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The Jim Acosta Show
Jimmy Kimmel is Back! Plus Trump Weaponizes Justice Department with Norm Eisen and Liz Oyer
00:50:48
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- [00:00]
A
Foreign, everybody. Welcome to the Jim Acosta show and the breaking news. Jimmy Kimmel is back. ABC just put out a statement in the last several minutes that Jimmy Kimmel, the late night talk show host who has given the boot by the network under pressure from the Trump administration and, and the SEC and Donald Trump, they just announced he is going to be back on on Tuesday evening. My big guest to talk about this, Norm Eisen. Norm, lots to talk about. But this, I mean, right away, this is a big victory for the First Amendment.
- [00:36]
B
It sure is. It's a good day for the First Amendment and for Jimmy's and Jims.
- [00:43]
A
Absolutely. All the gyms.
- [00:44]
B
Yeah, all the First Amendment protected gyms. And what happened here was there was no basis to suspend Jimmy Kimmel for doing his blend of comedy and commentary.
- [00:59]
A
Right.
- [01:01]
B
And Donald Trump and his cronies, including that terrible Brendan CARR at the FCC, in my view, unconstitutionally violating the First Amendment act, violating the 1934 statute that sets up the federal communications commitment and violating the ideas of democracy. Press for Kimmel to be forced off the air for reflecting on the background of the killer of Charlie Kirk. But what are we as a country, Jim, if we can't have that discourse? Donald Trump doesn't like comedians because they make fun of him.
- [01:39]
A
That's right.
- [01:39]
B
There's so much material there. But what happened afterwards? We've seen so many victims of this president's and this administration's bullying. But you know something, because you lived it, Jim, when you stand up to the bully, they, they lose. And what happened here was ABC didn't stand up to the bully. As rich and powerful as they are, Disney didn't stand up to the bully, the owner of abc. But the American people stood up.
- [02:11]
A
Bingo.
- [02:11]
B
Voted with their cancellation buttons. Disney lost over $3 billion in market capitalization and people canceled in droves. I know, Jim. I had to actually read a book because I canceled Disney plus and Hulu.
- [02:30]
A
Good for you. A lot of other people did. And you know what all these conservative folks say? Let the free market work. Well, the free market, it was working over the weekend. It did.
- [02:40]
B
It worked. And they. There's something that those Disney and those Disney suits care about more than their fear of Donald Trump and that's their love of money. It reminds me of one of those Disney characters, Jim. Uncle Scrooge diving into his money pit.
- [02:56]
A
That's right.
- [02:58]
B
They, they saw the losses and they've come to their senses. And one more thing I want to say to all of you out there. Who canceled, who boycotted, who Mobilized, who protested, who signed petitions. Wow, you did it. You did it.
- [03:17]
A
It's a small world after all, you might say. NORM and to me, this is the perfect lesson to be taken away from all of this is that, and, and I mean this, this really was like a shot fired around the world, heard around the world last week when this happened to Jimmy Kimmel. And a lot of people got really down in the dumps and thought, okay, this is it, we're backsliding, the First Amendment's getting torched, and so on. But, but you cannot count out the American people and you cannot count out the idea of collective action. I mean, that to me is the big takeaway from this. And ABC is backpedaling big time in this statement. They say last Wednesday we made the decision to suspend production on the show to avoid further inflaming a tense situation and an emotional moment for our country. It's a decision we made because we felt some of the comments were ill timed and thus insensitive. We have spent the last days having thoughtful conversations with Jimmy and after those conversations, we, we reached the decision to return the show on Tuesday. Norm I think they also looked at those cancellation numbers and the bottom.
- [04:14]
B
Oh my God, 3 billion, over $3 billion in the market adjustment collapse. The bottom falling out. Jim? Yeah, when we've, as a country, we're not the first to go through a period of democratic backsliding. Many other countries, you know, majority of them have come out of it. It's called a U turn. They've done, they've done. The statistics are that a majority of countries, when they meet these kind of shocks turn around. And how do you do that? Friends, no matter how desperate it may seem, don't lose track of the structure. I call it the five B's. This my scholarship, I've written a lot about this. Legal proceedings, number one, and legal proceedings were and might still be coming here. Number two, popular protests. That's what, that's the second p. That's what we saw happen here. Number three, results in and at the polls. Donald Trump is down his numbers of popularity.
- [05:20]
A
Yes.
- [05:20]
B
Most unpopular president in history at this point.
- [05:25]
A
And so of course we're making fun.
- [05:27]
B
Of him at the polls. The Democrats have won 42 out of 43 or outperformed 42 out of 43 elections this year. Jim, think about that. By 16 points, they've outperformed.
- [05:43]
A
Yes.
- [05:43]
B
And then you have press. The press rose up here and both independent media, traditional media, and finally political leadership. So all those five B's were got Working. The Kimmel thing broke through. So it shows you we can fight for and win this battle for our democracy. And this was an important battle in the larger war.
