Bulwark Takes - George Conway Goes Live From the Kennedy Center Protest

Episode Date: September 19, 2026

Join George Conway, Andrew Egger and Catherine Rampell as they cover the protests at the Kennedy Center.

Hello, everybody. Welcome to, I guess you could call it an emergency bulwark take. It is at the very least an extraordinary bulwark take. We don't usually come in here on a Friday evening like this, but there's so much stuff that we felt the need to talk about. Donald Trump gave a press conference this afternoon that was absolutely larded up with news. A bunch of stuff on truth social has been coming out too. And as you can see from the stream here, there is also an event going on in D.C. right now. It is a really large protest happening at the Kennedy Center in protest of Donald Trump's winking and nodding and suggesting that he might tear the place down. George Conway is reporting live from the scene for us. Catherine Rampel is here to talk. I am Andrew Eger. Before we go to the Kennedy Center, let's just,

I just want to give people a sense of what I'm talking about when I mean like Mondo News Dump that we got this afternoon because it really is like six different crazy stories. And let's just rattle through a couple of them. We'll talk more about him a little bit later. But here is Donald Trump announcing this afternoon on truth social some new stuff about the press pool that covers him at the White House. I'm proud to announce that effective immediately, I am banning fake news CNN, MS now, and Politico from the covering the White House, essentially, from the pool, from the White House is what he said. It's a little bit ambiguous exactly what that means. Trump was asked specifically,

what that means and he didn't seem to know, which is kind of funny after he tweeted this out. But at some extent, whether they're being completely removed, you know, having their access to the White House removed, or whether they are just being kicked out of the president's traveling pool, it is a sort of unprecedented level of press crackdown for viewpoint discrimination, essentially coming from the president, the kind of stuff we have seen elsewhere in this administration, most notably at the Pentagon, but not yet at the White House at this level until now. So that's one thing that we got this afternoon. Here is another thing that we got this afternoon.

Motion on Greenland. Donald Trump tweets out, breaking news. I am pleased to announce that the United States of America has entered into an agreement with the kingdom of Denmark and Greenland that gives the United States permanent control over security and all other needs in Greenland completely addressing all of our many U.S. concerns. Obviously, this is a story that has been, you know, in and out of the news cycle, all the way back to Trump's first term, one of the biggest pain points between Donald Trump and NATO, between Donald Trump and Europe over the last year or so with his unbelievably combative rhetoric suggesting we might go and take

Greenland by military force. We don't have too much on this yet other than what Trump has tweeted out in a statement from Denmark and from Greenland, a joint statement from those two areas. What it seems to be saying going by that statement is that, and this is me editorializing little bit. I'll be interested in what Catherine has to say about this one in a second. But it kind of seems like Denmark and Greenland have convinced Donald Trump to treat the status quo as a big win. I mean, we already had all these security agreements with Greenland. We already had a bunch of military presence there. I guess Donald Trump wants to bigger eyes and maximize that to a certain degree. But it appears that some sort of growth or expansion of our current military agreements there is going to end up

being sufficient for Trump, which is a giant shift from where he was a year ago where he was saying nothing but U.S. ownership of that big island will do. Catherine, sorry, I'm talking a lot here. I'm trying to just get through these stories, but I am real quick interested in your very first blush take on the Greenland news. Yeah, the releases are pretty vague and ambiguous. That is my initial read of them as well. And it would not be out of step for how other world leaders have dealt with Donald Trump. I'm remembering back to last year when Claudia Scheinbaum convinced Donald Trump that she was going to, you know, cave to his whims, provide these huge concessions by making sure that she deployed members of whatever the equivalent of the Mexican National Guard was to

crack down an immigration, which she had already been doing. And similarly, you had, I guess it was, I think it wasn't Carney. I think it was Trudeau who had told. Donald Trump that he was going to spend more money on border security in an effort that had already been announced, I think, before Trump even took office. So anytime that Donald Trump can claim status quo as victory, he will. Sometimes I think it's deliberate, like he just wants to get through whatever the bad news cycle is. Sometimes, as maybe the case in this situation, it's not deliberate. He's like basically getting rolled, which may well be what's happening here. I hope it's what's happening here because certainly that would be a better outcome than Donald Trump continuing to saber rattle against our NATO allies and our NATO allies being terrified that he might actually invade them.

If this is the detente we get and Donald Trump gets to save face, I am for it. In a different universe, in a different era, I would have said this is completely humiliating for the United States. But right now, it is better than the alternatives. Yeah, yeah. Believe it or not, there are even more crazy pieces of news that Trump brings. in this earlier conference, he sort of just spontaneously informed the world that he's going to be demanding that vaccine companies break up all of the pediatric vaccines into five separate doses, just so there's less liquid going into the children at any one time. There's all kinds of stuff, but we have kept George waiting long enough. We should listen in on this pretty remarkable

gathering, this assembly, this protest that is happening outside the Kennedy Center right now. George, I hope you can hear us. Let's bring you in. Can you just kind of tell us, what you're, what you're seeing, what you're hearing on the ground right now. Yeah, I can hear you, but not when all the cheering and banging of her. So periodically, I will be able to hear you. But right now, we've got a series of speakers. I don't know who the keynote speaker is, but they're warming up for the keynote speaker. I suspect it might be Kerry Kennedy, but I don't know.

I haven't seen the program. Oh, wait a minute. Somebody is the program. And, but the great thing, everybody's very enthusiastic. It's a very large crowd. I won't try to estimate it, although we'll give you a shot of panorama of the crowd if we could all the way around. It's a fairly decent-sized crowd, and you can't really move here. Do you have a sense of who's there? Are these people who are connected with the Kennedy Center or patrons?

There are a couple people affiliated with communications unions. Somebody told me that Linda Carter, Wonder Woman, who I know actually, And I hope we can actually track her down because he's a hoot. Has been here. There is, and I want to tell you, a minion is here. Not one of them, do you get the minion? A minion is here, not the bad kind of minion that you have at the White House. And then there's some kind of chipmunk behind the minion,

and I made sure to tell the chipmunk to stay away from the FBI if they're here. Okay. So that's what we're doing here. And we're going to try to get as many of the signs as possible because the signs are really good as they usually are for hands-off and rallies and no-kings rallies. What's your favorite one so far? My favorite one so far. There's Donnie. You are no JFK.

