Will Cain Country - Matt Taibbi: How Far Will They Go To Stop Trump?

Episode Date: February 6, 2024

Story #1: As the war machine is beginning to hum, maybe we should take a lesson from China on foreign policy. Story #2: Journalist Matt Taibbi joins The Will Cain Show to break down the introduction of lawfare into American elections. Story #3: Patrick Mahomes plus the points? Will wants it for the big game.   Tell Will what you thought about this podcast by emailing [e-mail]   Follow Will on Twitter: @WillCain Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

For a limited time at McDonald's, enjoy the tasty breakfast trio. Your choice of chicken or sausage McMuffin or McGrittles with a hash brown and a small iced coffee for $5.5 plus tax. Available until 11 a.m. at participating McDonald's restaurants. Price excludes flavored iced coffee and delivery. One. The War Machine is beginning to hum. Bombs and bases, the American foreign policy, always looking to be the lion. Maybe we should consider the rat. Maybe we should take a lesson from China.

Two, what will they do to stop Donald Trump? How has it already been war-gamed the ways to save democracy from Donald Trump with rackets Matt Taibi? And three, Patrick Mahomes plus. the points. Give it to me for the Super Bowl. It is the Will Cain Show streaming live at Fox News.com. If you prefer to listen on podcast at Apple, Spotify, or at Fox News podcast, go hit subscribe. Speaking of subscribe, I need a new obsession.

I'm always read in on politics and news. I'm always read in on sports. but I like to go in cyclical obsessions. I like to fall down the rabbit hole of Wikipedia. I like to watch a series and read a book and then dive into the internet until my curiosity is fully satiated. And most of the time that revolves around history, and most of the time that revolves around American history,

and most of the time that narrows into the West. I love to fall down the rabbit hole of learning about the Comanches or the Plains Indian tribes. but I'm without an obsession. I just watched Mayor of East Town, which was on HBO, and I really liked it because it played into one of my obsessions, which is regionalism. I love to see the distinct nature of place.

It's one of the things I love about travel. I want to see what makes this place unique, a strong flavor. And I love the Philadelphia accent mastered by Kate Winslet and all the other actors in Mayor of East Town. strong sense of place. And I'm also watching the documentary on Netflix about the recording of We Are the World, but I don't think I'm going to fall down the rabbit hole. I don't think I'm going to hit that need for peak curiosity. I need something new. I just watched not too recently Bass Reeves on Paramount about the most prolific black U.S. Marshal from the 1800s patrolling

Indian territory, what is now Oklahoma. And that sent me down the rabbit hole for a while of learning about, well, where I'm from, North Texas, Southern Oklahoma throughout the 1800s. But I need something new. I need a new obsession, separate from the news, separate from sports. I need a new obsession to watch and to read and to research. I need something in history. I need you, Wilcane, podcast at fox.com, Wilcane on X. to help me find that new curiosity. I hope that I can spend some time on history. I hope I don't have to keep up too much with present and future when it comes to war, because you can almost begin to hear it humming the war machine. Story number one.

The war machine seems to begin to fire. Last week, America reported, hit something like over 120 Iran proxy installations across Syria and Iraq. This is in response to a drone attack by Iranian proxy forces that resulted in the death of three Americans. Our retaliatory strike response has grown to include hitting the Houthis in Yemen who have been attacking international trade routes. And that, for many, simply isn't enough. Senator Lindsey Graham, tweeted out last week, bomb Tehran on the five last week on the Fox News Channel. General Keith Kellogg said we need to strike Iran directly. Now, what that means, does that mean strike Tehran?

Does that mean oil refinery installations? Does that mean hitting Iranian Revolutionary Guard leadership? is in the details, the gray area that is purposely left unsaid. But it seems to me that there is a passion.

There is a level of investment. There's an enthusiasm in these topics that strikes bipartisan levels that makes me nervous, that makes everything seem so casual and so confident. It makes everything seem so certain the way that we can strike back

and it's always with the promise of avoiding war. I asked Kellogg in that interview, can you give me some good historical examples of where aggressive action avoided war? He wouldn't have to describe for me ways in which aggressive action ended war, where perhaps a nuclear bomb on atomic bomb on Hiroshima ended World War II.

Or he quoted Sherman's, march to Atlanta as ending the civil war. And that may be true when it comes to ending war. One great, violent thrust. But I don't think we have very many good historical examples of one great violent thrust negating the necessity for a war. We always assume that we will strike someone and they will immediately back down. It was something we talked about this past weekend with Governor Mike Huckabee,

who I have great respect. for, who came on Fox and Friends, and he said, what we're missing simply when it comes to our foreign policy and why it is that Iran feels like they can strike out at our soldiers is simply weakness. Listen to Mike Huckabee on Fox and Friends. This is a very dangerous world, and it's become dangerous because when people sense weakness, they're going to pounce upon it. It's not any different than it is in the animal kingdom. The predators of the jungle look at the weakest prey, and that's who they go. after. You know, the mouse doesn't take on the lion. The mouse, you know, always looks and figures

