No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen - Does Trump's ballroom signal a 3rd term?

Episode Date: October 26, 2025

Brian explores how Trump’s ballroom and a third term are connected. Brian interviews Jamie Raskin, Jared Moskowitz, Tommy Vietor and Elex Michaelson.Shop merch: https://briantylercohen.com/shopYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/briantylercohenTwitter: https://twitter.com/briantylercohenFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/briantylercohenInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/briantylercohenPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/briantylercohenNewsletter: https://www.briantylercohen.com/sign-upWritten by Brian Tyler CohenProduced by Sam GraberRecorded in Los Angeles, CASee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Today we're going to talk about how Trump's new ballroom and the prospect of a third term are connected. And I interviewed Jamie Raskin, Jared Moskowitz, Tommy Vitor, and Alex Michelson. I'm Brian Tyler Cohen, and you're listening to No Lie. I'm sure you've heard the latest threat levied by Steve Bannon. Well, he's going to get a third term. So Trump 28, Trump is going to be president of 28, and people just ought to get accommodated with that. So what about the 22nd Amendment? There's many different alternatives.

at the appropriate time, we'll lay out what the plan is. But there's a plan, and President Trump will be the President in 28. We had longer odds in 16 and longer odds in 24 than we got in 28. And President Trump will be the President of the United States, and the country needs him to be President of the United States. We have to finish what we started. And the way we finish it, do Trump... Trump is a vehicle...

I know this will drive you guys crazy, but he's a vehicle of divine providence. He's an instrument. He's very imperfect. He's not churchy, not particularly religious, but he's an instrument of divine will. And you can tell this of how he's pulled this off. We need him for at least one more term, right? And he'll get that in 28. And we've heard different iterations of this before, specifically from Steve Bannon,

but frankly, Trump too, guys out there handing out hats that say Trump 2028. He's posting videos of himself as a king. And most notably, when you see him erect a $350 million ballroom that'll take years, to build, knowing who Trump is, knowing that he's not benevolent, knowing that he's not just trying to make it better for the next guy, it is clear that this is not the behavior of someone who views his time in office as being over in 2028. And look, I know that me saying this might feel like I'm just inducing anxiety for no reason, but I actually think we all stand to benefit by being very clear-eyed about what the threats we're facing are. Like, we gain nothing by

burying our heads in the sand and just relying on the goodwill of Republicans to do what's right, come time for the next election. I don't think I have to remind anyone that the last time we relied on Republicans to do what's right when they got the election results they didn't like, Trump incited an insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. I mean, hell, just months ago, Republican Jefferson Griffin tried to disqualify 60,000 ballots in the North Carolina Supreme Court race because he lost and wasn't satisfied with the results. And right now, Mike Johnson is refusing to seat Representative-elect Adelaide Grijalva, despite her race being certified a month ago. these people are not only not good governing partners in democracy, they don't believe in democracy

at all. So frankly, we only hurt ourselves by pretending that there is not a problem, or by pretending that it's not inevitable that Trump and Republicans will not just start, but continue to rig, undermine, or straight up deny elections as we head into 26 and 28. So what can we do and what should we do? There's actually quite a bit. First, we need to win the New Jersey and Virginia races. We need to win the Pennsylvania Supreme Court races, and we need to win every other race happening on November 4th of this year. Like, momentum is everything in politics. And having that momentum heading into November of 26 will show a very disillusioned electorate that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Second, we need to win Prop 50 in California, and we got to win it by a lot.

That are not only usher in new maps in California, which keeps us competitive, preserves the ability for Democrats to ever hold control of the House again, but it will give a desperately needed shot of adrenaline to every other Democratic governor, all of whom so far have done nothing. Because, like, we can hope and plead for good governance until we're blue in the face, but the reality of the situation is that maps are being redrawn.

So we can either just give up, surrender, or we can fight fire with fire. Unfortunately, those are the only two options. And also, unfortunately, Democrats are not moving fast enough. But seeing Prop 50 pass, not by 51-49, but by like two-thirds would give political cover to those governors across the country and those other state legislators across the country who are not predisposed to this kind of fighting, but who need the assurance that this is not just the moral right thing to do, it is the electoral right thing to do. Third, we need to match Republicans' tactics. So if they're going to have the DOJ deploy poll monitors or poll watchers, which is the latest news ahead of next week's election,

elections, we have to do the same. We can't always just be on defense. So if the DOJ deploys people, Phil Murphy needs to send the National Guard in to watch the poll watchers. Democratic groups need to do the same. We cannot cede this ground to Republicans who always take offensive positions. Again, we need to fight fire with fire and we have to do it on every front. Fourth, we need to be comfortable mobilizing and mobilizing often. The first no kings had five million people. The second had seven million people. If you think that has no impact on the broader electorate, if you think that Trump's enablers don't see that and think twice about being so blindly deferential to him, if you think Trump himself doesn't see that and take into account what a mass uprising

against him means, then you're not paying attention. Trump's power is derived from the optics that he has total control. And he knows that. That's why he is so desperate to quash any and all dissent. And finally, we need to start working on our circles of people. So find the people in your life who don't pay attention to politics because it's time to pay attention. I don't say this as an alarmist. I say this as a realist. We are not heading toward fascism. We're in it, but we can get out. What it requires, though, is mobilizing the biggest block in this country. And I'm not talking about Democrats or Republicans or independents. I'm talking about non-voters. And look, I get that not paying attention to politics might feel nice. Trust me, my mental health is a testament to that,

but now is the time to tune in. Just about all of that include stuff that we all have agency in. And it starts next week. So if there's an election coming up in your state, make sure you participate. You've heard the saying, it's always darkest before the dawn. It is up to us to manifest that into reality. Next up are my interviews with Jamie Raskin, Jared Moskowitz, Tommy Vitor, and Alex Michelson. Thanks again to Jamie Raskin, Jared Moskowitz, Tommy Vitor, and Alex Michelson. That's it for this episode. Talk to you next week. So when I started this podcast, it seemed like I kind of had to figure everything out on my own. I had to figure out scripts and setups and filming, logos, all of which was very overwhelming.

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slash BTC. I'm joined now by Congressman Jamie Rask and Congressman, thanks for joining me again. Thank you for having me, Brian. So we have watched as Donald Trump engaged in this almost comical corruption scheme where he is seeking $200 and almost a quarter of a billion

from the DOJ to pay himself. Basically using the U.S. Treasury as his own piggy bank. You've now led the effort to take action against him. Can you explain what the new move is? Well, the mind-blowing thing about this one is that it could almost all happen in secret. In fact, we only know about it because somebody leaked out that he'd filed this administrative claim asking for $230 million from the U.S. government because he felt he was injured under the Federal Tort Claims Act. That's usually for deaths, violent injuries.

I found one with a baby who was born with brain damage because of malpractice in a military hospital, a federal hospital. And that one was extraordinary. And that was only for like $10 million. And he's asking for $230 million for things that are not even torts, not even civil wrongs committed against him. He's asking for that money because he didn't like the fact that there was a judicial search warrant executed at Mar-a-Lago. I'm sorry, but that happens hundreds of thousands of times a year. And everybody who is the subject of a judicial search warrant, and remember, you have to go to a judge and prove that there's probable cause that a crime is taking place or a crime is taken place. And then, of course, it produced all this documentation, all these photographs of classified documents in his bathroom.

and in the pool table and all that. But in any event, he thinks he should get $230 million for that. Included in his stupid complaint is a request for $75 million for punitive damages, which are not even allowed under the federal tort claim. Even when you've got a real tort, like somebody, you know, being killed by a federal doctor or run over by a federal crock or something like that. Yeah. So now, in terms of.

what can be done. I mean, what is the new action being taken in Congress to, to kind of expose this? So, so here's the thing. This is not a lawsuit. The public is not represented. There's no court. There's no trial. There's no jury. There's no judge. All he's doing is asking for two officials in the Department of Justice, one of two officials, to approve his petition for $230 million. And one of them is his own deputy attorney general, who got famous for going out and talking to Galane Maxwell, right, and effectuating her transfer to a camp, an extremely minimum security facility in Texas when he was satisfied with the things that she was saying and not saying about Donald Trump and the Jeffrey Epstein affair. So these are his sycophantic underlings who are going

to be deciding whether he gets $230 million. So what I'm focused on right now is that all of this could be happening in secret. It's all behind the scenes in the back rooms. And for all we know, Ryan, it's already happened, right? Because they don't have to report it to anybody until the end of the year when a list of the Department of Justice's expenditures are made. Understand, generally, this is phenomenally difficult to win a suit, even when there's a real violent tort. I mean, think about all the people who are being roughed up and manhandled by ice in these raids across the country.

