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The Jim Acosta Show
Senator Mark Warner and Ruth Ben-Ghiat on How "No Kings" Is Gaining Momentum in America
00:53:09
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- [00:00]
A
Foreign welcome to the Jim Acosta show. And we are three days away now from no Kings Day two. Don't forget House Speaker Mike Johnson has called no kings to a quote, hate rally, hate America rally. Meanwhile, the shutdown grinds on here in Washington. Food banks are scheduled to open up across the D.C. area next week to help federal workers who are going without paying. We're also seeing them crop up around the country for members of the military who may be going without pay, depending on how long this continues. And my big guest this hour is Virginia Senator, Democrat Mark Warner. He's the vice chair of the Senate Intel Committee. Senator Warner, great to have you on. Really great to see you again.
- [00:42]
B
Thank you, Jim. Thanks for having me.
- [00:44]
A
Yeah. And I'm sure you saw this, that the House speaker, Mike Johnson, he's got a lot of things to say, but he's going after you. He's blaming Virginia Democrats because it's a big military state, saying Democrats are responsible for the shutdown. And so I've pointed out on this show numerous times, you know, Republicans control the White House, they control the House, they control the Senate. I mean, the folks at home can do the math. But what's your response when you hear the speaker say, my response is.
- [01:09]
B
I would be shocked if Mike Johnson has actually talked to any federal employees since the shutdown began. What I'm hearing from, from federal employees, and we got a ton of them in Virginia is they were tired of being pissed on, frankly, by this administration from day one. They're tired of the Russ vote, grim reaper threats. They feel like they've been pawns being played with by Trump. I'm glad we're paying the military in the short term. But the notion that Mike Johnson, who's had the whole House on a three week paid vacation is going to lecture anybody about the shutdown is pretty rich in my mind. The one thing, the thing we do know though, Jim, is the only way this is going to come to an end. And I think we can both avoid the health care cliff that we're going to hit at the end of October as people have to start deciding whether they sign up or not. And again, this is for the 24 million Americans on Obamacare. They're getting notices this week that or this month that their rates were more than double in most communities that would break the health care system and already pretty flimsy health care system. And we're saying let's do that at the same time as getting the government reopened. The one thing we have learned unfortunately from lots of quiet conversations, as well as somebody who's been in all these bipartisan gangs. Nothing's going to happen without Trump. None of the Republicans, and particularly Mike Johnson, I'm not sure he does anything without first asking Trump for permission. There is going to be no rogue group of Dems and Republicans who will break out and come to the kind of gang approaches that we've done in the past, because the Republicans are totally terrified of Donald Trump. And so we've got to get him in the room. And I think if he engages in the room, this can get settled, frankly, in an afternoon.
- [03:12]
A
Yeah. And I mean, one thing that Mike Johnson said was that this, this temporary thing that Trump is doing, paying the military with, with funds that are available. I mean, that, that can only last so long. So we, we may hit a point where the military, members of the military will go without pay. I mean, that looks like that's coming. Unless, as you said, there's some sort of resolution.
- [03:31]
B
And remember, again, I have enormous respect for the military, what they do to keep our country safe. But I also have enormous respect for the folks in the intelligence community, the CIA and the NSA and a series of other Alphabet agencies. Our country safe, or the food inspector who inspects food or milk to make sure it's not spoiled. I think they help keep Americans safe as well. And those federal employees are going to start missing their paycheck come next week. So let's get this done. I do think there is. We are hearing increasing concern from our Republican friends. They're seeing what's going to happen in their states. And the irony of this is that the states are going to get hit the hardest are all the Republican states that never expanded Medicaid.
- [04:17]
A
Right? Yeah. I mean, Trump has been talking about going after Democrat, what he calls Democrat programs. But as I've pointed out, there are a lot of Republicans, maga Republicans who like those Democrat programs, things like Medicare, Medicaid, et cetera.
- [04:28]
B
And also the fact that, frankly, it is small businesses, which have traditionally been, you know, Republican base of support, that in those states in the Southeast, the only way they could get affordable health care was go into that, what's called the Affordable Care Marketplace, the ACA Marketplace. They are all getting their statements this month saying, holy crap, if you make $80,000 a year and you're a couple in your late 50s, in Roanoke, Virginia, your rates are going to go from about 890 bucks over $2,000 a month. That is going to drive people out. And what that will also do is you suddenly take at Least in my state, you know, four or five, 600,000 people and put them back in the emergency room, the whole system's gonna break down and everybody's healthcare costs are gonna skyrocket.
- [05:13]
A
Yeah. And do you wish that Democrats were maybe in the Senate or in both the House and the Senate were driving for more than just those Obamacare premium subsidies? Because, I mean, they are important, it's true. But I mean, you've got these thuggish ICE tactics going on in places like Chicago. I mean, it's been unreal. You got Trump deploying the National Guard to cities like Washington, D.C. a lot of your constituents work in Washington, D.C. and it, you know, he's just been acting like a dictator wannabe. And I've said this time and again on my show, and I just, I wonder if there's a part of the thinking that. Okay, well, we're acting strategically here. That's why we're going after the Obamacare premiums. But, oh, yeah, sure as hell we'd like to go after a lot more than that. Your thoughts?
