Speaker 1: Limerick Park in Los Angeles, California. I'm Tavis Smiley and
I'm so glad to see you and me back in
stride again. Before we get started with today's show, let
me invite you to follow me on Facebook and Instagram
at TheRealTavisSmiley and get updates on X, that's formally Twitter,
at Tavis Smiley. By the way, Should you miss any
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wherever you get your podcast and listen to The Tavis
Smiley Podcast version of this live program at your leisure.
Another great show on tap for you today. In our
second hour, two conversations. Up first, Skye Perryman, president and
CEO of Democracy Forward and a Time 100 honoree, talks
about her brand-new textbook. Ordinary People, Extraordinary Times, How to
Reclaim Your Power, Fight for Freedom, and Reimagine Democracy. On
the B side of our two, America's Loneliness Trap, take
a listen to this. One group of people in this
country is more isolated than anyone else. No, it's not men.
We'll talk to journalist and editor Nick Kepler about his
latest provocative piece, interesting piece, for Slate Magazine. Who is
the most lonely group of Americans? Stick around for the
backside of our two. In our third hour, Wilbert Cooper,
author of the New York Times and Time Magazine's most
anticipated book of the summer. That's high cotton when the
New York Times and Time Magazine both list your book
as the most anticipated of the summer. It's called The
Black Shield, An American Memoir of Family and Power. The
book tells an astonishing story of family, race, and the
complex duality of black cops in America. Fascinating text. I
think you'll appreciate the conversation we're going to have in
hour three about all that. But in this first hour today,
let's talk politics and more with our regular contributor, philosopher, lawyer,
and professor, Tim Golden. There is so much that we
talked about yesterday that has had reverberation. since yesterday. I'm
going to play a clip in just a moment here
of Hakeem Jeffries feeling the need to defend that meeting
with Jared Kushner that we talked about yesterday. So he's
on the defensive now about that meeting. I said yesterday,
you have these private meetings and somebody finds out about it.
You can't keep nothing secret, especially in DC these days.
So now he's having to speak publicly about what this
meeting was really about. So we'll hear from Hakeem Jeffries
here in just a second. Donald Trump, there's a new
poll out. The question is, what does it really mean?
I'll put that question to Tim Goldham.
Speaker 2: Here's the data.
Speaker 1: Trump, in this new poll, is underwater now in 47 states.
I repeat that. He's underwater now in 47 states. I
wasn't a math major, but I think since there are
only 50 of them, that means he's underwater in a
lot of red states. A lot of states have voted
for him. He's now underwater now in this latest poll
in 47 states. We'll talk about that with Tim Golden.
We talked yesterday about impeachment, whether or not Democrats, Hakeem
Jeffries and others, would have the temerity to impeach Donald Trump.
Donald Trump is sort of playing with him. He was
in South Carolina over the weekend saying, they're going to
impeach me. They're going to impeach me. He's kind of
rubbing it in their face, I think, because he knows
they ain't going to impeach him. But that didn't stop
Al Green on his way out. He's leaving Congress after
this term. But yesterday he introduced, he filed articles of
impeachment against Donald Trump yet again. We'll talk about whether
or not this impeachment thing is going to go anywhere.
Al Green is going back to Texas. But will this
impeachment argument with the file go anywhere in Congress once
he leaves after he introduced it yesterday? And this backlash
is growing, it seems, about Atlanta being snubbed as the
host city for the Democratic Convention come 2028. I said
yesterday on this program, I don't think it really matters
what the convention is these days. It comes down to
a few districts and a few swing states. Does it
really matter where either convention is held? But Andy Beshear,
the white male governor of Kentucky, has sided with the
black mayor of Atlanta in saying that Democrats can't take
black voters or the South for granted. OK, I expect
that from a southern governor. But this this squabble up
inside the DNC, another squabble up inside the DNC now
about where they're going to have their convention. The finalist,
the final three cities are what? Boston, Philadelphia and where
am I missing? Denver, Boston, Philly and Denver, the final
three cities. Atlanta gets snubbed, and the black folk there
ain't happy about it. The black mayor ain't happy about it.