If these people have any way of getting any compensation or, you know, being falsely in prison for five days or being roughed up. thrown on the ground, it's through the federal tort claims act. And they never settle it out right. And it's extremely difficult to win even in court because there's so many legal doctrines that you've got to jump over before you can actually get a real hearing on it. So you're launching an investigation, a public investigation into all of this. But I guess the broader question here and the question I'm sure most people who are watching are asking is, can anything be done to stop this? I mean, if Donald Trump just has,

carte blanche, if his only obstacle to being able to pull a quarter of a billion dollars is his own criminal defense attorney and his own attorney general who are perfectly content to be dormance for the guy, then like, then what's to stop him? And by the way, what's to stop him from doing it again or doing it for $500 million? Why not, why not take a billion? Why not take $5 billion if there's really no obstacle? Right. And this number happens to match exactly what he's seemed to have been committed in the White House demolition of the East Wing and the construction of his new Marie Antoinette Laudita Ballroom for the CEOs and the billionaire. So it may be that, you know, there will undoubtedly be major cost overruns with that project. Maybe he's just looking to take that money and put it

over there. God knows he doesn't want to reach into his own pocket, even though those pockets have been filled with more than $3 billion in crypto money since the beginning. of the year. But look, what can be done? Like everything else during this nightmarish Trump period, it's a case of first impression by which I mean it's never happened before. So we don't have a mechanism necessarily to stop this, which is why the first thing I want to do is to let the sunlight pour in so everybody can see exactly what's going on because they're definitely trying to finagle this behind closed doors. And I don't know who leaked it out. And who made it available, but whoever is out there, I hope, and I trust is trying to make known

everything that's going on with respect to this. But we have demanded, and I've sent a letter demanding from the Department of Justice, all documentation, all correspondence, all conversations have taken place between the White House and the President and the Department of Justice about this matter. And obviously, once Congress has put back in the hands of rational people, we've got to make it impossible for this ever to happen again by saying that if a president in the United States, if government officials have a federal tort claims action against the government, it's something that must go to court. So we actually have plaintiff, defendant, the offering of evidence, a neutral impartial magistrate,

and not the president's own employees making a decision about whether or not to give him $230 million or $2.3 billion or whatever he might ask for. Is there any discomfort from your Republican colleagues about this, or do they really want to be on record supporting the president of the United States, who may at some point be a Democrat in the future being able to just use the U.S. Treasury as his or her own personal bank account? Like, their silence here right now is going to establish that precedent, whether they just think that any president of any party is allowed to just pill for money from the Treasury.

I mean, it's a great question, of course, our Republican colleagues would have to be coming to work in order for us to answer that. None of them have been around for this, and they've not uttered or peep. And when, you know, Mike Johnson has been at a press conference, he continues to feign ignorance about the whole thing and say, oh, you're making a mountain out of a molehill. I mean, can you imagine if Joe Biden or Barack Obama had actually said, I'm going to shake down the federal government for $230 million? and I'm going to have my attorney generals people decide on it. Oh, and by the way, they happen to be my private lawyers, the way Todd Blanche worked for him before. I mean, it's just astounding.

It's astonishing. So when you say, well, aren't they afraid that, you know, turn about his fair play and a Democratic president's going to do that in the future, the reality is when they really think about it, they know that we're not going to nominate somebody who's going to come in like this compulsive, you know, kleptocrat and just start pilfering the government. And by the way, violating the Constitution, too, because this violates the domestic emoluments clause, which says that the president is confined to his salary in office, which cannot be

increased by $1 from a federal source. And it can't be reduced either. And they're just trampling that. So I think they think, well, the Democrats play by the rules, but we don't play by the rules. And we're going to support our dictator to take it as far as he can go. Right. Right. The reality is that that's the perfect point because they don't have to worry about, you know, the whole adage of what goes around, comes around because they know that Democrats are not going to nominate or elect somebody who would do this in the first place. And so they're covered in that respect. But you touched on the part.

And also, if they throw caution to the winds and they allow Trump everything he wants, they think the Democrats will never get back in. Right. They will gerrymandered themselves into power. They cement themselves into power with Citizens United and all the corporate dark money. And, you know, it'll be like the hunger games where, you know, the capital city will be this embedded financial military fortress against the peasants. Yeah. I did want to ask about something that you touched on, which is the fact that this is blatantly unconstitutional. I have Article 2, Section 1, Clause 7 in front of me that says the president shall receive services for, receive compensation for his services, but that he shall not receive within

that pay period any other emolument from the United States. And so this is clearly blatantly unconstitutional. I understand that the Constitution itself is not self-executing, but what is the recourse here? What's the remedy when you have such a blatant violation of the Constitution, such a blatant violation of the Emoluments Clause? Who has standing to bring this into court and to push back against this? Well, two different questions. One, who has standing? Well, the Roberts Court would pretty much say, no.

nobody's got standing to challenge Donald Trump over anything, right? So that's a serious problem. On the other hand, if we can take the Congress back, we can use the power of the purse in order to cut off equivalent amounts of money to the Department of Justice, demand restitution. We can impose all kinds of penalties and fines for them doing this, and we can make sure we get the people's money back. It's just a lawless situation. And by the way, we got to compare and contrast the domestic and the foreign emoluments clauses, right? The foreign emoluments clause says that a president or nobody in federal office shall receive a present in a monument, which means a payment, an office or a title of any kind, whatever, from a king, a prince, or a foreign state without the consent of Congress. Okay. So there's loophole that Congress could say, you know what, we approve your $400 million jet you're bringing back from Qatar. We will vote for that, okay, which we never would vote for it. Even the Republicans, I think, would be hard pressed to cast that vote. But Trump hasn't come to us. All right. But now compare that to the domestic amendments clause. There's no saving clause, which says it's all right if Congress votes for it. It just says categorically, as you quoted it, Brian, that the president can,

receive no other emoluments from the federal government or from a state. You can't use your presidential office to rip off the taxpayers. So can you just explain a little bit about why it's allowed to happen if it's if it is blatantly unconstitutional and what happens in the event that not just the emoluments clause is violated, but any clause of the constitution is violated. What remedy is there if somebody violates the constitution and, you know, we're in a situation like we're in right now? The Trump period is showing that. we have the constitution that we're willing to fight for. If you're not willing to fight for the foreign emoluments clause and say the president

must bring his $400 million, uh, theocrat, Katari jet to us for approval, he's just going to go ahead and do it. Right. If we don't somehow insist as a self-respecting Congress, Democrats and Republicans alike, that the president not be looting the public treasury for hundreds of millions of dollars, simply by telling his own underling to write him the check. Well, then he's going to get away with that violation, the Domestic Amendment's clause.

It's like what the whole country is agape just astounded to watch this week, which is the bulldozing the White House. Like, how can this happen? And if we don't have control of Congress and we can't stop him and we've never, you know, there is a criminal statute called destruction of government property. And that's the closest that I can find to saying he's destroying government property outside of the law. And he has no permission or authorization for it. But that would require the Department of Justice to bring a prosecution to go and try and stop it. And what are

the chances of Pam Bondi doing that? Not great. Not great. Well, I appreciate you bringing this to the forefront and for fighting for this. And I hope that the point is made to your Republican colleagues that, again, what goes around comes around, there will be a point when Democrats are back in office, despite Trump and Republicans' best efforts to entrench permanent rule for themselves. And if they really want to establish the precedent that any president of any party can just decide how big of a check he or she wants to write himself or herself, then that's what they're doing right now by virtue of having, failing to have enough of a spine to actually speak up. So again, appreciate your work on this issue. Congressman, thanks so much for the time.

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Prize picks, it's good to be right. I'm joined now by Congressman Jared Moskowitz. Thanks for much for joining me. Thanks for being with you, Brian. So we have some breaking news here as it relates to the Epstein files. I'm going to throw to a clip from your buddy James Comer. Let's be clear. Democrats don't care about transparency or accountability in this matter.

