The Comedy Cellar: Live from the Table - The Mueller Report

Episode Date: April 26, 2019

Neal Katyal and Alingon Mitra

You're listening to The Comedy Cellar, live from the table, on the Riotcast Network, riotcast.com. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the Comedy Cellar Show here on Sirius XM Channel 99, the comedy channel. I'm very nervous today, I have to say, because I'm not used to having big shots, like, you know, big intellectual shots. Anyway, speaking... Thank you. To my right, as always, Dan Natterman. Did I say my name? My name is Noam Dwarman. I'm the owner of the Comedy Cellar. To my right,

Dan Natterman. No need to be nervous, Noam. Just take deep breaths. Okay. You were very good, by the way, on the recent working podcast at Slate dot com, I believe. You were on their podcast called Working, where you discussed what it was like.

It was all right? I thought it was quite interesting. Of course, I'm in that business, but I think it was engaging. I don't know if Neil, I'm sorry. You didn't introduce him yet. Don't give it away. Our comedian, Alingan Mitra. Alingan Mitra is a stand-up comedian who made his television debut, NBC, Last Comic Standing, and since performed a late show with Stephen Colbert and numerous others. He has written for The Daily Show with Trevor Noah and won both the Boston Comedy Festival

and the Funniest Comic in New England contest. Hello. Have you done our show before? I think so, yeah. You did it one time, right? Yes, I did it once before. It was clearly a very memorable episode. Where was the Funniest comic in New England contest?

That was in the Mohegan Sun Casino, Connecticut, back in the day. Finally, our guest of honor, I don't pronounce your name correctly, Neil Kachal, is a former acting solicitor general of the U.S. and has argued more, this is amazing, has argued solicitor general of the U.S. and has argued more. This is amazing. Has argued more Supreme Court cases in U.S. history than any other minority attorney. You're Indian, correct? Correct.

Recently breaking Thurgood Marshall's record. That must be, I mean. You're saying there were no lefties that have argued more cases than you have. There are no more people that are minorities. If you think all minorities are lefties... No, I'm saying lefty being a minority. Danny, what are you doing? I'm saying lefties are a minority.

The left-handed people are a minority. Oh, left-handed people. Is that what you really meant? Yes, lefties are a minority. I resent that they lump you in as a minority. You're an attorney and a great one. Thank you. And that should be the focus.

He just argued the census case against Trump. Is it against Trump or against the government? It's against the Trump administration and formally against Wilbur Ross. I didn't actually argue it. I was Pelosi's lawyer, but other folks argued it. And Kachal wrote the special counsel regulations that Mueller was appointed under during his stint at the Department of Justice

in 1999 when he was 29 years old. Welcome to the show. Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here with you. And I've been following you a lot, and I have to say that I think you're one of the smartest guys on this. Minorities. One of the smartest guys on this that I've seen from, you know, in my opinion. I appreciate that. before we get into it, we want to talk about the Mueller thing.

And then Dan wants to have other stuff. I'm sure what I couldn't find from you. And it was I kind of wanted to know it is where you came down on the Clinton impeachment. Did you favor his impeachment? So I was in the Clinton administration during it. And in fact, my very first day was January 15th, 1998. And I was supposed to have lunch with my boss, Eric Holder, who was the deputy attorney general, and he canceled on me. And I only learned two weeks later, because I didn't see him for two weeks, what was going on, which is that was the day that he had authorized the wiretap of Linda Tripp. So I was deeply, deeply upset about Clinton's conduct. I always have been. And it was very, frankly, very hard to stay in the administration afterwards.

So that's it. So if you had to vote, I don't want to pin you down. If you don't want to be pinned down, but it sounds like if you had to vote, you might have been persuadable that he should be impeached. He should have been removed from office. Yeah, I mean, I have a very high standard for presidents. And, you know, for all sorts of reasons that go back to the founders and what our presidency is all about, the whole reason that we have Madison and Hamilton gave such a strong, vibrant executive is because we demand a lot from them. And, you know, it's not enough for me to think that, oh, someone wasn't a politician, therefore they're better qualified or they're a good businessman or whatever. You know, whether those things are true or not, forget about it. That's just not enough.

I want someone who is, you know, number one job is to, as the Constitution says, take care that the laws be faithfully executed. And do you agree with this? Not to get bogged down in Clinton, but just one of the things. Do you agree with this that they cast it bogged down in Clinton, but just one of the things. Do you agree with this that they cast it as him lying about sex with Monica Lewinsky? But another way to look at it, especially as we've had insight

into this kind of thing today, is that he was lying in order to cover up the sexual assault of Paula Jones. So, I don't know if it was a sexual assault. Or a harassment slash assault. But I think actually even more damning than that is that it was an ongoing legal proceeding and he lied in the legal proceeding. And to me, that's a very troubling thing. And indeed, as I recall, Bill Clinton was disciplined by the bar and I think his license was suspended for a time. I can't remember the details. He lost his bar in Arkansas.

Yeah, something like that. And, you know, I think that just underscores, you know, there's a harm whenever anyone lies in general, but there's a real harm when you lie to a court, and an even greater harm if you happen to be the president of the United States. And then there's a harm, or maybe, I mean, you know, if you take it absolute, then you could not distinguish. I would distinguish between lying to cover up a purely personal matter, which the laws of evidence might say was germane, but you really don't believe it, or lying to get away with something that you're accused of. Right. That's a great point. defense, and it was one that actually my brother-in-law, Jeffrey Rosen, put out in the New

Republic and the New York Times was, you know, this is a lie to cover up a deeply personal thing, and it should be treated differently than a lie to cover up, you know, an intelligence failure or a break-in or something like that. So I saw it as kind of like trying to get away with the Paula Jones thing, which is not so personal. They kind of like, they weren't seeing it that way. All right, next question is, and this kind of sets the stage. The Constitution calls for the death penalty for treason, correct? And what Trump is accused of is, from what I can tell, is not treason. The worst case of what Trump is accused of is not treason.

How morally distinguishable is what Trump was accused of, where as being a foreign agent, doing the bidding of Putin, as President of the United States could be pulling out of NATO or whatever people thought he might be doing, how morally distinguishable is that from a crime which we give the death penalty to? Yeah, so look, I think this whole talk of treason is ridiculous on both sides. So the president accuses his enemies of treason all the time on Twitter and other things. And treason requires an active war by a foreign power.

And, you know, and you aiding and abetting that active war. So that is obviously not what the Democrats are doing. And equally, it's obviously not what Donald Trump is directly doing either. So I think this talk of treason is... I don't think you're getting my question. What I'm saying is that I know it's not treason. What I'm saying is that it's... We punish treason with a death penalty because you're a traitor to your country. And although we didn't lay it out that this fits that definition, it seems

to me if they had known of these facts, the worst case, that he's installed by Putin and doing the bidding of a foreigner, that they certainly would have included that in the death penalty charge. What's the difference between that and only in a state of war? I mean, if you're going to... But, you know, I've never understood the case against Trump. I know that some people say that, oh, he's installed by Putin and so on. You know, that just, you know, that's never been, to me,

the real bravament of the charge against him. The charge against him is he obstructed justice, he tried to prevent an investigation into his wrongdoing. Now, that wasn't the charge when this all started. Well, when it all started, there was the charge that Russia aided and abetted his election in 2016. Maybe not that he was installed as Putin's puppet, but that they did and that he did nothing in response. And that to me is the better argument, not like, oh, he's the puppet of a foreign government or something like that.