- [06:09]
A
Absolutely. And it comes amid, I mean, I mean, a lot of other disturbing headlines that we've seen over the last, what, 48 to 72 hours, norm. We've had Donald Trump go on truth Social and pressure his attorney general to go after his political enemies. There's this truth social post that he put up over the weekend, and it looks like it was almost a direct message to her that he accidentally posted, or perhaps that's just. That was the game that he was playing.
- [06:36]
B
I think that's what happened. You never did that, Jim. You never accidentally text on. On social media. I have to, but I'm busy. You're multitasking.
- [06:46]
A
It's true. It can be very embarrassing. And if you're the president, it could be very unconstitutional. But he said, Pam, I reviewed over 30 statements and posts saying that. Essentially the same old story as last time. All talk, no action, nothing's being done. What about Comey, Adam Shifty Schiff, Letitia as in Letitia James. And he forced out the U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia. As you know, Norm, that's a very important district. Eric Siebert, I believe that's his name, was forced out.
- [07:14]
B
Correct.
- [07:14]
A
He's now bringing in a. Another personal attorney of his. A woman by the name of Lindsey Halligan is going to be installed as the U.S. attorney there.
- [07:22]
B
An insurance defense lawyer from Florida.
- [07:26]
A
I saw that she, she has, she has a background in insurance work. But, I mean, this was because Eric Siebert would not bring a case, criminal case, against Letitia James. Norm, he is absolutely weaponizing the government in ways that he complained about up until this. I mean, not up until this point, but up until he came back into the Oval Office. He's been doing it ever since, Jim.
- [07:48]
B
He's. He's such a hypocrite. You saw up close those dictatorial tendencies, but they're in full flower. He said he wanted to be a dict dictator.
- [07:58]
A
Yeah.
- [07:58]
B
And he's been true to his word. So think of all the guardrails that have been smashed here. First of all, the president demanding an investigation of Tish James and others, his political adversaries. Secondly, the president getting his cronies like Ed Martin and Bill Pulte to claim that there's a basis for this supposed mortgage improprieties. Third, the government looks at the mortgage improprieties. They turn out to be false. Fourth, you go to a very Trump friendly U.S. attorney, Eric Siebert to try to get it indicted. And Siebert says, no, he's not going to indict it. So then there's no merit to the case. And Trump throws out Siebert and replaces him with, with Trump crony whose main qualification is she'll do whatever the President wants. That's not the American system of justice. The constitutional rule of law. Yeah, that's just like something out of Stalin's playbook. That's Darkness at Noon. And it won't stand, Jim, because we've seen grand juries refusing to indict cases. We've seen judges criticizing. I represent over 100 judges who've spoken out again and again all over the country.
- [09:25]
A
Right.
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B
A judge will have to oversee this, a grand jury, ultimately a petty jury, and the American people aren't going to take it. So there's additional guardrails, but you should not be able to blow through those six guardrails that I identified. It's a point of great peril. The Jimmy Kimmel story, however, reminds us that when American democracy and the American people are tested, they still can answer. And I think we're going to see a similar pushback in the Tish James case.
- [09:55]
A
I think you're right. But I mean, listen to, let's listen to what Trump was saying over the weekend at the Charlie Kirk Memorial, because what he is signaling is that there's, I mean, this is just a sneak preview of coming attractions.
- [10:05]
C
Let's listen to this private moment on his dying day. We find everything we need to know about who Charlie Kirk truly was. He was a missionary with a noble spirit and a great, great purpose. He did not hate his opponents. He wanted the best for them. That's where I disagreed with Charlie. I hate my opponent and I don't want the best for them. I'm sorry, I am sorry, Erica. But now Erica can talk to me and the whole group and maybe they can convince me that that's not right. But I can't stand my opponent.
- [10:43]
A
Yeah, I mean, Norm, I mean, you know, this is Trump saying the quiet part out loud, or as I like to say, sometimes the riot part out loud. He is, he is signaling what he wants his people to do. He's done it with Pam Bondi. He does it with, I mean, he does it with Jimmy Kimmel and the fcc. Anybody that's a critic, anybody that gets in his way, he signals to his people, I want them taken out one way or the other.
- [11:10]
B
Well, Jim, you yourself tangled with him. He pulled your press pass. I've often tangled with him. He's pulled my security clearance three times.
- [11:19]
A
Right.
- [11:20]
B
I think they turn it back on and take it away again to make Trump feel good.
- [11:25]
A
You still have it, though. That's my question. I mean, maybe they just never did it.
