Lovett or Leave It - The Mueller-ity Report

Episode Date: April 20, 2019

House Intelligence Chair Adam Schiff joins Jon to discuss the release of the (redacted) Mueller report, the congressional response, and the role of impeachment. Then Jason Leopold, Paul W. Downs, and Mitra Jouhari help break down the Republican reaction, Bernie’s Fox News town hall, Notre Dame instagrams, and the 12 percent of Americans who have never heard of Mike Pence. Imagine that.

Good evening, Los Angeles. I want to thank everybody who is here tonight. I want to thank the people who bought their tickets before they knew the Mueller report was coming out. And then I also want to thank a little bit less, but still thank the fair weather friends who bought them today. Terrific. Now before we get to our show, I must remind everyone, Love It or Leave It is going to Texas. Houston, we have a problem selling tickets. Austin, Dallas, still some tickets there too, but we've got some pretty full shows there.

Pretty excited. Big crowds. Big crowds. Not so much in May 2nd in Houston. I don't think this is how you're supposed to sell tickets. May 2nd Houston, May 4th Dallas. Cinco de Mayo, Austin. Go to crooked.com slash events to get your tickets.

Some people have been complaining to me about ticket prices being insane. There's some scalping happening, which makes sense. It's a hot ticket. But go to crooked.com slash events and use the official pages. Thank you. So there he is.

Donald Trump, sitting in that chair in the Oval Office. Everything's good, right? Now James Comey's out of the way. He told the Russians he's not going to have any problems anymore. Jeff Sessions, he steps out to take a phone call. And it's Rod Rosenstein. And he tells Jeff Sessions, he steps out to take a phone call. And it's Rod Rosenstein. And he tells Jeff Sessions

that he has appointed a special prosecutor. The square jaw and all the law. The marine with that bipartisan sheen. That's right, we're talking about Robert Mueller. Jeff Sessions comes back in. He sheepishly explains,

there is now going to be a special counsel. I want to make sure I get what Donald Trump said back correct. He said, and I quote, Oh my God, this is terrible. This is the end of my presidency. I'm fucked. this is the end of my presidency I'm fucked. Which of course

when anyone finds out they're going to be investigated and they're innocent they immediately believe that their life is over. Like this could be a quote from O.J. Simpson in the back of a Bronco.

I will say this Jeff Sessions carried a resignation letter every time he went to the White House. Also, Michael Cohen received a text from a Russian businessman that said, stopped flow of tapes from Russia, but not sure if there's anything else,

just so you know. Annie Donaldson, McGahn's chief of staff on March 12th 2017 had notes that read quote POTUS in panic slash chaos need binders to put in front of POTUS. All right he represents us right here in California's 28th congressional district and he is the chair of the House Intelligence Committee. Please welcome back Congressman Adam Schiff. It's home field advantage. We're in your district.

As I've said to you before, I'm so proud that you're my representative and that I'm not represented by some backbench bozo that I got somebody with a gavel in their fucking hand. Well, I'm so glad you're my constituent and you got a big microphone in your hands. Thank you. So, recently, a lot of Republicans on the Intelligence Committee

have been calling for your resignation. Anything to say to them now? Yes, read the report. It's been a sad fact on our committee now for a year and a half with my ranking member, Mr. Nunes, that basically when the White House says jump, I'm not talking about the cow here, because that would get applause, I'm sure. When the president says jump, he says how high. And it was choreographed by the White House before that committee meeting a couple weeks ago. This was their stratagem. And it's a disservice to our committee and the Congress, but it is what it is.

So let's talk about this report. Obviously, there's a lot to unpack. There's a lot still redacted. Did anything really surprise you today when you saw the details of the document? You know, it wasn't really so much that surprised me. We knew about many of the interactions between the Trump campaign and the Russians. We knew certainly about some of the acts of obstruction. What the report did was go into granular detail about these in a way that we hadn't seen before, and new instances of misconduct. But, you know,

the top line is, this is three to 400 pages of damning conduct by the President of the United States and people around him, multiple lies and falsehoods, the urging of other people to lie on his behalf, illicit contacts between his campaign and the Russians, the Russians' efforts to interfere in our elections in a massive way, the president's efforts to obstruct that investigation. Among those hundreds of pages, there is not a single page that reflects well on the president of the United States. And that is not a cause for exoneration, vindication, or anything like it. It is a cause for condemnation. I'll tell you, if I were on the part of your show where you do the wheel of rant...

Close, but sure, yeah. What I would be ranting about at the moment is our Attorney General, who I think terribly misled the country. Repeatedly, there were, as we suspected, summaries of Mueller's work in Mueller's own words that this Attorney General chose not to use. He chose instead to tell a false narrative that the President wanted to put out there. And I think he views himself, sadly, as the President's personal lawyer, not as the Attorney General of the United States. So now that we have the report, is there any justification for having released that four-page summary that isn't political, that isn't partisan on behalf of the president? There's no justification whatsoever.

If the Attorney General, acting in good conscience, wanted to release a summary so that the country wouldn't have to wait for whatever redactions to take place he could have released Mueller's summary in fact when you look at Mueller's summaries in the report there are very few redactions from the summaries so there was no reason to do that except for the fact that Barr wanted to do two things he wanted to please the boss by pushing out this false narrative of no collusion, no obstruction. And second, he wanted to arrogate to himself, before people read the report, that it was his job to decide that the evidence of obstruction could not result in a prosecution of the president, when it's clear that the report itself believed that those kind of decisions about what should

follow from the president's many acts of obstruction were to be left to Congress, not to Bill Barr. So do you think that Bill Barr deserves, I mean, do you believe he should resign? Do you believe that if he doesn't resign, he deserves to face an impeachment inquiry of his own? I don't know what the consequences should be for Barr. I do know this, and I've said this ever since his confirmation hearing. There is no way that this man should have been confirmed for the job in the first place. And, you know, for that reason, I think when they write this chapter of history,

some of the most damning language will be reserved not just for Donald Trump, but for the Republicans in Congress who refuse to stand up to this deeply unethical, immoral human being in the Oval Office, that Barr could audition for the job by writing that 19-page legal diatribe, and that any Senate would confirm someone with such an obvious bias against the investigation without demanding his recusal is inexcusable. And, you know, the only people who the report reflects on in a positive way at all, and who would have thunk it, the only people who the report reflects on in a positive way at all and who would have thunk it are the people who refused to do the president's bidding. And one of them happened to be Barr's predecessor, Jeff Sessions seems to be, you know, it's a low standard, but one of the only people inside of this institution with an eye on what his actual genuine responsibilities are. No, that's very true.

