No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen - Trump quietly executes dangerous legal plan

Episode Date: March 23, 2025

Trump threatens the legal community, which has major implications for the rest of us. Brian interviews Congressman Jamie Raskin about Trump targeting him by trying to withdraw Biden’s pardons for all members of the January 6 Committee, and Pod Save America’s Jon Lovett about Elon playing the victim over vandalism of Teslas.Shop merch: https://briantylercohen.com/shopYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/briantylercohenTwitter: https://twitter.com/briantylercohenFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/briantylercohenInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/briantylercohenPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/briantylercohenNewsletter: https://www.briantylercohen.com/sign-upWritten by Brian Tyler CohenProduced by Sam GraberRecorded in Los Angeles, CASee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Today we're going to talk about Trump's threats to the legal community and the implications for the rest of us. And I've got two interviews. I speak with Congressman Jamie Raskin about Trump targeting him by trying to withdraw Biden's pardons for all members of the January 6th committee. And I sit down with Potsave America's John Lovett to discuss Elon playing the victim over vandalism of Tesla's. I'm Brian Tyler Cohen, and you're listening to No Lie.

So Trump is doing something right now that he knows is going to fly under the radar, but will have massive, massive implications. he's begun extorting law firms, wherein he threatens the lawyer's ability to work within the government. He intimidates their clientele. He risks their reputation unless those firms decide to bend the knee and do what a firm, for example, called Paul Weiss opted to do, which is to offer $40 million in legal services to conservative causes that Trump approves of. This is, for all intents and purposes, an extortion racket. And of course, the cop on this beat normally would be the Department of Justice, which under Pam Bondi will never investigate this,

meaning basically that Trump gets to do it. But Paul Weiss wasn't without options. Trump also attacked another firm called Perkins Cooey, which opted not to bend the knee and instead sued Trump in court. They decided to put their values ahead of a strong man's desire to force his opponents into submission. And so I bring this up for a specific reason. It's not necessarily to pick on Paul Weiss. Paul Weiss doesn't care what some YouTuber thinks. about them, and I'm sure that they've heard from their own clients who actually pay their bills, and that probably stings a lot more than anything that I could say. But I bring this up because this isn't just about one law firm. It's about the lesson that Trump learns when he gets

one big law firm to capitulate, because then it makes it impossible for the rest of these law firms to put up a unified fight and actually fight back. If Trump shows that he owns one law firm as big as Paul Weiss, then what hope do the rest of them have? The same way that if Trump can show that he owns Mark Zuckerberg at meta or shoe at TikTok, then the rest of the social media platforms know that there will be no unified front in tech companies against Trump. If Trump can show that he owns Bezos's Washington Post or the L.A. Times, there will be no unified front in newspapers against him. If Trump can show that he owns ABC News or CBS by getting them to settle frivolous lawsuits in his favor, then there can be no unified front in the media

against him. There's a reason that he goes after the big fish in all of these sectors. It's because once he topples one or two, then it destroys this illusion that there will be collective action against him. It sends the message that it's basically no use standing up to him because eventually they'll be going against the president of the United States and the rest of the U.S. government and they'll be doing it with no support. But this really is a microcosm of the broader issue of our time, the thing that we need most and the thing that we are in the shortest supply of. And I'm not talking the usual question of do we need a tack left like Bernie Sanders or do we need a tack? right like Marie Glucon-Campres. It's not about where you land on the ideological spectrum that people are focused on right now. It is whether you're willing to show some fight. We have watched big tech and big media and big law all bend the knee. None of them have figured out the advantage

of standing tall side by side. None of them have prioritized their integrity over the whims of a despot. None of them have showed a willingness to fight. And then we watched the Democrats last week, after months of promising to fight and never back down, do exactly that with the continuing resolution. We are in desperate need of some courage, of some spine. And if the media won't do it, if the tech companies won't do it, if lawyers won't do it, if our elected officials won't do it, then it's going to be incumbent on all of us, incumbent on regular people to take the lead. That means showing up at town halls when there are town halls. It means showing up to elected officials offices. It means calling. It means going to protest, going to marches. It means taking

to the streets. And I promise you, if there's one thing that will move everyone, I'm talking the government, businesses, the media, that's when populations rise up. They will operate with a sense of impunity until it becomes clear that there won't be impunity. So if there's an opportunity to show up, take advantage of it. Again, if there are town halls or protests or marches, go to them. I know that with all this shit bearing down on all of us, the last thing that you might feel, is empowered, but I guarantee you that showing up en masse is the single most powerful tool that we have. It has the power to topple dictatorships and autocracies, and that includes the one burgeoning right here in the United States. If no one else is going to come and save us, recognize that we are

