← The Jim Acosta Show
The Jim Acosta Show
MAGA Slayer Adam Mockler, Former FBI Official Frank Figluzzi, and Independent Journalist Nick Valencia
00:59:12
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- [00:00]
Nick Valencia
Foreign.
- [00:07]
Adam Mockler
Show.
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Jim Acosta
It's another day that ends in Y and Donald Trump's freak out over the upcoming midterms. Facing a barrage of poll numbers that show he's about as popular as Jeffrey Epstein, Trump blinked in his standoff with Iran in his war of choice in the Middle east, or at least he has for this week. Let's discuss that and much more with Adam Mockler. He is a slayer of middle aged MAGA men on cable news. Adam, great to see you.
- [00:31]
Adam Mockler
Thank you for having me on. Thank you for paving the way. Thank you for, you know, being so good at what you do as well. It's going to be a great conversation. I'm glad we finally got to do it.
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Jim Acosta
I'm so glad too. And I, I'm a big admirer of yours and I love seeing the young folks doing these things these days. I remember when I, I think I read your 23. If I'm wrong, please correct me as you do with other middle aged men. But you're 23. And I remember when I was 23, I was good at like beer pong and that's basically it. That was, that was the extent of what I was good at at 23 years old. I guess what, you know, we should dive into a lot of this stuff. But I guess, first of all, what do you make of the, the political mess that Trump is in right now? And like folks in your age bracket, I know you don't speak for everybody and I guess it would be Gen Z or whatever, but like, why is he tanking so badly? Is it just that he's nuts? I mean, I think he's nuts and that's why he's tanking so badly. Is it, is it Iran? What do you think it is?
- [01:33]
Adam Mockler
It's right now, it is Iran and the downstream effects of this war backfiring. And it's due to his terrible, terrible instincts on this and the bad advice that he got from the people around him, like Netanyahu, Donald Trump, Donald Trump dealt. This would be a carbon copy of Venezuela where you chop off the head and the rest of the body falls in line, meaning you take out the leader and the rest of the regime will sort of be strung along. It kind of worked in Venezuela. It got quiet after Maduro was captured and the rest of the body fell in line with Venice or with Iran. It's much, much different. The IRGC is deeply embedded in Iran. A lot of people that work in the banks, the institutions, the political scenes, they're former IRGC members who are incentivized to keep the regime going. They have their deep in Iran, so they're not really budging, they're kind of holding out. And it's asymmetric warfare at this point. So due to that, Donald Trump's four to six week timeline got blown through. We're now in week 10, is that right? Week nine or 10 of this war. We are way past the timeline. We've gotten zero political concessions from Iran, which is what I've been hammering home on all of these shows. There's quite literally nothing we can show for it. And talking about people my age. Yeah, we have grown up always seeing headlines of military successes in the Middle east in the sense that, you know, millennials saw Saddam Hussein was killed in Iraq and then we saw that in Afghanistan. I'm Gen Z. But the millennials then saw in Afghanistan we got a military success, but then that turned into a grinding counterinsurgency. Right. The military success of killing Saddam Hussein turned into an incredibly expensive trillion dollar catastrophe where we didn't make any progress whatsoever. And then we left Afghanistan trillions of dollars in debt. So young people have been primed to realize, wait a minute. Just because we sink the Navy of another country, just because we sink the Air Force of another country doesn't directly mean it affects or helps us at home. In fact, we've seen the opposite. So now we see the same exact people who have been on air defending the first two wars, saying those first two wars were going to work out, defending this war, and telling us not to ask questions about this war. That's, that's my rant.
- [03:42]
Jim Acosta
Yeah, that's the long and the short of it. And that's why, you know, you were able to own Scott Jennings the way he, he was owned because he worked in the Bush administration. And I mean, just to, you know, to, to play off of what you were saying a few moments ago, I remember being out on the campaign trail with Donald Trump in 2016 when he would savage George W. Bush for getting the US Into a quagmire in the Middle east that resulted in, you know, just a, a total catastrophe from a foreign policy standpoint, emboldening Iran, by the way, creating ISIS and, and all sorts of things. And, you know, I, I just, it's, it's shocking to me that Trump went back on his word. And I think that's a big part of why Gen Zers are pissed off too, because they sort of, they bought into this in 2024. They were kind of a big voting block that helped Trump get back in the White House, I think that's oversold a little bit as to how much they played a role in that, but they were a factor and he just completely obliterated that, that promise.
- [04:39]
Adam Mockler
Yeah, I mean, listen, for a lot of Gen Z's most formative years, we didn't fully, a lot of people weren't fully paying attention throughout middle school and high school to what Donald Trump was doing throughout Covid. It was just a blur where people were socially isolated and both sides were battling it out during the 2020 election in a lot of young people's minds. So Trump was able to game that and regain the trust of some younger people who didn't fully remember his first term. And he, he pulled the rug again in an even worse manner. He made the promises that he would end inflation on day one. He actually said that, and that there would be no new wars. Now he started a new war that has backfired so badly that inflation is spiking. I mean, give me a break. It's crazy.
- [05:21]
Jim Acosta
Yeah, you can't make it up. And that leads us to this confrontation that you had with Scott Jennings. I don't play many CNN clips on my show because, you know, I don't want folks to think, oh, Jim, he's, he's, you know, he's bitter about cnn and so he goes off on cnn. I, I, I, I love many of the people there. I had a great experience there. I love what I do. Now I love it even more. But from time to time, we have to talk about what's happening in corporate media, as I call it, legacy media. And, and, and there's just a lot that's going wrong. And one of the things that is going wrong in corporate media is Scott Jennings. And it's because he's basically paid to, to lie and be a, a maga, you know, caring, you know, water caring spokesperson for Donald Trump. And it blows up in his face on a lot of different occasions. Let's play that clip of you guys. I know you've watched this clip and listened to this clip a thousand times. You're probably hearing it in your sleep. But let's watch it with the viewers here and then talk about on the other side if war with us for 47.
- [06:19]
Adam Mockler
We all know that Scott Jennings is more than happy to defend a war with a country that starts with the letters IRA that we are currently failing that is going to put us trillions and trillions of dollars more in debt. I was only a few years old while you were in the administration defending Prior endless wars. Now this war is failing. Eight weeks is endless to you. Okay, you said it was going to six weeks.
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Jim Acosta
You have the attention span of a net.
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Adam Mockler
I debated you on TV four to six weeks ago, and you said we were weeks away from it. Now you're making condescending remarks because you can't defend the fact that this war is not going your way. Wait, one more time.
