In short
The episode focuses on Mitch McConnell’s health and whether his office is obscuring his condition to avoid triggering a Kentucky special election before an August 3 legal deadline. It also covers House Democrats’ pushback against DOJ actions involving Jack Smith, alleged Trump-related “slush fund” and self-pardon plans, investigations into alleged ties between the Trump orbit and the Tate brothers, and political polling/VP speculation around J.D. Vance versus Marco Rubio.
Guests and backgrounds
- Jamie Raskin: U.S. Congressman; former constitutional law professor; discusses House GOP referrals of Jack Smith.
- Yasmin Ansari: U.S. Congressman; Oversight Committee member; calls for investigation into Barron Trump and Tate-related influence.
- Peter Hamby: Chief national correspondent at Puck News; analyzes J.D. Vance/Rubio political dynamics and DNC early primary calendar.
Key claims and notable examples
- McConnell’s office says he’s “improving in rehab” while meeting staff on Senate/Kentucky business; host argues this opacity may be timed to keep the seat occupied past Aug 3, avoiding a competitive special election.
- Raskin argues GOP perjury referral is “ludicrous” because Smith answered only the questions asked; he cites presidential records being turned over via archives.
- Raskin claims Democrats have a discharge petition to force a vote on stopping a proposed ~$1.8B political slush fund for January 6 figures and convicted actors; he cites prior settlements for Michael Flynn and Carter Page.
- Ansari alleges Tate brothers’ relationships with Trump family (including Barron Trump) warrant Oversight investigation; she cites UK charges and claims about influence on young people.
- Hamby cites an Emerson College poll showing Vance down to 36% vs Rubio at 35% for 2028; he notes Vance’s high media presence and compares DNC early-state planning (possible first window: South Carolina/Nevada, then New Hampshire/Michigan; possibly adding New Mexico/Virginia).
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Chapters
Tap a time to open that second in VOMcConnell's Health Update
0:16 to 0:44
Discussion on the latest statement from McConnell's office regarding his health.
“As the senator continues to improve in rehab, we will be sure to keep you updated.”
Conjectures on McConnell's Condition
0:44 to 2:30
Brian expresses skepticism about McConnell's ability to fulfill his duties given his health issues.
“This is a sitting United States senator whose absence is functionally shifting the balance of power in the Senate.”
The Implications of McConnell's Seat
2:30 to 4:23
Explaining the political ramifications of McConnell's potential vacancy due to health.
“And the answer to that question is that there is a deadline buried in all of this, and that deadline is August 3rd.”
McConnell's Legacy and Manipulation
4:23 to 6:27
Critique of how McConnell's health situation is being used for partisan advantage.
“Whether or not that's actually what's happening, I can't tell you.”
McConnell's Legacy and Manipulation
7:09 to 8:15
Critique of how McConnell's health situation is being used for partisan advantage.
“That means somewhere right now an intruder is getting closer.”
Interview with Jamie Raskin
8:17 to 14:00
Discussion with Congressman Raskin about Jack Smith and recent Republican actions.
“We now have an escalation between Republicans and one of Donald Trump's biggest enemies, that is Jack Smith, at the hands of one of his acolytes, Jim Jordan, in the Judiciary Committee.”
Discussion on Trump's Slush Fund and Legal Maneuvers
14:00 to 25:01
Explore the discussions around Trump's proposed slush fund and the implications for accountability.
“but almost exclusively for the purposes of attacking the designated political foes of the president.”
Discussion on Trump's Slush Fund and Legal Maneuvers
25:06 to 26:28
Explore the discussions around Trump's proposed slush fund and the implications for accountability.
“But asking for help can still feel hard, and BetterHelp's latest research confirms it.”
Investigation into the Tates and Trump Family Connections
26:28 to 28:00
Congressman Yasmin Ansari discusses the connection between the Tate brothers and the Trump family.
“We've heard a lot of news about the extent to which Donald Trump's kids have been engaged in just a raft of corruption.”
Investigating the Trump Family's Influence
28:00 to 36:39
Discussion about the need to investigate Barron Trump and his connections to the Tate brothers.
“With Barron, it's always been less talked about.”
Show all 17 chapters
The Political Landscape for J.D. Vance
36:40 to 42:00
Analysis of J.D. Vance's changing political fortunes and relationship with Trump.
“Oof, I think day one is going to be a laundry list of subpoenas.”
Analyzing J.D. Vance's Political Strategy
42:00 to 44:24
Discuss the political instincts of J.D. Vance and his alignment with Trump.
“He's underwater on foreign policies, underwater in the Iran war.”
The Role of Heat Shields in Unpopular Policies
44:24 to 46:40
Explore how political figures act as shields for unpopular policies in the Trump administration.
“I mean, look, he's the sitting vice president of the United States right now.”
DNC's Early Primary State Selection
46:40 to 49:11
Discuss the implications of the DNC's decision on early primary states.
“Democrats are engaged in choosing early primary states right now at the DNC.”
Impact of Primary State Choices on Candidates
49:11 to 54:06
Examine the benefits and drawbacks for specific candidates based on the new primary calendar.
“New Mexico, obviously, border state Latinos.”
LeBron James and Political Implications for Shapiro
54:06 to 55:45
Discuss the political ramifications of LeBron James's signing with the Sixers for Josh Shapiro.
“Speaking of Josh Shapiro, I reported, gosh, would have been like 10 days ago, that Shapiro bumped into LeBron James at a dinner in New York.”
Closing Remarks
56:00 to 56:25
Final thoughts and wrap-up of the discussion on McConnell's health.
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:01Brian Tyler Cohen:Mitch McConnell's health continues to be a problem as the senator's office releases a new statement. And I've got three interviews, Jamie Raskin, Yassamin Ansari and Puck's Peter Hamby. I'm Brian Tyler Cohen and you're listening to No Lie. As questions about Mitch McConnell's health and frankly, his survival continue to mount, his office has released a new statement. This is according to Washington Post. David Popp, who is a McConnell spokesman, said, quote, The senator continues to meet with staff regarding Senate and Kentucky business, including discussions on defense appropriations, foreign policy, the Farm Bill, constituent services and constituent federal grant requests.