going to have to do it ourselves, and that we can. Next up of my interviews with Jamie Raskin and John Lovett. No Lie is sponsored by BetterHelp. Therapy should feel accessible, not like a luxury. With online therapy, you get quality care at a price that makes sense and can help you with everything from anxiety to everyday stress. I myself have gone to therapy. It has helped me immensely, and I highly recommend that everybody else do the same. And for BetterHelp, with over 30,000 therapists, they are the world's largest online therapy platform, having served over 5 million people globally. It's convenient, too. You can join a session with the click of a button, helping you fit therapy into your busy life. Plus, switch therapists at any time. Your well-being is worth it. Visit betterhelp.com slash no lie to get 10% off. your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P.com slash no lie.

I'm joined now by Congressman Jamie Raskin. Congressman, thanks so much for joining. It's like to be with you, Brian. Obviously, some big news that was just revealed by Donald Trump is this idea that he is making null and void any pardons that were granted by Joe Biden to members of the January 6th Committee. Obviously, you sit on this committee. So can I have your reaction to both the legality and just in general, him deciding to try and attack members of the January 6th Committee?

Well, one president cannot revoke or veto another president's pardon. So that simply doesn't exist. He's complaining that Biden used an autopen, although there's no evidence for the fact that he used an auto pen. In any event, the Constitution doesn't say you can't use an auto pen. Because the president is the power to pardon and commute sentences. So let's hope that this is a passing fancy and just, a little drizzle in the summertime and that he doesn't press it too hard. Look, we know he was running around threatening to prosecute Liz Cheney and Benny Thompson, the chair of our committee

and the vice chair of our committee. And that's why this general pardon was issued to members of the committee. But for all intents and purposes, it's a valid legal pardon. And that is within the unilateral power of the president. If not, a lot of people would be challenging the idea that he could pardon actual insurrectionists who he incited to try to overthrow an election to keep him in office. Does the fact that he's trying to do this, the legality notwithstanding, signal that it is indeed his desire to go after his political opponents who sat on the January 6th committee? Well, there's no doubt about that.

I mean, he's been tweeting against us and vilifying us, you know, ever since the bipartisan January 6th Select Committee, which he calls the unselect committee. which he calls the unselect committee has been in business. But here's the thing, Brian. They haven't laid a glove on a single factual finding or determination that we made in the report of the bipartisan select committee. They set up a whole subcommittee on the House administration committee under Congressman Loudermilk to try to go after Liz Cheney and to try to find stuff wrong.

They couldn't find anything. They literally have not contradicted a single factual statement. Now, they would like to come up with some alternative story that, oh, it wasn't really the proud boys, the oathkeepers, and the mobs that were incited by Donald Trump. It was Antifa. They would love to be able to say it was really the FBI that did it. But all of that is nonsense. And it's been debunked by the factual record. And we interviewed more than a thousand people.

And we looked at, you know, more than a million pages worth of documents. And we had all of these interviews. and everything is scrupulously documented in the report, and they just haven't touched any of the facts of it because we were looking for the truth on a bipartisan basis, and that's what we did. Well, Congressman, you and I both know that when Trump issues some edict, that becomes the new reality for the people who he's surrounded by.

And so if he says, for example, that January 6 was some inside job by the DOJ, then suddenly that that becomes the reality for the people who surround him, and they're going to say, yes, that was the, that was an inside job by the, by the deep state. And so we have to, we have to go ahead and do Trump's bidding and look under every rock and overturn every stone and basically prove out his thesis. And so if the DOJ, which thus far has seemed wholly willing to do his bidding, regardless of how insane it might be, if they do go ahead and, and follow this trail that's being left by Trump, this happens at the expense of what?

