No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen - Trump poised for NIGHTMARE news from federal prosecutors

Episode Date: June 4, 2023

Trump gets bad legal news in the classified documents case. Brian interviews Fox LA anchor Elex Michaelson about the fatal mistake that Republicans are making ahead of 2024, whether we’re likely to see both Trump and Biden participate in debates, and the impact that Republican abortion bans will have in the next election.Donate to the "Don't Be A Mitch" fund: https://secure.actblue.com/donate/dontbeamitchShop merch: https://briantylercohen.com/shopYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/briantylercohenTwitter: https://twitter.com/briantylercohenFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/briantylercohenInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/briantylercohenPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/briantylercohenNewsletter: https://www.briantylercohen.com/sign-upWritten by Brian Tyler CohenProduced by Sam GraberRecorded in Los Angeles, CASee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Today, we're going to talk about Trump's bad legal news in the Classified Documents case, and I interview Fox L.A. anchor Alex Michelson about the fatal mistake that Republicans are making ahead of 2024, whether we're likely to see both Trump and Biden participate in debates, and the impact that Republican abortions will have in the next election. I'm Brian Tyler Cohen, and you're listening to No Lie. So, there's really no other way to put this. As far as the stolen classified documents case goes, Trump is completely screwed. He's been maintaining all these months, as his only defense in this case, that he had the power to declassify all the documents that he took with him to Mara Lago, and so that's what he did.

But it turns out, based on reporting, that federal prosecutors have an audio recording of a summer 2021 meeting in which Trump acknowledges that he had possession of a classified Pentagon document about a potential attack against Iran. And so what does that tell us? It tells us that, whereas he claimed that everything was declassified, he clearly understood and acknowledged that that that wasn't. in the case, considering the document couldn't be both declassified by him and also still classified. And I should note, too, that even if he hadn't been caught on this recording, undermining his whole defense, that he'd already declassified everything, recognized that even that defense is wrong. So despite what he and his lawyers have been telling everyone with an earshot, no, Trump did not have carte blanche to declassify anything in any way that he wanted.

Trump had the power as president to begin the process of declassifying most things, but there's still a statutory process that had to be followed. You don't just do it by fiat, and you certainly don't do it by thought. As an example, there are rules that require consultation with the agency that originally classify the information before anyone can declassify it. There are also limitations on what can be declassified. Trump would have been restricted outright from declassifying documents pertaining to nuclear weapons and also intelligence agents.

And there's even a rule preventing any officials leaving government service from removing classified information from the government's control or directing that information be declassified in order to remove it from agency control, which seems to have been expressly written with Donald Trump in mind. So, again, no, Trump wasn't some all-powerful being for whom no rules applied, although I get how that could be a convenient justification once you're at risk of being indicted. But here's the worst part for Trump. Now that the DOJ has this smoking gun, and I say smoking gun, because, again, this piece of evidence

would unilaterally undermine Trump's entire defense here. So now if the DOJ has the smoking gun, the Justice Department very likely, likely has enough evidence to indict him. Perhaps without this piece of evidence, they'd have continued building their case, continued interviewing people. But now, given how clearly this would kill Trump's defense, it's likely the DOJ can move forward with an indictment. Here's former federal prosecutor Glenn Kirchner during our latest episode of The Legal

Breakdown on YouTube, talking about exactly this point. So here's the thing. When we're involved in long-term investigations and I did a bunch of them as a career prosecutor, the minute you know you have enough evidence to indict someone, the minute you know you have met that standard of probable cause to indict every day thereafter, we have to make an assessment. Should we continue to investigate this covertly in the grand jury before we arrest anybody? Or is the danger that this target of the investigation now poses such that we have to move out, indict, arrest, present the target in court, and begin the prosecution. I think when you're

talking about compromising national defense information and violation of our nation's espionage laws, particularly information about possible plans, the U.S. has to strike a foreign country, Jack Smith has to move out. One of the important reasons is because you charge people to deter others from engaging in similar conduct. And Brian, how can people be expected to keep in confidence our nation's national security information if they see Trump going completely unaccountable for potentially committing the crime of espionage? So at this point, there isn't much of a reason that the investigation should continue

much longer. Trump screwed himself with his own words, per usual. Prosecutors have the information that they need to very convincingly persuade a jury that he's committed the crime that they're alleging. And so while no one's ever lost money, betting on the DOJ, acting slowly with regard to Trump, it would still stand a reason that they could, should, and may very well indict imminently. And again, I can feel you all staring back at me in full fawny Willis, and I get it. I'm just saying that the facts here lend themselves to a very logical conclusion.

And of course, that's to say nothing of the impending indictment out of Fulton County, Georgia. Out of the DOJ for January 6th, out of the New York AG's probe, we've got the Manhattan DA trial starting in March. So I think it's going to be a very busy year if you're interested in the accountability for Trump genre, which I think it's safe to say that most people are. Next step is my interview with Alex Michelson. Okay, now we've got longtime guest Alex Michelson, the anchor for Fox LA, and the host of the issue is Alex, thanks for joining.

