No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen - Republicans make fatal mistake amid Trump indictment

Episode Date: March 19, 2023

Trump is poised to be indicted as Republicans already fall into a trap. Brian interviews former Obama staffer and host of Pod Save America, Tommy Vietor, about Tucker Carlson lying to his audience, DeSantis saying that Ukraine support is not vital, and whether a Trump indictment will make him stronger. And Cristina Tzintzún Ramirez, the president of the youth voter organization NextGen, joins to discuss Republican efforts to prevent voting on college campuses and Biden’s executive order increasing background checks on gun sales. Support NextGen America: https://nextgenamerica.org/Shop merch: https://briantylercohen.com/shopYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/briantylercohenTwitter: https://twitter.com/briantylercohenFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/briantylercohenInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/briantylercohenPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/briantylercohenNewsletter: https://www.briantylercohen.com/sign-upWritten by Brian Tyler CohenProduced by Sam GraberRecorded in Los Angeles, CASee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Today we're going to talk about Trump's impending indictment and how Republicans are already falling into a trap on it. I interview former Obama staffer and host of Pod Save America, Tommy Vitor, about Tucker Carlson lying to his audience. DeSantis saying that Ukraine's support is not vital and whether a Trump indictment will make him stronger. And I'm joined by Christina Tsun-Ramira as the president of the Youth Voter Organization NextGen about Republican efforts to prevent voting on college campuses and Biden's executive order increasing background checks on gun sales. I'm Brian Tyler Cohen and you're listening to No Lie. So we're on indictment watch here. By the time you listen to this, Donald Trump may already be indicted.

The first indictment expected to come down would come from the Manhattan DA's office regarding Trump's hush money payouts to Stormy Daniels, among other charges. And of course, Trump decided to get out ahead of this news by taking to truth social and posting a number of truths. The first one says, the far and away leading Republican candidate and former president of the United States of America will be arrested on Tuesday of next week. protest, take our nation back. Another post said, they're killing our nation as we sit back and watch. We must save America. Protest, protest, protest. And so the same tactics that led to January 6th are being deployed again.

Like being deployed while Trump is being investigated for already inciting a riot with almost identical language. And while this was absolutely expected as far as Trump is concerned, the real test was always going to be what the rest of his party said, like a party that is already contending with concerns that they are too extreme and too dependent on Trump. And they didn't disappoint. Here's Kevin McCarthy tweeting, here we go again, an outrageous abuse of power by a radical DA who lets violent criminals walk as he pursues political vengeance against President

Trump. I'm directing relevant committees to immediately investigate if federal funds are being used to subvert our democracy by interfering in elections with politically motivated prosecutions. Mike Pence said, another politically charged prosecution against former President Trump, people have a right to express the frustration that they feel to see. a liberal Manhattan DA poised to indict a former president. It's always amazing watching Mike Pence defend the protesters, the last of whom tried to have him hanged.

And finally, here's Marjorie Tiller Green. And if they indict President Trump on fake charges to go after him to try to stop the movement that they cannot stop, he is going to win 2024 in a landslide victory. And then we'll put him in the White House and he will finish what he started. We will gut the government of all the traders that are serving the globalists in America last. And like, I listen to these quotes from these people. And I just think to myself, this was your chance, you idiots.

This was your chance to be like, well, you know, we love him and we wish this wasn't the case, but we've got no choice but to move on. With the subtext being that this guy is radioactive, toxic waste on a ballot. He was a loser in 2020, a loser in 2022. Republicans shot themselves in the foot by not voting to convict him at the Senate trial and bar him from holding federal office again and instead left themselves with this albatross around their necks and now like down from the heavens they're given one last lifeline

a gift from the gods above to finally be rid of Trump by letting the judicial system just deal with him and instead of taking that gift they make that the hill they're going to die on and just vow to defend him until they're dying breath my God it's like the Republican Party wants to lose. And look, this isn't me being so naive to think that Donald Trump is invincible because very clearly we don't have a president Hillary Clinton to show for it, but we do have recent

history. And we know that Trump led to historic losses in 2018. We know that he himself lost in 2020. We know that his entire slate of America first candidate is running for a secretary of state and governor in swing states all lost in midterms. And that was all before an avalanche of indictments like we're expecting right now. So this idea that somehow Trump is going to be more popular if the guy is some convicted felon is just like some brainwormed take from Steve Bannon World. I think I can go out on a limb and say that getting indicted for crimes that you committed probably doesn't redound to your party's benefit. So it's going to be pretty amazing to watch Republicans simultaneously make their rally cry that they need to save Trump while also reconciling

that with the fact that their biggest weakness is that they rely too much on Trump. If that seems like a doomed effort, yeah, I'd agree. But if that's where Republicans want to plant their flags, then I'll make sure I do my part by letting you know just how far onto the limb these Republicans are willing to walk for it. Next step is my interview with Tommy Vitor. Okay, now we have the former spokesman for the Obama White House, the host of Potsave America and Potsave the World, and my co-host for a new show on Potsave America's YouTube channel called Liberal Tiers. Tommy Vitor, Tommy, thanks for taking the time.