Like what, given the fact that we have limited resources with our large? enforcement agencies, what would fall by the wayside by virtue of basically Trump's DOJ following through with this witch hunt that's being laid out by Trump? Well, it's not a hypothetical. I can give you examples of things they've already undone. They disbanded multiple anti-corruption task forces, including one called the anti-cleptocracy task force, which focused on... Seems pretty on the nose. Yeah, kleptocrats and oligarchs abroad and their corruption of American.

public and private institutions. Yeah. They sacked a dozen prosecutors simply because they had worked on prosecuting January 6 cases. And these were the most experienced and senior criminal prosecutors in the DC U.S. Attorney's Office. So they've been getting rid of a lot of the very best officials in the Department of Justice at the top levels, the public integrity unit has just been, like, utterly gutted. there. And it's true of the National Security Unit. You just go down the line. They've gotten

rid of the leadership. They don't want people actually looking at these things because they want to pave the way for corruption of Donald Trump's friends, both in America and from abroad. Well, in terms of disregarding the law in deference to what Donald Trump wants, we're seeing right now the Republicans die on this hill of basically ignoring a lawful court order that was handed down by Judge Boseberg, and this is about migrants being deported. And so Judge Boseberg handed down this ruling that says that they can't be deported because they haven't had due process. The Trump administration opted to refuse to comply with that order. Folks are going to look at that and say, how is this not a constitutional crisis? I mean, this is the moment that we've been waiting for,

so to speak, where we have a lawful court order that was handed down by a judge. Trump administration outright refuses to comply. They finished. They finished those flights to Venezuela. And so what do you say to the folks who are sitting here saying, how is this not a constitutional crisis? Well, it's a massive constitutional violation. Let's begin with that. They picked up these Venezuelans and arrested them. And then without any due process at all, just began the process of deporting them to a third-party country to El Salvador all under the

purported guise of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, which permits the detention of foreign nationals if we are at war with the country that they come from. So if Congress had declared war on Venezuela, then Donald Trump could be doing that. If there had been a military invasion by Venezuela, Donald Trump could be doing that. But none of that has taken place. This statute's not been invoked since World War II when it was used for the internment of Japanese American citizens, as well as Japanese foreign nationals during World War II after the bombing at Pearl Harbor. Well, you know, we've got Republicans, we've got Trump administration officials. Hell, we have Judge Janine on Fox News, literally a judge who are advocating to continue doing this,

to continue disregarding court orders, to continue disregarding the very concept of due process. And so what's your message to those folks? You know, this is a political party that has spent decades beating its chest about, being law and order, about the importance of following the law, following the Constitution, following statutes that are now, really, again, the hill that they're dying on is that we shouldn't have due process in deference to the fact that they want to expedite these deportations. I mean, they make a mockery out of the rule of law. I had a professor who started one of my classes by saying, what are the two most beautiful words in the English language? And he said,

due process because that's where we can figure out if, first of all, they've got the right person, right? They may have the wrong person with the same name. They may have somebody who looks like the other person. They might just be sweeping up an entire family. There might be citizens in there for all we know, along with permanent residents, along with undocumented people. So nobody even knows because there's no due process. And then there's no opportunity for evidence to be heard on both sides, for people to be legally represented, for people to to sum up their case and have a conclusion. That's what due process is all about.

And the rule of law, if you think about what the American Revolution was all about, there was law, obviously, under the kings, under the monarchs. The rule of law is that it abides people in power as well. It applies to the rulers as well as to the rabble. Do you think that the Trump administration may be using this as a pretext to be able to carry out their broader deportation plans by kind of normalizing us to this idea that they don't have to abide by, you know, the constraints of due process and they can lean on the, you know, this statute from the late 1700s,

knowing full well that, yes, everybody who's contained within their roundups are not gang members, but they can still use that as a pretext to be able to carry out, you know, their broad deportations of really just vast numbers of migrants. I mean, the historical precedent for that is the Alien and Sedition Acts of the 1790s where it established this landmark precedent that laws like these would be used to go after immigrants, and then they would quickly be used to go after citizens too

who engage in speech, which is seen as dissident or subversive speech. And so in those days, it was the dangerous subversive. of Frenchmen who were being swept up around the country and newspaper editors who are being too friendly to the French Revolution. And that's been the history of this, that if you allow the government to say there's going to be a whole category of people, millions of people who have no rights and no due process, it is inevitably going to sweep citizens up into it as well. And do you think that there has posed some risk to citizens now or political opponents

of this administration, given the slippery slope that the Trump administration would be engaging in? Well, I mean, take the guy Khalil that they picked up in New York, right? So he first, they, they went looking for him on a student visa. He didn't have a student visa. He was a permanent resident of the United States. He's got all the First Amendment rights that you and I have. Yeah. There were no criminal charges against him. He'd never been arrested. He'd never been convicted of anything. All they had on him is that he had gone to protests against the Gaza war, you know, along with hundreds of thousands of other people in the country. And then what do you know? He ends up on an airplane. And then, you know, he's moved to a completely different

part of the country. So, yeah, like, that's the road we're going down. We already see what President Trump is doing in terms of unleashing the FCC on ABC, on CBS, on, you know, MSNBC, which he calls MSDNC, you know, he actually, he repeatedly said the other day when he showed up at the Department of Justice and completely desecrated the values of that institution that he felt like the news media should be illegal because of what they say and what they do and because they oppose him. And he says that with a straight face, thinking that just because they have a different political view than him, that he should be able to make them into criminals. And that is absolutely the short road to authoritarianism.