There was one earlier. Let me see. We'll get to the signs later. There are kind of people. There were more signs up earlier, but people kind of like. listening now. Without justice. And there will be no peace

in this... Ask not what your country can do for you. That's cute. Can we linger on that tarp? And then there was another one that says, I wish there's this many people

would show up when our neighbors are kidnapped, which I think is a pretty good sentiment. Yeah. Hard to know where to show up. That's the nice thing about these specific protests. I don't know. Is it a master or mistress of... The drag queen is the master or mistress of...

I don't want a misgender the speaker. Madame? Yeah, I did misgender a tipmunk. Okay. I like that there's some whimsy there. Have I ever talked to you guys about what Donald Trump's pronouns are? Me, me, me.

Me, me. Yeah. Sometimes it means just wake up. I do. Introduce the next speaker. Let's listen so we go through the next person. Oh, you're going to be brave and strong. And I want to introduce our new speaker.

DC Council Member and our next, well, yes, representative for D.C. in Congress, good for well. Why? Hey, David. August, dude, is a D.C. Council member who's going to be the next non-voting D.C. representative to the U.S. House. But we're going to, if there's somebody really, really, if we get Kerry Kennedy or somebody like that, we'll cut back in. Yeah. So should we, I don't know, should we, should, should we pull? away from the feed here. And I agree with your point about the whimsy there, Catherine.

And like, this has been such an interesting feature of so many of these protests right now. It's like, everything's so grim. Everything is so dark. And yet, despite how bad the news is and how bad it is that people are feeling the need to get out there, I mean, the presence of these insane inflatable creatures that you see everywhere, the presence of the sort of goofy signs. I mean, it does seem like kind of a deliberate choice to, you know, feel not bullied by everything that's happening. Yeah, and to find some joy in the resistance, if you will, you know, the sort of the happy warriorness of it all, I think is really important and to not feel beaten down.

And I think that's what this is about, that people want to show up. And they want to also, I think it also makes them look less threatening, right? It's much harder for law enforcement to claim that they feel threatened that they needed to use force if they're dealing with like an inflatable T-Rex. Right. So I think that there's some strategy there as well, besides the fact that the whimsy may be good for morale and everything else. I think it's also useful to double down on the idea that this is a peaceful protest. this is an expression of First Amendment rights, and this is not any sort of threat of violence.

So show up as a chipmunk or a minion or whatever. You can see there, by the way, in the shot just panned past the tarp that remains up to this day over the facade of the Kennedy's. I mean, such a remarkable illustration of the weird kind of balance of power that controls the actual fact of who is allowed to physically order people to put words up and take words off of that building where, you know, Donald Trump just threw his name up on there and, and he wasn't allowed to,

but he was in charge of the contractors who did it, and he told them to do it, and so they did. Then a judge said he had to take it back down. So they did take it back down, but they threw up the tarp, and no one has been allowed to see that they took it back down all that time. George, let's go. So George is pulling back a little bit from your tiny hands off of our democracy. That is the sign. Yay. Oh, look at that.

Look at the... Somebody brought their time here. You have the tiny key for that? Do you have the tiny key for that? No. Good, good, good, good. They don't have the key. Lock them up.

Wait, George, George. Ask her what brings her out. Let's talk to this lady for a little bit if she wants to talk to us. What brings you out here? The arts. The arts and the hands up. Hands off. Hands off.

Hands and cups. There we go. All right. You're no Jack Kennedy. Okay, that's a good one. I got that one. Yeah, George, I don't know how you feel about doing the man on the street interviews, but I would love to hear Yeah, I would just love to hear

Let me see who I could tap me all. Walk and see. We're at a decent distance so we can actually hear. Okay. There are people not. All right. Oh, I see people taking photos of you. I know you too.

Hey, what brings you out here today? My kids. Your kids. Yes. And what about your kids? They've got their awards here. Ah. For their high school.

Oh, okay. That's great. Okay, but also you're doing it for your kids generally, though, right? Yes, all right, good to see you. Thank you. Uh-oh, here's a hat. I'm not a hat, but a sign. This sign.

We want this sign. Congratulations on your sign. Any comment? Do you want to offer the bulwark audience an explanation of what is this emoji? It is a literal. I can say it. A literal piece of shit. This is exactly what he deserves.

This is what he represents to the majority of the country. I am tired of his vapid and sipid monologues that he does all the time and says nothing. I want to know what happened to Ukraine, Russia. You know. You know. Right? Right? I want to know where our $5,000 is.

I want to know where our dose checks are. I want to know where our tariff checks are. That's right. And where's your $5,000, too? Yeah, you lost that. You know, did you know, if you don't buy bananas, That's a plus, right? Don't buy bananas.

All right. Okay. All right. Okay, look at this little guy. Hello. Oh, let's see. Hands off. Everything he does, destroy. That's it.

This is like Rick, my friend, Rick Wilson. Everything Trump touches dies, right? That's kind of the similar sentiment. Okay. What else? What if we got? I like the poop sign. Hi.

He's a good fight. I'm a former Clinton. I'm plenty. Oh, really? What'd you do? Hi. What's your name? I moved here from Chicago to work for Don.

Honisholela, I was a speech writer at HHS. So now it's like, HHS, all the things we did. You know, we started domestic violence hotline. We had food safety. We had the highest level, highest level of childhood immunizations.

I worked a lot on that. I worked on a lot on domestic funds. We were the first administration after 12 years to work on HIV AIDS. So Fauci was a little belligerent. And I said, I'm going to call you back in 15 minutes. I need three paragraphs. What's the most salient research?

I don't have time to screw around. Caldabac who is very polite. But a lot of angst when we got in there after 12 years of Reagan and Bush, Bush 1. But you know what? Everybody started working with us because they understood, okay, we're going to increase the budget for HIV and AIDS. We're going to increase breast cancer. We're going to start to talk about all the diseases that nobody looks at for women.

