← The Jim Acosta Show
The Jim Acosta Show
OH SCHMIDT! It's Friday! Steve Schmidt Joins Jim to Break Down the Week's Craziest Headlines from the Iran War, the Proposed Weaponization Fund's Collapse, and Incessant Corruption
00:43:33
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- [00:01]
A
Live from the heart of the nation's capital, this is a Jim Acosta SHOW SPECIAL report. All right. Welcome to the Jim Acosta Show. It's another day that ends in Y and the decline of Donald Trump. Joining me as we do every Friday, it is. Oh, it's Friday. It's Steve Schmidt. Steve, great to see you, man. Good to see you back on. Yeah. And I guess, you know, we were discussing where to start before we got going here. And it seems to me, you know, maybe this, there's a lot of stuff going on. We're going to get through a lot of this. But maybe the image that, that typifies this entire week is this headline that sort of came and went with all the other headlines out there that Trump may keep his, his UFC cage match Arch arena set up on the South Lawn permanently. That's according to ABC News. It's sort of a, I guess a, a bounce house. It looks like a bounce house for a mentally ill president. But Steve, I mean, this sort of typifies, I mean, this, I think this sums it up. You know, it's, it's not the Arc de Trump, it's the Arc de Dump, I guess, or something like that.
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B
He is the most classless person that has ever breathed air in this country. Look at that, look at that picture. Look at what he has done to the White House. To the White House. It is, it is just beyond, beyond. And I know that when I see disorients me, it makes me physically ill, nauseous and then deeply enraged. I think for like Democrats who are thinking of running in 2028, I'm part of a cohort of the population that defies easy description. It's black and white. It's male and female. I was talking to a black guy in the airport came up to me talking to me about this. He was crazed over it. Crazed over it. And I feel crazed over it. On the 1 to 10 scale, looking at that picture, I, my pissed offness is about 673.
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A
Right.
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B
It's, it's, it's indescribable.
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A
Yeah.
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B
And it's all coming down and it's all going to disappear. And this chapter of history which is still building towards something terrible is going, is going to end. But he is out of his mind, surrounded by sycophants drowning from his insanity now looking to paddle away. And I know we're going to talk about that, but it's just awful. It's awful. That question, that's, that's the, I don't I don't. If, if I, if I had said to you on January 20th, right, and you and I are two people who have very, very low expectations for this, right. Can you imagine our reactions if somebody said, I'm going to show you what the White House looks like by the beginning of June of 2026? It's going to look like this. Can you imagine?
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A
It's incredible and incredible. And I will say, you know, for a man who had grand visions of an Arc de Triomphe, an arch or an Arch to Triumph or whatever he was calling it, Arc to Trump is basically what it was. I mean, the one that he may end up with permanently, at least until he leaves office. It looks a bit flaccid, it looks a bit limp, if you know what I'm saying, Steve. It does not look strong. It's not. It's not a symbol of strength, of male strength. I'll just put it that way.
- [03:58]
B
I mean, one of the incredible aspects of all this isn't so much that Donald Trump is Jesus and he has people on his knees speaking in tongues. Adam is God. It's that to some degree, an even larger cohort believes he is a symbol of virility, of fitness, of strength, of something, something. And it is extraordinary.
- [04:32]
A
Yeah.
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B
This broken down, this broken down old man whose ankle girth is the size of most people's waists, falling asleep in the, in the meeting, you know, with. Honest to God, though, you know, it's, it's, it's. But he poisons, he poisons the whole society, right? I mean, you have people all over substack writing that he was dead. Right? This, this, this week from, from all of it. It's just, it's all madness.
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A
Yeah. He was gone for. He was, you know, off the radar for five or six days after his excellent health report at Walter Reed. And then the other kooky thing that he did, he was in the Oval Office. He finally surfaced. Yeah, his bunker. And then he's holding up this poster board that shows the reflecting pool in comparison with. Not that one, the other one. The reflecting pool in comparison with the. With famous skyscrapers. Yeah, yeah, the Empire State Building. Our pool is bigger than skyscrapers. He's. He is obsessed with size. With, with. It's an Oedipal. An Oedipus complex, isn't it? It's a little, It's. Something weird is going on here.
