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The Jim Acosta Show
Oh Schmidt it's Friday with Steve Schmidt. Our Discussion on Hegseth, Pirro and the White House Turning War into a Video Game
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- [00:00]
Steve Schmidt
Foreign.
- [00:06]
Jim Acosta
Welcome to the Jim Acosta show. And it's another day that ends in Y and the chaos unleashed by Donald Trump in the Middle East. Let's bring in Steve Schmidt for another episode of oh, Schmidt, it's Friday. Steve, good to see you as always.
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Steve Schmidt
Good to see you, Jim.
- [00:21]
Jim Acosta
I, you know, I'm concerned about some of these developments. The Associated press reporting the US military is sending roughly 2,500 marines and at least one extra warship to the Middle East. This is not Donald Trump calls this an excursion. This doesn't look like an excursion to me. And it doesn't seem to be ending the way he was signaling the other day when he was trying to manipulate the stock market and the oil market. But the other thing we should get into is Pete Hegseth, the self described war secretary. He's not. He's the defense secretary at the Pentagon briefing this morning. He was, you know, popping off on the press and calling CNN fake news and meanwhile taking questions from Lindell TV and these fantic outlets. But Steve, your thoughts on where we are right now? I mean, it does seem as though things are escalating, things are spiraling. Trump is not in control of these events.
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Steve Schmidt
Well, he certainly isn't. And Pete, Pete Hegseth, when you, when you think about this, in this moment, there are no journalists deployed with the US Military bearing witness to what's being being done by the military in our name. It's completely unacceptable when it comes to Iran. We, we see a contradiction or a new reason why we're there every minute or two by this administration. And so we see this administration filled with the boys that Trump buys their shoes for them lost in this war of their own choosing. It was supposed to be easy. It was supposed to be that the Iranian regime that was weak and about to crumble was going to succumb to Donald Trump under American air power. And that's not happening. Iran controls the Straits of Hormuz. It's disrupted the world's trade of oil. And the American people are going to feel it in an economic shock where gas is going to be $5, $6, maybe $7 a gallon. And the Iranians seem to have no immediate plans to allow Donald Trump to be their new ayatollah. And so we have a huge problem unfolding in the Middle east right now. Is that what Donald Trump has done is start a war, which is relatively easy, with no plan to how to end one. And as we have seen over the course of the 21st century, how we end wars in the Middle east is something easier said than done.
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Jim Acosta
Yeah. And then there's the news of the six US Service members who lost their lives in, in the plane over Iraq. Another example that, you know, these kinds of wars have consequences. And, and Steve, I, I mean, I, I think what we need to do is, is play what Pete Hegseth was saying earlier this morning. I mean, you know, there's, there's a huge difference between the way Defense Secretary Hegseth behaves during these briefings versus the Joint Chiefs chairman who, who comes in there and, and immediately talks about the deaths of service members as a Joint Chiefs chairman should, showing the, you know, the requisite respect that is, you know, expected in these kinds of proceedings and so on. And then Hegseth comes in and he acts, he's, he's swatting around in a way that is just very unbecoming of the civilian leadership of the Defense Department. But let's play a little bit of this. And he took a shot at CNN and also, I guess, pined for the idea of state controlled media or MAGA controlled media. Let's play all this and talk about it.
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Pete Hegseth
Who in the press just can't stop. Allow me to make a few suggestions. People look up at the TV and they see banners, they see headlines. I used to be in that business and I know that everything is written intentionally. For example, a banner or a headline Mideast war intensifies. Splashing on the screen the last couple of days alongside visuals of civilian or energy targets that Iran has hit, because that's what they do. What should the banner read instead? How about Iran increasingly desperate because they are. They know it and so do you. If it can be admitted. Or more fake news from CNN reports that the Trump administration underestimated the Iran war's impact on the Strait of Hormuz. Patently ridiculous, of course. For decades, Iran has threatened shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. This is always what they do, hold the strait hostage. CNN doesn't think we thought of that. It's a fundamentally unserious report. The sooner David Ellison takes over that network, the better. Another example of a fake headline that I saw yesterday, War Widening. Here's a real headline for you. For an actual patriotic press. How about Iran shrinking going Underground. You see, Iran's leaders are hiding in bunkers and moving into civilian areas.
