Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,
Speaker 1: where we discussed the top political headlines with some of
Speaker 1: today's best minds, and Ray Dalyio says, the AI bubble
Speaker 1: is reaching great depression territory. We have such a great
Speaker 1: show for you today, the Jim Agosta Shows. Jim Agosta
Speaker 1: stops by to talk about Republican Congressman Max Miller as
Speaker 1: the albatross hanging over the GOP's head. Then we'll talk
Speaker 1: to former Justice Department employee and the head of the
Speaker 1: Justice Connection, Stacy Young, about how dangerous it is to
Speaker 1: confirm Todd Blanche as Attorney General.
Speaker 2: But first the news, Smiley, we are having the Senate
Speaker 2: move ahead on a bill that would avert a government
Speaker 2: shut down. And I think it's a very interesting thing here.
Speaker 2: The base seems to say shut it the fuck down,
Speaker 2: and as always, leadership is not doing with the base wants.
Speaker 2: What are you seeing here? I'm kind of perplexed, if
Speaker 2: I'm being.
Speaker 1: Honest, Scatin emboldened Jesse Cannon because his party. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm just.
Speaker 2: Kidding my party. What's my party? Well, you know by
Speaker 2: wig of the party.
Speaker 1: Listen, I'm teasing you. I'm teasing you you're a wing
Speaker 1: of the party. Okay, the wide bobs, that's right. Here's
Speaker 1: the deal. This is another reconciliation to keep the government open,
Speaker 1: another stop gap spending bill. That's because Republicans cannot get
Speaker 1: their shit together to legislate, and so we're just stop
Speaker 1: gap to stop gap to stop gap. You'll remember that
Speaker 1: Republicans control the House, the Senate, and the Presidency and
Speaker 1: they shut down the government they could not agree on
Speaker 1: DHS and they had the longest government shut down ever
Speaker 1: for DHS. And they did that because they are ideologically
Speaker 1: completely at sea. They have one thing that they all
Speaker 1: believe in, and that's Fieldy to dealer leader. So we
Speaker 1: got a quote here from the leader of the Democrats,
Speaker 1: the Senate Minority leader, that is very much like the
Speaker 1: kind of thing we see from him. For months, Democrats
Speaker 1: have been clear, we want to fund the government. I
Speaker 1: don't know why advert a shutdown again? Why and pass
Speaker 1: strong bipartisan appropriations bills that improve people's lives. Do you
Speaker 1: think that this administration wants to improve people's lives?
Speaker 3: I do not.
Speaker 1: Right, Democrats want the base wants them to obstruct, and
Speaker 1: here we are. So Senator Patty Murray of Washington, the
Speaker 1: top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, said, enabling this rule,
Speaker 1: and basically the rule is that would allow the administration
Speaker 1: to cancel grants based on the recipients if they do
Speaker 1: not conform to President Trump's political views. I swear to god,
Speaker 1: this is something are trying to do. Okay, they want
Speaker 1: to cancel grants. These are grants like you know, the
Speaker 1: grant to study the Osprey is Donald Trump doesn't like ospres,
Speaker 1: so it's canceled a grant to study. These are like,
Speaker 1: this is your tax dollars going to science, except science
Speaker 1: Trump doesn't like, then he can cancel it. So enabling
Speaker 1: this rule, according to Patty Murray, would give Trump the
Speaker 1: green light to take even more federal funding hostage. Of course,
Speaker 1: she's right. So it is just a complete fucking disaster.
Speaker 1: This crew cannot fucking shoot straight. And here we are
Speaker 1: in just nightmare fuel scenario, and there we go. The
Speaker 1: legislation they do is insane and bad. Legislation they don't
Speaker 1: do is insane and bad. It is a just a
Speaker 1: complete fuckery over there. And they're all trying to just
Speaker 1: pass the stop gap so they can go home for August.
Speaker 2: So we're in that news cycle where we keep finding
Speaker 2: out more and more that the DNC is a shit
Speaker 2: show for lack of a better word, And there's this
Speaker 2: unreleased chapter from the autopsy report that took them forever
Speaker 2: to come out, and it has people.
Speaker 1: Going, what So if you or I wrote the autopsy
Speaker 1: of the twenty twenty four cycle, it might say a
Speaker 1: lot of the things that we're in this missing chapter.
Speaker 1: So basically I want to pause for a minute and
Speaker 1: just explain how we got here. Ken Martin, through Paul
Speaker 1: rivera under the bus. Paul rivera longtime Democratic consultant, is
Speaker 1: hired by the DNC to write this autopsy. It is
Speaker 1: not released by the DNC. By Ken Martin, he decides
Speaker 1: not to release it. He gives a number of reasons
Speaker 1: why never a good sign to give a number of
Speaker 1: reasons why. Now the guy who wrote the autopsy is
Speaker 1: pissed because he looks terrible and he basically, remember Ken
Speaker 1: Martin said the autopsy wasn't well written, it was I
Speaker 1: am maturish. So the guy who has been being maligned
Speaker 1: now is ready. He's coming back and he's defending himself,
Speaker 1: And like, I just want to pause and say all
Speaker 1: of this could have been avoided, right. You could have
Speaker 1: released the autopsy. You could have released some of the autopsy.
Speaker 1: You could have Bill barred it and just done a
Speaker 1: top line on the autopsy because nobody would have read
Speaker 1: it anyway.
Speaker 2: I like that verb.
Speaker 1: I like that, right. You could Bill bar it like
Speaker 1: he did with the Muller report, where he was like,
Speaker 1: don't read any of this, it's all boring, and then
Speaker 1: people didn't because why would they totally exonerated? Nothing to
Speaker 1: see here? But here's what they did. Ken Martin said,
Speaker 1: you know, he hit it. And then according to Rivera,
Speaker 1: who wrote this, he said that there was a missing chapter,
Speaker 1: and so this missing chapter was never released. Now Ken
Speaker 1: Martin says, no, there is no missing chapter. Paul Rivera
Speaker 1: said that he printed out the chapter twice basically, and
Speaker 1: the second time Ken Martin said he hadn't seen it.
Speaker 1: So we printed it out and brought it to him.
Speaker 1: So we have a real he said, he said here, right,
Speaker 1: and again, this is like the worst case scenario for this, right,
Speaker 1: because now we're in like news cycle four hundred and
Speaker 1: thirty five about this, We are in more bad news
Speaker 1: cycles about the DNC, right, Like, here's what you want.
Speaker 1: Here are the news cycles about the DNC you want
Speaker 1: to have. Wow they raised a lot of money. Wow
Speaker 1: they're good on television. Wow, that guy's really handsome. Here
Speaker 1: are the news cycles we have on the DNC. What
Speaker 1: huh are you kidding?
Speaker 2: You got? I think most of my reactions are you
Speaker 2: got to be fucking kidding me. This fucking guy is
Speaker 2: so incompetent it is unbelievable.
