No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen - The US braces for Trump's second term

Episode Date: January 19, 2025

Biden leaves office as America prepares for a second Trump term. Brian interviews California governor Gavin Newsom about the LA wildfires and his response to Republicans like Trump and Mike Johnson threatening to condition disaster relief. Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett joins to discuss her blow up with the most attention-obsessed member of Congress, Nancy Mace. And finally North Carolina Supreme Court justice Allison Riggs joins to discuss Republican efforts to steal her election win away from her and install her Republican opponent onto the court.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 Biden's final days in office and how to prepare for a Trump presidency. And I've got three interviews this week. I'm joined by California Governor Gavin Newsom to discuss the LA wildfires and his response to Republicans like Trump and Mike Johnson threatening to condition disaster relief. I interview Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett about her blow up with the most attention-obsessed member of Congress, Nancy Mace. And finally, North Carolina Supreme Court Justice Allison Riggs joins to discuss Republican efforts to steal her election win away from her and install her Republican opponent on the United States. to the court. I'm Brian Taylor Cohen, and you're listening to No Lie. So as of this recording, we're just one day away from Trump being sworn into office. By the time you'd listen to this, he might already have been sworn in, which means that we are

officially closing the book on the Biden era as we move into the Trump era. But before we go full tilt into this next chapter, I think it's worth discussing Biden's legacy and what he and his Democratic majority were able to accomplish. And to also offer something of a baseline for what the government should be doing for its voters as all eyes turned to a Republican majority. So in terms of legacy for Biden, I would honestly say that it's mixed. And I say that because his whole reason for running against Trump way back in 2016 is because he wanted to protect our democracy from a budding autocrat. And yet, looking ahead for years, it was largely a function of Biden's age that he was unable to prosecute the case against Trump and ultimately

gave way to Trump retaking the White House. And look, in terms of whether the criticism, against Biden is fair. On one hand, given the economic environment we were in, where incumbent governments were ousted almost everywhere across the world, I'm not sure that any Democratic candidate could have won when people were looking to punish the party in charge. On the flip side, though, it's clear by now that Biden should have dropped out before the June debate, at which point it was effectively assured that he would lose if he ran, and also basically gave no time for any other candidate to stand up an entire campaign against Trump. But with all of that said, while the story of Biden's legacy focuses on Trump's assent back into power,

I do want to take a minute to consider what he was able to do as president when Democrats were in charge. Democrats took the disaster economy that Trump left, in which three million jobs were lost, the economy contracted 2.2 percent, and the unemployment rate rose to 6.3 percent, and they added 16 million jobs, brought the unemployment rate down to a 50-year low, brought the stock market to a record high, and oversaw the fastest economic recovery on earth. It was the Democrats who passed an infrastructure law, one of Trump's biggest failed promises. It was the Democrats who oversaw a job's boom, one of Trump's biggest failed promises. It was the Democrats who oversaw a manufacturing renaissance, one of Trump's biggest failed promises.

It was the Democrats who capped the cost of insulin and inhalers at 35 bucks, who capped out of pocket health care cost at $2,000, who were responsible for rural broadband, which will overwhelmingly benefit Republican areas. It was the Democrats who protected earned benefits like Medicare and Social Security and Medicaid, even as Republicans continue to this day to threaten to privatize the programs that you've spent your entire life paying into. The Democrats who protected are veterans by passing the PACT Act, thereby ensuring that they would have health care over the objections of Republicans, even as they beat their chest as the party of the military.

It was the Democrats who ushered in billions and billions of dollars of investments from companies committed to the next generation of clean energy manufacturing thanks to the Chips Act and the Inflation Reduction Act, the Democrats who passed the biggest climate protection law in history so that we have clean air to breathe and clean water to drink and a habitable planet to live on, who got COVID under control and ushered in the strongest economic response on Earth with the American Rescue Plan,

who passed the first gun safety law in three decades, who codified marriage equality into federal law. So again, I understand that Biden is going to leave office with a legacy tarnished by the guy who will take the oath of office on Monday, but that doesn't negate the wins that Biden and Democrats were able to not. And the promise of being able to score wins like this in the future is why we have to keep fighting. And look, I get it. We're all exhausted.

And Donald Trump hasn't even started his term in earnest yet. So I get the desire to check out. But the only way that we see results on health care, on abortion rights, on climate, on guns, on raising the minimum wage, on protecting unions, and so much more is if we stay in the fight. So don't check out. Do not reward the people who want to take everything away by giving them exactly what they want. I'm going to keep fighting because this country is worth fighting for. Its people are worth fighting for. It's not going to be easy, but we were never promised that it would be.

But it'll be worth it. That much I can promise you. Next up are my interviews with Gavin Newsom, Jasmine Crockett, and Allison Riggs. No lies brought to you by Beam. So if you're a political junkie like I am, you're probably not resting right now as easy as you'd like. I know that by the time my head hits the pillow at night, my mind is going 100 miles an hour,

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Thanks for joining me today. It's good to be with you. So we are at the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank. there. We're going to talk about that in a few moments. The people who are working here are doing God's work, delivering very much needed help to the people of Los Angeles who are impacted by these fires. More broadly, though, the people of California need federal help. And so what will the federal aid that Biden will be able to do for us? And if you have any worry more broadly that in a few days when Trump is sworn into office, that he'll be able to intervene? Yeah. So there are two,

on the first part of your question, two things President Biden did right away. And I mean right away. We got a major disaster declaration within 36 hours. That's unprecedented in modern emergency history. We got it over a text message. I asked the president just on the immediate disaster response to move from a 75% reimbursement from FEMA to a 90%. He said no. I said, geez, Mr. President, he said, no, I'm going to do 100%. He stepped up and he continues to, including just a few hours ago with what they call these C to G grants. It was the last major part when the C to G grants mean is playgrounds, parks, and schools, and community centers getting that 100% reimburse. So significant support. FEMA now is out there on the line