- [05:56]
B
Yeah, well, you're exactly right.
- [05:59]
A
Okay.
- [05:59]
B
I mean, you know, Donald Trump, the Democrats screwed up the border. You know, you can be for border security and not be for ICE agents, as we saw in those videos yesterday from Chicago, you know, dragging women out of the pickup line at a school as their kids were coming out.
- [06:15]
A
It's crazy.
- [06:15]
B
We're coming home from school. It's crazy. And this president has shown he has no respect for the law. He has no respect for traditional norms. He's going to push until, until the system pushes back. And the unfortunate conclusion, Jim, I've come to, and this is, this is a hard one for me to acknowledge as somebody who's been part of every bipartisan gang in the last decade, none of my Republican Senate friends, no matter what they say to me quietly about we know, we know, or the undermining of the intelligence community and politicization of our intelligence, they're not going to speak up, at least at this point. So it's going to take pressure on the president. They get in the room. And yes, there are a lot of these other issues that, that are upsetting and concerning. We thought the thing, though, that, and what does affect Americans the most and the most tangibly right now are that rising health care costs and obviously the federal employees who are going to go without, without their, their paycheck. Although, again, this is the insanity of this guy. Donald Trump was the guy that signed into law in 2019. The fact that after government shut down. All federal employees, not some. All federal employees get back pay. And for him now to suddenly say, well, he can arbitrarily pick and choose. It is a lie. It is against the law. Federal workers will get paid, but again, they shouldn't have to go through this kind of. This kind of craziness. Let's get in the way and get well.
- [07:50]
A
Yeah. And a federal judge just said, I mean, in the last few hours, that they can't just start firing federal employees. And that's what they've been trying to do to the tune of thousands of federal employees. And it just seems to me that, I mean, they're just flouting the law at every turn. And I'm just wondering, strategically, are there second thoughts about going along, what was it back in March with funding the government among some of your colleagues on the Democratic side, did that communicate something to Trump that he can just continue to go wild like this?
- [08:22]
B
I'm just disagreeing.
- [08:23]
A
Yeah.
- [08:24]
B
I disagreed with the president in his first term almost all the time.
- [08:28]
A
Yeah.
- [08:29]
B
But I still found ways to work, work with him. And frankly, I worked very well with Steve Mnuchin as Treasury secretary. There were things we could still get done. I was, you know, call me naive, call me stupid, whatever. I would assume that that might be the approach that Trump would have brought back in this second term. It is diametrically different. And the Democrats, I think, are right to be chastised that we didn't appreciate how different it is this time. I think, frankly, even our Republicans were surprised at how different it is. And that's why, again, you just can't keep going along. Nothing about what is happening in America now is normal. These are not normal politics. They are not normal acts of a commander in chief, of a president. I frankly think the best news I've seen in the last two weeks was when Trump and Hegseth brought all the generals and admirals into Quantico. And rather than responding, they were professional. They made clear their allegiance was to the Constitution and not to this individual. I think it was the most heartwarming thing on an otherwise pretty bleak.
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A
That's true.
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B
Period. Because everybody else seems to have bent the knee. Even when people rise up, whether it's in media, whether it's in business, or whether it's universities, they're afraid to speak out because, oh, my gosh, retribution.
- [10:00]
A
And if Trump invokes the Insurrection act and tries to send American troops into U.S. cities, Democrat cities all around the country, what do Democrats in the Senate do at this point? Because it seems to me, that it's game on. And at that point, if your Republican colleagues in the Senate or even over in the House, if they're not going to step up and say, you know, this is just wrong, I mean, the crime is not. I mean, it's at historically low levels. And for him to use as an excuse, I mean, he's. That, that's, that's not an excuse. And to me, we've, we've crossed a major red line, it seems.
- [10:35]
B
Well, Jim, one of the things that hearing from are a lot of folks, both current and former, I don't think it's going to be the Republican members of Congress, but former members, former military, existing CEOs, who even as recently as 30 days ago, weren't as worried as they are now. I think it's going to have to be if, God forbid, he takes these kind of actions, if there's not an acknowledgement that this is a red flag that we can't turn away from and people across domains aren't willing to speak out, and there's a lot of these quiet conversations going on, but if they're not willing to speak out, at least with the security that other people will speak out of equal stature, even if it's not in their exact domain, then, you know, this move towards authoritarianism might not be reversed. And we will rue the day as we go into the celebrations of the 250th next July if we don't have a living, functioning democracy by next spring and summer.
- [11:40]
A
Yeah, no, I mean, that'd be a hell of a time for our democracy to go down the tubes. And, Senator, I mean, I did want to ask you a little bit about Venezuela. I was talking to your colleague over in the House, Jim Himes. He's the ranking demo on the House Intelligence Committee, and he was basically saying United States is essentially murdering people in the Caribbean right now. I'm just curious what your take is on all of this. And the New York Times is reporting that the Trump administration has secretly authorized the CIA to conduct covert action in Venezuela, basically stepping up a campaign against Boduro, and that this may be part of a policy of regime change. I mean, that's, that's the vibe. I, I suppose, as the kids might say, with this policy, I'm, you know.
