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Jim Acosta
Foreign.
That ends and why in Donald Trump's assault on American democracy. It was no April Fool's joke today when Trump went to the Supreme Court in what looked like an attempt to pressure the justices of the high court into doing what he wanted with birthright citizenship in this country. It did not work. It looks like he may have stormed off about an hour or so into his visit. Let's Discuss with Sharon McMahon, who writes the great substack, the Preamble. She is a widely admired author as well as considered America's government teacher, which is a great distinction. I always love government class in high school, Sharon, but I think Donald Trump may get an F in civics, certainly not AP US Government after what we saw take place today. Sharon, your thoughts? Because you were just telling me before we got started that you listened to the oral arguments. I do want to get into that a little bit, but just what did you think of, like, Trump showing up and he looked like he was trying to scowl at them and make them do what he wanted and they didn't do it.
Sharon McMahon
Yeah. I mean, even the Wall Street Journal was reporting that he looked incredibly bored, that he was, that he was just like his eyes were wandering all around the room, that he did not chuckle at any of the places where other people chuckled, like where Justice Roberts accidentally called another justice by the wrong. Where the whole audience is like, oh, ha, ha, ha. He didn't chuckle at any of that. And then as soon as the government's, the government was done presenting their side, he was ready to go. And, you know, this is something that I definitely could have called in advance. I've been to the Supreme Court and listened to oral arguments live. They do not allow you to talk to other people. They don't allow you to have your phone out. You're not allowed to, like, jab other people and whisper and, you know, make little jokes, cameras. And so I knew this was a losing recipe for somebody who strongly craves the spotlight when there is no ability to make it about you. It's boring. So it wasn't a surprise to me that he did not sit through the entire two hours. It was not a surprise at all.
Jim Acosta
And apparently he wasn't recognized. If I, if I'm, if I'm not mistaken there.
Sharon McMahon
Thank you for joining us, Mr. President. There was no acknowledgment of him whatsoever.
Jim Acosta
I'm sure he loved that part. I'm sure he really loved that part and did not take that as a snub at all.
Sharon McMahon
Personally, no.
Jim Acosta
But I mean, just to get into, like, the substance of what occurred. I mean, this is what the AP said. It said the AP seen poised to reject his restrictions on birthright citizenship in a consequential case that was magnified by his unparalleled presence in the courtroom. This is how the AP described it. Conservative and liberal justices question whether Trump's order declaring that children born to parents who are in the US Illegally or temporarily are not American citizens comports with either the Constitution or federal law. I guess the Attorney General, Pam Bondi was there, the Commerce Secretary, for some reason, Howard Lutnick was there, and then Trump after it was all over. We can put this up on screen. I guess he was not happy. He posted on Truth Social, quote, we are the only country in the world stupid enough to allow birthright citizenship. I, I guess now he's calling America stupid. You know, this, this was not a good day for him.
Sharon McMahon
It really wasn't. It was obvious from the very first question in my mind that this is not going to go how he intended. And Solicitor General Sauer, you know, tried to paint this idea to the justices that when the Constitution was, was, you know, when the 14th amendment was being ratified, that there were. There was no concept of you tourism like we have today. He brought up that there are something like 500 companies in China that, you know, help people come to the United States for the express intent of giving birth and then having a citizen child and, you know, affording that citizen child a lot of advantages that they wouldn't have otherwise. So he, he uses the phrase, this is a new world. And Chief Justice John Roberts said to him, it may be a new world, but it's the same Constitution. It was very much like, it was polite, but it was like a. Definitely, you could tell where his head was at that, like, yeah, yeah. Maybe they didn't account for that in 1868. Maybe they didn't. And yet nobody has changed the Constitution to account for it. And we can't just go on what we wish were true, which is obviously what Trump wants. He wants to go with what he wishes was true instead of what actually is.
Jim Acosta
Yeah. And there was another moment. I think we have the sound. We can play it where Justice Gorsuch was asking Sauer, who was representing the Trump administration, what about Native Americans? And he couldn't answer the question. Let's play this. Let's play.
Do you think Native Americans today are birthright citizens under your test and under your friend's test?
Solicitor General Sauer
I think so. I mean, obviously they've been granted citizenship
Jim Acosta
by Statute aside, the statute, think they're birthright citizens.
Solicitor General Sauer
No, I think the, the clear understanding that everybody agrees in the congressional debates is that the children of tribal Indians are not birthright citizens.
Jim Acosta
I understand that's what they said. But your test is the domicile of the parents and that would be the test you'd have us apply today, right?
Solicitor General Sauer
Yes, yes. So if a tribal Indian, for example,
Jim Acosta
gives up allegiance to born today birthright citizens.
Solicitor General Sauer
I think so on our test.
Jennifer Welch
Yeah.
Solicitor General Sauer
If they're lawfully domiciled here. I'm not sure I have to think that through. But, but, oh, that's my reaction.
Jim Acosta
I'll take the. Yes, that's all right.
