No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen - Trump’s military parade ends with a whimper

Episode Date: June 15, 2025

Trump endures an embarrassment of a military parade while millions of Americans attend the No Kings protests. Brian interviews Senator Alex Padilla about being assaulted and handcuffed by Trump officials, Congressman Jamie Raskin about the threats posed by Trump, and Senator Brian Schatz about where our attention should be focused.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 embarrassment of a military parade versus the hugely successful No Kings Day protests and an unintended consequence for Republicans. And I've got three interviews this week. I talked to Senator Alex Padilla about being assaulted and handcuffed by Trump officials, Congressman Jamie Raskin about the threats posed by Trump and Senator Brian shots about where our attention should be. I'm Brian Tyler Cohen and you're listening to No Lie. In with a bang, out with a whimper. Trump's military parade came and went, and if you haven't seen the footage online yet, I would highly, highly recommend you watch it. Because if this parade was a person, it would be Ben Stein, but on Xanax. And the best part is that it was so, so sparsely attended that this is what one clip sounded like

where a tank is rolling down the street. Take a listen. the squeaking that you hear is the wheels of the tank do you understand how quiet it has to be to hear the wheels of a vehicle squeaking during a parade like I wouldn't be able to hear the wheels of my car on some county highway the notion that you should be able to hear the wheels of a tank during a full-blown parade is just brutal.

And so, whereas Trump wanted this event to make him look strong and powerful, instead, he just looked incredibly pathetic. And of course, that was all exacerbated by the fact that millions of Americans took to the streets in 2,000 cities across the United States. The parade in Idaho had more people than Trump had at his $50 million vanity parade in D.C. So not only was Trump humiliated by the sheer mediocrity of his big parade that he wanted to rival the Bastille Day celebration,

but the only thing that did turn people out were the protests attended by people who hate the guy. But I was asked by one of my friends, not a political junkie, but someone who does pay attention, why does this matter? What changes because of this? And we've spent a lot of time

between November and now talking about culture, how Republicans won culture in this last election. It was more socially acceptable to support Donald Trump and Republicans than Democrats. But days like Saturday are how you change culture. This is anecdotal, but I know of people who had been posting right-wing content heading into November's election who showed up at these protests because these protests broke through.

They became a cultural phenomenon. Everyone attended. They were the biggest story in America. And they perpetuate a narrative about Trump and Republicans that is sticking. And so from Saturday to Sunday on paper, nothing changes. Trump is still president, he'll still act lawlessly, he'll still engage in rampant corruption, and he's no less powerful than he was. But socially, culturally, the pendulum is swinging, and there's no ignoring the implications

of that. The reality is that the No Kings Day protests felt a lot like the Women's March in 2017. Those events, huge events like the Women's March, those dictate culture. And by the way, look at what followed. Democrats won the House by the biggest margin in modern American history back in 2018, flipping 41 seats and control of Congress. That's to say nothing of the fact that also in 2017, Republicans attack the ACA in very much the same way

that they're attacking Medicaid right now. So the similarities are pretty abundant here, but I cannot stress enough how important these intangibles are. You cannot look at millions of Americans taking to the streets and ignore the broader message that that sends, the broader cultural message that that sends. And at a time where the left has largely struggled with these cultural optics, especially against the right,

what we're seeing now is a really welcome change. And look, I'm not saying that we've got this in the bag or the Democrats have become master messengers or any of that stuff, but we have been waiting for the tide to turn. And this weekend, we watch to do exactly that. We've got more work to do, but let's take the wins where we can get him. I will take millions of Americans protesting Trump while he sits slumped over at his sparsely attended North Korea parade

any day of the week. Next up are my interviews with Alex Padilla, Jamie Raskin, and Brian Schatz. No Lie is brought to you by Incogni. If you've ever searched for your name or address on Google, it is shocking to see how many results have your personal information, and it's not by chance. Data brokers and people search sites collect your personal information. Your name, address, phone number, financial info, income, and hundreds of other records.

