Speaker 1: Good morning, peeps, and welcome to WOKA up Daily with
Speaker 1: Meet your Girl Danielle Moody reporting not So live from
Speaker 1: my Brooklyn bunker. Folks, let me talk about the fact
Speaker 1: that this week is going to be a doozy and
Speaker 1: a couple of reasons. Why. Well, at the end of
Speaker 1: last week, you saw that Steve Badden decided that, you know,
Speaker 1: congressional subpoenas don't mean anything to him. They are a
Speaker 1: kin to an RSVP, to a party that you really
Speaker 1: don't want to attend, and think that there's going to
Speaker 1: be no repercussions in doing so. Well, Chair of the
Speaker 1: one six Insurrection Commission, Benny Thompson has decided that, guess what, Bannon,
Speaker 1: you do have to comply with congressional subpoenas. And tomorrow
Speaker 1: we're going to be seeing a vote in the Commission
Speaker 1: and then in the entire House that is going to
Speaker 1: recommend that Steve Bannon be processed for criminal charges and
Speaker 1: that will go to the US District Attorney. So here's
Speaker 1: the thing, folks, that is coming up for me and
Speaker 1: continues to come up, and in my conversation with our
Speaker 1: friend Glenn Kirshner, we will talk about this But here's
Speaker 1: the reality. The reality is this, which we all know,
Speaker 1: but it's becoming so damn obvious and stark, and what
Speaker 1: is continuing to piss me off is that we do
Speaker 1: nothing about it. Our criminal justice system has multiple tiers,
Speaker 1: and depending on your wealth, depending on your class, depending
Speaker 1: on your race, depending on your gender, depending on your
Speaker 1: sexual orientation or your gender identity, you get placed in
Speaker 1: different tiers. And who do we know exists at the top. Well,
Speaker 1: that would be rich, wealthy cis gender, straight white men
Speaker 1: who have powerful connections and can do whatever the fuck
Speaker 1: they want. You know, here's the thing I wanted to know. Okay,
Speaker 1: so Benny Thompson is saying we're going to pursue criminal charges,
Speaker 1: then will we see a US Marshall go pounding on
Speaker 1: fucking Steve Bannon's door, dragging his drunken ass out and
Speaker 1: sitting him in a chair at Congress. No, we won't
Speaker 1: see that, do you know? When we do see that? However,
Speaker 1: when we do see police kick in the door of
Speaker 1: people when they think that you know, they have drugs,
Speaker 1: or they think that you know there is a search
Speaker 1: out for them, or a warrant, right, a warrant out
Speaker 1: for their arrest. That's what happened in the Brianna Taylor case.
Speaker 1: If you all remember the Louisville, Kentucky, young black woman
Speaker 1: who was asleep in her bed and then was riddled
Speaker 1: with bullets and killed in her sleep because they were
Speaker 1: supposedly a warrant out for her ex boyfriend, which no
Speaker 1: longer lived in that home, right, but the cops felt
Speaker 1: the need to kick in the door and shoot it up.
Speaker 1: They were wrong, they had the wrong address. But Brianna
Speaker 1: Taylor is dead. No one has faced accountability or responsibility
Speaker 1: for that, because we know that in this country, black
Speaker 1: lives do not matter. We know that in this country,
Speaker 1: if Brianna Taylor had been a Steve Bannon type, if
Speaker 1: she had been wealthy, if she had been white, that
Speaker 1: the cops probably would have called her ahead of time
Speaker 1: and asked if it was the right time for them
Speaker 1: to come over, and then she would have been able
Speaker 1: to talk her way out of it or put her
Speaker 1: very high paid lawyer on the phone to decide and
Speaker 1: determine when and if and how she was going to
Speaker 1: cooperate with authorities. You see, black and brown people and
Speaker 1: low income people in this country don't get choices, right,
Speaker 1: they are forced to adhere to a legal system that
Speaker 1: doesn't have their humanity, their dignity in mind. But you
Speaker 1: see with Steve Bannon, oh we gotta follow the law.
Speaker 1: We got to go through it with a fine tooth comb.
