New Epstein revelation undercuts Trump's DOJ

26:48Yeah. But listen, I don't want to be selfish about this because I know that you have a much broader answer, which you've kind of touched on in what you were just saying. But when you heard about what happened to me and to the other journalists. What did you think, Brian? Look, the sad part is I wasn't surprised. It kind of feels like a matter of time, the fact that Trump is going down this list. I mean, he started with Letitia James and James Comey and Adam Schiff is on there. And then he moves over to like Tim Walz and Jacob Fry. and he's arrested judges and we've seen Padilla get arrested. And so it's, you know, not to mention, don't forget suing journalists and suing news.

27:32Suing journalists, suing the New York Times, suing, I mean, anybody, you know, who CBS and Paramount and ABC for$16 million. And, and I think he has been successful in normalizing us to this idea that, that this is just what happens in the United States. And, and that's the part I want to push back against because like we cannot become accustomed to this idea where the president of the United States just sues people or silences people or wields his FCC against comedians for the crime of telling jokes. And, and I think that what, what kind of heartened me to see was like all of the pushback left, right, and center against what had happened to you.

28:12And, uh, and, and that needs to happen every single time. Like that cannot diminish just because, oh, we've seen this before. Was that something that surprised you to see all of the pushback, even in a world where everybody kind of expects Trump to go after his enemies? Well, I got it. Yes. The very simple answer, straightforward answer to your question is yes. And can you imagine, though, we're so connected to our devices, right, especially in what we do. We're there and we're like, oh, well, we've got to report it. This is what we do. We have some breaking news or this just happened. And imagine not having any communications for, you know, 12 hours.

28:50Right. And so I had no idea what was going on in the world. None. Until I walked out. And when I saw the scrum of cameras and news people there, I was floored. I was like, really? Are you kidding me? I had no idea. And I was very pleasantly surprised. I mean, there were helicopters following me like I was OJ Simpson on the interstate. It's crazy. But I had no idea until I got to, you know, to my friend's house where I'm staying. And I looked at the news coverage and I said, holy shit. It's the biggest, it's the biggest story probably in the world. Yeah. But I mean, like how, how bizarre that, that even while you're in there, you have no idea.

29:27And you could have very well walked out to, you know, one or two people and, and, you know, God knows how many other things could have happened that day that just might've, you know, taken all the attention, sucked up all the oxygen. Yeah. But I wonder, Brian, And you can answer this better than I can. I think I'm too close to it. Is this the thing that gets people to say, especially journalism and the media, and I'm not talking about the corporate bosses because they still want to make their money and they still want their mergers and acquisitions, but for the journalist to say, okay, enough already.

29:58I can't do this. I can't have the false equivalents. I can't do it. And just before you answer, I say maybe it is because people who I didn't have such great relationships with and for whatever reasons, I don't know why, professional jealousy or competition or whatever, reached out and said, I know we haven't been friendly lately, but I just want to tell you this is fucked up and I'm sorry this happened to you and I'd love to sit down and have a drink with you soon. So is this a thing maybe? I would love if that would happen. That just gets journalists to say, fuck no, we're not doing this anymore.

30:33Look, I hope so. And I think for two reasons. One, this isn't about like this isn't about whether somebody agrees with you or your coverage. This is about this is about the precedent that it establishes moving forward. And I think Republicans are starting to realize that if Trump establishes precedents that could turn around and bite them in the ass as we move forward. I mean, like there I think that that's a very pronounced worry for them, like this idea of of, OK, so everybody here in the right wing media ecosystem is going to just sit idly by and be silent as this happens. What can happen when we have a Democratic president in office?

31:16And I think that's been a worry for them as they see things get like the abuses grow more and more. On the flip side, look, there are always going to be people for whom Trump can do no wrong. and we've seen some of them too. And the reality is that those people would sacrifice their firstborn if Trump asked them to. And so I think that we're seeing a growing dichotomy between the slavish devotees to Trump, these people on right-wing media who are just gonna be his mouthpieces no matter what, no matter what ICE agents, what crimes they commit or who they shoot or what journalists they arrest. Those people are always gonna be on board.

31:52but there's a growing, there's a growing disparity between those people and, and even the people they speak with, like even just any, even right-wing regular Americans. And I think that they're recognizing, oh, that's, that shit's cultish behavior. You know, like that's, that's not necessarily reflective of me. Maybe in 2024, things felt a little bit different. I could, I could align myself with a more right-wing government, right-wing campaign, but like, this is what right-wing governance looks like in action. And if that's, if that's what it looks like where you've got, you know, Caroline Levitt basically doing her best North Korea lady impression on a daily basis is like, I don't know.

