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- [00:00]
A
Foreign. To the Jim Acosta show. And it's another day that ends in Y. And the Epstein files cover up. There are apparently 5,300 files containing more than 38,000 references to Donald Trump in the Epstein files. And yet the deputy attorney general, Todd Blanch, who also worked as Trump's defense lawyer, says they did not find enough evidence to warrant further investigation. That's according to the New York Times. Meanwhile, the scandal involving the FBI raid at the election headquarters in Fulton county is growing. The Times is also reporting that the director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard put Donald Trump on the phone with FBI agents on all of that. So more on that later. Also later, the great Kara Swisher joins us. We'll talk about the Don Lemon arrest and lots more. So stay tuned for that. But let's discuss the Epstein files. A lot of news that came out over the weekend with Dave Aronberg, former Florida state attorney in Palm beach. And, and he's at Dave Ehrenberg on substack. Dave, great to see you as always. I mean, this, this headline to me is staggering to me, 5,300 files containing more than 38,000 references to Donald Trump, his wife, his Bar a Lago club in Florida, other related words and phrases. This is according to the New York Times. And yet the DOJ says we're not going to investigate, we're just going to move on here. What do you think about this?
- [01:27]
B
Well, they produced millions of pages, but there are still millions that they're keeping under their watch. And the reason why they're not producing it is because they're saying, well, it involves an ongoing criminal investigation. Of course, there's no proof that there really is one. And if there is one, that is done in good faith. I mean, they said they're doing one just of Democrats. Remember that that's what Bill Clinton, that's what Donald Trump ordered. And then Bill Clinton's picture was strewn throughout the releases. Like, if you're really doing it on Democrats, why are you showing Clinton's picture and no one else is? It should be the opposite. But also they're saying there's deliberate process privilege, which is something an agency can invoke that shows that conceals the back and forth you have. But that's not allowed under the Epstein Files Transparency Act. They're saying it's work product privilege, like it's our internal notes. But that again, is not listed as an exception under the Epstein Files Transparency Act. The problem is that there is really no mechanism that is easy to enforce the Epstein Files Transparency act because the act itself contains no enforcement mechanism. And so because of that, we're all trying to figure out what's next, how do we get the act enforced. And this was, I think, a mistake by the drafters of the act. They really should have put more teeth in it.
- [02:53]
A
But, you know, I, I just, I mean, those numbers are staggering to me. And I, I, you're absolutely right. I mean, they're not complying with the law. And, but what law does Donald Trump comply with? I mean, I mean, you could put all the teeth in it. And, and I, you know, I don't know if he would absolutely comply with it. The other thing, too, that we should, we should mention is that the Department of Justice apparently just mishandled, either intentionally or unintentionally, the publishing of some of these files. This is also, according to the New York Times, that the Justice Department published dozens of unredacted nude images on its website showing young women or possibly teenagers whose photos were contained in files related to Jeffrey Epstein and some of the victims. They say they're angry that their information was disclosed while powerful people's names were shielded. And, and Dave, get this. In one case record showed a text exchange between Steve Bannon and Epstein that referenced a, a news article about Donald Trump. An associated image of Trump appeared in the Justice Department files with a redaction box over his face. So there is one instance where the New York Times, going through all these files, found Donald Trump's picture, his face redacted. And yet they're, they did not redact a lot of very sensitive images that I assume the victims and the survivors and that whole network that they're completely pissed off about and probably are ready to sue.
- [04:21]
B
It has been a haphazard release. Right. There seems to be sometimes no rhyme or reason why are some pages entirely blacked out while others, you see pinpoint redactions. Why? When it comes to the list of the unindicted alleged co conspirators, are all the names blacked out except for Jean Luc Brunel committed suicide. I get that. Ghislaine Maxwell, she's already been convicted. Okay. Leslie Wexner, he hasn't been convicted or indicted or anything. Why is his name unredacted but all the other unindicted co conspirators allegedly are redacted? Well, it doesn't seem to have a rhyme or reason why is Bill Clinton's picture out there, but all the others who supposedly are under investigation are redacted. You could Say it's all politics, but I think it's also just the fact that they're making mistakes, like out the names of the underage victims and their, their identities. I don't believe they actually wanted to do that. I think they just screwed up and it shows you that they're not, I think, able to comply with the act in a timely fashion to get it all out there. So they're scrambling. And their number one priority is err on the side of protecting the boss. Which is why when those FBI summaries came out about the intake, about the allegations against Donald Trump, you know, to the hotline, they published them and then they were taken down. And why were they taken down? But I think what happened is they were published and the White House was like, what are you doing? And then DOJ said, oh, and then they took it down. But you can't put the toothpaste back in the tube once it's out there. There are all the screenshots and everyone knows about it. So it looks worse when you take it down. So they put it back up and apparently they took other things down. So it just doesn't make a lot of sense.
- [06:15]
A
No, it does make a lot of sense, but it looks like it has been highly politicized and as is always with the case with the Trump people, is that it's highly politicized and also highly incompetent at the same time. Which explains why you see the release of images like Bill Clinton and Bill Gates and you know, Trump likes to talk about people on the left being exposed in this and so on. And I have to say, you know, talking to a lot of Democrats about this and people on the left about this, they really do not give two shits about people like Bill Clinton and Bill Gates and people like that having their, their, their identities exposed and all of this, what they do really care about is a cover up Donald Trump and what he has been up to. And it seems to me that there has been a concerted effort to cover up his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein and, and even in a ham handed way by Donald Trump himself, he put out a truth social post. We can show that not only wasn't I friendly with Jeffrey Epstein, but based upon information that has just been released by the Department of Justice and Epstein and a sleazebag lying author named Michael Wolf conspired in order to damage me and, or my presidency. So much for the radical left's hope against hope, some of whom I'll be suing. So Trump says he's going to be suing in all of this, which of course he sometimes does, sometimes doesn't, but most of the time he doesn't. But, but Dave, the very first part of that, not only wasn't I friendly with Jeffrey Epstein, nobody believes that. I don't. Nobody believes that Donald Trump and Jeffrey, Jeffrey Epstein weren't friends.
- [07:44]
B
No, no, nobody. But also there were people who believed this was a Democratic Cabal, the whole QAnon movement, the MAGA. One of their core principles was that we need transparency to expose all the Democrats, Bill Clinton, Bill Gates, et cetera, on Epstein Island. Well, looky here, we are now seeing the names that are coming out and it's not just Bill Clinton, Bill Gates. How about Elon Musk, who emailed Jeffrey Epstein to ask which night is the wildest party? Steve Bannon. Mr. Let's go after those global elites. Turns out he was palling around with the global elite. It's always about projection for him.
- [08:27]
A
Yes.
- [08:28]
B
He looks at this like he's Epstein's top advisor and close friend. You know, I mean, he's giving him advice, he's flying around his aircraft. Epstein. Apparently when I read through this, he was making fun of the fact that Epstein was serving as Bannon's flight agent, like travel agent. So he said he's like the most expensive travel agent. You know, this is Steve Bannon, the father of the MAGA movement. How about Howard Lutnick, the Commerce Secretary?
- [08:53]
A
Yes.
- [08:54]
B
He used to live next to Epstein in New York. And he said that back in 2005, he and his wife went over to their neighbor's house and saw this creepy massage table in the middle of the living room with, with all these candles around it. And when Epstein was saying, you know what kind of massages I get, it was being really creepy that Letnick said to his wife, that's it, we're never going to see this guy again. Well, then we saw in the emails that In December of 2012, he apparently visited Epstein island for a lunch. Not just him, but him and his family visited their friend Jeffrey Epstein on his island. So you can't say this a Democratic cabal anymore. This is just a group of elite individuals who were friends with a pedophile after he had been convicted in South Florida for his actions.
- [09:45]
A
Right. And you could also make the case that there's a bit of a Trump network. There's a group of Trump related people. You have Howard Lutnick, you have Steve Bannon, you have Donald Trump's largest political donor, I guess that we know of or one of his largest. And Elon Musk, I believe he was his largest. And the 2024 campaign, they had a falling out, but they were apparently just recently having dinner together at Mar a Lago. That, that was reported just recently. And I mean, the Elon Musk stuff is pretty extraordinary, I guess. We have some tweets from Elon Musk and Kara Swisher, who's going to be on later. She, she tweeted about this. You know, he's the one who said, time to drop the really big bomb. Donald Trump is in the Epstein files. That is the reason why they have not been made public. Have a nice day, djt. And, you know, he, he's tweeting the other day that, you know, why hasn't, why haven't there not been any arrests in the Epstein files? Why haven't there, I mean, you know, it's a good question to ask. It seems to me that there should be.
- [10:47]
B
Well, there was an active investigation by the Southern District of New York, and when Trump came to power this time around, he stopped it. And then they sent the files to Main justice and then somehow got lost in transit because, you remember, they then said, oh, we just found another million documents that were sent from the Southern District of New York. So nothing happened to that. They just shut it down. And so it really does hurt him in his base, with his base, because the base cares about this and they don't buy the whole nothing to see here, or this is a Democratic hoax. And so this is why I think Trump's numbers are struggling. This thing is a albatross around his neck.
- [11:26]
A
Yeah.
- [11:27]
B
And it's not going to change until all the files are released. But you heard from Todd Blanche. That's it, folks. No more files released.