doing $770 debit cards just for incidentals, groceries. And those are immediate. That doesn't mean that all these people are getting a $700. That's no, but that's just immediate before you even get to the application to get up to $43,600. Go to Disaster Assistance.gov. Look, all of that said, what you did frame is what happens next week, what could happen into the future. And that's to be determined. We're trying to button everything up we possibly can, including today, quite literally a few minutes before I got here. I saw it an executive order allowing the U.S. EPA to come in with their hazmat team. So already phase one of the debris removal has begun. And we're trying to now lock in phase two, which is the master

debris removal contract and then get federal support, again, all in anticipation of what could occur next week. Can I have your reaction to Mike Johnson, Speaker of the House, coming out in support of establishing the precedent of conditioning disaster relief and him doing it from the state of Louisiana? It's not like this guy is any stranger to what would happen if we start playing politics with disaster relief. So can I have your reaction to that? I hope it looks in his heart. the pain and suffering, the American people, the trauma that everybody is experiencing in his country. He's the Speaker of the House of Representatives

for the United States of America, one nation under God, indivisible liberty and justice for all, not some, who may have a political point of view. By the way, I didn't ask anyone what their political affiliation was when we're down here working to try to protect people and the community from the ravages of these fires and these unprecedented winds. But you know what?

Nor did we ever, ever, never in California questioned whether or not we as taxpayers in the largest state in the union should support the people Louisiana at a time of emergency and need. We never conditioned it. We never talked about putting the full fate in credit of the United States of America with the debt ceiling bill so we can get tax cuts for billionaires and corporations that don't need it and then put at risk the lives of. hundreds of thousands of Americans that happen to live in California.

And this, by the way, is California as a donor state, as arguably the biggest donor state in the country? Yeah, size of 21 state populations combined, a state with millions and millions of Trump supporters, Speaker Johnson, and Mr. President-elect, millions of your supporters are out here. They need your help, they need your empathy, they need your care, whatever compassion you can express,

as opposed to condemnation and divisive language. that has aided and embedded nothing except missing disinformation that's flamed fear and flamed a lot of anxiety for folks that are simply trying to recover. And at the same time, our first responders trying to address the emergency at hand, which still hasn't been fully buttoned up. As far as the disinformation efforts go,

we have seen that from Mike Johnson, from Trump, from others in the Republican Party. How much of an impediment to your job is contending with disinformation when you should be focused on more important things, anything else other than that? At first, the mindset, I'm putting my head down, that's just noise. And then I started realizing, on my head down, I'm out in the community, people are reflecting stuff that made no sense.

I said, why didn't you send us water? There's no state water. Why you care about the smell? I said, what are you talking about? And I started to realize this misinformation is impacting people's lives, is actually impacting their ability to trust and reason. And so we started to push back. And yeah, we've had to spend a lot of time putting a fact side up

that every couple minutes, we're just having to update. I mean, people, there are people that have millions and millions of views that talk about the fact that somehow this was an intentional fire in order to get rid of tunnels because Donald Trump was going to prosecute everybody out here for pedophile rings, and it got millions of views. And there are actually people out there, reasonable people, God bless them,

that are misinformed and start to believe this crap. And so we have to push back. And look, to be in the middle of this, to deal with hurricane force, winds that attached to a fire, at the same time, we're dealing with hurricane force misinformation and intentional disinformation, not just by the President of the United States,

but guys like Elon Musk that will platform all this bullshit as well. And forgive my language, that's what it is. To that point then, I mean, this is somebody who bought up Twitter to be able to have a bigger platform to reach the majority of the people in this country. And for example, one of the things that he brought up was this idea that looting is decriminalized in California.

And so not only is that false information, that people are going to consume. Just an outright lie. Keep going. Not only a lie, but it also gives something of a permission structure for people who want to do it to then think, oh, well, I heard from Elon Moscow is the biggest voice on this platform

and that it's okay. Yeah, so the asymmetry of that is off the charts in an emergency situation. It's something that shouldn't happen. That said, back to just noise, push back, take some of that seriously. But the literal responsibility we have is the task at hand with 8,400 firefighters, as I speak, working the line. 16,000 personnel, 2,500 National Guard trying to address the issue of looting 750 CHP as we speak.

We have the EPA starting to do phase one and the debris removal. We're doing individual home inspections, and we're working through that in record time so we can get people back on their feet. We're addressing the insurance crisis, just met with all the CEOs around the insurance. issues and we're addressing temporary housing. We're trusting temporary food needs and emergency assistance. And we want to give people hope that feel helpless. And all of that is a deep distraction. And it is what it is. It's the world we're living in. We can't deny. It's not what happens. It's our response to what happens. And our response is to focus on the mission at hand, helping people in need. Well, for posterity, while I have you, I do want to try to push back

on some of that disinformation and give you the opportunity to introduce some positive information into the zeitgeist here. So can you just give some of that accurate information as it relates to prioritizing smelt as it relates to this idea that there is a spigot that can be turned on from NorCal down to SoCal on this idea that there's not enough water here in Los Angeles? Well, let's start with it. Well, I'll go backwards. We have above average near record water stored in Southern California. We have no space. that we can go and move as he keeps. I mean, I think he actually believes it.

Yeah. Because I've been hearing this for six or seven years. He talked about a non-existent act that somehow I've either literally made up. Yeah. There's not a human being that understands what he's talking about. That right next to Michigan Man of the Year is... Yeah. I mean, in the smell, what that has to do with the issues down here, nothing.

