"The Jim Acosta Show" - Monday Feb. 10 Part 2 of 2 with Democratic Strategist James Carville

Summary

Summary of "The Jim Acosta Show" - Monday Feb. 10 Part 2 of 2 with Democratic Strategist James Carville

Podcast Information:

• Title: The Jim Acosta Show
• Host: Jim Acosta
• Guest: James Carville, Democratic Strategist
• Episode Title: America Under Siege
• Release Date: February 10, 2025

---

1. Introduction to the Episode

Jim Acosta opens the episode by expressing his discontent with the recent Super Bowl, noting how it provided a window for viewers to catch up on the rapidly evolving political landscape. He introduces James Carville, affectionately referring to him as "Ragin Cajun," and sets the stage for a deep dive into the current political turmoil surrounding President Donald Trump’s administration.

Jim Acosta (00:21): "This is the Jim Acosta Show. I've been calling this episode today, America Under Siege."

---

2. The Current Political Landscape

The discussion quickly centers on the unprecedented challenges facing the United States under Trump's presidency, which has lasted only two to three weeks. Both Acosta and Carville voice concerns about a potential constitutional crisis, emphasizing the gravity of the situation.

Jim Acosta (00:37): "What's been on your mind these last couple of weeks? Watching Donald Trump and watching what's going on here."

James Carville (01:14): "And we have, it looks like we have a constitutional crisis on our hands."

---

3. Carville’s Strategy: Retreat and Let Trump Make Missteps

James Carville proposes a strategic retreat for Democrats, suggesting that they should avoid engaging directly with Trump’s aggressive tactics. He likens Trump's approach to Muhammad Ali's "rope a dope" strategy, implying that allowing Trump to exhaust himself could be advantageous.

James Carville (01:20): "I'm urging Democrats to adapt a strategy of retreat. Just let him sling away for five hours because you can't keep up with it."

Carville criticizes Trump's inability to keep consistent with his campaign promises, using the oddity of promises like addressing "food prices, specifically eggs" to illustrate what he sees as the administration's erratic focus.

James Carville (01:58): "The most off-repeated campaign promise of this century is he would do something about food prices, specifically eggs."

---

4. Constitutional Crisis and Challenges to the Judiciary

A significant portion of the conversation delves into Trump's confrontational stance towards the judiciary. Carville discusses statements from figures like J.D. Vance, highlighting the administration's disregard for court orders and the potential for a systemic breakdown of checks and balances.

Jim Acosta (03:47): "James, though, what about this, this thing that J.D. Vance put out over the weekend that, you know, the judges better not get in the way of what we're doing."

James Carville (04:13): "It's a massively illegal act. Okay. [...] All they have is U.S. marshals."

The dialogue underscores the severity of the situation, with Carville questioning the possibility of a coup and comparing the current climate to historical instances of presidential overreach.

Jim Acosta (04:52): "Is that a coup? Is that a non-violent insurrection?"

James Carville (04:46): "It's a massively illegal act."

---

5. Potential Public Response and Resistance

The conversation shifts to the American public's potential reaction. While Carville maintains a more reserved stance, advocating for strategic patience, Acosta contemplates the possibility of public uprisings or increased activism in response to the administration’s actions.

Jim Acosta (07:40): "People are starting to call their members of Congress, they're starting to show up at protests."

James Carville (13:19): "I'm panicked. Okay. I mean I have the shakes. I'm sweating."

Despite acknowledging internal panic, Carville remains steadfast in his belief that a retreat strategy is the most viable option for Democrats.

---

6. Historical Context and Lessons Learned

James Carville provides a historical perspective, referencing past Democratic setbacks and comebacks. He highlights the cyclical nature of political dominance and resurgence, suggesting that retreating now could pave the way for future victories.

James Carville (17:40): "We wiped them out in 1964, they come back, they won in 68 [...]."

He cautions against discounting the importance of resilience, noting that continuous withdrawal could lead to long-term losses for the Democratic Party.

