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Trump Cognitive Questions Continue and Crisis at DOJ. My Discussions with Joyce Vance and Tom Nichols.
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Joyce Vance
Foreign.
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Jim Acosta
Welcome, everybody, to the Jim Acosta show. It's another day that ends in y and the crisis that is growing at the Trump Justice Department. I say the Trump Justice Department because what is happening at the DOJ these days is not normal. And joining us on the show to talk about this is former federal prosecutor Joyce Vance, legal expert extraordinaire, who has the essential substack called civil discourse. Joyce, great to see you again, as always.
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Joyce Vance
Always good to be with you, especially on a big legal news day like today.
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Jim Acosta
There's, there's so much going on, and I, you know, one of the things that you and I were exchanging messages about before we, we got started here was just, you know, the, the devastation that is happening inside the Department of Justice. People are leaving in droves. They don't want to be a part of what's happening there under Todd Blanch. They, they, they didn't want to be a part of what was happening under Pam Bondi either. I just saw this story that popped in Bloomberg this afternoon that the DOJ is now offering signing bonuses of $25,000 if you'll join staff offices investigating youth transgender treatments and litigating the Trump administration's immigration agenda. I mean, this, the list goes on and on. Joyce, what do you think? What do you make of all this?
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Joyce Vance
You know, it's crazy, right? Yesterday, DOJ was advertising on Twitter to try to get people to apply for these jobs. Look, when I was a U.S. attorney and even before I was the appellate chief in my office during the George W. Bush administration, so was involved in hiring, we would get north of several hundred applications for every open seat. These jobs were very highly sought, and the department, quite frankly, isn't budgeted to pay signing bonuses. So the fact that they have that money floating around in this is maybe too inside of baseball, but it suggests that so many people have left the department. We know that's true when we look at the statistics in some of the offices that they're actually amassing unspent money that's dedicated to payroll, and that's where the money to pay these signing bonuses that have sort of a questionable legality come from. But, you know, Jim, I spoke with somebody a few days ago who had applied, applied for a job at a U. S. Attorney's office. I won't say which one, but sort of in the middle of the country, and they're still being asked the question, what's your favorite of the president's executive orders? Which is just not a question anyone can answer in good faith. If they're going to take a job, the whole point of which is setting aside your politics to do the job.
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Jim Acosta
Yeah. So I guess this phenomenon, I mean, just to boil it down for laymans like myself, it's that lawyers know, attorneys know people who, I guess, know what they're doing in this realm. They just don't want to have anything to do with this. They don't want any part of this. Is that basically what it is? Because they, I mean, I guess there are a couple of things. One is they may be asked to do things that they don't want to do. It might be detrimental to their career. And then just secondly, just on a principle of they don't want to work for somebody who wants to politicize the Justice Department.
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Joyce Vance
So, look, I think that there are people who are disgusted by the politicization of this Justice Department, but understand that there's still important work to do to protect communities. Because not every case that Acting Attorney General Todd Blanch is technically signing off on as Attorney General is a political case. A lot of These cases are DOJ's bread and butter work protecting communities from crime. And so as a prosecutor, you can go to the Justice Department and do that work, keep your head, stay out of the politics, do your cases the right way, you know, for the right reasons. As, as we always say at doj, the, the problem is, will these people be asked to do something unconscionable or might they take the job only to be fired because they somehow managed to run a foul of current management? You know, we've seen all these stories about agents or prosecutors who had the misfortune to be assigned to work on a case that subsequently the President wasn't happy about, and, and they lose their job. It's nuts.
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Jim Acosta
Yeah, and then there's, I mean, there's also what's taking place in the, you know, in the realm of law and order, that some of Trump's judicial nominees are going up to Capitol Hill for their confirmation hearings, and they can't answer basic questions like whether Joe Biden won the 2020 election, whether the 22nd Amendment says whether or not Donald Trump can run for a third term. I mean, these are all easy, no brainer things for normal, rational people. And yet there are nominees that have been put forward by this administration who, who are obviously sending signals to the audience of one, there's, there's some sound we should play with. Senator Chris Coons, who is, he should be commended for asking these questions, because, I mean, to me, they really cut to the Heart of the matter of what we're up against as a country right now. Let's, let's take a look at this, if I might.
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Tom Nichols
Just tell me about the 22nd Amendment. What does it.
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Pete Hegseth
The 22nd Amendment, Senator, my career has
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Jim Acosta
mostly been in criminal prosecution. I haven't had an opportunity to use that one specifically.
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Tom Nichols
Anyone able to help on the 22nd Amendment to the United States Constitution? Senator, I believe it is the amendment that deals with a two term limitation on service of the states. No person shall be elected to the office of the president more than twice. Mr. Mark, is President Trump eligible to run for president again in 2028?
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Jim Acosta
Senator, without considering all the facts and looking at everything, depending on what the situation is, this to me strikes as
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Pete Hegseth
more of a hypothetical, of something that could be.
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Tom Nichols
It's not a hypothetical. Has President Trump been elected president twice?
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Jim Acosta
President Trump has been certified the President of the United States two times.
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Tom Nichols
Is he eligible to run for a third term under our Constitution?
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Pete Hegseth
I would have to review the.