And then I went to FEMA. Oh, God help you. Oh, did we freeze? girls, they should have never had a camp in the middle of a backflot plane, but I'm like, where's your game on? Great to see you. We're going to try to see if we can get back and hear some of the speakers, and thank you for talking to us.

Okay, let's see. Are they done? No, they're walking around. They're walking around? Oh, the hands, the hands. Okay, maybe we can talk to the chipmunk. No, we want to talk to the chipmunk in the, we're going to stay here because it's going to,

I think what people are going to do is they're going to hold hands in front of the Kennedy Center. I think that's what they're doing because there seems to be a movement our way. Yes, you do seem to be suddenly moving against some current. So I'm going the other way. I'm going against the wind. Hi, how are you? Good trouble. Wait, good trouble. Yes.

Yes, take a picture. Absolutely. Watch me doing my mobile, my mobile reporter act, which I've never done before. Which is unusual for a lawyer to do. Hey, hello. Oh, thank you. Okay, we got to ask her what brings her out, George.

Yeah. Are you a chipmunk? What are you? Hi. Hi. I'm, you don't want to be... Well, she's in the country. Oh, okay. Okay, not you personally. Okay. But the chipmunk sucks. Oh, raccoon. Okay. As I said, stay away from the FBI. Okay. Hello. And here's our minion.

Here's our minion. As I said, a good minion. Not the bad kind of minion that's in the West Wing. Is it a good minion. Hey, wait a minute. I want to know, though. You were hanging out with that Russian guy in the movie, right? What did you do with him? He wasn't at Dawn Jr.'s wedding, was he? All right. Okay, I trust you on that.

You're a good minion because you're here. You're not spying for the bad minions, right? All right, okay. All right, okay. Okay, go, go, Mr. Minion. Excellent. Again, another, hello, hi. There's just a lot of joy.

I love it. Yeah. Okay. Again, stay away from the FBI. There's a lot of energy, George, in the comments. There's a lot of energy in our comments for people to tear down the tar. Hi, you. Post-Bridge. Hey, what is doing? Okay, that's a good reason. Pretty keep it simple. That's right. Okay.

Okay, we're going to go back toward the center of activity. We're going to be by the band here. See, you gotta have some arts at a protest protecting an artistic institution. Very important. And George is showing off his dancing skills. See, I love it. There's joy. There's costumes.

There's dancing. There's music. I think this is the importance of the whimsy is also about showing Trump that you're not afraid. I think that's really what matters here. Excuse me. I don't know if George can still, if we're still in his ear, I don't know if George can still hear us. If you can hear us, George, I would be interested to know how, like,

where people are actually at on the question of whether they think Trump is going to tear this thing down. Yeah. If they're actually worried about that or whether this is just sort of like a good locus of protest right now. But I don't know if I'm in George's ear. So hard to say. Yeah, I'm curious about that as well.

We got these people here. We got to go find these people. Am I still on here? Yes, you are? Can you hear us? All right. Look, here we. We got, we got, we got a woman on rollerblade.

I mean, these are a nice rollerblades. There we go. Come on. Hi, I know you too. Oh, yeah, hi. All right. Did you skate? Oh, did you skate over here?

I did, yeah. Oh, all right. You got brakes on now, then? I'm a big fan of your work. Oh, thank you. Well, you're on the Bullwark's live stream right now. Say hi. So what inspired your get-up?

I've been a D.C. Street skater since. the 90s. And yeah, I just bought a pair of inline skates, like hockey skates. So I skate and I'm trying to figure out where I can use them safely. Washington Air Road skaters, there's ways to get free lessons through them. Yeah, all I need is like I skated, I did ice hockey as a kid, so all I need to know is make sure I know how to stop. Oh, yeah. But anyway, so what do you have, well, I love the T-shirt and what brought you here today? I love the Kennedy Center. It's been a part of my life. I'm a D.C. area native, so it's been a part of my life my whole life. And everything from

coming here to see Hamilton or Samuel Beckett, or one time they had a half pipe set up and they have a skateboard demonstration of a skateboarder. Yeah. Sometimes I was a little tensions in the skating community, but I love that. And I'm also a big fan of the arts. Yeah. I'm on the board of Washington Area Lawyers for the Arts. Washington Area Lawyers for the Arts. Oh, you're a lawyer. Yeah, yeah. I'm a condolences. I know how that feels. I know how that feels. Well, anyway, thank you. George, can you ask people if they're worried about getting torn down? Sorry. But you want you to do stuff? I've got to be selfie.

What did you want me to ask people? I want to know if they're worried about the Kennedy Center getting torn down. Are you worried about the Kennedy Center getting torn down? Oh, yeah. It's horrible. It seems very real. Given what happened with the East Wing. and, you know, he has his philosophy of who's going to stop me. The courts have been either taken over or frozen and, and, you know, standing. I mean, you know, the standing issue, at least they have someone that's standing here. Yeah, yeah.

That's why I personally don't think he's going to be able to do anything to this. But, of course, as lawyers, we can talk about standing and lose our audience. If you got to stand it, it's gone now. Yeah, exactly. We can talk about standing for sure, and this may not be standing anyway because he does what he wants. But if he does strike it down, it'll be like Obi-Wan-Kadobie, it will come back stronger than ever. Thank you. Thank you. All right. What else we got here?

Get a few more people on that question. Get a more people. They're worried about. Yeah. That's what I'm curious about. Like, are people actually worried about it? Oh, contrarian. Okay.

This is, we have a fellow. This is, they're from the contrarian. You know, Norm and Norm and Norm, Norm and. and Ben's outfit, hello? We could do, I'd be like, we could do like a cross live street. Okay, all right.

I don't know, there's, you know. Would that be like, would that create feedback or something? I don't know. All right. Who am I going to talk to here? Oh, this is a great sign. Let's talk about this sign. Okay. Here.

Who's that? Can you read it to us? Gloria Steinem. That's Gloria Steinem. It begins with we the people. We the people have had enough. Remember, the Constitution doesn't begin with I, the president. Well, you know, that's...