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Well, thank you for having me. So I want to go over a little bit of the situation that occurred in the last 24 hours where you were assaulted and attempted to be detained, arrested by members of the Trump administration, for attempting to ask Christy Noem, the Department of Homeland Security Secretary, a question during a press conference. First and foremost, there is this lie spreading across right-wing media that you fail to identify yourself. I mean, we've played the video dozens of times. I'll put a video right here up on the screen. I'm Senator Alex Padilla. I have question for the secretary. And so clearly

you can see from that video that you identified yourself. And so what did you take away from the fact that these folks are looking for some justification to try and attack you? And so the route they're taking is to just lie so brazenly, even about something that's caught right there on camera. First of all, thank you for the opportunity to sort of set their record straight and clarify their lies. I was all surprised, but not shocked, because it is part of the Trump administration DNA, to lie, to mislead, to misinformed, to disinform. So the fact of the matter is, look, I did not barge in, right? That's been one of their other lies that I bargs into the conference room and that I lunged at the secretary. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Here's the real context. This whole press conference took event in a federal building in Los Angeles. I happen to be there at the same time awaiting a scheduled briefing with members of Northern Command, right? Because the administration has been non-responsive to our questions since January 20th on a whole lot of issues, But particularly this last week with their escalation in Los Angeles, the unnecessary federalization of National Guard troops, the deployment of National Guard, women and men to Los Angeles. And as the week has gone on with local law enforcement making progress on the challenges in Los Angeles, Trump is escalating with now saying they're sending in the Marines. And so I finally scheduled a briefing with representatives of Northern Command. I'm there on time in a conference room when I catch when that Secretary of Nome is there.

Literally a couple of doors down the hall. You can't make this stuff. And so now my briefing is delayed because some of the folks that were there to brief me are now in that press conference. So I ask the folks who are escorting me because like any federal building, you go through security. and even a U.S. senator is subject to escort, in this case, a member of the National Guard, and an FBI agent. Clearly, they know who I am because their job is to be with me the entire time. I ask, hey, can we go over and listen to the press conference? They escort me over.

They opened the door for me. And so I walk in, the whole press court knows who I am because it's Los Angeles. I'm sitting quietly on the side of the room, sort of behind the door. the camera. I'd want to sort of be in the way of any reporters. And I'm there for a few minutes. And the folks that escorted me in are literally there not too far from me. And you hear just Noam and the rhetoric and the BS that they continue to spew. And not even the first time, I bit my lip, but the second time she goes on and on about, you know, the Trump administration needing to liberate the people of Los Angeles from the governor and from the mayor, et cetera.

That was just too much. And at that moment, I felt I needed to speak up because there's been questions and a request for information that they've been non-responsive to. And I'm doing my job as a senator, right? Since when is it wrong for a U.S. Center to ask a question of a cabinet secretary? That's all I was doing. But, you know, within a second, there was multiple agents on me, hands on me, and you've seen the video. You've seen the rest. So I want to dig into that a little bit.

Like this idea, this is all predicated on this idea that the Trump administration is going to come in and relieve us of this invasion of hardened criminals. That's what that's the rhetoric that they kept surfacing, especially as Donald Trump was a candidate and in the beginning of his administration, we're seeing now that as they're targeting folks, uh, whether it's on construction sites, they're targeting folks in the fields picking the food that that not only Californians, but everybody across this country eats, that it's not exactly. hardened criminals as they promised. And so can I have your reaction to the fact that the folks who, who believe Donald Trump amid his promises of these mass deportation efforts, as it was focused on hardened criminals, got sold a bill of goods because that isn't at all what's happening right now. Exactly. And so you're touching on two of my key points from yesterday. Number one, the question I was trying to ask is, what about everybody else? Because they'll put out generic stats, maybe, that there's been dozens or hundreds, however many people they think they have detained, and maybe there's

due process, maybe not. But the names that they were listening at this press conference was only maybe a half dozen. And so what about all the cooks, all the farm workers, all the car wash workers, all the others? Right. You know, nonviolent migrants. That was one of the issues I was trying to point out when all this happened because the claims of only targeting dangerous violent criminals has been a lie. It's been a lie. And so many of the other people that have been cut up in their increasingly extreme theatrical, cruel enforcement actions are otherwise hardworking people that are contributing to our economy. And we should definitely talk about that. So that's number one because they're not transparent with the data, you know, I wanted to ask that question.