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Jim Acosta
All I need to tell you is
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Tom Nichols
the language of the constitutional amendment that makes it clear that no, he is not eligible to run for a third term.
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Jim Acosta
Yeah. I mean, Joyce, it's, it's stunning to watch it. That's an acting U.S. attorney right there, John Mark, who was being asked that question. And you know, to me that I find that to be chilling.
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Joyce Vance
I watched that and I've seen it probably 10 times now. I'm sort of fixated on it because every time I expect he's going to give the only answer he can give, the answer Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett gave when she was asked about this. Elected twice, not eligible for a third term. Not a close call. If you can't say that you shouldn't be a United States attorney or a federal judge.
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Jim Acosta
Yeah. And yet, I mean, I think that's the litmus test for a lot of people to, to join this administration or to get one of these appointments from Donald Trump. And they're still obsessed, Joyce, with the 2020 election. They're still obsessed with the midterms. A lot of this, I think, is, should, should be very concerning to people. The AP today is reporting that the Department of Justice is seeking the names of every person who worked in the 2020 election in Georgia's Fulton County. Lawyers for the county filed a motion on Monday to quash a grand jury subpoena that asked for the names and personal contact information of county employees and volunteer poll workers. I mean, this comes after the FBI went up to the Fulton county election headquarters in January and seized all of those ballots. But this is the. This is the Department of Justice trying to, again, go on a fishing expedition, it seems. It's. It's really stunning.
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Joyce Vance
You know, I think it's even worse than a fishing expedition, Jim, because Fulton County, a lot like Jefferson County, Alabama, where I live, majority Democratic, majority black. This is an effort to intimidate poll workers, to convince people to reconsider working in the polls. And, of course, you know, we don't have one election in this country. We talk about this a lot. We have 50 state elections, but really, we have counties all across the country holding elections. And those elections manned, sure, by a few professionals, but also by people who come in and work for the election. You know, we all have neighbors who are poll workers, neighbors who help to count the votes. They're highly trained. They understand how to do it right. And now this administration wants to make those people believe that they might be criminally prosecuted for participating in that process. You know, the fact that people from both parties aren't shouting this out and condemning it for what it is really underscores the troubling moment that we're in for democracy. I would suggest, by the way, that to anyone who has even a pulse of concern about the future of this country, take this not as a threat. Take this as a call to go out and vote, to work in the next election. Let's all go out and volunteer, be a poll watcher, be a poll worker and help count the votes. Let's all participate.
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Jim Acosta
Absolutely. And that means just voting, too. I mean, you have to exercise your right as a citizen to vote in this country. And I've been telling people, I said this in this thing I did the other night in Montana. I was talking to some folks there. Make it your job to vote. It's your job to go vote this fall. Don't let them intimidate you. Don't let them, you know, engage in this kind of funny business. But how worried are you, Joyce, about these midterms and how they could just get tangled up in knots and end up in the courts? I mean, you saw what took place with the Supreme Court in Louisiana the other day. You know, Trump is continuing to try to, you know, rig a lot of these states, and you have Democratic states trying to respond. It just. It seems to me it's shaping up to be just a huge mess in the fall.
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Joyce Vance
I think that it's dangerous to buy into the narrative that the Trump administration is peddling that Democrats, independents, people who love democracy, should just give up and not vote because they've got it locked down. You know, it's going to be a mess. Your vote isn't going to count. Stay home, don't bother. And I think that's the bill of goods that we're being sold right now. In reality, there are three stages in elections that count. The, the first one is getting registered and staying registered. The second one, as you say, is actually going out and voting. That's a commitment we all need to make. And then it's making sure that your vote counts. There are so many moving pieces at all three of those stages right now. Will the SAVE act pass, or will there be something that requires married women to jump through all these hoops to prove that they are who they say that they are to vote. Election day could be very difficult to vote. We could see long lines at the polls and all sorts of shenanigans. And of course, as you've pointed out, Clay, the Supreme Court case that maybe says, you know, your vote might not count if you're a black voter or a leans Democratic voter in certain parts of the country. So, yes, it's. It's troubling. Yes, there are concerns about what these midterm elections will look like, but the reality is they wouldn't be trying so hard to keep us from voting. They wouldn't be trying so hard to take away our right to vote if they didn't understand how powerful it it was. Because, you know, you can defeat a gerrymander. We just saw that happen in Hungary, where Orban had heavily gerrymandered parts of the country. Turnout is what it takes to overcome a gerrymander. And so your instinct, I think, is dead on the money. It is the most important job we will ever have, this job of being American citizens. So don't just commit to vote on your own. Start registering people around you who aren't registered. Make plans to turn Election Day for the midterms into the biggest party we've ever had in this country, because massive voter turnout will send a message. It will defeat gerrymandering. It will ensure that we hold on to democracy.