Look, Barr, when he was asked during his confirmation, will you seek the advice of ethics lawyers, will you follow the advice, his answer was no. seek the advice of ethics lawyers? Will you follow the advice? His answer was no. Jeff Sessions at least had the standing and backbone to say, I'm not going to ignore what the ethics lawyers are telling me. Johnny Carson interviewed a journalist who'd been covering the Nixon investigations. And what that journalist said was, in all the documents and all the tapes, there's never a point at any point that anyone says this is wrong, that what we're doing is wrong. And we have a 400-page document, and there is literally no place anywhere, unless I missed it, where anyone raises a moral objection. There do seem to be moments when someone says, I can't do that, I'll get in trouble. But there seems to be no one at any point in this process around collusion or obstruction where someone

said, hold on, this isn't the right thing to do? Unfortunately, that's exactly right. In all of these contexts, these approaches made by the Russians, this hostile foreign power, and probably the most graphic, of course, is that involving this secret meeting at the Trump Tower in New York, where the Russians offered dirt on Hillary Clinton as part of what they describe as the Russian government effort to help the Trump campaign. What is the Trump campaign reaction? Not absolutely not, not we're going to report you to the FBI. It's Don Jr. saying, if it's what you say it is, I'd love it. And that's the attitude that permeates this whole report, which is, hey, if you're going to help us through social media, by pushing out divisive content or through hacking dumping

operation, whatever, we would love it. Now, Mueller concluded that's no crime. Maybe it should be, but he concluded that's no crime. But it is so unethical and immoral and unpatriotic that all of us on both sides of the aisle should condemn it. Also, it was pretty fascinating to see Don Jr. today basically take a victory lap

because the report concludes that he was too stupid to realize he was committing criminal offenses. So let's talk about obstruction. You know, Mueller talks a lot about the role of Congress in this report. Yoni Applebaum in The Atlantic described the report as an impeachment referral, laying out not only a ton of evidence for obstruction,

but also the legal basis for placing the responsibility in Congress's hands. Do you agree with that description of this report? I do agree that what Mueller did was provide all the documentation, all the evidence that he accumulated on these, for example, 10 instances of obstruction of justice, and submit it to Congress and say basically, I'm not allowed to indict. If I were able to make that judgment, I could not conclude that a crime didn't occur here. But I'm not allowed to make that judgment. And here's another area where Bill Barr misled the country in suggesting that that factor that you couldn't indict a sitting president wasn't something the special counsel was considering that was foremost in in his consideration instead muller said that there are remedies for a president

who either violates the law or is unfit for office and it's the congress and so this evidence needs to go to the congress and also by the, this evidence needs to be preserved so that when the president is out of office, the Justice Department can consider indicting him then. So your colleague, Steny Hoare, said earlier today, based on what we have seen to date, going forward on impeachment is not worthwhile at this point. Very frankly, there is an election in 18 months and the American people will make a judgment. Since then, he has walked that back and said he wants to see the full report and he believes all options should be on the table. You told a man whose name is Wolf Blitzer, impossibly, but you said this about impeachment.

The evidence would have to be quite overwhelming and demonstrable and such that it would generate bipartisan support for the idea that it renders the president unfit for office. This is something we talked about back in February on this stage, something you've written about. There's a phrase in there that's doing a lot of work. You say, and such that. What if the evidence is overwhelming, but that still doesn't create the bipartisan support? Well, it's a problem because it means that members of Congress won't do their constitutional duty, that they view their job as not defending our institutions, whether it's the co-equal branches of government or the freedom of the press,

but rather as acting as an extension of Rudy Giuliani. And that's a problem, and that's a serious problem that we've had all along. I don't think we take anything off the table, and I think it is insupportable for the Justice Department to simultaneously take the position, you can't indict a sitting president, but unless you begin an impeachment proceeding, we're not going to show you the grand jury material that would help you determine whether you should bring an impeachment proceeding. I think this is why the grand jury secrecy rules have a provision that says preliminary to such a proceeding, you can provide this information to Congress. So we're going to get

that information. We're going to go after that information. And we should reserve judgment until we see all the evidence about what the right remedy is. But on this question of the bipartisan basis of impeachment, doesn't it beg the question? Because in the same way that you're saying you can't have the information from the grand jury until you pursue impeachment, but you don't want to pursue impeachment until you have the information. Isn't one of the ways that we make an impeachment inquiry bipartisan by making the case, by saying, here's why we believe Donald Trump ought to be impeached, because despite our sadness at the truth of it, he clearly committed obstruction of justice, and therefore we want to get to the bottom of it through this inquiry. Isn't saying from the start that we can't pursue

impeachment until it's bipartisan, giving up before you've begun? It doesn't mean, just because you want to see the evidence before you initiate an impeachment proceeding, doesn't mean that you're not doing investigative work. We are. In my committee, in the Judiciary Committee, in the Oversight Committee, we are continuing our investigations. And that may very well produce, quite in addition to what Bob Mueller did, the evidence necessary to take additional steps like impeachment. We shouldn't prejudge it. But the fact that we don't begin with an impeachment proceeding doesn't mean we're not doing the hard spade work of making the information public so that we can see whether there's a bipartisan consensus that this means the president is unfit for office. So that work goes on. And,

you know, I'll add to that. The Mueller report looked at essentially two or three things. It looked at the social media operation, looked at the hacking and dumping operation. It looked at the illicit contacts between the Russians and the Trump campaign. It did not, for the most part, follow the money. And that is what we're determined to do on the Intelligence Committee and the Financial Service Committee. There's no discussion of whether the Russians were laundering money through the Trump Organization. And this is leverage that the Russians are applying over the President of the United States. And indeed, one of the points that Mueller makes in his report is that simultaneously to the criminal investigation, there was an ongoing counterintelligence

investigation to determine whether the President or others around him were acting wittingly or unwittingly as agents of a foreign power. So we need to get that evidence, as Mueller points out, that some of that evidence is not even included in the report. And that also will be important for us to determine what consequences are necessary to protect the country. And I appreciate that. I appreciate that there is a vast amount we still don't know, that there's a lot of evidence that could change people's minds, a lot of evidence of criminality we have no idea about yet, that the Mueller investigation was limited in scope. But on obstruction, right, Richard Nixon, one of the articles of impeachment against Richard Nixon was obstruction of justice. Bill Clinton was impeached by Republicans on perjury and obstruction of justice. We have a tremendous

