← The Jim Acosta Show
The Jim Acosta Show
Oh Schmidt it's Friday, with Steve Schmidt, plus Nick Valencia on ICE shooting.
00:48:29
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- [00:00]
A
Show it's another day that ends in Y and Donald Trump's assault on American democracy. It's another edition of. Oh, Schmidt. It's Friday. Our good friend Steve Schmidt is back with us from the warning and the Save America movement. Steve, great to see you, man.
- [00:14]
B
Good to see you, Jim.
- [00:16]
A
Yeah. Let's wrap the week that was and what a week it was. I can't believe we got to the end here. But, you know, there is some, I think some, some clouds on the horizon here, some dark clouds on the horizon that we need to with.
- [00:29]
C
Deal.
- [00:29]
B
Deal with.
- [00:31]
A
And it's this thing that happened late yesterday. Trump ousting election commission members in his latest push to reshape the voting process. That's how the Associated Press is describing it. Trump ousting members of the bipartisan Federal Election Commission that resisted his efforts to require would be voters to document their U.S. citizenship before registering. The White House on Friday confirmed executive action against the members of this commission. They distribute federal grants to states. They oversee the testing of voting systems. They maintain the national registration forms. And I just want to tell you, Steve, that the interesting thing in all of the, I mean, the very ominous thing in all of this, in a White House statement to the ap, the White House said the Slaughter decision gives the president precedence to do so. So they're latching onto this recent Supreme Court decision that said Trump could just fire members of independent commissions. And lo and behold, that's what he's done as it pertains to our democracy, these upcoming midterms. And I'm very worried what's going to happen with these midterms coming up in November. Steve,
- [01:39]
B
this hits hard for me this week. I got a letter in the mail in the state of New Hampshire, where I live, and that letter said that I had been stricken from the voting rolls because I haven't voted in the last five years. And I did vote by absentee ballot in the 2024 election. What I discovered this week and on the 1 to 10 scale of unhappiness, let's just say, clocks in at about 957.
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A
Right.
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B
My absentee ballot, I learned, was invalidated by the state of New Hampshire. It was rejected, and my vote was not counted. And I want an explanation for it. And I'm going to get an explanation for it.
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A
Yeah.
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B
Because I promise you, I filled out the absentee ballot correctly.
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A
Yeah.
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B
And this is going on all over this country. The right to vote is not Donald Trump's to dispense. It is not the province of maga. There is no workaround for this in our not country, not society, our civilization. The cornerstone of it is the idea put forward by men with names like Jefferson and Adams and Washington and Madison that we the people are sovereign and we pick our leaders. We've dealt with this cancer for 10 years. And I say this having had the extraordinary privilege and experience of placing a concession phone call for a defeated presidential candidate and in that moment lit the fuse of renewal that had gone on uninterrupted since 1797, where through the administration of a 35 word US power peacefully transfers after the separation of church and state. This is the greatest invention in American history.
- [04:08]
A
Yeah.
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B
And is wrecked by Donald Trump. And what he's doing is not just on American, but potentially lethal to the republic. And in the end, in our country, the states, not the White House and not the federal government, administer elections.
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A
Yeah.
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B
And so his tampering, his constant refusal to recognize legitimacy of a fair election is the literal equivalent of an open air sewer pipe pumping dioxin like into the Love Canal into the whole of our American civilization. And that's crime. That's his sin. That's why he's the most despicable American who has ever lived. Not named Jefferson Davis because that's his only, only point of comparison.
- [05:11]
A
Yeah, no, he is our Jefferson Davis. There's no question about it. And you know, my concern is, and it's, it's a, it's a deepening one, is that he is going to turn our midterms into a 52 car pileup and he is going to say that, well, you know, it's such a hot mess, we can't honor the results, we can't see to do Congress. And you know, you're going to have people in the streets and you know, and I think he wants, you're going to have bloodshed. He wants a, he wants this kind of rioting and unrest and that's where it's going. Really crack skulls. These are all the devious things, I guarantee you, that are playing out in his mind. And you know, it, it worries me greatly that, that pro democracy folks, and I know you and I talk about this all the time. We're definitely on the edge of our seat, but the rest of the country is not prepared for that, for any of that at this point.