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Jim Acosta
Yeah, I mean, they may not want to make it a national holiday, but I think we should just all make it a holiday. You know, just if you got to take the day off from work, take the day off from work and so on. And, you know, I. I try to save the best for last in our conversation, Joyce, because I. I've done a couple of speaking engagements in the last several days, and these aren't humble brags or anything. This is just how nuts my schedule has been lately. But everywhere I've gone, every group of people I've spoken with, any folks that I talk to, all anybody can talk about is the seashell indictment of James Comey. And I don't know if you're finding this to be the case, too. It is so crazy and so absurd that it has penetrated and people can't, can't believe their ears or they just can't believe it's true. And then over the weekend, Todd Blanche tried to clean it up because everybody was tweeting out shells and all kinds of ways to arrange the numbers. 8647 and, and top blanche tried to clean it up on Meet the Press and told Kristen Welker, well, if other people do it, you know, it's not necessarily a crime because they'd have to lock up like half the country because everybody went on their social media and was putting up 8647. And I don't, if I even say 8647 on this show to you, is that a crime? I don't know.
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Joyce Vance
You're next, Jim. I mean, you know, look, Todd Blanch made the defense's job so much easier. Here he goes on national television and he says, people say this all the time and it's not a crime. And so I feel very that Jim Comey's lawyer was taking notes and that we will see a motion to dismiss based on selective and vindictive prosecution, which is absolutely what this is. We've already seen Donald Trump's, you know, direct message that he accidentally posted on Truth Social, directing the former Attorney general, Pam Bondi, you know, go ahead and indict Comey. It's been too much time. Get it done. And what do we see? This crazy, insane indictment of Comey for doing something that there's just not even a glimmer of hope that a jury will convict in this case, you know, the grand jury indicted, we love to say that prosecutors can indict a ham sandwich, even though DOJ failed to do that in a case in the District of Columbia earlier this year. But, but this is where the rubber meets the road on grand jury. Grand juries do not hear the defendant side of the story. They only hear the prosecution's view. I bet you that the defense will try to get a copy of that grand jury transcript. They don't get access to it too often. But in this case, what the government said to that grand jury may well be relevant to some of the pre trial motions. Ultimately, a petit jury, a trial jury that hears all of the evidence in this case is not going to convict. And so we have to deal with the reality that this Justice Department is indicting people and to put them through the torture of the process, not because it's doing justice.
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Pete Hegseth
Yeah.
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Jim Acosta
And I, I guess, I suppose it does emphasize the point that you make that, you know, yes, even a ham sandwich can be indicted, but in this case, maybe a ham sandwich, 86 the mayo. But, you know, to me, I find it astounding that they were even able to bring it into a grand jury and with a straight face, make this kind of case. Does it call into question procedures here? And, you know, the, I mean, weaponizing the Justice Department should not be this easy. I've been asking folks recently, shouldn't this be a crime, you know, going about and, and engaging in political prosecution like this? Should Todd Blanche be worried about, you know, charges being brought against him once he leaves the administration for being a part of this? What are your thoughts on that?
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Joyce Vance
Well, I think Todd Blanch isn't worried about anything because he anticipates that he'll get a pardon on the way out the door. Donald Trump has said anybody who's been within, what, 10ft of the Oval Office will get a pardon. I mean, whether, you know, Todd Blanch can trust Donald Trump to do that is a, is a different story. But here's the reality in the Justice Department. You don't indict a case if you don't have sufficient evidence to obtain a conviction and to have it affirmed on appeal. And I don' know anyone, any experienced lawyer who's looked at this, this case and thought that it met that standard. You know, it was indicted in the Eastern District of North Carolina, I believe, by an acting United States attorney who's hoping to get the permanent job. I may not be precise on that, but this is the problem. Once you construct a Justice Department that works for the White House, instead of exhibiting the traditional independence from White House control when it comes to who gets indicted and who doesn't, then set up this paradigm where cases are about pleasing the president and not about doing justice. And that's exactly what happened here. You asked if there's any sort of consequence, and there truly can be. In cases, for instance, where there's an acquittal, there are legal mechanisms for defendants who believe that they were wrongfully targeted to pursue damages. Again, this doesn't happen particularly often, but we may be seeing a resurgence of, of these practices. In some of these cases. They Turn on whether or not prosecutors acted in bad faith, and that's what they'll have to establish.
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Jim Acosta
And it seems to me, I mean, Comey would have a case here, I, I would think, if he wanted to bring it.
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Joyce Vance
Yeah, pretty good.
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Jim Acosta
And, and I, and, But this brings us back to the theme that we were talking about at the beginning of this conversation, Joyce, is, is the damage that has been done to the institution. It's now, it's now damaged. And, and how long, how long is this going to take to rebuild? Not just the Justice Department in terms of the nuts and bolts and having the people there, but having public confidence in this department again. And, you know, and Democrats might be tempted to do the same thing when they get into power, and Republicans will say, oh, you're just trying to get back at us. I mean, this. It just goes on and on and on.