He'll have to think that through. I, I guess he can get back to the justices on that. So Native Americans who were born in the country that was stolen from them, we're not even going to make, we're not even going to make it clear that they're citizens of the United States.
Sharon McMahon
I mean, he has to give it some thought. Just to give it some thought.
Jim Acosta
But this is why we have, this is why we have the 14th amendment. And I mean, it kind of answers our question here, which is, why do we have the 14th? Because it, you, you just have to give people who are born here citizenship. If you try to parse this out and say, well, this person over here, maybe, not that person over there. Well, what about this asterisk next to that person's? It doesn't work. And you can't leave it up to a lunatic like Donald Trump to sort out who's a citizen and who's not a citizen, it seems to me.
Sharon McMahon
Well, they also talked about, you know, he keeps bringing up the congressional record and that was one of the things the justices brought up. They were like, actually, isn't the amendment so that Congress doesn't get to decide who is a citizen and who isn't. So it is a uniform test. Were you born here or not? Are you the child of a diplomat or not? Then you're a citizen. They're saying this is to prevent people from picking and choosing who gets to be a citizen, which is apparently the test that the administration wants to apply.
Jim Acosta
Yeah. And it seems to me what Trump is doing. Sharon, you and I have not spoken before, so please feel free to disagree with any of my characterizations. But it seems to me what Donald Trump is doing with his visit to the Supreme Court with the birthright citizenship case, it's all playing sort of race baiting politics. His back is up against a wall. He's very nervous about the midterms. And so he goes back to these tried and true, you know, issues for him, even though they, they may not be very honestly utilized on his part. It seems to me the same is the case when it comes to this executive order that he's done on voting. And again, it's just another way to play to his base, you know, but in a very serious way that is could be very concerning to our Constitution. But NPR put it this way. Trump on Tuesday escalated his efforts to reshape American elections, signing an executive order that seeks to create Lists of U.S. citizens who are eligible to vote in each state and instructing the US Postal Service to send mail ballots only to verified voters. Somehow he's going to get the Postal Service involved in our elections. Trump told reporters in the Oval Office that he believes the order is legally foolproof. But election experts said not so fast. Your, your thoughts on this, Sharon? Because to me it's dangerous what he's trying to do. He's trying to take over our elections. But at the same, I just see this as more of his just playing to his base with this kind of race baiting politics.
Sharon McMahon
It, it's all of those things. And even more than that, this is number one, it's completely based on relitigating in his own mind the 2020 election which he believes was stolen from him and continues to press on. He continues to bring these issues up. So this is, this is in part, you know, him answering to the, to the, to the call of they stole the election for me. We can't ever let that happen again. Number two, because he was elected on this premise that we can't allow anybody to steal elections from us. Of course this is an issue that his base likes. Election integrity is, you know, a term that is frequently used. You see it with pass the save act hasn't been successful so far. But I totally agree that getting the postal service involved seems like a nonsensical non starter. It truly does. This is an organization that is basically saying we're going to be insolvent in a couple of years if things don't change. You know, like this is organization that has the infrastructure to determine whether a piece of mail belongs to one single citizen. Does this piece of mail belong to citizen Jim Acosta? If so, put it through the following shoot. If not, it should go over here. But there is one other thing that this, this executive order did which is that it seeks to criminalize the behavior of any state or local election official. We're talking about election judges at your local precinct to criminally prosecute them. If they give out a ballot to somebody who is not eligible, they do not have to, that person does not actually have to cast the ballot. They do not need to prove criminal intent. They do not need to demonstrate that this part, this person is part of some, you know, criminal conspiracy to defraud the electorate. It specifically says, and I spent considerable amount of time reading this last night, it specifically directs the Attorney General and the Department of Justice to investigate and prosecute state and local election officials for giving out a ballot to somebody is not eligible. And let's not forget that the majority of our local election officials are elderly. They are mostly retired people in the United States. That's the bulk of our local election officials. And this is going to create the conditions under which people don't want to participate. They're not willing to be criminally prosecuted for making a mistake, mistake of which there is no criminal intent. That has no bearing on the election. Nobody won it fraudulently. So this idea that we're going to criminally prosecute a bunch of 75 year old women if they mistakenly give out a ballot to somebody who's not a, not 18 yet, or, you know, they misread the, the name on a driver's license, that's also just absurd.
Jim Acosta
Yeah, well, and he's also trying to go after mail in voting even though he just recently submitted his own mail in ballot in a local election in Florida. And a lot of folks have been pointing out that, you know, a lot of senior citizens who are Republicans use mail in voting all the time.
Sharon McMahon
Yeah, the, the majority of people who use mail in ballots outside of some states where that's the predominant way that you vote, like Utah, like, you know, Oregon, the majority of people who use it are themselves. They tend to be older Americans who statistically tend to vote more Republican than say, the millennial crowd. So this definitely is shortsighted in that they're going to make it more difficult for their Republican base to vote.