what can he eat, an insect. And that's why we have to always project strength and also a bit of uncertainty. Well, I agree that we need to project strength and that we need to project uncertainty. I think it was one of the virtues of Donald Trump. And I certainly think that our current administration, our current leadership, projects confusion, not calculated uncertainty. but confusion and weakness. But I'm not sure that our foreign policy of bombs and bases and constantly trying to posture ourselves as the lion has served in creating a stability for American citizens

to ensuring that our interests are always positioned as America first. I would suggest maybe when it comes to the security and the long-term success of Americans, that we might look less to the lion and look more to the rat. Now, China seems to be spreading its economic and influential tentacles across the world. There are players in Africa, they're players in South America, they're players in the Middle East. And they've bent much of the world, if not to their will, to their influence. Through the Belt and Road Initiative, they've co-opted much of the globe into service.

China first. And they haven't provoked the same type of violent response that is accompanied American foreign policy now for almost half a century. And you have to ask yourself why. Now, my friend and co-host Pete Hexith has said that China's bill will come do. And that may be. I'm not capable of predicting the future. But what I see right now is a strategy that seems to genuinely serve China first. And if you are a Chinaman, then you would want a policy and a government to serve China first. I would not begrudge that nation or its inhabitants of looking out for the best interest of that nation or its inhabitants, of looking out for China. Instead, I would ask America to implement the same calculus, the same strategy. Look at what serves

America first. And I ask you to bombs and bases so far have they served America first. You know, the lion, for all its power and might, has flirted with extinction, endangered species lists for quite some time. But the rat, the rat proliferates. The rat's doing well. And I guess it's no coincidence that Chinese revere the rat. It's number one on their lunar calendar, a 12-year cycle calendar. And who comes first? The rat, the story of how that happened is one of the early Chinese emperors held a contest for animals who should be honored in the lunar calendar. And the rat, through cunning, wily intelligence, co-opted the ox to cross the river, didn't exert his energy until he got to the finish line and leapt off the ox and ran across the finish line.

China has engaged in cunning wily foreign policy for quite some time. They've adopted a philosophy of unrestricted warfare. It avoids kinetic military action. Instead, it fights warfare across the globe, culturally, economically, through influence. It sees history as a long game. 50 years is a blip on the radar for the way that China sees this unfolding across geopolitics. And maybe it will work or maybe it will work. fall apart like a paper tiger. Maybe one day it will provoke the response of Islamic jihadists.

But right now, bombs and bases and the approach of the lion certainly has provoked the response of Islamic jihadists. It certainly turned us into the world's defense department. It has certainly led us to proxy wars, economic wars, at least the financial backing of wars in Ukraine. in the Middle East. And I'd have to wonder, is this cycle that says, okay, we'll put bases in the Middle East to serve as counterterrorism because if we fight them over there, we're not fighting them over here. But then when those bases get attacked, well, then we have to respond. And we have to respond with strength if I connect the dots of what I'm being told.

We have to proactively strike. And then, you know, it's not simply strike and go. No enemy ever goes, oh, well, now I'm going to back down. That was scary. Of course, that's also not even what we really try to do because we almost always involve ourselves in some type of regime change. In fact, we've been talking about regime change

in Iran for the better part of 50 years. Of course, that was the project in Afghanistan. Regime change. The minute we embark on regime change in Afghanistan or Iraq, what happens? We create chaos and instability. Furthering the interest of terrorists. And now we've gone full circle. Presence of our counterterrorism bases

to stop terrorism has led to the increase in terrorism that almost always ends in a threat to America. It's a vicious cycle. And yes, it's one that we're currently seeing played about to some extent by Joe Biden. But this is a bipartisan effort. This is a bipartisan consensus. I think it is why Donald Trump was such a threat. I think it's one of the reasons that Donald Trump was so reviled from the left and the right

because he represented a break in that system. He represented a threat. And that earned him threats from not just Democrats, but from the Pentagon establishment, from the national security apparatus, from the intelligence community in the United States. Because he dared to put this country in a position where it asked, hey, does this serve America first? We always want to be strong. We always want to be the lion. But we might just consider that it is intelligent to learn the lessons of the rat.

maybe we need to look at, yes, a geopolitical adversary, and ask, where are they moving the right pieces on the chessboard? Maybe, just maybe, there are a few lessons to learn from China. Coming up in just a moment here on the Will Cain Show, how far will they go to stop Donald Trump? They've already war-gamed a few ways to subvert democracy, to save democracy from Donald Trump. You don't want to miss this conversation with rackets Matt Taiibi. just a moment on the Will Cain Show. It is time to take the quiz. It's five questions in less than five minutes.