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Joyce Vance
You know, really, it does. And although I was critical of Merrick Garland for not pursuing the January six cases immediately, I understand why he didn't. It's for the exact reason that you just said. He didn't want it to look like tit for tat and that they were retaliating in a political sense. And they made, I think, what turns out in the long run to have been a flawed analysis, thinking that Trump would just go away, that voters would reject him. Can DOJ reclaim the view that people often took of it? Look, we like to pretend that DOJ is perfect or that it was perfect as an entity, and that's never been the truth. The criminal justice system has always had flaws. But what I appreciated so much about the administration that I served in, the Obama administration, was that we didn't pretend that those flaws didn't exist. We tried to address them. You know, whether it was something like working on helping people, reentering their communities after serving a term in prison succeed instead of sentencing them to repeat recidivism because they couldn't make a living. We actually tried to take that stuff head on in what I think was an intellectual, intellectually honest way. That's what a new DOJ is going to have to do. But with a much bigger sort of bandwidth and bigger problems, the next leadership doj, will have to acknowledge the past and make a case to the American people for transparency and for how it's going to restore the Justice Department. Because the reality is we actually need a functioning Justice Department, whether it's prosecuting terrorism, white collar crime, human trafficking, civil rights cases, defending the United States when it gets sued. That's the, the project that Civil lawyers at DOJ take on defending the country when it gets sued. This work is essential. And the integrity of the lawyers in the institution that performs it has to be unquestioned. And so we are going to have to work hard to come back.
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Jim Acosta
No question about it. It's going to take years and years and really good people to go in there and clean out that, clean out that barn over there. Well, Joyce, thank you so much. Always great to speak with you. And I'm so glad that we did this again. And, and don't go messing with any seashells out there if you're going to the beach anytime soon. Just, you know, be very careful of those shells. They're very dangerous.
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Joyce Vance
I'll be leaving the seashells alone. It's always good to see you, Jim. Thanks for having me.
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Jim Acosta
All right. Good to see you, Joyce. Thanks so much. Appreciate it. You know, and listen, I mean, I think the crisis over the Department of Justice is only one layer of the onion right now. Of course, you have the crisis in the Middle east, the crisis that Donald Trump created all on his own. And we have a great guest to talk about this national security writer for the Atlantic, Tom Nichols. Tom is back with us. Tom, great to see you.
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Tom Nichols
Hey, Jim, good to be back with you.
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Jim Acosta
And, you know, I, I kind of reached out to you for non national security reasons because you and I were both commenting on Donald Trump's bragging about passing his cognitive test. I don't know why he keeps talking about this, but we should, maybe we should deal with this first and then back into the straight of Hormuz conversation. Maybe they're kind of connected, but he keeps talking about this, Tom. And I, you know, I, I know we need to talk about, like, serious stuff, but this is, I don't know, I, I tend to think that this is kind of the whole enchilada here, that he's not playing with a full deck, it seems to me.
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Tom Nichols
And we're so, I mean, for, for good reason we're reluctant to talk about it. I mean, you know, the Goldwater rule for psychologists, for psychiatrists and, you know, journalists and writers who don't, you know, I'm not a doctor. I can't diagnose the man. You know, you can't. But we are normal human beings and we know what it looks like when someone acts in a way that stops everybody dead in their tracks. And you say, that's, that's not right. Something's very wrong with this person. And I keep saying, and I keep saying, look, there's something wrong with the President. I mean, he's just not an emotionally mentally stable person. I mean, he just is. He can't hold a thought, he can't stay on one. He can't even read from a teleprompter. He stops and then he kind of goes off, you know, on a personal level, like I said, I'm not a doctor. All I can say is that my dad, God rest his soul, you know, my dad lived to be 94 and toward the end of his life he wanted me to take control of his, you know, decisions and things. I mean, he was going to assisted living and all that. And I took him to, to a doctor who had to examine him to make sure that he was making a competent decision, that this was all on the legal up and up. You know, that was once when my dad was 93. I mean, Trump seems to say he's taking these like every month and just, you know, acing them. And they're not the kind of thing he's talking about. They don't, they don't ask you to multiply 16 numbers as if you're like Rain man, you know.
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Pete Hegseth
Right.
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Tom Nichols
And some, you know, savant. I mean, it is really, the whole thing is just weird and unsettling and if this was your 79 year old dad or grandfather, you'd be really, really worried. He's always been, look, the Donald Trump's always been kind of a weird guy. Right? I mean, he's just, for sure just how he is. But you look back 10, 15 years and of course I wouldn't, I first lived in New York and you know, back in the 80s and 90s and you know, he says this guy is what he is, but this is different. This is some, this is a real problem.
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Jim Acosta
Yeah.
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Tom Nichols
And I think that, you know, there's a problem inside the White House because
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Jim Acosta
I think there is too. And I think that the national news media, they're reluctant to talk about this and write about this and report on it, but he keeps bringing it up. So to me, when they bring it up, it's fair game. But let's play what he was saying yesterday and I swear we're going to talk about serious Iran. This is series too, but we're going to talk about Ron. Next let's play the cognitive test clip and then let's talk about it because I think it's pretty sharp.
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Pete Hegseth
But every time. So I've taken three. No president think of this has ever taken one. How do you think Biden would have done? I Don't think he might not have gotten that first question right anyway. And Obama would have done poorly. They would have done very poorly. But I think you should have it. As soon as they said that, they say it's unconstitutional, and they said, why they say it's unconstitutional to give a cognitive test like that. But, Rick, I do it anytime they start getting a little sassy and, you know, it quiets them down for almost a year when they hear the result. One doctor said, it's the first time I've ever seen anyone get all questions right.
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Jim Acosta
That's a doctor who. Yeah, Tom. I mean, I, I just think that, that, you know, it's sort of right in front of our faces, is right under our noses, and maybe that's why it's hard to talk about. But I don't. That that's not normal. You know, he may joke about, oh, Obama, you know, he couldn't pass. Of course that's baloney. But this is not, this is not normal stuff. And I think, I wonder if there's just more going on. I think there has to be more going on than we know, than the public knows.