But you give the example of all these folks in key industries, right, in the food supply chain, in hospitality, in health care, in construction. What they did when I had the audacity to ask a question, imagine what they could do, imagine what they are doing to a lot of folks who may not feel free to speak up or may have a question and there's not cameras there. to capture how they may or may not be treated. That's the big takeaway. This should be a wake-up call for everybody across the country. If this is going to happen to the United States Senator,

not just on the issue of trying to defend due process and maybe immigrants' rights, but anybody who disagrees with them on reproductive rights, on marriage equality, on whether or not climate change is real, or the need to maintain a federal government and a social safety. Now look what they're doing with the big budget, bill that House Republicans voted out happily, and now Senate Republicans are trying to move quickly on it, gutting the health care system, you know, impacting Social Security, housing, and more. So this crisis that's been manufactured in Los Angeles has also been a distraction tool, which the Trump administration is very, very good at.

Let's get everybody talking about Los Angeles and what's happening in a very small portion of downtown to take attention away from the budget, from Russia, Ukraine, from the breakup with Elon Musk, and more. And I think it's also worth noting, too, just on the broader economic implications, we are right now the only country in the industrialized world that's seeing an economic contraction. All of these other neighboring countries, all of our other industrialized countries in the West and Europe, whatever it may be, are seeing economic growth. They're seeing GDP growth. We're contracting. And yet at the same time that we're contracting, one might think that it might not be a prudent idea to then eliminate, you know, cut off the lifelines of these key industries that would drive further growth. What's going to happen if all of a sudden you have

nobody who's willing to show up to work in hospitality, in construction, in agriculture, because they're afraid of what might happen when they get plucked out of their jobs by Christy Knoem and ICE. And so these sectors continue to contract at a time when that's the last thing that we need. The contrast is just too clear, right? You know, the four years of the Biden administration was job creation, economic growth, job creation, economic growth. Trump comes in, you know, this foolish, ill-conceived, unnecessary tariff war. And then we see the economic implications of those threats.

On and off again, tariffs, the terrorists that are sticking, et cetera, are you seeing the economic contraction that you're talking about? But speaking of the economy, you know, for all the righteous and moral arguments I can make about better treatment for immigrants and pathway to citizens. businesship for dreamers and on and on and on, there's also an economic one. And California is Exhibit A. California is not just the most populous state in the nation, the most diverse state in the nation home to more immigrants than any state in the nation. Immigrants that contribute so much because California is now the fourth largest economy in the world, right? The largest economy

of any state in the nation by far, not despite its immigrant population, but because of immigrant contributions as workers, as consumers, as entrepreneurs. That should be embraced, not attacked. Right. I do want to note that in the immediate aftermath of this whole event taking place where you were tackled by these officials in the Trump administration, Mike Johnson had the opportunity to respond and protect or defend the autonomy of the legislative branch, which he's a part of, which you're a part of, as a co-equal branch of government. And yet his decision, decision was to instead defer to the Trump administration, kind of contract all of his power over to the executive branch as he so often does. And instead of defending your right to do

your constitutional duty of oversight against the executive branch, he instead suggested that maybe a censure should be on the table at a bare minimum for you. So can I have your reaction to Mike Johnson siding not with his own branch of government, but instead the executive branch. Yeah. Beyond sad, certainly not shocking and actually offensive, just as someone who takes their job seriously, right? To your point, we're a co-equal branch of government. Our job is oversight and accountability. And so that's all I was trying to do. If Christine Ome or DHS will not genuinely answer questions in committee during hearings, if they won't respond to letters and inquiries by members of the Senate, but there's an opportunity for me to ask a question in person at a, a press conference in my home state. That's me doing my job. You know, Mike Johnson and congressional Republicans may choose to not do their job, but they cannot stop me from doing mine. All right. Well, let's finish off with this. You are the latest in a long line of either Democratic officials or just officials who are doing their jobs. And I'm talking about, you know, we had a Democratic

lawmaker. We had a staffer for Jerry Nadler, a judge in Wisconsin, the mayor of Newark, all of whom have been either targeted or arrested by this administration. And so can I have your reaction to the increasingly autocratic tendencies of an administration that, let's be honest, if we saw this stuff happening in any other country in the world, we wouldn't think twice before calling it out for exactly what it is. It's look, all the signs of an increasingly authoritarian form of government. It's a classic Donald Trump. So what he wants in an ideal world is for the rest of us to cower, for the rest of us to be silent and let him continue to overreach and abuse his power.