Tell him that. Okay, now, so let's see the other side. War. Yes. Epstein bombs. That's great. So what brought you out here today? Oh, like everyone else.

I'm here to save democracy. Good. My version of democracy. Good. And do you think... Are you afraid about possibly this place being torn down? Oh, definitely. Yeah. Definitely.

Yeah. And why do you think he wants to do that? Oh, well, I think the narcissist would like everything named after him. What's narcissists? I don't know anything about that. I'm just joking. I'm just okay. Talk about that a little bit. A little prince. A little prince. Yeah, he's a little, he's like those. What happens in the... Oh, there are the Trump baby balloons. And he doesn't like women.

No, he, well, in certain ways, not necessarily constructive. Okay. All right. Great. Oh, look at this. What are these? I don't know. They're like greedy people with dollar signs. I'm not sure what to make of that.

Okay, but okay. Trump is no JFK, embarrassed American. You want to tell us why you're embarrassed? All right, no, he doesn't want to tell us why we're embarrassed. We all know why. He's embarrassed. We all know. I am embarrassed.

I am embarrassed. I am embarrassed. And here is the person in charge of the ceremonies. I was going to say, master, mistress, I don't know. Hey, hey. We need some folks to help us on the reach side to fill in some holes. So if you want to move over the reach side over this direction, we'll link arms and we'll do some chance and we'll come back here for short,

farewell so long, but night heads. All right. It's a beautiful night in Washington and say it's a perfect night for a protest. So filling the reach area this way. Thank you. So if you see what they're doing here, what they're doing is they're forming, you know, the name of the protest is hands around the Kennedy Center.

Let's get some people with hands out there. So are people linking arms? I can't quite tell. Yes, let's walk. Actually, we can walk past them and see all the people. everybody happy to be here got that all okay yeah look at this

try to get let's see how far we can go a demolition crew through this show of force all right let's see I assume I assume that was part of the reason people were showing up or we're organizing it this way

just in case some construction equipment showed up they're trying to fill up they're trying to fill up you know I think it's more symbolic because it's not like everybody hello how are you Yeah, I think the idea is they're trying to go all the way around it right around the security perimeter. I don't know if they can go all the way to the back. But we'll take a look, actually. Hey, George, while you're there, is there a big law enforcement presence?

Not really. The, sorry, the metro police have the streets blocked off. But other than that, this is private security. I assume it's Kennedy Center security. One of them just said hello. I think they probably are sympathetic. but I do not see very many

I don't think I've seen any metro cops here I don't think I've seen any federal police here it's all very peaceful I mean literally like to show you to really make the point I mean literally there are thousands of people lined up here and there's nothing that separates them

other than these barriers from the building hey how are you doing? I'm good to see you oh yeah oh yeah okay there's you know there are a few security guards you know standing there but that's basically it look come here why don't you come here okay so this is

the this is the extent of the security in front of the building and this is the peaceful crowd adhering to the you know to the to the rules here and it's a very sweet crowd very nice crowd they're having a good time you know they're chanting and carrying funny signs and being very nice and that's the way it should be and it's great. This is, this is, this is American.

How long have the barriers been up, do we know? Was this, were these put up just for the protest? No, I think the barrier's been up here for a while to keep people away from, yeah, they've been up since the tarp went up. Yeah, they're designed to keep people from taking a picture of what's behind the tarp, for example, because that's a real security threat, right? Because we actually, we, notice how even at this angle, even at this sharp angle, you cannot see the word

Kennedy, right? That's the reason why the tarp is up there, and that's the reason why this fence is here, so that you cannot see the word Kennedy and the absence of the word Trump. That's how petty and stupid, and it's not for security reasons. There's no really, this crowd, if it wanted to, could break into this building

in 30 seconds. Okay, so it's bullshit. You know, all this is all bullshit. And I don't think that, and here's another thing is bullshit. Do you see anything falling apart? Do you see any structural damage to this building? you know, it's all complete nonsense. While you're there, George, do you think maybe you could incite the crowd to go and

tear down the tarp or, you know, let us all see for ourselves, be a part of history, you know, something. Just be joking. Does Sarah have bail money? Does Sarah have bail money for me? Is she going to, like, use the proceeds of her book to bail me out? She's out and about, you know, she's off promoting the book. Well, she's going to have to do a lot of book.

She's going to have to do a lot of books. book promotion if she's going to bail me out. Hi, how are you guys? Why are you guys here? We're here because we want our hands off the Kennedy Center. Excellent, excellent, excellent, isn't it great to be holding hands with all these people? Hands off! Yes, all right, awesome. Thank you. All right. It's starting to get dark here. Can you see?

Yeah, we can still see. Yeah. That's an iPhone. That's great. So we're going to go around the side here. Okay, we're... Wow. You know, we're kind of like stage right to the left side of the front of the center. Hello. Everyone to say hi. We're increasing our bulwark audience here each and every moment.

So do you think there are enough people to circumnavigate the building? Well, we're walking. We're walking around. There's kind of a gap here, but there are people there. I mean, they're not all holding hands at once, but this is, I mean, they're completely surrounding the building. as you can see. I'm genuinely surprised by the turnout. Like, I thought some people would come out.

The turnout is awesome. I mean, I saw online as I was coming over here. As I was coming over here, I saw online that the protest organizers. There was a link whereby you could sign up. I think what the real purpose of that is is to get a mailing list together. It's kind of like the no kings. But, you know, they said 950 people as shown up. There are way more than 950 people here, way more.

There's no question about that. There's probably about at least 1,500 just standing in front of me right now. I'm just guessing. I'm not good at that. And here we are on the plaza, right onto the south of the Kennedy Center. Oh, there you are. Okay, there's the camera. And I've been to many events here with a tent.

No ballroom, just the tent here on this very spot. George, I would love to hear. We went to a memorial service here once right here on the spot. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. For Fred Hyatt. Yeah.

Back when there was a newspaper in town. All right. So here is the person I really want to talk to. Sir, where can I get these balloons? I like want. How much are they? Where did you get them? I found them on the Internet.

