← The Jim Acosta Show
The Jim Acosta Show
The Atlantic's David Frum and California Political Correspondent Maeve Reston
00:44:48
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- [00:00]
David Frum
Foreign.
- [00:07]
Jim Acosta
Welcome to the Jim Acosta Show. It's another day that ends in Y and Donald Trump picking unqualified people for very important jobs here in Washington. The latest example is Bill Pulte, the federal housing official who has been tapped by Donald Trump as an acting Director of National Intelligence. Let's discuss this and more with the great David from writer for the Atlantic. And David, I was saying earlier, I don't know many folks in Washington who know this town as well as you do. And, but even having all of that, you know, breadth of experience and depth of knowledge, it almost doesn't really prepare you for what we are dealing with these days. And, you know, Donald Trump picking somebody like Bill Pulte for Director of National Intelligence. Your thoughts on all this, Trump?
- [00:54]
David Frum
There are a lot of bad appointments in the Trump administration, and some of them, Elon Musk wreaking terrible havoc on the world, on American climate research, on American scientific research. But whatever else you say about Elon Musk, he's obviously not a negligible person. He is a person of tremendous accomplishment. He just overestimated his ability in command of government. And he had an agenda of his own. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Doing terrible harm to American public health and kind of a crackpot and a crazy person. But, you know, he did, even though with his famous last name, he did sort of impress himself before he had a pre, pre career. Pulte is just an amazing person in that he's, it's not just that he's unqualified, he's antiqualified. Like, if you were to start saying, what should the Director of National Intelligence not be? This is a person whose claim, whose story is he inherited an enormous amount of money, tens of millions, maybe hundreds of millions of dollars. He got into spectacular feuds with all of his other relatives. He sued and countersued and defamed them. That's sort of what brought him to it made him a Twitter personality. And then he ran these contests where he gave away money on Twitter to bulk up his follower account. And that's how he came to Donald Trump's attention. And who made him the head of the Federal Housing Authority or not the financing arm of the Federal Housing Authority, which is a job where you probably can't do that much harm. You would think because it's full of highly specialist officials, it's very technical. But Will Pulte doesn't strike me as someone who could even understand the work of the agency, much less screw it up. But he then, in that agency, began acting as Trump's prosecutor and brought these preposterous cases against Lisa Cook, against Letitia James for mistakes in their mortgage documents, or exactly the same mistake that Secretary Treasury Besent made in his document.
- [02:46]
Jim Acosta
Right.
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David Frum
And the kind of thing that normally the response is the paperwork is sent back to you with, you know, you did this wrong. Re. Refile it, please. And, and, you know, you've missed your filing date and that may expose you to some penalties, but refile, you know. Correct. Correct. A record. The idea you'd bring a criminal prosecution for an error in a mortgage document. And he did it to serve Trump. And now he's been put in charge of a job which was created in the aftermath of 911 to make sure that all the vast intelligence capabilities in the United States, which are so enormous that they sometimes don't talk to one another.
- [03:19]
Jim Acosta
Right.
- [03:21]
David Frum
And the lives of Americans are at stake. I mean, one of the reasons we had 911 was because the CIA and FBI did not communicate what each other knew. And if they'd been able to talk to each other, they would have prevented that terrible day and saved 3,000 plus lives, averted wars. They didn't. And the job, job of the DNI is to make sure they do, which means the DNI has to understand CIA, has to understand FBI, plus the National Security Agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency, all the other dozen and a half intelligence agencies in the United States. This guy, this guy is supposed to save your life from Iranian terrorism?
- [03:55]
Jim Acosta
I don't think so right now. And David, you wrote in the Atlantic just today, Bill Pulte does not have a habit of publicly saying admiring things about Vladimir Putin or Bashar Al Assad. So in that one respect, his appointment as Acting Director of National Intelligence represents an improvement over Tulsi Gabbard. I guess that's true. In every other respect. The appointment is baffling. Pulte has no intelligence background, no national security expertise. He's an ultra partisan with a highly quarrelsome personality and great inherited wealth. Beyond that, there's not much to say about his record of public or personal achievement. And I think he sort of lives to, you know, speak to the audience of one. He does these interviews on Fox and other places in social media where he tries to get on Donald Trump's radar screen. And he's gotten on it. But, David, the other thing that is, and this goes to a little bit what you're saying a few moments ago about how this position was created after 9 11, you know, Bill, Bill Pulte is going to be in a position that Tulsi Gabard was in just about five seconds ago of great national security importance in. And how is he even possibly up to the job? It just, it makes me wonder whether Donald Trump has put him there to do his dirty work. You know, was going down to the Fulton County Election center and so on.