amount of evidence of obstruction of justice. It is hard to imagine there being more evidence that would change the mind of someone who is currently saying that there's nothing there. They look at this report and they say there's nothing there. If the standard is that impeachment has to be bipartisan and only one party believes in the rule of law, doesn't that mean the rule of law only applies to one party? It does mean that the system is broken, that our democracy is very much at risk. The fact that there is no longer any John McCain, that there's no Baker of this generation to go to the president and say, essentially, your conduct is so unbecoming of a president of the United States demonstrating such unfitness for office that unless you leave, we're going to have to remove you. There is no one of backbone willing to stand up to this

president. And yes, that means that the democracy is trembling because we don't have that kind of check and balance. I mean, the Republicans in Congress, Mitch McConnell, Kevin McCarthy, won't even defend Congress's most important mean, the Republicans in Congress, Mitch McConnell, Kevin McCarthy, won't even defend Congress's most important power, the power of the purse. What hope is there that they'll do the right thing vis-a-vis the other areas in which the President of the United States is violating our system of checks and balances? So yes, it does mean the system is broken. But I don't take the view that if you build it, they will come. I think we need to continue the investigative work. We have to hope that we can win over our GOP colleagues to see their duty rather than their party. And if they don't, there isn't much of a remedy except the ballot box.

Democrats in the House can impeach Donald Trump based on the evidence we have right now. I don't know about you. I'm someone who read the report today. You see classified information. You've been deep in this investigation. based on the evidence we have right now? I don't know about you. I'm someone who read the report today. You see classified information. You've been deep in this investigation. You read the report today. Do you believe, based on what we know right now, that Donald Trump committed obstruction of justice?

I do. And I believe for quite some time that he is unfit for office. And do you believe that obstruction of justice is an impeachable offense? Obstruction of justice is unquestionably an impeachable offense. An impeachable offense. The question at the moment is, is there any hope of a conviction? Or are we just advocating putting the president through the trial in the House?

Is the trial in and of itself valuable, worthwhile enough, even if there's no prospect of conviction? Now, as a prosecutor, our view was always, unless you believed you could get a conviction, you didn't try the case even if you felt the defendant was guilty. What an impeachment proceeding would mean, if we bring it about prematurely, before we see all the evidence,

before we determine whether we have a plausible case with our colleagues in the Senate, is that it means all of the rest of our agenda, our efforts to create better paying jobs for people and a higher income, our efforts to expand healthcare, all of that is pushed aside. And that's a huge sacrifice. At the end of the day, I think what's going to matter most to people in 2020 is what we're doing to improve the quality of people's lives. And I don't think we can ever lose sight of that. When Robert Mueller testifies, what are you interested in asking him about? Well, I'm, you know, in our committee, and I think we will differ from the Judiciary Committee in this, the Judiciary Committee is going to be predominantly concerned with the obstruction of justice issues. We are going to be concerned with what we have

been focused on in our committee from the very beginning, which is this investigation began in order to look to whether the president and people around him were compromised by a foreign power and taking actions that were against the interests of the United States because they were compromised. Now, that compromise could be the laundering of money by the Russians. It could have been Moscow Trump Tower. The president of the United States, while deceiving the country during the campaign, was seeking to make the most lucrative deal of his life in Moscow and one that required the approval of the Kremlin, the same Kremlin in which he was praising

Vladimir Putin at the time. That is deeply compromising if there is other compromise, either by the Gulf states, the Kushner family seeking financing, and that accounts for why the President can't criticize the crown prince, even when it involves the murder of a U.S. person, Khashoggi. If the reason he can criticize anybody but apparently Putin and Kim Jong-un and the crown prince is because he still wants to build this tower in Moscow, then we need to know it, we need to expose it, we need to take legislative steps to protect the country.

One final question. Burger King is testing an impossible burger, an impossible Whopper, a vegetarian, I believe vegan Whopper. I know that you are a vegan. Are you excited about this? It's currently being tested in St. Louis. Is there legislation you can introduce to have that testing period moved to vegan places like L.A.? You know, this is a very serious question. The others were not so much serious, but this one really is. You may not recall that the last time I was on your show, I did my rant about vegan burgers that are served on a non-vegan bun. So the question is, does Burger King use a non-vegan bun? Because if they don't, I'm going to be pissed.

And hopefully there will be a bipartisan basis to get to the bottom of that. Chairman Adam Schiff, thank you so much. Proud to be represented by you every day. Thank you for being here. One more time for Congressman Adam Schiff. When we come back, we'll have our panel. Hey, don't go anywhere. There's more of Love It or Leave It coming up.

And we're back. Let's bring out our panel. He's an investigative reporter for BuzzFeed News, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting, and was inducted into the National Freedom of Information Hall of Fame. Please welcome Jason Leopold. How you doing, Jason? Great. Everything's good.

Cool. Great day. Yeah. Yeah? She's a comedian and writer who has worked on Big Mouth, High Maintenance, and HBO's Pond Save America. Please welcome back Mitra Juhari! How you doing, Mitra? Great.

Really good. Good to be back. That's it. And you've seen him in Time Traveling Bong, Rough Night, and not only starring, but also a writer and director of Broad City. Please welcome Paul W. Downs. Hello, Paul. Hello. How you doing?

I'm great. Let's get into it. What a week. Wait, let's get into it. What a week. So a lot of information came out today. I've ran through some of it. I want to run through some other piece of information from the Mueller report that came out that surprised people. Obviously, I referenced earlier the fact that Donald Trump was quoted as saying, oh my God, this is terrible. This is the end of my presidency. I'm fucked.

However, we don't know how he said it. So I would really appreciate it if each of you could give us a line reading before we start. Again, the quote is, oh, my God, this is terrible. This is the end of my presidency. I'm fucked. Jason, would you mind kicking us off? Oh, my God. This is the end of my presidency. I'm fucked. Pretty good, pretty good, pretty good. Mitra? Oh my God. This is the end of my presidency.

This is terrible. I'm fucked. That is four years of theater school. And $4,000 worth of improv classes. So great. That's a lot of improv. That's a lot of improv. That's a lot of improv.

