← To The Contrary with Charlie Sykes
To The Contrary with Charlie Sykes
David French: Superman, Sanctions, and the Fragile State of Trumpism
00:53:53
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- [00:00]
Charlie Sykes
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- [00:42]
David French
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- [01:41]
Adam Wild
Acast powers the world's best podcasts.
- [01:45]
Jack
Here's a show that we recommend.
- [01:48]
Adam Wild
Hey, we're the Adam Wild and Jack Show.
- [01:50]
Jack
You can find us wherever you get.
- [01:51]
Adam Wild
Your podcast every Wednesday. And Jax, we talk about what?
- [01:55]
Jack
Well, we're just two best pals talking about pop culture dating and also exposing each other's deepest, darkest secrets.
- [02:01]
Adam Wild
And if you've ever been ghosted, we have a little segment called Left on Red where we call the person who ghosted you and say, hey, why'd you do that? And usually it leads to some pretty embarrassing and explosive things. Yeah, yeah. So check out the Adam Wild and.
- [02:12]
Jack
Jack show available every Wednesday.
- [02:14]
Adam Wild
Wherever you get your podcasts.
- [02:19]
Jack
ACAST helps.
- [02:20]
Adam Wild
Creators launch, grow and monetize their podcast everywhere.
- [02:25]
Jack
Acast.com.
- [02:39]
Adam Wild
Welcome back to the to the Contrary podcast. I am Charlie Sykes, joined by my good friend from and a fellow Midwesterner, at least for today, David French joining me from Chicago. How are you David?
- [02:51]
Jack
I'm doing well. And you know, I gotta say Chicago weather is incredible. Charlie, I hear all these bad things we got up here in Memorial Day weekend and it's just been great. Now I hear that Somebody we should talk again in February and see how we feel about all this.
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Adam Wild
Yeah, there's a reason why they call it the Windy City. And it's not great in February. Or actually January and March is pretty problematic. So we had a little bit of business we need to take care of. First. First of all, I was on Morning Joe this morning and there was a lot of speculation, like, do we need to talk about the fact that Charlie Sykes has a monkey and a stuffed owl behind him? I don't think you can see it here on the YouTube video. They are the puppets that I use to do FaceTimes with my granddaughters. Just so people.
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Jack
I love it.
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Adam Wild
Second, I have a very large dog underneath the desk who is making all kinds of gurgling noises who do not attribute that to me. So that's. I just want to get that out. I just want to get that out of the way.
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Jack
You know, it's very convenient to blame things on the dog, Charlie. Very convenient.
- [03:56]
Adam Wild
Okay, I could. I could show you the dog. I mean, it's 140 pound German Shepherd. He makes all kinds of noises here. Okay, so I want to get to Ukraine whether we have the. The Putin pivot by Donald Trump. I wanted to get to the Epstein MAGA meltdown. The worst appointee so far, a judicial appointee in the Trump administration. We'll see how we get. But I had to ask you about this first. You've seen Superman. I want to get your take on Superman. Now you have the advantage of on me because I have not yet had a chance to see it. I'm going to see it with the French grandkids. But you tell me. Well, your reaction and why it triggered the maga, right, and the Fox News folks.
- [04:36]
Jack
Yeah, it's a really good question, Charlie. And under any normal circumstance, this would not trigger anybody. Okay. In any normal circumstance, people would watch this movie. Now, look, I mean, tastes very. I love superhero movies and I love James Gunn movies in particular, and I really enjoyed it. But, you know, putting aside the subjective elements of the movie as far as, like, the actual message of it, this is something that would have been seen, would have been described 10 years ago as crowd pleasing. You know, in other words, like, this is something that everybody can get into. And he said, and here's why it got controversial. He was being interviewed before the movie came out. James Gunn. He is James Gunn. And he said, it's an immigration story. And he also said, but it's really a story of basic human kindness. Okay, well, both of those things. Immigration and kindness. There's a lot of people in the world right now in America who, when they hear those words, they think woke, which is so weird. I mean, it's so weird. And so because it is a movie casting an immigrant in a wonderful light and highlighting kindness as an indispensable virtue, all of a sudden, it becomes controversial to maga. And so here we are. And the thing is, you can't even do Superman without it being an immigrant story.
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Adam Wild
No, that's kind of basic, right? I mean, going back to the original comic book, he comes from another planet. Right. There's a whole backstory there, which we all know. Right. Thought we knew.
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Jack
Yeah. And the founder. The founders of Superman. That's a weird way of saying it. The original authors of the Superman comic book series were very intentionally about this being a story of an outsider who comes into this country and becomes the arc archetype of the American way. And so, in a lot of ways, in the way I was brought up in conservatism, it was the conservative story, because people come to our shores, and they love this country so much that they, in many ways, immigrants become the model Americans. Right. And so this is. This is what I was. Grew up with. This was the conservatism I grew up with.
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Adam Wild
Yeah.
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Jack
And so for this, suddenly be. Well, this is woke. Wait, what? And you watch the movie, and I don't want to spoil it. I don't want to spoil it. But at its heart, and I choked up over this as an adoptive parent, at its heart, it's an adoption story. And that is. It's an adoption story. Not just a personal adoption story, but a national adoption story. And it is beautiful. That element of it is beautiful. And as for the rest of it, I. I thought it was a blast. It's just fun.
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Adam Wild
There's a dog, right? And there's. There's. There's. There's actually a dog in this one.
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Jack
Right. Well, you know, I was a little worried about that because I. I also like the kind of darker vision man of Steel, Zack Snyder movie. And so I thought, oh, is the dog gonna make it too cheesy now? The dog is so much fun there. There's a difference between cheesy and fun. And the dog is just so much fun. So I give it two thumbs up.