Jim Acosta
Yeah. And it just seems to me that what we're seeing is, you know, kind of a, you know, a full frontal assault, you know, in every way possible that they can think of to meddle with the midterms and to make it difficult for people to vote. I think the Save America act, it seems to me, is a, is a voter suppression bill. And they're just trying to make it more and more difficult for people to vote because they know that they're in hot water, they know they're in trouble. That, I mean, that this is going to, this could be a historic wave against Trump and the Republicans in the fall.
Sharon McMahon
It's a solution in search of a problem is what the Save America act is. Even data collected by the very conservative Heritage foundation demonstrates that there is, there is not a widespread spread problem with voter fraud in the United States. There is not a widespread problem with non citizens voting in the United States states. And to put the burden on taxpayers that, make no mistake, passing the SAVE act will burden taxpayers with tens of millions of dollars of costs as states are required to implement these plans. Elections are actually tremendously expensive to administer. So to admit to then to create these new requirements beyond what states already have, taxpayers are going to pay to solve a problem that does not exist. And frankly, that in my mind is a form of waste, fraud and abuse.
Jim Acosta
Well, it seems to me, I mean, going to your, you know, your wheelhouse as being America's government teacher, you know, it seems to me Donald Trump does not understand how our government works. He doesn't understand checks and balances, doesn't understand how the Constitution works and so on. So, I mean, we have clear examples today. He can't overturn birthright citizenship. He can't federalize elections and take over the elections. He can't bulldoze the White House and build a ballroom without going through the correct process. I mean, over and over and over again. And, and just today he's threatening to pull the US out of NATO even though there is a law that was passed in 2023 that says you can't, the president can't do that unilaterally, that you have to go through the Congress. So it seems to me he just does not doesn't get it. He doesn't either doesn't get it or doesn't want to get it because he sees himself as sort of a wannabe authoritarian.
Sharon McMahon
It's, it's, it's either it's either one of those or it's both of those, Jim.
Jim Acosta
Yeah, well, that's true.
Sharon McMahon
Gets it. And he simply wants to see what he can get away with because he's being by members of his administration, by people like Stephen Miller and Russ Vogt that like we should just go for it. It's, it's much harder for them to stop us once we're already in motion. It's like, you know, when you start a construction project and you already have a giant pit in the ground and then suddenly, oh, it's going to cost double what it did before. That's actually a much easier way to extract more money from that bid than it is if you just come in higher at the outset. Right. Like you already have the sunk cost of digging the hole. It's much easier to ask for, you know, forgiveness than permission. So that, that's, you know, there, there, I do think there is some element of that of like, let's just go for it, let's see what happens. It's never been tried before.
Jim Acosta
And, and I, you know, I guess this, this builds up to sort of, to me, the, the million dollar question that I'd like to ask you, which is has Donald Trump made America? And I don't want to say dumber because that doesn't, that, that doesn't sound right, but just I guess less aware of what our Constitution allows and does not allow. That he has essentially poisoned the minds. Has he poisoned the minds of millions of Americans and led them to believe that you do, that you can have an all powerful President of the United States in this country. And isn't that dangerous?
Sharon McMahon
He definitely has spent years misleading people. He has spent years lying to the American public about the 2020 election. He spent years lying to the American public about what powers he had lead leading up to the 2020 election. I mean, look at what was happening on January 6th, where he's like, I really hope, I really hope Mike Pence comes through for us when he knew darn good and well that Pence did not have the power that he was ascribing to, to him. So when we talk about the idea of poisoning the minds, that's what lies will do. When you, when you lie to somebody over and over and over every single day for years, you know, the brain actually begins to accept that as true. That our, our brains do not spend much time parsing out the difference between fact and fiction. It judges based on what is familiar. It judges based on familiarity.
Jim Acosta
So doesn't this go to, I mean, it's been said that Trump has said this to, to people around him many times over. If I just say something over and over enough, it becomes true.
Sharon McMahon
Exactly. That's exactly right. We become familiar with the lie and then we begin to accept it. That's exactly what is happening. If you just say it often enough, people will accept it. The, the number of people that there was something fishy about the 2020 election when. No, nothing fishy has ever been found is, you know, it's, it's tens of millions of people who accept that lie solely because they have heard it so many times. Whereas if, if Joe Biden had made the same claims, they would not have accepted it. They are not. They're not accustomed to accepting that specific lie. It's only this specific lie that they've heard that many times. And this is the danger of. Of having a leader who repeats lies on a. On a regular basis is they do become so familiar in the minds of some people that people begin to accept them as true.
Jim Acosta
Yeah. It seems to me we need a massive civics project in this country. I mean, we're about to maybe launch a rocket tonight. It seems like we need sort of a. A NASA project for re. Educating the American people on how government works, how it's supposed to work. You know, like, we just need to do something, you know, get it in the schools. I. I thought they taught all of this in school, but maybe we can offer money to the kids if they really pay attention. I don't know. Something. I'm trying to think of something here.
Sharon McMahon
Yeah. Half of state's gym don't require taking a government class to graduate.
Jim Acosta
Okay.