The internet. The internet. Did you hear that? The internet. That's a good tip. Actually, I got them during the first administration from a group called Mad Dog Pack. Oh, I know. Claude. Claude Taylor.

Oh, I know, Claude. Claude and I put up some billboards together once upon a time. You got to be careful, though, because something might come out of the diaper. So you have to, you guys, stand back. Stand back. You have to keep your eyes up. It's kind of like the birds, except the diaper. It's, you know, anyway.

This is service journalism right here. This is service. Wait a minute. Where's the camera? Where are you? Come here. This shirt, this Washington National shirt has a lot more to it. Look, at 34, number 34.

Really, really good work here. There's some really good merch there tonight. No, that's the great thing about these no kings and hands-off rallies is people come, like, prepare. And that's like, yeah. So what brought you here today? Well, to defend the Kennedy Center from. tyranny of course. Okay.

Yeah. And how are you feeling about the crowd? It's a beautiful crowd. It's a beautiful night. A thousand? 2000? Tell me. I think there are more people here than we're at Trump's inaugural, don't you?

Yeah. Right? Absolutely. More people. Yeah. Right? Trump is going to judge it by the number of people. We're going to judge it by the content of their character.

Oh, that's nice. That's a good line. Where did you get that? Just came to me. Okay. It's also, all right. All right, thank you. See you.

All right. Let's see. Wow. This is really great turnout. Yeah, I wonder how many the people are here specifically for Kennedy Center. Oh, here's one. Here's one. This is a shirt.

Got it? It ain't going to happen, man. Ain't going to happen. Why is it not going to happen? I don't know. I mean, he's probably, you know, bone spurs are hereditary. He don't know what a D.D. food.

214 is. He don't know what a DD 214. I don't know what a DD214. If you was in, everybody's in the service gets a DD214 when they get out. Ooh. And most people that's in the service, they know a DD214 means they successfully served in the military service. But can't buy one? No, you can't buy one.

You know, even Donald Trump can't buy one. You got to go into the service to get it. All right. Donald don't have one. His sons don't have one. None of his sons will have nothing. You got one? I have a DD 214.

bless you and God bless America. Thank you. You're a man. Thanks. All right. I want to know where people are getting this merch beyond just the internet. This merch is great. It's great.

Hi. Yes, absolutely. Picture. Oh, a picture of and Donnie. We got a picture of this nice lady and me. And all the best people. And our friends, Jeffrey and Donald. Just four pals hanging out.

Well, four pals just hanging out. Do we going to do the day the white man's overbiting? All right. All right. There we go. All right. Yeah. Hi. How are you? Great. Great. What is 86? It's initiative 86. You live in D.C.? No, no. I'm in New York now. It's not 86 something.

Well, it's sort of. FlaGra. It's against FlaGra. Okay. 86, 86. All right. Okay. All right. Hi, everybody. All right. Orange camera. Okay. I love that George is the celebrity. All right. Did you say flag rock? I think it's a force-feeding geese. That's what it sounded like. Look, it's important.

I mean, this is important. Local, all politics is local. Although I don't know. I do think it's interesting. I mean, like any, anytime you go out to one of these things,

it really is like, you know, just a smorgas board of different causes. And like people just, people just want to, want to show up and like be united about opposing this one guy. And like, the best were the sun.

signs. There were much more, the signs aren't as good here as they were for no kings because they're just, that's not as many people. But it's still pretty good. What is that saying? Yeah, you got to, you guys got to talk about something else, right? Well, in a minute here, I was just going to say, I'm going to want you to park somewhere so we can all break down a couple of these actual stories a little bit. Plus I'm getting a little seasick watching you just sort of. It's, it's good content, but, uh, yeah, it's good content. Oh, look at the doggies. I'd like to get all the dogs here. Yes. Hello. Why are you here for the treats?

Because my. Are you here for the treats? I think that dog is concerned about democracy. Yes. This is an anti-authoritarian dog. Yes. Okay. And there's another one there. Okay. All right. Well, I'm going to figure out apart myself. I'm going to go back to, we can start talking now. I think I want to go back to the front there to see whether or not there are any kind of like people, like, like, celebrity. types or something, you're important, you know. They're here. They're here? I'm not

a celebrity. That's a celebrity. The dog is a celebrity. I'm Wally. Wally, the dog. Hey, Wally. Wally. So did we figure out, or did they completely surround the center, circumnavigate the center? I don't think they could circumnavigate the center because at the end

of that plaza that theory on is basically barriers. And you have to, you know how there's a, there's a, there's a balcony or out over Rock Creek. It's like a courtyard. It's like a walkway over Rock Creek Drive. And so to get there, you have to go down a ramp. And I think that's all back blocked off.

So I think you could go around like three sides of the Kennedy Center. I think that's what they did. George, I would love if you asked two or three more people just like specifically, are they genuinely concerned about Trump knocking this down? Or is this more just closing him? Yeah. Come on, come up here. We get the camera.

We want to get this guy's t-shirt and want to get your t-shirt and your button, most importantly. You got it. The most important. We want the button. This is my favorite button. See the button? Oh, okay. And the shirt is really, really good.

So are you worried that Trump in an office place, ma'am? Oh, yeah. I'm worried that he's going to come in the middle of the night. He wants to do that. Because he can't tolerate the fact that anybody has greatness and dignity when he is, such a piece of crap. Totally agree with that. That's it. I mean, I don't think it's much more complicated than that.

That's my, you know, that's my, that's my theory. Totally. Good to see you. It's good to see you out here. The last time I saw you was in front of Bolton's house when they were. Right. It was another. You're on the Borg live stream just as we were then. Classic Bollard live stream, yeah. All right. So, George, what's your theory about why it is so important for Trump to have his name specifically

on this building. Look, you know, I, well, I think, I think there, look, I think he wants his name on

as anything he can put his name on, right? Because I, because he's a narcissistic sociopath, and he believes, you know, he can never get enough,

uh, attention or praise. There's never enough for him. And he's continually being bombarded with criticism that he himself triggers. So he is this endless thirst. you know, a narcissistic thirst and

for just praise and putting his name on things. And I think this in particular, this building has a particular significance to him because it represents things that he is not, right? It represents culture, when he is not culture.

