Speaker 1: Live from the heart of the nation's capital, this is
Speaker 1: a Jim Acosta Show special report. Hey, everybody. Welcome to
Speaker 1: the Jim Acosta Show.
Speaker 2: It is another day that ends in Y in Donald
Speaker 2: Trump's assault on American democracy. The latest example just in
Speaker 2: from the New York Times, agents are scouring voter rolls
Speaker 2: in this country right now managed by the state's and
Speaker 2: are using personally identifiable information about individual voters, such as
Speaker 2: their dates of birth and partial Social Security numbers, to
Speaker 2: look them up on those voter rolls, according to these
Speaker 2: documents obtained by The New York Times. Trump is doing
Speaker 2: this despite the fact that there is no widespread voter fraud.
Speaker 1: In this country.
Speaker 2: It's never been found. He's never proven it. And he
Speaker 2: and his party are facing a blowout in the midterms. Folks,
Speaker 2: we had intended to bring to you former special White
Speaker 2: House counsel Ty Cobb, talk about this. But in a
Speaker 2: few moments, we're going to have Liz Oyer, the former
Speaker 2: pardon attorney at the Justice Department, hop on. So she'll
Speaker 2: be with us in just a few minutes from now.
Speaker 2: If we can get Ty on, we will. But we
Speaker 2: had some technical issues, and I didn't want to get
Speaker 2: on too late today because, to me, this bombshell report
Speaker 2: in The New York Times is really worth talking about.
Speaker 1: Just stand by one second.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Let me just tell you what's in this New York
Speaker 2: Times story. This just came out a few moments ago,
Speaker 2: and it's very alarming. Basically, this is what they're reporting
Speaker 2: right now.
Speaker 1: Let's see here.
Speaker 2: Hundreds of federal agents from the Department of Homeland Security
Speaker 2: have been assigned to an intensive weeks-long hunt for non-citizens
Speaker 2: among the nation's registered voters despite an absence of widespread
Speaker 2: voter fraud. According to documents and training videos reviewed by
Speaker 2: The New York Times, agents are scouring voter rolls managed
Speaker 2: by the states and are using personally identifiable information about
Speaker 2: those individual voters. I just mentioned that a few moments ago.
Speaker 1: Get this, though.
Speaker 2: In some cases, they're saying investigators are effectively posing as
Speaker 2: individual voters by plugging their names and personal information into
Speaker 2: public facing websites run by the top election official in
Speaker 2: each state. Some of these sites declare they are meant
Speaker 2: for individual use, potentially raising privacy concerns. This is the
Speaker 2: New York Times describing it this way. The extraordinary operation
Speaker 2: reveals the extent to which the Trump administration is searching
Speaker 2: for evidence of voter fraud ahead of the November elections.
Speaker 2: The government is privately calling the effort the unlawful voter
Speaker 2: initiative and is pulling agents from their normal duties, which
Speaker 2: include investigating such serious crimes as human trafficking and terrorism. Folks,
Speaker 2: you know, I Again, we're going to have hopefully a
Speaker 2: legal expert joining us here in just a moment. Might
Speaker 2: be Tycott, might.
Speaker 1: Be Liz Hoyer.
Speaker 2: I bring this up because as I've been reporting on
Speaker 2: this show for weeks now, if not months, this is
Speaker 2: not an if. This is a when Donald Trump is
Speaker 2: attempting to steal the midterms, rig the midterms, intervene in
Speaker 2: the midterms, whatever phrase you want to use. And that
Speaker 2: when is right now. He is doing this right now.
Speaker 1: He is using the federal government to.
Speaker 2: go on a fishing expedition right now, despite the fact
Speaker 2: that his government in the previous administration went on a
Speaker 2: fishing expedition for voter fraud, did not find it, tried
Speaker 2: to do something like this around the 2020 election when
Speaker 2: his own government was attempting to find whether there had
Speaker 2: been any widespread voter fraud. His attorney general at that time,
Speaker 2: Bill Barr, told him there was no widespread voter fraud,
Speaker 2: that it was all, quote, bullshit. And so, again, Donald
Speaker 2: Trump is facing accountability in this country. He is facing
Speaker 2: a massive midterm blowout because the Democrats are favored just
Speaker 2: about everywhere.
Speaker 1: Under the sun these days.
Speaker 2: And he and his administration and people like Mark Wayne Mullen,
Speaker 2: the Department of Homeland Security secretary, I guess, are going
Speaker 2: to do everything that they can by hook or by
Speaker 2: crook to intervene in these elections. And so this I mean,
Speaker 2: this is a big bombshell story in The New York Times.
Speaker 2: That is breaking right now about our midterm elections. This
Speaker 2: comes on the heels, of course, of Donald Trump trying
Speaker 2: to use the Postal Service to take control of the
Speaker 2: voter rolls in this country. And there's been a legal
Speaker 2: battle over that. He's been told not to have the
Speaker 2: Postal Service intervene. That has gone back and forth in
Speaker 2: the courts. I believe we have Liz Oyer jumping on now.
Speaker 2: And Liz is the former partner attorney over at the
Speaker 2: Department of Justice. Liz, it's great to see you.
Speaker 3: Hey, Jim. Good to see you.
Speaker 1: Good to see you as well.
Speaker 2: And, you know, I typically warm up the guests before
Speaker 2: we come on and say, hey, we're going to talk
Speaker 2: about this. But I don't know if you were listening
Speaker 2: to what I was just reading from The New York Times.
Speaker 2: But there seems to be just one day after another,
Speaker 2: one story after another of Donald Trump attempting to intervene
Speaker 2: or meddle in these midterms, whatever you want to call it.
Speaker 2: You know, I characterize it in much more strident terms.
Speaker 2: But the latest story, this is in The New York Times.
Speaker 2: It just came out in the last 45 minutes. Trump
Speaker 2: administration begins blitz to find elusive voter fraud ahead of
Speaker 2: the midterms. And it talks about how Department of Homeland
Speaker 2: Security agents have been going through state voter rolls and
Speaker 2: using personally identifiable information about voters to try to find
Speaker 2: voter fraud using dates of birth, partial Social Security numbers
Speaker 2: and so on. Liz, your response to this, I know
Speaker 2: it's fresh and everything and we're all going to be
Speaker 2: diving into this, but it's yet another example that I
Speaker 2: think people should be very worried about.
Speaker 4: Yeah, this is not legitimate. This is not a legitimate
Speaker 4: investigation of voter fraud. This is an attempt to sow
Speaker 4: doubt that the administration is trying to plant seeds of
Speaker 4: doubt about the legitimacy of our elections so that if
Speaker 4: they don't turn out how the president wants, he can
Speaker 4: claim that they're illegitimate. That is what this is all about.
Speaker 4: The stuff with mail-in voting is to give people doubts
Speaker 4: about whether they'll be able to vote by mail, maybe
Speaker 4: keep people home from voting. I mean, it's all tied
Speaker 4: together as part of an intentional strategy to confuse Americans
Speaker 4: about how to vote, when to vote, whether our elections
Speaker 4: are fair, whether our voting machines work properly. I mean,
Speaker 4: the level of things that are being examined is absolutely ridiculous.
