Pod Save America - "A Very Special Episode of Insurrection."

Episode Date: June 30, 2022

The latest Jan 6 hearing gives what might have been the most shocking Congressional hearing in American history, Hot Take’s Amy Westervelt joins to talk about the Supreme Court’s fuck you to the planet, and Chief Take Officer Elijah Cone leads a special Take Appreciator of Republican reactions to Tuesday’s hearing. For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email [e-mail] and include the name of the podcast.

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. On today's show, a very special episode of Insurrection gives us what might have been the most shocking congressional hearing in American history. That's right. Hot Takes Amy Westervelt joins to talk about the Supreme Court's fuck you to the planet. And Chief Take Officer Elijah Cohn has prepared a special take appreciator of Republican reactions to Tuesday's hearing. But first, Crooked Media has a brand new podcast out called Imani State of Mind. This is a show where psychiatrist and TV personality Dr. Imani Walker and co-host comedian Meg Scoop Thomas normalize the conversation about mental health through insightful and witty discussions about what's happening in news,

pop culture, and our daily lives. Get real on your relationship with yourself, your parents, your friends, and so much more. Listen and follow Imani State of Mind wherever you get your podcasts. Exciting. Also, check out this week's offline where we answer the question,

has Google created a soul uh natasha tiku of the washington post joins to discuss her blockbuster story of a google engineer who claims the company's artificial intelligence chatbot lambda is sentient this is a great conversation dan you'll want to uh if you haven't listened already you'll want to hear this one it's uh It's pretty, I had like not followed the whole AI debate for a while. Because you were offline? Because I was offline, right.

And then I finally read this story and then read the chats and I was, I went down a rabbit hole. And then I did this interview. Also check out this coming Sunday's episode where I talked to college student

Emma Lemke about the log off movement that she started to help young people struggling with the mental health effects of social media. Listen to new episodes of Offline every Sunday wherever you get your podcasts. All right, let's get to the news. On Tuesday, the January 6th committee shocked the world with a surprise hearing that revealed Donald Trump wanted to personally join the violent mob that stormed the Capitol after being told that they were armed and dangerous. The star witness was Cassidy Hutchinson, the most Republican name possible. Cassidy Hutchinson. She was a top aide to former

White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows. And Cassidy, as promised by Congressman Jamie Raskin not long ago, blew the roof off the House with the most damning and potentially incriminating testimony ever delivered about the current Republican frontrunner for the presidency. All right, so we are going to go through the five most batshit crazy moments from the hearings in a bit. But before we do, Dan, maybe we should explain to people why Hutchinson's White House job would have allowed

this 25-year-old special assistant to the president to see and hear so much. So a couple of things here. One, the real centers of power in the West Wing are the assistants. They know everything. They are involved in everything. At least in our White House, each and every one of them had the highest security clearance available. They basically help run the place. And if you want to know what's happening, you have to talk to the assistants. It's also, I think, just so people understand it, special assistant to the president is the third highest rank that the

president can give someone. There are people who are assistants in the sense that they assist bosses, which could be clerical work, scheduling, et cetera. But special assistant to the president is an official designation that it goes assistant to the president. There are like 25 or so of those deputy assistant to the president and special assistant. And so that is a rank of significance. And I think more important than any other assistants are the people who work for the chief of staff because every single decision that is made, political, legislative, scheduling, administrative, national security involves the chief of staff's office. So it is not shocking to anyone I think who's ever worked in the West Wing that this individual would be

so plugged in. And I think it's particularly true because in this testimony, Mark Meadows seems like a largely absent doofus. So if you needed to get something done in that office, people were clearly going to Cassie Hutchinson. So she seemed to know even more than the average assistant to the chief of staff would know. So it's not surprising, I think, anyone who's worked in that building. And I think that I read this a couple of places. She was more basically the chief of staff to the chief of staff. The coast to the coast?

Yeah, the coast to the coast. Because I think the chief of staff does have some assistants that work for them, but they also have like a chief of staff that sort of runs everything so and and according to people who worked in the trump white house other republicans she was in every single meeting that mark meadows was in and many meetings that he wasn't in so she was at the oval i mean her office was that was was steps from the oval i think that's why they decided to show a a map of the west wing at the beginning of the hearing, just so that you could see like where Cassidy sat was like next to right down the hall from the Oval, from the Chief of Staff, from the Deputy Chiefs of Staff. All the most senior people

in the White House were right there. Okay. Moment number one. Hutchinson testifies about Meadows' reaction when she tells him that Rudy Giuliani talked about a plan said something to the effect of, there's a lot going on, Cass, but I don't know. Things might get real, real bad on January 6th. Real, real bad. In other words, not great. Not great, Dan. First of all, I like that at least 15 different times in her testimony, she talked about how Mark Meadows refused to look up from his phone so like first of all great offline guest i should i should get offline thinking about like what was

he just do you think he was on his phone the whole time because ginny thomas wouldn't stop texting him about the coup yeah i mean maybe he's addicted to twitter maybe he's setting his lineup for his fantasy basketball team i don't know know. But he also, as we know, one of the right Instagram filter. That's right. We also maybe he's big into TikTok. But we also know that he seemed to have spent 90% of his time texting the worst people in the world. Lou Giuliani, the staff of Fox, Ginny Thomas, etc. And so, yeah, maybe that's what he was doing.

Ginny Thomas, etc. And so, yeah, maybe that's what he was doing. So we now know that both Meadows and Trump had advanced knowledge from multiple sources that January 6th might turn violent in advance of January 6th. This includes the Capitol Police, the Secret Service, various national security officials. Why is that significant? Because it indicates that they knew that something bad could happen. Not only did they do nothing to prevent it, they actively poured gas on the fire to make it worse. Yeah. And that matters legally, which we'll talk about. It certainly matters politically. It is just the absolutely most damning statement on the kind of people they are.