Well, look, Congressman, we see all of this happening and it really deserves an urgent response. And I think the problem is that now a lot of folks in the Democratic base are not seeing that from our elected officials. And that's really come into particular focus in the last few days. And you have a base that largely views

the Democratic Party as unwilling to exercise power when it has it and unwilling to exercise leverage in the rare instances where even from the minority, we can use it. And look, you have been somebody who's been wholly willing to stand up and fight and really exercise the power that we have. And so I guess what's your message to the Democratic base more broadly in seeing what they view as a political party that's really not meeting the moment with the urgency that it deserves? Look, I'm perfectly willing to believe that there have been all kinds of tactical and strategic errors in the Democratic Party. I don't think it's fair to say that the Biden administration and the Democrats in Congress

did not use the power we had in the last administration. We had narrow majorities to start off with, and then we were in the congressional minority. We still passed an historic infrastructure investment bill. I sat there for four years under Donald Trump with, you know, infrastructure week, infrastructure month, infrastructure barbecue. They never gave us anything. And the Democrats got that done, a $1.2 trillion investment in roads, highways, bridges, ports, airports, you name it. We cut prescription drug prices and the Inflation Reduction Act.

We had a record historic investment in climate action and solar and wind and alternative energies and so on. But I think it's, to me, it seems perfectly fine to say that the Democrats have been slow to figure out how to deal with this nightmare. of a full-blown fascist assault on every democratic institution. I mean, if you go back and look at what happened in World War II, it took America four or five years, you know, at least to get serious about what was happening in Europe, right? Not four or five weeks, four or five years. And, you know, the thing about Democratic parties,

I think Churchill observed this, was that the Democratic parties, the freedom-loving people of the world, have lots of other stuff going on in their lives. They've got family lives and they've got other things they're doing. And he took a while to get the Democratic countries focused on the real peril of Hitler and Mussolini and what was taking place in Europe. All of which is to say, yeah, we need to get our act together to be focused. I think it's ridiculous that House Democrats and Senate Democrats didn't get together and say, what is our plan for the joint session of Congress? So some people were boycotting and some people were heckling and some people were waving little signs.

and some people were walking out, and it just looked like chaos. That's not a unified, coherent message. And the same thing on, you know, what I think was this terrible continuing resolution, which inflicted a lot of damage on our people, on health care, on Medicaid, and also, I think retroactively validated what Doge was doing. But in any event, whether you think that was worse or it was worse to go into the long, dark night of a shutdown, I can see arguments on both sides. let's have that argument up front and let's figure out a game plan.

We've got to go into these things with the game plan and the ability to call audibles and leadership that's going to be on it as opposed to everybody do whatever they want. To that point then, like, clearly there is an uproar right now. And so has the decision then been made? I mean, bring us behind the curtain a little bit in terms of what that looks like now because I don't think that folks are, look, they're not willing to accept it in that it just passed. I mean, Democrats are, the Democratic base is, is angry. And so moving forward is, does it look like it's going to be different? Will there be unanimity? Is there going to be

some, a more unified front? I don't know the answer to that question. I mean, I hope, yes, I will be fighting for it. Yes. I mean, and, uh, I, I know that Hakeem Jeffries and, uh, Chuck Schumer live in the same neighborhood. I mean, they're, they're from the same congressional district that Hakeem represents. They should be able to get it together and get all of us together to say, let's move into these things with a united, united focused front on how we're going to navigate this. I mean, we're in the minority in the house. We're in the minority in the Senate. We're in the, we're on the outs in the White House and we're even in a minority in the Supreme Court. So we've got to be organized and cohesive as an opposition force that it's

planning on taking back Congress in 2026 because we've got to cut this reign of terror in half. So that's our job. We've got to do that and we've got to be organized and cohesive. And if anything like this happens again, I guarantee you that the sentiment will be overwhelming that there needs to be new leadership. Well, look, that sense of fight is, I think, exactly what a lot of people are looking for here. So I appreciate that and I appreciate your time today. Well, I appreciate that. And the final thing I guess I would say about it, Brian, is look, we need powerful, aggressive, creative new leadership all over America. And I'm not just talking about in the legislative or parliamentary context.