Brian, great to be with you. Grateful that you are on with us on the issue is this week, and nice to return the favor. Return the favor. Well, let's get into it because we have, We've had a pretty busy week, especially as Republican primary politics go. So as of now, Ronda Santis is in, Vivek Ramoswamy is in, Tim Scott is in, Nikki Haley is in. We maybe have Chris Christie on the horizon, Chris Sununu on the horizon, Mike Pence on the horizon. The Republican field is starting to look a lot like it did in 2016.

Do you think they're falling into the exact same trap as they did two elections ago? They are falling in the exact same trap as they were to election. elections ago. The only way to beat Donald Trump in the Republican primary is to have one person mono-a-mono with Donald Trump and to be the alternative. To do what they're doing now sets up the same result because the way Republicans nominate candidates is different than the way the Democrats nominate candidates. Republicans have winner-take-all primaries. Democrats have proportional representation. So if you and me, and somebody else

we're all running and say I got 25% and you got 28% and Bernie Sanders got 30%. We each would get 25% of delegates, 28%. Republicans have a system where whoever gets the most gets all. So if Donald Trump

we know he's going to get 30, 35%, right? I mean, he said if he shoots somebody on 5th Avenue, his supporters would still be with him. And that's pretty much proven out to be true, right? No matter what. and him getting criminally indicted helps him his poll numbers go up so there's more indictments coming that's probably going to be a boost in his numbers yeah so that's not going somewhere so another

candidate has to get 36 40 percent of the vote right to beat donald trump and right now if you've got seven eight people splitting the vote that's not really possible well i mean you'd mention manu imano i'm assuming like general conventional wisdom right now says that that guy would have to be Ron DeSantis. It doesn't look like it's, you know, it doesn't look like Nikki Haley is going to be the person to be able to take down Trump. Do you think that Ron DeSantis, judging by everything that you've read, everything you've seen of him thus far, is he going to be the guy? We don't know. I mean, so far, Ron DeSantis's entrance has not been especially impressive to the conventional wisdom beltway, you know, pundits. A lot of people sort of laughed at what happened

with Twitter, with him unable to make his announcement on Twitter because they can't start the software. And it sort of sounded like a 56K modem starting up. But, you know, months and months down the road, most of that's probably going to be forgotten. If you look historically at the way these things work, at this point in previous elections, oftentimes the person that you think is going to be the big winner is not. So there is going to be a lot that happens between now and then. Obviously, DeSantis has not started to attack Trump, which is something you've criticized him for. But that could come in the coming months. Most people are not paying that close attention to this stuff yet when they do what Ron DeSantis is going to be there. We don't

know. We know what Donald Trump's going to be there. We know what he looks like. We don't really know what Ron DeSantis is going to be there. Or is there somebody else among this other field that turns out to be especially impressive that we're not giving that much attention to right now. Do you have any predictions on who that might be? Or do you think that that we haven't seen that person yet? Well, we know that Chris Christie is really good on a debate stage, right? We know that he is a terrific TV performer and will probably try to go at Trump very intensely. So if he's up there, he might be able to land some punches, whether he becomes the Republican nominee, very, very unlikely. he also can be effective at landing punches on somebody else you know but that would just serve that

would just serve to clear the field for Trump Trump's ideal thing is that all these other candidates in trying to be the anti-Trump end up punching each other and not punching Trump in which case Trump is able to skate away with the nomination and and it is in Trump's favor to have this There was a New York Times report that Trump, when Tim Scott came into the race recently, said, let's say nice things about him, basically, because it's in Trump's interest for Tim Scott to be in the race. And so help him up a little bit. To that point, I mean, you've had the chance to speak with a number of these Republican candidates. You've spoken with Mike Pence, who again is likely to announce his candidacy. You've spoken with Larry Elder recently.

That was just this past week on your show. does it seem like any of them are actually willing to distinguish themselves from Trump? And I ask because it would seem to defy logic if you're running against a guy who thus far has consolidated all of or most of the support in the Republican primary. It would seem to defy logic if you're not willing to distinguish yourself from the guy who's winning right now. Otherwise, what's the difference? Well, it seems like there's two different approaches to this. One approach seems to be the DeSantis approach, which is, I'm Trumpism without the indictments. Yeah.

Right? Yeah. And basically you can have all the policies you like because most Republicans like the policies, but you don't have the drama and the tweets and the chaos and the insurrection. Right. That seems to be one approach. But so far, that approach doesn't seem to really be working. Another approach is like Asa Hutchinson, the former governor of Arkansas, is distinguishing himself from Trump. He's criticizing him on a lot of the things that he's done.

