What A Day - Joe's Garage

Episode Date: January 13, 2023

Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed a special counsel to investigate how classified documents turned up at President Biden's home, and at an unsecured private office he used after his time as vice president. Dan Pfeiffer, co-host of Crooked's Pod Save America, joins us to unpack what we know so far, and how the discovery compares to Donald Trump's case. And in headlines: an L.A.-based bank agreed to pay $31 million to settle allegations of lending discrimination, thousands of New York City nurses ended their three-day strike, and FTX co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried defended himself on the newsletter platform Substack.Show Notes:What A Day – YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/@whatadaypodcastCrooked Coffee is officially here. Our first blend, What A Morning, is available in medium and dark roasts. Wake up with your own bag at crooked.com/coffeeFollow us on Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/whataday/For a transcript of this episode, please visit crooked.com/whataday

It's Friday, January 13th. I'm Traevelle Anderson. And I'm Priyanka Arabindi and this is What A Day, where we are brainstorming which appliances to take away from conservatives after we saw how mad they got about gas stoves. I feel like blenders are probably popular in, you know, Republican households. I don't know. Blenders? Panini? Are Republicans into paninis? On today's show, an L.A.-based bank has agreed to pay over $31 million for allegedly discriminating against Black and Latino homebuyers. Plus, Sam Bankman-Fried thought it would be a good time to start a sub stack.

Oy, oy, oy. Love a sub stack. Oh, yeah. Yeah. That for him. Right. Great. But first, a follow up on a story we mentioned on yesterday's show about those classified documents that were found at President Biden's home and an office space he once used. Turns out there were more documents found than we, the public, were initially told. It's a little complicated, Priyanka, so I'm just going to start from the beginning. Perfect. Back in November, just before the midterms, Biden's lawyers discovered what they say was a small number of classified documents dating from his time as VP under President Obama.

That batch was found inside a locked closet in an office at the Penn-Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement. That's a think tank in D.C. And Biden apparently used this office after he was vice president. The discovery was immediately reported to the National Archives, who referred the matter to the Justice Department, you know, because, of course, classified materials shouldn't be laying around all willy-nilly in gin pop. We don't like that. Definitely not.

We don't like that. Definitely not. We don't like that. And so then Attorney General Merrick Garland then assigned John Lausch Jr. to conduct a preliminary assessment of the material to determine if a special counsel was needed. Then a month later, and this is some of the new information here, Biden's lawyers told Lausch that they had found a second set of classified documents, this time in Biden's garage in his home in Wilmington, Delaware. And there was also a single-page document found in an adjacent room. Then, just last week, Lausch told Attorney General Garland that a special master was indeed warranted for this case. That is when we started hearing

piecemeal news reports about the two discoveries, which brings us to the news yesterday when Garland appointed Robert Herr, the former U.S. attorney for Maryland, to investigate. Now, we don't know exactly what the documents are or how sensitive they may be, but you know that classified distinction does mean something. Right. But the administration is cooperating with the Justice Department as they investigate. And I'll just note how a number of folks are comparing Biden's classified docs situation to Donald Trump's, who you remember is being investigated after hundreds of classified docs were seized from his Florida home last year. Right. Definitely not the same exact situation. But to get into more of what's going

on and, you know, why those aren't equivalent, I spoke earlier with Dan Pfeiffer. He is a former White House communications director, the host of Pod Save America, and the author of the book Battling the Big Lie. I started out by asking Dan how these materials may have ended up where they were found. Hard to know for sure exactly how this happened, but at the end of any administration, there's a massive process to pack up the White House very quickly, get everything out the door so the new president can move in. It seems likely in this situation

that a bunch of papers were being moved and that these papers were incorrectly filed, which is why they were with them. It shouldn't happen, but you can see how it could happen in that situation. Sure. So, I mean, you were a White House communications director once upon a time. What is your assessment of how the White House is handling all of this? What do you make of their messaging so far? They're doing the best they can. I have great sympathy for the communications people in the situation. When they started talking about this on Monday night, Tuesday morning,