- [06:08]
B
I think my basic problem with the whole conversation is where it stops. Yeah, every conversation that is had on this subject stops when we get to the place where Trump is tampered with the election. So we have to decide, I think within an opposition. How do we respond to a claim by Trump that he's going to shut off the sun? At some level, it's a nonsensical claim. He doesn't have the power. He doesn't have the ability. There's not the physics to do it. But Donald Trump saying he's going to cancel an election, prevent people from voting, not going to count the results of the election, not going to seat to Congress. Okay, I'll go there. Let's step across that line. We have 300 million guns in this country, and not for nothing, I think it's worth bringing up Adams and Jefferson in Washington. In addition to being the founders of the country were violent political revolutionaries. This country was founded in violence.
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A
Yeah.
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B
This country fought a civil war that killed 800,000 people out of 34 million people. We have a real dearth of honesty in this country, inability to have tough questions. So let's. Let me pose one. What does anybody suppose is going to happen when Donald Trump and little Marco and Pete Hegseth and Susie Wiles decide our votes don't count anymore?
- [07:57]
A
Yeah.
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B
That they've been invalidated because Trump or John Thune or whomever wants power and they're no willing. No longer willing to share it, give it up, or respect the view of the people. What. What happens then?
- [08:14]
A
Please remember to subscribe. It's so important to support independent journalism. It matters. It matters when you subscribe, it matters when you like. It matters when you share. It matters. And it matters when you watch.
- [08:26]
C
So.
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A
Thanks for tuning in.
- [08:28]
B
Stay. Okay. I don't think we're going to just say, okay.
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A
I don't think so.
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B
I'll leave it there. Yeah. So. So if we're going to have this conversation, right, We. We should have the back half of the conversation in a serious. In a serious way.
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A
Yeah. No, I'm with you, man. And the other thing that Trump is consistently doing, he's. They're not pulling back from doing this. Despite being shamed again and again. Is. Is the abuse of the rule of law in this country, the abuse of our criminal justice system? Going after Trump's perceived political enemies. Now they're using our justice system to try to justify his crazy fantasies about the reflecting pool. Apparently, David Hearn, he had to enter his not guilty plea in federal court this week. He's the Olympic canoeist who's been charged by the Trump administration with tampering and vandalizing, damaging the reflecting pool, which is a crock of shit. He obviously did not do that. Fortunately, our friend, the Great. Norm Eisen is defending him. There's a little bit of video of him outside.
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C
We play A little bit is at risk. And every American should be alarmed about this prosecution. This indictment reflects the administration's effort to scapegoat Davy and to shift blame for their own failures.
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B
Absolutely.
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C
We will litigate these issues vigorously. We have confidence in our justice system to see through this misuse of government power against an ordinary American based on a false and politicized.
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A
Yeah. I mean, Steve, it's. It's absolutely disgraceful. Thank God Norm Eisen's on the. I don't know where he finds the energy to do all this, but.
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B
Yeah, God bless him. True.
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A
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, and, and the way that the, you know, this is. It's just pure USDA Grade A, this case against David Hearn.
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B
There's two things about this. The first is I'm going to make a movie recommendation. I, I had never seen the movie Judgment at Nuremberg, embarrassed to admit it, but I've watched it twice in the last couple of months, and it's an incredible movie at, at 10 different levels. Final scene of this movie, Spencer Tracy, who's the American judge. I believe he's from Maine, the character in the movie. And Burt Lancaster, who's the Nazi judge who's been sentenced to life, but during the trial expresses regret and looks down on the more thuggish Nazis. This was a man who was respected, erudite, a man of the law who sentences an innocent man to death. And in the end, the trial is over and the bur. Lancaster character asked to meet with the Spencer Tracy character who visits him in his salad. It's one of the most incredible conclusions of any movie I've ever seen where Spencer Tracy says something to him about the first time he sentenced an innocent man to death, that he sentenced the country to death. And what we're witnessing is an obscenity to media obscenity. It's a legal obscenity to political obscenity. Now, we were talking before the show, you have been in the CNN chair interviewing people. So you know in great detail what that's like and the time limit and the fact that the cabinet secretary knows that they can filibuster. But both George Stephanopoulos and Dana Bash, people I respect enormously. Have Doug Burgum on television and he's saying, no, no, no, there was a vandal. There's a 350 foot cut. And this is. Red is blue. Up is down, down is up. War is peace. Peace is war. This is 1984. None of it is true is all a Titanic lie. And what people have to understand is that there is a journey, movement, kinetic, distance that's measurable. If you can say to the country that the election was stolen, that wasn't a much smaller leap to say the Olympic canoeist vandalized the Reflecting Pool Right when he didn't. But by all means, if you want to charge people with reflecting. Excuse me, with vandalizing the Reflecting Pool, go arrest Trump.
