← The Jim Acosta Show
The Jim Acosta Show
Michael Cohen slams Trump playing golf while the markets melt down plus conservative writer Matt Lewis explains how you can be a Republican and dislike Trump.
01:00:53
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- [00:00]
Jim Acosta
All right, welcome, everybody, to the Jim Acosta show. It's a meltdown Monday. It's also a Michael Monday. And Michael Cohen is here now. He's with me on screen. And we know where we have to begin, Michael. And that is. It was another volatile day on Wall street, more hemorrhaging in the markets after Trump said he wouldn't budge on tariffs. And you remember the old adage, oh, a president doesn't have that much to do with the economy. He can't have that much of an effect on the economy. That was before Donald Trump and Michael, I mean, couple places to start. I mean, one thing that's really under my skin. I mean, the Daily Beast reporting, the president says he spent the weekend in between rounds of golf talking to tech leaders and politicians from around the world who are begging to renegotiate tariffs. Asked aboard Air Force One about the catastrophic market reaction to his announcement, Trump said, quote, sometimes you have to take medicine to fix something. So I guess we're all taking our medicine right now.
- [00:53]
Michael Cohen
If I'm not mistaken, what he said is there are times that things go down and you have to take medicine to get them to go up again. I wasn't sure if he was talking about the economy or erectile dysfunction, because none of this makes any sense at all. First of all, what he.
- [01:10]
Jim Acosta
The market could use a pill or two. But anyway. Yeah, go ahead.
- [01:15]
Michael Cohen
Yeah. I mean, you know, what's he talking to tech leaders about as it relates?
- [01:22]
Jim Acosta
That's a good point.
- [01:23]
Michael Cohen
It just doesn't make any sense. Oh, you know, Nvidia and everybody else, they're all going to come and they're all going to build plants and so on, as if just because you say they're building plants, then he said that they're actually already working on building a plant and so on. That's really, you know, you wouldn't believe it. Nobody would believe how fast that this is going. You can't get permits this fast. You can't architecturally draw out the facility this fast. I don't know what he's talking about. Nothing that he says is true. Nothing that he says makes any sense. In between the 14th and 15th hole of another senior championship golf match that, of course, he won. Right now he's speaking to world leaders. He's speaking to the top, the biggest, the top four or five tech companies. You know, what do you do? Could you imagine he's on the phone, say, for example, with Prime Minister Starmer, and he says here, could you do me a favor? Just hold One second, I got to put this down. I just have to chip. I'm only 50 yards out from the pin.
- [02:38]
Jim Acosta
Sorry about your economy. I've got to slice one off into the woods here and put down a parent. You know, he's, he's slapping tariffs on just about every country around the world, even small islands only inhabited by penguins. But forget the penguin. We're dealing with the joker on this one. JP Morgan's chief executive, Jamie Dimon, as reported in the New York Times and other outlets, said this, Michael, the recent tariffs will likely increase inflation and are causing many to consider a greater probability of a recession. That's what the JP Morgan chief executive said in his annual letter to shareholders. Michael went. When Trump came into office, we weren't talking about a recession. There was no recession on the horizon.
- [03:20]
Michael Cohen
To the contrary, Jim, they actually gave Biden. Whatever you want to say about Joe Biden, all the top economists, including the Jamie Dimons of the world, the Goldman Sachs, the Blackstones, the blackrocks, the Citadels, every single one of them said, interestingly enough, we were successful in staving off a recession.
- [03:46]
Jim Acosta
Yeah.
- [03:47]
Michael Cohen
Somehow or another we had a soft landing. That's right. We're 76 days into the new administration and all of a sudden forget about what JP Morgan is saying. Goldman Sachs, who has historically been fantastic predictors of situations like this, they for the second time now in a period of seven days, have changed their analysis on the predictability of a recession. They went from 35% to now 45%. That we are going to have a recession. That is not good news to any of the people that are with us right now.
- [04:27]
Jim Acosta
Well, it looks like the Dow is going to be down 349 points. The Nasdaq is up slightly. But Michael, this morning when the markets opened, it was frightening. It was frightening. When the markets opened this morning, it was going down about a thousand points or whatever. And there was this rumor that went around that Trump was considering a pause in the tariffs. This is according to the Associated Press, that briefly lifted markets earlier this morning. Michael, you and I were both watching this, cuz we talked about this earlier on the phone. The markets dropped dramatically. Then they popped back up because of this rumor that was going around that Trump was gonna pause the tariffs. And, and then reporters came out on the north Lawn of the White House and said, no, no, no, we just checked with our sources. That did not happen. And then the market sank again. That kind of volatility, it must be freaking people out, especially where you are in New York. Yeah.
- [05:13]
Michael Cohen
It shows you two things. First and foremost, that the entire country is on edge.
- [05:21]
Jim Acosta
Yeah.
- [05:22]
Michael Cohen
And you know, you know that. Because the second thing is if they're willing to just take some sort of a rumor that popped up on the Internet sphere.
- [05:34]
Jim Acosta
Yeah.
- [05:34]
Michael Cohen
And then run with it, and it brought. It shot the market up like 700 points.
- [05:39]
Jim Acosta
Exactly.
- [05:40]
Michael Cohen
The market right now is starving for some sensibility, for a pause so that they can figure out what exactly is and what is not a policy. You know, we don't have a policy on these tariffs.
- [05:56]
Jim Acosta
No, we don't.
- [05:57]
Michael Cohen
See, there's just tariffs. So, you know, I kind of compare this whole thing to imagine Trump playing baseball, which he did when he was in high school. I had met, actually, by coincidence, many, many years ago. I met his baseball coach. He was actually a pretty decent ball player.
- [06:17]
Jim Acosta
Yeah. So hypothetically, so is Fidel Castro. But anyway, go ahead.
- [06:20]
Michael Cohen
Well, that's also true. So, hypothetically, right. He gets put in one game out of the whole season and, you know, he manages to get a base hit. He starts running around telling everybody he bets a thousand, like this golf game. That's the insanity of what we're dealing with. I was watching just before coming on to the show with you for Michael Monday, Jim, I was watching this show, there's no other way to describe it, this shit show that is taking place right now in the Oval Office between Trump and Bibi Netanyahu.
- [06:59]
Jim Acosta
Oh, I was going to get into that. I mean, Trump has Bibi Netanyahu over at the White House, the Israeli Prime Minister. And I mean, this is what's incredible about this. Trump is planning 17% tariffs on imports coming from Israel. Netanyahu was over at the White House, obviously, to try to Trump. Talk Trump out of that. But NBC reports, Michael, that the White House has canceled a planned news conference that Trump was supposed to have with Netanyahu this afternoon. Instead, Trump is planning to take questions from reporters in the Oval Office. That's where the White House can control which reporters go into the Oval Office. That means no pesky questions on the economy from the full White House press corps and Israeli journalists. Michael, you know all too well when they're canceling press conferences, that ain't good.
