No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen - Trump picks a major fight-- and loses in court

Episode Date: May 4, 2025

Trump picks a fight with the governor of Maine and loses, offering up a valuable lesson. Brian interviews Governor Gavin Newsom to discuss California’s economy growing as Trump oversees an economic contraction; Post Save America’s Jon Lovett about Trump pretending his bad economy still belongs to Joe Biden; and Chasten Buttigieg about SignalGate and how his own family dealt with protecting private information.Shop merch: https://briantylercohen.com/shopYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/briantylercohenTwitter: https://twitter.com/briantylercohenFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/briantylercohenInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/briantylercohenPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/briantylercohenNewsletter: https://www.briantylercohen.com/sign-upWritten by Brian Tyler CohenProduced by Sam GraberRecorded in Los Angeles, CASee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Today we're going to talk about Trump picking one particular fight and losing and what the rest of us can learn from it. And I've got three interviews. I sit down with Gavin Newsom to discuss California's economy growing as Trump oversees an economic contraction. Pot of America's John Lovett joins to discuss Trump pretending his bad economy still belongs to Joe Biden. And I interview Chastin Buttigieg about Signalgate and how his own family dealt with protecting private information. I'm Brian Tyler Cohen and you're listening to No Lie. So a couple of months ago, Trump was speaking to a group of governors in the White House when he homed in on Maine's governor, Janet Mills, and this is the verbal altercation that followed. Is the Maine here, the governor of Maine?

Are you not going to comply with it? I'm complying with state federal law. Well, we are the federal law. Well, you better do it. You better do it because you're not going to get any federal funding at all if you don't. And by the way, your population, even though it's somewhat liberal or low, did very well there. Your population doesn't want men playing in women's sports. So you better comply because otherwise you're not getting any federal funding. Every state, good, I'll see you in

court. I look forward to that. That should be a real easy one. And enjoy your life after governor because I don't think you'll be in elected politics. This was an early instance of Trump using his power to try and, you know, bully someone into bending to his will. In this case, Trump threatened to withhold federal funding to Maine schools if Mills didn't comply with Trump's February 5th executive order barring trans athletes from competing in sports that don't comport with their gender at birth. But Mills wasn't interested in bending to Trump's will because she was following state law. And state law in Maine bars discrimination based on gender identity. And as she said, she would be happy to let a judge decide in court. And she did see him

in court. And then on Friday, the Trump administration decided to settle with the state of Maine, dropping its funding fees and asking Maine to drop its lawsuit against them. And this was Janet Mills most recently. A few months ago, I stood in the White House and when confronted by the President of the United States, I told him I'd see him in court. Well, I did see him in court. And we won. I am so pleased to say that Aaron Fry's able representation of the state of Maine has resulted in a binding agreement

by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Brooke Rollins and all of her staff, whereby they agree to refrain from freezing, terminating, or otherwise interfering with the state of Maine's access to USDA funds allocated to any official or agency or Department of the State of Maine based on alleged violations of Title IX. And I want to bring this particular instance up, because Trump wielded the full force of his position against the governor of Maine. He verbally accosted her from the White House, signaling her out and threatening her among her colleagues.

He illegally tried to freeze federal funding to her state as political retribution against her. Whatever he could do to Mills, he did. And yet she decided to fight back and she won. And I think this is important to highlight because this is the issue of our time. At some point or another, every company, every institution, every CEO, media outlet law firm, university

is going to have to choose. Do you capitulate to Trump or do you fight back against Trump? And I understand the inclination to want to capitulate. Like who wants to sign up for a fight against the President of the United States? But two things to consider here. First, consider the immense damage that you do by capitulating. Think about the damage wrought by ABC News when they settled a frivolous lawsuit for $15 million and Paramount meddling in 60 Minutes editorial independence.

Think about what that does to other media companies. Think about the damage wrought by Paul Weiss on other law firms when they agreed to pro bono legal work and caused Trump to go after dozens more firms. Think about the damage wrought by Jeff Bezos's Washington Post pulling punches against Trump and Mark Zuckerberg's meta, making the site more Republican-friendly.

Think about the damage wrought by Columbia University changing their policies in exchange for federal funding. And on and on. They might think that they're just saving their own asses in the short term, and they may be. But in effect, by rolling over, they are showing Trump how easy it is to win to own them, meaning he goes after the next law firm, the next media outlet, the next university,

and he's that much more emboldened when he does it. They're not just protecting themselves here. They are making the entire environment that much easier for Donald Trump to thrive, to go after them, to weaponize the federal government against them. Their cowardice puts everybody else in danger. And it doesn't need to happen that way, because to my second point, Trump often loses when these people fight back. He lost against Maine Governor Janet Mills. Trump lost. Trump lost, against Perkins Cooey. That's the law firm that, unlike Paul Weiss, did opt to fight back. He's lost something like 80% of the cases that have challenged him. And that does make the Paul Weiss's of the world look that much more foolish and that much more cowardly, because the reality

is that if they just stood up and fought, they would have likely retained everything they thought they would lose and they would have their dignity and integrity intact, and all of their colleagues would be that much safer because they would see that they would be arm in arm with everybody in their space. So the message here is that Donald Trump will always attack. It's his nature. It's all he knows. But you owe it to not just yourself, not just your company, not just your colleagues, but all of your fellow law firms, your fellow media outlets, your fellow CEOs, your fellow governors, your fellow universities, your fellow Americans to join together in collective action to stand tall side by side and take on this fight because you will win and you'll send

a message that Donald Trump desperately needs to hear, which is that he isn't the king of of this country, no matter how hard he tries to manifest that into reality. Next up are my interviews with Gavin Newsom, John Lovett, and Chaston Buttigieg. No Lie is brought to you by Armour Colostrum. Why are elite athletes, business moguls, and high performers using Armacolostrum? Armour Colostrum is nature's first whole food with over 400 bioactive nutrients working at the cellular level to build lean muscle, accelerate recovery, and fuel performance, all without artificial stimulants or synthetic junk. When you're running a business, training hard, or just want an edge, Armour Colostrum optimizes your body