---

7. The Role of Media and Public Perception

Acosta emphasizes the role of media in shaping public perception and maintaining democratic discourse. He warns against allowing the presidency to override judicial and congressional systems, framing the situation as a fundamental threat to the American way of life.

Jim Acosta (20:50): "This is America under Siege. You cannot have a situation in this country where the President of the United States no longer abides by the Constitution."

Carville concurs, highlighting the lack of significant resistance within the administration and the absence of key figures who could potentially serve as moderating influences.

James Carville (20:38): "There's no General Kelly this time. There's no Reince Priebus."

---

8. Future Outlook and Call to Action

In his concluding remarks, Jim Acosta stresses the importance of defending the Constitution and the American way of life. He urges listeners to engage actively in protecting democratic institutions and preserving freedoms that define the nation.

Jim Acosta (21:14): "It's about the American way of life. It's the fact that you can say what you want to say, write what you want to write, vote for who you want to vote for."

Carville ends on a note of uncertainty but maintains that the proposed retreat strategy could help navigate the current crisis, hoping for better solutions in the future.

James Carville (21:25): "I wish I had a better answer for you, but right now I just don't have a very good one."

---

9. Conclusion

Jim Acosta wraps up the episode by reiterating the critical nature of the current political climate. He acknowledges the complexities discussed with Carville and underscores the necessity for continued vigilance and proactive measures to safeguard the nation's foundational principles.

Jim Acosta (21:55): "Thank you very much, everybody for tuning in. I hope you're enjoying the new show so far."

---

Notable Quotes:

• Jim Acosta (00:37): "Watching Donald Trump and watching what's going on here. I mean, it's pretty remarkable."

• James Carville (01:20): "Rope a dope. Just let him sling away for five hours because you can't keep up with it."

• James Carville (04:13): "It's a massively illegal act."

• Jim Acosta (20:50): "This is America under Siege. You cannot have a situation in this country where the President of the United States no longer abides by the Constitution."

• Jim Acosta (21:14): "It's about the American way of life. [...] when elections happen, the people who are in office abide by those results."

---

Final Thoughts:

The episode "America Under Siege" presents a sobering analysis of the current political tumult, highlighting the potential constitutional crisis posed by President Trump's administration. James Carville advocates for a strategic retreat by Democrats, aiming to weather the storm and capitalize on future political opportunities. Jim Acosta underscores the urgency of defending democratic institutions and the American way of life, calling for active engagement from the public to ensure the preservation of constitutional norms.

Listeners are left with a profound understanding of the challenges at hand and the critical need for strategic planning and public involvement to navigate the nation's current political landscape.

Transcript

[Jim Acosta]

The super bowl sucks so much, it kind of gave you an opportunity to like just like scroll through your phone and read the news and see what the hell's going on. I mean, that's what I was doing after game. Yeah.

[James Carville]

All right.

[Jim Acosta]

All right, everybody, we're back. We're live on substack. This is the Jim Acosta Show. I've been calling this episode today, America Under Siege. And as you can see right there on screen, there he is, the man himself, Ragin Cajun James Carville. James, we were trying to get you on the sub stack live, but I figured out my own damn way, which is I'm going to FaceTime with you and then hold you up to the screen so the folks at home can see you. So you're on. Exactly, exactly. You know, tell me what, what's been on your mind these last couple of weeks? Watching Donald Trump and watching what's going on here. I mean, it's pretty remarkable. The guy's in office for what, two weeks, three weeks. And we have, it looks like we have a constitutional crisis on our hands.

[James Carville]

Yeah. Well, General, first of all, thank you and congratulations on the news upset. I actually have thought about this a lot and I am urging Democrats to adapt a strategy of retreat. Okay. Just don't try to keep up with him if it's the Greenland or Canada or the Gulf of America or Gaza. And I think we should just have a. Take our lesson from Muhammad Ali. Rope a dope. Just let him sling away for five hours because you can't, you can't keep up with it.

