Speaker 1: Good morning, peeps, and welcome to wika EPI Daily with
Speaker 1: Meet your Girl Danielle Moody once again recording from the
Speaker 1: Brooklyn Bunker. Folks, it is now the second week of
Speaker 1: January that we are entering into day ten of the
Speaker 1: new year, and like I reported at the end of
Speaker 1: last week or at least the middle of last week
Speaker 1: with our friend doctor Jonathan Metzel, the mainstream news has
Speaker 1: decided to start reporting on the same thing, which is
Speaker 1: the variant that we said last week was discovered in
Speaker 1: Greece referred to as what delta cron, which is the
Speaker 1: combo effect of the delta variant and omicron. Now, initially
Speaker 1: there was one case that was reported in Israel, is
Speaker 1: the same place that reported the first case of flu rona.
Speaker 1: Israel is also the place where they are beginning to
Speaker 1: administer the fourth booster shot, where many of the world,
Speaker 1: much of the world. You have to remember, as we
Speaker 1: are talking about booster shots and vaccine rollouts and all
Speaker 1: of these things, that Israel is on its fourth shot,
Speaker 1: where many parts of the world still haven't received their first.
Speaker 1: That is how imbalanced, how unjust the vaccine rollout has
Speaker 1: been around the world. I digress though, because here we
Speaker 1: are now just a couple of days pasted our conversation
Speaker 1: that we had with Jonathan where we brought up these
Speaker 1: two new words that I said that I did not
Speaker 1: want to learn, delta con and fleur rona. And now
Speaker 1: we have cases of fleur rona since that initial reporting
Speaker 1: that have been discovered in the United States. And now
Speaker 1: we have more cases of deltacron which has now been
Speaker 1: discovered in Greece on the island of Cyprus. Now why
Speaker 1: does this matter? Because the reality is that we are
Speaker 1: very far. If you're listening to all of the doctors
Speaker 1: for the last couple of weeks, as the beginning of
Speaker 1: this surge has come, and we are we don't even
Speaker 1: know where we are. I mean, that's the reality is that, folks.
Speaker 1: I gotta tell you, Like, first of all, I'm wearing
Speaker 1: no makeup today because I have a allergy that I
Speaker 1: have developed to my makeup. And maybe it's just COVID
Speaker 1: the fact that I haven't worn makeup in such a
Speaker 1: long time when we were in lockdown that now when
Speaker 1: I do, my skin starts to break out if I
Speaker 1: don't take it off immediately right after I put it on.
Speaker 1: Very odd. Nonetheless, why do I say all these things?
Speaker 1: Because I just have to take a pause as I'm
Speaker 1: talking about these two new variants, and some days, I
Speaker 1: got to tell you, some days feel more normal than others.
Speaker 1: And you know, I think that it's important to name
Speaker 1: these things because we all keep being forced, you know,
Speaker 1: by the virtue of work, by the virtue of capitalism,
Speaker 1: by the virtue of you know, the CDC that is
Speaker 1: not really about protecting our public health but really about
Speaker 1: getting people back in the workplace or making sure that
Speaker 1: they never leave. To really wrap our minds around what's
Speaker 1: happening right now and what what what the fuck is
Speaker 1: really happening. What's happening is that we are living in
Speaker 1: a global health pandemic that the world has not that
Speaker 1: our world governments have not gotten a fucking hold of
Speaker 1: that because of coming out of the gate and making
Speaker 1: this a political issue, whether it was attacking the Chinese
Speaker 1: like the Trump administration did, and whether or not the
Speaker 1: Chinese government is at fault for how soon they flag
Speaker 1: the initial alpha variant back in twenty twenty to the world.
Speaker 1: Who knows and at this point, who fucking cares? Right,
Speaker 1: because we have mutated, we have had so many other
Speaker 1: variants since then. And here we are at the beginning
Speaker 1: of December. We just learned about amicron. We are in
Speaker 1: week two, just beginning week two of twenty twenty two,
Speaker 1: and we are talking about not one, but two new variants.
Speaker 1: Now for the mainstream media, who is doing not the
Speaker 1: best fucking job of one keeping people's anxiety down and
Speaker 1: two weaving through the bullshit in a way that makes
Speaker 1: people feel like they can come to you for information.
Speaker 1: The fact is we are very fa are from COVID
Speaker 1: becoming endemic, meaning that more people will become infected, more
Speaker 1: people will sadly die right before this becomes like the
Speaker 1: common cold or the flu. Right. And the fact is
Speaker 1: what is keeping me up and the reason why I
Speaker 1: am back in the Brooklyn bunker, and I recognize this.
Speaker 1: I was having this conversation the other day with a
Speaker 1: friend of mine, and I said, New York is very
Speaker 1: different in terms of how New Yorkers, and I think,
Speaker 1: particularly people in the city, which are very different than
Speaker 1: the fucking people that I grew up with on Long Island. Right.
