No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen - Gun-toting freshman Republican in bombshell legal trouble

Episode Date: February 7, 2021

Freshman Republican lawmaker Lauren Boebert is accused of a bombshell campaign finance violation and Matt Gaetz pulls a desperate stunt at the first committee hearing of the new Congress. Brian interviews the host of The Mehdi Hasan Show about Lou Dobbs' surprise firing from Fox, whether Marjorie Taylor Greene should be expelled from Congress, and Trump’s upcoming impeachment trial. Written by Brian Tyler CohenProduced by Sam GraberRecorded in Los Angeles, CAhttps://www.briantylercohen.com/podcast/To help No Lie get matched with the right advertisers, please visit survey.fan/nolie to fill out a brief survey.See 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 a bombshell campaign finance violation accusation against freshman Republican Lauren Bobert, a desperate stunt by Matt Gates at the first committee hearing of the new Congress, and my interview with the host of the Medi Hassan show, where we talk about Lou Dobbs' surprise firing from Fox, whether Marjorie Taylor Green should be expelled from Congress, and Trump's upcoming impeachment trial. I'm Brian Tyler Cohen, and you're listening to No Lie. I want to start with Lauren Bobert, the freshman Republican lawmaker from Colorado, who's best known for tweeting,

today is 1776 on the morning of the insurrection, which pretty much sums up everything you need to know about Lauren Bobert. Like, if you're the woman who put herself on record, cheering on the mob that would ultimately kill a police officer and several of their own participants, then you've pretty much sealed your legacy. And so knowing who this woman is, this bit of news really shouldn't come as much of a surprise.

According to reporting from Chase Woodruff at Colorado Newsline, Lauren Bobert's restaurant, Shooter's Grill, because, God forbid, her entire identity wasn't predicated on a gun, was delinquent on unemployment insurance premiums dating back to 2016. So by 2020, the grill had accumulated eight liens for non-payment of that unemployment insurance, totaling about $19,500. Now, 19,000 of that was just paid off on October 22, 2020. So the question here becomes, how did she get the money to suddenly pay off those liens? It likely wasn't from the restaurant itself, considering that when Bobert filed as a candidate in January 2020,

Shooter's Grill posted a net operating loss of $242,000 in 2018. And since then, of course, the pandemic has ravaged the restaurant industry. And Shooters Grill even had its license revoked in May for defying Colorado's in-person dining rules, and Bobert herself said, quote, Governor Paulus, your policies are literally bankrupting small businesses like mine that are trying their very best to responsibly stay afloat. So on its face, it doesn't look like the restaurant suddenly became a, uh, uh, a cash cow mid-pandemic.

And side note, those policies she's railing against are literally the only thing helping, considering that if people just respected those orders and actually worked to stop the virus, we might actually have been able to contain the pandemic so that we could return to normal and that we could have full capacity in restaurants. But because those so-called patriots like Bobert decided to pretend the virus was no big deal, that is precisely what allowed it to spread and ultimately hurt people like herself in the end. But, okay, back to her repaying the $20,000.

If it wasn't the restaurant that suddenly netted her 20K to pay off those liens, what could it be? Well, the Denver Post then reported that Bobert paid herself $22,259 in mileage reimbursements from her campaign account in 2020. Now, at the IRS's reimbursement rate of 57.5 cents per mile, that means that Bobert claimed to have driven 38,712 miles in those 11 months. And that's despite zero publicly advertised campaign events in March, April, or July, and one event in May. And to make matters worse, the reimbursements came in two payments, just over $1,000 at the end of March, and $21,000 mid-November, meaning that she'd have to drive almost 37,000 miles in about seven months to justify that second payment. That is enough to drive the circumference of the entire globe one and a half times. She could have flown to Australia and back twice and still had miles left over.