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Now we've got the governor of California, Gavin Newsom. Thanks so much for joining me. Good to be with you. So we have two pieces of news that kind of diverge here. We have the news that California has gone from the fifth biggest economy in the world to the fourth biggest economy in the world. So major an accomplishment for California, that happened at the same time that we found out that at a federal level, the U.S. economy contracted, actually shrunk 0.3%, especially compared

to the rest of the world, which saw economic growth. And so can I get your reaction to that dichotomy here between, you know, California's economy growing at the same time that Donald Trump has overseen the contraction of the U.S. economy? Well, I appreciate the frame, and there's promise and peril in that frame. First of all, we're, you know, we're proud. California continues to grow, a $4.1 trillion a year economy. We're about 14% plus or minus of the United States GDP, where the 10-Paul, the U.S. economy, and put that in perspective, the next largest economy is about 50% smaller in terms of GDP. We have the number one manufacturing state, number one state, in every major category

in terms of large-scale economic output. It's a point of pride. I'm not trying to impress anyone, just impress upon folks the size, scale and scope of California as a sub-national jurisdiction. That said, you're 100% right. Now here we are, Q1, before Liberation Day. And that's so important to remind people that 0.3% contraction in the U.S. GDP

happened before the impacts of tariffs. And as you know, we've talked about this before, California asserted ourselves as the first state to sue the Trump administration under the tariff regimes because no state is poised to lose more because of it than us. So we're in that point of a little bit of peril as it relates to our status as a fourth-large economy because of Trump's recklessness. What do you make of the fact that even as Trump is overseeing our economic contraction as a country and even as we're seeing economic growth from the rest of our industrialized partners?

I mean, all of Europe had seen economic growth, even Mexico and Canada had seen economic growth, that all the while Trump decided to come out and diffuse responsibility onto Joe Biden with, of course, the irony being that, over a year ago, about a year and a half ago, he said that just in anticipation of him becoming president, the stock market was already booming. Places for fools. You're 100% right. Now the challenges in our bifurcated media environment, folks may not even be familiar with that side by side

that's been well presented. Anyone who's sort of learned it in the context of truth versus reality and it relates to Trump and what he asserts. And on his propaganda networks, you'll never see that compare and contrast. But look, this is so typical, right? He's just always been the victim. He's never been responsible. He'll never be accountable.

And there'll be four years of this. There's no doubt. Anything that goes wrong is someone else's fault. The buck does not stop in the Oval Office. And it's a hell of a departure. And I'll tell you, as a guy with four kids, it's not the kind of thing that we try to teach our kids. It is about taking responsibility, being accountable.

And that's just completely devoid. of anything that Trump is promoted in the past. And so it didn't surprise me that he did that again. And the absurdity of it is extraordinary. I mean, I'll remind everybody, and you don't need to be reminded. And 90% of people watching don't have me to remind it. The economy was booming.

We were the envy of the world. Inflation was cooling. We had the lowest unemployment in 60 years for women, for Hispanics, for African Americans, the lowest uninsured rate. We had industrial policy that was worker-centered. We had a manufacturing strategy It was beginning to take shape.

The Chips and Science Act were bringing supply chains back home. We had an infrastructure bill that was envy the world, $1.2 trillion, and we were advancing a low-carbon green growth strategy. That's what he inherited, including markets that were at record-breaking pace, the S&P, the NASDAQ, and the Dow. So it's just total revisionist history. You know, you had mentioned the fact that these Q1 numbers are before the impact of the tariffs even really set in, and we're going to see those as we continue to.

to see the port of L.A., taking fewer and fewer shipments. There's been a ton of reporting and video online showing that it's really a ghost town as far as those ports are concerned. But with that said, he's already come out and tried to preemptively diffuse responsibility for the next quarter saying that even if the numbers are lower next quarter, that's also going to be Joe Biden's fault. And so what do you make of that, of the fact that, you know, it's bad enough already that over 100 days into his...

term, a term during which he, you know, clearly this is, the stock market is a reflection of his own, of his own presidency. But even despite that, he's already looking into the future, knowing full well the impacts that his own tariffs are going to have and diffusing responsibility off of that too. Well, I mean, and not only you're right, I mean, he reinforced it in pretty raw terms. I got four kids and, you know, 80, 90 percent of the toys under the Christmas tree is going to come from China that's got this 145 percent tariffs. and they've reciprocated with 125% tariffs. A lot of those cargo ships that are not arriving in the ports of L.A.

And I'll remind folks, ports of L.A. and Long Beach are 40% of the goods movement in the United States of America. And as you say, literally, anyone that goes down there was down there in Southern California yesterday, the day before, 35% reduction they're anticipating next week. And they can literally quantify that based upon incoming already, not 3.5%. percent, 35 percent. And in those cargo ships is back to school materials. In a few months, it will be those toys for Christmas unless we rationalize the insanity of these trade policies and these tariff policies that the Trump administration's advanced. But look, he said something and forgive the long windiness, but it has to be underscored as a parent that was pretty shocking.

And had Biden done this, you could just imagine the primetime lineup at Fox, how they'd be lit up, where he said, well, maybe young girls can't have, you know, 20 dolls or whatever, maybe just two dolls, and maybe they have to spend a few bucks more. I mean, he's all but acknowledging what he denied for all this time, that it's going to cost more money, it's going to impact the goods that are imported in the United States and directly impact real people and their families in a pretty emotional and raw way. You think it's fair to say that Donald Trump is ushering in a war on Christmas here? How dare you suggest that?