That is not the American way. The American way is for righteous people, patriots who believe in our democracy, to stand up, to exercise our First Amendment rights, to speak up and defend our fundamental rights. And so that's what we will continue to do. There's a lot of folks organizing for No Kings Day on Saturday to not just make the point, but a little bit of a counter to his vanity parade that's scheduled in Washington, D.C. I encourage people to peacefully protest, peacefully participate in No Kings Day and any other day until we reign in this administration. Well, Senator Padilla, thank you so much for speaking out,

taking the time today. I know that you're getting pulled in a hundred different directions here. And thank you for pushing back against this administration and not sitting silently, but literally getting up and making sure that your voice was heard. So I appreciate you taking the time. Thank you so much. No Lies brought to you by Everyday Dose. So I have an issue that I think a lot of people share as it relates to my morning routine. And that is that I need coffee. I feel like it's essential in terms of waking up, but I don't like the way that it makes me feel. Everyday dose has the classic coffee taste that you love without the...

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That's Everydaydose.com slash BTC for 45% off your first order. I'm joined now by Congressman Jamie Raskin. Thanks so much for taking the time. I'm sick to be with you, Brian. So, Congressman, in the last 24 hours, we, of course, saw this assault and attempted arrest of Senator Padilla. This comes in the aftermath of Donald Trump's goons basically arresting the governor of Newark. We've had Democratic lawmakers, Democratic staffers, Jerry Nadler staffer in New York. And so this has become a recurring theme. We have a judge in Wisconsin at the same time that we're now seeing Donald Trump prepare

for a military birthday parade in Washington, D.C. And so we have a lot of different elements of what an autocratic leader would do. And so how are you thinking about this moment as you see all of these different instances that would normally represent an autocracy, an authoritarian leader, kind of collide at the same time? Yeah, I mean, these are all of the certain clues of an authoritarian regime in the making. So they arrest a sitting state court judge in Wisconsin. They have indicted my colleague, LaMonica, Giver from New Jersey, for felony offenses that could total 17 years in prison, for going to a scheduled visit to an ice facility

and then just being in the crowd where they arrested the mayor. They had to drop those charges. They barged into Jerry Nadler's office and traumatized a 24-year-old staff assistant who was in tears as they handcuffed her for no reason at all. And then yesterday they threw to the ground.

United States Senator, you know, Senator Padilla from California for asking a question, for posing a question in a federal building where his office is of a cabinet official. And that's on top of sending the Marines to the United States to California and federalizing the National Guard there, although that has been reversed by Judge Breyer in the United States District Court dealing the 194th, back to Trump in court in terms of preliminary injunctions and temporary restraining orders. But the path is clear. We're on the path towards straight up authoritarianism. I mean, you know, we often hear about the creep toward autocracy. I'm pretty certain that

if we saw any of these things happening in aggregate or even in isolation in any other country, we wouldn't hesitate for a second to call it what it is, which is autocracy or dictatorship. And so do you think trying to take an objective view of this that this has already arrived? It's not like we're waiting for a constitutional crisis in the U.S. We are in the midst of one in the United States. And to that point then, I know people are going to be looking at this and they're going to be worried about whether there's even a way to come back from this. And so what would you say to those folks? Well, I would say, yeah, the struggle and the crisis is here.

the Constitution has been under attack now for a long time by these people, and they are getting more brazen in deploying state power to try to crush dissent. On the other hand, everywhere I go in the country, I'm seeing people more and more resolved and determined to fight back. And I'm not just talking about people in the streets. I'm talking about governors and mayors and elected officials and judges who are standing up for the country. Constitution and the rule of law. What do you make of the fact that, you know, while we were watching Donald Trump deploy the National Guard, federalized the National Guard, deploy the U.S. Marines into Los Angeles, that so many folks in his party, so many of your Republican colleagues

would come forward and defend this. And this is in spite of their, like, don't tread on me bona fides. Like, these are the people who are supposed to be for small government and yet now figuring out a way to do apologia for somebody who's literally federalizing American troops against American citizens. When they're out of power, Mega will use violence against the government to have their way. When they're in power, they will use violence against the people to have their way. So it's insurrection when they're out. It's repression when they're in. Violence is the common denominator there. And, you know, I suppose we've seen remarkable technological advancements since the time of King George and the American Revolution.