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A
Yeah, go.
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B
Go arrest Susie Wiles. Go charge those people because they're the people who knocked down the White House. They're the people who desecrated the city. They're the people who've defiled our public monuments, our Constitution, our Declaration of independence, wrecked the July 4th. Resplendent in every place in the country except for the obscenity in Washington.
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A
Yeah, yeah. No, it's.
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B
It's absolutely innocent, man.
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A
Yeah. And he's innocent.
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B
Being persecuted.
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A
Yeah.
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B
By the government of the United States in 2026 like it's Moscow in 1986.
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A
Yeah. And I hope he sues the out of all of them. I mean, if I were him, I would just sue the living out of all of them. And he's going to get paid because they have no evidence that he's vandalized the pool and they're just putting him through misery and suffering to placate Trump because Trump has invented these ridiculous lies. There. I went down there. There's no 350 foot slit. It is a crock of shit. There's a giant seam down the middle of it. I think it's for drainage or whatever. And I think he's got that stuck in his head in an infantile sort of way. And it's sort of like, you know, placating the Dear Leader when he's lost his marbles. What's going on at this point? The other instance of this is the Air Force One debacle. He gets this free plane from the Qataris, they fly it over to NATO. They're trying to. They want to fly it back. And the Secret Service says it lacks defensive countermeasures. And so they can't fly it while there's a war with Iran going on. Hello, idiots, wake up. You know, and then Steve Chung, I guess Carol Leonig over at Ms. Now reported on this. She's done great reporting on this. And Steve Chung comes the communications director for the White House. He has no credibility. He's. He's a joke. But he has. He's the communications director for the White House calling Carol Lennox a liar. And this is all complete fake news. And, you know, but they don't challenge the veracity of the story. And it's a clown show that they can't even fly the new Air Force One that he got from the Qataris.
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B
Old Turkish proverb.
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C
Yeah.
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B
When a clown goes to the castle, he does not become a sultan, the castle becomes a circus.
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A
Yeah.
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B
And that's what we're witnessing here.
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A
Yeah.
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B
And it's, and it is. And again, the, one of the things that has to happen. No more Merrick Garlands as a political proposition. And we need a great season of disbarments in this country. We are, we are besieged by corrupt lawyers in this administration.
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A
Yeah.
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B
And, and the, and the one, the one thing, and I, I don't mean to be crude or use profanity, and again, I'm going to use norm. Ice and as my, as my standard here.
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A
Right.
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B
But the notion that there's such a thing in this country as legal ethics, the bar, you think of some lawyer making some august declaration, the bar, the rule of law, our corrupt Chief Justice Sam Alito, Clarence Thomas. What a joke. A joke. And if Jeanine Pirro is a. Attorney in good standing with the bar a year after Donald Trump leaves his presidency, then we've lost the country. Is, that plane is in the museum, we've lost the country.
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A
Yeah.
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B
If the ark isn't, if his arch isn't knocked down, we've lost the country. If the White House isn't rebuilt, we've lost the country. And you either, you either understand that or, or you don't. And, and when you look at this, when you look at this moment in time, I'm furious this week.
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A
Yeah.
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B
I'm furious this week. And I'm not. I'm furious at the Democrats.
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A
Yeah.
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B
You have a, you have a political party that's lost two out of three elections to this pig. To this degenerate. You have a, you have a political party. No hyperbole here at all on my part. For real. Most prolific liar since Adolf Hitler and Joseph Goebbels breathed on earth. And she was, and he was viewed as the more honest candidate by the American people in two out of three elections.
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A
Political malpractice.
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B
And, and this Graham Platner. Insanity.
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A
It's insanity. Yeah.
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B
And, and, and, and the, the, the, the, the, the children. Them. Right. Morris Katz, you.
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A
And I mean it.
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B
Right. This a winnable U.S. senate race in Maine.
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A
Yeah.
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B
And, and you put a rapist on the ballot. Accused.
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A
Rapist accused. Yeah. We should say he's denied the allegations. And, and I think it's insane that he. Yeah. That he even would. My, my point of outrage this week on this whole, on that story, on the grand platinum story, is that at some point he was telling the main Dems he wanted to have a role in choosing his successor. That is why the entire Democratic Party should say, get the fuck out of here.
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B
Can you imagine?
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A
Yeah.
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B
Deluded arrogance. It's the great, great progressive ho. Has a Totenkoff, has a Nazi SS tattoo on his chest for 10 years.