But other Southerners are now saying you snubbed the South,
and that's not a good thing. So the infighting inside
the Democratic Party continues. What else is new? Another day,
another fight. I'm going to unleash Tim Golden for the
rest of the hour after I play you an Akeem
Jeffries piece when we come forward. I'll start with the piece.
I'm sorry, Miles, not to confuse you. We'll play the
clip when we come forward and then go to Tim Golden.
You're listening to Tavisman. You're on D with Tim Golden, philosopher, professor,
and lawyer, legal analyst. Always good to have him on
the program. Tim, how are you today, sir?
Speaker 2: I am doing fantastic, Tavis. Thank you so much for
having me. As usual, it is great to be with you.
Speaker 1: As usual, good to have you on the program. Let
me start with Akeem Jeffries. We talked again yesterday about
a few things that have legs, as we say in
this business. We'll come back to them and tell you
how the story on these issues is advancing 24 hours later.
We start with Hakeem Jeffries on that meeting with Jared Kushner.
Speaker 3: I want to give you a little real talk on
this Jared Kushner situation. He asked for a meeting and
I took it to discuss the affordability crisis that exists
that is not a hoax. At the same period of time,
I shouldn't have to say it.
Speaker 1: But I am.
Speaker 3: No one is going to get a pass We're going
to hold every single member of the Trump cartel accountable.
Beginning on day one. If you're stealing from the American people,
shortchanging the American people, or screwing over the American people,
you're going to be held accountable. We're going to follow
the facts, apply the law, and be guided by the Constitution.
Beginning on day one. and hold the crooks accountable.
Speaker 1: There are a number of things about that clip, Tim Golden,
that jump out at me. Let me just give you
a few of them right quick, and I'll shut up
and pass the mic to you. Number one, he says
they're going to be held accountable. Every member of the cartel,
the Trump cartel, is going to be held accountable on
day one. Number one, he assumes that Democrats went back
to the House and the Senate. That's the first thing.
I've been saying for months now, warning this audience about
what I call an irrational exuberance. We were looking for
a big red wave. It did not happen in the
Biden midterm. And now everybody's talking about this big blue
wave that they expect to come in November. I pray
that it does. But there's a lot of assumption in
that comment from Hakeem Jeffries about what's going to happen
on day one, assuming that he's the speaker on day one,
number one. Number two, when he says we're going to
hold every member of the Trump cartel accountable, I think
that means everybody but Donald Trump. So I have not
seen anything come out of Hakeem Jeffries' mouth that suggests
to me that they really want to go after Donald Trump.
We're going to connect this dot to the impeachment articles
filed by Al Green yesterday. You and I both know
Hakeem Jeffries don't want none of that. We talked about
that on this show yesterday. So he says we're going
to hold every member of the cartel accountable. Yeah, except
for Jared Kushner's father-in-law, the one you had the meeting with.
I could go on. Let me just stop for a second.
But that clip, I like Hakeem, but that clip was
funny to me for a lot of reasons. I don't
want to take up all your time. Go, Tim Golden.
Speaker 2: So, Tavis, my initial reaction when I heard this was
a reaction that we used to get out of the
Reagan-Bush Republicans, who seem to be, as a practical matter,
extinct in electoral politics nowadays. But I remember part of
their rhetorical message was, that you don't negotiate with terrorists.
I remember that would be said often in the context
of foreign policy. And that's what was called to my
mind when I heard about this meeting. I thought to myself,
Leader Jeffries has created, whether he intended to or not,
a real political mess for himself through taking this meeting,
because people... don't understand nuance in the heat of an
upcoming election. And whenever you have to explain yourself and
justify yourself, you are really at a disadvantage. So my
thinking is, on one hand, I can understand where Leader
Jeffries is coming from, because let's be honest, Him and
Jared Kushner do have a history of having worked together.
They worked together on the First Step Act during Trump's
first term. But what troubles me, Tavis, more than, you know,
I understand they have a history and I understand he's
trying to get things done. But I'm wondering to what
extent this feeds into the notion of oligarchy. when an
elected representative accountable to the people is meeting with someone
who albeit has proximity to the president, but does not
hold a position in government. That's what concerns me about
the meeting most, more than all of the rhetorical things
you could say about the meeting and not meeting with terrorists, etc.,
and even more than their history of working together, I'm
concerned now that taking this meeting signals a real influence,
an influence that we know has existed for a long
time from the Trump family. But it just became more
real to me to look at this situation and see, wow,
now you have elected leaders meeting with unelected influencers, and
that to me smacks of oligarchy. And that concerns me
more about that meeting than anything else.
