Does Trump's ballroom signal a 3rd term?

25:34Man, I love when you do these things to yourself. Oh, it's such a guy. First of all, I miss him. I haven't seen him in weeks. And so, yeah, look, Look, if Trump is not in it and it's just Bill Clinton, then release him. Isn't that even more incentive? I mean, if it's Bill Clinton, look, I certainly have no allegiance to Bill Clinton. I'm not here to run cover for Bill Clinton. So wait a second. All House Republicans and all Senate Republicans, the White House, President Trump, right-wing media are now just protecting Bill Clinton? Yeah. Well, can I have your reaction to the fact that we are now nearing week four?

26:12of this shutdown and that Mike Johnson has put forward a myriad of different excuses as to why he won't swear in Adelina Grijalva. They keep changing. Right. I mean, first it was this idea that it was the Pelosi precedent. Then it was this idea that he's looking forward to doing it. He just has to wait for the House to come in session. We can't do it in pro forma sessions, except for the fact that we already literally did it in pro forma sessions. So what do you make of the fact that Mike Johnson seems to be drowning in his own pond of different excuses here? By the way, you forget the first one he said, which is we'll swear in when she wants to.

26:45OK, that was his first thing. And then she's like, I'm ready to be sworn in. And then he was like, wait, well, yeah. And then he was like, well, there's this pro forma thing. We can't do it. And then Democrats are like, well, you just swore in two Republicans during pro forma. And he's like, the Pelosi president, they didn't swear in a rep from Louisiana for for for 20, 23 days. OK, well, we're there, Mike. Right. And now there's this other thing. well, you know, we'll get to it when we're back. Everyone knows the reason they're not bringing us back, okay, is because they're trying to avoid this Epstein vote.

27:20And they're trying to get Republicans to take their names off of that list, okay, off the petition that will force the vote. Again, you have to ask yourselves, why are they going through all of this? OK, all of this for months now. OK, using political capital, it's significant political capital just to stop a House vote. By the way, just because the House votes on it doesn't mean the files get released. You still need the Senate to do it. Right. And yet they're putting all this political capital to stop it. I don't know. It's funny, like Speaker Johnson's like the speaker of the House, but we like don't have a house like we don't have it.

27:57We're not we're not even allowed to come back. OK, which is elongating the shutdown, by the way. Usually in a shutdown, you force members to stay, which forces members to talk. I know that's bad, you know, and make a deal. But now, no, they've sent us home. We're home with our families and kids, which I appreciate. But now, as a result, there's no pressure to get a deal, which is elongating the shutdown. It's hurting Americans. It's hurting federal workers. It's going to hurt air travel as we get close to Thanksgiving. Brian, I think there's a good chance that we could be closed, really close, up to Thanksgiving.

28:27It appears there's no exit at the moment. Is this all not just an academic exercise, considering even if the discharge petition works and the Senate votes in favor of it and the Epstein files are released? Isn't it Pam Bondi's DOJ who has full control of what's in the Epstein files? Hold on a second. I'll give you a step further than that. OK, before we get to Pam Bondi, Trump could just veto it. Yeah. Right. I mean, unless there's it, the Senate passes it and Trump just vetoes it. But if there's a veto-proof majority, like going 10 steps down the line, and first of all, the notion that there's going to be a veto-proof majority full of Republicans who are willing to buck this precedent, I know it feels otherworldly at this point.

29:10But let's just humor the notion. Do you have confidence that Pam Bondi's DOJ is going to give up any files that in any way implicate this president, even if we do have a veto-proof majority of Republicans who are willing to sign on to this thing? Well, first we have to find the desk that the original list was on. Remember that? That's right. The list is on my desk. And then it's like, there's no list. It's like, well, what happened to the desk? Did she even have a desk? And so who knows? I mean, now Trump is asking Pambani for$250 million. So we are way outside of not just norms. We're way outside of imagination.

29:49nation, right? Like, like if I had said to you six months ago, okay, that Trump would be tearing down the East wing while simultaneously having foreign governments building a ballrooms and corporations while simultaneously asking the DOJ for 250 million, you would have said, I mean, I think I know things are going to be crazy, Jared, but that's not going to happen in the first nine months of the administration. Yeah. Can you talk about what your Republican colleagues are saying about all of this. I mean, like, I don't want to play the what if Obama, what if Biden did this? But we all know what would happen if Joe Biden decided to dip his hands in the U.S.

30:24Treasury to serve as a piggy bank for himself. And yet, like, they're all publicly silent right now. So notwithstanding the fact that this, that they are effectively validating the precedent where a president from either party could just use the U.S. Treasury as a piggy bank, notwithstanding that point, can you just give some insight into what these people are saying? are they are they okay with it are they not okay with i mean clearly nobody's coming out and saying anything because god forbid you know you you say an ill word of dear leader but but anything that you're hearing from is there ever going to be a step too far for these republicans so first of we don't have to go backwards let's go forwards if if a democrat got elected in 28 and tried to do half of the stuff trump is doing republicans all of a sudden would find a conscience yeah right like they're against spending until they're in charge right so like we don't have to go backwards just go forwards that they would they would be jumping out of their seat if a Democrat tried to do half of this stuff I mean they were getting upset that Hunter Biden was painting and so forget all that right and so no is there a step too far I mean maybe when Trump starts you know floating again that he's going to run in 2028 maybe that's a step too far there were a number of Republicans that talked about how that wasn't in the Constitution for now for now yeah but other than that, Brian?

31:39No, there's no step too far. He got a plane from Qatar. Okay. That I thought would have been like, oh, they're going to, that's a step too far. They're like, oh, he just, he just needs a spare mechanical device to use, you know, like tearing down the East Wing. It's like, well, he's a builder. You know, he likes to build. In your conversations with, with constituents, now that you've got plenty of time not to, not to be in the house because Mike Johnson won't let the house come back into session because - Yeah, Congress is optional. That's great. Congress is optional. It's just a strong suggestion that you guys actually meet.

32:13That's what our founders envisioned when they were like three separate branches of government. One of them will make part-time. Yeah, that's right. In your conversations with folks, is anything seem to be resonating, even with folks, I'm especially concerned about like independents or Trump voters, but folks that you've spoken with, what seems to be the most resonant point? Because there's certainly a lot that's going on right now. We also may fall victim to the Steve Bannon model of flooding the zone with shit. And so not so like instead of everything resonating, nothing resonates. But there is so much happening right now, especially on the corruption front, especially on the trade war and rising prices front, especially on the farmers getting fucked front.