- [05:09]
David Frum
So here's the good news. And this I'm sure Donald Trump did do exactly as, as you said, because he fully has this record of doing dirty work. But, you know, his prosecutions of Letitia James and Lisa Cook didn't go that well. And if you're going to do dirty work at the National Intelligence Agency, you need to understand the agency, because one of the things that I don't think Trump understood this and Tulsi Gabbard, the Director of National Intelligence, as a coordinating body, doesn't have a big staff. It's not a big bureaucracy in itself. So what the idea is that the person who has 40 years of experience in intelligence knows where the filing cabinet is at CIA, knows when CIA is not telling him what he needs to know, knows when FBI is covering up some mistake they made, knows when National Security Agency and DIA are having a feud, and knows all the personalities these agencies have the option of simply not telling you what they don't want you to know. And if, because they're huge and DIA is huge, NSA is huge, CIA is big, FBI is not so big.
- [06:12]
Jim Acosta
So.
- [06:13]
David Frum
But there are tens of thousands of people working in this agent, hundreds of billions of dollars. If they know, I mean, they may say, look, if you ask us the question, we won't lie to you, but do you know what to ask?
- [06:24]
Jim Acosta
Right.
- [06:26]
David Frum
If you don't know enough, they say, well, you never asked us later when it comes out, well, if you'd asked us, of course we'd have told you. But you didn't ask us and we didn't help you.
- [06:35]
Jim Acosta
Yeah, no, that's true. And, and that was the, the problem with, you know, before 9, 11, there was a stove piping of information inside these various intelligence agencies. And that was the reason why the DNI was, was created, as you were saying earlier. But the White House is saying, oh, well, Pulte's background prepares him for these kinds of tasks of coordinating federal agencies. He's barely been in charge of this one federal Housing Agency during the second term.
- [07:00]
David Frum
I think the background is, if you've had the good fortune to inherit a great deal of money, maybe you'll be lucky in other ways.
- [07:07]
Jim Acosta
Yeah, and maybe we'll all be lucky, but that's not really that good enough, I don't think. And I guess Dr. Oz, speaking of, you know, great Trump picks for important positions inside the government, he was asked about Bill Pulte at the briefing earlier today. We can play a little bit of that just so the viewers know that the question was asked.
- [07:28]
Maeve Reston
We played this congressional statute says any appointee for the position of the Director of National Intelligence shall have extensive national security expertise. What extensive national security expertise does he have?
- [07:40]
David Frum
Mr. Ma', Am, you're asking me a
- [07:41]
Jim Acosta
question that's out of my lane. I'm so focused on, on making sure
- [07:43]
David Frum
Americans are healthy that I have not been looking at what other agencies.
- [07:47]
Jim Acosta
There you go. Well, you know, no questions on crudite, I guess or you know, at the briefing.
- [07:53]
David Frum
I think there, there could be like a kind of guide to five kinds of bad Trump officials because Dr. Oz is a special kind of Trump official. I don't think everyone knows this, but Oz had an incredibly distinguished early medical career. He was a great surgeon and he invented devices for dealing with improved stents that on which he got pat. That's what made him rich in the first place. He was up to, I'm going to forget what age a medical hero. And then he got into, then Oprah discovered him and he got into wellness and he sold the supplements and he made the satanic bargain. He said why make millions as a great medical hero when you can make hundreds of millions selling supplements?
- [08:37]
Jim Acosta
And, and you think, you know, that's,
- [08:39]
David Frum
I get it, I don't admire the choice. But plainly you're not an idiot. And if on a different timeline, Dr. Oz, as you say, he lost that race to Senator Fetterman. He could right now be the first Muslim American in the Senate. This great cardiologist went from practicing cardiology to teaching cardiology to being president of the University of Pennsylvania to running for the Senate where his issue is bringing better. I mean there's a whole other, you know, positive timeline for Dr. Oz. But he's not an idiot.
- [09:11]
Jim Acosta
Yeah. In a way you can be, you can be not an idiot and a sellout at the same time.
- [09:16]
David Frum
Yeah, yeah. You can make bad choices. But yeah, but then the people who really are idiots and, and Dr. Oz, it seems to me, has done in his appointment. He's tried to do, he's tried actually this is like his second chance to try to do some good work. I don't think he's been one of the scandal plagued Trump appointees. Yeah. Seems to have done much less harm than Bobby Kennedy Jr. Has done. But Pulte is an elite. And what we all have to hope for is that in the race between Pulte's sinister thuggery and his complete lack of understanding of his dossier and his inability to know even how to, how to do the thuggery, that the incompetence may protect us from the malice. That's the hope with him.