it was one set of documents at the Biden Penn Center. As of Thursday morning or Wednesday night, I guess it was another set of documents in the garage and then maybe some in an adjacent room. Hopefully that is everything. But always the hardest thing is to be able to answer questions when you don't know what you don't know. I think they are doing this correctly thus far. Take it seriously. Talk about your cooperation, which is a very implicit distinction with how the former president is handling this, but also don't make it into a bigger deal than it is. This is substantively an issue, but there's just a gigantic difference between what President Biden is dealing with and what Donald Trump is dealing with, how they conducted themselves, and the gravity of the situation in terms of the number

of documents, how they were handled, and most importantly, the legal jeopardy the two are in separately. And so there's always a danger that you can buy into the premise of a scandal-hungry press and treat it as a bigger deal than it is. So you have to be realistic and optimistic about the outcome without buying the premise that somehow these two things are the same. Yeah, I want to follow up on that really quickly. So if you're talking to, you know, a family member or a friend, maybe who doesn't keep up so closely with the news, but has heard a little bit about this, has heard a little bit about Trump's situation, is kind of drawing a parallel between the two. How would you talk about this with them? Like, how would you explain the differences?

So President Biden inadvertently took a small number of documents amongst all the papers he left the White House with. As soon as his team discovered they had those documents, they immediately turned them over and began cooperating with the investigation. And there was always an investigation whenever classified information is misplaced intentionally or otherwise to assess intent, but also what security risks happen because of that misplacing, right?

What secrets are out there? Who possibly had access to secrets? Sort of a damage assessment, it's called. Sure. What President Trump did is he took a ton of documents on purpose, refused to turn them over, at one point hid them from the people who wanted the documents, is he took a ton of documents on purpose, refused to turn them over, at one point hid them from the people who wanted the documents,

had his attorneys lie to authorities about having turned them all over. He was so obstinate in returning them that the only way the FBI thought they could get them back was to show up at his house unannounced in search for them. Right. After the FBI did that, the president lied, accused the FBI of planning the documents, then said that he declassified the documents, a statement so false that no one who worked for Trump was willing to repeat it in a court of law for fear of being disbarred, and continues to attack the law enforcement who undertook this to this day. So consider these the same things, sort of like bouncing a check inadvertently in massive FTX financial fraud. They are similar in the sense they both involve documents,

but they are massively different in every way. The investigations are different and the potential legal consequences are minimal, if barely possible for Biden, and dramatic and potentially likely for Trump. I think one other thing that's helpful for people to understand is that it's incredibly important we take classified information and security very, very seriously. And this is a very unfortunate error on behalf of the president's team when he was vice president. However, this is not the most unusual thing in the world. And we would get very little attention if it was not in the context of Trump's massive willful violation of our national security with his documents. Like when we worked in the White House and you are someone like I did who had access to

classified information, people would sometimes come by after work and see if you had left anything on your desk. And if you did leave something on your desk, you could possibly lose access to classified information or there could be some sort of look into how that happened. You know, foreign service officers who work around the country will sometimes take the wrong folder home. That is very different from someone intentionally stealing those documents for whatever reason Trump had them. And if it's what happened in the Trump world, this would get very little attention because it would not seem so unusual. It's only in the context of our former president stealing nuclear secrets, hiding them at his beach house, intentionally obstructing an investigation to keep those nuclear secrets,

that this is treated as such a gigantic deal. Got it. So Attorney General Merrick Garland announced yesterday that he appointed a special counsel, Robert Herr. He's a former Trump appointee, and he is going to take over this investigation. What can we expect from him, and how might he be conducting this investigation? It is not unusual for a attorney general to appoint a special counsel

who will operate quasi-independently to look into any sort of investigation involving the president or their family to avoid the appearance of conflict of interest. This should hopefully, it's going to depend a lot on this individual. Are they truly going to operate in an independent career spirit or is there partisanship here? Because if this is going to proceed along the way it should go, it should wrap up pretty quickly. We know from reporting that the Department of Justice has already