It's nonsense. This notion of forest management. I have literally doubled the number of prescribed burns in the last year, year. 700,000 acres we treated. We have 10x, 10x the budget on an annual basis since I became Governor of California. It was $200 million a year. I took the $200 million and we spent an additional $2.5 billion a week before this fire. We announced an additional $1.5 billion for vegetation management and forest management. We have a memorandum of understanding with the U.S. Forest Service that has 50% of the land, California, just 3% of the land. We don't care about jurisdiction. We

care about partnership and we've advanced unprecedented partnership doubled the size of our state fire force. We increased by 16 new helicopters the size of our aerial fleet, which is the largest civilian air fleet in the world. And we pre-positioned, pre-positioned 120 engines. We met on Saturday before the Tuesday event. We got folks down here at 5, 6 p.m. on Sunday. We pre-positioned 120 engines. We pulled them from Northern California in anticipation of this wind event, water tenders, helicopters, hand crews, including the National Guard that were there within minutes of the fire. I had the opportunity to be here within a few hours. I intimately am aware of the winds because we went up the canyon and we had to drive back, immediately thrown back

into the car, embers in the hair because we had hurricane force winds. And these guys, even with the finest water system in the history of mankind, they were literally trying to push the embers down to create evacuation quarters to keep people alive. 99 mile an hour winds, the heroism of these folks. I saw it, sheriff's deputies, police deputies, paramedics, the whole crew, the mutual aid system that was at hand and the mutual aid system that's expanded now 12 states

in two countries as well. So I just have deep pride for these guys. thousand plus they were on the line fighting those fires and it did heroic work did the best they could possibly do look there is those investments and all the preparation that was taken into account in in in the lead up to these fires actually exploding onto the scene but then obviously there is the mass destruction that followed and so I know there are going to be folks who look at that and say well it wasn't enough because look at look at we're looking at 40,000 acres burned so what's your reaction to the disparity that's on display right now in terms of

you know, the preparation and the investment that California has made versus the reality of the situation, which is that there was so much destruction regardless. Yeah, no, I mean, this was a, we had what we call PDS. We've had four of them. Two in the last four years, we've had four of them in the last three months. And these are unprecedented wind events, or at least with little precedent, wind events,

that are beyond a red flag warning. 100 mile an hour winds with the driest conditions we've had since 1850 in Southern California. Structure to structure fires overwhelming everything, unimaginable destruction. And by the way, it's also destruction that's devastatingly and tragically familiar with other major disasters. We've seen in Maui. We saw up the campfire in Paradise, California, 18,000 structures, 85 people that lost their lives. there. Mother Nature's Fury, wind and buyers and unprecedented strains in a complex in a theater where we were at peak seven fires that we were actively addressing around the same

time. I want to talk about insurance for a moment. In the last few years, I think since 2019, about 100 Californians have, or 100,000 Californians have lost access to their insurance. insurers will no longer insure the properties here in California. So what can we do to prevent even more Californians from losing their insurance in the aftermath of what we're seeing right now? So there's a moratorium for a minimum of a year. We're trying to get that extended, but already locked down, moratorium. No one could have their policies canceled for at least the next year.

That's the immediate number one. Number two, I signed an executive order about 18 months ago. We went through a process with the insurance commissioner that is substantially improving and stabilizing the market. Don't take my word for it. I'll give you a proof point. And this one is ironic and tragic at the same time. A week ago in Paradise, California,

one of the major insurers said we are re-entering the market because of the reforms that have taken place in the last year in California. Their words, not mine, into Paradise. As people were repopulating that area, point of optimism, and kids were back in schools. the market farmers saying we're now going to stabilize and start writing policies again so we were finally moving in that direction obviously that's why i met with all the CEOs yesterday and the

insurance commissioner uh and we're working uh to to do everything we can to hold the line with the existing policy holders focus on the renewals make sure there's no one that's dropped in the fire zone with the moratorium in hand and then look to stabilize that market by continuing to advance the reforms that are underway. After the moratorium, I mean, this is, this is, in a sense, a band-aid because beyond that, you know, it's anybody's guess what's going to happen. Is there some incentive that's being put forward to prevent insurers from dropping folks, right? The day after the moratorium's, well, I wish I could show you my notes. Eight CEOs that we had active conversations, two dozen that participated, eight that participated, all said the same

thing. The reforms that have taken place that are underway, allow, us more confidence of our ability not only to weather this loss, but to address the longer, medium and longer term challenges in California. So we are on a pathway. The challenges dealing situationally, not just with the major insurers, but also the fair plan, which is not a state plan, it's a syndicate pool and the exposure there that's being determined in real time. We'll have more clarity in that in just a couple of days. Look, we've got the housing inspectors out there. They're doing what they call these DIN's teams, that's the first step. Once the DIN process is over, we get the hazmat folks

out there. You get the insurance adjusters out there. People will decide on the debris if they individually want to do all that themselves because they're insured. If they don't want to do it and they're insured, FEMA through the process that will announce very shortly will have a larger contract for the debris removal. And then we've already waived all these CECA rules, all the Coastal Act rules. We have already fast-tracked the permitting on the rebuilds. We're looking at all kinds of other temporary housing EOs that we're advancing, price gouging, which we're extending, addressing the issue of price gout and extending the prohibition against price gouging for renters.

And we have to now focus on enforcement in a lot of these categories after we establish the new sets of rules and regulations. So we're in Los Angeles. The lifeblood of this city is the entertainment industry. Already the industry is on life support. I mean, I can't tell you how many of my personal friends, all of my whole circle of friends is all in the entertainment industry. I can't tell you how many of them have had to go to not only different cities, but different states or even different countries, to be able to continue working in the industry that they are here to work in. So already this is on life support.

So what's being done right now to kind of bolster the industry at a time where very clearly the city needs it more than ever? Well, I just announced just a month or so ago, doubling the film tax credits. It's $750 million. Yeah, doubling it now, getting ahead of New York. And it was, we thought, a shot in the arm, a lot of energy around that. We're moving it in the budget. It is in my budget. We are working right now more situationally.

