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00:00Coming to you live on this President's Day, which is, of course, a day to still reflect
00:05on all the U.S. presidents and the great ones who've come throughout history.
00:09There's a classic Rushmore hello to you.
00:11I can tell you in the same theme that one of the most beloved presidents alive, Barack
00:18Obama, is driving new headlines from an interview, his first public comment since Trump posted
00:23that terribly racist video.
00:25He comments on the Minnesota protests.
00:28You may have seen some highlights.
00:29Well, we have the podcaster who conducted that interview joining us later tonight and
00:34also some of the highlights from it.
00:35So that's one way we're happening to mark President's Day, given the news.
00:39He was also spotted at the All-Star Game this weekend for a little fun.
00:44Yes, we still have fun around here.
00:45There he was catching the ball unplanned.
00:49We're going to get into all of that tonight on this President's Day.
00:52But we begin with our top story, which is Donald Trump's DOJ under fire for more errors, bungling
00:57or outright malfeasance in the Epstein files.
01:01Lawmakers, including some in both parties, criticizing the DOJ for the next step, also
01:08late in its compliance with the Epstein transparency law.
01:11The DOJ sent a six-page letter to Congress.
01:14This is required by that law.
01:15And it discusses the very controversial redactions and purports to list all the government officials
01:22and politically exposed persons that are named in the files.
01:25That's one of the law's requirements.
01:27But the list doesn't really pass muster.
01:31With very little context, it includes some names that are exposed, including President
01:36Trump, Steve Bannon, Les Wexner, a billionaire tied to Epstein, and then others like Janis
01:43Joplin and Marilyn Monroe, which is hard to understand because it's not understandable.
01:48Those individuals, long deceased, do not fit in the congressional definition.
01:53So it raises the question, one, why are they on this list?
01:56And two, did the DOJ even proofread and correct this list?
02:00Does it care about even seeming like it's accurate and on the level?
02:04He continues on Attorney General Bondi.
02:07Even some conservative commentators have suggested that her time is up, that she should resign
02:11after a bonkers and combative congressional hearing, where she really made it a point
02:17not to answer questions, despite being under oath and that being part of the job of showing
02:21up for an oversight hearing.
02:22Lawmakers continuing to call her out.
02:27This is a massive cover-up being led by the White House and the DOJ.
02:31Do you still have confidence in Pam Bondi as Attorney General?
02:38I don't think Pam Bondi has confidence in Pam Bondi.
02:41The actual files that have been out in the public or that we've seen, they're overly redacted.
02:46Ultimately, it's her who is responsible for the document production.
02:52The last voice you heard is a Republican member of Congress discussing the obvious.
02:56Despite all of the lower standards or rank incompetence that has been on display in the
03:05administration recently, the Attorney General is responsible for this.
03:08And the letter is not accurate.
03:09And they already broke the law by being this late.
03:12And Bondi's been caught making several misstatements or lies about the Epstein files.
03:17So in a healthy, normal democracy, you would have accountability for that.
03:21The person might resign trying to show the president they get it, or they might be removed by the
03:26president.
03:26Or if the malfeasance is proven, Congress might ultimately consider impeaching Bondi out of her
03:32role, something that former Trump lawyer Ty Cobb talked to us about making some headlines.
03:36That was just last week.
03:37As for what we're learning in the files, well, there was one Trump confidant, Tom Barrack,
03:42who is the U.S. ambassador to Turkey and has been a special envoy, who had contact with
03:47Epstein for years.
03:49Commerce Secretary Lutnik only admitted that he visited Epstein's island after the new
03:54files showed that he'd been lying about that in public.
03:56Other powerful individuals outside of the Trump cabinet and administration have faced far
04:01more accountability than people working for Trump.
04:05There was a story we reported on when it first broke that Casey Wasserman, who's really a
04:11powerhouse figure behind the scenes in L.A., not maybe a name that everybody knows, but
04:15you know all his clients.
04:16He's one of these super agents.
04:18And so many of his clients have basically protested his link to Maxwell in the files, saying they
04:26would or will leave if he doesn't do something, that he's actually selling his entire agency,
04:31his entire empire, because he doesn't have clients who will stand by him, or Obama vet
04:36and prominent business people ousted.