So, okay, let's take the funnest examples. So let's take a scenario and you guys can all can jump in on this. So I'm running for president against Trump next election. And I get a call from somebody who says that somebody in the Russian government has proof that Donald Trump laundered money or Donald Trump ordered a contract killing and they want to meet me. They're going to give me irrefutable proof. Tell me why I shouldn't take that meeting. Because anyone with common sense would never take that meeting. Here's what Trump's son did. He said, if it is what you say it is, I love it, and set up the meeting. But, you know, I think any person with common sense would say,

when they got that call, would say... Talk to me like my campaign manager. Say, no, you shouldn't do it because... No, I think you get that call and you would say, let me call you back, Russians, and then you call the FBI. And why? Because that is the way... The Russian government is one of our, you know,

serious enemies. And the idea that we would, like, take information from them is so anathema. And, you know, this isn't just about Russian government. It's about just general campaign ethics. Take, for example, what happened between Gore and Bush back in 1999. Someone actually mailed the Gore campaign, Bush's debate prep. And what did they do? They called the FBI. They didn't watch it. And they gave it back.

That's the way presidential campaigns are. Is there like a legal obligation to do so? Or is that just common sense? Well, it's certainly common sense. And then I think it can be legal because you're dealing with purloined stolen goods or intelligence information. Let me push back. So first of all, the Gore thing, it's very hard for me to attribute good motives to any politician about anything. So I think, like, if you, also when somebody gives you

stolen property, you realize, oh shit, I got stolen property. There's a whole bunch of risks that you take by using it, by not turning it over right away. You could get caught with it. It's probably criminal to have received it. So, you know, leaving the Gore example aside, and you tell me, Norm, you can't with it. It's probably criminal to have received it. So, you know, leaving the Gore example

aside, and you tell me, no, you can't do it. And I say, I just want to take the meeting and see what they're talking about. Because if I take it to the FBI, this is going to disappear. And if he murdered somebody, we're all going to be happy. No one's going to come to me afterwards and say, boy, we're really upset that you found out that the president was a murderer. We only wish you had had common sense and we would have never found this out. So I'm going to take the meeting. And depending on what they present me, then I'll either take it to the FBI or I won't. No, I might say two things to you.

Number one is the campaign manager or whatever, thinking of taking the meeting. I'd say, number one, this is a job. We're running for the president of the United States. We're not running for student council or something like that. And, you know, the awesome responsibilities and the awesome expectations are ones in which you have to be really, I think, beyond a doubt, always acting in a pure way. So that's number one. And number two, I'd say. It's not impure. Well, it is pure if you would decline the meeting.

If it's true information. Yes it's true information of a murder. By the Russian government. I mean, you know, there's lots of true information that, you know, if it's gotten through ill-gotten means is a problem. It's not ill-gotten means. Well, it is. It's our adversary saying so. And here's why I think that matters.

Once you take that information, the Russian government has compromise on you and on the campaign. And they now know that any time, if you don't do their bidding as a candidate or indeed as president, then you, the Russians, can go public, you can give it to the New York Times. I'm not going to get myself in that situation. I'm going to look at, they're going to show me that document. And if it's a crime, I'm taking it right to the FBI. And as a matter of fact, even if it's not a crime, I can go take it to the FBI and say what they tried to pull. But either way, if I don't take this meeting, it's all going to

go up in smoke. No, you don't run your own operation. You call the FBI. They may say, go ahead and take the meeting and we'll survey it, but surveil it. But you don't go and do it on your own. So how about I do this? How about then, instead of that, I hire somebody to go to Russia to try to find this kind of thing out. I hire somebody. You know where I'm going. Hire the guy who used to man the Russia desk in the British secret MI6. I say, go to Russia.

You have a lot of Russian contacts. See if you can find this out. Is that different? So you're talking about the Steele dossier. I have to say, honestly, I don't spend that much of my time on the Russia side of things. I'm more on the obstruction of justice side. So I'm probably not the best person to ask but i don't think that that itself which is seeking out information from the same people it's the same people who wanted

to meet with me but instead of doing it that way i'm going to hire somebody to get that same information so hiring someone doesn't let me actually i'm not even going to get information of a murder or something so serious. I'm going to try to get some secret video camera footage of him in a sexual situation that I can then spread around to hurt him. Not even something that the country will be happy they found out about, but I'm going to do everything I can because I heard there's this tape out there. So if you're actively seeking out videotape and that's illegal, sure, that's a problem too. No, it's not illegal. Oh, it certainly can be.

I mean, videotaping of someone's sexual conduct? Yeah, I mean, I don't know a lot about Russian law, but I would suspect that that's illegal. So then if a journalist heard about it and tried to get it from the Russians, that would be illegal? Well, journalism is always different because you have very complicated First Amendment protections for journalists. But for ordinary members of the public, yes, I think if you are trying to go out and get information that is itself illegally obtained,

yeah, that can make you an accessory to that. Absolutely. So even if it happened 10 years ago, you're trying to get this... Well, if you're trying to get it today, the crime is what you're doing today. But you're not commissioning. You're not asking them to do it. You know it's out there.

See, I'm very unconvinced by all this because I can't see any real difference between getting a cold call and saying, yeah, let me hear what you got. As a matter of fact, I think that's not as bad in the sense that he wasn't premeditated or hiring a firm to go out there and speak to... And by the way, I have it in the Steele dossier. It says I spoke to a top-level Russian intelligence officer still active in the Kremlin. So this is who they approached looking for information. So I guess I would imagine that if Hillary had won, this would be exactly the same accusation of getting dirt.

I'm asking you because I can't. I've thought about it. I've spoken to you. I cannot distinguish the two. So you distinguish them. I don't really spend my time thinking about that. To me, the on the Russia side, the big part of the big question is this. You never that never.

I mean, I know you don't spend your time, but you never thought. Well, I don't know. I don I don't know the circumstances of the Flynn. Well, I don't know enough about the facts of the Flynn investigation. I think that there was also Republicans who were paying for it, too. So I don't know enough about it. But I would say that to me, the key issue is this. Trump said time and again that the Russians didn't interfere in the 2016 election. And the Mueller report is devastating on that and shows

that they did. And the question you got to ask is, why was Trump so willing to shut that down? And today's New York Times is really devastating. I mean, Kirstjen Nielsen, who's not exactly, you know, Nostradamus or some, you know, great thinker, is saying that she tried to bring the evidence of the 2016 election interference by the Russians to the president and was shut down because the president wanted to hear none of it. So when we think about Russia, that to me is the key issue. It's not, you know, what did the Steele dossier do, or even this Donald Trump Jr. meeting. You know, those to me are side shows. The real issue should be, you know, we have an adversary which has nuclear weapons and a very sophisticated intelligence operation, and they did something in the 2016 election

and will do it again in 2020 if we don't stop them. Okay, you're zooming out to something I actually probably don't disagree with you on. Nevertheless, it bothers me not to be able to look at each of the building blocks of the case, which has made it, you could certainly say to me, no, I agree with you, I never thought that, I thought that was okay, but I feel like I don't know where you stand. Okay, so it brings me to the next thing, Comey. So, how do I start on this?

So, seems to me we learned, I learned everything I needed to know about Trump when he made poor Sean Spicer go out there and claim that Trump had the biggest inaugural crowd sizes ever, even while there was a picture up there of showing the sparsely populated inauguration. And from that thin-skinned ego, everything to me makes sense in terms of him not wanting to give an inch to anything which is going to take him from the greatest election upset in history, which he'd love to go down as that, to the guy who got elected with the help of the Russians who shouldn't have been president to begin with.

