What A Day - Don’t Buy Bolton’s Book

Episode Date: January 28, 2020

President Trump’s legal team presented their defense in the Senate impeachment trial, charging on despite reports that Security Advisor John Bolton may have dropped bombshells in his upcoming book. We discuss which Republican Senators might break with their party to call Bolton to the stand.  The Supreme Court lifted an injunction blocking a Trump administration rule that restricts visas and green cards for immigrants who qualify as a so-called “public charge.” We discuss what that means and how it will impact people living in this country. And in headlines: Prince Andrew’s wet phone, Uber’s Project Waluigi, a football coach’s very bad interview.

It's Tuesday, January 28th. I'm Gideon Resnick. And I'm Erin Ryan, filling in for Akilah Hughes. And this is What A Day, a podcast that takes place in an alternate universe where Trump was impeached for standing like a bent tree. Your Honor, that man's posture is an obstruction of justice. Mr. Trump is on tilt. Erin, hello. Hi, Gideon. Thank you for summoning me from my chamber for a few extra hours of sunlight today. Yeah, absolutely. You know, doctors recommend at least two and you're knocking out 20 right here. So thanks for co-hosting this week.

For those who don't know, Erin hosts another Crooked Pod, Hysteria, and is an occasional Pod Save America panelist as well. Also, this is the second job we've worked at together, and I cannot wait for the third. Mike Bloomberg's White House. I am really glad to be here, Gideon, and I cannot wait to be there. Live in the moment, but wait for the Michael, is the phrase that everyone says. On today's show, pressure mounts for former National Security Advisor John Bolton to testify at Trump's impeachment trial.

The Supreme Court allows the Trump administration to begin implementing its public charge immigration rule. We'll explain what that means. And then, as always, some headlines. President Trump's legal team presented their defense in the Senate impeachment trial on Monday and left out the most recent elephant, or in this case, walrus of war. Can we call him a walrus of war? Yeah, let it rip. Okay, walrus of war in the room. Former National Security Advisor John Bolton reportedly wrote in his forthcoming book

that Trump told him that he wanted to continue freezing military aid to Ukraine until the country helped with investigations into the Bidens, which is quite literally what Trump is being accused of in the trial. Now, now that I've talked about the book, I just want to remind everybody listening, you don't have to buy John Bolton's book. In fact, you should not buy John Bolton's book. Do not give John Bolton money. At best, you know, we'll get the other excerpts and then we'll do other episodes that are on each excerpt. Go on tour and download, pirate a copy of it like it's an episode of Girls. Yeah, that's what I was planning to do anyway. So the latest reporting also on what Bolton wrote in his book is that he was concerned that Trump was offering favors to the leaders of Turkey and China, that the pattern that has sort of emerged

about Trump and the way that he behaves with other world leaders was not restricted to just Ukraine. And Bolton also says that he told Attorney General Bill Barr about those concerns at the time. And all this news is arriving just days before senators will be voting on whether to hear from more witnesses like Bolton, who has yet to testify, even though he said he'd be willing to if subpoenaed by the Senate. There are 47 Democrats in the Senate, and they only need a simple majority to start the process of calling in new witnesses. So if the math checks out, they got to convince four Republicans. Four Republicans. Okay, so I'm guessing those four Republicans will be Pestilence, War, Famine, and the fourth one, Mitt Romney. Yes, that is exactly what the four are. Just his name. It's kind of unclear if that is going to

happen. But here is what we know about the thinking of some of the important senators on this at the moment. Aaron, I see you're wearing a shirt with a big picture of Susan Collins' face on it. So do you want to start by talking about what Collins said? Okay, guys, Gideon is lying. He is lying to you. I'm wearing a shirt with a giant picture of Snoopy on it. And Snoopy doesn't even look like a person, much less Susan Collins. I think that's mean to Snoopy and Susan Collins, frankly.

