No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen - January 6 Committee sinks Trump with brilliant tactic at hearing

Episode Date: June 12, 2022

At its first primetime hearing, the January 6 committee nails Trump in the most unmistakable way possible. Brian interviews former White House Communications Director under president Obama, Dan Pfieffer, about whether the DOJ is moving too slowly, whether he thinks a Trump prosecution is likely, and how Democrats can compete with the MAGA disinformation machine. And gun reform activist Fred Guttenberg joins to discuss the tragic loss of his daughter, what he’d like to see Congress pass in the way of gun legislation, and his response to people like Ted Cruz for desperately trying to redirect calls for common sense gun legislation instead to doors. Buy "Battling the Big Lie" here:Amazon: https://amzn.to/3NNBRJJIndiebound: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781538707975Shop 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 the first primetime January 6th committee hearing and how they nailed down Trump in the most unmistakable way possible. I interview former White House Communications Director under President Obama, Dan Pfeiffer, about whether the DOJ is moving too slowly, whether he thinks a Trump prosecution is likely, and how Democrats can compete with the MAGA disinformation machine. And I'm joined by gun safety activist Fred Gutenberg to discuss the tragic loss of his daughter, what he'd like to see Congress pass in a way of gun legislation,

and his response to people like Ted Cruz, for desperately trying to redirect calls for common sense gun legislation to stuff like doors. I'm Brian Tyler Cohen, and you're listening to No Lie. So the January 6 committee held its first hearing on Thursday night. I'll talk about what I think they were able to accomplish in just a quick moment. But first, I think what I was most struck by is how angry I got all over again. And like, I didn't forget what happened. None of us forgot what happened on January 6th.

But you do kind of forget, like, the vivid. visceral fury that you had by watching that stuff go down on that day. And I know there was some worry that it would just be more of the same, that it would just kind of be bringing sand to the beach. And we already know this stuff on January 6th and really what would be different by virtue of watching this. But I promise you, after watching it, I am more inspired to do everything and anything humanly possible to make sure that these people never take power again. I know that a lot of people echo that sentiment as well. So here's why I think

the way the January 6th committee laid out this first hearing was brilliant. First, listen to a couple of these taped depositions from administration officials. This is how the January 6th committee started off. Their hearing, there's a reason that I'm going to start off this episode with that as well.

Here's Alex Cannon, one of Trump's campaign lawyers. I remember a call with Mr. Meadows. where Mr. Meadows was asking me what I was finding and if I was finding anything. And I remember sharing with him that we weren't finding anything that would be sufficient to change the results in any of the key states.

When was that conversation? Probably in November, mid to late November. I think it was before my child was born. And what was Mr. Meadows' reaction to that information? I believe the words he used were, so there's no there. Here's Jason Miller, a senior Trump campaign spokesperson. I was in the Oval Office, and at some point in the conversation, Matt Oskowski, who is the lead data person, was brought on. And I remember he delivered to the president pretty blunt terms that he was going to lose. And that was based, Mr. Miller, on Matt and the data team's assessment of the sort of county by county, state by state results as reported.

Correct. Here's Bill Barr? No, just what I've been through, I've had three discussions with the president that I can recall. One was on November 23rd, one was on December 1st, and one was on December 14th. And I've been through sort of the give and take. of those discussions. And in that context, I made it clear I did not agree with the idea of saying the election was stolen and putting out this stuff, which I told the president was bullshit. And, you know, I didn't want to be a part of it, and that's one of the reasons that went

into me deciding to leave when I did. I observed, I think it was on December 1st, that, you know, how can we, you can't live in a world where the incumbent administration stays in power based on its view, unsupported by specific evidence, that the election, that there was fraud in the election. Here's a Vanka Trump. How did that affect your perspective about the election when Attorney General Barr made that statement? It affected my perspective.

I respect to Attorney General Barr. So I accepted what he was saying. In other words, it was made abundantly clear to Trump by his own administration officials. senior administration officials, that he lost the election. The January 6th committee played these taped depositions by senior staff under oath right at the very top of this hearing. And so then, when they went on to show just some of the carnage that happened on that day, all of it is with the understanding that that violence was all based on a lie

because they established immediately that Trump knew the truth about the election. So because they methodically showed that Trump was well aware that what he was doing was predicated on a lie, because he was told there was no fraud, because he was told that there was no path to victory, because he was told that there was no way he would win this election. The fact that he chose to move forward with the big lie anyway is proof that he was defrauding this country. He knew the truth and yet chose to move forward with this violent plan anyway.