Don Young is the lawmaker who represents the entire state of Alaska. It's an at-large district, biggest district in the country, and he still reimbursed himself less than half of what Lauren Beaubert claimed. The amount that Bobbert reimbursed herself is more than her Republican predecessor reimbursed himself for travel, including airfare, over the course of 10 years representing that same district. Now, her campaign released a statement claiming that she ran. grassroots campaign. They said, quote, she traveled to every nook and cranny of the district to speak with

and hear from the people about their concerns. They say showing up is 90% of the battle, and Lauren always showed up. Her aggressive travel schedule is a big reason she won. Well, seems like not everyone was swayed by those platitudes, considering a group called Accountable.us, a liberal government watchtel group, filed a formal complaint with the Office of Congressional Ethics. And so we'll await the results of that investigation so that we can find out if having driven the circumference of the earth was above board or not, but if it turns out that

she lied, then that's just one more example you didn't know you needed about a Republican hiding behind campaign buzzwords and platitudes about small government while using those very government processes to bail themselves out, but to do it at the expense of their own supporters. So when you wonder if the rot in the GOP would stop with Trump, who, by the way, is the undisputed king of defrauding his own supporters, the answer is clearly no. These people may pretend to be out there for the little guy, but it is precisely. precisely the little guy who was screwed here. And bear in mind, Bobert won her election with just over 51% of the vote.

That's it. This isn't a plus 37 red district. It is purple. And they've got not only one of the most virulently far-right Republican representatives, but one that is credibly accused of fraud, which is probably why, I think at last glance, three Democrats have already announced bids to unseat her. And look, it is one thing to be far-right.

And for a lot of people in her district, that might be exactly what they're looking for. but it is something entirely different for her to be a crook. And if that's the way she began her political career, that should be exactly what ends it. And by the way, it's not just the freshmen suck in the air out of the room, although they do a pretty bang-up job of it. Matt Gates showed up at the beginning of this new Congress

and decided to pull this stunt. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I want to extend a welcome to the new committee members. I'm grateful to be back on this august committee, and I understand and appreciate the significance and importance of the work that we do. And I just think it would be nice if in the spirit of national unity and national pride, which I know we all aspire to do to a greater extent that at the beginning of each meeting, the chair, or one of the designees of the chair, would have the opportunity to lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance. We're all aware that in these times

it's important for the country to see members of Congress working together on some things. And while I know that we can deal with divisive issues in the committee, it would be my hope that we could start every committee with a great unifying patriotic moment. I yield back. The gentleman yields back. I recognize myself to speak in opposition to the amendment. It's unnecessary. The House begins every day with the Pledge of Allegiance.

We're covered by that. There's no necessity to say the Pledge of Allegiance twice during the same day. That was Jerry Nadler who was like, no. But if you're wondering why Gates did that, it was so that he could tweet this. Quote, this week, Democrats mocked Republicans because we wanted to say the Pledge of Allegiance. It takes 15 seconds to say it. Our country desperately needs to see how Republicans and Democrats can come together over something, but Democrats refuse to unify even over our pledge.

Without skipping a beat, right back to the same culture war bullshit as before. I mean, this is war on Christmas level pettiness. Imagine wasting a single breath on this at the time. the same time that there is a pandemic ripping through this country. At the same time that nearly half a million Americans have died from COVID, while people are getting evicted, losing their jobs, and your priority is the Pledge of Allegiance? Are you kidding me? If Matt Gates wants to recite the Pledge of Allegiance so bad, go become a middle school teacher.

Otherwise, people are dying, so do your job. And as for the issue of unity, Republicans got it in their head that that unity means that Democrats have to capitulate to them, that if we don't bend over backwards for the losing party that we're not seeking unity, that if we enact our agenda, that we have a mandate to enact, that we're not seeking unity, that if we don't water down our own bills to make them less popular with both Democrats and Republicans, by the way, then we're not seeking unity. Jen Saki had the perfect response to this, and I couldn't say it better than she did, so I won't try.

And given the president's remarks earlier in his change of tone, it does seem that he is now okay if this does happen just with Democratic support, despite those hopes and despite his calls for unity. Well, first of all, the president ran on unifying the country and putting forward ideas that would help address the crises we're facing. He didn't run on a promise to unite the Democratic and Republican Party into one party in Washington. This package has the vast majority of support from the American public. Biden promised to unite the country. He didn't promise to unite the caucuses in Congress.

And for good reason, considering even the Republican caucus doesn't represent its own constituents. Like, take the COVID package, for example. It's got 70% approval across the country. Red states and blue states. Everyone is hurting. Everyone wants relief checks. Everyone wants unemployment insurance. Everyone wants funding for vaccines.

