Republicans, Bondi Say Biden DOJ Used “’Double Standard”

25:08Two years later, Hamas' October 7th attack and the war it unleashed still define this small country. Vicky Cohen knows that all too well. Hello, Vicky. Hi. Her son is still being held in Gaza, and she is at the forefront of the hostage family's movement, demonstrating in front of the prime minister's home, inside parliament, and in weekly Saturday night protests. This is another Saturday night. Yeah, but it feels different. Feels different, huh? On the night we join her, the whole country is buzzing about a possible deal to free all of the hostages. And it's a mix of feelings. It's excitement, it's expectation, it's also fear.

25:53This video shows the moment that changed everything. Her 19-year-old son Nimrod conscripted for mandatory military service being pulled from an Israeli tank on the Gaza border and taken captive. This is the Rubik's Cube that was in the tank. The one that was found in the tank used to take it wherever he'd go. Heading to another rally, Cohen cannot help but feel hopeful. But she is determined to keep fighting. We will still fight and do everything we did before till it's settled, till it's final, till they are at home. Cohen wasn't always at the forefront of the protest movement, but she ramped up her fight after losing faith in her government.

26:38Many other families realized that we need to be more polite, less polite, and be more aggressive with the fight. She soon realized she had real power. I heard for so many people who told me, I heard you are asking and you are calling for us to come. And we will come. We are coming because of you. This is so important. These rallies are where Vicky found her voice, and where she found a community to fight alongside. Saturday nights in Israel have represented a chance for the hostage families to raise their voices week after week with the support of so many Israelis. Vicky and her son are just about to go on stage.

27:28Today, I was filled with excitement, anticipation, and great hope. But also, she tells the crowd, concern. The Israeli Prime Minister was speaking while Vicky was on stage. Did Netanyahu say something? Yeah, he said that he hopes that they can be returned during succurs. The hostages? He said the goal is to limit negotiations to a few days. He doesn't want it to be dragged out. They thought it was going to be safe here. Seagal and Menashe Mansouri are also still fighting. We just know that they went to a festival and they never came back. And we do know that their last couple hours were hell. Two years after their daughters were slaughtered inside this bomb shelter, they are fighting for answers and accountability.

28:26What we're looking for is the truth. We want to know the truth. in a legal way, in a decent way, in a respected way. We want to know what led us to October 7th. We want to know how come the IDF didn't respond for so many hours. The couple helped found the October Council, pushing for an independent commission of inquiry to investigate Israel's failures that helped lead to October 7th. But two years later, can you believe that you still have to fight for all of this? Did you think this fight would last this long? No, no. You know what? It's even more than that. I didn't think that we'll have to fight for this.

29:10But the Israeli prime minister has refused, claiming the commission would be biased. When you have nothing to hide, you just, you know, how come you're so against it? I mean, why are you trying to fight? Fight it. Do you believe that a state commission of inquiry will ever be set up while Prime Minister Netanyahu remains in office? No. Most likely and unfortunately, no. The country, the state of Israel, need to have the truth about what happens. Along the border where Hamas militants stormed into Israel, the devastation wrought by Israel's subsequent attacks on Gaza is unmistakable. Here, the fight for Israel's character and its future are also on display.

29:54We came to the fence today, as close as we can to Gaza, to say that not all Israelis support the genocide, not all Israelis are supporting the starvation of Gaza. Others have come to see and revel in the destruction. No Arab is supposed to be next to us here. So you want Gaza raised to the ground? No Gaza. All the buildings. I see a couple buildings there. It's healthy. I want this flat. If you ask me if I'm going to be in the base here, you're welcome. Some would say that's genocide or that's ethnic cleansing. No, it's not genocide. For Vicky Cohen, whether Israel prioritizes a deal to free the hostages or a forever war in Gaza will also define its future.

30:39It's a fight of something bigger than to release the hostages. It's something very basic of the Jewish community here in Israel, that we care for each other. We don't sacrifice the lives for the land. Jeremy Diamond, CNN, Jerusalem. And our thanks to Jeremy Diamond for that report. With the shutdown in day seven now, why President Trump compared Democrats to the country of Somalia? as Democrats continue to make demands for their votes to reopen the federal government. Stay with us.

31:23They have no leader. Nobody knows who the leader is. I look at AOC talking about how if they want to negotiate, they can come to my office. She's not in that position to do that. And who the hell is she to say that? They are a mess. They're a party that has no leadership. We're back with our politics lead today. President Trump blasted Democrats who continue to say they're not going to vote to reopen the government on day seven of the shutdown. On the Senate floor, Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, the minority leader, called on the president to get more directly involved. Ending this shutdown will require Donald Trump to step in and push Speaker Johnson to negotiate.

32:04because without the president's involvement, Speaker Johnson and MAGA Republicans in the House are increasingly dug in. Let's bring in our panel, Susan Page. In a recent article, you called the shutdown, quote, the nuclear war of shutdowns. And you note that while it's not the longest, quote, it's already scoring the most far-reaching substantive impact of any of them. And one of the things you wrote that I thought was so insightful is there is there's no incentive for either side to blink. There's every incentive for both sides to keep the fight up. Trump is having a wonderful time with the shutdown.

32:38It's helping him impose his policy agenda on agencies. He may be able to actually fire more federal workers. And for Chuck Schumer, this is a chance for Democrats to look like they're standing up and fighting against Trump, which has been something that a lot of core Democratic voters believe they have not done until now. And, Jonah, Trump attacked Democrats for their tactics in these negotiations. Take a listen. The Democrats have no leader. They remind me of Somalia, okay? You know? And I met the president of Somalia. I told him about the problem he's got. I said, you have somebody from Somalia who's telling us how to run our country from Somalia.