0:38Brian Tyler Cohen:As the senator continues to improve in rehab, we will be sure to keep you updated. Now, look, this is obviously conjecture on my part, but with Mitch McConnell in the hospital for over 40 days, the notion that he is continuing to meet with staff to discuss foreign policy and constituent services sounds absolutely insane. Like, here's the thing. This is a sitting United States senator whose absence is functionally shifting the balance of power in the Senate. And the public has every right to know more than a staged photo op actually tells us. Which, by the way, is not something that I should have to say against a political party that spent four years decrying Joe Biden's cognitive function.
1:20Brian Tyler Cohen:If anyone should have some modicum of concern for the ability of an elected official to do his job, it is this Republican Party whose entire identity was predicated on their collective concern about the Democratic president's cognitive health. Although I got to say, there is something so fundamentally Mitch McConnell about the rules suddenly changing for Republicans. Remember, McConnell himself would not allow Merrick Garland to be seated on the Supreme Court for a year because God forbid a Supreme Court nominee was appointed during the year of an election. Until, of course, Amy Coney Barrett was seated while votes were already being cast.
1:56Brian Tyler Cohen:And the architect of that scheme, Mitch McConnell. So the irony is not lost on me that he is yet again at the heart of a scandal where only one side has to operate by any rules. So look, I say this as somebody who is not a doctor and who, shockingly, in the year 2026 when everybody pretends to be everything online doesn't even claim to know anything about health care. But I'm going to go out on a limb and say that far from doing constituent services, I would be surprised if Mitch McConnell is even lucid or capable of surviving on his own right now, which raises the question, why does this matter?
2:29Brian Tyler Cohen:Why would the GOP or McConnell's office be hiding this? And the answer to that question is that there is a deadline buried in all of this, and that deadline is August 3rd. So under Kentucky law, if McConnell's seat becomes vacant before August 3rd, the state is required to hold a special election to fill it. After August 3rd, there isn't enough runway to administer that special election before Kentucky's already scheduled November election for his seat. And so instead, the seat would just sit vacant, unfilled until whoever wins that November race is sworn in in January. And of course, this is the exact law that Kentucky Republicans rammed through back in 2024.
3:07Brian Tyler Cohen:And this wasn't some, you know, neutral good government reform. This was a bill written specifically because Republicans looked at their aging senator and said, we cannot risk letting our Democratic governor have any say in who replaces him. So they stripped Governor Andy Beshear of the appointment power entirely, and they mandated a special election instead. And that was all while McConnell was 82 years old and very obviously not at peak health. So here's where the truly fitting part of this story comes in. If McConnell's seat goes vacant before August 3rd, Kentucky has to run a real special election, one that Democrats could theoretically compete in or where Thomas Massey could run in.
3:46Brian Tyler Cohen:Obviously, he is persona non grata in the GOP or somebody else that can put up a real fight and cost Republicans a lot of money at a bare minimum to compete in that seat, if not win outright. But if McConnell's office just keeps the lights on, keeps issuing vague little he's recovering nicely statements and run out the clock past August 3rd without an official vacancy, then that seat just sits empty until January, where the already scheduled November race, which is, you know, a race largely shaped by Kentucky's Republican electorate, decides who gets it. No competitive special election variable, no wild card, just a clean handoff to whoever wins November without ever having to test the seat in an open contest before then, which means there is now a very real, very cynical incentive for McConnell's team to say as little as possible for as long as possible to just get him or at least the legal fiction of his still occupied seat across the August 3rd finish line.
4:45Brian Tyler Cohen:Whether or not that's actually what's happening, I can't tell you. Nobody can, because that's the point. The opacity itself is doing the political work. And going back to the double standard here for a second, again, if the roles were reversed, If this was, you know, an 84 year old Democratic senator who vanished from the Capitol for six weeks after being rushed to the hospital for a cardiac arrest event with nothing but one single staged photo, some proof of life to show for it, Republicans would be on every cable news channel demanding proof that this guy's alive. They'd be invoking the 25th Amendment.
5:20Brian Tyler Cohen:They'd be accusing Democrats of running a shadow senatorship, of hiding his condition from voters, of engaging in a cover up. Again, we watched them do this with Joe Biden for years. But when it's their own guy whose actual medical status determines actual Senate math and an actual statutory election deadline, suddenly it's, you know, let's give him privacy because after all, he's still working hard from his hospital bed. But I think the most fitting part of this, and this is the part that really sums up Mitch McConnell's entire career, is that even now, even in a hospital bed, even six weeks removed from the Senate floor, his presence or the ambiguity of his presence is still being used to manipulate the system for partisan advantage.
6:04Brian Tyler Cohen:This is a guy whose entire legacy is built on bending institutional rules to squeeze out just one more procedural win. Again, blocking Merrick Garland, ramming through Amy Coney Barrett, rewriting Senate norms whenever it serves Republicans. And now, even as his own health hangs in the balance, the mechanics of his own party's law are being potentially used, deadline and all, to make sure the Kentucky Senate seat stays firmly in Republicans' hands no matter what happens to him personally. Like, you could not write a more fitting final chapter for Mitch McConnell if you tried. A man whose defining trait was always outmaneuvering the system for partisan gain, quite possibly doing it one last time, not through some clever floor maneuver or, you know, committee trick, but just the silence around his own body, his own survival, being useful enough to run out a clock.
6:54Brian Tyler Cohen:That's the legacy. Not what he stood for, just what he was willing to bend to win. Next up are my interviews with Jamie Raskin, Yasmin Ansari, and Peter Hamby. No Lie is brought to you by SimpliSafe. In the United States, there is a break-in every 26 seconds. That means somewhere right now an intruder is getting closer. The problem is that most security systems only alert you after break-ins already started, and at that point, it's too late. That's why I chose SimpliSafe to secure my home. Using the Outdoor Camera Series 2 and advanced AI alerts, SimpliSafe's US-based live agents identify threats on your property and help deter them stopping crime before it even starts.