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Adam Wild
Yeah. One of the strangest little blips about all of this was when the official White House account on social media posted Donald Trump as Superman, which was so bizarre. And I don't want to get too deep into all of this. But Manga seems to be very disappointed that Superman is in fact an immigrant who models kindness as opposed to the Nietzschean ubermensch that they've come to actually respect and admire. Right. Their idea is the guy who is the ubermensch who is going to crush his enemies and punch you in the face.
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Jack
Well, and the funny thing is, Donald Trump as Superman is about opposite from the origin story of Superman and the identity of Superman and the nature and the character of Superman. Like, watch the movie how Superman acts and behave towards those who are weaker and less and more vulnerable than him, how kind he is, how decent he is. And then imagine that is Donald Trump. It's so weird. It's, it's just weird.
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Adam Wild
Okay, so let's segue into something important. I'm trying to figure out what Donald Trump is now doing with Ukraine and his rather remarkable pivot, or apparent pivot with Vladimir Putin. Everybody knows the backstory. For 10 years, he has not said a single bad word about Vladimir Putin. He's made it clear that he was switching sides in the Cold War, that he was going to abandon Ukraine. So this week we have this at least little bit of theater where he's very, very disappointed in Vladimir Putin. He's angry at him. He's suddenly realized that maybe Vladimir Putin is not his good buddy, not a man of peace, and he is threatening, he is threatening sanctions. I mean, first, he in fact has reversed the no weapons to Ukraine. We are going to now sell the weapons to NATO, launder them through NATO, but at least Ukraine will be getting some of these defensive weapons. And then there is the 50 day window. And if Vladimir Putin does not stop the war in 50 days, well, all kinds of bad tariffs are coming his way. So I wrote about that and I had mixed feelings. I said that I was cautiously skeptical, nauseously hopeful. Where do you come down?
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Jack
I like that phrase, nauseously hopeful. Can I steal that, please? Yeah, I, I, I will put it nauseously hopeful, but my emphasis is still on nauseous.
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Adam Wild
Yeah.
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Jack
And here's why. There's no need for this. 50 days. Yes. There's no need for this. Do it now. Because essentially what you're doing right now, Russia is absolutely pouring troops and weapons and, you know, men and material into eastern Ukraine. It's a massive summer offensive is underway. Russian, you know, mill bloggers sort of, that the Russian military community is sort of viewing this as a 50 day free period. You know, break Ukraine, break Ukraine. And so look, is it progress that he is now frustrated with Putin? Yes. Is it progress that he's appearing to put together a framework for delivering weapons to Ukraine? 1 million percent. Yes, but the idea that we're still doing this give him 50 days nonsense, that's why it's still nauseous. And by the way, there's so much damage already been done. I mean, there have been, you know, there have been massive airstrikes on cities. There have been, you know, missile and drone strikes on cities. There have been massive losses in men and material at the front line. Russia has made gains at the front line. They're still modest gains because the Ukrainians are just fighting so tenaciously, but greater gains than they'd made in previous, you know, offensives. And so Ukraine is under incredible pressure and has been since day one of the Trump administration. And I'm glad to see progress towards Ukraine. But, Charlie, can we just note something for the record here? Remember when Zelensky came and he said, you know, what Putin does is he just breaks every agreement. He will. He will take you, basically. He's going to take you for a ride. And Trump and Vance blew up at Zelensky over that.
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Adam Wild
Yes. Right.
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Jack
Zelensky was 1 million percent correct. He was just predicting everything that would happen, and it happened.
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Adam Wild
So does Donald Trump get it? Now? Jonathan Lemire has a piece in the Atlantic saying all the ways that Putin has humiliated Trump. And has it finally entered Trump's mind that, in fact, he's being played by Vladimir Putin? Is there actually a pivot, a disillusionment going on?
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Jack
I would say that is the only reason for the pivot, Charlie. So I do not think that, like, the pivot that I would like to see is Trump comes in, receives all the necessary security briefings, gets access to all the information that he didn't have in those four years between, you know, his terms, and he says, look, this is in the best interest of the United States. I mean, there's just no question if, if Russia beats Ukraine, this is going to disrupt the world order. This is going to put NATO under strain. This is going to dramatically increase Putin's power influence. This is going to discourage the free world. Like all of those things you would like for him to say it is genuinely in America's best interest. You don't want it to be because, well, the guy I thought was my friend, it keeps thumbing his nose at me. And now if he's the right, make him look weak. Yeah. Now, if you get to the right decision. Yeah, okay, we can be thankful for that. But if it's that fragile, that it's all rooted in ego rather than rooted in American national interest. Then the decision, even good decisions are fragile decisions because, well, you can't be sure what's going to happen next, right?
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Adam Wild
This is the key point, is these decisions feel fragile. What is the backlash from MAGA going to be? How deep is his commitment? Is the 50 days real? Is it a figment of the imagination? And by the way, to your point, I'm looking at the CNN report. Russia sees Trump's 50 day window as a green light to keep up brutal offensive in Ukraine, which goes to the nauseous part. And then there's also the question of the tariff retaliations. He's Talking about a 100% tariff, secondary tariffs, which would be on other countries that do business with Russia. Now that's a lot less than in that Senate bill, which is 500%. But I guess the question is, if you're Vladimir Putin, if you're the Kremlin, are you actually worried about those tariff threats? Because there have been a lot of, there have been a lot of sanctions on Russia. And until recently, Russia's GDP has been growing at a pretty healthy rate. They found customers in places like China and Turkey and other folks have been buying it. So is this a real threat for Vladimir Putin or is he going bullshit.