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come back to the common sense and country over party guy we all loved. I think all of these terms are what's the crux of the issue. Isn't the party the way that it's been for 50 years? Isn't the disruption to the party whether or it's a border bill or it's international warfare? This is what's being disrupted. And it isn't common sense to say, hey, what serves America first? I don't understand maybe we need to have a define your terms conversation because I think exactly what's happened to me and so many others is a divorce from the idea that you get your party politics from a cracker jack box that you might actually see there's not some pre-prescribed opinions you have to hold and that Donald Trump doesn't represent if anything doesn't represent standard fair Republican and because of that it might just be they will do anything and everything to stop Donald Trump. He's an award-winning reporter at racket.news. He has written Hate, Inc. He's written I Can't Breathe.

He's been on here the Will Cain Show before, and I'm glad to have him on again. He is Matt Taibi. What's up, Matt? What's going, Will? Man, I'm kind of terrified by this column that you wrote. It's really something else. It's entitled Is the Electoral Fix Already In?

Now, a lot of us, Matt, I think, are thinking, whatever's going to unfold this year, it hasn't happened yet. I mean, I can imagine we're about to embark on all kinds of censorship. I just got done talking about war, Matt. I mean, historically, you would be forgiven for being cynical about an administration launching war efforts in an election year because it normally plays into the incumbent's hands. I'm not sure if that's the case anymore, but you would be forgiven for being cynical about international adventurism during election year. But whatever it is, man, something is coming, and you have really written through that this isn't going to be haphazard. This has actually been war-gamed.

What's coming to stop Donald Trump? Yeah, it's really interesting. I mean, I've spent a lot of my career covering presidential campaigns. I've been doing this since 2004. I did it five times for Rolling Stone. And normally at this time of year, all the attention is on voters and what they're thinking. I'm still going to Nevada in a couple of days. it's still important to talk to people

and find out what they're thinking. But this year, there are all these factors that have nothing to do with what voters think that are going to play dominant roles and whether or not who the next president is gonna be. And this includes things like the lawsuits about Trump's eligibility in places like Colorado and Maine, the lawsuits and technical complaints against third party groups

like no labels or Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the suppression of intramural challenges within the Democratic Party. And this is all going to be done by lawyers, not by voters. And that's something that we haven't seen before. And so the report that you referenced that I wrote kind of goes over some of that, but also goes over an exercise that was done in 2020 called the Transition Integrity Project, which, as you say, war-gamed out what happens in a contested election scenario and gave us kind of a preview of what the thinking might be about these things. And some of those things

are sort of coming to pass a little bit. Let's talk about those things. You lay out in this column is the electoral fix already in. The four ways, the four things they considered wargaming out, what could be, I guess, a threat to the transition integrity project. By the way, who's involved in this? I don't want to, like, loosely use the word they throughout this. But it's, I mean, I think the they is very illustrative of what we're talking about. talking about right before you came in i'm talking about like disrupting the i just don't think matt and you know i've talked about this we're on this bipolar spectrum anymore of left and right and what republican and democrat mean anymore and when you look at who's involved in the they i think it's

pretty illustrative yes it's high level democrats but not just high level democrats yeah you're right i mean i heard your intro i'm also one of those people who's been kind of knocked off the axis of party politics i mean i and you know having to learn all over again all over again all the reporter should never have to learn this because it's supposed to be the first order of business, but we don't just get our messaging in a crackerjack box from one party or the other. But in this case, in the Trump era, we've had to learn some pretty hard lessons about, you know, where things really rest, what left and right really mean, whether they're meaningless or meaningful. And that comes out with this tip project. There are a hundred people

involved in the transition integrity project or there were there were 67 active participants according to their own report and only about a dozen have been identified we know who some of them are there's former DNC chair Donna Brazil John Podesta who was the campaign chair for the Hillary Clinton campaign but there's also Michael Steele who was the RNC campaign chair there There are a number of Republicans, or like Bill Crystal and David Frum, who are neoconservatives and ardent supporters of the Iraq war invasion. And, yeah, it's a bipartisan group. There are a lot of Democrats there, but there are also a lot of defense and intelligence officials whose political affiliation is not 100% clear. So loosely speaking, it's more of like insiders versus outsiders than it is left versus right.

all right and the this group was put together i think the timeline's kind of not just interesting but important you said it was in 2020 so it here's why that timing is important this is pre january 6th right this is pre a lot of the things that they wore gameed out we're going to go over them together in just a moment actually came to pass but this was put together when in 2020? Looks like it was in June of 2020, probably. The PR campaign about the group's work, they started to do a kind of a launch about their, you know, about the group. The idea behind that was to let people know that there was, there were a lot of serious people who were worried about the possibility that Trump might not leave office. And so there were news stories

everywhere in July and August of 2020. At that point, most of the exercises had already been conducted. Then there was sort of an error. Somebody leaked the most embarrassing part about the report, which is that John Podesta, who was playing the role of Joe Biden in this exercise, in one simulation that involved a quote-unquote clear Trump win, he decided not to concede and instead had five states secede, threatened secession. And it and create a constitutional crisis. And so this leaked out to the New York time. The specifics of that were something.

