No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen - Trump’s UFC event descends into chaos

Episode Date: June 14, 2026

Trump goes full mad king as UFC comes to the South Lawn of the WH. Brian interviews ranking member of the House Oversight Committee Robert Garcia, the co-host of Pod Save America Tommy Vietor, and the head of data science at VoteHub, Zachary Donnini.Pre-order The Day After & get book tour tickets: https://www.harpercollins.com/pages/thedayafterWritten by Brian Tyler CohenProduced by Sam GraberRecorded in Los Angeles, CASee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Trump goes full mad king as UFC comes to the South Lawn of the White House, and I've got interviews with ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, Robert Garcia, the co-host of POTSafe America, Tommy Vitor, and the head of data science at Vote Hub, Zachary Danini. I'm Brian Taylor Cohen, and you're listening to No Lie. So Donald Trump's big UFC event kicked off with the usual way in, with some trash talking in front of the Lincoln Memorial. It was then followed by motorcycles flipping in the air after Nitro Circus served as like kind of the opening act.

And look, I don't know, maybe I'm being too precious about the capital complex being hallowed ground for the trashiest event that you could possibly imagine. But I've been thinking about this and I actually think there's something else that bugs me. You know, I wrestled for almost 10 years, starting at age 11. I loved everything about the sport, but especially that there was no way to skirt responsibility. Like you can't hang out in the corner and take credit. The bout, the match, is just because. between you and the other guy. That's it. And you're out there. All eyes are on you and you

either win or lose and that is on you. And you own the victory when you win. And that's a great feeling. I mean, it is absolutely a team sport in the sense that your teammates push you to be better in practice every day. And if you don't have that, you simply won't be successful. But when you're out there in the actual match and it's your bout, you have to perform. No shortcuts. And I worked my ass off to win. And I did pretty well, won some championships, learned a lot about discipline, and I made some great memories with my guys over the course of about a decade.

And other mixed martial arts are the same deal. It's just two of you out there on the mat or in the ring or in the octagon. Again, no shortcuts, no excuses, just hard work and discipline and technique and heart. But you look at a guy like Trump, and this is somebody who has lied, cheated, and stolen his entire way through life. A guy who got rich off the backs of contractors who he stiffed, a guy who slapped his name onto products and brands that ultimately failed because they were shit,

a guy who has no lasting legacy other than his own willingness to plow over people while enriching himself. And I just see the dichotomy between this guy who has climbed over everybody else to take the credit for himself and these fighters who could only get there because they worked for it. And of course, yet again, Trump will watch these people do all the hard work and he'll bask in the spotlight of an event paid for in sweat and blood that does not believe. to him, and taxpayer funds that don't belong to him. Everything he has, up to today, is the result of the labor of others, but he'll never actually give an ounce of credit to anyone else because his ego demands that the attention shines

solely on him. And I think that's a pretty apt microcosm for how he's governed, because while he swore on the campaign trail that he would focus on an America First agenda, since the moment he took office, it's been about him, about his new jet, his ballroom, his golden-crusted oval office, his reflecting pool, his rose garden, his arch, all for him. Meanwhile, back out here with the rest of Americans, costs have surged, gas is almost at his highest point ever, health care has been cut for tens of millions of Americans, food assistance was gutted, electricity prices are surging, but he hasn't done anything to fix it, because he just doesn't care, because those things don't

affect him. And it's not like he can't fix it. Remember, this is Trump we're talking about. When you want something, he does it. He doesn't let anything stand in his way. Not the law, the courts, prosecutors, attorneys, judges, the Constitution. He just makes it happen. But only when it benefits him. And making sure that Americans can afford groceries and health care and housing and food assistance, none of that stuff impacts him. So he doesn't get it done. And the rest of his party, which has the power of a co-weeker branch of government, the power. to rein him in, to at least step in and work on behalf of their own constituents who they are paid to serve, they've also collectively decided that it's more important to help Trump

than Americans. The entire party exists to serve one person. And so I think whether we're talking about the UFC match happening on the White House lawn or everything else that Donald Trump does on a daily basis, it could not be more obvious that the entire GOP, including the people who can stop him, who can serve as a check to him, had decided that. protecting Trump is the only priority that they have. And so that's something to remember as they ask for your votes come this November. We're going to throw in just a moment to my interviews with Robert Garcia, Tommy Vitor and Zachary Danini. But first, just a quick reminder, for those who haven't yet preordered my new book the day after,

it comes out in just a few weeks, available for pre-order now. If you're looking to support my work, the single best way to do that right now is to pre-order the day after. obviously I don't paywall any of my content. I never will. But this is one time where I'll actually ask for some financial support. So if you have the ability to pre-order it, that's a great way to support me. If you live in New York, D.C. or Los Angeles, I want to come see me in person. The link to purchase tickets for that book tour is also on the same website. I'm going to put all of it in the show notes of this episode. Okay. Here are my interviews with Robert Garcia, Tommy Vitor, and Zachary Dennini. No Lie is brought to you by Zbiotics. So you've heard me promote Zbiotics pre-alcohol before, and for good reason. It is a game-changing product that I used before a night out with drinks. Well, a few weeks back, I was able to use it again. I went to POTSave America's John Lovitz wedding.

