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- [00:00]
A
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A
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- [02:47]
B
I'm Charlie Sykes. Welcome back to the to the Contrary Podcast boy, it has been one of those weeks. Barry Weiss decides to gut 60 Minutes. The Trump DOJ is going after the woman that Donald Trump sexually assaulted. Donald Trump also wants his face on the $250 bill, even though there is that law says you can't do that. And Texas Republicans decide to nominate arguably the most corrupt politician in America, with the exception of Donald Trump. We have a lot to talk about this week. Don't. And joining me this weekend is our good friend Miles Taylor from, as you can tell from the Hat, defiance.org how are you doing, Miles?
- [03:32]
A
Good, my friend. It's great to be with you.
- [03:34]
B
Okay, so I want to talk about a lot of things. There's a lot going on, including, you know, the Donald Trump retribution campaign and something I heard you say earlier this week about his silencing campaign. But I need a little bit of a palate cleanser. Have you been following what's going on with Trump's Freedom 250 concert? I want to call people's attention, attention to all of this because this is actually, at the moment I'm looking for my favorite story of the week. This might be one. All of the musicians they announced, I mean, it was kind of like a throwback to, you know, 1980s has been musicians. But then over the last 24 hours, one group after another says, we don't want anything to do with Trump's concert. And they're bailing one after another. I think two thirds of the acts have already basically said, yeah, no, we have, we have a thing. We can't do it.
- [04:25]
A
I think we're approaching three fourths of the acts, Charlie. And you know, and they had already announced one of the acts, Milli Vanilli, half of which died in 1998. And they didn't even seem to realize it. Look, I think this data point is a very interesting one because over the past year, we have seen a lot of elites, CEOs, people who run law firms, people in the news industry, very scared of this president and this administration, including celebrities. Keep in mind they tried to recruit MAGA or MAGA adjacent performers for this concert series this summer. And the fact that even those people are bailing on Donald Trump because they don't want to be associated should be this big, big, big data points showing folks that it's not just the resistance left that is opposed to this guy now. It is becoming fashionable to defy Donald Trump. And that, I think is an encouraging thing we can take into this weekend.
- [05:30]
B
I do. I mean, you know, on the one hand, they did scrape the bottom of the barrel. And we are talking about Milli Vanilli, which I didn't even know existed anymore after the scandal that they were faking things. But even Milli Vanilli says, I think it would hurt my reputation to be associated with Donald Trump. It, you know, it's interesting that you made that point because that's what I wanted to talk to you about, because I heard you earlier this week talking about this. I believe it was on Ms. Now that the campaign, and you know, the campaign of retribution is largely designed to get people to shut up. Right? It is designed to intimidate, it is designed to get people to say, you know, it's just not worth it. And you know, you think back on in the before times that you would have had civil society, you would have had universities and corporations who would have taken a stand if their fundamental values were being violated. You know, when, when Donald Trump came down that golden escalator, do you remember this, like 11 years ago, and talked about the Mexican rapists, one company after another basically said, yeah, we are, we don't want to be associated with Donald Trump anymore. That has not happened in Trump 2.0, despite all of the outrages. You don't hear CEOs talking about this. You don't see institutions taking a stand and saying, I'm just sorry, I'm sorry, I'm not going along with this. We are, we are pushing back. So, I mean, maybe we are, maybe what we're seeing with Milli Vanilli and company is something. But talk to me a little bit about that because, you know, I think the point you made was that despite, you know, all the conversations that we have, this campaign of intimidation has largely succeeded, hasn't it?
- [07:09]
A
Well, for certain categories, here's what I would say. The powerful in this country have been pathetic, absolutely mind numbingly pathetic. The people have been brave, the ones with everything left to lose. And I gotta say, this sort of echoed what my personal experience was in the first Trump administration. I mean, there's that oft worn phrase, charlie, don't meet your heroes because when you do, they'll disappoint you. And a lot of the people I had looked up to in my young career as a Republican really let me down at the beginning of the Trump era. They just let him steamroll this country. And I saw people ostensibly of courage inside the Trump administration standing up to him, but then completely withering when they had the opportunity to do it in public. One after another, those elites largely let me down. I mean, it was such a humiliating.
- [08:06]
B
It was the invasion of the body snatchers, wasn't it? It really was. That was the soul crushing thing, the rolling over the last decade.