It's so good to be here. Thanks for having me. So you and I occupy this progressive media space that is constantly, you know, batting back lies from the right. We now have definitive proof from someone like Tucker Carlson that he was knowingly spewing disinformation to his audience and that his audience would believe it. And those are his words, not mine. You worked in the Obama White House. You've dealt with this issue of right-wing disinformation, of right-wing propaganda for a long time. What's your response to Tucker in light of what we now know? Yeah, I mean, like, it shows that he has absolutely no respect for his audience. He has no respect for Donald Trump, by the way. He turns out he hates his guts. So

Tucker Carlson is a guy who is really rich and he wants to be richer and he will do or say whatever it takes to make his show the highest rated show on Fox News. And it's great to see what I think you and I intuitively known laid out in these text messages to his producers and to other hosts. But, you know, it is, it should offend everybody who cares about the truth. Yeah. Tommy, what's your, what's your, the genesis of your involvement with Fox? Can you speak about what it was like contending with with some of the disinformation and the propaganda that was coming out while you were in the White House. I know the whole terrorist fist jab was a thing.

The birther movement was a thing. So can you like shed some light on that? Oh, absolutely. I mean, Fox News was the place that sort of picked up the birther lie, the suggestion that Obama wasn't really born in the U.S., that he was actually born in Kenya, that he was a secret Muslim, and projected it to the right wing of the United States. They helped spread that lie.

They helped incubate and grow the Tea Party. What you came to realize very quickly when dealing with Fox News is they were not a news gathering organization. They were the propaganda arm of the Republican Party, and that was kind of how you had to see them if you wanted to manage them in any way. Do you think the Fox hosts care now that this stuff is all out into the ether? Do you think they care because they've always been the black sheep of the news media, but they still enjoyed being a member of the club. Brett Baer still gets to pal around with the quote-unquote very serious. journalists out there in D.C. And, you know, do you think them losing that plausible deniability by virtue of what we now know from the Dominion lawsuit has any impact on them?

Or do you think that they're just so shameless that they don't even give a fuck? No, it's a great question. I think that, like, someone like Brett Baer, who fancies himself a real newsman, he probably does care. He looks terrible in this. He's putting out statements and response trying to spin what he said in these emails about taking back the Arizona call and putting it back in the Trump camp when, by the way, it was never. in the Trump camp to begin. It's hard to put something back that was never there. That's a very good point, but I think when you get to, like,

a Tucker Carlson or Sean Hannity, they don't care at all. You know, I think Sean Hannity flies around on a private jet. He makes, like, $20 million a year. Yeah. He knows where his bread is buttered, so he's like, whatever. Yeah. Do you think that for any of these, like, for the Murdox and the Bears and, you know, the Brett Bears, like, do you think that this will have any impact on them beyond this?

Or do you think this is just like it is what it is? You know, I've been really skeptical that it would, but today I saw some polling that suggested that among Fox News viewers, these revelations are making people believe the election lies less and watch Fox News less. Okay. So I'm going to wait and see if that's corroborated in actual ratings data. You know, if you see Fox's numbers dip because of this Dominion lawsuit, that would be incredible. And I think that would be like seen as an existential threat in the network. But I'm waiting for that. Yeah.

I mean, that was like my next question to figure out whether it matters to the actual viewers because there's a contingent of Fox viewers for whom this stuff doesn't matter because they're just, they're on board, that's their team regardless, and who won't know because the people who they would need to find news out from are the very people who lied themselves. So like the gatekeepers aren't going to allow them that information. But there's got to be a small contingent of Fox viewers out there for whom this is a betrayal. Like the evidence, couldn't be more clear that Fox was spreading disinformation to its viewers and that it was well aware that its viewers would believe what it was spreading. And so do you think that there's

going to be some small contingent of Vox viewers who will respond to that betrayal by just like seeing the light? Yeah. I mean, there's definitely a cohort of Fox News viewers for whom it's just comfort food. You know, they sit down, they know what they're going to get. It's the good stuff. It's the fake news media. It's all the Trump brands. I do think there are some people who genuinely think that, you know, Fox News is kind of like center-right news coverage and the other networks are biased and Fox News is telling us something straight. I think when they read

in black and white, if they read in black and white, that they were lied to, that they were knowingly lied to, that they were insulted by the top brass at Fox News, that it might drive them away. Yeah. Well, from your lips to God's here. Fingers crossed, man. Okay, so I want to switch into territory that I think

is your specialty here, and that is like Foreign Affairs and the whole Ron DeSantis thing. Ron DeSantis came out a few days ago, and he said that Ukraine's support is not vital. You were the spokesperson for the National Security Council. If you were in that role right now, what would you say to not only Ron DeSantis, but this growing faction of Republicans who are opting to side with Putin in this war? And also, why do you think it's happening? Yeah, I mean, it's really interesting to see Trump and DeSantis kind of occupy this anti-Ukraine messaging lane in the 2024 primary. They obviously think that it will be

advantageous to them politically. You know, Trump's take on this has always been like, war would never started if I was president and I would end the war, you know, my first day in office. And he's just leaning on that because it's impossible to prove a counterfactual. And so that's it. Yeah. And then when you kind of get under the hood a little bit of what he means by, you know, he would end this war with a deal the next day. What he's saying is he would basically force the Ukrainians to give up territory, the eastern Ukraine, the Dombasa region, in Crimea, presumably. He said that to Sean Hannity. Sean Hannity aired it on his radio. show and then when he put that audio on his TV show, he edited out the part of giving away

