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

Episode Date: April 2, 2023

Trump gets indicted in New York and the right goes all in on Trump in response. Brian interviews Congressman Jamie Raskin about his cancer treatment, his response to the Republican crazies on the Oversight Committee, and his reaction to the prospect of a Trump indictment for the events of January 6. And former White House press secretary and now MSNBC host Jen Psaki joins to discuss Trump’s indictment in Manhattan, her thoughts on the Dominion lawsuit against Fox, and the transition to her new cable job.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 Trump's indictment, what happens next, and the right's response to it. I interview Congressman Jamie Raskin about his cancer treatment, his reaction to the Republican crazies on the Oversight Committee, and his reaction to the prospect of a Trump indictment for the events of January 6th. And I'm joined by former press secretary and now MSNBC host Jen Saki to discuss Trump's indictment in Manhattan, her thoughts on the Dominion lawsuit against Fox, and how the transition to her cable job has been. I'm Brian Taylor Cohen, and you're listening to No Lie. So Donald Trump has officially been criminally indicted in New York, making him the first former president to also have the title of criminal defendant. So first of all, there are a lot of questions about what happens next. As of this recording, Trump hasn't yet turned himself in. Preparations are reportedly taking place between the DA's office and his lawyers in the Secret Service.

He'll have to be fingerprinted and booked. There will be a mugshot. It's not a requirement that that will be released, but it's customary to be released. So I certainly anticipate that we'll see it. And I also anticipate that it will be. the most famous mug shot in the history of the world. So get ready for 100 million mugs and t-shirts to be sold in the 10 minutes after that photo gets released.

Trump will reportedly then be arraigned on Tuesday of next week where he'll stand before a judge who will read off the charges against him unless that's waived by his lawyer. The judge will then set a status hearing date, which will be the next court date in this case. And it'll be at a subsequent status hearing that will actually get a trial date, which could be somewhere between six months to a year out. With that said, it may be sooner. All of this is speculation at this point. As for Trump, he'll almost certainly be released immediately.

I'm unsure as to whether prosecutors are going to ask for some type of limited gag order, given the fact that Trump has a tendency to summon murderous mobs of people to help him. But again, that's something that we'll find out pretty soon. And of course, all of that is notwithstanding other potential indictments being handed down in Fulton County, Georgia, in the New York AG's case at the DOJ for both the classified documents case and the January 6th case. And by the way, if you're wondering what happens if he gets indicted in two or more jurisdictions, normally the way that this would work is that the first jurisdiction to charge him would have priority. I say normally because nothing about this is normal,

so I don't know what's ultimately going to end up happening. Now, Trump responded to the news pretty much exactly how you would imagine. He started attacking Alvin Bragg's wife on truth social. That's the Manhattan DA. He posted some unhinged screed where he whined about being indicated because spelling is hard. And look, that was all expected, right? I don't think that anyone imagined that Trump would do what he should be doing, which is exercising his rights to remain silent.

So that was no surprise. But what was something of a surprise was how the rest of the Republican Party reacted. So immediately a bunch of Republicans obediently spoke out in Trump's defense, Jim Banks, Marjorie Taylor Green, Kevin McCarthy, Jim Jordan, basically the entirety of right-wing media. They threatened retribution, mobs, violence, civil war, said it was open season for a conservative. of DAs to charge Democratic politicians.

And here's why I say that this is surprising. Republicans were so close to getting rid of Trump. All they had to do was let him get indicted for his own criminal behavior and then allow the party to move on. And I'm certainly not here to help Republicans win any elections, but I would imagine that any rational human being would look at the fact that Trump led to the biggest Democratic House margin in modern American history in 2018, then Democrats winning the White House and both chambers of Congress in 20,

and then Democrats gaining in the Senate and only barely losing the House and what should have been a red wave election in 2022 as evidence that maybe the GOP under Trump's leadership isn't going to win many elections. In fact, in this past midterm cycle, it was almost exclusively Trump's endorsed candidates who lost while other Republicans actually overperformed. You couldn't ask for clear proof that Trumpism specifically is just straight electoral poison. And yet, for these Republicans to have an out, a legitimate out, and instead run right back into the burning building, just defies logic. And look, none of this is to say that a Trump nomination is a guaranteed loss for Republicans in 2024 because he did it once. But let's not pretend that he is going into this election with any wind that is back after not only overseeing losses in 2018, 2020, and 2022, but then possibly contending with at least one, but maybe multiple criminal indictments.

Maybe you can make the argument that, you know, this will bolster support for Trump among his diehard fans because, you know, their fortunes live or die with him, but on no planet will a softar or an independent or some disaffected Democrat look at a guy contending with criminal indictments, a possible criminal felon, and think, yeah, no, that's my guy. This dude deserves a promotion. And I get why it might not seem like that on the outside, considering the whole right-wing media ecosystem is dominated by extremists like Tucker Carlson, who calls. Trump's indictment, worse than January 6th, and Lindsey Graham, who was literally on the verge of tears begging viewers to send money to Trump, as if Trump a billionaire is short on cash. But out in the real world, when you're not dealing with white nationalist-adjacent propagandists like Tucker and Republican politicians who've taken up residence in Trump's colon, regular Americans don't view getting charged with crimes as a good thing. And I'd venture to guess that theory extends to plenty of Republican voters out there whose definition of law and order isn't

elevating a criminal to the presidency. So if Republicans want to immerse themselves in their extreme bubbles and hitch their wagons yet again to the guy who's lost them elections in the last three cycles, who am I to stop them? But I should note that if there was any doubt that the foundation of that party is its most extreme

elements, that should be put to rest. Next step is my interview with Jamie Raskin and I just want to flag that this interview was recorded the morning before Trump's indictment. So if you're wondering, why we didn't touch on that, we preempted it by only a couple of hours. Now, we've got Congressman Jamie Raskin.