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Jim Acosta
Not going. Not going.
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Adam Mockler
One political concession.
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Jim Acosta
Honestly, I'm not going to have this guy. Yeah, I mean, I just. Every time I hear that an angel gets its wings, I. Maybe that's just me, but. But Adam, what was happening there, and were you surprised that he blew up like that? I'm not surprised because I used to work with. With Scott, and he had kind of a bad temper, I thought, when I worked with him. But what did you think of that?
- [07:12]
Adam Mockler
I mean, there were some clear angst building due to the failing of this Iran war for weeks and weeks and weeks. There were a lot of repetitious talking points being used by Scott Jennings in the sense that he would constantly say, we destroyed their navy, we destroyed their air force. We might be able to get their nukes. Time and time again, he would run the same three lines. And time and time again, I would try to force an answer, but the show moves on rather quickly to the next segment. So I've come to the conclusion that if I'm going to be debating people on panels who aren't bound to any sense of facts, any sense of timelines, he'll just. He'll make predictions and blow past the timelines and make more predictions. Not even bound to any sense of decorum that I can also sort of break the rules a bit. Not even that I broke the rules. I was kind of just trying to force a question in the way that not the other people do, and he snapped on me. I also want to point out something that really, you know, really, I think was the most offensive part. Not even that moment in particular, but him saying afterwards, you know, I think a little more civil debate would be good. That's a quote from him the other day on o' Connor and company or something. I think a little more civil debate would be good. Are we joking here? You have built your entire mainstream media career over the past few years off of being, you know, the condescending asshole on television. And I don't even think that's a stretch for me to say. I don't think that's something that he would disagree, agree with either. His entire stick is, you know, what I was flung into six months ago. And you know who I learned some of this aggressive technique from is Scott Jennings himself. I'm 23 years old, so I'm a little bit of a sponge at this point in my career. I learned from the people around me, whether it's Michael Avenatti for some reason, or whether it's the people I'm on panels with. You want to know something interesting? The first time I was on with Scott Jennings, I learned from some of his body language. You know, he's, he sits in a confident posture. And I picked that up and I realized the way that he plays this game, he plays this game in an asymmetric way and is constantly condescending. So I said, if any of the rules that people want to bind me to, I'm learning how to play this game as well. So we can't live in an information environment where the President of the United States is constantly flinging shit at the wall, making fun of people's deaths, being combative in interviews on camera. You know a lot about that. Of course. Of course. And then they're done. For me to try to force a question, then people tell me to shut the hell up. I'm like, I'm sorry, you know, yes, I'll, I'll beef with some people on Twitter after and, and make my point. It's very important to drive this narrative.
- [09:33]
Jim Acosta
No, and I mean, you know, one of the things is a couple of things I think Scott, what Scott does is what a lot of right wing pundits do these days. They get the talking points and they literally do get the talking points from the White House, the White House political people, the rnc. I know this for a fact from my days anchoring on cnn. Is that a lot of these, in the Independence. Tell me this, a lot of these talking points that they spout on TV are provided to them by the White House rnc. They're emailed out or blasted out and they're like, here are today's talking points. And sometimes it's literally a document because there, there were times when I would report on these talking points, I'd obtain them from friends of mine who were pundits and say, these are the talking points that they're putting out. So Scott is just, he's just literally just doing what they want him to do over at the White House. That's the first thing. The second thing is that he is, he is a hot tempered, you know, sort of short fused guy. I remember one time I had him on for a panel and I fact checked him and he didn't like it. After the, the segment was over, we went to commercial break and he kind of looked at me like this, kind of, give me one of these things. And he walked away. And I was like, who is this guy? You know, it's like, give me a break. You, come on. If you, if you spew talking points that aren't true, you're going to get fact checked. And I don't know how. To me, the Iran war is indefensible. There's just no way. You can't defend it. There's no way. And that's why they get so pissed. That's why Trump gets so pissed.
- [10:52]
Adam Mockler
I'm so sick of also the asymmetric media environment in which people can lie over and over and dodge and obfuscate questions, but the moment that you try to force an answer out of them, apparently you're the one breaking the decorum of debate. There was a clip of Mehdi Hassan that just went viral of him forcing an answer out of Michael Knowles. And by the end of the clip, Michael will not answer. And the moderator is like, Mehdi, Mehdi. Nothing against that particular moderator, but Mehdi wasn't the one that was breaking debate decorum there. So, yeah, I sent out a tweet the other day about how as you enter more and more spaces, this, this tweet wasn't meant to be like saying, I know better than anybody. I was saying, as you enter more and more spaces, you begin to realize how human the people in these spaces are and that a lot of the things I've experienced in high school recently, like this type of insecurity or fragility still translates into the grown up world that I'm very rapidly, you know, getting integrated into. And it's interesting to see the real Scott Jennings, you know, that Scott Jennings that crosses his arms and sips the mug, that's not the real Scott Jennings. The real Scott Jennings showed us who he was in that very moment, you know.
- [11:55]
Jim Acosta
Yeah, he really did. And you did not have your fucking hand in his face or finger. I mean, you look at the clip and it's like, I don't know, why is he so pissed off? I think he just had like no way to get out of that situation. And so he started flipping out. And I noticed that you've also been getting some, some advice from some very interesting corners. Apparently Michael Avenatti, Stormy Daniels former attorney, has put out a tweet saying, adam, you can throw what I am about to say in the garbage or chalk it up to the words of a convicted felon. Or you can listen because I've walked this walk. You need to dial it back two clicks. You are flying far too close to the sun, but you can't see it because you're blinded by the adulation. Be smart and play the long game. I'm not sure. These are great. Oh, and then he goes on to say, don't count on any of the people in the media or politics who presently claim to adore you, like me so much to be there to protect you if the hits the fan, because they won't. Now, Michael, you know, I mean, the thing I would say. And maybe, I don't know, maybe I should try to reach out to him, have him on or something, But I don't know why Michael says that. The people in the media aren't supposed to be, you know, walking away from you when you go to prison, but that is kind of what happens. But. But, Adam, your thoughts on that?
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Adam Mockler
I. First of all, I thought it was rather random.
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Jim Acosta
Yeah.
