transcript
Speaker 1:
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Speaker 2:
[00:36] 12, 10, 28, 2, 23. This is Deep State Radio, coming to you direct from our super secret studio in the third sub-basement of the Ministry of SNARK in Washington, DC and from other undisclosed locations across America and around the world. Hello and welcome to DSR's Words Matter. I am David Rothkopf. I am here basically to direct some questions to the godfather of Washington, DC., the man who knows where all the bodies are buried and probably buried some of them himself, Norm Ornstein. I always shudder to ask you this, but it's just not polite not to. How are you doing today, Norm?
Speaker 3:
[01:35] Well, I would have to say, David, that it's not much different than other times. A little bit more upbeat because my Minnesota Timberwolves did come back from 19 points down to stay in a good spot in the NBA playoffs. But if that's what we have to grasp at to feel good, that tells us volumes about the state of the country, does it not?
Speaker 2:
[02:06] It really, really does. But let's try to sort our way through the headlines. We'll leave the Iran more aside for a second. We talk about that on almost every show we're doing. I think there's been a kind of interesting phenomenon in the House of Representatives, where we first saw Eric Swalwell and Tony Gonzales leave at the same moment in some kind of a deal. Now we've now had a Democratic Congresswoman from Florida leave. There's another guy in the waiting who's about to get kicked out. I don't recall ever seeing this kind of volume. And yet, we're not kicking people out of Congress for insider trading, which a lot of them seem to be doing. We're not kicking people out of Congress for hanging out with lobbyists. And most people arrive in Washington for the House anyway, not super rich. But they all somehow seem to leave rich. What's going on here? How broken is the Congress? This is your area of specialty.
Speaker 3:
[03:27] Broken in so many ways, David. And of course, there have been multiple efforts to get them to stop trading stocks, to take away those direct conflicts of interest that have failed. And while we have seen members leaving before being expelled, the one who is waiting in the wings, Corey Mills, who is clearly just a despicable thug, is not resigning because Mike Johnson, he says, the Speaker of the House, told him not to resign because they don't want to lose the seat. And of course, we always have to account for naked self-interest. Although using the word naked with some of these members, may be pushing it a little bit. But this is truly despicable. Mills is horrific. And yet it's not just Congress. Mills was clearly guilty of assault, and they got him on tape telling the woman he had assaulted not to tell the police. They went and arrested him. We're going to arraign him. And then the charges got dropped. This is Florida, and that's justice in Florida. And justice in Florida means sending innocent people to alligator Alcatraz and letting the guilty ones off. And it's just not the way things are supposed to work. Now, I have to say, we're seeing Democrats and Republicans caught up in this horrific mess. But one thing that's been true about the House of Representatives for a very long time is their ethics process is a farce. It is feckless and toothless. They wait and drag their feet whenever somebody is clearly in a bad place until they resign. And then say, well, we have no further jurisdiction over them. And that's a bipartisan failing and problem. And they clearly need to get their act together. Although, of course, if we're looking at ethics in the House compared to ethics in the Supreme Court, it's like jaywalking against assault and battery. So there's that.
Speaker 2:
[06:00] Don't compare it to the White House.
Speaker 3:
[06:02] No, you wouldn't want to do that. Speaking of the White House, apparently, and the Justice Department, the sexual assault, sexual trafficking by a couple of these vile brothers, now they've stepped in to seize evidence, to keep it from going any further. I mean, Donald Trump has empathy for one group of people over almost any others, other than leaders like Putin and Xi. And that's sexual predators, as long as they're with him.
Speaker 2:
[06:41] These are the Tates. Yeah, the Tates are disgusting. And we almost saw them destroy the also disgusting Guy Fieri's career the other day when he was photographed hanging out with him. But I think you're not being fair because Trump also shows real soft spot for white collar criminals.
Speaker 3:
[07:03] Oh, well, that's true. And they don't have to do very much to get that soft spot aroused. Oh, just a little bit of money.