Congressman, thanks so much for taking the time. Always great to see you. The pleasure is mine to be with you, Brian. Thanks for inviting me. So we'll get into the politics in a moment. But first, you know, you're going through treatment for cancer right now. How is that going? What are doctors saying?

How much longer? Well, the big picture is excellent news that doctors are giving me a very favorable prognosis for defeating the, you know, lymphoma, the large-grade B-cell lymphoma, triple hit. And so that's the headline news. But, you know, I'm still slugging it out in the trenches with chemo, and it is no fun. I would not wish it on my worst enemies in the world. You know, when Tucker Carlson came out with his propaganda reel about January 6th, there was a blood of death threats.

I think I got 13 death threats the next day. And I was thinking about, you know, how low do you have to go to send a death threat to some guy going through chemotherapy? And but I thought, you know, even those people sending me death threats, I would not wish this upon them. I mean, it is just no fun. And my heart goes out to all of my, my fellow chemo warriors across the country because it is tough and it's, you know, tough on the body. and it's tough on the mind, and it can cause neuropathy, which is like freezing, tingling numbness in your fingers and your toes, so it's no fun. But in the big picture, we're living in a time where science has allowed us to defeat the dread disease, and that's an important thing.

You've been so present in these oversight hearings lately. Is that twice as hard, given what you're going through with these treatments, or does it actually help in the sense that you have something of a distraction? Yeah, I mean, I've organized my chemo therapy around weekends and recesses, so I'm not missing any hearings or votes or anything. And I would say that working has been effective for me. I think if I were at home, I would be focused much more on my symptoms, and I would be even, you know, drowning in a lot more self-pity than I have been.

Well, you know, first off, thanks for, you know, taking time to do this today. And, you know, I know I speak for everybody in saying that we hope that you get better and wish you the best. So with that said, let's jump into the politics here. As of this recording, we're still waiting on a slew of indictments to be handed down for Trump, including at the DOJ for inciting the insurrection on January 6th. and in Fulton County, Georgia, for trying to pressure Brad Raffensberger to find non-existent votes. You were the lead impeachment manager for his second impeachment trial regarding the

insurrection. You were on the January 6th committee. What would it mean for you to see an indictment passed down on an issue that you've so obviously poured so much of yourself into? You know, I'm a believer in the Constitution, and I feel like the House of Representatives really did its duty twice. And in the second impeachment, we had a strong bipartisan coalition. You know, we had 10 Republicans who joined us, all of the Democrats, in finding that Trump had incited a violent insurrection. And we went over to the Senate, and we ended up with 57 to 43 vote, which is a pretty

resounding majority, but he beat the constitutional spread. we needed 67 in order to hit two-thirds. And that was unfortunate. But a lot of the rhetoric of the Republicans was, well, you know, he can just be prosecuted later. We don't really need to convict him. And, of course, McConnell's counterfeit evasion at the end was to say, well, the impeachment managers have made their case.

He is factually, ethically, morally responsible for everything that happened. But we don't have jurisdiction to try the case because he's no longer president, which cut against more than two centuries of precedent, which said that you can both try and convict someone whether or not they hurriedly resigned from office in order to avoid it. So now we're in a situation where, well, all of these moderate Republicans have the chance to say we're doing the right thing in the prosecutor's office by prosecuting. But of course, all the diards are saying, oh, how can you prosecute a next president? How can you interfere in the next presidential election and so on? So,

you know, they've got an argument for every occasion in order to drape their guy in impunity. And it's frustrating people, and I share people's frustration, and, you know, people's sense of injustice and indignation is so strong, and the wheels of justice turn so slowly and in such an ineffectual way that it makes people really mad. But it is the price of living in a democratic society that has the rule of law. And it's infuriating that somebody who is, you know, a one-man crime wave and who so consistently thumbs his nose at the rule of law gets the benefit of due process and gets the benefit of the presumption of innocence. But that is the price that we all pay for being in this kind of society. And let's just hope that everybody gets that same benefit of presumption of innocence and due process that Donald Trump has gotten up until this point.

Digging in specifically to the January 6th stuff, what was your reaction to Trump's cause to violence against district attorney Alvin Bragg and his suggestion that the NYPD shouldn't defend anyone on the left? Well, I mean, it's an outrage. It's a scandal. It's a purely fascist form of political rhetoric about justice. I mean, fascists don't accept that there's a rule of law that applies to them. Anytime that a right-wing extremist is subject to the rule of law, whether it's Donald Trump for violating campaign finance laws or other laws in order to pay off his mistresses, or Donald Trump not paying plumbers and small business contractors and electricians, or Donald Trump inciting an insurrection, or insurrection. actionist, assaulting federal officers, then they immediately turn attention to who the judge is or who the prosecutor is. So they personalize it. Yeah. So they reject in that case the idea that there's a system of justice that applies to them