- [11:28]
B
I don't, I'm expecting a fourth time any day now. So this is very dangerous. There's another, first of all, what he said. There will be an exhibit in the selective and vindictive prosecution case that he's not motivated by the laws applied to the facts. He's motivated by hatred. So that alone is enough to be part of the case to get the Tish James prosecution, if it's brought, thrown out. But there was another part of the speech where he actually talked about DOJ investigating his perceived adversaries right now. So I think you are going to see additional pushback on this atrocious abuse of the Constitution, the rule of law and of the power of the presidency. It's not who we are as a country. There have been so many wins, Jim. As you know, we at Democracy Defenders Fund, we've been to court countless number of times. We have over 125 legal matters. And Jim, we've won case after case after case. We in the coalition Overall, more than 200 wins in court. Why? Because the courts see what Donald Trump is doing and they reject it. And even the Supreme Court is, even the Supreme Court is not an insurmountable obstacle to that, that we've had a number of cases where they've just haven't gone up to the Supreme Court. They only deal with about 10% of the cases. And when we do go up there, we're able to adjust to their so called judging and to win. Like in the birthright citizenship case, they said, oh, the existing cases are not good enough. You have to bring a class action. Two hours later we filed that class action. Ten days later we won. We got a new injunction that hasn't gone back to the Supreme Court. Jim. So the court system is holding up against Donald Trump as bad as the Roberts court is.
- [13:42]
A
Well, and it makes me wonder, Norman, I was thinking about this recently, whether the way to deal with Trump is to fight fire with fire. Look at the way he played the judicial system like a fiddle. He threw sand in the gears when he was in legal hot water, particularly in the January six case. But in lots of other cases, the Alvin Bragg case and so on, and perhaps, I mean, maybe that's a little bit of what you're doing, Norm. But I mean it seems to me it's one of the look at the moment most effective ways to slow down what he has been doing. And I think you're absolutely right. When he makes comments like that, like he did at the Charlie Kirk Memorial, any judge who has a case that deals with weaponization coming from the Trump Department of Justice can just hold up that video and say or the Pam Bondi Truth Social Post and say, hey, wait a minute, what's going on here, Jim?
- [14:36]
B
The what we do in our cases is constitution and rule of law. We don't bring the case unless we think we're right and it's a winner. But the Atlantic did right that the one part of the resistance that's working is working best is the legal resistance. And they were kind enough in that article to feature our work. Lead off the article with me and our all of our work, my 50 colleagues at Democracy Defenders Fund. But I think what we're seeing is again those five P's that the scholars I've written about them that tell you need all it's like five pistons of the engine all have to be working. Well, what we just saw with Jimmy Kimmel, I didn't even get a chance to file my lawsuit. They reinstated him too fast because of the, of the public protest.
- [15:27]
A
Yeah.
- [15:27]
B
So we're seeing the health, the immune system of the body politic of American democracy is kicking into place. It's not just the lawsuits. The rest of it is working well.
- [15:39]
A
And on the Kimmel thing, the thing that I'm very curious about is and I think a lawsuit at, you know, directed at ABC on behalf of the American people challenging the FCC would have been a very smart move. But there are, there's also the issue of the stations groups. And so Sinclair said we're not going to air it. I think nextar was another stations group that said we're not going to air it. And I'm very curious to see what happens next. If these ABC says okay, he's back to the stations groups, these large station troops put him back on. That'll be interesting.
- [16:10]
B
Well, we'll see what happens with that. I'll tell you one thing that's going to happen next. Brother Jim, he's going to get the great highest ratings of his entire career when he comes back on the air shortly.
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A
I think you're absolutely right, Norm. Ratings that you and I can only dream of.
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B
Well, I was gonna say we'll almost be the equal of the Jim Acosta substack.
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A
Almost just and if you, and if you had the YouTube in there, it's pretty darn close. It's, it's very close. But Norm, great to see you as always. Thank you so much. Really appreciate it. Keep fighting the good fight out there, man.
- [16:45]
B
We, we love you, including because you blazed the trail. You're a big success in independent media. Everybody talks about you. And I do think if we look at it's all your fault happening, if we look at what's happening in cable. Jim and I did talk about it when he was thinking we were a little ahead of him with the contrarian. But Jim, you've, you've been, your, your voice is more important than ever here in independent media and it's only going to continue to grow.
- [17:14]
A
I agree. And this is the future. I tell people all the time, this is the future. This is the way.
- [17:19]
B
No doubt.
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A
And we don't have corporate overlords to deal with. But Norm, great to see you, man.
- [17:25]
B
Thanks, Jim. Have a good day. Thanks, brother.
- [17:28]
A
Thank you. Thank you, sir. Thank you, brother. Let's go quickly to Liz Oyer. She's the other, you know, powerful legal expert that we have on from time to time. Liz, great to see you. I was just talking about some of these same themes with Norm. And the Jimmy Kimmel thing is very interesting and very important. But had that not happened at 3:55pm we would have been, you and I would have been talking about, and we are going to talk about what is some pretty extraordinary stuff. And perhaps we've all lost our sense of what's extraordinary anymore. But when Donald Trump is on Truth Social over the weekend and is telling Pam Bonney to go after his enemies and he's forcing out the U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia for not going after Letitia James, I mean, that's just one of many issues I wanted to talk to you about. But your thoughts on all of this and how it fits in maybe a little bit with what took place with Jimmy Kimmel. I mean, Trump wants his government to go after his critics.