Speaker 2:
[07:14] Yeah, well, that's right. And they work the they they work the system. And it's it's it's pretty blatant. I was reading a thread today about a California Indian tribe that was didn't want another Indian tribe to get a casino license to near them. So they hired a former Trump guy, paid him a ton of money, paid a bunch of other Trump guys took a ton of money, managed to get the whole thing turned around. And this happens every day. You know, today is the day that the Paramount Discovery Warner Discovery merger was approved by the shareholders. That was another case where the White House gets involved. For some reason, the White House seems to be interested in bailing out and owning 90% of Spirit Airlines. They're just, any place they can turn into a revenue stream for Trump or a friend of Trump, they seem to be willing to do it.
Speaker 3:
[08:19] So you know, just to get the description, well done. These people are nationalists. They're white nationalists. And now they're socialists, buying pieces of companies.
Speaker 2:
[08:30] I know where this is going.
Speaker 3:
[08:31] Yeah, you do. You know, we put them together, national socialists, that's where we are.
Speaker 2:
[08:36] Yeah. Yeah, well, it's true. Although I hate to think that it's giving a bad name to socialism when, you know, Zoran Mamdani is actually out there saying, look, I'm a socialist, I want the city to work and he's making it work. You know, and we had a while back our friend, EJ. Dionne on one of these shows, and he talked about how in the early part of the 20th century, there was a phenomenon known as sewer socialism, right? And which was socialists, you know, getting services delivered to people. So I really hate to see socialism tainted by any association with the White House, although they sure do seem to be in centrally planned economy land with both feet.
Speaker 3:
[09:30] You know, it actually reminds me, though, of some of the inanity of people on the right who tried to insist that the Nazis were leftists because they had the word socialism in the name of the party, having no understanding of what national socialism meant. And it's the same as those people who say, well, we're a republic, not a democracy, without having any understanding what a republican form of democracy is. But that's the world, sadly, we live in right now.
Speaker 4:
[10:07] To stay up to date on all the news that you need to know, there's no better place than right here on the DSR Network. And there's no better way to enjoy the DSR Network than by becoming a member. Members enjoy an ad-free listening experience, access to our Discord community, exclusive content, early episode access, and more. Use code DSR26 for a 25% off discount on signup at thedsrnetwork.com. That's code DSR26 at thedsrnetwork.com/buy. Thank you and enjoy the show.
Speaker 2:
[10:54] Yeah, well, some people say, well, what is the DSR Network? And some people think, well, that's my initials. It's not. It goes back to Deep State Radio. But recently, a couple of people, perhaps wags, who are trying to take the piss out a little bit, have said, does DSR stand for Democratic Socialist Radio? And I'm like, I'm okay with that.
Speaker 4:
[11:17] Yeah.
Speaker 2:
[11:20] I don't have a problem with that. And, you know, it does lead into this whole question of, you know, what direction US politics is going on, and particularly Democrats, because they look like they could have a big win in the fall. But then there are people saying, well, the brand is not very good. We had a conversation on that on one of our podcasts the other day. And then there are other people who are like, well, the Democrats will screw it up because of the left. And then people are like, the Democrats will screw it up because of people in the center. And then the way I look at it is, we have a system that actually allows you to deal with this. You go support whoever you want vigorously in the primaries, see who the people in your district want, left, right, center, whatever their definition is, and then support whoever the Democratic candidate is in the general election. We shouldn't be afraid of criticizing people within the party that are taking views we don't like, should we?
