Speaker 1: Live from the heart of the nation's capital, this is
Speaker 1: a Jim Acosta Show special report.
Speaker 2: All right. Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Jim Acosta Show.
Speaker 2: It's another day that ends in Y and Donald Trump
Speaker 2: creating chaos on the world stage. Trump apparently posted an
Speaker 2: AI video of an attack on Karg Island in the
Speaker 2: war with Iran when, in fact, that did not happen. Meanwhile,
Speaker 2: Donald Trump is claiming that he is seizing the oil
Speaker 2: in Venezuela as part of a deal that will not
Speaker 2: help American consumers anytime soon. And we should mention this
Speaker 2: episode is brought to you by Ground News. It is
Speaker 2: a site we are using more and more every day.
Speaker 2: They not only give you the day's headlines, they tell
Speaker 2: you the ownership of the news outlets delivering that information.
Speaker 2: So check it out. If you act now, you can
Speaker 2: receive 40% off if you go to groundnews.com slash Acosta.
Speaker 2: We're using it more and more every day. But let's
Speaker 2: discuss all of this with My friend John Harwood, veteran D.C.
Speaker 2: correspondent of CNN, CNBC, now with Zateo. John, great to
Speaker 2: see you.
Speaker 3: Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2: It's a hell of a wind up there. Thanks for
Speaker 2: your patience. I appreciate it. But good to see you. And,
Speaker 2: you know, I think we should there's a lot to
Speaker 2: dive into. I think we should dive into the Iran stuff.
Speaker 2: You and I have talked about this before. You know,
Speaker 2: Trump's declining cognitive state. You know, now he's posting AI
Speaker 2: images of an attack on Karg Island, something that did
Speaker 2: not occur. It's an AI video, but it gets into
Speaker 2: sort of the delusional state that he is in frequently
Speaker 2: these days. What do you make of that? And the
Speaker 2: fact that, I mean, some of this is starting to
Speaker 2: jolt the markets a little bit this week.
Speaker 3: I'm surprised it hasn't jolted the markets more.
Speaker 4: Look, we've got a president who is not mentally well,
Speaker 4: who is not in control of his emotions. who is
Speaker 4: not in touch with reality and not interested or capable
Speaker 4: of doing the job as president.
Speaker 3: And so, I.
Speaker 4: Mean, it's unbelievably crazy for a president who's directing, acting
Speaker 4: as commander in chief in a war in the Middle
Speaker 4: East to post this inflammatory video, which is like a
Speaker 4: video game, which is how he sees a lot of
Speaker 4: this stuff. It's as crazy as him posting Canadian geese
Speaker 4: with his own hair on top of it when he's
Speaker 4: skirmishing with Canada over trade or the name of Lake Ontario,
Speaker 4: which is, of course, Lake Ontario, but he's trying to
Speaker 4: create some other world for people to occupy. It's troubling.
Speaker 3: And, you know, sadly, we've kind of gotten used to it.
Speaker 4: And I guess that's why the markets have mostly shrugged
Speaker 4: at the increasing lunacy of what's coming out of Donald.
Speaker 3: Trump's White House.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's kind of a madness of King George moment
Speaker 2: for the 21st century. And the world just says, well,
Speaker 2: we're aware that the king is mad and we just
Speaker 2: operate around that reality, that he's not in touch with reality.
Speaker 2: And you mentioned the Google thing, which I don't know.
Speaker 2: I was obsessed with this all weekend. I still cannot
Speaker 2: believe that Google would bend the knee and change Google
Speaker 2: Maps from Lake Ontario to Lake America. I mean, there
Speaker 2: it is right there. I mean, that's just a disgraceful thing.
Speaker 2: And it's not really in step with where big media
Speaker 2: is moving. I sort of feel like, you know, that
Speaker 2: folks in our industry are starting to show slightly more
Speaker 2: backbone than maybe had been shown a year ago this time.
Speaker 2: But Google, I guess, sort of like the They'll do
Speaker 2: anything to suck up to Donald Trump these days.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 4: I mean, it's easier to stand up to him than
Speaker 4: it's ever been because his popularity has eroded so much.
Speaker 4: But there are some people who are treating this, some
Speaker 4: businesses like Google in this case, that are treating it
Speaker 4: in a very transactional way and fearing that if they
Speaker 4: tweak him, even in a minor way, you know, sort
Speaker 4: of like Kristen Welker said something about Trump yesterday that
Speaker 4: was completely anodyne.
Speaker 3: And Trump went off on her.
Speaker 4: He said he'd had mixed results within his endorsements, which
Speaker 4: is true. And so they're thinking like he could mess
Speaker 4: with us, so we're just not going to deal with it.
Speaker 3: And I think that the.
Speaker 4: Stakes for the country are, unfortunately, he's going to be
Speaker 4: president for two more years, but is the extent to
Speaker 4: which the rest of the world can somehow understand that
Speaker 4: this is a crazy guy and that's not the entire country.
Speaker 4: Of course, that begs the question of why did the
Speaker 4: country put in in the white house a second.
Speaker 3: Time, uh, in the last 10 years. And, you know,
Speaker 3: there's no, there's no good answer to that really.
Speaker 2: Right. And there's also, I mean, this other reality that
Speaker 2: he's trying to conjure up when it comes to Venezuela,
Speaker 2: they announced this big, uh, you know, oil seizure deal
Speaker 2: over the weekend. He, you know, he talked about the, uh,
Speaker 2: highly respected Delcy Rodriguez, who was, who was Maduro's number
Speaker 2: two and is still, you know, part of a, an
Speaker 2: authoritarian government, I guess, democracy and freedoms out the window, uh,
Speaker 2: And they're just going to do a business with these folks.
Speaker 2: But Trump is acting as though, and there's a true
Speaker 2: social post on this, he's acting as though this is
Speaker 2: going to lower gas prices for people next week. And
Speaker 2: you know, from your time covering business, John, that's just
Speaker 2: not the case.
Speaker 4: No, it's not the case. And Donald Trump does not
Speaker 4: care about democracy and freedom. He cares about Donald Trump.
Speaker 4: He cares about his own aggrandizement financially and psychically. So
Speaker 4: Venezuela is a country that He removed what had been
Speaker 4: portrayed as a bad guy, what was a bad guy,
Speaker 4: replaced it with someone not with a new democratic regime,
Speaker 4: but a more compliant member of the old regime. And
Speaker 4: now Xi is playing ball with him. And that's what
Speaker 4: he likes. The same as with Iran. You know, he's
Speaker 4: been very erratic on Iran, saying when the war started,
Speaker 4: Iranian people, rise up.
Speaker 3: We're behind you.