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Remember to head to zbiotics.com slash BTC and use code BTC at checkout for 15% off. I'm joined now by the ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, Robert Garcia. Congressman, we have some new news here as it relates to Epstein and J.D. Vance, the vice president, that hasn't been in the spotlight before. Can you explain what that news is?

Yeah, I mean, look, this is pretty bombshell reporting. The New York Times has obviously put out a pretty significant report. We also hear there's more to come about J.D. Vance actually now being centered in this EPSCEN scandal and cover-up. We had no idea that Vance had really been involved in the past. He's made some comments. But now we learned that J.D. Vance is basically hosting and leading meetings in the Situation Room about the EPSCIN investigation. And the Situation Room is used for national security, for issues of war and peace, for major issues. around the country. And J.D. Vance, Susie Wiles,

Casper Tal, Todd Blanche are having these meetings about Epstein in the actual situation room. And it's clear from this reporting that they're talking about ways of protecting Donald Trump. So it's very significant. It's the first time Vance is now at the center of this cover-up, directing, giving ideas, making suggestions, like it's including really bizarre ones. And so we've said we've got to talk to J.D. Vance and the rest of the folks in that room. Why are they playing cover up for Donald Trump? In terms of getting J.D. Vance in front of the House Oversight Committee, what is the likelihood of that happening and what action can and are you taking in service of that? Well, we just made the formal request to get J.D. Vance to get Patel, Susie Wiles, some of the communication staff, folks that were in that room in front of the committee at Comer. At the end of the day, it's Comer's decision.

Now, look, he may not go along with this, but we can put the pressure on. When we've put pressure on, we've heard from folks that we force people to come in. And certainly we're in the majority. We're going to expect these people are in front of our committee actually answering these questions. Look, JD-Bantz made some wild, wild accusations as well as provided some crazy ideas. He suggested that Tucker Carlson interview Galane Maxwell. They're talking about how they can maybe pardoned, what a pardon would mean for Galane Maxwell. How can we get Galen Maxwell to say that she had nothing to do with Donald Trump or that Donald Trump

had nothing to do with Jeffrey Epstein. This is a cover-up that we're reading about in real time, and now we know that J.D. Vance and Susie Wiles have been in on it. So they have a lot to answer for, and quite frankly, they have a lot to answer for to the survivors. How can Republicans justify potentially having wielded contempt powers for Hillary Clinton to testify in front of the House Oversight Committee as it relates to the Epstein files,

but not J.D. Vance, who is on record perpetuating the cover, I mean, he seems a lot more involved in this thing than Hillary Clinton ever did, and yet they were willing to use whatever tools they had at their disposal and whatever punishments and accountability methods they had at their disposal to make sure that she appeared. So how do you justify bringing in one but not the other? You don't. I mean, the reality is that J.D. Vance has clearly now played a big role in this cover-up, and we just found out about it.

And the fact, part of this is the fact that they're having these meetings in the situation. Why are they there? They clearly viewed this as a massive security threat to who? To Trump? Yeah. To their administration? They know that in that room, it's very, obviously, there is technology in that room that really ensures that folks don't find out what they're talking about.

And so it's concerning that through the reporting for the New York Times, they're giving us a snapshot. But I wonder how many times did they meet in the situation room? how many times with J.D. Vance involved. The reporting talks about certain instances, but they're clearly, if we're reading about some, there has to be a lot more. Right. And so we have, I think J.D. Vance has a lot to answer for it. And I hope he's asked by the press and the mainstream media, what the hell is he doing? And why is he trying to play cover up for Donald Trump? What does actually J.D. Vance know? Does he know what's in the files? Why haven't the rest of the

files been released? These are all important questions. If Democrats were able to take them majority in Congress and you become chairman of the oversight committee, what will that mean in terms of you being able to wield your power to compel the testimony of someone like J.D. Vance, given the questions we now have. Look, I think that J.D. Vance, first of us, clearly, and we already know that he's a liar and he does whatever Donald Trump wants him to do. That's been clear throughout this whole administration. He refuses to ever stand up to Donald Trump. And I think what we're learning here is a much more central player in the Epstein cover-up than we had ever thought before.

And so we're going to have to do everything we can to compel him to testify, to push the media, get public opinion. And I'll say, look, I was just looking at some reports in polling that the Epstein investigation and this broader kind of Epstein case is the single most bipartisan thing in the country. And it's where Donald Trump is actually the weakest.

More people care, Republicans, care about this, and believe that Donald Trump is failing at this than any other topic, more than the economy, more than immigration, more than anything else, Democrats as well. And so is united the country? So if J.D. Vance thinks he's just going to go walk around and we're going to allow him to tell lies and not answer questions. He's mistaken. Have you gotten any sense from your Republican colleagues, whether there is, and I'm sure there's not an appetite to call J.D. Vance and to testify, but an openness, a willingness, do you think that those people could be pressured to call J.D. Vance to testify? I think there are going to be

some Republicans, Tom Massey, Nancy Mace, Lauren Bobert, that might be supportive of that type of effort. But I think that J.D. Vance, the bigger question in the Republican Party, broadly speaking, is he had never been a part of this investigation before. And there was no evidence linking him to any sort of the cover up. But now it's clear he is not only part of the cover of, he's leading cover-up meetings in the situation. We can't get more serious than that. And so he is a lot to answer for. And I've encouraged my congressional colleagues of the last few days to stay on this. And we've got to hold J.D. Vance's beat to the fire here. He's the vice president of the United States, second in line of the presidency, and he's playing cover up for Donald Trump. It's got to end.