Sharon McMahon
States don't require.
Jim Acosta
That's bad. Yeah. Well, NASA can launch these astronauts into space and get them around the moon. Maybe we can get more government classes in these high school.
Sharon McMahon
We get some budget. Maybe we can get some budget allocated for that.
Jim Acosta
Yeah. Well, Sharon, great to talk to you. Thank you so much. It's been a real pleasure. Let's do it again. I hope we can do this again sometime.
Sharon McMahon
Thanks so much, Jim. Good to see you.
Jim Acosta
It's been really great. Thank you so much. Yeah, we. And we are keeping our eye on this. On this rocket launch that may be about to happen. But there was another launch that went off yesterday. A bit of a bombshell. Maybe that's the better way to put it. Let's bring in our friend Jennifer Welch of the. I've had a podcast in here to talk about this. I don't know if this was a rocket being launched or a rocket blowing up on the. On the launch pad, but my goodness. The Daily Mail with its bombshell, reporting yesterday on the person you've been describing as. Was it btb? What is it?
Jennifer Welch
Oh, it's Big Titty Brian.
Jim Acosta
Big. Oh, my God. Wow.
Jennifer Welch
Big thing. You see there, you see Brian, the husband of Christy. And I mean, you know, they have a godly marriage, right? You know, they're quote after quote of talking about how they have a godly marriage. And the Lord told Christy that Big Titty Brian was the anchor of the family. And there he is with his asymmetrical nipples and his duck face.
Jim Acosta
I didn't even notice that the. The nipples are off. That. That's kind of a strange thing there. That's a little weird.
Jennifer Welch
Yeah.
Jim Acosta
Yeah. And I. I mean, what was your reaction when you ice. When I saw this? Just. I mean, I don't gasp much because I just don't. I'm not a gasper, but I get. I think I passed out. I may have passed out when I saw this. And then I was like, wait a minute, is this true?
Jennifer Welch
I immediately knew it was true. And I immediately was elated because my mother and I for years, having to live in a Republican super majority state, both being progressive, both being non religious, both seeing the hypocrisy of Republican Christians, we have both had a little. A lot of camaraderie around, celebrating the depravity being exposed of these hypocrites. And because you know it, when you live Romero, these people are so phony. They're such liars. They act so sanctimonious. And it started back. Do you remember Larry Craig, the senator that did the foot tapping? Oh, yeah, Minneapolis airport. Yeah.
Jim Acosta
I think they called him Senator Wide Stance, if I remember.
Jennifer Welch
Yeah, Senator Wide Stance. Yes. And he was very anti gay marriage and all of these things. And then, you know, like, a lot of these MAGA Christians, they are on their Bible and, you know, God, guns and family and all this stuff during the day, and then at night they like to go out and do gay kinky stuff.
Jim Acosta
Yeah.
Jennifer Welch
Oh, my God.
Jim Acosta
And here are the memes, Jen. I thought we'd go with some of the memes here. And there's one here that says he's probably thinking about other women. And then he says, I wish I had tits. That's one. I. I apologize to everybody. I'm already in Friday mode and it's Wednesday. Here's Marco Rubio finding out he has to be Christy Gnome's husband. There's that one. This is the. No, the Marco Rubio meme that pops up all the time, which I think is so funny. Was there another one? There might have been one that was too R rated for. Oh, no. I love this one. Tell Christy. I want her to know it was me. I guess that's the little dog Cricket that she shot.
Jennifer Welch
Oh, yeah, Cricket. I saw a meme, Jim, that said maybe Cricket saw too much and shot herself.
Jim Acosta
Oh, no.
Jennifer Welch
Yeah.
Jim Acosta
Poor little Cricket, even mentioning Cricket. Maybe this is Cricket's revenge.
Jennifer Welch
Yeah, yeah. I think that, you know, there's this. There's this argument like, okay, we can't kick shame, big Titty Brian.
Jim Acosta
I agree with this.
Jennifer Welch
I push back against that a little bit because Big Titty Brian went to the congressional hearings with Kristy Noem after she led the organization that shot two peacefully protesting Americans. And he provided cover for her. I'm her husband. They're asking her about her affair with Corey Lewandowski. They're asking her about her character. And Big Titty Brian participated in this lie to the American public. And typically, I don't care if he puts on tits and does whatever. I'm not a prude, I'm not a peer, and I don't care about that stuff. But I'm also not the Republican politician toting my Bible, telling people, you know, Trump is God's imperfect vessel and all this. And we all know it's. So that's why when this gets exposed, see, Big Titty Brian is there with her during this, and he's providing cover. And for the liars that lie to all of these MAGA voters, they do. They lie in the most insidious way. They Christian signal. They accuse us of virtue signaling. I accuse them of Christian signaling. And that's what Kristi Noem has done. Oh, I have a godly marriage. And so then these voters go, oh, Christy Gnome's a good. A good Christian. She wouldn't cheat on her husband. Well, as it turns out, he's got this side hustle where he's a closet drag queen, which I don't care. I like drag queens. And she's screwing corn. Corey Lewandowski, which I don't care. At least somebody's doing it might as well be her, you know, allegedly, as
Jim Acosta
far as we know.
