No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen - Nancy Pelosi on how aggressive Democrats will be if Biden wins

Episode Date: July 5, 2020

A new development emerges in the Russia bounty story that bodes even worse for Trump, the White House issues a final step in dealing with coronavirus, and Brian interviews Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi about implications of the Russia story for Trump as well as how aggressive Democrats will be in enacting their agenda if they take the White House and Congress.Written by Brian Tyler CohenProduced by Sam GraberMusic by WellsyRecorded in Los Angeles, CAhttps://www.briantylercohen.com/podcast/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 be talking about a new development in the Russia bounty story that somehow bodes even worse for Trump. The White House's final step in dealing with coronavirus and my interview was Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, where we discuss the implications of the Russia story for Trump, as well as how aggressive Democrats will be in enacting their agenda if they take all three branches of government. I'm Brian Tyler Cohen, and you're listening to No Lie. Let's jump in. There's been an update to the Russia bounty story.

unfamiliar, it's basically, the New York Times broke this story last week that Russia had been paying Taliban militants' bounties to kill American soldiers, that Trump was briefed on the matter and that he did nothing about it. And the entire week that followed played out in two entirely separate universes, because on one side, the New York Times reporting was corroborated by the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, CNN, NBC, even Fox News. The New York Times then reported that Trump received a written briefing about it in February, which is actually a month earlier than previously believed, and then the Times reported on the actual guy who'd been delivering the payments from Moscow to the Taliban, a guy named Ramatula Azizi, who had

half a million dollars in cash in his home. Meanwhile, on the other side, the Trump side, he's saying this. On the issue of Russia and bounties, if there's ever a scenario in which Russia puts a bounty on U.S. troops, how would you respond? First of all, they'd hear about it. But we never heard about it because intelligence never found it to be of the, of that level where it would rise to that. When you bring something into a president, and I see many, many things, and I'm sure I don't see many things that they don't think rose to the occasion. This didn't rise to the occasion.

And from what I hear, and I hear it pretty good, the intelligence people didn't even, many of them didn't believe it happened at all. I think it's a hoax. I think it's a hoax by the newspapers and the Democrats. It just never happened. Just fake news. We know the guy who delivered the payments and found the cash in his house. And yet Trump is still just digging in his heels and sticking to his story. It's like if you had a tray of cookies and then suddenly they were gone and your kid is sitting there with chocolate on his face and crumbs in his lap and cookies in his mouth.

And you're like, did you eat the cookies? And he was like, no. That's basically Donald Trump at this point. Except now pretend that kid has the nuclear codes. That's where we're at. So as I'm sure you can imagine, this hasn't gone over well. You'll hear Speaker Pelosi during our interview discuss this, but veterans groups aren't, you know, over the moon

about Trump lying down for Putin on the issue of paying to have our soldiers slaughtered for cash. And so a week after the story first broke, a full week later, finally we begin to hear an inkling of what would be retribution against Russia, finally, which is what we're waiting for, right? The Daily Beast reported that senior administration officials have discussed with Trump the idea of ready for this, not inviting Putin to the G7 this year. Talk about a punishment. I don't see how Putin recover is from this.

Maybe revoking an invitation. Wow. Like, this is the presidential equivalent of one nine-year-old telling another nine-year-old that he can't come to your birthday party anymore. Okay, in case you forgot what this is all in reference to, Russia would. paying cash for the Taliban to kill our soldiers. And the commander-in-chief's response that the guy whose job it is to protect our troops is to maybe consider not inviting the guy onto our soil for an international summit in a group that he was kicked out of in the first place.

It used to be the G8. Russia was kicked out when Putin invaded and annexed a sovereign country. That's who Trump is hell-bent on getting back into this group. And even the guy putting cash bounties on our troops' heads isn't enough to seal the deal. They still can't get Trump to commit even to that. According to the Daily Beast report, quote, In the last two instances in recent days when officials or aides have discussed the option

of rescinding his offer to Putin, Trump responded by not committing one way or the other. According to the two sources familiar with the matter, he instead quickly pivoted to bashing the media, particularly the New York Times, which broke the news of the bounties. He's not upset that Putin was paying to have our soldiers killed. He's pissed that people found out.

Think about that for a minute. The thing that's pissing Trump off in this scenario isn't the part where his buddy over in Russia is orchestrating paid killings of Americans. It's that, ugh, now people are going to know. Now people are going to find out that the soldiers I'm supposed to be protecting have bounties on their heads

and I didn't do anything about it. So what should happen now? I'm no strategy expert, but maybe we start with, oh, I don't know, total spitballing here. Telling Putin to not pay to murder our soldiers, for starters, might be a good plan. maybe you do the bare-ass minimum that being the commander-in-chief calls for and do step number one.