Speaker 3:
[12:28] I think this is a point, it gets also to the criticism of those on the right who have become never Trumpers, with a lot of people saying, we don't want allies like that. They supported the war in Iraq or whatever else it might be. When you're fighting in an existential battle, you take your allies and you embrace your allies who have actually caused themselves all kinds of headaches by taking a more principled position. I'm fine with all of that. Having said that, I worry about Democrats screwing this up in another way. And that is, one, not understanding that just because you look great right now and you're winning elections for open seats at different levels or you're exceeding vastly the expectations, keep in mind that the lesson Donald Trump will take from the astounding, overwhelming defeat of Viktor Orban in Hungary is not, oh, my goodness, we better change so that doesn't happen to us. It is, we're not going to let that happen to us, because we are going to destroy the free and fair election. So we need a vigorous effort to counter what is going to be a multi-pronged attack on fundamental decency in the election process and the voting process. And the second way, I believe, that they can screw this up, and here I put the onus on leaders in Congress especially. They are heady right now, believing that everything is going their way, that they have the secret word, affordability, and all they have to do is talk about affordability as Trump screws up the economy and everything else in the world around us. But what I fear is if there is not, along with a focus on affordability, an understanding that we have to fight back with every weapon at our disposal against these evil people, that the negative image of the Democratic Party, which isn't hurting now, and people are going to vote against more than they're going to vote for, but I'm expecting that there will be huge hurdles in place for voters. You might have to, in the end, go back in person to a registrar's office to re-register to vote, bringing with you ID that many will not have. You might, and this is going to be even more significant, I believe, find out, even though you are duly, legally, lawfully registered to vote, your name has been purged by a bogus program and you're going to have to go through hoops to get back your voter registration. And we're going to have lots of instances where you might have to wait in line six, seven or eight hours. If people are not motivated enough, if it's just, we don't like these idiots in power, they may leave after three hours. So we need a party that emphasizes to voters, and this is, I think, where, you know, Virginia's referendum does come in a little bit, that our elected officials are fighting back against tyranny, even as they're going to try and do something to make your economic circumstances better, even as they're going to try to restore decency and hold criminals culpable. But if the sense is they're just sitting back and waiting to take power, and of course have no clue what they're going to do with it once they're back, we got a problem on our hands and we need everybody mobilized.
Speaker 2:
[16:38] Yeah. I agree with you 100 percent, as is our law. I didn't even understand why people listen to the show because we're always in agreement. But maybe it's just charm. It's just-
Speaker 3:
[16:50] Of course it is.
Speaker 2:
[16:51] Yeah. We're just exuding a lot.
Speaker 3:
[16:52] It's the good looks.
Speaker 2:
[16:54] Yeah. Anyway, I was going to turn to the Virginia thing as a part of this, and I've seen some articles in the past couple of days. They've taken multiple views. One is, this is what Democrats need to do, that we play ball hard. And the Republicans started this, and we are going to finish it for them. And I'm sympathetic to that. But I've also seen some Democrats, including, by the way, Virginia Governor Spanberger, who's kind of like, yeah, this is just temporary. And they're sort of pulling back from it a little bit, because the Republicans are whining, wow, wow, wow, this isn't fair. The best summation of it all I saw, oddly enough, came from AOC, the leader of the Democratic Party, who said, look, the Republic, we for years have been saying there should be no political gerrymandering. They refuse to take that up or to make that a law, because they want to do it. And they're the ones who did this in Texas. And so they left us with no choice but to respond. And this is a temporary measure. And then we'll reexamine this in 2030, per the terms of the measure. But it does get into this whole thing about Democrats being uneasy with using power when their opponents are not only happy to use power, they want to use it in the rawest, most illegal, toughest way. And I've always been much more sympathetic to the idea of we need more scorched-earth Democrats. And I just, you're a very refined, sophisticated man. Where do you come out of?
Speaker 3:
[18:46] I want more scorched-earth. And, you know, and I wanted early on, and I especially want it now, to see more impeachments in the House, impeachments of cabinet members. I don't want to go after Trump at this particular point. I think that would potentially backfire. But, they're finally doing it with Hegseth. They need to do it with a range of other cabinet members, because when you do an impeachment, it is a privilege resolution. It has to come to the floor. It has to get at least some debate. They have to allow an hour of debate on each count. And we need to let people know that we will try with every measure we have to hold criminals, miscreants, cultists, grifters accountable for what they're doing. So I am definitely from more scorched earth. I will say on this front, one of the most despicable people in public life is Mike Johnson, the Speaker of the House, the worst speaker ever. And I saw him today when asked about the gerrymandering going on. The Democrats say, we started it. That's false. It started with New York in 2024. And of course, what happened in New York is a court ordered a redistricting to take place. And the redistricting that took place was done by an independent commission. It has nothing to do with the power grab that Trump demanded in 2025 and into 2026, starting with Texas and going to Ohio and Missouri and now very likely Florida and other states that did what he wanted to breach the norms and do that mid course redistricting. And if Democrats didn't respond to that, they would be not just idiots, but they would be opponents of restoring some level of decency and democracy to the country. So we don't need to apologize for any of this.