- [05:43]
B
Well, I mean, this guy should have been disqualified for consideration from any position of responsibility and shunned from decent society when he popped up on television on nine bragging about now that the World Trade center was gone, he had the tallest building in Manhattan, which he did. And of course this was the occasion where he talked about the Muslims on the rooftops in Jersey City cheering the collapse of the buildings. All of it made up. This, this is real, right? This is not, this is not an AI generated image from the Oval Office that's treated psychiatric patient president.
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A
And what is it reflecting? Who has skyscraper. I guess he's trying to defend how long this project has been to repaint the bottom of the pool, which they'll say it's, it's, we're sealing it, we're not painting it. And he's the one who says they're painting it. Yeah, I mean who the hell cares?
- [06:48]
B
This is just one of the great, one of the great achievements in, in architecture painting. The painting of the reflecting pool and I were there. We were there with, at the first moments just by, just by chance when they, when they were spraying the first drops of blue paint for the historic, for the historic occasion.
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A
Yes.
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B
Look, they're doing it now. They're starting it right.
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A
He can't open the Straight of Hormuz, but maybe they'll open the reflecting pool. I guess that's, that's what he's hanging his hat on these days. Yeah, but it's absolutely, it's very strange. And you know, if I'm in the Oval Office with Donald Trump at that moment, I'm, I'm asking him, you know, why are you so obsessed with this? What is going on? You know, this, this is, these are the ramblings of somebody who's just not there anymore. It's just, it's just gone.
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B
I, what I want to see is this. I think the color though he picked American flag blue. It appears to me to be more of an Aegean blue, which is related to a Caribbean blue of course, but different. And it makes me think of Albania and Ivanka and Jared. Oh, we should talk about the private island. Apparently that's not private that she has set her the sites on for a billion dollar hotel project.
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A
I think we have a map of that.
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B
I first saw her talking about it, I was like, is this real? This can't be real. But it's, but it is, it's real. And, but I think Jared and Ivanka could be filmed in that reflecting pool, reenacting their swim in the Aegean to that private island. That, that Ivanka is one wants to tune up for 1.4 billion dol to keep in harmony with the earth to save for forever. There it is. Cezanne island, off the coast of, off the coast of Albania.
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A
Yeah. And Steve, apparently it's got some old Soviet era bunkers, nuclear bunkers in there. I mean, they paid a billion dollars for it. And I mean, again, you want to talk about eating the rich, and they're the poster children for this Trump Gilded Age, this Trump foe Gilded Age that we're in right now. And talk about tone deaf. I mean, this is, this is just. If you're an ad maker on the Democratic side or, or, you know, an affiliated group, this is a gold mine here, this Cezanne island thing. There are protests in Albania over it. And so, and people, people paying attention to this, but they are paying, they paid like 1.4 billion for this. They want to turn it into a giant resort. And they're going nuts in Albania over.
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B
They're going nuts in Albania over the Ivanka Resort. And what's incredible here is this is where the Saudi money went.
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A
Yeah.
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B
So this is where the $2 billion that the Saudi professional investment advisors were like, no, Because Jared has no investment experience except for buying a building unfortunately addressed as 666 Madison Avenue or 5th Avenue.
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A
That one always gets me. Yeah.
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B
So, so little fucking Damien Trump there, Jared. Right. And his 666 building is bailed out by the Qataris. But the number one consumer of presidential daily briefs, the princeling, is the guy who is running around the world doing peace deals, who got 2 billion in Saudi money and then bought an island in Albania with it that Ivanka's talking about.
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A
He's really focused on Middle east peace. When I was buying an island in Albania. Yeah.
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B
Yeah. It's amazing.
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A
Yeah. But you know, Steve, the other thing too is that with all this crazy and wacky Trump family news, the Republicans, I don't want to say they're showing some backbone. They're showing maybe that they've done some, some political calculus or maybe basic algebra in the last several days and discovered that Donald Trump's poll numbers are in the toilet. And so they're opposing him on some things. We saw that there's some Republican senators who are opposing the new DNI pick, the acting DNI pick, Bill Pulte, who has no experience outside of building houses and much of anything. And I think really he's just sort of an heir. He's just a guy who has a lot of family. He's a Nepo baby. And then the House voted to rein in Trump on Iran with, on, on, on, on Iran. This was a, a vote that just took place. About four Republicans joined Democrats on this. Obviously, you know, Trump will veto this, but essentially it would end the US Engagement in Iran if this were to pass and get signed into law. It's obviously going to get vetoed. But what do you make, Steve, of some of these Republicans starting to show some. I'm just going to put it as, as plainly as I can show some opposition temporarily to Donald Trump right now.