Jennifer Welch
Yeah, right. Well, I think Big Titty Brian confirmed in some of his chats that his wife was screwing Corey Lewandowski.
Jim Acosta
Oh, okay.
Jennifer Welch
There's nothing he could do about it, is what he told somebody in this chat. And I think the larger question right now, Jim, is who leaked this?
Jim Acosta
I. That's what I want to know.
Sharon McMahon
Is it Trump?
Jim Acosta
Was it. Oh, did they do it? Did she and Corey do it? I don't know.
Jennifer Welch
Christy do it, or was it Cricket? Sam Cedar on the majority report said, maybe it was. Christy leaked it so that she and Corey Lewandowski wouldn't have to testify against each other so that they could get married. Because, you know, there's. They did a lot of double dealings with the dhs. Corey Lewandowski and Christina robbed that place blind.
Jim Acosta
There are all these reports, reports that, you know, Corey Lewandowski said, well, if you want this contract, you Got to go through me. All of this stuff is being investigated now. And I, I think you're right on the, on the target here, Jen. I think that there's a possibility that they leaked this to sort of get the heat off of them. They thought that this would just sort of change the narrative, change the subject matter or.
Jennifer Welch
Jim, did Trump leak it? Because he wanted to completely fire her and, and completely search her credibility so that if she comes out now and says, well, he, Trump did this and Stephen Miller did that, he's going to go, you can't believe her. She didn't know her husband was parading around with big titties. And so, I don't know. I mean, I have this, I have.
Jim Acosta
They're all a bunch of boobs to me. I mean, I just have to, you
Jennifer Welch
know, I have this feeling that, you know, they act like it's all Team Trump and they're like so united. You know, you've worked in the White House. You know, that's the most toxic work environment for sure, not just in the United States. You know that there's so much double dealing, backstabbing. Was it Susie Wiles? Was it Stephen Miller? So I think Laura Loomer came out and tweeted yesterday. Everybody's known about this information forever. And so if that's true, that all of these Republicans knew that Kristi Noem's husband like to put on boobs and take pictures with the duck face and all of this, then why is it out now? Why is it leaked right now?
Jim Acosta
I mean, to me, this is the least morally bankrupt thing that we could talk about when it comes to the Trump administration. I mean, the President himself is a scumbag. I mean, he's just, I mean, just objectively speaking, he's a, he's a scummy, sleazy person. And I mean, just Today, I guess, J.D. vance announced that he's got this new book coming out. Did you see this? This talk, Talk about Christian signaling. Here it is right here. He's got a book coming out called Communion. As if his last book wasn't a fraud. Here comes a new one. He works for Donald Trump. Enough with this.
Jennifer Welch
Here's the thing about J.D. vance and I just, I want to put this memo out. We have a job in this left wing media ecosystem. We need to muddy up his reputation as best we can. Everybody did job with the couch stuff. A plus, no notes. This guy wants to be the heir apparent of maga. He's younger, he's darker, he's a lot More evil. He's a lot smarter than Trump and he's a lot easier to corrupt. Just as a lot more connected.
Jim Acosta
Yeah. And connected to the Peter Thiel people. I'm sorry.
Jennifer Welch
He's changed his name three times. He's changed his religion three times. A grown adult has changed his name three times and changed his religion three times.
Sharon McMahon
Times.
Jennifer Welch
He is a shape shifting chameleon, I think it is neck to neck. Who is this country's biggest prostitute? J.D. vance or the first lady. And I can kind of go back and forth, but JD Vance is bought and paid for by these. There he is. There he is with his eyeliner at Turning Point.
Jim Acosta
He loves that eyeliner.
Jennifer Welch
Oh, he loves it. And so we really need to do a great job because what he. Have you noticed how he is not really jumping in on this Iran stuff? He's really trying to distance himself from the Iran war so that he can run. And so our job is to make sure that we call out him for the hypocrite that he is, much like we just did the Gnomes, which her political career is completely over, but it still doesn't make it any less delicious, nor confirming that we knew these people were all full of. And so we have a lot of work to do on any heir apparent of the MAGA movement.
Jim Acosta
Well, I mean, yes, many of them have been hoisted on their own brassiere, I guess you could say, in this instance. But. But there's one other cheeseball we left out, and I think he's running, and that's Pete Hegseth, America's Secretary of War. Secretary of Axe Body spray. And look what happened with just the other day. I guess Kid Rock had this Apache helicopter flying over his house and the army ordered this investigation. And now Pete Hegseth says, investigation suspended, investigation lifted. The crew is just fine. We're not going to investigate this anymore. Carry on. And I. To me, Pete Hegseth, I think he wants to. He wants it too.