You know, some of those colleagues that you had mentioned, Nancy Mace is in her last term in the house. She obviously lost her primary for South Carolina governor, I believe came in fifth in that primary. You have Thomas Massey also was ousted, thanks to help from Donald Trump. And so given the fact that these people are kind of freed from the shackles of what is expected of you if you want to remain a member in good standing of Donald Trump's Republican Party, do you expect that they'll be a little bit more outspoken in terms of their support for transparency on this issue? I mean, I do hope. I do expect that they will be, obviously, wait and see, but look at Marjor Tela Green. I mean, I think that.

she's a good example of someone that has kind of broken free from Donald Trump and, you know, very much has a strong political opinion of which I strongly disagree with. But overall, she's not in it anymore to please President Trump, which is what she did the entire time almost as she was in Congress. And so I hope that Nancy Mace, I hope that Thomas Massey in these months ahead, continue to show some courage and push on the Epstein files. We need to get more answers. And we need now, why the hell is Susie Wiles so obsessed also with? the Epstein files and she's directing all sorts of things. We're hearing for Bonino, of course, was at the FBI saying some pretty crazy stuff. And so again, there's just more, more to look at,

more to investigate. Another really critical part of those in the reporting was, you know, Pam Bondi liked to throw Todd Blanche under the bus a lot in her in her deposition saying that somehow he was completely in charge of everything and obviously Todd Blanche within these rooms. But so was Pam Bondi. Pan Bondi attended these meetings sometimes by phone. And so this idea that Pambani had no idea it was going on. She certainly never mentioned to us. She was having meetings in the situation room. And so I think it's very concerning.

Especially because, like, you know, this is where the operations took place to take out bin Laden and Soleimani and Al-Zawahiri. And like to equate those missions with the, well, I guess what is now a mission to protect Donald Trump from the Epstein files is pretty telling in terms of what this, how important this administration views this entire cover-up effort. But, you know, something that was also striking in terms of Donald Trump going after these people who dare speak out against him as it relates to Epstein is Donald Trump also decided to create a new website as part of whitehouse.gov, and that was what he's calling a media offenders. There's a bunch of content creators.

Congratulations. Thank you. Yes, it is, it's something that I wear as a badge of honor. I'm one of the names of those content creators who were included on that list. And so I just wanted to get your reaction to the fact that you had a Republican Party that predicated so much of its identity on this idea that they are staunch opponents of censorship and they're going to be these champions for free speech. Now publishing an enemy's list of content creators like YouTubers and podcast hosts on whitehouse.gov. Just your reaction to the fact that this is where their priorities are at the hands of a party that would beat its chest as being anti-censorship. These people are just a total joke. I mean, they're a joke. They weaponize the government.

It's crazy to be like both so incompetent and so craze about attacking people at the same time. I mean, look, I think they have work to destroy anyone that opposes them. It's part of their authoritarian playbook. They have gone after, whether it's large. companies like obviously CBS and large institutions to successful new media channels, right? Like yourself, other podcasters that are out in this space. You and others have these enormous audiences in the digital space, on YouTube, so many other ways. And I think they're intimidated by that. The right, we've allowed the right for so long to dominate the digital space, to dominate YouTube, to dominate so, so the podcasting space and

It's just been in the last few years. You look about what's happening in the last five years, three years for us on the progressive front. We're actually making some headway now. There's investments that are happening. So, of course, Donald Trump is going to attack that. He's going to try to bring folks down and intimidate. Because, you know, as you know, you have a great operation. There's also some smaller operations that intimidation can have an impact.

People don't have the ability to defend themselves oftentimes. the resources to fight Trump's, Trump's Department of Justice. Yeah, completely agree. I mean, the whole point of this is to have a chilling effect. What do you think your Republican counterpart in the Oversight Committee, James Comer, or Jim Jordan, who chaired the subcommittee on the weaponization of government? What do you think that those Republicans would say if Joe Biden had created an enemy's list and published it on the taxpayer-funded Whitehouse.gov website?

Insane. I mean, I can't believe that they went after Joe Biden for, you know, using an auto pen. And that was the thing they were mad at or they were mad that he was old. I mean, Donald Trump is literally stealing everyone's money and giving it to himself and his family. They're going after journalists. They're attacking the courts. They're stealing money. They're cutting real estate deals.

They're destroying the White House, building cage matches in front of it. I mean, it's beyond. You know, they've destroyed our relationships around the world. He is just the worst person to ever lead our country by far. And his administration is. And I think we're all just waiting for the day where we can turn the page on Donald Trump. Well, look, I know that I speak for a lot of people watching in saying, first off, thank you for the work that you're doing and keeping these important issues to hold Trump to account at the forefront.