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8:41So he's always looking for a way to get at him. This one is comical, Brian, because the House Republicans have referred Jack Smith to the Department of Justice for perjury because they asked him questions. He answered the questions perfectly truthfully, but then they wish they'd asked him other questions, which they didn't ask him. And he, of course, didn't answer questions they didn't ask him. And so the whole thing is absolutely ludicrous. They will be laughed out of court. They claim that when they asked Jack Smith whether he had subpoenaed the not just the toll records for telephone calls, which are the records that all of us have for the numbers we called, but also the actual content in the conversations, he said no, because he did not subpoenaed them.
9:34They did not ask whether he received them, not through a subpoena, but just directly from the archives, because the president's records are given to the archives and they are routinely then turned over for this purpose. So they were turned over, not through a subpoena, and, you know, not from the subpoenas that were issued to any of the telephone companies, but they were turned over to Jack Smith by the archives. And the Republicans just forgot. I assume they forgot or they didn't know or I mean, who knows what happened. But they did they failed to register the fact that a president's records are turned over to the archives, including emails.
10:25And so if there were emails that went from Republicans to President Trump or back and forth, they would be turned over. Now, certainly the White House and the Trump people knew all about it because they turned them over to the archives and they were also given to them in the course of this process. So essentially, the House Republicans are upset that Jack Smith didn't answer a question they never posed to him, which is, did you receive those from the archives or did you receive them from any other source? He certainly did not lie when they asked him whether he subpoenaed the actual conversations or email conversations or text conversations that took place between Republican members and the president.
11:10And it's not perjury for him to correctly answer the question that is posed to him. And so he may be telegenic, but he's not telepathic. He can't read the minds of the questioners in the future as to what they're going to wish they had once asked him.
11:28Brian Tyler Cohen:Well, look, this DOJ is so often just operating under the principle of they have a conclusion in search of evidence. And if the House Republicans are going to give a criminal referral, is there any concern that that's going to be enough for this DOJ that's looking for even the thinnest pretense of being able to say, you know, he's done something wrong. Let's move ahead with prosecution. Certainly they've prosecuted people for less. And so do you have any concern that this is all that they'll need, thin though it may be, to move forward with some prosecution against Jack Smith? Well, remember, they've got to go to a grand jury.
12:04The grand juries are now routinely repudiating and rebuffing the administration. Hundreds of judges around the country are lambasting the Department of Justice under Todd Blanch because they're lying in court routinely. They are disobeying court orders and so on. So this happens all the time. Just, you know, just this week, it was the Department of Justice was forced to withdraw the subpoenas they'd rendered against New York Times reporters who had gone out to report about the illegal$400 million Qatari jet, the foreign emolument that Donald Trump had taken. But, you know, Trump doesn't care. He doesn't mind if they just start these indictments or processes and they'll take it as long as they can go.
12:52It could be against James Comey. It could be against Letitia James. It could be against my colleague Jason Crow or Maggie Goodlander. They don't care. They'll go as far as they can go, harass people and then move on. And the federal courts have now said there is no longer a so-called presumption of regularity in the statements of the government. They don't believe them anymore. It used to be that government statements were presumed to be true unless you could prove that they were not in some way. Now they don't presume them to be true. And good for the federal judiciary because they're far more likely to be based on a tissue of lies and misrepresentations.
13:29Brian Tyler Cohen:Is there no irony in the fact that Jim Jordan once chaired the subcommittee on the weaponization of government and is now directly responsible for perpetuating this idea of vindictive prosecutions against the political opponents of this government? Yeah, there is no little bit of irony, but there's also a lot of strategic self-exposure, by which I mean they knew they were going to do this, that they were going to use the government not just constantly, but almost exclusively for the purposes of attacking the designated political foes of the president. And so in classic authoritarian posture, they laid out the critique against the other side as to inoculate themselves for the onslaught to come.
14:23And, you know, I mean, think about things like Hunter Biden was actually prosecuted and convicted. Can you imagine any of the Trump sons being prosecuted during the Trump administration? No, not for anything and convicted for anything. It just would never happen. I mean, the Biden administration did not politicize the Justice Department and weaponize it. And that is all that Donald Trump is doing with the Department of Justice. He's turned the entire thing into an instrument of his vengeance or his favor and to prop up his schemes of self enrichment, like the one point eight billion dollar slush fund for him to pass out to his friends and allies and foot soldiers in his private militia or to use the government to attack his political opponents.
15:14So, yeah, they injected that phrase weaponization into the air as much as they could in anticipation of what they were going to do.
15:22Brian Tyler Cohen:On that point of the one point seven, seven, six billion dollar slush fund. We have some new news on that. Can you explain what that news is? Well, all 212 Democrats in the House of Representatives, our entire caucus, has signed on to the discharge petition that would force this to the floor of the House of Representatives for a vote if we can get six Republicans to join us in defense of the rule of law. Remember, Trump wanted to create this$1.776 billion political slush fund to hand out to Proud Boys Oath Keepers, other convicted January 6 felons who beat up police officers and smashed them in the face and destroyed federal property, chanted, hang Mike Pence, had a rampage in the Capitol, all for the purposes of overturning an election or what they described as stopping the steal.
16:21So he would like to pay all those people. It's like, who wants to be a mega millionaire? Step right up, tell us your story, and we'll give you, actually,$1.25 million looks like it's the going rate. That's the money that they already gave out of the judgment fund at the Department of Justice to Michael Flynn, his disgraced former national security advisor, after Flynn already lost on his charges in court. So he went to court to say it was a malicious prosecution. He lost on it. And then they settled with him to give him$1.25 million. They settled with Carter Page to give him$1.25 million. And it looks like that's what their ambition is.
16:59So we got to shut it down because it's not just the militarization fund. They will use the judgment fund in the same way if we don't stop it. We've got to make sure that no money is to be used for this purpose. And if people don't understand how sinister and dangerous it is to allow him to pay off his private militia army, maybe people will be convinced by the fact that it's unconstitutional. It's right there in the 14th Amendment, which says that no state shall pay or reimburse anyone for the cost of insurrection against the union.