But morally, psychologically, emotionally were still the exact same species that we were. And, you know, even during the American Revolution, I'm reading an interesting book about this now called The First Civil War. half of the people were still on the side of King George and the empire, and they're just saying, you can't beat the alpha dog, you can't beat the greatest military empire that's ever existed, you can't separate church and state, you can't overthrow the lords and the tyrants. And for all of human history, people have lived under somebody like King George or Donald Trump or Vladimir Putin. But half of the people said, let's pledge to ourselves, you know, our fortunes, our lives, our sacred honor to build something different, democratic self-government.

protecting the rights and freedoms of the people. You know, Mike Johnson was asked for his reaction to the fact that that Trump's goons jumped on, assaulted and detained and attempted to arrest Senator Padilla. And instead of defending the autonomy of his own branch of government that he leads, as the Speaker of the House, he called for Senator Padilla to be censured. And so is there any hope from what you've seen from the Mike Johnson's of the world and his Republican colleagues, that any of these people are going to stand up for the autonomy of their own co-equal branch of government?

Well, one can hope against hope that at some point they will do it, but I think that Mike Johnson, who I considered a decent guy and a cut above most of the mega people like Marjorie Taylor Green, has basically weakened. his critical thinking faculties. You know, he has weakened his mind with theocracy, and theocracy is now just merging with

autocracy. And I don't think he has any means of intellectual self-defense against Donald Trump anymore. So here you have a guy who you know strikes the pose of a theocrat. I mean, and it's all about religiosity and piousness.

Yeah. And he's embraced the most vice-ridden, crime-ridden, corruption-ridden administration in American history and a president who has been charged multiple times with sexual assault. He's been adjudicated a sexual assailant in the state of New York. He has, you know, openly betrayed his wives. And he's looting the gun and collecting unconstitutional foreign emoluments from all over the world. So, you know, I don't know what to say about the people who have done that. Our strategy for victories does not count on someone like Mike Johnson

defecting to the side of democracy and freedom. I want to move over to the bill that is right now working its way through the Senate. Eventually, it's going to come back to you guys in the House because there's not going to be an agreement on the exact verbiage of that bill that the House sent over. But, you know, this is the reconciliation bill. One issue is that Marjorie Taylor Green had come out and found some provision in the bill that she didn't, that she had admitted she didn't read. And so we've seen numerous instances where Republican members of the House have come out and said, actually, this needs to be changed. This is some elements of the bill that I don't agree with that I nonetheless voted for because I didn't bother reading.

And so what's your reaction to these folks like Marjorie Taylor Green who have buyer's remorse on the same bill that they were so eager to ram through? Well, of course she didn't read it. They don't read the bills. They do exactly what the leadership tells them to do, and they do exactly what Donald Trump tells them to do. So when she said she didn't read it, and that's why she wants to oppose it now, what she really means is, well, of course she didn't read it, but now she's come under extreme right-wing pressure from some quarters saying that that provision's indigestable, and that provision prevents. the state and local governments from regulating artificial intelligence for the next 10 years. So I'm with her in opposing it, and I voted against the bill, and I read the bill, and I voted against it. So I think what's going to happen is they will have to pluck certain provisions

out that different factions within the GOP are opposing. Remember, they've got this tiny margin, which gives us a lot of room to maneuver to turn up the heat on particular provisions, the one which purports to obliterate court's power to impose criminal and civil contempt sanctions is a very similar one. I mean, that's unconstitutional. It's also outside of the so-called Byrd rule, meaning it's not a fiscal provision. It doesn't relate to the budget, and so it shouldn't be considered anyway. But if you get to the substance of it, it's totally unconstitutional because a court must, of course, have the right to impose coercive sanctions against, a party who's lost the case who refuses to comply with the court order. If not, then the court is

not succeeding in effectuating a remedy. And like the Supreme Court said in Marbury v. Madison, if there's no remedy, there's no right. What do you make of the fact that, you know, we've been talking about this bill for a couple of months now. And it's more and more important to continue discussing it as it comes to a head in the Senate. There was the date that was thrown out was the 4th of July, they wanted to actually get this thing signed into law so that they didn't have to deal with it after the 4th. We'll see if that remains to be true. But the whole country was paying attention to this bill and the fact that it would kick 14 million people off of their health care, that it would strip food assistance to the tune of $300 billion, that it would

explode the deficit to the tune of trillions of dollars. And then suddenly, in one fell swoop, Donald Trump decides to send the U.S. military into Los Angeles so that we weren't able to talk about that. And so can I have your reaction to the fact that as a distraction against a bill that Republicans are purposefully pushing forward, a bill that would, again, strip all of these essential lifelines for the American people, Donald Trump's, the shiny object Donald Trump landed on, was to send the U.S. military into an American city illegally, as we would come to find out, but so that it could, so that it could spark a conflict against the people of Los Angeles. Yeah, well, immigration is clearly a weapon of mass distraction. We know that because we had that bipartisan border deal all negotiated and wrapped up and ready to go,