And second of all, you know, in terms of that work starting, hopefully just a few months now you do become the chairman of the House Oversight Committee and we can start digging into some of this stuff that I think the American people have very valid and legitimate questions about first and foremost on the Epstein matter, but a whole raft of things that you just mentioned, whether it's the financial corruption, you know, these deals that Trump is engaged with, these vanity projects that he is, that he's doing right now, the fact that his kids are involved in all of these military endeavors and the list goes on and on. So again, you know, the work to begin holding this administration, this overtly corrupt administration account,

hopefully start sooner rather than later. And I know that a lot of that is going to be in your jurisdiction. So with that said, we'll leave it there. Congressman, I appreciate your time. Thank you. No Lie is brought to you by Shopify. Starting something new isn't just hard. It's scary. So much work goes into this thing that you're not entirely sure is going to work out. And it can be hard to make that leap of faith. Trust me, I know. When I started this podcast, I wasn't even sure of what I was doing. Like, what if nobody listens? What if I can't offer something worth listening to? Now, I'm glad that I believed in myself and launched my podcast, despite all of the fears and hesitations.

But let's be clear, it also helps when you have a partner like Shopify on your side to help. Shopify is the commerce platform behind millions of businesses around the world and 10% of all e-commerce in the United States. From my own website, Brian Tyler Cohen.com, to brands just getting started. So get started with your own design studio. With hundreds of ready-to-use templates, Shopify, helps you build a beautiful online store that matches your brand style. Accelerate your efficiency, whether you're looking to upload new products or trying to improve existing ones. Shopify is packed with helpful AI tools that write product descriptions,

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Sign up for your $1 per month trial today at Shopify.com slash BTC. Go to Shopify.com slash BTC. That's Shopify.com slash BTC. Tommy, it looks like Donald Trump just got hit with a brand new Epstein blow from somewhere he didn't expect. Let's see the clip. They're traitors, the ones that refuse to release Epstein files, want to cover up for pedophiles and rapists and all sorts of discussing things in

these files. Those are the traitors to the American people, and they should be ashamed of themselves. I mean, this report basically says it was the president who didn't want anything released. Are you saying that that applies to the president himself? I'm saying exactly that. He told me on the phone that his friends would get hurt. And that's why he's against releasing

the Epstein files. It's been shocking to people, many people that voted for Donald Trump, many people that voted Republican, that they would actually follow through to try to cover up

the Epstein files. So, uh, out too ambiguous there with Trader. You're a traitor. I mean, what kind of impact do you think that that's going to have here as Trump continues to try and basically quash any dissent as it relates to Epstein? But you have people like Marjorie Taylor Green making

sure that this issue doesn't die. Look, I think that there was a bunch of folks in the MAGA movement who sincerely believed that Donald Trump would expose the Epstein files and expose the kind of client list, take down this cabal of elites and actually put people in jail. That might have been a little bit naive, right? I think we all can agree with that. But there's... Wait, you think the guy who had been photographed a billion times next to Jeffrey Epstein, his best friend for 10 years that might have been misleading. But like we all know that there was a group of people in the MAGA world, like especially the podcast universe who were really, really focused on this. And they believe Marjorie Taylor Green is sincere and they're probably still listening to her and she'll keep the issue alive. Like Donald Trump, this big article in New York Times about the desperate efforts last summer to spin and cover up the Epstein files is like kind of bringing back this issue.

It just shows that Trump cannot make this go away. It's just never, ever going to go away. What about the fact that he tapped Todd Blanche to be his permanent attorney general? I think that this was obviously with Epstein in mind because if there's anybody who's going to be willing to defend Trump, like to the ends of the earth, it's going to be his own former personal criminal defense attorney, somebody who's already shown to be willing to do whatever it takes as far as Epstein is concerned. The guy went to Florida, talked to Gleine Maxwell, and immediately moved her over to a minimum security. prison in Texas? Nothing sketchy about that? We don't know.

He refuses to say it. Now he claims there's threats to her life. So that's why she had to go to a country club, I guess. So do you think that Todd Blanche is going to be able to effectively bury this thing? I mean, so this New York Times report is an excerpt of the new Maggie Haberman book. That's about how Todd Blanche, who was currently nominated to be Trump's Attorney General, was sitting in the situation room at meetings conspiring to cover up, suppress, otherwise just like kill all of horrible allegations within the Epstein files, including ones that Trump, like, had sex or sexual

contact with one of Epstein's victims. Yeah. You know, it's like really awful stuff. So my hope is that Democrats, if Todd Blanche really has confirmation hearings, Democrats should hammer him on this. Like, what were you doing in these meetings? Like, whatever happened to the Department of Justice having some distance from political decision making in the White House, right?