Yeah. statement on the kind of people they are. Yeah. I mean, around 9-11, everyone always talks about the warning that Bush got from the intelligence agencies, like bin Laden determined to strike within the U.S. This was like days and days of like, hey, there's going to be violence. There's going to be organized violence. There's going to be people who are armed coming to Washington. You have to watch out. And then Trump and Meadows just decided they didn't care. They didn't care. In fact, as we'll find out, we're encouraging it. OK, so moment number two, Hutchinson testifies that various White House staff, but especially White House lawyers, were urging speechwriters not to include language in Trump's Stop the Steal rally speech that he had demanded, such as, quote, we're going to march to the Capitol and, quote, I'll be there with you. Here's what Hutchinson said that White House counsel Pat Cipollone told her earlier. Mr. Cipollone said something to the effect of, please make sure we don't go up to the Capitol, Cassidy.

Keep in touch with me. We're going to get charged with every crime imaginable if we make that movement happen. We're going to get charged with every crime imaginable if we make that movement happen. And do you remember which crimes Mr. Cipollone was concerned with? In the days leading up to the 6th, we had conversations about potentially obstructing justice or defrauding the electoral count. Do you remember when I would get testy because the White House Counsel's Office would try to make my speeches less crimey? I really feel like I should clear out and just let you address this because you are one of the most even-tempered people I know, except when speech edits come in. So I'll let you address this.

Here's the thing with the speech edits. When they come from people like that you know in they come from people like you know that you know in the white house office you know axarod you uh any number of people we worked with that's that's one thing also when they come in a timely manner in the early drafts right that's what we appreciate in the speech writing process not last minute fucking edits right before the speech but when you get all the branches of government getting involved and giving you edits and they all come in late it's really annoying but i will say that if as annoyed as i used to get about last minute speech edits right before a speech after barack obama had already signed off on what he wanted to say if someone from the when the white

house counsel's office reached out which they I cannot even remember many times when they did. But whenever I got an email from Greg Craig or Kathy Rumler or anyone who worked in the White House counsel's office, my ears would perk up. And I was OK. Well, if the lawyers don't like this, we will make something work. We will make something work. I mean, it is important to recognize that those were always like very narrow language changes involving like the Hatch Act. I was just going to say they were all Hatch Act stuff. So basically be like if we were writing a speech for and this is it goes back to why some people probably get annoyed that Joe Biden doesn't go further on things. If you are president, there is this law called the Hatch Act, where you have to be careful what you advocate for politically and in a partisan way in your capacity as president of the United States.

So if you're at a campaign rally, that's fine. If you're giving an official speech, you can say, like, I wish Congress would send me legislation. But you can't necessarily say, I wish you would all vote out the Republican members of Congress because that could possibly be a Hatch Act violation. So those were usually the lines that we had to make sure not to cross and what the White House counsels. Those are minor things like avoiding basically speeding tickets. Right. What we're talking about here is, in the words of Pat Cipollone, every crime imaginable. words of Pat Cipollone every crime imaginable right like an active specific announcement of a crime in commission at the moment is what they were referring to and they did it anyway they did it anyway they did it anyway or at least at least in the case of Donald Trump he certainly tried to which we'll get to in a second um so Cipollone was just subpoenaed on Wednesday

what do you think the committee is looking for from him? Literally everything. He obviously can testify with a first person account to stop Trump and his allies from committing a lot of crimes, stopping and failing in many cases. But he was constantly raising the red flag. So he like this is he is the John Dean, to use the Watergate parallel here, who could come and speak to it. And now some people will say, well, he's the president's lawyer. What about attorney client privilege? But he's not the president's lawyer, right? He is the government's lawyer.

And there have been – it is not a fully established principle, but it's mostly White Houses operate under the idea that the White House counsel and the president of the United States do not share attorney-client privilege when they communicate and that you could be compelled to testify about that stuff so he is an absolutely essential witness it is ridiculous that he it is an act actually of just pure cowardice that he has not cooperated he is not going to step because he clearly knows what the president did was wrong was a deeply dangerous person that deeply dangerous person is planning on running for president again and he's refusing to speak out because it may be he's afraid that he'll upset

his MAGA friends or to get fewer clients or whatever it is, but it's very, very frustrating. Yeah, there are ways to abide by the spirit of the privilege law while still constructing testimony that would be helpful and necessary to the committee here. The New York Times reported that Cipollone and people close to him were surprised that he received the subpoena because apparently he'd been having informal conversations with the committee. But now they want him to testify, you know, partly because of Hutchinson's testimony, partly because in all of these hearings, every moment from the planning of the coup, the overturning of the election, wanting Pence to overturn the election, DOJ and Jeff Clark trying, you know, Trump pressuring them to say that the election was corrupt.

Pat Cipollone was in every single one of those meetings. And according to testimony from other witnesses, Cassidy Hutchinson and others, in every single instance, Pat Cipollone was like, hey, this is against the law, within earshot of the president of the United States, who then decided to do it anyway, which would then prove that the president did this, knowing full well that what he was doing was against the law, which is what we're trying to prove here if we're in a legal situation. One thing that is mildly frustrating here is in the world in which we imagined we existed, when someone has a subpoena delivered to them, that means that they then will testify. And now we know after multiple impeachments, multiple oversight investigations,

these hearings, that subpoena is just basically like Latin for pretty please. It's not clear that this will end up as Like it's not clear that more of a suggestion. Yes. Hey, please show up to Congress if you have time. All right. Moment number three. Here's a,

here's where shit gets really nuts. Hutchinson testifies that she heard Trump say the following when he was told that the rioters who showed up for the stop, the steel rally at the ellipse were armed and dangerous and were being stopped at the metal detectors at the event, known as MAGs. He was told again in that conversation, or was he told again in that conversation, that people couldn't come through the MAGs because they had weapons. Correct. And that people, and his response was to say they can march to the Capitol from the Ellipse.

Something to the effect of, take the effing mags away, they're not here to hurt me, let them in, let my people in, they can march to the Capitol after the rally's over, they can march from the Ellipse, take the effing mags away, then they can march to the Capitol. f-ing mags away, then they can march to the Capitol. Take the f-ing mags away, they're not here to hurt me, and then they can march to the Capitol. Dan, I am no lawyer, but do you think you're allowed to send a mob of armed insurrectionists to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power so long as it was to make sure you had a decent sized crowd shot on television?

