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The Jim Acosta Show
The latest on the Epstein Files with Steve Schmidt Tara Setmayer and Nick Valencia
01:06:42
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- [00:03]
Jim Acosta
And it's been a while. I'm glad we got a chance to catch up. And thanks to your folks for letting me butt into the vacation here.
- [00:08]
Steve Schmidt
Worse.
- [00:21]
Jim Acosta
All right, welcome everybody, to the Jim Acosta show. Epstein Gate continues. We're almost two weeks into the COVID up scandal and we still don't have answers to the questions, what did the President know and when did he know it? I suppose another question that's hanging over everything might be what did the President do and when did he do it? You can see my big guest on the show is Steve Schmidt. Steve, great to see you. We haven't had a chance to talk since this Epstein Gates thing just blew up. Your thoughts on this? I mean, today, Caroline Levitt, the White House press secretary who's always in over her head, you know, she was able to basically get the message out today that they're shooting down the idea of a special prosecutor in the case.
- [01:02]
Steve Schmidt
Yeah. I mean, you want to talk about hearing something that would send a cold chill down your spine if you worked in the Trump White House, it's Laura Loomer demanding that there be a special counsel to look into this. And the one thing, the one fundamental lesson is, if you work in a White House, is you gotta be criminally stupid to ever allow for the signing off on a special counsel. Right. It's Bill Clinton's greatest regret and Donald Trump will never, ever, ever, ever do it. But the fact that some of the craziest voices in MAGA are demanding that he find one, that he investigate this shows the dimensions of what this is. And I just, I love this quote from John Kennedy, which I, which I think is the great quote of this era that summarizes everything. And it was from his inaugural address where, where he says, beware to the foolish men who seek power by trying to ride the tiger, only to wind up inside the tiger. And this is a story about people's journey into the belly of the tiger that they tried to ride. And it's great fun to watch at one level. On the other, I think it's really important that everybody remember that this vile criminal, this animal, Jeffrey Epstein, this scumbag, tortured, abused over a thousand girls, and this happened in plain sight. Our friend Tara Palmeri, I think is the essential person, political journalist, not the investigative journalist like Julie Brown, but I think politically understands this. And I did talk to Tara for a few minutes yesterday, and what she said about this, it just struck me as profound. And she said, yeah, you always have to remember that the Jeffrey Epstein case starts with parents with troubled kids, 100% of them from the other side of the tracks, 14, 15 year old girls who got in trouble, ran away. But knocking on the door of the police station saying, my kid is being raped by a man down here, and basically the Palm Beach Police Department telling those parents from the other side of the tracks, well, too bad. That's the way it goes. It's top Palm Beach. And, you know, that's just the way it is down here. And so do I think that, you know, whatever it is that Donald Trump has done in his life, that's terrible. We know some of it. Donald Trump knows all of it. But here's the deal. Why did the Attorney General say she was looking at the file? And now she says that there is no file. So we'll just apply the standard, right, that MAGA would hold Barack Obama or Joe Biden to and apply it back to them. And obviously the base sees that, well, this is an issue we care about. So it's really no different than that community in Missouri that voted overwhelmingly for Trump than somebody they knew was captured by ice and shipped out of the country. So then it became a community crisis. So long as it's not happening to you, right? No big deal. But when it happens to you. So this is the first issue where the base, the MAGA base for whatever reason on this issue, all of these components, all of these tingling tentacles, this is the thing that has been, the thing that has disproved the arrogance of Trump's claim that I could shoot somebody in the middle of Manhattan and get away with it. Well, maybe so, but the one thing you couldn't get away with is having your Attorney General go on national television, say, hey, I was looking at the Epstein files. Yeah, we're going to be releasing it soon. And then all of a sudden it's, there's no Epstein file and it's all a democratic hoax and it's not going to work.
- [05:19]
Jim Acosta
Yeah, no, I mean, and you have Elon Musk, you know, busy tweeting overnight, asking his AI tool, Grok questions about the Epstein case. Mus asked, are there likely to be electronic records on any government or commercial computers recording who traveled on Epstein's plane to the Virgin Islands. Grok replied, yes, electronic records likely exist. And then, you know, you mentioned MAGA World. I mean, there are lots of different characters in MAGA world who have been going absolutely nuts over this. I'm kind of, I sort of find it amusing that white nationalist Nick Fuentes, who dined with Trump in Mar a Lago, has come back out of the mix. He's telling Trump, quote, fuck you over the Epstein files. Quote from Nick Fuentes, fuck you. Fuck you. You suck. You are fat. You are a joke. You are stupid. You are not funny. You are not as smart as you think you are. You know, Nick Fuentes is garbage. He's a terrible human being. But he had. He dined with Trump at Mar a Lago, and I guess, presumably represents part of that disgusting segment of the base that Trump plays to from time to time. Even Mike Pence today calling for the files to be released. This is. They cannot. Trump cannot. He can call it a hoax all he wants. He is not going to shut this down.
- [06:39]
Steve Schmidt
There's an old saying, it's one of my favorites, and it's, you can't fix stupid. And that's what Trump's problem is. Pam Bondi is stupid. Now, Kristi Noem is sociopathic. I think she's a lightweight, but she's not stupid in the same way that Pam Bondi is. Because there's no chance that Kristi Noem would put herself in the position where she said, hey, I'm looking at the Epstein file. And then all of a sudden, there's no more Epstein file. And so when you look at Kristi Noem, Trump doesn't care that she's running around the country openly with Corey Lewandowski. She doesn't care about any of the bad things that Kristi Noem is doing. What Trump cares about is, has Kristi Noem done anything that makes Trump look bad in the eyes of Trump? And the only person who's really done that, including even incredibly, Pete Hegseth on an issue that matters to this MAGA base, is Pam Bondi. So start the clock on Pam Bondi. And the reality is, as we're all finding out, elections have consequences. And by the time we get to the midterms, tremendous damage has been done. More will be done. Not a lot you can do to stop it, but defenestrating a couple cabinet secretaries, taking a couple of them out, disempowering them, watching them fall, watch the next ones come up, that chaos will accumulate in a way that's politically, really, really bad for Trump. And there is a really huge political implication about Epstein. Our friend David Rothkoff in the Daily Beast wrote a piece saying, does anybody really think that Trump is going to pay the price for this? And he said, tell me why. And David's one of the smartest guys out there. And I'm going to answer the question. There's been three elections in the last 126 years where the incumbent president's party has picked up seats in that first midterm election. And the consequence for Trump on the Epstein file is that it's going to disengage his base on its craziest edges. And that's going to depress turnout in a season where Democratic turnout surges. And that creates the conditions for cataclysm politically for Republicans. And then there's a worse aspect to it, which is Elon Musk. And I think that in all of the coverage about Musk and the third party, there's a lot of analysis that's missing the mark. Right. So there's two things. The first is that party is going to be a right wing extremist party. It'll be an American version of the AfD. And so the Nick Fuentes of the world will have a place to go and call home so they will not be exiled for long. And the second thing is, is Musk has an endless supply of money and there's a lot of people who want to make money working in politics. And so they'll go do all of the things that Musk wants them to do to wage political war against maga. And so there's a market. And where there's a market, there's opportunity. And where there's opportunity, you're going to find the people in politics to seize it. So Trump has a lot of things going on right now that are bad for him, including collapsing poll numbers, a threat of somebody with a $300 million track record of spending for him that's now his arch enemy and wants to destroy him. Who says that? Well, I'm going to do that. And so as we watch all of this fold out, I'm not ready to say this is Trump's Waterloo, but this is a disastrous political event that's going to metastasize for him.