Like, we're not asking Trump to go to war with Russia, right? We're not asking the guy to challenge Vladimir Putin to a duel, but maybe at the very least, close Twitter for a full 12 seconds and text the guy, hey, listen about that thing, for starters. The craziest part is Trump's whole presidency is branded on the idea that he's a strong man, right? he's tough and threatening and intimidating. But the thing is, he's not. A strong man would use this opportunity to be a strong man,

to show how tough he is. The only time Trump beats his chest is when he's hitting down on someone, when he's attacking a marginalized group, immigrants and migrants, LGBT Americans, black people, trans troops. When he thinks his opponent is weak, the guy walks around like Rocky Balboa, but put him up against someone who parades themselves around as a tough guy like him?

And he turns into a smitten 13-year-old girl. Love letters to Kim Jong-un, are you kidding me? Inviting Filipino President Duterte to the White House, the guy who's known for extrajudicial killings, refusing to even acknowledge Putin, placing bounties on our soldiers' heads, and we're supposed to believe Trump is strong? Come on. That's branding.

It's packaging. Trump's not strong. Beating up on who you think is the weakest kid on the playground doesn't make you tough. Have we not seen a movie from the last? 30 years? Are we really sitting here buying this bullshit pitch that the guy who picks on the kid in a wheelchair is tough? Give me a break. The truth is that Trump had the opportunity to be tough for once, for the right reason, right? To show that he'd be tough in defense of this country. And what do you do? Nothing. He got pissy that it leaked. He got mad at the newspaper

for outing him. And that says it all, right? Like, after years of selling himself as being this defender of America, this defender of the military, big, big tough protector of this country and its citizens. When Bush came to shove, he got scared and didn't do a thing. He didn't do a thing in February when it was on his written briefing. He didn't do a thing in March or April or May or June or even now in July, even after the New York Times reported it and the whole world found out still, still Trump is doing nothing about it. So if you ever needed any more proof that this whole shtick is a con? Well, you just got it.

Next up is my interview with Nancy Pelosi. We'll discuss this Russian bounty story pretty in-depth. But while I had her, I did want to take the opportunity to ask her in the event that Democrats control government next year, if we're going to be as aggressive as the Republicans are in making sure our agenda gets enacted with the same urgency that the GOP has right now. So we have Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi. Speaker Pelosi, thank you so much for taking the time.

I really appreciate it. My pleasure. Thank you. So let's start with the Russian bounty story. We have confirms reporting that the scheme for Russians to pay Taliban militants to kill U.S. soldiers actually occurred, that Trump received a written briefing on it in February, and that we even know the Afghan contractor who handed out the money. And meanwhile, Trump's position is just, nope, fake news. So how in the world does he reconcile that?

Well, I'm an intelligence person for 25 years. for actually in modern times the only person in the leadership to have that intelligence experience. And for us, force protection was the most important thing. You can't even entertain the thought of initiation of hostilities or engaging in them unless you know how you're going to protect your troops. It's of the highest priority to the intelligence community. And you would hope that it would have that same importance to the commander-in-chief. So I'm not saying what was in his daily brief, but we all do know that the threat of such an action is pretty much in the public domain.

And you would think that any threat to our troops would evoke the most immediate, relentless response from the President of the United States. What Chuck Schumer and I put out today says, force protection is a primary purpose of the intelligence community. It should have the same importance to the commander in Teague. Any reports of threats on our troops must be pursued relentlessly. These reports are coming to light in the context of the president being soft on that of Putin when it comes to NATO and G7, Crimea, Ukraine, and the ongoing undermining of the integrity of our elections. Then we say our armed forces would be better served with President Trump spent more time reading his daily breath and less time planning military parades and defending relics of the Confederacy.

