00:00 Charlie Sykes Welcome to this weekend's episode of To the Contrary Podcast. 00:02 I'm Charlie Sykes. 00:03 Let's get right to it. 00:04 Let's not dance around the fact that this was a truly ghastly week. 00:08 And if you're feeling it, if you're feeling the weight of it, if you're feeling rattled by it, trust me, you're not alone. 00:14 And we're going to dive into many of the reasons why I think that feeling is so widespread, not just here, but all around the country. 00:21 So we're actually going to be doing something a little bit different today. 00:24 No guests, just me, solo podcast, and your question. 00:28 I'm going to be answering as many questions from readers and listeners as I can. 00:32 And frankly, I'll be answering some questions that I wish that I had been asked, but haven't been asked yet. 00:38 So we're going to be diving into the murder in Minnesota, the future of ICE, the attack on Venezuela, the rise of the new, what is it, the Don Roe Doctrine. 00:49 which is basically Trump's new imperial ambitions. 00:53 Maybe we should call it the Mafia Imperium of Donald Trump. 00:57 We'll talk about the legacy of January 6th. 01:00 We had the fifth anniversary. 01:01 And of course, we saw the historical revisionism there. 01:05 Donald Trump proposing a $1.5 trillion defense budget. 01:10 Lots of questions about Barry Weiss and CBS, whether or not the government's going to be shutting down again. 01:15 Yes, I think it will. 01:16 the ACA subsidies, the midterms. 01:20 Why I left MS now used to be called MSNBC. 01:23 Lots of questions about all of that. 01:26 And what's going on with Elon Musk? 01:28 I really hope we talk about that because this was a week when a lot of masks were off. 01:34 So we have a lot of ground to cover. 01:36 And I really appreciate you joining me on a podcast after a truly extraordinarily, I'm sorry, awful week. 01:45 Thanks. 01:49 All right, where should we begin? 01:50 Let's start with this question of why this week felt so tough. 01:54 Garrett Graff, I thought, had a very interesting analysis in his newsletter. 01:58 You know, he talks about the physical weight of Trumpism. 02:01 You know, one of the constants that he hears in conversation and I hear in conversations, and you probably don't, is that there's kind of this heaviness, this physical 02:09 And psychological heaviness you feel in Trump's America. 02:13 And I think a lot of us felt this this week, you know, particularly after a 37-year-old mother was shot dead in Minneapolis. 02:22 And this came just days after we had all the saber rattling in Venezuela. 02:27 We had the threats against Greenland. 02:29 You could see that the rest of the world is quite... 02:33 nervous about all of this, asking, who is America? 02:37 What is happening? 02:39 What's happening to the soul of America? 02:41 And this is what he wrote. 02:43 He said, to me, there's actually a simple explanation for this feeling of heaviness. 02:47 It's the weight of the shift 02:49 From zero to non-zero. 02:52 Let me explain. 02:53 There are so many aspects of our daily life that we never had to weigh before. 02:58 So many new possible horrors that we have to carry in our minds every day. 03:02 We forget how much of the basic fabric of our lives have just changed in the last year. 03:06 How many of our freedoms, things we had taken for granted, are being taken away. 03:10 So a lot of things that were zero possibilities, zero possibility that we would be 03:15 snatching a country like Greenland or that masked thug agents would be shooting unarmed civilians in the streets of Minneapolis. 03:25 Those used to be zero. 03:27 Now they are non-zero. 03:29 So let's get right to your questions. 03:31 Charlie, would you talk about 03:34 And who knows where to begin with? 03:35 We got to get to the Minnesota story very soon. 03:38 But can you talk about that crazy interview that Donald Trump had with The New York Times? 03:43 I will. 03:44 This is an interesting story. 03:46 President Trump declares in this Wednesday interview, this very extensive interview with The New York Times, that his power is as commander in chief is constrained only by his own morality. 03:58 brushing aside international law and any other checks on his ability to use military might to strike, invade, or coerce nations around the world. 04:06 You see, yeah, there is one thing, my own morality, my own mind. 04:09 It's the only thing that can stop me. 04:13 Okay, Donald Trump's morality, Donald Trump's mind, that is the only thing that can stop him. 04:20 Okay, that's terrifying in and of itself because we know a lot about Donald Trump's morality and we know a lot about his mind. 04:28 But let me give you a contrarian take here. 04:31 He's not wrong that the only thing that can stop him right now is his own morality. 04:37 And my contrarian take is that this is a good reminder of why character matters so much, why the mind of our leaders matters so much. 04:47 This is not just some esoteric question. 04:50 out there, because there's a reason why you want to make sure that the people who are entrusted with the kinds of vast power that we've given the president of the United States are at least modestly decent, intelligent, thoughtful, moral individuals. 05:07 This is something that we've been arguing for 10 years, and maybe it seemed theoretical 10 years ago. 05:12 When we said, look, you do not want to put this man who has the sort of the moral sensibilities of a nine-year-old bully on the playground, you don't want to put him in charge of the federal government, the FBI, the IRS, the CIA. 05:27 You don't want to give him access to nuclear weapons. 05:29 Now, 05:30 You know, why is that? 05:32 Well, our founding fathers thought that they had dealt with this question of what happens if an amoral person became the commander in chief. 05:42 They created a system of checks and balances. 05:44 They assumed that the Congress of the United States would be willing and able to stand up against a president who was abusing his power. 05:52 Well, we've seen how that works out. 05:54 But this is one of those moments where we have to realize, whoa, 05:58 The fact is that all the talk about international law doesn't mean anything if people are not willing to enforce it. 06:06 And who right now is able to enforce any international law against Donald Trump? 06:11 And this is kind of the point that that Stephen Miller was making when he was giving his triumph of the will speech that when he was asked by Jake Tapper from CNN, this was an extraordinary moment, really, after the invasion of Venezuela. 06:26 And Stephen Miller is explaining that, yes, 06:27 You know, we deserve to have Greenland and we can take Greenland because we are powerful and strong and nobody's gonna stop us. 06:34 Now, Jake Tappert is asking, are you ruling out military force to take a territory of one of our allies? 