Got to give Netflix and others credit. They reached out immediately to talk about specific needs for folks within the industry. And so we're targeting that from a situational perspective in terms of the emergency response. but the sustainable framework is the significant investments the state wants to make to stabilize our competitiveness vis-a-vis these tax credits. And what's your message to the industry more broadly, the studios and the networks in terms of keeping work here in California, especially, again, given what's happening,

given how much the people of Los Angeles needed? So we announced a couple days ago this Marshall Plan. We've already organized a framework for an economic and workforce development strategy of which we'd never seen in this region's history. I already augmented our special session to get $2.5 billion of investments, $1 billion of flexible investments down here as quickly as possible, down payment to help all of the above.

But as it relates to our larger effort around production, this is the time, this is the opportunity for those studios to bring and bring back these productions to reinvest in their home state. And I think that has got to be a big part of this economic strategy, this larger Marshall Plan. And that's an opportunity for this industry to help itself to create a virtual cycle. Look, we're going to come out of this smarter, more flexible, more creative across the spectrum, not just from an entertainment framework of creativity, building designs, building constructions,

ingress, egress, vegetation, forest management, more broadly to find beyond. And remember, this is chaperone and grass, the large forests right there. on the edge of Palisades, most of that was more traditional chaparral. But we, in terms of all of those approaches, redundancy systems, life safety systems, all of that is all being collapsed in a new consciousness and integrated in a new relationship of mutuality between the city, the county, the state, and we hope, to your opening question, the federal government. So I know that a lot of the red tape is being cast aside in deference to getting this

process moving quicker, getting everything rebuilt quicker. With that said, a lot of the problems stem from the fact that we didn't have an infrastructure that was able to withstand the reality, the climate reality that we're living in right now. So in addition to being able to waive some of the red tape, is there also going to be some new rules put in place that would actually harden our infrastructure in anticipation of the next fire? Well, it's exactly what needs to happen. When I remember my mayor days, we did the redundancy as it relates to investments on a major earthquake, a major disaster related to earthquakes and providing that redundancy. Local governments born in 80, you know, you've got 58 counties, you've got hundreds and hundreds of cities.

All these local governments need to take key to these new realities, the new extremes. Hot's getting hotter, dry is getting drier, the atmospheric rivers. And yes, we have geologists and hydrologists on the scene right now in anticipation of mud flows, which could be overwhelming if the rains come too soon. And so we're trying to pre-position sandbags. That'll be part of the guards work as well. And a lot of the volunteers you see here will also be asked to do work in that respect. So yes, we have to be more climate resilient. We've been preaching this forever. Yeah. Tends up, no state does more in investments at scale. We just did a $10 billion climate bond, which has resources to be more resourceable and resilient. We lead in terms of our low

carbon green growth strategies, changing the way we're producing consume energy. We've led the nation, going back to Ronald Reagan, mindful as well that Donald Trump is going to try to analyze those rules and regulations. And so we, you know, we're going to have to battle on multiple fronts. Again, head down. What's noise is noise. What's real is real. But we'll just focus on continuing to make progress, but with the urgency of what this moment represents and a recognition of what we're up against, not just Donald Trump, but Mother Nature herself. Well, to that point, the issue of climate has been conspicuously absent in most of the coverage of all of this. And so what's your message more broadly in light of not only what we're seeing right now,

which is the worst fire that L.A. City has ever contended with. But, I mean, this is happening at the same time that Texas is dealing with hurricanes, that the Midwest is dealing with droughts, that, I mean, look, I lived in New Jersey when Sandy hit, as if we had any schema for what it looks like when a hurricane hits the state of New Jersey and lower Manhattan underwater. And so, more broadly speaking, can you just speak on the importance of actually leaning in to the fight to combat climate change as opposed to moving away from it? Yeah, I mean, I'll take it back to see to no one in my passion in this space and the policies that we've been advancing in addressing the root cause, which is the burning of coal, natural gas, and oil. It's not complicated. And that's why we've been very aggressive on fossil fuels and addressing issues related to the mis and disinformation.

You want to talk about mis and disinformation that has been. coming for decades from the oil interests in the fossil fuel industry. And that's why we initiated a lawsuit. That's why we initiated two special sessions around price gouging in that space and advanced new oversight and transparency measures in California. At the same time, our nation leading cap and trade program, low carbon fuel standards program, our unprecedented investments as it relates to equity and environmental justice in new technologies and carbon capture and direct air capture. We've been advancing investments that are next level. level on infrastructure, more than quarter of all the new vehicles in California are electric

vehicles or alternative fuel vehicles, hybrids. And so we want to maintain that leadership because that's how we dominate the future. It's how we compete against China. It's how we compete in a world that's moving in this direction. We're going to obviously have setbacks, as we've seen before, with the Trump administration, but we're going to try to persist and prevail. And again, all this at the same time and more at the same time, stacking of stress, but also stacking of a consciousness of optimism and opportunity that this also provides. Change how we do permanently for housing period.

We've been fighting this for decades. Enough. It's the original sin in California on affordability. And so there's, I think, a new consciousness in the legislature that we're now at a point where I think we're going to see some of these temporary rules. be established with new flexibility as more permanent rules where we can come out of this again, like the flag of San Francisco, the Phoenix, the Phoenix rising,

come back stronger than we ever have. And again, I say that mindful, that when I was standing there in the ashes with then-President Donald Trump as governor-elect in Paradise, California, few people thought they would ever recover and people would ever repopulate in their proof point, hardly full population return, but it's making progress.