Right. Well, I mean, here's the thing. Either Trump didn't read his daily brief and that dereliction of duty put our soldiers' lives in immediate danger, or he did read it and he ignored it because he'd rather let our troops die than stand up to Vladimir Putin. And yet he has the audacity to go out and grandstand about how much he loves the military, you know? So have you heard from military members about their thoughts on this? Well, I've heard from some of our veterans. Vote vets, for example, has repeated some of the stuff I had been putting. out. It's really quite sad because we always say when it comes to our military on the battlefield, we need no person behind. And when they come home, we need no veteran behind. And here we have a threat to our military that is ignored by the president of the United States without going into what would have been in the briefing to the president had he had the curiosity and the interest to listen to it. I do want to mention, too, you know, this is a guy who has attacked Gold Star families, who advocated for troops to commit war crimes, who insulted John McCain, a prisoner

of war for being a prisoner of war, who tried to invite the Taliban to Camp David on the weekend of 9-11. You know, the same Taliban who's now collecting cash payments from Moscow to kill our troops, a guy who forced West Point cadets to come back to New York, and then he saluted them, knowing that Moscow was paying Taliban militants to kill their fellow soldiers. You know, for him to call himself a friend to the military is just the height of hypocrisy. Well, how about when he went there and they covered up the name of the John McCain ship, which actually was named for John McCain's father, the whole family, such patriots? No, he's an insecure person.

As General Mattis said, he earned his spurs. He, Mattis, earned his spurs in the military. the president had bone spurs and then go into the military. This is, I just could even hurt him in his base because throughout our whole country is a great deal of patriotism in his base. It's who they are. And just watching, you know, as an observer

and a strategist on all of this, the White House made a point with the press, and I said this to the press, you took the con. This president went out there and said, there wasn't 100% consensus on this, so this is fake news and all that. That's not true.

Many times we pursue intelligence without 100%. Well, most of the time, you have to start someplace. Right. But they won that point because the press keeps asking me that question. Well, since everybody didn't agree. Well, yeah. And since everybody didn't agree that doesn't negate that some people believe that this happened or could have happened.

So that's one thing about the press falling for his act. The other part of it is to say it's fake news and a hoax. My gosh, coronavirus is a hoax. This story is a hoax. He is a hoax. He's a hoax. Well, that's a good segue into coronavirus and health care. I think, you know, Trump is in court now trying to dismantle the ACA as kind of a last

ditch effort to achieve the ultimate goal of his presidency, which is destroying Obama's legacy, right? And that's a legacy that you have a huge part in. You were instrumental in making sure the ACA got passed. ObamaCare is at its most popular point in history and we're in the middle of a pandemic. So trying to take health care away is insane. Is this just a gift to the Democrats ahead of this election? What's Trump's strategy here? Well, I don't have the use of the word strategy with him because I don't know that he thinks linearly or anything like that. And I don't just say this about Trump, I say this about many of the Republicans in Congress. They don't believe in science, and they don't believe in governance. So why would they want to, on the basis of

science, for example, do the right thing about the coronavirus? As I said today, in one of my press things, it's one thing for him to be that bad, that they try to eliminate health care for over 20 million people, health care benefits of 150 million families, the primary benefit for people with pre-existing conditions, 130 million families. It's one thing that they don't believe in it. They're trying to overturn it and we will fight them on that. But for them to why about it and just say, oh, we support pre-existing condition benefit. No, they don't. They're in court to overturn it in the middle of an epidemic. They're trying to take health care away in dad of saying we want states to expand Medicaid who haven't done it yet. So they don't believe

in governance, so they don't want a government role in health care. They don't believe in science, so they don't want to invest in early intervention into any onslaught of illness. It's a mess. And by the way, that's in direct contrast to what the American people want. You look at what happened in Oklahoma. No liberal bastion, right? In Oklahoma, they just voted to expand. and Medicaid. Isn't that great? Yeah, I mean, it goes to show that, you know, the American people are on board with, you know, the agenda that the Democrats are trying to pass and that the Republicans' agenda is just

flying in the face of that. I wear this pin. You can't see it right now. It's a flag. But on it says, one country, one destiny. And this was what was sewn into Abraham Lincoln's coat that he wore, one country, one destiny. And that's what we are. So we get bogged down sometimes.

talking about the lack of, shall we say, coherence on the part of the person occupying the White House at the moment. What we should be talking about is the flag, the pledge we take liberty and justice for all. Liberty, freedom for people to do what they want, to be who they are, LGBTQ plus whatever, women to have a right to choose in terms of their reproductive freedom. The list goes on and on. And justice. Justice is the central point of everything. Economic justice, justice in health care, environmental justice.