Speaker 1: We have to make sure that there's no wavering because
Speaker 1: we know that when you go after the wealthy and
Speaker 1: the powerful and the well connected white men of the world,
Speaker 1: then they come back at you ten times fold. And
Speaker 1: you see Democrats in this instance are operating in the
Speaker 1: way that they always have, which is through fear. Oh well,
Speaker 1: what happens when Republicans gain power? What happens you know
Speaker 1: to us? So we have to really walk a fine
Speaker 1: line here. Well, here's the deal. You know what will happen. Republicans,
Speaker 1: whether using the law or doing criminal shit, are going
Speaker 1: to stomp you into the ground like they did over
Speaker 1: the last four years under Donald Trump. You clearly didn't
Speaker 1: learn your lesson there, and you clearly aren't learning your
Speaker 1: lessons right now. You think that what they're going to
Speaker 1: comply and that you get to look blustery in the press,
Speaker 1: and then that is actually akin to you taking real
Speaker 1: hard action. Well, in my conversation, with Glenn Kirshner. He
Speaker 1: will go over the fact that there's a true two
Speaker 1: track system that Congress can be taking right now, one
Speaker 1: of which is criminal content, the other one is inherent
Speaker 1: where they could throw his ass in jail for up
Speaker 1: to thirty days or up to a year. Right and
Speaker 1: people say, well, that's a law that hasn't been used
Speaker 1: in a hundred years, So the fuck what, It's still
Speaker 1: a law that's on the books. Use the power that
Speaker 1: the people gave you, because you have no problem using
Speaker 1: the power of the law to beat and suppress and
Speaker 1: contort black people and brown people, right push them into
Speaker 1: the ground, push them further into the margins of society.
Speaker 1: Give them minimum maximum sentences, which we just saw that
Speaker 1: Governor Gavin Newsom got rid of in California, among the
Speaker 1: myriad of things that he is doing. You know why,
Speaker 1: because we love to throw the book at low income
Speaker 1: people and people of color. Glen will talk to us
Speaker 1: in this interview about the fact that you know the
Speaker 1: DC prison system right where you hold people awaiting trial,
Speaker 1: those jails are disgusting, they're ininhabitable. He's talked about this,
Speaker 1: and many people have talked about this for decades, but
Speaker 1: we don't care how black and brown people are treated
Speaker 1: in our prison system because you know, it's set up
Speaker 1: for their punishment. But now all of a sudden, we
Speaker 1: have all of these white insurrectionists that are being held
Speaker 1: and now judges want to do something about the prison
Speaker 1: system and hold these prisons accountable for their conditions. Well,
Speaker 1: why the fuck didn't you do that before? Oh, that's right,
Speaker 1: because once again, black lives don't matter. Poor people's lives
Speaker 1: don't matter, and you see, our systems are set up
Speaker 1: to punish them to keep them down. You see, when
Speaker 1: low level criminals do shit, right, what we find to
Speaker 1: be true, it's at oftentimes the stealing, the drug dealing.
Speaker 1: Those things are being done as a mode of survival.
Speaker 1: Am I saying it should happen, No, and that people
Speaker 1: shouldn't be held accountable. Of course not. But what I
Speaker 1: am saying is that you see, they're acting out of
Speaker 1: desperation because they are trying to exist in a capitalistic
Speaker 1: system that wants to grind them to a halt right,
Speaker 1: that wants to ensure that they stay on the bottom
Speaker 1: so that they can be the foundation for those that
Speaker 1: are on the top. That we don't provide jobs or resources,
Speaker 1: or education and housing, just the basics so that people
Speaker 1: can thrive. No, we push them into situations where they
Speaker 1: feel like they have no fucking options, and so the
Speaker 1: harm that they end up doing is generally to themselves,
Speaker 1: to their families. Right. But you see the harm that
Speaker 1: Steve and Donald Trump, Mark Meadows, Cash Patel, David Skia,
Speaker 1: like all of these Trumpers. You see the harm that
Speaker 1: they did, the embezzlement, the extortion, the cruelty in their
Speaker 1: policies that harmed the entire country, That harms our democracy,
Speaker 1: which is on the brink. But we have to work
Speaker 1: through certain procedures to make sure that we are following
Speaker 1: the law to make sure that the criminal Steve Bannon right,
Speaker 1: sees due process. What about everybody else's fucking due process.
Speaker 1: You know what we've been shown over the past five years,
Speaker 1: We've been shown just exactly how broken our democracy is,
Speaker 1: how unjust our criminal justice system is, and how unwilling
Speaker 1: our elected officials are to do any goddamn thing. Eight
Speaker 1: months of quote unquote negotiations were happening between Senator Corey
Speaker 1: Booker and Tim Scott, the Republican Eight months of bullshit
Speaker 1: performative efforts to do something about policing in this country.