06:44 A NATO signatory that just remind yourself, Denmark has been our ally for a very long time. 06:51 They stepped up when we needed it. 06:53 They sent troops to fight beside American troops in the Middle East. 06:57 They stood by us after 9-11. 07:00 And now we're talking about just stealing their their territory. 07:05 And I wrote about this over the weekend. 07:09 The explanation that Stephen Miller gave, he said, we live in a world in the real world that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power. 07:20 These are the iron laws of the world since the beginning of time. 07:26 Benito Mussolini could not have put it better. 07:29 When we describe Stephen Miller as a fascist, that's not a pejorative. 07:33 That is now a description of who he is, that Mike makes right, law of the jungle. 07:39 We are the iron fist. 07:41 The interesting thing about Miller and Trump right now, for those of you who think, well, there's really nothing new here. 07:46 I mean, didn't, you know, American presidents have been engaging in imperialist ventures for years. 07:50 That's true. 07:51 There's no question about that. 07:53 But in the modern world, 07:54 They at least claim to care about things like freedom and democracy. 07:58 They understood the importance of allies. 08:01 And all of that is gone. 08:02 All of the masks are taken away. 08:05 Donald Trump is clearly not interested in democracy or freedom for Venezuela. 08:09 He's interested in the oil. 08:11 He wants to take the oil. 08:13 He told one reporter the difference between Iraq and Venezuela is we didn't take the oil from Iraq. 08:19 I'm going to take the oil. 08:21 And he's actually talking about now, you know, shaking them down as part of the protection racket. 08:26 And by the way, I think this was David Graham from The Atlantic had a great line. 08:29 He said, you know, Donald Trump pledged we wouldn't be the world's policemen. 08:34 Well, obviously, we are the world's policemen, but with a twist. 08:38 We are the policemen who are now running a protection racket, a shakedown. 08:41 And so Donald Trump is saying they're going to give me, you know, billions, millions of gallons of this oil. 08:47 And I personally, I, Donald J. Trump, will control all of that oil. 08:52 I'm going to put it in my own account. 08:53 What could possibly go wrong? 08:55 So I think that what we're seeing here is kind of this naked, whether you want to call it fascist or hubris, that they feel that because they are powerful, they can do absolutely anything they want. 09:08 And by the way, in my Substack newsletter, and by the way, those of you that are watching us on YouTube or listening to the podcast, if you have not yet subscribed, I would really appreciate if you would consider doing that, because a lot of the things that we talk about 09:21 are in the daily newsletter. 09:23 I put a lot of effort into it. 09:24 It comes out every day or certainly close to every single day. 09:28 And it is free, although we do depend upon the kindness of strangers. 09:34 So if you would consider supporting us right now at this crucial time, you know, at least think about it, because I think the independent media... 09:42 The folks who are asking the tougher questions are more important than ever, especially when you see what's been happening with the corporate media. 09:49 But in my newsletter, when I wrote about this the other day, you know, I thought about Stephen Miller's invocation of these iron laws. 10:00 And I also had a kind of a snarky comment to say that, you know, he could have described his philosophy as the triumph of the will, but that title has already been taken. 10:07 Those of you who are students of history will recognize what the triumph of the will is. 10:11 If not, you should Google it. 10:13 But I did ask the question, what other iron laws are there that are out there? 10:19 For example, isn't one of the laws of the jungle 10:22 That the powerful never voluntarily surrender power, that the powerful can take what they want and keep what they have. 10:30 And what are the implications of that? 10:35 OK, I'm sorry, that was that was that was that was a long answer. 10:38 But I do think we have to acknowledge how tough a week this was and a lot of it. 10:43 Has to do with the story out of Minneapolis. 10:45 A lot of questions here, including questions about Charlie. 10:49 What do you think about the new videos that the right wing is circulating showing the incident from the point of view of the ICE officer? 10:58 OK, so what we have here. 11:02 is a case in which there was a tremendous rush to judgment, particularly by the administration. 11:09 I think it's important to understand what we saw there. 11:12 And maybe the best way to understand it is to understand what alternative there might have been. 11:18 Okay, so a woman is shot and killed. 11:20 on the streets of Minneapolis. 11:22 A normal administration, normal law enforcement universe might have said, hey, you know, we're really, this is a tragic incident, thoughts and prayers, but let's not say anything until the investigation has been completed. 11:34 Talk about the investigation, talk about the importance of finding the truth and coming up with something fair. 11:40 You may have noticed that none of that happened. 11:43 Instead, we had Kristi Noem come out immediately and labeled the dead woman before, by the way, we labeled her before she, we even knew her name, before her body was cold, labeled her a domestic terrorist. 11:57 And then Donald Trump weighed in, blaming her for it. 12:00 And you've seen all of the rest. 12:03 So the rush to condemn this woman, 12:07 To whitewash the shooting on the streets of Minneapolis was reflexive. 12:13 And I think, look, this is not just a one off. 12:16 This is a logical culmination of a policy based on fear, intimidation and brutality. 12:25 And this was this was Kristi Noem's moment. 12:29 really kind of almost raises the possibility that maybe if you pick somebody to be your secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, you know, based on the fact that she had shot her puppy in the face, that maybe bad things would happen. 12:45 I mean, let's remember why Kristi Noem got this job, what was on her resume, and here we are. 12:50 Expect more of this. 12:51 Okay, so we were asked about the videos. 12:53 Many of you have seen the video, the original video that was analyzed by the news media. 13:01 And this is the video that has been almost analyzed by like the Zapruder film. 13:07 You've seen this before and you can see this very clearly what happened. 13:12 This is not just the he said, she said. 13:15 We have the video. 13:17 The claim is that the officer fired in self-defense, that he was in fear of his life. 13:23 He had been dragged previously, apparently six months ago. 13:27 You're not supposed to get in front of the vehicle, but he was briefly in front of the vehicle. 13:31 She backs up and then she goes forward. 13:34 You've seen this over and over and over again. 