He knew the truth and yet still oversaw a seven-point plan to prevent the transition of power. Knew the truth and perpetrated the big lie. Knew the truth and still tried to replace the acting attorney general. knew the truth and still tried to get a mob to pressure Pence into refusing to certify the electoral votes. Knew the truth and still tried to get a false slate of electors sent to Congress. Knew the truth and tried to get a violent mob to, quote, show strength and march on the Capitol. He did all of this knowing the truth because he perpetrated a fraud on this country.

And in the subsequent hearings, we'll learn more about just how involved in the planning he was and the extent to which he wanted this violence and how much he in a circle coordinated with these white nationalist militias. We'll learn all of that. But a masterful move by this committee to establish that the foundation here is that Trump was told all of this was a lie. So everything that follows is only going to prove the lengths that he was willing to go to

to perpetrate what he knew was a lie, what he knew was a fraud. All of this was done with corrupt intent because he knew the truth. Alex Cannon proved that, and Jason Miller proved that, and Bill Barr proved that, and even Ivanka proved that. And any DOJ that's even semi-conscious

will have no choice but to indict him. whether the DOJ will remains to be seen, but this case is being handed them on a silver platter. So good on the January 6th committee for laying this out so masterfully. But, you know, also, let's just acknowledge that what Trump did was so corrupt, so overtly corrupt, that it shouldn't take an entire bipartisan committee of lawmakers and multiple hearings to prove it. But look, if that's what it takes to reach people, then so be it. And by the way, they are reaching people. According to just preliminary data from Nielsen, about 20 million people tuned in.

and that doesn't include any numbers from streaming or the internet, which accounts for millions more. I had a couple hundred thousand tune in to my stream alone, and I'll continue streaming every day of these hearings, starting with Monday and Wednesday of this week. So if you want to watch along with me, just subscribe to my YouTube channel, and during the hearings, you'll see a live stream right there on the top of my page. But wherever you watch, do make sure to tune in, because Republicans are desperately banking on you not caring, on you forgetting what Trump and the rest of his sickenfants did to this country on January 6th and continue to do to this day. So don't give them the satisfaction.

Next up is my interview with Dan Pfeiffer. Today we have the former White House Communications Director and Senior Advisor to President Obama, the host of Pod Save America, and the author of the new book, Battling the Big Lie. Dan Pfeiffer, thanks so much for coming on. Brian, thanks for having me. Of course. So let's start off with the January 6 hearings. How effective do you think day one of the hearings were? I think they were, incredibly effective. They exceeded what were at my pretty high expectations. I thought they did an amazing job. First of keeping it quiet so that what we saw, there was actual suspense and

anticipation of what was going to be said. And then they delivered on that with really powerful video, powerful testimony, the videos of Trump officials, including Trump's daughter and sudden law in depositions, validating the idea that this was a big lie and a dangerous criminal conspiracy. I thought they did a very powerful job of telling the story. And they, got people to tune in, which is the hardest thing to do in this media environment to get attention. And it looks like for what we can see as of right now on Friday morning, that the ratings were quite high. Yeah. Well, I think Republicans would be proud. You'd mentioned keeping this all quiet, as we all know, their number one priority heading into the midterms is

stopping any and all leaks. So they would be proud of the way the January 6th committee comported themselves. Who's the audience for these hearings? And did these hearings do what they needed to do for that audience. I think a lot of people look at these hearings and say the audience are the people who believe the big lie. And Ken, Benny Thompson, and Liz Cheney convince these people that the election was legitimate. And I don't think that that is truly possible or actually the goal here. I think the goal is, and I think that even beyond the politics of this, the goal is to, for the historical record, tell the story of one of the most dangerous thing that's ever happened to our democracy and warned about what is being planned going forth. So I think the audience is every

American. It is particularly people who are, have disengaged from politics perhaps since 2020, who have thought maybe the threat of Trump or Trumpism has gone away because Trump himself has disappeared from the public conversation. And I think the, and I think the audience is people who are sort of torn about, you know, where, where they're, you know, where they're going to go and just and to remind people just how dangerous that day was, how dangerous and irresponsible the people behind that day were. And I thought they did very good job of putting Trump at the center of that story. What does success look like for the January 6th committee at the end of all of this? I think it's really, I, like, my, as a, like, political communications

professional, like my heart goes out to them because basically the expectations are, is this going to save democracy? It's like, which seems like a hard test to meet. I think success is telling this story in a way that lots and lots of people hear it, remind them of it. And there's obviously a political component to this, right? And I think persuading the country about the dangers of this radical extreme conspiracy theory obsessed minority is incredibly important.