- [07:44]
Michael Cohen
No. You know the old expression, if you can't, you know, dazzle them with your brilliance, baffle them with your bullshit. I, as I'm listening, as I'm listening to this nonsense, this bullshit that's taking place right now in the Oval Office, I have never heard anybody praise themselves. And again, I was with Trump since 2005, 2006. We're talking about almost, you know, we're talking about a long time, almost, you know, 18 years now. I have never heard him praise himself more about everything. Okay, Joe Biden bad, Donald Trump good. In fact, he even went so far as to praise himself for the topic of turning the Gaza Strip into a high end residential real estate play. Talking about how everybody in the world now is talking about it and saying, why didn't we think of this, that we think this is a great idea. The other night I was out for dinner with friends of mine and she happens to be Palestinian, been friends of mine since 1984. And I can tell you she ain't happy.
- [09:02]
Jim Acosta
Exactly.
- [09:03]
Michael Cohen
You're talking about 170 square miles. You have oceanfront property that Jared wants to turn into high end condominiums.
- [09:15]
Jim Acosta
Yeah.
- [09:15]
Michael Cohen
This is not what one would call peace, nor do I think this would ultimately inure to Israel's benefit. Because all you're doing is making this area into a target area. You can't take the Palestinian people, the Gazans, move them out, tell Egypt to Jordan that you have to take them and then not have them come back after all the debris and all the damage is corrected. I mean, do that to Germany.
- [09:47]
Jim Acosta
No, I mean, there's a lot of different ways you can look at that. And I mean, the thing that puzzles me the most, I mean, obviously the way Trump fantasizes about this stuff, it's ludicrous. It's not attached to reality in any way, shape or form. It's just stuff that he just pulls out of his backside and he presents it as an idea to the world, puts it on truth, social. The thing that I also kind of unbelievable in all of this is that I thought Trump and Netanyahu had a pretty decent relationship. And then for Trump to slap tariffs on. He's slapping tariffs on Israel, but not Russia. You know, I mean that to me.
- [10:25]
Michael Cohen
Jim, Jim. He slapped tariffs on penguins, but not. But not Moscow. If that in and of itself doesn't tell you how disgusting functional this group of idiots that are surrounding him, the enablers.
- [10:43]
Jim Acosta
Yeah.
- [10:44]
Michael Cohen
If this doesn't tell you how inept that they are.
- [10:47]
Jim Acosta
Yeah. Where the hell did they get the penguins? We got to talk about the penguins. Where the hell did they get the penguins? Does anybody know where they got the penguins from? I think over the weekend, Margaret Brunette on CBS Face sedation asked if this was an AI designed thing, that they put it into some computer program and it spit out all of these different countries and Territory. I was in Norway over the weekend. I went to a conference there, a journalism conference. And the people there, I will tell you are, could not be more terrified as to what is going on right now. They're not just terrified about Russia and the fact that Trump is talking about invading Greenland. They're worried about these tariffs, they're worried about what it's going to do to the global economy. But the fucking penguins, I mean, honestly, that is the thing that is just baffling everybody. It reeks of total incompetence.
- [11:35]
Michael Cohen
Yeah. So just so that our, our viewers understand what we're talking about, there are two islands. One is called the herd islands, the other is called McDonald Island. All right.
- [11:44]
Jim Acosta
And they, you think he would spare McDonald's? But anyway, go ahead.
- [11:48]
Michael Cohen
No, Ronald doesn't live there. Right. You have these two islands that are uninhabited. The only, the only inhabitants of that island are actually penguins. It's an Antarctic, obviously. And for whatever the reason is. And nobody in the White House can give an answer. And if you ask Caroline Levitt, right. She'll turn around and she'll tell you that, you know, is she the person.
- [12:17]
Jim Acosta
To have out at the podium right now during a financial, I mean, crisis that we're dealing with right now? I mean, this is not, these are not their best and their brightest. I'm sorry, they're just not. And I mean, she's the kind of person who could go out there and utter something and make the markets tank even more.
- [12:32]
Michael Cohen
Well, that's definitively true. But her responses are so measured, they're so calculated because it's a regurgitation of the same lines over and over and over again.
- [12:45]
Jim Acosta
Yeah.
- [12:46]
Michael Cohen
President Trump is the smartest president ever. He knows exactly what he's doing. It doesn't make a difference that he's basically talking about the entire region, not specifically the Herd or the McDonald Island. All right. That this is just you, Jim Acosta, and you, Michael Cohen, and the left wing Soros funded media that is just trying to, you know, denigrate and disparage this president who is doing historic things. I mean, this is the shit that she's saying. And she's good at it because she comes at you with this anger and she goes look straight into the camera with a smile on her face. And she's basically spewing the same thing, the same lines over and over, just in different contexts.
- [13:33]
Jim Acosta
Yeah, I mean, she, she is an unusually good liar. And you know, I will say, at that age, I mean, as I've said before on the show she's going places in Trump world. When you're at that age and you lie that well, it's sort of like Tom Brady winning Super Bowls at an early age, Michael. I mean, here's the other thing that I mean is astonishing to me is in the middle of all this, Trump, Trump is doubling down on Truth Social. I saw you writing about this. I wanted to ask you about this. He said his message to Republicans, don't be a panicin, which, I mean, he's kind of running out of good material. So he's just sort of like, these are like the bad. These are like the B side insults. He says the new party based on weak and stupid people. Be strong, be courageous and patient, and greatness will be the result. You know, Donald Trump, you've known him a long time, he is Mr. Double Down. He's not gonna back off of this, is he?
- [14:25]
Michael Cohen
Not a chance. And I kept hearing on television from all of these pundits, you know, from all the various networks, cnn, msnbc, ABC and so on, that, you know, Trump is now taking phone calls and that, you know, they're trying to work through this. And I turned around and I called up a couple of them and I said, you're wrong. Let me be very clear. Trump is like a bull that doesn't want to move. He's dug his back, his back legs into the ground and you could drag him with a fucking tractor, all right? A bulldozer. It doesn't make a difference. He is not.
- [15:05]
Jim Acosta
He's not going to do it.
- [15:06]
Michael Cohen
He wants total capitulation from everybody. He wants to be the bully of the world to try and say, I told the EU this is what I want, and the EU did it. I told Italy this is what I want, and Italy did what I said, I told France what I want. And he can go on and on and on. The only one he doesn't want to have to say that to, of course, is Russia, is Vladimir Putin.
- [15:35]
Jim Acosta
Because he can't do that. No, because the dynamic is in the reverse. When they tell him to jump, he says, how high? So, Michael, I wanted to hit the pause button because I think you hit on exactly the right idea here as to what the situation. He wants these countries coming to him. And this is what I was saying to the folks in Norway over the weekend. He wants these countries to come to him on hand and knee and beg for some kind of, you know, carve out exception, whatever you want to do. You have the eu, you have the Europeans coming and saying, let's Have a zero tariff, free trade agreement, that kind of a thing. He wants to look like the dear leader who is showing mercy upon his subjects. He wants to be Napoleon. He wants to be Caesar in all of this. And the global markets are teetering on the edge.