13:36 You've probably seen it frame by frame. 13:38 But the important thing to keep in mind, 13:40 here is that this video makes it very clear that the officer fired at least two shots when he was in no danger whatsoever, when he was no longer in front of that vehicle, that he was to the side of the vehicle. 13:55 So when you watch the video, watch his feet, because you can see when his feet are to the side of that vehicle. 14:04 And so what we have all witnessed, and I think part of the horror of this, 14:09 was that you saw a police killing, you saw a police murder of this woman. 14:15 Was she engaging in civil disobedience? 14:17 Yeah, maybe, but that doesn't carry a death penalty. 14:21 And civil disobedience is not domestic terrorism. 14:24 These words have consequences. 14:26 Okay, the question was about this new video. 14:28 The key thing about this new video 14:30 is it does not show the actual shooting. 14:33 And the story is the shooting. 14:35 And I think the ugliness that we're experiencing here is recognizing that this armed brute squad that has been dropped into our communities that's supposed to make us safer 14:48 In fact, poses a deadly threat, not just to the illegal immigrants, the worst of the worst. 14:54 And by the way, they're obviously not going after them exclusively. 14:58 But it poses a threat to Americans who are exercising their First Amendment rights, who are protesting against all of this. 15:05 And it is an ugly moment. 15:07 It is an ugly moment. 15:08 And unfortunately, and I have a lot of questions here about the future of ICE. 15:12 My short answer is. 15:14 it's going to get worse. 15:16 And we know that it's going to get worse because we know the message that is coming from the top. 15:21 It was just a few weeks ago after there was some, I think, protesters might have vandalized some ICE vehicles. 15:29 Donald Trump, the president of the United States, 15:31 issued an order to the Department of Homeland Security telling them to, I think the words were basically use, you know, any force necessary to protect the operation. 15:41 I think that that order is going to be of historical and legal significance because what it essentially did was to give a green light to anything that they would do, including shooting people. 15:53 And I believe, if I'm correct, as of this recording, ICE has shot into something like 10 vehicles, something that most trained law enforcement officials would say is a highly imprudent thing to do and generally are trained not to do this. 16:12 So what is the future of ICE? 16:15 Remember the big, beautiful bill allocated something like $150 billion to ICE, which will make them the largest law enforcement agency in the history of the United States with a budget larger than the budget of the militaries of many of the major countries of the world. 16:33 It's actually they will have a budget larger than the military of Israel, of countries like Italy. 16:41 And they're going to hire something like 10,000 new agents. 16:44 How do you think they're going to be trained? 16:47 Where do you think they're going to be coming from? 16:49 What kinds of people are going to be behind those masks put on the street and told by Kristi Noem and Stephen Miller and Donald Trump to eradicate the scum and the vermin and the domestic extremists and terrorists out there? 17:07 So when I say it's going to get worse, 17:09 That's not just fear mongering. 17:11 That is a clear projection of what this administration has told us they are going to do and what we're seeing. 17:19 Where are they recruiting these folks? 17:20 Who's signing up for ICE right now? 17:22 They're going to the gun gun shows. 17:24 They're going to MAGA events. 17:26 They've lowered the qualifications. 17:29 In terms of age, in terms of fitness, they're handing out $50,000 bonuses. 17:34 So you're going to be getting a lot of true believers, a lot of ideologues in the force. 17:42 And quite frankly, this is going to be Donald Trump's personal police force. 17:47 And I'm sorry if that sounds extreme to some of you, but this is what we are living through. 17:52 Anyone who thinks that the events of the last week or anything approaching normal are not. 17:58 Okay. 17:59 Oh, here's an interesting question. 18:03 What is with this story that Maria Machado may give her Nobel Peace Prize to Donald Trump? 18:09 Okay, everybody knows the background of all of this, right? 18:11 Maria Machado is the leader of the Democratic opposition in Venezuela who won the Nobel Peace Prize that Donald Trump coveted so much. 18:23 Now, 18:23 Given the number of people that Donald Trump is killing, the number of nations he's invading, the number of countries that he is looting or threatening to loot, I'm thinking that the prospects of him winning the Nobel Peace Prize are somewhat different. 18:37 Slim to none. 18:40 I could go on on this, but you know what? 18:43 Jimmy Kimmel had a great take on all of this, including why Donald Trump has turned his back on Maria Machado and the Democratic opposition in Venezuela. 18:54 It might have something to do with the fact that his feelings are a little bit bruised that she got his Nobel Peace Prize. 19:01 And there are a lot of reports that she's going to be going to the Oval Office 19:04 And she's going to be saying, here, Mr. Trump, you deserve this. 19:07 You get the Nobel Prize. 19:09 Jimmy Kimmel Two sources close to the White House told The Washington Post the real reason he doesn't support her is because she didn't give him her Nobel Prize. 19:16 According to the source, if she had turned it down and said, I can't accept it because it's Donald Trump's, she would be the president of Venezuela today. 19:24 So how did she react to that? 19:26 Why, she went straight to Hannity to offer it up. 19:29 Sean Hannity Did you at any point offer to give him the Nobel Peace Prize? 19:33 Did that actually happen? 19:34 I had read that somewhere. 19:35 I wasn't sure if it was true. 19:38 María Corina Machado Well, it hasn't happened yet, but I certainly would love to be able to personally tell him that we believe the Venezuelan people, because this is a prize of the Venezuelan people, certainly want to give it to him and share it with them. 19:54 Jimmy Kimmel Share it. 19:54 He doesn't share. 19:55 Sharing is caring, and he doesn't do that either. 20:00 Those are not his things. 20:01 What an idea this is. 20:02 You can't give someone your Nobel Prize. 20:05 As far as I know, they're non-transferable. 20:07 Charlie Sykes Yeah, Donald Trump's really not about sharing in this whole transferable thing. 20:12 I don't know. 20:13 Do you think Donald Trump's going to claim that he was a Nobel Peace Prize winner or I have a Nobel or if I finally got the Nobel Peace Prize that I deserve? 20:22 This is this is where farce meets tragedy meets meets outrage. 20:28 All right. 20:30 Charlie, what do you make of Barry Weiss and CBS? 20:33 And there's a couple of comments that in the past I've been... 20:36 I've cut Barry Weiss some slack. 