04:38International figures have been held to account.
04:41We have continued to see this contrast between accountability in independent institutions and
04:48abroad, while President Trump, who once claimed he wanted to get to the bottom of these files,
04:53won't even remove a single employee of their role, despite really audacious links to Epstein.
05:00The discrepancy in the accountability is glaring.
05:05So as we begin the week, I want to bring in two people who have done a lot of work
05:09on
05:09this, covering it, discussing it.
05:11Andrew Weissman is a former FBI general counsel, former prosecutor, New York Times columnist
05:14Michelle Goldberg.
05:15Welcome to both of you.
05:17Michelle, I mentioned that contrast is something you raised on this program and others have,
05:22that abroad there are governments taking this more seriously in corrective action.
05:27Everybody knows what's done, sometimes sadly is done, but action.
05:32And Donald Trump, who rode a wave of Epstein outrage in 24, won't so much as relieve a single,
05:38you know, a single employee entangled up with Epstein.
05:42What do you see there in that contrast tonight?
05:44Well, I mean, I think the difference in democratic accountability is a big part of it.
05:49This government has worked to insulate itself from any of the mechanisms of accountability.
05:53There's also just different interests at play.
05:56I don't think that, you know, I don't think that the government of England or of France,
06:01where a diplomat is in trouble over his Epstein ties, the governments themselves are not fundamentally
06:08invested in minimizing Epstein and his crimes the way that this government is, because the
06:13head of this government is one of the people that you would think would be held accountable
06:18if you start going down that road, right?
06:20I mean, it's the head of the head of the United States, members of his cabinet, people who
06:26were intimately involved in his campaign.
06:29This is his circle.
06:30And so obviously he has a not just vested interest, but really an existential interest in avoiding
06:39accountability for Epstein relationships.
06:45Yeah, and Andrew, I mentioned the letter.
06:48There were many people skeptical of this DOJ under Bondi who thought, would you ever get
06:53any documents?
06:54Would you ever get anything that wasn't totally blacked out?
06:58And so in my job as a journalist, I think it's important that we reflect that there was
07:04a lot of new material released.
07:06And some of it made Trump figures look bad for the reasons we just discussed.
07:11Some of them made Steve Bannon and others look bad.
07:13We don't know, perhaps, whether other really hot material around the president, et cetera,
07:18was still not given up.
07:20But I'm wondering how you view that level of compliance.
07:24The DOJ apparently did not want to just completely break the law, obviously.
07:29And now their partial compliance with the letter, which matters because that's where they document
07:36under the law what they gave over.
07:38But names like Marilyn Monroe and Joplin kind of, at a minimum, make a joke of it.
07:43How do we look at this with nuance, with balance for what's happening, Andrew?
07:48Sure.
07:49Well, let's start with the fact that there are documents that were released.
07:54But it's hard to say that you should give credit to the Department of Justice for partially
08:00complying with the law.
08:01Remember, they weren't doing any of this until Congress passed a law that said you have to.
08:07And so I just can't stomach the idea that I'm going to be saying, oh, well, attorney general
08:13deserves credit for complying in part with the law.
08:17That's her job.
08:18That is what the Department of Justice is supposed to do.
08:21But let's now focus on the in part.
08:24In the letter that was just released to Congress, they actually say that they are withholding documents.
08:32They don't say how many, but it could be in the millions because we know that there's a huge tranche
08:40they turned over,
08:41but there's a huge tranche they're keeping.
08:43And they say they're withholding it based on privileges.
08:47They say it's attorney-client.
08:49They say it's work product.
08:51It's deliberative process.
08:53That means all of the documents that we'd be very interested in, which is government reports, government assessments,
09:01all of that could be withheld under those claimed privileges.
09:05Why is that a problem?
09:07It's a problem because the law itself does not permit that.
09:11The law actually says these are the grounds you can assert, and these are the grounds you cannot assert.
09:19And so the department is not in compliance with the law.
09:23So that's another reason that I think it's fair to say about the department that they are completely flouting their
09:32legal responsibilities.