- [12:22]
B
Unlike Pete Hegseth and Tulsi Gabbard, the Secretary of Defense and Secretary, Director of National Intelligence, when something's classified, I don't talk about it, so I'm not going to comment.
- [12:32]
A
Text it to us.
- [12:32]
B
I'm not going to comment on anything in New York Times story. I will acknowledge one thing. Maduro is a bad guy. I mean, and one of the things, again, I wish Biden would have done when the Venezuelan people voted in overwhelming numbers a year and a half or so ago against Maduro and we didn't bring more support at that point. That was a big mistake. But the notional idea, one doesn't need to be a student of history to realize that the CIA's record in Latin America has been kind of mixed. And, you know, I work regularly with folks in the agency. They are patriots. They want to do the right thing. And I'll just leave it at that.
- [13:16]
A
Yeah. And have you commented on these, these strikes, these, these drone strikes, these missile strikes on these, on these boats, on these drug boats.
- [13:26]
B
I am worried that our sailors, in terms of basic law of the sea, in terms of how we interdict votes, how we should interdict is not being carried out, and whether even our sailors could be somehow held responsible amongst law of the sea. The United States doesn't agree to that treaty, but the rest of the world pretty much does. I also think that the President's case would be much stronger if he interdicted these votes. And the great reveal is that these were all Venezuelan drug runners bringing fentanyl to the United States.
- [14:12]
A
Yeah.
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B
Because we don't know when you blow these out of the water without recovery of drugs or not. The President, who's got obviously a very mixed record on keeping his word on anything, the notion that he's saying to the rest of the world, just trust me, is a bit of a stretch.
- [14:34]
A
And you mentioned Tulsi Gabbard. How out of whack is our intelligence community right now? I know you spent a lot of time talking with those folks in the intelligence community. I know that in the dni, I think it was reported that there were some pretty large reductions in force there even before all this government shutdown stuff, that they were trying to clear people out.
- [14:55]
B
Well, there is. There is A. The DNI's office, I think, should be streamlined, even. I agree with Tom Cotton, who's now the chair of the Intel Committee. But what is just heartbreaking to me is Tulsi Gabbard has fired people if they won't change their analysis to make it politically acceptable to the President. We've seen the firing of the NSA director, National Security, Tim Hawk, General Hawk fired for no reason. We saw the firing of General Cruz, the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, who the DIA had the audacity to Tell the truth about. Yes, the strike against Iran was very effective, but didn't totally obliterate. We've seen Tulsi Gabbard reveal the identities of literally people who've been undercover for years and putting their lives in jeopardy. We've seen Tulsi Gabbard dismantle all of the election security activities. You know, the irony is in 2020, we had a very safe election because the people Trump had in charge at that point of the intelligence community and CISA did their job. Now we've got Gabbard, who's got strange ties to Russia, dismantling all the, the, the election interference unit inside when frankly our intelligence, the bad guys are not stepping back from their efforts to try to infiltrate our country. And then give you one other example that just ought to blow your mind. Every FBI field office around the country, between 25 and 45% of the FBI agents that have been assigned to counterterrorism, to counter espionage, or to cyber or for that matter, major crimes, all important roles of the FBI have been taken off those duties and stuck on immigration, where we get reports on most a regular basis. They are not doing anything. ICE already has a budget that's bigger than the FBI. This is a waste of resources and it is making America less safe. God forbid that we have a terrorist incident, but if this administration cuts back on the ability of foreigners to interfere and cuts back on the ability to go after terrorists because they want to stick more people, you know, appearing to manhandle folks that may or may not be legal in this country, that is a, an extraordinarily extraordinary, I think, mistaken policy.
- [17:33]
A
Yeah. And apparently Laura Loomer has something to do with some of these national peculiar national security moves and intel moves. How much sway does she have? That's kind of weird.
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B
Isn't that weird for your viewers who don't know? Laura, let me just. She was so crazy. She's a 911 denier.
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A
Yeah.
- [17:51]
B
She hangs out with white nationalists. She is, you know, says the most vile, inhuman things about people of Muslim faith. And she, the Trump administration, she was so crazy the Trump administration wouldn't hire her. Yet whenever she tweets, puts out on a show, Tulsi Gabbard, Pete Hegseth jump, matter of fact. And you know, she is equal opportunity. She went after the Trump's first national security advisor, got him thrown out, got these non political generals thrown out. She, she went after me. I do normal oversight. Remember? Not all the intelligence committee, not all senators get to go to all the intelligence facilities to do oversight. If I don't do my job, then there's nobody looking over their shoulder. She prevented me from going to the National Geospatial Agency for oversight visit. It's outrageous and it's one of the reasons why I fear that my Republican Senate friends who will quietly say, oh, Mark, you're right, they're afraid of her too. This is insane. You know, a person that's so wacky that denies 911 being able to kind of dictate policy by tweet, it almost be like the President, United States dictating policy by tweet.