Speaker 2:
[21:01] I totally agree with you. And it's kind of poignant, frankly, to watch Democrats who've been around a while, sort of old school Democrats trying to dress themselves up for the new prom and the new styles of the new prom. And they're each trying to do it in a different way. And I saw a thing, Cory Booker, who I like Cory Booker as a guy. He's a good guy. But he was given the speech and he felt, well, we need to be tough. So I'm going to shout as much as I can at this speech. And it just looked ridiculous. And then you've got Josh Shapiro, the governor of Pennsylvania, who's obviously just hired some new social media person. And he's like, he's doing these Instagram things like, well, what's our top 10 list for today? And it's like, he has zero spontaneity. He may in private, he just doesn't publicly. It doesn't come through. You've got other people, you know, sort of posturing. I saw Hakeem Jeffries the other day used the word mother fucker in a press conference. And it was like, and there were people I saw in the comments like, yeah, motherfuckers. Yeah, mother. And yet I just don't, I don't think that's what works. I think people need to be clear about holding the other side accountable, about fighting back. They need to explain how they're going to do it. And people have to believe they're going to do it. And I give you two examples or three where that's been the case. One, Peter Magyar in Hungary ran against Viktor Orban. He came out of Orban's government actually, but he ran against him and he was very clear. He said, I believe in democracy, so we're going to push back on that. I believe in the EU, we're going to play a constructive role there. I believe in NATO, and I oppose corruption, and we're going to clean house and hold them accountable. He's a centrist, but he was very clear and tough on this. Zoran Mamdani, he didn't have to say he is the change you've been looking for. Zoran Mamdani is change. And so he's been able to go in and offer another approach, which by the way is akin to the approach that Josh Shapiro wants to be thought of as and is akin to the approach Gretchen Whitmer offers, which is get stuff done Democrats, where I'm going to go in and I'm actually going to be effective at governing. And then there is this other candidate who I've been talking about the past couple weeks on podcasts like this, who I call Purple Mamdani. And Purple Mamdani is John Ossoff, who is young, who is articulate, who has framed the issues of the Epstein class extremely well because for Americans, they think that frankly the system is rigged. They're not getting a fair shake, and they want somebody who's going to fix that. And he's got a good amount of experience in the Senate. If he wins in Georgia a second time in a reddish state, a purple state, that's going to send a message. But these are all models that could be followed that seem genuine to me, as opposed to somebody trying on their father's clothes.
Speaker 3:
[24:45] Genuine is a good watchword for all of this because there are far too many who, even if they are genuine and private, do not appear that way in public. And I do believe that we're getting way ahead of ourselves to even think about 2028. But the kind of candidate who is likely to prevail is somebody who doesn't appear to be a typical politician, polished and saying things, even using words like motherfucker to try to appear genuine, but are not. So, getting those models, that's what we need.
Speaker 2:
[25:29] Can the leadership in the Congress be fixed on that front?
Speaker 3:
[25:32] Well, actually, yeah.
Speaker 2:
[25:33] I mean, you know, because, for example, I've heard some people say, Schumer's toast and if the Democrats take over, it'll be Brian Schatz. I've heard other people talk about other challenges in the House. It is premature to talk about 2028. But if the Democrats are going to do something with the win in the fall, they need people who are going to lead it.
Speaker 3:
[25:56] And one would hope that if Democrats take the Senate, I'm sure that Chuck Schumer is going to say, see what I did and take his victory lap. If they have any understanding of the world or guts at all, they'll say thank you for your service and move on. And actually, I like Brian Schatz. I think John Ossoff would make a terrific majority leader. You're right about that. But for all of that, let me go circle back to what Democrats need to be doing right now. I was at a lunch with one of the most impressive young members of the House the other day, somebody who deserves support, Maggie Goodlander of New Hampshire.
Speaker 2:
[26:44] The wife of Jake Sullivan, the former Nationalist.