The evidence we've gathered does not implicate President Trump in any way. Public reporting, survivor testimony, and official documents show that Bill Clinton had far closer ties to Epstein. All right. So that was James Comer saying that nothing to see here as far as it relates to Donald Trump, that the real issue here is Bill Clinton. So first and foremost, can I have your reaction to that? Well, first of all, I want to, it's good to see confirmation.

of something I always knew about my friend James Comer is that he can read at a ninth grade level. But, I mean, here we go again. Comer coming out saying, I conducted an investigation, right? You know, this was the guy who was taking, you know, Russian disinformation and was using a Chinese spy during the fake foe Biden impeachment, which was so successful by Comer, right?

So, yeah, Comer's looked at it, by America, really? Here we go. Everyone can sleep. everyone can sleep at night. James Comer has looked at the Epstein files and he's concluded, there's no there there. Well, then guess what?

If there's no there there, guess what we can do, Brian? We can release it. We can release the files, James. Man, I love when you do these things to yourself. Ah, it's such a guy. First of all, I miss him. I haven't seen him in weeks.

And so, yeah, look, if Trump is not in it and it's just Bill Clinton, then release him. Isn't that even more incentive? I mean, if it's Bill Clinton, look, I'm, I certainly have no allegiance to Bill Clinton. I'm not here to run cover for Bill Clinton. So wait a second. All House Republicans and all Senate Republicans, the White House President Trump, right, right-wing

media are now just protecting Bill Clinton? Yeah. Well, can I have your reaction to the fact that that we are now in, you know, nearing week four of this shutdown and that Mike Johnson has put forward a myriad of different excuses as to why he won't swear in Adelaide O'Haw. They keep changing. They keep changing. Right.

I mean, first it was this idea that it was the Pelosi precedent. Then it was this idea that he's looking forward to doing it. He just has to wait for the house to come in session. We can't do it in pro forma sessions except for the fact that we already literally did it in pro forma sessions. So what do you make of the fact that that Mike Johnson seems to be drowning in his own pond of different excuses here? By way, you forget the first one he said, which is we'll swear her in when she wants to. Okay, that was his first thing.

And then she's like, I'm ready to be sworn in. And then he was like, wait. Yeah. And then he was like, well, there's this pro forma thing. We can't do it. And then Democrats are like, well, you just swore in two Republicans during pro forma. And he's like, uh, the Pelosi president. They didn't swear in a rep from Louisiana for, uh, for 20, 23 days. Okay, well, we're there, Mike. Right. And now there's this other thing. Well, you know, who we'll, we'll get to it, you know, when, when we're back. Everyone knows the reason they're not bringing us back, okay, is because they're trying to avoid. this Epstein vote. And they're trying to give Republicans to take their names off of that list, okay, off the petition that will force the vote. Again, you have to ask yourselves, why are they going through all of this? Okay. All of this for months now, okay, using political capital, it's significant political capital, just to stop a House vote. By the way, just because the House votes on it doesn't mean the files get released. You still need the Senate to do it.

right and yet they're putting all this political capital to stop it i don't know it's funny like speaker johnson's like the speaker of the house but we like don't have a house like we don't have we're not we're not even allowed to come back okay which is elongating the shutdown by the way usually in a shutdown you force members to stay which forces members to talk i know that's bad you know and and make a deal but now no they've sent us home we're home with our families and kids which i appreciate but now as a result there's no pressure to get a deal which is elongating the shutdown it's hurting Americans, it's hurting federal workers, it's going to hurt air travel as we get close to Thanksgiving. Brian, I think there's a good chance that we could be closed, really close

up to Thanksgiving. It appears there's no exit at the moment. Is this all not just an academic exercise considering even if the discharge petition works and the Senate votes in favor of it and the Epstein files are released? Isn't it Pam Bondi's DOJ who has full control of what's in the Epstein files right now? Hold on a second. I'll give you a step further than that. before we get to Pam Bonnie. Trump could just veto it. Yeah. Right?

So the House passes it. The Senate passes it and Trump does vetoes it. But if there's a veto-proof majority, like going 10 steps down the line. And first of all, the notion that there's going to be a veto-proof majority full of Republicans who are willing to buck this precedent, I know, is it feels otherworldly at this point. But let's just humor the notion. Do you have confidence that Pam Bondi's DOJ is going to give up any files that in any way, implicate this president, even if we do have a veto-proof majority of Republicans who are willing

to sign on to this thing. Well, first, we have to find the desk that the original list was on. Remember that? That's right. The list is on my desk. And then it's like, there's no list. It's like, well, what happened to the desk? Did she even have a desk? And so, who knows? I mean, now Trump is asking Pambani for $250 million. So we are way outside of not just norms. We're way outside of imagination, right? Like if I had said to you six months ago, okay, that Trump would be tearing down the east wing while simultaneously having foreign governments building a ballroom and corporations while simultaneously asking the DOJ for $250 million, you would have said, I mean, I think things are going to be crazy, Jared, but that's not going to happen in the first

nine months of the administration. Yeah. Can you talk about what your Republican colleagues are saying about all of this? I mean, like, I don't want to play the, what, What if Obama? What if Biden did this? But we all know what would happen if Joe Biden decided to dip his hands in the U.S. Treasury to serve as a piggy bank for himself. And yet, like, they're all publicly silent right now. So notwithstanding the fact that they are effectively validating the precedent where a president from either party can just use the U.S. Treasury as a piggy bank, notwithstanding that point, can you just give some insight into what these people are saying? Are they okay with it? Are they not okay with it? I mean, clearly, nobody's coming out and saying anything because, God forbid, you know, you say an ill word of dear leader, but anything that you're hearing from, is there ever going to be a step too far for these Republicans? So first of all, we don't have to go backwards. Let's go forward. If a Democrat got elected in 28 and tried to do half of the stuff Trump is doing, Republicans all of a sudden would find a conscience. Yeah. Right? Like, they're against spending until they're in charge.

Right. So, like, we don't have to go backwards, just go forwards that they would, they would be jumping out of their seat if a Democrat tried to do half of this stuff. I mean, they were getting upset that Hunter Biden was painting. And so forget all that, right? And so, no, is there a step too far? I mean, maybe when Trump starts, you know, floating again that he's going to run in 2028, maybe that's a step too far. There were a number of Republicans that talked about how that wasn't in the Constitution. For now, for now. But other than that, Brian, no, there's no step too far. He got a plane from Cutter. Okay, that I thought would have been like, oh, they're going to, that's a step too far. They're like, oh, he just, he just needs a spare mechanical device to use, you know,

like tearing down the east wing. It's like, well, he's a builder. You know, he likes to build. In your conversations with constituents, now that you've got plenty of time not to, not to be in the house because Mike Johnson won't let the house come back into session. Yeah, Congress is optional. That's great. Congress is optional. It's a, it's a, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, It's just a strong suggestion that you guys actually meet. That's what our founders envisioned as a, when they were like three separate branches of government, one of them will make part time. Yeah, that's right.

In your conversations with folks, is anything seem to be resonating, even with folks, and I'm especially concerned about like independence or Trump voters, but folks that you've spoken with, what seems to be the most resonant point? Because there's certainly a lot that's going on right now. we also may fall victim to the Steve Bannon model of flooding the zone with shit. And so instead of everything resonating, nothing resonates. But there is so much happening right now, especially on the corruption front, especially on the trade war and rising prices front, especially on the farmers getting fucked front.

And so is there something that's especially resonant in your conversations with people? So again, yes, I think the flooding in the zone thing is working for them, right? Because it keeps Democrats in a state of constant outrage. And I try not to do that, by the way, even though I. I could be in a state of constant outrage all day long. I kind of try to kind of pick the things. Oh, just come on in. The water's warm.

Yeah, I got to pick the things to be outraged about because the problem is if you're outraged about everything, then you're outraged about nothing, right? Then there's no different lines of outrage. There's no debris of outrage. You get outrage fatigue. Get outraged fatigue and everything's a 10, right? The sky is always falling. So some of the stuff I don't take the bait I don't go for, right?

tearing down the east wing of the White House because it provides a nice visual, different. But look, I think when you talk to voters, there are really two things that are resonating. One is the prices of everything is more expensive. Trump said he would lower the costs, and that hasn't happened. Tariffs have made everything more expensive.

It's a tax on the American people. And whether they figured out the policy of that, they see the numbers at the store. And they know they're paying more money. That's issue number one. Issue number two is health care. Health care is issue number two. They know health care is too expensive now,

and they know health care is about to go up in November. They know those two things. Those are the things that are breaking through. And yes, it's expensive to continue the subsidies. And so when we talk about, hey, it's $30 billion to continue to subsidies, people would say, look, America's $38 trillion in debt now. A lot of it added by Donald Trump, as we know. You know, we don't have the money.