- [16:22]
Michael Cohen
So here's the problem. All right, let's start to talk amongst ourselves. And by the way, we have like 5,000 people with us, which I would say, many people would say that that's great. I would like to ask each and every one of you wanted to go for next Michael Monday. All right, no, no bullshit. For next week's show, we want to have 50,000 people. And then after that and just tell two people, each and every one of you, tell two people to join us so that they too get educated. Everybody thinks they know, but they actually don't. All right, stay with us. Build the community so that when we do other things, like when Jim and I go and we start doing town halls, which we're going to get.
- [17:05]
Jim Acosta
Hey, let's talk about it. Let's talk. You brought it up. We're looking at next Tuesday right up in New York. We're talking about it next Tuesday up in New York. Michael Monday is going to become Michael Tuesday.
- [17:16]
Matt Lewis
But we're going to have a lot.
- [17:17]
Jim Acosta
Of other friends with us. We're working on our list of friends who are going to be there with us, but it's going to be at the 555 Theater. Do I have that right? In Newtown, Manhattan.
- [17:26]
Michael Cohen
Live streamed as well, which of course, you know, how many. The theater is only, I think only seats like 160 people. And so everybody else, it's going to be live streamed for the whole world to watch. And I suspect, you know that there's going to be many millions of people tuning into it.
- [17:43]
Jim Acosta
We're going to get our audience there.
- [17:44]
Michael Cohen
It's going to be a lot of very, very well known people who most of you absolutely know. We're not sure at the time yet. Just stay tuned to both.
- [17:56]
Jim Acosta
This is called a tease.
- [17:58]
Michael Cohen
And Michael and my, my substack. We're going to constantly, constantly be updating you as more information comes, you know, comes together. But then Jim and I are going to take this show on the road. We also want to go to, you know, Ruby Red district because it's imperative that we reach back out.
- [18:15]
Jim Acosta
No, I'm kidding. We do. We will. Yeah.
- [18:17]
Michael Cohen
And we explain to them this is not about your. Whether you have an R or D next to your name. I don't care. This is all about The Constitution. It's about our democratic republic. It's about what we want to leave for our children, grandchildren and future generations to come. Do you want to leave an autocracy or do you want to leave a democracy? If you're okay with this volatility, then this isn't the place for you to engage in legitimate dialogue. I want to be there to tell you you don't know Donald Trump. In fact, just because you went to one rally doesn't make you, as they would say in Yiddish, a Talmud, chacham. Right. A genius amongst geniuses. Knowing the guy, I sat with him for 15 years. I can't tell you what's going on here. And I'm going to go one step further here. All right.
- [19:11]
Jim Acosta
Yeah, go for it.
- [19:12]
Michael Cohen
The important thing is that we build the community to ensure that come the midterm elections, that our community is so big, so humongous, that there is no doubt that we will be able to restore law and order and sensibility to this government, which right now is running amok.
- [19:36]
Jim Acosta
Yeah. Well, and I tell you, I'm so glad that you pitched it the way you did because that's the way I feel about it, too. You know, we can't let our country go down the tubes, Michael. And I think that's where you and I are on the same page in a big way. And a lot of the guests that we're talking about are of the same mindset. And so it's going to be exciting. We're going to start rolling out some details slowly but surely during the week. But you got your little appetizer right there as to what's going to be coming next week when Michael and I do this. Now, I do want to talk about some other stuff because there was a big hands off protest that we saw over the weekend in New York and D.C. and a lot of other cities around the country. Michael, I want to get your impression of that. But we do have some breaking news. The US does not have to return a Maryland man who is accidentally deported to el Salvador to U.S. oil by midnight. The Supreme Court ruled this just a little while ago in an administrative stay, according to NBC News, that temporary pauses, temporarily pauses a judge's previous order. This has to do with Kilmar Abrego Garcia. Michael, this story has been on my mind because it just breaks my heart what they did to this guy. Really?
- [20:43]
Michael Cohen
You got a family that's on your mind? I have been warning. I have been warning every show that I went on.
- [20:52]
Jim Acosta
Yeah.
- [20:53]
Michael Cohen
Every journalist that I spoke to every podcast on my Mayor Culpa podcast or on my sub stack or my Instagram Michael Cohen show. I have been warning everyone that has listened that what Donald Trump did to me going back right in, in the unconstitutional remand was just a litmus test in what they intend to do if in fact he came back to power, which we all know, of course he did.
- [21:25]
Jim Acosta
They'll start disappearing, people. They'll start disappearing.
- [21:27]
Michael Cohen
I'll tell you what my next big concern is. My next big concern is he's even engaging in conversation of U.S. citizens who are currently incarcerated, shipping them off to the same Venezuelan prisons that they have the El Salvadorians in.
- [21:48]
Jim Acosta
Yeah, El Salvadorans. Yeah, the Venezuelans in the El Salvadoran.
- [21:52]
Michael Cohen
I'm sorry, I have it backwards. In the El Salvadorian.
- [21:55]
Jim Acosta
Yeah.
- [21:56]
Michael Cohen
Jim, let me tell you the danger of something like this.
- [21:59]
Jim Acosta
Yeah.
- [22:00]
Michael Cohen
When you have somebody who doesn't believe in the Constitution.
- [22:03]
Jim Acosta
That's it. That's it.
- [22:05]
Michael Cohen
You have people who are willing to weaponize the Department of Justice to go against the critics. What happens when you're walking down the street and all of a sudden, next thing you know, six people like what they did to me over at 500 Pearl Street. Six people stop you in the street like they did to that young, that young girl.
- [22:26]
Jim Acosta
Yeah, right.
- [22:27]
Michael Cohen
From Tufts University, the journalist. And then they beg your tag, you throw you in the back of the sprinter. Next thing you know, you're not even in Boston anymore. They shipped you off to Louisiana where they have a favorable court. Now all of a sudden, you are in custody. You are.
- [22:44]
Jim Acosta
It's scary. It's absolutely scary.
- [22:46]
Michael Cohen
Ship you off to El Salvador.
- [22:48]
Jim Acosta
Yeah. No, it's a U.S. citizen.
- [22:50]
Michael Cohen
And you say this is fundamentally unconstitutional.
- [22:54]
Jim Acosta
Well, this guy was not supposed to be deported.
- [22:56]
Michael Cohen
Turning around and saying, no, it's an administrative proceeding. Let me tell you how long administrative proceedings go. First it starts off with, let's call it like a BP8. That's where you file it. They have 30 days to respond, and you file a BP9 if that comes back successfully. And then a 10 and 11 and a 12. Ultimately, it takes you at more than a year to a year and a half, before which you're able to even get the right to file a habeas corpus petition. You could do 18 months in that hell hole.