33:22Can you make any sense of that? Just the idea that there's just roving bands of warlords? What is he saying here? Look, I think all of it just sort of plays into the sort of Dems and disarray thing. Yeah. It throws gasoline on the fire. Are they in disarray? Not, I mean, conceptually, intellectually, I do think they're in disarray, right? I always think that, right. We were just talking about this on here yesterday. There is a kind of, you know, Andrew Cuomo was right that there is a kind of, there's an intellectual civil war between sort of the social democratic side and the sort of moderate middle side of the party.

33:56And I think one of the reasons why they're in disarray is not because Donald Trump is saying if, you know, it's like Somalia because vests have no sleeves and other sort of non sequitur nonsense. It's because the Democratic Party has all of its muscle memory is about fighting Republicans who want smaller government, less spending, lower taxes, all that kind of stuff. That is where, that is what they know how to argue against. And Donald Trump is a big government guy. He wants more spending and all of these kinds of things. And yeah, he wants to like get rid of democratic programs and all that kind of stuff.

34:31But it's very clear that the Trump and White House is thinking about once they crush the Democrats and the government shutdown, they're actually going to cave on the subsidies for Obamacare premiums. Like he has no problem doing that. There's a, Marjorie Taylor Greene's coming out with that. Josh Hawley's coming out with that. Trump said today or yesterday that he was certainly open to it. And it's going to cause all sorts of problems for the House Freedom Caucus guys, but they're eventually going to go along. And Democrats don't know how to argue with the president who is fine with profligate spending and large government and protectionism and all these kinds of things.

35:03And I think that's the real dilemma is they want to be anti-Trump, but on policy stuff, Trump is sort of, he's wacky, but he's closer to the center and he's closer to Democrats on policy, broadly speaking, role of government stuff than any Republican we've seen since Nixon. I want to turn to some moves by Democrats. Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro is out with a new ad boosting. The incumbent Democratic Supreme Court justices in Pennsylvania for re-election next month. Shapiro obviously running for re-election himself. Here's part of his ad. Here in Pennsylvania, the threats to our freedoms are very real.

35:37That's why we need to keep our state Supreme Court standing up for what's right. I hope you'll join me in voting yes to retain Justices Donahue, Doherty, and Wecht. They've proven we can count on them to protect a woman's access to abortion and birth control and stand up for all our freedoms. So Susan, how much of this is about Donahue, Doherty, and Wecht? And it's also about Shapiro. It's also about the retention elections, which until this I didn't realize they had. And Pennsylvania, I mean, these are not elections for justices where they're running against each other. It's these, shall we retain these three justices?

36:14Not traditionally something that gets very much attention. But, of course, a chance here on some big issues, as Shapiro says. And also a chance for Governor Shapiro, who clearly hopes to run in 2028 in what is going to be an enormous Democratic field. It's good for him, too. Pritzker and Newsom are threatening to withdraw their states from the National Governors Association. if the group doesn't condemn Trump's National Guard deployment into states that the governors don't want them. Newsom posted, if the National Governors Association cannot stand against states literally invading one another, count me out.

36:46Pritzker posted, quote, we should be standing as one against the idea that Donald Trump can call up the National Guard against our will. Is this also 2028 related, you think? Of course it's 2028 related. Just very quickly on the Pennsylvania thing, Donahue, Doherty, Wendt, and Shapiro sounds like a great lot. On this thing, look, I'm old enough to remember when a lot of my fellow conservatives were part of what they called the Tenther Movement, which was this whole idea of sort of states' rights and, you know, the states where there were sovereign entities in our federalist constitutional structure.

37:15I find myself in a very strange place of actually agreeing with Newsom and Pritzker on a meta level, which is that there was a time where protecting the sovereignty of states was a core conservative position. They're coming at it for partisan reasons, for their own democratic reasons, but there's a core truth to that that I'm actually in favor of, and the National Governors Association should condemn this stuff. By the way, you can find a tweet from then-governor Christy Noem, then-governor of South Dakota, now Homeland Security Secretary, making that same argument. Joe Biden cannot send National Guard troops to South Dakota.

37:53I think she has a different position on that right now. Thanks to both of you. Really appreciate it. As the world marks two years since Hamas' January 6th attacks on Israel, my next guest says NYU canceled his event today on free speech and anti-Semitism, but then, once under fire, brought it back. So why the back and forth? Stay with us.

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38:52But now he's defending life as an emergency medicine doctor at Stony Brook in New York. I have tried to understand, can I see when a player is in flow state? Just as a spectator, can I sort of observe this in some way? You have such a unique lens on things now, both again as a former player, but now a physician. Can you tell? When I'm watching the World Cup, I think that I can sort of see when a player's feeling it and is in a zone. Let your athleticism take over because you have that ability. So calm your mind. Take a breath. I just say just do it. Like Nike, just do it. Listen to Chasing Life.

39:30Streaming now, wherever you get your podcasts. In our National League, my next guest says that NYU's law school tried to cancel his panel today on free speech and anti-Semitism, only to face backlash and end up rebooking the event. Ilya Shapiro calls himself a non-progressive, and with today's event, two years after the October 7th attacks by Hamas on Israel, Shapiro says school administrators said they feared protests. Ilya Shapiro is with me now. He's a fellow at the Manhattan Institute. Thanks so much for joining us. We appreciate it. You called the reasoning for NYU originally canceling your event a classic heckler's veto.

40:07I'm sure NYU would say that, you know, there has been a rise in anti-Semitic attacks and they were worried about security. That wasn't reasonable in your view, though. It was a little rich. I was booked over the summer and then the administrators just gave the students who invited me the runaround. First, they said security. Then they said you can have a room in the basement. Then they canceled that. Then they said, we just don't have the staff. And it was completely disingenuous. And at the end of the day, even if there was security concerns, by the way, there were no protesters that I saw today.