And you would say, well, we would have had the money if we didn't just send $40 billion to Argentina because Trump's friends with the leader there. right? And so that stuff is breaking through when you can explain that to people. Like, well, we did have the money and then Trump sent it to Argentina. This is the state of things, Brian. Like we just had a deal in the Middle East, which I support. But think about this for a second. Trump was willing to sit down with Hamas and negotiate a solution, which I support. But he's not willing to sit down with Democrats and negotiate a solution on health care for the American people. That's how broken

things are in Washington, D.C. Do you anticipate that the Democrats are in any way going to capitulate on this issue. And by the way, I should just note for people watching right now, the whole shutdown is predicated on one major issue. That's Democrats are using what little leverage they have to make sure that ACA subsidies don't leave your health care, doubling, tripling, or quadrupling as we head into 2026. That's it. So is there any sense among the Democratic caucus that there will be capitulation on this issue? Well, look, I'm ready to open government. I've been ready to open government. I wanted to vote for a CR that extended the subsidies. So if they take the subsidies extension and put it in the CR government

will be reopened, I will vote for that. Okay. And so there's a very easy solution out of it. In fact, this is something that has been discussed for six months. Everybody knew these things were going to expire, but Congress can't work unless there's an emergency, right? We don't think, we don't, we don't do proactive. We do reactive. And now everyone's in their corners because, you know, tough to negotiate with each other when, you know, both sides say they're un-American, right? to make a deal. And so right now, no one's talking to each other. No one wants to be the first to take a step. But Republicans control the House. They control the Senate. They control the executive. They control the Supreme Court. They have all the everything. Okay. And so this is their

mess. They got to find a way out of it. They have our number. They know what we want to do. We want to lower the cost of health care for the American people. They know how it's going to cost. They've known for a while. They've decided to spend money on other. things, add trillions of dollars to the deficit instead. But there's a really easy way out of it. And so we got to come back to Washington if they want to solve the problem. That's how you know the speaker doesn't really want to solve the problem. They like the situation they're in. They don't want to bring us back. In fact, they don't even want their own members back because they don't want their own members to talk to the press about maybe we should solve the problem

on health care. And so, you know, your guess is good as mine, Brian, when we're going to come back, when we're going to solve this problem. It's hurting a lot of people. State of Virginia already declared a state of emergency to feed federal workers at food banks. Think of how disgusting that is, right? That federal workers miss one paycheck and they're at food banks. Those are those breadlines that Republicans kept warning about if Democrats got into power that Democrats being in power would usher in communism and food lines and bread lines. And now that's exactly what we have under Republican control. I got to ask, you know, the excuse that Mike Johnson's putting forward is all the Democrats have to do is sign on to a clean CR and then come to the

negotiating table. We hear you on the ACA stuff. We're going to, we're going to negotiate with you. But first, sign on to the CR, first surrender all your leverage and then just trust us, guys. We're definitely good for it. So would you trust the people who got us into this mess in the first place? Who were the ones to eliminate these subsidies in the first place? The party that eliminated a trillion dollars in health care funding and then gave 50 billion back for rural hospitals as some little like band-aid to plug the hole that they created. Are these the people that you're going to trust in terms of their promises that like, hey, all you got to do is give us a clean CR and then just come come negotiate with us? Well, first let me say, I don't think this is

about leverage, right? This is about a CR that they put on the floor that didn't have the extensions in it. It's a policy debate for me, right? It didn't have the policy in it that I wanted. So I voted no. But they're in charge. They could keep government open. The fact that they don't have the votes means maybe they should talk to us and figure out what is the policy that's missing from that CR. This is also the people that said they wouldn't do CRs. They hated CRs. They voted against all the Democratic CRs, okay, that they were going to fund the government with 12 appropriation bills. Still haven't done it. These are also the folks that closed the government on purpose and told the American people they were closing the government on purpose over Obamacare.

These are also the people who have said they're going to fix health insurance. Nine years, we're still in the concept of the plan phase. Yeah. Okay. And so for me, of course, there's no trust between the parties. They haven't talked to us in nine months since they took power. Remember,

trifecta, mandate, they don't need to talk to us. How's their mandate working out for them? Okay. And so they know what we want. It's not a leverage debate. It's a policy debate. We want a lower cost for the American people. Where's their plan, Brian? they don't like our idea? Fine. What's their idea? Why don't they take their idea and add it to

the CR for an up or down vote? Why don't they do that? You know why they're not? They got no ideas. Still in the drawing phase, still in the draft phase, version 12. They're not interested in lowering the cost of the American people. If they were, they would put forward their own plan to do it. Is there no acknowledgement by these Republicans that ultimately Democrats are trying to help Republicans help themselves. Like, the reality is, if these subsidies are not extended, 24 million Americans are either going to lose their health insurance or see their premiums double, triple, or quadruple. And it's going to be largely in states, by the way, that Trump won in 2024. Those are the states that have seen the biggest enrollment increases

in the ACA, including, you know, down south, we have states like Texas, states like West Virginia, states like Tennessee, states like Florida. And so, and so is there no acknowledgement by these Republicans about the electoral implications of not allowing the Democrats to help the Republicans? Oh, no, no. There are many members that are concerned about those notices that go out on November 1st. In fact, I think if you put the extension subsidies on the floor, it'll pass. It'll pass. It'll be a bipartisan majority. That's why the speaker's not. So what are we doing here? Is it just Mike Johnson? But that's why the speaker's not putting it on the floor. He doesn't want it to pass. Okay, because if he did, it would pass. So he doesn't want it. And that's, but why not? Why not? Why not? Why

What does Mike Johnson have to get out of this? I don't know. You're asking me to figure out what Mike Johnson's doing. I mean, is it just that, like, Trump planted his flag here? And so, and so Mike Johnson's job is just to massage Trump's ego? Hold on. Let me break down House and Senate's strategy. Let me break down Speaker Johnson and Leader Thune's strategy.

When Trump says jump, we ask how high. That's it. It's super simple. If Trump tomorrow came out and said, extend the subsidies. There'd be a vote in the House, they'd be vote in the Senate, subsidies extended. We don't have to guess what Johnson and Thune are thinking. They're just saying to themselves, whatever Trump says. Right now, Trump's not engaged in the shutdown.

Okay. And so, you know, that's why we're kind of listless. We don't really know where we're going. You know, they've been threatening to cut Democratic programs as kind of a threat. It's not working because we're watching them tear down the east wing of the White House. We're a little past cutting programs. Yeah. And so that's why this is going on.

But look, as we get closer Thanksgiving and the FAA isn't working, which they're in charge of, and TSA isn't working, which they're in charge of, okay? I mean, Americans are going to continue to ask their questions about why won't Republicans make a deal on health care? Why won't they propose something on health care? Where is their proposal? I mean, Johnson hasn't even put a single idea on the floor to make us vote on it. Make me vote on it, Mr. Speaker. Make me vote on your plan on lowering health care.

Couldn't even figure that out. You want to know why? Trump hasn't sent him a plan. Johnson can't come up with his own plan. Last question here. Should members of Congress get paid during shutdowns? The answer is no. Now, constitutionally, we have to get paid.

I have sent a letter to administration, and they are withholding my pay because people in my office are not getting paid. So if they're not getting paid, I'm not getting paid. If the American worker is not getting paid for the federal government, I'm not getting paid. If our military is not getting paid, I'm not getting paid. But to be quite honest, the pay thing isn't going to force us to have a deal.

We got to be in Washington. If the American people are captive to this broken system, then so should Congress. Congress should be captive as well. If the federal worker, the military, TSA, FBI, if they have to work without a pay, I should have to work too. Doing work in the district is work. But I should be in Washington. doing real work, trying to solve this problem rather than being home. But this is all by design to make sure we don't have the Epstein vote and to extend the shutdown, quite frankly.

We'll leave it there. Congressman, appreciate your time. Thank you. No lie is brought to you by Uplift Desk. Now, I know that I deal with the same issue as everybody else, which is I spend most of the day completely static sitting down in my desk. It affects my posture. It affects my mood. The whole thing. Which is why Uplift Desk has become so helpful for me. The new Uplift V3 standing desk transforms your desk into a productivity engine. Why sit still when you can stand out? The new Uplift V3 standing desk helps you move more and get more done.