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Adam Mockler
Second of all, I actually took some of the advice and, you know, I internalized it over the next few hours. Listen, I was able to separate the messenger from the advice that he was giving. And in that advice, there was something that reflected what my mom told me the night before when I was still in New York. I was on the phone with her, and she was telling me, you know, while everything is moving fast and while you have a lot of adrenaline, make sure you zoom out, you slow down. You keep the larger picture in mind. You keep building that infrastructure, essentially. And that's something that I was thinking about, you know, in the moment, I didn't fully internalize it. But then seeing this random tweet that from somebody who has seen the highs and seen the lows and seen everything in between. True. You know, made me realize he's maybe not the worst person. Like, people were saying he's the worst person to give you this advice. But I was thinking maybe he's the best person to give me this advice. He has seen the highs and the lows. There was some stat. Apparently he had, like 100 CNN hits in, like, 60 days or so or like something like six months. I don't know. He was a.
- [14:04]
Jim Acosta
We all had his phone number. I will say. We all had his phone number. And he was. I mean, he was at the center of a major firestorm there because he was representing Stormy Daniels, and that was. It feels like a million years ago now. And I will say there. There are aspects of Michael that I like. And I think he's an okay guy. And I don't care if people on Fox will on me for saying that, but I think he's an okay guy. I don't know, I don't know the circumstances of why things ended up the way they did, but it is, it is incredible how this is, how much your moment with Jennings penetrated Adam. I think that's the, the long and the short of it. And it makes me wonder because, you know, for a 23 year old man, you've got some incredible political instincts. What do you see happening coming the midterms this fall? There was a Michigan state Senate race last night where this guy in this, you know, Fairly Trumpy District 1 Handily, Chedrick Green, 50, almost 59 to 40%. And I think this is a district my producer Sam was telling me that Trump won by one last time around. And you know, that's, I, that is not a, that's a, that's a pretty bad canary in the coal mine for Donald Trump, although he was able in Indiana to punish some Republican state lawmakers there who went against him on the redistricting. So, I mean, it says to me maybe that Trump still has a hold on the party, but man, is he losing the country.
- [15:25]
Adam Mockler
Yeah, I think that the Republicans are in for a brutal midterms, but the Democrats need to understand that is backlash to the Republicans and not love for the Democrats quite yet. Democrats still need to build out their own affirmative message and vision for the country. But even without that, I think we're gonna have a pretty good midterms due to a few things. I mean, just very clearly, the compounding of tariffs on Liberation Day, which cost the average American family $1,000, plus the cutting of benefits for Americans that help many, many people, tens of millions, plus the Iran war, which is now catapulting prices and diesel prices and prices of a lot of goods. It's hurting the average person. As much as I wish the fake elector scheme or January 6 was the one that did him in, I really do think this series of economic events is looking bad for him. And like it's not even some crazy prediction that I'm making right now. Most polling markets show you that Republicans are in for a brutal midterms that is very common for a president to have, you know, a backlash two years into his term. When the midterms come, it's normal. But this is going to be unique because of the unique lies that Donald Trump told on the campaign trail and the unique 180 that he did. So I think that it's, it's definitely going to be an interesting one. It's going to be quite brutal for Republicans. And I will add, that is why they are desperate to rig it in any way that they can. I mean, Nothing vindicates Section 2 of the VRA more than watching it effectively get gutted. And then watch all of these different cities and states, mainly reds or, sorry, blue cities in red states like Memphis getting voter diluted to hell. It's like a 60% majority black city and they're diluting it into three different districts so the black people don't have any vote or say there.
- [17:05]
Jim Acosta
Wow, it's incredible. And then just today, apparently the FBI raided the home of Virginia State Senator Louise Lucas, who was one of the big forces behind the redistricting fight in Virginia, which the Democrats in Virginia won, which, of course, we should note they did as, as a response to what Donald Trump has been doing in Texas and everywhere else. It's redistricting for me, but not for the. And then if you try to do it, we're going to sic the FBI on you. Now, according to some reports that I see out there, that there are sources that say that this, this investigation started during the Biden administration. I would love to know more about what those sources have to say and who those sources are. Is the source. Cash Patel? I don't know. But I mean, that, that kind of stuff infuriates people, too. And this, this whole notion of the weaponization of the Justice Department, I'm going to talk about with Frank flipping fig. Lucy, in a moment. Adam, I think your generation in particular should be greatly concerned about this because we have not been doing this in this country like this up until this point. Donald Trump is the person, is the first person to really start doing this whole hog. And it's, I think it's very disturbing.
- [18:15]
Adam Mockler
You know, I'm going to keep sounding the alarm on this exact thing because I will never for the rest of my life forget the truth social post that Donald Trump sent out to Pam Bondi, where he goes, pam, I need you to target these three people. And it was Letitia James, Adam Schiff. And James Comey. Right. A very specific call to action two. Two out of three of those people ended up getting indicted and then they ended up getting thrown out because Lindsey Halligan was a clown, Donald Trump was a clown. But the point is that type of weaponization is so sickening. And I've had this very debate on CNN before where I try to force an answer on this. I say, can you draw me any parallel to Joe Biden or Kamala Harris directing Merrick Garland to do something? Because they claim weaponization all the time. Guess what? They have nothing whatsoever. Their. Their best one is that, like, Joe Biden privately expressed concerns about some topic about January six to his close advisors. And those private concerns are like the same as Donald Trump directing Pam Bondi to do this. So I really want to keep sounding the alarm on that. The reality is I've been to a lot of Trump rallies. I've had a lot of these conversations with young voters. Things like this just don't penetrate as much as gas prices being up. And it's very obvious. It's obvious why gas price signs are there on the way to work for everybody when they drive home or to work. January 6th is kind of an abstract concept that most people don't fully understand. Most people don't fully understand why free and fair elections, you know, allow a fruitful, harmonious society in the first place. So I think that we just need to reinforce a lot of these core concepts, and then people will understand why an independent DOJ is important.
- [19:52]
Jim Acosta
Yeah. And, Adam, before you go, I have to ask you this because I was a young political junkie growing up, and I have to say I think I would trace my roots in being a political junkie, too, growing up in the Washington, D.C. area. I think you're in Chicago. Are you from Chicago? Is that how you got interested? What's that?
- [20:09]
Adam Mockler
Grew up in Indiana, so a red state.
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Nick Valencia
Interesting.