It represents you know, it represents a president who fought for his country. He did not fight for his country. It represents a president who, is lionized. He will never be lionized. So he inherently wants to destroy

this. Okay. And that that's the thing. And I talked about this with Andrew the other day about, you know, his narcissistic sociopathy. And they want to destroy narcissistic sociopaths. And he's a textbook one. If you take a

college course in abnormal psychology, it's like he checks every box. It's not really that hard. It's not that observes. He checks every box about not caring about others, about not having a conscience, about not having any remorse,

about violating other people's rights, about pathologically lying, every bad, even if you didn't have that characterization, that psychological characterization, you don't want anybody with a significant number of these traits unchecked or even

partially checked to hold a position of power over your life. So this is who this guy is and he's the people like him are inherently destructive because there's never enough to satisfy them and they end up wanting to destroy what they cannot control or have I mean it's like if you ever watch

the movie and I love to talk about this the movie downfall it's that German language movie about the last 10 days in the furor bunker I mean there's this whole bit about the Nero order that Hitler gave to Albert Speer to basically destroy everything all the infrastructure in Germany

and Spears' response, at least in the movie, and I think, you know, he gilded his response in his book, and that he wrote at Spandau, you know, is, is what, but, but, but,

but, but, my fear are the people have to eat. And he goes, and then, and he, what narcissistic, sociopath are. They don't care about anything about themselves.

And this is why we're talking about this building. He wants to tear it down. And that's why we're talking about this instead of the war that he created, that he established, that he started, that's, you know, making life unaffordable for Americans. And that's, oh, they're singing.

Can you hear the, can you hear the singing? Oh, yeah, a little bit. Try to get closer. I'll try to get closer. crowned I good With Ross sea to Shiny

Sea I don't know the next course Thank you I did not You know It's a second Something about tyrants I can't remember

Something I can't remember the second verse Seems appropriate Yeah it's okay We should have hand them The Bullwork We're doing a live street I am

I am a member. I am a member. Thank you. Who is always right? The ball are most everybody. Sarah's always right. JBL, is JBL always right or no? He's okay. Yeah, JBL's okay. Yeah, JBL's okay. Yeah. Sarah is always right. Okay. Okay. All right. That was diabolical, George, putting her on the spot like that for the second stands of America the Beautiful on the live stream. I can't imagine. That's a nice moment, though.

This is a really nice comment. I think what's important here is that this is an act of patriotism. What we are seeing at this protest is an act of patriotism. This is people who love America and who want to stand up for America and protect it against authoritarian. And I think that's the most important takeaway from all of this. There's funny signs and lots of whimsy. But fundamentally, this is an act of love that we are seeing. People expressing their First Amendment rights.

because they love this country. And I'm sure Donald Trump tomorrow, if he sees any of this footage from us or any other news outlet, we'll say the opposite, that these are people who hate America. These are people who hate the American way of life. And that's why they're out there. And we have the evidence here that that is not true. These are people who are singing about how they love this country. They're carrying signs about how they love this country. And they are trying to protect this important cultural touchstone in all the ways that they know how they're. with humor and lovely singing voices and just bringing their whole beings to this event. And I love it. This is the kind of thing that makes me, as embarrassed as I am sometimes, by the behavior of this country, these kinds of acts make me very proud. You're going to say, I'm play. Ready, daughters? I'm very!

You're going to say, I'm gorgeous, and you're going to believe in that. I love. I pray. You are son. You are gorgeous. I love this shirt. Democracy is not a spectator sport. Absolutely.

Love that shirt. Absolutely. I really do hope they do not succeed in knocking this place down. I love, I mean, I've tried to keep my own personal biases out of the story, because really it's more a story about, you know, Trump trampling on. the rule of law and not letting courts tell them what to do everything but i just i love the kennedy center man like i just i kind of wish i were down there this is the rapid response choir do you see the signs there isn't that great rapid response choir i love it very creative

stuff here yeah i think it's wrapping up oh look it there's a good sign over there failure on an operatic scale the other side says what is the other side says now turns they turn it around let's see if we can get over to that sign i see people commenting there's more people here than we're at the rnc convention it's probably true that might be true hi there can we see the other side of your sign can you do the whole thing hello wicked starry nico her name is an auntie here hi Sheila geis to meet you hi what's your name Very, great. Hi.

And what, okay, okay, so here we go. Wicked, sorry, DJT, failure on an operatic scale. This is great. I love that, very creative. We love you. Oh, thank you. Thank you. I'm trying.

I'm trying. So why are you here today? You got to be kidding. But this is your chance to say whatever you want. We love our country. Yes, exactly. And nobody's going to do it. this for us. We are the ones we are waiting for. Donald think he's the one he's waiting for,

but we're not waiting for him. Yes. Congress follows our leave. Absolutely. God bless you. Are you worried he's going to actually tear this building down? He's capable of anything, so slightly worried. Yeah. I don't think it will happen. No, I don't think so either, but yeah, I think we do it in a heartbeat of being. All right. Mr. Conway. Hello. Hi.

My name's Toby. I love what you've done for the country Lincoln Project. Thank you so much for being here. Oh, thank you very much. Thank you. We wish you the best. Look at this guy. What's this guy's name?

I love him. Hi, Rocco. Hello, Rocco. Another patriotic pup. Rocco, what do you think? You want a treat? He's like, I want Trump out of office. Yes, we do.

We do. Good boy. All right. Get that dog to franchise. What else we got? What else we got? You're an OJ? Oh, there's the tiny hands sign again,

which I liked very much. I'm scared. I love this. I'm just faking it. I'm just faking it. What do you think about this? This is amazing. I was like, you know,

there must be like 4,000, 5,000 people here, don't you? This is civic club. And one of the things I pointed out was, there are several thousand people lined up here, and they're like three security guards. And it's completely peaceful. We don't see any. I did not see a single D.C. Metro Police officer.