09:33And if you think there's damning material in what's been released, you do have to ask yourself what's in the
09:40remaining parts.
09:42Yeah, exactly.
09:44Michelle, Joe Rogan rode this wave with Trump in 24.
09:48But unlike, say, most of the Republican members of Congress or Fox News,
09:53he has a type of independent audience and voice where he is calling out what he sees is wrong with
10:00it,
10:01which is obviously quite different than some of the other folks who rode along with Trump in 24.
10:06Here he was speaking recently about how the Epstein release is going.
10:13Why would your name be redacted if you're not a victim?
10:17Like, this is what's crazy about all this.
10:19Like, how come you redact some people and you don't redact other people?
10:23Like, what is this?
10:25This is not good.
10:26None of this is good for this administration.
10:27It looks f***ing terrible.
10:30It looks terrible.
10:31It looks terrible for Trump when he was saying that none of this was real.
10:36This is all a hoax.
10:37This is not a hoax.
10:38Like, did you not know?
10:42Michelle, where does that fit into this as a very widely discussed story
10:46that has some people refereeing it saying no to what Rogan has called Trump's gaslighting and lies?
10:56Look, I'm certainly glad that Joe Rogan and kind of other Mamasphere influencers
11:00are coming around to seeing what many other people have seen in Donald Trump for a long time,
11:06because it's not as if Donald Trump's very close relationship with Epstein was a secret before any of this,
11:13you know, before his re-election, before his first election, frankly,
11:17you know, at the time when he hired Alex Acosta into his government the first time around.
11:23That said, I think that because the way that they're handling it,
11:28the ever-changing stories that are irreconcilable on their face,
11:34from, you know, I have all these documents on my desk,
11:36to the documents don't exist with Pam Bondi,
11:39you know, to that embarrassing display before Congress where, you know,
11:43we should be talking about the fact that the stock market is at 50,000.
11:48It's so, it maybe works if you are entirely encased within the bubble of Donald Trump's alternative reality.
11:57But if you have even, you know, a finger or a toe in the real world,
12:02you can see how that it just doesn't add up, right?
12:05It's so obvious that they are not being honest and not being frank.
12:10And then you have these documents, both the way that they were released,
12:15the weird redactions, the fact that they weren't released in total,
12:21just feeds kind of the sense of mystery and conspiratorial thinking.
12:29And in this case, the sense that there are,
12:31the legitimate sense that there are real conspiracies out there,
12:34that feeds kind of discourse and that feeds podcasts.
12:40Yeah. And Andrew, I've just about a minute left.
12:43We mentioned, of course, some of these individuals,
12:46they weren't accused of criminal wrongdoing.
12:48There's a DOJ process for this that's been running a long time.
12:51When you look, though, at the fact checking or the question of
12:55if there are materials being held back that should not be under the law,
12:59is this the end of the line? What else does Congress do?
13:01Are they just taking the DOJ's word for it?
13:05Well, that's not really a question for me.
13:08There's lots of levers they could pull.
13:11So remember that Congress does have the power of the purse.
13:15They also do have the ability to hold on nominations.
13:19So they do actually have a lot of power.
13:23Remember, they did manage to get a consensus to pass the Epstein Transparency Act.
13:28So now it really is a question of are they going to take action,
13:32given that the department is now an open defiance of them
13:38in terms of what it is that Congress said they wanted.
13:42So, you know, obviously we've seen Congress, you know, back down and not assert its will.
13:47That's not how the Constitution was envisaged.
13:50It was envisaged that it would be ambition against ambition.
13:53And it remains to be seen if they will do that here.
13:58Yeah. Understood.
13:59Andrew Weissman and Michelle Goldberg, thanks to both of you.
14:02Happy President's Day.
14:04Coming up, we'll look at how Democrats are using their powers to try to get control of ICE.
14:09And that new Obama interview we have.
14:12But next, we look at Kristi Noem's election problems.
14:16Gene Robinson is here in 90 seconds.
14:23Democrats are playing hardball.
14:25If you follow all of these shutdown politics, we start the week here on a holiday
14:29with DHS employees working without pay.