That's a lot of improv. Paul, you're up. Oh my God. This is terrible. I'm fucked. Thank you. Thank you all, thank you thank you all thank you some other facts

from the report the president attempted to obstruct justice on many occasions but the only reason he was unsuccessful was because his administration wouldn't follow through

on what he often asked them to do Russians recruited moderators of conservative social media groups to promote Russian generated content and recruited individuals to do things like walking around New York City dressed up as Santa Claus Russians recruited moderators of conservative social media groups to promote Russian-generated content and recruited individuals to do things like walking around New York City dressed up as Santa Claus with a Trump mask.

Priebus recalled that McGahn said that the president had asked him to do crazy shit. Sarah Sanders had to admit under oath to straight-up lying to reporters about top FBI officials being mad at James Comey. Russian intelligence targeted Clinton's emails for the first time just five hours after Trump publicly asked them to do it. The president asked Don McGahn, his White House counsel, why do you take notes? Lawyers don't take notes. I never had a lawyer who took notes.

McGahn responded that he keeps notes because he's a real lawyer and explained that notes create a record and are not a bad thing. The president said, I've had a lot of great lawyers like Roy Cohn, he did not take notes. And then on December of 2016, Jared Kushner met with the head of a Russian bank who gave Kushner two gifts, a painting and a bag of dirt from the town in Belarus where Kushner's family originated. Kushner got a bag of dirt. Jason, I want to start with you. What was your reaction to the report today? My immediate reaction was like, holy shit.

This is a damning report. It had a ton of new information. And I've been reporting on the investigation for two years. But the details that were revealed in this report, for example, as you mentioned, Hillary Clinton's emails, right? report. For example, as you mentioned, Hillary Clinton's emails, right, after they were missing, Trump tasking various officials to go and find them, like Michael Flynn, who then contacted the GOP operative, Peter Smith. The details about, for example, that there's another 14 referrals. There were 14 referrals, two of which we know about, 12 we don't yet know about. Yeah. So that's brand new information. And certainly with regard to Trump

Tower Moscow, I mean, the level of involvement that Trump and his lawyers had, which is we reported in Michael Cohen's testimony and just throughout the campaign, how they were trying to get this off the ground and the number of contacts with various Russian officials. And then honestly, it's just the other part of it is the fact that the president stating that he had no involvement in many of these projects that in fact were straight up lies. So I wasn't so surprised by the number of lies, but there are quite a bit there. And this does confirm your reporting on Trump Tower Moscow. And you've done a lot of incredible reporting on the entanglements, the financial entanglements, political entanglements between Donald Trump and Russia and the efforts to lie to conceal it. And what we did learn in this report is there were many occasions in which Donald Trump instructed people to lie on his behalf.

Now, one of them that you've been involved in had some controversy over this. Just a tiny bit. Tiny bit. So you reported in BuzzFeed that Donald Trump directed Michael Cohen to lie to Congress. And then Robert Mueller's committee issued a statement with a very carefully worded denial. This has been a subject of a lot of questions. Donald Trump has tried to exploit this. A lot of this is hinged on what it means to be directed. A lot of this is hinged on what evidence you gathered. In the report,

it says, with regard to Cohen's false statements to Congress, while there is evidence described below that the president knew Cohen provided false testimony to Congress about the Trump towered Moscow project, the evidence available to us does not establish that the president directed or aided Cohen's false testimony. Yet you dispute that. So where does this stand now? We put out an update this evening to sort of explain our sourcing from January. And the reason that we stood by it is because our sources stood by it. And as we stated this evening, Ben Smith, our editor-in-chief, wrote a very lengthy post on it to sort of update everyone. And our sources described for us, and we revealed tonight, that they shared some notes with us.

They shared notes from the interview that from uh the interview that michael cohen had with the fbi we felt that the special counsel was not being uh in that statement is quite ambiguous uh we essentially feel at this point that you know muller's statement is the final word it's the law in terms of what he said that that the evidence could not establish anything. And we note that what our sources had told us, which are law enforcement sources, they believe that this was essentially based on Cohen's interview, that he was directed to lie. Mueller obviously disputes that in terms of how he characterizes the evidence. And it really, for us, provides a lot of insight as to what that statement meant back in January. I do want to point out that since that story was published,

subsequent testimony that Michael Cohen gave to Congress, he noted that Trump spoke in code, and it was more implicit as opposed to explicit. Two weeks ago, his lawyers also sent Congress a 10-page letter, essentially laying out all the ways in which Trump had instructed him, encouraged him, and even directed him to lie. So at this point, we are essentially saying that this is what Mueller said, and that is kind of where it stands right now. Yeah, But it does seem like it just hinges on this notion of everyone around Donald Trump knows they're supposed to lie on Trump's behalf. Sometimes he's explicit. Sometimes it's implied in their conversation. There are other examples where Donald Trump just turns to someone and just says a falsehood, doesn't ask it to be repeated, doesn't ask someone to lie on their behalf, but it is expected that they repeat it.

How much of this do you think is just a dancing on the head of the pin about the semantics of the word directed? I do think it's that. I think that there is quite a bit of evidence in this report that makes it abundantly clear that Michael Cohen believed he was being directed to lie. I mean, they go into the details about the length of time he spent on the phone with the White House counsel about his testimony, that if he did not, if he went rogue, they use that word, going rogue, and went off script, that they'd cut off his legal funding. So it does seem to sort of make the case that it was more implicit. Frankly, I'm kind of interested to see what the evidence is that he provided to the special counsel during those interviews that would shed a little bit more light on that. But as I said, we put out an update this evening. People can read it. Mueller did say this. We stuck by our story and our sources. We spoke to them this evening. We revealed that they shared notes with us. And that's what we based our story on.

Mitra, there are some people that aren't very interested in the evidence or what's to come. People like Kellyanne Conway. Republicans are claiming vindication from the report. Kellyanne Conway said this on the White House lawn. We're accepting apologies today, too, for anybody who feels the grace in offering them. I present to you the document that shows the Democrats' successes. Hi. This is the success of the Democrats in the first 100 days in Congress. Here it is. There's nothing. I just want to, for the people listening to this

podcast, it was a vicious burn. She did hold up a blank piece of paper uh mitra do you think that republicans have been vindicated and do we owe kellyanne an apology so i don't necessarily think that we owe republicans an apology but i actually am waiting for an apology which i will explain um a lot of you are my close personal friends out in the crowd tonight. And for those of you who aren't, you might not know that Mueller is my older brother. And he knew perfectly well that I was planning on releasing a report of my own today. And I spent a lot of time working on it. And it's well documented in the family text chain that I was going to release a report of my own today.