This is like peaceful. peaceful peace and love and the First Amendment and the arts and democracy and a sense of community that Donald Trump is trying to take away from us. All right. Okay. Yeah, absolutely.

You see pictures. Oh, wow. All these selfies on a live stream. I love it. Thank you so much. All right. Oh. Oh. Super cap, callous, fragile, racist, sexist,

lying bodice. That's good. I don't know if I can. Can you say that? Can you sing every fast? No. It's hard. Hello. This is, you're young to exercise your First Amendment rights, but this is great. You got to start early.

Got to start early. All right. All right. Okay. This is terrific. Let's see. What else will we find here? If I'm boring you, you can cut me off.

Any son? No, this is great. This is great, George. Dance group, okay. I'm like basically looking around, oh, look, bubbles. Bubbles. Got to have bubbles. This is the only gun we've seen here today.

Second Amendment rights right there. Second Amendment bubbles. Mm-hmm. Yep. First Amendment rights and Second Amendment ones. Hi there. Oh, thank you very much. We are seeing by tariff.

All right. What can I? There's a frog. We have to go see the frog. No, we had the frog already. Do you think that was the frog in Portland or you think it's... What are the flags you're seeing? Well, there's an upside down American flag in distress.

Mm-hmm. I don't see other flag. Oh, here's a flag. This is a, this is a LGB-Q-plus flag, I think. If I've, you know, updated on current, current situation. Oh, and here's Donald Trump doing what he likes to do best. There he is. Can we show this word on the board?

I think we can. It's an adult audience. Hey, how are you doing, man? Love the sign. What did you got on the other side? Oh, yeah, I like that. We were pointing this sign out earlier. That's a good sign.

All right. Well, they did in Minnesota. They showed up. Let's see. All right, what else we got? You want to ask people if this is, their first protest? Are we getting people who are regulars? Hello.

Hello. Hello. Hi. Hi. You are in, what is that? Amfifah? I'm a Caribbean, George. I'm a phobia against fascism. Okay. Hey, listen, I'm telling all, I'm in telling all the creatures here. Yeah. If you see any FBI agents, stay away from them. Okay, I'm real. Okay. Just make sure people surround you and protect you. Okay? You know, see, Katzell.

You have a fan in there? I go, chick. No, come. No comment. No comment. No comment. No comment. Oh, she didn't like me.

Now she's attacking me. Oh, well, sad. And we have a Bill's fan. Hi, how are you? I love you on the ball. Oh, thank you. Big fan. What do you do not here?

Just doing stuff? Just hanging out, show up you. Why are you here? I'm here because we've been doing this for 10 years in Virginia. I'm an activist. Okay. And so we have to show up, stand up, and speak up wherever we are. What organization are you with?

Network Nova. We're in Virginia. Okay. Women-led organization. I appreciate what you do. I appreciate Republicans finally speaking up. I hope. Not a Republican anymore. I know you're not.

Let me ask you a question. How many people here do you think of going to their first process or just gone to their first process in the last two years? No, no. I see a lot of my friends from across the pond and all around. But my guess is a lot of people are onboarding different ways. Yeah. Through the choir, through the music. So I'm guessing with Kennedy Center people, we're probably seeing a lot of returnees,

because I came from Stop the Arch, with the Veterans starting stopping the Arch. But I do will say this. This is waking people up. This is waking people up. I like that teacher. I love a piece of. I love. Good luck.

Thank you. A t-shirt. Got to show a t-shirt, show the audience, the full-work audience, what this t-shirt says. What organization you're with? You got to appear. I'm with the bulwark. The bulwark. It's an online magazine, and we do live streaming.

You know, check it out. Theboolwork.com. Okay. And we're doing this live on YouTube and some other places. All right, George. Oh, thank you. Yes, sir. Sorry, I didn't mean to cut off that lady.

Yeah, I was going to say, let's peel you out of the crowd here and do a couple minutes of wrap up here. Let's find a quiet spot. That is a packed audience. Protest, not audience. They're participants. They're not audience members. This lovely lady came up here to me, and she just said how important this event was for her.

All right. We're going to get a nice view of the whole scene here. And hopefully we don't like fall down on anything. Yeah, so you've been there. You've been talking to the people. Pretty good turnout. Really good turnout, honestly. Really good turnout.

It seems like people are not really sure quite how. It doesn't seem like people are quite sure how apprehensive they ought to be about this. It's weird because like on the one hand, you know, that he has no legal right to do a single thing to this. Judges have said, you know, don't touch the Kennedy Center. He has no authority over the Kennedy Center, much less even than he did over the East Wing. And yet he is a guy who has shown he's bold. can be bulldozer happy. He has shown that, you know, courts are one thing and, you know, the people actually with their hands on the heavy equipment is a different thing. I mean,

it's such a weird moment that we're in. I mean, like, the energy is good, but, but, but the moment is still so surreal. Yeah. It's so surreal because basically we've never been through a moment like this before. And we don't know. I mean, look, I mean, we were talking about how predictable was that Trump would try to tear this building down once he, you know, became clear that the court was going to let him, wasn't going to let him, wasn't going to let him put his name on it. And it was clear that he was basically threatening the appellate courts

with tearing it down by saying that, you know, if you don't reverse this district court decision, I mean, this is basically the thrust of what he was saying last few days. If you don't reverse this district court decision, well, obviously, we're going to have to close it. And then by implication, and then later, more explicitly, saying, we'll have to rip it down. And, you know,

that's, we've never seen anything like that. Destruction for destruction stake, destruction, destruction's, um, destruction's, um, sake, destruction for the ego of one man. And, you know, there's no playbook for this other than this,

which is to get out there and do what we can. And then there are legal, eagle friends like normizing at defending democracy and and I have the group names, right? And the Washington litigation group, which has been

litigating on behalf of the congressman from Ohio who's on the board and brought the case in district court. that got the renaming and joined and is now, you know, the judge is now issued an order that if you're going to try to demolish this building, you have to give 30 days notice at a minimum. If they start without giving him that notice, then they'll be held in contempt. But if they give that notice, then he gets the hold of hearing about whether that's legal. So my question for you, George, though, is weren't there supposed to be similar protections in place when it came to the East Wing? and he just brought his bulldozers in anyway.