Speaker 4: And Justice Department employees are doing really what is the
Speaker 4: opposite of their jobs during normal times. Poll monitors are
Speaker 4: being sent out. We heard about poll monitors that were
Speaker 4: sent out about a week ago, and even a Republican
Speaker 4: governor rebuffed them because it seemed like the Justice Department
Speaker 4: sent these people there to create confusion and to interfere
Speaker 4: with state election processes, not for any legitimate purpose of
Speaker 4: trying to protect and preserve the fairness and integrity of
Speaker 4: our elections.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that was Wyoming, right? I think that was
Speaker 1: last week.
Speaker 2: The Wyoming governor, Republican there, said that he thought that
Speaker 2: the Justice Department monitors that were sent to his state
Speaker 2: were being too aggressive. And I'm thinking to myself, what
Speaker 2: are Justice Department monitors doing in Wyoming to begin with?
Speaker 2: What elections do they have to worry about in Wyoming?
Speaker 1: It's really... wild stuff.
Speaker 2: And typically you would think that the Justice Department would
Speaker 2: be consulted with on this DHS thing that they're doing.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm just looking at, you know, some of
Speaker 2: the details of this. And again, it's, it's, you know,
Speaker 2: right out of a New York Times story that just
Speaker 2: came out minutes ago. Investigators posing as individual voters by
Speaker 2: plugging their names and personal information into public facing websites
Speaker 2: run by the top election official in each state. Some
Speaker 2: of these sites declare they are meant for individual use reasons.
Speaker 2: potentially raising privacy concerns. I don't know whose personal information
Speaker 2: that they're using to go into these databases, Liz, but
Speaker 2: that sounds suspicious too.
Speaker 4: Yeah, they're trying to tamper with elections and see if
Speaker 4: they can make anything work so that they can claim
Speaker 4: that there's some fraud that we should be worried about.
Speaker 4: They're trying to create problems that do not exist. They
Speaker 4: are trying to plant the problems now so that later
Speaker 4: they can claim that the election was rigged or it
Speaker 4: was unfair, or they can try to give some credence
Speaker 4: to these tired claims that Donald Trump makes about election
Speaker 4: outcomes that he doesn't like.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And I, you know, Liz, I mean, what is ultimately
Speaker 2: the path here? I guess pro-democracy forces can try to
Speaker 2: take the Department of Homeland Security to court.
Speaker 1: Democrats could try to take.
Speaker 2: DHS to court and see if a judge, it's almost
Speaker 2: like whack-a-mole You know, they've been trying to do this
Speaker 2: with the voting by mail. And there was a New
Speaker 2: York Times story just the other day where a whistle,
Speaker 2: I think a whistleblower had come out and talked about
Speaker 2: how they're not comfortable with the way the Postal Service
Speaker 2: is trying to rush this executive order that Donald Trump is,
Speaker 2: you know, I mean, it's not a legitimate executive order,
Speaker 2: but they're trying to implement it.
Speaker 1: And, you know, that sounds, I think.
Speaker 2: Crazy to a lot of people, too, that the Postal
Speaker 2: Service would even be involved in the elections. You know,
Speaker 2: they're just supposed to send the mail, send me my
Speaker 2: ballot in the mail, send me my.
Speaker 1: Electric bill in the mail. That's what they're supposed to do.
Speaker 2: They're not voting or election experts. And apparently some whistleblowers
Speaker 2: said there was a problem with that.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I mean, getting the Postal Service involved, like you
Speaker 4: only do that if you actually want to create a
Speaker 4: new problem that doesn't already exist. There is no reason
Speaker 4: for that. There's no legitimate reason for that whatsoever.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 4: What's so chilling about this, Jim, is that the Justice
Speaker 4: Department is the agency that should be protecting the integrity
Speaker 4: of our elections. And instead, they are on the inside
Speaker 4: trying to poke holes in electoral processes that are working
Speaker 4: just fine. They're trying to sow doubt. They're working against
Speaker 4: the fairness and integrity of our elections. They're the ones
Speaker 4: that we're supposed to be able to count on to
Speaker 4: make sure they're fair. And they're doing exactly the opposite.
Speaker 4: So the question is, what is the solution? Who's going
Speaker 4: to step in?
Speaker 1: Here?
Speaker 4: There are lots of pro-democracy groups that you have, as
Speaker 4: you've mentioned, that are litigating these issues, and they're doing
Speaker 4: really important work. At the end of the day, the
Speaker 4: Supreme Court is going to need to hold the line
Speaker 4: here and make sure that Donald Trump cannot interfere with
Speaker 4: the elections on the eve of midterm elections. I mean,
Speaker 4: we are so close to the date for midterm elections
Speaker 4: for male voting to start in certain states is like
Speaker 4: a month away. So really nothing should be changing. There
Speaker 4: should be no changes made to voting processes. That is
Speaker 4: not normal. But there's this effort to kind of to
Speaker 4: sow doubt. And we really need the Supreme Court to
Speaker 4: hold the line here. Even if they do, Jim, I
Speaker 4: There's already a lot of damage that's been done because
Speaker 4: people are confused now. People are confused about how to vote.
Speaker 4: They're confused about whether their votes will be counted. They're
Speaker 4: confused about what the role of the Justice Department is.
Speaker 4: There has just been so much chaos injected already intentionally
Speaker 4: that some of the damage is already done. I think
Speaker 4: it's incredibly important that everyone inform themselves of how to vote,
Speaker 4: how to make your vote count in advance of the
Speaker 4: election and not to stay home, not to be deterred
Speaker 4: by this confusion. But that's the goal, Jim. It's to
Speaker 4: get people to stay home. It's to sow doubt that
Speaker 4: doesn't already exist and to create problems that don't exist.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And I think early voting starts in North Carolina within
Speaker 2: days from now. I mean, this is and Todd Blanch,
Speaker 2: the attorney general, he has been sounding as though he's
Speaker 2: going to do Trump's bidding in.
Speaker 1: All of this.
Speaker 2: So you can't really count on Todd Blanch on any
Speaker 2: of this.
Speaker 4: Yeah, 100 percent. He's definitely going to do Donald Trump's bidding.
Speaker 4: I mean, he's made it clear that that's his top.
Speaker 4: priority is to protect Donald Trump's interests. And if that
Speaker 4: means sowing doubt about elections, making false claims about election fraud,
Speaker 4: that's what we can expect Todd Lynch to do.
Speaker 2: And the other thing, you know, this was the thing
Speaker 2: that you and I were trying to talk about, and
Speaker 2: that is the Supreme Court and what's been happening at
Speaker 2: the Supreme Court and the way that they decided that
Speaker 2: Trump can basically do whatever he wants with the White
Speaker 2: House ballroom. I think we should talk about that a little.
Speaker 2: It was a little surprising that the Chief Justice John
Speaker 2: Roberts and sided with the liberal justices on the court
Speaker 2: who said that Trump can't just do whatever he wants
Speaker 2: with the ballroom. And I think John Roberts said that
Speaker 2: he thought it was maybe potentially illegal. But yet the
Speaker 2: other ones, the other conservative justices said, well, you know,
Speaker 2: the plaintiff didn't have proper standing. And so go ahead,
Speaker 2: build your ballroom, do whatever you want. What was your
Speaker 2: reaction to that? Because I saw a story in NPR
Speaker 2: today that this really could establish a precedent now that Basically,
Speaker 2: the president can do this kind of stuff willy-nilly.