32:55And so is there something that's especially resonant in your conversations with people? So again, yes, I think the flooding the zone thing is working for them, right? Because it keeps Democrats in a state of constant outrage. And I try not to do that, by the way, even though I could be in a state of constant outrage all day long. I kind of try to kind of pick the things. Oh, just come on in. The water's warm. Yeah. I got to pick the things to be outraged about, because the problem is if you're outraged about everything, then you're outraged about nothing. Right. Then there's no different lines of outrage.

33:24There's no degrades of outrage. You get outrage fatigue. You get outrage fatigue and everything's a 10, right? The sky is always falling. So some of the stuff I don't take the bait, I don't go for, right? Tearing down the east wing of the White House because it provides a nice visual, different. But look, I think when you talk to voters, there are really two things that are resonating. One is the prices of everything is more expensive, right? Trump said he would lower the costs and that hasn't happened, right? Tariffs have made everything more expensive. It's a tax on the American people. And whether they figured out the policy of that, they see the numbers at the store and they know they're paying more money.

34:00That's issue number one. Issue number two is health care. Health care is issue number two. They know health care is too expensive now, and they know health care is about to go up in November. They know those two things. Those are the things that are breaking through. And yes, it's expensive to continue the subsidies. And so when we talk about, hey, it's$30 billion to continue the subsidies, people would say, look, America's$38 trillion in debt now. A lot of it added by Donald Trump, as we know. We don't have the money. And you would say, well, we would have had the money if we didn't just send$40 billion to Argentina because Trump's friends with the leader there.

34:33Right. And so that stuff is breaking through when you can explain that to people like, well, we did have the money and then Trump sent it to Argentina. This is the state of things, Brian. Like we just had a deal in the Middle East, which I support. But but think about this for a second. Trump was willing to sit down with Hamas and negotiate a solution, which I support. But he's not willing to sit down with Democrats and negotiate a solution on health care for the American people. That's how broken things are in Washington, D.C. Do you anticipate that the Democrats are in any way going to capitulate on this issue?

35:06And by the way, I should just note for people watching right now, the whole shutdown is predicated on one major issue. That's Democrats are using what little leverage they have to make sure that ACA subsidies don't leave your health care doubling, tripling or quadrupling as we head into 2026. That's it. So is there any sense among the Democratic caucus that there will be capitulation on this issue? Well, look, I'm ready to open government. I've been ready to open government. I wanted to vote for a CR that extended the subsidies. So if they take the subsidies extension and put it in the CR, government will be reopened.

35:37I will vote for that. Okay? And so there's a very easy solution out of it. In fact, this is something that has been discussed for six months. Everybody knew these things were going to expire, but Congress can't work unless there's an emergency, right? We don't we don't think don't we don't do proactive. We do reactive. And now everyone's in their corners because, you know, tough to negotiate with each other when, you know, both sides say they're un-American. Right. Tough to make a deal. And so right now, no one's talking to each other. No one wants to be the first to take a step. But Republicans control the House.

36:12They control the Senate. They control the executive. They control the Supreme Court. They have all the everything. OK, and so this is their mess. They got to find a way out of it. They have our number. They know what we want to do. We want to lower the cost of health care for the American people. They know what it's going to cost. They've known for a while. They've decided to spend money on other things, add trillions of dollars to the deficit instead. But there's a really easy way out of it. And so we got to come back to Washington if they want to solve the problem. That's how you know the speaker doesn't really want to solve the problem.

36:43They like the situation they're in. They don't want to bring us back. In fact, they don't even want their own members back because they don't want their own members to talk to the press about maybe we should solve the problem on health care. And so, you know, your guess is good as mine, Brian, when when we're going to come back, when we're going to when we're going to solve this problem, it's hurting a lot of people. State of Virginia already declared a state of emergency to feed federal workers at food banks. Think about how disgusting that is, right, that federal workers miss one paycheck and they're at food banks.

37:13Those are those bread lines that Republicans kept warning about if Democrats got into power, that Democrats being in power would usher in communism and food lines and bread lines. And now that's exactly what we have under Republican control. I got to ask, you know, the excuse that Mike Johnson's putting forward is all the Democrats have to do is sign on to a clean CR and then come to the negotiating table. We hear you on the ACA stuff. We're going to we're going to negotiate with you. But first, sign on to the CR. First, surrender all your leverage and then just trust us, guys. We're definitely good for it.

37:47So would you trust the people who got us into this mess in the first place? Who are the ones to eliminate these subsidies in the first place? The party that eliminated a trillion dollars in health care funding and then gave 50 billion back for rural hospitals as some little like bandaid to plug the hole that they created. Are these the people that you're going to trust in terms of their promises that like, hey, all you got to do is give us a clean CR and then and then just come come negotiate with us? Well, first let me say I don't think this is about leverage, right? This is about a CR that they put on the floor that didn't have the extensions in it.

38:21It's a policy debate for me, right? It didn't have the policy in it that I wanted, so I voted no. But they're in charge. They could keep government open. The fact that they don't have the votes means maybe they should talk to us and figure out what is the policy that's missing from that CR. This is also the people that said they wouldn't do CRs. They hated CRs. They voted against all the Democratic CRs, okay, that they were going to fund the government with 12 appropriation bills. Still haven't done it. These are also the folks that closed the government on purpose and told the American people they were closing the government on purpose over Obamacare.

38:55These are also the people who have said they're going to fix health insurance. Nine years, we're still in the concept of the plan phase. And so for me, of course, there's no trust between the parties. They haven't talked to us in nine months since they took power. Remember, trifecta, mandate, they don't need to talk to us. How's their mandate working out for them? And so they know what we want. It's not a leverage debate. It's a policy debate. We want a lower cost for the American people. Where's their plan, Brian? They don't like our idea? Fine. What's their idea? Why don't they take their idea and add it to the CR for an up or down vote?

39:34Why don't they do that? You know why they're not? They got no ideas. Still in the drawing phase, still in the draft phase, version 12. Okay. They're not interested in lowering the cost of the American people. If they were, they would put forward their own plan to do it. Is there is there no acknowledgement by these Republicans that that ultimately Democrats are trying to help Republicans help themselves? Like the reality is, if these subsidies are not extended, 24 million Americans are either going to lose their health insurance or see their premiums double, triple or quadruple. And it's going to be largely in states, by the way, that that Trump won in 2024.