Like, this is totally inappropriate collusion. I wonder if there's going to be Republicans who are going to be willing. to buck Trump and actually join in on this effort to get some transparency here because we've also seen what happens, and I think this was by design, we've seen what happens to Republicans who aren't willing to tow the line. And, you know, Thomas Massey is out of Congress, John Corny, out of the Senate, Bill Cassidy, out of the Senate. And so these, and these are not like squishy, squishy lips, right? Like, these are people who have voted with Trump more than 90% of the time, in some cases, all the time. And yet, whatever they did, whatever we did, whatever

one thing they did that caught his ire was enough for him to like cut them off. And so, you know, when, when Todd Blanche shows up for these confirmation hearings and, and is posed a tough question by a Republican, do they become persona non grata in the GOP? Does that mean that their career in Congress or the Senate is effectively over? Yeah, I don't know. I mean, hopefully some of them have a little bit of courage. I mean, interestingly, today alone, uh, it sounds like Republican efforts to get rid of Bill Pulte or his nomination to be the director of national intelligence finally worked because Trump announced he was naming someone else. Like, ultimately there is a line. We just have to help Republicans find the courage to touch it.

I also presume that Bill Palty is not a hill that Trump is really willing to die on, but the Epstein stuff is different because that directly implicates him. Yeah, although what he was hoping to do with Bill Pulte is install him as director of national intelligence and then use that job to find all the information and authorities. Sure, but he can find some other hack. He can find some hack who's easier to get confirmed. For sure, but like... And do you think, is it Jay Clayton who is... Yeah, it's like the Southern District of New York? And do you think that that person is going to be as malleable as Bill Pulte would have been?

I know nothing about Jay Clayton, but I know that Bill Pulte has literally zero qualification for the job. I mean, this guy is like overseeing Fannie and Freddie's working in the mortgage world. Before that, he was going to conferences and encouraging people to pump and dump best buy stock. I'm sure you've seen the video of like him at this conference where someone's just whack another guy in the face with the dildo. Drew, cut that in here.

Here's the first ever, man. Live fucking dildo slap on the Peepee live. Pulte, look at this fucking thing. All right. Come on. Harder, daddy.

All right, fine. There you fucking have it. The first dildo slap in history live. So, Bill, this says Bill Pulte fucks. all right yeah

and then if you notice on it's got a tramp stamp with a butterfly I like only the young one ass cheeks yes it does say uh it does say only the young on the back here only young December 14 that looked pretty badass we have a mushroom stamp on the head of it and bed bath on one cheek and GME

oh fuck GME on the other I got too excited there so you know that's like when it's someone who's like that what it's like a Cash Patel, right, or Bill Pulte, who has like literally no business in the job only because you're doing Trump's bidding. Like, that's when I get the most nervous. But that's the whole cabinet. I mean, Pete Hegseth is not there because he is competent at running the military or any

department. But Pete Hegseth served in the military. You know what I mean? Sure. I guess if the bar is that low and Bill Pulte doesn't even meet that low bar, then that is then missing the post. Tulsi Gabbard, right? She was served in the Army for like 20 years. She was a member of Congress. She was on the intelligence committee. I don't think she was qualified. for that job. I don't think she was the right person. Right.

But she wasn't like just like coming out of the, you know, owning a chain of like Quiznos or something like Bill Pulteus. Like we were doing opo on him like digging for research for Pod Save the World. And we found a podcast interview he did on a podcast that specializes in HVAC. You know that HVAC to Intel, Intel community pipeline is strong. Yeah. They build pipelines to connect your. heating and your air conditioning.

To the nation's intelligence infrastructure. Yeah, anyway. Yeah. Well, you know, on that point, it was funny to see when the Knicks played game three, to see like Howard Lutnik on the sidelines. Oh, that sucked. I know. And it is a bummer because, you know, that should be the ultimate apolitical event.

And something that New York desperately needs and has been really fun to watch the Knicks like really run this entire series. And it was great watching the entire... I mean, you know that that moment, the whole world was waiting for that moment just as much as they were waiting for the actual game itself to see how badly Donald Trump would get booed.

Dude, and it was so awesome because they clearly tried to set up the one shot of Donald Trump to be during the national anthem. Where you can't boo, presumably? And New Yorkers were like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, this is New York. Hold my fucking beer.

I'm gonna boo the shit out of this guy. And did you see the cuts from Bryant Park and like all these other places where they were just viewing it in the city? Yeah, people were going, nuts. Yeah. Oh, it was great. Also, there were so many politicians at the game that night. Like, Rahm Emanuel, Obama's chief of staff was there. Yeah. Bloomberg was there like two nights ago. Yeah, I think somebody, one of the, one of the guys

like fell into him. You don't realize how frail these people are. Is it an old dude? Until you have like a seven foot tall basketball player fall into their lap. That's what's crazy about watching an NBA game. It's like on TV, you know, they're like taking charges and taking jump shots. But like up close in person, these guys weigh like two Yeah. They're just killing each other. If they fell on a regular human being, let alone like a frail old guy. There is, I think I brought this up to like a group of my friends the other day.

Would you rather have to survive 10 seconds in an NFL game and you can make $10 million or just get a million dollars? Get a million. I think that's the right answer. Ten seconds in an NFL game, I think. Do you understand what getting hit by an NFL corner? back would do to you. Okay, now imagine it's an inside linebacker.