20:38 And I want to make it clear that, yes, I have met Barry Weiss. 20:42 We were on a show together. 20:42 I like a lot of the things that she has done. 20:45 I agree with a lot of things that she has done. 20:48 So I have given her the benefit of the doubt. 20:51 But I have to say that... 20:53 The launch of the new CBS has revealed a number of things, including that it's very, very difficult to go into a job like that if you are answerable to spineless corporate oligarchs who are sucking up to the powers that be. 21:09 This is CBS News. 21:10 This is 60 Minutes. 21:12 It exists now. 21:13 to report the news and hold the powerful accountable. 21:18 It's kind of difficult when you have the Ellis in your ear saying, hey, go easy on them, go easy on them. 21:24 The cancellation of that story about the El Salvador Gulag was bad. 21:31 But the chaos since kind of ugly. 21:34 He had the new anchor giving his tribute to Marco Rubio, other things. 21:39 And I guess, look, I'm trying to be as fair as possible because I do think that Barry Weiss is smart and she is talented. 21:49 But you know what? 21:49 Smart and talent does not mean that you're qualified for every job. 21:53 You know, you may know a lot of smart and talented people doesn't mean that they are qualified to be the head coach of, say, the Baltimore Ravens or the Green Bay Packers. 22:01 Right. 22:02 You know, some of these things are not transferable. 22:04 There are people who are brilliant writers, who are terrible managers, who are terrible leaders. 22:11 You can be the world's greatest poet. 22:14 And yet no one's going to hire you to perform brain surgery or construct a bridge over a river, right? 22:23 I mean, there are things that, you know, the qualifications are not always transferable, just like the Nobel Peace Prize, not always transferable. 22:30 And I'm not sure that the reports we're getting would suggest 22:33 that Barry Weiss has the leadership organizational talents to turn this around, not to mention that almost every day we get a sense that CBS, rather than reporting with fear or favor, is really pulling its punches. 22:48 And that is awfully scary. 22:52 Okay. 22:53 Victoria asked the question, what are the chances that congressional Republicans will finally find their souls and remember they work for people, not only donors? 23:01 That's a trick question, right? 23:03 Because no, no, not until, no. 23:07 Now, having said that, there were a couple of signs of cracks in the loyalty. 23:15 And I don't want to read too much into it, but I also don't want to ignore it. 23:18 So you saw that late last week, the United States Senate actually voted to advance legislation that would restrict 23:25 Donald Trump's war on Venezuela, kind of a reminder of what it would look like if we had a functional Congress, kind of make it a little bit nostalgic. 23:34 And you had a number of Republicans that broke with the president, voted with Democrats to pass this legislation. 23:40 which will have no effect whatsoever. 23:42 Unfortunately, this bill is not going to actually tie Donald Trump's hands. 23:48 So it's largely symbolic. 23:50 Symbols sometimes matter. 23:52 And then you had a number of votes in the House of Representatives that also showed a willingness to break with Donald Trump. 24:00 Now, again, does this mean that he's a lame duck? 24:03 Does this mean that he's not dangerous? 24:05 Not at all. 24:06 But again, 24:07 Republicans are trying to feel their way through this particular environment. 24:14 And if this week wasn't a tipping point, what do you think is going to be a tipping point? 24:19 I mean, how many times have we played this stupid game? 24:22 I'm sorry, because I've had this conversation about 500 times. 24:25 Maybe I'll get to the other questions soon, too. 24:28 About 500 times. 24:29 When are Republicans going to finally develop a backbone? 24:32 When are they finally going to break with Trump? 24:35 OK, after 10 years, 24:37 I think the answer is not going to. 24:39 It is not going to happen. 24:40 Do you understand this? 24:42 Any of them that had the conscience or the backbone to stand up to Trump, they're already gone. 24:48 The Liz Cheneys are gone. 24:50 The Adam Kinzinger's are gone. 24:52 Some of them have been purged or excommunicated and some of them have self-deported. 24:56 I mean, who wants to sit in this caucus? 24:59 Okay, so that is not going to happen. 25:01 On the other hand, 25:03 You are seeing the Marjorie Taylor Greene's taking shots, even like Lauren Boebert taking shots. 25:07 Thomas Massey is one of the crazier guys on the right who's clearly been excommunicated. 25:14 Rand Paul, I never thought I would say these words, has been very outspoken in his criticism of Donald Trump. 25:20 So there are some signs, but don't invest too much. 25:25 All right. 25:25 Mark asking the question. 25:27 Charlie, do you think that we will have free and fair elections in November or will the administration try to cancel elections? 25:34 All right. 25:37 I don't think they will try to cancel the elections, but I think it's important to continually ask the question, will we have fair and free elections? 25:46 Now, for some of you, and I understand the impulse, saying, okay, this is just paranoid, Charlie, of course there's going to be elections. 25:53 I mean, we had elections during the Civil War. 25:55 Abraham Lincoln didn't cancel the elections during the American Civil War. 25:59 Why would we, what are you even talking about? 26:01 What I'm talking about is that we are talking about a president 26:05 who has already tried to overturn an election. 26:08 This is not theoretical. 26:10 Remember, this is Donald J. Trump. 26:12 Think about all the things we know about him. 26:14 Donald J. Trump, the first convicted felon ever to be the president of the United States, somebody who is engaging in the erosion of democratic norms on a daily, if not an hourly basis, but most importantly, who is at the center 26:31 of the conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election and who incited a riot to attack the capital of the United States to prevent the certification of that election. 26:44 This happened. 26:46 We saw this. 26:47 I understand that we have national amnesia, that we're a nation of goldfish, but folks, 26:54 This happened five years ago where Donald Trump stood there, called the mob to Washington, D.C., 27:02 and incited this riot. 27:04 And this last weekend, sorry, this last week, put out a, do you see this? 27:10 The White House had a website where, talk about revisionist history of January 6th, blaming the violence on the Democrats, on the Capitol Police, who we know were the thin blue line protecting American democracy that day. 27:26 And of course, he's pardoned all of the 27:29 of the rioters, including the ones who have attacked police officers. 