- [18:30]
D
Yeah, that's exactly right, Jim. I think what we're seeing in the Justice Department, and I'm not prone to exaggeration or hyperbole, but this is five alarm fire in the Justice Department right now. And it's not coming out of thin air or coming out of the blue. This is something that Donald Trump has been building the groundwork for since day one of his presidency, since he installed his team of personal lawyers as the management of the Justice Department. Pam Bondi has been Messaging to the career workforce since day one. That we all work for Donald Trump is what she says. We're all his lawyers. That's 110,000 people who she believes are a personal army of lawyers who are there to do Donald Trump's bidding. So this is really something that has been evolving over. Over months. The groundwork has been laid, and now we're seeing it all come to a head, and it is really, really scary. The question that I have now is, where does this stop? What happens if Donald Trump wants to prosecute everybody who has criticized him? What if he wants to prosecute everybody who didn't vote for him? It's just a slippery slope to a situation where the Justice Department no longer any meaningful safeguards for the rule of law.
- [19:45]
A
And, Liz, just to remind our viewers, I mean, you were targeted by the Trump Justice Department. They wanted you out of there because you wouldn't pursue a case. I think it was involving Mel Gibson or something along those lines. But you've been speaking out on all of these issues.
- [20:00]
D
Yeah. So I was one of a number of career experts that have been fired by Donald Trump. Part of the equation is installing political loyalists into important positions like Pam Bondi and Todd Blanche. But another part of it is remov, the career experts who could stand in the way of implementing the president's political agenda. And I was one of those people, but not the only one. We saw the head of ethics for the Department of Justice sidelined, the head of the FOIA office, which is basically the transparency arm of the department. People have a right to know what's going on there. That person was sidelined, the head of the Office of Professional Responsibility. All of the career experts who could put some brakes on the president. And these baseless prosecution that defy all norms and rules have been ousted from their positions. So there's nobody left in the building to put any checks on any of this. And now Donald Trump is clearly feeling emboldened. He's feeling like he has done enough to tear through the Department of Justice, pull out the safeguards that now he can literally just direct his Attorney General via Truth Social, to prosecute his political enemies, regardless of whether there is evidence to support those prosecutions.
- [21:16]
A
Yeah, and I was just touching on this with Norm a little bit, but, I mean, the forcing out of the U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia for not going after Letitia James, the Attorney General of New York, basically in retaliation for her bringing a case against Trump up in New York, is kind of extraordinary in that he also is Trying to put in another one of these loyalists, a woman named Lindsay halligan as the U.S. attorney. Apparently she has an insurance law background or something along those lines, not a career prosecutor type. So you just want somebody in there who's going to do his bidding. And correct me if I'm wrong, Liz, that's a pretty important district in the, in the chain of U.S. attorney offices around the country. I'm not mistaken.
- [21:58]
D
Yeah, absolutely. The Eastern District of Virginia is where a lot of cases involving national security are, a lot of cases involving public corruption because of its proximity to Washington, D.C. so some of the most consequential prosecutions in the country are brought in that district. And it is incredibly important to have someone who knows what they're doing. One thing that's being lost in all of this discussion about Trump's weaponization of the Justice Department is that the Justice Department plays a critical role in keeping us safe. And right now, it is just loaded up with people who have no idea how to do that. That extends into the FBI, which is part of the Justice Department, really, throughout the structure of the Justice Department. The people, people who know how to keep us safe, who know how to prevent attacks on our national security before they happen, people who are out there investigating criminal conduct proactively so that it doesn't happen, are being rooted out and sidelined from their jobs so that the department can focus on the political vendettas of the president. And not only is that wrong from a political perspective, but it is very, very dangerous for all of us.
- [23:09]
A
Absolutely. And one prosecution that we're not seeing, I guess you could say, is regarding Tom Homan, who is Trump's border czar. I'm sure you saw this, Liz. Over the weekend, Reuters confirmed with the folks at MSNBC first reported, then the New York Times confirmed it. But this is how Reuters reported it. Tom Homan accepted a $50,000 bag of cash from an undercover FBI agent last year in A since closed U.S. justice Department bribery investigation. This, according to two sources who confirmed it to Reuters. In the alleged scheme, Homan promised immigration related government contracts when he joined the Trump administration in exchange for the money, the sources said. And this apparently was an undercover sting operation that was set up. And Homan was this, according to Reuters, and I think MSNBC and New York Times reported this, too. He was caught on a recording accepting a $50,000 bribe in a bag from the restaurant chain Cava, according to the sources. Now, one of the more surprising things in all of this, Liz, is that he was eating at Kava But I mean, this is extraordinary stuff. And when you talk about public corruption cases being prosecuted in the Eastern District of Virginia, this is a case that might have been prosecuted in that office, potentially. It's the kind of case that they certainly would prosecute there and deal with there.