Speaker 1: This is all just so bad. Anyway. The point is,
Speaker 1: Rivera comes up and says, basically the missing chapter which
Speaker 1: now has its own news cycle, right, not just we
Speaker 1: don't just have like one news cycle on the autopsy.
Speaker 1: We have now a news cycle on the missing chapter.
Speaker 1: The Missing Chapter basically says the stuff that you and
Speaker 1: I have been saying this whole time, which is, there
Speaker 1: are consultants making millions of dollars on Democratic candidates and
Speaker 1: they are all absolutely just you know, taking advantage, and
Speaker 1: they're not open to new ideas. And so the everyone
Speaker 1: who is you know, taking a check from people like
Speaker 1: Ken Martin is not giving these people good ideas and
Speaker 1: is not telling candidates to do the smart stuff. So
Speaker 1: Nate Silver, who is annoying but also very smart, said
Speaker 1: if you actually read the omitted chapter, good on the
Speaker 1: New York Times for including it. It consists largely of
Speaker 1: boilerplate and cliches and mentions Biden's decision to run only
Speaker 1: in passing. I just want to say two other things
Speaker 1: about this. If the autopsy is bad, it's an indictment
Speaker 1: of Ken Martin. If the autopsy is not bad, but
Speaker 1: Ken Martin didn't release it, it is an indictment of
Speaker 1: Ken Martin. This is one of these things where every
Speaker 1: road runs to Ken Martin should resign, right And even
Speaker 1: the fact that you and I are having this conversation
Speaker 1: is a sign that Ken Martin should resign, because the
Speaker 1: reality is, if Ben Wickler were the DNC chair, we
Speaker 1: would not be sitting here having a conversation about an
Speaker 1: autopsy that was paid for with DNC dollars and that
Speaker 1: never saw the light of day.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So, in an interesting new thing. One of the most
Speaker 2: disgusting things, among many disgusting things of this era, is
Speaker 2: the Trump administration try to revoke Haitian refugee status. Now
Speaker 2: they're putting ankle monitors on them.
Speaker 1: Yesterday in Delaney Hall in Newark, New Jersey, another immigrant died.
Speaker 1: Did they die or they murdered, they were put in
Speaker 1: a place where they were not given the kind of
Speaker 1: medical care that they needed to stay alive. In my mind,
Speaker 1: you could certainly say that this administration has been responsible
Speaker 1: now for the deaths of many immigrants. This is something
Speaker 1: else that they're doing to immigrants that is meant to dehumanize,
Speaker 1: to make people scared, to make people feel as if
Speaker 1: they're going to be I mean, this is just so basically,
Speaker 1: this is targeting Haitian immigrants who have protected status. So
Speaker 1: you'll remember the Supreme Court recently said that immigrants who
Speaker 1: have protected status no longer have it. That's it. It
Speaker 1: was like the dread scot of immigrants. Basically that the
Speaker 1: protections they had they no longer have and that was it.
Speaker 1: With the snap of a finger. They this great experiment,
Speaker 1: this great country that you and I both had grandparents
Speaker 1: or actually great grandparents or maybe great great grandparents who
Speaker 1: came to this country because this was a place where
Speaker 1: you could get a better life. Well you can't anymore.
Speaker 1: And if you're a Haitian asylum immigrant, you are fucked
Speaker 1: because your protected status is gone. And so what they're
Speaker 1: doing before they defort these people, which obviously they are
Speaker 1: planning to is to give them angle monitors and instructions
Speaker 1: not to travel more than seventy five miles from their home.
Speaker 1: Fifteen thousand immigrants protected Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio. They
Speaker 1: pay taxes, they take care of all people, They do
Speaker 1: jobs that a lot of American citizens do not want
Speaker 1: to do, and now they are being bullied and treated
Speaker 1: like criminals. Why are they being treated like criminals? His
Speaker 1: administration is filled with racists. That's it. I mean, you
Speaker 1: could say other stuff, but the truth is the races.
Speaker 2: That's that's the root of the tree. So it's also
Speaker 2: filled with people who think war adventuring is real fun. Apparently,
Speaker 2: according to a lot of reports, we are planning to
Speaker 2: invade fucking Cuba. But then there's this other report from
Speaker 2: Reuters that says US used virtually all long range precision
Speaker 2: missiles during the Iran War. Great stuff, people, great stuff.
Speaker 1: The worst part about this whole story the Ukrainians have
Speaker 1: these really cheap drones that they said they would help
Speaker 1: us use, and we were like, no, now we're using
Speaker 1: our million dollar missiles. No, no, no, million dollar, five million dollars,
Speaker 1: ten million dollar missiles and so we did, and now
Speaker 1: they're gone. And we've seen a lot of reporting about
Speaker 1: the munitions problem everywhere. So I do think this is
Speaker 1: like an under reported story of the mission of the
Speaker 1: missiles and how this administration has just completely burned all
Speaker 1: of these missiles that we desperately need. I mean, we
Speaker 1: actually don't need them and we shouldn't go into Cuba,
Speaker 1: and the whole thing is completely insane. By the way,
Speaker 1: I just want to point out President of Venezuela and
Speaker 1: his wife still in a New York jail, right, Yvonne,
Speaker 1: were still going, right, we were. Donald Trump said again
Speaker 1: that we have a deal and at lowered gas prices,
Speaker 1: but we all know that the Iranian said we don't
Speaker 1: have a deal. So I don't know who you trust
Speaker 1: on that one. And then I mean, it's just like
Speaker 1: it's such an insane, insane, insane way to go. I
Speaker 1: am absolutely, just completely I mean, I don't even want
Speaker 1: to say shocked is not the right word. It's just
Speaker 1: exactly what you think it's going to be here. Also,
Speaker 1: the Trump administration still making noise about Greenland.
Speaker 2: Yep, yep, real, real, great stuff.
Speaker 1: Jim Acosta is the author of the Substack the Jim
Speaker 1: Acosta Show and the author of the New York Times
Speaker 1: bestseller The Enemy of the People. A Dangerous time to
Speaker 1: tell the Truth in America, Jim Acosta, I.
Speaker 3: Molly, good to see you.
Speaker 1: Good to see you. We have to start by talking
Speaker 1: about Texas Republican Senator John Cornyan and his assessment of
Speaker 1: Donald Trump. Basically, my man says, there's nothing we could
Speaker 1: do to reign in the president.
Speaker 4: I mean John Bardy, Yeah, yeah, I mean, well, you
Speaker 4: could have voted against Todd Blanche you could have done that,
Speaker 4: but you didn't do that, and we never really thought
Speaker 4: you were going to do that. I don't for all
Speaker 4: the people out there who held out hope for John
Speaker 4: Cornyn in a profile encourage you know, Yeah, this is
Speaker 4: the tiniest violin playing for you, whatever that expression is. No,
Speaker 4: I think that, you know, it doesn't get more pathetic
Speaker 4: these days than Republican senators twisting themselves into pretzels, trying
Speaker 4: to simultaneously look like their own human being with their
Speaker 4: own souls still in their bodies, while also bowing down
Speaker 4: to Donald Trump every chance that they get.