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Adam Mockler
When I grew up in Indiana, I had a lot of formative experiences for a few reasons. My dad and his side of the family are Muslim. My grandpa immigrated from Syria in the early 80s, and they always wanted to be. They wanted me to be Muslim. I used to go to Friday prayer with them. And then the other side of my family, my mom's side, they're more like Christian, atheistic. My uncle sat me down when I was maybe 10, and he told me that I can kind of decide what I want to do. My mom and my uncle were telling me, listen, you can decide which religion you want to explore. You don't have to be locked into going to the mosque every single Friday for the rest of your life, and you don't have to be locked into Christianity. That diversity of you combined with growing up in Indiana and having debates with, like, my teachers and my friends. And I remember, like, pushing back on my friend's parents because they were saying that, like, I remember this vividly I was about 10 years old and I had a friend's parents who were saying that black people should be more grateful for our institutions. You've probably heard some argument like this. A lot of Americans think this. I was struck. I never heard anything like that in the moment. And I was like, whoa, that feels wrong to say, like, great, whoa. I remember pushing back, talking about slavery, but I didn't fully have the arguments formed. All of this kind of combined to then me going to Trump rallies when I was 21 years old with my own cameraman, my own apparatus, and having conversations and building from the ground up.
- [21:28]
Jim Acosta
Wow. Which is very cool. Yeah. No, I think that's terrific. And I, I kind of did some of the same stuff when I was your age. I, I got into community access television. We didn't have this stuff. We didn't have, have, you know, the ability to go online and do these kinds of streaming shows, but yet community access tv. And so I went out with my own photographer, you know, who was basically a guy who was trying to make it like me. And we would shoot these little stories about news in Fairfax county. And I parlayed that into a reporting gig in Knoxville, Tennessee. And I went through local television to the place where I am today. But I, you know, growing up in dc, I was a major political junkie. But that is a very fascinating background, Adam, and that I didn't know about you. That's very cool.
- [22:06]
Adam Mockler
Yeah, I appreciate that. And that's a really interesting background with you as well. It's interesting how you can just build something if you concentrate and take the risk and execute on it. It can sometimes take you to wild places.
- [22:19]
Jim Acosta
It really can. Yeah. And for folks who. And if you don't know what community access television is at. Yeah. Watch Wayne's World. That is community access television. When Wayne and Garth are doing a show in their basement. That's basically what that is.
- [22:30]
Adam Mockler
Is it like those phones where you have to spin and it's like a rotary phone?
- [22:36]
Jim Acosta
That's okay. No, I know, I know you're teasing me, but you keep on slaying those middle aged MAGA dudes. And I don't know why Geraldo was giving you such a hard time. I kind of thought Geraldo was a good guy, but I don't know, maybe he was like he needed a cookie or something. I have no idea.
- [22:51]
Adam Mockler
But I, to an older person who's 82, I probably present obnoxious. If you're sitting on there and I'm, I mean, listen, like, I can Step in his shoes and I don't know. But thank you for having me on. I appreciate that.
- [23:02]
Jim Acosta
You got it, Adam. All right, take care. Thanks a lot, buddy. You keep charging. Keep charging.
- [23:07]
Adam Mockler
Let's chat more.
- [23:08]
Jim Acosta
All right. Sounds good. Adam Mockler there. I've been dying to get him on ever since that whole thing went down. And I just, every time I watch that clip with him and Scott, I just, you know, like I said, an angel gets its wings. I just, I just start, I cry from laughing so hard. It's so satisfying. But something that isn't satisfying is the continued weaponization of the Justice Department. Talked about it yesterday with Joyce Vance. Let's talk about it some more with Frank Figluzzi. He's standing by. And, Frank, good to see you as always. I thought I tackled this subject yesterday with the wonderful Joyce Vance because there's been so much going on on this front. And then today, the FBI raids the home of Louise Lucas, who is a state lawmaker in Virginia. Big part of the push behind the redistricting in Virginia. And I'm just curious, you know, this is what it says. Portsmouth, Virginia, federal officials are raiding the Portsmouth office of Virginia Senator Louise Lucas as part of a corruption investigation. And it says Lucas, a Democrat Senate president pro tem and the Virginia General assembly, has long been an outspoken critic of Donald Trump and was an architect in Virginia's efforts to redraw its congressional districts. That's from a local station in Tidewater area of Virginia. But, Frank, your thoughts on this? It's like, literally, what, two weeks after that Virginia election?
- [24:27]
Frank Figluzzi
You know, the timing becomes really crucial here because not only does it go toward whether this is genuinely vengeful, an effort to suppress. Look, as you just described, she, Senator Lucas was responsible for the redistricting that now, if it works, would give the Democrats four congressional. Four new congressional seats in Virginia. I mean, just astounding.
- [24:58]
Jim Acosta
Yeah.
- [24:59]
Frank Figluzzi
And, you know, is it likely that the Republicans are really upset about that? Yes. Are they also probably upset that she's very vocal, I mean, very vocal when she criticizes Donald Trump and others, even dropping the F bomb sometimes on in her responses. But why do I, why is it important to focus on timing and optics? Because it goes toward, in my mind, it goes toward the public's lack, increasing lack of credit credibility they place in the Department of Justice and my old agency. And even if there's a valid corruption case there. And let's say, you know, they, they executed search warrants, I mean, this was on her business. Allegedly corruption. Allegedly. According to Sources reporting something to do with the cannabis dispensary she runs or is a part owner of or something. And yes, as you said earlier, yes, it may have started under the Biden administration, although wouldn't it be interesting to know whether the DOJ under Biden decided it wasn't worth pursuing? Okay, but the point is she may have a dead body in her business that they searched this morning, but they better have something serious on her because the optics are horrible and it's not a one off, as you've alluded to. This just keeps happening. And it, There's a reason why, Jim, that recent Reporting indicates that DOJ cannot hire Assistant U.S. attorneys. They can't find anybody who wants to be what in the recent years has been one of the most prestigious positions you can have as a prosecutor is an assistant United States Attorney. They are now offering $25,000 signing bonuses and they're taking, I was going to almost said kids. They're taking graduates right out of law school. That is, that's unheard of for U.S. attorneys. So where is this going? The only, you know, I, I like to think of myself as a student of FBI history. This degree of weaponization is unprecedented. The only thing that comes to mind is what J. Edgar Hoover did during the black rights movement against the, the Black Panthers, against Martin Luther King. But there's a difference here. I, I've concluded that largely what Hoover was about in the horrible targeting and abuses he was responsible for was about racism. And, and yes. Was there some intelligence that, for example, the Soviets back then were somehow trying to manipulate the black movement here, trying to fund it? There appears to have been some intel. Was there any proof that anyone ever accepted that money, particularly Martin Luther King? No. So, but, so that leaves us with racism that is different than what we're experiencing right now, which is a wholesale, wholesale punishment of political enemies of one president.