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Jim Acosta
The only thing that is calling for a patriotic media. I mean, this is, you know, this is laughable stuff. It would be laughable stuff if it weren't so serious. And I mean, to me, you know, it's pretty obvious to everybody they did not anticipate Iran doing what it's doing to the Strait of Hormuz right now, or else they'd have a better plan than burning tankers in the Persian Gulf right now. It's insane.
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Steve Schmidt
When you watch Pete Hagseth, his total lack of comportment, his total lack of command bearing, he is someone who is a lightweight, really, the likes of which we haven't seen before. It's almost as if he should be tethered to be kept from floating away. And each day, the bluster, the arrogance, the fetishization of death, the American people see it and they see the opposite of what was promised, that this was going to be a short, fast, victorious war. And it's anything but. And it's clear that they don't have a. They don't have a plan. Air power does not affect the control of the Straits of Hormuz. And the Straits of Hormuz remain firmly under Iranian control. It's a very narrow waterway. And let me say something for the chairman of the Joint Chief Chiefs of Staff is. The chairman is not legally in the Secretary of Defense's chain of command. He's the principal senior military adviser of the President of the United States. He doesn't have to stand up there with Pete Hagseth and besmirch his uniform and degrade it. And all he has to say to the President is, I'm not standing up there with that idiot. It's embarrassing. He's as big an embarrassment and more so because it's on the, it's on the international stage. Then Christy Nomez, then you have the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff standing up there playing the role of Colin Powell to, to Dick Cheney from the original Gulf War. And those two don't hold a candle to, to those two in the comparison. And Kane shouldn't do it. And, and Kane. There's not been a senior, a single senior military officer who's otherwise resigned, walked away through this debacle that is, that has wounded hundreds of Americans, killed 11 and a couple thousand Iranians, including the 168 schoolgirls.
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Jim Acosta
That's right, Steve. I mean, and you and I remember the days of Norman Schwarzkopf, Storm and Norman. I mean, this is not Storm and Norman. This is hysterical. Hegseth. And he's, you know, he's, he's whining and bitching about the press like they do over on Fox. And this, this moment just doesn't call for that kind of bullshit. It's Such a lightweight. It's, it's sycophantic sophomore, it's ass wipe, arm fart bullshit. And you know, somebody just needs to get, get a, get ahold of him and pull him off stage before he further embarrasses the American. They, they, they call on people like Lindell, TV one, America News, real America News, and it's an embarrassment. And they banned a reporter from the Atlantic today. And I guess, you know, I, I made a big deal about this on Twitter and I said, you know, you shouldn't, you should allow the, the major networks to participate, the major news outlets to participate in this. And they got all flustered over there and they said, well, you know, the Wall Street Journal got to ask a question. Not. This is, please stop with the bullshit over at the Pentagon. Right, Steve? If you're not going to call on all the networks and the major newspapers during a time of war, you're just wasting our time. And you know, for Hegseth to cry about how he wants the Ellisons to take over cnn, this is not serious.
- [09:58]
Steve Schmidt
He's a thin skinned, petulant, untreated psychiatric patient who was denounced by his mother in writing for abusing women. And his tenure at the Pentagon has been a disgrace all the way through. And this is a guy who is completely in over his head, who is as unfit for the job that he holds as any person has ever been unfit for any job anywhere that they've been unqualified for. There are no words really to describe the levels of unpreparedness for this job intellectually, but most importantly, morally. Pete Hegseth is a disgrace. He's a danger. He's a religious extremist. In fact, he's a religious nutter is what he is. With the crazy anti Catholic pastor who hates women and thinks that slavery was a good thing and that this man is directing this war is a danger to every single American. And in the weeks ahead, there will be more and more impact for daily life because this will raise the prices even more on the staples that ordinary Americans need to live life.