Speaker 1: So New York City was the epicenter in twenty twenty
Speaker 1: for COVID, Right, We're the epicenter for omicron, Right, We're
Speaker 1: the epicenter for everything by virtue of the millions of
Speaker 1: millions of people that live here in such a small space, right,
Speaker 1: So things that will come are going to come here
Speaker 1: because of our international and transit community as well as
Speaker 1: those you know, the cramped spaces in terms of like
Speaker 1: there's not a lot of landmasks and there's a lot
Speaker 1: of people, and so things are going to a communicable disease, right,
Speaker 1: is going to spread like fucking gangbusters in an area
Speaker 1: as densely populated as New York City. And so I
Speaker 1: say that to say that there is a deep post
Speaker 1: traumatic stress from twenty twenty of the early days of lockdown,
Speaker 1: when all you heard on the streets of New York
Speaker 1: City were sirens, were ambulances there. Every business was closed down,
Speaker 1: everything was shut down. All the iconic areas that you're
Speaker 1: used to seeing in movies and on television that are
Speaker 1: you know, runam up with tourists and New York as alike,
Speaker 1: were eerily quiet, right empty. And so I can always
Speaker 1: tell how things are trending with the virus by virtue
Speaker 1: of just being in New York over the summer right
Speaker 1: in spring and summer of twenty twenty one, there was
Speaker 1: this feeling we had become newly vaccinated. There was this
Speaker 1: feeling that life was beginning to return to the city,
Speaker 1: and I mean life had continued to churn. Right, There
Speaker 1: are millions of people that are here. There are thousands
Speaker 1: that left, right, The wealthy left, and they left for
Speaker 1: their summer homes or their winter homes and got rid
Speaker 1: of their New York City homes. And then there was
Speaker 1: this like small little bubble, and now right, rent is
Speaker 1: back skyrocketing, as well as mortgages and all of these things.
Speaker 1: But you can always tell how things are trending when
Speaker 1: I walk out of my apartment, when I'm walking around
Speaker 1: my neighborhood. In the spring and summer, there was this
Speaker 1: sense that we were going to be able to return
Speaker 1: to a new normal, right, a new abnormal where you
Speaker 1: could walk into a restaurant and now not only did
Speaker 1: you need to have reservations, but you also need to
Speaker 1: be able to show proof of vaccination, and that you
Speaker 1: were only going to be able to eat inside and
Speaker 1: go to the gym, and go get your haircut and
Speaker 1: go to certain places if in fact, you had proof
Speaker 1: of vaccination in other places obviously, like the supermarket, pharmacies
Speaker 1: and what have you. Doesn't matter, you're not sitting down
Speaker 1: at a table, opening up, taking off your mask and
Speaker 1: having droplets everywhere. But I had noticed that, you know,
Speaker 1: we had gotten to a place where New York City's
Speaker 1: vaccination rates were so high that folks felt like they
Speaker 1: could take off their mass when they were walking down
Speaker 1: the street and kind of like not scoot to the
Speaker 1: other side of the sidewalk, which is really fucking difficult
Speaker 1: to do in some very busy parts of the Burrows.
Speaker 1: But as as like this this surge as winter began
Speaker 1: to come, as the seasons began to change, and we
Speaker 1: went from summer into fall, and then in early winter,
Speaker 1: it was like I started to see people wearing their
Speaker 1: masks again. Outside. I started to see the outdoor dining
Speaker 1: places still really full, right, but then now starting to
Speaker 1: weed out one because it's colder, but because two people
Speaker 1: in New York are self are putting together a self
Speaker 1: imposed lockdown for the privilege that we're supposed to return
Speaker 1: to work or their jobs completely changed, and now they're
Speaker 1: just totally remote, right, Like they're just staying home and
Speaker 1: you're seeing as you're walking around. You know, the regular
Speaker 1: shops are open obviously, but like the restaurants aren't as full,
Speaker 1: and people are back to wearing their full masks on
Speaker 1: the street and giving each other space right as you're walking.
Speaker 1: That to me tells us this is far from being
Speaker 1: fucking endemic. Right now. We have these seasons of death
Speaker 1: in this country, and that's just something that is so
Speaker 1: mind boggling that for the past two years we've been
Speaker 1: turning on cable news and watching a death ticker. Just
Speaker 1: think about that for a fucking moment, right And the
Speaker 1: fact that it has become so normalized that we just
Speaker 1: talk about, well, fifteen hundred people died today or six
Speaker 1: hundred thousand people are infected today. The things that have
Speaker 1: become normalized in the last two years are so goddamn
Speaker 1: unsettling that there are some days and moments like this
Speaker 1: past weekend, where I just sit back and I'm like,
Speaker 1: what the fuck does the end look like? Right? Like,
Speaker 1: can we even begin to imagine what the end could
Speaker 1: possibly look like? When we are smack dab in the
Speaker 1: middle of an incredible surge where everybody wants to continue
Speaker 1: to tell us that you know, don't worry. The symptoms
Speaker 1: are mild and blah blah. Yet our hospitals are at
Speaker 1: a breaking point, some are breaking right. And now we
Speaker 1: have two new goddamn variants, Delta cron and flew RONA.
Speaker 1: And I'm just like, is this how we all go out? Like?
Speaker 1: It's not a comment, It's not Aliens right like it.
Speaker 1: It's not the movie The Day After Tomorrow when there's
Speaker 1: the flood and the storm and everything and it's you know,
Speaker 1: perfect chaos at one time? Is it? This? Is it
Speaker 1: that we're just all sitting around back, you know, self
Speaker 1: sheltered on pins and needles, waiting for them to make
Speaker 1: the announcement that oh, here's the super of super variants
Speaker 1: that now evades all the fucking vaccines, all of the boosters.