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B
Too late. Yeah, too late.
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A
Yeah.
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B
They are going down with the ship. Drowning. People paddle, right. They paddle to the end. And I remember about 10 years ago, I was out on Lake Tahoe. I lived there and I had a boat and it was early in the season. Lake Tahoe, for those that don't know, is at about 6,000ft and sun was going down and bringing the boat back into the marina and off a little bit. I see two people, they're in the water and the water is still cold. It's, it's June and they were far enough from shore that they were not going to make it back. And so bring the boat over there. And lo and behold, it's two 15, 16 year old boys. And I had a buddy with me, and the way you talk to boys in that situation is you yell at them. Right. And you know what we yelled at them about for the entire duration of the trip back to shore? Right. As we gave them blankets and everything. Right. Was their judgment and how it almost killed them and how fucking lucky they were. And what a miracle it was by just sheer accident that I looked off to the, to the left and they were going to die and wow, what a stupid decision.
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A
Exactly.
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B
And, and that's those guys. That's those guys. And they're going to drown in the Trump filth and they deserve it. I mean, John, again, if I knew that I was going to do this for my career, have been, have been running presidential campaigns, I would not have gotten a political science degree. I would have gotten a degree in psychiatry and tried to go to med school. Right, right. John, John Cornyn tweeting out the parable of the scorpion on the back of the frog crossing the, the river. And the scorpion stings the frog. What's wrong with him? Yeah, his submission was voluntary.
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A
Exactly.
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B
These are preposterous, preposterous people. And whatever it is they're doing to, to reign them in, it's because they know, they know wherever they are, with Trump's 30% approval level, they're going down.
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A
Yeah.
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B
Except for the races where the incompetency of the Democratic Party is so great that you'll have some survivors.
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A
Yeah, no, there's no question about it. And I think that, you know, we'll have to wait and see what happens in Maine. You know, that, that could be a self inflicted wound for the Democrats. Yeah. But then there are, there's, there are races like the one in Iowa. I had this, this gentleman, Josh Turek, on way back in August of last year. And you know, he's been in a wheelchair since he was nine years old. Very inspiring story. Won a gold medal in basketball in the Olympics. And you know, he is what a guy. And, and so the, the Dems may get lucky. You know, he's gonna win politics. It's great to be lucky. It's better to be lucky than good.
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B
He's gonna win. Yeah, I, I think, listen, I think that, you know, Grant Platner is not my idea of who should be in the U.S. senate. He falls in the unfit category in my book and he should drop out of the race if he cares about, if he cares about the country. When I look at him, I see a person with terrible judgment, a lot of problems, and frankly, another John Fetterman. That, that being said, is there enough
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A
time for Janet Mills to, to mount some kind of campaign at this point? Could she get back in?
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B
She still, she's still, she's still on the ballot.
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A
Yeah.
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B
Right. But that too is an obscenity. Right. Picked by Chuck Schumer. What is she, 80 years old? Yeah, 81 years old.
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A
Popular because she stood up to Trump a couple of times. Very visible.
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B
That that's the qualification. Maybe the qualification should be where's the country going to be in 2040.
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A
Yeah.
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B
Right. Who has some judgment to go in there? I, I think when I look at Graham Platner, I'm open to the idea that. And he's not alone.
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A
Yeah.
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B
Of young men that this country sent to war who came back damaged, who in their anger and isolation found their ways to the keyboard. And he's not going to be the last. And I think the bar in the standard is likely going to move because of the fact that he's not alone with that. What I care about now is he doing it now. Has he gotten help? His wife has forgiven him for something that went on apparently a year ago. Whatever the case is, I know one thing about him. To the best of my knowledge, Grant Platner, unlike Susan Collins, has not betrayed the Constitution of the United States.
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A
Correct.
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B
Graham Platner has not gotten on his knees for A man who launched a coup, who sent mass secret agents into the cities with violence, with violence and malice is his intent. He didn't do any of those things. Graham Platner didn't take away a woman's right to choose like Susan Collins did.