Speaker 1: After we all collectively watched George Floyd have his life
Speaker 1: pressed out of him in broad fucking daylight, we thought
Speaker 1: this was going to be the tipping point. Certainly, this
Speaker 1: can't be acceptable and we must be able to move on.
Speaker 1: But what did the media do and what did police do? Oh?
Speaker 1: They decided to hang out Derek Chauvin as that bad apple.
Speaker 1: He doesn't represent us really because he was the one
Speaker 1: that was doing the trainings for other police officers. He
Speaker 1: was the one that was teaching them the ropes for
Speaker 1: close to twenty years of his work in the police department.
Speaker 1: So how is he not you? He is emblematic of
Speaker 1: the entirety of our justice system, of our policing system.
Speaker 1: But they wanted to hang him out to dry to
Speaker 1: assuage us right and lull us into the belief that,
Speaker 1: you know, it's just a few bad apples. But as
Speaker 1: I've said on this show and on others, it isn't
Speaker 1: a few bad apples. It's a few bad apples that
Speaker 1: are picked from a poisonous orchard that spans the entirety
Speaker 1: of this country from sea to shining sea. But our
Speaker 1: politicians given this momentous opportunity to actually do something to
Speaker 1: show the American people that all people right deserve due process,
Speaker 1: deserve compassion. I look all the time around New York
Speaker 1: whenever I see police officers and they see their cars
Speaker 1: rolling by, you know, their fucking motto about courtesy and
Speaker 1: protection and respect, that's what they have on the side
Speaker 1: of their cars. And it's laughable. It's almost an insult
Speaker 1: to those communities that they patrol with such cruelty, with
Speaker 1: such violence, with such content. But once again, our congressional
Speaker 1: leaders fail to do anything that would actually help people,
Speaker 1: that would make us believe that our tax dollars are
Speaker 1: going to better our lives, not just pad the pockets
Speaker 1: of their friends, the wealthy that want to do champagne
Speaker 1: toasts in front of their little vacations into space that
Speaker 1: are costing tens of millions of dollars, tens of millions
Speaker 1: of dollars that could be used, you know, to help
Speaker 1: our strengthen our social safety nets, to strengthen ourblic education system, healthcare,
Speaker 1: to fight against climate change. But we don't tax the
Speaker 1: wealthy in this country. We don't even prosecute the wealthy
Speaker 1: in this country when they do shady shit. Folks. The
Speaker 1: Pandora Papers, which the international consortium of journalists six hundred
Speaker 1: plush journalists around so many countries, collectively working together to
Speaker 1: expose just how unequal our world really is, how the
Speaker 1: rich and the wealthy are able to skirt the laws
Speaker 1: to work for them so that they don't have to
Speaker 1: pay taxes, so that they can have these offshore places
Speaker 1: that harbor all of their wealth. We are learning about this,
Speaker 1: and you would think that it would be breaking news.
Speaker 1: You would think that it would be a consistent story.
Speaker 1: It's not. It has disappeared because we just shrug off
Speaker 1: the that the rich and the wealthy and the powerful
Speaker 1: are going to get to do whatever the fuck they want.
Speaker 1: And oh, if I were like them, if I were
Speaker 1: in their shoes, i'd do the same thing. You see.
Speaker 1: But I wouldn't, and neither would most of you, because
Speaker 1: we function on conscience. We believe right in the collective.
Speaker 1: We're always told about pulling yourself up from your bootstraps,
Speaker 1: and the retort to that is, well, what if you
Speaker 1: don't have boots? It's always, oh, let's celebrate the uber
Speaker 1: wealthy because they did it. Alone. I remember seeing the
Speaker 1: youngest Kardashian, Kylie Jenner, on the cover of four Self
Speaker 1: Made Billionaire. How's that bitch? Self made? She came from
Speaker 1: a rich, white, wealthy family, right well connected, that had
Speaker 1: access to all of the advisors, all of the top
Speaker 1: business people, all of the media doors swing open? How
Speaker 1: is that self made? What did she work herself up from?