40:09Those are the states that have seen the biggest enrollment increases in the ACA, including, you know, down south. We have states like Texas, states like West Virginia, states like Tennessee, states like Florida. And so and so is there no acknowledgement by these Republicans about the electoral implications of not allowing the Democrats to help the Republicans? Oh, no, no. There are many members that are concerned about those notices that go out on November 1st. In fact, I think if you put the extension subsidies on the floor, it'll pass. It'll pass. It'll be a bipartisan majority. So what are we doing here?

40:44Is it just Mike Johnson? But that's why the Speaker's not putting it on the floor. He doesn't want it to pass. Because if he did, it would pass. So he doesn't want it. But why not? What does Mike Johnson have to get out of this? I don't know. You're asking me to figure out what Mike Johnson's doing? I mean, is it just that Trump planted his flag here and so Mike Johnson's job is just to massage Trump's ego? Hold on. Let me break down House and Senate strategy. Let me break down Speaker Johnson and Leader Thune's strategy. When Trump says jump, we ask how high. That's it. It's super simple. If Trump tomorrow came out and said extend the subsidies, there'd be a vote in the House.

41:24There'd be a vote in the Senate. Subsidies extended. We don't have to guess what Johnson and Thune are thinking. They're just saying to themselves, whatever Trump says. Right now, Trump's not engaged in the shutdown. OK. And so, you know, that's that's why we're kind of listless. We don't really know where we're going. You know, they've been threatening to cut Democratic programs as as kind of a threat. It's not working because we're watching them tear down the east wing of the White House. We're a little past cutting programs. Yeah. And so that's why this is going on. But look, as we get closer to Thanksgiving and the FAA isn't working, which they're in charge of, and TSA isn't working, which they're in charge of.

42:02OK, I mean, Americans are going to continue to ask their questions about why won't Republicans make a deal on health care? Why won't they propose something on health care? Where is their proposal? I mean, Johnson hasn't even put a single idea on the floor to make us vote on it. Make me vote on it, Mr. Speaker. Make me vote on your plan on lowering health care. Couldn't even figure that out. You want to know why? Trump hasn't sent him a plan. Johnson can't come up with his own plan. Last question here. Should members of Congress get paid during shutdowns? The answer is no. Now, constitutionally, we have to get paid.

42:40I have sent a letter to administration and they are withholding my pay because people in my office are not getting paid. So if they're not getting paid, I'm not getting paid. If the American workers not getting paid for the federal government, I'm not getting paid. If our military is not getting paid, I'm not getting paid. But to be quite honest, the pay thing isn't going to force us to have a deal. We got to be in Washington. If you're going to if the American people are captive to this broken system, then so should Congress. Congress should be captive as well. If the if the federal worker, the military, TSA, FBI, if they have to work without a pay, I should have to work to doing work in the district is work.

43:19But I should be in Washington doing real work, trying to solve this problem rather than being home. But that's this is all by design to to make sure we don't have the Epstein vote and to extend the shutdown, quite frankly. We'll leave it there. Congressman, appreciate your time. Thank you. No Lie is brought to you by Uplift Desk. Now, I know that I deal with the same issue as everybody else, which is I spend most of the day completely static sitting down in my desk. It affects my posture, it affects my mood, the whole thing. Which is why Uplift Desk has become so helpful for me. The new Uplift V3 Standing Desk transforms your desk into a productivity engine.

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44:29So the more real estate that I can have, the better. So transform your workspace and unlock your full potential with the all new Uplift V3 standing desk. Go to UpliftDesk.com slash BTC and use our code BTC to get four free accessories, free same-day shipping, free returns, and an industry-leading 15-year warranty that covers your entire desk, plus an extra discount off your entire order. That's U-P-L-I-F-T-D-E-S-K dot com slash BTC for this exclusive offer. It's only available through our link. I'm joined now by Pod Save America's Tommy Vitor. Tommy, we have seen a ton of scandals kind of envelop this White House over the last couple of weeks, but today we have a brand new one that surged into the news.

45:09I want to throw to a clip right now. Breaking news, President Trump just pardoned one of the most powerful people in the crypto world. Binance founder Chang-Pen Zhao, who pleaded guilty to money laundering in 2023. He was sentenced to four months in prison after reaching a deal with the Justice Department. And it comes after a months long lobbying campaign from Binance to try and secure this pardon for Zhao. All right, Tommy, your reaction to just the latest iteration of what has been just egregious nonstop corruption at the hands of this White House. Yeah. So Trump pardoned the CEO of a company that was fined three point four billion dollars by the Treasury Department.

45:51The Treasury Department said that Binance willfully failed to report financial transactions with Al Qaeda, ISIS and Hamas. The hat trick seems seems bad. So why, you ask, would Trump pardon this guy? Why would he want to be seen as in bed with Binance? Well, because essentially they bribed him. Binance helped facilitate this$2 billion investment into Trump's crypto company that will earn the Trump family about$80 million a year. So that was the price of this bribe. You know, we have seen so many instances of this. Do you think people care like when they watch all of this stuff happen, when it just kind of layers one on top of the next, on top of the next, on top of the next?

46:29Do you think it breaks through that it's having some impact on folks? I think the biggest challenge we have is what you just said, which is that so many of these incidents don't break through by design. Like this is the band model of flooding the zone with shit. They flood the zone. They do stuff all the time. Also, I think Trump benefits from just the cynicism that he pumps into the electorate all day long. Right. Like a lot of people are like, you know what? They're all corrupt. All politicians are bad. They all do this thing, though. I do think when these little details will break through to people like the fact that this company helped facilitate a two billion dollar purchase of a Trump crypto asset called a stable.

47:02coin out of nowhere, like making it one of the biggest stable coins in the world. It makes no sense. And then months later, this guy gets a pardon. It's like it could not be more blatant and brazen, the corruption. I think the problem is that that it is it is a little like difficult to be explaining all of that. And unless you're a regular news consumer anyway, like if you're a regular news consumer and this story, this like niche story is breaking through, you probably already have some political thoughts anyway. You probably already lie somewhere on the political spectrum and it's going to either impact you greatly, as does everything else, or it's going to have no impact on you because you've decided that Trump is infallible.