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A
Right.
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B
So. So Susan Collins is an out and out fraud career politician. Right. Spectacularly unfit as a United States Senate. And, and one of the, one of the most prolific fingerprint evidence levers of the destruction of the world's greatest deliberative body. Right. It's not a great choice, but if I lived up there, I'd vote for Grant Blattner.
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A
Well, I think, you know, I think that's what a lot of Democrats are saying right now is that, you know, this is not a time for finding the perfect candidate. This is, this is the time for gaining back the majority so Trump can be stopped. I mean, and I think that's, you know, that's, that's a big part of this here. And I think Susan Collins has sort of made her own bet, as my mother would say. But, you know, the other thing too is, is that Trump, despite the fact that, you know, he has had his ass kicked on numerous occasions over the last week and he went into hiding and disappeared for several days, he is trying to pick Todd Blanche to be the permanent Attorney General. He's trying to not, not acting Attorney General once. He's now saying he's going to pick Todd Blanche and select him as the nominee. And this is going to be a real test for those same Republicans who are trying to show some rugged individualism. Steve, I'm, I'll wait, I'll believe it when I see it. When they vote against Todd Blanch for Attorney General. That I do not.
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B
I'm gonna, well, you know, you kind of lean on the edge, right, like on predictions here. I, you know, I was, this is
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A
like John McLaughlin predictions.
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B
Yeah, I came, I, I did, you know, I came on months ago and I said he was going to get down to 30% approval and he's, and he's down there. Yeah, I, I'm gonna make a prediction. Todd Blanche and I want to make sure he has to go through another confirmation vote. Correct?
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A
Correct.
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B
Okay. Todd Blanche will not be confirmed as Attorney General. And I'll even lean into it more. Right?
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A
Yeah.
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B
There's a much greater likelihood of Todd Blanche being disbarred. He's going to be disbarred, not this year, but soon enough than he will ever be of being Attorney General. He's not going to be Attorney General.
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A
Yeah, he's. And he's also one of the more shameless liars I testify up on Capitol Hill. I mean, it's pretty, he does kind of fit in with this crowd. But, you know, when I saw Congresswoman was a Congresswoman DeLauro, I think she was pressing him during a, you know, congressional hearing this week over in the House, and she was pointing out how, I think that one of these Trump PACs had paid Blanche $10 million, which, you know, for his legal work when Trump was in all that hot water. I mean, that to me is, it's pretty extraordinary, Steve, what is uncovered or undercovered these days? Just the, the rank corruption, you know, just the, the out and out, you know, attempted theft of the treasury and the weaponization fund. You know, Todd Blanche was testifying this week that the weapon is that they're pulling back on the weaponization fund and so on. If he says that they're pulling back on it, I'm kind of thinking they're not. I, I'm sort of thinking this is going to make a comeback. And at the very least, one of the undercovered things of the week is that Trump still maintains the immunity part, the, the, you know, the, the, the pardon part, the get out of jail free, get out of audit free part of that weaponization fund.
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B
I had, I had Alyssa Slin, Senator Slin, on the warning this week, and she talked about this and she's so impressive and, you know, she just made the point that you can't trust any of the norms and this requires legislation and has to be addressed in law. And that's what has to happen. That's what has to happen. It's the most astonishing story of our careers in that you have a guy that had the audacity to try to take $1.8 billion of our money to give to the January six criminals. It's, it's unbelievable. Unbelievable.
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A
Yeah.
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B
And he's suffering for it. He's paying for it.
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A
Yeah. I, I mean, and I, I just think that, you know, we're in a, we're in a point right now where unless, you know, there are real brakes put on what Trump is doing right now, the world, you know, this country is going to be in a whole lot of trouble. And so, you know, the Democrats are just going to have to, it's, it's sort of that. What is that? Rumsfelden. Rumsfeldy is unknown unknowns, known unknowns and democracy is messy and so on. We should talk about Scott Pelley in 60 Minutes. Steve, I know you've got some strong thoughts on that. You and I were talking about this before we got started and you had worked with the 60 Minutes team and some John McCain interviews. And you know, Scott Pelly, he, he represents the era of Walter Cronkite and Dan Rather and Bob Schieffer and Edward R. Murrow when, when the news was done the right way in this country. And the far right has very methodically chipped away at that. And now they're, they're on the brink of tearing down 60 minutes and Barry Weiss is a tool of that project. But they're on the verge of doing it, Steve. They're on the verge of pulling it off. What do you think about all this?