- [28:01]
Jim Acosta
Absolutely. No question about it. And there's, there's a litany of headlines. There's obviously the Comey case that we all saw last week, last week, and much of the country basically laughed at because, I mean, nobody in their right mind thinks that the way you arrange shells on a beach says anything about killing the President. But then there's also what's happening with the Atlantic. The White House is at war with the Atlantic. And this is how the Atlantic wrote it. Today, the Trump administration's war against freedom of the press has reached a startling new low. According to a report this morning from Ms. Now, the FBI has opened a criminal investigation focusing on Atlantic Reporter Sarah Fitzpatrick related to an article she published last month about FBI Director Cash Patel. And Patel, of course, filed that lawsuit. $250 million. But I mean, you know, okay, he can file a lawsuit and if it's it, if it pays, if it pans out that he was being defamed or something, he can, he can win that case in court. The. Jeff, the editor of the Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg, said this, quote, if confirmed to be true, this would represent an outrageous attack on the free press. And I mean in the First Amendment itself. And Frank, I mean, the thing that is very concerning about this is this is targeting the press for doing a story. They're investigating a reporter for the Atlantic overdoing a story. That's nuts.
- [29:22]
Frank Figluzzi
So I don't know if you know this or not, but when I was the head of counterintelligence for the Bureau, other. Under other assigned duties, I also was in charge of leak investigations. So I know a little bit about how this is supposed to work.
- [29:36]
Jim Acosta
Yeah.
- [29:37]
Frank Figluzzi
And this reporting from Ms. Now is troubling. And here's why. And we do have to get the facts here because I know there's been a statement from the White House, excuse me, the FBI's press office saying, hey, this is all nonsense. There's no such case that's been opened. And there's a couple of things that could be true at the same time. One, but let me cut to the chase. No matter what's true here, what is absolutely certain is that opening a criminal investigation on the fact that people are leaking that the head, they believe that the head of the FBI is a drunk, as reported by Atlantic magazine, that. That doesn't jive with reality. That that's not a criminal investigation. So right when the FBI opens a leak investigation, it's because, excuse me, someone has leaked classified or law enforcement sensitive information. That's the crime. You have to have a statute to open a crime investigation. The statute is typically some form or variation of the espionage statutes that actually include lesser, you know, amounts of classification. Criminal, criminally sensitive. And okay, so the. I hate to sound sarcastic or even comic here, but what is, what is the FBI upset about? That someone has leaked that Patel has a problem with alcohol? Allegedly. I don't understand the crime that they are intending to prosecute. And then the Ms. Now part is not only that, but that it somehow is focused on Sarah Fitzpatrick, the Atlantic journalist.
- [31:26]
Jim Acosta
Right.
- [31:27]
Frank Figluzzi
So, okay, I can tell you from my experience that DOJ has had a long standing policy and it sometimes waxes and wanes that the last Thing you want to do is actually open a case with a journalist's name in the title of the investigation. Okay. Because why First Amendment protections. There are other ways to do these cases, and they're done all the time. You focus on. You don't need to open up on the journalist. You need. You. You do. You do look at the journalist's phone activity, emails. Sometimes you try to develop more. More commonly, you develop suspects within. Within the intelligence community or whoever leads what. And then you work backwards and see which one of those civilian suspects has contact with the journalists that published the information. So what Ms. Now is reporting. That's really weird. Is that. No, they're focused on the journalist.
- [32:32]
Jim Acosta
Absolutely. Yeah.
- [32:33]
Frank Figluzzi
And so just trying to help the viewers understand. Usually you work backwards. You have great respect for the first amendment in doing so. Very rare that you would put the name of a journalist in a title. And I'm not clear, to be honest, from reading the msnow reporting, whether an emphasis on the journalist means that she is in the title of the case. I do not know that. But I don't know I can say this for certain, Jim. This makes no sense from a criminal standpoint to say, by God, if someone has leaked their perceptions that Patel drinks too much, we're going to charge them with a crime. What crime is that? And what is the defense to that crime? If you're charged with leaking your perception that he drinks too much, your defense would be bring it on and discovery will be fascinating.
- [33:24]
Jim Acosta
Well, no, and I was just gonna say he's the one who posted the photograph of himself at the Olympics. Getting. Getting, you know, a little tipsy with the US Men's hockey team. I don't know how many beers he drank. He was. He was throwing a lot of alcohol in the air, and he was, you know, but he was acting like somebody who. Who has had some experience with. With some drinking. You know what I mean? And so I just, you know, there.
- [33:49]
Frank Figluzzi
There are the Atlantic. It's interesting, the Atlantic piece by Sarah Fitzpatrick, who I. Who apparently is a fantastic journalist, but is so much broader than just the drinking allegations. It goes toward him not being available when he's needed right away for operational purposes. There are certain things that the FBI director has to personally sign off on, and usually it's an emergency when that's happening, that's important. Secondly, the allegation that his security detail can't rouse him in the morning. The allegation, according to her reports, that they requested a breaching tool in the event they needed to get into his home to wake him. His home or his office to get him out.
- [34:36]
Jim Acosta
Those are very serious allegations. Those are very serious. I mean, elements of the story, no question about it. That's right.
- [34:44]
Frank Figluzzi
Incredible. So is he likely livid, you know, true or not? Yeah, sure. Is that, does it merit a criminal investigation? In my, in my opinion, it clearly not. But in my opinion, this is about. There's a ferreting out leaks in the house. It's coming from inside the house. Right. It's coming from inside the Hoover Building.
- [35:06]
Jim Acosta
He's going after those people. He wants to go after them.
- [35:09]
Frank Figluzzi
Yep, yep.
- [35:11]
Jim Acosta
He's seeing if he can apply enough pressure on the reporter to see if the reporter or the magazine will give up the sources, which, I mean, anybody that knows anything about the Atlantic and the fine reporters and journalists that they have, they're just not going to do that. That's not going to.
- [35:24]
Frank Figluzzi
Right. And, and as I mentioned, the typical way you do it, if you care about the First Amendment, is you work backwards from your suspects. So let's say, let's say, for example, the suspects for the leak would be. Sure, anyone who has access to his office or, and it's only a handful of people and, and, or his security detail. Let's say that for the sake of argument, you then take those people, you get their phone records legally, hopefully, and there, and, and, you know, whatever, text and email, and you work backwards to see if any of them had contact with the journalist.
- [35:55]
Jim Acosta
Yeah.
