Speaker 1: Tessy around. This is the seventy seven WABC Mini Test.
Speaker 1: So our first guest.
Speaker 2: Is someone who's had one of the most visible and
Speaker 2: at times one of the most scrutinized jobs in American politics.
Speaker 2: He is a political strategist, a communications professional. He's an author,
Speaker 2: a commentator, and a commander in the US Navy Reserves,
Speaker 2: as well as former White House Press secretary who literally
Speaker 2: spent years at the center of some of the biggest
Speaker 2: headlines in the country. He also has his own show
Speaker 2: right here every Sunday morning at ten am, right here
Speaker 2: at WABC, called Full Court with Sean Spicer. Okay, so,
Speaker 2: Sean lots to talk about little time. You and I
Speaker 2: were both in the fox hole when the Boss took
Speaker 2: office in twenty seventeen, and back then it was absolute chaos.
Speaker 2: You were out there air free single day, literally trying
Speaker 2: to translate a hurricane into English. Now look at Trump
Speaker 2: forty seven. You got Caroline Levit. She's out in front
Speaker 2: throwing punches daily. Having lived that hell yourself. What's the
Speaker 2: one mistake that you think she's making that you would
Speaker 2: fix tomorrow?
Speaker 3: Uh? Interesting, I didn't think you'd go in that direction.
Speaker 3: I thought you'd ask me to.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 3: I mean, look, I actually think it's the opposite, which
Speaker 3: is they've had the opportunity to see I mean, in
Speaker 3: Caroline's case, four other press secretaries. I joked with Sarah,
Speaker 3: my successor, all the time about this, like if you
Speaker 3: knew now what you know, you knew then, what would
Speaker 3: you have done differently? And I could spend an hour
Speaker 3: talking to you, Michael, because again I'm answering this backwards
Speaker 3: because you'll get this. Like I remember having a conversation
Speaker 3: with then mister Trump, and he said to me, I'm
Speaker 3: going to be the most traditional president ever sewn. And
Speaker 3: I go, oh, perfect, I know how to do tell.
Speaker 2: It's going to make life easy, right yeah.
Speaker 3: And he was just like, don't worry. This is going
Speaker 3: to be so traditional. It's going to be awesome. And
Speaker 3: I was like, oh, okay, I had served in the
Speaker 3: Bush White House. I knew, like I'd seen my predecessors
Speaker 3: in my position, like Ari Fleischer and Dana and Tony
Speaker 3: Snow And I was like, I know how to do that, Like,
Speaker 3: if you want to be tradition. What I don't think
Speaker 3: I appreciated that Caroline does is how non traditional he is.
Speaker 3: He's willing to break down norms, do it his way.
Speaker 3: He's willing to punch back in a way that nobody
Speaker 3: ever has. And I don't think I ever thought, oh,
Speaker 3: I've got the green light to just go out and
Speaker 3: you know verbally just to be clear, like kind of
Speaker 3: verbally punch somebody in the face and push back the
Speaker 3: way that nobody else in history has done and that
Speaker 3: Donald Trump does like every day.
Speaker 1: So I think that the opposite is true.
Speaker 3: I think Caroline has been able to see four people
Speaker 3: go before her and say and also remember she served
Speaker 3: in forty five under Keyley Mcananey, so she came into
Speaker 3: this job with a level of preparedness that no one had.
Speaker 2: You know, it's funny because when I watch Caroline Levitt
Speaker 2: doing what she does, it reminds me, and I wanted
Speaker 2: the quote to be exact, so I punched it up
Speaker 2: here onto my phone. If the facts are against you,
Speaker 2: argue the law. If the law is against you, argue
Speaker 2: the facts. If the law and the facts are against you,
Speaker 2: pound the table and yell like hell.
Speaker 1: Now we see this every single day.
Speaker 2: I mean we're watching them the podium, pounding their fist
Speaker 2: on and on and on right. For example, look at
Speaker 2: the absurdity that's going on right now with Janine Piro
Speaker 2: and this reflecting pool.
Speaker 1: You've heard me.
Speaker 2: Probably a million times turned around and say it's complete nonsense.