territory. So we'll take out the bad parts. Yeah, we got you. Um, but you know, to your, to your point about like, well, why does this matter to people? I mean, there's a, there's a few levels of this. There's just a human level that Ukrainian civilians are being terrorized and targeted. Uh, Ukrainian children are being stolen and taken to Russia and given to new families. I mean, on a human level, it's just like, it's abhorrent. Um, it's genocidal. Uh, and then, you know, from a U.S. interest standpoint, I mean, I think it's important for us to stand for values, to stand up for democracy to put a line in the sand and say one country shouldn't invade the sovereign territory of another. Now, like, I know we're a flawed messenger here. I know

the Iraq war was a catastrophe, and we're about to bid the 20-year anniversary. But I still do think, like, this is a justified intervention as long as, you know, we're not putting US boots on the ground. This is also such an obscure issue like to pander to the base about because I guess the question is is the benefit that Ron DeSantis and these Republicans derive from being anti-Ukraine that much to like to basically throw Ukrainians under the bus because it sounds like they're they're sacrificing Ukraine's freedom for like some cheap applause line in just some fleeting moment in a rally because this isn't this isn't like a major issue for their base one way or the other, if they came out and said that they were pro-Ukraine

or anti-Ukraine, I don't think that their hopes within the Republican Party would live or die on that comment. So this is... I know I'm totally with you. I'm sort of, I think about this a lot. I mean, I do think there's part of it where anything Biden is for, the base wants to be against, you know, so Biden's all in on supporting the Ukrainians, so the Republicans are going to be against. There's a part of it that's just sort of like nativist, nationalist. It's sort of like the Marjorie Taylor Green, like, dumb, dumb. wing of the party where she's like secure our border before you help Ukraine secure their border, right? Like, let's spend money at home. And I think that's a powerful appeal. And then I also

think there's a piece of this where the second Trump impeachment was about him trying to blackmail President Zelensky of Ukraine. So I think in their brains, like being pro-Ukraine is part of impeachment. They're still looking to like justify his intervention in that. And it's just like ever since that moment, Zelensky's been bad because Trump was. on the receiving end or Trump was, Trump was on the giving end of that whole extortion scheme. And so, you know, they're still looking for any way to justify his actions in that. Yeah. And so, look, I'm watching this closely. It makes me nervous because at some point Joe Biden is going to try to pass through Congress more aid for Ukraine. Yeah. And he's going to have to

get through a Republican House where Kevin McCarthy's speakership rests on ensuring Marjorie Taylor Green still supports him and everybody else. So it'll be challenging. Okay. So I want to switch gears again now away from DeSantis and onto his rival, Donald Trump. And, you know, there's this idea that floating around, I think, propped up by someone like Trump himself, that if he gets indicted, that'll only make him stronger. Yeah. I personally think that's just a way for him to try and scare prosecutors away from holding him accountable for what he's done and like, you know, basically waging, waging threats that like, if you come after me, you just wait, you just wait and see what happens. It's going to be bad. What do you think on this? Does he benefit from an

like, both in the Republican primary and beyond the Republican primary? It's a really good question. And you're right that this is Trump's narrative. But remember, you know, David Brooks, the New York Times sort of center-right columnist wrote this after the Mar-a-Lago rate, too. Like, oh, the FBI just handed the nomination to Trump. Right. So, like, I think the honest answer is who knows? None of us can tell the future.

I do think, you know, look, Trump's, like, primary message is grievance in that he's attacked by the deep state or Democrats or whatever. So he'll just fold that into that narrative. I do wonder, though, if he's indicted, if he's going through like some sort of criminal proceeding, that's got to get in the back of some voters' heads when they think about his electability. It can't help. It'd probably not be great for electability if you're running from jail. Yeah, I mean, right? So it's not going to stop him, but, you know, certainly might undercut his argument for how he could beat Joe Biden. Well, with that said, I mean, like, I guess there's also the question of whether Trump becomes so toxic that his election is, it becomes clear that it's not going to have.

happen, like if he does get invited, if he's sent in indicted, if he is sentenced to prison time in either Fulton County in the Manhattan DA's case in the January 6th DOJ investigation, special counsel investigation. Do you think that there is a moment where Donald Trump like relinquishes his desire to be president and kind of throws his weight behind somebody? Or do you think that, that, you know, we would more likely watch, watch him campaign for Bernie Sanders than for Ron DeSantis? I mean, honestly, like, that's the smartest idea I've heard. in a long time. If you were to be like, listen, Ron, I got your back. You just have to promise to pardon me no matter what. That's a pretty good play. But, you know, if I were Ron DeSantis

or anybody else running against Trump, my message would be, listen, we all love Donald Trump. We loves what he did for this country. We love that he owned the libs. But all that baggage is why he lost to Joe Biden. All that baggage is why we lost the Senate. It's why we lost in Georgia. It's why we lost in Pennsylvania. I bring you all the things you like without that baggage. if you want to win again, vote for me. I know we're playing with fire here, but is there any part of you that's like, okay, Donald Trump is more toxic than someone like Ron DeSantis?

And so it'd be, I guess, to our benefit, because it's going to be one of them. I mean, look, we may be wrong on that, but it's most likely going to be either Donald Trump or Ron DeSantis as the Republican nominee in 2024. We can sit here and say, like, Donald Trump has not only the baggage that caused him to lose in 2020 and his candidates to lose in 2022, but now he has all this legal exposure for which he's probably going to be indicted any day now.