14:32Democrats say there are restrictions they demand on ICE to reopen the government,
14:37making them follow these warrant rules that's in the Constitution itself,
14:41showing ID, body cams, and getting rid of these masks.
14:45Here's Trump border czar Tom Homan.
14:49As far as the masks, look, you know, I don't like the masks either.
14:53But because threats against ICE officers, you know, are up over 1,500 percent, actual assaults.
14:59And threats are up over 8,000 percent.
15:02These men wouldn't have to protect themselves.
15:03I'll let the White House and members of Congress, you know, fight that out.
15:08But I think some of the masks are just, I think they're unreasonable.
15:14The White House thinks the masks are basically unreasonable.
15:18The Democrats have the wind at their backs.
15:20As for what's reasonable, well, a majority of the country is against Trump's ICE tactics
15:25as having gone too far.
15:26And the very disturbing and terrible reality of two Americans slain in the streets
15:32has not exactly made people think that the ICE approach is very reasonable.
15:36Now, Politico has an assessment of Trump's second year in office thus far,
15:41the second, excuse me, the first year of the second term,
15:45discussing a kind of whiplash, a series of self-inflicted wounds,
15:48the about face on everything from immigration and tariffs
15:51to all that time spent on threatening Greenland.
15:54Politico says it's painfully obvious there's no strategy.
15:58And the Times looks at how Trump has tried to take President's Day
16:02and make himself the focus of everything.
16:04They liken that more to what dictators do,
16:07a spree of self-aggrandizement that goes beyond mere vanity.
16:11Mr. Trump, the Times writes, is making himself
16:13an inescapable force in American life.
16:16And yet it is not making him any more popular.
16:19Seeing Trump everywhere is apparently reminding people
16:21of what Trump's government is doing.
16:24And he's crashed to his lowest polling point overall,
16:27including on issues he once did better on,
16:30like immigration and economics.
16:32We are joined by Eugene Robinson,
16:34Pulitzer President and columnist and MSNOW analyst.
16:38Your thoughts on all of that, including a second shutdown.
16:42We all know that the more you experience something,
16:44the more you get used to it.
16:47I'm old enough,
16:49so I bet you're probably old enough to remember
16:51that 20 years ago a shutdown was like a big deal.
16:55Now we have a second one.
16:57There's a lot of other important stuff going on.
16:58What does it tell you, though, that Democrats think they can hold the line here again,
17:02that they want to use what few minority powers they have to try to trim ice?
17:09Well, number one, yes, I am old enough to remember when a shutdown was a big deal.
17:13Now, this is just a partial shutdown.
17:15It's DHS shutdown.
17:16But that's a lot of stuff.
17:20Look, I don't think Democrats have a choice.
17:25Democrats have to answer to their voters,
17:28and their voters will not stand for Democrats quickly caving on this.
17:36So that's number one.
17:38I mean, I think it's kind of a matter of political survival for Democrats at this point.
17:44And second, what they're protesting and what they're asking for, rather,
17:49is just plain common sense.
17:52It's so normal that, again, I don't see how they could do otherwise.
17:59Don't wear masks, OK?
18:01This is not an American thing for a policing agency
18:06to be running around the streets with masks, with no ID, with no warrants,
18:14just grabbing people.
18:16You know, I remember that elderly man who was taken out of his house
18:21in his shorts and bathrobe with no warrant, by masked men.
18:29That's not supposed to be America.
18:32And I think you have to simply take a stand.
18:37If you don't take a stand here, where do you take a stand?
18:41Yeah.
18:43Nancy Pelosi was speaking out.
18:44She is widely seen as one of the Democrats' tough, more effective leaders
18:48during her tenure.
18:50And she was drawing this line on the concern about Trump's effort
18:54to undercut or steal elections in the future.
18:57Take a look.
19:00I hear that all over the United States.
19:02It's not just in Europe, that there is concern about the election.
19:06Let me just say that surveillance by the intelligence operation of our country,
19:13surveillance in our own country is something that is absolutely not to be allowed.
19:19I know if there's some particular reason, there's one thing.
19:22But for them, for Tessie Gabbard to be looking into elections is really not right.