I'm talking about in cities and towns and counties and states and civic society, business and labor. Like, now is a time for us to lift up creative new leadership that's willing to fight for strong democracy in America. Perfectly put. Congressman, thanks for your time. You bet. Thank you, Brian. No Lie is sponsored by Acorns. They say money can't buy happiness.

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And look, especially at a moment right now where things do seem so tenuous, having control where we can get it is especially important. So if you're ready to take control of your money, sign up now and join the over 14 million all-time customers who have already saved and invested over $25 billion with Acorns. Head to Acorns.com slash BTC or download the Acorns app to get started. Paid non-client endorsement, compensation provides incentive to positively promote acorns, tier to compensation provided, investing involves risk, acorns advisors, LLC, and SEC-registered investment advisor, view important disclosures at Acorns.com slash BTC. I'm joined now by the co-host of Pot Save America. John Love it. John, thanks for joining.

Brian, good to see. Look at us face-to-face. We read in our studio a little bit. Yeah, I like it. And by the way, loving the comments, everybody. But this is now we're on your show. On my show, but I'm sure they're going to send some comments about how they love it, too. Tell us we look great. Hi.

Hi. Okay, so we are now in a moment where we're watching these Teslas be set on fire across the country. Elon has been using this as an opportunity to present himself as the victim. What do you make of the fact that even as this guy is responsible for overseeing cuts to lifelines that the American people need, responsible for cutting USAID and food programs that impoverished people need, and HIV prevention programs and the consumer financial protection. Bureau, which only exists to help people that are the victims of predatory financial institutions, that he is going on national television and yet again presenting himself as the victim in all of this.

Look, there's nothing more dangerous than a bully that thinks he's a victim. Donald Trump is a bully pretending to be a victim. The modern Republican Party is a bunch of bullies pretending to be victims. That's the core of their appeal. And I think what's dangerous about what Elon is currently doing is he's going on television and saying Democrats are committing these acts. It was reported that it was one person in Las Vegas. The reason political violence is dangerous, the reason it is dangerous when protests turn violent, even if the vast majority of protesters are peaceful, is because it puts in the hands of a few random actors, the direction of the news, the direction of our politics.

We don't believe in ceding control of our politics to random people deciding that they get to tell us what happens in our country. That is wrong when Elon does it at Doge. That is wrong when somebody takes a shot at Donald Trump during the campaign. That is wrong when people try to take a protest. I mean, in these cases, these are just acts of vandalism happening all over the country, but in other cases, when you have protests where a few actors decide to take it upon themselves to make those protests destructive and then cast an entire protest in that light, I don't agree with that. I don't think that's a good thing to do. But this is why democracy is important. This is why it is important that we have a constitution in which Congress, based on the

votes of the people that sent them there, decide how the money is directed. And then the president executes that money. Yes, through his appointees, through his administration, but also through the oversight of Congress and with the approval of judges making sure the law is being followed. The danger of what we are seeing is if in one arena a group of people decides the law doesn't apply to them, it makes a lot of people feel powerless. It makes a lot of people feel as though the rules don't matter anymore. It makes a lot of people feel as though we don't live in a country of laws, that people won't be held accountable, that democratic accountability will elude us. And that is not just a recipe for right-wing governments to dismantle social programs

and make life worse. It is a recipe for chaos in the country at large. We all collectively benefit from a system in which people trust that leaders will be held accountable to the voters and to the constitutional order that has made us the envy of the world. You know, there's been a lot of debate lately about whether or not we're in a constitutional crisis. And a lot of legal experts are pointing to the fact that, okay, we're not technically in a constitutional crisis until there has been a court order that wasn't followed. It was appealed up to an appeals court. It was appealed up to the Supreme Court. And then if the Supreme Court issues ruling, that runs counter to what the administration wants to do. And yet the administration

barrels ahead anyway, that's technically a constitutional crisis. And then you have, you know, a broad swath of the rest of the base, of which I would probably include myself, where what we're seeing right now is so obviously counter to everything the Constitution says and so clearly a crisis and I'm curious what your thoughts are on this as this you know parsing of words and definitions kind of plays

itself out I think it's so fucking stupid as you recoil I like I felt this long before I feel like the question are we in a constitutional crisis is the wrong question to be asking first of all I think it's a distinction

without a difference like we're in a big crisis Yeah. I think you can just take the word constitutional and make it mean big. Are we in a big crisis? Absolutely. There's no moment at which Donald, like, first of all, Donald Trump and the people around him are smart enough to know that you don't just on a random day decide to stop following brazenly, a constitutionally valid order from a judge. You slowly erode those protections. Already, we have a, Donald Trump deporting people to El Salvador without so much as a hearing, a judge says, hold on a second. The Trump administration says, too late, the plane was already over international waters. The president of El Salvador says, oopsie. The Secretary of State doesn't defend an American judge, doesn't offend the American system, but just simply reposted. He's on the side of El Salvador's president. You have other examples of the administration claiming, oh, we just did it.