like everybody else. Now, of course, if one of their enemies is caught up in something or even one of their best friends is caught up in something, like take Michael Cohen, who. was Trump's lawyer and consigliary for all that time. And then took the heat for him and then became an enemy of Donald Trump. Well, then he's just a convicted liar. They don't mention the fact that he was convicted of lying for Trump, but they assume the integrity of the justice system because that works against someone who's now their enemy. Yeah. You know, I know this is more of a pundit question, but it's along these same lines. What are your thoughts on this notion that Trump is

desperately trying to sell, that any indictment would make him stronger. I mean, I suppose it's a Nietzschean concept that plays in with the general constellation of fascist concepts that he's put together. You know, anything that doesn't kill me makes me stronger. And it will just, you know, deepen the animosity and hatred of his movement. He might be right about that. I mean, he got up and he made that speech to Nick Pack and, you know, I think he's been going around saying there will be death and destruction if I'm prosecuted and I am your revenge. I am your retribution. Again, that's a purely fascist form of political rhetoric. And look, we know who Donald Trump is. I mean, the question is, who's everybody else in the Republican Party?

I mean, are they willing to walk the plank all the way down to the point of more fascist insurrectionary violence against the Department of Justice, against the FBI, against police? How far are they willing to take this? It's a remarkable experiment in human nature. It's almost like, you know, real-time Milgram experiment. Yeah, and we're watching the Overton window constantly shift and the goalposts constantly be pushed back. And I guess we shouldn't be surprised that, you know, to answer your question, it does seem to be okay for them every single time. I mean, there isn't a whole lot of pushback

regardless of what he does. I mean, you know, these Republicans would rather literally run away than answer questions and, you know, respond to a bunch of this stuff. But with that said, I do want to switch gears here to your oversight hearings. And first off, there was a moment in a recent oversight hearing where Lauren Bobert tried to land some type of a gotcha question on DC City council member Charles Allen by accusing him of decriminalizing public urination in D.C., here's the clip. Mr. Allen, based on these statistics, I would like to talk to you about some other things that are going on here in Washington, D.C., specifically an initiative that you led. In November of 2022, you led the charge to reform D.C.'s crime laws. Is that correct?

I chaired the committee that that proposal came from this. You led this charge, yes, sir. And these charges, these changes, are now law here in D.C., correct? Do you mean the revised criminal code? Yes. No, those are not the law. Those are not the law. Did, with the... The revised criminal code was rejected by... Excuse me, Mr. Chairman. I talked to Mr. Allen. Yes, ma'am. Did you or did you not decriminalize public urination in Washington, D.C.? Did you lead the charge to do so? No, the revised criminal code left that as a criminal charge.

Did you lead the charge to decriminalize public urination in Washington, D.C.? No, ma'am. Did you ever vote in favor of decriminalizing public urination in Washington, D.C.? The revised criminal code that was passed by the council. Did you ever support? kept it as a criminal offense. Did you, and you support this? Criminal. I voted for it, yeah.

You voted to keep it as a criminal offense. That's correct. The full counsel did. We have records that show that you were in favor of, of removing that criminal offense and allowing public urination? No. Is that something that you intend to pursue in the future? No.

The legislation that you're referring to that came from the Criminal Code Reform Commission changed public urination from a criminal to a civil offense. The council then changed that to maintain it as a criminal offense at the request of the mayor. Thank you. I yield. So what was going through your mind at that moment, like while you were watching this play out? It was a dismal tawdry here. generally. And it was inevitable that Lauren Bowbird and Marjorie Taylor Green would bring it further into the mud. I mean, of course, they were fresh back from their dramatic visit to the DC jail

where they went to see the so-called political prisoners, the January 6th defendants. Of course, they never name any of them. They never tell you what their names are because then you would be able to look them up and see what they're charged with. Yeah. There are 20 of them that are in there. Out of hundreds, these are people who judges either didn't want to release or they've already been convicted. I think about half of them have been convicted. But 17 of those 20 have either been convicted of or charged with violently assaulting federal

officers. And these are the people that they're comparing implicitly to Nelson Mandela. Yeah. You know, and Alexei Navalny and Alexander Soljanitz and Andre Sophe. I mean, political prisoners are people who are in for political or ideological thought crimes against the state. They didn't do anything other than write something or say something that offended the autocratic rulers.

Unlike the January 6th defendants who participated in an attempt to overthrow the government and most of these people were smashing federal officers in the face, spraying them with noxious chemicals, hitting them with polls or Confederate battle flags. federal battle flags or what have you. I mean, what an obscenity. Oh, and by the way, they're also in the much nicer facility and have access to computer tablets and 24-7 medical attention. Anyway, so they come in to this hearing, and they're all beating up on Washington, D.C., because they think this is their best political play at this point, and they have no agenda. So they're beating up on Washington, and someone is told her that D.C. tried to repeal the law against public

urination, which goes back a century or something. And of course, she got all the facts mixed up. It wasn't true. She refused to take no for an answer. Then people started sending messages around about how her husband, I think, had either been prosecuted or convicted of indecent exposure. And I guess his defense was public urination. And then some people were saying that maybe she was trying to defend public urination and not attack it. You know, you're dealing with, twilight zone world over there yeah yeah i think that's a that's a pretty good way to put it all right well well moving on to another uh element of the twilight zone here uh you know and one of the hearings has been about the origins of covid now the department of energy uh has said that it's likely