- [10:59]
Jim Acosta
No, there's no question about it. And it just gets worse every day. I mean, it sort of feels like we've got the summer scandal of 2025 and, you know, the brazenness of what looks like to be elements of the COVID up. I mean, you know, in other Epstein news, one of the federal prosecutors in the case against the convicted pedophile Maureen Comey, daughter of the former FBI Director James Comey, was fired by the Justice Department. Multiple news outlets, including Politico, obtained her letter to her former colleagues. And she says if a career prosecutor can be fired without reason, fear may seep into the decisions of Those who remain, do not let that happen. Fear is the tool of the tyrant, wielded to suppress independent thought. Instead of fear, let this moment fuel the fire that already burns at the heart of this place. A fire of righteous indignation at abuses of power, of commitment to seek justice for victims, of dedication to truth above all else. I mean, that is. That's strong stuff. And it says to me that there are still some very dedicated people inside this Trump Justice Department. They're being rooted out just about every day. But, I mean, you know, for them to target Maureen Comey, I thought, you know, it's almost giving away the game here.
- [12:17]
Steve Schmidt
Look, I think that as you see the panic increase, the actions will become more rash and the abuses of power will become more acute. Now, you and I know that what's going on is an unprecedented abuse of power because we're paying attention to it, but everybody hasn't in the country felt it yet. There's no way to evade and avoid the ice Brigade that's coming to your town square near you with a budget that would make it the 15th largest military in the world. And you have a cohort of people in the Trump government who say, well, we don't approve of your dissent and will punish you. We will use our power in the full weight of government to destroy your life if we don't like what you do, what you say, what you think, what you feel, if you're not completely in line with Trump. And I have a better idea. I think we should believe in freedom of speech and freedom of religion, and we ought to have liberty, and we ought to have the fearlessness to express ourselves. And what I think is the American people should repudiate this right in two years time, in four years time, and vote these people, all of them, out of office. And there's a lot of people in Washington who say, well, you know, there's going to be three competitive Senate seats or 18 House seats. And I say to that nonsense, we're in an unit. We're in an unprecedented moment in the history of the country. There are. There are millions of Americans who kind of looked out there for a lot of reasons over the last 20 years and said, my vote doesn't really matter. What's the difference? And now we know, and now you see it. And so I don't want to live in a country like this, right? And so we got to. We got to do something about it. And what we have to do is we have to vote these people out of power.
- [14:43]
Jim Acosta
And I'm with you 1000% on that? On that. Steve, I'm in Aspen right now. I've been doing a little bit with Aspen Security Forum out here. But, you know, I've also had a little time to do some hikes and whatnot. And it's just beautiful country out here, just as it is in New Hampshire where you are. And the thought that was on my mind this morning as I was walking is that, you know, it's in our character as Americans. I mean, it's just who we are to reject tyranny. And Trump, almost, almost every day, it's almost like, you know, it's a bowl of cornflakes for him. He wakes up and he thinks about how he can just expand this, this notion that he can be a tyrant in this country. And he takes various steps on a daily basis to, to see that come to fruition. I mean, the fact that they're talk Emile Beauvais, his former defense attorney, and now he's a senior Justice Department official on the federal bench as a federal judge, which, you know, if you listen to Jeffrey Toobin, that's essentially setting Beauvais up for a nomination to the Supreme Court. I mean, the thought that Donald Trump's own defense attorney would be on the Supreme Court is just beyond the pale to me. And it strikes me to be a part of this tyranny agenda that he has in this country right now, and I think Americans are going to reject it.
- [16:09]
Steve Schmidt
He's one of the most unfit judicial nominees in 250 years of history in the country. And I'll come back to him. Come back to him in a minute. Right before we got on, we were talking about travel and some of the places you've been in Europe this summer. And I don't travel for business like I used to, but, you know, for 10 years of my life, I was flying. My lowest mileage year was 350,000 mil. And I was a global traveler. I'm a million miler on multiple airlines. And so you travel around the world, when you get on a plane in every other country, right, they line up just like in the United States at the gate. But the difference is in the United States, when people line up at the gate, right, they swarm it. It's a jumble. There's chaos when you're boarding a plane, right? No one boards in their groups, in their zones. Everyone's trying to game one zone ahead, right? The person who tries to control the American crowd at the gate, right, gets accosted, yelled at, berated, right. By the average Assortment of Americans who are randomly gathered there. You go to Germany. A friend of mine who used to run Merkel's campaign said the Germans are the only people in the world who would get online to go to the revolution. Right. There's something deeply embedded in our national character that's involving. Don't tell me what to do.
- [17:35]
Jim Acosta
That's right.
- [17:36]
Steve Schmidt
Donald Trump is going to run into more and more problems with that. Right. As. As time goes on, we are a. We are a default, defiant people in. In this country. Question of Emile, of Emile Beauvais is that when you go back and one of the things that's missing so much from the political coverage of this moment is, well, how did this happen in July? Well, sometimes we gotta go back to March. Right. Not March 3,000 years ago. Right. But March of this year, when Chuck Schumer appeased Donald Trump to avoid the government shutdown.
- [18:22]
Jim Acosta
Yes.
- [18:23]
Steve Schmidt
That was the whole game. It was the worst strategic and tactical political decision a minority leader has made ever.
- [18:38]
Jim Acosta
Yeah.
- [18:39]
Steve Schmidt
And he gave Donald Trump all of the power to do everything that he's done. And the proposition in July, as we want to get ready to start talking about putting a check on this that the Democrats are offering, starts with very. Something similar to what went on with Biden, which is you're helping Trump if you say Schumer's got to go.
- [19:13]
Jim Acosta
Yeah.