- [11:35]
A
Yeah. And Trump is talking about how he wants to sue Michael Wolf. He also said something, I think, in the last day or two about wanting to sue the Epstein Estate. He must, that must be because he's mad at the Epstein estate, working with the House Oversight Committee Democrats. When Todd Blanche said, we're not going to be doing any more investigating, as you just mentioned, Robert Garcia, who's the ranking Democrat on that committee, says, oh, no, no, we're still investigating. I mean, that's the other part of this, Dave, is that the House Oversight Committee Democrats, they've revealed so much in this. And every time the Justice Department tries to slam the lid shut and put some nails in it and put it to bed, the House Democrats on the Oversight Committee appear to find more information. And so it Seems to me even with all the millions of files that have been released by the Justice Department, there may be stuff floating around out there that may not be in the files that is obtainable.
- [12:29]
B
And the reason why the Epstein Estates releases were so important and received so much coverage is because of the way that the Trump administration handled the Epstein's files in their possession. If they had just ripped the band aid off and just produce everything, the Epstein estate stuff wouldn't even be discussed. But instead you have this drip, drip, drip. And this has been. Of all the things that Trump has done, I think this has been mishandled the most because it has made a scandal into a monumental one that just doesn't go away. This could have been a much shorter story where he comes out and says, yeah, I used to be friends with a guy. All these other allegations are garbage. We're not friends anymore. Here, here is all the information. And he would have taken his lumps. But by, it's, it's not necessarily the crime, but the COVID up. It's like, why are you fighting so hard to keep this under wraps? Because no one's buying it. Everyone is interested. No one's buying that. There's nothing to see here. And so what we should see are victim statements of the FBI. We haven't seen all those. We haven't seen the internal memos from the federal prosecutors from either the Southern District of New York or the Southern District of Florida. We haven't seen all the internal FBI memos. And you know, you bring up the Epstein estate, we haven't seen the photos that were already produced by the Epstein estate. We haven't seen that birthday card or the birthday file that we know exists, but we saw it from the Epstein estate. So clearly there are things we're seeing that the Trump administration is not letting us see.
- [14:02]
A
Right. And I do want to be careful about this because there are also some unsubstantiated allegations. It looks like there were tips that came into the FBI that they cataloged and maybe looked into to some extent. Although the Survivor and Victim network, they feel as though these things have not been investigated enough. But there have been allegations made that, that Trump did sexually abuse minors. And I, we can't show, I don't think we should show the documents because, you know, there are so many of these that, you know, where do you begin? But what can you say about that, Dave? Because it's, you know, talking to Julie Brown, talking to Tara Palmeri and so on. I mean, there, there are some in the Survivor and Victim network who say these allegations have not been investigated enough. And yes, you know, Trump and his team have said these things did not happen. But the fact that they're in these files, to me is. Is serious.
- [15:01]
B
Well, we don't know how they've been investigated, whether it's enough or not, because they won't produce the internal reports. And that's something that I think could help them. I mean, right now they're saying, just trust us, there's nothing here. You know, and. And we're not trying to say things that not based on fact were there are allegations. We don't know if it was an investigation. I mean, apparently the investigation that did commence never ended up in a prosecution or anything more. So perhaps these are unsubstantiated allegations. But if you really want to put it to bed, you just release the internal FBI memos to see what took place after these calls came in.
- [15:42]
A
Right. And getting back to the. To the victims and the survivors. Dave, do you think that they. They have a case in terms of these photographs that have been leaked or not leaked, but released, that did not get redacted, that just completely showed young girls and underage girls who were exposed in this, in this release? It seems to me there. I mean, this is what they were promised. They were promised as part of the release process.
- [16:12]
C
Yeah.
- [16:13]
A
That they. That this would be protected. And it was just absolutely not done.
- [16:17]
B
And it's a letter. Yeah, there's a letter from the, from the victim's lawyers to the two judges, the federal judges who have been dealing with this. And they are asking the judges to order that these pictures, these name identifications be redacted. But I think the DOJ is going to do that anyways once the attention is paid to it. Because on this, I do not believe that it was intentional. I think that it was sloppy. And now I. So I think that the DOJ is going to redact it because it's a bad look to produce their names and their identifications. That was the one thing that Todd Bland said, number one. This is the number one reason why we're redacting withholding. It's because we want to protect the identity of victims. Well, here we go.
- [17:03]
A
Right. And to the point of that the survivors make. That the people in that community make is. I mean, the reason why, you know, it is so difficult for victims of sexual assault, victims of sexual abuse to come forward is that they are worried about having their identities revealed, that they are worried that people will come after them if they blow the whistle on Things or go to the authorities on things. And in this case, it was just not handled appropriately. And, you know, to me it's just, it's yet another example of how they've been victimized all over again, it seems to me.
- [17:36]
B
Yeah, the survivors have had such a strong voice. Without them, we wouldn't have the Epstein files Transparency Act. Remember, President Trump opposed it and was twisting arms. Even had Lauren Boebert in the Situation Room twisting her arm.
- [17:48]
A
Right.
- [17:49]
B
To vote against it. And so we shouldn't be surprised that the orders are coming from the White House to slow walk this. I know what Todd Blanch has said, but I mean, obviously Trump has a vested interest to move beyond this, but moving beyond this is not to conceal, it is not to hide the fact that his name is in the files. It's to have radical transparency. And once you do that, then you can move on to the next controversy. But this thing ain't going away. It is a self inflicted wound.
- [18:22]
A
It certainly is. And it seems to me the more that they try to cover this up, the more he rants and raves about this and threatens people and so on. I mean, he's talking about suing Michael Wolf. Good luck with that. You know, I mean, Michael Wolf and his attorneys will know how to do discovery, it seems to me, as it pertains to Jeffrey Epstein. And that is not going to be a pleasant situation for him. And so it seems to me that, you know, the, the, the option, the only option here is to continue to release things. But as you were saying, they, they just aren't willing to do that. And the more they sit on this, I think the more they, they make it worse. But yeah, go ahead, Dave.
- [18:56]
B
Well, they also are going to have to produce a report because they're already overdue.
- [19:02]
D
Right.
- [19:02]
B
That describes what they're holding back. They have to just say here, here are the categories are holding back and why. And that's going to create more questions and more demands for transparency. So they just keep stepping on a rake.
- [19:17]
A
Yeah. And the longer they drag this out, the longer this goes on, the fresher it stays in people's minds. If and when, and in all likelihood, when the Democrats take control of the Congress, they'll be able to run oversight hearings and bring all of this back to light. And so it doesn't, the, these delay tactics worked for Donald Trump when he was trying to get out of legal hot water when he was out of office. It's not working for him in this particular case, it seems to me, but.
- [19:44]
B
It is not My favorite part was at the press conference when Todd Blanch said that he had not heard that Ghisaine Maxwell had identified 25 unindicted co conspirators who cut deals allegedly with Epstein. I'm sorry, with the victims. So you had co conspirators cutting deals with the victims. And so she said, there are your unindicted co conspirators. She put that in her habeas motion, which was filed in December, saying, you see, it's selective prosecution. Why don't you go after them? Why are you just going after me?
- [20:15]
A
Yeah.
- [20:16]
B
And they asked Todd Blanch about. He said, I have not heard of that. Boy, I wish that the person who had interviewed G. Maxwell at her prison would have asked her about that. Who was that that interviewed G. Maxwell?
- [20:28]
A
Oh, yeah, it was Todd Blanch, the president's former defense attorney, or I guess you could still say he is acting as a defense attorney. But Dave Ehrenberg, great to see as always. Thank you very much. Be sure to follow Dave on substack at Dave Ehrenberg, always a great follow and always a great guest. Thank you, Dave, for coming on. Really appreciate it.
- [20:46]
B
Thank you, Jim.
- [20:47]
A
All right. You bet. And Dave's not the only legal eagle that we have on the program today. I had a chance to speak with the wonderful and just really brilliant Frank Figlusi, former top official over at the FBI. I had to get Frank on to talk about what I think is, I mean, it's Trump's Watergate. This seems to me, is Trump's Watergate. It is exploding as a national scandal. The fact that he sent Tulsi Gabbard, the director of National Intelligence, down to an election headquarters in Fulton County, Georgia, ahead of the midterms, when there are going to be congressional seats and even a Senate seat on the line in that state. And Tulsi Gabbard was there as they were apparently trying to investigate Donald Trump's bogus bullshit claims of a stolen election back in 2020. He's never been able to prove anything along those lines and yet he still believes in this fantasy or he says that he believes in this fantasy. And the New York Times is reporting today that when all of this was going on, Tulsi Gabbard and Donald Trump are on the phone with the FBI agents who were involved in the search. And Trump is apparently talking to the FBI agents involved in the search, asking questions, praising them and so on. This is according to a very explosive story out in the New York Times today. Had a chance to talk with Frank Figluzzi about this. Take a look. And joining us now is former FBI official Frank Figloozzi. Frank, always great to talk to you, especially as a seasoned law enforcement analyst. You know, this, this story that came out in the New York Times today, I think it should worry every American. It seems to me that the appearance to me is that Trump is already meddling with the upcoming midterm elections. I mean, this is the New York Times story that Trump had an unusual call with FBI agents after the Election center search. This happened last week. Remember, we saw Tulsi Gabbard, the Director of National Intelligence, show up at this FBI search of the Fulton county election headquarters. And lo and behold, you know, apparently, according to the New York Times, Trump was on the phone talking to some of the FBI agents. And I, you know, I, I just think that this is extremely concerning. I, I just, I mean, the thought of Tulsi Gabbard being there just to begin with is bad. But the fact that she put Trump on the phone and then he was talking to the agents. Your thoughts, Frank?