and one person blew it up, Donald Trump, because he was in search not of an immigration solution or even just a border solution. He's in search of a border crisis so he can. continue to propound demagogic, nativistic appeals. And, but, you know, that tactic may be exhausting itself for him. I had missed this, but I saw on Lawrence O'Donnell last night an extraordinary series of statements by Donald Trump where he was just saying, well, you know, something to the, to the effect of there's lots of people who are working in agriculture on the farms who may not have

everything just the right way. They might not have all their papers in order, but those big farms need them. Obviously, you know, some agriculture interests got in touch with them, the kind of people whose word he respects. And he basically said, we can't do this, which is precisely what people have been saying for months and for years, which is, let's figure out a realistic, tangible plan that can bring the country together. But he basically gave the game away and said, no, he's not going to be doing that. And the reason why the society's in an up war about what's going on is there are simply not enough criminals for them to be going after. That's the low-hanging fruit. They did that at the beginning. Now they're, you know, taking away teenage kids in my district. They're going

after high school students. Who are they hurting? They said they were going to go after criminals. Now they're going, you know, right in the heart of people's communities. I saw one discussion about a community in Kansas, which has rallied around a very popular woman who was a waitress and the local diner in this small town who doesn't have her papers in order. And the whole town is like screaming and marching and saying, you know, bring her back, bring her back.

Yeah, yeah. Well, to that exact point of marching and screaming, there is the No Kings Day protest this weekend. Are you going to be attending? And what message do you have for folks who may, be on the fence as to whether it's worth it to attend this weekend. Oh, it is worth it. Every single body, every single person counts here. The whole world is watching. Donald Trump is staging his birthday military extravaganza to the tune of $50 million with military tanks and planes streaking

over head. And we can absolutely dwarf the number of people who are going to be at that with the people across the country. That's going to be a very important statement. But every time that we march and we rally and we manifest, we're showing that we're not afraid of this authoritarianism. And it's a great feeling. If you haven't gone, you've got to go and bring your family and bring your friends. And there will be great chance, great speakers. But so far, the highlight has been the signs and you're going to see some unbelievable signs out there. Well, I'm looking forward to being out there this weekend. I know you are too. And Congressman, appreciate your time today. Thank you so much. for having me, Brian.

I'm joined now by the U.S. Senator from Hawaii. Brian Schatz. Thanks so much for joining me. Thanks for having me, Brian. So right now we are in a moment where we're watching Donald Trump's reconciliation bill kind of falter in the Senate as it becomes more and more apparent that 14 million people would get kicked off of their health care, that it would cut food assistance to the tune of $300 billion, that it would explode the deficit. And we're also in a moment where Donald Trump is then recognizing he needs a distraction, sending troops and Marines into American cities. We've seen protests erupt in Los Angeles and and Austin and Chicago. And so how are you thinking about these protests, for example,

where on one hand, it's very clear that they're being used as a distraction. But on the other hand, if we don't talk about them, they weren't basically just enabling and allowing this massive government overreach that Donald Trump also wants to be able to do. Well, I think it's sort of like, It's such a weird argument in, you know, mostly online, right, about which one of these things should we talk about? Because look at you. In less than 30 seconds, you talked about both of them, right? And talked about them accurately. And that's what I'm doing. Look, what is happening is creeping authoritarianism. That's number one. Number two is part of the authoritarian's playbook is to create distractions while they rob you, right? And so the undertold story of this administration

is corruption. It's the meme coin. It's the 747 from a foreign country. And it is this tax bill where they're going to throw people off of health care. They're going to, you know, basically emiserate a bunch of kids, right? The average SNAP benefit is six bucks per person per day. And that's where they're going to find the savings. And they're going to find that savings. They're going to sell off public land. Why are they doing this? They're doing this to provide another enormous tax break. The biggest wealth transfer in possibly in American history, but one of the biggest wealth transfers in American history for sure from people who need it, like desperately, to people who are the wealthiest people to ever walk the planet. So you and I both just said both things in a

very short period of time. Yeah. And we spent a ton of time arguing about sort of which theory of the case is better politically. I think we just should say stuff, right? Like I think we should say, that's authoritarian. We don't support it. It's probably illegal. and we're going to litigate it, and they want us talking about this 95% of the time. And so we have to be aware of that. And it is a trap. It's not just a rhetorical political trap. It is actually a trap to get people so enraged, right, that we provide a pretense for these moves of mobilizing the Marines and mobilizing the guard.