Speaker 2: This is a maintenance issue, not a reflection on Trump,
Speaker 2: but it is a classic Trump's scenario where a contractor,
Speaker 2: by the way happens all the time, watched a job right,
Speaker 2: the lining peeled and in just instead of taking the
Speaker 2: loss on this minor maintenance issue, the boss kind of
Speaker 2: like demanded that there be a villain. Janine of course
Speaker 2: dropped the charges because the facts they didn't hold up,
Speaker 2: and instantly right he publicly claims that she choked and
Speaker 2: folded like an umbrella. From a comms perspective, how do
Speaker 2: you manage an administration where the press operation is literally
Speaker 2: like forced to treat a freakin peeling pool liner like
Speaker 2: it's some sort of a national security crisis just to
Speaker 2: protect I don't know what you we'll call it ego.
Speaker 1: Well, there's a few things to unpack there.
Speaker 3: First of all, you're right, I mean, I got to
Speaker 3: kick out of the fact that there are so many
Speaker 3: issues of national importance that a CNN, for example, won't touch,
Speaker 3: but yet they spent countless hours talking about paint peeling
Speaker 3: in a reflecting pool. But it's a Donald Trumpet project,
Speaker 3: so therefore merits rising to that level.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: But the one thing that I'll disagree with the analysis
Speaker 3: on is I think there's two aspects of this.
Speaker 1: Two things can be true at once.
Speaker 3: There can be vandals that have done things, and there
Speaker 3: can be a botched install installation. And I believe that
Speaker 3: this is a case of that being true, meaning that
Speaker 3: there are there is If you don't follow Emily Miller
Speaker 3: on Instagram, she has documented this stuff like nothing else,
Speaker 3: and she shows that there were cuts and there were things.
Speaker 3: So I believe, based on just what I've watched, that
Speaker 3: two things are true. There was probably some botched installation
Speaker 3: aspects of this, and some people cut this where I
Speaker 3: think Janine had some issues. And this is to your
Speaker 3: point about the comms piece of this. When they got
Speaker 3: this canoe dude, Olympic rower or canoe or whatever he is, yeah,
Speaker 3: and they caught him, they rushed out and remember it
Speaker 3: was Janine in the press conference, yes, who said this
Speaker 3: was unacceptable.
Speaker 1: He is guilty and dah dah, da da dah.
Speaker 3: And so she owned it, and so if you're Donald Trump,
Speaker 3: he goes, great, you you you just.
Speaker 1: Made the case.
Speaker 3: You said that this was van and then when she
Speaker 3: walks it back and says we're dropping the case, I
Speaker 3: think he felt like, wait a second. You My US
Speaker 3: attorney for DC told me we had this guy dead
Speaker 3: to rights and we're going to prosecute him. And now
Speaker 3: you make me look like a fool because I got
Speaker 3: behind you.
Speaker 1: So there's a little bit of this that's it's not
Speaker 1: a clean hit.
Speaker 3: The other thing, Michael, and this is where your legal
Speaker 3: expertise comes in that I don't have. I get Janine
Speaker 3: at some point had to go in front of that
Speaker 3: judge and she knew, like I listened to the rower, dudes,
Speaker 3: lawyer i II is in and he was like, dude,
Speaker 3: we had we had photographic evidence of what it looked
Speaker 3: like the day before, the day aft. We could show
Speaker 3: chronologically that there was some contractor error.
Speaker 1: Blah blah blah.
Speaker 3: Janine knew that, and so she knew that if I
Speaker 3: go into court that the judge is gonna through discovery,
Speaker 3: they're going to show the photographs and I can't look
Speaker 3: like I'm lying, right because I'll get in trouble as
Speaker 3: a federal as a as a prosecutor. But the question
Speaker 3: I have is could they have just dropped the charges
Speaker 3: and not sort of like she made the case that
Speaker 3: he wasn't guilty, like yep, introducing Burgham's stuff in the contract.
Speaker 1: I don't.