Well, John, I'm not a lawyer either. But ultimately, it's not up to you or me, people listening. There's just one ponderous former judge sitting in the Department of Justice who will determine whether that is a crime. I mean, that's just – that truly is. I know we're going to focus on the steering wheel anecdote here, but I think that to me, I mean, look, there's plenty of evidence that we've heard already that that Trump was deeply involved in the overturning the election part of the coup, the fake electors getting Pence to do it, the pressure on DOJ, et cetera, on the inciting violence and inciting the insurrection part of the coup. I think this is maybe the strongest

evidence yet that Trump not only knew there was an armed and dangerous crowd, but thought it was fine, welcomed them to the event that he spoke at and then hoped and urged them, in fact, to then march to the Capitol. The phrase, they are not here to hurt me, is just the absolute crystallization of Trumpism, right? Is we don't give two shits about what happens to anyone else. It is fine because they will not hurt me.

Not even, not even my, my staff or my voters or my people or my movement. Me. It's just me.

Yes. It's all he has ever been about. He's not fucking the leader of a movement. He's a fucking selfish, egotistical asshole

who only cares about himself. That is it. Now, look, to be fair to Merrick Garland, obviously, we have not seen all the evidence. We have not seen these witnesses under cross-examination. They have to make a decision, not just do they have sufficient evidence to charge Trump, but do they have sufficient evidence to convict Trump? And that's always a hard thing to do. But I have to say, if somehow the former president of the United States can dispatch a mob he

knows to be violent and armed to march on the Capitol for the purpose of blocking the certification of legitimate election. And then when things get violent, he pours gas on the fire by tweeting about it. If that is something that is not treated as a crime that there is no legal accountability for, that is just opening the door to so much stuff in this country. It is just giving a permission slip to the right for a violent takeover of the elections again in 2025. And that has to weigh on the decision makers at the Department of Justice. Like even like put the optics aside, but whatever shit they're going to get from the optics police about Joe Biden's attorney general is prosecuting Joe Biden's future opponent.

Fuck that. Like this is a much much more important thing and principle and it's essential that something happens here now they will i'm sure trump and the and the and i've seen this already in the mega assholes will say that their defense will be well in the speech he also used the word peaceful somewhere in the speech right that's what they'll say uh in the rally speech but like now you know that was one thing it was never believable it was one thing right after it happened now that we know all this that he was there that he wanted them to come through the they wanted to take the mags away that he didn't think they were going to hurt him that he still

wanted an armed and dangerous crowd to go to the Capitol, that he wanted to join them. Now, that fucking steamrolls the whole, oh, I included the word peaceful once in the speech. Bullshit. Yeah, I mean, peaceful is a poorly constructed alibi. It's not evidence of innocence. Yeah. All right. Moment number four, which will surely live in infamy.

Hutchinson testified that White House Deputy Chief of Staff Tony Ornato told her the following story about what happened when Trump's driver, Secret Service agent Robert Engel, told the president that he couldn't go to the Capitol. The president said something to the effect of, I'm the effing president, take me up to the Capitol now. To which Bobby responded, take me up to the Capitol now. To which Bobby responded, sir, we have to go back to the West Wing. The president reached up towards the front of the vehicle to grab at the steering wheel.

Mr. Engel grabbed his arm, said, sir, you need to take your hand off the steering wheel. We're going back to the West Wing. We're not going to the Capitol. Mr. Trump then used his free hand to lunge towards Bobby Engel. And when Mr. Ornato had recounted this story to me, he had motioned towards his clavicles. So anonymous Secret Service sources have been telling reporters that this incident did not happen exactly as Hutchinson testified and that Ornato and Engel are prepared to testify to that effect.

What do you think is going on here? Well, three points. The first is Hutchinson didn't testify that she saw this. She testified that someone told her this. Second, Tony Ornato, who was a Secret Service agent who left the Secret Service to accept a political job working for Donald Trump, who has now since returned to the Secret Service. According to Alyssa Farah, Trump's communications director turned, I don't know, view host aspirant. I don't know. But she's been out there a lot

sort of explaining Cassie Hutchinson's role. But she tells a story about how to she said on CNN, I believe, to Jake Tapper that Tony or she knows that Tony Ornato has previously lied in order to defend Trump over the to push back against Alyssa Farah's recounting of how the Lafayette Square photo op during the 2020 protests happened. And so that is a reason to question whether he is doing that once again. Third, and I think most importantly, who cares? This is by far the least important thing that she revealed in her testimony. It does not matter. It would not be part of the criminal case, whether Trump lunged for the steering wheel, whether he grabbed someone's clavicle, he stumbled towards someone's clavicle, whether he simply yelled is irrelevant.

It is more an example of just how potentially unhinged and dangerous he is and why he should not be one of the many reasons why he should not be one of the many reasons why he should not be president. But the fact that cable news, Twitter, everyone is obsessing about this is we are missing the forest for the trees here. And I think that is a huge, it's just the obsession with this is just an indictment of so much of political media, political Twitter, what we focus on because because it's exciting and we can imagine the scene where it happens. It doesn't matter. We have to focus on the criminal intent of what happened and what that means for a legal case and what it means politically. This thing is dumb.