Speaker 4: Yeah, this was a really striking opinion. And what was
Speaker 4: so striking about it is that there is not a
Speaker 4: single person who is defending the merits of the building
Speaker 4: in the ballroom. There is not a single person who
Speaker 4: is saying that it is legal for Donald Trump to
Speaker 4: build this ballroom. What five justices in the majority of
Speaker 4: the Supreme Court said is that the plaintiff, the person
Speaker 4: who sued, did not have standing to bring the lawsuit,
Speaker 4: was not a proper party to challenge the president's actions.
Speaker 4: And this is a person who claimed that she had
Speaker 4: standing based on the fact that she's a member of
Speaker 4: the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which is dedicated to
Speaker 4: preserving historic buildings like the White House. She lives near
Speaker 4: the site of the construction. She walks by it frequently.
Speaker 4: She likes to look at the site. It deprives her
Speaker 4: of reuse and enjoyment of that site. Now, the Supreme
Speaker 4: Court said that's not enough. If that's not enough to
Speaker 4: sue to challenge this, then nobody has standing to sue
Speaker 4: to challenge the construction of the ballroom. It is clearly
Speaker 4: in violation of federal law. The law could not be
Speaker 4: clearer that the president cannot build on federal land without
Speaker 4: prior approval from Congress. Congress has not approved this construction.
Speaker 4: So the construction is illegal. That's what John Roberts said.
Speaker 4: That's what the dissenting justices said. That's what the court
Speaker 4: below who was being appealed said. This is illegal and
Speaker 4: needs to be stopped. The justices on the Supreme Court
Speaker 4: who held that the construction can continue, they did it
Speaker 4: on a technicality. They did not disagree with the rationale
Speaker 4: that this is actually illegal. So basically, the Supreme Court
Speaker 4: has said that the president is free to violate the
Speaker 4: law because there is nobody who is allowed to challenge
Speaker 4: his authority legally. That is a very disturbing ruling because
Speaker 4: it may leave other presidential conduct unchecked as well. It
Speaker 4: raises real questions about when the Kennedy Center case gets
Speaker 4: up to the Supreme Court, will the plaintiff in that
Speaker 4: case be deemed to have standing or will the court
Speaker 4: decide that Donald Trump is free to do whatever he
Speaker 4: wants with the Kennedy Center because nobody has standing to
Speaker 4: challenge it?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, on the Kennedy Center thing today, I mean,
Speaker 2: just today they were, you know, taking down, you know,
Speaker 2: one of these statues over the, it's a beloved statue
Speaker 2: over at the Kennedy Center, So you might find the
Speaker 2: story on this. They took down the sculpture known as Blue.
Speaker 2: I should have been able to remember the name of that.
Speaker 2: The latest change to the Cultural and Performing Arts Center
Speaker 2: that stirred some pushback.
Speaker 1: This is according to the Associated Press.
Speaker 2: The sculpture, a tall blue stick figure poised in action
Speaker 2: as if to kick a ball or from a different angle,
Speaker 2: having just kicked one, was designed by sculptor Joel Shapiro
Speaker 2: and installed in 2019. Our friends at Hands Off the
Speaker 2: Arts have been trying to fight, you know, the Trump
Speaker 2: administration on all of this.
Speaker 1: But I mean, you know, I just, you know, Liz,
Speaker 1: I think it is disturbing what's happening right now.
Speaker 2: If the president of the United States can just bulldoze
Speaker 2: part of the White House. I mean, I guess this
Speaker 2: means the next president can just build a skyscraper, bulldoze,
Speaker 2: bulldoze the whole White House, build a skyscraper there.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 2: You know, they can do what they can take down
Speaker 2: statues at the Kennedy Center. I thought these places belong
Speaker 2: to all of us.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Jim, I mean, I was sick to my stomach when
Speaker 4: I read the government's brief in the Kennedy Center case,
Speaker 4: the most recent filing that was made by the Justice Department.
Speaker 4: As somebody who has lived in D.C. for a very
Speaker 4: long time and been to the Kennedy Center many, many times,
Speaker 4: I know that it is a beautiful place. It is
Speaker 4: a place that has outstanding performances, cultural events. It has
Speaker 4: all of the amenities that you would want from a
Speaker 4: performing arts center of that caliber. And the brief of
Speaker 4: the government, I mean, it made it sound like the
Speaker 4: place was falling down, like it was a decrepit dungeon
Speaker 4: where the ceiling might collapse on you at any moment.
Speaker 4: It started out with a line that said something to
Speaker 4: the effect of, the Kennedy Center is in terrible trouble.
Speaker 4: It is just lies. It is not true. The claim
Speaker 4: that the building would have to be razed if we
Speaker 4: can't proceed with putting Donald Trump's name on it is
Speaker 4: just one of the most absurd things I have ever heard.
Speaker 4: And it just rings so false as somebody who has
Speaker 4: been to that building many times, including as recently as
Speaker 4: last year.
Speaker 1: Yeah, me too, Liz.
Speaker 2: I used to love going there all the time. And
Speaker 2: people need to understand. I mean, we need a reality
Speaker 2: check on the Kennedy Center. for a moment, and that
Speaker 2: is this. If Donald Trump had never put his name
Speaker 2: on the Kennedy Center and taken it over in the
Speaker 2: way that he did and run off all those performers
Speaker 2: and all those great artists who are institutions there, I mean.
Speaker 1: The Kennedy Center would be just fine.
Speaker 2: The Kennedy Center would be, I mean, they operated the
Speaker 2: Kennedy Center during his first administration. He wasn't doing all
Speaker 2: of this batshit banana things during the first administration. The
Speaker 2: Kennedy Center stayed open. It didn't fall in on itself.
Speaker 2: And They're just making up all of these excuses. And
Speaker 2: it's patently obvious to everybody who lives in the Washington
Speaker 2: DC area that they've just, they've just destroyed the place financially.
Speaker 2: And if they would just walk away and let a
Speaker 2: bunch of artists run the place, I would, I think
Speaker 2: in six months it'd be fine again, but they've just
Speaker 2: botched the whole thing.
Speaker 1: It's, it's really remarkable. Yeah.
Speaker 4: I mean, the only reason people don't want to go
Speaker 4: there is because of what Trump has done to it.
Speaker 4: He has, as you said, destroyed the place. He's, he's
Speaker 4: made it, he's turned it into a joke and he
Speaker 4: wants the building to physically pay tribute to him or
Speaker 4: else he is threatening to raise the building, to collapse it.
Speaker 4: And they mentioned possibly building an outdoor amphitheater instead. I mean,
Speaker 4: it is totally absurd. It's based on lies. It's a
Speaker 4: vanity project right now. It looks like the court is
Speaker 4: poised to potentially hold again that Donald Trump cannot put
Speaker 4: his name on the building because But there is a
Speaker 4: real concern, like I said, based on the decision on
Speaker 4: the ballroom that this could get up to the Supreme Court.
Speaker 4: The Supreme Court could say, well, nobody actually has the
Speaker 4: legal right to challenge what Donald Trump is doing. So
Speaker 4: if he wants to name it the Donald Trump and
Speaker 4: John F. Kennedy Center, he's free to. And that is
Speaker 4: a real concern.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Liz, I don't know. I just thought of this idea.