32:28I'm seeing people get more and more uncomfortable with that on a daily basis. You're very astute, right on, because the people I spoke to, even at the Grammys said to me, hey, look, I'm a Republican. I don't like what happened to you. That's not right. I'm a conservative. I voted for Donald Trump and I don't necessarily agree with everything that you say, but this is wrong. And I'm in your corner on this one. I'm seeing that from, I don't hear that a lot coming from conservatives. Now the, the MAGA faithful and, you know, the crazy people of the world, uh, like God, what's this up? Like the Benny Johnsons and the Megyn Kellys or whatever, who just are grifting out there on the right, they're going to keep, you know, fueling the fire and, and, and, and, and putting gasoline on the fire because that's how they get clicks and ratings, right?

33:17Or, well, I don't know, money. But I think for most sensible people, whether you're a conservative or not, you realize like we need an independent, free press. Yeah. You know, what was so interesting, I think, about the Grammys was just a year ago, I mean, these people wouldn't be caught dead talking about politics, but certainly not like some aligning themselves with liberal politics. It became so out of vogue to align yourself with the left. I mean, look, I'm a Democrat. It sucks that I have to admit it, but it was toxic. It was cultural suicide to align yourself with the Democrats or some Democratic or progressive position just a year ago.

34:05And that's what gave birth to all of these Manosphere podcasts. And I mean, the Democrats had lost culture and that which was bizarre to say, because I grew up like in the Barack Obama era and he was cool. And we had George W. Bush was decidedly uncool. And and I think in one fell swoop, we saw so much of that snap back. And and politics is downstream of culture. And you have all of these, you know, all of these big names and voices and popular ones. I mean, musicians even have like a more prominent role in society than even actors do, right? Yeah. And for all of those people to be so unapologetically outspoken in terms of pushing back against what this administration is doing was a really like heartening thing to see because again, like I didn't know when culture would swing back to the left.

35:02And I think we saw it happen thanks to Trump way faster than anybody anticipated. We were talking about some of those, the manosphere. And now I'm seeing people like, is it Andrew Schultz? Is that Andrew Schultz? Oh, yeah. He's just you just you just know he's like in pain right now. And as well, he's look, go on. I want you to finish that. But like he didn't realize that this was going to happen. I mean, he supported him. He had him on his show and they were talking him and Charlemagne. So all of these people and the other folks on it. And now they're surprised that Donald Trump is doing what he's doing.

35:35Like, really? Like, come on. Surprised that the guy who wielded like mass deportation now signs at his rallies is doing mass deportations. I mean, like there is no world in which you had almost 80 million people who saw this coming. But you have like six or seven assholes who had no fucking clue that any of this could could come about. like the whole, like half the country, a whole half of the country was yelling about this exact thing happening. But now you've got, you know, Andrew Schultz and Joe Rogan who had no idea this was coming. And you can, you can hear in their voices, how they kind of just have their tails between their legs now, as this stuff happens and they have to talk about it because they host shows and the subtext to everything is like, well, you know, I was, I, this guy was sitting across, across the table from me as I was, you know, basically fellating him for my audience.

36:25Hmm. That's vivid. How's that for some imagery? How's that for some imagery for you? Thank you for that, Brian. No, look, I'm surprised. Here's the thing. That shows you that not everybody with a microphone should be talking about politics, especially if you don't. These people have no idea about politics and policy. Why are they doing it? Look, they're comedians. You can talk. Look, it's obviously freedom of speech. but sometimes things are so important that you have to leave the expert opinion to the experts you know what i'm saying yeah um and not everybody's meant to interview a presidential candidate or a president and if you are if you don't believe that you are i i don't know maybe you should realize maybe you should have some um some enough self-awareness to realize like maybe this is beyond i should leave this to the journalist You know what I'm saying?

37:20I mean, look, I think these people are learning that there are consequences to their actions. And sometimes the consequences are small when you're dealing with podcasts, but then sometimes the consequences have global implications. And I think these people are realizing that right now. So, Don, what's next now? What does this process bring you? I will answer that. However, I just saw that we have a video. When you asked me about knowing or not knowing, I think you can see this look on my face. This is when I walked out. Andy, you can play it and just play the sound low and I'll talk over it. But this is when I walked out of jail and my husband is kind of leading the way.

37:59And I'm looking going, what the fuck is going on here? And I, you know, I kept, then the cameraman right here, this cameraman, there are so many people there. One of them falls down. I try to help him up. And then, you know, I had to make my way. You see Matt Gutman. And there's one of the photographers who works for my team. But once I got to that thing and I saw the helicopters, it started really to sort of hit home about how big it was. But I'm just sort of looking around like, look at my face. I'm like, holy shit, what is going on here? So what is next for me? I don't really know, Brian, but I will tell you, I don't know.

38:37Look, I know what's next for me is that this is serious. These are criminal and federal charges. So I have to take them seriously, but they're not going to steal my joy. I still have to live and they're not going to silence me. I still have to report and do what I do here on my channel and everywhere, you know, public speaking or whatever. I'm still going to do what I do. I have to. It's not just my livelihood. This is my profession. This is, you know, this is a mission for me to be able to tell the truth and to be closer to the people, closer to the ground without the corporate influence. influence.