Speaker 4: We want you to take over your government. And then,
Speaker 4: you know, when the hardline government gets in and they
Speaker 4: start talking to him, he's like, wow, they're being so
Speaker 4: reasonable now.
Speaker 3: We can cut a deal.
Speaker 4: And of course, then we've seen that the deals that
Speaker 4: he's cut with them are completely worthless. But this is
Speaker 4: a president who is not grounded in rationality and reality
Speaker 4: and the whole world's paying a.
Speaker 3: Price for it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, he just said a few moments ago,
Speaker 2: we're doing a great, the U.S. is doing a great
Speaker 2: job with Iran. I think we could play a little
Speaker 2: bit of that. I mean, again, I guess he's reading
Speaker 2: headlines that Natalie Harp prints up and sends to him.
Speaker 2: We'll see what happens.
Speaker 1: But we have the Strait of Hormuz in extremely good shape.
Speaker 1: You know, we're taking over many, many ships that got
Speaker 1: through last night, as you know, with the Navy's assistance.
Speaker 1: And we've been averaging 30 ships a night.
Speaker 3: That's a lot.
Speaker 2: And a lot of oil is coming out.
Speaker 1: That's why you haven't seen the price of oil go
Speaker 1: like they thought it might have to go.
Speaker 3: And the main thing, when I say it all, I.
Speaker 1: Could go on for an hour about what a great
Speaker 1: job we've done. We've done a great job with Venezuela.
Speaker 1: We've done a great job with Iran. Iran will never
Speaker 1: have a nuclear weapon.
Speaker 2: See, that's what— Yeah, John, nobody thinks he's done a
Speaker 2: great job with Iran. Republicans are running away from this.
Speaker 2: And he sounds as though he thinks $ 4 a gallon
Speaker 2: is OK, that that's acceptable.
Speaker 4: Well, of course, it's acceptable to him. He's made billions
Speaker 4: of dollars in this second term. I mean, again, Donald
Speaker 4: Trump is concerned not about Americans. Americans were a tool.
Speaker 4: American voters were a tool. The MAGA movement was a
Speaker 4: tool for him to get to the White House and
Speaker 4: enrich himself.
Speaker 3: And that's what he's doing.
Speaker 4: Um, so the, the, the struggles of people, you know,
Speaker 4: Donald Trump doesn't buy gas.
Speaker 3: Donald Trump, uh, doesn't drive anywhere except a golf cart.
Speaker 4: Um, and he, he is simply not in tune or
Speaker 4: in any kind of sympathy with what people are going through. He,
Speaker 4: he does what he needs to do to try to
Speaker 4: sustain his power. It's diminishing and he knows that. Um,
Speaker 4: but he's going to get what he can.
Speaker 5: While he can.
Speaker 2: Right. And you were just telling me right before we
Speaker 2: got started here, just one of the most incredibly tone
Speaker 2: deaf things he has said in recent weeks. He was
Speaker 2: talking about people who are opposed to data centers. And
Speaker 2: I just want to make sure I get the wording
Speaker 2: correctly here. It is it's kind of astonishing. He said
Speaker 2: that anybody who opposes a data center, you know, is
Speaker 2: acting as though they want to end up being backwards
Speaker 2: and poor. That's pretty astonishing stuff because, John, as you know,
Speaker 2: many of the people in these ruby red districts are
Speaker 2: in these red states that may not stay red for
Speaker 2: very long. People are hopping mad over these data centers.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 4: Well, again, he doesn't care about that. Here's what he
Speaker 4: cares about. Data centers are propping up the broader economy
Speaker 4: right now. They're propping up the stock market. That's why
Speaker 4: returns have been very good. Corporations have been doing well.
Speaker 4: And The impact on average Americans is not a concern
Speaker 4: to him. He does keep score in the stock market,
Speaker 4: and he recognizes that's a way to make money. He
Speaker 4: trades stocks while president. He's trading stocks in sectors affected
Speaker 4: by the wars that he started and other actions that
Speaker 4: he's taken.
Speaker 3: And so, you know, it's sort of tough luck.
Speaker 4: And he said in this post today, if you want
Speaker 4: to be rich and prosperous, let big data reign. And
Speaker 4: that is, to say the least, not exactly what the
Speaker 4: American people are feeling right now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it almost sounds... like one of these signals
Speaker 2: that he sends to the people on Truth Social or
Speaker 2: his buddies on Wall Street. Now's your time to go
Speaker 2: buy some stock. So I guess anything connected to a
Speaker 2: data center, I guess what he's trying to say is
Speaker 2: go buy some of that stock, because that's what I'm doing.
Speaker 2: That's what I'm telling my people to do right now.
Speaker 4: Well, you know, I wonder, I don't know if he
Speaker 4: started selling the early access to his posts, but if
Speaker 4: he has, you can be sure that data centers saw
Speaker 4: that post before anybody else and paid handsomely for it.
Speaker 2: And they paid handsomely for it. And it does raise
Speaker 2: that question about what's going on. And you were telling
Speaker 2: me that you've been talking with Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio.
Speaker 2: And I mean, this is, you know, you and I
Speaker 2: have been covering politics a long time, you a little
Speaker 2: bit longer than me. I'm sure you and I have
Speaker 2: probably both thought that a lot of these states were
Speaker 2: going to be red for a while, Ohio being one
Speaker 2: of them. Ohio is one of the really more interesting
Speaker 2: political stories this cycle because it is trending Democratic. And
Speaker 2: it's mainly because it's becoming anti-Trump in a lot of places.
Speaker 3: Well, and that's a broader pattern.
Speaker 4: The strange thing, Jim, is you cover this stuff long
Speaker 4: enough as I have. You can see states trending one way.
Speaker 4: within the course of a few election cycles and trend
Speaker 4: the other way. I remember, this is a little off
Speaker 4: the point, but I remember in 2000, Democrats made a
Speaker 4: big bet that Florida was going to finally be achievable
Speaker 4: for them.
Speaker 3: It had been seen as out of reach. And Al
Speaker 3: Gore spent a lot of money.
Speaker 4: I think he actually drew more people intending to vote for.
Speaker 3: Him that day than George W.
Speaker 2: Bush did.
Speaker 4: But the point was, it was moving in a Democratic direction.
Speaker 4: More non-Cuban Hispanics were moving in, especially Puerto Ricans. The
Speaker 4: I-4 corridor was becoming a sort of more of a suburban.
Speaker 3: Kind of communities that Democrats could appeal to.
Speaker 4: And then it sort of switched back the other way. Now,
Speaker 4: Ohio was always a swing battleground state, but Bill Clinton
Speaker 4: won it. Barack Obama won it twice. And then all
Speaker 4: of a sudden, accelerated by Trump and his appeal to
Speaker 4: working class voters and older white voters, which predominate in Ohio.