47:37I guess our job right here is to is to make sure that all of these individual instances continue to break through because, you know, they're all a small part of a larger whole, which is that Donald Trump swept into office amid these promises of law and order and and stemming the corruption happening at the hands of the Biden crime family. And yet now we're seeing daily instances of this administration just engaging in out and out corruption. I mean, taking a 400 million dollar jet from from Qatar and then retrofitting it to the tune of a billion dollars on the backs of American taxpayers. And then keeping it.

48:10And then keeping it. If he leaves. Having Kristi Noem take 173 million dollars with the two Gulf Stream jets. She needs those. She needs to fly in comfort. In fairness to Kristi Noem, she does need to fly in comfort. That cosplaying doesn't come at a low cost. Yeah, you get to party city all over the spirit Halloween all over the globe. So like there are just instance after instance after instance. We've seen these crypto dinners. We've seen Trump double his net worth. We've seen, you know, of course, the ballroom, which we'll talk about in a moment. But I think that, you know, even though this may be a niche story, it is a small part of a much more obvious larger whole, which is that this administration proudly and overtly traffics in corruptions so that they can enrich themselves.

48:49Yeah. And look, remember, the most depressing part about this is the Supreme Court said it's totally fine. He's immune from any prosecution for anything to do with the pardon power. So that sucks. But I do think it's on us to tie this into a bigger political story, which is that Donald Trump came into office and now he's looking out for his billionaire friends and people that give him money. And you're getting screwed. The government is closed. What is he doing? He's pardoning a crypto billionaire who is funneling money into his pocket. He's not leading negotiations to reopen the government. He's not leading negotiations to make sure that your healthcare premiums don't double.

49:22He's not doing anything to deal with inflation. He's just doing this stupid tariff bullshit. So like that's the story that Democrats need to tell. It's not any one thing. It's like making it a broader narrative. I think the most overt example is Donald Trump suing the federal government, suing himself basically so that he can give himself$230 million. He deserves that money. As damages, as punitive damages, compensation for the fact that he was investigated and prosecuted by the federal government where, by the way, all of it was completely well-founded and they found evidence of the exact thing that they were investigating and prosecuting him for.

49:58You worked in the Obama administration, an administration rife with scandals like what color suit President Obama was wearing. That was a bad, bad day. And the kind of... Seven almond scandal, remember that one? I actually don't remember that one. I was going to say the mustard. Six almonds or something, yeah. Oh, there was the mustard, that was bad. Yeah, was it Grey... Bray Poupon. Bray Poupon, yeah. Way too highbrow. He hates ketchup, and he really scolds people that eat ketchup. Yeah. Obama does. Well, I'm just curious. When you see a scandal like this one where Trump is just deciding to dip his fingers into the U.S.

50:34Treasury and pay himself$230 million this time, and I mean recognizing the fact that the only people standing in the way of that payment going through or not are Todd Blanche, his own personal criminal defense attorney, and Pam Bondi, handpicked because when she was Florida Attorney General, she was deciding whether or not to investigate Trump University, opted not to, after her PAC received a$25 ,000 payment from Donald Trump. So those are the two people in charge of deciding whether or not Donald Trump gets this payment. I'm curious, from your vantage, having worked in the Obama White House, what it would have been like had Obama decided to just pay himself from the U.S.

51:11Treasury. I mean, what I what I think when I see these stories is, man, what a missed opportunity. You know what I mean? There's so many secrets I could have sold. There's so much access we could have peddled. You know, like like the hosts of Fox News shows would have been like in front of the White House lighting themselves on fire. If this had happened, it would be a scandal until the end of time. Like this is, Brian, where I think the Democrats were really hurt by not controlling the media, you know, like Fox News, all these right wing outlets, conservative radio, all of these, this entirely new press corps that the Pentagon has apparently handpicked since they kicked all the real reporters out.

51:46Like those guys are suggesting that Tim Pool and Alex Jones and InfoWars covering the Pentagon is not going to be a legitimate press corps for the Pentagon. It is crazy. And it just it shows the power of propaganda because Fox News isn't going to cover this part in today. They're not going to cover the lawsuit Donald Trump is waging against his own country. But if a Democrat did it, they would cover it nonstop. They would have roadblock specials about all the corruption happening. And, you know, here we are. On the Pentagon thing, just as a quick aside, what does that do to the U.S.'s foreign policy if there is basically a press corps that no longer operates as news, but just straight up operates as propaganda?

52:24Tim Pool posted something where he basically said, you know, if there's some story to look into, we'll of course look into it and defer to our to our viewers who want this, you know, kind of investigative journalism. But we don't do investigative journalism. So chances are it's just going to be that we regurgitate whatever the White House feeds us. Yeah, he was like, I just want the press releases. I basically don't care. I mean, look, the Pentagon press corps, the resident Pentagon press corps, the people who have a lot of them have worked there for decades. And the reason everyone wants a strong Pentagon press corps is because the Pentagon budget is nearly a trillion dollars.

52:56They decide whether we go to war. They can lie about intelligence, as we saw in Iraq. We are bombing boats off the coast of Venezuela. and there's real concern that we might be heading headlong into a regime change war with Venezuela. You want a strong Pentagon press corps in that building asking tough questions, like ferreting out corruption, figuring out what the hell is going on. And for fucking this goofy little douche with a beanie Tim Pool to suggest that like he's just going to sit there and be this pliant regurgitator of press releases. It's terrible. It's terrible for MAGA, by the way.

53:31And that's what I want to dig into, because, you know, if you're blocking access from all of these outlets, usually the Trump administration would be more deferential to figuring out how to get attention. Is this not counterintuitive in terms of the fact that they're blacking out all of these people who truly do? I mean, like, sure, Tim Pool and Alex Jones will have, you know, some contingent of an audience. But there is a massive audience out there who still consumes, you know, legacy media as a whole. As a whole, yeah. And so how like how does that not conflict with their strategy of just wanting attention from everybody?

54:03Yeah, look, I really do think this makes Pete Hegseth look incredibly weak. You know, like I don't think he's done a single briefing or maybe one briefing for the press corps. Like his spokesman doesn't brief the press. They look scared. They look like they are worried about too much scrutiny. They look like they're not doing things that are above board. So I do think they will have a harder time getting their message out. The Pentagon press corps will not stop reporting on the things they are doing because that is their job. They just won't be able to do it from the from the Pentagon. And it's also not clear whether these reporters who had their their badges stripped will be able to like travel with Hegseth when he goes on trips or access other military facilities in other parts of the world.