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Jack
You know, on the tariff front, he's got to look at this and say this is a, I'm not seeing this necessarily as a threat because if he does the secondary tariffs and there's any blowback to America at all, Trump's going to be put under pressure because it's going to hurt the United States. And so, so, but at the same time, I do, you know, the, it has been very frustrating to see how easily Russia has evaded the sanctions that have been placed on it and how much it has been able to ramp up its own defense industry, including its high tech defense industry, which should have been crippled by many of these sanctions, but has not been. And so that has been very discouraging to see. So I am actually very skeptical, Charlie, that the sanctions regime will have the kind of pressure, put the kind of pressure on Russia that's necessary. What I know puts pressure on Russia is weapons, weapons, that's what puts pressure on Russia. So Russia has been ingenious at evading sanctions. China does not want to see Russia lose this war. So China is going to be use its own ingenuity there. You know, many of our trading partners still trade with Russia, India for example. So this is not as cut and dry and simple as people would might think it is. And so what you're dealing with is the real, yes, maintain as many sanctions on Russia as you can. But the real pressure is battlefield pressure. That's the real pressure. And so it's that battlefield pressure that puts, means that Putin has to mobilize 30,000 troops a month just to keep up with losses, for example, it means that Russian equipment is being destroyed at a greater rate, that it is being replaced. All of those things actually matter more to stopping the war than renewed sanctions, which again, all other things being equal, we want the renewed sanctions.
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Adam Wild
But, but the weapons more.
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Jack
The weapons more.
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Adam Wild
Well, and do we know what the timetable is going to be? Because, you know, Ukraine needs those defensive weapons now, as in yesterday. China can ship in more drones. They can get, you know, Iran can ship in whatever. But what is the lag time? We don't know. How long will it take? And again, going back to the fragility of all of this, if there is tremendous blowback from the MAGA base. And okay, it's a good segue because right now, for the very first time, and correct me if I'm wrong, but you've been watching this very closely. This seems like the, the, the first time that Donald Trump has really been crosswise with his MAGA base. And I'm talking about the Epstein files. And you had a piece. MAGA is tearing itself apart over Jeffrey Epstein. Now there, there's some indications that people are bo knee. But it has been ugly. The fact that we're still talking about it is indication how ugly it is. So let's talk about the MAGA tearing itself apart over Jeffrey Epson. Put it in some context for us though, because I have a hard time explaining this to people who have not been in this world, why MAGA has been so obsessed with this story. The Guy died in 2019. Why are we still talking about this?
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Jack
So the Epstein story, think of it as, and I'm not the only one who's made this comparison. Think of it as the thinking man's QAnon conspiracy. So what? And a lot of people are outside of maga. This, what I'm about to tell you might come as a shock to you, but if you are, if you are MAGA adjacent, what I'm about to tell you is old hat. Like if you, if you have, like, and when I say MAGA adjacent, I mean people who are really, really maga, who are in your, in your circle of friends or family members.
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Adam Wild
Right?
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Jack
But really one of the key driving factors for this desire for a disruptive figure to come in and annihilate American government and just blow it up and start it all over from scratch is a belief that the American government and the American ruling class, the upper levels of American government, upper levels of American industry, American commerce, are full of pedophiles. That it is a giant pedophile ring, okay, that is running the United States of America. And when I say that out loud, it sounds really weird. Now, we know. We know that there are pedophiles who are powerful people. That is no question about that. We have known that there are. That, you know, gosh, we've seen major institutions like the Catholic Church in many places, and we have seen widespread pedophilia in American life. And so it's not like people are just concocting out of thin air that there might be pedophilia. But the extent to which MAGA believes the government is not just comprised of pedophiles themselves, but also covers up pedophiles, is very deeply rooted. And when you have that view, you can begin to see why there's such extreme dedication to Trump. Well, with a caveat. If they believe that God has ordained him to wipe out the pedophiles. And you can also see why there's such extreme hostility to Democrats and anyone else, establishment, anyone else who would resist Trump because you're covering for a pedophile regime. And so this is deeply rooted, Charlie. This is so deeply rooted that as soon as I saw this, as soon as I saw the FBI and the DOJ put out an unsigned memorandum saying there is no list, there's no evidence of blackmail, and Epstein killed himself, I knew this was going to be a 10 times bigger eruption than when the GOP watered down the pro life plank in the Republican Party platform. That was a ripple in maga. That was a ripple. I knew this was going to be a lot bigger because when the rubber meets the road, you. You learn what people's true values are when they're tested. And so for a lot of people who'd said, I'm super, super pro life, that is totally why I'm a Republican. And then Trump comes along and he waters down the plank more than any other GOP president, presidential nominee in 40 years, they're like, and I'm still with that guy. Well, you figured out in that hierarchy of values, you're more Trumpist, right? And then with this, though. With this, though, I thought, well, this is going to get interesting. And I would say I thought it would cause controversy in maga. Charlie, I did not think it would cause this much controversy, but I knew it was going to blow up like a bomb. I did not know it was going to blow up as, like, as big a bomb as it has.