I haven't been, I haven't, I haven't, sort of, I guess, a New Year's resolution. I haven't yelled about really dumb media coverage in a few pods, guess but um like you know nbc news of all places had some line that was like this this chipped away at the credibility of her testimony fuck you no it did not like she like you said she is recounting a story that tony ornato told her if he exaggerated the story or if he lied about the story that's not fucking cassidy hutchinson's problem that's tony ornato's problem also like you said it matters so little here's what we know for sure what the secret service has confirmed what trump has said in an interview is that he wanted to go to the capitol we know that he wanted to go to the capitol that is not

in dispute we also know that he was angry because he wasn't allowed to go to the Capitol. That is not in dispute by the Secret Service, by Trump. So whether he was just flailing around in the limo, whether he lunged, whether he made it all the way to the steering wheel, which look, is he the most agile guy? I don't think so. Is he known to move quickly? Not so much, but like surely he was screaming and yelling i'm sure that was the case so whether he whether he reached the clavicle or not whether he reached the steering wheel or not does not matter a fucking wit it just doesn't matter i mean later many people were you know cassidy hudgenson testified and i'm sure others can can account for this too that uh he got mad when he read the ap story about Bill Barr saying there was no fraud in the election

and he threw his fucking burger at the wall in the White House and there was ketchup all over the wall. I'm sure that happened. And if it didn't, who cares? Again, but like how many stories do we have to hear about Trump fucking losing his shit and throwing this around before we realize they're probably true stories? Or some version of it you know it's ridiculous it's really really ridiculous and like you said i think it's another important point too like tony ornato does not seem like that guy is fucking on the level

like like you're in the secret service you leave for a political job they all and then and and carol lenning of the washington post who wrote a book both on the secret service and helped phil recker write a book on trump has noted that ornato and engel were both known as trump yes men they were very close to trump they were like his pals um you know mike pence's uh aid didn't want to send mike pence in the motorcade, leaving the Capitol during the vote count, because he was worried that Tony Ornato and his goons would take Mike Pence away somewhere and actually put him at risk. So that's how little people trust Tony Ornato

within the Trump world. I mean, that is a wild, wild anecdote. I mean, and look, and the Secret Service initially responded to that anecdote oh that's that's that's not a story we had heard before so like i don't know that we i don't know right now how much we can trust trust with the secret service i mean i think we i mean you and i should probably at least just take one second to note that we obviously worked with you know and we're around secret service agents all the time and the overwhelming, like these are the exception, not the rule.

The overwhelming majority of them are just basically patriots who work for either president without, you know, there was never a term we were worried about them taking us somewhere if we got in the wrong car, right? 100%. But, you know, Trump corrupts everyone around him. And so

do I believe that there's a few Secret Service agents that Trump corrupted? Of course. Yeah, of course. Of course. All right. One last moment from the testimony, which again shows the unbreakable bond between Donald Trump and his vice president. I remember Pat saying something to the effect of, Mark, we need to do something more. They're literally calling for the vice president to be effing hung. And Mark had responded something to the effect of, you heard him, Pat. He thinks Mike deserves it.

He doesn't think they're doing anything wrong. Seems like a cool boss, huh? I noticed that Tony Ornato and all his sources didn't push back on that one. I mean, I'm really struggling with the fact that we've been talking about the hang Mike Pence thing for a year and a half now. And every time it's funny. I know it should not.

I know it should not be funny. It should not be funny, but it is. But for some reason, I don't know what it is about Mike Pence. That is the only he is the only person whose murder is socially acceptable to laugh at. Everyone laughs. Democrats, Republicans, some of the media people can't keep a straight face when they think about it and it's just i don't know what to say but it's you know and it look it's a horrifying thing that the president united states said it's horrifying no it's horrifying that there was a fucking violent

mob that tried to that was calling for the hanging of the vice president united states that's a horrifying but you know trump and trump and mike pence no love lost in the world in which trump is the 2024 republican nominee just imagine the thought process for potential vice presidents yeah like i'd like to fly on air force too and I'm willing to risk murder for it. Yeah. Like on one hand, I might get to be vice president. On the other hand, if things go south, he might toss me to a violent mob.

So, you know, so they've got some pros and cons. All right. A few more questions before we move on. How much do you think Hutchinson's testimony affects the legal, the potential legal case against Trump? Once again, you and I are not. We got, We got potential. Seditious conspiracy, incitement to violence, obstruction of a congressional proceeding,

and conspiring to defraud the U.S. That's what we got. That's the constellation of potential charges. I mean, you and I, as you pointed out, not lawyers. All of the lawyers on Twitter seem to think that it is quite damning for Trump. And if this evidence were to hold up under cross-examination and is and other evidence is confirmed by other testimony, the pressure on Merrick Garland to do something is incredibly high.

And like there, all of the defenses that Trump's aides and allies have previously offered are eviscerated by Hutchinson's testimony. Here's a quote. The department is clearly looking into this. And this hearing definitely gave investigators a lot to chew on. From former Attorney General Bill Barr to the New York Times. That's when you know you're in the shit right there. You got Billy Barr out there telling you that there was a lot to chew on. I mean, yeah, look, like I said, I think that on the, you know, there's two parts of the two parts of the coup. There's the overturn in the election part and there's the sicking the violent mob on the on Congress part. And I think so far, a lot of these hearings have been lending a lot of evidence on the first and not the and not the second.

Cassidy Hutchinson's testimony certainly gives investigators to a lot to chew on, in the words of Bill Barr, on whether Trump's words and actions incited violence, which, of course, would be a crime. So whether they'll be able, like you said, there's a difference between indictments and convictions. And if you're going after a potential, a former and potential future president you gotta you gotta feel pretty strongly that you can get a conviction but um but yeah i mean i do want to talk about the political case against trump if there is any justice in this world because like we said last time there's not just uh you know lawyers and juries that we have to think about but there's a larger jury which is uh the american electorateate, which is going to have a chance to render their verdict on Donald Trump potentially in 2024,

starting with Republican voters. Do you think there's enough new and explosive information here to strengthen the political case against Trump? Certainly not among us. I think we are decided. I think we, you and I,

have rendered our verdict and probably every single person listening to this podcast has done the same. But for those who are still thinking about voting for Donald Trump again if he runs, what do you think? You mean folks like Rusty Bowers of Arizona? Folks like, yeah. What do you, exactly. Someone go interview Rusty Bowers. What did Rusty Bowers think about Cassidy Hutchinson's testimony? He's still thinking about voting for Donald Trump?