Everyone wants money for their own states and localities. And yet zero. Zero Republicans voted to advance the measure in the House or the Senate. Not a single Republican voted for it. So Joe Biden is uniting both sides of the country. And he's showing that you don't necessarily need to kowt to the bad faith partisan hacks who are representing those people in Congress. So I would just say this, for your sanity and mine,

disregard the culture war bullshit. Because when Republicans have nothing else to attack you for, then not wanting to recite the Pledge of Allegiance 12 times a day, then that means you're doing something right. They have no beef on the substance, and that's because substantively, Democrats are doing the right thing. They're focused on COVID relief with the $1.9 trillion American rescue plan

that is already moving forward through budget reconciliation. They're focused on voting rights, on climate change, on immigration reform. All of this is popular with people, and Republicans know that. They know that they bury themselves if they start attacking Democrats for passing legislation that has the support of 70% of Americans. And so instead, they stick to petty little wedge issues. So while it might be annoying to hear a grown-ass man complain that we aren't adequately fillating the flag, just know that if that's the best he's got, then we're probably on the right track.

Next step is my interview with Medi Hassan. We have the host of the Medi Hassan show and a frequent host on MSNBC and someone whose interviews strike fear in the hearts of his guests. Medi Hassan, thanks for coming on. Thanks for having me. So for the last few years, Republicans have seized on AOC as some radical extremist. She's not, I've spoken about this at length on my podcast, you have on your show. And yet now, on the right, you have an actual radical extremist in someone like Marjorie Taylor Green. Does having her in Congress present Democrats with an opportunity to be able to brand them as the Marjorie Taylor Green Party of far-right lunacy, the way that they did with the squad, only now it will be justified?

Yeah, it's a really good question because you have the Democrats in Congress putting out statements this week saying, we're going to tie the Republicans to Q and on ahead of the midterms. you have Nancy Pelosi sending out a letter saying Kevin McCarthy's QCA instead of RCA, very much a deliberate attempt to say this is the party of Q&N. And I'm torn on it myself because on the one hand, I do think these people shouldn't be given a pass. And I do think Democrats should highlight the extremism, the craziness, the far right nature of their opponents and not normalize them. It's something I've said for many years during the Trump era. On the other hand, when you speak to experts on Q&ON, people who have followed this movement as an extremist

movement as an online movement, they make the point that it could very easily backfire because you're a mainstreaming this group, amplifying them, giving them a platform talking about them and they're desperate for people to talk about them, right? They want mainstream acknowledgement, if not acceptance. And secondly, if you say to, you know, disgruntled people who hate the Democrats, hate liberals, that, you know what, we can't stand Q&R, if you're dealing with people whose entire reason for living is to own the libs, then you're more likely to push them into the arms of Q&ON. If they see Q&O is the best way to annoy the Democrats and piss them off. And it was that whole argument under Trump. Remember, there was a lot of Republicans. He said,

well, you know, we're forced into the arms of Trump because you're being mean to us. A ridiculous argument. But to some extent, you can understand the kind of illogic of that position, if I can call it that. So I don't know. I'm torn on how it will play out. I do think they should go after Marjorie Taylor Green and point out that she's in this party. And not just Green. There are many around Green. I worry that we only focus on Green and forget the Boberts, forget the core thorns forget the Gossars and Biggs's, Paul Gossar Andy Biggs, who have been accused of involvement in the January 6th rally, who have been in Congress for a while and take some odious far-right positions on many issues. So yeah, it's a very difficult one as to, you know, to what extent do you

cover this problem, highlight this problem without amplifying it? That's a great point. And I do agree with your point about not just focusing on the worst offender, which is Marjorie Taylor Green, when there are so many more. But to ask one more question about her specifically, because this is an issue that's coming up. Do you think that she should be expelled and what would your response be when people say, well, her constituents elected her? Yeah, it's a great question.

And look, expulsion is a last resort. It's not something that is done lightly. On my show, on Peacock earlier this week, we interviewed Jimmy Gober as Congressman from California, who is pushing the expulsion resolution right now, even after the committee vote, you know, passed with the Democrats, but only 11 Republicans supporting.