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Tom Nichols
You know, he's, like I said, he's always been bad this way. He's always had to be the guy that, you know, I know more than the doctors, I know more than the generals. Everything I do is the best. But to keep, as you say, he's the guy that keeps bringing it up. And when he says, you know, other presidents didn't take a cognitive exam, that you really shouldn't brag about that the reason is because nobody thought other presidents had to, Right?
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Jim Acosta
That's right.
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Tom Nichols
Raises the question of who keeps telling him, then he needs a cognitive exam. Why does he keep. Why does he keep doing this? You know, you and I are both old enough to remember Ronald Reagan, you know, sharp to the end, maybe like most older men, like Joe Biden, Ronald Reagan get a little forgetful, stumble over their words. This is different. This is like complete flights of fancy. And as I kept saying, every time he talks about this, what he says is in itself kind of a failure of a cognitive exam because again, if you're, if your father talked like this,
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Jim Acosta
you would seek medical help, you would be concerned. No question about it.
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Tom Nichols
Deeply concerned.
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Jim Acosta
Yeah.
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Tom Nichols
No, and I just want to remind people this is the guy who holds the codes. I mean, I know, you know, I just keep beating this drum, but this is the guy who holds the codes to 1500 strategic nuclear weapons.
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Jim Acosta
Absolutely suit.
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Tom Nichols
Every day.
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Jim Acosta
And, and he keeps, you know, he keeps saying things that are absolutely not true. He was doing it today with a bunch of kids around him. He was talking about how, you know, we're, you know, the US Is involved in this conflict in the, in the Middle east, this war, and, and, you know, in that region and so on. And he kept saying over and over again it was to prevent Iran from blowing up Europe. And, you know, having a nuke and children, it's a. Children and children. We should play this one, too. Because I, you know, I just think it's, it's a, it's another example of how he's just not all there. And I don't know why the press doesn't do more with this, because this particular clip is also alarming. And we should play it. It's the president. We should play it.
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Pete Hegseth
We just broke every record. And now we're going to take a hit because we have to make a journey down to Iran to take the, the nuclear weapon. They would have had a nuclear weapon in within two weeks. Remember, we sent that beautiful B2 bomber in and we, we blew up their nuclear potential. It was obliterated. For those that are not aware and to a point where they, it would take them weeks to dig down, and we wouldn't let them dig down. We have our eyes on it all the time, but it was a very important thing. So, so we would have had
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Tom Nichols
an
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Pete Hegseth
Iran with a nuclear weapon and maybe we wouldn't all be here right now, I can tell you. The Middle east would have been gone, Israel would have been gone, and they would have trained their sights on Europe first and then us because they're sick people. These are sick people. And we're not going to let lunatics have a nuclear weapon. The power of a nuclear weapon is something I don't. You don't. To talk about.
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Jim Acosta
Yeah, Tom, Some lunatics do have nuclear weapons, as it turns out. But, I mean, that is bananas. I mean, the Middle east wouldn't be here, you know, we wouldn't be here. I mean, that's.
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Tom Nichols
He's talking to small children who are probably, first of all, insofar as they are listening at that point, are wondering what's in Iran, right? What's Iran? What do you mean it wouldn't be here anymore? Even if you didn't have emotional issues, I don't know what to call it with him. Even if you didn't have his psychological issues, most people know this is not an appropriate discussion to have with children in the Oval Office. And I think part of what you see with him, he has this constantly grieved, freaked out inner monologue that he can't stop from unspooling. And everybody around him is just a prop. They're just an audience. They're not actually like, he doesn't look around and say, okay, these are children or these are visiting doctors or these are visiting, you know, healthcare workers or teachers or whatever it is. Whenever he sits down and there are other faces, he just, it's like this switch goes on and he starts going on about these grievances. And that is something that, you know, if you've been around elderly people with problems, you've seen that happen where they just start to, you know, go off.
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Jim Acosta
Yeah.
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Tom Nichols
And, and this isn't normal. And it's not, you know, even in his best days, when he, when he, in his first term, the way it was described to me, people that had tried to talk with him is that he's unbreakable. He doesn't listen. He doesn't, he has no. As when I, when I worked at the War College, as the military guys used to say, he has no receive mode. It's all transmit, you know, but this is, this is different. This is like he lives in his own little world where he just has to keep talking about this stuff. And, you know, that's, I think, what really, that clip you just played, Jim, that really brings it home because. Yeah, in a room full of adults, you'd say, well, all right, he's using this as a political moment. These are little kids, no idea what's going on. And he's talking to them about, you know, like, the nuclear destruction of Israel. Yeah, that's, that's not, nor it's. None of this is normal. And it's not rude or unprofessional to point it out because especially as you keep pointing out, he brings it up.
- [31:22]
Jim Acosta
Every day, he brings it up. I mean, when he brings it up, to me, that's fair game. And I don't know why the press doesn't talk about it more. And, you know, we, I talk about it here because I, I think it is alarming and I think it's, it's worth, you know, worthy of our discussion. And I guess it, you know, to, to make the segue to Iran. The other thing that isn't adding up is we claimed it, that we're in control of it. The Iranians claim that they're in control of it. In terms of the Strait of Hormuz, do we know who's in control? I guess we don't. Know who's in control right now?