Like, I mean, on paper, this should be so damning that no one would ever publicly support Trump ever again. That even being associated with him would make you persona non grata in polite society. That's obviously not going to happen. The overwhelming majority of Trump's base is going to stick with him. But I don't think that's how we should judge the success of this. We should judge the success of whether it does two things. One, helps people understand who Trump is, what he did, and just how dangerous he was and is. And in the polling thus far, there's evidence that that is working. In some of the polling we've seen,

the number of people who believe Trump should be charged with a crime has gone up, not down, since this hearing started. Support for these hearings and this investigation has gone up, not down, since they started.

And in the number of people who support Trump, it's not a huge number, but it includes two in 10 Republicans think Trump should be charged with a crime. And that is a big deal.

In order to win, Trump has to hold his base. And so I do think it could change the calculus about whether Trump runs, the appetite for him to run within the Republican Party were he not to be charged with a crime. And that matters. But I think we, the point of these hearings and the point of what Merrick Garland does is about Trump, what he did. The rest of us have to make a case that it's not just about Trump in the past, it's about Trump, the Republicans in the future. Because if we just simply swap one insurrectionist for another within the Republican Party and in the White House,

then we're in huge trouble. And so that is the one thing that I think really comes out of this. Because as you say, the broader jury will weigh in 2024, but also there's another trial in 2022. And every Republican, not named Cheney, Kinzinger, and Romney,

continues to stand with Trump and not just tolerate him to enthusiastically seek his support, to brand themselves as Trump Republicans, to beg him to campaign for them. And if there is no political price for that in this election, it will embolden him, it will embolden the Republicans in 2024. of 2024. I was talking to a Democratic strategist who made the point that, you know, obviously, Terry McAuliffe failed to tie Glenn Youngkin to Donald Trump famously in that Virginia gubernatorial race. But he also pointed out, he's like, that wasn't during the January 6th hearings. He's like, imagine if the election in Virginia was in a couple weeks and Glenn Youngkin was being asked every single day, what do you think about donald trump are you still support you know are you supportive of donald trump or you and and i think it would who knows what would have happened but it would have been much more difficult and i

do think like every single candidate up in a competitive district or state in 22 is going to have to answer for the fact that they are still embracing this guy who his former employees are now testifying, wanted to join the violent mob that attacked the Capitol knowing that they were armed and dangerous. That is who you're embracing if you're a Republican candidate in 2020. I think this is one very important political element to Cassidy Hutchinson's testimony, which is it ties Trump very specifically to the violence that happened on January 6th and the fact that he wanted to lead that mob.

He wanted them to follow him, I imagine quite slowly, on the walk to the Capitol. And we know in polling that even though 70% of Republicans think the election was stolen in some way, shape, or form, we know that majorities of Republicans oppose these hearings. We do know that eight in 10 Republicans oppose what happened on January 6th. And so the fact that Trump was involved in that is very, very damning. Last question before we move on,

just sort of a curiosity that we've all had since these hearings, like why? Obviously, this this was like, you know, bombshell, explosive testimony. But why did they hold the surprise hearing when they had just announced that they were done until after the July 4th holiday? What do you think the reason for the urgency of the hearing was? Well, I think we know a little bit about this from some of the reporting and some of Cassie Hutchinson's colleagues talking to the press, but it seems to be a couple of things that's happened. She has been cooperating clearly very fully with the committee for a long period of time. She recently switched attorneys and the attorney she had previously was, I think,

more sort of like mobbed up in Trump world. And the new one is a conservative Republican. I think he worked for Jeff Sessions previously, but I think has taken is representing his client very specifically and not the former president. And I think there was maybe some reaction to some of the criticism she got from the right after her videotape testimony plays such a prominent role in the previous hearing and wanted to get out there and tell her story. And I think two points of urgency to move forward. One is perhaps she did not want to spend three or four weeks waiting for congressional recess to end to actually tell that story, to sort of just sit out there unable to defend herself. And the second one from the committee, I think, was previewed at the end when Liz Cheney brought on the screen was to Hutchinson. Now, any threat that includes Donald Trump reading transcripts is probably an idle threat.

But even still, that is witness tampering, plain and simple. Just fucking mobbed up assholes right to the end. Just the dumbest mobsters, right? It's like dumbest mobsters. It's like Sopranos cosplay, but just with the worst possible writing. All right. When we come back, Dan talks to Amy Westervelt of

the Crooked Pod Hot Take about the next steps on climate after the Supreme Court's EPA decision. This morning, the Supreme Court issued its last major ruling of this session, and it was yet another shitburger. In a 6-3 ruling, the conservative majority wrote that President Biden does not have the power to enforce emission standards through the EPA. Joining us to discuss the future of climate change policy in this country is the host of Crooked's fantastic climate podcast, Hot Take, Amy Westervelt. Amy, welcome to the pod. Thanks. Thanks for having me on this great day.

Of course. We're just running every day. Every pod is like another guest asked to explain something terrible to people, but that's why you're here. So we've known this really was coming for a while. Can you just help walk through what the court did and where this case came from for our listeners who may have been preoccupied with the other horrendous decisions of this Supreme Court over the last seven days? Yes. So first of all, I have to say that actually I was relieved when I saw this decision because it could have been so much worse. It's actually quite narrow. It focuses specifically on this section of the Clean Air Act that has to do with whether or not the EPA can regulate emissions beyond the fence line of power plants.

So whether it has authority beyond just kind of saying one power plant at a time, what the emissions can be from each place. So, you know, they definitely got into basically saying, don't you dare implement that clean power plan. But it still leaves quite a bit of authority for both the EPA and other governmental agencies to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. That is preserved. Whether or not it happens is another question. Frankly, the Supreme Court should have never taken this case. It is a case about the Clean Power Plan, which was never implemented. The entire major questions doctrine that got the court to take this up, which is this idea that, you know, when there's something passed by an agency that has a big impact politically or economically, the court can weigh in. That was introduced into this whole story by Scott Pruitt under Trump.