So do you think that he is a better person to have on the ticket because of those issues? Or is it still like, you know, it's to our own detriment that we would sit here and try in any way to prop up someone like Donald Trump who already showed that he could beat someone like Hillary Clinton in 2016? Yeah, I mean, like, I could argue it both ways. I mean, big, big picture, I think Donald Trump is a unique threat to the democracy itself, right? That's why I would never want him on the ticket. So what you're saying is that you support Ronda Sanchez for president. But just, you know, putting like my political hat on.

I mean, I think who in this country has not formed an opinion of Donald Trump at this point? Right. I mean, his support is pretty hardened. His opposition is pretty hardened. I think ultimately the challenge of the elections is like 100,000 votes sprinkled across three states, deliver you the presidency or make you a loser. So, you know, anyone can win. With DeSantis, he is a.

known, he's seen his fresh face, but also he might be terrible at campaigning. We just don't know yet. He might have some fatal flaw we haven't learned about. I mean, Trump's already calling him a groomer of high school girls. Like, who knows where this is going to go. Yeah. And it's interesting, too. I mean, he had that one moment against Charlie Christ in the debate where he completely froze up because Charlie Chris landed like this huge gotcha of asking him if he's going to serve out his term. So if that was enough to completely catch Ronda's off guard to make him freeze like a deer in headlights on the debate stage, what's going to happen when Donald Trump starts calling him pedophile.

I know, I know, I know. It's also, you know, there's all these narratives out there now that are like, oh, he's bad at retail politics, he's aloof, he's this and that. And like, that all may be true. He does sort of speak, seem like kind of a pissy weirdo to me, but I don't know, maybe he can learn to get better at it. Yeah. And also, that might be what they want.

Right. I mean, like, we're also not the kind of people who are like, Donald Trump is charming. So, like, and there are a lot of people who do. So the same people who think that Trump has this like, has this like, you know. I'll be honest. see the appeal of Trump sometimes. Like, he can be very funny. He kind of like, he breaks the fourth wall sometimes. The fourth wall or the fifth wall. One of the walls, thank you in TV. He breaks the fourth wall. My daughter wrapped me up very early. I'm sorry. Like the other day he was talking

about DeSantis in Iowa. And he was like, did you guys know that Ron DeSantis opposed ethanol subsidies? How about that? Unbelievable. Really would have hurt the ethanol industry. Now if he drops out, I'll say he's great. I'll say you always supported ethanol. Like, you know, he like shows people that he's kind of playing the game. Right, right. So now you're off the desandas bandwagon and back on the train. Yeah, shit, now I'm a Trump-Trump train. Another question that I had,

and this is something that I've been talking about on my YouTube channel a lot, and that is the benefit versus, you know, I guess disadvantage of highlighting someone like Marjorie Taylor Green. And the way that I think of this is, is it seems counterintuitive to highlight someone like Marjor Taylor Green because in this attention economy, all that she wants is attention.

And so it seems counterintuitive to give her the exact thing that she wants. The flip side of that is that she doesn't realize how bad she is for the Republican Party because she doesn't have self-awareness. And so putting her in front of more voters beyond just like that slice of whatever, 25, 30% of the population who thinks she's some hero, putting her in front of the vast majority of voters who think that she's a lunatic is actually to our benefit beyond it being to her benefit from just speaking to those, you know, those 30% of people that she keeps riling up and peppering for money. Yeah.

So I'm just curious your thoughts on this and basically giving attention to the attention seekers and whether you think that's a good idea or not. It's a great question. It's one I wrestle with a lot. I mean, I think you kind of got at the contradiction, which is, I think highlighting her helps her. She will be able to raise money. She'll have the higher name ID.

She'll be able to tell the Republican base, like, look, they hate me. I hate them. You know, and I think that'll help her. But when Joe Biden or any other Democrat lifts up her idea, ideas. For example, the other day she called for a national divorce where the United States is split into red states and blue states and we all just become our own countries. I saw some polling today that poll is at like 20 percent approval. Also, Marginel Green would be part of the blue states. Yeah, she represents Georgia. That's a very good point. But, you know, and I think we saw this

kind of perfectly laid out at the State of the Union when Lauren Bobert and MTG started booing Joe Biden and you could see Kevin McCarthy kind of shushing them, right? Like he doesn't want them to be the voice of the party. Yeah. I mean, they have every, every incentive in the world to kind of make themselves as loud as possible because it benefits their narrow incentive structures to like raise money off of this. They're famous. Right. And that's what they want. They want to be famous. But they weren't on committees for like a couple of years. They were fine. Yeah. But I think the flip side of that is like you have the rest of the Republican Party who's just trying to keep its head down and show that, like, look, you gave us

the slimmest of all possible majorities in the House. We won't burn the place down. Pay no attention to these few lunatics who keep yelling, who keep sucking up all the attention in the room. Look, that's what the Republicans do to us. You know, I mean, they lift up people that they think are too liberal and that might offend voters.

Or just, I mean, this is, they have a long history of vilifying certain people. And, I mean, Hillary Clinton for years and years, like decades, they did it to Nancy Pelosi, that did it to AOC, Women and women of color, yeah. So whoever they can pinpoint. And so, you know, that kind of stuff works, by the way.

And if it worked for someone for like for these women who I think both of us would believe are virtuous people, then it certainly is going to work for people who are deserving of the criticism that they're going to get, like Marjorie Telle Green. And look, I think like the proof that it worked is in the 2022 midterms where you saw Doug Masteriano ran for the Republican, a Republican ran for governor in Pennsylvania got demolished because he was just a right-wing lunatic. Like Herschel Walker ran in like a very divided Georgia loss. He's a lunatic. Dr. Oz is kind of a different flavor of weirdo, but also lost. But Kerry Lake lost.