- [23:16]
D
Oh, my gosh. I think extremely disturbing is an understatement. I've been telling folks, even before we knew about this bizarre phone call from Trump to literally line agents in a field office. I've been telling people who say, oh, this, this Fulton county seizure is simply a distraction from other things. Epstein, Venezuela, Iran, et cetera. I've been telling them, time out, time out. No, no. This may be the most serious event yet in Trump's misconduct and the most serious arrow pointing to what he plans to do with regard to control of elections. And so in my 25 year career, I can assure you, although I have certainly, you know, at an Assistant director level and even below that, have had contact with the White House, briefings at the White House. I have never had, as a line agent or supervisor in a field office, a phone call from the, with the President of the United States. And reportedly, this came after the seizure. Tulsi Gabbard reportedly entered the FBI Atlanta field office, by the way, field office I served in for five years.
- [24:31]
A
Right.
- [24:32]
D
And, and then she puts, I can only imagine the agents, the look on the agent's face. She puts the President on speakerphone on her cell phone.
- [24:42]
A
Right.
- [24:42]
D
And I, I don't, you know, it's described as a pep talk or a yay rah rah, or, you know, great job, guys. But here's the thing. We can't have a President of the United States calling the shots or even appearing to do so on an investigation that directly relates to whether or not there was fraud in the election that he didn't win.
- [25:12]
A
Right? No. And the New York Times put it this way. The President addressed the agents on speakerphone, asking them questions, as well as praising and thanking them for their work on the inquiry. According to three people with knowledge of the discussion, Trump personally ordered Ms. Gabber to go to Atlanta for the search and coordinated her actions with Andrew bailey, one of two deputy FBI directors, according to the U.S. official. And you know, Frank, I mean, the thing that is really scary about this, it says Trump ordered Tulsi Gabbard to go to Atlanta for this. So he is. He's sending the top intelligence official in the United States government to oversee this. This is Watergate level stuff, it seems to me.
- [25:55]
D
Yeah. And again, I've had regular contact with the DNI when I was a senior executive at FBI headquarters. Never, never in the history of the DNI's office am I aware of the DNI deploying to a field office for a search and seizure. There's no investigative work there. There's no remit that gets into investigations. And while initially many of us were scurrying around theorizing that, okay, this injects a foreign power, perhaps conspiracy angle, you've got the DNI on the ground. She's going to claim foreign involvement, interference, perhaps, in the Georgia election. What we. Now that we've had some time and distance from this, what we're learning is that, no, not really. She just needed something to do, and the president apparently has assigned her this project of looking into election fraud. So there's an interesting angle to this reporting today, which seems to cement the fact that this, this may not be about foreign power influence. Why do I say that? She reportedly visited with and the agents working this, this Fulton county seizure are from the public corruption slash civil rights squad. What does that mean? It's not. It's notable to me that the DNI was not meeting with the Foreign Counter Intelligence Squad, which I served on in Atlanta. I know the Public Corruption squad in Atlanta, and in any field office, it's some of the best agents you have working very sensitive public official corruption. So I am now even more convinced that we may not see a foreign power type conspiracy theory espoused, but rather they're working this as some kind of election fraud, and it involves public officials.
- [27:47]
A
Right. Well. And as we know, during the 2020 election, the election that Donald Trump lost fair and square, he tried to pressure Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia Secretary of State, to overturn the election results there. And he's on, he's caught on tape saying, we just need one more vote than what we need. And I mean that right there. I always thought that that was Trump getting caught red handed. When you use that kind of language, you're basically saying, I don't want to know what the actual results of the election were. I just want to know that I won, that I had one more vote than the other guy. And you know, the other thing that we should mention, Frank, is the Wall Street Journal had another story on Tulsi or there was another story out there on Tulsi Gabbard. This one's in the Wall Street Journal. It says a U. S. Intelligence official has alleged wrongdoing by the DNI in a whistleblower complaint that is so highly classified. This is what the story says. It has sparked months of wrangling over how to share it with Congress. And this is according to US Officials and others familiar with the matter. I saw there's a spokesperson for Tulsi Gabbard who went on Twitter and said, you know, the deep state is coming after me, and so on. I mean, they've been in charge of the, the government for a year now. They should have gotten to the bottom of what the deep state is, if it even exists. I always say whenever you're complaining about the deep state, you're probably in deep shit. But, but I, but Tulsi Gabbard has some, some clouds hanging over her, it seems to me.
- [29:10]
D
Well, she had clouds hanging over when she was nominated for the position. And I am convinced if a legitimate background investigation was ever done on her for that position, she would not have made it through the background. But that's another topic for another discussion. Look, it appears that Trump is doubling down on a. A claim that has been adjudicated.
- [29:33]
B
The.
- [29:33]
D
The Fulton county ballots have been counted, recounted and audited. Now they're in sealed boxes. And as soon as that seal is cracked on those boxes that were seized, all bets are off. Jim, on whether or not we're going to have a manipulation of the Fulton county vote with and with, with regard to, to Tulsi Gabbard and this whistleblower allegation that you just mentioned, the notion, the notion that a whistleblower is reporting misconduct allegedly against the DNI and that the nature of the, of the claim is so classified that they can't figure out how to share it with Congress is absolute malarkey. You can give. I've been there and done that. You can give selected members of Congress, say. Say the chairs of the House and Senate Intelligence Committee pick.
- [30:26]
A
Right, your.
- [30:27]
D
Pick your people. You can give them the necessary clearances to see what the complaint is. So it is BS When Tulsi Gabbard says, I have a complaint against me and I can't share it with Congress. Absolute nonsense.
- [30:46]
A
Right. And I mean, the other thing is, is that, I mean, this says to me that this is potentially pretty explosive stuff. They're worried about it being leaked.
- [30:55]
C
Worried.
- [30:56]
A
They say that they're worried about sharing it with Congress. It seems to me what they're saying is they're worried about it being leaked to the public, and that enters the realm of having a right to know. I mean, it seems to me, like you said earlier, I mean, Tulsi Gabard did not really have a real confirmation process and a vetting of her nomination to be the dni. If that had been the case, she wouldn't have been the dni. But it seems to me this is the kind of information that Congress needs, needs to have. You know, there's just. And. And the fact that she would be dispatched by Trump down to. To Fulton county to get involved in what is going on in the Fulton county election office with this kind of stuff hanging over her, that's. That. That also sounds problematic. That also sounds troublesome.
- [31:41]
D
Congress. This is yet another example, Jim, of Congress essentially ceding their authority. They should be demanding answers not only as to what in God's name happened in Fulton County. Let's not forget the head of the FBI field office, the special Agent in charge in Atlanta, left the office the week prior to the search and seizure, and now there's reporting that he left because he balked at doing this search and seizure. So I don't know who's in charge, if anyone, of FBI Atlanta. Maybe Tulsi Gabbard thinks she's the SAC now in Atlanta. But we've got to get some answers here. And I have questions about this search. The magistrate that signed off on this, what was he or she told and why? What is new? If I were that magistrate, I'd be saying, what is new here? That this has been done and dealt with. What have you got before me that's new? And that's likely the same question the SEC in Atlanta asked and why he's no longer. And employed.
- [32:41]
A
Yeah, I mean, and not to belabor this, I mean, a lot of this is driven by Trump's fantasies about 2020, which I. I can't tell if they're real or if they're fake. If he just likes keeping the fantasy out there because he thinks it serves his purposes. Because my reporting at the time around the 2020 election is that he understood that he lost the election. But I mean, just recently he's been talking about how he won Minnesota three times, which is an absolute fantasy that has cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs, One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest type stuff. He's certainly not going to win it a fourth time. I mean, not that he could, but it just seems to me this, this, this, the big lie stuff, the election conspiracy stuff, it's dangerous to our country, Frank. It's, it's dangerous to our democracy.
- [33:27]
D
I. Look, we. You've heard this all before. It erodes voter confidence. It, it leads to people not showing up on to vote because they don't trust the system. My vote doesn't count, someone else is in control. But also, look, the darker, the darker theory here is that we're headed toward a midterm where he announces, pulls out of his pocket, Tulsi Gabbard's pocket, this theory that Georgia was a complete mess, someone messed with it and lied and now we don't know if we can vote like we do anymore. That he announces some new system, some suspension, some delay and it comes out just in time for the midterms to be totally ruined. That's, that's a, that's a real concern.
- [34:15]
A
Of mine and I believe we have some sound. Actually he was talking about some of this earlier today. He was talking to Dan Bongino on his podcast and he talked about how perhaps the Republicans need to take over the elections. We have that. Let's play it. If not we can talk about it.
- [34:35]
E
Vote illegally and the, you know, amazing that the Republicans aren't tougher on it. The Republicans should say we want to take over. We should take over the voting. The voting in at least many 15 places. The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting.
- [34:52]
A
That to me is a warning sign.