19:29It's not lawful.
19:32Gene?
19:34No, I would agree.
19:36And look, add to that what Kristi Noem had to say about elections.
19:43And Kristi Noem said, essentially, we're going to make sure, referring to the midterm,
19:49we're going to make sure that the right people get to the polls to elect the right people,
19:55right?
19:55The right voters get to elect the right people.
19:57Well, that's pretty ominous sounding, because it sounds as if she's saying we're going to decide
20:03who the right people are and act accordingly.
20:07And so it's not paranoia to be really concerned about the conduct of the coming election and to guard against
20:21any sort of shenanigans that this administration might pull.
20:27Yeah, it is President's Day, so we will end with a little more historical view.
20:34These are two historians talking about their Mount Rushmore.
20:37This was on Ari Emanuel's podcast who stopped by here recently.
20:41Take a listen to their picks.
20:45I'm going to keep Washington.
20:47I'm going to keep Lincoln.
20:49I'm going to keep Teddy.
20:51But I'm going to replace Jefferson with FDR.
20:55Each one of those other four were at presidents at a moment when democracy was in peril.
21:00And I think that's a topic that's so critical right now.
21:02I don't think an evening with George Washington would be a lot of fun.
21:05So I'm taking Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, FDR, and Reagan.
21:14That's their Rushmore picks.
21:15Do you have anyone you would put on Mount Rushmore or a favorite president to share with us this holiday?
21:22You know, I'm going classic on this.
21:25I think I'm keeping the four we got there right.
21:28I'm not getting rid of Jefferson.
21:29Jefferson was a problematic character, but he wrote the Declaration of Independence.
21:35I mean, and the Declaration of Independence, even though the nation has taken a long time to really live up
21:45to its stirring words,
21:47it is an amazing, stirring document.
21:51So I'm leaving him up there.
21:53I'm certainly Washington.
21:57Read about the Revolutionary War.
22:00Read about we don't have a country if we don't have Washington.
22:04Lincoln, obviously, in my opinion, our greatest president.
22:09And then, you know, the one I guess you could argue whether or not we have the right Roosevelt on
22:18Mount Rushmore.
22:20You know, Teddy was an important figure.
22:25I guess I might argue that that FDR, Teddy's Teddy's district cousin, was was a more consequential president because of
22:35the Depression and World War Two.
22:38Yeah, and he got the extra terms.
22:41Very consequential.
22:44Teddy was an iconoclast, and he wasn't afraid of the powerful and the powers that be, which is also good
22:50quality of president.
22:51We thought this would be fun here to mark the holiday for a second with you, Gene.
22:55Thank you so much.
22:57Okay.
22:57Thank you, Ari.
22:58Happy president.
23:00Happy President's Day.
23:02Yes, sir.
23:02Now, speaking of presidents, Barack Obama was the popular president at the All-Star Game, even catching the ball.
23:09Look at that.
23:10Extraordinary.
23:12We're going to show you what he's saying about Trump, politics, ice and racism.
23:16He paired that that special fun visit with a serious new interview on politics.
23:21We're going to show you that with the podcaster who who got the big exclusive next.
23:25It's not the truth.
23:27It's crazy.
23:31It is President's Day, and all eyes have been on a particular former president, Barack Obama.
23:36He's been in the news for a couple reasons.
23:38One, he sat down for a lengthy interview with a hit liberal podcaster, Brian Tyler Cohen.
23:45You may have seen his face or have heard of him.
23:47This is what we're seeing different politicians do more and more of.
23:50Obviously, anyone on any channel would kill for an Obama interview right now.
23:55Well, Cohen got it.
23:57And this is a rarity because the former president doesn't do a lot of long interviews these days, doesn't get
24:03pulled into every Trump debate.
24:04And so he was asked about and made his first public comments about Donald Trump's viciously racist online post about
24:12the Obamas, which was later taken down.
24:15Here was the response.
24:19As I'm traveling around the country, as you're traveling around the country, you meet people.
24:31There's this sort of clown show that's happening in social media and on television.