Speaker 1: You can't touch shit, you can't go outside, and like
Speaker 1: this is it? I just, you know, sometimes I really
Speaker 1: look around. I look around my own apartment, and I
Speaker 1: think about how much life has changed. I think about
Speaker 1: how normal it is now to you know, instead of
Speaker 1: make phone calls, you're on face time with people, right like, oh,
Speaker 1: let's just hop on a zoom And how having folks
Speaker 1: in your home much like you guys are right now
Speaker 1: in my living room has become the norm. I remember
Speaker 1: watching sci fi movies and seeing people. You know, we
Speaker 1: don't have the holograms, that's not popping up in our homes.
Speaker 1: But when you look at technology, when you look at
Speaker 1: the way that this pandemic has changed the way that
Speaker 1: we fundamentally relate with one another, right, Like when you
Speaker 1: can say, hey, friend, do you want to do a
Speaker 1: happy hour? And they're like ooh, virtual or in person?
Speaker 1: Like we were not saying that in twenty nineteen, twenty eighteen. Right,
Speaker 1: we move into the twenty twenties, into this new decade,
Speaker 1: and it is a new It's like one new crisis
Speaker 1: after the other. And I think sometime we're just trying
Speaker 1: our best to get by, to make do that it's
Speaker 1: even too much for us to allow our minds to
Speaker 1: think about how drastically fucking different everything is now, And
Speaker 1: I say take a pause because it's overwhelming. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm like, damn, today is January tenth, It is ten
Speaker 1: days into this new year, and we have two new variants?
Speaker 1: What the fuck is it going to look like in
Speaker 1: the spring? Now? The good news, right, the good news
Speaker 1: is this is that what I believe. And I'm not
Speaker 1: a doctor or a scientist, and I don't pretend to
Speaker 1: be one. I just pretend to be somebody that, like
Speaker 1: you know, analyzes the world and looks at it through
Speaker 1: a multiple of different perspectives. And what I am seeing,
Speaker 1: at least, what the last two years is showing us, right,
Speaker 1: is that we are going to have these seasons of
Speaker 1: death where life is going to feel somewhat renewed and
Speaker 1: refreshed and normal, right, And I use heavy quotations with that,
Speaker 1: and normal for a couple of months, right, roughly probably
Speaker 1: from April until you know, until the beginning of the
Speaker 1: Thanksgiving Christmas holiday mash up. So you'll have April, May, June, July, August, September, October,
Speaker 1: you'll have, right roughly like half the year that seems
Speaker 1: relatively normal. You'll go out to eat, you'll you know,
Speaker 1: eat outside, you'll see more people, and then we will
Speaker 1: have these seasons where for three to four months, for
Speaker 1: those of us who genuinely follow science and believe doctors
Speaker 1: and you know, and want to preserve as much as
Speaker 1: we can our own physical emotional health and wellbeing will
Speaker 1: probably self sequester for those months right where it's you're
Speaker 1: not going to go out, You're not going to go
Speaker 1: to the new restaurant and eat indoors. And it is
Speaker 1: fundamentally shifted how we engage, how we show up with people,
Speaker 1: how we create community with people, but how we engage
Speaker 1: on a day to day. And sometimes I'm just like,
Speaker 1: we need to just fucking take a pause, take a beat,
Speaker 1: and give ourselves credit for how adaptable we have been
Speaker 1: to fucking crazy this. It is nuts. I walk out
Speaker 1: of my apartment and I'm looking around and some days
Speaker 1: I'm like the security that I feel that there are
Speaker 1: people that at least live in my immediate community who
Speaker 1: were all massed up. And of course now the other
Speaker 1: thing too, is that all the masks have changed. Right
Speaker 1: where we all thought we were going to be cute,
Speaker 1: show parts of our personality, you know, try and add
Speaker 1: some you know, bit of flare to a situation that
Speaker 1: seems so dire. Well, now we're all just in K
Speaker 1: ninety five mass if in fact you can afford it
Speaker 1: or find them and they're not counterfeit. But it's just,
Speaker 1: you know, I want us to give ourselves credit for
Speaker 1: how much we are adapting to times that are so
Speaker 1: completely and totally out of our control, that we are
Speaker 1: still going to work right where there is no relief
Speaker 1: and mental health days and time to really just like gather,
Speaker 1: I saw this meme and this is what prompted today's
Speaker 1: show opening, you know, and it was like, you know,
Speaker 1: it's supposed to be funny, right, like lighthearted, and it
Speaker 1: was like, you know, the difference between you know, our
Speaker 1: two cells. It's like pre twenty twenty, I used to
Speaker 1: feel and this is the meme mashed up, but it's
Speaker 1: like I used to be able to go to work
Speaker 1: for you know, eight to nine hours, go out for
Speaker 1: drinks with friends, go to a work event, circle back
Speaker 1: to work the next the next day, do it all
Speaker 1: over again, have commitments on the weekends, like just we
Speaker 1: were moving right, we were doing things, and then they're
Speaker 1: like and me today, it's like a struggle just to
Speaker 1: get through, like just eight hours of work and you're
Speaker 1: working from home. And while like the meme in and
Speaker 1: of itself is supposed to be funny, like how much