39:09And I have to say, people like you have, who've been so great, you know, in advising me, you know, just because I was like some big deal cable guy, you know, I told you coming into this, that doesn't mean that I'm going to be a big streamer. People don't know who I am. What's your advice, Brian? You know, and you gave me some advice and David gave me advice and others. And I really took that to heart. And I think the reason that I've been successful in that is that I did not come in thinking like I was some big shot or I didn't, I don't judge it. I just do it. And I think that's part of the reason for the success, but also because of the support we have as independent in this independent media space.

39:46Do you disagree with that? No, I think that's spot on. And I think that what we've seen over the last few days is there's a big difference between how independent media operates and legacy media operates. And I think the scarcity mindset that exists in legacy media or corporate media doesn't exist in independent media. And there is a sense that, you know, we need to support each other. There is enough to go around. And there is a broader mission, I think, that all of us are focused on. And that's why we do this. um but look i i just want to say that that i'm i'm grateful for uh for your voice i'm grateful for the fact that you're that you're fighting as hard as you are i i know that i speak on behalf of you know myself and all of all of these other folks in independent media and saying we see we see you know what could be a tuesday for us in what you're dealing with right now and so uh and so any any support any help um any amplification you need we're all we're all you know behind you 100%.

40:47So I just want to thank you for fighting as hard as you are. Thank you very much, Brian. It goes the same to you as well, from me to you. So thank you so much. And I'll see you around these independent streets very soon. I'm joined now by the co-host of Pod Save America, Dan Pfeiffer. Dan, thanks for joining me. Happy to see you, Brian. So we've just watched as the Democratic candidate defeated a Republican in a district that Donald Trump won just last year by 17 points, and they did so by 14 points, meaning it's a 32-point swing. Already, we've seen some Republicans coming out and offering some excuses like this is a low turnout election because it's a special election, we're in an off year.

41:27How much of a problem are these election results in Texas for the GOP as we head toward midterms? Look, I've said many, many times over the years that special elections are not particularly predictive. They are things where Democrats tend to do better because our coalition is now disproportionately made up of people who vote all the time. And as we saw in 2024, Republicans benefit from higher turnout. And sometimes when you get results that are shocking, it's because one party got caught napping or, as you mentioned, it's a really low turnout election. That's not what happened here. The Trump endorsed the Republican.

42:02The Republican Party spent money in this race. the Republican outspent the Democrat by several fold. The Democrats still won. And so if you're on the ballot anywhere in Texas or frankly around the country, this should scare the crap out of you. Because not saying that we're going to get a plus 31, plus 32 Democratic environment, but this just means that a whole bunch of races that were not on the map before are on the map now. Can you talk about the fact that, you know, this this electorate was 51 percent Republican, 35 percent Democrat and 14 percent independent. But the Democratic candidate, Taylor Remit, won with like 57 percent of the vote.

42:42And so mathematically, the only way to have done that is to is to have gotten votes and support from Republican voters and independent voters. I mean, how are you thinking about that as we as we move forward? forward. That's the part that should really scare Republicans, because a lot of times when you see these Democratic results, sometimes you'll see it like it's a state house race in Montana and a district Trump won by 36. The Democrat loses by 12. And then you look at the results and you see there's just this massively disproportionate Democratic turnout. Just our party turned out at insane levels.

43:14Not enough to win sometimes in districts, but to make the race as much closer than they are. That is absolutely not what happened here. This district is in Tarrant County. It is the epicenter of the texas republican party it's sort of a power center for the maga movement the far-right christian movement and the only the way that the democrat won is yes we had great turnout from the democratic base but because persuaded basically every independent who voted to vote for the democrat and a decent chunk of republicans and that and and notably also as well this is important i think this is you can see this in the independent numbers is there are a number of heavily Latino precincts in this district.

43:52And from the early results we've seen, and we have to get some more granular detail, but it seems like, and math would suggest that the Latino vote swung back hard to the Democrats. And I think that poses a pretty serious problem for Republicans as we move forward because they built their new map that would give them five new seats on this idea, predicated on this idea that Latinos swinging super heavily to the Republicans and Trump in 2024 was a permanent move. And and that's how they built their gerrymander. And so we could we could be in a world where not only do we not see five seats get handed from Democrats to Republicans, but if if those margins were drawn so thin and we see a big blue wave election, not just where we're seeing high turnout from Democrats, but where we're seeing Republicans and independents defect and vote for the Democratic candidates in numbers that we saw just yesterday.

44:43we could see a world where this new map turns into a dummy mander and actually Democrats net seats from Texas. This map still remains pretty hard because they did a pretty good job of fortifying some of their members as they did this. But the Democrats, they're trying to vote out along the border, like Henry Cuellar, Vicente Gonzalez. If the Republicans are really suffering this much with Latinos in Texas, those races are not going to be competitive. And some of the new districts they drew depend heavily on this. So we could draw even here potentially, you know, obviously, if you have a plus 31 Democratic advantage, we're going to crush everywhere across Texas, across country, we'll pick up, you know, 70, 80 seats, or whatever that would be.