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B
I guess it's disgusting. I, Scott Pelly is the very, very best at what he does and Barry Weiss is the very, very worst at what she does. And so in our careers, in our entire careers, taking Chris Licht off the table, this is, this is the most incompetent person who has worked in the media in any position of prominence by every available metric you use to judge how's it going, the ratings, the audience, the respect of the institution. And it is a disaster. What David Allison, the son of the third wealthiest man in the world, hired her to do is what Scott Pelley said was murder. 60 Minutes.
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A
Yeah.
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B
The purpose of CBS News is no longer to inform the public. The purpose of CBS News as a corporate instrument run by these people is the perpetual appeasement machine that will allow David Ellison the space and the grace for the regulatory approvals.
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A
Yeah.
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B
That he should never get because of the anti competitive nature of these consolidations under US Law. That's what it's about. It's a corrupt act. It was a corrupt act when Shari Redstone settled the lawsuit. It was a corrupt act when Barry Weiss intervened on the See Cott story. Correct. Sharon Alphonse, abuse by Barry Weiss, as well as Tanya Simon, the executive producer. As, as, as well as the other correspondent. I think it's Cecilia Varga or Vega.
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A
Cecilia Vega, yes, Cecilia.
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B
Cecilia. Cecilia Vega is, is all part of that. And I think what would be interesting to see is that whatever lawsuit Alphonsi or Peli files will be in a New York or California jurisdiction which are favorable for them. And I think these are people who have to wherewithal by themselves.
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A
Yeah.
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B
Right. To, to look at records and to determine what happened. Because you're going to, through discovery, be able to get the emails between Weiss and Allison.
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A
Correct.
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B
Between Allison and the White House. And the one thing I know for sure is these people put it all
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A
in emails, text messages. That's right.
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B
And, and so this, this story's not done. 60 Minutes is dead. Right. The show that I grew up watching, right. In the introduction to culture and musical geniuses that Ed Bradley did, you know, the places around the world, the naturals that killed the show, and they killed it under government coercion and intimidation to advance corrupt business deals. And these people for whom more and more and more is their life calling, couldn't resist. And, and here we are.
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A
That's right.
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B
That's why, in part, Donald Trump has a 30 approval level. But I'll tell you something that Barry Weiss and the drama of Barry Weiss from the resignation to the New York Times. I say this at age 55, no against all of them because we were old enough to remember the Tammy Faze and the Jim Bakers and the, and the Oral Roberts in the whole pantheon of grifters from our lifetime.
- [29:01]
A
That's right.
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B
We've gotten to be able to light. Lay eyes on Barry Weiss is way up there. Way.
- [29:07]
A
Oh, yeah.
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B
At the top of the peak. Wow, is she full of man.
- [29:13]
A
She really is. And I will say, you know, one of the more stunning things that I have seen in, in many, many times, many, many years in my time, you know, being a part of journalism and observing journalism. When Scott Pelley puts out a statement that accuses Barry Weiss and her team of trying to inject political bias, this is what he says. For my part, new management has instructed me to inject falsehoods and bias into a politically sensitive story. I've been told to include assertions that are unverified. That is what Scott P. Said in his statement. To your point, Steve, about the document trail, the, the discovery process. Scott P. Would not make that charge unless he had the goods, unless he had the, the documentation to show that that is what CBS management tried to do to him. And if that comes out, that is. You remember memo gate with Dan Rather, which was, you know, obviously a very serious scandal over at cbs. And you know, I love Dan Rather and look up to him, but it was, it was a difficult moment for the network. This would be, this would completely blow that out of the water. If Scott Pelley can show that Barry Weiss and her team were trying to force him or others at that program to include things that were untrue or politically biased, I just think that that would be an earthquake.
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B
I, I think there's no doubt.
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A
Yeah.
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B
That. That they're going to be able to show that. I also think they're going to be able to prove by showing evidence of details around what we know to have happened regarding the settlement of the mergers. It's part of one continuous action of corruption that is taking place in plain sight while these mergers go through approvals. And David Ellison manipulates the President. And the President manipulates David Ellison.