- [24:30]
D
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, the Hohman story is shocking because someone who has done that, setting aside the prosecution piece of it, should, should not be appointed to that type of position of trust in our government. So the fact that he's in that role when it was known that he was under this type of investigation is shocking in and of itself. But the issue of Prosecution extends throughout U.S. attorney's offices across the country. Donald Trump is selectively installing political loyalists into these roles who have no qualifications. And he's doing it by bypassing the normal rules, the law that requires Senate confirmation of his US Attorn. He is doing it for two reasons. He's doing it because these are the people who have the power to bring cases against his enemies, even if they're not supported by evidence. And these are the power, the people who have power to dismiss cases against his friends or not bring the cases in the first place. And we're seeing that play out across the country. We are seeing wealthy donors and friends of Trump have charges dismissed or get pardons. We're seeing people who pay the right, well connected lawyers, for example, Brad Bondi, the brother of Pam Bondi. We're seeing them have great success, success in getting their cases dismissed by the Justice Department. And then we're seeing a tremendous amount of pressure on career prosecutors to bring charges against the president's enemies, regardless of whether the facts in the law support them.
- [25:54]
A
Yeah, I mean, I think the case is, is pretty, pretty clear at this point. Trump is turning D.C. into the District of Corruption. I mean, that's what he's doing right now under his watch. It's just sort of an unprecedented level of corruption. And I mean, you look at the way they've paved over the Rose Garden over there at the White House so they can wine and dine, you know, cronies that come in that are Trump loyalists and so on. It's pretty disgusting stuff. It's, it's very much pigs feeding at the trough or at kava, however you want to describe it. But to go back to Tom Homan, I think you hit the nail on the head, Liz. You're absolutely right that he would be in a position as important as borders are. I mean, I see him going on the airwaves all the time. Talking about illegals in this country. Well, that, that sounds pretty damn illegal, what he was doing over at Kava, if, if the allegations are true. And it sounds as though, I mean, Cash Patel, I believe, or, or other Justice Department officials, maybe Todd Blanche put out a statement saying, oh, we looked at this and we think it's weaponization of government, weaponization of prosecution. And Caroline Levitt was saying earlier today, oh, no, no, he didn't do anything wrong here. He's been recorded doing it, according to these sources. It's amazing.
- [27:07]
D
Yeah. I mean, he is literally on video accepting a bag full of cash. That's just shocking. That that is considered defensible by the Deputy Attorney General and the White House press secretary is shocking. That the, that he's not fired immediately once that surfaces is shocking. But one of the things that I'm really worried about, Jim, is that we have become so immune to the disorder and the abuse of power and the lack of rules and norms in the Justice Department that it's hard to sound the alarm. I mean, I'm here saying this is a five alarm fire in the Justice Department, but I don't know what people think when they hear that anymore, because we're hearing so many bad things happening every day and so many unprecedented things happening that are eroding our democracy. I think that there's a real desire among people to know more about what we can do to push back, what we can do to stop this role toward authoritarianism. And that's what I'm struggling with personally. I mean, I'm glad that people like Norm are out there fighting these cases in court, but we're also getting lots of really mixed signals from the Supreme Court about whether they're going to be the last line of defense for our democracy. The thing that gives me hope right now is our citizens. My fellow citizens, you mentioned D.C. as the District of Corruption, and that's what's happening in the federal government. But it is encouraging to see that in D.C. grand jurors who are being asked to bring charges by Trump's U.S. attorney here, Jeanine Pirro, are rejecting those charges. They're using their power as citizens not to vote to bring those indictments that the Trump administration is seeking. And it's a good reminder for all of us that we, the citizens, are the last line of defense for our democracy, and we need to stand strong at this time.
- [29:03]
A
No, you're so right about that. And I mean, another case in point would be the Jimmy Kimmel situation. People were voting with their, their clickers over the weekend with their streaming accounts and they were canceling their Disney plus, their Hulu Plus. I mean they were, they were basically giving the middle finger to ABC and Disney and saying we're not going to take this lying down. To the, to the extent that it looks as though those pressures forced ABC to say, okay, we're putting Jimmy Kimmel back on the air on Tuesday, which is a pretty extraordinary development. And you're absolutely right about what is taking place in D.C. with the, with the jury situation where you have ordinary citizens who are saying they're just not going to put up with this stuff. It's pretty remarkable stuff. And I guess, Liz, the other thing, the other question that I had for you is, I mean, you talk about a five alarm fire at the Justice Department. At what point does it become unsustainable for Pam Bondi? I mean if you, I guess she has no self respect, she, there's no dignity left as the Attorney General of the United States. But one would think if, if you have any credibility, at some point you have to say, I'm resigning, I can't do this job anymore. Put somebody else in there. I can't, I can't stomach this stuff, you know, whether it's forcing out the US Attorney in Virginia, you know, truth social post telling me to go after your enemies. I mean that, you know, until this Kimmel thing happened. I mean that, that's pretty, that's, that's Watergate level, beyond Watergate level stuff.