Yeah. Now imagine it's, you know, Miles Garrett. Dead. Yeah. Dead. Look, man, that's why I asked the question. You know those medieval tortures where, like,

they pull you from every angle and, like, all your limbs come up? That would be me on the field. Just like, blah. Splayed out. Yeah. Is this good content? You'd like that, wouldn't you?

Is this why people come to your channel? You're disgusting, Tommy. Disgusting. It's not that kind of a show. The nice part about this was watching, knowing the fact that the only game the Knicks have lost now was the one that Donald Trump showed up to.

Yeah, he definitely jinxed them. I mean, they were on like a 13 game heater and the guy decided he had to go to the game. Second longest streak. Second longest shriek in NBA history. And then the next night, they came back like the greatest comeback in NBA finals history. Yeah.

Donald Trump not there. Yeah. It is pretty awesome. Like, this is where Trump is annoying. Like, because of the conservative bent of like the sports media in particular, if this had been Joe Biden, he would be getting absolutely killed for this like it would be like a national meme of like

biden you know the jinx or the loser i feel like trump's not getting the commensurate about a shit no no i i agree with you but i think that it's becoming less and less um like in style and fashion to like in vogue to to step to stand behind trump especially like in the sports world especially with the epstein stuff bearing down it's like there's a very easy retort to anybody you know, in the barstool world that continues to like advocate for Trump. And it's like, all right, but like guys like pretty deeply mixed up with pedophiles. So remember like earlier on in the first term, they were like NFL players doing the Trump dance in the end zone and stuff. Right.

Like it was like a Monrasse, and Brown, I think was the first one I did. Like a bunch of players are doing it, like cool, good players. And it made me very mad. And also like he was in the cultural zeitgeist. Like people were showing up to the inauguration. And now like Millie Vanillies canceling on them, you know. Shit is dark. Although what really hurts as a lifelong Giants fan

is like the one player that didn't get that memo is Jackson Dart. And that sucks. Can't believe you're a quarterback from Old Miss is a Republican. Well, look, even the other old Miss quarterbacks at least have... Eli Manning has like enough sense not to align himself with the Republican Party in New York of all places. Yeah, and it was weird. It turned into that weird fight on Twitter about it and whatnot. I don't know.

Like my view on this is I feel like everyone just gets to like, who they want to like and we can live and let live and move on and like scolding players to liking people or not. It's proven to be ineffective from our side of the aisle. You know what I mean? Well, you're not not down with the intolerant left. No, I don't think that worked well for us. Yeah. No, you're right, but I still hate it. I still, I still hate that. My owner's Bob Kraft. Yeah, it's fair. He's like best friends with Trump. He was courtside too. The next owner is, I saw him. The Nick's owner is the same deal. Like, he's, he, he has, like, been sparring publicly with Mayor Mammondani who tried to have this watch party outside Madison Square Garden and, like, Dolan canceled it.

So James Dolan famously has, like, security officials in the arena spy on people and will, like, kick them out if they say stuff, making fun of him. Yeah, I saw that. I saw that reporting the other day. Yeah, Pablo Torre is stuff, I think. Yeah, pretty wild stuff. Okay. Well, with that said, for those who are watching right now, first of all, go Nix. Boston sports team suck.

And second of all, if you're not yet subscribed to Pod Save America's YouTube channel, I'm going to put a link right here on the screen and also in the post description of this video. Completely free to subscribe, but a great way to elevate voices like Tommy's and the other guys at Podsafe of America so that we can help build up this progressive media ecosystem. Tommy, anything to add? I love you. Thanks. All right.

We'll leave it there. I'm joined now by the head of data science at Vote Hub, Zach Dennini. Zach, thanks so much for joining me. I wanted to talk to you because, A, I'm a huge fan. of the work that you and Vote Hub do. And it's especially important right now because we're seeing a new round of election denialism happening. But it's happening starting in California,

which seems to me to show that Trump doesn't have a lot of, isn't very discerning about how he deploys his election denial claims. But from the perspective of somebody who works in data science, can you speak about these claims of election denialism that are happening in L.A. and California more broadly. Yeah, so I think something that, you know, I want to start by saying is counting is truly very, very slow in California, right? Even compared to, you know, other West Coast states that count their mail and ballots late, we're talking about only about half the vote being counted on

election night. And those votes are counted in roughly chronological order and different people hold their ballots and return them earlier and later. It's different populations. And I think, you know, from my position, I try to, you know, understand that that is, like, not exactly intuitive to people who don't obsessively follow elections like me. But it also, you know, is we try to communicate that because we know what those shifts are roughly going to look like to people. On that point, you know, there have been a lot of Republicans who've come forward and said, well, that kind of a system breeds distrust. My pushback to that is that the system doesn't breed distrust. The system is what it is. We allow a lot of different avenues for people to vote and for

those votes to be counted. What breeds distrust is the people who breed distrust, is the people who come forward and say that, you know, when there is election day votes that are counted first and then mail-in ballots, which skew overwhelmingly democratic when those come in after, and the vote total shifts from a redder electorate to a bluer electorate, we're inevitably going to see, you know, we're going to see Democrats do better and better as more votes are counted. I think that's what undermines trust in the elections. But from your vantage, having looked at both the California system and the rest of the country, can you give a sense of what you think when people say that a system like the one we have in California breeds distrust?