So the theory was, Podesta was playing Biden. Biden loses to Trump or Trump refuses to leave the office. And then Biden would send unique electors to certain states, special electors that would not follow the results of the Democratic election. and it resulted in California seceding, several West Coast states seceding, Wisconsin, seceding as part of this war game. I don't know about Wisconsin. I remember that it was all the West Coast states, which they renamed Cascadia and had all of them secede from the Union. Then they entered into negotiations about whether or not they would accept the results of Trump's election. Remember, this was in the case of a...

a clear electoral college victory by Trump, sort of a similar situation as 2016. And they used the threat of secession to extract concessions like the elimination of the electoral college and some other reforms that they were looking for. But adding D.C. and Puerto Rico is states was one of the concessions. Exactly. Adding D.C. in Puerto Rico, states. I think there was another thing about the Supreme Court. important there. But the important part of this is that it was kind of embarrassing because they

were complaining about the possibility that the Trump might not go along with the election results. And of course, we can all talk about whether or not that happened after 2020. But in advance of that, it's a little bit embarrassing to have people from quote unquote your own side already planning to defy the results of an election. And there's a lot of stuff in this report that talks about how concerns about Trump's willingness to not leave office or to use extra legal measures might provoke an illiberal response even from Democrats and that also that Democrats cannot rely on quote unquote norms or elite norms to prevent a coup. So that means that they were already preparing to kind of go color outside the lines a little bit. It's kind of an

extraordinary document that only leaked out because somebody talked to Ben Smith at the New York Times. And it's really interesting to look at in retrospect and a little scary, too. Very scary. Part of me, Matt, wants to be like, okay, well, it's a war game exercise and, you know, you should red team certain scenarios. You know, you should always play out extreme so that you, nothing comes as a surprise to you. Like, part of me wants to think, okay, that's what's going on. But I think that you can't give as much credit to that. Again, as we go through the four scenarios together that they laid out, you're going to see why. But if – and I think you wrote in your column, like, this was part of –

Barack Obama's encouragement, Podesta went down that path of secession. I think you wrote that. What's I think interesting about it beyond simply – beyond simply like, oh, they're just trying to war game, is A, they're considering that possibility, meaning it's a consideration while accusing everyone else of breaking the norms. And B, if they considered it in 2020, is it considered in 2024? Right. And also, you have to look backwards, too. Did they consider it in 2016?

You know, because they go on to list an extraordinary number of, quote, unquote, abuses that they're worried about Trump committing that sound an awful lot like things that happened after 2016, like a series of classified leaks, politicized and investigations, you know, things like that, but I imagine that's what you're going to go over, want to go over. But yes, all those things are concerning. Plus, in 2024, the reason this is now relevant is because there was just this mysterious story in NBC in the middle of January talking about how yet another loose-knit group of officials sponsored by one of the same umbrella groups that was behind the Transition Integrity Project is now reviewing possibilities and wargaming ideas for what to do if Donald Trump makes an illegal order after re-election with regard to the Pentagon.

So they're already talking about what to do about perhaps creating some kind of resistance to Trump direction of the military, which is like one of the things that you suggested is forcing the president to seek congressional approval with the deployment of the military domestically. Right, exactly. So they're already talking about the improper use of the Insurrection Act. Now, there's already a bill that's been proposed. That's probably not going to go anywhere. But it's an indication of what the thinking is. One of the groups that's involved with all this is called Protect Democracy. They're bankrupt largely by a couple of groups, including the LinkedIn billionaire Reed Hoffman.

And, you know, they've been looking at this very issue. In fact, a couple of their lawyers wrote a story for the New York Times earlier in September of last year talking about how, you know, it's not unusual that people would be looking to use the Insurrection Act in prosecutions of Donald Trump. And there's a whole long essay about, the history of it, of the Insurrection Act, and how this was interrupted, the use of Ku Klux Klan Act suits, and how they can be used as a tool for social reform. So their heads are very much

in the space of there is this big extra legal gray area involving the Insurrection Act. And what can we do with it? What could somebody else do with it? Matt, do you think, this is more me asking you to pontificate on this. Do you think we've arrived at sort of this inevitable evolution of a polarized and divided society that we're at this moment where, you know, you've got to ruin democracy, you've got to destroy democracy to save democracy. Like, we're headed towards this zero-sum game of politics, and we always were. Or do you think there was something unique about Donald Trump that forced this moment where as we've mentioned. It's left, it's right. It's neocon. It's far left. Whatever. The bedfellows are all mixed at this point, but it all seems to be unified against one man, Donald Trump.

I think we have to conclude that there's something unique about Trump. We did see after 9-11 that there was a concerted effort to knock down a lot of liberal traditions and rule of law traditions with respect to America's behavior. overseas. Even domestically, you know, Bush did things like there was, there were incidents at least one involving an arrest without a warrant, which is something we hadn't seen since the Lincoln years. But we also saw the elimination of habeas corpus, you know, drone assassination. All these things were revived after 9-11, but it was all overseas. When Trump came along is when we started to see a change in thinking domestically. And this is why I've, you know, for For me, all of this is so shocking. You know, I grew up sort of a political, classic ACLU political liberal.