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But today we have a brand new one that serves into the news. I want to throw to a clip right now. Breaking news, President Trump just pardoned one of the most powerful people in the crypto world. Binance founder, Chang Pen Zhao, who pleased. guilty to money laundering in 2023, he was sentenced to four months in prison after reaching a deal with the Justice Department. And it comes after a months-long lobbying campaign from Binance to try and secure this

pardon for Jeff. All right, Tommy, your reaction to just the latest iteration of what has been just egregious nonstop corruption at the hands of this White House? Yeah, so Trump pardoned the CEO of a company that was fined $3.4 billion by the the Treasury Department. The Treasury Department said that Binance willfully fail to report financial transactions with al-Qaeda, ISIS, and Hamas. The hat trick. Seems bad. So why you ask, would Trump pardon this guy? Why would he want to be seen as in bed with Binance? Well, because essentially, they bribed him. Finance helped facilitate this $2 billion investment into

Trump's crypto company that will earn the Trump family about $80 million a year. So that was the price of this bribe. you know we have seen so many instances of this um do you think people care like when when they watch all of this stuff happen when it just kind of layers one on top of the next on top of the next on top of the next do you think it breaks through that it's having some impact on folks i think the biggest challenge we have is what you just said which is that so many of these incidents don't break through by design like this is the ban on model of flooding the zone with shit they flood the zone they do stuff all the time also i think trump benefits from just the cynicism that he pumps

into the electorate all day long, right? Like, a lot of people are like, you know what? They're all corrupt. All politicians are bad. They all do this thing. Though, I do think when these little details will break through to people, like the fact that this company helped facilitate a $2 billion purchase of a Trump crypto asset called a stable coin out of nowhere, like making it one of the biggest stable coins in the

world, it makes no sense. And then months later, this guy gets a pardon. It's like it could not be more blatant and brazen the corruption. I think the problem is that it is a little like. difficult to be explaining all of that. And unless you're a regular news consumer anyway, like if you're a regular news consumer and this story, this like niche story is breaking through,

you probably already have some political thoughts anyway. You probably already lie somewhere on the political spectrum and it's going to either impact you greatly, as does everything else, or it's going to have no impact on you because you've decided that Trump is infallible. I guess our job right here is to make sure that all of these individual instances continue to break through

because, you know, they're all a small part of a larger hole, which is that Donald Trump swept into office amid these promises of law and order and stemming the corruption happening at the hands of the Biden crime family. And yet now we're seeing daily instances of this administration just engaging in out and out corruption. I mean, taking a $400 million jet from Qatar and then retrofitting it to the tune of a billion dollars on the backs of American taxpayers. And then keeping it. And then keeping it. Having Christy Noam take 170. $23 million with a two golf stream jets.

She needs those. She needs a flying comfort. In fairness to Christenom, she does need to fly in comfort. That cosplay doesn't come at a low cost. Yeah, you get to party city all over Spirit Halloween all over the club. So like there are just instance after instance after instance. We've seen these crypto dinners. We've seen Trump double his net worth.

We've seen, you know, of course, the ballroom, which we'll talk about in a moment. But I think that, you know, even though this may be a niche story, it is a small part of a much more obvious larger hole, which is that this administration proudly and overtly traffics and corruptions so that they can enrich themselves. Yeah. And look, remember the most depressing part about this is the Supreme Court said it's totally fine. He's immune from any prosecution for anything to do with the pardon power. So that sucks. But I do think it's on us to tie this into a bigger political story, which is that Donald Trump came into office and now he's looking out for his billionaire friends and people that give him money and you're getting screwed. The government is closed. What is he

doing? He's pardoning a crypto billionaire who is funneling money into his pocket. He's not leading negotiations to reopen the government. He's not leading negotiations to make sure that your healthcare premiums don't double. He's not doing anything to deal with inflation. He's just doing a stupid tariff bullshit. So like that's the story that Democrats need to tell. It's not any one thing. It's like making it a broader narrative. I think the most overt example is Donald Trump suing the federal government, suing himself basically so that he can give himself $230 million. He deserves that money. As damages, as punitive damages, compensation for the fact that he was investigated and prosecuted by the federal government, where, by the way, all of it was completely well-founded, and they found evidence of the exact thing that they were investigating and prosecuting him for.

You worked in the Obama administration, an administration rife with scandals like what color suit President Obama was wearing. That was a bad, bad day. And the kind of... Seven Allman scandal in that one? I actually don't remember that one. I was going to say the mustard. Oh, there was the mustard. That was bad.

Yeah, great. Gray poo. Was it great? Great Poupon. Yeah. Way too highbrow. He hates ketchup and he really scolds people that eat ketchup. Yeah.

Obama does. Well, I'm just curious. When you see a scandal like this one where Trump is just deciding to to dip his fingers into the U.S. Treasury and pay himself $230 million this time. And I mean, recognizing the fact that the only people standing in the way, of that payment going through or not are Todd Blanche, his own personal criminal defense attorney and Pam Bondi, handpicked because when she was Florida Attorney General, she was deciding whether or not to investigate Trump University opted not to after her PAC received a $25,000 payment

from Donald Trump. So those are the two people in charge of deciding whether or not Donald Trump gets this payment. I'm curious from your vantage, having worked in the Obama White House, what it would have been like had Obama decided to just pay. himself from the U.S. Treasury. I mean, what I think when I see these stories is, man, what a missed opportunity. You know what I mean? There's so many secrets I could have sold.

There's so much access we could have peddled. You know, like the hosts of Fox News shows would have been like in front of the White House lighting themselves on fire. If they said it happened, it would be a scandal until the end of time. Like this is Brian where I think the Democrats were really hurt by not controlling the media. You know, like Fox News, all these right wing outlets, conservative radio. all of these, this entirely new press corps that the Pentagon is apparently handpicked since they kicked all the real reporters out. Like those guys are you suggesting that Tim Poole and Alex Jones and info wars cover in the Pentagon is not going to be a legitimate press corps for the Pentagon?

It is crazy. And it just shows the power of propaganda because Fox News isn't going to cover this pardon today. They're not going to cover the lawsuit. Donald Trump is waging against his own country. But if a Democrat did it, they would cover nonstop. They would have roadblocked. specials about all the corruption happening and you know here we are on the pentagon thing just as a quick aside what does that do to the u.s.'s foreign policy if there is basically a press corps that that no longer operates as news but just straight up operates as propaganda tim pool posted something where he basically said you know if there's some story to look into will of course look into it and defer to our to our viewers who want this you know kind of investigative journalism

but we don't do investigative journalism so chances are it's just going to be that we regurgitate whatever the White House feeds us. Yeah, he was like, I just want the press releases. I basically don't care. I mean, look, the Pentagon Press Corps, the resident Pentagon Press Corps, the people who have a lot of them have worked there for decades. And the reason everyone wants a strong Pentagon Press Corps is because the Pentagon budget is nearly a trillion dollars. They decide whether we go to war. They can lie about intelligence, as we saw in Iraq. We are bombing boats off the coast of Venezuela, and there's real concern that we might be heading headlong into a regime change war with Venezuela, you want a strong Pentagon press corps in that building

asking tough questions, like ferreting out corruption, figuring out what the hell is going on. And for fucking this goofy little douche with a beanie Tim Poole to suggest that like he's just going to sit there and be this pliant regurgitator of press releases. It's terrible. It's terrible for MAGA, by the way. And that's what I want to dig into because, you know, if you're blocking access from all of these outlets. Usually the Trump administration would be more deferential to figuring out how to get attention. Is this not counterintuitive in terms of the fact that they're blacking out all of

these people who truly do? I mean, like, sure, Tim Poole and Alex Jones will have, you know, some contingent of an audience, but there is a massive audience out there who still consumes, you know, legacy media as a whole. As a whole, yeah. And so how, like, how does that not conflict with their strategy of just wanting attention from everybody? Yeah. Look, I really do think. this makes Pete Heggseth look incredibly weak. You know, like, I don't think he's done a single briefing or maybe one briefing for the press score. Like his spokesman doesn't brief the press.