Speaker 2: Maybe instead of calling these vanity projects, we should call
Speaker 2: them insanity projects. I think that's more to the point.
Speaker 2: These are insanity projects that Donald Trump has created. embarked
Speaker 2: on and and it's just nuts the other thing we
Speaker 2: should talk about and i don't think this story should
Speaker 2: ever die it should never be placed on the back
Speaker 2: burner and it's the epstein um epstein gates saga that
Speaker 2: donald trump and todd blanchard tried to cover up i
Speaker 2: know you just put out a video on instagram by
Speaker 2: the way your lawyer or your instagram videos are a
Speaker 2: sensation and you know we should play your video and
Speaker 2: talk about it on the other side because i think
Speaker 2: you know again What they're trying to do for Ghislaine
Speaker 2: Maxwell is really it's just unconscionable.
Speaker 1: Let's play and talk about it.
Speaker 4: This week, he finally got a key document from the
Speaker 4: Bureau of Prisons. It is the Form 409 requesting Maxwell's
Speaker 4: transfer to the federal prison camp in Bryan, Texas. BOP
Speaker 4: is required to complete this form to request and approve
Speaker 4: an inmate transfer.
Speaker 1: But guess what?
Speaker 4: Almost every single part of the form is redacted. At
Speaker 4: the top, it's got Maxwell's name highlighted in yellow. Then
Speaker 4: it has the handwritten date 7-30-25, which is right after
Speaker 4: Blanche visited Maxwell in Florida. And then literally everything else
Speaker 4: is whited out. There's a section that asks for the
Speaker 4: rationale for her transfer. That whole box is redacted. There's
Speaker 4: another one that asks about Maxwell's institution adjustment. It's also
Speaker 4: completely redacted. Question five asks whether she presents any behavioral
Speaker 4: or management concerns. It's completely redacted. Question six asks if
Speaker 4: there are any BP-337 or 338 discrepancies. That means, is
Speaker 4: the requested transfer appropriate for her security level? The correct
Speaker 4: answer is no, but that is also redacted. And finally,
Speaker 4: the names of all the people involved in requesting and
Speaker 4: approving the transfer are redacted. So who decided to redact everything? Well,
Speaker 4: BOP is part of the Department of Justice, which means
Speaker 4: it's run by Todd Blanche. He decides what gets released
Speaker 4: and what gets redacted. And we all know how good
Speaker 4: he is at that. BOP claims the redactions are needed
Speaker 4: to protect privacy interests. Legally, this is highly dubious. Under
Speaker 4: the Freedom of Information Act, Privacy claims have to be
Speaker 4: weighed against the public's interest in knowing the truth, which
Speaker 4: is very strong in this case. Also, every redaction has
Speaker 4: to be separately justified.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Liz, I mean, talk about this a little bit.
Speaker 2: These redactions, I mean, it's pretty disturbing. And again, they
Speaker 2: find new and inventive ways to cover this up.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the Freedom of Information Act is a law that
Speaker 4: requires transparency in government functions. And a journalist, others have
Speaker 4: requested this as well, but a journalist requested a year
Speaker 4: ago the documents related to Maxwell's transfer under the Freedom
Speaker 4: of Information Act. And It should have been very easy
Speaker 4: to locate this document and turn it over, but they
Speaker 4: dragged their feet for a year. It was not until
Speaker 4: a court got involved that they even gave over the
Speaker 4: document at all. And then when they turned it over,
Speaker 4: they redacted all of the parts of any substance, which
Speaker 4: is just legally something that you cannot do. You are
Speaker 4: required to weigh the public's interest in knowing the information
Speaker 4: against any privacy interests or other considerations. And there is
Speaker 4: no question that the public's interest in knowing why Galen
Speaker 4: Maxwell was transferred to that minimum security prison. It outweighs
Speaker 4: any privacy interests that the Justice Department might be claiming.
Speaker 4: But the whole section, I mean, there's a whole box,
Speaker 4: you saw it on there, that requires you to put
Speaker 4: in an explanation for the transfer, all completely redacted. It's
Speaker 4: a problem for Blanche because Blanche is given an explanation.
Speaker 4: He said, oh, it had nothing to do with special treatment.
Speaker 4: It's not privileges for her. It's a perfectly routine transfer.
Speaker 4: And it was because she was receiving death threats. I
Speaker 4: am willing to bet quite a bit, Jim, that there
Speaker 4: is no documentation of any death threats that she was receiving.
Speaker 4: I mean, this was clearly special treatment in exchange for
Speaker 4: the fact that she just days earlier had given Blanche
Speaker 4: statements purporting to exonerate Donald Trump from any misconduct in
Speaker 4: connection with Jeffrey Epstein.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think somebody needs to sue to get
Speaker 2: a hold of those documents to find out what was
Speaker 2: being redacted there. I would assume somewhere there, We have the,
Speaker 2: I guess, the original documents that don't have the redactions involved.
Speaker 2: I don't understand how, shouldn't redactions have something to do
Speaker 2: with national security or personal privacy or some sort of
Speaker 2: classified government reason?
Speaker 1: This is just Ghislaine Maxwell.
Speaker 2: She's a sex predator. She should be behind bars in
Speaker 2: a maximum security prison. And the reasons for transfer should
Speaker 2: be open to the public.
Speaker 1: I just don't get it.
Speaker 2: 100%.
Speaker 4: I mean, there are things that legitimately might be redacted.
Speaker 4: For example, her medical information, if she's got medical issues,
Speaker 4: it might be legitimate to redact her personal medical information
Speaker 4: or her social security number. But the reason that Todd
Speaker 4: Blanchett had her transferred, that is a subject of great
Speaker 4: public concern and absolutely should not be permitted to be experienced.
Speaker 4: redacted this journalist who got the document jason leopold of
Speaker 4: bloomberg has been doing great work on this and he
Speaker 4: is litigating this i imagine he will challenge the redaction
Speaker 4: the problem with that that legal process is that it
Speaker 4: takes a really long time so we're not likely to
Speaker 4: see the unredacted document anytime soon but it does exist
Speaker 4: and hopefully it will come.
Speaker 2: To light Well, Liz, once again, you knock it out
Speaker 2: of the park and your YouTube and Instagram videos are invaluable.
Speaker 1: You're on Substack. You're everywhere. And I don't know what
Speaker 1: we would do without you. So thank you for coming
Speaker 1: on today. It's always great to see you.
Speaker 3: Thanks, Liz.
Speaker 2: Really appreciate it. That's Lawyer Oyer. Liz Oyer, the great
Speaker 2: Lawyer Oyer. Always appreciate when she comes on the show.
Speaker 2: In a few moments, Olivia Troy is going to join me.
Speaker 2: We're going to go back to this top story. that
Speaker 2: I brought you at the beginning of the show. And
Speaker 2: I think it's extremely disturbing, folks. And, you know, Donald Trump,
Speaker 2: we just need to be very clear about this. Donald
Speaker 2: Trump has started this deal. This is not, you know,
Speaker 2: last time around he claimed he wanted to stop this deal.