You know, I know a bigger part of this committee isn't just for accountability. It's to prevent this from happening in the future, to show people the risks of giving Republicans power again. I mean, this is a party that still, to this day, breathlessly supports the guy who incited that insurrection on January 6th. With that said, people still want accountability. And it's going to be hard to convince people that Democrats are going to be able to be like responsible stewards of our laws if those laws aren't enforced. So do you think that

proving Trump's culpability without any action by the DOJ can actually have the opposite effect and just kind of like highlight our weakness here and just kind of exacerbate feelings of helplessness in the face of such overt corruption? Absolutely. Look, the committee has no control over what Merrick Garland is going to do. Joe Biden has no control over what Merrick Garland's going to do. So they're in this position where they can only go out there and make the best case and do the best job they can. And then it's going to depend on a decision by an attorney general operating independently, being advised by career prosecutors. I am not a lawyer. I'm not an expert in the kind of, you know, and how you can make a seditious conspiracy charge

stick. But the danger, if Trump and the people around him are not charged with a crime, then it is going to embolden everyone to do it. Think of the danger. Like, we just have to think about how like looming the danger of this happening in is the Republican candidate for governor in Michigan was arrested in his house this week for participating in the insurrection. The Republican nominee for governor in Pennsylvania was a participate in the insurrection and and has pledged. He ran on the idea that he would give Pennsylvania's electoral votes to Donald Trump, no matter what the voter, so like this is happening right here. and it's being done by the same people.

And if those people are not held accountable for what they did before, they will be emboldened to do it again. Yeah, I think that's perfectly put. Now, you worked in the White House. You were a high-level advisor to Obama. I know that's not the Justice Department, but I still think you'll have better insight here than the rest of us. Do you think that the speed with which Merrick Garland and the DOJ are moving

is too slow, or is it appropriate for what this investigation is? My issue was not the speed. it's the decision at the end, right? It is, like, I just, no one knows what, how much investigating is being done, how many people they're talking to. He's going to, given just how much damage Trump did to the reputation of integrity

and independence of the Justice Department, Garland clearly has to, and I think believes, and he talked about this in his, in his confirmation process, wants to restore that. And that's obviously very important to President Biden as well. well. And this is, this might be the most consequential decision the Department of Justice has ever made. He is being, if we're talking about Trump himself, Garland is going to have to

make a decision about whether he is going to, uh, accept the recommendation of what I assume to be career prosecutors to indict for a crime, the former president of United States, who is the likely opponent of the sitting president of the United States, who also has to be Merrick Garland's boss. And so you got to do it right. And if it takes a little extra time to do that, that is okay. So I think it's like we're all worried about speed, speed, speed, speed, speed, if the, if the answer is, no, I'm not going to do it, knowing that three weeks from now as opposed to three weeks ago is, it doesn't make that much of difference to me. But if it takes a couple extra months and we get to what I believe to be the right and necessary decision, then I'm okay

with that. Yeah. Now, this is going to be an impossible question to answer. And I'll try. I also know. I also know your rule on on predictions. So with all of that said, do you think that a Trump prosecution by the DOJ is likely? I just, I just have no idea. I just like I have no window into it. I don't know enough about the law that you'd have to make that decision. I think it is based on my not, very clearly non-legal expertise. This seems like in an open and shut case in the sense that Just from what we heard in one night of hearings, Donald Trump was engaged along with many members of his party in a wide-ranging criminal conspiracy to overturn an election that included fraudulent electors. It included potential misuse of government resources and then led to a violent riot at the Capitol that it resulted in the death. of several individuals.

Like that to me seems like. And I think there was always this, you know, as I understand it, whether it's a justice department or a local district trainers, you don't really, you don't like to charge cases that you're unlikely to win or it's the real chance you're going to lose. And there's a risk here that if you charge Trump and then he gets off, does that further emboldened him? But I think just from my perspective,

unlawyer-like as it is, that charging him and losing is better than not charging. Yeah. Right. There's a difference between asserting it's a crime and being unable to prove that crime beyond a shadow of a doubt than it's saying it wasn't a crime,

which is I think what the interpretation of a no charge would be. And by the way, that would have been the same case had Congress decided not to impeach him for a second time. I mean, people would be way, I think there's way more grace

