No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen - Trump make massive miscalculation ahead of November

Episode Date: February 4, 2024

Trump and Republicans make an epic misstep on the issue of immigration. Brian interviews FOX LA’s Elex Michaelson about Republicans refusing to take "yes" for an answer on the border, whether Americans are starting to feel the effects of a strong economy, and what the right’s meltdown over Taylor Swift is saying.Donate to the "Don't Be A Mitch" fund: https://secure.actblue.com/donate/dontbeamitchShop merch: https://briantylercohen.com/shopYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/briantylercohenTwitter: https://twitter.com/briantylercohenFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/briantylercohenInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/briantylercohenPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/briantylercohenNewsletter: https://www.briantylercohen.com/sign-upWritten by Brian Tyler CohenProduced by Sam GraberRecorded in Los Angeles, CASee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Today we're going to talk about the right's epic misstep on the issue of immigration, and I interview Fox LA's Alex Michelson about Republicans refusing to take yes for an answer on the border, whether Americans are starting to feel the effects of a strong economy, and what the rights meltdown over Taylor Swift is saying. I'm Ryan Tyler Cohen, and you're listening to No Lie. I cannot remember a time when Republicans weren't wailing about the border, like about drugs and the rapists and the weapons and the crime, all owed to our quote-unquote wide.

open borders. Like, you can't turn on the TV in October of an election year without hearing the usual drumbeat about migrant caravans and hordes of brown people coming to kill your wives and sell drugs to your kids. And then, of course, the election happens. And I guess those caravans conveniently vanish only to miraculously return on the eve of the next election. And so with Donald Trump contending with a raft of different prosecutions, with his recent judgment for $83 million owed to a woman who a judge found he raped, uh, with a his victories in Iowa and New Hampshire watered down by relatively dismal showing for someone who considers himself an incumbent. Of course, Republicans are turning their attention to the

tried and tested issue of the border. And their plan now was to spend the next 10 months wailing about this while pandering to a base that has been conditioned into living an abject fear at the imminent prospect of their own cultural disappearance at the hands of these migrants, according to Fox News and Tucker Carlson and the rest of the right-wing media ecosystem that exist to peddle fear, and then, of course, to sell you disaster prep kits and gold coins. But Joe Biden called their bluff, basically saying, okay, if you want a law, send me a bill and I'll sign it.

And the bill he endorsed would speed up the asylum process to consider cases within six months, as opposed to the current system, which could take as long as 10 years. If border encounters reach 4,000 over a one-week span, the Department of Homeland Security would have the authority to close the border, and if migrant crossings exceed 8,500 in a day, again, DHS would be able to shut the border down.

The bill was written by senators from both parties, and it is certainly a tougher bill than anything that the Democrats would have proposed alone. But still, Biden endorsed it in the same way that he's worked with Republicans on infrastructure and the gun safety bill because the guy recognizes that perfect can't be the enemy of good. And then, of course, Donald Trump issued his clarion call

to his party demanding that they not support the bill because if they did, then Trump wouldn't be able to run on the issue anymore. And so, of course, like clockwork, his little foot soldiers fell in line, suddenly insisting that they don't want a border deal, even though it's far more conservative than anything a Democrat would have ever agreed to otherwise, even though it includes no comprehensive immigration reform, and even though it's a little more than a capitulation to Republicans. Why? Because they don't want to deprive Donald Trump of a potent issue heading into November. And so the same people who have been wailing on an endless loop about the danger at the border, danger so. urgent that it needs to be dealt with now, and why isn't Joe Biden there, and why isn't Kamala Harris there, and what are we doing about the border? Suddenly, that border is no longer an issue. And you know what? Maybe we just put a pin in it, because on second thought, perhaps

it's just okay as is. Now, you might remember, too, that if Democrats were to get Ukraine and Israel and Taiwan aid, then they would have to swallow a border bill. That was supposed to be the poison pill. Republicans didn't want to give foreign aid, but instead of just coming and saying that outright, they just framed it as being attached to the border because they never expected Joe Biden to sign on. And now that he has, suddenly Mike Johnson has announced that actually he's going to put a standalone Israel bill on the floor. In other words, he's reneging on his previous deal because his bluff was called. And so he's only going to try and pass Israel aid, which of course won't pass the Senate because the deal in the Senate is that this all passes together.