And all of a sudden, all the people who I used to think of as my friends and colleagues, they're, for instance, against free speech. They think we must have censorship or else we're headed towards peril. In order to save democracy, we have to kind of curtail the First Amendment. And then you start talking about other amendments they want to cut back on the Fifth Amendment, the 14th Amendment. I mean, it's right on the line. I think this is something that goes back to 2016.

Before that, we just didn't see this. Okay, well, then that forces us into this. Then what is it about Donald Trump? And I don't want to give you the answer, and you're independent-minded enough that you won't let me ask you a leading question. But I think about this, and I think I've already offered up an opinion today that I think any listener could follow,

where I think he did, for whatever reason, did represent a threat to the way things had been, done for a long time, probably since post-World War II, the way things had been done in Washington, D.C. I mean, he's the first true outsider. And when we say outsider sometimes, I think we almost think of that almost too stylistically, you know, but like he just didn't think about things the way that anyone steeped in politics thought about things. And so therefore, he did represent a true threat to the way business was done in Washington, D.C. That's option A. And then I'm just try to be real with myself, Matt, like, let's consider option B. Option B, red team this. Like,

let me, I often think even the craziest person, you have to listen to it for a minute because maybe there's a kernel of truth. You know, so I sit there and ask myself, well, do they have any kernel of truth that Donald Trump represents everything that they say, a true threat to democracy? And I really do try to ask myself that. And I think I obviously, I come back to option A. That's the answer I think is true, but not without asking myself, B, but I ask you, then why? What is it about Donald Trump? Yeah, I've come around to Option A, and this started with my experience as a campaign reporter. I mean, I covered the campaign for years, and actually as an investigative journalism story, it's kind of boring.

And the reason it was always boring is because the answers are pretty much decided in advance. There's a triumvirate of interests, the press, the two political parties, and the donors. They're basically impenetrable. They always had been, going back decades, if they did not agree on a candidate, that candidate did not get a major party nomination. It just was impossible. It couldn't happen. The closest that we'd ever come was 1992 when Ross Perot spent $18 million and got himself on the ballot. But he didn't really sniff the presidency.

In this case, in 2016, Donald Trump overcame all of those influences. And I covered that campaign. I disliked Donald Trump enough to write a book called Insane Con President about that campaign. But when people said, well, this is a failure of democracy, I thought, well, that's crazy. This is a huge vindication of democracy because he defeated all these oligarchical elements. that were trying to prevent him from getting elected he had half the money that hillary clinton had so he didn't have the donors his own party was manifestly against his nomination and then the press was absurdly against them i mean i think the you know the endorsements it was

some ridiculous number like 97 to 2 of the of the major newspapers so he beat all that it was a it was a crack in the system i think that's what that's the norm that's the norm that's the they were really concerned about him, you know, breaking. Now, after 2020 and January 6th and Stop the Steel, I think the argument becomes more serious, but you have to remember that they were making all these arguments way before January 6th, way before any of that episode, any of those episodes. So I think it's option A, almost entirely. Maybe, you know, you get a little bit more on the other side now after 2020, but, you know,

Yeah, but even after 2020, to your point, and this is not, what I'm about to say, isn't reporting, it's more like follow the logical. If whatever this, if it's an oligarchy that then is capable of kind of perpetuating a sci-up on the American public of high, it's sci-up in that some stuff is manufactured, some stuff is like giving increased or outsized importance to in-consensate. things in the end, his personality, whatever it may be, you convince a great amount of the public that the oligarchy is, you know, right about Donald Trump. If they believe this stuff, I don't know if they really truly believe that he is a threat to democracy, the way they talk, they would do anything. And I'm not even talking about the election results. I mean, we do know what they did do. We do know about the censorship regime. Honestly, man, the way that they speak. I mean, comparisons to Hitler and Nazism and these kind of things like, if you really

believe that America was on the verge of losing its constitutional republic, its democracy, that it was on the verge of falling away into Hitlerism, then I don't know what you wouldn't do to stop the man that you think is responsible. Well, right, and they've been pretty unequivocal about that, almost unembarrassed about it. I mean, Robert Kagan, who is a very influential neoconservative thinker. His wife, Victoria Newland, is also a very influential diplomat and security official with a lot of influence on the prosecution of the war in Ukraine. He wrote an incredible 6,000-word piece in Washington Post comparing Trump to Caesar and saying, you know, that our democracy is in great peril and no other ordinary um avenue of resistance is going to work i mean

it's almost it's as close as you can come to calling for an assassination without doing it had this ridiculous picture of a bust of caesar on on the front of the of the article but they're all basically saying we you know we have to do whatever it takes to prevent this person from from getting into office And this is also reflected in the view of journalists. I mean, infamously, Sam Harris, who's a very influential podcaster, was saying, yeah, we have to do whatever it takes to get rid of Trump. And this was for a little while anyway, at least the debate within the journalism community. There were a few of us who were saying, we can't just lie about the guy.