given to the Democrats for not getting the outcome that we wanted. Just, you know, given the fact that they tried at least, like did any, of us really expect 10 Republicans, what was it, 16 Republicans, 17 Republicans to come on board to convict him. But at least they try. I think we would have been way more pissed off had they

done nothing and just sat there, you know, and I think it would have been like the peak of fecklessness. Yeah. We used to say sometimes in the Obama White House, it's better to fight and lose than not fight. Yeah. Yeah. I think that like whole like philosophy needs to just kind of be adopted by the entirety of the Democratic Party. I mean, you know, that's going into the whole, like Mitch McConnell is our friend and the Republicans will have an epiphany. I think that whole mindset is just has done nothing but kind of hold us back. And I think people are finally waking up to it. But it's been a lot of wasted time thinking that these people are going to finally have some

epiphany here. With that said, let's move forward to midterms. You know, we look at the issues facing us in this upcoming midterm cycle. It's going to be gas prices and inflation, of course, but it's also abortion rights and guns, which, you know, I'm sure I'm biased, but I believe are more dire. I mean, protecting a woman's bodily autonomy is a foundational issue. Preventing mass shooting so that your child doesn't get killed at school is a foundational issue. So do you think that these are going to be enough to overcome those bread and butter economic issues that Republicans are pushing right now?

Well, I don't necessarily accept the premise that we would lose on those bread and butter economic issues. I think that we, you know, Rick Scott, who is leading the Republican efforts to elect senators, his plan is to raise taxes on 100 million Americans. He walked it back for five minutes and then re-adopted it again. Like we, you know, in politics, you want to find issues that unite your base and divide theirs. And for us, that is bread and butter economic issues because the Republican Party has this incredible irreconcilable tension in it, which is its base is primarily working class voters. almost entirely white working class voters, but working class voters, but their policy agenda

and their donor class are corporatist and politicratic. And so finding ways to exploit that tension are good. But I think we, like, this is a, as we sit here today, this is a brutal political environment. You know, just this Friday morning, inflation numbers are going up yet for higher than people thought. There was some hope that it had peaked last month. Relatedly, gas prices are incredibly high, grocery prices are high, gas prices in summer always hurt more because their families canceling trips and all the like. And so this is really hard. I do think that if Democrats can make a case that Republicans are extreme, radical extremists who are out of touch on a whole host of issues, including abortion, guns, banning books, bullying, you know, telling teachers what they can say

in the classroom. We can make that case. We have a fighting shot because ultimately to hold the Senate and win the most important governance races, we don't have to convince a single person who voted for Donald Trump to vote for a Democrat. We just have to get enough of the people who voted for Joe Biden in 2020 out. So is that easy? Absolutely not. Is it possible? Yes. And I do think these hearings, the focus on the on the insurrection past and future, and then the Supreme Court decisions that are coming, whether it's the overturning of Rovey Wade, like there's been And, you know, we're having a lot of conversations about gun safety and what kind of laws we can pass and all of that.

But the Supreme Court's currently sitting on a decision that could flood the streets with concealed weapons if that were to happen. New York and California. Yeah, the New York pistol and rifle. Yeah. And so that is a huge, you know, looming. There are a lot of things out there that if we can overcome the right wing messaging advantage that I write about in my book, then we have a chance to have our argument heard.

If we have our argument heard, we have a chance to pull this off. We run against the odds in history, but it is possible. You know, a big part of why Republicans are successful, even despite these unpopular opinions, is that they have like a media messaging machine at their disposal, unlike anything that we've ever had before, which brings me to your book. In it, you drill into the fact that Republicans have all of these tools at their disposal that really kind of like exacerbate the asymmetry between the two parties. Do you think that having Facebook and Fox and Dan Bongino and Ben Shapiro and Newsmax OAN

will be able to compensate for these increasingly unpopular GOP opinions on abortion and guns and taxing the rich and coddling corporations like you mentioned before? Will these outlets run cover effectively enough that the GOP can have a platform that only has like 25 or 30 percent support and they'll still win? It did in 2020. They did not win the election, but they came down. damn close to winning an election in a year where Donald Trump mishandled a pandemic that killed hundreds of thousands of Americans. And they almost won. The fact that the economy tanked under

him that he did literally everything you could possibly do wrong and came within 40,000 votes runs against every norm political science understanding, all of that. And that is in part because he got to using this, I call it the MAGA megaphone. It's this network of right-wing. messaging apparatuses to alter reality for a bunch of people. And the other thing that does very effectively, they use their power to determine the four corners of the political conversation. If they want something, they want the elector to focus on something.