Speaker 1: we were doing versus how much we can do. But
Speaker 1: what's lost in the in between of that and of
Speaker 1: that translation is the fact that the weight of everything
Speaker 1: has become so much right, Like we are on edge,
Speaker 1: and I don't think that we fully consciously are aware
Speaker 1: of what that anxiety and what that stress is doing
Speaker 1: to our bodies. Right. Like, sure people want to talk about, oh,
Speaker 1: the COVID nineteen, talking about like weight that they have
Speaker 1: put on and this, that and the other thing, and
Speaker 1: weight is like not even half of it. I'm talking
Speaker 1: about the emotional weight. I'm talking about some days not
Speaker 1: wanting to get out of bed, not wanting to get
Speaker 1: off of the couch, to go to the kitchen or
Speaker 1: to go into your office or your basement or wherever
Speaker 1: to go and do work, that it's so difficult to
Speaker 1: be able to function and focus on rudimentary task like
Speaker 1: everything is normal. Meanwhile, you're also glued to the headlines
Speaker 1: in Twitter to make sure that we didn't go to
Speaker 1: war today, to make sure that there isn't a new
Speaker 1: variant that you missed, or a CDC guideline that seems
Speaker 1: like bullshit, or like some far right attack or another
Speaker 1: person being killed that you video that is circulating, or
Speaker 1: some other disaster that is impending. It's all of the
Speaker 1: impending doom of it all that makes us feel like
Speaker 1: holy shit, just answering an email, clearing out an inbox, right,
Speaker 1: getting done with one or two tasks a week now
Speaker 1: feels like something we need to applaud, and frankly, we
Speaker 1: fucking should because if you were to go back in time,
Speaker 1: and let me tell you, I started watching this terrible
Speaker 1: show on Amazon Prime and maybe you all have finished
Speaker 1: it called Solos, and it's like a sigh by, you know,
Speaker 1: futuristic show where each of the characters and each of
Speaker 1: the actors it's just them for the entire episode. So
Speaker 1: think about the movie Castaway with Tom Hanks and it
Speaker 1: just being him and Wilson the fucking ball. This is
Speaker 1: a similar type thing, but it's like very meta. Anyway.
Speaker 1: I say that to say that in one of the
Speaker 1: episodes that Anne Hathaway was in, she was trying to
Speaker 1: jump to the future, right. She wanted to get out
Speaker 1: of the present situation of her life that had her
Speaker 1: mother dying and excruciating death, that had her just so
Speaker 1: stressed out and depressed and miserable, and so she just
Speaker 1: wanted to project literally come up with this coding and
Speaker 1: algorithm to get herself to the future so that this
Speaker 1: current reality she was existing in wouldn't be real that
Speaker 1: the alternate dimension her her in the future could fix
Speaker 1: her currently and that and all I kept thinking about
Speaker 1: to myself is that I have those moments. I have
Speaker 1: those moments nowadays where I am just like I want
Speaker 1: to be projected into the future, but the future just
Speaker 1: doesn't seem that bright. But I want to be projected
Speaker 1: into the ending of all of this madness. And what
Speaker 1: troubles me, folks, and I don't mean to start your
Speaker 1: week out like this, but what troubles me is that
Speaker 1: I don't know if this Sometimes things don't always get better,
Speaker 1: or sometimes better is not necessarily what we're hoping for,
Speaker 1: Like we're hoping for just blanket relief and going back
Speaker 1: to normal. And I don't think that we ever go
Speaker 1: back to pre COVID days, right Like I even think
Speaker 1: that even if things were done tomorrow, I think the scars,
Speaker 1: the emotional scars of what we have all been through,
Speaker 1: will persist, and we'll have forever changed. The way that
Speaker 1: we interact with each other, the way that we see
Speaker 1: each other, the way that we interact with work, our environment.
Speaker 1: I think it's forever changing, and it's changing so rapidly,
Speaker 1: And so I just offered that if you feel unstable
Speaker 1: some days, Like you feel goodish on a Monday, but
Speaker 1: by Friday you're like, what, Like, what is this I'm
Speaker 1: living in? Understand that you are not alone, that you know,
Speaker 1: sometimes I do feel like we are living inside some
Speaker 1: fucked up matrix right where it's like we're just all
Speaker 1: supposed to pretend that everything is kumbaya, that all is well,
Speaker 1: and that if you draw attention to the things that
Speaker 1: are at fault or that are crazy, then you're the
Speaker 1: one that's labeled. Right, Like, that's what the right is
Speaker 1: doing right now with their collective gaslight of the country.
Speaker 1: One six didn't happen. COVID is blown out of control,
Speaker 1: there's nothing wrong with the environment, the economy is solid,
Speaker 1: like all is well. Right, Meanwhile they're staging a fucking
Speaker 1: fascist authoritarian coup every single day, right. The stress is real.
Speaker 1: So I just say to you, you know, as I
Speaker 1: will remind myself to give yourself daily grace, meditate, prey, garden, walk, yoga,
Speaker 1: whatever it is that allows you in positive ways. Look,
Speaker 1: I love cocktails. Everybody who knows me knows that I
Speaker 1: am trying on a regular basis for that not to
Speaker 1: be my go to exhale, which is why I have
Speaker 1: a regular meditation practice, which is why I need you know.