- [08:14]
A
Yeah, it was. And just, you know, as a somewhat idealistic kid who came to Washington after 9, 11 wanting to protect this country, it made me very close to despondent to watch all the people I thought would stand up on principle, just not do it. And you're one of those exceptions, Charlie, is you. You faced that very hard decision, and it wasn't hard for you because it was the moral decision. So it was the right one. But there was, there was only a tiny handful of people who will say it that way. They're like, it wasn't hard. It was obvious. Even if I had to give up my career, et cetera. This is. Now we're seeing this replay on an even bigger scale. Trump came back, and the elites across business and entertainment have panicked. They've completely become wallflowers. But the ones with everything to lose, the little guy, the ordinary folks, are the ones standing up to this administration. I mean, I'll give you an example from this week, Charlie. It was of course reported that the Justice Department is trying to unmask Reddit users who have been critical of ice. Okay, if you're just a random person that uses Reddit and the federal government comes and tries to unmask you, you would think that you're just gonna, you're not gonna be able to do anything. They're gonna get your identity, they're gonna come after you for First Amendment protected speech. Well, guess what these people are doing. They're fighting. They're fighting back in federal court to keep the Justice Department from doing this. Ordinary Reddit users who've just been critical of ice. If this was happening to a corporate CEO, the corporate CEO would just capitulate. They would just say, I'll give in whatever the administration wants, but let me attach some data points to this. So Andrew Ross Sorkin said something earlier this week that I thought was very, very telling. Is he just. He pointed to all of the corporate CEOs whose businesses are face facing serious threats, if not existential threats, from Trump's tariffs and taxes and war. And he said, you know what? They all know that he's driving us towards a once in a generation recession, and they're not saying anything. And behind the scenes, what are they telling Andrew Ross Sorkin? They're telling him that they're scared. They're worried that if they criticize the President that they will be regulated to death, they will be attacked by him publicly. Okay, so you got corporate CEOs admitting whose fiduciary duty it is to protect their companies from destruction from bad federal policies, admitting that they're scared of the personal attacks, and so they are not defending their company's interests. That is nothing but cowardice. And then, Charlie, layer that on to this story about the Reddit users. Those two things that, side by side, shows you who in society is being scared and intimidated by this administration right now and who is not. And I will tell you, there's a reason not to be. These guys are getting their asses kicked in the federal courts, absolutely and completely. There have been not just dozens or hundreds or thousands, tens of thousands of cases against the Trump administration in the less than 18 months that they've been back in office. And on things like illegal detention of immigrants, the administration is losing nine out of 10 of those cases. They're losing two out of every three cases on big separation of powers and constitutional issues. These guys are on an actual crime spree. An actual crime spree, but they're losing that crime spree. It can feel defeating because they're doing so much that's criminal, but they're getting their asses kicked. And again, that's no thanks to the elites in this country. That's thanks to ordinary people who are sick of that shit and they're pushing back.
- [12:00]
B
Let's go back to the CEOs, because I agree with your analysis. But the one insight that maybe Donald Trump had this insight or the revelation that we had was I think there was an assumption that if you were very, very rich and you were very, very powerful, that you would be more willing to stand up against power, speak truths to power. In fact, what Trump's insight was, the bigger you are, the more you have to lose. And also, it is the process that kills you, that he may not be able to win in court, but he can make your life really, really difficult. He can make you run up the bills. So going back to the fiduciary responsibility of the court, of the CEOs, in their own mind, what they're telling their board is, yes, we're being cowardly. We're not standing up. We're not raising these public policy issues. But the reality is that if I did, they would come after me because there are no more independent agencies. The Department of Justice might come after me, the FCC might come after me, the FTC might come after me. Sec. All of these things. The reality is that Donald Trump has made it very clear that this is an administration of retribution and that if you do break with him, he will make your life miserable. And the question is you know, whether or not these corporations, they basically say, we don't need the hassle, right? I mean, it's just too risky for us, and we're finding out. So you do get this kind of silence that is really bizarre when you think about it, and certainly as a departure from the past. But it's not completely irrational, right?
- [13:28]
A
Yeah, it's not completely irrational, but it's a classic collective action problem. So with individuals, it's the same thing. When I was deciding whether or not to speak out against this guy, of course, it looked like, okay, this is gonna be very lonely. There's not that many people from the Trump administration who've left and who've criticized him. I'm probably going to draw a lot of ire. They're probably going to ruin my life. But if I try to get other people of conscience to speak out as well, there will be strength in numbers. I won't be completely exposed. And that's exactly what I went to do. I'm not trying to toot my horn, but I realized that it was gonna be easier to come forward if there was other people who came forward and recruited fellow Trump administration officials to come criticize him. We Americans have run that playbook this past year. From the first no Kings protest that wasn't thinly attended, but it wasn't a blockbuster, to the biggest protests we're seeing in American history. Folks are realizing there is strength in numbers. The law firms had to go through this. A couple of law firms had the courage and realized early on, if they banded together, if they fought in federal court, they would survive and they'd be on the right side of history. That happened. And the ones who didn't, the ones who made that decision to go talk to their boards and say, let's not take, you know, let's not have the hassle, have ended up wearing the stain forever. But there is another force here, Charlie, which is the pressure from below, from customers. And that is another thing we're starting to see. Change is as people, ordinary people, get braver and they're going out there and speaking out, they're realizing that these companies, yes, they face the threat of intimidation from the Trump administration, but if they face the threat of intimidation from their users, from their customers who say, I'm gonna bail if you don't stand up, then they maybe have to make a different decision. And Disney faced this with Jimmy Kimmel, and we need to see more of that.