- [34:54]
D
It's. Believe him when he says things like this because his track record is pretty damn good about following through on craziness and authoritarianism. And so yeah, I think part of it is throwing things out to so called owned the liberals and part of it is no, he's disclosing his genuine interest in controlling the next election. And I believe he's going to do everything in his power to do it. I believe that we're going to see efforts at further overseas aggression. He's well aware that, you know, as he said in the Oval Office one time, you mean if we are at war, we can suspend the elections. He said that to Zelensky from Ukraine.
- [35:40]
A
Right.
- [35:41]
D
You know, civil unrest and provoking that to the point where he can invoke the insurrection act. I think we're going to see numerous and all angles taken to claim that the situation is not normal for the next election.
- [35:59]
A
And we have to talk about this other story that's in the Wall Street Journal. I mean, we know that Trump, Trump's family has been making a fortune off the presidency, but this one deals with something that occurred before he was sworn back into office second time around. The Wall Street Journal says four days before Trump's inauguration last year, lieutenants to an Abu Dhabi royal, security, excuse me, lieutenant to an Abu Dhabi royal, secretly signed a deal with the Trump family to purchase a 49% stake in their fledgling cryptocurrency venture for about a half billion dollars. According to company documents and people familiar with the matter, the buyers would pay upfront or half upfront, steering 187 million to Trump family entities. The deal with World Liberty Financial, which hasn't previously been reported, was signed by Eric Trump, the president's son. At least 31 million was also slated to flow to entities affiliated with the family of Steve Witkoff, a World Liberty co founder who has been named U. S Envoy to the Middle east by Trump. I mean, this goes on and on that the investment was backed by a sheikh who's an Abu Dhabi royal who's been pushing the US for access to tightly guarded artificial intelligence chips. According to people familiar with the matter, he, this, this sheikh is sometimes referred to as the spy sheikh, a brother to the UAE president. Frank, your thoughts on some of this? Because that is, that's some wild stuff. We knew that the Trump family was making money off of crypto stuff, but this seems to indicate that there could be national security implications.
- [37:33]
D
So, look, do I have thoughts? You bet. Where I come from, that's a national security threat. What Trump appears to be doing is selling off our national and economic security to foreign powers and pocketing the profits from it. His crypto firm is in trouble. It's shaky. He needed some bailing out and of course, the Saudis were more than happy to help him out. And what do they get in return? They apparently will get access to some of the cutting edge technology and artificial AI chips that America is producing. You're selling off our economic future to the Saudis so you can profit. What's the latest dollar figure we have on the Trump family profits? Just since Trump took over in January, $4 billion in their pockets. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [38:34]
A
And I mean, Frank, the other aspect of this that I think is interesting is, I mean, apparently this occurred. I mean, the Wall Street Journal made it very clear that this occurred four days before he was sworn into office. And so it sort of makes my spidey sense tingle a little bit that, you know, perhaps after Trump was elected and he knew he was coming back into the White House, that sort of the deal making began. And where there's some quid pro quos, where there's some corrupt actions going on, activity going on prior to him coming back into office, which, you know, to me raises the one question being, I mean, obviously there are the questions of corruption and so on, which, you know, is not good. But the other question is if some, if there was some potential illegal activity that occurred before he got back into the Oval Office, he would not have been covered by the immunity decision by the Supreme Court. Is that right?
- [39:26]
D
Yeah, yeah. That's a legitimate issue that you're raising. Timing is everything when it comes to whether or not a statute of limitations has started or not, and when it ended, and I can say that if that's accurate, then we are looking at the possibility of charging him for potential misconduct after he leaves office.
- [39:46]
A
Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, future federal investigators could look at that, you know, if. If they're bound by the Supreme Court immunity decision, hey, anything that he does while he's in office, that's one. One thing. But if it's before he was sworn in and there was something going on there that was potentially illegal, that to me would be fair game. From an investig.
- [40:04]
B
Yeah.
- [40:05]
D
Well, I'll also add, Jim, that the, The Supreme Court, you know, although it was a. A shocking and broad finding, they still carved out clearly unlawful conduct. And so, you know, the argument could be made that, look, we, you know, whether it was four days prior or not, what you did was personal profit and had no national security interest. In fact, it was. It was inevitable to. To US national security.
- [40:32]
A
Interesting. All right, well, thank Frank Figlozzi. Thank you so much. Always great to see you. Thanks so much for coming on. Really appreciate it.
- [40:39]
D
Thanks, Jim. Anytime.
- [40:47]
A
I've been excited about this all day long. I don't want to wait any longer. Let's turn quickly now to Kara Swisher. There she is right there. Great to see you, Kara.
- [40:58]
C
Good to see you.
- [40:59]
A
They really appreciate it. Of course, there's like 10 different things I wanted to talk to you about.
- [41:03]
C
All right, here we try to boil.
- [41:04]
A
It down to like, five or six So I don't drive you completely crazy. No problem.
- [41:07]
C
I wore my Scooby shirt for you.
- [41:09]
A
Oh, perfect. Good. So much.
- [41:13]
C
You'll get to this soon enough. You'll. You look really natty looking like that, but you'll get to this action soon enough.
- [41:20]
A
I stopped wearing the blazer. I'm at a year now. I don't know if you know this, but I had about a year. Thank you. I stopped wearing the blazer and I stopped putting on makeup. So I don't do that.
- [41:29]
C
I was just with Don Lemon and he put a little thing on his face to show me that he was not using makeup, but he is.
- [41:35]
A
How's he doing?
- [41:36]
C
Great. He has spectacular skin also, so it's like an excellent shape. So he's doing okay? He's actually doing great. He's very confident about his case, obviously. And then he's also. It's. It hasn't chilled him, let's just say.
- [41:52]
A
Yeah, he doesn't.
- [41:53]
C
Well, it shouldn't. But it's meant to. That's the whole point, so.
- [41:56]
A
And it's meant to chill everybody else.
- [41:58]
C
I mean, it is. It only chills corporate people, not. Not independent journalists.
- [42:02]
A
Well, and I was going to say it, that was my immediate takeaway last week, was that Trump was trying to hurt not just Don, but to send a message to independent media.
- [42:10]
C
Well, not just independent. He's already, you know, sort of gelded a lot of corporate media, as you know. And, you know, I've been critical of some of those. But although I have to say over the weekend after that happened a lot of the corporate media, I'm using it broadly, but you know what I mean, they seem to have gotten their Wheaties a little bit. There was a little more like just a friggin second here. Like, this is ridiculous. And so that was good. I mean, I think the more you press on people like Don and others, it's not, you know, and try to drag them into an argument about who these, these laws that are already slightly unconstitutional, by the way. Way, you have a. You have a big issue because then, you know, it's. It's about the journalism and people on a basic level, it's about fairness and the. He was obviously doing journalism. I didn't see a moment, I didn't see every single bit of video. But what I saw was very clear. I mean, obviously there are rules in place and journalists have to be careful, and if you're asked to leave a place, you should leave a place, etc. You know, all the rules. But you know, at the same time, even when someone makes email, even if they make a mistake, most federal officials don't do this. This is such an over. It's like trying to. Trying. And he hasn't succeeded in killing a gnat with a giant sledgehammer. It's ridiculous.
- [43:23]
A
Well, yeah. And Don is even on video saying, hey, I'm not part of the protest. I'm a journalist. I'm just covering this and so on. But my other sense of it was last week was that they've been looking for any little technicality.
- [43:35]
C
Correct.
- [43:35]
A
To go after him or go after somebody like him. This was sort of like what happened with my press. I had heard that they were sort of looking for a little window of opportunity to say, aha, and let's unload.
- [43:45]
C
This thing on irritating Jim. We'll get him something. It's ridiculous. It's such a. Although it does have, you know, it is degrading. Right. It degrades. And especially with. Maybe we should be a little. Maybe a little thing. And the other way they do it, of course, is by buying up places like what Jeff Bezos has done to the Washington Post has been nothing short of a disaster and also an abomination. I work. I started at the Washington Post in the mailroom, and to see what he's done to that is just as he swans around Paris with fashion shows is really kind of grotesque.
- [44:15]
A
Yeah, I know. And you mentioned Jeff Bezos. And I did want to ask you about the Melania movie. You know, I was wondering what you thought about, like, these headlines that came out over the weekend. Like, wow, it did so well. It, you know, $7 million, I'm like, cost 75.
- [44:30]
C
Well done. I suppose. Well done. You know, you know, this just. Look, there was so much attention. They did so much marketing. If they didn't make that, I would have been like, it's going to drop off like a stone, you know, the minute they stop marketing it. And, you know, I'm not a big fan of any of these movies. Like, I don't like any of them. The, you know, it was funny because people online were trying to get becoming, which was the Michelle Obama movie, to number one on Netflix, which I think is funny. I'm not a fan of any of these deals with X politicians. I'm just not. I find it really. Unless they can make really good content. Most of the time they don't. Right. Most of it is kind of pablum. So I don't love them. But in office, sitting in office is. I can See why you might want to photograph it. Right. I suppose I could see that because there is historical, whether you like these people or not, and I do not. You can see the historical part of it. There was an interesting interview that Isaac Chotiner did with the cinematographer and you know, he's a very good friend of Brett Ratner, so he's going to support him as a friend. But he had a good point about history, whether you like these people or not. And I got the sense he didn't, but he, he was. There is an element to that, but at the same time they're doing these ridiculous non economic deals while people are in office. It's just, it's corruption writ large. Although as it turns out, a very small part of the Trump family, corruption which. There was a great story in the Wall Street Journal this week about the crypt. I've been talking about this crypto scammery for a long time, but this was with another country and it had involved chips and national security. So it's not just garden variety corruption. It's, you know, it makes Hunter Biden look like he gets an F for effort in terms of corruption.