- [19:09]
A
Right. Well, I mean that birds of a feather flock together. But that is, I mean, I think that that's, it's very troubling, Senator. And I don't want to hold you up too long. And I got to throw one hardball question at you. Jay Jones, he's running for attorney general, Virginia. I saw that you criticized him. He, he at one point sent out some violent texts to a colleague. Those texts came to light. He was threatening the life, I suppose in the family of the Virginia House speaker, if I have that correct. What do you, what do you think about that whole situation? Because my, my personal thing is, is that this kind of rhetoric should be condemned on all sides. It can't be tolerated anywhere.
- [19:49]
B
And I totally, I totally can condemn Jay Jones rhetoric. I think his comments were appalling and I think it is uncalled for.
- [20:04]
A
Should he stay in the race or I guess there's.
- [20:06]
B
I'm going to continue to support the ticket. We've already got. Half of Virginians have already voted. Voters will make their decision. I do think as well we should call out as well some of the, the stories that have just broken in the last 24 hours about equally hateful things.
- [20:25]
A
Yeah.
- [20:26]
B
Coming from some of the young Republicans.
- [20:29]
A
And Senator, why is this? Because you've been around politics a long time. I'm a Virginian. I grew up in Virginia. You were the governor there and then, Senator, and very well thought of almost ran for president. Everybody knows your story. What has happened to our politics? What is it? Why are these young people at each other's throats and engaging in this kind of rhetoric? I guess maybe they learned it from folks in our age brackets and we didn't set the right example. What do you.
- [20:54]
B
What I don't know. I don't sound like that much of an old fart, but I think if we had put some guardrails on social media back in 2014, you know, the kind of ability for hate Speech to be amplified on both ends of the political spectrum has been pretty awful. And frankly, with AI coming, this could get worse. I just had some of the AI folks in my office this afternoon. We've got to put some guardrails there as well. And frankly, I'll make one prediction here, definitely by 2028, but I think even by 2026, the issue over time is going to be how AI is going to completely change the economy. We're already at 9% of recent college grads unemployed. That number could go to 20%, and we are not prepared for that transition. And then if you have social media and, and AI tools amplifying that kind of angst, hate, you know, this kind of behavior, again, I think you need to call it out, and then people need to make their own judgments on it.
- [21:58]
A
Yeah. And I mean, there's anger inside the Democratic Party, too, inside the base. Not to hold you up too much longer, but I mean, there's like inside the progressive base, they're, they're furious with senators in the Democratic Party for confirming some of Trump's nominees. I know you were saying earlier, maybe you're wrong, maybe we're dumb, whatever, but how do, how is that anger alleviated? How is that anger addressed? What do you say to those folks? I'm sure they come up to you and say, of course you do this. Why'd you do this?
- [22:26]
B
Listen, I voted for Scott Besant, and there have been who's the Trump's treasury secretary. And there are a number of things that he did, has done that I don't agree with. On the other hand, frankly, he looks like the adult in the room on most of these issues these days. And as a former chief executive, I think the chief executive, in the normal course, unless the nominee's way out of bounds, ought to get their choice. What's happened now, though, is that so many of these nominees have been way out of bounds that, you know, I give a hell of a lot more scrutiny on even secondary folks at this point because I'm worried that they're going to buy into this. Trump is more important than the law. And the fact that, yeah, he's throwing Comey in jail.
- [23:19]
A
I mean, he's trying to throw Comey in jail.
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B
He's trying to throw first. Didn't fully appreciate how different this time it was. That's a fair critique. But what the critique ought to be on. All right, what are we going to do about it now? And what we're doing about it right now is we're saying no More of destroying our health care system, you know, in this Trump shutdown, put our federal workers back to work and don't allow 24 million Americans to have their health care rates double, which will in the end.
- [23:49]
A
When you hear some of the parties say, you know, Schumer's got to go, we can't, we need new leadership. I know it's. You can't be a big fan of guys like me asking you questions about your fellow colleagues and so on. I know that that rankles folks, but I'm sure you hear it. And what do you say? I mean, what do you say to that?
- [24:06]
B
What I say is I think the Democrats are pushing back a hell of a lot harder than they were earlier. I think we realize what's at stake. And what I also think is for those activists who are the most upset, I urge them, you got every right to send some of that frustration my way. But I also ask you beyond just knocking on your Democratic elected officials doors and complaining, I urge you to have those hard conversations yourself. The only way with every one of us have got family and friends that voted for Donald Trump. When I pressed some of the hardcore activists, I said, well, have you actually talked to your family and friends? They go, oh, that's not going to do any good or baloney. If you're not willing to go and have those individual conversations with friends and family yourself, then that's a good point. Your ability to complain, you still got that right. But.
- [25:08]
A
And Schumer is kind of your. Yeah, and Schumer is kind of your family. Have you guys gone to him and said, hey, we gotta we this. We got to toughen this thing up here.
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B
This is not magic. Why we've taken these positions down.