- [15:16]
B
No, I think that that's what I was about to say is that you saw the customer blowback that ABC experienced, and there is a contrast now. And by the way, I just wanna emphasize the importance of the collective action. People are looking around, they don't wanna be alone. Once they realize that there, that their Compatriots are willing to stand up if it was a law firm or university or it's a media company. There's a really interesting contrast now between Disney and ABC and CBS in this respect, right? Disney, ABC standing behind Kimmel, pushing back. CBS appears to be absolutely committed now to inshidifying itself. You know, this is talking about Bari Weiss deciding that, you know, she is going to gut 60 Minutes. They're not, they're not fixing 60 Minutes. They're not updating 60. 60 Minutes was the most watched show on television. It had billions of views on. It is one of the most storied franchises. And I was watching, I don't know, did you watch Anderson Cooper's final episode where he's saying goodbye and he's talking about it? And I'm sitting there watching this going, okay, Bari Weiss is not a stupid person. Does she want her legacy to be trashing this storied franchise, one of the most respected, effective and popular shows ever? And we got the answer this week, right? Because she goes in there and it is a bloodbath. She has gutted it. She's gotten rid of the executive producer, producer. Others have quit. And it's not a mystery. I mean, let's not the spoiler alert here. Why is Bari Weiss destroying CBS News? Why is she destroying 60 Minutes? It's because the Ellisons want her to. And why are they, why did the Ellisons want to destroy this? It's because Donald Trump wants this. So once again, you are watching corporate media. I mean, is there any other explanation for it? I mean, Oliver Darcy said, look, just connect the dots. The Ellisons want Trump's approval. It's a one man government right now. So they are caving in and they will give him any heads on a stick that he wants. But what an embarrassment, what a legacy for Barry Weiss and the Ellisons to be destroying 60 Minutes right now. And my guess is that the audience blowback is going to be pretty significant.
- [17:26]
A
I've gotta say, I don't just agree with your analysis, Charlie. I have firsthand evidence that that analysis is correct. In the year before Donald Trump came back to office, I helped CBS executives, informally unpaid, think about the future of their 60 Minutes brand. I was advising a number of them, some of which were friends. And here's the top line. They were very, very proud of the 60 Minutes brand. In fact, if I was gonna summarize those conversations, they saw CBS's 60 Minutes as the crown jewel of their whole enterprise and they didn't feel like they needed to Take a wrecking ball to it. In fact, they were trying to think, how do we EXPAND this amazing 60 Minutes brand? All right, that was the mindset of CBS executives just before Donald Trump took office. Proud of the brand, wanting to expand it, do more with it. So proud of their team. Donald Trump comes back in, and now 60 Minutes is being treated like kryptonite inside the organization.
- [18:31]
B
Yeah.
- [18:31]
A
And it can only be for one reason. Listen, Donald Trump doesn't like the program because it's been critical of him. And they are now bending the knee under Bari Weiss, which is very unfortunate. You and I both know Barry and have in the past. And Barry, unfortunately, seems to have just gone full in to satiate the corporate overlords who are trying to satiate the President of the United States. And that's very unfortunate to see. But to the earlier point you made, Charlie, about this intimidation campaign, it's working against some people. It's not working against others. And let me tell you who's caught in the crosshairs of all of this. You've got people whose livelihoods are being threatened by this president. And I especially think of the federal workforce. And one of the other data points I've been talking about is what has happened in the past year inside the federal workforce. To show you the impact of Donald Trump's revenge campaign, a year ago, when you asked federal employees, this is according to the Partnership for Public Services Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey. When you asked them, do they feel confident that they can call out wrongdoing in their jobs if they see something illegal, can they say something about it? A year ago, around 75% of federal employees said yes. Right. Three fourths of federal employees said, I can call out illegal conduct. That number today is now 22%. 22%. In one year, only one in five federal employees think they can call out illegal activity if they see that. I honestly have never seen some kind of switch like that. I look at the Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey every year. We used to look at it in our jobs. That was kind of your report card on if your workforce is happy. And unfortunately, a dhs, we'd always get very, very bad numbers on our report cards. Never seen any swing like that. And you can only explain it for one reason is Donald Trump has been on a systematic campaign to exact revenge against the federal workforce that he calls the deep State. He has systematically purged people, fired people, put people on leave for sounding the alarm, stripped federal employees of whistleblower protections, and then just this week, they announced that they're gonna Require every single civil servant to sign a non disclosure agreement that they cannot talk about what they see and what they hear on the job. It's pure intimidation. And from that vantage point, Charlie, the intimidation is working because these employees now fear like they can't take action. They're very, very scared. But like we were talking about earlier, there is a way to counter that. You counter that by showing those employees that they're not gonna be alone if they blow