseth]

We unleash overwhelming and punishing violence on the enemy. We also don't fight with stupid rules of engagement. We untie the hands of our war fighters to intimidate, demoralize, hunt and kill the enemies of our country.

[Jim Acosta]

Yeah, so you get the gist there.

[Pete Hegseth]

No more politically correct and over.

[Jim Acosta]

You know, what's your sense of that? I mean, he basically said it back in Quantico. We're just going to get rid of rules of engagement. So, I mean, he. Does. Doesn't he have to take some responsibility here?

[Congressman Jason Crow]

Yeah, listen. I mean, I would call him a fool if it wasn't so serious and the consequences weren't so dire for people, but it's way beyond foolishness. Right. This is a dereliction of duty. This man has a long history of creating permission structure for lawlessness and recklessness. Right. He sat in front of me earlier this year in the Armed Services Committee and he actually defended the language that he used in that book. He just referenced his book. Guess what? I read his book. It was a torturous, torturous adventure for me. But in this, he constantly talks about, you know, going after people's families, you know, you know, unshackling our war fighters like he talked about. They're, like, doing the same things to them that they do to us. Listen, it's, you know, it's crazy stuff until it actually happens in real life and you see the consequences of it. And then it's illegal and it's murder. Right. Which is why this is serious business and why there needs to be oversight. And there will be oversight in Congress over this. And there has to be accountability.

[Jim Acosta]

Yeah. I mean, do you think that there are war crimes potentially here?

[Congressman Jason Crow]

Potentially. Right. I'm not going to jump to conclusions. Right. But here's what I know. What I know is that the President of the United States is lawless and reckless. He has a long history of violating the law, encouraging other people to violate the law. Over a third of court orders against this administration have been Ignored by Donald Trump and his top lieutenants and his minions. Right. He has no problem encouraging other people to violate the law. And then when they're called on it or get in trouble, then he throws them under the bus. Right, that I know. I also know he has a long history of saying things and saying he's going to do things that are very clearly violations of the law, shoot protesters, which luckily Mark Esper and Chairman Mark Milley stopped him from doing. Going to war with the city of Chicago, putting troops at polling stations in the United States, which is a violation of federal criminal law, and on and on and on. Same thing with Pete Hegseth. So this is all in an environment, a lawlessness and recklessness that they have created. Created. Now you look at what happened if there were unarmed survivors of a strike. Those folks have been rendered non combatants. This is very basic law of land warfare stuff. You know, I'm a combat veteran. You get trained in this. This gets drilled into you. You know, somebody is a combatant or an adversary or an enemy until the minute they try to retreat, they raise the white flag, they throw down their weapons. They are stranded survivors of a strike that are no longer combatants. And then you actually have a moral and legal obligation to not target those folks and to provide aid and capture them if need be.

[Jim Acosta]

Yeah. And the reason why we do this, I mean, you were mentioning violations of the law and so on. So I want to get into the administration, the White House coming after you, Trump coming after you in a second. But just to follow up on the point you were just making, I guess one of the reasons why we have these rules of engagement, one of the reasons why you have something, you know, that amounts to international law when it comes to waging war, is because we don't want American soldiers to be subjected to the kinds of things that that Pete Hegseth allegedly may have done in the Caribbean. Just targeting people who are fleeing a blown up boat, that kind of a thing. Isn't that part of the reason why we have these kinds of rules of engagement?

[Congressman Jason Crow]

Yeah, it's to protect Americans first and foremost and American soldiers. Because, you know, American soldiers do get captured sometimes. They got captured in Iraq and Afghanistan. Right. And we called our adversaries to abide by the rules of. Of warfare in the Geneva Conventions. Right. And it sets a general atmosphere as well. If we're going to criticize Russia or go after Russia for war crimes and for executing Ukrainian prisoners and kidnapping 30,000 Ukrainian children, we have no moral authority. If we are violating those same Rules. At the same time, this is about protecting Americans, but it's also about rules that serve the world and serve our allies and our partners and all of us. And then the second those rules disappear, this world becomes a substantially more dangerous place.

[Jim Acosta]

Absolutely. And one other quick thing, since you're on the Intelligence Committee, there was some reporting out there. I believe Senator Mark Kelly may have said that in the briefing that they gave to lawmakers about these strikes, that this follow up strike was not brief to the lawmakers. And I know it gets a little tricky as to what you can talk about, but I mean, did some of this information that came out just recently about the so called follow up strike come as a surprise to you? Based on some of the briefings that were being done, it seems to me that maybe they weren't very forthcoming with lawmakers as they should be. Yeah.

[Congressman Jason Crow]

I don't want to get into the details, as you mentioned, of individual briefings and strikes. I think it's safe to say that I was aware of a course of conduct here over the last couple of months that have given me cause for very deep concern about the nature of this operation in the Caribbean, both the legality of it and on several levels. Right. Here are my levels of concern. Number one, America deserves an actual serious strategy to deal with drugs. Right. Tens of thousands of our kids are dying of fentanyl and this administration is doing nothing about it. Right. None of the things that have been targeted have had one pill of fentanyl.

[David Rothkoff]

Right.

[Congressman Jason Crow]

Not one. They're not doing anything. And in fact, to the contrary, Donald Trump is on the verge of pardoning one of the world's most notorious drug smugglers.