Speaker 3: Then it came to be seen as being out of reach.
Speaker 4: But Sherrod Brown won in 2006 when the state was
Speaker 4: moving away from Democrats because you had conditions like today,
Speaker 4: unpopular president, unpopular war, economic difficulties.
Speaker 3: And it looks like, you know, a bad cycle, a
Speaker 3: bad landscape in.
Speaker 4: A particular year can overcome some of those trends.
Speaker 3: We'll see beyond 2026 whether.
Speaker 4: Ohio is becoming more competitive in a secular way, but
Speaker 4: it certainly is today. And the polls show Sherrod Brown
Speaker 4: with an eight-point lead, which is astounding when you think
Speaker 4: that Trump won the state by, I don't know, 11 points,
Speaker 4: and Sherrod Brown lost by three and a half points.
Speaker 4: So he ran eight points better than Kamala Harris did,
Speaker 4: but it still wasn't enough.
Speaker 3: It looks like it's going to be enough this time.
Speaker 2: Right. Ohio used to be the ultimate bellwether state. I mean,
Speaker 2: they used to pride themselves in being a bellwether state,
Speaker 2: and it stopped being that way. But the bell is ringing,
Speaker 2: I think. It seems to be this cycle. And one
Speaker 2: of the things I want to get to, John, before
Speaker 2: we go, and let's spend a little time talking about this.
Speaker 2: You wrote a piece for Zateo on McCarthyism, how it
Speaker 2: touched your family at one point, and what it means
Speaker 2: broadly to for the country today. And I was reading
Speaker 2: a New Yorker piece about Roy Cohn. And I think
Speaker 2: Roy Cohn, who is, you know, who saw Donald Trump as,
Speaker 2: as like, you know, an acolyte or something back in
Speaker 2: the day and kind of groomed him to be like
Speaker 2: the cutthroat maniacal person that he is. He, I think
Speaker 2: he worked for McCarthy or something like that. So there,
Speaker 2: I know there's all these parallels, but talk about, let's
Speaker 2: talk about McCarthyism and, and how it matters today. Cause
Speaker 2: I think that's such an important point.
Speaker 4: Well, We're accustomed to thinking of everything as unprecedented and
Speaker 4: a new phenomenon. But there's a whole lot of overlap
Speaker 4: with history that we can just see these cycles recurring again.
Speaker 4: And so in the mid 1950s, after World War II
Speaker 4: and the United States was undertaking the Cold War with
Speaker 4: the Soviet Union, Joe McCarthy started attacking what he said
Speaker 4: were communists all over the U.S.
Speaker 3: Government, all over the State Department in a very reckless way.
Speaker 4: That was destroying lives and careers of a lot of
Speaker 4: people and extended to Hollywood.
Speaker 3: It was in the government as well.
Speaker 4: And it even extended down to local communities and prosecutors.
Speaker 4: So my dad was a young reporter with the Louisville
Speaker 4: newspaper and one of his colleagues decided this was a
Speaker 4: few months after Brown v. Board struck down, the Supreme
Speaker 4: Court struck down school segregation, civil rights movement was growing.
Speaker 4: and he thought that it was wrong that neighborhoods in
Speaker 4: Louisville were segregated by race. So he acted as a
Speaker 4: straw buyer for a Black family, bought a house, they
Speaker 4: moved into the house, there was violence, cross-burning, an explosion
Speaker 4: at the house, and the local district attorney set out
Speaker 4: to demonstrate that it was communists behind this, rather than
Speaker 4: white racists behind it. And he had a grand jury
Speaker 4: that was looking into this, and he called my dad
Speaker 4: to try to get him to testify about a conversation
Speaker 4: he had with somebody who was observing the trial and
Speaker 4: was a friend of the guy who had been the.
Speaker 3: Straw purchaser, who was a self-proclaimed Marxist.
Speaker 4: Dad refused to cooperate, and it ended up with dad
Speaker 4: got excused. The prosecutor dismissed him, but his colleague, the journalist,
Speaker 4: got a 40-year sentence, later thrown out And when he
Speaker 4: walked out of the court, he said, as we all know,
Speaker 4: the red baiting and anti-communism is just a smokescreen for
Speaker 4: people who don't want to advance racial equality and raise
Speaker 4: wages for average workers.
Speaker 3: Well, that's exactly.
Speaker 4: What Donald Trump and Republicans are doing right now when
Speaker 4: they talk about communism and Marxists and socialists.
Speaker 3: Exactly the same thing.
Speaker 4: And it's it's a pattern that recurs and it's useful
Speaker 4: to to remind people of.
Speaker 3: How that works.
Speaker 2: And John, you know, what do you what's your sense
Speaker 2: of it? You know, McCarthyism versus Trumpism today. McCarthyism, you know,
Speaker 2: I think, you know, McCarthy sort of faded and backed
Speaker 2: away from the scene in disgrace. And Edward R. Murrow
Speaker 2: and there were some pretty. brave journalist during that time
Speaker 2: who exposed him for the fraud that he was. Does Trumpism,
Speaker 2: does MAGAism end the same way, do you think? What
Speaker 2: is your sense of it?
Speaker 3: Well, we'll see.
Speaker 4: It's fighting for a very bad election, and I suspect
Speaker 4: it'll have a difficult election in 2028 as well. I
Speaker 4: think a significant difference is, first of all, McCarthy did
Speaker 4: not have the machinery of the federal government behind him.
Speaker 3: Donald Trump does.
Speaker 4: I think in Trump's case, the communism and Marxism and
Speaker 4: socialism epithets which get thrown around are mostly a reflex
Speaker 4: for a party that doesn't have much else. I think
Speaker 4: the core of the MAGA movement, if Joe McCarthy was
Speaker 4: about the fight against communism or what he described as
Speaker 4: the fight against communism, Trumpism and MAGA is much more race-based.
Speaker 4: It's about the fear that the country is turning into
Speaker 4: a majority-minority country, and so you have this aggressive deportation plan.
Speaker 3: You've got Haitians on.
Speaker 4: Video that's circulated by the administration in chains, people who
Speaker 4: had been working successfully in Springfield, Ohio, who the local
Speaker 4: community wanted them, the governor wanted them to be able
Speaker 4: to stay. But there's this performative racism that is being
Speaker 4: repeated over and over again by Trump and the MAGA movement.
Speaker 3: And I think that's what they're.
Speaker 4: With respect to financial stuff, the people who fund Donald
Speaker 4: Trump and the Republican Party, they want tax cuts. But
Speaker 4: they get their support and they get their power from
Speaker 4: people who are animated by fear and a whole lot
Speaker 4: of racism.