You said it in court, but we didn't see it in writing. It happened too late. They're in some cases saying that they don't have to follow rulings. In other cases saying they are following them, but it was just too late. In other saying that the judges have no right to rule on these issues, there's not going to be a day, a bright line that we cross. And we say now we're in the constitutional crisis. We are slowly getting into a deeper and deeper crisis in which the President of the United States, who is at root instinctively and authoritarian, is slowly and deliberately, eroding, the guardrails that protect us from those abuses.

Does that mean we're in a constitutional crisis or just a big fucking crisis? I don't know. I don't care. And I think that's such a good point that I think everybody's waiting for the day that we switch from a democracy into an autocracy. But it is inherently the fact that they are normalizing a lot of what we're seeing right now, that the Overton window is shifting day by day, that expressly gets us to the point where we won't.

even notice that switch as it's happening. Like we've seen it even with Elon has been peppering this idea of impeaching judges whose rulings don't comport with his political ideology. And so rather than just, you know, abide by the law, rather than just follow the regular judicial process, maybe appeal a ruling that you don't like. He's like, get rid of the judges. Just go right to the root and just eliminate people who exist in positions of power that don't redound to my political, financial, or personal benefit. Here's another part of this. We're already so far down this road.

What is the rationale that Chuck Schumer gives for why he decided to vote in favor of a continuing resolution to keep the government open when Democrats have the ability to say no and prevent a bill from being passed without concessions or causing a government shutdown? one of the arguments was I am worried about what happens if we go into a shutdown because it won't have an end there's no off ramp and Elon and Trump can continue their rampage

across the federal government this extra legal unconstitutional defiance of Congress as if it's not happening right now as first of all as if it's not happening right now but second of all hold on a second

what you're saying is and this is the danger of a back backslide into authoritarianism. This is the danger of what fascism represents. What fascism loves is if there are places where institutional rules and procedures are a counter to their plans, they ignore them. They defy them.

If there are places where the institutions can help them, they'll use them, right? Donald Trump loves, right, to have a big inaugural where he is held up, where he gets March. He loves being on Air Force One. He loves the powers of the presidency, the lawful. real constitutional powers of the presidency. But if what we're saying already is that Donald Trump's breaking of the law over here creates leverage over here when he's following the law, we are already conceding to the rise of authoritarianism. We are already saying that Donald Trump's lawlessness is working. That to me is the biggest problem, right? And that, like, regardless of

the debate, and I think it's a hard debate, but regardless of that, we are already conceding that Donald Trump is taking us into authoritarianism because just by admitting that Donald Trump's doge lawlessness is leverage, we are conceding that the authoritarian takeover is basically kind of unfolding in front of us. Right, that it's legitimate. It's happening. You know, a lot of what we're seeing is that as he continues to do this, it's making him and Republicans obviously less popular.

And we're seeing that play out at town halls across the country. We're seeing it play out in poll numbers for Trump. Trump and Republican Party. But at the same time, there aren't Democrats stepping in to fill that to fill that voice. I think Democrats largely view this as, okay, things are moving in the right direction. But when Democrats are simultaneously not doing anything to help their own poll numbers, then we don't take advantage of the rare opportunity that we have here to kind of exploit his weakness because we're getting as unpopular. We're continuing to decline, even as Republicans are continuing decline. So how do you think of this in terms of this moment,

right now where we should be taking advantage of the precipitous decline in the popularity of this Trump Republican Party and instead we're again like I think the latest CNN poll showed Democrats as the least popular they've been since the polling began right and so what's what's driving that right part of it is going to be the toxic brand that Democrats have that is a little bit the the aftermath of the election in which voters basically, and this is something that's true around the world, were fed up with rising costs are, I think, like, all,

we are all still collectively dealing with the trauma of the pandemic and the changes that it accelerated and incumbents paid a price for that. Democrats were the incumbents. We were paying a price for that. I also think we have a massive credibility issue with voters. That is because we got behind a president who was too old because we didn't have an alternative, and then when we did have an alternative, there wasn't

enough time to define a new path. So what does that tell us? I think, one, people want to see us fight. I think that's why one reason the numbers are so low is the Democrats are angry. That's the other reason they're so low. So we need to fight. We need to push back against this deeply unpopular agenda. People did not sign up.