- [46:13]
A
Right. And the other thing I pointed out, I mean, I was talking about this with Frank Figlusi is that, you know, allegedly this occurred and this is according to the Wall Street Journal's four days before Trump comes into office. So the immunity decision, I mean, hey, you know, if he was doing stuff before he came back in.
- [46:27]
C
True. That is true. I mean, it's a really interesting thing, I think, you know, we'll spend our lives trying to get Trump, I suppose, and it's not going to, I hate to tell your listeners, I doubt he will pay for any of this. You know, maybe in some place that we don't know what happens after we go, but it's something you're not gonna, you may not like that answer, but he may. There are others will suffer who have sort of enabled him and gone around him, but he's, he's. To me, going after him is a really. It's hard. It's going to be hard and you're not going to be satisfied with the outcome in this life at least.
- [47:01]
A
No, I mean, part of that is because we're so bitterly divided. But the other thing that you know and I.
- [47:06]
C
Well, it's unfair.
- [47:07]
A
It's just, it's unfair. And I remember during George W. Bush's presidency which everybody's memory hold and nobody thinks about this anymore, is that I always thought that, you know, you tell the Public that we should go to war for weapons of mass destruction that don't exist. That's a really bad thing. And that some. You know, that there should be consequences for Bush and Cheney. Well, there weren't any consequences for Bush and Cheney. It just.
- [47:26]
C
Mortgage crisis. Same thing with everything. And that shouldn't make you hopeless. It's just some things. You know, the scale of corruption here is so massive. And so, yes, you know, if, like Scott Gallery on my show, you know, he runs the. Or someone said. I don't know who said it. He runs the. His corruption like he's Michael Corleone and he runs the country like he's Fredo. You know, I think that kind of does it. It's sort of like you kind of are like, wow, you're really good at the crime. And, like, you're really good at the crime, whatever it happens to be.
- [47:54]
A
And people are in on the act. I mean, you mentioned Jeff Bezos. He pays 35 million dollars, basically. Is it 40 million?
- [48:01]
C
And then 35. Marketing it.
- [48:03]
A
That's what it was. So 75 million, basically. To. To put this Puff Peace documentary out on Melania. Tim Cook was apparently at the screening at the White House on the same day that Alex Preddy was shot and killed in Minneapolis. I mean, this goes on. Kara, I know you've been talking about this came back to office, but it is nauseating.
- [48:23]
C
It is not. This is what I thought. You know, right now, everyone's like, oh, it looks like your burn book was right. I was like. Because I got a lot of credit. It's like, oh, you're too hard on him. I'm like, am I? Like, I feel like I could have, like, lathered in a few more inside. But, you know, I think I. One of the things. I did a really interesting interview today with Larry Lessig, who's the Harvard professor who's doing this fascinating election case that's coming, gonna get to the Supreme Court that could sort of hollow out Citizens United. Not overturn Citizens United, but hollow it out.
- [48:51]
A
The super, I've listened to him on this. It's very important.
- [48:53]
C
It's fascinating what's happening here. And so one of the things, he was real popular with the tech people, and I knew them well. Like, it was a different era, and the shift that they've had has been so drastic. Both he and I are like, what they're doing is so grotesque. And in terms of using money to, you know, they understood. And these were people who were not interested in politics, but they wanted to Sort of even overturn the way we ran things. But then they've decided, well, the getting's good, and use the system that's in place that they had so decried. Both Larry and I remembered that mentality of wanting to overturn this sort of pay per flight. Bill Gates was a big, like, I don't have a lobbyist. Why do I need a lobbyist? He used to say that, like, way back when. And so each and every one of them has sort of made their, their, their deal with the devil in this case and, and, and, and acquiesce. Not just acquiesce, but like, sees advantage in it. And that's, you know, and then uses the excuse of shareholder, you know, the shareholders are going to do it because of this guy. So that's just, you know, and I get, I, I get it vaguely, but I actually had some people who are also in Silicon Valley, for example, that are near or close to Apple and they're like, this isn't good for shareholders, isn't good for the company. This isn't good for the long term, it's good for the short term. And unfortunately, because Trump does just enough bullying, he doesn't do complete bullying. He does just enough so that you acquiesce. Right? It's never, you know, it's never the fatal blow because he's unable to deliver it, really.
- [50:23]
A
But why is Tim Cook seemingly more obnoxious about this than everybody else?
- [50:27]
C
Because Apple has a different. You have an emotional relationship with Apple. Apple has touted it's think different. Like, this is more than just a tech company. We believe in privacy, we believe in this. And so, you know, when Mark Zuckerberg did it, you're like, of course he did that guy, right? And so years ago, I was, I think it was Bob Pittman, and he got a lot of, he got a bulk of the criticism around what happened in aol and Steve Case, really didn't. I really like Steve Case, by the way. And he goes, he goes, why am I getting all the shit? He said this to me and I said, well, you look guilty. Like, I don't know what to tell. Like, he wasn't necessarily, but it was like, it just depends on who does it. And so I think with Apple, we have a relationship. We think more of it than, than we do of other companies. And so I think it looks particularly disappointing. And, you know, you get the idea tariffs are very hard. They've got, they're in deep with China, no matter how much they try to pretend that they are Going to make everything in Vietnam. They're very, you know, it's a real problem for them. And so they do need favors from the Trump and the ministry. This is an administration that's willing to ask for favors this way. And so, you know, they've got to commit unnatural acts.
- [51:35]
A
But getting back to your concerns about campaign finance, and I've talked to Sheldon Whitehouse about this. I think this is the whole ball game. I mean, Elon Musk and I was showing your tweet earlier on, you kind of said to Elon Musk like, oh, really? You know, basically remember when you used to say that they're here, it is right here. This you Elon. And yeah, tweeted Elon saying, time to drop the really big bomb about Trump. Yeah, files.
- [51:58]
C
Yeah.
- [51:59]
A
And then, you know, Elon Musk and Trump apparently have this big blowout last year and then just recently they were at Mar a Lago having dinner together.
- [52:05]
C
Well, that's because these people are like, they have the, they have the morals and ethics of. I don't even want to insult cockroaches. Right. You know what I mean? Like what they do have ethics, I guess. I don't know. Just, it's really, it's just they don't have them and they don't. It's whatever's convenient for the moment and you know, it's whatever's convenient for the moment is what they do here. And so that's the problem. And so Elon Musk probably was like, ugh, I gotta like get along to go along. And he does have a real hatred of Democrats. It's, it's real, it feels very real. And he's obsessed with trans people, hurting.
- [52:41]
A
Them and non white people.
- [52:43]
C
Yes, exactly. And so it, it that, that, that stack ranks against his dislike for Trump. I suspect underneath he knows what Trump is like. I don't. He's a smart guy. And so I feel like he probably felt like, oh, I gotta like, I, he. It actually dovetails into his worldview. So it's fine. But you know, this guy, if he, I thought Reid Hoffman did. Of course, he immediately started attacking Reid Hoffman.
- [53:07]
A
I saw that.
- [53:07]
C
Oh, look over there. And what Reid said is if you really cared about women and girls and their abuse, you wouldn't have given so much money to Donald Trump and you would have not had so much non consensual sexual imagery on grok elsewhere. And he's right. And X AI he's right. Like this guy doesn't care about the victims. Like as if he spent A minute of his life thinking about victims. He's the victim, apparently.
- [53:30]
A
Yeah. Well, and Elon Musk apparently, at one point wanted to know how to get to Epstein's Island. I mean, that was.
- [53:36]
C
Well, you can't. You can't tell from these things. You know, I had a good talk. There are people who committed criminal acts against minors, and they should be sought out till the ends of the earth. Right. And our government should find them, figure it out, make cases. Which they didn't do, all these administrations didn't do. Right. They ignored it. And you know, that one deal in Florida where we could have stopped the entire, like, a lot of what had happened post getting caught, it didn't happen. But. But the other were. A lot of them were not criminal acts. They were errors in judgment, severe errors in judgment, which we can either shame them for it, which, you know, good luck shaming Elon Musk. He's shameless. So, you know, you may feel better, but he doesn't care. Or. Although he does. You saw him sort of like he was just like, yes, he's vibrating with. Trying to make excuses for himself with. Which is such.
- [54:29]
A
I saw that.
- [54:31]
C
But I think it's a question of judgment. And that's a bigger. That's a harder thing. Right. Like, some of these people, like Peter Atti and others, were very in deep with this guy. Right. Clearly. And making really, jokes that even a 12 year old wouldn't think is funny.
- [54:45]
A
Disgusting.
- [54:46]
C
And to me, the issue is how familiar do you want to like, okay, you can make stupid man jokes with each other, fine, you want to make your dumb man jokes, but you make a joke like that about women to a sexual predator, like, that's. To me, that's what it was, a known sexual predator.
- [55:03]
A
Right.