Speaker 1: This week is starting me back on my daily exercise regimen,
Speaker 1: and just because it takes a lot these days to
Speaker 1: keep it all together, and so it's okay when we
Speaker 1: fall off, when we decide that we're not getting up
Speaker 1: that day, that is fine too. I just want folks
Speaker 1: to know that you are not alone in trying to
Speaker 1: make sense of insanity, and that they're just sometimes you
Speaker 1: just can't make sense of it. All you can do
Speaker 1: is do what you can do to keep yourself safe,
Speaker 1: those around you that you love safe and healthy, and
Speaker 1: that be the success of the day, of what the
Speaker 1: daily successes look like. I think that not only do
Speaker 1: we need to get rid of this idea that we're
Speaker 1: going to be able to quote go back to normal,
Speaker 1: but I also think that we need to get rid
Speaker 1: of these predefined ideals of what success looks like, because success,
Speaker 1: what success looked like for you in twenty nineteen, is
Speaker 1: not going to be the same thing that success looks
Speaker 1: like in twenty twenty two. And I think that if
Speaker 1: we're honest with ourselves and the people around us about that,
Speaker 1: then we'll be able to maneuver, be nimble in ways
Speaker 1: that help us to not only deal with this moment,
Speaker 1: but to find ways to thrive in it as well.
Speaker 1: Coming up next, folks, is my conversation with our good,
Speaker 1: good friend Glenn Kirshner, MSNBC legal analysts and the host
Speaker 1: of Justice Matters. We are going to delve into the
Speaker 1: current sentences that were released for some of the seven
Speaker 1: hundred plus insurrectionists that have been picked up Merritt Garland's
Speaker 1: speech and what Glenn thought about that and whether not
Speaker 1: this is signaling that the Justice Department actually has a
Speaker 1: spine and is going to do something and much much more. Folks,
Speaker 1: you know that I have been dying for my first
Speaker 1: conversation with our next guest in the new year, Len Kirshner,
Speaker 1: MSNBC analyst and the host of Justice Matters. Glenn, the
Speaker 1: only person that I wanted to talk to following a g.
Speaker 1: Merritt Garland's press conference on January fifth, was you. I
Speaker 1: have been dying to hear your thoughts. I tweeted mine.
Speaker 1: I have shared mine in many different ways. It's been
Speaker 1: how many months since we've heard from Merritt Garland and
Speaker 1: his Justice Department many and you know, we were anticipating
Speaker 1: I at least was anticipating some actual news. What were
Speaker 1: your thoughts on his presser, So, Danielle, Happy New Year.
Speaker 1: On the one hand, I think anything short of him
Speaker 1: parading Donald Trump across the stage and cuffs was going
Speaker 1: to feel like a little bit of a letdown. But
Speaker 1: there were three things that he said that I was
Speaker 1: really happy he did say. I was I was really
Speaker 1: concerned that if we out nothing more than we will
Speaker 1: follow the evidence in the law wherever it leads us.
Speaker 1: You know, that's like saying we will breathe in and
Speaker 1: then we will breathe out. Yet we know that. But
Speaker 1: here here are the three things that he said that
Speaker 1: I appreciate it. One, we will hold January six perpetrators
Speaker 1: accountable at any level, because thus far they've been pretty good.
Speaker 1: We can definitely talk about some of the lenient sentences,
Speaker 1: but they've been pretty good. Holding the folks at the
Speaker 1: lowest level, on the bottom rung of the criminal ladder,
Speaker 1: Donald Trump's foot soldiers of the insurrection. They've been holding
Speaker 1: them accountable by the hundreds, but they haven't held anybody
Speaker 1: accountable in the middle level or in the upper level
Speaker 1: of of the criminal ladder. So I'm glad we heard
Speaker 1: we will hold people accountable at any level. I'm also
Speaker 1: glad I heard that we will hold people accountable whether
Speaker 1: they were at the capitol that day or not, because
Speaker 1: we know some of the criminals, at least on the
Speaker 1: sort of middle rung of the criminal ladder, the Bannons,
Speaker 1: the Juliani's, they were enjoying the cushy environs of the
Speaker 1: Willard Hotel planning and plotting democracy's demise. They weren't at
Speaker 1: the Capitol on January sixth. We know that there were
Speaker 1: corrupt and treasonist lawyers like John Eastman and Jeffrey Clark
Speaker 1: who were not at the capitol, but they are just
Speaker 1: as responsible for the concerted effort, the conspiracy to try
Speaker 1: to overthrow our democracy. So the fact that he said,
Speaker 1: and this was a little bit of a show of
Speaker 1: the investigative cards, we're going to hold people accountable whether
Speaker 1: they were at the Capitol that day or not. And
Speaker 1: then the third thing that I thought he said that
Speaker 1: wasn't He didn't go as far as I would have liked.
Speaker 1: He used the w word watergate, and he didn't use
Speaker 1: it for the factual proposition that Nixon's Watergate is a
Speaker 1: lot like Trump's insurrection, and it is. I think the
Speaker 1: most important distinction is that Richard Nixon wasn't trying to
Speaker 1: bring democracy to an end and Donald Trump is. But
Speaker 1: there are certainly some parallels, right the burglars of the
Speaker 1: Watergate scandal were held accountable earlier than the folks who
Speaker 1: were higher up on the criminal food chain. There's a
Speaker 1: rough parallel there, the burglars of Watergate to the soldiers
Speaker 1: of the insurrection. But what he what he referred to
Speaker 1: Watergate as a vehicle to argue, is that we learned
Speaker 1: from the lessons of Watergate that there can be but
Speaker 1: one set of rules for the powerless and the power fault.