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A
Yeah.
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B
And dare you say anything about him? You're going to be shouted down in exactly the manner that you were shouted down when you dared to say anything about. Well, maybe Joe Biden's not up for this this time.
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A
Yeah. That's crazy. No, it's totally nuts.
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B
You know, this one of these, one of these progressive, candid progressives who wins a primary in New York and she says when her hands are dirty, she likes to wipe them on the American flag. And she thinks she's part of a coalition that I'm part of.
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A
Well, Steve, and you know, from your days as being a Republican strategist, all of this is playing into the hands of the dark artists of the gop, the Roger Stone types, Steve Bannon types and so on. And you know, the Democrats have to wake up that, you know, you can't fumble this on the one yard line and lose the game. And I've been saying all week long to the Democrats, you've got to find your inner Mitch McConnell. We don't know where Mitch McConnell is as of the taping of this podcast. Maybe he will emerge. Apparently, apparently people like Scott Jennings have had 20 minute conversations with Mitch McConnell. The memes have been good on Mitch McConnell. I don't know if we have the Marco Rubio meme that we could show, but everybody has been, you know, somehow communicating with. There it is. Marco Rubio. When asked if he's heard from Mitch, I think this came from the Save America movement. Nice. Nicely done there.
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B
Yeah. You have a guy who's 84 years old.
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A
Yeah.
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B
Who was reported to have CPR performed on him in an ambulatory situation. And so, so right away, about 6% of people who have that happen to them ever walk out of a hospital. Okay. One of the things that is very unfair to so many people who, who watch these shows is they exist in a completely different information ecology than the one we live in. So they don't know any of the rumors about these people.
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A
Yeah, right.
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C
They Don't.
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B
They don't know the rumor about Mitch McConnell's personal life and about the sham marriage with Elaine Chao. They don't know that rumor. But you know what? There is one piece of evidence that I think like, confirms that rumor. And it's Elaine Chao in China who says, there's nothing that's happened to my husband that warrants my return to the United States. So there you go. And so, so, so we see Mitch McConnell being loaded into the ambulance. The, the ambulance isn't in a hurry, right? No, no one's in a hurry. And, and there's usually one reason for that. I don't trust Scott Jennings. When Scott Jennings says, I had a 20 minute conversation with Mitch McConnell about history of the Senate and everything, he says it on CNN's here.
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A
Yeah.
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B
For Mark Thompson, Scott Jennings has no credibility. There's no credibility when he says things on, on your air like that. John Thune has no credibility on this question. Neither does John Barrasso. None of them do. So, so, so directly, are you saying that you can't trust the word of the Senate Majority Leader on the question of whether Mitch McConnell's alive? Yes, that's exactly what I'm, that's exactly what I'm, what I'm saying. And so
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A
we're in this life, we need a proof of life at this point.
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B
Yeah, of course.
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A
And I'm sure we'll get something, we'll get something at some point. But, you know, it's a little curious that, you know, it's, it's been taking days and days for, for something to emerge.
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B
I don't.
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A
The reason why I bring it up, Steve, is that I know what Mitch McConnell would do in, in this situation if he were playing handed the cards that the Republicans are being handed right now. Democrats have to be extremely careful that they don't fumble this on the one yard line because the Mitch McConnell's of the world will make that your undoing. And they've got to find their inner Mitch. You know, that's, that to me is the moral of the story here. They've got to be as ruthless as he is. And that is mean. That also means ruthlessly vetting people. You know, but anyway, I digress. But yes, I, I think that, and I think the Democrats, you know, if they want to find their inner Mitch on Mitch McConnell, you know, maybe do a filibuster for 48 hours and say, you know, where's Mitch? Can, can somebody find us?
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B
Mitch, I'm gonna tell you, Mitch McConnell runs for the U.S. sen. Think the opponent's name, last name was Huddleston. I might be wrong. At any rate, I am wrong. I'm blanking on the name. It's a famous Kentucky political name. At any rate, his famous ad is of bloodhounds searching for the missing Democratic senator who's elderly and not in their job, and Mitch McConnell, young Mitch. And it's the famous bloodhound ad, has the team of bloodhounds looking for the missing Senator While Mitch McConnell promised to serve two terms in the United States Senate. Right. So I don't know what the name of the dog was until very recently, but apparently it's karma.