- [55:04]
C
And so that's where you make a joke, too. I can see too, like, you know, I don't know, you're a man. I'm. I have three sons. I'm guessing there's some bad jokes happening that I'm not hearing about.
- [55:14]
A
Some bathroom humor is occasionally fine, whatever.
- [55:17]
C
I don't. I don't like it. Fine. But it's. It's the question of who you're talking to. And so if you're joshing around with a sexual predator about women's body parts, it's kind of gives it an extra level of creepy creepiness. And so that's bad. It's not. It's beyond bad judgment. It's something else. It's just. It's a narcissist. It's Toxicity. It's.
- [55:38]
A
It's about power, isn't it? It's.
- [55:40]
C
I don't know what it is like you want to be. How much do you want to party that you have to party with a sexual predator. Like you know, a child's sexual, you know, predation on children or young women.
- [55:52]
A
And apparently this Peter Tia guy or ATIA guy, he got cut loose by cbs. Is that.
- [55:58]
C
Did he. I don't know.
- [56:00]
A
I think that is the case that he has been cut loose by.
- [56:02]
C
What a surprise.
- [56:02]
A
They should very wise has some standards it seems.
- [56:05]
C
Well, this is too much. Right. Like what is the. How are they going to turn to him? So you know, should children be vaccinated? Oh, maybe we shouldn't talk about children. Like it creates all manner of problems. Problems for.
- [56:15]
A
Right.
- [56:15]
C
But you know this. That was sort of a hand wavy hire. You know all those are. Those that's not going to fix news. Like Peter Otto is going to fix their problem. I don't think so.
- [56:24]
A
Yeah.
- [56:24]
C
So it may. It's easier just to cut them so you don't have to like call. Have reporters call you and ask you about, you know, that terrible joke 26 times. Just. She's got enough problems. I think she doesn't need this one on top of it.
- [56:35]
A
And I'd love to get your, your take on CBS and Barry Weiss and the Ellisons.
- [56:39]
C
I don't know her. I can talk about the Ellison. The Ellisons.
- [56:42]
A
Yeah. I mean what do the Ellisons have in mind and all of it. What's their end game? To. To control part of the media and to.
- [56:48]
C
No, you know, a lot of people. A lot of people want to talk about the. I don't think they care about the news. That's my feeling is the take is, you know, you're sort of like what's Jeff Bezos up to with the Washington Post? Well, he's having a little mid life crisis that's obvious to one and all and. And has transformed himself physically.
- [57:05]
A
So that's interesting for me visibly having one of those.
- [57:08]
C
Yeah, something's happened. Like something's going on, daddy. Like what's happening, daddy? But. But I think he initially was quite a good owner and sort of took his eye off the ball, didn't really care when he had this new marriage and then decided, you know, to be contrarian because that's one of their favorite things to do. Like let's be contrarian Silicon Valley. Even if it hurts people because they, they have the luxury of being able to be contrarian. And so he Then decided we need to be more even. Both sides. That's both sides. You know, things that aren't both sides. Then he was like, oh, wait, I have financial interests. And he was attacking me and my space interests. And so it's very easy to fall into the. Of what he fell into. Right. For these people, it's a real short trip, let's just say.
- [57:53]
A
Right?
- [57:54]
C
And, you know, from the yacht to this. And. And so he did that. But I don't think he. Everyone's like, what's he doing? I'm like, he doesn't care. Which is why I wanted to buy it. I was like, I care. He doesn't care. He doesn't care.
- [58:07]
A
They care enough. That's what I don't get about all of these guys.
- [58:10]
C
Why you won't sell it? Why should.
- [58:12]
A
I mean, yeah, it's like they don't care. They're oblivious, but yet they want to own these things.
- [58:16]
C
That's right.
- [58:17]
A
They're trophies.
- [58:18]
C
I don't know. He'll sell it to a hedge fund. He won't sell it to Kara Swisher, I'll tell you that. But I don't want it now. Now.
- [58:24]
A
Well, you and Scott have enough money, don't you?
- [58:26]
C
No, we do not. So Scott might. Not me, so. I had a great idea for it, but that's fine. I mean, now that he's decimated it and his terrible management under Will Lewis, which is like, how many times can you ram a car into a wall before people call you an idiot? I think Matt Murray is trying his best to. He's the editor. To do a good job, and there's some great reporting out of the Washington Post. Let me just not nix what they're doing there with. I agree with reporting. Like, it's hard to watch. And I. Every now and then I go to push delete, and I'm like, oh, these orders are killing themselves. Like, you feel bad?
- [59:02]
A
Are you pro cancellation or anti cancellation?
- [59:04]
C
Oh, Scott's on this cancellation thing.
- [59:06]
A
I'm kind of mine, and I grew up with the Washington Post.
- [59:09]
C
I kind of am, but I kind of. I don't know. You know what I mean? Like, I really love those reporters, and I started there in the mailroom, so I have a hard time. I'm debating it. Scott's bugging me to do it, and I think he's probably right. So Scott's has an economic boycott effort called Resist and Unsubscribe.
- [59:28]
A
I think we're getting to that point. I think with the Don Lemon situation, I Accept this. I think if they start arresting more journalists, every news organization in America should pull their people out of the White House. They should not cover Donald Trump. They should not give him what he wants. Is Doug Mills taking his picture in the Oval Office and all that shit.
- [59:46]
C
The reporters have done rather well in the Defense Department not being there. I actually, sometimes I feel like leaving Silicon Valley was the best thing that ever happened to me because I was like, oh wait, wait a minute, freedom. And I think a lot of reporters fall prey to that, myself included. But you were asking about the other thing. Oh, the Post. So anyway, at the cbs it's the same thing. I don't think they care about the news. I don't think they necessarily. I think they want to neuter it and get what they want. It's a tool to get what they want, which is, that's why Larry Elson promised, you know, promise Trump allegedly, according to the New York Times, that he would, he would get rid of. I'm guessing who. The people he would get rid of. And Trump has his list. Yes, he probably has a list, right. And so, you know, I think they put someone who is not to the task in charge by a company that is small and not even. Like I couldn't run the CBS News and I'm more qualified, right? Like, yeah, I couldn't.
- [60:42]
A
Could.
- [60:43]
C
No, I couldn't. I actually, I'm not that arrogant, right? I'm not quite that arrogant to think I could run a television. Besides, the broadcast business is so troubled, I wouldn't even know where to begin. I'd have to be honest with everybody. We have to cut costs rather significantly and change things up and everything else. So that's what's hard is that it's a really like, you know, her, her whole thing last week, like, look, we're toast. I was like, oh, you're kidding. No shit, Sherlock. That's a ten year like wow, the Internet. You're kidding.
- [61:11]
A
Like maybe should have done this research beforehand.
- [61:14]
C
Literally. It's like these are not revelations. I think the thing is don't tell people what you're. You're not going to be. Tell them what you are going to be and. But hiring a bunch of pundits and then turns out one's in the Epstein files. That's not the way to fix it. That's just my. But she's, it's hardly the difference. I did a, did a, did a. When we did our pivot tour, we did this seven day. We made a ton of money on it. We Did a great job. We love our fans. And. And I. And someone was like, what do I do about cbs? I'm like, show of hands the last time you watched cbs.
- [61:41]
A
Yeah.
- [61:41]
C
I mean, nobody. Like, this is what we're worried about. But what I do think is sort of grotesque is that they don't care that they think they have an answer the way Jeff Bezos thought he had an answer to fixing media. Let's just make it even handed. And one executive there told me, and I was. I talked to them. You know, I talked to these people, right? They were like, well, you know, there was one report where if you were priority pro maga, you'd think it was on your side. If you were anti maga, you'd think it was their side. It was perfect. And I'm like. I was like, what is wrong with you? And they're like, what are you talking about? I said, you're a terrible person. Like, that is not news.
- [62:14]
A
It is not the news. And I.
- [62:15]
C
That's what they want.
- [62:17]
A
I think that the Don Lemon arrest fits very neatly with what is a very troubling pattern in this country. And people will say, oh, this is hyperbolic, or you're hysterical. But I think we are moving into an authoritarian.
- [62:30]
C
Yes.
- [62:31]
A
Course, in this country, when you have Trump sending Tulsi Gabbard to an election headquarters in Fulton county, you have American citizens getting gunned down in Minneapolis. What's that?
- [62:41]
C
He's trying. He's trying to be making a good effort. Bad effort, really. I mean, it's a good. Bad effort. I mean, I think he's trying. I think one of the things that. Two things save us. They're relatively incompetent, and these things tend to fall apart rather quickly. Right. With these incompetence. Because I've been having lots of meetings with Trump people, and they're all. They're very nervous. I would say, off the record. They take a lot of. Every time I run into one of them, they're like, I just want you to know, Kara, I don't like this. I'm like, shut the fuck up. Like, get out of my. I literally said. I said to one, some very prominent.
- [63:14]
A
Person, really should be told to fuck off.
- [63:16]
C
Really? I said, I don't want to hear it from you. I said, if you don't want to say it publicly, I don't want to hear, like, suddenly Thom Tillis has reached down and realized he had some balls. Like, come on. Like, that. What it takes. That bothers me. And I think one of the things.
- [63:29]
A
And they have the balls. Depending on the day of the week, they don't. The next day, they don't, you know.
- [63:34]
C
No, Tom Dillis has been on a roll.