He's blatantly by name going after him. And so far, I don't know what the opposite of catching fire in a primary would be, but cooling down or whatever. He seems to be in an ice bath in terms of the poll numbers right now. So, you know, although you're saying logic might say that that's the right approach, people that have tried that. Liz Cheney, you know, didn't exactly have tremendous success in the Republican Party by going after Trump by name and being really, you know, principled. They're kind of in this impossible catch-22 because if you speak out against Trump, then you're going to get killed by the entire base. And the base voters are going to be who ultimately determines who the Republican nominee is. Or if, you know, if you opt for the opposite, then you get excommunicated.

You get stuck in your ice bath like Asa Hutchinson is. Right. So there doesn't seem to be a clear path so far unless, but there is, I mean, it is also true. Although we talk about Trump's strong base, there is also a strong base of Republicans that are sick of him. But when you say a strong base, I mean, are we not overestimating the sheer number of people who actually are? Because here's the thing. You have to think about getting out of the Republican primary first. So there might be within the Republican Party more broadly, like writ large, the Republican Party,

or even those Republican-leaning independents who, of course, may be anti-Trump. And we've seen the vast majority of them are. But in terms of Republican-based voters, the people who are paying attention right now, the people who are going to determine who that Republican nominee is, that's an entirely separate story. And so it's hard for us to perpetuate this idea that there are this vast number of people who are anti-Trump when, like, this group of people, the people who are actually going to determine the nominee for the general election, aren't.

Well, yeah, but I don't think at this point there's that many people that are going to be joining Trump that haven't joined him already, right? I mean, there's not like a lot of undecideds about what you get with Donald Trump. So that means that all the don't know and everybody else, if you add all them together, that probably is enough to beat Donald Trump. The problem is right now you can't add all that together. And people don't vote for hypotheticals. People vote for people.

They vote for candidates. And there needs to be a candidate that distinguishes him or herself in order to beat the and right now Donald Trump is still king. Yeah. Well, we're eventually going to get to the point where we have to, you know, get to the general election contest. It's most like them. We've spoken about this on your show in just this past week,

but it'll most likely be Joe Biden and Donald Trump as of right now. If we were to take a snapshot of what we're looking at right now, that's who it's going to be. I've gone back and forth about who I think would be a better opponent for Joe Biden. But, you know, on one hand, when it comes to Trump, he will have extra baggage in 2024. It's not just the fact that he's already lost to Joe Biden in 2020

but now he'll have all... He did? He did? Just making sure that we all... Okay, all right. So it's not just the fact that he lost to Biden in 2020. He'll also have all of that extra baggage that is, you know, this wave of indictments that are coming down upon him, starting from the Manhattan DA's office and most likely in Fulton County, most likely

at the DOJ for the classified documents case, maybe the January 6th case, and on and on. On the other hand, we've also seen firsthand what happens when the media just anoints a Democrat, the winner, versus Donald Trump. And we end up with President Donald Trump, like what happened in 2016. So I'm curious what your thoughts on this topic are in terms of who would be a better opponent for Joe Biden as we head into 2024. Well, Donald Trump is both the weakest and the strongest opponent for Joe Biden.

He is the weakest opponent because there are millions and millions and millions of Americans that are over him. that don't want to touch him. And all of the last elections show that there is a segment of Republicans that when he's associated with them, do worse than Republicans who are not. Almost, almost, like, expressly and exclusive. Just him. Yeah. Like his endorsed MAGA candidates for Secretary of State and Governor's races in every swing

state. He lost every single one of those races when he endorsed a specific candidate. Right. So that's not a great sign for him. Not a great sign. That would be the argument for him being the weakest. But him being the strongest, he's really, really compelling on TV, whether you like him or you don't. He brings people to the table.

He gets people excited. He gets people talking about stuff. He knows how to work a crowd. He knows how to manipulate the media. He knows how to dominate a stage. He looks like the most alpha person out there. And he has for years. He still does.

I mean, you see that CNN Town Hall. He, like, ramroated over that whole thing. Yeah. And so, you know, he has the ability to do that. And for people, if it just becomes one versus the other and they're sort of frustrated, or maybe they feel like Joe Biden's too old and he looks kind of weak and Trump looks really strong, I think there are some people that vote just based off of gut reactions like that. They don't, they don't read that much.

They don't get that nuance into the policy. They don't really know the policy that much. of just like, this isn't working for me, I want something else. And if Trump's the guy, because ultimately becomes one versus one, you know, in the general election, he's got a fitting chance at doing it. I mean, Trump is more compelling as a figure than any of the Republican candidates are in terms of just, you know, you necessarily want to watch him. Most of the other guys look boring and small next to him.

And his whole thing about nicknames and belittling and all that, which drives literally is crazy, also is really good at garnering views. Yeah. Do you think that Trump has any incentive to actually debate any of those other people? He hinted toward this idea that he may not debate Ron DeSantis in a recent clip. He came out and basically said, you know, we'll see or maybe not. Well, you know, maybe there might not even be any reason to get on the debate stage. And so he's obviously introducing or teasing this idea that there may not be an incentive for him

because, you know, he is the presumptive nominee as of right now. So do you think that there is an incentive for him to do that? Well, do you think Donald Trump likes being on TV? Yeah, I have some feelings about that. Have you gotten the impression that maybe he enjoys being in front of the camera? He has skipped out on these debates in the past. He skipped out on one. On one.

And he did. And he made a big show of it. He made a big show of it. And he ended up doing a big, what was it, a town hall or a rally. On TV the same time. Yeah. So politically might it be beneficial for him to not? maybe but with that ego you think he wants to watch all these guys on stage and everybody

talking about them and him not be part of the party yeah i mean he also has great confidence in his ability to be one-upping these guys and be a showman and make them all look small so you know i can't imagine him he maybe doesn't do every debate but i feel like he's he probably does at least one or two. And if after that he shows them all up and his poll numbers are high and they all, you know, look kind of small next to him, then I think he may have said, I've said what I have to say and move on. Do you think that Joe Biden has any incentive to debate Trump then? No. Do you think he will? I don't think if it's Trump versus Biden. I don't think there's going to be a presidential debate, which is sad as somebody who loves debates, who wants to host a presidential debate one day

is a dream job who organized the L.A. Mayor's debate and the sheriff's debate and governor's debates and trying to organize a Senate debate. I love debates. I'm all about debates. I think debates are important. I think that's really beneficial to society. But I can't figure out if you're Trump or your Biden, what would be the incentive to debate the other person other than, you know, the fact that there's value in debates. Because Biden- I don't think either one of them are doing it for the inherent value in debates. I think they look for their specific incentives and doing it. So if you're Biden and you are older and you run the risk of maybe making a mistake that probably gets blown out of proportion because people are looking for reasons to do that, it's a giant

risk. And you know that Trump is not really big on facts and sort of runs over people and doesn't play by the rules. What confidence you have that he's going to. And if you're if you're Trump and you're now one-on-one on stage with the president and you've got to face off against a moderator who's probably going to call you on a lot of the things that you've said that are just not truthful and you run the risk of looking small or looking dumb. What's your incentive to doing that? Yeah. You know, Republicans are trying to shoehorn this idea of Biden's age being the preeminent issue in this election into the forefront here. From your perspective, is that argument persuasive or do you think that people are recognizing that this election will be?

a choice between two people. And so it's not just this idea of Biden's age in a vacuum. It's going to be him, yes, as the oldest president we've ever had, but against a lunatic like Donald Trump. Well, I listened to a podcast a few weeks ago that told me that this debate was settled. That's right. So I guess the issue is off the table now. Well, we will temporarily put it back on the table. It's back on the table. Okay, so now we've got to talk about it. I thought it was over. Look, do I think that Biden's age, even if it is a, a contest between two people. That is a part of the decision for a lot of people.

I mean, he's older. He is. Yeah. And the concept that should we have a president, because if he served out the whole next term at 86 years old, like, I think that's a legitimate discussion point. And yes, that you could be say, okay, well, that's one thing. But I think Trump wants to end the republic and doesn't believe in democracy itself and has appointed a bunch of lunatics and is running on the concept of retribution, you know,

maybe you say that's more important than the guy is a little old. Yeah. Right. Yeah. But the guy being a little old is a legitimate issue to talk about. Right. And if Trump is not the nominee, which is possible, and Joe Biden is running against any of the rest of them, Rhonda Santis or Nikki Haley or Tim Scott or any of these people who could

be his son or daughter, it's going to make him look. even older. And that's really problematic for him. That's why Trump is uniquely because he's close in age and he has all that baggage. It may not be as much of an issue against him, but it would be a huge issue against any of those other Republican nominees and really problematic for him. So I want to switch gears a little bit. We've been in the midst of this debt ceiling fight for a few weeks now. I don't want to talk about the debt ceiling fight specifically because I know that we run the risk of whatever we say immediately becoming obsolete because of how fast things are moving right now.

But more broadly, we have seen these far-right members of Congress, these House Freedom Caucus members, really make their presence known. They even put forward a threat for a motion to vacate against Kevin McCarthy that would basically put a vote to Congress, allowing them to rescind his speakership. How are these far-right Republicans, in your opinion, impacting the party's chances in this election?

Do you think that it's largely to their detriment, or do you think that this is what the Republicans, want to see more of, this sense of, of fight, of pushing back, of dragging their members as far to the right as they can. Well, the problem in answering that is, I don't know what the Republicans means, right? Because all of those members are doing what their constituents want to see. Most of those people are in very gerrymandered districts that are heavily Republican, heavily conservative media. But then why, to that point, like, why not recognize that if you're in an R plus 30 district,

but you want to keep your majority in the House, then why not moderate even just the slightest bit so that you can retain your House majority and not make it impossible for those 18 Republicans who are now sitting in Biden-carried districts to actually win so that you can hang on to your majority? Like, are they that short-sighted or that interested in just the momentary fundraise? push that they can get from saying the farthest right thing possible that they're just completely ignoring the broader picture here because they don't believe in government itself yeah that's fair right so what incentive do they have to make government work when their whole brand is government is

bullshit but they want to they doesn't negate the fact that they still want to be in control of that government that they also don't believe in that they also want to undermine it every turn they want to be in control so that they have more power to actually be able to do that do they do they I mean, yes, they do, but ultimately, most of those people are, you know, basically a chaos caucus. Yeah. They believe in chaos. Chaos is good. It's easier to, in some ways, for a lot of those people, it's probably easier not to be in control.

Yeah. Like for many years, the ratings on Fox News Channel were higher when there was a Democratic president because then they could talk shit about that person. The ratings on MSNBC were higher when there was a Republican president because people could come. and tune into that. Most of those people, their whole brand is based off of

fuck you. Fuck that person. And so that's what they have, it works for them. Governing is fucking hard. Yeah. It's hard. Well,

it took 15 votes just to pick a speaker for them. To get a speaker. And so, and governing on like coming up with a budget and like actually having to agree on stuff. So it's easier to just say

they suck. This is bad. No, no, no, no. When you actually have to say, yes on something, that's really difficult. And so what McCarthy, I think, is seeing on this is in order to really do stuff, he has to work with Democrats to come to some sort of compromise. But when your whole brand is never compromise, the other side is not only wrong but evil and the government

itself doesn't work, what incentive do you have to say, yes, let's find some nuanced deal that works for everybody? Yeah, that's a great point. And also, these people don't really seem to be there for that reason. They seem to be there, most of them. The ones that are popular anyway, are there to build their brands. Ted Cruz rivals the amount of content creation that I do, and the guy is supposed to be a U.S. Senator representing, what, 30 million people? So to your point exactly, like this, the incentive does seem to be there just to do whatever it takes to build their brands at all costs, regardless of whether it means that they're going to pass legislation or not, so long as they can get views and subscribers or donations or whatever

it is. And I'm not suggesting that all Republicans, fall in that camp. There are several, you know, good faith actors on the Republican side that have a different perspective on government that don't think taxes should be so high and that are trying to do the right thing. But there are some members that are bad faith actors who are not that interested in governing. And that's really challenging for Kevin McCarthy who now has to govern. Well, I guess does that explain why on the issue of abortion, we've seen, And since this issue has come to the forefront because of the Dobbs' decision being passed down, we've seen Republicans just get absolutely hammered, electorally speaking.

And at the same time, they're still doubling down. We've got a six-week abortion ban in Florida now. We've got abortion bans in South Carolina. And so even though this issue has been absolute kryptonite to them in the individual states, and even nationally speaking, still they continue to double down. So where is the rationality? Or is it just that they don't care? They don't care how much they break it.

They just, they've got control for this short bit of time and they're going to use it and seize that power and do whatever they want with it regardless of what happens in the future for this very moment now. Well, on abortion, I mean, there are good faith actors who believe that abortion is murder. But don't, don't, I mean, these people, and I hear you, I understand what they're saying and they have this sliver of time where they can actually get this stuff passed and so why not? But if you believe that abortion is murder and that allowing it is a sin and that, your sort of responsibility as a good Christian is to stop it, then that is more important than political poll numbers. Now, of course, there are craven political operators who have manipulated those people's fears to win elections for years and fundraise on the issue. But there are people that actually really do believe that. And some of them are in Congress that are like true believers.

And so Mike Pence, like true believer in that. Yeah. Been a cause for him. him for 50 years, right? And so that's what you do. And he's made the point that that's more important than losing an election, basically. Yeah. This is, this is a sin. And so that you, even though losing an election would, would open the door for all of that to be overturned then. Because, I mean, you know, if they, if they lose enough seats, they'll lose control of the states and then they can have that stuff overturned. If they lose enough seats nationally speaking in the federal government, then we can get some type of federal law codifying row. But I don't know the Bible verse that. said let's do a sophisticated nuance compromise if you're really really into that and in some ways

give those people credit for like really believing what they believe the the the sort of balancing political interests and all the rest of that is much more much more complicated but again it goes back to okay if you're just doing it on the craven political side what about the the you know the primary voter is more important a lot of times than the general election voter because you don't win with the primary borer, you don't even get to the general election. Yeah, perhaps. But, I mean, you know, Republicans have to turn around and see, like, the only way to win these elections moving forward is to keep those, I mean, at a bare minimum, keep those soft

Republicans, much less those independents who you need. And without those people, you're losing, you're losing states that you're, you're losing Nevada, you're losing Arizona, you're losing Georgia, you're losing Michigan and Wisconsin. And I think of all the things that Ron DeSantis has. has done recently in his bid to win over the Republican base, fighting with Disney, doing all the transgender stuff, don't say gay bill, all of that. The six-week abortion ban that he signed in Florida

is politically the most toxic thing that he's done. Because it is clear to a general election that that could be damaging. That's like a nuclear bomb that could go off in his face. And you can see the ads. now from Joe Biden and Kamala Harris and everybody else constantly tying Ron DeSantis to the idea that he wants a six-week abortion ban. And that is something that could really, really hurt him going forward. And by the way, he had an out on that issue. He had a relatively, and I say

relative meaning relative to the other abortion bans that are being passed, but he had a relatively moderate abortion man in a 15-week abortion ban, which, to be clear, is still draconian and completely unacceptable, but relative to what we've seen in a number of other states, that 15-week abortion ban was not so blatant. And then he just went ahead and passed that six-week abortion ban. I don't know that he gained any more support from the far right by virtue of going from 15 weeks to six weeks, but I can absolutely guarantee you that he's shed support from those softers and those independents and those Republican-leaning Democrats, whoever they may be, by virtue of going even farther extreme than he even needed to.

signing an abortion bill, Ron DeSantis signing an abortion ban bill, makes him radioactive in a lot of swing states. And that is a message that Democrats know how to pound home. That's how they won all the last elections. And by the way, you know who knows that? Donald Trump. I mean, Donald Trump, for all of his flaws, and I know your listeners think he have many, he's got a pretty good insight into what people like.

Like. That's why he's obsessed with ratings. That's why he's obsessed with crowd size. That's why he acts like a standup comic going out and testing lines in front of audiences to see what works and what doesn't. He understands and he understands that most Americans don't like the idea of an abortion ban. Most Americans don't. Even though his justices, of course, are the reason that one is put in place. Donald Trump, who was pro choice for almost his entire life. who, you know, is the guy who got in trouble for sex with the porn star. Yeah. Probably not Mr. Anti-abortion for his whole life. Yeah, but at the same time, he did talk about an unforced error. He came out and basically took full credit for installing those three justices who then passed the dobs. He's trying to thread the needle. He's trying to have it both ways, which is what he does for his whole life.

And obviously, that's an issue he's going to have to talk about later. But it's, I think he knows in his gut, if you look at the way he's acted on abortion, he's to stay away from that in a way that other people haven't because he knows how politically damaging that issue is. Yeah, I still think that the way that he's undermined his own argument, and he may have had plausible deniability by not coming out and saying the things that Ron DeSantis has said or Ron DeSantis has done, but at the same time, he does, just by virtue of speaking freely when he thinks he's just trying to pander to the people in his base, he's already screwed

himself by taking full credit for Dobbs. And it's not like that ad isn't going to run on an endless loop if he becomes the nominee. from, you know, from January to November. And of course, on the actual substance of it, that's ridiculous because he's more responsible for abortion being illegal than anybody else on the planet because he's the guy who appointed the justices that overturned it.

And it wasn't a huge surprise that any of those three would have been interested in doing that despite Susan Collins and her letters that she said that are disturbing. Apparently Susan Collins wasn't listening or watching the same show that everybody else in the country was. Yeah. But, but, and this is, this goes for everything, too, right? He's going to attack Ron DeSantis on earned benefits on slashing Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. All Donald Trump's budgets did the exact same thing. So he'll keep hammering DeSantis. And to his credit, he probably knows that most of his base isn't going to fact. Most of his base isn't going to know, they're just going to listen to Donald Trump say something and then just parrot it. And they're going to say, oh, we'll attack DeSantis on, on this exact thing, regardless of the fact that Donald Trump himself is guilty of doing the exact same thing when he was in office. But the brilliant thing that he's done from a political tactician perspective, not from a journalism perspective or the right thing to do, is just lie about everything.

So whenever he's called out on something, he just says it's not true. And that works for most of his people. It has worked for his people. The problem is that base is not big enough right now to win a general election. In order to win the general election, he either needs to convince so many people that Joe Biden is so test. terrible that you've got to come with him, or he's got to find people that didn't vote in previous elections and add them to his base. Alex, let's get a little bit more local here.

You are the guy in California. Thank you. And I'm just curious how the California Senate race is shaping up, because we've got three exceedingly popular candidates running right now, I think, among others maybe, but I'm talking about the three primary candidates. So how's that Senate race going? Well, it's really interesting. So for people that aren't following that closely, of course, Diane Feinstein.

is retiring in 2025. There's been some talk, and I'm sure a lot of your listeners are wondering, is she going to retire before then? From every indication I have from everybody that knows her, she is not interested at all in retiring before then. So we think that the race is going to stay the way that it is right now, which is Adam Schiff versus Katie Porter versus Barbara Lee, all three very popular Democratic members of Congress from California. There's a Republican name Eric Early, who is an attorney who ran against Adam Schiff for Congress and lost, ran for Attorney General on the Republican side and lost. A recent poll actually showed that Eric Early was in the lead because he's got all the

Republicans behind him, and Schiff, Porter, and Lee are breaking up the other Democrats. The real interesting dynamic will be because the way we do primaries in California is it's not a Democratic primary and Republican primary. It's an open primary where everybody runs and everybody gets to vote. And then the top two face off in November, whether that's Democrat versus Republican, Democrat versus Democrat. You would think that the general election would be Democrat versus Democrat, but can Eric Early get enough votes, enough Republicans behind him to potentially be in the top two slot, which would essentially mean that whoever comes as the top Democrat in that primary would then be the senator from California. or does Eric Early not get enough, Porter and Schiff or Lee or somebody else gets enough to be in the top two?

And then you have a very close, very expensive race going forward. We don't know yet. All the polls show that the race is very close. It's going to be very expensive. California is the biggest, most expensive state with the most voters. We haven't had a competitive Senate race, a real, real competitive Senate race since 1992. So this state is due for a big, expensive brawl. And do we have any indication as to whether another Republican will be jumping in

or have Republicans kind of made the tacit decision to allow Early to be their one guy to have the best chance at consolidating all that power on the right? Well, I don't think Eric Early is like the GOP choice. I think he's just a guy who wanted to do it. Yeah. I, you know, when I spoke to Kevin McCarthy about this, he was sort of hinting that there were people that they were interested. But the problem is, you know, if you're Kevin McCarthy, like a Republican is almost certainly not going to win the general election based off of just the registration of California.

Right. So like if you're Kevin McCarthy, you don't want one of your sort of star Republicans from the House to run for this because it's kind of a suicide mission, right? And so if you're in a competitive race, you, and a lot of the congressional races in California are close and will be close next time around. So you want to dedicate your time and money in trying to keep the House majority, which you may not be able to keep. And the Senate race is kind of is bad for you. But also, if you're Kevin McCarthy and it's two Democrats at the top of the ticket in November, that hurts down ticket because it doesn't give the Republicans somebody to vote for it. It makes it less likely for them to vote in the general election. And it increases Democratic performance probably in the House races.

And that was going to be my point. I actually think that Kevin McCarthy has every incentive in the world. even if it means sacrificing somebody. And granted, we know that the House race is going to be close. But if it means sacrificing somebody so that Republicans have the best chance at getting on that final ballot against Adam Schiff or Katie Porter, because if it's Schiff versus Porter, then for the first time, probably since 1992,

Democrats are going to have so much of an incentive to come out and that's going to have such major down-ballot impacts. And in a state where we've kind of struggled, except for 2018, where we were able to flip most of Orange County. But otherwise Democrats... Yeah. Otherwise, Democrats have had, you know, we've, a number of these states that Democrats weren't able to win in 2022 were the result of just kind of, you know, whereas we have states like Michigan and Wisconsin and Arizona who were able to turn out because all the attention was on them, a lot of the drawbacks came from New York and California, these liberal bastions, because there wasn't that major race at the top of the ticket to draw all of these people out. If we have that by virtue of a shift Katie Porter Senate race, which like you, you said is probably going to be the most expensive Senate race or one of the most expensive Senate races in the country, then I think that really does redound to Democrats benefit.

And, of course, the House races in California are close because we do something which I know you don't love that California does, which is nonpartisan commission picks the districts and tries to make them close on purpose. And there isn't gerrymandering in California anymore. We have these super democratic. Which, by the way, I'm fine with so long as it's a national. The challenge is you're doing that in the most Democratic state in the country, which results in probably Republicans winning or having a competitive shot at a lot more House districts than they would if Democrats got to draw all the lines. And so because of that, there are probably seven to ten seats in California that are legitimately up for grabs. And California could determine who's in control of the House next time around.

And a shift porter primary would absolutely draw enough Democrats out to... Shift Porter, general election. General election. Well, yeah, sorry, I call it a primary in the sense that I'm thinking about it in terms of that. But the general election, yeah, that would draw enough Democrats out and voting to really have some major down-ballot impacts here. So it remains to be seen. But judging by what you've seen thus far, and I know this is kind of an impossible question to answer, but what is it looking like at this moment in time?

If you had to give a snapshot of now, because obviously you can't predict what's going to happen a year and a half into the future. But as of today, if this election happened, what would it most likely result in? I mean, I think so far, Porter and Schiff have demonstrated the most strength when it comes to fundraising. Between those two? I don't know. I honestly don't know. I think it's really close. Or is it just that close? Is it looking like a 50-50?

All of the polls have been close. I mean, we've got a long ways to go. Hopefully, you know, when I get to host the first debate and it's really influential in everybody, tunes in, then we'll get a better sense when you get to see them match up against each other. I mean, it's clear. It's clear one. It's clear that Adam Schiff has most of the institutional democratic support. He's got Nancy Pelosi behind him. He's got most of the members of Congress. He's got a lot of money and that is on one side. But it's also clear that Katie Porter has a lot of support from the grassroots, you know, from the Elizabeth Warren kind of Democrats,

People that aren't maybe as much as part of the establishment, but love, you know, watching her appearances on MSNBC. And so that's a big chunk of California, too. So we really don't know. And it's also in my incentive. I have a lot of incentive to not say. To just be honest. Yeah. Alex, what are your summer plans here before we get into the storm that is 2024?

Yeah, hopefully to take a little bit of time away from all this stuff, as fun as it is. I mean, really, my goal is to spend as much time with Brian Tyler Cohen as possible. Well, I hope you enjoy being in this room. What about you, Brian? Well, I'm actually taking my first vacation in about three years, and it's happening while this airs, actually. Otherwise, for the rest of the summer, it's a little bit of travel here and there. I'll, of course, be working throughout it. But yeah, just kind of sticking with the status quo and trying to give myself a little bit of time to go.

So honestly, vacation for me is trying to find a way to finish at like 7 p.m. And then I'm happy. And you say filming somewhere else because you take your gear with you on vacation, right? I don't think I've traveled. I don't think I've traveled anywhere since I started making these videos since I started doing this podcast where I've been completely unplugged. So whenever I travel anywhere, I have an entire separate set for a mobile studio. I bring camera, teleprompter, sound equipment, lights, the whole.

thing, all stands and everything, they go with me wherever I, wherever I travel to. But is it possible that if you focused on your mental health gave yourself a bit of recharge, that that might actually give you more juice going forward and you might do better? Yeah, 100%. But like, good luck convincing me of that beyond, like, of course I understand that, but it's hard to, it's hard to kind of unplug and allow yourself to not be on the air to not reach those people. And it's just, you know, There's a big difference between what I know to be true and what I allow myself to do. Well, and speaking of success, congrats, this is an anniversary episode of your podcast, right? This is, how many years are we at now?

This is the three-year anniversary. And, you know, I remember this episode right here is the three-year anniversary of the podcast. And I remember you were the one person that I consulted with before I even started the show. And kind of, you know, you've done your show for how long now the issue is? We're at five years. Five years. And so just kind of sat down with you to ask what that was like. and yeah so week one was was ron clain who was out of office right yeah in the wilderness and did

this as a favor to you yeah right everybody did it the first the first 30 guests probably did it as a favor of me and you still do it oh no it's fun i enjoy it um and and so what are your feelings or your thoughts on on this third anniversary and what you've built in this community and the people listening now yeah i you know i'm i'm obviously first and foremost like super grateful for people, especially the people in the beginning, because it was so hard. I mean, it's still really hard to get people. And I know you and I have spoken about this. Like, there are weeks where it's just like, how is it this difficult to get somebody to talk to me for 10 minutes? But, you know, super grateful for those early people, especially for, you know, Ron Clayne and Beto and Eric Swalwell.

There were early people who, you know, when nobody else would respond to emails, those people kind of were conversing, you know, Beto came on and just spoke. to me directly. He was he was messaging me directly and he was like, sure, I'll come on. And there's people like that who I'm very grateful for because they helped, you know, they, they kind of just took a, took a risk and they didn't know who I was, some punk YouTuber, you know. So, but yeah, I mean, I'm, you know, obviously really proud of the way, the way that it's progressed now. It culminated into a interview at the White House, which was pretty awesome. And now I think it's just a great way for, you know, to do what the goal has always been, which is to reach out to a lot more candidate.

and I've spoken, you know, in just the last couple weeks to Lucas Coons and Colin Allred, who are running against Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz respectively, and to use this platform to kind of introduce my audience to people who I think deserve to be out there and who may not get a fair shake on legacy media, on broadcast media. And so, and there's obviously a lot of eyeballs on independent media, on YouTube, on, you know, on podcast and stuff. So it's important to pick up the slack for those people. And got to be fun also to, like, sort of dig a little deeper beyond just the sort of short video. As opposed to these four or five minute cable hits,

you know, which are the norm, but a lot of people want to go deeper into the stuff and find out who these people are and what the positions are as opposed to like two sound bites and then move on, you know? Right. Well, congrats. You've built something really special. Thank you and thanks for... We've built a great studio here. Congrats on that, too.

Thank you. And thanks for coming on. And Alex, for those watching, listening. Where can we see and hear more from you? All right. Well, you know, especially great thing to tune into this week is our interview with Brian Tyler Cohen. So if you're already on the fan club, you know, why not tune into that?

So if you go to YouTube.com slash Alex Michelson, that's E-L-E-X, M-I-C-H-A-E-L-S-O-N, you can see our past interview with Brian. I also put out our show in podcast form as well. If you like podcasts, just search for The Issue is wherever you stream. And I'm at Alex Michelson and all the social channels, too.

I would love to hear from you, and especially love if you share out the Brian episode. Awesome. Alex, as always, thanks for taking the time. Thank you very much. Enjoy your vacation slash work party. Thanks again to Alex, and just a quick thank you to everyone listening. As Alex mentioned, this is the show's three-year anniversary. I cannot tell you how grateful I am for a little bit of your time each week.

I know that there are a million podcasts out there, so I don't take for granted in the slightest you spending some time listening to this one. So again, thank you for listening, and I'll talk to you next week. You've been listening to No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen, produced by Sam Graber, music by Wellesie, interviews captured and edited for YouTube and Facebook by Nicholas Nicotera, and recorded in Los Angeles, California. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe on your preferred podcast app. Feel free to leave a five-star rating and a review, and check out Briantylercoen.com for links to all of my other channels.