45:26But the Republicans made a bet here. And that bet, you know, not only did it not last for a generation, it didn't even last for a year. We also, I'm sure both saw the numbers of, in terms of the expenditures in this campaign. I'm going to put right up here on the screen an image that Amanda Littman shared, the founder of Run for Something. This image right here shows the massive disparity that we have between what the Republicans had and what the Democrats had. And yet still you had a Democratic candidate flip this seat by 32 points from what we saw in 2024. What does that suggest moving forward that even a boatload of money wasn't enough to win this race for the GOP?

46:03Yeah, I mean, it speaks to their problem because in these special elections, This is what we saw happen in the district in Tennessee, Tennessee 7 late last year is the party with the with the partisan advantage can usually hold on and win because they have enough money to tell voters the election is happening. And this time they had that money and it did not work because it wasn't that they told Republicans to vote. And then some of those Republicans and all those independents voted against the Republican. And the other thing that I think is important here, and I think this provides a larger context for how much the politics have shifted over the last few months, is so this was a runoff election.

46:38The original election happened in November. And in November, when you added up all the Republicans and the Democrats, the Republicans had a five-point advantage, right, which was very good for the Democrat and that they were in striking distances, why some people had this election, like on their radar screen. And so it shifted dramatically from a five-point Republican advantage to a 14-point Democratic advantage since November to now. And that says a lot about – we can't attribute this entirely to what's happening in Minnesota, ICE, Venezuela, all of the things that have been happening with Trump over the last few months.

47:09But it does speak to how fired up Democrats have gotten over the last few weeks and how disillusioned Republicans have gotten. It's so disillusioned that they'll vote against a Republican. What do you think that principle driver is? And by the way, I say this knowing that it may very well not be one specific thing, but these are pretty huge numbers, and especially the defection numbers are what I'm looking at. Yeah. There's nothing that would suggest that there would be this huge increase in people upset with Trump over affordability from November to now. And the thing that's really changed is just this feeling of chaos that is sort of permeating the country because of what's been happening in Minnesota and Maine and elsewhere.

47:49And so, you know, I really am hesitant to speculate because there's no exit polls here. We don't know what was on top of people's minds. But I don't think you can separate the shift from November till now from what's happening in the larger political environment. And that's been defined by ICE in Minnesota for, you know, almost a month now. So I guess the question becomes, does Trump see this and and kind of like shift gears or because it's Trump, because any any, you know, concession to the other side is viewed as capitulation, which is viewed as weakness. He's not he's never going to do that.

48:20And so what do you expect to see as far as Trump is concerned? Do you think that that he he uses this and says, like, OK, we have to change course a little bit or just triple down? i you know you just you know i think it's like one step forward two steps backwards all the time the trump like maybe he'll feel like maybe he'll call tom homan today and be like slow it down and then the next day stephen miller will be in his ear and we'll do the opposite so you don't really know i think where it has some impact is on republicans as we debate in congress what sort of ice uh guardrails can be put into the spending bill there's a world where in a different political environment the republicans be relishing a shutdown of the department of homeland security and ICE.

48:58And the fact that they're not and that Mike Johnson, the Speaker of the House, is going to bend over backwards to try to get this bill passed on Monday or Tuesday speaks to, I think, just the increasing political pressure on this issue. What about from Democrats' vantage? I'm seeing a lot of posts and statements from, you know, Hakeem Jeffries and Ken Martin and Chuck Schumer that they are, you know, look, I think if I was in their position, too, I would also be taking credit for what's happening right now. And frankly, at the end of the day, they are in charge. So they can take credit. But also, I'm just curious because, you know, on one hand, there is obviously a lot of anti-Trump sentiment, if not all anti-Trump sentiment that's driving this.

49:39And so to what extent do you think that Democrats should or could take credit here versus are just kind of coasting off of what we're seeing Trump do and reaping the benefits of that? I think most of what has been happening, almost all of the positive things that have happened in terms of resisting Trump, of sort of sending a message to Trump have happened from outside of Washington, not inside of Washington, from the bottom up, not the top down. I think the DNC spent money here. They should get credit for doing that. If the Democratic Legislative Committee spent money here, they should get credit for doing that.

50:13But the reality of what's happening is happening on the ground, and it's happening in spite of not because of leadership from Washington. And so is there some concern that will kind of like ping pong back and forth that because some of the leadership in the Democratic Party is going to look at this and say, we fixed it. You know, the brand is fixed. We're winning again. We can take all this credit. We don't have to release any autopsies. Like, we'll just keep doing what we're doing and keep on keeping on. And, you know, kind of end up in a situation where, okay, we haven't really done anything substantively to fix the Democratic brands, but they've seen all these wins and so they get the wrong message out of it.