So he has every... Now, I think we'd all feel that human reaction if we were him, but few of us would handle it as vulgarly as he does. But it can, in my mind, explain everything. Now, so then he gets to the Comey firing. Now, according to the Mueller report... Jump in any time you want.

When he called the Mueller report, he hated Comey. Called him a showboat. This wasn't in the Mueller report, but Maggie Haberman wrote an article and I remember watching it. When Comey testified before Congress, and they asked him, he said, I'm kind of nauseated that I might have swung the election to Trump. Do you remember that?

I remember saying to my wife, uh-oh, because I kind of can channel Trump, like, this is not going to go over well with Trump. And sure enough, there was an article which said that was the reason that he fired him. But interesting, Trump wanted to put in the firing memo that it was about Russia, and

all his advisors refused to let him do it. And he, and tell me advisors refused to let him do it. And tell me if this is wrong. I'm almost done. Comey was lying to him from day one. Comey said, you're not a subject of the investigation. But that can't be true, because Comey had signed off on putting the Steele dossier in front of the FISA court, which meant he had to attest to its truthfulness, or certainly truthfulness. I have the timeline.

The first... Well, hold on, hold on. Oh, here it is. The first FISA court started in October 2016, before the election. So now the Steele dossier says all kinds of terrible things about Trump, basically being a traitor, sending Michael Cohen to Prague and all this stuff. So if you believe that dossier and you've testified in front of or you've claimed or whatever the word is, you warranted in front of a court that you believe that this evidence is reliable, then common sense would say that you now, now the president is one.

You didn't expect Trump to win. Now you believe that he's a traitor to the country. Either that or you didn't really believe that the FISA, that the Steele dossier was true when you put it before the FISA court. And Trump is asking him, am I a subject? And he says, no. And he asked him three times and he won't tell publicly. And Trump says to himself, you know, this is the guy who investigated Hillary. He found her innocent and he ruined her. This is what I can expect from this guy. Maybe he'll

clear me too. And he'll ruin me also. And he's lying to me. And I don't like this guy. And I want him out of here. And I want to be upfront about it to the American people. I want to say the reason I want him out of here. And then they tell him he can't do that. They tell him he has to. You know, sometimes when you fire someone, you're an employer, you have a lot of reasons, but you pick the one which can't be argued with. Now, I got you dead to rights. You took $10 out of the register.

That might not even be the main reason you want to fire them, but you know that's the one nobody can argue with you about. So they tell him he has to do it for whatever reason Rosenstein told him he had to put in. That was never really the reason. Then he goes to Lester Holt, and it looks like it was a slip of the tongue when he says Russia. So now we know no, he wanted to say that all along.

So what am I missing there? I think you're missing a lot, so three things. First, the investigation was started not because of the Steele dossier, but as the Mueller report makes very clear, it was started because the Australian government... I didn't say it started because of the Steele dossier, but as the Mueller report makes very clear, it was started because the Australian government... I didn't say it started because of the Steele dossier.

I'm saying when Trump was president, prior to Trump being president, Comey had signed off on the Steele dossier being true. No, no. He signed off on the information from the Australian government, and that's what led to the opening of the investigation, and they went to the FISA court. Right, before Trump was elected.

Yeah, before Trump was elected, but not because he was a subject of the investigation. Right, but he had... But because the Australians said there was a campaign by the Russian government to interfere with our election and that's what they were looking at. They were not saying that Trump was

the target of the investigation. Rather, they were looking at the Russians. I'm saying that Trump was the target of the investigation. Rather, they were looking at the Russians. I'm saying that they put the Steele dossier in front of the FISA court. We know that. That meant that they had to believe it. That means that Comey is the FBI director and he believes that his president is guilty of these things. No, that's not how FISAs work. So, you know, I've been involved in them. So you present information. And here, I think that was part of the information. But the predominant part of the information was the Australians. You certainly don't say, I believe everything in an affidavit or something, because

the whole point of a FISA, FISA stands for Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. And the whole idea is that you're supposed, you want to investigate these underlying allegations. You're not holding them out is true. That has never been the standard for a FISA because otherwise there would be nothing to investigate. So I totally disagree with you when you say that Comey had Trump as a target or was agreeing that Trump was a target. That is just not right. So what you're saying is that I can take this FISA document, and you have to believe, I don't know what the standard of belief is,

but you can't put something in front of the court that you believe is not true. No, of course. So you have to believe it's probably true. You have to believe that pieces of it are, you know, it's not a probable cause standard, but it is something higher than, you know. So you believe that piece, that it's probably true. I'm going to stick to that. You believe that it's not a probable cause standard, but it is something higher than, you know... So you believe that piece, that it's probably true. I'm going to stick to it. You believe that it's probably true,

and you use it to getting Carter Page, who, by the way, you know, and you use it for a full year to surveil Carter Page. But somehow we're to believe that the stuff in it about Trump, Comey didn't, no, Comey didn't really believe that. Comey wasn't even thinking about that. He was only thinking about Carter Page, and even though he believed this document was reliable, he thought it never occurred to him.

He wasn't really looking to present. Noam, it sounds like you really want to believe this, which is fine. But I think that the real issue is that I think that you're wrong because what Comey presented was predominantly what a foreign ally of ours, the Australian government, said, hey, there is something really serious going on here and you need to look at it. Then how come there was no FISA warrant opened on Papadopoulos? I'm not sure if there was or wasn't,

but I don't know that that matters. But he's the guy who was dealing with the Australians. Yeah, but the thing about FISA is it's very... I think Papadopoulos is an American citizen, right? So you're not going to have that. So yeah, so, so I don't think... Page is not an American citizen? Yeah, Page is an American citizen, but there's a very high threshold for when you're, when you're doing this. Now, obviously, in the course of an investigation, you sometimes get information about U.S. persons, but you know, I think that the big issue here,

when we're thinking about the firing of Comey, is this. It's that the president held himself out as saying, oh, it was because he was because Comey was unfair to Hillary Clinton. He even, you know, you know, commandeered a report from Rod Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general, to say that for page after page. And it only took until the Lester Holt interview until the truth started to come out. And that is, again, not what we want in a president of the United States. It says here, this just says, President told Rosenstein to include in his recommendation the fact that Comey had refused to confirm

that the president was not personally under investigation. The president said, put the Russia stuff in the memo. Rosenstein responded that the Russia investigation was not the basis of his recommendation, so he didn't think Russia should be mentioned. The president told Rosenstein he would appreciate it to put it in anyway. When Rosenstein left the

meeting, he knew that Comey would be terminated. Then notes taken by Donaldson May 9th reflect the view that the White House Council, the president's original termination letter should not see the light of day and that it would be better to offer no other rationales. In other words, this was all his handlers who were to.

I don't care. You're the president. When you're the president, I don't care what your handlers say. There's a right and wrong thing to do. The wrong thing to do is to lie to the American people. Full stop. That's it. Game over. Fair enough. But yeah, and I agree with that. But however, it's not I wouldn't agree that, knowing what we know now, that we can say Trump tried to make it seem like it was about Hillary. We actually know now that Trump didn't want to make it look like it was about Hillary and that Rosenstein and this guy Donaldson overruled him. This is in the Mueller report.

The case is not what Trump wanted or didn't want. It's what he did. Hang on. Do you need another bottle of water? The last issue, and then we can talk about the census or whatever. The last issue is firing of the, wanting to fire Mueller. Now, this is McGahn, right? Is that his name?