And he made the same point. Look, this is an extremist. No one's saying we just deploy it every day. And the Republican argument would be, well, if you do it, we'll do it when we have the majority. Well, you know, you can't make rules based on how bad-faced actors are then going to abuse them. There is a rule for expulsion. It's there in extremists. And at this case doesn't merit it.

I don't know why we have the rule. This is a member of Congress, Madreux Taylor Green, who is on record suggesting multiple Democrats, including the Speaker of the House, be killed, either via a bullet to the head, a comment on Facebook that she liked, or via execution for treason, is a conversation she actually engaged in openly. She was a moderator of a forum with lots of nooses. She's talked about Obama and Clinton being rounded up and who knows what happens to them.

So I think if in that situation where you have a member of Congress who threaten the life of the leadership of one party threatening the lives of other members of that party, yes, there should be an exposure. That should be unacceptable. You know, there is limits to everything in a free democratic society inciting violence is one of them. That's why the president has been impeached

and is on trial this week, because there are lines you don't cross. Now, Democrats don't have the votes for it. You need a two-thirds majority in the House to expel Marjorie Taylor Green. Clearly, Republicans are not going to join that. Only 11 of them wanted to strip her over committee assignment, which makes no sense because they stripped Steve King of his committee, the Iowa Republican. Steve King was a horrible far-right, a coddler of white nationalism,

but he's nowhere near as bad as Marjorie Taylor Green. And yet, you know, Steve King should maybe give an apology by the Republicans because they stripped him, but they won't strip Marjorie of a committee. so of course they're not going to get on board with expulsion. But yes, in theory, in principle, of course she merits expulsion. There's also the argument that it would be setting a bad precedent. But to that, I would say, if the precedent is that we expel people who've supported other members of Congress getting executed, so be it. Like, I don't think you'll get any pushback from Democrats, you know. It's just, it's the kind of, as I said, it's the bad faith,

what aboutism of the Republican Party. So you have it on Marjorie Taylor Green where they're saying, well, watch out, wait till you see what we do to Ilhan Omar. We'll make the case to Ilhanoma I tried to kill anyone. I dare you. This is ridiculous, but they're not. They just, you know, they traffic in lies and conspiracy and what aboutism. Look at the example of Trump. John Cornyn, Senator from Texas.

This is not Marjorie Taylor Green, senior Republican senator from Texas. On the record saying, well, you know, if you impeach a former president of ours, what's to stop us from impeaching a former president of yule? Nothing. If a former president of the Democratic Party insights in the instruction, please do impeach him. No argument from me. Well, also, no American would. be expected to show up in a work environment where their coworkers are calling for their

execution. If you asked any of these Republican lawmakers whose position is that it's okay, whether they'd want their own kids to show up in a job where someone called for them to be killed, I bet they'd suddenly have a change of heart. I mean, the irony is their counter argument is, what about Maxine Waters? Maxine Waters, who never suggested anyone should be killed, Democratic Congressman, who said during the family separation crisis, if you see members of the Trump cabinet, confront them, challenge them, form a crowd, push them away. Now, you can say, There's a genuine good argument, good faith argument to be had about was that a dangerous argument? Should you really be suggesting crowds of people, you know, you have a democratic right to object to your elected representative in public place, in a restaurant?

Of course you do. Should you be encouraging a crowd to do that? Perhaps not in the current environment, perhaps not in a society like America where so many people are armed. So perhaps Maxine Waters' comments weren't wise. That's a legitimate argument to have. But she wasn't trying to kill anyone, inciting the death of anyone. And yet they cite Maxine Waters as, well, that's one of your. And the argument being, well, hold on, in good faith, okay, Maxine Waters, if you understand

Maxine Waters' argument could be interpreted dangerously, then why aren't you angry about Marjorie Taylor Green's comment? It's another reminder that for the Republican Party, it's just pure whatabouts. There is no merit to any of these arguments because, yes, if they really were concerned about Maxine Waters' supposed incitement about us, they'd take action against Marjorie Taylor Green to be consistent. If they really were concerned about what they caught anti-Semitism from Ilihan Omar, a tweet about the Benjamin that she already apologized for a long time ago,

then they would take action against Marjorie Taylor Green, who talks about the Rothschild and Zionist supremacist flooding Europe with brown-skinned immigrants, who talks about a laser beam from the Rothschilds causing the California fires, who says awful things about George Soros wanting to continue the Holocaust. Yeah, you'd take action against such a person. Yeah, that's a great point. So let's switch gears to Fox.