Speaker 1: So I hear you. I've got a more grave concern
than that. Let me just say, with all due respect,
the only part of your argument that's missing for me
is that if Hakeem Jeffries, the minority leader, were to
meet with Donald Trump, the president of the United States,
he'd be meeting with a terrorist. He'd be meeting with
a war criminal. You and I both know that. So
to suggest that that's the standard in this particular iteration
of government, I'm not sure that holds respectfully. Because, again,
if you call Jared Kushner that, then Donald Trump is
that on steroids. So is Hakeem Jeffries, by your logic,
not to meet with the president? I don't think that's
what you're arguing. Because, again, I see Trump as a terrorist.
I see Trump as a war criminal. So that can't
be the box that you want to put Hakeem Jeffries in,
is it, for starters?
Speaker 2: No, I don't want to put them in their box.
And when I borrowed that rhetoric from Reagan-Bush Republicans, I
wasn't making a hardcore one-to-one comparison and saying that Jared
Kushner is a terrorist. I was using that term loosely
to indicate the fact that these are two people on
opposite sides of the aisle. So don't interpret my invocation
of that statement as something where I was indicating that
Jared Kushner is actually a terrorist, right? Donald Trump may
be all of those things that you said, but at
a minimum, Donald Trump is the president of the United States.
Jared Kushner does not hold any elected office whatsoever. And
so for me, the concerns about undue influence, of oligarchy
in American politics took precedence over that. So that's why
I took that position.
Speaker 1: I take your point. I ain't got an issue with
the leader, Leader Jeffries, meeting with citizens of influence. I mean,
you know, that's his prerogative. What troubles me about this meeting,
and I said so yesterday, and here's why Hakeem Jeffries
had to respond to it today, because I was right yesterday,
with all due humility. I said yesterday, the problem with
this meeting is is that it was private. You cannot
meet with Jared Kushner when your name is Hakeem Jeffries
and think that ain't nobody going to find out about this.
And this is the issue of decision-making about Hakeem Jeffries
that bothers me. If Jared Kushner asked for a meeting
and you decide to meet with Jared Kushner, put it
on your public schedule. Say you're meeting with Jared Kushner,
and at least you avoid the issue of people thinking
that you were meeting in secret to your point, with
an oligarch. And I just don't understand the calculus on that.
Why have a private meeting as if there was something
to hide when now you've been forced to come out
publicly and talk about it, and now you've got to
spin it and say, yeah, I met with Jared privately.
Y'all wasn't supposed to know about that. You found out
about it, and since you did, let me tell you
what we talked about, but we're going to hold every
member of the Trump cartel accountable. That don't pass muster,
Tim Golden. It don't pass the smell test.
Speaker 2: No, it doesn't. And part of it, I think you
and I are in a way saying something very similar, Travis, right?
Because when you meet with private citizens of influence, private
citizens of influence want private meetings. They want things to
be clandestine. They want to operate in the shadows. And
if I could quote the late Justice Thurgood Marshall, who
said democracy dies behind closed doors. Now, if you are
meeting with a private citizen. to whom you're accountable, that's
one of your constituents, that's one thing. But you're meeting
with somebody who does not hold office, to whom you
are not accountable as a representative, and you're taking a
meeting with this person in private, and this person's only
real credential is that they have a lot of money
and they have a lot of influence and they have
a direct access to to the president. And when you
do that with a private citizen, any private, again, I
agree with you, it absolutely sends the wrong message.
Speaker 1: Let me pivot then to this impeachment issue. I mentioned
yesterday that Al Green, the congressman, let me do this first.
Tim Golden had a slip of the tongue there. It
happens to me all the time on this show, so
we're all guilty of this every now and then. You
can't do it, as I say to my friends, a
live show for three hours every day and not slip up.