They use this for the caravan in 2018 to try to gin up immigration as an issue in the end. They think about this. Like they were able, the Republicans in the right wing were able to make crime a signature issue and then paint every single Democrat, including Joe Biden, as someone who supported defund the police. And that played a role in the election. It was an absolute role in the election. They were, they spread, you know, very effectively spread disinformation to black voters and Latina voters,

particularly Spanish language media in Florida, saying that the, like, the socialist regimes in Central America wanted Joe Biden to win. So it was like, it is a, I consider the, the current right wing messaging apparatus, their media advantage, to be the most powerful weapon in American politics. I mean, I know that you discussed this in the book as well, so I don't want to give away too much, but can you give a preview of what the left can do to match what the right's been able to do besides retweeting if you agree that Trump is going to be. Yes.

Well, so I think there are three things that we need to do. the first is we need to build up the progressive media ecosystem. We need more Brian Tyler Coins, right? We need more people who are pushing at, who are telling the progressive story on our terms to our voters. Like we do not have, Democrats do not have a sufficient direct channel to our voters. If Republicans want to reach their voters,

they can do it through Fox, they can do it, they don't have the ability to communicate directly with them. Like we basically hand our message to the New York Times and CNN and hope they deliver it in good conditions. to voters, which is an insane way to run a party. So how do we do that? One, we need the progressive donor universe, the funders, to recognize the value in investing in progressive content, whether that is people with YouTube presences, whether that is media companies like Rican Media, where

POTSafe America works and I work. It is, you know, and there's been some good news on this. There has been a shift since 2020. There was just a report that some friends of mine, I work with the Obama administration, have raised enough money to buy a bunch of radio stations in Florida, including the very powerful conservative station in Miami. The second thing we have to do is we have to convince progressive, not donors, but just regular progressive media consumers to support progressive media. And that could be subscribing to things, but also to be something as simple as just subscribing to progressive YouTube channels, right?

Like I joke all the time in my ridiculous political experts react show to smash a subscribe button, But that matters. Like, you know this. The more people who smash your subscribe button, the more people, the YouTube algorithm will show your content to. And so that, like, that matters. And the Republicans are very good at convincing their people to patronize their stuff. Related to that, we need Democratic leaders to nurture the progressive media ecosystem

in the same way that Trump and the Republicans nurture the right-wing media. Which is why I was so excited when President Biden sat down with you to do that interview. Like, that gives you, that he lays hands on. on you, gives you credibility, gives you attention, builds up your audience, right? In addition to benefiting Biden, and that benefit, and nurturing that progressive media system helps. I felt the same way when he sat down with Heather Cox Richardson, right? Trump did that all the time. Most of his interviews were with Fox.

He would get right-wing authors, he would support their books. We need more Democrats to do that. Some do, not enough do. And the last thing is, and I think this is something that where there's real potential that we could, some of the, like, narrowing this gap is going to take time, right? The Republicans have been doing this for decades as I write in the book. But one thing I think we can do quickly is Democrats have this amazing grassroots army. Like, that is our comparative advantage against Republicans, as we had millions of people who will phone bank, text, knock doors, register

voters. It's like, what if we turn those voters into messengers where we thought at the end of every, you know, and that's how I think you think about your audience, it's how we think about our audience, Kirk and Media is we don't think of them as the end of the process. We give them a message because we want them to go talk to everyone in their lives. But what if the party apparatus created, you know, sort of incorporated that in our strategy, like in our volunteer recruitment? We gave them tools and do that. Content they can share with the 150, 200 people they have on average in their online network through Facebook, Instagram contacts. And the DNC actually this week, or I guess it's this month,

unveil the program to start doing that. And it's really exciting where we're going to turn every Democrat with a phone into someone who will carry our message. You don't think Joe Biden's getting enough credit for all his good work in the economy. Here's some content you can post on Facebook. You can text to your uncle. You can do all of that to do that. Oh, are there rumors going around that Joe Biden supports X or Y that's not true? Here's the proof that he didn't.