Okay, well, Collins said that she's still likely to be inclined to call witnesses, as she did in Bill Clinton's impeachment trial, and, quote, reports about John Bolton's book strengthen the case for witnesses. Again, Susan Collins is not reading the book. She's just relying on reports like you should. Do not buy John Bolton's book. Everyone is cliff-noticing it. You would think that that is the case, that, you know, his book would strengthen the case for hearing from him and others. But then there's Never Trump White Knight Senator Mitt Romney. Here is a clip from him following the Bolton news. I've said for some time that I hope to be able to hear from John Bolton. I think with a story that came out yesterday, it's increasingly apparent that it would be important to hear from John Bolton.

I, of course, will make a final decision on witnesses after we've heard from not only the prosecution, but also the defense. But I think at this stage, it's pretty fair to say that John Bolton has a relevant testimony to provide to those of us who are sitting in impartial justice. Romney went on to say that based on his conversations with other Republican senators, that it seemed likely the votes would be there to call Bolton to testify. I just want to take a moment to thank the brave Mitt Romney once again for his invisible sacrifice. Yeah, just brave man. He's a bold man who describes everything like paint drying. All right. So who else, you know, is thinking differently now? Who else grew a spine yesterday after this news

came out? That sounds so painful. But Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski said, I've said before, I'm curious about what Ambassador Bolton might have to say. I'm still curious. Okay, that's something. And the potential fourth member of the Make Mustache Man Talk Musketeers. Oh, that's nice. Senator Lamar Alexander said he wouldn't decide on the issue until after all the arguments and questions and answer sessions are done. Okay, so that's what we know publicly about everybody. But also privately, this news is apparently causing some anger. Apparently, a lot of the Republican caucus was pretty pissed that this came out in the first place, trying to figure out how it came out. And that includes Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who obviously has been wanting to wrap this whole thing up by the end of this week to get this off his hands as soon as possible. Is the sense then that we think that Republicans are actually worried about how all this is playing out? I think they're pretending to be worried.

I think it's worry kabuki. Yeah. They're pretending to be worried because it seems apparent at this point that judging by the amount of dirt that's already come out and by the number of people that we still haven't heard from, there's probably a lot of dirt that's yet to be unearthed, so to speak. But I do think Republicans realize the value in pretending that they want to know everything. I think what's interesting right now is that we have a contingent of Republicans who are insisting that not only do they want to know everything, they've always wanted to know everything. They wanted to know everything before it was cool. They're like

hipsters for the truth. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think that the other thing too, is they're thinking like, how do we staunch this bleeding, right? Like, is it is it easier for us to just say, take the poison pill of having Bolton testify? And you know, maybe that's a really bad day for us as a caucus, we got to take the L on that? Or, you know, do we risk a quick acquittal of Trump? And then in the future, like you're saying, all this stuff continues to come out. And then people are like, looking at us in November and saying, we're kind of done with you. You know, I don't know. That would be nice. That would be nice. Yeah, that would be nice if that's the consequence for what they're doing. But we live

in a consequence free world, Aaron. Some people did apparently, at the very least, realize, though, that doing the constant hand waving and saying nothing to see here isn't working as a strategy. So there is this other strategy that is emerging. Republican Senator Pat Toomey is reportedly talking up a witness quid pro quo of sorts, a Bolton for Hunter Biden trade as a way to sort of get all the parties on board here. I mean, it's sort of a weird choice for Trump supporters to want to call up Hunter Biden and draw further attention to unelected children of elected officials benefiting from their parents position. It seems weird, seems like not really something with an easy solution for the Trump crowd. But hey, you know, go with go with God. The thinking goes, though, that it makes Democrats have to call someone up that they might not want to or else, you know, let Republicans quickly acquit Trump.

They're trying to use this, you know, upper hand scenario because they have the numbers. And while some senators were trying to figure out some sort of deal like this, others were kind of saying the quiet part out loud about the impact of the entire trial and Trump's lawyers attacks on the Bidens. Here's Senator Joni Ernst. Iowa caucuses, folks, Iowa caucuses are this next Monday evening. And I'm really interested to see how this discussion today informs and influences the Iowa caucus voters, those Democratic caucus goers. Will they be supporting Vice President Biden at this point? Wow, she seems pretty jazzed about that. Yeah, pretty jazzed about Joe Biden possibly