Like, you know, that's not done. That will destroy our professional. It will ruin us as an institution. But I would say 90, 95% of the people in the business were on the other side of that debate from the beginning. They just, something about Trump is so triggering to this group of people that, you know, it's still kind of a mystery to me, actually. I don't really fully understand it. It's shocking, honestly, Matt, that there hasn't. I mean, I hate to say this.

It sounds so inflammatory when you talk about this. But like, you just step back for a minute and you go, it is kind of shocking. There hasn't been an attempt on his life. I mean, you've got, you know, it's, you could argue, by the way, it undercuts all the conspiracies of assassination, because all of the powers that be behind the scenes are marshaled against Trump, and it hasn't manifested in that, you know, and on the front end, you've also ginned up a great amount of, like, you know, populist or anti-populist hatred of Trump that could, could inspire a mass lone wolf, right?

You just kind of look at this from a distance, and you go, it's shocking that this hasn't been the final step in stopping Donald Trump? Yeah, I mean, I think they've already been very successful in getting people to go way beyond the confines of what their normal behaviors would be. You know, it starts with stuff as simple as, you know, the censorship issue. There are people who would never have considered, you know, interfering on a mass scale with speech, who suddenly became very ardent converts to that idea after 2016. side the sort of lawfare conversion of the left liberal advocacy space i mean i came up again i

did a lot of stories with groups like the ACLU crew you know back in the day the league of women voters all these groups that were pursuing sort of issue-driven initiatives to try to do things like integrate the workplace or prevent housing discrimination or whatever it is all that's gone It's all partisan warfare now that you have this huge flowering of these little bureaucracies that do nothing but stuff like generate nuisance lawsuits against Republican politicians or Trump-related politicians or try to generate bar complaints against Trump-connected lawyers. They're doing the same thing to some of the third-party groups now. This is warfare. This is not this is not advocacy anymore. And who knows where it will lead?

It's kind of scary. You brought up, yeah, it's very scary. You brought up this letter, I think it was obtained by semaphore. Was this sent to the no labels party people talking about third party? No. It was a Zoom meeting where they were talking about this is what we need to, this is the message we need to put out. To third party candidates or third party. Like one of the lines is basically if you have one fingernail clipping of a skeleton in your clock,

closet, we will find it. We're going to come at you with every gun we can possibly find. That's a threat to the Jill Steins of the world, to the RFK juniors of the world, to the no labels of the world. Yeah, it's incredible. I mean, the no labels, for people who don't know, it's this new kind of third party group. It's interesting. It's got the former NAACP director in it, Joe Lieberman's in it, the former Republican governor of North Carolina's in it. So it's It's sort of a hodgepodge of both left and right ideas, but it just wants something different. There was a former Democratic Party lawyer named Holly Page. They ended up sending a letter to the Department of Justice complaining about the harassment they'd received.

She was visited by another former Democratic Party lawyer who basically said, you'll never work in this town again. You have to stop being involved with this group. and then mentions, you know, I wonder what your biggest client, Connie, thinks about all this and mentions that, you know, one of this woman's firm's biggest clients. Within weeks, she gets a call from the client saying, sorry, we're not going to be using your services anymore because your persona non-grata at the White House. So this is how they're operating. This is like, you know, bottom line politics. If you don't go along with the program,

we're going to hit you in the wallet. We're going to hit you and, you know, your ability to use the internet. I mean, it's a million different things. This is all new. This is stuff we did overseas, not domestically. It's just, it's incredible. So I want to, I've teased it several times that in that transition integrity project, they laid out four threats that they worried about Donald Trump committing, right, that predicated, I don't know, predicated every, every response necessary to save democracy. I want to go through them really quickly with you. Because again, remember, this was done, this project was put together in the summer of 2020.

So the Hunter Biden laptop story had begun to percolate but hadn't yet made its way into the full censorship mode, meaning John Paul Mack Isaac had already reached out to the FBI that had happened. But summer of 2020, so a lot of, as I read this, you're going to realize nothing had yet happened. So one thing they worried about Donald Trump doing is, restricting internet access in the name of national security? They worried about him embarking on a censorship regime. Yeah, I mean, and I wrote there, all I could, all my side can do is laugh

at that. I spent the last year, you know, doing with the Twitter file stuff going through, you know, how Democratic Party officials and their associated advocacy groups spend eight years doing this stuff. So, yeah, it's laughable that they would think that. And then obviously afterwards, they used it heavy-handedly in the years after 2020. Number two, they were worried that Donald Trump would allege foreign interference in an election in order to cast doubt on its outcome. Which is exactly, well, that was what was done after 2016. 2016, 2018, 2020. I mean, I actually got to a point where I couldn't count anymore the number of news articles that came out where,

named or even in many cases named officials came out and warned that the Russians were going to interfere in the election. After 2016, of course, there was an intelligence community assessment. There's going to be some reporting that's going to come out about that soon, you know, concluding that Russians interfered to help Trump. Then there were years, there was years and years of reporting about that that ended up collapsing mostly. Then in 2018, they said the Russians are going to interfere until the elections went a certain way, after which they said they didn't succeed. Then in 2020, the same pattern happened again. So there's so much of this, it's just laughable that they would talk about it that way.