Speaker 2: This time he has started this deal. And the New
Speaker 2: York Times reporting that hundreds of federal agents from the
Speaker 2: Department of Homeland Security have been assigned to an intensive
Speaker 2: weeks-long hunt For non-citizens among the nation's registered voters, despite
Speaker 2: an absence of evidence of widespread fraud, agents are scouring
Speaker 2: voter rolls managed by the states. They're using personally identifiable
Speaker 2: information about individual voters.
Speaker 1: They're using dates of birth. They're using partial social security numbers.
Speaker 2: In some cases, investigators are posing as individual voters by
Speaker 2: plugging their names and personal information into public-facing websites, raising
Speaker 2: privacy concerns.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is absolutely insane. ridiculous.
Speaker 2: And it's yet another story. As Liz Oyer was mentioning
Speaker 2: a few moments ago, you had Justice Department officials in
Speaker 2: Wyoming who were being so aggressive outside of voting stations
Speaker 2: that the Republican governor of Wyoming was saying, what is
Speaker 2: going on here? You have this gambit that Donald Trump
Speaker 2: has started with trying to seize control of mail-in voting
Speaker 2: in this country through the U.S. Postal Service, a whistleblower
Speaker 2: who was reported on in the This whistleblower has apparently
Speaker 2: raised concerns that they're doing this in such a haphazard,
Speaker 2: ridiculous way that it could screw up the midterms. And
Speaker 2: Richard Blumenthal, the senator from Connecticut, who also raised awareness
Speaker 2: of this, has said that he may not have faith
Speaker 2: in the voting totals if this continues with what Trump
Speaker 2: is trying to do to mail in voting. We're going
Speaker 2: to bring in Olivia Troy in just a moment in
Speaker 2: all of this. But again, folks, this raises the very
Speaker 2: real concern And I've talked about this on the show
Speaker 2: many times that that are voting right now or elections
Speaker 2: right now are being interfered with. You have early voting
Speaker 2: starting very soon in the next couple of weeks in
Speaker 2: places like North Carolina. I think my friend Olivia Troy
Speaker 2: is here now, former national security official in the first
Speaker 2: Trump administration until she became a very high profile whistleblower
Speaker 2: herself and advocate for good government herself.
Speaker 1: Let's see, is Olivia in the room? Let's add Olivia
Speaker 1: if we can. There she is. Olivia, great to see you. Oh,
Speaker 1: I don't hear you. Let's try it. Let's try again.
Speaker 1: Get the audio going there. That's okay. That's okay. The
Speaker 1: technical gremlins are with us today. It's fine.
Speaker 2: I'm sure you saw, maybe you heard me rambling on
Speaker 2: and reading this New York Times story. I'm very disturbed
Speaker 2: by this. DHS agents posing as voters going on this
Speaker 2: phishing expedition, looking for non-voters or illegal voters in the
Speaker 2: voting system.
Speaker 1: It doesn't add up.
Speaker 2: And it says to me that, again, they're trying to
Speaker 2: cause mischief in these midterms.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I read about this and I've been very concerned
Speaker 5: the past 24 hours as I really looked into it.
Speaker 3: I mean, they're talking about going to, I think, like
Speaker 3: nine different states.
Speaker 5: And honestly, the big red flag for me, Jim, was
Speaker 5: the fact that a lot of those states are swing states.
Speaker 3: That really stood out to me.
Speaker 5: And, you know, yeah, they're calling it what the voter
Speaker 5: fraud surge initiative. I mean, we have HSI going into
Speaker 5: our communities again. We've seen what that looks like when
Speaker 5: they go out onto our streets and.
Speaker 3: Nothing usually good comes from it. I just wrote about this, actually, because.
Speaker 5: I was so angry that this is now what they're
Speaker 5: choosing to do in this mission.
Speaker 3: Because, you know, HSI, I'm familiar with them. I worked
Speaker 3: at DHS.
Speaker 5: I mean, they're supposed to be focused on like combating,
Speaker 5: you know, human trafficking. They're, yes, they should go back
Speaker 5: tracking cartels. And when I look at this and I
Speaker 5: think about like the DHS mission, when it comes to elections,
Speaker 5: maybe it's focused on, you know, maybe countering foreign interference,
Speaker 5: maybe cyber crime, things like that, but not actually policing
Speaker 5: our own people and getting involved in this the way
Speaker 5: they are announcing that ICE is going to be involved
Speaker 5: in because HSI funds are also to rise.
Speaker 3: And so I think. This is alarming. Very alarming.
Speaker 1: Very alarming.
Speaker 2: And kudos to you for writing about this. This is
Speaker 2: where your story says federal agents are launching a voter
Speaker 2: fraud surge across nine states starting today that will continue
Speaker 2: as Americans begin casting ballots in the midterm elections. And
Speaker 2: you go on to say, I spent years inside the
Speaker 2: Department of Homeland Security and counterterrorism communities. The dates caught
Speaker 2: my attention, but the agency they chose got my full attention.
Speaker 2: And you go on to say, if this is your
Speaker 2: introduction to HSI, don't feel bad. ICE eats all the headlines.
Speaker 2: FEMA soaks up what's ever left. But I know this agency.
Speaker 2: HSI is not the Department of Motor Vehicles with badges.
Speaker 2: It's ICE's principal investigative arm. Let's talk more about that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think this is what was really concerning.
Speaker 5: For me is just, I mean, I'm trying to figure
Speaker 5: out what kind of investigation are they conducting here? Because
Speaker 5: we just saw that DHS recently announced that they had,
Speaker 5: you know, 16,000 non-citizens had voted in Nevada. Well, when
Speaker 5: they actually dug into it, remember that? When they dug
Speaker 5: into it and Nevada officials said, oh, okay, we will
Speaker 5: get on top of this. Let's investigate this. Give us
Speaker 5: more information. Can we get the identifiers for this so
Speaker 5: that we can conduct the proper investigation?
Speaker 3: Which they should, right?
Speaker 5: Because we shouldn't have non-citizens voting. Well, the follow-up, you know,
Speaker 5: DHS was like, oh, in further review, we only think
Speaker 5: it's 185. And then they wouldn't hand over the identifiers
Speaker 5: to Nevada. I say that as a prime example because
Speaker 5: that is my concern is, How many more of these
Speaker 5: types of situations are we going to have going forward
Speaker 5: when we have this surge investigation that's now happening right
Speaker 5: before the midterm elections?
Speaker 3: I mean, that's not lost on me, right? I mean,
Speaker 3: it's not lost on any of us. The timing of
Speaker 3: this is completely suspect. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And I mean, I don't know what we do as
Speaker 1: a country.
Speaker 2: I guess the pro-democracy forces, we have, you know, friends
Speaker 2: who are lawyers and can you know, file lawsuits and
Speaker 2: that sort of thing to try to stop this sort
Speaker 2: of thing. But the courts have been very slow in
Speaker 2: all of this. And, you know, Donald Trump knows how
Speaker 2: to play this system like a fiddle. And the Supreme
Speaker 2: Court has bailed him out time and again. I mean,
Speaker 2: they're letting him do whatever he wants with the White
Speaker 2: House grounds. I mean, I guess, you know, you can
Speaker 2: build a skyscraper there. You could build, you know, a
Speaker 2: space station there.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 2: You can build an amusement park there. And I guess
Speaker 2: because he's the president, the Supreme Court's going to let
Speaker 2: him do whatever he wants. And that's what concerns me
Speaker 2: about our elections is that we don't have the same
Speaker 2: Supreme Court that we had in 2020 by and large.