So one thing that occurred to me when I read that story, I'm not going to go to my notes. I'm going to try to do it from memory. Trump tells McGahn, I want this guy fired or something like that. And McGahn says, I'll see what I can do. And then he proceeds to start thinking about resigning. And the first thing that occurred to me as a guy who depends on his lawyers and accountants all the time is that when I ask somebody to do something that I can't do legally, the first thing they tell me is, no, no, you can't do that, that's not legal.

Isn't it significant that nowhere in the Mueller report is there any depiction of McGahn telling Trump, you can't do that, it would be illegal, it would be obstruction of justice? It's more as if I don't want to be the guy going down in another Saturday Night Massacre, blah, blah, blah. And at the same time, to be fair to Trump, Alan Dershowitz is on TV every night telling him, and I say telling him, meaning he's looking in the camera and he knows that Trump is listening, telling him that it can't be considered obstruction of justice if you do something to fulfill your Article II powers,

whatever it is. And McGahn knows that Trump's head is filled with this what McGahn might think is nonsense and yet he never tells him Mr. President, you can't do it, it's illegal that doesn't sound like that's very fair to Trump he can't know whether it's illegal or not if Alan Dershowitz tells him it's legal there's a concept of vagueness in the law if a law is so vague that a reasonable person can't know what's legal. There's a concept of vagueness in the law, right?

If a law is so vague that a reasonable person can't know what's allowed and what's not allowed. This is very litigated now because, as you can imagine, obstruction of justice charges are used often by federal prosecutors. I use them all the time. And people often say things like, oh, my lawyer didn't tell me. And every single day of every single week, that is a loser argument in every court. Why? Because advice of counsel is not a defense. And the idea that you would listen to Dershowitz, which is the most ridiculous argument ever,

oh, he has the constitutional right to fire someone. Of course he does. And you have the constitutional right to have a laptop and throw it in the garbage if you want. But if you know that the cops are coming looking for the laptop, and then you throw it into a river or into the garbage, that's called obstruction of justice. And similarly here, of course, Trump has the right to fire the FBI director. But if he does it for a reason to stymie an investigation, that's a different matter. And again, why did McGahn tell him you can't do this?

You're going to get in trouble. I'm not sure that McGahn didn't tell him that. I couldn't find it anyway. No, but you might not be able to find it because there might be attorney-client privilege issues, any number of things. But he waived it. I don't know that we necessarily know that he's waived everything. So I think there could be reasons why something like that isn't in the report. For the sake of argument.

But what is in the report is pretty dramatic. I mean, Don McGahn is not exactly a stickler for the law. And he said this was so dispiriting. He called it, you know, an exploitive word show and that he was going to's actual intent. When he says, he feels he has the authority to do something, he tells his counsel to do it, and his counsel neglects to tell him the reason why he shouldn't do it. The intent is important in terms of, like, if he fired someone by accident,

obviously that would be a defense, but it is not a defense to say his lawyer said X or Y. It's just not. Even if McGahn said to him, oh, you can do this, if it was if he had a corrupt intent, then that's enough for the crime to be satisfied.

That seems pretty you know, and then when you start taking that all the way to impeachment and you think about the half of the country which I'm not one of them, by the way. I might sound like I am because I'm arguing something on principle. The half of the country that voted this guy, they knew it was kind of a sleazy liar, and they're going to try to remove him for this attempt to do something,

which, first of all, he could have done it. McGahn couldn't stop him. So, which matters. Like, if you try to kill somebody, you're not really in control whether the person gets killed. But if I want to fire that bartender and I tell my manager to do it and she refuses, I can still fire him easily. I just say, you're fired. No, but that's wrong. In the law, at least.

So attempt to do something is just as much of crime as doing it. If I pull a gun out and try and shoot you and I miss, it's not really a defense to say no harm, no foul. That's my point. But it's not an attempt if you couldn't be stopped. It wasn't, in other words, McGahn argued with him because he thought it was okay to do this. And then he stood down when his counsel told him, however indirectly he told him, you shouldn't do this. He didn't then do it himself. Well, but that's the whole question, and that's what, if there is an impeachment inquiry,

that's what it's going to look at. What are the circumstances for why Mueller was not fired when the president had given an order to fire? If the president withdrew the order, then that's one thing. But if it's just the stopping by someone else, that's an independent cause, and you don't get the benefit of that. Well, if he stops doing it. If you're the mob boss, and you say to your underling, go kill that person, and your underling doesn't do it, you don't get to get out of jail because of that. Yeah, but I think we know that Trump backed off. By the way, what about the Spacely sprocket, Mr. Spacely argument?

You know what the Mr. Spacely argument is? I have no idea what you're talking about. In the Jetsons, Mr. Spacy always says, Jetson, you're fired! Because he's like a boss with that kind of boss. But nobody really thinks Jetson is fired. Like, you know, we all know this kind of... My father had this kind of temper. Does that argument hold up in court?

My father had this kind of temper where he would... By the way, this is why I asked you in the beginning about this treason thing. Because I can imagine what it's like to be accused of, I mean, on TV every day of being a foreign agent, a Russian agent, a spy, compromised,

and they have all these stories, and they're not true, and about Kislyak and Sessions and Tillerson is a Russian, I mean, everything under the sun, and then you fucking lose your temper. It's not that hard. It's not that hard if you're the president

to avoid these allegations and no president has had them before. So yeah, when you meet with a Russian ambassador and give them some of the most sensitive information about Israel and covert operations, yeah, that's going to start raising questions. When your entire intelligence community says that the Russians have hacked your election

and you don't even look into it, yeah, that's important. Even just take yesterday. The president meets Jack Dorsey, the head of Twitter. That was like a perfect opportunity after the Mueller report to talk about, hey, have the Russians interfered with the election and what can Twitter do about it as we look forward? What did Trump talk about? None of that. He talked about why his followers were deflated. You know, his numbers of followers were deflated on Twitter.

That is not the way any president of the United States should behave. That's the argument. That's the guy who complains about his crowd size at the impeachment. That's the guy who goes after Ted Cruz's father. This is your defense? Well, it is a defense in the sense that if you're looking to know, if it matters to the law to know why you're behaving this way, yeah, the fact that you're a thin-skinned asshole is probably not going to be criminalized. The fact that you had a strategy to get around the law would be.

And there is something very much that just seems like Trump just furious all the time as anybody. It reminded me of Kavanaugh in a way. Kavanaugh freaked out when he was accused of being an attempted rapist or whatever it is. And he got so mad and he's screaming and yelling and then very quickly

it became, doesn't even matter if you did it anymore. Your reaction to this now is disqualifying. And this is, I see an analogy. I'm not defending Kavanaugh. I'm just saying, I feel like we're getting close to the point where it doesn't even matter that he was accused of, I say, a Siamese twin of a crime which we have the death penalty for. The ultimate crime, in a sense. Total disloyalty to your country. Doesn't it matter? And that two-thirds of the media are on TV every night telling the American

people that you are a traitor. Doesn't matter how angry that got you. If your anger put you over the line, now we got you on your reaction. And we don't even care anymore whether you actually did it. So two things. Number one, frustration, which is the term that the Attorney General used, is never a defense in court, in crime. So criminally, this would go nowhere if he could be indicted as a sitting president. And number two, the standard for impeachment is very different. It's not a technical thing. It is political, as you're saying. And the idea that he is such a hair trigger and so frustrated and angry, that's actually a reason why the impeachment inquiry, I think if it unfolds, that'll be actually

something that will give it strength rather than take it away. That's a good reason for removing him. Leonard Uch just came in. I know, I know he's got strong opinions about Comey. No, no, no. I don't want to let her. So, okay. I was saying that sarcastically.

