No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen - Republicans invite disaster with ill-advised impeachment

Episode Date: December 17, 2023

Republicans decide to move forward with an impeachment inquiry against Joe Biden, setting themselves up for disaster. Brian interviews Congressman Jared Moskowitz about that very effort, whether he thinks Republicans will actually end up holding an impeachment vote or just drag this thing out for the next 11 months, and his thoughts on George Santos’ new venture outside of Congress.Donate to the "Don't Be A Mitch" fund: https://secure.actblue.com/donate/dontbeamitchShop 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 Republican decision to move forward with an impeachment inquiry against Joe Biden, and I interview Congressman Jared Moskowitz about that very effort, whether he thinks Republicans will actually end up holding a vote on impeachment or just dragging this thing out for the next 11 months, and his thoughts on George Santos' new venture outside of Congress. I'm Brian Tyler Cohen, and you're listening to No Lie. The House has formally voted to move forward with an impeachment inquiry against Joe Biden, so I want to talk about why this is happening, but also more importantly, whether

it'll impact Joe Biden. Now, of course, this whole thing was done with the blessing of the new Republican Speaker, Mike Johnson, who only four short years ago railed mercilessly against the prospect of a one-party impeachment. The founding fathers, the founders of this country warned against single-party impeachment. They said that it would be bitterly divisive, perhaps irreparably divisive for the country. The founders of this country warned us against the single-party impeachment because they feared it would bitterly and perhaps irreparably divide our nation. The founders of this country warned against a single party impeachment. You know why? You guys know why? Because they feared it would bitterly and perhaps irreparably divide our nation.

The founding fathers warned us. I mean, they feared a single party impeachment. They knew that it would bitterly divide the country. It might be irreparable damage to the country. And of course, now we're in the midst of, you guessed it, a one party impeachment. And even the invocation of the founding fathers themselves was apparently not enough to dissuade Mike Johnson from plowing forward. And before I say another word, I think it would be wholly irresponsible of me, not to mention that conspicuously absent in all of this is evidence of any wrongdoing by Joe Biden. And that's something that Republicans admit.

They're saying now that they need to open impeachment inquiry so that they can find evidence of high crimes or misdemeanors. But that's not how this works. You don't start the process of prosecuting someone so that you, can hopefully find proof that they did something worth prosecuting them for. You prosecute them because you already have some proof. Jamie Raskin lays this out perfectly when he says that normally you watch a who-done-it where you have a crime and you figure out who committed it.

In this case, it's a what-is-it because they've got Joe Biden, but no one has a clue what he actually did. And by the way, don't take my word for it. Republicans are being asked to their faces to explain what evidence of a crime they have. And this is one example of how those conversations are going. What is the specific constitutional crime that you're investigating? Well, we're having an inquiry so we can do an investigation. Okay.

And the production of witnesses and what is the crime you're investigating? And documents. High crimes, misdemeanors and bribery. What high crime and misdemeanor are you investigating? Look, I will, once I get time, I will explain what we're looking at, and I will make the equivalency of the last impeachment. And yet still, that hasn't slowed him down. And the reason is obvious.

They need to offer up the optics of corruption by Joe Biden. There will come a point where this will be dragged out so long and become such a long-running bit on right-wing media that people will begin to believe that he did something wrong, regardless of the fact that there is not a modicum of evidence actually proving it. And it's a well-trod path for Republicans. This is exactly the same playbook that they used against Hillary Clinton when they hammered away at her email scandal relentlessly to the point where the entire Republican base believed that she committed the greatest national security sin in modern American history. And of course, that wasn't even close to true because if they actually believe the bullshit they were peddling, then they would have mentioned it even once when Ivanka Trump got caught doing the same thing in the Trump White House.

But, you know, guess it's only dangerous when a Democrat does it. In any case, it works back in 2016, and they want it to work again now, which is why they're plowing ahead with this sham effort despite no evidence to actually back it up, which raises the question, can it work? And the answer is yes. Again, it's worked before Hillary is proof of that. They know what they're doing.