50:49And then, you know, we're in a position where Democrats have control and all of the things that led them to lose in 2024 reared their heads again because they were never actually rectified. Yeah, so I think there's a couple of things that are gonna happen on the interim. I think in the short term, this election victory is gonna stiffen some Democrat spines to use the limited leverage they have in these negotiations over ICE guardrails. I think it will encourage more Democrats to speak out more boldly about what's happening with ICE, although I think for the most part, they've been pretty good since the killings of Renee Good and Alex Petty.

51:21not everyone, but for the most part, you're getting less hemming and hawing from Democrats about what Trump is doing and what ISIS is doing. So that's good. So I think it's stiffens the spines. I think the big concern is if we have a very good 2026, does the party make the same mistake they made after 2022 and view that as a validation of themselves as opposed to a response to something else, right? 2022 was about Dobbs, not a show of support for Joe Biden. Biden White House, a lot of Democrats read that as the wrong way. And so I think I could go on and on and on about the medium term and long term challenges the Democratic Party has, regardless of what happens in 2026.

52:04But we have a ton of work to do. And so the hope is we have a great year. We recognize that we benefited greatly from anger against Trump, prices being high. But once we get into an actual election where a Democrat presidential candidate is on the ballot against Republican presidential candidate in that much larger electorate that doomed us in 2024, we got some real work to do. And to that end, in terms of what we can hope to accomplish as we head toward midterms, where's your head at? Obviously, I think we're all kind of aligned on the House, but where's your head at on the Senate? You know, I feel I am cautiously optimistic about the Senate.

52:43And I think, look, you see these results in Texas that should give you even an additional belief that there is a path to a Senate seat in Texas with the right candidate running the right campaign. But, you know, the political environment, if it is in our favor, we have shots. Like, I think we can defend all of our incumbents. Not easy. Right. Like we have to we have to keep we have to win our open seat in New Hampshire, win our open seat in Minnesota. We have to win an open seat in Michigan, which is the toughest of them all. And John Osloff's got to get reelected. those are all about as good as you would expect them to be at this exact point where we have good candidates on all those races and the republicans aren't awesome in those races although in michigan i think mike rogers is going to be is hard to beat not impossible but he's he's you know he almost won in 2024 um and then we got to do well and we got to win in north carolina we have a great candidate and we got to win in maine where we you know we have a primary coming and you know because those are the purplish states and then we got to win two of what i think is now five red states um Um, so you were talking about Ohio with Sherrod Brown.

53:45We are talking about Texas. We were talking about Alaska with Mary Peltola. We were talking about Iowa. We have a bunch of candidates, all interesting on paper. We'll see how they look as we go through this primary. Um, and then you, you know, I think there is an interesting question about Florida. Like Florida is a very, very hard state. Um, you know, we now have Alexander Vindman running. He's a candidate who raised a ton of money on the first day. I'm always skeptical of the candidate who is like very famous to the resistance crowd is 100 % Iowa, you know, MSNBC, Positive America, name ID. But here's the thing I'd say.

54:19Florida is Trump won Florida by the same amount he won Texas by. And so we should keep an eye on it and possibly, you know, the Republican is cannot be more generic. It's the it's the it's the woman who took Marco Rubio's seat. No one has any to who she is. She's a generic Republican. It's not what you want to be these days. So let's keep an eye on it. Basically, we want as many paths to 52 as we can, to 51 as we can get. And that's another potential one. And that's not even talking, we haven't even really brought up Nebraska where you have independent Dan Osborne running against Pete Ricketts.

54:52Yeah. Well, a lot to look forward. Look, I want to say for everybody who's watching, listening right now, the best analysis online is from Dan on MessageBox, which is his newsletter. I could not recommend highly enough that if you've not yet subscribed to MessageBox, please go ahead and do so. I'm going to put that link right here on the screen and also in the post description of this video. It is the smartest analysis, the best analysis, and it is always correct. So just go ahead and do that. Thank you, Ryan. Go ahead and subscribe if you're not yet subscribed. And I'll put that link again right here on the screen and also in the post description.

55:25Dan, as always, thanks for the time. Always good to talk to you, buddy. I'm joined now by the ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Senator Mark Warner. Senator, thanks for joining me. Ryan, thanks again for having me. So we've had a lot of news pop up about this whistleblower complaint as it relates to Tulsi Gabbard, who was apparently present while the FBI was executing a search warrant in Fulton County to take the 2020 ballots. So first and foremost, what's being done to figure out what this whistleblower complaint that's apparently being suppressed actually says? Well, remember, Tulsi Gabbard swore under oath that she would observe the rules about whistleblower complaints when she was up for confirmation.

56:06This whistleblower complaint, which I've not seen yet, I will see shortly, was actually brought to the department, I believe, in June. Now, if you follow the rules and this whistleblower wanted the complaint reported to Congress, you know, there's like a 21-day processing period. So they should have reported the complaint. Well, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt by the end of July. Yeah. We didn't even know there was a whistleblower complaint until November. And then it's taken literally the bipartisan gang of eight to say, what the hell, send it to us. And we're just getting it now. I've heard rumors about the subject matter.