So I guess that's my main three chapters on the Russia thing. Do you worry, as a guy in this thing, about cognitive biases? All the time. And that's one of the things I like about you is that you approach stuff not just as a kind of left or right person, but you try and think independently. I think the country needs a lot more of that.

Well, thank you. So there's two cognitive biases. These are interesting that I read about. One is the persistence of discredited beliefs. And I'll read a quick thing. Beliefs can survive potent logical or empirical challenges. They can survive and even be bolstered by evidence that most uncommitted observers would agree logically

demand some weakening of such beliefs. They can even survive the total destruction of their original evidentiary basis. And then the other one is the illusory truth effect, which says that the tendency to believe information to be correct after repeated exposure, meaning when you hear it and you hear it and you hear it, you begin to believe it's true. And I worry that there's a combination of both going on. We've been hearing it over and over and over

again. And from people like Brennan and Clapper and Schiff, people that we assumed had more knowledge than they could let on. And then a lot of the evidence crumbles away. Tillerson wasn't a

traitor and Kislyak meeting with Sessions was nothing, and Cohen wasn't in Prague. I mean, you can just tick a lot of the things that disappeared. And yet, we're already in the habit of it. Anyway, that's what I worry about. And that's why I try to think, okay, what if this were a candidate I really supported? What if Hillary had won? And now they're bringing up the fact that she looked for oppo research in Russia. Would we be going

after her? I'm really glad you do that because, you know, as a law professor, that's one of the first things you do with your students is to say, flip the parties and ask, would your intuitions on the merits of the case be the same? And I mean, that's why I'm such a believer in the adversarial system and why I'm so dispirited when people say, oh, you can't defend Harvey Weinstein or this person or that person. Because the only way to get truth and eliminate those biases is precisely by having people who argue and take the other side. So I think that's absolutely right. I just disagree with your application of that principle to these facts. That is, you know, whether or not, you know, Cohen was in Prague or something, those are sideshows.

The big issue is and always has been Russia interfered in the 2016 election. The president's own advisors were implicated in dealings with Russia pretty seriously. I mean, Michael Flynn, the national security advisor, Paul Manafort, his numero uno campaign official. And why did the president try and shut this stuff

down? Why did he never care? Why does he, to this day, not try and protect the sanctity of the American elections? Because of his ego. That's got to be the reason. It's got to be because of his ego. He's got nothing to lose now. And if that's the defense, he should be impeached.

If he were smart, he would actually go crazy about this stuff now to make himself look better, make himself look less guilty. Got nothing to lose by going after it, right? I don't know how it looks. I just want a president who protects us. That's, like, simple. It's not that complicated. I'm with Pete, by the way. Pete Buttigieg.

I'm supporting him for president. He's really impressive. Yeah, he sure is. So, Dan, you got anything else? Well, first of all— I got one more thing afterwards. About Mueller? Well, the—

You might as well just blow the whole episode and talk about Mueller. This is my theory about what is going to come out. I got to go. You have to go? In 10 minutes. Oh, I didn't know that. Well, because we've been here 50 minutes. No, we haven't.

It's only— Almost 50 minutes. Okay, we haven't. It's only seven. Almost 50 minutes. Okay, this is my theory about it. You know that when they talk about torture, whether it should be legal or not, someone always brings up the ticking time bomb scenario. Jack Bauer, yeah. What do you do? I think somehow this is what happened with the Trump thing.

I think that, because we know that they got the information on the Steele dossier a month or two before they even opened the investigation. Bruce Ohr's wife met with somebody, or Simpson met with Bruce Ohr and told him about it, whatever it is. They knew this was going around and this was gossipy. And they never thought he was going to win, so they didn't react to it that quickly. Then all of a sudden, he won. And now, the President of the United States, in their minds, is likely

a traitor. And he can do real damage. And they don't have any procedures or rules designed to use. There's nothing that can react quickly enough to this kind of thing. And before they know it,

they start bending the rules a little bit in desperation. And then now that the evidence turns out to go up in smoke, they're going to look much worse than I think they ought to because I don't think there was any bad intention there. But for instance, McCabe and Rosenstein have a meeting and they talk about wearing a wire to record the president. Now that's incredible. And what's even more incredible is that they come out of the meeting and one person says they were kidding and the other person says they were

serious. So when you have that high level of people can't agree on whether a conversation about wearing a wire to record the president was serious or not, I'm calling bullshit. That something was going on there that they're not proud of. And because I don't like to assume the worst. I think it would be crazy to assume the worst. These are patriotic people. The only thing I can come up with is that they were like, oh, shit, this dude won.

And he is Putin's boy. And what are we going to do? We've got to get rid of him. One of the things that bogs me the most about Attorney General Barr's conduct over the last month is that even someone as smart as you repeats these ideas that the investigation of the president was launched by the Steele dossier. I didn't say that. I thought you did. I thought you just said that it was one or two months before that they opened the investigation.

No, what I'm saying is that this was in their head. It was fucking with their heads. They couldn't risk, if there was a 20% chance that this was true, that the president was in Putin's pocket. This was unacceptable. Right. And so what I'm saying to you— He was talking about pulling out of NATO. He was talking about pulling out of Syria.

Right. And so what I'm saying to you is it wasn't really, I think, about is the president in the pocket of Putin. It was how the Russians interfering with the election, and we need to investigate that. And that's what Mueller's charge was, and that's what he found. The evidence did not crumble. It's devastating as to what happened. All right, Dan, what'd you want to say? Well, first of all, I'd like to point out that I had listed several talking points for this episode, one of which written in bold was as follows. The average listener and myself is not well informed on the numerous complex legal and factual issues involved in the Mueller investigation. Let's keep it accessible.

I don't think we achieved that today. Don't blame me. First of all, I think you're absolutely wrong. I think this is the most important issue in America right now. And we just discussed it in a very human way without resorting to laws and regulations, just in terms of how, listen, in my experience is that the law bends to justice. Justice is not easily bent to the law.

And I noticed when laws are twisted to come out with a certain result, it's because it just didn't seem fair otherwise. And I think that the American people are going to have to think that this is fair before they'll allow any law to be applied. Can I chime in here for a second? Because we were going back and forth over email on this, this conversation of how much we should focus on this or not. And Noam sent a very funny email to me and Dan, which said, we'll see how it goes. We'll definitely find time to get Katyal's opinion on comedy. Who cares about the fact that he's influential and whether the President of the United States is impeached?

I'd like to know his favorite Chappelle show, Skirt. Well, you know, I'm so happy to have you on the show, and I want to get to know you. You know, I mean, that's like saying on an episode of The View, why didn't they talk about

Comey the whole time? It's not what our show is. It may be what you want it to be. And most people's knowledge of the Mueller report is basically one of two things. Impeach now or no collusion. The depth that you got into it is just beyond the scope of the

average person, in my views, handle on the complex legal and factual issues involved. I'm going to leave you guys to your own room, and you guys can decide that. There were 300 people died in Sri Lanka, but who cares? No one's talking about that. You want to talk about the census?

I don't even know what that is. Dan, you wasted a lot of time now venting. If you have other things to talk about... I might have wasted time venting. You spent 40 minutes talking about the thing I put in bold. Let's keep it accessible. Well, you asked about my favorite comic, and one of them is sitting right next to me. So maybe if we could hear.