Scott Pruitt, before he was EPA director under Trump, was the head of the Republican Attorneys General Association, and as such, mounted this case. So like, this is, you know, the coal industry's last ditch effort to try to stave off specifically CO2 emissions regulations. And, you know, like I said, I was relieved by the ruling. However, I think that had it not been the weirdest case for them ever to even take up, it would have been worse. And I think we can expect that in some case in the near future. So I'm relieved to hear you say it could have been worse because recently these days it's just been worse. So that's good. And the Scott Pruitt thing is notable

because conflict of interest are very in vogue at the Supreme Court these days. But what is the specific impact of this decision on what the Biden administration can do? And how does it affect, if at all, any of the legislative proposals that are sort of circling around Joe Manchin's houseboat right now? Yeah. So, I mean, what it says is that you have to pass legislative proposals if you want to do this. It doesn't necessarily preclude the EPA from using other sections of even the Clean Air Act to get at this. So, for example, Section 115 says that if there is an international agreement around pollutants, there is, that the EPA has the authority to regulate U.S. sources of those emissions. So that is something that has not yet been invoked. It could be the EPA could also use the Toxic Substances Control Act to get at greenhouse

gas emissions. There's a petition for them to do that right now. The EPA is already authorized to regulate particulate matter, which guess what, is created by the same thing that generates greenhouse gases, the combustion of fossil fuels. So I really want to discourage people from feeling like, oh, now we can't do anything about climate change. That is not true. That is not what this ruling says. There is still plenty of authority, both at the executive branch within Congress and within the regulatory agencies to do a multitude of things about this. And so the efforts that a lot of states, you know, specifically California, Washington and Oregon have undertaken or should also be able to continue to proceed under this? And, you know, I mean, there's been some various analyses that have shown that the market on its own has already driven like the emissions reductions that we would have seen from the Clean Power Plan. So it's hilarious to me that the people that are always squawking about the free market are the ones that are that are fighting regulations that would actually be consistent with where the market is going on this.

You mean the free market people who also adamantly oppose ending the tax subsidies for highly profitable oil companies, those people? Yes. Yes, correct. Those same people. Yeah. Yeah. So I mean, again, obviously, it's not great. But I saw people being like, they're going to make it illegal to regulate CO2. No, that has not happened. So, you know, we live to breathe another day. We live to breathe polluted air another day on a rapidly dying planet. Yes. This is an unusual experience for us in recent weeks to talk about Supreme Court decisions that are not as bad as they could have possibly been. So I'm struggling with this element of optimism personally, which is sort of my nature anyway. Optimism is not my usual mode,

so I too feel out of place. That says a lot right there. But you indicated earlier that they could strike down other authorities. Are there any sort of breadcrumbs or canaries in the coal mine in any of the opinions here that suggest that that could be in the offing? Yes. I think that EPA is going to struggle with particularly anything that has to do with generation of power. So they seem to have to be drawing this line between, you know, putting a cap on emissions and dictating to the power sector, what type of power they can generate. So I think that no matter, I honestly think that they should probably just give up trying to use the Clean Air Act. The Clean Air Act is extremely vague. Everyone has known that forever. It's very, very vague. If we could possibly reauthorize the Clean

Air Act with some specifics around this, that would be amazing, but Joe Manchin. So I think that the possibility of doing that is probably pretty slim. I actually think that, um, that the toxic substances control act has much more explicit language that would allow them to, um, to get at this. Um, I think, you know, yeah, I, I honestly, I think that, that, um, that anything they try to do around specifically, um, discouraging coal is going to be tough to get past these guys. I also think there was this weird section of the ruling where Roberts was like, you know, like basically acted like the EPA was overstepping its bounds because they're not tasked with being in charge of the energy system in the US. So to me, I was like, oh, should DOE be getting

more involved than Roberts? Because it seemed to be like a bone of contention for them that like, oh, well, if you're talking about trying to transition the power system, that belongs to the DOE and or to Congress to authorize some sort of other legislation. Can you say a little more about what using the Toxic Substances Act would mean? Would that require someone in the government declaring CO2 to be a toxic substance? Yeah. So there's a petition at the EPA right now, it was filed a couple weeks ago, asking them to make a determination on whether greenhouse gases pose a risk to human health or the environment. I think it's very unlikely that

a Biden EPA will come out and say, greenhouse gases pose no threat to human health or the environment. So I assume there's going to be some kind of determination made there they have 60 days to reply and the toxic substances control act was just strengthened with bipartisan support in 2016 to explicitly say that they must make decisions about how to reduce the risk of a toxic substance to human health and the environment, absent political concerns or financial concerns. That's huge, because that is the thing that they referenced over and over again in this ruling, is that this would have major economic implications. This would increase the cost of energy for Americans across the board. There are a lot of political considerations to take into account

here. So this would, you know, using Tosca would remove like half of Roberts, you know, justification in this ruling. That's fascinating. Last question for you. We're getting to the end of this legislative session. This, you know, Democratic majorities are at risk do you have any insight or hope or optimism that i'm really riding this optimism thing any hope or optimism that democrats can get something done on climate legislatively before the end of the year oh um at the federal level maybe i mean it'd'd be great. We could definitely get this determination from TSCA by the end of the year. They have to reply. That could trigger rulemaking, which would be good. I also think they already agreed to tighten the regulations on particulate matter. So this is

something that Scott Pruitt stopped under Trump. The Clean Air Advisory Board published their study anyway to say, like, we really need to restrict this more. And now the Biden EPA has said, yeah, actually, we do. We're going to tighten regulations on particulate matter. So that's actually, you know, I know it's not we don't call it climate, but very much it would have that impact. And that is moving forward. That should be done by the end of the year. So those are a few things. That's good. This is a shockingly optimistic optimism-fueled interview. Okay. Actual last final question now. If there are people who do not share your optimism and now my optimism about this, but are just generally angry at the court

and want to do something to help with climate. Do you have any place you would direct them to go to give their time or money or energy to? I would say, well, there's this group called, let's see, it's the Climate Protection and Restoration Initiative. They're the ones behind this EPA petition on TSCA. I think that like what they're doing is really interesting. And they have the support of James Hansen, who's, you know, the climate scientist who kind of first brought this problem to the masses to begin with. And also Richard Headey, who's the guy that did the carbon majors report, which is that report that's like 70 companies are responsible for, you know, 80% of emissions or whatever it is. I have those

numbers wrong. Don't quote me. But it's that report. So those folks are doing some really, really interesting stuff. I also think, like, getting involved at the state and local level is huge right now. Really, really huge. Because, you know, I think the one thing that the Supreme Court um, the Supreme court seems to not want to touch is, is the state's rights issue. Right. So, um, so, so I think getting involved at the state level too.