27:36 And he continues to lie about who won that election. 27:40 So not only did Donald Trump historically try to stop a fair and free election from actually having an effect, he continues to show a willingness to turn the world upside down. 27:55 So what does that mean for the midterm elections? 27:58 Would Donald Trump like to stop the midterm elections? 28:03 Maybe. 28:04 How could he possibly interfere with them? 28:06 My biggest fear, and this is just a fear, is that Donald Trump loves the use of military force. 28:12 He loves the use of emergencies. 28:14 He could declare some sort of an emergency, invoke the Insurrection Act, send armed troops, National Guard, active military to polling places. 28:28 talk about getting the military to go around and seize all the ballot boxes so that he could control the counting. 28:36 And of course, there were grownups in the room who told him, no, you cannot do that. 28:41 Those grownups are not in the room anymore. 28:43 So I think that 28:46 It's a thin line between really savvy awareness and pure paranoia, but I think it's legitimate to constantly ask the question, what will happen? 28:56 Because we know the answer to the question, what is he capable of doing? 29:01 Okay. 29:03 Susan asked, do you think that there will be the start to a shift back to sanity after the midterms, or are we still in for trouble uniting behind an idea? 29:12 Yeah, don't don't invest too much in an immediate return to sanity because that's not going to happen. 29:18 Look, you have cracks in MAGA right now. 29:21 You do have these cracks in the Republican Party, but don't assume that that's any sort of a return to sanity. 29:28 And in many ways, the the the more extreme, crazier folks are making their bid for power. 29:36 You know, I've been asked a lot about, you know, would J.D. 29:39 Vance be worse than Donald Trump? 29:42 You know, the people who are sort of hoping that Donald Trump disappears or is done in by a Big Mac. 29:47 This is one of those, be careful what you wish for. 29:50 Because J.D. 29:51 Vance is in many ways even worse, more ideological, more opportunistic, less charismatic. 29:58 And by the way, I don't get the charisma thing at all. 30:02 But he's a true believer. 30:03 He's intelligent. 30:05 I think he's ruthless. 30:07 He's prepared to say anything. 30:09 And he's made it also clear that he will have no enemies on the right. 30:14 And by that means it doesn't matter how extreme a conspiracy theorist, anti-Semite, racist, neo-Nazi you are, he's not going to be the one that breaks with you. 30:27 And you remember when you had those young Republicans? 30:29 You probably already forgot this, right? 30:31 The young Republicans... 30:33 who were caught on this chat making all these racist, vicious, misogynistic comments. 30:40 And I think even a lot of MAGA Republicans were like, you know, we got to get rid of these guys. 30:44 This is just terrible. 30:45 Who came to their defense? 30:47 J.D. 30:47 Vance. 30:48 J.D. 30:48 Vance played the, oh, these are just boys being boys. 30:51 We can't cancel these folks. 30:54 When Tucker Carlson platforms neo-Nazi Nick Fuentes, and by the way, I'm not even sure about the neo part, 31:01 Who comes to Tucker Carlson's defense? 31:04 J.D. 31:05 Vance. 31:06 So he is one heartbeat away from the president. 31:08 I think the way you saw that he he's demagogued what happened in Minnesota is a perfect example of of all of that. 31:17 Robin asks, is there any way to learn how much money these ICE operations are costing taxpayers? 31:23 I assume the travel, lodging, food, their camouflage outfits cost money. 31:26 Is there no way to find out how much per guy? 31:28 This is actually an interesting question because, of course, we should be able to find out. 31:32 This is government money. 31:33 This is public money. 31:34 And as I mentioned before, that big, beautiful bill is dumping $150 billion into this. 31:41 So if Democrats want to highlight this, perhaps they ought to point out the waste of taxpayer dollars. 31:48 I saw a video recently of one immigrant who is being arrested and they sent 50 agents. 31:57 50-50 agents, your tax dollars at work. 32:04 So Charles writes, what's your over-under and how long it will be before the Don goes back to wanting to acquire Canada as well? 32:11 He seems to have designs on every other country in the Western Hemisphere after all. 32:15 Okay. 32:16 I actually do a Sirius XM show occasionally in Canada and I sort of assure them that, look, you know, no one in this country is mad at Canada. 32:24 Nobody wants to absorb Canada. 32:26 It is consistent with Donald Trump's various obsessions. 32:31 But I do think that just setting Canada aside for a moment, what Donald Trump is talking about is the Don Rowe Doctrine. 32:39 is an abandonment of the entire post-war foreign policy of the United States. 32:46 You can criticize Ronald Reagan all you want, but Ronald Reagan understood the United States was the leader of the free world. 32:54 The United States was a shining city on a hill, and he knew who the enemy was, the other side, the axis of evil. 33:01 Donald Trump has changed sides, but he's also made it very clear that he has no interest in NATO, 33:07 He has no interest in the Western alliance. 33:09 He has nothing but contempt for the Western democracies. 33:12 You saw that. 33:13 Well, you see that on just a regular basis. 33:16 His admiration for Vladimir Putin is not subtle. 33:19 His admiration for people like Viktor Orban is not subtle. 33:23 and his loathing for the democratic leaders of the liberal West is palpable. 33:30 So what we have now is this notion of spheres of influence that seems to appeal to Donald Trump and to Vladimir Putin, where you have three spheres of influence. 33:40 You have Donald Trump gets to control the Western hemisphere, Putin, Europe, President Xi of China gets to control Asia, 33:49 Is that really his vision? 33:50 I mean, the Russians like it. 33:52 I can imagine the Chinese are going to like it a great deal, especially when if they decide that, hey, if the United States gets to swallow countries in its hemisphere, we get to swallow Taiwan. 34:04 Unfortunately for Donald Trump, there are other countries in the world who have a say in this, who have agency in all of this. 34:16 Let's see here. 34:17 Let's see here. 34:19 In light of the Venezuela debacle and the ICE murder, what are the chances Congress will actually wake up and take back control? 34:24 None short term. 34:27 Let's see here. 34:29 Some of the other things I said that I was going to be talking. 34:32 Oh, let's talk a little bit about why I did not renew my contract at MSNOW. 34:37 There was... 34:38 There was some chatter about that online. 34:41 MSNOW is what MSNBC used to be. 34:44 So I want to make this clear here. 34:45 I've been doing this for a very, very long time. 34:47 And my contract extended through next year. 34:51 And this fall, I decided, you know what? 34:55 I want to try something different. 