And he went ahead and released his. And he had lots and lots of time to do it. He had any other day of the year to do it. I had a book report that I've been working on for three months. It is six pages long, double spaced, about the con of Monte Cristo. I put my heart and soul into it. It's really smart. I talk about symbols.

I got sources. Okay? Footnotes. Footnotes. I've got a bibliography. You can tell that I tried really, really hard, which is difficult for me because I'm fucking dumb, alright? So he puts out the report and then doesn't even contact me about mine.

My parents are not interested. Our parents are not interested in the work that I put forward. So it's a really hard day for me and no one's talking about it. Okay? So I don't think we, I think I deserve an apology. And as for Kellyanne, the paper thing is funny. Yeah. Yeah. She crushed it.

She got me laughing. It is a good burn. It's a good burn. It was a blank piece of paper. She's like, what are the democratic accomplishments? She's like, oh, she must have a list. Blank piece of paper. Go for it, girl.

Savage. She's savage. You know, a broken clock, you know? Every now and then you're going to get that sick burn out there and you're going to get me, LOL. You know, she's bad. We hate her. But sometimes she can make you laugh.

So if anybody wants to hang out after the show, bring me some comfort. We're seeing, and for those of you who are listening at home, every hand in the room just shot up so fast. This place went crazy. We felt wind on the stage from the hands going up. And I'm wearing a gorgeous fascinator, and it fell to the ground from the wind of all the hands raising.

A fascinator is what people wear to Kentucky Derby or to the queen parties, the royal queen. So if you didn't study that. To be fair, we're all wearing fascinators, and we should just. We each have a different fascinator with a different redacted pages turned into a little bow. They each have a different fascinator with a different redacted pages turned into a little bow. Another piece of this is William Barr releasing that four-page memo.

I think up until today, you know, Republicans are getting sorted by, I think, journalists into kind of these two categories. Like truly untrustworthy kind of bargain basement Trump goons. And serious Republicans who hold their nose, who are the adults from back in the good old days. And I think a lot of people sorted William Barr into that good old days category, someone who might be dishonest in the cool, normal way, but not going to lie to our faces. But it seems today we have learned that Bill Barr was willing to go to great lengths to spin and manipulate this information on behalf of Donald Trump. Do you think this will affect in any way both of the what we learned about the way the White House lies and the way Bill Barr behaved? Will this affect the way the

reporters that cover the White House engage with the White House? I think it's a great question because I think the report lays out how to further engage with the White House, as well as other officials such as Bill Barr. No, I don't think it'll change at all. And that's just based on being, you know, I'm based here in LA, and kind of being outside of that DC reporting bubble, which I'm sure people will hate me for saying that, but it's more of an observation that I think that, you know, you sort of go along with essentially what you've been going along with for quite some time. I think more, which is the sort of standard, like, here's the press conference, here's what they're saying. I mean, last night, for example, the Washington

Post published a story about, you know, the report's going to be lightly redacted. And this was clearly coming from, you know, the Justice Department or, you know, they were spinning it. I mean, the report is, you know, a third of the report is redacted. That's not lightly redacted to me. So I think that we'll just sort of, in my opinion, kind of see a continuance of the way things are. You're an investigative journalist. You're on this story. What are the areas of redaction that you want to go after next?

What were the nuggets that stuck out to you as something you want to dig into? Everything. All of it. And let me just promote a little thing that we're doing, which is we actually sued for the report. I sued under the Freedom of Information Act to get a copy of this report. I did as well.

I did that as well. Yeah, so we did it together. Mine is civil. I did a civil case. It's easier. It's for TV. I did a criminal. But the reason I did a criminal. Yeah, mine was criminal. But the reason I did this was yeah,

I want people to go to jail. Mine's more like a Judge Judy one. Any redactions, you know, they need to go to jail. I just want it out there. You know, I want it on TV. I want it out. You asked Judge Judy for the report. I don't want to brag, but I have her number. Yeah, I did. I did. Also, Judge Judy for Supreme Court.

I'm going to put it out there now. I think that would be great. And I kind of think Trump would get on board with that somehow. His addled mind would be like, yes, Judge Judy. And I think that would be great. Anyway. Yes, I'm with you, by the way, on Judge Judy. But the reason that we sued for this report was because we knew it was going to be redacted.

And under the Freedom of Information Act, what happens is that the Justice Department now has to process this report for us. They'll end up probably giving us the same report. I get to, through the lawyer, litigate the redactions. We get to challenge everything that's redacted. The Justice Department, the government now has to explain to us each and every redaction, why it's been redacted. And we get to litigate it in hopes that it will be further unredacted. We also will, you know, they will be required to tell us, you know, what the harm is if information is revealed. What is the, you know, potential national security or threat, if there is any, or what would the harm be?

And then we get to challenge that. So the hope is that we can further unredact it, if you will, and I want to see it all unredacted. Alright. And so does our... So do you guys as well. Thank you.

Well, I'm suing so that I can see my boyfriend's texts. So a lot of really important FOIA-related lawsuits. The unredacted Mueller report. Unredacted texts. Mitra's boyfriend's texts. Of equal value. When we come back, OK Stop!

Don't go anywhere. This is Love It or Leave It it and there's more on the way and we're back now it's time for okay stop we'll roll a clip and the panel can say okay stop at any point

to comment Bernie Sanders he's more than just Mayor Pete's cool grandpa he's one of the front runners for the Democratic nomination well this week he did a town hall

on Fox News and he left the host a bit confused. Let's watch. I go out and I listen to the people. They ask me questions. Those questions are often very, very different than the issues being discussed by media on Capitol Hill. All right, Senator, we want to get back to audience questions. I do want to say that we understand, and we're very grateful that you're here. We are giving you an hour of substance and talk on our airwaves so we can get over the Fox thing. If you're all right with that. Okay.

Okay, stop. He said get over the Fox thing the way Tom Hanks asked Meg Ryan to get over him shutting down her bookstore the audience a question if you could raise your hand here a show of hands of how many people get their insurance from work private insurance right now how many get it from private insurance okay now of those how many are willing to transition to what the senator says, a government-run system. Okay, stop. For those at home,

you got a lot of hands. Reminds me of when I asked people to hang out with me earlier. Millions of people every single year lose their health insurance. You know why? They get fired or they quit and they go to another employer. You change insurance. Every year, millions of workers wake up in the morning and their employer has changed the insurance that they have. Maybe they like the doctors.