- [11:34]
Jim Acosta
And I, I guess we need to find out why these 2500 Marines are headed to the Persian Gulf if, if they are going in any capacity to secure the Strait of Hormuz. I, I just want to know what the outcome of this, this deployment is, because if it has anything to do with securing the Strait of Hormuz, then he spent much of today's briefing just lying to the American people. Oh, we, we anticipated that there would be problems with the Strait of Hormuz. If you anticipated it, why is. Why are things on fire? Why are they laying mines in the Persian Gulf? I mean, it just seems to me. And we need to discuss the military aspect of this. Steve, you work for John McCain. I mean, and John McCain was definitely a hawk when it came to military issues. I don't know. I'm fairly certain what he would think of the way this is being conducted right now. You've got Lindsey Graham cheerleading on the. On the sidelines. He seems to want to invade other countries like Cuba, and he just keeps going down the list. But I'm wondering what John McCain would think of all of this. And. And for folks to say, oh, well, he would be on board with all. I don't know if that's necessarily the case.
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Steve Schmidt
Well, I. He was. He was deeply offended during the Iraq war by the incompetence, which. That war was waged, particularly by Donald Rumsfeld. And so I think he would look at it and being among the first to say that there doesn't appear to be a strategy here. This is, as we were told at the beginning, is that we would begin dropping bombs and the Iranian regime would crack apart. And so what we've managed to do is to replace the Ayatollah Khomeini with a new Ayatollah Khomeini.
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Jim Acosta
Right.
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Steve Schmidt
So there's a new Ayatollah Khomeini at the price of 11 dead Americans. Hundreds of Americans, and a war that has not accomplished its objectives. And a vast percentage of the world's oil transit through a sliver of water between Oman and in Iran that are known as the Straits of Hormuz. And the Iranians control that strait. It can be seen across it at its widest point very, very easily. And here's the deal. The. The United States can drop all the bombs that it has. That does not mean we control an inch of Iranian territory. It's a country with 92 million people. Trump said we had to attack because the Iranians might get nuclear weapons. He said the program was obliterated six or seven months ago.
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Jim Acosta
Right.
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Steve Schmidt
Why are we fighting? And nobody can give a straight answer that holds from dawn till dusk. Yeah, this is a disaster. And it's getting worse. And America will be weakened. And what Trump will have accomplished by the time we get to the midterm election is a wrecked American economy. And he will be the president who figured out how to lose a war to Iran. How do you lose a war to Iran? Well, it's simple. You allow A fool like Pete Hagseth to be your Secretary of Defense.
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Jim Acosta
Yeah. And the Iranians know exactly what they're doing. They are causing chaos in the, in the Persian Gulf. They're trying to create a global energy crisis. This is right out of their playbook. Anybody who, who has studied this issue or covered it mildly, like myself over the last two decades, knows that this is exactly what they were going to do all along, which is why a lot of diplomatic efforts had gone into trying to disarm the Iranians of the, of this nuclear program over the course of, you know, many years. And Donald Trump decided to throw that to the wayside. And now he's seeing, I mean, there, there are drones flying into Dubai, there are Americans stranded in the region. Civilian airliners can't really go into the region without fear of getting blown out of the sky. And so this is the, this is the situation that we're up against right now. And, and Trump doesn't seem to know his way out of it. And the other thing that they're, that should not give anybody any confidence right now, Steve, is the way that the White House has been posting about this on social media. Talk about unserious. I want to show this tweet from the White. This is from the official White House X account. And you know, we know that there's a bunch of frat boys and, and idiots who run these accounts, but this takes the cake. They're comparing warfare to the Wii video games that my. Like my kids, or maybe your kids, Steve, used to play with. Look at this.
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Steve Schmidt
Holy one. 10.
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Jeanine Pirro
It's out of dark.