[Jim Acosta]

Let them out. Yeah.

[Congressman Jason Crow]

So they're actually not doing anything to combat drugs. That's number one. Number two, we're gonna once again get into an endless open ended conflict with no strategy. I've spent the last 25 years of my life dealing with endless conflict and war because presidents have stopped coming to Congress and Congress has allowed it to happen. And once again, you know, there is not an issue that Donald Trump doesn't see that he doesn't think he can bomb his way out of. Right. He's become the most interventionist, pro conflict president of my lifetime, which is saying something.

[Jim Acosta]

Yeah, I've lived through a few.

[Congressman Jason Crow]

Yeah, that's my second level of concern. And the third level of concern is the untenable, terrible situation that he has put our service members into, of, of executing orders potentially that could be unlawful. And that's where we need to conduct an investigation and get to the facts and see who knew what, when did they know it, who gave the orders and what exactly happened.

[Jim Acosta]

And, you know, getting into this issue that you raised, along with your fellow Democratic lawmakers about the administration handing out unlawful orders and, you know, warning service members that, hey, you know, it's your duty as a service member to not follow unlawful orders. Of course the White House came after you. Donald Trump went after you, said it was seditious behavior and so on. I wanted to ask you about this because it was reported just a few days ago that the FBI is working to schedule interviews with you and your colleagues about this. Has that happened? Or is that just sort of a. Was that some chest beating that happened a few days ago and then it went nowhere or what's happening? What's the latest with that?

[Congressman Jason Crow]

Yeah, well, I mean, it is so telling. The response to the video that my colleagues and I put out, which, by the way, what we said in that video, for those who haven't seen it, is. Is actually what every soldier is told, right?

[Jim Acosta]

Yeah.

[Congressman Jason Crow]

You have to follow the law. You have to follow the law. You have your obligation as to the Constitution, and you have, you have an obligation, not even a right, but a duty not to follow unlawful orders. Right. This is military 101 stuff. And it's exactly what I told my soldiers every single time we deployed to combat and every single time we went on a mission. So this is nothing new in the military, but the response where Donald Trump accused us of treason and sedition, said we should be captured, imprisoned and executed and hung. That's what he said is so telling. Right. That's his response to people saying, follow the law and follow the Constitution, which tells us everything we need to know. Right. And then this president is simply trying to weaponize the FBI and federal law enforcement against his opponents. And I'm not going to have it. I'm not going to be intimidated. I'm not going to be threatened. If he thinks he can come after me and Mark Kelly. Right. And my colleagues who have sworn oaths of this Constitution and have put our lives on the line for this country, if he thinks that he can threaten and intimidate us, boy, he's. He's chosen the wrong adversaries here.

[Jim Acosta]

Yeah. No question about it. And, and my understanding from looking at some of the reporting is that, that some of you guys have gotten death threats as a result of this, which is. I mean, that's part and parcel of what happens when he gets in, into this crazy rhetoric, accusing people of sedition and whatnot. The death threats start rolling. I assume that this has happened to all of you.

[Congressman Jason Crow]

Yes. Well, it's a feature, not a bug.

[Jim Acosta]

Right.

[Congressman Jason Crow]

I mean, the irony of all of this is that he accused us of treason. You know, this is the man who literally did inspire an insurrection. Right. Like, I lived through an experience. January 6th, I was one of the members caught in the house gallery while the mob that he inspired and weaponized and sent to the Capitol brutally beat hundreds of police officers and tried to kill me and my colleagues. That's Donald Trump. This is a feature, not a bug, of Donald Trump. He knows exactly what he's doing when he retweets something, when he uses this language. He knows exactly what he's doing. And he's trying to get people who might be disturbed, who might not be, well, trying to weaponize these folks against his opponents to scare people away. And I'm just not going to allow him to do that.

[Jim Acosta]

Yeah. And I mean, I think a question needs to be raised as well. You know, speaking of all of these crazy threats that he dishes out, I mean, he was apparently online overnight, you know, posting like 400 times, he was posting hundreds of times, reposting and all sorts of things. And then he couldn't stay awake during the cabinet meeting today. And so there's, I think there's a question that should be raised about just his day to day behavior and what the hell is going on with the President of the United States and can this guy do the job? And does that give sort of carte blanche to some of these cabinet members like Pete Hegseth to sort of go loose and go wild? I mean, what's your sense of it? Can he hack it as president?

[Congressman Jason Crow]

Yeah, I mean, he clearly seems to be, you know, very tired, feeling, feeling his, his age. And, you know, I don't think he's been all that well and acute for a while now. And we're not even a year into his administration. So, yeah, I'm deeply concerned about, you know, general fitness for office, but, you know, the man is trying to undermine and disassemble our democracy. So where do we even begin in terms of the threats that he poses in the challenges to the American people? It's, it's, you know, very, very troubling.

[Jim Acosta]

Yeah, well, and there's a special election happening in Tennessee, and I'm sure some of your colleagues there in the House of Representatives up on Capitol are paying some close attention to that race this evening because, I mean, all of you have to run for reelection next year. And that'll be quite the bellwether, depending on the result, even if the candidate there comes up a little short. And this is, that's a district that Trump was, He won by 22 points last time around. Yeah. I'm curious what you, what you're seeing in terms of the politics heading into next year, into the midterms next year and these special elections, which they seem to be pretty nervous as a cat on a hot tin roof over there on the Republican side.