Every subject that you can name comes back to justice in policing, justice in the courts, of course, but real true justice. And that's where one country, one destiny, can come together rather than, well, I don't believe in this or that. Do you believe in justice? Do you believe in justice? That has to be central and our standard for whatever we do. So let's actually talk about, you know, the Democratic agenda. If Biden is lucky enough to take the White House,

I guess there's a bit of a worry among Democrats that will be more concerned with healing divisions than aggressively enacting our agenda. You know, that we have to always be the ones to take the high road while Republicans stop at no lengths to achieve their goals. So what's going to be your position here if we are lucky enough to control all three branches of government? I think that we have gone to a new place.

We just are at a different place. You know why? Because people knew their power, the power of their turning out day in and day out, week and week out, over a month, all over the country, all over the world for justice. So I think we have to go into this with the confidence of they don't share our values.

I mean, how can we compromise with them when we say no chokeholds? And they say some chokeholds. Right. Well, we're going to compromise with a number of chocles? No chocles. No chockel. I feel very, because I'm described as a left-wing

San Francisco liberal, they spent, they paid, had 137,000 ads describing me as such. I welcome that characterization. It didn't work for them in the election, this last election. However, I do know you cannot negotiate with people who want nothing. You're having a negotiation with your neighbor, your friend, about the size of the fence or the length of the grassland. If they don't want anything, it's very, very hard to find common ground.

That's why we're putting down our marthous, well, our agenda, lower health care costs, or the cost of prescription drugs, negotiating for lower prices with pharma, justice in policing, voting for the first time to make the District of Columbia a state. And then again, with the infrastructure bill, the greenest, biggest package for infrastructure in the history of our country. Moscow Mitch, he said, she's spending all this money, taking all this money, calling it infrastructure, and she's spending all the climate change.

said, we call it crisis, he calls you. And I said, exactly. This is about infrastructure for the future, not infrastructure from the 50s. And that's a legacy. I said, if I may, that's the legacy of the Democratic Party. You know, people talk about Roosevelt and all the things he did, which were remarkable. And people said, well, you're talking about old programs. I'm not talking about old programs. I'm talking about fresh thinking. His approach was persistent bold experimentation. And that's where we have to go. Speaking of, I think something that's going to pop up here is the filibuster in the Senate, the issue of the filibuster in the Senate. What's your position on whether the Senate

should abolish the filibuster in the event that Democrats take the Senate? Well, I don't get involved in their interactions, and I don't want them to get involved in mine. But I will say this. I can't get over the fact that they will be approving 200 judges with 51 votes. They have gotten the advantage of no filibuster on those judges. Right. I would hope we would get the advantage on what we believe in. But we'll see.

I mean, for example, when we did the Affordable Care Act in 2010, we did it under reconciliation, 51 votes. And we are going to win the Senate. We're going to win the House. We're going to win the Senate. Senate and we're going to win the White House. Civilization, as we know it today, depends on it. We must. Speaking of Mitch McConnell, by the way, he's come out against abolishing the filibuster. You know, suddenly Mitch McConnell is urging against changing norms. What would your message to McConnell

be on this subject? Are we referencing Moscow Mitch? Is that what we're talking about? That's who we're talking about. That's the guy. Soon to be not the majority leader of the Senate. Is that the same person? The same guy, yeah. I don't want to get involved in the Senate. Whatever the lead of the Senate Democrats is, that's what I will follow. But I will say this, that if there were shared values, you at least could find a path, but there aren't. That's why it's so important to win the election.

We'll talk politics for a moment. We have to turn out our vote. You know that. That's a given. Let me talk to you about the House for a second. We are very excited about winning the House. We did before. Now we have to win it again.

It's not as easy as people think for this reason. When we won 40 seats last time, 30 of them were in districts that were won by Donald Trump. They were close. He wasn't on the ballot. He will be on the ballot this time. So that makes it a steeper climb to hold those seats. that we have to be fortified with the resources to do so, and some of that means money. We have to be mobilizing, owning the ground, not yielding one grain of sand and turning out the boat

and vote by mail, and we have to have a message that works in those districts, the boldest, most progressive message that works in those districts. And in those districts, we can help win the electoral college and help win the U.S. Senate. We have some great candidates just this week. This week we've gotten Hillary Shulton in West Michigan, just fabulous candidate, Dana Balser, who is so fabulous of grassroots activist, Dana Balter in New York, and Kansas that we're winning in Kansas is so remarkable. They're all tough districts, but we have great candidates. So not only do we want to win our 40 that we won before, but we want to add to that. So you're maybe the only the only one,

person who Trump doesn't know what to do with from from the infamous clap to shredding his speech at the state of the union to the photo where you're standing up to him are these moments planned or is it just luck that whenever you're in contact with the guy his world comes crumbling down it's not lucky it's just spontaneity uh i didn't go to the state of the union his speech right his pack of lies that he put out there his disrespect for the congress the house of representatives he's giving a medal of freedom to an anti-gay person. Like, what's his name?