But at the end of the day, remember, they don't actually want a deal. They just wanted to play games. that's what they're doing right now. And by the way, in terms of playing games, don't just take my word for it, that that's what's happening. Take it from these Republicans. If we have a bill that on net significantly decreases illegal immigration,

and we sabotage that, that is inconsistent with what we told our voters we would do. People will make up whatever reasons they want to. There's a number of them, I'm sure, but it would be a pretty unacceptable dereliction of your duty. The fact that he would communicate to, Republican senators and congresspeople that he doesn't want us to solve the border problem because he wants to blame Biden for it is uh is really appalling.

It's interesting Republicans four months ago would not give funding for Ukraine for Israel and for our southern border because we demanded changes in policy so we actually locked arms together and said we're not going to give you money for this we want to change in law and now it's interesting a few months later when we're finally going to the end they're like oh just kidding I actually don't want to change in law because the presidential election year. We're here. We've been elected.

We have election certificates. When you have an opportunity to make this country safer, you take it and you don't play politics. All of which is to say, Trump may have sought to preserve a campaign issue for himself, but in doing so, all he did was put on full display the extent to which he and his party do not actually care about this issue. It is just something they like to exploit in their pursuit of power. If you needed more proof that you were being conned in the GOP, it is these idiots coming

out and admitting that the one issue they pretend is more urgent than anything else suddenly should be put on ice because they would rather deprive Biden of a perceived win than to actually solve the problem. Unserious people in an unsurious party. And the fact that even members of their own party are finally starting to admit it is yet another black eye for Trump at a time when he can afford it least. Next step is my interview with Alex Michelson. Now you've got the anchor at Fox L.A. and host of the issue is my good friend Alex Michaelson. Ellix, thanks for coming back on. Brian, great to be with you. So, Alex, Republicans have

spent my entire adult life fearmongering about how urgently we need to solve the border crisis. Biden finally offers them a deal, but now they're balking because they admittedly don't want to lose it as a campaign issue. How obvious is the politicking to you here? I mean, they're not even really hiding it, right? I mean, the reporting of Trump basically saying, don't do this deal because it will be a win for Biden could not be more obvious. So far, that's just news reports of that. It'll be interesting to see if he comes out and says that himself on camera. And, you know, Trump is so assured of himself and his strategy, he may, in fact, do that. But I think that's a, that's a precarious strategy on this. You know, the border is a real issue. It is a crisis. And there are some Democrats who

pretend that it's not, but it is. And we're starting to see the effects of that in Democrat, run cities like New York and Los Angeles and other places around the country. And so it's a problem for Biden. And if Trump says don't solve it, don't give him a win, in a lot of ways, Trump is owning the issue himself. He is taking away one of the Democrats' biggest weaknesses, one of the most important talking points, and putting it on himself, it gives Biden the opportunity to say, hey man or you know to use more colorful language like was reported about him uh this week that

apparently he uses all the time uh apparently he uses a lot of f words uh when talking about don't um but he could say hey man i wanted to do it and you told your people who just listened to you on everything and don't you know ever question you not to do it it's very easy uh a political argument that the sad part in this whole thing is there's a crisis and somebody needs to solve it. Immigration in our country has been fucked up for decades. There hasn't been a real immigration bill in 40 years since before we were born. And so somebody's got to do something about this. But if you think about it, and a lot of people, of course, criticized Joe Biden for his age and all of that. And there's good reason to criticize him for that. But with that age does come some

wisdom and what a smart tactical move to essentially call the Republicans bluff on this. Because he gets one of two things. Either one, he actually makes real progress on solving the issue, which helps him, or two, he calls them out and it's obvious to the rest of the world that they don't want to solve it, which also helps him. So I don't know how many other presidents would have done that, would have said, yes, we'll do your deal. Let's do it. I'm in. I think most probably younger presidents on the Democratic side who come from a different era may not have done that, but I think it was smart strategy by the president.

Well, you called it obvious, but do you think that this message actually breaks through to the broader electorate? I mean, I think a lot of these politicians are banking on the fact that most people don't pay attention. They just see a broken border continue to exist and just assume that it's Biden. So the fact that that Republicans refuse to take yes for an answer, even if Democratic start hitting them on this? Do you think Republicans are just banking on this idea that people aren't really going to pay attention? They're not going to know that ultimately it's the

Republicans who refuse to take action here. I mean, look, I think that most people don't really listen that closely to, well, you almost did the deal. They see a problem and then they blame whoever's in charge. So I think there's some of that. Ultimately, this election comes down to, you know, a few thousand or, you know, tens of thousands of voters in three or four states. who are going to be blanketed with commercials over and over again. And this is the kind of thing that Democrats could run as a commercial in perpetuity in those places to really get that message out, depending on what happens. Look, it's still possible, by the way.