56:50Once I see it, I won't be able to talk about it, the content. But it's even if the whistleblower complaint is not you hair on fire it does mean that this obligation she has this is not just some like you know why uh maybe i should maybe i would no this is the freaking law she should have recorded it to congress within 21 days and then once we did discover the fact that it still took almost two and a half three months of negotiation and remember she's not just dissing me or Hakeem Jeffrey, she's dissing Mike Johnson and John Thune and all the appropriate authorities. So it's, yeah, again, the litany on Tulsi Gabbard and her ineptness for this job goes on and on.

57:32So I have a bunch of questions here. First is, are we certain that the whistleblower complaint is regarding Tulsi Gabbard? I do not know. The next question is, is there a chain of custody that shows who's at fault for suppressing this whistleblower complaint that was supposed to be transmitted to you this summer? Well, we got some, you know, letter when the whole gang of eight was putting pressure. Well, that somehow she didn't know she had to do this. Well, that's why you have a lawyer. That's why you also, when you testify and say, Senate, please confirm me, I'm going to follow the law. And then she chooses not to.

58:13There ought to be consequences. So, you know, we'll see whether my Republican colleagues are going to do anything or whether they'll just say, well, you know, it took longer than it should, but we're not going to hold her accountable. The fact that it took all eight of us almost three months within the gang of eight to kind of get it, I would hope they would be just on plain process grounds, pretty pissed off too. The next question I have is we have seen Tulsi Gabbard kind of come into the news because, Because, again, as I mentioned at the top, she's now involved in this whole effort to to get those ballots that were used in the 2020 election.

58:51Anybody who's watched politics over the last five years, six years knows that the only reason Trump is interested in getting these ballots is he wants somebody, some some, you know, stooge to be able to come out and say, you're right, President Trump. There was fraud in the election. There was some subversive, nefarious activity in the election that will give him a pretext to be able to say, oh, there was fraud, just like I thought in 2020. That means in 2026 or 2028, we have to really hunker down in a way that we didn't do before. And I should be able to oversee the elections. We should have Republicans in charge.

59:24We should be able to seize the voting machines. We should have access to the ballots. We should gain visibility into the voter rolls. All this stuff like this is Trump's fever dream. Tulsi Gabbard's involvement in this seems to me, and I'm curious what your thoughts are on this, because as DNI, she should only be able to have kind of her, you know, area of focus should just be foreign interference in elections. If she can come forward and say, you know what, I've I've I've done my research and we have Italy and Switzerland and China and Venezuela who conspired with Joe Biden's FBI and CIA. And I, as DNI, can can confirm there was foreign interference in the election.

1:00:04And then, of course, that would give Trump the pretext that I was talking about to be able to, you know, go ahead and and and meddle in the next election. Is there some concern that that's what Tulsi Gabbard's job is in all of this? Well, you've laid it out pretty well. I mean, let's look at this. The National Security Act, which set up this whole notion of how we have oversight of national security, happened because Nixon and Watergate. And so that was what the creation of the intelligence committees were to do the oversight. And we made very clear in that one, our spying agencies are only supposed to look outside the country.

1:00:40They're not supposed to spy on Americans. The FBI, in terms of criminal stuff, is supposed to deal with that. So Tulsi Gabbard has no jurisdiction on a domestic criminal investigation. She didn't even tell the FBI she was coming. What in the hell she was doing there, other than potentially trying to curry favor with Trump, I don't think there's any legitimate answer. And she has yet to give any fulsome. If she says, OK, now, all of a sudden, six years after the fact, lo and behold, I found all this foreign interference. Well, I read my intelligence briefs pretty damn well. And if there was any evidence of even hints of this, we would have heard about it within the normal intelligence channels.

1:01:25Or if she's been cooking up this theory and then doesn't report it to the intelligence committees, which are her oversight committees, she's breaking the log in there too. She said she would timely report to her committees on oversight. So this is it is wacky. I mean, a year ago, and I was maybe slow because I didn't think that Trump a year ago would be this outrageous. When people said 26, 28, are you concerned about the security elections? You know, I said a possibility, but I wasn't as concerned. The last six months and the last couple of weeks, my concern level is really, really shot off, coming on top of the outrageous activity in Minneapolis or the potential of using ICE patrols to show up around polling stations.

1:02:11And then Gabbard's beyond kind of the belief performance and then put all on top of that. And you don't have to speculate now. Donald Trump's own words that somehow say, oh, yeah, Republicans should run the election, should nationalize elections. That is against the Constitution. And every Republican state, when we tried to put in the first level of security for our elections after the 2016 election, and remember, this is Trump won. Anytime there was efforts to even like, for example, share cybersecurity standards with state local elections, they said, oh, we're not sure we want that because that could be federal intervention.