You see that progress, demonstrably so. And that gives us, I think, optimism. The Tubbs fire, the recovery there, optimism that you're going to see this community thrive, not just survive, as long as we protect them from speculators, people that are doing unsolicited offers. I did an executive order there. And if we see sort of, and I don't mean to malign some of the Black Rock, whatever, it's not about anyone that wants to organize a way to gut a community like all

to Dina, which is a middle-class, disproportionately black and brown community, where generational wealth has been created from the 20s and 30s and 40s. We're going to go after them, and that's the mindset we have moving forward. So we are in the Los Angeles Regional Food Kitchen right now. Talk about the significance of this place in light of what's happened. Well, I mean, diapers for kids, diapers for seniors need to get prepared meals because people don't have stoves, don't have access to their kitchen utensils to see these kids that's inspiring. And we created, we have the largest volunteer corps in the United States of America. It's larger than the Peace Corps.

It's a point of real pride. I think the solution to so many of our problems, it comes from service, shared experiences. And so we have climate core members in the spirit of the conversation, quite literally, that we're reassigned and are now here at the Food Bank. We have college core members, 450 hours, $10,000 grants, it's the largest. It's only College Corvitz type in this country. They're out here helping folks in need. That's the spirit that defines, I think,

the best of our state and our nation. It's the spirit I hope that Donald Trump could bring to this tragedy, not the one that he's brought to the first week of this experience. And finally, I know that there are a lot of people who are watching, listening right now, who want to know how they can best help. What would you say to them?

I just think the most important thing you can do is if you want to contribute time, do the kind of volunteer work that folks are doing here at the food banks and red cross, etc. But if you want to contribute money, the Latino Community Foundation will play a critical role in this context. A lot of people, mixed status families, 39% of the state is Latino. A lot of people here that are documented, many that are not documented. FEMA grants do not provide that support for people without documentation. Latino Community Foundation provides a lot of that gap funding, the California Community Foundation, and then the fire

Foundation, where we are directing a lot of our resources, and that's just an extraordinary organization. No overhead on that. And the money is very thoughtfully invested. I think those are three great organizations where you can contribute a dollar to. If you've got more, that would be great as white. Well, I'll put the links to all of those organizations in the show notes of this episode and the post-scription of this episode. Governor Newsom, and thanks for taking the time. Thank you for being out of particularly being here at the Food Bank and highlighting the incredible work that's being done out there. No Lie is sponsored by BetterHelp.

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serves 5 million people in counting. There's also a diverse network of 20,000 credential therapists with a wide range of specialties so that you'll find who you need. Write your story with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash no lie to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P.com slash no lie. I'm joined now by Congressman Jasmine Crockett. Thank you so much for taking the time. Absolutely. There was a little bit of a blow-up, a spat between you and Nancy Mace at this latest Oversight Committee meeting. Congressman, what's your reaction to being the latest target of Nancy Mace's, I guess what's now weekly, her weekly bit of manufactured outrage?

Yeah, I mean, listen, if people can't see the writing on the wall, it is clear that, number one, she's an unsurious lawmaker. And number two, that she will do anything for clicks and anything for money. That is what it's about. And the fact that I was calling her out because I was simply, trying to present an amendment that would bring back the civil rights and liberties subcommittee, which is a subcommittee that historically has been a longstanding subcommittee of the oversight committee.

But it's a subcommittee that would be committed to all of our civil rights, all of our freedoms. And the fact is, she decided to respond and started talking about, you know, women being raped by trans folk. And I don't even know where she got there from. But I'm like, that's not even what we talk. about. And I made it clear that she has truly found out that if she talks about trans people, then people will donate to her. And so I was calling that out. And then she decided she wanted

to get an attitude and tried to threaten an actual fight. Now, when the rubber met the road, and basically we said that that's out of line and you can't threaten violence, then all of a sudden, oh, well, she could have meant that, you know, she just wanted y'all to go outside and have coffee. Right. Go outside for a smoke, right? Yeah, exactly. So we're not going to move that that's a violation. Like, listen, I don't know who y'all think I am, and I know y'all try to play me for dumb because I'm black and or because I'm woman. But the reality is that I know what she meant by it, just like she know what she meant by it. But the reality is that she's nothing more than a coward because she truly believes, again, that this is an opportunity for her to raise money.

So I'm sure the emails have already gone out. I'm sure she was sending a text message while we were. sitting in committee and said, let's go ahead and raise money off of this. But her threatening violence, that is what gives license to the crazy MAGA followers, where she's doing it to get a few dollars. And the reality is that my staff has to listen to the death threats that real crazies follow behind her and give when I'm literally just trying to make sure that this country works for everybody and not just those that elected me. You know, the irony, of this is she purposefully misinterpreted you saying child, which is just a term of a dear

man. It's like me saying, bro. I don't think anybody's going to actually think that I think that they're my brother by virtue of saying it. It's just a word that people say. So she does the whole manufactured outrage bit, pretends that she's upset about being called a child, but then immediately goes on to prove exactly that thesis. Prove why she is a child. Prove the very thing that she's claiming she's not. And so is there any acknowledgement from even her own colleagues that she is doing exactly that, that she's proving she's the very thing she claims not to be? No, I mean, listen, I think that there are certain people that are on their own islands. And Nancy Mace is one of those when it comes to the Republican Party.

She's on her own island. She's doing her own thing. We know that McCarthy wanted to get her out. We know that she's not really what I would consider to be one of those that is beloved by the Republican caucus. And so she's found out, though, that by following her, in the footsteps of Marjorie, because that's exactly what she's doing, is let me just say the most ridiculous things I can and I can raise money. And that is why she's decided, you know, she was talking about trans folk in the bathrooms. I don't know for how long

and talking about how she's scared to go in the bathroom. Last time I checked in the rules package that they passed with the Republican Speaker, they said no trans women in the bathrooms. But that's the thing. They can't allow the dog to catch the car because then they have nothing to complain about. It's the reason that Republicans refuse to pass the border bill that they themselves claim that they wanted in the 118th Congress because they don't want to solve the problems because then they would prevent themselves from having a problem to run on. Exactly. Exactly. And so first of all, just a quick note, I think there is some irony in the fact that she tried to pick a fight when her last bit of manufactured outrage just the previous week was her pretending that she needed her arm in a sling. because a handshake injured her. So for that person to go around picking fights is probably a little misguided. But the second thing that I wanted to bring up is, isn't it bizarre for her to go out on a limb and pretend that she is some champion for women's rights

when her whole identity is really predicated on her allegiance to Donald Trump, who has more than two dozen sexual assault allegations leveled against him when he was just found guilty and convicted of 34 felony counts for charges related to a hush money payout for an affair he had while his wife was at home with their infant son. A judge came forward and said that he raped E. Jean Carroll. So on issue after issue after issue, does the cognitive dissonance count for nothing here? No, I mean, listen, they play on the ignorance of those that support them. That's all it is.