- [35:55]
Frank Figluzzi
What they, what they what, what is implied in Ms. NOW's reporting is they're doing the reverse. They're doing the reverse and that's bad news. They're, they're trying to go from the journalist to, to suspects. And again,
- [36:12]
Jim Acosta
but Frank, I was going to ask you, because a subscriber just asked this, do we expect this current FBI to be responsible in going after people's texts and emails? Can you speak from your experience, Frank, as a senior official at the FBI, that, that the, that the officials, the top officials there, people who are capable of conducting this kind of investigation have access to the kinds of equipment and investigative methods and so on to be able to, to do this in an unethical way. I mean, it seems to me that they, if they, if they wanted to do this in an unethical way, they got all the tools, they got the equipment to do it.
- [36:47]
Frank Figluzzi
I don't. Yes, they, of course they do. They also have, because it involves a journalist, all of this, all of these techniques would have to go for approval across the street to the department of Justice. Those are the rules. As far as I know, those rules haven't changed. The problem is who's in charge of the Department of Justice? Someone who is auditioning to be the Attorney General. Todd Blanch. So am I. You know, someone who, with regard to the Jim Comey investigation, you know, has decided that photographing an arrangement of shells is now a threat to kill the President. So if he's auditioning for the job, he's not going to say, hey, wait a minute, we got a First Amendment problem with the free press here. He's not going to say that. And then the only. Imagine this. The only way this stops is as people are expressing to Ms. Now, apparently, hey, we're do. We're being asked to do something with a journalist that we think is inappropriate. The other stop here could the guardrail. Sadly bad to rely on. This is the Silicon Valley platforms that they'll be hitting with, with subpoenas west for records. Because freak, frequently those platforms have said no when their counsel looks at it and goes, you're asking for a reporter's phone record.
- [38:04]
Jim Acosta
A lot of these tech companies have been bending the knee to Donald Trump. They've been lining up to kiss his ass. And so that's also. That's not, that's not a good sign either, Frank.
- [38:14]
Frank Figluzzi
No. When you have, you know, Bezos and Zuckerberg and others who are contributing to the, the money for the stupid ballroom, the inauguration parties. Yeah, we got a problem here.
- [38:30]
Jim Acosta
And Frank, finally, Barack Obama, former president, sat down with Stephen Colbert and was asked about this very issue of weaponization of the Justice Department. And he said something that is very in line with what I've been hopping up and down and saying is that is we need new laws in this country to cut this shit out. And I think if we have the Obama clip, let's play it.
- [38:49]
Barack Obama
Because the White House shouldn't be able to direct the Attorney General to go around prosecuting whoever the President wants prosecuted.
- [38:58]
Jim Acosta
Right. Because technically it's under the executive branch. The norm is that it's independent.
- [39:02]
Barack Obama
The norm. The idea is that the Attorney General is the people's lawyer. It's not the President's consigliere.
- [39:10]
Adam Mockler
Right. Even when it's Bobby Kennedy, it's Bobby Kennedy.
- [39:14]
Barack Obama
And so two of the core principles of a democracy, we can survive a lot. Bad policy, funky elections. There's a bunch of stuff that we can overcome. We can't overcome. The politicization of the criminal justice system, the awesome power of the state. You can't have a situation in which whoever's in charge of the government starts using that to go after their political enemy.
- [39:49]
Jim Acosta
Yeah, I mean, and folks are applauding because they played this on the Late show with Stephen Colbert, who we should note is being forced out by the Trump administration. So there's that. But, I mean, former president's right, Frank.
- [40:02]
Frank Figluzzi
Yeah. I think we've all been operating for 10 years now, or, you know, since, since Trump first came into being here on the national scene with the, on the assumption that the founding Fathers got it right, the Constitution will be honored. We'll have, we'll have a president and senior leaders who will do their best, good faith effort to comply with the law and the Constitutions. But now we've identified pages of gaps. There are gaps that, that, that now we know exist that need to be filled. And as the President said, one of those is, yeah, we need to codify that there shall be no contact between the Oval Office and the Attorney General of the United States in any way, shape or form that directs or shapes an investigation. Number two, how about this? How about not having an Attorney General who says in testimony on the Hill he still considers himself a personal attorney for the President. How about that? So, so unreal. Yeah, I've got a long list of
- [41:01]
Jim Acosta
gaps that need to get filled, no question. Frank, always great to have you on, man. Really appreciate it. And thanks for answering the, the late in the afternoon call. But when I saw all of these stories building up, I just thought, you know, we got to get in touch with Frank. So thank you as always, Frank.
- [41:15]
Frank Figluzzi
Glad I could do it. Thank you.
- [41:16]
Jim Acosta
Good to see you. Thanks a lot. And you know, I, if we could only just focus on one bananas, batshit crazy thing that's going on in this country right now. You know, the show would have been over 20 minutes ago, but the other thing that is happening, and it's, it's a story that I keep coming back to, it's the ICE detention centers. It is, it is not who we are as a country. I know people, whenever I say that, will chime in and say it is who we are as a country because we're doing it right now. That is a good point. But my friend, independent journalist Nick Valencia, has been doing some digging, investigating on the ICE detention industry that we now. It's an industry now that we have in this country, Nick, and you've been reporting on this and how much money these for profit prisons are making off of this. Me and my guys, we went down to Dilly not that long ago. You can't even get on the property there because the private security will chase you off because it's a for profit prison and they have little kids in there. And I mean that to me is insane. But you've been working on this. Tell us about it. Nick.
- [42:16]
Nick Valencia
The numbers are jaw dropping and they should piss off everybody that cares about where their tax dollars are going to. We looked into this for months and the numbers that we came up with between $27,035,000 per month per bed, per person is what these private prison companies like LaSalle Management, which runs all these facilities in Louisiana, like Corecivic or Geo Group, which a lot of us have heard about before, they're making Handover Fist, part of our 30 minute documentary. I'm doing this in partnership with Thera Media. You can go find it on the Real Corruption Inc. On YouTube. What we learned is that they brag on earnings calls, Jim, about economic growth, this being a growth sector, immigrant detention being an unprecedented growth sector. And the numbers seem to show that they're right and there's no end in sight.