Number three, they said they're worried about a classified intelligence release. Now, I'm not, this is where your reporting comes in. I see you already shaking your head. Is that something, is that a sin they've already committed in the past three years since this, three, four years since this was released? Passively. Yeah. There, you know, the use of classified leaks and leaking those to reporters was a constant feature of the Trump era. It started really before he was even elected. There was the intelligence community assessment. There was language from the intelligence community assessment about Russian interference, which got published on January 6, 2017.

there was language from that that was in news reports in the month before that. So they were already leaking news of a classified intelligence assessment long before it came out. Then there was the- To oppose Trump. Right, yes. Then the incident involving Michael Flynn talking to the Russian ambassador, that was classified signals intelligence that you're not allowed to leak to reporters. Actually, that's one of the few areas where reporters aren't even allowed to publish the stuff. technically. Then there was a series of leaks. There was one for the New York Times about

about Trump having repeated access to contacts with Russian intelligence. There were others involving, you know, the Eric Prince and the Seychelles having contacts with Russians. It just went on and on and on over and over again. It was a massively underreported story throughout the Trump years. And then finally, number four of the things they were concerned, concern Trump would do is that he would launch investigations into his political opponents. That's, again, laughable considering what's happened to him. All these investigations launched against him. But again, I think the point, Matt, is like, this is what they were talking about

in 2020. Then we know what happened afterwards. So all the sins and all the big concerns and handring they had about Donald Trump are things that they actually did. It's not unlike what we talk about. I actually, I think people that accuse other people of being racist, often harbor the most racist thoughts internally or whatever it may be. It's like accuse your opponent of the sins you are committing. And here we have it. They war-gowned at the worst of Trump and then did the worst of Trump. Right.

And on one hand, as he was a candidate, I can see being concerned about that in 2016. Because I remember being at his rallies where he would start it off by saying, lock her up, lock her up, right? Which suggests that he's going to get into office and launch a, criminal investigation against Hillary Clinton. But that never happened. I mean, he never did that stuff. Donald Trump, people have to go penetrate the talk with Donald Trump and get down to the reality of what he is. Some of the things that he says are outrageous and outrageously offensive. But when you get down to what he actually did, it turns out to be a much smaller story in many

cases. And you're absolutely right. The history of politicized investigations, there just aren't a lot of them. You could argue maybe the first impeachment case was an instance of them trying to gin up an investigation against Hunter Biden, but that's pretty mild compared to the stuff that concretely demonstrably happened in the other direction. So the purpose of looking back to this thing in 2020 is to A, point out the ways in which this was all done, you know, in order to save everything they worried about, they were willing to commit in order to quote unquote save democracy, but also to look forward to 2024 in the next couple of months, the next year essentially, because I think it's probably going to bleed over

post-election as well as what will be done? I mean, what will be done this year? I think we can count on censorship, but what else will be done to stop Donald Trump? I mean, there will certainly be legal actions. I mean, we've already seen we've got 120 criminal accounts, however, over many of them. They're already out there. The argument that he's an insurrectionist needs to be kept off the ballot. Those cases are still ongoing.

But there's also the ongoing issue of who's going to be on the ballot in what states. Remember, this could very easily be a decisive factor in the election if no labels gets a candidate on there. If Robert F. Kennedy Jr. gets on the ballot, both of those parties have enough money do the job of actually getting collecting the signatures so there's going to be an awesome effort to try to prevent that from happening because there's a strong belief in washington that that would swing

the election to trump if they were to to do that so that's something you have to worry about and you know you have to worry about other things like intimidation of local officials are they are they going to be worried about getting you know cast out of or losing clients if they get involved and in certain kinds of defense of, you know, of politicians or being tied to a group like the Green Party, you know, this is all stuff that's very real and it's not going to have anything to do with what voters think. That's the key part that keep coming back to is that, you know, they don't want this thing to be settled at the polls. I mean, I know, I hate to use that generic they, but I think it's true in this case. Yeah. Yeah, that's the point in the end. It's killing democracy

in the name of saving democracy. It's an incredible column, again, is the electoral fix already in? It's like a lot of Matt's work. It's something you absolutely need to check out at racket.news. Go subscribe if you care about the truth. It's where you should spend your money.

Matt, I always appreciate you coming on, man. Thanks so much, Will. And thanks for having me on. It's great to talk to you. You bet. I'll see you in New York, okay? I'll take you up on that invitation at some point, Matt Taibi.

Again, I mean it. Go subscribe at racket. dot news it's it's real reporting it's real truth coming up patrick mahomes plus the points underdog give me the chiefs next on the will cane show fox news audio presents unsolved with james patterson every crime tells the story but some stories are left unfinished somebody knows real cases real people listen and follow now at fox true crime dot com If San Francisco 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy wins the Super Bowl, we're going to have to come to grips with the fact that we might be at the beginning of something.