And, you know, while normal Republicans, well, normal, so to speak. But like, while these other Republicans who weren't running as MAGA extremists, one, I mean, Lombardo won the gubernatorial seat in Nevada. And so that's as clear a contrast as you can get that that specific brand of like the Marjorie-Teller Green MAGA extremism doesn't work, even when regular Republicans. capitalism does. Totally. I think the White House, I was skeptical of it at first, but when they kind of rolled out like the ultra-maga Republican framework, I do think that that is spot on. Yeah. I'm not sure about the specific verbiage. I didn't need ultra. Yeah. Yeah. It seemed a little, a little gratuitous, but in any case, I think they know what they're doing. Also, I don't think it's, I don't think it's any secret that the White House is very disciplined with its messaging. And for Joe Biden to come out and

start name-checking Marjorie Taylor Green really does show that there is, there is some tactical advantage to highlighting these people. I mean, you wouldn't have done that by accident. Yeah, they're highlighting extreme people and they're highlighting extreme policies like Senator Rick Scott's like crazy plan. Yeah, to get rid of Social Security Medicare, yeah. Tommy, what's, what was your best and worst day at the White House? Best and worst day? Boy, these are great questions. I mean, you know, well, not to be a nerd. I think the day that the United States led the operation to take out Osama bin Laden was, it was a weird day to say it was great.

You know, like, even someone's evil as that, I don't necessarily like celebrate or revel in their death necessarily. But just to know how cathartic that event was for, like, everyone who lost a friend or relative that day. Yeah. Anyone who lived in New York or D.C. or Pennsylvania or just was like scarred by the event. You know, it was like an enormous moment. I felt it in a deep way. I probably should have said the day the Affordable Care Act passed, but I was less sort of personally involved in domestic policy.

Quick question on that, on the Osama bin Laden thing. When did you know? I got a call the day of that was like, come down to the office right now. And I was like, what's going on? They're like, come on. So I walked in. I went to my boss, Tom Donald's office, who's the National Security Advisor. And I was like, where is everybody?

You guys called me in. It was the day after the White House Correspondent center, Yeah. Which is like in D.C., they call it nerd prom. It's when the president gives speeches and there's jokes and people stay out very late at fancy parties because there's fancy Hollywood people there that are never in D.C. So it's like the latest you stay out all year, right? You're like five in the morning as I was that night. Welcome the next day, you know, went to brunch with some friends, was goofing around, watching a Southwigs game in my house, got the call.

And I was like, can I go in in a Larry Bird jersey? I probably shouldn't do that. Thank God I didn't. So I went in, told you I stopped by Tom's office. They said, go to the sit room. I walked into a room and someone, like, threw down a photo. It was like Bin Laden's face with a bullet hole in the forehead. Okay, that'll wake you up.

Yeah. That's a sobering moment. Yeah. But, yeah, I mean, that was an enormous, I think, moment for, like, the country to finally heal. Yeah. Close the wounds. And worst day in the White House. I think the worst day was the Benghazi attacks because, you know,

remember, so this happened on. 9-11, right? And every year around 9-11, we always were worried for weeks and weeks leading up to the anniversary that a terrorist group like Al-Qaeda might do something else on the anniversary, right, like to show like we can get you again. So like the FBI would go down shaking sources, the intelligence agencies would do this big scrub of everything. And right, we have all these meetings to like just make sure everyone was prepared. I remember waking up that day and I got in early and I like made the mistake. of, I was talking on the phone to my now wife, then girlfriend.

We actually got lunch. It was the first time I'd left the building to get lunch and so long. I remember being like, it's so quiet today. I can't even believe it. And then we started to get the reports out of Benghazi that the ambassador was missing and he might have been killed. And then ultimately four people died. And it was just a horrific tragedy in something that, you know, we spent the next

sort of year, a couple of years dealing with. Do you miss the government side of it now that you're running a media company? What I miss is every day was different and you learned something new. And for my job, when I worked on the national security staff, I just had access to, like, thousands of the smartest people in the world on any subject. Yeah. You know, and you could just pick up the phone and call someone and they could explain something to you. Now you're doing podcasts about Marjorie Taylor Green.

Now I'm like selling underwear on a podcast, you know? And so that part was cool. The foreign trips are amazing, you know, like being. place you visited? I mean, being a presidential motorcade through Paris is pretty cool. Yeah. You know, that wasn't the bad one. Yeah. All right. So let's finish off with this. You and I are co-hosting a show called Liberal Tears on Potsave America's YouTube channel. Can you give like a quick rundown? Why should people, why should people tune into that? I mean, because there's a lot of crazy shit happening. There's a lot of weird things in politics. And sometimes it's fun and

important to talk about it and take it seriously and to dig into the substance. And sometimes you just got to make jokes. Yeah. You know, like the Fox Dominion lawsuit, it's important. And I'm glad we all understand the stakes here and what's involved. But sometimes you've got to make fun of the funniest text messages. Yeah, we've had three episodes. We've ranked George Santos's worst lies, best to worst. We've ranked the Dominion Revelations, and we ranked, what was the last one? Was it CPAC?