Speaker 1: And so I think those three things in combination in
Speaker 1: three different ways. He said, we will hold the powerful accountable.
Speaker 1: So I was happy to hear that. I would have
Speaker 1: liked to have heard some more concrete discussion of domestic terrorism,
Speaker 1: because that's what this was. I knew he wasn't gonna say.
Speaker 1: I predicted he wouldn't even utter Donald Trump's name, which
Speaker 1: of course he didn't, and he shouldn't divulge who he's
Speaker 1: indicting tomorrow who the grand jury is criminally investigating a
Speaker 1: thirty year prosecutor. I never talked about who I was
Speaker 1: investigating or who I intended to indict tomorrow, so I
Speaker 1: knew we wouldn't get any of that. But I think
Speaker 1: what we got from Merrick Garland two days ago, I
Speaker 1: think needs to be viewed in combination with what we
Speaker 1: got from Vice President Harris and President Biden yesterday, because
Speaker 1: I see some justice synergy going on here. And I'm
Speaker 1: telling you, when Vice President Harris opened by combining, by
Speaker 1: bundling together three dates, she said December seventh, nineteen forty one,
Speaker 1: September eleventh, two thousand and one, January sixth twenty twenty one,
Speaker 1: she didn't have to say what those three dates are.
Speaker 1: Those are three dates that will live in in to me.
Speaker 1: And she opened with that, and she set the right tone.
Speaker 1: And of course the dramatic difference is the first two
Speaker 1: Pearl Harbor and the Iffact on the Bingo, they were
Speaker 1: attacks from without by foreign enemies. The third, I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: is the most dangerous of all, attack from within, directed
Speaker 1: by a defeated president who was looking to unconstitutionally retain power.
Speaker 1: So I was thrilled. I know her comments were brief
Speaker 1: and it was something of an introduction of President Biden,
Speaker 1: but the fact that she started with that, she was
Speaker 1: breathing fire. And then Joe Biden stepped up and talked
Speaker 1: as forcefully about the insurrection as he could have spoken.
Speaker 1: And listen when the President of the United States, first
Speaker 1: of all, calls out a former president and just mf's
Speaker 1: him based on the evidence up and down right. But
Speaker 1: then he said, and I quote, this was an armed insurrection.
Speaker 1: You know, we've got something to handle armed insurrections because
Speaker 1: he quoted the crime in this big, ugly blue book
Speaker 1: of federal crimes, the United States Code. So when you
Speaker 1: take what Merrick Garland said two days ago, what Vice
Speaker 1: President Harris from President Biden said yesterday, you also view
Speaker 1: it through the lens of the House Select Committee, saying
Speaker 1: in recent days both Chairman Thompson and Vice Chair Cheney,
Speaker 1: we will be hearing, we expect to hear from the
Speaker 1: vice former Vice President Mike Pence, and we look forward
Speaker 1: to his cooperation and his team is already enthusiastically assisting us.
Speaker 1: I'm telling you it feels like there is justice synergy.
Speaker 1: I know I always see the glasses half full, and
Speaker 1: yet I'm always thirsty. I don't know what that means.
Speaker 1: I'm yeah, it means, it means something, you know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think we're headed in the right direction. I really did.
Speaker 1: You know, whenever we think about Watergate and we think
Speaker 1: about the fact that it was what was it, two
Speaker 1: hundred and eighteen days right until justice was kind of
Speaker 1: laid down, I still Glenn. I guess my frustration is
Speaker 1: when I thought about the Garland and Press there I was.
Speaker 1: I was under the impression that he was going to
Speaker 1: announce and we're going to have an independent council, and
Speaker 1: like this is and this investigation, you know is, you know,
Speaker 1: these are the steps that we are taking, this is
Speaker 1: what we have done. I thought that we would get
Speaker 1: more of a layout of what has happened. I appreciated
Speaker 1: the fact that he's talking about the fifteen terabytes of information,
Speaker 1: talking about the thousands of people that have called in
Speaker 1: with tips, talking about the hundreds of people that have
Speaker 1: been arrested, but they've all really been low level sentencing.
Speaker 1: I think, what is the longest sentence that has been
Speaker 1: laid out right now? Is it been for the QAnon
Speaker 1: shaman right for five or six years, then they probably
Speaker 1: won't serve that entire thing. And I just you know,
Speaker 1: the question that I have for you is when Garland said,
Speaker 1: initial charges are always lower, right, and then we build
Speaker 1: from there. And I think to myself, how do you
Speaker 1: not send a message though, with these initial with these
Speaker 1: initial accounts that you broke into the halls of democracy.
Speaker 1: I was happy when Biden said they defecated in these halls, right,
Speaker 1: like I needed him to bring forth the visual in
Speaker 1: the way that it was. It was necessary, in the
Speaker 1: way that the New York Times had laid it out
Speaker 1: earlier in the week, with all of the injuries, both emotional, physical,
Speaker 1: the brokenness, the suicides, I wanted them to lay that out.