- [43:05]
Jim Acosta
No. And I was just looking at some stories on this and I want to play a clip from your doc in a second, Nick, but this was. Time magazine was reporting this earlier this year that two of ICE's biggest contractors for building and managing detention centers have posted record revenue for 2025. Geo Group, which operates 19 facilities for ICE around the country, reported $2.6 billion in total revenue in 2025. That was up 6% from 2024. CoreCivic reported 2.2 billion until revenue in 2025, up 13% from 1.96 billion in 2024. They make billions of dollars doing this. And it, that's, that's. I mean, there's an incentive for locking people up and keeping people locked up
- [43:52]
Nick Valencia
to be immoral in all of this. Jim. There's an incentive to not lean into one's morality because you're making a ton of money. Even the guards get caught up in this. They look at this bonus or the money and they say, hey, I gotta feed my family. So what? They buy into this narrative that the migrant is here to take their jobs or ruin this country, when really they're paying into our Social Security, they're paying into the 10 and not getting those taxes back. What our tax dollars are doing, Republican or Democrat is going to these companies though, and these beds need to stay full. What scares me about all this stuff is that we learned today it's the undocumented American, tomorrow it's going to be the undesirable American. And I say undocumented American because these people are adding value to our country. But there's no end in sight. On average, we have about 40,000 filled beds. These numbers are about 70,000 right now. And those are conservative numbers. President Trump wants to expand this to 120,000 beds. And with the numbers that you just said, why the hell would they stop at undocumented immigrants? Right? Like what, why wouldn't they go after others who are labeled undesirable or people like independent journalists who are calling them out on their bullshit? I don't know. You know, I mean, everything is up. Nothing is straightforward.
- [45:02]
Jim Acosta
Well and there. And I mean, we were just talking about this with Frank Figlusi. They're apparently Mississippi now is reporting that the FBI is doing an investigation into the reporter at the Atlantic for reporting on the director's alleged drinking habits. I mean, so there's a, an example right there. But Nick, let's play a little bit of your documentary. Let's play a clip and then talk about it on the other side.
- [45:22]
Nick Valencia
As long as human beings remain the product and your tax dollars are up for grabs, this machine will keep on running. You know of people that potentially want to self deport?
- [45:31]
Adam Mockler
Yes, but they're not letting them go. Why, why is that?
- [45:35]
Nick Valencia
Today it's the undocumented. Tomorrow the fear is that it will be anyone who the government considers to be un American.
- [45:46]
Jim Acosta
And then, Nick, there's another clip where you get into the fact that there are some folks who are being held in detention who are willing to take the DHS up on their offer to self deport, to go ahead and take their offer. I think it's whatever 2500, whatever amount of money it is and a plane ticket to leave the country. And they, and, and, but ICE is like, no, no, we will keep you here because it makes more money for these, these detention companies, which is sick. Let's play that clip too. I think we have that, that clip
- [46:18]
Nick Valencia
Too outsources roughly 91% of its detention beds to the private sector. The moment that door slams shut, the meter starts running. After the 2024 election, core civic stock nearly doubled. Do you really think that these private prisons are just going to close up their billion dollar facilities? Do you really think that they're going to stop at the undocumented?
- [46:39]
Jim Acosta
Yeah, no, I know, and it's, it's very disturbing. And there's no, there's no, you know, downside for these companies if they just keep locking people up. It seems no.
- [46:50]
Nick Valencia
And the corporate America engine keeps on running, right? This stuff expanded, believe it or not, under President Obama who deported a lot of undocumented immigrants. But it's really the all gas, no brakes right now under President Trump. And there is this through line with him and people in his administration. Pam Bondi was a former lobbyist at Geo Group as recently as 2019. You have McLaughlin, Trisha McLaughlin, whose husband is getting a $200 million DHS contract. I mean these are people who are donating to politicians that you, unbeknownst to you, you're voting for potentially and you don't even realize what you're supporting. The thing, the theme beyond this private prison expansion infrastructure is this theme of people, like you said, we found wanting to self deport, but they're not even given the chance because it makes more money to just keep them. One of the stories that should piss off, that really pissed me off is that this guy, this Carlos De La, he's been in detention. He was in detention, just got out since August. They transferred him 16 times. Where is the government efficiency in that? That's across time zones, that's across US territories. All of that is happening right now and it's your and my tax dollars that is funding all of this stuff with, with no end in sight I mentioned the President wants to expand this to 120,000 beds. And the last thing I'll say is they are expanding these private prison companies, they're now subcontracting, effectively bounty hunters to go after undocumented immigrants, minors. Geo Group is subcontracting groups that are private security firms. So you have these companies now, they're not just housing detainees, pre trial detainees, some of whom haven't even been charged. They're now going after them with these, what are effectively bounty hunters. And so it just gets worse and worse. And this is why I'm so thankful that you give us this attention. You have a huge platform. This stuff continues to go on even though it falls in and out of the news. News, right. This stuff happens every single day and we want you to know about it.
- [48:47]
Jim Acosta
Happy to do it. No, no, happy to highlight your reporting as always. And what do we know what these companies say in their defense?
- [48:53]
Nick Valencia
Oh, they, they're proud of it. They, they're openly bragging about it on calls that we could all find on YouTube. Go to the GEO Group third quarter earnings call of 2024. You know what they benefited from. And they're talking about it in, out in the open. You know, I don't know if you picked up on this. I started to watch a lot of cnbc. Trump goes in there a lot, right. And you could kind of like the first place I heard about, for instance, that the feds were thinking about looking at Spirit airlines and saving 14,000 jobs was when Trump floated the idea there. And you have a lot of CEOs. You realize that this is all about the market for this administration.
- [49:30]
Jim Acosta
It really is.
- [49:31]
Nick Valencia
It is. And, and so you have these CEOs on their earnings calls, which some of which just came out right in April, a couple weeks ago. These are all out there, guys. You could call into these numbers and listen for yourselves. There's no defense. They're not ashamed of it. They're not defending it.
- [49:45]
Adam Mockler
They're proud of it.
- [49:45]
Nick Valencia
And they're telling their shareholders, look, more money is coming into your pockets. Just wait. That's why we should all be scared. Go watch Real Corruption Inc. Man. Go watch our reporting.
- [49:53]
Jim Acosta
I was going to say, Nick, fill us in. Where, where can we watch this? Where can we find it so folks can tune in?