Speaker 2: Right. And you have to wonder whether, you know, the
Speaker 2: people who are funding Donald Trump and funding MAGAism and,
Speaker 2: you know, his corporate daddies, if you will, What their
Speaker 2: attitude about things will be come next January if Trump
Speaker 2: and the Republicans get their clock cleaned and they don't
Speaker 2: have the gavel, they don't have chairmen sitting on all
Speaker 2: these different important committees. That might wake some folks up
Speaker 2: over on Wall Street and the winds may shift again.
Speaker 4: I think it'll preview the fact that Trump's still going
Speaker 4: to be in the Oval Office, but it's going to
Speaker 4: preview what the world's going to look like in 2029,
Speaker 4: which isn't very far away.
Speaker 3: If Democrats continue on the role that they're on now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no question. Well, John, great to see you as
Speaker 2: always check out John's pieces on Zateo and a great
Speaker 2: catching back up again. We could have gone all day,
Speaker 2: but we won't do that to ourselves, but John, thank
Speaker 2: you so much. Good to see you. Really appreciate it.
Speaker 2: And John mentioned earlier on in the interview there, what
Speaker 2: happened with NBC's Kristen Welker beat the press. when Trump
Speaker 2: went after her and said he wanted to get the
Speaker 2: FCC to investigate Kristen Welker and so on. And it
Speaker 2: made me think, you know, we really should talk to
Speaker 2: somebody who is an expert on all of this. And
Speaker 2: Tom Jones with the Poynter Institute just wrote a piece
Speaker 2: about this today, as a matter of fact. So it's
Speaker 2: perfect timing. Tom, great to see you. Thanks for coming
Speaker 2: on the show.
Speaker 5: Thanks for having me, Jim. Good to talk to you.
Speaker 2: Good to talk to you. And I just saw your
Speaker 2: piece a few moments ago and our friend Tommy Christopher
Speaker 2: sent it over to me. But, you know, I do
Speaker 2: think it's really important. And this is what you wrote.
Speaker 2: Once again, President Donald Trump is calling on the SEC
Speaker 2: to do something that it does not have the authority
Speaker 2: to do. And why? Because he's angry about something a
Speaker 2: journalist said on television prior to the airing of Sunday's
Speaker 2: Meet the Press on NBC. Moderator Kristen Welker, terrific journalist,
Speaker 2: spoke with WRCTV, the NBC station in Washington. She pointed
Speaker 2: out that Trump is going to loom large over the midterms.
Speaker 2: But she accurately noted, you said, he, of course, has
Speaker 2: endorsed a slate of candidates in the primaries and he's
Speaker 2: had some mixed results. Just the fact, Tom, that she
Speaker 2: said that he has had some mixed results was enough
Speaker 2: to make him go off on this tirade on True
Speaker 2: Social and threaten to have the FCC go after her.
Speaker 2: What does that tell you about where we are right now?
Speaker 5: It tells me that we have a president in the
Speaker 5: White House who has no impulse. I mean, he can't
Speaker 5: control his impulses. He sees something. He immediately reacts on
Speaker 5: True Social. And then normally we would just dismiss it
Speaker 5: and say, OK, here goes Trump again, commenting, making fun
Speaker 5: of Kristen Walker, whatever. But then it has real consequences
Speaker 5: because Brendan Carr, for all we know, will look into
Speaker 5: this now. He's the chairman, obviously, of the FCC. We've
Speaker 5: seen this before, that Trump says something. Somebody in his
Speaker 5: administration reacts to that. Half the time, I don't know
Speaker 5: if Trump's being serious or he's just losing his impulse
Speaker 5: for just a moment and tweeting something out or going
Speaker 5: on true social. But the real danger here is that
Speaker 5: even though– The FCC really doesn't have any authority to
Speaker 5: do anything in this case. As our friend Don Lemon
Speaker 5: says all the time, the process is the punishment. This
Speaker 5: is something now that NBC is going to have to
Speaker 5: deal with. This is something that Kristen Welker is going
Speaker 5: to have to deal with. This is something we're going
Speaker 5: to be talking about for the next couple of days.
Speaker 5: And so this is all a part of sometimes I
Speaker 5: think Trump goes on social media. He doesn't know what
Speaker 5: he's doing. And yet there's a part of me that
Speaker 5: thinks actually he really does know what he's doing. And
Speaker 5: he's creating this chaos, this havoc to distract us from
Speaker 5: other things and also just make life the lives of
Speaker 5: journalists really difficult.
Speaker 2: Right. It's the same reason why he files these lawsuits
Speaker 2: against news organizations. It's not because he thinks he's ultimately
Speaker 2: going to win a lawsuit, although and we have seen
Speaker 2: cases where, you know, news organizations have bent the knee
Speaker 2: and paid outrageous settlements that don't make any sense. But
Speaker 2: it's the process. It's to put people through the meat grinder.
Speaker 2: It's to make them suffer. But the thing that Kristen Welker,
Speaker 2: I mean, Kristen Welker didn't even make a mistake. She
Speaker 2: did not have, there was no error in what she said.
Speaker 2: And she, by the way, I've known her a long time.
Speaker 2: I think she's great, does a wonderful job. And she
Speaker 2: just described reality. They want to go after you for
Speaker 2: describing reality now. That's disturbing.
Speaker 5: That's the disturbing part. I think, again, I think there's
Speaker 5: a method to the madness, if you will, if you
Speaker 5: want to call it that, but there's a method to this.
Speaker 5: And that is to sort of, Work the refs. This
Speaker 5: is something like, I'm going to complain about everything there
Speaker 5: is to complain about. And I'm afraid it probably works
Speaker 5: in some instances where if you complain enough about journalists,
Speaker 5: we go after journalists enough. It makes journalists think twice
Speaker 5: before they start reporting on the next story. Is this
Speaker 5: worth the hassle? Am I willing to put up with
Speaker 5: Trump's wrath for the next month, whether it's just being
Speaker 5: attacked on Twitter True Social or whether it's being attacked
Speaker 5: on shows like Fox News or whatever, or on Newsmax,
Speaker 5: places like that. It doesn't have an effect where people
Speaker 5: sort of pull their punches sometimes. I don't know. I
Speaker 5: do like to hope not. And I don't think Kristen
Speaker 5: Welker is the type of journalist that's going to back down.
Speaker 5: Maggie Haberman is not the type of journalist that's going
Speaker 5: to be intimidated by that sort of thing. But I
Speaker 5: do wonder sometime if you just flood the zone, complain
Speaker 5: about everything, even things that that you really can't be
Speaker 5: really faulted for in this case, as you mentioned, what
Speaker 5: Krista Walker said was it hurt Trump's ego because he's
Speaker 5: not a hundred percent with his endorsements. So when she
Speaker 5: pointed that out, he gets angry, but you do wonder
Speaker 5: if the next time somebody will say, I wonder if
Speaker 5: I should say this because I don't want the Trump
Speaker 5: wrath for the next week or two.