Yeah. So I do think in general, it is, you know, it is just tough for people, you know, in a lot of states, they wake up and they see someone's losing by 1% or something on Wednesday morning. And maybe they think, oh, this is close. They could come back. You know, in California, that can be 10 or 12 percent and someone back. So the system in California is, you know, it is a bigger number than what we're seeing everywhere else.

But a falsehood that is just really frustrating, I think, that we've had to deal with in the last week is this idea that these late mail ballots always favor Democrats. I, you know, recently this week, you know, posted about, you know, an election that I was in charge of covering in 2022 when it was a Republican candidate, David Schweikert in Arizona, who was losing by double digits with 70% of the vote counted in Arizona, House District 1 in 2022, and he came back in one, right? You know, it goes both ways. And I think it's important, you know, for people to try to bring those facts to light

so people aren't getting a warped picture of what happens. In terms of the broader election coming up now, as we look toward midterms, can you give me your sense of where we stand as far as the Senate is concerned? Yeah, so the Senate is an interesting situation because there are kind of two different sets of states. We have Maine, Michigan, North Carolina, and Georgia. These are states that were close, maybe Trump won them by a little in the case of Maine. Harris won them. Democrats kind of need to sweep these four.

And then there are other states, Iowa, Texas, Ohio, and Alaska. All of these four states, Trump won by double digits, but Democrats need to win about two of those as well to win control of the Senate. So, you know, what this means is, you know, you have to hold serve in these races that Democrats should be winning in a blue environment, and you have to win a couple races in states that will be difficult to win, even in a blue environment with good candidates. What does Vote Hub's analysis suggest would happen, you know, if the race were today? If the race were today, honestly, we think Republicans would probably hold control of the Senate. Right now, in our, in our,

our polling average, we have Democrats ahead of Republicans and generic ballot polls by 5.4 points. We actually expect this to shift towards Democrats considerably the next six months. Our projected November average is D plus 7.2. And why? There's just a historic pattern where in midterm elections, you know, the public sentiment usually shifts towards the out party in the months leading up to the election. After even, you know, considering that shift right now, we give

Republicans a 55% chance to win the Senate. So, I mean, roughly a toss-up, but a very, very narrow, you know, Republicans very narrowly favored. Are there any unforced errors that are causing a chance for Republicans to be more successful than they should be as far as the Senate map is concerned? So I think one issue for Democrats is Maine and Michigan. The candidate quality in these states is unclear. I don't want to say that, oh, the Democrats are going to throw away these races because of poor candidate equality. There's no evidence to make you think that will definitely happen. But it is important to, you know, consider, you know, Georgia and North Carolina, you have these battle-tested candidates, John Ossoff and Roy Cooper, who we know are very, very good

at winning elections and strongly believe they can do so in such a blue year in their purple states. Michigan and Maine, you know, I'm sure Democrats wish they had a Roy Cooper, wish they They have the John Alsuff to run in these states, but they don't, right? So it's just more of a question mark. I think six years ago, people would have said John Ossoff was an inexperienced candidate without a track record of winning elections. Now we view him as really strong. You know, we could be saying the same thing about Graham Platner in six years.

Or we could be saying in six years, wow, you know, Grand Platner lost Maine and a bloomed turd. What about the House now? If we go over to the House as it stands in the aftermath, of redistricting, I believe, if I'm not mistaken, Republicans were able to net another 12 seats this cycle as the result of redrawing maps. Does that put the Democrats' ability or likelihood to retake the House at risk? I think it's very important to know that Democrats are clearly favored to win the House. If the election was held today, they'd be clearly favored to win the

House. And again, we expect things just to shift more towards Democrats in the next six months. You know, I think I always tell people, you know, American elections are, you know, surprising things happen a lot, right? You know, an 80% chance of winning the House, you know, means that if you, you know, flip a coin a couple times and get heads, right now we think Republicans, you know, could feasibly win the House, but that something would really have to change. And it would be surprising and very historical precedent. What about in subsequent cycles? What do you foresee as the prospect of Democrats redrawing maps and some of these weapons that haven't yet been deployed? I'm talking about the ongoing redraw in New York,

which of course will take a constitutional amendment. I presume that we'll see another effort in Virginia. That one will likely be successful because the technicalities that precluded it from working in 2026, likely won't present themselves in 28. There is, of course, the ability for California to redraw again. You know, there are, I believe, seven seats that Republicans will still hold in this state. So the map may very well look different, especially in the aftermath of Democrats, seeing the extent to which Republicans were willing to engage in this process in Texas, Florida, Ohio, Missouri, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi.

be, I mean, like, North Carolina, possibly South Carolina, the next election cycle. So what can that look like? And I guess the broader question is, like, is there a world where Democrats can actually come out on top if they're willing to fight fire with fire and be aggressive here as aggressive as Republicans have been? Yeah. So first of all, I think we have seen that Democrats are willing to fight fire with fire. In the 22 redistricting cycle, I like to remind people in 2022 and 24, the House had a pro-democratic bias, right? You know, Democrats, the House had a pro-Republican bias throughout the 2010s. The Democrats, you know, in Illinois, Oregon, Nevada, New Mexico, he basically said, you know,

we're done with this. And they actually kind of out-restricted Republicans in 2022 and 2024 and 2024. 2026 cycle, as, you know, I'm sure everyone listening to this knows was a big win for Republicans, probably about seven to eight seats in a neutral environment. Yeah, yeah. But now, Republicans are now kind of tapped out in a lot of their states. Another one I'll throw out there you didn't mention is Colorado. That's a 4-4 map right now.