They know that if they can pepper their audience and their supporters with the same narrative day in and day out, that eventually it'll start to stick. But here's the difference. The left largely ignored the Hillary email stuff because we assumed that it wasn't worth our energy to respond, that we wouldn't validate what was clearly a political hit job by reacting to it. And what did that do? That created a vacuum on the left that the right was perfectly content to fill with disinformation. They got to run that campaign for months and months and months with zero pushback.

They dictated the terms of the narrative, and because they were unopposed, their narrative won out. So with that mind, we cannot cede this ground to those purveyors of disinformation on the right. We have to come out fast and loud about the fact that there is zero evidence of wrongdoing, that the only quote-unquote smoking gun they've presented is like a $1,300 car loan repayment. That their own witnesses, including right-wing hack, Jonathan Turley, said during their only impeachment inquiry hearing that there is no basis for impeachment, that Republican senators have already come out and said that there's no basis for a impeachment. If they want to plow ahead with this nakedly partisan scheme, then we have to recognize that this is a target-rich environment and hammer away at them. Look, the fact that there's

no justification to impeach Joe Biden is an issue that unites the Democrats and divides the Republicans. When we have issues like that, issues that we are clearly on the correct side of, we shouldn't be afraid to exploit them. Republicans are quite literally lying. There is no reason whatsoever that we shouldn't crush them day in and day out on this issue. The reality is that Republicans benefited from Democrats pretending that the lies would never hurt them last time, this time we all know better. We very clearly own the truth here, so we should absolutely also own the narrative.

Next up is my interview with Jared Moskowitz. Now we've got Congressman Jared Moskowitz. Thanks for coming back on. Thanks for having me. So the House Republican Conference has voted unanimously now to approve an impeachment inquiry against Joe Biden. Does there seem to be no qualms from your Republican counterparts that there's no proof to back this impeachment inquiry up, like literally no evidence.

Well, I mean, don't listen to what I've said. Listen to them. Many of them have admitted there's no evidence. And in fact, what they've said is just a myriad of different reasons why they need the inquiry. First is, well, we need the inquiry because we need to find the potential crime. That's what Jamie Raskin has been saying. What is the crime? And they can't name what they're investigating so they're investigating to investigate uh basically is what is what that vote was they'll they'll also say that well they've found some stuff mostly about hunter of course who isn't president okay and you know this will allow them to find more others even more blunt and they say this is a this is hurting him in the polls this is about helping donald trump which is really what this is

about let me remind you donald trump has 50% of the impeachments in american history and he has a hundred percent of the indictments in American history for a president. Joe Biden has none of that stuff. But to give you an idea of how confident they are in their supposed evidence that they've uncovered, how important they believe this vote really is, the seriousness of the impeachment inquiry, literally within 24 hours of taking the vote, they ran out of town for three weeks left. They're not holding any hearings. I mean, if really someone had committed a crime, If really they were on the precipice of breaking news, if really this was so important to the American people, you stay. You don't leave. No, they ran away from their vote. And so one of the things that I've been saying, and look, you know, Chairman Comer and I, I think we're going to be friends eventually.

probably not. You know, I doubt, maybe, who knows. But in this impeachment about nothing, which is really, that's why it's the sign-filled impeachment, the only thing I think Comer is really close to discovering after the tens of thousands of pages that have been turned over by this White House, something the Trump White House never did during those investigations, the only thing I think Chairman Comer is really on the cusp of really just getting, and we'll be able to tell the American people when he finally gets to it, is that all the evidence points to the fact that Joe Biden

is the father of Hunter Biden. I think it's going to be conclusive. I think it's going to be, I think the evidence will be overwhelming. And then look, James will have a win. He'll finally have a win. Failure theater will be over. He'll be able to go in front of the cameras. and he'll be able to say that the preponderance of the evidence that Hunter is indeed the son of Joe Biden. Yeah, well, we look forward to that revelation. Until then, footage has surfaced from four years ago when Mike Johnson had come out numerous times against an impeachment by one party, and that was, of course, against Donald Trump.