They look scared. They look like they are worried about too much scrutiny. They look like they're not doing things that are above board. So I do think they will have a harder time getting their message out. The Pentagon Press Corps will not stop reporting on the things they are doing because that is their job. They just won't be able to do it from the Pentagon. And it's also not clear whether these reporters who had their, their bad

is stripped will be able to like travel with Hegsef when he goes on trips or access other military facilities and other parts of the world. I mean, it's, it could be, it could make it incredibly difficult for these people to do their jobs. Is there a world where this backfires because now you've created such a hostile, acrimonious relationship with the people who are covering you? Yeah. And it creates a bigger incentive structure for those people to say, hey, clearly you've got something to hide. Maybe I should dig harder and deeper. Yeah, I think so. I mean, look, these folks are, these are dogged reporters. They're going to do their jobs no matter what. Hopefully, this incentivizes them to go even harder at the Trump administration. But also, it may

incentivize people inside the Pentagon who are like career military to start speaking out more because they know this is wrong. And a lot of them will be greatly bothered by HECSF just destroying their relationship with the press and like traditional role of the media and the transparency that is expected of the Pentagon. That was the other part that I wanted to talk about is the fact that people within the Pentagon who clearly know that this is wrong, is there more incentive for them then to say, okay, if there's not going to be some traditional relationship between the press and the Pentagon, I'll create that.

I have an obligation, a duty to create that myself. And so there's, you know, more likelihood that some information will be leaked because they know that, okay, these reporters are put in a tough spot. They're not going to get the same access that they were going to get before. And so maybe I meet them a little bit. further halfway than we would then we would have met otherwise it's very possible i certainly hope so i mean i think that look the people who signed up for a career in the military did so like swearing an oath to the constitution they are not they don't want a king um and so yeah

hopefully they will act accordingly i will say though it comes with great risk because this is a super paranoid uh department of defense or department of war they're super paranoid they're constantly trying to ferret out leaks. They're constantly, you know, pointing the finger and firing people based on suspected leaking without even having evidence, even though, by the way, Pete Heggseth's like putting classified information to signal chats that included Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor of the Atlantic, like one of the dumbest things I've ever heard someone do. But, you know, if you get busted doing this stuff, you could get fired, you could go to jail. So, you know, there's a lot of risk here. And finally, on this, on this national security front, can you talk

about the legality or illegality of Trump's decision to just kind of, by fiat, blow all these ships up that are off the coast of Colombia or Venezuela? There's no legal authorization. There is none. There has to be some sort of authorization by Congress. And the Trump administration is just asserting that the people in these boats are part of cartels or narco-terrorists, I think, is what they're being called, and just blowing them up. And in the aftermath of these strikes, I think there have been six or seven of them so far, the president of Columbia was like, hey, there was a Colombian citizen on one of those boats. I'm told that he is just a fisherman, that his boat was in distress, that he put out

the distress signal, and he was murdered anyway. And so, look, I think that what is happening is extrajudicial murder, like period paragraph. Like, when you, if you see someone smuggling drugs in open water, the thing you should do is interdict that boat, board it, arrest them, and then prosecute them. The idea that you can just murder someone for suspected drug trafficking is absolutely insane. If Donald Trump leaves office and we have a new administration, like people should go to jail for what is happening right now. And apparently it's all part of a strategy being executed by Marco Rubio to topple the current

regime in Venezuela to get rid of Maduro. So this is a regime change operation, the kind of thing that Donald Trump told us Republicans shouldn't have been doing for decades and was stupid and like that MAGA was against. Yeah. And yet this is a recurring theme where Trump runs on on some idea that he's not going to do something that happened in the past. He's going to be the law and order president. He's going to restore fiscal responsibility. All of it just complete bullshit. Just a pretext to be able to come into office and not just continue those policies, but continue them to the nth degree. With that said, for those who are watching right now, please help support independent. progressive media. If you're not yet subscribed to Potta of America's YouTube channel, I'm going to put that link right

here on the screen and also in the post description of this video help build up this ecosystem and get all of this kind of content into the algorithm. Tommy. Gotta be Tim Pool. Gotta be Tim Pool. Gotta be Tim Pool. That's so sad that we're losing. It is really sad. That hurts my heart. We'll leave it there. Tommy, thanks for the time. Thanks, buddy.

I'm joined now by the host of CNN's brand new show. The Story is with Alex Michelson. Alex, thanks so much for joining me. Thank you so much. This is my first interview with anybody after that announcement of the name. So it's weird to hear it out loud. Well, look, we had spoken quite a bit over the last few years while you were at Fox LA. So a big congrats first and foremost on the move over to CNN prime time here. So yeah, congratulations. Thank you very much. Of course, the highlight of my time on the issue is our

previous show was doing the first TV interview with Brian Tyler Cohen. I claim all responsibility for your success. And so the best part of the launch week of our new show, The Story is, is going to be you, Brian, joining us in studio, checking out the new digs. And so for folks on the West Coast, that'll be on Tuesday night from 9 to 11 p.m., check out BTC on The Story is. Awesome. Well, looking forward to it. In the meantime, as always, you are the guy when it comes to California. I want to talk about Gavin Newsom for a moment. I know that your first interview on the story is is going to be with Governor Newsom here in California. We have seen him take a much more forward-leaning approach as it relates to Trump, whether he's mocking him on Twitter,

or whether he's redrawing the maps here in California to counteract what Trump is trying to do across the country. To what extent do you think that that's having an impact on other Democrats across the country? And do you think we're going to see other Democrats trying to replicate the strategy taken by Newsom? Well, I mean, most politicians like success. They're looking at poll numbers. They're looking at fundraising numbers. And in both fronts, Gavin Newsom is way up since he has started to be more aggressive.

He seems to be taking a lesson, frankly, from you, Brian, which is that the online left, especially, wants a fighter and is sick and tired of the feeling of being run. run over by the Trump administration. If Gavin Newsom is able to win with Prop 50 on November 4th, it will be one of the first times that there is a real significant W on the board for the Democrats during this Trump administration, something that significantly will change the ability for Democrats to obtain power in 2026. And that hasn't really happened.

And so you are seeing a lot of folks, especially the Democratic base that would vote in a primary in 2028, gravitate towards Gavin Newsom and his approach in a very significant way in a pretty short amount of time. And so the other politicians are seeing that and they might think, hmm, I want that too. And they start heading towards that direction. That being said, it's tough because Democrats and Republicans, often play by different rules. That's the whole point of what Gavin Newsom is talking about here. So in a lot of Democratic states, like California,

you have this independent redistricting commission, which is why Gavin Newsom has to go to voters to try to change it, whereas in a state like Texas, Greg Abbott, the Republican governor there, doesn't. And the legislature that can do this without going to the voters. So even in some of these Democratic states, there are steps that make it hard to gerrymander harder than in many of the Republican states.

Well, speaking of those Republican states, you know, we did view California as a way to neutralize what's happening in Texas, but then we had Missouri come forward and redraw their maps. We had North Carolina come forward and redraw their maps. We know the same thing is going to happen in Indiana and Florida and Ohio and Kansas. And yet we've had no other movement thus far,

although there have been rumblings, but we've had no other concrete action taken by any other Democratic states. And so to what extent do you think that the possibility of a win on Prop 50 is going to kind of serve as a kick in the ass for other governors, other state legislatures to do what would have been successful in California. I mean, that's certainly what Newsom hopes. He is publicly intentionally trying to not advocate for other governors to do this in order for them to kind of get there on their own.

But that is what certainly he's hoping for. But, you know, we are also seeing a little bit of pushback. You mentioned Indiana. it's significant that Indiana's Republican leaders chose not to gerrymander. This is something I talked about with Pete Buttigieg during an interview this week. Of course, he famously spent so much time in Indiana

working behind the scenes on that. He pointed to the fact that this was a rare example of Republicans standing up to Trump and telling him no. And he says that that is an example that everybody around the country can look to as an example that not every Republican is going to follow his every word.