54:43I mean, it's it could be it could make it incredibly difficult for these people to do their jobs. Is there a world where this backfires because now you've created such a hostile, acrimonious relationship with the people who are covering you? Yeah. And it creates a bigger incentive structure for those people to say, hey, clearly you've got something to hide. Maybe I should dig harder and deeper. Yeah, I think so. I mean, look, these folks are these are dogged reporters. They're going to do their jobs no matter what. Hopefully this incentivizes them to go even harder at the Trump administration.

55:11But also it may incentivize people inside the Pentagon who are like career military to start speaking out more because they know this is wrong. And a lot of them will be greatly bothered by Hegseth just destroying their relationship with the press and like traditional role of the media and the transparency that is expected of the Pentagon. That was the other part that I wanted to talk about is the fact that people within the Pentagon who clearly know that this is wrong. Is there more incentive for them then to say, OK, if there's not going to be some traditional relationship between the press and the Pentagon, I'll create that.

55:46I have an obligation, a duty to create that myself. And so there's more likelihood that some information will be leaked because they know that, OK, these reporters are put in a tough spot. They're not going to get the same access that they were going to get before. And so maybe I meet them a little bit further halfway than we would have met otherwise. It's very possible. I certainly hope so. I mean, I think that, look, the people who signed up for a career in the military did so, like swearing an oath to the Constitution. They are not they don't want a king. and so hopefully they will act accordingly.

56:19I will say though, it comes with great risk because this is a super paranoid Department of Defense or Department of War. They're super paranoid. They're constantly trying to ferret out leaks. They're constantly, you know, pointing the finger and firing people based on suspected leaking without even having evidence, even though, by the way, Pete Hegseth's like putting classified information to signal chats that included Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor of The Atlantic, like one of the dumbest things I've ever heard someone do. But, you know, if you get busted doing this stuff, you could get fired. You could go to jail.

56:48So, you know, there's a lot of risk here. And finally, on this on this national security front, can you talk about the legality or illegality of Trump's decision to just kind of by fiat blow all these ships up that are off the coast of Colombia or Venezuela? There's no legal authorization. There is none there that there has to be some sort of authorization by Congress. and the Trump administration is just asserting that the people in these boats are part of cartels or narco terrorists, I think is what they're being called and just blowing them up. And in the aftermath of the strikes, I think there have been six or seven of them so far, the president of Columbia was like, hey, there was a Colombian citizen on one of those boats.

57:30I'm told that he is just a fisherman, that his boat was in distress, that he put out a distress signal and he was murdered anyway. And so look, I think that what is happening is extrajudicial murder, like period paragraph. Like when you if you see someone smuggling drugs in open water, the the thing you should do is interdict that boat, board it, arrest them and then prosecute them. The idea that you can just murder someone for suspected drug trafficking is absolutely insane. And I like if Donald Trump leaves office and we have a new administration, like people should go to jail for what is happening right now.

58:07And apparently it's all part of the strategy being executed by Marco Rubio to topple the current regime in Venezuela to get rid of Maduro. So this is a regime change operation. The kind of thing that Donald Trump told us Republicans shouldn't have been doing for decades and was stupid and like that MAGA was against. Yeah. And yet this is a recurring theme where Trump runs on on some idea that he's not going to do something that happened in the past. He's going to be the law and order president. He's going to restore fiscal responsibility. All of it, just complete bullshit. Just a pretext to be able to come into office and not just continue those policies, but continue them to the nth degree.

58:42With that said, for those who are watching right now, please help support independent, progressive media. If you're not yet subscribed to Pod Save America's YouTube channel, I'm going to put that link right here on the screen and also in the post description of this video, help build up this ecosystem and get all of this kind of content into the algorithm. Tommy. Gotta be Tim Pool. Gotta be Tim Pool. Gotta be Tim Pool. That's so sad that we're losing. It is really sad. That hurts my heart. We'll leave it there. Tommy, thanks for your time. Thanks, buddy. I'm joined now by the host of CNN's brand new show, The Story Is, with Alex Michelson.

59:13Alex, thanks so much for joining me. Thank you so much. This is my first interview with anybody after that announcement of the name. So it's weird to hear it out loud. Well, look, we had spoken quite a bit over the last few years while you were at Fox LA. So a big congrats, first and foremost, on the move over to CNN primetime here. So yeah, congratulations. Thank you very much. Of course, the highlight of my time on The Issue Is, our previous show, was doing the first TV interview with Brian Tyler Cohen. I claim all responsibility for your success. And so the best part of the launch week of our new show, The Story Is, is going to be you, Brian, joining us in studio, checking out the new digs.

59:56And so for folks on the West Coast, that'll be on Tuesday night from 9 to 11 p.m. Check out BTC on The Story Is. Awesome. Well, looking forward to it. In the meantime, as always, you are the guy when it comes to California. I want to talk about Gavin Newsom for a moment. I know that your first interview on the story is is going to be with Governor Newsom here in California. We have seen him take a much more forward leaning approach as it relates to Trump, whether he's mocking him on on Twitter or whether he's redrawing the maps here in California to counteract what Trump is trying to do across the country.

1:00:31To what extent do you think that that's having an impact on other Democrats across the country? And do we do you think we're going to see other Democrats try and replicate the strategy taken by Newsom? Well, I mean, most politicians like success. They're looking at poll numbers. They're looking at fundraising numbers. And for on both fronts, Gavin Newsom is way up since he has started to be more aggressive. He seems to be taking a lesson, frankly, from you, Brian, which is that the online left especially wants a fighter and is sick and tired of the feeling of being run over by the Trump administration.

1:01:10If Gavin Newsom is able to win with Prop 50 on November 4th, it will be one of the first times that there is a real significant W on the board for the Democrats during this Trump administration, something that significantly will change the ability for Democrats to obtain power in 2026. and that hasn't really happened. And so you are seeing a lot of folks, especially the Democratic base that would vote in a primary in 2028, gravitate towards Gavin Newsom and his approach in a very significant way in a pretty short amount of time. And so the other politicians are seeing that and they might think, hmm, I want that too.

1:01:58And they start heading towards that direction. That being said, it's tough. because Democrats and Republicans often play by different rules. That's the whole point of what Gavin Newsom is talking about here. So in a lot of Democratic states like California, you have this independent redistricting commission, which is why Gavin Newsom has to go to voters to try to change it. Whereas in a state like Texas, Greg Abbott, the Republican governor there, doesn't. And the legislature that can do this without going to the voters. So even in some of these Democratic states, there are steps that make it hard to gerrymander harder than many of the Republican states.