17:32Brian Tyler Cohen:Is there any indication that there's going to be Republicans who sign on to this discharge petition? Well, it's a tough one. I mean, what we had going for us in the Epstein files was that the Trump administration campaign had been railing about the Epstein files. And they had been talking about, you know, an international child sex ring and pedophiles and so on. He was hoisted on his own petard, essentially. He did everything he could to stop it. And then when a number of Republican women hung tough, like Nancy Mace and Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert, and they said, no, we're going to go through with this.
18:07At that point, the whole Republican Party signed up and Donald Trump then ran out to get in front of the parade and say, oh, I wasn't trying to stop this. I've been for this from the beginning, even though then they proceeded to try to sweep everything under the rug and block the release of all the materials. But in any event, they couldn't really stop that one. Here, I've had I had conversations with four different Republicans today and a couple of them have said, well, if you can get some other Republicans on it, then I would seriously consider joining you. But right now, there's nothing that Trump takes more seriously than his control over federal money and his slush funds.
18:46And remember, it's not also just about the slush fund. This was also the so-called agreement, which one federal judge has described as collusive and essentially a fraud on the court and therefore an anticipated fraud on the country. But it's also about this self-pardon that is neither Trump nor his family nor his businesses can be sued in any way civilly for tax fraud or any other offenses, nor can they be prosecuted for any offenses committed up until this point. And this is probably even more important to them, Brian, than the political slush fund, because after all, most of that, not all of it, they'll probably keep a couple hundred million for themselves.
19:31But most of that money is going to be used for other people. But this fraud, you know, protection against fraud prosecution, this self-immunity, self-pardon is something that goes right to their own interest. And so a number of the Republican members said, this is going to be tough for us to sign. On the other hand, a bunch of Republicans have spoken out against it forcefully. And Todd Blanche himself said, remember, Todd Blanche, when questioned about it, said, it's not moving forward. It's moot. And they said, will you put that in writing? And he said, no, I won't. And then the very next day, Donald Trump said, I love the idea.
20:09I want to move forward with it. So you can see where they're where they're going with it. But he did say under heavy questioning over on the Senate side, he said, look, you guys could just go ahead and codify it, legislate it. And that's exactly what we're saying. We're going to legislate it. We're going to make this happen. So I think that there are a number of Republicans who will be tempted by it because they know it's the right thing to do. But they're going to be terrified of going up against Trump here. And you know how they zero in on people. But we've got one great thing in our advantage right now, which is the election is coming up.
20:43And so we need people all over the country to be demanding that their representative attach their name to the discharge petition so we can cement into law a block against either the slush fund for nearly one point eight billion dollars or the self pardon applying not just to Donald Trump, But all members of his family and all businesses on any charges that have nothing to do with any of this stuff. They are all being given a preemptive pardon against any prosecutions that could relate to things they've already done.
21:18Brian Tyler Cohen:I presume if there's not already a lawsuit, there's going to be a lawsuit against both the self-pardon and the$1.8 billion slush fund. So is this kind of a belt and suspenders approach where, you know, you're attacking this thing legislatively while also expecting, anticipating there to be a case against this in the courts? Well, there are two cases that are presently against it. And Judge Williams in Florida has said that she rejects the so-called settlement and that the fact that they brought the case in the first place appears to be a fraud on the court. But that's when Todd Blanche himself was referred to bar counsel.
21:56Yes, exactly. All the lawyers have been referred to bar counsel under Rule 11, which is sanctions for dishonesty or other departures from the rules of professional responsibility. But she said nobody ever had any intention of bringing this case. The whole thing was a setup in basically Trump versus Trump. And you know who wins that? Trump does. And the public loses. And the idea was Trump sues the government for$10 billion. The Department of Justice does not defend the case. They defended the exact same case against lots of other plaintiffs who were saying they wanted to get paid by the IRS, too.
22:34And the Department of Justice brought a very aggressive defense saying the statute of limitations is run, which it certainly is run in Donald Trump's case. And they said you can't get liability because of the actions of a third party contractor. And that guy's already been sent to jail for leaking thousands and thousands of people's IRS information. But Trump says, no, I'm going to sue for 10 billion dollars. Then Todd Blanchett, the DOJ, don't defend it. They don't write this exact same brief that they filed in all these other cases. They sit down and then they negotiate$1.8 billion to Donald Trump without the showing of any damages at all.
23:17After all, Trump said he was going to release all of his taxes like all the other presidents have done and so on. But in any event, he gave$1.8 billion. And then they say, we're going to give it to, you know, to the January 6th people and other people who've been the victims of weaponization. And we're not going to use the courts to do it. We're going to set up five people appointed by Blanche and Trump within the administration who can be fired at any time by them if Trump doesn't like what they're doing. And they will decide where the money goes. That's what due process looks like in America now.
23:49That's what justice looks like in America now. We've got to shut that down. But remember, it's not just the weaponization fund, because they've already taken millions of dollars out of the judgment fund to do exactly what they want to do with all these other people. They did it with Carter Page and they did it with Michael Flynn. They just want to use the taxpayers' money to pay off their friends.
24:10Brian Tyler Cohen:Yeah, well, I'm sure they're going to be completely understanding if this is the precedent they establish and the next Democratic administration wants to pay off billions of dollars to their political opponents. I'm sure that we'll see not a single word of pushback from Fox News and these Republicans who are right now conspicuously silent in the face of Trump doing it. Look, they know that the Democrats have respect for the rule of law and the Constitution. Yeah, they understand that. And that's what authoritarians do. They abuse the good faith and the trust that the rest of the society operates on.
24:43and they try to get away with everything they can, which is why we've got to be out there every day fighting this corruption, this malice, this authoritarianism. And I thank you for what you're doing, always to get the word out about each of these schemes and scams against the American people. Congressman, we'll leave it there. Thanks so much for taking the time. You bet.