Speaker 3: If it were me, I would have done two things
Speaker 3: very differently. Number One, I would have just tried to
Speaker 3: do this much quieter, a twenty page filing where you
Speaker 3: basically admit that you botched this probably wasn't the smartest thing. Two,
Speaker 3: I don't get the sense, and you know this better
Speaker 3: than anybody read him in I think he was shocked
Speaker 3: when they dropped it and claimed that it was the
Speaker 3: Interior Department not knowing the contractor. I think that they
Speaker 3: need She should have gone to Trump. And again, I
Speaker 3: don't know if you can legally do this.
Speaker 1: This is why I'm can. But she's going to send him,
Speaker 1: mister President tomorrow. I have to go to the judge.
Speaker 3: Their team has discovery showing that the contractor admits.
Speaker 1: Fault blah blah blah blah blah.
Speaker 3: I in duty bound to share with the judge that
Speaker 3: we know this and therefore this has to happen I
Speaker 3: want you.
Speaker 1: To know that, and so we're going to say the filing. Now.
Speaker 3: In my experience, Trump would have said, here's what I
Speaker 3: want you to say instead, can you say that? And
Speaker 3: they might have gone back and forth, because I learned
Speaker 3: that the hard way. Sometimes you say something he says,
Speaker 3: to be my friend, he says, why did you say that?
Speaker 1: That's not what I believe.
Speaker 3: I don't get the sense that they read him in
Speaker 3: on what they had to do, and.
Speaker 1: That was a big no.
Speaker 3: No.
Speaker 1: I could have told you how that would have gone.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you and I both, so what my opinion is
Speaker 2: what they should have probably done. And agreed with you
Speaker 2: that they should have dropped the case. When you are
Speaker 2: preparing for this, even after they had filed, the first
Speaker 2: thing that they needed to do is to continue to
Speaker 2: look at all of the documentation to ensure a victory.
Speaker 2: Very much like what they did with John Bolton. They
Speaker 2: knew they had Bolton dead to write, and so they
Speaker 2: pursued it, and they will pursue it to the point
Speaker 2: where he will probably, you know, either do some prison time,
Speaker 2: war I don't know, maybe get off because of these
Speaker 2: national security secrets.
Speaker 1: Who knows.
Speaker 2: But they got him dead to right, and they proved
Speaker 2: what Trump was saying all along.
Speaker 1: And this gets back to it.
Speaker 3: By the way, this gets you're getting to my other point, right,
Speaker 3: which is they know Emily Miller has documented vandalism.
Speaker 1: What the media did was they ran with this.
Speaker 3: Narrative when they dropped the charges, says Trump was wrong.
Speaker 3: I don't believe that's true. I believe that they might
Speaker 3: not have this guy dead to rights because he could
Speaker 3: prove that he was. He was just looking or something.
Speaker 3: But we do know Emily's video showed that there was vandalism.
Speaker 3: The better message would be, we know the President's right,
Speaker 3: there have been vandals that have done this in this
Speaker 3: particular case.
Speaker 1: We can't get him.
Speaker 3: And therefore we're letting him off, but we are still discuits,
Speaker 3: to your point, still pursuing the other folks.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: See, for me, like what I would have said to
Speaker 2: him would be, look, this is a maintenance issue, and
Speaker 2: I get it. You know, they're trying to discredit you
Speaker 2: every single way. You know, from sunrise to sunset. Don't
Speaker 2: let it happen. It is a maintenance issue. It is
Speaker 2: not a national security issue. It's not important. It's no
Speaker 2: more important than I don't know if they didn't fill
Speaker 2: up the guess tank to the beast, it makes no difference.
Speaker 2: It's something that could be resolved. Bring back the contractor
Speaker 2: JJ Kafaro, who, by the way, is a competent contractor.
Speaker 2: I know the guy. He's done thousands of swimming pools.
Speaker 2: That's exactly what this was. My opinion. Nobody cut three
Speaker 2: hundred and fifty yards worth of that reflection pool or
Speaker 2: whatever the distance is. You know, they just didn't do
Speaker 2: it right. Let him do it again. Pull it a day,
Speaker 2: you know, leave it alone. But now they had to
Speaker 2: just keep pushing and it just makes again the issue.
Speaker 3: But Michael, the problem is this is where sometimes the
Speaker 3: people that surround the president, yes, screw him and they
Speaker 3: put him in a box because they told him here's
Speaker 3: what it is. We've got this, and then what is
Speaker 3: he going to do. I rely on people all the time.