40:38Maybe they went uptown to Columbia. But giving into that rather than enforcing your own rules and maintaining decorum, that's inappropriate. So NYU, we should note, said that the university was pleased to accommodate this conversation at the time and date that Mr. Shapiro had originally requested. And I'm glad the event went out went on without problems. You have a book on this very issue. It's called Lawless, the Miseducation of America's Elites. And you say the book indicts higher ed for a liberal indoctrinating takeover. And you argue that structural issues create blind school administrators.

41:12Tell us more about that. That's right. This was one of the ironies of this whole incident. I was there not to talk about Israel or anti-Semitism on campus per se, but about my book, which is an indictment of the illiberal takeover of higher education, including especially law schools, cancel culture, indoctrination, all of these negative trends that we've seen that have arrived at a flashpoint in the last couple of years since October 7th. And there have been failures of ideology, bureaucracy and leadership. And I think we've seen all of those with this incident in a microcosm. In New York today, some pushback on the comment about October 7th from the Democratic candidate for mayor, Mamdani.

41:55He contemned the attacks. Then he went into accusations against Israel for launching a genocidal war in Gaza, he said. He said the U.S. government has been complicit. Israel pushed back, accusing Mamdani of normalizing anti-Semitism, acting as a mouthpiece for Hamas propaganda. What do you make of the back and forth? I mean, I'm just happy I don't live in New York. Obviously, I'm with the Manhattan Institute. A lot of my colleagues are here. I think it's going to be tough. It looks like he's going to win, and it's going to be a terrible situation for New Yorkers. Of course, we have our own situation in Virginia, where I live, where the Democratic candidate for attorney general has these tweets wanting to kill the kids of his political rivals and all this.

42:36Not a good scene for political culture in America more broadly. And part of that is the education and kind of the lack of teaching of being able to have civil discourse. All right, Elio Shapiro, thank you so much. Appreciate your time today. Thank you. Welcome to The Lead. I'm Jake Tapper. This hour, Attorney General Pam Bondi today facing questions from senators on Capitol Hill about the Epstein files, the National Guard being sent to U.S. cities against the wishes of those cities, much, much more. It was all very cordial, very friendly. time is over. You've attacked all of us, including President Trump for your entire career.

43:12You can attack me later, and I know you've got plenty of canned attacks. We've heard them all day today. Canned attacks on you? No one needs a canned attack on you. Okay, so not so cordial, not so friendly, no shortage of drama, but at times a shortage of real answers to the senator's questions. We're going to dive into some of the questions that she punted. And even though the Senate was up and running for that hearing, the government remains shut down, which means no pay for government workers. Some air traffic controllers are starting to call out of work. In about an hour, the control tower at Nashville's airport will completely shut down.

43:46What does the shutdown mean for air travel and safety? Plus, President Trump hinting again today that he might invoke the Insurrection Act in order to send U.S. troops into cities, despite the opposition from the governors. This with the Texas National Guard gathered just outside Chicago.

44:08The lead tonight, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi clashing with Democratic senators on a number of issues during a rather divisive hearing on Capitol Hill. Democratic senators blaming Bondi for weaponizing the Justice Department while Republicans pointed the blame at the Biden administration. Bondi avoided answering questions on the Epstein investigation and on National Guard deployments and on investigations into Trump's political enemies. Bondi's strategy seemed to be to deflect and use personal attacks against the senators to push back against their questions. Two officials saying that the White House was pleased with Bondi's testimony.

44:41Attorney General Bondi also repeatedly skirted questions about reports about Trump border czar Tom Homan, who in 2024, before the election, allegedly accepted$50 ,000 from undercover FBI agents over promises of government contracts in Trump's second term. The Trump administration dropped the investigation. Homan has said he did nothing wrong. Democratic Senator Peter Welsh of Vermont questioned Bondi earlier today. He joins us now. Senator, you also pressed Bondi about Tom Homan. Here's a little bit of the tense exchange after you asked if there's any audio or video of Homan allegedly accepting this money.

45:20I don't know the answer, Senator. Yet you do know the answer to that. Don't call me a liar. I didn't call you a liar. You just said I know the answer. I said I don't know the answer. Well, if you don't know, why don't you know whether there was a tape and video? Senator, I believe that was resolved prior to my confirmation as Attorney General. There's$50 ,000. Homan has it, or somebody has it. Do you have no interest in knowing where it is? You're not going to sit here and slander Tom Homan. What was going through your mind during that exchange? Well, you know, it's a simple question. It's clear that$50 ,000 was given by the FBI to Tom Homan, and it was in a paper bag, and it has all the earmarks of something suspicious.

46:09If you are the attorney general of the United States and there's some significant evidence that is damaging, you have got to want to get to the bottom of that. So the typical answers that she was given to questions was, number one, she doesn't know, it's not her problem, and you went through the recitation of all these other questions. So I was pretty shocked that she was so blatant in her unwillingness to answer that question and showed no curiosity, no curiosity about trying to get to the bottom of it. Senator Klobuchar, Democrat of Minnesota, pressed Bondi on Trump's social media post last month, where he seemed to be urging Attorney General Bondi and the DOJ to prosecute his political enemies, Schiff, Letitia James and James Comey.

46:57Take a listen to an excerpt of that. Do you consider that a directive to the Justice Department? Senator Klobuchar, President Trump is the most transparent president in American history. And I don't think he said anything that he hasn't said for years. You're a former attorney yourself. What did you make of Bondi's response there? Well, you know, you said it all. She had an audience of one, and that was President Trump. And the president was pleased. And he was pleased because she didn't answer any questions whatsoever. That was Senator Klobuchar asked a very straightforward question. And the consistent denial by her of having any knowledge or then turning it into an ad hominem attack It really is a statement of how the whole point of oversight hearings has been smashed.