- [19:14]
Steve Schmidt
And I'm here to tell you Schumer's got to go. Democratic Party needs to have younger leaders, new faces, because there's not one Democrat who's known, credible though it may seem, who is more popular than Trump. Which tells you you need somebody who's not as well known, who can become well known and be viewed as that future face. So six Democratic senators voted to confirm Christi Ngo. Two of them have said, big mistake. Okay. People make mistakes. But I want to say terrible judgment.
- [20:02]
Jim Acosta
Yes.
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Steve Schmidt
You didn't know who Kristi Noem was.
- [20:05]
Jim Acosta
Yeah.
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Steve Schmidt
99 votes for Marco Rubio. You didn't know who Marco Rubio was?
- [20:12]
Jim Acosta
Not to. I mean, anybody who shoots a dog. I'm sorry, I. It's game over. You cannot be a cabinet member in this country if you shoot a dog. I mean, if it's Old Yeller and the dog is dying, whatever that, you know, take him to the vet. I understand that, but just. I'm just. It's astounding to me, but the whole Cabinet is set up this way. You mentioned the Democratic Party. I just want to say that I saw some polling this morning that showed that the Democrats are polling worse than the Republicans right now. And that's an indictment of the Democratic Party, I have to say. You know, there are some admirable people in the Democratic Party, there's no question about it. Many of them have been standing tall in their opposition to Trump and so on, but the institution itself, my God, they need to take a hard look in the mirror. And there are some people that you mentioned, the new faces and the fresh faces that are needed, some of them have been rejected in some of these special election primaries and so on. The establishment figures that fix has been in and they've been winning some of these races, Mom. Donnie not being one of them, but.
- [21:17]
Steve Schmidt
Yeah, it's like an Indiana Jones movie, right. And that plane is trying to make it over the Himalayas, right? And you see the peaks and they're, they're throwing shit out of the back of the plane to lighten the load, Right. That plane is the Democratic Party and the mountain isn't moving. And the load that's got to get lightened is Chuck and Jim Clyburn and the 80 year olds in the back of the plane. Right. Parachute or no, out they go. Because the plane will not clear the mountain. In Massachusetts. I am blanking on her first name, but Congresswoman Presley, Massachusetts. Right. And Jake Auchincloss. Right. Two young congressmen. Ed Markey is 80 years old.
- [22:18]
Jim Acosta
Yeah.
- [22:19]
Steve Schmidt
And he's going to run for reelection. Not. Okay.
- [22:23]
Jim Acosta
Yeah.
- [22:24]
Steve Schmidt
He's going to sit there in the Senate doing what, till 87? And so what Democrats have to do. And I, and I think.
- [22:31]
Jim Acosta
And this is why they lose to the couch. This is why they lose.
- [22:34]
Steve Schmidt
And the American people are waiting for this.
- [22:37]
Jim Acosta
Yeah.
- [22:38]
Steve Schmidt
They're waiting for it.
- [22:40]
Jim Acosta
Yeah.
- [22:40]
Steve Schmidt
Tell us you get it. Tell us you're sorry so we can vote for you again and do something about this insanity. On the question of Emil Beauvais, I think. Oh, yeah, I talked to a, to a, to a Senate candidate earlier today who's running in an outsider lane. And what that candidate said is, listen, what I'm going to say about it is this, right, is they got the votes to confirm them. I'm going to be a vote to impeach him because he is the most unqualified nominee, right? And maybe a couple hundred years here and he's going to be unfit next year, he's going to be unfit the year after. And when you get enough Democrats in there and you get enough Republicans who are scared of the voters to get rid of the extremists who've infiltrated the government, when the Accountability for the mess that's coming, the catastrophe that's coming, that hasn't landed yet. When it all comes down and these people are all seeing clearly for what they are, and the American people clean up on aisle five. Get rid of them.
- [23:50]
Jim Acosta
Well, and the thing that I have a question about with Beauvais, and it goes back to what Jeffrey Toobin has been writing, is whether Trump is setting him up to be on the Supreme Court. If he is setting up his own defense attorney to be on the Supreme Court. To me, that raises the prospect that Donald Trump, in the sick gears that are turning in his mind, that he is contemplating future law breaking, law breaking that may rise to the level of going all the way to the Supreme Court. I mean, I, I know how he thinks, and it, it strikes me as, as being, I think, fairly terrifying that he would consider and contemplate, his people would contemplate, and the Republicans would go along with putting his own defense attorney in the highest court of the land. And I just, I, I think that, to me, it, it's, it, it raises the red flag considering future law breaking and violations of the Constitution whereby the Supreme Court would have to weigh in.
- [24:54]
Steve Schmidt
He's got his guy. He's got his guy. Right. And he put him into a court nomination that fast tracks him for that Supreme Court nomination. Right. Beauvais is no different than John Roberts.
- [25:08]
Jim Acosta
Correct.
- [25:08]
Steve Schmidt
And John Roberts was appointed to the appellate bench. There was no even casual observer of the Supreme Court who didn't understand that John Roberts would be a Republican nominee for the high court. As, as was Brett Kavanaugh going to be. Right. And so, so what Emile Beauvais has said is when confronted with the fact that the judge made an order, you know, Emil Beauvais in a Justice Department meeting said, fuck the judge's order. We're not going to follow it. Right. And that's really the holy grail of our society. And, and so you would have, you have a corrupt court, and instead of fixing the corrupt court, which we badly need to do in the nation, you would add a historically corrupt figure to the historically corrupt court, and things will, things will get worse. So this is a, this is a situation where when you don't have a Democratic leader who can speak in a coherent sentence, when you don't have anybody who can go out and talk to the country, when you don't have anybody who can lay out an argument who's in, who's in power, you're starting to, from an enormous deficit.
- [26:38]
Jim Acosta
Yeah. No, there's no question about it. And my other question in all of this, too, is at some point, I wonder if some aspect of this Epstein scandal is going to find its way to the Supreme Court. And this Supreme Court, I mean, it's been rather astounding. And I'm a little shocked that Chief Justice John Roberts wants to go out like this. I mean, his legacy is essentially going to be that he was an enabler of Donald Trump.
- [27:09]
Steve Schmidt
Yeah. No, no, listen. John Roberts called.
- [27:12]
Jim Acosta
Immunity decision and all of these things that happened.
- [27:16]
Steve Schmidt
John Roberts called me, I ran his confirmation, and he called me on the 10th anniversary of him becoming Chief justice, and he said, I just want to thank you for everything you did for me to make this happen. What a. What an experience this has been. This was. This was 2015. And obviously, you know, I was there for every prep session, everything else, you know, and 11 years later, you know, after that call, John Roberts is the worst Chief justice this country's had since Taney. Right. The Roberts court is a disgrace. It'll be remembered as a dis. Be remembered as a disgrace a hundred years after he's dead. And appalling. The absolute collapse of integrity rectitude. I mean, you just don't know. I mean, I try to. I don't know what the culture's like. I just know if I was one of the nine people, right. On a lifetime appointment, sitting in a room with Clarence Thomas and a Samuel Alito, I guess they'd have to bring the marshals into the room. Right, right. I would not have a good reaction to it.