- [09:53]
Jim Acosta
Right? And we do have corruption without competence these days, as I've been saying in dc. And David, the other thing we should get into is you have you had a great piece and this is the reason why I reached out to you on the 250th anniversary, 250th birthday of the United States of America. And of course, Donald Trump is ruining that. But this is what you wrote about. Of course it's a fiasco. This is what you wrote about it in the Atlantic. Terrific piece. You talk too much. It's too damn much about you. That quote from Raymond Chandler's the Long Goodbye is a good summary of the fiasco that Donald Trump has made of the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. You might have thought that presiding over such a celebration would be an easy success for Trump. He's a showman, after all. He loves parades and extravaganzas. It was all an easy layup. A gimme a chance for a now unpopular second term president to reinvent himself as the leader of all of the American people. The only thing he has to do was for once in his life, not act like an insane egomaniac. And of course, that's exactly what he's done. And you can be a mile away from the White House. David, I know you live in Washington, so maybe you've seen this and you can see this cockamamie arch that's over the cage match pit on the South Lawn.
- [11:01]
David Frum
What if it rains?
- [11:03]
Jim Acosta
That's true.
- [11:05]
David Frum
I don't mean that people, just that people are going to get wet. I mean, how many hundreds of thousands of volts of electrical current are flowing through that thing?
- [11:13]
Jim Acosta
That's true. It's a good point.
- [11:15]
David Frum
You know what? You know what happens a lot in Washington in summer rain? Why is it on? And even the cage match, it's not on July 4th, it's on Trump's birthday.
- [11:25]
Jim Acosta
That's true.
- [11:26]
David Frum
And that's the thing. When I say he, it's not just that this is a kind of a fizzle, because he's done fizzles before. I mean, the 1776 is about the end of royal rule In America, it's about the coming of Republican government. It means no. No living person's face on the money. No living person's face on the coinage. You don't celebrate the birthdays of living people. America honors the birthdays of, of, of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King. All voted after these people left the scene. And when no one had any, they, they couldn't do any favors for anybody. And you can say, what, what is their role in American history? We're going to honor them with memor. Memorable days after they're gone as the thanks of a nation. You don't do it in their lifetime. That's. I mean, the British do that with their king, but then the king doesn't have any power, so he can't hurt anybody.
- [12:15]
Jim Acosta
Yeah, well, and, and I, you know, you bring up the, the possibility of electrocution, mass electrocution on July 4th. That's not good. But then I think they would just turn around and say, see, that's why we need a ballroom. Ignoring the fact that there was mass carnage on the South Lawn of the White House. But, David, you and I haven't had a chance to speak in a while, but the question is, and I don't know what camp you're in on this, the fact that he's trying to paint the reflecting pool, build this arch, do this cockamamie celebration for America's 250th birthday. Do all of these point to something that we should worry about in your view?
- [12:50]
David Frum
Well, look, a lot of these things are, they're just, they're, they're. There's Trump. Big scale corruption and small scale corruption. So painting this. Re. Gilding the statues on the Memorial Bridge, I find that quite. Yeah, that's something. The French would do it, sure. And I. But you want to, you know, with 250 years notice that this day is coming. There's plenty of time to have a contract for the work, make sure that they're competitive bids to take the low bidder with the best reputation. No kickbacks, no special favors to friends. Same thing with the reflecting pool. Yeah, there can be algae in the pool. I don't know if painting helps. That's not my area of expertise. I can see the case for the 250th, repainting the pool with a competitive contract and no kickbacks and no special favors. In even the White House ballroom, there is a case for a larger meeting space in the White House complex afforded by the. You, you, you became a national celebrity in this room. You know, what it can hold. And, you know, there are many occasions when, you know, you're honoring the Marine battalion or something. They're just. They're too. You can't. You can crowd them into these room, but they have to stand, they can't sit. So it's not an insane thing that a president said. I need a bigger meeting space, and I want it to be inside the security perimeter so I can pop over and not have to do the motorcade. That's not crazy. But if it's good, if it's a good idea, have a design competition, get the money from Congress. No bribes, please. We don't find anything by bribes. And build it so that one president builds it and it's timed so that he does not receive the benefit of his own action. It's the same way a pay increase works. If a pay increase is called for, you say, my successor should get this. I will not have any benefit. And then people, oh, it's a real public need.
- [14:40]
Jim Acosta
Yeah, but you mentioned corruption earlier. And the ballroom, I think, is, you know, it's a venue for Trump corruption. But nothing really takes the cake better than the weaponization fund, these, the slush fund. And I, you know, I guess I'm curious what you think about all of this, because, I mean, even there are now Republicans who are saying this is dead. I think House Speaker Mike Johnson has said, we don't have the votes for this. It's just. It's not going to happen. And Trump has. Apparently, they're now saying it may be dead. Of course, they may just be putting it on a shelf until later, till they get this reconciliation through. But it is staggering, this, this fun story, the slush fund story.