24:40And what is true is that there doesn't seem to be any shame about this among people who used to
24:49feel like you had to have some sort of decorum and and and a sense of propriety and respect for
25:00the office.
25:00Right. So that's been lost. But the reason I point out that I don't think the majority of the American
25:07people approve of this is because ultimately the answer is going to come from the American people.
25:17Classic Obama, a classy response to an ugly kind of gutter ball attack and Obama quick to position this as
25:28a compliment to the public.
25:29Of course, the majority of the public in America doesn't want Trump's racism.
25:33And he went on to try to discuss in depth what maybe America would want.
25:38He wasn't sparing, though, the fact that he disagrees with many of the things Trump's administration is doing, including the
25:46ICE power grab and the rule of law.
25:51It is important for us to recognize the unprecedented nature of what ICE was doing in Minneapolis.
26:03The way that federal agents, ICE agents were being deployed without any clear guidelines, training, pulling people off out of
26:21their homes, using five year olds to try to bait their parents, all the stuff that we saw, tear gassing
26:31crowds simply who were standing there.
26:33They're not breaking any laws. So the rogue behavior of agents of the federal government is deeply concerning and dangerous.
26:52When he first came into office, Obama was one of the younger modern presidents on par with Clinton or Kennedy
26:58rather than Trump or Biden.
27:00And he discussed how elder Democrats need to be open to the younger generation.
27:08I'm pretty healthy. 64 feel great. Yeah.
27:13But the truth is half of the references that my daughters make about social media, tick tock, et cetera.
27:23I don't know who they're who they're talking about. Yeah.
27:26There is a element of at some point you age out.
27:32You're not connected directly to the immediate struggles that folks are going through.
27:38I'm not making a hard and fast rule here, but I do think that Democrats do well when we have
27:46candidates who are plugged into the moment, to the zeitgeist, to to to the times and the particular struggles that
27:55folks are thinking about as they look towards the future rather than look backward toward the past.
28:02That spirit, that spirit, that energy, it's out there and you can feel it, but it's bottled up.
28:08We haven't given enough outlets for young people to to figure out how do I become a part of that?
28:14And and and and that's this enormous, untapped power that we have to get back to.
28:22I have a respectful Obama saying the party's got to look to the younger candidates who are plugged in.
28:28And he wasn't just saying that in some New York Times op ed respect or some 60 minutes conversation like
28:36politicians have been doing for 50 years.
28:38Respect, depending on the Sunday or the episode, he was saying it walking the walk in a new format that
28:45he and his team had clearly picked over television.
28:48They went to a hit liberal podcaster, Brian Tyler Cohen, who got the big interview and is our guest about
28:54the Obama interview next.
28:59No, actually, I think exactly what he said was, that's what I do.
29:02I got it.
29:03That's what I do.
29:04Would have been better.
29:05He would have stood up and went right to the three in the ring.
29:08He just knocked it through.
29:10Or he could do a mellow and pump fake it, right?
29:12No, actually, I think Barack Obama's everywhere.
29:15Courtside can catch the ball.
29:17Little memories of that's what I do.
29:19And he just sat down for a lengthy, substantive interview.
29:22To the podcaster, Brian Tyler Cohen, who hosts No Lie and just sat down with the former president.
29:27Congrats on the big get.
29:30Thanks, Ari.
29:30I appreciate it.
29:33Yeah, really interesting.
29:35I would encourage all viewers to go check out the full 40 plus minutes on YouTube.
29:39But we've got the highlights.
29:40So don't do it yet.
29:41If people are watching right now, let's start with what he said about how he thinks Trump's conduct will help
29:47Dems in the midterms.
29:51The current White House, this administration and their enablers, they're behaving so badly.
30:04They're doing such crazy stuff that it shouldn't be hard for our side to coalesce around the areas where we
30:11agree on and focus on that.
30:13And I think that, you know, that is going to happen if we are effective in winning the midterms.
30:24What did you see him emphasizing there?
30:28Look, I think he's saying what a lot of people already recognize, which is in terms of the midterms, that's
30:33going to be largely a referendum off of Trump.
30:35But we have a long path forward.
30:37You know, Democrats do have a poor approval rating.