Speaker 1: It is.
Speaker 4: It is one of life's great mysteries, and they're all
Speaker 4: going to go in the Hall of Shame. Years from now,
Speaker 4: we're all going to look back at these clips and say, yes,
Speaker 4: you could have done something. There were things you could
Speaker 4: have done to reign and Donald Trump, and you just
Speaker 4: never did any of them because you're a coward. You're
Speaker 4: an absolute fucking coward. And you know how many of
Speaker 4: those Republican senators are are there in the Senate, pretty
Speaker 4: much all of them at this point. There are no
Speaker 4: Mitt Romney's, There are no John mccains. Where have you gone,
Speaker 4: Joe DiMaggio, etc.
Speaker 3: Etc.
Speaker 1: There are no Mitt romney's, there are no John McCain's.
Speaker 1: But there are Max Millers. And there are Max Miller's
Speaker 1: and Bernie Moreno's and Bertie Moreno, Republican senator from Ohio.
Speaker 1: He is he won the shared Brown seat, which shared
Speaker 1: may actually win back the cycle share Brown, champion of workers' rights,
Speaker 1: Bernie Moreno, champion of car dealerships. But he also is
Speaker 1: perhaps on the right side of what has become one
Speaker 1: of the most I think upsetting. I mean what I
Speaker 1: read about the daughter today, divorce is going. Max Miller,
Speaker 1: an Ohio congressman. He was married to Bertie Moreno's daughter,
Speaker 1: and this has devolved into a lot of public fighting.
Speaker 1: But basically the allegations are that morena, are that Max
Speaker 1: Miller was violent with the wife, was violent with the child,
Speaker 1: what harassed her, just every bad thing you could think.
Speaker 4: Of, exactly, And oh, by the way, I mean yes,
Speaker 4: and we should say all allegations, but oh, by the way,
Speaker 4: Max Miller has faced these allegations before. The former White
Speaker 4: House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham under Trump one point zero,
Speaker 4: has made similar allegations.
Speaker 3: And you know, we're at the point.
Speaker 4: Where people like Eric Swawell and Graham Plattner would have
Speaker 4: already been booted out of politics and they would already
Speaker 4: be gone, and we would already had several new cycles
Speaker 4: since those departures. But we're still waiting for Max Miller
Speaker 4: to leave the scene. And he's hanging on by his fingernails.
Speaker 4: And apparently Donald Trump is even himself has told him
Speaker 4: it's not looking good for you, despite the fact that
Speaker 4: he went in front of the cameras and said, I still.
Speaker 3: Kind of like this guy.
Speaker 4: Because Donald Trump always stands with the accused, not the accuser.
Speaker 1: That's why, But why but why?
Speaker 3: Why? Is that?
Speaker 1: Gosh GOLLI It's also a case of like, these are
Speaker 1: people who have abandoned the moral high ground. Right, Donald
Speaker 1: Trump has multiple allegations of sexual misconduct and abuse, multiple allegations.
Speaker 1: He's been adjudicated by e. G. And Carol and had
Speaker 1: to pay her five million dollars. So this is not
Speaker 1: like a controvert, you know, these are truths that Republican
Speaker 1: voters have decided do not matter to them. And so
Speaker 1: when Donald Trump goes to Max Miller, he says, what
Speaker 1: the only thing that he can say being that he
Speaker 1: is got he is so abandoned the moral high ground.
Speaker 1: He says, your polling is bad and you may not
Speaker 1: be able to win.
Speaker 3: That's right, and that's all they care about.
Speaker 4: And really, at this point, I mean, you know, do
Speaker 4: they really expect to hang on to the House of Representatives?
Speaker 4: I guess if you're you know, inside Donald Trump's brain,
Speaker 4: which is a scary place, and he's thinking, Wow, if
Speaker 4: I cheat just just enough to hang on to the
Speaker 4: House of Represents, it is that maybe this one seat
Speaker 4: does matter. This is a very disturbing picture that we're
Speaker 4: painting here. But I mean, Max Miller, he should no
Speaker 4: longer be in the House of Representatives. And but the
Speaker 4: only reason why he's in this position right now where
Speaker 4: he's about to be shoved out is because he's becoming
Speaker 4: a political liability because he because because it may damage
Speaker 4: the rest of the party and they don't want that
Speaker 4: that kind of a that kind of a guy on
Speaker 4: the ballot when I guess, you know, especially in a
Speaker 4: place like Ohio where Shared Brown is going to be
Speaker 4: on the ballot, the governor's race and Amy actin you know,
Speaker 4: vivik Ramswami is not looking that hot in terms of
Speaker 4: and so to see state, you know, Democrats winning statewide
Speaker 4: office in Ohio, when is the last time we saw that.
Speaker 4: That's been a very long time. It's been many moons
Speaker 4: since that occurred, and so I can't I can certainly
Speaker 4: see why they're trying to push Max Miller to the side,
Speaker 4: but my goodness, think about how long it's taking them
Speaker 4: to do that and contrast that with where Democrats have
Speaker 4: been for what the last year and a half.
Speaker 1: I also want to add, because I think it's important.
Speaker 1: The only reason we're hearing about these allegations, the only
Speaker 1: reason they're being taken so seriously, is because there's an
Speaker 1: affluent woman who is the daughter of a powerful man. Yes,
Speaker 1: I mean Stephanie Grifchin Grisham worked in the Trump White
Speaker 1: House and she barely could get these allegations out. They
Speaker 1: ended up both signing NDAs and there was some kind
Speaker 1: of something happened there that we don't really know, but
Speaker 1: it's a really important point. It is very hard for
Speaker 1: women to come forward. It is very hard for these
Speaker 1: things to be taken seriously. And what Max Miller is
Speaker 1: doing is a lot. He's engaging in a lot of
Speaker 1: the things that we see when women come forward. You know,
Speaker 1: he said, well, I cooked her dinner. She let me
Speaker 1: cook her dinner. She wouldn't have let me do that
Speaker 1: had I abused her. Like these are textbook exactly right.
Speaker 3: And where is Bernie Marino on this?
Speaker 4: I mean, he's now finally starting to say something about
Speaker 4: this congressman who's been abusive towards allegedly abusive towards his daughter, Like,
Speaker 4: I mean, are you kidding me? Like it's taken you
Speaker 4: this long to say this? Did you have to get
Speaker 4: permission to say this? It's rather pathetic? And you know
Speaker 4: he had salty your language for doctor Fauci at a
Speaker 4: fucking congressional hearing than he is for his for his
Speaker 4: own son in law who has been allegedly extremely abusive
Speaker 4: towards not only your daughter but your granddaughter. Like, dude,
Speaker 4: I mean, where is your soul? How does this make
Speaker 4: you a man? I mean, honestly, dude, Like, you know,
Speaker 4: please go stand in front of the mirror and do
Speaker 4: some deep thinking.