- [23:27]
Jim Acosta
Yeah, well, and apparently this. This man has a son who is autistic. I was talking to viewers about that last week. I mean, it's absolutely disgusting. Michael, let's talk about the hands off rallies, because I was out of the country. I don't know if you were watching any of this. I was watching it from overseas and it was pretty remarkable. And this all goes back to what I've been talking about for weeks. The great American pushback. People are, you know, there are people who are poo pooing this idea that there would ever be a resistance or something like the resistance or that people would stand up. They just thought the smart people in Washington and the press thought that folks would just permanently be in the fetal position. That has not been the case. You've seen people get pissed off at these town halls and now you saw the hands off rallies take place at these cities all across the country over the weekend. And it gave everybody, I think, a real shot in the arm to see folks out there taking to the streets the good old patriotic old fashioned American take it to the streets and let Trump know what they think. And I mean, this is only the beginning, it seems to me.
- [24:33]
Michael Cohen
Yeah, but Jim, here's the problem. He wasn't thinking about the hands off protests. He was thinking about his next drive and his next ship and his.
- [24:44]
Jim Acosta
That's true. That's true.
- [24:46]
Michael Cohen
Ship win. I want to be very clear. Yeah, he, yeah, he heard it. He doesn't give a shit. He truly doesn't. He turns around.
- [24:54]
Jim Acosta
Well, that is, you're, you're right in that. I, I think there's an element to this that maybe you and I should talk about. Maybe there's not enough time today, but we can talk about a little bit today. Talk about it next time. I like saving topics that we can talk about for next. This I don't give a shit mindset because you've studied Trump longer than I have, but I'm picking up on this. I don't think he cares if he wrecks the economy. I don't think he cares if he tears up the Constitution. I don't think he cares who gets sent to El Salvador. He is very much and I don't give a shit mode going to play golf this weekend. Are you kidding me? With the markets crashing the way that.
- [25:31]
Michael Cohen
They'Re crashing, the global economy is crashing.
- [25:35]
Jim Acosta
Yeah.
- [25:36]
Michael Cohen
America's economy. We lost $7 trillion in market value, my friends. I want to say that number again so it sinks into people's heads. We lost $7 trillion of market value.
- [25:52]
Jim Acosta
That's right.
- [25:53]
Michael Cohen
There is no policy. There's just acts. There's just executive orders and actions one after the other, after the other. None of them are thought out. Listen, you don't have to like the President's policy. People didn't like the Affordable Care act under Obama. Some people did. Right. Every president has the right to their agenda whether you like it or not. Okay. However, there has to be a policy put forth so that you could determine whether you do like it or you don't.
- [26:30]
Jim Acosta
Yeah.
- [26:30]
Michael Cohen
Whether it's constitutional or it's not, whether it's violative of Separation of Powers act or not. That's the problem here. There's nothing here but Donald telling you and Caroline Levitt parroting and then Lutnick parody and Besson parroting. Trump is a smart businessman. He is the greatest negotiator in the history of the world. Have faith in this MAGA idea. And Sony, you say, yeah, I'm not really into that bullshit. I'm really not into somebody telling me how great it's going to be.
- [27:04]
Jim Acosta
Why is that, Mike? Well, why is that? Why is it that the people around him and you've seen this happen multiple times with multiple teams of people. And now this is the new, the Scott Besant, the Howard Lutnicks. This is the new team of people that get sucked into this trance. What is it that he cast? People still think that it's cool that he was on the Apprentice 20 goddamn years ago. What is it about that? What is it?
- [27:28]
Michael Cohen
It's not the Apprentice. It's a group of individuals who have rage. They have rage against the government. They have rage against how they feel that they have been silenced and that their superiority has now been compromised as a result of what they want to call WOKE policy or WOKE ideology. Let me, let me call this for what it is. This is white supremacy ideology. These are individuals that think because you are white and you are a male, that makes you better than a black female or a Hispanic female or.
- [28:13]
Jim Acosta
But we had a chance that we had a chance to get a black. We had Kamala Harris. This would not be happening right now. Kamala Harris had been elected president.
- [28:22]
Michael Cohen
But that's not the point. The point is here is that there is a plurality of Americans that still have that racist, sexist, misogynistic, the xenophobic, the homophobic, Islamophobic, anti Semitic ideology. And we all thought, we all thought that those days were in our past, maybe they were suppressed. But now all of a sudden you have, especially in these ruby red districts where they turn around, they were like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Are you telling me that the mayor of our town is going to be a young black woman? Right. You know, that's woke. You know, that's.
- [29:05]
Jim Acosta
Yeah, Kamala Harris predicted that this was going to happen during the campaign multiple times. Said that if these tariffs go into place, it will cause a recession. And I love that all of these clips of Kamala Harris are coming back. She was absolutely right about this. And all of the people. I mean, I talked about this on my old show. You and I have talked about this multiple times. He is hooked on this idea that these tariffs are gonna solve these global economic issues that have been around for a generation. I'm sure. I can't imagine how many times you heard this back in the day when you were working with him.
- [29:38]
Michael Cohen
Yeah. So, first of all, he was not a big tariff guy like he keeps talking about.
- [29:42]
Jim Acosta
Oh, interesting.
- [29:44]
Michael Cohen
That's. He didn't even know what a tariff was 35 years ago. All right, this is all planted into his brain by Steve Millers, by the project 2025.
- [29:53]
Jim Acosta
Peter Navarro.
- [29:54]
Michael Cohen
I want to share before I go, all right.
- [29:57]
Jim Acosta
I want.
- [29:57]
Michael Cohen
I want to share this concept on this global tariff. This shoot yourself in the foot and then blame the gun manufacturer for it. This is not going to work. And let me explain to you why. Because the world is global now. And this globalization of the economy, of the. Of the global economy. Here's what's happening right now. They're all turning around. They're saying, Trump is, as we have all known, unpredictable. That could have been a strength and a benefit, but not when you take it to the extent that he has taken it. So what are they doing? Guys like Keir Starmer. Right. And. And others have gotten together and they are now sourcing items that they were buying from America elsewhere. There is nothing that is manufactured or grown in America that you cannot.
- [30:52]
Jim Acosta
I mean, I was. I was watching. I was looking at some stories over the weekend. You know, if you want to go and buy an iPhone, you might want to go do it fast, because they're talking about iPhones going up 60% in price. I mean, folks, there are lots of things that are very critical to our economy that are about to go up big time in these coming days. And I.
- [31:12]
Michael Cohen
You know, Jim, you have all these crazy people, these.
- [31:15]
Jim Acosta
These maga, and he's not gonna be able to fix that.