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Jim Acosta
I mean, the goofballs at the White House are putting this stuff out there at the same time that Donald Trump is lying and saying that the Iranians bombed their own girls school where 170, roughly 170 little kids were killed. I mean, this is the height of callousness of, of, I mean, just ugliness
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Steve Schmidt
on their moral abomination is, is what it is. And I think if I were a Democratic senator, I would make it pretty clear that I'm going to put a hold on every nomination if I see one again. I, I thought Thom Tillis did a fantastic job of threatening what would happen if he didn't get the information that he wanted to see out of Kristi Noem. And this is on General Kaine again. He can make this stop. He needs to walk into a White House meeting to Susie Wiles, to Trump if necessary, and make it clear that he's done. I'm resigning. I'M leaving. If I see another one of these videos. It is, it is as unseemly a thing as I have ever seen. It is fetishizing, killing and, and, and death while the United States is, is at war. It is, it is sickening. Sickening. And it.
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Jim Acosta
In any administration, they would have been. In any other administration, these people would be fired.
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Steve Schmidt
Speaks. Speaks to the depra of. Of Donald Trump and so many of the people that are, that are part of this administration, it's just, it's just a unspeakable thing. Appalling. Well, it would be released from the government.
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Jim Acosta
And Steve, I think you have pinpointed something that I haven't really heard anybody else pinpoint, and that is bringing this to the desk of Chairman Kane. Chairman Kane, the Joint Chiefs Chairman. He has a unique responsibility here. Mark Milley, the former Joint Chiefs Chairman, who I think, you know, maybe he made some mistakes. He shouldn't have shown up when they had the, the George Floyd protests that got violent outside the White House, that, that the White House got violent with the protesters. But Mark Milley, you know, towards the end of the administration was telling Donald Trump, no, we're not going to do the crazy, batshit stuff that you want to do. And he became an enemy of Donald Trump. And Donald Trump has made it very clear that he wants to go after Mark Milley. And, and these generals, I suppose they're worried about that. They're worried over at the Pentagon. They're human beings just like you and me. They have families and kids and mortgages and everything else. But there are things that are bigger than, than much of that. And that is what this country stands for. And I'm right there with you. I think that this is a question for, for Chairman Kane. Somebody should ask Kane at one of these press briefings, are you okay with the White House making light of. Of warfare that you're in charge of?
- [20:11]
Steve Schmidt
Kane does not again exist inside of Hegseth's chain of command. Yeah, the, the chain of command flows and this is why all of this matters. We don't have a Secretary of War. We have a Secretary of Defense. And the combatant commanders are in the Secretary of Defense's chain of command. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is the President's principal military advisor. And he is statutorily the highest ranking military officer, but not by the size of his command. And so Cain, every day when he goes out there, it plays Costello to Abbott as Pete Hegseth degrades the dignity of the military with his Insanities and his rhetoric and his fetishization of death. Cain is making a conscious decision to yoke the dignity of the armed forces, the uniformed services, to the rhetoric. He can refuse to do it, as in going to his boss and saying, he's an embarrassment and I'm not going out there with him, Mr. President, which compels Trump to make it stop. But the problem is, and again, it's why the shoes are such a big deal. We have an administration of boys, broken children who are given their shoes and their imagined size through Trump's guests. And so that level of control and that level of submission or something that have to be accounted for when we're talking about people measuring up to their responsibilities. You can listen to MacArthur's speech at Thayer hall in 1962. In a lot of ways, General Kane is the living refutation to it in this moment in time.
- [22:22]
Jim Acosta
I'm so glad you brought up the shoes because I was talking about this on the show earlier this week and you know, it really does paint the picture and maybe. Is it, is it because we're getting older, Steve, and we get a little grumpier and more curmudgeony about this kind of stuff. But I just, and I don't want to offend anybody at home who thinks I'm being male chauvinist or, you know, you know, having a male oriented brain or whatever. I just, I do miss the days when men were men. I, and, and I know this is sort of like a MAGA thing that they pretend to talk about on Fox, but I, I just miss the days when men were men. And I, you know, these are not men. If you are not man enough to say, I'm sorry, Mr. President, I like the shoes that I have and I like the way that they fit and I'm just going to keep doing my thing. If you're so afraid of losing your job that you would wear shoes that Donald Trump in his advanced decline stage thinks that you should wear and they don't fit right. And for Marco Rubio, where he looks like he should be wearing a size 9 and he's wearing an 11 and a half or what I mean, come on. Is that maybe I'm not getting the words out right, Steve.