- [15:17]
David Frum
There's petty corruption and grand corruption. So I'm not that upset about the memorial, about the pool, about the gilding and the ballroom, except for the kickbacks and the bribes and the lock. But in the nature of. They're not intrinsically horrible things, but this fund is as bad as it gets. Because what Trump has been doing through the second term is trying to find ways to get his hands on big piles of money that he doesn't have to answer to Congress for. That's what the tariffs are about. That's what this is about. The core theory of American government, even before the protections and the bills of rights, the things that was written in, in 1787, as the fundamental guarantee of the liberties of the people, was the executive will have no money except that which the people's representatives vote for the executive to have. The Congress Taxes, The Congress approves the spending, and then the president implements the spending. But the president has no ability to raise money on his own. And Trump has been looking for ways to break that deal from this. And that is as unconstitutional thing as there is in the American system for the president to say, I want my own money that I don't get from Congress. And in this case, he doesn't get it from the courts because it's a sham. It's not even a legal action. Because the whole legal situation, as you know and as I've reported, it's a sham. There's no real litigation here. And that the settlement, they settled something that wasn't a case in the first place. It's just a way to reach into the. As if he drove up a van to Fort Knox and loaded gold ingots into the back of the van. It's theft on just that kind of scale, but with much bigger numbers, of course.
- [16:50]
Jim Acosta
Right. Yeah. He goes to court and he says, I'm suing myself. Now I'm settling with myself. Give me some money. Oh, wait, I'm paying myself. That's how I'm getting paid. Okay, now I can hand it out.
- [17:00]
David Frum
I'm also writing in that I never pay taxes. Every. Neither I nor any of my children ever pay taxes ever again. Or anyway, we pay only as much taxes as we feel like paying. And no one has a right to tell us that we paid. We underestimated our payment. And that's a product of the settlement with myself. In a case where the court said, the court, the judge said, I don't think there's real litigation here. I think this is a sham. And courts, actually, American courts, state courts, deal with sham litigation is a constant form of crookedness in the state courts. That what happens is I, I drive my car into you, you report an injury, you get an insurance settlement, and we split the money. That, that happens hundreds of times a year in the United States or people try that scam. So state courts in particular encounter sham litigation all the time. And there are all kinds of penalties and punishments for sham litigation. And that's what's gone on here. It's as if two people arranged a fake car accident so they could split the insurance money. That's what Trump has done with his Department of Justice and the irs, except
- [18:03]
Jim Acosta
he may be driving all of us over a cliff. I mean, that's the only difference there. But. Or into a ditch at the very least. Well, David, great to catch up with you. Thanks so much for enlightening us. And entertaining us, as you always do. But read, read David's stuff in the Atlantic, a great piece out today on Bill Pulte. David, great to see you again.
- [18:21]
David Frum
Thanks so much. Bye. Bye.
- [18:22]
Jim Acosta
Thanks a lot.
- [18:23]
David Frum
Bye.
- [18:24]
Jim Acosta
In case folks are wondering, yes, there is an election going on today, and it happens to be going on in the most important state in the country, if I may say that. And as a native Virginian, I know I'm not supposed to say those sorts of things, but California is pretty damn important. And there's somebody that we know very well, me and my team. My team and I. Is that proper grammar? I don't know. We've known this reporter for quite some time and she's a veteran political correspondent out in Los Angeles. Out in California, it's Maeve Reston, my former campaign trail buddy. How are you, Maeve?
- [18:56]
Maeve Reston
Hey, Jim. How's it going?
- [18:58]
Jim Acosta
It's going great. It's good to see you.
- [19:00]
Maeve Reston
Big election day here, people. Not that excited, but I can tell I have been finding some voters at the polls this morning. So, and it's, you know, there's so much going on with both the governor's race that, of course, blew up in the national news after Eric Swalwell dropped out and, or before he dropped out, but with all of the allegations against him. And, you know, then of course, the massive mayor's race here where incumbent Mayor Karen Bass is trying to hold on even though a lot of people are dissatisfied with state of the city right now.
- [19:41]
Jim Acosta
Yeah. And let's take these one bite at a time, Ma, because the, the state, I mean, the gubernatorial race is, is crazy.
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David Frum
Right.
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Jim Acosta
It's like a jungle primary. You throw all the Democrats and Republicans on the ballot all at once, and then the top two get to face each other in the runoff. If, if I'm screwing this up, just stop me. That's right. You could end up with this scenario where the two Republicans end up being the top vote getters, although the conventional wisdom is that that won't happen. But lay it out for us because it looks like Steve Hilton is the MAGA guy that Trump wants. You see him on TV on Fox sometimes I don't watch him, but apparently he is heavily favored. And that's like between Javier Becerra and Tom Steyer or something like that. Is that the deal?