Speaker 1: But I said, why wouldn't you send a direct message
Speaker 1: you broke into these halls the minimum sentence that we're
Speaker 1: giving out for everyone ten years? How was that not?
Speaker 1: And and again it's always to me and I have
Speaker 1: to I look through everything with the lens that America
Speaker 1: looks through everything, which is a racial one. I know,
Speaker 1: and we know we've talked about it. If these were
Speaker 1: black people, if these were Latin X people, if these
Speaker 1: were Muslim Americans. Would we be waiting around for a
Speaker 1: whole year for these like sentences to be to be
Speaker 1: put down, or saying that we need to dot more
Speaker 1: eyes and cross more teas. But we have never treated
Speaker 1: our minority brothers and sisters fairly equitably on par with
Speaker 1: white America. We never have, and I'm not going to
Speaker 1: say we never will because that is our fight, right,
Speaker 1: That is not a destination. That is a daily fight
Speaker 1: that you and I and others will be fighting every
Speaker 1: day for the rest of our lives. Then our children
Speaker 1: will be fighting it, then our grandchildren will be fighting it.
Speaker 1: Let's not fool ourselves. We'll make progress. The arc of
Speaker 1: the moral universe continues to bend in the right direction.
Speaker 1: I think there's been a kink in that arc that
Speaker 1: we are trying desperately to straighten out, so it will
Speaker 1: continue to bend in the right direction. But I have
Speaker 1: faith that it will continue to bend in the right direction.
Speaker 1: But you're absolutely right. There are two standards. There are
Speaker 1: two systems of justice in policing, in the court system,
Speaker 1: in politics, in the business community. And that is our
Speaker 1: fight and it will always remain our fight. But when
Speaker 1: Merrick Garland said and I'm with you, because, yes, the
Speaker 1: way the Department of Justice investigates is from the bottom up.
Speaker 1: It's the way I did it when I was investigating
Speaker 1: gang cases, rico cases, conspiracy cases. The problem is, this
Speaker 1: circumstance is unlike every run of the mill gang or
Speaker 1: rico investigation, and it calls for different action, dramatic action,
Speaker 1: action that will both immediately protect our society and our
Speaker 1: democracy in a way that you know reflects the danger
Speaker 1: of what we just went through and what we're still facing.
Speaker 1: So that's the part that upsets me. Don't tell me
Speaker 1: you're treating this like every other investigation. We investigate from
Speaker 1: the ground up. We go after the smaller fish. We've
Speaker 1: flipped them against the medium fish. We try to get
Speaker 1: the big fish. All bets should be off, right, I
Speaker 1: believe right, you should make a dang statement, lock up
Speaker 1: at least the medium level ficient, bid to flip them,
Speaker 1: do something different because in every other investigation, democracy's future
Speaker 1: is not hanging in the balance. So and I am
Speaker 1: a believe me. I've been a vocal critic of Merrick
Speaker 1: Arland and the Department of Justice. He got the Aging
Speaker 1: Carold decision wrong. You know, there are any number of
Speaker 1: things that they have done that I disagree with. I
Speaker 1: don't like the pace that they've set. I don't like
Speaker 1: the fact that they're treating this the way they treat
Speaker 1: every other investigation. Now, I do appreciate that he said,
Speaker 1: we will investigate, we will hold people accountable at every level,
Speaker 1: whether there or not one standard of rules. And he
Speaker 1: also said something that actually is really important. He said,
Speaker 1: we will do it all consistent with the Constitution and
Speaker 1: the civil rights of all people. That and I take
Speaker 1: him at his word when he says that, because regardless
Speaker 1: of how aggressively or how unconventionally you go after the insurrection,
Speaker 1: you still need to honor the Constitution in the civil
Speaker 1: rights of all people. But you know what you're talking
Speaker 1: to talk, how about we start walking the walk. You know,
Speaker 1: Donald Trump was supposed to give a speech on January sixth,
Speaker 1: and you know, because of Republicans pushback, Steve Bannon gave
Speaker 1: it instead. And Donald Trump is going to give this
Speaker 1: speech whatever he was going to say on January fifteenth,
Speaker 1: as if the dates actually matter. But the fact to
Speaker 1: me is that Steve Bannon is free. He's still walking
Speaker 1: around and able to give speeches when We know what
Speaker 1: he was a part of, and I don't even consider
Speaker 1: him a medium level person, and he's still walking around free.
Speaker 1: Peter Navarro was on MSNBC literally saying that there were
Speaker 1: one hundred Republicans that were on board. How is it
Speaker 1: that these people are still presiding over our country, still
Speaker 1: voting or not voting, obstructing policy, and are not in cuffs.
Speaker 1: Somewhere we have Democratic members that right now are retiring
Speaker 1: in droves, and one of the foundational reasons for that
Speaker 1: they are scared to work alongside their colleagues. There are
Speaker 1: still metal detectors up, not for possible insurrection and threat
Speaker 1: from the outside, but from threat from the inside. So
Speaker 1: this has already fundamentally changed the way that our government works,
Speaker 1: and yet these people are I would imagine that if
Speaker 1: I'm a member of Congress and I was scared for
Speaker 1: my life on the floor of the House that day,
Speaker 1: and these members are still walking around free, and I
Speaker 1: know that they were on calls, I know that they
Speaker 1: were messaging. What message does that say to them about
Speaker 1: their safety? So absent accountability by way of criminal charges
Speaker 1: for the middle level players and the top dogs of
Speaker 1: the insurrection, absent accountability our democracy doesn't have a chance.