47:46The witness can come in, Ann Bondi did it, she was aggressive in denial and placing personal blame on the questioner instead of answering the question. She's not credible. I'm just trying to think of any Republican attorney general in history, in living memory, from Ed Meese to Mukasey to Gonzalez to Ashcroft to Bill Barr to Jeff Sessions. I have a tough time imagining any of them answering questions the way Attorney General Bondi did. What do you think? Well, that's exactly right. And what I was saying, Jake, the whole concept here of an oversight hearing, where there is a separate responsibility of the United States Senate to get to the bottom of some of these questions that affect the public interest, that has been smashed and you saw a good display of how that has happened because Bondi comes in with no intention of answering questions.

48:42Something as elemental is where is the 50 ,000 or something as elemental is what's the legal authority for the president to be blowing up boats in the Caribbean and what's the evidence by which you decided to prosecute a former director and instead of doing that it's just political theater and it appeals to the president. So her audience is the president, but her loyalty to her role of equal justice under the law is really questionable. Meanwhile, it's day seven of the government shutdown. President Trump says, quote, it depends who we're talking about when asked if furloughed federal workers will be able to get back pay when the shutdown ends.

49:24The Republican House Speaker said that should, quote, turn up the pressure for Democrats to reopen the government. What's your view? JOHN YANG, President, That's illegal, what they're talking about. We have clear statutory language that any of the employees who are furloughed and who do not get their pay during the shutdown get retroactive pay when the government opens up. What the president and Mr. Vogt have also suggested is that they can fire people. They have no additional legal authority to do it. Does that stop them? Not necessarily. But there's absolutely an ironclad statutory requirement that folks who do not get their pay now will get it when the government reopens.

50:01And by the way, I hope we get reopened. But we've got to negotiate to make certain that folks in my state who voted for Trump and who voted for Harris but are in jeopardy of losing their health care, keep their health care. That is on us. And that drop dead date is November 1. So there's a great urgency here. Senator Peter Welsch of Vermont. Thank you, sir. Let's get a Republican's point of view now. Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin is with us also. Senator, what's your reaction to what your Democratic colleague said about how Attorney General Bondi didn't have answers to questions and just came performing for an audience of one?

50:35Well, Jake, well, and the abuses of the FBI and the Justice Department under President Biden. I mean, what he's complaining about in the Trump administration pale in comparison to the abuses of under President Obama and President Biden. So again, we can go back and forth tit for tat. I've got a long list. I think Josh Howell did a pretty good job of how the FBI was weaponized against Catholic groups, pro-life individuals, U.S. senators. I'm one of them, multiple times. So again, they don't have a really foot to stand on here. The weaponization has primarily been occurring by the Biden administration, by the Obama administration, not the Trump administration.

51:17They're trying to restore law and order, the rule of law. Well, let's see. You brought up the fact that yours were among the other Republican senators whom the FBI obtained the call records. That doesn't mean the content, just to explain to our viewers, that doesn't mean the content of the calls, but who called who, how long the call took place, the metadata. This was part of Special Counsel Jack Smith's January 6 investigation. Today, FBI Director Patel confirmed the firing of the agents involved and launched an investigation. Do you know that the phone records were obtained for political purposes?

51:52What else, what other reason would there be for that? I mean, the timeline is pretty clear. President Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence was raided in August of 2022. Then they hired Jack Smith. Jack Smith indicted president or announced the indictments in, I think, August of 2023. A couple months later, all of a sudden, the FBI goes on a fishing expedition and gets access to our phone records from January 4th to January 7th in the end of September. What is also interesting, Jake, is about a month after that, the Deputy Attorney General, Lisa Monaco, changed the procedures of collecting information on members of Congress.

52:30My guess is probably in response to that. I don't have proof of that, but I think you can infer that. So the question is, who knew what when? This is an outrageous violation of the separation of powers. and what possible reason could there be? They'd already indicted President Trump as they promised they would do. Letitia James. I mean, all these prosecutions, these are political persecutions. So, I mean, I think that the investigation, the Jack Smith investigation, as it pertained to your phone records and the other senators, that had to do with the insurrection, what happened on January 6th, the riot on Capitol Hill, etc.

53:12The attempt to stop the counting of electoral votes, I have no idea why they looked at you or Senator Hawley or the others. It is true that in 2022 we learned that one of your top aides, Sean Riley, allegedly tried to arrange a handoff of fake electors from Wisconsin and Michigan. No, Jake, let's go. Alternate electors. That was fully vetted. All those texts were made available to the January committee. I did absolutely nothing wrong. I'm not saying you did, but is it not possible they were looking into that? Again, the point is, what is the predicate for scooping up my phone records as well as Cynthia Lummis, Tommy Tuberville, Lindsey Graham, then chairman of the Judiciary Committee?

53:56Again, it's a very strange list. So no, there's no justification for this. We need answers. We need to know who knew what, when, how far the information ran up the chain of the Biden administration. And that's something Cash were telling Pam Bondi and Dan Bongino, that they've got to investigate that. And we need to make that public to the American people. But this was the first attempt in American history that there wasn't a peaceful transfer of power. And I assume that Jack Smith's, I have no idea why he did anything, but I assume he was looking into attempts to not count the electoral votes.

54:32You're giving him the benefit of the doubt. I'm not. I want to know exactly what the predicate was that he violated the separation of powers here. Again, and he circumvented the normal, very rigorous process that you have to go through to collect records on Congress by saying, well, they're not a target, they're not a subject of investigation. So they circumvented all that in a grand jury. Again, there is something really fishy about this. Again, I'm not surprised. I've been investigating the FBI. Heck, I understand why they think I'm a thorn in their side, but these other senators. But again, we need to get to the bottom of this.

55:05This is an outrageous violation of the separation of powers. But the grand jury approved the request to get the phone records, right? Is it not possible that what you call the alternate slate of electors, what others call fake electors, that that might have, from your aide, trying to give them to Pence's office? There is nothing that is exactly what somebody needs to do if they're challenging the results of an election. President Kennedy did that in Hawaii. Vice President Gore found out that by not having an alternate slate of electors, he had no leg to stand on in front of the Supreme Court. So a good attorney is going to protect his client by having an alternate slate of electors.