I'm sure you have... Is that really switching gears, Brian? Feels like what you're saying, yeah. So I'm sure you have a great affinity for the... network. Lou Dobbs's show was canceled. Dobbs was the highest rated host on Fox business. And yet Fox has stood by some of their host during some of their most depraved episodes. Tucker's out white supremacy, Hannity, ruining the life of Seth Rich's family because he thought it would help Trump. Why do you imagine they pulled Dobbs and why now?

It's a great question. I don't think any of us know right now the exact answer. Just to pick up at one point you made the highest rated host on Fox business, something we can get lost in is that, you know, some of these ratings, we talk about ratings, actually look at the numbers. Brian Stelter of CNN, their media correspondent made a very good point on Friday night, which was, you know, Dobbs pulled in half a million views, half a million viewers, which is double what a lot of the Fox business hosts spill in, but it's still not the equivalent of a Tucker Coulson,

who pulls in 10 times that amount on the actual main Fox channel. But Brian's argument, and Brian knows Fox Inside Out, he's the author a very good book on Fox News. His argument is that, look, it's all about, it's not about ratings in the end, because ratings can be only so much of a shield. ultimately it's like any other workplace it's about management it's about how you get along with your co-worker and you know Tucker Carlson has the ear of the Murdoch family and Lou Dobbs apparently did not

he definitely had the ear of Donald Trump who came out with a statement effusively praising him but you know Lou Dobbs let's just talk about Lou Dobbs for one moment Lou Dobbs made North Korean state TV look like you know challenging investigative journalism I mean Lou Dobbs if you watch some of the clips of Lou Dobs doing the rounds yeah Lou Dobbs just some of the stuff he was saying about Trump I can't even I can't even summarize it here for those of you haven't seen it. Go just pick up some of the clips doing their hands on Twitter. I can summarize it. There was a survey that he put forward that he said, how would you rate Trump's performance? Superb, great, very good. Yeah. That's how you'd sum up.

Amazing. On a business channel, what I love about Fox Business is there's no actual business news on it. It's just your regular business news there. So Lou Dobbs being canned, you know, and this is the thing in the media is obviously I work for a rival network. And, you know, those of us in the media don't want to encourage the sacking of our competitors, our rivals. It's not a good look. It's not decent. It doesn't work for any of us. We're all in the media industry, which is under huge competitive pressures.

And there's something called free speech. You don't want to silence people you disagree with. The difference is, this is Fox canning Lou Dobbs. I tweeted this on Friday that. It's like, Fox cancelled Lou Dobbs. That's the phrase you use in the media industry. What do you do? You don't sack them, you don't fire them.

You cancel their show. The irony of ironies, given we live in an age where the right wing is obsessed with cancel cuts. There's very few things the modern Republican Party stands for other than owning the libs and cancel. culture, fighting cancel culture. And yet, literally Fox canceled Lou Dobbs. And they canceled them possibly, we don't know, because of this lawsuit that's out from Smartmatic and Dominion, which is suing Fox and has named Dobbs as one of the people who made allegedly defamatory

remarks about their voting machines. So the irony of silencing Lou Dobbs, of canceling him, only a couple of weeks after Rupert Murdoch gave a massive speech attacking cancel culture. Oh, the irony. The script writers of this show just can't make up. better storyline, I think. Yeah, it's just, when will this cancel culture from the right stop? So where do you think conservative media goes from here? Because on one hand, you have the obvious consequences of having a political party predicated solely on disinformation.

But on the other hand, their audience clearly has an appetite for it. So do they try and cut the crazy a little bit and regain some ground? Or do they just go all in with the conspiratorial lunacy? It's a great question. And prior to the Lou Dobbs cancellation, I'd have said they go all in, but we don't know what Fox is doing right now. And I think we have to wait and see how the dust settles. We know they're trying out new and crazier hosts for their seven o'clock slot more far, more extreme, more provocative.