But he just gave a great quote that he attributed
to Thurgood Marshall, but it wasn't Thurgood Marshall. It was
a justice, but it was not Thurgood Marshall. I'll tell
you why I know this. I know this because I
know the judge who said that. It was written in
his decision about the Watergate hearing, and it was not
Thurgood Marshall. It was Damon Keith, federal judge Damon Keith
out of Detroit, who used that phrase. Thurgood Marshall may
have borrowed it, but the phrase comes from Damon Keith,
and I'm only saying that because I knew Judge Keith
was a dear friend of mine. He wrote that line
in his decision. The Watergate case was so hot in
Washington that it went outside of Washington to the circuit
in D.C., on which Judge Damon Keith sat. And he
wrote that famous line, democracies die behind closed doors. It
was coined by him in that 2002 landmark decision. I
can almost guarantee you, Tevis, that one, you're correct.
Speaker 2: And two, Justice Marshall probably, my association of the quote
with Justice Marshall is probably because Justice Marshall quoted Justice
Keith in one of his opinions.
Speaker 1: There you go.
Speaker 2: Trust me.
Speaker 1: I just want to clarify that for two reasons. One,
because I know the back story. It was Damon Keith,
iconic black federal judge in Detroit. The second reason why
I'm sharing is because this program right now is being
heard in Detroit. And I'm going to get 25 phone
calls from Detroit that we hate, that we hating on
Detroit's own Judge Damon Keith, the late, great Damon Keith,
by not giving him his respect. I don't want those
phone calls coming from Detroit later today when they hear
this program. I hear that comment. So anyway, it was
Judge Damon Keith who originally said that Judge Thurgood Marshall
may have quoted Keith in the decision. But it's a
great quote. And I didn't say that to push back
on Tim Golden. I just want to provide some light
on that quote. It is a great quote. He said
it then and he's right now. Democracies die. behind closed
doors you see why tim golden used to quote uh
it again underscores the view that so many of us
have about what really happens in dc behind these closed
doors washington is bought and bossed by big money and
big business and it is these oligarchs and those with
money and power uh to quote tim golden accurately that
get the kind of access that most of us never
would get do you think you could just ask uh
hakeem jeffries for a private meeting and you'd get it
The answer is no. You would not get a private
meeting with Hakeem Jeffries. It doesn't work that way. But
if you're Jared Kushner, to Tim's point, even if you
don't hold any office, but you happen to have that
level of stature, you can get a private meeting with
Hakeem Jeffries. It sends the wrong signal. And that's why
I said the meeting should not have been in private.
Should have put it out there publicly to begin with. OK,
enough of that. It's a great quote from Judge Keith.
I love that guy. Democracies die behind. closed doors. All right,
let me just play Al Green, Congressman Al Green, talking
about his filing of these articles of impeachment against Trump
again yesterday. When we come forward, I'll let Tim Golden
go in on that. Here he is, Congressman Al Green. Hello, everyone.
Speaker 4: I'm your Congressman Al Green, and today I have just
filed articles of impeachment. I have the articles in.
Speaker 2: My hand, H. Res.
Speaker 4: 1486, teaching Donald John Trump, President of the United States,
for high crimes and misdemeanors. I'm not going to go
into great detail right now about these articles, but I
shall in the days to follow. But I will say this,
these articles are not about Democrats. They're not about conservatives
or liberals. They're not about left or right. They're about
right and wrong. They're about life and death.
Speaker 1: I'm Travis Molley, I'm the brilliant philosopher, professor, legal analyst.
all-around amazing public intellectual Tim Golden, who is our lead
guest today. I can't call him a guest. He's a
regular contributor, and I'm blessed to have him on this program.
Let me play one more again in case you've just
tuned in. The Al Green clip, we've been talking in
the first half hour, in case you've just turned this on,
about some stories that we raised yesterday that have grown
over the last 24 hours. We started talking about this
meeting between Hakeem Jeffries, the minority leader in the House,
and Jared Kushner, a private meeting they had They broke
all out into the public and people found out about
the meeting. And so now Hakeem Jeffries on his heels
trying to explain why he had this private meeting with
Jared Kushner. I won't play that clip again, but he
tries his best to explain it. But he said ultimately that, yeah,
we met and we talked about affordability as if, again,
another point, Tim, as if Jared Kushner knows anything about affordability.