Rush Limbaugh. Rush Limbaugh. Yeah. I prefer to put it. It just, this was inevitable that I would do that. In terms of the meeting that we had at the White House, when I'm pointing to him, as I leave, I'm saying, with you, Mr. President, all roads lead to Putin. And I say that to him today.

It seems to be a recurring theme in this president. It does. Look at it. He questions our commitment to NATO. He wants to invite him back into the G7 when he's annexed Crimea invaded Ukraine. He has undermined the integrity of our elections. He has yielded to him in Syria. What does Putin have on him politically, personally, financially, that he has to caltech. to him all the time. And so we don't have a very good report. I can't wait. There's 125 more days. I just can't wait. Yeah.

I mean, this administration truly is, and especially Bill Barr, a living, breathing testament to, you know, the attack on, like you said, on justice. And I think it comes around full circle. And, you know, you couldn't have a more clear difference between what the Republican Party under Trump is doing and what the Democratic Party is,

trying to bring into the country? I don't know what the Bar Association is doing if they're not investigating the ability of Bar to practice law. They should be kicking him right out. And some of our members, Kathleen Price and Ted Liu for a year have had a letter to the Bar Association for Washington Law School where he went to school. Why are they just taking his picture down

or whatever they have up for him? Yeah. If they needed a kick, this might be it, right? Let's see. One thing I have to say to you and to your viewers, go to speaker.gov slash Heroes Act and see what the Heroes Act does. It's so remarkable. But when you look at it, that one of the pillars is to honor our heroes and you'll look up where you live, where you grew up, where you went to school, where you have friends, and see all the money that's going to the state and localities and counties in order to pay for their costs. coronavirus and their revenue lost because of the coronavirus. And when you see all that money, it's dazzling.

And then remember this, it's only half of what it costs for them to give a tax cut. In 2017, their tax scam, adding $2 trillion to the national debt, giving 83% of the benefits to the top 1%. And they complain about our helping our states, our heroes, our health. care workers, teachers, sanitation workers, first responders, you name it, transportation, did I say. And they complain about somebody getting $600. That's right. Because they're out of work. Look at all that money and then realize it's only half of what they gave the high end. Makes it crystal clear who's fighting for who, right? Happy Fourth of July.

Happy Fourth of July, Speaker Pelosi. Thank you so much. Thank you. Wonderful to be with you. Thank you so much, Brian. Thanks again to Speaker Pelosi. So next I want to touch on coronavirus because it's July, so what else would we be talking about other than the pandemic that just about the entire world completely contained, while worst in cases spiked to record levels every single day. Trump said we'd be tired of winning, and boy was he right, this is exhausting. So over the last six months, we've run the entire gamut on the White House's messaging on the outbreak, that it was completely contained, that cases would soon be down to zero, that it would go away with the heat, that we would just have to make. it to April, that anyone who wants a test could get a test to keep buying the dip in the market, that we did such a good job that we're sending ventilators everywhere else,

that there are now suddenly just a few embers popping up. We've heard every excuse, every bit of spin, just about all of it completely divorced from reality, and it's led to this. So according to NBC News, the White House has settled on what they hope is a sharper and less conflicting message of the pandemic, which is, quote, to learn to live with it. That's the strategy, giving up, that they're not willing to do anything about the deadly virus whooping across the country that basically every other country on earth is contained. So the option now is, sorry, this is life now.

This is life. Where most of the country is afraid to go outside, where we can't eat in restaurants, can't see friends and family. This is life because the Republican Party followed Trump's lead and pretended the pandemic wasn't real and wasted crucial time in the beginning that should have been spent containing the virus instead just lying about it. Like, we pay tax dollars so that we don't have to learn to live with it. Our tax dollars are supposed to pay for people and programs whose job it is to make sure that this isn't our reality.

They're supposed to go to experts who know what they're doing, not people like Jared Kushner, whose only qualification to sit on the coronavirus task force was getting married to Ivanka. The Trump administration conceding that this is just how it's going to be now isn't, you know, sharper messaging, as they're calling it. It's them admitting they failed at their jobs. If a fire department can't put out fires, then they can't do their job, right?