Speaker 2: That's right. It results in self-editing. I think that's undoubtedly
Speaker 2: the case and this isn't working the rest. They've, they've
Speaker 2: gone way beyond. This is kneecapping the reps. This is,
Speaker 2: you know, trying to take out the refs. And he's,
Speaker 2: they've gloated, he and Brendan Carr gloated about anchors that
Speaker 2: they've knocked out of places. I mean, folks like myself,
Speaker 2: they've gloated over the Ellisons taking over CBS and 60
Speaker 2: Minutes and TikTok and so on. And another disturbing thing
Speaker 2: that happened over the weekend did not get a lot
Speaker 2: of coverage as much as the Kristen Welker thing. And
Speaker 2: the National Press Club tweeted about this, that the Treasury
Speaker 2: Department I guess they were having a conference. They were having,
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 3: They were leaders.
Speaker 5: It's a G20 conference, yeah.
Speaker 2: A G20 conference. And they're not allowing the New York Times,
Speaker 2: the Wall Street Journal, and I believe Bloomberg, they're blocking
Speaker 2: those journals from covering a G20 finance minister's meeting in Asheville,
Speaker 2: North Carolina. I mean, this is, these are the lengths
Speaker 2: that they're going to now to, again, as you said,
Speaker 2: or as I was saying, kneecap the refs.
Speaker 5: Well, and it's a weird thing that like with the
Speaker 5: New York Times, for instance, one of their reporters, one
Speaker 5: of their journalists is being banned from this conference, but
Speaker 5: not everybody from the New York Times. They actually did
Speaker 5: grant credentials to somebody who is one of their, I
Speaker 5: think they're one of their Berlin correspondents who can cover this.
Speaker 5: But we're still not clear exactly what it is that
Speaker 5: got the other journalists banned. They're not some of the
Speaker 5: Treasury Department hasn't commented. Who knows? Maybe he had one
Speaker 5: line in one story three months ago that somebody didn't like.
Speaker 5: And that's the complaint. But, you know, just this, and
Speaker 5: we've seen this really, the Pentagon, I think, is the
Speaker 5: prime example of where the Trump administration has really hammered down,
Speaker 5: forcing journalists to sign forms that said, we're not going
Speaker 5: to report on anything unless we give it to you, basically,
Speaker 5: banning people from the building, going as far as filing
Speaker 5: subpoenas against journalists to reveal sources, because they have leaks
Speaker 5: within their own department. These are the type of things, again, that...
Speaker 5: And again, Jim, and not to put you on the spot,
Speaker 5: but I'm sure this is something you dealt with. So
Speaker 5: for instance, the other day, Trump comes out and just goes,
Speaker 5: just a real vile attack on Maggie Haberman, which was
Speaker 5: completely uncalled for. Disgusting. He does it. He did it
Speaker 5: to you at times. And here's the thing. But I'm
Speaker 5: sure you've been on the receiving end of hatred from
Speaker 5: the megaverse, you know, from people who, and it's, again,
Speaker 5: he tweets this stuff out. He'll go after somebody. Then
Speaker 5: he moves on with his day. But his objective has
Speaker 5: been accomplished. He has made life miserable for Maggie Hepburn.
Speaker 5: Now she could take it. You can take it. But
Speaker 5: I'm sure that there were times when you were at CNN,
Speaker 5: when he was really going after you, that you, that
Speaker 5: your life was miserable for a few days and the
Speaker 5: amount of hatred you received, emails, letters, phone.
Speaker 2: Calls, whatever, made it difficult. No, there's no doubt about it.
Speaker 2: And they know exactly what they're doing because they've been
Speaker 2: told repeatedly when you do this, when you gin up
Speaker 2: this kind of faux outrage and go after people in
Speaker 2: deeply personal ways, it often results in death threats. It
Speaker 2: results in some very menacing messages you may get on
Speaker 2: social media and I mean, I got all of that stuff,
Speaker 2: you name it. House got swatted, letters in the mail
Speaker 2: saying they're going to hurt your kids and all this
Speaker 2: stuff and really terrible, awful stuff. And I assume Maggie
Speaker 2: gets this as well. And all you can really do
Speaker 2: is have your news organization communicate to the White House, hey,
Speaker 2: when you do this, it results in this. And this
Speaker 2: goes all the way back to when he used to
Speaker 2: refer to the press as the enemy of the people.
Speaker 2: We would tell him and their people at the time,
Speaker 2: when you do that, there are going to be threats
Speaker 2: and they didn't care. They did it anyway. And it's,
Speaker 2: it's an intimidation campaign. It's, it's a way to try
Speaker 2: to suppress negative coverage and it gets news executives thinking, well,
Speaker 2: you know, should we do that story? Because gosh, you know,
Speaker 2: that might get us into trouble over here. Or, you know,
Speaker 2: should we send this person to this event or have
Speaker 2: this person cover the white house? They really don't like
Speaker 2: that person. And it just results in undoubtedly, you know,
Speaker 2: some self-editing. And I just, It's, it's, it's very troubling.
Speaker 5: Well, not only like when you look at it, when
Speaker 5: it comes to not only intimidation in terms of just like,
Speaker 5: like you just, you mentioned getting death threats and that
Speaker 5: sort of thing, but the threat of a lawsuit. Now
Speaker 5: somebody like Maggie Harriman doesn't, she's got the full power
Speaker 5: of the New York times behind her. You know, you've
Speaker 5: got people at the Washington post or the wall street
Speaker 5: journal or NBC or whatever. You have a powerful news
Speaker 5: organization behind you, CNN. They're going to protect their people. Um,
Speaker 5: But a journalist like you now who's moved on into
Speaker 5: a more independent type of role, somebody like a Don Lemon.
Speaker 5: I mean, we've seen countless journalists who've moved on doing
Speaker 5: their own things. Or maybe somebody who works for a
Speaker 5: smaller news organization. They're not backed by high-priced lawyers who
Speaker 5: can spend millions of dollars fighting these things. And the
Speaker 5: Trump administration knows that. So you do, again, it goes
Speaker 5: back to the self-editing of, Yeah, the New York Times
Speaker 5: isn't going to back down, but as some smaller news
Speaker 5: organization or some independent journalist, would they?
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Well, I mean, that's the goal.
Speaker 2: I mean, to me, it's no holds barred. And my
Speaker 2: sense of it is, is that because of the moment
Speaker 2: that we're in, you just have to be as tough
Speaker 2: as nails. And the public demands that they want that.