- [30:33]
D
Yeah. I think that everyone who's still inside the Justice Department, particularly on the staff level, is facing a hard decision about can I do more good if I stay here inside or am I compromising my integrity to a degree that I just have to leave. I don't pretend to understand how Pam Bondi wraps her head around these types of dilemmas, but what I will say is that I am very afraid that it is going to take something truly awful happening in our country before we realize the extent of the damage that has been done inside the Justice Department. As I mentioned earlier, the Justice Department, you know, since 911 they've been proactively investigating the possibility of terrorist attacks or cybersecurity attacks or the types of things that can really harm and paralyze our country. And it's not clear that they're continuing to do those things or that anyone in the department knows how to do those things anymore. And my concern is that it's going to take a national tragedy on a large scale before we fully reckon with the damage that has been done in the Justice Department in the past eight months.
- [31:40]
A
Right. And it seems to me, I mean, even if you want to get into this, I mean, the targeting of drug runners, alleged drug runners on boats coming from Venezuela and that, and they're just getting droned and taken out, I mean, that is some extrajudicial, extra constitutional behavior that is going on on the part of the administration. I mean, you're supposed to people in these cases not blow them out of the water without judge, jury or, or anything like that.
- [32:07]
D
Yeah, it's absolutely shocking to see basically summary executions of people at sea who we are told are carrying drugs. We don't even know that that's true. There is no reason that we should take the administration at its word that these boats have drugs on them. We are hearing court after court call out lawyers for the Trump administration for lying to their faces about the facts and circumstances underlying the cases that they are litigating. There is no reason that we should believe that the Trump administration actually knows that there are drugs on these boats. And even if there are, the proper thing to do is to interdict the boat, to arrest people and to prosecute people. And I will say that, you know, as a public defender, I saw these cases of people carrying drugs on boats, and the idea that these are high level terrorists is ridiculous. These are generally extremely poor people who are taking an immense amount of risks to do something incredibly dangerous because they are fleeing from poverty. They feel desperate. They have no other choice. I'm not excusing drug trafficking, but I am simply pointing out that these are not sophisticated terrorist operations who are occupying these boats. These are people who are so desperate that they are taking a journey across the sea in usually a small, ill equipped boat to survive that journey. So the idea that we couldn't deal with those people through the legal process is just ridiculous.
- [33:35]
A
Well, and I'll give everybody a hint at home as to who is really in charge of the Justice Department. I mean, it's been reported by numerous outlets that it's basically the White House that's in charge of the Justice Department. If you want to know who's in charge over at the White House these days, it's probably, for the most part, Stephen Miller, who is the de facto chief of staff. And this is just to wrap this up with you, Liz, and not to put you on the spot to comment on this, but I found his comments at the Charlie Cook Memorial to be the most alarming, the most disturbing, the strangest, the most surreal of any. And, and Trump was, was weird. Too. But this, let's play Stephen Miller and talk about on the other side. This is wild stuff.
- [34:13]
E
Cannot imagine what they have awakened. They cannot conceive of the army that they have arisen in all of us because we stand for what is good, what is virtuous, what is noble. And to those trying to incite violence against us, those trying to foment hatred against us, what do you have? You have nothing. You are nothing. You are wickedness. You are jealousy. You are envy. You are hatred. You are nothing. You can build nothing. You can produce. Produce nothing. You can create nothing. We are the ones who build. We are the ones who create. We are the ones who lift up humanity.
- [35:03]
A
Yeah, I mean, this is really strange stuff. I mean, cultish, like rhetoric. I mean, no question about it coming from Steven and, and Liz. He's basically the person, I mean, it's been widely reported who is calling the shots in terms of what goes on over at the Justice Department in addition to Trump. But if you listen to the rhetoric Stephen uses, it's basically, and I know this, I mean, he used to write Trump speeches all the time out on the campaign trail. This is who is pulling the strings over there. And that's disturbing.
- [35:31]
D
Yeah. You know what's interesting about Stephen Miller in this Trump 2.0 administration compared to the first one, is that he's taken on a much more public facing role. He's still mostly behind the scenes, but he pops out now and again and spouts off some stuff that I often don't really understand like that. And I hope that he will do that more because every time he does that, it I think causes a lot of eyebrows to raise. I don't think that he is a charismatic personality that has the appeal of a Donald Trump. He is somebody who comes across as very unrelatable and just bizarre to say the least. And I think the more he decides that he's going to be the face of this administration, the better in terms of allowing people to see who is really pulling the strings behind Donald Trump.