- [31:53]
Tom Nichols
Well, I just, just before I joined you here, I was watching Marco Rubio. And Rubio, you know, Secretary of State said, well, we, you know, we just want the strait to be open the way it was before the war. In other words, we want things to go back the way they were before Trump started all of this. Right. Well, okay, but once again, you know, what then? What was this war about? The president keeps saying it's about nuclear weapons. Well, Iran was not close to a nuclear weapon. This is something that he says, but that there is no, even our own intelligence agencies don't buy that. You know, it's about terrorism. It's about 47 years of sucking and being evil or something. But, yeah, you know, where are we going with this? And of course, today we got another one of those verbal hiccups that the President employs when he's in a corner. You know, how long, you know how much longer this war is going to take? Two weeks.
- [32:54]
Jim Acosta
Yeah.
- [32:55]
Tom Nichols
Because everything, take everything in Donald Trump's mind takes two weeks.
- [32:58]
Jim Acosta
Everything is two weeks. It reminds me of, is it Wimpy from the Popeye cartoons? I'll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today. It's sort of Tuesday. Yeah, I think it's along those lines. He is kind of President Wimpy right now. But the other thing is, is that Pete Hegseth keeps going out and have, he has these ridiculous briefings in the Pentagon briefing room. And for a while there, I thought it was kind of mockworthy because they, they stocked the briefing room with these, I call them MAGA ringers. They're the folks who represent all these far right publications and websites and so on, and they ask these sycophantic questions. But just to show you how badly things are going for the administration now these reporters are starting to ask tough questions. And I don't, I don't, I don't see how Hegseth is handling any of this very well. I believe we have a clip to play because it illustrates the, this issue for them, too. They've lost their own audience. They've lost their own MAGA base on this. MAGA seems to me is not really with them, and I would like you both to address it. On the first day of this conflict, President Trump addressed the Iranian people directly and said, when we're finished, take over your government. It'll be yours to take.
- [34:09]
Tom Nichols
And then on the seventh day of
- [34:10]
Jim Acosta
the conflict, in a truth social post, the President said there will be no deal with Iran except all caps exclamation mark. Unconditional surrender.
- [34:22]
Tom Nichols
What happens to that pledge to the Iranians?
- [34:25]
Jim Acosta
And when did the President decide to capitulate on his demand for unconditional surrender?
- [34:32]
Joyce Vance
James?
- [34:32]
Jim Acosta
I wouldn't.
- [34:33]
Pete Hegseth
I wouldn't.
- [34:34]
Jim Acosta
You started out nicely, but you ended exactly where we knew you would end. The President hasn't capitulated on anything. He holds the cards. We remain. We maintain the upper hand, and Project Freedom only strengthens that hand. And so he will ensure that whatever deal is made or whatever end state is reached creates ensuring that Iran never has a nuclear weapon, which is a number one. And he's been focused on that. And the deal and discussions are centered on that. And what the Iranian people take advantage of after the fact is up to them. And he's been very clear about that. And maybe you do it now, maybe it happens later, but ultimately he's also been clear, we're not going to entangle this into some nation building project. Our objectives are clear. I mean, Tom, it just seems to me that they have, they've completely lost control of the narrative, even with their own base. When you have, you know, pretty conservative reporters asking, why is Trump capitulated? Because everybody's figured out that we're not going to remove the Iranian regime, and it seems like they're not going to give up their nuclear ambitions and they may not give up control of the strait. So I don't know what he's going to do. I don't know what they're going to do.
- [35:40]
Tom Nichols
You know, I. And part of the problem here is Pete Hexseth, I said a while back, not only is the president unstable, but hexa, you know, the guy just kind of radiates insecurity and, you know, resentfulness. I mean, he.
- [35:56]
Jim Acosta
Right.
- [35:56]
Tom Nichols
I mean, this is a. Supposedly a friendly. He ended up right where, you know, we knew you'd go. And I mean, it's like, you know, everything for these people, for this administration, all these people, when they get behind a podium, everything is adversarial, right? They don't, they, they don't think that they live in a world where anyone is a fellow American who can be answered truthfully. It's got to be that the great leader, you know, the, the dear leader is in control. Everything is going fine. You know, even when things go badly, that shows you how well they're going to, you know, just answer the question and say, well, you know, we, we have hopes. We, you know, we want to see we've weakened. I mean, I hate that as a former speechwriter, I can write better answers on the fly than half of these guys say, look, you know, we've, we've removed a lot of the Iranian military capability. We hope that that weakens the regime. It's a long term process. We want to get the straits open. You know, we're on the side of the Iranian people. But instead it's basically. Why would you ask that question about something the President actually said?
- [37:04]
Jim Acosta
I mean, that's part of the problem
- [37:05]
Tom Nichols
is they keep dealing with stuff. This isn't by implication, President didn't imply that regime change was the goal the first night of the war. He basically said hunker down. Wait till the bombs are over and then take the government back.
- [37:19]
Jim Acosta
Yeah, that's right. And so it's, it almost seems as though Hegseth has become kind of the Baghdad Bob of the United States. And he's. And you know, like the Iraqis stop believing Baghdad Bob Magus no longer believing Baghdad Pete. You know, Pentagon Pete.