And you can share that with the people in your network who think that. Like, if we can build up that apparatus, I think we have a real chance to narrow the gap and compete in the messaging wars we've been losing pretty hands. for about eight years now. Yeah, I think, I think like the reason that Democrats are like, the reason that we get so upset when like positive messages about the White House aren't, aren't dispersed effectively is because we've kind of, like you mentioned, like handed the reins, handed our messaging apparatus over to the New York Times and, and Chuck Todd and like these people are going to

like wrap this shit and like both sides of them to the end of the earth. And so it's a problem of our own making, but like we don't have. to have we don't we don't have to give them all that power like we have the opportunity we have the ability to message ourselves i mean obviously like you said we need more progressive media outlets to be able to do that without having to be shamed uh not to both sides every goddamn issue there is but like you know it's but we don't have to give like imbue the new york times and and and cnn and chuck todd with all of that power like we we can just be the messages that we want to see It's not their job to get us elected to make the case against Trump.

They have their own set of interests, their own cultures, and that's fine. They should do that. And they should certainly have a, like, no one should infringe on their constitutional right to do that. But it's just the, it's so, it's like, this has been driving me crazy for basically decades, this idea that like campaigns sit around and they think and they, all these smart people and they do research and they test it, they come up with the perfect thing to say that we think can persuade someone somewhere to support our candidate.

it, then we take that thing and we hand it to someone else who may not even like us and we're like, deliver that to them. And we know through polling that the person who's going to receive it doesn't trust the person we asked to deliver it because trust in mainstream media. So it's like, no one would run a business that way, right? Like you would never have your, have someone who is kind of a competitor of yours deliver your product for you, right? Like Domino, Domino's is not hiring Papa John to deliver their pizzas, right? So like we just have to be smarter about it. And it's too many in the party, I think, have been, and this is changing, but have been unwilling to break with the old model that existed out of necessity, pre-internet,

pre-social media to do something different. And we have to get out of our comfort zone. Or we're going to lose going forward. Yeah. And it's at our own peril because it's not like we don't know that these outlets are going to both sides of everything. It's not we don't know that the New York Times ran, God knows how many cover stories about Hillary's emails and Benghazi and kind of did all the messaging that Republicans wanted them to do. So, you know, it's at our own peril, but I think your point is exactly spot on. You kind of, you kind of stepped on how I wanted to end this, which was to ask you, to ask you, you know, no one has the rhetorical genius that you do when it comes to subscribe button smashing. So maybe you can do what you do best and give the people listening

and watching to this a quick call to action here as we end this. Well, based on your subscriber numbers versus the crooked media ones. You are obviously much better at it than I am. And my trick always is to do, well, if I was doing it for myself, I would do it in a very self-effacing, self-derogatory way because I personally feel ridiculous. Ask people to subscribe to my YouTube channel. But I do not feel ridiculous.

Ask people to subscribe to your YouTube channel. Because I have such respect and admiration for the work you were doing. It is so important that you were out there and you were thinking, you're working your own. ass off, thinking of ways to spread the message. You're doing it on multiple platforms on a daily basis. And so we absolutely need everyone listening to this, everyone watching this to support Brian to smash that subscribe button. Because if you, like, this is just, I don't think enough people understand how this works, which is YouTube decides what to show people. And they make that

decision based on how much engagement and how many people view the previous. content. So the more people that watch what you do, subscribe to what you do. If they smash a subscribe button, your message will spread farther and more people will see it. And that is ultimately what is good for the Democrats and what is good for democracy. So, as I would say, smash that subscribe button. There you go. Thank you. Thank you so much. And Dan, thank you for taking the time. For anyone watching or listening, the book is battling the big lie. It is an excellent read. I don't have a ton of time to read books these days, but I flew through this one. It was, it was just phenomenally done. You can also hear more from Dan,

obviously, on Pod Save America. So Dan, thanks so much for taking the time. Thank you, Brian. Appreciate it. Thanks again to Dan. Now we've got gun safety advocate and father to Jamie, one of the Parkland victims who tragically lost her life in 2018, Fred Guttenberg. Fred, thank you so much for coming on. Thanks for having. So after having lost your daughter, you know, there have been so many shootings since to say nothing of Yuvaldi, which was probably the most wrenching since Parkland. So first of all, before we get into the political stuff, how are you doing with all of this going on?