And the other thing is I had someone suggest to me the other day that, um, that climate people look at pressuring the fed more, um, because a SCOTUS will never fuck with the Fed. B, there's actually a lot that they can do. They're authorized to do a lot of things that would make it harder for fossil fuel projects to get built and easier for renewables to get built. So I actually think that that's an area that would be good to see some more pressure applied. Fascinating interview. Thanks for breaking this down for us, Amy. Always great to talk to you and we'll see you again soon. Thank you. Okay. We couldn't end a week like this without one more round of Take Appreciator. Chief Take Officer Elijah Cohn is with us. There was no shortage

of Republican reactions from Tuesday's congressional hearing, and Elijah's going to hit us with some of the favorites. Yes, guys, welcome back to the Take Appreciator's simp edition. Today's takes are all defending Donald Trump after Cassidy Hutchinson's testimony in front of the January 6th committee on Tuesday. So it's safe to say that they're all terrible. Instead, we'll be grading our contestants on how big of simps for Trump they are on a scale of one to four simps.

Instead of earning a full playbook, we'll be awarding the biggest simps the full Rudy. John and Dan, what is a simp? You tell me, CTO. The G-rated version is a person who is desperate for affection from someone who is not going to give it to them. This isn't a G-rated show. What's the other version?

It's extremely misogynistic, so we'll punt on that one. let's punt on that let's punt on that i'm 41 so i don't know all these things yeah listen to offline uh okay as always john and dan have not heard these takes so let's go ahead and dive in with a clip from a real grade a asshole kyle whenever you're ready she's an extremely junior low level aid i don't think i ever had a conversation with her that I can at least recall of any substance or death.

But to Molly's point, this is a Rorschach test for your sanity. If you heard this story and you thought, man, I believe every word of this, I'm going to go online and say something about it energetically. Something is wrong with you. Guys, any guesses? What an annoying voice. and i can't place it

who could that be it sounds a little like matt gates but not really i don't think it's matt gates want a hint yeah it would be great former trump admin official or staffer i get my terms mixed up but he was in the trump admin he's a real real creep i mean stephen miller yes it's stephen miller wow the the speechwriter in question that we had been talking about earlier that was trying to fight off the edits from the white house council's office was trying to decrime the speech i mean it's very hard for stephen miller to balance in a limited word speech all the crimes and all the racism. So that I imagine that was quite challenging for him.

Yeah. I mean, I guess he wasn't, he wasn't having a lot of conversations with her from his mom's basement. How would you guys like to grade him on the simp meter here? I mean, he is a legendary, I mean,

I think his life is definitely a full Rudy, but that quote specifically i would say is uh but but two and a half a three i'm gonna go one and a half that's he barely he was mailing it in there yeah yeah he could have done worse yeah the old didn't really know her defense all right did it know the chief of staff's assistant is not a credible argument yeah when you're the chief speechwriter of the white house yeah no that doesn't work okay well this next one is a tweet i think it's indicative of a lot of responses kind of like the party line response much of it is in all caps i'll try to shout those parts thank you The witch hunt committee is a joke. The liberal media will do anything to push this never Trump snooze fest,

but nobody in real America cares. Where are the hearings on inflation, open borders and baby formula. This whole thing is meant to distract from Biden's failures. Who said it? Kirsten Sinema. No, that's not right. I mean, it sounds like it's like too many coherent words for a Chuck Grassley tweet, but it's that kind of vibe.

Maybe it's an idiot from the house, like a Jim Jordan. Is that a Jim Jordan tweet? It is not. It's in that vein, though. And you guys had a previous relationship with this person. Oh, of course. Yeah. Ronnie Jackson.

Yes. Speaking of people with formerly sterling reputations. It would have been really funny. Like the Secret Service. It would have been really funny if when Elijah said, you have a previous relationship with her, John just piped up and said, Marjorie Taylor Greene. We were like, what?

Oh, Ronnie. Anywho. Good job, Ronnie. I mean, honestly, not very creative from Ronnie either, though I have come to not expect a lot of interesting creative responses from Ronnie. He's sort of like a Magabot. You could not tell the difference between an AI Magabot and Ronnie's comments. And I don't even know if he writes them.

Yeah, I'm going to give it a two. Two. Two for me. What do you guys think of that Republican line generally of like, this is a distraction from the real issues, that kind of thing? That's their best argument yeah it it gets a harder to make when you're talking about uh the uh their their their front runner for 2024 saying that he wanted to go join a violent mob uh to attack the capital that's a harder harder thing to it's like uh what do we care about more the fact that the guy who wants to be president in a couple years uh led a violent assault on the Capitol or inflation?

I don't think we want to get into that. Dan doesn't want the answer. All right. Well, moving on. This one's a little long. It's a clip again. We can maybe cut it down and post if we want. But I think it's an important part of the response to Cassidy Hutchinson. So Kyle, whenever you're ready. And if you put up this

Secret Service agent who says this girl's lying, I never said that. He's got 20 years in the Secret Service. Guy's got a ton of integrity. She's fresh out of college. Who do you believe? He has a lot to lose by lying. She has everything to gain by lying. Look at her. She's the new it girl, right? She's going to get a job offer at CNN. She's going to be a contributor. She'll probably get a book deal. And she'll waltz around at every party in Washington, go to Cafe Milano, never have to pay for another drink.

So I'm suspicious of her. Look, I will tell you that the Cafe Milano crack really got me. We do have a bipartisan hatred for Cafe Milano here with Jesse Waters and the crew on Fox. That's who it was, right? That's correct. Yes, Jesse Waters. Unfortunately, you can't disguise that voice. You can't disguise that.