Speaker 1: But that's the fairy tale and the lie that we
Speaker 1: tell ourselves about the wealthy. Oh my god, they're to
Speaker 1: be celebrated. They're to be celebrated and revered for all
Speaker 1: of the things that they have done. Does anybody ever
Speaker 1: talk about the fucking hands up that they continue to
Speaker 1: get that they got from the jump. These aren't people
Speaker 1: that should be celebrated. Of course, you can do amazing
Speaker 1: things when you have a fucking amazing foundation and all
Speaker 1: the money in the world, or the right name and
Speaker 1: the money in the world. And then you want to
Speaker 1: turn around and give the rest of us tips on
Speaker 1: how to be successful, Go fuck yourself. I am so
Speaker 1: tired of those fucking stories from the uber wealthy and
Speaker 1: the well connected wanting to tell the peons that you
Speaker 1: too can become a self made millionaire. It just takes discipline. Oh,
Speaker 1: I wake up early in the morning, But we don't
Speaker 1: talk about the family that also wakes up early in
Speaker 1: the morning, the parents that are working two and three jobs,
Speaker 1: that are taking public at transportation across hundreds of miles
Speaker 1: because they can't afford a car to go from one
Speaker 1: job to the next, that both are paying minimum wage
Speaker 1: and combined are barely enough to get by. They don't
Speaker 1: talk about the fact that that parent, those people are
Speaker 1: doing the best that they can to also nurture their
Speaker 1: children in a broken public school system that is probably
Speaker 1: situated in a place that can already tell you that
Speaker 1: the life expectancy of their children is decades off from
Speaker 1: their wealthier counterparts across the tracks. We don't revere those
Speaker 1: people that are literally making something out of nothing every
Speaker 1: single day. No, we tell ourselves that the poor deserve
Speaker 1: to be poor, that they're just lazy, and if only
Speaker 1: they would take and adhere to the tips and tricks
Speaker 1: of the uber wealthy, then they too would have something.
Speaker 1: But they don't have the right mindset. It takes an
Speaker 1: extraordinary type of person to be able to wake up
Speaker 1: day in and day out, put a smile on your face,
Speaker 1: work service jobs that are poorly paid. People are largely
Speaker 1: disrespected and continue to toil in day and day out,
Speaker 1: just trying to put one foot in front of the other. That,
Speaker 1: to me, is your success story, the fact that they
Speaker 1: continue to march forward against a system, against a system
Speaker 1: that was not built for their success. Talk to me
Speaker 1: about the low income parents, the single mom that is
Speaker 1: able to get a degree against all odds, a degree
Speaker 1: that will most likely put them further into debt. But
Speaker 1: what choices do they have. America doesn't give many. So
Speaker 1: you get a degree, you put yourself into death because
Speaker 1: you want to provide better for your kids. We don't
Speaker 1: celebrate that. We celebrate those that were born with silver
Speaker 1: spoons in their mouths. We celebrate their connections and call
Speaker 1: them ambitious. You've been given everything. If you cannot succeed
Speaker 1: when literally the field has been cleared for you, then
Speaker 1: you are fucking pathetic. But those are not people to
Speaker 1: me that should be celebrated and cheered on. I don't
Speaker 1: want their advice. It is getting so difficult. It's becoming
Speaker 1: so difficult to be able to look for little streaks
Speaker 1: of hope. We have workers. At the end of last week,
Speaker 1: truck drivers that have decided to strike. We're seeing strikes
Speaker 1: pop up all across industry. While people are telling us, Oh,
Speaker 1: there's a worker's shortage, There isn't a worker's shortage, folks.
Speaker 1: There is a shortage of empathetic employers. There is a
Speaker 1: shortage of good quality jobs where you are not treated
Speaker 1: like trash, that are paying you a living wage, that
Speaker 1: are providing health benefits. And what we are seeing right
Speaker 1: now is workers say fuck you pay me. And I
Speaker 1: continue to say, I want to see strikes across industry.
Speaker 1: I want all workers to revolt until they are given
Speaker 1: live wages and not just fucking living wages. Why are
Speaker 1: we always going after the bare fucking minimum. Why aren't
Speaker 1: we setting up people so that they can thrive and
Speaker 1: see that that trickle down is actually what it is
Speaker 1: that we need in order to push forward. As one
Speaker 1: of the superpowers, one of the wealthiest nations in the world,
Speaker 1: we are as powerful as our weakest links, except we
Speaker 1: are purposefully creating breaks in the links because we just
Speaker 1: don't want to tell the truth that we only want
Speaker 1: white people to thrive, we only want their success. And
Speaker 1: then we gas like the funk out of everybody else
Speaker 1: and make it believe that the only reason why you
Speaker 1: don't have all of the things that you want is
Speaker 1: because of your own actions and not the actions and
Speaker 1: the policies that were created to ensure you're suffering. This
Speaker 1: should be a fucking wake up moment for us all.