the whistle. You show them that those tens of millions of Americans who've said hell no to this administration's lawlessness and corruption are gonna be there for them, are gonna help defend them legally and actually and help them find an off ramp into the private sector. But you know, this is, it's scary being a govy. A lot of people who are lifetime guvies, they don't know what life is like outside the government. They cannot imagine leaving and going to work in the private sector. So it's extra scary for them because they don't know what to do with themselves if they lose their government job. It's up to us to make them feel like it's okay. There's safety on the other side. While every other channel is fighting for your customers attention, podcasts are where they've already given it. No one accidentally listens to a podcast for 45 minutes. They choose to be here. They trust the voice in their ears. And when that voice talks about your brand, it doesn't sound like advertising. It sounds like a recommendation from a friend. ACAST gives you that trust at scale, digital precision, host read authenticity and performance data that proves it works. Don't fight for attention. Buy it with Acast. Learn more by visiting acast.com advertise
- [22:27]
B
okay, let's talk about this because I know you, you wrote about this. The, the administration proposing a non disclosure agreements for public employees. This is, is this standard? Has this ever been done before? This would be basically a gag order, right? You described as kind of what he wants to have, you know, kind of the catch and kill that you make sure that you, you that you're able to retaliate against whistleblowers. So just talk to me a little bit about where that came from. Because yes, they've been intimidating government employees for the last year, but only this week did we get the NDA.
- [23:06]
A
There sure are a lot of things worthy of your anger in the second Trump administration. But for whatever reason, this one really set me off this week because you got a lot of hardworking people in the federal government trying to protect US from getting hit by weapons of mass destruction and pandemics and wildfires and just working their butts off for us. And we're paying them to do that. And then this administration waltz is in this week, proposes that they all sign this ironclad NDA, which is very, very eerie because like, let's say you work at the US Forest Service, most of what you do is not classified. The things that you must protect, you're already legally required to protect. Right. It's against the law. If you work at the US Forest Service to take the private information of an American's home, who you're helping to save, and you know, and publish it on the Web, that's already illegal. Right. These employees know what information they're supposed to protect and what they're not. This type of NDA would take that person and say, no, no, you can't even talk about what you do. You can't talk about what you see and hear in the office. Even if it's not classified, even if it's not sensitive information. If Donald Trump calls up and says, let's burn every forest down in America, well, this NDA says, you can't tell anyone that the President did that. That's crazy. We built a federal government designed deliberately on transparency for 250 years. The whole thing is built on the idea that we get to know where our taxpayer dollars are going.
- [24:32]
B
So will he get away with that? Okay, so this seems like a fundamental point that basically that you've taken a transparent government and you basically said, no, we're gonna shut off. And by the way, this is consistent with a lot of what they've been doing, what they did in the Pentagon and everything. So do they get away with that? Are the courts going to uphold that? Is that within the power of the executive branch to tell employees in the executive branch what they can say and what they can't say?
- [25:00]
A
Well, you're right. It's consistent with what they've already done. It's also consistent with what Trump's done throughout his career. You mentioned catch and kill. You know, Donald Trump has treated the NDA, the non disclosure agreement, as a tool of intimidation. Whether it's, you know, sexual assault victims or employees who witnessed misconduct. He's used these NDAs to scare people into not being able to tell their stories for fear of legal liability, getting sued, that they violated the NDA. Now that's potentially coming to the whole of the federal workforce. Here's the short answer. They're gonna try and they are going to try to get people sort of voluntarily with coercion to sign these things. There's a reason why this order. I don't wanna get too nuanced. There's a reason why they said it was gonna be an option for federal agencies to push it, is they're trying to push the pressure downward so it doesn't look like it's the White House and the Oval Office demanding this to try to make it more likely in the long term. No, this is not going to survive. This is gonna be one of those, that's in the category, Charlie, of those cases that the administration is getting their ass kicked on in the courts, is there's gonna be lawsuits about this. Because the proposal is that if employees don't sign this, then they can be fired from the federal government. So this is like an end run around all of the federal employee protections that are place in the civil service. That's why it's not going to survive legally. However, they may get a lot of people to sign something like this in the interim. And even if they don't, the message is now clear. The administration's got their eye on you if you're talking about things they don't want you to talk about, even if it's First Amendment protected speech. So for their purposes, they think this will succeed. It will further intimidate the federal workforce and we have to call it out. But, but make no mistake, this is catch and kill at federal scale.