- [31:17]
Michael Cohen
Yeah, no, but you have all these MAGA morons who are like, yeah, Trump is king. Trump 2028. And they go on and on and on.
- [31:24]
Jim Acosta
Yeah.
- [31:25]
Michael Cohen
When was the last time that, you know, somebody who woke up first thing in the morning and saying, yeah, I want to spend more, 60% more for my iPhone. I want all my expenses.
- [31:35]
Jim Acosta
Yeah, don't don't drop that iPhone. Make sure you got a screen protector. Make sure you got a case.
- [31:40]
Michael Cohen
Put it into a, put it into like a, a steel case. Right. I mean, but this, they are now, all of our global trading partners are out there and they are now figuring out how to purchase items elsewhere that they were buying from America. And the only ones that are going to suffer are going to be Americans. You know.
- [32:04]
Jim Acosta
Yeah.
- [32:04]
Michael Cohen
I just want to say one last thing here.
- [32:06]
Jim Acosta
Yeah.
- [32:07]
Michael Cohen
You know, Trump doesn't understand the concept of a numerator and a denominator.
- [32:12]
Jim Acosta
No.
- [32:13]
Michael Cohen
To him, like I was explaining with the baseball. Right now, he's batting a thousand. But he only, he got on base once the entire season and the time that he played. Let me be clear here. He's the same concept. He has one piece of sand and he calls that the beach. That's not how it works. Yeah, there's. You have to look at the totality. He takes one. So they have one person on this right wing conservative media ecosphere says he's a farmer and that he's thrilled with Trump imposing.
- [32:51]
Jim Acosta
Yeah. Because farmers.
- [32:52]
Michael Cohen
The EU won't take our chickens or beef because of the hormones that we use. Or that they won't accept our cars, by the way, the reason why, for example, Italy doesn't take American cars. They're too fucking big. The streets are small.
- [33:07]
Jim Acosta
Yeah. You can't drive a Suburban through the street. You can't drive a Suburban down the Amalfi coast. You're absolute. Michael. All right, so we're, we're talking about. Here's the tea. This is your appetizer. Next Tuesday, Michael and I are talking about doing a town hall in midtown Manhattan. There are details to come. I don't want to give them right now. I just got a text from Michael Fanon. We believe Michael Fanon will be involved in this. It'll be a double Michael town hall. So. So, but I'm just.
- [33:34]
Michael Cohen
Lemon also said that we're going to wet.
- [33:36]
Jim Acosta
We're going to wet.
- [33:37]
Michael Cohen
Said that if we can season, you know, there's. I have like 11 to 12 people. Everybody knows all these folks. Folks. Plus you get Jim and myself on top of everything.
- [33:47]
Jim Acosta
I mean, it, it's, it's like we should charge money for this, but I don't know if we will. But Michael, great to see you. Great, Michael. Monday, as always. We're still hammering out the details and we'll, we'll, we'll get some more stuff out there soon. Thank you. Michael. Good to see you. Michael.
- [34:01]
Michael Cohen
Great day, by the way. Just tell everybody to please subscribe to my substack too.
- [34:05]
Jim Acosta
Don't forget. That's right. Michael's on substack. He's the best. Michael Monday, everybody. Michael, big round of applause. Thank you, sir.
- [34:13]
Michael Cohen
Thank you, Jim.
- [34:14]
Jim Acosta
Good to see you, buddy. Okay, that is the great Michael Cohen. The man, the myth, the legend. I'm bringing in Matt Lewis. Now, as I was saying earlier on in my posts, Matt is somebody who's been observing the political scene for some time now. He's got a great political mind. What I really like about Matt is that he has come from the conservative viewpoint in the past. Now, let's just see here. Hang on. I'm using the substack machine, so bear with me, everybody. You've heard me talk about the substack machine. It is sometimes temperamental. It is sometimes something that is a bit unwieldy. The substack machine thinks. I want to type in Matthews. I'm not typing in Matthews. I'm typing in Matt Lewis. Let's see here. Stand by, everybody. Stand by. Maybe if I do it this way, but Michael Monday, always, always a pleasure to have Michael Monday on, mainly because, you know, well, first of all, I can just let Michael talk and he will. He will take over the show and do just a gangbusters of a job doing that. Hang on a second. Is Matt Lewis going to get in here or what? What's happening here? Matt Lewis. Donde esta Matt Lewis? Hang on here, folks. I don't want to screw this up, end up bringing in somebody who is not Matt Lewis, but Matt. Matt is great on this because he can also talk about how Republicans have been. How should we put this? But weak in the knees in terms of challenging Donald Trump on all this. Let's see here. That's. That's definitely not Matt. Hang on, everybody. Hmm. Aha. Matt is texting me. It's Matt K. Lewis. That's why it's not working. Stand by, everybody. There he is. Okay, that's what it is. But see, this is. This is what happens. As I've often said on this program, don't let the correspondent touch the equipment. Don't let the. The anchor touch the equipment. There's Matt Lewis right there. So, you know, when. When I operate the substack machine, sometimes good things happen and sometimes tap dancing. We. You sort of need like the Jeopardy Music or something like that in the interim. But Matt, good to see you.
- [36:35]
Matt Lewis
It is good to be here, I have to tell you. I'm like, nervous like, if I went on, you know, cable news, I. I'm not nervous, but it's my first time doing, like, Substack Live. I'm, like, literally nervous here.
- [36:45]
Jim Acosta
Well, I knew being a young man about my age, technically savvy enough, you would probably be able to get your iPhone to work to get the damn thing working. And so that's my. My. My special sauce. I try to find folks who I'm reasonably confident can get the substack machine to work on their phone. And then I. I left out your middle initial K. That is why I was. I was, like, pulling up Chris Matthews or something. Chris would be great, but I wanted to get Matt Lewis. Matt, how the hell are you?
- [37:09]
Matt Lewis
Hey, man, I'm doing amazing. I. I love. I mean, despite the fact that it's. I'm nervous right now, I just love substack. I love YouTube, and I think there's so much cool stuff happening right now and that people. I mean, yeah, the. The world is falling apart and America is in dire straits, but we get to do this. And, yeah, when the backlash comes, I think that it's going to be partly because we have the ability to communicate to. Out there via. No.
- [37:39]
Jim Acosta
And I. I describe it as sort of democratizing the process, bringing the people in. I mean, you can see one of the cool things about this is that you can see people chatting and, you know, putting in their messages and sending their hearts and so on, and we love all of that. But it's also about just bringing people in. I mean, there have been times when I've been hosting this show, and I'll see a comment or a question, I'll be like, oh, yeah, that's a better question than what I was going to ask. But, Matt, and it's been a while since you and I have spoken, but one of the things I wanted to talk to you about is there have been times in the past, and I may have mischaracterized things when I was setting you up and also trying to bring you in the show, that you have been kind of a conservative or brought sort of Republican views to the table and so on. And I'm curious where you are now. Do you still consider yourself a Republican? Are you so pissed off that you're like, screw this, or you're like, damn it, I'll always be a Republican. I care about it. Or are you like, I would. I'm just a conservative. Maybe small C conservative. Where are you right now in all of this?