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Adam Wild
Well, I mean it really is sort of the Jedi mind trick. Like no, everything that all these conspiracy theories we've been feeding you, they don't exist. No, you are not seeing what you thought you saw. But again, to mix metaphors when you've been riding that tiger of conspiracy theories for so long, what a surprise that it would turn around and it would bite you. But let's talk about the way that it's blown up. So last Friday they're having a big TPUSA meeting and Charlie Kirk is on stage with Laura ingram and there's 7,000, 8,000 people there and they asked for a show of hands. How many of you are satisfied with the way this is being handled? Nobody raised their hand. Clearly this is all anybody wants to talk about. Charlie Kirk is out there saying how disappointing it is. Laura Ingraham's out there. Benny Johnson is saying, yeah, this doesn't make any sense. You're now saying that you've read the files but they were written by your enemies which kind of suggests that maybe you don't like what's in them. And then we get to pass the weekend and Charlie Kirk comes out, big MAGA influencer, the guy who had been beating the drum on Friday saying yeah, I got a call from Donald Trump and I'm not talking about it anymore. I mean he just says it, you know, and I was on Morning Joe and I said, you know, Jesus, what a pathetic, you know, toady that he would actually admit. Yeah, he called me, told me to stop talking about it. I'm not going to talk about it. So is Trump gonna pull his Jedi mind trick magic again and get them or is, or is this at a different level? And I guess I'm skeptical about it because you can get the Benny Johnson's and the Charlie Kirks. But then what about those 7,000 people out there? I mean, are they all gonna change their mind? I mean, are they gonna give up years and years of obsession on something? What do you think?
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Jack
Well, it was really interesting when Trump did the, he did a long, long post on Saturday night that was wild. So he claims that the Epstein files were written by Biden and Clinton Obama, which is just insanity. Then he talks about and then he, he, he doubles down behind Pam Bondi, who all of maga. The MAGA was doing what Maga does, which is that Trump doesn't fail. Trump can only be failed. And in this case it was Pam Bondi, Laura Loomer calling for head, all of this, calling her Pam blondie and all of this stuff. And so you're in this world where Trump can't fail, he can only be failed. And at that moment, a lot of MAGA was focusing on Pam Bondi. So Cash Patel, there were rumors Cash Patel was disgruntled. You had the whole Dan Bongino saga that he'd blown up at Pam Bondi. So all of the focus was on Bondi. Well, then here comes Trump saying, Bondi, it's me. Great.
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Adam Wild
Yeah, tell.
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Jack
And then the very pointed. A lot of people really emphasized how much that message wrapped his arms around Bondi. They didn't emphasize enough how it was telling Cash Patel to get in line, hey, go investigate these other things. And so what's funny about that, Charlie, he puts that up and as we've seen for 10 years, as soon as he does that, that's supposed to end everything. But on Truth Social, where basically everyone on Truth Social is on Truth Social because they love them, some Donald Trump, he gets ratioed on Truth Social like that. These are average, everyday regular MAGA people. And he went, they went after Trump. So Trump is doing a top down thing right now where he's calling, CNN's reported that he's calling all these quote unquote influencers. And I do think a lot of them, Charlie Kirk's already said hilariously like, yeah, let's move on. I trust my friends in government, you know.
- [25:13]
Adam Wild
Yeah. So I trust my friends.
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Jack
So it's going to be said that very interesting. I know, I know. So it's going to be super interesting to see what happens because this is one of those areas where you know what it reminds me of? Do you remember when Trump praised the vaccine at a rally and oh yes, booed him?
- [25:34]
Adam Wild
Right.
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Jack
Are there issues where they will boo Trump, vaccine and Epstein? Maybe those are the two. And so I do think this is a problem for him. I don't think, here's the way I would put it. If you're looking for this to sink Trump, I would be so shocked if that occurred. It's got more potential to sync Trump with his base than anything else so far. But I would still be totally shocked. But I'll tell you what's super interesting about this, Charlie. This is the future of maga. Without Trump and without that figure to come in and say stop it, they will tear themselves apart. They're going to tear each other apart. Because this is a fractious, contentious. What he's done is he's assembled a coalition of scorpions, and then somehow people assume that this coalition of scorpions will all stay together when Chief Scorpion leaves the scene. And I'm just very dubious of that.
- [26:35]
Adam Wild
So what do you think is happening here? I mean, there have been some people who've been saying, well, you know, there is no list. There's nothing. There been a lot of bogus conspiracy. There is, but. But there is a. There, there, there is a list of victims. There is, there are the flight logs. You know, Ghislaine Maxwell is in prison. Jeffrey Epstein was convicted. I mean, there's something there. So given all of the hype, all of the promises, why is this happening? Why did they decide to shut it down, do you think?
- [27:07]
Jack
Well, so here. So there's a reason why I called this the thinking man's QAnon conspiracy. Because unlike the QAnon conspiracy, where a guy comes forward, claims to be a person or persons anonymously come forward on, you know, 4chan, 8chan, whatever message boards and start spreading that they have a Q security clearance and they have all this information about pedophile rings that was never based in anything real. Well, Jeffrey Epstein's super real. Just like Max, they were serial predators at a vast scale. So, you know, one of the things that was interesting about the DOJ FBI memo is how they talked about the sheer number of victims. I mean, we're talking not dozens, hundreds of hundreds.
- [27:55]
Adam Wild
Right.
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Jack
Then you also add in that Jeffrey Epstein at one point was one of the most connected people in the world. I mean, in America, in the world. He had a jet, he had an island. He was omnipresent social presence. He was an omnipresent sort of like Glad Hander connector. And so lots of famous people, including one Donald Trump, have spent a lot of time with Jeffrey Epstein. And so. And then you combine that with some information that is truly mysterious in the sense of like, how did it get into the zeitgeist? So here's one that there's a list, an Epstein list. I'm not. I've been looking into this. I'm not even sure of the origin of the idea that he has a list, but there's been, it's just been circulating forever that there's like this list of pedophiles. And so this is the thing that's going to break it all open, right? Is this list that has always struck me as extremely implausible, like you know, imagine, you know, you know, the Stringer Bell rule, Charlie.