[Congressman Jason Crow]

Right. Well, they should be nervous. Right. Because this administration is a train wreck, an unmitigated train wreck, and Americans are suffering mightily and that suffering is increasing by the week. And, you know, I'm also the chair of recruitment for House Democrats to find candidates. I've been to Tennessee. I've supported Afton Ben, who's up for election today in this special election. I spoke to one of their events about a month ago, visited them there in Nashville. So, you know, she's a dynamic, incredible candidate, has given him a hell of a fight. And, and, and it's just so telling that this is a Trump 22 district, as you pointed out, Jim. And they are scared as hell of this district and they've been pumping money into it because the last poll shows it as a statistical dead heat. So we're going to see, you know, in any given Tuesday, you don't know what's going to happen, but we're going to see what plays out tonight.

[Jim Acosta]

Well, and Trump was saying today in the Cabinet meeting that, that the, the issue of affordability is a scam. It's a scam that you and the rest of the Democrats have come up with, Congressman, this whole affordability issue.

[Congressman Jason Crow]

Yeah. So everyone, we don't, nobody has to worry about not being able to afford their groceries and their, their mortgage and their rent anymore, according to Donald Trump. But this is also, this is also his M.O. right. We've, we've seen this for years. If, if something is not going well or if they're failing or if the numbers don't match their reality, they just say it's fake. They just say it's fake news. It's a scam. It's not real. Like, you know, your inability to pay your rent and mortgage and buy groceries actually is.

[David Rothkoff]

That's right.

[Congressman Jason Crow]

That's what Donald Trump, that's what Donald Trump wants you to think. So, but, you know, people know better and they know that they know what's going on in their lives better than anybody else. And that's what ultimately this is all about.

[Jim Acosta]

Yeah, the ads are going to write themselves, I think next year, it seems.

[Congressman Jason Crow]

Well, I mean, think about this, right? While he's telling Americans that their pain and suffering is not real, that it's made up, and that they aren't really feeling and experiencing what they are, and that their struggles aren't important and real at the same time. He's building a $300 million ballroom at the White House. He's torn down the east wing of the People's House. That doesn't belong to him. It doesn't belong to any president. That belongs to the American people. And he just took a wrecking ball literally to the east wing of the White House. And he's building a $300 million ballroom. And then he's spending almost $200 million to buy new private jets for Kristi Noem. And then he says his next big project, when he's not sleeping in cabinet meetings, is rebuilding the golf course at Andrews Air Force Base. This is what he's really interested in doing. He wants to build a world class golf course at Andrews Air Force Base. And he's called in Jack Nicklaus to advise him on that. This is what's important to the guy. And what's he, what he's spending his time doing.

[Jim Acosta]

Yeah, it seems as though he's, he's trying to build a lot of things with, with some urgency, you know, build things that he can hang on, hang his name on with some urgency. I don't know what that is. He, does he sense that the clock is ticking, that the hourglass, the sand is slipping through the hourglass? I don't know what it is, but Congressman Jason Crow, always appreciate your time, thanks very much. And keep us posted on how things are going with this investigate, this so called investigation. My, my suspicion is, is that they said, oh, we're going to send the FBI after you. And then it's like when Trump files a lawsuit, you know.

[Congressman Jason Crow]

Yeah, Well, I mean, this is, this is actually what a lot of like, you know, strong men and dictators try to do around the world is they try to just make life hard for their adversaries and their opponents. I mean, this is, this whole thing is frivolous, right. And, and has no basis in law and fact, but that, but for them, that's not the point. But, you know, I'm not going to, again, I'm not going to be intimidated, I'm not going to be threatened, and I'm sure in hell I'm not going to let it slow me down. Or stop, stop it from doing my job.

[Jim Acosta]

All right, Very good. Congressman Jason Crow of Colorado, always great to see you. Thanks so much. Really appreciate it.

[Congressman Jason Crow]

Thanks, Jim.

[Jim Acosta]