1:02:50So I know we live in the Alice in, you know, down the rabbit hole Alice in Wonderland, but up is down and down is up where Trump is now calling for federalization and Republicans taking control of the elections and Gabbard as his kind of protege in this. Again, if you're not worried, you should be. In terms of of the fact that this whistleblower complaint exists, I think you and I could both agree that if the shoe is on the other foot and there was some Biden administration official for whom a whistleblower complaint was lodged against them and it was just sitting there and it wasn't being transmitted to Congress.

1:03:27this would be like the national outrage. Fox News would be talking about it 24 seven. There would already be hearings about the fact that there should be a hearing about what the whistleblower complaint itself says. And so my concern here is that enough isn't being done, given the fact that that not just process, because I don't think that people really care about process. And in fact, I think that our collective adherence to focusing on process above all else has been a little bit of our downfall. But but just the fact that this exists and and the administration is allowed to police itself to the point where even legitimate whistleblower complaints about themselves are being suppressed, kind of in the same vein as how shootings done by DHS are being investigated by DHS.

1:04:12I mean, this should be a much bigger story. What is the plan among you and your Senate colleagues to get this thing out front and center, given the fact that, you know, there is a this is this is a really significant issue. And again, the shoe is on the other foot. It's all we'd be hearing about. Amen. They would be completely, their heads would be exploding. I think this is my eighth or ninth press hit today on this. I did a big press conference trying to get this out into the bloodstream. But remember, we still have the DHS ice hearings. The government just got funded. I will give Thune at least a margin of credit that he said today, well, we don't think we can nationalize elections.

1:04:49But this is where if we can't get Americans upset, if we can't force our Republicans to find a spine, we can hold what we call a shadow hearing, but it won't even get picked up by influencers. Well, I mean, look, if you host a shadow hearing, I'm telling you right now, I'll cover it and I'll reach out to other folks in the ecosystem to cover it. We will see if we – I am still – we know we're going to get gathered in front of our committee. Will that be public or private? That will be public, and unfortunately it's not until next month. It's not until the beginning of March, but we will have her.

1:05:34We are going to do election security hearings in the Intelligence Committee. I'm still working with Cotton on how we get it done. And I'm concerned, frankly, not only because of what they could do in the fall or what they could do in the primaries, But, you know, we could we'll probably have a statewide voter referendum on redistricting in Virginia in April. So Virginia could be that. Let's try our new techniques here. Yeah. So we are going to bang the drum. We are going to get folks as upset as possible. I mean, the challenge, though, for example, when all of the awful stuff was happening in Minneapolis, it was, you know, it's awful, but it's true.

1:06:18And so is good. And then Mr. Preti were brutally killed. We didn't get the Republicans to the floor or to the table on ice reforms, even though there was a lot of bad stuff happening beforehand. And I am wide open for you or any of your viewers on what else we should do, because you're right. If it sounds like all process and when you're supposed to report a whistleblower, when not, I mean, that I think you can get lost in. I think the thing when President Trump says he wants to nationalize and have Republicans take over elections, and when you've got a director of national intelligence not even telling initially the FBI that she was coming and showing up way outside her lane, people ought to get pissed.

1:07:02Right. I'm pissed. Well, I look forward to hearing more about that on the issue of ICE funding itself, because now this is, you know, gone. This this bill to keep the government, you know, to reopen the government will obviously get signed. But that includes a two week continuing resolution just for DHS funding. There are there seems to be a little bit of an impasse in terms of what the Democrats are asking for and the Republicans willingness to accept that stuff, which includes in part masks for ICE agents or cameras for ICE agents. Can you give us the thing first and foremost, I have to ask, you know, there are a lot of people who don't have faith that even when Democrats put down their red line issues, that the Democrats are going to abide by it.

1:07:46And we've seen other instances in the past where Democrats have caved, even though they had imposed their red lines, like with ACA funding, for example. So is there a commitment that you can give that on certain issues that DHS funding won't be given unless those demands are met? I'm not going to vote for any additional ICE funding unless we get some reforms. It's as simple as that. But I also would just ask, you know, for some folks to realize, and again, I come from Virginia. We've got a lot of federal workers. We had a lot of, when you shut down the federal government, who are you really hurting?

1:08:29You're hurting federal workers who may or may not get paid at the end of the day. And the thing that completely makes me a little crazy when I hear from some of my calls, well, let's shut it down, shut it down, shut it down. The very same folks who are being discriminated against in Minneapolis and elsewhere on these ice raids are often the people who are the contractors because the people who clean our federal buildings, the toilets, the people who do a lot of the jobs that used to be federal employees, they're all contractor jobs now. So you put that person out of work for a month and a month and a half, they get no reimbursement.

1:09:08And I just hope as we think about, you know, all of our threats and, you know, and I listen, I stuck all the way through on the health care fight. I thought health care was important enough. But there is sometimes a cavalier attitude about shutting down the government. That's not going to that's not going to harm folks or it's not going to bring a burden. When, frankly, federal workers are disproportionately, especially after Doge, on our side. So let's we're going to stick to it And do I do I think that Republicans are going to give on everything Not counting on it And I think we have to keep the pressure on But I but again I go back to we shut down DHS Let's have it But God forbid we have a A challenge at the airport when TSA agents aren't being paid and folks that are air traffic controllers and others.