And lo and behold, this impeachment inquiry will move forward with the support of only one party. So what's your message to Speaker Johnson now in light of this hypocrisy? Well, look, Speaker Johnson most recently compared himself to Moses, usually not a comparison than most people make. Someone should remind Speaker Johnson and Moses wandered in the desert for 40 years, which seems to be kind of how Johnson's speakership is going. But he said he prayed. Johnson said he prayed that this would not happen, that a one-party impeachment would not

happen, and we wouldn't impeach somebody because we didn't like them. Well, Johnson's prayers are not going to be answered because he, he's not answering his own prayer. He's the speaker. Someone should remind him that he has the power to answer his own prayer and to prevent a one-party impeachment and to prevent impeaching someone because they don't like them. So look, you know, there's the height of hypocrisy, obviously. The 118th Congress is full of that. And Johnson is helping lead what I think will go down as a historic Congress, the 118th, right? We'll remove a member, we'll remove a speaker, and we'll open up impeachment inquiry with no evidence. You know, Republicans are going to continue finding no evidence

against Joe Biden, but that doesn't seem to matter to Republicans because they still get the optics of corruption. And at the end of the day, that's what they're looking for. So can you speak to that? Well, no, there's definitely a level of let's drag this out as long as we can. Let's prosecute it in the media. We'll go on Fox News. We'll go on Newsmax. We'll go on to own where they don't ask us any tough questions. You've seen what happens when they go on other networks and they ask tough questions about the evidence. You know, James Comer, you know, he's like Nick Cage and National Treasurer. He's just like all over the place. And he can't answer any of the stuff. But that's really what they're doing at the moment. They're going to prosecute this in the

press. They'll say, well, look at Joe Biden's numbers. They'll take full credit for that. You know, Donald Trump, who's given these instructions to the Republicans to do this because he doesn't want to be the only one who's been impeached. Right. Kind of to devalue this whole process and to say, look, everybody can get impeached now. Correct, correct. Because really what he wanted is he wanted the Republicans to remove the impeachments. Remember that. Those bills were filed to expunge the impeachment, something we've not seen ever before. That didn't go anywhere. So when that Trump plan didn't work, they're going with this plan, which is, well, you know, let's try to muddy up Joe Biden. And so, you know, that's really

the focus. But again, look, Speaker Johnson, he's in charge of this. He's really delivering for Donald Trump. It's not about the evidence. We are really continuing to devalue. the point of impeachment, and we're continuing to break the institution every single solitary day. Congress doesn't really do much anymore, you know, other than, like I said, remove a speaker, remove a member, and open up an impeachment agree with zero evidence. Do you think they'll actually vote on an impeachment at any point in the next 11 months or just keep this process going to give the optics of corruption? No, no, no, they're going to vote.

I've had this debate with a lot of the moderate members who have said, well, I'm not for impeaching the president. But, you know, there's enough to open up an inquiry. And I have said, right, but that starts the clock, right? Because here are the two things that are definitely sure. One is, once they open up an impeachment inquiry, other Republicans are going to do this for six months and say, well, we still haven't found anything, which is why we're not doing the impeachment, right? Because that's what the media is going to say, which is if you found overwhelming evidence, why haven't you impeached him? The second thing is, do you think the Freedom Caucus and Marjorie Taylor Green are going to let them not do an impeachment vote, right?

She's going to call for it. It's going to be a privileged motion. They're going to continue to try to force an impeachment vote. So they've backed themselves into the corner, these moderates who represent Biden districts. There's like 15 or 16 of them that represent Biden districts and Biden won in the election. They're going to have to explain the American people when they eventually have to take that impeachment vote, why they voted one way or another. And oh, by the way, if they vote against impeachment, right?

I mean, that's really, really an interesting political question. They only have a four-vote majority, which is continuing to dwindle by the moment. And so there's no room forever. If they don't have all those moderates on board for impeachment, they can't call the vote because then it would fail, which it should fail because there isn't any evidence, but that's not going to be what makes Donald Trump happen. He'll be very upset about that. You know, this is taking up all of the House Republican conferences time.