Jennifer Welch
Yeah, Pete Hegseth is really weird. I mean, that guy, like, he. He made this statement yesterday at the Pentagon and he's like quoting scripture like Old Testament, and he's literally trying to link like, God, please help us be more violent in this war. I mean, I'm paraphrasing, but he used the words violence and killing, making sure every bullet finds its mark and all this crazy.
Jim Acosta
Yes. And he told the story about this. This lady pilot who said, please give us more bombs and all this. I mean, it's. You're absolutely right. I mean, they. Here he is Right here, showing off.
Jennifer Welch
Such a narcissist. I mean, this guy, this guy. Religious psychosis. So I think that he has nothing to do with this war. We all know Jared Kushner, Steve Witkoff, and Benjamin Netanyahu are the driving people behind this war, and he wants to be in charge. So I think Stephen Miller and Trump have said, okay, you start the holy war aspect of it.
Sharon McMahon
And.
Jennifer Welch
Because that's all he's talking about is this deranged, apocalyptic holy war situation. And he's having a lot of problem with troops because they're basically telling the troops, you need to get saved. They're, like, spiritually blackmailing the troops right now and telling them this is a holy war. I mean, just some really weird, fanatical political. But this doesn't surprise me because the speaker of the House, Moses Mike Johnson, is every bit as fanatical as this guy. And these religious fanatics have the audacity to tell the world, oh, we're going to invade Iran, because they're religious fanatics. And I'm like, hello, the call's coming from inside the House. I'm not saying that there isn't religious fanaticism in Iran. Of course there is. No, I mean, have our own unique breed of it here.
Jim Acosta
I know. And, and, and I mean, you know, the other person who is competing to be America's biggest Christian is the. The Caroline Levitt, the White House press secretary. I mean, she does this every day in the White House briefing. And get this. Just the other day, I mean, our friend Oliver Darcy over at the Status Media Newsletter, they reported that Caroline Levitt, her press office pressured a couple of news outlets to. And Getty Images to remove a picture of her. This is it right here. I guess last Thanksgiving, they took this picture of her with the turkey in the briefing room, and there's the turkey with the double chin or triple chin. And then she doesn't look so hot there, I guess she thought. And they got so pissed about this photo that they yelled at the photographer who took it and the outlet and said, you must take this down. You must remove it. Now, of course, everybody, it's like, Internet, do your thing. It makes it worse. But, I mean, I'm sorry. Like, give me a break. She always comes out there and tries to pretend that she's this pious, you know, high and mighty person. And she. All she does is she gives a shit about how she looks in a picture. Just like Pete Hegseth. They were trying to ban the photographers out of the briefing room at the
Jennifer Welch
Pentagon And a couple of points on this. Number one on Caroline Levitt, Donald Trump, if you're going to be in public office or like what we do as podcasters, you have to have super thick skin. Like on any given night, Fox News the Five is going to do some hit piece on me. And I just don't care, Jim. I just really don't give a. I do not care what Karen in Toledo, Ohio tweets about me. It just makes zero difference in my life. But these people are so thin skinned. And back to Pete Hegseth and the drive by Kid Rock. A detail of that that I found pretty fascinating is those pilots, you know, they were showboating and hot rodding and trying to be Big Dick. They were suspended. And then Hexeth does this very crazy tweet where he's like, yes. And so now it's like we are seeing the military be completely politicized for the egos of Pete Hagseth and the bro sphere. Kid Rock fans, it's just Kid Rock.
Jim Acosta
Who gives a about Kid Rock anymore?
Jennifer Welch
Also, I mean, like, okay, Jim, did you see at the Republican National Convention or something? I think it was rnc, some Republican thing, or I'm sure Grindr, Crash, but that's neither here nor there. And Kid Rock is on the stage and his music is objectively awful. All right, I'm sorry if any of your listeners like Kid Rock. I just think it's horrific and it shows. Like Usha Vance and JD and then like these crusty old white people and they're like trying so hard to find the beat and they're like,
Jim Acosta
it's. I know. They can't. They just can't get there. It's not happening. But what's sad about that is that the dnc. I was at the DNC and the music was amazing and incredible.
Jennifer Welch
So sad. Oh my gosh, it was so sad. That DNC was so much fun. I went and it was just. It was joyous and it was so fun. And all the cool musicians are there. And then we lost these freaking narcissists. Thin skinned. I mean, having her photograph Caroline Levitt removed, it's just like you're just in the wrong profession. Like, you need to do something to protect yourself if that is going to upset you.
Jim Acosta
And also, we live in the age of btb. I mean, you know, the Internet lives on forever. I mean, can we show that one last time? Can we show Big Titty Brian one more time? Is it Brian or Byron? Is Brian okay?
Jennifer Welch
So I just want to point this out. So I, I kept thinking, is it Byron or Brian? And so I just noted on my podcast that parents that try to spell their kids names, something cute, it's going to be downhill from there. So I think it's Brian, Big Titty Brian there. And you know what it's like.
Jim Acosta
Don't give your daughter stripper names. Don't do that either.
Jennifer Welch
I hate to say this, but I really like it when bad things happen to bad people.