that covid was leaked from a lab in wuhan still for other agencies say that it was the result of natural transmission but still republicans have seized on this as if it's some win for them notwithstanding the fact that we still don't have that definitive answer, can you explain how Republicans would perceive anything COVID-related as a victory? Well, if I can reconstruct the contortions in their thinking, they recognize that everybody rightfully blames Donald Trump for America's catastrophically negligent response to COVID-19. I mean, he was a guy who was in complete denial for weeks about it and then, you know, began pointing fingers immediately and then told everybody to take hydroxychloroquine or everybody

tried bleach or, you know, and so people, so people generally understand that Trump was the source of the failure of the country to have a plan actually to defeat the disease and we've lost more than a million people. So they think, well, if we can show that, that China was at fault, not by some natural transmission from animals to humans, but rather by the leak from a lab or in the more extreme cases, although I don't think there's any evidence for this, but there's some evidence for the idea of a lab leak. But if there were a deliberate bio-assault you know, by China, then nobody would blame Donald Trump and his administration anymore. Everybody would blame China. The problem with that, as I've been trying to point out,

is that we have now identified 36 different episodes, either on Twitter or verbally or written when Donald Trump aggressively defends and praises the performance of his friend, President Xi, and the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese government, beginning in January, saying they're doing a great job, they're doing an excellent job, they're on top of it, we're in constant touch, they're being extremely transparent, they're showing us everything. This went on and on and on. And part of that is just his natural fawning adulation for autocrats and dictators. And part of it is he just wanted to say, oh, well, we don't have to do anything. We're relying on China. So then it's a very odd turn of events to have people say, no, this was a leak from China. Let's blame China instead of Trump. That this

just deepens Trump's complicity with it. Because if China pulled the wool over his eyes and he's telling everybody they're being perfectly transparent and they're working together, that just makes Trump's culpability worse. Yeah, I think that's perfectly put. You know, another time, topic you've had, what I'm sure is the privilege of covering in committee is the woke military, the issue that our military is woke. Have Republicans been able thus far to actually explain what wokeness is or is it just still some catch-all term for anything that they don't like? Well, it's obviously that. You know, and we go through phases where, you know, it's politically correct, which is like the toxic phrase or it's woke or it's BLM or

whatever but you know or it's trans you know you know they will all turn their focus on that and then try to yeah just whatever the culture war issue of the day is taboo exactly well you know we had a hearing yesterday about the military's difficulty in recruiting people um uh to come and of course they don't talk about any of the real reasons um and they have no data at all. No study, no data showing that it's because the military has become too woke, but that's the whole premise of their hearing that the military is too woke, and there's no analysis of it. And I said, you know, here's a theory that actually has some support behind it. The problem isn't that potential recruits are afraid that they're going to become woke. The problem

is that military potential recruits are afraid they're going to become broke, and then it's all about how, you know, 20% of people in the military are getting food assistance or on food stamps or going to food kitchens and so on. That's clearly got a lot more. Those material circumstances have a lot more to do with it than the fact that there's a sexual harassment training, which is, by the way, desperately needed as sexual harassment and sexual assault continue to go up in the military. And even one of their witnesses who was brought in to rail against wokeness yesterday was a woman who agreed that there are studies showing that a third of young people say they would not go into the military because they're afraid of sexual assault and

sexual harassment. Like that's real world stuff. Yeah. But I've been thinking about this woke thing because, of course, none of them can define what they mean by it. Yeah. And I'm not even sure progressives can define what they mean by it. Of course, you know, by the time the right wing picks up on one of these phrases is something to attack, nobody on the left even uses them anymore. So you never hear anybody saying, I'm woke or, you know. But the one time I heard somebody actually say it to me, they said, stay woke. And I started thinking about that.

And I looked up the etymology of the word woke and awake. and then the word vigilance, and they have a common source, a cognate, vigilance and wakeness and awakeness. And I think when people say stay woke, really, what they mean is stay vigilant, because there's a lot of danger out there, and there's a lot of people trying to undermine us. And so, if somebody asked me, what does woke mean? I'm going to say it means vigilant, stay vigilant. And that's good advice to people. Yeah. You know, I know that these Republicans are performing for the cameras, but does your work ever happen behind closed doors with this committee? And if so, do they still spew that same nonsense about wokeness? Like, do they actually

believe what they're saying? Yes, they all believe what they're saying. They're just high on their own supply. Remember that, you know, Lincoln's party has now become a cult of authoritarian personality. And, you know, the rank-and-file membership of a cult, they are absolute true believers, and they believe it real strongly. I mean, as you get closer and closer to the top, there are people who don't believe it. They're manipulating it. We have the Tucker Carlson's of the world, Laura Ingram, Sean Hannity, is we have those text messages that reveal stuff like that. Yeah, exactly. I mean, they are people who use propaganda.

in the sense of using magic against people who believe in it by those who don't believe in it anymore and understand what a fraud it is. And yeah, Tucker Carlson goes behind closed doors. They understand that Rudy Giuliani and Donald Trump and, you know, all of them are out to lunch with their claims about election fraud, but then they're perfectly willing to go out on TV in order to sell that to the cult because that's the cult line. and they've got to stick with the official propaganda line. I mean, that's a terrifying thing when that's how a whole political movement and a whole political

party operate. Yeah, I mean, I've said a hundred times that they don't view their supporters as anything other than Marx, and I think that bears itself out with these text messages. I do want to end with this. I want to ask about this recent shooting in Nashville. You know, obviously we just witnessed three nine-year-olds get killed in school. And on cue, Republicans are talking about more guns, arming teachers, doors, not enough God. Will this Congress pass legislation on guns, or is there just too much pressure on the Republican Party from the gun lobby to actually maintain the status quo?