- [29:00]
Adam Wild
Yeah, right.
- [29:01]
Jack
That comes from the wire. Never take notes on a criminal conspiracy.
- [29:05]
Adam Wild
Right.
- [29:06]
Jack
It's always struck me as kind of weird that there would be a spreadsheet of pedophiles out there somewhere. So this videotapes, light logs. I mean, yeah, there, there were absolutely. People were on flight logs, no question. And then there was this idea that he was a member of a. Or at least aligned with foreign intelligence. And that's based on a. On it sort of a secondhand remark from Alex Acosta, who prosecuted him back in 2008, gave him a sweetheart deal. So there's a lot of lore here that's like, that's weird. Super connected person, lots of rumors flying in the air. You know, people knew that he liked young women. I mean, Donald Trump is on record years ago saying Epstein's a terrific guy. Yeah.
- [29:56]
Adam Wild
And we share the taste in beautiful women, some of them on the young side. I mean.
- [30:01]
Jack
Yeah, he was like. And so it's very. He, he had flown on Epstein's jet. So, so Trump was always the weirdest possible figure to blow open the Epstein story. But MAGA trusted him to do this. And then also, you know, Trump had said things like he wished Ghislaine Maxwell well on her inner trial. There was this interesting thing that Fox edited out. Thinking, speaking of Fox, I mean of editing, you know, I think it was Rachel Campos. Duffy asked him pre election, will you release the JFK files? Yes, mlk. Yes, Epstein. And he, he, he pauses for a minute. He goes, yeah. And then there was another part that said he would release the non phony parts. So there's a lot of this that's.
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Adam Wild
Yeah.
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Jack
A little weird. And then the. Finally. And this is a very important thing.
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Adam Wild
Thing.
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Jack
They're very important thing. You. It's against DOJ practice to release. Just dump case files into the public square. Because, especially in cases like this, because some of the case files will be images of sex abuse. So it'd be. From what I understand, there are a lot of images of, of Jeffrey Epstein abusing women and girls. There's a lot of, of footage of abuse. That is not something you put in the public square. The other thing is it's generally DOJ policy that if other people are implicated or associated in some degree with the person who's indicted, that they don't identify those people. You see this all the time in indictments. Individual one, it will say individual two. And now the reason for that is that you could ruin individual one. Or individual two's life by exposing their identity with there being no judicial proceeding for them to clear their name because they're not indicted. Right. And so, and then there's sealed grand jury, there's grand jury documents that are sealed by law. So it is not just the case that you can take the entire case file and put it on the Internet. And so. But again, this is stuff that rings hollow to maga because maga's been told forever that we're going to get the file, you're going to get the file, you're going to get the list, you're going to get the file. And so they were making promises they never could keep if they complied with the law and existing practices. So what they're left with is, to some degree, it's going to be hard to ever like, make disclosures to the satisfaction of maga because it's not clear that there are some disclosures that can ever be made.
- [32:45]
Adam Wild
And that's also the problem of creating this universe of wild conspiracy theories that spin out. I mean, at a certain point they're not falsifiable, right? There's no way to refute them. And as you point out, you remove Donald Trump from the equation and no one can say, no, that's too crazy. Let's not talk about that anymore. It will be the scorpions eating one another or stinging one another.
- [33:08]
Jack
And I'm for, I would like to see all the disclosure that can be lawfully made with proper respect for the victims. So you do not want victims to be re victimized by having child sex abuse material put on the Internet? No, of course not. No, you cannot do that. I mean, you just cannot do that. But all of the information that is lawful to release should, should be released. And I think that's a very reasonable demand to make at this point.
- [33:43]
Adam Wild
You know, the strangest parts of this, and I want to move on from this in a moment, but one of the strangest parts of this whole obsession with Epstein is of course that on the right, I think they were focused on the Clintons and Bill Clinton who was on some of those planes and everything. But how they engage in the double thing, thinking this is going to take down Bill Clinton and, and there are all of these pictures and these videos of Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein. And it's like, how did you think that was going to play out? I mean, why are you so shocked that, that, you know, I mean, it was right there in front of everyone and yet they were able to do that sort of Orwellian double think when it came to, it's going to get Clinton, but it's not going to get Trump.
- [34:26]
Jack
It's very interesting. So there's two responses to this. One is, lots of core MAGA people do not know Trump has these connections to Epstein at all. Because what you have to, if you have to get where they sit in life. So where they sit in life is they are receiving an incredible fire hose of pro Trump propaganda every day. I mean, just a fire hose. So where are they, who are they going to learn that he's said all of these nice things about Epstein from. Who's going to tell them? They're not going to the New York Times, they're not going to Washington Post, they're not. None of that stuff. And so they're. And then they've been trained from day one that if they hear a negative fact about Trump, that they disbelieve it. And, and this is something that, if, if there's one thing that I wish my Democratic friends would absorb when they hear things about how can MAGA X or Y? I was like, you have no idea, no idea how little these people know about Trump's actual scandals.
- [35:27]
Adam Wild
Well, that's why I think it's important. Yeah, that's why it's important to make a distinction between the hardcore Trump base that you've accurately described and the folks that I've described as MAGA adjacent or Trump curious, the manosphere. Some of these other folks who might have aligned themselves with Trump, but do see this stuff and might process it differently. So, yeah, nothing is going to move the MAGA base, but there are these suburbs around that might be affected.