And there is some value in fighting back, despite the fact that Donald Trump and J.D. Vance were pressuring a lot of the Republican leaders there. At the moment, at least, they're not going forward with a gerrymandering process. To what extent do you think that we are going to see more or less of that? Is that just such an isolated incident that we're seeing at least momentary pushback in Indiana? Because remember, they still can come forward. The governor of Indiana, Governor Braun had come and said that they still intend on making this happen, even if it hasn't happen thus far. So it could go either way. But to what extent do you think that no kings, for example, where we have seven million people take to the streets, does that

chip away at the perceived mandate that Trump has, the perceived total control that Trump has and that have kind of a cascade effect where maybe other Republicans don't view him as all powerful or view popular pressure as a little bit more significant than simply Trump's edicts being handed down. I mean, if you actually look at what's happening, it seems like there's an incentive structure to do anything but compromise. Both parties' base want to give a middle finger to the other. I mean, Donald Trump's response to no kings was to put up on an official channel, an AI-generated image of him wearing a crown, getting into a fighter jet, and dumping poop on the head of Democratic activists. So that wasn't exactly, let's all get together. You didn't

get the impression from that that let's find ways to compromise. They think that it's a positive. The president thinks that giving a middle finger, literally dumping shit on their head, is such a good political move that he's highlighting that as a strategy. So he thinks it's a win for him. Democrats think that it's a win for them. But what you don't see is a lot of incentive on either side to get together and compromise. Why is the government? government shut down. Because right now, Democratic poll numbers are going up because their base is finally happy that they feel like they're fighting, whereas earlier in the year they felt like they capitulated to Republicans. Meanwhile, a lot of the Republican base doesn't necessarily want to see a

compromise. When they start getting some of those letters with their health care premiums going up, could that change in a matter of weeks? It certainly could. But right now, the media ecosystems are so separate that there is not a lot of incentive to bring people together. Well, on that point of, let's focus on the party in power right now, which is the Republicans, on this idea of barreling ahead with an agenda that really does only, that's really only intended to appeal to like the 30 percent of the country, that's the diehard base, when you see them doing something like keeping the government shut down because they don't want to give an inch on health care, which, by the way, is going to impact Republican

voters and Republican states, them tearing down the east wing so that Trump can build his ballroom. Trump moving forward and saying that he wants to reimburse himself and get damages for his rightful prosecutions to the tune of $230 million plucked out of the U.S. Treasury, when he's buying Christine Ome two Gulfstream jets that cost $172 million, when he's doing all of this and taking these actions that are really intended to just appeal to this very small faction of his base, what do you think about the impact that that's going to have on the broader electorate for whom these actions aren't exactly, uh, anything resembling popular. Yeah. And so that's the, the challenge for the Democratic Party is how do you message that?

How do you fight back, right? And it's interesting. A couple of our, our first guests on the story is our new show are Gavin Newsom and Pete Buttigieg. And I'm speaking with both of them. And both of them have very different approaches on this. This is something I talked about with Pete Buttigieg, because Gavin Newsom has taken the argument to do memes and trolling and go as Trumpy as you can go and sort of fighting back, give him his own medicine, which actually seems to be appealing to a lot of people in the base. Pete Buttigieg is not doing that. He believes in his heart that that sort of thing is exhausting to people and that people want a real focus on, let's talk about the health care premiums themselves. People don't want memes. People don't want to be distracted. Let's get to the

issues that people care about. And so there's a riff in terms of how to not only what you should do to fight, whereas somebody like Zoran Mondami is on a different place than somebody like Pete Buttigieg, but also how do you fight? What's the approach? And I know you've felt very strongly that you got to basically punch somebody in the face, right? Because you feel like the base, that's what they want. But I think that's going to be an interesting messaging thing in terms of making sure that people actually understand who is responsible for a lot of this and where it's coming from. What do you think the right approach is going to be? I mean, you, you, you said it yourself, like, these guys do have polar opposite approaches. You have, like, the very buttoned up,

you know, Pete Buttigieg, he's, he's a really articulate communicator. You have Gavin Newsom, who's taking the complete opposite approach, which is just like no holds, barred, gloves off, punch him in the face. And so, and so how are you thinking about both of these as we head toward 2026, given the moment that we're in right now? Well, look, I think there's no question if you just look at the data, the Democratic base right now prefers the approach of Gavin Newsom. That is breaking through with the Democratic base. The question is, is he peaking too early?

And does that get exhausting? Does some of the tricks, the memes, does that act sort of get old when you're talking about a primary that would be happening? in 2028 and, you know, the end of 2027. Yeah. So that's the question. We go through ups and downs, and at some point it might feel like, okay, enough of the games. I'm tired of that.

I need a serious leader. We want somebody who's kept their head down. And it's interesting how all the different 2028 candidates are handling this. Somebody like Josh Shapiro, you don't see him very much, right? He's not really engaging in these. It seems like his approach is to put your head down. and wait for the moment later. And maybe that'll work.

I mean, when you think about some of the previous primary debates, like on the Republican side, especially, you know, even pre-Trump, there would be like a flavor of the week. Every week, like one candidate would go up when you have a big field. And then the question is who would peak at the right time? Even Joe Biden, when he got the nomination in 2020, he was not peaking until the very right moment. And other people had their moments.

So right now, it's nuisance. moment. Will that sustain for two years? Who knows? So you have the blessing or the curse. I'll let you be the decider of which one that is, of being able to speak to people not just on the left, but on the right. When you were at Fox, L.A., you had very often had debate shows where you had folks on the left and right. In talking about kind of the topic that we've been discussing about, which is this idea of a general sense of corruption, of Trump using his power, not to help those farmers, not to help Americans who are going to lose their health care, not to lower costs for Americans who he promised he would lower cost for,

but instead to really focus on himself, to build this ballroom for himself, to double his net worth, to host these crypto dinners, to buy Gulfstream jets, to give himself a Qatari jet worth $400 million that taxpayers are going to pay a billion dollars to retrofit. So on example after example after example, even though he presented himself, campaigned as some populist, He is governing as the biggest kleptocrat in the biggest gilded age that we've had in the history of this country. And so given what we're seeing right now, how have folks who you've spoken to, not just on the left, but on the right, kind of defended or perceived what he's doing right now?

So that's what you're focused on. They're focused on other things. I'll bet they are. Focus. They see somebody who has finally dealt with a border. that they thought was completely overrun and made real changes there. And that was something he talked about for years and they feel like that's a promise that he was delivered on. They, you know, maybe don't like the extent of it, but they like the idea that some people that are in this country illegally should be kicked out of this country.

They like what he did in terms of tax cuts is something that drives a lot of the Republican Party base. They like what he's doing on some of the cultural issues in terms of highlighting the right issues. They like what some of what he's doing with the media in terms of giving a middle finger to the media. I mean, Donald Trump understands his base and he is very, very, very good at identifying the problems that they care about. And he is good at doing so many things and talking so much and being so out front and promising so many things that it feels like he's active and in charge. I know a lot of the people that listen to you and watch you disagree with that and will not like hearing that, but to his people, a part of his media strategy of just blitzing everybody with constant news and constant everything and being on camera all the time, it feels to especially his people like he's sort of omnipresent and on it, whereas they felt like somebody like Joe Biden, who they barely ever saw and didn't really interact with people, they felt like he was asleep at the end. the wheel. Yes, a lot of what you said is not something that a lot of them, the, I mean, there's, there's MAGA, like, that view him, it almost just like a religious figure that, that's, that's one

part of it. There's also the more sort of moderate, you know, Republican who's a little bit more in the middle, but voted for him, maybe sort of reluctantly. And a lot of them see him as an asshole. They don't really like him. They kind of laugh at a lot of that stuff, but they feel like he's getting them some results on some of the stuff they care about. And by and large, they feel like the Democratic Party is so far to the left, so out of touch with reality, so focused on identity politics and the wrong cultural issues that they feel like it's still better to go with Trump. So Trump understands his base. But if you look at recent polling, I think Quinnipiac had him at his lowest point ever, including from his first term. He's at negative 19 net approval.

or disapproval. How's the approval of the Democratic Party? Correct. Yeah. But that not that notwithstanding, the point that's important though. It is, it is. But the point I'm trying to make here is that, is that clearly with numbers continuing to sink, it's not like there are, there are plenty of people independence and even Republicans who are souring on him. Yes, he will always have, you know, the evangelicals, right? And I mean that in the sense of like the Trump evangelists. And, and that's fine. And he knows how to appeal to them. But he's continuing to chip away. at support from the broader electorate, and that's presumably support that Republicans and he will need. And so, so, you know, you can say that, okay, Trump is continuing just to focus on

immigration and his core issues, but the reality is that the issues that the vast majority of the country are speaking about, he's getting less and less popular, and they're paying attention to those issues. So he can focus on immigration until he's blue in the face, and that's going to work with the faction of his base that will never leave him. But he is losing support by the day and the numbers just bear that out yeah but he doesn't have to run again i mean he may we all know that whole thing right of some weird thing where he's running for vice president or they just steve bannon just this week once again saying that Donald trump is going to be in there but under under the most likely scenario is that he doesn't have to run again that in some ways doesn't matter and i don't

think he's really focused on the long-term strategy of the republican party i think he's focused on you know the immediate issue at hand um but But all that being said, the Democratic Party and a lot of those polls in some ways is doing worse. So, you know, that's the argument. You just asked me about like the Pete approach versus the Gavin approach, right? And which one works? And in some ways, the sort of Pete, Josh Shapiro, Andy Bashir argument of, let's be a little bit more centrist, moderate, middle of the country kind of democratic approach is they're banking that those people are going to tire of him. They're going to be looking for some alternative,

but they're not going to be open to, you know, what some may perceive as California crazy or AOC, you know, Democratic socialism or some of these extremes, that there could be some sort of place in the middle for a center-right, center-left coalition that's exhausted of Trump and wants to get back to some of these issues but doesn't want to be alienated by somebody they feel is resentful of them.

and that is where they potentially see this as a long-term strategy. We'll see. The middle has not always been, and oftentimes in American politics, the middle is what would win a general election, but our entire universe, our media environment, the way we consume information, all that has changed so much. We'll see if that's still true going forward. Let me play devil's advocate just on that point.