We haven't even seen the text of this border deal. There's supposed to be votes on it next week. It is still possible that something gets through. And, you know, I don't know if this is a totally foregone conclusion that it's completely nothing. Well, moving over to a different topic, we've just gotten another huge jobs report. Over 350,000 jobs were added. That brings us close to 15 million jobs during Biden's first term. From what you've seen, is the gulf between good economic stats and poor economic sentiment. Do you think that gulf is shrinking? Probably shrinking a little bit. I mean, the most important

numbers, I think, are some of what's happening when it comes to inflation, because I think that's what most people feel. People feel when they're going to. going to the gas pump. They see the price. They see it changing. They feel when they're going to the grocery store and they see the price of things and how that affects their daily budget. Obviously, they feel if they're not in a job more than anything else, but in terms of what everybody else is doing, I think that's hard for most people to conceptualize. But this has been a real challenge for the Biden administration in terms of communicating the good economic news. They have not done a good job of it. Bidenomics has not necessarily

stuck with the general public in terms of a phrase that people really understand. And so I think that's going to be one of the most important things going forward. You know, of course, we think of James Carville in 1992. It's the economy stupid. And for a lot of people, it really is. A lot of this does come down to, am I going to make more money in this administration? Am I going to make more money in the other administration? And for a lot of people, they feel like, if you hear especially among conservatives, that they

did better under the Trump regime. They seem to leave out the last year of the Trump regime when, you know, the entire world was basically in an economic freefall. Convenient. And we can see where blame is. There's a lot of different people to blame for that and on top of the disease itself. But, you know, I think it's that the messaging on this still needs to get better. But it's easier to message when you have a real story to tell. And it seems like a story is starting to develop.

and those fears of the terrible, terrible recession just never materialized. The ultimate irony here, I think, is that Republicans are all out there, like, en masse, suggesting that Donald Trump was some wizard with the economy. The guy lost 2.9 million jobs during his term. Biden has gained 15 million, and so it's going to be increasingly difficult for them to portray Donald Trump as some economic genius while also attacking the guy who managed 18 million net, like 18 million jobs net total higher than than Donald Trump. Although, we all know that that status is a little bit deceiving because so many people

were forced to be out of work because of the pandemic. Here's what I'll say to that. All of the jobs that were lost during the pandemic were recovered in July of 2022. And since then, we've added 5 million jobs. And of all three years prior to the pandemic, Donald Trump added, I think it was 2.1 million jobs, 2.6 million jobs, and then 2.2 million jobs. Joe Biden's worst year, which was 2023, was 2.7 million jobs. Joe Biden's worst year was better than all of Donald Trump's best years. And so, again, like, any way you cut it, it really doesn't, like, bode too well, especially

for a guy who brands himself, the jobs, jobs, jobs, president. Part of the challenge, I think, on a gut level, which is what you're asking about in terms of how people perceive this stuff, is that wages have not always kept up with all of this. And it's a struggle for a lot of folks who maybe don't feel like they're making enough money to pay for what they need, who are not making enough money to pay for housing, especially in places like California where the cost of housing is so high, where they see the CEO pay, which is so high. And then they feel like they are not getting enough of their fair share in the economy, not suggesting that they got a bigger share of it during the Trump administration.

I'm suggesting this is a bigger problem of why we see so many people that feel so disconnected from politics because they feel like the elites are getting theirs and they're not getting theirs. And even if the stock market is going up, that's not necessarily helping their lives when they got to pay for their groceries or they got to pay for their rent. Which is, you know, and just to build on my earlier point, I guess that's the importance of supporting a party that doesn't lavish gifts onto the wealthiest people in the country. I mean, during the Trump administration, the sole legislative achievement was a tax cut that overwhelmingly favored millionaires and billionaires. So, you know, but that, but to your point, that is on the Biden administration to sell, to keep selling, and they have 10 months to do it.

Because, you know, like I said initially, there is a chasm, a gulf between how the economy is performing, at least on a macro level, and also how people are actually feeling. And, you know, we can't dilute ourselves into thinking that because we have good macroeconomic factors here at play, that suddenly people just feel great about their situations because that's not the case. Alex, does it feel like Republicans are losing ground then on two of their most potent issues? Like the economy and immigration are usually home runs for the GOP, but right now they're the ones

who are openly blocking an immigration deal and also the economy is surging. You gotta remember, Brian, you may operate in a different media universe than some of the Republicans operate. So my guess is a lot of those voters maybe aren't listening to this podcast right now, although if they are, welcome, it's great to have you here.