[Jim Acosta]

Yeah.

[James Carville]

And every day in what's behind this, of course, is the most off repeated campaign promise of this century is he would do something about food prices, specifically eggs. Which funniest line I heard so far is somebody told a politician, I'd throw an egg at you, but I can't afford it.

[Jim Acosta]

Yeah. That's where we are right now, I think.

[James Carville]

I don't think we need to contest everything. Just let him, let him throw haymakers and just bob and weave. And you know, we have a clarifying event coming up. And you know, it's November, it's a while. The Democrat is going to win the Virginia governor's race by a massive amount of votes.

[Jim Acosta]

Yeah.

[James Carville]

Because there's so many federal employees there and that will trigger panic in their ranks. But. Right. And right now I know, then he's not getting it. They're not getting any Democratic vote for anything. So he's got to do a budget, he's got to do the Tax cuts, he's got to do reconciliation, he's got to do all of these things. And the Democrats are just going to sit there.

[Jim Acosta]

Yeah.

[James Carville]

And I think they're pretty much on that strategy. And you know, he, he's like, he just has to keep feeding and people say he's dominating like no one has ever dominated a news cycle. Great. Try to do it for the next two years and it's not going to work and you're not going to get in. And he's just going to change the subject.

[Jim Acosta]

James, though, what about this, this thing that J.D. vance put out over the weekend that, you know, you know, the judges better not get in the way of what we're doing. You know, I mean, to me that's dangerous, that's, that's dangerous talk. And maybe he's feeling a little left out of the equation because Elon Musk is essentially a co president right now. But I mean, when you're starting to kick sand in the, in the faces of judges in our judicial branch of government, that's one of the checks and balances.

[James Carville]

Well, they're preparing you for the inevitable. Was it Andrew Jackson, your history a little bit better than mine who said the Supreme Court is rule now? They don't have an army. What can they do? I, I actually think, I know I'm a lot older than you. I've seen more than you had. I never thought I'd utter the work. I don't think they're going to follow a court order.

[Jim Acosta]

Right.

[James Carville]

And I think that's what J.D. vance is clearly saying, that they're, they don't pay attention to the legisl. Who knows what they're going to do.

[Jim Acosta]

Is that a coup? Is that a non violent insurrection? What, what the hell is that?

[James Carville]

It's a massively illegal act. Okay. And I, I'm sure that a person can have a, what is it, exact definition of a coup, but to me it's just a legal act. It's. I'm not going to pay attention. You can say whatever you want.

[Jim Acosta]

And how do we sort that out though? I mean, if the judge says, you know, like today a judge said to, to the Trump administration, you're violating my order. I told you to freeze this, this thing that you're trying to do with, you know, halting all this grant funding and so on and the administration is not complying and so judges are issuing warnings.

[James Carville]

That's all they have the power to do. Yeah, they have, no, all they have is U.S. marshals. That, that's the Way that the system works is we have a judiciary. It totally depends on people following and paying attention to his rulings. They are telling you right to your face, we don't care what you do, we're not gonna do it.

[Jim Acosta]

Yeah, well, excuse me.

[James Carville]

Go ahead.

[Jim Acosta]

No, I was gonna say. Well, one of the things I brought up, I put a substack post out today. You know, Trump is very comfortable operating in the space of the courts. We saw what took place when he was out of office, when Joe Biden was president. There were delay tactics after delay tactics and so on. Took things to the Supreme Court where he gets kind of a get out of jail free card courtesy of the majority that he has there. And they can go ahead and do that. There's. Obviously that's well within their rights. But Trump can play this system like a fiddle. He plays it like a violin.

[James Carville]

Well, you know, you can play anything you want if you don't follow along. Yeah, if I, if, if the courts tell me to do something, I'm not gonna do it. And so they tell him he can't impound these funds. Well, he tells Russell Void omb, whoever releases the funds, don't release him. So at that point, what do you do? Do you send up to army in to release? I don't know. I don't know. Because our system is not designed. It has never had this kind of confrontation. I have to go all the way back to the succession crisis to think, was it, we don't care what you do?