We had Trump 1.0. The middle won out in 2020, and Joe Biden was president, And what we were left with was the most extreme Republican Party, the most extreme presidency in Donald Trump 2.0, but it came in the vacuum that was created from a very, you know, centrist candidate and centrist presidency from 2020 to 2024. Do you think that that's going to have some impact on the attractiveness of an Andy Bashir or a Pete Buttigieg as we head into 2028, recognizing that, you know, this radical centrism. you know, already happened once and kind of landed us in a position that we're in today. You know, well, we could relitigate the Biden administration, but there, there are some people who feel like Joe Biden actually wasn't that centrist, that he ran to be a centrist, that they wanted him to be a centrist, they wanted him to be this bridge to the next generation, to pass

to younger people. And he went in there and tried to be FDR, that he tried to do very big, very progressive things. Joe Manchin, Kristen Sinema, sort of stopping him from doing some of the most progressive things. And he did some deals with Republicans, many of whom aren't even in the Senate anymore because of dealmaking with Democrats has not been good politics for them, but that he wasn't necessarily as much of a centrist candidate. And because of his age and his inability to communicate to people, he didn't actually sell his centrist message because he didn't get out there and talk about those things. So I don't know if Joe Biden is the perfect case study in this. You know, you look at somebody totally different era, a totally different media era,

somebody like Bill Clinton, who was more centrist, especially in his second term, was very popular. And then obviously he got in his own trouble, which ended up hurting Al Gore and all of that kind of stuff. You know, he was one of the more popular figures of our lifetime when he was in there and when he was actually governing in the center. Let me ask one last question on this corruption front because I know that we kind of sidestepped it in that you said that Republicans just aren't talking about it because there are issues that they would rather talk about it that they would rather talk about when confronting this issue head on though and the reality is that you know as as as much as the news cycle moves back and forth and lands on issues that

Democrats don't want to talk about and then lands on issues that Republicans don't want to talk about the main issue right now the main story right now is the fact that Trump is in it Trump is engaged in quite a bit of corruption is building this ballroom is trying to pay himself a quarter of a billion dollars out of the U.S. Treasury because he thinks he's owed some damages from his rightful prosecutions. And so, you know, in taking those issues head on, where does that, where does that land a lot of these Republicans, whether it's folks that you've spoken with in the lead up to your show or just, you know, what you've seen from the news cycles otherwise in terms of them having to defend, you know, this pretty indefensible stuff.

Yeah, it's a tough, it's a tough put to try to defend some of that stuff. And they usually try to, you know, switch to, well, Obama did this or this, what about, you know, and it's a tough place. I think that the messaging opportunity and challenge for the Democrats is how do you make that matter? And I think a message that, frankly, was effective was one that I, Pete Buttigieg, who I interviewed this week had, which was, he says, look, I don't care about. the East Wing construction. But what I care about is the fact that Trump cares about it. And he cares about it at a moment when people in the middle of the country

are getting opening letters that say that their health premiums are about to skyrocket and they don't know how to make ends meet. And instead of being focused on those people, the president is being focused on his rich friends and building a gilded ballroom for them. So why, when that is happening to the middle of the country, is he focused on this construction.

And so that to me is a message that could potentially break through because the average person is probably maybe not even knowing that there is construction in the East Wing. But they are looking at their health insurance and think, oh my God, can I even afford this? And if I don't afford this,

if I get hit by a car, am I going to be, you know, catastrophic, and I'm lucky enough to survive, am I now going to be dead because I can't pay for anything? I mean, so those are the real issues. And so I think it's great. And we all live in this online universe and clicks and all the rest of that.

But in terms of the stuff that really breaks through to people is often those issues. And can the Democrats effectively connect this focus on taking care of your friends, which clearly Donald Trump is doing and pushing the limits of what's ever been acceptable? and how does that impact and how is that a distraction from what he promised, which was to make life more affordable for the average American. Yeah. And frankly, I think it's a pretty clear story to tell at the same time that you have these letters going out showing that health care premiums are going to double, triple or quadruple, at the same time that you know that you have these, you know, tens of,

and at the same time that you have 17 million Medicaid recipients recognizing that they're going to lose their access to health care, that we have food stamp recipients that are going to lose their access to food stamps. At the same time, all of this is happening. Farmers losing their crops, you have Donald Trump. Really, I mean, it's almost like a caricature of itself that he's building himself a ballroom that went from $100 million to $200 billion to $350 million to $300 to $350 million at the same time that he's trying to pay himself out from the U.S. Treasury.

So I think it is a pretty clear story to tell for those who are looking to weave that together. With that said, Alex, as we had mentioned, you have your. new show on CNN. The story is. What are you hoping to do with this show? Well, I think we're hoping to do a few different things, one of which you mentioned, which is to bring different perspectives together to have a fun, civil debate, so you can hear multiple perspectives. And you're going to be a part of that. When you're on, on Tuesday night, you're going to be debating Jessica Milan Patterson, who was the former chair of the California Republican Party, who is the current chair of the No on 50, campaign running against Prop 50.

You're one of the leading advocates for Prop 50 to a big fundraiser with Governor Newsom. This is one of an issue you've been talking to me about privately for years. So it'll be interesting to have that discussion where people can hear both of you and hopefully not screaming at each other in a mean way, but actually listen to the arguments

and then people can make up their minds for themselves. We want to create the most fun place in cable news. So much of cable news is not joyful. And obviously a lot of these issues are important and serious, and when we're doing that, we will be serious and appropriate. But there's also a lot of other stuff going on in the world that aren't just horrible political debates. We're going to lean into pop culture and sports and tech and a lot of the things, especially on the West Coast that we drive the global conversation on. This is going to be CNN's first West Coast-based show in

many, many years. It will be the only live show on at that time. Our competitors are in reruns. We will be live when news is breaking, we will always be on. And so I think it's going to be a really cool chance to meet and profile and do deep dives. We have two hours, so we have a chance to not just do the seven second soundbite, but do deep dive conversations, let issues breathe, and have a really interesting fun time. Well, look, no one is more deserving than you of the opportunity that you have right in front of you. I'm very excited to see what you do with this show. CNN scored a huge win with getting you on the air. So congratulations. Very much looking forward to it. And for everybody else who's watching, Alex, what time can they find you? Okay. So the show is going to be on

weeknights from 9 to 11 o'clock Pacific time. That's midnight to 2 a.m. Eastern time. It's streaming, I should say. It's broadcast live around the world also on CNN International. So I know a lot of your viewers are in other countries. They comment to me from other countries. all over the place. So it's a morning show in Europe. It's an afternoon show in Asia. You can watch it on CNN International and 200 countries, which is awesome. Also, I hope people will check out my YouTube page, YouTube.com slash Alex Michelson. I'm Alex Michelson on all the social media pages. Love interacting with people. And a big part of what we will be doing in the coming weeks. Our show's called The Story Is. We're going to have a big section called Your Story Is, where we're going to be getting live feedback from our viewers and really want to make this as interactive and experience. as possible, learning a lot of the lessons from you, Brian Tyler Cohen. Alex, as always, thanks for taking the time. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you for your support along the way to make this happen.

Can't wait to see you on the show next week. Thank you. You've been listening to No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen, produced by Sam Graber, music by Wellesie, and interviews edited for YouTube by Nicholas Nicotera. If you want to support the show, please subscribe on your preferred podcast app and leave a five-star rating in a review. And as always, you can find me at Brian Tyler Cohen on all of my other channels, or you can go to Brian Tyler Cohen.com to learn. more.