Speaker 3: My goodness.
Speaker 1: And Moreno, did not come forward until after Donald Trump
Speaker 1: said it was okay, because yeah, Donald Trump. He doesn't
Speaker 1: come forward until Donald Trump calls Max Miller, which is
Speaker 1: a really good example of why this is still very
Speaker 1: much the party of Donald Trump. The other Ohio Senator
Speaker 1: John Hustad has not, yeah a.
Speaker 3: Pen sounding very pathetic about this.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and they're all waiting for the deer leader to
Speaker 4: give them the nod. When the deer leader gives them
Speaker 4: the nod, then they can act like human beings again.
Speaker 4: And it's really it's kind of astonishing. And I you know,
Speaker 4: you would think that there we never reached the bottom,
Speaker 4: and there is no worst with Donald Trump, as Barry
Speaker 4: Trump likes to say, But my god, I mean, when
Speaker 4: it comes to allegations of domestic violence of this nature
Speaker 4: and people still can't find their souls and be actual
Speaker 4: human beings. We must be in Washington. We're not in
Speaker 4: Kansas anymore.
Speaker 1: I'm going to read you just a little reporting of
Speaker 1: what Bernie Marino said to reporters. This girl is crying
Speaker 1: at night because she can't sleep without her little blue bunny.
Speaker 1: And his answer is, I'm just not going to give
Speaker 1: it to you. So finally, yesterday he lets the blue
Speaker 1: bunny go to the girl. This is completely depraved, but
Speaker 1: he doesn't come out and tell this story until the
Speaker 1: day after Donald Trump calls Max.
Speaker 4: Miller exactly yeah, And I uh, there's there's like a
Speaker 4: fatal attraction quality to this, you know, with Max Miller,
Speaker 4: you know, he he this guy, you know, just seems
Speaker 4: to me to be, you know, one of the not
Speaker 4: exhibit A, but exhibit I don't know, the of men
Speaker 4: from MAGA operating with two sets of rules in American society.
Speaker 4: And if this had been a Democrat, this, this person what,
Speaker 4: he would.
Speaker 3: Already be gone.
Speaker 4: Yeah, But because they all work for Donald Trump, they
Speaker 4: they have to wait for Don Corleone to give them
Speaker 4: the nod. And it's it's absolutely disgraceful. And I again,
Speaker 4: I don't know how I'm a father. I have a daughter,
Speaker 4: I don't know what it is with Bernie Marino right now. Like, dude,
Speaker 4: if this were my son in law, I think the
Speaker 4: Senate is not that far away from the House.
Speaker 3: They would have to get that.
Speaker 4: They would have to get Max Miller around the clock protection,
Speaker 4: if you remindrant in law.
Speaker 1: And it is, but it does show very much that
Speaker 1: Trump still controls the party, which speaks to this idea
Speaker 1: when we look at John Cornan saying he can't do anything.
Speaker 1: Part of it is that these Republicans in Congress have
Speaker 1: given up their power. Part of it is that these
Speaker 1: Republicans in Congress don't really want to have the power
Speaker 1: to stop him.
Speaker 4: No, it's almost as though they've they've forgotten how to
Speaker 4: act like human beings. They've they have forgotten you know,
Speaker 4: what it's like to operate with a functioning spine. Yeah,
Speaker 4: and you know the party is you know, the party
Speaker 4: is Donald Trump, and Donald Trump is the party. I
Speaker 4: think that, you know, and you know, you could talk
Speaker 4: about the Michigan Senate race. You know where these numbers
Speaker 4: break down. You know, Larry Sabadeau was pointing out just
Speaker 4: the other day that you know, not only is the
Speaker 4: House really gone for the Republicans. The Senate is in
Speaker 4: play too, and the Senate is in play whether or
Speaker 4: not whatever happens in Michigan, the Senate is still in
Speaker 4: play for the Democrats. And you know, when we're talking
Speaker 4: about Shared Brown returning to the Senate, I mean, this
Speaker 4: is the we're just seeing like the little tip of
Speaker 4: the top of the of the title wave that is coming.
Speaker 4: And you know why, for the life of me, they're
Speaker 4: not having more serious conversations inside the Republican Party about this.
Speaker 4: I saw another story that said that Donald Trump has
Speaker 4: been admitting to Republicans that things aren't looking good right now.
Speaker 4: No kidding, really is that you think that's the case
Speaker 4: when you're when you're you know, painting gilded horses or
Speaker 4: whatever it is Washington, you're the Lincoln Memorial and you're
Speaker 4: failed reflecting full project while everybody else is getting the shaft. Yeah,
Speaker 4: things might be a little bleak right now. Politically speaking, it.
Speaker 1: Is also pretty incredible to look at this moment and
Speaker 1: to see like Trump still is true thing that his
Speaker 1: polls are good. So right, he said, I saw the
Speaker 1: real polls and they're good. So I guess he's seeing
Speaker 1: maga Republicans in Alabama still support him. I mean, and
Speaker 1: I think it's worth like Trump continues to have this
Speaker 1: unreality problem, which is pretty striking. So yesterday Judge box
Speaker 1: of wine, Janine Piro is called in Donald Trump is
Speaker 1: mad about the reflecting pool. You know, Judge Janine doesn't.
Speaker 1: She can only do what she can do with reality.
Speaker 4: It's true, no, and listen, I mean, this takes us
Speaker 4: back to sort of the post January six days, when
Speaker 4: there was this distinction between what the Trump people could
Speaker 4: say in front of the cameras on TV and on
Speaker 4: cable networks and lie about the election, but when they
Speaker 4: go into court, they can't lie as much because there
Speaker 4: would be consequences legally for themselves, essentially losing their law
Speaker 4: licenses and so on.
Speaker 3: And I think Judge Denin.
Speaker 4: Piro said, you know, I'd rather have my box of
Speaker 4: wine and my law license as opposed to just my
Speaker 4: box of wine. I think maybe that's what happened there.
Speaker 4: But the other thing too, Mally, And I don't know.
Speaker 4: I've just started to think about this, you know how
Speaker 4: you and I and many others have had this you know,
Speaker 4: conversation about there's Earth one and then there's Earth two
Speaker 4: and Earth one is the normal Earth, and Earth two
Speaker 4: is the Donald Trump Earth, where lies are truth and
Speaker 4: truth are lies. I wonder now if there's an Earth
Speaker 4: three and Earth three is. We don't know what the
Speaker 4: fuck to do as a country with the president who
Speaker 4: is in such cognitive decline that he can't really formulate
Speaker 4: a sentence, an intelligent sentence anymore. It's that capacity is
Speaker 4: gone now. And just yesterday in the Oval Office, he
Speaker 4: was going from one thing to the next on a rant,
Speaker 4: and he was he couldn't say eighty six forty seven,
Speaker 4: so he was saying things like eighty seventy and so
Speaker 4: he just like, so, I don't know, I almost feel
Speaker 4: like we've been moved.