Yeah, I mean, they are owned lock, stock, and barrel by the gun industry and by the NRA. The real GOP doctrine was voiced by Congressman Tim Burchett, who's actually one of the saner and more civilized Republicans you'll meet. I mean, he's kind of a beloved figure around here because he's a funny guy. He's a real human being. But when the reporters got to him, and they said, what did he think? He said, this is horrible. This is terrible. And they said, you know, what are you going to do about it?

And he said, we're not going to do anything about it. Nothing can be done. He said, criminals are going to be criminals. And so, you know, he speaks the party line there, which is when gun violence happens, their go-to motto is, oh, this was evil. This is moral evil. There's evil in the world. Suddenly, they're all like cloistered theologians just pronouncing upon evil in the world,

as opposed to elected officials who are sent to Congress in order to get something done. but they just throw up their hands and say, well, oh, yes, three more schoolchildren were assassinated in school. There's evil in the world, say la vie, what more can be done? I mean, it's obscene. And future generations will look back on this as a period where an entire political party basically adopted an implicit policy of mass sacrifice, because they're basically saying, we're going to sacrifice all of these innocent people who are being mowed down in massacres and just the daily toll of gun violence to our vision of the Second Amendment, which is a completely twisted and distorted view of the Second Amendment.

The Supreme Court has said that, you know, we can pass reasonable gun safety legislation consistent with the Second Amendment. You have a right to handgun or self-defense in the home. you have a right to rifle for recreation and for hunting. But you don't have a right to assault weapons. You don't have a right to get any of it without going through a background check. All of that is consistent with the Second Amendment. But my colleagues have adopted the insurrectionist view of the Second Amendment. The reason they say we have a Second Amendment is so the people can attack and defeat and overthrow a dictatorial, repressive government.

And that is completely refuted by the text of the Constitution. Article 1, Section 8, Clause 15, says Congress can call up the militia, the National Guard, in order to put down insurrections. The Republican Guarantee Clause says, we owe everybody a guarantee of a Republican form of government, and we will help the states expel any invasion and put down domestic violence. In fact, it's treason to wage violence against the government of the United States. In Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, if you're an elected official who's sworn an oath to the Constitution and you violated by participating in insurrection, you can never run for office again. So the Constitution completely rejects insurrection. They say that the meaning of the Second Amendment is the people can become a militia and overthrow the government.

And there's no Supreme Court precedent for that. There is no basis for that at all. What they're talking about is treason against the government. And if they were right, instead of being in jail where they have to go visit them, all of these insurrectionists would be out because they would have had a Second Amendment defense, which they do not. Yeah. And by the way, if those conservatives don't want to take your word for it, they can just listen

to what Antonin Scalia, who is arguably one of the most conservative Supreme Court justices in modern American history said about the Second Amendment and that and that was that it's not unlimited and that you don't have, you know, unlimited rights to any weapon you want in any place you want whatsoever. So let's let's end with this. You know, I know that you hear from people who are begging and pleading and crying for Congress to do something on this issue. What do you say to those people? Well, we're in your camp and we are, you know, fighting every day on it. I mean, My colleague, Jamal Bowman, exploded yesterday in the hallway as Republicans were leaving, saying, children are dying.

What are you going to do about it? What are, you know, what is your answer? And I saw a couple of Republicans, you know, confront him and just utter the NRA dogmas. We're going to keep fighting with them. We've got to win back the House. We've got to win back the Senate. And it's number one. We're going to pass a universal violent criminal background show.

We are going to pass a ban on military-style assault weapon the kind we had a few decades ago. And we're going to empower the ATF, which has been so undermined by the Republicans. And we're not going to allow all of their lies about the Second Amendment to make life dangerous for our people. We'll leave it there. Again, thank you for taking the time and keep kicking ass. We're all pulling for you as much as we can out here. so thanks again thank you brian keep up all your great work then now you've got the host of msnbc's inside with jen saki on sundays at 12 p m eastern and the former white house press secretary for jo

biden jen saki so good to see again great to be here i'm happy to be here with you little a few things happening in the news yeah yeah well obviously the the monumental legal news this week uh gwyneth paltrow not liable for that ski accident i knew you were going to do that i know i've baked I vaguely followed that. There's one other big legal thing I was following a little bit more this week. Yes, and that is obviously Trump is now officially a criminal defendant. He's indicted in New York. So I note that Trump's legal issues were something that you largely stayed away from as press secretary, but now you're no longer press secretary.

So I guess, how do you think this impacts the Republican field? I know there's been talk about, you know, this kind of redounding to his benefit. But how do you think this impacts that field now as we head into 2024? Well, if there was any doubt before the indictment as to who the leader of the Republican Party was, it was cleared up when you saw how quickly everybody, including Trump's former vice president, Mike Pence, his chief rival, Ron DeSantis, Kevin McCarthy, the Speaker of the House, all put out statements very quickly, essentially echoing the same language, suggesting that an indictment, the judicial system doing its job was weaponizing the government

and weaponizing the justice system. So they were all echoing Trump. And that tells you that they are looking to him still to be the leader of the party. Now, what's also true is he was already coalescing power or coalescing support, I should say, and taking it from DeSantis before this happened. But clearly what he's going to try to do is rally the Republican base toward him. He's fundraising off of it, although not that well. Let's be honest, even though he's raised some money, it's not a ton of money. But there's two stages, right? Brian, there's the, there's the primary. And this may help him in the primary to rally the base, especially if people follow him. It's a much harder thing in a general election. So that's my take as of now, but a long

time to go. Do you wish that this one didn't come first? I know there's been some talk about people saying, you know, I wish it was the Fawney Willis Fulton County case. I wish it was DOJ cases. What do your thoughts on that? You know, I'm so accustomed to the realities of the pace of the justice system from working in government for 20 years that I actually haven't spent a lot of time hemming and hauling and wringing my hands about this thing because the pace of justice is the pace of justice, right? You can be frustrated about it. You can wish things were in a different order. But these are all different jurisdictions. They're not coordinating with each other in that way.