Oh, yeah. Did we do CPAC episode? What did we do? What else have we done? I don't even remember anymore. No, Fox News scandals. Oh, you were going to, we were going to do CPAC, but it ended up just being such, like, so hellish and terrible. And so that was scrapped because we were like, the point of this is just like bring some levity and have some fun.

And then, and then like Michael Null starts spewing some shit about transgenderism being eradicated. We're like, this isn't going to be fun. You know, it's just going to be garbage. You just sort of hit on something that I've really, I've found over the last few years. Like, I like, I try to consume some right-wing media just so I like kind of know what's going on. Yeah, you're actually one of the biggest, most, most avid listeners for Steve Bannon's podcast. But if you get down to a certain level, of like the kind of B-Team Daily Wire podcast hosts

or like louder with Crowder. You just get into such hateful stuff that you almost can't joke about it. Yeah, it's just like lowest hanging fruit. These people are just desperate for whatever engagement they can. And they know that they can both get that from their audience who wants it and also get it from just rage baiting everybody else. And so they'll say stuff like that. And regardless of whether they believe any of it,

I'm sure they do, otherwise it would be tough to say. It's not like they have any shame stopping them from doing it. But yeah, it's that come, that's the point at which I think, going back to the whole Marjorie Telegreen highlighting someone like her, that's the point at which it doesn't really, doesn't really, it loses its benefit in terms of, in terms of platforming people who, who gain more just by the exposure than they do by, you know, whatever rebuttal we would bring forward. Totally. Yeah.

You always see like every few weeks there's some new kind of right-wing troll that's just desperately trying to get a bunch of liberals to retweet them. Yeah. And I do think, like, remember, folks, the key is, quote, tweet your friends, screenshot your enemies. But let me ask you a question. What, I mean, I don't want to make you, I know you love all your children equally, but do you have like a favorite interview or a moment that you've done on the show?

You know, this is the easy answer, but it is, the Joe Biden interview was the, was one of the best moments of my life. That was awesome. It was a great interview. I mean, also, that interview happened the day that Katanji Brown Jackson, Jackson was nominated to the Supreme Court and also the day after Russia invaded Ukraine. Oh my God. So that happened, like Russia invaded Ukraine and I'm sitting there with like my bagpacked the night before.

I'm like, well, that's not happening. Right. It's like, I was like, all right, let's see if we can return some of the gear that we rented and, you know, get some, get something back for it, get some insurance, you know. Yeah, you're Googling how to write off. Yeah. And I reached out and they were like, we're still on. And I was like, okay. And I woke up like four o'clock the next morning to get ready for my flight. and I reached down, they were like, we're still on. I was like, okay, I'm getting on a plane.

You can, you can turn me around when I get there. And it just ended up happening. But like, I mean, you've been in that building a million times, so it's different, I think it's different for you, but just like... Now, you feel the weight of it. You feel the history. Yeah. And I just remember, like, a lot of those moments super vividly.

And, like, him entering the room, it was just, you, it just feels like different from anywhere you've ever been. And you just kind of feel like the center of the universe. What room are you are? We were in the diplomatic room. Cool. cool room too and uh the the first lady would walk through to take uh to take the dog out really yeah like mid interview yeah well not mid interview that's very funny but like prior to setting up and i

remember uh the dog that bit people or was uh no it was it was a puppy oh yeah what's his name uh champ or no like sort of military sound yeah yeah major um no that dog was dog was awesome uh but yeah she would she would like walk through i remember at one point we had all the gear set up and first lady was walking through she was coming down in like a couple of minutes they were like you to break all the gear down. We had just set up for like, we just set up three different cameras. And she was like walking through and we're like, well, she doesn't care. No, she didn't care.

Just walk. I mean, you know, the nicest person. Yeah. Like, but we broke everything down. Like my buddy, my buddy Nick, uh, who was my son of photographer that day. And, uh, he just, he was like, all right. Broke it all down and then put it back up five minutes later when the president came in. So, uh, so, so yeah, anyway, that you're just scrambling.

Yeah, well, he was. Uh, I was just sitting in a chair. That's awesome. So, um, Tommy, Where can we see and hear more from you? Oh, anything on the crookedmedia.com website, check out POTS day of the world if you like foreign policy, Potsave America, if you like politics, in liberal tiers on YouTube if you want to laugh. Awesome.

Tommy, thanks so much for taking the time. Great to see you, man. Now we've got the president of NextGen America, Christina Sunsune Ramirez. Thanks for taking the time. Yeah, thanks so much for having me. Back. So your organization focuses on youth voters in America. one of the stories in the news right now is a bill out of Texas.

That's House Bill 2390. That would prohibit counties from putting a polling place at a college or a university. Can I get your response to that? I mean, it is just Texas, what people need to understand is that we are the third youngest state in the country. Only Utah or Alaska are younger. And Republicans and one of the largest battleground states know that young voters are not with them. And so instead of trying to address the needs and pain, of an entire generation. They're trying to keep them from voting. This bill would impact 1.6 million

college students across the state. And as you know, for many people that try and vote on their campus, many of them are new to that community. They don't know where else to vote. And so this is a bill that would really, really impact hundreds of thousands of Texans that voted this last election. And it is just with the intention of keeping young people from voting because they voted overwhelmingly for Democrats, which guess what? In a democracy is their choice to do so. And so it's completely undemocratic and absolutely discriminatory against young people. Does it seem like there's going to be enough support for that bill to pass? Right now, we don't know whether the bill will pass or not. You know, Republicans in Texas have a supermajority in the legislature. So they can pass it if they

want to. And so the bill has been proposed. There's been a lot of debate and discussion about it. And also it's about the chilling effect. And the other thing that we need to understand is if this is being proposed at the state level, what our organization said is that we would expect based on high youth voter turnout and the fact that pundits on Fox News on election night 2020, we're saying we need to raise the voting age. We can't have all these young people voting at this rate that local and state county officials that don't care about democracy may also choose not to put polling locations at college campuses and places where young people congregate and we're going to have to fight tooth and nail, not just at the state level in places like Texas, but across the country at the local level, I think we're going to continue to see an assault on young people's basic rights to access the ballot box.