That's the funny part here. This guy... Jared Kushner can't
spell affordability. He doesn't have any affordability issues in his
own life, but that's what the meeting was about? Okay, Hakeem. Anyway,
the oligarchs get access to the leaders. That's the way
it works in D.C. But Hakeem Jeffries, that is, explaining,
trying to explain why he met with Jared Kushner privately.
It's now out in the public, and so we played
that clip earlier. But I want to come back now
to this Al Green clip. Congressman Al Green out of
Houston has once again introduced impeachment articles against Donald Trump.
You know Al Green. He's been kicked out of the Senate.
out of the well of the House two or three
times during Trump speeches for standing up and protesting the
president to his face in real time. I love Al
Green for that. He's finishing up his last term.
Speaker 2: He was beaten.
Speaker 1: They redrew the lines in Texas. He lost a race
to a young brother named Christian Menifee, a sharp brother.
But Christian is a new congressman in that area, so
Al Green is now in his last term. But he
ain't getting out of there without introducing these articles of
impeachment at least one more again. Here is Al Green
talking about it, and then we'll have Tim respond. Hello, everyone.
Speaker 4: I'm your Congressman Al Green, and today I have just
filed articles of impeachment. I have the articles in my hand, H.
Speaker 2: Res.
Speaker 4: 1486, impeaching Donald John Trump, President of the United States,
for high crimes and misdemeanors. I'm not going to go
into great detail right now about these articles, but I
shall in the days to follow. But I will say this.
These articles are not about Democrats. They're not about conservatives
or liberals. They're not about left or right. They're about
right and wrong. They're about life and death.
Speaker 1: All right, Tim Golden, Al Green once again files articles
of impeachment. Let me connect this dot, as I promised
I would earlier, to Hakeem Jeffrey suggesting that he is
going to hold every member of the Trump cartel accountable.
I think he meant every member except Donald Trump. But
how do you read these impeachment articles being introduced yesterday
and whether or not there's any hope that Democrats would
actually investigate Donald Trump if they get the gavel back,
much less impeach Donald Trump?
Speaker 2: Representative Green has the right spirit, but regrettably he's in
the wrong venue to expect results on these articles of impeachment.
The framers of the Constitution... designed impeachment to be a
political process. And what I mean by political is they
designed it precisely to function with all of the things
that Representative Green says these articles are not about. It
was designed to be drawn along partisan lines, whether or
not articles of impeachment actually go forward. And so The
difference is that there's also a legal process, which is
based more on the law, the evidence, etc. And for impeachment,
it's a horse of a different color. So unfortunately, the
impeachment process is all about partisanship. It's all about left
and right. It's all about Democrat versus Republican. It's not
really about right and wrong at all. If you remember,
President Clinton was impeached for conduct that didn't arguably didn't
really have anything to do with his abilities or his
policies or any criminal behavior that he engaged in. So
I think, again, Representative Green has the right spirit, but
that's not the right venue to expect results, especially if
it is about right and wrong. Now, Tavis, the broken
clock is right twice a day, right? Every now and then,
Congress might do something important morally that's also important from
a policy standpoint, but that's not really the norm. in
that institution of American public life. So, again, I think
it's the right spirit, but I think he's in the
wrong venue to expect those kind of results. And if
Representative Jeffries is trying to go after the Trump administration
or the people in what he calls the Trump cartel,
I think what he has to understand is if Democrats
do win the House, in November, then they better get
down to the business of addressing all these issues of
affordability that are so important to everyone. Because if they
assume power and they spend their time trying to exact
vengeance on the Trump administration through impeachment, that's going to
be a huge distraction for to the affordability issues that
are so important to average everyday Americans.
Speaker 1: Speaking of everyday Americans, if you are an everyday listener
to this program, we're now 2-0 with lead guests two
days in a row who argue that strategically it would
be a mistake for Democrats to go down the impeachment
path that Al Green has suggested, and Democrats ought to
spend their time, if they get the gavel back, working
on these affordability issues that everybody spends so much time
talking about. Eli Addy, who was a former White House speechwriter,
was our lead guest yesterday. That was his opinion yesterday.