- [26:53]
B
So you worked in the Department of Homeland Security and obviously one of the goals of this would be to make sure that people do not, the whistleblowers do not tell us what's going on behind the scenes with the immigration crackdown. Now we have moved on to other things, but ICE is still out there. There are still the ICE detention centers. In this last week we had the chaos at the, is it the Delaney center in New Jersey. And I think the, the question that I keep coming back to is that we saw what ICE and the Border Patrol did when people were watching. We saw what they were doing and how they were treating people when there were cameras. But now we have these facilities, closed facilities. And if you're a United States Senator or you're the governor or you're a congressperson and you go and you say, I would like to see what's going on inside, they say no, they are refusing. Even the Governor of New Jersey, they pepper sprayed United States Senator from New Jersey. So just give me your thoughts. What the hell is being done in our name in these facilities? I saw an Interview with Mark Wayne Mullen, where he was just glibly like, we're not running Holiday Inns here. These are the worst of the worst. And how alarmed should we be about what DHS does not want us to see they're doing in these camps, in these holding facilities?
- [28:09]
A
Well, to the first part of your question, this is where the NDAs really, really matter for how we conduct ourselves. We want federal employees to be able to tell us what's going on. I mean, look, in my own case, almost everything I've publicly disclosed about what I witnessed in the first Trump administration would be forbidden under these NDAs. So when I went out there and said Donald Trump had told us to shoot unarmed women and migrants at the border in the legs, having signed this NDA would have made that something I could have been sued over. That isn't classified information. That's not, not secret information. That was a president proposing we break the law and shoot people without authorization at the border. It's pretty damn important to be able to tell people those things that would be forbidden if I'd been had signed one of these NDAs. Similarly, Charlie, when we talk about ICE's abuses, we had whistleblowers come forward the other month and disclose. This is one of the organizations that our group defiance.org is supporting. We had whistleblowers from ICE come forward and disclose that ICE was systematically violating the Fourth Amendment by doing what? Kicking down doors of houses where they did not have a warrant. Guess what? If those employees had had to sign these NDAs, Trump's Justice Department could sue them into bankruptcy and ruin their lives for having made those disclosures. They didn't disclose something classified. They disclosed that the administration was breaking the law. And so that's why it's so important to your question about these actual facilities. Look, I'll tell you this. I'm a lifelong conservative. I believe our immigration system is broken. The way this administration is trying to fix it is unlike anything that we've ever seen. Folks should not think, well, it's a one off story here and a one off story here. And the abuses in a facility like Delaney or Alligator Alcatraz, they must be anomalies, right? These are not anomalies. This is now happening on a widespread basis and we're talking about truly horrific conditions. We're talking about women being forced to sit in their menstrual blood for days and not being given feminine hygiene products. We're talking about people finding worms in their food. We're talking about people being put in sensory Deprivation areas that sound like Abu Ghraib from the Iraq war. Really horrific conditions. And I'll tell you, this comes from the top. This is what the president, I mean, I sat in the meetings with the guy when he wanted us to make our facilities into really horrific, scary, uncomfortable places. Because in his mind, that would create deterrence, that would scare migrants, it would scare them into self deporting. They would say, I don't wanna go into a prison where I'm eating worms and put in a sensory deprivation chamber. I should just sign this document and self deport. And that's what happens. And that's what's happening here. The reason we've seen such a huge spike in self deportation is people don't wanna be in these prisons indefinitely. And here's what's bad about that. I mentioned at the top of this program all the folks who've sued the administration for illegal detention. We now have 10,000 cases where federal judges have said, this administration illegally detained someone. But a lot of those migrants don't know they can get legal support, maybe they can't get legal support. They're not understanding the system that they're in. And they just say, fine, I'll sign the paperwork. Even though they have a case for illegal detention, they'll just sign the paperwork.
- [31:41]
B
That's the strategy.
- [31:42]
A
That's the strategy is put them in hell and make them leave on their own volition.
- [31:46]
B
Right. This is the key, is that you have an administration that's been losing over and over and over again when they actually litigate the cases. So the strategy is let's, let's make life the living hell so that we don't, they don't challenge us in court where we would probably lose. They will self deport voluntarily. So literally, the cruelty is the point. Cruelty is the strategy and the policy that we're seeing played out here. And you've seen this with the numbers of the people who are signing those voluntary self deportation numbers, right? I mean, it has spiked dramatically in the last year, correct?