Well, I am actually curious about something. If we do impeach Trump, do you think the country would accept it? Like, how would the country react to an impeachment on the grounds of his ego is too thin? So two things. One is that impeachment is actually just in the House of Representatives. It's a formal accusation of crimes after an investigation of high crimes and misdemeanors. It takes a Senate vote to convict, and by two-thirds. And I think, obviously, that is a tough standard in bi-constitutional design. I think if

that Senate standard was met and two thirds of the Senate, even with the Republican majority, found the president should be impeached and convicted, yeah, I think the American people would accept it because it's just such a high supermajority rule. Now the question is, well, what if only the House of Representatives by a simple majority vote impeaches but doesn't convict? I still think that's the right process. I think that's what our Constitution demands is to ask the questions, and Republicans should be proud that they came to a judgment that protected the 2016 elections. Can I just make a couple points?

It was never my intention to discuss Neal's favorite Chappelle sketch. I've written the following topics with the topics I listed. I have an accessible question. Mueller report, which I wanted to devote 10 to 15 minutes to. LGBT discrimination in federal law. Do you know the Supreme Court is, and we have a Supreme Court expert here. Ask him. He has no time.

He's got to leave. I have a question. Federal law prohibits discrimination based on gender. I think this question will make you happy. I doubt it. I'm moved by this. Are you first generation? Yes.

Your parents are from India? Yes. My wife's half Indian, by the way. My first cousin twice removed is half Indian as well wife's half Indian, by the way. My first cousin, twice removed, is half Indian as well. That's true, by the way. Does it fill you with patriotic pride or something? How does it feel to be the son of immigrants, and now you have the record for the most appearances in the Supreme Court as a minority.

What does that make you feel about your country? It's huge, and it's so important. I think about it all the time. I just argued my 39th case last week at the court, and I do tear up almost every time because this country has given me every opportunity, and I'm so patriotic and love this country, and the chance to be in the government. I had a job in which I oversaw covert operations for a while.

I mean, the son of an immigrant of immigrants. And I don't think that's possible in other countries. I don't think it's possible in other countries. My very first case was suing President Bush on Guantanamo and winning. And I represented Osama bin Laden's driver. I mean, in many other countries, that guy, the driver would have been shot just for bringing his case. And more to the point for me, his

lawyer would have been. And that is something so profound about this country, the way in which it respects the adversarial system, the way in which it lets someone like me, the son of immigrants, do this and achieve the highest levels in government?

No other country doesn't like us. We should all celebrate this. I'm so happy to hear you say that. You've argued more Supreme Court cases in U.S. history than any other minority attorney. I still have an issue with that they call you a minority attorney. And by the way, what is a minority? Not white.

Person of color. That would be the definition. I think in this case, too. I think if you just show up at the court and look on any given day, not white person of color. That's that would be the definition. It's a term of this case, too. I think if you just show up at the court and look on any given day, you'll figure it out. But well, well, you've certainly done good work. Now, my question, which we don't have time to answer, but just to show you, I didn't want to talk about Chappelle. OK, the Supreme Court is about to hear some cases to answer the following question. Federal law prohibits explicitly discrimination based on gender. It says in the federal law youits explicitly discrimination based on gender.

It says in the federal law you can't discriminate based on gender. You can't fire somebody because they're a woman or fire somebody for their gender. The Supreme Court is set to hear several cases of which Mr. Cotgell is no doubt aware. Answer the following question. Does this apply to discrimination based on sexual orientation and transgender status? Would have loved to talk to you about it, but unfortunately... Dan, let... Oh, I thought he had to go. Okay. Well, I think that, you know, I'm involved in those cases.

And so, you know, you take this with a grain of salt, but I think it's pretty clear that the language of the statute encompasses sexual orientation claims. And, you know, that's what both conservatives and liberals have found when they read the statute. And so, you know, I'm optimistic that the court will protect these workers and not have them out of luck just because of whom they happen to love. Well, I'll tell you this.

I'm a guy that believes in the plain meaning of the statute when the plain meaning is clear. And so I disagree with you. But Congress is certainly more than welcome to pass a law prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation and transgender status. I hope that they do, but I have to disagree with you that the Constitution demands it. Noam, do you have any thoughts on that? One thing I noticed, maybe this applies to the census case too,

and it applies to certain of the Trump things, and it applies to humans every day, is the census case, too. And it applies to certain of the Trump things. And it applies as humans every day. It's a question of mixed motives. Like, if I have two employees who both do the same fireable act, they both did it, and one of them is a real prick, and one of them helped me move a couch, and it's really nice to me, and I let the guy who was nice to me slide, and I fired the guy who was a prick. But he did it. He stole out of the register, whatever it is.

And then someone has to come back and unwind whether this was okay or not. I mean, you understand the question. What are your comments about that? Yeah, so, I mean, there's a whole complicated legal framework around these mixed motive cases because you're absolutely right. In daily practice, it happens all the time for employers. It may even happen for presidents. And in general, the view is that if you do something because of an improper motive, if that was enough to cause you to do something, then you can be held liable for whatever that underlying thing is. So it's like a but-for test because let's say it wasn't an improper motive.

It's just that I decided not to give the guy a break because he wasn't nice, you know? Yeah, so if it's just he wasn't nice, that's obviously not going to be encompassed by Title VII. But if you had an employee that was gay and you fired him because he was gay, but he also happened to steal, if the stealing alone was enough that you would have done it anyway, then that's a defense. But if the orientation played a role in your firing, then that's where you run into Title VII problems. So in the census case is the accusation, I'm not up on it,

that the real intention here, what's in the news this week, the real intention here was to undercount people. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you know, the evidence on this is devastating. You know, Jesse Furman, the district court judge here in New York, wrote a 175-page opinion, one of the best opinions I've ever read, that goes through every piece of evidence. He's a very fair judge and basically says this was a post-hoc rationalization put down by the Trump administration. What they really wanted to do was suppress the count. Yeah, I'm actually, I tend to, it bothers me in theory to get into this kind of thing.

And I feel like sooner or later we're going to regret, because now you kind of put blood in the water. And everybody's going to start bringing up lawsuits, questioning motives. And that's a big Pandora's box. I completely agree with you. And that's something that when I have been litigating as a president, I've been really careful about because I've represented presidents before, and I hope to again. And the last thing I want is for presidents to be straightjacketed by the law

because we need presidents. And one of the real sins for me of President Trump is that he makes it hard for courts because they have to second-guess some of this stuff. And ultimately, the legacy is to weaken presidential power, not to expand it. I said this before on the show. What's that saying about good cases make bad laws?

Hard cases make bad laws. Hard presidents make bad laws. Beautiful, beautiful. They're forcing us to make these things. 100% agree with you. And that was the case with the travel ban and all these things, which, you know, if he's acting immorally, we don't want to let him act immorally. But to make it illegal to act immorally,

and now you're going to have unelected people. And I was thinking, well, what if the judge overrules a travel ban, and then there is a travel ban? And then there is a terrorist act. Who's accountable? The judge? How do you vote the judge out of office for his? So it's just impossible. You kind of agree with me, I think. I agree with, I mean, maybe not the exact point, but I agree with the general idea that whenever courts are asked to invalidate presidential action, there's a risk that they might go too far. And those of us who are bringing these cases have a real, I think, moral obligation to say,

OK, this time the president went too far, but we want to safeguard the abilities for future presidents to do their jobs. Was it right for Clinton to be able to be sued while he was in office? So I wrote about this and basically said I thought that the president civilly, not criminally, but civilly could delay his lawsuits until after he left. I agree with you, too, because the cure is worse than a disease. The president cannot focus on it. He's got to go. He's got to go. Mr. Kachal, we're going to talk a little bit. Will you come down again? I would love to. Yes, I love coming here. Come have drinks with me. I would be so honored.