- [38:35]
Matt Lewis
Well, it's an identity crisis, but it's a great question. Look, I'm from, I live in West Virginia. I'm sitting in West Virginia right now. I'm from Western Maryland. My dad was a prison guard for 30 years.
- [38:45]
Jim Acosta
Wow.
- [38:46]
Matt Lewis
Literally, he went, volunteered to go to jail for three decades so I could get paid to write about politics and talk about politics. So I've, it was a great dad. And so, and one of my first memories, honestly, is my dad taking me to the polls in 1980 when he voted for Ronald Reagan and explaining to me why it was so important. And to be honest with you, all of those reasons are the reasons that I'm against Donald Trump. It really is. And look, I mean, tariffs were not, you know, at the top of the list of things I cared about in 1980. But I'll tell you what, you can see that video of Ronald Reagan talking about tariffs are stupid. He did have some very targeted tariffs, but he was vehemently opposed to this worldview that Donald Trump is now advocating about tariffs being great. And so I will say this, Jim. I believe all, not everything, but I didn't mention I worked for Tucker Carlson at the Daily Caller for six years. And by the way, it was a great job and he was awesome to work with, even though I completely disagree with pretty much everything he stands for today.
- [39:52]
Jim Acosta
How did the Kool Aid taste when. I'm just joking.
- [39:55]
Matt Lewis
Hey, man, I'm watching that, that movie right now, that TV show right now about the cool.
- [40:00]
Michael Cohen
I don't know.
- [40:00]
Matt Lewis
Have you seen this?
- [40:01]
Jim Acosta
No, I've not seen.
- [40:02]
Matt Lewis
Seth Rogen has a new Apple TV show right now.
- [40:05]
Jim Acosta
Oh, yes.
- [40:06]
Matt Lewis
And one of the things that he's tasked with is making a movie called Kool Aid. So maybe that could be my movie about my days at the Daily Caller.
- [40:15]
Jim Acosta
So, but so let me ask you this. So a couple of things. One is, I mean, Reagan kind of began the Republican orthodoxy, I believe, on tariffs. I mean, it seems that that was the case, the one that is carried basically until the time of Donald Trump. Couple of things to talk about. One is it's amazing to me how Republicans have sort of turned tail on this, and now they're just sort of all in on Donald Trump. I mean, earlier today, Mike Johnson, the Speaker of the House Republican from Louisiana, said we're going to give Trump the Runway to deal with this and do what he wants to do with these tariffs. I mean, markets be damned.
- [40:52]
Matt Lewis
It's not just, it's Congress who have that attitude. But you will see this echoed on, you know, Fox News all over the place. There's a ton of clips of allegedly smart political commentators who just say, we just got to trust in President Trump and hope he knows what's best. I mean, that's the philosophy. It's like dear Leader has said, this is a good idea, therefore I have no say in it. I have no political philosophy. I cannot have an opinion that disagrees. Look, I would say, yes, this does go back to Reagan, but it goes back, I think, even before Reagan. I would say that Donald Trump, whether it comes to his worldview in terms of foreign policy or whether it's protectionism and tariffs, is essentially rejecting the entire post World War II American led consensus. And that is really what it is. He wants to return to an era, whether it's like the 1890s or the 1930s. He wants to return to the era before we learned all these lessons. I think after the Great Depression and World War II, it's reasonable that we would sort of take a look around, say we made some. Maybe we need to fix these things. Here's some potential problems we need to look out for. Let's tweak some things. We did that to our credit. And Donald Trump is now upending all of it across the board.
- [42:14]
Jim Acosta
Yeah, no, and there's no question about it. I mean, and it's funny that you mentioned the Great Depression of World War II, because, I mean, you know, the way people are talking these days, we might be heading towards another Great Depression, World War iii, because of a lot of Trump's actions. I mean, look what's taking place in Ukraine and Trump turning his back on Volodymyr Zelenskyy. And then, I mean, you know, this is Pershing Square Capital CEO Bill Ackman, a vocal Trump backer, saying this is according to Yahoo News Finance, saying that these tariffs may bring about a self induced economic nuclear winter.
- [42:47]
Michael Cohen
Yeah.
- [42:48]
Matt Lewis
This is a guy who I think supported Donald Trump.
- [42:51]
Jim Acosta
He did. He's very vocal. Trump back, very. Again, this is, these are people who are like, you know, the sky is falling on, on certain networks and that sort of thing. No, this is, this is a vocal Trump backer. And this is Elon Musk. He's been critical of this.
- [43:09]
Matt Lewis
Well, so this, first of all, on one hand, I feel like we have to welcome converts or people who are at least being intellectually honest today. On the other hand, this really pisses me off. Okay. Because everything Donald Trump is doing was utterly predictable. I mean, not the details, but he was always for tariffs. Hell, he said during the election that he was gonna use tariffs to pay for child care and to restore the auto industry in America.
- [43:32]
Michael Cohen
I don't know how you're going to.
- [43:33]
Matt Lewis
Pay for childcare unless you have pretty onerous tariffs. So, yeah, look, and I've heard other people, Adam Kinzinger's made this point, Chuck Todd has made this point. So I'm just regurgitating or reiterating something that they said, but I think it's so true. All of these people who today are sort of crying like, you know, I was wrong about Trump or, or trying to talk him out of what he's doing now. They didn't say a damn thing when Donald Trump was doing all the other bad stuff, including supporting Russia over Ukraine. They didn't say anything when Russia was kidnapping kids. When Donald Trump was, you name it, attacking Zelensky and the Oval Office, they were perfectly okay with that. They don't care about character. They don't care about foreign policy. The only thing they care about is when it hits them in their pocketbook. But the problem is if you have a lack of character, if you're chaotic and capricious, that's not just, that's just not just focused on tariffs. Like, what is happening now with tariffs, I think is indicative of what Donald Trump is doing writ large in the entire administration. It's just that there's no stock ticker showing us the fallout in terms of our America's prestige around the globe.
- [44:50]
Jim Acosta
Well, you're so right about that. And I was thinking about, should I write a substack? I mean, I did something over the weekend about how his lies always come at a high price, whether it's Covid, whether it's the January 6th and now it's the market meltdown that we're all living through right now. He lies and lies and lies. And you're absolutely right. Leaders in the Republican Party have not only been fully comfortable with his behavior on Ukraine, they've been fully comfortable with all of his moral failings and just being an outright liar on so many things over the years. But he's fenced himself in on, on these tariffs. And you said this in a tweet earlier this morning, that Trump's in a trap, and it's one he's built himself, brick by tariff. Brick. And this, this, this goes right into what we were seeing earlier this morning for the folks who weren't watching at the top of this program when there was this rumor that was going around, ended up being false, that Trump might pause tariffs for 90 days. And then they came out, the reporters came out of the White House and said, no, that's not the case. Trump is saying this is fake news and so on. And it goes to where Trump is in a box right now. He's painting himself into a corner on this.