- [28:41]
Jim Acosta
Yeah.
- [28:42]
Steve Schmidt
At all.
- [28:44]
Jim Acosta
Well, Steve, we got to keep these conversations going. We don't do them often enough. The other thing I didn't want to get into, just very briefly, and it's the reason. It's sort of the reason why I brought up the Nick Fuentes thing, and it is tied to this Epstein case, is whether it is possible that Trump's fingers can be pried away from the manosphere. That you have all of these impressionable young men in this country, you. And I think when I first started into this independent media thing, you and I jumped on the phone one day and we had a really long conversation about young men and how they have just been totally led astray in this country, and it manifested itself in the 2024 election. And we're starting to see some of that. I don't know, there just seems to be some cracks in the ice under Trump's feet right now. And I just wonder, is that a positive development in all of this, too? Not that we should be looking for silver linings. And I was saying with Keris Wisher yesterday, I will not say the walls are closing in on Donald Trump. We've learned this too many times. He's an escape artist. But if there's some way that we could at least see just some healthy skepticism in the manosphere, I think that would do an enormous amount of good. And correct me if I'm wrong, maybe I'm overstating it, I don't know.
- [30:04]
Steve Schmidt
But I think. Well, first off, Donald is able to escape from almost any force opposing him except for himself.
- [30:17]
Jim Acosta
Yeah.
- [30:18]
Steve Schmidt
So what, what he excels at is luck. Right. You know, he has, he has luck in his opponents. Right. He has luck. Right. In that he is able to navigate his opponent's weaknesses and hypocrisies. Right. And, and at the, at the core, Hunter Biden just went out and said the reason that Democrats lost is because they weren't loyal to my father. That's not the reason. The reason Democrats lost two elections to Donald Trump is they were perceived as the less honest party, with the less honest candidate running against the most prolific liar in American history. So when I say that, there's a couple ways to process it. You could say, oh, my God, Steve Schmidt said that. Let's kill him. Right. Which is like the Twitter reaction, shout them down. Right. You know, and that's kind of the standard. That's the standard fare. Right. You know, you say, wow, well, you know, Zorhan Mandan doesn't look like he's going to win an election in Texas to me. Right. You know, I'm not, I'm not sure this is the future face at a Democratic Party. Right? No, no, no. Right. You know, the screaming, the shouting down. Right. The, you know, the whole, the whole deal, the whole deal with that. Democrats have to face this. You had the most prolific liar and you lost an election because you were considered less honest on three core issues. And you look at young men, the most important thing for young men to get them back. Right. Stop telling them if you're a Democratic politician, there's broken and there's something wrong with them and that they have a collective guilt for all the sins of the world over 20,000 years because my 15 year old doesn't have a clue what any of them were talking about.
- [32:17]
Jim Acosta
They don't know what that means.
- [32:18]
Steve Schmidt
Right. And the second thing is, young men, they're not going to be for the losers. Right. And more and more every day, these MAGA people look like the giant losers we know they are, they are losers and they're liars and they're conscious. But that counterculture element, that ethos online, right. It's juvenile, it's stupid. So of course it engages young men.
- [32:49]
Jim Acosta
I'd love young men to just care about baseball and movies and cool shit that you and I used to like. Arnold Schwarzenegger movies and things like this. The shit that we used to like growing up and Caddyshack one liners and things. And not Donald Trump and not this toxic right wing politics we have going on in this country. And if this Epstein Files case can shake some of that out of them.
- [33:11]
Steve Schmidt
And, and there's a blessing. Yeah, no, listen, and it's, it's important, it's important for men to be able to talk to boys. Right? And, and there's not been enough men who've, who've said this. Right. You know, I don't, I don't think, I think there's a lot of men who were intimidated for having conversations right. Between men about men and men and boys while this was, while this was going on in the last couple of years. And what you want to say to a young man is that Elon Musk is a freak show. Right? If you, if you want to go and have 100 kids and spread your sperm around, you're a weirdo and a jerk off and you don't want to be either of them. Right. Donald Trump's a loser and, and the, and, and whatever his name. Andrew Tate's a pussy. Right.
- [34:01]
Jim Acosta
And yeah.
- [34:03]
Steve Schmidt
And young men right after.
- [34:06]
Jim Acosta
And probably, and probably a despicable human being, it appears, based on. Yeah. I mean, just. Yeah.
- [34:11]
Steve Schmidt
Young, young men, you know, need firm hand. Young men need discipline. Young men need to be raised in a culture of respect and dignity. And young men need to be challenged to contribute. Young men need to understand that they need to look out for the least amongst us and that a man looks around to see if there's someone being picked on. What can I do to stop that? And there's so many different things in here where the lowest and the worst have been elevated right to it. But to a position. Hey, buddy, we got Jim Acosta on.
- [34:57]
Jim Acosta
That's all right.
- [34:59]
Steve Schmidt
He doesn't care. Yeah, he doesn't care. Tucker, what are you doing?
- [35:06]
Jim Acosta
You say Tucker the dog. I wonder.
- [35:08]
Steve Schmidt
Tucker the dog. And Tucker the dog is a 13 and a half year old black lab.
- [35:15]
Jim Acosta
So he is named after somebody else, I hope.
- [35:18]
Tara Setmayer
But.
- [35:18]
Steve Schmidt
Well, he was before that. Tucker went totally crazy. He. He. No, no connection whatsoever.
- [35:25]
Jim Acosta
There you go. No, but Steve, you're absolutely right. And I, and I, I just. Let's keep this conversation going because it's so spot on. It's so important. It's so, it's so right to do. And I, you know, this case is about. The Epstein case, is about young girls. And I, I would like to see men to be more concerned about the victims in that case, to see, you know, that there is a life away from misogyny and, and has normalized over the last several years and, and wrapped it up in just a, in a, just a hall of mirrors of lies. And I just hope that this Epstein Files case is just starting to create some tiny little cracks with that manosphere. But, Steve, as always, great to talk to you, man. We don't do this enough.
- [36:12]
Steve Schmidt
Good to see you, Jim.
- [36:13]
Jim Acosta
All right, say. Say hi to Tucker. Take care. All right.
- [36:16]
Steve Schmidt
Bye.