55:47Even our Wisconsin Attorney General said there was nothing improper about doing that until now he is using lawfare to try and destroy the legal counsel for President Trump. So again, this is this lawfare, this assault on the judicial system, weaponizing it against Republicans. This is this is broad. This is what the Democrat Party is doing across the board. One of the reasons that Cash Fatale and Pambani are having a hard time staffing their agencies, because people just don't want to have their lives destroyed by the legal, the less legal lawfare. Do you not understand why a lot of Americans thought that there should be an investigation into what happened on January 6th, 2021?

56:27I think there was all kinds of investigations, just not rigorous ones in terms of the FBI's involvement and their confidential human sources placed in the crowd. So, no, I actually wanted a rigorous investigation. We just haven't had one yet. And certainly not by Jack Smith and certainly not by the January 6th committee in the House. Republican Senator Ron Johnson of the great state of Wisconsin, thank you, sir. Appreciate it. Have a good evening. President Trump suggested some federal workers might not get back pay, and he announced which government programs he intends to permanently eliminate amid this government shutdown.

56:59How exactly is this supposed to work? That's next.

57:20You're not just gonna steal everything. Surprise! Ready to get your house cracked? For real? A little dated. It's time to turn this over to us. You guys gotta get out of here. Gotta get out of here. Crashers, all new Monday at 1030 on HGTV. In our politics lead, President Trump clearly frustrated with Democrats as the government shutdown bleeds into its seventh day. let's see if we can get it all done because these democrats are like insurrectionists okay they're so bad for our country they're the ones that started it they're the ones that have it and it's almost like uh a kamikaze attack by them the democrats have no leader they remind me of somalia okay so they are insurrectionists somali kamikazes caitlin collins is at the white house caitlin Trump was also asked to clarify whether federal workers are going to get back pay when the shutdown's over.

58:17Yeah, Jake, it was quite a back and forth inside the Oval Office earlier with reporters. But a lot of this centered on what happens to these federal workers who are stuck in the middle of what's happening between Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill, two of whom you just spoke with as this shutdown is dragging on. And one question was about back pay because there was a memo that was circulating here at the White House about whether or not all the federal workers who are furloughed basically required to stay home or to work without pay during this shutdown period if they would retroactively get their pay back once the government reopens.

58:50That is something that was thought to be settled law. But listen to what President Trump said earlier when he was asked about that memo that's been circulating here at the White House. The Democrats have put a lot of people in great risk and jeopardy, but it really depends on who you're talking about. But for the most part we're going to take care of our people. There are some people that really don't deserve to be taken care of and we'll take care of them in a different way. And a lot of those jobs will never come back. But you're going to have you're going to have you're going to have a lot closer to a balanced budget actually.

59:23So Jake when the president was asked to be clear there whether or not everyone who is furloughed would get back pay he basically said that some likely will and some potentially won't. He didn't really clarify who exactly he believes would qualify to get their back pay and who wouldn't. And the reason this is causing so many questions, and I obviously heard what Chairman Comer was saying to you earlier, that he thinks everyone will get their back pay, is because after that longest shutdown that happened, the 35-day one in 2018 here at the White House, when Trump was in office the last time, Congress passed a law that basically would remove federal workers as being kind of the pawn at the middle of this, the people who bear the brunt of these government shutdowns, by guaranteeing that they would get their back pay for that government shutdown, but also Jake, and most importantly, it said that they would get their back pay for future funding lapses of the federal government, that they wouldn't have to worry about that, essentially.

1:00:14And so that is a law that President Trump signed that a lot of Republicans that are right now on Capitol Hill arguing with Democrats about this, that they voted yes on. And now the White House is basically arguing that they're interpreting it differently. So obviously we'll see what happens there, Jake, and if the White House actually follows through on this threat. So far they haven't even followed through on that threat about mass firings. But I will say also, Jake, it's not just the law. There was a recent Q &A put out here at the White House as this shutdown was was very much obviously going to happen here in Washington.

1:00:42That did say federal workers who are furloughed would get their back paid during this period, despite what we heard from the president today. Caitlin Collins at the White House. Thanks so much tonight on her show. The Source with Caitlin Collins. Caitlin's going to speak with Republican Congressman Jim Jordan, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. Look for that tonight at nine Eastern, only on CNN. Spingul was the first and only foreign terrorist tried in a U.S. criminal court for killing American service members abroad in a war zone. But he would have gotten away with it if it weren't for a dedicated team of officials and investigators.

1:01:13And I'm going to talk to one of those officials next.

1:01:20In Our World Lead, an encounter at a party led me to a remarkable story that led to this book. It was about three years ago this month. I was hosting a birthday party for my son in rural Virginia. It was a paintball party. He was 13, far from D.C. So I had food and drink for the grownups so they could just hang out for a couple hours instead of having to make the back and forth trip too many times. One of the dads approached me. He told me he met somebody from my book about Afghanistan, The Outpost. I said that was a tough book to write because the military keeps such bad records and they're reluctant to share them.

1:01:49And he said, tell me about it. And then he proceeded to share with me this incredible story about how when he was an assistant U.S. attorney in Brooklyn, he got a phone call from the FBI. The Italians, during the Arab Spring, picked up a man on a cruise ship. He claimed he was in Al-Qaeda. He said he had killed Americans in Afghanistan. He had tried to blow up the U.S. embassy in Nigeria. That dad that I met, a man named Dave Bitcower, and his team had a choice to make at that time. Either the Italians were going to essentially let this guy go, or the American judicial system, the U.S. attorney's office in Brooklyn, the FBI, could try to gather the evidence and prove that this al-Qaeda operative was actually guilty of these offenses.