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Steve Schmidt
Cheap pleather plastic leather shoes that Trump gives them and they walk in to meetings with the world leaders and every. There's an old Italian proverb. You could tell much about a man by looking at his shoes. That's right.
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Jim Acosta
Shoes mega man.
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Steve Schmidt
And it, it says a lot, it
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Jim Acosta
says a lot Yeah, I remember going into a Brooks Brothers, you know, my younger days, and I had a guy there who was helping me pick out some suits because I didn't know what the hell I was doing. And the guy told me, you know, you need to dress from the shoes up. You know, shoes matter. And I, and I, I try to take that to heart. And I think you can buy nice pairs of pair of shoes no matter what kind of budget you have. And then this is not a knock on floor shine or anything like that. It's more a knock on, like, what is going on with these guys in the, in the Met. I mean, it's almost Donald Trump collects broken, sad sacks of crap men. It seems to me. It's like, it's sad.
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Steve Schmidt
No, no adult should wear the patent leather shoe. No, no male at any rate. But Fetterman always drove me crazy about this, which is, yeah, your United States senator wear a suit. And, and what you're talking about when we were young guys. And you're right about this, right. It's not, it's not about the cost of the shoe. It's about knowing how to dress.
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Jim Acosta
Yeah.
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Steve Schmidt
And it's, it's appreciating that your shoes should be shined, that you should be squared away, your tie should be at the, at the right length. Just basic elementary things. And, and by the way, all of these people are billionaires in that picture. Billionaire is, is Marco Rubio, right. He makes more than enough to buy a really nice pair of shoes. But Trump gifts, these guys, these, these cheap shoes and, and, and expects them to wear them. And, and they're like a collar. Everyone has shoes on, everyone's wearing their collar. And, and that's who these, and that's who these people are. And, and the business they're in is life and death. And they are an adult, extreme disordered group of people who are a real danger when you, when you, if, if we had, if we had checked out a year and a half ago, they were like, well, we'll be back after we've made all of our predictions and the bad stuff that's going to happen. And we're back this week with the burning tankers in the Straits of Hormuz. Are you kidding me? The world is in chaos. 20 countries involved in a war, five $6, $7 gas headed towards the American, American people. Just a disaster that we haven't caught up to the dimensions of yet when contemplating how to describe it, how to, how to think. But boy, does the country have some tough days ahead.
- [26:55]
Jim Acosta
No Question. And, and Pete Hegseth is in charge of the Pentagon. And we're just showing a picture a few moments ago from his, his heyday, you know, when he was living it, living it up at fox. And you know, Donald Trump had a decision to make as to who to select for defense secretary. And I just, you know, to me, the Defense secretary should kind of be a bad motherfucker. He should just be like somebody that when he walks into the, when the Defense secretary walks into the room, this could be Bob Gates, Leon Panetta, General Austin. I mean, just General Mattis may not like General Mattison or his politics or whatever, but, you know, I, you know, I respected him. Like, if he walked into a room, I'd be like, whoa, okay, the sec, the Defense Secretary is here. Pete Hexseth is never going to be that person.
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Steve Schmidt
We are at war.
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Jim Acosta
What is Donald Trump doing? And he's going into these, these briefings acting like a fool. And apparently they ban the photographers from the press briefings because they don't like the way they took a picture of Pete Hegseth. The, the insecurity. This is what I'm going back to. The insecurity at play here to me is in, it's impeachable. You know, it, it makes you unqualified if you're that insecure about yourself.
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Steve Schmidt
Well, Pam Bondi should be impeached. Pete Hegseth should be impeached.
- [28:18]
Jim Acosta
That's right.
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Steve Schmidt
The whole cabinet impeached. All of these people should be impeached. I think we have to start thinking about as a country, how do we make sure this doesn't ever happen again. And one of the ways you make sure it doesn't happen again is you raise the vote threshold for at least the power cabinet positions to 65 votes.
- [28:41]
Jim Acosta
Yeah.