- [36:16]
Jim Acosta
Bye. All right, I gotta, I'm gonna quickly go to my friend Tara Sedmeyer, who has been patiently waiting for us to get going with her. And Tara, of course, you know, I've talked to Tara so many times on the show, and I definitely want to get her take on the Epstein case because at the heart of this case are these young women, these young girls who were just absolutely victimized. And we just, we need the truth. We absolutely need the truth. And when Caroline Levitt is in the White House briefing room saying, well, we're not going to have a special counsel, when Pam Bondi is being asked about it, as she was earlier this week, and she's running for the exits, you know, I'm sorry. They can try. And Donald Trump is out there calling it a hoax. Try as they might. Try as they might. This is not going to get swept under the rug. It is just not going to happen. And I know Tara feels very strongly about this. And there she. Tara, good to see you.
- [37:23]
Tara Setmayer
Hi, Jim.
- [37:24]
Jim Acosta
Well, I brought you on because I wanted to hear about. The Seneca Project has a new ad out on the Big Beautiful Bill, as it has been called. I don't call it that.
- [37:31]
Tara Setmayer
But what do we call it?
- [37:33]
Jim Acosta
I call it the big boulder of bullshit. But some people, people have lots of different names for it.
- [37:37]
Tara Setmayer
But the ad says the Big Beautiful Betrayal.
- [37:40]
Jim Acosta
The Big Beautiful Betrayal. And the ad says, Donald Trump betrayed you. It was all a lie. And you've been running this ad in Pennsylvania to counter JD Vance's recent trip there. I want to talk about all that. Cause that's all very important. And the work that you do is important. But I want to get back to Talk about the Epstein files for just a moment because you and I have not, I don't think had a chance on this show to talk about this case. And you know, it's making me think about your Webby award winning American Girl spot. It's about the girls. And you know, at the heart of this case, it's about the girls.
- [38:17]
Tara Setmayer
Yes.
- [38:17]
Jim Acosta
And they need justice. My God, they need justice. And here we have Donald Trump and people like Pam Bondi and Caroline Levitt trying to sweep it under the rug. It's just not gonna happen.
- [38:29]
Tara Setmayer
And the level of hypocrisy and the level of gaslighting is really beyond. And it's interesting to watch this. I mean, for us at Seneca during the election last year, we put out an ad and we re released recently. It was called, it was called Protector last year as kind of a sarcastic thing when Donald Trump said he was going to be a protector of women and how women would be, you know, wonderful under me. And we were like, are you fucking kidding me? You like, I'm sorry, this guy. So we put a compilation together, a very powerful minute and a half compilation of all of the disgusting things that Donald Trump. Well, not all, I mean, we could be there for 10 minutes, but a pretty poignant compilation of things that Donald Trump has said and people he's hung around with, including Jeffrey Epstein, that have been against women and, and younger girls. I mean, people forget that Donald Trump made a comment about a like 10 year old girl going up an escalator saying, oh, I'll be dating her in a couple years. Like he's just been a gross perv for a lot of his, a lot of his adult life here. That, and it's well documented, but people just swept that all under the rug. Nobody gave a shit. I mean, he bragged about walking into the dressing room of Miss Teen usa. Remember that?
- [39:47]
Jim Acosta
Right. He was at the, it's an extensive, it's an extensive lowlight reel. There's. There's no question about it.
- [39:52]
Tara Setmayer
Yeah, exactly. So we re released it this time because of the Epstein stuff bubbling back up again. And we call it Predator because whether Donald Trump wants to, it wants to admit it or not, it is well documented that Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein were BFFs for a very long time. Yes, I mean, a very long time. There's some question about whether Epstein introduced him to Melania. I mean they, their, their relationship is so entangled for a long time. And for Trump to try to. Coffee boy Epstein now, I don't know the guy oh, he's. He's a creep.
- [40:26]
Jim Acosta
He's a creep. Or he. What did he say yesterday? Doesn't matter much in terms of life. There's some, there was some crazy weird word salad shit that came out of his mouth and I was like, see, that to me, is another one of the tells.
- [40:38]
Tara Setmayer
It's a tell.
- [40:39]
Jim Acosta
It was like last week in the cabinet meeting when he freaked out at that question. It's sort of like when he puts out the truth social post that calls it a hoax. When everybody. That doesn't make any sense that it would be a hoax.
- [40:50]
Tara Setmayer
It happened, right? He's spiraling.
- [40:51]
Jim Acosta
He's spiraling. Yes.
- [40:53]
Tara Setmayer
I literally just wrote a substack about this because the two things, what we did at Seneca this week and what's happening with Epstein are tied together. Because even though, like, I literally just sent it out now, and if folks want to see the ad and want to read what I had to say about it, it's over on my uncompromised substack. But, like, the thing about it is that Donald Trump, literally, when he starts to freak out, you know that he's guilty because he starts like, like saying things because he changed his story four or five times in a matter of like three days because the bullshit wasn't working. The excuses and the bullshit wasn't working. And his, his base was like, wait a minute, there were files. Now there's not files, but what they said that they were on her desk. But so now, oh, now it's a democratic hoax. So it's comey and Obama's fault. Because Trump knows that if, God forbid, somebody decides that they're mad enough and they leak it, and he's in there because remember, this all kind of started to unravel when what happened? Elon Musk said, when Elon Musk put it out there, you're in the files, buddy. You're in the files.
- [42:00]
Jim Acosta
And he was. And he was st it overnight. There are folks who maybe weren't tuned at the top of the hour, but Elon Musk was tweeting overnight and going back and forth with his AI tool Grok, which, I mean, Grok is, is.
- [42:11]
Tara Setmayer
A. Oh, my God barrel full of.
- [42:13]
Jim Acosta
Monkeys as it is.
- [42:14]
Tara Setmayer
AI bot.
- [42:15]
Jim Acosta
Yeah, I mean, it's just a dumpster full of white nationalist trash, it seems, but it does seem to have the ability to spit out AI driven answers. And he was asked, you know, Elon Musk was asking about the electronic records on the flights, and he was traveling on the plane and Grok was replying, yes, the records exist. And I feel like I'm watching a movie, you know, just thinking about all of this stuff. It's just, I mean, the base has gone bananas.
- [42:40]
Tara Setmayer
It's like the Real Housewives of Mar a Lago.
- [42:43]
Jim Acosta
It really is. It really is. So, but let's talk about the big boulder of bullshit and how costly is this going to be? Because I'm seeing, you know, I was seeing some polling this morning that shows that, you know, approval for Democrats is actually worse than Republicans. I mean, the Democrats have a long ladder to climb.
- [43:04]
Tara Setmayer
Yeah. So the polling from cnn, is that the polling you're talking about?
- [43:08]
Jim Acosta
I think that's what it was. Yeah.