It's very easy to draw on an A&O map for Democrats in Colorado. So Republicans are now like kind of, you know, maximally gerrymandered in a lot of their states. They, of course, always have a few more districts they can knock off in, you know, South Carolina, even go back to Alabama, Indiana, Kansas, Nebraska. but Democrats now have a lot more outstanding in Illinois, New York, Washington, Colorado. So we'll see how that develops. It's made it so that Democrats do need quite a blue environment to win the U.S. House in 2026, but the data right now points to that blue environment happening. I mean, I know this isn't really within your jurisdiction as a data scientist,

but do you presume based on what you know about these Democrats that they there's a difference between being able to do it having the opportunity to do it and then actually doing it and the latter part of that is is I think what Democrats as as institutionalists have had more trouble bringing themselves to do I mean we even heard from J.B. Pritzker who says you know he's told me in our interviews about this very topic he goes I'm on team fight but then decided to hinge any action in Illinois on on whatever Indiana did. So not really as aggressive as I think, as I think he had suggested previously. So just judging from what you know about the Democrats who are in charge here, do you think they'd actually be willing to deploy these tools,

even though they have the opportunity to use them? Yeah, I will note that Illinois already has, you know, what I would consider a pretty heinous gerrymander, right? Both eye tests when you look at the map. My home district is a noodle that stretches from champagne to St. Louis. And then it would be, you know, basically turning it into a completely maximal, super ugly bacon mander. It would probably actually be the lowest compactness gerrymander if Illinois went there, worse even than anything Republicans have drawn yet. That being said, you, of course, have states like New York and Colorado who, that are blue states, and if anything, maybe even have slightly Republican leaning maps right now, I think odds are definitely in the favor of Democrats redrawing in 2028.

I think the Democratic outrage surrounding Voting Rights Act being gutted by Scotus this spring was pretty big. And when we're talking about ugly maps, right, I think like what happened in Tennessee really went past a line, honestly, that had been held for the most part by both sides with the Memphis drawout is really, really, really. you know, extreme. Last question here. This is a little bit farther out into the future, but the prospect of a reallocation of electoral votes and the impact that that's going to have post 2030. As it stands right now,

even Democrats winning like the blue wall states in the Midwest wouldn't be enough to get them over the finish line. So how do you foresee that shaking out given the fact that California will likely lose electoral votes. A lot of these blue states in the northeast, for example, and on the West Coast, and those are going to be reallocated towards states in the southeast and the Sunbelt. So, yeah, something I really try to communicate with people

is there is a lot of uncertainty surrounding reallocation. So what this means is, you know, midway through the decade, we have these estimates about how we think people are moving across the country from something called the American Community Survey, the ACS. But the U.S. Census, the full U.S. Census is only once every 10 years. Based on these mid-decade estimates, it looks like reallocation is going to be quite bad for Democrats. But there's uncertainty around that, right?

If this is quite bad, it could be anywhere from, like, neutral for Democrats to, like, a total disaster. We're winning all three Blue Wall States, maybe and Arizona isn't even enough. So we don't quite know where it will end up. But directionally, you know, a best case scenario for Democrats at this point is basically no change. A worst case scenario is having to win, you know, two or maybe even three more states, if you think about, you know, Nevada being pretty small in 2032. Yeah. I mean, although there is a world where, I mean, like, this is like me doing the thing that I think Democrats have been doing for the last 20 years

where it's like maybe Texas is is poised to flip, but we've been saying maybe Texas is poised to flip forever, but we'll see. I mean, we have a strong candidate in James Telerico, and perhaps if he's able to win, and there's such disgust over what the MAGA agenda has turned into in Texas, and voters there get a sense of like, okay, we stuck our necks out and voted for this Democrat for the first time,

and he's performing well in the Senate. maybe that'll allow them to be more open to other Democrats in the future. So look, time will tell on that stuff. Zachary, for those who are watching and listening right now, where can they see and hear more from you? You can follow Vote Hub or my name, Zachary Dunini on X. You can go to our website at VoHub.com. We do a lot of coverage on election nights.

We have a midterms forecast we worked very hard on. We do a lot of scraping of precinct data. So you can see the most detailed maps as they update in real time on election night. Awesome. Well, I appreciate the work that you do and you taking the time today. Thank you very much for having you on. Thanks again to Robert Garcia, Tommy Vitor and Zachary Danini. That's it for this episode. Talk to you on Wednesday.

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