- [25:21]
A
I gotcha. All right, Senator. Hey, Senator Warner, thank you so much. Really appreciate it. All right, good to see you. All right. And we saw in the comments that, I mean, and, and the senator was prepared for this, saw in the comments that, that folks are frustrated. We get it. I get it. You, you hear me? On a daily basis. And somebody who really gets it is my friend Ruth Ben Giot, who is a terrific. I mean, she's just an indispensable light right now in this movement to stop authoritarianism in the U.S. i guess that is really embodied by these no Kings protests that are taking place. They started in June. They're going to happen again on Saturday. No Kings, too. We're going to talk about that now. Ruth, great to see you. Thanks for coming on.
- [26:07]
C
Sure. Always a pleasure to speak with you.
- [26:09]
A
Yeah, And I guess just to pick up on the conversation, I mean, do you think Dems have fought hard enough? Do you think that they just communicated a little too much weakness at the start of this administration and that now they're kind of paying the price? We're all kind of paying the price. Or was Trump just going to just steamroll no matter what was going to take place, no matter what the pushback was going to be? What do you think?
- [26:32]
C
I don't think it's either or. I, I think that Trump and his colleagues were going to steamroll no matter what. They prepared to steamroll ahead of time. They use their time out of office brilliantly. Books will be written about this. They probably already are as we speak. They had not just, you know, Project 2025, they had all kinds of playbooks ready to go and so they hit the ground and we know what happened after that. And really, there is no equivalent in, what is it, 10 months now of this administration. There's no equivalent in authoritarians, among authoritarians who came to office via elections. If you look at the first 10 months of, of even Vladimir Putin or, or Erdogan or Orban, they, they didn't have such a pace and scope of things that have been done. So this was going to happen anyway. It was part of what the, you know, the Heritage foundation called the Revolution Kevin Roberts book that they decided not to publish because it was too revealing that they want a revolution. And this is indeed a revolutionary pace. So Democrats that, you know, we, the thing with the bipartisan structure is that you have these two giant parties and a lot of countries that have faced autocratic aggression have multi party systems. And so each party, they're smaller, but they're a lot more flexible. And sometimes people go back and forth among the parties. The parties make coalitions even with other parties they don't like that much. But so the Democratic Party, being one of two giant parties, was a little fossilized and it's not really built for flexibility. It hasn't had to deal with this before. And so it's not surprising that they were on their back foot at the beginning. And also, for example, voting for confirmation of officials who've turned out to be, in my opinion, ideological fanatics. This was the remnant of bipartisanship, whereas what they were dealing with were people, the core people like Stephen Miller and others. They're not interested in bipartisanship. And now Trump is speaking about Democrats as gnats, as insects.
- [28:56]
A
Right.
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C
To brush away. That's very disturbing.
- [28:59]
A
Yeah. There's no question about it. And I mean, when you talk about how, you know, Trump is rolling faster than Putin did, Erdogan did, others did, I mean, that. That's kind of chilling to think about, but I can't think of anything that illustrates that point better than what has been taking place with ice. And I just. I wonder how much of a parallel you've seen between the way ICE has taken shape over the last few months and, say, Putin's secret police force. And I want to show video. We. We made a compilation of some of the crazy, outlandish ICE activity that we've seen in the last couple of weeks. Let's play that, and we'll talk about. On the other side. I am allowed to film. Just give us some distance while you arrest this man. And leave their child in the car.
- [29:56]
D
Signed by a judge. You don't have a warrant.
- [30:00]
B
Who is a US Citizen was walking to a bus stop on the city's north side when Border Patrol agents pushed her to the ground, detained her, then.
- [30:07]
A
Drove off with her.
- [30:08]
B
Ms. Bronkman was taken to the ground, battered, handcuffed, and her pants were pulled down, exposing her bare buttocks.
- [30:27]
A
These armed ICE officers came after you. It's just wild.
- [30:32]
C
Yeah, that. That video is actually the third time that ICE has thrown me to the ground.
- [30:47]
D
Get the out of here.
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A
Get.
- [30:53]
D
He's a citizen. He's a citizen. He's a citizen.
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E
To demand oversight on federal law enforcement. I've not seen them cross the line yet, and that we have committees under jurisdiction who have that responsibility, but it's not risen to that level. What I've seen is the abuse of law enforcement by radical leftist activists. You know, most recently, the most threatening thing I've seen yet was the naked bicyclers in Portland who were protesting ICE down there. I mean, it's getting really ugly.
- [31:24]
A
Yeah. I mean, Mike Johnson, you know, it's. It's really difficult to take anything that he says seriously right now. But. But, Ruth, I mean, when you look at that compilation of video and you see all of these ICE officers or Border Patrol officers, they're in masks. It looks to me like Putin's secret police sweeping people up, putting them in vans. What have. What's been your take on this? I've been anxious to hear it.