Speaker 2: And one of the reasons why Don and I and
Speaker 2: others are doing well is because there is a sense
Speaker 2: in the legacy media, in the corporate media that there
Speaker 2: has been. some bending of the knee. And there has
Speaker 2: been some, let's pull back on the coverage a little bit.
Speaker 2: Let's not be so tough. Let's have some MAGA voices
Speaker 2: here and there to, you know, even if that person
Speaker 2: just reliably lies all the time, we have to have
Speaker 2: them on the panel or else we're going to get
Speaker 2: a call from the White House and people get tired
Speaker 2: of it. And so they go to these independent avenues,
Speaker 2: which I think is terrific. But you're right in that
Speaker 2: there is a little bit of a vulnerability in that
Speaker 2: if they want to harm and harass people, then you're
Speaker 2: kind of out in the cold a little bit. Don,
Speaker 2: when he went through his thing, thank goodness, had some
Speaker 2: very good lawyers who were helping him, I think, on
Speaker 2: a pro bono type basis. I don't want to speak
Speaker 2: on his behalf, but I think there was a lot
Speaker 2: of generosity being shown in trying to help Don through
Speaker 2: that moment. But I mean, to me, the fact that
Speaker 2: they even want to go after independent media shows that
Speaker 2: this is becoming a force in the marketplace, Tom. But
Speaker 2: the question I have for you is, what ultimately is
Speaker 2: the answer? is the answer to just, I mean, my
Speaker 2: sense of it is you just have to take it.
Speaker 2: We have to get through this, do your job, try
Speaker 2: to outlast this moment. I don't think the answer is
Speaker 2: to pull back. I think that it doesn't work.
Speaker 5: No, 100%. You do have to fight your way through it.
Speaker 5: And I think the other thing is, and this is
Speaker 5: a very difficult thing to do, is to not get
Speaker 5: distracted by the moment. I think part of this, when
Speaker 5: he goes after Maggie Haberman the way he did, I mean,
Speaker 5: he went after Maggie Haberman. She was one of, I think,
Speaker 5: four people who bylined a story talking about it. So
Speaker 5: it wasn't even that big of a deal that he's
Speaker 5: not going to speak, uh, at the world trade center
Speaker 5: on the anniversary of nine 11. Instead, I guess he's
Speaker 5: going to speak at the Pentagon, which is perfectly fine.
Speaker 5: I mean, um, instead he decides to go after Maggie here,
Speaker 5: but he goes after Kristen Walker the other day. I'm
Speaker 5: sure it'll be somebody else tomorrow. And it's, and, and
Speaker 5: when he go, when you see him in these press
Speaker 5: conferences and he goes after a Caitlin Collins and talks
Speaker 5: about her not smiling or whatever the case is. Um,
Speaker 5: On one hand, I don't think he can help himself.
Speaker 5: I think he gets very frustrated, particularly by female journalists.
Speaker 5: He's shown that. But he also will go after any
Speaker 5: type of journalist. But I think the big thing is
Speaker 5: he knows that I'd rather Tamar's story be about me
Speaker 5: and Maggie Haberman or me and Caitlin Collins or me
Speaker 5: and Krista Walker than about gas prices, than about Iran,
Speaker 5: than about how the midterms are shaping up to be
Speaker 5: a disaster for the GOP. And then he'll take a
Speaker 5: lot of the blame. He'll end up being blamed for
Speaker 5: a lot of that. So I agree with you, Jim.
Speaker 5: I think the key is to keep plowing forward, keep reporting.
Speaker 5: The encouraging thing is it doesn't seem like anybody, as
Speaker 5: much as we talk about self-editing, and we don't know
Speaker 5: what stories are being held back, it is encouraging to
Speaker 5: see the work that the New York Times continues to do,
Speaker 5: that places like NBC. What I'm really looking forward to
Speaker 5: is 60 Minutes. Like, how is 60 Minutes... got to
Speaker 5: handle the moment.
Speaker 2: Yeah. What do you think about, what do you think
Speaker 2: about that? I think it's fascinating because it seems to
Speaker 2: me it's already, when you have people like Scott Pelley
Speaker 2: and Sharon Alfonsi and Cecilia Vega coming out and saying
Speaker 2: on the record that Barry Weiss, the editor in chief
Speaker 2: of CBS has been intentionally injecting items into stories to
Speaker 2: change the direction of a story or add some, you know,
Speaker 2: pro Trump bias to a story. That's, extremely disturbing and
Speaker 2: i i wonder if she has murdered 60 minutes as
Speaker 2: scott pelly put it i mean we.
Speaker 5: Shall see i mean apparently she has made those suggestions
Speaker 5: into stories that we don't know if they've ever gotten
Speaker 5: in to the stories that's one good thing the other
Speaker 5: good thing is we've seen even at the end of
Speaker 5: last season for 60 minutes they continue to pretty aggressively
Speaker 5: cover the Trump administration. So there is hope that maybe
Speaker 5: they will continue. But now look, you just mentioned, I mean,
Speaker 5: they've lost some real talent there. I mean, Sharon Alfonsi and,
Speaker 5: and the executive producer has since left. Scott Pelley is
Speaker 5: no longer there. Anderson Cooper has left. So they've, they've
Speaker 5: lost some, some big time talent. They still have some left,
Speaker 5: but some interesting new hires as well. So we'll see
Speaker 5: how strong, how just aggressive they are with the Trump administration. But,
Speaker 5: but I agree with you, Jim, like this moment, I
Speaker 5: think this is a time where journalists really need to
Speaker 5: step up. I think shows like this show, the work
Speaker 5: that Don's doing, this is an important time. And I
Speaker 5: would like to think that we can outlast it, that
Speaker 5: this moment, I saw you talking to John a few
Speaker 5: moments ago, where does this thing go when Trump is gone?
Speaker 5: We don't know. But you would like to think that
Speaker 5: good and aggressive journalism will always prevail at the end
Speaker 5: of the day. We hope so.
Speaker 2: Well, and I think, I mean, just finally, I mean,
Speaker 2: I do think some changes are going to be needed
Speaker 2: in the post-Trump era. I think laws are going to
Speaker 2: have to be passed to make it absolutely clear that
Speaker 2: the FCC is not to be used as a political weapon.
Speaker 2: I mean, that needs to be written into whatever their
Speaker 2: charter is or whatever their governing structure is. It needs
Speaker 2: to state very clearly that they're not to decide broadcast
Speaker 2: licenses like they are with ABC right now. based on
Speaker 2: how they hate Jimmy Kimmel or the view or something
Speaker 2: like that. I mean, it seems to me he's, there's
Speaker 2: now a path for some reforms that are needed.