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A
Yeah, yeah. No, there's no question about it. And I, I think that, you know, I think Mitch McConnell would, would have a field day with Mitch McConnell. And I guess that's, that's my point here for, for the Democrats. And just the last thing that I want to bring up before we go is the fact that, you know, that they've been putting up, I guess they've got a plan, Steve, to put up more fencing around the White House. I was down there yesterday with, you know, looking at the columns that Trump wants. You saw they put this giant tarp over the North Portico of the White House to conceal what it looks like is going to be another project where they make it more ornate and gaudy over there. And I guess the Washington Post is reporting they're talking about putting up new permanent fencing at 15th and 17th Street. They're turning this entire area into more and more of a fortress around the White House complex. And I don't know if you've seen the movie Civil War, the A24 film, which is absolutely astounding and I think is a classic where that, you know, White House is portrayed as a, for, as a real fortress. And it just worries me that, and I, I went down there yesterday to check out the columns and what they're doing with the columns, and they've got all of those, I, I call them freedom cages. But all of that temporary fencing that they put, they got Lafayette Park. Lafayettes were almost completely walled off with this. It's insane. I mean, you know, it's, it's really bad the way they have this walled off these days from the public. And it looks like he's, he's in bunker mode.
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B
It's un American.
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A
Yeah.
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B
And all of it has to be knocked down.
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A
Yeah.
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B
One of the things that drives me crazy is when Democratic leaders tell me big things are, in fact, little things and are a distraction from the Things they care about. These are the things the American people care about. This, I'm gonna say this slowly. This is our house.
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A
Yes.
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B
Period. Right, Period.
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C
And
- [28:18]
B
we don't need an 18 acre Fuhrer bunker complex in the middle of Washington. This was never the intent of the founders of the country, the reality of the modern presidency or the enormous security measures to protect the president, which are necessary. Meaning you can't walk onto that campus like you did when Abraham Lincoln was president. That being said, the access to Pennsylvania Avenue. Right. Should be restored to the Barack Obama era level of security because people should be able to walk up to that gate and take a picture.
- [29:07]
A
Yeah.
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B
And by the way, the incompetence of the Secret Service, which didn't used to be incompetent, but, but is incompetent in, in this season of, of American history. Their incompetence is not an excuse to fortify the compound. The remedy to their competence is its restoration.
- [29:33]
A
Yeah, no, I agree with you 1000%. It's the people's House. People should have access to the People's House. And I, you know, my concern is, is that more and more it's becoming barricaded off from the public because of what is going on inside Donald Trump's head. And that he, you know, because he's plotting and thinking, how can I stop the midterms from going to the Democrats? And he must be thinking in the back of his mind that protesters are going to show up, people are going to be pissed off, and he just wants a bunker to hide in. It's just, it's astounding. But, Steve, great to have you on, as always.
- [30:10]
D
Good to see you.
- [30:11]
A
Another excellent edition of. Oh, Schmidt. It's Friday and I'm already starting to think about what we're going to talk about on our next edition. So thanks, thanks, Steve, as always. Appreciate the camera. And you know, the other disgraceful thing that happened this week, and a lot of, a lot of disgraceful things happened this week, folks, that tells that, tell that, they all tell us that we are not living in the country that we should be living in. And one of the things that occurred this week that I think everybody should focus in on, and I've been thinking about it, and I haven't done it yet until now, is to talk about the resurgence of ICE and its brutal tactics. A man was killed by federal agents in Houston, but apparently was not the target of an ICE search. This is, according to New York Times and other outlets, not even the person they were looking for, apparently, according to many published reports out there right now. Let's bring in our friend Nick Valencia. He is a great independent journalist focusing on immigration. Nick, great to see you as always, my man. You're. Let me just read a little bit from this latest New York Times story because it's federal immigration agents who killed a man during a traffic stop in Houston on Tuesday have been searching for a different person. According to a DHS spokeswoman, the targets of the ICE investigation were two people from Guatemala, one of whom the agents believe was in a white van being driven by the man, Lorenzo Salgado Arahuo, according to two people with knowledge of the matter who are not permitted to speak about the case, which is always the case. But Araujo is a Mexican immigrant who had lived in the United States without authorization, according to New York Times for 35 years, was just on his way to work with three other men. Nick, your thoughts on this case? Some video of, of some of this right here from your feed. And, you know, it seems to me ICE and the brutal tactics are back and maybe the media just aren't focusing on this enough. And we need to, as is always the case with independent media, we need to lead the way. We need to, we need to focus on this. So they'll focus on this.