Yeah, no, she has a lot to gain. Death threats, intimidation, harassment, never getting a job in republican politics again she has plenty of gain also she testified under oath and tony uh so far tony ornato has testified via anonymous sources to reporters so that's what we got going on i mean also just the premise that you gain integrity as you age is just really stupid he's like yeah obviously he's more honest he's older yeah right yeah no i mean look i i think it's i i'd bump it up to a three it's a he's he gave it a little more of a college try than the last two i think i'm gonna give it a three and a half just for that special fox news dose of misogyny in the end there yeah and and also again, again, making fun of Cafe Milano.

That's why it's not a four. I do have to align myself with that. Great. Yeah. Jesse Waters, man. Tough to hear. What a douche. The amount of people

who are listening to this who are just like, why do these guys hate a random Italian restaurant so much? It's just going to be. It's the epitome of everything that's wrong with Washington, D.C. is Cafe Milan. You're going to get an email about this.

I know it. I don't know who it's from, but you're going to get one. Who? Yeah. The defenders of Cafe Milan. Oh, no, I'm not going to be able to go there when I visit D.C. What's going to happen? I'm going to have to fucking eat some fucking spaghetti somewhere else.

The food's not that good. Yeah. Someone made the meme of one really strong arm giving the handshake to the other really strong arm and it's you know john and dan on one jesse waters on the other and hating cafe milano um all right let's move on to the next one, which I think is just really like definitional simp behavior. So as we discussed, part of Cassidy Hutchinson's testimony was that at one point during the insurrection, Trump got so upset that he threw his lunch across the room, leaving ketchup smeared on the White House cafeteria wall. That led to one potential simp here saying the following quote he threw a plate

in the lunchroom i don't know how much that matters he was very upset about the election guys i don't want to guess who that was i don't know i can't even who yeah just tell us you got anything it's brian kilmeade i mean and you know what brian kill me that gets a fucking one there was that you that you're trying to you're trying to focus on the plate you're you think that the plate against the wall is how you're going to try to distract from the rest of the bullshit come on yeah i mean the way the way to do is to focus on the steering wheel right that's the way to do it exactly you can't even pick the right marginalia.

That's at least more effective simp behavior. Don't go with the ketchup on the wall. No one thought that was important. It was funny, though. He was mad. He was mad so much. He was mad. Yeah, well, you'd throw fucking ketchup at the wall, too.

The other reason we put that in there is because Tommy Vitor, you guys know him. We all know him. He asked me specifically to read this quote from Fox news from the Obama years, quote, plain old ketchup. Didn't cut it for the president. He ordered Dijon mustard.

I hope you enjoyed your fancy burger, Mr. President. Tommy holds the most specific grudges and I really appreciate that I mean Mustard Gate was a great great moment in American history that sort of foretold everything that was to come

it's very true it's very true when was that was that was that 09 yeah we were in the White House I think was it 09 and he used do you want to guess what pundit? Oh, that started the...

Peter Baker? Oh. He's still on the network. Oh, oh, oh. Is it... Which network? Which network? Fox News. He's in primetime. Oh, is it Tucker? No. Sean Hannity. Sean Hannity. Yeah. Sorry.

I should have gone with that. I mean, this was, it wasn't just, it was mustard. It was like Grey Poupon, which was the, why people were so upset about it. It is some beautiful poetry there of going from ketchup to ketchup, condiment to condiment here. You know what it is? That's very nice. Thank you, Tommy Vitor, for that grudge. Tommy, who was also very excited that we attacked Cafe Milano

because he brought up that Steve Bannon had also recently attacked Cafe Milano. So there's the meme right there. There's the Tommy Vitor, Steve Bannon, anti-Cafe Milano. We'll get on it. All right, last one. I'm glad I could talk you guys up to five instead of three today. This is a series of posts on social media. Quote, Cassidy Hutchinson's body language

is that of a total bullshit artist. Fantasy land. Another post. There's no cross-examination of this so-called witness. This is a kangaroo court. Another post simply reads, a total phony. Another post reads, I never said Mike Pence deserves it, parentheses, to be hung. Another made up statement by a third-rate social climber.

Who's simping, guys? The simper in chief. The simper in chief. Those sound like red checkmarked truths, if I ever heard them, from Donald J. Trump himself. I can't believe you didn't include the wacky handwriting. He made fun of her wacky handwriting. He did make fun. Oh, I did include it. I just skipped over that line.

Yes. I mean, obviously Donald Trump is known for his penmanship. For anyone who remembers when he defaced the weather map with the sharpie or has seen I think he actually said that it was the handwriting of a wacko I think it was a little a little tougher than that but also as we know there is a direct relationship between trust and penmanship which is why the most trusted profession in America is calligraphers it's. It's so insane. Honestly, on the sim scale, not the greatest effort from Donald Trump.

I mean, he's lost his fastball. He has absolutely lost his fastball on this stuff. He's just not the same on truth. His truths aren't the same. I fucking love truth social. I love everything about it. I love that- Let's just clip this.

That they call it a truth, a re-truth. I love that he took blue check mark, admitted a red check mark. It is like the most McDonald's, McDowell's thing in history. It's so good. It is the big Mick of social media sites. I love it. No notes. No notes on Truth Social. Just indictment. That's right that's right apparently with the media company um chief take officer elijah cone thank you as always amy westervelt from hot take thanks for joining everyone go subscribe to hot take um and listen to some of the best the best most expert climate analysis there is everyone else have a fantastic fourth

holiday and we will uh we all next week. Bye everyone. Hot Save America is a Crooked Media production. The executive producer is Michael Martinez. Our senior producer is Andy Gardner Bernstein. Our producer is Haley Muse and Olivia Martinez is our associate producer. It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick.

Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis sound engineer the show. Thanks to Tanya Sominator, Sandy Gerard, Hallie Kiefer, Ari Schwartz, Andy Taft, and Justine Howe for production support. And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Phoebe Bradford, Milo Kim, and Amelia Montu. Our episodes are uploaded as videos at youtube.com slash crooked media.