Is this the best? Because they're so busy. They're so busy helping the American people. you're right that they weren't doing this they would be doing substantive policy right well that's the exact point i mean they had they had campaigned on helping americans you know with everything under the sun but is this you know uh is this the best use of the majority that they were desperate for well what's the saying you you campaign in poetry and you govern and bullshit apparently is is is what they're doing they have no legacy for policy in this congress

It is a do-nothing Congress. Well, hold on, hold on. Are you suggesting that their important steps forward on gas stoves was nothing here? Well, by the way, don't forget ceiling fans. Sealing fans, once they solved the gas stove issue for the American people, they moved on to ceiling fans. And if we could just get the trifecta of water pressure and showers, then this will really be, this Congress will really go down in history. Well, come on. They got Donald Trump is selling pieces of his suit.

Okay. He's, you know, the nation's best blender salesman on QVC. He's cutting off pieces of his suit and trying to sell them. And like, you know, there's someone in their basement going, honey, can we get a piece of the suit for 250? Yeah. Most Americans don't have enough money to spend on a $400 emergency. And yet Donald Trump is out there hawking for 250 bucks a pop, pieces of his clothing. No, no. He's saying that the economy is terrible. He's saying the employment levels are high, both of which are not true. He's saying inflation is out of control, also which is not true. He's saying gas is $5, $6, $7, $8.

Good to know. He can count in a row. Also not true. You know, we've seen the latest economic data come out. The Fed is holding interest rates. Things are turning around, and Donald Trump wants to tell people in the same breath, I know you're suffering. I know things are so terrible.

We're losing the country. You can't afford groceries. But while I have your attention, if you'd like a piece of it, of my suit that I was arrested in or my J6 suit from January 6th or the suit I wear with Vladimir Putin or the suit I wore with Kim Jong-un. I will sell pieces of my suit and you can frame that in your bathroom. Right, right, of course. Always enough money for that. Always enough money for scraps of Donald Trump's clothing. Don't forget. You know, this whole effort, this whole impeachment inquiry effort was launched on day one of this Congress by Marjorie Taylor Green.

What does it say about the influence of the Marjorie-Teller Greens of the Republican Party that this is now moving forward? Well, you've been watching this entire Congress. Even when Kevin McCarthy was Speaker, they have totally been in control. The Freedom Caucus and the fringe, the Maga Fringe, have been totally in control. They kept Kevin from becoming Speaker for a period of time. They then got Kevin to agree to arcane rules. They then kept Kevin to make – they made Kevin make a deal with the Democrats on the debt ceiling,

on keeping the government open, right? They didn't want to partake in that. And so they've been in total control. They then removed Kevin, okay, because they were, even though they forced him to keep the government open by making a deal with Democrats, then that wasn't good enough. They removed him. And now the same thing is with Speaker Johnson. They have total control in the small minority that the Republicans have. So what does it say? This is Marjorie Taylor Green's party. It is. This is Donald Trump and Marjorie Taylor Green's party, this is an extremist party, they are doing everything they can to go back to the minority in the house. I mean, they can't wait to get there. They're counting down the days because they don't want to govern. They actually don't want to be in charge. They

would rather be in the minority and just say no to everything. And so it's been very clear. And that's why on the impeachment, you know, I said this in I said this in the hearing because the Republicans brought a constitutional scholar forward, right? Their own witness in the impeachment hearing. who said, based on everything we know, based on all the evidence that's come forward, it doesn't rise to the level of impeachment. It was completely awkward when their own witness said that. But the witness also said that we shouldn't prejudge, right? We should do it based on the evidence.

And I said, well, hold on, Professor Turley. Marjorie Taylor Green, literally within hours of Joe Biden being sworn into office, filed articles of impeachment. And then everyone started copying her, you know, different members started filing articles of impeachment before a single hearing, before a single deposition, before getting a single document. They looked at nothing and they said impeach the guy. So let's not pretend all of a sudden it's based on anything they've discovered. They said on the first week in office, we're going to impeach him. And now they're just trying to say, look at all of this information. They show pictures of boxes

of documents behind them, which again, their own witness says doesn't rise to the level of impeachment. Right. It's always been a conclusion in search of evidence since they won. And I would also add to your point that, you know, when you have these Republican moderates who are running for office claiming that they're different from the Marguteller Greens and Lauren Boberts of the party, that when you cast your ballot for a Republican, you're not empowering those moderates because they cave every single time you were empowering the Marjorie Taylor Greens of the party. That's who actually wields influence in the GOP. So you can you can listen to this song and dance by those by those elusive moderates out there, but they're not the ones. who actually hold or wield any power in that party? No, in fact, the only time they've shown that they're willing to put their foot down is when Jim Jordan was running for Speaker. That was the one time you saw the moderate say, this is not going to happen because they realized if they had voted for Jim Jordan, which people know who he is. He has name recognition.