This is one of my favorite places in New York City, and thank you so much for inviting me. Thank you very, very much. Thank you, Neil, for coming. Yeah, I'll walk Neil out. Okay. I'm sorry that the guy that we, you know, any other time if he had come,

but the fact that he is so influential in this. I've said we've had numerous other relevant topics. As an Indian-American comic, I get it when somebody who's a professional gets all the airtime.

That's very common in my family as well. It's just that, laying on, when I invite a guest and I hear them not talking, I take that very seriously and I try to rectify that.

Thank you so much. It's my pleasure. And there was nothing that went on that you had any bad feelings about, right? No, no. Because that would be the last thing I want. I sit there in the shower, and I think about these things, and I say, well, you know, my wife doesn't have a good argument against this. Who can I talk to? Dan doesn't care.

I got, you know. I'm sorry, Dan. We'll get it later. Okay. I mean, we might as well end the show. Can I have your email address?

I promise to email you just once or twice a day. Huh? It was very, very heartwarming to me, for lack of a better word, to hear him speak with that pride of country

as a first-generation immigrant. I think what happens is our parents come, they've experienced whatever their country is that they're coming from, and they know what it's like without having, let's say, a rule of law or having corruption in the system. So their love for America is huge. My dad, he wears a flagpan every day. He loves America. huge right my dad he he wears like a flak band every day right he loves america i think what happens with the kids is they see some of the aspects of the country that isn't as nice let's say it's perceived racism or whatever kind of slights that happen or real racism or real racism and and that does affect their perception of the country in a way that my parents are like, what are you talking about?

You're getting to go to school. You're getting to have a fair shot in a way that you wouldn't have in any other country. Just love that. Right. So I think that's maybe what plays into it. But it's not like we're I don't think most first first generation Americans would be like, oh, I hate this country. No, I specifically said that not that they hate the country, country. But he was speaking like my father's generation of immigrants. And maybe it's just, you know,

and maybe each immigrant population, like Brett Stevens was on, and he said, well, Jews have a particular, remember he said Jews are particularly different about this. And maybe Indians have their own thing. And maybe, like, we have various different country groups of people from countries that work here and have worked here. And each one has their own kind of character about it.

Well, the Jews certainly do, right, Dan? Yeah, Jews have what? But how did you—do you feel pride of country? You're Indian. Certainly. Like, I find it thrilling. Oh, absolutely. I mean, again, I know where my parents came from.

I know the poverty that my dad grew up in, and he talks about how the opportunities that are available to him in this country are not available, a meritocratic system is not available in any other country that he has lived in. So he's absolutely imported that into us. Where did you grow up? I grew up in Worcester, Massachusetts. Very meritocratic city.

I just lamented, have lamented for a while that we take our flashlight and we can point it on whatever we want. And of course, we need to point it on our inadequacies and our injustices and all that stuff. But I would argue that that is the role of the citizen, right? Like you're supposed to do that. and that's what makes you patriotic, to be like, hey, this is what's wrong with the country. Let's focus on it to make it better. The people who are just blindly like, oh, this country is so great, they're the ones who are more complacent.

But at some point, and I feel like we are at that point sometimes with certain groups of Americans. You can name names. No, no. It's mostly probably liberal, young, white people, but where they look so much at our inadequacies that they literally

do no longer see the great things about the country. You hear them talk, and I just worry about that. I'm not so sure. I could be wrong. I feel like a lot of them are.

I mean, if you take somebody like, let's say, AOC, right? You see this momentum around her, and you see a civic engagement that comes with that. It's not because these people have just kind of checked out. It's the opposite. They're like, finally, there's somebody who's speaking our voice and trying to address the issues that we're talking about, so we're getting engaged.

Right. Okay. I like AOC. I mean, I shouldn't say. I like her more than you would expect me to like her. This feels like a low bar. Kissinger said, and it was just in a paper yesterday,

a society needs great objectives to which it can apply itself with conviction instead of being obsessed with its own shortcomings. He was essentially making the case that Europe never recovered from World War I because it's been so obsessed with its own shortcomings. He was essentially making the case that Europe never recovered from World War I because it's been so obsessed with its shortcomings that it couldn't pull together to accomplish great things. Now that's just almost a psychological question,

but I think there is something to that. We do, if the number one issue to me is social fabric, we need to in some way find a way we can pull together. And of course, Trump exacerbates it. Well, like the USA chant. I feel like that's like a dividing line. If you're in a stadium and people start chanting USA, the people who do it ironically versus the people who do it

heartfelt, that's where the dividing line is. Because when I see people chanting USA, I get kind of scared. I'm like, I don't, it feels a little blind to me. Whereas I'm sure there are people you know who are like, no, this is just a joke. But I don't know, at Obama rally, you wouldn't be scared if they did that.

I don't think anybody would be chanting USA. Of course they would. USA. In an Obama rally? Of course they would. I just saw something like that recently. It feels aggressive and then you feel, like, aggressed upon if you don't participate.

I'm pretty sure you could find examples of... I'd maybe do it in, like, the Olympics, but that's about it. Dan? You know, I just... I feel like that episode of Three's Company where you didn't see Suzanne Somers the whole episode, and then she comes in at the end,

and like, oh, you're back from vacation. Well, Dan, you know, If you want to take this online, it's really pretty reprehensible. He said he had 10 minutes left, and I stopped, and you had 10 minutes, and it turned out, as most people say, to engage him on whatever you wanted, and he stayed longer than 10 minutes. Instead, you just

bitch and moan. I write out every week a list of talking points. I begged you to have meetings. I've told you, if you want to discuss anything else, or edit my talking points in any way, shape, or form, please let me know in advance. You don't even read them. I did read them, but I answered. She read the email I answered. I made it pretty clear that if I have the guy who's kind of like the...

Well, then the next time you have a guy and you feel that way, then don't invite me because there's no need for me to be here. And it's not what we do best. We have to brand ourselves. Otherwise, we're just every other podcast. And I don't think... I do have to say, I don't think Neil does podcasts lightly. I think he

had a particular affinity for this place and you guys. I'm serious. I do think he came in expecting a little bit more comedy. Well, I feel like I prepped him. I mean, maybe a little bit. And again, my list was not comedy.

My list was Sri Lanka, which is pretty important. My list discussed LGBT discrimination and federal law, which is not only is it right in his wheelhouse, it's accessible. It doesn't get more accessible. Okay, Dan, this is why what you're saying is on the face of it absurd. I'm happy to pretend to be Neil and you can go through the questions.

When I see a lingon not participating for 40 minutes straight, I say to myself, and a lingon's a very bright guy with a Harvard degree and he's not chiming in, I say to myself, if a lingon is lost, my God, what's a very bright guy with a Harvard degree, and he's not chiming in. I say to myself, if Alingon is lost, my God, what's going on out there in radio land. All over cable news, ratings doubled or tripled when people talk

about this stuff. This is the number one issue driving ratings throughout the media. Not Title VII gender rules, and not the media. Not Title VII gender rules and not the census. It's whether Trump should be impeached or not. Has there been a bigger

story in the last three, five years than the Mueller report? Sounds like Trump's not getting impeached. I'll say it again. When I feel a man is intelligent as a lingon is lost, my God! Do you feel lost? No, I wasn't lost. I'll say it again. When I feel a man is intelligent as a lingon is lost, my God! What's going on out there in radio? Do you feel lost or you were just listening?