Speaker 3:
[26:47] But you just have to look at the credentials that Maggie has separate from that, and she is amazing. But she was talking, she's on the Armed Services Committee, she's a veteran, and talking about how they're going to have a chance to have a hearing with Hegseth. And I said to her, just please, see if there's any way to go beyond what we see with every goddamn hearing, which is, you have your five minutes, and then the next Democrat who comes up, goes off on a completely different tangent, and it's completely disjointed, and can't you coordinate and have messages that are repeated? And if somebody asks an important question, and the witness evades it and refuses to answer until your time is up, the next one's got to pick up on that and keep it going. And it's true on the floor as well. We have no strong coordinated messages about what's going on, because we have to recognize that there are different groups of voters out there, and most of American voters don't pay attention to what's going on in Washington every day. Certainly, they're upset with what's happening with Trump and the world, because their lives are being disrupted, whether it's fishermen who can't go out anymore because they can't pay for the diesel fuel, or farmers who can't get fertilizer, or people who hear this bullshit from Trump that prices are coming down, or from Scott Bessent, or from any of the other clowns in the economic world in the administration, or among Republicans in Congress. But they don't follow the corruption. They don't follow the cruelty. They don't follow the day-to-day stuff. And they're not going to, given our mass media. That's another rant I want to get on in a minute with the White House Correspondents Weekend emerging. You need to have a message that gets pounded away by everybody a week devoted to one set of outrages that the media will be forced to cover and that will finally penetrate a lot of people who didn't realize this stuff was going on. And our leaders, whether it's Jeffries or Schumer, either do not grasp this or reject it for whatever set of reasons, because it would involve a lot of work and coordination and maybe knocking some heads together, or because they're deluded in to believing that they just say the magic word of affordability and that's all that they need to do. Hi, Diva, it's Rachel.
Speaker 2:
[29:44] And Jordan, yeah, hi.
Speaker 3:
[29:45] Quick question.
Speaker 2:
[29:46] Why are you not spending your Venmo balance?
Speaker 3:
[29:48] Yeah, we're concerned.
Speaker 4:
[29:49] You can like buy stuff with it.
Speaker 3:
[29:50] You love buying stuff. And earn cash back on eligible purchases. You love purchasing eligible things.
Speaker 4:
[29:56] So the money your friend sent you yesterday, that's today's ramen or ride share or eye patches.
Speaker 3:
[30:01] The skincare kind, not the pyro kind.
Speaker 1:
[30:03] Spend with Venmo, then you can earn cash back with Venmo Stash. Venmo Stash bundle terms and exclusions apply. Max $100 cash back per month. See terms at venmo.me slash stash terms. ID verification required to use a Venmo balance.
Speaker 2:
[30:12] Yeah, but I think you're getting at something here, and maybe we can sort of tease this out over the next few weeks. Because call it scorched earth Democrats, call it strong Democrats, call it democratic clarity. They need to communicate something, and part of it is affordability, which I think, by the way, is a weak term. But part of it is fixing a rigged system, part of it is fighting corruption, part of it is accountability. But when they do it, it's not like, let's wait for somebody to replace Trump in 2020. If the Democrats are going to take over the House and may take over the Senate, they need to approach things in a different way. In fact, as you say, they need to start now. When the Trumpists come in for a hearing and they're just performing for Trump and not answering any questions, they've got to hold their feet to the fire. They've got to go back and ask the questions again and again and again. There were some good examples of that in the RFK Jr. hearings this week. But they need to have discipline, both in terms of how questions are asked and in terms of follow up, as you say. But they also, you know, we're going to go into a period of oversight hearings and investigations. And they have to make a decision about how that's going to go. And it needs to be public. It needs to be transparent. It needs to be a victory, however, the Republicans end up trying to block it. That, you know, with regard to Hegseth, there's something that really strikes me as very important. I got a lot of people I talk to and they say, well, the Democrats, they just can't use the I word. It's like, well, what's the I word? And it's like, impeachment. They can't talk about impeachment. I'm like, first of all, it's their obligation to talk about impeachment with regard to the president. But the president is going to say to his team over and over again, do whatever you want, do whatever I want, I'm going to pardon you. But the Constitution is absolutely explicit. The president has almost unlimited pardon power except in one specific case, and that's impeachment. So if the president's team is actually impeached, you don't just have to impeach a president, right? That actually all of a sudden kicks things into a different place, and it creates a sense of accountability. And we can come up with 100 other examples of this kind of thing, but they need to have a playbook, a list, that this is how they operate going forward. And I think nobody's in a better position than you to talk about it. There's another example of this, and then please, by all means, go and get to the White House Correspondents' Dinner, which is pretty repugnant. But the other example of this, which is just driving me crazy, is how the Republicans are handling the budget. And I just cringe thinking of how the Democrats are going to do it. Now, the Republicans are trying to go through and jam through on a reconciliation basis, money for ICE, which, you know, reconciliation means they only need a majority on this. But right on the heels of this, they're about to try to ram through the most obscene budget in American history. $1.5 trillion to the Department of Defense, almost, I mean, vast hundreds of billions of dollars of waste. I mean, the current budget is a trillion. And frankly, it should really be maybe 800 billion, 700 billion. It's unbelievably inflated as it is. And the Democrats are going to say, well, I can't appear weak on defense. You know, they're going to fetterman out of this thing, and they're going to go, okay, okay, let's just fuck this country and spend all our money in wasteful ways and take it away from the people who need it and not invest as other countries like China are doing in infrastructure, in research, in development, in technology, in health, in education, in a social safety net, which are the real sources of our strength. But I think the Democrats are going to chicken out.