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D
Yeah. Pick up the stories that they're not focusing on. And I think after the sacking of Kristi Noem, everyone thought, okay, nothing to see here. We had two American civilians gunned down in broad daylight. But that's not going to happen again when we know that's just not the case and nothing is straightforward in Trump's America. Jim, can we even believe this narrative that's coming out from dhs? They weren't wearing body cameras. The eyewitnesses are also saying different things. There was three men in that car. And DHS came out about 24 hours later and said that Lorenzo Aru was not the target of this enforcement operation. But it seems that they're going after white vans in these, what have been designated as Cavanaugh stops, going after the mano de obra, the working class people that have work boots on or have ladders on top of their roofs in these white vans that we all know. Right. And he was in one of these. What I find really, really curious here is that this is a man of routine. Let's say he was the target, because that's what we were initially told. You know, why didn't they go to his house? Why didn't they pick him up there? And the speculation is that they are looking for critical mass. They want to get as many people in custody as they can. So instead of going to his residence as a one off, they wait for him to pick up coworkers. He's going to a construction site. The presumption there, and the inference is that they can get more people there at the construction site. And they're putting civilians like you and me on the road, at risk and in jeopardy. One of the things that I'm seeing here, as I guess an evolution, deterioration of this is that they have just lost patience. They have no discretion. They don't de escalate. I'm talking about federal immigration agents. We saw this now in Delaney hall, where I was at recently in New York, New Jersey. They are there to ratchet it up. And it seems as though they've just lost patience with their, you know, their tactics out there in the streets. Jim?
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A
Yeah, and the other thing that it says in this story is that Homeland Security officials are saying that this band had tried to use his vehicle as a weapon, where we heard that before. Hello, Renee.
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C
Good.
- [34:10]
A
Though no video or other evidence for that claim has emerged. And you know, to me, Nick, the problem with all of this is that there is no sense of accountability. And that's where our system falls apart. It's not American anymore. If there's no accountability, if you can kill people and there's no investigation and there's nobody on, you know, wearing a badge is prosecuted for this, then we're not a system of government. We're not a system of checks and balances. We're not a system with accountability for the government just murdering people and killing people. We don't know the full circumstances of this case just yet. But you know, this, this, I mean, this is potentially yet another negligent, at least, at the very least, a negligent killing of somebody.
- [35:00]
D
And it's not about law and order because it seems as though under President Trump that doing it the right way is simply just not coming here at all. The eyewitnesses are telling you and us, all of us, that the agents were never at risk. They approached this vehicle from the side. We've heard this before here. The same narrative that they spin. They were fearing for their lives. They weaponized their vehicles. We saw cell phone recordings in the killing of Renee Good that disputed that. We saw, if you remember, back in April, a man named Carlos Mendoza, who's in ICE custody right now in Northern California, shot multiple times. We saw dash cam video from a big rig, no body cam footage. And that disputed the narrative. And so I really want to push back here on ICE and what they're putting out, they're attempting to deport, according to Lulac and Sylvia Garcia, the representative there in Houston, they're attempting to deport the eyewitnesses of this fatal shooting. What does that tell you? These individuals were interviewed, Jim, according to reporting separately, and they all told the same story. The agents were never at risk. Lorenzo never weaponized his vehicle. They approached from the side. And so who do we believe here?
- [36:08]
A
Yeah, who do you believe?
- [36:09]
D
You know, I mean, that's. That's a question for the public. And you're right. Independent media does need to lead the way, because often we see in the mainstream them parroting the line of dhs, because if they don't, they lose access.
- [36:21]
A
I'm not afraid about being the headlines. The headlines in the mainstream legacy media will be, man shot by ICE was trying to use vehicle as weapon, Comma, authorities say, boom. That's it. That's the. That'll be the headline that some outlets go with. And you. At this point, this. This administration, this Department of Homeland Security, they've lost all credibility. They don't get the. They don't get the presumption of the benefit of the doubt. And I just. It pisses me off. And the other thing about this that pisses me off, Nick, is that, you know, when they say they were looking for another person or they mix this person up with a different person, they are just going after Latino people. Well, he looks Mexican. Well, he looks Guatemalan. Well, he's got brown skin. Oh, he's got the same mustache. We don't all look the same.