Speaker 1: With accountability, our democracy has a chance. It's still not
Speaker 1: a foregone conclusion that we survived this, even once we
Speaker 1: start locking up the Navarros, the Bannons, the Juliani's, the
Speaker 1: Don Don Trump seniors, the Don Trump juniors, the Eastman's,
Speaker 1: the Clarks, all of them, the Mark Meadows. They I
Speaker 1: do believe they will be charged in one big old conspiracy.
Speaker 1: And I think that's what the Department of Justice is
Speaker 1: working toward. Watergate took as much as two and a
Speaker 1: half years to finally convict the top rung criminals, and
Speaker 1: of course, horrifically, Richard Nixon got away with it because
Speaker 1: of an ill advised presidential pardon, which set the stage
Speaker 1: for Donald Trump. Don't don't think for a minute Donald
Speaker 1: Trump didn't look at Richard Nixon and say, whoa, whoa, whoa.
Speaker 1: If I can get myself elected, I can commit all
Speaker 1: the crime I want, and while in office, I get
Speaker 1: to hold up the presidency as a shield against prosecution
Speaker 1: because my underlings at the Department of Justice say that
Speaker 1: you can't indict a sitting criminal president. And then once
Speaker 1: I'm out, I'm probably not going to get prosecuted. And
Speaker 1: if I am I'm going to get pardoned, where do
Speaker 1: I sign up? I mean, I hope we've learned that
Speaker 1: lesson from Watergate, and I think if we didn't learn it,
Speaker 1: and shame on us, we don't deserve to continue forward.
Speaker 1: We don't. You know, we have but a handful of months.
Speaker 1: And this is the last question I want to ask you.
Speaker 1: We have a handful of months until midterms. Midterms is
Speaker 1: in November. Right. We already have members of the House
Speaker 1: Republican Party saying that they are going to pursue impeachment
Speaker 1: of Joe Biden. Right, this is a this is a
Speaker 1: tip for taft that they're doing. We're going to go
Speaker 1: after you. It is not looking good that Democrats will
Speaker 1: hold on to the Senate or the House, right And
Speaker 1: I know that again, I know that the Department of
Speaker 1: Justice is supposed to be separate. But how do you
Speaker 1: foresee a way for them to continue to power through
Speaker 1: with Republicans who are most certainly, most certainly going to
Speaker 1: be hauling Merrick Garland, hauling members of the Department of
Speaker 1: Justice in as soon as they're able to get the
Speaker 1: gavels back, and asking them to just to slow down,
Speaker 1: come up the process and make it look like a
Speaker 1: partisan side show. How do they navigate through that? So
Speaker 1: articles of impeachment and I hate to even articulate this
Speaker 1: as a foregone conclusion, but articles of impeachment will be
Speaker 1: drafted up by a Republican controlled House for Joe Biden,
Speaker 1: for Merrick Garland. They will start issuing frivolous obstructionists sub
Speaker 1: poenis to everybody at the Department of Justice, as you say,
Speaker 1: trying to come up the works. They will hold draconian
Speaker 1: oversight hearings, They will defund DOJ to the extent it
Speaker 1: will help them interfere corruptly in ongoing criminal investigations and prosecutions.
Speaker 1: That's why criminal charges need to come now, in the
Speaker 1: coming weeks or in the next couple of months. I
Speaker 1: believe Merrick Garland, and I hear rumblings. I mean that
Speaker 1: statement that he made was also to assuage the concerns
Speaker 1: of many, many men, any of the people inside the
Speaker 1: Department of Justice who want to start charging corrupt high
Speaker 1: government and former high government officials. I believe it's going
Speaker 1: to happen, and if it doesn't happen, we're done. If
Speaker 1: it does happen. I think that will go a long
Speaker 1: way to tamping down the idiots who run around continuing
Speaker 1: to spout off the big life because they've seen nobody's
Speaker 1: been held accountable for it. It will change the narrative,
Speaker 1: and it will change it dramatically once indictments start to drop.
Speaker 1: I can't see how they don't ask the Grand Jury
Speaker 1: to return the mother of all conspiracy indictments against Donald
Speaker 1: Trump and everybody who tried to assist him in overthrowing
Speaker 1: our government, in overturning the results of the presidential election.
Speaker 1: Those indictments have to come. That is not a guarantee
Speaker 1: that we survive, but boy, it goes a long way
Speaker 1: to helping us survive. I think it does as well.
Speaker 1: And Glenn, I just I appreciate you. I'm so happy
Speaker 1: to have you back in this New Years just a
Speaker 1: few days in to twenty twenty two, and I think
Speaker 1: that we are in for a ride, and I appreciate
Speaker 1: you always being one of our guides on that ride.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, See you next week. That is
Speaker 1: it for me. Dear friends today on this woke a
Speaker 1: f daily, please do give yourselves grace, give yourselves peace,
Speaker 1: find joy each and every single day as always. Power
Speaker 1: to the people and to all the people. Power, get
Speaker 1: woke and stay woke as fuck.