Speaker 3:
[34:45] I hope you're wrong. What I fear is what they're going to say about defense is you're putting way too much money in and you're taking it away from health care, education, and these other things. And that's fine, but you need to go further than that. And here's where with Hegseth, not only is this horrible, monstrous excuse for a human being, getting rid of every competent officer and trying to change the way that our military officers are trained, not only is he deliberately going after competent and extraordinary officers who are black and or women just because they're black and or women, not only is he throwing all this money into a bloated budget, but let's talk a little bit about what they're going to do with that money and what they're not going to do with it. You look at what's happened in Iran. We're taking 30 to 50 million dollar missiles to intercept a thousand dollar drones. We're throwing this right down the toilet, taxpayer money. Not even, Hakeseth can't even begin to recognize that warfare going forward is radically different than warfare in the past. And they're going to be putting money into weapon systems, aircraft carriers, all kinds of shiny things that will mean terrible things for American vulnerability and the vulnerability of our troops.
Speaker 2:
[36:33] But I might add, by the way, I'm sorry to interrupt, but some of the things, including one item that's over a hundred billion dollars, the Golden Dome, can't work. And some of the things, modernizing our carrier battle groups and so forth, are putting money into obsolete systems. And some of the things that you just talked about, all the money, one, two billion dollars a day, we're spending in Iran, that's not even part of that budget. There is a separate supplemental budget for two hundred billion dollars that they want to put through on that. And on top of it all, Pete Hegseth is running a complete shit show over there. Getting rid of the Army Chief of Staff, the Secretary of the Navy quit yesterday, we know the Secretary of the Army wants to quit. We have had that on top of getting rid of all the generals and admirals you're talking about. Hegseth's own hand picked staff ditched him because they can't work with him. So you have mismanagement on top of a 1.5 trillion dollar budget. You could not have a worse situation.
Speaker 3:
[37:43] No, and let's add a couple of other elements here. The first six of our brave military who were killed in this ill-considered, to put it as nicely as I can, war with Iran were sitting ducks. They're in a place where they had no defense, and Hegseth has lied about that. The ones who survived have talked about how this was dereliction of responsibility. That alone is worthy of impeachment. Now, he said, okay, no more flu shots. Now, think for a minute about what it's like to be in the military, and you're preparing for a possible conflict. You're in close quarters with everybody else. If one gets the flu, 50%, 30% maybe, if we're going to be cautious about it, are going to end up with the flu. What are you going to do if you need to send them into a combat situation?
Speaker 2:
[38:53] Two footnotes here. Almost as many Americans, tens of millions, died during World War I from the flu as died in battle. We've already seen how this can happen. It was about 25 million, I think. Secondly, you know who that woke military leader was, who first mandated that troops have a vaccine?
Speaker 3:
[39:20] George Washington.
Speaker 2:
[39:21] George Washington.
Speaker 3:
[39:23] For smallpox.
Speaker 2:
[39:25] Pete Hegson thinks that he is smarter and a better leader than George Washington.
Speaker 3:
[39:32] Also, this fucking liar has said, well, we're doing this because it's freedom. Except you can't have a beard, even if you have a skin condition that requires a beard. You have to you can't have a pot belly. I understand that at one level. But freedom for him is a very shaky premise. This guy wants to be impeached with a dozen articles of impeachment, and nobody's done more to undermine national security.