[Jim Acosta]

And so does this take us to a point there, then where people, people are going to rise up? I mean, if Democrats in Congress can't do anything because of the numbers, elections have consequences. If the courts can only say, hey, we told you not to do this. We're going to tell you again, and they just play volleyball in the courts. What does that mean for the people? I mean, what do the people do? They're asking Democrats, what can we do?

[James Carville]

Well, you know, the people, he, he said that he was going to do a lot of this. And the people said, should not be surprised at any of this. My, my favorite thing is they go interview the people in Dearborn, Michigan. All right. And I've worked a lot in the Middle East. I've spent a lot of time there. There are two things that are undeniable of. I have to say it. It's the truth that the Palestinians have a, a very tortured and to a large extent, a very sad history. That plight is something that anybody can sympathize with. I don't care what your feelings are. Yeah. And they also, his rather leaders said it, I think it was time. But somebody said they never missed an opportunity, to miss an opportunity. Basically, Bill Clinton, Ehu Barak gave them everything. I literally gave them the river to the sea. All right. All the land back independent state, western support. And Arafat says, I can't do it. So.

[Jim Acosta]

Yeah. Then huge missed opportunity.

[James Carville]

Yeah, huge missed out. I mean, you couldn't believe how big of yourself it is.

[Jim Acosta]

Yeah.

[James Carville]

And so Trump, they come in and they're mad at Biden. I'm not sure for what. So they said they're going to vote for Trump. And then of course, Trump tells Israel we're going to move 2 million people out of God. I mean, think about what that entails. You couldn't get five seconds into it. What I'm saying, this is insane. But people that are fortunate, that's smart. I was at the University of Southern California, the head of the. I don't know, the physics and the chemistry department. I don't know some guy. I've never seen a guy with so many PhDs. Brilliant. Man's a Palestinian. Got more degrees than a thermometer. But it's not like there haven't been people that have been sympathetic to their plight and they've had any number of opportunities to forge something different. And now we're all getting. We sa not about prices or legislation moving anything say the more I dominate the news.

[Jim Acosta]

Yeah.

[James Carville]

So he's coming to the Super Bowl. He has a plane fly over the Gulf of Mexico and he tells everybody that's now the Gulf of America. Everybody writes about it. And he's figured out that it has no intention of following up on any of it. He could. He couldn't find the Panama Canal Zone if you gave him a GPS in a hundred years. All right. I really don't think he could point to Greenland on the map. I would bet anybody if you asked him to, he couldn't find it. But he. What he does is just keeps changing in his mind. You're going to dominate the news cycle if you say that. You're going to annex Canada.

[Jim Acosta]

Yeah.

[James Carville]

Right. So where are we, the Canadians? Maybe the best bilateral relationship in the history of the world has been the United States, Canada. They're now booing our national anthem at sports contests.

[Jim Acosta]

Yeah.

[James Carville]

Think about that. All right. The Canadians are booing us.

[Jim Acosta]

Yeah. And I talk to a lot of folks in Canada and they are beside themselves right now, just absolutely dumbfounded as to what is taking place in those countries.

[James Carville]

I Would tell my Canadian friends. I know many people have. I've been friends. I've been there, I don't know, 50 times or more. I have no idea. And just don't worry about it. It doesn't, I hate to say he's the President of the United States. Just don't pay attention to it. None of it's going to happen. He's going to get bored by this and he's going to go, you know, he's going to make a Steve win, build a resort in Gaza City and then he's going to move on to the next thing. And I, so James, I would get through this. We may not.

[Jim Acosta]

So people. Yeah, people are chiming in. Their, their chats are coming in, their chat comments are coming in. And so one of the chat comments is James Carville concerned.

[James Carville]

I'm panicked. Okay. I mean I have the shakes. I'm sweating. Of course, James Cauliflower's concern. Because I, I don't, you know, when you have somebody said we're not going to follow court orders. I mean I, I'm concerned, Jim, some extent I'm. And I think his answer is just ramp it up more and more.