Speaker 5: A hundred percent. And again, we, you know, I, I
Speaker 5: think for this part of it is maybe our fault.
Speaker 5: I don't, I didn't think that we thought it would
Speaker 5: get to this. Like I, I think there was a
Speaker 5: lot of us. I still go back to the January.
Speaker 5: I don't want to make it a long story. I'll
Speaker 5: keep it short for you, Jim. I remember on January 6th, 2021, uh,
Speaker 5: here at the Poynter Institute, we have a lot of
Speaker 5: foreign journalists who work with us. And they said, this
Speaker 5: is going to be a bad day. You watch, this
Speaker 5: is going to turn into something horrifically historic. And I
Speaker 5: was like, no, that.
Speaker 3: Can't happen here.
Speaker 5: That'll never happen here. And by, you know, two o'clock
Speaker 5: that afternoon, we're like, oh my gosh, I can't believe this.
Speaker 5: I think there's a little bit of us that got
Speaker 5: caught flat footed with, no, the FCC would never do this. No,
Speaker 5: they would never go after that. They would, Kimmel would
Speaker 5: never can be pulled from the air. Like it's all happened.
Speaker 5: And so. Maybe with that little more experience moving forward,
Speaker 5: we know at least how to approach it in the future.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we can. I don't think we can no longer say,
Speaker 2: you know, is Donald Trump a threat to the free
Speaker 2: press or is Donald Trump a threat to the first?
Speaker 2: That question has been answered. You know, it's time to
Speaker 2: stop writing and framing things in that fashion. But, Tom,
Speaker 2: great to see you. The Poynter Institute, terrific newsletter. You
Speaker 2: guys do every day terrific stuff you guys do on
Speaker 2: the media and the free press. Really appreciate the time.
Speaker 5: Thank you, Jim. Good talking to you.
Speaker 2: All right. Good talking to you as well. And, you know,
Speaker 2: before we go, I should say, you know, we've covered
Speaker 2: a lot of news today, by the way, for folks
Speaker 2: who don't cover, you know, we do just a few things. No, no,
Speaker 2: we're covering a lot today. Apparently, the Supreme Court is
Speaker 2: allowing Trump to move forward with his White House ballroom construction.
Speaker 2: This is being reported by NBC and The New York Times.
Speaker 2: You know, the lower courts might say one thing, but
Speaker 2: once Trump goes to the Supreme Court and there's those,
Speaker 2: you know, MAGA justices who are like, Whatever you want
Speaker 2: to do, just go and do it. Hey, sounds great.
Speaker 2: Sounds great to us. We used to be originalists and
Speaker 2: go by the Constitution, but we love Donald Trump. As
Speaker 2: I like to say, who's the biggest fangirl in Washington
Speaker 2: for Donald Trump? Is it Natalie Harp or is it
Speaker 2: Chief Justice John Roberts? Anyway, NBC reporting the Supreme Court
Speaker 2: on Monday handed Trump a win by allowing him to
Speaker 2: move forward indefinitely with the construction of his new White
Speaker 2: House ballroom. The court divided five to four. granted an
Speaker 2: emergency request filed by the Trump administration blocking lower court
Speaker 2: rulings that would have put the above ground portion of
Speaker 2: the project on hold. This followed an interim decision along
Speaker 2: similar lines issued by Chief Justice John Roberts on August 21st. Apparently,
Speaker 2: John Roberts joined the court's three liberal justices in dissent.
Speaker 2: I will say, OK, I'm reading the story here. Construction
Speaker 2: of the ballroom. has proceeded apace for the better part
Speaker 2: of the year. That construction is likely unlawful, John Roberts wrote. Okay,
Speaker 2: so he has been on the forefront of allowing Donald
Speaker 2: Trump to do a lot of what he's wanted to do,
Speaker 2: but it seems that the other conservative justices on the
Speaker 2: court had other ideas, and they're allowing Donald Trump to
Speaker 2: go forward with this ballroom construction. The other thing that
Speaker 2: we should get into is the reflecting pool down in
Speaker 2: the National Mall. Remember when The reflecting pool down in
Speaker 2: the National Mall was going to be this beautiful Caribbean
Speaker 2: blue swimming pool like body of water just in time
Speaker 2: for the July 4th holiday. Apparently, and Donald Trump's had
Speaker 2: a really tough time selling this to the public. He's
Speaker 2: been telling people that vandals have gone down there and
Speaker 2: they remember he said they cut a 350 foot slit
Speaker 2: down the middle of the reflecting pool. And they arrested
Speaker 2: David Hearn, the Olympic canoeist, and said he's the one
Speaker 2: he did this and that and the other thing. Um,
Speaker 2: and it turns out he didn't do anything and the,
Speaker 2: you know, and, and the case has been dropped and
Speaker 2: so on and so forth. Well, I went down, you know,
Speaker 2: I've been wondering what's going on with the reflecting pool.
Speaker 2: You know, it's been too much. And, and by the way,
Speaker 2: Donald Trump, I guess he went on truth social over
Speaker 2: the weekend and said that the improvements to the reflecting
Speaker 2: pool are quote, almost completely fixed. Donald Trump said on Sunday,
Speaker 2: the improvements to the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool are almost
Speaker 2: completely fixed. That is what he said. And this has
Speaker 2: been the true social post he put out over the weekend.
Speaker 2: I went down to the National Mall and guess what?
Speaker 3: It is.
Speaker 2: It is not almost completely fixed. Take a look. All right,
Speaker 2: here I am down at the reflecting pool almost two
Speaker 2: months since July 4th. Remember when Donald Trump and all
Speaker 2: the cabinet officials and all the National Park Service people
Speaker 2: were claiming that this was going to be a beautiful
Speaker 2: reflecting pool just in time for the July 4th celebration,
Speaker 2: that it was going to be like a swimming pool
Speaker 2: or like the Caribbean, and that this American flag... or
Speaker 2: paint or liner that they put on the bottom of
Speaker 2: the reflecting pool was going to transform this into this
Speaker 2: beautiful urban oasis. You can see behind me that the
Speaker 2: reflecting pool is almost entirely empty.
Speaker 3: Okay, take a look at this.
Speaker 2: I've just been spotting the workers down here on the
Speaker 2: no big contract for the reflecting pool. They are ripping
Speaker 2: up chunks of the bottom of this reflecting pool and
Speaker 2: throwing them away. obviously trying to clean up after their
Speaker 2: own shoddy work, and not from vandals down here that
Speaker 2: they've been lying about over and over. And look at
Speaker 2: the way they're trying to cover up what the workers
Speaker 2: are doing down here. They have this giant black covering
Speaker 2: going up and down the reflecting pool, so you can't
Speaker 2: really look in and see what's going on unless you
Speaker 2: look through these little tears that they've created in the line.