- [43:09]
Tara Setmayer
So there was CNN polling this morning, which was pretty interesting. There was some good news and there was some bad news for Democrats. But I think there was more good news than bad news in that it could be a wake up call, more of an opportunity for Democrats to recalibrate. I mean, we've said this many, many times, but, like, this should be more evidence of, like, there is a huge opportunity here for you people to take advantage of Trump being underwater on a lot of things. He's underwater on immigration, which is the first time in a long time that's always been his strongest.
- [43:43]
Jim Acosta
Right? That's right.
- [43:44]
Tara Setmayer
You know, maybe the American people don't like a Gestapo snatching people off the streets and, and kidnapping them into concentration camps named Alligator, Alcatraz, or, you know, and how many American citizens like more stories coming out about that, which should be highlighted every day, of American citizens being unjustly snatched and not getting their due process. And people forget that whether you're here legally or not, if you're on American soil, you are entitled to due process. That's the Constitution. So that kind of the imagery of tanks in the streets, active duty military, Gestapo style tactics, military militarized federal law enforcement on the streets of the United States, like tear gassing migrant workers in California. The American people are actually going, wait a minute. The migrant workers in California, they're not the rapists and the gang members that you said were gonna get swept up here. Wait a minute. My, my, you know, my landscaper and our housekeepers and kids being snatched from schools and mothers being torn from their kids when they're picking them up from school. Wait a minute. That's not what you said you were gonna do. And thankfully, the American people have a conscience, unlike Stephen Miller and Donald Trump and the rest of those ghouls that are perpetrating this mushmouth, Tom Holman. Like people are going, we're not comfortable with this. So I think that's contributed to that issue and why that's underwater. But the, but the bill, this, this, this budget bill, this is a disaster for Republicans and, and Democrats have an opportunity to make them explain what is beautiful about taking the food out of hungry, the mouths of hungry children, kicking grandma out of her or your mom out of her nursing home, taking 17 million people off of, snatching their health care away from them, losing that, and using all of this to further militarize the Gestapo that is ice, all to give billionaires a tax break. There's nothing beautiful about it. There's an opportunity to turn this around and put the Republicans on defense. That's what we do at Seneca Project. That's what we've been preaching. I've been preaching this for people who watch me on TV and follow us. I've been trying to tell the Democrats how to do this. As a former Republican killer messenger who beat the hell out of Democrats and candidates all the time in campaigns, we know how to do this. So I'm telling you how to take their same tactics and turn it around. But you actually have good policy and the truth on your side. And put the damn Republicans on defense on this. And this is how you do it.
- [46:18]
Jim Acosta
And the question is, do they Democrats pull that off? Do they have the people in place to do that successfully and. Or do they lose to the couch like they did in 2024?
- [46:29]
Tara Setmayer
Not J.D. vance's couch. That's a different type of not that couch.
- [46:34]
Jim Acosta
Definitely not that couch.
- [46:35]
Tara Setmayer
Okay, just making sure.
- [46:37]
Jim Acosta
Listen, Salvation Army's picking up that couch later tonight.
- [46:40]
Tara Setmayer
You know, I mean, maybe not. There needs to be a disclaimer. Where did this couch come from anyway?
- [46:44]
Jim Acosta
That's true.
- [46:46]
Tara Setmayer
Look, that poll also said that 57% of the American people think it's bad for the country if the White House and Congress are controlled by Republicans. That is the majority. So this is a pickup opportunity. 28% say they're not happy with the Democrats. Right? Oh, they're all, they're only 20% favorability for the Democrats. So there is an opportunity for Democrats to show that they are, that they are actually doing something and this is what they're doing. And they can, they need to be fighters. Stop with the focus groups, the strongly worded letters, parsing every fucking word. You need to talk just like we do, like normal human beings, and say to people, this is, this bill is bullshit. This is why Donald Trump did this to you. And it's a Betrayal of the American people. This is not what you voted for. I mean, maybe you did. Maybe the rich guys voted for that, but average Americans, this is not what you voted for. And this is why.
- [47:46]
Jim Acosta
No, and I mean, the other thing that you and I haven't talked about. I was gonna say this for the end of the show. Maybe I'll go back to it. Is, I mean, they're talking about cutting a billion dollars from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which finances NPR and pbs.
- [48:00]
Steve Schmidt
Yep.
- [48:01]
Jim Acosta
I mean, did people vote to not have big bird and Mr. Rogers and, you know, amazing programs like Frontline and the PBS NewsHour and Ken Burns, I mean, and NPR stations that a lot of people rely on, a lot of small markets in this country. I mean, Terry, you know this from your days out on the campaign trail, being a political operative and so on. I mean, there's some parts of the country that really rely on public broadcasting.
- [48:29]
Tara Setmayer
Yes. And I believe it was Senator Mikowski. I mean, you know, for what it's worth with her. But at least she said, listen, in Alaska, when we have. We need weather alerts. Or, you know, this could. Sometimes these weather stations are the only ways that these. These NPR stations are the only ways that these folks out here in these remote areas can get their alerts, their weather alerts. That's right. And it's like this is all across, you know, remote areas of the country. These are Trump's people, mostly, according to statistics. So that's the point of. Of what we are doing. We are trying to show that Donald Trump is betraying not only all of us. We already know this, but the Republicans are letting Trump betray their own people. Like, I was on MSNBC yesterday talking about Josh Hawley. So, Josh Hawley, his state, he represents Missouri. 20% of Missouri voters are on Medicaid. They will lose their benefits. 20%. That is not a small number.
- [49:30]
Jim Acosta
Correct.
- [49:30]
Tara Setmayer
So what does Josh Hawley do? Well, he was like, oh, I'm concerned about these cuts to the. Our hospitals and our people and, you know, blah, blah, blah. But I'm gonna vote for the bill. Then I'm gonna turn around and act like I didn't just vote for that bill. And now I'm gonna introduce a bill to say, save Medicare, Save our R. Medicaid Act. Get the fuck out of here. You think people are going to let you get away with having talking out of both sides of your mouth? No, you can't.
- [49:55]
Jim Acosta
It sounds like I was for the war before I voted against it or.
- [49:58]
Tara Setmayer
Whatever that was exactly right. You can't set the fire and then turn around and get credit. Want credit for trying to put it out. Now you don't get to do that. So that's why we were like, so here's I'm going to tell you. You asked about the Democrats, whether they're capable of doing it. I'm going to give you a little tea. I'm going to give you a little tea for your, for your audience over the weekend. I asked, I noticed that J.D. vance was going to be in Pennsylvania, and then I looked at where. Now, Pennsylvania 8 is a swing district. Now, this is the type of district that Democrats lost. There's a freshman congressman there. He took out a Democratic incumbent in Pennsylvania. It is a Pennsylvania swing district. This is the kind of district that Democrats need to win back if they're going to win the midterms. Right. So, of course, it's smart political strategy for the Republicans for Trump or J.D. vance to go there to sell the big beautiful bill, because it's underwater. The more people find out about it, the more they don't like it. So you go and you sell it to the swing district people and bullshit them into saying, oh, no, this is good for you. Right. So I went into a chat that has lots of Democrats in it, and I said, hey, guys, Vance is going to be in Pennsylvania 8. Is there any counter messaging going on here? And it was crickets.