[Jim Acosta]

Yeah. This is not Nixon stuff. This is not. We're going, we're going way beyond that, aren't we? I mean this is, we put way.

[James Carville]

Beyond anything like that.

[Jim Acosta]

Yeah.

[James Carville]

Okay. Nixon even had to comply with court orders.

[Jim Acosta]

Yeah. He resigned, indicted.

[James Carville]

Haldeman had to show up.

[Jim Acosta]

Yeah.

[James Carville]

All right. This is like the only thing I could make it akin to in US History probably would be succession. And I don't, I think he doesn't. And of course you have Musk and I, I do work. I know the Silicon Valley fairly well.

[Jim Acosta]

Yeah.

[James Carville]

And you know, and it's one thing move fast and break things and that's what they doing. And you have 24 year olds coming in and telling cabinet secretaries, get out of the way.

[Jim Acosta]

He blows up a lot of rockets. Elon Musk. People forget that.

[James Carville]

Yeah.

[Jim Acosta]

Yeah. It blows up a lot of rockets. Yeah.

[James Carville]

Yeah. So we, we haven't faced anything like this and we're not exactly sure how to respond. Like that's that, that's kind of a little bit of shame on us. But he doesn't have no idea what they doing. They just moving fast and breaking things. Yeah. Except break as much furniture as you can.

[Jim Acosta]

Yeah.

[James Carville]

All right. And, and, but what's going to come.

[Jim Acosta]

To is, but if somebody comes up to you, James, and says what do we do? What, what can people do?

[James Carville]

I'll get my, my idea right now is we, we use it where it was known as a Fabian strategy. Fabius, the famous Roman general, is you back off. You do what George Washington did at Saratoga. You do what the czar did when Napoleon invaded Russia. I mean, I just hauled off, invaded. They just, they retreated. They retreated and then one day they didn't retreat. And unfortunately, I don't think we can engage him on the skirmish line, you know, on the actual front line. And I think the guy doesn't have any, he has no talent. His cabinet is a pack of buffoons and you just gotta let them punch themselves out. It's, it's dangerous, it's risky, it's not very creative, but it might be what's available to us.

[Jim Acosta]

Yeah.

[James Carville]

And you know the Marine general, I can't think of his name in Korea and tells yet, which is one of the most famous retreats ever. And he said, well, we're not treating, we're not retreating. We're just advancing in a different direction.

[Jim Acosta]

Yeah, yeah.

[James Carville]

All right, maybe, I mean, I'm just throwing this out. I'm gonna do some things and some, we'll do some writing on this, but maybe we just need to retreat and just let them punch themselves out.

[Jim Acosta]

Yeah.

[James Carville]

And that, that might be what's available to us because we, there's no way, if you can file every lawsuit, you can, you know, have any power in congressional hearings and, but there are events that are coming up. If we can just get to the Virginia governor's race.

[Jim Acosta]

I hear you scared the hell out of them. Here's my question, though. If you let them punch themselves out, if you wait, if you retreat, if you pull back, you know, I understand where you're coming from. Is there a possibility though, that you could yield ground that you cannot get back? And that's, that's, isn't that the gamble?

[James Carville]

Well, okay, so let's look at events that have happened that we can remember. It's actually my lifetime now, yours. We wiped them out, the Democrats, like out in 1964, right?

[Jim Acosta]

Yeah.

[James Carville]

They come back, they won this Alfia. They won the presidential race in 68. Okay. The Democrats get wiped out in 72. I think what matters. Massachusetts was the only state we carried then. Of course, we have mon in 74. We win the presidency in 76. The Democrats get mopped up in 1980. Pre dark that we win in 86. Here we come back in 92. I, I, I, I don't know, it might be the danger of this is while we retreating, we lose the Whole country. I.

[Jim Acosta]

That's my concern.