- [36:15]
A
Maybe you're right, Liz. More. Stephen Miller might be the answer to all of this. You might be on camera, you might be right about that, Liz. Lawyer, great to see as always. And don't forget to follow Liz on all of her socials. I noticed in particular, Liz, you are blowing up on the Instagram. Is that where your lawyer order there on Instagram?
- [36:34]
D
Lawyer Oiler on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube and Substack. So please call me at all those places and thank you for having me on. Jim. I always really enjoy talking with you.
- [36:43]
B
You.
- [36:43]
A
And are you surprised? I guess I should just hang, hang on you for one extra second. Are you surprised as to how people have gravitated towards. I mean, I guess it's your legal expertise. It's the way you break things down. It must be very gratifying. And I think people are just, they're, they just want to hear from folks like yourself.
- [37:02]
D
Yeah, you know, I've been sort of searching for a new purpose since I lost my job. I've been in public service for most of my career and educating the public about what's going on in our country. Now using my legal expertise to do that has been gratifying. I think there is an incredible desire among the public to understand what's happening in the legal system because it affects all of our lives so much right now. And I try to break it down for folks who aren't lawyers. And I enjoy doing that.
- [37:30]
A
All right, well, Liz, great to see you. Thanks so much for doing it. And let's do it again soon, please.
- [37:35]
D
That'd be great. Thanks.
- [37:36]
A
Thanks a lot. Liz Oyer, Oyer, lawyer, which is, I mean, if only all of our names could rhyme. What we do, that would be, that would be something else. I have to say, I'm so, I'm glad that I. This is, this is interesting the way this day has turned out because, I mean, it was like five minutes or maybe ten minutes before 4:00 East Coast Time. And I had Norm, I had Liz set up. I'm like, here are a couple of, you know, great legal guests to talk about all to chew on all this crazy stuff from over the weekend. Trump saying, but he hates his political enemies and he wants to see them hurt. Stephen Miller sang this crazy cockamamie over the weekend. Did that sound like a memorial service, A Christian religious memorial service the way Stephen Miller sounded? My God. And then right before we came on, some hope for all of us. Jimmy Kimmel back on the air Tuesday night on abc. We'll see how many of the stations carry it. We don't know that at this point. There are a couple of stations, groups like nexstar and Sinclair, if people want to get into, you know, the politicization of the airwaves. I mean, Sinclair, it's been widely reported, widely established, is a very conservative station owner group. And the FCC under Brendan Carr has no problem with Sinclair being a mouthpiece for Donald Trump. They've done it time and again. There's that creepy video I'm sure you guys have seen. It out there. If not, you can look it up where they, they found all of these anchors saying the exact same creepy thing. And they were edited side by side to create this really just terrifying montage. That's of the Sinclair Television Group. They're a very conservative broadcast group that owns a bunch of stations and many of them under a, under the ABC umbrella, including right here in Washington, D.C. fCC has no problem with that. Jimmy Kimmel says one thing that they don't like, and there's all of this pressure. The SEC chairman goes on TV and says, we're going to do this the easy way or the hard way. And so, and so Disney pulls him off the air. And fortunately, I reached out to Jimmy. I let him know over the weekend that I stand behind him and support him. And he was nice enough to reply and say thanks. But I think so many people out there really felt passionately about this. I was telling, I was saying this to a friend over the weekend. Jimmy Kimmel getting fired or suspended, I guess as it turns out was the case that his suspension reminded me of when Tom Hanks got Covid. It reminded me of Tom, Remember when, during the beginning of the pandemic, Tom Hanks got Covid. And at that point, just about everybody around the world took a big gulp and said, oh, shit, we got to take this seriously. We got to take this seriously. Now this shit's going to hit the fan. I thought the same thing happened with Jimmy Kimmel last week. That somebody as well known around the world as relatable as Jimmy Kimmel can get canned for what he says on national television in the way that it was done to me, sent a very chilling signal around the country, around the world, and there's a viewer right there still waiting for kill me to be punished again. Let's just, let's just note this one more time. Brian Kilmeade on Fox says that homeless people should be euthanized, administered lethal object injections involuntarily, doesn't lose his job, doesn't get canned. Jimmy Kimmel says one thing that got twisted around and gets suspended. But anyway, we're going to set that to the side for the moment. But it said to me that the First Amendment was going to be in a lot of trouble if the FCC can just go around. And then Trump, of course, over the weekend was saying, we're going to start pulling broadcast licenses for things that we don't like to hear. Sounded very serious, sounded very scary. And then the American people acted. And for folks who say, oh, what difference does it make if I cancel my Disney plus or my Hulu Plus? Look at the difference that it made abc, Disney, they were losing hundreds of millions of dollars. And I, I think they got the message. I think Disney got the message. And as I was saying to Norm Eisen, it's a small world after all. And we have to look at it that way, folks. We have to look at it that way. We are in this together. And just when you think that we're down for the