Speaker 1: And, you know, this concerns me.
Speaker 5: I mean, you know, yes, usually we're like, OK, we
Speaker 5: have we are a country of the rule of law
Speaker 5: and they will hold the line.
Speaker 3: Well, I don't know. I don't know how this situation
Speaker 3: continues to develop.
Speaker 5: And, you know, there's I've seen a couple of people
Speaker 5: out there that are saying, no, you know, let's not
Speaker 5: be alarmist about this.
Speaker 4: Well, no.
Speaker 3: No, this is actually a time to be alarmist because
Speaker 3: if I'm telling you as someone who worked in.
Speaker 5: The Trump administration that none of this is really adding
Speaker 5: up for me and I'm increasingly alarmed and concerned and
Speaker 5: I've actually had conversations with some of these nonprofits that
Speaker 5: are working on this, we should be paying attention because
Speaker 5: we should be preparing, prepare for those legal battles, yes.
Speaker 3: But the other thing.
Speaker 5: That I want to stress though is that this is
Speaker 5: another reason to double down and make sure that you
Speaker 5: show up to vote. And I think what I don't
Speaker 5: want to happen is that people get dissuaded because they
Speaker 5: are going to make everything twice or three, three times
Speaker 5: as hard.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 5: And I think that we've got to remember that this
Speaker 5: just means that we have to power up and use
Speaker 5: our voices and double down on this. And, you know,
Speaker 5: I don't know what this leads to. I think, you know,
Speaker 5: the coming days, we're going to see how this develops,
Speaker 5: how States react to this, what's going on. I think,
Speaker 5: You know, I think at the state level, I think
Speaker 5: there should be concern. Hopefully the attorney generals and secretaries
Speaker 5: of state are playing close attention to this and, you know,
Speaker 5: trying to figure out what is DHS actually doing here?
Speaker 3: Because I think when you've got Homeland Security, I think,
Speaker 3: you know, this department has.
Speaker 5: Been completely misused throughout this second term of the administration,
Speaker 5: I would say. And, you know, when they're getting involved
Speaker 5: in voter rolls now and they're going to start conducting
Speaker 5: these investigations, This is all part of what I think
Speaker 5: you and I have discussed in the past, which is
Speaker 5: using the national security apparatus, the Homeland Security cloak to
Speaker 5: conduct whatever it is that they're doing that I would say,
Speaker 5: quite frankly, is doing Trump's bidding.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 5: And I think that is what is concerning here as
Speaker 5: we go into this election cycle. And so I think,
Speaker 5: you know, TBD, we'll see what more surfaces. But this
Speaker 5: is a really serious situation.
Speaker 3: For our democracy.
Speaker 1: I agree.
Speaker 2: And, you know, I guess Senator Alyssa Slotkin the other
Speaker 2: day asked General Dan Cain, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs,
Speaker 2: and Pete Hegseth, will, you know, service members be, you know,
Speaker 2: military service members be showing up at the polls during
Speaker 2: the midterms and so on. Apparently the chairman of the
Speaker 2: Joint Chiefs, Dan Cain, said no, they're not. Pete Hegseth
Speaker 2: did not offer a reply as far as I understand
Speaker 2: from the reporting. And so it's almost as though what
Speaker 2: the administration is trying to do in the way that
Speaker 2: they cause chaos in the media, he causes chaos with
Speaker 2: the allies. It sounds like what he's going to try
Speaker 2: to do is cause chaos with the courts, cause chaos
Speaker 2: with the midterms, and see if he can, through that
Speaker 2: whirlwind that he whips up, extract some way where he
Speaker 2: avoids accountability, extract some path to not seating a new Congress.
Speaker 2: And people need to understand that I totally agree with
Speaker 2: what you just said a few moments ago, Olivia. I've
Speaker 2: been talking about this on the show here and there,
Speaker 2: which is people need to have a plan to vote.
Speaker 2: It's sort of like if your house is on fire,
Speaker 2: you know, families get together before something like that god-awful
Speaker 2: thing happens in their home. Okay, we're going to go
Speaker 2: out this window or we go out this door. You know,
Speaker 2: I mean, that used to be a thing when I
Speaker 2: was growing up. You had a plan if your house
Speaker 2: was on fire. Maybe I'm old and, you know, house
Speaker 2: fires were more common back then. But people need to
Speaker 2: have a plan to vote. And if mail-in voting is
Speaker 2: not looking like it's going to work in your state
Speaker 2: and you're really fired up and you want to send
Speaker 2: in your ballot, make another plan. See if you can
Speaker 2: get a friend or a loved one or a relative
Speaker 2: to get you to an early voting location or get
Speaker 2: there on election day. You may have to show up
Speaker 2: at 6 in the morning and stuff some granola bars
Speaker 2: in your pockets. Do they still arrest people for having
Speaker 2: water and snacks at the lines? Have you seen that yet?
Speaker 3: I know.
Speaker 2: I think that they were talking about doing that in
Speaker 2: Georgia for Pete's sake, but people need to have a plan.
Speaker 1: I totally agree with you that people need to be prepared.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and look to your point about what you said
Speaker 5: about that letter from the chairman of the Joint Chiefs.
Speaker 5: I read that and paid close attention and I was
Speaker 5: thinking to myself, okay, this is what you're saying right now.
Speaker 5: And I wanna just say, I'm not to get into
Speaker 5: speculation and things like that.
Speaker 3: I wanna be clear about that. But that doesn't.
Speaker 5: Say that there won't be some emergency, some crime hunt down,
Speaker 5: tamp down, some invasion, I put it in quotes, that's
Speaker 5: going to necessitate putting military troops out on the streets
Speaker 5: that coincidentally times with the election, right?
Speaker 3: Like, these are the things I watch when.
Speaker 5: It comes to Donald Trump and this circle of people,
Speaker 5: because I've actually... I've seen their planning internally firsthand with
Speaker 5: how they view the military and how they use it
Speaker 5: to their bidding. And we've seen the way they reach
Speaker 5: havoc on our streets, you know, throughout this past year
Speaker 5: when they did send the National Guard.
Speaker 3: We still have the National Guard walking around D.C.
Speaker 1: In some ways.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 5: So when I when I see that letter, I say, well,
Speaker 5: thank you for putting that on the record.
Speaker 3: And in this moment.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 3: But it makes me wonder.
Speaker 5: With so many people in that revolving door right now
Speaker 5: in the Pentagon and how many general officers are either
Speaker 5: being fired or resigning or moved to the side. It just,
Speaker 5: you know, it's like, okay, well, thank you for putting
Speaker 5: that in writing noted, but I'm not necessarily going to
Speaker 5: trust 100% that that's a legit thing because ultimately it's
Speaker 5: going to be Donald Trump.
Speaker 3: Right. And yeah.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 1: It makes you want to check the fine print.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 5: So when I read it, I was like, okay, somebody
Speaker 5: print that out.
Speaker 3: It's on record. But that to me means it doesn't, it's.
Speaker 1: Not a guarantee.