But of course, it's not just Fox. That's what's so interesting about the media climate we live in right now. You have newsmats. You have OANN, newsmacks to the right of Fox, OANN to the right of newsmags. And these channels are definitely going all in. I mean, look at just what's happened in recent days. You have Mike Lindel, the My Pillow guy, the Trump conspiracy theorist, multi-millionaire, goes on newsmax, which he pays for a lot of advertising on, helps fund, goes on the channel.

And when he starts talking about Dominion and voting machines, Newsmax, which like Fox, is worried about being sued, cuts him off. The host shuts him down. The host gets up and walks off screen. You think, wow, Newsmax taking a stand, maybe because they're worried about being sued. Nope. Next day, host comes back and apologizes to Mike Lindell. Why?

Because the viewers lose their minds. And Brian, this is key to understand. This stuff is being driven. You know, it's almost like Frankenstein and his monthly. These channels, this right-wing media echo chamber, created an angry, riled up, conspiratorial base. And now, when they try and try and kind of, you know, restrain the base or try and inject a little bit of reality back into that base, they created that crazy atmosphere.

Guess what? The base doesn't want it. The base is willing to move. So they moved from Fox to newsmax to OAN. OAN at N ran a documentary, I think 12 hours of it, eight hours of it. A bunch of hours continuous from Mike Lindell, which they added a disclaimer on. saying this is paid for TV. It's opinion. These views on Dominion are not our views. They're not facts. Dominion lawyers are telling David, are telling David Corner, Mother Jones, I just saw

on Twitter, that doesn't necessarily protect them from a lawsuit. So on the one hand, you've got these big companies threaten to sue these right-wing channels, which might be the only way to stop the conspiracies. On the other hand, as you say, they're just doubling down, doubling down into the craziness. And I cannot overstate how dangerous this rhetoric and dialogue from the right has been a lot of, you look at most of the problems we have in our society today, the disbelief in the election, the attack on Capitol Hill, it goes back to right-wing provocateurs saying this stuff, propaganda. You look at COVID and the refusal to wear masks, the disbelief in the threat from coronavirus, it goes back again to right-wing media outlets, fanning hysteria, fanning

conspiracy. So many of the most deadly problems in our society today, climate change denou, all roads lead back to these far-right media outlets, both online and on cable. And I think that's the conversation Democrats haven't been willing to have for a while. Liberals have kind of turned the blind eye until the Trump era. And it just, it's at the heart of so much, Brian. I know we as journalists, we don't want to talk about it because these are our competitors and our rivals, it feels, but we have to. Democracy is at stake. Really well said. So you are very, very good at fact-checking a lot of the bullshit that we see from the right. And the left, by the way, but I want to focus on the right for a moment. The left's arguments come typically from a place of

of, you know, when we rebut, it comes from a place of facts and statistics. That's literally all I do on my show. But when the right comes at it, they do so from a place of emotion. And they'll prey on their supporters' fears. So is that emotion approach a better way to be reaching people? Like, are fact checks less potent than what they do? It's a great question. So my position on this is I've gone through kind of all, I've gone a rollercoaster of emotions and feelings on this debate. I remember after the 2016 election saying to a colleague of mine, we might as well just jack it all in and go be accountants. Not there's anything wrong to be an accountant.

But you know, this is just kind of what we do is pointless. There's a huge sway of the public who just, the huge group of the public who just don't believe what they're hearing. Facts, you know, there's a lot of empirical evidence out there, Brian, that suggests when you fact check a conspiracy or a lie, it makes the people who believe that conspiracy lie double down in their support for it. That's depressing. And trenches them even further in their belief.