- [63:36]
A
Like, I would say, yeah, he's been spicy.
- [63:38]
C
But, like, why not before? Like, because it's something to call. Like, the same thing with Tim Cook. It's the same thing. Like, when is it. When you reach down and realize that you can do something about it. And one of the things that's really interesting to watch is, like, one of the Trump people was like, you know, I'm asking for a pardon. And I'm like, what did you do? They're like, well, just in case the Democrats come after me, I said, you've been living in your toxic stew of retribution for far too long. They're not going to arrest people who they don't. That's what you do. Like, that's what your people do. Like. And they're talking about liberals being too censorious. Very true. In many ways, sometimes it feels like, stop. Like, let's be a little bit nicer to people we don't agree with. No, you can't. You know, I get that. If I'm nice to someone on the right, they're like, how dare you? I'm like, well, I'm going to be. Because I think I want to get along. But they ban books. You know what I mean? It's like, censorious.
- [64:27]
A
Oh, Barry Weiss comes in and she gets rid of anchors, and she, you.
- [64:30]
C
Know, but she's hardly. Again, what I'm saying is, the issue is that these things are already being hollowed out, but nobody who's buying them wants to fix them. Right. They just want them to stay neutered. And that's really what's happening here. And, you know, I would if she or anyone else could come up with a plan to reinvigorate that. I don't think there is one. I don't actually think there is one. I think what you're doing. Don's doing whatever. There isn't one. It's too expensive. Like, I'm a math person, and I'm like, okay, you're paying an anchor, what, 10 million, 50? And then do you get that much money? I sit there. I do numbers all the time.
- [65:06]
A
Yeah, no, the math doesn't work anymore. The business model does not work anymore.
- [65:11]
C
Right. And so.
- [65:12]
A
Which is why this is taking off.
- [65:14]
C
Yeah, that's because of tech. But there is all these. Really. Not just your thing. It's not just this broadcast stuff. It's also you have Dave Jorgensen trying to do a media company on those things. You have Oliver Darcy, you have. These are Casey Newton me, I've been. I'm sort of an OG of that. But yeah, you know, it does work on a small level. So what does a bigger level look like? What is a bigger institution look.
- [65:36]
A
Well, what I hear, the feedback that I hear, and I'm curious what you think is that we should somehow combine forces or figure out a way to work together in a way that is more collaborative.
- [65:46]
C
Yes.
- [65:47]
A
Like maybe not the Constitution yet, maybe it's the Articles of Confederation.
- [65:51]
C
That didn't work. That didn't work.
- [65:53]
A
It didn't work. But it got us on the path or the legal.
- [65:56]
C
That was one of the. That was one of my ideas for the Post is, you know, the New York Times sort of has a great business by being artisanal, all created here. What about if you turn that around and created a confederation where everybody helps the things you need. It's sort of like stone soup. Like you don't have to all be together and you can own your stuff. Like there's other ways of doing things that aren't in the top down corporate way. Because then, you know, I'm sure you're thrilled you don't have to listen to another call from Blankety Blue. Like whoever it at. Right.
- [66:24]
A
It's wonderful, isn't it?
- [66:26]
C
Wonderful.
- [66:26]
A
Yeah. Certain names that I don't have in my head anymore.
- [66:31]
C
Yes, exactly. When I left one place once and I literally said I don't want to talk to you anymore, I just. That's this is worth. But the thing is, what's really what you find out if you're good and you work hard, which you do. Don does, Oliver does, Casey does. If you work hard, you do well. I like everyone's like, oh, it's hard being on your. I'm like, no, it's actually quite lucrative.
- [66:50]
A
You have to work your ass off and figure out how do I get health insurance for myself. I did do that just the other day.
- [66:55]
C
Holy shit. Wow. But once that's done for me my whole life once. But it's. It's not that hard. Like. And I think it does depend on. Yeah, I know how entrepreneurial you are. And so I think one of the things that it's brought back to a lot of people is entrepreneurial nature. And that's what has to happen at a place like CBS or something. But it has to be with the cooperation. Like if I bought the Post, everyone would have owned it. That's another thing. And everything would have been broadcast. I would have. Instead of having all these media reporters feeding on your carcass, which that happens with these media leaders. I'd be like, here, I'm going to just put a fucking stream on my head. And then you don't have to like find out what they said. It's not true. I'll show you what we're doing. It's not like we're doing anything very. And it's kind of fun to watch. Let's watch and see if we can succeed or not.
- [67:40]
A
And it's all healthy and good to see this. This flourishing. But don't we to some extent need to take the big corporate tech guys down a few notches?
- [67:50]
C
Many.
- [67:51]
A
Break these guys up. I mean meta, I mean Elon Musk, a lot of these places. I mean the TikTok thing. I mean I'm, you know, that doesn't look good. What's happening.
- [68:02]
C
Let me be clear. I want to be accurate. Oracle owns 15%. There's other owners, including from the Gulf, which is troublesome to me. There's. There's Silver Lake, there's other owners. I don't think they're messing with. I think they're.
- [68:13]
A
You don't buy that yet.
- [68:14]
C
I don't. I think that was just. I think you don't indulge yourself and lack of factual things. It looks like it was a shutdown for right now, but you have to watch it like what they're doing. I. What I'm more troubled by is there is AI and what the things that could happen there. Like what happens with that and who gets to decide it. And just like with super PACs or anything else, if you have it concentrated in the hands of a few people, a very few group of people tells us all what we think and what we should do and are making the decisions because they've got Congress wrapped around their finger and, and therefore what about the rest? What about 80%, like 98% of us? Like, why don't we get our say? And so that's my, that's my worry is the same thing. Why don't. Why do they get all their say in media? Right? I never liked it when there were three networks. I liked it when there were lots of places. And so why does a group of people, homogeneous, largely homogeneous people get to decide on the fate of the rest of us? And if we don't agree with them, if we don't want to like. And by the way, we could have disagreements. Okay, let's have these disagreements in where the citizens get to decide.
- [69:18]
A
That's why Citizens United is full of shit.
- [69:21]
C
Well, we're not getting rid of that today, but we still haven't gotten rid of the Japanese internment case either. It's just been vacated. Like, we make mistakes. And I think the Supreme Court has an opportunity with this new case to fix the mistake in some way or to escape. If you could hollow out super PACs, it would go a long way towards our other problems.
- [69:41]
A
Right, I totally agree with you.
- [69:43]
C
And so we can't, you know, just don't, we can't boil the ocean right now with all these problems. And that's, that's why when you see in Minneapolis is so strange because they took the tools, the same tools that are being used to abuse us by the tech companies and used it in their favor. The cell phone, the chronicling, the communication, the organization. And what they did that's most powerful, that they cannot replicate the tech people, is they met each other and they created a community. And you can do as much as you can, but not in this country you can't. Right. And I do believe in the ability of people. You know, one of my favorite books is John Steinbeck's the Good Earth and Not the Good Earth. I'm sorry. Oh, I'm losing my mind. That Pearl Buck, what's it called, you know, the Depression era book, the Greats of Wrath. Greats of Wrath, right. Sorry, I'm just thinking of Pearl Buck wrote the Good Earth. I didn't. That's a different book totally. But he, you know, there's a line where the woman said, the people, they keep on coming. That is how I feel. And I'm not, I'm not a huge populist, but I think it's true. The people, they keep on coming. And he can do whatever he wants. He could cook up. Trump can do all his corrupt things, which is really breathtaking. Around crypto, for example, they can do all they want. But I don't think that's historically what wins in the end because autocrats always end up in the same place from.
- [71:05]
A
They absolutely do. And I think Trump is heading in that direction and.
- [71:09]
C
Well, that's what he wants. The polling, that's clear from the polling. They can do all manner of tricks. They can try it.
- [71:14]
A
But he's about as popular as Jeffrey Epstein right now, it seems to me, you know, not, not too good. But, but, you know, and I hear, I mean, I hear by second what you just said about cell phones. I mean, I think there's a good case we made that the cell phone is the person of the year. Yeah, it's gonna be one. But I did see a video, and I. I don't want to hold you up too long, but there was something sinister that I saw recently, and we. We should ask you about this before letting you go is just. The other day in Maine, there was a lady who was protesting an ICE agent or a federal agent, and the federal agent was recording her, I'm sure. And. And he goes, well, now you're in our database.
- [71:49]
C
Yes, you are. And you already are, Jim. No, I mean, go to the airport anytime. Go anywhere. They've got your face. I talked. I. I had an interview with Andy Jassy, who was running. I think it was. I can't remember. Recognition with a K, which made it just as evil, because. Could be.
- [72:04]
A
That sounds worse.
- [72:05]
C
Recognition. I think that was the name of it. I was like, oh, the K is so evil. Rather than spell it the right way backwards. No. Yeah, like, exactly. And so I. I had an argument with him about police. Police. The idea of these. Because what they did is they put in 10 members of Congress who were people of color, and they. They were criminals in the database because the database sucked. Right. And so had any of these people been arrested, they could have been in danger for their lives because they look like they robbed a bank or whatever. And so the surveillance is something I've been talking about. We got into a real set to. This was 10 years ago, and I had interviewed people that had invented these cameras, too. And they were like, all this facial recognition is terrible, and it's getting better, by the way, let me say. But it was all, like, so prone to abuse by police and everything else. And so I was always like, why are you taking pictures? Why are cameras everywhere? And, you know, Larry Ellis, speaking of Larry Ellison, he's talking. It's like. It's good because then everyone behaves. Well, Larry, you're not. Don't behave that well in my experience. So I don't know what you're telling us how to behave, but the words are like, behave. You want it frictionless. That if you start to hear words like frictionless, seamless.