1:02:26The dad spun this incredible tale of sleuthing and investigative prowess. It was fascinating to me, and it became this brand new book out today. It's called Race Against Terror, and that former assistant U.S. attorney, Dave Bitcower, joins me now to talk about the story. So first of all, the story of your sleuthing, I mean, the book is basically a detective book, and you're the detective, and your fellow U.S. assistant, U.S. Attorney Shreve, and other FBI agents, and the sleuthing was so fascinating. Is that typical for a prosecution, that kind of investigative work? Well, first of all, Jake, thanks for having me here, and I'm just so thrilled to see this book in print after the work we did, and all the great work that everyone else did that you talked about.

1:03:08So it's typical in a certain kind of case, right? So not necessarily a reactive case where there's been a murder or a shooting, but a historical investigation, which is the kind of investigation that my colleague and I had done as AUSAs or Assistant U.S. Attorneys in Brooklyn, where events took place sometimes five, ten years ago, and you have to gather the clues and talk to the witnesses and put together something that's persuasive to a jury all those years later as as what actually happened. So to this day, Spengul is the only foreign terrorist tried in a U.S. criminal court and convicted for killing American service members on a battlefield.

1:03:49Why do you think that is? So it was a really unique moment in time. There had been obviously a lot of fighting on the battlefield in Afghanistan and in Iraq. And of course, the approach of the Bush administration was to take most of those folks and put them in military custody of one kind or another. But when this came on our radar, this was a different administration. Gitmo was not an option for someone like Spengul, who was in custody in Europe, in Italy. The only option was either Italian prosecution, which as you say in the book, would have kept him in prison for a couple of months, maybe a year, or a trial in American civilian court.

1:04:24So that was the mission that we faced. Trump is now trying to prosecute the second foreign terrorist in a U.S. criminal court, in this case Virginia, for killing service members in a war zone. In this case, the 13 service members killed during the Abbey Gate suicide bombing. His name is Jafar. What advice would you give those prosecutors? So the approach we took here, which is the advice I would give to anyone building a case like this, is you treat it like what it is. This was murder, right? It happened to be murdered by a terrorist. It happened to be murder on a battlefield. It happened to be halfway across the world.

1:04:57But it was murder, which meant there were witnesses. It meant there was physical evidence, it meant there were other facts that we could bring together and prove with the help of all those FBI agents that you mentioned to try to put together a compelling case for the jury. And in this case, we also not only had, obviously we have a murder, we have, that means there's victims. And when you can tell the story of victims to a jury, they obviously pay close attention and they pay close attention to the evidence. And so we were able to bring together that kind of case. So one of the, this was not intended as a tribute to government employees, to assistant U.S.

1:05:31attorneys and FBI agents and NCIS investigators and the like. But it kind of is like a tribute to a government that works efficiently. One of the people who I never met because he never returned my calls or emails, but is a legendary guy at the Justice Department named George Toskis. And he was like a big hurdle for you guys. You guys had to get him to approve your cases. He's basically been sidelined at the Justice Department because he signed off on the Mar-a-Lago warrant. But regardless of that, tell me about Toskis. How important was he to that case and other cases like it? So I'll say in the years that I worked counterterrorism cases as a prosecutor, there are very few American lawyers that I've met who have worked as hard as George Toskis has over the years in pursuing the counterterrorism mission.

1:06:16I can't count the number of cases I worked on with him, but it didn't matter if it was a weekend, late at night. To get a case over the line where it could be charged, to get a search warrant approved in a terrorism case, he worked as hard as he could. In this particular case, as you say, this was an unusual case. And we knew that to get this case approved, this was gonna have to go up to the highest levels to the White House. And George's job was really to fly-spec it and bulletproof it and make it fit to survive that process. And he got it done. He did indeed. And so did you and so did Shreve and so did Roshanna and so did Susanna and so did all the others that I write about in this book.

1:06:58The book's Race Against Terror, it's out today. Dave Bittkauer, thank you so much for telling me that story on that October afternoon. Who knew it would end up in print? Thanks so much. It's been exactly two years since the terrorist group Hamas killed 1 ,200 Israelis and took more than 250 innocent people hostage. As negotiators work to secure the release of the remaining hostages, I'm going to talk to the family of one of those hostages next. In our world lead, Israeli President Isaac Herzog thanked President Trump today for his, quote, incredible efforts to end the war in Gaza and to secure the release of the remaining hostages.

1:07:32Right now, negotiators are in Egypt working at the details of Trump's 20-point ceasefire plan. A source with knowledge of the talks tells us that progress has been made. Joining us now in studio is Lishai Miran-Lavi. She's wife of Israeli hostage Omri Miran. Two years ago, Hamas terrorists held you and your daughters hostage in your home in the kibbutz and they kidnapped your husband how are you doing today how are you holding up in this horrible anniversary um it's a difficult and I decided to come here this year the last year I was in Israel and I go to our kibbutz to our home because it's the most place that I feel close to Omri and can talk to him.

1:08:25But this year I decided to come here because I know that here there is a lot of people in the administration and President Trump really hear us. And you think that President Trump hears you more than Netanyahu does? uh i say unfortunately but yes unfortunately yes so we should we should tell our our viewers that your husband is among the 20 hostages believed to still be alive yeah i just want to make sure yeah he's the most oldest over there is 48 years old already uh he's a father and he's still there We know that he is alive. The last sign of life that we have from him, it was in April this year with a propaganda video.

1:09:22But we really don't know. We really don't know if he, what is it, if he's a fear. We know that they are touching him over there. we didn't speak with him two years we really didn't see him two years and I really worried because you know this is there is a lot of talk around us this week but until it's not over it's not really over and we're really waiting for them all of them all the 48. And I waiting for Omri and Ronnie and Alma waiting for their daddy. So your daughters are four and two. You said the oldest daughter remembers two years ago. How is she doing? You talked to her today. How is she doing?