So the other thing I would say as the no kings protests pop up all across the country is that everybody has to be extremely disciplined. You know, pluralistic people-powered movements that succeed are disciplined within their own ranks. And so it is important for us to be ferocious and peaceful. It is important for us to be fearless and disciplined, right? And there is nothing brave about just being a dumb anarchist and lighting a garbage can on fire or throwing a brick at somebody. Like those people are not part of our movement. And we have to excise them because this is a nonviolent movement on people. behalf of American values. And that's how we have to express ourselves. I'm curious what your

thoughts are about the fact that Donald Trump, yes, he's sending these troops and these Marines into it's mostly focused on Los Angeles. But can you talk about the danger that other cities face by virtue of watching, you know, what he might perceive as a successful deployment to Los Angeles and how he might think about the rest of the country as the result of that? I think it's very dangerous. I mean, I talked to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff yesterday and asked him two questions. One, is there an invasion, which would be one of the criteria for mobilizing federal forces? He said, he took a while to say it, but he said no. The second is, is there a rebellion?

Because that's the other, and another criteria. And he said a little more straightforwardly, no. And so, you know, their basis for mobilizing federal forces is sort of written in the wind. So I just think we have to keep talking about how this is illegal. I think we have to keep communicating to the people who want to stand up for democracy, that the key to standing up for democracy is for us to be lawful in that process and also to understand that this is, you know, flatly a trap. So should we fight authoritarianism, definitely.

Should we also point out the thing that is most likely to move people into our column? Yes, we should. The truth is that fighting authoritarianism gets you 45% of the public. Getting to 55 or 65 requires talking about economic issues, the price of everything, the tariffs, the Medicaid cuts, the potential Medicare cuts, the food stamp cuts, the selling off of public land, the raising of electricity prices on behalf of the coal and fossil fuel industry. That's where we should live 90% of the time. It doesn't mean that we don't care about other stuff. It doesn't mean that I'm asking people not to talk about things that are important to them and important to the rule of law and to democracy. But I think it is flatly true that the way to make this president and this party maximally unpopular is to talk about the bill, which is already super unpopular, but not well known enough. About a third of the public doesn't even have an opinion about this bill. And so our job over the next week or so is to make sure the percentage of the public that has no opinion about this bill drops to close to zero.

In terms of this bill specifically, you've got a faction of your Republican colleagues who are getting obviously a little bit uncomfortable over the fact that we're going to see some cuts to health care and that's becoming more and more apparent. but then you've got another faction who's worried about the deficit. And so those things can't coexist because if you want to mitigate some of the ways in which this bill will explode the deficit, then that means that you have to, that will have some impact on the cuts to health care or food assistance, for example. Those will have to be even deeper. And so they're kind of in conflict with each other. And so how do you see that resolving itself where for some Republicans it's going to be

difficult to go back to their constituents and explain. deep cuts to health care and food assistants. And then on the other side, you've got Republicans who want even deeper cuts so that it can kind of offset these massive tax breaks that they're giving to themselves. I think you've described the math problem perfectly. And look, there's two ways to look at this. One is that this is the worst math problem I've ever seen, right, in terms of just competing interests. And if one side gets what they want, that by definition makes the problem more acute on the other side. Yeah. The way out of this is, well, There's two ways this could end.

One is those contradictions combined with all of our sort of advocacy lobbying and this thing becoming more unpopular causes them to not do it, right? And I think that is a live possibility, and I don't think we want to assume anything is done. And by the way, even if we fail to kill the bill, it is still an important enterprise to make it as unpopular as possible along the way. The other possibility is that, you know, they're just going to get rolled by Donald Trump. Like he'll lose his patience and he'll bully people into pretending that they got what they wanted out of it. On the clean energy tax credits, on the Medicaid cuts, or even on the deficit reduction, remains to be seen which side or whether it's both sides just sort of gets bullied into submission.