34:56 I've been doing this for a very long time. 34:58 I mean, put this in context. 35:00 I was on radio here in Milwaukee, Wisconsin for 23 years. 35:06 And I look back on that and say, okay, you know, you can drift for a very long time. 35:11 And if you've done something, if you've said something, do you need to keep doing it? 35:15 Now, I really enjoyed working with the folks from MSNBC. 35:18 I want to make it really clear. 35:20 I have enjoyed them working with the producers, working with the hosts. 35:25 Everyone has been uniformly kind and supportive. 35:29 I have no complaints whatsoever. 35:32 about any of them. 35:33 And so when I asked to be let out of my contract, they basically said, hey, is there something that you're upset about? 35:39 And I said, no, you know what? 35:41 I just really want to kind of go all in on independent media. 35:46 I don't want to be part of another organization. 35:49 I want to be able to talk about what I want to talk about when I want to talk about it. 35:54 And I also think that it's important 35:56 If at all possible, and I don't know that it is, that we need to break out of our bubbles. 36:02 We need to stop preaching to the choir. 36:06 And I think that this has been one of the problems that we've had over the last few years, where increasingly, we talk to ourselves, we talk to people who agree with us. 36:16 We, the audience, there's the audience capture where the audience wants what it wants, right? 36:22 It wants to have its priors confirmed. 36:23 It wants to have people just tell them what they already know or think or want to believe. 36:29 And I think that that's dangerous. 36:32 And I think we've tried that for the last decade. 36:35 And as much as I've enjoyed being on MSNBC, and I have enjoyed it very much. 36:40 I mean, in my newsletter, when I talked about this, I named all the hosts who've been absolutely fantastic. 36:46 The problem is that we are preaching to the converted. 36:49 And at least for me, I felt at a certain point, I've had this conversation now. 36:56 500, 600, 700 times. 36:59 And I will also be honest with you that there are subjects that I would have liked to have discussed or points of view I would have liked to have discussed that I was never given an opportunity. 37:08 People say, well, why haven't you talked about this? 37:10 Why didn't you talk about this? 37:11 You write about things that you are concerned about in terms of like, for example, how many books have I written on higher education? 37:19 That doesn't come up. 37:20 And there's a long list of things like that. 37:22 Now, this is not a criticism of them because they're doing what they have to do. 37:25 They're focused on their mission. 37:28 But at a certain point, it's do I continue to have that same conversation or do I talk about the things that I think can provide some different new perspective? 37:40 I also think and I'm speaking directly to you guys right now. 37:44 It is so important to get out of the bubbles to understand how we got to this point. 37:51 Look, I mean, you know how I feel about Donald Trump. 37:55 You know that I am one of the original orange man bad people. 37:58 But at a certain point, we also have to say, OK, what else is going on here that we need to know? 38:03 Are there issues that we talk about? 38:06 Are there things about Trump? 38:08 The issue of crime, urban crime, uncontrolled immigration. 38:13 Are there issues involving what used to be called political correctness and wokeness that has alienated millions of voters? 38:21 And how should we talk to them if we all just keep talking to ourselves and reassuring ourselves? 38:30 Then I don't know that we make any progress because that's part of my thinking. 38:32 Now, am I going to be able to do that here? 38:34 I honestly don't know. 38:35 I mean, you hold me accountable for all of that, but just know. 38:38 And I've been telling you this from the beginning with the to the contrary, that do not expect a safe space because that's not what I'm promising. 38:44 I'm trying to provide smart, sane, sober, snarky commentary. 38:50 And I feel that at least on television, I was not doing the full spectrum. 38:55 OK, one more comment about MSNBC, because I'm not criticizing them. 38:58 I wish them the best. 38:59 I think they've got some great people, some great reporters. 39:02 When I asked to be let out of my last year, my contract, they were so gracious about it. 39:07 There were no legal restrictions. 39:10 There were no non-disclosure agreements or no non-compete clauses. 39:14 There were no like you need to get a lawyer to be able to do all of this. 39:17 They were incredibly gracious. 39:19 I hope they invite me back. 39:21 It's not like I don't have things to say or they wouldn't participate. 39:24 In fact, I have been invited back. 39:26 I intend to go back. 39:27 I won't be on payroll or anything, but I'm certainly willing to do whatever it takes to be in the fight for democracy. 39:36 All right. 39:36 So what here's a question, Charlie, what does the rest of the world think about what's happening in America right now, particularly in Europe? 39:47 OK, this is a great question. 39:48 And I think we know the answer to all of this. 39:51 They are shocked and they're horrified and they are wondering whether they can ever trust the United States again. 39:58 And, you know, I do these occasional podcasts. 40:01 And one of the points I try to make is, you know, we're not all like this. 40:05 This is not who Americans are. 40:08 But the rest of the world is thinking, OK, you know, we cut you some slack when you elected Donald Trump once. 40:14 You've elected him twice. 40:16 We're seeing this naked mask off kind of fascist imperialism. 40:22 If you're OK with that, then this is who you are. 40:25 So the rest of the world is rattled. 40:28 I speculated this last week that I think one of the reasons why it felt so heavy was the rhetoric about Greenland, the possibility of attacking a NATO ally was so horrifying to so many people that I speculated that in effect, this might've driven a dagger into the heart of NATO. 40:49 And as soon as I wrote that, I thought, well, maybe that's overstating it, right? 40:55 And the more I think about it, the more I think, no, maybe it understates it slightly because NATO feels to me right now, and I've talked to some Europeans about this as well, it's kind of a zombie organization, a dead man walking. 41:10 The whole point of NATO and Article V is the willingness to come to the defense of the other signatories. 41:18 Does anyone think the United States, would anyone rely on the United States to come to the defense of the Baltic nations if they were attacked by Russia? 41:27 Does anybody think that we are a reliable ally under those circumstances? 41:33 When the prime minister of Denmark said, you know, if you attack a fellow NATO ally, you know, to seize our territory, that's it for, everything stops. 