You know, let me answer it this way. And I want to reflect back in your opening, where you said father of Jamie, because it really gets to how I'm doing and the impact of these shootings. I'm actually the father of Jesse and Gene. And everyone always really thinks of those who we lose because of gun violence, for those who we bury. But the collateral damage and the impact is far bigger. And so how am I doing? You know, listen, this past 10 days or so, however long it was,

have been painfully hard. And part of the reason is, you know, and I've talked publicly about this, I was on the phone with my son when my daughter was killed. I was on the phone with my son when he said, Dad, I'm hearing more bullets. And those were the bullets, the shots that were killing his system. And I hear those sounds in my head every second of every day. And what happens in moments like we're in now,

when these instances of gun violence keep happening, those sounds just stay really loud in my head. and so this has been a really mentally physically and emotionally tough week week and a half but I am a father to Jesse and Jamie I'm a husband to Jen and I am okay because the three of us still have each other and need each other and my son is 21 and I intend to be okay and grow old because I want to be around to harass him and make him crazy for a lot of years. But we as a country are messed up and we need to fix us. You know, on that note, we've heard a lot of excuses for all of these shootings,

from mental health issues to video games to doors, and given that we've got 400 million guns, more than half of the guns on the planet, what is your response to these politicians, people like Ted Cruz who, you know, are desperate to train everyone's attention on anything but the guns, you know, by going on this daily crusade about door control, for example. My response is we as a country need to make them irrelevant by voting in more people who believe in gun safety. Listen, here's the deal. Mental health is part of reducing gun violence.

We should talk about it. We should have a real plan to address it. We should not be defunding mental health. So since you mentioned Ted Cruz, Ted Cruz and Governor Abbott scream about mental health having an impact on gun violence while their state is cutting $200 million from treating those who have a mental health issue. Two-thirds of all gun violence is actually self-inflicted wounds, people who kill themselves. The other third, if you're someone with a mental illness, you're more likely to be a victim of gun violence and a perpetrator. So let's deal with mental health. I'm all in on that.

Let's look at violent video games because you know why there is so much gun violence and video games? Gun manufacturers pay a lot of money to make sure of that because it helps to market guns to kids. And so let's talk about it. Let's be honest about it. But if we're going to work to reduce gun violence, don't just say those things to avoid the conversation of the gun.

let's talk about what we're going to do. On that note, what would you like to see Congress pass on guns? And what do you expect to see Congress pass on guns? What I would love to see Congress pass right now is the bare minimum. That would be background checks. That would be raising the H-21. And that would be red flag laws. And in my mind, that's a bare minimal.

And you know, that's not asking a lot. And in fact, Governor Rick Scott in Florida was a leader passing legislation that looked just like that. Senator Rick Scott is running away from Governor Rick Scott because he wants people to forget. But he was the leader. So that's the bare minimum. What else? I'd love to see Plotka repealed. If we want to truly address gun violence in America, let's get these CEOs of these companies on the stand.

and let's hold them accountable, financially, morally, and by putting them under oath for the American people to see. What else? Ammunition limits, we have to do it. There's no question that if these ammunition limits were in place, these violent perpetrators of violence would be forced to reload their weapons more often, and that would be when law enforcement could step in and stop the kill them.

You know, there's, there's so much we can do when we should do, none of which is an affront any gun owner, any lawful gun owner, I should say, but it will save lives. And then, listen, you've probably heard me talk about Jamie's law before, where we seek to extend background checks to ammunition. 400 million weapons on the streets of America today, we need to do that. Now, what do I expect them to do? The truth is, I don't see the math the 10 Republican senators coming along

on even the bare minimum. Mitch McConnell has yet to say the word gun. And like I said, Senator Rick Scott, who in my mind would need to be part of that 10th, is running away from Governor Rick Scott. I don't see the math. I'm hopeful. Chris Murphy, I love him.

I love his optimism. I know he's working every second at it. I just, I don't know. know who the 10 are going to be. What would you like to see President Biden do by executive order? Well, he's already done a lot. When you look at ghost guns, when you look at trafficking, when you look at the fact that he's just nominated another ATF director who I think is going to get confirmed, he's already done a lot. But I think we need to look at varieties of other things that can be done through executive action and the failure of legislation and things that

deal with ammunition. We've got to see what we can do there through executive order. Now, through executive order, he has already banned imports from Russia, who was flooding our streets with ammunition. And it's working. But we need to do more. If I were the president or I were looking for places to exert executive action, I would be looking there. I would be looking at ways to open up paths to lawsuits in spite of plock up. I'm not, notice I'm not saying bans on A or 15s, as much as I have that on my wish list, I wish we could. I also understand the political reality of this country, and I'm more interested in doing

whatever we can that will save lives immediately. You know, we've seen so much polling on the fact that 70, 80, 90% of Americans support so many of these common sense gun safety measures, which includes majorities of Republicans. You can't do this without Republicans, but even, you know, when you look at these numbers, it is, it is majorities across the board. You're an advocate for these reforms. You've engaged a ton of people on both sides of the aisle. What's your experience been like with Republicans as far as these common sense safety measures are concerned? I have actually just a, I've come to a point of complete clarity in the past week about this.