30:40We have brand problems that need to be fixed.
30:42Those aren't just going to fix themselves in a vacuum.
30:44I hope that people don't see success in the midterms as some indication that, you know, we've solved everything because
30:51we haven't.
30:51But, you know, he talked about that a little bit.
30:53And I'm not sure if you're going to show a subsequent clip where he does discuss a little bit of
30:58the infighting.
30:59But, you know, I think that's going to be it.
31:02He has a very particular focus on coalition building as opposed to purity politics.
31:08And I think, you know, in an era where everybody has a voice, everybody has a platform online, making sure
31:14that we can still remember that the goal of politics is actually to build a coalition,
31:19to cobble together a big enough coalition to win, to be able to do something is first and foremost.
31:25Well, let's turn to that, because he discussed it with you at length.
31:30He referenced things that people are familiar with, the kind of mood of certain people being a scold,
31:38trying to dictate to others what their political morality should be, or this term virtue signaling.
31:45And this, I thought, was an interesting exchange.
31:47So we cut it at some length.
31:49Let's take a look.
32:16Let's take a look.
32:24Let's take a look.
32:35Let's take a look.
32:38that is welcoming and makes people feel, okay, there's room for me here. Then the message
32:46and the story we tell has to be, all right, none of us are perfect. All of us count. We
32:54all have good in us that we can tap into. We can all learn from each other. And, and
33:03I think that is something we need to recover. What did you see him hitting there?
33:13I mean, you know, similar to what I was saying before, I think that, you know, at its core,
33:17again, politics is about getting enough votes to actually win. And, and this stuff really does,
33:22it's personal for a lot of people. They, they hold it really, you know, they, they, they,
33:26they wear it on their shirt sleeve. And so it's, it's not a surprise that when it comes to these
33:31political matters that people will take it personally, and they will want to impose
33:35litmus tests and they'll, you know, do what they do online these days. But, but I think
33:40it's important to get these reminders from somebody who doesn't have any skin in the game,
33:45but he has a lot of cache. And so he has the freedom to be able to come out and
33:48say this
33:49kind of stuff to, to reroute the party, I think, into a, into a, a smarter direction as we head
33:55toward
33:562028. Even if it's just planting a little bug in our heads to say, like, we are, we are, you
34:01know,
34:01I'm sure you've heard people say politics is a bus. You're, you're getting, you're not necessarily
34:06going right to your front door. You're, you're taking the bus to the closest destination, uh,
34:10to, to where you live. And, uh, and, and that's what, how we have to think of it. We can't
34:14let
34:14perfect be the enemy of good. And, and you're going to have people within the coalition who disagree
34:18with each other, but it's going to be important to make sure to remember that it is a coalition at
34:23the
34:23end of the day. It's interesting coming from him as well, because he's won these campaigns.
34:29He doesn't have more to run. So even for people who are skeptical and don't like the message,
34:32it's different than some other old school Democrat saying, Hey, I don't like this. Uh,
34:38he's speaking about it from the kind of good faith position within his party of how to win.
34:43Um, you guys also touched on the mom, Donnie energy. Take a look.
34:49What happened in our campaign and what you recently saw in the, in Mondami's campaign in New York,
34:55what, when, when there's that sense of joy and engagement and involvement,
35:03then people feel like, all right, this is not just some transactional grind. This is,
35:11this is me becoming part of a community.
35:19Isn't it funny? Cause I don't know about you, but like we use this word culture in different ways,
35:24but there is a, there is a culture of politics and the idea that what was once the liberal street
35:32protests, counterculture energy, say of the seventies, um, lost sight of that, that how, how did liberals,
35:39even sometimes young liberals get perhaps unfairly, uh, caricatured as, as no fun or hall monitors.
35:47Uh, and then mom, Donnie came along and reminded everyone, or you could be like this.
35:53And look, you know, between mom, Donnie now in 2026 and Obama in 2008, those are parallel campaigns.