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Steve Schmidt
And in that, that way you never have another Pete Hegseth again. Yeah, but, but, but clearly great, great thought has to be given to make making sure that this doesn't happen again. And it's, and it's going to be job to clean up the Pentagon after this guy. No, it's a disaster.
- [29:02]
Jim Acosta
And another job that's very important, and it used to be important is the U. S. Attorney in Washington D.C. but we have Janine Pirro in that job. She's another Fox personality in a very important job. And you know, apparently this is breaking news that just came out this afternoon that a federal judge has quashed the Justice Department subpoenas targeting the Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell. This is according to Ms. Now according to A court filing unsealed just today, a major blow to the Trump administration's criminal investigation into Jerome Powell. Yes, a criminal investigation, which, of course, is a joke. But the judge overseeing this, Chief Judge James E. Boasberg of the U.S. district Court for the District of Columbia, he wrote that a, quote, mountain of evidence suggested that the government served these subpoenas on the board, Federal Reserve Board, to pressure its chair into voting for lower interest rates or resigning. And the judge added that federal prosecutors produced essentially zero evidence to suspect Chair Powell of a crime. He called the Trump administration's case, quote, so thin and unsubstantiated that the court can only conclude that they are pretextual. Steve, you and I, you know, we like to toss barbs and throw a few elbows here and there, but when a federal judge says that kind of stuff, it's. It's an embarrassment. It's. It's not good.
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Steve Schmidt
It's an embarrassment. And there has to be a season of the great disbarment that's coming, the collapse of legal ethics that is adjacent to the Trump coup, the actions that follow the supposed stolen election. One of the great lies in American history. But she's a person at the top of the heap who has abused her power and literally tried to take freedom away from people because they were political opponents of. Of Donald Trump or they participated in a position that he didn't like. And it is a. It is a big, big deal. It's a big deal. And every lawyer who participated in this, like every ICE commander who led a raid, there has to be accountability for it.
- [31:17]
Jim Acosta
Absolutely. And apparently Jeanine Pirro was taking questions from reporters, and she got. She was a little bit like Pete Hegseth. I don't know if they're serving the same stuff in the, in the water fountains at the federal buildings now, but anyway, she was acting like Pete. Pete Hegseth a little bit, but also a little bit like Janine Pierre always does. But let's. We can play a little bit of that process.
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Jeanine Pirro
Should have been allowed to run its course, and it wasn't. And shame on them. Oh, cut it out. Do you know how many convictions we've got? Cut it out. You're in one lane. We have cleaned up this city. Historic, really. I'll tell you what's historic. What's historic is that I prosecute everything other than 10% of the cases where the United States Attorney before me didn't prosecute 67% of the cases. That's what's historic. I'm willing to Take a not guilty. I'm willing to take a no.
- [32:11]
Steve Schmidt
True.
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Jim Acosta
Bill.
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Steve Schmidt
What a whack job.
- [32:16]
Jim Acosta
You need one of the reporters there to say, I'm sorry, ma', am, this is a Wendy's. You know, it's just.
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Steve Schmidt
What a whack job. Truly. No, no words. Government. By whack job, I mean this is whack job.
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Jim Acosta
And it's. She's been described as Judge Box Wine on, on Saturday Night Live. I'm not necessarily saying that that's. That. That that fits. But she does sound an awful lot like a lady or you could say a guy at the end of the bar, you know, when the bartender says, I'm sorry, but I just can't. I just can't serve. I can't in good conscience serve you any more drinks with.
- [32:51]
Steve Schmidt
Pulls out a big jug of Ernest and Julio from her. From her purse.
- [32:58]
Jim Acosta
That's when they reached the flask.
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Steve Schmidt
I guess he's got the biggest bug in there.
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Jim Acosta
Yeah. And go back to the video.
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Steve Schmidt
Seriously, what did it. What an embarrassment. This is. This is the U. S. Attorney. She's always been a whack job. It's just disconcerting to see her standing in front of there with the flags, the symbols of authority there. But no, I, We. We're. We will almost certainly live to see her disbarred, which I, Which I'm sure will be a. Be a happy day. But all of these people have to face their comeuppance. There's just no question about it.