All right. Thank you. And I think Congressman Crow, you know, it makes a good point. I was going to bring this up towards the end of the show, but let's show that footage again of Donald Trump. He's napping, he's dozing off in the Cabinet meeting earlier today. You know, that is, that is one sleepy guy. And, you know, this is, I, I'm just going to tell you something right now. As somebody who covered, has covered Donald Trump since late 2015, early 2016, out on the campaign trail at all the rallies and everything, I have never seen him nod off this much. It's just, it's almost like a daily thing now where he has a meeting, he's in the Oval Office, he's in the Cabinet Room, and he's just, he's asleep. And he wakes up long enough to say whatever, you know, he posted on Truth Social the night before. He just regurgitates that stuff. But he, but other than that, he's just kind of asleep. He's asleep at the wheel, he's asleep at the switch. And the question becomes, you know, what do these other Cabinet members do when, when grandpa's napping, when grandpa is a little drowsy, when grandpa needs a cookie? It seems as though in Pete Hegset's case, what he's doing is bombing the shit out of boats, not knowing exactly what those boats are in the Caribbean. And when there are survivors of those strikes, they hit him again. And Donald Trump said the other day that he wasn't on board with that because he's been president before. He, he surely has some understanding that that, that that is probably a war crime. He's probably seen enough movies to know that that is probably a war crime. And so even he doesn't want anything to do with it. But if you're the president of the United States, if you're the president of the United States and you can't stay awake long enough to be the president of the United States is going to go down. And so, you know, that is something that we're obviously going to have to keep our eyes on to see what happens next. The other thing that we need to point out in that Cabinet meeting that we saw earlier today is that Christine Ohm, the DHS secretary, she apparently is now going to because of the shooting of the National Guard members that took place last week. She and the Department of Homeland security, they've decided for some reason that they're going to begin an operation, this is according to the New York Times, begin an operation targeting Somali immigrants in the Minneapolis St. Paul area. This is according to an official with knowledge of the plan and the documents. And this is coming despite the fact that Somalia had nothing to do. There was no, there was no Somali involved in the shooting that took place last week. But ever since that happened, Trump has been talking about Somali immigrants and how Somalis coming to this country or somehow a bad thing. And so apparently the Department of Homeland Security is getting ready to do an operation in Minneapolis Saint Paul targeting Somali immigrants. And it's making me think we've got to find a guest who can talk to us about all of that. But it gets to, it gets to the nastiness, it gets to the cruelty of this administration. It's something that my next guest has been talking about for some time. He wrote a terrific Substack column about this a few days ago, which I want to share with you. Let's bring in David Rothkoff, longtime columnist, hope host of Deep State Radio and also very prominently on Substack. David, great to see you. Thanks for coming on.

[David Rothkoff]

Nice to see you, Jim.

[Jim Acosta]

And, and I really appreciate it. I've been meaning to get you on for some time. Always enjoy your work. But it was your Substack piece that you, you put out there a few days ago that, that really had me, because it was, it was very much where my head was. I was trying to avoid thinking about Donald Trump over the Thanksgiving Day holiday and into that holiday weekend. But, you know, he's calling reporters piggy and stupid and he's going after people and he's going after the Somalis even though they had nothing to do with the shooting of these National Guard members last week. I mean, and you wrote a piece, how to Stop the Descent Into Madness. And I thought it was the perfect piece because it crystallizes exactly what we're up against right now. And I was just going to read a little bit from it. You wrote, we have entered a new phase of national crisis, confronted with accelerating madness, lawlessness, corruption, cruelty and destruction. We cannot, must not continue as we have been. We must respond to the worsening situation with greater urgency, greater numbers, bolder actions. And we must candidly assess what has and has not worked in the past and try new things where required. David, expand on that, because I think it's perfect.

[David Rothkoff]

Well, I mean, thank you. But some of us, you and I have been watching this for a decade and warning of the potential consequences of it for a decade. And throughout the first term of the Trump administration, between the terms, we've certainly seen a lot that was disturbing, policies that were disturbing domestically and internationally, stances that were disturbing in terms of the manifestation of racism or misogyny within them, trends that were disturbing in terms of promotion of inequality in the country, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And we saw the attack of the Capitol. We've seen a number of things that were just mind blowing. And then we got into the second term of the Trump administration, and then the things that we saw every couple of weeks started happening every couple of hours. And throughout the course of the past 11 months, that has accelerated. And what made me want to write the piece was we got to a point, and you mentioned some of the elements of it where he's insulting reporters, and reporters are being denied access to certain kinds of things, and we're about to go to war with a country that. That we don't actually have any grievance with. And, you know, it would be an illegal war, and we're murdering people in the water, and our troops are going into our cities. And we've got a guy running the Department of Health and Human Services who actually not only does not understand science, he doesn't believe in it. He's trying to undo it, and children are going to die. They're putting out new regulations on a regular basis that essentially say, you know, we've been vaccinating people since the 18th century. Forget it. That was wrong. Do something different. We are destroying the environment at a regular basis. And in fact, I was doing the math in my head. And as I was doing the math, I was like, well, okay, let's take health policy, energy policy, education policy, international economic policy with tariffs, domestic economic policy with budget deficits, national security policy, corruption, rule of law, and so forth. And in every single case that I looked at it, not only do we have the usual variance between what's a Democrat and what's a Republican, we had the administration taking the worst possible choice, the worst, the most destructive choice imaginable for the United States, whether it's embracing an enemy, you know, like Russia or embracing a disease, and make it more likely that everybody's going to get it. And I thought, this has got to be kind of an alarm to everybody. And I know this is a message you've been delivering on a regular basis, and great credit to you for doing that, because we have to say this is not normal, and no one is going to Come save us. If we don't save ourselves, the acceleration will continue, the situation will worsen, and the number of people who suffer as a consequence, it will grow exponentially.

[Jim Acosta]

That's absolutely right. And I, that was the thrust of your piece that I really, that I really enjoyed and liked. It was this urging, was sort of a call to action to Americans to stop being complacent. And I do think to some extent, people are getting off of the sofa, they're getting out of the house, they're going to, to rallies and demonstrations like no kings and so on and all that's, all that's well and good, but it has to be sustained. And I, and I, and I had been thinking, David, that part of the reason why it had to be sustained is because Trump is so dangerous. And I wonder if we need to start having the conversation that not only is Trump dangerous, he is, he's becoming sleepier and sleepier and sort of disengaged and just sort of less with it to the point where now we have to worry about his MAGA Cabinet members running wild and doing destructive things, and the Rubik's Cube becomes even harder to solve.