But, hey, I mean, look, look, this guy said the economy was, he sort of manifests, the things that he asserts, he begins to manifest in so many ways I could see that talking point as one that will be available to many of us on the progressive side very shortly. Well, look, we've spoken about the dichotomy between California's economy and the U.S. economy more broadly. there is also one point of light as far as California is concerned, and that is our population growth. And this idea that really emerged during COVID, that there was a mass exodus of Californians into other states, really became a point of concern, not just for the immediate impacts in the presidential election, but we have a census coming up in a few years. And so can you bring us up to date in terms of what this population increase looks like for California? No, this is incredibly important. Not only now with the fourth largest economy

in the world. Not only do we continue to advance in next generation technology as relates to AI, we dominate the world, and we continue to lead in innovation, entrepreneurialism, half the venture capital in the country, over half, 57% of all the unicorn companies. Those are private companies worth over a billion reside in California. More fortune 500 companies here than in over a decade for those that thought all the companies were leaving the state. It's just made up, including population. The new numbers came. out, Census Bureau put out numbers a few weeks back showing population increase of about 232,000. Our much more conservative finance department put out a population growth numbers

at 108,000, it's back-to-back years of growth. We did have that one year, sort of peak COVID, where we were challenged along with dozens other states across the country, red states, not just blue states, but this narrative of mass exodus, enough. That's old talking points. People have to give that up. There's a lot of California derangement syndrome out there, and I think we continue to outperform and we continue to show our critics the door. Do you happen to have the numbers in terms of the population growth for other states that threaten the supremacy of California, states like Florida and Texas? Do you know what their growth look like in this past year? Well, I do know that the last two years, there's

two states that lost population both years, both were red states, and two out of three this year lost were red states. One was a democratic state. Look, Florida and Texas continue to grow, but also Florida and Texas continue to struggle with gun death rates that are substantially higher than blue states, with productivity rates that are substantially lower than blue states, with wages that are substantially lower than blue states, with life expectancy that's lower than blue states, infant mortality, maternal mortality, that are more challenged than blue states. And so I just think it's important that our state of mind include all of these broader indices, and those are two states, by the way, with the most regressive taxes in America

that tax their poor, more than blue states tax their rich. I do think it's important to note, look, from a political perspective, I think that we have a vested interest in making sure that we have as much population growth as we can so that we don't lose those electoral votes heading into the 2030s and beyond. Because, you know, if those electoral votes go to states like Texas and Florida, then it's not enough to just have the blue wall, for example, then you also need states like Georgia and North Carolina. And we have a very tenuous, if any, grasp on those states. So really, it's existential for Democrats to make sure that we preserve population here in California. One big impediment to that is, of course,

the price of housing and making sure that housing is affordable enough for people to actually live here. And so can you just give us a lay of the land in terms of what's being done to make sure that there is enough housing and that the housing that is being built is affordable. And within that, I mean, it's also worth discussing the, and we've had this discussion before, but worth reiterating, the red tape that makes it so difficult for developers to actually put up that housing. 100%. Look, I mean, it's the original sin in this state of California. And it's a growing issue all across the United States America. But we love about California, the future happens here first. Often that's around triumph and opportunity and growth and then also as it relates to

challenges as well. And this state has been dumb as we want to be as it relates to NIMBYism. We've kind of forgotten econ 101 supply demand. And our state vision is realized locally. It's not a way to sell out local government, but it's a way of recognizing we need to be more accountable at the local level. As a former mayor, I can say that, to production. And so many of the challenges are around planning commissions, planning departments, city councils, boards of supervisors that have had this not in my backyard mindset for too long. And so we have radically shifted that paradigm in the last few years. I've signed 42 Sikh reform, that's our environmental reform bills.

We've done a lot in terms of rezoning as of right zoning and up zoning around transit quarters. We have in the lexicon of Ezra Klein an abundance mindset that includes momentum into this year where they're 20-plus, very pro-YIMBY housing bills that I'm absolutely fully committed to signing this year. We have to address this issue, Democratic governance, but also in Republican states struggling similarly, also have to address this issue across this country, affordability, and the glooming housing crisis. And by the way, a crisis that's also consumed by the twin crisis of climate change that is impacting

insurance markets and the inability to insure your home even to get a mortgage to refinance it that is impacting housing starts across the country as well. Right. And if anybody should know about that, that's the folks down in Florida. I mean, really, I know that there's a lot of climate change denialism happening, especially as it relates to those southern states over there, but insurance companies are not moved by politics one way or the other. They're moved by money. And if they're pulling out because climate change, the effects of climate change have so exacerbated the size and scope of these storms, that's all you need to know. I mean, they do not operate in red or blue. They operate in green.

And so the fact that they're moving out and they're refusing to ensure those folks is a testament to the fact that it is real. It is having a major impact on those states. And folks left, right, and center all have to pay attention to the effects of climate change here. You know, we are heading toward midterms. And obviously, you know, in the political zeitgeist, everybody's always looking toward the next election. But we have 18 months here. And so I'm curious as you head toward November of 2026. This is your last term in office.

What you want your focus to be, what you want your legacy to be, and what you're going to do with these last 18 months, you know, as you head toward the end of your term, that really you want folks to remember you by in terms of your time as governor. Well, look, we can only control what we can control, and I say it all the time to everybody that works with us. It's not what happens to us is how we respond to what happens to us. So for all the headwinds in Washington, D.C., we still have agency. And in that spirit, it's about the great implementation across the spectrum of issues. We've set the most audacious climate goals in the country. We've set the most audacious housing goals, homelessness, on education, on health care, across the spectrum on their issues of poverty and disease. And so now it's about being accountable and fully implemented.

Let me give you an example. Pre-K for all. We're fully funding, and this year we'll complete a brand new grade in the state of California, after school and summer school for all, fully finishing the job on that. Community schools, hundreds and hundreds of community schools that we finally have now fully funded and are implementing. On health care, we have universal health care in the state of California, regardless of pre-existing conditions, ability to pay,

and regardless of your immigration status on child care, we're making progress across the spectrum of issues as it relates to our environmental efforts to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions and obviously change the way we produce and consume energy. We have audacious goals and we want to reach them. So we have a whole numeric. I have something, I'll torture you on this.