No, no, no. I wasn't lost, but it was a little bit more in the weeds than I anticipated it to be. Listen, you know what? There were notes. There were notes on papers. I didn't anticipate it. There are always notes. I get something out of life, and if I can find a way to bring in one of the world's experts

on something and I can debate with him and hold my own as I think I did I think so that is worth it to me even if Dan is unhappy well then it's important to my self esteem then do it upstairs

next time Keith Robinson calls me an idiot I can say well well, you know what? Neil Cotts-Yall thought I was alright. Here's the problem. Noam, ultimately, if two people are listening to this podcast, that's two more than Noam even needs.

He's happy just to have a conversation. What do you think? Which is fine. I put five years into this podcast not for fun. Not for fun. What do you think of that? Which is fine. But I put five years into this podcast not for fun. Not for fun. What do you think of that? Not for fun. And I feel bad about

waxing about the immigrant thing because I don't think I expressed it the right way but I just, I felt very optimistic after hearing him because I know he's a liberal guy and I was just,

you know, I'd kind of gotten... But he's like an Obama liberal. He's like aspirational American. Yeah. Yeah. I just, you American Yeah My wife's family is Indian Think about it I haven't heard that in a while You know what I mean?

I'm very patriotic We used to hear that kind of stuff all the time I hear that from you all the time When we hear somebody of color Talking about opportunity and stuff in America, 99 to 1 right now, it's usually, and rightfully, I'm not saying, I'm not complaining about this and that aspect of America. And we very, very seldom, since Obama, hear somebody of color speaking and talk about tears in his eyes

when he thinks about how much he loves the country. And if we heard more of that, I think it would make the other stuff go down easier. A lot of us would be much, we, we, oh, the treason.

No, you know what I'm saying? Like, yeah, we, we, we feel like we're all, okay,

we're all on the same team here. Let's pull together and let's get rid of this fucking racist or whatever it is because we all love the country. As opposed to at some point where it just becomes like, if you can just talk about white men, white men, white men, okay, what can I do? I'm a white guy. So it's very divisive in a way.

I don't feel like we're on the same team. It's a bad strategy to just vilify someone. He's a lovely fellow. He was terrific. Oh, he's fantastic. What about number five on here, Dan? Because this is I mean number six, excuse me What was six?

Well, I I have to go to dinner I actually have my weekly boys dinner Oh, you can be a little bit late Come on, Dan What's number six? Jewish comedian Volodymyr Zelensky Elected president of Ukraine

He's a comedian He was elected the president of Ukraine What can I I don know. Reagan was an actor. Well, we all saw how that turned out. Well, look, it wasn't me. It was Perry Elder suggested we talk about this. I think it's really interesting. Nobody has anything to say

about the fact that a comic just got elected president of the Ukraine. Well, we can ask the question, what comedian would most likely be elected president of the Ukraine? It is. Well, we can ask the question, what comedian would most likely be elected president of the United States? That's a good question. If we had to pick. Dub, do you want to sit down briefly?

It would have to be Matteo Lane. It would have to be somebody. Or Alingon. It would have to be somebody. Somebody of color. Somebody of color or sexual orientation. Dub David off camera or off mic says it would have to be Ryan Hamilton. Oh, Ryan Hamilton.

Good, but he's a Mormon. Inactive Mormon. I think that, you know. He is inactive. He identifies as an inactive Mormon. I think that Jon Stewart could probably. That's good. I mean, if anybody in the comedy world could pull it off, it would be Jon Stewart.

Yeah, well, I didn't know you meant big famous people. Yes, Jon Stewart would be the guy. And Tracy Morgan would be, would be not the guy. At the bottom of the ticket. Would probably be at the bottom of the ticket.

Though I might vote for him as a protest vote. All right. Listen, send your emails to podcast at commieshorror.com. Podcast

at commieshorror.com and let us know if you were happy or not happy with the... Dan's going to be emailing in. Very informative episode. It was informative.

Let me know how you think I did. Let's have a link on... He's here all the time. Let's have him on again at his leisure when there's something he's hot on. The next time you have a Supreme Court expert on. Hot under the collar. Truthfully, I wouldn't have picked you to do this particular show because... Who would you have picked?

I don't know, because the... I don't know if I would have picked anyone because I... No one. He doesn't want anybody else on for these guys. No, I'll tell you why. Because there was something that's like, well, let's get the Indian guy on because the Indian guy was on. No, that was not why, actually. It wasn't the Indian guy.

Periel asked Neil who his favorite comics were. Two of them were Indian. And not only that, but we're having an intellectual conversation. It was Harvard. I had to go with fucking Crimson. I had to go with the Veritas. Was Alingan interested in this

Mueller stuff? Well, I'm telling you it was the Harvard thing that was the cincher here. Who am I going to have on with the Supreme Court? Cinch, cincher? I don't know what that word is. He cinched the situation.

I had to decide who to have on with this intellect. He said he needs somebody really smart. I said I need somebody to listen quietly. I would have had

Russell Vance on. What? I would have had Will on. He would have, why? Because he would have been hilarious. You don't want hilarious. Not that you're not, you know, like the Lingon was looking at... Because you're not funny.

No, that's not why. You can tell jokes. No, that's not why. Because the Lingon was like... A professional comedian. You know what I mean? Because the Lingon was actually, he took off his comedian hat. He was like trying to engage in the Harvard discussion. When Will would have been like just looking for wisecracks. You know how Will would have been. That's why. Yeah, but you would have shut him down. I know you. I don't know. I don't know if I would have been. That's why. Yeah, but you would have shut him down. I know you.

I don't know. I don't know if I would have had anybody. I would have... Whatever. Anyway, I don't... And also, as I said... I'm going to kick my heels. I mean, I just... Neil listed comics.

He likes... Two of them were Indian. And he happens to like Alingon. He does. That's true. Very much so, actually. And I know he was excited to be here because he loves the Comedy Cellar. And I thought we'd have a little comedy discussion. As I said, I didn't was excited to be here because he loves the comedy cellar

and I thought we'd have a little comedy discussion as I said I didn't want it to be probably more than 10 minutes I had plenty of other topics that were non-comedy related like as I said there are people talking about this attack that went on in Sri Lanka but you didn't feel it was important enough

to get to Ukraine but what do you say about Sri Lanka? Are we against it? Are we for it? No, because there's issues there. What's the issue? Well, the fact that several people tweeted Easter worshippers instead of tweeting Christians. Oh, that's stupid to me. You buy that? That just sounds like

looking to tit for tat with the left on their language stuff. No, I think it's very significant that people didn't say Christians. Why would people avoid the word Christian and use a word like Easter worshipper, which I've never even heard that expression before, Easter worshipper. So they're virtually making up an expression that nobody uses

to avoid using the word Christian. I find that significant. Especially when after Christchurch, the word Islamophobia was all over the place. I don't know, in Sri Lanka are there people who celebrate Christian holidays without affiliating themselves as Christians? Let me ask you something, Aling. Does anybody do that?

I celebrate Christmas. I'm not a Christian. So, yes. If they said that some people shot up a synagogue filled with Passover services, I wouldn't occur to me that they were avoiding Jew. The word anti-Semitism would be all over the place. No, I'm saying

it wouldn't occur to me. They said synagogue and Passover worship. What do we think these are? Fair enough. When you combine that with the fact that people hesitated to use the word Christian and to use the word Muslim. You may be right in the sense that people aren't relishing

the idea. In hindsight, I'm glad that Neil is gone for this discussion. What's the bottom line here? I would like to hear Neil's opinion on that. Anyway, I think we've got we can go. I have some dinner companions that have shown up and they're waiting for me. Ladies and gentlemen, podcast at commisar.com.

Hope we didn't offend anybody. Good night, everybody.