People are nodding their heads. Okay? So this is not new. Every year. Now, what we are talking about, actually, is stability. That when you have a Medicare for All, it is there now,

and it will be there in the future. Okay, stop. Just mesmerized. Speechless. I just want to say this. Has Bernie been on Queer Eye? His hair is better. His hair looked good.

It's shorter and it's whiter. It's whiter. Those collars do not button down. No, that was good. He looked great. Sharp. It's fascinating to watch someone make a case for Medicare for All on Fox. And they're cheering.

Yeah. Well, I feel like he loaded the crowd, which is cool. But those weren't Arizonan baby boomers driving there in their golf cart like they usually get. Those were those are Bernie people. What do you guys think out there? Actually, I'm curious what everyone. It's an interesting debate because John and I were debating this on our little Ponce America live stream. How many of you land on the we should do everything we can to undermine the legitimacy and Democrats should not go there. Camp. And how many of you land on the side of, we have to fight Fox by bringing our ideas to them

and by Bernie going on Fox, he exposes people to another point of view and maybe that's the first step on how we change things. And that's okay, stop. and that's okay stop I can't describe how quickly I would be executed if I came into a Fox studio when we come back

we're going to play some Mad Libs with those redactions hey don't go anywhere there's more of Love It or Leave It coming up and we're back! If you're like me, you were curled up next to the pool this morning with a pina colada in one hand and a Mueller report in the other, and you read it cover to cover, couldn't put it down. Wasn't page 272 crazy? I can't believe Eric Trump killed Dumbledore.

But about a third of the pages in the thing had a redaction, and that means there's a lot more for us to learn. So while we wait for Democrats in Congress to find out what a subpoena is, we thought we'd do our best to figure out what's underneath those pesky black bars in a segment we're calling Mueller Mad Libs.

So here's how this is going to work. We're going to ask you just to start shouting out some suggestions for some of these blank spots, and then we're going to read what we've all come up with together, okay? We need everybody to shout out what a sociopath would say if he won the lottery, all right? We need somebody to shout it out. Just shout it out. Play along. Now I can hunt man.

Now I can hunt man. We're going to go with that. All right, number two. We need what you say if you spilled pudding on Prince Harry. Blimey. Blimey. Blimey. No, you're not.

You're still American. He's British. You spilled the pudding. Why would you start shouting British shit at him because you spilled pudding? Take it off. We heard a take it off. All right. Next, we need the saddest thing you've heard lately.

The spire fell. The spire fell. All right. Let's do it. Let's do it. The spire fell. That's tough, but it's the saddest thing you heard. They're going to rebuild it.

Maybe not. I heard maybe not. But they're going to fix it up so we can all calm down. It'll be better by the Olympics. Macron said so. Alright. Let's see how he did. Jason, kick us off.

Page 53. Cohen further told the office that after WikiLeaks' subsequent release of stolen emails in July 2016, candidate Trump said to Cohen something to the effect of, now I can hunt man. Meet your ear up. After the June 9th meeting concluded concluded Goldstone apologized to Trump Jr. according to Goldstone he told

Trump Jr. take it off you did that and told Eamon Agalarov Agalarov Christina Aguilera in a phone call that the meeting was about adoption Paul you're up page 17 That's what I meant. Christina Aguilera in a phone call that the meeting was about adoption.

Paul, you're up. Page 17. Some witnesses said that Trump himself discussed the possibility of upcoming releases. Michael Cohen, then executive vice president of the Trump Organization and special counsel to Trump, recalled hearing, the spire fell. Cohen recalled that Trump responded,

oh good, all right. And that's Mueller Mad Libs. When we come back, we'll mark 420. Oh, my God. The one guy that just loses it. Don't go anywhere. This is Love It or Leave It, and there's more on the way. And we're back!

This episode will be released on April 20th, which I've heard many federal criminals also refer to as 420. 420, according to my D.A.R.E. officer, is a reference to how many humans get killed every time you hit a vape pen at the movies. Yes, the legalization movement has gone a long way over the last decade, from a joke on college campuses to something the entire Democratic primary field believes in.

Currently, 10 states have legalized recreational marijuana, including Alaska, California, Colorado, Massachusetts, Maine, Michigan, Nevada, Vermont, Washington, and Chet's bedroom, because Chet believes he does not belong to any state because it can't box him in like that, my dude. I also took 4,000 hours of improv. But since most people on the left now agree legalization is a worthy goal, we thought we might take a step back and look at some of the nuances in the issue. And since a lot of you at home might be indulging in this high holy day,

we thought we'd get on your level in a segment we're calling Puff Puff Fact. So each panelist is going to read a few facts for those of you partaking at home. Jason is going to kick us off. What's good, bong lords and vape goats? How's it going out there in podcast land?

Hope you're getting nice. Getting toasty. You do you, my dude. But before we torch up that heady, crunchberry kush, let's take a moment, or toke a moment, to recognize that legalization has been one very killer sesh. I feel like I'm speaking in like some phone sex voice. Yeah.

Honestly, this is the best acting I've heard from a reporter in like a very long time. It's been real straight for the country. Arrests are down and states are saving millions in law enforcement costs. That's a lot of sweet island skunk. There's no public health crisis and no real increase in DUIs or car crashes. But lots of people getting wrecked, if you know what I mean. I'm talking states raking in hell of tax revenues on dabs, edibles, glass, and the dankest, juiciest nugs. Also, it creates jobs, like mine, at the new 24-hour Kiznos.

Check it out. Even a majority of Republicans support legalizing Hobbit's broccoli. So go on. Get crispy as fuck. I'd have to tell you if I was a cop. Hobbit's broccoli. Mitra, you're up. You know how sometimes

you think something is good and then all of a sudden you realize it might also be bad? Like straws. Heard of them you're sick or the dave matthews band well take a deep breath because while the bud has been kind you know what's not been kind

racial disparity and policing so take a look at your stained blacklight poster and just vibe with me for a second. Where chronic is concerned it's a chronic problem. In the 2000s black people were four times as likely as white people to be arrested on charges related to the stickiest of ickies even though both groups take fat sexy rips with roughly the same frequency. And today, where hairy, top-shelf weed is legal, there are fewer arrests. But when they happen, look at who is targeted. In Colorado, black people are still three times more likely than white people to get arrested. In Alaska, ten times more likely.