- [20:22]
Maeve Reston
So, so California has our top two primary here where, you know, if you don't make it over 50%, you will the top two advance to the general election in the mayor's race, if make it over 50%, then you just are mayor as of today. Nobody's gonna. Nobody's gonna make it in the mayor's race over 50%. But the top two gubernatorial candidates will advance to November. And there was this, like, early fear among Democrats, right, that you would potentially have two Republicans facing off against one another in this incredibly blue state. That has seemed less and less likely, in part because once President Trump endorsed Steve Hilton, he kind of shot up above the other prominent Republican in the race, Chad Bianco, who is the sheriff of Riverside County. And so it really has been Steve Hilton and then billionaire Tom Steyer and then Javier Becerra, the former HHS secretary in the Biden administration, who'd been clumped at the top. And so now people are looking at a scenario where potentially, if Steyer pulls up a little bit, that today you could potentially have two Democrats running against one another in November, which would make more sense in California. But Hilton is in a really, really strong position in part because people are just really frustrated with how things are going in the state with, you know, the gas prices are through the roof. We're looking at, you know, $6 a gallon and often higher than that here in Los Angeles. And, you know, there's obviously the homelessness crisis and the housing shortage, and then people are just really having trouble getting by. Utility costs have been shooting up. Insurance costs have been shooting up after the wildfires in 2025. So there's a lot of things for people to be frustrated about. And, you know, the ones who are casting their ballots are certainly thinking about those issues.
- [22:26]
Jim Acosta
And you wrote on Substack, and check out May's substack. It says how Javier Becerra became the cardigan of the California governor's race. Explain that. I think that's a great headline. And he is kind of like a Democratic cardigan. And I think that's supposed to be a compliment, but also he's so safe that it worries people that he won't be able to get it done, I guess.
- [22:47]
Maeve Reston
Yeah, well, of course, you know, Tom Steyer. I was out with Tom Steyer over the weekend, and he has these huge, ambitious promises. You know, whether it's single payer or millions of homes that he's going to build, you know, and a lot of people want Eric Swalwell dropped out of the race. There were a lot of people trying to figure out where their support would go. And we are in a moment in America where people have a lot of reservations about billionaires. And so that's been a tough thing for Tom Steyer. To get past. And Javier Pizzera, he was a congressman, he was Attorney General of California, he was HHS secretary. People just have known him in California for a long time. And the words that I would hear voters use about him over and over again, it wasn't about his ideas so much. It was about his resume, his experience, you know, the, the idea that he was a safe choice. In this incredibly tumultuous moment that we're in, you have to remember that California not only went through these deadly wildfires last year, but also we were kind of the testing ground for Donald Trump's strategy. Initially, when it came to the ICE raids, there were heavily armed ICE folks who showed up with tanks in MacArthur park, which is kind of near the center of the city in Los Angeles. And Mayor Karen Bass came out and confronted them and told them to leave. But there's just been so much turmoil and uncertainty here. People really were, I think, in Massera, looking for a steady, safe choice, um, even if it just meant, you know, running the trains on time. There's one voter said to me, like, I'm done with the razzle dazzle. You know, I just, I just want things to work here.
- [24:40]
Jim Acosta
Yeah, sort of like the designated driver kind of candidate.
- [24:44]
David Frum
Right?
- [24:44]
Jim Acosta
I mean, that's what they said about Biden in 2020. And, you know, anyway, we don't need to go down that road. But there's also the mayor's race, which has turned out to be kind of crazy exciting and exciting in that Karen Bass, the incumbent, not exactly cruising to re election. She's up against a council member who I don't know very well. Nithya Rahman. Am I saying that name correctly? And then of course, the reality TV star Spencer Pratt, who we do know, and he ran that crazy AI ad a few weeks ago that got everybody's attention. And what do you make of this race? Because I've interviewed Mayor Bass several times and she seems like almost like a Javier Becerra type. If you were to pigeonhole people and say, okay, she's sort of the safe pick, if you want just a safe pick as mayor, that would be Karen Bass. But people are in a mood in la.
- [25:32]
Maeve Reston
They are in a mood. Yeah. And, you know, it's not just that. I mean, people see homelessness everywhere. They don't understand why all of these billions of dollars statewide haven't done more. Just even, you know, the visibility of the homelessness issue. It's something that's in people's faces every day. Louisiana is also a city that you Know, it takes a year to fix a streetlight, which probably sounds amazing to everyone else in America, but the streets are in a state of disrepair. We've got the World cup coming this summer, we've got the Olympics in 2028. And people are just trying to understand where all the money is going. That's what I've heard over and over again from voters. So, you know, Karen Bass came in to a lot of really difficult, entrenched problems that began decades before she arrived on the scene. Her initial absence during the fires last year, she was on a trip in Ghana. She's never really recovered from people giving her low approval ratings for the handling of the fires and being frustrated that the city wasn't more prepared to handle that. And in addition to that, people just have been looking for someone different. And as you said, she's running against a very progressive one time ally, Nithya Raman, who's been on the city council for two years, who is arguing that the city needs to go in a different direction, that there hasn't been enough attention to making the streets more livable, walkable, doing more about public transportation. Everyone is in their cars here. It's very difficult to get around on public transportation.