You know, if you're watching a certain cable news network or some of the, you know, competitors with that cable news network, the border is very much a problem. And you're seeing those images every single night. You are seeing Joe Biden and his economic policy be mocked constantly. You are looking at algorithms that show Joe Biden,

you know, old and falling down and not being able to put a sentence together and mocking Kamala Harris openly and you are being inundated every day online also with images of people crossing the border or this week, an image of somebody who attacked a police officer who was here illegally and then, you know, gave the middle finger

to the camera when they were released. You know, so that is their headspace. So I don't know if the information you're talking about has broke through that right-wing echo chamber. my guess is it hasn't yeah well i would say for that i mean if we have limited resources what we really want to focus on are independent voters or soft republican voters it's not necessarily to try to get the people who are so embedded within the right wing media ecosystem that it would take so much time to flip them anyway like like that is not where our that's not where democrats

time should be spent we're not we shouldn't be spent trying to get people who consume 12 hours a day of border stories and Biden falling down stories and, you know, illegal immigrant stories. Like that shouldn't be where our limited resources are spent anyway. It should be trying to get those people, those independent voters, those, you know, Obama, Trump, Biden voters, for example. That should be generally where we're spending our time. Exactly. Now, all of that, with that said, pails in comparison to the big story right now, the one that I know you have been itching to discuss, and that is Taylor Swift. You were actually actually pulled on on TMZ to talk about Taylor Swift this.

Apparently, I'm the expert on this. You are the expert. You're a resident Taylor Swift expert. So Alex, does it feel like the right is jumping the shark right now by kind of like losing their skulls over Taylor Swift, over the existence of Taylor Swift? Well, this is the danger of living in the echo chamber that I just talked about. You sort of sometimes forget where real people are. to people in this country really care about? Most young women in this country love Taylor Swift. She's

the number one performer by far. She had the biggest concert by far. She's the biggest concert movie by far. I mean, she has a loyal army of supporters called Swifties all over the place. And all of those young people, they have moms, they have dads, want to make them happy, you know, that are passionate about it. On top of that, you add into it, the NFL, the most popular thing in America, 93 out of the top 100 TV broadcasts are NFL football games. And the Super Bowl is the biggest one of them, all the biggest cultural event in the entire country, and it's featuring both Travis Kelsey and Taylor Swift. People love the Super Bowl. They love football, and they love Taylor Swift. So why would you take that on?

I heard a war with one of the only things that actually brings the country together in this era when everybody is watching separate things. The only thing everybody watches at the same time is the Super Bowl. So that is sort of a strange strategic decision. Trump, who really knows his base and knows his people and knows that so much of his support is from people who love giving the middle finger to the establishment. may see this as an extension of that. I know there's a lot of people, especially, you know, frankly, white men who have been

very frustrated to see Taylor Swift, who on average is on, as Colin Coward calculated this week, 24 seconds out of a three-and-a-half-hour NFL broadcast, but apparently that's too much for these people. But they're okay with seeing the drunk guy with no shirt on, you know, waving his man boobs on TV, that's okay. But Taylor Swift, one of the biggest stars in the world is too much. And it is a perplexing thing, but is the kind of thing that people that don't pay that close of attention to politics do pay attention to. The right has its own influencers. Like, why can they parade around washed up kid rock like their show pony? But Taylor Swift is

deserving of a week of derision by every conservative pundit in America. just from a, from a sociological perspective, which isn't really a political thing, we should think hard about why is it that we're so good with seeing men at these games? No issue when Jack Nicholson was courtside at the Lakers or Bradley Cooper is there for the Eagles or Spike Lee is there for the Knicks. We celebrate these guys at their at games. It's part of the myth. It's part of the reason to go to the stadium. I mean, the Lakers built showtime around the idea of literally Dr. Buss in the 80s changed basketball and included the lights for the first row, which was not a thing before, just to highlight the celebrities there and make that such a thing

because he thought that was part of the allure of creating Showtime into an event for the Lakers back when he started. You know, the NBA was on tape delay in the middle of the night. That was part of making it a thing. So why is it that this woman who is so powerful and so rich and so smart and by all by all accounts, so kind, right? I mean, she is not an asshole. Like, everybody that's ever interacted with Taylor Swift says how, what a great person she is. Why is that such a problem for so many people? And that's something I think that we should really think about.

Switching topics here to another woman. Why do we have to switch topics? We could say, I know. I know this is tough to. To pride Swift, Brian. Well, I want to talk about another woman that you've been covering recently this week, and that was Kamala Harris. You interviewed her. In our last interview here, just a month ago, you said that that was the interview you wanted to get this year, and you got it. So you interviewed the vice president this past week. You were on Air Force 2. What was that whole experience like? Well, the most amazing thing is she walked up to me and said, I heard you on No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen. He is an avid listener.