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Jim Acosta
Yeah.
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Steve Schmidt
Craziness.
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Jim Acosta
No. And apparently the DC Bar is, Is launching an investigation into Ed Martin. You know, this is, this has happened with Rudy Giuliani and I mean, it's gotten, you know, the Justice Department under Pam Bondi, they're so freaked out about this that they want to involve themselves in these state bar proceedings. I talked about this with Liz lawyer earlier this week, but I think, Steve, you're absolutely right and you have your finger right on it. And that is, is that there have to be consequences at the end of all of this. It can't just be that they go back to their jobs at Fox and just their. Which I. Some of them. Well, that's. That's possible. You know, maybe, maybe Rubio will be on the five or something like that. But you know, for some of them, there have to, you know, for Bondi and, and Kristi Noem, there have to be other consequences besides just going back to Fox.
- [34:27]
Steve Schmidt
Look, I, I think that Christy Noem, great example outside the gates now and life is cold out there, it's vicious. All those knives and all those hands for hurrying Corey's backs. No more motorcades. No more Air One. No more, no more Coast Guard admiral's house to live in. It's all over. No more 200 million dollar ad campaign. Now it's just a lifetime of investigations and lawyers fees and Trump's not going to pardon her. And so we're going to find out all the details and she's the first one. And one by one they're going to be tossed out over the wall, discarded garbage on the other side of it. No longer welcome on predator patio. For a time, I suppose she'll be the envoy to the great shield of the Americas. But, but all of the fun stuff is gone and, and they're all headed
- [35:27]
Jim Acosta
in that direction and apparently it's, it's been reported and I don't know, we haven't confirmed this, the vast resources of the Jim Acosta show, but apparently Rick Grinnell is going to be leaving his post leading the Kennedy center, which they, they call the Trump Kennedy center, which is, I've said many times, we're never going to call it the Trump Kennedy Center. They can call it that all they want. But you know, this is Rick Grinnell who was the acting Director of National Intelligence during the first Trump administration. I mean, and now he's running the Kennedy center and apparently not doing well.
- [36:01]
Steve Schmidt
Wrecked it.
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Jim Acosta
Wrecked it exactly when they would like to wreck it.
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Steve Schmidt
One of the premier performing arts facilities in the world. And Rick, and now Grinnell, another, another five star whack job, another untreated psychiatric patient. Took him a year to totally destroy the functioning and reputation of the Kennedy Center. Look at that desecration on the Kennedy Center.
- [36:33]
Jim Acosta
That's right.
- [36:34]
Steve Schmidt
Of Donald Trump's name. And it again, it'll, it'll be pried off pride off at, at noon on January 20, 2029.
- [36:45]
Jim Acosta
And I'm not encouraging any bad behavior, but I would, I would love it if somebody went and like figured out a way to climb up there and just yank those letters off. I mean I'm just, you know, that's just me.
- [36:56]
Steve Schmidt
Of course, of course.
- [36:58]
Jim Acosta
But Steve, always great to talk to you on these Fridays. Really appreciate it. I'll let you go crack up, crack open some Ernest and Julio Gallo.
- [37:07]
Steve Schmidt
What is the big jug wine for. For judge, for Judge Genie.
- [37:12]
Jim Acosta
A big I just as a Thunderbird guy. But maybe not, you know, that, you know, big drugs.
- [37:17]
Steve Schmidt
Right with the handle and everything.
- [37:19]
Jim Acosta
It makes it easy to pour that way.
- [37:21]
Steve Schmidt
Absolutely.
- [37:22]
Jim Acosta
And as One of our subscribers says somewhere Susan Collins is troubled and concerned. Exactly. All right, Steve, great to see you, man. Happy Friday.
- [37:30]
Steve Schmidt
Take care.