They signed up for lower people signed on to attack the rising cost of liberal. They did not sign on for dismantling cancer research, Medicaid, the Parks Department, the call centers for people to get help with their social security. We need to fight that everywhere. Elon Musk is not a popular figure. Unleashing a billionaire to slash social services and government services is not a popular position. There's just, that is still reality. And by the way, just fighting those things might be enough to,

bring out the people we need in 2026 to take back the House, prevent Donald Trump from passing any more of his agenda through Congress, if he still gives a fuck about Congress then. But it still leaves the problem that in the coming years, we need to figure out how to appeal to more people, both to win the presidency and to win Senate seats outside of the progressive and liberal places and moderate places. We already are barely hanging on to 47 seats. Like Democrats in the future, especially because as states like California lose population to states like Texas and Florida, we won't even be able to win the presidency with the states that gave Joe Biden the White House. So like Donald Trump goes to New York and says we're going to win New York. Obviously, that's bullshit.

But then you see a big shift in New York towards Donald Trump. If Donald Trump, this craven, ignorant, gut in. instinct politician, has the wherewithal to imagine a future in which he can win 40 states? Why can't we? Right? If we're losing to the dumbest motherfuckers on earth, what does that make us? Well, you know, I think one point that was especially potent that you made was that we need people to fight. And I think it's been our misguided view or intra-party battle for so long that like which is the right ideology?

Is it going to be, do you know, do you want to have candidates who are more progressive? Do you want to have candidates who are more moderate? But my view on this, I've tried to take a nuanced view on this, is like, you need both, right? This isn't like rocket science here. You need people like Jared Golden who are going to win in Maine and you're just not going to get, you're just not going to get Bernie Sanders to win in Jared Golden's district, right? But at the same time, I don't necessarily feel like that's on point right now because it's, what I've seen more and more of is that people just want, regardless of their political ideology,

where they land on the spectrum, people just want Democrats who are willing. willing to go in there and fight. And it's been so long. I mean, even since I've been involved in digital media for politics, I've watched as Mitch McConnell, who I believe will spend the rest of eternity in the depths of hell alongside the worst people of humanity for all that he has wrought onto this country and the ways that he has dismantled and fundamentally damaged our democracy, you won't find a single Democrat who's going to say, well, we don't see how effective he's been.

and the fact that he can go in there and he knows how to win and Democrats just aren't willing to do that and the example that I like to use is the parliamentarian and Democrats will get like a bad ruling from the parliamentarian and they'll say well

the parliamentarian says we can't do that and so what could we possibly do and the Republicans are like the parliamentarian says we can't do that so let's get a new fucking parliamentarian and they've literally just replaced the parliamentarian and that's a microcosm for the broader fight

and I think that we're just at a point regardless of political ideology regardless of whether you are a Jared Golden Democrat or an Ilhan Omar Democrat or anywhere in between, that what we are missing in this party is just some sense of fight of conviction of actually going to the wall and making sure that what you are in office to do you're able to accomplish. Yeah. I think that was good. What do you think about?

I think that was good. I mean, I'm just curious where you stand on this because it for so long has been an issue of, well, we're not progressive enough or we're not moderate enough. And we have to, you know, lefties say that we have to go more to the center and vice versa. And I just don't think that that's where we are right now. Yes. So I think that there is probably, I mean, just to take what you said, like, let's just try this. There are sort of three axes, right? There is left, right.

And I think that one is the one where we spend most of our time debating. But why? Well, partly because it has been in recent years the left of the party that's been the most aggressive, the most competitive, the most adept at social media. and that has, I think, had the most backing from kind of more engaged online, younger progressives. Though we now have data from this election that shows the millennials continue to be America's progressive generation. Right. We're the only one that hasn't gotten more conservative. That George W. Bush was a vaccine against right-wing politics and Barack Obama was the booster shot. But to put it in a way that we'll push off.