suffering as a result of this. Yeah. All right. Well, we're going to keep you updated on how all this progresses throughout the week. Today is day three for Trump's legal team. It's unclear how much time they'll actually use. Once they wrap up, we'll move to the question and answer phase of the trial. And the long-awaited witness vote could happen by Thursday or Friday. America's got a lot on its plate. Climate change, national debt, the pissed off Iran, Russian attempts to permanently destabilize our democracy. So it's good to see the government take on the real enemy, immigrant kids whose parents might use government assistance to buy them food. Yeah, great thing to focus on, guys. Today, the Supreme Court lifted an injunction blocking a Trump administration rule

that restricts visas and green cards for immigrants who qualify as a so-called public charge. So this means that the government can block legal immigrants from entering or remaining in the country if the government believes that those immigrants will utilize government programs to obtain food, housing, health care, or child care. So there's the obvious first thought about the Trump administration and why they are doing something like this. But what is the sort of stated rationale for why they're suddenly worried about immigrants that would be a public charge? Well, they've actually been worried. Well, the government of the U.S. has actually been worried about immigrants that would be a quote unquote public charge for a long time. In fact, in the late 19th century,

we first made rules about this, but it was designed to keep out immigrants from places like China, Ireland, and Italy. So always some level of xenophobia going on just depends on, you know, who is being targeted and at what scale. But what did Trump specifically do to kind of kick this up a notch? Yeah, he definitely gave it the old Trump makeover, like he made it bigger and gaudier and tackier and louder. Last year, the Department of Homeland Security tried to broaden what qualifies as a public charge. The definition that's been around for 130 years is people the government expects to permanently rely on cash benefits. But the new definition that the Trump administration proposed was people who have utilized,

are currently utilizing or might utilize other benefits like SNAP, Medicaid, housing assistance, et cetera. And remember, these people are here legally. Right. And but how does the government sort of conceiving of a person in the future that might utilize public assistance? This is like a Stephen Miller minority report precog type of thing going on. Yeah, kind of. OK, it is. I'm glad that I that I just, you know, conceived of that. I just came up with that right now. But instead of now, now get ready for this one, Gideon, that I also just came up with. Instead of stopping crime, Miller's minority report is trying to stop actual minorities. Yeah. The government will now count certain factors against applicants, like if they're not fluent in English, they're elderly, they're unemployed, or if they dropped out of high school.

So it sounds like this rule could force people to risk their legal status by applying for assistance they need or risk their safety in order to stay off DHS's radar. It just seems terrible through and through. Yeah, that's the right take. It's terrible. It's a disaster for immigrants who have disabilities or chronic illnesses. It's awful for the elderly. It's really bad for families. And given how many citizens of the U.S. have a story of ancestors who came to this country penniless or not speaking a word of English and had no formal education, it's pretty hypocritical. Hypocritical. Like an Irish guy named Brett Kavanaugh and an Italian guy named Samuel Alito supporting expansion of a rule that was designed to keep their ancestors out of this country. Wow. Good riffing, Gideon. Thank you very, very much.

Well, exactly. It's very ironic, and it's very frustrating. And there's not much that we can do right now beyond hoping that a full challenge to the rule makes it all the way to the Supreme Court. By the way, this is complicated, but there are challenges to the law still kind of matriculating through the courts. And if that happens, we have to hope that on the eve of the case, John Roberts is visited by the ghosts of immigration's past, present, and future, and that he gets some compassion spooked into him. Not super duper hopeful of that, but if you're like me and you do find ghosts much too scary to discuss or even think about or even be reminded of their existence in the form of a script and riffs for a show, remember that if a president is free to make rules that endanger the safety of millions of people, the only thing that we can do as voters is to never elect another person who would do anything like that.

Or build a time machine. Or build a time machine. Anybody else, 2020. Those are the options. Or build a time machine. Anybody else, 2020. Those are the options. And now for some ads. Let's wrap up with some headlines. Headlines.