- [32:24]
A
Yeah. And you know, Charlie, it makes me think. I'm pretty sure you were one of the first people I had a conversation with when I came forward, you know, six or seven years ago. And I think in our conversation, that was one of the first places where folks were saying the cruelty is the point. You and I talked about this years ago, if my memory's right. And I have to confess, that was one of the things I was deeply naive about in the first Trump administration. As I can remember early conversations when John Kelly came back from the White House, he was furious. I mean, I had just started my job and there were these early conversations around what eventually became the family separation policy. And what Kelly seemed to be hearing from people at the White House and you know who was that? The White House deliberately wanted children ripped away from parents at the border and have the parents shipped back to their home countries as a deterrent. We've taken your kid, so don't come here, cuz the feds will take your kids. And I gotta say, I didn't know a lot about immigration policy when I came in. I was doing counterterrorism and national security. But I remember Kelly coming in furious into this meeting and talking about this and thinking, well, that can't possibly be intentionally what the White House is proposing, right? They must be proposing something else. Like who would ever conceive of intentionally taking away a child as a deterrent? Well, I'll tell you who. The President of the United States. And it obviously dawned on me as we barreled towards that policy in the second year that no, this is what the White House wanted. They did want cruelty to be the point. They did wanna use cruelty as a deterrent. And you're sort of deluded when you're in a lifetime of government service and thinking, well that can never happen and no one really operates that way and surely there's enough breaks in the process. No, there weren't enough breaks in the process, Charlie, because it came to fruition and they found a weird bureaucratic backdoor to make it happen. To make it sound like the intention wasn't to take away kids, but the intention was to take away kids. Like that was this administration, that is this president. And I gotta tell you, when I later became DHS Chief of staff, you know what Donald Trump said like half a dozen times he was pissed off at us that we had gotten him to sign an executive order to end family separation. He wanted to reinstitute that policy cuz he thought it was one of the only things that was working to scare these migrants. That was eye opening for me. That was when I realized, oh, okay, no, no, no, this, this was the plan, this was the point. We're now seeing this happen at much bigger scale, Much, much bigger scale. And there are so many facets now to the cruelty.
- [35:05]
B
So I want to get to a couple of other things, including the, the E. Jean Carroll criminal investigation. But let's stick with, with immigration room because I also thought, speaking of eye opening, in the last week there was this bizarre flex from illegal immigration from the worst of the worst to people who were in line for green cards. So can we just talk for a couple of moments about this new policy that would cause, you know, thousands, tens of thousands of people who were, you know, in line again, legally here, following the rules, you know, eligible for green cards, but now under this new policy, would have to go back to their countries, might have to spend years waiting there. Talk about family separation. It used to be that Republicans, conservatives, would make a distinction between illegal immigration and legal immigration. And now they seem to what? They've exhausted all of the worst of the worst. And why are they going after legal immigrants? Because I'm not sure that we had a green card crisis in this country. What's happening?
- [36:12]
A
This is the mask falls off moment for anyone who doubted whether or not Donald Trump actually hated immigrants or not. This is the giveaway. And I wanna be careful when I say things like that because it sounds so hyperbolic. It's like when someone says, you are a racist because you don't agree with them on a certain policy. And most of the time you feel like, well, that's not a fair accusation. That person's probably not an actual racist. No, no, I'm telling you. Donald Trump hates immigrants. And it's not just illegal immigrants.
- [36:46]
B
Even though he's married to one, though.
- [36:47]
A
That's right. This was the plan. The plan wasn't just to go after illegal immigrants. It was to shut off migration to the United States of America, unless it was the types of people he liked. And you and I might have talked about this before, Charlie, but I was in disbelief about that concept. Again, you know, me being naive about this, I thought, Donald Trump surely can't be a bigot in his heart of hearts. But then when we had these meetings with him on this, on the immigration numbers, numbers, refugees, green card holders, Trump said to us explicitly, I do not want people from Somalia and Ethiopia and Haiti. I do want more people from Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden. Okay, not very hard to put two and two together, lists, black and brown countries.
- [37:32]
B
And now he's saying it openly.
- [37:33]
A
Yep. And then he's.
- [37:34]
B
He might have said that in Trump 1.0. He might say that behind closed doors. Now it's like you're, you know, at a cabinet meeting, you're saying, you know, all these Sobalians are crooks. You know, they're all, they're all garbage. We need to get rid of all this, it says. And we've become so numb to it. It's like, guys, do you understand the president of the United States is telling us right there on camera how virulently racist he is. And after 11 years of this, we just kind of like, yeah, well, that's Donald Trump talking about shithole countries again.