36:00Those are people whose campaigns actually did inspire hope as opposed to feeling like, you know,
36:05I mean, you know, as opposed, as opposed to feeling like it's the lesser of two evils or whatever it
36:09may be, but, but politics needs to be hopeful. I mean, it is, you are building a culture. I mean,
36:14to your exact point, you're building a culture and a community and people don't want to join a
36:18community that, that, you know, is overwhelmingly negative, especially on, on this side. And so we
36:24have like winning formulas right in front of us. I don't know how many times we need to be hit
36:27over
36:27the head with this idea that if you can have a hopeful, inclusive campaign a la Barack Obama in
36:332008 or Zoran Mamdani in 2026, that the formula is there. We just need people who are willing to
36:39like pick up that mantle and not, you know, fall into the, the DC trap of protecting institutions
36:46and processes and norms that, that those institutions are, are, you know, not the end. They are a means to
36:54an end, but the end has to be people. It has to be people focused. And that's what Barack Obama's
36:58campaign was, you know, 20 years ago almost. And it's what Zoran Mamdani's campaign was just this
37:03past year. And real quick, here were some of the quick light moments you guys had.
37:12Wasn't political. Bad Bunny's halftime show. It was demonstrating and displaying. This is what
37:18a community is. Are aliens real? Uh, they're real, but I haven't seen them.
37:23Is Tupac alive? Uh, he's alive on my playlist. If you're going to pull off a prank,
37:30it's got to be on somebody who can prank you back. And yeah, wasn't nobody going to prank me.
37:37Uh, did you find him to be the same old, uh, fun Obama or now he's in his elder statesman
37:42role?
37:44No, look, this, this, this dude knows how to hang. And I think that is such an underport,
37:48under understated value. Like if you can get a guy who can, who can just, you know,
37:56without cursing, who can just like hang on a podcast, who can go the next day to the NBA all
38:01-star
38:01game and throw down about sports and who can talk politics better than anybody else. I think like
38:07that there's, there's so much power in something like that because we've, you know, look, we're in
38:12the TikTok era. There is so much focus on authenticity and relatability. And this dude
38:17is the ultimate, like he is the ultimate guy and, uh, and he can, he can do everything.
38:22He doesn't just fit neatly into like one bucket where the only thing you can talk about is politics.
38:26And, uh, and there's a lot of virtue in that. And that's why Barack Obama is Barack Obama.
38:31And it's so difficult for other people to replicate that. That's fair. And as you say, uh, hanging on
38:37a pod where it's no more free form can be a bit back like retail politics. Like when you go
38:43to Iowa
38:43and some people could get along with folks and that matters in ways that we're seeing in, in any era,
38:49Brian, again, congrats on the interview. Thanks for coming. We will be right back.
38:58Americans continue to find ways to push back against Trump's ice tactics in California, Michigan,
39:04and New York. Local officials are pushing what they call ice free zones, restricting the way
39:08agents may be able to get near government owned spaces. Some communities successfully blocking
39:13ice attempts to convert warehouses into new additional detention facilities. There's also
39:19evidence of ice raids that expose agents sometimes making false claims. In Chicago,
39:24a border patrol agent who shot an American citizen five times is under investigation. Prosecutors
39:29had charged the woman with using her car to assault agents. And yet body cam video shows an agent at
39:35the wheel swerving over into her car, then exiting and firing what appear to be five shots.
39:43The mental scars will always be there as a reminder of the time my own government attempted to execute me.
39:51And when they fell, they chose to vilify me. I am Renee Good. I am Alex
39:58Pretty. I am Silberio Villegas Gonzalez. I am Keith Porter. They should all be here today.
40:09Barack Obama making news on President's Day, as we mentioned. And here's a little bit more from
40:13that interview we hadn't aired yet about activism.
40:18We should take a moment to appreciate the extraordinary
40:25outpouring of organizing community building decency citizens saying this is not the America we believe
40:35in and we're going to fight back and we're going to push back with the truth and with cameras and
40:42with
40:42peaceful protests and and shining a light on the sort of behavior that
40:52in the past we've seen in authoritarian countries and we've seen in
40:57dictatorships, but we have not seen in America.
41:02A practical call to do what you can, when you can, how you can, peacefully and lawfully,
41:09by a former president on this holiday. We close with that tonight. The weeknight starts now.
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