Speaker 3: From Earth two to Earth three.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and we and as a country, we don't know
Speaker 4: what to do about that, or I mean, I think
Speaker 4: many of us know what to do about it. We
Speaker 4: have a Republican party that simply won't do it. We
Speaker 4: have the John Cornyn Republican Party, right, And I.
Speaker 1: Also think, look, you know, there was a lot of
Speaker 1: reporting on the state of Joe Biden, eighty one year
Speaker 1: old Joe Biden, that he was not sharp, that he was,
Speaker 1: and then there was that unbelievably bad debate performance. Okay,
Speaker 1: I got it. You know, he decided not to run
Speaker 1: again the poll showed he wasn't going to win. Yeah,
Speaker 1: all right, Donald Trump, eighty years old making decisions that
Speaker 1: Joe Biden, even on his worst day, would never be
Speaker 1: of making, right like numerous form wars. Imagine. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, still talking about Greenland and how he's going
Speaker 1: to go for Greenland. I mean, this is the kind
Speaker 1: of stuff that any other president, even if it were
Speaker 1: someone who was sharp as attack, would be in a
Speaker 1: lot of trouble for Yeah.
Speaker 4: I mean, you can't just write one book about this.
Speaker 4: It would have to be many books. It would have
Speaker 4: to be like a trilogy. At this point of Donald Trump,
Speaker 4: you know, going off the deep end, and you know,
Speaker 4: to me, I just think that Joe Biden was one thing.
Speaker 4: Donald Trump is having one of these episodes where you know,
Speaker 4: where he's basically saying, we killed Medicare. He's doing that
Speaker 4: just about every day now, and he's almost doing it
Speaker 4: multiple times a day, and in the way and this
Speaker 4: is what I mean about Earth three and the way
Speaker 4: that he's worn us down over the years with truth
Speaker 4: being lies and lies being truth and so on, and
Speaker 4: people feel like that's a fire that's one fire hose,
Speaker 4: the fire hose of lies. Now we're getting the fire
Speaker 4: hose of dementia, and we don't know what to do
Speaker 4: with the fire hose of dementia. And that's a totally
Speaker 4: different that's a horse of a different feather. And I
Speaker 4: don't know, you know until I mean, you know, he
Speaker 4: thinks that he can win the Iran war in the
Speaker 4: way that he wins his golf tournaments at Bedminster where
Speaker 4: the caddy dumps he the ball out of his post.
Speaker 1: He just wanted, gimmy, just win his thirty fourth or some.
Speaker 4: Crazy number he did, I know. And it reminds me
Speaker 4: of Bill Murray, Candy Shack, you know Cinderella story, you know,
Speaker 4: coming out of nowhere, the groundskeeper, you know.
Speaker 3: Hits the golf It's a miracle, he was.
Speaker 4: I'm not doing the line right, but no, but I
Speaker 4: think that, you know, he's wishing that the caddy that
Speaker 4: Pete Hegseth would dump a golf ball out of his
Speaker 4: pocket so some way he could win the war in Iran.
Speaker 4: And there have been stories like they're they're looking for ideas,
Speaker 4: they're looking for new thinking outside the box ideas on
Speaker 4: how to win the war to Iran, and apparently Reuters
Speaker 4: was reporting that we've depleted our missile capacity, much of
Speaker 4: our long range missile capacity or something along those lines.
Speaker 3: And I mean, it's this is a fuck up.
Speaker 4: This is a big, old, you know, industrial sized, Donald
Speaker 4: Trump sized fuck ups.
Speaker 1: Who could have seen that the man who bankrupted all
Speaker 1: the casinos would be just so terrible at being president,
Speaker 1: even though the last time he was president he killed
Speaker 1: lots of his supporters by telling them not to wear masks.
Speaker 4: And I think that's why he's been focused on, like
Speaker 4: building a helipad and putting new grass in at the
Speaker 4: White House and changing the columns and things like that.
Speaker 3: Maybe it's dawn on him. He's also bad.
Speaker 4: At the big things, like maybe running a pandemic is
Speaker 4: just not his thing. Well, mag winning awards just not
Speaker 4: his thing.
Speaker 1: And Maggie Haberman said that when she was in the
Speaker 1: White House, all he was interested in was the real
Speaker 1: estate and that's it.
Speaker 3: And but he's not even good at that. He's not.
Speaker 3: He's basically and Molly.
Speaker 4: You know this being a New Yorker, he's good at
Speaker 4: slapping his name on shit.
Speaker 3: He's good at marketing.
Speaker 4: Things to people that have disposable amounts of money, and
Speaker 4: not so disposable amounts of money, as it turns out
Speaker 4: in many cases like crypto, and but that his specialty
Speaker 4: has always been being sister and being a guy who
Speaker 4: pulls a fast one, and that just ain't good enough.
Speaker 4: And why were we learning this lesson all over again
Speaker 4: a second time round. I have no idea, but we're
Speaker 4: getting that. In addition to somebody who is really in
Speaker 4: the sunset in the twilight of his twilight zone days,
Speaker 4: it seems to be.
Speaker 1: Yes in the twilight of his twilight zone days, Jim Acosta.
Speaker 3: There you go.
Speaker 1: Tacy Young is the founder of the Justice Connection. Welcome
Speaker 1: to Fast Politics. Stacy, Hi, who are you? I'm good?
Speaker 1: Can you explain to us what you do, what your
Speaker 1: organization is, and how you got there? Sure?
Speaker 5: So, I was at the Justice Department as a lawyer
Speaker 5: for almost twenty years. I resigned shortly after the inauguration
Speaker 5: to launch and organizations to support the OJ employees. That
Speaker 5: was the second Trump inauguration, Right, Brat, you had seen
Speaker 5: the writing on the wall and you knew things were
Speaker 5: going to get rough. Yes, I am not a cheery,
Speaker 5: optimistic person in the best of days. And I took
Speaker 5: what Trump was saying on the campaign trail and during
Speaker 5: the transition very seriously and his stated intentions to attack
Speaker 5: the federal workforce. And I knew DOJ employees would be
Speaker 5: particularly vulnerable because there was only one agency that investigated
Speaker 5: and convicted him, So I knew it was going to
Speaker 5: be a real bloodbath. And I looked around and tried
Speaker 5: to find kind of organizations that were gearing up to
Speaker 5: support federal employees, especially a DJ, and I just didn't
Speaker 5: see any. So I ran an organization inside DOJ for
Speaker 5: years to support employees. And I thought. I felt like
Speaker 5: I was going to be a target in particular, and
Speaker 5: I knew that many others would be targets. So I thought,
Speaker 5: I'm going to leave and try to start an organization myself.