Here comes Tim Golden. I didn't see that coming. But
here comes Tim Golden a day later agreeing with Eli
Addy that Democrats would not be well served to spend
time on impeachment proceedings. But here's the rub for me, Tim,
as I said yesterday to Eli Addy. I hear the
point you and Eli are making strategically. What that suggests
to me then is that you and Eli are going
to let Donald Trump, you're okay with Donald Trump getting
away with his high crimes and misdemeanors. So when you
talk about holding him accountable, when Hakeem Jeffrey says we're
going to hold accountable every member of the Trump cartel,
then it's a bunch of nonsense. You don't really mean it.
Because if the decision is already made that it's bad
strategically to spend time going after impeachment, we got to
show the American people what we can do to make
their lives better and working on these affordability issues, which
I get, then how does Donald Trump ever get held accountable?
You just said that impeachment is the wrong process. So
what is the right process? What is the right path?
What is the right venue? Or is Donald Trump just
going to get away with all of this?
Speaker 2: Well, something interesting happened in the wake of January 6th
and Trump's second impeachment. All of the Republicans were talking
about look, this is a political process. Trump could be
indicted when he leaves office and so forth and so on.
So that's why I'm voting no to remove him from office.
A number of Republican senators said that during the impeachment trial.
The problem that we have now is theoretically you can't
rely on the Justice Department the way you could because
all of those institutional barriers have been broken down and
at least I'm sure Trump is going to make certain
the way he has with his illegal appointments to go
after people like Letitia James and other of his foes,
he is essentially protected by the Supreme Court of the
United States in the Trump versus United States decision. So, Tavis,
I don't know if the answer to your question is,
could be that Trump would ever be held accountable for
any of this. And perhaps that may lead to outrage,
but I think a political calculation has to be made.
Trump for two more years? Trump for two more years,
there's another presidential election, or you expend your capital on
an impeachment process in which you likely will not have
the votes because the Senate has to vote to remove
him if he is impeached. So you've got to take
the House and the Senate, and you've got to hope
that works. And if it doesn't, and the affordability issues
are perceived as being ignored, then in 28, you have
another problem because the Congress and Senate are, I mean,
everybody in Congress is, well, not everybody, but everybody in
the House is going to be up for re-election again,
and they're going to be facing this difficulty. And so
my question is, if this is the place where we
found ourselves, Then the question for me is, how did
we get here and what will it take to undo
this situation where we're essentially stuck?
Speaker 1: Those are legitimate questions. I just don't think the answer
is either or. I think the answer is both and.
Ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, what Tim Golden just
told you, the brilliant Tim Golden, and he's right about it.
I hate to admit it, but he's right. What Tim
Golden just told you, if I can just break it down,
is that Donald Trump has not and will never be
held accountable by the court system He has not and
he will not be held to account by the United
States Congress. He has not and will not ever be
held to account by any international court. He has not
and will not ever be held accountable by the Supreme Court,
the highest court in the land, given the immunity that
they've already given him on pretty much everything. And I
think you can deduce from that that Donald Trump is
going to get away with every single thing he has
done and every single thing he will do between now
and the time he leaves office, if, if he leaves office.
But I digress for now. You're listening to Tavis. You
are indeed inside the Tavis and Tim show, the Tim
and Tavis show. This happens every so many weeks, and
I'm always pleased to have Tim Golden on this program. Tim,
no naivete here, as I often say, but I know
the audience is processing the your commentary the same way
I'm processing it, which is essentially that Donald Trump is
going to get away literally with murder. He's getting away
with everything. And every time I process this in my
own head, I think about Letitia and Jamal. I think
about Jose and Maria, all these black and brown people
in the country who could never imagine just getting away
with this. And here's the insult. What's that old adage?
Here's the pouring of salt into the wound. It's not
just that Donald Trump gets away with it is that
he's getting all of his friends off. I mean, he
pardoned all those insurrectionists. So it's not just him getting
away with it. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Leader Jeffries, you're wrong.
The Democrats are not going to hold every member of
the Trump cartel accountable because if they tried to do that,
Donald Trump still has the power to pardon every member
of his cartel. So it's not just Donald Trump. It's
everybody in the cartel is going to get away with
it to him.
Speaker 2: It's everybody. It's everybody, Tavis. Everybody is going to get
away with it. We're talking about somebody. In fact, in fact,
I don't think this is a controversial claim to make.
Donald Trump ran for president to keep himself out of prison.
Speaker 3: Yep.