We have an OKR process for all my state agencies, which are objectives and key results. We measure against that. I put up a new accountability website, if you want to check it out, accountability.ca.gov to hold ourselves accountable to what we said we were going to do, what we're asserting we are doing, and the timelines that we proposed. And we're also pushing back, if I may say, with a new facts site around California facts to push against all of the misinformation and disinformation about our state,

which is incredibly important to our reputation, to the spirit and pride, that I feel, and I think obviously tens of millions of Californians feel about their state. And so that's my state of mind as we run the 110-yard dash through November of next year. We take back the damn house of representatives. Then we can start focusing on the guy or gal and white horse to come save the day in 2028. And finally, as this California gubernatorial race shapes up heading toward 26, are you going to be endorsing depending on who ultimately is in that final spate of candidates? Well, I've got my lieutenant guy.

every one of my friends in this race. I mean, literally. That's why I'm asking you can't even make this up. We have a former vice president of the United States, Kamala Harris, who's one of my oldest friends, even before, an actual, like, real life, by the way, if you're wondering people rolling their eyes. Before we were both in politics,

we spent a great deal of time together. I mean, I can't even get in the details except to say that we've known each other for longer than either of us have ever took an oath of office. And the idea that she's even thinking about it, is pretty extraordinary as well. So we'll see what she decides, because I think right now the entire field,

just to be candid with folks and to be straight with folks, is really going to be determined who's really going to run or not on the basis of her decision. Well, Governor, I appreciate you taking the time and talk to you soon. Take care. Thank you for having me.

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That's U-P-L-I-F-T-D-E-S-K-K-com for a special offer, and it's only available at our link. Stand, Move, Thrive with Uplift Desk. I'm joined now by the co-host of POTS-A-America and Love It or Leave It, John Lovett. Love it. Thanks for joining me. Thanks for having me, Brian. He's YouTube's best boy. He was going to get that in. What you don't know is that we've recorded this multiple times to try to make him stop saying this. Love it. We are now in a moment where we have just seen how Donald Trump, obviously,

unhappy with the economic contraction, the only one in the industrialized world, the rest of the world is contending with economic growth, the U.S. is not, has decided that this is still Joe Biden's economy, which makes this moment just a little bit awkward. With all of the hysteria over tariffs, we know the jobs are being created, and it is much better than expected. At 177,000 jobs added to the economy in April, this proves Donald Trump's point, that the economy is doing well. So that was Maria Bartaromo applauding the fact that there were more than expected 177,000 jobs added this past month. So can you explain to me how it can both be Joe Biden's economy, but also a big win for Donald Trump. Well, you have to get pretty metaphysical. You also remember, so whose economy

it is changes based on the news of the week. Right, naturally. When the economy was doing well under Joe Biden, Donald Trump called it Donald Trump's economy because people were already expecting him to become president. Then when Donald Trump won, he, again, now he's saying, this is because of me, it is my economy. Then when the economy started sinking, it became Joe Biden's economy again. So it's basically when Joe Biden was president, it was Trump's economy. When Trump is president, it's Joe Biden's economy, except when the news is good.

Well, here's the interesting part is that we did hear already some sprinkling of, of Trump coming in and saying that even if the economy continues to sour in the next quarter, that will still be Joe Biden's economy. So kind of already giving himself a permission structure to be able to diffuse responsibility onto Joe Biden. But as we know, the official definition of a recession is when we have two straight quarters of negative growth. And so if the economy now, before the tariffs even kicked in, was already negative 0.3%. Now when the tariffs actually kick in and we're already seeing the beginnings of that with the imports at the port of L.A. where we are right now, seeing like a 36% decrease in the coming

weeks, that number is only going to sink more and more. And so already he's trying to give himself some room to be able to say that the recession that we are inevitably careening toward doesn't belong to him. And people are already not buying that. This is when Donald Trump gave his first joint address, he made some point about blaming Joe Biden for egg prices. I don't even remember the details. And I remember saying at the time, okay, buddy, it's, you just got here. People are reasonable. You're not reasonable and you wouldn't do the opposite, but we can still retain our reasonableness. And you're right. You've only been president in a few weeks. You cannot be held responsible for every economic

condition yet. It has now been months. And polling has come out. And it is showing not only is Donald Trump losing support on the economy. Not only is he at his lowest ebb on the economy ever, first term, this term, as president. The American people hold him responsible for the economy, and he won't be able to talk people out of that. He wouldn't be able to talk people out of that if we weren't in the middle of the biggest self-inflicted economic crisis we have ever seen in our lifetimes. If we were seeing inflation, you could make some kind of argument where that is a long tale of policies that preceded Donald Trump being president. If we lived in a world where people had sincere and rational arguments about politics, we really don't.

But that's not the world we're living in. The reason we are seeing declining tourism, the reason we are seeing declining trade, the reason we have seen trillions erased from the stock market is because of decisions made by Donald Trump based on a premise that froze in his brain the last time there was plasticity in there, which is roughly 1987. So that's, and everybody knows that. In fact, he has done something extraordinary, which he has seemingly created a big national conversation and learning experience

around the importance of fucking free trade. Like, I don't, like, we're like, no, no, no, we have to have free trade. Like, all of a sudden, the American people are like, yeah, no, we get it now. We get it now. We get it now. Which is wild. Like, again, like, it's failing on its own terms, right? Because, like, there are aspects of trade that are, that Bernie Sanders, Sherrod Brown,

a lot of mainstream Democrats would talk about as having had negative consequences that we need to address. There are ways in which trade with China is deeply unfair. You can't have free trade with a controlled economy. You can't. That is real. That is a reasonable critique. But my God, has he gone about it like the dumbest motherfucker on earth? Right.

Right. He basically burned any goodwill he might have had on this issue. And there are aspects of this to your exact point where he could have just done so with a scalpel and been smart about it, strategic about it, and actually had a really popular trade policy. But instead, just with a blunt hammer, assuming that either whether he's using it as a negotiating tactic or whether he's actually trying to reshore jobs that would take years to actually reshore, I mean, there's, you know, the way that he opted to do this kind of just shot himself in the foot. Yes, there, you could have perhaps united, United States, Canada, Mexico, Europe, Japan, our allies in a, in a, in a, a great mission of trying to isolate China in some way by collapse.