[David Rothkoff]

Yeah, no doubt. And, you know, you're showing video here of today's Cabinet meeting, which was embarrassing as all of these things are, you know, Kristi Noem thanking him for our not having hurricanes this year. You know, I mean, which was, you know, bizarre or, or, you know, but, but it, you know, as, as, as strange as all that was. You then also had Marco Rubio and seen like this sitting next to the president saying how great he was, and he has fallen asleep. He is, like, not there. And, and, and so you're thinking, wow, this guy is losing it. And of course, the reason he's not sleeping is that last night he spent two hours doing a social media post, every minute one more deranged than the next. And you got to say, this guy is not physically healthy. He's not mentally healthy. He is a big problem. But as you point out, he's not the only problem. Trump's not going to last forever. And you have to ask yourself, where does J.D. vance or Marco Rubio or, you know, the next extremist voice on the right in America take us. And I think that's one of the things that I, you know, I tried to deal with in these substack posts that this need to know substack that I've got. But I also, you know, another thing that I raised, and I think we don't get to it as as much as we should, is that this is not just about politics. This is about power. Power resides outside the political system with people who have said, yeah, I'm going to bet on those folks, and I don't really care what they do to gain power so long as my interests are protected. And so you've got a bunch of billionaires, and it's, you know, not all billionaires are bad. And it's not just billionaires, but you've got a bunch of billionaires who are saying, if he cuts my taxes, if he reduces the regulation on my company, if he lets me drill, baby, drill, or he lets me go after more coal, or he lets me, you know, do you know, crypto shenanigans, then, you know, if he's a racist and a misogynist and he's going after Somalis, as you were talking about, or he's, he's, he's blowing up our, you know, public education. So I don't care so much because I'm in it for the money.

[Jim Acosta]

Right.

[David Rothkoff]

Frankly, I, you know, I don't know if you remember that movie, million years ago, Jodie Foster movie, I think it was called Contact or something like.

[Jim Acosta]

Yeah, Contact. Yeah.

[David Rothkoff]

You know, there's a, it's about the aliens, but there was this rich guy character in the movie played by John Hurt, who was in an airplane and he just circled around the world and the plane never landed. He didn't, you know, and that's the image I have of a lot of these guys. They, they're not in our world, Right. They, they don't connect. They don't feel the pain if the VA is not providing care, if SNAP funds aren't coming through, if they're stopped at the border and turned away or, you know, if somebody has stopped, doesn't touch them.

[Jim Acosta]

Yes.

[David Rothkoff]

You know, and so they say, okay, for us, we want to invest in the people who are going to win power at any cost. Of course, power at any cost is super bad for our system. If I may, I'll just conclude on that on one point, and that is let's take what, you know, polls, what I know polls in the United States and say, what are the issues where you can get 2/3 or 3/4 the American people to agree? Well, interestingly, those issues are common sense. Gun reform, fairer tax system, education reform that gives all little kids access to preschool education, the affordable health care, having the access and having a guarantee of affordable health care, having a dignified retirement, having campaign finance reform, all these things polled in the 60s 70s, 80s, gun reform in the 90s in the United States, none of them can happen. Now you got to ask yourself if we're a democracy. The arithmetic of democracy is supposed to be that if you get 75% of the people supporting something, it happens, right? If it's close, it doesn't. If you got the super majority of Americans supporting it, it doesn't have. But here we've got all of these issues, which, as it happens, might be categorized as a progressive agenda. All these issues are supported by a super majority, and you can't get near them.

[Jim Acosta]

That's right.

[David Rothkoff]

They are the political third rail. And you have to ask yourself in that situation, why is that? What's broken in our system? And the answer is, you can't be a political leader unless you win the money primary before you win the political primary. And so, you know, our system has been hijacked. And unless we recognize that doesn't matter who, whether it's Trump or somebody else, we're going to continue to have problems.

[Jim Acosta]

I think you're so right about that, David. And to me, it's a bit more than building a progressive agenda for the Democratic Party that a lot of people want to vote for, because they may want to vote for it, and that's all well and good, but once K Street gets their hooks in everybody when they come into power, you're absolutely right. The, the deck is stacked against the American people. As long as you have the second Gilded Age robber baron, sort of, you know, everybody can just run wild in the Wild west sort of mentality here in Washington. And when Elon Musk is on the verge of becoming a trillionaire and Michael Dell is so rich that he can put billions of dollars into this Trump Fund system that they want for kids. I have no. If somebody could draw a piece of paper, you know, draw on a piece of paper how this is going to work, I, I would really appreciate it because I'm not really sure how this is going to work. It sounds like a way to do an end round around Social Security and, and 529 and 401ks and everything else that have built up the middle class. But it seems to me, unless you have some sort of campaign finance reform, either through the courts or through the legislature, you are not going to have a system in this country where people can see gun safety measures passed into law, where people can see health care reform that has passed, where it's just not astronomically unaffordable for people on a daily basis to go to the doctor and I think you're, you're just so right about that. We're becoming detached from our own democracy because the system is rigged.