- [31:46]
C
Yes. What they're doing, the way they're dressed, their behavior, the way they evidently feel empowered to act in a completely thuggish and lawless manner is typical of how all kinds of state security forces, as they're called abroad, act. And in fact, ICE has been Filling some of the duties of secret police abroad, where you, you come upon somebody, you abduct them. Some of them are masked. In Russia, sometimes they're groups that are masked. And the key is to terrorize people during their daily activities, also to humiliate them. So the woman who had her pants pulled down and to transform the public sphere, where you go to shop for food, picking your kids up from school, your neighborhood, your apartment building, nothing is safe anymore. And the goal is to keep people too terrified to speak out, even to help other people who are under assault by ice. And that hasn't worked so far, which really enrages the administration. So when Speaker Johnson says he hasn't seen anybody cross the line, I would say that there is no line anymore. That's been a part of the Trump administration to remove checks against people acting in a corrupt or lawless manner. And they've done that institutionally, like getting rid of a lot of institutions and government that monitored kleptocracy, all kinds of rollbacks of ethics. And this goes all the way to the ground. So you have now, ice, which has been now is going to be funded at a level that's more than the entire armed forces of major other countries like Brazil.
- [33:44]
A
Right.
- [33:45]
C
So this is. So we have to pay very close attention to the way these people are acting, because they are becoming a kind of hub within the state in, in ways you see in autocracies.
- [33:58]
A
Yeah. And, and you're so right when you say that they're going to get more fun, I mean, to the tune of tens of billions of dollars in more funding, which means what you're seeing now is just the beginning, and it's just a fraction of what we're likely to see. And if Trump invokes the Insurrection act, that's another layer of sending in sort of militarized police into cities. And to me, you know, I think that's. That's a bright red line. And if our government, if the other branches of our government don't act, I don't know what happens after that. It seems to me that's, that's a turning point. That's. That's a major turning point, it seems to me.
- [34:39]
C
Yeah. And you can look at the, the very good compliment compilation that you just showed, and we're already past a turning point. The United States has been transformed in ways that people are reeling from just seeing everything and feel very different and have our day. It's so dangerous now for many people. So in autocracy, there's never just one moment. Although you do have things like when Hitler did the Enabling act, certainly invoking the Insurrection act would start a new chapter of this. But one of my theories since this started in Los Angeles in June and I wrote a New York Times essay on it, said, and they entitled it, trump wants you to get used to this. Meaning the reason, part of the reason they did these over the top responses to protests starting in Los Angeles and then scaling it up is not only the site of people helping the vulnerable had to be shut down, because that's empathy, that's solidarity. But they wanted to have Americans get used to the site of Marines of National Guard. And so now we have. And you see the compilation you made, they're everywhere and they're part of our life now. And so the Insurrection act, if this ever happens, we already have a kind of psychological basis for this. It doesn't make it any less lawless and outrageous. But he, you see, they're master propagandists and they've been feeding us images and experiences that make it more difficult to say, okay, this is the, this is the line.
- [36:27]
A
Yeah, no, it's true. They're the DHS videos. They look like something out of Hollywood where they've produced these slickly, you know, put together videos of, of ICE officers and you name it, you know, you know, basically opening up like Apocalypse now type, you know, scenes in American cities. And, you know, but it brings me to this, Ruth. And that is, to me, one of the great traditions of this country is that we push back when things go too far. We push back. We march, we demonstrate, we speak out, we do things like this, we speak to one another and we have our voices heard. And I'm just wondering to you when you see, because you and I haven't talked in some time, when you see no Kings really doing so well. I mean, they're talking about this time around. Let me just see if I can find the numbers. They're expecting 5 million demonstrators around the country. The organizers of no Kings, people like Indivisible. I'll have Ezra Levin on, on my show tomorrow. He's one of the co founders there. But I mean, 5 million, I mean, that's, that's extraordinary. And, and this is just the beginning. I mean, we're in year one and they've had two of these very successful. They're about to have their second of these successful events.
- [37:40]
C
Yeah, I, I agree with you. I'm, I'm optimistic. And I have a saying that you never underestimate the American people. And the other Thing to know is that no country, especially one of the giant size and complexity of the United States, ever constructed a really viable pro democracy movement in just a few months. Normally, a pro democracy movement will come about when a state, an authoritarian state, has been there for a while. So we're actually, it can seem extremely slow and painfully slow, but in fact, what matters is the momentum. So we had hands off was the first organized protest. A great slogan. No Kings, equally great slogan. So this is the second iteration, and what we see is momentum that the crowds are getting bigger. There's also more creativity in protest. I. I wrote a piece for my substack Lucid on the Portland Chicken, who's actually very. Has a. He has a master's in game theory, and he's actually very eloquent about protest, about using humor to disrupt the narrative of antifa, you know, lunatics. Instead, you have chickens and frogs.
- [39:07]
A
Right.
- [39:07]
C
And there's.
- [39:08]
A
I love the frogs.
- [39:09]
C
Yes, the frogs, exactly.
- [39:11]
A
So there's a unicorn and I think. Yeah. A couple of other animals.
- [39:15]
C
Yeah, yeah. And humor has actually been used successfully, like in Serbia with this movement called Aptor and other places to. As part of on the streets resistance. So, so we're, We're. We're doing very well in very challenging conditions because I repeat that unless we're talking about a junta like a Pinochet where you've got a coup and then the military's there from day one, having this level of kind of militarized people around and different types of militarized people, but having a force like ice be so brutal so fast is very, very challenging. And so the fact that so many people are coming out is a testament to the wonderful optimism and resolve of the American people.