- [37:11]
D
No. And yet we're being treated like the same. And we saw a video just yesterday in Norcross where you had a guy with a real ID showed it to ICE agents, and they continued to harass him and try to make up things. He was speaking in a heavy accent. They insulted him, saying, you want to speak Spanish in the United States? They made fun of his accent. And this is what I'm talking about. When I mentioned earlier in my reporting that they've really just sort of lost patience, at least initially. We would assume that the government moves in good faith and that they are going to do their best they can to take the higher road. This is not moving in good faith. When you have somebody like Lorenzo Aruaho who had a legal pathway and was in the process of getting a U visa, which means, you know, this. That they were a victim of a crime, either physical harm or emotional distress. What we're seeing now, Jim, though, is that these folks that are in the pathway, doing it the right way towards a legal process here are announcing themselves to the government. And the government is operating under this zero tolerance policy. So let's say you're an immigrant and you're moving through the system here legally, and you move residences and you announce that to the government, they're going to come knock on your door. And so that only incentivizes people not to do it the right way. And then all of a sudden, you have people in the government who are saying, look, this is why we have to do this. It is so backwards, what they're saying. We know that they're not moving in good faith because if they were, they wouldn't be detaining pregnant women. They wouldn't be going after somebody who's in this country for 35 years, who's put kids through college, who are Americans without papers. Right. I mean, these are people that are paying into Social Security, who are moving good, good faith and seemingly operating under these Christian values that this country was founded on that Trump continues to say that he cares about. Yeah, Lorenzo was a man of routine. He woke up in the morning at 5, went to work, came home, ate a meal, kissed his wife good night, loved his kids, and went to bed and did it again. This is not somebody who's being, you know, should be targeted. And yet they are.
- [39:02]
A
Jim, you're so right, Nick. There are so many people in this country who may not have the proper paperwork. They don't have any. They don't have their eyes dotted and their. Their T's crossed. But they, they helped build this country, and they've been doing jobs that a lot of Americans don't want to do and playing by the rules and going to work every day and working really hard, laborious jobs, tough jobs, and then going home, putting food on the table, making sure their kids are staying out of trouble, going to school, going to college, and becoming good members of our society.
- [39:37]
D
And the government just make it even more difficult to come here. There's only a handful of ways to do it the right way. They want to get rid of asylum. That's not in our Constitution. They want to strip that. They say they want to go after illegal immigration, but they're making it so much more difficult to go through ports of entry. Lorenzo Aruahu, we believe, went through in between a port of entry. He crossed here into this country illegally. That became a felony under President Bill Clinton back in the 90s if you cross multiple times. There was never a pathway for him in the 35 years. These are system. This is a system that is intentionally broken. We've talked about it countless times. The expansion of the private prison infrastructure. 40,000 people is an average under any administration. The government has 60, maybe 70,000 people in custody right now. People that are trying to self deport, yet they're private prisons that make money off of them. You know, all of this is about money. None of it is in good faith. You and I know that. And I'm so grateful that you continue to give this issue attention because it's a really important one. And it's getting worse. The New York Times reported 10,000 people were taken into custody. So forget about whether or not you don't see the videos online as much as you did, but the fact is that the numbers do not lie. There are 10,000 people being taken into custody every single day. And include people like good people like Lorenzo Salgado.
- [40:52]
A
Yeah, and that's what I mean, that's. That's what this is all about. I mean, it may not be in the news every day, you know, anymore, because we're not talking about Minneapolis as much. But make no mistake, Stephen Miller is still on these conference calls, barking at people at ICE and DHS to keep at it, keep doing this. Don't let the rule of law stand in the way. Don't let human decency stand in the way. Just round up as many brown and black faces as you can and get them out of the country. That's. That's what Stephen Miller is doing in this country right now. And on occasion, it gets so out of hand because they've hired so many rank amateurs to work for ICE that people are getting killed in the streets with no accountability, with no sense of justice. And I'm so glad that you're covering this stuff, Nick, as always. Nick Valencia, News. He's on substack. He's everywhere. You've blown up on Instagram. I love that.
- [41:44]
D
We just did a year, Jim, and thanks to you, man, our first live shot was on June 12, right here on the.
- [41:49]
A
Is that right?
- [41:50]
D
Yes.
- [41:50]
A
Oh, my goodness, that's right. You're out in California. Were you at.
- [41:53]
D
I was at the Metropolitan Detention center and I didn't even know what a substack was. So if anyone wants anyone to blame, blame Jim Acosta for my success here.
- [42:01]
A
Well, you hang in there. You keep doing what you're doing, man, because, you know, I wish I could be in all places at all times. And, and one of the things that matters to me is covering this immigration story. So I'm so glad that you're on the case and on the beat, man.