So there were certain realities here. What's also true, though, is that there are three other criminal cases. We don't know when those will be determined, when it'll be determined whether there's an indictment. And certainly for in terms of a message, talking about the January 6th and his role in January 6th or his role in trying to overturn the outcome of an election in Georgia is more in line with what Democrats and many people who are fighting for democracy would want to talk about. But, you know, that's not the reality of how the justice system works. So there are what we are. Yeah. Well, you know, Trump's indictment here comes in the aftermath. of him having lobbed a bunch of thinly veiled threats of violence from him egging on his

supporters. They weren't that thinly veiled. That's fair, yeah. Basically, just outright, outright calls to violence, calls to arms, the supporters from, you know, telling them to go to New York to protest, even telling the NYPD that they shouldn't protect Democrats. What are your thoughts on basically those outright calls to violence? Well, look, I mean, first, it's a sad day when a former president is indicted, even as there's a lot of people in this country who understandably want him to be held accountable. What is even sadder than that is the reaction of Trump and many leaders in the Republican Party, which has been to lob targets and send out a bat signal that has led to hundreds of threats against the Manhattan District Attorney. I think that is dangerous.

It's scary. And we've seen the facts of that kind of add up about what the impact has. been. What's also true, though, is I know that this is all being tracked, right? We only know what is available in public space and public information. And right now, knock on wood, there hasn't been a mass gathering, right? There hasn't been, I remember kind of one of the January 6th participants a couple weeks ago being quoted as saying, I'm rooting for him, but I'm retired, right? So there is kind of an interesting component of this, which is, does he have still the same power to rally that type of dangerous, you know, violent protests that he did a couple of years ago. And I hope not.

Yeah. I mean, you know, at least for his supporters, even if it's not a signal of, you know, his, his waning influence among them, at least they can recognize that when he does these call to arms to them, you know, fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me. Like, they're not going to go and show up only to then get, I mean, they arrested like a thousand people for January 6th. So at least prosecuted a number of them. them already.

So at least it shows that like that his power to do one of the more dangerous activities that he does, which is, you know, basically called together these mobs, at least his power to do that seems to be waning a little bit more. But with that said, I do want to switch gears here and talk about the Fox Dominion lawsuit. We have proof now that Fox is not a legitimate news organization. It is effectively a propaganda arm of the Republican Party. If you were still press secretary, could the argument be made not to call it? on them in the briefing room. I wouldn't make that argument because it gives them more legitimacy

and gives them more fire. I think the thing people should understand about the briefing room is that there are all sorts of characters in there who are not journalists, who have an agenda, who are their own versions of propagandists. And that is even more so in the State Department briefing room, where you have representatives of foreign governments. So I think, obviously, all of the texts and emails, it's not surprising, but it should be eye-opening to people about the fact that not just Tucker Carlson, but a range of people in Fox were not thinking about reporting accurate facts,

but they were thinking about how to satisfy the desires of their audience to have an to have alternative facts that is the core problematic issue there but to me um you know i just don't think that it's as easy as they shouldn't be called on in the briefing room they shouldn't nobody should do fox because in some ways you're taking off you're taking yourselves off the playing field and you're giving them more fuel and i totally understand that and i know that in the the briefing room, you called on Fox a lot, and I think that in that situation, there is a lot of value in it because you were very good at swatting down disinformation. I think that you, the benefit of you being able to swat down that disinformation from like Peter Ducey was more effective than

him just presenting it. So I understand that, but I guess the question becomes, how do you balance transparency with legitimizing a propaganda outlet whose existence actually detracts from journalism, like provably detracts from journalism? Well, I think, look, if you're just talking about the briefing room, then you have to say you're not going to call on OAN, you're not going to call on newsmax, you're not going to call on any component or element of Fox. And my point is that that is validating their argument, right, in some ways. And so that's why I don't think that's a constructive approach. I think the way that you call out the propaganda is you do exactly that, right? You, whomever you call on in the briefing room or wherever you are at the White House,

at the State Department, you have to keep your ear ready for propaganda or for spouting of disinformation. And you have to cut it out, cut it off and call it out. And that is requires being on your toes every day. But, you know, I think that's the way to approach it. Was Peter Ducey nice to you off camera? Yes. We actually had a very good relationship. And, you know, I have consumed my fair share of Fox and the fact-checking on a lot of what's on their air would be, you know, would have a field day. You need a massive team of people. But I did find him to be professional.

And, you know, in some ways, here's the thing. The things they would ask in the briefing room, at least when I was there, and my assumption is it's still similar today, pretty predictable, right? I mean, they had kind of when I was there a rotation of the border, you know, COVID restrictions and, you know, one or two other things. So you kind of knew it was going to be one of those things. Yeah. I don't know if you can answer this, but whose questions did you dread? You know, the truth is the hardest questions were not from Fox. The hardest questions were from the people who were deeply informed about the issues they were covering.