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A
Yeah.
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B
Who is the truly villainous figure in there? Barry. Barry Weiss. And we have big substacks. Okay. And Barry Weiss has a big substack.
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A
Yeah.
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B
Is our substacks worth what Barry Weiss was paid by cbs?
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A
No.
- [31:45]
B
And the answer is of course not. She was paid for the specific action that was described by Scott Pali. She's a hitman or hit woman. She came in there to murder the show to crush the ratings. She is the real life version of, of, of the, the genius play Springtime for Hitler. Right. She, she's trying to crush a television network into submission when it comes to confronting power. The Pentagon, we don't have really any transparency about the damage to US Bases, US Equipment, casualties, wounded. We have no reporters in the fleet. Correct. On the ground. And the assault on the First Amendment is contiguous, continuous. And, and now after what will be a disgrace like that will the, the greatest moment of national dishonor and disgrace in 250 years. We're going to get to live through it. This, this, this, this month and next.
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A
Yeah.
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B
In July with the claw on the White House lawn. And then these corrupt Washington reporters are, are. Honest to God. They're gonna, they're gonna, they're gonna put their tuxedos back on when it's, when it's 107 degrees out in D.C. and they're gonna go back to another correspondence dinner for this.
- [33:35]
A
I'm so glad you mentioned hitting me. I, I'm so glad you mentioned that. I. It is unbelievable that the White House Correspondents association. Do they stand for nothing? Do they stand for when 60 Minutes is being murdered? As Scott Pelly said, you're gonna go and get in your tuxedos and your, your ball gowns and, and get together with Donald Trump in his old hotel ballroom and champagne, champagne glasses. It's nuts.
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B
How does, how does nobody who's a serious journalist in the Correspondence association stand up and say, hey Yjjang, like you're great, but you got to resign.
- [34:07]
A
Yeah.
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B
You can't be the head of the White House Correspondence Association. You work for Barry Weiss. Right. Like, like, like reporters understand that, right? I hope like someone somewhere who's part of the White House Correspondence association has to understand. Right. Like, if you work for NBC News, it's a big problem. Right. If YJJ is cbs, who works for Barry Weiss, is the head of the Correspondence Association. Yeah.
- [34:34]
A
That, the, that whole system, it just does not work. Yeah. And I, if I were, if I were these folks, I would say, listen, we'll have a nice little dinner at some ballroom in some hotel, but we're not inviting the president, we're not inviting his people if they're going to take a meat ax to the First Amendment. And I just don't know why that's a terribly difficult position to take. It's, it's not, it's not, it's barely courageous. It's just sort of like the way things used to be in Washington. And I've said this many times, Steve, and you know, this being on the other side of this, that if you have been working for a political campaign and called my boss and said, you know, Jim Acosta is a real asshole. He asks a lot of asshole questions. You know, we want to get rid of him. We need you to get him off the campaign trail, get him off the plane. We don't want him around anymore. In the old days, the boss would tell you, Steve Schmidt, fuck you, I'm not doing that. And as a matter of fact, I'm going to tell him to be 10 times harder than he is right now. That is the way things used to be done. The press used to stand up for themselves, and now they just roll over. And no wonder we're in the position that we're in. And I think that's part of the reason why Trump wants to destroy places like 60 Minutes. He wants to kneecap the courts and the Congress. He doesn't want the scrutiny for all of the corrupt things that he's doing right now.
- [35:47]
B
I think, I think, like, that there's this emotional aspect in this, you know, when I listen to you and you talk about and you say it's why he wants to destroy 60 minutes. If you're saying that in the context of identifying his motive, a hundred percent. If you're saying it in the, in the context of a process underway, he's achieved it. Right. He's. He's wrecked 60 Minutes. Scott. Think I. So I've been interviewed by 60 Minutes twice. I, I've worked with the show on many occasions over my career. And Scott Pelly was the correspondent assigned to John McCain.
- [36:35]
A
Yeah.
- [36:36]
B
In the 2008 campaign. You, you could hold a gun to my head. I, I couldn't Tell you what, what Scott Pelley's politics are. I have, I have no, I have no idea. No, no idea. Not. There's not a hint. Right. And, and, and, but I know what Barry Weiss's are. Right. They're tattooed on her forehead. Mag.