- [38:03]
A
That's right. And the green card example is the perfect example of this because the entire time I've been in Republican politics for 20 years, we've talked about we need to fix the system and make people wait their turn. And green card holders are literally that definition. They are people who have legally gone through the process and they are waiting their turn. And this administration doesn't think that's enough. And that's because, I'll tell you, Donald Trump and Stephen Miller for years said, how do we turn off this spigot? We need to stop these people from coming in the legal route too. And so their solution to that is make these people go wait overseas in the countries that they're trying to get away from. And I mean, we're talking, Charlie. You know, I don't want to put people in a difficult position in my life. I already have multiple people in my life that I'm close to or that I work with who are potentially going to be affected by this. In one case, a guy who's been here for 25 years, has a three year old daughter, has a wife, is an American who's built a profitable business in this country, is just going through a re up in the process for his green card, may have to go overseas for an indefinite amount of time, away from his young daughter, who has a disability, away from his wife. They will not have money to support themselves. It will wreck his business. I mean, this is a wrecking ball to this man's life. As big of a wrecking ball as you could take to it. And for what reason? What threat does he pose to the United States? He poses a threat to Stephen Miller and Donald Trump because he came from somewhere that they didn't want more people from. That's what this does. It's going to affect millions of lives across this country. If it goes forward now, of course there's gonna be legal contest against this. I suspect this does not survive in the courts, or at least there's a stay that delays it long enough to provide some relief to these people. But this is very, very cruel. It's very scary. And it shows that. The point was to turn off legal and illegal migration into the United States, except from wherever the President decides he wants people to come from.
- [40:17]
B
Right? And whatever happens, it creates the anxiety among, you know, millions, millions of people okay, so your thoughts about the investigation into E. Jean Carroll. And I bring this up because there was a very significant blowback. This is a woman who has actually gone to court in two cases. She has beaten Donald Trump. She hasn't collected the money yet. Donald Trump clearly has ordered the Department of Justice to go after her. And maybe the investigation is into Reid Hoffman, whatever, but it's part of the retaliation campaign. And so it feels like part of what we have been talking about. But I guess the question I really want to get to is, are there breaking points? And I know this sounds like a trick question because we've been doing this for a decade. You know, before the holiday weekend, we did have blowback among Republicans about the slush fund, the $1.8 billion, what is it, one $1,776,000,000 slush fund. Are you getting a sense that there are now some breaking points for some Republicans? The nomination of Ken Paxton, the hum. Humiliating defeat of John Cornyn. You do have members of Congress that, you know, have, you know, are pissed at Trump and are willing to say it. Do you sense any kind of a movement? I say this with great reluctance because I spent 10 years being asked the question, Charlie, what's the red line for Republicans? Winner Republicans? Finally, I got to the point where going stop asking the question. They're never gonna break with Trump. They are. It is a cult. He completely owns it. It is never, ever going to happen. So what it. What is your take on the. That slush fund? The Epstein files? The Iran war? Inflation? Donald Trump saying he doesn't give a shit about the midterm elections? Give me your sense of what's going on with elected Republicans right now.
- [42:22]
A
Well, it has nothing to do with morality or courage or a sense of right. But a shift is happening. And the easiest way to describe it is that Republicans are steadily seen that their self interest is no longer advanced by standing behind Donald Trump no matter what. In fact, they're realizing it may cost them their political careers and their reputations and their future and their financial stability to wed themselves to him so closely. Pure self interest. But those numbers are starting to change because, as you note, one, Donald Trump is going after them in their primaries, even the loyal ones. And so they're realizing, wait a second, loyalty is not buying me safety anymore. It was buying them safety up until this point. And then, second, they are seeing that the mob is no longer fully standing behind the president because they were largely catering to the mob. And I mean that literally, because a lot of these members of Congress. Congress saw that Mob storm the U.S. capitol. And then they catered to it. They defended the man they said they were going to impeach after a day of courage. Then they said, nope, nope, we're gonna stick behind him. Cuz they were scared of that mob. Well, now that mob is starting to break from him. And if folks doubt it, I'll just point them to the fact that Donald Trump's poll numbers show that parts of the mob are breaking away from him. Not in mass, but. But Donald Trump came in back into office with a 50% approval rating. It dropped down to 40. And a lot of folks like you and me, Charlie said, how is it even 40? You know, how has this guy possibly got 40% approval? And it just stubbornly hovered there. And then since the Iran war started, it's taken, depending on the poll, a 7 to a 10 point hit down to the low 30s. That is only statistically possible if Donald Trump loses Republicans and loses MAGA voters and he has the podcasters, the influencers, these people have broken with him. It's doing him real damage. And elected Republicans are seeing that writing on the wall and saying, this guy's not gonna be around forever. I gotta start to adjust my calculus for the future and decouple with Donald Trump on some issues. Again, that's not courage. We shouldn't bank the republic on that. But there is movement underway that could hem him in. Political.