This is cosplay for them. You know, when Democrats run for office, we really believe in actual policies. We believe in government. We believe in governance. They don't. everything that they do is about tearing us apart, whether it's about tearing the very government that they have sworn that they are going to protect

and participate in and serve. They are trying to tear away our foundation, which is the Constitution. I mean, they don't believe the things that they say. Think about the fact that they're like, oh, we're going to kick all the immigrants out. And now they're outraged because they're like, wait a minute, wait a minute, Elon said he want to bring more immigrants in.

And they're like, yeah, it's good for business. This is what we're trying to do because y'all aren't, and when I say y'all, I'm talking about MAGA, Y'all aren't intelligent enough to do the jobs that we need done as you are all saying, yeah, get rid of the Department of Education and you're the very ones that need it. So yes, everything is about cosplay. So no, she is not a champion for women. She is someone that likes to say it, but when it comes down to walk in the walk, she's not doing it.

That is why I wanted to emphasize that the data and the science is on our side. When we say we're protecting women, it's not just. in our words, it's in our legislation. It's in the fact that we believe that women have a right to choose because I can look at how many women are dying or being subjected to death right now in my home state of Texas. I also decided to bring out the fact that our ridiculous governor, I didn't talk about this specific part of it, but our ridiculous governor, Governor Abbott said when we were looking at trying to figure out how we were going to protect women as relates to say those maybe that are being raped because we have no exceptions for abortion in the state of

Texas. He said, oh, that's okay. I'm going to get rid of rapist. Well, next thing you know, how's that going? 26,000 women with reported rapes in the first year in the overturning of the road decision. So you tell me how pro-life you are. You tell me what Christian values you have, especially when you're out here talking about just making up random. stuff because no trans person has ever attacked her in a bathroom or tried to rape her. That is just never happened. So the fact that you want to put this out there in committee and to stoke this fear about something that you know that your base does not understand, does not

choose to understand, is wrong. Well, look, there is a part of me that understands the incentive structure for these Republicans to do this while they're in the minority. It's not like any legislation is getting passed with split control of government anyway. But Now that Republicans are in the majority, one might think that they would have a little bit more incentive to actually get the shit done that they want to get done as opposed to pulling these stunts that are only intended to get them attention when nothing else can be done. And so what does it say that really nothing has changed from when Republicans had no control of government to when they have full control of government with Donald Trump getting sworn in

in a few days, that still Nancy Mace and people like her, the Marjorie Telle Greens, the Nancy Mace's of the party, have to rely on that. this kind of bullshit basically instead of really trying to get anything serious done for their constituents. Yeah, I mean, you're absolutely right. Listen, but these guys are going to be failures. We know that. Right now, Mike Johnson is going to have to be perfect. And if there's anybody in Congress that ain't perfect, I'm going to say any Republican you want to on that side, right? Because the reality is that the numbers are about to come down to 217 to 215. This means that literally they have to stand together lock step and every single one of them will have to vote

for their mandate that they keep telling us that they have that the American people have given them completely ignoring the fact that so many American people, a lot of Democrats, just decided to stay home. You don't have a mandate. But if that's what you believe, then get it done, homie, because I'm not here to help you tear away other folks' rights. So we will see what happens, but if they are going to have to rely on Democrats or they're just going to have to be perfect because if one person, one of them, decides to go the other way, then that means that it fails. So I am looking forward to seeing them get their mandate agenda across the finish line. But let me tell you, if they end up banning trans folk in sports, which I

think the numbers are in the 0.00 percentages of trans folk that actually play sports, if they somehow succeed, then what is it you're going to campaign on in two years? Right, right. Like, tell me, what you're going to campaign on. There's a part of me that's like, they're going to get somebody to tank it at the last second just because they can't, they can't deprive themselves of this as a campaign issue that was so potent in, in 2024. Finally, let's finish off with this. You come from a state that's often the unfortunate recipient of natural disasters. There was a freeze in Texas a couple years ago that Ted Cruz had skittered away from. There's obviously hurricanes that have very recently hit places like Houston.

We have major fires. We have major fires in Texas. I know that's where you're going. I'm coming to you right now from Los Angeles. Obviously, we're contending with the Palisades Fire, the Eden Fire, and a number of others. There is right now worry that Republicans with their new majority are going to condition aid to California.

And of course, this is being pushed not only by Donald Trump, but somebody like Mike Johnson, who, by the way, is from the state of Louisiana, of all states where it might not be that smart to establish the precedent of conditioning aid, relief aid. It might be Louisiana among the top of them. So do you have any indication of whether they're serious about this or the pushback that Democrats are going to be able to build up in the face of these threats by Republicans? Yeah, so it'll be interesting because I don't know the current makeup of the Rules Committee and I don't know who's going to be what in which way they're will go. So one of the really big issues that they had in the 180th Congress is that they had a

bunch of their obstructionists on rules. And so while they may be voting with Democrats for different reasons, they weren't necessarily with us, but it was the same vote, right? And so therefore, they had to put a lot of things on suspension. So I don't really know what the dynamics are going to look like and if we end up in that scenario. But let me tell you what the first thing that I want to tell you, I am so sorry for what everyone in California is going through, and I mean that from the bottom of my heart. And that is coming from a Texan, but more importantly, that is coming from someone who considers herself a U.S. representative before anything else. And I can tell you that while Tennessee can't ever vote the right way, as far as I'm concerned, while Florida