[David Rothkoff]

Yeah, I, I agree. I will go further. And a lot of people won't say it. I'm actually writing a book on it. So I'll say it, say it because I'm immersing myself. But I think American capitalism has killed American democracy. And, you know, and, and that's not to say capitalism is bad. It's to say vulture capitalism is bad. It's to say billionaires above all is bad. It's to say growing inequality is bad. It's to say, you know, we're all in this together and we need to realize that. And I think, you know, there's a moment of hope here. And the moment of hope has to do with the fact, first of all, that these excesses are so obvious. Elon's trillion dollar budget or Trump's ballroom that keeps growing like Topsy. And it's, you know, he wants to have this golden Ballroom for who? Not for you or me, for Billionaires to go, 1500 billionaires to go in and celebrate. Who? Him. He wants to name it after himself. And so you've got this kind of craziness of excess. Right now, there are 1100 billionaires in the US and they really seem to be driving policy. And the system, meanwhile, isn't working for everybody else. And as Trump shuts things down one at a time, health care goes up 300% or you don't get your VA benefits, or you don't get SNAP benefits, or the school bus that came to pick up your disabled kid won't come anymore. The aid for federal schools, every community in the us, all your neighbors, all my neighbors, they're starting to feel it and they're starting to say something is broken here. And when you see people like Zoran Mamdani, but also like Abigail Spanberger, who are able to run and succeed, they've got a couple things in common. They believe in that super majority agenda and they're willing to stand up to Trump and to billionaires and say, I don't. We don't need your money. In fact, we are going to win because we don't take your money. And this coincides with one other thing that I talk about a lot, and that is 2028 will be the first election in US history in which the majority of voters will be born after 1990. That means that the majority of American voters in the next presidential election will be millennials and zoomers and They've seen the boomer movie. I'm a boomer, you know, Late, late, but late.

[Jim Acosta]

Shame on you.

[David Rothkoff]

Shame on you. Yeah, no, I know. But, but, but they've seen this movie.

[Jim Acosta]

Yeah.

[David Rothkoff]

And it didn't work. You know, they've seen boomers come in and get handed the richest, most powerful nation in the world. At the end of the Cold War. I was in the Clinton administration. Bill Clinton took office months after the end of the Cold War. We were the sole superpower. And 34 years later, 33 years later, that's just not true anymore. We're not the richest, most powerful. Our trajectory isn't the best trajectory. We are not the shining light of the world. We are not the example of democracy. So they've seen a generation squander it. They know it's not there for good. They've lived through Covid. They've lived through the 2000, 2008 crash. They have seen how fragile this all is, and they're saying, we're not buying that anymore. We're not buying the same old thing. And to me, that is super promising.

[Jim Acosta]

I, I think you're right, because they've seen that, that the boomers have not been good stewards of the country. And I will, I'll do you one better. I can't tell you how pissed off I am at Generation X. I'm Gen X. We used to be the young whippers.

[David Rothkoff]

Now, okay, Rub it, rub it in. Okay?

[Jim Acosta]

Grunge. The grunge movement and all that stuff. We had Nirvana and Pearl Jam and all. And we were supposed to be so mad at our baby boomer parents that we were going to do things differently. And then we had, don't stop thinking about tomorrow, Bill Clinton come in as president. And, and it just didn't. And, and Gen X. I think if you look at the Democratic demographic breakdown in terms of the generational vote for Trump, I think Generation X was not, if not the top, was the second to the top in terms of demographics that voted for Donald Trump. And I, I get. Did we all turn up, turn out like Alex P. Keaton from Family Ties? I don't know.

[David Rothkoff]

Well, but I think in a way that's part of it, right? Because I think if you were born in the 50s or 60s or early 70s in the United States, you were not shaped BY World War II like the greatest generation was, right? And you, you missed a lot of these crises that I just mentioned. You were handed the richest and most powerful nation in the world, and you were told, you can go watch Family ties, You know, you could go and live your life, and it's not. And, and frankly, I just think we were soft. Now, look, you know, every time I say this somebody, right, I'm a bloomer. And we did. I know technology and it's, you know.

[Jim Acosta]

Rumors are mad at us. It. We're just a little self flagellating goes a long way, you know.

[David Rothkoff]

Yeah, but. But it's like, yeah, there was technology and, you know, there was some social progress and there were some positive things. This is not, you know, black and white. Right. Yeah, but having said that, we were complacent. You know, I. I'll give you another set of boomers. Right. You know who else is a boomer? Xi Jinping. What was his experience as a boomer? Well, he grew up in the Cultural Revolution. His family was torn apart by the Cultural Revolution. He grew up in a miserably poor China that didn't know which way it was going to go. And he was part of the generation that had to struggle against poverty and oppression and everything else to build China into what is now the one rival of the United States to be the most powerful nation on Earth. That is ahead of us. And AI that is ahead of us. I'm not saying that's a better society. I'm saying their experience was different from our experience. And I think the millennial and zoomer experience is different still. And, you know, think about, think you're a Zoomer. You're 25 years old or you're 28 years old, you're going to vote in the next election, will be your second election. And since you were 15, since you were conscious, since you first started following the news on a social app, you never followed it on tv, you never read about it in a newspaper. They're totally past that. But since you started, the centerpiece of American politics has been Donald Trump.

[Jim Acosta]

Yeah, I know. I had Aaron Parnas on recently, and he said that the only president he really remembers is Donald Trump. And I. And I thought. I thought I was gonna have a stroke when I heard that, but you're so right to bring up that point. And maybe David will just say that the boomers and the Gen Xers, maybe we can wake the hell up, start working together so we can leave a better country for our kids and our grandkids, for these next generations, so they can build on top of something sustainable and that I think that work needs to start now. But, David, as always, great to have speak with you. I think I had you on my old show. Let's do this again more often. And I love that we have all the time to talk about this kind of stuff. Really appreciate it.