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26:10Brian Tyler Cohen:If you aren't happy with your match, just switch to a different therapist at any time from their tailored recommendations. Do not let stigma stand in the way of support. Start therapy with BetterHelp. Sign up and get 10 % off at BetterHelp.com slash nolie. That's BetterHelp.com slash nolie. We've heard a lot of news about the extent to which Donald Trump's kids have been engaged in just a raft of corruption. Don Jr. and Eric obviously making money hand over fist as it relates to World Liberty Financial. But there's one other Trump child that's making a lot of money, and that is Barron Trump. I'm joined now by Congressman Yasmin Ansari, who is now taking action on this front.
26:50Brian Tyler Cohen:So, Congressman, can you explain what the latest move is? Hey, yeah, thanks for having me. So, you know, we've long heard about the Tate brothers and their association with the Trump orbit and their open support of the Trump administration. Obviously, these two brothers are serious criminals. They have, I think, 50 charges combined against them just from the UK government for child sex trafficking, rape, exploitation of minors, et cetera. And they have been allowed to come to the United States, even though they were being charged in countries like Romania and the United Kingdom. Now, there's been reporting, I've been following this for a number of years because I actually was really alarmed about five years ago when a couple younger family members of mine who were teenagers at the time were talking about Andrew Tate and his whole Hustlers University platform.
27:45And I realized how serious the influence of these two absolute criminals are on young people in this country. And it turns out, you know, thanks to really great reporting by The New York Times and the Financial Times, et cetera, that they have long cultivated relationships with Trump's family, including with Donald Trump Jr. and Barron Trump. With Barron, it's always been less talked about. Granted, there's less reporting on it. And I think that's why it's something that's worth being investigated. So given the latest news around the extradition or the potential extradition to the United Kingdom, the fact that we know that the Tate brothers met with Republican members of Congress on the Hill last week, I learned this thanks to reporting.
28:36I have sent a letter to James Comer, who's the chairman of the Oversight Committee, which I serve on, to open an investigation into the broader issue here, into the communications that Trump White House officials may have had with the Romanian government, into what Barron Trump has been doing, whether he has been in touch with the Tate brothers, whether he has used his influence with the administration. All of these things, I think, are worthy of being investigated more deeply. And I think Barron Trump should come before the Oversight Committee as well as Donald Trump Jr. to answer these questions.
29:14Brian Tyler Cohen:In the event that Democrats are able to retake control in the aftermath of midterms, is this something that you think the committee should expend political capital on issuing a subpoena for? Like, for example, to Don Jr. or Barron? Well, with both of them, it's more than just this, right? The corruption with both of those kids, with all of the Trump kids is staggering. The self-dealing, the ways that they have used their influence in the White House to make record profits. I think so, you know, they've made hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars, Don Jr. in particular. So I think we need to look holistically at all of the issues that they have had and all of the ways that they may be held accountable or held criminally liable.
29:59And we need to look at it in that way.
30:01Brian Tyler Cohen:Can you speak a little bit about the fact that, you know, a major theme of this administration on the campaign trail was holding these kind of people to account these, you know, that there is that there is an echelon of people who can operate and commit criminal acts with impunity, especially as it relates to sex trafficking. and that was something they promised with regards to the Epstein files. Obviously, they haven't been released. And in fact, Trump has put in place people that are expressly going to suppress these files. And now we have the Tate brothers who are accused of engaging in similar activity.
30:35Brian Tyler Cohen:And again, it looks like the Trump administration is bending over backwards to help those people. So can you speak on that chasm between what these people said on the campaign trail versus how they're actually using their power and governing? The Trump family has absolutely turned its back on Americans as it pertains to what they promised on the campaign trail in every regard. But as as it relates to corruption and going after criminals, I think that they they they always knew they were lying. You know, they wanted to win an election. They lied to Americans in every single way possible. And the truth of the matter is that at the end of the day, they care about who is loyal to them, who will help them get elected, who will help them make money and who will help them build their influence.
31:24The Tate brothers are prime examples of that. Andrew Tate has been working for years to cultivate his relationship with the Trumps. He's openly supported Donald Trump when he was running in 2024. He urged his platform, which he has a lot of influence, unfortunately, a lot of followers across the country and the world. He urged them to support Donald Trump. And so he's been working on overdrive to make sure that when the time comes, he has access to this administration so that he can, you know, maneuver around all the criminal charges that are coming at him from multiple different countries at this point.
32:03This administration and especially the Trump family also is using the White House to make as much money as possible. And if, you know, let's say if we were going to talk about the Epstein files, we know that in the Epstein files, there are many rich and powerful people, some of whom are Trump donors or Trump supporters who, as Donald Trump said himself to former Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, my friends would get hurt. And so they are not serious about the Epstein files. They never have been. They have been leading the most egregious cover up, I believe, in American history. They have Donald Trump's former personal attorney, Todd Blanche, at the helm of it all.
32:47And they're trying to now make him the attorney general of the United States of America after he docks survivors to try to silence them and to try to get them to back down. I mean, I could talk about this for hours because the level of corruption and cover-up and self-dealing is so staggering. And it happens every single day, many times a day in broad daylight. And they're doing it in a way where people are – it's hard not to become numb to it because it's happening so frequently and so brazenly that I think that we can't forget about this. There's a lot of talk, obviously, about when Democrats take back the House and hopefully the presidency in 2028.
33:32Is it about kind of restoring normalcy and restoring the way things were? Or do we need to be aggressive to go after these people? And I think we need to be as aggressive as we possibly can, because Americans need to see that you cannot be at the highest levels of our government committing crimes of this magnitude. And then you lose an election and then everybody moves on. Absolutely not. some of these people need to go to jail.
33:57Brian Tyler Cohen:Yeah, I could not agree more. I just spent the last week on a book tour saying exactly this. And, you know, frankly, the corruption that we're seeing right now is not happening in a vacuum. It's happening, in my opinion, as the direct response to the fact that they were not held accountable by Merrick Garland's DOJ, that this DOJ or that DOJ decided to prevent the optics of politicization, give a clear runway to Trump to engage in the criminality that he's engaging in right now. And him seeing that there's no deterrent effect put him in a position where he said, well, if nothing's going to happen to me, let's just go balls to the wall.