- [27:25]
Jim Acosta
We all know la.
- [27:26]
Maeve Reston
Yeah. And she's a, she's an urban planner, but she also is someone who's been on, she's been head of the Homeless and housing. Homelessness and Housing Committee on the city council for a couple of years. And so I was with Mayor Bass this morning and she was arguing that, you know, that, that Nithya Raman should have done more about these problems and also said that she was nowhere to be found when the ICE raids first began. So a really tough, tough race over on that progressive side. And then of course, Spencer Pratt has been the main attraction with his, his viral videos. He has been really like coasting on, earned media attention, social media. Nobody's really spending that much money on ads this year, which has been really fascinating because usually it's a deluge running
- [28:19]
Jim Acosta
into the, of the race. Right. I mean, he just goes out and says crazy things. And we have a clip from Fox. He's been on Fox a bunch, saying stuff and we should play this. And I don't, you know, obviously these are his characterizations, but he, this is what he said. If we can play that, it's not shocking because they're alleged criminal partners. Not only did they work together in their negligence and burning down 7,000 houses and 12 people alive, but they're both complicit. In laundering, what, $24 billion to actually increase homelessness. They both should be in jail together. This is what he's saying about Mayor Bass and Governor Raman.
- [29:02]
Maeve Reston
Oh, and Governor Newsom. Yeah, yeah.
- [29:06]
Jim Acosta
And it's kind of like, wow. Or was he speaking about the other, the city council member who's in the race? I'm not sure.
- [29:12]
Maeve Reston
I think maybe actually it would make more Sen if he was talking about Governor Newsom. But he has repeatedly used that line because of course, he lost his, his home in the fires, which is how he first, he was a former reality star, but then just kind of burst back into the scene after the fires as someone who had lost their home and was demanding answers from the city. But he has made a lot of those, like, really heavy charges against Governor Newsom, against Mayor Bass.
- [29:41]
Jim Acosta
And I mean, there's no facts behind that. I mean, he's just, you know, he just throws that out there. It's like Trump, you know.
- [29:46]
Maeve Reston
Yeah, it's a, it's a. He's a very. Has a very Trumpy vibe. And I must say, also, Jim, you live through this with me, but, you know, There are some 2016 vibes here where people aren't sure whether the polling is right. They don't, they don't have a good sense of how much of Spencer Pratt's attention is really coming from LA voters versus the many, you know, millions of voters in other parts of the country that are watching his videos. But what has been really interesting about his campaign is the number of people that are just like Trump but producing content around him. A lot of AI generated videos of him, you know, dressed up as Batman, slaying the Democratic Socialists of America that are dressed up as ninjas. There was one that sort of portrayed all of the Democrats as these champagne swilling, you know, liberal aristocrats and all that in a Marie Antoinette setting. So it has been very, like, fantastical and a new kind of campaign that we're seeing.
- [30:54]
Jim Acosta
But he has no experience and he's a reality TV star, and that's basically it. And he, and he knows how to make a splash on social media. I mean, that's, that's basically how he's running in this race. And I was just looking at some polling on this, and this goes to show you now, I mean, this is according to NBC LA, they're, they're quoting UC Berkeley, LA Times poll. That should be a pretty good poll, I would think. And it shows an extremely close race. Bass at 26%, council member Rahman at 25 and Spencer Pratt at 22%.
- [31:24]
David Frum
I mean, that is.
- [31:26]
Jim Acosta
That is close.
- [31:27]
Maeve Reston
It's really close. So Bass, of course, doesn't know who her rival is going to be. There's no, you know, virtually no chance that she'll make it over 50%. And so she's kind of toggling between arguing that the city can't go Republican because Spencer Pratt is, of course, a Republican, even though he is pushed off partisan labels, and then, you know, arguing that. That Rahman would take the city in the wrong direction.
- [31:53]
Jim Acosta
Yeah, and, and, but in this race, it's. It'll be the top two, or it'll just be the person who ends up on top. No, you were saying if.
- [32:00]
Maeve Reston
If they don't make the 50. 50% threshold, then there will be a runoff in November.
- [32:06]
Jim Acosta
So we'll probably get a couple of runoffs here in both the gubernatorial and the mayor's race. It's going to be fascinating to watch
- [32:14]
Maeve Reston
of counting. It could be weeks of counting. As you know, we are notoriously slow here in California.
- [32:19]
Jim Acosta
So this may not be over tonight. It may be. It may take some time before we get. Get an answer here as to who the top two are going to be.