Speaker 1: This should be an opportunity that Donald Trump and the
Speaker 1: Republicans greed and cruelty exposed all the broken pieces of America,
Speaker 1: all of the gaps that need to be filled, all
Speaker 1: of the laws that need to be fixed in order
Speaker 1: to have a thriving democracy, not just one that is
Speaker 1: doing the bare minimum. We need to demand more. And
Speaker 1: maybe that isn't with marches. Maybe it's with walkouts. Maybe
Speaker 1: we need to flip the script on those that are powerful,
Speaker 1: because the only reason why they have power and they
Speaker 1: have wealth is because of how they have squeezed the
Speaker 1: little people. How they have squeezed us of our economic viability,
Speaker 1: how they have squeezed us of our hope. We still
Speaker 1: do have power. We are the cogs in the machine
Speaker 1: that can grind the machine to a halt if we
Speaker 1: so choose as a collective our time. Dear friends, Oh
Speaker 1: it is on the horizon, I see it coming and
Speaker 1: I hope that you do too. Coming up next is
Speaker 1: my conversation with our friend Glenn Kirshner about the latest
Speaker 1: moves that the one six Commission is doing and whether
Speaker 1: or not we are going to see Steve Bannon in
Speaker 1: cuffs or Donald Trump in cuffs or Mark Meadows in
Speaker 1: cuffs any fucking time soon. Folks. You know that when
Speaker 1: I have the opportunity to be joined by our friend
Speaker 1: MSNBC legal analysts and the host of Justice Matters, Glenn Kirshner,
Speaker 1: I am always thrilled. Glenn. You have thirty years of
Speaker 1: federal prosecutorial skill underneath your belt, and any time that
Speaker 1: news breaks about the direction of Trump's acolytes, sycophants and
Speaker 1: subpoenas comes, I'm always I'm like a kid in a
Speaker 1: candy store, just waiting to dive in with you. Each
Speaker 1: week tell us breaking news as and I don't know
Speaker 1: why it's breaking, because we all knew how this was
Speaker 1: going to roll out, that Steve Bannon is bucking the subpoena,
Speaker 1: the request for documents, and his presence at a deposition
Speaker 1: for the one six Commission they head. The chair of
Speaker 1: that commission, Benny Thompson, had signaled before, but definitely said
Speaker 1: it this week. We are going after criminal charges. No
Speaker 1: one has the right to just turn their back on
Speaker 1: a congressional subpoena. What we are learning the American people
Speaker 1: is that the cops are not going to bang on
Speaker 1: Steve Bannon's door, are they. We're not going to see
Speaker 1: him in handcuffs, doing a purp walk and being brought
Speaker 1: into Congress and sat down in a seat. Tell us
Speaker 1: why that isn't going to happen. Well, in part, it's
Speaker 1: not happening because Congress is not getting as aggressive as
Speaker 1: it is legally entitled to get. So, yeah, breaking news.
Speaker 1: Steve Bannon's still a criminal, and Congress doesn't seem to
Speaker 1: be all that excited about holding him to account. Here's
Speaker 1: what's going on right now, and it is a positive
Speaker 1: development because I think I can say that at least
Speaker 1: the justice train is preparing to leave the station sometime soon. Right,
Speaker 1: Here's what's happening with Bannon. He just thumbed his nose
Speaker 1: at congressional subpoenas, both for documents and for testimony. We
Speaker 1: all knew he would. So Congress has three ways to
Speaker 1: deal with civil enforcement. Throw that one in the garbage can,
Speaker 1: because that's what enabled Don McGann to run out the
Speaker 1: clock from more than two years. Civil enforcement is dead
Speaker 1: as a vehicle to enforce congressional subpoenas because the courts
Speaker 1: allow themselves to be weaponized. The delay in the courts
Speaker 1: system that leaves us with two alternatives. Congress has thus
Speaker 1: far chosen one criminal contempt referral. Here's what that looks
Speaker 1: like on Tuesday. And I am told, I am not
Speaker 1: an expert on the rules of Congress, that they have
Speaker 1: to give three days advanced time before they set this vote.