Speaker 1: Did those people need your protection?
Speaker 5: Unfortunately I was very prescient. My worst predictions have come
Speaker 5: to fruition, and they have absolutely needed protection, and everybody
Speaker 5: can protect them. Like one of the things I did
Speaker 5: about a week before I left the department was they
Speaker 5: wrote not Been in the New York Times calling on
Speaker 5: all Americans to support DOJ employees and that was kind
Speaker 5: of a call to action, and launching the Justice Connection
Speaker 5: was an answer to that call. So, you know, we
Speaker 5: have provided the support that we heard from them that
Speaker 5: they needed. We launched a probone illegal network. We have
Speaker 5: over two hundred and fifty lawyers who are now representing
Speaker 5: them when they need legal representation, if they're under investigation
Speaker 5: or getting fired, or need ethics advice. We have a
Speaker 5: mental health support network because as Russell voche said he
Speaker 5: was going to put federal employees in trauma. We've an
Speaker 5: employment support network for employees who get fired or just
Speaker 5: need to leave. We provide media trainings so people who
Speaker 5: do leave can start speaking out, and we speak at ourselves.
Speaker 5: You know, we've launched a number of huge advocacy campaigns.
Speaker 5: We've been in national media outlets over three hundred times.
Speaker 5: At this point, we've become kind of the voice of
Speaker 5: the career DOJ workforce.
Speaker 1: Now we are here and Todd Blanche he wants a promotion.
Speaker 1: Tell us why you don't think Todd blanch should have
Speaker 1: that promotion and just specifically why.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, from day one he has made it
Speaker 5: clear that his client is the President and not the
Speaker 5: United States. I mean, as DOJ lawyers all know, you know,
Speaker 5: we would walk into court and say, my name is
Speaker 5: Stacy Young. I represent the United States. Todd Blanche represents
Speaker 5: the President, and that attitude infuses everything he does. It
Speaker 5: infuses the IRS agreement he entered into, It infuses the
Speaker 5: slush fund, It infuses his erasure of accountability for January
Speaker 5: sixth defendants. It infuses his vindictive prosecutions, It infuses the
Speaker 5: fact that he has pushed out almost twenty thousand DOJ
Speaker 5: career employees, and it infuses every court order he violates,
Speaker 5: every judge he attacks, and every way he has assaulted
Speaker 5: the rule of law. This is unprecedented at the Department.
Speaker 5: I've never seen anything like this, and the rule of
Speaker 5: law frankly can't survive if the primary institution enforcing it
Speaker 5: has been corrupted.
Speaker 1: Can you give us an example of something that a
Speaker 1: normal AG would do versus something that Tom Blanche has done. So,
Speaker 1: a normal Attorney General would ensure that prosecutions are brought
Speaker 1: against individuals because they break the law, and because the
Speaker 1: laws that they break in the way that they break
Speaker 1: them is a priority for the Department to pursue. A
Speaker 1: normal AG would not pick up the phone, when the
Speaker 1: president calls and say, Okay, I am going to.
Speaker 5: Investigate and then prosecute this enemy.
Speaker 1: You have so give us an example of who he's
Speaker 1: done that with. He's done that with Jim Comey now
Speaker 1: at least twice. He's done that with Letitia James. He's
Speaker 1: done that with John Brennan and the Southern Poverty Law
Speaker 1: Center and Jack Smith, and the list goes on and on.
Speaker 1: When the president is able to, especially frankly unhinged president
Speaker 1: like this one, when a president is able to use
Speaker 1: the Department as a sword and a shield for that matter,
Speaker 1: that means that none of us are safe.
Speaker 5: That means that you can be a good citizen and
Speaker 5: follow the law, and if you speak out against this
Speaker 5: president you can still be prosecuted. That is not a
Speaker 5: system in which the rule of law is working, and
Speaker 5: that's a system in which we should all be very scared.
Speaker 1: Republican senators like John Cornyan have said there's nothing they
Speaker 1: can do to reign in the president. They're voting a
Speaker 1: two committee. There's nothing they could do. But since you
Speaker 1: know the law, what could they do if they wanted
Speaker 1: to do it? What could these United States senators do? Well?
Speaker 5: As a starting point. They could vote against Todd Blanche.
Speaker 5: You know, some of the statements we've heard coming from
Speaker 5: John Cornan in the last day or two are nonsensical,
Speaker 5: where he's a, well, you know, I got this slush
Speaker 5: fund in IRS agreement adjusted a little bit. That's all
Speaker 5: I can do. No, what you can do is not
Speaker 5: vote for the guy who has been responsible for so
Speaker 5: much corruption and so many affronts to the rule of law.
Speaker 5: You don't need to vote for him. But in addition
Speaker 5: to that, they can start issuing subpoenas to Justice Department officials.
Speaker 5: They can still start highlighting these abuses. They can have hearings,
Speaker 5: they can put their foot down and exercise the oversight
Speaker 5: responsibilities that they have.
Speaker 1: So you're saying they could subpoena the assistant of Todd
Speaker 1: Blanche and find out when he called when he put
Speaker 1: through a call to Donald Trump. The assistant to Todd
Speaker 1: Blanche could say, you know, we put through a call
Speaker 1: from the White House, and then right afterwards Todd Blanch
Speaker 1: asked me to do I mean, right, isn't there documentation
Speaker 1: for all this stuff?
Speaker 5: Yeah? There sure is, And they could absolutely issue subpoenas
Speaker 5: to get that information and they are refusing to do that. Now,
Speaker 5: of course Donald Trump could pardon anyone who might be
Speaker 5: at risk of perjury, but you know, let.
Speaker 1: Him do it.
Speaker 5: Do it anyway, Do everything you possibly can. It is
Speaker 5: supposed to be a coequal branch of government. Use the
Speaker 5: power you have to reign in a renegade justice department.
Speaker 1: You could do hearings, you could do subpoenas, you could
Speaker 1: make a case to show the American people what to
Speaker 1: what we all know Todd Blanche is doing what's been
Speaker 1: reported to have Todd Blanche doing. But in a hearing,
Speaker 1: we will have people like actually up there being like, no, no,
Speaker 1: this is what he did. Why do you think Republicans
Speaker 1: aren't doing this?