- [35:55]
Jack
Yeah. And, you know, I'll give you a perfect example of how weird everything is, Charlie. So I was talking to a friend of mine and they were talking about, and they lived in super, super MAGA part of the country, and they were talking about how they just recently had dinner with some very, very MAGA friends, and one of them told them how Trump earlier that in his term had liberated 300,000 kids in the United States from child sex slavery. And you're just thinking, where is this coming from? What, what, where are you people getting this kind of information? And then just realize there's this whole alternative universe that people live in.
- [36:30]
Adam Wild
Yes. No. And, and I've talked to Republican politicians who say, you have no idea what we have to confront. You know, and you'll say, where did that come from? You know, rising eagle.com, patriot, you know, YouTube, TikTok page or something. Like all of that. So, for example, speaking of the alternative realities, I was thinking about a piece I just read about Fox News over the last 24, 48, 72 hours that they barely mention Epstein. But if you turn on Fox News, you're going to get Joe Biden. Joe Biden. Joe Biden. Joe Biden, like 96 times talking about his auto pen signing of the pardons. And I'm guessing that a lot of people on the left are going, what is that about? Why would anyone care about the use of an auto pen? And yet, if you were to drift off into MAGA world, that's the big story this week, right, that Joe Biden spoke about how you used an auto pen to sign the pardons. And I'm sorry, I just, I don't get. I personally just don't give a. About the story. But I mean, what is your take on all of that? Why that continues to have legs, why Biden chose to speak about it?
- [37:36]
Jack
Oh, man. That. Why did he do that? Yeah, well, I mean, yeah, yeah. You're not going to find a defense of Joe Biden from this guy here. I mean, you know, the, the, the bottom line is, I think as more information is emerging about the Biden presidency, especially the last year, the Biden presidency, we actually had a man not fit to be president who was in the Oval Office. And this is, this is a grade A scandal. It is a grade A scandal. And I hate to say that. I know there are a lot of listeners who are going to be like, well, it's nothing compared to Trump. We're not, let's not do the compared to Trump thing for a minute.
- [38:16]
Adam Wild
The what about ism thing.
- [38:18]
Jack
Yeah. Was this okay? It was not okay. And so the problem you have is you actually did have a massive integrity problem coming out of the Biden White.
- [38:29]
Adam Wild
House just so everything becomes plausible now.
- [38:32]
Jack
Yeah. And so now on the auto pin situation, having a pardon signed by an auto pin by itself is not a problem.
- [38:40]
Adam Wild
Yeah.
- [38:40]
Jack
Here's what is a problem is if a president gives broad guidelines and, and people say, well, this fits the guideline auto pin away. No, no, no, no, no, no. That is not supposed to be the way this thing goes. If he gets broad guidelines, they're supposed to bring him specific thing, specific people he's supposed to, on a case by case basis, say, evaluate and sign off. Now, I think this is worth investigating. I think it's worth investigating, Charlie, because I think we need a constitutional amendment to get rid of the pardon. Power out of the hand. President soldiers.
- [39:12]
Adam Wild
Well, I Would love to see that.
- [39:14]
Jack
And we, and we're not going to do it unless we get bipartisan agreement that we have a pardon problem. So Democrats right now totally understand we have a pardon problem because of the January six pardons that are beyond reprehensible. And then now Republicans should, Republicans are understanding that there's a pardon problem around Biden. What we need to do is get people to connect the dots here. This is a real point that, yes, it's not just a Joe Biden problem. It's not just a Donald Trump problem. It's a pardon problem.
- [39:44]
Adam Wild
Boy, I think that is. We could spend an entire show on that. That is a very interesting point because I think that up until now, my take on that is, yeah, this is a huge mistake in the Constitution. It is rife with, you know, for ripe for abuse and has been abused. We're seeing it in real time. But there's nothing that's ever going to happen about it. There's no way we're ever going to amend the Constitution. But you make an interesting point. There may come a moment. Okay, SPE Speaking of Democrats who are a little bit tone deaf, I know people are going to hate this. So in the middle of this big controversy on the right about sexual abuse, who decides to stick his head up above the foxhole again? But Andrew Cuomo, the disgraced former governor of New York who is brought down by a sex abuse scandal, not to mention what happened with the nursing homes and everything. He was overwhelmingly defeated in the Democratic primary. So here we have this moment where, well, MAGA is tearing itself apart and the Democrats in New York, they feel like it's a laboratory of bad ideas where you have this toxic, disgraced establishment candidate against. And I know I'm gonna get some pushback. This toxic, unreconstructed leftist who is about to become a national figure because of the Republicans and Donald Trump and I guess the timing of Andrew Cuomo, the tone deafness and just what a horrible choice New Yorkers now face your thoughts.
- [41:18]
Jack
Oh, Charlie. So a lot of people have asked my opinion about, you know, mom, Donnie, and I said, look, I don't even, I don't even find this interesting. And I'll tell you why I will believe that New York Democrats are becoming over. I know there are many socialists amongst New York Democrats. I know that New York Democrats are to the left of your average Democrat. So the fact that somebody who's very left leaning would be highly competitive in a Democratic primary in Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn, that's a day ending and why. But. But I. Talk to me about some looming socialist revolution when the socialist candidate isn't running against a serial. A serial harasser or somebody who was chased out of office. After all, just the awful way he mishandled the COVID situation in the nursing homes. So look here. This is. Man, Charlie, this is our problem in a nutshell. It is. You have an irresponsible outsider taking on what is genuinely a crappy establishment and utterly discredited.
- [42:27]
Adam Wild
Yeah.