But I think that's also a pretty high likelihood scenario. I just don't know which it is. And I think it is really important for us to know that regardless of there's a lot of prognosticating in politics in place of action. like your job is is your media figure and so it's okay to kind of suppose hey what's going to happen here but for the rest of us like we're actor you know we're players on the field right and we are trying to impact these outcomes so whatever the percentage likelihood this bill is you know lives or dies who cares like we're that's why they play the game as you know as burman used to say so we got to go out there and play the game and try to kill this bill because failing that we still will have

done some damage to the popularity of this legislation and then the remedy becomes more of a sort of question of who, what the composition of the Congress is in the future. Well, you know, after kind of reporting on this Republican Party for so long, I think that the latter option you presented where Donald Trump just kind of bullies them into doing what they want and they just try and contort reality to fit whatever Donald Trump wants seems like the more likely option. And I say that because we've already seen evidence of it. Josh Hawley, who had presented himself as this champion against cuts to Medicaid and wrote an op-ed in the New York Times and has been going on cable news hits and trying to present himself

as some maverick in the Republican Party because he's going to stand up and protect Medicaid, spoke to Donald Trump and tweeted, Donald Trump assures me that there won't be any cuts to Medicaid, and so now I'll support this bill. And of course, it's completely bullshit. I mean, we've seen all of the analysis, all of the modeling from Yale Budget Lab, from the Penn Wharton analysis, even from Elon Musk himself and the CBO that shows that this is going to cut health care from 14 million Americans. And so can I have your reaction to the fact that even as he's presenting himself as this champion for one specific thing, that even still, all it took was a slight, I don't know, bullying from Donald Trump to all of a sudden make him change his tune

and present this idea that there won't be cuts to health care for 14 million Americans, even though it's very clear, very obvious that it will. Yeah, I mean, that's like literally in their assumptions. That's how they generate the savings, right? They need. need to generate savings, and they have it on their books that many millions of Americans are going to lose Medicaid. And it's, you know, like, I don't want to get too into the weeds here, but like nobody actually believes that there are 14 or 16 million, you know, people who are impermissibly in the United States that are collecting Medicaid benefits.

That's flatly impermissible. So, you know, I don't think anybody actually believes that. And I don't think we should spend a ton of time disproving that. But I'll also say that if our strategy hinged on Josh Hoffman. that it was a pretty weak strategy. Yeah. I think there are other people who are a little more deeply uncomfortable with this stuff and have a history of, you know, charting their own course.

Not obviously as much as we want or wish they had, but I think there are better targets for killing this bill. Who should folks who are watching right now who live in these states? I'm assuming, you know, Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, folks who are living in those states, who should they be calling on the Senate side? I mean, my view is, wherever you live, call your house member, call your, call your senator. There's no state that you should leave, you know, untouched. I do think people need to hear from their home states, right?

Like, I'm, there's a lot of lobbying and there's a lot of comms around this bill. There's not a mass mobilization against it. And in this age of sort of internet communications, it's interesting how powerful the phone call to the office is, right? You got two people out front in a Senate office, one person out front in a house office, and it doesn't take that many phone calls to kind of make it, whoa, that was a firestorm of phone calls, right? 30, 40 phone calls feels like a really hot morning. That's not impossible to mobilize, right? And so don't let all your organizing be online.

Make a few phone calls to your member offices. And finally, I have to ask because we're seeing this kind of play out in real time. Why do you presume Elon came crawling back? I have no idea. I don't know what to make of that relationship. I assume they just both know that it is mutually beneficial economically to them. A marriage of convenience. Yeah.

I mean, I do think they liked each other because they sort of peas in a pod in a certain way. But I, you know, I'm not the criminal, crininologist on this matter. All right. Well, what I will do is I'm going to put the in the post description of this. video, I'm going to put the phone number to make sure that everybody who's watching right now and listening right now can call their members and their senators. Let's get some action. It only takes a couple of minutes out of your day, maybe even just 60 seconds out of your day to do this. But as the senator said, this can have a big impact for just a small lift here.

So with that said, Senator Schatz, thanks so much for taking the time. I appreciate it. Thank you. Thanks again to Alex Padilla, Jamie Raskin, and Brian Schatz. That's it for this episode. Talk to you next week. You've been listening to No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen. Produced by Sam Graber, music by Wellesie, and interviews edited for YouTube by Nicholas Nicotera. If you want to support the show, please subscribe on your preferred podcast app and leave a five-star rating in a review. And as always, you can find me at Brian Tyler Cohen on all of my other channels, or you can go to Brian Tyler Cohen.com to learn more.