Speaker 5: Because they're showing the same fields due to the president
Speaker 5: that Todd blanches. And it's pathetic and it's dangerous, and
Speaker 5: they refuse to acknowledge what they all know, which is
Speaker 5: what happened. Is happening, is appalling. It's making us less safe,
Speaker 5: it is making our rights more vulnerable. It's going to
Speaker 5: make our elections less secure, it's going to make our
Speaker 5: economy less strong. The damage that's being done and the
Speaker 5: risks they're creating really can't be overstated, and like you said,
Speaker 5: they should be having hearings every single day. We recently
Speaker 5: worked with Senator Booker's office to put on a shadow
Speaker 5: hearing where we had people talk about the Epstein files,
Speaker 5: about illegal terminations of career employees, of the slush fund,
Speaker 5: of the IRS agreement. It was a really powerful hearing.
Speaker 5: Our communications director Peter Carr, who Todd Blanche fired directly
Speaker 5: because he was the spokesperson for the Jack Smith team.
Speaker 5: He testified about his termination and what it means that
Speaker 5: DOJ lost his decades of institutional knowledge. This stuff is
Speaker 5: just being ignored by Congress. It's not just that they're
Speaker 5: destroying institutional norms and implementing completely horrific priority. They're breaking laws,
Speaker 5: and if Congress doesn't care about the laws that it passed,
Speaker 5: they're going to continue doing it.
Speaker 1: There are options here for hearings, but they are also
Speaker 1: there's stuff here that's happening like the DOJ just because
Speaker 1: the DOJ they just control the federal courts, they don't
Speaker 1: control the state courts. So if people are breaking the law.
Speaker 1: For example, here's a good example, New Mexico is trying
Speaker 1: to get these unredacted Epstein files so that they can
Speaker 1: do an investigation in Tasarro Ranch. So far the DOJ
Speaker 1: has not released them. What could New Mexico do to
Speaker 1: get those files?
Speaker 5: I mean, you know, New Mexico can go to court
Speaker 5: and the court can issue orders and those orders are enforceable.
Speaker 5: In addition, the New Mexico state bar con sanction attorneys
Speaker 5: who violate state bar.
Speaker 1: Rules even if they work for the DOJ.
Speaker 5: Sure, oh, absolutely so. DOJ lawyers are absolutely bound by
Speaker 5: state bar rules, and I should mention on that point.
Speaker 5: This Department of Justice proposed a regulation that would mean
Speaker 5: that state bars cannot sanction DOJ lawyers. I mean, think
Speaker 5: about what that means. That is creating a special exception
Speaker 5: for DOJ lawyers to violate ethics rules. Why why would
Speaker 5: you do that? If? I mean, DOJ lawyers should be
Speaker 5: held to higher ethical standards than anybody else because they
Speaker 5: wield enormous power. But this DOJ is so hooked on
Speaker 5: this unitary executive theory that they think state bars can't
Speaker 5: touch us. You know, we rule so, I mean, you
Speaker 5: see so many examples of this. But there are things
Speaker 5: states can do. I mean, there are supremacy clause issues.
Speaker 5: It gets a little kind of complicated about what exactly
Speaker 5: states can do with respect to federal the you know,
Speaker 5: the exercise of federal power. But certainly state bars until
Speaker 5: this rules finalize at least can absolutely sanction or does
Speaker 5: bar DOJ lawyers.
Speaker 1: Is this rule going to go through for sure?
Speaker 5: No, So the rule and comment period ended already. So
Speaker 5: now the rule is under consideration by the things that
Speaker 5: by the administration, by the executive branch. So we'll have
Speaker 5: an answer in a few months, maybe a year. You know,
Speaker 5: we had a big campaign a Justice Connection to get
Speaker 5: people to submit comments during the notice and common period.
Speaker 5: I think over a million one point two million people
Speaker 5: file comments during the notice and comment period, which both
Speaker 5: like expresses how outraged people are by this, but it'll
Speaker 5: also probably have the effect of slowing it down at
Speaker 5: the very least. But it's just one of the many
Speaker 5: things they're doing a DOJ and across the federal government
Speaker 5: to you know, insulate political officials from you know, consequences.
Speaker 5: They also recently promo an issue to proposed rule to
Speaker 5: require federal employees to sign NDAs, which is an obvious
Speaker 5: to attempt to you know stififule whistle blowing, which is
Speaker 5: has never been as important as it is. Right now,
Speaker 5: you know, some of the information we know about DJ,
Speaker 5: some of the corruption we know about, the abuses we
Speaker 5: know about came from DOJ whistleblowers, and you know they
Speaker 5: have whistleblower rights and we need them. It's part of
Speaker 5: how our democracy works. And this, you know, administration wants
Speaker 5: to shut that down. They want to intimidate people and
Speaker 5: to stink by it, think silent. And there are people
Speaker 5: inside who are the only people privy to information that
Speaker 5: we all deserve to know. So one of the things
Speaker 5: we do as an organization is support whistleblowers. We help
Speaker 5: them blow the whistle, We help them go to reporters
Speaker 5: because traditional whistleblower avenues have really been choked off by
Speaker 5: this administration. So you know, there are safe ways to
Speaker 5: still do it. And I'll just put in a plug.
Speaker 5: If any DOJ employees are out there and have information
Speaker 5: they want to share, you should come to us and
Speaker 5: we can help.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's worths realizing that this stuff is totally unprecedented,
Speaker 1: but it's also a lot of it's not lead.
Speaker 5: Goal right, A lot of it is not legal, but
Speaker 5: unfortunately a lot of it is DJ After Watergate implemented
Speaker 5: pretty strict guidelines internally to make sure that the kind
Speaker 5: of corruption we witnessed in the seventies under Nixon wasn't
Speaker 5: going to happen again. But those guidelines are not codified
Speaker 5: in law. There are no enforcement mechanisms. A lot of
Speaker 5: them are contained in what's called the Justice Manual, which
Speaker 5: is kind of like the Bible and DOJ that all
Speaker 5: lawyers and agents and others follow. But if you violate
Speaker 5: the Justice Manual, if you kind of you know, break
Speaker 5: down the institutional guardrails, there's nothing that anyone can really do.
Speaker 5: I mean, DOJ works when people running it act in
Speaker 5: good faith and uphold ethical standards, and this administration has
Speaker 5: shown that it's unwilling to do that.
Speaker 1: So it's more norms and less laws, which is a
Speaker 1: problem you've seen again and again with this administration. That's
Speaker 1: a far more concise way of putting it exactly. It's
Speaker 1: interesting to make Todd blanche actually did work in justice, right,
Speaker 1: and can you talk about sort of his history and
Speaker 1: why what he's become is so shocking.