Washington, D.C., eleven times. Dave Matthews not here, man. And neither would it seem is justice. Ladies and gentlemen, please give it up for the Dave Matthews Band. JK, JK, JK. So awkward. So awkward.

Oh my God, oh my God. I forgot that they were coming. I forgot they were coming. I forgot they were coming. Here to play a nine-hour set, the Dave Matthews Band. Hey, everybody, buckle up. There's 15 minutes of just the snare drum

from Ants Marching. Just that one. Paul, you're up. Yeah, let me get my voice. My voice. Misunderstand me not, toke skysmoker. Legal weed cash is crispy,

crunchy, and flowing like the slipperiest vape gunk. In 2018, the sticky ick industry was worth over $10 billion, bro. And that value is expected to exceed $16 billion in 2019. Whoa. And, okay, earmuffs,

Bob Marley, but the economic impact is not one love, yo. The green cash from the green herb is largely benefiting white faces. Finding reliable dispensary data is like correctly dosing homemade space cakes. But, according to one estimate, among 3,000 dispensaries, only 30 are run by black business owners. Yo, that's 1%. Or the probability that you'll remember in 30 minutes that you just ordered Taco Bell cantina from Postmates.

Nice surprise, though. Maryland, who righteously legalized Mother Earth's green gift last year, has thus far issued 15 grower licenses. None of the recipients were black. Too many numbers? You still with me? Remember earlier how police overwhelmingly targeted people of color when they were criminalized weed in the past? Well, as of 2016, every state that had legal or recreational kush

also banned anyone with a felony from participating in legal marijuana business in any way. That is fucked up, bro. These days, it's slightly less harsh, but this gave certain weed gentrifiers an early advantage, and thus a bigger hit of the smokestacks, aka the good good bread, also known as money, y'all.

But there's a light at the end of the edible-induced panic attack, where you make all your friends leave Dodger Stadium in the third inning because you know for a fact you're having a stroke, but in reality you're just gently crying while eating a funnel cake. Weed might make you hyper-aware of your mouth, but weed has also made California hyper-aware of this discrimination, and the Golden State

gonch heads want to make good. Oakland has an equality permit program that guarantees half of all marijuana business permits go to people who are either convicted of marijuana offenses or live somewhere with a disproportionate number of marijuana-related arrests. It's sort of like how you used to bully that dude for being weird, but then you saw him at a party and kid was

hella funny and turns out you were both really into Naruto, and now you bought him a bunch of sick Naruto swag to make up for all the bullying. It's exactly like that. And California has started retroactively changing people's conviction records for marijuana related offenses along with a couple of other states which if you really think about it kind of isn't that different from

legal time travel. It's freaking magic like my favorite movie Now You See Me Too which we all agree should have been called Now You Don't. This process doesn't solve the unequal access to capital or the racist policing but it's a start. Just like how replacing your Doritos with baby carrots when you get the munchies is the first step transitioning you from sad stoner to dad stoner. Your body is an instrument. I, like, for real appreciate you and the time we shared here. Peace, easy and bleezy.

Kush King. And that's puff puff fact. We come back. It's time for the rant wheel Hey, don't go anywhere There's more of Love It or Leave It coming up And we're back It's time for the wheel of rant And you know how it works We spin the wheel, we rant on the topic It's time for the Wheel of Rant.

And you know how it works. We spin the wheel, we rant on the topic wherever it lands. There's no time for another card. This week on the wheel, we have Uber and Lyft stomping in the middle of the street. We have anti-Domino's pizza culture. We have Blue Wave Blues. We have the Notre Dame fundraising. Carl's Jr. introduced a CBD burger.

We have the question, who's Mike Pence Jr. introduced a CBD burger. We have the question who's Mike Pence? The Avengers has a three hour run time and Don Jr.'s cocky tweets. Let's spin the wheel. It has landed on who's Mike Pence. A poll was recently released. Found that 12% of American adults

don't know who Mike Pence is. 12% of Americans. Many, I presume, drive cars, wear pants, manage to move through their lives without eating a poison mushroom or petting a wolf. 12% of people have never heard of Mike Pence. It is worth keeping in mind that there is a way of living in America.

And it's hard to find, and it's hard to make happen for you because, keep in mind, two things have to be true. One, you have to live your life in such a way that you never hear of Mike Pence. But you have a phone and you answer it and just listen to whatever someone has to say, including asking you questions about some people you've never heard of. And so I have mixed feelings about these people. On the one hand, obviously, I'm furious at them. How dare you live such a disconnected existence

where you don't participate in our democracy at all to have never heard of the vice president, that dead-eyed zealot doing a Reagan impression since 1985 who first became known to us because he thought the movie Mulan was reprehensible and who constantly refers to people as having broad shoulders, which is the weirdest, most meaningless expression

I've ever heard. How dare you get to walk around living in an America where we're all dealing with Mike Pence, but you leave that shit to us. That is a political fucking sink full of dishes.

Uh-oh. That said, how cool. What a life to wake up in the morning and put on your, I assume, little beanie with a fan on it and... put on your suspenders and your... and your jeans, your Limp Bizkit T-shirt and...

just have no fucking idea about anything that's happening, anything we're talking about. Hit play on this show, and you're like, don't know about this, don't know about Mueller, don't know about Pence, don't know about Schiff, don't know about fucking any of it. That is so cool. Let's spin it again.

It has landed on anti-dominoes culture suggested by Mitra. Well, my rant is just on people who don't think dominoes is good pizza. Because sometimes you want gourmet and sometimes you feel bad and you want it to come to your house and it's cheap. It tastes great. They revamped the recipe a few years ago so there's great spice on it. And people,

so for the listeners at home, people in the crowd are on their feet screaming. You can't hear it because only my mic is picking up my own audio but people are weeping. People are like so excited that I'm talking about this. Yeah, there's not really a rant.