count and we're not going to get back up and the country is going down the tubes and this, this failed game show host who thinks he, he can be a king, a wannabe dictator, just when you think that he has won the day. And apparently he's on this hour spouting all kinds of cockamamie crazy medical stuff that we're gonna have to dissect tomorrow. He's in the losing column this evening, folks. Trump just lost a big one. Trump lost a big one. As the viewer says right there, hit them in their bank accounts, folks. We can vote at the polls. We can vote with our clickers, with our streaming accounts, apparently. We can vote with our wallets. We vote with our credit cards increasingly. I mean, this is, this is a, this is, this is something to file away for later, folks, and think about long and hard. Increasingly, the experts are all saying that linear television, as it's called, broadcast television, cable outlets and so on, that, that's all that those are the dinosaurs, those are all going by the wayside. And that stream is the future. Things like this, independent media are the future. What happens in that kind of environment? Well, in that environment, by and large, you have a lot of people not subscribing to a cable system anymore, a cable provider anymore, and sending 2 or 300 off to Comcast or FiOS or one of those companies, folks, are cutting the cord. They've been doing this for years and they're, what are they doing? They're signing up for different streaming packages, right? They're signing up for different streaming channels. As it turns out, these big entertainment companies, they like all that money that's coming into them. Isn't that interesting? Isn't that something? And so if these companies are going to bend the knee and act like a bunch of wussies and be cowards and pull things off the air that the American people get pissed off about, we can fire back. We can just cancel, click that little cancel button and say, bye bye, Disney, bye bye, Hulu plus. The industry, as a viewer says the industry led us here. The industry has empowered you. Ladies and gentlemen. That turkey over at the FCC who I, I found out the other day, apparently he's younger than me. Is that, is that, that's some crazy. That guy looks old as Brendan Carr. That turkey over there was puffing out his chest and saying, cancel Jimmy. If you don't cancel Jimmy, we're going to make a mess out of, out of the, out of this network we got here. We're going to do some damage over at ABC if they don't cancel. We can do this the easy way or the hard way. As it turns out, those clowns, those turkeys, they're losing power, they're losing influence. If the industry is all going to be about what channels I sign up for, what streaming services I sign up for, and there's some big, powerful company at the top, and Donald Trump is pissed because they told a couple of jokes he doesn't like and he wants to retaliate against that comedian. And that comedian works for this company, and we don't like it, and we're pissed about it. That's the lesson here, folks. And I hope the New York Times or one of these other very, very smart media writers will write this story. The people have been empowered. The people have been empowered. And I don't know about you guys, but I'm looking at the headlines over the weekend and I'm saying, tom Homan took a bag of cash at cava. Allegedly took a bag of cash. First of all, I was shocked that Tom Homan was eating at Cava. It's a very fresh, healthy option for folks. At lunchtime, you go in there and you load up the bowl with the lettuce and the beans and the quinoa. Does, Does Tom Homan eat quinoa? I had no idea. Doesn't look like it. I didn't, I didn't have that on my bingo card. Tom Homan eating at kava. And then Donald Trump is saying that he wants Pam Bonnie to go after his enemies. And, and, and we're hearing that, that they're, they're firing U. S. Attorneys because they won't go after his enemies and so on. And it all sounded, it all sounded rather hopeless. It all sounded. And then you saw what took place at the Charlie Kirk memorial. And Stephen Miller, my God, sounded like he was at a, at a Branch Davidian Jim Jones, like, cult event the way he was. He was talking there. He sounded nuts. He sounded goofy. He sounded like he's got a problem. Does that. I mean, none of that sounded like a memorial service. It sounded like a call to arms from a goddamn lunatic. And it all sounded rather hopeless. And then, as it turns out, and I've been saying this. I hope people remember this. I've been saying this since, what, February? You gotta have hope. And the reason why you have to have hope is because of us, because of you and because of me, they can kick people off of legacy media. We can come here to substack, we can go to YouTube, we can go to Apple Podcasts, and we can still have our voices heard if they kick a popular comedian off of national television, we can vote with our clickers, we can vote with our bank accounts, we can vote with our credit cards and say, no more. Disney plus, they got all those Star wars movies they want to sell. We ain't gonna be watching them on Disney Plus. We're not going to watch the Mandalorian and Baby Yoda if you fire Jimmy Kimmel. That's right. Baby Yoda's in this. He's in. His little ass is involved in this, too. Little Baby Yoda. We ain't gonna watch little Baby Yoda if you with Jimmy Kimmel. Do you understand now? And this is where we, the American people, have some power. This is why I say there's some hope left. This is why you gotta have hope, folks. You gotta have hope. May the force be with you and with Jimmy Kimmel. We'll all be watching tomorrow night. My thanks to Norm Eisen, my thanks to Liz Oyer, the Oyer lawyer, and my thanks to all of you for. For making it very clear that people power matters. Still reporting from Washington, I'm Jim Acosta. Have a good evening. I'll see you next time. It.