- [40:12]
A
Yeah. And Ruth, I mean, just to kind of start wrapping things up. I mean, the thing that worries me, though, is the way they've responded to this second round of Do King's protests. They're obviously very worried. They obviously see a problem, political problem for themselves. My guess is, is that in addition to progressives, you're seeing some independents out there and maybe even some disaffected MAGA Republicans who are becoming more disaffected, it seems to me, by the day, they're starting to feel a bite from Trump's economic policies and so on. But the way that the administration and its allies have been talking about these no Kings protests, saying that they're Hate America rallies or that this is antifa, they're trying to, again, going back to your point about propaganda, sort of chum, the Waters for perhaps a crackdown on this kind of, this kind of rising up of people's voices. What do you think?
- [41:06]
C
Yeah, they've been working very hard. Again, these are master propagandists to set the frame within which people will see these protests. And I don't just mean see it on Fox News. And that's why they've had, you know, they've been filming, they have Kristi Noem filming things or there with film crews. They've been trying to construct the argument that the cities are antifa hellholes through images. But it's, that's going to get harder as more people wake up and come out to the streets. Already didn't they like slam an 83 year old grandmother to the ground early on? And so, you know, people are going to know this person in their communities. It's going to be harder as things get worse and more people are disaffected and they come out or they watch different, perhaps they're not watching only Fox News or they know someone at their church who tells them a different story. It's going to be harder for the administration to keep everybody convinced of its extremely over the top narratives, you know, that it's jihadis, it's Hamas. They're throwing too many things. They're actually overreaching right now when Trump.
- [42:18]
A
Says, oh, the Biden FBI had all these plants in the crowd on January6. Which of course first of all makes him sound like he's not all there, which he's not. But I mean, I mean, wait a minute. I saw, I saw the Oath Keepers, you know, busting into the Capitol. We saw all of this violence take, I mean there he's, they're trying to ask us to not even believe our own eyes and ears and what we know to be true anymore. I mean it's Orwellianism can only go so far, it seems to me, you know, in America, you know, and it backfires.
- [42:51]
C
It backfires in established regimes and the fact they're doing all of this so quickly and so ferociously could, could turn to, you know, bite them back as well.
- [43:03]
A
Yeah. Well, Ruth, great to see as always. Thanks so much and forgive me for pestering you every so often to beg you to come on, but it's a pleasure, it's always a pleasure to talk to you. And I know you're busy with your students and you're also busy with your wonderful lucid substack, which I am a subscriber. I've been for time. It's kind of the only reason I knew what substack was before I jumped into it, into substack earlier this year. So you kind of helped get me involved in all this, so I have to blame you. But, Ruth, great to see you as always.
- [43:32]
C
Thanks so much, Jim.
- [43:33]
A
All right, Good to see you. Thanks a lot. All right, that's the wonderful Ruth Bengiot. She has also written an incredible book which I have on my bookcase behind me. Where's the darn thing? Here it is. This is. Oh, I'm going to knock stuff over. This is Ruth's book. This is required reading. And I just showed all the reflections of the lights in my studio. But that's okay, I don't care. This is required. If you have not read Ruth's book. I'm not doing this to get Ruth on my show or sell books or anything. This is required reading. You must read this book. This will tell you everything that you need to know about what we're going through right now. Tim Snyder's book is also good, too, and I wrote a book a while back, but. But Ruth's book is much better. So my thanks to Ruth as well. Okay, a couple of announcements to make. First of all, tomorrow evening, Thursday evening, in Charlottesville, Virginia, on the grounds of uva. I'm not supposed to say campus. They're very fancy at uva. On the grounds of uva, I'm going to be having a live program, live podcast with the one and only Mike Fanone. Yes, Michael Fanone is going to be with me and we're going to be talking to a group of students and community members and so on about everything that's going on. We are going to try our damnedest to broadcast this live tomorrow evening from 7:00 o', clock, I believe, to 8:30. But, you know, these things never end on time. So we'll probably go from like 7 to 9 o' clock because Mike and I will totally, you know, just pop off and just say everything that's on our minds. But it's going to be a great event down at the University of Virginia for the folks out there who are not aware. I am a visiting scholar at the University of Virginia this year. And so as part of my duties, I'm, I'm very happy to help out. I'll be having this, this live, sort of a town hall, fireside chat, whatever you call it. But we're gonna, we're gonna put it out live on, on the platforms tomorrow evening, so look out for that. As I mentioned earlier, I'm also going to be interviewing Ezra Levin of Indivisible. That'll be tomorrow around 4:30 as I'm getting ready for this event, the no big, no Kings event coming up on Saturday. And as part of that, I'm sorry to overburden you with announcements. Don Lemon, Joy King and Joy Reed, excuse me, John Lemon, Joy Reed and myself. I'm saying I'm looking at the no Kings thing right now. We're going to be doing live coverage down on the National Mall on Saturday early in the afternoon as the demonstrations are taking place not only