If a government can't protect its citizens from a pandemic, when there are ways to do so, then they failed. And that's what's happening here. And as if that wasn't bad enough, while all of this is happening, the Republicans' collective response is to desperately pivot to talking about Democrats wanting to to tear down statues. Statues. Why?

Because they rely on culture wars to win elections, and their attempts to turn coronavirus into one is an unmitigated disaster. Clearly, trying to spin politically a pandemic hasn't worked out for them, right? Apparently, you just can't politic away 130,000 dead Americans. So I promise you that for at least the foreseeable future,

while the left is talking about the virus still sweeping across the country that Trump opted to pretend didn't exist, Republicans will be talking about the anarchistic leftist destroying statues and erasing our heritage. Before Trump's Fourth of July speech in front of Mount Rushmore, I decided to watch Fox News's pre-show coverage, which I usually don't do. In half an hour, here's what I learned. If all you consume is Fox, you're going to be walking around thinking that the entire Democratic Party is lining up in town squares with sledgehammers, frothing at the mouth to destroy whatever George Washington's statue we come across. It's crazy. The entire thing was railing to protect this thing that Democrats

aren't trying to destroy. Are there statues glorifying like slave owners and overall shitty people that progressives want taken down? Yeah, of course. And you know what? It's time to take them down. Could you imagine Germans trying to keep statues of Hitler in their town squares? No. So why is the right in the United States falling over itself to protect statues of Confederate generals whose goal was to destroy the country. I mean, it's completely backwards. Yeah, it's history. Guess what? You can read about history and books. You can learn about it in museums. You don't need to stare at a Confederate slave-owning general on your way to McDonald's in the year 2020, which is reasonable. Let's not lose sight of the plot here. That is a reasonable thing. But that's not what Fox is talking about,

because Fox brought it 10 steps further. Fox spent their entire pre-show coverage whipping their viewers into a frenzy over the idea that the left is angling to destroy every statue, to erase our history, even to demolish Mount Rushmore itself. And then you have congressmen like Lee Zeldon in New York, taking to Twitter and writing, quote, on July 3rd, 2020, President Trump stood in front of giants forever memorialized in the stone of Mount Rushmore, with forever in all caps so that he can promote this straw man. You have Laura Engram, tweeting, quote, your daily reminder, if Biden wins, your taxes are going up, and Mount Rushmore is kind of. coming down. And so if you're a Republican and this is who you listen to, that's what you'd think

the left is doing, that we're just walking the streets with pickaxes. I mean, it's insane. It's an alternate reality that only exists in this conservative media ecosystem. They so desperately need a culture war to distract from what's obviously a losing issue with coronavirus that this is what they're browbeating their viewers and supporters with. And then those people are out here confronting Democrats like, you're not going to erase our heritage. And we're all like, what? Here's what it comes down to. Trump and Republicans are in such dangerous territory because they lost touch with reality with this pandemic. Just about the entire country could see that. But pivoting to this Fox News, destroying our statues and Mount Rushmore conspiracy theory

bullshit also isn't reality. This is doing nothing to help them. If you're a regular American and you're worried about the virus or you're worried about how to pay your bills or you're worried about keeping your job and the president is railing against the destruction of Mount Rushmore. How is that helping you? It's not. Just like him pretending the virus would miraculously disappear wasn't helping you either. Replacing one strategy with no basis in reality with another strategy with no basis in reality isn't going to help Donald Trump.

So Fox News trying to give oxygen to their usual culture war issues is only exacerbated. the problem for the right here. The American people don't need another enemy, another wedge issue. They need leadership. They need a president capable of acknowledging the issue right in front of all of our faces, the pandemic. They need someone willing to just do the work. This whole time, we've needed one thing. We need a responsible approach to the outbreak. We need testing, contact tracing, PPE, social distancing. We need leaders who set a good example and wear masks. That's it. That's what we need. We've set it every way imaginable. We're not being coy with it. We're not being political with it. People are trying to survive. And the fact that

the only thing the GOP can talk about right now is the imaginary destruction of Mount Rushmore goes to show that they're never going to get it. They're never going to get it. Even after 130,000 dead Americans, they're not going to change. So my only advice is to remember that when you cast your vote in November. You can vote for responsible leadership and an acceptance of reality or you can vote for the guys running on protecting Mount Rushmore from an imaginary army of socialists. So yeah, take all the time you need with this. That's it for this week.

I hope you all had a safe Fourth of July. Talk to you next week. You've been listening to No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen, produced by Sam Graber, music by Wellesie, 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 channel. channels.