Because here's where we are as a country, 80 to 90% do want something done. It's that simple. You have a president who will sign legislation. You have a House of Representatives who is passing legislation through the House, and you have a Senate that 50% of the members of the Senate will vote on legislation that the House is already passing and that the President would sign. So here's my point of clarity. We are now a country where it is not, I wouldn't even say a minority is blocking the majority.

You literally have 50 people thwarting the will of America. It is that simple. And honestly, there's nothing I could say to them. If they haven't already seen why this matters, then they are anti-American. they are in no place in a position to refer to themselves as pro-life. They are okay with our children dying. They are okay with random and mass gun violence. And in fact, the truth is there is a direct connection between gun violence and the risk to democracy.

And ultimately, they are okay with that. And so I have nothing to say to them to try and change their mind because they are that bad and evil. We need to make them irrelevant by putting aside the conventional wisdom about the next election and making sure we all show up and we all turn out. We've done that successfully in the past two elections. We've gone further in the direction of a gun safety majority. This third election, we either finish the job or we go backwards and go and go and Going backwards is a risk I'm not prepared to take.

To that exact point, you know, here's what I'm having trouble understanding. We all have our own politics and that's fine. But if you're a parent, how does gun safety not supersede your stance on taxation or gas prices? Like shouldn't, shouldn't we see Republicans refusal to budge on desperately needed and popular gun legislation and know that a bipartisan wave of parents is going to punish them? And yet, you know, regardless of that, we still see polling and it still shows that. that Republicans are the favorites in the next election. That is what I'm having trouble understanding out of all of this. There is no trouble. Let me help you. This is no longer

to be thought about in the ways we would typically think about Democratic politics, okay? Because Democratic politics don't apply to that small group of people, that they are authoritarian. This is actually what they want. And we either come to grips with a the fact that the democratic politics and ways of thinking do not apply to what they're thinking about and focus on making sure we turn out to kill their impact on our lives, okay, because that's what we need to do. Or we're looking at the potential of democracy no longer being a part of our daily lives. And this is an issue which makes that crystal clear for people

where that group of senators stands in the way of what the majority wants, but you can apply this thinking to so many other issues. You just went through a whole list. It's not that the majority of people don't want this. It's that the majority of people don't show up and vote for. And we end up with this. And so this is the election where that becomes crystal clear for people and they show up and vote. Or we can't fix things like this.

Have you spoken to any Republican voters for whom this was enough of a foundational issue and important enough issue that it did supersede all the other political bullshit that we, you know, that we look toward in a regular election? Absolutely, and across the country, and they agree. And it's the reason why I've become so friendly with Joe Walsh, former Congressman Joe Walsh, because he's out there delivering the same message as me because he understands the risk. He understands the threat. And, you know, it's the reason why I become friends with other people who work in the former administration,

who are out there publicly speaking because they understand the risk and threat. When I go across this country, I have gun owners, I have Republicans, I have gun owners and Republicans in communities across America where supposedly they're 100% red who come up to me and say, thank you for what you're doing, we support this. And so as long as the country and people across the country continue to feel that way, I have hope that we better show up and vote. Fred, what can we do to help your efforts in particular?

Is there anything that we can do, that my audience can do to help? Yeah, it's no longer enough to tell people to show up and vote. Because of voter restrictions, we need to tell them, What are we, five months out, six months out from the election, that you need to have a voting plan and work on it today. Know your voting plan today. Check your voter registration today. Check your ID today.

Know that everything is set and in place so that when you are going to vote, you won't first discover you have a problem because then it may be too late. And so let's make sure America knows it's not just enough to say, going to vote, work on your voting plan now because the last election wasn't the election of our lifetime. We only have to defeat one person. The next election is one where we have to defeat his legacy. This is the election of our lifetime. We need presententially your turnout. And so people get ready to vote, but set your voting plan today. We'll leave it there. Fred, thank you for, you know, I know this stuff is like I said before, wrenching

difficult, especially for someone like you, but thank you for being a voice for so many people. I really appreciate you taking the time. Thanks for having me. Thanks again to Fred. Again, please don't forget to subscribe to Brian Tyler Cohen on YouTube to tune in to these next few January 6 hearings. And as

always, thank you for listening, and I'll talk to you next week. 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,

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