34:32Brian Tyler Cohen:And so this, again, doesn't happen in a vacuum. It happens as the result of an absence of any enforcement action from the federal government. So if you have a government that's not going to take this stuff seriously, then of course you're going to be ushering in an era where people are just going to operate you know, to enrich themselves. And at this point, you don't even know if the federal government is acting in the best interest of America or acting in the best interest of Trump and World Liberty Financial and his foreign real estate deals and, you know, exchanging better tariff rates for crypto or meme coin funding, whatever it may be.
35:12Brian Tyler Cohen:But that only happens if you have a federal government that isn't going to take on this stuff as soon as they have the opportunity to do so. Yeah, I agree with you 100%. Look, I think there are things that we can applaud the Biden administration for as it pertains to policy and infrastructure and climate and really delivering results in that sense. But they did have an old school mentality about what it means to win an election and take power after the opposite party. And they did want to just kind of move on. And I think, you know, naively thought that it was over, that the Trump era was over.
35:53There's no way we're going to ever have Donald Trump again. That was just a little blip in time and, and therefore didn't hold people accountable. And you're right. I mean, Trump 2.0 has been like, I knew it was going to be bad, but I couldn't have like designed or come up with these schemes that this administration has pulled in my like wildest imagination, right? Like it is just so crazy what happened. The amount of absurd, horrific things that they've done in just a year and a half is decades worth of damage to this country. And yeah, I mean, many, many, many people need to go to jail for it.
36:38Brian Tyler Cohen:What does day one of oversight committee look like if Democrats are able to retake control of Congress? Oof, I think day one is going to be a laundry list of subpoenas. We are going through a process right now looking at, you know, what should, you know, it's kind of nerdy, but like, what are the subcommittees going to be of the oversight committee in the new term? What are the issues, what are the main buckets and focus areas that we need to be prioritizing. And I think that if you have acted in a way that is corrupt through the Trump administration, whether you're in the administration or whether you're a company, like whether you're a major corporation that has acted in a corrupt manner as it pertains to government contracts, if you're a CEO, if you are the head of some news network that has been corrupt.
37:32You should be scared. You will be held accountable by this oversight committee. You will have to come forward under oath in front of the American people. No more of this behind closed doors, no cameras, just a little transcribed interview. Those days will be over. And so I think people, at least in the next year and a half, should be very careful in how they're operating because this is not permanent. Trump is not permanent. This era is not permanent. New day will come. And the new generation of leaders who are in Congress and running for Congress or in the Senate or running for Senate are very different than the old guard.
38:15Brian Tyler Cohen:Perfectly put. We'll leave it there. Congresswoman, thanks so much for taking the time. Thank you.
38:23Brian Tyler Cohen:We now have some new J.D. Vance news that may signal some trouble for the Trump administration. I'm joined now by the chief national correspondent at Puck News, Peter Hamby. Peter, I'm going to throw right here on the screen a headline from MS Now, and then we'll talk about it in a moment. So this headline is, After months of privately weighing his vice president against Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the president has begun openly rooting for J.D. Vance, five people familiar with his commentary said. So we've got the White House that is kind of putting its finger on the scale, throwing its weight behind J.D.
38:54Brian Tyler Cohen:Vance, But there is also some news that signals a rough, rocky road ahead for Vance. So can you talk about that? Yeah, no, I have questions about this story, by the way. I want to dig into whether Trump and Vance actually like each other. But I think Vance has been in some trouble with Republicans nationally for some time. There's an Emerson College poll, national poll of Republicans that came out. That's the story you're referencing. Vance has fallen. Actually, I'll pull this up here. From just a few months ago in August of 2025, shoot, almost last year, he was at 50 % in the Republican horse race for 2028, J.D.
39:30Vance. Today he's at 36, so he's tumbled almost 20 points. And then Marco Rubio, who you just mentioned, is up at 35. So basically the headline from this Emerson poll is that J.D. Vance is now tied with Marco Rubio in national polling for 2028, which is a really big shift. and I've gone back and watched this trend since March really. It goes back to the war in Iran. I mean that has made Trump unpopular. J.D. Vance has bear hugged Donald Trump. He put himself out there as the front man for the memorandum of understanding that has clearly fallen apart over and over and over again. Whereas Rubio has more smoothly kind of managed the Iran war.
40:09He's obviously been at Trump's side. He's obviously part of the administration. But he hasn't really been out front in the way J.D. Vance has. is Vance can't help himself, Brian. I mean, Vance says yes to every camera. He loves to fight with everybody. He's like our first podcaster take vice president and wants to be our first podcaster president. He just can't shut up. The one thing I will say, though, is that his numbers are still really strong among MAGA Republicans, whereas Rubio's numbers are stronger among more traditionally identifying Republicans to the extent they still exist. So that's an interesting trend worth unpacking.
40:44Brian Tyler Cohen:Well, you know, you know, it's not like Vance didn't see this coming because all this time, even from the very beginning, Vance has been planting stories or his team has been planting stories in Politico, for example. There was another article, if I'm not mistaken, in The Wall Street Journal where Vance keeps positioning himself as the lone skeptic in the room that he's he's out there trying to trying to dissuade the president from engaging in interventionism. And of course, you know, when it does happen, that's that's that's not thanks to his efforts. That's in spite of his best efforts to get Trump to back off.
41:16Brian Tyler Cohen:So I think the fact that we're that we saw all of this groundwork laid in the very beginning, like right off the bat, goes to show that Vance knew that this was going to be a problem for him politically. And I think that's bearing itself out right now. Yeah, look, just stepping back, being vice president is very hard for anyone's political ambitions in either party. And we saw this with Kamala Harris earlier in the Biden years when she was given the portfolio of dealing with southern border migration. And she went to Central America and said, do not come. And she said she hadn't been to the border, whatever, different time.