1:02:37Well, speaking of those Republican states, you know, we did view California as a way to neutralize what's happening in Texas, but then we had Missouri come forward and redraw their maps. We had North Carolina come forward and redraw their maps. We know the same thing is going to happen in Indiana and Florida and Ohio and Kansas. And yet we've had no other movement thus far, although there have been rumblings, but we've had no other concrete action taken by any other Democratic states. And so to what extent do you think that the possibility of a win on Prop 50 is going to kind of serve as a kick in the ass for other governors, other state legislatures to do what would have been successful in California?

1:03:14I mean, that's certainly what Newsom hopes. He is publicly, intentionally trying to not advocate for other governors to do this in order for them to kind of get there on their own. But that is what certainly he's hoping for. But, you know, we are also seeing a little bit of pushback. you mentioned Indiana. It's significant that Indiana's Republican leaders chose not to gerrymander. This is something I talked about with Pete Buttigieg during an interview this week. Of course, he famously spent so much time in Indiana working behind the scenes on that. He pointed to the fact that this was a rare example of Republicans standing up to Trump and telling him no.

1:03:55And he says that that is an example that everybody around the country can look to as an example that not Not every Republican is going to follow his every word. And there is some value in fighting back, despite the fact that Donald Trump and J.D. Vance were pressuring a lot of the Republican leaders there at the moment, at least. They're not going forward with a gerrymandering process. To what extent do you think that we are going to see more or less of that? Is that just such an isolated incident that we're seeing at least momentary pushback in Indiana? Because remember, they still can come forward.

1:04:26The governor of Indiana, Governor Braun, had come and said that they still intend on making this happen, even if it hasn't happened thus far. So it could go either way. But to what extent do you think that no kings, for example, we have seven million people take to the streets. Does that chip away at the perceived mandate that Trump has, the perceived total control that Trump has and that have kind of a cascade effect where maybe other Republicans don't view him as all powerful or view popular pressure as as a little bit more significant than than simply Trump's edicts being handed down? I mean, if you actually look at what's happening, it seems like there's an incentive structure to do anything but compromise.

1:05:07Both parties base want to give a middle finger to the other. I mean, Donald Trump's response to no kings was to put up on an official channel an AI generated image of him wearing a crown, getting into a fighter jet and dumping poop on the head of Democratic activists. So that wasn't exactly let's all get together. You didn't get the impression from that, that let's find ways to compromise. They think that it's a positive. The president thinks that giving a middle finger, literally dumping shit on their head, is such a good political move that he's highlighting that as a strategy. So he thinks it's a win for him.

1:05:48Democrats think that it's a win for them. But what you don't see is a lot of incentive on either side to get together and compromise. Why is the government shut down? Because right now, Democratic poll numbers are going up because their base is finally happy that they feel like they're fighting, whereas earlier in the year they felt like they capitulated to Republicans. Meanwhile, a lot of the Republican base doesn't necessarily want to see a compromise. When they start getting some of those letters with their health care premiums going up, could that change in a matter of weeks? It certainly could.

1:06:23But right now, the media ecosystems are so separate that there is not a lot of incentive to bring people together. Well, on that point of let's let's focus on the party in power right now, which is the Republicans on this idea of barreling ahead with an agenda that really does only that's really only intended to appeal to like the 30 percent of the country. That's the diehard base. When you see them doing something like keeping the government shut down because they don't want to give an inch on health care, which, by the way, is going to impact Republican voters and Republican states, them tearing down the East Wing so that Trump can build his ballroom.

1:06:57Trump moving forward and saying that he wants to reimburse himself and get damages for his rightful prosecutions to the tune of the two hundred and thirty million dollars plucked out of the U.S. Treasury. when he's buying Kristi Noem two Gulfstream jets that cost$172 million, when he's doing all of this and taking these actions that are really intended to just appeal to this very small faction of his base, what do you think about the impact that that's going to have on the broader electorate for whom these actions aren't exactly anything resembling popular? Yeah, and so that's the challenge for the Democratic Party is how do you message that?

1:07:36How do you fight back, right? And it's interesting. A couple of our first guests on the story is our new show are Gavin Newsom and Pete Buttigieg. And I'm speaking with both of them. And both of them have very different approaches on this. This is something I talked about with Pete Buttigieg, because Gavin Newsom has taken the argument to do memes and trolling and go as Trumpy as you can go and sort of fighting back. Give him his own medicine, which actually seems to be appealing to a lot of people in the base. Pete Buttigieg is not doing that. He believes in his heart that that sort of thing is exhausting to people and that people want a real focus on.

1:08:16Let's talk about the health care premiums themselves. People don't want memes. People don't want to be distracted. Let's get to the issues that people care about. And so there's there's a riff in terms of how to not only what you should do to fight, whereas like somebody like Zoran Mondami is on a different place than somebody like Pete Buttigieg but also how do you fight? What's the approach? And I know you've felt very strongly that you got to basically punch somebody in the face, right? Because you feel like the base, that's what they want but I think that's going to be an interesting messaging thing in terms of making sure that people actually understand who is responsible for a lot of this and where it's coming from.

1:08:57What do you think the right approach is going to be? I mean, you said you said you said yourself like these guys do have polar opposite approaches. You have like the very buttoned up, you know, Pete Buttigieg. He's he's he's a he's a really articulate communicator. You have Gavin Newsom, who's taking the complete opposite approach, which is just like no holds barred gloves off, punch him in the face. And so and so how are you thinking about both of these as we head toward 2026, given the moment that we're in right now? Well, look, I think there is no question if you just look at the data, the Democratic base right now prefers the approach of Gavin Newsom.

1:09:33That is breaking through with the Democratic base. The question is, is he peaking too early and does that get exhausting? Does the some of the tricks, the memes, does does that act sort of get old when you're talking about a primary that would be happening in 2028? And, you know, the end of 2027. Yeah. So that's that's the question. We go through ups and downs. And at some point it might feel like, OK, enough of the games. I'm tired of that. I need a serious leader. We want somebody who's kept their head down. And it's interesting how all the different 2028 candidates are handling this. Somebody like Josh Shapiro, you don't see him very much.

1:10:16Right. He's not really engaging in these. It seems like his approach is to put your head down and wait for the moment later. Yeah. And maybe that'll work. I mean, when you think about some of the previous primary debates, like on the Republican side, especially, you know, even pre-Trump, there would be like a flavor of the week. Every week, like one candidate would go up when you have a big field. And then the question is, who would peak at the right time? Even Joe Biden, when he got the nomination in 2020, he was not peaking until the very right moment. And other people had their moments. So right now, it's Newsom's moment.