[David Rothkoff]

Thank you, Jim. Really enjoyed talking to you. Talk to you again soon. And maybe you can come visit some of our pods, too.

[Jim Acosta]

Would love to do it. All right. Good to see you, David. Thanks so much. Appreciate it. And I, I haven't seen the comments, but if I, if the comments are coming in from the boomers that they're very upset about this conversation, just hang in there a little bit. We were just trying to point out that there are some bad boomers out there that need to have their noses rubbed in a little bit. Of course, I've seen what's taken place at the no Kings protests and so on. It's, it's been wonderful to see people of all walks of society show up to try to take this country back and make it a better place. That's what we need right now. But in the meantime, we have something to deal with, and that is we have a situation over at the White House that is very much like the movie Weekend at Bernie's. And I just want to, can we show the video? He was sleeping during the Cabinet meeting. I was told that Joe Biden was asleep all the time. That basically Joe Biden was asleep for four years. Isn't that, isn't that the narrative? The narrative? And Donald Trump talked about this all the time. Sleepy Joe, Sleepy Joe, that Joe Biden was asleep for four years. There's Donald Trump at his own damn Cabinet meeting. Stand basically in, in REM sleep mode while his Cabinet members are kissing up to him. Now the Dear Leader Cabinet meetings that I remember when I covered the White House, he could stay awake for those. And he loved, he was just like, keep it coming, keep it coming. Now he's just, if there's a, if there's a key word that stands out to him, maybe he'll, he'll wake up from his nap and then he'll go back to sleep. And the, and he was awake during certain points of the Cabinet because he was asked. He, well, he was an asset. But he mentioned how he is sharper now than he was 25 years ago. If we have that bite, we should play that because that's, it's a gem. It's a real gem.

[Donald Trump]

When there's something wrong. There will be someday that's going to happen to all of us. But right now I think I'm sharper than I was 25 years ago. But who the hell knows? I took by the Way I took my physical, I got all A's, everything. But they said to me, would you like to take a cognitive test? I said, is it hard? They said, yes.

[Jim Acosta]

I said, no, it's not hard.

[Donald Trump]

I'm a smart person.

[Jim Acosta]

That's the thing, the cognitive test.

[Donald Trump]

Who was the last president to take one? No president has.

[Jim Acosta]

What is he talking about? So when he's awake, he says things that, that are incoherent and don't make any sense. And then he goes back into REM mode at the Cabinet meeting. It's Weekend at Bernie's at the White House, starring Donald Trump. Weekend of Donnie's Trump Van Winkle, whatever you want to call this, he is. He is not alert, folks. He is not awake. And this to me raises a brand new problem that we need to talk about in this country. You know, Donald Trump, yes. Dangerous as hell. No question about it. Dangerous as hell. Look at all the stuff he was. He was posting. He posted hundreds of times overnight. For those of us who were sleeping and missed this, he was reposting Alex Jones. Alex Jones was saying Michelle Obama may have used Biden's auto pen in the final days of his disastrous administration to pardon key officials. Patrick Byrne reveals the overstock guy. Whatever happened to that guy? Anyway, Donald Trump's reposting Alex Jones, who had the shitsuit out of him for defaming the Sandy Hook families. That's who Donald Trump was reposting. And then he reposted somebody named Mila Joy. I don't know who that is. Doesn't X have this feature now where you can look at the. Where these. Does this lady live in Nigeria? Is she one of the Nigeria people? And she posted. Nancy Pelosi's former top staffer said Nancy planned January 6th for two years. Lock her up. That was the other. That was the other batshit crazy thing that Donald Trump was focusing on in the middle of the damn night. So Donald Trump's up all night, he's reposting batshit crazy stuff through the night because he's in sort of manic mode where he has to keep reposting this stuff, and then he can't stay awake during a bloody cabinet meeting. And so it, to me, it raises a whole new problem that people like Pete Hegseth, who has no business being the Secretary of Defense, can go out there and conduct airstrikes on fishermen in the Caribbean without any oversight because the Republicans who control the Congress aren't going to do any goddamn oversight. Some of them have attached their names to some letters Saying we need to do an investigation and so on. But they're blowing people up in the Caribbean. And then after they blow them up the first time, when there's a couple of guys swimming around in the water, they blow them up again. And, and Pete Hexeth is lying through his teeth today when he says, oh, it was the fog of war. Was the fog of war. He was on Fox. He was on Fox saying, I watched it live. Pete Hexet said, I watched it live. And so now you have this cabinet full of MAGA lunatics, people like or MAHA lunatics, people like RFK Jr who is single handedly decimating public health in this country. You have Kristi Noem who is now going to preside over an unconstitutional assault on Somali immigrants in Minneapolis St. Paul. And it's all happening while we're watching Weekend at Bernie's at the White House because Donald Trump is out to lunch, ladies and gentlemen. He can't stay awake during a cabinet meeting. He's sleepy, Don. He's Weekend at Donnie's stories. He can't stay awake for his own cabinet meeting. And the American people are getting a glimpse of what this country is becoming. This. Something else happened earlier today that I want to call your attention to over at Pete Hegseth's Department of War, as he calls it. They kicked out all the reporters. All the reporters got kicked out of there because they wouldn't sign some, some cockamamie policy that said, if you want to do a story on us, you have to run it by the press office. So all the reporters in Washington, we all remember this. They all filed out of the Pentagon. They turned into their, their, their press badges and they filed out of the Pentagon. They said, we're out of here. And now you got to take a look at what's happening. Instead of having a real American Pentagon press corps, you now have the likes of Matt Gates and Laura Loomer in the Pentagon briefing room asking sycophantic questions of the Pentagon press secretary, Whoever this person is, we should watch some of this. Sure. Again, that national security is protected. That is the secretary's utmost priority.