Make this dream possible. That is not what happened, but let's think of that. It's like our little make-a-wish foundation here. It was a very interesting and cool experience. You know, I've known her for a long time. I covered her first when she was San Francisco DA, and I was an intern for NBC here in L.A. back in 2007. I interviewed her as San Francisco DA, as California Attorney General, as a senator from California, as a presidential candidate now for the first time,

as the vice president of the United States, although I hadn't done a sit-down interview with her in over three years. So that was, it was cool. While we were on the plane, her and Doug came back and sort of hung out a little bit and just talked about their lives and my family who they know and all that was a really special moment. And it was interesting to see her in action. And frankly, what they are doing with her by basically putting her out on two national tours does play to some of the strengths of Kamala Harris.

The weaknesses are well documented and certainly talked about on a lot of those networks that we were talking about. But they are using her as a way to talk to women and young people. And so they have her on a nationwide tour talking about reproductive freedoms. That's where we were in San Jose, but she's going to a lot of swing states talking about that as well. And she's also been on a nationwide tour going to college campus trying to get young people animated about politics. She talks about the fact that she loves Gen Z and her poll numbers are better. with them and better with women as well. And so like many vice presidents in the past, I think they will find a way to target her where she can be most effective. And you see especially

on the issue of abortion, the power of frankly having a female vice president, which of course we've never had before, talking about it is very different than having a man talk about it. And you can see that the women in the audience really respond to them. Well, I'm going to ask you a question that you asked her, and that was, what do you feel is the biggest misconception about her? I think the biggest misconception about her is how warm and fun she can be. At her best, she's really charismatic and really cool as a human being and can make people feel really comfortable. And that sometimes isn't on display. And I think, I hope that they are starting to put her in a situation where she's doing more interviews like this one. I mean, we had been

asking to do this interview every single trip she made to L.A. for over three years. And they finally said yes, now that it's the election year. But I think she'd be better served to do more, not only interviews with me and you and others, but to get out there more and for people to hear her more. And I think she gets better having more reps, just like anything else. You know, the more at bats you get, the better you are at swinging the baseball bat. And I think that it would behoove the Biden administration to highlight her, especially in places that showcase her strengths. Well, I'm glad we could have been helpful here, given that Kamala Harris watches this show.

And so that was what pushed her over the edge in terms of accepting the interview. So with that said, who's the next interview that you're looking to get? Well, I mean, there's the president. Also an avid listener. That would be great. I would love to talk to Donald Trump. I know that's probably not going to happen on your show, but he's, you know, the most significant person in politics. And I think it would be fascinating to talk with him.

I would love to talk to Barack Obama. Basically, anybody who's ever been president, I'll talk to that. We'll take that Bill Clinton would be great. But I think that would be fascinating to do. but I also like, I would like to honestly do more in some of the cultural and tech space. I read the book that Walter Isaacson did on Elon Musk and it was so fascinating on how many places he's basically driving what's next for humanity. I think he'd be fascinating to talk to.

I know some of your listeners probably don't like him, but I think it would be interesting to talk to him and some of the people in that space too about what's next. We had a big hearing on the hill this week about social media companies and their role in terms of where we go. and basically it was interesting to see how both parties screamed at them but you know regulating that social media and regulating AI and a lot of times it's some of the same people who are in charge of doing both is probably more important to our actual society than a lot of the stuff that politicians are even talking about and so it'd be really fascinating to to learn more about that and be able to educate people more in that space well to that point when you do have those interviews. Where can people see and hear more from you? Okay, well, you can check out the Kamala Harris

interview right now by going to YouTube.com slash Alex Michelson. The issue is our show is put out as a podcast. Just search for The Issue is, wherever you look for podcasts. And you can watch us on different stations around California. Find our airtimes at the issue is show.com. We are in Los Angeles on Fox 11 on Friday nights at 10.30 p.m. Alex, as always, thanks so much for joining. It was great talking to you. It's always fun, Brian. Thanks so much. Thanks again to Alex. That's it for this episode. Talk to you next week. You've been listening to No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen. Produced by Sam Graber, music by Wellesie, interviews captured and edited for YouTube and Facebook by Nicholas Nicotera, and recorded in Los Angeles, California.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe on your preferred podcast app. Feel free to leave a five-star rating and a review, and check out Brian Tyler Cohen.com for links to all of my other channels. Thank you.