- [37:40]
Tom Nichols
The two things that MAGA world, you know, but MAGA world has a kind of bottomless tolerance for lying and the 180s and the policy reversals. Except on two things, Epstein and foreign wars. Because those are things that you just can't wave away, you can't predict. I remember talking to a MAGA supporter about tariffs and she just went, oh, terrorists, you know, nobody understands that. Nobody cares about them. The President knows what he's doing. I trust the President. But when it comes to something like releasing the Epstein files or not getting involved in a foreign war in of all places Iran, you just can't, you can't weasel your way around that. And so I think they are running into, into a problem with their own base because they violated the only two things that they swore up and down that they wouldn't violate. And I think at least some of the people in that room, as much as they want to be friendly to the administration, you know, they can't look like, they can't allow the administration to make them look like idiots. They're sitting there because they're claiming to be real journalists and asking real questions. And you know, I don't know who asked that question, but it was a good question.
- [38:52]
Jim Acosta
Sure.
- [38:54]
Tom Nichols
Totally legit. Well, you know, well thought out question. And all it did was make Pete Hegseth mad because, you know, because of where they are right now.
- [39:06]
Jim Acosta
Yeah. And he's not very good at this and I guess he isn't.
- [39:09]
Tom Nichols
And that's because he's used to sitting on a couch with other people who agree with Him.
- [39:13]
Jim Acosta
Yeah.
- [39:14]
Tom Nichols
You know, they keep talking about Pete Hegseth as a military experience. He. He was passed over major who did some time in the military honor service. That's great. That doesn't prepare you for the national ball game of being Cabinet secretary, and certainly not from running the biggest bureaucracy and the most powerful military in the world. And he just doesn't have good answers for this, in part because he doesn't want to get sideways with the president either. Because this is. Remember, the other thing about Pete Hegseth always is, like most Cabinet secretaries, every morning he wakes up and says, how do I not get fired?
- [39:51]
Jim Acosta
Yeah. No question about it. It's all about the audience of one. And the audience of one is, as we were saying earlier, listening to other things besides reality, it seems these days. But Tom Nichols, always great to talk to you. Really appreciate it. Great expertise, and it's deeply appreciated here. Let's do it again soon.
- [40:09]
Tom Nichols
You bet. Thanks, Jim.
- [40:11]
Jim Acosta
Thanks, Tom. Thanks so much. And, you know, in addition to these questions about. And I, I think they're legitimate questions about Donald Trump's cognitive health, I think they're. I think there are legitimate questions as to. It goes beyond that. It goes beyond that. But, I mean, I just want to start. Let's just start with this, just so I know that I'm not the only one saying this. ABC News Washington Post poll. This is just yesterday. 59% of Americans. 59% of Americans do not believe that Donald Trump has the mental sharpness to serve as President of the United States. 50 at 6 out of 10Americans. Yeah, no Sherlock. And I mean, we, you know, in terms of sharpness, we saw this on display earlier today. He couldn't stay awake. Again, this was another example of Donald Trump not staying awake during an Oval Office photo opportunity. We have that video. We can play it. I think it's the. Yes, that's the one.
- [41:08]
Tom Nichols
There he is.
- [41:09]
Joyce Vance
Same thing. But let's not forget, it's about also a sound mind and a sound body.
- [41:14]
Jim Acosta
In order to have a sound mind and sound body.
- [41:16]
Joyce Vance
Eat well, you do have to exercise.
- [41:18]
Jim Acosta
He's not, he's not alert there. He's not awake. Maybe he's just resting. Oh, his eyes popped open there. Okay. He's resting his eyes. And again, Donald Trump made this all fair play. He used to call Joe Biden Sleepy Joe and so on. That's Drowsy Donald. He's. He's out at certain points during all of this. And then when he comes to, he goes and he says some of the cuckoo things that we were playing earlier in the show. But it seems to me there is something going on here. It's not just is he sharp, is he declining, is, is he all there cognitively? Why does he keep bragging about passing these cognitive tests when that's, that's not something you brag about. There is what has been going on around Washington, D.C. you saw the piece that we put out the other day when we talked about how he wants to make the reflecting pool in front of the Lincoln Memorial blue. I mean, the list goes on and on. There's a story out today in the Miami Herald that they're getting closer to naming the Palm Beach International Airport after Donald Trump. This is the other cuckoo thing that's happening with Donald Trump right now. He wants everything possible that he can name after himself, named after himself. And I don't know what that means, if it means that he doesn't know how long he's going to be here on the scene with all of us. But the folks at the Miami Herald had this story. Palm beach county commissioners will take their first public vote on the renaming of Palm Beach International Airport after Donald Trump now that county officials have reached a tentative trademark deal with the president's companies following weeks of negotiations. So they've, I guess the airport is. The county officials are working with his company to trademark the airport again. I don't know. Is he going to be making money off of this? I don't know. The other thing that is nuts. And this just came out this afternoon, this was in the Associated Press that you remember when Donald Trump single handedly knocked down the east wing of the White House when he said that they wouldn't touch the east wing of the White House and then knocked the whole friggin thing down. Well, get this. This is in the Associated Press. Debris from the demolition of the White House east wing that was dumped at a nearby public golf course has tested positive for lead, chromium and other toxic metals, I should say. According to the National Park Service, an interim report by Virginia engineering firm says the toxic metals along with