in Washington, but all across the country. There you see right there, there's the fancy graphic no Kings coverage. My ep, Matt throwing this up. We're testing the limits of our, of our virtual studio platform here, but that's going to be taking place Saturday early in the afternoon. So please stay tuned for that. And I just want to say Ruth was, was talking about ICE tactics and so on. This one jumped out at me. It's a top Drudge Report right now. Apparently the Border Patrol down in El Paso shot a family dog. This is a story. I mean, there are so many of these stories that are flying at us every day. This may have happened, I believe this happened in September, but it's just now becoming public. And this story is, is high up on Drudge right now. And El Paso family claims Border Patrol killed their dog during search. And the, the Border Patrol people are reviewing the incident. I mean, this just goes to show you, folks, what in in God's name is happening in our country. It just goes to show you that the Trump administration is totally out of control. They've gone totally wild. These thuggish, brutal tactics that we're seeing in Chicago. I mean, we're going to, we're running the risk of seeing this take place in every community in this country. We're seeing it already taking place in a lot of different cities across the country. They're taking place in all the major cities. And I will say there you do see examples from time to time of people pushing back in Chicago. You know, they've been blowing whistles at ICE officers. Obviously you're seeing the, the apps that people put on their phones that block ICE and so on that from time to time get knocked down. But people are pushing back. People are saying, hell no, we're not going to put up with things like shooting the family dog. We're not going to put up with people getting pinned to the ground in, in school parking lots when parents are trying to pick up their kids. We're not going to put up with it. We're not going to put up with it, but, you know, you. You've heard me talk about no kings, but I. I think I may have found my queen. I think I may have found my queen. I just want to show this footage. There's a nice lady in New York City who was at the immigration courthouse, and she said, I'm not going to take any of this. And let's. Let's show a little video of that and we'll talk about it.
- [48:17]
D
I wish the you were.
- [48:19]
A
Yes.
- [48:19]
D
The we his family. Who the is? We don't like none of you. You okay?
- [48:27]
C
No.
- [48:27]
D
How can I be okay?
- [48:28]
A
You okay?
- [48:29]
D
Are you okay?
- [48:30]
A
Are you okay?
- [48:31]
D
I look like I'm okay? Don't come up in my face because I hit hard. Wrong with you.
- [48:36]
A
Try it.
- [48:36]
D
I wish you would. You try me and see what the happened. We angry. All of us angry out here. So don't think it's y' all alone.
- [48:46]
A
You.
- [48:46]
D
Who you telling? Get out of here. Why are you telling me? Get out of here. You'd ask me a question, and I'm answering you.
- [48:52]
A
Get out of here.
- [48:54]
D
Wrong with you. Oh, stupid ass. That's why you gotta hide your baby. You want to go to jail for me? No more. I can tell you anything. You want to go to jail? Want to hit me?
- [49:04]
A
Hit me.
- [49:05]
D
You ain't got me nobody scaring you. Come, come, come and arrange all, man. You go fight you.
- [49:14]
A
You a.
- [49:15]
D
That's why your kids, them don't like you. And your wife is on you. That's why you got to hide your face. My face ain't h. I'm American. You stupid. Wrong with y'. All. You can take me too high. I'm char. You know what to do. No, no, no.
- [49:33]
A
I mean, this is. I mean, this just goes to show you, this is how angry the American people are getting right now. American citizens are being harassed. Women and children are being taken to the ground and pinned and humiliated and treated like garbage. It Donald Trump said. He said during the campaign, we're going after the criminals. We're going after the gang members. Does any of this, what we're seeing right now, look like going after criminals and gang members? Ladies and gentlemen, the video coming out of Chicago on a daily basis is unreal. It's un American. It's not who we are. And so, you know, folks might take issue with that nice lady's language that she was using at the Manhattan courthouse. I don't. I don't take issue with it. I kind of like it because a lot of people are getting pissed off right now, and she is well within her rights to tell those officers exactly how she feels. That's what no Kings is all about. No Kings is all about having your voice, making it heard, letting the people in power know we're not going to take this lying down. We're not going to take this shit. Shooting the family dog, pinning mom to the ground outside of school, chasing people through Walgreens, chasing people on bicycles, harassing people at the immigration courthouse. People who are showing up at the immigration courthouse are doing what they're supposed to do. They're showing up in court. And even at the courthouse where they're doing what they're supposed to do, they're being roughed up by ice. They're being verbally abused by ice. And so I will tell you, I, you know, we may not be into kings in this country, but I think I just found my queen right there in New York City. All right, My thanks to Senator Mark Warner of Virginia. My, my thanks to Ruth Ben Guy for joining us. As always, thanks to all of you. Remember, tomorrow evening in Virginia at uva, I'll be doing that live podcast, town Hall Fireside Chat, where you want to call it, with Mike Fanone at the University of Virginia. That should be a lot of fun. And on Saturday, our no Kings coverage early in the afternoon with Don Lemon Joy Reid should be a lot of fun. In the meantime, thanks everybody for watching. Still reporting from Washington, I'm Jim Acosta. Have a good evening. I'll see you next time. Sam Sa.