Speaker 1: So it sounds like they're doing it promptly. They've set
Speaker 1: the vote for Tuesday. They will vote to hold him
Speaker 1: in contempt. That will get referred to the Department of Justice,
Speaker 1: specifically the United States Attorney for the District of Columbia.
Speaker 1: And here's how the law reads. The federal law says,
Speaker 1: once it is referred to the US Attorney for the
Speaker 1: District of Columbia, the US Attorney shall present it to
Speaker 1: the grand jury for its action. That action will look
Speaker 1: like criminal indictment of Steve Bannon for contempt of Congress.
Speaker 1: That here's the good news, Danielle, and don't let me
Speaker 1: forget to talk about the third vehicle they have inherent contempt,
Speaker 1: because I'm always excited to talk about inherent contempt and
Speaker 1: why Congress is not using it. But here's the good
Speaker 1: news about him being indicted, being criminally referred for contempt.
Speaker 1: Unlike Don McGann, Unlike Donald Trump when he's fighting the
Speaker 1: production of his tax returns in his financial documents, which
Speaker 1: which inspires endless litigation up and down the appellate courts,
Speaker 1: a defendant like Steve Bennon doesn't control the delay in
Speaker 1: his own criminal prosecution. So this is something that can
Speaker 1: actually happen promptly. And let me tell you what the
Speaker 1: law is. The Speedy Trial Act says, from the day
Speaker 1: we indict somebody, the prosecutors have seventy days to bring
Speaker 1: him to trial. Now, often the parties put into delay
Speaker 1: that and trials in federal court rarely proceed within seventy
Speaker 1: days of indictment. But that's what the law says, and
Speaker 1: prosecutors can embrace that law and they can promptly take
Speaker 1: Bannon to trial get him convicted. The punishment for one
Speaker 1: count of contempt of Congress is no less than thirty
Speaker 1: days in jail. No more than one year in jail. Now,
Speaker 1: what is the end goal here? Is it to really
Speaker 1: produce truthful testimony from Steve Bannon. Steve Bennon is never
Speaker 1: going to testify truthfully if it requires him to incriminate
Speaker 1: Donald Trump. So a couple of ways this could play out.
Speaker 1: If he's indicted, he could negotiate a plea that says, Okay,
Speaker 1: give me probation and tomorrow I will walk into Congress
Speaker 1: and testify truthfully against Donald Trump. Unlikely, but that is
Speaker 1: one of the potential outcomes of this kind of a
Speaker 1: criminal referral. But the other thing that you accomplish by
Speaker 1: referring Steve Bennon for prosecution and putting him in jail
Speaker 1: for up to a year is all of a sudden
Speaker 1: Cash Patel and Mark Meadows are like, uh, okay, I'll
Speaker 1: come in and testify, right because they're not likely to
Speaker 1: go to jail for a year the way Steve Bannon
Speaker 1: might be inclined to. So there are a couple of
Speaker 1: different advantages to going this route, even if those advantages
Speaker 1: don't really include getting truthful testimony before Congress out of
Speaker 1: a guy like Steve Bannon. Let me go back to
Speaker 1: inherent contempt because you asked a perfect question. We all
Speaker 1: knew this was coming. Why isn't somebody locking up Bannon,
Speaker 1: bringing him to the Select Committee and forcing him to testify?
Speaker 1: There is this lawful power of inherent contempt of Congress
Speaker 1: that enables Congress to do just that. Let me read
Speaker 1: what the Supreme Court said two hundred years ago about
Speaker 1: Congress's power of contempt. The Supreme Court emphasized the importance
Speaker 1: and value of Congress's contempt power in eighteen twenty one,
Speaker 1: in the case of Anderson versus Down, The Court said
Speaker 1: Congress's power to quote hold someone in contempt is essential
Speaker 1: to ensure that Congress is not exposed to every indignity
Speaker 1: that rudeness, caprice, or even conspiracy may make against it,
Speaker 1: And the courts in the nineteen twenties in the nineteen
Speaker 1: thirties affirmed that Congress's inherent power of contempt locking somebody
Speaker 1: up and forcing them to testify is lawful and constitutional.