Didn't he basically do that by threatening to annex half of them? Well, right. And then, but he's actually done. Technically, they would all be united if we were one country. That is true. That's an important point that I'm, that's my bias. That's my, those are my partisan blinders. But now it's like, now you see China and, and Japan working together. He's created, uh, unprecedented alliances against the United States. We're just not part of it. The, the, the, the, there's an election in Canada. I have never felt, I don't know if you're familiar with, I don't know if you're history buff, Brian, but America's made a lot of mistakes in the world in the past. But I've never had the experience of watching. I've never had the experience of watching. a Canadian prime minister basically speak about America like these the Americans will not break us yeah like what the fuck

like we're part of the axis of evil right yeah right the the interesting part of all of this is that right now Republicans are engaged in this practice where they are trying to convince Americans that gas is as cheap as it's ever been food is as cheap as it's ever been that the economy is gangbusters and it's so interesting because we just came off

of a presidency with Joe Biden where Democrats were accused of and largely guilty of doing the exact same thing, which is telling people how good the economic conditions were and trying to convince them to ignore the conditions that they themselves felt. And so it's just so interesting to see a party that not only didn't learn anything, but didn't learn anything from their own attacks. I mean, this was them exploiting the weaknesses of the Democrats that instantly fell into the exact same trap. Yeah, and there was a debate about whether or not people were responding to economic conditions or media coverage of those conditions. And there's absolutely asymmetric polarization on how people view the economy. Totally. I mean, we saw polling that

showed the day after Trump got elected, everything, like consumer confidence swapped, you know? Absolutely. And, but, like, that's, that is true. but it is also true that Democrats are just a little bit less partisan on this than Republicans, right? Democrats give themselves a home team advantage. Republicans give themselves a home team advantage, but Republicans are just better partisans, right? They're more willing to tell a poster or something that may not be true. Totally. But what we have, but that being said, the idea that it was media, that anger about the economy was

in media creation. I think it's just been proven false just in the last few weeks. And Republicans will not be able to talk. people out of their dissatisfaction with the economy, especially when Donald Trump ran to lower prices. He is pursuing policies that will increase prices. The only reason we might be in a situation where some things come down, like gas prices, is because he has wrecked the economy and people are driving less. That is a, I would call that a Pyrrhic victory. Yeah, right. I'm going to move on to a different topic here, and that is Donald Trump's confusion over the MS-13 tattoos

on Kimmer Brego Garcia's hand. So he has these random symbols on his hand. Anybody who has studied MS-13 has expressed just befallment at the idea that those are symbols that symbolize MS-13. What with the symbols symbolizing MS-13 just being giant MS-13s that they tattoo all over their body? These are people who are very subtle

about the imagery when it comes time to branding themselves. Yes, people have the same kind of like online fucking shirt. Sherlock Holmes's are deciding these are gang tattoos with the same precision and rigor of people deciding that Taylor Swift is a lesbian based on clues inside of the lyrics. Yeah, that's right. That's sort of where we were at, but go on. So a lot of these right-wing influencers and media folks had come out and basically attacked Democrats for suggesting that when Trump came out like a few weeks ago and he was like,

oh, he has MS-13 tattooed on his hand. because he shared an image and it pointed to each thing. There was like a skull, there was a cross, a smiley face, and whatever. A marijuana leaf. And a marijuana leaf and said, and there was the letters and numbers MS-13 above that,

pointing to it. Someone had superimposed on the photo, MS-1-3. Correct. Because you wouldn't know looking at the photo that they were suggesting it meant MS-13. So they put, say, the marijuana leaf represents an M and the skull is an S

and the cross is a one, right? But it's not meant to confuse you. No, it was just meant to point out what they think would interpret, would it be interpreted as MS-13. Right. It turns out that that's exactly what Donald Trump thought it was. What was your reaction to seeing this news that Trump, in fact, did believe outright that this aerial font, like two-dimensional, much darker than the tattoos on his skin, off-centered letters and numbers, were actually tattooed onto his hands? it took I wanted to believe

this was over interpretation by media that hates him right like no he can't be this stupid he can't be this wrong about it in the same way that you know it's not totally clear when Donald Trump says that he won 9-0 at the Supreme Court

when he actually lost 9-0 at the Supreme Court it's unclear whether he is genuinely unaware of the substance of the ruling or he is performing what he thinks is valuable based on what he's heard from Stephen Miller and all the rest. That he knows that the ruling is obviously calling on him to facilitate the release, but sticking with the part of it that is about him being in charge of foreign policy and calling that a win. You just can't tell, right? Is he misinformed or is he misinforming?

We just never know with him. That's the fun. But this was so fucking stupid. And he really did insist that it said MS-13. it is the equivalent of going up to Meryl Streep and wondering where her Getty Images tattoo is. It is shocking. We have lost to the dumbest motherfuckers on Earth, and that is a dispiriting aspect of our current predicament.

What does it say that somebody who has such piss-poor judgment that he actually thinks that MS-13 superimposed onto an image with the resolution of Windows 99? of something that you would find in Microsoft paint, right? What does it say that that guy, with that judgment, is the one that's sitting across from people like Vladimir Putin negotiating on America's behalf? Might that be why our economy is crashing right now?

Well, it's like Donald Trump is a fraud and a menace, and we've known that. But that, it's a reminder that that's not what makes him dangerous. What makes him dangerous is he is surrounded by people, that either see him genuinely as a leader they believe in or they view him as valuable and worth getting behind for their own purposes or they are afraid to getting cross purposes to him because of the of the command he has over a segment of the population that fucking loves him the problem is the apparatus around him right Donald Trump is openly corrupt now

He is openly doing deals where foreign interests are coming out and saying, we've decided to do a $2 billion transaction in Trump's coin, right, from which he gets a cut just directly, just lining his pocket. That is a huge crisis. That is a crisis. The president is openly corrupt. But it's not a crisis because he's the worst human being we've ever put in the job. It's a crisis because Republicans are enabling.