- [45:58]
Matt Lewis
Yeah, well, so first of all, the fact that people would see a tweet, which I think very well could have been like a pump and dump type situation.
- [46:07]
Michael Cohen
Right.
- [46:07]
Matt Lewis
You could. I could go on Twitter right now and say, I'm hearing that Donald Trump is backing away and then sell my stock at the high point. And then it will follow pretty much immediately when people discover you already think about that.
- [46:21]
Jim Acosta
But you're absolutely right.
- [46:23]
Matt Lewis
And so I think Donald Trump's sort of chaos and capricious nature allows people are willing to believe something weird or crazy that a random tweets, because that's who Donald Trump is. Donald Trump has incentivized that or encouraged that sort of response. But look, yeah, so Donald Trump right now and his team are trying. They're selling two, I think, mutually exclusive arguments. Right. So one argument says that America has been getting screwed all these years and that we need to re industrialize America. And so these tariffs are being put in place for a pretty logical reason, because we need to build more factories in Ohio and here in America, and it's going to be a sacrifice. Nobody said it was going to be easy. We didn't get into this mess overnight. That's one theory. Right. The other theory which is being advanced by some Trump supporters is this. And even Eric Trump, by the way, not just random MAGA supporters, but Donald Trump's own son is saying, my dad is the greatest negotiator in the world, and he's just doing this to get these other countries to drop their tariffs. And so which is it? It can't be both.
- [47:37]
Jim Acosta
Which is it? It can't be both. It can't be both. Exactly. Exactly. Right. And this is where they. I've seen them do this time and again. They did this around Charlottesville, where you have multiple people dancing on the head of the pin trying to come up with multiple explanations for Trump's erratic behavior. And you're seeing the exact same thing play out right now. And, you know, one of the things that I, I mean, you know, it's so sad that he's maybe not so serious about re industrializing America, because places like West Virginia, where you are, could certainly use that. But a couple of things to put the day's news to the side, Matt, and feel free if you want to comment on what we just talked about, please feel free. But two things I want to get to. One is the state of the Republican Party, because that's kind of your wheelhouse. The second thing is people are very concerned in this country right now that we are heading down the road towards dictatorship. And I wonder how much you think that that is a real possibility because it is a concern of mine. And when you can just, you know, sweep people up off the streets because of legal status or whatever and send them off to this crazy ass prison in El Salvador, that's some. That's some frightening shit. I mean, that's. That, that shit should not be going on. That is some weird. That is weird dictator shit. And so that I'm. Let's talk about the Republican stuff in a second. But the weird dictatorship I gotta shit, I gotta ask you about because it is on my mind. I wonder what you think.
- [49:03]
Matt Lewis
I'm greatly concerned, Jim. I mean. So look, maybe it's. I don't want to sound hysterical.
- [49:08]
Jim Acosta
I don't either. I don't either. Yeah.
- [49:10]
Matt Lewis
So Maybe it's a 10% chance, right? If I. If you were gonna get on a plane tomorrow and I told you there's a 10% chance it's gonna crash, how comfortable would you be? You would not, you would not get on that flat, right?
- [49:21]
Jim Acosta
Not do that. Yeah.
- [49:22]
Matt Lewis
And so look, I think that. What do we know about Donald Trump? First of all, we know he's the only person that I know of who's ever tried to stop the peaceful transfer of power, who literally tried to stay on, try to overturn a free and fair election. Right. Secondly, we know he is right now, essentially, they are kidnapping people, throwing them on planes and shipping them off to a country they've never been into to essentially a gulag. This one guy who's a gay hairdresser from Venezuela, as far as I know, his only crime is knowing how to mix foundation or possibly having. Having some tattoo, having some gang tattoos that like, I don't know, Michael Jordan or something, Right? Maybe not a good. Maybe it's a fashion faux pas, but I don't think it's worth being, you know, disappeared and we may never get him back. It's hard to say. Now, could he do that to you or me? Luckily, I think you will be gone first, Jem. I will be lower on the list. But it's not like he caught us enemies of the people. He said we were human scum. So what do you do with enemies of the people? What do you do with human scum? I'm reading a book right now. I literally had to quit reading this book because it was driving me a little paranoid. It's a book that's coming out and it's by a well known historian and the whole thing's a sub tweet of Trump. Donald Trump's name is not mentioned, but it's about Nazi Germany. And it's basically a checklist of how you take over a country. And like one of the chapters is called Us vs. Them. One of the chapters is called Co Opting the Media. And it is Donald Trump is going down the list of what you would do if you were going to try to pull something like this and you have a, you know, what was it called? The, the fire where you create an emergency and you have to impose, you know, martial law. Right.
- [51:28]
Jim Acosta
Yeah, yeah.
- [51:30]
Matt Lewis
That's the danger right now. Here's the one. If there's a good thing about the economy crashing right now and about what's happening, it's that I think it makes it dramatically less likely that Trump could pull this off because we're all, we're.
- [51:44]
Jim Acosta
All bracing for it, we're all paying attention to it, we're all guarding. Again, we're not all doing that, but many of us are guarding against it.
- [51:50]
Matt Lewis
And if public opinion really drops, if his public opinion drops in a major way and if the midterms are disastrous for him, I think it lessens the likelihood he can pull it off.
- [52:01]
Jim Acosta
Yeah, well, but it concerns me a great deal because, I mean, the last time he left office, I was, you know, I was at Joint Base Andrews with him. I was in the pool that day. And they hadn't cooked up the idea at that point of kicking people out of the pool. They took away my press pass but didn't start kicking people out of the pool. And my only thought that day was, my God, I hope he just gets on that damn plane. We have no guarantee of that this next time around. And he may be a lame duck president, he may have a Democratic Congress, but he'll have, you know, some of the trappings and some of the powers of the presidency at, at his disposal. And he can cause a crisis like anybody. Yeah. Like nobody else. And that's the thing that concerns me a great deal. And, and Matt, I guess one of the things we, since you mentioned coming from, you know, Tucker Carlson World and Daily Call World, one of the reasons why I wanted to have you on is because of this. I hear this from time to time. You know, Jim, you should have a Republican on from time to time. I'm Like I do. I just happen to have Republicans on who don't like Donald Trump. So sue me.
- [53:01]
Matt Lewis
Screw you. Let me just say, Jim, in fairness, because I have a podcast, too, and all that. Not nearly as big as yours, but I got one. You can't, in this day and age, you cannot have a Maga Trump Republican on as a guest, really, because they're not going to be intellectually honest. It's going to be. It would be. It would be utterly pointless. So I love diversity and I love talking to people where I disagree, but that is a waste of your time and my time. I don't.