- [37:31]
Jim Acosta
Holy Schmid. It's Friday, and just in time. Duke has come in here to rescue me from the program. I don't want to go just yet because a friend of old, friend of ours from CNN days, my old place, as I like to call it, Scott Bronstein, do I, do we. Did we actually ingest this video into the system? Scott and I chat from time to time and he sends very nice notes to encourage me and so on. And he put out a very patriotic song. He's. He, since he left cnn, is an investigative reporter at cnn, investigative producer. And since he left our old place, he's learned to play the guitar. And he put together a song and put it on his YouTube page and he sent it to me. And he's given me permission. I just want to say I've been told I've been given permission to play this on the, on the Jim Acosta show. And so we're going to play it and then we'll talk about that on the other side. If we have that video, I hope we have that video.
- [38:26]
Scott Bronstein
If the president acts like he's a king at the nation's law, flaws don't apply to him. That's un American. It's un American. If the president acts like he's above the law, that only he's right, that he has no flaws, it's un American. It's un American. The founding fathers ruling in their graves. This is not the country they thought they made. They threw off a king and a monarchy, wrote a fine constitution. Read it and see.
- [39:05]
Jim Acosta
And that was our buddy Scott there. Great job, Scott. Really appreciate it. And, and I just want to say at the end of the show here, as Duke is bothering me to take him for a walk, it's never a bother. Duke, you're wonderful. But at the end of the. I just want to say if anybody else has this inspired me to say this. If anybody else has songs, if anybody else has some poetry they want to do, we have to do this in an artistic way. You can't just do anything. You have to have some skills here. As Scott was playing the guitar there, he said he's been learning the guitar. But I just want to issue a challenge at the end of the show here. I usually go off on some rant where I get all worked up and say a bunch of stuff. But I'm just going to say this at the end of the show, if you have some, some art that you would like to share with the show. We would love to show it. So let this be. You know, please don't cover a song that is already owned by somebody else. And a, there's a copyright thing. You send us your art. If you have drawings or paintings or sketches. As long as you are not copying something that I can get sued over, please don't put me in that kind of jam. We don't have that kind of budget here. But if it's something that is of your own making and it is artistically expressing how you're feeling about the moment that we're in right now as a country, do like Scott said, send it on over to the show, put it in the comments. I go through there from time to time, send it in the chats and that kind of thing. Paid subscribers get a, a special leg up over the competition. If you're a paid subscriber, you get a leg up over the competition. And having said that, I, I, I say it all the time now, but it does make a difference. If you can support the program, make sure you become a subscriber, support independent media, subscribe, like share all of those things. It matters if you, if you can afford a few bucks. Basically the price of a very expensive a gallon of gas these days, you know, subscribing to the show is about like a gallon of gas every month. If you can do that on substack or YouTube, it makes a huge difference. Helps us keep the lights on, keep thing things going, keeps food in duke's food bowl, etc. Etc. But Scott, great job on the song, really appreciate it. And you are absolutely right, it is very un American what we're seeing in the United States of America right now. But when you express yourself and you talk about your feelings and you talk about where you think this country is going, it makes a difference. And we all do that together as one country. It makes a huge difference. So, so keep it coming. Scott and everybody else out there, we'd love to see everybody send in their clips if you have them and we'll try to show as many as we can. But in the meantime, thanks everybody for a great week. Had some great guests this week. We've got some great ones set up over the next couple of weeks. Don't forget, no Kings Day is coming up. I just want to make a mention of that before I go. No Kings Day 3 is coming up on March 28, the end of the month. Joy and Don and our teams and my team and myself we're all conspiring again to do some more coverage on that. So that's coming up too. So lots of great stuff coming up. So stay tuned for all that. Keep on supporting the show and we'll be it'll be our honor to keep bringing this to you each and every day. Thanks for a great week. Have a great weekend. Still reporting from Washington. And I'm Jim Acosta. I'll see you next time.
- [42:17]
Scott Bronstein
If a president acts like he's a king, that the nation's laws don't apply to him, that's un American. It's un American. If the president acts like he's above the law, that only he's right, that he has no flaws, it's un American. It's un American. The founding fathers rolling in their graves. This is not the country they thought they made. They threw off a king and a monarchy, wrote a fine constitution, read it and see.