Speaker 1: Why in the world is in Congress doing it? Danielle,
Speaker 1: If we look back at the end of our republic
Speaker 1: and we say, you know what, Congress never pulled the
Speaker 1: inherent contempt weapon out of its arsenal to try to
Speaker 1: use it to defend our democracy. How in the world
Speaker 1: is everybody going to feel about that? So I have said,
Speaker 1: proceed on two tracks. Criminal referral. Let's put Bannon in
Speaker 1: prison for a year for the crime he just committed,
Speaker 1: contempt of Congress and inherent contempt. Let's also try to
Speaker 1: put his butt in the chair right now, Congress, you
Speaker 1: have the tool, use it? What Glenn okay, let let's
Speaker 1: which I never do on this show, but I have
Speaker 1: a desire to today, Let's play Devil's advocate. What is what?
Speaker 1: What could possibly be the negative response? What do you
Speaker 1: think that the long game is for Congress as to
Speaker 1: why they wouldn't want to use inherent contempt? Because let's
Speaker 1: be clear, Democrats only work in reaction, right, They don't
Speaker 1: ever assert anything. That's their problem, and that's the difference
Speaker 1: between Democrats and Republicans. One of the many in this instance.
Speaker 1: I believe that they continually look at, well, what happens
Speaker 1: when we're not in power, and then Republicans are in power,
Speaker 1: and then they have the same ability, and then they
Speaker 1: use it against us. What is your response to the
Speaker 1: tepidness with which Democrats react to the ability to use
Speaker 1: all the power that the Constitution has granted them. Okay, so,
Speaker 1: first of all, the Republicans will crush the Democrats by
Speaker 1: any means necessary, lawful and unlawful, once they retake power.
Speaker 1: So I'm not persuaded by the argument that if we
Speaker 1: do something aggressive, lawful but aggressive, then the Republicans will
Speaker 1: do it to us. Guess what They're gonna do it
Speaker 1: and they're gonna do unlawful stuff. Do you yet we
Speaker 1: saw Trump and company do it, So please don't make
Speaker 1: that argument to me Democrats as a reason not to act.
Speaker 1: Here are the two reasons that I can see why
Speaker 1: they will not pull inherent contempt out of their toolbox.
Speaker 1: One is political, one is legal. The political reason is
Speaker 1: the one you just articulated. We would seem maybe not
Speaker 1: just we are worried that the Republicans will do the
Speaker 1: same to us. We're afraid of being perceived by our
Speaker 1: bass heavy handed, overreaching, you know, punishing people and not
Speaker 1: giving them their due process rights, to which I respond,
Speaker 1: that's the exact wrong calculation, because if you don't do
Speaker 1: everything you can to save your democracy, that's where you're
Speaker 1: going to alienate your base. Take it from me, Take
Speaker 1: it from you. Right, here's the legal that's the political right.
Speaker 1: The legal is people say, and there's been some stuff
Speaker 1: on the Twitter sphere about this. Well, it hasn't been
Speaker 1: used in a hundred years, since the nineteen thirties, and
Speaker 1: we don't really have the processes in place. So what
Speaker 1: we need to do is put together committees and task
Speaker 1: forces and study it and come up with proposals and
Speaker 1: try to adopt those proposals and maybe five years from
Speaker 1: now it will be pristine enough for us to try it.
Speaker 1: And otherwise there's too much litigative risk. Guess what you
Speaker 1: do all that for five years and you put if
Speaker 1: we still have a democracy and put all those process yeah, centers, yeah,
Speaker 1: and safeguards in place. There's still litigative risk because the
Speaker 1: first time you do it again after a hundred years
Speaker 1: of not doing it, it's going to get attacked in court.
Speaker 1: Let's do it now, the Supreme Court, Danielle has said,
Speaker 1: it's a lawful tool of Congress. Let's do it now.
Speaker 1: Let's take the litigative risk now. If not now, when
Speaker 1: is going to be a more important moment. Yeah, this
Speaker 1: litigative risk now, I predict we will win on the
Speaker 1: litigation risk front because we've got Supreme Court precedents saying
Speaker 1: we can do it. The timidity and the handwringing and
Speaker 1: the legal naval gazing will kill us, Danielle, and it's
Speaker 1: killing our democracy. And there's no argument, there's no persuasive
Speaker 1: argument that they should leave inherent contempt in their toolbox,
Speaker 1: not take it out, not dust it off, and not
Speaker 1: start to use it. No argument. That is it. For
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