41:43 NATO's over. 41:44 And that's, of course, I think objectively true. 41:47 But the loss of trust and loss of faith is really also at the heart of all of these things. 41:53 So I think it is bad. 41:55 And I try whenever I can to say, you know what? 41:59 Donald Trump is not us. 42:01 Point out the polls. 42:01 Point out the election. 42:03 Say, you know, we are still Americans. 42:05 We are still fundamentally decent. 42:07 We are not buying into all of this. 42:09 But interesting. 42:10 Okay. 42:11 Boy, we are how long into this show? 42:13 Janet asked... 42:14 How do we make sure the Epstein files remain front and center despite all the other bad news? 42:19 Okay. 42:21 For those of you who are really, really cynical, you might be thinking that, oh, one of the reasons why we attacked Venezuela was to wag the dog to distract attention from the Epstein files. 42:33 And you know what? 42:34 You may not be wrong. 42:36 I mean, this is the plot of the movie Wag the Dog. 42:38 Go back and look at it. 42:39 You know, presidents get involved in a scandal. 42:41 What does he do? 42:41 He starts a war to distract from it. 42:44 And the fact is that right now we're not talking about the Epstein files. 42:48 And there is an aspect of them that we need to talk about, including the fact that once again, 42:56 This administration is defying the law passed by Congress and conducting a cover up in plain sight. 43:07 Yeah, they released thousands of pages. 43:10 But they're now saying that there's millions. 43:13 And at the rate they're going now, there's a possibility that the rest of them won't be released until after Donald Trump has left the White House. 43:22 It will take years and years and years. 43:23 Now, isn't that convenient? 43:27 So I do think that it is important to constantly go back to what we know. 43:34 My growing concern, though, 43:36 is that one of the things that Donald Trump has done to us, but we've also done to ourselves, he's moved the window of acceptable behavior consistently. 43:47 Do you remember when the Access Hollywood video came out? 43:51 Everybody thought, that's it, that's done. 43:52 This is the kind of thing that's disqualifying. 43:55 It turned out, no, the Republican Party got over it. 43:58 Once they got over that, they got over everything else. 44:00 They got over the allegations of rape and sexual assault. 44:03 They got over the allegations, all the other women who've come forward and said, me too, with Donald Trump. 44:08 Is there anybody in corporate America that could have survived the kinds of allegations or findings against Donald Trump? 44:14 that the president of the United States has escaped. 44:17 So maybe this is just baked into the cake. 44:19 Maybe the fact is like, we all know the guy is just this horny, lecherous, sexual predator. 44:27 And yeah, but I like him on taxes. 44:30 I don't know, but there's something in the Epstein files. 44:34 And I made this point again, over and over again. 44:36 And sometimes you do need to repeat yourself. 44:38 Okay. 44:38 Having said, I didn't want to repeat myself. 44:41 Look, the Republicans in the Trump administration have spent an awful lot of political capital 44:48 in covering up these files? 44:50 And what could possibly be in them? 44:52 I mean, Donald Trump, I think, internally, he believes that he is absolute Teflon, that he could shoot somebody in the middle of Fifth Avenue or on a street in Minneapolis and not lose any support. 45:05 So what could possibly be in the Epstein files that would lead Speaker Mike Johnson, the squeaker of the House, that's the Jimmy Kimmel line, the squeaker of the House, 45:17 to shut down the Congress of the United States for like a month so that we didn't have to have the vote on all of this? 45:24 What would lead them to do that reversal where they talked about it, talked about it, talked about it, promised they were going to release it and then just suddenly said, hey, nothing to see here. 45:31 Total hoax, total Democratic hoax. 45:33 And what would lead them to so clearly and publicly ignore this unanimous vote in the House of Representatives? 45:43 So this 45:45 This isn't going away, and we should not allow it to go away. 45:51 Okay, here. 45:53 This is the question on sanity. 45:54 Oh, excellent question. 46:00 Let's see. 46:03 It's a question about Mark Kelly and whether or not Mark Kelly is going to be stripped of his rank. 46:10 You know, this is, again, a story that has not received enough attention. 46:14 Mark Kelly is an American hero. 46:16 He's an American veteran. 46:18 He is an honor to his country, unlike the president of the United States. 46:22 And he was part of that video that merely stated what the law was, telling members of the service that they, you know, should not and did not have to obey illegal orders. 46:35 And at first, the Trump administration, well, I mean, you remember, I mean, Donald Trump said, you know, he's guilty of treason, they should be hanged. 46:43 Yeah, that was... 46:44 You know, do you remember there was once a time when if the president of the United States, you know, called for the death penalty against prominent members of another party, that that would kind of be a big story? 46:55 Well, you know, he did the ranting. 46:57 Then there was the suggestion that they were going to go after Mark Kelly, even though he's retired and maybe court martial him. 47:04 They backed off from that. 47:05 By the way, they backed off on the court martial because they knew that they did not have the evidence. 47:10 that they were not able to be able to get any sort of a conviction. 47:14 And now they're going through an administrative process that may dock him some pay and cut his rank, which would be an act of extraordinary pettiness and intimidation. 47:25 But understand how much of this administration... 47:28 how much energy is devoted to intimidating people, threatening people who might oppose them. 47:35 Now it's one thing to threaten the news media, which again is unconstitutional because of the first amount, but Mark Kelly is not only a decorated veteran, 47:45 He is a sitting member of Congress. 47:47 He is a United States senator. 47:49 And the notion that the administration would go and target him for saying something that was factually true is just like part of this, you know, cosmos... 48:01 of craziness that we have to deal with on a regular basis. 48:08 Okay, I want to make sure that I get to as many of these questions as that I said that I was going to. 48:13 Trump's proposed $1.5 trillion defense budget. 48:16 This is a 50% increase in the budget. 48:20 I don't know how serious Congress is going to take that because we don't have the money, people. 48:25 You know, the United States government is running massive deficits. 48:28 The national debt is still a problem, even though members of both parties have decided to ignore it. 48:34 But $1.5 trillion, well, I mean, that is a lot of money. 