ain't been right since the hanging chads, while North Carolina, you know, every once in a while may get it right. And while Georgia, for sure, we never know which way Georgia's going to go, but historically has gone the wrong way more often than not, I can tell you then when it came down to that aid, there was not any portion of me that said, you know what, based upon how y'all voting, I'm not going to support that. Yeah. Because as U.S. representatives, by the time the election is over, we should be focused on doing what is right for those that are in the United States. And so it doesn't matter that y'all vote the wrong way. It doesn't matter to me all of those things. What matters is what does it look like to do right? And for those that believe

that they somehow have been sit here by God himself and believe that they somehow are God's right hand, let me tell you as the child of a preacher, that this is not what you are supposed to do if you really consider yourself to be a child of God. At the end of the day, we should be looking out for Americans, regardless of the fact that the state as a whole may understand that we would have been better off having a Kamala Harris as president. So no, I am absolutely going to do everything that I can in defense of those that have been victimized. And a lot of it has truly been based upon the failed policy beliefs of them saying climate change ain't real. It is real. It is here. It is impacting all of us. And one of the things that I have said,

over and over as we had to listen to the idiots like Marjorie Taylor Green as she continued to say that somehow Democrats were controlling the weather and that is the reason that we ended up with the storms that we had that hit the East Coast. The reality is that if Democrats control the weather, don't y'all think that the Democrats control in California would make sure that the fires would not be ablaze? Like you can't have it both ways. And at the end of the we did right by y'all and y'all need to do right by those that are in california and we need not play games with people's lives because that is not the christian thing if you really want to rely on your christianity perfectly put we'll leave it there congressman thanks for taking the time

today uh sorry for the fact that you were the latest target of nancy mace's um you know eventual fundraising plea but uh appreciate you taking the time to speak with us i appreciate you Now I've got North Carolina Supreme Court Justice Allison Riggs. Thank you so much for joining me today. Thank you for having me, Brian. So can you give us a state of where things lie right now? Because the last update we have is that the North Carolina Supreme Court refused certification of your election win from this past November, even though you won by roughly 700 votes. So again, can you give a quick update on where things stand as of right now?

Yeah, it's been a busy few weeks. We're about 68, 69 days out of the election. where I won multiple weeks out of two recounts confirming my win. And this last week has been quite busy. On Monday, a federal district court punted the case back to the Supreme Court, the North Carolina Supreme Court. On Tuesday, the North Carolina Supreme Court issued a temporary stay, which meant that the State Board of Elections couldn't certify my win on Friday as they were supposed to.

I'm a party in the federal case. We appealed to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, as did the North Carolina State Board of Elections. I asked the Federal Appeals Court to expedite briefing because I think that my opponent's claims need to be taken on the merits and resolved and rejected on the merits rather than dragging this out. Every minute that he is casting doubts on the legitimacy of our elections is. incredibly dangerous to our democracy. Part of our, the fundamental building blocks of this country are twofold. One is we let people decide on their futures who's going to represent them. And then the governments that are chosen respect the will of the voters, even if they don't like the outcome. And so this is really part and parcel of defending the fabric of this

country. Do the almost three million North Carolinians who voted for you, do they have some recourse here? I mean, this is effectively, this is not just a slight on, on you for having to contend with all of this. This is also, this is also an attack on these people's rights to have to have their votes actually be counted. So a few of the voters have intervened in the federal actions. And Brian, your, your listener should understand there are multiple cases in state and federal court, this is really just a huge morass at this point. And one of the things that I think is important is transparency. So breaking down these cases and these issues so that North Carolina voters and indeed people all across the country understand the threat to individual voting rights

and our collective democracy. But some of the voters have intervened in the cases, a very small number relative to how many are being challenged. And I was a voting rights attorney before I joined the bench. I know how onerous it is to become involved in litigation. This is not something you can reasonably expect an average person to be able to do, to defend their right to vote. What happens to democracy in North Carolina if only the party that has, that currently holds power in that state, is allowed to win elections, regardless of what the, the voters actually say? It's, I mean, it's hard for me to paint as dire a picture as I think it is, because my opponent

is challenging primarily absentee and early votes where Democrats tend to vote higher. We see a higher proportion of black voters. You're twice as likely to be on the challenge list if you're black than white, young voters. if you go after the legitimacy of elections, after the elections are already done and after the voters have spoken, but go only after those people that you think didn't vote for you, it makes a farce of the entire elections process. And so it's just incredibly dangerous to think that a court can decide who's going to be sitting in the seat for eight years instead of the voters when the voters did in fact choose me. Are any of these Republicans who are challenging the election results here?

Are they also challenging Donald Trump's win at the top of the ticket? Are they challenging any Republicans who might have won in the congressional race on these ballots as well? Or are those all fine? It's just your name that they have an issue with because you've got a D next to it. This is the only election left here in North Carolina. there were a handful of state legislative races, so not statewide, that were, at least until this past week, still uncertified, but they were certified as of Monday. So my race is the only

race. It's a persisting, unexplained irony that this election was according to my opponent so poorly run that my election outcome can't be determined, but others can. And it's just, it's troubling and people want to, want me to make sense out of it, but there is no sense to be made. It doesn't make sense. It is manipulative. And there are only cynical explanations for this. I mean, these are people that my opponent can't point to one single voter. He claims as an ineligible voter. And I know these people. They are my parents, literally. My parents are on the list. local Democratic and Republican elected officials, community leaders, pastors, people serving on the mission field overseas deployed military members from our major military bases here

in North Carolina. These are not only real people, they're real people that we all know and who are upset that they are being, if they know, they are upset about this. I have not heard one recounting of a person, Republican, unaffiliated, or Democrat who's like, thinks this is okay if they're on that list. Right now this is, correct me if I'm wrong, but this is pending appeal in the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in federal court because the trial court judge rejected this being moved from state court to federal court. Is that right so far? So he sent it, he sent it back to state court. The state board of elections removed it to federal court because there's important questions of federal law, compliance with the national