That's so. depressing for those of us who do fact-checking and do factual journalism for a living. And so, you know, this debate's been going on for a while. Drew Weston, the psychologist, wrote a book, The Political Brain, back in, when was it, 2007, 8? No, earlier than that, 2000, but I think it was doing it out of time flies. It was during the Gore, I remember he was doing the Gore-Bush battle, and he wrote an excellent book about how Democrats, this point you make, which is Democrats focus on facts and figures, cold, hard statistics. That is not how you win over a political brain. That is not how you win over human people. And human beings are

won over through storytelling. And some of the great politicians are those who can tell a story weave a narrative. Now, I think for too long, liberals and leftists have thought, is it storytelling, is it emotion or is it fact? I don't think you have to chew. I think you can tell stories and tell narratives, which are based on fact. What the right have done is they've told great stories about the decline of America, about the evil foreigners, about the evil media, which are great stories. It's a great narrative. Donald Trump weaved a wonderful story. which people bought into it was based on lies and fear and xenophobia and racism but it was a great story there's no debate about that he was a great storyteller you only have to watch his rallies and how he

kind of enthramps his crowds and you know authoritarian and fascists and others have always been great at telling horrible stories but stories that grip people and I think that yes there's no reason that democrats shouldn't be able to tell stories and you know one of the criticisms of Hillary Clinton in 2016 was that Donald Trump was telling a very easy story about build a wall, ban Muslims, evil foreigner. And Hillary Clinton's response was often, more often than not. You know, here's how I'm going to pay for my childcare plan. Here are the nuts and bolts. Here's my policy paper.

Which, again, we shouldn't, I'm not one of these people who looks down on it. That's important. We should have functioning government and clever people in charge. But that's not enough to win over voter. Sadly, there's so much evidence out there suggesting people don't vote on policy. And the left needs to talk about this a lot because, you know, those of us, who were fans of the Bernie Sanders agenda and want to see more

and the Elizabeth Warren agenda have to understand that just saying, well, minimum wage polls really well with the American public is not enough. That's not enough to win people over. Just saying Medicare for All is popular, which it is, clearly wasn't enough. We saw that in the Sanders campaign.

There has to be a much better story told about all of this. I had an interview with Al Franken a few weeks ago and he said that Democrats' slogans usually end by saying, continued on next bumper sticker. Well, I remember when, And I can't remember who it was one of the Democrats doing the last election. Was it de Blasio?

I think came out with like, we're going to call him Dirty Don. That's going to be our nickname. It's like, stop, just stop. Yeah. So let's switch gears to Trump. In Donald Trump, you have a guy who 81 million Americans turned out to vote against. Like, if I was a Republican, that's not someone who I would see as an ace in the whole for 2024. That is a liability.

So from a Republican perspective, shouldn't they want to convict him and bar him from running again? Like, doesn't it make sense politically? so that they can put someone forward in 2024 who isn't the albatross that Donald Trump is? Yeah. No, it's in pure self-interest among those Republicans who are considering a 2024 run, yeah, they should have thrown Donald Trump under the bus. That's what, that's, you know, on paper, that would make sense. If you're Ted Cruz or Josh Hawley and you want to run for president in 2024, yeah, vote to convict and disqualify him from running. Even if you're not running for president, but you care about the future of your party, you should want him disqualified from office because it's

cuts him off at the knees. It means he cannot spend the next four years saying, will I? Won't I run? Here's another rally from me as I dip my toe in the water. I may run. And if he runs, we know he becomes a front runner. And that's what leads you to the other problem. It's almost, it's a connected problem. On the one hand, they should want to stop him from running so that he doesn't suck all the air out of the cycle for the next four years so that they can run themselves without having to worry about him dominating. On the other hand, it's because he's so dominant. It's because he'd be the front runner in 2024, that they're not convicting him because he is fundamentally popular with the base. There's a poll out last week. I think the Hill, two out of three Republicans say

they would or would consider voting for a third party led by Donald Trump and leaving the Republicans. That's an astonishing statistic. When you think about how polarized we are, if you think about how American politics is decided by partisanship, the number one reason why somebody votes is because they identify as a Republican or Democrat over policy, over everything else. That's what all the studies over the last 20 years have shown. But, you know, partisanship is the key driver of people at the election. And yet suddenly, Republicans are willing to drop their affiliation for Trump, which suggests they're not attached to the party anymore. They're attached to Trump and Trumpism and what he stands for, the grievance culture, the owning the libs,

all of that nonsense. So yeah, Republicans have a real problem. They're damned if they do. They're damned if they don't. If they convict him, the base who loves Trump will destroy them. If they don't convict him, he will destroy them. Yeah, that's a great point. So yet again, they're just driven by their fear of Donald Trump, as if the last four years. Right, who created It's like the Fox problem and the newsmax problem. Who created this base? Yeah. Who created the Trump phenomenon?