41:54But, you know, you always have to answer for the president's policies. And Donald Trump's policies are unpopular across the board. He's underwater on trade. He's underwater on immigration. He's underwater on foreign policies, underwater in the Iran war. He's underwater, most importantly, on inflation, the cost of living, and the economy. And so no matter how many inside baseball stories you plant in Politico or The Wall Street Journal or The Washington Post, the American public at large is not sort of parsing those stories apart. They see a spokesman for an unpopular administration full stop. And look, again, I've always questioned J.D.
42:31Vance's political instincts. I just think Marco Rubio has grown to have better political instincts on a national and international stage, whereas J.D. Vance has just shown himself to genuflect Donald Trump at every turn. Another angle to this I think is interesting, you know, with that MS Now story, you know, I can see Trump, by the way, rooting for a boxing match in 2028 in the Republican primary between his two guys. And even though he's going to leave the White House, if he leaves the White House, he's going to want to sort of weigh in and play them against each other. He loves being the ringmaster.
43:08We know that about Trump. So there's that. And the second thing is that Donald Trump kind of I think uses J.D. Vance as a bit of a heat shield. I'm not sure everyone on Trump's team in the Oval Office thinks that J.D. Vance is the most adept political player, that he's not a great political athlete. And they like having him out there as the face of an unpopular war. He will go on Rogan and he will go on any network and he will go on any podcast and he will travel around the world and give speeches defending Donald Trump. And the flip side of that is that's J.D. Vance's political bet, and it's not a dumb one actually.
43:49If you are just competing for the Republican nomination in 2028, it's a very simple bet. But you can either try to play all these – be really cute and try to gesture toward mainstream Republicans and independents and then be MAGA over here. Or you can just go all in on Donald Trump. And that's just the bet that J.D. Vance has been making since he ran for Senate in Ohio six years ago. And it's not a dumb bet in that sense. It's not popular with most Americans, but with Republicans who are going to be voting in the nomination process in 2028, it's not a stupid play.
44:24Brian Tyler Cohen:Totally. I mean, look, he's the sitting vice president of the United States right now. There is also, and this is kind of the really cynical perception of this, there is also a world in which something like this gets leaked. This idea that the administration is throwing its full weight behind J.D. Vance, which only further emboldens J.D. Vance to keep being the front guy for this administration, to keep being a heat shield for all of the unpopular policies it sets out, giving him this idea that if he does it, he's got, you know, the, um, he's got the, the seal of approval from, from Trump himself.
44:59Brian Tyler Cohen:And they don't have to abide by that. Like a story in MS now where somebody in the administration leaked that JD Vance is their guy. And so just keep doing what you're doing, kid. It's going to, it's going to work out in the end. Like that's not binding. And so there's a world in which this could be just the administration, um, giving Vance the fuel he needs to continue, you know, landing in this shit for Trump. Yeah. And I think you're exactly right. This administration, a lot of administrations are like this. They care about winning news cycles. Donald Trump in particular only cares about the last good headline or the last bad headline or the last person to talk to him in the room or the last poll number he just saw.
45:37And, you know, before the memorandum of understanding was signed with Iran or negotiated rather, you know, remember like a couple of weeks ago, every single day, Donald Trump would wake up, call a reporter and say, we're going to fix the war by tonight, you know, and the markets would go up and the price of oil would go down. And, you know, then we would bomb around again after the markets closed and we would do it all over again the next day. And so, yeah, look, these people, politicians, not everyone, but a lot of them, they are just addicted to the game, and if Donald Trump just keeps feeding, you know, J.D.
46:16Vance little bread crumbs every single day, in Trump's mind, you know, Trump's like, okay, send him out there. We're going to war every single day. We got to win news cycles. And then if you're J.D. Vance, you're like, thank you, sir. May I have another? Because you're just an addict, and you want to be the next president of the United States. You'll do whatever he says.
46:33Brian Tyler Cohen:Yeah, I think that's exactly right. To that end, on this idea of being the next president of the United States. Let's talk about the other side of the aisle. Democrats are engaged in choosing early primary states right now at the DNC. Give us a lay of the land of where that lies and what the implications are of the states that have been chosen. So yeah, for people watching and listening, this sounds like inside baseball. But for years, the first two states in both the Republican side and the Democratic side were Iowa and New Hampshire. And they were flawed for many reasons. And New Hampshire is still in the mix.
47:09And I'll tell you who the first four states are going to be in a moment. But, you know, for Democrats, the problem there was one, Iowa, and we saw this in 2020, was a caucus. And so you only had the most highly engaged people showing up. And it was easy to kind of game the room. I mean, Brian, like you've been out there, you go in a caucus room and you'd like in a high school gym or a church basement and you sort of haggle with people to come to your corner. It's 2020, it was mismanaged and no one knew for days who won. And what you need in these early states is momentum. You need to show a win.
47:43Barack Obama in Iowa in 2008, great example. The states are also very white. And look, Democrats do need to win back white voters in flyover country, rural voters, non-college white voters. But inside the Democratic Party, black voters, Latinos are extremely important. And so the DNC right now is reorganizing the early state calendar and granting windows to certain states to go first. Now, New Hampshire is still there, but they're not going to be the first in the nation primary anymore. Even though they have a law on the books in New Hampshire that says they have to go first, they have this very precious little law that they abide by and it pisses off everyone else in the DNC every year.
48:24They're like, no, no, no, we get to go first. And everyone hates New Hampshire. But they do have that little small retail aspect of the state, which is pretty valuable. Hand-to-hand combat, retail politics, town halls, tough questions, there's value there. And importantly, it's cheap to run in New Hampshire. You don't have to have a bajillion dollars to spend on TV ads like you would in a big state. So anyway, the DNC on Thursday and Friday began ratifying a new calendar. The first four states are going to be either Nevada and South Carolina going first, and then New Hampshire and Michigan. They're also talking about adding two more states for a total of six.