And it sounds very obvious when I say it that way, but, you know, anytime I'd come in the briefing room and I would see like a David Sanger or a Peter Baker and there was a big issue happening in foreign policy, I'd be like, okay. Yeah. No, not because the question was unfair, but because they were going to ask the hard, difficult to answer question as they should. But, you know, sometimes people, there's a lot of like, oh, Peter, do you see back and forth. I would say most of the reporters in that room when I was there asked hard questions, you know. Kristen Welker has a way of posing questions that often make them hard to answer because she's good at her job. You know, now she's a colleague, but, you know, and Phil Mattingly knows more about Congress than probably people who work with Congress in the White House. So it's the same type of thing where you knew if there was an issue coming up, they would ask you like a, or sometimes some of the econ reporters, right?

they're going to ask you the hard question about the GDP numbers and you better be on your toes. So it was a range of people. The Fox questions were in many ways predictable because there were some elements of the like fire brand that they were rotating through. It was the people who were deeply embedded in the substantive stories they were covering. They always asked the harder questions, as they should. Was it ever fun, like the volley back and forth with, you know, some of these right wing outlets? it's like even if you knew what they were what they were going to come at you with was was there any

element where it was like you know like the debate aspect of it was enjoyable yeah of course look first of all i don't think you could ever do that job if you didn't respect reporters in general and if you didn't think the back and forth was was fun not every day some days you know some days i would turn to my team before the briefing and go uh this is like a weedy's kind of day you know it's like i got to have your spinach today because sometimes you just don't have more information to share right or you have nothing to say and you know it's going to be hard but there were days and these were the best days where some of the best days i should say where you knew that there was going to be a question asked by someone you know what their question was that that was going to

be misleading and you were going to correct the record and you had the receipts in your binder to do that and yeah that's fun yeah yeah well with that said what were your best day and your worst day at the white house oh gosh um ever or during biden during Biden. So my best day was the day that Kataji Brown Jackson, now is Supreme Court Justice, after she'd been confirmed when she did, when there was an event on the South lawn for her. And it was my best day because it was on the schedule. And after working in the White House, as long as I have you, kind of get a little numb to things happening, which you shouldn't. I mean, you shouldn't. But I think I went sort of last minute to the

event. I think I felt like I had a lot going on, right? And I was like, I don't know if I have time to do this. And I went to the event. One, it was a beautiful day. But two, I just remember sitting there and her talking, her speech, which I'm sure you remember was so, so powerful. It was powerful. It was a historic moment. And it's one of those moments where you're like, I can't believe I get to be a part of this, right? I'm a part of history. I mean, I didn't get her confirmed, but like the small part that we all played. And I remember people, I started crying during the during her speech and I was like, oh God, pull it together, right? And I looked around and everybody was crying around me because it was so powerful. So that was the best day. There were many best days. By the way, I thought you were going to say the best day was the day that she, that the president announced that she was his selection because that was the day I was in the White House. Oh, well, you know, that is great too.

You know it's funny working in the press or comms office during these days? You're so stressed because you just like wanted to go well. Well, talk about stress. Like that day, that day was also one day after Russia invaded Ukraine. So like there was no shortage of shit going down. Yes, yes. Like those days where there's so much going on, you're like, okay. There's not enough coffee in the world for these days sometimes.

The worst day was the day that 13 members of the military died in Afghanistan. And I remember that day so distinctly because we had been trying to, better educate or inform reporters about how high the threat of a terrorist threat was, right? How high it was. It wasn't, you know, they didn't, we needed to do a better job. And I remember going to the situation room and saying for the kind of daily meeting on Afghanistan and saying to John Feiner, I think people are going to understand. I think we've made some progress on helping, and he was like, there's been an attack, right? And it's just like, and that day, I mean, it was absolutely heart wrenching. You don't know how to meet the moment. It's like moments. You don't know how to meet the moment. It's like moments. You don't know how to meet the moment for the president. And then I did the briefing after him. It was also the day of my daughter's kindergarten open house. So I like went to that in the middle of the day. But that was the worst day, just like draining and horrible.

Yeah. Well, with that said, in terms of like meeting the moment and all that, now you have your own platform. You have your own show. What do you want to do with your show? What's your goal for it? I hope. I mean, I've thought a lot about kind of what my North Star is, like what I want viewers to

take away. And for me, I hope when people watch the show, they will learn something they didn't know before, whether it's about an issue where they didn't really understand it. Maybe they've, like, seen clips of it or heard, seen the words, but they don't really understand what it is or a point of view. There's always more below the surface. That's been my experience in 20 years in this town in terms of why something's happening, what's going on with it, but also about people. And this is a big passion of mine. I mean, one of my big takeaways from working in government for 20 years is that, These are human beings who have so many layers.

And sometimes you only know one thing about them. Their slogan, I mean, you know, Senator Booker, what do you think of? Like, he's vegan, right? There's so much more to Senator Booker than the fact that he's vegan or he's good on Instagram. And so that is another part that hopefully people will take away. But I also love the counterintuitive explaining of things. So that will be you too. We have shared passion here.

So that will definitely always be a part of what we're trying to do each week. How is it working with a teleprompter? Because you actually have the hard part down, which is being able to work without a teleprompter, just being able to work on your feet. Teleprompter is, you know, you're reading words off the screen, but this is, I imagine the first time that you're doing that. So how is that? Totally. It is. It's been an adjustment.