- [53:27]
Jim Acosta
It's a waste of time. And I. If I could do it and have a reasonable, rational discussion with somebody without it going off the rails and trying to score points for the Dear Leader performing for the audience of one. They're all trained like monkeys to do this. And I just. It just drives me absolutely insane. But it just brings me to this very sad reality, Matt, and that is that the party of Reagan, the party of Lincoln, the party of Teddy Roosevelt, party of Dwight Eisenhower is just. It's just a mess right now, and they're not standing up to him.
- [54:02]
Matt Lewis
I totally agree. Look, I believe in permanence, and I believe that the ideas of, whether you go back to Edmund Burke or you go back to Ronald Reagan, these conservative ideas is stand the test of time. And if character mattered once upon a time, then character still matters. If free markets used to matter and used to be a smart idea, I believe nothing has changed to that degree now. Sometimes, yes, or maybe, maybe with China, I would be open to the idea that we should maybe be careful that we can still produce America.
- [54:39]
Jim Acosta
But liberalism can work, too. Progressivism can work, too. Social Security is not perfect, but hell, can you imagine a United States without Social Security? Medicare works. Lots of problems, sure. With Medicare, of course, but it works. You don't have, as LBJ used to say, you don't have a lot of senior citizens on their deathbed with a stack of medical bills. And so it's the going back and forth between the two parties that has just kind of kept this country in good stead. But as I've talked about this so many times on the show, if one country is pro democracy and another one is not, that's. We're not talking about Republican, Democrat anymore.
- [55:17]
Matt Lewis
Totally. Look, I. I'd love to get back to the days where you and I can disagree over, you know, entitlement reform or something.
- [55:24]
Jim Acosta
Exactly. Sure.
- [55:25]
Matt Lewis
But two, but speaking of entitlement reform, I Think that, you know, here we get into a. What is conservatism? It's a semantic argument. Yeah, Like I wrote. I wrote. I write a column for the LA Times, and they have this AI thing that comes in after you write a column, and it sort of goes through and like, you know, critics would say this, and, you know, it gives the reader some context. And my latest column, they described as being center left, which. Interesting, but I think their definition of you, Lefty.
- [55:55]
Jim Acosta
Matt Lewis. But I think Matt Lewis of West.
- [55:58]
Matt Lewis
Virginia, resident, progressive, a semantic problem where if you're not pro Trump, that means you're the left, you know. And so to me, you know, I've.
- [56:08]
Jim Acosta
Heard that many times myself, not to.
- [56:10]
Matt Lewis
Interrupt, but, yeah, conservatives conserving the good things about sort of Western civilization, liberal democracy. So in some cases, it's conserving liberalism that has worked is what I, in my version of conservatism is. And I think that a lot of what MAGA is, is frankly radical. You know, it's not trying to conserve the institutions that you and I believe in. It's trying to burn them down. That's radical. That's not concerned.
- [56:36]
Jim Acosta
Well, Matt, it's great to talk to you. Let's keep doing this, and I'll come on your show and we can talk about entitlement reform or whatever the hell you want to talk about, but I.
- [56:45]
Matt Lewis
Let's do it.
- [56:45]
Jim Acosta
I forgot that you live in West Virginia, and I love the fact that. That we have that aspect of that conversation, too, to get to at some point, because that it's. That's the thing that people, I think, have lost sight of in places like West Virginia, and maybe part of it is because of the media they consume and so on. But, you know, this idea that because of the part of the country that you live in, that there are certain Americans who are against you and so on or enemies and so on. I just. That's the thing that upsets me the most. And I know you come from the same vantage point. So great, but great to talk to you, great to catch up.
- [57:17]
Matt Lewis
Likewise. Thanks, Jim. Thanks for having me.
- [57:19]
Jim Acosta
Let's do it again soon. See it. Matt Lewis, everybody. Really appreciate his time. And I was so being honest about it. I don't like to describe myself as earnest. It sounds like I'm patting myself on the back. But I was trying to be earnest and honest and saying to Matt that it meant a lot to me to have him on this show because he has for so many years come from a conservative Republican point of view. And you can be a conservative Republic Republican and oppose Donald Trump. Just because you oppose Donald Trump doesn't mean you're this way or that way or any other way. So my thanks to Matt Lewis and of course, my thanks to Michael Cohen. I always loved the Michael Mondays, but I want to get a couple quick things in before I go. From the Dear Leader Files, the great Tom Sherwood. For those of you who are outside the Washington, D.C. area, we have a great local reporter here named Tom Sherwood. He's with Channel 4 for many, many years. Years now. Now he's with the Washington City Paper. He reports Trump may get the military parade in D.C. he has always wanted. This is from Tom. According to a D.C. source with knowledge of the plan that's still being developed, Trump has commandeered Saturday, June 14, the 250th anniversary of the army and as it happens, Trump's 79th birthday. Yes, he's going to turn 79. For those of you who are upset that Biden was old for his military parade, it would stretch almost four miles from the Pentagon in Arlington into the White House, according to the source, who stressed that local officials are just learning of it. Wow. Can you imagine Donald Trump taking the economy down the tubes and then holding a military parade for himself? As somebody who's covered Donald Trump for a long, long time, yes, I can totally imagine that happening. It is truly the emperor with no clothes. And as I wrote in my substack over the weekend, somebody explain to the Dear Leader that the emperor has no clothes before we all lose our shirts. My thanks to everybody for tuning in today. Really appreciate it. We got up to what, 7.67, 600 viewers? That's great for a Monday. Always appreciate everybody tuning in and really appreciate folks tuning in around the world. I've seen in the chat comments that there are people tuning in in London and so many other people places. And I want to give a quick shout out to my friends in Norway, the beautiful people of Norway. Thank you so much for hosting me this past weekend, Christopher and all the wonderful people at Scoop S K U P, that is an organization that presents awards to Norwegian journalists. They were kind enough to invite me out to Oslo in a little town outside of Oslo called Tunsberg. It has an O with a line through it. That's one of my favorite things about foreign languages. You have things like O's with lines through it. Anyway, they were lovely hosts. Could not be more happy, more satisfied with that trip. It reinvigorated me in terms of watching what journalists do in other parts of the world, so many extraordinary journalists in so many different countries exercising their rights as journalists to try to bring the truth to the people. And that was just a fantastic. And so if you get a chance, I did a discussion with some of the folks out there that is also on my substack. You can catch up on that substack there also, if you want to listen to it in your car. I think it's on Apple podcasts, it's on YouTube and so on all these different places to catch up. But great to see you guys, as always, on this Monday. Let's hope that tomorrow is a better day. My goodness, we could use that. But in the meantime, still reporting from Washington, I'm Jim Acosta. Have a good evening, everybody. Take care.
- [60:51]
Michael Cohen
Bye.