Speaker 5: This administration and people within it, I generally find to
Speaker 5: be pretty transparent and easy to figure out. Todds has
Speaker 5: a real mystery to me. I mean, he was a
Speaker 5: prosecutor in the Southern District of New York for almost
Speaker 5: ten years, and you know, we work with a lot
Speaker 5: of his former co workers, and people respected him and
Speaker 5: liked him, and he seemed to have a moral compass,
Speaker 5: and he understood what the DOJ norms were and he
Speaker 5: followed them. So, you know, his weird path to DOJ again,
Speaker 5: where he left his firm and decided to represent Donald
Speaker 5: Trump exclusively during the Biden administration and now his complete
Speaker 5: like you know, weird sicko fancy and elevation to the
Speaker 5: top is hard to explain. He knows what the rules are,
Speaker 5: he knows what the norms are. He knows how to
Speaker 5: do that job. I mean, you could argue, well, Pam
Speaker 5: Bondi was brand new to the department. She didn't know
Speaker 5: how worked. He knows how it works. He knows that
Speaker 5: everything he's doing is contrary and offensive to the norms
Speaker 5: that keep DOJ upstanding. And you know, he's been willing
Speaker 5: to trample on everything the department is always stood for.
Speaker 5: So it's it's really puzzling what is motivating him other
Speaker 5: than just like a desire for power. I mean, I
Speaker 5: don't want to psycho analysts him, but I don't know what.
Speaker 1: Else because he really does know better, and I think
Speaker 1: the point of him knowing better is really important here.
Speaker 1: If you're listening to this, is there anything people can do?
Speaker 5: I mean, right now, you know Todd Blanche got out
Speaker 5: of committee this morning, There's still going to be a
Speaker 5: floor vote. It's you know, it could happen in a
Speaker 5: few days. Call your senator. Even if you think that
Speaker 5: you know exactly how your senator is going to vote,
Speaker 5: Call your senator to let them know that you care
Speaker 5: about the rule of law. This is offensive to it
Speaker 5: and you want to see your senator, regardless of where
Speaker 5: they fall on the political spectrum. You want to see
Speaker 5: your senators do more to check this out of control
Speaker 5: Justice Department. So I really encourage you to call or email,
Speaker 5: just let your position be known. There's still time and
Speaker 5: there are still a few senators who's position on this
Speaker 5: we don't know, So this is not a done deal yet.
Speaker 5: It could really help for everybody to reach out.
Speaker 1: Stacy, Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 5: Yeah, And also I should mention you should visit us
Speaker 5: at the Justice Connection dot org and follow our stubs back,
Speaker 5: which is just justice connection.
Speaker 1: No moment Jesse Cannon, Miley, John Fast So it's time
Speaker 1: for our moment of buckery.
Speaker 2: But backbencher report style. Have you ever heard of Representative
Speaker 2: Chuck Headwards? Because I'm going to be real, that's one
Speaker 2: of the ones I just went who Anyway, the Ethics
Speaker 2: Committee does not like that he was messing around with staffers.
Speaker 1: I wish we had the statistics for how often the
Speaker 1: Ethics Committee has found.
Speaker 2: Yeahs basically stopped stop fucking.
Speaker 1: Your staffers, right, I mean I think it's only happened
Speaker 1: like twice, like most of the time, maybe three times,
Speaker 1: like most of the time. The Ethics Committee is like,
Speaker 1: you good, You're good. You know, it's a victims crime.
Speaker 1: So the fact that they found there was substantial reason
Speaker 1: to believe Representative Edwards violated House rules related to sexual
Speaker 1: harassment and hostile workplaces is amazing. Okay, it's amazing. There's
Speaker 1: a crazy number of these cases have been you know
Speaker 1: that the Ethics Committee is just fine with because remember
Speaker 1: the Ethics Committee is made up of other members of Congress, right,
Speaker 1: so this is like, this is like internal affairs, right.
Speaker 1: I want to just point out something about this story.
Speaker 1: It is. I read the whole story yesterday and and
Speaker 1: it is so gross, and the parts of it that
Speaker 1: Edwards turned over to the committee. He's just so creepy.
Speaker 1: And you know, it's like that yellow dress was burned
Speaker 1: into my brain. He did puzzle, you know, a puzzle.
Speaker 1: Come with me to this, like creepy, weird. He's sixty five.
Speaker 1: These staffers are in their twenties and thirties. He's been
Speaker 1: married since nineteen eighty. He says none of it's romantic.
Speaker 1: He sent one staff for thirty pints of ice cream.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just like super gross and even like
Speaker 1: he he made a plan to go with a staffer
Speaker 1: somewhere and then sent her flowers and she wrote back,
Speaker 1: I hope you know this is not romantic. I mean,
Speaker 1: like he you know he Both women received gifts from him,
Speaker 1: including jewelry designer, pursus guns because he's a Republican, shoes, flowers,
Speaker 1: a laptop and his cell phone, a KitchenAid mixer, a
Speaker 1: robotic vacuum, vacations, tickets to performances, and one on one dinners.
Speaker 1: One of the staffers felt she was obligated to wear
Speaker 1: a necklace that Edwards gave her. The congressman told her
Speaker 1: he was disappointed when she did not wear it. It
Speaker 1: is so uncomfortable. He paid for spot treatments to discussed
Speaker 1: going to strip clubs in DC. Directed one of the
Speaker 1: staffers not only to notify Edward's schedulers about a dinner
Speaker 1: the pair had planned. He bought one of the staffers
Speaker 1: to a holiday event at the White House and told
Speaker 1: her he wanted the night to be perfect. He pressured
Speaker 1: staffers to continue the evening with him and asked her
Speaker 1: to travel too and from the event with him in
Speaker 1: his car. It is so incredibly gross, and I want
Speaker 1: to point out this the first time.
Speaker 5: Okay, here we go.
Speaker 1: This is the first time the Ethics Committee has recommended
Speaker 1: censer since it took action against former Representative Charlie Wrangell.
Speaker 1: You'll remember Charlie Wrangell. He's dead, unfortunately in twenty ten. Okay,
Speaker 1: it is now sixteen years later. Okay, they never find
Speaker 1: anything wrong, So the fact that this is happening is insane.
Speaker 1: Edwards is, of course, just like Max Miller running for
Speaker 1: reelection in North Carolina's eleventh congressional district against Democratic challenger
Speaker 1: Jamie Ager, who will be on this podcast. I promise
Speaker 1: you we will have him on this podcast anytime he wants,
Speaker 1: unless he's a lady, in which case we.
Speaker 5: Will have her.
Speaker 1: The committee report complicates Edward's past to victory, as I
Speaker 1: hope we all do agree, this fucking person should not
Speaker 1: be a member of Congress anymore. Tom tillis who is
Speaker 1: on his trying to come back campaign, and said if
Speaker 1: the bipartist An Ethics Committee has acknowledged that there was
Speaker 1: some wrongdoing, I think it's going to be problematic for
Speaker 1: his campaign. So brave Tom tillis, so brave. That's it
Speaker 1: for this episode of Fast Politics in every Monday, Wednesday,
Speaker 1: Thursday and Saturday to hear the best minds and politics
Speaker 1: make sense of all this chaos. If you enjoy this podcast,
Speaker 1: please send it to a friend and keep the conversation going.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening.