No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen - Trump pulls most CORRUPT stunt of second term

Episode Date: April 19, 2026

Trump is in the process of looting the federal government to the tune of $10 billion. Brian interviews Congressman Jared Moskowitz about Pam Bondi’s failure to appear for the April 14 deposition, Alex Wagner about the Republicans refusing to reign in Trump’s Iran war, and California Attorney General Rob Bonta about Ticketmaster-Livenation’s landmark loss in court. Subscribe to Runaway Country: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/runaway-country-with-alex-wagner/id1408796715Shop 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.

Trump is in the process of looting the federal government to the tune of $10 billion. And I've got three interviews. Congressman Jared Moskowitz talks about Pam Bondi's failure to appear for the April 14th deposition. Alex Wagner joins to discuss the Republicans refusing to rein in Trump's Iran war. And California Attorney General Rob Banta talks about the Ticketmaster Live Nation landmark loss in court. I'm Brian Tyler Cohen, and you're listening to No Lie. So Donald Trump is currently in talks to settle a $10 billion lawsuit. Pretty normal.

Trump is always suing someone. or some entity for some exorbitant amount of money, only this one's a little bit different because this lawsuit is against the IRS, his own IRS, the agency he oversees as president of the United States. So here's the backstory. A former IRS contractor named Charles Littlejohn

had leaked Trump's tax returns to media outlets back in 2019 and 2020. You might remember those returns revealed that Trump paid little to no federal income taxes in many of those years. Now, Little John pleaded guilty. He was sentenced to five years in prison. So, yes, he was caught, prosecuted, punished, the system worked.

But Trump decided that wasn't enough. He decided $10 billion of your money wasn't enough to leave on the table. His lawyers have argued that even though Little John was technically a contractor, that he acted as a joint employee of the IRS, and therefore the government is on the hook for his actions. And by government being on the hook, that means taxpayer funds. That means your money and my money. That means the same money Republicans tell us we can't spend on housing or health care

or veterans because we have to worry about the deficit. But here's where it goes from outrageous to just outright corrupt. Trump is negotiating the settlement with his own government. The Justice Department lawyers who represent the IRS, they report to him. The IRS itself, that's part of the executive branch, which he runs. He is both the plaintiff and in effect, the defendant. And even Trump himself has acknowledged how absurd this is. He literally said, quote, I'm supposed to work out a settlement with myself.

In a Friday filing in Miami federal court, both sides asked the judge to pause the case for 90 days to avoid, quote, protracted litigation, which is another way of saying that they want to just wrap this up quickly and quietly out of the public eye before anybody can scrutinize it too hard. After all, why subject yourself to public litigation when you can just quietly negotiate with yourself and award yourself billions? Now, Senators Ron Wyden and Elizabeth Warren said that Congress designed the relevant law to, quote, provide compensation. for proven harm not to confer $10 billion windfalls to a president seeking to line his own pockets at taxpayer expense. And Democratic lawmakers have now introduced a bill that would ban the president, vice president, and their families from collecting lawsuit settlement payments from the government altogether, which is apparently a thing that needs to be done now. Thanks to a president whose battle cry upon taking office was that we had to eliminate waste fraud and abuse. A president who told

us every dollar of government spending needed to be scrutinized. A president who created an entire department, Doge, supposedly dedicated to stopping government waste. These are the people who slashed Medicaid and food stamps and education funding and cancer research all in the name of fiscal responsibility. And yet now, everybody on the right is conspicuously silent as Trump yet again pilferes the treasury to line his own pockets to the tune of billions. Something these people would have a collective aneurysm over if one one hundredth of it was happening at the hands of a Democrat. And by the way, rightfully so. But because it's Trump, they're fine with it. Because it was never about the money, it was always about

whose money and whose pocket it ends up in. So when J.D. Vance says this. Look, I think people don't have any idea how bad the corruption is in Washington, D.C. Now you know who he's talking about. Next up are my interviews with Jared Moskowitz, Alex Wagner, and Rob Bonta. No Lie, is brought to you by Zbiotics pre-alcohol.

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so if you're unsatisfied for any reason, they'll refund your money, no questions asked. remember to head to Zbiotics.com slash BTC and use the code BTC at checkout for 15% off. I'm joined now by Congressman Jared Moskowitz. Congressman, thanks for joining me. Hey, Brian, how's it going? So we have an update here as it relates to Pam Bondi's schedule deposition that was supposed to take place. Oh, tell me.

What's the update? Supposed to have taken place April 14th. Obviously, that date came and went like a fart in a hurricane. She didn't show up. So is Congress going to. relinquish its desire to have her come and testify now that she's no longer AG? Well, first let me say, you know, this was the scenario that many Democrats, myself included, were concerned about, which is, you know, the Republicans threatening to hold the Clinton in contempt

if they didn't show up. Would they hold that state standard if it were Pam Bondi or a Republican that was subpoenaed? And now we're finding out it's unclear if the same people that subpoena Pam Bondi are willing to hold her in contempt. To be clear, she has to show up. The subpoena has nothing to do with her being attorney general. It's her. She has to go.

And so, you know, she didn't show up at the current date. They're renegotiating maybe for a second date. But if she does not show, if she's unwilling to come, then she needs to be held in contempt. The committee needs to hold her in contempt. And then Congress will need to hold her in contempt. That's how this needs to work. Or you know what? Congressional subpoenas no longer matter.

Also, this will get resolved because Robert Garcia most likely will be chair of that committee in January. So really, if she's not held in contempt for the next. in the next five or six months, she'll be held in contempt immediately in January for not showing up. That being said, the flip side of that is, I mean, look, can you blame her? I mean, who wants to spend four hours with James Comer? Right. I mean, I don't blame her for not wanting to go and be in a basement with James for four hours. So, you know, on that respect, I side with the former attorney general. Well, look, I think that that was an astute point about the fact that they had such harsh words for the Clintons, the prospect of Hillary Clinton not coming in, even though she had

nothing to do with Jeffrey Epstein. And yet, and James Comer and these other Republicans were perfectly content to threaten contempt. And yet now you have the attorney general who has a lawfully issued subpoena was supposed to be there on April 14th. That date came and went. And now we haven't heard, you know, we haven't heard James Comer utter a single word about him. And Brian, we got real questions for the former attorney general. I mean, first of all, why did you give out the binders to the influencers to the beginning of this. Then why did you say the list was on your desk? Then why did you say there was no list? Why did the administration say tell all the Republicans this was a Democratic hoax and MAGA for falling for the Democratic hoax? Were you

instructed to make to not release any of the files by the president or the White House? Why did the White House say that this was a hostile act for anyone who wanted to sign up, any Republican who wanted to sign up for the discharge petition. When we brought, when Republicans started signing that discharge petition, why did you bring some of those Republicans into the situation room? You know, the place where the president goes when we're at a time of war. Why did you tell Republicans, if they got their name off the discharge petition, you would put stuff in the budget for them, or you might primary them if they don't take their name off the discharge of petition. Pam Bondi was supposedly in the situation room. Why did Cash Patel under Pam Bondi under oath say that

Jeffrey Epstein only trafficked girls to himself when we know, obviously, there were co-conspirators who names were redacted. Why were those names redacted? Why were victims' names released? Why did Cash Patel say Trump's name is only in there less than 100 times when it was in there, obviously more times than Harry Potter's name was in the books about Harry Potter? These are legitimate questions that she should answer under oath in a deposition. And so this is going to happen one way or another. Hopefully the Republicans hold themselves to the same standards that they were holding themselves to a couple months ago when it came to a former president and a former Secretary of State, people who were out of office, obviously.

Do you think it was a coincidence that Pam Bondi was unceremoniously fired from her job just two weeks before she was supposed to appear for this sworn deposition? Well, look, I don't know the answer to that. My guess, it's a totality of things. Same thing would happen with Christine Nome. I think it was a totality of things. But I don't think the committee hearings for either Christine Nome who, you know, couldn't say on the record, whether she was, you know, having an affair with Corey Lewandowski and, you know, obviously blamed the president for her ad in which she gave a no-bid contract to her friends to a company that was 11 days old and, you know, spent, you know, $30,000 on horses.

You know, the same thing with Pam Bondi, right? I mean, obviously the Epstein debacle that she was in charge of, you know, and then that congressional hearing was, I mean, maybe one of the worst of the last two years. And so, you know, there were other things, my guess, that were involved, but I don't think the president fired her to get her out of the depot. My guess is that there was a lot of stuff that we saw, some stuff that we didn't. So there is a moment where Donald Trump was asked today if he believes that there should be a public hearing for the Epstein survivors. And his response was, I'm okay with that,

but I understand the women didn't want to go under oath. That's what I heard, that the victims are whatever, they refuse to go under oath. Your reaction to that quote. Well, that's not true. I mean, they're showing up to the hearing. right? They're very, a lot of them are being very public of who they are. And by way, they don't have to come. Right. If we have an open invitation and a hearing and some survivors want to come and some survivors don't, it's their option, but we should provide them that opportunity. It's not

mandated. We're not going to subpoena the witnesses, right? We'd invite them and if they want to come, they can come and speak. And so if he supports them of us having a hearing to give them a time to talk to the American people, that's fantastic. It only took them 18 months to get there. But look, I hope that happens. I think that they deserve that the least Congress could offer them. Last question on Pam Bondi. You know, there is a world where even if and when Robert Garcia takes the chairmanship of the oversight committee, and Pam Bondi is again subpoena to appear before the committee, that even if she defies her congressional subpoena,

she would just kind of leave it in the hands of Todd Blanche, whoever the attorney general is, and Donald Trump to actually prosecute her to move that forward. It's not like Congress has... Yeah, but she can lose her bar license. Okay. You know, so, you know, yes, you know, if the committee would then hold her in contempt

and then Congress would hold her in contempt, obviously you would need the Department of Justice to decide to move on that, but it would start causing her problems in her private world. You know, she would lose her bar, she would lose her bar license. So it's not without significant repercussions to her.

And I also hope we don't get there. I mean, a former attorney general, right, deciding not to come and testify in a deposition to defy a subpoena of Congress. You know, again,

I hope it doesn't get there. I hope she does the right thing, just like the Clintons did. I hope she comes and understands the Article 1, let, we are Article 1, legislative authority that we have, and complies with that subpoena.

I want to change to a different topic here, and that's the feud that's exploding between Donald Trump and the Pope. And so the Pope issued a statement this morning where he said, woe to those who manipulate religion and the very name of God for their own military, economic, or political gain, dragging that which is sacred into darkness and filth. Do you think that is a sub-tweet on somebody? Well, first of all, it's weird to see Jesus and the Pope fighting. Okay. That's right.

No, I mean, that's weird. All right. First of all, you might be referring to that picture of Donald Trump as a doctor. So I want to be totally fair here. This is him as a medical professional. Right. It was him just taking the Hippocratic oath. You're correct.

I apologize for my misrepresentation. By the way, do you think this was like workshopped in the White House or like he's just, he's just riffing? Like, do you think they were like, okay, we need to figure out how to change the subject, flood the zone, the thing that they do? And they were like, who could we start a fight with? They're like, oh, I don't know. How about the Pope? That'll really appeal to Catholics. Yeah.

I mean, look, like, we have, we have seen so many distractions from distractions. When you have Melania coming out and issuing a statement on Epstein because the Iran war, which was a distraction from Epstein, is all getting so out of control. And you have just like distractions from the distractions from the distractions. I think that's a testament to how things are going in this White House. Yeah, something tells me this is not what the president's people want him to be doing. just like, you know, maybe, you know, we know the president has always considered himself, Jesus. Yeah. But maybe like the imagery was not, was not the right way for him to go. But, you know,

look, he wants to change the subject. He doesn't want to talk about the economy. He doesn't want to talk about the Iran war. So, you know, here's a distraction. But, you know, I can't believe I'm going to quote Laura Ingram, but it was actually a good quote. She said to the president, you don't have to swing at every pitch, Mr. President. And he should have left this one alone. I mean, look, he does. That's who he is. I mean, there's no, there's, like, he never lets sleeping dogs lie. There's never a moment where he doesn't feel like he needs to have a take.

Well, it's a double down, triple down, right? The reason why, I think the reason why he's doubling and tripling down now on the Pope is that's really a double and triple down on the image he deleted. Okay. They're connected. Okay. I mean, don't tell me, like, he's fighting with the Pope within 24 hours of the photo of him as a doctor. Yeah.

Okay. So, yeah, yeah, they're connected. This is, this is doubling and tripling down on that, you know, without talking about it, you know, so, you know, everyone's like stop fighting with the Pope and, you know, you double, you triple down. It's offense all the time. And, and, and that might work nine, nine times out of ten. It's not going to work here. Do you think that this has some, some impact on the margins? And I ask this because, look, we have all seen these instances where Donald Trump, you know, picks a fight with somebody, picks a fight with some sacred figure. He, he's, he's, he's, he's, He's done it a million times, and, you know, like, we see this and we're like, oh, that's going to, that's going to hurt him with whatever group, you know, that person represents.

And ultimately, folks come back home to Trump. And so I'm just curious, in this instance, you know, given the position that the Pope holds, if you think that this is going to have some impact on the margins for him as he continues to escalate this fight. So this is not happening in a vacuum, right? This is happening in the totality of things. So do I think, you know, if you were just fighting with the Pope, 10 months ago, would it really matter? Right? No, it wouldn't matter as much then as it will now

when gas is $5, right? And, you know, we had two American shot in the streets while folks are roaming the streets wearing masks, right? You know, like you add all of this stuff in totality. And so the people who would have given him grace in the past, I just think maybe they stay home, maybe they don't vote. The independents who, you know, maybe went his way 18 months ago now decide not to go his way. And so it just, it adds, it constantly piles up. And that's why I do think it matters. I think his, his, his room for major mistakes now, I think is not the same as it was, call it 10, 12 months ago. Last question here. And I want to go to a little bit of a different topic. And that is, Ron DeSantis will be calling a special legislative session in your home state of

Florida at the end of April. Yeah, I heard something about that. Tell me what's going Brian. So what's going on with it? I got two questions here. One, is, is it a mistake for DeSantis to try and move forward with yet another gerrymander, especially in light of the swings that we're seeing right now? And so if he draws these districts where he has to dilute Republicans from safer red districts to put them in these blue districts to get them to flip, and we're seeing, you know, 12, 14, 16, 20 point swings to the left. He may actually draw a dummymander, which leaves more democratic seats in place in the aftermath of midterms. So that's my first question.

Is it a mistake for DeSantis to do this? And second, is your seat one that you would presume he would be targeting? Well, let me say this. You know, right now I think it just was announced that the governor moved this session a week later. My guess is they're monitoring what happens in Virginia. If Virginia, if that passes and they wind up doing rediscovering. discerging in Virginia, I think there's a three or four suite seats swing there. Florida probably will look to even that out, which is, you know, why this should never

have started in the first place with Texas doing what they did. California then had to even it out. This is bad for everybody. It's bad for the American people. It's creating more partisanship. It means that Congress won't be able to function. And, you know, there'll be 15 or 20 seats that we fight about nationally and races are going to cost $30, $40 million as there's less and less seats.

for, you know, that are swing seats. Right. So that's number one. Number two is, you know, listen, you just listen to my Republican colleagues. They're worried about redistricting. They're the ones who are going on record saying that they think this is a mistake for 26. The governor drew the current districts.

The current districts were in he drew. And so the idea that there was a problem with them when he drew them, I don't think, this is obviously all about redistricting. It's going to be a problem in the courts. In Florida, we don't have a statute that prohibits this. We have constitutional language that prohibits it. The voters put this in the Florida Constitution, barring political gerrymandering, barring, targeting incumbents.

But I mean, that provision existed in the Constitution before, and Ronda Santis was able to get the existing gerrymander through. So it's not like, it doesn't seem to me like these Florida Supreme Court justices are sticklers for originalism. Well, that's what happens when you get to a point six of the seven, justices currently on the court. So look, I'd rather be him than us in the way the dynamics are set up. My seat, which was your second question, my seat's the closest seat in the state. It's a D plus two. So the idea that it's not going to be targeted, my seat will be targeted because it's just,

it's just the math. So we're going to have to see what they do. It's unclear. My guess is that there are probably multiple versions and we're going to figure out which one they go with publicly when we see the map. There won't be a process in the legislature. The governor will draw the map. It'll go to a committee in the House. It'll go to a committee in the Senate. They'll pass it. They'll go to Florida. They'll pass it. This is probably done in three or four days, which is different than we've seen in some of these other states. Right, right, including the existing fight that's taking place in Virginia right now, where just like California, it's going to go to people to actually decide what happens here. If this were to go to the voter, my guess is if this were to go to the voters in

Florida, they would turn this down. What will you do? What are your options here in front of you? Well, I got to see what the district looks like. Okay. You know, obviously I'm running for reelection right now. I'm committed to that process. But, you know, I also know math, right? So I think in 26, you know, Democrats are well positioned. I usually, you know, perform five points better than the Democratic candidate at the top of the ticket to my district.

You know, plus if the generic Democratic balloting is up, you know, I'm in a very good position to win, even, you know, a decent Republican seat. But we have to see what they do. And then depending upon how far they go, Brian. how far they really challenge what's called fair districts, which is what the voters put in the Constitution, we'll have to see, obviously, what the court does as well. Right. Okay. Well, we will, of course, stay on top of this. Congressman, thanks so much for taking the time today. I appreciate it. Thanks, Brian. No lies brought to you by Helix. So I was a personal trainer for about a decade before I got into politics. And I would tell people every day how to be healthy, how to exercise,

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Alex, thanks for joining me. Thank you for having me, my friends. Great to be here. So we have just watched as the Republicans finally had the ability to reign in Trump in Congress with this unpopular war, something that's been weighing not just Trump's approval ratings down, but the rest of the party's approval ratings down with this war powers resolution. And instead of using their own autonomy to rein him in, they decided to give him control and and block this vote.

And so I'm just curious what your thoughts are as we, as we watch the Republicans kind of say, you know what? We could have used our authority to reign Trump in, but instead we decided to give him full rein here. And so we own this as much as he does. I just, you know, I got to say the, the, what is it, the gelding. That's the term I've been using. The castration of Republican power really, to me, reached its apex in and around this,

because this is also the same week that the Cook political report moved four key Senate races towards the Democratic side of the ledger. And you could argue that the only reason Republicans pledge undying fealty and loyalty to Donald Trump is because they're concerned that he's that reason they remain in power. But literally, everything Trump is doing right now is endangering their prospects of getting reelected to say nothing of control of Congress, right? Like if you see, I mean, forget about the moral question, right? Like should we even be engaged in slaughtering thousands of Iranians and Lebanese?

Like should we should we be doing this all in America's name with no particular achievements viable at the end of all of this? Tactically and strategically, the gas prices that are not going to come down for at least several weeks, if not months, the energy shortages, the fuel shortages that are affecting almost every sector of the global economy. All this is not good news for any Republican strategically. They were given an opportunity to say, no, we don't agree with this. And they didn't take it. Like, to me, that to me that distills the essence of the modern day Republican Party. It's not simply the naked pursuit of power. It's a cowardice that knows no basement, right? Like, they are so terrified of him that they'll see not only their independent governing authority,

they will see their election prospects and the ability to remain in power. just so that Trump doesn't get mad at them. That is some wild shit, Brian. It is. And the part that doesn't make sense to me is like, okay, and you brought, and you had just alluded to this was the reason that they're so eager to hug him is because they don't want, you know, a mean tweet, God forbid, or a primary challenger, God forbid, to emerge from his ire. But if hugging Trump in and of itself is what's dragging them down, then then like what is the rationale for continuing to do. do it. I don't know. I mean, I think, look, I think, does someone, I actually keep meaning to look this up, but like, when is the last Republican primary for 2028? Because I guess the thinking

is they got to get through primary season. And once they do that, maybe they can have a little more, they can establish a little bit more daylight between them and the executive branch. But I am. I'm like, don't hold your breath on that. Right. And it's, and it's also so transparent what they would be trying to do. Okay, so you get through the entire primary process where, you're, you know, you become the general election nominee. And only then do you suddenly realize that, hey, maybe the, maybe the war that I helped green light wasn't a good idea. Maybe the gas prices that surged as the result of me contracting every ounce of my autonomy

over to Trump isn't a good idea. I mean, like everything you can trace back to their own unwillingness to speak up when they actually had the opportunity to do so. Totally. I mean, I think that they think they're good. Like they have, I mean, I will say, they have managed to wipe their hands of any of the sort of, or they have tried to wipe their hands and wipe their feet, as it were. of any of the most negative stinky shit

the Trump administration is thrown at the American public, I don't think they can do this on the war in Iran. I really don't. And I mean that because, you know, again, I'm not a CNBC analyst and I don't follow the market nor my petroleum engineer.

But it seems to me that the effects of this war are going to be long lasting. And the ultimate idiocy with which Trump has conducted himself, we're going to end up with a harder line regime in place than there was at the beginning. Iran is going to retain. some control of a body of water that it had no claim to before the start of this war.

And in the meantime, you know, the Philippines is on a four-day work week. Like, people, jet fuel prices are rising. Gas is going to be over $4 a barrel or a gallon for the next, at least into Memorial Day. Like, those are tangible effects of this that the American public is not, I think, easily going to forget in addition to the moral stain. I mean, I just go back to the bombing of that girl's school and like, God, I hope. hope when Congress, like, gets its balls back, we can have some real investigation into the war crimes perpetrated in our name by Hegsef and his minions.

On that point, do you think the Democrats have a willingness to do that? And I asked because, like, first of all, we saw Biden come into office kind of with this idea that that his presidency would be a return to normalcy. And it was enough to get him elected, but clearly not enough to keep him in office. I mean, that gave, you know, gave rise to Trump 2.0, which was even more law. than before. And I think a lot of that lawlessness was born out of the fact that there were no repercussions for anything that these Republicans had done. I mean, even Trump himself were inciting an insurrection. Merrick Garland wasn't even willing to look into that for two years. And only then did he deign to appoint a special counsel, at which point Trump had enough time to

kind of wriggle out of any, you know, any charges because there was just enough delay tactics to get him to the presidency. Yeah, well, and announced he was running for office again. So it became impossible to actually really fall anyway. But look, I think we have seen there is some evidence that Democrats have much more of much more gumption this time around. Number one, I think the government shutdowns are indicative of a party that's like we're going to use every level we have to stand on principle. And so far, those two principles, those two principles are real ones, right? The cost of health care, which affects 23. Oh, the cost of Obamacare.

I know you cover this. Like 23 million Americans know what it's like to have health care costs. skyrocket. I interviewed someone on my show whose health care costs were going from $100 a month to $860 a month. I mean, that's just not tenable. Wild. Yeah. Right? Wild, wild, wild fluctuations, right? And then the other piece was ICE. I do think we talk about signal moments in administrations. And at the same time, we also talk about the way in which there's so many controversies and there's so many bad sagas in the Trump years that it becomes, you know, blurred together. But I do think the slaughter, the murder of Alex Pready and Renee Nicole Good, sticks in the mind of people.

And the fact that Democrats took a stand and said, we are not going to fund the Department of Homeland Security, which remains unfunded, until we see some significant, meaningful reforms to ice. That's, that's, the American public, we all lived through that moment. And we all saw the senseless killing of Americans on the streets by a group of militarized, you know, ice goons and CPB goons. that's going to come back up. They may have figured out a way to make these arrests and deportations less public, but there are still horrible stuff happening in these detention centers.

ICE is still doing something very wicked to the American public. And I think that Democrats, the fact that they took a principled stand and were ready to pay a political cost in the name of reform is indicative of a party that is going to fight differently if and when they get power back. I also think, like, the minute you draw, a Trump administration official onto the hill and ask some tough questions of him or her. I see you, Christy Noem. They're like out.

You know what I mean? Like, bring pink, like, when the Democrats have control of the Oversight Committee, like, bring Pete Hegsev in and ask him to explain why he needed to explode fishermen in the Caribbean. Yeah. I mean, that's where we got the infamous, the Tao is at 50,000 moments from Pam Bondi. Like, these people crack under. It really shows, I mean, it shows why they were hired. it's not because of their competence.

It's because they were going to, you know, heap, heap undying fealty onto Donald Trump. Like, that's why they're there. They were going to talk about the Dow when they were being asked about ICE arrests. I mean, it's just the level of mendacities. But it's just artless mendacity. It's so transparent. And you're right.

The minute they have to open their mouths and answer to a tough question, not only do they embarrass themselves, they embarrassed Trump. And so what I think you could see in the interim between 2026 and 2028, is a real, the heat applied to the cabinet in a way that it certainly isn't being right now. You know, the really jaded part of me sees a lot of this stuff happening. And in the moment, it feels like, okay, nobody could ever look away from or forget what just happened here as it relates to ICE, as it relates to these immigrant deportations as it relates to the suspension of habeas corpse.

Like every moment of the Trump era, like every month has its thing, right? And it all feels like there is. no way he can he can escape accountability for all of this. People are so angry about all of this. And so like the really jaded part of me is like, well, you know, with the speed with which this new cycle moves, I do worry that people are going to forget about what happened with ICE, going to forget what happened with the Epstein files, what happened with the Iran war, just because like, you know, days pass and there's a reversion to the mean and, and, you know, and their, but their media ecosystem is such a well-oiled machine of just being able to spew out propaganda.

So, like, I'm just curious what your thoughts are on that. Do you think a lot of this stuff sticks, or do you think that there is a reversion to the mean where, where, you know, what felt like a hurricane in one moment, you know, kind of just filters away into nothing the next? So we began this week with a victory or an election in Hungary that I think was instructive. I mean, Hungary is the size of New Jersey. So like let's not draw too many parallels. But Victor Orban's an autocrat who's ruled with like a very interesting grip on the country's media and its economy, its health care system, and has done a shit job.

And for a long time, you know, this was a 16 year reign. He could get away with it. But what happened was his stewardship of the economy and the education system and the health care system in Hungary was so abysmal that people who would have stuck with him and let the other traumas and degradations of democracy slide by began to get restive and they began to get angry. And that, I think, is, and they voted out of office. It was a perfect storm of years of corruption, years of mismanagement, and then a practical lived reality that was. so subpar that his time was up. And I think you're seeing a faster evolution on that front here in the United States, right? Trump has grossly mismanaged the economy. The affordably question has gotten worse, not better, since he's gotten into office. And then on top of that, you lay on

the war in Iran, you lay the deaths and the chaos sewn by ice. I do think on their own, each one of these things wouldn't necessarily be enough. But I think the lived experience of Americans right now is so tangibly not better. that's why you're seeing this hemorrhaging among Latino men, among the white working class. These are coalitions that were essential in bringing Trump back into office. And they are not with him. Even the stuff with Pope Leo, you saw Catholic bishops standing up to Trump. You saw Christian podcasters standing up to Trump.

That's not just because they were outraged by him picking a war with the Catholic Church. It's because Trump's weak. It's because he hasn't made their lives better. And now every sort of one of these things is the straw that has a potential to break the camels back. So I think, you know, if we were talking about singular kind of events, yeah, maybe it wouldn't be enough. Maybe it would be, we would revert to the mean. But I do think because you're talking about an everyday experience in the lives of Americans that is worse under Trump, that these things hit harder. And they have the potential to really move people that otherwise would not be in consideration for either staying home or voting for a Democrat.

What's really striking is watching these right-wing podcasters, and these are people who've built their identities around their blind fealty to Trump. And even those people are speaking on. I mean, we had a pretty obvious example just about a week and a half ago. We're Alex Jones, Tucker Carlson, Megan Kelly. I know I'm forgetting one more. But in any case, we had a bunch of people who had come out against Trump. And, you know, I'm, I wonder if there's something instructive in there because these podcasters are obviously going to, their careers are going to outlast Trump's presidency.

And I wonder if they're now seeing the writing on the wall in terms of how, I don't know, like, like how much of a failed experiment MAGA was. And they're kind of skating to where the puck is going as opposed to where it is right now and recognizing that like, okay, if they want to have some survival beyond the Trump years, they're going to have to go to where the people are. And if they're seeing that people are upset because Trump has lied about everything he promised when he was coming to office, whether it was lowering costs or no new foreign wars or releasing the Epstein files or bringing inflation down or protecting earned benefits, whatever it may be, that he's failed on all of those things. It's inevitable that he's going to continue purging his own supporters that these people want to make sure that they're there to pick up those right-wing audiences, even in the aftermath of Trump. Like, it's actually the people who are just blind devotees to Trump who are going to not have much of a half-life because, you know, once Trump is out and he's remembered for being as poor a leader as he is right now, like, those people are going to look pretty ridiculous in the aftermath of Trump 2.0. Yeah, well, it's, it's, there's an interview that John Allen from NBC News did with a woman at a gas station and she's like, I voted for him three times. I'm an asshole. You know what I'm talking about, right?

Yes, I'm the idiot. I'm the idiot. Sorry, she said idiot, not asshole. My. I actually can't. No, I actually do. No, you're right. I think you're right.

You're right. Well, whatever, yeah. First of all, I think we, you know, it's much like when you get, try and get someone out of a cult, it's very hard to, people have to come to it on their own. And like, I think part of the reason the polling has been sort of up until now, Trump's been very resilient in the polls is because, you know, you. You ask a MAGA supporter, Claire McCaskill told me this, and I fully believe this. You ask a MAGA supporter if they still support Trump.

And it's an indictment of their own choice. And so there's a natural reluctance to say, yeah, I don't support him anymore because you're implicated. But we're getting beyond that point. People are really, I think, just like this woman at the gas station, she's like, yep, I'm a fucking idiot. But it's the same way that, like, there's a tacit understanding that there is going to be a life beyond Trump. and tacit understanding that if you can save your, like, if you can save your rep now, try to. A, I think Tucker Carlson might be running for president or some higher office at some point, which should send chills down everybody's spine, but I think that could have partially something

to do with it. I think Megan Kelly likes to insert herself as irrelevant by being sort of counter to the prevailing White House narrative. I think she likes, I think she thinks she exerts some extra power. so I think that there's a personal gain for her in that criticism. But I genuinely also think both of those two people are undying and unyielding opportunists who understand exactly the thing that you say, which is we are going to need to carry this audience with us after Trump. And the best way of doing that is separating ourselves from Trump and what we see is quite obviously his worst mistakes and retaining credibility as conservative voices. So yeah, I think that's a huge calculation in all of this. And by the way, like, it's not just them who see the writing on the wall. You can tell that Vance does, too, because Vance keeps planting these stories. He did it in Politico first, then he did it in the New York Times just about a week ago,

where he keeps, where he and his team keep leaking like a faucet, this idea that he is the lone skeptic in the room as it relates to Iran. They're engaged in this Iran war right now. And so when you have the vice president, the number two in this administration leaking to these reporters that he is against the war that the administration is right now fighting, like that, that's the writing on the wall. That shows how deeply unpopular this thing is, that he's already running away from the thing that is happening in real time. But the problem for Vance, of course, is going to be, you know, he, like those headlines, Vance Lone Skeptic in the room, those headlines are not

going to be enough to give him the plausibility, the plausible deniability that he needs, especially when you have somebody like Tucker Carlson, who right now can see the writing on the wall, he's not in the situation room, he's not plagued by the albatross around his neck that is, you know, being the vice president of an administration that's fighting this war. And by the way, not, not, you know, he doesn't have the ability to run away from Trump because Trump will just destroy him. Tucker Carlson can. And so if there is a situation in 28 where, you know, Tucker Carlson, God forbid,

decides that he's going to run for president. Like, that's a leg up that he has on J.D. Vance because he's going to be able to hammer him. And Margario. And Margaru. He's going to hammer these people. You're so right about the leagues. Like, the New York Times had like an inside the situation room when Trump made the decision to go to war with Iran. And the two people that come out as like the skeptics in all this, the kind of semi-reasonable

minds in the room are Marco Rubio and J.D. Vance, which is like the biggest tell that the information that was leaked to the press came from J.D. Vance and Marco Rubio. who are, as you say, conspicuously mum on this war or at least have more complicated, contorted positions on it because they know they're going to have to run on it. But you're right. Like, I just, first of all, I think Trump's going to issue blanket pardons for anybody that was in the administration

because many of them could be tried for war crimes or criminal corruption. But B, like, washing yourself of the stink is going to be really hard. I mean, the poor choices, the corruption and the criminal. Criminality is so profound. It really makes Trump, one, look like child's clique.

And I think Democrats are going to be way more tenacious than they were the first time around. And I would assume that any Democrat who gets the nomination in 2028 is going to assure the American public that there will be a full accounting of what was done in the previous four years. Well, you know, the interesting thing about that is like, as it relates to poor choices, and you have, you have J.D. Vance, who is not able to distance himself from Trump. Like there was a moment where a reporter even asked about about his past comments on on foreign adventurism and and like how can you how can you how can you how can you have that position in the past but then hold hold you know be part of an administration that's engaging in exactly that behavior right now and he was like I see what you're trying to do this is just another gotcha by by the media and so he's falling into this trap that that by the way Kamala Harris

fell into you know on the view when they asked what would you what would you do to do how would you differentiate yourself from Biden? What would you do differently? And she wasn't able to answer that question. And that was such a bad moment for her during this past campaign. And now J.D. Vance is doing the exact same thing. And it's so interesting because like all of, we have so many instances where, where everything that kind of caught up the Democrats and the lead up to 2024 is what the Republicans are contending with right now. And and they should know better. Let me just say, but worse. They exploited it. Yeah. Or worse. I mean, like we have the, we have the high prices. And now prices are obviously surging under this administration. We have,

we have an inability of the government to recognize what like economic pain people are contending with by pointing to these macroeconomic metrics like the stock market. I mean, like, this is exactly what Trump exploited in the lead up to the 2024 election. And they're just doing it. They've learned no lessons. No. Well, but they, you know, like, let me just say, you know, it is complicated to criticize the president whom you serve for any vice president, right? Who's currently in office. And that was certainly part of Kamala Harris's problem. But J.D. Vance is like literally on a leash. I mean, like, the strange patriarchal dynamic between him and Trump is like pretty unique in American politics. I mean, they literally call him

daddy. They call him daddy. They call him daddy. This is not an Alex Cooper plug. They call him daddy. You know, like the, and so you would imagine, and I think the same is true for Marco Rubio. They both, I'm sure part of the deal to get them in the cabinet was to promise them that they would be the inheritor of the Maga throne. Now they have to have a succession style battle to figure out who's going to get Trump's endorsement in 2028. But, you know, these are two people who are both terrified and intrigued by the president they serve and even more so than most administration officials. So their inability to answer and distance themselves from the policies that, they've helped enact is going to be massive liability for them as they launched presidential campaigns in 2008. I mean, I will relish the question and answer process on all of it because there are

no good answers. They are the worst apologists for the worst, most corrupt administration in American history. And that's like the part that I actually can't wrap my head around is like you have all of these people who are, you know, you would assume that they're political animals, right? Like these members of Congress, these administration officials, these senators, they all know what they're doing. They all can see the writing on the wall. And I mean, this brings us back to the very first topic that we were talking about here. But that is the part that I have trouble reconciling is like you all, everything that you do is for your own political survival. And yet you are right now tying your hitching your wagon to an administration that is only dimming your own electoral prospects, especially like, even in these seats that

would otherwise be safe. I mean, we were talking about the 2026 midterms that are coming up. I mean, the Democrats have have a better, according to the prediction markets, have a better chance of taking the Senate than even the Republicans do. And that means inherently that Democrats are, right, our favorite to win in like Ohio and Alaska and Texas and North Carolina. I mean, it's, it's just like this is. And so to see these things happening in real time to see Mara Lago now represented by a Democrat in the state legislature, to see these swings in, um, in, you know, South Texas among Latino communities by like 40 to 50 points is, it should be a blinking red light to people whose vision, you know, is otherwise clouded by their blind allegiance to the God king. The sun king. Yeah, I think, you know, being part of Trump's Republican Party require some certain suspension of disbelief, right?

Yeah. You don't have to believe that the laws of political gravity don't apply to him, which is why he can get away with most of the should. that he is done or promised. And so I think that's at play here, right? Like, oh, this would hurt anyone else, but it's not going to hurt Trump and therefore it's not going to hurt us. But the miscalculation they're making, I think, is the American people see through it. I think the lived reality for Americans is way worse now than it was eight years ago. And Trump is weaker and more adults as a character. And people see that. You know, the American public sees this person who does not really look to be in command of the country that he's supposed to be leading. And I think that that has really eroded confidence and given an opportunity for people who would

otherwise not be critical of him, who are not in politics to say, this guy is fucking up. So I think the pressure points are much more significant for these Republicans. I think there are earlier calculations about Trump's ability to withstand a certain amount of political chaos that would otherwise fell anyone else. I think that calculation is wrong. And I think the time for comeuppance is now. And like they really underestimate. They look at what happened in 2022 and the fact that Republicans came back,

Trump came back from those midterms and won in 2024. And they assume the same is going to be true that these special elections, off your elections are not harbingers of what's to come, but one-offs and anomalies. And I think that's the wrong calculation to make. I think what you're seeing to your point is uniform disavowal of what the Republican brand has to offer. And I think that it's going to be very pronounced in November. Well, that is the perfect place to leave off. For everybody who is watching and listening right now,

highly, highly, highly recommend that you subscribe to Runaway Country, both anywhere you get your podcast as well as on YouTube. So I'm going to put those links right here on the screen and also in the post description. If you're listening on the podcast, I'll throw it into the show notes. Alex, as always, it is a pleasure talking. Brian, you're the best. Thank you for having me on the pod.

Thanks for the plug. Please come back to Runaway Country whenever your schedule allows, my friend. Thank you. I'm joined now by California Attorney General Rob Bonta. Thanks so much for joining me. My pleasure, Brian. Good to see you again. So we have a huge win here, not just on behalf of the people of California, but really a bipartisan coalition. Can you explain the win that you just notched in court? Yeah, we have been in court in the Southern District of New York. We've been multiple states

across the country, a bipartisan group of states, suing ticket master live nation for anti-competitive conduct conduct that violates antitrust law. And today the verdict came in and the jury found for us on every item that was presented to them. It was yes, down the line on the verdict form, 11 pages of yeses holding Ticketmaster Live Nation accountable, holding them liable for illegal conduct. So for folks who sat at a computer and tried to buy a ticket to a concert and thought that the price was too high or something was fishy and, you know, decided to purchase it anyway but weren't happy or decided maybe to take a pass. It wasn't just fishy what was happening.

It was illegal. And so this was unlawful conduct on the part of Ticketmaster Live Nation that hurt our economy, that hurt fans and consumers, that hurt performers, that hurt other businesses. And it wasn't Ticket Master Live Nation acting because they were better. they had a better product or a better design is because they cheated. They acted unlawfully. They acted illegally. That's what the jury found today. So a really important moment. And some of the backdrop is the United States Department of Justice was part of this case until they weren't. They dropped out of the case right before trial. They settled with Ticketmaster of Live Nation on

very weak terms. This US DOJ, this federal government is soft on corporations that act illegally to raise prices. And this is another example of it. But the states continued in our case. We went all the way through trial. We made our case to the jury and justice was done today and ticket master live nation is being held accountable. Well, look, I know that there's a lot of people out there who have bought tickets or been forced, I should say, to buy tickets because of the monopolistic behavior of these entities, been forced to buy tickets on ticket master live nation, paid exorbitant fees, recognizing that this conduct is now illegal. What kind of remedy is there for people who, who have been impacted.

That's the next step. So this was the liability stage where a jury decided that Ticket Master Live Nation was liable all across the board on all the questions presented to them. Next is the remedy phase where a judge will decide what happens next, what remedies will match the liability found by the jury.

It could take a lot of different forms. It could be money damages. It could be behavioral conditions. It could be a breakup of the monopoly, like a breakup of, We call it a divestiture, a rolling off as a separate entity of Ticketmaster, for example. That's something that we have asked for. It could be some combination of those things.

It could be something else as well. So we will find out in the coming weeks what the remedy is. There could be the potential for restitution for victims as well, money back in pockets. But all that is TBD still to be determined in the weeks ahead. Now, interestingly, this case was initially being spearheaded by, the Department of Justice. If I'm not mistaken, this started in the Biden Department of Justice under... Right. Okay. So this initially, you know, launched from the Biden DOJ. Trump's team, we'll talk about what Trump's team opted to do and why the onus ultimately

fell to you and a bipartisan coalition of attorneys general. Yeah, you know, it's been, unfortunately, the brand of this United States Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission, the two entities in the federal government that... do antitrust work to depart and to retreat from the typical traditional role of those entities to do, you know, fair, firm, objective antitrust enforcement. That's been what multiple administrations, both Republican and Democrat, have done over many, many decades. But this administration is different.

They are not enforcing antitrust law. They're picking winners and losers. They're trying to allow deals to go through when it helps their friends, their favorites. There's a specific case, HP Juniper, where we think there was improper corrupt lobbying and other behavior that was involved. So here, the United States, the OJ on the eve of trial, decided to settle. They settled on terms that we thought were weak. It was a combination of monetary damages and some behavioral changes. And we thought it just wasn't acceptable, that it wasn't close to what Ticket Master Live Nation should be required to do.

And so we decided to forge ahead, go to trial. Now we have this historical groundbreaking jury verdict, and next we'll have to get the remedy that matches that liability. You know, you had mentioned that this was a bipartisan coalition of attorneys general. What does it say that even some of these, you know, diehard, right-wing AGs decided to join in on this case even when, you know, when Trump's DOJ wouldn't? What does that say about where this DOJ is trying to put itself? And look, you know, to that point, some of these Republican AGs, we became aware that they were under pressure from the White House, you know, from Trump to not continue with the case. But to your point, they continued anyway, despite the political pressure, because they thought that it was so clear, it was so egregious that the illegal conduct was so reprehensible that Ticket Master Live Nation was involved in that they had to continue on in the case. And not many things are unfortunately bipartisan these days.

I wish more were. We are bipartisan with our Republican colleagues when it comes to the mental health harms of social media platforms. And then, and we still are in some of the antitrust cases, not all. This is one of them. So I'm glad we were able to work together. But, you know, this is a case in which Ticket Master Live Nation executives were literally laughing at consumers saying that they were robbing them blind and that these people are so stupid as they jack up their prices and really deteriorated their quality and their experience. And, you know, they took people's money to the bank. They acted illegally. It took advantage of them. They ripped people off. It was big corporations ripping people off, doing it unlawfully. It was wrong. They deserved to be held accountable.

And today they were. What could the punishment for Ticketmaster Live Nation look like? And I'm not talking about a remedy for the consumers. I'm talking about like, you know, we've heard about the prospect of breaking this company up. You know, it might be too, soon for you to answer this question or you might not be able to do it because, you know, this is still all ongoing litigation and prosecution. But, but in this kind of a scenario, what could be on the table? A couple different things. And so the ticket master live nation business model involves promoting performers, representing venues, and then also selling tickets through ticket master. And they generally try to tie all those things together.

and leverage one with the other. Right. And just basically become completely vertically integrated. Absolutely. And so if you're a performer, they'll say you have to use us to promote you if you want access to all these great venues that we have. Yeah. Or if you're a venue, they say if you want this, you know, class A highly sought after performer,

we'll get you that performer. Then you've got to use Ticketmaster. Yeah. Part of the remedy can be they cannot require that anymore. They can't have those tying arrangements. those conditions, those requirements in their business dealings. It could also be a breakup having Ticketmaster roll off of the Ticketmaster Live Nation business entity and be a separate entity.

There could be non-exclusive arrangements where not just Ticketmaster is selling tickets for a concert, but others are as well. You know, Seat Geek and others can compete and be part of the ticket sales so that, you know, everyday people aren't forced to pay these sky-high prices with really terrible experiences. And there's the monetary damages as well. So a whole sort of menu of options that we're going to put before the judge,

we think some combination of those, maybe all of those, are appropriate based on what Ticket Master Live Nation decided to do in terms of their illegal conduct. Thanks again to Jared Moskowitz, Alex Wagner, and Rob Banta. That's it for this episode. Talk to you on Wednesday. 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 bryantarcoen.com to learn more.