- [36:59]
A
Yes.
- [37:00]
B
And, and so the fact that virtuoso at being able to sit across from somebody. And, and I. The interview he did with Ben Sasse, a masterpiece in this, in this, in this as a point of evidence, in this description at being able to elicit from people really penetrating things.
- [37:33]
A
Yeah.
- [37:33]
B
He was great at what he did. Yep. And, and he was fired for having integrity.
- [37:40]
A
That's right.
- [37:41]
B
And, and, and the same with Sharon Alfonsi. And, and, and what's great about watching this. And I, I wrote about this months ago. It's not that one person, the executive producer left, but the culture of the show. None of these people are yielding. Right. The. So it turns out in the ad. Right. That the place that would not break the line, that would not hold the get the out of here place in America, that place turned out to be 60 Minutes.
- [38:17]
A
Yeah.
- [38:18]
B
Which is why it's so much more important in this moment understanding that than just the stealing of something we all enjoyed.
- [38:31]
A
That's right.
- [38:31]
B
Right. You know, on Sunday and for me again, at 55, I watched it growing up.
- [38:41]
A
Yeah.
- [38:41]
B
With my parents, my kids watched it growing up with me. And now it's gone. Because of Barry Weiss. For no other reason than we have an illiberal president and corrupt leadership at a news network owned by the Sun. The soft handed billionaire son of the third richest man in the world. He's like a little Richie Rich. More, more, more.
- [39:12]
A
That's right.
- [39:12]
B
More, more, more.
- [39:15]
A
Steve, as always, my man, you hit it out of the park. You know, I feel like we should end this episode with the tick, tick, tick, tick, tick after what you just said right there. But you know, I, it is, it is kind of a gangster's paradise right now. And you know, they, they unquestionably have murdered an American institution. And I, I just hope that there's some, some kind of way to bring it back. But it seems to be right now, it's, it's lost. But Steve, my man, always great to see you.
- [39:42]
B
Thanks so much, Jim. Have a great weekend.
- [39:44]
A
You too, bud. Take care. Thanks so much. Yeah. Always appreciate catching up with Steve Schmidt. Great stuff as always. And it is always great when you, the subscribers, the viewers of this program support independent media. Believe me, it matters. 100. Do we need any other reminders of how much independent media matters these days than. Than what we've seen with the debacle over at 60 Minutes, that corporate influences that are in cahoots with the Trump administration when they can silence journalists and run a program like 60 minutes into the ground, it tells you exactly everything that you need to know that this is the time for independent media. It is time for the. The days of independent media to rise up and replace the failings of legacy and corporate media. What we're seeing unfold right now over at 60 minutes is yet another reminder that supporting independent media matters. So anytime you can support this program, you know, even if you're just sharing it with somebody, you know, if you're liking it, you're hitting that, like, button on places like YouTube or if you become a subscriber. Folks who subscribe to this program on Substack, you're. Let me tell you, you're doing the Lord's work. You are helping this program, and you're helping folks like me get this show off the ground. And it. And we're growing every day over here, and it's because of the support you give. And if you're on YouTube and you're just happening to watch this, make sure you hit that subscribe button. I see comments all the time. Jim, I didn't know you were on YouTube. I didn't realize this. Well, hit that subscribe button. It does help build up our audience. And make sure you share it with 5 or 10 of your friends and say, look, hey, did you know that Jim is doing the show over on YouTube? Believe me, all of these things make a difference. What we're trying to achieve here is some critical mass and growing something that is truly a part of something that I think is changing the media in this country. You see more people like me and Don and Joy and Katie and. And all of the others who are doing this. It. It makes a huge difference. And so I just want to thank all of you for supporting this program each and every day and each and every week. It means the world to me. And we can see the results. We see the comments, we see the subscriptions coming in, and it. It makes a huge difference. And it makes us all in it. On top of that, it makes us all very happy and gratified to see it as well. So really appreciate that. I want to thank Steve Schmidt for coming on the show again, once again, and thanks to all of you for being with us each and every day, each and every week. It really means the world to me so much. So thanks for that, but in the meantime, still reporting from Washington, I'm Jim Acosta. I'll see you next time.