it every day. Donald Trump announcing tariffs is ridiculous. He did it in the dumbest, the dumbest policy executed in the dumbest way possible. That's the crisis, but it is only possible because Republicans refuse to take back the power that they have. They could end it tomorrow. They could call for him to stop profiting off the office tomorrow. They could pass legislation, anti-corruption legislation tomorrow. This is the problem. is not that we put the worst human being in public life in the most powerful job in the world, it is that he is enabled by Republicans around him. That is the chat. That is where we have power. Those are the people we need to fight. And I'm curious now, because as we head toward 2026,

obviously a lot of the, a lot of the responsibility, I think as far as, you know, all of us are concerned, falls on to Donald Trump himself. But do you feel like the fact that that Donald Trump isn't going to be running, at least for right now. I mean, that's, do I think that he'll likely try to find a way to stick himself on the ballot or make himself J.D. Vance's VP and then swap whatever, you know, plan he and Steve Bannon have come up with? Yes, but that aside, do you think that the same, that the same responsibility for everything that's happening that falls on Trump is going to also fall on these Republicans as we head toward these election cycles? Do you think they'll carry the same weight of everything

that he's doing? Or do you think that they're largely going to get away with it because they can defuse responsibility onto him. I read a book by Kazu Ishiguro. This is not what this channel is usually about, but I'll just tell you. And it is a story of a man filled with incredible regret because he got caught up in the fervor in Japan in World War II, in helping the government of Japan in its fascist enterprise to promote war, to stifle dissent. and then they lose

and this new generation looks at that older generation with disdain because of what they did to their country. Our job is to make them pay. Our job is to make them pay politically. Our job is to tell the story, the true story of this moment, even if it means that there is a sizel portion of the country

that calls us fanatical or fantastical or hysterical or whatever they may say. The truth of this moment is the truth, right? Donald Trump today should be impeached and removed from office. That's the truth. And we may not, that may not be possible right now, but our job is to, our job is to fight these people knowing that they may be co-opted.

The truth may be up for debate in this moment, but we will ultimately defeat these Republicans. We will ultimately remove Donald Trump and, and, and, and, and. and history will tell the story of this disgraceful era. And all of these Republicans who spent their adult lives on every vacation reading fucking World War II books about Churchill and the people that stood up and American history of their great moments and don't understand that they're failing now, I don't need them to get it, I don't need them to care, I don't need them to figure it out.

We know what we have to do. We have to make them, we have to defeat them, and we have to never lose like the great fear I had when Donald Trump won a second time was we were going to win some battles and lose some battles but that when we came out at the end of those four years we'd be living in a country that's unrecognizable I think that's still very much a possibility but it's not a certainty yeah right Donald Trump right now he is not a door that locked behind us yet and we got to fight these people we have to make them pay. We have to defeat Republicans in 2026. We have to make Donald Trump such a politically toxic entity that the idea of him pursuing a third term is ludicrous, not just because it is a violation of the Constitution, but because he has been so thoroughly rejected by the American people. That's our job. That would normally be where I'd want to end, but I have to ask because we're talking about somebody who is a self-styled marketing genius, this idea

of renaming Veterans Day to Victory Day for World War I just rolls off the tongue. I'm hearing about this for the first time. He wants to rename it Victory Day for World War I? Yeah, marketing genius Donald Trump wants to rename Veterans Day to Victory Day for World War I. What's wrong with Veterans Day? Well, see, Trump didn't make that.

Oh. Well, when do we celebrate the victory of World War II? That will probably be, well, I'm sure he'll find some holiday to, I'm sure. Wait, aren't there two, when do we celebrate? We mark the end of world. We mark VE Day, don't we, or V-Day? Or, V-Day? This is baffling. I'm hearing about this for the first time.

Yeah. Curious whether you think that this branding genius thought this one through. Better than say it's going to be Victory Day. Honestly, I don't have the energy to fight the naming of things. Let him call shit whatever he wants. wants. I don't give a fuck. Okay. He's like, he got the space force. He'll get the Gulf of America. He'll get his victory day. I don't care. I just want to have a constitution when this whole thing wraps up. All right. Well, that seems like a good place to leave off. Love it. Appreciate your time.

Thank you. I'm joined now by Chastin Buttigieg. Thanks so much for joining me. Thanks for having me. So we're enmeshed in this whole second iteration of our signal gate scandal. Obviously, Mike Walls was just let go from the administration as the result of his involvement and all of this. I'm curious, when you had your correspondence with Pete when he was in the White House, how seriously did they take security? How seriously did they take official correspondence? How often did he discuss imminent war plans with you at the dinner table? Was he let go off from the administration, though? Because wasn't he nominated for a union? That's true. If you think

Donald Trump gives half a shit about the UN, like that is, that is effectively. It's just so sad for America. It's like you're you're getting kicked out of the White House of the administration because you handled classified information so poorly. And so we're going to send you to represent the United States in front of the entire world. The entire world. Yeah. Yeah.

So bad. Yeah. No, we talk about war plans all the time over dinner. You know, it's very common. Yeah. No, it's, it is mind boggling the things that they get away with there and that they, they, they call normal. You know, there would be multiple times where I'd ask people like, oh, where are you going again tomorrow?

And it's like, well, I can't tell you. You know, if there was like something happening in a. in a secure location or they were working on something with a problem and I would see him like frustrated about some like phone calls and texts that he was working on and I would say like what's going on because you want to like help as the spouse he's like I can't talk about it I can't you know I literally can't talk about it and apparently like Heggsess wife is just like joining him and all of his meetings forget not talking about it he's like come on in I'll read I'll read you in right you let us know where where you think the huthies would be uh can you imagine imagine imagine

like imagine how Fox News would handle it if it's like Chastin Buddha judge joins his husband Pete, in the Roosevelt room, Jaston Buttigieg, you know, reads classified information to his children at bedtime. Was it Brett Baer who literally questioned Pete for the, was it the Invictus Games? Yes. And so can you talk about that a little bit? Yeah. Pete led a presidential delegation to the Invictus Games, which is an athletic competition amongst

wounded war veterans. And Pete led the delegation, it was in the Netherlands. And typically the person who leads the delegation brings their spouse. So I went to the Netherlands to see the Invictus games and meet with Wounded American Warriors. And at that time, Pete also had some meetings with the Ukrainian delegation. And it was really cool and very impactful for me to feel like I was representing my country at such a high level. And then when we came back, some folks in the right decided to lean into the story that Pete had taken his spouse to, I think they called it a sporting event. on a private airplane.