1:10:17You know, she's okay. I'm trying to give her and Alma to both of them a regular childhood. but the fact that their father still in captivity in Gaza it's over there always Ronnie in the last week she's start to remember the hug that Omri gave her before he before we went with a terrorist when he was on his arms all the time that we hold together as a family and she had the memory of his hugs and she really want she told me this week mommy I can feel the hug and I start to think to myself it's crazy after two years she's always I try to remember more things and she's really really miss him even after two years I hope I hope that she's getting that hug for real very soon.

1:11:26I hope the ceasefire deal happens. I hope also. And God bless your daughters. God bless you. God bless your family. I hope this horrible situation ends as quickly as possible. Thank you very much. Thanks for being here. Thanks. The air traffic control facility for a major airport is going to close for five hours tonight due to a short staffing problem. How your travel is being impacted by the government shutdown. That's next. In our national lead, as the U.S. federal government shutdown stretches on to seven days, we're seeing an air traffic issue taking a hit. In just about 15 minutes, the air traffic control tower responsible for flights in and out of Nashville's airport is going to close for five hours due to a staffing shortage.

1:12:07Towers for other major airports, including Chicago's O 'Hare, one of the busiest in the nation, are also dealing with staffing issues. Let's bring in Nick Daniels. He's president of the National Air Traffic Controlling Association. So Nick, last night the control tower at the Burbank Airport in California also went completely dark. Right before the tower shut down, they told pilots this. Just give a headset on. You said everything's closed for like our clearances? Clearances closed, grounds closed, locals closed. The tower is closed due to staffing. Please just contact SoCal on the 800 number in the green book for your clearance.

1:12:43So pilots were told to call a number, then to navigate to a page in the Green Book. It seems like a lot for a pilot trying to take off or land a plane. Is that also what's going to happen in Nashville tonight? And is it safe? Good evening, Jake. I appreciate you having me. And the ability to communicate this to the American flying public, A, it's absolutely safe. There's been over a thousand occurrences this year alone of having to declare what we call ATC zero at a facility. whether that's due to staffing, whether it's due to equipment, is where we go to alternate procedures, where you heard them talk about Southern California TRACON, those amazing individuals, work through the situation, ensure the safe landing of every aircraft going in and out of there, so much so that Southwest Airlines thanked them for the amazing service they got.

1:13:27Unfortunately, this is the system that we have, critically understaffed with unreliable equipment. We're unfortunately used to having to deal with issues just like this. But it's getting worse because of the shutdown, right? No, it's not getting worse because the shutdown is finally getting highlighted, and it's now a center of attention. It's the front page news of what the amazing air traffic controllers deal with day in and day out. They deal with going to a shift that is critically short, and one or two people, they may lose their medical clearance because they had to take a prescription medication or somebody got sick.

1:13:57We have to do things just like this, combine up airspace and put more of a burden on the air traffic controllers that already exist today. So if the shutdown stretches into next week, air traffic controllers will receive their last partial paycheck next Tuesday. That does mean that thousands of controllers will be working without pay. You know, the job requires money to put gas into your car to get to work or to hire a sitter to watch your kid. If people can't afford to get to work, they might call out sick. Here's what the Secretary of Transportation, Sean Duffy, had to say about that. Take a listen.

1:14:28Have we had a slight tick up in sick calls? Yes. But our priorities are safety. And so if we have additional sick calls, we will reduce the flow consistent with a rate that's safe for the American people. It was this very issue that ended the 35 day government shutdown back in 2019. Do you think the outcome might be the same this time around? Well, that's one of the things that I wanted to make sure is clear to the American people. Air traffic controllers don't start a shutdown and we don't end a shutdown. Politicians are the ones that start the shutdown, and they're the only ones that have the ability to end the shutdown.

1:15:03Air traffic controllers are going to do everything they can to show up to duty, save people's lives, and do the job that we do day in and day out. Now, when we're put in a situation, and as this continues on, and people have to start making human choices of, do I put food on the table? Do I take care of my kids? Am I a single parent? We all work shifts, and having to pay for that as well, the bills don't stop. And just because we're going to get paid back eventually doesn't mean that it makes it easier on them. So air traffic controllers are going to go to their primary job, but then they'll start having to take up a second job to ensure they have a steady stream of income.

1:15:40And we know the American people don't want to see that. And that's why the shutdown has to end today before it becomes to measures just like that. All right, Nick Daniels, thank you so much. Appreciate your time, sir. Absolutely. Thank you. Here now is the panel. So Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene is stepping on the shutdown message from Republican leaders. She posted, quote, I'm going to go against everyone on this issue because when the tax credits, meaning the Obamacare tax credits that the Democrats are fighting for, when the tax credits expire this year, my own adult children's insurance premiums for 2026 are going to double, along with all the wonderful families and hardworking people in my district.

1:16:14No, I'm not towing the party line on this or playing loyalty games. I'm a Republican. I won't vote for illegals to have any taxpayer-funded health care benefits. It's absolutely shameful, disgusting, and traitorous that our laws and policies screw the American people so much that the government is shut down right now fighting over basic issues like this. David Urban. Man. What do you think? That's a lot to unpack. I don't even know where to go with that. I'm still processing the air traffic control situation. So let's just talk about the fact that we have now heard from a few Republicans on this issue of what the Democrats, I think that even though they put forward this alternate legislation that has a lot of spending, it seems like Democrats are focused primarily on the Obamacare subsidies.

1:16:54Is that an issue where the Republicans should give? Listen, I think you saw the president in the Oval the other day talking about it. It seemed to me he was trying to provide some space for negotiations to land the plane, not to mix metaphors here, but to come to some resolution on this issue and say, not to take the Marjorie Taylor Greene position, but to say, look, I'm a Republican. I'm for healthcare too. There's gotta be a way forward on this, right? We can't have, at some point in the not too distant future, members of the military are gonna get their paychecks, right? So you have air traffic controllers, members of the military, people in America are gonna start paying attention and someone's gonna pay a political price.