- [50:01]
Nick Valencia
Jim was kind enough to tweet it out there. You see it on his Twitter. You can go to my page. Nick Valencia, News all across social media or the Real Corruption. The Real Corruption Inc. On YouTube substack we just launched. Our numbers are very low, so we're trying to get this out there. We think this reporting is really significant and we have another one coming. Our next piece that we're working on is private equity in health care. Talk about feeling like a product. You know, everybody's got a bad story about healthcare. What really got me interested in that is seeing this phenomenon of Luigi Mangione and how it. If people weren't celebrating it, they sure weren't sad at the death of United Healthcare CEO. All these pre approval, pre authorization stuff. You realize private equity is now starting to infuse itself into this healthcare system. Another industry that seems to be intentionally broken. The whole theme of all this, Jim, is this project that I'm working on is that people really are the product. People are a commodity, that we're not really citizens in this country. And the most extreme example we, the moment we can't pay our rent, pay our bills, we get kicked out in the streets, right? And all of a sudden we don't have a name. I'm guilty of it. We're all guilty of it. Someone's knocking, asking for money. You don't want to look them in their eye. Everyone assumes that people that are out on the streets, they did it to themselves. I think sometimes even I assume that then you start realizing these systems are meant to break us. And we need to be incredibly resilient as Americans even more and more, especially under certain administrations, which you talk a lot about, Matt.
- [51:26]
Jim Acosta
Man, that is such a great message. People are getting hosed these days. They're, you know, and, and look at the folks who are raking in all of this money. It's exactly what you're talking about. It's the, it's the PE guys. It's, you know, the, the industry, some of the worst offenders. And you know, corporate America these days, I mean, they're all making out like bandits these days. And, and the bandit in chief is making it happen for him, as always. But Nick Valencia, great stuff as always.
- [51:54]
Nick Valencia
I'll.
- [51:54]
Jim Acosta
I'll post some more tonight. I'll. I'll try to get the YouTube link up on sub stack. I don't want the sub stack people to get mad at me. I don't normally put YouTube stuff on substack, but I'm gonna do it in your case. They'll have to give me a pass there. But check out Nick's work. Because, Nick, I'm so proud of you. That. And, and we should note that, that the legend himself, Ted Turner, passed away. I'm going to talk about that in just a second. But you and I are both products of that system there. And I'm so glad after leaving that system, that you're doing so well and doing great work. So great stuff.
- [52:25]
Nick Valencia
Do you want to know my first day at CNN, March 6, 2006 was officially Ted Turner's last day. I started as and I read in the Wall Street Journal. Right. But I'm getting goosebumps on the story because I remember reading the Wall Street Journal and saying, oh, man, I'm starting at cnn and Ted Turner has nothing to do with this place anymore. But you know this, and I know you met him and had dinner and all this things is every time you'd see him. There's no one that's. He was a visionary. There's no one that's ever going to be anyone like him or close. He literally saved democracy in such a big way. The death of him is symbolic in a lot of ways. And we're so proud of you. Not only the Latino community, but the independent journalist community, because you're picking this up, this mantle. I'm not saying you're Ted Turner, brother. Okay, but you're picking up the mantle.
- [53:09]
Jim Acosta
If only Studio would be a little nicer than this if that were the case. But hey, you know, we got to start somewhere. And Ted started small too. They used to call it chicken noodle news and all that stuff. And, and it turned into a Goliath. And we just, you know, folks like you and me, Nick, we just hope they don't break it after the, some of the folks who just bought it. And you know, there's a lot to break there, a lot of good people and we don't want that to happen. But Nick, great work man. Good stuff as always. Let's do this again soon. Thanks, appreciate it. All right, check out next work. And I just want to say finally, you know, I, the, the great Ted Turner has passed away and I would not be where I am today. And you might say, oh, and you in your basement. Hahaha, very funny. No, I would not be with all of you right now in independent media had it not been for Ted Turner. Because I, you know, I, I was CNN for 18 years. Ted Turner passed away apparently earlier today at the age of 87. And, and he, he is one of the great inventors of the 20th century. He invented cable news. And people might say, oh, cable news, it stinks, and so on. There's, there's some really valuable things that, that CNN used to do and I think still does today and that, and it's right out of Ted's vision that the news is the star and that there's, there's a value to presenting news to people all around the world. And I can just tell you, you know, when I was a White House correspondent for, you know, almost eight years at cnn, I, you know, I don't talk about CNN all that much. But you know, when I was there and I was at doing the White House gig, you know, I would go on these POTUS trips with Barack Obama and then Donald Trump and you could literally go to any city in the world, any foreign capital in the world in particular, and turn on your TV in your hotel room and CNN International would be on. You could watch CNN anywhere around the world. And that was, that came out of Ted's vision of 24 hour news. And yes, as we were talking about earlier with Adam Mockler, I guess there's kind of a CNN theme today. It's sad in some ways what CNN has become because they, they have sort of made this decision to monetize Jerry Springer style news on that network. And I, I think it's not the right approach. I don't think they should be doing it. I think they should go back to doing the news. And you can have conversation, you can have debate, you can have lively debate, but it doesn't have to descend into, you know, that kind of. And I think Ted understood that. That's why his, his motto was the news is the star. And he, people would tell all kinds of great Ted stories, but he would walk into the newsroom in Atlanta and apparently, you know, he would tell correspondents and anchors, you're making too much money. And they used to hand out. It's too bad that our other producer, Matt, is not in today. But, you know, Matt used to work in Atlanta for cnn. And Matt would tell the story about how Ted would bring in tickets to Atlanta Braves baseball games and lay them on the news desk, and the employees could come in and grab their tickets and go to Atlanta Braves games. And so in addition to CNN being a, a, you know, a juggernaut when it comes to global news coverage, it also operated as kind of a family business for many, many years. And I was lucky when I came on board there back in 2007 that it still had that kind of same feel to it. And there were, there were people there who were lifers at CNN who, who started their day one when they turned it on. People like Jeannie Mose, I believe, and I think folks like Rick Davis, who's an executive. There was an executive there for a while back. And there was so much pride in working for Ted Turner and working for cnn. That didn't mean that everything about the place was perfect. That didn't mean everything about Ted was perfect. But there was a lot of pride in that. Everybody was all sort of rowing in the same direction and working on something really important, and that was the delivery of information to people around the world, not just the American people, but to people around the world. And I, you know, I can't tell you how many times I got in a taxi or an Uber in some foreign capital or some city, and the guy, the taxi driver will say, you're that guy, aren't you? You're that guy. I would say, yes, I'm that guy. But that just, it just goes to the, the reach and, and what I call the invention that Ted Turner created, which really brought our world closer together. So rest in peace. Ted Turner, a television legend, a legend of mass communications. He has passed away at the age of 87. And that's it for, uh, this edition of the Jim Acosta Show. Still reporting from Washington, I'm Jim Acosta. Thanks to all the guests today, Adam Mockler, to Frank Figluzzi, and to my friend Nick Valencia. Thanks for watching. I'll see you next.