Speaker 2: He ran for president two years ago with the hope
that if he won, all of his legal troubles would
go away. And that's exactly what happened. And so he
ran for president to stay out of jail. And now
that he knows, because here's the thing, those prosecutions are gone.
They're not coming back. They're gone forever. And there were
four of them. And they're all gone. So he ran
for president to stay out of prison. And now that
he won the election, he can ensure that he will
not be held accountable to anybody except E. Gene Carroll
for $ 5. 8 million.
Speaker 1: And except E. Gene Carroll and one other person who
sits high and looks low. He's still going to be
held accountable to that person that sits high and looks low.
None of us. gets away with everything, even when we
think we do. There is a God that we all
have to answer to at some point. I don't mean
to be sacrilegious or proselytize here, but he's going to
be held to account one day for all the damage
he's done to so many other people. It might not
be by the Congress, by the Supreme Court, or any
national court, or even by the American people, but at
some point he's going to have to give an answer
for all his dastardly deeds. I digress on that for now.
When we come forward, not that Donald Trump cares about this,
Because as we've just discussed, he's getting away with everything anyway.
So does it really matter to him that he's underwater
in 47 states? Likely not. We'll talk about it anyway
with Tim Golden on Tavis Smart. Donald Trump's approval rating
is a negative 26. Negative 26. He's down even more
so from last week. He is now underwater in 47 states.
I asked Tim Golden, does it really matter? Does he care? No.
Speaker 2: Yes, Tevis. I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: No, that wasn't rhetorical. That was not rhetorical. Does it
really matter? Does he care?
Speaker 2: I don't think... I think he cares at this point.
For him, it's about his legacy. Assuming he doesn't try
to upend the Constitution and run for a third term.
Or somehow try to finagle his way into a third term.
So I think it It matters for him in terms
of legacy. As a practical matter, because the Supreme Court
has been so friendly to him, I think he is
pretty safe from criminal prosecution once he leaves office. And
I think he will ride that off into the sunset.
What has really... perhaps deluded him to this point, and
you and I have talked about this before, Tavis, is
that despite him being underwater in so many of these
states in the primary seasons that we've been experiencing this year,
his candidates who he has endorsed have come out smelling
like roses. And that's a good thing, but the problem
is that those are not national elections, right? We're typically
talking about congressional elections, House elections, where people are voting
only in one district. And so we'll see what comes
of that. But in the end, it may not matter.
It may not matter at all. But again, he's not
going to... Theoretically, he can't run again. But theoretically, it
has to be underscored big time because... And upending the
Constitution has never stopped him before.
Speaker 1: Mayor Andre Dickens finally here. Got 60 seconds to go.
Andre Dickens, mayor of Atlanta, has sent a letter out
addressed to Atlanta, the South, and all Democrats. The DNC
continues to make the wrong choices. He goes on to
go in on this in this letter on the Democratic Party.
Ken Martin, the Democratic chairperson, they made a huge mistake
not choosing Atlanta. The final three cities for the convention
in 2038 are Boston, Philly, and Denver. We'll see which
of those three wins. Andy Beshear, governor of Kentucky, has
sided with Andre Dickens, mayor of Atlanta, saying this is
not a good decision. In a quick 30 seconds, I'm
not sure it matters where the convention is, but it
does make a statement. This is a controversy now about
whether or not the DNC is ignoring black voters.
Speaker 2: I think the Atlanta mayor and the Kentucky governor are correct.
This would have been the perfect time to host the
convention in Atlanta, especially given Given the importance of black
voting rights and black political power, the recent Calais decision
of the Supreme Court, I think Atlanta was a prime
opportunity for the Democratic Party to saturate itself in the
richness of black history. at a time when black history
is so profoundly under attack by an administration that's fundamentally,
at its core, white supremacist.
Speaker 1: Nope. It's a strong letter. You should just Google it.
Google the letter written by Mayor Andre Dickens to Atlanta,
the South, and all Democrats. I ain't got time to
go through it. It's a strong letter. He wasn't feeling
this decision. I digress for now. Tim Gordon, we'll talk
again soon. Take care of yourself.
Speaker 2: Yes, sir. Thank you, Tavis. Take care.
Speaker 1: One hour down, two to go. You're listening, and I'm
glad about it to Tavis Smart.