[Congressman Jason Crow]

But given the fact that the Qatari.

[Jim Acosta]

Royal family and Qatar itself, that's Laura, the biggest financier, along with Turkey, of.

[Congressman Jason Crow]

Course, the financier of the Muslim Brotherhood.

[Jim Acosta]

Would that relate asking an Islamophobic question since the design, you know, she's a lunatic. Laura loomer is a 911 truth. But again, the secretary really keeps national security top of. And there's a lady there pretending that Laura Loomer is asking a legitimate question. And what you witnessed today, what the American people saw today, for those of you who were. Were at home to see it, maybe you're just getting home now and taking this all in. But what happened at the Pentagon earlier today is an example of what state media looks like. So if you go to Russia or you go to Cuba, you go to North Korea, you go to China, they don't have real. They don't have a real press corps there. They have state media reporters who pretend to be actual journalists who ask fawning questions of the dictator. And so when you put people like Laura Loomer, There was a guy there from Real America News. That's America. That's not America. That's not democracy. That's not a free press. That's some. That Pete Hegseth cooked up over at the Pentagon because they can't handle real scrutiny. And why do we need reporters right now over at the Pentagon? Because they're blowing the. Out of fishermen in the Caribbean, blowing them out of the water, alleged drug dealers. We have no idea. Because they don't scoop them up and prosecute them. They just blow them up. And if there's some swimming around afterwards, they hit them again. So, of course, they have to be. There have to be reporters at the Pentagon. You have to have actual journalists at the Pentagon. Now, I've heard people say, and it's true, that, yes, you can do great reporting outside the Pentagon. You don't need to be at the Pentagon to do great journalism. And there are terrific reporters who do that. But there need to be actual journalists in that briefing room to press these clowns and turkeys on the bullshit that they do. You have to have real journalists in there to press them on the bullshit that they do. And Pete Hexseth is a walking, talking disaster of a Secretary of Defense. He is pretending in his baby gap skinny tie to be the Secretary of Defense. I don't know. Is that a spray tan? Was that. Is that a tanning salon? What shade is that? I mean, that's the other thing that we have to ask about with how many of these Cabinet members of Donald Trump's cabinet go to a goddamn tanning salon and wear skinny ties? It's a disaster. And so you have to have real reporters over at the Pentagon, or else what you have is state tv, ladies and gentlemen. You have state television, American state television, American state media. And it's a catastrophe. And it's all happening, all of this is happening at each of these Individual departments. There's no scrutiny at the Department of Homeland Security. There's no scrutiny at the Department of Health and Human Services because the President of the United States is asleep at the switch. He's asleep. I was told during the 2024 campaign that Joe Biden was so insanely out of it that he had to be replaced, that the Democrats had to be thrown out of office, and that this strong, virile Donald Trump was going to ride on a white horse, on a white nationalist horse to everybody's rescue. And he's falling asleep. He can't stay awake at his own bloody Cabinet meeting. It's weekend at Bernie's, folks. It's weekend at Bernie's. And we now need to start asking the question, who's minding the store? Who's in charge over at the White House? Remember all those FOX News segments about who's really the president? Who's really pulling the strings behind the scenes? Who's really in charge in the Cabinet? Don't we need to ask those questions now of the Trump administration? The president is reposting Alex Jones in the middle of the night. Come on. I, you know, we, there are books about Joe Biden. You know, Joe Biden, he couldn't stay awake. He was in a state of cognitive decline. Joe Biden was never up in the middle of the night reposting Alex Jones. Conspiracy theories. But Donald Trump is two standards. And the press gets accused of being too liberal, out of control, fake news, enemy of the people. Because we ask tough questions of Donald Trump. But there's a double standard. Donald Trump is not being held to the Biden standard. If the Biden standard means you can't have a president in the United States who's out to lunch, who can't get his words out correctly, who can't get the job done, who's asleep at the switch. The Donald Trump has to be held to the same standard. What's good for the goose is good for the gander. There's too much going on right now for a weekend at Bernie's presidency. And that's what we have right now, ladies and gentlemen. And we're all just going to have to go along for the ride. And hopefully we, hopefully we survive the weekend, folks, because we got three more years of this. My thanks to Congressman Jason Crow, my thanks to David Rothkoff, and we're going to be watching this special election tonight in Tennessee. Very interesting to see what happens. Does Afton Bain pull off the big upset in this, in a district that Donald Trump won by 22 points last year. We'll have to wait and see. Very interesting. We'll be watching, but in the meantime, thanks, everybody, for watching. Still reporting from Washington, I'm Jim Acosta. Have a good evening. Stay awake, folks. A lot going on.