But I also think part of it is, and I've gotten a bunch of very smart people here gave me this advice is the more my voice and my own writing is integrated into what is in the teleprompter, the more authentic it's going to be, which like that sounds obvious, but it may not be. Of course that's true, right? So the words that I'm speaking are my words. And I also don't read every word and I don't go verbat. You know, I kind of live a fair amount, maybe to the to drive the people who are running it insane, but yes, it's an adjustment, and it's kind of remembering that, reminding myself that, you know, I'm trying to, I'm trying to kind of talk to viewers who are at home. Part of the thing about teleprompters, they're very impersonal, as you know, right?

It's like a big black box, but I'm really trying to talk to the people who are on the other end, and it's trying to remind myself of what I want to project to them. Yeah. In the rare instances where I don't read my own writing on teleprompter, it can take me, like three times as long because when it's my own writing and when it's my own words and they feel right coming out of my mouth it just goes like that but but you know in those rare instances where i'm reading something that somebody else has written i can get stumbled on almost every sentence because it's me too and i same thing and when i first started i was kind of reading other people's scripts just to get the hang of it and these were well written smart intelligent amazing scripts

they're not your work like it's not how you would feel like sentences yeah yeah and so i i i i I kind of, you know, struggled with that too because it's much easier to say things how you would say them. Yeah. What interview do you want the most? Oh, my God. That's such a good one. There's a lot, and I will, because I'm going to give you more than one answer here. I don't have to do a big wind up to this.

Yeah. I would love to drive around with Katie Porter in her minivan and just like explain things with a whiteboard. So I would love to do that. I love to go where people are in their environments because I just think it tells you so much more about people. And you just, it's, and viewers learn more. I'm a bit of an Olympics freak, and also a sports fan. So Joe Burroughs on the top of my list.

My entire extended family would come with me, so there's that. But I also think athletes, mental health, being in the spotlight, such an interesting i haven't done this on the show yet but i really would like to do this because i think it's an interesting component of it um i think there's like a ton of really interesting people out there i'm just you know i'm kind of this week i spent time with danica rome who was kind of on my list too so i think a lot about the people i want to know more about i mean just as a person right who are they really um and that that's exciting to me too it's not always the most famous person yeah and uh and let's let's let's end with this by the way my i have

I have two interviews that are like my reach interviews. What are they? I feel like I need to think about a better answer. Those are just like top of the head. But who are they? Well, mine are people I've been trying. I have a list and I've had to like whittle people off the list as I've been lucky enough to be able to interview them. And obviously President Biden was at the top of it.

But now the last two remaining that are like, that are like, you know, my reach requests are John Stewart and President Obama. So those are the two. Also I'd like to John Stewart fellow William Mary alumni, which I probably overshare like I can like claim some connection to him, which I don't really have. But I still think that's amazing. You know, I'd also just I'd also love to talk to people like Senator Romney and others. I think there's just there. There are so many layers there. I mean, I also worked for Obama against him. But so I have lots of different people that are on my list. It's good thing I'm only on show three and hopefully they'll let me keep doing this. Because there's lots of people that I'd love to talk to. We know the irony about the Romney thing is I've reached out to a number of Republicans and I'm sure you can imagine how much, how many, how many bites I get when I reach out. I think the only Republicans have been lucky enough to book and they've been kind enough to come are, I think Adam Kinsinger, Jeff Duncan, who's a lieutenant governor of Georgia, and Mike Murphy, and that may be it. I think I'm missing one more. But in any case, when Adam Kinsinger is the most conservative person that will come on, come on. on my show, I think that gives you an indication of how easy it is for me to get Republicans.

You're still at it. You're just like a smart, substantive guy. You're not a, you're not scary. So people should know that. Well, from from your lips to God's ears. So let's finish off with this. How is the transition been from, you know, the public sector to the private sector, from working in the White House to now working at MSNBC? You know, this funny thing, I was, I was out of the White House for a couple years, obviously, during Trump, right? So, and I was a contributor to contributor at CNN. So I had a little bit of a sense. This is different. One of the biggest adjustments is, you know, I had worked in the White House more than almost more than anywhere else in my whole career, right? And so coming into a new place and a new company with new people, it was

almost, you know, trying to kind of make my way and get to know people. That's kind of been an adjustment in a good way, though. I've really been blown away by how supportive. It's just like a really wonderful place to work. I'm not just saying that. People are like super smart and nice. You just like walk around in the hallway and it's like you find somebody who's working on an interesting documentary or it's like can explain what's happening with a banking crisis to me. So that's actually weirdly similar to government. But, you know, otherwise the adjustments are, you know, just thinking about what I want to talk about and who I want to talk to. And that is different from working in government. And, you know, how I want to integrate my experience and perspective in with people who are super informed

who I want to know more from. So it's thinking about that, which is kind of a fun adjustment, but that is new and different. Yeah. Well, I would highly recommend for anybody watching listening right now to check out Jen Show on MSNBC Inside with Jen Saki, Sundays at 12 p.m. Eastern. Jen, thanks so much for taking the time. Thank you. Great talking to you.

Thank you so much. Thanks again to Jen. One last note, if you enjoy this episode, please recommend it to a friend or post a link on your social media. Word of mouth definitely helps grow our audience, and I would really appreciate it. 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.