Yeah, what kind of blows my mind is that what these Republicans aren't taking into account is that young people grow up into older people. So like, if you're going to position yourself as a party whose identity is predicated on stripping rights away from people that are 18 to 21, those 18 to 21 year olds are eventually going to be 22 and older. And so if their only association with the Republican Party is that they have suppressed their votes in the past, I don't see how this is in any way like a long-term play by these Republicans to win these people over in just the few short years it'll take before they're finally eligible to vote. With that said, are there any legal grounds to prevent this from passing?

Absolutely. You know, I think that a lot of folks that care about democracy are already saying that such a bill would be unconstitutional. that they would fight at tooth and nail. At NextGen, we're exploring every single avenue that if the bill does go forward and we're not able to stop it at the legislature, that what legal action and recourse there will be, because we will fight this all the way up to the Supreme Court, if necessary, because this isn't just about Texas. This is about the entire country and trying to keep the largest, most diverse generational voting block, young people from voting. And another thing, I just wanted to go back to what you said. You and I last time we talked, we said we're older millennials, right? And there's new data out rate. Republicans are looking at the demographic shifts happening across the country that young people are voting overwhelmingly for Democrats. In 2018, when Beto ran against Ted Cruz, he took 71% of the youth vote. Last election, he took 65% across the country. The youth vote canceled out the Republican baby boomer vote, even though they voted at smaller margins. It was just so overwhelmingly Democratic. And so older millennials are also the big myth on young people is that

one, young people don't turn out and vote, they've broken that myth. The second one is that as people get older, they become more conservative. And older millennials are actually staying equally progressive. And so both of these myths about young people are disrupting and making politics all of the questions about what happens with the future of democracy and politics in this country up for grabs. Yeah, I think that's a super interesting point that you brought up, because I've seen that data as well, that for the first time, millennials are the only generation that doesn't get more conservative

when they age out, you know, when they continue to age, it's the first generation that's actually staying liberal. And so like, that's got to be a giant red flag for the Republican Party who, again, I guess is more interested in just winning this immediate election than trying to in any way create, you know, bridges to the next generation.

Up north in Wisconsin, we've got a huge race coming up on April 4th, that's to determine control of the state Supreme Court there. That will have massive implications for both fair maps and abortion rights, among other things. NextGen has teamed up with Planned Parenthood to engage college students on this race. How is that going? Because college kids are historically a pretty tough demographic to engage. Yeah, you know, I think Politico's headline said this is the most important race in the country that nobody's talking about. But, you know, the Supreme Court in Wisconsin, right, you have a state where

Democrats win statewide, but they are not able to control the legislature where they really struggle because of the massive gerrymandering. Like Wisconsin has been ground zero for how Republicans want to gerrymander and a real force to stop that has been the Supreme Court. And that if we don't win the Supreme Court, we could really see some really difficult struggles moving forward in the state and including in 2024. So this race is really important. So we're really glad there's already been the primary for a Supreme Court race, which, you know, usually there's not huge turnout in. There's been massive youth voter turnout in record-breaking youth voter turnout. And so young voters were touring with Planned Parenthood and other groups trying to reach young people.

And it's amazing to hear that young people know what's happening in the Supreme Court race. They're talking about it because of Republican them understanding, especially not only is about fair maps, but it's about my right to choose what happens with my own body, my own family. my own future. So people are really understanding, especially young people, what's up for grabs in the Supreme Court race. And our volunteers across the country are also helping text hundreds of thousands of young people in Wisconsin to make sure they turn out for this upcoming Supreme Court race. What's been the biggest struggle among young people in this race? I mean, I think it's a lot of just getting people to know about it, right? It's an off-year election. It's in the springtime. It's not something that you're going to hear about,

national news. And that's why that local organizing and one-to-one outreach is so critical and important, races like these are often run one by not even just a few thousand or a few hundred votes, but a few dozen votes. And so that's why young people have a huge role in impact that they can make in these races. And so obviously young people are not just on college campuses, but the college youth vote alone can deliver on the Supreme Court races and really shift the balance of power, not just in the state, but the entire country. That's what's at stake in a Wisconsin Supreme Court race that a lot of people may not know about. Yeah. I mean, this is the whole, what's happening in Wisconsin right now is the whole ballgame there. I mean, I know that the

issue of Roe v. Wade has kind of faded from the headlines as we moved on to other stuff, but that issue is front and center in that state. This is the one and only shot to enact any type of change in that state as far as abortion legislation is going to go because there is an 1849 law on the books right now that would ban abortion if Republican Dan Kelly becomes, or I'm sorry, conservative Dan Kelly because it's technically a nonpartisan race. But if the conservative Dan Kelly in this race wins, there is no doubt that this 1849 abortion ban would stay in effect. Let's move over to a few days ago President Biden announced an executive order and that had the goal of increasing the number of background checks conducted before firearm sales. What was your response