1:17:33And that's the point when the folks on Capitol Hill will get serious about this and really kind of have to negotiate. So I think there's gonna be a resolution The Democrats are trying to force it. Republicans still, I think, have a little bit of leverage in terms of being able to cut some fat from the federal bureaucracy. But we'll have to wait and see in the next few weeks. Well, and also, if you're a federal employee, you're probably done with this administration and with government overall. And, I mean, you're working a thankless job. The way that this ends is it ends with a narrative on health care.

1:18:07And so either President Trump comes to the table and there is a deal on ACA subsidies or a few Democratic senators in purple states potentially vote with Republicans to end this shutdown. If that is the case, you will have Democrats saying, listen, we tried to come to an agreement here, but Republicans failed. And the only reason that your health care is going up is because Republicans failed to come to the table. And that will be the issue that Democrats try to run on ahead of the midterm elections. And the last time that Democrats tried to do this, we ended up winning the midterm election. So I think that regardless of what happens in either scenario, we end with talking about health care and whether or not we can bring down premiums.

1:18:52So listen to the Democratic leader of the Senate, Chuck Schumer. He read the first part of the Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene post that I just read. And then he said this. So hold on to your hats. I think this is the first time I said this. But on this issue, Representative Green said it perfectly. Representative Green is absolutely right. I mean, I'm not sure which part of her tweet he's talking. Well, I think it's the part about when the tax credits expire this year, my own adult children's insurance premiums for 2026 are going to double. Yeah, they'll go up. And that's the part where Republicans are going to have to find a solemnic solution.

1:19:31right? Because, you know, you're right. You're going to have these midterms are coming up. People don't want their premiums to increase right before the midterms. It's a box they've got to figure their way out of. But yet there's this narrative that's out there that somehow that illegal immigrants are somehow benefiting from the ACA. And I think Republicans need to find a way to dispel the myth, that myth. That's the way they're going to have to get out of it. They're going to put the facts on the table, dispel that. And they're going to have to come to address the cost of the ACA. What's like$35 billion for these extensions a year?

1:20:04So$350 over 10. That's a lot of money. It is a lot of money. I think that with Donald Trump won on costs and if the American people don't see a big shift in terms of what they're paying every day, then that is bad news for Republicans, not only in the midterms, but whenever J.D. Vance wants to run for president next time around. I don't sense a lot of Republican desire to extend these Obamacare tax credits whenever I bring it up. I agree. Generally speaking, with the one exception of Don Bacon, who's like more moderate-ish, Republicans are like, if the Democrats wanted that, they shouldn't have built in the end date of this.

1:20:43This is COVID era. They don't seem to want to extend these subsidies. They also believe that they won the last presidential election on immigration. And they believe that talking about undocumented immigrants potentially getting health care, which is a lie, they believe that is a winning message for them. The only way they're going to sort of change their mind on health care and costs is that the voters, they're seeing something from the voters. Yeah, but, you know, I just saw Harry, our own Harry Antin, put some numbers out yesterday. Trump's numbers are still great. Still throughout the shutdown, through all these messaging, through all this, he's still at 44%, 43 % like the CBS poll.

1:21:18Not all the time. This is recent polling. He's been going down. Recent polling. On the topic of social media, I'm sure you saw this over your feeds for the second time now. LeBron James teased a big announcement. Spoiler alert, it was not about his retirement. It was an ad promoting Hennessy. And you can imagine fans are not pleased on Twitter. One user posted, the boy who cried wolf. Everyone going to think your real retirement is an ad come time. Another user posted, LeBron, never, ever, ever, ever pull this stuff. Stunt. Now I have to delete my draft. Did you fall for it? Listen, I didn't know LeBron James posted anything.

1:21:49I'm more concerned about my Steelers, you know, Jake. Like, that's, you know, we got to beat the brownies coming up. I thought it was a good PR move. Everybody paid attention, and we're all talking about it. So kudos to them. Hennessy, come on. All right. Thanks to both of you. Appreciate it. A new study shows that drinking even one can of a popular type of drink may raise the risk of common liver disease. We have to 60%. And I'm not talking about anything alcoholic. That's next.

1:22:18Starting in our last leads and our world lead, a hydro-powered dam in northern Vietnam burst, unleashing torrents of water to nearby villages. Footage shows the rising streams from Typhoon Matmo overflowing and pushing through the dam, causing flooding to a nearby hospital. Thankfully, officials say no human casualties have been reported. And our health lead, diet sodas may not be the healthy alternative that some think they are. A new study found that both regular sugary drinks and diet drinks can significantly increase risk of liver diseases, specifically non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. Just one can of diet soda per day could raise that risk by 60%.

1:23:00That's more than one can of a regular non-diet sugary drink, which raises the risk up to 50%. This condition has doubled in the U.S. in the last three decades and is one of the leading causes of liver cancer. Coming up tomorrow on The Lead, we're going to have House Speaker Mike Johnson. What will it take to get federal workers back on the job? Johnson's key to those negotiations. We'll talk to him about that. Look for that tomorrow on The Lead, which starts at 5 o 'clock Eastern every weekday. If you ever miss an episode of The Lead, you can listen to the show once you get your podcast. Aaron Burnett out front starts now.

1:23:38Hey, I'm Anderson Cooper. On my podcast, All There Is, we explore grief and loss in all its complexities. My mom would always say, the only way out is through. The only way out is through. There are no shortcuts. You have to feel it. Her name is Nicole Avant. She's a producer, a former diplomat, and an author. In 2021, Nicole's mom, Jacqueline, was shot to death by an intruder in her home. She was 81 years old and had been married to Nicole's dad, Clarence, for 54 years. How is grief different for you now than it was maybe at first? A lot of really positive memories have now taken over versus the shock and the trauma.

1:24:19The grief is still there, but it shows up kind of with a smile instead. Talking grief, building community. That's what the podcast is all about. This is all there is. Listen and follow wherever you get your podcasts.