Speaker 3: We'll see.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And Pete Hexeth doesn't seem to be offering any guarantees
Speaker 2: these days. And I just want to point out that,
Speaker 2: you know, Trump's devious mind, it may be wearing him down.
Speaker 2: And this is why he can't stay awake during Oval
Speaker 2: Office photo opportunities.
Speaker 1: I think we have video.
Speaker 2: This happened again today, Olivia. And maybe you and I
Speaker 2: haven't talked about this yet, you know, During the first administration,
Speaker 2: I don't remember him falling asleep all the damn time.
Speaker 1: But here he is again. He was surrounded by some
Speaker 1: CEOs today. He's passed out.
Speaker 2: He's asleep right there. President of the United States. And
Speaker 2: I don't know what's going on there, why he can't sleep.
Speaker 2: This is happening.
Speaker 1: Multiple days during the week. He's just out.
Speaker 2: And is it because he stays up all night cooking
Speaker 2: up all these cockamamie crazy ideas for meddling in the midterm?
Speaker 1: I don't know. It's part of it because he's on
Speaker 1: Truth Social. posting crazy stuff.
Speaker 2: Um, but I mean, you know, this is, this is
Speaker 2: the guy that they're going to meddle in the midterms for,
Speaker 2: is he going to be awake to sign the, the, the, the,
Speaker 2: the pardons, you know, when it comes to pardoning, everybody
Speaker 2: is going to be awake enough to sign the pardons.
Speaker 1: They might want to check on that.
Speaker 5: It depends on what time, if it's two o'clock in
Speaker 5: the morning and he's on true social, you know, writing
Speaker 5: this post, Then maybe, or maybe if Natalie's, you know,
Speaker 5: nearby and doing the work for him and she's the
Speaker 5: one taking the notations perhaps, I don't know.
Speaker 3: But no, look, I don't remember him napping that much.
Speaker 5: I mean, maybe nodding off a time or two.
Speaker 3: I remember a lot of the cabinet nodding off during meetings.
Speaker 3: That was always interesting to watch. I'm not going to
Speaker 3: lie about that.
Speaker 5: That was always like, we are in the situation room.
Speaker 5: We're actually having a serious discussion, but please proceed with
Speaker 5: your nap. So I just, you know, I think you
Speaker 5: are right.
Speaker 3: I mean, I don't know. It's because he's standing, staying
Speaker 3: up all night.
Speaker 1: You know, I don't, she doesn't talk to me.
Speaker 5: I have no idea what's going on in that head,
Speaker 5: but yeah. Impressive to watch all the people around them though.
Speaker 5: Just continue to act like this is perfectly.
Speaker 2: Normal.
Speaker 1: It's wild, right?
Speaker 2: It's total emperor has no clothes or, you know, has
Speaker 2: has no ability to stay awake, has no energy.
Speaker 1: He's low T.
Speaker 2: It's maybe it's a low T for Donald Trump. That's
Speaker 2: a lowercase T. It's a low T, not an upper T.
Speaker 1: These days. But Olivia, I wanted.
Speaker 2: To reach out to you when I saw this New
Speaker 2: York Times story, and I know you've been working on
Speaker 2: this story as well. I'm very concerned about these midterms,
Speaker 2: very concerned about what they're up to.
Speaker 1: We saw what happened in the 2020 election.
Speaker 2: I think he's made the determination if he can't win
Speaker 2: the election, he's going.
Speaker 1: To steal the election. That's where his head is. Yeah.
Speaker 5: And look, I think the angrier he gets and the
Speaker 5: closer we get to the elections, when he starts to
Speaker 5: see what's happening and it starts to become more real,
Speaker 5: that there is a potential for accountability to be coming
Speaker 5: his way and oversight and that he is potentially going
Speaker 5: to lose a lot of the power that he has
Speaker 5: right now. That is when you're going to see him
Speaker 5: continue to go off the rails, lash out even more,
Speaker 5: come up with some delusional crazy plans with a circle
Speaker 5: of people that are going to figure out how to
Speaker 5: do his bidding, because that's what we've seen. when it's
Speaker 5: a circle of that he has right now of the
Speaker 5: people that are willing to do it. And so, you know, I,
Speaker 5: I think you're, everyone should be paying attention.
Speaker 3: To the story.
Speaker 5: I mean, they should be watching every aspect of it,
Speaker 5: watching what justifications are using for these investigations, watching, you know,
Speaker 5: these numbers that they post when he goes on broadcast TV,
Speaker 5: like he did that primetime.
Speaker 3: Address and he was announcing, you know, thousands, all this fraud.
Speaker 3: I mean, this is all one big, coordinated, connective narrative,
Speaker 3: I would say.
Speaker 5: And that is the one thing that I will say
Speaker 5: that unfortunately the Trump machine sometimes does well is you
Speaker 5: may think that it's chaotic at times, whatever, but there
Speaker 5: are people behind the scenes who are actually like threading
Speaker 5: the needle and tying it together, right?
Speaker 3: Trump is off his rocker. He's falling asleep.
Speaker 5: And, you know, frankly, sure, taking cat naps in some
Speaker 5: of the most important meetings before the world. But I
Speaker 5: would say I am concerned about what is, the secretary
Speaker 5: of DHS doing?
Speaker 3: What is his strategy behind this?
Speaker 5: What is Stephen Miller, who we know basically runs the department,
Speaker 5: what is he doing behind the scenes? What are the
Speaker 5: people sitting in the policy office in the White House,
Speaker 5: people who are.
Speaker 3: Concerned about what's to come in these midterms?
Speaker 5: I think that is, I would say, the strategy and
Speaker 5: the coordination happening behind the scenes, and it's very concerning.
Speaker 1: Very concerning. Very concerning.
Speaker 2: And, you know, it seems that they'll lie about anything
Speaker 2: these days. And I'm going to talk about that.
Speaker 1: In a few moments.
Speaker 2: But, Olivia, great to see you. Thanks for jumping on.
Speaker 2: I know it was a last minute thing and really
Speaker 2: appreciate it. We had some technical problems with another guest,
Speaker 2: but you're one of our favorites and one of our go-tos.
Speaker 2: So we always love to come to you whenever we can. Olivia,
Speaker 2: thank you so much for what you do each and
Speaker 2: every day.
Speaker 3: Thanks so much. See you all soon.
Speaker 1: See you soon. Yeah, see you real soon. And, you know,
Speaker 1: I was just mentioning a few moments ago.
Speaker 2: The lengths that these cabinet members, I mean, talk about shamelessness,
Speaker 2: talk about spinelessness, talk about, you know, low T. Some
Speaker 2: of these cabinet members are willing to do or say anything,
Speaker 2: literally anything to kiss up to Donald Trump. And again,
Speaker 2: kiss up to a guy who can't, he can't stay awake.
Speaker 2: He has these Oval Office photo opportunities and each and
Speaker 2: every time, almost every time he has one of these,
Speaker 2: he can't stay awake through the whole damn thing Is
Speaker 2: anybody going to talk about this?
Speaker 1: I mean, first of all, that is the thing.
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, sleepy Joe Biden was never this sleepy,
Speaker 2: even when he was sound asleep. He was never as
Speaker 2: sleepy as Donald Trump.
Speaker 1: Is right now.