Speaker 3: You have people that you rely on I do, and
Speaker 3: when they come to you and say, hey, this happened
Speaker 3: or that happened, you go, oh, okay.
Speaker 2: He's going to run with it. We know the president, right,
Speaker 2: but the president, well enough, I would have.
Speaker 3: Paid money, by the way to be in that meeting
Speaker 3: with Doug Bergham, the Interior Secretary, and Jeane Piro where
Speaker 3: she brought you know, they show the video of her
Speaker 3: carrying two boxes of documentation into the meeting with the president,
Speaker 3: and from at least the media reports they say that
Speaker 3: were leaked by the way, which I always love the
Speaker 3: fact when there were five people in a meeting and
Speaker 3: they have multiple sources, which makes it seem like, okay,
Speaker 3: there's like five people in a room.
Speaker 1: They claim that three of the sources, that they have
Speaker 1: three sources. So you know, the Matthew that sixty you're
Speaker 1: six sixty six.
Speaker 3: So I just but I have a feeling that she
Speaker 3: went at him hard and like, here's this documentation, here's
Speaker 3: this proof, and when you spun him up, then you
Speaker 3: put it on my plate.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so you know, I want to move on and
Speaker 2: ask you this because looking down the road, you got j. D. Vance,
Speaker 2: who thinks that he's the heir apparent. But but you
Speaker 2: got Marco Rubio who's playing the foreign policy diplomat Trump.
Speaker 2: He doesn't like sharing the spotlight, as you know, or
Speaker 2: at this moment picking a successor, who do you think
Speaker 2: actually has the stomach and the staying power to inherit
Speaker 2: and I hate to call it this, but I'm going
Speaker 2: to the Maga crown or do you think everybody currently
Speaker 2: kissing the ring just waiting, I don't know, to get
Speaker 2: thrown under the bus.
Speaker 3: So a couple of things. No one's gonna get the crown.
Speaker 3: I think you might get to borrow or rent it.
Speaker 2: You think there's any chef for that one?
Speaker 1: You switch parties?
Speaker 2: But can I get it from I.
Speaker 3: Think that that that ship has sailed you. Maybe maybe
Speaker 3: you know I was gonna make out like a Harriet
Speaker 3: a Megan joke.
Speaker 1: But anyway, I think the reality is this what people
Speaker 1: have to understand.
Speaker 3: And this is why I always I like doing the
Speaker 3: show that I do, because understanding the rules of the
Speaker 3: game are like understanding baseball or football or any sport
Speaker 3: where like if you are watching it, if you want
Speaker 3: to understand it, and you know, like knowing what a
Speaker 3: foul is or off sides or you know, out of
Speaker 3: bounds or or an illegal play like it matters. And
Speaker 3: and so in the game of politics, understanding.
Speaker 1: That matters.
Speaker 3: And so for the for example, right now, you've got
Speaker 3: a scenario where jd.
Speaker 1: Vance is the current vice president. He's the chair of
Speaker 1: the Republican finance.
Speaker 3: And so it's his two lose and the only person
Speaker 3: there's two people, one Jadvan taking himself out of that
Speaker 3: race or Donald Trump changing the trajectory are the only
Speaker 3: two things that can change that outcome.
Speaker 1: So it is JD.
Speaker 3: Vance's crown to give up or to accept if Marco
Speaker 3: Rubio had any chance, a he has to get out
Speaker 3: of the administration or have Donald Trump say you are
Speaker 3: the guy.
Speaker 1: But those are the only two scenarios. Or JD.
Speaker 3: Vance just saying hey, I want to you know, be
Speaker 3: a father or whatever. But that's the only way that
Speaker 3: it's not Vance's Yeah.
Speaker 2: So you know, final question here, I want you to
Speaker 2: do me a favor and help me by taking a
Speaker 2: look at what's happening right here, for example, in New
Speaker 2: York City with Mayor Moron Mondani, the DSA, you know,
Speaker 2: taking over the narrative. You know, President Trump loves a boogeyman.