Jim Acosta
I, I do too. And I mean, I, I also have to say to the Daily Mail, the way they write these headlines is so good. I mean, it says something about he's pouty or something. I didn't get that out of it.
Jennifer Welch
Yeah, yeah. And you know, this is just so classic of these. You know, if you watch Fox News right now, they made an intentional slant to be more Christian in their covering. They said they were going to put more faith into their reporting. The Trump administration knows that they have to Christian signal. And then this is just one chip to fall. I, I promise you there is similar Google search history and compromising information on. I would say Lindsey Graham Moses, Mike Grinder Johnson. I would go Josh, Holly, I think you can go down the list because I have always found this to be true. The louder the Christian, the bigger the freak.
Jim Acosta
Yes. And. And they like to go after the LGBTQ community all the time. I mean, Donald Trump, it's in every one of his speeches now. And I mean, they're just, I mean, giant hypocrites.
Sharon McMahon
Hypocrites.
Jennifer Welch
Because they, they fetishize the movement that they ostracize during the day, they fetishize at night. You know, so it's just like, if you want to queen out Big Titty Brian, I don't care if you want to do gay stuff at night. I really don't give a. If you and Christy have an agreement, you screw Corey Lewandowski. I don't want to screw you anymore. And she's like, that's great. You can go put on your tits. I don't give a. Do not lecture the United States electorate about their love lives and who they can love and try to create laws that favor heteronormative people and bully institutionalized legal bullying to trans kids and drag queens. You know, these are the people that lost their. They lost their. About drag brunches.
Jim Acosta
That's right.
Jennifer Welch
These are the people. How many, how many stories did Fox News do about drag queens?
Jim Acosta
Exactly?
Jennifer Welch
Turns out Christy Gnomes husband, Big Titty Brian is the world's worst drag queen. I've seen drag.
Sharon McMahon
I love drag.
Jennifer Welch
I love drag shows. That is not good drag.
Jim Acosta
It's not good drag. That drag is a drag. I. I will say. And. And you know those, Those. I saw somebody mention on the Internet that those puppies were so big that Christine wanted to kill them. But anyway, that was another. That was another bad joke. I didn't. I didn't show you all the memes. There was another meme. There was a Mary Kill meme in there. We did not. We did not show that one because we have standards on this program.
Jennifer Welch
But that's good. Jim has standards, but I don't. I'll go ahead and tell you. Listen, she Big Titty. Wait, no. She marries Big Titty, Brian. She, Corey Lewandowski, and she kills the dog.
Jim Acosta
I think that's the way it went.
Jennifer Welch
I'm sorry, Jim, but we're already so. I mean, we're not in the gutter. We're just reporting on the news of President Trump, the conservative Christians imperfect vessel. These. He always surrounded by the best people. But then also recently he said he likes to hang out with losers.
Sharon McMahon
So I don't know what it is.
Jim Acosta
That's right. He loves the losers, like J.D. vance and Marco Rubio and Pete Hexa. There's the secretary of losing right there.
Jennifer Welch
I love. This is your producer, Sam. Sam, that's so diabolical to keep putting this stuff up. I love it, Sam.
Jim Acosta
Sam loves that picture. He's told us many times after the show is over that this is his favorite picture that we use on.
Jennifer Welch
That's excellent, Sam. I need you to text that to me for one of my episodes. That's excellent. You know, when you think about he's in charge of the Department of Defense, how insane that is.
Jim Acosta
It's insane. It's really insane. But we don't. We're not in the gutter. We are only reporting on the gutter, Jennifer.
Jennifer Welch
That's right.
Jim Acosta
Thank you so much for coming on, as always. I knew when I saw you talk about btb, I was like, we got to get her on. This is.
Jennifer Welch
Oh, yeah, of course. I shine when talking about Republican hypocrisy. It's one of my favorite subjects.
Jim Acosta
You are a Republican hypocrisy correspondent from Expert.
Sharon McMahon
Yeah.
Jennifer Welch
Anytime you need me, the next. The next sex scandal that breaks out, just know I'm your gal.
Jim Acosta
All right, you got it. Okay.
Jennifer Welch
Okay.
Jim Acosta
We can workshop who that will be next. But good to see you, Jen. Thanks.
Jennifer Welch
Okay, Bye, guys.