- [32:27]
Maeve Reston
Yeah. And, Jim, you know, as you're watching these results tonight, also keep in mind that we Republicans were actually returning their ballots in a. In a much faster rate earlier on. And so those first batches of ballots that you may see tonight, it may look very red, which would look, you know, people might not understand about Los Angeles, but a lot of those Republicans were voting early for Pratt. And so he may have a very good night tonight where he comes out and, you know, declares victory before all of the ballots are counted. Because, as I said, it could take, you know, many days before we actually know a result. But. Yeah, exactly. I was gonna say it might be a little bit of deja vu.
- [33:10]
Jim Acosta
I heard this somewhere before somebody declaring victory. Maybe he'll come out and say, stop the counting. Stop.
- [33:16]
Maeve Reston
Yeah. Yeah. So that might be a little bit misleading tonight, but we are expecting a runoff.
- [33:23]
Jim Acosta
Interesting. All right, well, Maeve, great to see you again. Maeve and I covered the 2012 Mitt Romney campaign. Is that what we did? Oh, my gosh.
- [33:32]
Maeve Reston
So many presidentials.
- [33:33]
Jim Acosta
You were 15 years old at the time, but it was an incredible race. And you have to admit, like, what a weird world we covered. It was like the last normal campaign before everything was just blown to bits.
- [33:48]
Maeve Reston
Yeah. Candidates were still on planes. Reporters were still on the planes with them. You know, none of that actually happens anymore.
- [33:55]
Jim Acosta
That's right. Maeve and I were on the Mitt Romney campaign plane covering Mitt Romney back in that race. It feels like a different time, completely different eons ago. Eons ago. Well, Maeve, great to see you again. Great to be reunited. Keep us posted, let us know what's happening out there in California.
- [34:11]
Maeve Reston
Great, I will do that. Thank you.
- [34:13]
Jim Acosta
Okay, take care. Good to see you. Appreciate it. And this is the great part of doing what I do now is I get to reunite with old friends, former colleagues, people that I used to be on the campaign trail with like Maeve, Rustin and David, from whom I've known for many, many years. Terrific guy with a, just a wonderful family. And I, I gotta tell you, I, I'm kind of wondering, you know, does anybody know where Donald Trump is? Has he, has he surfaced in the last several minutes that I've been on according to, I mean, I'm just looking at various reports that say that he has not been seen in some six or seven days since his so called excellent health report came out. Somebody needs to find Donald Trump and see if we can produce him somehow. You know, it seems to me he's put his eggs into this basket of having a big 250th celebration. As I was saying on the show yesterday, and I'm going to say it again here, that to me, the best way to celebrate America's birthday and it's counting, the clock is ticking. We're counting down to what is it, one month and two days, something like that, until July 4th here in the United States of America. And I think the best way to celebrate is to, to, is to not mention Donald Trump, is to completely ignore Donald Trump. And that may be achievable, it seems to weekend at McDonald's, somebody's saying, and that may be achievable if he's just not surface surfacing anywhere. I mean, I don't know, maybe my, my colleagues can tell me as I'm speaking right now whether or not he's surfaced in the last several minutes. I don't know if he has. Apparently, you know, we're expecting to see some kind of hearing with Todd Blanche that's happening as I'm on this podcast right now. So who knows what he's going to say about this weaponization fund. But our friend Aaron Rupar, who I rely upon so much on social media, I got to give Aaron Rupar a shout out. He's, he's wonderful on X. He has the public notice newsletter on, on Substack and he writes Trump has no public events on his schedule again today. The last time he was seen publicly for something other than a pre taped interview was six days ago, Wednesday, May 27, for his cabinet meeting. Folks, my God, this is, we're coming up on a week. Is that true? I don't know. Maybe somebody, Jim, let sleeping talk slide. Maybe he's asleep. But that is one, I have to say, that is one quiet piggy. If it's been that long, six or seven days, I feel like he's so omnipresent, he's so, he's so in our, in our stuff on a daily basis that I just don't believe that. So if so, if one of our sharp viewers out there can tell us whether or not he's, he's actually been in Surface the last six or seven days, that would be great. But it just seems to me that, you know, by now we would have seen something since this, this whole health report came down that said he was in excellent health. One would think. The other thing I should point out just before we get going here is Todd Blanche was just asked about the fund and he just said this is according to my producer, Sam, is this correct that there is no fund? So there, there you go. The slush fund no longer exists. That is the breaking news coming into the Jim Acosta show here at the very end of the program. According to Todd Blanche, the acting attorney general who just a couple of weeks ago insisted that there is going to be this 1.776 billion dollar anti weaponization fund which was basically going to be a slush fund piggy bank, Piggy bank for January 6th rioters and insurrectionists. Now Todd Blanche is saying they are no longer moving forward with the fund. They are raising the white flag. Probably not. It's probably too last minute to come up with a graphic for raising the white flag. But Todd Blanche is right. Now here it is the, the breaking news quote, we are no longer moving forward