It's just that I love it. I order it whenever I'm sad. And I eat it in my bed. And I eat four pieces before I go to bed. And then I eat four pieces in the morning. I feel very, very seen. Because when I have told people in the past that I, too, get sad, order a Domino's handmade pan pizza with salami, banana peppers, and spinach

because you need a vegetable, and I do wait for how specific this is, get a blue cheese dipping sauce because it's nice. It's nice. It's disgusting. And I'm kind of spinning you because the reason there's blue cheese is because there are also chicken kickers. And I'll tell you something else, Mitra. I eat five slices

because in the morning I don't need four slices. I can eat three slices. And then Piece of the Pie Rewards is a program that maybe not everyone in the audience knows about. And I actually am the unofficial self-proclaimed ambassador for Piece of the Pie Rewards, which means you get 10 points every time you order a pizza.

So if you order six pizzas, you get a free pizza. Listen, if you didn't know when this show started that there were at least 50% of the people you're looking at right now with the Domino's app on their phones. At least 50% of this panel is clinically depressed. Let's spin it again. Wait, do they not have gluten-free? They have gluten-free.

They do. Oh, okay. It's for everybody. It's for everybody. Thank you. How do you. It's for everybody. It's for everybody. Thank you. How do you... We just landed on Blue Wave Blues. Yeah, from Paul.

So this is vintage. I know it's old, okay? I'm talking about the midterms. But two reasons. One, I don't think people will yell at me anymore. I think it's like enough. People won't yell at me online for this. And also, I need it today.

I need something. Do you remember the midterms? Remember we flipped the house? Do you recall that we flipped the house? Yeah. That was good, right? How about this? After we flipped the house, people were like, yeah, but the Senate, and it wasn't really enough.

You know, the people that complained after the blue wave, I'm like, go home. What is wrong with you? Can I not enjoy this for one second? Those people who tweeted maybe, but didn't canvas, right? They didn't get out there. And then they were annoyed because Trump wasn't tied up. You know, Trump's not in jail. So it's not really good enough. I'm like, good enough. I'm like, we flipped Orange County. Okay? Let me enjoy this. I need this. I need

something and I get to sleep tonight because I want to. You know? I get to sleep the sleep of the righteous and that's my rant. Great. That's it. Yeah. Sleep the sleep of the people that got Adam Schiff a gavel. Yes. Got him a gavel. Took it out of that weirdo's hand

who sues Twitter because of mean tweets. That's it. Moo. Move over, Devin Nunes. This is a new chair in town, you know? Let's spin it again. I'm going to close my combining the Carl's Jr. CBD burger

and the fundraising for the Notre Dame Cathedral. Let's see how it goes. Listen. We've had some fun today about marijuana. We have. Alright? And CBD, I get it. I'm interested in it. I see the value of it.

I'm not interested in marijuana in food. It doesn't make any sense. I get fancy drinks. I get a fancy cocktail because it's like, hey, look at all these different kinds of this drug that we have. And you can have different flavors. And as you sip it, you have a different taste. And you have the experience from the drug, getting drunk, and it happens immediately. Edibles, it doesn't matter what shape it is. It doesn't matter if it was in a fun burger or popcorn or a chocolate bar. You have the fun time of eating it. Then you're three activities later in a totally different part of your life, and the drug takes effect.

part of your life, and the drug takes effect. So why is this about having interesting and different forms of the food it comes in when you have forgotten the food you ate by the time it hits you? It's like, ooh, this weed's a candy bar, this weed's a soda, who gives a shit? Coffee, you drink coffee, you're like, mwah, I'm awake, that happened fast. Had a couple sips, wait a few minutes, feeling perked up.

I'm associating the coffee flavor with the good feeling. That's how, over time, I trained my kid brain, who thought coffee was disgusting, into an adult brain that thinks coffee is awesome. But with weed, they're like putting it into all different kinds of things while ignoring the central problem. It takes 45 minutes, if you're lucky. I mean, a lot of the worst stories that people tell about edibles,

including the one Maureen Dowd told, is you eat a little, you wait an hour, you eat a a little, you wait an hour, you eat a little more, you wait a little longer, two and a half hours later you get hit by a fucking ton of bricks. So now Carl's Jr. is going to do a CBD burger, and I enjoyed their quote about it.

They said, it is something that feels right for the brand. We are all about innovation. Well, you know, it's Apple and Carl's Jr. Is it like 25 bucks for a burger? I don't know what it costs, Jason. That's a great question.

Get to investigating it. I'm on it. I'm foying that shit. It's all just a way of saying that we are constantly deluged with different dumb things all the time. We are surrounded by media. This isn't going to work.

But one reason you might need a CBD burger. Oh, fuck. Here's the thing. The reason... This is going to work. The reason Carl's Jr. is doing this little bit of a, you know, a fun, what do you call it? A PR stunt, you know?

Even though they're really gonna sell them. It's not like April Fool's Day where all the companies lie to us in the funny way as opposed to the way they lie to us every day. Maybe that Bernie Sanders town hall worked on me too. The reason they do these kinds of stunts is everybody's like hungering for little bits of our divided attention.

And then something like the Notre Dame thing happens. And all of us, it has all of our undivided attention. And it is sad and it is a tragedy. And everybody turns on the news and they see this one thing. And even Donald Trump, because he's just a news junkie, he turns on the television, he's like, I'm a firefighter, now I've got suggestions

for how to solve this thing. And then the fucking Parisian firefighters while they're throwing buckets of water on medieval tapestries, are like, hurry, in English, tell him he's an idiot. And it captivates everyone's attention. Then all of a sudden, billionaires the world over will be like, I'll be the one. I'll be the one to rebuild Notre Dame. It'll be me, this fashion person Because obviously a fashion person Is the only one with the wherewithal to save Notre Dame And oh by the way Here's every person's vacation photo

From Notre fucking damn Like you had a unique and memorable experience That connects all of us to this wonderful place You went to for five fucking minutes That you totally forgot about That you had to go deep into your Google photos to find. You might have even put cathedral in the search bar

because that kind of works. Meanwhile, everybody's paying attention to this one cathedral and it is sad and I'm sad that this beautiful old building went down.

Anyway, Flint doesn't have clean water. Trump's putting kids in cages. We got a lot of worthy causes. We'll fix the cathedral but everybody calm the fuck down. And that is our show. I want to thank

Paul W. Downs, Mitra Juhari, Jason Leibold, Adam Schiff, and as always Nancy Pelosi. Thank you all for coming out on this Mueller Report day. Have a great 420, I guess. And have a great night! Love it or leave it, it's love it or leave it. Respecting all those acts.

Love it or leave it, it's love it or leave it. Straight, straight, tight. Love it or leave it, it's love it or leave it. Respecting all those acts.