interviewed the people who were involved as the custodians of those documents on the way out of the White House. And so there's not so much further this should go and will hopefully resolve itself quickly. That was my conversation with Dan Pfeiffer, host of Crooked's Pod Save America and author of Battling the Big Lie. We'll be sure to bring you more updates on this as we learn more, but that is the latest for now. Let's get to some headlines. Headlines. The Justice Department ordered City National Bank to pay out $31 million yesterday for discriminating against buyers of color, marking the largest redlining settlement in DOJ history. The Los Angeles-based bank is accused of refusing to market or underwrite mortgages

in predominantly Black and Latino communities between 2017 and 2020. And federal officials allege that City National was so reluctant to lend money to non-white borrowers that it opened 11 new branches during that time period, but only one of them was located in a neighborhood where the majority of residents are people of color. City National is just the latest of many banks that have been caught redlining over the past several years, and cracking down on the discriminatory practice has been a big priority under President Biden, who set up a redlining task force when he took office. Okay, great that he did that, because why is this still happening? Right.

What? This was supposed to stop a long time ago. So quit it with this. And I hope everyone else who's doing it gets fined just as much money, because it is extremely bad and extremely wrong. Absolutely. The Federal Aviation Administration is zeroing in on what caused the mass outage that grounded thousands of domestic flights across the U.S. on Wednesday. Officials said that the software system that the agency uses is nearly 30 years old.

And this week, a corrupt file triggered a shutdown of its primary and secondary systems. Don't expect the FAA to leap ahead into the future anytime soon because the software isn't scheduled to be updated for another six years. This revelation has prompted questions about why the FAA hasn't revamped its system since installing it in 1993. Wow. The agency is expected to lay out its next steps to prevent more outages in the coming days. 30 years? You haven't had an update in 30 years. That's absurd. What? How does a computer system from 1993 still run? I don't

understand. Well, it's barely running apparently, so here we go. Thousands of New York City nurses ended their strike yesterday after reaching a tentative agreement with the two remaining hospitals that were still at the bargaining table. Union representatives said at a press conference that the new proposed contracts meet their members' demands for higher raises and better staffing to support overwhelming amounts of patients. Awesome news. We love the nurses. Yes. And your daily reminder that money is not actually real. Yesterday, former billionaire Sam Bankman Freed made his first detailed response to the fraud allegations that were leveled against him and his cryptocurrency exchange FTX, which reportedly lost track of about $8 billion of its users' funds. Like many of our generation's greatest thinkers, Bankman-Fried shared his words on Substack.

In a blog post, he said, quote, I didn't steal funds and I certainly didn't stash billions away. Bankman-Fried suggested that FTX users could still get their money back, pointing to the recent recovery of $5 billion by FTX's bankruptcy lawyers to bolster his argument. In other news, we should take as a hint to return to the barter system. As of this month, Tesla's CEO Elon Musk holds the Guinness World Record for the largest loss of a personal fortune after shedding $182 billion as Tesla stock plummeted by 65% in 2022. That's just too much money in the first place.

He'll be all right, I'm sure. Yeah, he'll be all right. But like, that's the thing. I'm not rooting for this man. And those are the headlines. We'll be back after some ads with another look at the always impressive creative output of Congressman George Santos. It is Friday, Wild Squad, and today we are trying out a segment inspired by a rising

autobiographical fiction writer who has made big waves this year. The man, the myth, heavy emphasis on the myth, Congressman George Santos. It has been hard to keep track of all of the lies that the new congressman from New York has told on his path to the U.S. Capitol, from lies about his achievements in the world of business to lies about how several of his family members died. But it is our civic duty to do so.

So Trevow, I'm going to test your knowledge by asking you to identify which two of the following statements were lies that Santos actually told and which one is a lie that we made up. It's a twist on the classic game, Two Truths and a Lie, that we are calling Three Lies. Love the game, love the idea, hate liars.

So we'll see how this goes. Are you ready? Let's do it. Okay, so first up, George Santos claimed he was in the crowd when Britney Spears and Madonna kissed at the VMAs, but records show he was living in Brazil at the time. Second, he claimed he ran an animal charity that saved thousands of dogs and cats, but there is no evidence that any such charity ever existed third he claimed that he led his college volleyball team

to a championship victory at a college he never even attended wow okay and one of these is not a real lie yeah one of these is a lie we made up but two of them he actually just told people so that is interesting. You know, I feel like the obvious one is to go with, you know, the Britney Madonna kiss. That feels like the most specific, but also the most absurd. However, the volleyball team situation at a school that you didn't even go to, that does feel very, like, deeply creative. And, you know, I know we have a very creative team here, you know, at WOD.