1:10:52Will that sustain for two years? Who knows? So you have the blessing or the curse, I'll let you be the decider of which one that is, of being able to speak to people, not just on the left, but on the right. When you were at Fox LA, you had very often, you very often had debate shows where you had folks on the left and right. In talking about kind of the topic that we've been discussing about, which is this idea of a general sense of corruption, of Trump using his power not to help those farmers, not to help Americans who are going to lose their health care, not to lower costs for Americans who he promised he would lower costs for, but instead to really focus on himself, to build this ballroom for himself, to double his net worth, to host these crypto dinners, to buy Gulfstream jets, to give himself a Qatari jet worth$400 million that taxpayers are going to pay a billion dollars to retrofit.

1:11:41So on example after example after example, even though he presented himself, campaigned as some populist, he is governing as the biggest kleptocrat in the biggest gilded age that we've had in the history of this country. And so given what we're seeing right now, how have folks who you've spoken to, not just on the left, but on the right, kind of defended or perceived what he's doing right now? So that's what you're focused on. They're focused on other things. They're focused on - I'll bet they are. They see somebody who has finally dealt with a border that they thought was completely overrun and made real changes there.

1:12:21And that was something he talked about for years. And they feel like that's a promise that he was delivered on. And they, you know, maybe don't like the extent of it, but they like the idea that some people that are in this country illegally should be kicked out of this country. They like what he did in terms of tax cuts is something that drives a lot of the Republican Party base. They like what he's doing on some of the cultural issues in terms of highlighting the right issues. They like what some of what he's doing with the media in terms of giving a middle finger to the media. I mean, Donald Trump understands his base and he is very, very, very good at identifying the problems that they care about.

1:13:00And he is good at doing so many things and talking so much and being so out front and promising so many things that it feels like he's he's active and in charge. I know a lot of the people that listen to you and watch you disagree with that and will not like hearing that. But to his people, a part of his media strategy of just blitzing everybody with constant news and constant everything and being on camera all the time, it feels to especially his people like he's sort of omnipresent and on it. whereas they felt like somebody like Joe Biden who they barely ever saw and didn't really interact with people, they felt like he was asleep at the wheel.

1:13:44Yes, a lot of what you said is not something that a lot of them, I mean, there's MAGA like that view him almost like a religious figure, that's one part of it. There's also the more sort of moderate Republican who's a little bit more in the middle, but voted for him maybe sort of reluctantly. and a lot of them see him as an asshole. They don't really like him. They kind of laugh at a lot of that stuff, but they feel like he's getting them some results on some of the stuff they care about. And by and large, they feel like the Democratic Party is so far to the left, so out of touch with reality, so focused on identity politics and the wrong cultural issues that they feel like it's still better to go with Trump.

1:14:31So Trump understands his base, but if you look at recent polling, I think Quinnipiac had him at his lowest point ever, including from his first term. He's at negative 19 net approval. Yeah, but how's the approval of the Democratic Party? Correct. Yeah. But that not that notwithstanding, the point that's important, though, it is. It is. But the point I'm trying to make here is that is that clearly with numbers continuing to sink, it's not like there are there are plenty of people, independents and even Republicans who are souring on him. Yes, he will always have, you know, the evangelicals. Right.

1:15:04And I mean that in the sense of like the Trump evangelists and and that's fine. And he knows how to appeal to them. But he's continuing to chip away at support from the broader electorate. And that's presumably support that Republicans and he will need. And so so, you know, you can say that, OK, Trump is continuing just to focus on on immigration and his core issues. But the reality is that the the issues that the vast majority of the country are speaking about, he's getting less and less popular and they're paying attention to those issues. So he can focus on immigration until he's blue in the face.

1:15:37And that's going to work with the faction of his base that will never leave him. But he is losing support by the day. And the numbers just bear that out. Yeah, but he doesn't have to run again. I mean, he may. We all know that whole thing, right? Yeah. Of some weird thing where he's running for vice president or Steve Bannon just this week once again saying that Donald Trump is going to be in there. But under the most likely scenario is that he doesn't have to run again. That in some ways doesn't matter. And I don't think he's really focused on the long term strategy of the Republican Party. I think he's focused on, you know, the immediate issue at hand.

1:16:11But but all that being said, you know, the Democratic Party and a lot of those polls in some ways is doing worse. So, you know, that's the argument you just asked me about, like the Pete approach versus the Gavin approach. Right. And which one works. And in some ways, the sort of Pete, Josh Shapiro, Andy Beshear argument of let's be a little bit more centrist, moderate, middle of the country kind of democratic approach is they're banking that those people are going to tire of him. they're going to be looking for some alternative, but they're not going to be open to, you know, what some may perceive as California crazy or AOC, you know, democratic socialism or some of these extremes that, that there could be some sort of place in the middle for a center, right, center, left coalition that's exhausted of Trump and wants to get back to some of these issues, but doesn't want to be alienated by somebody they feel is resentful of them.

1:17:11And that is where they potentially see this as a long-term strategy. We'll see. The middle has not always been, and oftentimes in American politics, the middle is what would win a general election. But our entire universe, our media environment, the way we consume information, all that has changed so much. We'll see if that's still true going forward. Let me play devil's advocate just on that point. We had Trump 1.0. the middle won out in 2020 and Joe Biden was president. And what we were left with was the most extreme Republican Party, the most extreme presidency in Donald Trump 2.0. But it came in the vacuum that was created from a very, you know, centrist, centrist candidate and centrist presidency from 2020 to 2024.

1:17:56Do you think that that's going to have some impact on the attractiveness of an Andy Beshear or a Pete Buttigieg as we head into 2028, recognizing that, you know, this radical centrism, you know, already happened once and kind of landed us in a position that we're in today? Yeah, well, we could relitigate the Biden administration, but there are some people who feel like Joe Biden actually wasn't that centrist, that he ran to be a centrist, that they wanted him to be a centrist. They wanted him to be this bridge to the next generation, to pass to younger people. And he went in there and tried to be FDR, that he tried to do very big, very progressive things.