So typically when you lead a delegation, you take an American aircraft. It was not a private airplane. I wasn't like, you know, flying around with Beyonce going to, like, you know, a basketball game. But at the same time, they don't stick you on an American Airlines flight, you know, in 32B. It was also surprising when you're going with, you know, senators and legislators, the amount of coordination that takes and the amount of staff that involves also just on a security level. Right. But yeah, yeah, he famously called out, Pete and asked if he was going to pay back the taxpayer for taking me on that trip, which multiple people had done before. Right, with their own spouses. Right. And I remember I tweeted at them, I asked if this was going to be a thing, you know, when the new administration came in and they were doing this or when Sean Duffy was, you know, flying his kids to the, was the Indy 500 or something.

that's right you know it's like these these are oftentimes normal things that happen during an administration um it just seems to be one-sided and the hypocrisy is one thing that's kind of been like driving me nuts that they they screamed um fraud right and abuse for four years when they came in and yet they go in and they just bring their spouses to confidential meetings and share confidential information on an unsecured app apparently his phone number can just be found the internet, you know? And I mean, like, I have sat through security briefings, like what to do with my device and our devices and, you know, how to keep our family safe. So it's just mind-boggling that they just get away with so much. On a more personal note, what is it like to not,

to not be told? I understand logically speaking that if your spouse tells you that they can't tell you something because it's classified or whatever, but then there has to be a more human level where it's like, you know, the whole relationships are built on trust, right? And so, and so like, or openness or being communicative. And is it, is it weird to, to get used to this idea that, that, that, um, your spouse is actively hiding something, hiding something for, and granted, it's not, it's not malicious. But the reality is that, that you're not being told something that they know and they just aren't going to tell.

You wear a lot of different hats as a, as a political spouse. Yeah. Yeah. It's always on a personal level. Like, I want to help. You're going through something. You're frustrated. How can I help?

and, you know, I guess that's what sets him apart from some people in this administration is that I cannot discuss this with you. You know, it's classified. And, you know, you have to kind of learn to just say, okay, you know, I hope it gets better. You know, whatever's happening. Yeah. Well, it's kind of like, in that sense, it's a little bit of a relief because then there's no pressure on you to do anything. To solve the problem. Exactly. Exactly. Well, I'm curious just more broadly, zooming out on this exact topic. You know, we obviously just sat through an entire election cycle where the principal targets of the Republicans ire were the entire LGBT community. Sure. And so granted, it was, it was especially focused on the trans community. I'm just curious how that manifests it for somebody who, you know,

in your position, obviously a member of the LGBT community, to be able to kind of feel like the biggest punching bag in America right now is, you know, folks in your community. Yeah. Well, I certainly don't feel like I'm the biggest punching bag. You're absolutely right that trans Americans definitely are getting their unfair share of hate. As someone in the community, you always want to stick up for other people in your community and just make sure that they're okay. And so on one level, you're trying to do the right amount of work to let people in your community know that you're there for them. And then, you know, on the other hand, you're trying to do political work because you're trying to win an election or you're trying to move the ball forward. So you're trying to

have conversations with your neighbors about how really you need to stop bullying trans people and we need to start having conversations about how we're going to make child care more for it, how we're going to make health care more affordable. So you're kind of juggling a lot there. And I think it just kind of speaks to their focus on things that don't affect everyday Americans. That it's easier to make trans people the boogeyman than it is to talk about why they're making it harder to raise children in this country. Like right now, we're putting 145% tariffs on China. A lot of baby items come from China.

strollers, car seats, you know, they're, the White House is screaming, have more kids, have more kids. They're trying to find a way to pay people to have kids while they're trying to cut head start, kick, you know, nearly a million kids out of their childcare. Grocery prices are going up, and now your strollers and your car seats are going to be much more expensive. So they don't want to talk about those things, because those are really hard things to talk about. Those are policy conversations. Sometimes those are nuanced conversations. So what we want to do is just focus on one person or one very, very, very small group of people and make them the boogeyman. Like in Michigan, I'm pretty sure the number of kids who have petitioned the state

athletic association to play on a team is like less than two. Yeah, right. In an entire state. They would rather talk about those two kids, right, than things that are going to make your life more affordable or easier. Do you think that the American people more broadly kind of, I don't want to say learn their lesson about kind of allowing ourselves, I'll throw myself in, even though I wouldn't include myself in this,

but allowing ourselves to be distracted by these marginal issues. I mean, sure exact point. We're talking about less than 10 people in the entirety of the NCAA. Yeah. Versus now, I mean, we're thrust into economic turmoil. The United States economy has contracted,

even as other economies across the world have expanded. And yet, this is all predicated on the fact that Donald Trump won the election because he was so effective at shining a spotlight on just a handful of people, And like now look at where we are because we allowed ourselves to be distracted by the trans issue. And yet when you have somebody who's an office who is so incompetent, so incapable that he's voluntarily ushering in a recession, do you feel like, okay, maybe we allowed ourselves to be distracted this time, but like moving forward, maybe not fall for the cultural issue so easily? Well, I think maybe some people were distracted by it and only wanted to focus on.

And I think some other people just didn't have the guts to talk about it. Maybe because they were scared. You know, a lot of people in America have never met a trans person. Yeah, right? Maybe they felt like they were walking on eggshells and they didn't want to hurt anybody. They didn't want to say the wrong thing. But they, you know, they didn't want to speak up when somebody at the dinner table at a family gathering said something really harmful or maybe untrue. And so I think something that the, you know, the trans community could use, but also just Democrats at large could use is people call them bullshit.