Jim Acosta
Take care. Bye. All right, so we're from Bombshells to hopefully a rocket that will take off. We should show this on the launch pad. I, I believe at the Kennedy Space center in Florida. There's the Artemis 2 launch. They're getting ready to launch. And you know what? We had a lot of fun with Jen on the show. I, I figured let's just end on this, let's just end on a cool rocket that is hopefully going to take off. And my understanding is, is that this is like the first time since the early 1970s that we're sending astronauts around the moon and apparently and back again, of course. But there are four astronauts and they're, they're counting down at the Kennedy Space center in Florida for this moment. And this is going to be apparent apparently. I will see if it happens. Apparently the beginning of getting astronauts back to the moon. And there's so much ridiculous horseshit going on all around the country right now. We have Daily Mail stories on btb. We have Donald Trump going to the Supreme Court and scowling at the Supreme Court justices. We have lots of, we have lots of things going on. But, and, and this is all jokes aside, there's one thing I think we can all kind of agree on and that is that NASA is cool or we should all agree that NASA is, is doing important work. And I'm keeping my fingers crossed, my toes crossed, everything crossed. BTB is crossing whatever he has on his end to, to hope and pray that this is a big success for the American space program. And that's all I wanted to say. I went to go see Project Hail Mary over the weekend. I just want to say if you're a space nerd or geek like myself, sci fi geek, go see it. It's amazing and that, that this has totally gotten me in the mood for this Artemis 2 launch, which is counting down. It's about an hour and 40 minutes from now, so. Well, I'll be geeking out at that time. Perhaps you will as well. But really appreciate everybody tuning in. My thanks to Sharon McMahon. Please check her substack out the preamble and would love to get her back on the show. Would love to get your feedback on Sharon. I thought she was terrific today talking about how we need more civics instruction in the United States. She said some things that that blew my mind. I didn't realize that we weren't teaching this in every high school, in every public school system in the true. We definitely need to get back to that immediately in a hurry. And of course, my thanks to Jennifer Welch. When I saw the Daily Mail Story. And keep in mind, folks from my days working at the White House, I will just say that we used to call the Daily Mail the Daily Fail. But anyway, when I saw this, I was like, I'm not so sure this is true. And then apparently Kristi Noem confirmed it and she spoke to the New York Post, or they put a statement out from the New York Post saying that she is having a hard time with this and so on. Come on, Christina, come on. Kristi Gnome is having a tough time dealing with the, the blowback, if you want to call it the fallout of finding out that her husband is a cross dresser who wears giant breasts, that he has a fetish of wearing giant breasts. And that is what is weighing on your mind right now. Kristi Noem. Kristi Noem, the Secretary of Homeland Security who once shot a dog, who once went down to El Salvador and posed in front of a gulag, who has repeatedly put herself in propaganda films touting Donald Trump's war on Latinos in this country. Come on, give me a break. And I, I just hope there isn't really anybody out there who is saying, oh, I feel so bad for Kristi. No, think about the, the lives that she has destroyed. Think about the amount of heartache she has caused in this country. The, the department she presided over carried out the killings of Renee Good and Alex Preddy. They have rounded up little children and put them in places like the Dilley detention facility down in Texas. They are deporting non violent, non criminal migrants who came to this country just to realize the American dream and work hard to try to get ahead in life. Christina, we have no, I have no sympathy for you. I would almost be on behalf of everybody watching, but I have no sympathy for you. I have, I, I have some sympathy for your husband that he is married to you, because I think, I think the secretary, the former Secretary of Homeland Security, the now fired Secretary of Homeland Security, is a terrible human being and she is part of an administration that is chock full of them. And yes, they are occasionally hoisted on their own petard or hoisted on their own brassiere, as it, as it were in this case. But Kristi Noem, you will be remembered for far more than who you married. You're going to be remembered for far
Solicitor General Sauer
more
Jim Acosta
than the, the person you walk down the aisle with who developed a fetish or has a fetish of wearing giant breasts on his chest, who enjoys cross dressing. That is not what you're going to be remembered for. What you're going to be remembered for is what you're seeing right here, that you were an unconscionably awful, historically repugnant secretary of the Department of Homeland Security who made Americans feel insecure, who made Americans feel unsafe, who presided over the expansion of an agency like ICE that has caused immense heartache and suffering in this country. That is the legacy of Kristi Noem. The legacy of Kristi Noem is not btb. It's not Big Titty Brian, her husband, who wears giant bosoms on his chest. The legacy of Kristi Noem. The legacy of Kristi Noem is the damage she has done to America, the damage she has done to her department, the damage she has done to the American people. That's how you should be remembered. Christy Noem, not a story in the Daily Mail. My thanks to all of you for watching. Please consider supporting this program, supporting independent media. It does matter. And then later on tonight, I believe we're going to come back to you again with another program. We're going to wrap Donald Trump's speech, probably full of many lies on the war in Iran. And I'm going to have some experts with me to break it all down. So stay tuned for that. That'll be later on tonight. But in the meantime, still reporting from Washington, I'm Jim Acosta. I'll see you next time.
The Jim Acosta Show
Episode: Jennifer Welch on Noem Scandal and Sharon McMahon on Trump's Bad Day at SCOTUS
Date: April 1, 2026
Host: Jim Acosta
Guests: Sharon McMahon (author, “America’s Government Teacher,” The Preamble substack), Jennifer Welch (Podcast host, writer on Republican hypocrisy)
This episode tackles two major topics:
Throughout, Acosta and guests bring sharp critiques, strong opinions, humor, and expose the limitations and dangers of recent right-wing politics.
00:07 – 18:43
18:44 – 38:50