Speaker 2: I hope you acknowledge that. And he's out there literally
Speaker 2: slapping a communist label, socialist label on this entire move
Speaker 2: mint from a White House press strategy standpoint, it's weaponizing
Speaker 2: the bully pulpit against this fringe radical group. Do you
Speaker 2: think it's actually effective at driving moderate voters back to
Speaker 2: the GOP. Or do you think that picking fights with
Speaker 2: these guys just gives them the national platform that they're craving.
Speaker 1: Oh, I think it's brilliant. There are they are the
Speaker 1: way me too. Okay, because there's three things.
Speaker 3: Number one, what is Republican's strategy for success?
Speaker 1: Three fold?
Speaker 3: They need to remind people what they've done for them,
Speaker 3: what they will do for them, and how crazy the
Speaker 3: other side is. So this is part of the three
Speaker 3: legged stool that they have to. Second, it's true Mondommie's nuts.
Speaker 3: I mean this is he literally, as you know, just
Speaker 3: talked about privatizing or governmentizing supermarkets and making them thirty
Speaker 3: percent less.
Speaker 1: Short requiring an idea, of course, but this is what
Speaker 1: is it?
Speaker 2: You don't need by the way, sure you don't need
Speaker 2: need an ID to vote vote, but you need an
Speaker 2: ID to buy tomatoes.
Speaker 3: By the way, I'll take that one step further. Remember
Speaker 3: the Democrats claim that poor people can't afford an ID
Speaker 3: to vote, that's why we but apparently poor people who
Speaker 3: can't eat uh need one to buy food. So if
Speaker 3: I just I find the whole thing. If anyone ever
Speaker 3: stops and thinks about the democratic argument.
Speaker 1: It's nuts.
Speaker 3: The idea that you claim you can't afford one, so
Speaker 3: therefore you wouldn't wouldn't need one to vote, but you're
Speaker 3: so hungry that you have to have an ID to
Speaker 3: get the subsidized food, and that makes sense. That's again,
Speaker 3: full stop. This is socialism. It is communism, don't I
Speaker 3: think the President's absolutely right, and I actually think it's
Speaker 3: not fringe. I mean you look, you just had what
Speaker 3: two three members of Congress elected in New York, you
Speaker 3: had a member in Colorado, You've got Mondami in Michigan,
Speaker 3: and you're gonna get Francesca I'll say you yeah, I'm sorry.
Speaker 3: My point though, is this isn't a fringe movement. This
Speaker 3: is the Democratic Party. This is where they are going.
Speaker 3: This is the growing movement. This is where AOC and
Speaker 3: Bernie Sanders. I think the worst thing that we could
Speaker 3: do is actually to minimize it.
Speaker 1: This is real.
Speaker 3: It's an existential threat to not just our democracy but
Speaker 3: our country as a whole. I think we should be
Speaker 3: warning people of this and making it very clear that
Speaker 3: this is what they want to do. Cancel the Senate,
Speaker 3: cancel and abolish the presidency, pack the court, abolish, ize,
Speaker 3: defund the police, subsidize every I mean like this is
Speaker 3: full of nuts.
Speaker 1: Francesca Hang, by the way, who will be the.
Speaker 3: Democratic nominee for governor of Wisconsin, wants to cancel Thanksgiving.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I'm just saying, like, this isn't.
Speaker 3: Some random like city councilmen in you know, some random borough.
Speaker 3: This is the mayor of New York City. This is
Speaker 3: the nominee for the US Senate in Michigan. This is
Speaker 3: the nominee for governor in Wisconsin. This is soon to
Speaker 3: be several members of Congress. It's not fringe. This is
Speaker 3: the new Democratic Party.
Speaker 2: Sure, and thank you so much for joining me. Appreciate you,
Speaker 2: my brother. I will see you when you're back.
Speaker 1: Here in rats on the show. Brother, it's awesome.
Speaker 2: Appreciate you and anytime I understand if.
Speaker 3: You get in the cab these days in New York City,
Speaker 3: Michael Cohen's face is everywhere, so hopefully it's just it
Speaker 3: helps my show there on WABC on Sunday.
Speaker 2: It isn't seeing my face under the bus Sean. Thank you,
Speaker 2: my brother.
Speaker 1: Take care, see you soon, you bet