48:40 Trump says we can pay for it because of all the money coming in from the tariffs. 48:44 which is, I'm sorry to say, what a bunch of bullshit. 48:47 First of all, no, not even remotely close to that. 48:50 And number two, by the way, nobody asked me about this, but we are still waiting on the U.S. Supreme Court to come down with its big tariff decision. 48:59 And this is going to be a BFD. 49:02 And the conservatives on the court have kind of signaled that, you know, we actually do know how to read the Constitution. 49:11 And the Constitution gave Congress the power of taxation, and these emergency orders are obviously an abuse of power. 49:20 The question I have in my mind is whether the court is willing to own the fact that now there would have to be massive refunds. 49:29 And 49:29 you know, basically stand up against Donald Trump on a very, very high profile issue. 49:35 I mean, Donald Trump has been trying to bully and bluster his way through all of this. 49:39 He recognizes the threat. 49:42 I thought that might actually happen on Friday. 49:45 It might happen next week. 49:48 It's going to be an extraordinary story, you know, one way or another. 49:52 I suppose you could also say that to a certain extent, the court, 49:56 might actually do Trump a favor by knocking out those tariffs because those tariffs have kind of been a dead weight on the U.S. economy. 50:07 All right. 50:09 One more question here. 50:10 Charlie, it seems like Elon Musk is going through some things. 50:13 What's going on there? 50:15 OK, I'm really glad you did ask this question because on Thursday, 50:19 The world's richest man endorsed a social media call post calling for white solidarity. 50:27 OK, there's no misunderstanding here. 50:28 Now, look at the kinds of things that are being posted by Elon Musk. 50:33 It would be disqualifying in any other time in in modern American history. 50:40 And the problem is, is that. 50:42 that you know the people who are doing business with with elon musk the people who look to elon musk i don't seem to factor this in at all and this is the danger that we have right now if i can have a final word and i know we've said this before but i think one of the real there are multiple dangers you know 50:59 normalization, normalizing things that are absolutely not normal, but also becoming numb to all of this. 51:07 And I think that Trump, this is one of his legacies. 51:11 This is something that they want to happen. 51:13 And most important of all, the thing that we have to fight against, and I feel that this is really tough this week, and you're not the only one, I hope I'm not the only one, 51:22 Just struggle against pessimism, struggle against despair, struggle against that idea that you cannot fight and resist this because he's irresistible and he gets everything he wants. 51:32 That's what he wants us to believe. 51:34 He wants us to believe that there are no limits to his power. 51:37 There are no limits to his power unless we limit them. 51:40 There's no limits to this power unless Americans exercise some sort of an agency. 51:46 So what does that mean? 51:47 It means you have to take the politics seriously, that you have to speak out. 51:52 There are choices that everybody makes in their daily life. 51:55 Do you speak out? 51:56 Do you say something? 51:57 Do you share these videos? 51:59 Do you share these kinds of posts? 52:01 Do you talk to your friends? 52:02 Do you register to vote? 52:03 Do you make sure they are registered to vote? 52:06 Do you understand the importance of the midterm elections? 52:10 Are you willing to go out and make it clear that you want ICE to get the fuck out of your city? 52:19 Are you willing to do those things or are you intimidated? 52:23 Have you made the calculation that, well, other people will take care of this so I don't have to. 52:29 This is, by the way, the bystander is called the bystander syndrome where everybody stands around. 52:34 You see somebody who is dying there and you think, well, look, somebody else is going to do something about this. 52:39 At this point, nobody else is coming to save us. 52:41 You understand that. 52:42 That we're going to have to do this ourselves. 52:44 And that if you don't win the elections, if you do not provide a check, then we're going to lose a lot. 52:53 But again, this is why I stress the difference between optimism and hope. 52:58 Optimism is just the belief everything is going to be great. 53:00 Everything is going to be fine. 53:01 It's not. 53:02 Hope, on the other hand, is the conviction that if we work for change, if we work together, if we fight for it, that the world can become a better place. 53:11 This is what we have to cling to. 53:12 Almost everything that we see and hear 53:16 I think tries to discourage us from doing that. 53:19 I think there's a certain schtick out there, which I find incredibly tedious. 53:23 You know, that sort of Eeyore, oh, everything is terrible. 53:26 America is over and done. 53:28 I mean, I understand that. 53:29 America is over and done if we give up on it. 53:32 Okay, I know I'm sounding a little bit rah-rah, but I, and in part I'm talking to myself. 53:38 I'm talking to myself because I realized the other day, and I think I said this on another podcast, 53:44 that it was getting to me. 53:46 I know a lot of you say, well, Charlie, you know, you keep me sane. 53:49 And, you know, if you ever say that to me directly, I'll probably say something like, yeah, but who keeps me sane? 53:54 It's not really a joke. 53:55 It's like, when you do this, when you're immersed in it, 53:59 After a while, it does wear you down. 54:02 And we've been doing this for 10 years. 54:05 We have been fighting this fight for longer than the duration of World War II. 54:09 And I want you to think about that. 54:11 So it does take a toll. 54:13 It takes a toll on everybody. 54:14 It's why I'm sympathetic when people say, Charlie, I just can't watch TV anymore. 54:18 I can't read anymore. 54:19 I'm sorry. 54:19 I'm not going to subscribe anymore. 54:20 I'm not going to do anything. 54:21 I said, I get that. 54:22 Because at a certain point, we do have to recognize that this is a lot, and it is real, and that we're not wired for this kind of heaviness, this inversion of reality. 54:34 The gaslighting is exhausting. 54:37 It is discouraging. 54:39 And I think that I realized it the other night when I realized I was watching something that was actually pretty funny about all of this, and I thought, you know what? 54:46 I'm not finding it funny. 54:48 It's just upsetting. 54:51 And I'm guessing that you have had the same experience. 54:56 It's important that we keep our heads up, that we keep our sense of humor, because you know what? 55:03 You listen to shows like this, I hope, and you read things like my newsletter, because we need to remind ourselves every single day that we are not the crazy ones. 55:15 Thank you.