- [51:20]
Steve Schmidt
Crickets.
- [51:21]
Jim Acosta
Well, and I'll. No. And Tara, I will tell you, I have talked to a number of Democratic operatives, people who are up on Capitol Hill, walking alongside some pretty prominent members of Congress, working with those members of Congress who have said to me basically in recent days, in the last several days, we've got nothing. That we've got nothing right now. We don't know. We don't have a direction. We don't have a consistent message. We don't really have a consensus as to who the messenger is. And I will tell you, it's a little depressing to hear. And these were people that I trust that work inside the Democratic Party. And yes, they can be very optimistic about next year and everything. But at the moment, a lot of people inside that party right now who are working in some pretty prominent positions are very concerned about being able to capitalize, as you were saying at the beginning of this, on a very negative environment for the Republicans and for Trump.
- [52:17]
Tara Setmayer
Yes. And the thing about this is that's why it's going to take the grassroots. It's going to take independent media like you and folks that have platforms to do Their jobs for them. The Seneca Project. When we saw that, I went to Michelle, my co founder, and our team, and I said, guys, we're gonna have to do this because the Democrats aren't doing it. And we have a minuscule budget. We have a very. We rely on the generosity of small dollar donors.
- [52:52]
Jim Acosta
Interesting.
- [52:53]
Tara Setmayer
The DNC has millions of dollars. Democratic organizations have millions of dollars to do these things. And a full team of people. There are four of us. Okay, that's it. And I said, look, we have to practice what we preach. And so we put the 32nd AD together, we did a little digital buy where we targeted where J.D. vance was. So when people were standing online to go into the venue, it was coming up on their phones and to other parts of the district and said, this is how you do it. Now, we would love to scale that up. Something like that should be in every swing district. Now. You can't wait until six months from now. You have to do it now.
- [53:32]
Jim Acosta
Yeah, set the table now. Exactly. Well, Tara, God bless you in the work that you do, and I love that you just have that fighting spirit. It's the kind of spirit, honestly, that needs to be instilled in a lot more people, not only in Washington, but around the country. But I appreciate what you do so much, and thank you, Tara, as always. We'll keep these conversations going, and you guys keep fighting over there at the Seneca project.
- [53:54]
Tara Setmayer
Thank you. It's the Jersey girl in me. It's the Jersey girl.
- [53:57]
Jim Acosta
I know. I know it is. That's why I don't mess with you. That's why I don't mess with you. See you, Tara.
- [54:02]
Tara Setmayer
Love you, Jim.
- [54:03]
Jim Acosta
All right, love you. Bye bye. All right, and finally, I got to quickly go to my friend Nick Valencia, my former colleague. He is out live for us, I believe, in California. He has been talking to some migrant workers, people who work with those migrant workers in that community out there. And they have been obviously just been put through the meat grinder, put through the wringer in terms of these ICE raids and just living in a constant state of fear in the United States of America. And I think California, and perhaps this is why we're seeing some of the frustration being expressed, and it's absolutely the reason why from people like Gavin Newsom and Mayor Bass in Los Angeles. And there's Nick right there. And, Nick, you've been just killing it, you know, going independent as an independent journalist in recent days. And I love the fact that you're out there reporting from the field and you've been Talking to some of these migrant workers who have been living in fear, as I was just saying. Tell us about what you're finding out.
- [55:05]
Nick Valencia
I'm following your lead, but thank you for the flowers, man. I'm out here in Delano, California. This is Central Valley, and for a lot of you guys that are familiar with this part of California, it's Trump country. And I was shocked to find out what I've learned. This is the birthplace of the UFW movement. Cesar Chavez was here on his five year long protest boycott against these very farmers here. And there's no mural for him here, there's no street named after him. They've got a high school here. But it's almost as though his legacy gym is just sort of being wiped away. And even talking to these people here, I was just talking to the foreman. They don't want to go on camera here. You see some of them picking the grapes that are going to end up on your table this summer for those pool parties. And the foreman here is saying, I'm not sure that Cesar Chavez did that much. We get paid 1650 an hour. And to me, that is not just. It's 95 degrees out here right now, approaching 5 o' clock eastern, 2 o' clock local. They stop allegedly around 105 degrees when it hits that, you know, you see this is porta Potties, you know how they keep clean. But this is the height of picking season. These are the grapes that are going to end up, as I mentioned, you know, at your pool parties. And I've spent the day with these field workers and what they tell me has really shocked me. They're confused that the President has been putting a target on their back. They call it a purge. And they say to me, Jim, under different circumstances that they might actually support the President. That was shocking to me to hear. But as they explained it, a lot of it has to do with their religion, their stance on homosexuality. And for them, in another circumstance, or, you know, basically in another situation, another world, they would be voting for Trump. They're conservatives here, around here in this area. This really is sort of a bubble of generational Mexicans, people that have spent their time in the fields and, and the people tell me here, they don't want you to feel sorry for them. This is sort of their everyday life and what they do, the kids, even on the high school football team, I spent some time yesterday with them, the student athletes, they're not doing two day summer football practices because they're out here at 6 in the morning till 3pm working in the fields and then going to practice their summer football. And they're pretty good here. They're juggling, you know, what is basically a grown man's schedule, working eight hours, nine hours in the hot, pouring, stun, and then going to be, you know, student athletes and they're, you know, the regional team. They're winning regional championships. The conservative part here, though, just to get back to it, it really is sort of a bubble. If you get pulled, pulled over here as a Latino, you're probably going to get pulled over by a Mexican cop. You get fired here, you're probably going to get fired by a Mexican employer. The foreman here, she's Latina. She is. Has her hands full right now. There is so much fear, obviously, for them. They think they're next. They don't believe the president when he says he's going to keep his hands off these farm workers. And for them, you know, it's fear. And just let me give you some anecdotes here. I was talking to a man named Guadalupe earlier this morning. He's been in the fields for 30 years. He's undocumented. He says he doesn't understand it. He doesn't know the land that they would potentially send him back to if he was deported. So he's made his life here. He's committed himself here, and this is where he has built his American dream. And for that to be threatened right now, I mean, that's really concerning for a lot of these migrant farmers behind me here. Most of these folks, I don't want to show their faces because they are undocumented. I was talking to the foreman, asking her, what sort of plan do you have in place if those ICE raids come here? And you can see here, this is sort of the. The private property line. That cone right here, I'm on the county property. And so she says, let's say you were with ice, a federal agent, we would stop you here, we would ask you for a warrant, and that would give enough time for some of these workers to get to safety. What we've seen in Los Angeles, what I've been reporting on, is warrantless raids I have to put alleged in front of my reporting or suspected in front of my reporting, because some of these federal agents aren't identifying them as such, themselves as such. It is a situation or a political climate. You have people here that have worked in these fields for 30 years and never felt the fear that they feel today.