- [42:13]
D
We're there on the ground. Thank you for giving us the time, Jim. Appreciate you, brother.
- [42:16]
A
You got it. Thank you, brother. Thanks, Nick. Always check out Nick Valencia news on Substack and everywhere else, Instagram, you name it. He's terrific. One other thing before we go, want to mention our great new newsletter that we put out this week. We've debuted on Substack featuring our new writer, Tommy Christopher. He's been doing a bang up job getting that going and lots of new content coming out on our sub stack. This is, this is as, as you know, grab them by the shirt collar as we can possibly make it. That's, that's our style here on this show. And you can see that on substack and YouTube with our new daily newsletter, the Jim Acosta Morning Memo. So please check that out. And I, you know, I'll say it again, I'll say it once, I'll say it twice. I'll say it as many times as I can. Thank you to everybody out there supporting us in independent media. We've seen a lot of people becoming paid subscribers this week. That is enormously gratifying because it really does help support the work that we do, the independent journalism that we do here on this show. So make sure you share, you like you subscribe all of those things because it absolutely does matter. When you look at what has taken place this week and the way, you know, you can see the difference, the way it's covered in independent media versus the way it's covered in legacy media. We have to be able to keep a spotlight on these ICE abuses. 10,000 arrests a day, people getting killed in the streets, the government mixing up who they're going after and then just killing people. These are the kinds of stories that have to be highlighted, have to be elevated, have to have a spotlight on it to make sure the public is well aware of what's going on. The fact that they actually are hauling an innocent Olympic athlete into federal court on bullshit. Trumped up charges that he, that David Hearn damaged a reflecting pool on the National Mall. Total bullshit case. And the federal government, because Donald Trump is losing his marbles. And the Department of Justice can't tell Donald Trump no, there's no 350 foot slit in the reflecting pool. They are going through the process of prosecuting, persecuting, making life miserable for a fellow American who is an Olympic athlete, for Pete's sake. And they're doing this because we've lost the sense as to what the law is anymore in this country. The rule of law has been broken by Donald Trump. They now are not just going after his perceived political enemies, they're going after imaginary vandals. They're going after imaginary made up vandals down on the National Mall. And they're not just bullshitting us on Fox or bullshitting us on Sunday talk shows about this. They're literally arresting these people and putting them through the federal judicial system because Donald Trump can't admit that he's a liar and he makes shit up and says stupid things like there's a 350foot slit in the reflecting pool when there is no giant slit in the reflecting pool. It is all bullshit and lies. I went down there and checked it out myself. I looked at the bottom of the reflecting pool. You can see through the wall, there are no slits. And yet they're putting this man, David Hearn, an Olympic athlete, through hell. They're putting him through hell. And I'm sure he's trying to make the most of it and get through his daily life without worrying about it too much. But thank goodness he has a terrific advocate on a side like Norm Eisen. But we don't all have Norm Eisen's, do we? We don't all have top notch lawyers to defend us. But that's what we're up against in this country right now. Donald Trump tearing apart the Constitution and any sense of the rule of law in this country that they can just go arrest people willy nilly and put them through the federal judicial meat grinder to me is an impeachable offense. And when the, if and when, if the Democrats don't screw this up and fumble the football on the one yard line and they can get this thing in the end zone and take over the Congress. To me, I don't understand how you could not have impeachment proceedings for abusing the rule of law, abusing the Department of Justice in this fashion. We've talked about the impeachment, Epstein files, Epstein gate, that whole ridiculous scandal that they have over at the Justice Department. They've arrested people for defacing the reflecting pool, which is all bullshit and lies, but no pedophiles. They haven't arrested any pedophiles as part of the Epstein case. Does that make any sense? Does that give you any confidence that we have anything resembling the rule of law in this country? Of course it doesn't. So anyway, we're tackling those topics not only here on the show, but in this daily newsletter. Please check it out each and every day. But really appreciate everybody tuning in this week. We had a great week of programs. If you didn't catch the Hunter Biden interview, it's absolutely one of our finest hours on this show. Really had a terrific time. Two hours, I should say, not just one hour, but two hours with the president's son, Hunter Biden, who, as I've been saying all week long, if anybody deserves to have their say, it's Hunter Biden. But it's been a great week. Appreciate everybody tuning in and supporting this program. It means the world to me. But in the meantime, still reporting from Washington, I'm Jim Acosta. Have a great weekend. I'll see you next time.