- [73:17]
A
Right.
- [73:18]
C
Behave.
- [73:19]
A
You know, I had a Trump person one time say to me, russia and China, they don't have the problems we have.
- [73:25]
C
No.
- [73:25]
A
And I.
- [73:25]
C
Yes, they do.
- [73:26]
A
And I said, buddy, that's. There are fewer. Fewer terrifying things that one could say.
- [73:33]
C
Yeah, exactly. Right, Exactly. They sure do have those problems. They just are good at hiding them. That's different. Are you kidding?
- [73:39]
A
Think about the level of suffering that has to go to yet we all have to go through for you to build a fascist state state like that.
- [73:47]
C
Right? And Russia is, like, so empty on the inside. China is a very vibrant entrepreneurial community. They have problems of plenty. Well, that's what they, that's what their country's about, but ours isn't. Guess what? You want to be China. You want a surveillance state? Do you want it like it's a surveillance state? There's enough surveillance here to be disturbing, mostly to sell you things, but eventually it will be used. What? Anytime you have a tool, it will be weaponized by someone you just like. Anytime. Like, look, radio is a great thing, but guess who abused it? Adolf Hitler Mussolini. Right. It's always going to get abused. It's gonna, it's all. There's not a, there's not a technology tool that hasn't been abused in some fashion.
- [74:29]
A
Well, Kara, I mean, these conversations are always wonderful. I could go on and on, but I, I, if I do that to.
- [74:34]
C
You, I gotta make my kids dinner.
- [74:36]
A
Yeah, but you're the best. I love the Scooby Doo shirt.
- [74:38]
C
Thank you.
- [74:40]
A
Do mystery.
- [74:41]
C
Oh, those, those kids. Those meddlesome. Guess what? We're the fucking meddlesome kids. And we're gonna get you, Mr. Haney. We're gonna take off.
- [74:50]
A
The haunted amusement park. Yeah.
- [74:51]
C
Oh, is that one then? Yeah. My kids love it. Let me just tell you my. I have two sets of kids, different ages, and my young. My oldest son wrote a whole book of Scooby Doo stories he wrote himself for his, his sister, who's much younger. And they love Scooby Doo. So let's try to be more like the kids than Scooby Doo.
- [75:09]
A
The kids are all right. They're showing us the world.
- [75:12]
C
Journalists.
- [75:12]
A
That's right. These pesky journalists. Good to see you, Kara. All right. Thank you.
- [75:16]
C
You're the best.
- [75:16]
A
Thank you so much.
- [75:17]
C
Good luck.
- [75:18]
A
Thank you. Thanks, you too. Take care. The wonderful Kara Swisher. She is. You know, they don't, they don't make them like that. She. She broke the mold or they broke the mold when they made Kara Swisher. Always appreciate her coming on. You thought maybe I might end the show without railing against Donald Trump in the Kennedy Center. Well, you were wrong. I am going to rail against Donald Trump in the Kennedy Center. I mean, let's. I was going to do it with Kara, but I, I talked with Care about so many things. I didn't want to torture her, but I'm going to do it here. And that is, let's show the headline first of all, again. And this goes back to something that was said earlier on the show, that you can't write everything off as a distraction anymore. You can't say, you know, these things are distractions that Donald Trump says he's going to close the Kennedy center for two years as a distraction, ladies and gentlemen. He's already bulldozed half of the White House. He's already, he's already done, done a horrible thing to the people's house over at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. You think there's, there, you don't think there's a thought in Donald Trump's mind about sending the bulldozers over to the Kennedy Center? He absolutely will do that. And so when he puts out a tweet that says that it's in need of all these renovations and so on, just keep in mind the Kennedy center is in better shape than Trump Tower. Kennedy center is a, is a nicer building than Trump Tower. But I, you know, I, I, I'm talking about the Kennedy center at the end of the show because this is a place that is near and dear to my heart. I grew up in the Washington, D.C. area, spent, I've gone there for years, gone to the Kennedy center for years. And I mean, just make no mistake, make no mistake. It is, it is, it is such a gem. It is such an institution in our lives. But make no mistake, Donald Trump is so upset, he is so pissed. He is so freaked out that after he put his name on the, on, on the side of that building, on the side of a living memorial to President John F. Kennedy slain by an assassin, that Trump has basically ruined the Kennedy center as a center for the arts. Right now, it is essentially ruined. Artists have pulled out. The opera is pulled out. Major figures connected to the symphony orchestra have pulled out. Major shows won't perform there. Major artists have said, there's no way you'll make me perform there. We won't do it to the point where they've threatened to sue people. And this has freaked out Donald Trump. This has freaked out the people around them. They can't sell tickets to the Kennedy Center. A lot of these performances have empty auditoriums and so on. And so what Trump is now doing, despite saying he was going to try to, you know, turn it into this gem that was going to open up next year and so on, he's now talking about closing it down for two years, basically out of spite. But I do want to say, and I hope Members of Congress are listening. I hope there are historic preservation groups that are listening. I hope the mayor of Washington is listening. Apparently, she was having dinner with Trump the other night. I saw on a press report that she was having dinner with Trump the other night in the middle of this goddamn ice storm. Donald Trump better keep his damn hands off the Kennedy center is what I have to say. Keep your damn hands off the Kennedy Center. And you know the next gold star to a reporter of the White House goes to the reporter who asked Donald trump this question. Mr. President, you said that your ballroom over at the White House was not going to touch the East Wing, that you were not going to touch the, the East Wing. You said that, and then you demolished the East Wing of the White House. What assurances can you give to the American people that you will not do that to the Kennedy Center? Because that is what's running through my mind, ladies and gentlemen. That's exactly what's running through my mind, is that at some point we're going to see the bulldozers showing up at the Kennedy center, because this president is out of his goddamn mind. He's totally out of control. He's on video with Dan Bongino today talking about how he won Minnesota three times. I mean, we, I, we could play that. I don't know. Do we have that? We. If we have that clip, we could play it. He said, he, he said today on a, on a podcast with Dave Bongino.
- [79:40]
E
That he allowed us to do the job. It's a mess. There's something in the water up there. And I love the state. I won the state three times, but I got no credit for it. I won that state three times, but it's a rig state really rigged badly with the Somalians and the Somalians and the theft. And I guess you studied it, but I HEAR it's over $19 billion.
- [79:59]
A
Okay, does anybody think that he sounds sane? Does. I mean, I just, I'm just. This is a real question. This is a real question. I'm not being a jokester here. I'm not being, I'm not being sarcastic. This is a real honest to goodness question. When you listen to Donald Trump say that he won Minnesota three times, does anybody think that he is sane? Does anybody think that he is. He is all there, There is no way you could listen to that sound bite. Yeah. You okay, Mr. President? You okay, Trump? There is no way you can listen to that sound bite and say, oh, he's, he's, he's got all his faculties that his Elevator is hitting all floors that he's got both oars in the water. He's a couple of nuggets short of a Happy Meal, ladies and gentlemen, and Donald Trump. It is time to take. It's more.
- [80:46]
D
It's.
- [80:47]
A
It's not just time to take the keys away from Grandpa. It's time to take the bulldozer away from Grandpa. We've seen him put his damn name up on just about everything around Washington. He wants to build this giant arch thing that would dwarf the Lincoln Memorial. I got it. We'll do that on another show. We'll show you the, the renderings for this. It is. It is totally nuts. It's crazy. Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs nuts. And so when Donald Trump says, I'm going to close the Kennedy center for two years, people better be. People better be well aware that there's probably the thought dancing around in the depths of his badly broken mind that he would like to, to bulldoze and knock down the Kennedy center out of spite because people would not buy tickets to a place that has his goddamn name on it. Nobody in the right mind in the Washington, D.C. area would shell out their hard earned money for tickets to a place that has his goddamn name on it. They're just not going to do it. I tried to warn Rick Rennell this. Rick Rennell and I got into a couple of Twitter fights. I don't typically do this, but I did it with Rick Grinnell because I tried to tell Rick, you're out of your goddamn mind if you think that this is going to work with that damn name on that building. It is a building dedicated to John F. Kennedy, a real president who was not out of his mind, who, who was a heroic president, a, an inspirational president, a president we could use right now, a president we need right now. But we don't have that person. We have Donald Trump. And so I. This is a personal appeal to members of Congress, to the mayor of Washington, to anybody with any kind of poll whatsoever, to please do not allow Donald Trump to bulldoze the Kennedy Center. Because I guarantee you right now that thought is in his head and somebody needs to ask that question over at the White House to make damn sure it's at least on the record before he has a chance to do so. It is time to stop this madness. It is time to stop him from doing more damage to our nation's capital. We have three years of this nonsense left, and these three years should go by with the Kennedy center still standing in one piece. My thanks to Kara Swisher. My thanks to Frank Figlusi. My thanks to Dave Ehrenberg. My thanks to all of you for watching. Still reporting from Washington, I'm Jim Acosta. See you next time.