49:01And it sounds like as of now, when we're recording this on Friday, New Mexico and Virginia will be added to that first window, which is interesting. New Mexico, obviously, border state Latinos. But the real competition, at least heading into the weekend, was which one? Nevada or South Carolina? I think South Carolina is going to end up being first. Biden, after he won, asked Jamie Harrison, the chairman of the DNC, to put South Carolina first instead of Iowa, partly because South Carolina ratified Biden's victory in 2020. The majority of primary voters in that state are black. And it's in the wake of the Calais ruling, which really gutted the Voting Rights Act.
49:42All these Southern states are trying to redistrict and eliminate black political participation. It's a really hard look for the DNC to take away. the first state being a black majority voting state, take it away from South Carolina, but Nevada also in the mix.
49:59Brian Tyler Cohen:All right. So I, I, I, this go, this question goes against everything I stand for, because people will ask me, what do you think about 2028? And, and the answer that I give and the answer that I believe is like, we don't have the luxury of being able to pretend that this is politics as usual. You know, we have an election that Trump and Republicans are trying to undermine right now. We've seen the extent to which they're trying This is a big theme for you. Very consistent. Yeah. And like and I believe it. And like I know that they're going to try to interfere in the election. There's no empirical evidence that would suggest that Donald Trump does not want to interfere in this election.
50:33Brian Tyler Cohen:But I have to ask because we're talking about the primaries and we've got you. And so what do you think the implications are for specific candidates? Who does this benefit the most and who does this hurt the most ahead of 2028? This came up a lot of my reporting this week for Puck. I was calling around to members of the DNC who were involved in the voting process. The final fight for the first slot was between Nevada and South Carolina, which was sort of imagined as a fight between black political power in South Carolina and Latino voting power in Nevada. Now, that's pretty simplistic in a couple of ways.
51:13Nevada is also a huge labor state. I think like 10 percent of the electorate is black in Nevada. They have a black party chair. Likely their next governor will be black. So it's not like purely black brown. But because of labor and because of its large Latino population, a lot of DNC members thought that if AOC runs, Nevada would be a very good state for her. Now, that spooked the more sort of moderate traditional old heads on the DNC who never liked Bernie, don't like DNC – or sorry, DSA-style progressives. And so their thinking is South Carolina should go first because, as we know, black political power in the south is where the sort of Bernie movement, the Bernie style of politics ran into a wall twice because it's had a hard time expanding into black communities.
52:10or Bernie. Bernie never caught on with them. And so that's sort of the thinking. And then again, with New Hampshire, you know, Mayor Pete, who's good at the small town, town hall, he's been pulling very well in New Hampshire. But so is AOC, by the way. And so I think this gets to your point, Brian. It's so hard to game out right now. If there's like a purely, like, just pick two people, you know, Josh Shapiro and AOC, like, you could game this out. But you can't. You can't. And another one more wild card. I think is important is that Michigan is replacing Iowa in the Midwest because everyone's done with Iowa and all their screw ups.
52:48Michigan, I think, is a good state because you've got black voters in Detroit. You've also got the sort of Reagan Democrats outside in and around Detroit that Democrats need to win back right from the from the Trump era. You've got rural voters. You can drive across the state. It's a it's it's a good state. But you've also got this Gaza-Israel debate, which obviously is a huge issue in the Democratic Party. And DNC members that I talked to, including Debbie Dingell, were like, Democrats need to not run away from these debates. They need to learn how to talk to these voters, find consensus, and figure out how to win there.
53:24And so if you are Josh Shapiro, by the way, or Rahm Emanuel, slightly more pro-Israel than other Democrats, like that could be, Michigan could be tough for them with the huge Arab and Muslim population in and around Detroit. And remember, like, I think 10, 11 % of the vote went to uncommitted against Biden back in 2024, you know, as Gaza was flaring. So, but again, I think rather than hide from it, Democrats need to just go into those communities and have tough conversations. And that's why I think the DNC put Michigan up there too.
53:57Brian Tyler Cohen:Last question here, Hamby, and that is talk to us about you getting the scoop of the year over at Puck, because we have some new news on the NBA scene. Talk about that for a sec. Yeah. Speaking of Josh Shapiro, I reported, gosh, would have been like 10 days ago, that Shapiro bumped into LeBron James at a dinner in New York. And by the way, I'm proud of this scoop because it came from more of an NBA person than a political person. But LeBron James, free agent as you know signed with the Sixers on Friday and I reported several days ago that Josh Shapiro like privately was like wooing LeBron to come to Philly and we know Shapiro is a huge sports fan he goes on Philly talk radio to talk about the Eagles like he gets sports he's a he's a real junkie for this stuff so LeBron signs with Philly signs with the Sixers on Friday and Shapiro's not really taking a victory lap but he did declare LeBron James day in Philadelphia and everyone on Twitter and X is like, oh my God, he's up for re-election this year.
55:03He's going to win by 60 points. People are hyped. It's a big, he's not, again, he's not taking credit for it, but he can wink at people who are giving him credit. And it's a W.
55:14Brian Tyler Cohen:He's attached himself to this pretty loudly, I think. Well, look, I think for anybody who wants to get these kinds of scoops, not just in the basketball world, but also the political analysis, which is second to none. Please make sure to subscribe to Puck. I'm going to put the link to Puck itself in the post description of this video or if you're listening on the podcast in the show notes. But I'm also going to put a link to Hamby's YouTube show right here on the screen and in the post description as well. So if you're not yet subscribed, please go ahead and subscribe. Peter, appreciate your time, man.
55:47Thanks, buddy. I really appreciate it. Yeah, everyone subscribe to the Powers That Be podcast on YouTube. I appreciate your help. Thanks, Brian.
55:53Brian Tyler Cohen:Thanks again to Jamie Raskin. Yasmin Ansari and Peter Hamby. That's it for this episode. Talk to you on Wednesday.
56:25Thank you.
From the publisher
Mitch McConnell’s health continues to be a problem as the Senator’s office releases a new statement. Brian interviews Rep. Jamie Raskin, Rep. Yassamin Ansari, and Puck News’ Peter Hamby.
Order THE DAY AFTER: https://www.harpercollins.com/pages/thedayafter
Written by Brian Tyler Cohen
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