to this? Does it go far enough? And what else would you like to see? I think this is a big important piece in solving the gun violence epidemic. But what we have to remember is that so much of what we won over the last year even has been due to because of young people organizing, not just in the last election and their record breaking turnout, but over the years. Sadly, in many other countries, they'll experience one mass shooting like we saw Nubalde. And there will be massive action and to solve the gun violence epidemic that that country has seen. Because it is question of political will. And so this is a big step forward. It's not everything we need, but it's everything that the Biden administration can do alone without Republicans coming along

to address the gun violence epidemic and protect young people and families versus the gun lobby. So this piece of let this, this executive order really helped expedite and enhance the gun legislation that was enacted in 2022. It also gets as close as we possibly can to universal background checks without legislative action, which 90% of American support and even more young people support across the country. But young people are going to keep organizing and fighting until we make sure that weapons of war aren't easily accessible across this country that we know the problem is it is not people, it's guns and that we have to get weapons of war out of our communities, out of our schools.

And that's a huge part of the problem. I fear I know the answer to this next question, and I feel like it's going to be a really simple answer, but do you think that there's any appetite among House Republicans on this issue? You know, I think that the organizing that happened, Ovalde has surprised me. I honestly, you know, I live in Texas

when I saw that it was mostly poor rural brown kids that were killed. And I thought of, all of the young children that were killed in Connecticut, 26 lives that were lost and no action was taken. I didn't think any action would happen. But you know what ended up happening was Republican donors in Texas put out ads publicly and said, you better do something, Republicans.

And so it shows Republican legislators answer to who pays for their campaigns. And so I think they'll do something only if those that fund and back them are. are willing to take a stand, but we also have to take on the NRA. And it's amazing to see how far we've come in a few years from groups like March for our lives, moms demand action, and numerous others, and AGs in New York and other places really taking on the NRA and its entire legal structure. And until we fully contend with the power of the NRA, well, I think we see Republicans move and do what they know is morally, ethically, right?

and also data-driven requirement to address the gun violence epidemic. I should note that the NRA isn't doing itself any favors because they just keep plunging themselves into legal issues. And that they're doing all on their own. Finally, let's hit this. NextGen is launching an effort for organizing young voters on dating apps. So what's the plan with that and how is that actually going to play out? So we've launched this actually in 2020.

In Arizona, we did a pilot program. So there was a 90% increase during COVID of people being. on dating apps. And the great thing about dating apps is you can search for people. You can make searches if you're not on a dating app, but probably lots of people listening, no, is you can put geography, gender, you know, you can put age ranges. So it's a great search engine and tool already, how it's built. And you can see what people care about. You can see their political persuasion. So we have volunteers across the country that get on dating apps. I'm in Wisconsin alone. We're saying we're getting on dating apps and saying,

of the race, right? So for the Supreme Court. And we're talking to people about the sexiest thing there is, which is democracy, or as our younger folks say, the Big D, democracy. And we're turning them out and letting them know about the power they're having. And we don't try and catfish anyone. We're upfront about the fact that we're organizers and volunteers for next gen and that we care about democracy and want to just know not what people's plans are this weekend, but what their election and voting plans are as well. And I'm curious, like, is the response from it good? I mean, I haven't been on dating.

Dating apps just started to come out right when I began dating my girlfriend, and that was years and years and years ago. And so I haven't been on a dating app in almost a decade. Like, when people are going to these dating apps for something very specific and getting instead, and getting instead, like, you know, voter registration information, what's their, like, practical response to that? it's actually been really great because we're um there's also bff like best friends right yes um mode on bumble and things like that where people are looking for just genuine connection friendship and we're i have conversations about you know they're talking to someone lives it's not like they're talking to a bot they're talking to another person it's their age that cares about

what's happening in their state and community um so generally people are like oh i haven't thought about it thanks for sending me this link so i can check it out um there's also been some real life dates that have happened out of this. I said, like, I'm excited to report when there's like the first marriage. We're not there yet, but I'm sure there will be. But generally, people are grateful to get information that's trusted and to be able to check their registration status and know about what's on the ballot. So it's a great tool for organizing and we're just going to continue to scale it. So if you all are on dating apps and want to help organize, you can head over to NextGenamerica.org, volunteer and be part of our love brigade that's saving democracy.

awesome well actually with that said how can we help well if you want to get involved with the supreme court race we have 28000 volunteers across the country we're making regular calls and text and organizing on dating apps so you can go to our website again that's nextgenamerica.org volunteer and you can help out from anywhere in the country you don't have to live in wisconsin because we should all care what's happening in wisconsin but there's other things happening across the country that we're mobilizing and organizing for and also helping other young people take action on the issues that matter to them. We know that there are so many attacks right now

on the issues that young people care about, whether that's trans rights, climate change, legalizing marijuana, that people can support us reaching out to millions of other young people and building the political force we need to build the future we all want and deserve. Awesome.

Christina, thanks for the work you're doing. I appreciate it. Thanks so much. Thanks again to Christina. One last note, I've started leaning really heavily into my new legal series with former federal prosecutor Glenn Kirscher,

about all things indictments. So if you want to follow along and keep up to date on what's happening and what the law says, then subscribe to my YouTube channel and check out the legal breakdown playlist. Okay, 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 briantylercoen.com for links to all of my other channels.