PCBs, pesticides, petroleum byproducts and other chemicals were detected at levels above laboratory reporting limits in soil at the East Potomac Golf Course. This is the golf course that Trump wants to renovate. He wants to turn it into some fancy golf course in Washington, D.C. this is another one of these goofy things that he wants to do. And you know, the list just goes on and on with this president. He is somehow just obsessed with all of these different buildings and projects There was a story that just came out today. This, I, I think we have this headline we can show. I believe it's from NBC News that Republicans have now asked for a billion dollars in taxpayer dollars to secure the Trump Ballroom. He wants to build, of course, the, the ballroom that he said was going to cost, I think he first said it was going to be $250 million or $300 million and it was going to be privately funded. Remember that? And there were all the stories about all the tech bros and media companies and all of, you know, corporate America was lining up to, you know, I guess, pay for this ballroom. And now Republicans in the Senate are asking for a billion dollars of our money to start paying for this crap. And I guess it's because he knocked down the whole East Wing. And there's this, there's all the security stuff that's a part of it. And they want to start paying for that with our tax dollars. Again. It's another example of, and this is on top of the arch that he wants to build, the Triumphal Arch or whatever they're calling it, which sounds like the Trump Arch. I mean, they might as well just try to call it the Trump Arch. This is on top of putting his name on the Kennedy Center. This is on top of putting his name on the US Institute of Peace in Washington, D.C. i drove past that the other day. It has his name on it. He's putting his name on everything. He's building all of this stuff in his honor all across town. And I just, you know, it's sort of like that, that, that clip that I was playing with Tom Nichols earlier in the show when, when Trump is talking about how, you know, the Middle east was going to be obliterated and that we might have all been obliterated had he not gone to war with Iran. It's, he is not playing with a full deck. He does not have both oars in the water. His elevator ain't hitting all floors. He's a couple of sandwiches short of a picnic. How many other, how many other euphemisms can I use here, folks, to describe what is staring all of us plainly in the face that here we are in the, in the year 2026, about six months before the midterms, and the President of the United States is out of his mind. And I think we just need to, we just need to be very comfortable in saying this. He's the one who keeps putting it out there. I don't know why he's talking about passing a cognitive test and knowing what a squirrel is. He was bragging about that, too. That a part of the cognitive test. He had to say, what's the squirrel? Which one is the squirrel? When it turns out the squirrels are. Are probably just running around inside Donald Trump's head right now. He has squirrels for brains, ladies and gentlemen. And I think we all have to start asking ourselves these questions. And I think, my friends in the media, you guys got to have a spine here. You got to have some guts here. You got to have some courage here. He's putting this story out there. Can somebody ask the question, how many cognitive tests have you taken? Why do you keep taking these cognitive tests? Can we please see the results of these cognitive tests? Why do you keep building all these monuments to yourself and naming these things after yourself? Why do you want an airport named after yourself? And on and on and on. And yes, the Atlantic had this story the other day. It was a great story about how Trump sees himself as Alexander the Great or Julius Caesar or Napoleon. I don't know. Maybe he's talking to those guys. Is he talking to the ghost of Julius Caesar? Is he talking to the ghost of Napoleon? Is he doing. Is Napoleon doing one of these things in the East Room? I don't know. But it seems to me we all have to start dealing with the reality of the situation that is staring us in the face. He ain't all there. He's not right. And we just have to. I mean, this goes way beyond posting pictures of himself as Jesus and saying he's going to wipe out the civilization of Iran. And, I mean, how many more pieces of evidence do we need before we start having this conversation? And I don't know, maybe you could tell me, folks, are you seeing it on the nightly newscast? Are you reading about it in the newspaper? Are you hearing it on the talk shows? I don't know. Maybe I'm the crazy one. Am I the crazy one because I'm the one who's. Who's talking about this? I don't think so. I think we need to start having the adult conversation. The adults need to get together. We need to stage an intervention. And this time the intervention is with the President of the United States. I think it would do all of us a lot of good. I want to thank Joyce fans for joining me on the show today. Always appreciate her insights. They're terrific. I do want to thank Tom Nichols as well. He's fantastic. Fantastic. And again, you know, I. I like having people on who can just tell it like it is. And that's why it's so important to support independent media so we can continue to bring you these stories like this each and every day. We're not. I don't have a boss who's going to call after the show is over and say, God damn it, Jim, why did you talk about Donald Trump and his cognitive health? We don't want to talk about that here. I don't. That I don't have to deal with that problem. I mean, Duke is on the sofa off camera here, looking at me very strangely and wondering why I'm so animated, talking into my laptop and my camera here. Okay, that's fine, Duke. You, you're justified in thinking that. But for the rest of us, I, I just think it's important that we start having this conversation. And that's why independent media is so important, because we do talk about these things in, in a. In a way that is just unafraid, without fear, without favor. We're just calling them like, like we see them. And that's what we're going to continue to do on this program. And thanks to all of you who support us each and every day. But in the meantime, still reporting from Washington, I'm Jim Acosta. I'll see you next time.