We do. Which one do you want to go with? I'm going to go against my better judgment. And I'm going to say that the one that is a lie that he did not say is the volleyball one at the school he did not attend. I'm sorry, that's wrong. Your first instinct was totally right.

Yes, he was not indeed present for the kiss, but like, I mean, he's probably going to hear this and tell everybody he was. He's going to be like, oh darn, I should have came up with that one too. It's not too late, sir. You can keep spinning these lies. I don't think he's going to stop anytime soon.

I don't think he's capable of stopping. But anyways, that was three lies. Thank you so much for playing, Travelle. Please, everybody, keep finding old lies from George Santos so we can play this game every single week. And one last thing before we go. Today is our final show with our head writer, John Milstein. He has spent the past three years with us here as a part of the WOD Squad,

tirelessly writing many of the jokes that you heard on hundreds of episodes of this pod, even a few of the good ones. Yeah, you know, every now and again, he gets it right. And we love him for it. But in all seriousness, John has kept our spirits high and our show titles snappy, even as we scramble to cover major election cycles, natural disasters, and the latest developments in international chess cheating scandals. So before he embarks on his next endeavor,

a few of us here on the team wanted to take a moment to share what we'll miss the most about him. John, as my best friend in the world, it gets pretty rude for you to leave me and us. We're going to miss you so much. Have a great time at your next job, but not too great. I'm going to miss hearing John say, what's up? Every time we log on to the Zoom for work as a team, it was always the highlight of my morning. John, my number one, my day one. I'm going to miss, most of all, your freaking use of the word freaking. Forever embedded in my vocabulary.

Even though I see John almost every day, I don't know that I've ever seen him in a bad mood. So I will miss the light that he brings to every recording session, along with the same joke about intercom at the end. But most of all, I think I'll miss how every once in a while he will come up with a joke or reference that no one else on the team has any idea what he's talking about, which he usually chalks up to being from New Hampshire, which I'm still not entirely sure is a real place. John, this is Gideon. I don't know if you remember me, but this is what I sound like. I always loved seeing the different pasta that you were making around dinnertime when it was time to record. What I'm going to miss most is John telling us to record the intro just one more time, but as written. And shorter without our interjections that are not funny. It is his very polite, very kind way of saying that we are not as funny as him and should probably stop trying to be. I am definitely going to miss how

you make sure we hit the jokes in the ways that we need to hit the jokes. If that means we got to do it two or three times, we do it two or three times. John, I'm going to miss how supportive you always are. No idea is a bad one. Even if we have the most silly ideas, you run with it. We are sad to see you go. John, you're a real one. You're OG WOD Squad forever. You're always welcome back here.

And from all of us here on What A Day, thank you so much for everything, John. We wish you all the best on your new adventure and we will miss you so, so much for everything, John. We wish you all the best on your new adventure, and we will miss you so, so much. That's all for today. If you like the show, make sure you subscribe, leave a review, buy the FAA a new computer, and tell your friends to listen. And if you're into reading and not just lies by George Santos, like me, What A Day is also a nightly newsletter. Check it out and subscribe at crooked.com slash subscribe.

I'm Priyanka Arabindi. I'm Trevail Anderson. And we're coming for your microwave. Listen, y'all don't deserve to have, okay, appliances. All right? I love my microwave. There's people with, like, no microwave households, and I could never. Oh, listen, I use mine every day.

Every day. Unapologetically. What a Day is a production of Crooked Media. It's recorded and mixed by Bill Lance. Jazzy Marine and Raven Yamamoto are our associate producers. Our head writer is John Milstein and our executive producers are Lita Martinez, Michael Martinez and Sandy Gerard. Production support comes from Leo Duran, Ari Schwartz and Matt DeGroot with additional promotional and social support from Ewa Okulate, Julia Beach and Jordan Silver.

Our theme music is by Colin Gilliard and Kashaka.