- [44:49]
B
Yeah, and the optics have just been just terrible, you know, as people are experiencing, you know, economic anxiety. You know, I guess a normal politician would go out of their way to express some sort of empathy or interest in their problems. Donald Trump has gone the opposite direction. And then we have the optics of the ballroom and the reflecting pond and the things that he's actually focused on. By the way, I thought that the news this week that he wanted to put his face on the $250 bill, I thought that was the least surprising story of the week. Because of course, Donald Trump wants to slap his name and his face on everything. It's what he's done his whole career. It's just that it does feel as if we're kind of in the YOLO phase of this presidency. He just doesn't give a shit anymore, doesn't care whether he's breaking the law, doesn't care what people think. You know, Todd Blanche is sitting there and, you know, he may push back occasionally at something that Trump says, but essentially it's like, yeah, we're just gonna do everything. We're gonna indict Everybody we hate, we're gonna make the stupidest possible cases. And there is that disconnect between the actual lives of Americans, the lived experience of Americans and what Donald Trump is spending his time on. And people are seeing this, the white working class vote. I never thought that they would abandon Donald Trump. And yet he's hemorrhaging, isn't he?
- [46:08]
A
He absolutely is. And these, some of these issues, like you mentioned, the corruption very much is contributing to folks in the grassroots, independents and some maga and MAGA adjacent folks breaking from him. But also the things that they thought they were gonna get out of this administration, they're feeling scammed on things like the Epstein files. They don't understand why there's been such an about face. You know, in fact, we're seeing that as something that's so impactful that we decided to do something. A couple weeks ago, Charlie, our, our little crew@diance.org decided to go put the Epstein files on the road until November. And we're working with this incredible, incredible group of people. They're called the Institute for Primary Facts, but people will have seen them out there in the press as the Trumpsonian. They opened this pop up museum in New York City. They printed all 3.5 million Epstein files into a physical exhibit. I gotta tell you, I've gone multiple times in the month since it was there. There. Ordinary people walking out in tears because they are so moved by the stories of sexual assault victims, by the deliberate cover up. I've met a lot of the victims there and it is remarkable to just see the physicality of the corruption. And so we teamed with them and said, look, we'll put this thing on the road. We're putting a box truck on the road. I think in a couple of weeks it gets wrapped and, and it'll go out there and do events in cities around the country. Not as a gimmick to literally get people to physically feel the weight of this corruption, the COVID up behind it, the people who've been harmed the Epstein files debacle. And I will concede I was one of those people at the start of the Epstein controversy that was like, I don't know if I can hear about the Epstein files anymore. I don't know if it really matters. Oh, it matters because it symbolizes everything about Donald Trump's character in one controversy, everything that makes him unfit for office, everything that he has done to undermine our institutions in one controversy because of how it shows his personal perversion, it shows his inclination toward illegality, all of it. And it's important for people to be reminded about not just what happened, what is continuing to to happen with this ongoing cover up. And so it's one of the things that we've seen really move MAGA voters away from this guy is they feel scammed and they feel like this guy is trying to hide crimes. Well, guess what, it appears that he is trying to do that, Charlie. So I do see those issues starting to move voters again. Will it save the Republic that alone? No. But we need to add up all of those opportunities for transparency to give folks an off ramp out of the MAGA movement.
- [49:00]
B
Well, I think we should end on that optimistic note. I think we should end on that upbeat note. Myles Taylor, thank you so much for all your time today and for all that you're doing out there in defying the power. Not just speaking truth to power, but defying it. So thanks, Miles. I appreciate it very much.
- [49:17]
A
Thanks, Charlie.
- [49:18]
B
And thank you all for listening to this episode of to the Contrary podcast. I'm Charlie Sul Hikes. We continue to do this because it's important for people to know that you are not alone out there and that we are not the crazy ones. Thank you. Acast powers the world's best podcasts.
- [49:51]
A
Here's a show that we recommend, Foreign Marie Shane Halls. And I'm Carrie o'. Donnell. And together we are the hosts of Sexy Unique Podcast, a podcast for geniuses about reality tv, pop culture. And every once in a while, a tangent about 9 11. I mean, it really affected all of us. On Sexy Unique Podcast, we insist on discussing the creme de la creme of reality television. From the current season of Vanderp Pump Rules to tried and true classics like early seasons of Real Housewives of New Jersey to underrated gems like VH1's Rock of Love and even Gallery Girls, we're talking about all of it. So what are you waiting for? Listen to Sexy Unique podcasts now on itunes, Spotify, and Wherever podcasts matter.
- [50:41]
B
Acast helps creators launch, grow and monetize their podcasts everywhere.
- [50:46]
A
Acast.com.