Speaker 2: But I will say the ability for the willingness that
Speaker 2: some of these cabinet members have to just lie about
Speaker 2: anything is remarkable. The Commerce Secretary, for example, thank God
Speaker 2: he's not in charge or has anything to do with
Speaker 2: our elections. But He was on Squawk Box on CNBC
Speaker 2: and was talking about Iran and trying to cool the
Speaker 2: temperature and say, you know, Iran's not that big of
Speaker 2: a deal.
Speaker 3: Don't worry.
Speaker 1: Everything's fine. We got it under control. And then lied
Speaker 1: about service member deaths, which is, it couldn't be worse.
Speaker 6: The president is playing Iran, right? There's not, there haven't
Speaker 6: been American deaths. It's really just an economic chokeout, which
Speaker 6: the administration is now executing more broadly. And I think
Speaker 6: it'll be very effective.
Speaker 1: So I mean, you heard it right there.
Speaker 2: There have not been any American deaths. There have been
Speaker 2: 18 service members killed in this war. Thank goodness there
Speaker 2: have not been more. But for the 18 service members
Speaker 2: out there, the Secretary of Commerce, Howard Lutnick, whose name has,
Speaker 2: you know, the letters in his name has been, you know,
Speaker 2: shifted around a little bit to maybe more accurately describe
Speaker 2: who he is and what he's all about. To the
Speaker 2: families of those service members, how disrespectful.
Speaker 1: How shameful. You're the secretary of commerce. Have you no shame?
Speaker 1: Have you no dignity? Have you no respect.
Speaker 2: For the people who wear the uniform, who represent us
Speaker 2: and put themselves in harm's way and make the ultimate sacrifice?
Speaker 2: I just think it's one of the most despicable things
Speaker 2: I've heard in a very long time. And I think
Speaker 2: part of this is because The language that they speak
Speaker 2: inside Trump world, the language that they speak inside this
Speaker 2: Trump White House is one of dishonesty. They lie so
Speaker 2: much that it's an uncontrollable pathological lying that goes on
Speaker 2: and they can't seem to stop.
Speaker 1: And it's all in service. It's all in service of
Speaker 1: somebody who, as I was saying earlier in the program,
Speaker 1: he's not obsessed with his vanity projects. He's obsessed with
Speaker 1: his insanity projects. These are insanity projects. We now have
Speaker 1: a Trump coin.
Speaker 2: Ladies and gentlemen, the U S mint put this out
Speaker 2: today that there's a Trump coin. I guess we can
Speaker 2: put this on screen. Look at this available for purchase today,
Speaker 2: a $.
Speaker 1: 1 Trump coin. We don't need a Trump coin in
Speaker 1: this country. Why would you want a Trump coin?
Speaker 2: And as I saw some folks mentioning, you need more
Speaker 2: of these coins now to get a gallon of gas.
Speaker 2: But this is what's happening in our country right now.
Speaker 2: He can't finish the war. He needs his commerce secretary
Speaker 2: to go out there and lie about the war. He
Speaker 2: can't get gas prices down. He can't get grocery prices down.
Speaker 2: He can't solve this trade war with Canada. All he
Speaker 2: can do is piss off the Canadians left and right.
Speaker 2: And they're putting out a coin. They're tearing down statues
Speaker 2: over at the Kennedy Center. the blue statue over the Kennedy, they, they, they,
Speaker 2: they're tearing that down for God knows what, are they
Speaker 2: going to put a giant statue of Donald Trump over
Speaker 2: at the Kennedy?
Speaker 1: Is that what's happening? Is that what's happening?
Speaker 2: Is it maybe a giant statue of kid rock over
Speaker 2: at the Kennedy center? Is that what we're going to
Speaker 2: put up over at the Kennedy center? I mean, it's,
Speaker 2: it's getting out of control. These, these vanity projects. I mean, there's,
Speaker 2: there's blue. This was a fixture over at.
Speaker 1: The Kennedy center. They're tearing it down. Because why? Because
Speaker 1: they've totally mismanaged.
Speaker 2: This sort of like, if you don't put his name
Speaker 2: back on the Kennedy Center, we're going to tear down
Speaker 2: the rest of it. Is that what this is? It's
Speaker 2: to unsettle everybody? And I just have to say one
Speaker 2: other thing before we go. You know, the way that
Speaker 2: the corporate CEOs and the gutless wonders in big business
Speaker 2: are are bending the knee to Donald Trump.
Speaker 1: It's disgraceful. It's absolutely disgraceful.
Speaker 2: Google the other day says that Lake Ontario is going
Speaker 2: to be Lake America now.
Speaker 1: It's on Google. Google Lake Ontario, you get Lake America.
Speaker 1: Now it's.
Speaker 2: Apple doing the exact same thing. They've done the exact
Speaker 2: same thing. It's absolutely a disgrace. And I was talking
Speaker 2: about this on my Instagram today. If you have the ability,
Speaker 2: download MapQuest. I downloaded it today. And it absolutely works.
Speaker 2: I mean, I know it sounds very late 90s, early
Speaker 2: 2000s to have MapQuest. When did MapQuest come out? I
Speaker 2: can't remember when MapQuest. I feel like it was the 2000s.
Speaker 2: And MapQuest, now as we moved on to other things,
Speaker 2: I think what's old is new again. If Google and
Speaker 2: Apple are going to bend the knee, and start calling
Speaker 2: this stuff Lake America, I'll use MapQuest. I went on
Speaker 2: MapQuest today. It still says Lake Ontario. I'm using MapQuest, everybody. Listen,
Speaker 2: appreciate everybody tuning in today. We had some technical gremlins,
Speaker 2: had a guest fall through, but we got through it.
Speaker 1: And we got the information out to you today.
Speaker 2: I want to thank Liz Hoyer for joining us today,
Speaker 2: Olivia Troy for jumping in last minute. I absolutely agree
Speaker 2: with what Olivia Troy said a few moments ago before
Speaker 2: we go. If you are, and I hope to God
Speaker 2: that you are going to vote in these upcoming midterms,
Speaker 2: but if you have not made a plan to vote,
Speaker 2: you need to start right now to make a plan
Speaker 2: to vote in the upcoming midterms. Our democracy is counting
Speaker 2: on you. Our system of checks and balances that the
Speaker 2: Supreme Court seems to have tossed by the wayside. They
Speaker 2: don't seem to be interested in checks and balances anymore.
Speaker 2: They think that a president can be a dictator in
Speaker 2: this country. But all of this is going to be
Speaker 2: on the line in the upcoming midterms, and it's going
Speaker 2: to count on your vote.
Speaker 1: So make a plan.
Speaker 2: If you live in a state where you're concerned about
Speaker 2: the mail-in voting, go ahead and start making your plan
Speaker 2: to early vote or vote on the same day and
Speaker 2: make that plan now because our democracy is counting on it.
Speaker 2: All of us are counting on you to make sure
Speaker 2: that we do our job and get this done. Make
Speaker 2: it your job this November to vote. Again, really appreciate
Speaker 2: our guests joining us today.
Speaker 1: Appreciate all of you watching. Another quick reminder, our.
Speaker 2: Daily newsletter is out every day, the Jim Acosta Morning
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Speaker 2: it's definitely worth it. But in the meantime, still reporting
Speaker 2: from Washington, I'm Jim Acosta.