Who opened the door to Trumpism? These Republicans, mainstream Republicans, who allowed him in. Yeah. I mean, the sewing part seemed fun. The reaping part, not so much. Yes. Well said. I want to switch gears to your show.

I think I can safely say that very few people are able to interview the way that you do. Thank you. Some of the most viral clips online are of you grilling a guest and you can see their desperation for the earth to open up and swallow them whole. So knowing how effective you are, is it difficult to book guests who don't share your political leanings? 100%. 100% is very difficult. In the American media right now, you know, on the one hand, I'm very critical of interviewers who do softball questions. And I've been very openly critical about that. And I think the American media as a whole

can do much better when it comes to interviews. And I think that's now a pretty uncontroversial point. Maybe five years ago, it was kind of taboo to say that now, I think we all get that point at the end of the Trump era. The problem is, on the one hand, I want people to be tougher. On the other hand, I totally understand oppression. You know, when people say, when people on Twitter say, oh, it's just all access journalism. Well, it's not. just access, I mean, it's not, access journalism is not something you can just dismiss. That is a reality. You have to be able to book these guests. And if they don't want to come on because they're scared of you, that's a problem. Now, some people enjoy a good, you know, the cut and

thrust of debate and discussion. The problem is, you know what the real problem is, Brian? It's now, we live at an age where, you know, 20, 30, 40 years ago, there were like three, four Sunday morning shows, a couple of network channels, maybe CNN. You know, if you were a politician trying to make a name for something, you had to do, you know, you wanted to go on the big shows. Today, especially on the right, where most of the lies and misinformation is coming from, you have a safe space to use a phrase they don't like. They have a, they've cocooned themselves off in a safe space of far right media who offer them softball, Lou Dobbs, polling questions, where they never have to worry about ever being challenged or held to account by

Sean Hannity. And therefore, it's very hard for those of us who want to book a Republican to come on and make a case for a non-crazy case for the Republican Party because they don't have to do that. There's no pressure now. They can retreat into Breitbart or Fox or Newsmax or OAN and or whatever the rest of the entire. And that is a real problem. And that's something we have to think about.

On the other hand, there's also a debate about do we want some of these people on it, Brian? Because I've now reached a position where, you know, there was a time when I would interview in my old Al Jazeera show, I interviewed a lot of prominent Trump supporters, including General Michael Flynn and others. And there's a point you get to now where do you want to give a platform to people who are inciting violence

or lying about the election. And I think that is a really important question that we as a media also have to kind of struggle with. It's A, can you get these people to come on? B, when they come on, can you ask them tough questions? And C, do we want them on at all if they're only going to gaslight the audience? What value is there in that?

So it's a really difficult position we're in right now because I don't think we've been in a position like this in modern American history where, you know, politicians have always lied. But this level where people are coming on and say, up is down, black is white, hot, is cold, Donald Trump has won the election. What are you doing that scenario?

And to go back to our earlier point, fact checking isn't enough, just shouting out facts and a back and forth, doesn't help because we saw that recently where Rand Paul went on a Sunday morning show and the interviewer tried half-heartedly to fact-check them, and then he went on Twitter and said, here I am owning the media and his base loved it.

You have to ask yourself, do you want to be complicit in that? I don't know. It's a tricky one because we don't want to silence, no matter how much we disagree than one part of the political spectrum, but we also want to value truth and fact. Yeah, that's a really great point. Well, I think that's a great spot to end. So again, you can check out Medi on the Medi Hassan show on Peacock. That's weekdays from 7 to 8 p.m.

It is free to stream at peacocktv.com. Medi, it's been a pleasure talking to you. Thanks so much. Thanks so much, Brian. Thanks again to Medi. I do want to mention that we have a bonus episode on Tuesday this week with a special announcement. So check back in on Tuesday. I promise it'll be worth it. Talk to you then. You've been listening to No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen, produced by Sam Graber, music by Wellesie, interviews captured and edited for YouTube and Facebook by Nicholas Nicotera, and recorded in Los Angeles, California. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe on your preferred podcast app, feel free to leave a five-star rating and a review, and check out Brian Tyler Cohen.com for links to all of my other channels.