We might be at the beginning of something that looks or sounds a lot like the beginning of Tom Brady. It's the Will Kane Show streaming live at Fox News.com and at the Fox News YouTube channel, you can always catch us on demand. Will Kane Show on YouTube. Go hit subscribe. follow me on X at Will Kane or Instagram, see Will Kane, or on Facebook, Will Kane, where the show also streams live at the Fox News Facebook page. And you can also listen to it on podcast, wherever you get your audio entertainment.

You know, everyone, including me, have been very dismissive of San Francisco 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy. And it goes back to, as I talked with Danny Cannell here on the Will Kane show last Friday, it goes back to college. I watched him at Iowa State, and I was not impressed. depressed. And then he goes to a system, which is probably the best system in the NFL for putting you in a position to succeed at quarterback, Kyle Shanahan. And so everybody kind of waits for the shoe to drop on Brock Purdy and dismisses him as a bus driver. And I understand why that happens. I don't think it's hatred. I understand why. But for somebody so young to get this far so early in his career, you have to start saying to yourself, look what he's done. Look what's on the wall. And if he's done it, is it a one-off? Is it Joe Flacko, fifth year in the league? Is it Jeff Hostetler, backup quarterback? Is it Trent Dillfer? Most people say that was, you know, true quarterback bus driving, just go win the game with defense.

Or is it the beginning of something. This is the way, and I'm not saying Brock Purdy ends up being Tom Brady. No one can say that. No one would say that. What I'm saying is at the beginning of his career, Tom Brady was called a bus driver. He was called somebody who won, the team won, if not in spite of him, despite him, not because of him. And when you win this early with that moniker, I think we look back to history, most guys go on to develop in their situation, not to regress, not to become someone who shows themselves as a one-hit wonder, but as guys who are annual players and with Brock Purdy, you could be at the beginning of something that we'll look back on with huge surprise. Just like Tom Brady's

sixth round draft pick, Mr. Irrelevant, we look back on and say, no one saw this coming with Purdy. It's almost a month to make you root for him, even if he is the favorite in the Super Bowl. By the way, before we get back to the Super Bowl, Boomer Asiason has said that it wasn't so much that legendary New England Patriots coach, Bill Belichick, couldn't find a job in the NFL, that he might have been offered the job in New England, but it didn't come with the conditions or situation that was wanted by Belichick. If you'll remember two weeks ago, I said for any team to hire Belichick, they're going to need to have a couple ingredients. Remember, this is what I said two weeks ago. But Belichick has to start again. This is going to be a startup. He has to rebuild

that culture. He has to build that machine from the ground up. So you not only need patience, you need humility. You've got to set your own ego and responsibility and control aside. But most importantly, you need time. You're going to need time in Atlanta to build that up. And I don't know that any organization, where I think we're getting the answer, not many organizations, maybe in an act of self-awareness, realize we don't have the patience, we don't have the humility, we don't have the time for Bill Belichick. Now, of those three elements, it looked like the one that failed is humility. If the Falcons were ready to hire Bill Belichick, it suggests they had the time, ready to give it to a five-year project, had the patience, but didn't have either Bill Belichick or Arthur Blank, the owner of the Falcons, the humility.

There are suggestions out there. I think Rob Grankowski told Fox Digital that the conditions that Belichick would have wanted to coach weren't present. So he didn't accept that job. He would have wanted control. He would have wanted to famously, as Bill Parcell said, buy the groceries if you're going to cook the meal over, I'm sure, personnel or coaching staff. And it looks like that the element that failed for Belichick in Atlanta was humility on the part of himself and the team, which makes you wonder one year from now, what kind of situation could he find himself in where you find a team that has all three and great ingredients. Time, patience, humility.

Speaking of the Super Bowl, the San Francisco 49ers are the favorite. I think it's at two and a half points right now. And for me, I feel like I've learned my lesson. The Niners might be the more well-rounded team, better defense, better running game. But if you're getting points plus Patrick Mahomes, I think you have to take that bet. I think you have to have to at this point take a man who is in the pursuit of being one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time, in the biggest games of all time, the Super Bowl, and you get points. I'm ready this far out. I'm ready to place it. My call, my bet. Give me Patrick Mahomes. Give me the Kansas City Chiefs. Give me the points. Coming up later this week, on Friday,

We'll have an episode with Marcellus Wiley, former of the Los Angeles, or that then the San Diego Chargers, the Buffalo Bills, the Dallas Cowboys, and the Jacksonville Jaguars. We'll break down the Super Bowl with Marcellus Wiley. And coming up tomorrow, Rachel Campos Duffy on Thursday, Douglas Murray, all that coming up this week on the Will Cain Show. That's going to do it for me today. I'll see you next time. Listen ad-free with a Fox News podcast plus subscription on Apple Podcast, and Amazon Prime members, you can listen to this show, ad-free on the Amazon music app. This is Jimmy Phala, inviting you to join me for Fox Across America, where we'll discuss every year. single one of the Democrats' dumb ideas.

Just kidding. It's only a three-hour show. Listen live at noon Eastern or get the podcast at Fox Across America.com.