[James Carville]

Yeah, but how do you. How do you find it?

[Jim Acosta]

Yeah, well, that's why. That's why, you know, James, there are a lot of people who are saying the resistance.

[James Carville]

There's.

[Jim Acosta]

There's not going to be resistance this time around and so on. I think that was a misreading of things, quite frankly. And I think that there's a. There's a really strong possibility. And I know that that is a loaded term for some people. People don't want to hear that. They think it's politically wrongheaded and so on. But I. I do think that there are folks out there who are so hopping mad about this that, I don't know, we. We might see something crop up. You call it something else, Give it a different name. I don't know.

[James Carville]

Look, we. We could. I mean, you know, bro, like, he was well known on myself and people come up. Right now my sense is people are just like, what is going on? Can you explain this to me?

[Jim Acosta]

Yeah, yeah.

[James Carville]

You know, I'm confused. I've never. And the truth of that is he's mad.

[Jim Acosta]

Yeah.

[James Carville]

And I, I don't. You know, and he's playing. I've heard, you know, second hand of people that have been to the White House. It's more attractive. It's nuttier than you even think.

[Jim Acosta]

Yeah.

[James Carville]

Okay. It's. Anything that you hear. This is secondhand information. Some of it is gossip, but pretty reliable. People are coming out of there saying, man, you don't believe this.

[Jim Acosta]

I remember that happening the first time around, too. There was a lot of that going around back then.

[James Carville]

I think that. I do.

[Jim Acosta]

Yeah.

[James Carville]

And there were a lot of people. There was a lot of, you know, yet resistance in the government, even. There's none this time. I mean, he, he knows that.

[Jim Acosta]

Yeah.

[James Carville]

I mean, this is not. We can't take comfort in the first time around.

[Jim Acosta]

Yeah.

[James Carville]

If you don't even have a Jeff Sessions or Miles Taylor or Rex Tillerson or Jim Mattis.

[Jim Acosta]

Y. No General Kelly this time. Yeah.

[James Carville]

There's no General Kelly. There's no Reince Pris. All right. There's no Gary Cohn to take the memos. Let's take the stuff off his desk.

[Jim Acosta]

Yeah.

[James Carville]

All right. They're not calling each other and say, what are we doing here?

[Jim Acosta]

Yeah.

[James Carville]

And he's aware. He's got literally planted people. And I have a bad. You think the headline people are the. The undersecretaries and the administrative assistance into this and the. That are ten times worse.

[Jim Acosta]

Yeah. Well, James it's always great to talk to you. Next time we're going to figure this out, we're going to get you in the substack so I don't. I don't have to do this, hear from you more.

[James Carville]

I wish I had a better answer for you, but right now I just don't have a very good one. And I can't apologize for it because I've thought about it, I talk about it, and the only thing I can come up with, I hope I come up with something better. Somebody come some better, but some retreat is, you know, we just gotta let him. You don't have any supply lines.

[Jim Acosta]

Yeah, he doesn't do.

[James Carville]

He has no logistics. He don't even know what that is. Yeah, I think, you know, let him punch himself out and let's get to an election.

[Jim Acosta]