1:18:38Joe Manchin, Kyrsten Sinema sort of stopping him from doing some of the most progressive things. and he did some deals with Republicans, many of whom aren't even in the Senate anymore because of deal-making with Democrats has not been good politics for them, but that he wasn't necessarily as much of a centrist candidate. And because of his age and his inability to communicate to people, he didn't actually sell his centrist message because he didn't get out there and talk about those things. So I don't know if Joe Biden is the perfect case study in this. You know, you look at somebody totally different era, a totally different media era, somebody like Bill Clinton, who was who was more centrist, especially in his second term, was was very popular.

1:19:23And then obviously he got in his own trouble, which ended up hurting Al Gore and all of that kind of stuff. You know, he was one of the more popular figures of our lifetime when he was in there and when he was actually governing in the center. Let me ask one last question on this corruption front, because I know that we kind of sidestepped it in that you said that Republicans just aren't talking about it because there are issues that they would rather talk about it, that they would rather talk about when confronting this issue head on, though. And the reality is that, you know, as as as much as the news cycle moves back and forth and lands on issues that Democrats don't want to talk about and then lands on issues that Republicans don't want to talk about.

1:19:56The main issue right now, the main story right now is the fact that Trump is in Trump is engaged in quite a bit of corruption, is building this ballroom, is trying to pay himself a quarter of a billion dollars out of the U.S. Treasury because he thinks he's owed some damages from his rightful prosecutions. And so, you know, in taking those issues head on, where does that land a lot of these Republicans, whether it's folks that you've spoken with in the lead up to your show or just what you've seen from the news cycles otherwise in terms of them having to defend, you know, this pretty indefensible stuff?

1:20:34Yeah, it's a tough putt to try to defend some of that stuff. And they usually try to switch to, well, Obama did this or this. And it's a tough place. I think the messaging opportunity and challenge for the Democrats is how do you make that matter? And I think a message that frankly was effective was one that Pete Buttigieg, who I interviewed this week, had, which was he says, look, I don't care about the East Wing construction. But what I care about is the fact that Trump cares about it. And he cares about it at a moment when people in the middle of the country are opening letters that say that their health premiums are about to skyrocket and they don't know how to make ends meet.

1:21:21And instead of being focused on those people, the president is being focused on his rich friends and building a gilded ballroom for them. So why, when that is happening to the middle of the country, is he focused on this construction? And so that to me is a message that could potentially break through because the average person is probably maybe not even knowing that there is construction in the East wind, but they are looking at their health insurance and think, oh my God, can I even afford this? And if I don't afford this, if I get hit by a car, am I going to be, you know, catastrophic and I'm lucky enough to survive?

1:21:59Am I now going to be dead because I can't pay for anything? I mean, so those are the real issues. And so I think it's great. And we all live in this online universe and clicks and all the rest of that. But in terms of the stuff that really breaks through to people is often those issues. And can the Democrats effectively connect this, you know, focus on taking care of your friends, which clearly Donald Trump is doing, and pushing the limits of what's ever been acceptable? And how does that impact and how is that a distraction from what he promised, which was to make life more affordable for the average American?

1:22:38Yeah. And frankly, I think it's a pretty, pretty clear story to tell at the same time that you have these letters going out showing that health care premiums are going to double, triple or quadruple at the same time that you know that you have these, you know, 10 tens of. And at the same time that you have 17 million Medicaid recipients recognizing that they're going to lose their access to health care, that we have food stamp recipients that are going to lose their access to food stamps. At the same time, all of this is happening. Farmers losing their crops. You have Donald Trump really. I mean, it's almost like a caricature of itself that he's building himself a ballroom that went from 100 million to 200 billion to 250 to 300 to 350 million dollars at the same time that he's trying to pay himself out from the U.S.

1:23:17Treasury. So I think it is a pretty clear story to tell for those who are looking to weave that together. With that said, Alex, as we had mentioned, you have your new show on CNN. The story is what are you hoping to do with the show? Well, I think we're hoping to do a few different things, one of which you mentioned, which is to bring different perspectives together to have a fun, civil debate so you can hear multiple perspectives. and you're going to be a part of that when you're on. On Tuesday night, you're going to be debating Jessica Milan Patterson, who is the former chair of the California Republican Party, who is the current chair of the No on 50 campaign running against Prop 50.

1:23:59You're one of the leading advocates for Prop 50. Did a big fundraiser with Governor Newsom. This is one of an issue you've been talking to me about privately for years. So it'll be interesting to have that discussion where people can hear both of you and hopefully not screaming at each other in a mean way, but actually listen to the arguments and then people can make up their minds for themselves. We wanna create the most fun place in cable news. So much of cable news is not joyful. And obviously a lot of these issues are important and serious. And when we're doing that, we will be serious and appropriate.

1:24:29But there's also a lot of other stuff going on in the world that aren't just horrible political debates. We're gonna lean into pop culture and sports and tech And a lot of the things, especially on the West Coast, that we drive the global conversation on. This is going to be CNN's first West Coast-based show in many, many years. It will be the only live show on at that time. Our competitors are in reruns. We will be live when news is breaking. We will always be on. And so I think it's going to be a really cool chance to meet and profile and do deep dives. We have two hours, so we have a chance to not just do the seven-second soundbite, but do deep dive conversations, let issues breathe, and have a really interesting, fun time.

1:25:18Well, look, no one is more deserving than you of the opportunity that you have right in front of you. I'm very excited to see what you do with this show. CNN scored a huge win with getting you on the air. So congratulations. Very much looking forward to it. And for everybody else who's watching, Alex, what time can they find you? Okay, so the show is going to be on weeknights from 9 to 11 o 'clock Pacific time. That's midnight to 2 a.m. Eastern time. It's streaming, I should say. It's broadcast live around the world, also on CNN International. So I know a lot of your viewers are in other countries.

1:25:54They comment to me from other countries all over the place. So it's a morning show in Europe. It's an afternoon show in Asia. You can watch it on CNN International in 200 countries, which is awesome. I also hope people check out my YouTube page, youtube.com slash Alex Michelson. I'm Alex Michelson on all the social media pages. Love interacting with people. And a big part of what we will be doing in the coming weeks, our show's called The Story Is. We're going to have a big section called Your Story Is, where we're going to be getting live feedback from our viewers and really want to make this as interactive an experience as possible.

1:26:27Learning a lot of the lessons from you, Brian Tyler Cohen. Alex, as always, thanks for taking the time. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you for your support along the way to make this happen. Can't wait to see you on the show next week.

1:27:03their channels or you can go to Brian Tyler Cohen dot com to learn more.