Yeah, for sure. For sure. But the, like, if you look at democratic politics overall longer, like let's say the last 30 or 40 years, who are some of the most successful Democratic politicians? They have been Bernie Sanders. They've been Barack Obama. They've been Bill Clinton. And what did they offer? They offered an attack on the status quo and on the establishment. From Bernie Sanders, it's for the left. For Bernie Sanders, it's from the left. For Barack Obama, it's against, D.C. from Bill Clinton, it was from the center, right? Each of them ran against an establishment, and that's what people were really looking for. So what does that tell you? So what are the other two axes? It's fight, which is what you're talking about it, but it's also reform. And look,

we, like in 2006, George W. Bush wins handily in 2004, despite the ongoing chaos in Iraq. Again, it was supposed to be this big realignment. Democrats figured out over the next two years how to fight back and win the house. And I was there. It was huge. It was exactly what we needed to put us in a position to believe we could really win in 2008. How did we do that? Well, one, it was just running against the chaos and extremism of the Bush agenda. They had the ongoing fiasco in Iraq. They had an effort to privatize social security. They had a failed effort to pass immigration reform, which today would be the liberal bill, to be honest. And they had Katrina. And they had a bunch of corruption in Congress. People like Jack Abramoff, there was this scandal involving a guy

named Mark Foley. So for most of that campaign, for most of that season, you're really just running against Republicans. But in the closing months, there was this agenda. It was this reform agenda. It was anti-corruption. It was campaign finance reform. It was pro-union. It was raising the minimum wage. It was pocketbook issues, like simple policies that the whole caucus could get behind. Yes, there were some people that were more progressive. And yes, there were some people that were more centrist. By the way, this was back in the day when there was a Democratic senator from Nebraska and there was a Democratic senator from Montana that were much more conservative that became actually the limiting factor in Barack Obama's agenda a few years later. But we were able to build this big coalition with a clear critique of the Republicans, plus a simple unifying agenda everybody could get behind. And I think right now, my question is, is that the right in this environment, like, is it the right thing to do now to wait as we would normally do? you would say you don't want to put out an agenda now. You want it to be there in the fall of next year, which feels like, fuck, I can't believe

it's only been two months. Or do we need to start now putting together a vision for what we're going to do by listening to what we're hearing from people, which is they just don't know what Democrats stand for. Like, did we pay such a price for having Joe Biden being completely unable to communicate what Democrats stand for for basically the second two years, second half of his administration? And for Kamala Harris, I think being hamstrung by having to defend the administration. and being hamstrung by some of the positions she took in 2020, leading people to have no fucking idea what she stood for. Have we paid such a heavy price for the politics of 2024 that we

have to now get ahead of that with a clear agenda? I don't know the answer. I think Bernie Sanders right now I think is incredibly effective in this fight oligarchi tour, which is mostly geared around the enemies of our democracy, but does have his progressive politics at its center. You have people like Chris Murphy and Brian Chons and others that are out there trying to do this in their ways that I think is helpful. I agree with you that we kind of need them all. Yeah. I don't have an answer. Let's finally finish off with this. I don't know if you've seen the latest Fox News appearance from Mike Johnson. I'm going to put it right up here on the screen. I would like your initial reaction to maybe some bronzer being used by Mike Johnson and other members of the Republican Party.

I have many substantive critiques of Mike Johnson and the Republican Party, but I think it's important that we as progressives always remember that we are not just fighting for the liberation of queer people and marginalized people, but we are fighting for Mike Johnson's liberation too. And if what he feels he needs is a kind of gender affirming care to help express his masculine identity, if what he is trying to do to be his best self is make these kinds of changes, I support him. And I want him to know that even though he lives in a political world of rigid division and expectations that lead him to have to make these kinds of changes. We support him however he wants to look, but just know that in a future where everyone can be

themselves and we celebrate difference and nuance in how people express their gender, maybe he wouldn't feel so much pressure to look a certain way. The way I think about it is, you know, when dogs and their owners start to look the same? That's a really good point. You know, they are, there is a certain kind of right-wing aesthetic taking hold. It is extreme. It is conformist. It is hyper-real.

And people get the faces they deserve. That's right. Love it. Thank you for taking the time. Thank you. Good to see you. Thanks again to Jamie Raskin and John Lovett. That's it for this episode.

Talk to you next week. You've been listening to No Lie with. Brian Tyler Cohen. Produced by Sam Graber, Music by Wellesie, and interviews edited for YouTube by Nicholas Nicotera. If you want to support the show, please subscribe on your preferred podcast app and leave a five-star rating in a review. And as always, you can find me at Brian Tyler Cohen on all of my other channels, or you can go to Brian Tylercoen.com to learn more.