All right, well, if you come up with something different, let me know. I'll holler at you next week. James, always great to talk to you. Really appreciate it. Thank you. You, too. You, too. Thanks, James. Thank you, bud. All right, well, that was James Carville, and James is always great to talk to. And listen, I saw some of your comments. I saw some of your comments, and I tend to. Let me see here. Let me just make sure. I got James. Make sure James is turned off here. This has been an extended edition of the Jim Acosta Show. I hope you're happy with how long I've been with you this afternoon. But, you know, James, I think what's helpful about talking to James is that could there be somebody who is more straightforward and honest about his own feelings? I definitely, I'm not sure. James was, I think, very forthright and honest about his concern. He said he was panicked, and I think a lot of people are panicked in this country. And I think there are folks who have different ideas as to what to do next. James's idea, and I've heard this from other folks, is that, hey, Trump's going to fall flat on his face. He's going to do himself in. That is one thought that is absolutely true. The Virginia gubernatorial race is coming up. That will certainly affect the narrative here in Washington. It looks like Abigail Spanberger will become governor of Virginia. When that election comes around, we'll have to see what happens in that race. But typically, when something like that happens, then, yes, the narrative does change in Washington and people say, oh, look, you know, the President may not be on very stable ground. I do think, though, that what we're going to see is a continuation of what we've been Seeing over the last several days, which is people are getting upset, people are getting enraged. People are starting to call their members of Congress, they're starting to show up at protests. You're seeing, you're seeing what's been taking place at the courts, where you have attorneys general and governors and so on, taking the administration to court. And I think that you're going to continue to see more of this. But I think if we get to a constitutional crisis and the Trump White House says, well, we're just not going to pay attention to what the courts say, folks, we're on the dark side of the moon. And that is why at the beginning of this show, I was describing this as America under siege. You cannot have a situation in this country where the President of the United States no longer abides by the Constitution, where the President, United States is told by the courts, you know, you can't do this, and the President of the United States does it anyway. That is not America. That is not what the, that is not what the founding Fathers with the framers intended. I mean, for all the talk that you hear from constitutional conservatives, you know, going on and on about what the framers wanted and what the founders wanted and so on, they didn't expect and they didn't want. Actually, they did expect. But what they didn't want, they were trying to guard against, was a rogue, out of control president who thinks he can do whatever he wants. That's not America. That's not how it works, folks. It doesn't matter how much you like him. That's not, that's not the way it's supposed to be in America. And what we're going to be talking about in the next several days is not just standing up for the Constitution, not just standing up for our democracy. Those things are all important. Standing up for the truth, obviously going to continue to do that. But something I've talked about before, I haven't talked about it on this program yet, but I'm going to be talking about in the coming days, and that is protecting the American way of life. That is what is so damn important about protecting our democracy, about protecting our Constitution. It's about protecting the American way of life. I used to say this when I was covering the first Trump administration when the subject of freedom of the press came up. Take a look at the countries around the world where they don't have freedom of the press, where they don't have democratic protections, where they don't have constitutional protections like we have in this country, and look at a map and determine for yourself are those the kinds of places where you would like to live? China, Saudi Arabia, Russia, Venezuela? Those sound like great places to live. I don't think so. And so you can get into these theoretical, academic discussions about our democracy and our constitution and what, you know, what the courts are saying and checks and balances and so on. It's about the American way of life. It's the fact that you can say what you want to say, write what you want to write, vote for who you want to vote for, that when elections happen, the people who are in office abide by those results. That is the American way of life. That is how we have constructed this country. That has been the way of life that we've all enjoyed since I've been alive. And it is incumbent upon all of us. And I was talking about this the other day. Talk about it again. People like Michael Fanon and Harry Dunne, they've done enough for this country. They've done enough defending the Capitol on January 6, defending the truth about what took place on January 6. In the weeks of the months and the years that have followed, it's time for other folks to get in on the action. It's time for other folks to put some skin in the game because our American way of life is at stake. And so that's why we're talking about America under Siege today. We're going to be talking about it in the days to come. I want to thank everybody for tuning in today. We had some technical hiccups here and there. We're going to continue to try to iron those out. I was so worried all day long about having a good microphone to use today. I've got a better microphone. I don't even know if that is helping at all, but. And then we ended up having other issues with getting James on. We love James. We're going to get him back on. We're going to figure it out. As I think what he was relaying to me is that he had gotten logged out of the Substack app and he couldn't get logged back in. So we're going to work on that with James and next time I won't have to hold up my other phone. Thank goodness I have a second phone. But next time I won't have to hold up the other phone. But in the meantime, thank you very much, everybody for tuning in. I hope you're enjoying the new show so far. Reporting still reporting from Washington, I'm Jim Acosta. Have a great night, everybody. Good to see you. Thanks.