1:10:04I mean, just we got to push with all we can. And again, this is why I get the big bucks, because you got to weigh these challenges. But it's not – there are people at the other end of a federal government shutdown that I just would ask everybody to think about. And they are generally speaking disproportionately who support our point of view and want these reforms. But yeah, and that's why one of the reasons why we all realized it was going to take a couple of weeks. That's why I thank God You know, the other 95 % of the government is gonna be open So we're not holding you know, the Republicans We're holding the rest of the government hostage and the fact that we got that open I I think I'd call that a win since we can now fight this battle Entirely inside the DHS entirely on the ice issue, which I think is again, a smarter thing for us, both politically and for the numbers of people that will be affected if we go back into even a partial shutdown.

1:11:04Yeah, I agree with that. I think it is smart just to focus this narrowly on what's happening at DHS. And I hear you on the fact that, you know, there are going to be people who are hurt. But the reality is there are people that are going to be hurt regardless. Like if DHS has no guardrails, who's to say that there won't be another shooting, another Renee Good, another Alex Preddy tomorrow. And so, you know, again, to your point, you alluded to this. This is this is you know, this is the give and take this. There is no there is no, you know, silver bullet. There's no formula that's going to be that's going to work perfectly for everybody.

1:11:37Somebody is going to get hurt. And unfortunately, that's the situation that Republicans have put everybody in by by trying to fund an agency that is completely lawless and then putting all of their weight behind getting no conditions. behind DHS funding. And that's again where, and I think people get this in their gut, and I don't want to like get down to the weeds again, but there are so many freaking things that have blown past any kind of norm, any kind of law. I mean, if we just talked about the president of the United States saying we ought to nationalize elections, that in itself would be a week-long story of old traditional front page.

1:12:17If we simply talked about the director of national intelligence somehow interfering in domestic criminal investigations, that would blow people's minds. If we thought about, you know, obviously we were focused on the awful things that have happened in Minneapolis and elsewhere. When you focus on the fact that in my state, 75 to 80 percent of the people who've been picked up on the ICE raids have committed no criminal infraction. So there is this theory of they keep throwing crap at the wall. Yeah. And, you know, again, I'm not complaining. I'm asking folks to hire me again. So, you know, it's part of the job, but it is a little overwhelming.

1:12:55And I fear that people become almost numb to it. Yeah. And when all of this behavior becomes, you know, quasi rationalized, that ain't good for the country. That ain't good for, you know, legitimate political discourse or legitimate political rule, regardless of what happens going forward. Yeah, look, and I do think the onus is on those of us in the pro-democracy ecosystem to make sure not to normalize any of this behavior and to push back when there are whistleblower complaints against the DNI, when there are efforts by the president to nationalize elections or put Republicans unilaterally in control of elections.

1:13:30And, you know, that's the work that I do. It's the work that you do. And, you know, it's difficult when you are contending with an opponent whose goal is to flood the zone with shit. But I think, you know, like you said, that's that's the hard work that needs to be done. So one of the things I would ask, Brian, a view in everybody in the pro-democracy, and I'm pretty close to some of the folks somewhere on the legal end. But, you know, we need to have an organized timeline, even if this goes fades from the news for a week. What are the key times that we got to make sure they're not pulling any more funny business through this whole process period?

1:14:08in Virginia that'll be you know if there is an April referendum it won't be on April 21st the referendum day I think they've said but it'll be weeks before on the primaries we've got to make sure we don't because I'm not fearful now that they may go to subterfuge they may try to you know and this is again goes back to why the whistleblowers have to be respected they got to have a due process even if they're not their claim is is not valid but they got to still have process. And I really, part of my job is to make sure that the rhythm of the election, they don't screw things up even more. And the truth is, a lot of the situations that were set up actually were set up in the first Trump administration after the Russian intervention.

1:14:54So the FBI Center on Election Interference, that's been shut down. The Director of National intelligence for malign influence center that's by law she shut that down cyber security the cisa agency a third plus of the folks who are doing trying to give local election officials the tools they need to make their election systems more secure that's been cut so it's it's and that's again the part where if this was the shoes on the other foot and i know we can you know This is a tired game. We got to just keep fighting like hell. We'll leave it there. Senator Warner, thanks so much for taking the time.

1:15:33Thanks so much, Brian. Thanks again to Ro Khanna, Don Lemon, Dan Pfeiffer, and Mark Warner. That's it for this episode. Talk to you this weekend. You've been listening to No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen. Produced by Sam Graber, music by Wellesley, and interviews edited for YouTube by Nicholas Nicotera. If you want to support the show, please subscribe on your preferred podcast app and leave a 5 star rating and a review. And as always, you can find me at Brian Tyler Cohen on all of my other channels, or you can go to BrianTylerCohen.com to learn more.