Voter Registration Act, compliance with the Help America Vote Act, UOCAVA for overseas and uniformed citizens. These alleged issues are not new either. Like, this has been how people have been voting for years and years and years. And all of a sudden, in this one race, there's a problem that doesn't make any sense. And so what's your degree of, what's your degree of certainty that this will, in terms of where this thing will land, whether it's going to be? ultimately it's going to stay in a state court system where we already know there is a

Supreme Court, a state Supreme Court that's willing to humor kind of the whole farce of this of this whole thing versus whether it'll it'll end up in federal court, especially to your point just moments ago, that this does involve a lot of these federal laws. You know, the truth is I don't know what's going to happen. I was pleased that the Fourth Circuit granted my motion to expedite, and they are taking this up by the end of the month. But we are in uncharted territory. To say what's happening here in North Carolina is unprecedented is an understatement. We saw the first shapes of this coming out in the 2020 election and in a few places in the 22

elections. But this is uncharted territory. And so I believe this should be resolved in federal court. questions of federal law impact people, voters all across the state, all across the country and indeed, all over the world, because we do afford our uniform deployed citizens, our citizens living overseas, the right to vote. But it's going to be, it's going to drag out through the end of this month, possibly into February. And I continue to serve on the Supreme Court. So I am doing the job every single day. But the voters who picked me to keep my seat also picked me to keep my

seat to be able to do my job without any cloud of uncertainty. And my opponent in written filings has said that anything I do while I'm sitting on the court in this place of uncertainty can be called into question. Well, I sign tons of orders every single day. Voters here in the state deserve better than what we're seeing now. And I want to remind people, North Carolina is not new to close elections, especially in statewide judicial elections. In 2020, we had a similar situation, except the Democrat then lost by 401 votes. And we went through the recount process as set out by law, because recounts are actually a very good thing. We need to have them. They confirm what we know. But when she came up short after two recounts, she conceded to the Republican.

So the Chief Justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court serves today because she did the right thing in 2020. And when the Republican is in that position, we're seeing very different behavior. Right. And I think in large part, the Republicans are egged on by virtue of the fact that there is little to know media coverage of this. I mean, other than I believe Mark Elias, I'm not sure who's talking about this on a national stage. Can I have your response to that, to the fact that, you know, after all of the coverage that was very rightfully heaped on to our elections in the aftermath of 2020 and in the lead up to 2022 as well, that when it's happening in real time, this effort for Republicans to, you know, steal an election, to put it blatantly clearly, no one is talking about it. because it's only happening in a state as opposed to, you know, at the hands of Donald Trump. I'm sorry. I think there's two challenges.

One, it's just one state. So it's easier for people to just write it off as idiosyncratic because it's North Carolina. And it's a judicial race where people don't realize sometimes that judges even run for election, let alone run in partisan races, which is what our Republican General Assembly has decided that we should do here in North Carolina. So it is important that I talk to people all over this country so that they understand this. This could end up being the playbook for the entire country. And just because it's about a state Supreme Court judge in one state, maybe not your state, doesn't mean that this doesn't pose a real risk to democracy wherever your listeners are. I've been talking for two years and change now about how important our state Supreme Courts are.

And I think people are getting to understand that. but I need them to understand that because state Supreme Courts are even more important after the loss of Roe v. Wade, after the Common Cause v. Rucho that sent gerrymandering issues back down to states, the fights over state Supreme Courts are going to be harder. They're going to be more expensive and tightly contested. But if democracy fails here in North Carolina, if people can overturn election results because they don't like the outcome, It only takes that being successful once for it to spread out of control. Yeah, I think that's perfectly put.

To that point then, I know that you are fighting this thing. How can my viewers who are watching right now who are looking to do something, how can we all help? Well, I would love for folks to follow me on social media. On most social medias, I'm at Riggs for Our Courts. That's four F-O-R, not the number four. That's my website, www.rigsfor-Rourcourts.com. I'm on Act Blue. Folks can support me.

I have my campaign account still and a legal defense fund, because, as you might imagine, my legal bills are skyrocketing. So I do not plan to back down. I will not flinch in the face of this assault on the will of voters because I I am not just doing my constitutional duty as a judge and fighting for our constitutional rights, but people kept faith with me when they voted for me, and I'm going to stand up and fight for them now. But I need support to be able to keep doing that, and especially since the legal battles aren't wrapping anytime soon. I also just really encourage people to share my

social media updates, talk about this, ask for more coverage so that we can help explain why this is such an existential threat across the country? Well, we will, you know, look, I've covered at length Trump and Republicans' efforts to overturn the 2020 election, their efforts in the lead-up to 2024 to try and do the same thing if it proved necessary. This is Republicans right now attempting to do exactly that, attempting to create a framework in North Carolina that they can then deploy to the rest of the country moving forward. It is, there is no greater fight that we're facing right now.

than this one right here. So for everybody watching, I'll put the link to donate to the legal fund in the post description of this video, as well as right here on this screen. And if anybody has the ability to help, please contribute and let's get together and win this fight here. Justice Riggs, thanks so much for taking the time and best of luck as we continue this fight. And I'm sure we'll be talking again soon. Thank you, Brian.

Thanks again to Governor Newsom, Representative Crockett, and Justice Riggs. 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, and interviews edited for YouTube by Nicholas Nicotera. If you want to support the show, please subscribe on your preferred podcast app and leave a five-star rating in a review. And as always, you can find me at Brian Tyler Cohen on all of my other channels, or you can go to Brian Tyler Cohen.com to learn more.