with the fund. So ladies and gentlemen, this just goes to show you on the 250th anniversary of America's independence that democracy still does work, that a free press still does work, that checks and balances still may work. And all of those pressures were brought to bear on this bullshit cockamamie so called weaponization fund which was again, a slush fund for criminals and insurrectionists and, and cop beaters. But the, the press covered it. We in independent media covered it. I, we were on it like a, a pit bull on steroids from the very beginning. Others were on it, too. You had folks like Harry Dun and Daniel Hodges suing, uh, to stop the fund from taking effect. I wrote a piece, uh, for Substack, saying, hey, if, if, if this is going to be for real, I would like my cut of the weaponization fund. It sounds like I'm not going to be getting my cut of the weaponization fund. If this is true, if what Todd Blanche is saying is true, I guess I will not be getting my $5 million that I was seeking because they took my press pass back in 2018. That was why I was going for my cut of the weaponization fund. But the long story short is this goes to show you that, yes, he's a wannabe tyrant, yes, he's a wannabe dictator. Yes, he wants to be a king with cage matches in the backyard of the White House and other sundry horrific things here in Washington, D.C. but he. He can be beaten. The man can be beaten. The man can be stopped. And if he tries to rob the bank, if he tries to rob the bank of the United States of America, he can be stopped. Stopped right in his tracks. And, you know, it seems to me that, that, that is what has occurred here. That is what has occurred. Obviously, Democrats came forward and cried foul first, and then I think some Republicans went to their pollsters and said, oh, wait a minute. This is about as popular as a sandwich. We better be against this, too. And that collective pressure, it sounds like it, folks. It says nobody, quote, nobody brought claims. That's not true. I wrote a substack that said I was bringing a claim, but it was in jest. I did not mean it. I was not going to take money from the Treasury. But that's the breaking news here at the end of the program. Wow. Some good news, ladies and gentlemen. Can we get some more good news? I know that Donald Trump has been MIA for six or seven days. That also is good news. Can we do even better? Can we maybe take down his name from the Kennedy center by the end of the week? That would be some good news. Could we, could we do something like take down that ridiculous arch that they've built in the backyard of the White House where it looks like a Six Flags? Maybe they could take that down, too, over the cage match that they want to have over at the White House. Todd Blanche citing ongoing litigation and injunction as reason why the fund is no longer moving forward. So I guess the report that we were talking about yesterday, that the slush fund was, quote, dead.
- [41:07]
David Frum
It's dead.
- [41:08]
Jim Acosta
It's really dead. It's bigly dead. I guess that is true. So we'll, we'll stay on top of that, folks. And it, it does, I think make sense that Trump came out today and tried to put this Bill Pulte guy in charge of the Director of National Intelligence. That's, that smells to me like a distraction to throw us off of the fact that they're making major dues this afternoon and raising the white flag. They are raising the white flag, ladies and gentlemen. The weaponization fund is dead according to the acting Attorney general, Todd Blanche. I can't think of a better way to end the program with better news than that. But in the meantime, I want to thank David from for coming on the show today. Always appreciate his reporting. Check it out in the Atlantic. And my friend Maeve Reston is back. She's now reporting on Substack. She has her own substack called on the Road with Maeve Rustin. She's covering that crazy California gubernatorial and LA Mayor's race. We'll check in with Maeve as developments Warren out there in, in California. But in the meantime, always want to appreciate everybody who chips in and helps support this program. Independent Media Matters for folks who regularly watch this program, they will know that since the very beginning of the weaponization fund, we were on it right away like white on rice immediately because we knew that that was an important story. And, and just like the Epstein files, we started reporting on that hot and heavy before the rest of the legged legacy media was doing it. We're doing that because we can, we can act independently here on this program. We don't have corporate overlords. I don't have Barry Weiss as my boss. I don't have to worry about the Ellisons sticking their fingers in my business. So that means we can do the news as we see the news happen on a daily basis without fear or favor. We can call them like we see him and we can describe the President of the United States as a threat to democracy, which he is, and not worry about the bosses upstairs knocking on the door and saying, you're in a lot of trouble. Pack up your boxes and get the hell out of here. So anytime you guys can support independent media, support this program. Share like subscribe if you can subscribe to this show, it certainly helps the folks who do it on Substack. It makes a great deal of a difference in our lives and being able to bring this program to you every day. And for folks who watch on YouTube, listen on Apple podcasts, show the support that you can by Subscribing and becoming a supporter of this program. It means the world to me. Means the world to the team as well. But in the meantime, still reporting from Washington, I'm Jim Acosta. The fund is dead. The fund is dead. Have a good evening. I'll see you next time.