Well, the problem there, from a legal standpoint, was there was less of a legal lever, so to speak, to bring that case. I mean, what makes this case easier to bring is that there is somebody with what we call legal standing, somebody with the right to sue. And that's congressman whose name I keep forgetting, the one from Ohio. but Beatty Beatty Congress Congressman Beatty

who is a member of the board and this is you know it's a non-profit corporation but it is a corporation and one of the

central aspects of corporation law is that people with an interest in the corporation whether they be a shareholder in this case they aren't really shareholders

or if they are a director of the corporation in which case which essentially she is she's a member of the board they owe fiduciary duties to the entities to protect the entity

and if they think that the other people who are supposed to be exercising their fiduciary duties to protect the entity, are violating their duties, or if they're violating the law, here there's a very specific statutes to Congress enacted about, you know, the memorial aspect of this building,

they have the right to sue and to say, listen, these people are violating their duties, they're violating the law, and I am suing essentially to, to vindicate the rights of this entity, that I have a duty to. In the case of the East Wing,

there wasn't a performing arts center. There wasn't a East Wing Center. There wasn't a corporate body that allowed someone to sue that gave them sort of the inherent corporate right to sue, corporate law right to sue. And what they did was there was a national historic preservation, something or other,

which doesn't have direct control over a federal government building like that. an executive office building like that. But, you know, the argument was that this organization and the individual who was a member of that organization had kind of an aesthetic, a interest in because they have an interest in preservation generally. Now, the Supreme Court said that's not enough because it's just aesthetic. But in fact, it should have been enough because one of the things that the Supreme Court had held decades ago, in an opinion by Justice Scalia, in fact, was that, for example, if,

Congress could not create general standing for everybody to sue when a snail darter is harmed on the environment and violation of the environmental laws. But if you actually could show that you are somebody who goes out to the wilderness and you enjoy the environment and you work to protect the environment and you like snail darters, you know, that's a sufficient concrete interest for you that, that you have an interest in the litigation and so that creates a real case or controversy. and therefore you have standing under Article 3 of the Constitution. The whole idea of that limitation of standing is that we don't want the courts just running around just deciding things unless there's an actual concrete dispute between two parties who have a real interest. We only decide real cases. And that principle should have been applied to the east wing, but it wasn't because

the Supreme Court decided it didn't want to follow its own law and its own case law. But here, it was a much stronger situation because you had the overlay of corporate law. You had the overlay of an entity created by Congress and with a statutory body that was directly in charge of managing the building. And so I don't think there's a standing problem here, which is why, you know, Judge Cooper in the district court was able to provide relief here. And I think we'll continue to be able to. And I think we talked about this the other day, I think, Andrew, one of the things that might be able to, able to that I would do if I were I mean I have to do the legal research but if I were a lawyer

for Representative Beatty I would basically say one of the things we will do is we will sue any contractor who participates in the demolition of this building because one of the things that you can do in what I described as kind of lawsuit is a

derivative action which you can bring by from shareholders and a private corporation context and a board member in this context is you can sue not just stop the board from doing something not in the interest of the corporation, but you can, you can sue to recover damages if somebody commits a wrong onto the institution, like, which is, you know, we call that tort in, in the law.

And so, so basically what you're saying is, it's not only, it's, it's not only Trump who could be scared off or ordered to not demolish this place. Right. Right. And I would have to be in hoots with him. Correct. And I would basically say, I would basically say, we're going to try to bring this claim.

And if you're a private enterprise, you know, you're going to want an indemnity. And who's trusted indemnity from Donald fucking Trump? Sorry, is the language. Right. So I think that would be the, that's the ultimate way you could actually protect this building. I think. I mean, I may have, maybe there's some wrinkle here that makes my argument not valid. But I think that should work.

and and and from an economic standpoint from an incentive standpoint that should stop anybody from nobody should you know i i would be if i were a private entity i would be terrified of being held liable and you could be held completely liable for this for taking a bulldozer to this place and getting sued for you know why i can't imagine how many hundreds of millions of dollars it would take to yeah that that that's the way to fight right it's it's to make sure that yeah i've somebody's pocketbook out there i've absolutely absolutely um because donald trump don't Trump is never going to make you whole. Yeah. We had, we had originally started out sort of teasing a gigantic pile of news that the president has been up to, you know, breaking this afternoon about Greenland

and about kicking people out of the press pool and all these sorts of things. Eventually, it just turned out that the crowd was too interesting and we just, you know, we had a good time hanging out with George, hanging out with all of them. So I guess we're going to have to put a pen in all of that stuff and you're going to tune in first. I don't know. I don't know. They're not going home. Oh, we can start this again in the morning if they're still here. Yeah. Are you going to camp out all night? I don't, it's a beautiful night.

It's not. It's probably like 72, 73 degrees. It's not humid at all. It's a little humid, but not too much. It's really perfect weather for a protest, I have to say. Yeah, yeah. Well, they are not going to bed, but unfortunately, my kids are. So I have to get over there and help out with that in a minute or two here.

So we're going to, we're going to end up a wrap up the thing. I'm going to do a closing shot of the American flags. God bless us. God bless America. And God bless you guys. God bless the bork. And Sarah's always right. George, thanks a lot for hanging out with the people out there.

Thanks for, thanks to everybody. I love the people. We love the people. We are the people. That's true. Yeah, we count. We count too, don't we? Thank you, Catherine, too, for coming and hanging out.

Everybody who is watching, thank you guys for hanging out with us on a Friday night, or whenever it is you happen to be watching this. We really do hope you will subscribe to the channel wherever you're watching it, whether that's on YouTube or on Substack. It genuinely does help us out. so much. It is what helps us grow. It is the lifeblood of our continued reach and our continued success. It's very easy for you to do and very impactful for us and our works. We hope you will subscribe to the feed if you are not already. Like the video, share it with your friends, all that

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