Speaker 2:
[40:10] Absolutely true. By the way, having a pot belly doesn't matter if you are the world's greatest drone master, AI master. Secondly, in terms of getting the world's greatest drone master, AI master, what else has Hexeth done? He's ended all the programs that allow the military to study at our best universities.
Speaker 3:
[40:33] Well, he's sending them to Liberty University and Hillsdale College.
Speaker 2:
[40:37] Right, because he thinks knowledge is woke, and he wants to imbue them all with his sense of evangelical Christianity, because that seems to be his prime mission in life. Well, look, we're getting all wound up about Pete Hexeth, and we should be. I can't stand Pete Hexeth, and we have even talked of RFK Jr. who's trying to kill Americans by the millions.
Speaker 3:
[40:59] And lies about everything.
Speaker 2:
[41:02] And seriously, I mean, should we even be discussing the credibility of a guy who said he can't catch germs because he knows this because he spent so much time snorting cocaine off of toilet seats? No, we shouldn't. But before we go, I just sense the small volcano within you. This weekend is the White House Correspondents' Dinner honoring, their words, not mine, Donald J. Trump at which at the CBS table, the Ellison table, you will have Hegseth, and you will have, I think, I don't know if that table, but you've got Carr, the head of the FCC, go into this thing.
Speaker 3:
[41:50] The Paramov table for him.
Speaker 2:
[41:51] Yeah. Which is the same thing because Trump has engineered the Ellison takeover of huge chunks of our legacy media. But you have this administration that is the single biggest enemy of First Amendment, press freedom ever in American history. It's not even close. And these tools are honoring him. And it winds me up a little, but I think it winds you up a lot. So why don't we-
Speaker 3:
[42:25] It winds me up more. The feckless is way too nice a term to use. There are some good White House correspondents, I have to say. There are some people who've done some pretty good stuff, like Peter Baker. They exist. The Association is disgraceful across the board when their own members were attacked by this president. When you have an FBI director who investigates a journalist who pointed out that he was using SWAT teams to protect his girlfriend who has nothing to do with the government, so they go after to investigate Elizabeth Williamson, the reporter. There is no response from this Association. When Trump at a gaggle attacks one of their own, they say nothing. Pete Hegseth barred most of the Pentagon Press Corps from the offices that they had occupied to replace them with right-wing flunkies. They're seating him in a place of honor at this dinner. They are honoring the man who called them the enemy of the people, and let's never stop from mentioning that the term enemy of people was devised by Joseph Stalin as a rationale for murdering millions. Nikita Khrushchev, when he took over the Soviet Union, banned its use because he said it was too inflammatory and dangerous. It was resurrected by Donald Trump against the same press that will honor him. This is a disgrace to America, and if we're going to preserve any elements of our democracy, we have to have a press corps that doesn't do this kind of shit. But instead, we're going to have a whole weekend of parties where they are going to celebrate and fete and trade drinks with and embraces with these monstrous people who despise them.
Speaker 2:
[44:42] Yeah, and they're going to tacitly celebrate the takeover of so much of the mainstream media by Republican flunkies and the death of free journalism in America. And it's disgusting. And they will be dressed up and partying. And it'll be nerd prom. And people will be making all sorts of jokes about nerd prom and so forth. But Trump is planning to go there, apparently, briefly, make a speech attacking them all and then leave. Because he doesn't want to see people getting awards for investigating him and revealing some of his criminal acts. And yet, they're going along with it. It's just the height of hypocrisy. But it's worse than the height of hypocrisy. It really compromises them all. It explains what access journalism is about. It explains why you need independent media and independent voices and why, frankly, I think we should all be damn happy that Donald Trump happened in a moment where the world of new media, of podcasts, of substats, and believe me, I know about the owners of substats, of various channels for independent voices to get out there and reach people now exist because so many of the pillars of journalism of the past have been compromised and are behaving in disgusting ways.
Speaker 3:
[46:21] Only two true across the board. Let's also keep in mind that the vile chair of the FCC, Brendan Carr, who will also be at this dinner after trying to strong arm so many elements of this media that will break bread with him, is also trying to create even more concentration of local television stations and other outlets that are followed by a large number of Americans for their source of news. Local news more than almost anybody else, approving mergers that will give so much of the so-called mainstream media in control over to a handful of right-wing billionaires.