- [42:28]
Jack
I mean, this is 2024 all over again. Why, if the fate of the Republic is at stake, are we saying, well, you know, at this historic moment in American history, when an outsider is. Threatens to turn us more like Vladimir Putin's Russia than the America that we've always known and loved. Well, we're going to go with this guy that we won't even let really talk to the New York Times because it's too scary. Like, yeah, what are we doing? And then he hangs on and hangs on and hangs on and then blows up at a debate. Just. It's the worst debate I've ever seen. I thought he was having a crisis, a health crisis, when I was watching it. And then they say, and then he keeps clinging on afterwards for day after day after day after day. And then you're. And. And then you wonder why Donald Trump won. You're doing all of this hand wringing and soul searching. How did Donald Trump win? Well, right off the top of my head, I can come up with some ideas that are about as now, if you had had a Democratic primary where, say, a Josh Shapiro emerges or somebody like that, and Biden had stepped aside, Democrats had a competitive primary, one of their younger stars comes to the fore, and that person loses to Donald Trump. Then I'm like, whoa, what is going on with America? But when you have the situation that you had. Yeah, I did not want Trump to win. I said as plainly and publicly as possible that I was voting for Kamala Harris, and I thought she was clearly the better choice.
- [44:02]
Adam Wild
Yeah.
- [44:02]
Jack
But the larger context of it all is not mysterious, everybody. It's not mysterious.
- [44:09]
Adam Wild
No, it's not mysterious. Especially as you look back. Okay, so let's switch back to some other things that are happening in Washington that you've been flagging, including something that I think has not gotten as much attention as it deserves, although you've given it a lot of attention. You call it a reckless judicial nomination, puts the Senate to the test. Republicans in the Senate. You wrote this a couple of weeks ago. Republicans in the Senate may be on the verge of their most consequential capitulation to President Trump so far. And I'm not talking about the deficit busting. Big, beautiful bill. And then you talked about that. While the eyes of the nation are distracted with other things, the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on Trump's nomination of Emil Beauvais. Say you pronounce it Beauvais. Bove. Bovet.
- [44:51]
Jack
Bovet, I believe. Yeah.
- [44:53]
Adam Wild
Bove. To serve as a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Third District, which covers Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, and the Virgin Islands. Let's talk about this because, you know, talk about an F you. To the judicial system, to the Senate Republicans, who just very briefly, in a capsule, who is Emil Bovet and why the hell would Donald Trump want him on an appeals court bench?
- [45:17]
Jack
So who he is is a longtime conservative lawyer who. He had been a U.S. attorney, Assistant U.S. attorney in the Southern District of New York, was kind of a controversial figure, had been reported for misconduct in the way he treated subordinates, but not. He was controversial, but not anywhere in the universe of like, a nationally scandalous figure. Just sort of a minor. A minor player in the firmament who wasn't necessarily a great colleague. It's how I would put the story of his. Of his career. Then he leaves the U.S. attorney's office. He leaves the Southern District of New York, starts his working in private practice, and then eventually finds his way to becoming Trump's personal defense lawyer.
- [46:01]
Adam Wild
Great.
- [46:01]
Jack
And then after he.
- [46:02]
Adam Wild
When most of us first encountered him.
- [46:05]
Jack
Yeah. So he's Trump's criminal defense lawyer. And then after he. Trump. Trump wins the election, Bove moves in as. Oh, gosh, a deputy acting deputy high. I can't remember the exact specific deputy acting position he had, but very high position, the doj. And then he just goes on a rampage. He orders the case against Eric Adams to be dismissed. So long as Eric Adams, the mayor of New York, you know, does what the job administration was.
- [46:37]
Adam Wild
People might remember that story. This is the guy that came in and the. The thug that came in and basically bullied all of the US Attorneys and triggered this massive resignation on principle. I mean, you wanted a guy who was central casting villain of that piece. It's this guy.
- [46:56]
Jack
Oh, yeah. He was like the Dr. Evil of the scenario. Like, you know.
- [47:00]
Adam Wild
Right, right.
- [47:00]
Jack
You're just. You're gonna do what I say, and too bad if you have any. And so this is where you got several conservative attorneys in the U.S. attorney's office resigning. Like people like Scalia clerks, for example.
- [47:12]
Adam Wild
Yeah.
- [47:12]
Jack
Then you know, yeah, there's a whistleblower who comes forward and says that he had said, you know, if the courts start ruling against the Trump administration in certain circumstances, you should, the DOJ should be able to say f off to the, to the, to the court system. He had fired the January 6th prosecutors for no cause. I mean, there are all kinds of things where he's just signaling I'm going to railroad steamroll over standard doj. DOJ practices, procedures, personnel, policies, all in the service of Donald Trump. And so then he's rewarded with that, with a court of appeals nomination that, with a glowing recommendation that makes you think, is this guy being groomed for the Supreme Court? And here's why this really, really, really, really matters, Charlie. As bad as Neil, as Kash Patel or are as bad as, as Dan Bongino and Pam Bundy and RFK and Tulsi Gabbard are, and they're very bad and they can do lots of damage. All of them will, you know, they, Trump's term will end. And unless a MAGA person wins the next election and keeps them in office, they're going to be a, in, in the grand historical scheme of things kind of here today, gone tomorrow. This is a lifetime appointment. Bovet, I believe, is in his 40s. So you're talking about embedding MAGA into the judiciary. And now some people might say, well, hadn't he already done that? Not really. Not really. In his first term, he went with the sort of the Federalist Society approach, which is very traditionally conservative. And a lot of those guys and women have ruled against him with extremely high rate of frequency. And so he's very discontent with his first term nominations. And so it's only, and if, let me put it this way, if Bove's confirmed, if the Senate rolls over here, I think it's only going to get worse. And, and you're gonna. In the judiciary, as much as I disagree with this or that ruling, it is a functioning branch of American government. It is more well functioning than either Congress or the executive branch right now. And if he's starting to embed the Magaverse into the judiciary, it will break the judiciary. And I know that there are judges who are considering not retiring because of this very reason.