- [58:57]
Jim Acosta
Jim. Wow.
- [58:59]
Steve Schmidt
Wow.
- [58:59]
Jim Acosta
And Nick, I mean, you're absolutely right. When you point out, I mean, these people are literally right now, as we speak, as you're reporting to us, picking the food that will be in our supermarkets, on our dinner tables, in our summer barbecues, as you were saying. And you know, they've been getting mixed messaging from the Trump administration. Some days you'll hear Trump say, oh, no, we're not going to touch the farmers. We're not going to touch those kinds of laborers. And then the Trump administration will say, oh, well, we're not so sure about that. And there are elements of MAGA who are saying they're not so sure about that. So it's a giant mess in terms, if you're on the ground doing the work, trying to sort out, well, what the policy is going to be, do I need to live in fear or not? Oh, we might have lost Nick there. Nick, can you hear me? I might have lost you, Nick. Oh, there you are back here. I can hear you now. Go ahead.
- [60:01]
Nick Valencia
Yeah, great, great. You know, it, it's, it's, it's an issue out here for people that they don't believe the President when he says they're just going to lay his hands off the farmers. Part of what they're concerned about is what they've seen happen. Two hours south of them in Santa Barbara county and Ventur, we saw a marijuana farm raided there. They did allegedly have a warrant when they conducted that operation. There have been tons of operations, though, where they've showed up without warrants and even when they've caused so much chaos in this approach to immigration that even their good faith efforts are being met by the community and people now were seeing that standing up and the fear is resonating. Don't believe the President when he says he's going to keep his hands off the farmers. For them, Jim, they think it's just only a matter of time. They're at the height of their season right now. They say the President has no idea the financial disastrous effect that would take place if they just stopped working for a week. Consider this a country without immigrants. Who's going to pick your food? Because I asked every single one of these migrants that I talked to, when was the last time you saw a white American show up to do this job? Their answer Never.
- [61:13]
Jim Acosta
Wow. And that's the truth. And we heard the agriculture Secretary just the other day say, oh, well, there are plenty of able bodied people on Medicaid. Maybe they can go out and do this type of work. It's just not going to happen. That is a line of bs that was offered up by that secretary the other day. But Nick Valencia, as always, great reporting from the field. Thank you so much for doing it. We appreciate it. And I know it's 95 degrees. We'll let you get back and get cool inside the car, I hope. But thanks for what you do.
- [61:42]
Nick Valencia
Love you, man. Take care.
- [61:43]
Jim Acosta
All right, you too. Everybody follow Nick on all the socials, including here at Substack. Become a subscriber of Nick and his work. And that's gonna do it for me on this edition of the Jim Acosta Show. I will say one of the more undercovered stories. If it wasn't just a fire hose of bullshit in our face every day, you know, a story about a billion dollars being cut out of the budgets of PBS and NPR would be a much bigger story in this country right now. What we are witnessing in this country, and we're seeing it in real time. And so because there are so many other stories out there, like the Epstein files, we don't focus in on what is happening right before our eyes, right under our nose. And that is Donald Trump is, as we speak, dismantling the news and information system that we've had in place in this country for the last 75 years, probably since the end of World War II. And where you had the three networks, where you had PBS stations, where you had major newspapers that could report the news the way they saw fit. Instead today you have corporate media outlets, the major networks that are running in fear of Donald Trump and the pressure that he's putting on those businesses. You're seeing major newspapers like the Washington Post being owned by people like Jeff Bezos, who is obviously putting his ideological agenda ahead of the work of a newspaper, the work of a major market newspaper. And now you have the Republicans in Congress going along with Donald Trump taking a meat ax to NPR and pbs. And what that, what the end result is in all of this, folks, is just less good quality information getting to you, the American people. And that's why we're going to continue to do what we do here on Substack and on independent media and on places like YouTube and on podcasts that you can pick up on Apple and so on. Folks like us are going to continue to do the work. Independent media is going to continue to boom in this country because of the Trump effect, because of the way he's gone after places like PBS and npr and because there are people like Jeff Bezos owning the Washington Post and because of the ridiculous Trump lawsuits aimed at places like CBS and abc. But make no mistake, what you were witnessing in real time, you were witnessing the dismantling of what has kept this country in good stead since the end of World War II. And that is a reliable information system, news and information system in this country. As Tara was saying just a few moments ago, you have people in far flung places of the United States that rely on NPR stations for weather alerts. My God, what is going to happen to those communities when some of these stations quite possibly go under because of these budget cuts? And so I'm a longtime broadcaster and news guy. I've got to stick up for my friends over at PBS. I was raised on PBS, raised on Mr. Rogers, raised on the Electric Company, raised on Sesame street, raised on all those great shows, the Amazing Spider man and everything else that I just loved growing up watching pbs. We didn't have enough money to have cable TV when I was growing up, and so PBS had more options for me to watch because of that. And, you know, it just breaks my heart to see what's happening out there and what's being done to the wonderful people in public broadcasting. It should be a much bigger force in this country. Disinformation. I think we could really push back against disinformation in a much more profound way if we had a strong, robust public broadcasting system in this country like you see in other places like the UK And Canada. So I'm going to continue to beat that drum. I know you've some of you have heard me talk about this before, but I'm going to continue to beat that drum. But my thanks, as always, to Steve Schmidt, Tara Settmeier and the and the wonderful Nick Valencia, who is braving that very hot heat out in California, talking to the migrant workers out there and getting a sense as to what they're going through. And thanks, everybody for watching. I'm still in Colorado. I'll talk a little bit about why I'm out here tomorrow. I was going to do that. I'll do that tomorrow. I've got some great guests for tomorrow, so stay tuned for that as well. We're going to be talking about andor a little bit tomorrow. So that's coming down the pike in just about 24 hours. And later on tonight, if you're so inclined, I'll be doing a special report with Norm Eisen and Katie Fang on YouTube. So find us on YouTube later tonight. You can see there we're going to be talking about all of the items that we've been talking about on this show today. Everything that's been in the news. There's a lot to talk about, so tune in to that as well. In the meantime, still reporting, I'm Jim Acosta. Have a good evening. Evening. Good night.