Speaker 2:
[47:14] It's just, it's disgusting, but you know what, Norm, just to tie everything together here at the end of this podcast, all of this is the reason why we need scorched earth Democrats. All of this is the reason why those scorched earth Democrats also need to be grassroots Democrats. Seems like a contradiction in terms, but we need Democrats, including every single person who is listening to this, to say, what am I doing for the next six months? What am I doing? Am I doing something every day to help ensure that we get the right outcome, that they can't cheat their way to this? Am I giving what money I have? Am I giving what time I have? Am I using the resources that I have to help ensure that we defeat these forces? Because these forces are allied with the richest and most powerful people in this country. They have taken over institutions like the Supreme Court and the Congress of the United States, which have awesome power and should be checks, but are not being checked. And if we don't do the heavy lifting for the next six, it's not for the rest of your life. It's for the next six months. If we don't do that, we're going to be screwed and we're going to get, as we have with Trump, what we deserve.
Speaker 3:
[48:37] And let me just add, before we close, David, it's the next six months. And let's say that it all goes well, and we get a change in power in the House and the Senate. We need to double down on the hardball at that point. Not a single judge nominated by Trump going through. Not one.
Speaker 2:
[48:59] Exactly.
Speaker 3:
[49:00] Not one cabinet member or significant position in an agency going through. I mean, maybe I could see an exception or two there. We now have what appears to be a good person chosen for the Centers for Disease Control. And I'm hoping that if she gets confirmed, that she will immediately bounce J. Bachahara or whatever his name is, who is now the acting head of the CDC, who just deep-sixed a powerful study about how the COVID vaccine cut emergency room and hospital visits dramatically. It was vetted through all of their scientific community. They first said they were postponing it. Now they say they're not going to publish it. That was his decision. Get rid of him. But if you don't have people who have every solid credential and you know will stand up to these monsters, you don't confirm a single one. You begin planning for altering government. It's no more when they go low, we go high. It is we are going to get rid of the cancers that have occupied and metastasized around our form of government.
Speaker 2:
[50:17] Right. That means ultimately when the opportunity presents itself, structural change to the Supreme Court, to the number of states that there are, to how we operate in the United States Senate and so forth. But one of the things that I look forward to in this period, in conclusion, is when these Republicans come in, as is their obligation for congressional oversight over the course of the next couple of years, in addition to everything else you said, when they start offering bullshit answers, like, well, I'm not going to answer your question, I'm going to answer what the president wants. I want these people to say, well, you know something, we're not funding you. We are not funding your damn department. You're going to have nothing to do because we are simply not going to do this without oversight. Because I do not understand why we are not blocking funding for these people who are simply saying, fuck you to the Congress of the United States.
Speaker 3:
[51:18] And I will take it even further because I suspect if we do have Democrats running the House and Senate, that you're going to find Trump cabinet members and top administration officials refusing to testify, defying subpoenas. Congress has something called inherent contempt. There is, in fact, in the Capitol, a jail cell. Use the Capitol police, and you can focus on the ones who had the shit kicked out of them on January 6th, who then got, saw the, those who assaulted them pardoned. Use them to arrest and imprison people who defy Congress and are guilty of inherent contempt. Play hardball, which is what they've done. It's time.
Speaker 2:
[52:09] Absolutely right. That's why this episode of Words Matter is called, We Need More Scorched Earth Dems. And why, you know, you'll hear the same from us, hopefully with interesting twists tied to the news each and every week. And you'll hear the same from us on each of the other podcasts. If you're listening to this, watch it on YouTube. Subscribe on YouTube. Easy to do. There's a big advantage to subscribing on YouTube, by the way. And that is super easy to communicate with us, to give us comments and feedback. And in cases like this, we'd love to get the feedback. And we have people who are reading it and we're reading it. And we will respond to your points and your questions. So you want to support us, go to thedsrnetwork.com, click on membership, support us that way. It's a few bucks a month. But also go to YouTube and subscribe on YouTube. Until we see you next, thank you very much, Norm. And I will enjoy not going to the White House Correspondents' Dinner with you this weekend.
Speaker 3:
[53:18] And I will enjoy not going even if it's without you. I'm not going, period.
Speaker 2:
[53:26] Exactly. I will enjoy not seeing you this weekend. All right, everybody. Bye bye.