They would have been wiped out. They voted for Johnson, who nobody knew who he was. So as a result, it didn't have that same sort of problem. But look, they have the same issue. They have a primary voter. That's the same primary voter in all districts. These are Donald Trump, mostly MAGA, mostly extreme primary voters. It's not like the general election Republican voter. These moderates, they got to make sure they don't get a primary challenge from their rights. That's what they're concerned about. They know they couldn't go home and not take this vote on, on the inquiry, because they, people can still file right now and run against them from the rights. So that's what they were worried about, you know. And so, you know, you'll, you'll, you'll, you'll, you'll, you'll, you'll, you'll, you'll, you only see them get any courage when they're retiring. Right. Even with Kevin McCarthy, by the way, who immediately after leaving Congress actually stood up on stage at some conference or something

and was basically like, during the state of the union, I looked at the Democratic Party and they look like America. I look at the Republican Party and it looks like the most exclusive country club in America. Well, look, and he's not wrong about that. But I'll give him a little bit of credit. He did spend time in the offseason recruiting candidates trying to get the Republican Party to look more like America, more women, more African America. He actually did focus on that. Now, I will tell you, that's like 1% of members, 2% of members on the Republican side. So, you know, there are only like several decades behind the Democrats, 30, 40, 60 years behind us.

But yeah, no, that's a huge problem. But that's really what Donald Trump is really talking about in his campaign when he says, Make America Great again. What he's really talking about is he's talking to non-college educated whites who, he wants to appeal to who don't like that the country is becoming more diverse, that don't like that the country is necessarily becoming more progressive, who don't like the youth of America and want to take us back to the 50s and 60s when everything looked great on black and white television on the four channels that they had. Now, I want to switch gears a little bit for this

last question. Since he was expelled, George Santos has been making bank on cameo. The other day he posted that he had shot 700 videos. And I think at last glance, he was making about $200 a pop, which puts him at about $140,000 in just a couple of days. What are your thoughts on Republicans like Santos perpetuating this reality that the GOP is basically just a politics to reality star pipeline? Well, I mean, here's what I would say, right? He didn't belong in Congress, okay, based on how he got there, based on the evidence that came out in the efforts report. he didn't belong in Congress, but he does belong in entertainment, okay? He is extremely entertaining. If he can survive, you know, the criminal justice system, I assume we'll see him on dancing with

the stars soon. Right. I mean, you would totally watch a reality show, watching George Santos, like, go to the grocery store and like walk his dog. I mean, I'd watch it. I wouldn't tell anybody, but I'd watch. Right. No, I understand. Well, we usually don't tell people most of this reality TV we watch it. But yeah, that's where he belongs. But no, it is part of some of the culture that we see from the right that a lot of, a lot of what they're doing is entertainment. Just look at late night TV on Fox. That is not news.

Sean Hannity is not news. It is pure entertainment. He's very good at it, which is why he's been there and he's the longest serving TV show, news TV show on TV still, because it's entertainment, right? All those shows late night and Fox are entertainment. They're not news. And so, yeah, there is an incentive to go and do that on the right, to be performative because that's how you get Twitter followers, that's how you get media opportunities, right,

is to go and do that and to fill that gap of entertainment in politics. But look, you know, look, as far as George Santos is concerned, you know, I look forward to the HBO movie. I don't know if Seth Green is available, but if I wind up being in the movie for a period of time, I feel like Seth Green could play me, most likely. Yeah, well, I will, I for one, will be watching, especially to see your iteration on HBO. So with that said, Congressman, thanks so much.

I appreciate it. Happy holidays, and talk to you soon. You got it. Thanks again to Jared Moskowitz. That's it for this episode. 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, 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.