Okay, for the first time ever, a graphic novel took home the Newbery Medal for the most outstanding contribution to children's literature. The comic New Kid was written and illustrated by Jerry Craft. It tells the story of a 12-year-old boy named Jordan who enrolls in a prestigious private school where he's one of the only students of color. Craft says the story was inspired by his sons and his own childhood. The prize signals another win for graphic novels, which are increasingly being recognized for their literary merits, and a win for kids' books, which have recently been at the forefront of diversity and inclusion. And this, Gideon, is the closest that I will ever get to fulfilling my childhood dream of recommending a book to kids on Reading Rainbow. I'm so happy I'm here for this special moment. Prince Andrew, Duke of York, was called out yesterday by a federal prosecutor for not cooperating with an ongoing investigation

into convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. As a refresher, Prince Andrew had a messy interview with the BBC two months ago that failed to clear up sexual assault allegations against him or his relationship with Epstein and led him to step down from his royal duties while holding onto his title. Well, shortly after that interview, the prince said he would be willing to, quote, help any appropriate law enforcement agency with their investigations. Cut to yesterday. The FBI and other prosecutors say they haven't been able to get in touch with him. He probably dropped his phone and some Earl Grey. He's British. Oh, OK. British tea. I mean, you tried. You tried. I'll take it.

That's fine. The dystopian taxi company Uber is testing out a new feature in California that will give drivers more control over their own prices, which sounds like a good idea until you realize this is just a way to keep classifying drivers as independent contractors under a new California labor law, thereby denying them protections and benefits. Dang it, Uber! Foiled again. Drivers who use the price-setting feature say that when they went above Uber's rate, it was basically impossible to get riders.

I mean, why would you opt for a more expensive ride? That's true. It's just basic economics. When the ability to go below Uber's rate comes out this week, it'll probably kick off a race to the bottom among drivers because we're all just fighting for breadcrumb from Johnny Tech Company's big old loaf. The thing I'm saying all the time. Over here. Yeah, that's a common saying.

New features meant to prove drivers are independent contractors are part of what Uber refers to internally as Project Luigi. I'm a mummy. I may take some heat for this, but if you ask me, based on Uber's habit of playing dirty and screwing over employees, they should call it Project Waluigi, which I literally just learned is evil, scary Luigi and that you're afraid of him. I mean, you've seen him. You've now seen pictures of him.

He's terrifying. I don't like him. Yeah, he's the devil incarnate. Get him out of here for good. Cancel culture struck again on Monday, this time coming for a Grand Valley state football coach who made the easy mistake of saying he wanted to have a kickback with Hitler. The Michigan college's student newspaper had asked offensive coordinator Morris Berger, which historical figures he'd want to eat dinner with. And Berger chose Hitler

because quote, it was obviously very sad and he had bad motives, but the way he was able to lead was second to none. I want to know how he did that. It seems like putting this quote out in the world is not the easiest way to find out how he did that and what was that. You teach at an educational institution. There are people who can tell you how he did that. This is more of a pull-aside-a-professor moment and just say, Hey, how did he do that? How did Hitler a, this is more of a, you know, pull aside a professor moment and just say,

Hey, how'd he do that? Yeah, how did he? How did Hitler do that? How'd he do this? All right. Grand Valley has suspended Berger and says they're conducting an investigation.

Hopefully they've already checked to make sure Berger does not own time travel technology. Berger's other picks were JFK and Christopher Columbus. I don't think he's got good taste.

No. And those are the headlines. Quick correction before we go. Yesterday, we misstated the name of one of Kobe Bryant's daughters. Her name is Bianca Bryant. And one update to our previous reporting as well. The Lakers Clippers game we mentioned that was slated for tonight has now been postponed and will be rescheduled at a later date. That's all for today. If you like the show, make sure you subscribe, leave a review, help us displace Verdict with Ted Cruz from the top of podcast charts, and tell your friends to listen. By the way, if you're into reading and not just one-star Goodreads reviews of John Bolton's

book like me, What a Day is also a nightly newsletter. Check it out and subscribe at crooked.com slash subscribe. I'm Erin Ryan. I'm Gideon Resnick. And that's how you spread Waluigi awareness on a daily news podcast. Waluigi. I hate it. What a Day is a product of Crooked Media. It's recorded and mixed by Charlotte Landis. Sonia Tunn is our assistant producer. Our head writer is John Milstein and our senior producer Thank you.