Speaker 2: Look at that. Once again, folks, I'm down here. I
Speaker 2: don't see any signs of any large scale vandalism. And
Speaker 2: there are some workers who are fiddling around with a
Speaker 2: certain part of the bottom of the reflecting pool. Again,
Speaker 2: it looks like they are repairing their own shoddy work.
Speaker 2: We'll stay on top of this, but it's been months
Speaker 2: and months since they predicted that this reflecting pool was
Speaker 2: going to look like something out of the Caribbean or
Speaker 2: like a swimming pool at Mar-a-Lago or something like that.
Speaker 2: And look at this. Still empty. Still an eyesore. Still
Speaker 2: not what Trump promised to the American people for the
Speaker 2: 250th anniversary of this country. Shameful. It's totally shameful. Trump
Speaker 2: said he was going to make this reflecting pool look
Speaker 2: like Mar-a-Lago or the Bahamas. And that it was going
Speaker 2: to be amazing and beautiful. And it's still a total
Speaker 2: eyesore down on the National Mall. And apparently now there
Speaker 2: are signs on those fences that go around the reflecting...
Speaker 2: I couldn't believe when I saw this. When I went
Speaker 2: down there, I was like, surely they've made some progress.
Speaker 2: And they've made almost no progress. They're still just ripping
Speaker 2: up pieces of the bottom of the reflecting pool and
Speaker 2: putting them in hefty bags and garbage bags and so on.
Speaker 2: And it's an absolute joke. And apparently they're putting up
Speaker 2: signs around the reflecting pool that blame this. They still...
Speaker 2: they still blame this on vandals and they're blaming the
Speaker 2: reflecting pool problems on prior administrations. He is the one
Speaker 2: that did this. He is the one that sent the crews,
Speaker 2: the no big contract crews down to the national mall.
Speaker 2: And they painted the bottom of the reflecting pool, which
Speaker 2: I predicted back. I think it was in April. If
Speaker 2: you paint it that dark color, it's going to cause
Speaker 2: all of these algae blooms. And I mean, I'm not
Speaker 2: a genius or anything. I heard there was like scientists
Speaker 2: and meteorologists and whatnot. He said, if you make it
Speaker 2: really dark, it's going to heat up the pool and
Speaker 2: you're gonna have all this allergy. So I'm not patting
Speaker 2: myself on the back or anything, but I did say
Speaker 2: this was going to happen and they have been screwing
Speaker 2: with this thing ever since. All they had to do
Speaker 2: was just clean it up a little bit and it
Speaker 2: would have been fine. And it would have, it would
Speaker 2: have kept on going on as this reflecting pool that
Speaker 2: gets a little green and a little mucky every now
Speaker 2: and then the ducks are swimming around and, and that's
Speaker 2: just how it is. But Trump and this is exactly
Speaker 2: why he should not be trusted with the White House
Speaker 2: ballroom project. It is exactly why he should not be
Speaker 2: trusted with the Kennedy Center project. I guess Sheldon Whitehouse,
Speaker 2: the senator from Rhode Island, he's fired off another letter
Speaker 2: to the Kennedy Center. People saying we want to see
Speaker 2: your financial books. And Donald Trump still wants to put
Speaker 2: his name on the Kennedy Center. And we've been following
Speaker 2: that saga. We were out there. Remember that night all
Speaker 2: night when they were taking his name? And, you know,
Speaker 2: Sheldon Whitehouse, the Senator from Rhode Island is saying, we want,
Speaker 2: we want to see what's going on in your, your
Speaker 2: financial documents too, because it sounds like you don't have
Speaker 2: any money. And that's why you, you are shutting down
Speaker 2: the Kennedy center because you've run it into the ground
Speaker 2: because nobody wants to go see a Kennedy center with
Speaker 2: Donald Trump's name on it. Nobody wants that. Nobody wants
Speaker 2: to go down to the national mall and look at
Speaker 2: a reflecting pool. That looks like a sewer that Donald
Speaker 2: Trump screwed up because he's incompetent. Um, people don't want
Speaker 2: to go down to the white house and look at
Speaker 2: the white house. If there's a giant hole in the
Speaker 2: ground and some monstrosity gilded golden faux golden monstrosity that
Speaker 2: he's building, people are not going to want to go
Speaker 2: and look at the white house other than the people
Speaker 2: who pay Trump to be in his good graces, uh,
Speaker 2: or suck up to him to be in his good graces.
Speaker 2: But I mean, that, that is the long and the
Speaker 2: short of it folks. So again, so when he, puts
Speaker 2: out there in a tweet that, oh, we're bombing Carg Island,
Speaker 2: or we're taking over the Venezuelan oil to lower gas prices,
Speaker 2: or the reflecting pool is almost finished. I know, this
Speaker 2: just in, shocker, Donald Trump completely full of BS. Once again,
Speaker 2: another day that ends in Y here on the Jim
Speaker 2: Acosta Show. A couple of final things. As we said
Speaker 2: at the top of the program, The show today is
Speaker 2: brought to you by one of our sponsors, groundnews.com. They
Speaker 2: not only deliver the day's headlines, they tell you the
Speaker 2: ownership of the outlets delivering the news. Go to groundnews.com
Speaker 2: slash Acosta. Right now you get 40% off. And so
Speaker 2: check it out. We're using more and more every day.
Speaker 2: Don't forget, we have the daily Jim Acosta morning memo,
Speaker 2: our daily newsletter now available on Substack and YouTube. Check
Speaker 2: it out. It's terrific. And also on the Substack today, we,
Speaker 2: We did also publish a piece from our friend Juliet
Speaker 2: Jeske over at Decoding Fox News, doing a deep dive
Speaker 2: into the Natalie Harp cult-like worship of Donald Trump. That's
Speaker 2: another thing on the site today. So check it out.
Speaker 2: Lots of good content for you on this Monday here
Speaker 2: at the very end of August.
Speaker 3: September?
Speaker 2: Is September tomorrow? I think September is tomorrow. My God.
Speaker 2: The year is flying by.
Speaker 5: But, folks.
Speaker 2: Really appreciate everybody supporting us each and every day. I
Speaker 2: want to thank John Harwood for being on the program,
Speaker 2: Tom Jones over at the Poynter Institute. Thank you, all
Speaker 2: of you, for tuning in each and every day. We
Speaker 2: really appreciate it. Still reporting from Washington and by the
Speaker 2: Reflecting Pool on occasion. I'm Jim Acosta. I'll see you
Speaker 2: next time.