Yeah. And don't be afraid to push back. And it's kind of awkward when, I mean, especially I'm from the Midwest. So it's pretty difficult to call BS at a family. function, but when someone is focused, so focused on a small minority of people, but not focused on the things right in front of them that affect their life or the lives of people in their family, you got to refocus the spotlight on the things that truly matter. And I think some people just weren't maybe confident enough to speak up and say,

actually, here's what I think. Or I think you're getting that wrong. That's really hard to do that to, you know, someone you love or someone you trust. But I think Democrats would be served well if you know we just kind of set it with our whole chest yeah like call call out the BS and also like I think what Tim Walts got really he did well on was calling things weird it is weird to focus on you know 10 kids in the United States of America right when there are families in our community back home in Michigan who are struggling to put food on the table who are struggling to figure out how they can go to work full time and then pay for the rising cost of child care yeah those are the things that they want to know about but yet we're spending all this

time responding to the hatred coming from the right, when we really should just be talking about how to make people's lives better. And I do think that we're going to get to a moment right now where everybody kind of feels silly for having allowed that to consume so much time. You know, in a moment right now where, I mean, again, like Trump is voluntarily ushering in so much calamity of the entire Republican conference enabling him because they're collectively two chicken shit to actually push back on anything that he's doing. And so kind of, In retrospect, the fact that we spent so much energy, so much airtime in this country, attacking some marginalized community, really does feel like the bait and switch that it was.

Let's talk about the beard. What a switch. Yeah, I just wanted to go with that seamless transition there. How did the beard come about and how much of a say did you have to have before he was allowed to really, really, you know, show it off. No, I think Pete grew a beard like way back in 2017 or something when we were on vacation. And then he had a beard when the kids were born. And both times I've seen the beard.

I think you should keep the beard. And so I am encouraging the beard. I like the beard. Yeah. Do you feel like we're in a moment right now because things are just, you know, things are a little bit looser in politics. You can curse now. You can say whatever you want.

You be normal human beings that the beard is actually. a positive that the beard actually? I don't know. I guess jury's out. I swear to God, everywhere I go. It's like someone has an opinion about the beard. Yeah.

I mean, normally everything, everybody is really well kept and clean shaven. And that, you know, I mean, I hate to point to Ted Cruz as the, as the trendsetter here.

But, but I mean, he was like, you know, Ted Cruz had his wolverine beard first. There's other folks who, yeah. So,

so tell us about your new book that you, just wrote and why you decided to write it? I wrote a children's book called Papa's Coming Home. It comes out on May 20th. And really, I wrote it because there aren't a lot of books like it. When our kids were born, I was asking around for books with families that looked like ours. I just wanted a day-in-life book with two dads.

Yeah. So my kids could see themselves in a book and there aren't a ton. And I was flying home from a work gig one day and just thought about how excited I was to come home to them. and how excited they might be or like these characters might be that one of their dads is coming home. So it's a super cute book. You know,

the kids are super excited to go to the airport, pick up their other dad, and they think that he's going to miss everything. So they, you know, packed a minivan full of signs and flowers and a cake and his slippers and his books and like his favorite cheese.

Yeah. You know. And in the end, you know, it's the dad saying, I like these things, but the best part about coming home is you. Yeah. And that's all I wanted was just one

for my kids to see themselves in the book and then two just a book about unconditional love and and that's the thing i wanted to ask is like you know i think a lot of portrayals of same-sex couples in the media often focus on the on the fact that they're same-sex as like as the defining characteristic in their lives but in fact i'm sure you that you and p don't just talk about being a same-sex couple all day and it's like that's that's what your whole life especially at bedtime because no i think there's room for every type of book right it's a great thing about the library of the bookstore. But I didn't want to always be reading books that reflected our family that were kind of punching you in the face with a moral. I was like, it's okay to be different. Everybody's

family is different, but I didn't always want to be talking about difference. I just wanted the kids to follow along in a story and say like, oh, that looks like me. Yeah. Oh, it looks like our family. Where in the end, it's not saying, it's okay that you're different. Yeah. Right. I just wanted, I just wanted a sweet story. How have the kids reacted? And I know they're young. So this might be moot. But how have they reacted to just seeing instances where your kind of family is actually portrayed in the media and movies and books, whatever it may be? The good thing is, like, our kids don't, you know, they don't see us on television. They're watching the news.

Yeah. So it's healthy. They helped write this book kind of in a way. So I started writing it two years ago. So they saw, like, early art. You know, I would test run some stories on them, see what story like piqued their interest. They're really into storytelling at bed. Actually, we read books, but we also tell stories.

Yeah. So I'll like tell part of the story and they'll fill in the gap. So they were really helpful with this one. I'm just hopeful that we have more books like this in the future. Every family looks different. And one of the best parts about reading this book to my kids is the fact that they see themselves in it and they love it. And at the end of the day, it's not telling them that they're different and they're not going to bed thinking about why they might be different or what other families are like that we just laughed together, reading a good story. Well, again, a book is called Papa's Coming Home, so highly recommend, head to the post description of this video and grab a copy of it. And Chaston, finally, let's finish off with this.

If I'm not mistaken, Pete is headed to Iowa on May 13th. So, of course, with that comes the obvious question. Anything you want to break on Pete's behalf here, or is there a reason that he's going to Iowa or how are you dealing with the incoming questions about the prospect of... I think you just wanted to get the breakfast pizza, man. That is a very evasive answer. I think what he's doing with vote bets is really cool. And that's what the event is for. Yeah, he's working with vote vets to highlight some of the disastrous decisions

that have been made, especially for veterans out of this administration. Obviously, Iowa was really good to our family. And I think he'll be happy to be amongst friends. But also, we just need to keep showing up in places where folks might not expect to see Democrats, especially at a national level right now. but when you mentioned that I was like crap is he in I was I can't stay on top of his schedule so yeah yeah I'm happy for him I love seeing him out there and as someone whose heart hurts

just seeing what's going on in our country it's um it can be a difficult thing yeah you know um as the person who always wants him home and who always wants him um around the house and with the kids and helping with the laundry and stuff but I I'm also really proud of and really happy that he's out there well I know as a part-time Fox News viewer, I am also happy that he's out there because when he, in the rare instances where he actually breaks through the conservative media bubble and in the instance where he went on, uh, on, uh, Andrew Schultz's show, Flagrin, I mean, which is one of the top rated episodes, um, in the country right now. I mean, good on him for, for going through and figuring

out new ways to, to, to reach audiences that we haven't, uh, reached before. So Chaston again, appreciate your time. Appreciate it, man. Thank you. Thanks again to Governor Newsom, John Lovett and Chaston Buttigieg. 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. Thank you.