- [49:37]
Adam Wild
Well, I hope people understand that when we're talking about a maga fide judge, we're not just talking about a very, very conservative judge. You're talking about a judge who sees himself as an instrument of Donald Trump's power or result oriented that we are going to override any sor of normal judicial process. And this is what has disappointed Donald Trump so much. He didn't understand that these conservative judges were not right wing conservative operatives, that they were actually in many cases, very serious people who were concerned about the law. He wanted them to be loyal to him. And guys like Emil Bove are the ones who are, you know, loyal to him. They are his Roy Cohns, but Roy Cohn on the bench with a lifetime appointment, very different.
- [50:26]
Jack
Yeah. Here's a way to think about it. Trump became very used to when he was interacting with legislators, party officials. Fox News figures that when traditional conservatism conflicted with Trumpism, they went with Trumpism.
- [50:43]
Adam Wild
Right.
- [50:43]
Jack
That was all his experience. So then he nominates all these conventional conservative originalist judges. They're put into office Trumpism, con. They collide with Trumpism, and nine times out of 10, they back. They go with their traditional conservatism over Trumpism. And that baffles him, that enrages him. And part of this is due to the original, the wisdom of the founders. Once these guys were confirmed and put into life tenure, they don't have to worry about, they don't have to worry about a primary. They don't have to worry about losing their jobs because their base gets angry at them. They are their own thing. And then also, also, a lot of these judges actually came up in an environment in law schools that was very, very, very hostile to their conservative point of view.
- [51:32]
Adam Wild
Right.
- [51:32]
Jack
And they grew thick skins and they grew a kind of, I'm not going to say, like defiant in a good way, that they're, you can't bully me, that they have a spine. So it's the combination of, I think that the very process of becoming a prominent conservative jurist, especially when the, a lot of these folks, like I did, came out of the 80s and the 90s, when I can tell y', all, law schools, I would be booed and hissed and shouted down in class in law school as a, as a very traditional conservative. Yeah, yeah. And so a lot of these folks developed a backbone, to be honest, and, and they've developed a background, a backbone around their personal belief system and their philosophy. And so you've got people with a backbone who have a consistent philosophy that they have defended for decades and don't have to face primary voters. And so they, it is no accident that this group of people has a greater ability to resist Trumpism than anyone else sort of in the conservative firmament.
- [52:35]
Adam Wild
Okay, so two questions then. Trump had in his first term really, in effect, outsourced the judicial appointments to the Federalist Society. So he got these traditional, more traditional oriented, conservative judges. He had a break with them, denounced Leonard Leo. Where are we at on that? Has that been patched up or is that divorce continuing to.
- [53:01]
Jack
Well, let me put it this way. If Emil Beauvais is confirmed, look for the divorce proceedings to continue. If evil. If evil. If Emil evil. Bovet Freudian slip. If Bove is rejected, you might see a bit of a rapprochement. You might see a little bit of, you know, okay, the only way I can get through. Yeah.
- [53:24]
Adam Wild
Okay. So that was my second question. Is this is really, as you point out in your piece, this is really a test of the Senate because the Senate has, that they have drawn the line in the past. Ed Martin, the, the incredibly deplorable choice to be U.S. attorney in D.C. they drew a line for them. So what do you anticipate happening? What are you picking up? What should we be expecting here? Because this is, I agree with you, this is really in many ways the ultimate test of the Republican Senate and how going forward it's going to be, what it does with Amel Beauvaie.
- [54:00]
Jack
I would put it like this. I would say that. Well, first, let me just answer directly. I don't know. I have not heard rumbles and rumors that he's going to be rejected, but I haven't heard the contrary. That confirmation hearing was troubling, that Republican senators were entirely too protective of him. So I have to say I don't know, but I'm extremely pessimistic. And, and if that happens, if that happens, then watch for more emails. Although at the same time, you know, a lot of the judges who would be retiring right now are Bush appointees, not Trump appointees, they're Bush appointees. And so what you might see is some folks hanging around a little bit longer to say, I don't want to be replaced by Nemo Bove and I'll take my chances with the next presidential election. But I don't know. I don't know. So far, the, you know, the pace of appointee of nominees has not been very, you know, it's very, very slow. We had our first confirmation of an appellate court judge today, and it was a good judge. I mean, she's quite conservative, but she is also a person who's in that traditional conservative mold. And so, yeah, this really is an important moment for the Senate. And I've always had people tell me this in defense of the Senate. I've had people Tell me. No, no, no, no. You're misunderstanding them. They have this belief that the Trump should be able to build his team because he won the election, but with judicial nominations, it's different. That's not his team. And, and we take that more seriously and. Well, we'll see. This will be the test.
- [55:36]
Adam Wild
This will be the test. We'll see what, you know, Thom Tillis does on on this one. David French, columnist for the New York Times. Renaissance man, movie critic, thank you so much for all your time today. I appreciate it very, very much.
- [55:51]
Jack
Well, thanks so much, Charlie. And no one would call me a critic. They'd call me a fan. I just love Superman too much.
- [55:57]
Adam Wild
Well, I can't wait to see it. And thank you all for listening to this episode of to the Contrary podcast. I'm Charlie Sykes. You know why we do this? You know why we have guests like David French on? Because we need to constantly be reminding ourselves that we are not a crazy ones. Thanks.
- [56:25]
Charlie Sykes
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